"Go sleep, cousin. You are saying things you would not say in your proper senses."
He rose with a groan and hobbled painfully to the door.
"Death and fury! I'm an old man myself this morning; gone in the hams and gone in the head! How I ache! But wait until to-morrow. 'When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.' We'll catch my gipsy to-morrow. Don't forget the beverage, Annabel. Half a pint of champagne and a little drop of brandy in it. A drink for heroes. And a hero I am, if ever there was one."
Maurice Malherb, worn with futile rage and toil, now turned his face towards the War Prison, and cursed himself as he rode along, because he had left this vital business until now.
Dawn saw him far upon his way, and its grey light touched his grey face and revealed new marks of storm for ever stamped there. His cheeks were somewhat sunken; his life and energies seemed concentrated in his eyes. He sat heavy and inert upon his horse, yet sometimes spoke aloud. His eyes were never still. Their dark gaze ranged the desert, and nothing, near nor far, escaped his scrutiny in the murk of the dawn. The chill hour cooled his forehead and helped him to reflect.
"A man's daughter of all things living to turn upon him! And of all daughters mine! She who has lived long enough to see me in the right a thousand times. The only one left to me. And knowing the deep love I bear her! And knowing how that my judgment errs not. 'Tis beyond belief that we should bring out of our own blood a thing that can feel so little thankfulness for the blessing of worthy parentage. I grudged her nothing. I gratified her every wish from childhood. And the only one left to me! Oh, God, how comes it that a man's own offspring can show him so little of his own self? She should be my image and her mother's blended together. Yet what is she? An exemplar of all that is hateful in woman. And yet—and yet—when she was not crossed she could be as other maids—sweet and daughterly to those that doted upon her. She has made me think that I was all in all to her. But disobedience—to break from the control of her father. And to love an American! Fiends of hell, to love one of them! Madness—'tis some strain of erotic madness that turned her eyes to this enemy. The love I've wasted there—and would again—and would again!"
His mind broke off, then returned to the matter. "But no—never again. She shall be nothing now—I've cast her off; I have prayed to God that she may be dead—rather than——"
He yawned and his sleepy brain relaxed its grip upon his wrongs. Memory was worn out. He stopped once and actually asked himself upon what mission he rode thus in the dayspring hour along this solitary waste.
The morning star waned above the Prison and another dawn broke to the murmur of many waters. Light stole out of the thin sweet air; a rosy illumination washed the sky, tipped the tors and spread beneath his horse's feet. Prince Town stretched its granite rings before him; and some fairy tincture of light touched even those solemn walls. They glowed as the morning opened golden eyes, and the ascending sun arose from a pillow of fire.
The master rode straight to Ockery Bridge, where Captain Short's cottage stood; and upon his demand instantly to see the Commandant, a servant assured him that it was impossible. This he expected, and it did not suffice. Before the man could interpose, Malherb had pushed past him and entered the little dwelling. He shouted aloud for Captain Short, and was about to lift his voice again when the officer himself appeared. He was dressed in full uniform.
"They refused me, Short, but I would take no refusal. Matters of life and death may be afoot."
They were acquainted, and the soldier answered civilly.
"Good morrow to you. As for life and death—why, I believe it is as you say, though I pray the affair may end sans bloodshed. My patience is near gone, however. These men have the devil in them, but, luckily, there is always a traitor to reckon with. Cottrell also found it so."
"I am concerned about one man."
"Then your business can wait, my dear sir; for I am concerned about several thousands. You come at a momentous time. Look yonder. Within eight-and-forty hours my hive would have been empty and my bees swarming—God knows whither."
Commandant Short laboured under excessive emotion. He was very red and excited. His hands continually failed him while he endeavoured to buckle on his sword.
"I desire to learn all you can tell me of Cecil Stark," said Malherb, "and know I must at once."
"In good time. What think you of a tunnel burrowed under those walls? They have done it—scraped a hole clean through! At midnight came a message for me, and in secret I received the news from one of themselves. Two hundred pounds and liberty was his reward."
"Not Stark! You do not say that he turned traitor?"
"The rascal's name cannot be divulged. But at least you shall see the sequel."
"Stark has escaped—I know it."
"Then you know more than I do. 'Tis a scheme almost wins my admiration. Yet I should have had little admiration to waste had they succeeded. Now I crush 'em—within this hour. All is perfected by their leading men—and by me."
"So much to your credit; but I must see Stark if he is yet there."
"It is not possible to have speech with him before my coup. Afterwards I may arrange for it. You shall come with me, if you please. To think that within two days my Yankee rats had all been away to the sea!"
The soldier's fervour grew. He had planned a dramatic answer to the plotters and now set about it. Malherb rode beside him to the War Prison; but first they visited the barracks, where a regiment of soldiers was drawn up under arms. One company immediately marched to the cottage of Lovey Lee outside the walls; the remainder proceeded with Commandant Short.
It was then that Sam Cuffee, while engaged in preparing his master's breakfast, caught sight of the troops, dropped a pot of coffee, and came flying to Stark with his news.
"Dey come, sar—de lobsters—tousands ob dem! And de officers an' Marse Commandant wid de plumes in him hat. Dey march straight off to No. 6. It am all ober wid us—we cotched sure—damn de debbil!"
Stark cried that discovery was impossible; but a moment later he saw the truth for himself. Many hundred half-dressed Americans swarmed into the yards and a hedge of steel confronted them.
Captain Short stepped to the front of his forces, and a subaltern in a loud voice cried out certain names from a paper. He rehearsed correctly every member of the prisoners' committee. Stark, Burnham, Ira Anson, and the rest stood forward in turn as they were called.
"Follow me, gentlemen, if you please," said the Commandant; then, while a growl of rage went up from the assembled masses, Stark and the leaders, heavily guarded, were marched to the scene of their operations in Prison No. 6.
Short, who had been informed most punctually of this affair, marched straight up to the flagstones that concealed the descent to the tunnel. He bade two turnkeys raise the pavement, and then all marvelled to see the perfection of engineering work pursued under such difficulties.
"A notable feat! Accept my hearty congratulations," said the Commandant drily. "And when was this accomplished, good sirs?"
"It has taken many months, Captain," answered Cecil Stark. "'Twas finished but yesterday at midnight."
"I know that; one of your friends has thought better of the matter and sold you all."
"No true American," said Anson hotly; "I'll stake my life 'twas a renegade Britisher."
"No, no. Don't imagine that. He is one of yourselves. However, you'll not have any more to do with him. He has his reward. Now tell me—where in thunder did you dispose of the enormous quantities of soil you must have displaced in this business?"
"Ate it—to make up for short rations," shouted David Leverett.
"A good idea; but there will be no burrowing out of the cachots, my man. 'Woe to the vanquished' is the tune now. Away with them!" Then he added to the guard: "Let them be separately confined. I will question each man in turn later on. Now for their tunnel! You little thought, gentlemen, that I, your Commandant, would be the first through this ingenious exit!"
The soldiers separated. A company one hundred strong, with loaded muskets, marched Cecil Stark and his companions to the cachots; while thrice that number of soldiers formed square and stood facing all ways about the pit mouth. Then Captain Short and two of his officers with lighted torches descended. Once there was an ugly rush of prisoners in the confined space above them; but the bayonets kept all back, and before any organised resistance or counter demonstration was possible, the Americans had been driven out of No. 6 and the doors locked against them.
Meantime, while Captain Short crept from end to end of the tunnel and presently thrust his head through the floor of Lovey Lee's empty cottage without the walls of the War Prison, Malherb had followed Stark and endeavoured to get speech with him. But an officer in charge knew nothing of the master of Fox Tor Farm, and ordered him back. Malherb made a rough retort, and the soldier promptly sent him out of the Prison precincts.
"I would serve you if in my power, sir," he said, "but to allow any speech with these men at present is out of the question. Get you gone, therefore, and impede us no more."
"You whipper-snapper—what know you of this? There are affairs of vital importance that demand my speech with that rascal. I will speak with him! Have I toiled through a century of suffering to be denied by a starveling subaltern? And the knave actually under my eyes! Speak with him I will, so stay me at your peril!"
He woke the echoes from many walls; he fumed with indignation that a youth should affront him thus; while the officer, ignorant of all that boiled in this man's mind, and conscious of the gravity of his own charge, made short work with Mr. Malherb. He called a sergeant.
"Take half a dozen men, Bradridge, and turn this lunatic out. If he won't go, rogue's-march him! We've enough on our hands without madmen to-day."
As though to confirm his assertion, a great uproar rent the air behind them—a clamour like the wind-driven sea breaking upon some mighty cliff. The nature of their disappointment had permeated through the prisons; and thousands of baffled captives cursed their fortune and threatened those dangers that lie in concerted action of desperate men.
Sergeant Bradridge obeyed the word of command, and, despite his impotent raving, Malherb was thrust forth by force. He called down destruction upon the great fastness behind him; he wished the Americans all free to overwhelm their guards; and then, at the entrance, another company of soldiers appeared with two prisoners handcuffed together.
"Waal, I guess they'll be astonished—some of 'em—when they see me alive and hearty," said James Knapps to his companion. "Not many knew as I was snooking round t'other side that wall, and digging like hell day and night."
John Lee did not answer, for he had observed Maurice Malherb.
"I must speak to that man!" he cried to the soldiers. "For God's love do not deny me! 'Tis like to be death for an innocent woman if I don't!"
"Not your grandmother—eh?" asked Knapps; "I reyther reckon she can take care of herself."
John had now turned to Sergeant Bradridge, and earnestly addressed him. The sergeant was a local man—a native of Buckfastleigh, and the uncle of Mr. Putt.
"Sergeant," he said, "you know your nephew Tom: he's my friend, and I beg you to let me speak to Mr. Malherb there. It's a fearful thing if I'm denied."
Then he lifted his voice to his old master.
"I implore you, sir, to give heed. There's danger threatening Miss Grace—I alone——"
But the other turned and roared him down.
"You hound—you lying rascal; you, that plotted to help this knave Stark! Shall I hear a groom when I may not hear his master? Take him away and shoot him for a traitor to his country!"
"Your daughter, sir!"
"Keep her off your lips, or I'll strangle you with my own hand," bellowed the other. "You're at the bottom of half this cursed business—I know it—I know everything!"
"Her life, I tell you——"
"Is not in your keeping. I'll not hearken to a word from you. Take the damned dog away and let him die as he deserves to die. My horse—my horse!"
Sergeant Bradridge addressed the raving man aside.
"If he's got aught to say, your honour, best hear it. You may not have another chance."
"Never! He has nothing to do with my daughter. Is she not a Malherb? Hang the lying, infamous scoundrel! Take him from my sight. Let all such be hanged. I would say it if he was my son!"
A moment later he rode away full charged with frenzy: while Lee and Knapps passed into the War Prison.
It had been Lovey Lee's part to keep guard during the operations beneath her cottage, and, on the morning of discovery, while Knapps was underground and John Lee lay in a heavy sleep, she stood at her door and scanned the morning. Her mind was on money; within eight-and-forty hours she would receive her reward; and now every glittering dewdrop of the dawn shone beneath her eyes like a gold piece. Then it was that another scintillation—that of steel—struck upon Lovey's sight, and she saw the flash of bayonets and the gleam of red coats. They approached swiftly across the Moor, and, divining their significance, the old woman instantly fled out at the rear of her cottage, and climbed and crept with amazing speed into the lonely fastnesses of North Hisworthy Tor above Prince Town. Here, safe as a fox in earth, she remained close hidden until nightfall, and then started for her holt at Hangman's Hollow. The fate of the men she had deserted troubled her not at all. To have informed them of danger would have been to lessen her own chance of escape by a full minute, and she had felt no temptation to take such risk. Now was all lost but her liberty; and as she stalked along the nocturnal Moor, like a dark and gigantic bird, the miser swore aloud and cursed fortune at every step. A live thing in the path reminded her that she had not eaten food for six-and-thirty hours; stooping, therefore, she picked up a luckless frog, tore it asunder, and stayed her stomach with its quivering hind legs. Never had Lovey fallen into a temper more ferocious and brutal. Months of patient fraud were thrown away, and she found herself actually out of pocket upon the venture. This reflection maddened her. In a delirium of disappointment she strode forward, and once, when an owl screeched out of the coppice at Tor Royal, she screeched back at it like a fury, and swung her long arms, and cursed the stars because they looked like good money scattered and wasted upon the sky. She sank into a calenture of crazy wrath; frantically she longed for some object upon which to vent her mania of disappointed hope; and every moment she hastened unconsciously nearer a victim.
Grace Malherb grew weary of the long hours that separated her from John Lee's next visit. An eternity of time crawled by, and the very hands of her watch appeared to drag as she sat with it before her. Only once a sound fell on her ears through that protracted day. Then she heard a bell, the fall of many feet and the bleat of flocks. Soon the grazing sheep wandered away and silence fell again. The tinkle of the dropping water and the throb of her own heart were all her company. The gloom and the chill of her hiding-place crept to her bosom and froze the hope there. She fell to weaving fearful fancies; she pictured failure in a thousand shapes. The rusty and glimmering gold of the moss upon the walls grew hateful to her eyes. Yet it attracted them and held them, so that hour after hour she scanned the luminous cavern, and saw faces in it and read words scrawled in dull fire there, like the Handwriting on the Wall. She ate and drank a little, but her appetite failed her. All her emotions merged into intense longing for John Lee. Her watch told her that it was noon at last. Then she fought with herself to escape forebodings and set about occupying time with a search for the amphora. That treasure possessed none of the old fascination now; yet, thinking upon her father, she much desired for his sake to discover it, and made a diligent search both high and low. Her explorations revealed two other boxes tied with cords; and these she opened, only to find Sheffield plate in them.
An eternity of twelve more hours crawled by; then, when midnight had passed, Grace began to strain her ears for footsteps. It was a close, black night, with thunder in the air; but as yet no elemental murmur broke the stillness.
At three o'clock, worn out and full of foreboding, the girl crept to her fern bed and prayed long prayers. Finally she slept, soothed by a determination to fly from this hated hole in the morning and hide elsewhere, if John Lee did not come. Her last waking thought turned to her father. "I will continue as firm as he is firm," she whispered to herself. "Would I had been different—for his sake; but not for my own."
Within an hour she slumbered, and when Lovey Lee sank silently down into her den, the girl heard nothing. Grace was hidden within a deep alcove of the wall, and she slept without a light. The miser, once in safety, stood silent and listened. It was for a growl of thunder that she waited; nor did she expect another sound. Heavy drops of rain began to fall, but as yet no storm awoke, though so inky was the east that dawn seemed delayed.
First Lovey ate a loaf of bread from her mouldering stores; then she sat down by the stone table in the midst of the grotto, rested her head on her hand and considered the position. The future bristled with dangers and difficulties; turning from it, therefore, she rose, lighted a candle and drew forth her treasures. The money she had not fingered for three weeks, and now she counted it, and the steady stream, sliding through her fingers, served to soothe her. Miser-like, she kept her supreme possession to the last, and before she brought it to the light, her mouth began to water and her eyes to glow. Though now crushed by an uncontrollable weight of weariness and sleep, she prayed to her glass god and performed his familiar rite before she slumbered. From the ground at the foot of her granite altar, the old woman scratched the soil, then drew forth a metal box. It clashed as she picked it up, and Grace waking at the sound, was just about to hasten forward when she heard the old woman's voice lifted to address her deity.
"Come to me, my purty blessing! To think as I haven't had a sight of 'e for nigh a month! An' the devil's luck fallen to me since I seed 'e!"
The girl shrank back and watched, breathless, while Lovey drew a mass of cotton wool from her box, and then, revealing the Malherb amphora, placed it reverently on her granite table and lighted other candles around it. Now she squatted down before the vase and remained motionless, like a toad watching a fly. Here was her support and power, the spring of her existence, her sustenance, and the foundation-stone of her life. She gazed and gazed with greedy eyes; she licked her lips and nodded slowly, like a china image. The amphora, against its gloomy background, flashed in the candle-glow. Its azure splendours shone in the cavern's darkness; the acanthus leaves were touched with flickering gold, and the Cupids seemed to move and peep about behind the foliage.
"Dance! dance, my naked boys!" said Lovey. "Though there's nought to dance about to-night. All lost—an' me a runaway! Where shall us go to next? Us can't live underground like a badger for ever. But I sold my cows a fortnight agone—that's something. Dance, you little devils; dance—dance!"
She gloated upon her treasure and trembled with joy of possession. Presently she put out her hand gently, like a cat touching a dazed mouse. Then the fit grew upon her. With each hand in turn she stroked the amphora and twisted it round and round. Anon she lifted it and brought it close to her face; she kissed it and cuddled it against her breast, and rubbed her cheeks upon it and slavered it, as might a fond mother lust over her child. Grace Malherb heard a harsh vibration, like a tiger purring.
"I've got you, my heart an' liver an' reins! I've got you, come what may, my lovely joanie! And the day I die, you'll die too; for I'll grind you to powder an' eat you—fat babbies an' all!"
She laughed and nuzzled the glass, crooned to it and licked it. Then her frenzy waned; she set the treasure gently down and fell back exhausted. Her passion cooled; her eyes went out, like extinguished lamps; she shrank as she sat there; and soon she began to whine again before the thought of her losses.
"Christ! what a cursed day! What——"
A sudden sound struck her silent. Grace had moved and loosened a fragment of stone. The noise, though slight enough, reached Lovey's ear. She snatched up a candle and, hastening into the recesses of the cavern, came face to face with her visitor.
Amazement so absolute overwhelmed the miser at this discovery, that for a space it smothered every other emotion. She glared speechless, then fell back and at last spoke.
"God's word! Be I drunk or dreaming? Are you alive, or dead an' prying here a ghost from the grave? If you'm dead I don't care a button for 'e! An' if you'm alive——"
"I'm quite alive, Lovey Lee," said Grace without flinching before the ancient's terrific face.
"Alive, be you? Then 'tis the last minute you shall live to say you'm alive! How did you get here? Tell me, or I'll kill you by inches—a finger to a time!"
"I've done you no harm, Lovey. And I'll thank you to speak more quietly. There are men hunting for me on the Moor, and I've no wish for them to find me," said Grace firmly. As yet no fear had touched her heart.
"Find you! They'll not find you! God A'mighty won't find you. You'm dead a'ready!"
"I'm not dead at all; and I'm not going to die. If you'd listen, instead of screaming at me, I might tell you why I am here, and how I came here."
Lovey put the candle on a ledge above their heads; then she sat upon the fern couch that her grandson had spread for Grace.
"Get you up on your feet and stand afore me!" she said. "I'm mistress here—not you. Death! to think as ever I should allow any human but myself in this pit. Tell me truth how you found it—else I'll strangle you."
"The truth is easily told: and you shall pay dearly for these insults yet, you wicked woman! It was meant to marry me to Peter Norcot; and your grandson helped me to escape from that fate. John is always on the side of the weak. I owe my salvation to him. I am waiting for him now."
"Jack Lee found out then! Blast—but I needn't waste no words there. His thread's spun. So you runned from your faither an' that man? You might so soon think to trick Satan as Norcot. But I'll trick him. He can't marry dead bones. An' yet—there's money to it. Only I be so tight placed myself."
"That candle-flame will crack the Malherb amphora, Lovey Lee, if you don't move it," said Grace.
The woman sprang up and extinguished a dip that flamed too near her treasure.
"There's the answer to my doubts. You know too much now. I'll never sleep in peace no more while you are alive. There's a dead dog in yon corner—shrivelled to bones an' leather. He'd lost hisself 'pon the Moor and followed me here. I carried it down the steps, for it stood and barked outside. But I never carried it up again. None leaves this web but me, come in who may. You ran choose how you'll go out o' life—an' that's all the mercy I'll show 'e, Grace Malherb. You can starve, or you can kill yourself, or I can do it for 'e; but die you shall—sure as I'm a woman."
The girl regarded her steadily, and measured her huge body, long arms and broad chest. She knew that in a physical struggle she must quickly have the life crushed out of her, and for the first time she feared. Then she wondered if Lovey's heart was inflexible, and whether a way to bend her will might not exist.
"Is there no humanity in you—you who have been a mother?"
"No more than a mother wolf—not for you. I was a grandmother, too, wasn't I? I brought Jack up from childhood—an' he spied upon me. He'd have robbed me next—maybe he has."
"Not of a farthing."
"You've met me in a black hour. All's lost to the Prison. Some Judas have told the secret; an' as for me, I dare not show myself to the daylight. So there's nought to be made out of you."
"You might trust me."
"Not since you've seen that."
Lovey pointed to the amphora.
"My father rates me higher than a bit of old glass."
"You'm daft to think so! Why for should he care a cuss for you? More like he hates you, for you'm no daughter worth naming to him—a froward, man-loving minx, as plays fast an' loose with them he hates, an' defies him. Love the likes of you better'n fifteen thousand pound! He'm not all fool."
Thunder suddenly broke overhead, and subterranean echoes in the grotto answered it. The noise punctuated Lovey's speech and appeared to affirm her purpose.
"Die you shall," she said. "God do so to me if I don't mean it."
"I know you mean it now," answered the girl. "And, since everything is lost at the Prison, I care not very much about living. Yet, after all, 'tis only a passing reverse; therefore, I plead to live. Life is life. Somehow this choking hole makes me long to live. I hate your money and your treasures. I hate the gold in your bags as much as I hate the moss on these walls that mocks it. I want to breathe sweet air and see the sky again. I'll keep your secret. Don't kill me, Lovey. 'Twill ruin your own life if you do."
"Life's worth living, as you say. For all my cares and years and cruel disappointments, I like it. But you hearken to the thunder—I knowed 'twas brewing—you know too much. Let it rage! I wish 'twould drown Short's cottage, an' him in it, an' the Prison, an' the prisoners, an' the sojers, an' every living thing. You know too much an' I won't take your word."
"You're worn out and frantic. Sleep upon it."
The old woman reflected.
"So I will, then," she said. "Never heard better counsel. But you—you must sleep too——"
She came forward slowly, like some feline thing that stalks its living food; then she lifted her hands to Grace's throat.
The girl did not flinch, and Lovey dropped her great fingers again.
"You'm Malherb, I see—but I lay your heart's beating to a merry tune! Let it beat—its beating be near done. Them steady brown eyes too! I'll blind them, if you please, afore I put my little god there to bed again. No, I won't kill you this minute. I'll sleep on it. If you don't mean money from your wool-stapler, I never counted money. An' Norcot wouldn't give a poor, old, harmless granny up to the soldiers. Too much of the milk o' human kindness in him for that. What's his figure, I wonder? I must have a big one, an' my safety along with it."
She hunted her stores, found the boxes, removed their cords from them and approached Grace. "Here's a rope's end for 'e! No, not for your neck—for your heels. I must sleep—my senses are all addled—I can't think clear. An' you must watch—so no harm befalls me. Ha-ha-ha! us'll bind they neat limbs an' little ankles a thought tight, just to keep you from slumbering. 'Twas a pretty young Yankee's arms you counted to have round 'e, not a bit o' biting oakum!"
She made Grace fast with unnecessary severity. Then, tearing a strip from the girl's dress, she bandaged her prisoner's eyes. Next Lovey extinguished all lights and, in the blank darkness that followed, restored the amphora to its wrappings, placed it within the metal box and put the box underground. Then soil and stones were heaped over it, after which the woman threw herself down on the earth above her treasure and quickly fell into heavy sleep.
The thunder roared, and through her bandages Grace was conscious of lightning. The glare of the sky penetrated some chance chinks above and found her. Close at hand she heard Lovey snoring. The ropes began to burn as though red hot, and each minute the torment grew. The storm died slowly, and she missed its companionship when it was gone. She envied the cattle that roamed free above her; she prayed fervently; but physical pain continually distracted her devotion. After two hours the agony became sharper than she could endure, and at the risk of angering her conqueror, Grace cried out sharply and woke Lovey from slumber.
The miser was up in an instant, her senses alert and her frame refreshed. She struck flint on steel and turned to the prisoner.
"Morning light," she said. "And how be you fairing, my pretty maid?"
"I am suffering very terribly, Lovey. I could endure no more without crying out. These ropes are gnawing into me as though they were alive and had teeth."
"Bah! You'm more fretted for your raw wrists and ankles than for them poor, brave fools to Prison as meant to save 'e! Bide as you be an' smart on a while. Your good time be coming—when you go to church with Peter Norcot. Now I shall set out to get a bellyful o' fresh air an' see to the weather. No human foot will tread Hangman's Hollow for a week after the flood us had last night. But don't you fear. You chose sure hiding! I shall soon be back. An' if the rope hurts, just think if 'twas round your neck instead of your leg!"
The old savage sought her stores; and then she discovered the bread and meat and eggs that Lee had brought for Grace.
"My jimmery! This was what made Jack so hungry of late! Well, us will have bit an' sup when I come back. I must keep you fat and plump for Mr. Peter now. Afore sun's up I'll be here again. Me an' the sun ban't like to be friends no more this many a day. For that matter moon's always more kindly to me."
"Will you, at least, loose my eyes? I promise you faithfully I'll make no attempt to escape while you are away."
Lovey laughed and took the bandage from Grace's face.
"Since there's nought to see but the gold moss you hate, look about so much as you please; an' as for escaping—I'll give 'e full leave to do it if you can. A horse couldn't break that rope, let alone a slip of a girl."
Lovey now climbed carefully out of her treasure house and Grace saw one blessed gleam of blue daylight before the great stone above was swung back into its place and Mrs. Lee tramped away.
Now were the threads of three lives to be tangled by Fate upon the vast bosom of Cater's Beam; and here, within the secret morasses beneath that great hill, walked Maurice Malherb under the dawn and tempest. He ranged with the thunderbolt, for the storm had called him from his bed; the elemental chaos echoed his own heart and drew him forth into it.
He suffered such misery as only men built in his great, futile pattern are called to suffer. The calculating and responsible find themselves in no such sea of troubles; for their flotillas hold inshore; their sapient eyes ever scan the weather of life, and their ready hands trim sail to it. But this faulty fool with his mad temper and sanguine trust in self, had listened to none, marked no sign, heeded no warning. He had played the greatest game that he knew, in hope that an unborn babe might some day bless his name and perpetuate it. He had staked all and lost all. His daughter was driven from him; his wife, in the agony of her bereavement, had shed bitter tears, and, for the first time in her life, lifted up her voice against his judgment. His plans had miscarried; his money was nearly all lost. He stood under the storm bankrupt of everything that he had worked for and hoped for. He felt naked when he thought of his life, now stripped so bare; for every interest was torn out of it, and, as a tree robbed of leaves, it threatened to perish. Present tribulations thundered on his heart as the storm upon his ears. His soul felt deafened and bewildered; therefore he ran for shelter into the past. Time rolled back for him and he saw the tortuous journey of his days stretching into childhood. The vernal, sweet delights of youth appeared again, and he remembered old forgotten springtimes—birds' eggs—minnows—his first pony—the scent of the new-mown hay. Then his own disposition developed and darkened the hour. Puberty was past; freedom became his and he abused it. Manhood plunged him into gloomy and sombre avenues of years, lighted only by the flashing flame-points of his own temper. He marked how ungoverned wrath had at last grown ungovernable, and had risen, time out of mind, like a demon, between him and wisdom; how his own action had ceaselessly turned him out of the proper road, had clouded justice and threatened honour. He clung to honour as a drowning man to a straw. He fought the cruel white light of truth and strove to shut his eyes to it; for soaked in that blinding ray, honour stood no longer undefiled. A canker grew there; a blot dimmed it; and the spectacle, shattering self-respect, hurt him worse than loss of friends and fortune and his only child. Cowardice and high honour could not chime together; and light showed him that the canker-growth spelt cowardice. He had outraged the freedom of his daughter; he had used force against her liberty; he had denied her sacred rights in the disposal of her own life and body.
Before this thought he came to his better self through his worst. He called down a curse on the forces that played with his convictions; he damned the inner voice of reason that showed him what he had deemed duty was an interested crime. Standing beneath the storm he put bitter facts behind him for vain phantoms, and maligned the awful ray of truth. Then, moody and sick in spirit, he leapt suddenly to sweeter and cleaner thinking. Some phase of mind, some physical conjunction, or some psychic crisis pervious to the influence of Nature, lifted him, as often happened, into great longing for the better part. The dawn showed him what no dawn had ever yet revealed. He turned to the East and prayed to it.
"Before Heaven I mourn for what I am! I see myself cursed—self-cursed. Oh, God, give me back my child again, and I will be a wiser man! Only my child—only my Grace. I humble myself. Punish me, great God, but not by taking her—my only one. I repent; I will mend my life if I may but have my child again."
The sun, struggling above wild new-born day and dying tempest, answered his petition with shafts of flame, and wrapped that desolate wilderness in a mingled splendour of mist and fire. The pageant of the sky uttered a music proper to the man's sore spirit, and unrolled with solemn glory. Heaven glowed and burnt, or frowned and shuddered in black precipices of storm-cloud that sank upon the West. Into the deep senses of the watcher these things penetrated graciously. They touched the ragged wounds of his heart and helped to heal them, while a harmony, as of music, fell upon his helpless, hopeless soul. All the wonder of the sky filled Malherb's dark eyes as he lifted them; but a light greater than the sky or any inspiration born of day shone out. Upon the verge of apocalypse he stood; yet gulfs unseen separated him from it. His days were not accomplished; his darkest hour was not yet come.
Now, where a rock rose at a point not far distant, there appeared Lovey Lee. She stood like some night-spirit, surprised by dawn, blinking and disarmed in the unfamiliar sunshine. For a moment she hesitated at the sight of Malherb; then approached him, conscious of her complete power. This man, and perhaps only this man in the world, was impotent against her. Not a finger could he lift. Harm done to her must bring far worse upon himself. Her wits planned a cunning lie and she advanced to utter it.
"You'm stirring early, Maurice Malherb. 'Tis strange that you an' me should both choose to walk this here ill-wisht heath all rotten wi' bog and water."
"I came to seek peace—not you. I ask you to quit my sight without more words. There is no anger in me now."
"'Peace'! Do 'e find peace in your own company? I'll swear you never have, nor never will. No peace for the likes of you till you be dead. Come, let's talk secrets—shall us? I've got things you'd dearly like to hear about."
"Leave me," he said. "I've done with cursing and swearing. There is much upon my mind. I will not be angry with you. My daughter is lost."
"They say you drove her away with a whip."
"They lie! 'Twas her own damnable folly that drove her away."
"Maybe you lie too, to say it. You've held me in such contempt and scorn—you've treated me so vile—that it's good, even at a time like this, to make you bleed a bit. An' I'm going to now. You shall cringe yet, though I have got the gallows hanging over me; you shall grovel yet, though I do stand an outlawed, doomed woman for helping them at the Prison. I'll crack your heart first; then I'll ax you to save me from the soldiers. And yet I doubt if t'other ban't a more solid man to trust—Norcot I mean. Anyway, he's a wiser one, and can pay better, too."
"Do you dare to mean that you know where Grace Malherb is hidden?"
"Ah! that wakes you up—you that have done wi' cursing an' swearing—you that stole my grazing rights and called me 'hag' and 'miser'! I've got your fortune in my hand still, for all your bluster and great oaths. And I've got your daughter, too! Now you can listen—eh? Now I don't worrit you no more? Yes, I've got her hard an' fast, wi' cords biting at her wrists an' ankles like poisonous snakes—she said it felt so. I told you I'd wreck your stupid, brawling fool's life; an' I have. You owe every pang you suffer to yourself—then to me; every curse you utter hops back to roost on your own head—so grey it grows with their droppings! My work—all mine! Now howl an' roar—I want to hear you!"
The man preserved an astounding self-control before Lovey's confession.
"This is what her grandson tried to tell me yesterday, and I would not listen," he said aloud.
"Ah!—you was ever a poor listener. More poison for 'e! He was your nephew—Jack Lee—the son of your younger brother, an' so like him as peas in a pod! He knowed, but you wouldn't heed him. But you always heed me, Malherb—doan't 'e?"
Still he spoke no angry word, though his great chest rose and his face grew dark.
"If you tell me the truth—that my daughter is alive and in your keeping—that is well. Much has happened since she went away. If she knew, she would be glad to come back to me. I—I am not faultless—I have erred. My eyes are opened. Give me back my daughter, woman—I will reward you."
"'Give' her back! When was I ever knowed to give aught to anybody? That's your own fool's way—give—give—give. I might sell her; but you've not enough money to buy her. I'd rather kill her by inches under your nose an' see you wriggle an' rave till them black veins on your brow burst!"
His passion began to beat up strong and tempestuous under her lash. The spiritual dawn-light was still-born. Storm awoke in his soul before this infernal provocation and the sea of his mind fell into its accustomed waves before the wind of wrath. He forgot the danger of passion now; he did not appreciate the importance of self-control. His voice rose to the familiar roar and he clutched his riding-stock.
"What a loathsome reptile can a woman be! No man would descend to such filthy degradation. To treat you like a fellow-creature is vain; you are a beast, and must feel like a beast, and understand like a beast. Force at least you recognise; then see force here figured in me! Disobey at your peril, for I'll not stand upon words with you again. Get before me to my daughter! Instantly lead the way. Deny me, and I'll destroy you and rid the world of a venomous fury who has lived too long."
She did not guess that he intended actual and instant violence, but supposed he threatened to give her up to the authorities.
"Lies—lies!" she answered, mocking him. "You kill me? I know better. You're not mad every way. Do your own errands—I spit at you! I wasn't born to obey a fool. The hills and rivers laugh to see you dance an' blow, as if you'd got poison in your vitals. Never—never again shall you see her; never, not for millions! To give me up! Bah! how's that going to help? An' I'd laugh to think of her starving alongside fifteen thousand pounds. How black you get! Why don't you use that great horn handle you're waving about like a lunatic? Come, there's only white hair on my head, an' little of that. Smash my skull in! And then? Kill me. Ha, ha!——"
For the first time in her life, Lovey Lee mistook the nature of a man. That there was a sort of anger capable of rising high above its own interest her own cautious nature could not guess. She saw that the whole of Malherb's earthly desires were in her hand; and that he, who also realised this, would, with one mad stroke, rob himself of his last hope, she never imagined even as a possibility. Had he kept his reason, she had never succeeded in goading him to this murder pitch; but now he grew insane, and the woman paid forfeit.
She intended to show him the folly of threats. But the words were never uttered; her laugh was not finished. Beside himself, the master leapt forward; his whip shrieked across the air, and the massive handle dropped like a hammer on the miser's crown. To her knees she came, without a sound; next she fell prone before him. Her legs and arms shot forth convulsively twice; a patch of blood swelled on her sun-bonnet, then soaked through and ran. One groan came with it and only one. After that she was still, and Malherb knew she was dead.
He turned away and lifted his eyes and saw the golden reefs and rosy cloud-islands of that wonderful dawn. Still the pomp and glory of sunrise filled the sky, for only minutes had passed since he stared upwards and prayed and uttered premises. He marvelled that so much could happen in such a brief compass of time. He mused of this experience and of his former hatred of a psalmist's curse. He had rebelled against that awful petition as being the demon's plea, beyond a good God's power to grant. Yet the thing had happened to himself in this hour: his prayer was turned into sin.
And then he hid himself within the hollow and lonely antres of the land. From dawn till dusk he tramped the desert beyond man's sight, and called on darkness to inspire him. Once without set purpose, he returned within sight of the spot where Lovey Lee had fallen. She lay there just as he had struck her down; and there she would lie until the carrion crows scattered her bones. His crime was safe enough from discovery unless it pleased him to reveal it. The deed he gradually grasped; its consequence still evaded his mind; but as he worked backwards in thought he came to Grace. Then he stood still before the vision of her perchance perishing of starvation. He was doubly a murderer; and, to escape that awful imputation, he told himself that the dead woman had lied to torture him; that her tales concerning his amphora were as untrue as the things that she had asserted concerning his child. He strove to find comfort in the thought that her life had stood forfeit to the State; then sophistry faded from him and a man, at best but little versed in the force of speech, stood dumb before a terrific truth. Murder overtook him and stuck to his side like a ponderable, shadow-casting shape. Far away he knew that foxes were creeping at the dim edge of dusk and barking of what they had found. First an aversion from any thought of a human face crowded upon him; then as the stars began to shine, he found himself craving hungrily for the companionship of man. He sat and rested for a while; he drank and watched a young moon in a green sky. The heath rolled here in deep billows, unfretted by stock or stone. As it held unshed waters, so it could suck up darkness; and already detail was dying out of it ere twilight fell. He rose and walked onwards, careless of direction, into a chaos of marsh and broken peat hillocks. His mind worked quicker while his body moved; it stagnated into a slough of sheer blood when he sat still. Deep longing to see a fellow-creature held him; and suddenly, though he was got beyond the power of astonishment, a thing astonishing happened, and he found another man. It was improbable that two human beings had met in this shunned spot for years; perhaps no foot of man had trodden it since some storm-lost miner wandered that way when Elizabeth was queen.
Here now Malherb chanced upon one who sat motionless on a bank with his feet in the mire. He turned as the other approached, but showed no interest at sight of him.
"What lonely soul art thou?" cried Malherb; and as he spoke he remembered that for the first time in his life he heard a murderer's voice.
The figure revealed a strange countenance, made stranger still by suffering.
"No man me—just a skinful of hell-fire burning itself out! Get gone, for I poison the air around me. I never want ter see no human more."
The speaker's awful despair had power to arrest one, himself despairing. Malherb came nearer, and sought confidence. His crime had shaken his nature and unsettled the tenour of his disposition as a drug unsettles human organs. Now he thirsted to talk.
"You can rail so loud and confess so much! And yet here I stand; and to my misery yours, be it what it may, is the short grief of a child to a man's abiding woe."
"Lordy, what big words! You to prattle about trouble, stranger—ter me—ter me—a man who's touched bottom deeper than any man since Judas hanged himself. Away you and sorrow that can bear speech! Leave me ter burn."
An opal light from the West was in the speaker's eyes, and they glittered green. Their dreadful expression held Malherb, for agony far beyond the fear of death looked out of them. The sufferer's head was bare and nearly bald; his face was hatchet-shaped and narrow; the yellow skin seemed drawn to bursting over his high cheek-bones; and upon his chin was a fan-shaped and grizzled beard.
"I perceive you are an American—a lonely wretch who might carry all his cursed country's crimes and sorrows on his own forehead. Yet what are national troubles to a man's own? You sit gazing and glaring. What then have you done that makes such a night of life for you?"
"A thing Satan's self never did—a thing as would heat hell again if 'twere cold—a thing not yet writ against any starving ragtail on God's earth. Past hope—past praying for. And it seemed nought until it were done; but after—it's brought me ter this. Tell me, you who talk as if you knew big trouble, why did it seem nought till afterwards?"
"What have you done?"
"It seemed nought till afterwards, I tell you. Then it grew up into a mountain. The fallen angels will be took back ter heaven sooner than me. Prayer's vain beyond a certain pass. Has life showed you that?"
"It has. Yet what is there in your torture that can make me unbosom mine?"
"Because 'tis the first longing that comes after crimes—to tell 'em," said the American. "So you've prayed too?" he added.
"'Prayed'? Yes, I've prayed hard and earnestly. I've frightened my horse by night as I suddenly challenged my God. I have dismounted and fallen upon my knees by lonely roads and secret places. I've bruised my soul and cried aloud to the Almighty and bade Him touch my fiend's temper and give me a clean heart."
"Never had no truck with Heaven myself. Kinder knew I'd have no use for it."
"Heaven—Heaven—you talk of Heaven! Another heart—a humble heart was all the heaven I wanted. To be at peace with myself—to learn patience: that was my unanswered prayer. And now the deed I have done has made me mad. Mad must I be, since I can talk of it to you. Yet 'tis to the thing looking out of you—not to you—I speak."
David Leverett stared into the dark face above him, and his starved, hollow countenance grew hard.
"What a trumpet! Ter bleat because you've got a nasty temper! What full-grown baby are you, that thinks God's its nurse, and cries becuz it's lost Him! Look at me! Like the rest of men, you've lived ter find your puny misery capped by worse. But look at me! Christ's sweat! you're an angel of light beside of me! A short temper——"
"That has driven me into murder."
"Murder—what's that? David was a murderer. So was scores that have marble stuck up to 'em all over the earth. 'Tis worse ter bring life inter the world than put it out. Have you never larned that much? You make a man in a moment of passion, and set another puppet strutting ter suffer life. And you mar a man in a passion, and—well, journey's end is no evil; death's no evil ter them that die. There's thousands of men this day as would tear me to pieces, limb by limb, and reckon they did heaven and hell both a service. And so they would. Curse the man as got me; curse the woman as bore me; not him who would kill me."
"All this is nothing; you are only mad," said Malherb.
"Nothing at all! See here now—this great bag of leather. I've dragged it thus far—further I won't. That is what I'm damned for; that is why hell's gathering up heat for me."
He dragged out a big knife; opened it with his teeth; then fell upon the bag and slashed the leather. A flash answered every stroke, and gold coin tumbled and twinkled and fell in a shower upon the ground.
"Murder—if I could murder that; if I could cut the throat of what that bag means! But I can't—so I'll cut my own. It seemed nought in the planning and promising—nought till after I'd done it and felt the weight of the money here—here."
He beat at his chest.
"Murder—killing kittens! I've murdered a whole country—murdered America! For this filth here mixing with the mire—for this and for liberty! Whoever you are, help me ter curse liberty! The name of a thing that is not. Judas only betrayed one man. A little matter that, come to think on it. I betrayed my own flesh and blood—them that had wives and children yonder, and old, fond mothers. Sold the whole of 'em—every blessed monkey of 'em; played God and Fate—for two hundred pound—and liberty!
"I sold men who had shared their all with me—who had spared the coats off their backs when I was sick, the food for their stomachs when I was hungry. They trusted me with their secrets. I was a sailor—I'd had a hand shot away for my country. God tell why my head wasn't shot away! And first I betrayed my own true friends and hoarded the money, and felt no smart from that. And next I sneaked upon a nation. They took me along with the rest and put me in the cachot, that none might guess and turn and kill me. Then, when night came, they thrust me out—me and my money and my liberty! And out of the thunder came what I suffer now. Tell me why I didn't see the punishment sooner and escape it? Tell me why the money looked different till 'twas mine? And tell me what's left for me?"
"There's death for you and for me," said Malherb.
"That's the same as hell. Just judge! Then take my knife. You that fear ter let blood—let more. You was sent ter do it. Then you'll be forgiven, and your durned tender conscience will prune its feathers and pipe up again. Kill me. Let me get the worst of hell over; for thoughts of things are worse than any things themselves can be. I hoped the lightning would do it; but 'twouldn't foul its blade with me. I thought a great red-eyed bull would do it, and stood in his path; but he knew, and turned out of the road; he wouldn't red his horn with me."
"You see yourself," said Malherb solemnly, "even as I see myself—too late. You are the second who has asked me to kill them since the sun rose. The first I took at her word, and she is dead."
"A woman! One less to breed men."
"There may be repentance for you, if you can endure life till memory grows blunt. For me there can be nothing but increasing horror at my crime. Nothing can save me now."
"I reckon we have done the worse that was in our nature ter do," said the American. "That's nought—so have many and slept no worse. The scourge is that we've been made ter feel it."
"You are right; we feel; therefore we suffer. Farewell," answered Maurice Malherb.
Leverett did not reply, and the other passed out of his sight. One man plunged onward, never resting, never halting; one sat like a stone with his chin resting on his palm and his handless arm hanging beside him. The light of the stars was reflected on the knife at his feet; and presently a glitter caught his eye; whereupon he stooped and picked up the blade.
In the past—from a standpoint of fixed opinions and no experience—Maurice Malherb had condemned suicide and pronounced the action improper under any circumstances. But now, in the light of that day's deed, it seemed that suicide opened the sole road which led from ignominy and disgrace immeasurable. He had forfeited his life. His exhausted body cried out for food and rest; but his mind was active, and chaos, untouched by the light of any star, raged there. He stayed his steps, sat down amid old ruins and brooded upon death.
His purpose slowly established itself, and he determined to depart in such a manner that no man should know of his going or gaze upon his corpse. He might perish in the tenantless wastes westward of the Beam, and feed vermin, and make the wild asphodel sweeter, as his victim would; or he might choose some forgotten cavern or deserted mine where ready graves yawned to hide dead things until doom. He knew of such places, and recollected a natural chamber hard by Dartmeet. Here in the woods lay a deep hole that ran underground, and was known as the Pixies' Holt. He determined to creep thither, as old dying foxes did, that he might perish in peace.
Then it was that, rising again and stumbling forward, in doubt whether his strength would last to take him to his goal, a voice reached him and Malherb heard a faint cry for succour. At first he thought it but a late lamb that had lost its mother's warm side and bleated for cold. Then the sound became articulate, and, forgetting his own circumstances, he listened very intently. Presently he shouted with all his might, and from under the earth came instant answer.
"Help me—help me! Come back to me, Lovey, or I shall die!"
Then were the man's ears opened, and he heard his daughter's voice. She was buried alive and at hand, for he stood in Hangman's Hollow. Now Malherb forgot everything but his girl.
"'Tis I, Grace—your father! Be of good cheer. I'm close—I'm close!"
He rushed hither and thither, bruising himself against the broken walls. Then he entered thecul-de-sac, and stood, and cried out again.
"Where are you now? How shall I come at you?"
"I am here beneath you, dear father! There is a great stone—part of the floor where you stand. It reaches to the left-hand wall. Stamp every way, and when you stamp upon the inner edge the stone will turn slowly and show you a steep stair."
She heard him grope about and stamp as she directed. Then he struck the cover and it turned, and showed him steps that sank into the darkness. Slowly he let himself down, and soon stood at the bottom with a starry space of sky above and the glimmer of the moss around him.
"Move gently towards me," cried Grace. "A flat stone lies between us, with flint and steel and candles upon it."
The master obeyed, soon lighted a dip on Lovey Lee's altar, then hurried where his girl lay fast bound. Malherb released her and she fainted. He chafed her blue, swollen wrists and, for the first time, thought of the dead miser without a pang.
Grace slowly regained her senses, but not her courage. She clung to her father and wept and prayed him for the love of God not to loose her hand from between his own.
"Save me—save me from her," she said. "Let me die anywhere but here—not smothered and starved here. Never let me see her and hear her voice again, or I shall go mad."
"You are safe, my little child. Cry no more; tremble no more; 'tis your own father has found you."
"My own dear father! My own dear father has saved me. I called and called and counted the falling drops of water. Sometimes I screamed when the ropes bit sharpest. But I called after every hundred drops had fallen. Then I heard a step——"
She fainted again, and, seeking for the dropping water that she mentioned, Malherb found bread and meat where John Lee had placed it.
He restored his daughter's consciousness, then made her eat and drink. After she had done so he finished the remainder of the food, and marvelled at himself that his appetite was keen.
"Come," he said, "now, with my hand to help, your strength will lift you out of this den for ever."
Anon they reached the air.
"A century has gone over my head since dawn," he said.
The girl took deep inhalations and looked at the sky.
"To see the dear stars again! Speak to me, father—speak and hold my hand. I have come to fear silence. Have you forgiven—can you forgive me for all the suffering I have brought?"
He held her hand and pressed it, but did not answer.
Slowly they moved away; then Grace stopped.
"Return, father—you must return and cover the mouth of the place, and make it fast against her. Else, when she comes again herself, thinking to find me dead, and finds me vanished, she will fly and take the amphora too."
"It is there, then?"
"Yes indeed! I have seen it with my own eyes. She kissed it—her hideous lips kissed it! Then she hid it again."
"She will kiss it no more. She will not come back. The amphora and you—both in one moment! And I had determined to—— The irony of God! A banquet He spreads—but my teeth are gone. Yesterday this would have turned me into a good man; to-day it is too late. Lean on my arm, little heart. I'm strong enough to hold you up still."
They spoke again of the past, and Grace told her father what he had already learned: that John Lee was his brother's son. He heard the fact with indifference now.
So they passed painfully and slowly to their home, and in an hour Grace was upon her mother's bosom.
With wine came strength, and the suffering of her raw wrists was quickly lessened. She sank to sleep holding Annabel's hand; and when she was in easy slumber, the wife returned to her husband. He was sitting below beside a fire of peat, and he also slept heavily. She loosened his collar, and, though the touch was light as down, her hand at his throat awoke him. He leapt to his feet and cried out aloud and bade her stand back.
"I meant to ease you," she said.
Then he awoke and took her in his arms.
"Forgive me. I dreamed an evil dream. Come, gentle nurse; I know that she sleeps, else you would not have left her. And you are heavy-eyed with much prayer and thanksgiving to God. How well I guess what's filled your heart since I brought her home! Now, wife, you may rest in peace."
"Come you too," she answered. "And have not you also thanked the watching God? Surely I know that you have."
Peter Norcot had left Fox Tor Farm the night before Grace's discovery and return. Upon hearing this great news, he wrote a magnanimous letter of forgiveness, congratulation and quotation; but he did not follow it himself for the space of three days. Then the richer by information of very significant character, he reappeared at the dwelling of the Malherbs.
Meantime the sorry truth had come to Grace. Cecil Stark and the leaders of the conspiracy at Prince Town were all suffering imprisonment in the cachots; John Lee was at Plymouth; Lovey Lee had vanished. These things she comprehended and mourned; her mother's grief at temporal troubles she also shared and understood; only her father had changed in every respect, and she could find little explanation for his actions. The crisis of his affairs approached, and yet he made no effort to avert it; once only she spoke to him concerning the amphora; but he desired her to leave the subject, and commanded her neither to return to her former prison nor mention the matter to anybody.
"The affair is in my hands," he said; "I pray you, Grace, to leave it there for the present. Utter no word upon this subject. I have reasons strong enough for desiring silence."
She promised, bewildered to think why her father could thus desert his treasure now that she had restored it to him; then Norcot arrived without invitation to spend a day or two.
He quickly perceived that mighty changes marked the situation. His first intention had been to let the past alone; but, finding that Maurice Malherb was indifferent to it, and would not so much as express regret at all the indignity Peter had suffered, the lover, for the first time in his relations with his future father-in-law, struck a firmer note and permitted some flash of that steel in him to catch the other's eye.
They rode together upon the land, and the subject was opened by Peter.
"You'll guess that I'm not here just now for rest and change, Malherb. There's a good deal to be said between us. But you seem indisposed to say it. Naturally I should like to know all about this wonderful rescue. Yet, since you are so taciturn, I'll leave that until it pleases you or Grace to tell the story. Suffice it that she's alive and well, and I hope wise at last. Now, how do we stand?"
Malherb noted the difference of tone, but made no comment upon it.
"She and I stand in the relation of father and daughter," he answered. "That is not new; and yet it is new. I have learned a good deal of late. My judgment is shaken within me."
"'Where the judgment's weak, the prejudice is strong.' You talk as if you had been in fault, instead of your daughter."
"You were not wont to speak so to me."
"Nor you to act so. Life is short, and even my astounding patience has run out."
"Listen," said Malherb, reining up his horse and lifting his hand. "Trouble has fallen upon me—terrible trouble. You shall know—everybody shall know; but not yet. It is in Job—set there in the awful words of Scripture: 'He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.' I have done evil, Norcot; I have fallen as I pray you may never fall. Invisible powers have rent me and torn me. I tell you that I have been through dark waters."
"Bless my soul! all the deities in a rumpus over one man! Tut, tut! What then? If you've learned some wisdom—if you've found out that God is jealous and takes mighty good care none of us shall be wiser than He is—then there's hope for you."
"I have learned much. This girl—my girl—she has suffered a great deal. Frankly, we have overlooked her rights."
"What moonshine do you talk, my dear Malherb?"
The other's eyes flashed—then dulled. His rage was but a shadow of its old self, and, like a shadow, vanished. He answered listlessly.
"I am not what I was. I have heavy anxieties, and I will not fight with my child. My opinion is changed. She is a woman."
"'Little force suffices to break what's cracked already.' You mean that she has prevailed with you to forswear yourself—to turn traitor to me. You a traitor! 'Tis a thing impossible!"
"What is impossible? No depth of error is impossible to one who knows not himself. To upbraid me is vain. The solid earth has shifted under my feet, Peter Norcot. But 'traitor'—I'll not brook that. Worse than that I may be, but not that."
"Not that, indeed! If you only knew how I respect you and approve your staunch, fearless outlook upon life! But I, too, have endured not a little. Think of it—the marriage broken off at the altar rails! And then fifteen hours in the saddle. Nocturnal adventures to fill a volume. Terrific expenditure—wear and tear to body and soul and clothes.
"'And winged lovelings round my aching heartStill flutter, flutter—never to depart.'
"You cannot go back on your oath, Malherb. If you did, you wouldn't be Malherb."
"We are fighting against nature."
"We are fighting against Cecil Stark, not nature at all.
"'Man's life is but a cheating gameAt cards, and Fortune plays the same,Packing a queen up with a knave——'
as Bancroft so appositely remarks. But the knave of hearts is hard and fast in a Prince Town cachot and like to stop there; and the knave of clubs—so to call that meddling rascal, John Lee—has stood his trial at Plymouth. They are done with; and King Peter shall come to his own queen again. I'm patient as a spider and sure as time. I'm going to marry Grace Malherb, though the heavens fall. I never change; but you? Am I more steadfast than the man who taught me steadfastness?
"'An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven:Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?'
Ask yourself that question."
"Let it rest awhile. I have much else on my mind—far greater things even than this marriage. There are heavy secrets—heavy secrets."
"Who has not got 'em? God knows how well I wish you. But to behold you weak! 'Tis like believing that you see granite, only to find it painted paper."
The other man's mind was running on.
"I want no son of the next generation to be my glory and my hope. I want no son, nor daughter neither. I weary of the future; I turn from it; I have no longer any wish that my name should outlive me."
"Why then, the case is clear: you're ill! How blind one can be! Somehow I'd never associated your iron constitution with physical griefs. Yet you, too, can be sick. Your vitality is lowered; I see it in your face. At such times there is danger of cancers, declines and murrains. They fix their dreadful fangs in us when we are enervated and weak. Man! trust me more. I'm no wind-bag. I can do things. I have many very definite deeds to my credit. Often I came to you for advice; now take from me what's better; coin of the realm. Forgive bluntness and accept blunt. This has nought to do with Grace at all. 'I will not purchase hope with ready money.' There's no room for false pride between us, thank God! I say you shall! I hate to see you troubled over the trashy aspect of human life. To be cornered for a little metal! Consider:
"'Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul,Sweet'ner of life! and solder of society!'
Blair. But what is friendship if we do not permit it to take shape or substance?"
The older man was touched instantly and deeply. He bent from his saddle and shook Peter's hand.
"You've a great, generous soul, Norcot," he said. "I thank you with my heart, but not with words. You don't guess what manner of man you would befriend. Yet thank you a thousand times. No, no—such things have happened that I would starve sooner than accept a loan. And you—if you knew—as you must know—you would desire Grace no more. I am growing old, Peter. Age surprises such men as I am—age and crime. Yes, I say 'crime.' But age creeps with calmer men. Upon me he has sprung. I'm not so wise as people have been good enough to think. But I'm going to pay for that. I'm going to pay for everything."
"Leave your affairs for the present. We'll return to them. You must see a physician. Meanwhile I insist on your taking five thousand pounds. 'Tis pure friendship, and so I hope you'll hold it. Now Grace—well, she is a woman. You said that not long since. I was struck with the remark. Now, being a woman, she cannot possibly know her own mind. Trite but true. It is only fair that I should make a final appeal—only fair to both of us. Something leads me to think that she may yet see the true and proper course.
"'Hope, heaven-born cherub, still appears,Howe'er misfortune seem to lower.
See! she comes out to meet us! It is an augury! How lovely she looks, despite her trying experiences. Ride you off, Malherb; but hear me promise ere you go that I'll not distress her."