How long a time passed he never knew. It could not in actual fact have been more than a few minutes when a sudden sound from the verandah put an end to his reverie.
He laid the child back upon the sofa and got up. She was sleeping off the shock; it would be a pity to wake her. He moved noiselessly to the window.
As he did so, a voice he scarcely recognized—a woman's voice—spoke, tensely, hoarsely, close to him.
"Tommy, stop that man! Don't let him go! He is a murderer,—do you hear? He is the man who murdered my husband!"
Bernard stepped over the sill and closed the window after him. The lanterns were still swaying in the night-breeze. By their light he took in the group upon the verandah. Peter was sitting bent forward in the chair from which he had lifted Tessa. His snowy garments were deeply stained with blood. Beside him in a crouched and apelike attitude, apparently on the point of departure, was the shadowy native who had saved his life. Tommy, still fantastic and clown-like in his green and white pyjama-suit, was holding a glass for Peter to drink. And upright before them all, with accusing arm outstretched, her eyes shining like stars out of the shadows, stood Stella.
She turned to Bernard as he came forward. "Don't let him escape!" she said, her voice deep with an insistence he had never heard in it before. "He escaped last time. And there may not be another chance."
Tommy looked round sharply. "Leave the man alone!" he said. "You don't know what you're talking about, Stella. This affair has upset you. It's only old Rustam Karin."
"I know. I know. I have known for a long time that it was Rustam Karin who killed Ralph." Stella's voice vibrated on a strange note. "He may be Everard's chosen friend," she said. "But a day will come when he will turn upon him too. Bernard," she spoke with sudden appeal, "you know everything. I have told you of this man. Surely you will help me! I have made no mistake. Peter will corroborate what I say. Ask Peter!"
At sound of his name Peter lifted a ghastly face and tried to rise, but Tommy swiftly prevented him.
"Sit still, Peter, will you? You're much too shaky to walk. Finish this stuff first anyhow!"
Peter sank back, but there was entreaty in his gleaming eyes. They had bandaged his injured arm across his breast, but with his free hand he made a humble gesture of submission to his mistress.
"Mem-sahib," he said, his voice low and urgent, "he is a good man—a holy man. Suffer him to go his way!"
The man in question had withdrawn into the shadows. He was in fact beating an unobtrusive retreat towards the corner of the bungalow, and would probably have effected his escape but for Bernard, who, moved by the anguished entreaty in Stella's eyes, suddenly strode forward and gripped him by his tattered garment.
"No harm in making inquiries anyway!" he said. "Don't you be in such a hurry, my friend. It won't do you any harm to come back and give an account of yourself—that is, if you are harmless."
He pulled the retreating native unceremoniously back into the light. The man made some resistance, but there was a mastery about Bernard that would not be denied. Hobbling, misshapen, muttering in his beard, he returned.
"Mem-sahib!" Again Peter's voice spoke, and there was a break in it as though he pleaded with Fate itself and knew it to be in vain. "He is a good man, but he is leprous.Mem-sahib,do not look upon him! Suffer him to go!"
Possibly the words might have had effect, for Stella's rigidity had turned to a violent shivering and it was evident that her strength was beginning to fail. But in that moment Bernard broke into an exclamation of most unwonted anger, and ruthlessly seized the ragged wisp of black beard that hung down over his victim's hollow chest.
"This is too bad!" he burst forth hotly. "By heaven it's too bad! Man, stop this tomfool mummery, and explain yourself!"
The beard came away in his indignant hand. The owner thereof straightened himself up with a contemptuous gesture till he reached the height of a tall man. The envelopingchuddahslipped back from his head.
"I am not the fool," he said briefly.
Stella's cry rang through the verandah, and it was Peter who, utterly forgetful of his own adversity, leapt up like a faithful hound to protect her in her hour of need.
The glass in Tommy's hand fell with a crash. Tommy himself staggered back as if he had been struck a blow between the eyes.
And across the few feet that divided them as if it had been a yawning gulf, Everard Monck faced the woman who had denounced him.
He did not utter a word. His eyes met hers unflinching. They were wholly without anger, emotionless, inscrutable. But there was something terrible behind his patience. It was as if he had bared his breast for her to strike.
And Stella—Stella looked upon him with a frozen, incredulous horror, just as Tessa had looked upon the snake upon her lap only a little while before.
In the dreadful silence that hung like a poisonous vapour upon them, there came a small rustling close to them, and a wicked little head with red, peering eyes showed through the balustrade of the verandah.
In a moment Scooter with an inexpressibly evil air of satisfaction slipped through and scuttled in a zigzag course over the matting in search of fresh prey.
It was then that Stella spoke, her voice no more than a throbbing whisper. "Rustam Karin!" she said.
Very grimly across the gulf, Everard made answer. "Rustam Karin was removed to a leper settlement before you set foot in India."
"By—Jupiter!" ejaculated Tommy.
No one else spoke till slowly, with the gesture of an old and stricken woman, Stella turned away. "I must think," she said, in the same curious vibrating whisper, as though she held converse with herself. "I must—think."
No one attempted to detain her. It was as though an invisible barrier cut her off from all but Peter. He followed her closely, forgetful of his wound, forgetful of everything but her pressing need. With dumb devotion he went after her, and they vanished beyond the flicker of the bobbing lanterns.
Of the three men left, none moved or spoke for several difficult seconds. Finally Bernard, with an abrupt gesture that seemed to express exasperation, turned sharply on his heel and without a word re-entered the room in which he had left Tessa asleep, and fastened the window behind him. He left the tangle of beard on the matting, and Scooter stopped and nosed it sensitively till Everard stooped and picked it up.
"That show being over," he remarked drily, "perhaps I may be allowed to attend to business without further interference."
Tommy gave a great start and crunched some splinters of the shattered glass under his heel. He looked at Everard with an odd, challenging light in his eyes.
"If you ask me," he said bluntly, "I should say your business here is more urgent than your business in the bazaar."
Everard raised his brows interrogatively, and as if he had asked a question Tommy made sternly resolute response.
"I've got to have a talk with you. Shall I come into your room?"
Just for a second the elder man paused; then: "Are you sure that is the wisest thing you can do?" he said.
"It's what I'm going to do," said Tommy firmly.
"All right." Everard stooped again, picked up the inquiring Scooter, and dropped him into the box in which he had spent the evening.
Then without more words, he turned along the verandah and led the way to his own room.
Tommy came close behind. He was trembling a little but his agitation only seemed to make him more determined.
He paused a moment as he entered the room behind Everard to shut the window; then valiantly tackled the hardest task that had ever come his way.
"Look here!" he said. "You must see that this thing can't be left where it is."
Everard threw off the garment that encumbered him and gravely faced his young brother-in-law.
"Yes, I do see that," he said. "I seem to have exhausted my credit all round. It's decent of you, Tommy, to have been as forbearing as you have. Now what is it you want to know?"
Tommy confronted him uncompromisingly. "I want to know the truth, that's all," he said. "Can't you stop this dust-throwing business and be straight with me?"
His tone was stubborn, his attitude almost hostile. Yet beneath it all there ran a vein of something that was very like entreaty. And Everard, steadily watching him, smiled—the faint grim smile of the fighter who sees a gap in his enemy's defences.
"I'm afraid not," he said. "I don't want to be brutal, but—you see, Tommy—it's not your business."
Tommy flinched a little, but he stood his ground. "I think you're forgetting," he said, "that Stella is my sister. It's up to me to protect her."
"From me?" Everard's words came swift and sharp as a sword-thrust.
Tommy turned suddenly white, but he straightened himself with a gesture that was not without dignity. "If necessary—yes," he said.
An abrupt silence followed his words. They stood facing each other, and the stillness between them was such that they could hear Scooter beyond the closed window scratching against his prison-walls for freedom.
It seemed endless to Tommy. He came through it unfaltering, but he felt physically sick, as if he had been struck in the back.
When Everard spoke at last, his hands clenched involuntarily. He half expected violence. But there was no hint of anger about the elder man. He had himself under iron control. His face was flint-like in its composure, his mouth implacably grim.
"Thanks for the warning!" he said briefly. "It's just as well to know how we stand. Is that all you wanted to say?"
The dismissal was as definite as if he had actually seized and thrown him out of the room. And yet there was not even suppressed wrath in his speech. It was indifferent, remote as a voice from the desert-distance. His eyes looked upon Tommy without interest or any sort of warmth, as though he had been a total stranger.
In that moment Tommy saw that sacred thing, their friendship, shattered and lying in the dust. It was not he who had flung it there, yet his soul cried out in bitter self-reproach. This was the man who had been closer to him than a brother, the man who had saved him from disaster physically and morally, watching over him with a grim tenderness that nothing had ever changed.
And now it was all done with. There was nothing left but to turn and go.
But could he? He stood irresolute, biting his lips, held there by a force that seemed outside himself. And it was Everard who made the first move, turning from him as if he had ceased to count and pulling out a note-book that he always carried to make some entry.
Tommy stood yet a moment longer as if, had it been possible, he would have broken through the barrier between them even then. But Everard did not so much as glance in his direction, and the moment passed.
In utter silence he turned and went out as he had entered. There was nothing more to be said.
Tessa went back to the Ralstons' bungalow that night borne in Bernard's arms. She knew very little about it, for she scarcely awoke, only dimly realizing that her friend was at hand. Tommy went with them, carrying Scooter. He said he must show himself at the Club, though Bernard suspected this to be merely an excuse for escaping for a time from The Green Bungalow. For it was evident that Tommy had had a shock.
He himself was merely angry at what appeared to him a wanton trick, too angry to trust himself in his brother's company just then. He regarded it as no part of his business to attempt to intervene between Everard and his wife, but his sympathies were all with the latter. That she in some fashion misconstrued the whole affair he could not doubt, but he was by no means sure that Everard had not deliberately schemed for some species of misunderstanding. He had, to serve his own ends, personated a man who was apparently known to be disreputable, and if he now received the credit for that man's misdeeds he had himself alone to thank. Obviously a mistake had been made, but it seemed to him that Everard had intended it to be made, had even worked to bring it about. What his object had been Bernard could not bring to conjecture. But his instinctive, inborn hatred of all underhand dealings made him resent his brother's behaviour with all the force at his command. He was too angry to attempt to unravel the mystery, and he did not broach the subject to Tommy who evidently desired to avoid it.
The whole business was beyond his comprehension and, he was convinced, beyond Stella's also. He did not think Everard would find it a very easy task to restore her confidence. Perhaps he would not attempt to do so. Perhaps he was too engrossed with the service of his goddess to care that he and his wife should drift asunder. And yet—the memory of the morning on which he had first seen those streaks of grey in his brother's hair came upon him, and an unwilling sensation of pity softened his severity. Perhaps he had been drawn in in spite of himself. Perhaps the poor beggar was a victim rather than a worshipper. Most certainly—whatever his faults—he cared deeply.
Would he be able to make Stella realize that? Bernard wondered, and shook his head in doubt.
The thought of Stella turning away with that look of frozen horror on her face pursued him through the night. Poor girl! She had looked as though the end of all things had come for her. Could he have helped her? Ought he to have left her so? He quickened his pace almost insensibly. No, he would not interfere of his own free will. But if she needed his support, if she counted upon him, he would not be found wanting. It might even be given to him eventually to help them both.
He had not seen her again. She had gone to her room with Peter in attendance, Peter who owed his life to the knife in Everard's girdle. He had had a strong feeling that Peter was the only friend she needed just then, and certainly Tessa had been his first responsibility. But the feeling that possibly she might need him was growing upon him. He wished he had satisfied himself before starting that this was not the case. But he comforted himself with the thought of Peter. He was sure that Peter would take care of her.
Yes, Peter would care for his belovedmem-sahib, whatever his physical disabilities. He would never fail in the execution of that his sacred duty while the power to do so was his. If all others failed her, yet would Peter remain faithful. Even then with his dog-like devotion was he crouched upon her threshold, his dark face wrapped in his garment, yet alert for every sound and mournfully aware that his mistress was not resting. Of his own wound he thought not at all. He had been very near the gate of death, and the only man in the world for whom he entertained the smallest feeling of fear had snatched him back. To his promptitude alone did Peter owe his life. He had cut out that deadly bite with a swiftness and a precision that had removed all danger of snake-poison, and in so doing he had exposed the secret which he had guarded so long and so carefully. The first moment of contact had betrayed him to Peter, but Peter was very loyal. Had he been the only one to recognize him, the secret would have been safe. He had done his best to guard it, but Fate had been against them. And themem-sahib—themem-sahibhad turned and gone away as one heart-broken.
Peter yearned to comfort her, but the whole situation was beyond him. He could only mount guard in silence. Perhaps—presently—the greatsahibhimself would come, and make all things right again. The night was advancing. Surely he would come soon.
Barely had he begun to hope for this when the door he guarded was opened slightly from within. Hismem-sahib, strangely white and still, looked forth.
"Peter!" she said gently.
He was up in a moment, bending before her, his black eyes glowing in the dim light.
She laid her slender hand upon his shoulder. She had ever treated him with the graciousness of a queen. "How is your wound?" she asked him in her soft, low voice. "Has it been properly bathed and dressed?"
He straightened himself, looking into her beautiful pale face with the loving reverence that he always accorded her. "All is well, mymem-sahib," he said. "Will you not be graciously pleased to rest?"
She shook her head, smiling faintly—a smile that somehow tore his heart. She opened her door and motioned him to enter. "I think I had better see for myself," she said. "Poor Peter! How you must have suffered, and how splendidly brave you are! Come in and let me see what I can do!"
He hung back protesting; but she would take no refusal, gently but firmly overruling all his scruples.
"Why was the doctor not sent for?" she said. "I ought to have thought of it myself."
She insisted upon washing and bandaging his wound anew. It was a deep one. Necessity had been stern, and Everard had not spared. It had bled freely, and there was no sign of any poisonous swelling. With tender hands Stella treated it, Peter standing dumbly submissive the while.
When she had finished, she arranged the injured arm in a sling, and looked him in the eyes.
"Peter, where is the captainsahib?"
"He went to his room, mymem-sahib," said Peter. "Bernardsahibcarried the little missysahibback, and Denverssahibwent with him. I did not see the captainsahibagain."
He spoke wistfully, as one who longed to help but recognized his limitations.
Stella received his news in silence, her face still and white as the face of a marble statue. She felt no resentment against Peter. He had acted almost under compulsion. But she could not discuss the matter with him.
At length: "You may go, Peter," she said. "Please let no one come to my door to-night! I wish to be undisturbed."
Peter salaamed low and withdrew. The order was a very definite one, and she knew she could rely upon him to carry it out. As the door closed softly upon him, she turned towards her window. It opened upon the verandah. She moved across the room to shut it; but ere she reached it, Everard Monck came noiselessly through on slippered feet and bolted it behind him.
As he turned towards her, there came upon Stella, swift as a stab through the heart, the memory of that terrible night more than a year before when he had drawn her into his room and fastened the window behind her—against whom? His wild words rushed upon her. She had deemed them to be directed against the unknown intruder on the verandah. She knew now that the madness that had loosed his tongue had moved him to utter his fierce threat against a man who was dead—against the man whom he had—She stopped the thought as she would have checked the word half-spoken. She turned shivering away. The man on the verandah, that vision of the night-watches, she saw it all now—she saw it all. And he had loved her before her marriage. And he had known—and he had known—that, given opportunity, he could win her for his own.
Like a throbbing undersong—the fiendish accompaniment to the devils' chorus—the gossip of the station as detailed by Tessa ran with glib mockery through her brain. Ah, they only suspected. But she knew—she knew! The door of that secret chamber had opened wide to her at last, and perforce she had entered in.
He had moved forward, but he had not spoken. At least she fancied not, but all her senses were in an uproar. And above it all she seemed to hear that dreadful little thrumming instrument down by the river at Udalkhand—the tinkling, mystic call of the vampire goddess,—India the insatiable who had made him what he was.
He came to her, and every fibre of her being was aware of him and thrilled at his coming. Never had she loved him as she loved him then, but her love was a fiery torment that burned and consumed her soul. She seemed to feel it blistering, shrivelling, in the cruel heat.
Almost before she knew it, she had broken her silence, speaking as it were in spite of herself, scarcely knowing in her anguish what she said.
"Yes, I know. I know what you are going to say. You are going to tell me that I belong to you. And of course it is true,—I do. But if I stay with you, I shall be—a murderess. Nothing will alter that."
"Stella!" he said.
His voice was stern, so stern that she flinched. He laid his hand upon her, and she shrank as she would have shrunk from a hot iron searing her flesh. She had a wild thought that she would bear the brand of it for ever.
"Stella," he said again, and in both tone and action there was compulsion. "I have come to tell you that you are making a mistake. I am innocent of this thing you suspect me of."
She stood unresisting in his hold, but she was shaking all over. The floor seemed to be rising and falling under her feet. She knew that her lips moved several times before she could make them speak.
"But I don't suspect," she said. "The others suspect. I—know."
He received her words in silence. She saw his face as through a shifting vapour, very pale, very determined, with eyes of terrible intensity dominating her own.
Half mechanically she repeated herself. It was as if that devilish thrumming in her brain compelled her. "The others suspect. I—know."
"I see," he said at last. "And nothing I can say will make any difference?"
"Oh, no!" she made answer, and scarcely knew that she spoke, so cold and numb had she become. "How could it—now?"
He looked at her, and suddenly he saw that to which his own suffering had momentarily blinded him. He saw her utter weakness. With a swif passionate movement he caught her to him. For a second or two he held her so, strained against his heart, then almost fiercely he turned her face up to his own and kissed the stiff white lips.
"Be it so then!" he said, and in his voice was a deep note as though he challenged all the powers of evil. "You are mine—and mine you will remain."
She did not resist him though the touch of his lips was terrible to her. Only as they left her own, she turned her face aside. Very strangely that savage lapse of his had given her strength.
"Physically—perhaps—but only for a little while," she said gaspingly. "And in spirit, never—never again!"
"What do you mean?" he said, his arms tightening about her.
She kept her face averted. "I mean—that some forms of torture are worse than death. If it comes to that—if you compel me—I shall choose death."
"Stella!" He let her go so suddenly that she nearly fell. The utterance of her name was as a cry wrung from him by sheer agony. He turned from her with his hands over his face. "My God!" he said, and again almost inarticulately, "My—God!"
The low utterance pierced her, yet she stood motionless, her hands gripped hard together. He had forced the words from her, and they were past recall. Nor would she have recalled them, had she been able, for it seemed to her that her love had become an evil thing, and her whole being shrank from it in a species of horrified abhorrence, even though she could not cast it out.
He had turned towards the window, and she watched him, her heart beating in slow, hard strokes with a sound like a distant drum. Would he go? Would he remain? She almost prayed aloud that he would go.
But he did not. Very suddenly he turned and strode back to her. There was purpose in every line of him, but there was no longer any violence.
He halted before her. "Stella," he said, and his voice was perfectly steady and controlled, "do you think you are being altogether fair to me?"
She wrung her clasped hands. She could not answer him.
He took them into his own very quietly. "Just look me in the face for a minute!" he said.
She yearned to disobey, but she could not. Dumbly she raised her eyes to his.
He waited a moment, very still and composed. Then he spoke. "Stella, I swear to you—and I call God to witness—that I did not kill Ralph Dacre."
A dreadful shiver went through her at the bald brief words. She felt, as Tommy had felt a little earlier, physically sick. The beating of her heart was getting slower and slower. She wondered if presently it would stop.
"Do you believe me?" he said, still holding her eyes with his, still clasping her icy hands firmly between his own.
She forced herself to speak before that horrible sense of nausea overcame her. "Perhaps—David—said the same thing—about Uriah the Hittite."
His face changed a little, but it was a change she could not have defined. His eyes remained inscrutably fixed upon hers. They seemed to enchain her quivering soul.
"No," he said quietly. "Nor did I employ any one else to do it."
"But you were there!" The words seemed suddenly to burst from her without her own volition.
He drew back sharply, as if he had been struck. But he kept his eyes upon hers. "I can't explain anything," he said. "I am not here to explain. I only came to see if your love was great enough to make you believe in me—in spite of all there seems to be against me. Is it, Stella? Is it?"
His words seemed to go through her, tearing a way to her heart; the agony was more than she could bear. She uttered an anguished cry, and wrenched herself from him. "It isn't a question of love!" she said. "You know it isn't a question of love! I never wanted to love you. I never wholly trusted you. But you forced my love—though you couldn't compel my trust. And now that I know—now that I know—" her voice broke as if the torture were too great for her; she flung out her hands with a gesture of driving him from her—"oh, it is hell on earth—hell on earth!"
He drew back for a second before her, his face deathly white. And then suddenly an awful light leapt in his eyes. He gripped her outflung hands. The fire had kindled to a flame and the torture was too much for him also.
"Then you shall love me—even in hell!" he said, through his clenched teeth, and locked her in the iron circle of his arms.
She did not resist him. She was very near the end of her strength. Only, as he held her, her eyes met his, mutely imploring him....
It reached him even in his madness, that unspoken appeal. It checked him in the mid-furnace of his passion. His hold relaxed as if at a word of command. He put her into a chair and turned himself from her.
The next moment he was fumbling desperately at the window fastening. The night met him on the threshold. He heard her weeping, piteously, hopelessly, as he went away.
A single light shone across the verandah when Bernard Monck returned late in the night. It drew his steps though it did not come from any of the sitting-rooms. With the light tread often characteristic of heavy men, he approached it, realizing only at the last moment that it came from the window of his brother's room.
Then for a second he hesitated. He was angry with Everard, more angry than he could remember that he had ever been before. He questioned with himself as to the wisdom of seeing him again that night. He doubted if he could be ordinarily civil to him at present, and a quarrel would help no one.
Still why was the fellow burning a light at that hour? An unacknowledged uneasiness took possession of him and drove him forward. People seemed to do all manner of extravagant things in this fantastic country that they would never have dreamed of doing in homely old England. There must be something electric in the atmosphere that penetrated the veins. Even he had been aware of it now and then, a strange and potent influence that drove a man to passionate deeds.
He reached the window without sound just as Stella had reached it on that night of rain long ago. With no consciousness of spying, driven by an urgent impulse he could not stop to question, he looked in.
The window was ajar, as if it had been pushed to negligently by someone entering, and in a flash Bernard had it wide. He went in as though he had been propelled.
A man—Everard—was standing half-dressed in the middle of the room. He was facing the window, and the light shone with ghastly distinctness upon his face. But he did not look up. He was gazing fixedly into a glass of water he held in his hand, apparently watching some minute substance melting there.
It was not the thing he held, but the look upon his face, that sent Bernard forward with a spring. "Man!" he burst forth. "What are you doing?"
Everard gave utterance to a fierce oath that was more like the cry of a savage animal than the articulate speech of a man. He stepped back sharply, and put the glass to his lips. But no drop that it contained did he swallow, for in the same instant Bernard flung it violently aside. The glass spun across the room, and they grappled together for the mastery. For a few seconds the battle was hot; then very suddenly the elder man threw up his hands.
"All right," he said, between short gasps for breath. "You can hammer me—if you want someone to hammer. Perhaps—it'll do you good."
He was free on the instant. Everard flung round and turned his back. He did not speak, but crossed the room and picked up the glass which lay unbroken on the floor.
Bernard followed him, still gasping for breath, "Give that to me!" he said.
His soft voice was oddly stern. Everard looked at him. His hand, shaking a little, was extended. After a very definite pause, he placed the glass within it. There was a little white sediment left with a drain of water at the bottom. With his blue eyes full upon his brother's face, Bernard lifted it to his own lips.
But the next instant it was dashed away, and the glass shivered to atoms against the wall. "You—fool!" Everard said.
A faint, faint smile that very strangely proclaimed a resemblance between them which was very seldom perceptible crossed Bernard's face. "I—thought so," he said. "Now look here, boy! Let's stop being melodramatic for a bit! Take a dose of quinine instead! It seems to be the panacea for all evils in this curious country."
His voice was perfectly kind, even persusaive, but it carried a hint of authority as well, and Everard gave him a keen look as if aware of it.
He was very pale but absolutely steady as he made reply. "I don't think quinine will meet the case on this occasion."
"You prefer another kind of medicine," Bernard suggested. And then with sudden feeling he held out his hand. "Everard, old chap, never do that while you've a single friend left in the world! Do you want to break my heart? I only ask to stand by you. I'll stand by you to the very gates of hell. Don't you know that?"
His voice trembled slightly. Everard turned and gripped the proffered hand hard in his own.
"I suppose I—might have known," he said. "But it's a bit rash of you all the same."
His own voice quivered though he forced a smile. He would have turned away, but Bernard restrained him.
"I don't care a tinker's damn what you've done," he said forcibly. "Remember that! We're brothers, and I'll stick to you. If there's anything in life that I can do to help, I'll do it. If there isn't, well, I won't worry you, but you know you can count on me just the same. You'll never stand alone while I live."
It was generously spoken. The words came straight from his soul. He put his hand on his brother's shoulder as he uttered them. His eyes were as tender as the eyes of a woman.
And suddenly, without warning, Everard's strength failed him. It was like the snapping of a stretched wire. "Oh, man!" he said, and covered his face.
Bernard's arm was round him in a moment, a staunch, upholding arm. "Everard—dear old chap—can't you tell me what it is?" he said. "God knows I'll die sooner than let you down."
Everard did not answer. His breathing was hard, spasmodic, intensely painful to hear. He had the look of a man stricken in his pride.
For a space Bernard stood dumbly supporting him. Then at length very quietly he moved and guided him to a chair.
"Take your time!" he said gently. "Sit down!"
Mutely Everard submitted. The agony of that night had stripped his manhood of its reserve. He sat crouched, his head bowed upon his clenched hands.
"Wait while I fetch you a drink!" Bernard said.
He was gone barely two minutes. Returning, he fastened the window and drew the curtain across. Then he bent again over the huddled figure in the chair.
"Take a mouthful of this, old fellow! It'll pull you together."
Everard groped outwards with a quivering hand. "Give me strength—to shoot myself," he muttered.
The words were only just audible, but Bernard caught them. "No,—give you strength to play the game," he said, and held the glass he had brought to his brother's lips.
Everard drank with closed eyes and sat forward again motionless. His face was bloodless. "I'm sorry, St. Bernard," he said, after a moment. "Forgive me for manhandling you—and all the rest, if you can!" He drew a long, hard breath. "Thanks for everything! Good-night!"
"But I'm not leaving you," said Bernard, gently. "Not like this."
"Like what?" Everard opened his eyes with an abrupt effort. "Oh, I'm all right. Don't you bother about me!" he said.
Their eyes met. For a second longer Bernard stood over him. Then he went down upon his knees by his side. "I swear I won't leave you," he said, "until you've told me this trouble of yours."
Everard shook his head instantly, but his hand went out and closed upon the arm that had upheld him. He was beginning to recover his habitual self-command. "It's no good, old chap. I can't," he said. And added almost involuntarily, "That's—the hell of it!"
"But you can," Bernard said. He still looked him straight in the eyes. "You can and you will. Call it a confession—I've heard a good many in my time—and tell me everything!"
"Confess to you!" A hint of surprise showed in Everard's heavy eyes. "You'd better not tempt me to do that," he said. "You might be sorry afterwards."
"I will risk it," Bernard said.
"Risk being made an accessory to—what you may regard as a crime?" Everard said. "Forgive me—you're a parson, I know,—but are you sure you can play the part?"
Bernard smiled a little at the question. "Yes, I can," he said. "A confession is sacred—whatever it is. And I swear to you—by God in Heaven—to treat it as such."
Everard was looking at him fixedly, but something of the strain went out of his look at the words. A gleam of relief crossed his face.
"All right. I will—confess to you," he said. "But I warn you beforehand, you'll be horribly shocked. And—you won't feel like absolving me afterwards."
"That's not my job, dear fellow," Bernard answered gently. "Go ahead! You're sure of my sympathy anyway."
"Am I? You're a good chap, St. Bernard. Look here, don't kneel there! It's not suitable for a father confessor," Everard's faint smile showed for a moment.
Bernard's hand closed upon his. "Go ahead!" he said again, "I'm all right."
Everard made an abrupt gesture that had in it something of surrender. "It's soon told," he said, "though I don't know why I should burden you with it. That fellow Ralph Dacre—I didn't murder him. I wish to Heaven I had. So far as I know—he is alive."
"Ah!" Bernard said
Jerkily, with obvious effort, Everard continued. "I'm a murderous brute no doubt. But if I had the chance to kill him now, I'd take it. You see what it means, don't you? It means that Stella—that Stella—" He broke off with a convulsive movement, and dropped back into a tortured silence.
"Yes. I see what it means," Bernard said.
After an interval Everard forced out a few more words. "About a fortnight after their marriage I got your letter telling me he had a wife living. I went straight after them in native disguise, and made him clear out. That's the whole story."
"I see," Bernard said again.
Again there fell a silence between them. Everard sat bowed, his head on his hand. The awful pallor was passing, but the stricken look remained.
Bernard spoke at last. "You have no idea what became of him?"
"Not the faintest. He went. That was all that concerned me." Grimly, without lifting his head, he made answer. "You know the rest—or you can guess. Then you came, and told me that the woman—Dacre's wife—died before his marriage to Stella. I've been in hell ever since."
"I wish to Heaven I'd stopped away!" Bernard exclaimed with sudden vehemence.
Everard shifted his position slightly to glance at him. "Don't wish that!" he said. "After all, it would probably have come out somehow."
"And—Stella?" Bernard spoke with hesitation, as if uncertain of his ground. "What does she think? How much does she know?"
"She thinks like the rest. She thinks I murdered the hound. And I'd rather she thought that," there was dogged suffering in Everard's voice, "than suspected the truth."
"You think—" Bernard still spoke with slight hesitation—"that will hurt her less?"
"Yes." There was stubborn conviction in the reply. Everard slowly straightened himself and faced his brother squarely. "There is—the child," he said.
Bernard shook his head slightly. "You're wrong, old fellow. You're making a mistake. You are choosing the hardest course for her as well as yourself."
Everard's jaw hardened. "I shall find a way out for myself," he said. "She shall be left in peace."
"What do you mean?" Bernard said. Then as he made no reply, he took him firmly by the shoulders. "No—no! You won't. You won't," he said. "That's not you, my boy—not when you've sanely thought it out."
Everard suffered his hold; but his face remained set in grim lines. "There is no other way," he said. "Honestly, I see no other way."
"There is another way." Very steadily, with the utmost confidence, Bernard made the assertion. "There always is. God sees to that. You'll find it presently."
Everard smiled very wearily at the words. "I've given up expecting any light from that quarter," he said. "It seems to me that He hasn't much use for the wanderers once they get off the beaten track."
"Oh, my dear chap!" Bernard's hands pressed upon him suddenly. "Do you really believe He has no care for that which is lost? Have you blundered along all this time and never yet seen the lamp in the desert? You will see it—like every other wanderer—sooner or later, if you only have the pluck to keep on."
"You seem mighty sure of that." Everard looked at him with a species of dull curiosity. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I am sure." Bernard spoke vigorously. "And so are you in your heart. You know very well that if you only push on you won't be left to die in the wilderness. Have you never thought to yourself after a particularly dark spell that there has always been a speck of light somewhere—never total darkness for any length of time? That's the lamp in the desert, old chap. And—whether you realize it or not—God put it there."
He ceased to speak, and rose quietly to his feet; then, as Everard stretched a hand to him, gave him a steady pull upwards. They stood face to face.
"And that," Bernard added, after a few moments, "is all I've got to say. You turn in now and get a rest! If you want me, well, you know where to find me—just any time."
"Thanks!" Everard said. His hand held his brother's hard. "But—before you go—there's one thing I want to say—no, two." A shadowy smile touched his grim lips and vanished. His eyes were still and wholly remote, sheltering his soul.
"Go ahead!" said Bernard gently.
Everard paused for a second. "You have asked no promise of me," he said then; "but—I'll make you one. And I want one from you in return."
Again he paused, as if he had some difficulty in finding words.
"You can rely on me," Bernard said.
"Yes, old fellow." For an instant his eyes smiled also. "I know it. It's by that fact alone that you've gained your point. And so I'll hang on somehow for the present—find another way—anyhow hang on, just because you are what you are—and because—" his voice sank a little—"you care."
"Don't you know I love you before any one else in the world?" Bernard said, giving him a mighty grip.
"Yes," Everard looked him straight in the face, "I do. And it means more to me than perhaps you think. In fact—it's everything to me just now. That's why I want you to promise me—whatever happens—whatever I decide to do—that you will stay within reach of—that you will take care of—my—my—of Stella." He ended abruptly, with a quick gesture that held entreaty.
And Bernard's reply came instantly, almost before he had ceased to speak. "Before God, old chap, I will."
"Thanks," Everard said again. He stood for a few moments as if debating something further, but in the end he freed himself and turned away. "She will be all right, with you," he said. "You're—safe anyhow."
"Quite safe," said Bernard steadily.