CHAPTER XX.The gun-room adjoined the library in Britton Hall. Ainsworth and Trascott sat in the former chamber, awaiting the advent of their host.The red-eyed butler, who had been sleeping in a chair, appeared with a tray containing cognac and cigars to drive away the chill of the dismally wet night, but the lawyer was in such a state of anger and suspense that he wished neither brandy nor the weed."Put them down," he snapped. "Where's your master now?""Upstairs, sir, if you please," the butler stammered, confused by Ainsworth's penetrating eyes. "I presume, sir, he's changing his things–getting on dry, so to speak! He ordered me to bring you these."Ainsworth stabbed a finger in the direction of a shell table strewn with paper cases and long brass cartridges."Leave them there," the irritated lawyer directed, "and get out!" The abashed butler obeyed."D–n him!" Ainsworth fumed, anathematizing the master when the servant was out of hearing. "The infernal nerve of him to refuse that candidature! And to refuse it in that way! Good Lord!" He gave vent to his feelings by stamping about the gun-room, while Trascott pondered in silence, filled with a vague mistrust that some drastic coercion was responsible for Britton's action.The furnishings of the gun-room were the usual cabinets and appliances for the chase and kindred sports. One wall, however, was hung with objects not commonly seen in an English country-seat. These were two complete Klondike outfits, a woman's and a man's.In making the round of the chamber, Ainsworth came to them. He stopped and scrutinized the peculiar accoutrements attentively.There were guns, rifles, revolvers, and sheath-knives strung up, all showing the scar and stain of hard service. Woolen Arctic garments, oilskins, gauntlets, and parkas, with two buckskin skirts and sweaters, hung in rows from the pegs. A duffle of moccasins, leggings, pack-straps, tump-lines, dunnage-bags and dog-whips filled a large, deep shelf, while two pairs of snowshoes, taller than a man, stood in the corner.The lawyer examined each article in turn and suddenly faced round to Trascott."Can the Klondike have cracked his brain?" he asked seriously. "They say it drives scores of strong men mad!"The curate shook his head as his glance also travelled to the equipments of the trails."Britton's as sane as yourself," was his answer, "but I know he is in dire anxiety. His face showed that when we came in."Steps sounded in the library, seeming like unnecessarily loud ones calculated to give warning or to hide some other noise. The curtains, screening the doorway of the two rooms, parted very slightly, and Britton entered, throwing the hangings in place behind him."Ah!" grunted Ainsworth, "here you are with your insolence–""Don't!" interrupted Britton, putting out a hand. "Don't talk in that strain. Let me tell you a story which will explain this attitude of mine and a good many other things besides." He sat down at the cartridge table and placed his elbows on it. An expression of bitterness and renunciation rested on his face."Go on," said the lawyer, backing against the wall, "and speak loudly. This thunder is deafening."A long, fierce detonation rolled and crashed in justification of his words before he had finished speaking them."Though I made the famous strike at Five Mountain Gulch, a strike that is now history," Britton began in the queer silence which ensued, "I had months of a hard-luck siege in the Yukon before making my pile. In fact, when I went out of Dawson on the Samson Creek stampede, I was at the limit of my means. My last dollar was invested in my dog-team, outfit, and supplies."Well, the south branch of the creek, according to rumor, showed the richest, and I made a break for it. Ill luck seemed determined on dogging me, for I found South Samson staked from one end to the other. You have no idea of the complete disheartenment such a thing gives!" He paused a second, reflecting on that by-gone disappointment."Yes, yes," assented the lawyer, somewhat impatiently; "stream all staked and not a cent with which to buy anyone out! Go on.""I had received a hint at Tagish Post from Franco Lessari, a Corsican and a former Government courier, whom I had pulled out of Lake Bennett, that there was gold on North Samson, so I crossed to the other branch. The overflow of the stampede filed in on it, too, but lots of ground could be had. On North Samson I burned holes in the gravel and prospected in the freezing weather for some days without result. It happened that Lessari came along with the rest to this fork of the creek one night. He wanted to show me a place where a trapper had told him he had found good gold-signs, so I took him into my camp, and we moved to the locality in the morning. His outfit was very meagre; he had no tent and a minimum of poor food; my offer was a blessing to him, but I wanted to give him something in exchange for the information, even if it proved valueless."Britton paused a second time, as if seeking to condense the massed details ahead of him. Ainsworth turned his face towards the curtained doorway."I feel a draft," he complained, "and that tapestry is swaying. Is there a window open?" He made a movement to investigate, but Britton stopped him with a gesture, observing:"It's probably Gubbins, the butler, seeing if the outer buildings are safe. He's very nervous about lightning. Be patient, Ainsworth! I am coming to the end. The North Samson project didn't pan out, but we hung on there till a drunken Thron-Diuck Indian came into the camp one night. He was one of a tribe who had discovered the Five Mountain deposit, and he sold us the information, together with an eight-ounce alluvial sample which proved the truth of his assertions, for my solitary flask of whiskey."That bottle of firewater brought me two million dollars! It was, you say, a good bargain. But you are wrong. It was the worst barter I ever made. I wish to God I had never seen that Indian!" Britton's voice sounded with a passionate, piteous vehemence."Why?" cried Trascott, in wonder and sympathy. "Why?""Lessari and I went up the Klondike River," continued Britton, without answering the curate, "toward the region of the five hills as I had mapped out the way. Never mind the details or the hardships, but listen to some points which are essential parts of what I am trying to tell. When we passed through the Klondike Cañon, we heard a dog-train coming after us, but it never appeared to our sight. Lessari fainted from fatigue and exposure within six miles of our destination. I made camp and nursed him that night. In the morning our dogs were poisoned.""Poisoned?" echoed Ainsworth. "Great heaven!–how?""It was a mystery which has since been explained to me," Rex said. "Let it stand a moment!""But if a human hand did that it was murder," interposed the shocked Trascott. "It was deliberate, diabolical murder–the easiest method of killing you by cutting off your means of egress from that frozen wilderness!"Rex nodded, fingering a sheathed hunting-knife that lay with the cartridges upon the table."Exactly so," he observed. "You have hit the truth. Lessari and I tramped on next day in the hope of finding game or discovering an Indian encampment. We kept to the river as a guide, dragging our precious food and outfit on the sled, and entered the cup of the five hills."There a three hundred foot chasm blocked our way. We searched for a path round it, leaving our sleigh at the top, after having first placed a slab of granite before the runners so that there was no chance of it slipping into the abyss."The means of circumventing the precipice we found by following along the edge till we descended into a cavern which ran through the bed-rock of the river–""The cavern where you made the strike?" Trascott asked, in interruption."Yes," Britton said. "In the midst of that excitement I heard a sound like the commencement of an avalanche. It startled me, but the noise ceased, and my assurance returned."I sent Lessari up for a spade, and his cry of consternation made me join him in haste. Our sled was down the crevasse!"Ainsworth swore. The curate half started from his seat."I saw the mark of a dog-pad on a bit of snow," Rex said. "The granite had been removed from the front of the runners and the sled pushed into the three hundred foot abyss. The rushing noise of its descent had reached us in the cavern. It was a second, surer attempt at my murder. The destruction of food meant death. You see there was a hand in the dark all the way!"Britton broke off, breathing heavily. It was apparent that he lived again through the things he recounted."Whose was that hand in the dark?" cried Ainsworth, savagely. "I believe you have found it out.""The hand of Morris," said Rex. "I captured him stealing from caches, and he was flogged. I heard afterwards he had sworn to kill me. He thought he ran no risk in operating that way, but the hardship of that revengeful journey was fatal. He died in the spring, as I told you, Ainsworth, two days before you came to Dawson.""But you and Lessari!" exclaimed Trascott, excitedly, "How did you manage to survive?""Only one of us survived," Britton answered steadily. "Lessari had been acting queerly for two days. I think cold, vicissitude, and fear was gradually driving him mad. The loss of our food completed his upsetting, and he started to jump down the three hundred feet after the provisions, which were dust by that time."I pulled him back, and he turned on me with a savage wildness. I say without conceit that very few men can handle me, but I was only a child in that delirious, demoniacal strength." An extraordinarily loud crash of thunder made Britton pause. The lightning zigzagged across the room as he continued:"In three seconds he had me on the edge of the cliff, forcing me over. It was then by chance that my hand touched the revolver in my belt. I drew it and shot!"Trascott looked at his friend with fearful apprehension. "You shot?" he whispered, quaveringly.Something rustled like wind or rain. Ainsworth glanced again at the sombre tapestry."What's that?" he asked, a slight superstitious inflection in his smooth tone. "The storm?" No one offered a different opinion, and he looked back to the rude cartridge table with the light on it and the tense faces of Trascott and Britton at either end."For God's sake, Britton," Trascott was tremulously saying, "let us understand this thing aright. You fired?""I shot Lessari dead, in self-defence," Britton replied, his countenance drawn and haggard.CHAPTER XXI.Trascott arose suddenly from his chair and leaned upon the table."My God, my God," he groaned in intense commiseration, "this is terrible–to have such a thing thrust upon you!"The lawyer had sprung from his position of attentiveness against the wall to the curate's side, and he, too, leaned toward Britton, who sat motionless like a carven statue."Self-defence!" he exclaimed forcibly. "Was there any trouble? If there will be any–"But Rex checked him with an eloquent glance, reproving the professional instinct."There will be no trouble in that way," he quietly observed. "Morris witnessed the struggle and the outcome from an upper peak, but he died on his return to Samson Creek without informing anyone but his wife. Maud Morris followed me from Dawson, and to-night threatened to expose me.""How to-night?" Trascott wonderingly asked."She was the Mahatma woman–the theosophist, at Lord Rowland's!"The curate and the lawyer uttered simultaneous exclamations of helpless astonishment. Revelations were coming with such amazing rapidity and dramatic unexpectedness that speech failed the two men."She did not succeed in her intended intimidation," Rex said, "but she unwittingly taught me the true course to pursue in regard to this case.""I trust that you had already recognized the true course," burst out Trascott, in an excess of eagerness."I too trust that same thing," Ainsworth hastened to add."Contrition!" said the curate."Indemnification!" the lawyer said.Britton held a hand to each of them across the table."Thank you," he said in a choking voice, "thank you for that confidence.""Your own survival," Ainsworth inquired, "–how was it accomplished?""I told you Pierre Giraud killed Simpson for insulting his wife," observed Britton. "He escaped the police and made for the mountain fastnesses, near the Klondike's head waters, with his dog-train. He found me half dead from starvation on one of the high plateaus–""Providence," Trascott broke in, "God's divine providence!""It could be nothing else," Rex agreed, "but Giraud's sacrifice was as beautiful as any act of Providence. He put me on his sled and drove straight for Dawson City and the surgeon, nourishing me all the way."To certain arrest?" cried Ainsworth, in profound astonishment. "He gave up his freedom for your sake?""Yes," was the answer. "The Mounted Police took him on sight. Giraud's doing three years for manslaughter–beastslaughter were truer–but he'll be rich when he comes out. I have taken good care of that.""It was beautiful, beautiful!" murmured the curate, in rapture."That's the sort of men the great Northland breeds," said Britton. "They are men to the very marrow! But in the matter of contrition and indemnification–""Indemnification only," objected Ainsworth, stolidly. "I fail to recognize any guilt.""But still he must feel contrition," argued Trascott, kindly. "And I know what remorseful penance has been yours," he added, to Britton."Half the gold of that Five Mountain strike should have been Lessari's," Rex declared."Failing that, it belonged to his heirs," the lawyer supplemented."I took that view," said Britton. "I am glad you uphold it. Is that your opinion also, Trascott? I asked you both here for the purpose of obtaining advice, faultless and impersonal judgment.""It is my opinion," the curate answered. "It was undoubtedly your duty to effect any reparation within your power.""That I did," Rex assured him. "In Dawson I made enquiries and found that Lessari had a daughter. People told me he had no other relation in the world. Of course, my plan was one difficult of execution. I couldn't give the girl a fortune without courting investigation and suspicion. Happily, however, I had seen her before, without knowing her name, and I soon became acquainted with her."Lessari's daughter was something of an artist, and I soon saw that she had inherited the great gift, that she was a veritable genius with the brush. That gave me my cue. I simulated eager interest in her work, hired instructors for her, paid for her board at a minister's house, and gave her every comfort she could have. She accepted my aid on the proud condition that she should repay me on attaining sufficient eminence to sell her work."Of course I agreed. The thing went on that way for a little while, but not for long. People began to talk about my relations with the girl–"Ainsworth's fist banged an interruption on the table."As they will, d–n them," he cried."I am positive that the tongue of Maud Morris started the gossip," Rex said. "It got to the ears of the girl at last. She confronted me with the scandal they were heaping on her pure name. There was but one course left for me then.""Ah!" gasped Trascott, in a kind of dread."I offered her marriage!""Good God!" shouted Ainsworth, losing all his control."And the girl?" stammered the unstrung curate."She accepted!"An oppressive silence followed. Trascott's trembling tones were the first to break it."You married her?" was his horrified question. "With the red gulf of her father's blood between you?""I did," said Britton, "but the marriage I proposed was not the ordinary one. I offered her my name and money, without stain, to shield her from scandalous gossips. We are joined by law, but we live separate lives, exist in divided courses, and occupy different apartments. The marriage has never been consummated, and it never will be!""But it is wrong–entirely wrong!" cried the curate. "There is a divine purpose of marriage, and it cannot be ignored. The arrangement you have effected is a sham and a monstrosity! You did what you conceived right, but what of this virgin's due? What of her inexpressibly lonely life? What of her ice-cold domestic existence? What of the vital need of motherhood?""Yes," said Ainsworth, in addition, "have you fulfilled your own scope of life, reached the far vision of your own ideal? You cannot do it this way! You have paid a heavy forfeit, Britton, but you are in the wrong."There ensued a deep pause. Rex stared at his friends with unseeing eyes and did not answer."Your judgment was faulty," Trascott summed up. "Did any influence pervert it?""Possibly," Britton replied in a clear voice. "I loved her! And loving her, I have had to live with her, keeping up the impassable barrier which separates us.""Heaven pity you," sympathized Ainsworth. "No man has done a more heroic thing.""I asked you for this interview to-night in order to hear and abide by your decision," Rex said constrainedly. "What is that decision? If your opinions coincide, I want the verdict.""You must tell your wife all you have told us," Trascott solemnly adjured. "Full confession is the only remedy."Britton glanced at Ainsworth. The latter nodded his agreement."That is the inevitable course," the lawyer said. "With this confession will come the separation. No other way lies open."Rex swept all the cartridges on the table before him into one heap. The movement seemed to indicate that he had gathered all the tangled threads of this tragedy and bound them into a single strong rope which would extract him from the difficulty."You agreed that my search for Lessari's heirs was laudable," he observed quietly. "Together you condemned my method of reparation. You both decide on confession and divorce. Your minds work wonderfully well together, and because your judgment is infallible I accept your verdict.""You will tell your wife?" questioned Ainsworth, with relief."Remember that Corsican blood runs in her veins," Britton said, partly in after-thought. "She may possibly kill me. The story of her father's death by an unknown hand was brought down by stampeders who followed me into Five Mountain Gulch on my second journey there after I had had my claims filed and had recovered from my starvation experience."Trascott sat back in his chair again. "You can protect yourself," he declared earnestly. "You will not shirk. You must tell her."Britton smiled with a very strange expression. "I have told her," he said."When?" cried both his friends."A few minutes ago," Rex answered. "I told her the truth for the first time, and I imparted the secret of my love for the first time!"They regarded him incredulously."Where?" they asked, speaking again in chorus."Here, in this room!"Trascott stared, but the lawyer, keener in perception, swiftly swept the room with his eyes, looking for a place of concealment. His glance reached the tapestry and he understood.He stepped across the floor to the curtains and seized them with both hands."Is this the place of eavesdropping?" he cried in vexation, tossing the thick hangings apart.Standing in the space of the double doorway, was Britton's wife."My friends," said Britton, "I thank you for letting her hear your just, impartial decision."Mercia advanced to the centre of the room, while two of the three occupants regarded her astoundedly. Her cheeks were pale as whitest marble, and the pallor was accentuated by the pearly fairness of her arms and neck revealed by the evening dress which she still wore. She said nothing, but her eyes were fixed on those of her husband."This was prearrangement," snapped Ainsworth, his indignation overwhelming his astonishment."It was," Rex said. "I deemed it the only perfect way, and I ask your pardon for the advantage I took."Trascott raised his palms helplessly, not knowing what to make of the trickery."He designed it for my benefit," Mercia said at last, in a measured tone, motioning to her husband. "I have heard everything!""Then it probably simplifies matters," the lawyer observed, cooling somewhat. "You will remember that your husband acted for what he thought was the best. The situation is an intolerable complexity. Be congratulated that its fibres are now laid bare! This marriage was a cruel error for both of you, and the error can be rectified to your mutual advantage.""Not to my own," cried Britton, pained beyond measure. "I cherish the present, but I accept the future at your dictation.""Whose dictation?" Mercia asked quickly."Trascott's and Ainsworth's," her husband answered. "Two of the finest minds in England. They are in the very front rank of their professions, and they have held the scales for many unbalanced lives. Ours have been weighed with wisdom by their hands. Mercia, do you understand their judgment–what their verdict means?"She clasped her hands in a pitiful gesture, and her composure seemed about to break in a storm of tears, but she quelled the emotion with royal courage."I understand," Mercia said in a strained whisper, "but–but I heard you say that you cherished the present!"Britton's eyes lighted and then grew sad again."It is sweet," he declared, "compared with what the future void will be. But the true balance must be adjusted, Mercia. There are maelstroms in our social lives more dangerous than the whirlpools on Thirty Mile. Here we must travel with keenest care; we must guard our strength longer. No men know the routes better than Ainsworth and Trascott, and they have traced out our paths.""In the separation, the–the divorce," interposed the lawyer, "you may of course command my services.""Of course," murmured Britton, "it must be given into no other hands. You can accomplish an immediate, quiet dissolution without any scandal.""My services are bound up with Ainsworth's," Trascott put in. "My assistance may be needed afterwards, in the matter of home or occupation for your wife, though a settlement could provide for her fully.""Thank you, Trascott," said Rex. "Just transfer the comradeship I have loved to my–to Mercia, and I shall always be grateful!"Britton looked at Mercia with the pangs of renunciation rending and torturing him."Are you prepared for what they say is inevitable?" he asked."Are you, yourself?" she questioned in turn."I–I think so," Rex said, with the feeling of a man pronouncing his own death-knell. "We cannot be mistaken in going by the two guiding institutions of the land.""What ones?" Mercia asked."The Church and the Law! Their voices are immutable.""Yet there is present another voice still more immutable, still more unerring," Mercia cried in the clear, bell-like tone Rex had first heard when she hailed him at Indian River in the far-away Yukon."And that?" His tone was intensely eager. He leaned from his seat."Is the voice of the human heart," she answered with eyes agleam. "Have they considered it?""I do not know," said Britton, brokenly. Agonizing uncertainty choked him and muffled the beating of his heart."Should it not be included in the balancing?" Mercia persisted. She advanced another step and let her husband gaze into her great eyes as he would gaze into some holy sanctum. The two seemed drawn together, to the complete exclusion of Ainsworth and Trascott, the representative judges.Causing a general start, the telephone bell whirred loudly in the library. Gubbins was in another part of the house. The bell buzzed frantically a second time, telling that the message must be insistent."Answer it, Trascott," Britton begged. "People do not speak at such an hour and in such a storm for a mere triviality.""Certainly–by all means," said the curate, hurrying into the adjoining room.Ainsworth, feeling his debarment from the physical presence of husband and wife, followed Trascott through the portières. Britton was quite alone with the daughter of the man whose violent end he had unwillingly compassed.Mercia moved to the side of the table and Rex arose. Her fingers played with the long hunting-knife till they idly unsheathed it. Then her lithe figure straightened back like the return of a bow, and the great blade flashed above her head. The bright eyes were veiled.Britton's face went rigid. He folded his arms over his breast."Strike!" he said. "I forgot that you are a Corsican."One moment Mercia held her position, then dashed the weapon down so that it quivered with its point in the floor."Ah, no, Rex!" she cried proudly, "for I love you! It was but a supreme test. I have always loved you!"Her husband staggered as from a forcible shock."You?" he cried. "Oh, this is too incredible!""Trascott spoke of a red gulf between us," said Mercia. "My heart has crossed it, and it is no more. Forgiveness follows penance!""You forgive? You love?" sobbed Britton. "Just God! The mighty strike!"He caught her hands passionately and retained them, while the curate's re-entrance interrupted the climax of their lives."Leave us, Trascott," Britton begged. "Come back here in an hour.""In an hour, yes," Trascott assented. "But do you believe in retribution? That message came from Rossland House. The carriage which James was driving to the town was struck by lightning. He was only stunned, but the Mahatma woman was killed. Do you believe in retribution?" Trascott vanished through the doorway, leaving the question with them."The circle is completed," Mercia whispered."Yes," said Britton, extending his arms, "and we belong to each other!"An hour later, Ainsworth and the curate entered the gun-room. It presented a singularly deserted appearance, and the light burned dimly. An envelope directed to Trascott was pinned to the table with the sheath-knife."Hallo!" exclaimed the lawyer. "That's odd! What's in it?"The curate hurriedly tore open the letter with trembling fingers. He drew forth a draft on Britton's bank; the figure two followed by six ciphers, sprawling across its face, made Trascott's eyes bulge out and forced his breath in a shrill hiss between his teeth."God bless my soul!" he cried, and dropped the draft in extreme agitation.Ainsworth picked it up smartly and, turning it over, read aloud a line pencilled on the back.It ran: "For your London Homes! Mercia and I are seeking another fortune, clean and untainted!"The lawyer whirled on his heel and looked at the wall behind him. It was clean as a new sheet. The Klondike outfits and trappings were gone!"By heaven, there's a man," he vehemently asserted. "A man, Trascott! I'll drink a toast to him."Ainsworth seized the decanter and poured himself a glass, holding it aloft."To the Stampeder!" he cried."Amen!" said TrascottTHE END.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE STAMPEDER***
CHAPTER XX.
The gun-room adjoined the library in Britton Hall. Ainsworth and Trascott sat in the former chamber, awaiting the advent of their host.
The red-eyed butler, who had been sleeping in a chair, appeared with a tray containing cognac and cigars to drive away the chill of the dismally wet night, but the lawyer was in such a state of anger and suspense that he wished neither brandy nor the weed.
"Put them down," he snapped. "Where's your master now?"
"Upstairs, sir, if you please," the butler stammered, confused by Ainsworth's penetrating eyes. "I presume, sir, he's changing his things–getting on dry, so to speak! He ordered me to bring you these."
Ainsworth stabbed a finger in the direction of a shell table strewn with paper cases and long brass cartridges.
"Leave them there," the irritated lawyer directed, "and get out!" The abashed butler obeyed.
"D–n him!" Ainsworth fumed, anathematizing the master when the servant was out of hearing. "The infernal nerve of him to refuse that candidature! And to refuse it in that way! Good Lord!" He gave vent to his feelings by stamping about the gun-room, while Trascott pondered in silence, filled with a vague mistrust that some drastic coercion was responsible for Britton's action.
The furnishings of the gun-room were the usual cabinets and appliances for the chase and kindred sports. One wall, however, was hung with objects not commonly seen in an English country-seat. These were two complete Klondike outfits, a woman's and a man's.
In making the round of the chamber, Ainsworth came to them. He stopped and scrutinized the peculiar accoutrements attentively.
There were guns, rifles, revolvers, and sheath-knives strung up, all showing the scar and stain of hard service. Woolen Arctic garments, oilskins, gauntlets, and parkas, with two buckskin skirts and sweaters, hung in rows from the pegs. A duffle of moccasins, leggings, pack-straps, tump-lines, dunnage-bags and dog-whips filled a large, deep shelf, while two pairs of snowshoes, taller than a man, stood in the corner.
The lawyer examined each article in turn and suddenly faced round to Trascott.
"Can the Klondike have cracked his brain?" he asked seriously. "They say it drives scores of strong men mad!"
The curate shook his head as his glance also travelled to the equipments of the trails.
"Britton's as sane as yourself," was his answer, "but I know he is in dire anxiety. His face showed that when we came in."
Steps sounded in the library, seeming like unnecessarily loud ones calculated to give warning or to hide some other noise. The curtains, screening the doorway of the two rooms, parted very slightly, and Britton entered, throwing the hangings in place behind him.
"Ah!" grunted Ainsworth, "here you are with your insolence–"
"Don't!" interrupted Britton, putting out a hand. "Don't talk in that strain. Let me tell you a story which will explain this attitude of mine and a good many other things besides." He sat down at the cartridge table and placed his elbows on it. An expression of bitterness and renunciation rested on his face.
"Go on," said the lawyer, backing against the wall, "and speak loudly. This thunder is deafening."
A long, fierce detonation rolled and crashed in justification of his words before he had finished speaking them.
"Though I made the famous strike at Five Mountain Gulch, a strike that is now history," Britton began in the queer silence which ensued, "I had months of a hard-luck siege in the Yukon before making my pile. In fact, when I went out of Dawson on the Samson Creek stampede, I was at the limit of my means. My last dollar was invested in my dog-team, outfit, and supplies.
"Well, the south branch of the creek, according to rumor, showed the richest, and I made a break for it. Ill luck seemed determined on dogging me, for I found South Samson staked from one end to the other. You have no idea of the complete disheartenment such a thing gives!" He paused a second, reflecting on that by-gone disappointment.
"Yes, yes," assented the lawyer, somewhat impatiently; "stream all staked and not a cent with which to buy anyone out! Go on."
"I had received a hint at Tagish Post from Franco Lessari, a Corsican and a former Government courier, whom I had pulled out of Lake Bennett, that there was gold on North Samson, so I crossed to the other branch. The overflow of the stampede filed in on it, too, but lots of ground could be had. On North Samson I burned holes in the gravel and prospected in the freezing weather for some days without result. It happened that Lessari came along with the rest to this fork of the creek one night. He wanted to show me a place where a trapper had told him he had found good gold-signs, so I took him into my camp, and we moved to the locality in the morning. His outfit was very meagre; he had no tent and a minimum of poor food; my offer was a blessing to him, but I wanted to give him something in exchange for the information, even if it proved valueless."
Britton paused a second time, as if seeking to condense the massed details ahead of him. Ainsworth turned his face towards the curtained doorway.
"I feel a draft," he complained, "and that tapestry is swaying. Is there a window open?" He made a movement to investigate, but Britton stopped him with a gesture, observing:
"It's probably Gubbins, the butler, seeing if the outer buildings are safe. He's very nervous about lightning. Be patient, Ainsworth! I am coming to the end. The North Samson project didn't pan out, but we hung on there till a drunken Thron-Diuck Indian came into the camp one night. He was one of a tribe who had discovered the Five Mountain deposit, and he sold us the information, together with an eight-ounce alluvial sample which proved the truth of his assertions, for my solitary flask of whiskey.
"That bottle of firewater brought me two million dollars! It was, you say, a good bargain. But you are wrong. It was the worst barter I ever made. I wish to God I had never seen that Indian!" Britton's voice sounded with a passionate, piteous vehemence.
"Why?" cried Trascott, in wonder and sympathy. "Why?"
"Lessari and I went up the Klondike River," continued Britton, without answering the curate, "toward the region of the five hills as I had mapped out the way. Never mind the details or the hardships, but listen to some points which are essential parts of what I am trying to tell. When we passed through the Klondike Cañon, we heard a dog-train coming after us, but it never appeared to our sight. Lessari fainted from fatigue and exposure within six miles of our destination. I made camp and nursed him that night. In the morning our dogs were poisoned."
"Poisoned?" echoed Ainsworth. "Great heaven!–how?"
"It was a mystery which has since been explained to me," Rex said. "Let it stand a moment!"
"But if a human hand did that it was murder," interposed the shocked Trascott. "It was deliberate, diabolical murder–the easiest method of killing you by cutting off your means of egress from that frozen wilderness!"
Rex nodded, fingering a sheathed hunting-knife that lay with the cartridges upon the table.
"Exactly so," he observed. "You have hit the truth. Lessari and I tramped on next day in the hope of finding game or discovering an Indian encampment. We kept to the river as a guide, dragging our precious food and outfit on the sled, and entered the cup of the five hills.
"There a three hundred foot chasm blocked our way. We searched for a path round it, leaving our sleigh at the top, after having first placed a slab of granite before the runners so that there was no chance of it slipping into the abyss.
"The means of circumventing the precipice we found by following along the edge till we descended into a cavern which ran through the bed-rock of the river–"
"The cavern where you made the strike?" Trascott asked, in interruption.
"Yes," Britton said. "In the midst of that excitement I heard a sound like the commencement of an avalanche. It startled me, but the noise ceased, and my assurance returned.
"I sent Lessari up for a spade, and his cry of consternation made me join him in haste. Our sled was down the crevasse!"
Ainsworth swore. The curate half started from his seat.
"I saw the mark of a dog-pad on a bit of snow," Rex said. "The granite had been removed from the front of the runners and the sled pushed into the three hundred foot abyss. The rushing noise of its descent had reached us in the cavern. It was a second, surer attempt at my murder. The destruction of food meant death. You see there was a hand in the dark all the way!"
Britton broke off, breathing heavily. It was apparent that he lived again through the things he recounted.
"Whose was that hand in the dark?" cried Ainsworth, savagely. "I believe you have found it out."
"The hand of Morris," said Rex. "I captured him stealing from caches, and he was flogged. I heard afterwards he had sworn to kill me. He thought he ran no risk in operating that way, but the hardship of that revengeful journey was fatal. He died in the spring, as I told you, Ainsworth, two days before you came to Dawson."
"But you and Lessari!" exclaimed Trascott, excitedly, "How did you manage to survive?"
"Only one of us survived," Britton answered steadily. "Lessari had been acting queerly for two days. I think cold, vicissitude, and fear was gradually driving him mad. The loss of our food completed his upsetting, and he started to jump down the three hundred feet after the provisions, which were dust by that time.
"I pulled him back, and he turned on me with a savage wildness. I say without conceit that very few men can handle me, but I was only a child in that delirious, demoniacal strength." An extraordinarily loud crash of thunder made Britton pause. The lightning zigzagged across the room as he continued:
"In three seconds he had me on the edge of the cliff, forcing me over. It was then by chance that my hand touched the revolver in my belt. I drew it and shot!"
Trascott looked at his friend with fearful apprehension. "You shot?" he whispered, quaveringly.
Something rustled like wind or rain. Ainsworth glanced again at the sombre tapestry.
"What's that?" he asked, a slight superstitious inflection in his smooth tone. "The storm?" No one offered a different opinion, and he looked back to the rude cartridge table with the light on it and the tense faces of Trascott and Britton at either end.
"For God's sake, Britton," Trascott was tremulously saying, "let us understand this thing aright. You fired?"
"I shot Lessari dead, in self-defence," Britton replied, his countenance drawn and haggard.
CHAPTER XXI.
Trascott arose suddenly from his chair and leaned upon the table.
"My God, my God," he groaned in intense commiseration, "this is terrible–to have such a thing thrust upon you!"
The lawyer had sprung from his position of attentiveness against the wall to the curate's side, and he, too, leaned toward Britton, who sat motionless like a carven statue.
"Self-defence!" he exclaimed forcibly. "Was there any trouble? If there will be any–"
But Rex checked him with an eloquent glance, reproving the professional instinct.
"There will be no trouble in that way," he quietly observed. "Morris witnessed the struggle and the outcome from an upper peak, but he died on his return to Samson Creek without informing anyone but his wife. Maud Morris followed me from Dawson, and to-night threatened to expose me."
"How to-night?" Trascott wonderingly asked.
"She was the Mahatma woman–the theosophist, at Lord Rowland's!"
The curate and the lawyer uttered simultaneous exclamations of helpless astonishment. Revelations were coming with such amazing rapidity and dramatic unexpectedness that speech failed the two men.
"She did not succeed in her intended intimidation," Rex said, "but she unwittingly taught me the true course to pursue in regard to this case."
"I trust that you had already recognized the true course," burst out Trascott, in an excess of eagerness.
"I too trust that same thing," Ainsworth hastened to add.
"Contrition!" said the curate.
"Indemnification!" the lawyer said.
Britton held a hand to each of them across the table.
"Thank you," he said in a choking voice, "thank you for that confidence."
"Your own survival," Ainsworth inquired, "–how was it accomplished?"
"I told you Pierre Giraud killed Simpson for insulting his wife," observed Britton. "He escaped the police and made for the mountain fastnesses, near the Klondike's head waters, with his dog-train. He found me half dead from starvation on one of the high plateaus–"
"Providence," Trascott broke in, "God's divine providence!"
"It could be nothing else," Rex agreed, "but Giraud's sacrifice was as beautiful as any act of Providence. He put me on his sled and drove straight for Dawson City and the surgeon, nourishing me all the way.
"To certain arrest?" cried Ainsworth, in profound astonishment. "He gave up his freedom for your sake?"
"Yes," was the answer. "The Mounted Police took him on sight. Giraud's doing three years for manslaughter–beastslaughter were truer–but he'll be rich when he comes out. I have taken good care of that."
"It was beautiful, beautiful!" murmured the curate, in rapture.
"That's the sort of men the great Northland breeds," said Britton. "They are men to the very marrow! But in the matter of contrition and indemnification–"
"Indemnification only," objected Ainsworth, stolidly. "I fail to recognize any guilt."
"But still he must feel contrition," argued Trascott, kindly. "And I know what remorseful penance has been yours," he added, to Britton.
"Half the gold of that Five Mountain strike should have been Lessari's," Rex declared.
"Failing that, it belonged to his heirs," the lawyer supplemented.
"I took that view," said Britton. "I am glad you uphold it. Is that your opinion also, Trascott? I asked you both here for the purpose of obtaining advice, faultless and impersonal judgment."
"It is my opinion," the curate answered. "It was undoubtedly your duty to effect any reparation within your power."
"That I did," Rex assured him. "In Dawson I made enquiries and found that Lessari had a daughter. People told me he had no other relation in the world. Of course, my plan was one difficult of execution. I couldn't give the girl a fortune without courting investigation and suspicion. Happily, however, I had seen her before, without knowing her name, and I soon became acquainted with her.
"Lessari's daughter was something of an artist, and I soon saw that she had inherited the great gift, that she was a veritable genius with the brush. That gave me my cue. I simulated eager interest in her work, hired instructors for her, paid for her board at a minister's house, and gave her every comfort she could have. She accepted my aid on the proud condition that she should repay me on attaining sufficient eminence to sell her work.
"Of course I agreed. The thing went on that way for a little while, but not for long. People began to talk about my relations with the girl–"
Ainsworth's fist banged an interruption on the table.
"As they will, d–n them," he cried.
"I am positive that the tongue of Maud Morris started the gossip," Rex said. "It got to the ears of the girl at last. She confronted me with the scandal they were heaping on her pure name. There was but one course left for me then."
"Ah!" gasped Trascott, in a kind of dread.
"I offered her marriage!"
"Good God!" shouted Ainsworth, losing all his control.
"And the girl?" stammered the unstrung curate.
"She accepted!"
An oppressive silence followed. Trascott's trembling tones were the first to break it.
"You married her?" was his horrified question. "With the red gulf of her father's blood between you?"
"I did," said Britton, "but the marriage I proposed was not the ordinary one. I offered her my name and money, without stain, to shield her from scandalous gossips. We are joined by law, but we live separate lives, exist in divided courses, and occupy different apartments. The marriage has never been consummated, and it never will be!"
"But it is wrong–entirely wrong!" cried the curate. "There is a divine purpose of marriage, and it cannot be ignored. The arrangement you have effected is a sham and a monstrosity! You did what you conceived right, but what of this virgin's due? What of her inexpressibly lonely life? What of her ice-cold domestic existence? What of the vital need of motherhood?"
"Yes," said Ainsworth, in addition, "have you fulfilled your own scope of life, reached the far vision of your own ideal? You cannot do it this way! You have paid a heavy forfeit, Britton, but you are in the wrong."
There ensued a deep pause. Rex stared at his friends with unseeing eyes and did not answer.
"Your judgment was faulty," Trascott summed up. "Did any influence pervert it?"
"Possibly," Britton replied in a clear voice. "I loved her! And loving her, I have had to live with her, keeping up the impassable barrier which separates us."
"Heaven pity you," sympathized Ainsworth. "No man has done a more heroic thing."
"I asked you for this interview to-night in order to hear and abide by your decision," Rex said constrainedly. "What is that decision? If your opinions coincide, I want the verdict."
"You must tell your wife all you have told us," Trascott solemnly adjured. "Full confession is the only remedy."
Britton glanced at Ainsworth. The latter nodded his agreement.
"That is the inevitable course," the lawyer said. "With this confession will come the separation. No other way lies open."
Rex swept all the cartridges on the table before him into one heap. The movement seemed to indicate that he had gathered all the tangled threads of this tragedy and bound them into a single strong rope which would extract him from the difficulty.
"You agreed that my search for Lessari's heirs was laudable," he observed quietly. "Together you condemned my method of reparation. You both decide on confession and divorce. Your minds work wonderfully well together, and because your judgment is infallible I accept your verdict."
"You will tell your wife?" questioned Ainsworth, with relief.
"Remember that Corsican blood runs in her veins," Britton said, partly in after-thought. "She may possibly kill me. The story of her father's death by an unknown hand was brought down by stampeders who followed me into Five Mountain Gulch on my second journey there after I had had my claims filed and had recovered from my starvation experience."
Trascott sat back in his chair again. "You can protect yourself," he declared earnestly. "You will not shirk. You must tell her."
Britton smiled with a very strange expression. "I have told her," he said.
"When?" cried both his friends.
"A few minutes ago," Rex answered. "I told her the truth for the first time, and I imparted the secret of my love for the first time!"
They regarded him incredulously.
"Where?" they asked, speaking again in chorus.
"Here, in this room!"
Trascott stared, but the lawyer, keener in perception, swiftly swept the room with his eyes, looking for a place of concealment. His glance reached the tapestry and he understood.
He stepped across the floor to the curtains and seized them with both hands.
"Is this the place of eavesdropping?" he cried in vexation, tossing the thick hangings apart.
Standing in the space of the double doorway, was Britton's wife.
"My friends," said Britton, "I thank you for letting her hear your just, impartial decision."
Mercia advanced to the centre of the room, while two of the three occupants regarded her astoundedly. Her cheeks were pale as whitest marble, and the pallor was accentuated by the pearly fairness of her arms and neck revealed by the evening dress which she still wore. She said nothing, but her eyes were fixed on those of her husband.
"This was prearrangement," snapped Ainsworth, his indignation overwhelming his astonishment.
"It was," Rex said. "I deemed it the only perfect way, and I ask your pardon for the advantage I took."
Trascott raised his palms helplessly, not knowing what to make of the trickery.
"He designed it for my benefit," Mercia said at last, in a measured tone, motioning to her husband. "I have heard everything!"
"Then it probably simplifies matters," the lawyer observed, cooling somewhat. "You will remember that your husband acted for what he thought was the best. The situation is an intolerable complexity. Be congratulated that its fibres are now laid bare! This marriage was a cruel error for both of you, and the error can be rectified to your mutual advantage."
"Not to my own," cried Britton, pained beyond measure. "I cherish the present, but I accept the future at your dictation."
"Whose dictation?" Mercia asked quickly.
"Trascott's and Ainsworth's," her husband answered. "Two of the finest minds in England. They are in the very front rank of their professions, and they have held the scales for many unbalanced lives. Ours have been weighed with wisdom by their hands. Mercia, do you understand their judgment–what their verdict means?"
She clasped her hands in a pitiful gesture, and her composure seemed about to break in a storm of tears, but she quelled the emotion with royal courage.
"I understand," Mercia said in a strained whisper, "but–but I heard you say that you cherished the present!"
Britton's eyes lighted and then grew sad again.
"It is sweet," he declared, "compared with what the future void will be. But the true balance must be adjusted, Mercia. There are maelstroms in our social lives more dangerous than the whirlpools on Thirty Mile. Here we must travel with keenest care; we must guard our strength longer. No men know the routes better than Ainsworth and Trascott, and they have traced out our paths."
"In the separation, the–the divorce," interposed the lawyer, "you may of course command my services."
"Of course," murmured Britton, "it must be given into no other hands. You can accomplish an immediate, quiet dissolution without any scandal."
"My services are bound up with Ainsworth's," Trascott put in. "My assistance may be needed afterwards, in the matter of home or occupation for your wife, though a settlement could provide for her fully."
"Thank you, Trascott," said Rex. "Just transfer the comradeship I have loved to my–to Mercia, and I shall always be grateful!"
Britton looked at Mercia with the pangs of renunciation rending and torturing him.
"Are you prepared for what they say is inevitable?" he asked.
"Are you, yourself?" she questioned in turn.
"I–I think so," Rex said, with the feeling of a man pronouncing his own death-knell. "We cannot be mistaken in going by the two guiding institutions of the land."
"What ones?" Mercia asked.
"The Church and the Law! Their voices are immutable."
"Yet there is present another voice still more immutable, still more unerring," Mercia cried in the clear, bell-like tone Rex had first heard when she hailed him at Indian River in the far-away Yukon.
"And that?" His tone was intensely eager. He leaned from his seat.
"Is the voice of the human heart," she answered with eyes agleam. "Have they considered it?"
"I do not know," said Britton, brokenly. Agonizing uncertainty choked him and muffled the beating of his heart.
"Should it not be included in the balancing?" Mercia persisted. She advanced another step and let her husband gaze into her great eyes as he would gaze into some holy sanctum. The two seemed drawn together, to the complete exclusion of Ainsworth and Trascott, the representative judges.
Causing a general start, the telephone bell whirred loudly in the library. Gubbins was in another part of the house. The bell buzzed frantically a second time, telling that the message must be insistent.
"Answer it, Trascott," Britton begged. "People do not speak at such an hour and in such a storm for a mere triviality."
"Certainly–by all means," said the curate, hurrying into the adjoining room.
Ainsworth, feeling his debarment from the physical presence of husband and wife, followed Trascott through the portières. Britton was quite alone with the daughter of the man whose violent end he had unwillingly compassed.
Mercia moved to the side of the table and Rex arose. Her fingers played with the long hunting-knife till they idly unsheathed it. Then her lithe figure straightened back like the return of a bow, and the great blade flashed above her head. The bright eyes were veiled.
Britton's face went rigid. He folded his arms over his breast.
"Strike!" he said. "I forgot that you are a Corsican."
One moment Mercia held her position, then dashed the weapon down so that it quivered with its point in the floor.
"Ah, no, Rex!" she cried proudly, "for I love you! It was but a supreme test. I have always loved you!"
Her husband staggered as from a forcible shock.
"You?" he cried. "Oh, this is too incredible!"
"Trascott spoke of a red gulf between us," said Mercia. "My heart has crossed it, and it is no more. Forgiveness follows penance!"
"You forgive? You love?" sobbed Britton. "Just God! The mighty strike!"
He caught her hands passionately and retained them, while the curate's re-entrance interrupted the climax of their lives.
"Leave us, Trascott," Britton begged. "Come back here in an hour."
"In an hour, yes," Trascott assented. "But do you believe in retribution? That message came from Rossland House. The carriage which James was driving to the town was struck by lightning. He was only stunned, but the Mahatma woman was killed. Do you believe in retribution?" Trascott vanished through the doorway, leaving the question with them.
"The circle is completed," Mercia whispered.
"Yes," said Britton, extending his arms, "and we belong to each other!"
An hour later, Ainsworth and the curate entered the gun-room. It presented a singularly deserted appearance, and the light burned dimly. An envelope directed to Trascott was pinned to the table with the sheath-knife.
"Hallo!" exclaimed the lawyer. "That's odd! What's in it?"
The curate hurriedly tore open the letter with trembling fingers. He drew forth a draft on Britton's bank; the figure two followed by six ciphers, sprawling across its face, made Trascott's eyes bulge out and forced his breath in a shrill hiss between his teeth.
"God bless my soul!" he cried, and dropped the draft in extreme agitation.
Ainsworth picked it up smartly and, turning it over, read aloud a line pencilled on the back.
It ran: "For your London Homes! Mercia and I are seeking another fortune, clean and untainted!"
The lawyer whirled on his heel and looked at the wall behind him. It was clean as a new sheet. The Klondike outfits and trappings were gone!
"By heaven, there's a man," he vehemently asserted. "A man, Trascott! I'll drink a toast to him."
Ainsworth seized the decanter and poured himself a glass, holding it aloft.
"To the Stampeder!" he cried.
"Amen!" said Trascott
THE END.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE STAMPEDER***