The Hundredth Chance

"So you won't speak to me?" he said. "Won't even try to defend yourself? Well, maybe you're wise. Maybe explanations would do more harm than good. I know well enough how it is with you. You've got to the pitch of enduring me like a loathsome but incurable disease. You never reflected, did you, that in so doing you were making your own hell? You hate me, but you don't realize that the thing you hate is not me at all but a brute of your own creation. And because of that-p'raps it's a natural consequence-you've come to prefer another man's love to mine."

His hold was tightening upon her; she felt herself being drawn to him, felt the warmth of his body like the glow of an open fire. And a sudden wild wave of rebellion went through her, goading her into action at last. She had never resisted him before; she resisted him now fiercely, passionately, striving with all her strength to free herself from that pitiless hold.

"You never offered me love," she panted, straining back from him even while he mastered her. "Love-love-is a very different thing!"

Her voice went into a gasp that was almost a cry. He was holding her crushed to him in a grip that nearly suffocated her. His eyes blazed down into hers, terrible in their intensity, cruelly, appallingly bright. The savage in him had leapt free of all shackles at last, and had her utterly at his mercy.

"Well?" he said, speaking with lips drawn back, showing his set teeth. "And what is love-as defined by you-and Saltash? Something peculiarly holy?"

The taunt pierced her like a knife, with a pain so unbearable that for the moment she was almost beside herself. For an instant she winced from that intolerable thrust; but only for an instant. The next with a furious wrench she freed one hand and struck him-struck him across his grim, menacing mouth.

"How dare you say that?" she cried. "How dare you? How dare you?"

She struck him afresh with each repetition, so stung to frenzy was she by that sneer. But when the sudden realization that he stood to endure her blows without the smallest attempt to check or avoid them came upon her, the spirit went out of her. She became passive again, trembling from head to foot, so that but for his upholding arms she must have fallen.

"Let me go!" she whispered voicelessly. "Let me go!"

He was still gazing at her, but his look had changed. His eyes still burned, but they no longer threatened. Rather she read in them a slow-gathering wonder, as of a man who has picked up some strange substance of which he does not know the value or properties.

He held her awhile longer, and then very gradually he let her go.

She drew away from him, her bosom heaving, her lips panting, and leaned upon the dressing-table for support. She had withstood him indeed, but it had cost her every inch of her strength.

She did not know how she endured his silence. It seemed to pierce every nerve, while he still stood observing her, as it were appraising her.

Then at length very slowly he spoke. "I take back what I said about Saltash. I see I was wrong."

He paused a moment. She had made a sharp gesture of surprise, but she spoke no word. He went on.

"I realize-now-that you do not know what love is. If you did, you wouldn't be so-ashamed. Maybe you never will know. It isn't given to all of us-not that sort. But let me tell you this! Your friendship-or whatever you call it-with Saltash must end. There must be no more letters-no more secret meetings. Saltash is not a white man. I believe in your own heart you know it. Trust him, and he will let you down, – sure."

He spoke with sombre force. She heard him in utter silence, her head bent, still striving to call back her vanished strength.

He came a step nearer to her. "Maybe you think you can hoodwink me-disobey me, and I shan't know. You haven't a very great opinion of my intellect, I guess. But-you may take it from me-I shall know. And if you try to deceive me, you will repent it. You wouldn't fancy life on a lone ranch with not a soul but me to speak to-and all the dishes to wash?" A grim note that was not without a hint of humour crept into his voice. "That's what it will mean, my girl, if you don't obey your husband now. I'm a man of my word, and I think you know it."

He was standing close to her. She felt the vitality of the man, encompassing her, enthralling her. Her brief resistance was over. The very heart of her felt too tired to beat. He had not forcibly quelled her rebellion, yet in some fashion he had taken from her the power to rebel.

He waited for her to speak, but still she could not. Only after a moment or two she drew back from him again and sat down in a chair by the table. He had delivered his ultimatum. There seemed nothing more to be said.

She wished dully that he would go. Surely he could see that the game was his, that she had ceased to move or to attempt to counter that final stroke! Yet he still stood motionless, almost as if he were waiting for something.

Suddenly he spoke again with an odd, restrained vehemence; she felt that he spoke in spite of himself. "That's a prospect that doesn't attract you, I reckon. You've no use for me, never have had-save once. My love is just an insult to you. You even call it by another name. But I tell you this," his voice deepened with a strong vibration that affected her very strangely, gripping her close attention, "whatever it is, it's a driving force that I can't restrain. It may be an obsession, it may be a curse; but there is no getting away from it. It simply is and it has got to be. And if any man ever dares to come between us-you had better mark what I say-I'll shoot him!"

He spoke with a fatalism that sank deep into her soul. It was no savage threat, but the clear pronouncement of a man who knew exactly what he would do under given circumstances. And she was sure in that moment, absolutely sure, that no dread of consequences would deter him.

She did not answer him; there was nothing to say. But there swept over her another dreadful wave of apprehension such as had caught her in the summer-house an hour before, turning her cold from head to foot. What would he say if he knew what had passed between them-if he knew that their lips had met?

She pictured him selecting his weapon with the deadly determination that had inspired his words, saw the cruel set of the mouth, the ruthless glitter of the savage eyes; and she shivered, shivered uncontrollably, convulsively, as one in the grip of an ague.

He saw the shiver; he could not fail to see it, and his attitude changed a little. A measure of softening came into it, even a tinge of kindliness.

"There, you're overwrought," he said. "It's time you got to bed. Reckon you understand me, so we'll give the matter a rest."

He turned with the words, turned in his sturdy, purposeful fashion and went back to his room.

She did not watch him go, but she listened with straining ears for the closing of the door between them. It did not come to her. There was to be no relief from his presence that night. The door remained half-open.

She sat on motionless for a moment or two, listening in a numb, hopeless fashion to his quiet, methodical movements.

She got up sharply at length and began with quivering speed to undress, not daring to linger lest she should have to meet again the straight, unsparing scrutiny of those terribly bright eyes.

Once only, and that just at the last, did she stay a moment and stoop over a small dark object on the floor-something she fancied she had dropped. But the next instant a wild fit of trembling seized her, she stood up again, feeling giddy, physically sick. The thing on the floor was the charred remnant of the moth that had fluttered impotent wings to escape but so short a time before. It lay there shrivelled, lifeless, the wings that had beaten so madly for freedom shattered and consumed in the flame.

She caught her hand to her throat. What evil Fate had decreed that such things should be? Even the tiniest thread of life could not escape the seething whirlpool of destruction.

Sick at heart, she turned and extinguished the candle that had wrought so cruel a doom. The moonlight shone whitely into the room. She went to the window and pulled down the blind; then trembling, she crept to bed. And the darkness covered her soul.

CHAPTER IX

THE INVITATION

Saltash did not come to her on the following day, and for her own sake she was thankful that he did not. But the problem of her mother's difficulties had begun to vex her sorely. Without communicating with him, she knew that it could not be solved. He had given his promise to help her, yet somehow she did not feel the task before her to be a very easy one. Charlie was so curiously elusive in some respects. It was not always a simple matter to detach him from the whim of the moment. And she had many a time heard him declare that he was not a business man.

She watched the post with nervous anxiety, but nothing came for her. She was relieved to have nothing to conceal, but her mother's anxieties weighed upon her. She hesitated to write to Charlie, but told herself she would have to do so if no word came from him. It was all highly unsatisfactory, and behind her uneasiness there lurked a deep sense of self-reproach, self-distrust. She had suffered him to go too far, too far. It might be difficult to recover a normal footing. It might be he was even now planning some deep game, some master-stroke to follow up the advantage he had gained and win her for his own.

He would not succeed. He could not succeed. She would not so much as allow her thoughts to wander in that direction. She had been mad that night. There had been witchery in the very air. But now she was awake to the crude realities of life, awake and sane and bitterly ashamed of her weakness. He might plot and intrigue, but he could not overthrow her reason a second time. The madness had passed, and it would not return. But the necessity for seeing him remained, and it was an urgent one. She found it hard to wait in inactivity.

The whole day passed without a sign from him, and her patience began to wear thin. Surely, surely he could not fail to keep that solemn promise of his! Surely he could not have forgotten-or be waiting for her to make the first move!

She went for a walk on the down with Capper in the evening. She did not greatly want to go. She was a little afraid of his shrewd insight. But she found that she had no cause for fear. He was full of kindly commonplace topics, and he touched upon no intimate subject whatever. She returned from the walk feeling soothed and refreshed.

They went through the training-field on the way back, and here they came upon Jake, giving Bunny his first riding-lesson. It was good to see the boy's eagerness, his flushed face and shining eyes. He was utterly fearless and even impatient of Jake's care.

They stood awhile and watched, then turned and walked up through the garden.

"He is very happy," Maud said.

Capper smiled. "Jake is an A1 companion for him, Mrs. Bolton. He is thrice lucky to be in the care of a man like Jake."

She agreed without enthusiasm. "Yes, Jake is very kind."

"That's so. And he won't spoil him either. Also," Capper spoke with emphasis, "he'll never learn anything that isn't clean and straight from Jake. Guess he'll make a fine man some day."

"Thanks to you, Doctor!" Maud said.

"No, madam. Thanks to Jake! My part was a very small one. I am just a mechanic; but Jake is a driver of engines-a maker of men."

Maud said nothing, and he changed the subject.

They lingered in the garden till Jake and Bunny joined them; then they separated, Bunny, contrary to custom, attaching himself to Maud, and Jake taking possession of Capper.

Brother and sister ascended the steps into the house and entered the parlour. Bunny was still flushed and excited. Life was full of absorbing interest to him. He had actually been off the leading rein most of the time, – yes, and he had cantered too. Jake said he was to go and have a warm bath and then do his time on the floor. It was a great bore, but he supposed he'd have to. What was Maud looking so sick about? Wasn't she well?

This amiable enquiry was made just as Maud's eyes had fallen upon a letter lying on the table. She almost snatched it up, and then found with a mingling of relief and disappointment that it was not from Saltash.

The crabbed writing was wholly unfamiliar to her. She stood gazing at it while her sudden agitation subsided.

"Who's it from?" said Bunny, coming to peer over her shoulder. "Liverpool post-mark. Why, that's from that queer old codger who was down here in the winter, I'll bet. What on earth does he want?"

"To be sure-Uncle Edward," Maud said.

She opened the letter with Bunny looking on. They read it together.

"MY DEAR GRAND-NIECE,

"I am pleased to acknowledge your letter of the 4th inst., and I write to inform you that I shall be delighted to receive you and your brother on whatever date it may suit you to come. I am glad to hear of the latter's excellent progress. I presume you are capable of keeping him in order. You will of course be prepared to find your own entertainment. Should your worthy husband care to join the party by any chance, I have room for all.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"EDWARD WARREN."

"Holy Christopher!" ejaculated Bunny. "What on earth did you want to write to him for? I'm not going there, – jiggered if I am! And to be tied to your apron-strings too, – not much!"

Maud folded the letter. "I thought you might like to go away with me for a little," she said.

He stared at her. "What! Away from Jake? Not-much!"

She tried to smile. "You're not very flattering, Bunny."

Bunny was still staring. "I can't think what's come to you! Jake's the best chap in the world, and yet you don't seem to get on with him. Say, what the blazes is the matter with you anyway?"

She bit her lip. "I wish you wouldn't be so horribly imitative, Bunny. You never used to talk like that."

Bunny flared up on the instant. "I'll talk as I damn' well please! It's no affair of yours. As to leaving Jake, I'm hanged if I will! You can jolly well go by yourself!"

"And as to behaving like a beastly bounder, you'll apologize for it before you leave this room," a soft voice said.

Both started violently. Jake had come up the steps from the garden. He walked over to the mantelpiece, searched for and found a box of matches; then turned.

"If we were alone, my son, I'd punch your head for you. Maud is quite right. You've no call to talk like a cowboy. Now apologize-quick!"

But Bunny stood sullenly silent.

Maud turned to the door. "Pray don't trouble to make him do that!" she said. "I am accustomed to cowboy manners."

The door closed upon her, and in the same instant Jake's hand closed upon Bunny's shoulder.

"Go after her!" he commanded, "Catch her up, and say you're sorry!"

But Bunny resisted him. "I won't, Jake. I'm not sorry. And I won't go and stay with Uncle Edward. There! If you send me, I'll run away."

Jake shook him. "I'll be mad with you in a minute, my son. Go after her, do you hear? Go after her and make it up before she starts crying!"

"She won't cry!" said Bunny incredulously. "She never does."

Jake swung him round to the door. "Bunny, don't you be a skunk! If you don't go, there'll be trouble-bad trouble."

"But it was her fault!" protested Bunny, stung to remonstrance. "She set on to me first."

"I don't care whose fault it was," said Jake. "You're to go."

Bunny writhed in his hold. "You're beastly unfair, Jake. If I do go, I shan't apologize."

"You won't?" said Jake.

"No, I won't!" There was a faint note of apprehension in Bunny's voice, notwithstanding its defiance. He stood up to Jake, but his eyelids quivered ever so slightly. His hands opened and shut in the old nervous fashion.

Jake was holding him fast. "Think it over!" he said. "Think it over!"

His voice was steady, his grip inflexible. His eyes never left the boy's hot face. They held a stern warning that could not be ignored.

Bunny straightened himself to meet it. "I suppose you'll thrash me," he said. "Well, – you must, that's all."

A faint gleam crossed Jake's face. It was hardly a smile, and was gone on the instant. "No, I shan't thrash you," he said. "Now, will you go?"

And Bunny capitulated, struck his colours unconditionally, flung his arms round his brother-in-law's shoulders. "All right, Jake. I'll go, old man. I'll go. Don't look so confoundedly grim!"

Jake held him back with one hand on his rough dark head. "Be off with you, boy! I'll see you later-maybe when you're in bed. Go now!"

He smiled upon Bunny, for there were tears in the boy's eyes, patted him on the back, and turned to go as he had entered.

Ten seconds later Bunny was beating a rousing tattoo on his sister's door. "Say, Maud, let me in-quick-quick!"

He wriggled at the handle, for the door was locked, and, meeting with no response, beat again.

"Maud, I say, let me in! I've come to say I'm sorry. Don't be waxy, old girl! Open the door!"

There came a lagging footstep. The key turned, Bunny burst into the room headlong.

"You're not crying, are you? I knew you weren't. There! It's all right, isn't it? What makes you so touchy, nowadays? You never used to be."

Her arms held him tightly in a mute embrace. She kissed him with a yearning tenderness.

Bunny drew back and looked at her with sudden, close attention. "Maud, what's the matter? Tell me what's the matter!"

She was smiling, a strangely drawn smile. Not for the first time he became conscious of the veil of reserve that hung between them. He strove with it indignantly, seeking to tear it aside.

"Maud, tell me, I say! You would have told me in the old days."

She caught back an involuntary sigh. "You were older then, Bunny."

"I wasn't!" he declared. "What rot!"

"Ah well," she said gently, "things were different in those days."

And suddenly there came to Bunny-Bunny who had lain and watched life so long that his eyes had grown tired with watching-one of the old shrewd flashes of enlightenment, solving the mystery.

He held her very tightly, his face burning red. "Say, Maud-old girl, is it-is it-I know what it is!"

"Don't, Bunny!" she whispered inarticulately.

He kissed her with the warmth of renewed understanding. "That's why Jake's so beastly worried about you. Poor old boy! He's getting as lean as Chops. Have you noticed?"

She had not. They sat down together on an ottoman near the window, Bunny's arm protectingly around her.

"He sent me up after you in such a hurry because he was afraid you were going to cry," he went on. "He was furious with me for vexing you. Poor old Jake!"

A curious little pang of resentment went through her. "You seem to think he is very much to be pitied," she said.

"I do," said Bunny instantly. "He looks so down in the mouth nowadays. I saw it directly I came home. He's got a sort of hurt look at the back of his eyes, as if he wasn't getting on with himself. I sometimes wish you'd be a bit kinder to him, Maud. I'm sure he mopes."

This was a point of view so new to Maud that she hardly knew how to regard it. Somehow it had never occurred to her that Jake could take her attitude to heart, Jake who trampled down all rebellion with so merciless a heel. She had always told herself that Jake had all he really wanted. That he was aware of any need of the spirit she had never seriously believed. Bunny's assertion brought to mind Mrs. Wright's kindly assurance that there was a whole lot of reserve in Jake; and for the first time the old woman's words recurred to her. "He won't show you his heart so long as he thinks you've no use for it." Was there a measure of truth in those words? She wondered. She wondered.

"Guess I must be going," said Bunny. "I've got to have a bath. You might turn on the water for me like a brick while I go and undress."

There was subtle tact in the suggestion. Bunny knew-none better-that to wait upon him was his sister's dearest privilege, and he judged by her sad face that it was time to change her thoughts.

When he arrived in the bath-room a few minutes later, he found everything put ready for his comfort, and Maud waiting to turn off the water at his command. He was attired in a large bath towel which he held artistically draped about his person. He thrust a bare, warm arm about her neck.

"Thanks, old girl. You're jolly decent to me! I don't know how I managed to be such a beast. Guess my temper must have got warped in its youth. By the way, there's a letter for you from Charlie on my dressing-table. He told me to give it to you when we were alone. I suppose it's something to do with the mother's affairs."

"Oh, perhaps," Maud said; and she hoped he did not note her sudden start or the quick flushing of her face. "When did you see him?"

"He came up the garden way this evening just before I went riding with Jake. You were out with Dr. Capper. He was in rather a decent mood," said Bunny. "He gave me half a sovereign. Not a bad sort-Charlie."

He began to emerge from the enveloping towel, and Maud turned to go.

"You can stay if you like," said Bunny graciously. "I've no wish to make a stranger of you."

But she smiled and declined the invitation. "You do better without me now," she said.

And as the boy's small thin figure slipped down into the bath, she went out and crossed the passage swiftly to his room.

The letter from Charlie was not on his table, but tossed carelessly on the bed with his clothes. She shivered at the thought that Jake, and not she, might have found it there. The purple crest stood out conspicuous on the white envelope-a fox's head with the motto: Sans vertu, underneath. She wondered what wild ancestor of his had designed the cynical device.

Her hands were trembling as she tore open the flap. She was impatient, yet half-afraid. Her heart throbbed hard at sight of the dashing scrawl once so familiar and so dear.

"Ma belle reine des roses;" – her heart throbbed a little faster. The old sweet name, how it brought back to her those free, happy days of her youth! How she marvelled now at the high, girlish pride that had sent him away. How cruel had been the cost of that same pride!

She read on. It was a characteristic epistle, half-mocking, half-tender, throughout. Would she meet him again? But of course she would! Had she not said that he could serve her? But they would not risk another interruption. Would she be going to the Graydown races? If not, he would manage to return early and come to her by the garden way. They would thus be sure of at least half an hour together before anyone else got back. He seemed confident that she would not refuse, and she knew, even as she read, that she could not. She must see him somehow. She must somehow get back to normal relations with him. She could not sacrifice his friendship to that one night's madness. Besides, there was her mother.

A trampling of hoofs in the yard below drew her to the window. She looked forth.

It was the Albatross being led out of his stable for the evening canter.

Dick Stevens held the bridle. He wore a heavy, glowering look. She remembered-and the memory seemed to scorch her-that morning after her wedding-day when she had stood and listened in petrified horror to Jake pouring forth terrible invective upon the lad's head.

He was standing by now, watching with a frown, as though the boy's movements displeased him; and even as she looked he went forward and took the bridle into his own hand.

Stevens stood aside sullenly, while he readjusted the bit with set lips. The Albatross nozzled against him, and after a few moments Jake's hand went to his pocket and brought forth a piece of sugar.

Then, while the animal munched it, he turned round upon the sulky stable-boy and spoke.

"If any harm comes to him through any damn' carelessness of yours, I warn you, – and I'm a man of my word-I'll leather you to a jelly, if it costs me fifty pounds."

His words were quiet, but absolutely distinct. His right hand was hard gripped on his riding-whip.

Stevens slunk back a step, not speaking, his face crimson and defiant.

Maud at the upper window clasped her hands suddenly and very tightly upon the letter they held. Yes, he was a man of his word. And what if he kept that other promise he had made to her? Life alone on a ranch with Jake! Her whole being rose in revolt at the thought. She turned away with a shudder.