The Hundredth Chance

THE LAST CHANCE

"It's a cruel world," complained Mrs. Sheppard. "Nothing ever goes right, and no one ever thinks of anybody but themselves." She wiped her eyes pathetically. "I'm sure I've always tried to consider others. And this is the result. In my hour of need I am forsaken by everybody."

"It's no good fretting," Maud said very wearily. "We must think what is best to be done."

She realized that her mother was in her most unreasonable mood, and she felt herself powerless to cope with it. Yet the situation had to be faced, and with a heavy heart she faced it.

"My dear, I've thought and thought till my brain refuses to work," said Mrs. Sheppard plaintively. "What is the good of it? You know as well as I that if Charlie refuses to help, all hope is gone. And you say he has refused."

"Yes." Maud was stooping over the kettle that she was boiling in her mother's bedroom. "He has refused."

"Unconditionally?" Mrs. Sheppard sent a sudden keen glance across at the slim, drooping figure and noted the weariness of its pose. "Maud, tell me! Unconditionally?"

Maud remained bent. "I am not going to accept his conditions," she said, after a moment.

"Then he made conditions?" The question came sharp and querulous from the bed.

"One condition." Maud bent a little lower.

"What was it? My child, you must tell me. I have a right to know." Mrs. Sheppard raised herself to a sitting position. "What was this condition?"

Maud did not turn. "What does it matter what it was as I am not going to accept it," she said.

"You have refused?"

"I am going to refuse." There was utter weariness in her voice. She spoke as one to whom nothing mattered any more.

"Maud! Then you haven't actually refused him yet?" Mrs. Sheppard suddenly flung out her arms. "Maud-darling, come and tell me all about it!" she urged. "There is something behind that you haven't told me yet. Come here, dearest! Come to me!"

Maud turned an unwilling face over her shoulder. "I am too tired to-night, Mother," she said. "Besides, there is really nothing to tell. Charlie made me a certain proposal which-which I thought for a little that I might accept. I now realize that I can't and-and-" a faint quiver of vehemence crept into her voice, – "I want to forget that I ever thought I could. Please let me forget!"

"My dear child! Do you mean that he made you a proposal of marriage?" The eagerness of Mrs. Sheppard's query was scarcely veiled. Her eyes had the look of one in search of treasure.

"Yes; just that." The emotion had gone out of Maud's voice again. It sounded flat and mechanical. She leaned her arm upon the mantelpiece for support. "I ought not to have suffered it. I was to blame more than he. He has always been-that sort. I-haven't."

"But, my dear, you have always loved each other. Why should either of you be to blame? The fault was certainly yours in the first place for sending him away long ago; but now-now-"

"Now I am married to another man," Maud said.

Mrs. Sheppard clapped her hands together in a sudden access of impatience. "A man for whom you have not the smallest respect or affection! A man of intemperate habits who took advantage of a weak moment to marry you, who has made you utterly miserable, and deserves nothing from you but the utmost contempt! My dear Maud, I always thought that you were proud and fastidious. Didn't Charlie always call you his queen rose? How can you-how can you-regard that farcical marriage of yours as binding? How can you contemplate ruining your own life and Charlie's also now that another chance has been given you? It is sheer wilful folly. It is madness. Or is it that you are just-afraid?"

Maud shook her head. "I don't suppose you would ever really understand, Mother," she said. "Anyhow I don't know how to explain. But I can't do it-now. I thought I could. I came back because I thought I could. But now I am here-now I have seen Jake-I find I can't."

"That is because you are afraid," declared Mrs. Sheppard, "He has terrorized you. But, oh, my dear, do try to break away from that! Do think of yourself-and of Charlie who has loved you all these years! One great effort-only one-and you will be free from this horrible, unnatural bond. I know that Charlie will be true to you. You are the one woman so far as he is concerned. And he-he is the one man, dear, isn't he? You can't-surely you can't-bear to disappoint him now! Think of the years to come! Think of the life-happiness waiting for you if you only muster the strength now to grasp it! Maud, my darling, my own girlie, can't you be brave just this once when so much hangs upon it? He will take you away in his yacht, and you will be all in all to each other. You will find all the good things you have missed till now; and this dreadful year will fade away like a dream. Oh, darling, surely you will make this one great effort to gain so much! The chance will never come again to you. It is the one chance of your life, – the last. How can you bear to throw it away?"

"And what of Jake?" Maud spoke the words as though uttering her thought aloud. She was gazing downwards at the steaming kettle and the red-hot glow of the fire.

"Jake!" Mrs. Sheppard's reply was instant and contemptuous. "He will marry a girl in his own station who will satisfy all his desires. You can't honestly imagine that you have done that, that he regards his marriage with you as a success! He may be annoyed at your preference, but he will be as glad as you are to be rid of his bargain. It will be the greatest kindness you can do him-if you want to be kind. You know you hate him from the bottom of your heart."

"Mother! You're wrong!" Sharply-as though stung to action-Maud turned. "I don't hate Jake. He-he is too good a man-too upright a man-to hate. It is true I haven't been happy with him, but that has not been his fault. Our ideas of happiness are not the same, that's all."

Mrs. Sheppard stared in momentary discomfiture at this sudden display of strength. She had not expected serious resistance in this quarter. But she was quick to rally her forces.

"Oh, I don't blame him entirely," she said. "As you say, you are utterly unsuited to each other. But it is sheer nonsense to call him a good man. I know that he is often the worse for drink. I have seen him myself flogging his horses down on the beach as no man in his sober senses would dream of doing. He is an utter brute at heart. There is no getting away from that fact. He may not be a wholly bad man. I have not said that he is. But he is a man of violent impulses. He knows nothing of the refinements of life. He is a brute."

Mrs. Sheppard paused. Maud was standing mute and motionless with tragic eyes fixed before her.

After a moment or two to give her words time to sink in, Mrs. Sheppard continued on a note of pathos.

"You may say to me that I have made exactly the same mistake myself. But then, I did it for you children. And it was not the whole of my life that I had to offer. But you, – you are young. Your good time is yet to come. And think, dear, think how much depends upon you! If Charlie dies unmarried, there will be no one to succeed him. He is the last of the Burchesters. And if he doesn't marry you, I am sure he will never marry any other woman. He loves you so devotedly. Through all his peccadilloes, he has always remembered you, come back to you. Are you going to let him be lonely always because of his love for you? He has laid the greatest gift in the world at your feet, dear. Oh, grasp it while you can! Don't let the whole of his manhood, your womanhood, be one long and fruitless regret!"

It was the climax of her pleading. The tears were running down her face as she reached it, and she did not check them too readily though she knew that she had made an impression. Victory would not come at once, she fully realized. The stony immobility of Maud's attitude told her that. But she had laid her plans with craft. She believed that by the exercise of extreme patience victory might ultimately be achieved.

"There, darling! You're very tired," she said, as she slowly dried her eyes; "much too tired to see anything in its proper light to-night. You must go to bed and sleep. You will see things much more clearly in the morning. And shall I tell you a secret?" She smiled, a wistful, loving smile. "Charlie will be at the Castle to-morrow afternoon."

"How do you know, Mother?" Maud spoke quickly as one suddenly awakened.

"How do I know? But everyone knows," Mrs. Sheppard answered vaguely. "The yacht is in the harbour, and they are getting her ready for a trip. Darling, the kettle is boiling at last. Mind how you take it off! Oh dear, I'm very tired. I hope I shan't end my days in the workhouse. So trying to have to make one's bed every day. Good night, darling! No tea for me, thank you. I haven't the heart to drink it. There's a bed made up in the room next to this. I hope you will find it comfortable. Good night, dear! Good night!"

The words went into a deep sigh. Mrs. Sheppard sank down upon her pillow. And Maud turned with a set face, and prepared to leave her for the night.

Yes, her mother's words had made an impression upon her. They had voiced all the doubt and turmoil in her own sad heart. But they had not blotted out that vision of the precipice, the rocks, and the black, black whirlpool that awaited her at the end of the downward path.

Neither had they wholly taken from her the memory of a man's eyes, straight and honest and strangely appealing, that had looked into hers only a couple of hours before.

Above her mother's warnings, above all the trouble and the tumult of her soul, she heard a voice within, clear, insistent, indomitable: "Love is only gained by love. We must pour out all we have to win it, purge our hearts of all selfish desire, sanctify ourselves by the complete renunciation of self, before the perfect gift can be ours."

The perfect gift! The perfect gift! She had almost ceased to believe in it. But that night she dreamed that she had it in her grasp.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WHIRLPOOL

"Well, Billings, you're looking as cadaverously blooming as ever. How do you do it, man? Did someone give you an over-dose of respectability in your youth?"

Saltash leaned back in his chair smiling up at his wry-faced servitor with insolent humour.

Billings, the decorous, betrayed not the smallest sign of surprise or resentment. It was said of him that when Saltash had once in a fit of anger flung a wine-glass at his head, he had knelt and collected the fragments and mopped up the wine before he had dreamed of retiring to attend to the cut on his face that the glass had inflicted.

On the present occasion he made response with the utmost gravity. "I can't say, my lord. Shall I light the fire, my lord?"

"Oh yes, it's a filthy day, typical of a filthy climate. Yes, light the fire, and pull down the blinds, and let's be comfortable!"

"It won't be dark yet, my lord," observed Billings, with a glance at the clock.

Saltash's eyes went in the same direction. It was not quite three o'clock. "What of that, good Billings? I please myself," he said. "By the way, you might take coffee up to the music-room. Leave it to brew up there! And when Mrs. Bolton calls tell her I'm out, but I shall be back in a very short time! Ask her to wait in the music-room, and pour her out some coffee! Light the red lamp by the piano, but leave the rest! Is that quite clear, Billings?"

"Quite clear, my lord."

Billings was on his knees before the fire. Saltash leaned forward in his chair.

"Be sure you get her to have some coffee, Billings!" he said. "Tell her I specially recommend it."

"Very good, my lord." Billings spoke with his head nearly touching the logs of wood he was seeking to kindle. "I quite understand, my lord."

Saltash got to his feet. "I'll give you a gold watch if you succeed, Billings," he said.

"You're very good, my lord," said Billings.

Saltash wandered down the hall. He had a cigarette between his lips, but he was not smoking. He reached the marble statue near the grand staircase and pressed a switch that flooded it with light. Then he stood before it, silent and intent. White and wonderful the anguished figure shone, but it was rather a figure of death than life. Its purity was almost dazzling. Its very agony was unearthly.

Saltash frowned abruptly and switched off the light. Then for a space he stood in the gloom, staring at the vague outline.

Billings came up behind him soft-footed, unobtrusive. "The rose light, my lord, was placed on the other side according to your lordship's orders," he said deferentially, and passed on as if he had not spoken.

Saltash glanced over his shoulder momentarily, and resumed his silent contemplation of the figure in the shadows.

Several seconds passed. Then very suddenly he moved again, bent swiftly and pressed another switch. In a moment the figure was fully visible again, but no longer did it dazzle the eyes with its whiteness. A soft rose radiance surrounded it. It glowed into life, pulsing, palpitating flesh and blood.

And the man's eyes suddenly kindled as they passed over the naked, straining form. "I have you now, my Captured Angel," he murmured.

He stood and feasted upon the vision. Once he stretched a hand to touch the faultless curve of the breast, but checked himself with an odd, flickering smile as though he did reverence whimsically to a sacred element in which he had no faith. The agonized shame of the thing, poignant, arresting, though it was, seemed wholly to pass him by. His queer, glancing eyes saw only the unveiled voluptuousness of the form, the perfect contour of the limbs, the exquisite moulding of each full and gracious line. He dwelt upon them all with the look of an epicure. He moved again at length, drew near to the statue, reached a hand to the dark panelling of the recess behind. It slipped inwards noiselessly, disclosing a narrow doorway. In a moment he had passed through, and the great hall was empty; empty save for that figure of tragic womanhood, rose-lighted, piteously alive, standing out against the shadows.

It was nearly half an hour later that an electric bell sounded through the silence, and Billings, the respectable, came noiselessly through the hall. He swung the great door open with a well-bred flourish.

A woman's figure clad in a streaming waterproof stood on the step, and in a low voice asked for Lord Saltash. Billings stood back with a deep bow. "Will you walk in, madam?"

She entered and stood on the mat. He took her umbrella and set it aside.

"Will you permit me to remove your waterproof, madam?" he suggested.

She seemed to hesitate, but in a moment yielded. "But I can only stay a few moments," she said. "Please tell him so!"

"Quite so, madam!" Billings was deftly removing the wet garment. "Up in the music-room, if you please, madam."

She suffered his ministrations in silence; only as he turned to lead the way she shivered suddenly and uncontrollably.

She followed him up the dim hall. They approached the rose-lit statue. Her eyes were drawn to it. She stopped as though involuntarily, stopped and caught her breath as if in sudden surprise or dismay. Then quickly she passed on.

They ascended the grand staircase in solemn procession, and reached the music-room door.

Again Billings stood back for her to enter, but when she had done so, he closed the door, remaining within.

The great room was dim and shadowy, heavy with some mysterious Eastern fragrance that hung in the air like incense. It was lighted by two red fires that burned without flame and a red-shaded lamp that shed a mysterious arc of light far away by the piano.

There was a small table by the further fire, and on this a silver coffee-pot hissed over a spirit-lamp. A low divan-so low that it looked a mere pile of luxurious cushions-stood invitingly close. Billings deferentially led the way thither.

"If you will be pleased to take a seat, madam," he said. "His lordship will not keep you waiting long."

"Is he out?" Maud asked quickly.

"He has been out, madam. He came in wet through and is changing. He begged very particularly that you would drink a cup of coffee while you awaited him."

He indicated the divan, but Maud remained on her feet. The atmosphere of the place disturbed her. It seemed to be charged with subtleties that baffled her, making her vaguely uneasy.

She had come in answer to a message accompanying a great bunch of violets that had reached her that morning. She had not wanted to come; but for this once it seemed imperative that she should meet him face to face, and explain that which she felt no written words could ever express. She had sent him her rash summons, and he had replied by that bunch of violets and the request that she would come to him since he did not wish to risk interruption from "madame la mère." On this point she had been fully in accord with him, and she had sent back word that she would come in the afternoon, just to speak with him for a few minutes. She had hoped that he would gather from that that since the sending of her summons she had repented of her madness. It would not be an easy interview, she was sure; but she was not afraid of Charlie. She hated the thought of hurting him all the more because she did not fear him. He would let her go; oh yes, he would let her go. He had never sought to hold her against her will. But that very fact would make the parting the more bitter. His half-whimsical chivalry was somehow harder to face than any fury of indignation. He had hurt her at their last interview, hurt and disappointed her. But yet the man's fascination overpowered all thought of his shortcomings. Already she had almost forgotten them.

She stood before the fire, absently watching the servant as he busied himself over the coffee, till the aromatic scent of it suddenly brought her out of her reverie.

"Oh, thank you," she said. "I don't think I will have any. I have only come for five minutes' talk with Lord Saltash."

"His lordship particularly desired that you would take a cup, madam," the man replied. "It is a very special Egyptian brew." He turned round with a small silver cup on a salver which he decorously presented. "It is supposed to be particularly pleasing to a lady's palate, madam," he said.

She did not want the coffee, but it seemed ungracious to refuse it. She took the cup and set it on the mantelpiece.

"It should be drunk very hot, madam," said Billings persuasively. "Will you be so very kind, madam, as to taste it, and tell me if it is to your liking?"

She hesitated momentarily, but it was too small a matter to refuse. She took the cup by its slender handle and put it to her lips. Instantly it was as if a warm current of life went through her, a fine, golden thread of delight.

She looked at Billings and smiled. "It is-delicious," she said.

Billings looked gratified. "The second cup is generally considered even better than the first, madam," he said.

"Oh, I won't take more than one, thank you," she said.

And Billings retired, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

Maud lifted the cup again to her lips. Its fragrance pervaded all her senses. It was unlike anything she knew, and yet in some subtle fashion it made her think of palms and orange-groves, and the strong sunshine of the East. It presented before her mind a vivid picture of beauties that she had never seen. She drank again; and again that strange sense of dawning bliss came to her. It was like the coming of a tropic morning after a long, black night. Her anxiety was magically lifted from her; a sensation of pure gladness, of warmth of soul and body began to possess her. It was like drinking in the pure essence of sunshine. All things seemed easy, all difficulties were smoothed away. She was sure that Charlie would understand and be content. Had he not promised to be to her whatever she wished?

She drained the cup, and set it down. It seemed a little strange to her that her hand should be trembling as she did so; for all her misgivings had vanished. She had stepped as it were into a garden of delight. A strange, unearthly happiness was hers. It was as if her life had been suddenly and mysteriously filled to the brim with all that she could desire.

The only thing lacking was music. She looked across at the grand piano lighted with that one red lamp, and a haunting memory came to her-came to her. She saw the altar and the glow of the undying flame before it; but the flowers-the white lilies of purity-where were they?

A vague distress came to her, filtering as it were through locked senses, dispelling the golden rapture, dimming her dream. She moved over the polished floor, drawn by that red arc of light. She reached the piano. She stood before it. And then her dream changed.

The vision of the altar faded, faded. She slipped down before the gleaming keys. She struck a soft, sweet chord. And with it the former magic took her. The sun and the orange-groves were hers again, and a blue, blue gleam of sea came into the picture like the last touch of romance into a fairy-tale. As one beneath a spell she sat and wove her vision into such music as she had never contemplated before…

As of old, she never knew quite when he came to her. She only realized very suddenly that he was there. His dark face gleamed down at her in the lamplight. His odd eyes sent a mocking invitation into hers.

Again her vision was swept away. Her hands fell from the piano, and were caught in the same instant into his.

"Oh, Charlie!" she gasped incoherently.

He drew her close, laughing at her with half-teasing tenderness. "Oh, Maud!" he said. "O queen of all the roses!"

But she hung back from him. It was almost as if something dragged her back. "I-I have something to say to you," she faltered confusedly. "I came to say it. What was it? Oh, what was it?"

His swarthy face was bending nearer, nearer. She saw the humorous lift of his black brows. "You have said it," he told her softly. "There is nothing left to say. There will never again be any need for words between us two."

He laughed at her again with a kind of kingly indulgence. His arms went round her, pressing her to him, ignoring her last, quivering effort to resist. His lips suddenly found her own.

And then it was that her eyes were opened, and her memory came back. In a flash of anguished understanding she was brought face to face with the realities of life. She knew that she had been enmeshed in a dream of evil delight, drawn unaccountably, by some hidden, devilish strategy to the very edge of that precipice that she had striven so desperately to avoid.

In that moment she would have torn herself free, but her strength was gone. Her body felt leaden and powerless; her throat too numb to utter any protest. Her visions had all fallen away from her, but she thought she heard the roar of the whirlpool below. And through all she was madly conscious of the lips that pressed her own, the arms that drew her closer, always closer, to the gulf.

She thought that her senses were leaving her, so utterly helpless had she become. An awful cloud seemed to be hanging over her, – slowly, slowly descending. Faintly she tried to pray for deliverance, but his lips stilled the prayer. Against her will, as one horribly compelled, she knew that she returned his kiss.

And then she was lying on the low divan with Charlie beside her, holding her, calling her his queen, his captured angel-his wife.

She did not know exactly what happened afterwards, for a great darkness took her. She only knew that she was suddenly lifted and borne away. She only heard the rush of the whirlpool as it closed over her head.

CHAPTER XIX

THE OUTER DARKNESS

Something was waking her. Someone seemed to be knocking on the outer door of her brain. She came back to consciousness as one returning from a far, far journey that yet had occupied but a very brief space of time. An inner sense of urgency awoke and responded to that outer knocking. As through a maze of disconnected impressions she heard a voice.

"I give you ten seconds, my lord," it said. "Just-ten-seconds!"

The words were absolutely quiet, they sounded almost suave; but the deadly determination of them smote upon her like the call of a trumpet. She started up.

The next instant she was staring about her in utter bewilderment. She was lying on a deep couch in a room she had never seen before, a strange, conical chamber, oak-panelled, lighted by a domed skylight. It was furnished with bizarre Eastern luxury. The couch on which she lay was a nest of tiger-skins.