The Streets of Ascalon Part 79

The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of the muscles.

The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering mentally unsound.

Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors to the veranda.

Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.

Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.

There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a crooked smile.

"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he said.

"When are you leaving?"

"To-night."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't know."

Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of tall trees lay like velvet on the gra.s.s; the crests of the woods beyond grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged woodp.e.c.k.e.rs imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks were rainbow tinted.

On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding, switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded with suns.h.i.+ne and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.

"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoa.r.s.e and painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.

"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.

The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.

"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need exercise."

"I've got to rest."

"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"

"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.

"What else?"

"Anxiety."

"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"

Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting on his elbow against the tree-trunk:

"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get it?"

"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.

"Then--my wife has returned."

"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice or features.

"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I saw them from the hill."

"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"

Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it, looking down at the gra.s.s.

"You are going to marry her of course," he said.

"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."

"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows it, you know it, and so do I."

"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"

"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your marriage with Mary."

"I think I told you that it was none of your business."

"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."

"May I ask why?"

"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently, there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the reason."

Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and unclosing:

"Is that all, Ledwith?"

"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."

"You lie," said Langly.

Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."

"That is another lie."

"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared, after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body; she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's powerful frame.

"Have you finished?" asked the latter.