Foe-Farrell Part 42

"Looks so, anyway," said Jimmy calmly. "Well, if he's not your dog, here's his owner to claim him."--And into the room, staring around on us, walked Farrell.

For the moment I stared at him as at a total stranger. It was only when, almost ignoring the rest of us, he took a step forward, pointing a finger at one man--it was only when I turned about and saw Foe's face--that the truth broke on me--and then, at first, as a wild surmise, and no more. Even when I wheeled about again and stared at the man, full belief came slowly: for this Farrell was thin, wiry, gaunt; sun-tanned, with sunken eyes and a slight stoop; wearing the clothes of a gentleman and, when at length he spoke, using the accent of a gentleman. . . . But this came later.

For some seconds he said nothing: he stood and pointed. I glanced at Constantia, preparing to spring between her and I knew not what.

Constantia, leaning forward a little in her chair, with lips slightly parted, had, after the first glance, no eyes for the intruder, whom (I feel sure) she had not yet recognised. Her eyes were fixed on Jack, at whom the finger pointed: and her hand slid along the arm of her chair and gripped it, helping her to rise and spring to his side.

Jimmy's face I did not see. He had come to a halt in the doorway.

"_You hound!_"

"Roddy! Catch him--oh, help!"

It was Constantia's call ringing through the room. I sprang about just in time to give support as Jack fell into our interlacing arms, and to take the most of his weight as we lowered him flat on the hearth-rug in a dead faint.

"Call off your d.a.m.ned dog, sir, whoever you are!" shouted Jimmy, running forward to help us. "We'll talk to you in a moment."

I heard Farrell call "Rover! Rover!" and the dog must have come to heel instantly. For as I knelt, occupied in loosing Jack's collar, of a sudden a complete hush fell on the room. Jimmy had run for the water-bottle. "Don't ring--don't fetch Jephson!" I had commanded.

"Get water from my bedroom." When I looked up to take the bottle, Farrell still stood implacable before the doorway.

Constantia also looked up. "Who is this gentleman?" she demanded.

"My name is Farrell," answered the figure by the doorway.

"Miss Denistoun may remember a fellow-pa.s.senger of some years ago, on the _Emania_."

I heard the catch of her breath as she knelt by me, staring at him.

I heard Jimmy's muttered "My G.o.d!" My arm was reaching to catch Constantia if she should drop backward.

But she pulled herself together with a long sob--I felt it shuddering through her, so close she knelt by me. Again silence fell on the room. Jimmy had fetched my bath-sponge along with the bottle.

I poured water upon it and bathed Jack's temples, watching his eyelids. After a while they fluttered a little. I felt over his heart. "He is coming round," I announced: "but we'll let him lie here for a little, before lifting him on to the couch.

"One question first," commanded Constantia. "Answer me, you two.

. . . Is this--is this thing true, Roddy? _Did he leave-this man--on the island?_"

For the moment I could put up no better delay--as neither could Jimmy--than to call "hus.h.!.+" and pretend to listen to Jack's faintly recovering heart-beat. But Farrell heard, and answered,--

"It's true, Miss Denistoun. . . . I had no notion to find him here; still less to find you and distress you. I came to Sir Roderick.

But the dog here was wiser. _He_ knew the scent on the stairs, and raced in ahead. . . . I am sorry to say it, Miss Denistoun: but that blackguard yonder took s.h.i.+p and left me solitary,--to die, for aught he knew. Let him come-to, and then we'll talk."

Constantia rose. Slowly she picked up her gloves and sunshade.

"No, we will not talk," she said, after a pause. "That talk is for you four men. I--I have no wish to see him recover."

As she said it, she very slowly detached from her breast-knot the rose which had carried my felicitation, and laid it on the table: and, with that, she walked out, Farrell drawing aside to make way for her.

NIGHT THE TWENTY-SECOND.

THE SECOND MAN ESCAPES.

Now that exit of Constantia's, I must tell you, had an instant and very remarkable effect upon Farrell, though she swept by him without perceiving it.

A moment before he had stood barring the doorway, his legs planted wide, his eyes fierce, his chest panting as he waited for his enemy to come back to life, his mouth working and twisting with impatience to let forth its flood of denunciation.

As Constantia walked to the door he not only drew back a foot to let her pa.s.s. He drew his whole body back, bowed for all the world like any shop-walker letting out a customer, even thrust out a hand, as by remembered instinct and as if to pull open an imaginary swing-door for a departing customer of rank. In short, for a moment the man reverted to his past--to Farrell of the Tottenham Court Road. . . .

Nor was this all. As she went by him he slewed about to follow her with his eyes, kicking aside the dog that hampered him, crouching against his legs: and still his gaze followed her, to the outer door.

Not until she had closed the outer door behind her did he face about on the room again; and still it was as if all the wind had been shaken, of a sudden, out of his sails. His next words, moreover-- strange as they were--would have stablished his ident.i.ty with Farrell even had any doubt lingered in us.

"Funny thing," said he, addressing us vaguely, "how like blood tells, even down to a look in the eyes. I was husband to a woman once, thousands of miles from here and foreign of race: but she came of kings, though far away back, and Miss Denistoun, Sir Roderick, she reminded me, just then--"

"Look here, Mr. Farrell," I broke in; "with your leave we won't discuss Miss Denistoun, here or anywhere--as, with your leave, we'll cut all further conversation until Dr. Foe is fit for it, which at this moment he pretty obviously is not. It may help your silence if I tell you that the lady who has just left is, or was, engaged to marry him."

"_Christ! . . . And she knows?_" He stared, less at us than at the four walls about him.

"She does not," said I: "or did not, until a few minutes ago."

"But _you_ knew!"--Wrath again filled Farrell's sails. "_You_ knew-- and you allowed it. . . . And you call yourselves gentlemen, I suppose!"

"If you take that tone with either of us for an instant longer,"

I answered, after a pause, "you shall be thrown out of that door, and your dog shall follow through the window. If you prefer to stand quite still and hold your tongue--will you?--why, then, you are welcome to the information that I only heard of this engagement less than an hour ago, and Mr. Collingwood less than ten minutes before you entered."

"But you knew _that other thing_," Farrell insisted.

"Yes, I knew," said I: "and for the simple reason that Dr. Foe told it all to me. And Mr. Collingwood knows, for I told it to him.

We two have kept the secret."

"And," sneered Farrell, "you still keep being his friends!"

"No," I answered; "as a matter of fact, we do not. But you have taken that tone again with me in spite of my warning, and I shall now throw you downstairs. . . . You are an ill-used man, I believe, though not by me: and for that reason, if you come back--say at ten to-morrow morning--and apologise, you will find me sympathetic.

But just now I am going to throw you out."

"You may if you can," retorted Farrell, eyeing my advance warily.

"I've spoilt this marrying, I guess: and that's the first long chalk crossed off a long tally."

I was about to grip with him when Jimmy called sharply that there were to be no blows--Foe wanted to speak.

Foe had recovered under the brandy and lay over on his side, facing us, panting a little from the dose--of which Jimmy had been liberal.

"Have it out, Roddy," he gasped, "here and now. I'm strong enough to get it over, and--and he can't tell you any worse than you both know, of my free telling--and I don't want to trouble either of you again.

Let him have it out," implored Foe, between his sharp intakes of breath.

"I am glad you excepted _me_," burst out Farrell. "You'll trouble _me_ again fast enough: or, rather, I'll trouble _you_--to the end of your dirty life. Are you shamming sick, there, you Foe?"

"You know that he is not," said Jimmy, holding back my arm.

"Tell your story, and clear."

"My story?" echoed Farrell in a bewildered way. "What's my story more than what you know, it seems? What's my story more than that, after sharing h.e.l.l for days in an open boat, and solitude on that awful island, this man left me--choosing when I was sick and sorry: left me to h.e.l.l and solitude together--left me to it, cold-blooded, when I was too weak to crawl--left me, in his cursed grudge, when he could have saved two as easy as one? Has he told you that, gentlemen?"