A Gamble with Life Part 13

Madeline read the Captain's letter with a distinct heightening of colour. She was still weak and a little inclined to be hysterical. Her adventure on the cliffs had shaken her nerves to an extent she was only just beginning to realise.

She closed her eyes after she had put the letter back in the envelope, and tried to think. The Captain's proposal had not surprised her in the least, while the manner of it was just what she had expected. He had used just the right words and said neither too much nor too little.

She admired him for his reticence, and for his strength in holding himself so well in check, and yet there was a pa.s.sionate earnestness in his well-chosen words that revealed the depth of his affection, as well as his determination to win.

Very adroitly and diplomatically also he had hinted of the good time they might have together. They would not settle down in a sleepy place like St. Gaved. They would have a town house, and perhaps a shooting-box in Scotland, and when tired of the United Kingdom they would travel on the Continent--Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, Florence, were delightful places to visit, and to tarry in for a few weeks or months. The common work-a-day world might roar and fret and toil and perspire, but they would live in a serener atmosphere, undisturbed by the jar and strife that went on around them.

It was a very fair and enticing picture that his words conjured up, and one that she had often pictured for herself. This was the future that her friends, in conjunction with a kindly Providence, had shaped for her. There seemed nothing for her to do but say "Yes." It was all in the piece. Her life had been beautifully planned, and planned without effort or contrivance by anybody. The current had borne her along easily and gently to the inevitable union with Gervase Tregony.

His face and form came up before her again as she last saw him. How handsome he looked in his uniform! How fierce his eyes were when he looked at other people, how gentle when he looked at her! Some people might think his voice harsh and raucous, but there was an undertone of music in it for her. It was the voice of a hero, of a man born to command. Its echoes seemed to be in the air even now.

And yet for some reason her heart did not respond as it once did. Was it that her nerves had been shaken--that she had not quite got over the shock of the adventure? Something had happened during the last few days, but what it was she could not quite understand. The life of pleasure, to which she had looked forward, undisturbed by a single note of human pain, did not appeal to her, for some reason, as once it did. A new ingredient had been dropped into the cup, a new thought had come into her brain, a new impulse had shaken her heart.

Had she looked at death so closely that life could never be the same to her again, or was it that she looked at life more truly and steadily?

Had a change come over other people, or was the change wholly in herself? That something had happened she was certain, but what it was, was a question she could not definitely answer.

Of one thing, however, she was sure. If the letter had come three or four days sooner, it would have found her in a wholly different frame of mind. Hence, whatever the change was, it was compa.s.sed by these few days.

Her meditations were disturbed by a knock at the door, and a moment later Dr. Pendarvis entered. "Ah! you are better this morning," he said, in his bright, cheery fas.h.i.+on. "Now, let me feel your pulse." And he drew up a chair and sat down by her side.

"A little inclined to be jumpy still, eh? Ah, well, you had rather a nasty experience. But you'll be all right again in a few days."

"I think I am all right now," she said, with a smile. "Don't you think I might go out of doors?"

"Well, now, what do you think yourself?" he questioned, stroking his chin and smiling.

"I'm just a little shaky on my feet," she answered, "but I guess that would go off when I got into the fresh air."

"And how about the bruises?"

"Oh, they are disappearing one by one."

"And how far do you think you could walk?"

"I don't know, but I do know it's awfully dull being in the house."

"And do you want to go anywhere in particular?" he asked innocently, and he glanced at her furtively out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh, no!" she answered, blus.h.i.+ng slightly; "or, at any rate, not just yet. Of course, when I get stronger I shall be glad to walk into St.

Gaved again."

"You ran into it last time," he said, laughing. "What a day of adventures you had to be sure!"

"I was compelled to run," she said, averting her eyes and looking out of the window; "he would have drowned if I hadn't."

"Exactly. And it was touch and go by all accounts. He couldn't have held out many minutes longer."

"And is he going on all right, doctor?" She turned her eyes suddenly upon him, and waited with parted lips for his answer.

"Well, about as well as can be expected," he answered, slowly, "taking all the circ.u.mstances into account."

"And is he suffering much pain?"

"A good deal I should say. In fact, that is inevitable."

"He must wish me far enough."

"It depends how far that is, I should say," and the old doctor chuckled.

"You've not heard him heaping maledictions on my defenceless head?"

"No, I have not," he answered, with a satirical smile; "but then you see he's not given to expressing his thoughts in public."

"Exactly. I guess his thoughts about me would not bear repeating in any polite society."

"That is possible," the old doctor said, pursing his lips, and looking thoughtful.

"I suppose no one sees him yet?"

"Well, Chester or I myself see him every day--sometimes twice."

"I intend seeing him myself soon."

"You do?"

"Yes I do. There's nothing wrong in it, is there?"

"Why do you ask that question?"

"Because you've got such stupid notions about propriety in this country.

In fact, few things seem to be regarded as proper except what is highly improper. I'm constantly stubbing my toes against the notice tablets, 'keep off the gra.s.s,' the dangerous places are left without warning."

The doctor laughed.

"Isn't it true what I'm saying?" she went on. "Half the people seem to be straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Directly you propose to do some perfectly innocent thing, if it should happen to be unconventional, you are met with shocked looks and outstretched hands and cries of protest. I'm getting rather tired of that word 'proper.'"

"But Society must have some code to regulate itself by," he said, with an air of pretended seriousness.

"Aren't the Ten Commandments good enough?" she questioned.

"Well, hardly," he said, in a tone of banter. "You see they are a bit antiquated and out of date. Society, as at present const.i.tuted, must have everything of the most modern type. And modernity is not able to tolerate such an antiquated code as the Decalogue."

"What do you mean by Society?" she questioned.

"Ah! now you have cornered me," he said, with a laugh. "But just at the moment I was thinking of the idle rich. Men and women who have more money than they know how to spend, and more time than they know how to kill. The people who have never a thought beyond themselves, who live to eat and dress, and pander to the lowest pa.s.sions of their nature. Who will spend thousands on a dinner fit only for gourmands, while the people around them are dying of hunger. Who waste in folly and luxury and vice what ought to go for the uplifting of the downtrodden and neglected. It is a big cla.s.s in England, and a growing cla.s.s, recruited in many instances from across the water----"

"You mean from my country?" she questioned.