A Gamble with Life Part 43

Here was a phase of the question that seemed to grow larger and larger the more she looked at it. She would have to keep her eyes and ears open. Perhaps the last word on the subject had not been said. If Gervase was as honourable as she had always believed, then it was wicked of Rufus Sterne to throw out such a base and shameful insinuation. If, on the other hand, Rufus was as black as he had been painted, why this act of chivalry in the defence of the name of some unknown person?

The subject was full of knots and tangles. She would have to wait until some fresh light was thrown upon it.

As the days pa.s.sed away she was pleased to note that Gervase showed no sign of triumph over the downfall of Rufus Sterne. He pointed no moral as he might reasonably have done. He did not come to her and say, "There, I told you so." His restraint and reserve were admirable, and she liked him all the better for his silence.

When, at length, she herself alluded to the matter, he spoke with genuine feeling and sympathy.

"I am really sorry for the fellow," he said. "Of course, he brought it upon himself. I could not possibly pa.s.s over the a.s.sault in silence. But all the same it is a pity that a man of parts should destroy his own reputation."

"It seemed a momentary and unaccountable outburst," she said, reflectively.

He smiled knowingly, and shook his head, but would not venture any further remark on the subject.

Madeline was greatly puzzled. She supposed she had been mistaken. It seemed for once her instincts had led her wrong, her intuitions were at fault. It was a painful discovery to make, and yet there was no other conclusion she could come to. It was impossible to believe that Gervase had deliberately plotted to ruin him, for Gervase, at any rate, was a gentleman.

Yet, somehow, she was never wholly satisfied. In spite of everything her sympathies were still with the accused man. She made no attempt, however, to see him again. She avoided every walk that would lead her across his path. She did her best to put him out of her thoughts and out of her life.

Gervase, meanwhile, played his part with great skill. He no longer pestered her with his attentions, no longer bl.u.s.tered. He felt he was safe now from any rival, and that time was on his side. It was very galling to have to wait so long, his fingers itched to touch her dollars, but he was wise enough to see that he would gain nothing by precipitancy. Madeline was not to be hurried or driven.

As the winter wore slowly away Madeline became more friendly and confidential. She sometimes asked him to take her a walk across the downs. She allowed him also to give her lessons in riding, she sought his advice in numberless little matters, in which she feared to trust her own judgment, and all unconsciously led him to think that the game was entirely in his own hands.

Between the Hall and the village there was little or no intercourse.

Lady Tregony did most of her shopping in Redbourne. It was only the common and inexpensive things of household use that St. Gaved was deemed worthy to supply. Hence it happened that sometimes for a week on the stretch no local news found its way into the Hall.

Occasionally Madeline wondered whether Rufus Sterne after his sad fall, would give up in despair, and go to the bad altogether, or whether he would pull himself together and fight his battle afresh. She wondered, too, whether the scheme or invention in which he had risked his all would prove to be a success or a failure. She sometimes scanned the columns of the local paper, but his name was never mentioned, and somehow she had not the courage to ask anyone who knew him.

The weather continued so cold and cheerless, and so trying to the Captain after his Indian experiences, that it was suggested by Sir Charles that they should spend a month or two in the South of France.

Madeline caught at the idea with great eagerness, and that settled the matter. Both Sir Charles and Gervase were anxious to get her away from St. Gaved, but were not quite certain how it was to be accomplished.

Madeline had grown so sick of London, and so eager to get back again to Trewinion Hall, that they were afraid she would object to going away again so soon.

Gervase glanced at his father knowingly, and his eyes brightened.

That evening father and son discussed affairs in the library.

"I think the way is clear at last," Sir Charles said, with a smile.

"Yes, I think so," Gervase answered, pulling at his briar.

"We'll get away as soon as we can, the sooner the better. Under the sunny skies of the Riviera her thoughts will turn to love and matrimony," and Sir Charles laughed.

"She's grown almost affectionate of late."

"That is good. If she ever cherished any romantic attachment for that scoundrel Sterne it is at an end."

"She never mentions his name."

"And by the time we have been away a week she will have forgotten his existence."

"I hope she will not be caught by some other handsome face."

"Not likely, my boy, if you play your cards well."

"I think, under the circ.u.mstances, I have played them remarkably well.

Much better than you did when they were in your hands."

"No, no. Everything is going on as well as well can be. I don't think either of us has anything to blame himself with."

"I am not sure I did right in giving up my commission so soon. She was immensely taken, if you remember, with my uniform. She likes smart clothes."

"Oh, she's got over that. She's a woman now, and a wide-awake woman to boot."

"There's no doubt about her being wide-awake. But when shall we start?"

"Why not next Monday?"

"Aye, that will do. The sooner the better," and Gervase went off to his room to dream of matrimony and unlimited cash.

CHAPTER XXV

THE END OF A DREAM

It was not until March that Rufus realised that his dream was at an end.

He had hoped against hope for weeks; had toiled on with steady persistency and tried to banish from his brain the thought of failure.

The knowledge came suddenly, though he took a long journey to the North of England to seek it. When he turned his face toward home he knew that all his labour had been in vain.

Not that the invention on which he had bestowed so much toil and thought was worthless. On the contrary, he saw greater possibilities in it than ever before. But he had been forestalled. Another brain, as inventive as his own, and with far greater facilities for reducing theories to practice, had conceived the same idea and carried it into effect, while he was still painfully toiling in the same direction. When he looked at the work brought out by his compet.i.tor in the North, he felt as though there was no further place for him on earth.

"It is better than mine," he said to himself, sadly. "The main idea is the same, but he has shown more skill in developing it."

It was the advantage of the trained engineer over the untrained, of experience over inexperience. He had no feeling of bitterness in his heart against the man who had succeeded; he was of too generous a nature to be envious. The man who had won deserved to win.

He journeyed home like a man in a dream. The way seemed neither long nor short. The first faint odour of spring was in the air, but he did not heed it. His fellow pa.s.sengers seemed more like shadows than real people. The world for him was at an end. He had no more to do. One question only was left to trouble him. How to put out life's brief candle without awakening any suspicion of foul play. He was more heavily stunned than he knew. Outwardly he was quite calm and collected, but it was the calmness of insensibility. For the moment he was past feeling; it was as though some powerful narcotic had been injected into his veins. He had an idea that nothing could ruffle him any more.

He had fretted a good deal at first over the loss of his good name. It seemed a monstrous thing that any man should have the power to rob him of what he valued more than all else on earth. That Gervase Tregony had deliberately bribed Tim Polgarrow and his own gardener to say he was drunk he had not the least shadow of a doubt, but he had no proof; and to accuse a man of inciting to perjury--especially a man in the position of Gervase Tregony--was a very dangerous thing. So he had to keep his mouth shut, and bear in silence one of the cruellest wrongs ever inflicted upon a man.

He was not at all sorry that he had disfigured the not too handsome face of Gervase Tregony for a few days. Indeed, he was human enough to feel that he would not mind paying another five pounds to be allowed to repeat the process. It was not "the a.s.sault" part of the affair that troubled him, n.o.body thought much the worse of him for that side of the episode. Gervase was not so popular in St. Gaved that he had many sympathisers.

But to be accused of drunkenness, and to have the accusation sworn to, and set down as proved, was as the bitterness of death to him. If there was any vice in the world he loathed it was drunkenness. It seemed to him the parent of so many other vices as well as the Hades of human degradation. It is true he was not a pledged abstainer. He never cared to pledge himself to anything, but in practice he was above reproach.

He knew, of course, why the charge of drunkenness had been tacked on to that of a.s.sault, without the former the latter would not hold water. It would be too humiliating to Gervase to admit that a sober man had beaten him in fair fight; hence the fiction that he was pounced upon suddenly and unawares by a man who was mad drunk. But the chief reason lay deeper still. He was not so blind that he could not see that Gervase was jealous of him, and sometimes he half wondered, half hoped, that he had reason to be jealous. It made his nerves tingle when he thought, that in the big house and before the Tregony family, Madeline Grover might have unwittingly let fall some word that could be construed into a partiality for him. It was a thought that would not bear to be looked at or a.n.a.lysed he knew. Nevertheless, it would flash across his brain, and that pretty frequently.

Hence, from Gervase's point of view the charge of drunkenness was what the man in the street would call "good business." He often pictured Gervase gloating over his triumph. If ever Madeline thought affectionately of him she would do so no longer. She would try to forget that he ever crossed her path, and, perhaps be sorry to the end of her days that she had shown him so much favour.

This was the bitterest part of the whole experience. That Madeline should think ill of him--the one woman that all unwittingly he had learned to love--was more painful than all the rest put together. It was bad enough to be held up as an awful example in Church and Sunday-school and Temperance meeting, as he heard was the case. But all that he did not mind so much. He might live it down in time. But if Madeline was once within his reach, and this cruel slander drove her into the arms of Gervase Tregony, that would be a tragedy that could never be lived down, that would darken his life to the end of the chapter.