A Gamble with Life Part 60

"Your only hope of a fortune, Gervase, is by marrying one," and Sir Charles put Madeline's letter into his pocket and walked out of the room.

For the rest of the day Gervase loitered about alone. He was much more troubled than he let his father see. Madeline had accused him of treachery to Rufus Sterne, and had hinted in words too plain to be misunderstood that she had proof that he bribed Tim Polgarrow to commit perjury. If Madeline, therefore, had discovered this, how did he know that other people had not made the same discovery? He felt that he could not return to St. Gaved again until he knew. If Tim had let the secret out, his best course would be to keep out of sight until the storm had blown over, and people had forgotten the incident.

So it came about that Sir Charles and the others returned without him.

Gervase promised to follow in a week or two at the outside. But a run of luck at Monte Carlo kept him a slave at the Casino. This was followed by a run of bad luck during which he lost all he had won. Then he remained on, trying to recover his lost position, and in the end he had to cable to his father for a remittance to bring him home.

Gervase had not been at Trewinion many days before the truth about Madeline began to leak out. Sir Charles had been too chagrined to give the smallest hint as to her whereabouts, or even to mention her name if it could be avoided, and Beryl and Lady Tregony took their cue from him.

But Gervase, discovering that he was still in good odour among the people, and that the secret Madeline had discovered appeared to be known to no one else, concluded that nothing was to be gained by a policy of silence. He need not tell all the truth; in fact, he could put his own gloss on the facts as they stood, and so it began to be whispered about that Miss Grover had decided on visiting her friends in America before finally settling in England.

Rufus Sterne heard the story from Mrs. Tuke with apparent unconcern. He argued quite naturally that it was a matter of supreme indifference to him whether she went to America or remained in England. His life--by fair means or by foul--was drawing to its inevitable close. There was some sense of satisfaction in the thought that she was not Gervase Tregony's wife. She deserved a better fate than that. He hoped she had discovered his true character and that among her own people in her own country she would find all the happiness she deserved; and with these reflections he tried to put her out of his mind.

His thoughts in the main were intent upon the tragedy that was daily drawing nearer. His daily hope and prayer was that G.o.d would release him from the burden of life, and so save him from the guilt and shame of dying by his own hand.

Failing this, he had no doubt as to how the final act would be brought about. Much as he shrank from the disgrace of dying in the manner contemplated, he shrank more from the disgrace of living, should his courage fail him. To face his ruined friend, his broken pledge, his tarnished honour, would be death repeated every day, and every hour of the day.

He was not a little surprised to find, as the days and weeks pa.s.sed swiftly away, how without effort and without volition his mind fastened itself upon the dominant truths of Christianity. He gave up reading. He still absented himself from church and chapel. But bit by bit the rags of his materialistic philosophy dropped from him, while the simple truths of the gospel possessed him and obsessed him, until he felt that only here was life in any true sense to be found.

The philosophisings and hair-splittings of theologians did not concern him. The elaborate edifices built up by the creed-makers possessed for him no interest at all. But the warm sympathy of the Son of Man, the tender influence of the universal Spirit, the growing consciousness of a supreme Ruler, the clearing vision of a life beyond--these things seemed as parts of his being, the stuff out of which his life was woven.

He wondered now that his youthful revolt from the narrow creed of his grandfather should have carried him so far; wondered that he had not earlier seen that human creeds must of necessity be ever too narrow to represent the Divine idea; wondered that he had not seen the obvious truth that ecclesiasticism may bear but a faint resemblance to Christianity, and that "the Church," so called, may form but a very small portion of the Kingdom of G.o.d.

But it was all clear enough to him now. He had cast away what he fancied was only husk, not knowing that the kernel of truth was within. He had tried to wrap his naked spirit in something thinner than a shadow, had sought to choke the soul's deepest instinct in the quagmire of a G.o.dless philosophy, and had prated about happiness, while steeping his senses in the fumes of a deadly narcotic.

What lay beyond he did not know. But he had a fancy that the great universal Heart of Love would give him a chance under better conditions, and that at worst it would be better than the awful torture of the last few months. He was not afraid, and he was becoming again so terribly weary that the thought of rest was infinitely sweet. There was very little he had to give up. No home ties bound him to earth, no arms of wife or children hung about his neck. His ambitions had been nipped by the frosts of disappointment, and were now dead. His love for Madeline Grover--which had been the strongest and purest pa.s.sion of his life--was hopeless from the first.

It was only existence amid familiar surroundings that he had to part with--only existence! And yet how much that meant to him, even in the darkest hours, no words could tell. The pa.s.sion for life nothing could kill, and that seemed to him one of the strong arguments in proof of immortality.

One afternoon, in his little office, he fell down in a dead faint, and remained unconscious for several hours. The long summer day was fading into twilight when he opened his eyes, and saw the familiar face of Dr.

Pendarvis bending over him.

"Have I been ill?" he asked, looking round the room with wondering eyes.

"You've had a slight heat stroke, I think, but you needn't be alarmed."

"I'm not in the least alarmed," he said, with a pathetic smile; "but I hate giving Mrs. Tuke so much trouble."

"You've been overworking yourself rather. I've seen it for months past.

When you are a little recovered, I'll give you a complete overhauling,"

and he smiled cheerfully.

"Then you think I shall recover?"

"Of course you will recover. But, meanwhile, keep quite still, and don't worry."

Rufus hoped for a day or two that his illness would take a fatal turn.

He wanted so much to die quietly at home in bed; it would be such a perfect solution of the whole difficulty. But it was not to be.

In a few days he was up and about again. "You want toning up," the doctor said to him. "There is really nothing the matter with you except that you are run down. Take more exercise, get a sea bath two or three times a week, and be careful what you eat."

Rufus told Mrs. Tuke and Captain Tom Hendy what the doctor had prescribed, and proceeded at once to carry out his orders. But no one knew the thought that was in his mind. Some day he would not return from his short swim in the sea, and then he would be at rest. It would be very easy, and almost as natural as dying at home in bed.

The weather was brilliantly fine. The yellow corn was falling before the sickle in all directions, the sea danced and s.h.i.+mmered in the suns.h.i.+ne, the flowers drooped in the windless heat. To all appearances Rufus was recovering his health and spirits. He told Mrs. Tuke that he enjoyed his morning bath. His appet.i.te seemed better than it had been for weeks past, and once or twice she heard him humming a hymn tune after he had gone upstairs to bed.

"I'm glad I stood by him," Mrs. Tuke reflected, with a smile of self-satisfaction, "for I believe he is coming back to the fold again."

One evening Rufus sat up very late. He had gone through his papers again to see that everything was in order, and now he sat staring at the clock on the mantelpiece, and listening to its solemn and regular tick.

"To-morrow will be just as good as next week," he said to himself. "As it must come, better it should come quickly. I could have done it this morning easily enough, and I don't think it will be at all painful. So let it be then," he added, rising to his feet. "The next time I go into the sea I do not return," and he put the lights out, and climbed slowly and silently to his bedroom.

Before undressing he knelt down and prayed. He asked for strength and pardon, and a just and merciful judgment.

He felt like a child when he rose from his knees, and a few minutes after he laid his head on the pillow he was fast asleep.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

WAS IT PROVIDENCE?

When Rufus awoke next morning, the wind was blowing half a gale, and the rain was coming down in torrents.

"This puts an end to my morning bath," he said to himself, with a faint sigh. "I can have no excuse for going into the sea on a day like this,"

and he sighed again.

He was not quite sure that he welcomed the respite.

"Since it must be," he kept saying to himself, "the sooner the better."

Mrs. Tuke greeted him with a sorrowful face. "What a pity the weather's broke before all the harvest is got in," she said.

"It does seem a pity," he answered, quietly.

"The ways of Providence is past finding out," she replied; "though no doubt it's for some good end."

"Do you really think that Providence regulates the weather, Mrs. Tuke?"

he questioned, with a smile.

"Why, of course I do," she answered, in a tone of reproach. "Providence over-rules everything, and not a sparrow falls to the ground without the notice of His eye," and she walked out of the room without waiting for him to answer.

Mrs. Tuke's theology was a puzzle to him still, but all the time he sat at breakfast the word "Providence" kept echoing through the chambers of his brain. What was Providence? How far did G.o.d interfere with the operation of His own laws? Did He sometimes reach out a controlling hand? Did He cause events to work together for a special end?

That day at the mine seemed one of the longest he had known. The wind moaned through every crevice of door and window, the rain came down unceasingly.

Evening came, but there was no chance of a swim in the sea. He would have to wait until the morrow or the day following. Whatever he did, he would have to avoid awaking suspicion.

Several times during the night he awoke and listened. The wind was still swis.h.i.+ng through the trees, and the patter of rain could be distinctly heard against the window.