The Game and the Candle Part 3

"I will," the big man replied briefly. "And the others don't know anything."

"No; there is only you. You it would not help if the truth were made public; it would only excite more attention. You yourself do not want your former record connected with your stay here. If you escape, you will be free and comparatively rich; leave me my secret, Desmond; I shall have nothing else."

"You needn't worry about me," Desmond rea.s.sured, his eyes on the ribbon of path that was visible. "It might be better, I'm thinking, to do the worrying about how you'll come out of this."

"_Fiat justicia_," Allard returned, with a cool endurance quite free from bitterness. "Or, more intelligibly, I must pay for my cakes and ale. Only carry your part through, and do not talk."

"You needn't worry. There's a man around that big boulder down there!

Will I have to shoot bird seed at his legs, I wonder?"

"Not if you can avoid!"

"Oh, I'm not playing at it; rest easy. And don't fear they'll be believing it's you. When they find me gone and you not able to stand, they'll guess who was shooting. I'll put all the guns beyond your reaching them, to help, before I go to-night."

"No!"

The swift monosyllable fell with an energy that brought Desmond's glance at once to the speaker.

"I shall want my revolver," Allard added more quietly. "I might need it."

"Just so," a.s.sented the other, regarding him oddly, and presently returned to his guard of the door.

There was a long silence. Gradually the fluffily piled clouds in the west became tinged with ruddy gold, clouds which bore a fanciful resemblance to Elysian mountain peaks, as if heaped so in sport by some imitative baby t.i.tan who had patterned them from the hills below. Sunset was at hand, and from its brightness Allard wearily averted his face.

Suffering, mental and physical, keyed his nerves to exquisite sensitiveness; a pa.s.sionate desire for darkness and silence possessed him.

Suddenly the roaring crash of the huge shotgun set the cottage vibrating, and echoed heavily back and forth among the cliffs.

"It's only to scare them," explained Desmond, as his companion started up. "But I doubt they will wait past dusk. And we needed just one week more!"

"You mean they will rush the place by daylight? You will go now?"

"I need the dusk more than they do. Still, I won't wait long. You--shall I get you water?--you moved too quick!"

"It is nothing," Allard panted. But he drank gratefully from the tin dipper, nevertheless, and in returning it searched with gentler eyes the hard, intelligent countenance of the giver. "It is nothing I can not face, all this, if I can be certain you will keep silence."

"I will," he said, and walked back to the door in cautious vigilance.

Allard lay still. Evening: Theodora would be on the veranda in her pretty dinner gown, perhaps with a flower tucked over her little ear in the Spanish fas.h.i.+on she mimicked, if this were home. Aunt Rose would be reading in her favorite chair, Robert lounging near them and pouring out his usual flood of sparkling gaiety and nonsense. Allard smiled tenderly and with a touch of defiance; after all, he had won the battle fought for them, had carried out the task set, before to-day's ruin overtook him. Moreover, he had his own way of escape, resolved upon since the first. He almost could be content.

"It's growing dark," broke in Desmond's voice after a time. "I'm thinking they'll be making that rush mighty soon. I'd give something to take you along, instead of having to climb like a cat up the bluff."

Allard roused himself.

"Not possible! You should have gone with the rest instead of being here now." He held out his hot hand for the other's clasp. "Good-by, Desmond.

Without you this thing would never have worked at all."

"It's not so. Many a time this game has been tried and has fallen through half-way; and it's not thousands are made at it. You did it, with the gentleman's brain and knowledge and wit. Not that it matters now."

"Not very much. You are forgetting my revolver."

"No, I am not forgetting. You will not need it." He turned away to add the last one to the pile of weapons in the opposite corner.

Allard rose on his arm, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng wide and keen.

"You have no idea what I need, Desmond. Give me that revolver."

"You would shoot no one, and it would be of no use."

"Desmond, we have been friends; give me that."

"I can't," he answered sullenly.

"Why not?"

"Because I know for what you want it, sir."

Allard flung back his head and confronted the defiant face opposite with the fevered anger of his own.

"And if so, is it your affair? Have you, you who have led your life, grown sentimental? You, who know from where I come and to where I am going,--you will interfere? You are wasting our time; give me my revolver, and go."

But the other made no move, although sending an anxious glance through the doorway.

"One gets out of prison," he said obstinately, "as I've tried myself.

But that that you mean--there's no coming back. You are over young for that, sir."

"You have been paid for helping me," Allard retorted, his voice savage with pain, "not for teaching me philosophy. Go take your liberty, if you can, and leave me mine. There is one door out for me, and one key. I trusted you; I might have kept the thing with me if I had imagined this."

Desmond flushed, but turned coolly.

"I'll go, it's time. If I was paid for helping, I gave the help. I never was paid for this you are asking."

"Desmond, Desmond, you leave me so!"

He turned on the threshold, a square, obstinate figure against the violet twilight.

"I'd never do it," he said quite gently, "if I didn't know you'd thank me some day."

"Desmond--"

"Good-by, sir."

"Desmond--"

The doorway was empty; the evening serenata of a robin filled the hush.

Allard's head sank on his arm in the darkest moment of the last somber months.

But presently he looked up again. Still dressed as when the accident had happened a few hours before, he possessed a tiny box of cartridges, and only the width of the room separated him from his desire. He impulsively tossed aside the blanket and slipped to the floor.

The fall drew a gasp of pain. All before faded to insignificance beside the anguish of movement. It was not the ankle only; the injury had gone farther than that. Colorless, catching his breath with difficulty, Allard dragged himself inch by inch toward the goal.