What Will He Do with It? Part 84

"Oho! you don't fear me, eh? This is not done from fear, mind--all out of pure love and compa.s.sion, my kind father-in-law. You will write me a cheque for five thousand pounds--come, I am moderate--your life is worth a precious deal more than that. Hand me the cheque--I will trust to your honour to give me no trouble in cas.h.i.+ng it, and bid you good-night-my father-in-law."

As Losely ceased with a mocking laugh, Darrell sprang up quickly, threw open the small cas.e.m.e.nt which was within his reach, and flung from it the paper on which he had been writing, and which he wrapt round the heavy armorial seal that lay on the table.

Losely bounded towards him. "What means that? What have you done?"

"Saved your life and mine, Jasper Losely," said Darrell, solemnly, and catching the arm that was raised against him. "We are now upon equal terms."

"I understand," growled the tiger, as the slaver gathered to his lips--"you think by that paper to summon some one to your aid."

"Not so--that paper is useless while I live. Look forth--the moonlight is on the roofs below--can you see where that paper has fallen? On the ledge of a parapet that your foot could not reach. It faces the window of a room in which one of my household sleeps; it will meet his eye in the morning when the shutters are unbarred; and on that paper are writ these words: 'If I am this night murdered, the murderer is Jasper Losely,' and the paper is signed by my name. Back, sir--would you doom yourself to the gibbet?"

Darrell released the dread arm he had arrested, and Losely stared at him, amazed, bewildered.

Darrell resumed: "And now I tell you plainly that I can accede to no terms put to me thus. I can sign my hand to no order that you may dictate, because that would be to sign myself a coward--and my name is Darrell!"

"Down on your knees, proud man--sign you shall, and on your knees! I care not now for gold--I care not now a rush for my life. I came here to humble the man who from first to last has so scornfully humbled me.--And I will, I will! On your knees--on your knees!"

The robber flung himself forward; but Darrell, whose eye had never quitted the foe, was prepared for and eluded the rush. Losely, missing his object, lost his balance, struck against the edge of the table which partially interposed between himself and his prey, and was only saved from falling by the close neighbourhood of the wall, on which he came with a shock that for the moment well-nigh stunned him. Meanwhile Darrell had gained the hearth, and s.n.a.t.c.hed from it a large log half-burning. Jasper, recovering himself, dashed the long matted hair from his eyes, and, seeing undismayed the formidable weapon with which he was menaced, cowered for a second and deadlier spring.

"Stay, stay, stay, parricide and madman!" cried Darrell, his eye flas.h.i.+ng brighter than the brand. "It is not my life I plead for--it is yours. Remember, if I fall by your hand, no hope and no refuge are left to you! In the name of my dead child, and under the eye of avenging Heaven, I strike down the fury that blinds you, and I scare back your soul from the abyss!"

So ineffably grand were the man's look and gesture--so full of sonorous terror the swell of his matchless all-conquering voice, that Losely, in his midmost rage, stood awed and spellbound. His breast heaved, his eye fell, his frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed to cleave to the parched roof of his mouth. Whether the effect so suddenly produced might have continued, or whether the startled miscreant might not have lashed himself into renewed wrath and inexpiable crime, pa.s.ses out of conjecture. At that instant simultaneously were heard hurried footsteps in the corridor without, violent blows on the door, and voices exclaiming, "Open, open!--Darrell, Darrell!"--while the bell at the portals of the old house rang fast and shrill.

"Ho--is it so?" growled Losely, recovering himself at those unwelcome sounds. "But do not think that I will be caught thus, like a rat in a trap. No--I will--"

"Hist!" interrupted Darrell, dropping the brand, and advancing quickly on the ruffian--"Hist!--let no one know that my daughter's husband came here with a felon's purpose. Sit down--down I say; it is for my house's honour that you should be safe." And suddenly placing both hands on Losely's broad shoulder, he forced him into a seat. During these few hurried words, the strokes at the door and the shouts without had been continued, and the door shook on its yielding hinges.

"The key--the key!" whispered Darrell.

But the bravo was stupefied by the suddenness with which his rage had been cowed, his design baffled, his position changed from the man dictating laws and threatening life, to the man protected by his intended victim. And he was so slow in even comprehending the meaning of Darrell's order, that Darrell had scarcely s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys less from his hand than from the pouch to which he at last mechanically pointed, when the door was burst open, and Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and the Colonel's servant were in the room. Not one of them, at the first glance, perceived the inmates of the chamber, who were at the right of their entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shadow. But out came Darrell's calm voice:

"Alban! Lionel!--welcome always; but what brings you hither at such an hour, with such clamour? Armed too!"

The three men stood petrified. There sate, peaceably enough, a large dark form, its hands on its knees, its head bent down, so that the features were not, distinguishable; and over the chair in which this bending figure was thus confusedly gathered up leant Guy Darrell, with quiet ease--no trace of fear nor of past danger in his face, which, though very pale, was serene, with a slight smile on the firm lips.

"Well," muttered Alban Morley, slowly lowering his pistol--"well, I am surprised!--yes, for the first time in twenty years, I and surprised!"

"Surprised perhaps to find me at this hour still up, and with a person upon business--the door locked. However, mutual explanations later. Of course you stay here to night. My business with this--this visitor, is now over. Lionel, open that door--here is the key.--Sir"--(he touched Losely by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Rise and speak not,")--(aloud) "Sir, I need not detain you longer. Allow me to show you the way out of this rambling old house."

Jasper rose like one half asleep, and, still bending his form and hiding his face, followed Darrell down the private stair, through the study, the library, into the hall, the Colonel's servant lighting the way; and Lionel and Morley, still too amazed for words, bringing up the rear. The servant drew the heavy bolts from the front door; and now the household had caught alarm. Mills first appeared with the blunderbuss, then the footman, then Fairthorn.

"Stand back, there!" cried Darrell, and he opened the door himself to Losely. "Sir," said he then, as they stood in the moonlight, "mark that I told you truly--you were in my power; and if the events of this night can lead you to acknowledge a watchful Providence, and recall with a shudder the crime from which you have been saved, why, then, I too, out of grat.i.tude to Heaven, may think of means by which to free others from the peril of your despair."

Losely made no answer, but slunk off with a fast, furtive stride, hastening out of the moonlit sward into the gloom of the leafless trees.

CHAPTER II.

IF THE LION EVER WEAR THE FOX'S HIDE, STILL HE WEARS IT AS THE LION.

When Darrell was alone with Lionel and Alban Morley, the calm with which he had before startled them vanished. He poured out his thanks with deep emotion. "Forgive me; not in the presence of a servant could I say, 'You have saved me from an unnatural strife, and my daughter's husband from a murderer's end.' But by what wondrous mercy did you learn my danger?

Were you sent to my aid?"

Alban briefly explained. "You may judge," he said in conclusion, "how great was our anxiety, when, following the instructions of our guide, while our driver rang his alarum at the front portals, we made our entrance into yon ribs of stone, found the doors already opened, and feared we might be too late. But, meanwhile, the poor woman waits without in the carriage that brought us from the station. I must go and relieve her mind."

"And bring her hither," cried Darrell, "to receive my grat.i.tude. Stay, Alban; while you leave me with her, you will speak aside to Mills; tell him that you heard there was an attempt to be made on the house, and came to frustrate it, but that your fears were exaggerated; the man was more a half-insane mendicant than a robber. Be sure, at least, that his ident.i.ty with Losely be not surmised, and bid Mills treat the affair lightly. Public men are exposed, you know, to a.s.saults from crackbrained enthusiasts; or stay--I once was a lawyer, and" (continued Darrell, whose irony had become so integral an attribute of his mind as to be proof against all trial) "there are men so out of their wits as to fancy a lawyer has ruined them! Lionel, tell poor d.i.c.k Fairthorn to come to me." When the musician entered, Darrell whispered to him: "Go back to your room--open your cas.e.m.e.nt--step out on to the parapet--you will see something white; it is a sc.r.a.p of paper wrapped round my old armorial seal. Bring it to me just as it is, d.i.c.k. That poor young Lionel, we must keep him here a day or two; mind, no p.r.i.c.kles for him, d.i.c.k."

CHAPTER III.

ARABELLA CRANE VERSUS GUY DARRELL; OR, WOMAN VERSUS LAWYER. IN THE COURTS, LAWYER WOULD WIN; BUT IN A PRIVATE PARLOUR, FOOT TO FOOT, AND TONGUE TO TONGUE, LAWYER HAS NOT A CHANCE.

Arabella Crane entered the room: Darrell hesitated--the remembrances attached to her were so painful and repugnant. But did he not now owe to her perhaps his very life? He pa.s.sed his hand rapidly over his brow, as if to sweep away all earlier recollections, and, advancing quickly, extended that hand to her. The stern woman shook her head, and rejected the proffered greeting.

"You owe me no thanks," she said, in her harsh, ungracious accents; "I sought to save not you, but him."

"How!" said Darrell, startled; "you feel no resentment against the man who injured and betrayed you?"

"What my feelings may be towards him are not for you to conjecture; man could not conjecture them; I am woman. What they once were I might blush for; what they are now, I could own without shame. But you, Mr.

Darrell,--you, in the hour of my uttermost anguish, when all my future was laid desolate, and the world lay crushed at my feet--you--man, chivalrous man!--you had for me no human compa.s.sion--you thrust me in scorn from your doors--you saw in my woe nothing but my error--you sent me forth, stripped of reputation, branded by your contempt, to famine or to suicide. And you wonder that I feel less resentment against him who wronged me than against you, who, knowing me wronged, only disdained my grief. The answer is plain--the scorn of the man she only reverenced leaves to a woman no memory to mitigate its bitterness and gall. The wrongs inflicted by the man she loved may leave, what they have left to me, an undying sense of a past existence--radiant, joyous, hopeful; of a time when the earth seemed covered with blossoms, just ready to burst into bloom; when the skies through their haze took the rose-hues as the sun seemed about to rise. The memory that I once was happy, at least then, I owe to him who injured and betrayed me. To you, when happiness was lost to me forever, what do I owe? Tell me."

Struck by her words, more by her impressive manner, though not recognising the plea by which the defendant thus raised herself into the accuser, Darrell answered gently "Pardon me; this is no moment to revive recollections of anger on my part; but reflect, I entreat you, and you will feel that I was not too harsh. In the same position any other man would not have been less severe."

"Any other man!" she exclaimed; "ay, possibly! but would the scorn of any other man so have crushed self-esteem? The injuries of the wicked do not sour us against the good; but the scoff of the good leaves us malignant against virtue itself. Any other man! Tut! Genius is bound to be indulgent. It should know human errors so well--has, with its large luminous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to be human, that, where others may scorn, genius should only pity." She paused a moment, and then slowly resumed. "And pity was my due. Had you, or had any one lofty as yourself in reputed honour, but said to me, 'Thou hast sinned, thou must suffer; but sin itself needs compa.s.sion, and compa.s.sion forbids thee to despair,' why, then, I might have been gentler to the things of earth, and less steeled against the influences of Heaven than I have been. That is all no matter now. Mr. Darrell, I would not part from you with angry and bitter sentiments. Colonel Morley tells me that you have not only let the man, whom we need not name, go free, but that you have guarded the secret of his designs. For this I thank you. I thank you, because what is left of that blasted and deformed existence I have taken into mine. And I would save that man from his own devices as I would save my soul from its own temptations. Are you large-hearted enough to comprehend me? Look in my face--you have seen his; all earthly love is erased and blotted out of both."

Guy Darrell bowed his head in respect that partook of awe.

"You, too," said the grim woman, after a pause, and approaching him nearer--"you, too, have loved, I am told, and you, too, were forsaken."

He recoiled and--shuddered.

"What is left to your heart of its ancient folly? I should like to know!

I am curious to learn if there be a man who can feel as woman! Have you only resentment? have you only disdain? have you only vengeance? have you pity? or have you the jealous absorbing desire, surviving the affection from which it sprang, that still the life wrenched from you shall owe, despite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your own?"

Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid further questions; and it needed all his sense of the service this woman had just rendered him to repress his haughty displeasure at so close an approach to his torturing secrets.

Arabella's dark bright eyes rested on his knitted brow, for a moment, wistfully, musingly. Then she said: "I see! man's inflexible pride--no pardon there! But own, at least, that you have suffered."

"Suffered!" groaned Darrell involuntarily, and pressing his hand to his heart.

"You have!--and you own it! Fellow-sufferer, I have no more anger against you. Neither should pity, but let each respect the other. A few words more,--this child!"

"Ay--ay--this child! you will be truthful. You will not seek to deceive me--you know that she--she--claimed by that a.s.sa.s.sin, reared by his convict father--she is no daughter of my line!"