CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RETURN OF THE SQUIRE

Rufus was conscious as he descended the stairs that his feelings towards Felix Muller had undergone considerable change. Felix was not the close and attached friend that he had imagined him to be. Of late he had revealed himself in a new light. It was no doubt true that he had taken considerable risks on his account, but he began to fear that these risks had not been taken on the score of friendship merely. It seemed to Rufus that the passion for speculation and the desire for gain had been the chief factors in the case.

"I think he might have helped me," Rufus said to himself, regretfully. "If he had really cared for my friendship he would have set my life before most things. I don't think my death will trouble him in the least."

At the street door he paused for a few moments, and contemplated the busy street stretching right and left. It was market-day, and the youth of the entire country side had poured itself into the town. Up and down they sauntered--lads and maidens--aimless, vacant, but entirely happy. Hands in pockets, arms round waists, straws between teeth, caps tilted to the back of heads. The world for them was the best of all possible places, and Fore Street, Redbourne, on a market-day the most wonderful place in the world.

Suddenly the crowd divided that a pair of horses drawing an open carriage might pass up the street. The carriage was empty. The coachman and footman sat stiff and erect in blue livery, and surveyed the scene with a look of pitying condescension on their faces.

Rufus watched the carriage pass with more than ordinary interest. It was Sir Charles Tregony's carriage and was evidently on its way to the station. Very likely the family were returning to-day, though to put five people into an ordinary landau would be a tight squeeze.

Rufus found his heart beating a little more rapidly than usual; the thought of seeing Madeline Grover again quickened his pulse unconsciously. In a moment the busy street faded, the noise died down into silence, and he was back in a quiet country lane, watching a carriage pass, with a strange lady sitting by the side of the driver. He would never forget that first vision of Madeline's face. He had never seen a face before that had so caught his fancy. He had never seen anything comparable to it since.

That was one of the red-letter days of his life. He fancied then that all the world lay at his feet. No dream of failure dimmed the sunshine for a moment. He was on the heights of Pisgah, with all the fair land of promise stretched out before him. Now he was in the valley of the shadow, having relinquished his last hope. It was a curious coincidence that Madeline should return that day of all days. Return, possibly, as the wife of Gervase Tregony. To see her sitting by his side would be the last drop in the cup of humiliation, the deepest note in the solemn dirge of his despair.

He looked at his watch. The down express from London was due in fifteen minutes, and it was generally well up to time.

"I think I will loiter round in town until they have gone," he said to himself. "I need not suffer the humiliation of seeing her the happy bride of that----fellow," and he plunged at once into the throng that jostled each other in the street.

But the desire to have another look at Madeline's face proved too strong for him.

"It cannot do me any harm," he said to himself, moodily. "Nothing can do me any harm now. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have done their worst."

Ten minutes later he was on the station platform waiting for the down express. Very few people were about. He lighted a cigarette, and strolled with apparent unconcern up and down the platform. He gave a little start when the signal dropped just in front of him. A couple of porters hurried across the line from the other platform, a newspaper boy appeared from somewhere round a corner, the people who had been walking up and down came to a sudden stop. The long train glided slowly round a curve, and came to a standstill.

Rufus drew to the off side of the platform, and watched the scene. Fifty heads were thrust out of nearly as many windows, but only half a dozen people alighted. Sir Charles and party had a compartment to themselves near the middle of the train. The Baronet alighted first--slowly and stiffly as though cramped with the long journey. Beryl jumped out after him with light springy step, then came Lady Tregony, ponderous, but jaunty still.

Rufus found his heart beating uncomfortably fast as he waited for Madeline to appear. The porter entered the compartment, and began handing out the wraps and umbrellas, then the footman hurried away to the luggage van. Rufus heaved a long sigh, partly of disappointment, partly of relief. Madeline had not returned with the others, neither had the Captain. That meant--what?

He could think of only one possible explanation. They were man and wife, and were travelling on their own account. Perhaps they had been married recently, and were now on their honeymoon. That seemed the most probable supposition. It was hardly likely they would be married on the Continent. They would wait till they got back to London, and after the ceremony the others would return, of course, to St. Gaved, and the Captain and his bride would wander where they listed.

He turned away from the station, and made his way slowly over the hill in the direction of St. Gaved. The Tregony carriage passed him before he had got very far, but no one noticed him. He kept his head bent low, and did not raise his eyes till the carriage had got a considerable distance.

It was dark long before he reached St. Gaved, and he was so tired that it was a pain to lift his feet from the ground. It was the first time he fully realised how weak he was. He did not feel ill, though people were constantly telling him how ill he looked; but he was conscious that the spring had gone out of him, that the fires of life were burning low.

When he went to bed that night there was an unspoken prayer in his heart that some illness would overtake him from which he would die. That would be a splendid solution of the whole difficulty. A severe illness would quench the passion for life, would dull all the sensibilities, would take the sting out of all earth's disappointments, and ring down the curtain so gently that he would not know when all the lights were turned out.

Perhaps, after all, he would be saved the sin and the shame of taking his own life, and with this thought in his mind he fell asleep.

The next day, however, brought back all the old pain in its acutest form. Once or twice he felt strongly tempted to let Felix Muller bear the brunt of his failure, and trust to the future and the chapter of accidents to enable him to discharge all his liabilities.

Muller was not considering him in any way. Indeed, he had shown himself exceedingly callous. The one thing that concerned him was getting his money back with compound interest. Well, he had got three hundred pounds of it back already. Suppose he kept him waiting for the rest?

But after a moment's reflection he would shake his head. "I should never be able to pay him back," he would say to himself. "Seven hundred pounds to a working man is an impossible sum. I should not be able to pay him interest at four per cent out of my earnings. Besides, what would he think? and it might mean bankruptcy and disgrace to him."

But the thought of what he would think was the principal crux. How contemptuous he would be. With what scorn he would regard him. How bitter and venomous would be his taunts, with what biting sarcasm he would refer to his courage and chivalry, with what lofty disdain he would speak of his honour and his regard for the truth.

Rufus would feel himself growing hot all over with shame. Shame that he let such a temptation have foothold for a single moment. Had he not pledged his word of honour, and was not that enough? Did it not outweigh every other consideration? If he departed from his word of honour he would never be able to hold up his head again, however long he might live, and were a few shadowed years worth purchasing at so great a price?

So he debated the question now from one side and now from another, and still the days passed on, and he saw no escape from the doom he had prepared for himself.

Sometimes he woke in the night with a start, and with the cry upon his lips, "How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?" and for awhile the thought of his responsibility to a supreme Being would outweigh every other consideration. His pledged word, the thin veneer of honour which took no account of honesty, the anger and contempt of Muller, the irrevocable loss of reputation--would all seem as of no account in comparison with the anger of an offended God.

That he should grow pale, and thin, and hollow-eyed was inevitable. The constant nervous strain was exhausting the springs of life. The unresting activity of his brain was consuming his physical energies as with a fire. He was as free from disease as any child in St. Gaved, but he was unwittingly making himself an easy prey to any malady that might be prowling about.

Meanwhile St. Gaved was considerably exercised in its mind over the non-appearance of the Captain--as people still called him--and Miss Grover. Mrs. Tuke, who claimed to be on terms of great intimacy with Madeline, and who was prepared to champion her under any and every circumstance, was almost indignant that no reliable information could be extracted from any source.

The servants from the Hall came into the village as usual, and certain young men from St. Gaved, it was said, found their way occasionally into the Hall kitchen--though that was a point on which authentic information was difficult to obtain. But neither from the servants, nor from the young men in question, nor from the police, could anything be gathered as to the doings or the whereabouts of Gervase Tregony and Madeline Grover.

Gossip, of course, ran riot, and rumour changed its headlines every day, but the true state of affairs remained as much a mystery as ever. Rufus found himself as much interested in the floating gossip as Mrs. Tuke herself, and as eager to listen to the latest canard.

"It is said they ain't married at all," Mrs. Tuke remarked one evening, as she laid his supper on the table.

"But nobody knows," Rufus said, wearily, looking up from his book.

"Well, not for certain. But if they was married, don't you think as how it would have leaked out somehow?"

"They may have been married quietly without a dozen people knowing."

"But why should they be married on the sly? Sir Charles seemed mighty proud that the Captain was going to marry her before he turned up."

"Yes, I believe that is so."

"And the young man was that gone on her, that if she'd consented to marry him, he'd never have been able to keep it to himself."

"It might be her wish, and I think he would do almost anything to oblige her."

"No, he couldn't have done it, however much he'd tried. He'd just burst, that he would."

"Then what is your theory, Mrs. Tuke?"

"Well, I don't know that I has any theory. You see, if they ain't married, where are they?"

"Exactly," Rufus said, with a smile; "that is a very pertinent question."

"And if they ain't married, I say they can't be together."

"That sounds probable, certainly."

"And if they ain't together, where's he?"

"Exactly; and where's she?"

"That's the very question I was going to ax myself, but you took the words out of my mouth as it were."

"I'm sorry I forestalled you, Mrs. Tuke, but----"

"Oh, you needn't apologise, Mr. Sterne, not a bit. This is a free country, and anybody is allowed to ax as many questions as he likes. But to come back to the point we was talking about, the question is, where's she, and where's the both of 'em?"

"Sir Charles is still silent on the subject, I presume?"

"As silent as a boiled periwinkle by all accounts. The servants say they haven't heard him mention the Captain's name since he came back."

"Perhaps they have quarrelled."

"Well, my belief is that if the Captain failed to carry off the girl as his bride, Sir Charles would be terrible angry."

"Then you have a theory after all, Mrs. Tuke?"

"Well, no, I don't know that I has. I only puts two and two together, as it were."

"But why should Sir Charles be so anxious that his son should marry this particular young lady? There would seem to be any number of eligible spinsters in the country."

"But millionairesses ain't to be picked up every day, and I reckon the Captain ain't anything of his own to live upon, except what his father allows him; and Sir Charles, they say, is as poor as a church mouse; but that's all nonsense. I should like to have a quarter of what he's got to live on."

"But you haven't his expenses, Mrs. Tuke."

"And he needn't have 'em unless he liked. Think of their wintering abroad; it must have cost 'em a heap of money."

"No doubt. But what about the 'millionairess'?"

"Oh, well, it's this way. Squire Vivian's butler told long Joseph--that's Sir Charles's butler, you know--and he told the housekeeper, and she told Sarah Jelks--who is housemaid at the Hall--and she told Siah Small--who pretends to be courting her--and he told Dick Beswarick, and he told his wife Susan, and she told me, that he heard the family talking about it one day at dinner----."

"Who heard the family----?"

"Squire Vivian's butler, of course."

"Yes, go on."

"Well, he heard them saying that it would be the best day's work the Captain ever did if he got married, as the girl had no end of dollars."

"How did they know?"

"Very likely Sir Charles told them. Those big folks may be as close as oysters to the poor, but they talk to each other."

"Well, Mrs. Tuke, and what is the inference you draw from all this?"

"I don't draw no inference at all. I don't pretend to be anything but a plain woman, and I only put two and two together, though Miss Grover did say my curtains was a treat."

"She took rather a fancy to you, didn't she?"

"It's not for me to say that exactly, though it's quite true she never thought any of the other women up to much, and she came here frequent, as you know."

"Yes, I remember. But when you have put two and two together, what then?"

"Well, between ourselves, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if, after living in the same house with the Captain for a month or two, she found out he weren't her sort and told him so."

"You think that is likely?"

"Well, I can tell you, Mr. Sterne, he wouldn't be my sort, and Miss Grover ain't the kind of young woman to be hustled into anything against her will."

"Well, and what next?"

"Well, suppose she told him definite, that the more she'd seen of him the less she liked him, and that she wasn't for taking him on at any price, what would happen then?"

"Well, Mrs. Tuke, what do you suppose would happen?"

"It seems to me, Mr. Sterne," Mrs. Tuke said, impressively, "that there'd be a kettle o' fish, as it were; a kind of general upset, don't you think so?"

"There might be."

"She couldn't come back to Trewinion Hall again, could she?"

"Why not? I understood from her that Sir Charles was her guardian, or trustee, or something of that kind."

"But if they was all bent on her marrying the Captain and she wouldn't?"

"The situation would be a little strained, no doubt; but she would not shun the house because she was in no humour to marry the son."

"Well, my belief is she's cut the lot of them, as it were; that the Captain's sick, and Sir Charles sulky, and the others too cross to talk about it."

"Meanwhile, what has become of Miss Grover?"

Mrs. Tuke straightened herself, and looked perplexed. "That is what is atroubling me," she said, sympathetically. "Between you and me I got terrible fond of her. She weren't none of the starchy sort, and the way she would just sit down and talk to me was a treat. I might be her mother, she was that affable; and now to think she may be wandering round this lone world without a friend, as it were, fairly worries me at times."

"I don't think you need worry, Mrs. Tuke. She is well able to take care of herself. But I am not convinced yet that she and the Captain are not married."

"Well, I be," and Mrs. Tuke sidled out of the room.