Chapter 9

Then, as the matron moved away, he walked back into the room, closing the door behind him. All the tenderness with which he had comforted the wailing baby had vanished from his face.

"Mr. Neville," he said shortly, "my wife will return in the car with me. I will relieve you of your attendance upon her."

Archie turned crimson, but he managed to control himself--more for the sake of the girl who stood in total silence by his side than from any idea of expediency.

"Certainly," he said, "if Mrs. Wingarde also prefers that arrangement."

Nina glanced at him. He saw that her lip was quivering painfully. She did not attempt to speak.

Archie turned to go. But almost instantly Wingarde's voice arrested him.

"I can give you a seat in the car if you wish," he said. He spoke with less sternness, but his face had not altered.

Archie stopped. Again for Nina's sake he choked back his wrath and accepted the churlishly proffered amendment.

Wingarde drank his tea, strolling about the room. He did not again address his wife directly.

As for Nina, though she answered Archie when he spoke to her, it was with very obvious effort. She glanced from time to time at her husband as if in some uncertainty. Finally, when they took leave of the matron and went down to the car she seemed to hail the move with relief.

Throughout the drive westwards scarcely a word was spoken. At the end of the journey Archie turned deliberately and addressed Wingarde. His face was white and dogged.

"I should like a word with you in private," he said.

Wingarde looked at him for a moment as if he meant to refuse. Then abruptly he gave way.

"I am at your service," he said formally.

And Archie marched into the house in Nina's wake.

In the hall Wingarde touched his shoulder.

"Come into the smoking-room!" he said quietly.

X

TAKEN TO TASK

"I want to know what you mean," said Archie.

He stood up very straight, with the summer sunlight full in his face, and confronted Nina's husband without a hint of dismay in his bearing.

Wingarde looked at him with a very faint smile on his grim lips.

"You wish to take me to task?" he asked.

"I do," said Archie decidedly.

"For what in particular? The innocent deception practised upon an equally innocent public? Or for something more serious than that?"

There was an unmistakable ring of sternness behind Wingarde's deliberately scoffing tone.

Archie answered him instantly, with the quickness of a man who fights for his honour.

"For something more serious," he said. "It's nothing to me what fool trick you may choose to play for your own amusement. But I am not going to swallow an insult from you or any man. I want an explanation for that."

Wingarde stood with his back to the light and looked at him.

"In what way have I insulted you?" he said.

"You implied that I was not a suitable escort for your wife," Archie said, forcing himself to speak without vehemence.

Wingarde raised his eyebrows.

"I apologize if I was too emphatic," he said, after a moment. "But, considering the circumstances, I am forced to tell you that I do not consider you a suitable escort for my wife."

"What circumstances?" said Archie. He clenched his hands abruptly, and Wingarde saw it.

"Please understand," he said curtly, "that I will listen to you only so long as you keep your temper! I believe that you know what I mean--what circumstances I refer to. If you wish me to put them into plain language I will do so. But I don't think you will like it."

Archie pounced upon the words.

"You would probably put me to the trouble of calling you a liar if you did," he said, in a shaking voice. "I have no more intention than you have of mincing matters. As to listening to me, you shall do that in any case. I am going to tell you the truth, and I mean that you shall hear it."

He strode to the door as he spoke, and locked it, pocketing the key.

Wingarde did not stir to prevent him. He waited with a sneer on his lips while Archie returned and took up his stand facing him.

"You seem very sure of yourself," he said in a quiet tone.

"I am," Archie said doggedly. "Absolutely sure. You think I am in love with your wife, don't you?"

Wingarde frowned heavily.

"Are you going to throw dust in my eyes?" he asked contemptuously.

Archie locked his hands behind him.

"I am going to tell you the truth," he said again, and, though his voice still shook perceptibly there was dignity in his bearing. "Three years ago I was in love with her."

"Calf love?" suggested Wingarde carelessly.

"You may call it what you like," Archie rejoined. "That is to say, anything honourable. I was hard hit three years ago, and it lasted off and on till her marriage to you. But she never cared for me in the same way. That I know now. I proposed to her twice, and she refused me."

"You weren't made of money, you see," sneered Wingarde.

Archie's fingers gripped each other. He had never before longed so fiercely to hurl a blow in a man's face.

"If I had been," he said, "I am not sure that I should have made the running with you in the field. That brings me to what I have to say to you. I wondered for a long time how she brought herself to marry you. When you came back from your honeymoon I began to understand. She married you for your money; but if you had chosen, she would have married you for love."

He blurted out the words hastily, as though he could not trust himself to pause lest he should not say them.

Wingarde stood up suddenly to his full height. For once he was taken totally by surprise and showed it. He did not speak, however, and Archie blundered on:

"I am not your friend. I don't say this in any way for your sake. But--I am her's--- her friend, mind you. I don't say I haven't ever flirted with her. I have. But I have never said to her a single word that I should be ashamed to repeat to you--not one word. You've got to believe that whether you want to or not."

He paused momentarily. The frown had died away from Wingarde's face, but his eyes were stern. He waited silently for more. Archie proceeded with more steadiness, more self-assurance, less self-restraint.

"You've treated her abominably," he said, going straight to the point. "I don't care what you think of me for saying so. It's the truth. You've deceived her, neglected her, bullied her. Deny it if you can! Oh, no, this isn't what she has told me. It has been as plain as daylight. I couldn't have avoided knowing it. You made her your wife, Heaven knows why. You probably cared for her in your own brutal fashion. But you have never taken the trouble to make her care for you. You never go out with her. You never consider her in any way. You see her wretched, ill almost, under your eyes; and instead of putting it down to your own confounded churlishness, you turn round and insult me for behaving decently to her. There! I have done. You can kick me out of the house as soon as you like. But you won't find it so easy to forget what I've said. You know in your heart that it's the truth."

Archie ended his vigorous speech with the full expectation of being made to pay the penalty by means of a damaged skin.

Wingarde's face was uncompromising. It told nothing of his mood during the heavy silence that followed. It was, therefore, a considerable shock when he abruptly surrendered the citadel without striking a single blow.

"I am much obliged to you, Neville," he said very quietly. "And I beg to apologize for a most unworthy suspicion. Will you shake hands?"

Archie tumbled off his high horse with more speed than elegance. He thrust out his hand with an inarticulate murmur of assent. Perhaps after all the fellow had been no worse than an unmannerly bear. The next minute he was discussing politics with the monster he had dared to beard in his own den.

When Nina saw her husband again he treated her with a courtesy so scrupulous that she felt the miserable scourge of her uncertainty at work again. She would have given much to have possessed the key to his real feelings. With regard to his establishment of the Wade Home, he gave her the briefest explanation. He had been originally intended for a doctor, he said, had passed his medical examinations, and been qualified to practise. Then, at the last minute, a chance opening had presented itself, and he had gone into finance instead.

"After that," he somewhat sarcastically said, "I gave myself up to the all absorbing business of money-making. And doctoring became merely my fad, my amusement, my recreation--whatever you please to call it."

"I wish you had told me," Nina said, in a low voice.

At which remark he merely shrugged his shoulders, making no rejoinder.

She felt hurt by his manner and said no more. Only later there came to her the memory of the man she feared, standing in the doorway of the matron's room with a little child in his arms. Somehow that picture was very vividly impressed upon her mind.

XI

MONEY'S NOT EVERYTHING

"What! You are coming too?"

Nina stopped short on her way to the car and gazed at her husband in amazement.

He had returned early from the City, and she now met him dressed to attend a garden-party whither she herself was going.

He bent his head in answer to her surprised question.

"I shall give myself the pleasure of accompanying you," he said, with much formality.

She coloured and bit her lip. Swift as evil came the thought that he resented her intimacy with Archie and was determined to frustrate any attempt on their part to secure a _tête-à-tête_.

"You take great care of me," she said, with a bitter little smile.

Wingarde made no response; his face was quite inscrutable.

They scarcely spoke during the drive, and she kept her face averted. Only when he held out his hand to assist her to alight she met his eye for an instant and wondered vaguely at the look he gave her.

The party was a large one; the lawns were crowded. Nina took the first opportunity that offered to slip away from him, for she felt hopelessly ill at ease in his company. The sensation of being watched that had oppressed her during her brief honeymoon had reawakened.

Archie presently joined her.

"Did I see the hero of the Crawley gold field just now?" he asked. "Or was it hallucination?"

Nina looked at him with a very bored expression.

"Oh, yes, my husband is here," she said. "I suppose you had better not stay with me or he will come up and be rude to you."

Archie chuckled.

"Not he! We understand one another," he said lightly. "But, I say, what an impostor the fellow is! Everyone knows about Dr. Wade, but no one connects him in the smallest degree with Hereford Wingarde. It shouldn't be allowed to go on. You ought to tell the town-crier."

Nina tried to laugh, but it was a somewhat dismal effort.

"Come along!" said Archie cheerily. "There's my mother over there; she has been wondering where you were."

Nina went with him with a nervous wonder if Hereford were still watching her, but she saw nothing of him.

The afternoon wore away in music and gaiety. A great many of her acquaintances were present, and to Nina the time passed quickly.

She was sitting in a big marquee drinking the tea that Archie had brought her when she next saw her husband. By chance she discovered him talking with a man she did not know, not ten yards from her. The tent was fairly full, and the buzz of conversation was continuous.

Nina glanced at him from time to time with a curious sense of uneasiness, and an unaccountable desire to detach him from his acquaintance grew gradually upon her.

The latter was a heavy-browed man with queer, furtive eyes. As Nina stealthily watched them she saw that this man was restless and agitated. Her husband's face was turned from her, but his attitude was one of careless ease, into which his big limbs dropped when he was at leisure.

Later she never knew by what impulse she acted. It was as if a voice suddenly cried aloud in her heart that Wingarde was in deadly danger. She gave Archie her cup and rose.

"Just a moment!" she said hurriedly. "I see Hereford over there."

She moved swiftly in the direction of the two men. There was disaster in the air. She seemed to breathe it as she drew near. Her husband straightened himself before she reached him, and half turned with his contemptuous laugh. The next instant Nina saw his companion's hand whip something from behind him. She shrieked aloud and sprang forward like a terrified animal. The man's eyes maddened her more than the deadly little weapon that flashed into view in his right hand.

There followed prompt upon her cry the sharp explosion of a revolver-shot, and then the din of a panic-stricken crowd.

But Nina did not share the panic. She had flung herself in front of her husband, had flung her whole weight upon the upraised arm that had pointed the revolver and borne it downwards with all her strength. Those who saw her action compared it later with the furious attack of a tigress defending her young.

It was all over in a few brief seconds. Men crowded round and overpowered her adversary. Someone took the frenzied girl by the shoulders and forced her to relinquish her clutch.

She turned and looked straight into Wingarde's face, and at the sight her nerves gave way and she broke into hysterical sobbing, though she knew that he was safe.

He put his arm around her and led her from the stifling tent. People made way for them. Only their hostess and Archie Neville followed.

Outside on the lawn, away from the buzzing multitude, Nina began to recover herself. Archie brought a chair, and she dropped into it, but she held fast to Wingarde's arm, beseeching him over and over again not to leave her.

Wingarde stooped over her, supporting her; but he found nothing to say to her. He briefly ordered Archie to fetch some water, and made request to his hostess, almost equally brief, that their car might be called in readiness for departure. But his manner was wholly free from agitation.

"My wife will recover better at home," he said, and the lady of the house went away with a good deal of tact to give the order herself.

Left alone with him, Nina still clung to her husband; but she grew rapidly calmer in his quiet hold. After a moment he spoke to her.

"I wonder how you knew," he said.

Nina leant her head against him like an exhausted child.

"I saw it coming," she said. "It was in his eyes--mad hatred. I knew he was going to--to kill you if he could."

She did not want to meet his eyes, but he gently compelled her.

"And so you saved my life," he said in a quiet tone.

"I had to," she said faintly.

Archie here reappeared with a glass of water.

"The fellow is in a fit," he reported. "They are taking him away. Jove, Wingarde! You ought to be a dead man. If Nina hadn't spoilt that shot--"

Nina was shuddering, and he broke off.

"You'd better give up cornering gold fields," he said lightly. "It seems he was nearly ruined over your last _coup_. You may do that sort of thing once too often, don't you know. I shouldn't chance another throw."

Nina stood up shakily and looked at her husband.

"If you only would give it up!" she said, with trembling vehemence. "I--I hate money!"

Wingarde made no response; but Archie instantly took her up.

"You only hate money for what it can't buy," he said. "You probably expect too much from it. Don't blame money for that."

Nina uttered a tremulous laugh that sounded strangely passionate.

"You're quite right," she said. "Money's not everything. I have weighed it in the balance and found it wanting."

"Yes," Wingarde said in a peculiar tone. "And so have I."

XII

AFTERWARDS--LOVE

An overwhelming shyness possessed Nina that night. She dined alone with her husband, and found his silences even more oppressive than usual. Yet, when she rose from the table, an urgent desire to keep him within call impelled her to pause.

"Shall you be late to-night?" she asked him, stopping nervously before him, as he stood by the open door.

"I am not going out to-night," he responded gravely."

"Oh!" Nina hesitated still. She was trembling slightly. "Then--I shall see you again?" she said.

He bent his head.

"I shall be with you in ten minutes," he replied.

And she passed out quickly.

The night was still and hot. She went into her own little sitting-room and straight to the open window. Her heart was beating very fast as she stood and looked across the quiet square. The roar of London hummed busily from afar. She heard it as one hears the rushing of unseen water among the hills.

There was no one moving in the square. The trees in the garden looked dim and dreamlike against a red-gold sky.

Suddenly in the next house, from a room with an open window, there rose the sound of a woman's voice, tender as the night. It reached the girl who stood waiting in the silence. The melody was familiar to her, and she leant forward breathlessly to catch the words:

Shadows and mist and night, Darkness around the way; Here a cloud and there a star; Afterwards, Day!

There came a pause and the soft notes of a piano. Nina stood with clasped hands, waiting for the second verse. Her cheeks were wet.

It came, slow and exquisitely pure, as if an angel had drawn near to the turbulent earth with a message of healing:

Sorrow and grief and tears, Eyes vainly raised above; Here a thorn and there a rose; Afterwards, Love!

Nina turned from the open window. She was groping, for her eyes were full of tears. From the doorway a man moved quietly to meet her.

"Hereford!" she said in a broken whisper, and went straight into his arms.

He held her fast, so fast that she felt his heart beating against her bowed head. But it was many seconds before he spoke.

"Do you remember the wishing-gate, Nina?" he said, speaking softly. "And how you asked for a Deliverer?"

She stretched up her arms to clasp his neck without lifting her head. She was crying and could not answer him.

He put his hand upon her hair and she felt it tremble.

"Has the Deliverer come to you, dear?" he asked her very tenderly.

He felt for her face in the darkness, and turned it slowly upwards. She did not resist him though she knew well what was coming. Rather she yielded to his touch with a sudden, passionate willingness. And so their lips met in the first kiss that had ever passed between them.

Thus there came a Deliverer more potent than death into the heart of the girl who had married for money, and made its surrender sweet.

The Prey of the Dragon

I

"Ah! She's off!"

A deafening blast came from the great steamship's siren, and a long sigh went up from the crowd upon the quay. Someone raised a cheer that was quickly drowned in the noise of escaping steam. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, the vessel began to move.

A black gap appeared, and widened between her and the wharf till it became a stretch of grey water veiled in the dank fog of a murky sea. The fog was everywhere, floating in wreaths upon the oily swell, blotting out all distant objects, making vague those that were near. Very soon the crowd on the shore was swallowed up and the great vessel was heading for the mouth, of the harbour and the wide loneliness beyond.

Sybil Denham hid her face in her hands for a moment and shivered. There was something terrible to her in the thought of those thousands of miles to be traversed alone. It cowed her. It appalled her.

Yet when she looked up again her eyes were brave. She stood committed now to this great step, and she was resolved to take it with a high courage. Whatever lay before her, she must face it now without shrinking. Yet it was horribly lonely. She turned from the deck-rail with nervous haste.

The next instant she caught her foot against a coil of rope and fell headlong, with a violence that almost stunned her. A moment she lay, then, gasping, began to raise herself.

But as she struggled to her knees strong hands lifted her, and a man's voice said gruffly:

"Are you hurt?"

She found herself in the grasp of a powerful giant with the physique of a prize-fighter and a dark face with lowering brows that seemed to wear an habitual scowl.

She was too staggered to speak; the fall had unnerved her. She put her hand vaguely behind her, feeling for the rail, looking up at him with piteous, quivering lips.

"You should look where you are going," he said, with scant sympathy. "Perhaps you will another time."

She found the rail, leaned upon it, then turned her back upon him suddenly and burst into tears which she was too shaken to restrain. She thought he would go away, hoped that he would; but he remained, standing in stolid silence till she managed in a measure to regain her self-control.

"Where did you hurt yourself?" he asked then.

She struggled with herself, and answered him. "I--I am not hurt."

"Then what are you crying for?"

The words sounded more like a rude retort than a question.

She found them unanswerable, and suddenly, while she still stood battling with her tears, something in the utterance touched her sense of humour. She gulped down a sob, and gave a little strangled laugh.

"I don't quite know," she said, drying her eyes. "Thank you for picking me up."

"I should have tumbled over you if I hadn't," he responded.

Again her sense of humour quivered, finally dispelling all desire to cry. She turned a little.

"I'm glad you didn't!" she said with fervour.

"So am I."

The curt rejoinder cut clean through her depression. She broke into a gay, spontaneous laugh.

But the next instant she checked herself and apologized.

"Forgive me! I'm very rude."

"What's the joke?" he asked.

She answered him in a voice that still quivered a little with suppressed merriment.

"There isn't a joke. I--I often laugh at nothing. It's a silly habit of mine."

His moody silence seemed to endorse this remark. She became silent also, and after a moment made a shy movement to depart.

He turned then and looked at her, looked full and straight into her small, sallow face, with its shadowy eyes and pointed features, as if he would register her likeness upon his memory.

She gave him a faint, friendly smile.

"I'm going below now," she said. "Good-bye!"

He raised his hat abruptly. His head was massive as a bull's.

"Mind how you go!" he said briefly.

And Sybil went, feeling like a child that has been rebuked.

II

"Do you always walk along with your eyes shut?" asked Brett Mercer.

Sybil gave a great start, and saw him lounging immediately in her path. The days that had elapsed since their first meeting had placed them upon a more or less intimate footing. He had assumed the right to speak to her from the outset--this giant who had picked her up like an infant and scolded her for crying.

It was a hot morning in the Indian Ocean. She had not slept during the night, and she was feeling weary and oppressed. But, with a woman's instinctive reserve, she forced a hasty smile. She would not have stopped to speak had he not risen and barred her progress.

"Sit here!" he said.

She looked up at him with refusal on her lips; but he forestalled her by laying an immense hand on her shoulder and pressing her down into the chair he had just vacated. This accomplished, he turned and hung over the rail in silence. It seemed to be the man's habit at all times to do rather than to speak.

Sybil sat passive, feeling rather helpless, dumbly watching the great lounging figure, and wondered how she should escape without hurting his feelings.

Suddenly, without turning his head, he spoke to her.

"I suppose if I ask what's the matter you'll tell me to go to the devil."

The remark, though characteristic, was totally unexpected. Sybil stared at him for a moment. Then, as once before, his rude address set her sense of humour a-quivering. Depressed, miserable though she was, she began to laugh.

He turned, and looked at her sideways.

"No doubt I am very funny," he observed dryly.

She checked herself with an effort.