Chapter 43

friend, I make no excuses to you now; but was I not sorely tried? Surely, few men in our generation have stood in such a dilemma. Can you feel surprised that, stricken from my balance as a man--a sane and thoughtful man--I should have acted as I did, and dug for myself a pit of such purgatory as makes me feel now, as I sit here making my confession, how could I have gone through so terrible a crisis and yet be here alive, and able to think and speak like a suffering man."

The silence in the room was terrible for what seemed an age before Brettison stretched out his trembling hand and took that of the man before him.

"Hah!"

Malcolm Stratton's low cry. It was that of a man who had long battled with the waves of a great storm, and who had at last found something to which he could cling.

There was another long and painful pause before Stratton spoke again, and then he slowly withdrew his hand.

"No," he said; "we must never clasp hands again. I must go on to the end a pariah among my kind."

Brettison shook his head.

"I have put myself in your place often," he said slowly, "and I have felt that I might have acted much the same."

Stratton looked at him eagerly.

"Yes; my great fault in you is that you should not have trusted me."

There was again a long silence before Stratton spoke.

"I felt that I was alone in the world to fight my own battle with all my strength," he said wearily.

"And that strength was so much weakness, boy. Mine, weak as it is, has proved stronger far."

Stratton looked at him wonderingly.

"Yes; how much agony you might have been spared, perhaps, if you had come to me. But I don't know--I don't know. You acted as you thought best; I only did the same, and, not knowing all your thoughts, I fear that I have erred."

Stratton sat thinking for a few moments, and then, raising his eyes:

"I have told you all. It is your turn now."

Brettison bowed his head.

"Yes," he said, "it is better that I should speak and tell you."

But he was silent for some time first, sitting back with the tips of his fingers joined, as if collecting his thoughts.

"You remember that morning--how I came to say good-bye?"

"Yes, of course."

"I started, and then found that I had forgotten my lens. I hurried back, and had just entered my room when I heard voices plainly in yours. My book-closet door was open, that of your bath room must have been ajar. I did not want to hear, but the angry tones startled me, and the words grew so fierce--you neither of you thought of how you raised your voices in your excitement--that I became alarmed, and was about to hurry round to your room, when a few words came to my ears quite plainly, and, in spite of its being dishonourable, I, in my dread that you were in danger, hurried into the book-closet and was drawn to the thin, loose panel at the end.

"There I was enchained; I could not retreat, for I heard so much of the piteous position in which you were placed. My mind filled in the blanks, and I grasped all.

"I need not repeat all you know--only tell you that, unable to master my curiosity, I placed my eye to one of the cracks in the old panelling, and could see the man's face--her husband's features--and I saw him glance again and again at the money, and felt that he meant to have it, though you seemed ignorant of the fact; and, dreading violence, I drew back to go for help. But I could not leave. It meant a terrible _expose_ and untold horror for your promised wife. I tell you I could not stir, and the fact of my being a miserable eavesdropper died out in the terrible climax you had reached."

Brettison paused to wipe his brow, wet with a dew begotten by the agony of his recollections, before he continued:

"I stayed there then, and watched and listened, almost as near as if I had been a participator in the little life drama which ensued. There, I was with you in it all, boy--swayed by your emotions, but ready to cry out upon you angrily when I saw you ready to listen to the wretch's miserable proposals, and as proud when I saw your determination to sacrifice your desires and make a bold stand against what, for your gratification, must have meant finally a perfect hell for the woman you loved. Then, in the midst of my excitement, there came the final struggle, as you nobly determined to give the scoundrel up to the fate he deserved so well. It was as sudden to me as it was horrible. I saw the flash of the shot, and felt a pang of physical pain, as, through the smoke, I dimly saw you stagger. Then, while I stood there paralysed, I saw you fly at him as he raised his pistol to fire again, the struggle for the weapon, which you struck up as he drew the trigger."

"Yes," said Stratton, "I struck up the pistol as he drew the trigger; but who would believe--who would believe?"

"And then I saw him reel and fall, and there before me he lay, with the blood slowly staining the carpet, on the spot where I had so often sat."

He wiped his brow again, while Stratton rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands, as if to hide from his gaze the scene his friend conjured up from the past.

"Malcolm Stratton," continued the old man, rising to lay his hand upon the other's head, "you were to me as a son. As a father loves the boy born unto him, I swear I felt toward you. I looked upon you as the son of my childless old age, and I was standing there gazing at you, face to face with the horror of that scene, while, with crushing weight, there came upon me the knowledge that, come what might, I must summon help. That help meant the police; and, in imagination, I saw myself sending you to the dock, where you would perhaps, from the force of the circumstances--as you have told me you might--stand in peril of your life. But still I felt that there was nothing otherwise that could be done; and, slowly shrinking back, I was on my way to perform this act of duty, when I heard a low, deep groan. That drew me back, and, looking into your room once more, a mist rose between me and the scene, my senses reeled, and I slowly sank down, fainting, on the floor."