A Gamble with Life

"That may be true. But mercifully, the dead are soon forgotten. You will soon get used to my absence."

"I sincerely hope the occasion will not arise," Muller said, speaking slowly and gravely. "Indeed, as I said before, I should regard your failure as a calamity. Still, there is no getting over the fact that what you regarded as impossible less than six months ago has come very definitely within the realm of possibility."

"Yes," Rufus said, with some hesitation. "I am bound to admit that the chance of failure seems less remote than it did."

"I am sorry to have to discuss this matter with you again," Muller went on, after a pause. "I can assure you it is almost as painful to me as it must be to you. Still business is business, and I have to think of my own position. If I were a rich man, I would not mention the matter – upon my soul, I wouldn't."

"I thought you had no soul," Rufus said, with a pathetic smile.

"Oh, don't joke over mere figures of speech," Muller said, staring into the fire. "I tell you I feel terribly upset."

"But my cause is not lost yet," Rufus said with forced cheerfulness.

"No, it may not be. But, on the other hand, it may be. If your competitor has gone so far, he may during the next week or month go all the rest of the distance."

"I must take my chance of that."

"The point with me is – supposing the worst comes to the worst, have you anything on which you can raise a loan? I hate the thought of your slipping out of life in the flower of your youth."

"Look here, Muller," Rufus said, summoning to his aid all his strength and resolution. "We discussed this matter at the beginning. I counted the cost and took the risk. If the worst comes to the worst I am not going to show the white feather."

"I do not doubt your courage for a moment," Muller said. "But I want to point out that it will take a little time to realise your estate. I presume you have made your will."

Rufus went to a drawer and took out a large envelope which he passed on to his companion.

Muller opened the envelope and drew out the paper slowly. Then he adjusted his pince-nez, and began to read. "Yes," he said, after a long pause, "this is quite in order – quite."

"And in case I am driven to take my departure," Rufus said, in a hard, even voice, "I will give you sufficient time to wind up my small estate before the end of next year."

"You think there is no other way of meeting the case?" Muller questioned.

"In case my scheme fails there is no other way," Rufus answered. "Now let us not discuss the matter again. I understand your anxiety. I should be a bit anxious if I were in your place. But you have my word of honour. Let that be enough."

"It is enough, my boy – it is enough!" Muller said, gushingly.

"Meanwhile we need not count upon failure until forced to do so. I shall not fail if effort and determination can avert it."

When Muller had gone, Rufus sat for a long time staring into the dying fire. Then he picked up the newspaper cutting, and read through the article very carefully a second time.

"No, he has not got my idea quite," he muttered, "but he has come uncomfortably near to it."

Then he drew a long breath and shut his teeth tightly. Life had grown a more precious thing of late, and hope had taken new shapes and forms. Moreover, the possibility of a conscious existence beyond the shadow of death had been looming larger and larger for months past, and with that possibility other possibilities had come into view. What if the consequences of conduct followed men into the unseen? What if sin should separate a soul from the soul it loved? What if this life were a trust for which we should be held responsible? What if suicide should be as heinous a crime as murder? What if dying by one's own hand should stain the soul with deeper dishonour than any broken vow or unfulfilled promise? He drew away his eyes from the fire and shuddered slightly as these thoughts passed through his mind. In whatever direction he turned his thoughts he was faced with possibilities that, to say the least, were not a little disconcerting.

"If I had only known six months ago what I know now," he reflected, "I should not have put my head into this noose with so light a heart. I should have been content to have gone on with my work as time-keeper at the mine. But I was impatient for success, and quite certain that death was the end of all things."

Then across the frosty air the parish clock fixed high in the church tower struck the hour of eleven.

Rufus counted the strokes as they vibrated solemnly through the night.

"Do the dead ever hear, I wonder," he said to himself, and he shuddered again.

Then his thoughts turned to the book that he had been reading earlier in the evening and he began to repeat almost unconsciously one of the stanzas that Madeline had marked:

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark,
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark.
And though from out the bounds of time and space
The floods may bear me far,
I hope —

Then he stopped suddenly and rose hurriedly to his feet. "I am growing morbid," he said. "I wish Muller had kept the article to himself. In a case of this kind ignorance is bliss." And he turned out the lamp and climbed slowly upstairs to bed.

CHAPTER XV

MISGIVINGS

The day after Felix Muller's visit to Rufus the squire and his family returned to the Hall. The news soon spread through St. Gaved that the big house was alive once more, and that the captain was expected home in time to eat his Christmas dinner with the family. Rufus heard the news with a curious thrill, but whether of pain or of pleasure it would be hard to say.

His heart had been aching for a sight of Madeline's face ever since she went away. And yet there were times when he desired above all things that he might never look into her eyes again. Pain was not to be cured by additional pain. To see Madeline would not appease the hunger, it would only increase it. Hence to keep out of her way would be the wise thing for him; to avoid the field-path in front of the park, and the familiar road across the downs and round by the cliffs. If they met she would be sure to speak, and the very sound of her voice would awaken into life all the wild longings of his soul once more. It was far better, therefore, for him that they never met.

Besides, it was more than probable that by this time she was the promised wife of Gervase Tregony. He was coming home to claim her and coming home at express speed. Was he delighted at the prospect, he wondered. Did he love her as she deserved to be loved?

"Oh, if it had only been my lot to win so sweet a soul," he said to himself. "Is it true, I wonder, that we always long most passionately for the impossible?"

For several days he kept close to business, never venturing out of doors till after sunset. Once he thought he passed her in the bright moonlight, and his heart almost stopped, but he never paused in his walk, never looked back; indeed he strode on with a longer and quicker stride, and did not breathe freely again till a sharp bend in the road prevented any possibility of recognition.

When he yielded to the witchery of her presence before, there was some excuse for his doing so, but all the circumstances were different now. He had no excuse to-day, no right. His tenure of life hung on a thread. His chance of success was growing less hopeful day by day.

Even if Madeline were free and within his reach he would have no right to speak to her of love. While this sword of Damocles was suspended over his head he was bound in honour to be silent. But since she was neither free nor within his reach, and he was walking across a volcano that at any moment might burst open beneath his feet, it would be the part of a madman to put himself in her way if there was any chance of keeping out of it.

So he pursued his work with all the earnestness and intensity he could command, but he was conscious all the time that something had gone out of his life. The enthusiasm that springs from certainty had left him, the chill and lethargy of doubt had crept into his blood. Instead of constantly dwelling on the delights of success, he found himself brooding over the prospect of failure, and wondering what lay beyond the grim shadow of death.

By a curious combination of circumstances both life and death had become doubly hard to contemplate. Success had once been his dream. To-day success of itself seemed nothing. The one thing that was of value, that would have turned earth into heaven was love. He would have courted failure – gloried in it – if failure would have given him Madeline. But since Madeline was denied him, neither success nor failure mattered much, and life and death were both robbed of the light of hope. He told himself one minute that he did not care to live since Madeline could never be his, and the next minute he dreaded the thought of death, since death would blot out the sight of her and the thought of her for ever and ever. So, in whatever direction he looked, he found neither solace nor inspiration.

The thing that spurred him on from day to day was not so much the hope of victory as the humiliation of defeat. There was any number of people in St. Gaved who had no sympathy whatever with him in his ambitions, whose invincible creed was that a man ought to be content to remain in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. These people had expressed themselves with great freedom and candour on his folly in giving up a good position at the mine, and devoting all his time and energy to something in the clouds; and which, in all likelihood, would never be of any benefit to man or beast.

Rufus used to smile at the criticisms of these people, and anticipate the day when he would stand proud and triumphant before them. Now he began to fear that the day might come when they would triumph over him, when they would expand their chests and smile wisely, and say to their neighbours: "There, didn't we tell you so?" It was rather with the object of preventing such a triumph than of winning any triumph for himself that he toiled on from day to day, throwing into his work more of the energy of despair than the inspiration of hope.

Meanwhile Madeline had been suffering from what she called "an acute attack of the blues." For no sufficient reason, so she admitted to herself, she became restless and peevish, and generally discontented. She was not ill. Generally speaking, her appetite was as good as it had been, while her energy was greater than ever. But for some reason nothing satisfied her – things that at one time she would have gone into ecstacies over barely interested her. She was in the mood to be pleased at nothing, and to find fault with everything.

That this condition of things began on the day Sir Charles took her to task for visiting Rufus Sterne she was well aware; but why it should have continued was a puzzle. She had been angry with Sir Charles at the moment it was true, but after a day's reflection she had been led to see that he was perfectly in the right. Moreover Sir Charles had behaved very handsomely all the way through. She was convinced that it was very largely on her account that they went to London for the autumn, and while in London she had scarcely a wish that was not gratified. She had gone to receptions and balls and dinners by the dozen. She had been taken to every place of interest she wanted to see. She had blossomed out into what she termed "a tame celebrity," and had had more compliments showered upon her than ever before in her life, yet, in spite of all this, she was not happy. Indeed, after a few weeks, she tired utterly of London and wanted to return again to Trewinion Hall. That however, was shown to be an impossibility. The house had been taken practically till the end of the year, and the servants at Trewinion Hall had been put on board wages till Christmas.

"Are you sure you are quite well, Madeline?" Sir Charles said to her, when she preferred her request.

"Quite sure," she replied. "In fact I was never better in my life."

"Then why do you want to go back to the Hall?"