Part 40 (1/2)

For a s.p.a.ce Bernard lay and watched him. Then at last, somewhat ponderously he arose.

Everard could not have heard his approach, but he was aware of it before he reached him. He turned swiftly round, pulling the window closed behind him.

They stood facing each other, and there was something tense in the atmosphere, something that was oddly suggestive of mental conflict. The devils' tattoo on the roof had sunk to a mere undersong, a fitting accompaniment as it were to the electricity in the room.

Bernard spoke at length, slowly, deliberately, but not unkindly. ”Why should you take the trouble to--fence with me?” he said. ”Is it worth it, do you think?”

Everard's face was set and grey like a stone mask. He did not speak for a moment; then curtly, noncommittally, ”What do you mean?” he said.

”I mean,” very steadily Bernard made reply, ”that the scoundrel Dacre, who married Madelina Belleville and then deserted her, left her to go to the dogs, and your brother-officer who was killed in the mountains on his honeymoon, were one and the same man. And you knew it.”

”Well?” The words seemed to come from closed lips. There was something terrible in the utter quietness of its utterance.

Bernard searched his face as a man might search the walls of an apparently impregnable fortress for some vulnerable spot. ”Ah, I see,”

he said, after a moment. ”You must have believed Madelina to be still alive when Dacre married. What was the date of his marriage?”

”The twenty-fifth of March.” Again the grim lips spoke without seeming to move.

A gleam of relief crossed his brother's face. ”In that case no one is any the worse. I'm sorry you've carried that bugbear about with you for so long. What an infernal hound the fellow was!”

”Yes,” a.s.sented Everard.

He moved to the table and poured himself out a drink.

His brother still watched him. ”One might almost say his death was providential,” he observed. ”Of course--your wife--never knew of this?”

”No.” Everard lifted the gla.s.s to his lips with a perfectly steady hand and drank. ”She never will know,” he said, as he set it down.

”Certainly not. You can trust me never to tell her.” Bernard moved to his side, and laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. ”You know you can trust me, old fellow?”

Everard did not look at him. ”Yes, I know,” he said.

His brother's hand pressed upon him a little. ”Since they are both gone,” he said, ”there is nothing more to be said on the subject. But, oh, man, stick to the truth, whatever else you let go of! You never lied to me before.”

His tone was very earnest. It held urgent entreaty. Everard turned and met his eyes. His dark face was wholly emotionless. ”I am sorry, St.

Bernard,” he said.

Bernard's kindly smile wrinkled his eyes. He grasped and held the younger man's hand. ”All right, boy. I'm going to forget it,” he said.

”Now what about turning in?”

They parted for the night immediately after, the one to sleep as serenely as a child almost as soon as he lay down, the other to pace to and fro, to and fro, for hours, grappling--and grappling in vain--with the sternest adversary he had ever had to encounter.

For upon Everard Monck that night the wrath of the G.o.ds had descended, and against it, even his grim fort.i.tude was powerless to make a stand.

He was beaten before he could begin to defend himself, beaten and flung aside as contemptible. Only one thing remained to be fought for, and that one thing he swore to guard with the last ounce of his strength, even at the cost of life itself.

All through that night of bitter turmoil he came back again and again to that, the only solid foothold left him in the s.h.i.+fting desert-sand. So long as his heart should beat he would defend that one precious possession that yet remained,--the honour of the woman who loved him and whom he loved as only the few know how to love.