Part 40 (1/2)

Payton bowed. ”If I offend,” he said airily, ”I am entirely at your service.” He tapped the hilt of his sword. ”You do not wear one, but I have no doubt you can use one. I shall be happy to give you satisfaction where and when you please. A time and place----”

But James did not stop to hear him out. He turned with an oath and a snarl, and went off--went off in such a manner that Flavia could not but see that the challenge was not to his taste. At another time she would have blushed for him. But his brutal violence had done more during the last ten minutes to depose his image from her heart than years of neglect and rudeness.

Payton saw him go, and, blessing the good fortune which had put him in a position to command the beauty's thanks, he turned to receive them.

But Flavia was not looking at him, was not thinking of him. She had put the key in the lock and was trying to turn it. Her left wrist, however, was too weak, and the right was so strained as to be useless. She signed to him to turn the key, and he did so, and threw open the door, wondering much who was there and what it was all about.

He did not at once recognise the man who, pale and haggard, a mere ghost of himself, dragged himself up the three steps, and, exhausted by the effort, leant against the doorpost. But when Colonel John spoke and tried to thank the girl, he knew him.

He whistled. ”You are Colonel Sullivan!” he said.

”The same, sir!” Colonel John murmured mechanically.

”Are you ill?”

”I am not well,” the other replied with a sickly smile. The indignation which he had felt during the contest between the girl and her brother had been too much for his strength. ”I shall be better presently,” he added. He closed his eyes.

”We should be getting him below,” Flavia said in an undertone.

Payton looked from one to the other. He was in a fog. ”Has he been here long?” he asked.

”Nearly four days,” she replied, with a s.h.i.+ver.

”And nothing to eat?”

”Nothing.”

”The devil! And why?”

She did not stay to think how much it was wise to tell him. In her repentant mood she was anxious to pour herself out in self-reproach.

”We wanted him to convey some property,” she said, ”as we wished.”

”To your brother?”

”Ah, to him!” Then, seeing his astonishment, ”It was mine,” she added.

Payton knew that estates were much held in trust in that part, and he began to understand. He looked at her; but no, he did not understand now. For if the idea had been to constrain Colonel Sullivan to transfer her property to her brother, how did her interest match with that? He could only suppose that her brother had coerced her, and that she had given him the slip and tried to release the man--with the result he had witnessed.

One thing was clear. The property, large or small, was still hers. The Major looked with a thoughtful face at the smiling valley, with its cabins scattered over the slopes, at the lake and the fis.h.i.+ng-boats, and the rambling slate-roofed house with its sheds and peat-stacks. He wondered.

No more was said at that moment, however, for Flavia saw that Colonel Sullivan's strength was not to be revived in an hour. He must be a.s.sisted to the house and cared for there. But in the meantime, and to lend some strength, she was anxious to give him such wine and food as he could safely take. To procure these she entered the room in which he had been confined.

As she cast her eyes round its dismal interior, marked the poor handful of embers that told of his long struggle with the cold, marked the one chair which he had saved--for to lie on the floor had been death--marked the beaten path that led from the chair to the window, and spoke of many an hour of painful waiting and of hope deferred, she saw the man in another, a more gentle, a more domestic aspect. She had seen the heroism, she now saw the pathos of his conduct, and tears came afresh to her eyes. ”For me!” she murmured. ”For me! And how had I treated him!”

Her old grievance against him was forgotten, wiped out of remembrance by his sufferings. She dwelt only on the treatment she had meted out to him.

When they had given him to eat and drink he a.s.sured them, smiling, that he could walk. But when he attempted to do so he staggered. ”He will need a stronger arm than yours,” Payton said, with a grin. ”May I offer mine?”