Part 55 (2/2)

It further hinted its hope that the dupes of what was little less than a public fraud would do their duty to the public, to themselves, and to the ingenious young gentleman whose exposure was now pretty well complete.

Madeline folded the paper without a word and handed it back to Beryl.

”I should think you feel sorry now that you ever spoke to him,” Beryl said, after a long pause.

”There are many things we feel sorry for when it is too late,” she answered, quietly, then turned and walked slowly out of the room.

She had not thought much of Rufus for several weeks. She never expected to see him again. He had come into her life for a few months and pa.s.sed out again, and the sooner she forgot him the better.

But this story of his failure with the cutting comments and insinuations of the _Express_ called out her sympathies afresh, and in larger measure than ever. She did not think the less of him because he had not succeeded. He had not laboured at an invention that was useless. His failure was not due to the worthlessness of his idea, but simply to the fact that another man had got in before him.

”Oh! I am sorry,” she said to herself, when she got to her own room.

”How terribly disappointed he will feel. It will seem as though everything is against him, and he had staked his all on the enterprise.”

Once or twice she was strongly tempted to sit down and write him a friendly letter of sympathy. But she could not summon up quite sufficient courage. If she had cared less for him she would have been less sensitive. Beryl had just told her that she had been carried away by a foolish and romantic attachment, or words to that effect, and it would never do to give colour and substance to the insinuation. She must keep her self-respect whatever happened.

For several days Rufus was more frequently in her thoughts than was good for her peace of mind. She pictured his disappointment, his helplessness, his despair. She saw him in imagination wandering out on the cliffs alone, with knitted brows and troubled face. She wondered what he would do. She knew he had staked his all--though how much that ”all” meant she never guessed--would it be possible for him to rise above this last calamity that had overtaken him, or would he go down in the general crash and ruin, and never be heard of again?

He had ability, she knew, and energy and determination; but so had many another man who had absolutely failed. No man could do the impossible.

Bricks could not be made without clay. Circ.u.mstances were sometimes stronger than the strongest.

Rufus Sterne was not only penniless, but in debt. The money he had borrowed had gone with his own, and how was it possible in a sleepy little place like St. Gaved to retrieve his position? She wished she could help him. The beginning of his misfortunes seemed to be a.s.sociated with her. His broken leg was entirely due to her adventurousness, while the loss of his reputation was the outcome of her friendliness to him.

Try as she would she could never wholly dissociate herself from him. She was irretrievably mixed up with his success or failure.

She did her best to appear cheerful and unconcerned before the Tregonys.

Beryl informed her father that Madeline had seen the account in the paper of Sterne's failure, and had manifested not the slightest interest in the matter.

”Did she say nothing at all?” Sir Charles questioned.

”Scarcely a word.”

”And did you say nothing?”

”I did suggest that I thought she would feel sorry now she had ever spoken to him.”

”And what did she reply?”

”Oh, she just said, 'There are many things we feel sorry for when it is too late,' and walked out of the room.”

”She never saw him after the police court affair, I think.”

”I am sure she never did, father.”

”So that this will pretty well complete the disillusionment.”

<script>