Part 36 (1/2)

”You drove her to her death, and now my turn has come.”

”But you will not hurt me, Roger; you will not hurt your brother! What will you do?”

This touched me to the quick, and for a time I felt I could not hurt him.

Is there unspoken communication of thought? Is there a subtle interchange of mind which is instinctively felt? I think so, for no sooner did I feel that I could not harm Wilfred than his evident fear left him. He acted on the aggressive immediately, and spoke boldly.

”Yes, what will you do?” he said. ”I refuse to know you. I refuse to recognise you. My brother Roger is dead, and was buried long years since. You are some impostor come here to claim what is not your own, under the paltry pretence of revenge.”

My brother's villainy was now manifest, and my old hatred came surging back.

”Roger is not dead, and that you will soon find out,” I said. ”All your authority and power are gone, the son and heir has come; but Ruth's avenger is come too! 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' You shall suffer as she has suffered, you shall die as she died. I have a long score to pay. I have ten years of misery in the past to account for. I have a blackened future from which you are not free.”

We were standing near the cliff as I said this, but I had my eye upon him, and it is well it was so, for he jumped at me savagely, and, had I not been prepared I should have fallen from the dizzy height to the ragged rocks below.

”Curse you,” he cried; ”but you have not a child to deal with, or the puny boy whose weakness you used to take advantage of. I am not going to let Trewinion go. I have not enjoyed it for ten years to lose it now. If Roger did not die ten years ago he shall die now.”

With that he sought to drag me nearer the cliff, while I gripped him firmly. He did not fight defensively now. For him, everything depended on the struggle. To rob me of my love, and to rob me of my money, he had schemed to get me away, and now that I had come back he determined to hold by all he had stolen. Nor did I fight defensively.

I felt I had lost Ruth, ay, I had lost my life itself through him, and I gripped him with a grip of iron. I thought of misery, and revenge; he of disgrace and the loss of what he held dear.

I soon found out that, as he had said, I had not a child or a puny boy to deal with. His muscles seemed of iron, and he coiled around me like a serpent. If I hated, he hated still more, and with the malignity of a demon he sought to master me. I was, however, the bigger and the stronger man, while the past ten years of my life had developed my physical strength greatly. Toil and exposure had given me power of endurance unknown to him, and soon I felt his grasp weaken. Little by little I mastered him, until with the grip of a giant I crushed him in my arms.

He looked up at me despairingly.

”You will not kill me, Roger?” he gasped.

”Would you not have killed me if you could?” I said, for there was murder in my heart. ”You have killed my Ruth, and now----”

I did not finish the sentence, for, in spite of myself, I felt him dragging me nearer the edge of the cliff, nor was I able to stop him until we were within a foot or so from the awful precipice. Then I lifted him from the ground and held him. His strength seemed gone, while mine was unabated.

What should I do with him? He was the destroyer of my life's happiness, he had killed my love, he had filled me with despair; but he was my brother. Should I destroy the venomous life that wrought only evil? or----

”Hurl him over!” said the devil within me, ”he is your blight, your curse! Show him no mercy, let him be dashed to pieces, and thus you will avenge your misery, and avenge Ruth's death!”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'Hurl him over!' said the devil within me.”]

”No, no, he's your brother, forgive him!” said another voice.

All this pa.s.sed through my mind in the moment, that I felt him struggle again, then, with an awful shriek, he fell from me.

I stood alone on that dizzy height--alone! I was the conqueror. I was avenged. Ruth's murderer was dead.

I looked around me, and I remembered where I stood.

Long years before I had gone to the vicarage, and on this spot I had seen a shadowy, shapeless figure in white!

On the night my father had died I was standing on this place when I saw between the p.r.o.ngs of the ”Devil's Tooth” the omen of darkness.

Now, standing there alone, I realised what had been done on this place of evil memory.