The Hundredth Chance

His hand was upon both hers as he ended. His dark face was burning with a fierce emotion.

But Maud only shivered, and leaning forward, gazed deep into the heart of the fire, saying no word.

Saltash watched her, a mocking light in his eyes that shone and slowly died. "What are you looking for?" he said.

She shook her head in silence. He threw his cigarette suddenly into the deep glow upon which her eyes were fixed. It leaped at once to flame, flame that burned ardently for a brief while, and then went out.

"Are you trying to find a way out?" he asked her then very softly. "There is a way out of every hole, believe me."

She gave him a quick glance as of one hard pressed, but still she did not speak.

He leaned forward also, pointing to the red heart of the fire that glowed but never flickered. "If you have the nerve, – the pluck-to face the furnace," he said, "it may scorch you a bit, but it shan't consume you. And it would be soon over. Would you be afraid-would you be afraid-to face it with me?"

His voice was low, stink almost to a whisper; yet it reached her, for he spoke almost into her ear.

She sat rigidly still, gazing before her. The fragrance of the burnt cigarette came out like incense from an altar.

He drew a little closer to her. "Maud, I am always ready-always ready. I am willing to offer any sacrifice. I should never count the cost. Nothing could be too much. I don't say any more that you are mine-unless you stoop to bestow yourself upon me. But I am yours-always-for all time. Bear that in mind-when the time comes!" He paused a moment; then: "Let that ring of ours be the sign and message," he murmured. "When you need deliverance, I will come to you from the world's end."

He rose with the words, so suddenly that she was startled; and in a moment his voice calm and debonair rang across the room.

"Hullo, Bolton! How long have you been hiding there? Come over here, and see if you can put a little heart into your wife! She needs it."

Maud, her white face turned over her shoulder, saw Jake's square shoulders outlined against the furthest south window. He was looking over his shoulder also; their eyes met across the room. Then he turned round fully in his solid way and came to them.

He was wearing slippers that he had donned for the sick room, and they made no sound.

Saltash's lithe form straightened. He stood ready, almost on guard, at the other man's approach. But his face remained debonair still. There was even a hint of humour about his mobile brows. His eyes flashed wickedly.

"So they've turned you out, have they?" he said, with that hint of regal haughtiness that usually characterized his speech when addressing an inferior.

Jake did not answer. His eyes, red-brown and very still, were upon Maud. They did not leave her for a moment. They seemed to search her through and through.

There came to her a second of deadly panic, panic that stopped her heart. She put up a hand to her throat with a spasmodic effort to breathe. And suddenly it seemed to her that she sat engulfed in the red, red heart of a soundless furnace. She gave a gasping cry, tried to rise, and fell forward fainting at her husband's feet.

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE SACRIFICE

He lifted her. She knew that he lifted her, but all her powers were gone. She hung, a dead weight, in his arms.

Over her head she heard his voice, intensely quiet but deeper than usual; she thought it held a menacing note.

"I'll take her to the window. Thanks, I'm not wanting any help from you."

She felt the strength of the man as he lifted her bodily, and bore her across the room. He set her down upon the window-seat, supporting her with the utmost steadiness while he opened the window. The wintry air blew in upon her, and she shivered and came to life.

"Don't move!" he said.

The awful weakness was still upon her; she obeyed him because she had no choice, lying back against his arm in quivering submission.

"I'm-so sorry," she whispered at length. "I-I never did anything so stupid before."

"That so?" said Jake.

She lifted her eyes with a piteous effort to his. "Please leave me now! I shall do quite well-by myself."

"That so?" he said again.

His eyes held hers with a piercing, straight regard; but after a moment his hand came up and rubbed her icy cheek. It was a small act, but it affected her very curiously. She turned her face quickly to hide a rush of tears.

Jake's attitude changed on the instant. He stooped over her, his arm about her. "Say, Maud, my girl, what is it? What is it?" he said. "The little chap will be all right. Don't you worry any!"

The old kindness was in his voice; he held her to him just as he had held her on the morning that she had first gone to him for help. For the moment she yielded herself, scarcely knowing what she did; then she realized his nearness and began to draw herself away.

"I am foolish," she whispered, "just foolish. Don't take any notice!"

"Guess you're worn out," he said gently.

She shook her head, striving to master herself. "No, it's not that. It isn't anything. Please leave me alone for a little! I would rather."

He let her go, but he still remained beside her, looking down at her bent dark head. She leaned against the woodwork of the window, panting a little.

"I am better," she said uneasily, after a moment. "Please don't worry about me any more!"

"Who else should I worry about?" he said. "Do you suppose you aren't first with me every time?"

She quivered at the question, but she made no attempt to answer it.

He went on with a restraint that was somehow eloquent of vehemence suppressed. "I know well enough that you aren't happy with me. It's not in nature that you should be. Maybe it's my fault too; maybe it's not. I've been a damn' fool; I know that. But even so, you've no call to be afraid of me. You won't come up against me if you play a straight game."

He paused, and she saw his hands slowly clench. At the same moment she became aware of someone approaching, and turned her head to see Saltash coming towards her with a wine-glass in his hand.

"Oh, that's right; you're better," he said. "Here, Bolton! Make her drink this! It'll put a little life into her."

He gave the glass to Jake who stood a moment as if undecided as to what to do with it, then bent over Maud.

She drew back. "Oh no, thank you! I never drink brandy. Besides, I am quite well again now."

She made as if she would get up to demonstrate this fact, but he stopped her. "Take a little!" he drawled. "Lord Saltash has had the trouble of fetching it."

"I would rather not," she said. "I would much rather not."

"Let her please herself!" said Saltash sharply.

But Jake's hand, steady as rock, was already holding the glass to her lips. She drank as one compelled.

Saltash fidgeted up and down in front of the window in evident dissatisfaction, his ugly face full of lines. "I am infernally sorry this has happened," he said. "You ought to have had the stuff sooner. I wish I had ordered champagne. We'll have some presently. Ah, that'll do, Jake, that'll do! Don't force it on her, for Heaven's sake! Look here, you and I will clear out now, and let her rest in front of the fire. You'd like that, Maud, wouldn't you?"

Maud murmured an affirmative.

"Sure?" said Jake.

She looked up at him. "Yes; but not too near the fire. And-and leave the door open. I want to hear-to know-" Her voice failed, sank into silence.

"All right," Jake said quietly. "I'm not leaving you till it's over."

The calm decision of his speech silenced all protest. Maud attempted none. Saltash shrugged his shoulders and flung round on his heel. Jake bent to offer a steady arm.

She accepted his support in silence. There was that about him that would not brook resistance just then. She was sure that Saltash was aware of it also, for after a very brief pause he began to whistle under his breath and in a very few moments more sauntered from the room.

Jake, very quiet and determined, led her to a settee.

"I won't lie down," she said restlessly. "I want to listen."

Jake was looking round for a chair. Failing to see one, he seated himself by her side. "I reckon this is the most respectable piece of furniture in the place," he observed. "Here is a cushion. Lean back and shut your eyes!"

"I wish you wouldn't wait here," she murmured uneasily.

"I've got to wait somewhere," said Jake.

And then his hand descended upon hers and held it.

She started at his touch, seeking instinctively to free herself, but in the end she yielded, lying back in a tense stillness in which she knew the beating of her heart to be clearly audible.

What was he going to say to her? What had he overheard? What must he think of the agitation she had displayed upon discovering him?

Her breath quivered through her parted lips. The dread of the night before was upon her, but ten times magnified by her present weakness and the thought of that which he might have overheard.

But Jake sat in unbroken silence, his hand holding hers in a steady, purposeful grasp; and gradually, very gradually, her fear began to subside. He could have heard nothing! Surely he could have heard nothing! Surely, if he had, he would have spoken, have questioned-or accused!

A great shiver went through her.

"Cold?" said Jake.

She opened her eyes. "No."

His hand closed more firmly about her own. "Don't be so anxious!" he said. "It'll be all right."

His voice was kind, she tried to smile.

"Was he-was he very nervous?" she asked, finding relief in speech.

"Game all through," said Jake. "Went off like a baby. Say, Maud, he'll be a fine man some day."

"He'll never be mine any more," she said, and turned her face aside.

Jake said nothing. He fell into a musing silence that seemed to stretch and widen to an unknown abyss between them. She closed her eyes, hoping that he would think her sleeping.

He remained absolutely still by her side while the silence lengthened and deepened. She wondered for a while if ha were watching her, wondered if he were actually as free from anxiety on Bunny's account as he appeared, became finally vaguely aware of a curious hushed sense of repose stealing over her tired nerves. She drifted away at last into a state that was not quite slumber, that yet held her trance-like and unaware of time. She knew that Jake was beside her, never wholly forgot his presence, but he had ceased to have a disquieting effect upon her. Somehow he fitted into the atmosphere of peace that surrounded her. She was even dimly glad that he had not left her alone. She was tired, unutterably tired, but her mind had ceased to work at the problems that so vexed her soul; it had become as it were dormant. Even the thought of Bunny did not disturb her any more. Had not Dr. Capper solemnly declared that all would be well?

So she sank into an ever-deepening sea of oblivion, unmindful of the hand that so surely held her own; and so that long, long hour crept by.

When there came at last the opening of a door and the sound of voices she was too far away in her merciful dreamland to hear. She knew in a vague fashion that Jake's hand left hers, even murmured a faint protest, but she did not attempt to rouse herself. She had yielded too completely to the healing magic of rest.

There followed a space during which all consciousness was entirely blotted out and she slept like a weary child, a space that seemed to last interminably, and yet was all too short. Then at length nature or conscience stirred within her, and her brain began to work once more. Out of a vague obscurity of dimly registered impressions the light of understanding began to dawn. She opened heavy eyes upon the red, still fire that burned so steadily, so unfailingly. It put her in mind of something-that hot, silent fire-but she could not remember what it was; something that was vigilant, intense, unquenchable, something that she could never wholly grasp or wholly elude.

She opened her eyes a little wider, and moved her head upon the cushion. Surely she had slept for a long, long time!

And then she caught the sound of a voice that whispered-a low, clear whisper.

"Why don't you take her for a honeymoon, my son? It would do you both all the good in the world."

There was a pause, and then someone-Jake-murmured something unintelligible. Maud raised herself slightly and saw him standing before the fire. His thick-set figure was turned from her. His head leaned somewhat dejectedly against the high mantelpiece.

Capper was standing beside him, lounging against the carved wood in an ungainly attitude, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. At Jake's muttered words he turned and looked at him keenly, with eyes of semi-quizzical sympathy.

"Say, Jake," he said, "the man who walks his horse along a hedge-side never gets there. The hedge has a way of getting higher, moreover, every step he goes. Guess being in love has kind of demoralized you. You'll never win out this way."

Jake moved a little, straightened himself, stood squarely facing the great doctor. "I'm going to win out," he said; and with that very abruptly he wheeled round and came straight to Maud, as though she had called him.

So sudden was his movement that she was taken wholly by surprise. He stooped over her and took her hand before she had time to draw back.

"It's all right, my girl," he said, and she heard a note of reassurance in his voice. "The little chap's come through it finely. There's nothing to be anxious about. Capper says so; and whatever Capper says goes."

"Guess that's so," said Capper. He remained at his post by the fire, a smile of keen satisfaction on his parchment face. "You shall see him presently; not yet, not for another hour, and then only for a few seconds. He's got to be kept as quiet as an infant. But I've done just what I figured to do. In another six weeks he ought to be learning to walk."

"Bunny-walking!" Maud spoke the words as one dazed. The whole of her world seemed suddenly to have changed. It was as if she actually breathed a new atmosphere. She caught her breath, feeling half afraid. "Is it-is it true?" she said.

Capper laughed. "Seems like a miracle, does it? Never met with a miracle before? Yet there's quite a lot of 'em to be seen in this curious old world. Maybe you'll come across some more, now you've started."

He came quietly to her, bent and took her free hand into his. She felt his thin, sensitive fingers press her pulse.

"I'm quite well indeed," she said in a tone of protest. "Please tell me more about Bunny. I want to hear everything."

"My dear lady, you know practically all there is to know," he made answer. "Bunny is going to be one of my proudest successes. But there's just one thing to be arranged, I want to have him under my own eye for a time. It's for his own good, so I know your consent is a foregone conclusion. No, not yet of course. I will give him a month here, and then I want to fetch him up to London and keep him in a Home there belonging to my colleague Sir Kersley Whitton until I am able to discharge him as cured. Will you agree to that?"

His eyes, shrewd and kindly, looked down into hers. His hand still held her wrist. She felt the magic of his personality, and found it hard to resist.

But, "To take him away from me!" she said rather piteously. "Must you take him away?"

Jake had withdrawn a little as if he did not wish to take part in the conversation. Capper sat down beside her.

"Mrs. Bolton," he said, "I guess that young brother of yours is just one of the biggest factors of your existence. Isn't that so? You'd do anything for him, and never count the cost. Well, here's something you can do for him, a mighty big thing too. It'll be a very critical time, and I want to have him under my own eye. I also want to have complete control of him. I'm not hinting that your influence isn't good. I know it is. But, for all that, he'll do better with comparative strangers during that critical time than he would with his own people. I want to lift him entirely out of the old ruts. I want to start him on an entirely new footing, to give him self-reliance, to get him into good, wholesome habits. It'll make all the difference in the world to him or I shouldn't be urging it so strongly. Say, now, you promised me your co-operation, you are not going to refuse?"

She could not refuse. She realized it with a leaden heart. Yet she made one quivering attempt to pierce through the ever-narrowing circle.

"But the cost," she said.

"It won't cost you a single cent," said Capper. "It's just for my private satisfaction that it will be done."

Her last hope faded. She made a little gesture of helplessness. "He is in your hands, Doctor," she said. "I-I am much more grateful to you than I seem."

Capper's hand pressed hers. "You will never regret this sacrifice as long as you live," he said, looking at her with his keen, kindly eyes. "I'm even ready to prophesy that you'll one day reap a very considerable benefit from it."

But Maud's only answer was a dreary little shake of the head.

CHAPTER XXXV
OFFER OF FREEDOM

Slowly the dreary winter days gave place to spring. March came with gusty rain-storms that swept over sea and downs; lashing the waves to fury, blotting the countryside like a torn veil. March went, smiling and wonderful, with a treacherous graciousness that deceived all nature into imagining that the winter was really gone.

At Burchester Castle, Bunny, lying perpetually flat on his back by the doctor's unalterable decree, alternated between fits of bitter complaining and fits of black despair. He suffered more from tedium and weariness than from any definite pain, and Maud found herself fully occupied once more with the care of him. The nurse was thankful to have her at hand, for Bunny was at all times a difficult patient. And to be in attendance upon him was Maud's greatest joy in those days. She watched over him with such a wealth of devotion as she had never displayed before, a devotion at which even the boy himself sometimes marvelled.

Jake came and went, but he was never with him at night. The nurse slept in his room and Maud in the one adjoining. Jake went back to his home to sleep.

He and Maud saw but little of each other. They met daily, but she avoided all intercourse with him so strenuously that only the most ordinary commonplaces ever passed between them.

She saw much more of Saltash, though he was often away. His comings and goings were never known beforehand, and he never intruded himself upon her. Only when she went in the afternoons or evenings to the music-room and, propping the door wide, played and sometimes sang to Bunny, he had a fashion of coming lightly in upon her, dropping as it seemed from nowhere, and lying outstretched upon the settee near her while he smoked his endless cigarettes, and occasionally criticized.

How he entered she never discovered; he was always there before she knew, and he never came in by the door. When she asked him, he would only jest.

"Some day I will show you my secret chamber, ma belle reine. But not yet-not yet."

No intimate conversation took place at these times. They were seldom really alone, being always within call of Bunny's imperious voice.

Saltash was very good to Bunny, but his company was considered by the nurse to be too lively for her patient, and she would not permit him to stay long in the sick-room. Her orders regarding Bunny were very strict. He was to be kept quiet, – contented also, if possible, but always quiet.

For that reason his mother's visits were also very brief. She did not often come to the Castle. It seemed to Maud that her plump face was beginning to wear a harassed look, but there never had been any confidence between them, and she did not like to question her. She knew herself quite powerless to assist in the bearing of her mother's burdens.

During that final month of devotion to Bunny she gave herself up to him so completely that even her own problems grew remote and almost unreal. She was upon the usual friendly terms with Charlie; but he was very far from occupying her first attention. So absorbed indeed was she that the memory of their brief conversation on the day of Bunny's operation, together with his mad, characteristic suggestion, had faded altogether into the background of her mind. It seemed somehow impossible that Bunny could ever cease to be the centre and aim of her whole conscious existence, impossible that Capper and his miracles could so alter the trend of her life's destiny.

Her feeling for Saltash seemed to be lying dormant, very far below the surface. She was not thinking of herself at all just then. She was too fully occupied. Her feeling for Jake also was almost a blank. Now that he no longer attempted to play any part in her life but that of passive spectator, she treated him without conscious effort as a comparative stranger. But all the time deep down in her heart she smothered that nameless dread of the man that once had been so active. She did not want to think of him; she instinctively restrained herself from thinking of him. She had schooled herself to meet him without agitation. She had thrust him unresisting into the furthest background of her consciousness. And now she lived for Bunny, and for Bunny alone.

So that last month slipped away.

April came, but no word from Capper. A faint, new hope began to dawn in her heart. Was it possible that the sacrifice might not after all be demanded of her? Was it possible that the miracle might even yet be worked out with much patience at Burchester? Bunny did not seem to be making much progress, but at least she was sure he was not losing ground. He did not suffer so much as formerly, though his chafing irritability sometimes seemed to her to be even greater than before. He talked incessantly of Capper, urging Jake to write to him.

But Jake would not be persuaded. "Capper knows his own business, my son. You leave him alone!" he said.

And Bunny had perforce to accept the fiat. He never seriously attempted to resist Jake. Their friendship was too near for that. Jake's influence over him was practically boundless.

But he could not check the boy's fierce impatience which grew perceptibly from day to day.

It was on a warm afternoon towards the middle of the month that Maud was sitting at the piano, trying to soothe him with the music he loved, during the absence of the nurse, when the sound of a footfall in the room made her turn. Saltash had been away for a few days, but she was half-expecting him. He never remained away for long.

"Why, Charlie, – " she began, with a quick smile of welcome, and broke off sharply. It was Capper.

Her face must have displayed something more than surprise, she reflected later, for his first words, albeit he smiled whimsically as he uttered them, were words of apology.

"So sorry, Mrs. Bolton. I shouldn't have taken you off your guard like this, only I had a notion that being somewhat over-due, you might be more or less prepared to see me."

She left the piano, and went with outstretched hand to meet him. "You at last!" she said.

Her welcome was cordial, but it was wholly without eagerness. Her heart was beating wildly, uncontrollably. She felt suddenly cold, as if she had stepped into a stone vault.

Capper bent a little over her hand; she saw his eyes flash over her. "I don't find the frog in attendance," he remarked. "Has he been shunted for a spell?"

She felt her colour come again. "Don't you want to hear about Bunny?" she said.

He smiled at her. "I know my own business so well, madam, that I know all I need to know about Bunny," he told her dryly. "The boy is just mad to be allowed to try his strength, and between you and me he'll have about the biggest disappointment of his life when he does. It won't do him any harm though, so don't you worry any!" He suddenly held up her hand to the light and surveyed it critically. "Say, Mrs. Bolton," he said, "what do you live on? Just monkey-nuts?"

She laughed in spite of herself. "I live very well, I assure you. But I could never get fat. It's not my nature."

He grunted and pulled at his yellow beard. "Do you realize that you've lost pounds of flesh since it was first my privilege to meet you?"

She shook her head protestingly. "Oh no, really. It is your imagination."

Capper shook his head also. "My imagination feeds on facts only. Jake is not looking after you properly. It's my belief he is treating you to slow starvation."

"Oh indeed-indeed," she broke in with vehemence, "Jake has had nothing to do with me lately. I have been much too busy with Bunny, and he has had the good sense not to interfere."

"Is that good sense?" said Capper, in the tone of one who does not require an answer.

"Besides," she went on rather breathlessly, "it's not Jake's business to look after me."

"I thought that was what husbands were for," said Capper, with his whimsical smile. "It's a fool policy anyway to leave a woman to look after herself, and you're just a living illustration of that fact."

Her hands clasped his arm almost unconsciously. "Please-please don't ever discuss me again with Jake!" she begged in tones of distress.

He patted her hand with fatherly reassurance and passed the matter by. "What are you going to do when Bunny is gone?" he asked.

Her face paled again. "You are really going to take him away?" she said.

"To-morrow," said Capper.

She removed her hands with a gesture that was piteous, she said nothing whatever.

Capper turned aside. "Maybe you'll take up housekeeping," he said practically. "If I dare to venture upon the suggestion, you would make a charming hostess."

She was silent still.

He glanced at her. "Say, Mrs. Bolton," he said, "I guess you'll think me several kinds of a nuisance; but your husband has offered me his hospitality for to-night. And I, – well, I have accepted it provisionally, that is, on the condition that he can supply me with a hostess."

She looked at him in blank dismay. "But I sleep here!" she said. "I-I must be always at hand in case Bunny should want me."

"Isn't the nurse in attendance?" asked Capper, with a touch of sharpness.

"Oh, of course," she answered. "But-but-"

"And how often in the night does she generally call you?"

Maud was silent.

Capper's hand patted her shoulder again, paternally, admonishingly. "Guess he could spare you for to-night," he said. "Pack your grip and come home! Jake will be pleased to see you, sure."

She shivered. "It isn't home to me," she said.

"What?" said Capper. "Not your husband's house?"

The hot colour rushed up over her face. She turned from him. "Come and see Bunny!" she said.

A few minutes later she stood alone in the music-room, gazing forth from the western window with eyes that seemed to search the horizon for help.

Capper was occupied with Bunny. The nurse had returned, and she was not needed. The certainty of this was upon her, a dead weight pressing her down. Bunny's need of her was past forever. Duty, stark and implacable, was all that remained in life.

Ah! A step behind her! She turned swiftly. "Charlie!"

He came to her, a smile on his swarthy face, a gleam of wickedness in his eyes. He took the hands that almost involuntarily she stretched to him. "You summoned me!" he said.

Something in his look warned her of danger. His clasp was electric in its tenseness.

She stood a moment before replying; then: "I didn't so much as know you were in the house," she said.

She left her hands in his. An odd recklessness was upon her, the recklessness born of despair.

He laughed into her eyes. "Yet you summoned me, most tragic queen of the roses," he said. "You weren't so much as thinking of me, perhaps? Yet subconsciously your spirit cried to mine, and behold-I am here."

He had drawn her close to him, holding her hands against his breast, so that the quick, ardent beat of his heart came to her, sending a curious, half-reluctant thrill through her own.

She looked into his face of mocking subtleties. "No, I wasn't thinking of you, Charlie," she said. "I was thinking of myself, hating the life before me-hating everything!"

The concentrated bitterness of her speech was almost like a challenge. She spoke passionately, as one goaded, not caring what came of it.

Saltash was bending slowly towards her, still laughing, ready to take refuge in a joke if refuge were needed, yet daring also, warily marking his game. "Why don't you think of me-for a change?" he said.

She turned her face swiftly aside. Her lips were suddenly quivering. "No one-not even you-can help me now," she said.

"You are wrong," he answered instantly. "I can help you. It's just what I'm here for."

She glanced at him again. "As a friend, Charlie?" she said.

He bent his dark head over her hands. "Yes, a friend," he said.

"But-" She began to tremble; the old dread was upon her, the old instinctive recoil, the old ache of distrust. She set her hands against him, holding him from her. "How can you help me?" she said.

He did not lift his head. "I can't keep you out of the furnace altogether," he said. "But I can save you from living in bondage to a man you loathe. You will have to trust me-to a certain extent. Do you trust me?"

"I don't know." Her voice was low, quivering with an agitation she could not repress. "Tell me what you are thinking of! Tell me how-how-"

"I will tell you," he said, "when you have made up your mind as to my trustworthiness."

She controlled her agitation with an effort. "Oh, don't play with me, Charlie!" she besought him. "Don't you see I'm cornered-desperate? Of course I will trust you."

He looked up at her with a wry lift of one eyebrow. "Being a case of needs must," he observed dryly. "Well, my dear girl, the case is simple enough. You are ready to trust me because you must. No one else is under the same obligation. Everyone else-the worthy cow-puncher included-knows my fascinating reputation. Disappear with me for a week or so-we'll run away and hide-and all charitably-minded folks will jump to the obvious conclusion. The result will be an undefended divorce suit, and I shall pay the damages." His smile became a grimace. "That is your road to freedom, ma belle reine," he said. "And think on me, I pray thee, when that freedom shall be achieved! There are sunnier lands than England where lovely ladies may be wooed by wandering cavaliers. And surely, surely," his smile flashed forth again, "having thus made such atonement for past offences as lies in my power, my queen would stoop to be gracious to me at last!"