The Moving Finger Part 48

"You will come with me?"

"I--will--come--with--you," she echoed.

"By G.o.d, sir, she shan't!" cried Vandermere. "Take your hands off her, sir, or you shall learn how mountebanks like yourself should be treated."

Saton struck him full in the face, so that losing for a moment his balance upon the slippery floor, Vandermere nearly fell. In a moment he recovered himself, however. There was a struggle which did not last half-a-dozen seconds. He lifted Saton off his feet and shook him, till it seemed as though his limbs were cracking. Then he threw him away.

Rochester stepped forward to interfere.

"Enough of this, Vandermere," he said sternly. "Remember that the fellow's career is over. He may try to bluff it out, but he is done for. I have proofs enough to send him to prison a dozen times over."

Saton rose slowly to his feet. Unconsciously his fingers straightened his tie. He knew very well that life--or rather the things which life meant for him--was over. He had only one desire--the desire of the born _poseur_--to extricate himself from his present position with something which might, at any rate, seem like dignity.

"Do I understand," he asked Rochester, "that my departure from this house is forbidden?"

Rochester shook his head.

"No!" he answered. "For what you are, for the ign.o.ble creature that you have become, I accept a certain amount of responsibility. For that reason, I bid you go. Go where you will, so long as your name or your presence never trouble us again. Let this be the last time that any one of us hears the name of Bertrand Saton. I give you that chance.

Find for yourself an honest place in the world, if you can, wherever you will, so that it be not in this country. Go!"

Saton turned toward the door with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"You need have no fear," he said. "The country into which I go is one in which you will never be over-anxious to travel."

He pa.s.sed out, amidst a silence which seemed a little curious when one considered the emotions which he left behind. Lois' pale face seemed all aglow with a sort of desperate thankfulness. Already she was in Vandermere's arms. And then the silence was broken by a woman's sobbing. They all turned towards her. It was Pauline who had suddenly broken down, her face buried in her hands, her whole frame shaking with pa.s.sion.

Rochester moved towards her, but she thrust him aside.

"You are a brute!" she declared--"a brute!"

She staggered across the room towards the door by which Saton had departed. Before she could reach it, however, they heard the crunching of wheels as his car swept by the front on its way down the avenue.

Rochester pushed open the black gate which led from the road into the plantation at the back of the hill, and they pa.s.sed through and commenced the last short climb. No word pa.s.sed between them. The silence of the evening was broken only by the faint sobbing of the wind in the treetops, and the breaking of dried twigs under their feet. They were both listening intently--they scarcely knew for what.

The far-away rumble of a train, the barking of a dog, the scurrying of a rabbit across the path--these sounds came and pa.s.sed--nothing else.

They neared the edge of the plantation. There was only a short climb now, and a gray stone wall. Rochester pa.s.sed his arm through his companion's. Her breath was coming in little sobs.

"We shall be there in a moment, Pauline," he said. "It is only a fancy of mine. Perhaps he is not here after all, but at any rate we shall know."

She said nothing. She seemed to be bracing herself for that last effort. Now they could see the bare rocky outline of the summit of the hill. A few steps more, and they would pa.s.s through the gate. And then the sound came, the sound which somehow they had dreaded. Sharp and crisp through the twilight air came the report of a revolver. They even fancied that they heard a little moan come travelling down the hillside.

Rochester stopped short.

"We are too late," he said. "Pauline, you had better stay here. I will go on and find him."

She shook her head.

"I am coming," she said. "It is my fault!--it is my fault!"

He held out his hand.

"Pauline," he said, "it may not be a fit sight for you. Sit here. If you can do any good, I will call to you."

She brushed him aside and began to run. With her slight start she outdistanced him, and when he scrambled up to the top, she was already on her knees, kneeling down over the crouching form.

"He is not dead," she cried. "Quick! Tell me where the wound is."

Rochester stooped down on the other side, and Saton opened his eyes slowly.

"I am a bungler, as usual!" he said.

Rochester opened his coat carefully.

"He has shot himself in the shoulder," he said to Pauline. "It is not serious."

Saton pointed to the rock.

"Lift me up a little," he said. "I want to sit there, with my back to it. Carefully!"

Rochester did as he was bid. Then he took his handkerchief and tried to staunch the blood.

"I don't know why you came," Saton faltered--"you especially," he added to Rochester. "Haven't you had all the triumph you wanted?

Couldn't you have left me alone to spend this last hour my own way? I wanted to learn how to die without fear or any regret. Here I can do it, because it is easier here to realize that failure such as mine is death."

"We came to try and save you," said Rochester quietly.

"To save you!" Pauline sobbed. "Oh! Bertrand, I am sorry--I am very, very sorry!"

He looked at her in slow surprise.

"That is kind of you," he said. "It is kind of you to care. You know now what sort of a creature I am. You know that he was right--this man, I mean--when he warned you against me, when he told you that I was something rotten, something not worth your notice. Give me the revolver again."

Rochester thrust it in his pocket, shaking his head.

"My young friend, I think not," he said. "Listen. I have no more to say about the past. I am prepared to accept my share of the responsibility of it. You are still young. There is still time for you to weave fresh dreams, to live a new life. Make another start. No!

Don't be afraid that I'm going to offer you my help. There was a curse upon that. But nevertheless, make your start. It isn't I who wish it.

It is--Pauline."

Saton looked at her wonderingly.

"She doesn't care," he said. "She knows now that I am really a charlatan. And I needn't have been," he added, with a sudden fury. "It was only that cursed taste for luxury which seemed somehow or other to creep into my blood, which made me so dependent upon money. Naudheim was right! Naudheim was right! If only I had stayed with him! If only I had believed in him!"

"It is not too late," she whispered, stooping low over him. "Be a man, Bertrand. Take up your work where you left it, and have done with the other things. This slipping away over the edge, slipping into Eternity, is the trick of cowards. For my sake, Bertrand!"

He half closed his eyes. Rochester was busy still with his shoulder, and the pain made him faint.