The Tidal Wave and Other Stories Part 39

There's--there's someone else."

"Good heavens!" said Carey. "Who?"

He had been suppressing a laugh during the greater part of Gwen's confidence, but this last announcement startled him into sobriety. A very faint misgiving stirred in his soul. What if--but no; it was preposterous. He thrust it from him.

Gwen slid a loving arm about his neck.

"I like telling you things, Reggie. You always understand, and they never worry me so much afterwards. For I am--horribly worried. Mummy met him in the hunting field. He has come to live quite near us--oh, such a brute he is, loud and coa.r.s.e and bullying! He rode a horse to death only a few weeks ago. They say he's mad, and I'm nearly sure he drinks as well. And he and Mummy have chummed up. They are as thick as thieves, and he's always coming to the house, dropping in at odd hours. The poor, dear Admiral hasn't a chance. He's much too gentlemanly to elbow his way in like--like this horrid Major Coningsby. Oh, Reggie, do you think you can do anything to stop it? I don't want her to marry him, neither does Charlie. My, Reggie, what's the matter? You don't know him, do you? You don't know anything bad about him?"

Carey was on his feet, pacing slowly to and fro. One hand--the maimed left hand--was thrust away out of sight, as his habit was in a woman's presence. The other was clenched hard at his side.

He did not at once answer Gwen's agitated questioning. She sat and watched him in some anxiety, wondering at the stern perplexity with which he reviewed the problem.

Suddenly he stopped in front of her.

"Yes; I know the man," he said. "I knew him years ago in South Africa, and I met him again to-night. I must think this matter over, and consider it carefully. You are quite sure of what you say--quite sure he is attracted by your mother?"

Gwen nodded.

"Oh, there's no doubt of that. He treats her already as if she were his property. You won't tell her I told you, Reggie? It will simply precipitate matters if you do."

"No; I shan't tell her. I never argue with women." Carey spoke almost savagely. He was staring at something that Gwen could not see.

"Do you think you will be able to stop it?" she asked him, with a slightly nervous hesitation.

His eyes came back to her. He seemed to consider her for a moment. Then, seeing that she was really troubled, he spoke with sudden kindliness:

"I think so, yes. But never mind how! Leave it to me and put it out of your head as much as possible! I quite agree with you that it is an arrangement that wouldn't do at all. Why on earth couldn't your friend the Admiral speak before?"

"I wish he had," said Gwen, from her heart. "And I believe he does, too, now. But men are so idiotic, Reggie. They always miss their opportunities."

"Think so?" said Carey. "Some men never have any, it seems to me."

And he left her wondering at the bitterness of his speech.

IV

The winter sunlight was streaming into Major Coningsby's gloomy library when Carey again stood within it. The Major was out riding, he had been told, but he was expected back ere long; and he had decided to wait for him.

And so he stood waiting before the portrait; and closely, critically, he studied it by the morning light.

It was the face which for five years now he had carried graven on his heart. She was the one woman to him--the woman of his dream. Throughout his wanderings he had cherished the memory of her--a secret and priceless possession to which he clung day and night, waking and sleeping. He had made no effort to find her during those years, but silently, almost in spite of himself, he had kept her in his heart, had called her to him in his dreams, yearning to her across the ever-widening gulf, hungering dumbly for the voice he had never heard.

He knew that he was no favourite with women. All his life his reserve had been a barrier that none had ever sought to pa.s.s till this woman--the woman who should have been his fate--had been drifted to him through life's stress and tumult and had laid her hand with perfect confidence in his. And now it was laid upon him to betray that confidence. He no longer had the right to keep her secret. He had protected her once, and it had been as a hidden, sacred bond invisibly linking them together. But it could do so no longer. The time had come to wrest that precious link apart.

Sharply he turned from the picture. The dark eyes tortured him. They seemed to be pleading with him, entreating him. There came a sudden clatter without, the tramp of heavy feet, the jingle of spurs. The door was flung noisily back, and Major Coningsby strode in.

"Hullo! Very good of you to look me up so soon. Sorry I wasn't in to receive you. Haven't you had a drink yet?"

He tossed his riding-whip down upon the table, and busied himself with the gla.s.ses.

Carey drew near; his face was stern.

"I have something to say to you," he said, "before we drink, if you have no objection."

His voice was quiet and very even, but Coningsby looked up with a quick frown.

"Confound you, Carey! What are you pulling a long face about this time of the morning? Better have a drink; it'll make you feel more sociable."

He spoke with sharp irritation. The hand that held the spirit-decanter was not over-steady. Carey watched him--coldly critical.

"That portrait over the mantelpiece," he said; "your wife, I think you told me?"

Coningsby swore a deep oath.

"I may have told you so. I don't often mention the subject. She is dead."

"I beg your pardon; I am forced to mention it." Carey's tone was deliberate, emotionless, hard. "That lady--the original of that portrait--is still alive, to the best of my belief. At least, she was not lost at sea on the occasion of the wreck of the _Denver Castle_ five years ago."

"What?" said Coningsby. He turned suddenly white--white to the lips, and set down the decanter he was still holding as if he had been struck powerless. "What?" he said again, with starting eyes upon Carey's face.

"I think you understood me," Carey returned coldly. "I have told you because, upon consideration, it seemed to me you ought to know."

The thing was done and past recall, but deep in his heart there lurked a savage resentment against this man who had forced him to break his silence. He felt no sympathy with him; he only knew disgust.

Coningsby moved suddenly with a frantic oath, and gripped him by the shoulder. The blood was coming back to his face in livid patches; his eyes were terrible.

"Go on!" he said thickly. "Out with it! Tell me all you know!"

He towered over Carey. There was violence in his grip, but Carey did not seem to notice. He faced the giant with absolute composure.

"I can tell you no more," he said. "I knew she was saved, because I was saved with her. But she left Brittany while I was still too ill to move."

"You must know more than that!" shouted Coningsby, losing all control of himself, and shaking his informant furiously by the shoulder. "If she was saved, how did she come to be reported missing?"

For a single instant Carey hesitated; then, with steady eyes upon the bloated face above him, he made quiet reply:

"Her name was among the missing by her own contrivance. Doubtless she had her reasons."

Coningsby's face suddenly changed: his eyes shone red.

"You helped her!" he snarled, and lifted a clenched fist.

Carey's maimed hand came quietly into view, and closed upon the man's wrist.

"It is not my custom," he coldly said, "to refuse help to a woman."

"Confound you!" stormed Coningsby. "Where is she now? Where? Where?"