Charles Rex Part 70

He wheeled and looked at her. There was no sign of tears in the wide blue eyes that met his own. Yet he put his hand on her shoulder with the gesture of one who comforts a child.

"Before I go," he said, "I want to tell you something--something no one has told me, but that I've found out for myself. There is only one thing on this earth worth having--only one thing that counts. It isn't rank or wealth or even happiness. It swamps the lot, just because it's the only thing in G.o.d's creation that lasts. And you've got it. In heaven's name, don't throw it away!"

He spoke with the simplicity and strength of a man who never wastes his words, and having spoken, he released her without farewell and turned away.

Toby stood quite motionless for several seconds, watching him; then, as he did not look round, hurriedly she addressed the eldest child.

"Take care of Betty a moment, Eileen darling! I shall be back directly."

And with the words she was gone, like an arrow, in pursuit.

He must have heard her feet upon the sand, but he did not turn. Perhaps his thoughts were elsewhere, for when at the quick pressure of her hand on his arm he paused to look at her, she saw that his eyes were very sad.

"Well?" he said, with the glimmer of a smile. "Well,--Toinette?"

She clasped her two hands upon his arm, holding it very tightly, her face uplifted. "Please--I want to thank you," she said breathlessly. "You have been--so very good."

He shook his head. "I have done--nothing," he said. "Don't thank me!"

She went on with nervous haste. "And it does make a difference to me.

I--I--I'm glad I know, though it must have been--a great shock to you."

"It would have been a much worse shock if it had been anyone else," he said.

"Would it? How nice of you!" Her lip trembled. "Well then, I'm glad it wasn't." She began to walk on with him. "Do you mind telling me--did you--did you--forgive her?"

"Yes," he said very quietly.

A quick s.h.i.+ver went through her. "Then I must too," she said. "At least--I must try. She--she--I loved her once, you know, before I began to understand."

"Everyone loved her," he said.

"But life is very difficult, isn't it?" she urged rather tremulously.

"Your life has been," he said.

She nodded. "One can't help--can't help--making mistakes--even bad ones--sometimes."

"You've just made one," he said.

She faced him valiantly. "Ah, but you don't understand. You--you can't throw away--what you've never had, can you--can you?"

"What you've got," he corrected gravely. "Yes, you can."

She flung out her hands with a wide gesture. "But I haven't got it! I never had it! He took me out of pity. He never--pretended to love me."

"No," said Larpent, with grim cert.i.tude. "He isn't pretending this time."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, motionless. "Not pretending? What do you mean? Please--what do you mean?"

He held out his hand. "Good-bye!" he said abruptly. "I mean--just that."

Her lips were parted to say more, but something in his face or action checked her. She put her hand into his. "Good-bye!" she said.

He held her hand for a moment, then, moved by some hint of forlornness in the clear eyes, he bent, as he had bent at the Castle on that summer evening weeks before, and lightly touched her forehead with his lips.

"Oh, that's nice of you," said Toby quickly. "Thank you for that."

"Don't thank me for anything!" said Larpent. "Play a straight game, that's all!"

And with the words he left her finally, striding away over the sand with that careless sailor's gait of his, gazing always far ahead of him out to the dim horizon. Perhaps as long as he lived his look would never again dwell upon anything nearer.

CHAPTER X

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

"It's been--a funny game," said Saltash, with a wry grimace. "We've both of us been so d.a.m.ned subtle that it seems to me we've ended up in much the same sort of hole that we started in."

"But you're not going to stay in it," said Maud.

He turned and looked down at her, one eyebrow c.o.c.ked at a comic angle.

"_Ma belle reine_, if you can help us to climb out, you will earn my undying grat.i.tude."

She met his look with her steadfast eyes. "Charlie, do you know that night after night she cries as if her poor little heart were broken?"

Saltash's eyebrow descended again. He scowled hideously. "_Mais pourquoi?_ I have not broken it. I have never even made love to her."

Maud's face was very compa.s.sionate. "Perhaps that is why. She is so young--so forlorn--and so miserable. Is it quite impossible for you to forgive her?"

"Forgive her!" said Saltash. "Does she want to be forgiven?"

"She is fretting herself ill over it," Maud said. "I can't bear to see her. No, she has told me nothing--except that she is waiting for you to throw her off--to divorce her. Charlie, you wouldn't do that even if you could!"

Saltash was silent; the scowl still upon his face.

"Tell me you wouldn't!" she urged.

His odd eyes met hers with a s.h.i.+fting gleam of malice. "There is only one reason for which I would do that, _ma chere_," he said. "So she has not told you why she ran away with my friend Spentoli?"

Maud shook her head. "She does not speak of it at all. I only know that she was unspeakably thankful to Jake for protecting her from him."

"Ah!" Saltash's teeth showed for an instant. "I also am grateful to Jake for that. He seems to have taken a masterly grip of the situation. Is he aware that he broke Spentoli's arm, I wonder? It was in the papers, alongside the tragic death of Rozelle. 'Fall of a Famous Sculptor from a Train.' It will keep him quiet for some time, I hear, and has saved me the trouble of calling him out. I went to see him in hospital."

"You went to see him!" Maud exclaimed.