The Sign of the Spider Part 37

"That's satisfactory, anyway," said Laurence, as though he were discussing the fortunes of any two people whose names he had just heard for the first time. But meanwhile his mind was inwardly avenging itself upon its outward self-control. For vividly, and as though spoken into his ears, there seemed to float fragments of those farewell words uttered there in that room: "_You have drawn my very heart and soul into yours.... Oh, it is too bitter! Laurence, my darling--my love, my life, my ideal, good-bye--and good-bye!_"

Well, the foolish dream had been a pleasant one while it lasted. Nay, more,--in all seriousness it had borne momentous fruit,--for no less than three times had that episode--yes, now it seemed a mere episode--intervened between him and death.

"Lilith will be so glad to see you when you are pa.s.sing through; for of course you will be returning home again. They have taken a bungalow at Kalk Bay for the summer. I'll find you the address."

They talked on a little longer, and then Laurence took his departure.

As he gained the outer air once more there was that about the s.h.i.+mmer of the sunlight, the hum of the battery stamp, the familiarity of the surroundings, which reminded him of that former time when he had thus stepped forth, having bidden a good-bye which was not a good-bye. Yet the same pain did not grip around his heart now--not in its former acuteness--rather was it now a sense of the falling away of all things.

By a freak of psychology his mind reverted to poor Lindela, dying in his arms in the steamy gloom of the equatorial forest: dying slowly, by inches, in pain; yet uttering no cry, no complaint, lest she should rob him of a few minutes more or less of sleep. That was indeed love. Still, even while making it, his sense of philosophy told him the comparison was not a fair one.

Well, that was over--another chapter in his life to shut down. Now to make the best of life. Now, with the means to taste its pleasures, with hard, firm health to enjoy them; after all, what was a mere sentimental grievance? Perhaps it counted for something, for all he told himself to the contrary. Perhaps deep down there gnawed a restless craving, stifle it as he would. Who can tell?

"The R. M. S. _Alnwick Castle_ leaves for England at 4 P. M."

Such was the notice which, posted up in s.h.i.+pping office, or in the short paragraph column of the Cape Town newspapers, met the public eye.

It was the middle of the morning. Laurence Stanninghame, striving to kill the few hours remaining to him on African soil, was strolling listlessly along Adderley Street. A shop window, adorned with photographic views of local scenery and types of natives,--mostly store-boys rigged up with s.h.i.+eld and a.s.segai to look warlike for the occasion,--attracted his attention, and for a while he stood, idly gazing at these. His survey ended, he backed away from the window in a perfectly irrational and British manner on a busy thoroughfare, and--trod hard on somebody's toes. A little cry of mingled pain and resentment, then he stood--profusely apologizing.

But with the first tones of his voice, she whom he had so awkwardly, if unintentionally damaged, seemed to lose sight of her injuries. Her face blanched, but not with physical pain, her lips parted in a sort of gasp, and the sweet eyes, wide and dilated, sought his in wonder--almost in fear.

"Laurence!"

The name was hardly audible, but he heard it. And if his steely philosophy had stood him in good stead before, a.s.suredly at this moment his guard was down; as he recognized that he had last beheld this serene vision of loveliness, arrayed as now in cool white, strained to him in farewell embrace alone in the solemn night, those parted lips pressed to his in heart-wrung pain, those sweet eyes, starry, humid with love, gazing full into his own. And now they met again, four years later--by chance--in a busy thoroughfare.

"Pray excuse my inexcusable awkwardness; I must have hurt you," he said, as they clasped hands, and the tone was even almost formal, for he remembered they were in public.

"You--you--have changed. I should hardly have known you but for your voice," she said unsteadily--for he had turned to walk up the street with her. "But--when did you return? I--had not heard."

"Had you not? I called on your aunt in Johannesburg on the way through.

She was telling me all about you."

Something of relief seemed to manifest itself in Lilith's tone as she rejoined:

"But you--are you staying here?"

"Well, no. I have been trying to kill time until this afternoon. I am leaving by the _Alnwick Castle_."

"Oh! By the _Alnwick Castle_?" she repeated again--and in the catch in her voice, and the quickness of utterance, he knew she was talking at random, for the sake of saying something, in fact.

"Do you care to hear a little of what has befallen me since I went?" he said. "Then let us turn in here," as she made a mute but eager gesture of a.s.sent.

They had gained the entrance to the oak avenue at the back of Government House. Strolling up this, they turned into the beautiful Botanical Gardens. n.o.body was about, save a gardener or two busied with their work.

"What I am going to tell you is so marvellous that you will probably refuse to believe it," he said, after narrating the incident of the sign upon the metal box which had arrested the uplifted weapons of the unsparing Ba-gcatya, and, of course, editing out all that might have revealed the real nature of the expedition. "I have never breathed one word of it to any living being--not even to those who were with me. I would rather you did not either, Lilith, because it is too strange for anybody to believe, and--for other reasons."

She gave the required promise, and he drew forth the box. At sight of this relic of the past, that sweet, entrancing, if profitless past--Lilith could no longer quite keep herself in hand. The tears welled forth, falling upon the metal box itself--hallowing, as it were, the sweet charm of its saving power.

"Your love had power to save one life, you see," he went on in a cold, even voice, intended to strengthen him against himself. "But look, now--see those marks on the lid, just discernible? Now--listen."

And Lilith did listen; and at the description of the awful rock prison, with its skeleton bones, the long hours of helpless suspense and despair--and the final struggle in the ghastly moonlight; the struggle for life with the appalling monster that tenanted it, her eyes dilated with horror, and with pallid face and gasping lips she begged him not to go on, so great a hold did the incident take upon her imagination, even there, in the blaze of the broad midday sunlight.

"I have done now," he said. "Well, Lilith--you see what that token of your love has rescued me from. It was given as an amulet or charm, and right well has it fulfilled its purpose. But--to what end?"

"Did you--did you come back with what you went for," she broke forth at last, as with an effort.

"Yes. Therein, too, you proved yourself a true prophet. And now tell me something about yourself."

"Were you--angry with me when you heard what I had done, Laurence?" she said, raising her eyes full to his.

"Angry? No. Why should I be? Your life is your own, though, as a rule, sacrificing ones' self to save somebody else, as your aunt rather gave me to understand was the case here, is lamentably apt to turn out a case of throwing away one's life with both hands. It is too much like cutting one's own throat to save somebody else from being hanged."

"And is that your way of wis.h.i.+ng me well, Laurence?" she said reproachfully.

"No. I wish you nothing but well. It would be futile to say 'happiness,'

I suppose."

"The happiness of doing one's duty is a hard kind of happiness, after all," she said, with a sad little smile.

"Yes. An excellent copybook maxim, but for all purposes of real life--bosh. Am I not in my own person a living instance to that effect?

As soon as I pitched 'duty' to the dogs, why then, and only then, did I begin to travel in the contrary direction to those sagacious animals myself--which, of course, is simply appalling morality, but--it's life.

Well, child, make the best of your life, and prove a s.h.i.+ning exception to the dismal rule."

"Do you remember our talk on board the dear old _Persian_? Yes, we had so many, you were going to say; but I mean our first one, the first serious one--that night, leaning over the side, I asked you: 'Shall I make a success of life?' Do you remember your answer?"

"As well as though it were yesterday. I replied that the chances were pretty even, inclining, if anything, to the negative. Well, and was I right?"

Lilith turned away her head. He could see that the tears were not far away. Her lips were quivering.

"I likewise told you you were groping after an ideal," he went on.

"And I found it. Perhaps I had already found it when I asked the question. Oh, Laurence, life is all wrong, all horribly wrong and out of joint," she burst forth, with a pa.s.sionate catch in her voice, as she turned and faced him once more.

"Yes, I know it is. I came to that conclusion a goodish while ago, and have never seen any reason since to doubt its absolute accuracy."

"All out of joint!" she repeated hopelessly. "It is as if our lives had been placed opposite each other on parallel lines, and then one of the lines had been moved. Then our lives lay apart forever."

"That's about it."

She was not deceived. His tone was hard; to all appearances indifferent.

Yet not to her ear did it so ring. She knew the immensity of effort that kept it--and what lay behind it--under control. Then she broke down entirely.

"Laurence, my love--my doubly lost love!" she uttered through a choking whirlwind of sobs. "Teach me some of your strength--some of your hardness. Then, perhaps, I can bear things better."

"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, remember, and perhaps you have shown me the weak link here--that of my 'hardness.' Child, I would not teach you an iota of it, if I could. It is good for me, but no woman was ever the better for it yet. But keep yourself in hand now. We are in a public place, although a comparatively secluded one. For your own sake, do not give way. And for the very reason that I feared to stir up old memories, I had intended to go through without attempting to see you once more. Tell me one thing--would it have been better had I done so?"

"Better had you done so? No--no. A thousand times no--Laurence, my darling. I shall treasure up this last hour we have spent together--shall treasure it as the sweetest of memories as long as life shall last."

"And I shall treasure up that reply. Listen! Twice has your love stood between me and death, as I have told you. Yet of the third time I have never told you. It was the day I decided to go up-country. I had done with life. The pistol was pressed hard against my forehead. I was gradually trying how much more pressure the trigger would bear. A hair's breadth would have done it. Then it seemed that your voice was in my ear. Your form stood before me. I tell you, Lilith, you saved me that day as surely as though you had actually been within the room. I put the pistol down."