A Gamble with Life Part 68

"And you finished the litigation?"

"Easily. A little give and take, and the thing was done."

"More give than take, I am told."

"Perhaps so, but better that than fighting, and bad blood, and ruinous lawyers' fees."

Mr. Graythorne winced and grew red in the face, and before he could recover himself Rufus had slipped out of the room.

It did not take him long to reach the street in which Madeline lived. He looked down its long length and gave a little sigh of relief. It was not a street of mansions. It was unpretentious and comparatively obscure.

His heart was beating very fast when he walked slowly up the steps and rang the door-bell. He felt as though the supreme moment of his life had come.

He was shown into a room that harmonised with the street, quiet, cosy, comfortable, but quite unpretentious. He had not to wait many moments.

Almost before he had time to turn round, the door was pushed open, and Madeline stood before him, bright, winning, smiling, and radiantly beautiful.

There was no trace of stiffness or embarra.s.sment in her manner. Indeed, her greeting was more cordial than he had dared hope for. The embarra.s.sment was on his side; he felt he had undertaken a task that would tax all his nerve.

"It is like old times to see you again," she said, in her old frank, ingenuous way. "Do you remember our last long walk over the downs?"

"Then you have not forgotten?" he replied, with a little sigh of relief.

"Why should I forget? I was so sorry not to see you again."

"I looked out for you once or twice; then I heard you had gone away."

"Did you look out for me? And I wanted so particularly to see you."

"Yes?" he questioned, eagerly.

"I wanted to let you know that I had discovered Gervase Tregony's perfidy."

"Before you went away?"

"Yes; but I was unable to make it known. However, all the truth has come out since."

"You have heard?"

"Oh, yes. I get Cornish news regularly."

"Then you knew I had left?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, with a blush and a smile, "I knew that also."

"I came to look after that disputed property of my father's I once told you about," he said, after a pause.

"Yes, I remember. You said you had given up all hope of ever getting a penny."

"You see, my grandfather and I were too far away to look after it, and too poor to fight it. So it was just hung up. You have heard, perhaps, that it has turned out well?"

She blushed again, and hesitated for a moment. She felt that his eyes were upon her. She knew she would gain nothing by fencing. The truth would have to come out sooner or later. This man had eyes so clear that he could see through all sham and pretence. So she answered quite frankly. "My solicitor knows a good deal about Reboth, and he has told me."

"You mean Mr. Graythorne?"

His eyes were still upon her and there was no escape.

"Yes," she answered, almost in a whisper.

For a moment or two there was an almost painful silence. She felt what was coming, and shrank from meeting it. He knew what he wanted to say, and yet had scarcely the courage to say it.

"There is something I want to find out very much," he said, at length; "perhaps you can help me."

She looked up with an inquiring light in her eyes, but did not reply.

"You heard that my invention failed, or rather that it had been forestalled?"

She nodded a.s.sent.

"What the failure meant to me only G.o.d knew. I had borrowed the money to develop and perfect my idea, and when failure came it was overwhelming.

I was stripped of everything. I look back now as upon a long and hideous nightmare. I wonder how I endured?"

He paused for a moment, but she made no reply, but her eyes were full of eager interest.

"Well, when the night was darkest, and I was praying for death as the only escape for me, a letter came from Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne, enclosing a draft for five thousand dollars. The letter was long, and more or less incoherent, but it vaguely hinted that the money was a first instalment of the property left by my father.

"During that day, and I think for several days after, I was almost beside myself with joy. Then I went to see my grandfather, and he and I puzzled over the letter, but we could make very little out of it. In the end he suggested that I should come to America and look after the property myself.

"So I came, and at once called on Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne. Mr.

Graythorne I found, but I left his office more perplexed than ever. He talked in generalities, but he appeared to know little or nothing about the matter, though he admitted, of course, sending me the money.

"That night I left New York and made my way to Reboth, where I discovered that no distribution of the property left by my father had been made. That the whole of it was still in Chancery, as we should say in England.

"You can imagine how perplexed I felt, and naturally I began to wonder what kind friend had commissioned Mr. Graythorne to send me so much money. I said to myself: 'There is not a soul on the American continent that I know.' Then I remembered that you were here. You will forgive me if I wrong you, but I could think, and can think, of no one else. The money was my salvation. It not only saved me from despair, but from all that follows despair, and now that G.o.d has prospered me I want to pay it back. May I give it to you?"

Her eyes were full almost to overflowing by this time, but she resolutely beat back her emotion.

"Yes, I will take it back," she answered, slowly. "I am glad it served you in the hour of need."

"You meant it as a loan, I know," he said, with a smile.

"That was as G.o.d should will," she answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "I heard in Nice of your misfortune. I knew from what you told me that you had risked your all, and I wondered if I could help you without wounding you. As soon as I reached home I commissioned Mr. Graythorne to make inquiries about your late father's property in Reboth. It seemed certain that you would be well off some day, and so I advanced five thousand dollars on account; it was but a small return for all you had done for me."

"But I might not have won the suit, might not have discovered who had befriended me."

"I should still have been in your debt," she replied, with a smile. "You saved my life, you know," and she rose and touched the bell.

He rose also, and moved towards the door.