The Bars of Iron Part 38

"Dear Piers,"--so in clear, decided writing the message ran,--"I have wondered many times if I ought to be angry as well as sorry over that letter of yours. It was audacious, wasn't it? Only I know so well that you did not mean to hurt me when you wrote it. But, Piers, what I said before, you compel me to say again. This thing must stop. You say you are not a boy, so I shall not treat you as such. But indeed you must take my word for it when I tell you that I shall never marry again.

"I want to be quite honest with you, so you mustn't think that my two years of married life were by any means idyllic. They were not. The man I married was a failure, but I loved him, and because I loved him I followed him to the world's end. We were engaged two years before we married. My father disapproved; but when he died I was left lonely, so I followed Eric, whom I had not seen for eighteen months, to Australia. We were married in Sydney. He had work at that time in a s.h.i.+pping-office, but he did not manage to keep it. I did not know why at first. I was young, and I had always led a sheltered life. Then one night I found that he had been drinking, and after that I understood--many things. I think I know what you will say of him when you read this. It looks so crude written. But, Piers, he was not a bad man. He had this one fatal weakness, but he loved me, and he was good to me nearly always."

Piers' teeth closed suddenly and fiercely on his lower lip at this point; but he read on grimly with no other sign of indignation.

"Do you remember how I took upon myself once to warn you against losing your self-control?" The handwriting was not quite so steady here; the letters looked hurried, as if some agitation had possessed the writer. "I felt I had to do it, for I had seen a man's life completely wrecked through it. I know he was one of the many that go under every day, but the tragedy was so near me. I have never quite been able to shake off the dreadful memories of it. He was to all outward appearance a strong-willed man, but that habit was stronger, though he fought and fought against it.

When he failed, he seemed to lose everything,--self-respect, self-control, strength of purpose,--everything. But when the demon left him, he always repented so bitterly, so bitterly. I had a little money, enough to live on. He used to urge me to leave him, to go back to England, and live in peace. As if I could have done such a thing! And so we struggled on, making a desperately hard fight for it, till one awful night when he came home in raving delirium. I can't describe that to you. I don't want you to know what it was like. I nursed him through it, but it was terrible. He did not always know what he was doing. At times he was violent."

A drop of blood suddenly ran down Piers' chin; he pulled out his handkerchief sharply and wiped it away, still reading on.

"He got over it, but it broke him. He knew--we both knew--that things were hopeless. We tried for a time to shut our eyes to the fact, but it remained. And then one day very suddenly he roused himself and told me that he had heard of a job up-country and was going to it. I could not stop him. I could not even go with him. And so--for the first time since our marriage--we parted. He promised to come back to me for the birth of our child. But before that happened he was dead, killed in a drunken brawl. It was just what I had always feared--the tragedy that overhung us from the beginning. Piers, that's all. I've told it very badly. But I felt you must know how my romance died; and how impossible it is that I should ever have another. It didn't break my heart. It wasn't sudden enough for that. And now that he is gone, I can see it is best. But the manner of his going--that was the dreadful part. I told you about my baby girl, how she was born blind, and how five years ago she died.

"So now you know my little tragic history from beginning to end. There is no accounting for love. We follow our instincts, I suppose. But it leads us sometimes along paths that we could never bear to travel twice. Is there any pain, I wonder, like the pain of disillusionment, of seeing the beloved idol lying in the dust? This is a selfish point of view, I know; but I want you to realize that you have made a mistake. Dear Piers, I am very, very sorry it has happened. No, not angry at all; somehow I can't be angry. It's such a difficult world to live in, and there are so many influences at work. But you must forget this wish of yours indeed--indeed. I am too old, too experienced, too worldly-wise, too prosaic for you in every way. You must marry a girl who has never loved before. You must have the first and best of a woman's heart. You must have 'The True Romance.'

"That, Piers, will always be the wish and prayer of

"Your loving friend,

"AVERY."

Piers' hands were steady enough now. There was something slow and fatalistic in the way they folded the letter. He looked up from it at length with dark eyes that gazed unwaveringly before him, as though they saw a vision.

"You will be late, _Monsieur Pierre_," suggested Victor softly at his elbow.

"What?" Piers turned those dreaming eyes upon him, and suddenly he laughed and stretched his arms wide as one awaking. The steadfast look went out of his eyes; they danced with gaiety. "Hullo, you old joker!

Well, let's dress then and be quick about it!"

During the process it flashed upon Piers that all mention of Tudor had been avoided in the letter he had just read. He frowned momentarily at the thought. Had she deliberately avoided the subject? And if so--but on the instant his brow cleared again. No, she had written too frankly for that. She had not mentioned the matter simply because she regarded it as unimportant. The great question lay between herself and him alone. Of that he was wholly certain. He smiled again at the thought. No, he was not afraid of Tudor.

"_Monsieur_ is well pleased," murmured Victor, with a flash of his round black eyes.

"Quite well pleased, _mon vieux!_" laughed back Piers

"_C'est bien_!" said Victor, regarding him with the indulgent smile that he had bestowed upon him in babyhood. "And _Monsieur_ does not want his other letter? But no--no!"

His voice was openly quizzical; he dodged a laughing backhander from Piers with a neat gesture of apology. It had not escaped his notice that the letter Piers had read had disappeared un.o.btrusively into an inner pocket.

"Who's the other letter from?" said Piers, glancing at it perfunctorily.

"Oh, I know. No one of importance. She'll keep till after dinner."

Ina Rose would not have felt flattered had she heard the statement. The fan Piers had promised to send her had duly arrived from Paris with a brief--very brief--note from him, requesting her acceptance of it. She had written in reply a letter which she had been at some pains to compose, graciously accepting the gift and suggesting that an account of any adventures that befell him would be received by her with interest.

She added that, a spell of frost having put an end to the hunting, life at Wardenhurst had become extremely flat, and she had begun to envy Piers in his exile. Her father was talking of going to Mentone for a few weeks, and wanted her to accompany him. But she was not sure that she would care for it. What did Piers think?

When Piers did eventually read the letter, he smiled at this point,--a smile that was not altogether good to see. He was just going out to the Casino with Crowther. The latter had gone to fetch a coat, and he had occupied the few moments of waiting with Ina's letter.

He was still smiling over the open page when Crowther joined him; but he folded the letter at once, and they went out together.

"Have you had any luck at the tables?" Crowther asked.

"None," said Piers. "At least I won, eventually, but Fate, in the form of a powdered and bedizened female s.n.a.t.c.hed the proceeds before I got the chance. A bad omen, what?"

"I hope not," said Crowther.

There was a touch of savagery in Piers' laugh. "It won't happen again, anyhow," he said.

They entered the Casino with its brilliant rooms and pus.h.i.+ng crowds. The place was thronged. As they entered, a woman with a face of evil beauty, pressed close to Piers and spoke a word or two in French. But he looked at her and through her with royal disdain, and so pa.s.sed her by.

They made their way to the table at which Piers had tried his luck the previous night, waited for and finally secured a place.

"You take it!" said Crowther. "I believe in your luck."

Piers laughed. He staked five francs on the figure five and lost, doubled his stakes and lost again, trebled them and lost again.

"This is getting serious," said Crowther.

But still Piers laughed. "d.a.m.n it!" he said. "I will win to-night!"

"Try another figure!" said Crowther.

But Piers refused. He laid down twenty-five francs, and with that he won.

It was the turning-point. From that moment it seemed he could not do wrong. Stake after stake he won, either with his own money, or Crowther's; and finally left the table in triumph with full pockets.

A good many watched him enviously as he went. He refused to try his luck elsewhere, but went arrogantly away with his hand through Crowther's arm.

"He'll come back to-morrow," observed a shrewd American. "And the next day, and the next. He's just the sort that helps to keep this establishment going. They'll pick him clean."

But he was wrong. Though elated by victory, Piers was not drawn by the gambling vice. The thing amused him, but it did not greatly attract. He was by no means dazzled by the spoils he carried away.

They went out to the gardens, and called for liqueurs. The woman who had spoken to Piers yet hovered about the doors. She cursed him through her painted lips as he pa.s.sed, but he went by her like a prince, haughtily aloof, contemptuously regardless.

They sat down in a comparatively quiet corner, whence they could watch the ever-s.h.i.+fting picture without being disturbed. A very peculiar mood possessed Piers. He was restless and uneasy in spite of his high spirits.

For no definite reason he wanted to keep on the move. In deference to Crowther's wish, he controlled the desire, but it was an obvious effort.

He seemed to find difficulty also in attending to Crowther's quiet remarks, and after a while Crowther ceased to make them. He finished his liqueur and sat smoking with his eyes on the dark, sensitive face that watched the pa.s.sing crowd so indifferently, yet so persistently.

Piers noticed his silence at last, and looked at him enquiringly.

"Shall we go?"

Crowther leaned slowly towards him. The place was public, but their privacy was complete.

"Piers," he said, "may I take the privilege of an old friend?"

"You may take anything you like so far as I am concerned," said Piers impetuously.

Crowther smiled a little. "Thank you. Then I will go ahead. Are you engaged to be married?"

"What?" said Piers. He looked momentarily startled; then laughed across the table with a freedom that was wholly unaffected. "Am I engaged, did you say? No, I'm not. But I'm going to be married for all that."