A Gamble with Life Part 41

She looked at him for a moment, as if about to reply, then turned and walked up the steps into the house.

Gervase stood still for a moment or two, then turned slowly on his heel, and began to retrace his steps the way he had come.

He chuckled audibly when he had got a few paces away. He felt that he had done a good stroke of business. He had sown tares enough to spoil any crop. If he had not proved to Madeline that Rufus Sterne was a man without moral scruples, he had succeeded in filling her mind with doubts on the subject.

If that failed to answer the end he had in view he would have to go a step further. He had no wish to resort to extreme measures, for the simple reason that he did not like to run risks, but if Madeline was still unconvinced that Rufus Sterne was a man not to be trusted, some direct evidence would have to be manufactured and produced.

It was clear to him that this man who had saved her life was the one stumbling-stone in his path. But for him she would have raised no objection to their engagement. Everything had gone in his favour until that adventure on the cliffs; everything would go right now if he were out of the way.

The best way to get him out of the way would be to blacken his character. Madeline was a girl with high moral ideals. An immoral man she would turn away from with loathing. Gervase shrugged his shoulders significantly. He had already by implication thrown considerable doubt on his character; if that failed, further and more extreme measures would have to be considered.

When he reached the lodge gates he turned back again. He walked with a quicker and more buoyant step. He felt satisfied with himself. He had more skill in argument than he knew. He believed he had spiked Rufus Sterne's guns once and for all.

Madeline was very silent over the dinner-table, and during the rest of the evening. Evidently the poison was working. Gervase left her in peace. It would be bad policy to pay her too much attention just now.

The poison should be left to do its utmost.

Nearly a week pa.s.sed, and nothing happened. Madeline remained silent, and more or less apathetic. She manifested no inclination to go for long walks alone, and kept herself for the most part in her own room.

This from one point of view was so much to the good. It seemed to indicate that she had no desire to meet Rufus Sterne. On the other hand, it was not without an element of discouragement. She was no more cordial with Gervase. Indeed, she kept him at arm's length more persistently than ever. Gervase became almost desperate. His financial position was causing him increased anxiety, while his father began to upbraid him for not making better use of his opportunities. To crown his anxiety Beryl told him one day that Madeline was not at all pleased with him for trying to insinuate that Rufus Sterne was a man of bad character.

Gervase swore a big oath and stalked out of the house. He was angrier than he had been since his return from India. He was ready to quarrel with his best friend. As for Rufus Sterne, he was itching to be at his throat. It would be a relief to him to strangle him.

As fate would have it he had not got five hundred yards beyond the lodge gates before he came face to face with the man whom he believed was the cause of all his trouble and disappointment.

Rufus was returning from Redbourne, tired and despondent. Things were not going well with his invention, and the dread possibility which at first he refused to entertain was looming ever more largely on the horizon.

The sun had set nearly an hour previously, but the white carpet of snow and the myriads of glittering stars made every object distinctly visible.

The two men recognised each other in a moment. Rufus would have pa.s.sed on without a word. He wanted to be alone with his own thoughts. But Gervase was in a very different humour. Moreover, the sight of Rufus Sterne was like fuel to the fire, it seemed to throw him into a rage of uncontrollable pa.s.sion.

"h.e.l.lo, scoundrel," he said, "loitering round Trewinion as usual," and he squared his shoulders and looked Rufus straight in the eyes.

Rufus stopped short, and stared at the Captain in angry surprise. "What do you mean?" he said, scornfully and defiantly.

"I mean that you are a contemptible cad," was the answer.

Rufus laughed, mockingly.

"Don't laugh at me," Gervase roared. "I won't have it. Because you rendered Miss Grover a service you think you have a right to hang about this place at all hours of the day, so that you may intercept her when she goes out for a walk, and poison her mind against her best friends."

"It is a lie," Rufus said, fiercely. "I have neither intercepted her nor poisoned her mind."

"Will you call me a liar?" Gervase almost shrieked.

"Of course I will call you a liar when you make statements that are false."

"Then take----"

But the blow failed to reach its mark. Rufus sprang aside, his face white with anger, and almost before he knew what he had done, his heavy fist had loosened one of the Captain's teeth and considerably altered the shape of his nose.

With a wild yell of rage the Captain struck out again, but he was so blind with rage that he could hardly see what he did. Moreover, this was a kind of combat he was not used to. With sword or rapier he could have made a very good show, but with his bare fists, in the light of the stars, he was at very considerable disadvantage. His second blow was as wild as the first, and when a blow between his eyes laid him p.r.o.ne on the ground, he began to yell for help at the top of his voice.

Micah Martin, the gardener, who lived at the lodge, was on the scene in a very few moments.

"Take the drunken brute away," Gervase screamed, "or he'll murder me."

Rufus looked at his antagonist for a moment in silence, then staggered away, feeling limp and nerveless. The encounter had been so sudden and so sharp that he hardly realised yet what had happened. Reaching a neighbouring gate, he leaned on it and breathed hard.

A few yards away he heard Gervase muttering and swearing, while Martin tried to encourage him with sympathetic words. He saw them walk through the lodge gates a little later and disappear in the darkness.

Then Rufus pulled himself together and tried to realise what had taken place. His right knuckles were still smarting from their contact with the Captain's bony face, otherwise he had suffered no harm. The aggressor had clearly got the worst of it.

Yet he felt no sense of elation. At best it was but a vulgar brawl, which any right-minded man ought to be ashamed of. It was true the Captain had struck the first blow, but he had returned it with more than compound interest. He wondered what the people of St. Gaved would say when they got to know. He wondered what Madeline Grover would say.

He felt so excited, that, tired as he was, he took a long walk across the downs before returning to his lodgings. Mrs. Tuke, as usual, had laid his supper on the table, but she did not show her face.

He was too much distressed in mind to eat. The events of the day, followed by the encounter with Gervase Tregony had taken away all his appet.i.te.

For a long time he sat in his easy chair staring into the fire.

"I don't know why I should distress myself," he said to himself once or twice. "What if everything fails? There is an easy way out of all trouble. And I am not sure that Felix Muller, with all his pretence of friendship, will be sorry."

He went to bed at length, but he did not sleep for several hours. The events of the day kept recurring like the refrain of a familiar song.

He went about his work next day like a man who had almost abandoned hope. The buoyancy which he experienced at the beginning had nearly all gone. The promise of success was growing very faint and dim.

As the day wore on he troubled himself less and less about Gervase Tregony. He thought it likely that for his own credit's sake he would say nothing about the encounter. Hence his surprise was great when toward evening a policeman called on him with a summons for a.s.sault.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE JUSTICE OF THE STRONG

Rufus was brought before the magistrates, and remanded for a week.

Gervase in the meanwhile made the most of his opportunity. Fate, or Providence, it seemed to him, had delivered his enemy into his hand, and he conceived it to be his duty now to a.s.sist Providence, to the best of his ability.

Rufus treated the matter very lightly. He was out on bail, and he had little doubt that when he was allowed to tell his story before the magistrates he would be acquitted at once. Indeed, no other result seemed possible. He had only defended himself, and that a man should be punished for protecting his own head was almost unthinkable.

He did not consider, however, that nearly all the magistrates belonged to the cla.s.s of which Gervase was a member. That almost unconsciously they would be predisposed in his favour. That they regarded it almost as a religious duty to uphold the rights and privileges of their cla.s.s, and that any insult offered to one of their own order meant a distinct weakening of that iron hand which had ruled the country for centuries, unless such insult was promptly met and punished.

The magistrates were all of them honourable men. They belonged to the best county families. They had feasted at Sir Charles's table more than once, and ridden to hounds with his son. They had unbounded faith in the wisdom of the ruling cla.s.ses, and an inborn contempt for what is vaguely termed the rights of the people. Political unrest was a dangerous symptom, and insubordination a crime.

The toast they drank with the greatest gusto at their public functions was "His Majesty's Forces" and "The Navy." The Church they did not recognise as a defensive power, and though they repeated nearly every Sunday, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O G.o.d," they did not, in reality, believe it. The Gospel was all right for the social and domestic side of life, but when it came to larger affairs an army or a warship was much more to the purpose.

Rufus was not beloved by any of these dispensers of the law. He was reputed to hold Socialistic views; he was not over-burdened with reverence for the "upper cla.s.ses," and, worse still, was not content with the lowly condition in which he was born.