Bye-Ways Part 30

Anthony touched his arm, almost with an awe-struck gesture.

"I knew then that you--that you intended to kill Vernon. And--G.o.d forgive me!--at first I was almost glad."

"Well--go on!"

Anthony shivered. The voice of Sergius was so strangely calm and level.

"I--I--" he stammered. "Serge, why do you look at me like that?"

Sergius looked away without a word.

"For I, too, hated Vernon, more for what he had done to you even than for what he had done to Olga. But, Sergius, after you had gone, in the night, and in the dawn too, I kept on thinking of it over and over. I couldn't get away from it--that you were going to commit such an awful crime. I never slept. When at last it was morning, I went down to my district; there are criminals there, you know."

"I know."

"I looked at them with new eyes, and in their eyes I saw you, always you; and then I said to myself could I bear that you should become a criminal?"

"You said that?"

The fingers of Sergius closed over the china figure, and did not unclose.

"Yes. I almost resolved then to go to Vernon at once and to tell him what I suspected--what I really knew."

The clock struck eleven. Anthony heard it; Sergius did not hear it.

"Then I went to sit with that wretched woman. Already I had resolved, as I believed, on the course to take. I had no thought for Vernon yet, only for you. It seemed to me that I did not care in the least to save him from death. I only cared to save you--my friend--from murder. But when the woman died I felt differently. My resolve was strengthened, my desire was just doubled. I had to save not only you, but also him. He was not ready to die."

Anthony trembled with a pa.s.sion of emotion. Sergius remained always perfectly calm, the china figure prisoned in his hand.

"So--so I went to him, Sergius."

"Yes."

"I saw him. Almost as I entered he received your letter, saying that you forgave him, that you would call to-night after eight o'clock to tell him so, and to urge on his marriage with Olga. When he had read the letter--I interpreted it to him; and then I found out that he was a coward. His terror was abject--despicable; he implored my help; he started at every sound."

"To-night he'll sleep quietly, Anthony."

"To-night he has gone. Before morning he will be on the sea."

The sound of the wind came to them again, and Sergius understood why Anthony had said: "Rough at sea to-night."

Suddenly Sergius moved; he unclosed his fingers: the ruins of the china figure fell from them in a dust of blue and white upon the mantelpiece.

"No--it's too late, Sergius. He went at eleven."

Sergius stood quite still.

"You came here to-night to keep me here till he had gone?"

"Yes."

"That's why you--"

He stopped.

"That's why I came. That's why I broke my pledge. I thought wine--any weapon to keep you from this crime. And, Sergius, think. Vernon dead could never have restored Olga to the place she has lost. That, too, must have driven me to the right course, though I scarcely thought of it till now."

Sergius said, as if in reply: "So you have understood me!"

"Yes, Sergius. Friendship is something. Let us thank G.o.d, not even that he is safe, but that you--you are safe--and that Olga--"

"Hush! Has she gone with him?"

"She will meet him. He has sworn to marry her."

The hand of Sergius moved to his left breast. Anthony's glowing eyes were fixed upon him.

"Ah, yes, Sergius," Anthony cried. "Put that cursed, cursed thing down, put it away. Now it can never wreck your life and my peace."

Sergius drew out the revolver slowly and carefully. Again the mist rose around him. But it was no longer white; it was scarlet.

There was a report. Anthony fell, without a word, a cry.

Then Sergius bent down, and listened to the silence of his friend's heart--the long silence of the man who intervened.

AFTER TO-MORROW

I

In his gilded cage, above the window-boxes that were full of white daisies, the canary chirped with a desultory vivacity. That was the only near sound that broke the silence in the drawing-room of No. 100 Mill Street, Knightsbridge, in which a man and a woman stood facing one another. Away, beyond his twittering voice, sang in the London streets the m.u.f.fled voice of the season. The time was late afternoon, and rays of mellow light slanted into the pretty room, and touched its crowd of inanimate occupants with a radiance in which the motes danced merrily.

The china faces of two goblins on the mantelpiece glowed with a grotesque meaning, and their yellow smiles seemed to call aloud on mirth; but the faces of the man and woman were pale, and their lips trembled, and did not smile.

She was tall, dark, and pa.s.sionate-looking, perhaps twenty-eight or thirty. He was a few years older, a man so steadfast in expression that silly people, who spring at exaggeration as saints spring at heaven, called him stern, and even said he looked forbidding--at b.a.l.l.s.

At last the song of the canary was broken upon by a voice. Sir Hugh Maine spoke, very quietly. "Why not?" he said.

"I don't think I can tell you," Mrs. Glinn answered, with an obvious effort.

"You prefer to refuse me without giving a reason?"

"I have a right to," she said.

"I don't question it. You cannot expect me to say more than that."