Dead Man's Love Part 35

"You wouldn't do that?" she said breathlessly.

"I would," he said. "You go away with me, or I follow this man when he leaves this place, and I give him in charge to the first constable I meet, as the escaped convict, Norton Hyde. And I follow that charge up until I see him back within his prison walls, with something more than nine years of servitude before him. If you want him to keep his liberty, send him away now."

She began to weep despairingly, while I, on the horns of this new dilemma, did my best to comfort her. And suddenly, with all her heart set on my welfare, she announced her decision.

"I promise that I will go with you," she said to Bardolph Just in a whisper.

"No--no! you must not promise that!" I urged, springing to my feet, and facing the other man. "You shall not!"

"I must, I must, for your sake!" she answered. "My dear, it will all come right in time, if you will be patient. We shall meet when all this is over and done with. Good-bye!"

I would have said more then, but at that moment the door opened, and the young doctor came in. One glance at the girl was sufficient; with an impatient gesture he ordered Bardolph Just and myself to go, and hastily summoned the nurse. So we marched out, side by side, without a word until we reached the street.

"Understand me," said Bardolph Just quietly, "I shall keep my word."

"And I shall keep mine," I retorted, as I turned on my heel and left him.

Brave words, as you will doubtless think; yet even as I said them I realised how helpless I was. Debora, for my sake, would go back to that horrible house, there to live, perhaps, in safety for a time, until the doctor could devise some cunning death for her. And I supposed that in due course I should hear of that; and should know the truth, and yet should be able to say nothing. Almost I was resolved to risk my own neck in saving her; almost I determined to put that old threat into execution, and kill the man. But I had no stomach for murder when I came to think of the matter: I could only beat my brains in a foolish attempt to find some way out of the tangle.

Thus nearly a week went by--a miserable week, during which I haunted the neighbourhood of the hospital and wandered the streets aimlessly, turning over scheme after scheme, only to reject each one as useless.

Then, at last, one day I went to the hospital, and enquired for Miss Debora Matchwick, and asked if I might see her.

I was told that she was gone. Her guardian had called on the previous day with a carriage, and had taken her home; he had made a generous donation to the funds of the hospital, in recognition of his grat.i.tude for the kindness the young lady had received. So I understood that he had succeeded, and that I had failed.

The man had succeeded, too, in putting the strongest possible barrier between the girl and myself, in invoking that bogey of my safety. I knew that he could hold her more strongly with that than with anything else; I felt that she would refuse, for my sake, to have anything to do with me. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that I must make one last desperate effort to see her, or to see Bardolph Just. In a sense, I was safe, because I knew I was always a standing menace to the man, and that he feared me.

I went straight from the hospital to the house at Highgate. I had no definite plan in my mind; I determined to act just as circ.u.mstances should suggest. I rang the bell boldly, and a servant whom I knew appeared at the door. He was in the very act of slamming it again in my face, when I thrust my way in and closed the door behind me.

"Don't try that game again," I said sternly, "or you'll repent it.

Where's your master?"

"I have my orders, sir," he began, "and I dare not----"

"I'll see you don't get into trouble," I broke in. "I want to see Dr.

Just."

"But he's not here, sir," said the man, and I saw that he was speaking the truth. "Dr. Just and the young lady have gone away, sir."

"Do you know where they've gone?" I asked; but the man only shook his head.

I stood there debating what to do, and wondering if by chance the doctor might have carried out his original intention of going abroad. Then a door opened at the end of the hall, and Martha Leach came out and advanced towards me. She stopped on seeing who the intruder was; then with a gesture dismissed the servant, and silently motioned to me to follow her into another room. It was the dining-room, and when I had gone in she shut the door, and stood waiting for me to speak. I noticed that she seemed thinner than of old, and that there were streaks of grey in her black hair. She stood twisting her white fingers over and over while she watched me.

"I came to see the doctor," I said abruptly. "Where is he?"

"Why do you want to know?" she demanded. "You've been turned out of this place; you ought not to have been admitted now."

"I do not forget the a.s.sistance you rendered in turning me out," I said.

"Nevertheless I am here now, and I want an answer to my question. I want to find the girl Debora Matchwick."

She stood for a long time, as it seemed to me, in a rigid att.i.tude, with her fingers twining and twisting, and with her eyes bent to the floor.

Then suddenly she looked up, and her manner was changed and eager.

"I wonder if you would help me?" was her astonishing remark.

"Try me," I said quietly.

"I suppose you love this slip of a girl--in a fashion _you_ call love,"

she flashed out at me. "I can't understand it myself--but then, my nature's a different one. You would no more understand what rages here within me"--she smote herself ruthlessly on the breast with both hands--"than I can understand how any man can be attracted by a bread-and-b.u.t.ter child like that. But, perhaps, you can grasp a little what I suffer when I know that that man and that girl are together--miles away from here--and that I am here, tied here by his orders."

"I think I can understand," I said quietly, determined in my own mind to play upon that mad jealousy for my own ends. "And I am sorry for you."

"I don't want your sorrow, and I don't want your pity!" she exclaimed, fiercely brushing away tears that had gathered in her eyes. "Only I shall go mad if this goes on much longer; I can't bear it. He insulted me to my face before her on the day they left for Green Barn together--yesterday that was."

"And yet you love him--you would get this girl out of his hands if you could?"

"I would kill her if I could," she snarled. "I would tear her limb from limb; I would mark her prettiness in such a fashion that no man would look at her again. That's what I'd do."

"You want me to help you," I reminded her.

"Why don't you have some pluck?" she demanded fiercely. "Why don't you tear her out of his hands, and take her away?"

"There are reasons why I cannot act as I would," I said. "But I'll do this; I'll go down to Green Barn, and I'll try to persuade her to go away with me. You've fought against that all the time, or I might have succeeded before."

"I know--I know!" she said. "I hoped to please him by doing that; I hoped that some day he might get tired of her, and might look at me again as he looked at me in the old days. But now I'm hopeless; I can do nothing while she is with him. I'm sorry--sorry I fought against you,"

she added, in a lower tone.

"I'll do my best to help you--and the girl," I said. "It may happen that you may get your wish sooner than you antic.i.p.ated; I believe that Bardolph Just means to kill her."

"If he doesn't, I shall!" she snapped at me as I left the house.

So far I had done no good, save in discovering where Bardolph Just and Debora had gone. It was a relief to me to know that they had not gone abroad; for then I should have been helpless indeed. I determined that I would go at once down into Ess.e.x; it would be some satisfaction at least to be near her.

I was walking rapidly away from the house when I heard someone following me; I turned suspiciously, and saw that it was the man Capper. He came up to me with that foolish smile hovering over his face, and spoke in that strange, querulous whisper I had heard so often.

"Forgive an old man speaking to you, sir," he said--"an old man all alone in the world, and with no friends. I saw you come from Dr. Just's house--good, kind Dr. Just!"

I felt my suspicions of him beginning to rise in my mind again, despite the fact that the face he turned to me was that of a simpleton. I recalled Debora's words to me when she had wondered if this man would ever speak.

"What do you want?" I asked him, not ungently.

"I want to find Dr. Just--good, kind Dr. Just," he whispered. "I have followed him a long time, but have been so unfortunate as to miss him. I missed him in a crowd in a street; now I find that he is not at his house."

"You are very devoted to Dr. Just," I observed. "What do you hope to gain by it?"

"To gain?" He stared at me with that curious smile on his face. "What should I gain?"

"I don't know," I answered him, "but it seems to me that you may some day gain what you want."

"G.o.d grant I may!" The answer was given in an entirely different voice, and I looked at him in a startled way as I realised at last the truth that for some time at least he had been shamming. I dropped my hand on his shoulder, and spoke sternly enough.