From One Generation to Another Part 34

"Make it a bottle of champagne to celebrate the return of the explorer, and I am your man," said Michael heartily.

"Make it anything you like," answered Agar, in a gentler voice. He was beginning to come under the influence of Seymour Michael's sweet voice, and of that fascination which nearly all educated Jews unconsciously exercise.

He turned and beckoned to Mark Ruthine, who presently joined them, after paying the boatmen.

"The nine forty-five is the train," he said to him. "We may as well walk up. The streets of Plymouth are not pleasant to drive through."

So the cab was sent on with the luggage, and the three men turned to the slope that leads up to the Hoe.

There was some sort of constraint over them, and they reached the summit of the ascent without having exchanged a word.

When they stood on the Hoe, where the old Eddystone lighthouse is now erected, Seymour Michael turned and looked out over the bay where the ships lay at anchor.

"The good old _Mahanaddy_," he said, "the finest ship I have ever sailed in."

Neither man answered him, but they turned also and looked, standing one on each side of him.

Then at last Jem Agar spoke, breaking a silence which had been brooding since the _Mahanaddy_ came out of the Ca.n.a.l.

"I want to know," he said, "exactly how things stand with my people at home."

He continued to look out over the bay towards the _Mahanaddy_, but Mark Ruthine was looking at Seymour Michael.

"Yes," replied the General, "I wanted to talk to you about that. That was really my reason for proposing that we should wait till the second train."

"There cannot be much to say," said Jem Agar rather coldly.

"Well, I wanted to tell you all about it."

"About what?"

There was what the Captain had called an uncanny calm in the voice.

General Michael did not answer, and Jem turned slowly towards him.

"I presume," he said, "that I am right in taking it for granted that you have carried out your share of the contract?"

"My dear fellow, it has been perfectly wonderful. The secret has been kept perfectly."

"By all concerned?"

"Eh!--yes."

Michael was glancing furtively at Mark Ruthine, as the fox glances back over his shoulder, not at the huntsman, but at the hounds.

"Did you tell them personally, or did you write?" pursued Jem Agar relentlessly.

"My dear fellow," replied Michael, pulling out his watch, "it is a long story, and we must get to the train."

"No," replied Agar, in the calm voice which raised a sort of "fearful joy" in Ruthine's soul, "we need not be getting to the train yet, and there is no reason for it to be a long story."

Seymour Michael gave an uneasy little laugh, which met with no response whatever. The two taller men exchanged a glance over his head. Up to that moment Jem Agar had hoped for the best. He had a greater faith in human nature than Mark Ruthine had managed to retain.

"Have you or have you not told those people whom you swore to me that you would tell, out there, that night?" asked Jem.

"I told your brother," answered the General with dogged indifference.

"Only?"

There was an ugly gleam in the blue eyes.

"I didn't tell him not to tell the others."

"But you suggested it to him," put in Mark Ruthine, with the knowledge of mankind that was his.

"What has it got to do with you, at any rate?" snapped Seymour Michael.

"Nothing," replied Ruthine, looking across at Agar.

"You did not tell Dora Glynde?"

General Michael shrugged his shoulders.

"Why?" asked Jem hoa.r.s.ely. It was singular, that sudden hoa.r.s.eness, and the Doctor, whose business such things were, made a note of it.

"I didn't dare to do it. Why, man, it was too dangerous to tell a single soul. If it had leaked out you would have been murdered up there as sure as h.e.l.l. There would have been plenty of men ready to do it for half-a-crown."

"That was _my_ business," answered Jem coolly. "You promised, you _swore_, that you would tell Dora Glynde, my step-mother, and my brother Arthur. And you didn't do it. Why?"

"I have given you my reasons--it was too dangerous. Besides, what does it matter? It is all over now."

"No," said Jem, "not yet."

The clock struck nine at that moment; and from the harbour came the sound of the ship's bells, high and clear, sounding the hour. The Hoe was quite deserted; these three men were alone. A silence followed the ringing of the bells, like the silence that precedes a verdict.

Then Jem Agar spoke.

"I asked Mark Buthine," he said, "to come ash.o.r.e with me, because I had reason to suspect your good faith. I can't see now why you should have done this, but I suppose that people who are born liars, as Ruthine says you are, prefer lying to telling the truth. You are coming down now with Ruthine and myself to Stagholme. I shall tell the whole story as it happened, and then you will have to explain matters to the two ladies as best you can."

A sudden unreasoning terror took possession of Seymour Michael. He knew that one of the ladies was Anna Agar, the woman who hated him almost as much as he deserved. He was afraid of her; for it is one consolation to the wronged to know that the wronger goes all through his life with a dull, unquenchable fear upon his heart. But this was not sufficient, this could not account for the mighty terror which clutched his soul at that moment, and he knew it. He felt that this was something beyond that--something which could not be reasoned away. It was a physical terror, one of those emotions which seem to attack the body independently of the soul, a terror striking the Man before it reaches the Mind. His limbs trembled; it was only by an effort that he kept his teeth clenched to prevent them from chattering.

"And," said Jem Agar, "if I find that any harm has been done--if any one has suffered for this, I will give you the soundest thrashing you have ever had in your life."

Both his hearers knew now who Dora Glynde was, what she was to him. He neither added to their knowledge nor sought to mislead. He was not, as we have said, _de ceux qui s'expliquent_.

"Come," he added, and turning he led the way across the Hoe.

Seymour Michael followed quietly. He was cowed by the inward fear which would not be allayed, and the judicial calmness of these two men paralysed him. Once, in the train, he began explaining matters over again.