My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 55

"He only came to, when the minister got there this afternoon. Joe's arm is broken. Two of his ribs are stove in. He's bruised and battered all over. Mr. Auld says the hole in his forehead is the serious one. Thinks you must have uprooted a tree and hit him with it."

I laughed. But Rita was still all seriousness.

"He'll pull through all right. Minister says he'll be out in two or three weeks. Says it's a miracle how Joe ever got back to Camp. Must have crawled to the launch, looked after the engine and steered all the way himself, and him smashed up as he was. Funny he didn't come over home. Guess he didn't want any of us to know about it.

"They found his boat run up on the beach at Camp and him lying in the bottom of it, unconscious; engine of his boat still going full speed.

"Joe was delirious and muttering all the time:

"'I killed that son-of-a-gun, Bremner. I killed Bremner.'

"You know, George,--most of the men like Joe; for he's good to them when they're down and out. But none of them has much sympathy for him this time. Mr. Auld says they have heard him talk about doing you up ever since you came to Golden Crescent. And now, Joe's the man that's done up.

"Better for him if he had let you be.

"But, maybe after all, it is the best thing that ever happened,--for Joe, I mean. It will let him see that brute force isn't everything; that there never was a strong man but there was a stronger one still.

Eh! George."

Rita's mood changed.

"But, if you and Joe quarrel again, I'm going to run away. So there.

"I'm not beholden to any one now,--thanks to dear old Jake Meaghan. I can get money,--all I want. Then maybe Joe'll be sorry.

"You won't fight any more, George? Say you won't!"

She put her arm round my shoulder and her cheek against mine, in her old coaxing way.

Dear little woman! It was a shame to have worried her as Joe and I had done.

"Well, Rita," I laughed, "I promise you I won't fight if Joe won't.

And, anyway,--Joe is not likely to seek another encounter till his arm and ribs are well; and that will take six weeks all told. So don't worry yourself any more about what is going to happen six weeks hence."

As Rita started out for home, I rose to accompany her to the boat.

"No, no!" she cried. "Why!--you are under doctor's orders."

"I have to work to-morrow, Rita, so I might as well try myself out now, as later."

I was shaky at the knees, but, with Rita's arm round my waist, I managed to make the journey with little trouble.

As we got to her boat, Rita pouted.

"What's the matter now, little maid?" I asked.

"I don't think you like me any more, George,--after bringing this on you. And we've been pretty good pals too, you and I."

Her eyes commenced to fill.

"Why, foolish! Of course, we have been good pals and we are going to stay good pals right to the end; no matter what happens."

"Sure?" she asked, taking an upward, sidelong glance at me.

"Sure as that," I exclaimed. I put my hands round her trim waist, and, weak as I was, I lifted her up from the ground and kissed her laughing mouth.

She struggled free, jumped into the boat and rowed away, with a laugh and a blown kiss to me from her finger tips.

As I turned, I cast my eyes up along the wharf.

A figure was standing there, motionless, as if hewn in stone.

It was Mary Grant.

Her hands were pressed flat against her bosom as if she were trying to stifle something that should not have been there. Her face wore a strange coldness that I had never seen in it before.

I could not understand why it should be so,--unless,--unless she had misconstrued the good-bye of Rita and me. But, surely,--surely not!

Slowly and laboriously, I made in her direction, but she sped away swiftly down the wharf, across the rustic bridge and into her cottage, closing the door behind her quickly.

As I sat by the fireside, thinking over what possibly could have caused Mary to behave so, something spoke to me again and again, saying:--

"Go over and find out. Go over and find out."

But I did not obey. My conscience felt clear of all wrong intent and I decided it would be better to wait till morning, when I would be more fit for the ordeal and Mary would have had time for second thoughts.

Had I only known what the decision meant to me; the hours of mental torment, the suspense, the dread loneliness, I would have obeyed the inner voice and hastened to Mary's side that very moment, stripping all wrong ideas and wrong impressions of their deceitful garments, leaving them bare and cold and harmless.

I did not know, and, for my lack of knowledge or intuition, I had to suffer the consequences.

Later in the evening, a yacht put into the Bay. It carried some ladies and gentlemen who had been on a trip to Alaska and were now returning south.

They called in for a few supplies, the getting of which I merely supervised. They asked and obtained permission from me to tie up at the wharf for the night.

After they had returned aboard and just as I was laboriously undressing, I heard music floating across from Mary's. It was the same sweet, entrancing, will-o'-the wisp music that her touch always created.

But to-night, she played the shadowy, mysterious, light and elusive Ballade No. 3 of Chopin. How well I knew the story and how sympathetically Mary followed it in her playing! till I could picture the scenes and the characters as if they were appearing before me on a cinema screen:--the palace, the forest and the beautiful lake; the knight and the strange, ethereal lady; the bewitchment; the promise; the new enchantress, the lure of the dance, the lady's flight and the knight's pursuit over the marshes and out on to the lake; the drowning of the unfaithful gallant and the mocking laugh of the triumphant siren.

The music swelled and whispered, sobbed and laughed, thundered and sighed at the call of the wonderful musician who translated it.

I was bewitched by the playing, almost as the knight had been by the ethereal lady of the music-story.

Suddenly the music ceased. I thought Mary had retired to rest. But again, on the night air, came the introduction to the little ballad I had already heard her sing in part. Her voice, with its plaintive sweetness, broke into melody.

She lilted softly the first verse,--and I waited.

She sang the second verse. Again I waited, wondering, then hoping and longing that she would continue.

The third verse came at last and--I regretted its coming.