The Man with the Double Heart Part 56

And as if in answer to the question he found Bethune awaiting him.

But the first glance at his visitor's face drove away all minor thoughts.

For trouble was plainly written there.

"That you, McTaggart?" His voice was curt, without its usual hearty ring.

"I want to speak to you a moment." He closed the door carefully.

"Hullo--Bethune--you're quite a stranger! What's up?" said McTaggart lightly. He did not quite like his reception, feeling an odd premonition. "Nothing wrong, I hope?" he added.

"Everything. I've bad news. Trouble again--at the Uniackes--I've been waiting for you over an hour."

"Not Jill?" said McTaggart quickly. He stared at his friend's changed face, the brown eyes deeply shadowed, strong jawbone prominent.

"Yes." Bethune dragged up a chair and sat down, facing the other across the narrow dining table, with a certain studied deliberation.

"It's like this. I'll tell you quickly. It's this d.a.m.nable Suffrage business and Mrs. Uniacke again--just when we thought it all over! ...

It seems there's to be a political meeting in Wales to-morrow--some big guns airing their views on Home Rule--and the Suffragettes mean mischief. The leaders are already there. They burned down a house last night--by way of endearing themselves to the natives!--and to-morrow they mean to gather in force and upset all the speech-making.

Mrs. Uniacke planned to go--secretly," his face darkened--"without telling Jill a word--but Roddy got it out of Stephen. I think that woman's really mad!--She's hardly out of bed, you know, and Jill was nearly worried to death--begged and implored her to give it up."

"I never heard such d.a.m.ned nonsense!" McTaggart broke out at this--"she ought to be put in an asylum. No wonder Jill never wrote..."

Bethune gave him an odd glance.

"It was only found out yesterday. But that's not the worst of it.

Jill's gone in her place."

"_What?_" McTaggart sprang to his feet.

"Sit down," said Bethune grimly. "You've got another couple of hours."

He glanced up at the clock. "I went there this afternoon--to enquire for Mrs. Uniacke. Lucky I did!--I found Roddy and he poured out the whole story. It seems that Jill, to save her mother, offered at last to go instead. She's only to yell 'Votes for Women'--or some such infernal nonsense. But think of her in that mob--already savage about the fire. Welsh miners--you know what they are?"

"Good Lord!" McTaggart looked stunned. "And you mean her mother let her go?--a child like that..."

"She's hardly a child." Bethune took him up sharply. "I suppose she thought it would force her to join--become a suffragette herself.

Anyhow it's a dirty trick."

He pushed the open time-table across. "There's a train at midnight.

You get to D---- in time for breakfast--two hours to wait--and then by a branch line to L----. The meeting's a few miles out. It's fixed for twelve o'clock sharp. You can _just_ do it--that's all. Will you go?"

He stared across at McTaggart, his pale face twitching a little.

"Of course! Why? What d'you think?" He paused for a moment, digesting the news, then glanced up at Bethune with a puzzled look after a quick survey of the time-table. "I wonder you didn't go yourself--follow at once by the five train. You might have stopped her before the meeting. Why on earth did you wait for me?"

There came a curious little silence. Then Bethune rose to his feet, with a restless movement, and walked across to the open window. He pulled up the blind and stared out, his back to McTaggart.

"I couldn't." His voice was hoa.r.s.e and strained. "She wouldn't have thanked me for coming."

"Nonsense!--Jill isn't like that. Besides--she likes you awfully--she's told me so, heaps of times, and the way you helped in that prison business."

But Bethune made no reply.

Something about the man's att.i.tude struck a note of discouragement, and McTaggart--full of impatience--let fall a vexed:

"Well?"

"If you want to know," said Bethune at last, "I suppose you'd better ... anyhow! I asked Jill to marry me--some days ago. That's why."

Sheer amazement seized McTaggart. Then, from no apparent cause, anger stirred: a faint disgust, tempered by a grim amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You asked ... Jill ... to marry you?"

"Why not?" ... At the sound of his voice the other wheeled round suddenly--"What's it got to do with _you_?"

And in a flash the friendship of years crumbled up--here were rivals!

They faced each other, primitive men, ready to fight for the sake of a woman.

"Look here--McTaggart"--Bethune came back to where the former still sat, elbows resting on the table, one hand gripping the "A.B.C."--"There's no need to speak like that! I've played fair. By G.o.d--I have!"

His square face was livid with pa.s.sion. A steady acc.u.mulation of wrath--the slow and deadly anger that lurks under strong control in a man of his type--was surging up and breaking bounds. "You've got to listen. It's my turn now. By heavens, I've been patient enough..."

"Go on." McTaggart was watching him, his mouth hard. It was a challenge.

Bethune's stormy eyes flashed at the faint contempt in the words.

"I will." He stood there, very erect, a curious dignity about him that added to the suggestion of power in the strong, heavily built figure.

"You went away, out of England--an engaged man--so I understood--intending to marry Miss Cadell." His gaze never left McTaggart.

"Well--it's no earthly business of mine whether you meant it--you _said_ you did. But you never gave a thought to Jill--or any of us left behind. For months and months--save a few cards to tell me where to forward your letters! And I got--somehow--into the way of seeing a lot of ... the Uniackes. They were--all of them--awfully kind. And when this last trouble came--this Suffrage business with the Mother--it was to me Jill turned--and I helped her ... well, all I could. I was up there most evenings while Mrs. Uniacke was in prison"--he paused for a second and went on huskily--"I thought ... Jill ... liked me a bit....

"Then _you_ turned up ... and took it over ... got Miss Uniacke to help. Yes--I know all about that--The old lady told me herself.

"Jill was your friend before mine--and don't you think I ever forgot it!" his voice rose threateningly. "I stood aside and gave you your chance.

"You can't say that I've troubled you with much of my company these last weeks ... (McTaggart stirred impatiently). But I thought you meant the straight game."

"What the devil d'you mean by that?" The other's blue eyes were ablaze--"you'd better look out what you're saying..." He caught himself in hand again.

"Go on ... It's ... interesting."

Bethune needed no second bidding. Whipped by the sneer in McTaggart's voice, he turned on him savagely.

"That's just it--the difference! I'm not a Society man, thank G.o.d! and I don't understand Society ways--nor the lies they act all day long.

But I _do_ know what's fair to a woman. Any fool could have understood what your return meant to Jill..."

To his surprise McTaggart started. "I saw at once I hadn't a chance--not the ghost of one!" he caught his breath--"but I wanted--to see--Jill happy. Where I was wrong was I didn't know _you_..." He struck his fist on the table. "I thought you really meant business. I might have learned from the past"--his voice was full of grim disgust--"I _ought_ to know your way with women! And it's not fair on a girl like Jill--she's out and away too fine for you--to _marry_ a man like you, I mean--let alone mere flirtation. Why--what d'you suppose that Aunt thought? with you hanging around all day long. She fairly played into your hands--any a.s.s could have seen that!"

"Have you _quite_ finished?" said McTaggart. "Because, if so, I've a question to ask."