The Man with the Double Heart Part 58

The man gave a little gasp. McTaggart went on steadily. "I've got to deliver a certain message"--(it seemed the best excuse on the moment)--"then catch the London train (with Jill"--he said to himself--"but that can come later.")

"Mr. Llewellyn's gone to town"--the chauffeur was thinking aloud--"I _must_ get this petrol first..." he glanced back over his shoulder nervously at the barman, who reappeared dragging two tins from under the low stone archway.

"I daren't take you in here, sir," he stooped down as he spoke, pretending to examine a tyre, "but if you'd go across the fields, I'd pick you up at the cross roads."

"All right--that's settled." McTaggart again raised his voice. "A nice car--I wasn't sure who the maker was. Thanks. Good day."

Off he went with a careless nod. The sun poured down on his head, which ached from his long night journey. The stony path felt hot to his feet, adding to his sense of fatigue.

For sleep had been impossible. With every throb of the rocking train he had seemed to hear Bethune's voice and recall scattered, angry phrases.

"I thought ... you meant ... the straight ... game!" This was one of the refrains. The wheels had pounded out the words with the scanded beat of a Greek chorus. Well?--so he did--Bethune was mad! He tried to thrust the thought aside that blame could be attached to him: that, through any carelessness of his, Jill might have suffered. But still it rankled.

"She's only a child..." he said to himself. "She understands.

Bethune's an a.s.s! ... And as to 'Aunt Elizabeth'..."

Back it came with hammering force:

"I thought ... you meant ... the straight ... game! ... I thought ...

you meant..." He swore aloud.

As the dawn stole in through the windows, wan over the misty hills, the words suddenly changed to these:

"Jill's--not the girl--to love--twice."

They brought a new throb of pain and the man stirred restlessly.

If, after all, Bethune were right? What then...?

He shrank from the thought. Jill to suffer because of him!--Little Jill ... the child he loved....

"Hardly a child!" Bethune had said. On went the wheels, merciless.

"Jill's--not the girl--to love--twice..."

McTaggart remembered suddenly how she had looked on his return when Roddy had played his innocent trick. He could see her sway and clutch the chair.

"Peter!" He heard again the note, strange and emotional in her voice.

And then at the Fair, two years ago, her face when he offered his tawdry gift--the double heart--and the way she had left him, driving home in front with Bethune.

Had he been blind? _Did_ she care?

If so--his face was white and grave--the only decent thing to do was to go away out of her life.

And at the thought he stopped aghast, his whole world upside down.

"I can't do it!"--the words broke from him with a ring of genuine consternation, echoing in the empty carriage that penned him in like a prison cell. For a s.p.a.ce he sat, his head bowed down between his hands, blotting out the light, rosy now on a dewy land, heralding in the newborn day.

Then, slowly he looked up, a great wonder on his face.

The rays of the sun were dim beside the white truth that poured in on him.

"Jill ... little Jill..." he whispered her name, conjuring up the grey eyes under their dark curling lashes, and the frank gaze that met his own.

Jill, with her courage and endurance, clever brain and heart of a child. For a moment he held her in his arms--his to teach the meaning of love...

Then--with a sigh--he put her away. For the first time for long years he placed another's happiness before his own. Was it fair to her?

Was he _fit_ to marry Jill? A new-born sense of unworthiness swept aside his desire.

His past life rose up, his old mistrust of himself, the mystery of his "double heart" ... his light and pleasure-loving nature.

He thought of Fantine and Cydonia, of many a pretty woman's face; of this last year in Italy with its careless sequence of adventures.

Could he be faithful to the end?

"Yes!" cried his heart. "Wait," said his brain.

Reason warred with emotion; he stood at the crossroads of his life.

And the stronger, cleaner side of the man rose up in his soul's defence.

He must prove himself, _know_ himself before Jill could become his wife.

He took a vow then and there to pa.s.s through a period of probation.

But Jill was worth waiting for.

If she cared? ... A doubt stabbed him and he set his teeth, his face dogged.

He _would_ win her--come what may! His thoughts forged fast ahead, he felt the keen thrill of pursuit.

And then the figure of his friend, square set, with honest eyes--that other lover of Jill's--flashed up into the foreground of the picture.

He felt ashamed. He thought of Bethune with a sudden new understanding; the deep sincerity of the man, the meaning of his last words...

Here was love at its highest, purged from all mere pa.s.sion--a love based on unselfishness, its one object Jill's happiness.

He saw a hard fight ahead, not only with his own desire, but to keep his vow in the knowledge that the girl might suffer through his silence.

Nevertheless, a few hours later, as he crossed the fields, impatience stirred, a longing he had never known for the sight of a loved woman's face. And as he climbed the last stile and found at the meeting of the roads the powerful car awaiting him he hailed the chauffeur with delight.

"There you are!"--he clambered up, seating himself by the driver--"let her go." They were off, the dust in a whirling cloud behind them.

They wound between high rocks, jutting out over the road, through a barren land--it seemed to McTaggart--of lonely hills and sombre valleys; crossed a bridge of crumbling stone over a river shallow and brown, turned a corner, sharp as a knife, and heard the roar of rushing water.

"Falls of Ghyll," said the chauffeur.