The Obstacle Race Part 52

"d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! He wasn't pleased! You don't know what you're saying. He was most terribly sorry." She put her arm through his with a very tender gesture. "Won't you take me inside and tell me all about it?" she said.

He gave a hard shudder. "I don't know if I can, Juliet. It's been--so awful. He suffered--so infernally. The doctor didn't want to give him morphia--said it would hasten the end." He stamped in a sort of impotent frenzy. "I stood over him and made him. It was just what I wanted to do.

It was--it was--beyond endurance."

"Oh, my dear!" she said.

He put his hands over his face. "Juliet,--it was--h.e.l.l!" he said brokenly. "When I wrote that note to you--I thought the worst was over.

But it wasn't--it wasn't! He was past speaking--but his eyes--they kept imploring me to let him go.--O G.o.d, I'd given my soul to help him! And I could do--nothing--except see him die!"

Again a convulsive shudder caught him. Juliet's arms went around him. She held his head against her breast.

"It's over now," she whispered. "Thank G.o.d for that!"

He leaned upon her for a s.p.a.ce. "Yes, it's over. At least he died in peace," he said, and drew a hard, quivering breath. Then he stood up again. "Juliet, I'm so sorry. Come inside! I'll light the lamp. I couldn't stand that empty house--with only my boy's dead body in it. Mrs.

Rickett has been there, but she's gone now." He turned and pushed open the door. "Wait a minute while I light up!"

She did not wait, but followed him closely, and stood beside him while he lighted a lamp on the wall. He turned from doing so and smiled at her, and she saw that though his face was ghastly, he was his own master again.

"How did you get here?" he said. "Who took the note? The doctor promised to get it delivered."

"Jack brought it," she said. "I came back with him."

"Jack!" His brows drew together suddenly. She saw his black eyes gleam.

For a moment he said nothing further. Then: "If--Jack comes anywhere near me to-night, I shall kill him!" he said very quietly.

"d.i.c.k!" she said in amazement.

There was a certain awful intentness in his look. "I hold him responsible for this," he said.

She gazed at him, a.s.sailed by a swift wonder as to his sanity.

In a second he saw the doubt and replied to it, still with that deadly quietness that seemed to her more terrible than violence. "I know what I am saying. He is--directly responsible. My boy died for my sake, because he believed what Jack told him--that no woman would ever consent to marry me while he lived."

"Oh, d.i.c.k! You don't mean--he did it--on purpose!" Juliet's voice was quick with pain. "d.i.c.k, surely--surely--it wasn't that! You are making a mistake!"

"No. It is no mistake," he said, with sombre conviction. "I know it. Mrs.

Rickett knows it too. It's been preying on his mind ever since. He hasn't been well. He's suffered with his head a good deal lately. He--" He stopped himself. "There's no need to distress you over this. Thank you for coming. I didn't really expect you. Is he--is Jack--waiting to take you back?"

"No," said Juliet quietly.

His brows went up. "You are sleeping at the Court? I'll take you there."

"I'm not going yet, d.i.c.k," she said gently, "unless you turn me out."

His face quivered unexpectedly. He turned from her. "There's--nothing to wait for," he said.

But Juliet stood motionless. Her eyes went down the long bare room with its empty forms and ink-splashed desks. She thought it the most desolate place she had ever seen.

After an interval of blank silence d.i.c.k spoke again. "Don't you stay! I'm not myself to-night. I can't--think. It was awfully good of you to come.

But don't--stay!"

"d.i.c.k!" she said.

At sound of her voice he turned. His eyes looked at her out of such a depth of misery as pierced her to the heart. She saw his hands clench against his sides. "O my G.o.d!" he said under his breath.

"d.i.c.k!" she said again very earnestly. "Don't send me away! Let me help you!"

"You can't," he said. "You've been too good to me--already."

"You wouldn't say that to me if I were--your wife," she said.

He flinched sharply. "Juliet! Don't torture me! I've had--as much as I can stand to-night."

She held out her hand to him with a gesture superbly simple. "My dear, I will marry you to-morrow if you will have me," she said.

He stood for a long second staring at her. Then she saw his face change and harden. The ascetic look that she had noticed long ago came over it like a mask.

"No!" he said. "No!"

Again he turned from her. He went away up the long room, the bare boards echoing to the tramp of his feet with a dull and hopeless sound. He came to a stand before the writing-table at the further end, and from there he spoke to her, his words brief, as it were edged with steel.

"Can you imagine how Cain felt when he said that his punishment was greater than he could bear? That's how I feel to-night. I am like Cain.

Whatever I touch is cursed."

The words startled her. Again for a second she wondered if the suffering through which he had pa.s.sed had affected his brain. But she felt no fear.

She kept her purpose before her, clear and steadfast as a beacon shining in the dark.

"You are not like Cain," she said. "And even if you were, do you think I should love you any the less?"

He made a desperate gesture. "Would you love me if I were a murderer?" he said.

"I love you--whatever you are," she made unfaltering reply.

He turned upon her, almost like an animal at bay. "I am--a murderer, Juliet!" he said, a terrible fire in his eyes.

In spite of herself she flinched, so awful was his look. "d.i.c.k, what do you mean?"

He flung out a hand as if to keep her from him though she had not moved.

"I will tell you what I mean, and then--you will go. On the night Robin was born,--I killed his father!"

"d.i.c.k!" she said.

He went on rapidly. "I was a boy at the time, but I had a man's purpose.

My mother was dying. They sent me to fetch him. I loathed the man. So did she. He was at The Three Tuns--drinking. I hung about till he came out.

He was blind drunk, and the night was dark. He took the wrong path that led to the cliff, and I let him go. In the morning they found him on the rocks, dead. I might have saved him. I didn't. I went back to my mother, and stayed with her--till she died."

"Oh d.i.c.k--my dear!" she said.