The Squire's Daughter Part 77

He took her outstretched hand and held it for a moment, then raised it to his lips. So they parted. He could not feel angry or resentful. She was so sweet, so gentle, so womanly, that she compelled his reverence.

It was better to have loved her and lost, than to have won any other woman on earth.

On the following afternoon, on reaching home, Ruth met him at the door with a puzzled expression in her eyes.

"Who do you think is in the parlour?" she questioned, with a touch of excitement in her voice.

"William Menire," he ventured, with a laugh.

"Then you are mistaken. William has gone to St. Hilary. But what do you say to the squire?"

"Sir John Hamblyn?"

She nodded.

"He's been waiting the best part of an hour."

For a moment he hesitated, then he strode past her into the house.

Sir John rose and bowed stiffly. Ralph closed the door behind him and waited for the squire to speak.

"I went down to the boat, hoping to catch you before you left Boulogne,"

Sir John began.

"I returned by way of Calais," was the quick reply.

"Ah, that explains. I was curious to have a little further talk with you. What you said about the lode excited me a great deal."

"I have little doubt of it."

"I own I have no claim upon you," Sir John went on, without heeding the interruption. "Still, keeping the knowledge to yourself can do you no good."

"That is quite true."

"While to me it would be everything."

"It might be a bad thing. In the past, excuse me for saying it, you have used your wealth and your influence neither wisely nor well. In fact, you have prost.i.tuted both to selfish and unworthy ends."

"I have been foolish, I own, and I have had to pay dearly for it. You think I pressed your father hard, but I was hard pressed myself. If I hadn't allowed myself to drift into the hands of those villainous Jews I should have been a better man."

"But are you not in their hands still?"

"Well, yes, up to a certain point I am. At present they are practically running the estates."

"And when will you be free?"

"Well, I hardly know. You see they keep piling up interest in such a way that it is difficult to discover where I am. But a rich lode would enable me to clear off everything."

"I am not sure of that. If during your lifetime they have got a hold on the estates, how do you know they would not appropriate the lode with the rest?"

Sir John looked blank, and for several moments was silent.

"Do you know," he said at length, "that I have already paid three times more in interest than the total amount I borrowed?"

"I can quite believe that," was the answer. "Would you mind telling me the amount you did borrow?"

Sir John named the sum.

Ralph regarded him in silence for several moments.

"It is a large sum," he said at length, "a very large sum. And yet, if I am not greatly mistaken, it is but a trifle in comparison with the value of the lode I have referred to."

"You do not mean that?" the squire said eagerly.

"But it would be folly to make its existence known until you have got out of the hands of those money-lenders," Ralph went on.

"They would grab it all, you think?"

"I fear so. If all one hears about their cunning is true, there is scarcely any hope for a man who once gets into their clutches. The law seems powerless. You had better have made yourself a bankrupt right off."

"I don't know; the disgrace is so great."

Ralph curled his lip scornfully.

"It seems to me you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," he said.

"I have been hard pressed," the squire answered dolefully.

For several seconds neither of them spoke again. Ralph was evidently fighting a hard battle with himself. It is not easy to be magnanimous when it is more than probable your magnanimity will be abused. Why should he be kind to this man? He had received nothing but cruelty at his hands. Should he turn his cheek to the smiter? Should he restrain himself when he had the chance of paying off old scores? Was it not human, after all, to say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Was not revenge sweet?

They were facing each other in the very house from which he and his mother and Ruth had been evicted, the house in which his father had died of a broken heart. Did not every stone in it cry out for vengeance? This man had shown them no mercy. In the hour of their greatest need he had been more cruel than any fabled Shylock. He had insisted upon his pound of flesh, though it meant beggary to them all. He had pursued them with a vindictiveness that was almost without a parallel. And now that the tables had been turned, and the tyrant, bereft of his power, was pleading for mercy, was he to kiss the hand that before had struck him?

Moreover, what guarantee was there that if this man were restored to his old position he would be any better than he was before? Was not his heart what it had always been? Was he not a tyrant by nature?

Sir John watched the look of perplexity gather and deepen on Ralph's face, and guessed the struggle that was going on within him. He felt very humble, and more penitent than Ralph knew.

The younger man lifted his head at length, and his brow cleared.

"I have been strongly tempted," he said slowly, "to mete out to you what you have measured to us."

"I have no claim to be considered," Sir John said humbly.

"You have thwarted me, or tried to thwart me, at every stage of my life," Ralph went on.

"I know I have been no friend to you," was the feeble reply.

"And if I help you back to power, I have no guarantee that you will not use that power to thwart me again."

The squire let his eyes fall to the ground, but did not reply.