The Tavern Knight Part 37

A sickly smile came into his face, and seemed to accentuate its pallor.

He made a deprecatory gesture. Then, as if in that gesture he had expended his last grain of strength, he swayed suddenly as he stood.

He made as if to reach a chair, but at the second step he stumbled, and without further warning he fell p.r.o.ne at her feet, his left hand upon his heart, his right outstretched straight from the shoulder. The loss of blood he had sustained, following upon the fatigue and sleeplessness that had been his of late, had demanded its due from him, man of iron though he was.

Upon the instant her anger vanished. A great fear that he was dead descended upon her, and to heighten the horror of it came the thought that he had received his death-wound through her agency. With a moan of anguish she went down upon her knees beside him. She raised his head and pillowed it in her lap, calling to him by name, as though her voice alone must suffice to bring him back to life and consciousness.

Instinctively she unfastened his doublet at the neck, and sought to draw it away that she might see the nature of his hurt and staunch the wound if possible, but her strength ebbed away from her, and she abandoned her task, unable to do more than murmur his name.

"Crispin, Crispin, Crispin!"

She stooped and kissed the white, clammy forehead, then his lips, and as she did so a tremor ran through her, and he opened his eyes. A moment they looked dull and lifeless, then they waxed questioning.

A second ago these two had stood in anger with the width of the room betwixt them; now, in a flash, he found his head on her lap, her lips on his. How came he there? What meant it?

"Crispin, Crispin," she cried, "thank G.o.d you did but swoon!"

Then the awakening of his soul came swift upon the awakening of his body. He lay there, oblivious of his wound, oblivious of his mission, oblivious of his son. He lay with senses still half dormant and comprehension dulled, but with a soul alert he lay, and was supremely happy with a happiness such as he had never known in all his ill-starred life.

In a feeble voice he asked:

"Why did you run away?"

"Let us forget it," she answered softly.

"Nay--tell me first."

"I thought--I thought--" she stammered; then, gathering courage, "I thought you did not really care, that you made a toy of me," said she.

"When they told me that you sat at dice with a gentleman from London I was angry at your neglect. If you loved me, I told myself, you would not have used me so, and left me to mope alone."

For a moment Crispin let his grey eyes devour her blushing face. Then he closed them and pondered what she had said, realization breaking upon him now like a great flood. The light came to him in one blinding yet all-illuming flash. A hundred things that had puzzled him in the last two days grew of a sudden clear, and filled him with a joy unspeakable.

He dared scarce believe that he was awake, and Cynthia by him--that he had indeed heard aright what she had said. How blind he had been, how nescient of himself!

Then, as his thoughts travelled on to the source of the misapprehension he remembered his son, and the memory was like an icy hand upon his temples that chilled him through and through. Lying there with eyes still closed he groaned. Happiness was within his grasp at last. Love might be his again did he but ask it, and the love of as pure and sweet a creature as ever G.o.d sent to chasten a man's life. A great tenderness possessed him. A burning temptation to cast to the winds his plighted word, to make a mock of faith, to deride honour, and to seize this woman for his own. She loved him he knew it now; he loved her--the knowledge had come as suddenly upon him. Compared with this what could his faith, his word, his honour give him? What to him, in the face of this, was that paltry fellow, his son, who had spurned him!

The hardest fight he ever fought, he fought it there, lying supine upon the ground, his head in her lap.

Had he fought it out with closed eyes, perchance honour and his plighted word had won the day; but he opened them, and they met Cynthia's.

A while they stayed thus; the hungry glance of his grey eyes peering into the clear blue depths of hers; and in those depths his soul was drowned, his honour stifled.

"Cynthia," he cried, "G.o.d pity me, I love you!" And he swooned again.

CHAPTER XXVI. TO FRANCE

That cry, which she but half understood, was still ringing in her ears, when the door was of a sudden flung open, and across the threshold a very daintily arrayed young gentleman stepped briskly, the expostulating landlord following close upon his heels.

"I tell thee, lying dog," he cried, "I saw him ride into the yard, and, 'fore George, he shall give me the chance of mending my losses. Be off to your father, you Devil's natural."

Cynthia looked up in alarm, whereupon that merry blood catching sight of her, halted in some confusion at what he saw.

"Rat me, madam," he cried, "I did not know--I had not looked to--" He stopped, and remembering at last his manners he made her a low bow.

"Your servant, madam," said he, "your servant Harry Foster."

She gazed at him, her eyes full of inquiry, but said nothing, whereat the pretty gentleman plucked awkwardly at his ruffles and wished himself elsewhere.

"I did not know, madam, that your husband was hurt."

"He is not my husband, sir," she answered, scarce knowing what she said.

"Gadso!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Yet you ran away from him?"

Her cheeks grew crimson.

"The door, sir, is behind you."

"So, madam, is that thief the landlord," he made answer, no whit abashed. "Come hither, you bladder of fat, the gentleman is hurt."

Thus courteously summoned, the landlord shuffled forward, and Mr.

Foster begged Cynthia to allow him with the fellow's aid to see to the gentleman's wound. Between them they laid Crispin on a couch, and the town spark went to work with a dexterity little to have been expected from his flippant exterior. He dressed the wound, which was in the shoulder and not in itself of a dangerous character, the loss of blood it being that had brought some gravity to the knight's condition. They propped his head upon a pillow, and presently he sighed and, opening his eyes, complained of thirst, and was manifestly surprised at seeing the c.o.xcomb turned leech.

"I came in search of you to pursue our game," Foster explained when they had ministered to him, "and, 'fore George, I am vastly grieved to find you in this condition."

"Pish, sir, my condition is none so grievous--a scratch, no more, and were my heart itself pierced the knowledge that I have gained--" He stopped short. "But there, sir," he added presently, "I am grateful beyond words for your timely ministration, and if to my debt you will add that of leaving me awhile to rest, I shall appreciate it."

His glance met Cynthia's and he smiled. The host coughed significantly, and shuffled towards the door. But Master Foster made no shift to move; but stood instead beside Galliard, though in apparent hesitation.

"I should like a word with you ere I go," he said at length. Then turning and perceiving the landlord standing by the door in an att.i.tude of eloquent waiting: "Take yourself off," he cried to him. "Crush me, may not one gentleman say a word to another without being forced to speak into your inquisitive ears as well? You will forgive my heat, madam, but, G.o.d a'mercy, that greasy rascal tries me sorely."

"Now, sir," he resumed, when the host was gone. "I stand thus: I have lost to you to-day a sum of money which, though some might account considerable, is in itself no more than a trifle.

"I am, however, greatly exercised at the loss of certain trinkets which have to me a peculiar value, and which, to be frank, I staked in a moment of desperation. I had hoped, sir, to retrieve my losses o'er a friendly main this evening, for I have still to stake a coach and four horses--as n.o.ble a set of beasts as you'll find in England, aye rat me. Your wound, sir, renders it impossible for me to ask you to give yourself the fatigue of obliging me. I come, then, to propose that you return me those trinkets against my note of hand for the amount that was staked on them. I am well known in town, sir," he added hurriedly, "and you need have no anxiety."

Crispin stopped him with a wave of the hand.

"I have none, sir, in that connexion, and I am willing to do as you suggest." He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew forth the rings, the brooch and the ear-ring he had won. "Here, sir, are your trinkets."

"Sir," cried Mr. Foster, thrown into some confusion by Galliard's unquestioning generosity, "I am indebted to you. Rat me, sir, I am indeed. You shall have my note of hand on the instant. How much shall we say?"

"One moment, Mr. Foster," said Crispin, an idea suddenly occurring to him. "You mentioned horses. Are they fresh?"

"As June roses."

"And you are returning to London, are you not?"

"I am."