The Tree of Knowledge Part 71

"Just so; then you have no idea of where he went, or what he meant to do?"

"None at all. Oh," she began to shiver nervously, "you do not think he has--do you? People do such fearful things sometimes ... and he is one of those gentle, pa.s.sive men, with a terrible temper when once he is roused; you can tell, by this room, what a state of mind he was in. I knew it would be so! I said, if she failed him, he would never do a stroke of work again. Oh, if that were really to be true!"

She gave a cry of helpless pain.

"Say you don't think he has done it!" she gasped.

"I am sure he has not. He is a brave man and a Christian. No man who had your love left to him would take his own life," cried Henry, incoherently. "Keep up your courage, Miss Wyn, you have so much nerve."

"Not now--not now. It has gone. Come away, come out of this room, I cannot bear it, it stifles me."

She moved uncertainly towards the door, almost as if she were groping.

"My head aches till I can scarcely see," faltered she, apologetically.

His eyes were fixed apprehensively on the slight figure which moved before him. Just as she reached the dining-room door, she swayed helplessly. It was well that the st.u.r.dy Henry, with his iron muscles, was behind her. He took her in his arms as if she had been a little baby, laid her on the sofa, and fetched the water from the sideboard.

Her faint was deeper, however, than he had antic.i.p.ated, and, after ten minutes of absolute unconsciousness, he was constrained to go to the top of the kitchen stairs and call Sally.

"Fainted again, has she?" said the good woman, grimly. "I knew she would. She's overdone, is Miss Wyn, and this here nonsense of Master Osmond's has been the finishing touch. Don't talk to me! He's no right to go off like that, nor to carry on like a madman because he's disappointed. But men are poor things, and he don't know nor care what he makes his sisters suffer. Here I comes down this morning to see Miss Wyn fainted dead off in the middle of all that rummage on the studio floor; and I can tell you, sir, it give me a turn, for I thought, from the state of the room, as somebody had been a-murdering of her. Dear, dear, she is dead off. I suppose you couldn't carry her upstairs, sir, could you?"

"Half-a-dozen of her weight," said Henry, laconically.

"My pretty dear, my lamb," said Sal, pushing up the heavy hair. "She do look ill, don't she, sir?"

"Very," said Henry, speaking as well as he could for the lump in his throat. "I am horrified at her. Let me take her upstairs. You had better put her straight to bed."

He lifted the unconscious girl in his strong, tender arms, and carried her up, directed by Sally, into the little room which was her own.

Reluctantly he laid her down on the bed, looking with pitiful love upon the whiteness of the thin sweet face. How much would he have given to kiss the pure line of the pathetic mouth! How far away out of his reach she seemed, this pale, hard-working girl whom other men pa.s.sed unnoticed by. One cold hand he lifted to his lips, and held it there lingeringly a moment.

"Now," said he to Sally, "I will go and fetch the doctor, if you will direct me. She must have every care, and at once."

From leaving a message with the doctor, he went straight to his hotel.

The sudden rush of events had somewhat confused him, and he could not tell what was best to be done. It seemed no use to go hunting for Osmond, when his sisters did not possess the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Yet he had an uneasy conviction that it might go badly with Wynifred if it could not be proved that her brother was alive and safe, and he would cut off his right hand to serve her.

Oh reaching his sitting-room, the fragrance of a cigar a.s.sailed his senses, and, not much to his surprise, he discovered Claud, ensconced in a deep arm-chair near the fire.

"Just thinking of going to the police-station after you," said the young gentleman, composedly. "Thought you were lost in London."

Henry did not answer. Approaching the fire, he slowly divested himself of his heavy overcoat and gloves. Claud, flashing a look at him, caught the expression of his face.

"You take it too seriously, Fowler," said he.

"Oh, I take it too seriously, do I? You know all about it, of course.

After the intimacy which existed between you and Miss Allonby in the summer--after the exceptional circ.u.mstances which brought you together, you would naturally take a great interest in her, and go to see her frequently; but I hardly think you would be likely to say I took matters too seriously."

"Fowler! Miss Allonby!"

The young man sat forward, thoroughly startled, his cigar expiring unheeded between his fingers.

"What do you mean?" he asked, breathlessly.

"Mean? That I am disappointed in you, Cranmer. Yes, disappointed. I don't care in the least if I offend you, sir--I have pa.s.sed beyond conventionalities. You have missed what should have been your goal--missed it by aimless trifling, by this accursed modern habit of introspection, of tearing a pa.s.sion to tatters, of holding off and counting the cost of what you want to do, till the moment to do it has gone by. Sir, there comes an instant to every man in his life, when the only clean and honorable course is to go straight forward, even if that be to incur responsibility--why, in Heaven's name, tell me, are we not born to be responsible? Isn't that the pride of our manhood? Do you call yourself a man, living as you live now, without aim, without cares, getting through your life anyhow? It is the life of a cur, I tell you--ign.o.ble, unmanly, base."

"I am prepared to stand a good deal from you, Fowler," said Claud, very white, "but I will ask you kindly to explain yourself more fully."

"You understand me well enough, lad," said the elder man, with a stern straight glance which somehow sent a consciousness of shortcoming into his victim's mind; "but, as I have taken upon myself to open this subject, I'll say out frankly all that's in my mind. Do you suppose blind chance took you to Edge Combe this summer? Do you suppose a mere accident placed near you such a woman as--I speak her name with all reverence--Wynifred Allonby? Now listen to me. She was no pretty, shallow girl, to catch the eye of any idle young fellow. Hers was a charm that only a few could feel; and, Claud, _you felt it_. Don't deny it, sir. You knew what she was; you could appreciate to its utmost the beauty of her mind, and the strange charm of her personality. Do you suppose it is for nothing that G.o.d Almighty gives such sympathy as that?

Now hear me further. She needed you, she was lonely, she was poor. She wanted a man to stand between her and the world, to afford her opportunity to unfold the hidden tenderness that was in her, and give her a chance to be the gentle loving woman G.o.d meant her for. Was not your mission plain? Yet you would not read it--and why? For reasons which were one and all contemptible. I say downright contemptible. She was not rich, she was not precisely in your rank of society. Your self-indulgent selfishness winced at the prospect of a life of work for her sake. So you put aside the chance of an undreamed-of happiness which lay there clear before your eyes. And I say you should be made to feel it. Strip off all your self-delusions, all your sophistry, and tell me what you think of yourself, Claud Cranmer. Are you proud of your insight? Do you congratulate yourself upon your prudence? Faith, it's a marvel to me how few men read the purpose of their being aright. Why do you suppose women were made weak, but for us to be their strength? What calls out the very highest points in a man's nature but a woman's need of him? I say there was not one grace of Wynifred's that escaped you, not a word she uttered that had not power to influence you; yet you deliberately resisted that influence and strove to forget those graces.

You are despicable in my eyes."

The room rang with his low, tense tones. Flinging himself into a chair, he shaded his eyes with his powerful, work-hardened hand, and a long silence reigned.

Claud did not move. His face looked stony as he stared into the fire. In the main, every word that Fowler uttered had been true; for, though in the last few days the young man's love had taken definite shape, yet the old habits of ease and carelessness had still held him back. The sudden rush of rugged eloquence had been like a flash of lightning, shivering delusions to fragments, and laying bare before him the manner in which he had dallied with the high possibilities offered him.

The moments ticked on, and still he sat, not uttering a word. The other did not move from his position. Nothing moved in the room but the even pendulum of the clock. At last Claud nerved himself to speak.

"Is Miss Allonby in trouble?" he said, in a constrained way, stooping as if to recover his cigar, but in reality to conceal the flush which accompanied his words.

"She is ill. I found her alone, in bitter grief. Her brother has disappeared--they do not know where he has gone. It is in consequence of Elsa's engagement. She--Miss Allonby, is utterly over-strained. She fainted whilst I was there, and I went to call the doctor. You have heard my denunciation. Now hear my determination. I am going to try for the treasure you have tossed on one side."

Claud started violently, and raised his eyes to those of his companion in astonishment.

"Yes, you may well be astonished. I know I have not a chance, but what difference does that make? I know that, but for one thing, it would be intolerable presumption in me to dream of it; but hear me. She is lonely and unprotected--yet, she has a brother, I know, but see--the brother has ends of his own, he is an anxiety, not a helper. She has need of some one to stand between her and the bitter necessities of life. The long struggle is wearing out her youth. If I could take her"--the voice vibrated with intense feeling--"and put her down in my Devonshire valley, with sunshine and sweet air, and every care that love could devise, what a heaven it would be to see the color come in her white cheeks, and the natural bent of girlhood return with the removal of unnatural responsibility." He made an expressive gesture with his hand.

"Look at my niece, Elsa! She has more money than she can spend, she has beauty of the sort all men rave over, all her life she will have dozens of adorers, she will never be in want of loyal slaves to obey her lightest behests. And yet, with all her beauty and money, she is not worth the little finger of one of those three Allonby girls. As for Wynifred" ... he paused for a moment, and cleared his throat, "she will not have me," he said. "She is too absolutely conscientious to marry where she does not love; yet I hope it may comfort her--a little--to know that one man would--not metaphorically but literally--die for her, that to one man her womanhood is a n.o.bility no t.i.tle could give, and her happiness the most fervent desire of his heart."

He ceased abruptly. The feelings of his large heart were too deep for utterance. Another eloquent silence succeeded. Claud's face was hidden in both his hands. When he raised it, it was white and fixed.

"Fowler," he said, "I can't stand this."

He sprang to his feet spasmodically, pushed his hand up through his hair, then, thrusting both hands deep into his pockets, walked quickly across the room and back.

"I suppose you don't expect me to stand on one side and let you take my chance?" he asked, between his teeth.

Henry rose too, and faced him.

"I don't know," said he, speaking with slow scorn, "why I should have told you my intention, except for the purpose of showing you how another man could prize what you hold so lightly. I have no fear of wounding you; a love which can shilly-shally as you have done is not worth the having--is not capable of being hurt. Perhaps my reproaches have galvanized it into a sort of life; but it will die again when the friction ceases."

"You are unjust to me now," said Claud, sharply. "What you said at first was mainly true. I did not at once realize how deep it had gone, and, when I did, I tried to stop it--to turn my thoughts. But all that is past--was past before you spoke. My deliberate intention is, and has been for a month past, to tell Miss Allonby what I feel for her."

"Then why have you not carried out your intention?"

The young man was silent for a moment; at last:

"Love makes a man modest," he said. "I was not sure she would have me."

"And pray what does that matter? Are you prepared to risk nothing to obtain her? Lad, you don't know what love is or you would lay yourself at your lady's feet and feel yourself the better man for doing it, even though she sent you empty away. With such a woman as Wynifred, you know full well you need fear the taking of no undue advantage. In my eyes you are without excuse."

"At all events, I am not too far sunk not to resent your language,"