Witness to the Deed Part 29

The governor was silent for a few moments, and then, feeling that all possible had been done, he gave the word for the search to be given up, but sent half a dozen men to patrol the road leading to the mainland, feeling all the while that it was a hopeless task.

By this time the last man had climbed up from the dangerous cliff side, the ropes were coiled, and the party marched off toward the prison--the governor last--leaving the sentinel warder to his beat with the company of another man.

These two stood in silence till the footsteps had died out on the rocky path and the last blue light had ceased to send golden drops into the hissing water as the boats made for the man-of-war.

"Black night's work this, Jem," said the companion sentry. "Two of 'em gone and three wounded."

"No, no; not so bad as that."

"Yes, bad as that. Yon chap on the stretcher won't see to-morrow morning, and that other poor chap who shrieked when we fired went into the water like a stone. It was your shot did that."

"Ugh! I hope not," said the warder, with a shudder. "Seems to me time I tried another way of getting my bread and cheese. Hark!"

"What at?"

"That. Someone hailed off the water. Quite low and faint, like a man going down."

The clouds were lifting slowly in the east, and the misty, blurred face of the moon began to show in the east, over the br.i.m.m.i.n.g water's rim.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ALMOST BY ACCIDENT.

Time had crept on since the return of the Jerrolds, and by degrees the pain of the meeting between Myra and Stratton grew less, and the wound made that day began to heal.

"I'm sorry for him," Guest would say to himself; "but I can't keep away because he is unhappy."

So he visited at the admiral's, where he always found a warm welcome, but made little progress with Edie, who seemed to have grown cold.

Then, too, he met the cousins at Miss Jerrold's, and it naturally came about that one evening, after a good deal of persuasion, Stratton became his companion.

Myra was there that night, and once more their hands were clasped, while Stratton felt that it was no longer the girl into whose eyes he looked, but the quiet, thoughtful woman who had suffered in the struggle of life, and that he must banish all hope of a nearer tie than that of friendship.

For whatever Myra may have held hidden in her secret heart she was the calm, self-contained friend to her aunt's guest. Ready to sit and talk with him of current topics and their travels; to play or sing if asked; but Stratton always left the house with the feeling that unconsciously Myra had gravely impressed upon him the fact that she was James Barron's wife, and that she would never seek to rid herself of that tie.

"And I must accept that position." Stratton would say despairingly, after one of the meetings which followed; and then he would make a vow never to meet Myra again, for the penance was too painful to be borne.

The result was that the very next day after making one of these vows he received a letter from Edie, asking him, at her uncle's wish, to dinner in Bourne Square.

For the admiral had said to Edie, on hearing that they had met Stratton at her aunt's:

"Let bygones be bygones. I don't see why we should not all be friends again. I always liked the boy. He can talk well about scientific things without boring you. Ask him to dinner."

"Uncle wants him to come and wean poor Myra from that terrible business."

But Edie was wrong, for after approaching his daughter several times on the question of the possibility of obtaining a divorce, Myra had stopped the admiral so decidedly that he had been ready to believe she must have cared for Barron after all.

"First man who ever told her he loved her," the old man said to himself, "so, of course, she can't help feeling a kind of liking for him. But suppose he comes out on ticket-of-leave, don't they call it? And what if he comes here? Bah! I'll shoot him before he shall have her. That would bring Myra to book, too. That's a card I must play--possibility of his coming back. She'll give in, then. I must hear what a lawyer says."

But, in his unbusinesslike way, Sir Mark did nothing. Home was calm and pleasant again, and he had his little dinners, and his friends; and to him the existence of James Barron, alias Dale, at The Foreland became less and less clear. He was buried, as it were, in a living tomb, and there was no need to think of him for years.

Stratton came again and again for dinner, and now and then dropped in of an evening. Always against his will, he told himself; but the attraction was strong enough to draw him there. It was plain, too, that Myra's eyes brightened when he entered, but he felt that it was only to see her father's friend.

Then came one autumn night when, after a long and busy day, Stratton made up his mind to go to Bourne Square, undid it, made up his mind again, once more undid it, and determined that he would no longer play the moth round the bright candle.

He had dressed, and, throwing off his light coat and crush hat, he went out of his rooms and along the landing to Brettison's.

"I'll go and talk botany," he said. "Life is too valuable to waste upon a heartless woman."

He knocked; no answer. Again; no reply.

"Gone out," he said. "What shall I do?"

Stratton hesitated for a few moments, and then went and fetched his hat and coat, descended, took a cab, and ordered the man to drive to Guest's, in Grey's Inn.

"Better have stopped at home," muttered Stratton; "he will talk about nothing else but Bourne Square." But he was wrong. Guest was out, so descending into the square, and walking out into Holborn, Stratton took another cab.

"Where to, sir?"

"Bourne Square."

Stratton sank back in his seat perfectly convinced that he had said Benchers' Inn, and he started out of a reverie when the cab stopped at the admiral's door.

"Fate," he muttered. "It was no doing of mine." Andrews admitted him as a matter of course, and led the way to the drawing room, where he announced his name.

Myra started from a couch, where she had been sitting alone, dreaming; and as Stratton advanced his pulses began to beat heavily, for never had the woman he idolised looked so beautiful as then.

There was a faint flush in her soft, creamy cheeks, the trace of emotion in her heaving bosom, as she greeted him consciously; for she had been sitting alone, thinking of him and his proposal to her father, and the next minute the door had been opened, and he stood before her.

"It is almost by accident that I am here," he said, in a low voice full of emotion, which he vainly strove to control. "Your cousin? The admiral?"

"Did you not know?" said Myra in a voice as deep and tremulous as his own. "Mr Guest came with tickets for the opera. He knew my father liked the one played to-night--'Faust.'"

"Indeed!" said Stratton huskily.

"He goes for the sake of the great scene of the return of the men from the war. I think he would never tire of hearing that grand march."

She left the couch, conscious of a strange feeling of agitation, and, crossing to the piano, seated herself, and began to play softly the second strain in the spirit-stirring composition, gradually gliding into the jewel song quite unconsciously, and with trembling fingers. Then she awoke to the fact that Stratton had followed her to the instrument, against which he leaned, with the tones thrilling his nerves, tones set vibrating by the touch of hands that he would have given worlds to clasp in his own, while he poured forth the words struggling for exit.

"It is fate," he said to himself, as he stood there gazing down at the beautiful head with its glossy hair, the curve of the creamy neck, and the arms and hands whiter than the ivory over which they strayed.

So sudden--so wondrous. The only thing in his thoughts had been that he might be near her for a time, and hear her words, while now they were alone in the soft, dim light of the drawing room, and the touch of her fingers on those keys sent that dreamy, sensuous, glorious music thrilling through every fibre of his body. Friend? How could he be friend? He loved her pa.s.sionately, and, cold as she might ever be, however she might trample upon his feelings, she must always be the same to him--his ideal--his love--the only woman in the world who could ever stir his pulses.

And so silent now--so beautiful? If she had spoken in her customary formal, friendly way, it would have broken the spell. But she could not. The chain was as fast round her at that moment, though she longed to speak.

She could not, for she knew how he loved her; how his touch stirred each pulse; that this man was all in all to her--the one she loved, and she could not turn and flee.