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Mason"> + +<meta name="Publisher" content="Hodder and Stoughton"> +<meta name="Date" content="1895"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;} + + + + +p.normal {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;} +.center {margin: auto; text-align:center; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + + + +p.right {text-align:right; margin-right:20%;} + +p.continue {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;} +.text10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} +.text20 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} + + +.poem0 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 0%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem1 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 2em; + margin-right: 10%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem2 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + +.poem3 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 30%; + margin-right: 30%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + + + + + +figcenter {margin:auto; text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;} + +.t0 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;} +.t1 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;} +.t2 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;} +.t3 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;} +.t4 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;} +.t5 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;} +.t6 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;} +.t7 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;} +.t8 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;} +.t9 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:9em; margin-right:0px;} +.t10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10em; margin-right:0px;} +.t11 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:11em; margin-right:0px;} +.t12 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:12em; margin-right:0px;} +.t13 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:13em; margin-right:0px;} +.t14 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:14em; margin-right:0px;} +.t15 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:15em; margin-right:0px;} +.t16 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:16em; margin-right:0px;} + + +.quote {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt} +.ctrquote {text-align: center; font-size:90%; margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:36pt} + +.dateline {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-right:10%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {text-align: center;} + +span.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:100%;} +span.sc2 {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:90%;} + +hr.W10 {width:10%; color:black; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + +hr.W20 {width:20%; color:black; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt} + +hr.W50 {width:50%; color:black;} +hr.W90 {width:90%; color:black;} + +p.hang1 {margin-left:1em; text-indent:-1em;} +p.hang2 {margin-left:1em; text-indent:0em;} + + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Romance of Wastdale, by +A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Romance of Wastdale + +Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +Release Date: January 30, 2012 [EBook #38719] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br> + +1. Page scan source:<br> +http://www.archive.org/details/romanceofwastdal00maso<br> + +2. No Contents table was included in the original.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<div style="margin-left:80%"> +<h2>A ROMANCE<br> +OF WASTDALE</h2> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<table cellpadding="10" style="width:40%; margin-right:50%;border:2px solid black"> +<tr> +<td> +<h3><i>NOVELS BY</i><br> +<i>A. E. W. MASON</i></h3> +<hr class="W90"> +</td> +</tr><tr> +<td> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE WINDING STAIR</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE SUMMONS</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE TURNSTILE</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">AT THE VILLA ROSE</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE</p> +<p class="hang1" style="margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD +RUNNING WATER</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">LAWRENCE CLAVERING</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE PHILANDERERS</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">CLEMENTINA</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE WATCHERS</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE FOUR FEATHERS</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE TRUANTS</p> +<p style="text-indent:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; margin-top:0pt">THE BROKEN ROAD</p> +</td> +</tr></table> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>A ROMANCE OF<br> +WASTDALE</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>BY</h5> +<h3>A. E. W. MASON</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>HODDER AND STOUGHTON</h3> +<h4>LIMITED<span style="letter-spacing:20pt"> </span> LONDON</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5><i>Made and Printed in Great Britain</i><br> +<i>Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury</i>.</h5> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table cellpadding="10" style="width:90%; margin-left:5%; font-weight:bold"> +<tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr><tr> + +<td><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_07" href="#div1_07">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_08" href="#div1_08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_09" href="#div1_09">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><a name="div1Ref_10" href="#div1_10">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr></table> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">CHAPTER I</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Mrs. Jackson!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson was feeding her ducks at the beck behind the house. But +the kitchen door stood open, and she not only heard her name, but +recognised the voice which shouted it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's Mr. Gordon," she said to the servant who was with her, and she +bustled through the kitchen into the parlour, drying her hands with +her apron as she went.</p> + +<p class="normal">David Gordon stood by the window, looking dreamily out across the +fields. He turned as she entered the room, and shook hands with her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have given you a surprise," he laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have, indeed, Mr. Gordon. I never expected to see you again at +Wastdale Head. You should have written you were coming."</p> + +<p class="normal">And she proceeded to light the fire.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I didn't know myself that I was coming until yesterday."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is three years since you were here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Three years," Gordon repeated slowly. "Yes! I did not realise it +until I caught sight of the farm-house again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will be wanting breakfast?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"The sooner, the better. I have walked from Boot."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Already?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It didn't seem really far;" and a smile broke over his face as he +added--</p> + +<p class="normal">"I heard my marriage bells ringing all the way across Burnmoor."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson retired to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and to ponder +over his remark. The result of her reflections was shown in the +unusual strength of the tea and in an extra thickness of butter on the +toast. She decked the table with an assortment of jams, and carefully +closed the door which opened into the lane, although the April +sunlight was pouring through it in a warm flood. It seemed as if +Gordon had gained an additional value and herself an additional +responsibility. She even took a cushion from the sofa and placed it on +his chair, and then waited on him while he breakfasted, nodding and +smiling a discreet but inquisitive sympathy.</p> + +<p class="normal">On Gordon, however, her pantomime was lost. His thoughts no longer +chimed to marriage bells. For Wastdale, and this farmhouse in +particular, were associated in his mind with the recollection of two +friends, of whom one was dead in reality, the other dead to him; and +always vividly responsive to the impression of the moment, he had +stepped back across the interval of the past three years, and now +dwelled with a strange sense of loneliness amidst a throng of +quickening memories.</p> + +<p class="normal">The woman, however, got the upper hand in Mrs. Jackson, and she +suggested, tentatively--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then maybe, Mr. Gordon, you are going to be married?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can omit the 'maybe,'" he laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I should never have thought it!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Time brings in his revenges," said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The way you three gentlemen used to rail at women! Well, there!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, then, they weren't women. They were Aunt Sallies of our own +contriving--mere pasteboard. We were young and we didn't know."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson inquired the date and place of the ceremony. At Keswick, +she was told, and in a week's time. She floated out garrulous on a +tide of sentiment. She hoped that Mr. Gordon's two friends would +follow his example and find out their mistake, not noticing the shadow +which her words brought to her lodger's face. She dropped the name of +Hawke and the shadow deepened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I rather fancy," he said abruptly, "that Mr. Hawke found out the +mistake at exactly the same time as I did myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson was a quick woman, and she took his meaning from the +inflection of his voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He was your rival!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have not seen much of him lately."</p> + +<p class="normal">She thought for a moment and said, "Then it's just as well he's +staying at the Inn."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"At the Inn?" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she answered. "He still comes to climb at Wastdale every +Easter. But he has always stayed at the Inn, since you and Mr. +Arkwright have stopped away."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon stood drumming with his fingers on the table-cloth. A sudden +impulse of a sentimental kind had persuaded him to spend his last week +of bachelorhood alone in the familiar privacy of this spot, and he had +obeyed it on the instant, thoughtlessly it now appeared to him. He +might have foreseen the likelihood of Hawke's presence. After all, +however, it could not matter. It would be, perhaps, a little awkward +if they met, though, indeed, it need not be even that. Their actual +rivalry had ended with the announcement of his engagement two years +ago. Hawke could gain no end by sustaining the feud. There was, in +truth, no reason why they should not shake hands over the matter. So +he argued to himself, desire pointing the argument and stifling +certain uneasy reflections as to the tenacity of Hawke's nature.</p> + +<p class="normal">He sat down to resume his breakfast. The third member of the trio +which for years had made the farmhouse the resort during Easter +vacations claimed Mrs. Jackson's attention.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And Mr. Arkwright?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He's dead," Gordon replied after a pause. "He died last year in +Switzerland. It was an accident. I was with him at the time."</p> + +<p class="normal">He spoke with spasmodic jerks and ended with something like a sigh of +relief. But if Mrs. Jackson loved marriages, she hankered after +violent deaths, and so, while she expressed unbounded pity, she +insisted upon details. Gordon submitted reluctantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It happened in the Oberland," he said, and Mrs. Jackson took a chair. +"We were coming down a mountain towards the evening--Arkwright, +myself, and a guide. We chanced to be late. The descent was new to us, +and knowing that we should not get off the snow before dark we looked +out for a spot to camp on. We came to a little plateau of rock just as +the night was falling, and determined to remain there. The guide had a +bottle of wine left out of our provisions. We had kept it back +purposely."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon paused for a moment and then went on again with a certain +deliberateness of speech as though the episode fascinated him in the +telling of it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Arkwright volunteered to draw the cork. The neck of the bottle burst +and cut into his arm. It severed the main artery just above the wrist. +I sent the guide down to the valley, but, of course, no help came +until the morning. He was dead then."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you stayed with him all the time?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes!" said Gordon, and he rose from the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson, however, failed to take the hint. She wanted a +description of his feelings during that night of watching, and she +persisted until she had obtained it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder you can bear to speak about it at all!" she said almost +reproachfully when he had finished.</p> + +<p class="normal">Left to himself, Gordon became the prey of a singular depression. The +sensation of horror which the recital of the incident revived in him +was intensified, not merely by its sombre contrast with the former +liveliness of his thoughts, but by the actual surroundings amongst +which he stood. The room itself was so suggestive of reminiscences +that it seemed instinct with the presence of his dead friend. For the +fact that he had but lately entered it after a lapse of years gave a +fresh vividness to his memories. It was as if the dust had been +suddenly swept from them by a rough hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">He walked over to the oak chest which stood against the wall by the +fireplace. A book in a red cover lay upon it and he took it up. It was +a novel which Arkwright had written at the farmhouse, and it contained +an inscription to that effect from the author's hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I seem likely to pass a pleasant week," he said to himself, and +taking his hat, stepped out into the clear sunshine.</p> + +<p class="normal">But his thoughts ran ever in the same channel. Each familiar object +that he passed recalled his friend, and the remembrance of that night +in the Alps hung like a black cloud about his heart. He tried to +thrust it aside, but the more earnestly he tried, the more +persistently it chained his attention, until in the end it seemed to +shadow forth something sinister, something almost of menace. For some +distance he followed the bed of the valley and then struck upwards to +the right, on to the slopes of Scafell Pike. After a while he stopped +to light his pipe, and, turning, saw over against him the track +mounting in sharp zigzags towards the summit of the Styhead Pass. It +was as clearly defined on the hill-side as a pencilled line on paper, +and his eyes followed its direction mechanically until it bent over +the edge of the Pass and disappeared from view. Then equally +mechanically he began to picture in his mind its subsequent course. He +had traced it past the tarn and half the way to Borrowdale, when of a +sudden a smile dawned through the gloom on his face, "The path to +Keswick!" he thought. He traced it consciously after that; he saw it +broaden out into a road, and his imagination set a dainty figure in a +white dress and a sailor hat at the end of it.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Gordon had met Kate Nugent for the first time some three years before +at Hawke's home in London, and from the outset of their acquaintance +she had commenced to dominate his thoughts, not so much on account of +her beauty as from a certain distinctness of personality which +appealed to him at that time with a very peculiar force. For she came +to him at a somewhat critical period in his life.</p> + +<p class="normal">Left an orphan while yet a child, David had spent his boyhood alone in +the north of Scotland. His guardian--an uncle with a seat in +Parliament and an estate near Ravenglass--he never saw; his tutor--an +unpractical scholar of the old-fashioned type--he neglected, in order +to follow the marsh-lamps of his own dreamy and somewhat morbid +imagination. And so dividing his time between the study of the more +exuberant poets and solitary rides along the bleak sea-coast, he +mapped out the world for himself upon a purely fanciful plan. He first +came into contact with actual life on his migration to Oxford. He was +brought face to face with new facts and new experiences, which, strive +as he might, he could not fit in with his theories. And, besides, he +seemed to see all around him men actuated by the interests of truth +toiling noisily at the overthrow of creeds and erecting nothing in +their place. As a consequence, his false idealism crumbled beneath +him, he lost his self-reliance, and felt hemmed in by a confused +tangle of truth and falsehood which there was no clue to help him to +unravel. The step between an intellectual scepticism and personal +cynicism is an easy one for most men to take. Gordon strode over the +intervening gaps unconsciously the moment he ceased to trust himself, +since his own sensations had, of necessity, been the one standard by +which he judged.</p> + +<p class="normal">His meeting with Kate Nugent, however, changed the whole tenor of his +mind. She appeared to him the one real thing that he had found in his +journey through a world of shadows. He pictured her standing out +white and clear from a background of shifting haze, and his very +self-distrust diminished since he referred his thoughts and actions to +his conception of her as to a touchstone for the testing of them.</p> + +<p class="normal">After their engagement, she became almost his religion. He +re-fashioned a second world in her image, faith coming to him like a +child born from the joining of their hearts. His ambitions, so long +dulled to inaction, sprang into new vigour and he followed their lead +with a confident patience. There was, in fact, an element of quaint +extravagance in his devotion, such as one finds mirrored in the +love-poems of the seventeenth century.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hence it came about that as he walked home in the fall of the +afternoon, matching the sunset with the colour of his thoughts, the +sight of the white Inn walls, prominent in a dark clump of firs, +recalled to him not only the fact of Hawke's proximity, but his desire +to put an end to their estrangement. The desire grew as he dwelled +upon it, until he began to feel an absolute repulsion from the +prospect of starting along this new stage of his life at enmity with +an old comrade.</p> + +<p class="normal">He determined to make the overture, and continuing his way onwards to +the Inn, inquired for Mr. Hawke. He was out, they told him. He had +waited until the postman came at twelve, and had then set out for the +fells. Gordon rummaged in his pockets and unearthed a card. He +scribbled on it a request that Hawke would visit him during the +evening, and turned back to the farm-house in a glow of satisfaction. +A wild fancy shot through him that Hawke and himself had been +designedly brought together into the seclusion of the valley. He +laughed it aside for the moment.</p> + +<p class="normal">But it returned to him afterwards with overwhelming conviction.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">CHAPTER II</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Austen Hawke strolled down from Yewbarrow an hour later. He was a man +of a tall figure, spare of limb and lithe of movement, with a keen, +narrow face, which fitted itself into one's memory. Inside his +sitting-room it was already dark, and he rang for lights and stretched +himself complacently in an arm-chair before the fire. The mistress of +the Inn answered the bell and informed him, with intervals between the +words as she scratched off the heads of refractory matches, that a +gentleman had called to see him during the afternoon. Hawke swung +round towards her, a look of annoyance showing in his face. He hastily +ran over in his mind the names of his friends.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did he leave no message?" he asked in perplexity.</p> + +<p class="normal">The card was produced, and Hawke took it, and stooping over the grate +read Gordon's name and invitation by the light of the fire. The look +of annoyance changed to one of utter incredulity. He read the card +again, peering at it as if he expected each moment to see the letters +dance from their order and group themselves afresh. By this time, +however, the gas was lit, and as he rose erect, his eyes fell upon an +envelope addressed to him in a clear, bold hand, which stood plain to +view against the clock on the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Gordon, of course, wrote his message in here?" he asked, and a +note of anxiety struggled through the indifference of his tone.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was assured, however, that his visitor had come no further than the +doorway of the hall.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You should have asked him in," he said carelessly, and slipped the +envelope into his pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">After dinner he smoked his pipe in his chair until the clock struck +nine. Then he took out his watch, adjusted the hands exactly to the +hour, and walked up the lane to the farm. The door stood on the latch +and he flung it open noisily.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sound roused Gordon from a doze, and he started suddenly to his +feet. On the instant Hawke stepped backwards to the threshold and +stood in the doorway, eyeing him searchingly. For a moment the two men +measured one another in silence, and Gordon fancied, with some +wonderment, that there was an expression of more than mere antagonism, +an expression of actual fear, in his visitor's attitude.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well?" said Hawke at last, and there was a ring of defiance in his +voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Austen!" the other replied simply, and he held out his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was no doubting the wistful sincerity of his appeal; and yet +Hawke came forward but slowly, and took the outstretched hand with a +watchful suspicion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are a stranger here," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon answered the implied question.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I was only in the way at Keswick." He stopped abruptly, mindful +that he trod delicate ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke shot a rapid glance at him. "Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Bridesmaids, you know. I was a flounder in a shoal of mermaids," and +Gordon laughed apologetically.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Hawke joined in the laugh, and said--"Yes; the bridegroom is of no +value until the wedding-day;" and he added softly, "and sometimes he +is of no value after it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon smiled confidently and observed--"At all events, you have not +changed."</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear fellow, we are not all----" He cast about for an epithet less +offensive than that ready to his tongue. "We are not all versatile."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The adjective hardly explains my case; for I don't seem to have +existed at all before."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't," Hawke broke in. "Please don't. I will take your sentiment for +granted."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon appreciated that he had brought the rejoinder upon himself by a +misplaced egotism, and relapsed into his chair. Hawke came and stood +immediately above him, leaning against the edge of the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And so," said he, "you came to Wastdale just to see me." He laid his +hand on Gordon's arm with a show of cordiality, but he spoke slowly +and with a faint flavour of irony about the words.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What made you think that?" Gordon asked in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your message, of course."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You misunderstood it. I had no idea you were here until I arrived +myself. I meant to spend the week at Ravenglass, but my uncle was +summoned to town yesterday. So I thought that I would come over to the +old place again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! Is that all?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke's voice told of relief. Gordon noticed the change, and turned +inquiring eyes on him sharply. Just for the second their glances +crossed; Hawke was off his guard; and it appeared to his companion +that the very spirit of malice was blazing triumphantly in his eyes. +Hawke rose hastily from the table, and Gordon cried out--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Take care! You will have the whisky on the floor."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I didn't notice it. Shall I help you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thanks!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke measured out the whisky into the glasses and filled them from +the kettle which sang on the fire.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's quite like old times," he said genially.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not quite!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You mean Arkwright? Yes, poor devil! I had forgotten him. Tell me how +it happened." And he lay down on the sofa.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, didn't you hear!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only vaguely."</p> + +<p class="normal">He hesitated, shot a furtive look at Gordon, and added, tentatively--</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was in India at the time."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Were you in India, too?" Gordon exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke turned his head to the wall to conceal the smile on his face, +and answered--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I was there. But why 'too'?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, because----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, Miss Nugent happened to be at Poonah."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Really? But tell me about Arkwright."</p> + +<p class="normal">For the second time that day Gordon related the story of the accident.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here's to better luck next time!" Hawke yawned when he had finished. +"By the way, you are not drinking. That is one of the signs of +impending matrimony, I suppose."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no!" Gordon laughed. "Only you have made it so confoundedly +strong."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will help you to sleep."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shan't need help."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! You look tired, and I am keeping you up."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke drew his watch from his pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">"By Jove, it's past eleven!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He rose from the sofa and took his hat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you going?" asked Gordon.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. Good night!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon went to the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't you bother to come out!" cried Hawke quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Gordon lifted the latch and stepped out into the porch. Instantly +Hawke slipped by him and hurried across the little garden to the gate. +He looked eagerly up and down the lane, but there was nothing to be +seen. The night was moonless and cloudy, with a cold wind blowing from +the north.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good night!" he repeated as Gordon joined him. "It's cold out here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is the matter?" Gordon inquired.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean?" Hawke turned sharply to the speaker.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You looked as if you expected to see some one."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here? At this time? Why, I suppose you and I are the only living +beings awake for ten miles round," and he laughed, uneasily to +Gordon's thinking.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall see you to-morrow, I suppose?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I doubt it," Hawke replied. "I mean to cross into Eskdale, if it is +fine, and come back over Mickledoor. So I shall probably not reach +home till late."</p> + +<p class="normal">And he started off down the lane.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon returned to the room, latched the door, and came thoughtfully +back to the fire. "Why was Hawke afraid?" he asked himself. Of the +fact of his alarm there could be no doubt. His sudden recoil when +Gordon rose to greet him was evidence enough by itself. But, besides, +there was the betrayal of relief when he ascertained the absence of +design in Gordon's visit to the valley. And, beyond these particular +proofs, throughout the interview suspicion had been visibly alert in +the man, showing in his face, in his words, in his very posture. It +must have been fear, Gordon argued, which had prompted him to pretend +acceptance of the proffered reconciliation. For that he did but +pretend was plain from the irrepressible irony in his voice, and, +above all, from that flash of malice which just for a second had, as +it were, lit up the face of his mind. But the reason of it all? Why +was Hawke afraid of him?</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon's thoughts circled blankly about the question. Finally he tried +to forget it, lit his candle, and went upstairs to bed. Sleep, +however, had now become impossible to him. He had flogged his wits out +of their drowsiness, and he tossed from side to side in a fever of +tired unrest until his speculations lost shape and form, and loomed +vaguely into premonitions of evil. The very muscles of his limbs +seemed braced like an athlete's, with the sense of a coming contest.</p> + +<p class="normal">Of a sudden, however, as he lay ransacking his memory for the least +detail of the conversation, it occurred to him that he had left the +lamp burning in the parlour. He felt for the matches at his bedside, +and as he opened the box he heard a light sound as of a cautious step +rise through the open window. He struck a match, it flared up into a +flame and the sound was repeated more distinctly--a hurried shuffle of +the pebbles.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon remained quite still in his bed, and the match burned down to +his fingers. But there was no further movement. Then he rose and crept +to the window. The night was like a bandage before his eyes. But after +a while it thinned to a veil, and he made out the barn wall facing him +(for his room lay at the side of the house), and as he watched +something moved from the shadow of it, stood for a second in the open +opposite the window, and then slipped round the corner of the barn and +disappeared down the lane.</p> + +<p class="normal">It could be no one but Hawke, Gordon thought. The man's own remark +flashed into his mind. "I suppose that you and I are the only living +beings awake for ten miles round." For some reason he had been waiting +until all was quiet in the house. Gordon flung on his clothes +hurriedly, lit the candle, and went downstairs. But as he pushed open +the door of the parlour a sudden gust of wind extinguished the light +in his hand. The room was in darkness; only facing where he stood +there was a panel of twilight, and through it he could see the boughs +of trees rising and falling.</p> + +<p class="normal">The door into the lane stood open, and the lamp had been turned out.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon stood fixed there in a panic, listening. But no sound menaced +him. Inside, the beat of the clock merely emphasized the silence; +outside, the wind moaned among the hills with a dreary lift and drop, +like surf upon a distant beach. He walked through the garden and +strained his eyes up and down the road. No moving thing was visible, +but he remembered that Hawke had scanned the surroundings too, and he +hung on the gate, charged with expectancy.</p> + +<p class="normal">After a time he noticed a white speck in the black of the opposite +field. He observed it casually at first, but it grew larger and +approached him, and shaped itself into the figure of a woman. She +climbed over a stile in the boundary wall facing the gate and brushed +quickly by without noticing his presence. She was closely muffled in a +large shawl, so that Gordon could see nothing of her face. But it +struck him, from the momentary glimpse of her which he caught as she +swung past him, that there was something familiar in her gait and +bearing. The perception was a spark to the train of his fears. They +flashed into one monstrous conjecture. Gordon thrust it down; it +sprang up again and clutched at his throat, stifling him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Beyond that field, the track from Styhead--the track which he had +watched that afternoon--ran towards the lake. If you came from the +Pass to the upper part of Wastdale--say to the Inn--you crossed the +field, you joined the lane at the very spot where Gordon stood. And +over the Pass the woman had come--must have come. For Gordon's farm +was the outpost of the village. The next house was built in +Borrowdale.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the stillness he could hear the footsteps rattling on the loose +stones. Then all at once they stopped, and Gordon felt his heart stop +with them. The silence, however, pointed to the necessity of speed, +and he followed the woman cautiously down the lane, creeping close +under cover of the wall.</p> + +<p class="normal">But there was no one outside the Inn, and no sign of life within it. +The front stared blindly into the night. He stole up to the door and +laid his ear to the panel. A second after the bolt grated with an +almost imperceptible jar as it was eased into its socket. He just +heard a faint rustling sound as of feet stealthily receding along a +flagged passage, and all was quiet again.</p> + +<p class="normal">He raised his hand to the bell, but a sudden thought checked his +impulse. Suppose that his conjecture was false! And yet another +thought came to second the first. Suppose that his conjecture was +true! His arm dropped nervously to his side. For the girl's sake he +dared not rouse the inmates.</p> + +<p class="normal">And yet what action should he take? He stood paralysed, feeling the +question beat into his brain like a hammer, until a yellow beam of +light leaped out on to the trees at the west corner of the house. +Gordon hurried round to the spot and perceived that it came from a +window on the first floor in the end of the building. He looked +eagerly about for a means of reaching it. Immediately under the window +the space was clear, but a little farther towards the back of the Inn +an outhouse with a thatched sloping roof jutted forth at a right +angle. From the extreme point of that roof Gordon believed that he +could command a view of the room. In this way he would at all events +ascertain the truth.</p> + +<p class="normal">A short examination showed him a tree which leaned against the far +side of the building. Scaling the trunk, he crept out along a bough, +dropped lightly on the thatch, and crept up to its apex. Over the edge +he looked into the room, as from the opposite point at the base of a +triangle. Three-fourths of its area were within his view, and this was +what he saw.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke sat almost facing him in front of a table with his back towards +a blazing fire. A number of letters lay before him, and he was +evidently reading them aloud, for now and again he looked up with +narrowed eyes and a crafty smile, much as Gordon remembered him when +he held a winning hand at whist.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sex of his visitor was revealed by a shawl trailing on the +hearthrug. But of her person, Gordon caught not so much as a glimpse. +For she stood on the near side of the room, concealed from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke, as he finished each letter, placed it methodically on a file +which lay by his side. One, however, seemed longer than the rest and +afforded him peculiar interest. He turned back to the first page and +read it a second time, pointing here and there to passages with his +finger. All at once the slender figure of a girl moved into the light. +She passed round the table and stood behind Hawke's shoulder, her face +gleaming pale as ivory from a cloud of tumbled hair. Gordon recognized +her on the instant. It was Kate Nugent. She bent over Hawke as if to +follow him more closely, and with a sudden clutch tore the paper from +his hand and flung it into the fire. Hawke started to his feet, +transfigured. Some such flame as was shrivelling the letter seemed to +leap across his face. He pinned Kate's wrist to the table and thrust +his head close down upon hers. What he said Gordon could not +distinguish for the closed window, but he noticed a savage +incisiveness about the movement of his lips, and saw the veins swell +upon his forehead and along his throat.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment the girl confronted him, returning glance for glance, but +only for a moment. The defiance flickered out of her face, her lips +shaped to an entreaty, and, with a meek gentleness which was +infinitely pitiful, she unclasped the fingers about her wrist. She +moved towards the window, stumbling as she went. She felt blindly for +the catch, unfastened it as though her hands were numbed, and slowly +lifted the sash.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">CHAPTER III</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">She leaned against the sill, gazing into the darkness. After a while +she turned. Hawke was watching her with a complacent smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And it pleases you to torture me! You enjoy seeing a woman suffer. I +couldn't have believed that any man could be such a coward and so +mean!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke laughed pleasantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Give them to me!" she cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Think!" he answered in a mock appeal. "They will be my only +consolation after you are married."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Give them to me!" she cried again.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke was standing by the fireplace and she moved towards him, +changing her tone to one of wondering reproach.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can't mean to keep them! You are just laughing at me--for the +minute. Yes! yes! I know. That was your way. But you will give me the +letters in the end, won't you? Look! I will kneel to you for them. +Only give them to me!" And she sank on her knees at his feet before +the fire.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They will be much safer with me," he replied. "You might leave them +about. David might pry. And it would strain even his innocence to +misunderstand them."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can you think I should keep them?" she said with a shiver of disgust. +"Give them to me or burn them yourself! Yes!" she continued, +feverishly, clutching his arm, "burn them yourself--now--here--and I +will thank you all my life."</p> + +<p class="normal">She stirred the coals into a blaze.</p> + +<p class="normal">"See! They will burn so quickly," and she darted out her hands towards +the file.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke snatched it away. "No, no!" he laughed. "You must vary your game +if you mean to win."</p> + +<p class="normal">He reached up and hung it on the mirror over his mantelpiece.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There!" said he. "You will have to jump for them."</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl stared at him incredulously; the words seeming to her some +trick of her strained senses. But she glanced upwards to the file and +sank back with a low moan.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will nothing touch you?" she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment there was a pause. Only the noise of the brook laughing +happily as it raced over the stones behind the house broke the silence +in the room. Kate heard it vaguely, and it awoke a reminiscence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you remember?" she said. "At Poonah? There was a stream running +past the verandah there."</p> + +<p class="normal">She was speaking wearily, with closed eyes, and the firelight played +upon a face as white and impassive as a wax mask.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I remember," answered Hawke, his voice softening with the memory +of those few months in India, The recollection was not of what they +had thought or said or done--that would not have moved him; but simply +of how he had felt towards her. He stood and watched her curiously. +The dark lashes began to glisten, and then all in a moment her apathy +broke up, and she was shaking in an agony of tears.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was never so hard to you," she faltered between her sobs.</p> + +<p class="normal">The words floated out freely to Gordon and set his senses reeling. In +Hawke they deepened the phantom tenderness already aroused. There was +something so childlike in their simplicity. Indeed, as she crouched +upon the floor in her abandonment, her white frock stained by her long +journey, her sash all crumpled, her loosened hair curling vagrantly +about her neck, and her slender figure quivering down to the tips of +her shoes, she looked little more than a child masquerading in the +emotions of a woman.</p> + +<p class="normal">He took down the file and swung it irresolutely to and fro upon his +finger. Kate turned to him impulsively.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Give them to me! You promised you would if I came to fetch them. You +can't break that promise now! Think what you have made me risk! +Suppose they find out at home? It would have been cruel enough if that +had been the only danger. But to bring me to the village where you and +Dav--where you and he are the only strangers!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was not my fault," Hawke interposed. "How could I tell he was +going to blunder over here? I only met him this afternoon. However, +you needn't be afraid. The fool's asleep."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon felt an almost overpowering impulse to laugh aloud. The irony +of the situation was the one thing which his mind could grasp. +However, he set his teeth fast to restrain the desire. He would learn +all that was to be known first. He could disclose himself to Hawke +afterwards.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you sure he suspects nothing?" Kate asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perfectly. I was with him this evening, I tell you. He left his lamp +burning, so that I had to wait until the place was quiet to put it +out, for fear you should mistake the house. There is nothing to fear. +Why, he told me that he hadn't even existed until he met you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't!" Kate exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You need not reproach yourself for his credulity. They say it's quite +good for a man to believe in a woman."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate remained silent, knowing that replies were but fuel to his +sneers. But her eyes caught the clock and awoke her to the lapse of +time.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look!" she cried. "It is past one. I must go back, and it is so far. +Give me the letters, I am tired."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke determined to comply. So much the sight of her fresh, young +beauty, drooping at his feet, had wrung from him. But he was an +epicure where women were concerned. He took a natural delight in +evoking their emotions, and when the display gratified him, he allowed +no obtrusive knowledge of its cost to them to abridge his enjoyment. +So he merely repeated--</p> + +<p class="normal">"They will be safe with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I cannot trust you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why not?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The question rang cold and sharp, like the crack of a pistol. Kate +looked at his face and realised that she had lost her ground. But, as +she had said, she was tired. She was too over-wrought to choose her +phrases.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I dare not marry him and leave those letters in your hands."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why not? You have trusted me with more than your letters."</p> + +<p class="normal">The brutality of the remark was emphasised by the harshness of his +tone. But she replied, quietly--</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you taunt me with my trust! Surely that is reason enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are afraid that I shall use them!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know. I only know that if you keep them, I may be his wife, +but you will be my master; and I dare not face that."</p> + +<p class="normal">The explanation appeased Hawke. It warmed his vanity and disposed him +to reward so clear an appreciation of his power. Only the reward she +asked was nothing less than the renunciation of that power. He paused +over that.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me," Kate continued, "why did you force me to come here?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not sure," he replied, musingly. "Perhaps I wanted to see you +again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! That was not why. You would have come to me yourself, if that had +been the cause."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What was the reason, then?" Hawke smiled indulgently. This scrutiny +of his intentions added to his satisfaction. It lifted him in his +self-esteem, attributed to him an unusual personality. For, as a rule, +people find the twenty-four hours barely long enough to discover what +their neighbours do, and so are compelled to leave their thoughts and +aims alone. Hawke loomed larger on his own horizon, the more +particularly because the analyst was a young woman and well-favoured.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What was the reason?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just my marriage. You felt that I was slipping out of your +grasp--escaping you. I know you so well."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it's almost a year since I have seen you. I have left you alone +during all that time. So, even if I had possessed any power, you can't +urge that I have used it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! But because you possessed it," Kate insisted. "Because you were +certain you possessed it; and so you were content to let things lie. +Now, however, everything was changing. I was escaping you; and you +made me come here at night, across that horrible lonely pass, just to +assert your mastery over me--just to convince yourself it was real. +Don't you see? I dare not go back and leave those letters with you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke wavered. If he gave her what she wished, she would escape him, +as she had said. She would pass clean beyond his reach. She would have +no fear of him--no strong feeling of any kind.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Suppose that I give you your way," he said, hesitatingly; "what is +going to happen between you and me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The unexpected question scared the girl, and she answered, catching +her breath--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Everything was over between us--ages ago, it seems to me. You have +not seen me for a year. You said so yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I know," he replied, slowly, and Kate felt that he was watching +her keenly. "But now that I do see you again, it is like meeting you +for the first time without the trouble of having to make friends."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate half rose to her feet, with a slight cry.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't get up!" Hawke exclaimed, and he smoothed her hair caressingly +with his hand. "You look so pretty like that."</p> + +<p class="normal">She clenched her nails in her palms. Her whole nature rose against the +man. The mere touch of his fingers turned her sick. At last, however, +she forced herself to meet his gaze. She saw that he was going to +speak, and began first, coaxing him, while a deadly humiliation set +her cheeks ablaze.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Friends? Yes! We might be friends. Only give me the letters, and I +will think of you as a friend!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"For just so long as it takes you to reach Keswick."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; always," she said simply. "You don't know what a woman can +forgive when once she has felt as I have felt towards you."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a pause. Hawke suddenly stripped the letters off the file.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will give them to you," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate held out her hands to him eagerly, with a low cry of joy. But +Hawke dropped the packet on the table, and seized her outstretched +wrists.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But they have their price," he whispered, bending over her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate shrank away in a whirl of terror. But his grasp only tightened, +and he drew her towards him, laughing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only a kiss," he said. "One kiss for each."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" She almost shouted the word.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hush!" he laughed. "You will rouse the house. One kiss for each," and +he laughed again almost hysterically.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is not a heavy price--it is not even a new price. You have paid it +before with nothing to buy. Think of the distance you have come, of +the horrible lonely pass!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He repeated her words with a burlesque shudder. But the taunts fell +upon deaf ears. Kate was engrossed in the shame of his proposal. It +was so characteristic of him, she thought. He had chosen the one +device which would humiliate her most effectually. Its very puerility +added to her sense of degradation. There was a touch of the ludicrous +in the notion so grotesquely incongruous with the pain it caused her. +She pictured the scene with a spectator. "How he would laugh!" she +thought, bitterly. However, there would be no spectator--and it was +the only way.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well?" Hawke asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes!" she replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">He released her wrists, and she stood up and faced him. He took the +letters and handed them to her, one by one; and for each letter that +he gave her, she kissed him on the lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">And outside the window was the spectator. Only he did not laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke also had grown serious. The sight of Kate Nugent after so long +an interval, the familiar sound of her voice, and to some degree also +a certain distorted pleasure which he drew from the knowledge of +Gordon's proximity, had served to prepare his passions. Now they were +tinder to the touch of her lips. So, as he let the last letter go and +she turned her face upwards to complete the bargain, he suddenly +placed his hands behind her shoulders, drew her towards him, and +returned her kiss with a fervour.</p> + +<p class="normal">The change in him came almost as a relief to Kate. It diminished her +sense of humiliation. For the moment he began to show passion, the +less she felt herself his toy. So, for a second, she did not resist +his embrace. Then she struggled to free herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have paid you," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke dropped his arms, and she moved towards the fireplace. One by +one, she noted the dates of the letters, tore them across and let them +fall into the flames. Then she stood thinking.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have not given me all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"All I showed you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There are four more, written on my way home from Calcutta, Aden, +Brindisi, and London."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Three! You were rude enough to burn one."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where are they?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here!" Hawke tapped his breast pocket as he spoke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fulfil your bargain! Give them to me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They will cost more."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">CHAPTER IV</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The strain upon Gordon's nerves had become intolerable. When he first +mounted the outhouse roof he had been wholly absorbed in the horror of +his conjecture that Hawke's midnight visitor was the girl to whom he +was betrothed, and the need of either verifying or disproving it was +the one thing clear to him amid the turmoil of his brain. Of what the +visit might actually imply he took no thought. Now, however, he knew; +the interview which he had witnessed left him not a glimmer of doubt. +But during the two years of their engagement, Kate Nugent had so grown +into the heart of his life, had become so real a part of him, that she +was not easily dethroned from his respect. He clung instinctively to a +vague hope that there might have been some compelling cause of which +he knew nothing to account for her subjection to Hawke. That this +subjection meant treachery to him, treachery of an unpardonable kind, +whatever its cause, he realised in a way, but as yet did he not feel +it. The blow had stunned his reason, had even dulled his senses, had, +in a word, struck at the very roots of his being. He was adrift in a +maze of bewilderment. The scene he was witnessing grew in the end +shadowy and unreal. Even Hawke seemed to lose his individuality; he +became just a detail in the sum of the mystery, a thing to be +explained, not a man to be punished. Gordon, in fact, was left +conscious of but one feeling--the overwhelming desire to see the woman +he had worshipped face to face with him, to speak with her, and +realising the necessity of getting solid ground beneath his feet, if +he was to accomplish his wish, he clambered from his perch--just too +soon to see Kate strike Hawke across the mouth, as her answer to the +last words he had only dimly heard.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon reached the earth securely and crept softly back to his garden +gate. The sky had cleared during the last half hour, and the valley +lay pure and clean in the starlight. After a while a sound reached +him. It struck upon muffled senses at first, meaninglessly; but its +continued repetition fixed his attention, and he perceived that it was +the sound of Kate's footsteps on the stones again at the bottom of the +lane. She was returning. Gordon was still in that dazed condition when +the brain, unable to take a complete impression, or, to speak more +plainly, unable to combine its different impressions into one whole, +fixes itself upon some small particular sensation and magnifies that, +to the thorough exclusion of the rest. So, now as he listened to her +steps drawing nearer and nearer, he noticed acutely a difference in +the manner of her walk, a certain hesitancy, absent when she swept by +him on her way to the Inn. Then her footfalls had rung surely and +rhythmically, betokening some quest in view; now they wavered, +timidly, with uncertain beats as if the hope had gone out of her +limbs. The sound was somehow familiar to Gordon, and, curiously +ransacking his memories, he discovered the reason. He had marked women +walk like that, with the same weariness, with the same hopelessness, +late at night in the quiet of the London streets. This chance +association of ideas acted on him like a shock. It woke him from his +stupor, revivified him, set him with clear vision fronting facts. He +grasped the full meaning of Kate's interview with Hawke. It rose +before him like an acted scene in a play, and he recollected with a +sudden horror those last words, "They will cost more." How long was it +since he had climbed down from the outhouse roof? How long had he been +waiting by the gate? He had been unconscious of time. Hours might have +lapsed for all he knew. Meanwhile the steps drew nearer. He saw her +plainly advancing towards him. She was walking with her eyes on the +ground, and so did not observe him barring her path until she almost +knocked against him. She lifted her head, stood for a second looking +searchingly into his face, as if he were a ghost, the fancied +embodiment of her fears, and then, with an inarticulate moan like the +cry of the dumb, she reeled against the wall of the lane. Gordon heard +her breath coming and going in quick jets and the scrabbling of her +finger-nails as she clutched at the stones.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it you?" she said, attempting a light surprise. "How you startled +me! I am late, very late. I was delayed. I came over to--to----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"To recover your letters," Gordon broke in bitterly upon her labouring +effort to dig up an excuse. "You were right to come late. That kind of +errand can't be run by daylight."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate drew herself up and moved toward him, but he thrust his hands out +with a gesture of repulsion to check her approach.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Those last three letters?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has them still."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come in!" Gordon said. The relief he experienced gave a gentleness to +the tone of his voice. That loathsome dread at all events was +dispelled. For even then he did not doubt the truth of her words.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come in!" and he turned and went into the parlour. The girl followed +him in silence, drew a chair close to the dying fire and hung over it, +shivering. Gordon lit the lamp, saying--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes; it is cold. These April nights always are up here."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate looked at the clock, and Gordon's eyes followed her gaze. The +hands pointed to half-past one. He had heard her implore Hawke that it +was past the hour, some time before he quitted his post of +observation. So there could have been but the briefest interval +between her departure and his own.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Be quick! What do you want with me? I have no time to lose!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate flung the words at him petulantly. The knowledge that she had +been discovered exasperated her against Gordon.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, why don't you speak?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned towards him. Gordon was still standing at the table by the +lamp. For, now that his object was attained and she was alone with +him, he found no words to express the questions he had meant to ask. +The light fell full upon the delicate beauty of her face, and indeed +nearly drove the questions themselves from his mind. "You always look +to me as if you had just come out of a convent," he had once said to +her; and that sentence most exactly indicated the nature of the +passion he had felt for her--an intense love refined and exalted by a +blind, unreasoning reverence. There was, in truth, a certain air of +spirituality about her manifest to most people on their first +introduction. But it belonged to the face, not to the expression. It +was due to the fragile purity of her features, not to the mind which +animated them, and was consequently more noticeable when she was in +repose. The impression, as a rule, wore off upon a closer +acquaintance, but Gordon had fallen in love and saw her always through +the mist of his feelings.</p> + +<p class="normal">So the memory of all that she had meant to him kept him silent now. +His thoughts seemed almost a sacrilege--plainly impossible to speak +unless Kate gave him a decided lead. He waited and watched her. The +skin of her wrist had broken when Hawke gripped it, and every now and +then a drop of blood would fall on to her white dress and trickle down +in a red wavering line. The sight somehow fascinated Gordon, and as +each drop fell he waited and watched for the next.</p> + +<p class="normal">To Kate, his silence became intolerable. She would have preferred +reproaches, abuse, even violence--anything, in a word--to this leaden +reticence. For it accused her more sharply than any words. Her lover +had always been as an easy book to her keen intelligence, and she +could read clearly enough that what kept his lips locked now was the +conflict between his new knowledge and his old loyalty. In a flash she +imagined Hawke's behaviour under the like circumstances and contrasted +it with Gordon's bearing. Side by side the two men toed the line for +her mental inspection, and the result was a feminine outcry against +Fate, the Powers above and below--what you will, in a word, except her +concrete self.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What brought you over here?" she cried. "You said you were going to +Ravenglass. You told me so. What brought you over to Wastdale?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She spoke fiercely, almost vindictively, and it seemed as if the pair +had suddenly changed places, as if she were the accuser and he the +culprit, standing meekly self-condemned. Indeed, to complete the +illusion, there was even a tinge of remorse in his tone as he answered +her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"God, perhaps. Who knows?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! yes, yes, yes!" she went on. "Preach to me! Preach to me! Go on! +Only be quick about it and make the sermon short!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't, Kitty!" he said, and added, wistfully, "It can't be your true +self that is speaking."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yea, it is," she replied, struggling with a sense of pity for him +(evoked by the quiet sadness of his voice). "My very own self, my real +true self, that you have never known--that you never <i>would</i> know. You +always had wrong ideas about me. I tried to open your eyes at first, +but it was no good, and I gave it up. You always dressed me up in +virtues that didn't fit me. I used to feel as if I were wearing a +strait-waistcoat."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon drew up a chair and sat opposite to her on the other side of +the fireplace.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then it was all my fault," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate glanced at him quickly, but there was no trace of irony in his +manner. He was speaking quite seriously. As a matter of fact, it had +just begun to dawn on him that a frank expectation of ideal behaviour +is the most exacting form of tyranny a man can exercise over a woman.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she replied. "No! It was my fault. I ought never to have become +engaged to you; for I never loved you, even at the beginning. Oh, it +is no use shirking the truth now," she went on, as Gordon rose with a +cry of pain. "I never loved you. I realised that very soon after we +were engaged. I had always liked you. I liked you better than any man +I had met, and so in time I thought I might come to love you as well. +I don't know whether I ever should have reached that if I had been +left alone. But you made it impossible. You would not see that I had +faults and caprices. You would not see that those very faults pleased +me, that I meant to keep them, that I did not want to change. No! +Whenever you came to me, I always felt as if I was being lifted up +reverently and set on a very high and a very small pedestal. And there +I had to stand, with my heels together, and my toes turned out, in an +attitude of decorum until you had gone. Well, you want people with +flat heels to enjoy that. I always wore high ones, and the attitude +tired me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Instinctively she stretched one foot out as she spoke. The sparkle of +the firelight on the buckle caught Gordon's eye, and he saw that she +was wearing thin kid slippers with a strap across the instep.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must be wet through," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she answered. "I rode to the head of the Pass, and left the +horse tied up to the footbridge over the stream. It was dry enough the +rest of the way."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You rode over here!" he exclaimed. "Then they must have known you +were coming?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who must have known?" she asked, in a sudden alarm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your father and your aunt. She is staying with you still, I suppose."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. But they knew nothing, of course. My father had some people to +dinner to-night. I left them early, saying that I was tired. I should +have had no time to change if I had thought of it, as it was close on +ten. I had told Martin, our groom, that I should want a horse--you +know he would do anything for me--and he had it ready saddled. So I +locked my room door, took the key with me, and came away just as I +was."</p> + +<p class="normal">She stopped abruptly. The mention of her home aroused her to the +consequences of her detection. Up till now the fact that Gordon had +found her out had alone possessed her mind. Now, however, she was +compelled to look forward. What would he do? He was to have married +her in a week, in just seven days. Would he disclose the truth? She +scanned his face for an answer to her conjectures.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon was leaning against the mantelshelf above her, and his eyes met +her inquiring gaze.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you see," she faltered, "I am pretty safe for to-night; but +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"To-morrow?" He seemed not to have grasped her drift.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! To-morrow," she repeated. "What do you mean to do?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The question startled Gordon. He had been thinking of her, not of +himself. Yes, to-morrow he would have to act. But how?</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know," he answered. "I must have time to think. I have not +mastered today yet."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will spare me as much as you can?"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was something very pitiful in the childlike entreaty; at least +so it seemed to Gordon. She was so young for all this misery. Her very +humility pained him, all the more because it was so strange to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will spare you altogether, child," he replied. "You need not be +afraid of me. I have loved you too well to hurt you now."</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment or two he paced about the room restlessly, trying to +discover some means by which he could break the marriage off and take +the blame upon himself. But no likely plan occurred to him. His brain +refused to act. Disconnected scraps of ideas and ludicrous +reminiscences, all foreign to the matter, forced themselves upon his +mind, the harder he strove to think. He gave the effort up. He would +be able to concentrate his attention better when he was alone. +Besides, he recollected he had not heard the whole story as yet. Some +clue to an issue might perhaps be found in the untold remainder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me the rest!" he said, returning to his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The rest?" she inquired. Gordon's generosity had pierced straight to +her heart at last, and had sent the tears rolling down her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! The rest of the story down to tonight."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! I can't," she cried. "Not now! I can't! If you had been rough and +harsh, yes! But you have been so gentle with me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will be the kindest way for me," Gordon replied. "I must know the +truth some way or another, and I would rather have you tell it me than +ferret it out for myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well, then," she said, wearily; and for a space there was +silence in the room.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_05" href="#div1Ref_05">CHAPTER V</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"My mother died," she began, "eight months after our engagement, and +then I went out to Poonah on a visit to my uncle. It is just a year +and a half since I started."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yea! I remember. I did not want you to go."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I insisted. You know why now."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I know why now."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon repeated her words with a shiver. If only he had understood her +a little better, he thought.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate hardly noticed his interruption. She was staring straight into +the fire and speaking in a dull monotone, with no spring in her voice. +She would have spared him now, had she been able, but she felt +irresistibly impelled to lay all her disloyalty bare before his +eyes--to show him at how empty a shrine he had been worshipping. It +seemed to her almost as if some stronger will was prompting her, and +the very sound of her words was thin and strange to her ears, as +though some one else was speaking them at a great distance.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she continued, "I wanted to get away from you--to slip out of +my shackles for a time. So I went to Poonah, and--and there I found +Austen."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Austen! Austen!" Gordon burst out in a frenzy. "For God's sake, don't +call him that!" and he brought his clenched fist down on the table +with all his strength. The glasses on it rattled at the blow, and the +tumbler which Hawke had used, standing close at the edge, fell and +splintered on the floor. Gordon laughed at the sight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was his glass," he explained. "He was here to-night, drinking +with me," and he laughed again, harshly.</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl hurriedly drew her skirts away from the broken fragments.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sorry," Gordon said, recovering his composure, "I interrupted +you. Go on!"</p> + +<p class="normal">But there was a new hardness in his tone. Kate remarked it, and it +grated on her painfully after his forbearance. She paused for a +moment, looking at him anxiously. But he made no further sign, and she +took up the burden of her tale again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There I found Mr. Hawke. I don't think I had ever given a thought to +him before. But from this time he began to influence me, because of +the difference between yourself and him. He paid me no respect, no +deference, and outwardly, indeed, no attention; but all the time I +felt that he was consciously and deliberately taking possession of me, +and I made no struggle to resist him. He became my master--imposed +himself upon me until I lost the sense of responsibility for my own +actions. It was not that he gave me orders or even suggested them, but +somehow I always realised what he wanted me to do, and did it. And I +knew besides that he was conscious of my submission and counted on +it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate had relapsed into the impersonal commonplace manner which had +characterised her speech before Gordon broke in. The words fell from +her lips in a level regularity, without rise or fall, and she was +abstractedly smoothing out one of the broad ribbons of her sash--an +old trick of hers, very familiar to her listener. For all the emotion +that she showed she might have been dissecting the character of an +uninteresting acquaintance.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So that is the way for men to win women!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Some women, yes!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, there is nothing like buying one's experience, they say."</p> + +<p class="normal">The attempt at sarcasm only served to reveal the intensity of Gordon's +suffering. He was sitting with his body bent forward and his chin +pressed against his chest; his hands were clenched between his knees, +and his whole attitude told of the strain his self-repression caused +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go on," he muttered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have told you enough," she exclaimed, tossed out of her apathy by a +sudden comprehension of the torture her story inflicted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! no!" Gordon replied, hoarsely. "Go on! Go on and finish it!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well," she continued, her voice sinking into a tremulous whisper, +"one evening I was left in the house alone. The rest had gone out to a +dance, but I was worn out by the heat, and remained at home. It was +very hot; there was hardly a breath of air, I remember, and I curled +myself up in a long chair on the verandah and fell fast asleep. I was +awakened by some one pulling my hair, and when I looked up I saw who +it was."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long was that before you left India?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Two months."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And during those two months you kept writing home to me and saying +how slowly the time passed."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon spoke with an accent of incredulous wonder. Each moment thrust +a new inconceivable fact before his eyes, and forced him to +contemplate it. He felt that his world was toppling in ruins about +him, much as it had done in that first year of his University life.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was not my fault," the girl exclaimed. "He made me do it. I +wanted to write to you and break the engagement off; but he would not +let me. I suppose he was afraid I should bother him to marry me +himself," she concluded, contemptuously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you obeyed him in that, too?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I tell you, I was at his mercy. He did what he liked with me. He made +me write those letters to you;" and she added, with a certain +softness, "and in a way, too, I was glad he did."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because even then I was afraid of him. I distrusted him, and you +seemed a kind of anchor for me, and every letter an extra link in the +cable."</p> + +<p class="normal">The words touched Gordon strangely. The surface implication that he +was valued merely as a convenient refuge from the consequences of +folly did not occur to him. He applied a deeper meaning to them, and +fancied that she had been willing to retain her hold on him for much +the same reason which had made him cling to her--out of an instinctive +need to feel something stable in a world of shadow. She had taken an +open knife from the table and was mechanically tracing with its point +the crimson lines upon her dress, and he thought her tired +helplessness was the saddest sight man could ever see. Sentences out +of the letters came back to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So, in a way," he said, almost with a smile, "you meant what you +wrote."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! What I wrote. But I wrote so little of them myself. I mean," she +went on, noticing the surprise in the other's face, "I put the words +down. He dictated them."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What!"</p> + +<p class="normal">A sudden fury seized upon Gordon. For the first time since he had been +talking with Kate, he realised Hawke the man, a living treacherous +being, flesh and blood, that could be crushed and killed. The idea +sent a thrill through his veins. The lust for revenge sprang up, +winged and armed, in a flame of hatred. His imagination pictured the +scene, clear cut as a cameo; he saw the keen, pointed face bending +over Kate's shoulder; he heard him unctuously rolling out loving +phrases, savouring them as he spoke, and chuckling over the deceit.</p> + +<p class="normal">He turned on Kate in a frenzy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He dictated them; and he laughed as he did it, I suppose. Did he +laugh? Tell me! Did he laugh?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon shook the girl's arm savagely, his face livid and working with +passion. His aspect terrified her. She dared not tell him the truth, +and she turned away with a shudder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is answer enough," and he dropped her arm and began again pacing +about the room. Now, however, he walked quietly and softly, with his +shoulders rounded and his head thrust forward. His lips were drawn +back from his teeth, and there was something catlike in his tread, +which reminded Kate irresistibly of Hawke. Indeed, to her fevered +eyes, he began to change and to grow like his enemy in face and +bearing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't," she whispered. "You frighten me. You remind me of him."</p> + +<p class="normal">The words recalled Gordon to himself. There was something else he +wished to know. What was it? He beat his forehead with the palms of +his hands in the effort to recollect. If only he could banish Hawke +from his mind until she had gone! At last the question took shape.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The letters he was reading to you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They were notes and appointments written when we were both at +Poonah," she answered, submissively. "I never thought that he would +keep them, though I might have known he would."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And the three he has still?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They were the only real letters I ever wrote to him. There were four, +but I burned one to-night."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I saw."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wrote them on the way home, from Calcutta, Aden, Brindisi and the +last from London the evening I arrived."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have never written since?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never! Nor have I seen him since until he compelled me to come +to-night."</p> + +<p class="normal">She stopped suddenly, as if some new idea had crossed her mind. In a +moment, however, she began again, but she was speaking to herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. I had to come. There was no other way. I dared not leave those +letters in his hands. Oh! how I hate him!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She uttered the words with a slow intensity which enforced conviction, +looking straight at Gordon; and he saw a flame commence to glow in the +depths of her eyes and spread until her whole face was ablaze with it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you mean that?" he queried, almost eagerly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can you doubt it?" she replied, starting to her feet. "Oh, yes, you +would! I forgot. Oh, David, if only you had understood me better!"</p> + +<p class="normal">It was what he had been saying to himself, with a deep self-reproach, +and her repetition of his thought, coupled with a weary gesture of +despair, exaggerated the feeling on him by the addition of a very +lively pity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So that is true, then?" he asked, hesitatingly. "You no longer care +for him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The mere weakness of the question betokened a mind in doubt, as to its +choice of action, betrayed a certain tentative indecision.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I never really cared for him," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">A look of actual gladness showed in the man's face. They were standing +opposite to one another, and the girl shut her eyelids tight, as if +the sight hurt her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That pleases you!" she exclaimed, twisting her hands convulsively. +"Ah! Don't you understand? It is the most horrible part of it all to +me--that I never cared for him. It doubles my shame. He dominated me +when he was with me, close to me, by my side; but I never cared for +him. I had realised that by the time I reached England, and my last +letter was to tell him so."</p> + +<p class="normal">Her whole attitude expressed humiliation. Had she been able to look +back upon a passion overmastering both Hawke and herself, and +encircling them in a ring of flame which, by its very brightness, made +the world beyond look colourless and empty, she could have found some +plea to alleviate her consciousness of guilt. As it was, however, the +episode appeared nakedly sordid to her recollection, unredeemed by +even a flavour of romance.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you never really cared for him!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon's earnest insistence struck her as singular. He seemed to have +taken no note of the last words, but dwelt upon that one point--clung +to it, it appeared. What difference could it make to him, she +wondered, whether she had cared or not; the sin lay between them none +the less. She watched his face for the solution. Perplexity was shown +in the contracted forehead and in a tremulous twitching of the lips. +As a matter of fact, Gordon was hunting a will-o'-the-wisp of hope, +and it had led him to the brink of a resolve. Should he take the leap, +or soberly decline it! He hesitated, half made up his mind, took one +short halting step towards Kate and stopped, checked by a new thought.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You said you would have broken off our engagement had he allowed +you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I said that."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why didn't you when you returned to England and felt free from him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl gained a hint of his drift more from his manner than his +question, and answered him warily, with a spark of hope.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because, as I told you, I relied on you so much, and I felt the need +of some one I could trust more than ever then. Besides, every one +approved of the marriage."</p> + +<p class="normal">An abrupt movement warned her that she had chosen a wrong turning. A +quick traverse, however, brought her out upon the right road again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is not so easy for a girl to cut the knot. She must find +explanations to justify her--valid not only to her parents, but to the +man. And I knew you would not let me go so lightly. I knew that I +meant all the world to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">She paused, but Gordon gave no sign, and she repeated her words with a +nervous smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It sounds queer, but it is true all the same. I knew that I meant all +the world to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Again she waited, but with a like result. He was still pondering, +still in doubt. The way in which he drew his breath, now in short, +jerky catches, now in a long, labouring sigh, made that plain to her. +Her shot had failed of its aim.</p> + +<p class="normal">A sudden gust of the wind brought the rustle of the trees through the +open door. Kate looked at the clock; the hands made one threatening +line.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Two o'clock!" she cried, with a start. "I must get back to Keswick +while they are still asleep--asleep." She spoke the word again with a +melancholy longing in her voice which was indescribably sad.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will write, then," she resumed, "and break it off."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon nodded assent, and she turned away in search for something.</p> + +<p class="normal">The action helped to decide Gordon by pointing out the necessity of +decision. What course should he take? He had thought to choose his +path on careful reflection when Kate was on her way back to Keswick; +but he saw now that would be too late. It would be time enough then to +consider the consequences of his choice, how best to cope with them +and force them to his service; but the choice itself could not be +deferred. For if he let her go quietly without another word the matter +would be settled finally, the choice determined, a prison wall raised +to further effort. What course should he take? The question pressed +urgently for an immediate answer.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went to the door and out into the porch. The sudden slip into night +seemed to him a symbol of what his life would mean if he kept silence. +His mind played with the idea and carried it further. It pictured him +standing alone in the empty darkness and the girl behind him alone in +the empty light. The beck, too, at the back of the house, whispered +its music in his ears and pleaded with him.</p> + +<p class="normal">A timid hand was laid on his arm: Kate was by his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"David!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was listening to the brook," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a while they both stood quiet in the gloom of the porch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you hear in it?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I dare not tell you. What do you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I hear all my days to come flowing down and down with a sound of +tears."</p> + +<p class="normal">"David!" she said, her voice breaking on the name.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had often noticed the wonderful clearness of her eyes, and they +shone very softly on him now. He drew her towards him in the gloom of +the porch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Kitty!" he whispered, "tell me that it isn't true! Tell me I have +been dreaming! I will believe you. I must believe you. For if I lose +faith in you, I lose faith in everything. You have been the light of +my life, making the world real. If that dies out, I live in the dark, +always."</p> + +<p class="normal">Her heart sank lower with every word he uttered. She had hoped for +forgiveness, for a recognition of the dead sin, with a belief in an +atoning future. But he gave her no hint of that. Nay, his very phrases +proved that the conception was beyond his reach. "If I lose faith in +you, I lose faith in everything." The sentence showed the exotic +sickliness of his faith, demonstrated it no vital inherent part of him +rooted in his being, but an alien graft watered and kept alive by his +passion. He had not the sturdiness to accept the facts, nor the +sincerity to foresee the possibility of redemption. He would marry +her. Yes! But his motive was an instinct of self-preservation rather +than his love for her. She would still have to pose upon her pedestal, +apeing the stainless goddess; he would still have to kneel at her +feet, apeing the worshipper; and both in their hearts would know the +hollowness of their pretence.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate realised the futility of such a marriage, and looking forward, +caught a glimpse of the day when the sham would shred and vanish +before the truth, like a morning mist at sunrise.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon felt her whole frame relax and draw away from him. He clasped +her hands; there was no response in them. He held her closer, placed +one hand behind her head and turned her face up towards him, while the +warm curls nestled and twined about his fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Kitty! Why don't you answer? Tell me that it isn't true! Every belief +I have depends on that."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! Don't make me responsible for everything," she replied, with a +flash of her old petulance. "I am only one woman in the world."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But the only woman in the world for me. You know it. You said so +yourself. Tell me that it isn't true! Lie to me, if you must!" he +added, with a passionate cry. "I will believe the lie."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That could be of no use either to you or to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">She spoke coldly, with the familiar feeling of repugnance reawakened +by his effort to canonise her afresh. Besides, the knowledge of the +truth vibrated in every tone of his voice, and his despairing resolve +to crush and drown that knowledge added a sense of mockery to her +repulsion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That could be of no use," she said. "There was just a chance of our +joining hands again, but what you have said has destroyed it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't understand."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You may some day."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It <i>is</i> true," she resumed. "All that you saw, all that you heard +Austen Hawke say, all that I have told you--every word of it is true."</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned from him and went back into the room, while Gordon sank +upon the low coping of the garden fence.</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl came out to him again after a while.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Have you seen my shawl? I can't find it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you bring it away from the Inn?" Gordon asked, dully.</p> + +<p class="normal">The question made Kate start. She must have left it there.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never mind," Gordon said; "I will get it back with the letters."</p> + +<p class="normal">He passed through the porch and took down a lanthorn from a nail in +the wall.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will come up with you to the head of the Pass."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't light it," she said. "It might be seen."</p> + +<p class="normal">Very well!</p> + +<p class="normal">He was on the point of replacing it, but stopped and asked--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you bring one with your horse?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I had better take it. It will keep you from stumbling when you +are riding home. There is a scarf on the sofa."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate twisted it over her head and they passed out softly into the +lane.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">CHAPTER VI</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The wind had dropped with the advance of morning, and only +an impalpable breath--a faint reminiscence of the wind it +seemed--stirring the larch-clumps, dotted here and there along the +lower edges of their path, broke the stillness for a moment as they +passed. They paused by the side of a watercourse which, descending +from Great Gable, the mountain on their left, cut through the track on +its way to the centre of the valley and caused a gap of some fifty +feet. Stones planted at intervals uncertainly in the stream gave an +insecure footing, and afforded the only traverse to the opposite side; +and in the darkness their position was dimly shown, or, rather, could +be hazily guessed at, by little points of white where the water +swirled and broke about them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must have crossed it when I came," said Kate, blankly. "But I don't +remember. I don't seem to have noticed it at all. I should slip on the +stepping-stones now."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me carry you over!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" she replied quickly. "I crossed it safely before. I can do the +same again."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a greater confidence in her words than in her voice, and she +still hesitated on the brink. Instinctively she laid a hand upon +Gordon's sleeve for steadiness, but drew it away hurriedly when she +felt the contact of his arm. Her companion renewed his offer of help, +but, without answering him, she stepped forward on to the nearest +boulder. Her foot, set down timidly, slipped on its polished +roundness. Gordon, however, was alert to her fatigue, and his arm was +round her waist before she had completely lost her balance.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lean towards me," he said, and lightly lifted her back on to the +bank. She remained for a second in his support, lulled by a physical +feeling of security induced in her by the strong clasp of his arm. +Then she freed herself almost roughly, and silently faced the stream +again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will be best if I go first," said Gordon. "I can give you a hand +then."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is there no other crossing?" she asked, straining her gaze vainly up +and down the stream.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! Surely you can take that much help from me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He planted himself as firmly as he could, Colossus-wise on the rocks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All right!" he said, and stretched out a hand towards her. She took +it reluctantly and made a second trial, wavered as she reached the +stone on which she had slipped, and secured her balance by tightening +her grasp. So they proceeded until a wider interval than usual flowed +between their footholds.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon turned his head round to her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must let go of me here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Must I?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! or I may slip and drag you in."</p> + +<p class="normal">She only realised how hard had been her grip when she relaxed it, and +the consequent knowledge of the assistance she had needed gave her a +momentary sense of loneliness now that it was removed. Gordon was just +able to bridge the distance between the boulders with the full reach +of his stride. That on which he now stood, however, was flat and +broad, a platform that gave sure footing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will have to spring," he cried. "I can catch you. I am solid +enough here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can't," she replied, "I daren't move."</p> + +<p class="normal">She stood looking into the water bubbling at her feet, and its swift +flow made her feel giddy and insecure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What am I to do?" she cried plaintively.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must jump," Gordon answered. "It is the only way. Jump boldly! +Don't be afraid, I will catch you."</p> + +<p class="normal">The ring of confidence in his voice enheartened her, and she tried to +face the leap, but recoiled from it. Why had she refused his offer, +was her first thought; why had he not renewed it, her second. The +stone on which she was standing rolled with the movement, and she +uttered a cry.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dav--," she began, and shore the name of its tail.</p> + +<p class="normal">In a moment he was by her side, standing on the bed of the channel and +the water up to his thighs. The girl clung to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I seem to have lost my nerve altogether," and she essayed a laugh +unsuccessfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are tired, that's all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I am tired," she answered, "very tired."</p> + +<p class="normal">And she leaned her weight upon him, resting her arm on his shoulders. +Their muscular breadth renewed in her the feeling of protection, and +she waited expectantly for him to propose again to carry her, or, +better still, to just lift her up without a word and so spare her a +repast of her own words. To all seeming, however, Gordon was waiting +too. "He means the request to come from me," she thought. As a matter +of fact, nothing was farther from his reflections. The experience of +the past few hours had rendered the perfect control of his faculties +impossible, and the shuttles in the loom of his mind, set at work by +the touch of any chance suggestion, were weaving his thoughts in a +grotesque inconsequence. The tension of her attitude recalled the +pedestal on which he had perched her, as she said, to the undoing of +them both. He had a vision of a pair of tiny feet, delicately shod in +grey kid slippers, straining to fix high heels firmly on a smooth +sloping surface.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate threw out a more patent suggestion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very tired, and this stone is not over restful."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was just thinking," he answered abstractedly, "it must be as +awkward as my pedestal."</p> + +<p class="normal">The unconscious sarcasm stung her to the quick.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't laugh at me!" she pleaded, and realised that she was pleading.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Laugh at you?" he replied. "Good God! I have got to finish my laugh +at myself first, and I think it will take me all my life."</p> + +<p class="normal">"For believing in me?" she asked rather sadly. The bitterness of his +remark seemed to show her that he grasped at last the full folly of +his faith in her. It was the goal at which she had been aiming, and +yet, now that it was reached, she felt a keen pang of regret.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! For demanding so much myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">The knowledge that she had mistaken his meaning gratified her and, +indeed, raised him in her respect. The words, spoken at another time, +would only have served to strengthen her old conception of him, and to +justify that lurking contempt for his humility which formed a factor +in her ready reliance upon his services. Now, however, she stood in +sore need of his help; he was there dominating her plainly by the +superiority of his physical strength, and he could afford to be +humble, nay, rather bettered his position by the contrast.</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate gave in and said weakly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am afraid that I shall have to ask you to carry me across after +all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is what I came back for," he answered, no suspicion of her +thoughts occurring to him. He lifted her slight figure with an absence +of effort or jerk which told of practised sinews, and Kate clasped her +hands behind his neck and nestled down into his arms with a child's +sigh of content. To Gordon the sigh conveyed no direct or immediate +meaning. His fanciful tendency to symbolism made it expressive only of +the relief she had experienced on stepping down from her pedestal.</p> + +<p class="normal">Had he but known it, however, he was nearer to her heart than he had +ever been. He was showing himself in the man's shape which most +appealed to her. He was the protector, not the attendant, with +strength to be appreciated as masterful, not to be carelessly used and +forgotten. Had he stopped dead in mid-stream and asserted his cause +with a like mental force, claiming her and her sins to himself with +the courage of a confident love, he would have undone the harm of his +maladroit pleading in the porch.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the crucial moment of his life. But his dominance was of the +body, not the spirit, and he passed through it without an inkling of +its importance.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next moment he reached the farther bank and set her silently on +the ground, apart from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">From this point the path rose steeply along the side of Great Gable, +and as they mounted, the brisk freshness of the air revived the girl's +languid spirits. Her lassitude and the feeling of helpless weakness +which it engendered gradually gave place to a lively buoyancy. A new +vigour entered her limbs. Gordon was walking a few paces ahead of her, +the lanthorn swinging at his side on a shoulder-strap, and now and +again he turned to help her over some rough portion of the track. But +the way was almost as familiar to her as it was to him, and as they +rose she needed his assistance less and less. The limpid clearness of +the night, too, contributed in no small measure to this invigoration +of her nature. The sky was unstained by a cloud, and glittered with a +multitude of stars that shone like points of silver, so that the +darkness below had a certain translucency. One seemed to see right +into the heart of the night; at the same time, the landmarks and +boundary walls in the valley--always productive of a sense of +limit--were invisible, and the very mountains appeared but deeper +shadows, a massing of the darkness, as it were, at separate spots, +with here and there a gap from the faint glimmer of a snowdrift. The +journey thus appealed to Kate's senses by its aspect of spaciousness +and filled her with a new and strange feeling of liberty. The feeling +penetrated to her mind and set in motion a train of thought which, in +turn, gave back to it a fresh strength and colour. A consciousness of +distinct relief forced itself into evidence as the main result to her +of Gordon's chance visit to Wastdale Head, and obliterated to a great +degree the shame of the disclosures which had paved the way for it. +She was free alike from the brutal authority of Austen Hawke and from +the irksome tyranny of Gordon's adoration; for the former's power +rested upon its concealment and was killed by Gordon's discovery of +its existence. Every trace of it would vanish when he recovered the +three remaining letters. Of the means by which they were to be +regained she took no more thought than Gordon at this time did +himself. She was too absorbed by her newly-found freedom to foresee +the possibility of danger there. Its forcible pre-occupation of her +mind indeed blinded her to all ideas which hinted antagonism. She +barely wasted a conjecture on the pretext which her companion would +select for the breaking off of their engagement almost on the eve of +their marriage. She just caught a dim glimpse of him taking the blame +upon himself, and was restfully content to leave the exact solution in +his hands. "I will spare you altogether," he had said; and she knew +him well enough for complete assurance that he would keep his word. +That she owed her liberty entirely to the generosity of her lover, she +hardly felt at all now; from habit, she was incapable of accounting +that quality of his at its true value. For a moment, it is true, at +the outset of her interview with him in the farm-house, she +appreciated with some accuracy the measure of his devotion; but this +estimation was due merely to the immediate succession of his presence +to that of Hawke and to the pronounced contrast between their +attitudes. As their conversation wore on, however, his voice, his +words, and certain tricks of manner, gradually brought back to her the +familiar conceptions of character which she had always associated with +them. And in consequence of the return of those conceptions, the old +habit of expecting sacrifices from him as his usual tribute reasserted +itself afresh. Her sense of liberty was thus unmarred by doubts or +fears, and the rebound of her nature from a preceding despair gave to +it a double exhilaration. She drank in the night air with a keen +pleasure, its brisk sharpness seeming somehow to harmonise with her +thoughts. She would begin her life anew to-morrow, using her knowledge +as a clear light for the guiding of her steps. She had a vision of +morning mists clearing off a long white road and leaving it vividly +distinct--a road in Normandy.</p> + +<p class="normal">The influence of the hour and the locality was no less predominant +over her fellow-traveller, but it led his thoughts in a far opposite +direction. All the way up that wearisome ascent he was strewing his +steps with the dead leaves of his illusions. The edifice of idealism +which he had built up, fancy upon fancy, with such care and such +seeming solidity, crumbled in an irresistible decay and forced him to +the contemplation of its ruins. And the surrounding space, shapeless +and empty of life, stimulated his poignant sense of desolation. He +tried to picture and place actual features of the dale, to map out the +darkness by his recollections of what it hid. Across there would be +the dark mouth of Peer's Ghyll; or had he passed it?--above his head +the cliffs of Great Gable, with its familiar Pinnacle; now he should +be opposite the bathing-pool at the bottom of the valley. But it was +all uncertainty and surmise, and so far was Gordon from drawing solace +from his conjectures, that the intervening gloom, by its sensuous +effect, helped largely to re-animate and nurse his old belief in the +shifty unreality of things. He came to feel certain of nothing except +the narrow strip of path he trod and the light footsteps behind which +were following him for the last time, and of which the sound to his +ears was exquisitely sad.</p> + +<p class="normal">They had reached the highest point of the track, where two masses of +rock, ranged on either side, form a ruined gateway to the Pass. From +there the ground slopes quickly to the Styhead Tarn, and as they +skirted its edge they heard the welcoming neigh of Kate's horse. It +was tied to the far end of a primitive footbridge which spans the beck +in the valley but a few yards beyond. Gordon lit the lanthorn and +fastened it to the saddle, and, standing on the end of the bridge, +lifted the girl on to the horse's back. For a moment they remained +there, she in the shadow, he with the light streaming full on his +face, and then without a word Kate gathered up the reins and rode off +eastwards along the Pass. She felt that he was still standing on the +bridge in the darkness, but she never turned her head. After a while, +she heard him cry out her name "Kitty!" The sound echoed down the +hollow in a despairing wail, like a death-cry, and was faintly +repeated by the mountains that closed her in, but she only pressed her +horse the harder, and rode more steadily towards her home.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_07" href="#div1Ref_07">CHAPTER VII</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">In a sense, indeed, it was a death-cry that she heard. For Gordon, as +he watched her ride away, and listened to the lanthorn clanking +against the saddle, knew that his real self went with her.</p> + +<p class="normal">The extended sympathy for his fellows which he had fostered during +these last two years, his interest in their comings and goings, his +ambitions and his assiduous patience in straining after their +attainment--in fact, the finer qualities of his nature seemed not +merely to have been awakened by his one great passion, but to have +gained their being from it and to be dependent upon it for their life. +They were, if one may use the phrase, the reflex of his imaginative +belief in the worth of his mistress--a belief founded purely upon +sentiment and sustained by misconceptions of different points in her +bearing, such as a certain air of disdain she habitually wore, which +was in itself only the result of a fastidious intuition in matters of +taste and the like, and which Gordon mistook for the visible sign of +an innate superiority.</p> + +<p class="normal">And so this mute farewell meant something more to him than even the +final parting from the woman he loved; it was also a parting from his +gentler nature. All that there was of goodness and truth in him had +come into his life through Kate Nugent, and now that she took her gift +back with her as she went, she left him stripped almost of his +humanity, bare and scarred as the rugged crags surrounding him. So +intense and poignant grew the feeling of his loss, that he came to +fancy, with the imagery peculiar to his bent, that his very soul was +the flame of the candle in the lanthorn, which he saw, like a red +star, moving farther and farther into the distance.</p> + +<p class="normal">He made one last spasmodic effort, like a dying man clutching at his +life. He ran forward in a mad revolt, and the well-loved name sprang +to his lips. "Kitty!" he shouted, his whole being in the cry. But no +answer came back to him; he heard the lanthorn still faintly clanking +against the saddle, and the mountains drearily mocking him with their +melancholy repetition of his word, while the light went steadily +dwindling down the Pass--a pin's head of fire.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment he waited stone-still, staring after it, and then flung +himself face-downwards in the bracken, tearing the roots convulsively +with his fingers. A savage fury seized him and ran through his veins +like a flame, demanding action and retaliation. Any passive return to +the old trough of his cynicism was barred by a clear consciousness of +what might have been had Kate but matched his truth to her with a like +truth to him, and by an exaggerated self-reproach which led him still +to fix the chief blame for her treachery upon his own failure to +understand her. But there was another man to share his blame. The +thought swept down upon him--a black whirlwind blotting out even the +image of Kate. If he had erred himself, it was through excess of +chivalry; he could, at all events, plead that. But Hawke! Gordon was +unable to think of him; he only saw him a sinister picture of malice +and craft, and as he looked he became filled with a venom of hate. +Hawke's face rose before his mind, every feature magnified and stamped +with the brand of his character, and remained fixed in full view +leering at him. Gordon's loathing grew until he felt sick with the +strength of it. He sprang hastily to his feet. The night was very +clear, and low down to the ground a spark was just visible in the far +distance. But he did not look that way; he turned his back towards +Keswick and blindly, with stumbling steps, descended into Wastdale +towards his enemy. And all the length of that path Hawke's face bore +him company.</p> +<br> + +<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">It was close upon four when Kate started off upon her long ride, and, +with the knowledge that she had no time to spare, she urged her horse +on at a greater speed than the roughness of the Pass made prudent. +Once, indeed, at the far end, when the track takes a sudden turn at +right angles to its previous course, and begins to wind down into +Borrowdale, she barely escaped a heavy fall, and was only saved by the +quick recovery of the beast she rode. At the bottom of the decline, +however, after crossing Stockley Bridge, the path widens out on to +more level ground. But it runs through pastures, and Kate's progress +was impeded by a succession of gates which, since she carried no crop, +compelled her to dismount to open them. But by the time she had +reached Sea Toller--the long white house, lying two miles from the +base of Styhead--the difficulties of her journey were ended. A firm, +broad road led straight from that point over the nine miles which +separated Kate from Keswick, and she roused her horse to a gallop. The +animal stretched itself out in a full stride as if it realised the +need for haste, making the night air ring with the clatter of its +hoofs, and it seemed to Kate that barely a minute could have passed +before she burst through the little village of Rosthwaite.</p> + +<p class="normal">This quick approach to home, however, plunged a new fear into her +breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">What if her family had discovered her absence?</p> + +<p class="normal">The question was a fever to her blood. At the time she had set off +from Keswick the chance of that discovery had appeared to her the +least of the dangers that she ran, so completely had she been +engrossed by the necessity of regaining her letters; and, besides, she +had laid her plans carefully, with perfect confidence in the fidelity +of the groom. Afterwards, at Wastdale, the hurry of events had +obscured her to all speculation on the matter, compelling a +concentration of her faculties upon immediate issues. Now, however, +she began to see a hundred threatening possibilities.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had pleaded a headache. What more likely than that her father or +her aunt should have come to her room to inquire after her before they +went to bed? Her father?--she dismissed him with a moment's +reflection. The good man took life and his daughter's ailments easily. +But her aunt! Kate remembered with a shiver that she was a +homoeopathist. She was bound to have inquired. She could not enter the +room, it is true, for Kate had locked the door and held the key safe +in her pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">She felt in her dress suddenly, half-expecting to find that she had +dropped it. It was safe, however, and she experienced a relief; but +the relief was only momentary.</p> + +<p class="normal">For the window of her bedroom opened level on to the garden. A lucky +advantage, she had considered it before, as affording an easy egress +and return. Now it seemed to her the most vulnerable point in her +plan. For if her aunt made inquiries at the door, and received no +answer, she had but to step into the garden to solve her perplexities. +A passing vision of an old lady in bedroom slippers padding over the +grass with a box of pills failed to distract her. Kate sent her wits +abroad on the wings of fear in search of excuses, but they returned to +her empty-handed. Her dread was, moreover, accentuated by a retrospect +upon the other dangers of that night. Her successful evasion of them +only made this last risk loom the larger.</p> + +<p class="normal">The nearer she drew towards home, the more it overshadowed her. When +she crossed the marsh land at the end of the Lake, discovery had +already become the probability; by the time she passed Lodore, a +certainty, and when she topped Castle Hill, just above Keswick town, +she strained her eyes towards the water's edge, fully expecting to see +every window of their house ablaze with light.</p> + +<p class="normal">All was in darkness, however, except for one faint glimmer, which Kate +guessed came from the stables. The revulsion of feeling which she +underwent acted on her like a shock, and she reined up her horse +and clung to the saddle, dizzy. In the hollow a clock chimed the +half-hour, lifting a silvery encouragement, and she moved on again +slowly down the hill. Some twenty yards from the front of the house +she dismounted, led the horse into a lane which gave on to the road, +crossed a paddock at the back of the garden, and reached the stables, +which stood apart from the main building. The light which she had +noticed came from the harness-room; she tapped softly on the +window-pane and was answered by a low growl, followed by a sharp +"Quiet!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Immediately afterwards the door was opened cautiously, and the groom +Martin appeared and led the horse in quietly. Kate followed him and +closed the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What time is it?" she asked, in a whisper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just gone half-past five, Miss."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Has any one--I mean, no one has noticed my absence?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Martin reassured her, with a touch of patronage in his tone, which a +cockney deficiency of aspirates made singularly unpalatable. She +turned to the collie; he had followed Martin from the harness-room and +was wisely superintending the proceedings with his ear cocked and his +head on one side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You brought Charlie in."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, Miss! I dursn't leave him in the yard. He mightn't have known +your footsteps at once."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was thoughtful of you." The dog took the compliment to itself +after the fashion of its kind, and showed his appreciation by planting +his forepaws as high up on her as he could, and stretching itself +lazily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you very much," said Kate. "Good night!" and she hurried across +the yard, pursued by a whispered--</p> + +<p class="normal">"You 're very welcome, Miss, I'm sure."</p> + +<p class="normal">A wicket-gate gave her entrance into the garden, and she crept softly +to the window of her bedroom, and opened it with a palpitating heart. +Nothing, however, had been disarranged, the room was as she had left +it. She did not dare to risk a light, but flung off her clothes +quickly in the dark, unlocked the door, and tumbled into bed. For a +long time sleep would not come to her in spite of her fatigue. She +heard the clock strike six, and then half-past. For now that she +herself was safe, her thoughts unconsciously reverted to Gordon. She +saw his face again framed in the darkness, as the light fell on it +from her lanthorn, and wondered whether he was still on the bridge, +looking eastwards down the Pass. That last cry of his recurred to her. +"Kitty!" The name rang in her ears, stretched out into a threnody. She +tried to flee from it, and it pursued her, now swelling into the deep +peal of an organ-note, now sinking into a pitiful wail. And it was not +merely the cry she heard, but Gordon's voice in it, vibrating with its +hopeless misery. For a time it accused her sharply, but with continual +repetition began to lose its meaning. The girl started to murmur the +word to herself mechanically, in an undertone of accompaniment. +Finally it became a lullabye, and so hymned her to sleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Kitty!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Was she destined to hear it all her life, Kate questioned on the +borderland of sleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Kitty!"</p> + +<p class="normal">A hand was laid on her shoulder and she woke with a start. A +girl-cousin, one of the intending bridesmaids, was standing by her +bedside.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How startled you look!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thought you were----" Kate checked herself in confusion, and a peal +of laughter rippled through the room. It warned her of the part she +had to play.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What time is it?" she asked hastily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ten o'clock! Your aunt would not have you called before. How is your +head?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Kate asserted complete recovery and proceeded to dress, though with a +languid dilatoriness which belied her statement. The house was nearly +full of her women-folk relations, and she dreaded to face them. She +looked at herself in the mirror and fancied every one would read her +night's ride in her jaded pallor and the shadows about her eyes. Even +her father noticed them when she entered the breakfast-room, with a +"You don't look over bright, Kitty!" The company was assembled in full +force about the table, and she had to run the gauntlet of their +smirking condolements. "Never mind. I will put you right. It's bile." +Homoeopathy smiled comfortably from behind the tea-urn, and Kate for +the first time thanked Providence for the birth of Dr. Hahnemann. She +noticed with relief that the meal was nearly over, but gained no +respite thereby. For, after breakfast, there were new presents to be +inspected and acclaimed--noticeably one from Poonah, a jade idol of +most admired ugliness. Kate explained her shiver of repulsion by the +carven malice of its features. Then followed consultations upon +frocks, interspersed with eulogies of David and predictions of the +happiness in store for well-assorted couples, plainly calling for +enthusiastic answers nicely tempered by a diffident modesty. At times, +indeed, the task almost exceeded her powers of endurance, and she felt +madly spurred to hurl the truth like a bombshell into the midst of the +flummery. She restrained herself, however, drawing a faint solace of +amusement from a mental picture of the resultant chaos, and somehow or +another the day wore on to its close. "They will know in the morning," +she reflected. But she was mistaken. It was not until the third day +that the news of the liberation came.</p> +<br> + +<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Gordon quickened his pace as he reached the basin of the valley under +an apprehension lest he should find the farm people already risen. +For, although it was still quite dark, there was all around him that +universal movement, as if the earth itself were stirring from its +sleep, which tells of an approaching dawn. The last two fields he +covered at a run and regained the farm only to discover that his fears +were groundless. The lamp in his parlour was still alight, but +beginning to flicker for want of replenishing. Gordon cautiously +opened the door at the foot of the staircase and listened. But he +could hear nothing but his own breathing; evidently no one was moving +as yet. He returned into the room to blow out the lamp, but was +checked by the sight of his writing case on a cabinet against the +wall. He went to it, drew out a packet of letters, and, pulling up a +chair to the table, read, by the last spurts of the light, those which +Kate had sent to him from Poonah. How blind he must have been, he +thought. Why, effort was visible in every line of them, coldness +seeking to screen itself beneath a wealth of phrases. He commenced to +speculate curiously which portions were Hawke's dictation and which +her own work; otherwise the letters awakened no feeling in him. +Phrases here and there fixed his attention. "You came into my life +like a ray of sunlight into a musty room." Yes! Hawke would have +invented that, knowing how it would appeal to him. And, again, "I feel +that I can rely on you whatever comes"--a postscript, scribbled +hastily and smudged, evidently Kate's own, and written covertly in +Hawke's presence. The extinction of the lamp put an end to this +unprofitable investigation, and Gordon gathered the letters together, +placed them in the grate, and set them ablaze. He waited until the +last spark had died out and a heap of black flaky ashes was all that +was left of the false tokens which he had treasured as sacred, and +then crept cautiously up to his room. For some time he remained by his +window, thinking. He noticed the angle in the barn-wall from which +Hawke had darted out, and it seemed to him that the century might well +have run to its end since then. His mind wandered to a side-issue, +jumping at a stray suggestion that Time was held to mark age only +because it represented the conventional progress of self-knowledge.</p> + +<p class="normal">But what if the knowledge of twenty years were crowded into one night? +Gordon felt that that had been the case with him. He understood so +much now; for instance, the fancy which had fleetingly occurred to him +that they both had been brought into the isolation of that valley to +work out a predestined purpose. He understood that purpose, could +explain it, and would demonstrate his explanation to the other's +ignorance tomorrow. A gradual fading of colour from the sky made him +correct himself. "To-day," he murmured, with something of quiet +exultation in his voice. Only he must spare Kate; no suspicion must be +allowed to connect her with the solution of his problem. "I feel that +I can rely on you whatever comes," she had written. Well, he must +prove to her that she was right--some way or another. The sound of +movement in the interior of the house brought him back to the present +and hinted the advantage of rest. So Gordon went to bed and slept +dreamlessly until the sun stood high above the shoulder of Great End.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_08" href="#div1Ref_08">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">As Gordon was breakfasting next morning, the door was thrown open and +Hawke strolled in from the lane.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, have you got over your fatigue yet?" he asked, with a show of +cordiality.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quite, thanks!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon let a moment or two slip before he found his tongue. For his +new knowledge, acting vividly upon a somewhat morbid imagination, had +not merely changed his conceptions of Hawke's character, but, with +them, also his very impressions of his appearance. He had been +unconsciously developing the man's features and body to express the +qualities which he now attributed to him, moulding them, as it were, +by the model of his own thoughts. So that, at the first, when Hawke +stood before him in the flesh, clearly lit by the sunlight, which was +pouring in through the open doorway, he hardly recognised his enemy. +The very colloquialism of his speech seemed incongruous and out of +place.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You slept soundly?" asked Hawke.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a shade of anxiety in the question appreciable by his +observer, and a faint symptom of a sneer about the lips when the +answer was received.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Like a humming-top."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are going over to Eskdale, aren't you?" Gordon resumed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall if I have time."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have changed your plans?" The query was put with a sudden +alacrity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"More or less. Lawson arrived at the Inn this morning from Drigg."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lawson?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't fancy you know him, but he was a friend of Arkwright's."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And is he going to stay here?" The anxiety was upon Gordon's side +now. Everything depended on the answer. For the presence of this +interloper, even for a day, would render the accomplishment of his +purpose impossible.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! He is on his way to Buttermere. I am going with him part of the +distance, and we mean to spend an hour or so on the Pillar Rock. If I +have time I shall work round to Eskdale afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will mean a long day."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! But I have to leave for London to-morrow. And, by the way, that +is what brought me up here. I shall be late back, I expect, and I want +to borrow your lanthorn."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke turned towards the nail on which he had seen it hanging the +previous night. Gordon just managed to check an involuntary start from +his chair when the other wheeled quickly round.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, it is gone!" he said suspiciously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Haven't they any at the Inn?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The counter-thrust was delivered with a perfect assumption of +carelessness, and Hawke parried it clumsily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only one, and that's broken. So I thought I would borrow yours."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should have been pleased to lend it you, but it belongs to the +house. I suppose the farmer has taken it."</p> + +<p class="normal">The indifference with which Gordon spoke disarmed Hawke, and the next +moment a shadow darkening the doorway effectually prevented any +further investigation as to the whereabouts of the missing article. +The newcomer carried a lanthorn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I hope you don't mind me intruding," he said. "It's rather +unceremonious, I know. But Hawke said he was going to borrow your +lanthorn. Why, the landlady had two or three," he went on, turning to +Hawke. "She said she would have lent you one with pleasure. So I +brought it for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thanks! Thanks!" Hawke interposed in confusion. "I must have +misunderstood her. I never could unravel her dialect." He abruptly +introduced his friend to Gordon, and resumed: "I was just speaking of +you. Gordon, you know, was with Arkwright when he died."</p> + +<p class="normal">The conversation drifted into the desired channel, but too late to +prevent Gordon realising that the request for a lanthorn had been the +merest pretext to enable Hawke to assure himself that the night's +proceedings remained a secret. It was interrupted, however, by the +servant, who bustled in with the tray to clear the table, and Gordon +thought with a tremor: Suppose she had entered a minute earlier? Hawke +would have been certain to question her, and to repeat his request; as +it was, however, he was too anxious to cover his slip to risk +broaching the subject again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is a good-looking girl," said Lawson, when she had left the +room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is she?" Gordon inquired. "I have not noticed her."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lawson smothered an incredulous laugh, and Hawke broke in: "Oh, it's +true enough! Gordon never notices women's looks. They are too sacred +to him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you nothing but their looks, I am told," Lawson replied. "Well, I +shall try to strike the golden mean."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will be making a mistake if you do," Hawke answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because women are moods. Nothing more. They can cover the distance +between Diana and Phryne at a jump. They are mere moods, and always to +be construed in the present tense. You must take them as they are."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You seem to have made a grammatical study of the subject," Lawson +laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! That is exactly what I have not done. It is of no use. For, being +moods, they are unintelligble, and the man who tries to solve them +usually comes to grief. Besides, the effort is really unnecessary."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You speak from experience?" Gordon asked quietly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't say that," Hawke replied, and with a shade more of +earnestness than the occasion seemed to demand. "No, I don't say that. +You may call it a theory of mine if you like. But I believe that it is +true all the same. All that you want to know about a woman is the +colour of her hair and eyes, whether she paints, how she is dressed, +the texture of her gloves, and the size of her boots."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I fancied a woman liked to be talked to about herself," Lawson +objected.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But those things constitute herself--at all events to most women," he +added, seeing that the other was about to interpose. "I admit there +may be exceptions."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you have never met one."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke shot a quick glance from beneath knitted brows at Gordon as the +latter spoke; but the remark had fallen quite casually from his lips, +and he appeared only bored by the discussion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't want to have my ideas attributed to personal causes. An +anchorite may theorise," Hawke replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Anchorite is good," said Lawson.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Believe it or not, that is the right plan. A woman's self is an +awkward thing to tackle. It perplexes you if you begin to think about +it, and the more you think, the more it perplexes you, and, +consequently, the stronger the hold it seizes on you. And just because +a woman's bewildering, you run the risk of ending by respecting +her--and that is fatal."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Indeed! Why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because the moment you begin to respect her, she begins to despise +you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Lawson burst out into a hearty laugh and said, "Come along, Hawke! +That is enough lecture for to-day. You have made me laugh and bored +Gordon to death."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You epitomise the fate of unconventional truths," Hawke answered, and +then turned to Gordon.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you think of my theory? Does it bore you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think," Gordon replied, quietly, "that it is one of those theories +which, to use your own words, sooner or later bring a man to grief."</p> + +<p class="normal">"By Jove, yes! and irretrievably," said Lawson. "So you had better +take care, Master Hawke. I have often noticed that!" he continued +musingly. "When a man comes to grief over facts, he can pull round if +he has any luck. But when he comes a cropper over theories, there's an +end of him for good and all."</p> + +<p class="normal">The chance remark made Gordon look towards the speaker with an active +interest. Hawke's lecture, as Lawson had said, merely bored him. The +views it set forth were precisely those which he had attributed to the +man, and he felt so certain of the accuracy of his opinion that the +actual utterance of the views sounded to him little more than a +repetition. His resolve, besides, to exact a full and speedy +retribution from Hawke was mail of proof alike against the covert +innuendo of the disquisition and the ironical malice which had +prompted it. But these last words of Lawson seemed to him instinct +with truth, and found a convincing commentary in his own experience.</p> + +<p class="normal">Lawson shook hands with Gordon and went out in the porch, with Hawke +after him. The latter paused at the door to adjust the rucksack in +which he carried their lunch on to his back, and shot a careless "I +may see you again this evening" backwards over his shoulder, and they +both passed the house and turned along the track to Black Sail.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon followed them into the open air. He crossed the field in front +of the farm, and climbing on to the top of a huge moss-grown mound of +stones which fills an angle in the boundary wall, lit his pipe and lay +in the warm sunlight watching them. He could see them for some time +toiling up the side of Kirkfell into Mosedale, and every now and +then he caught a flash as the sun glittered on the steel head of an +ice-axe. Mosedale forms, as it were, a recess in Wastdale, running +back from the valley on the side opposite to Scafell, and the Pillar +mountain makes the end wall of this recess. The Pillar Rock, however, +to which Lawson and Hawke were directing their steps, projects from +the further side of the mountain and lies in the northern valley of +Ennerdale, and the distance between that spot and Wastdale cannot be +traversed at the quickest in less than an hour.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten when they passed +from his sight behind the shoulder of Kirkfell, and he began to +calculate the time when he might hope to meet Hawke on Mickledoor +Chasm. For that was the spot which he had chosen, its bleak solitude +appealing to him with a sense of appropriateness. Hawke, he reflected, +would have to cross Great Gable, and the Styhead, continue in the same +direction southwards along Esk-Hause, the pass to Langdale, and then +turn to the right into Eskdale, which is separated from the valley of +Wastdale by the barrier of the Scafell chain. From there he would have +to ascend the southern slope of the latter mountain, and Gordon +reckoned that under no circumstances could he reach Mickledoor, the +ridge between Scafell and Scafell Pikes, before half-past six.</p> + +<p class="normal">It would then be dark.</p> + +<p class="normal">That Hawke might change his plan and return home by the way he set out +did not occur to him until hours after. For the half-formed idea that +he was working under destiny had grown into a living conviction. He +had come to look upon himself as the tool and agent in the completion +of an ordained plan. So keen indeed had this feeling of personal +irresponsibility become, that he gave no thoughts as to the details by +which he was to carry out his purpose, confidently leaving occasion to +direct the act. A line of Beatrice Cenci's in Shelley's play kept +marching through his brain--</p> +<div class="poem2"> +<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8px"> +"Thou wert a weapon in the hand of God<br> +To a just use."</p> +</div> + +<p class="continue">In a word, he was looking across the interval of the next few hours, +and dignifying as the judicial execution of a law what was in reality +only the gratification of a savage lust for revenge; a distinction +which he might have grasped from a certain luxurious feeling in the +anticipation of it had he not abandoned his habit of self-analysis.</p> + +<p class="normal">The illusion was, moreover, very naturally strengthened by the fact +that circumstances seemed strangely shaping themselves to fit in with +his resolve. The very appearance of Lawson, which Gordon had +considered at first an insuperable obstacle, now showed as an +additional advantage. For the couple had ascended in full view towards +the Pillar, in the reverse direction to Scafell, and consequently if +Hawke's body were found by the latter mountain, suspicion would be +diverted from the idea of a premeditated attack. It would look as if +Hawke had changed his route by chance, made the circuit of the valley, +and then slipped on the cliffs at the opposite end. For Gordon +reckoned that no one but Lawson and himself knew of Hawke's projected +expedition, and the former, being ignorant of the hostility between +the two men, would have no reason to connect him with the accident. +That Hawke had not mentioned his intentions to the Inn people seemed +fairly evident from his lie about the lanthorn. Lawson, it is true, +might have told them, for he borrowed it. Gordon determined to find +that out. For at all costs suspicion must be diverted from himself for +the sake of the girl waiting for his message fifteen miles away. He +would go down to the Inn now; and besides, he recollected he had +another mission to accomplish there.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon rose from his resting-place and had already proceeded some way +in that direction when he suddenly stopped. After a moment's thought +he turned on his steps and went back to the farm. He shouted to his +landlady to pack up his lunch in a parcel, and mounted to his room. +The day before he had brought over such few articles as he required in +a rucksack--the bag, half knapsack, half haversack, peculiar to +mountaineers--and at the bottom of this lay, still folded up, an extra +coat and pair of knee-breeches of the same cloth as those which he was +wearing now. He emptied the bag of its other contents and descended +with it to the parlour. The landlady presently brought in the packet +which he had ordered, and he placed it with his flask inside the +rucksack and fastened the strings.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dinner at half-past seven," he said. "I don't expect to be in till +then, I am going over to Rosthwaite to get some fresh nails hammered +into my boots."</p> + +<p class="normal">And he slung the rucksack on to his shoulders and went down to the +Inn. He inquired what time they expected Mr. Hawke back. Mr. Hawke, +they told him, had borrowed a lanthorn and set out for the Pillar, +with a friend some time since. He knew that, but when did they expect +him home? They were not quite sure, late they gathered, but Mr. Hawke +had said nothing of the matter to them. In fact it was his friend who +had borrowed the lanthorn. Could Mr. Gordon leave a note? Certainly! +Would he write it in the coffee-room? Oh! He knew Mr. Hawke's +sitting-room then. No? The servant would show him to it if he +preferred to write it there.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon was accordingly ushered up into the room where the first act of +his tragical-comical history had been presented to his eyes the night +before. He wasted no time over his recollections, however, but just +cast one curious glance towards the outhouse on which he had hung, and +proceeded to hunt for Kate's missing shawl. The room was furnished +upon strictly utilitarian principles, and seemed defiantly to +challenge inspection by flaunting its incapacity for concealment. The +search was consequently short. Gordon stopped before a cupboard in a +recess by the side of the fireplace. There was another of a similar +make in a corresponding position on the farther side, but that stood +open, while this one was locked and the key removed. Gordon stooped to +examine the lock; it belonged to that type which appears to have been +invented in a genial spirit in order to excite curiosity and gratify +it, and Gordon's knife proved a quick skeleton-key. He found the +shawl, as he had expected, carelessly tumbled on to the shelf, and he +took it down and ran the white fleecy wool through his fingers with a +queer sensation, as if he were handling something which he ought to +recognise and yet could not. As a matter of fact, he knew the shawl +quite well. He had bought it for Kate himself at Goring last +September, when the evenings were growing chilly on the river. But he +had rather fancied that the touch of it would somehow send a thrill +through his deadened emotions, and the entire absence of any pulsation +or throb made him hazily wonder for a moment whether this that he held +was the real shawl of which he was in search.</p> + +<p class="normal">He added it, however, to the other contents of his bag, and closed +the cupboard door. His knife had left little or no trace upon the +wood-work, which was soft and yielded pliantly; and this Gordon looked +upon as an important detail. Since, when the room was searched, as it +would be afterwards, any fresh marks or scratches about the lock +might, he thought, draw attention to himself, and suggest the +possibility of an ulterior motive for his visit beyond the mere +inditing of a note. As to the lock itself, in all probability no one +but Hawke knew that it had been fastened, and Hawke's knowledge, he +reflected, with a smile, would then be a matter of no importance. So +he only stayed to scribble a hasty line--an invitation to dinner that +evening was the somewhat gruesome device on which his ingenuity had +hit--and then set out upon his way, following the path which he had +ascended in the early hours of the morning.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing so clearly showed the change which had taken place in Gordon +as his indifference in retraversing this ground. For although he +recollected with perfect completeness every feature of that previous +journey, he recollected it with no shadow of emotion, and almost +without interest. The facts recurred to him, but devoid of personal +application. Gordon remembered them much as a man may remember vividly +the details of a death which he has mourned, when he has well-nigh +lost the memory of his regret.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was barely one when he reached the cairn upon Styhead Pass, and +realising that he had five hours still to wear away, he turned to the +right along Esk House and ascended the central gully in the cliffs of +Great End. The sky had darkened since the morning, and the air was +growing heavy and still with a prophecy of a storm; so that he was not +surprised, when he came out on the summit of the crags, to find the +clouds brooding angrily about the tops of the fells. Far away, it is +true, from one broad solitary rift, he could see the sunlight pouring +on to Helvellyn and tinting its white slopes to a sheet of gold. But +there were black masses clustered close above it, as if jealous of its +glow, and even as he watched, the rift closed up and the snow was +discoloured to a dull, cheerless grey.</p> + +<p class="normal">From that point Gordon doubled back along the edge, descended slowly +to the gloomy fissure of Piers Gill, crossed the depression at its +head and the neck of land between Scafell Pikes and Lingmell, and +turned up to the left towards Mickledoor, the sunken ridge between the +former mountain and Scafell. It was half-past five when he stood +finally upon the top of the gap, and already growing rapidly dark. The +cold, moreover, had become intense; so that that silent wilderness of +stones, overhung by black crags, seemed to him in the dim light the +most desolate spot in all the world. On both sides the ridge sloped +steeply down in an incline of scree and shattered boulders, the debris +of the cliffs above. Below that were rounded promontories of brown +grass strewn here and there with soiled patches of snow. But as far as +the eye could see there was no trace of a living thing; for the +village of Wastdale itself was excluded from view by the intervening +barrier of Lingmell.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon strained his eyes in the opposite direction to catch a glimpse +of Hawke mounting from Eskdale. But there was no sign of his coming, +not even the clatter of a dislodged stone. "It is early yet," he +muttered to himself, though with the chill of a misgiving. For the +first time that day his confidence began to fail him. If Hawke should +have abandoned his intention of making the circuit of the hills, and +gone quickly home! He would discover the note, find that Gordon had +come to his rooms, and ascertain the disappearance of the shawl. He +would know the game was up, and, worse still, would have time to get +clear away. Gordon tried to banish the supposition; he dared not face +it, the mere utterance of it seeming to accuse him of a breach of +trust. None the less, however, it clung to his back and thrashed him +into an aimless activity. He descended the ridge towards Wastdale in +hot haste. There, to add to his dismay, he beheld a mist floating +quickly up the valleys in tongues of smoke, and he knew that the +moment it swept across Mickledoor, adding its thick confusion to the +increasing gloom, his chances of discovering Hawke, even if he, came +that way, were practically destroyed. He turned on his steps in a +panic and raced back to the top of the ridge. The same stagnant +silence enveloped it. There was not even a stir of the wind. Looking +back, he saw the mist was already licking the boulders at the bottom +of the steep incline. It would pour over the gap in a minute, he +thought, and, without stopping to reason, he ran down the slope from +it on the Eskdale side. It occurred to him, upon subsequent thought, +that this action was the most ill-advised he could have adopted, for +the gap on both sides widens rapidly from its summit. Had he +calculated chances with any approach to accuracy, he would have +remained where he was on the apex and narrowest part of the ridge. And +yet to this mistake he owed the completion of his design. For he kept +close to Scafell as he went and he had not moved many yards when he +heard right above his head the metallic clink of an ice-axe. He was +standing by a narrow cleft in the rocks known as "the Chimney," which, +for a climber, affords an issue on to the actual summit of Scafell. +Hawke, then, was crossing the mountain itself. The sound told Gordon +that he was as yet not far up the side. He must have entered the cleft +after Gordon's arrival, and while the latter was on the farther side +of the ridge.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon wondered how it was that he had not originally noticed his +approach. At that moment the mist swept over Mickledoor, and a plan +shaped itself in his mind. Parallel to the chimney, but some yards to +the west of it, the cliffs offer a simpler route, called "Broad +Stand," and after a certain height is attained by that way, a man may +reach by an easy traverse a spot where Hawke must leave his gully and +climb out on to the face of the rock. This latter manœuvre is +always attended with a certain difficulty, since the walls of the +gully afford no foothold and give only on to a shelving slab. Gordon, +therefore, had little fear that Hawke would outstrip him, and +determined to join him by way of Broad Stand. So he turned back once +more and reascended the incline, treading cautiously and feeling along +the mountain as he went, lest in the darkness he should pass the point +at which the climb began. After proceeding in this manner for about a +minute, he came to a narrow vertical slit in the rock, which was just +discernible. It was the spot of which he was in search, and he entered +it, appearing to be swallowed up in the cliff, A walk of a few yards +brought him to some huge blocks piled one above another, and shaped in +pyramidal steps. These formed the pathway of his ascent. They present +no great difficulty as a rule, but now they were coated with a thin +glaze of ice, and as Gordon had brought no axe with him, purposely, in +order to sustain the supposition that he had spent the afternoon in +crossing the Styhead Pass towards Rosthwaite, he was compelled at each +step that he took to clear out the next footing above, with the sole +aid of his numbed fingers. Consequently he made his way but slowly. An +overpowering dread that his enemy might escape while he was yet +struggling below the traverse began to creep over him and strung his +nerves to more strenuous efforts. His hatred, tantalised by the +possibility, took a renewed life and sent the blood spinning through +his veins like fire. He forgot the cold in his limbs, and the ice on +the rocks, and clambered up in a reckless fury.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile the mist was thickening continually, and by the time Gordon +had completed his ascent and reached the point from which he had to +diverge along the cliff's face, the night had fallen pitch-dark. He +stood still for a moment, with his head bent forward, listening +eagerly for a sound. Was he too late? Then he heard the scrabbling of +boot-nails upon the slab, and a minute after the stamping of feet a +few yards away to his left. The noise drove all his thoughts of +averting suspicion from his mind. The mere knowledge that his enemy +was there filled him; a cry of exultation rose up to his lips and he +barely checked it, and crept silently forwards. A thin buttress of +rock ran down shoulder-high between the two men, and this Gordon had +forgotten. He came upon it unawares as he was moving with outstretched +hands, and, understanding that he had traversed the space diagonally +instead of in a direct line, he descended a little to round it. As he +was doing this he heard the spirt of a match. There was not a breath +of wind, and the tiny flame burnt steadily, throwing out a brown light +upon the mirky gloom. To Gordon it seemed blood-red. He paused and +waited for the match to blow out. Instead of that, however, it grew +brighter, and he remembered that Hawke carried a lanthorn. For a +second he was staggered as by an unexpected blow, and stood thinking. +Then he continued his stealthy descent to the end of the buttress. As +he turned the corner he drew his knife and crouched like an animal. +Hawke was some fifteen feet away, kneeling on the ground by the light +and fumbling a small bottle clumsily in his frozen hands. Gordon +measured the intervening space with his eye, and chose the point +between Hawke's shoulders, where he meant to strike, gently swaying +his body to and fro the while in preparation for a spring. As he threw +his weight backwards, however, for the last time, his heel slipped on +a loose stone and sent it echoing behind him down the crags.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is that?" cried Hawke, lifting the lanthorn and standing upright.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon stepped forward on the instant, slipping his knife with its +open blade into his pocket, and the flame of the lanthorn encircled +them both in a little ring of light.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_09" href="#div1Ref_09">CHAPTER IX</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"You!" cried Hawke.</p> + +<p class="normal">The wall of the rock made a right angle behind him, and he backed into +the corner of it, fronting Gordon with the lanthorn held aloft between +them. There was a ring of terror in his voice, and his eyes glanced +rapidly round with a hunted look.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon saw the look and smiled; for the little platform on which they +stood was open only upon two sides, of which the gully guarded one and +himself the other.</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not answer Hawke's exclamation at once, for the sudden check +had aroused him to the need of wariness. A struggle had to be avoided +at all costs, he thought; for it would land them both, locked +together, on the screes below. It was very pleasant to him, besides, +to watch the shrinking fear visible in his enemy's attitude. The very +lanthorn was rattling in his unsteady grasp, and the sound of it was +music to Gordon's ears.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You did not expect to see me, did you, Austen?" he said at last, +purring the words.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You did rather startle me, I own. You came along so quietly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"One needs to be careful when it is as dark as this. As it was, I lost +my way. If you had not lit that lanthorn I should have been over the +cliffs. I may thank you for my life," and Gordon laughed cheerfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">His words and the familiarity of his voice helped Hawke back to some +portion of his confidence. But he still held the lanthorn above their +heads.</p> + +<p class="normal">During these last days he had lived in a constant dread of detection, +Gordon's unforeseen visit to the dale wearing to him almost the +appearance of a fatality. He cursed the infatuation which had led him +to summon Kate Nugent, and each fresh sight of the man he had wronged +awakened in him a shudder of alarm. It is true that he had voluntarily +sought Gordon's company at the farm-house the night before and again +this morning. But the inconsistency of the proceeding was purely on +the surface. He had felt compelled to that course by the urgency of +his dread, which shook him chiefly when alone. And it was the effect +of these solitary cogitations which produced his inexpressible terror +on each occasion that he met the man. Once in his presence, however, +the feeling wore off. He had always been accustomed to regard Gordon +somewhat contemptuously in the light of an unpractical dreamer, and as +he listened to his voice and watched his gestures, this habit +reasserted itself from an association of ideas. He came to the +conclusion that there were no grounds for his fears, crediting Gordon +with no great powers of self-repression.</p> + +<p class="normal">Viewed generally, this latter judgment of Hawke's was correct. The +fatal mistake, however, which he committed was to make no allowance +for a possible concentration of his entire faculties upon a single +aim, under the influence of an overmastering passion, such as the lust +for revenge which absorbed Gordon now.</p> + +<p class="normal">On this particular occasion, however, Hawke had been more than usually +startled. He had intended to leave Wastdale Head early the next +morning, and had planned this expedition in order to avoid meeting +Gordon again--nay, more, had actually given him a false description of +his route. Consequently his sudden appearance from the surrounding +darkness and the silence of his approach had intensified his feeling +of alarm and betrayed it unmistakably to his companion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have made the circuit quickly," Gordon resumed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I gave up the idea of Eskdale when the sky clouded," Hawke replied, +"and came straight across from the Pillar."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder we did not meet before."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon was speaking at random, watching keenly for a chance; but Hawke +still faced him, with his back to the rock.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! I have been on the mountain for some time. You have only just +come, I suppose."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I came with the mist."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's a poor companion," Hawke resumed. "I found rather a good +glissade just behind these cliffs running into Eskdale. I spent most +of the afternoon on that. You ought to try it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It lands you out close to Mickledoor and not far below the chimney. +So I thought I would go home this way. But if I had known it was going +to grow as cold and dark as this I would have seen myself damned +first."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is cold," Gordon assented, although his senses gave him no +knowledge of the fact. He was wondering whether Hawke would ever move. +If only he would set the lanthorn down!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Suppose that we move," he went on. "You have got the lanthorn, so you +had better go first."</p> + +<p class="normal">He drew to one side as he spoke, and made room for Hawke to pass. But +at the very moment that he was taking the step, Hawke suddenly placed +the lanthorn on the ground, and cried--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wait a moment!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The next instant he stood upright, and that opportunity was gone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have got a bottle of brandy here," said Hawke. "We had better open +it. Has your knife got a corkscrew?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon thrust his hand quickly into his pocket and felt the sharp +blade cut into his flesh. But he drew his hand out again empty, and +said--</p> + +<p class="normal">"I haven't got a knife at all. I left mine at home."</p> + +<p class="normal">"We must use mine, then, and knock the neck off. They have jammed the +cork in so tightly, that there is no other way. Here! hold the +bottle."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke handed him the bottle and searched in his pocket for his knife. +He was perfectly defenceless at the moment, but the memory of +Arkwright's accident had suddenly flashed upon Gordon and suggested to +him a safer plan.</p> + +<p class="normal">He added another item to his supposed new knowledge. He understood +now, he fancied, why the recollection of that night in the Alps had so +persistently mingled with his thoughts yesterday, and he laughed +gleefully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is the matter?" Hawke asked. "You seem pleased."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am," he replied. "It is the brandy warming me through the cork."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke laughed. "It wasn't a bad suggestion, was it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was the best I ever heard from you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke found his knife and held it out to Gordon, saying--</p> + +<p class="normal">"You had better do it! My fingers are so cursedly numbed, I should +only cut myself or drop the bottle."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon took the knife with his right hand, and Hawke exclaimed--</p> + +<p class="normal">"What on earth have you done to your hand? It is covered with blood."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, it's nothing," Gordon answered quickly. "I cut it on a pointed +piece of rock, that's all."</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment he stood with the bottle poised in one hand and the knife +in the other, thinking. Then he said--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just take this while I open the blade," and he handed the bottle +back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The handle will serve," said Hawke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The blade will do it cleaner."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke took the bottle back while Gordon opened the knife. It was of a +strong and heavy make, with a long, powerful blade. Gordon ran his +thumb along the edge and found it sharp and even.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now if you will hold the bottle out," he said, "I will operate. Not +that way! We shall spill it all;" and he readjusted the bottle in +Hawke's hands, settling the base in his upturned palms, with the cork +pointing towards himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's right," he said, and struck the neck on the side nearest to +Hawke, slipped the blade on the glass, and drove it with all his force +down into his left arm where it showed white below his sleeve.</p> + +<p class="normal">The bottle crashed on the ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke reeled against the rock wall behind him, clutching the injured +wrist with his disengaged hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"God!" he shrieked. "It's an artery."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon could see the blood spurting in quick jets, and said, quietly--</p> + +<p class="normal">"It reminds me of Arkwright. That was an accident, too."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't stand there, man--dreaming! Do something!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon laughed at the words--a low, happy laugh, which struck a new +horror into Hawke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You meant to do it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon nodded to him, knowingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Damn you!" Hawke hissed and sunk down upon the platform beside the +lanthorn, concentrating all his strength into the oath. He was still +vainly endeavouring to stop the bursts from the vein by the pressure +of his fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon knelt by his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me look," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke dragged himself a few inches farther away, with an inarticulate +snarl, and turned his back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Won't you let me help you?" Gordon asked, in a tone of gentle +remonstrance.</p> + +<p class="normal">The other shot a quick glance across his shoulder, and replied, with a +beaten air--</p> + +<p class="normal">"I could believe it was myself said that."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I mean it. There's the difference. Won't you let me bind up your +arm?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke looked at him again and rolled over to face him, his eyes alive +with hope.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, if you will," he said. "But be quick! quick! Use my scarf! Only +be quick!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Something in his manner recalled vividly to Gordon Kate's appeal to +Hawke of the night before; but he unwound the scarf from the neck of +the wounded man. The latter could not repress a convulsive shiver as +he felt the touch of his fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sorry," Gordon apologised. "I know it must be unpleasant."</p> + +<p class="normal">The scarf was of thick white wool, and he twisted it round the arm +just above the cut and tied it firmly; but a dark stain came through +it at once and widened over the folds.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The ice-axe," gasped Hawke. "It is by your side."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon took it from where it was resting on the ground, and inserting +the pick into the wool, used it as a tourniquet, and strained the +bandage tight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thanks! thanks!" murmured Hawke. "That will hold. Give me the pole of +the axe. Now run down to the Inn and get help. I may be able to last +out--if only I don't freeze to death," he added, with a moan.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is a pity the brandy's spilt."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never mind that! Hurry down to the Inn."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! no! Austen," Gordon replied, indulgently, much as one refuses a +child an impossible request. "I don't think I can do that."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke raised himself upon his right elbow and peered into the other's +face. Neither of them spoke, but the animation flickered out of +Hawke's features, and it seemed as if a veil were drawn across the +pupils of his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have murdered me," he said, sinking back and letting his head +fall sideways on the ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have waked up. You said I was dreaming. I have waked up, that's +all. It is not the sleeper's fault if he hits the man who wakes him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon bent over as he spoke, and shot the words into Hawke's ear with +a savage intensity. In a moment, however, he resumed his former +composure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But we are wasting time, and we have not much time to waste, have we? +I want three letters."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke dropped the pole of the axe and instinctively moved his right +hand to protect his breast-pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Gordon. "I only wanted to know whether you had them +with you. I felt sure you would have, but it was best to make certain. +Don't worry about them now. I will take them--afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">He laid the slightest possible stress upon the word, and continued--</p> + +<p class="normal">"The shawl is safe enough, too. I am carrying it now. I thought you +would like to know that. Is there anything more? Oh, yes! You have +taught me a lesson--never to conduct interviews at night with the +blind up and the window open."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then you--you were outside?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I was outside," cried Gordon, his savage fury boiling over its +barriers and sweeping him away on a full flow.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The fool was asleep, was he? The fool was on the outhouse staring +into your face. Who was the fool, eh? Did you think I was blind? Did +you think I didn't see you were frightened when I met you yesterday! +Did you think I didn't see you watching my bedroom from the barn? What +made you come back and turn my lamp out? Who was the fool, eh? Why, +but for you I should never have known, never have suspected, never +have killed you."</p> + +<p class="normal">His voice had risen to a scream, and he thrust his face into Hawke's, +livid with hate. A sudden access of passion stung the latter into +life; he pushed the face away from him and gathering all his strength, +half struggled to his feet. On the instant Gordon slipped the steel +point of the axe from the bandage round his arm and Hawke fell back, +fainting and sick.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Damn you!" he whispered, "and the girl, too!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon uttered a cry, and dying though the man was, struck him on the +mouth with his clenched fist.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hawke took the blow without a moan, fixed one steady look upon the +other, and then let his head fall back upon the rock.</p> + +<p class="normal">After that neither spoke.</p> + +<p class="normal">A feeling of horror at this last action swept over Gordon. He +reproached himself for the blow, and sought to replace the axe in the +scarf. His fingers, however, were now too numbed; so he clenched them +tightly round the arm and knelt there watching the blanching face and +feeling the blood soak about his knees. In a moment or two he saw +Hawke's eyeballs quiver under the half-closed lids and he leaned +across the body and blew out the lanthorn-light. The darkness rushed +down between them, and almost immediately the storm broke in a +pitiless shower of hail.</p> + +<p class="normal">After awhile it passed, and Gordon bethought him of the time, but he +was now so starved by the cold that at first he was powerless to +unclasp his hands. The feeling of utter helplessness threw him into an +agony. He fancied that his hands were dead--dead hands frozen round +the dead man's wrist with blood. He looked forward in his mind through +the black hours of the night and saw the morning pour down the +mountain side and touch the grey face by his knees--nay, more, bring +the dalesmen up to discover him riveted to the man he had killed. With +this last thought he summoned all his strength to his aid, and making +a final effort wrenched his hands free. The body was lying motionless +at his side, and he felt along it until he reached the breast. To take +the letters, however, he had to unbutton the coat, and he paused, +shrinking from that. In the end he mustered courage for the task, +rebuttoned the coat, and groped his way cautiously to the summit, the +rest of the ascent being no more than a rock-strewn slope. From there +his path was easy, and although a high wind was now blowing, he +descended rapidly. Half-way down he struck a glissade which rare +winters of great snow form along an old stone wall, and so slid out of +the mist.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_10" href="#div1Ref_10">CHAPTER X</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The glissade stretched down towards a beck which flows between +Lingmell and the flank of Scafell. So that when Gordon stopped at the +end of the snow, a tinkling of water, as it splashed from stone to +stone, rose to his ears, and there seemed to him something strangely +sweet and peaceful in the sound. He advanced to its edge and washed +carefully in the stream. Then he took his haversack from his shoulders +and opened it. Kate Nugent's shawl was the first thing which his +fingers touched, and the feel of it sent a shiver through his frame. +It reminded him too clearly of Hawke's scarf and the black stain +widening over it. He took it out, and after it, a parcel. For a moment +he wondered what that was, and then remembered that he had forgotten +to eat his lunch. He repaired the omission on the instant, and +proceeded to change his clothes.</p> + +<p class="normal">That done, he sat down upon a stone, and went over carefully all that +had occurred. Reflection showed him no opening for suspicion to arise, +either from the deed itself or its attendant circumstances. Against +the latter he had already guarded, while the broken fragments of +glass, the presence of Hawke's own knife open by the side of the body, +and even the scarf about his arm, which hung loose and clumsily after +the ice-axe had been removed, would all point to the one conclusion-- +that the wound was an accident and self-inflicted. Satisfied upon the +point, Gordon picked up the clothes which he had discarded, wrapped +them in the shawl, and continued his descent. At the bottom of the +valley, however, instead of turning to the right in the direction of +Wastdale Head, he bent away towards the Lake.</p> + +<p class="normal">The strong wind, blowing up from the sea, had cleared the mist above +his head and was chasing the clouds along the sky. Here and there a +star could be seen winking from a blue gap, and so Gordon was able to +distinguish when he reached the shore, that no loiterer was near to +spy upon his acts. He felt in the pockets of the coat he was carrying +and drew out the letters which he had taken from Hawke. Then he +fastened the bundle securely about the biggest stone he could find and +hurled it far out into the Lake. It sank with a loud splash, and +Gordon looked quickly round thinking that some one must have noticed +it. The only sound that he heard, however, was the wash of the ripples +on the bank, and he turned and made hastily up the valley, across the +fields, until he had left the village some hundreds of yards behind. +From there he crossed into the path which leads down from Styhead, and +finally reached the farmhouse. It was close upon half-past eight, he +noticed, when he entered the parlour. He explained his lateness to +Mrs. Jackson by saying that he had taken refuge from the storm. She +added, indulgently, that it was a long way to Rosthwaite.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh I did not get as far after all," said he. "Has not Mr. Hawke come +yet?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Hawke?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes! I never told you. I asked him, or rather left a note to that +effect, to come up to dinner this evening. I ought to have told you, +but the fact is I never thought of inviting him until I had left the +house."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Jackson disclaimed all responsibility for the dinner, and had not +set eyes on Mr. Hawke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I won't wait for him," said Gordon. "Bring the dinner in! I will +just go up and wash."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And change your clothes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I haven't any clothes to change into," he said, with a laugh. "You +might lay another plate," he added. "Mr. Hawke may appear yet."</p> + +<p class="normal">So Gordon dined, and opposite to him a place was laid for the man who +was lying dead on Scafell.</p> + +<p class="normal">The one thing which troubled Gordon was the recollection of the blow +he had struck with his fist. He despised himself for that; and +besides, the look with which Hawke had returned it somehow remained +fixed in his mind. Strive as he might, he could not banish it. +Everything else he had intended, and justice had dictated. But that +blow!</p> + +<p class="normal">At ten o'clock the Inn people sent up to inquire for their lodger. +They had not imagined anything amiss before, as they understood from +Lawson that Hawke meant to stay late upon the fells.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He said he was going to the Pillar," Gordon said, "and he went up +Mosedale in that direction."</p> + +<p class="normal">One dalesman, however, asserted that he passed Hawke not later than +one in the afternoon by the church in the centre of the valley. He was +then going towards Scafell.</p> + +<p class="normal">Finally two search parties were organised--one to proceed to the +Pillar Rock, the other to examine the cliffs of Scafell. Gordon +elected to join the former, and they separately started off, with much +narrating of past accidents to cheer them on their way.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ten men have I brought down from these mountains, stone dead," said +one, "and this will be the eleventh."</p> + +<p class="normal">He repeated his lugubrious statement so often, that Gordon found +himself in the end humming the words to the cadence of his steps.</p> + +<p class="normal">They reached the Rock at last, and this mockery of a search began and +was kept up all through the freezing night. In the grey of the morning +they came down the path again. A man was running towards them with the +news that the body had been found, and he led them up to the cliffs on +Scafell. Gordon stood by Hawke's side for a moment, as he lay +stretched out in a frozen pool of blood, and then turned away sick; +for he had noticed about the corners of his mouth a faint blue mark, +like a bruise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will carry him down," he said. "I will follow you."</p> + +<p class="normal">The men understood his feelings, or rather thought they did, and +lifted the body gently and bore it down to the village. On the way +they passed the glissade on the side of the mountain, and one of them +stopped and pointed to the groove in the snow where Gordon had +descended.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he only said, "He will never come down that slide again, poor +chap!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gordon watched them until they had disappeared round a headland, and +then turned and looked down the crags.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not there!" he muttered to himself, with a shudder, and crossed over +the mountain top down to the screes. He stopped in front of a steep, +narrow gully, and far down he could see the quiet waters of the Lake +lapping the base of it. He cast one look towards Wastdale. Eastwards +the sun was rising over the Pass; "from Keswick," he thought. He took +out of his pocket the three letters and handled them, and his eyes +fell upon the signature.</p> +<br> + +<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Two days afterwards he was found by a fisherman at the bottom of the +gully, caught by a boulder on the water's edge. One hand was trailing +in the water and it clenched a torn scrap of sodden paper.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5><i>Made and Printed in Great Britain</i>. +<i>Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury</i></h5> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Romance of Wastdale, by +A. E. W. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Romance of Wastdale + +Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +Release Date: January 30, 2012 [EBook #38719] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/romanceofwastdal00maso + + 2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe]. + + + + + + A ROMANCE + OF WASTDALE + + + + + + + _NOVELS BY_ + _A. E. W. MASON_ + + + THE WINDING STAIR + THE SUMMONS + THE TURNSTILE + THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE + AT THE VILLA ROSE + A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE + THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD + RUNNING WATER + THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER + MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY + LAWRENCE CLAVERING + THE PHILANDERERS + ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY + CLEMENTINA + THE WATCHERS + THE FOUR FEATHERS + THE TRUANTS + THE BROKEN ROAD + + + + + + + A ROMANCE OF + WASTDALE + + + + + BY + A. E. W. MASON + + + + + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LIMITED LONDON + + + + + + + _Made and Printed in Great Britain_ + _Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury_. + + + + CHAPTER I + + +"Mrs. Jackson!" + +Mrs. Jackson was feeding her ducks at the beck behind the house. But +the kitchen door stood open, and she not only heard her name, but +recognised the voice which shouted it. + +"It's Mr. Gordon," she said to the servant who was with her, and she +bustled through the kitchen into the parlour, drying her hands with +her apron as she went. + +David Gordon stood by the window, looking dreamily out across the +fields. He turned as she entered the room, and shook hands with her. + +"I have given you a surprise," he laughed. + +"You have, indeed, Mr. Gordon. I never expected to see you again at +Wastdale Head. You should have written you were coming." + +And she proceeded to light the fire. + +"I didn't know myself that I was coming until yesterday." + +"It is three years since you were here." + +"Three years," Gordon repeated slowly. "Yes! I did not realise it +until I caught sight of the farm-house again." + +"You will be wanting breakfast?" + +"The sooner, the better. I have walked from Boot." + +"Already?" + +"It didn't seem really far;" and a smile broke over his face as he +added-- + +"I heard my marriage bells ringing all the way across Burnmoor." + +Mrs. Jackson retired to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and to ponder +over his remark. The result of her reflections was shown in the +unusual strength of the tea and in an extra thickness of butter on the +toast. She decked the table with an assortment of jams, and carefully +closed the door which opened into the lane, although the April +sunlight was pouring through it in a warm flood. It seemed as if +Gordon had gained an additional value and herself an additional +responsibility. She even took a cushion from the sofa and placed it on +his chair, and then waited on him while he breakfasted, nodding and +smiling a discreet but inquisitive sympathy. + +On Gordon, however, her pantomime was lost. His thoughts no longer +chimed to marriage bells. For Wastdale, and this farmhouse in +particular, were associated in his mind with the recollection of two +friends, of whom one was dead in reality, the other dead to him; and +always vividly responsive to the impression of the moment, he had +stepped back across the interval of the past three years, and now +dwelled with a strange sense of loneliness amidst a throng of +quickening memories. + +The woman, however, got the upper hand in Mrs. Jackson, and she +suggested, tentatively-- + +"Then maybe, Mr. Gordon, you are going to be married?" + +"You can omit the 'maybe,'" he laughed. + +"Well, I should never have thought it!" she exclaimed. + +"Time brings in his revenges," said he. + +"The way you three gentlemen used to rail at women! Well, there!" + +"But, then, they weren't women. They were Aunt Sallies of our own +contriving--mere pasteboard. We were young and we didn't know." + +Mrs. Jackson inquired the date and place of the ceremony. At Keswick, +she was told, and in a week's time. She floated out garrulous on a +tide of sentiment. She hoped that Mr. Gordon's two friends would +follow his example and find out their mistake, not noticing the shadow +which her words brought to her lodger's face. She dropped the name of +Hawke and the shadow deepened. + +"I rather fancy," he said abruptly, "that Mr. Hawke found out the +mistake at exactly the same time as I did myself." + +Mrs. Jackson was a quick woman, and she took his meaning from the +inflection of his voice. + +"He was your rival!" + +"I have not seen much of him lately." + +She thought for a moment and said, "Then it's just as well he's +staying at the Inn." + +Gordon sprang to his feet. + +"At the Inn?" he exclaimed. + +"Yes," she answered. "He still comes to climb at Wastdale every +Easter. But he has always stayed at the Inn, since you and Mr. +Arkwright have stopped away." + +Gordon stood drumming with his fingers on the table-cloth. A sudden +impulse of a sentimental kind had persuaded him to spend his last week +of bachelorhood alone in the familiar privacy of this spot, and he had +obeyed it on the instant, thoughtlessly it now appeared to him. He +might have foreseen the likelihood of Hawke's presence. After all, +however, it could not matter. It would be, perhaps, a little awkward +if they met, though, indeed, it need not be even that. Their actual +rivalry had ended with the announcement of his engagement two years +ago. Hawke could gain no end by sustaining the feud. There was, in +truth, no reason why they should not shake hands over the matter. So +he argued to himself, desire pointing the argument and stifling +certain uneasy reflections as to the tenacity of Hawke's nature. + +He sat down to resume his breakfast. The third member of the trio +which for years had made the farmhouse the resort during Easter +vacations claimed Mrs. Jackson's attention. + +"And Mr. Arkwright?" she asked. + +"He's dead," Gordon replied after a pause. "He died last year in +Switzerland. It was an accident. I was with him at the time." + +He spoke with spasmodic jerks and ended with something like a sigh of +relief. But if Mrs. Jackson loved marriages, she hankered after +violent deaths, and so, while she expressed unbounded pity, she +insisted upon details. Gordon submitted reluctantly. + +"It happened in the Oberland," he said, and Mrs. Jackson took a chair. +"We were coming down a mountain towards the evening--Arkwright, +myself, and a guide. We chanced to be late. The descent was new to us, +and knowing that we should not get off the snow before dark we looked +out for a spot to camp on. We came to a little plateau of rock just as +the night was falling, and determined to remain there. The guide had a +bottle of wine left out of our provisions. We had kept it back +purposely." + +Gordon paused for a moment and then went on again with a certain +deliberateness of speech as though the episode fascinated him in the +telling of it. + +"Arkwright volunteered to draw the cork. The neck of the bottle burst +and cut into his arm. It severed the main artery just above the wrist. +I sent the guide down to the valley, but, of course, no help came +until the morning. He was dead then." + +"And you stayed with him all the time?" + +"Yes!" said Gordon, and he rose from the table. + +Mrs. Jackson, however, failed to take the hint. She wanted a +description of his feelings during that night of watching, and she +persisted until she had obtained it. + +"I wonder you can bear to speak about it at all!" she said almost +reproachfully when he had finished. + +Left to himself, Gordon became the prey of a singular depression. The +sensation of horror which the recital of the incident revived in him +was intensified, not merely by its sombre contrast with the former +liveliness of his thoughts, but by the actual surroundings amongst +which he stood. The room itself was so suggestive of reminiscences +that it seemed instinct with the presence of his dead friend. For the +fact that he had but lately entered it after a lapse of years gave a +fresh vividness to his memories. It was as if the dust had been +suddenly swept from them by a rough hand. + +He walked over to the oak chest which stood against the wall by the +fireplace. A book in a red cover lay upon it and he took it up. It was +a novel which Arkwright had written at the farmhouse, and it contained +an inscription to that effect from the author's hand. + +"I seem likely to pass a pleasant week," he said to himself, and +taking his hat, stepped out into the clear sunshine. + +But his thoughts ran ever in the same channel. Each familiar object +that he passed recalled his friend, and the remembrance of that night +in the Alps hung like a black cloud about his heart. He tried to +thrust it aside, but the more earnestly he tried, the more +persistently it chained his attention, until in the end it seemed to +shadow forth something sinister, something almost of menace. For some +distance he followed the bed of the valley and then struck upwards to +the right, on to the slopes of Scafell Pike. After a while he stopped +to light his pipe, and, turning, saw over against him the track +mounting in sharp zigzags towards the summit of the Styhead Pass. It +was as clearly defined on the hill-side as a pencilled line on paper, +and his eyes followed its direction mechanically until it bent over +the edge of the Pass and disappeared from view. Then equally +mechanically he began to picture in his mind its subsequent course. He +had traced it past the tarn and half the way to Borrowdale, when of a +sudden a smile dawned through the gloom on his face, "The path to +Keswick!" he thought. He traced it consciously after that; he saw it +broaden out into a road, and his imagination set a dainty figure in a +white dress and a sailor hat at the end of it. + + +Gordon had met Kate Nugent for the first time some three years before +at Hawke's home in London, and from the outset of their acquaintance +she had commenced to dominate his thoughts, not so much on account of +her beauty as from a certain distinctness of personality which +appealed to him at that time with a very peculiar force. For she came +to him at a somewhat critical period in his life. + +Left an orphan while yet a child, David had spent his boyhood alone in +the north of Scotland. His guardian--an uncle with a seat in +Parliament and an estate near Ravenglass--he never saw; his tutor--an +unpractical scholar of the old-fashioned type--he neglected, in order +to follow the marsh-lamps of his own dreamy and somewhat morbid +imagination. And so dividing his time between the study of the more +exuberant poets and solitary rides along the bleak sea-coast, he +mapped out the world for himself upon a purely fanciful plan. He first +came into contact with actual life on his migration to Oxford. He was +brought face to face with new facts and new experiences, which, strive +as he might, he could not fit in with his theories. And, besides, he +seemed to see all around him men actuated by the interests of truth +toiling noisily at the overthrow of creeds and erecting nothing in +their place. As a consequence, his false idealism crumbled beneath +him, he lost his self-reliance, and felt hemmed in by a confused +tangle of truth and falsehood which there was no clue to help him to +unravel. The step between an intellectual scepticism and personal +cynicism is an easy one for most men to take. Gordon strode over the +intervening gaps unconsciously the moment he ceased to trust himself, +since his own sensations had, of necessity, been the one standard by +which he judged. + +His meeting with Kate Nugent, however, changed the whole tenor of his +mind. She appeared to him the one real thing that he had found in his +journey through a world of shadows. He pictured her standing out +white and clear from a background of shifting haze, and his very +self-distrust diminished since he referred his thoughts and actions to +his conception of her as to a touchstone for the testing of them. + +After their engagement, she became almost his religion. He +re-fashioned a second world in her image, faith coming to him like a +child born from the joining of their hearts. His ambitions, so long +dulled to inaction, sprang into new vigour and he followed their lead +with a confident patience. There was, in fact, an element of quaint +extravagance in his devotion, such as one finds mirrored in the +love-poems of the seventeenth century. + +Hence it came about that as he walked home in the fall of the +afternoon, matching the sunset with the colour of his thoughts, the +sight of the white Inn walls, prominent in a dark clump of firs, +recalled to him not only the fact of Hawke's proximity, but his desire +to put an end to their estrangement. The desire grew as he dwelled +upon it, until he began to feel an absolute repulsion from the +prospect of starting along this new stage of his life at enmity with +an old comrade. + +He determined to make the overture, and continuing his way onwards to +the Inn, inquired for Mr. Hawke. He was out, they told him. He had +waited until the postman came at twelve, and had then set out for the +fells. Gordon rummaged in his pockets and unearthed a card. He +scribbled on it a request that Hawke would visit him during the +evening, and turned back to the farm-house in a glow of satisfaction. +A wild fancy shot through him that Hawke and himself had been +designedly brought together into the seclusion of the valley. He +laughed it aside for the moment. + +But it returned to him afterwards with overwhelming conviction. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +Austen Hawke strolled down from Yewbarrow an hour later. He was a man +of a tall figure, spare of limb and lithe of movement, with a keen, +narrow face, which fitted itself into one's memory. Inside his +sitting-room it was already dark, and he rang for lights and stretched +himself complacently in an arm-chair before the fire. The mistress of +the Inn answered the bell and informed him, with intervals between the +words as she scratched off the heads of refractory matches, that a +gentleman had called to see him during the afternoon. Hawke swung +round towards her, a look of annoyance showing in his face. He hastily +ran over in his mind the names of his friends. + +"Did he leave no message?" he asked in perplexity. + +The card was produced, and Hawke took it, and stooping over the grate +read Gordon's name and invitation by the light of the fire. The look +of annoyance changed to one of utter incredulity. He read the card +again, peering at it as if he expected each moment to see the letters +dance from their order and group themselves afresh. By this time, +however, the gas was lit, and as he rose erect, his eyes fell upon an +envelope addressed to him in a clear, bold hand, which stood plain to +view against the clock on the mantelpiece. + +"Mr. Gordon, of course, wrote his message in here?" he asked, and a +note of anxiety struggled through the indifference of his tone. + +He was assured, however, that his visitor had come no further than the +doorway of the hall. + +"You should have asked him in," he said carelessly, and slipped the +envelope into his pocket. + +After dinner he smoked his pipe in his chair until the clock struck +nine. Then he took out his watch, adjusted the hands exactly to the +hour, and walked up the lane to the farm. The door stood on the latch +and he flung it open noisily. + +The sound roused Gordon from a doze, and he started suddenly to his +feet. On the instant Hawke stepped backwards to the threshold and +stood in the doorway, eyeing him searchingly. For a moment the two men +measured one another in silence, and Gordon fancied, with some +wonderment, that there was an expression of more than mere antagonism, +an expression of actual fear, in his visitor's attitude. + +"Well?" said Hawke at last, and there was a ring of defiance in his +voice. + +"Austen!" the other replied simply, and he held out his hand. + +There was no doubting the wistful sincerity of his appeal; and yet +Hawke came forward but slowly, and took the outstretched hand with a +watchful suspicion. + +"You are a stranger here," he said. + +Gordon answered the implied question. + +"Well, I was only in the way at Keswick." He stopped abruptly, mindful +that he trod delicate ground. + +Hawke shot a rapid glance at him. "Why?" he asked. + +"Bridesmaids, you know. I was a flounder in a shoal of mermaids," and +Gordon laughed apologetically. + +But Hawke joined in the laugh, and said--"Yes; the bridegroom is of no +value until the wedding-day;" and he added softly, "and sometimes he +is of no value after it." + +Gordon smiled confidently and observed--"At all events, you have not +changed." + +"My dear fellow, we are not all----" He cast about for an epithet less +offensive than that ready to his tongue. "We are not all versatile." + +"The adjective hardly explains my case; for I don't seem to have +existed at all before." + +"Don't," Hawke broke in. "Please don't. I will take your sentiment for +granted." + +Gordon appreciated that he had brought the rejoinder upon himself by a +misplaced egotism, and relapsed into his chair. Hawke came and stood +immediately above him, leaning against the edge of the table. + +"And so," said he, "you came to Wastdale just to see me." He laid his +hand on Gordon's arm with a show of cordiality, but he spoke slowly +and with a faint flavour of irony about the words. + +"What made you think that?" Gordon asked in surprise. + +"Your message, of course." + +"You misunderstood it. I had no idea you were here until I arrived +myself. I meant to spend the week at Ravenglass, but my uncle was +summoned to town yesterday. So I thought that I would come over to the +old place again." + +"Oh! Is that all?" + +Hawke's voice told of relief. Gordon noticed the change, and turned +inquiring eyes on him sharply. Just for the second their glances +crossed; Hawke was off his guard; and it appeared to his companion +that the very spirit of malice was blazing triumphantly in his eyes. +Hawke rose hastily from the table, and Gordon cried out-- + +"Take care! You will have the whisky on the floor." + +"I didn't notice it. Shall I help you?" + +"Thanks!" + +Hawke measured out the whisky into the glasses and filled them from +the kettle which sang on the fire. + +"It's quite like old times," he said genially. + +"Not quite!" + +"You mean Arkwright? Yes, poor devil! I had forgotten him. Tell me how +it happened." And he lay down on the sofa. + +"Why, didn't you hear!" + +"Only vaguely." + +He hesitated, shot a furtive look at Gordon, and added, tentatively-- + +"I was in India at the time." + +"Were you in India, too?" Gordon exclaimed. + +Hawke turned his head to the wall to conceal the smile on his face, +and answered-- + +"Yes, I was there. But why 'too'?" + +"Well, because----" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, Miss Nugent happened to be at Poonah." + +"Really? But tell me about Arkwright." + +For the second time that day Gordon related the story of the accident. + +"Here's to better luck next time!" Hawke yawned when he had finished. +"By the way, you are not drinking. That is one of the signs of +impending matrimony, I suppose." + +"Oh, no!" Gordon laughed. "Only you have made it so confoundedly +strong." + +"It will help you to sleep." + +"I shan't need help." + +"Ah! You look tired, and I am keeping you up." + +Hawke drew his watch from his pocket. + +"By Jove, it's past eleven!" + +He rose from the sofa and took his hat. + +"Are you going?" asked Gordon. + +"Yes. Good night!" + +Gordon went to the door. + +"Don't you bother to come out!" cried Hawke quickly. + +But Gordon lifted the latch and stepped out into the porch. Instantly +Hawke slipped by him and hurried across the little garden to the gate. +He looked eagerly up and down the lane, but there was nothing to be +seen. The night was moonless and cloudy, with a cold wind blowing from +the north. + +"Good night!" he repeated as Gordon joined him. "It's cold out here." + +"What is the matter?" Gordon inquired. + +"What do you mean?" Hawke turned sharply to the speaker. + +"You looked as if you expected to see some one." + +"Here? At this time? Why, I suppose you and I are the only living +beings awake for ten miles round," and he laughed, uneasily to +Gordon's thinking. + +"I shall see you to-morrow, I suppose?" + +"I doubt it," Hawke replied. "I mean to cross into Eskdale, if it is +fine, and come back over Mickledoor. So I shall probably not reach +home till late." + +And he started off down the lane. + +Gordon returned to the room, latched the door, and came thoughtfully +back to the fire. "Why was Hawke afraid?" he asked himself. Of the +fact of his alarm there could be no doubt. His sudden recoil when +Gordon rose to greet him was evidence enough by itself. But, besides, +there was the betrayal of relief when he ascertained the absence of +design in Gordon's visit to the valley. And, beyond these particular +proofs, throughout the interview suspicion had been visibly alert in +the man, showing in his face, in his words, in his very posture. It +must have been fear, Gordon argued, which had prompted him to pretend +acceptance of the proffered reconciliation. For that he did but +pretend was plain from the irrepressible irony in his voice, and, +above all, from that flash of malice which just for a second had, as +it were, lit up the face of his mind. But the reason of it all? Why +was Hawke afraid of him? + +Gordon's thoughts circled blankly about the question. Finally he tried +to forget it, lit his candle, and went upstairs to bed. Sleep, +however, had now become impossible to him. He had flogged his wits out +of their drowsiness, and he tossed from side to side in a fever of +tired unrest until his speculations lost shape and form, and loomed +vaguely into premonitions of evil. The very muscles of his limbs +seemed braced like an athlete's, with the sense of a coming contest. + +Of a sudden, however, as he lay ransacking his memory for the least +detail of the conversation, it occurred to him that he had left the +lamp burning in the parlour. He felt for the matches at his bedside, +and as he opened the box he heard a light sound as of a cautious step +rise through the open window. He struck a match, it flared up into a +flame and the sound was repeated more distinctly--a hurried shuffle of +the pebbles. + +Gordon remained quite still in his bed, and the match burned down to +his fingers. But there was no further movement. Then he rose and crept +to the window. The night was like a bandage before his eyes. But after +a while it thinned to a veil, and he made out the barn wall facing him +(for his room lay at the side of the house), and as he watched +something moved from the shadow of it, stood for a second in the open +opposite the window, and then slipped round the corner of the barn and +disappeared down the lane. + +It could be no one but Hawke, Gordon thought. The man's own remark +flashed into his mind. "I suppose that you and I are the only living +beings awake for ten miles round." For some reason he had been waiting +until all was quiet in the house. Gordon flung on his clothes +hurriedly, lit the candle, and went downstairs. But as he pushed open +the door of the parlour a sudden gust of wind extinguished the light +in his hand. The room was in darkness; only facing where he stood +there was a panel of twilight, and through it he could see the boughs +of trees rising and falling. + +The door into the lane stood open, and the lamp had been turned out. + +Gordon stood fixed there in a panic, listening. But no sound menaced +him. Inside, the beat of the clock merely emphasized the silence; +outside, the wind moaned among the hills with a dreary lift and drop, +like surf upon a distant beach. He walked through the garden and +strained his eyes up and down the road. No moving thing was visible, +but he remembered that Hawke had scanned the surroundings too, and he +hung on the gate, charged with expectancy. + +After a time he noticed a white speck in the black of the opposite +field. He observed it casually at first, but it grew larger and +approached him, and shaped itself into the figure of a woman. She +climbed over a stile in the boundary wall facing the gate and brushed +quickly by without noticing his presence. She was closely muffled in a +large shawl, so that Gordon could see nothing of her face. But it +struck him, from the momentary glimpse of her which he caught as she +swung past him, that there was something familiar in her gait and +bearing. The perception was a spark to the train of his fears. They +flashed into one monstrous conjecture. Gordon thrust it down; it +sprang up again and clutched at his throat, stifling him. + +Beyond that field, the track from Styhead--the track which he had +watched that afternoon--ran towards the lake. If you came from the +Pass to the upper part of Wastdale--say to the Inn--you crossed the +field, you joined the lane at the very spot where Gordon stood. And +over the Pass the woman had come--must have come. For Gordon's farm +was the outpost of the village. The next house was built in +Borrowdale. + +In the stillness he could hear the footsteps rattling on the loose +stones. Then all at once they stopped, and Gordon felt his heart stop +with them. The silence, however, pointed to the necessity of speed, +and he followed the woman cautiously down the lane, creeping close +under cover of the wall. + +But there was no one outside the Inn, and no sign of life within it. +The front stared blindly into the night. He stole up to the door and +laid his ear to the panel. A second after the bolt grated with an +almost imperceptible jar as it was eased into its socket. He just +heard a faint rustling sound as of feet stealthily receding along a +flagged passage, and all was quiet again. + +He raised his hand to the bell, but a sudden thought checked his +impulse. Suppose that his conjecture was false! And yet another +thought came to second the first. Suppose that his conjecture was +true! His arm dropped nervously to his side. For the girl's sake he +dared not rouse the inmates. + +And yet what action should he take? He stood paralysed, feeling the +question beat into his brain like a hammer, until a yellow beam of +light leaped out on to the trees at the west corner of the house. +Gordon hurried round to the spot and perceived that it came from a +window on the first floor in the end of the building. He looked +eagerly about for a means of reaching it. Immediately under the window +the space was clear, but a little farther towards the back of the Inn +an outhouse with a thatched sloping roof jutted forth at a right +angle. From the extreme point of that roof Gordon believed that he +could command a view of the room. In this way he would at all events +ascertain the truth. + +A short examination showed him a tree which leaned against the far +side of the building. Scaling the trunk, he crept out along a bough, +dropped lightly on the thatch, and crept up to its apex. Over the edge +he looked into the room, as from the opposite point at the base of a +triangle. Three-fourths of its area were within his view, and this was +what he saw. + +Hawke sat almost facing him in front of a table with his back towards +a blazing fire. A number of letters lay before him, and he was +evidently reading them aloud, for now and again he looked up with +narrowed eyes and a crafty smile, much as Gordon remembered him when +he held a winning hand at whist. + +The sex of his visitor was revealed by a shawl trailing on the +hearthrug. But of her person, Gordon caught not so much as a glimpse. +For she stood on the near side of the room, concealed from him. + +Hawke, as he finished each letter, placed it methodically on a file +which lay by his side. One, however, seemed longer than the rest and +afforded him peculiar interest. He turned back to the first page and +read it a second time, pointing here and there to passages with his +finger. All at once the slender figure of a girl moved into the light. +She passed round the table and stood behind Hawke's shoulder, her face +gleaming pale as ivory from a cloud of tumbled hair. Gordon recognized +her on the instant. It was Kate Nugent. She bent over Hawke as if to +follow him more closely, and with a sudden clutch tore the paper from +his hand and flung it into the fire. Hawke started to his feet, +transfigured. Some such flame as was shrivelling the letter seemed to +leap across his face. He pinned Kate's wrist to the table and thrust +his head close down upon hers. What he said Gordon could not +distinguish for the closed window, but he noticed a savage +incisiveness about the movement of his lips, and saw the veins swell +upon his forehead and along his throat. + +For a moment the girl confronted him, returning glance for glance, but +only for a moment. The defiance flickered out of her face, her lips +shaped to an entreaty, and, with a meek gentleness which was +infinitely pitiful, she unclasped the fingers about her wrist. She +moved towards the window, stumbling as she went. She felt blindly for +the catch, unfastened it as though her hands were numbed, and slowly +lifted the sash. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +She leaned against the sill, gazing into the darkness. After a while +she turned. Hawke was watching her with a complacent smile. + +"And it pleases you to torture me! You enjoy seeing a woman suffer. I +couldn't have believed that any man could be such a coward and so +mean!" + +Hawke laughed pleasantly. + +"Give them to me!" she cried. + +"Think!" he answered in a mock appeal. "They will be my only +consolation after you are married." + +"Give them to me!" she cried again. + +Hawke was standing by the fireplace and she moved towards him, +changing her tone to one of wondering reproach. + +"You can't mean to keep them! You are just laughing at me--for the +minute. Yes! yes! I know. That was your way. But you will give me the +letters in the end, won't you? Look! I will kneel to you for them. +Only give them to me!" And she sank on her knees at his feet before +the fire. + +"They will be much safer with me," he replied. "You might leave them +about. David might pry. And it would strain even his innocence to +misunderstand them." + +"Can you think I should keep them?" she said with a shiver of disgust. +"Give them to me or burn them yourself! Yes!" she continued, +feverishly, clutching his arm, "burn them yourself--now--here--and I +will thank you all my life." + +She stirred the coals into a blaze. + +"See! They will burn so quickly," and she darted out her hands towards +the file. + +Hawke snatched it away. "No, no!" he laughed. "You must vary your game +if you mean to win." + +He reached up and hung it on the mirror over his mantelpiece. + +"There!" said he. "You will have to jump for them." + +The girl stared at him incredulously; the words seeming to her some +trick of her strained senses. But she glanced upwards to the file and +sank back with a low moan. + +"Will nothing touch you?" she said. + +For a moment there was a pause. Only the noise of the brook laughing +happily as it raced over the stones behind the house broke the silence +in the room. Kate heard it vaguely, and it awoke a reminiscence. + +"Do you remember?" she said. "At Poonah? There was a stream running +past the verandah there." + +She was speaking wearily, with closed eyes, and the firelight played +upon a face as white and impassive as a wax mask. + +"Yes! I remember," answered Hawke, his voice softening with the memory +of those few months in India, The recollection was not of what they +had thought or said or done--that would not have moved him; but simply +of how he had felt towards her. He stood and watched her curiously. +The dark lashes began to glisten, and then all in a moment her apathy +broke up, and she was shaking in an agony of tears. + +"I was never so hard to you," she faltered between her sobs. + +The words floated out freely to Gordon and set his senses reeling. In +Hawke they deepened the phantom tenderness already aroused. There was +something so childlike in their simplicity. Indeed, as she crouched +upon the floor in her abandonment, her white frock stained by her long +journey, her sash all crumpled, her loosened hair curling vagrantly +about her neck, and her slender figure quivering down to the tips of +her shoes, she looked little more than a child masquerading in the +emotions of a woman. + +He took down the file and swung it irresolutely to and fro upon his +finger. Kate turned to him impulsively. + +"Give them to me! You promised you would if I came to fetch them. You +can't break that promise now! Think what you have made me risk! +Suppose they find out at home? It would have been cruel enough if that +had been the only danger. But to bring me to the village where you and +Dav--where you and he are the only strangers!" + +"That was not my fault," Hawke interposed. "How could I tell he was +going to blunder over here? I only met him this afternoon. However, +you needn't be afraid. The fool's asleep." + +Gordon felt an almost overpowering impulse to laugh aloud. The irony +of the situation was the one thing which his mind could grasp. +However, he set his teeth fast to restrain the desire. He would learn +all that was to be known first. He could disclose himself to Hawke +afterwards. + +"Are you sure he suspects nothing?" Kate asked. + +"Perfectly. I was with him this evening, I tell you. He left his lamp +burning, so that I had to wait until the place was quiet to put it +out, for fear you should mistake the house. There is nothing to fear. +Why, he told me that he hadn't even existed until he met you." + +"Don't!" Kate exclaimed. + +"You need not reproach yourself for his credulity. They say it's quite +good for a man to believe in a woman." + +Kate remained silent, knowing that replies were but fuel to his +sneers. But her eyes caught the clock and awoke her to the lapse of +time. + +"Look!" she cried. "It is past one. I must go back, and it is so far. +Give me the letters, I am tired." + +Hawke determined to comply. So much the sight of her fresh, young +beauty, drooping at his feet, had wrung from him. But he was an +epicure where women were concerned. He took a natural delight in +evoking their emotions, and when the display gratified him, he allowed +no obtrusive knowledge of its cost to them to abridge his enjoyment. +So he merely repeated-- + +"They will be safe with me." + +"I cannot trust you." + +"Why not?" + +The question rang cold and sharp, like the crack of a pistol. Kate +looked at his face and realised that she had lost her ground. But, as +she had said, she was tired. She was too over-wrought to choose her +phrases. + +"I dare not marry him and leave those letters in your hands." + +"Why not? You have trusted me with more than your letters." + +The brutality of the remark was emphasised by the harshness of his +tone. But she replied, quietly-- + +"And you taunt me with my trust! Surely that is reason enough." + +"You are afraid that I shall use them!" + +"I don't know. I only know that if you keep them, I may be his wife, +but you will be my master; and I dare not face that." + +The explanation appeased Hawke. It warmed his vanity and disposed him +to reward so clear an appreciation of his power. Only the reward she +asked was nothing less than the renunciation of that power. He paused +over that. + +"Tell me," Kate continued, "why did you force me to come here?" + +"I am not sure," he replied, musingly. "Perhaps I wanted to see you +again." + +"No! That was not why. You would have come to me yourself, if that had +been the cause." + +"What was the reason, then?" Hawke smiled indulgently. This scrutiny +of his intentions added to his satisfaction. It lifted him in his +self-esteem, attributed to him an unusual personality. For, as a rule, +people find the twenty-four hours barely long enough to discover what +their neighbours do, and so are compelled to leave their thoughts and +aims alone. Hawke loomed larger on his own horizon, the more +particularly because the analyst was a young woman and well-favoured. + +"What was the reason?" + +"Just my marriage. You felt that I was slipping out of your +grasp--escaping you. I know you so well." + +"But it's almost a year since I have seen you. I have left you alone +during all that time. So, even if I had possessed any power, you can't +urge that I have used it." + +"No! But because you possessed it," Kate insisted. "Because you were +certain you possessed it; and so you were content to let things lie. +Now, however, everything was changing. I was escaping you; and you +made me come here at night, across that horrible lonely pass, just to +assert your mastery over me--just to convince yourself it was real. +Don't you see? I dare not go back and leave those letters with you." + +Hawke wavered. If he gave her what she wished, she would escape him, +as she had said. She would pass clean beyond his reach. She would have +no fear of him--no strong feeling of any kind. + +"Suppose that I give you your way," he said, hesitatingly; "what is +going to happen between you and me?" + +The unexpected question scared the girl, and she answered, catching +her breath-- + +"Everything was over between us--ages ago, it seems to me. You have +not seen me for a year. You said so yourself." + +"Yes! I know," he replied, slowly, and Kate felt that he was watching +her keenly. "But now that I do see you again, it is like meeting you +for the first time without the trouble of having to make friends." + +Kate half rose to her feet, with a slight cry. + +"Don't get up!" Hawke exclaimed, and he smoothed her hair caressingly +with his hand. "You look so pretty like that." + +She clenched her nails in her palms. Her whole nature rose against the +man. The mere touch of his fingers turned her sick. At last, however, +she forced herself to meet his gaze. She saw that he was going to +speak, and began first, coaxing him, while a deadly humiliation set +her cheeks ablaze. + +"Friends? Yes! We might be friends. Only give me the letters, and I +will think of you as a friend!" + +"For just so long as it takes you to reach Keswick." + +"No; always," she said simply. "You don't know what a woman can +forgive when once she has felt as I have felt towards you." + +There was a pause. Hawke suddenly stripped the letters off the file. + +"I will give them to you," he said. + +Kate held out her hands to him eagerly, with a low cry of joy. But +Hawke dropped the packet on the table, and seized her outstretched +wrists. + +"But they have their price," he whispered, bending over her. + +Kate shrank away in a whirl of terror. But his grasp only tightened, +and he drew her towards him, laughing. + +"Only a kiss," he said. "One kiss for each." + +"No!" She almost shouted the word. + +"Hush!" he laughed. "You will rouse the house. One kiss for each," and +he laughed again almost hysterically. + +"It is not a heavy price--it is not even a new price. You have paid it +before with nothing to buy. Think of the distance you have come, of +the horrible lonely pass!" + +He repeated her words with a burlesque shudder. But the taunts fell +upon deaf ears. Kate was engrossed in the shame of his proposal. It +was so characteristic of him, she thought. He had chosen the one +device which would humiliate her most effectually. Its very puerility +added to her sense of degradation. There was a touch of the ludicrous +in the notion so grotesquely incongruous with the pain it caused her. +She pictured the scene with a spectator. "How he would laugh!" she +thought, bitterly. However, there would be no spectator--and it was +the only way. + +"Well?" Hawke asked. + +"Yes!" she replied. + +He released her wrists, and she stood up and faced him. He took the +letters and handed them to her, one by one; and for each letter that +he gave her, she kissed him on the lips. + +And outside the window was the spectator. Only he did not laugh. + +Hawke also had grown serious. The sight of Kate Nugent after so long +an interval, the familiar sound of her voice, and to some degree also +a certain distorted pleasure which he drew from the knowledge of +Gordon's proximity, had served to prepare his passions. Now they were +tinder to the touch of her lips. So, as he let the last letter go and +she turned her face upwards to complete the bargain, he suddenly +placed his hands behind her shoulders, drew her towards him, and +returned her kiss with a fervour. + +The change in him came almost as a relief to Kate. It diminished her +sense of humiliation. For the moment he began to show passion, the +less she felt herself his toy. So, for a second, she did not resist +his embrace. Then she struggled to free herself. + +"I have paid you," she said. + +Hawke dropped his arms, and she moved towards the fireplace. One by +one, she noted the dates of the letters, tore them across and let them +fall into the flames. Then she stood thinking. + +"You have not given me all." + +"All I showed you." + +"There are four more, written on my way home from Calcutta, Aden, +Brindisi, and London." + +"Three! You were rude enough to burn one." + +"Where are they?" + +"Here!" Hawke tapped his breast pocket as he spoke. + +"Fulfil your bargain! Give them to me!" + +"They will cost more." + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +The strain upon Gordon's nerves had become intolerable. When he first +mounted the outhouse roof he had been wholly absorbed in the horror of +his conjecture that Hawke's midnight visitor was the girl to whom he +was betrothed, and the need of either verifying or disproving it was +the one thing clear to him amid the turmoil of his brain. Of what the +visit might actually imply he took no thought. Now, however, he knew; +the interview which he had witnessed left him not a glimmer of doubt. +But during the two years of their engagement, Kate Nugent had so grown +into the heart of his life, had become so real a part of him, that she +was not easily dethroned from his respect. He clung instinctively to a +vague hope that there might have been some compelling cause of which +he knew nothing to account for her subjection to Hawke. That this +subjection meant treachery to him, treachery of an unpardonable kind, +whatever its cause, he realised in a way, but as yet did he not feel +it. The blow had stunned his reason, had even dulled his senses, had, +in a word, struck at the very roots of his being. He was adrift in a +maze of bewilderment. The scene he was witnessing grew in the end +shadowy and unreal. Even Hawke seemed to lose his individuality; he +became just a detail in the sum of the mystery, a thing to be +explained, not a man to be punished. Gordon, in fact, was left +conscious of but one feeling--the overwhelming desire to see the woman +he had worshipped face to face with him, to speak with her, and +realising the necessity of getting solid ground beneath his feet, if +he was to accomplish his wish, he clambered from his perch--just too +soon to see Kate strike Hawke across the mouth, as her answer to the +last words he had only dimly heard. + +Gordon reached the earth securely and crept softly back to his garden +gate. The sky had cleared during the last half hour, and the valley +lay pure and clean in the starlight. After a while a sound reached +him. It struck upon muffled senses at first, meaninglessly; but its +continued repetition fixed his attention, and he perceived that it was +the sound of Kate's footsteps on the stones again at the bottom of the +lane. She was returning. Gordon was still in that dazed condition when +the brain, unable to take a complete impression, or, to speak more +plainly, unable to combine its different impressions into one whole, +fixes itself upon some small particular sensation and magnifies that, +to the thorough exclusion of the rest. So, now as he listened to her +steps drawing nearer and nearer, he noticed acutely a difference in +the manner of her walk, a certain hesitancy, absent when she swept by +him on her way to the Inn. Then her footfalls had rung surely and +rhythmically, betokening some quest in view; now they wavered, +timidly, with uncertain beats as if the hope had gone out of her +limbs. The sound was somehow familiar to Gordon, and, curiously +ransacking his memories, he discovered the reason. He had marked women +walk like that, with the same weariness, with the same hopelessness, +late at night in the quiet of the London streets. This chance +association of ideas acted on him like a shock. It woke him from his +stupor, revivified him, set him with clear vision fronting facts. He +grasped the full meaning of Kate's interview with Hawke. It rose +before him like an acted scene in a play, and he recollected with a +sudden horror those last words, "They will cost more." How long was it +since he had climbed down from the outhouse roof? How long had he been +waiting by the gate? He had been unconscious of time. Hours might have +lapsed for all he knew. Meanwhile the steps drew nearer. He saw her +plainly advancing towards him. She was walking with her eyes on the +ground, and so did not observe him barring her path until she almost +knocked against him. She lifted her head, stood for a second looking +searchingly into his face, as if he were a ghost, the fancied +embodiment of her fears, and then, with an inarticulate moan like the +cry of the dumb, she reeled against the wall of the lane. Gordon heard +her breath coming and going in quick jets and the scrabbling of her +finger-nails as she clutched at the stones. + +"Is it you?" she said, attempting a light surprise. "How you startled +me! I am late, very late. I was delayed. I came over to--to----" + +"To recover your letters," Gordon broke in bitterly upon her labouring +effort to dig up an excuse. "You were right to come late. That kind of +errand can't be run by daylight." + +Kate drew herself up and moved toward him, but he thrust his hands out +with a gesture of repulsion to check her approach. + +"Those last three letters?" + +"He has them still." + +"Come in!" Gordon said. The relief he experienced gave a gentleness to +the tone of his voice. That loathsome dread at all events was +dispelled. For even then he did not doubt the truth of her words. + +"Come in!" and he turned and went into the parlour. The girl followed +him in silence, drew a chair close to the dying fire and hung over it, +shivering. Gordon lit the lamp, saying-- + +"Yes; it is cold. These April nights always are up here." + +Kate looked at the clock, and Gordon's eyes followed her gaze. The +hands pointed to half-past one. He had heard her implore Hawke that it +was past the hour, some time before he quitted his post of +observation. So there could have been but the briefest interval +between her departure and his own. + +"Be quick! What do you want with me? I have no time to lose!" + +Kate flung the words at him petulantly. The knowledge that she had +been discovered exasperated her against Gordon. + +"Well, why don't you speak?" + +She turned towards him. Gordon was still standing at the table by the +lamp. For, now that his object was attained and she was alone with +him, he found no words to express the questions he had meant to ask. +The light fell full upon the delicate beauty of her face, and indeed +nearly drove the questions themselves from his mind. "You always look +to me as if you had just come out of a convent," he had once said to +her; and that sentence most exactly indicated the nature of the +passion he had felt for her--an intense love refined and exalted by a +blind, unreasoning reverence. There was, in truth, a certain air of +spirituality about her manifest to most people on their first +introduction. But it belonged to the face, not to the expression. It +was due to the fragile purity of her features, not to the mind which +animated them, and was consequently more noticeable when she was in +repose. The impression, as a rule, wore off upon a closer +acquaintance, but Gordon had fallen in love and saw her always through +the mist of his feelings. + +So the memory of all that she had meant to him kept him silent now. +His thoughts seemed almost a sacrilege--plainly impossible to speak +unless Kate gave him a decided lead. He waited and watched her. The +skin of her wrist had broken when Hawke gripped it, and every now and +then a drop of blood would fall on to her white dress and trickle down +in a red wavering line. The sight somehow fascinated Gordon, and as +each drop fell he waited and watched for the next. + +To Kate, his silence became intolerable. She would have preferred +reproaches, abuse, even violence--anything, in a word--to this leaden +reticence. For it accused her more sharply than any words. Her lover +had always been as an easy book to her keen intelligence, and she +could read clearly enough that what kept his lips locked now was the +conflict between his new knowledge and his old loyalty. In a flash she +imagined Hawke's behaviour under the like circumstances and contrasted +it with Gordon's bearing. Side by side the two men toed the line for +her mental inspection, and the result was a feminine outcry against +Fate, the Powers above and below--what you will, in a word, except her +concrete self. + +"What brought you over here?" she cried. "You said you were going to +Ravenglass. You told me so. What brought you over to Wastdale?" + +She spoke fiercely, almost vindictively, and it seemed as if the pair +had suddenly changed places, as if she were the accuser and he the +culprit, standing meekly self-condemned. Indeed, to complete the +illusion, there was even a tinge of remorse in his tone as he answered +her. + +"God, perhaps. Who knows?" + +"Oh! yes, yes, yes!" she went on. "Preach to me! Preach to me! Go on! +Only be quick about it and make the sermon short!" + +"Don't, Kitty!" he said, and added, wistfully, "It can't be your true +self that is speaking." + +"Yea, it is," she replied, struggling with a sense of pity for him +(evoked by the quiet sadness of his voice). "My very own self, my real +true self, that you have never known--that you never _would_ know. You +always had wrong ideas about me. I tried to open your eyes at first, +but it was no good, and I gave it up. You always dressed me up in +virtues that didn't fit me. I used to feel as if I were wearing a +strait-waistcoat." + +Gordon drew up a chair and sat opposite to her on the other side of +the fireplace. + +"Then it was all my fault," he said. + +Kate glanced at him quickly, but there was no trace of irony in his +manner. He was speaking quite seriously. As a matter of fact, it had +just begun to dawn on him that a frank expectation of ideal behaviour +is the most exacting form of tyranny a man can exercise over a woman. + +"No," she replied. "No! It was my fault. I ought never to have become +engaged to you; for I never loved you, even at the beginning. Oh, it +is no use shirking the truth now," she went on, as Gordon rose with a +cry of pain. "I never loved you. I realised that very soon after we +were engaged. I had always liked you. I liked you better than any man +I had met, and so in time I thought I might come to love you as well. +I don't know whether I ever should have reached that if I had been +left alone. But you made it impossible. You would not see that I had +faults and caprices. You would not see that those very faults pleased +me, that I meant to keep them, that I did not want to change. No! +Whenever you came to me, I always felt as if I was being lifted up +reverently and set on a very high and a very small pedestal. And there +I had to stand, with my heels together, and my toes turned out, in an +attitude of decorum until you had gone. Well, you want people with +flat heels to enjoy that. I always wore high ones, and the attitude +tired me." + +Instinctively she stretched one foot out as she spoke. The sparkle of +the firelight on the buckle caught Gordon's eye, and he saw that she +was wearing thin kid slippers with a strap across the instep. + +"You must be wet through," he exclaimed. + +"No," she answered. "I rode to the head of the Pass, and left the +horse tied up to the footbridge over the stream. It was dry enough the +rest of the way." + +"You rode over here!" he exclaimed. "Then they must have known you +were coming?" + +"Who must have known?" she asked, in a sudden alarm. + +"Your father and your aunt. She is staying with you still, I suppose." + +"Yes. But they knew nothing, of course. My father had some people to +dinner to-night. I left them early, saying that I was tired. I should +have had no time to change if I had thought of it, as it was close on +ten. I had told Martin, our groom, that I should want a horse--you +know he would do anything for me--and he had it ready saddled. So I +locked my room door, took the key with me, and came away just as I +was." + +She stopped abruptly. The mention of her home aroused her to the +consequences of her detection. Up till now the fact that Gordon had +found her out had alone possessed her mind. Now, however, she was +compelled to look forward. What would he do? He was to have married +her in a week, in just seven days. Would he disclose the truth? She +scanned his face for an answer to her conjectures. + +Gordon was leaning against the mantelshelf above her, and his eyes met +her inquiring gaze. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"So you see," she faltered, "I am pretty safe for to-night; but +to-morrow?" + +"To-morrow?" He seemed not to have grasped her drift. + +"Yes! To-morrow," she repeated. "What do you mean to do?" + +The question startled Gordon. He had been thinking of her, not of +himself. Yes, to-morrow he would have to act. But how? + +"I don't know," he answered. "I must have time to think. I have not +mastered today yet." + +"You will spare me as much as you can?" + +There was something very pitiful in the childlike entreaty; at least +so it seemed to Gordon. She was so young for all this misery. Her very +humility pained him, all the more because it was so strange to him. + +"I will spare you altogether, child," he replied. "You need not be +afraid of me. I have loved you too well to hurt you now." + +For a moment or two he paced about the room restlessly, trying to +discover some means by which he could break the marriage off and take +the blame upon himself. But no likely plan occurred to him. His brain +refused to act. Disconnected scraps of ideas and ludicrous +reminiscences, all foreign to the matter, forced themselves upon his +mind, the harder he strove to think. He gave the effort up. He would +be able to concentrate his attention better when he was alone. +Besides, he recollected he had not heard the whole story as yet. Some +clue to an issue might perhaps be found in the untold remainder. + +"Tell me the rest!" he said, returning to his chair. + +"The rest?" she inquired. Gordon's generosity had pierced straight to +her heart at last, and had sent the tears rolling down her cheeks. + +"Yes! The rest of the story down to tonight." + +"Oh! I can't," she cried. "Not now! I can't! If you had been rough and +harsh, yes! But you have been so gentle with me. + +"It will be the kindest way for me," Gordon replied. "I must know the +truth some way or another, and I would rather have you tell it me than +ferret it out for myself." + +"Very well, then," she said, wearily; and for a space there was +silence in the room. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +"My mother died," she began, "eight months after our engagement, and +then I went out to Poonah on a visit to my uncle. It is just a year +and a half since I started." + +"Yea! I remember. I did not want you to go." + +"And I insisted. You know why now." + +"Yes! I know why now." + +Gordon repeated her words with a shiver. If only he had understood her +a little better, he thought. + +Kate hardly noticed his interruption. She was staring straight into +the fire and speaking in a dull monotone, with no spring in her voice. +She would have spared him now, had she been able, but she felt +irresistibly impelled to lay all her disloyalty bare before his +eyes--to show him at how empty a shrine he had been worshipping. It +seemed to her almost as if some stronger will was prompting her, and +the very sound of her words was thin and strange to her ears, as +though some one else was speaking them at a great distance. + +"Yes," she continued, "I wanted to get away from you--to slip out of +my shackles for a time. So I went to Poonah, and--and there I found +Austen." + +"Austen! Austen!" Gordon burst out in a frenzy. "For God's sake, don't +call him that!" and he brought his clenched fist down on the table +with all his strength. The glasses on it rattled at the blow, and the +tumbler which Hawke had used, standing close at the edge, fell and +splintered on the floor. Gordon laughed at the sight. + +"That was his glass," he explained. "He was here to-night, drinking +with me," and he laughed again, harshly. + +The girl hurriedly drew her skirts away from the broken fragments. + +"I am sorry," Gordon said, recovering his composure, "I interrupted +you. Go on!" + +But there was a new hardness in his tone. Kate remarked it, and it +grated on her painfully after his forbearance. She paused for a +moment, looking at him anxiously. But he made no further sign, and she +took up the burden of her tale again. + +"There I found Mr. Hawke. I don't think I had ever given a thought to +him before. But from this time he began to influence me, because of +the difference between yourself and him. He paid me no respect, no +deference, and outwardly, indeed, no attention; but all the time I +felt that he was consciously and deliberately taking possession of me, +and I made no struggle to resist him. He became my master--imposed +himself upon me until I lost the sense of responsibility for my own +actions. It was not that he gave me orders or even suggested them, but +somehow I always realised what he wanted me to do, and did it. And I +knew besides that he was conscious of my submission and counted on +it." + +Kate had relapsed into the impersonal commonplace manner which had +characterised her speech before Gordon broke in. The words fell from +her lips in a level regularity, without rise or fall, and she was +abstractedly smoothing out one of the broad ribbons of her sash--an +old trick of hers, very familiar to her listener. For all the emotion +that she showed she might have been dissecting the character of an +uninteresting acquaintance. + +"So that is the way for men to win women!" + +"Some women, yes!" + +"Well, there is nothing like buying one's experience, they say." + +The attempt at sarcasm only served to reveal the intensity of Gordon's +suffering. He was sitting with his body bent forward and his chin +pressed against his chest; his hands were clenched between his knees, +and his whole attitude told of the strain his self-repression caused +him. + +"Go on," he muttered. + +"I have told you enough," she exclaimed, tossed out of her apathy by a +sudden comprehension of the torture her story inflicted. + +"No! no!" Gordon replied, hoarsely. "Go on! Go on and finish it!" + +"Well," she continued, her voice sinking into a tremulous whisper, +"one evening I was left in the house alone. The rest had gone out to a +dance, but I was worn out by the heat, and remained at home. It was +very hot; there was hardly a breath of air, I remember, and I curled +myself up in a long chair on the verandah and fell fast asleep. I was +awakened by some one pulling my hair, and when I looked up I saw who +it was." + +"How long was that before you left India?" + +"Two months." + +"And during those two months you kept writing home to me and saying +how slowly the time passed." + +Gordon spoke with an accent of incredulous wonder. Each moment thrust +a new inconceivable fact before his eyes, and forced him to +contemplate it. He felt that his world was toppling in ruins about +him, much as it had done in that first year of his University life. + +"That was not my fault," the girl exclaimed. "He made me do it. I +wanted to write to you and break the engagement off; but he would not +let me. I suppose he was afraid I should bother him to marry me +himself," she concluded, contemptuously. + +"And you obeyed him in that, too?" + +"I tell you, I was at his mercy. He did what he liked with me. He made +me write those letters to you;" and she added, with a certain +softness, "and in a way, too, I was glad he did." + +"Why?" + +"Because even then I was afraid of him. I distrusted him, and you +seemed a kind of anchor for me, and every letter an extra link in the +cable." + +The words touched Gordon strangely. The surface implication that he +was valued merely as a convenient refuge from the consequences of +folly did not occur to him. He applied a deeper meaning to them, and +fancied that she had been willing to retain her hold on him for much +the same reason which had made him cling to her--out of an instinctive +need to feel something stable in a world of shadow. She had taken an +open knife from the table and was mechanically tracing with its point +the crimson lines upon her dress, and he thought her tired +helplessness was the saddest sight man could ever see. Sentences out +of the letters came back to him. + +"So, in a way," he said, almost with a smile, "you meant what you +wrote." + +"Yes! What I wrote. But I wrote so little of them myself. I mean," she +went on, noticing the surprise in the other's face, "I put the words +down. He dictated them." + +"What!" + +A sudden fury seized upon Gordon. For the first time since he had been +talking with Kate, he realised Hawke the man, a living treacherous +being, flesh and blood, that could be crushed and killed. The idea +sent a thrill through his veins. The lust for revenge sprang up, +winged and armed, in a flame of hatred. His imagination pictured the +scene, clear cut as a cameo; he saw the keen, pointed face bending +over Kate's shoulder; he heard him unctuously rolling out loving +phrases, savouring them as he spoke, and chuckling over the deceit. + +He turned on Kate in a frenzy. + +"He dictated them; and he laughed as he did it, I suppose. Did he +laugh? Tell me! Did he laugh?" + +Gordon shook the girl's arm savagely, his face livid and working with +passion. His aspect terrified her. She dared not tell him the truth, +and she turned away with a shudder. + +"That is answer enough," and he dropped her arm and began again pacing +about the room. Now, however, he walked quietly and softly, with his +shoulders rounded and his head thrust forward. His lips were drawn +back from his teeth, and there was something catlike in his tread, +which reminded Kate irresistibly of Hawke. Indeed, to her fevered +eyes, he began to change and to grow like his enemy in face and +bearing. + +"Don't," she whispered. "You frighten me. You remind me of him." + +The words recalled Gordon to himself. There was something else he +wished to know. What was it? He beat his forehead with the palms of +his hands in the effort to recollect. If only he could banish Hawke +from his mind until she had gone! At last the question took shape. + +"The letters he was reading to you?" + +"They were notes and appointments written when we were both at +Poonah," she answered, submissively. "I never thought that he would +keep them, though I might have known he would." + +"And the three he has still?" + +"They were the only real letters I ever wrote to him. There were four, +but I burned one to-night." + +"Yes! I saw." + +"I wrote them on the way home, from Calcutta, Aden, Brindisi and the +last from London the evening I arrived." + +"You have never written since?" + +"Never! Nor have I seen him since until he compelled me to come +to-night." + +She stopped suddenly, as if some new idea had crossed her mind. In a +moment, however, she began again, but she was speaking to herself. + +"No. I had to come. There was no other way. I dared not leave those +letters in his hands. Oh! how I hate him!" + +She uttered the words with a slow intensity which enforced conviction, +looking straight at Gordon; and he saw a flame commence to glow in the +depths of her eyes and spread until her whole face was ablaze with it. + +"Do you mean that?" he queried, almost eagerly. + +"Can you doubt it?" she replied, starting to her feet. "Oh, yes, you +would! I forgot. Oh, David, if only you had understood me better!" + +It was what he had been saying to himself, with a deep self-reproach, +and her repetition of his thought, coupled with a weary gesture of +despair, exaggerated the feeling on him by the addition of a very +lively pity. + +"So that is true, then?" he asked, hesitatingly. "You no longer care +for him?" + +The mere weakness of the question betokened a mind in doubt, as to its +choice of action, betrayed a certain tentative indecision. + +"I never really cared for him," she answered. + +A look of actual gladness showed in the man's face. They were standing +opposite to one another, and the girl shut her eyelids tight, as if +the sight hurt her. + +"That pleases you!" she exclaimed, twisting her hands convulsively. +"Ah! Don't you understand? It is the most horrible part of it all to +me--that I never cared for him. It doubles my shame. He dominated me +when he was with me, close to me, by my side; but I never cared for +him. I had realised that by the time I reached England, and my last +letter was to tell him so." + +Her whole attitude expressed humiliation. Had she been able to look +back upon a passion overmastering both Hawke and herself, and +encircling them in a ring of flame which, by its very brightness, made +the world beyond look colourless and empty, she could have found some +plea to alleviate her consciousness of guilt. As it was, however, the +episode appeared nakedly sordid to her recollection, unredeemed by +even a flavour of romance. + +"So you never really cared for him!" + +Gordon's earnest insistence struck her as singular. He seemed to have +taken no note of the last words, but dwelt upon that one point--clung +to it, it appeared. What difference could it make to him, she +wondered, whether she had cared or not; the sin lay between them none +the less. She watched his face for the solution. Perplexity was shown +in the contracted forehead and in a tremulous twitching of the lips. +As a matter of fact, Gordon was hunting a will-o'-the-wisp of hope, +and it had led him to the brink of a resolve. Should he take the leap, +or soberly decline it! He hesitated, half made up his mind, took one +short halting step towards Kate and stopped, checked by a new thought. + +"You said you would have broken off our engagement had he allowed +you!" + +"Yes! I said that." + +"Why didn't you when you returned to England and felt free from him?" + +The girl gained a hint of his drift more from his manner than his +question, and answered him warily, with a spark of hope. + +"Because, as I told you, I relied on you so much, and I felt the need +of some one I could trust more than ever then. Besides, every one +approved of the marriage." + +An abrupt movement warned her that she had chosen a wrong turning. A +quick traverse, however, brought her out upon the right road again. + +"It is not so easy for a girl to cut the knot. She must find +explanations to justify her--valid not only to her parents, but to the +man. And I knew you would not let me go so lightly. I knew that I +meant all the world to you." + +She paused, but Gordon gave no sign, and she repeated her words with a +nervous smile. + +"It sounds queer, but it is true all the same. I knew that I meant all +the world to you." + +Again she waited, but with a like result. He was still pondering, +still in doubt. The way in which he drew his breath, now in short, +jerky catches, now in a long, labouring sigh, made that plain to her. +Her shot had failed of its aim. + +A sudden gust of the wind brought the rustle of the trees through the +open door. Kate looked at the clock; the hands made one threatening +line. + +"Two o'clock!" she cried, with a start. "I must get back to Keswick +while they are still asleep--asleep." She spoke the word again with a +melancholy longing in her voice which was indescribably sad. + +"You will write, then," she resumed, "and break it off." + +Gordon nodded assent, and she turned away in search for something. + +The action helped to decide Gordon by pointing out the necessity of +decision. What course should he take? He had thought to choose his +path on careful reflection when Kate was on her way back to Keswick; +but he saw now that would be too late. It would be time enough then to +consider the consequences of his choice, how best to cope with them +and force them to his service; but the choice itself could not be +deferred. For if he let her go quietly without another word the matter +would be settled finally, the choice determined, a prison wall raised +to further effort. What course should he take? The question pressed +urgently for an immediate answer. + +He went to the door and out into the porch. The sudden slip into night +seemed to him a symbol of what his life would mean if he kept silence. +His mind played with the idea and carried it further. It pictured him +standing alone in the empty darkness and the girl behind him alone in +the empty light. The beck, too, at the back of the house, whispered +its music in his ears and pleaded with him. + +A timid hand was laid on his arm: Kate was by his side. + +"David!" + +"I was listening to the brook," he said. + +For a while they both stood quiet in the gloom of the porch. + +"What do you hear in it?" he asked. + +"I dare not tell you. What do you?" + +"I hear all my days to come flowing down and down with a sound of +tears." + +"David!" she said, her voice breaking on the name. + +He had often noticed the wonderful clearness of her eyes, and they +shone very softly on him now. He drew her towards him in the gloom of +the porch. + +"Kitty!" he whispered, "tell me that it isn't true! Tell me I have +been dreaming! I will believe you. I must believe you. For if I lose +faith in you, I lose faith in everything. You have been the light of +my life, making the world real. If that dies out, I live in the dark, +always." + +Her heart sank lower with every word he uttered. She had hoped for +forgiveness, for a recognition of the dead sin, with a belief in an +atoning future. But he gave her no hint of that. Nay, his very phrases +proved that the conception was beyond his reach. "If I lose faith in +you, I lose faith in everything." The sentence showed the exotic +sickliness of his faith, demonstrated it no vital inherent part of him +rooted in his being, but an alien graft watered and kept alive by his +passion. He had not the sturdiness to accept the facts, nor the +sincerity to foresee the possibility of redemption. He would marry +her. Yes! But his motive was an instinct of self-preservation rather +than his love for her. She would still have to pose upon her pedestal, +apeing the stainless goddess; he would still have to kneel at her +feet, apeing the worshipper; and both in their hearts would know the +hollowness of their pretence. + +Kate realised the futility of such a marriage, and looking forward, +caught a glimpse of the day when the sham would shred and vanish +before the truth, like a morning mist at sunrise. + +Gordon felt her whole frame relax and draw away from him. He clasped +her hands; there was no response in them. He held her closer, placed +one hand behind her head and turned her face up towards him, while the +warm curls nestled and twined about his fingers. + +"Kitty! Why don't you answer? Tell me that it isn't true! Every belief +I have depends on that." + +"Oh! Don't make me responsible for everything," she replied, with a +flash of her old petulance. "I am only one woman in the world." + +"But the only woman in the world for me. You know it. You said so +yourself. Tell me that it isn't true! Lie to me, if you must!" he +added, with a passionate cry. "I will believe the lie." + +"That could be of no use either to you or to me." + +She spoke coldly, with the familiar feeling of repugnance reawakened +by his effort to canonise her afresh. Besides, the knowledge of the +truth vibrated in every tone of his voice, and his despairing resolve +to crush and drown that knowledge added a sense of mockery to her +repulsion. + +"That could be of no use," she said. "There was just a chance of our +joining hands again, but what you have said has destroyed it." + +"I don't understand." + +"You may some day." + +"It _is_ true," she resumed. "All that you saw, all that you heard +Austen Hawke say, all that I have told you--every word of it is true." + +She turned from him and went back into the room, while Gordon sank +upon the low coping of the garden fence. + +The girl came out to him again after a while. + +"Have you seen my shawl? I can't find it." + +"Did you bring it away from the Inn?" Gordon asked, dully. + +The question made Kate start. She must have left it there. + +"Never mind," Gordon said; "I will get it back with the letters." + +He passed through the porch and took down a lanthorn from a nail in +the wall. + +"I will come up with you to the head of the Pass." + +"Don't light it," she said. "It might be seen." + +Very well! + +He was on the point of replacing it, but stopped and asked-- + +"Did you bring one with your horse?" + +"No!" + +"Then I had better take it. It will keep you from stumbling when you +are riding home. There is a scarf on the sofa." + +Kate twisted it over her head and they passed out softly into the +lane. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +The wind had dropped with the advance of morning, and only +an impalpable breath--a faint reminiscence of the wind it +seemed--stirring the larch-clumps, dotted here and there along the +lower edges of their path, broke the stillness for a moment as they +passed. They paused by the side of a watercourse which, descending +from Great Gable, the mountain on their left, cut through the track on +its way to the centre of the valley and caused a gap of some fifty +feet. Stones planted at intervals uncertainly in the stream gave an +insecure footing, and afforded the only traverse to the opposite side; +and in the darkness their position was dimly shown, or, rather, could +be hazily guessed at, by little points of white where the water +swirled and broke about them. + +"I must have crossed it when I came," said Kate, blankly. "But I don't +remember. I don't seem to have noticed it at all. I should slip on the +stepping-stones now." + +"Let me carry you over!" + +"No!" she replied quickly. "I crossed it safely before. I can do the +same again." + +There was a greater confidence in her words than in her voice, and she +still hesitated on the brink. Instinctively she laid a hand upon +Gordon's sleeve for steadiness, but drew it away hurriedly when she +felt the contact of his arm. Her companion renewed his offer of help, +but, without answering him, she stepped forward on to the nearest +boulder. Her foot, set down timidly, slipped on its polished +roundness. Gordon, however, was alert to her fatigue, and his arm was +round her waist before she had completely lost her balance. + +"Lean towards me," he said, and lightly lifted her back on to the +bank. She remained for a second in his support, lulled by a physical +feeling of security induced in her by the strong clasp of his arm. +Then she freed herself almost roughly, and silently faced the stream +again. + +"It will be best if I go first," said Gordon. "I can give you a hand +then." + +"Is there no other crossing?" she asked, straining her gaze vainly up +and down the stream. + +"No! Surely you can take that much help from me." + +He planted himself as firmly as he could, Colossus-wise on the rocks. + +"All right!" he said, and stretched out a hand towards her. She took +it reluctantly and made a second trial, wavered as she reached the +stone on which she had slipped, and secured her balance by tightening +her grasp. So they proceeded until a wider interval than usual flowed +between their footholds. + +Gordon turned his head round to her. + +"You must let go of me here!" + +"Must I?" + +"Yes! or I may slip and drag you in." + +She only realised how hard had been her grip when she relaxed it, and +the consequent knowledge of the assistance she had needed gave her a +momentary sense of loneliness now that it was removed. Gordon was just +able to bridge the distance between the boulders with the full reach +of his stride. That on which he now stood, however, was flat and +broad, a platform that gave sure footing. + +"You will have to spring," he cried. "I can catch you. I am solid +enough here." + +"I can't," she replied, "I daren't move." + +She stood looking into the water bubbling at her feet, and its swift +flow made her feel giddy and insecure. + +"What am I to do?" she cried plaintively. + +"You must jump," Gordon answered. "It is the only way. Jump boldly! +Don't be afraid, I will catch you." + +The ring of confidence in his voice enheartened her, and she tried to +face the leap, but recoiled from it. Why had she refused his offer, +was her first thought; why had he not renewed it, her second. The +stone on which she was standing rolled with the movement, and she +uttered a cry. + +"Dav--," she began, and shore the name of its tail. + +In a moment he was by her side, standing on the bed of the channel and +the water up to his thighs. The girl clung to him. + +"I seem to have lost my nerve altogether," and she essayed a laugh +unsuccessfully. + +"You are tired, that's all." + +"Yes, I am tired," she answered, "very tired." + +And she leaned her weight upon him, resting her arm on his shoulders. +Their muscular breadth renewed in her the feeling of protection, and +she waited expectantly for him to propose again to carry her, or, +better still, to just lift her up without a word and so spare her a +repast of her own words. To all seeming, however, Gordon was waiting +too. "He means the request to come from me," she thought. As a matter +of fact, nothing was farther from his reflections. The experience of +the past few hours had rendered the perfect control of his faculties +impossible, and the shuttles in the loom of his mind, set at work by +the touch of any chance suggestion, were weaving his thoughts in a +grotesque inconsequence. The tension of her attitude recalled the +pedestal on which he had perched her, as she said, to the undoing of +them both. He had a vision of a pair of tiny feet, delicately shod in +grey kid slippers, straining to fix high heels firmly on a smooth +sloping surface. + +Kate threw out a more patent suggestion. + +"I am very tired, and this stone is not over restful." + +"I was just thinking," he answered abstractedly, "it must be as +awkward as my pedestal." + +The unconscious sarcasm stung her to the quick. + +"Don't laugh at me!" she pleaded, and realised that she was pleading. + +"Laugh at you?" he replied. "Good God! I have got to finish my laugh +at myself first, and I think it will take me all my life." + +"For believing in me?" she asked rather sadly. The bitterness of his +remark seemed to show her that he grasped at last the full folly of +his faith in her. It was the goal at which she had been aiming, and +yet, now that it was reached, she felt a keen pang of regret. + +"No! For demanding so much myself." + +The knowledge that she had mistaken his meaning gratified her and, +indeed, raised him in her respect. The words, spoken at another time, +would only have served to strengthen her old conception of him, and to +justify that lurking contempt for his humility which formed a factor +in her ready reliance upon his services. Now, however, she stood in +sore need of his help; he was there dominating her plainly by the +superiority of his physical strength, and he could afford to be +humble, nay, rather bettered his position by the contrast. + +Kate gave in and said weakly: + +"I am afraid that I shall have to ask you to carry me across after +all." + +"It is what I came back for," he answered, no suspicion of her +thoughts occurring to him. He lifted her slight figure with an absence +of effort or jerk which told of practised sinews, and Kate clasped her +hands behind his neck and nestled down into his arms with a child's +sigh of content. To Gordon the sigh conveyed no direct or immediate +meaning. His fanciful tendency to symbolism made it expressive only of +the relief she had experienced on stepping down from her pedestal. + +Had he but known it, however, he was nearer to her heart than he had +ever been. He was showing himself in the man's shape which most +appealed to her. He was the protector, not the attendant, with +strength to be appreciated as masterful, not to be carelessly used and +forgotten. Had he stopped dead in mid-stream and asserted his cause +with a like mental force, claiming her and her sins to himself with +the courage of a confident love, he would have undone the harm of his +maladroit pleading in the porch. + +It was the crucial moment of his life. But his dominance was of the +body, not the spirit, and he passed through it without an inkling of +its importance. + +The next moment he reached the farther bank and set her silently on +the ground, apart from him. + +From this point the path rose steeply along the side of Great Gable, +and as they mounted, the brisk freshness of the air revived the girl's +languid spirits. Her lassitude and the feeling of helpless weakness +which it engendered gradually gave place to a lively buoyancy. A new +vigour entered her limbs. Gordon was walking a few paces ahead of her, +the lanthorn swinging at his side on a shoulder-strap, and now and +again he turned to help her over some rough portion of the track. But +the way was almost as familiar to her as it was to him, and as they +rose she needed his assistance less and less. The limpid clearness of +the night, too, contributed in no small measure to this invigoration +of her nature. The sky was unstained by a cloud, and glittered with a +multitude of stars that shone like points of silver, so that the +darkness below had a certain translucency. One seemed to see right +into the heart of the night; at the same time, the landmarks and +boundary walls in the valley--always productive of a sense of +limit--were invisible, and the very mountains appeared but deeper +shadows, a massing of the darkness, as it were, at separate spots, +with here and there a gap from the faint glimmer of a snowdrift. The +journey thus appealed to Kate's senses by its aspect of spaciousness +and filled her with a new and strange feeling of liberty. The feeling +penetrated to her mind and set in motion a train of thought which, in +turn, gave back to it a fresh strength and colour. A consciousness of +distinct relief forced itself into evidence as the main result to her +of Gordon's chance visit to Wastdale Head, and obliterated to a great +degree the shame of the disclosures which had paved the way for it. +She was free alike from the brutal authority of Austen Hawke and from +the irksome tyranny of Gordon's adoration; for the former's power +rested upon its concealment and was killed by Gordon's discovery of +its existence. Every trace of it would vanish when he recovered the +three remaining letters. Of the means by which they were to be +regained she took no more thought than Gordon at this time did +himself. She was too absorbed by her newly-found freedom to foresee +the possibility of danger there. Its forcible pre-occupation of her +mind indeed blinded her to all ideas which hinted antagonism. She +barely wasted a conjecture on the pretext which her companion would +select for the breaking off of their engagement almost on the eve of +their marriage. She just caught a dim glimpse of him taking the blame +upon himself, and was restfully content to leave the exact solution in +his hands. "I will spare you altogether," he had said; and she knew +him well enough for complete assurance that he would keep his word. +That she owed her liberty entirely to the generosity of her lover, she +hardly felt at all now; from habit, she was incapable of accounting +that quality of his at its true value. For a moment, it is true, at +the outset of her interview with him in the farm-house, she +appreciated with some accuracy the measure of his devotion; but this +estimation was due merely to the immediate succession of his presence +to that of Hawke and to the pronounced contrast between their +attitudes. As their conversation wore on, however, his voice, his +words, and certain tricks of manner, gradually brought back to her the +familiar conceptions of character which she had always associated with +them. And in consequence of the return of those conceptions, the old +habit of expecting sacrifices from him as his usual tribute reasserted +itself afresh. Her sense of liberty was thus unmarred by doubts or +fears, and the rebound of her nature from a preceding despair gave to +it a double exhilaration. She drank in the night air with a keen +pleasure, its brisk sharpness seeming somehow to harmonise with her +thoughts. She would begin her life anew to-morrow, using her knowledge +as a clear light for the guiding of her steps. She had a vision of +morning mists clearing off a long white road and leaving it vividly +distinct--a road in Normandy. + +The influence of the hour and the locality was no less predominant +over her fellow-traveller, but it led his thoughts in a far opposite +direction. All the way up that wearisome ascent he was strewing his +steps with the dead leaves of his illusions. The edifice of idealism +which he had built up, fancy upon fancy, with such care and such +seeming solidity, crumbled in an irresistible decay and forced him to +the contemplation of its ruins. And the surrounding space, shapeless +and empty of life, stimulated his poignant sense of desolation. He +tried to picture and place actual features of the dale, to map out the +darkness by his recollections of what it hid. Across there would be +the dark mouth of Peer's Ghyll; or had he passed it?--above his head +the cliffs of Great Gable, with its familiar Pinnacle; now he should +be opposite the bathing-pool at the bottom of the valley. But it was +all uncertainty and surmise, and so far was Gordon from drawing solace +from his conjectures, that the intervening gloom, by its sensuous +effect, helped largely to re-animate and nurse his old belief in the +shifty unreality of things. He came to feel certain of nothing except +the narrow strip of path he trod and the light footsteps behind which +were following him for the last time, and of which the sound to his +ears was exquisitely sad. + +They had reached the highest point of the track, where two masses of +rock, ranged on either side, form a ruined gateway to the Pass. From +there the ground slopes quickly to the Styhead Tarn, and as they +skirted its edge they heard the welcoming neigh of Kate's horse. It +was tied to the far end of a primitive footbridge which spans the beck +in the valley but a few yards beyond. Gordon lit the lanthorn and +fastened it to the saddle, and, standing on the end of the bridge, +lifted the girl on to the horse's back. For a moment they remained +there, she in the shadow, he with the light streaming full on his +face, and then without a word Kate gathered up the reins and rode off +eastwards along the Pass. She felt that he was still standing on the +bridge in the darkness, but she never turned her head. After a while, +she heard him cry out her name "Kitty!" The sound echoed down the +hollow in a despairing wail, like a death-cry, and was faintly +repeated by the mountains that closed her in, but she only pressed her +horse the harder, and rode more steadily towards her home. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +In a sense, indeed, it was a death-cry that she heard. For Gordon, as +he watched her ride away, and listened to the lanthorn clanking +against the saddle, knew that his real self went with her. + +The extended sympathy for his fellows which he had fostered during +these last two years, his interest in their comings and goings, his +ambitions and his assiduous patience in straining after their +attainment--in fact, the finer qualities of his nature seemed not +merely to have been awakened by his one great passion, but to have +gained their being from it and to be dependent upon it for their life. +They were, if one may use the phrase, the reflex of his imaginative +belief in the worth of his mistress--a belief founded purely upon +sentiment and sustained by misconceptions of different points in her +bearing, such as a certain air of disdain she habitually wore, which +was in itself only the result of a fastidious intuition in matters of +taste and the like, and which Gordon mistook for the visible sign of +an innate superiority. + +And so this mute farewell meant something more to him than even the +final parting from the woman he loved; it was also a parting from his +gentler nature. All that there was of goodness and truth in him had +come into his life through Kate Nugent, and now that she took her gift +back with her as she went, she left him stripped almost of his +humanity, bare and scarred as the rugged crags surrounding him. So +intense and poignant grew the feeling of his loss, that he came to +fancy, with the imagery peculiar to his bent, that his very soul was +the flame of the candle in the lanthorn, which he saw, like a red +star, moving farther and farther into the distance. + +He made one last spasmodic effort, like a dying man clutching at his +life. He ran forward in a mad revolt, and the well-loved name sprang +to his lips. "Kitty!" he shouted, his whole being in the cry. But no +answer came back to him; he heard the lanthorn still faintly clanking +against the saddle, and the mountains drearily mocking him with their +melancholy repetition of his word, while the light went steadily +dwindling down the Pass--a pin's head of fire. + +For a moment he waited stone-still, staring after it, and then flung +himself face-downwards in the bracken, tearing the roots convulsively +with his fingers. A savage fury seized him and ran through his veins +like a flame, demanding action and retaliation. Any passive return to +the old trough of his cynicism was barred by a clear consciousness of +what might have been had Kate but matched his truth to her with a like +truth to him, and by an exaggerated self-reproach which led him still +to fix the chief blame for her treachery upon his own failure to +understand her. But there was another man to share his blame. The +thought swept down upon him--a black whirlwind blotting out even the +image of Kate. If he had erred himself, it was through excess of +chivalry; he could, at all events, plead that. But Hawke! Gordon was +unable to think of him; he only saw him a sinister picture of malice +and craft, and as he looked he became filled with a venom of hate. +Hawke's face rose before his mind, every feature magnified and stamped +with the brand of his character, and remained fixed in full view +leering at him. Gordon's loathing grew until he felt sick with the +strength of it. He sprang hastily to his feet. The night was very +clear, and low down to the ground a spark was just visible in the far +distance. But he did not look that way; he turned his back towards +Keswick and blindly, with stumbling steps, descended into Wastdale +towards his enemy. And all the length of that path Hawke's face bore +him company. + + + * * * * * + + +It was close upon four when Kate started off upon her long ride, and, +with the knowledge that she had no time to spare, she urged her horse +on at a greater speed than the roughness of the Pass made prudent. +Once, indeed, at the far end, when the track takes a sudden turn at +right angles to its previous course, and begins to wind down into +Borrowdale, she barely escaped a heavy fall, and was only saved by the +quick recovery of the beast she rode. At the bottom of the decline, +however, after crossing Stockley Bridge, the path widens out on to +more level ground. But it runs through pastures, and Kate's progress +was impeded by a succession of gates which, since she carried no crop, +compelled her to dismount to open them. But by the time she had +reached Sea Toller--the long white house, lying two miles from the +base of Styhead--the difficulties of her journey were ended. A firm, +broad road led straight from that point over the nine miles which +separated Kate from Keswick, and she roused her horse to a gallop. The +animal stretched itself out in a full stride as if it realised the +need for haste, making the night air ring with the clatter of its +hoofs, and it seemed to Kate that barely a minute could have passed +before she burst through the little village of Rosthwaite. + +This quick approach to home, however, plunged a new fear into her +breast. + +What if her family had discovered her absence? + +The question was a fever to her blood. At the time she had set off +from Keswick the chance of that discovery had appeared to her the +least of the dangers that she ran, so completely had she been +engrossed by the necessity of regaining her letters; and, besides, she +had laid her plans carefully, with perfect confidence in the fidelity +of the groom. Afterwards, at Wastdale, the hurry of events had +obscured her to all speculation on the matter, compelling a +concentration of her faculties upon immediate issues. Now, however, +she began to see a hundred threatening possibilities. + +She had pleaded a headache. What more likely than that her father or +her aunt should have come to her room to inquire after her before they +went to bed? Her father?--she dismissed him with a moment's +reflection. The good man took life and his daughter's ailments easily. +But her aunt! Kate remembered with a shiver that she was a +homoeopathist. She was bound to have inquired. She could not enter the +room, it is true, for Kate had locked the door and held the key safe +in her pocket. + +She felt in her dress suddenly, half-expecting to find that she had +dropped it. It was safe, however, and she experienced a relief; but +the relief was only momentary. + +For the window of her bedroom opened level on to the garden. A lucky +advantage, she had considered it before, as affording an easy egress +and return. Now it seemed to her the most vulnerable point in her +plan. For if her aunt made inquiries at the door, and received no +answer, she had but to step into the garden to solve her perplexities. +A passing vision of an old lady in bedroom slippers padding over the +grass with a box of pills failed to distract her. Kate sent her wits +abroad on the wings of fear in search of excuses, but they returned to +her empty-handed. Her dread was, moreover, accentuated by a retrospect +upon the other dangers of that night. Her successful evasion of them +only made this last risk loom the larger. + +The nearer she drew towards home, the more it overshadowed her. When +she crossed the marsh land at the end of the Lake, discovery had +already become the probability; by the time she passed Lodore, a +certainty, and when she topped Castle Hill, just above Keswick town, +she strained her eyes towards the water's edge, fully expecting to see +every window of their house ablaze with light. + +All was in darkness, however, except for one faint glimmer, which Kate +guessed came from the stables. The revulsion of feeling which she +underwent acted on her like a shock, and she reined up her horse +and clung to the saddle, dizzy. In the hollow a clock chimed the +half-hour, lifting a silvery encouragement, and she moved on again +slowly down the hill. Some twenty yards from the front of the house +she dismounted, led the horse into a lane which gave on to the road, +crossed a paddock at the back of the garden, and reached the stables, +which stood apart from the main building. The light which she had +noticed came from the harness-room; she tapped softly on the +window-pane and was answered by a low growl, followed by a sharp +"Quiet!" + +Immediately afterwards the door was opened cautiously, and the groom +Martin appeared and led the horse in quietly. Kate followed him and +closed the door. + +"What time is it?" she asked, in a whisper. + +"Just gone half-past five, Miss." + +"Has any one--I mean, no one has noticed my absence?" + +Martin reassured her, with a touch of patronage in his tone, which a +cockney deficiency of aspirates made singularly unpalatable. She +turned to the collie; he had followed Martin from the harness-room and +was wisely superintending the proceedings with his ear cocked and his +head on one side. + +"You brought Charlie in." + +"Yes, Miss! I dursn't leave him in the yard. He mightn't have known +your footsteps at once." + +"That was thoughtful of you." The dog took the compliment to itself +after the fashion of its kind, and showed his appreciation by planting +his forepaws as high up on her as he could, and stretching itself +lazily. + +"Thank you very much," said Kate. "Good night!" and she hurried across +the yard, pursued by a whispered-- + +"You 're very welcome, Miss, I'm sure." + +A wicket-gate gave her entrance into the garden, and she crept softly +to the window of her bedroom, and opened it with a palpitating heart. +Nothing, however, had been disarranged, the room was as she had left +it. She did not dare to risk a light, but flung off her clothes +quickly in the dark, unlocked the door, and tumbled into bed. For a +long time sleep would not come to her in spite of her fatigue. She +heard the clock strike six, and then half-past. For now that she +herself was safe, her thoughts unconsciously reverted to Gordon. She +saw his face again framed in the darkness, as the light fell on it +from her lanthorn, and wondered whether he was still on the bridge, +looking eastwards down the Pass. That last cry of his recurred to her. +"Kitty!" The name rang in her ears, stretched out into a threnody. She +tried to flee from it, and it pursued her, now swelling into the deep +peal of an organ-note, now sinking into a pitiful wail. And it was not +merely the cry she heard, but Gordon's voice in it, vibrating with its +hopeless misery. For a time it accused her sharply, but with continual +repetition began to lose its meaning. The girl started to murmur the +word to herself mechanically, in an undertone of accompaniment. +Finally it became a lullabye, and so hymned her to sleep. + +"Kitty!" + +Was she destined to hear it all her life, Kate questioned on the +borderland of sleep. + +"Kitty!" + +A hand was laid on her shoulder and she woke with a start. A +girl-cousin, one of the intending bridesmaids, was standing by her +bedside. + +"How startled you look!" + +"I thought you were----" Kate checked herself in confusion, and a peal +of laughter rippled through the room. It warned her of the part she +had to play. + +"What time is it?" she asked hastily. + +"Ten o'clock! Your aunt would not have you called before. How is your +head?" + +Kate asserted complete recovery and proceeded to dress, though with a +languid dilatoriness which belied her statement. The house was nearly +full of her women-folk relations, and she dreaded to face them. She +looked at herself in the mirror and fancied every one would read her +night's ride in her jaded pallor and the shadows about her eyes. Even +her father noticed them when she entered the breakfast-room, with a +"You don't look over bright, Kitty!" The company was assembled in full +force about the table, and she had to run the gauntlet of their +smirking condolements. "Never mind. I will put you right. It's bile." +Homoeopathy smiled comfortably from behind the tea-urn, and Kate for +the first time thanked Providence for the birth of Dr. Hahnemann. She +noticed with relief that the meal was nearly over, but gained no +respite thereby. For, after breakfast, there were new presents to be +inspected and acclaimed--noticeably one from Poonah, a jade idol of +most admired ugliness. Kate explained her shiver of repulsion by the +carven malice of its features. Then followed consultations upon +frocks, interspersed with eulogies of David and predictions of the +happiness in store for well-assorted couples, plainly calling for +enthusiastic answers nicely tempered by a diffident modesty. At times, +indeed, the task almost exceeded her powers of endurance, and she felt +madly spurred to hurl the truth like a bombshell into the midst of the +flummery. She restrained herself, however, drawing a faint solace of +amusement from a mental picture of the resultant chaos, and somehow or +another the day wore on to its close. "They will know in the morning," +she reflected. But she was mistaken. It was not until the third day +that the news of the liberation came. + + + * * * * * + + +Gordon quickened his pace as he reached the basin of the valley under +an apprehension lest he should find the farm people already risen. +For, although it was still quite dark, there was all around him that +universal movement, as if the earth itself were stirring from its +sleep, which tells of an approaching dawn. The last two fields he +covered at a run and regained the farm only to discover that his fears +were groundless. The lamp in his parlour was still alight, but +beginning to flicker for want of replenishing. Gordon cautiously +opened the door at the foot of the staircase and listened. But he +could hear nothing but his own breathing; evidently no one was moving +as yet. He returned into the room to blow out the lamp, but was +checked by the sight of his writing case on a cabinet against the +wall. He went to it, drew out a packet of letters, and, pulling up a +chair to the table, read, by the last spurts of the light, those which +Kate had sent to him from Poonah. How blind he must have been, he +thought. Why, effort was visible in every line of them, coldness +seeking to screen itself beneath a wealth of phrases. He commenced to +speculate curiously which portions were Hawke's dictation and which +her own work; otherwise the letters awakened no feeling in him. +Phrases here and there fixed his attention. "You came into my life +like a ray of sunlight into a musty room." Yes! Hawke would have +invented that, knowing how it would appeal to him. And, again, "I feel +that I can rely on you whatever comes"--a postscript, scribbled +hastily and smudged, evidently Kate's own, and written covertly in +Hawke's presence. The extinction of the lamp put an end to this +unprofitable investigation, and Gordon gathered the letters together, +placed them in the grate, and set them ablaze. He waited until the +last spark had died out and a heap of black flaky ashes was all that +was left of the false tokens which he had treasured as sacred, and +then crept cautiously up to his room. For some time he remained by his +window, thinking. He noticed the angle in the barn-wall from which +Hawke had darted out, and it seemed to him that the century might well +have run to its end since then. His mind wandered to a side-issue, +jumping at a stray suggestion that Time was held to mark age only +because it represented the conventional progress of self-knowledge. + +But what if the knowledge of twenty years were crowded into one night? +Gordon felt that that had been the case with him. He understood so +much now; for instance, the fancy which had fleetingly occurred to him +that they both had been brought into the isolation of that valley to +work out a predestined purpose. He understood that purpose, could +explain it, and would demonstrate his explanation to the other's +ignorance tomorrow. A gradual fading of colour from the sky made him +correct himself. "To-day," he murmured, with something of quiet +exultation in his voice. Only he must spare Kate; no suspicion must be +allowed to connect her with the solution of his problem. "I feel that +I can rely on you whatever comes," she had written. Well, he must +prove to her that she was right--some way or another. The sound of +movement in the interior of the house brought him back to the present +and hinted the advantage of rest. So Gordon went to bed and slept +dreamlessly until the sun stood high above the shoulder of Great End. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +As Gordon was breakfasting next morning, the door was thrown open and +Hawke strolled in from the lane. + +"Well, have you got over your fatigue yet?" he asked, with a show of +cordiality. + +"Quite, thanks!" + +Gordon let a moment or two slip before he found his tongue. For his +new knowledge, acting vividly upon a somewhat morbid imagination, had +not merely changed his conceptions of Hawke's character, but, with +them, also his very impressions of his appearance. He had been +unconsciously developing the man's features and body to express the +qualities which he now attributed to him, moulding them, as it were, +by the model of his own thoughts. So that, at the first, when Hawke +stood before him in the flesh, clearly lit by the sunlight, which was +pouring in through the open doorway, he hardly recognised his enemy. +The very colloquialism of his speech seemed incongruous and out of +place. + +"You slept soundly?" asked Hawke. + +There was a shade of anxiety in the question appreciable by his +observer, and a faint symptom of a sneer about the lips when the +answer was received. + +"Like a humming-top." + +"You are going over to Eskdale, aren't you?" Gordon resumed. + +"I shall if I have time." + +"You have changed your plans?" The query was put with a sudden +alacrity. + +"More or less. Lawson arrived at the Inn this morning from Drigg." + +"Lawson?" + +"I don't fancy you know him, but he was a friend of Arkwright's." + +"And is he going to stay here?" The anxiety was upon Gordon's side +now. Everything depended on the answer. For the presence of this +interloper, even for a day, would render the accomplishment of his +purpose impossible. + +"No! He is on his way to Buttermere. I am going with him part of the +distance, and we mean to spend an hour or so on the Pillar Rock. If I +have time I shall work round to Eskdale afterwards." + +"It will mean a long day." + +"Yes! But I have to leave for London to-morrow. And, by the way, that +is what brought me up here. I shall be late back, I expect, and I want +to borrow your lanthorn." + +Hawke turned towards the nail on which he had seen it hanging the +previous night. Gordon just managed to check an involuntary start from +his chair when the other wheeled quickly round. + +"Why, it is gone!" he said suspiciously. + +"Haven't they any at the Inn?" + +The counter-thrust was delivered with a perfect assumption of +carelessness, and Hawke parried it clumsily. + +"Only one, and that's broken. So I thought I would borrow yours." + +"I should have been pleased to lend it you, but it belongs to the +house. I suppose the farmer has taken it." + +The indifference with which Gordon spoke disarmed Hawke, and the next +moment a shadow darkening the doorway effectually prevented any +further investigation as to the whereabouts of the missing article. +The newcomer carried a lanthorn. + +"I hope you don't mind me intruding," he said. "It's rather +unceremonious, I know. But Hawke said he was going to borrow your +lanthorn. Why, the landlady had two or three," he went on, turning to +Hawke. "She said she would have lent you one with pleasure. So I +brought it for you." + +"Thanks! Thanks!" Hawke interposed in confusion. "I must have +misunderstood her. I never could unravel her dialect." He abruptly +introduced his friend to Gordon, and resumed: "I was just speaking of +you. Gordon, you know, was with Arkwright when he died." + +The conversation drifted into the desired channel, but too late to +prevent Gordon realising that the request for a lanthorn had been the +merest pretext to enable Hawke to assure himself that the night's +proceedings remained a secret. It was interrupted, however, by the +servant, who bustled in with the tray to clear the table, and Gordon +thought with a tremor: Suppose she had entered a minute earlier? Hawke +would have been certain to question her, and to repeat his request; as +it was, however, he was too anxious to cover his slip to risk +broaching the subject again. + +"That is a good-looking girl," said Lawson, when she had left the +room. + +"Is she?" Gordon inquired. "I have not noticed her." + +Lawson smothered an incredulous laugh, and Hawke broke in: "Oh, it's +true enough! Gordon never notices women's looks. They are too sacred +to him." + +"And you nothing but their looks, I am told," Lawson replied. "Well, I +shall try to strike the golden mean." + +"You will be making a mistake if you do," Hawke answered. + +"Why?" + +"Because women are moods. Nothing more. They can cover the distance +between Diana and Phryne at a jump. They are mere moods, and always to +be construed in the present tense. You must take them as they are." + +"You seem to have made a grammatical study of the subject," Lawson +laughed. + +"No! That is exactly what I have not done. It is of no use. For, being +moods, they are unintelligble, and the man who tries to solve them +usually comes to grief. Besides, the effort is really unnecessary." + +"You speak from experience?" Gordon asked quietly. + +"I don't say that," Hawke replied, and with a shade more of +earnestness than the occasion seemed to demand. "No, I don't say that. +You may call it a theory of mine if you like. But I believe that it is +true all the same. All that you want to know about a woman is the +colour of her hair and eyes, whether she paints, how she is dressed, +the texture of her gloves, and the size of her boots." + +"I fancied a woman liked to be talked to about herself," Lawson +objected. + +"But those things constitute herself--at all events to most women," he +added, seeing that the other was about to interpose. "I admit there +may be exceptions." + +"But you have never met one." + +Hawke shot a quick glance from beneath knitted brows at Gordon as the +latter spoke; but the remark had fallen quite casually from his lips, +and he appeared only bored by the discussion. + +"I don't want to have my ideas attributed to personal causes. An +anchorite may theorise," Hawke replied. + +"Anchorite is good," said Lawson. + +"Believe it or not, that is the right plan. A woman's self is an +awkward thing to tackle. It perplexes you if you begin to think about +it, and the more you think, the more it perplexes you, and, +consequently, the stronger the hold it seizes on you. And just because +a woman's bewildering, you run the risk of ending by respecting +her--and that is fatal." + +"Indeed! Why?" + +"Because the moment you begin to respect her, she begins to despise +you." + +Lawson burst out into a hearty laugh and said, "Come along, Hawke! +That is enough lecture for to-day. You have made me laugh and bored +Gordon to death." + +"You epitomise the fate of unconventional truths," Hawke answered, and +then turned to Gordon. + +"What do you think of my theory? Does it bore you?" + +"I think," Gordon replied, quietly, "that it is one of those theories +which, to use your own words, sooner or later bring a man to grief." + +"By Jove, yes! and irretrievably," said Lawson. "So you had better +take care, Master Hawke. I have often noticed that!" he continued +musingly. "When a man comes to grief over facts, he can pull round if +he has any luck. But when he comes a cropper over theories, there's an +end of him for good and all." + +The chance remark made Gordon look towards the speaker with an active +interest. Hawke's lecture, as Lawson had said, merely bored him. The +views it set forth were precisely those which he had attributed to the +man, and he felt so certain of the accuracy of his opinion that the +actual utterance of the views sounded to him little more than a +repetition. His resolve, besides, to exact a full and speedy +retribution from Hawke was mail of proof alike against the covert +innuendo of the disquisition and the ironical malice which had +prompted it. But these last words of Lawson seemed to him instinct +with truth, and found a convincing commentary in his own experience. + +Lawson shook hands with Gordon and went out in the porch, with Hawke +after him. The latter paused at the door to adjust the rucksack in +which he carried their lunch on to his back, and shot a careless "I +may see you again this evening" backwards over his shoulder, and they +both passed the house and turned along the track to Black Sail. + +Gordon followed them into the open air. He crossed the field in front +of the farm, and climbing on to the top of a huge moss-grown mound of +stones which fills an angle in the boundary wall, lit his pipe and lay +in the warm sunlight watching them. He could see them for some time +toiling up the side of Kirkfell into Mosedale, and every now and +then he caught a flash as the sun glittered on the steel head of an +ice-axe. Mosedale forms, as it were, a recess in Wastdale, running +back from the valley on the side opposite to Scafell, and the Pillar +mountain makes the end wall of this recess. The Pillar Rock, however, +to which Lawson and Hawke were directing their steps, projects from +the further side of the mountain and lies in the northern valley of +Ennerdale, and the distance between that spot and Wastdale cannot be +traversed at the quickest in less than an hour. + +Gordon looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten when they passed +from his sight behind the shoulder of Kirkfell, and he began to +calculate the time when he might hope to meet Hawke on Mickledoor +Chasm. For that was the spot which he had chosen, its bleak solitude +appealing to him with a sense of appropriateness. Hawke, he reflected, +would have to cross Great Gable, and the Styhead, continue in the same +direction southwards along Esk-Hause, the pass to Langdale, and then +turn to the right into Eskdale, which is separated from the valley of +Wastdale by the barrier of the Scafell chain. From there he would have +to ascend the southern slope of the latter mountain, and Gordon +reckoned that under no circumstances could he reach Mickledoor, the +ridge between Scafell and Scafell Pikes, before half-past six. + +It would then be dark. + +That Hawke might change his plan and return home by the way he set out +did not occur to him until hours after. For the half-formed idea that +he was working under destiny had grown into a living conviction. He +had come to look upon himself as the tool and agent in the completion +of an ordained plan. So keen indeed had this feeling of personal +irresponsibility become, that he gave no thoughts as to the details by +which he was to carry out his purpose, confidently leaving occasion to +direct the act. A line of Beatrice Cenci's in Shelley's play kept +marching through his brain-- + + + "Thou wert a weapon in the hand of God + To a just use." + + +In a word, he was looking across the interval of the next few hours, +and dignifying as the judicial execution of a law what was in reality +only the gratification of a savage lust for revenge; a distinction +which he might have grasped from a certain luxurious feeling in the +anticipation of it had he not abandoned his habit of self-analysis. + +The illusion was, moreover, very naturally strengthened by the fact +that circumstances seemed strangely shaping themselves to fit in with +his resolve. The very appearance of Lawson, which Gordon had +considered at first an insuperable obstacle, now showed as an +additional advantage. For the couple had ascended in full view towards +the Pillar, in the reverse direction to Scafell, and consequently if +Hawke's body were found by the latter mountain, suspicion would be +diverted from the idea of a premeditated attack. It would look as if +Hawke had changed his route by chance, made the circuit of the valley, +and then slipped on the cliffs at the opposite end. For Gordon +reckoned that no one but Lawson and himself knew of Hawke's projected +expedition, and the former, being ignorant of the hostility between +the two men, would have no reason to connect him with the accident. +That Hawke had not mentioned his intentions to the Inn people seemed +fairly evident from his lie about the lanthorn. Lawson, it is true, +might have told them, for he borrowed it. Gordon determined to find +that out. For at all costs suspicion must be diverted from himself for +the sake of the girl waiting for his message fifteen miles away. He +would go down to the Inn now; and besides, he recollected he had +another mission to accomplish there. + +Gordon rose from his resting-place and had already proceeded some way +in that direction when he suddenly stopped. After a moment's thought +he turned on his steps and went back to the farm. He shouted to his +landlady to pack up his lunch in a parcel, and mounted to his room. +The day before he had brought over such few articles as he required in +a rucksack--the bag, half knapsack, half haversack, peculiar to +mountaineers--and at the bottom of this lay, still folded up, an extra +coat and pair of knee-breeches of the same cloth as those which he was +wearing now. He emptied the bag of its other contents and descended +with it to the parlour. The landlady presently brought in the packet +which he had ordered, and he placed it with his flask inside the +rucksack and fastened the strings. + +"Dinner at half-past seven," he said. "I don't expect to be in till +then, I am going over to Rosthwaite to get some fresh nails hammered +into my boots." + +And he slung the rucksack on to his shoulders and went down to the +Inn. He inquired what time they expected Mr. Hawke back. Mr. Hawke, +they told him, had borrowed a lanthorn and set out for the Pillar, +with a friend some time since. He knew that, but when did they expect +him home? They were not quite sure, late they gathered, but Mr. Hawke +had said nothing of the matter to them. In fact it was his friend who +had borrowed the lanthorn. Could Mr. Gordon leave a note? Certainly! +Would he write it in the coffee-room? Oh! He knew Mr. Hawke's +sitting-room then. No? The servant would show him to it if he +preferred to write it there. + +Gordon was accordingly ushered up into the room where the first act of +his tragical-comical history had been presented to his eyes the night +before. He wasted no time over his recollections, however, but just +cast one curious glance towards the outhouse on which he had hung, and +proceeded to hunt for Kate's missing shawl. The room was furnished +upon strictly utilitarian principles, and seemed defiantly to +challenge inspection by flaunting its incapacity for concealment. The +search was consequently short. Gordon stopped before a cupboard in a +recess by the side of the fireplace. There was another of a similar +make in a corresponding position on the farther side, but that stood +open, while this one was locked and the key removed. Gordon stooped to +examine the lock; it belonged to that type which appears to have been +invented in a genial spirit in order to excite curiosity and gratify +it, and Gordon's knife proved a quick skeleton-key. He found the +shawl, as he had expected, carelessly tumbled on to the shelf, and he +took it down and ran the white fleecy wool through his fingers with a +queer sensation, as if he were handling something which he ought to +recognise and yet could not. As a matter of fact, he knew the shawl +quite well. He had bought it for Kate himself at Goring last +September, when the evenings were growing chilly on the river. But he +had rather fancied that the touch of it would somehow send a thrill +through his deadened emotions, and the entire absence of any pulsation +or throb made him hazily wonder for a moment whether this that he held +was the real shawl of which he was in search. + +He added it, however, to the other contents of his bag, and closed +the cupboard door. His knife had left little or no trace upon the +wood-work, which was soft and yielded pliantly; and this Gordon looked +upon as an important detail. Since, when the room was searched, as it +would be afterwards, any fresh marks or scratches about the lock +might, he thought, draw attention to himself, and suggest the +possibility of an ulterior motive for his visit beyond the mere +inditing of a note. As to the lock itself, in all probability no one +but Hawke knew that it had been fastened, and Hawke's knowledge, he +reflected, with a smile, would then be a matter of no importance. So +he only stayed to scribble a hasty line--an invitation to dinner that +evening was the somewhat gruesome device on which his ingenuity had +hit--and then set out upon his way, following the path which he had +ascended in the early hours of the morning. + +Nothing so clearly showed the change which had taken place in Gordon +as his indifference in retraversing this ground. For although he +recollected with perfect completeness every feature of that previous +journey, he recollected it with no shadow of emotion, and almost +without interest. The facts recurred to him, but devoid of personal +application. Gordon remembered them much as a man may remember vividly +the details of a death which he has mourned, when he has well-nigh +lost the memory of his regret. + +It was barely one when he reached the cairn upon Styhead Pass, and +realising that he had five hours still to wear away, he turned to the +right along Esk House and ascended the central gully in the cliffs of +Great End. The sky had darkened since the morning, and the air was +growing heavy and still with a prophecy of a storm; so that he was not +surprised, when he came out on the summit of the crags, to find the +clouds brooding angrily about the tops of the fells. Far away, it is +true, from one broad solitary rift, he could see the sunlight pouring +on to Helvellyn and tinting its white slopes to a sheet of gold. But +there were black masses clustered close above it, as if jealous of its +glow, and even as he watched, the rift closed up and the snow was +discoloured to a dull, cheerless grey. + +From that point Gordon doubled back along the edge, descended slowly +to the gloomy fissure of Piers Gill, crossed the depression at its +head and the neck of land between Scafell Pikes and Lingmell, and +turned up to the left towards Mickledoor, the sunken ridge between the +former mountain and Scafell. It was half-past five when he stood +finally upon the top of the gap, and already growing rapidly dark. The +cold, moreover, had become intense; so that that silent wilderness of +stones, overhung by black crags, seemed to him in the dim light the +most desolate spot in all the world. On both sides the ridge sloped +steeply down in an incline of scree and shattered boulders, the debris +of the cliffs above. Below that were rounded promontories of brown +grass strewn here and there with soiled patches of snow. But as far as +the eye could see there was no trace of a living thing; for the +village of Wastdale itself was excluded from view by the intervening +barrier of Lingmell. + +Gordon strained his eyes in the opposite direction to catch a glimpse +of Hawke mounting from Eskdale. But there was no sign of his coming, +not even the clatter of a dislodged stone. "It is early yet," he +muttered to himself, though with the chill of a misgiving. For the +first time that day his confidence began to fail him. If Hawke should +have abandoned his intention of making the circuit of the hills, and +gone quickly home! He would discover the note, find that Gordon had +come to his rooms, and ascertain the disappearance of the shawl. He +would know the game was up, and, worse still, would have time to get +clear away. Gordon tried to banish the supposition; he dared not face +it, the mere utterance of it seeming to accuse him of a breach of +trust. None the less, however, it clung to his back and thrashed him +into an aimless activity. He descended the ridge towards Wastdale in +hot haste. There, to add to his dismay, he beheld a mist floating +quickly up the valleys in tongues of smoke, and he knew that the +moment it swept across Mickledoor, adding its thick confusion to the +increasing gloom, his chances of discovering Hawke, even if he, came +that way, were practically destroyed. He turned on his steps in a +panic and raced back to the top of the ridge. The same stagnant +silence enveloped it. There was not even a stir of the wind. Looking +back, he saw the mist was already licking the boulders at the bottom +of the steep incline. It would pour over the gap in a minute, he +thought, and, without stopping to reason, he ran down the slope from +it on the Eskdale side. It occurred to him, upon subsequent thought, +that this action was the most ill-advised he could have adopted, for +the gap on both sides widens rapidly from its summit. Had he +calculated chances with any approach to accuracy, he would have +remained where he was on the apex and narrowest part of the ridge. And +yet to this mistake he owed the completion of his design. For he kept +close to Scafell as he went and he had not moved many yards when he +heard right above his head the metallic clink of an ice-axe. He was +standing by a narrow cleft in the rocks known as "the Chimney," which, +for a climber, affords an issue on to the actual summit of Scafell. +Hawke, then, was crossing the mountain itself. The sound told Gordon +that he was as yet not far up the side. He must have entered the cleft +after Gordon's arrival, and while the latter was on the farther side +of the ridge. + +Gordon wondered how it was that he had not originally noticed his +approach. At that moment the mist swept over Mickledoor, and a plan +shaped itself in his mind. Parallel to the chimney, but some yards to +the west of it, the cliffs offer a simpler route, called "Broad +Stand," and after a certain height is attained by that way, a man may +reach by an easy traverse a spot where Hawke must leave his gully and +climb out on to the face of the rock. This latter man[oe]uvre is +always attended with a certain difficulty, since the walls of the +gully afford no foothold and give only on to a shelving slab. Gordon, +therefore, had little fear that Hawke would outstrip him, and +determined to join him by way of Broad Stand. So he turned back once +more and reascended the incline, treading cautiously and feeling along +the mountain as he went, lest in the darkness he should pass the point +at which the climb began. After proceeding in this manner for about a +minute, he came to a narrow vertical slit in the rock, which was just +discernible. It was the spot of which he was in search, and he entered +it, appearing to be swallowed up in the cliff, A walk of a few yards +brought him to some huge blocks piled one above another, and shaped in +pyramidal steps. These formed the pathway of his ascent. They present +no great difficulty as a rule, but now they were coated with a thin +glaze of ice, and as Gordon had brought no axe with him, purposely, in +order to sustain the supposition that he had spent the afternoon in +crossing the Styhead Pass towards Rosthwaite, he was compelled at each +step that he took to clear out the next footing above, with the sole +aid of his numbed fingers. Consequently he made his way but slowly. An +overpowering dread that his enemy might escape while he was yet +struggling below the traverse began to creep over him and strung his +nerves to more strenuous efforts. His hatred, tantalised by the +possibility, took a renewed life and sent the blood spinning through +his veins like fire. He forgot the cold in his limbs, and the ice on +the rocks, and clambered up in a reckless fury. + +Meanwhile the mist was thickening continually, and by the time Gordon +had completed his ascent and reached the point from which he had to +diverge along the cliff's face, the night had fallen pitch-dark. He +stood still for a moment, with his head bent forward, listening +eagerly for a sound. Was he too late? Then he heard the scrabbling of +boot-nails upon the slab, and a minute after the stamping of feet a +few yards away to his left. The noise drove all his thoughts of +averting suspicion from his mind. The mere knowledge that his enemy +was there filled him; a cry of exultation rose up to his lips and he +barely checked it, and crept silently forwards. A thin buttress of +rock ran down shoulder-high between the two men, and this Gordon had +forgotten. He came upon it unawares as he was moving with outstretched +hands, and, understanding that he had traversed the space diagonally +instead of in a direct line, he descended a little to round it. As he +was doing this he heard the spirt of a match. There was not a breath +of wind, and the tiny flame burnt steadily, throwing out a brown light +upon the mirky gloom. To Gordon it seemed blood-red. He paused and +waited for the match to blow out. Instead of that, however, it grew +brighter, and he remembered that Hawke carried a lanthorn. For a +second he was staggered as by an unexpected blow, and stood thinking. +Then he continued his stealthy descent to the end of the buttress. As +he turned the corner he drew his knife and crouched like an animal. +Hawke was some fifteen feet away, kneeling on the ground by the light +and fumbling a small bottle clumsily in his frozen hands. Gordon +measured the intervening space with his eye, and chose the point +between Hawke's shoulders, where he meant to strike, gently swaying +his body to and fro the while in preparation for a spring. As he threw +his weight backwards, however, for the last time, his heel slipped on +a loose stone and sent it echoing behind him down the crags. + +"Who is that?" cried Hawke, lifting the lanthorn and standing upright. + +Gordon stepped forward on the instant, slipping his knife with its +open blade into his pocket, and the flame of the lanthorn encircled +them both in a little ring of light. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +"You!" cried Hawke. + +The wall of the rock made a right angle behind him, and he backed into +the corner of it, fronting Gordon with the lanthorn held aloft between +them. There was a ring of terror in his voice, and his eyes glanced +rapidly round with a hunted look. + +Gordon saw the look and smiled; for the little platform on which they +stood was open only upon two sides, of which the gully guarded one and +himself the other. + +He did not answer Hawke's exclamation at once, for the sudden check +had aroused him to the need of wariness. A struggle had to be avoided +at all costs, he thought; for it would land them both, locked +together, on the screes below. It was very pleasant to him, besides, +to watch the shrinking fear visible in his enemy's attitude. The very +lanthorn was rattling in his unsteady grasp, and the sound of it was +music to Gordon's ears. + +"You did not expect to see me, did you, Austen?" he said at last, +purring the words. + +"You did rather startle me, I own. You came along so quietly." + +"One needs to be careful when it is as dark as this. As it was, I lost +my way. If you had not lit that lanthorn I should have been over the +cliffs. I may thank you for my life," and Gordon laughed cheerfully. + +His words and the familiarity of his voice helped Hawke back to some +portion of his confidence. But he still held the lanthorn above their +heads. + +During these last days he had lived in a constant dread of detection, +Gordon's unforeseen visit to the dale wearing to him almost the +appearance of a fatality. He cursed the infatuation which had led him +to summon Kate Nugent, and each fresh sight of the man he had wronged +awakened in him a shudder of alarm. It is true that he had voluntarily +sought Gordon's company at the farm-house the night before and again +this morning. But the inconsistency of the proceeding was purely on +the surface. He had felt compelled to that course by the urgency of +his dread, which shook him chiefly when alone. And it was the effect +of these solitary cogitations which produced his inexpressible terror +on each occasion that he met the man. Once in his presence, however, +the feeling wore off. He had always been accustomed to regard Gordon +somewhat contemptuously in the light of an unpractical dreamer, and as +he listened to his voice and watched his gestures, this habit +reasserted itself from an association of ideas. He came to the +conclusion that there were no grounds for his fears, crediting Gordon +with no great powers of self-repression. + +Viewed generally, this latter judgment of Hawke's was correct. The +fatal mistake, however, which he committed was to make no allowance +for a possible concentration of his entire faculties upon a single +aim, under the influence of an overmastering passion, such as the lust +for revenge which absorbed Gordon now. + +On this particular occasion, however, Hawke had been more than usually +startled. He had intended to leave Wastdale Head early the next +morning, and had planned this expedition in order to avoid meeting +Gordon again--nay, more, had actually given him a false description of +his route. Consequently his sudden appearance from the surrounding +darkness and the silence of his approach had intensified his feeling +of alarm and betrayed it unmistakably to his companion. + +"You have made the circuit quickly," Gordon resumed. + +"I gave up the idea of Eskdale when the sky clouded," Hawke replied, +"and came straight across from the Pillar." + +"I wonder we did not meet before." + +Gordon was speaking at random, watching keenly for a chance; but Hawke +still faced him, with his back to the rock. + +"Oh! I have been on the mountain for some time. You have only just +come, I suppose." + +"I came with the mist." + +"It's a poor companion," Hawke resumed. "I found rather a good +glissade just behind these cliffs running into Eskdale. I spent most +of the afternoon on that. You ought to try it." + +"I will." + +"It lands you out close to Mickledoor and not far below the chimney. +So I thought I would go home this way. But if I had known it was going +to grow as cold and dark as this I would have seen myself damned +first." + +"It is cold," Gordon assented, although his senses gave him no +knowledge of the fact. He was wondering whether Hawke would ever move. +If only he would set the lanthorn down! + +"Suppose that we move," he went on. "You have got the lanthorn, so you +had better go first." + +He drew to one side as he spoke, and made room for Hawke to pass. But +at the very moment that he was taking the step, Hawke suddenly placed +the lanthorn on the ground, and cried-- + +"Wait a moment!" + +The next instant he stood upright, and that opportunity was gone. + +"I have got a bottle of brandy here," said Hawke. "We had better open +it. Has your knife got a corkscrew?" + +Gordon thrust his hand quickly into his pocket and felt the sharp +blade cut into his flesh. But he drew his hand out again empty, and +said-- + +"I haven't got a knife at all. I left mine at home." + +"We must use mine, then, and knock the neck off. They have jammed the +cork in so tightly, that there is no other way. Here! hold the +bottle." + +Hawke handed him the bottle and searched in his pocket for his knife. +He was perfectly defenceless at the moment, but the memory of +Arkwright's accident had suddenly flashed upon Gordon and suggested to +him a safer plan. + +He added another item to his supposed new knowledge. He understood +now, he fancied, why the recollection of that night in the Alps had so +persistently mingled with his thoughts yesterday, and he laughed +gleefully. + +"What is the matter?" Hawke asked. "You seem pleased." + +"I am," he replied. "It is the brandy warming me through the cork." + +Hawke laughed. "It wasn't a bad suggestion, was it?" + +"It was the best I ever heard from you." + +Hawke found his knife and held it out to Gordon, saying-- + +"You had better do it! My fingers are so cursedly numbed, I should +only cut myself or drop the bottle." + +Gordon took the knife with his right hand, and Hawke exclaimed-- + +"What on earth have you done to your hand? It is covered with blood." + +"Oh, it's nothing," Gordon answered quickly. "I cut it on a pointed +piece of rock, that's all." + +For a moment he stood with the bottle poised in one hand and the knife +in the other, thinking. Then he said-- + +"Just take this while I open the blade," and he handed the bottle +back. + +"The handle will serve," said Hawke. + +"The blade will do it cleaner." + +Hawke took the bottle back while Gordon opened the knife. It was of a +strong and heavy make, with a long, powerful blade. Gordon ran his +thumb along the edge and found it sharp and even. + +"Now if you will hold the bottle out," he said, "I will operate. Not +that way! We shall spill it all;" and he readjusted the bottle in +Hawke's hands, settling the base in his upturned palms, with the cork +pointing towards himself. + +"That's right," he said, and struck the neck on the side nearest to +Hawke, slipped the blade on the glass, and drove it with all his force +down into his left arm where it showed white below his sleeve. + +The bottle crashed on the ground. + +Hawke reeled against the rock wall behind him, clutching the injured +wrist with his disengaged hand. + +"God!" he shrieked. "It's an artery." + +Gordon could see the blood spurting in quick jets, and said, quietly-- + +"It reminds me of Arkwright. That was an accident, too." + +"Don't stand there, man--dreaming! Do something!" + +Gordon laughed at the words--a low, happy laugh, which struck a new +horror into Hawke. + +"You meant to do it?" + +Gordon nodded to him, knowingly. + +"Damn you!" Hawke hissed and sunk down upon the platform beside the +lanthorn, concentrating all his strength into the oath. He was still +vainly endeavouring to stop the bursts from the vein by the pressure +of his fingers. + +Gordon knelt by his side. + +"Let me look," he said. + +Hawke dragged himself a few inches farther away, with an inarticulate +snarl, and turned his back. + +"Won't you let me help you?" Gordon asked, in a tone of gentle +remonstrance. + +The other shot a quick glance across his shoulder, and replied, with a +beaten air-- + +"I could believe it was myself said that." + +"But I mean it. There's the difference. Won't you let me bind up your +arm?" + +Hawke looked at him again and rolled over to face him, his eyes alive +with hope. + +"Oh, if you will," he said. "But be quick! quick! Use my scarf! Only +be quick!" + +Something in his manner recalled vividly to Gordon Kate's appeal to +Hawke of the night before; but he unwound the scarf from the neck of +the wounded man. The latter could not repress a convulsive shiver as +he felt the touch of his fingers. + +"I am sorry," Gordon apologised. "I know it must be unpleasant." + +The scarf was of thick white wool, and he twisted it round the arm +just above the cut and tied it firmly; but a dark stain came through +it at once and widened over the folds. + +"The ice-axe," gasped Hawke. "It is by your side." + +Gordon took it from where it was resting on the ground, and inserting +the pick into the wool, used it as a tourniquet, and strained the +bandage tight. + +"Thanks! thanks!" murmured Hawke. "That will hold. Give me the pole of +the axe. Now run down to the Inn and get help. I may be able to last +out--if only I don't freeze to death," he added, with a moan. + +"It is a pity the brandy's spilt." + +"Never mind that! Hurry down to the Inn." + +"No! no! Austen," Gordon replied, indulgently, much as one refuses a +child an impossible request. "I don't think I can do that." + +Hawke raised himself upon his right elbow and peered into the other's +face. Neither of them spoke, but the animation flickered out of +Hawke's features, and it seemed as if a veil were drawn across the +pupils of his eyes. + +"You have murdered me," he said, sinking back and letting his head +fall sideways on the ground. + +"I have waked up. You said I was dreaming. I have waked up, that's +all. It is not the sleeper's fault if he hits the man who wakes him." + +Gordon bent over as he spoke, and shot the words into Hawke's ear with +a savage intensity. In a moment, however, he resumed his former +composure. + +"But we are wasting time, and we have not much time to waste, have we? +I want three letters." + +Hawke dropped the pole of the axe and instinctively moved his right +hand to protect his breast-pocket. + +"Thank you," said Gordon. "I only wanted to know whether you had them +with you. I felt sure you would have, but it was best to make certain. +Don't worry about them now. I will take them--afterwards." + +He laid the slightest possible stress upon the word, and continued-- + +"The shawl is safe enough, too. I am carrying it now. I thought you +would like to know that. Is there anything more? Oh, yes! You have +taught me a lesson--never to conduct interviews at night with the +blind up and the window open." + +"Then you--you were outside?" + +"Yes! I was outside," cried Gordon, his savage fury boiling over its +barriers and sweeping him away on a full flow. + +"The fool was asleep, was he? The fool was on the outhouse staring +into your face. Who was the fool, eh? Did you think I was blind? Did +you think I didn't see you were frightened when I met you yesterday! +Did you think I didn't see you watching my bedroom from the barn? What +made you come back and turn my lamp out? Who was the fool, eh? Why, +but for you I should never have known, never have suspected, never +have killed you." + +His voice had risen to a scream, and he thrust his face into Hawke's, +livid with hate. A sudden access of passion stung the latter into +life; he pushed the face away from him and gathering all his strength, +half struggled to his feet. On the instant Gordon slipped the steel +point of the axe from the bandage round his arm and Hawke fell back, +fainting and sick. + +"Damn you!" he whispered, "and the girl, too!" + +Gordon uttered a cry, and dying though the man was, struck him on the +mouth with his clenched fist. + +Hawke took the blow without a moan, fixed one steady look upon the +other, and then let his head fall back upon the rock. + +After that neither spoke. + +A feeling of horror at this last action swept over Gordon. He +reproached himself for the blow, and sought to replace the axe in the +scarf. His fingers, however, were now too numbed; so he clenched them +tightly round the arm and knelt there watching the blanching face and +feeling the blood soak about his knees. In a moment or two he saw +Hawke's eyeballs quiver under the half-closed lids and he leaned +across the body and blew out the lanthorn-light. The darkness rushed +down between them, and almost immediately the storm broke in a +pitiless shower of hail. + +After awhile it passed, and Gordon bethought him of the time, but he +was now so starved by the cold that at first he was powerless to +unclasp his hands. The feeling of utter helplessness threw him into an +agony. He fancied that his hands were dead--dead hands frozen round +the dead man's wrist with blood. He looked forward in his mind through +the black hours of the night and saw the morning pour down the +mountain side and touch the grey face by his knees--nay, more, bring +the dalesmen up to discover him riveted to the man he had killed. With +this last thought he summoned all his strength to his aid, and making +a final effort wrenched his hands free. The body was lying motionless +at his side, and he felt along it until he reached the breast. To take +the letters, however, he had to unbutton the coat, and he paused, +shrinking from that. In the end he mustered courage for the task, +rebuttoned the coat, and groped his way cautiously to the summit, the +rest of the ascent being no more than a rock-strewn slope. From there +his path was easy, and although a high wind was now blowing, he +descended rapidly. Half-way down he struck a glissade which rare +winters of great snow form along an old stone wall, and so slid out of +the mist. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +The glissade stretched down towards a beck which flows between +Lingmell and the flank of Scafell. So that when Gordon stopped at the +end of the snow, a tinkling of water, as it splashed from stone to +stone, rose to his ears, and there seemed to him something strangely +sweet and peaceful in the sound. He advanced to its edge and washed +carefully in the stream. Then he took his haversack from his shoulders +and opened it. Kate Nugent's shawl was the first thing which his +fingers touched, and the feel of it sent a shiver through his frame. +It reminded him too clearly of Hawke's scarf and the black stain +widening over it. He took it out, and after it, a parcel. For a moment +he wondered what that was, and then remembered that he had forgotten +to eat his lunch. He repaired the omission on the instant, and +proceeded to change his clothes. + +That done, he sat down upon a stone, and went over carefully all that +had occurred. Reflection showed him no opening for suspicion to arise, +either from the deed itself or its attendant circumstances. Against +the latter he had already guarded, while the broken fragments of +glass, the presence of Hawke's own knife open by the side of the body, +and even the scarf about his arm, which hung loose and clumsily after +the ice-axe had been removed, would all point to the one conclusion-- +that the wound was an accident and self-inflicted. Satisfied upon the +point, Gordon picked up the clothes which he had discarded, wrapped +them in the shawl, and continued his descent. At the bottom of the +valley, however, instead of turning to the right in the direction of +Wastdale Head, he bent away towards the Lake. + +The strong wind, blowing up from the sea, had cleared the mist above +his head and was chasing the clouds along the sky. Here and there a +star could be seen winking from a blue gap, and so Gordon was able to +distinguish when he reached the shore, that no loiterer was near to +spy upon his acts. He felt in the pockets of the coat he was carrying +and drew out the letters which he had taken from Hawke. Then he +fastened the bundle securely about the biggest stone he could find and +hurled it far out into the Lake. It sank with a loud splash, and +Gordon looked quickly round thinking that some one must have noticed +it. The only sound that he heard, however, was the wash of the ripples +on the bank, and he turned and made hastily up the valley, across the +fields, until he had left the village some hundreds of yards behind. +From there he crossed into the path which leads down from Styhead, and +finally reached the farmhouse. It was close upon half-past eight, he +noticed, when he entered the parlour. He explained his lateness to +Mrs. Jackson by saying that he had taken refuge from the storm. She +added, indulgently, that it was a long way to Rosthwaite. + +"Oh I did not get as far after all," said he. "Has not Mr. Hawke come +yet?" + +"Mr. Hawke?" + +"Yes! I never told you. I asked him, or rather left a note to that +effect, to come up to dinner this evening. I ought to have told you, +but the fact is I never thought of inviting him until I had left the +house." + +Mrs. Jackson disclaimed all responsibility for the dinner, and had not +set eyes on Mr. Hawke. + +"Then I won't wait for him," said Gordon. "Bring the dinner in! I will +just go up and wash." + +"And change your clothes." + +"I haven't any clothes to change into," he said, with a laugh. "You +might lay another plate," he added. "Mr. Hawke may appear yet." + +So Gordon dined, and opposite to him a place was laid for the man who +was lying dead on Scafell. + +The one thing which troubled Gordon was the recollection of the blow +he had struck with his fist. He despised himself for that; and +besides, the look with which Hawke had returned it somehow remained +fixed in his mind. Strive as he might, he could not banish it. +Everything else he had intended, and justice had dictated. But that +blow! + +At ten o'clock the Inn people sent up to inquire for their lodger. +They had not imagined anything amiss before, as they understood from +Lawson that Hawke meant to stay late upon the fells. + +"He said he was going to the Pillar," Gordon said, "and he went up +Mosedale in that direction." + +One dalesman, however, asserted that he passed Hawke not later than +one in the afternoon by the church in the centre of the valley. He was +then going towards Scafell. + +Finally two search parties were organised--one to proceed to the +Pillar Rock, the other to examine the cliffs of Scafell. Gordon +elected to join the former, and they separately started off, with much +narrating of past accidents to cheer them on their way. + +"Ten men have I brought down from these mountains, stone dead," said +one, "and this will be the eleventh." + +He repeated his lugubrious statement so often, that Gordon found +himself in the end humming the words to the cadence of his steps. + +They reached the Rock at last, and this mockery of a search began and +was kept up all through the freezing night. In the grey of the morning +they came down the path again. A man was running towards them with the +news that the body had been found, and he led them up to the cliffs on +Scafell. Gordon stood by Hawke's side for a moment, as he lay +stretched out in a frozen pool of blood, and then turned away sick; +for he had noticed about the corners of his mouth a faint blue mark, +like a bruise. + +"You will carry him down," he said. "I will follow you." + +The men understood his feelings, or rather thought they did, and +lifted the body gently and bore it down to the village. On the way +they passed the glissade on the side of the mountain, and one of them +stopped and pointed to the groove in the snow where Gordon had +descended. + +But he only said, "He will never come down that slide again, poor +chap!" + +Gordon watched them until they had disappeared round a headland, and +then turned and looked down the crags. + +"Not there!" he muttered to himself, with a shudder, and crossed over +the mountain top down to the screes. He stopped in front of a steep, +narrow gully, and far down he could see the quiet waters of the Lake +lapping the base of it. He cast one look towards Wastdale. Eastwards +the sun was rising over the Pass; "from Keswick," he thought. He took +out of his pocket the three letters and handled them, and his eyes +fell upon the signature. + + + * * * * * + + +Two days afterwards he was found by a fisherman at the bottom of the +gully, caught by a boulder on the water's edge. One hand was trailing +in the water and it clenched a torn scrap of sodden paper. + + + + + + _Made and Printed in Great Britain_. + _Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury_ + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Romance of Wastdale, by +A. E. W. 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