Rufus settled himself down to his work with as much outward cheerfulness as he could command. It was a great comfort to him to know that Captain Tom believed in him, and that the past would never be flung into his teeth by his employer. The work was not exacting and the pay was proportionate. There was no scope for enterprise or ambition, which exactly suited his mood. He had no ambition left. He was only marking time at best. Before the autumn leaves had carpeted the ground he would be at rest.

He faced the issue, most days, grimly and determinedly. There was no other alternative open to him. It seemed a greater wrong to defraud a friend than to take a few hundreds out of the coffers of a great and wealthy company. The company would not be perceptibly the poorer if it lost ten times the amount. It had accumulated funds for all contingencies. It lived by and for the purpose of taking risks. But to defraud Muller might be to ruin him. The money was not his own. The loss to him might mean bankruptcy and worse. Hence, as he was bound to commit a fraud whether he lived or died, it seemed the better part to commit the fraud that would give least pain and trouble, and dying, escape all consequences. It was a terrible alternative, and it filled him with self-loathing and contempt. He felt that he was a living falsehood, practising a daily hypocrisy. And yet what could he do?

The dry east winds of March had given place to April's genial showers. Spring was greening the landscape in all directions. The throstles sang in the elm-trees as though glad to be alive, and in the uplands the young lambs sported in the sunshine. Every morning, as Rufus walked over the hills to the mine, he felt the joy of life throbbing in his veins. It was good to live when the world was becoming so fair; good to smell the pungent odours of the earth, and feel the warmth of the ascending sun. There were moments when he forgot the sword that was hanging over his head, and he would revel in the yellow of the gorse and in the changing colours of the sea. Then he would come to himself with a gasp, and a look of horror would creep into his eyes.

In spite of himself the strain began to tell upon his health. The burden was becoming heavier than he could bear. In the company of others he simulated a cheerfulness that he never felt. If he spoke of the future, it was with a tone of well-feigned hopefulness in his voice. He pretended to have plans reaching into the next year and the year after that. He loathed himself for being so consummate a hypocrite. But for Muller's sake he would have to avoid waking the smallest suspicion.

It is not surprising, perhaps, that the further he got away from the first shock of disappointment, and the nearer he got to the redemption of his pledge, the stronger his passion for life became. It might be the beauty of the springtime that made him so eager to live. It might be the growing sense of the sacredness of life. It might be the increasing moral revulsion from the act itself. It might be the slow lifting of the veil from his spiritual vision, or it might be all these things combined. Certain it is that as the spring advanced and the earth became more and more beautiful, the thought of dying became more and more repugnant.

"There is no wealth but life," a great writer has said, and Rufus began to feel more and more the truth of that statement. He was an asset of his age and generation. He belonged to his own time. The treasure of a country was not its dollars but its life. To the individual himself life is his one real possession. Wealth and fame and distinction are nothing to the dead. Moreover, life without wealth, without recognition, without honour, is still worth possessing. It is a gladness merely to live and see the beauty of the earth and feel the warmth of the sun.

Rufus began to count the days till the end of August, which he reckoned would mark the limit of his pilgrimage. The time passed all too quickly. He gave himself as little sleep as possible, for sleep seemed to rob him of what little of life was left, and he was anxious to make the most of it.

Never a spring seemed so beautiful as that one. Never did the gorse flame so yellow on the moors, never did he see such sapphire in the deep. As the evenings grew longer he sat on the cliffs and watched the sunsets and ticked them off in his calendar as the day faded into night.

His eyes grew large and pathetic and his voice took a softer tone. Sometimes he found his thoughts shaping themselves into supplication. The universal instinct asserted itself unconsciously. He wanted guidance and he wanted forgiveness for what he proposed to do.

Marshall Brook came across to see him once or twice, and they had long walks and talks together, but he got no help out of their conversation and discussions. On the contrary, every talk seemed to make his task more and more difficult.

By slow and almost imperceptible steps he was coming back to the faith he had cast aside. He read the gospels with new interest, and saw in the books Madeline Grover lent him, and which he still kept, new and deeper meanings. But all this only put fresh thorns in his path. He wished sometimes that his philosophy of negations had never been disturbed, that he could still believe what he believed honestly enough when he entered into this fatal compact.

It seemed as though everything conspired to put difficulties in his path. He might be the victim of a malicious fate. He had told Muller that if he failed he should not want to live – that there would be nothing left worth living for. How little he knew! How little he guessed that that very day he would see a face that would change the world for him; that from that day a train of circumstances would be set in motion that would alter his entire outlook!

He was a different man to-day from what he was nine months ago. He looked at life and the world through different eyes. He had loved, and love had greatened him in spite of the fact that he had loved in vain. He had reasoned about temperance, and righteousness, and a judgment to come, and out of the chaos of his own thinking had appeared the faint glimmerings of an eternal order. He had suffered, and suffering had developed in him the grace of patience, and toughened the fibres of his moral nature. He had come under influences which had quickened his drooping moral sense and made him look with steadier eyes at the meaning and mystery of life.

He never more ardently desired to do the right thing, was never so absolutely compelled to do the wrong. He wished sometimes that he could take some one into his confidence, Captain Tom Hendy, for instance. With his clear vision and strong common sense he might see a way out of the difficulty. But to take anyone into his confidence would be to give the whole case away. For Muller's sake he would have to preserve an inviolable silence, and yet the very silence was becoming more and more intolerable.

Toward the end of April he paid what he deemed would be his last visit to Muller. It would be a relief to put some of his thoughts into speech. That, however, was not the main purpose of his visit. He had succeeded in putting all his affairs in order, in turning into cash everything that was saleable, and in discharging all outstanding obligations, and he was pleased to discover that he had still three hundred pounds left.

"I suppose this belongs to me," he said to himself, "to do what I like with," and he smiled sadly. Some men, under the circumstances, might have spent it in having what they would call a good time, but he was in no mood for feasting or mirth.

"I will take it back to Muller," he went on, "and lessen my obligation by that amount." So one Saturday afternoon, when they left off early at the mine, he donned his holiday suit, and trudged off into Redbourne to see his friend.

He found Muller in his office as he expected. Muller had no domestic ties, and he preferred his office, as a rule, to any other place in the world.

Muller looked up with a little start of surprise when Rufus entered. In the first place, he was not expecting him, and in the second place, he was shocked at his appearance.

"Hello, Sterne," he said, "what brings you into Redbourne to-day? Not to see a doctor, I hope," and a curious smile played round the corners of his mouth.

"I came to see you," Rufus answered, with a smile. "Doctors are of no use to me."

"Well, no," Muller replied, reflectively. "I presume you are right in that. But you look ill all the same – painfully ill."

"Do I? I was not aware. I feel about as usual."

"Not over cheerful, I presume. Well, I don't wonder. It's beastly hard luck. I think if I were in your place I should get the business over as quickly as possible."

"I have to consider your interests as well as my own feelings," Rufus answered, going to the window and looking down into the street.

"Well, yes, of course. If people suspected anything there might be old Harry to pay."

"Exactly. Then, you know, I have had a good many things to square up, and, on the whole, I have come out fairly well."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that out of the thousand pounds I borrowed of you, I have three hundred left."

"So much?"

"Three pounds, seventeen and ninepence over, to be exact. But what I propose to do is to hand over the three hundred pounds to you, and so lessen my obligation by that amount."

Muller started, and a puzzled expression came into his eyes.

"The burden will seem a little lighter," Rufus went on, looking down into the street again.

"I confess I do not quite understand," Muller said, adjusting his pince-nez. "You don't mean t – t – " Then he stopped, and waited for Rufus further to explain himself.

"I mean," Rufus answered, walking across the room, and dropping into a chair, "that if there is any profit arising out of the transaction you shall have the full benefit of it."

"Oh, thanks, old man; that is good of you," and Muller's face brightened instantly.

"There are always expenses, of course?"

"A great many expenses, I am sorry to say. But you have been very thoughtful. Extremely considerate, if I may say so, without flattery."

"Oh, you can flatter as much as you like," Rufus answered, with a mirthless laugh. "It would be much more to the purpose, however, if you could see some other way out of the difficulty."

Muller's countenance changed again in a moment.

"You like not the prospect?" he said, cynically.

"To be honest, I don't. As a matter of fact, I despise myself for not seeing at the beginning all the issues involved."

"What issues do you refer to?"

"Moral issues in the main. The repayment of this loan is with us both a question of honour."

"That is so. As an honourable man you cannot escape it."

"I see that clearly enough. What I failed to see at the first – either because I refused to entertain the idea of failure, or else because my moral sense had become dull – was that I was proposing to pay a debt by fraud."

Muller laughed uneasily. "I think I pointed that out to you quite clearly on the day we settled the matter."

"I have no recollection of it."

"I did so most distinctly. I said if the company scented suicide they would dispute the claim, or words to that effect."

"And seeing this clearly you were willing to become a party to the fraud?"

Muller's eyes blazed in a moment. "Look here, Sterne," he said, angrily, "this is above a joke. You know very well that the proposal was not mine. You badgered and bullied and persuaded and gave me no peace. I yielded at length, much against my will, to oblige you. I made you angry when I pointed out in the frankest and most explicit way the consequences of failure, and now, confound it, when you have failed you come and blame me."

"No, no; you misunderstand me," Rufus said, mildly. "I have no wish to blame you. The proposal was my own, I frankly admit, and you yielded very reluctantly. But the thing that puzzles me is that while we talked about honour we neither of us seemed to realise that the proposal involved a glaring act of dishonour."

"Do you refer to the insurance company?"

"I do."

"My dear fellow, would you consider it a dishonourable act to appropriate a pin from your neighbour's dressing-table?"

"Well, no. There is no value in a pin."

"Yes, there is. All values are relative. To the company concerned the amount involved is scarcely more than the value of a pin to your landlady."

"If I took a penny from her dressing-table it would be theft."

"You think that because the disc of copper represents a fixed amount of money. Call it theft if you like. So then taking a pin would be theft."

"Perhaps so."

"But a theft so small that in any moral or legal reckoning it would not count. It would not count because your landlady would not feel it. So the paltry amount under discussion would not be felt by the company."

"You call it a paltry amount, and yet it represents the value of a life."

"My dear fellow, human life is not of much account in this world. Governments – especially Christian Governments – sacrifice men by thousands for bits of barren territory that are not worth sixpence."

"The Creator, perhaps, sets more value on them."

"Use the word Nature and you talk sense. Only your suggestion is absolutely beside the mark. Nature puts no value on human life at all, no more than you do on the creeping things you trample to death at every step you take."

"Nature does not destroy. She only changes the form. Nothing is lost."

"Except life. That vanishes like the flame of a candle in a gust of wind."

"Vanishes! But do you know what the word means?"

"I think I do. But what is all this talk leading to? What have you got at the back of your brain? If you are going to funk the business, say so, and let me know the worst."

"I don't think I have suggested anything of the kind," Rufus replied, uneasily. "I frankly admit that I do not like the alternative, and wish that some other way of escape could be found."

"But if there is no other way?"

"Then I must meet my doom, and go into darkness disgraced and dishonoured."

"In a hundred years from now nothing will matter."

"You are not even sure of that. But, candidly, I am as ready to face death as most other men. I am not aware that I have ever proved myself a coward, but I do abhor the thought of shrinking meanly out of life by a back door in order to cheat an insurance company."

"You should have thought of all this earlier."

"I know I should. I am simply amazed at myself. But I was so certain of success that I refused to look at failure, or the possible consequences of failure."

"Exactly. But that is not my fault. I am sorry for you. More sorry than I can express. But I am powerless to help you."

"And you are not concerned at my cheating the insurance company?"

"Not in the least. I am only concerned that you do not cheat me."

"But suppose I paid you interest on the seven hundred pounds for a year or two?"

"It is not the interest I want, but the principal, which I must have by the first of January next, or I'm up a tree."

"But could you not borrow the amount from some other client for awhile?"

"Where am I to get security? Why don't you ask me to make you a free gift of the amount in question?"

"I don't want any free gift. At the same time, I don't want to sacrifice my life if there is any chance of saving it."

"You seem to set great store by it."

"It is all I have. And of late I have not been able to shake off the conviction that I am responsible to God for it."

"I thought as much," Muller said, with a sneer.

Rufus raised his eyes questioningly.

"Turning Christian again with Christian results," he went on. "I caught an echo of the jargon the last time I called on you, and feared you would turn coward, as all these religious people do."

"Don't let us quarrel, Muller," Rufus said, mildly. "I confess I had not much hope that you would be able to help me, so I shall return not greatly disappointed."

"I would help you a thousand times if I could," Muller replied, with a great burst of simulated friendliness, "but, alas! I cannot do impossibilities."

"Very good, I will not trouble you again."

"And you will not burst the thing up by awaking suspicion?"

"Not if I can help it."

"And take a word of advice. Get rid of those silly notions about accountability and all that rubbish. They don't become a man of your intellectual calibre."

"Thank you: we must follow the light that is in us. Good afternoon and good-bye."

"Good-bye," Muller said, lugubriously, grasping his outstretched hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm helpless."

Rufus did not reply nor did he look back, and a moment later Muller heard his footsteps slowly descending the stairs.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE RETURN OF THE SQUIRE

Rufus was conscious as he descended the stairs that his feelings towards Felix Muller had undergone considerable change. Felix was not the close and attached friend that he had imagined him to be. Of late he had revealed himself in a new light. It was no doubt true that he had taken considerable risks on his account, but he began to fear that these risks had not been taken on the score of friendship merely. It seemed to Rufus that the passion for speculation and the desire for gain had been the chief factors in the case.

"I think he might have helped me," Rufus said to himself, regretfully. "If he had really cared for my friendship he would have set my life before most things. I don't think my death will trouble him in the least."

At the street door he paused for a few moments, and contemplated the busy street stretching right and left. It was market-day, and the youth of the entire country side had poured itself into the town. Up and down they sauntered – lads and maidens – aimless, vacant, but entirely happy. Hands in pockets, arms round waists, straws between teeth, caps tilted to the back of heads. The world for them was the best of all possible places, and Fore Street, Redbourne, on a market-day the most wonderful place in the world.

Suddenly the crowd divided that a pair of horses drawing an open carriage might pass up the street. The carriage was empty. The coachman and footman sat stiff and erect in blue livery, and surveyed the scene with a look of pitying condescension on their faces.

Rufus watched the carriage pass with more than ordinary interest. It was Sir Charles Tregony's carriage and was evidently on its way to the station. Very likely the family were returning to-day, though to put five people into an ordinary landau would be a tight squeeze.

Rufus found his heart beating a little more rapidly than usual; the thought of seeing Madeline Grover again quickened his pulse unconsciously. In a moment the busy street faded, the noise died down into silence, and he was back in a quiet country lane, watching a carriage pass, with a strange lady sitting by the side of the driver. He would never forget that first vision of Madeline's face. He had never seen a face before that had so caught his fancy. He had never seen anything comparable to it since.

That was one of the red-letter days of his life. He fancied then that all the world lay at his feet. No dream of failure dimmed the sunshine for a moment. He was on the heights of Pisgah, with all the fair land of promise stretched out before him. Now he was in the valley of the shadow, having relinquished his last hope. It was a curious coincidence that Madeline should return that day of all days. Return, possibly, as the wife of Gervase Tregony. To see her sitting by his side would be the last drop in the cup of humiliation, the deepest note in the solemn dirge of his despair.

He looked at his watch. The down express from London was due in fifteen minutes, and it was generally well up to time.

"I think I will loiter round in town until they have gone," he said to himself. "I need not suffer the humiliation of seeing her the happy bride of that – fellow," and he plunged at once into the throng that jostled each other in the street.

But the desire to have another look at Madeline's face proved too strong for him.

"It cannot do me any harm," he said to himself, moodily. "Nothing can do me any harm now. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have done their worst."

Ten minutes later he was on the station platform waiting for the down express. Very few people were about. He lighted a cigarette, and strolled with apparent unconcern up and down the platform. He gave a little start when the signal dropped just in front of him. A couple of porters hurried across the line from the other platform, a newspaper boy appeared from somewhere round a corner, the people who had been walking up and down came to a sudden stop. The long train glided slowly round a curve, and came to a standstill.

Rufus drew to the off side of the platform, and watched the scene. Fifty heads were thrust out of nearly as many windows, but only half a dozen people alighted. Sir Charles and party had a compartment to themselves near the middle of the train. The Baronet alighted first – slowly and stiffly as though cramped with the long journey. Beryl jumped out after him with light springy step, then came Lady Tregony, ponderous, but jaunty still.

Rufus found his heart beating uncomfortably fast as he waited for Madeline to appear. The porter entered the compartment, and began handing out the wraps and umbrellas, then the footman hurried away to the luggage van. Rufus heaved a long sigh, partly of disappointment, partly of relief. Madeline had not returned with the others, neither had the Captain. That meant – what?

He could think of only one possible explanation. They were man and wife, and were travelling on their own account. Perhaps they had been married recently, and were now on their honeymoon. That seemed the most probable supposition. It was hardly likely they would be married on the Continent. They would wait till they got back to London, and after the ceremony the others would return, of course, to St. Gaved, and the Captain and his bride would wander where they listed.

He turned away from the station, and made his way slowly over the hill in the direction of St. Gaved. The Tregony carriage passed him before he had got very far, but no one noticed him. He kept his head bent low, and did not raise his eyes till the carriage had got a considerable distance.

It was dark long before he reached St. Gaved, and he was so tired that it was a pain to lift his feet from the ground. It was the first time he fully realised how weak he was. He did not feel ill, though people were constantly telling him how ill he looked; but he was conscious that the spring had gone out of him, that the fires of life were burning low.

When he went to bed that night there was an unspoken prayer in his heart that some illness would overtake him from which he would die. That would be a splendid solution of the whole difficulty. A severe illness would quench the passion for life, would dull all the sensibilities, would take the sting out of all earth's disappointments, and ring down the curtain so gently that he would not know when all the lights were turned out.

Perhaps, after all, he would be saved the sin and the shame of taking his own life, and with this thought in his mind he fell asleep.

The next day, however, brought back all the old pain in its acutest form. Once or twice he felt strongly tempted to let Felix Muller bear the brunt of his failure, and trust to the future and the chapter of accidents to enable him to discharge all his liabilities.

Muller was not considering him in any way. Indeed, he had shown himself exceedingly callous. The one thing that concerned him was getting his money back with compound interest. Well, he had got three hundred pounds of it back already. Suppose he kept him waiting for the rest?

But after a moment's reflection he would shake his head. "I should never be able to pay him back," he would say to himself. "Seven hundred pounds to a working man is an impossible sum. I should not be able to pay him interest at four per cent out of my earnings. Besides, what would he think? and it might mean bankruptcy and disgrace to him."

But the thought of what he would think was the principal crux. How contemptuous he would be. With what scorn he would regard him. How bitter and venomous would be his taunts, with what biting sarcasm he would refer to his courage and chivalry, with what lofty disdain he would speak of his honour and his regard for the truth.

Rufus would feel himself growing hot all over with shame. Shame that he let such a temptation have foothold for a single moment. Had he not pledged his word of honour, and was not that enough? Did it not outweigh every other consideration? If he departed from his word of honour he would never be able to hold up his head again, however long he might live, and were a few shadowed years worth purchasing at so great a price?

So he debated the question now from one side and now from another, and still the days passed on, and he saw no escape from the doom he had prepared for himself.

Sometimes he woke in the night with a start, and with the cry upon his lips, "How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?" and for awhile the thought of his responsibility to a supreme Being would outweigh every other consideration. His pledged word, the thin veneer of honour which took no account of honesty, the anger and contempt of Muller, the irrevocable loss of reputation – would all seem as of no account in comparison with the anger of an offended God.

That he should grow pale, and thin, and hollow-eyed was inevitable. The constant nervous strain was exhausting the springs of life. The unresting activity of his brain was consuming his physical energies as with a fire. He was as free from disease as any child in St. Gaved, but he was unwittingly making himself an easy prey to any malady that might be prowling about.

Meanwhile St. Gaved was considerably exercised in its mind over the non-appearance of the Captain – as people still called him – and Miss Grover. Mrs. Tuke, who claimed to be on terms of great intimacy with Madeline, and who was prepared to champion her under any and every circumstance, was almost indignant that no reliable information could be extracted from any source.

The servants from the Hall came into the village as usual, and certain young men from St. Gaved, it was said, found their way occasionally into the Hall kitchen – though that was a point on which authentic information was difficult to obtain. But neither from the servants, nor from the young men in question, nor from the police, could anything be gathered as to the doings or the whereabouts of Gervase Tregony and Madeline Grover.

Gossip, of course, ran riot, and rumour changed its headlines every day, but the true state of affairs remained as much a mystery as ever. Rufus found himself as much interested in the floating gossip as Mrs. Tuke herself, and as eager to listen to the latest canard.

"It is said they ain't married at all," Mrs. Tuke remarked one evening, as she laid his supper on the table.

"But nobody knows," Rufus said, wearily, looking up from his book.

"Well, not for certain. But if they was married, don't you think as how it would have leaked out somehow?"

"They may have been married quietly without a dozen people knowing."

"But why should they be married on the sly? Sir Charles seemed mighty proud that the Captain was going to marry her before he turned up."

"Yes, I believe that is so."

"And the young man was that gone on her, that if she'd consented to marry him, he'd never have been able to keep it to himself."

"It might be her wish, and I think he would do almost anything to oblige her."

"No, he couldn't have done it, however much he'd tried. He'd just burst, that he would."

"Then what is your theory, Mrs. Tuke?"

"Well, I don't know that I has any theory. You see, if they ain't married, where are they?"

"Exactly," Rufus said, with a smile; "that is a very pertinent question."

"And if they ain't married, I say they can't be together."

"That sounds probable, certainly."

"And if they ain't together, where's he?"

"Exactly; and where's she?"

"That's the very question I was going to ax myself, but you took the words out of my mouth as it were."

"I'm sorry I forestalled you, Mrs. Tuke, but – "

"Oh, you needn't apologise, Mr. Sterne, not a bit. This is a free country, and anybody is allowed to ax as many questions as he likes. But to come back to the point we was talking about, the question is, where's she, and where's the both of 'em?"

"Sir Charles is still silent on the subject, I presume?"

"As silent as a boiled periwinkle by all accounts. The servants say they haven't heard him mention the Captain's name since he came back."

"Perhaps they have quarrelled."

"Well, my belief is that if the Captain failed to carry off the girl as his bride, Sir Charles would be terrible angry."

"Then you have a theory after all, Mrs. Tuke?"

"Well, no, I don't know that I has. I only puts two and two together, as it were."

"But why should Sir Charles be so anxious that his son should marry this particular young lady? There would seem to be any number of eligible spinsters in the country."

"But millionairesses ain't to be picked up every day, and I reckon the Captain ain't anything of his own to live upon, except what his father allows him; and Sir Charles, they say, is as poor as a church mouse; but that's all nonsense. I should like to have a quarter of what he's got to live on."

"But you haven't his expenses, Mrs. Tuke."

"And he needn't have 'em unless he liked. Think of their wintering abroad; it must have cost 'em a heap of money."

"No doubt. But what about the 'millionairess'?"

"Oh, well, it's this way. Squire Vivian's butler told long Joseph – that's Sir Charles's butler, you know – and he told the housekeeper, and she told Sarah Jelks – who is housemaid at the Hall – and she told Siah Small – who pretends to be courting her – and he told Dick Beswarick, and he told his wife Susan, and she told me, that he heard the family talking about it one day at dinner – ."