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A little later her attention was caught by the sound of running feet, and looking up she saw the people who, a few minutes before, were hurrying in the direction of Penwith Cove, were now retracting their steps with all possible haste.

She rose slowly to her feet and waited. A swift-footed lad had out-distanced all the rest.

"Have they found him?" she questioned, eagerly, as he drew near.

"No, Miss," he answered. "The tide is too high; there's no getting along under the cliffs."

"Then he's drowned," she said, with a gasp.

"Well, it looks like it unless a boat has got to him in time. I want to get down to the quay to see," and without waiting to answer any further questions he hurried away at the top of his speed.

CHAPTER VII
THE NICK OF TIME

On the return journey to St. Gaved Madeline lagged painfully behind. Her strength was completely spent. She was as eager as any of the others to know if the fishermen had rescued Rufus Sterne, but her limbs refused to render obedience to her will. But for her intense desire to know the fate of the man who had rescued her, she would have laid down on the spongy turf, fearless of all consequences.

What her friends at the Hall might think of her absence had never once occurred to her. The events of the afternoon had been so painful and startling that all minor matters had been driven out of her mind. Hence when the voice of Sir Charles sounded close to her ear she looked up with a start of mingled inquiry, and surprise.

"Madeline, Madeline," he exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself? We've been hunting all over the place for you."

"Oh, I am so sorry," she answered, wearily. "I'd forgotten all about you. I've had such a – a – such a terrible adventure."

"Such a terrible adventure," he exclaimed, with a note of alarm in his voice. "Has anyone dared – "

"No, no," she interrupted. "No one would molest me in these parts, but I have come near losing my life," and she sank to the ground, feeling she could not go a step further.

Sir Charles blew a policeman's whistle which he carried in his pocket, and a few minutes later several of the Hall servants came running up.

"Miss Grover has met with an accident!" he explained. "One of you go and fetch the brougham at once, and another run into St. Gaved and fetch the doctor."

Madeline was too exhausted to protest. She was barely conscious where she was or what had happened. The events of the afternoon seemed more like a dream to her than a reality. She heard other voices speaking near her, Beryl's among the rest, but she was too utterly exhausted to pay any attention. She found herself lifted into a carriage at length, and after that she remembered no more until she opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying snug and warm in her own bed.

Meanwhile the little quay had become black with people waiting the return of Sam Tregarrick's boat. Sam had been the first to grasp the purport of Constable Greensplat's message, and without waiting to ask questions or consult with his neighbours, he and his son Tom had bent to their oars and pulled with all possible haste in the direction indicated.

Rounding St. Gaved point they hugged the coast as closely as possible, keeping a sharp look out all the time for any moving figure on the dark line of rocks. The beach was completely under water by the time they had rounded the point.

"It's us or nobody, father," Tom said to his father, as he gave to his oar a swifter stroke.

"What do you mean by that, sonny?" Sam asked, staring hard at the coast line.

"I mean that those who've gone over the downs will never be able to get round Penwith Cove way in time."

"It looks like it, sartinly," Sam answered.

"Why the tide is two foot up the cliffs already," Tom protested. "And Greensplat ain't the sort to wet his feet, if he knows it."

"Fortunately there ain't no sea running," the elder man remarked after a pause. "So if he can drag hisself up the rocks a bit, he may come to nothing worse than a bit of a fright."

"Rufus Sterne ain't the sort of chap they make cowards of," Tom replied, doggedly. "And if he's got to drown he'll drown, and he won't make no fuss 'bout it, nuther."

"Nobody wants to drown, sonny, afore his time," Sam answered, mildly. "It's aisy enough to talk 'bout dying when you're safe and sound and out of danger; but when you're face to face with it – well, a man is on'y a man at best."

"I say nothing agin that, father," Tom answered; "but heaps of folks squeal afore they're hurt, and send for the parson to pray with 'em afore the doctor's had time to feel their pulse. But Rufus Sterne don't belong to that class."

"I fear he wouldn't send for the parson in no case," Sam answered, thoughtfully; "but do you see anything, sonny, just to the right of that big rock?"

Tom slackened his oar for an instant; then he shouted at the top of his voice, "Ahoy there! Ahoy!"

A moment later a white handkerchief was fluttered feebly for an instant, and then allowed to drop.

"It's he sure 'nough," Tom said, excitedly; "but he's got to the far end. If we don't pull like blazes, father, we shall be too late."

From that moment father and son wasted no more of their breath in talk. They felt as though they were engaged in a neck to neck race with death. The distance seemed no more than a stone's throw, and yet though they pulled with might and main it appeared to grow no less. Tom was stroke, and the elder man bravely kept time.

The wide Atlantic swell rocked them gently. Now the grey speck on the face of the cliffs disappeared as they sank into a hollow, and now it came into full view again as they rose on the gently heaving tide.

"Ahoy!" Tom called once or twice as they drew nearer, but there was no response, and both men began to fear that they were too late. Moreover, as they neared the cliffs they had to pick their way. Hidden rocks showed their dark pinnacles for a moment in all directions.

There was no time, however, for excess of caution. If they were to succeed they must be daring, even to the point of recklessness.

They could see Rufus now, reclining against a rock; he appeared to be clutching it tightly with both hands. Now and then the swell of the tide surged almost up to his neck.

"Pull like blazes, father," Tom shouted, excitedly, and they ran the boat, defying all risks, close up to Rufus' side.

"Hold tight, mate," Tom called, encouragingly; "father and I'll do the job, if you keep a steady nerve."

"I'll try," was the feeble response.

"Leave the getting him in to me, dad," Tom said, turning to his father. "You keep on this side, or we shall capsize in two jiffeys."

The elder man obeyed. The boat drifted almost broadside on. Tom laid his oar aside and watched his opportunity. It was clear enough that Rufus had no strength left. Nevertheless his brain was clear still.

Tom explained the modus operandi which he proposed, and Rufus smiled approvingly. It was a ticklish operation, the boat was not large, and an inch too near the rocks might prove the destruction of all.

At a signal from Tom, Rufus let go his hold of the rocks and reached out his hands to his rescuer. The next moment he felt himself floating on the tide. Sam, with his oar, pushed into deeper water, and then began the delicate operation of getting a half drowned man, handicapped by a broken leg, into the boat.

To Rufus it was torture beyond anything he had ever felt or imagined. He felt so sick that he feared he would lose consciousness altogether; even pain at that moment was better than oblivion. Now that life was in sight again, the passion for existence seemed to burn with a stronger flame than ever.

Tom dragged him over the side of the boat as tenderly as he was able. It was a breathless moment for the two fishermen. The little craft came within an ace of being capsized, and nothing but the skill of the older man saved her from turning turtle. Rufus was too far gone to realise the danger. The sickening torture was more than he could endure, and unconsciousness mercifully intervened.

Father and son laid him in as easy a position in the bottom of the boat as they knew how, then they took their oars again and pulled for home. It was growing rapidly dark by this time, and a cool and grateful breeze was sweeping across the wide expanse of sea.

They saw the little harbour black with people when they rounded the point, accompanied by a dozen other boats that had come too late upon the scene to be of any service.

A shout went up that could be heard at the far end of the village when it became known that Rufus Sterne had been rescued alive, for though many people regarded him as "a cut above his station," as they expressed it, yet he was with the majority of the villagers exceedingly popular.

Besides, it had got to be known by this time that the accident which had brought him into a position of such imminent peril had been caused by trying to save the life of another.

In what that effort consisted was as yet by no means clear. But sufficient had been told by the lady visitor at the Hall to leave no doubt that it was through helping her he had met with his accident. Hence, for the moment, Rufus was regarded in the light of a hero, and some people went so far as to suggest that if there was such a thing as gratitude in the world, Sir Charles Tregony would do something handsome for him.

It was fortunate, perhaps, for Rufus that he heard none of the irresponsible chatter that went on round him while he was being conveyed from the quay to Mrs. Tuke's cottage. Momentary glimmers of consciousness came back to him, but accompanied by such insufferable torture, that his very brain seemed to stagger under the shock.

Dr. Pendarvis had just returned from a long round in the country, and was listening to a more or less incoherent story told him by his wife, when there came a violent ring at the surgery bell.

"You say that Chester has gone to the Hall to see Miss Grover?" the Doctor questioned.

"That is as I understand it," his wife replied; "though I confess the story is a bit complicated."

"In which way?"

"Well, late this afternoon Miss Grover rushed into the town considerably dishevelled and in a state of breathless excitement, and told the first man she saw, which happened to be Greensplat, that Rufus Sterne was lying at the foot of the cliffs near Penwith Cove with a broken leg, and that if he wasn't rescued quickly he would be drowned."

"And has he been rescued?"

"I don't know. But some considerable time after one of the Hall servants came hurrying here for you, saying that you were wanted at once as Miss Grover had met with an accident, and as you were not at home, of course, Mr. Chester went."

"I don't see how the two things hang together," Dr. Pendarvis said, with knitted brows.

"Neither do I," replied his wife; "but there goes the surgery bell again."

Five minutes later Dr. Pendarvis was hurrying down the long main street in the direction of Mrs. Tuke's cottage. He found Rufus in a state of collapse, and with the broken limb so swollen that he made no attempt to set the bone.

"We will have to get the swelling down first," he explained in his old-fashioned way. "Meanwhile, we must make the patient as comfortable as possible."

What he said to himself was, "This is a case for Chester. These young men, with their hospital practice and their up-to-date methods, can make rings round the ordinary G.P."

When he got back to his house he found his assistant waiting for him.

"So you have been to the Hall, I understand?" he questioned. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Oh, no! an attack of nerves mainly. A few cuts and bruises, but they are scarcely more than skin deep. She's evidently had a narrow squeak though."

"Ah! I tried to get something out of Sterne, but he's in too much pain to be very communicative."

"What was troubling Miss Grover most when I got there," Chester replied, "was the fear that he had not been rescued."

"An attachment between them already?" the elder man queried, with a twinkle in his eye.

"I don't think so," was the reply, "though naturally if a man saves a woman's life she becomes interested in him."

"Unless he happens to be a doctor, eh?"

"Oh! well, doctors do not count," Chester said, with a laugh.

"Perhaps women have no faith in our ability to save life," Dr. Pendarvis questioned.

"Oh, yes, I think they have," the younger man replied, slowly; "but then you see, we do it professionally. There is no touch of romance about it, and we are not supposed to take any risks."

"We take the fees instead," the older man laughed.

"When we can get them. But do you know in what relationship Miss Grover stands to the Tregony family?"

"Not the ghost of an idea. Sir Charles is as close as an oyster on the subject, and as far as I can make out, the girl is not in the habit of talking about herself."

"She's distinctly American," Chester said, thoughtfully.

"And therefore piquant and interesting?"

"I prefer English girls myself; that is, in so far as girls interest me at all."

"You think you are proof against their wiles?"

"I hope I am, though it is a matter on which one does not like to boast."

"Better not," Pendarvis laughed, "better not. I've heard many men boast in my time, and seen them go down like ninepins before the whirlwind of a petticoat."

"It's a bit humiliating, don't you think?"

"It all depends on how you look at it. You see, we have to take human nature as it is, and not how we would like it to be. It is just because we are men that women triumph over us."

"Then you admit that they are our masters?"

"Not the least doubt of it. Of course, we keep up the pretence of being the head and all that. But a woman who knows her business can twist a man round her finger and thumb."

"I believe you, and for that reason I do not intend to get entangled in the yoke of bondage."

"Be careful," the older man laughed. "There are bright eyes and pretty frocks in an out-of-the-way place like St. Gaved. But let us get back to something more practical. I want you to call round and see Sterne first thing to-morrow morning."

"He has broken his leg, I suppose?"

"I fear it's a very bad fracture, and being tumbled about so much since the accident has not tended to mend matters. I hope by to-morrow morning the swelling will have subsided."

"It seems very unfortunate for him, for I understand he has some big scheme on hand which he is labouring to complete."

"So it is said. But I have no faith in these big schemes. Young men should keep to their legitimate work. It may be a mercy for him if his scheme is knocked on the head." Saying which he bade his assistant good-night and retired to his own room.

CHAPTER VIII
THE SOUL'S AWAKENING

Two people did not sleep at all that night. Pain kept Rufus Sterne awake – an active brain banished slumber from the eyes of Madeline Grover. Possibly some subtle and intractable current of sympathy ran between the cottage and the mansion – some occult and undiscovered movement of the air between brain and brain or heart and heart, some telepathic communication that science had not scheduled yet. Be that as it may, neither Rufus nor Madeline could woo a wink of sleep. All through the long hours of the night they lay with wide-open eyes – the one weaving the threads of fancy into all imaginable shapes, the other fighting for the most part the twin demons of pain and fear.

Madeline lived through that fateful afternoon a thousand times. She recalled every incident, however trivial it might be. Memory would let nothing escape. Things that she scarcely noticed at the time became hugely significant. Simple words and gestures seemed to glow with new meanings.

She was not superstitious – at least she believed she was not. Neither was she a fatalist, and yet she had a feeling that for good or ill, her life was in some way or other bound up with this stranger. It was not his fault that he had come into her life. He had not sought her. The beginning of the acquaintanceship was all on her side. She had made the first advance, and the whirligig of chance or the workings of an inscrutable providence had done all the rest.

In some respects it was scarcely pleasant to feel that she was so much in debt to a stranger. Whatever might happen in the future, or wherever her lot was cast, she would never be able to get away from the feeling that she owed her life to this Rufus Sterne. To make matters all the worse, he was suffering considerable pain and loss on her account. How much this accident might mean to him she had no means of knowing. All his immediate prospects might be wrecked in consequence. For a young man dependent on his own exertions to be incapacitated for two or three months might be a more serious matter than she could guess.

Sometimes she wished that some homely fisherman or ignorant ploughboy had rescued her. She might in such a case have given material compensation, and it would have been accepted with gratitude, and her obligation would be at an end.

But Rufus Sterne was a gentleman – that fact was beyond all dispute – and doubtless he had all the pride that generally attaches to genteel poverty. The obligation, therefore, would have to remain. There was, as far as she could see, no possible way of discharging it. To speak of compensation would be to insult him.

Behind all this there was another feeling: What did he think of her? Did he resent her intrusion into the quiet sanctuary of his life? Did he wish that she had never crossed his path? Was his thought of her at that moment such as her cheeks would redden to hear? She wished she knew what he thought of her – what in his heart he felt. It would be humiliating if he regarded her with contempt, or even with mild dislike.

She would not live to be regarded by him even with indifference. Her cheeks grew hot when she made this confession to herself. If he had been a fisherman or a ploughboy it would not have mattered, and she would not have cared. But he was one of the most noticeable men she had ever seen. A man who would win a second look in any crowd. A man who – given a fair chance – would make his mark in the world.

She hoped that he was not very angry with her, that he was not writing her down in his mind as a foolish and headstrong girl. She would like, after all, to have his good opinion – like him to think that in saving her he had saved a life that was worth saving. It might not be true in fact, but she would like him to think so all the same.

To what end had he saved her? As she looked at her life stretching forward into the future she saw nothing great or heroic in it. It had all been mapped out for her, and mapped out in a very excellent way. The exhortation "take no thought for the morrow," was not needed in her case. Everything was being settled to everyone's satisfaction, her own included. She had only to fall in with the drift and current of events and all would be as she would like it to be.

Other women might have to plan and struggle, and labour and contrive; but in the scheme of her life such unpleasant things had no place. All contingencies had been provided against. She did not need to take any thought for to-morrow.

"I'm not sure that my life was worth saving after all," she said to herself, a little bit fretfully. "It seems an aimless, selfish kind of thing as I look at it now. A poor woman who inspires her husband to do some great deed, even if she is incapable of any great deed herself, surely lives a nobler life than that which seems marked out for me."

Her cheeks grew red again. How proud she would be if she could be the inspiration of some great achievement! To give hope to some great soul struggling amid adverse circumstances would be an end worth living for. To stand by the side of a man she could look up to, and help him to win in the hard battle of life – that would be the crown of all existence.

She began to wonder, after a while, why such thoughts came to her. Why the future should look different from what it had always done. Why a thread of a different hue should show itself in the pattern that had been woven for her. Why a doubt should arise in her heart as to whether the absolutely best had been marked out for her.

Until to-night she had been quite content to take things as she found them. Of course, she had had her troubles, like other girls. It was a trouble to her that she had never known the love of her mother, a trouble that she had never been able to get on with her step-mother, a trouble when her father died – though, as she had seen very little of him for seven years previously, the sense of loss was not so keen as it might have been. It was a trouble to her to say good-bye to her schoolfellows and friends, and cross the seas to a new home in England.

Of course, the last trouble had its compensations. To an American girl whose forebears were English, "The Old Country," as it is affectionately termed, is the land of romance, the home of chivalry, the cradle of heroes and of history. To see the things she had read about in her childhood, to visit spots made sacred by the blood of the heroic dead, to tread on the ground where kings have stood, to pay homage at the shrine of poets and seers – that would be worth crossing a thousand oceans for.

It is true she had been more than a little disappointed. Trewinion Hall was so far away from everywhere, and the people who visited it from time to time were very little to her taste. She would have liked to live in London always. Life and colour and movement were there. Its very streets were historic. Many of its public buildings were hoary with antiquity, and "rich with the spoils of time." The men and women of rank and name and power moved in and out amongst the crowd. History was being made from day to day in its Halls of Assembly.

St. Gaved seemed to her like a little place that had got stranded in the dim and distant past. The rest of the world had run away from it. It lived on its traditions because it had no hope of a future. Like the granite cliffs that stretched north and south, it never changed. Its business, its politics, its morals, its religion, were what they had been from time immemorial. A man who said anything new, or advanced an opinion that was not strictly orthodox, was regarded with suspicion.

St. Gaved had its charm, no doubt. The charm of antiquity, the charm of leisureliness, the charm of immobility. Moreover, it was beautiful for situation. The cliffs were magnificent beyond anything she had ever dreamed. The great ocean was a never-failing source of interest. The valleys that cleft their way inland, the streams that lost themselves in tangled brakes of undergrowth, the hillsides rich in timber, the hedgerows that were masses of wild flowers, the moorlands yellow with gorse – all these things were a set off against its dull and slow-moving life.

Then, besides all that, life would not always be dull. Gervase was returning from India in the spring, and a great many things might happen then.

Gervase was Sir Charles' only son, and heir to the title and estates. He was a handsome soldier of the genuine military type, tall and straight, and not over-burdened with flesh. His hair was pale, his complexion ruddy, his voice harsh, his manner that of one born to command.

Madeline had met him three years before at Washington, and as he was in some far-off and round-about way related to her, he had escorted her to any number of receptions, and danced with her more times than she could count. She thought him then the most handsome man she had ever seen, especially in his uniform. She liked him, too, because he was so dogmatic and masterful; there was nothing timid, or feeble, or retiring about him. He was a man who meant to have his own way, and generally got it.

His courage and daring also touched her heart and imagination. His talk had been mainly about shooting dervishes in Egypt and hunting tigers in India, and some of his exploits had thrilled her to the finger-tips. It puzzled her that he could talk so light-heartedly about the slaughter of human beings, even though they were Arabs and Hindoos, but then he was trained to be a soldier, and soldiers were trained to kill.

It was one of those things she had looked forward to with the greatest interest in coming to England. She would see Gervase Tregony again. It seemed to her like a special providence that Sir Charles Tregony should be her trustee until she was twenty-one, and of course nothing could be kinder than that he should invite her to stay at the Hall as long as she liked – to make her permanent abode there if she chose to do so.

She was glad to accept the invitation for several reasons. In the first place, it was impossible to live with her step-mother, who for some reason appeared to resent her very existence. In the second place, she longed, with all a school-girl's longing, for change, and to see England and Europe had been the very height of her ambition. And in the third place – and this was a secret that she safely guarded in her own bosom – she would the sooner see Captain Tregony; for if she were in England she would be among the first to give him welcome on his return from India, and she imagined with a little thrill at her heart how his face would light up and his eyes sparkle when he saw her standing behind the rest, waiting to give him the warmest welcome of all.

This little secret added a peculiar charm and zest to life, and all the more so because every arrangement had been made respecting her future, as though Captain Tregony had no existence. She imagined sometimes that her father had been under the guidance of a special providence when he made Sir Charles Tregony her trustee, that Sir Charles was under the same kindly influence when he accepted the responsibility and took her to the shelter of his own home.

Had she known the scheming and manœuvering that went on at an earlier date, her faith in providence would have been rudely shaken. But she had no idea that she was only a pawn in a game that was being played by others. It was some solace to John Grover, even when dying, that his only child would mix with the English aristocracy and probably become "my lady" before she had finished her earthly course.

To John Grover, who had started life with empty pockets, who had struggled through years of grinding poverty, who had "struck oil," as he termed it, in middle life and made a huge fortune before he was fifty – to such a man the thought of his daughter marrying an English officer who was also heir to a baronetcy was a distinction almost too great to be shaped into words.

To have married the President of the United States would have been nothing comparable to it. It was a proud day for John Grover when he discovered that his first wife, the mother of Madeline, was remotely connected with the Tregonys of Trewinion Hall, Cornwall. He wrote claiming relationship with Sir Charles on the strength of it, much to the Baronet's annoyance and disgust. But several years later, when John Grover had become a millionaire, Sir Charles decided to hunt him up. A penniless man was one thing, a man with a million was another.

Sir Charles himself was as poor as a church mouse, that is taking his position into account. His son and heir, Gervase, was a young man of very expensive tastes and very lax notions of economy. Hence if their ancestral hall could be refurnished by American dollars, and Gervase's debts paid off out of the savings of this John Grover, it would be a happy and an ingenious stroke of business.

Of course, diplomacy would be needed, and diplomacy of the most delicate and subtle kind. Sir Charles took Gervase into his confidence, and Gervase confided to his father that he was prepared to marry anybody in reason so long as she had plenty of the needful.

Sir Charles took a voyage to the United States and interviewed his relatives. A few months later Gervase went across and paid court to Madeline, and with remarkable success. Madeline was in her seventeenth year at the time, romantic, inexperienced and impressionable. Then came the death of her father, the discovery that Sir Charles Tregony was her trustee, and the option of spending her minority in Trewinion Hall.

So far everything had happened as anticipated. There had been no hitch anywhere, and to all appearances the little scheme would be brought to a successful issue.

Sir Charles kept Gervase well posted up as to the course of events.

"She has not the remotest idea that we have any designs upon her," he said, in one of his early letters. "If she got the smallest hint I fear she might jib. She has grown to be a remarkably handsome girl, high spirited and intelligent. There is nobody here to whom she will lose her heart, and I am keeping her as secluded as possible till you return. I trust to you to put as much warmth in your letters to her as you think advisable. At present she thinks the world of you. I am sure of it. You impressed her mightily when you were in the States. She regards you as a sort of saint and hero rolled into one. She thinks also that you are immensely clever. Hence it is rather a difficult rôle you will have to play. By letter you can do a great deal between now and the new year. Keep up the idealism. She is very puritanic in some of her notions. Don't shock her, for the world. If you can arrange an engagement before you return so much the better. A long courtship, I fear, might spoil everything. She has sharp eyes; and yet you have to guard against being too precipitate. So far, I flatter myself we have both handled the matter with great delicacy. A few months more, and – with care and judgment, you may snap your fingers at the world."

Sir Charles had rightly estimated her character in one respect. If Madeline had had the smallest suspicion that he and his son had designs upon her – that a deliberate plot was being hatched – her indignation would have known no bounds.

But her own little secret had been, perhaps, the best safeguard against any such suspicion. To her ingenuous mind the world was the best of all possible places. Her friends had so arranged her life and her lot that everything appeared to be working together for the best. She had not to worry about anything. The Captain's letters had as much warmth in them as she could desire. Her future, shaped for her without any contriving of her own – shaped by friends and by Providence, left nothing to be desired.