Ethel M. Dell

“ The idea of marriage with some woman who loved him would spring like a beacon out of the night in moments of depression. Other men found a permanent abiding-place and were content therewith; why not he? But he only played with the notion. It did not seriously attract him. He was not a marrying man, and, as he had said to Larpent, the woman did not exist who could hold him. The bare thought of Sheila Melrose sent a mocking smile to his lips. Did she think—did she really think—that she possessed the necessary qualifications to capture a man of his experience? ”

“ He flicked her cheek, grimacing hideously. "Is that your pretty way of telling me I'm the biggest rotter you ever met?"
"Oh, no!" said Toby quickly and earnestly. "Oh no! I think you are—a king. If—if anyone could make me believe in God, you could."
She spoke with a sincerity that held a hint of passion. The grimace flicked out of Saltash's face like a picture from a screen. For a moment he had the blank look of a man who has been hit, he knows not where. Then with lightning swiftness, his eyes went to Maud. "You hear that?" he said, almost on a note of challenge. "Why don't you laugh?" ”

“ She was luring him to pursuit; and like the whirling of a torch in a dark place, the knowledge first dazzled, and then drew him. All his pulses beat in a swift crescendo. There was a considerable mixture of Irish deviltry in Bunny Brian's veins, and anything in the nature of a challenge fired him. He uttered a wild whoop that filled the eerie place with fearful echoes, and gave chase.
It was the maddest race he had ever run. Toby fled before him like the wind, up and up, round and round the winding stair, fleet-footed, almost as though on wings, leaving him behind. ”

“ At one end of the settee, against the leopard skin, something gold was shining. Saltash's look was fixed upon it as he drew near.
He reached the settee treading noiselessly. He stood beside it, looking down. And over his dark face with its weary lines and cynical mouth, its melancholy and its bitterness, there came a light such as neither man nor woman had ever seen upon it before. For there before him, curled up like a tired puppy, her tumbled, golden hair lying in ringlets over the leopard skin, was Toby, asleep in the dim, red lamplight. ”

“ Across the park an owl called persistently, its eerie hoot curiously like the cry of a human voice through the rustling night. The trees were murmuring together down by the lake as though some mysterious news were passing to and fro among them. And once more, alone on his castle walls, Saltash paced restlessly up and down.
It was his last night at Burchester, so he told himself, for many a year to come. The fever for change was upon him. He had played his last card and lost. It was characteristic of the man to turn his back upon his losses and be gone. ”

“ I shall never have an heir of my own blood. Burchester means more to you than it does to me. Therefore Burchester will pass to you at my death. Think you and Toby will be happy here?"
"Damn it!" said Bunny, still fiercely disconcerted. "You talk as if you were going to die to-morrow."
"Oh, probably not," said Saltash airily. "But I doubt if I live to a rakish old age. I'm a man that likes taking chances, and those who dice with the high gods are bound to throw a blank some day." For a moment the mockery died down in his eyes, and he looked more nearly serious than Bunny had ever seen him. ”

“ Think it matters?"
"Well, it's rather a shame to let a good name die out," maintained Bunny. "And of course it's rot to talk like that about Maud. You can't pretend to have stayed in love with her all these years. There must have been heaps of others since then."
"No, I'm not pretending," said Saltash. "As you say, there have been—heaps of others." He made an odd gesture towards the western sky behind him. "There are always—heaps of stars, Bunny; but there's never more than one moon." ”

“ Saltash dragged himself up in the darkness, sought to drag Toby also, found him a dead weight, stooped and lifted him with wiry strength. He trod among broken glass and plates as he straightened himself. The noise above them was increasing. He flung the limp form over his shoulder and began desperately to claw his way up a steep slant towards the saloon-door and the companion-way. Sound and instinct guided him, for the darkness was complete. But he was not the man to die like a trapped animal while the most slender way of escape remained. ”

“ Maud said. She rose impulsively and stood beside him. "Charlie," she said, "why do you wear a mask with me? Do you think I don't know that she is all the world to you?"
He looked at her, and the twisted smile went from his face. "There is no woman on this earth that I can't do without," he said. "I learnt that—when I lost you."
"Ah!" Maud's voice was very pitiful. Her hand came to his. "But this—this is different. Why should you do without her? You know she loves you?"
His fingers closed spring-like about her own. A certain hardness was in his look. ”

“ Toby waited silently.
It came with a jerk and a grimace, as if some inner force compelled. "I can't talk pi-jaw—on this subject or any other. You see—I'm a rotter myself."
"You, sir!" Toby lifted his head suddenly and stared at him with eyes that blazed passionately blue in the starlight. "Don't believe it!" he said. "It isn't true."
Saltash grinned a little. His face had the dreary look of something lost that a monkey's sometimes wears. "You needn't believe it, son, if you don't want to," he said. "But it's true all the same. ”

“ Why was he lingering here like a drunken reveller at a table of spilt wine? He would go down to his yacht and find Larpent—Larpent who had also loved and lost. They would go out on the turn of the tide—the two losers in the game of life—and leave the spilt wine behind them.
Impulsively he strode back along the ramparts. The game was over, and he would never play again; but at least he would face the issue like a man. No one, not even Larpent, should ever see him flinch. So he reached the turret-door, and came abruptly to a halt. ”

“ The tinkle of a lute rose from one of the hidden gardens below him. He stood and listened with sentimental eyes and quizzically twitching mouth. Everything in this wonder-world was ultra-sweet to-night. And yet—and yet—
Suddenly another sound broke through the stillness, and in a moment he had sprung to alertness. It was a cry—a sharp, wrung cry from the garden close to him, the garden of the hotel, and instantly following it a flood of angry speech in a man's voice and the sound of blows.
"Damnation!" said Saltash, and sprang for a narrow wooden door in the stone wall a few yards higher up. ”

“ Toby murmured gratefully. "And you really think—you do really think—the past doesn't matter?"
Maud was silent for a few moments. The thought of Saltash was in her mind, his jesting evasions, his air of careless proprietorship. What was the thing in this child's past that she desired so earnestly to put away? She wondered if she ought to ask, but she could not.
A slight terror ran through the small, supplicating figure at her knee, and quick pity banished doubt. "I think it is entirely in our own hands, dear," she said gently. "The past can always be left behind if we work hard enough." ”

“ I will be your valet, your slave, your—plaything. I will be—the dust under your feet. But I must be with you. You understand me. No one else does. No one else ever can."
"Are you sure you understand yourself?" Saltash said.
His arms had closed about her. He was holding her in a vital clasp. But his restless look did not dwell upon her. It seemed rather to be seeking something beyond.
Toby's hands met and gripped each other behind his neck. She clung to him with an almost frenzied closeness.
"You can't send me away!" she told him brokenly. "If you do, I shall die. ”

“ Bunny said in that new gentle voice of his. "I didn't mean you to get there first, but old Bishop is so long-winded I couldn't get away."
"It didn't matter," said Toby with a nervous little smile.
"It did to me," said Bunny. "It would have saved you that anyway."
"But you'd have killed the hare," she said.
"Not if he hadn't been damaged," he said. "I'm not a brute. I don't kill for the sake of killing."
She looked incredulous. "Most men do. Don't you hunt? Don't you shoot?"
"Oh, you're talking of sport!" said Bunny.
"Yes, it's called sport," said Toby, an odd little vibration in her voice. ”

“ And then suddenly, with an amazing change to tenderness that leapt the void and enchained her where she stood:—"Toby—Toby, you little ass—don't you know I've loved you from the moment The Night Moth struck?"
There was no questioning the truth of those words. A great sob broke from Toby, and the tension went out of her attitude. She stood for a few seconds with her head raised, and on her face the unutterable rapture of one who sees a vision. Then, with sharp anguish, "I can't come back!" she cried like a frightened child. "I'm going to fall!"
Saltash straightened himself. ”

“ Larpent spoke with the absolute conviction of one who knows. "She has too many ideals. Now this sprat you caught at Valrosa—has none."
"Not so sure of that," said Saltash.
"Well, no illusions anyway." There was a hint of compassion in Larpent's voice. "It wasn't because she trusted you that she put herself under your protection. She didn't trust you. She simply chucked herself at you with her eyes open. Like Jonah's whale, you were the only shelter within reach. I'd wager a substantial sum that she's never had any illusions about you. But if you held up your little finger she'd come to you. ”

“ I want to do a good turn to somebody—just for a change—to see what it feels like. Perhaps—who knows—it may take the taste of rottenness out of my mouth. You fellows who lead a decent, orderly life don't know what it is when the wine turns to vinegar and all the sweets of life to gall."
"Sounds pretty damnable," said Jake.
Saltash grimaced like a weary monkey. "It's dust and ashes, my good Jake. But we won't discuss it. Let's come to business! You know Larpent—my captain—quite one of the best?" ”

“ And so at last Toby slept, the deep, unstirring sleep of exhaustion, utterly unconscious of his surroundings, unaware of the man who came in and out watching that unchanging repose, sublimely oblivious of all observation, sunk in a slumber so remote that it might have been the last long rest of all.
Saltash spent the night on the velvet couch under the closed porthole, dozing occasionally and always awakening with a jerk as the roll of the vessel threatened to pitch him on to the floor of the cabin. ”

“ You've never yet made any woman permanently happy. There's only one way of doing that. Bunny would have done it—and won out too. But you—I'm not so sure of you."
"Oh, Bunny would have won out, would he?" Saltash's hand closed like a trap upon Jake's shoulder. There was a challenging quality in his smile.
Jake nodded. "Yes. Bunny's got the real stuff in him. Bunny would have put her happiness before his own always. He would have given her the love that lasts. It's the only thing worth having, after all."
"Well?" The challenge became more marked upon the swarthy face. The smile had vanished. ”

“ Bunny uttered a shout of laughter that echoed and re-echoed up and down the winding stair.
"Is that what you would have done?"
"I'd have done one or the other," said Toby.
"By Jove, how bloodthirsty you sound!" ejaculated Bunny. "Are you in earnest by any chance?"
"Yes, I am in earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend herself, she's better dead." ”

“ When Saltash had been his employer, Jake Bolton had distrusted and despised him, but by some means this attitude of his had become very materially modified. He greeted Saltash now with the hand of friendship which Saltash on his part was always ready to accept with a baffling smile that was not wholly without irony. He was wont to say that any man could make an enemy of him, but no man could keep him as such. Perhaps it was that very volatility of his which made anything of the nature of prolonged enmity an impossibility. ”