George Manville Fenn

“ The prison is the only place for such as you, where the power of doing mischief is beyond you. Brettison, go down and fetch a policeman—two—at once.”
“Let him stir, and I’ll send a bullet through his skull,” cried the man fiercely, as his hand was thrust behind him beneath his coat.
“Go at once, Brettison, I’ll take care he does not harm you.”
“Don’t listen to him, you, sir,” cried the scoundrel. “I warn you; you stir from that chair and you’re a dead man!”
“My dear Stratton,” said Brettison, rising from his sea.
“Go at once! Never mind his threats,” said Stratton fiercely. ”

“ Guest opened and shut his mouth without speaking for a few moments. Then:
“Go—with me? You go with me? Why, it would be madness.”
“Madness, madness, old fellow,” said Stratton feebly, “but I tell you I am quite strong now.”
“Very far from it,” said Brettison.
“And I say so too,” cried Guest. “Look here, old fellow, do you mean to assert that you are compos mentis?”
“Of course,” said Stratton, smiling.
“Then I say you are not,” cried Guest, “and Mr Brettison will second me. You are weak as a rat in spite of all our watching, and feeding, and care.”
“All this long, weary month,” sighed Stratton. ”

“ It was a marvel to Stratton as he recalled the past, and, as he sat gazing from the open window or strolled out upon the dusky sands, he wondered that he could feel so well. In fact a sensation of annoyance attacked him, for he felt guilty and faithless, a traitor to the past, and strove to resume his old cloak of sadness, but it would not come.
“Malcolm, my lad,” said Brettison one evening as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the young man’s arm, “we are going to have rest and peace again. Thank Heaven, you are growing like your old self.” ”

“ Nothing comes to pass so often as the unexpected.”
Stratton shook his head.
“What! Doubting, in the face of all I have told you just now? Why, man, my news must have come upon you like a miracle. Come, I shall see you and Myra happy yet.”
“Silence!” cried Stratton sternly. “Impossible! All that is past. Brettison, I accept my fate in all thankfulness for what I know. If Myra and I ever meet again, I can take her hand and look her calmly in the eyes. I know my position now; and, thank God, I am once more a man—free from the great horror of my life. ”

“ Bigamy—blackmailed by a scoundrel who would make his life a hell—through constant threats to claim his wife—a score of such thoughts flashed through Stratton’s brain as he stood there before the cool, calculating villain watching him so keenly. Money was no object to him. Mr Brettison would let him have any amount, but it was madness to think of such a course. There was only one other—to free the innocent, pure woman he idolised from the persecution of such a wretch, and the law would enable him to do that. ”

“ The old man rose and crossed to an old brass-bound cellarette, which he opened.
“No, no,” cried Stratton excitedly; “go on, man, go on. You are torturing me. Let me know the worst—or the best,” he cried with a bitter laugh. “Ought I to wish his life to be saved, and, know that I am not a murderer?”
“A man is no murderer who slays another in defence of his own life,” said Brettison calmly, getting out an old spirit decanter and glasses.
“Leave that,” cried Stratton, pushing away the glass his friend placed before him. “Go on—go on!”
“No,” said Brettison sternly; “you need the stimulus now.” ”

“ It was only a trick of the nerves, which passed off directly; and he rose then, firm and determined, to cross gently to first one and then the other door by his mantelpiece, where he stood, silent and intent, breathing deeply.
Yes; there was no doubt now. He was inhaling the penetrating, peculiar odour of strong tobacco; and at last Brettison must have returned, and be sitting there smoking his eastern water-pipe.
Stratton drew softly back, as if afraid of being heard, though his steps were inaudible on the thick carpet, and he stood there thinking. ”

“ Stratton, in his madness, might find some means of hiding his body, and—what then? Edie—poor little Edie, with her bright ways and merry, teasing smiles? He would never see her again; and she, too, poor little one, would be heart-broken, till some luckier fellow came along to make her happy.
“No, I’ll be hanged if he shall,” thought Guest, as a culmination to the rapid rush of thought that flashed through his brain. “Poor old Stratton is really as mad as a hatter; but, even if he has such thoughts, I’ve as good a chance as he has in the dark, and I’ll die hard. Bah! who’s going to die? ”

“ Stratton drew back, and continued his walk along the shore, enjoying the coolness of the fiery looking water which washed over and about his feet, full, as it were, of phosphorescent creatures, while here and there to his right, where the sea lay calm amid the rocks, the water was covered with what resembled a golden, luminous oil, which flashed softly at times with a bluish tint.
“Brettison is right,” he said to himself. “Life is grand, and it is our petty cares which spoil it. Not petty, though, mine,” he added, with a sigh. ”

“ The admiral kissed her hastily, and she clung to him for a moment or two longer as he drew a long, deep breath.
“My own dearest father,” she whispered, and she would have sunk at his feet, but he gently placed her in a lounge chair and turned to Guest.
“Now, sir,” he said, as if he were delivering an order from the quarter-deck, “I am at your service.”
Myra sprang from her chair and caught her aunt’s arm, looking wildly in her eyes; and the meaning of the look was grasped.
“Stop a moment, Mark,” she said. “My carriage is waiting. You may want a woman there; I’ll come with you.” ”

“ Malcolm Stratton is the soul of honour—a gentleman who would have laid down his life sooner than cause pain to the lady he loves with all his heart.”
“God bless you for that, Mr Guest!” cried Myra—catching the young man’s hand as she spoke—in a broken voice, which she fought hard to render calm.
“Bah! Heroics! Come away, Myra. Of course he’ll talk big for his friend. But where is he? Why has he insulted us all like this?”
“Heaven only knows, sir,” said Guest solemnly. “Forgive me for speaking as I do before you, Mrs Barron, but at the cost of alarming you I must take Malcolm’s part. ”

“ A peculiar sense of shrinking ran through Stratton as he saw himself again passing through the struggle and dragging the man into the bath-closet, while once more he had to fight with the feelings of dread of detection, and recalled how he had argued with himself, upon the necessity for hiding away the wretch whose existence had been as a blight on Myra’s young life, and who, dead, was the great bar to their future happiness.
“And,” he muttered aloud with a bitter sigh, “living—as great a barrier still.” ”

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

“ There was no sign of feminine occupation, and Guest felt staggered.
“Well,” said Stratton bitterly, “you do not answer me. What do you want?”
“You to be the same fellow I always knew. Why have you come here?”
“You are inquisitorial, but I’ll answer: Because it suits me. My rooms yonder are dark and depressing. I am ill, and want to sit here and breathe the fresh air and think. Is there anything wonderful in that?”
“No; but you need not play hide-and-seek with your friends.”
“I have no friends,” said Stratton coldly. “I am not the first man who ever took to a solitary life. ”

“ She nodded as if there was no contradicting this, and Brettison went in search of Stratton with a bunch of plants in his hand, and a curiously puzzled look in his eyes.
“Suppose he does get well and strong,” he thought to himself. “I ought to be glad, but am not.”
He found Stratton sitting back, with his shoulders against the cliff, dreaming of the past, and then of the future, more at rest than he had been for months, and as Brettison drew near he brightened a little, and smiled. For the nurse’s words applied to his friend as well, and he was certainly growing stronger and better. ”

“ Let’s eat and drink our fill of the peace that has come to us.”
“But it cannot go on, Brettison,” said Stratton solemnly. “It must have an end.”
“Yes; an end comes to all things, boy. I shall die before long, but why should I sit and brood upon that? Let’s thankfully accept the good with the ill—no, not the ill,” he said solemnly: “death is not an evil. It is only made so by man.”
“But we cannot go on staying here,” said Stratton with energy. ”

“ Stratton could not suppress a shudder; but, as he saw the peculiar way in which the old man’s eyes were fixed upon his, a feeling of resentment arose within him, and his voice sounded strident and harsh when he spoke again.
“I had no such thoughts,” he said. “You know better, sir. Come, let us understand one another. I am reckless now.”
“Yes,” said Brettison coldly.
“Then, if you have any fear for your life, you can call for help; that is, for someone to be within call to protect you, for what we have to say must be for our ears alone.” ”

“ Old men are tedious, Stratton, and I am, I suppose, no exception to the rule. However, I will be brief, for I am torturing you, I fear. I racked my brains for hours and evoked dozens of plans, but there was always some terrible obstacle in the way, and at last I sat back here in utter despair, seeing nothing but the plain fact before me—that your wisdom was greater than mine, and that the only way out of the difficulty was the one you had chosen—to restore the body to the hiding-place in there. ”

“ I am perfectly calm now, sensible of the awful responsibilities of my act, but after what I have gone through since I have been here alone to-day I know perfectly well that my reason is failing, and that in a few hours the paroxysm will return, finding me weaker than before. Better the end at once than after a few months’ or years’ living death, confined among other miserables like myself.
It was my all—my one aim, Guest, for which I toiled so hard, fighting for success. And the good fortune has come in company with a failure so great that the success is nothing. ”

“ Once with Myra meant till death, and she would follow him to the world’s end.
“And I sit here,” he cried, and started from his seat, “when she is there yonder waiting for me. A word would rouse her from her sleep, if she does sleep. She may be sitting at her window even now, wakeful and wretched as I, and ready to trust me, to let me lead her far away from all this misery and despair. Heaven never could mean us to suffer as we do. It is a natural prompting. ”

“ They had found my wound and the pistol. It was an attempt at suicide. Poor Guest recalled the first—I do not wonder. And they went away at last, looking upon me as a vile betrayer of the woman I loved, and sought in their minds for the reason of my despair, and the cowardly act I had attempted to escape her father’s wrath. Brettison, old friend, I make no excuses to you now; but was I not sorely tried? Surely, few men in our generation have stood in such a dilemma. ”

“ Your coming and the sound of your voice must have revived it all.”
“But he made not the faintest sign of recognition.”
“No; but we cannot understand the workings of the brain. It was, perhaps, the expiring effort of his reason, for look at him now.”
“Expiring!” cried Stratton. “Yes; but how many more flashes of reason may spring up before the light goes right out?”
Brettison gazed at the man in a perplexed way, and bent over and touched him, but there was no sign.
“This settles it,” said Stratton at last. “We must act at once.” ”

“ Acting the timid lover with the old result!” cried Sir Mark angrily.
Stratton gazed excitedly in his face; there was so much meaning in his words.
“There,” continued the admiral; “but it must come, sir, and you must bear it like a man. My child, Myra, has accepted my friend Mr Barron, and the marriage is to take place almost at once.”
Stratton stood for a few moments gazing in Sir Mark’s face, as if he failed to grasp the full tenor of his words. Then, turning slowly, and without a word, he left the room, walked back to his quaint, panelled chambers, and hid his despair from the eyes of man. ”

“ Myra had been sitting perfectly upright, looking as if suffering from some cataleptic seizure; but at the mention of Stratton she turned and laid her hand upon her father’s arm.
“Oh, yes, of course!” he raged, with a mocking laugh. “Womanlike; a hundred excuses ready for him: cut himself in shaving—wedding clothes not home in time—sprained his ankle—a bad headache. Oh, you women, you women! If ever there were a pack of fools—”
“Father!”
That one word only, but full of so much agony that he turned and caught her to his breast. ”

“ I am going back to her. Man, you have broken the heart of as true and sweet a woman as ever lived.”
Stratton did not stir, but stood there bent, and as if crushed, listening to the rustle of his visitor’s rich silk, as she hurried back to her brother; then the door was opened, closed upon them, and a dead silence reigned in Stratton’s study, as he and Guest stood listening to the faint sound of the descending steps till they had completely died away. ”

“ Here is a wretched man who professes to love you—”
“Malcolm Stratton did love me, aunt,” said Myra proudly, as stung beyond endurance she gave utterance to the thoughts she had kept hidden so long.
“Looks like it!” continued Aunt Jerrold. “Bah! the horsepond is too good for such as he!”
Myra turned upon her fiercely.
“Aunt,” she cried, “it is not true!”
“But it is true, my dear, or the wretch would have said a few words in his defence.”
“I cannot stay here and listen to you, aunt,” cried Myra, rising with dignity. “It is cruel of you to speak of Mr Stratton like this.” ”

“ But Guest was too weary now to feel any dread. Stratton was evidently sorry for his mad attempt, and perfectly sane, so, after a few brave efforts to keep awake, the young barrister calmly dropped off into a deep sleep, and the busy working of a dream, in which Edie was scornfully telling him that she had discovered all about his escapade with a dark woman resembling the queen of spades, and when he tried to catch her in his arms and convince her that he was a perfectly innocent man, she sprang from her seat, uttering a piercing cry. ”

“ He waited until Guest had been gone for some minutes, and then, taking a short cut, he strode along the sands, half in dread of encountering him again, but feeling that he must risk it, though certain that if they did meet Guest would reproach him with going toward the admiral’s residence in order to obtain an interview with Myra.
“He must think it—he must think it,” muttered Stratton as he hurried on, now stumbling over a piece of rock, now slipping on some heap of weed left by the tide. ”

“ There was not a soul visible as they crossed the little, silent, ill-paved courtyard, with its few flickering gas lamps and the buildings around standing up blank and bare, for the most part solitary and deserted looking, for hardly a blind showed a light behind.
Half-way along by the railings, beneath the great plane trees, a man was standing; and, as he took a step out into the light of the nearest lamp, Guest felt that Myra was ready to drop. But a whispered word or two roused her to make the last effort, and the next minute they were in the doorway ”

“ The strange look in Stratton’s eyes intensified, but Guest did not notice it, nor yet that his companion was letting his eyes wander around the old carved panelling with its oaken architraves and heavy plinths and mouldings.
For Guest was intent upon his own thoughts.
“Look here,” he said suddenly; “about Brettison?”
Stratton turned upon him uneasily.
“This is a rum world, Mal, old fellow.”
“What do you mean?” said Stratton.
“Only this: Brettison’s rich—a man worth a good deal, and men of that stamp generally have people who take a good deal of notice of them.” ”