Joseph Hocking

“ Leicester's heart beat aloud for joy; he could not repress a cry of exultation.
But Olive Castlemaine mastered herself by a strong effort of will.
"You ask me to speak to you honestly," she said. "Well, I will. I could never love a man—that is as you would be loved—if I did not respect him and I could not respect a man who was the slave to an evil habit."
"You mean——" he hesitated, and looked on the floor.
"Yes, I mean that."
"Look here," he said eagerly, "promise that you will be my wife, and I will never taste a drop of alcohol of any sort again. I give you my word for that. ”

“ I'll make life a hell for you. I mean it! I have no fear of Winfield. He makes no profession of religion, and therefore will act squarely; but I say this to you two fellows—you, Sprague, and Purvis—if ever Miss Castlemaine hears of it, I know it will come from one of you two. No one else knows of it, and I shall quickly find out which of you two has told her. Well, I tell you this, no lost soul in the hell about which you preach to sinners shall suffer as you shall suffer. ”

“ No? That is why I came, signorina. When I saw his face wreathed with smiles; when I looked into his eyes, lit up with the thought of victory; when I heard his voice ringing with gladness, it revealed something to me. Ah, you have not guessed it. Who am I—a poor alien—that I should think such thoughts? But no man is master of his heart, Miss Castlemaine. For if I saw truly, and he is lifted into heaven, then I am hurled into hell. No, you do not think of this. Why should you? You regarded me as a mild-mannered foreigner, who had come to live in your beautiful neighbourhood. ”

“ I've been a fellow without hope, mercy, or faith. I've cared nothing for others. If a man has stood in my way I've shoved him aside. I've seen only the worst in life, and I've acted on what I saw. I was drink-sodden, too. I was a slave to a vile habit. But for the fact that drink made no visible impression upon me, I should have been one of those drunken sots that have to be put to bed every night. I did not believe in God nor man. No, I scorned God, and religion, and morality, and I sold myself to the devil of my own selfishness. ”

“ Hour after hour Leicester slept. The doctor's potion, together with the whisky fumes, had to be slept off, and he lay like a log, breathing heavily. More than once the proprietor of the hotel came and looked at him. As he looked, he wondered. Even in his drunken sleep there was something noble about him. The face, all discoloured as it was, suggested a strong, masterful man. It seemed impossible that the self-restrained man who came to his house a few hours before, and had ordered nothing but soda-water from the waiter, could have fallen on the platform in drunken helplessness. ”

“ No man honours a woman more than I honour you, no man believes in a woman's nobility and honour more than I believe in yours. As I said, as soon as I saw you I loathed what had taken place, for I loved you."
"You mean," said Olive, "that you no longer came here because of your desire to win this wager, but——"
"Because I loved you," said Leicester eagerly. He forgot the presence of Winfield, and John Castlemaine. Only he and Olive were together, the others did not exist. "Yes, that is true, I came only for you. ”

“ I do not think that any of the servants, to say nothing of myself, have ever regarded you in any other light. I am an old-fashioned man, Mr. Leicester, and when I know that a man has acted as no gentleman could or would act, I simply forbid him my house, and I give my servants instructions accordingly."
"Since when have I ceased to have the right to be treated like a gentleman?" asked Leicester.
"Since I knew that you made my daughter the subject of a wager," replied John Castlemaine, with quiet scorn. "Since you wagered a hundred pounds that you would win her as your wife." ”

“ Let her be the best you can think of; let her be the most exemplary, the most high-minded, the most orthodox, and I maintain that she'll not care a fig about all my failings, if she believes in the brilliance of my career."
"If you hadn't drunk so much whisky you'd not propose such a thing," said Purvis.
"Oh, you are backing out, are you?" sneered Leicester. "It is always the same. Fellows like you utter pious platitudes; you proclaim the glory of women; you hold up your hands with horror at a man who dares tell the truth, and then you back out like cowards. ”

“ If a few months before any one had told Radford Leicester that in order to gain a woman's good opinion he would excuse his own mode of life, he would have either grown angry or laughed that man to scorn. Yet he contemplated doing it at that moment. Perhaps if Sprague or Purvis had been in the room at that moment, they would not have been sure whether he were in earnest, or whether he were playing a part in order to win his wager. For they believed him to be capable of anything. But Leicester was not playing a part. ”

“ This, then, was his boasted strength; this was what Radford Leicester had come to. The warnings of the pious friends whom he had sneered at had come true. Whisky had made him as drunk as a navvy who had spent his week-end in debauchery on receiving his week's wage. Cynic as he had always been, even in his best hours, he had also been always a proud man. He had professed contempt for the men who had not been able to conquer the vices which disgraced them in the eyes of the world. This pride had checked him from the vulgar indulgence in sin, before he had met Olive Castlemaine. ”

“ Moreover, Ricordo had interested her in himself, in a way that she had been interested in no other man for a long time. It was not so much because of what he said. Rather, it lay in the fascination of the man himself. He made such as Herbert Briarfield seem small and commonplace. She felt sure that he had lived in a realm of thought and being to which the young squire was a stranger.
The essence of interest is mystery. It is rather in the things not seen, than in the things seen, that fascination lies. We are for ever longing to explore new regions, to tread ground hitherto untrodden. ”

“ And yet, although Sprague and Purvis did not know it, Leicester had entered the smoking-room of the club that night with a strong inclination to refuse the invitation to John Castlemaine's house. He had been ashamed of making a woman the subject of a wager, and more, he had for several days been fighting against the craving for alcohol. He realised more than any man the mastery which it had gained over him, and he knew that unless he conquered the habit, he would soon be a slave to it, body and soul. ”

“ Nature was a parable of his own life. After the black death of winter came the resurrection of spring, after the wild storm had come a peace. Life was new to him. He felt it in every fibre of his being; old things had passed away, but he felt a great sorrow in his heart. For he knew what lay before him. From that night Signor Ricordo would be no more, and he, Radford Leicester, must go out into the wilderness again.
He hesitated for a moment, and then went indoors again to his own room. In a few minutes he came out again, and started for Vale Linden Hall. ”

“ Once, on his way thither, he had thought of telling her the whole story, but now he would rather have suffered death than that she should know. Even then he determined that if either of the men who were parties to the shameful compact, should divulge the secret he would make their lives a hell. For Radford Leicester was not making love to gain a wager. A passion to which he had hitherto been a stranger had gripped him body and soul. At that moment Olive Castlemaine was everything to him. He would have bartered his immortal soul to gain her love. ”

“ The sun by day, and the moon and stars by night, with the great silence brooding over him—great God, yes!"
Briarfield was struck dumb by the quiet intensity of his words.
"This is a man who has suffered," he thought; but he said aloud, after an awkward silence, "You are a Mohammedan, I suppose, signore?"
"I," replied the other, "I am nothing, signore, and I am everything—Christian, Mohammedan, Brahmin, what you will. I believe in them all, because all postulate a devil."
"You believe in a devil, then?"
"Have I not lived in London? Ay, and in Morocco also. But above all, I have lived!" ”

“ An evening spent in the society of a good woman, moreover, had aroused his latent manhood, and he felt that he could not degrade himself by standing by the challenge he had made. He knew as well as they that it was made under the influence of whisky, and that no man of honour should stand by it.
During the days he had been fighting his craving for drink, the thought of what he had done became more and more repugnant, and when he entered the room where Sprague and Purvis were, he intended telling them that nothing more must be said about it. ”

“ What do you think would be his motive?"
Winfield was silent.
"When you get down to the bedrock of this little human nature of ours, Winfield, you find that the same elemental passions exist, no matter what be our race or our country. Shakespeare knew it when he conceived the character of Shylock, and when he wrote Othello. What do you think Radford Leicester would want to live for?"
"You love her still?"
"Love her! As much as Shylock loved Antonio, my friend; as much as any other man loves one who has lifted him into heaven only to hurl him into hell." ”