The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 40

He turned away from her back to the table and stood there gazing out over the garden.

"No one. It is a mood I have on today which makes me see clearer than I have done before. Go now--if any one saw you here, you know what Marut would say."

"Yes, I know Marut very well by now. Not that it much matters.

Good-by. Please--I found my way alone; I can find the way out."

She had reached the door before he stopped her.

"Beatrice!"

She turned.

"What is it?"

"I have a favor to ask of you--or rather, I have a trust to put in your hands. It is in a sort of way the seal upon our good understanding. There is no one else whom I could trust so much."

She came back to his side. A new color was in her cheeks. Her eyes looked less tired, less hopeless.

"A trust? That would make life worth living."

He took up the packet on the table and gave it to her.

"That is my will. I made it afresh last night. It was witnessed this morning. In it I have made you my executrix, with half my estate. The other half I have left to Lois."

"Now you must leave it all to her," she said.

"No, I wish it to remain as it is. Besides--" He broke off hurriedly, as though seeking to avoid an unpleasant train of thought. "Beatrice, the world won't understand that will. Lois won't, and I pray, for the sake of her happiness, that she may never have to--but if the time comes when this must be put into action, I want you to give her a message from me. Will you?"

"Of course I will. But"--she faced him with a sudden inspired appeal--"must you wait until you are dead to speak to her? Would it not be better to go to her now with your message? I do not know what has come between you both, but I know this much--all forms of pretense are fatal--"

He stopped her with a gesture of decision.

"No," he said. "The secret must remain secret. It has overshadowed my life. It has laden me with a burden of responsibility and shame which I have determined to share with no one. I have taken it upon my shoulders, and I shall carry it to the end. Tell Lois that I have never once swerved in my love for her. Ask her to trust me and think kindly of me. It is not I who have sinned against her--"

"Sinned against her! Who has sinned against her? Do you mean me?"

"No, not you. You also have been sinned against. I also." He sighed wearily. "When I look about me, it seems as though not one of us has not in turn sinned and been sinned against. It is an endless chain of the wrong we do one another."

She laughed, and for the first time there rang in her voice a note of the old harshness.

"Look at me, John. There is no turn and turn about with me. From the beginning I have tricked and lied and fought my way through life. I didn't care whom I hurt so long as I got through. I sinned. Who has sinned against me?"

"One person at least," he answered significantly.

She caught her breath, and the hand that pa.s.sed hastily across her forehead trembled.

"Even if it were true what you say," she said, half inaudibly, "it does not alter the fact that we must atone for what has been done."

"It is the justice of the world," he a.s.sented. "We must make good the harm we do and the harm that has been done us." He threw back his shoulders with a movement of energetic protest. "Do not let us waste time talking. We can not help each other. All I ask is--do not forget my message."

She looked at him, strangely moved.

"You talk as though you were going to die to-night," she said.

"I talk as a man does whom death has already tapped on the shoulder more than once of late," he answered, with grim humor. "Good-by, Beatrice."

"Good-by."

He pushed his writing-table to one side so that she could pa.s.s out on to the verandah.

"Do not come with me farther," she said. "The carriage is waiting outside. I would rather go alone."

He stood and watched her as she pa.s.sed lightly and quickly among the rose-bushes. It was as though he were trying to engrave upon his mind the memory of a lovely picture that he was never to see again,--as though he were bidding her a final farewell. Twice she turned and glanced back at him. Was it with the same intent, guided by the same strange foreboding? She disappeared, and the voice of a native orderly who had entered the room unheard recalled him to the reality.

"A letter for you, Captain Sahib," the man said, saluting.

Stafford took the sealed envelope and, tearing it open, ran hastily over the contents. It was from the Colonel. The subscription, as usual since the rupture in their relations, was cold and formal.

"I should be glad to see you at once," Colonel Carmichael had written.

"Events occurred yesterday which I have not as yet been able to discuss with you, but which I fear are likely to have the most serious consequences. In the present weakened condition of our garrison, we can afford to run no risks. Nicholson is with me here. Your presence would simplify matters as regards forming our plans for the future."

Stafford turned to the waiting soldier.

"Present my compliments to the Colonel Sahib," he said. "I shall be with him immediately."

CHAPTER IV

STAFFORD INTERVENES

The threatening cloud which had loomed up on the horizon had acted wonders on Colonel Carmichael's const.i.tution. At the last meeting of the Marut Diamond Company he had looked like a man whose days on the active service list were numbered. Ill-health, disappointment, and a natural pessimism had apparently left an indelible trace upon him, and Mrs. Carmichael's prophetic eye saw them both established in Cheltenham or Bath, relegated to the Empire's lumber-room--unless something happened. The something had happened. The one sound which had the power to rouse him had broken like a clap of unheralded thunder upon his ears. It was the call of danger, the war-note which had brought back to him the springtime of his youth and strength.

Stafford found him restlessly pacing backward and forward in his narrow workroom, deep in conversation with Nicholson, who stood at the table, his head bent over a map of Marut. Both men were in uniform, and it seemed to Stafford that Colonel Carmichael listened to the click of his own spurs with the pleasure of a young lieutenant. It was no longer the sound of weary routine. It was the herald of clas.h.i.+ng sabres and the champing of impatient horses awaiting the charge; it was an echo of past warlike days which were to come again. He stood still as Stafford entered, and a flash of satisfaction pa.s.sed over his face.

"I'm glad you have come," he said. "Whatever is to be done must be done at once. I suppose you know nothing?"

"Nothing," Stafford answered. "Your note was the first intimation I have received that there was anything amiss."

Colonel Carmichael grunted angrily.

"Of course you know nothing," he said, resuming his restless march about the room. "Nor did I--nor did any one. Heaven and earth, I'm beginning to think there's something wrong in our theory that whatever is going on under our noses must be too insignificant to be noticed!

There, Nicholson, hurry up and tell him what you know."

Nicholson stood upright, and folding the map put it in his pocket.