Half a Hero Part 38

He recollected telling the same story to the other woman he loved, and he shrank in sudden dread, lest his daughter should say what Alicia had said, "To me it is--horrible!" The words echoed in his brain. "Ah, I can't speak of it," she had cried, and the gesture of her hand as she repelled him lived before his eyes again. Surely Daisy would not do that to him!

"I should be like Lear--without a grievance," he said to himself, with a wry smile. "The very height of tragedy!"

It was near midnight before he put away his work. Norburn had left him alone two hours before, and he rose now, laid down his pipe, and went to look for his daughter in her little sitting-room. His heart was very heavy; he must make her understand now why a man who made love to her should be hastily sent away by his friends, what her father had condemned her to, what manner of man he was; he must seem to destroy or impair the perfect sweetness of memory wherein she held her mother.

He opened the door softly. She was sitting in a large armchair, over a little bit of bright fire; save for gleams suddenly coming and going, as a coal blazed and died down again, the room was in darkness. He walked up to her and knelt by the chair, his head almost on a level with hers.

"Well, Daisy, what are you doing?"

She put out a hand and laid it on his with a gentle pressure.

"I'm thinking," she said. "Do you want a light?"

"No, I like it dark best--best for what I have to say."

Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck, drawing him to her and kissing his face.

"I'd do the same if you'd killed him yourself," she whispered in the extravagance of her love, and kissed him again.

"But, Daisy, you don't know."

"Yes, I do. He told me. He's been here."

"Who?"

"Jack Norburn. He said you would hate telling me, so he did. You mustn't mind, dear, you mustn't mind. Oh, you didn't think it would make any difference to me, dear, did you? What do I care? Mrs. Puttock may care, and Lady Eynesford, and all the rest, but what do I care if I have you and him?"

"Me and him, Daisy?"

"Yes," she answered, smiling boldly. "He's asked me to marry him--just to show he didn't mind--and I think I will, father. We three against the world! What need we care? Father, we'll beat Sir Robert!" and she seized his two hands and laughed.

In vain Medland tried to tell her what he had come to say. Mighty as his relief and joy were, he still felt a burden lay on him. She would not hear.

"Don't you see I'm happy?" she cried. "It can't be your duty to make me unhappy. Jack doesn't mind, I don't mind!" Her voice sank a little and she added, "It can't hurt mother now. Oh, don't be unhappy about it, dear--don't, don't!"

They were standing now, and his arm was about her. Looking up at him, she went on,

"They shan't beat us! They shan't say they beat us. We three, father!"

He stooped and kissed her. There is love that lies beyond the realm of giving or taking, of harm or good, of wrong, or even of forgiveness.

With all his faults, this love he had won from his daughter, and it stood him in stead that night. He drew himself up to his height, and the air of despondency fell from him. The girl's brave love braced him to meet the world again.

"No, by Jove, we're not beat yet, Daisy!" he said, and she kissed him again and laughed softly as she made him sit, and herself sat upon his knee.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE TRUTH TOO LATE.

By four o'clock the next afternoon the Club had gathered ample materials for fresh gossip. The formalities attendant on the change of government, the composition of the new Cabinet, the prospects of the election--these alone would have supplied many hours, and besides them, indeed supplanting them temporarily by virtue of an intenser interest, there was the account of the inquest on Benyon's body. Medland had gone to it, almost direct from his final interview with the Governor, and Kilshaw had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian, who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified the person in the photograph, declared the deceased man to have been Benyon, and very briefly stated how he had been connected with him in old days.

"The lady," he said, "is Mrs. Benyon. The other figure is that of myself. I had not seen the deceased for many years."

"You were not on terms with him?" asked the coroner, who, in common with half the listeners, had known the lady as Mrs. Medland.

"No," said Mr. Medland; "I lost sight of him."

"You did not hear from--from any one about him?"

"No."

He gave the dates when he had last seen Benyon in old days. Asked whether he had communicated with him between that date and the dead man's reappearance, he answered,

"Once, about four years ago. I wrote to tell him of that lady's death,"

and he pointed again to the picture, and went on to tell the details of Benyon's subsequent application to him for a post under Government.

"You refused it?" he was asked.

"Yes, I refused it. I spoke to him once again, when we met on a social occasion. We had a sort of dispute then. I never saw him again to speak to."

"It was all done," said Mr. Duncombe, describing the scene, "in a repressed way that was very effective--to a house that knew the circ.u.mstances most effective. And the other fellow--Kilshaw--he gave some sport too. The coroner (they told me he was one of Medland's men, and I noticed he spared Medland all he could) was inclined to be a bit down on Kilshaw. Kilshaw was cool and handy in his answers, but, Lord love you! his game came out pretty plain. A monkey! You don't give a man a monkey unless there's value received! So people saw, and Mr. Kilshaw looked a bit uncomfortable when he caught Medland's eye. He looked at him like that," and Mr. Duncombe a.s.sumed the finest wronged-hero glance in his repertory.

"Oh, come, old chap, I bet he didn't," observed Captain Heseltine.

"We've seen him, you know."

Duncombe laughed good-humouredly.

"At any rate he made Kilshaw look a little green, and some of the people behind called out 'Shame!' and got themselves sat upon. Then they had Medland up again and twisted him a bit about his acquaintance with Gaspard; but the coroner didn't seem to think there was anything in it, and they found murder against Gaspard, and rang down the curtain. And when we got outside there was a bit of a rumpus. They hooted Kilshaw and cheered Medland, and yelled like mad when a dashed pretty girl drove up in a pony-cart and carried him off. Altogether it wasn't half bad."

"Glad you enjoyed yourself," observed Captain Heseltine. "If it amuses strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."

The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr.

Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. n.o.body doubted that Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.

"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.

"Well, he wants to, pretty nearly," added a capitalist.

"But the country will take a very different view. Puttock'll rub it into all his people: _they_'ll not vote for him. What do you say, c.o.xon?"

"I think we shall beat him badly," said that gentleman, as he rose and went out.

Captain Heseltine soon followed, and was surprised to see c.o.xon's figure just ahead of him as he entered the gates of Government House.

"Hang the fellow! What does he want here?" asked the Captain.