The Lion's Skin Part 43

Caryll was the brother that he claimed to be. He gathered from his mother's sudden anger that she, too, was convinced, in spite of herself, by the answers Mr. Caryll had returned to all her arguments against the ident.i.ty he claimed.

He hated Mr. Caryll no whit less for what he had learnt; if anything, he hated him more. And yet a sense of decency forbade him from persecuting him now, as he had intended, and delivering to the hangman. From ordinary murder, once in the heat of pa.s.sion--as we have seen--he had not shrunk. But fratricide appeared--such is the effect of education--a far, far graver thing, even though it should be indirect fratricide of the sort that he had contemplated before learning that this man was his brother.

There seemed to be one of two only courses left him: to provide Mr.

Caryll with the means of escape, or else to withhold such evidence as he intended to supply against him, and to persuade--to compel, if necessary--his mother to do the same. When all was said, his interests need not suffer very greatly. His position would not be quite so strong, perhaps, if he but betrayed a plot without delivering up any of the plotters; still, he thought, it should be strong enough. His father dead, out of consideration of the signal loyalty his act must manifest, he thought the government would prove grateful and forbear from prosecuting a claim for rest.i.tution against the Ostermore estates.

He had, then, all but resolved upon the cleaner course, when, suddenly, something that in the stress of the moment he had gone near to overlooking, was urged upon his attention.

Hortensia had risen and had started forward at her ladys.h.i.+p's last words. She stood before his lords.h.i.+p now with pleading eyes, and hands held out. "My lord," she cried, "you cannot do this thing! You cannot do it!"

But instead of moving him to generosity, by those very words she steeled his heart against it, and proved to him that, after all, his potentialities for evil were strong enough to enable him to do the very thing she said he could not. His brow grew black as midnight; his dark eyes raked her face, and saw the agony of apprehension for her lover written there. He drew breath, hissing and audible, glanced once at Caryll; then: "A moment!" said he.

He strode to the door and called the footmen, then turned again.

"Mr. Caryll," he said in a formal voice, "will you give yourself the trouble of waiting in the ante-room? I need to consider upon this matter."

Mr. Caryll, conceiving that it was with his mother that Rotherby intended to consider, rose instantly. "I would remind you, Rotherby, that time is pressing," said he.

"I shall not keep you long," was Rotherby's cold reply, and Mr. Caryll went out.

"What now, Charles?" asked his mother. "Is this child to remain?"

"It is the child that is to remain," said his lords.h.i.+p. "Will your ladys.h.i.+p do me the honor, too, of waiting in the ante-room?" and he held the door for her.

"What folly are you considering?" she asked.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p is wasting time, and time, as Mr. Caryll has said, is pressing."

She crossed to the door, controlled almost despite herself by the calm air of purpose that was investing him. "You are not thinking of--"

"You shall learn very soon of what I am thinking, ma'am. I beg that you will give us leave."

She paused almost upon the threshold. "If you do a rashness, here, remember that I can still act without you," she reminded him. "You may choose to believe that that man is your brother, and so, out of that, and"--she added with a cruel sneer at Hortensia--"other considerations, you may elect to let him go. But remember that you still have me to reckon with. Whether he prove of your blood or not, he cannot prove himself of mine--thank G.o.d!"

His lords.h.i.+p bowed in silence, preserving an unmoved countenance, whereupon she cursed him for a fool, and pa.s.sed out. He closed the door, and turned the key, Hortensia watching him in a sort of horror. "Let me go!" she found voice to cry at last, and advanced towards the door herself. But Rotherby came to meet her, his face white, his eyes glowing. She fell away before his opening arms, and he stood still, mastering himself.

"That man," he said, jerking a backward thumb at the closed door, "lives or dies, goes free or hangs, as you shall decide, Hortensia."

She looked at him, her face haggard, her heart beating high in her throat as if to suffocate her. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"You love him!" he growled. "Pah! I see it in your eyes--in your tremors--that you do. It is for him that you are afraid, is't not?"

"Why do you mock me with it?" she inquired with dignity.

"I do not mock you, Hortensia. Answer me! Is it true that you love him?"

"It is true," she answered steadily. "What is't to you?"

"Everything!" he answered hotly. "Everything! It is Heaven and h.e.l.l to me. Ten days ago, Hortensia, I asked you to marry me--"

"No more," she begged him, an arm thrown out to stay him.

"But there is more," he answered, advancing again. "This time I can make the offer more attractive. Marry me, and Caryll is not only free to depart, but no evidence shall be laid against him. I swear it! Refuse me, and he hangs as surely--as surely as you and I talk together here this moment."

Cold eyes scathed him with contempt. "G.o.d!" she cried. "What manner of monster are you, my lord? To speak so--to speak of marriage to me, and to speak of hanging a man who is son to that same father of yours who lies above stairs, not yet turned cold. Are you human at all?"

"Ay--and in nothing so human as in my love for you, Hortensia."

She put her hands to her face. "Give me patience!" she prayed. "The insult of it after what has pa.s.sed! Let me go, sir; open that door, and let me go."

He stood regarding her a moment, with lowering brows. Then he turned, and went slowly to the door. "He dies, remember!" said he, and the words, the sinister tone and the sinister look that was stamped upon his face, shattered her spirit as at a blow.

"No, no!" she faltered, and advanced a step or two. "Oh, have pity!"

"When you show me pity," he answered.

She was beaten. "You--you swear to let him go--to see him safely out of England--if--if I consent?"

His eyes blazed. He came back swiftly, and she stood, a frozen thing, pa.s.sively awaiting him; a frozen thing, she let him take her in his arms, yielding herself in horrific surrender.

He held her close a moment, the blood surging to his face, and glowing darkly through the swarthy skin. "Have I conquered, then?" he cried.

"You'll marry me, Hortensia?"

"At that price," she answered piteously, "at that price."

"Shalt find me a gentle, loving husband, ever. I swear it before Heaven!" he vowed, the ardor of his pa.s.sion softening his nature, as steel is softened in the fire.

"Then be it so," she said, and her tone was less cold, for she began to glow, as it were, with the ardor of the sacrifice that she was making--began to experience the exalted ecstasy of martyrdom. "Save him, and you shall find me ever a dutiful wife to you, my lord--a dutiful wife."

"And loving?" he demanded greedily.

"Even that. I promise it," she answered.

With a hoa.r.s.e cry, he stooped to kiss her; then, with an oath, he checked, and flung her from him so violently that she hurtled to a chair and sank to it, overbalanced. "No," he roared, like a mad thing now.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation--no!"

A wild frenzy of jealousy had swept aside his tenderness. He was sick and faint with the pa.s.sion of it of this proof of how deeply she must love that other man. He strove to control his violence. He snarled at her, in his endeavors to subdue the animal, the primitive creature that he was at heart. "If you can love him so much as that, he had better hang, I think." He laughed on a high, fierce note. "You have spoke his sentence, girl! D'ye think I'd take you so--at second hand? Oh, s'death!

What d'ye deem me?"

He laughed again--in his throat now, a quivering; half-sobbing laugh of anger--and crossed to the door, her eyes following him, terrified; her mind understanding nothing of this savage. He turned the key, and flung wide the door with a violent gesture. "Bring him in!" he shouted.

They entered--Mr. Caryll with the footmen at his heels, a frown between his brows, his eyes glancing quickly and searchingly from Rotherby to Hortensia. After him came her ladys.h.i.+p, no less inquisitive of look.

Rotherby dismissed the lackeys, and closed the door again. He flung out an arm to indicate Hortensia.

"This little fool," he said to Caryll, "would have married me to save your life."

Mr. Caryll raised his brows. The words relieved his fears. "I am glad, sir, that you perceive she would have been a fool to do so. You, I take it, have been fool enough to refuse the offer."

"Yes, you d.a.m.ned play-actor! Yes!" he thundered. "D'ye think I want another man's cast-offs?"