Captain Tom started and looked incredulous.
"Please don"t think me egotistical," Rufus continued, with a painful blush. "I can a.s.sure you I have never aspired so high. But----"
"You saved her life."
"I had that good fortune, and she was grateful, and she showed her grat.i.tude in many ways. One afternoon back in the winter I met her on the Downs, and we had a ramble together, and unfortunately the Captain saw us."
"And you think he was jealous?"
"I do. What led to the quarrel was, he charged me with loitering round Trewinion so that I might waylay her, and influence her against him."
"But why did you not mention that in court?"
"What would have been the good of it? He would have denied it on oath.
Besides, I"d rather be accused of drunkenness than drag Miss Grover"s name into such a sordid squabble."
"Oh, indeed!" and the Captain"s eyebrows went up perceptibly.
"You"ll excuse me talking so freely, Capt"n Tom," Rufus went on, "but it really does me good to open my heart to someone, and I know you"ll respect my confidence."
"I wish you had come to me sooner my boy, though I never thought very seriously of the matter. I concluded it was a sudden lapse, and in all probability would never happen again."
"But it was nothing of the sort," Rufus said, with a touch of vehemence in his tone. "I am as innocent of the charge as you are."
"Then the men who witnessed against you are guilty of perjury?"
"Timothy Polgarrow is, without a doubt. Poor old Micah Martin may have fancied I was not sober. Besides, he would conceive it to be his bounden duty to accept his young master"s word."
For several seconds Captain Tom remained silent, with his eyes fixed upon the ground.
"Such villainy ought to be exposed," he said, at length, raising his eyes suddenly.
"But how is it to be done?"
"I don"t know, my boy," he answered, reflectively, "I don"t know."
"You said just now that in the long run people got their deserts."
"I did, sonny, and I believe it."
"But where shall I come in? Suppose they do get their deserts, that won"t compensate me."
The Captain"s grave face relaxed into a broad smile. "Perhaps young Tregony"s deserts will be in not getting the girl," he said, and he gave a loud guffaw.
"Well?"
"That may be where you come in. My stars, but if I were in your shoes, I"d make him jealous for something. By all accounts he hasn"t got her yet."
"I don"t know; I"ve heard nothing."
"Neither have I, for that matter. But if he had got her, it would have been in all the papers. You may be quite sure of that."
"Whether he has won her or failed can make no difference to me. I have no dreams in that direction."
Captain Tom lowered his eyebrows and puckered his lips. "Sonny," he said, "I"ve no wish to be inquisitive. But I"ve been a young man myself.
Ah me! I"d like to be young again. Nothing is impossible to youth when there is a stout heart, a clear brain, and a clean conscience."
"Which only a few possess."
"Look here, sonny," Captain Tom said, after a pause, "you are too young to let the weeds of pessimism overrun the garden. Look up, that"s my advice. You"ve had a big disappointment, I admit, and you"ve been shamefully slandered; but my belief is G.o.d has some big thing in store for you, if you will only wait patiently and trust in Him."
Rufus dropped his head, but did not reply. However despondent he might feel, or however tired of life, it would be a fatal policy to show it.
"We"ll talk this matter over again some time," Captain Tom said at length. "Meanwhile, you keep your eyes open. My stars! but she"s a girl worth winning!"
Rufus looked up with a start.
"I mean it," Captain Tom went on, with a laugh. "Besides, you got the first innings. If I were a sporting man, I know which horse I would back. My stars! but it would be no end of a joke!" and with another laugh, he walked away.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE VALUE OF A LIFE
Rufus settled himself down to his work with as much outward cheerfulness as he could command. It was a great comfort to him to know that Captain Tom believed in him, and that the past would never be flung into his teeth by his employer. The work was not exacting and the pay was proportionate. There was no scope for enterprise or ambition, which exactly suited his mood. He had no ambition left. He was only marking time at best. Before the autumn leaves had carpeted the ground he would be at rest.
He faced the issue, most days, grimly and determinedly. There was no other alternative open to him. It seemed a greater wrong to defraud a friend than to take a few hundreds out of the coffers of a great and wealthy company. The company would not be perceptibly the poorer if it lost ten times the amount. It had acc.u.mulated funds for all contingencies. It lived by and for the purpose of taking risks. But to defraud Muller might be to ruin him. The money was not his own. The loss to him might mean bankruptcy and worse. Hence, as he was bound to commit a fraud whether he lived or died, it seemed the better part to commit the fraud that would give least pain and trouble, and dying, escape all consequences. It was a terrible alternative, and it filled him with self-loathing and contempt. He felt that he was a living falsehood, practising a daily hypocrisy. And yet what could he do?
The dry east winds of March had given place to April"s genial showers.
Spring was greening the landscape in all directions. The throstles sang in the elm-trees as though glad to be alive, and in the uplands the young lambs sported in the sunshine. Every morning, as Rufus walked over the hills to the mine, he felt the joy of life throbbing in his veins.
It was good to live when the world was becoming so fair; good to smell the pungent odours of the earth, and feel the warmth of the ascending sun. There were moments when he forgot the sword that was hanging over his head, and he would revel in the yellow of the gorse and in the changing colours of the sea. Then he would come to himself with a gasp, and a look of horror would creep into his eyes.
In spite of himself the strain began to tell upon his health. The burden was becoming heavier than he could bear. In the company of others he simulated a cheerfulness that he never felt. If he spoke of the future, it was with a tone of well-feigned hopefulness in his voice. He pretended to have plans reaching into the next year and the year after that. He loathed himself for being so consummate a hypocrite. But for Muller"s sake he would have to avoid waking the smallest suspicion.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that the further he got away from the first shock of disappointment, and the nearer he got to the redemption of his pledge, the stronger his pa.s.sion for life became. It might be the beauty of the springtime that made him so eager to live. It might be the growing sense of the sacredness of life. It might be the increasing moral revulsion from the act itself. It might be the slow lifting of the veil from his spiritual vision, or it might be all these things combined. Certain it is that as the spring advanced and the earth became more and more beautiful, the thought of dying became more and more repugnant.
"There is no wealth but life," a great writer has said, and Rufus began to feel more and more the truth of that statement. He was an a.s.set of his age and generation. He belonged to his own time. The treasure of a country was not its dollars but its life. To the individual himself life is his one real possession. Wealth and fame and distinction are nothing to the dead. Moreover, life without wealth, without recognition, without honour, is still worth possessing. It is a gladness merely to live and see the beauty of the earth and feel the warmth of the sun.
Rufus began to count the days till the end of August, which he reckoned would mark the limit of his pilgrimage. The time pa.s.sed all too quickly.
He gave himself as little sleep as possible, for sleep seemed to rob him of what little of life was left, and he was anxious to make the most of it.
Never a spring seemed so beautiful as that one. Never did the gorse flame so yellow on the moors, never did he see such sapphire in the deep. As the evenings grew longer he sat on the cliffs and watched the sunsets and ticked them off in his calendar as the day faded into night.
His eyes grew large and pathetic and his voice took a softer tone.
Sometimes he found his thoughts shaping themselves into supplication.
The universal instinct a.s.serted itself unconsciously. He wanted guidance and he wanted forgiveness for what he proposed to do.