All eyes were turned on Adrien. His face was rather pale, but quite calm, and closing up his field-gla.s.ses he said:
""Miracour" ran finely. I can"t understand the "King" falling at the last jump. Jasper, let us go down and see if the fellow is hurt."
Making their excuses to the ladies they hurried down the steps, and strode swiftly over the course, the crowd making way for them in hushed silence, for they recognised Leroy as the owner of the defeated favourite.
Reaching the spot from which the crowd was being kept back, they found two men bending over the little heap of scarlet silk and leather.
Shelton, who had been one of the stewards, looked up as Adrien approached, and shook his head.
Adrien bent down beside him, and gazed at the thin, shrivelled face of the jockey.
"Have you sent for a doctor, Shelton?" he asked.
"Yes," replied his friend in a hushed voice. "But I think he will be too late, his spine----"
At the sound of Adrien"s voice, the heavy eyelids raised themselves; the bloodstained lips parted as if about to speak.
"What is it?" said Shelton, bending closer.
"Where--where is he?" gasped the man in disjointed words. "I want--to--see him."
"Whom?" asked Mortimer Shelton gently. "Whom do you want to see, my poor fellow?"
Mr. Vermont pushed his way forward, his face alight with eager sympathy.
"Perhaps I can be of use," he said, "I know him; perhaps he wants to tell me----"
The jockey raised his head. It seemed as if the soft, smooth voice gave him strength to speak. He glared at Jasper, then his glance fell on the pitying face of Leroy. With a sudden light in his eyes, he stretched out his hand.
"Him--him, the swell--I tell him the race--was--sold! He--Mr.
Vermont----"
His breath came fast in great sobs; he glared from Adrien to Jasper, then back to Leroy, as if seeking to convey some warning, but in vain; with the last words, he fell back.
A gentleman pushed his way forward.
"Allow me, I am Doctor Blake," he said, and he knelt down beside the still form.
"He is dead," he declared solemnly, as he placed his hand on the body.
The crowd fell back still further, with murmurs of horror. There was a silence, broken at last by Jasper Vermont.
"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed in tones in which, had it not been for the absurdity of the idea, one might have fancied there was almost a spark of satisfaction. "How very, very sad. I wouldn"t have had this happen for _anything!_"
CHAPTER XI
It was night and the race-course lay deserted and silent beneath the pallid moon. The noisy crowd had tramped and driven its way back to London. But there was one whom the noise and bustle of a race meet would never rouse again--Peac.o.c.k the jockey, who lay dead in the stable house.
His death had cast a depression over the entire Castle, and though both Adrien and his father--to say nothing of Jasper--had striven their utmost to keep the minds of the guests away from the unhappy event, it was yet an almost gloomy party that gathered after dinner in the silver drawing-room.
Nearly all had lost heavily through the fall of poor "King Cole." They had had such entire faith in their champion, that his loss of the race had come like a thunder-bolt; and most of all to Adrien himself. The actual monetary loss did not seem to trouble him; indeed, it was probable that he himself was unaware of the immensity of the sum involved. Only Jasper knew, Jasper who wore his usual calm, serene smile, and certainly worked hard to banish all regrets concerning such a trifle as a dead steeplechaser, as well as any lingering memories of his dying words.
"One thing is certain," said Lord Standon to Lady Constance, who had been sighing over the defeat. "Adrien will not allow any one to ride the "King" again but himself. I heard him say so."
"He has lost heavily, I"m afraid," the girl said in a low voice.
"Immensely," replied Lord Standon, who himself had, lost more than he could afford--indeed, there was little doubt that this race would almost prove his ruin; but, nevertheless, his inordinate good humour and optimistic nature triumphed above every other consideration. Certainly, no word of blame or self-pity would he allow to pa.s.s his lips. "Yes, he has lost more heavily than any of us, as Mr. Vermont knows; I"ll be bound," he broke off, as that gentleman approached.
Jasper Vermont smiled, as he did at every question or a.s.sertion made to him.
"I"m afraid he has plunged deeply this time," was his smooth reply.
"Unfortunately, he only has himself to blame, though I deplore the fact that I was not with him at the time."
Both Lady Constance and Lord Standon looked up, startled by his tone as much as by his words; and Jasper continued glibly:
"He gave the jockey a ten-pound note last night, and, of course, the man got drunk. Consequences--an unsteady hand this morning, a hasty push at the last rise, and a clear loss of the race, not to mention the colossal sum in bets. All his own fault! If he will be so recklessly generous, what is to be done? But, as I said before, I blame myself for not watching him more closely."
"No one blames you, Mr. Vermont," said Lord Standon coldly, for even he, the least suspicious of men, seemed to detect the false sorrow in the speaker"s voice.
Lady Constance looked at him gratefully; and Lord Standon was encouraged thereby to proceed:
"Adrien is generous to a fault; and if in this case it has had disastrous results, it is usually a fault which few imitate."
Jasper raised his eyebrows; then, with a low bow to Lady Constance, and a gentle, deprecatory shrug of his shoulders, walked away.
The girl waited till he was out of earshot, then turned impulsively to Lord Standon.
"I hate that man," she said in a low voice; "and sometimes I believe he hates Adrien too."
"So do I," returned Lord Standon, looking with intense admiration into her lovely, troubled face.
"Do you?" she murmured. "Oh, if you would only try to open my cousin"s eyes to his friend"s falseness--I know he"s false, but Adrien is so blind."
It seemed as if he were blind in more than one direction; for at that minute Leroy himself crossed the room, with an aspect that, in any other man, would have been termed glum. The sight of the girl with whom he was so rapidly falling in love, sitting in rapt conversation with Lord Standon--even though that young man was his friend--had roused a strong feeling of resentment within his heart. He restrained himself, however, though it was in a rather cold, forced voice that he asked Lady Constance if she would sing. She rose demurely enough; for his very coldness and jealousy, slight as it was--careless as she knew it to be--proved to her that the love she so ardently desired was awakening at last.
The evening pa.s.sed quietly. Adrien himself refused to sing, though he stayed close by his cousin"s side, and turned over the pages of her music with such a devoted air that at last the ladies of the party began to whisper knowingly amongst themselves.
Luckily for Adrien"s peace of mind--for he loathed and dreaded scenes of any description--Lady Merivale had not returned with the party to the Castle, much as Miss Penelope had wished it. Eveline Merivale was only too cognisant of what was pa.s.sing between Lady Constance and her cousin; and though she knew that Adrien and herself had merely played at love, and greatly against his will, at that, still she was just as unwilling to see him the devoted slave of another woman, who was younger, if not more beautiful, than herself.
After the ladies had retired for; the night, Adrien gave himself up to unaccustomed reverie. The tenor of his life had been changed. The inane senseless round of dissipation had begun to tire him; the homage and flattery cloyed on his palate. And now, with his newborn love for Constance filling his heart and mind, had come the overwhelming failure of his beloved horse, and the death of his jockey; the last causing him more pain than the light-hearted companions around him would have believed possible. Neither had the half-defined charge made against Jasper escaped his notice, though he had disdained to make any mention of it.
Shelton noticed his absent manner, as they smoked their last cigar before going to bed.
"Counting up the losses, Adrien?" he asked casually.
Adrien started at the question, and smiled.