Dora was conscious of a feeling of sudden, unspeakable pain. Arthur had only succeeded in convincing her that she could have submitted to a man"s will, wholly and without reserve; but not to the will of Arthur Agar. He had only showed her that such a submission would in itself have been a greater happiness than she had ever tasted. But she knew at once that only one man ever had, ever could have had, the power of exacting such submission; and he commanded it, not by word of mouth (for he never seemed to ask it), but by something strong and just and good within himself, before which her whole being bowed down.
We never know how we appear in the eyes of our neighbours, friends or lovers. Arthur was at that moment in Dora"s eyes a mere sham, aping something he could never attain.
He had seized her two hands in his nervous and delicate fingers, from which she easily withdrew them. The action was natural enough, strong enough. But he completely spoiled the effect by the words he spoke in his thin tenor voice.
"No, Arthur," she said. "No, Arthur; since you mention the future, I may as well tell you _now_ that my answer will never be anything but No. At one time I thought that it might be different. I told my mother that possibly, after a great many years, I might think otherwise; but I retract that. I shall never think otherwise. And if you imagine that you can force me to do so, please lay aside that hope at once."
"Then there is some one else!" cried Arthur, with an apparent irrelevance. "I know there is some one else."
Dora seemed to be reflecting. She looked over his head, out of the window, where the fleecy summer clouds floated idly over the sky.
She turned and looked deliberately at the door by which Mrs. Agar had disappeared. It was standing ajar. Then again she reflected, weighing something in her mind.
"Yes," she replied half-dreamily at length. "I think you have a right to know--there is some one else."
"Was," corrected Arthur, with the womanly intuition which was given to him with other womanly traits.
"Was and is," replied Dora quietly. "His being dead makes no difference so far as you are concerned."
"Then it _was_ Jem! I was sure it was Jem," said a third voice.
In the excitement of the moment Mrs. Agar forgot that when ladies and gentlemen stoop to eavesdropping they generally retire discreetly and return after a few moments, humming a tune, hymns preferred.
"I knew that you were there," said Dora, with a calmness which was not pleasant to the ear. "I saw your black dress through the crack of the door. You did not stand quite still, which was a pity, because the sunlight was on the floor behind you. I was not surprised; it was worthy of you."
"I take G.o.d to witness," cried Mrs. Agar, "that I only heard the last words as I came back into the room."
"Don"t," said Dora, "that is blasphemy."
"Arthur," cried Mrs. Agar, "will you hear your mother called names?"
"We will not wrangle," said Dora, rising with something very like a smile on her face. "Yes, if you want to know, it _was_ Jem. I have only his memory, but still I can be faithful to that. I don"t care if all the world knows; that is why I told _you_ behind the door. I am not ashamed of it. I always did care for Jem."
There was a little pause, for mother and son had nothing to answer. Dora turned to take her gloves, which she had laid on a side table, and as she did so the other door opened, the princ.i.p.al door leading to the hall.
Moreover, it was opened without the menial pause, and they all turned in surprise, knowing that there were only servants in the house.
In the doorway stood Jem, brown-faced, lean, and anxious-looking. There was something wolf-like in his face, with the fierce blue eyes shining from beneath dark lashes, the fair moustache pushed forward by set lips.
Behind him the keen face of Seymour Michael peered nervously, restlessly from side to side. He was distinctly suggestive of a rat in a trap. And beyond him, in the gloom of the old arras-hung hall, a third man, seemingly standing guard over Seymour Michael, for he was not looking into the room but watching every movement made by the General--tall man, dark, upright, with a silent, clean-shaven face, a total stranger to them all. But his manner was not that of a stranger, he seemed to have something to do there.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE LAST LINK
A thing hereditary in the race comes unawares.
Jem came straight into the room, and there seemed to be no one in it for him but Dora. She went to meet him with outstretched hand, and her eyes were answering the questions that she read in his.
He took her hand and he said no word, but suddenly all the misery of the last year slipped back, as it were, into a dream. She could not define her thoughts then, and they left no memory to recall afterwards. She seemed to forget that this man had been dead and was living, she only knew that her hand was within his. Jem looked round to the others present, his att.i.tude a judgment in itself, his face, in its fierce repose, a verdict.
Mark Ruthine had gently pushed Seymour Michael into the room and was closing the door behind them. Mrs. Agar did not see the General, who was half-concealed by his junior officer. She could not take her eyes from Jem"s face.
"This is fortunate," he said; and the sound of his voice was music in Dora"s ears. "This is fortunate, every one seems to be here."
He paused for a moment, as if at a loss, and drew his brown hand down over his moustache. Perhaps he felt remotely that his position was strong and almost dramatic; but that, being a simple, honest Englishman, he was unable to turn it to account.
He turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood behind, uncomfortably conscious of Mark Ruthine at his heels. It was not in Jem to make an effective scene. Englishmen are so. We do not make our lives superficially picturesque by apostrophising the shade of a dead mother.
Jem gave way to the natural instinct of a soldier by nature and training.
A clear statement of the facts, and a short, sharp judgment.
"This man," he said, laying his hand on the General"s shoulder, and bringing him forward, "has been brought here by us to explain something."
White-lipped, breathless, in a ghastly silence Anna Agar and Seymour Michael stared at each other over the dainty tea-table, across a gulf of misused years, through the tangle of two unfaithful lives.
Then Jem Agar began his story, addressing himself to Dora, then, and until the end.
"I was not with Stevenor," he said, "when his force was surprised and annihilated. I had been sent on through an enemy"s country into a position which no man had the right to ask another to hold with the force allowed me. This man sent me. All his life has he been seeking glory at the risk of other men"s lives. After the disaster he came to me and relieved my little force; but he proposed to me a scheme of exploration, which I have carried through. But even now I shall not get the credit; _he_ will have that. It was a low, scurrilous thing to do; for he was my commanding officer, and I could not say No."
"I gave you the option," blurted out Michael sullenly.
Jem took no notice of the interruption, which only had the effect of making Mark Ruthine move up a few paces nearer.
"He made a great point of secrecy," continued Agar, "which at the time I thought to be for my safety. But now I see otherwise; Ruthine has pointed it out to me. If I had never come back he would have said nothing, and would thus have escaped the odium of having sent a man to certain death.
I only made one condition--namely, that three persons should be informed at once of my survival, after the disaster to Stevenor"s force. Those three persons were my brother Arthur, my step-mother, and Miss Glynde."
He paused for a moment, and Dora"s clear, low voice took up the narrative.
"I met General Michael," she said, "in London, some months ago. I met him more than once. He knew quite well who I was, and he never told me."
Thus was the first link of the chain riveted. Seymour Michael winced. He never raised his eyes.
Mark Ruthine moved forward again. He did so with a singular rapidity, for he had seen murder flash from beneath Jem Agar"s eyebrows. He was standing between them, his left hand gripping Jem"s right arm with an undeniable strength. Dora, looking at them, suddenly felt the tears well to her eyes. There was something that melted her heart strangely in the sight of those two men--friends--standing side by side; and at that moment her affection went out towards Mark Ruthine, the friend of Jem, who understood Jem, who knew Jem and loved him, perhaps, a thousandth part as well as she did; an affection which was never withdrawn all through their lives.
It was Ruthine"s voice that broke the silence, giving Jem time to master himself.
"It is to his credit," he said, also addressing Dora, "that for very shame he did not dare to tell you that he had sent Agar on a mission which was as unnecessary as it was dangerous. When he sent him he must have known that it was almost a sentence of death."
Then Jem spoke again.
"As soon as I got back to civilisation," he said, "I wrote to him as arranged, and I enclosed letters to--the three persons who were admitted into the secret. Those letters have, of course, never reached their destination. General Michael will be required to explain that also."
At this moment Arthur Agar gave a strange little cackling laugh, which drew the general attention towards him. He was looking at his half-brother, with a glitter in his usually soft and peaceful eyes.
"There are a good many things which he will have to explain."