"I was told you wanted me," he said.
"Yes; I want you to give me a promise." Coningsby spoke rapidly, with brows drawn together. "I suppose you know I"m a dead man?"
"I don"t believe in death," Carey answered very quietly.
Coningsby"s eyes burned with a strange light.
"Nor I," he said. "Nor I. I"ve been too near it before now to be afraid.
Also, I"ve lived too long and too hard to care overmuch for what is left. But there"s one thing I mean to do before I go. And you"ll give me your promise to see it through?"
He paused, breathing quick and short; then went on hurriedly, as a man whose time is limited.
"You"ll stick to it, I know, for you"re a fellow that speaks the truth.
I nearly thrashed you for it, once. Remember? You said I wasn"t fit for the society of any good woman. And you were right--quite right. I never have been. Yet you ended by sending me the best woman in the world. What made you do that, I wonder?"
Carey did not answer. His face was sternly composed. He had not once glanced at the woman who sat on the other side of Coningsby"s bed.
Coningsby went on unheeding.
"I drove her away from me, and you--you sent her back. I don"t think I could have done that for the woman I loved. For you do love her, eh, Carey? I remember seeing it in your face that first night I brought you here. It comes back to me. You were standing before her portrait in the library. You didn"t know I saw you. I was drunk at the time. But I"ve remembered it since."
Again he paused. His breath was slowing down. It came spasmodically, with long silences between.
Carey had listened with his eyes fixed and hard, staring straight before him, but now slowly at length he turned his head, and looked down at the man who was dying.
"Hadn"t you better tell me what it is you want me to do?" he said.
"Ah!" Coningsby seemed to rouse himself. "It isn"t much, after all," he said. "I made my will only this morning. It was on my way back that I had the smash. I was quite sober, only I couldn"t see very well, and I lost control. All my property goes to my wife. That"s all settled. But there"s one thing left--one thing left--which I am going to leave you.
It"s the only thing I value, but there"s no n.o.bility about it, for I can"t take it with me where I"m going. I want you, Carey--when I"m dead--to marry the woman you love, and give her happiness. Don"t wait for the sake of decency! That consideration never appealed to me. I say it in her presence, that she may know it is my wish. Marry her, man--you love each other--did you think I didn"t know? And take her away to some Utopia of your own, and--and--teach her--to forget me."
His voice shook and ceased. His wife had slipped to her knees by the bed, hiding her face. Carey sat mute and motionless, but the grim look had pa.s.sed from his face. It was almost tender.
Gaspingly at length Coningsby spoke again: "Are you going to do it, Carey? Are you going to give me your promise? I shall sleep the easier for it."
Carey turned to him and gripped one of the man"s powerless hands in his own. For a moment he did not speak--it almost seemed he could not. Then at last, very low, but resolute his answer came:
"I promise to do my part," he said.
In the silence that followed he rose noiselessly and moved away.
He left Naomi still kneeling beside the bed, and as he pa.s.sed out he heard the dying man speak her name. But what pa.s.sed between them he never knew.
When he saw her again, nearly an hour later, Geoffrey Coningsby was dead.
XI
It was on a day of frosty sunshine, nearly a fortnight later, that Carey dismounted before the door of Crooklands Manor, and asked for its mistress.
He was shown at once into the library, where he found her seated before a great oak bureau with a litter of papers all around her.
She flushed deeply as she rose to greet him. They had not met since the day of her husband"s funeral.
"I see you"re busy," he said, as he came forward.
"Yes," she a.s.sented. "Such stacks of papers that must be examined before they can be destroyed. It"s dreary work, and I have been very thankful to have Gwen with me. She has just gone out riding."
"I met her," Carey said. "She was with young Rivers."
"It is a farewell ride," Naomi told him. "She goes back to school to-morrow. Dear child! I shall miss her. Please sit down!"
The colour had ebbed from her face, leaving it very pale. She did not look at Carey, but began slowly to sort afresh a pile of correspondence.
He ignored her request, and stood watching her till at last she laid the packet down.
Then somewhat abruptly he spoke: "I"ve just come in to tell you my plans."
"Yes?" She took up an old cheque-book, as if she could not bear to be idle, and began to look through it, seeming to search for something.
Again he fell silent, watching her.
"Yes?" she repeated after a moment, bending a little over the book she held.
"They are very simple," he said quietly. "I"m going to a place I know of in the Himalayas where there is a wonderful river that one can punt along all day and all night, and never come to an end."
Again he paused. The fingers that held the memorandum were not quite steady.
"And you have come to say good-bye?" she suggested in her deep, sad voice.
His eyes were turned gravely upon her, but there was a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.
"No," he said in his abrupt fashion. "That isn"t in the plan. Good-bye to the rest of the world if you will, but never again to you!"
He drew close to her and gently took the cheque-book out of her grasp.
"I want you to come with me, Naomi," he said very tenderly. "My darling, will you come? I have wanted you--for years."
A great quiver went through her, as though every pulse leapt to the words he uttered. For a second she stood quite still, with her face lifted to the sunlight. Then she turned, without question or words of any sort, as she had turned long ago--yet with a difference--and laid her hand with perfect confidence in his.
THE RETURN GAME