Again he stopped, and again there was silence while Daisy sat white-faced and slightly bowed, wondering when it would be over, wondering how much longer she could possibly endure.
And then suddenly he bent down over her. His hand was on her shoulder.
"Daisy," he said, and voice and touch alike implored her, "give him up, dear! Give him up! You can do it if you will, if your love is great enough. I know how infernally hard it is to do. I"ve done it myself. It means tearing your very heart out. But it will be worth it--it must be worth it--afterwards. You are bound--some time--to reap what you have sown."
She lifted a haggard face. There was something in the utterance that compelled her. And so looking, she saw that which none other of this man"s friend"s had ever seen. She saw his naked soul, stripped bare of all deception, of all reserve,--a vital, burning flame shining in the desert. The sight moved her as had nought else.
"Oh, Nick," she cried out desperately, "I can"t--I can"t!"
He bent lower over her. He was looking straight down into her eyes.
"Daisy," he said very urgently, "Daisy, for G.o.d"s sake--try!"
Her white lips quivered, striving again to refuse. But the words would not come. Her powers of resistance had begun to totter.
"You can do it," he declared, his voice quick and pa.s.sionate as though he pleaded with her for life itself. "You can do it--if you will. I will help you. You shan"t stand alone. Don"t stop to think. Just come with me now--at once--and put an end to it before you sleep. For you can"t do this thing, Daisy. It isn"t in you. It is all a monstrous mistake, and you can"t go on with it. I know you better than you know yourself. We haven"t been pals all these years for nothing. And there is that in your heart that won"t let you go on. I thought it was dead a few minutes ago. But, thank G.o.d, it isn"t. I can see it in your eyes."
She uttered an inarticulate sound that was more bitter than any weeping, and covered her face.
Instantly Nick straightened himself and turned away. He went to the window and leaned his head against the sash. He had the spent look of a man who has fought to the end of his strength. The thunder of the waves upon the sh.o.r.e filled in the long, long silence.
Minutes crawled away, and still he stood there with his face to the darkness. At last a voice spoke behind him, and he turned. Daisy had risen.
She stood in the lamplight, quite calm and collected. There was even a smile upon her face, but it was a smile that was sadder than tears.
"It"s been a desperate big fight, hasn"t it, Nick?" she said. "But--my dear--you"ve won. For the sake of my little baby, and for the sake of the man I love--yes, and partly for your sake too,"--she held out her hand to him with the words--"I am going back to the prison-house. No, don"t speak to me. You have said enough. And, Nick, I must go alone.
So I want you, please, to go away, and not to come to me again until I send for you. I shall send sooner or later. Will you do this?"
Her voice never faltered, but the misery in her eyes cut him to the heart. In that moment he realised how terribly near he had been to losing the hardest battle he had ever fought.
He gave her no second glance. Simply, without a word, he stooped and kissed the hand she had given him; then turned and went noiselessly away.
He had won indeed, but the only triumph he knew was the pain of a very human compa.s.sion.
Scarcely five minutes after his departure, Daisy let herself out into the night that lay like a pall above the moaning sh.o.r.e. She went with lagging feet that often stumbled in the darkness. It was only the memory of a baby"s head against her breast that gave her strength.
CHAPTER XLIII
REQUIESCAT
"I believe I heard a gun in the night," remarked Mrs. Ratcliffe at the breakfast-table on the following morning.
"Shouldn"t be surprised," said Dr. Jim. "I know there was a ship in distress off Calister yesterday. They damaged the lifeboat trying to reach her. But the wind seems to have gone down a little this morning.
Do you care for a ride, Muriel?"
Muriel accepted the invitation gladly. She liked accompanying Dr. Jim upon his rounds. She had arranged to leave two days later, a decision which the news of Daisy"s presence at Brethaven had not affected.
Daisy seemed to have dropped her for good and all, and her pride would not suffer her to inquire the reason. She had, in fact, begun to think that Daisy had merely tired of her, and that being so she was the more willing to go to Mrs. Langdale, whose letters of fussy kindliness seemed at least to ensure her a cordial welcome.
She had discussed her troubles no further with Dr. Jim. Grange"s letter had in some fashion placed matters beyond discussion. And so she had only briefly told him that her engagement was at an end, and he had gruffly expressed his satisfaction thereat. Her one idea now was to escape from Nick"s neighbourhood as speedily as possible. It possessed her even in her dreams.
She went with Dr. Jim to the surgery when breakfast was over, and sat down alone in the consulting-room to wait for him. He usually started on his rounds at ten o"clock, but it wanted a few minutes to the hour and the motor was not yet at the door. She sat listening for it, hoping that no one would appear to detain him.
The morning was bright, and the wind had fallen considerably. Through the window she watched the falling leaves as they eddied in sudden draughts along the road. She looked through a wire screen that gave rather a depressing effect to the sunshine.
Suddenly from some distance away there came to her the sound of a horse"s hoof-beats, short and hard, galloping over the stones. It was a sound that arrested the attention, awaking in her a vague, apprehensive excitement. Almost involuntarily she drew nearer to the window, peering above the blind.
Some seconds elapsed before she caught sight of the headlong horseman, and then abruptly he dashed into sight round a curve in the road. At the same instant the gallop became a fast trot, and she saw that the rider was gripping the animal with his knees. He had no saddle.
Amazed and startled, she stood motionless, gazing at the sudden apparition, saw as the pair drew nearer what something within her had already told her loudly before her vision served her, and finally drew back with a sharp, instinctive contraction of her whole body as the horseman reined in before the surgery-door and dismounted with a monkey-like dexterity, his one arm twined in the bridle. A moment later the surgery-bell pealed loudly, and her heart stood still. She felt suddenly sick with a nameless foreboding.
Standing with bated breath, she heard Dr. Jim himself go to answer the summons, and an instant later Nick"s voice came to her, gasping and uneven, but every word distinct.
"Ah, there you are! Thought I should catch you. Man, you"re wanted--quick! In heaven"s name--lose no time. Grange was drowned early this morning, and--I believe it"s killed Daisy. For mercy"s sake, come at once!"
There was a momentary pause. Muriel"s heart was beating in great sickening throbs. She felt stiff and powerless.
Dr. Jim"s voice, brief and decided, struck through the silence. "Come inside and have something. I shall be ready to start in three minutes.
Leave your animal here. He"s dead beat."
There followed the sound of advancing feet, a hand upon the door, and the next moment they entered together. Nick was reeling a little and holding Jim"s arm. He saw Muriel with a sharp start, standing as she had turned from the window. The doctor"s brows met for an instant as he put his brother into a chair. He had forgotten Muriel.
With an effort she overcame the paralysis that bound her, and moved forward with shaking limbs.
"Did you say Blake was--dead?" she asked, her voice pitched very low.
She looked at Nick as she asked this question, and it was Nick who answered her in his quick, keen way, as though he realised the mercy of brevity.
"Yes. He and some fisher chaps went out early this morning in an ordinary boat to rescue some fellows on a wreck that had drifted on to the rocks outside the harbour. The lifeboat had been damaged, and couldn"t be used. They reached the wreck all right, but there were more to save than they had reckoned on--more than the boat would carry--and the wreck was being battered to pieces. It was only a matter of seconds for the tide was rising. So they took the lot, and Grange went over the side to make it possible. He hung on to a rope for a time, but the seas were tremendous, and after a bit it parted.
He was washed up two hours ago. He had been in the water since three, among the rocks. There wasn"t the smallest chance of bringing him back. He was long past any help we could give."
He ended abruptly, and helped himself with a jerk to something in a gla.s.s that Jim had placed by his side.
Muriel stood dumbly watching. She noticed with an odd, detached sense of curiosity that he was shivering violently as one with an ague. Dr.
Jim was already making swift preparations for departure.
Suddenly Nick looked up at her. His eyes were glittering strangely. "I know now," he said, "what you women feel like when you can only stand and look on. We have been looking on--Daisy and I--just looking on, for six mortal hours." He banged his fist with a sort of condensed fury upon the table, and leapt to his feet. "Jim, are you ready? I can"t sit still any longer."
"Finish that stuff, and don"t be a fool!" ordered Jim curtly.
Muriel turned swiftly towards him. "You"ll take me with you!" she said very earnestly.
Nick broke in sharply upon the request. "No, no, Muriel! You"re not to go. Jim, you can"t--you shan"t--take her! I won"t allow it!"
But Muriel was clinging to Dr. Jim"s arm with quivering face upraised.
"You will take me," she entreated. "I was able to help Daisy before. I can help her now."
But even before she spoke there flashed a swift glance between the two brothers that foiled her appeal almost before it was uttered. With a far greater gentleness than was customary with him, but with unmistakable decision, Dr. Jim refused her pet.i.tion.