The Avenger, E. Phillips Oppenheim [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

"'TO THE NEAREST POLICE STATION! THAT'S WHERE I'M OFF.'" "'TO THE NEAREST POLICE STATION! THAT'S WHERE I'M OFF.'"

"If he don't, let me tell him," she interrupted. "To the nearest police station! That's where I'm off."

Wrayson glanced quickly at the Colonel, who seemed in no way discomposed.

"Naturally," he assented. "No one, my dear young lady, will interfere with you in your desire to carry out your painfully imperfect sense of justice. Pray pass out!"

She hesitated for a moment. Her poor little brain was struggling, perhaps, for the last time, to adapt itself to his point of view—to understand why, at a moment so critical, he should treat her with the easy composure and tolerant good-nature of one who gives to a spoilt child its own way. Then she saw signs of further interference on Wrayson's part, and she delayed no longer.

The Colonel closed the door after her, and stood for a moment with his back against it, for Wrayson had shown signs of a desire to follow the woman whose egress he had just permitted. He looked into their faces, white with horror—full of dread of what was to come, and he smiled reassuringly.

"Amy," he said, turning to the Baroness, "surely you and Wrayson here are possessed of some grains of common sense. Louise, I know, is too easily swayed by sentiment. But you, Wrayson! Surely I can rely on you!"

"For anything," Wrayson answered, with trembling lips. "But what can I do? What is there to be done?"

The Colonel smiled gently.

"Simply to listen intelligently—sympathetically if you can," he declared. "I want to make my position clear to you if I can. You heard what that poor young woman called me? Probably you would have used the same word yourself. A murderer!"

"Yes!" Wrayson muttered. "I heard!"

"When I came back from the Soudan twelve years ago, I had been instrumental in killing some thousands of brave men, I dare say I had killed a score or so with my own hand. Was I a murderer then?"

"No!" Wrayson answered. "It was a different thing."

"Then killing is not necessarily murder," the Colonel remarked. "Good! Now take the case of a man like Morris Barnes. He belonged to the class of humanity which you can call by no other name than that of vermin. Whatever he touched he defiled. He was without a single good instinct, a single passable quality. Wherever he lived, he bred contamination. Whoever touched him was the worse for it. His influence upon the world was an unchanging one for evil. Put aside sentiment for one moment, false sentiment I should say, and ask yourself what possible sin can there be in taking the life of such a one. If he had gone on four legs instead of two, his breed would have been exterminated centuries ago."

"We are not the judges," Wrayson began, weakly enough.

"We are, sir," the Colonel thundered. "For what else have we been given brains, the moral sense, the knowledge of good or evil? There are those amongst us who become decadents, whose presence amongst us breeds corruption, whose dirty little lives are like the trail of a foul insect across the page of life. I hold it a just and moral thing to rid the world of such a creature. The sanctity of human life is the canting cry of the falsely sentimental. Human life is sacred or not, according to its achievements. Such a one as Morris Barnes I would brush away like a poisonous fly."

"Bentham!" Wrayson faltered.

"I killed him, sir!" the Colonel answered, "and others of his kidney before him. Louise knew it. I argued with her as I am doing with you, but it was useless. Nevertheless, I have lived as seemed good to me."

"There is the law," Wrayson said, with a horrified glance towards Louise. He understood now.

The Colonel bowed his head.

"I am prepared," the Colonel answered, "to pay the penalty of all reformers."

There was a ring at the bell. Wrayson threw open the door. A small boy stood there. He held a piece of paper in his hand.

"The lidy said," he declared, "that the white-headed gentleman would give me 'arf a crown for this 'ere!"

Wrayson gave him the money, and stepped back into the room. He gave the paper to the Colonel, who read it calmly, first to himself and then aloud.

"I leave you to your conshens. He may have been bad, but he was good to me!

"AGNES B."

The Colonel's eyes grew very soft.

"Poor little woman," he said to himself. "Wrayson, you'll look after her. You'll see she doesn't come to grief!"

There was the sound of a heavy fall in the room above. The Colonel's face assumed an air of intense irritation.

"It's that infernal window pole," he declared. "I had doubts about it all the time."

Wrayson looked at him in horror.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Perhaps you had better go up and see," the Colonel answered, taking up his hat. "A very commonplace tragedy after all! I don't quite see what else he could have done. He was penniless, half mad with disappointment; he'd been smoking too many cigarettes and drinking too much cheap liquor, and he was in danger of arrest for selling the landlord's furniture. No other end for him, I am afraid."

Wrayson threw open the door.

"Don't hurry," the Colonel declared. "You'll probably find that he has hanged himself, but he must have been dead for some time."

Wrayson tore up the stairs. The Colonel watched him for a moment. Then, with a little sigh, he began to descend.

"False sentiment," he murmured to himself sadly. "The world's full of it."

CHAPTER XLII

LOVE REMAINS

Wrayson rode slowly up the great avenue, and paused at the bend to see for the first time at close quarters the house, which from the valley below had seemed little more than a speck of white set in a deep bower of green. Seen at close quarters its size amazed him. With its cluster of outbuildings, it occupied nearly the whole of the plateau, which was like a jutting tableland out from the side of the mountain. It was of two stories only, and encircled with a great veranda supported by embowered pillars. Free at last from the densely growing trees, Wrayson, for the first time during his long climb, caught an uninterrupted view of the magnificent panorama below. A land of hills, of black forests and shining rivers; a land uncultivated but rich in promise, magnificent in its primitivism. It was a wonderful dwelling this, of which the owner, springing down from the veranda, was now on his way to meet his guest.

The two men shook hands with unaffected heartiness. Duncan Fitzmaurice, in his white linen riding clothes, seemed taller than ever, a little gaunt and thin, too, from a recent attack of fever. There was no doubt about the pleasure with which he received his guest.

"Where is Louise?" he asked, looking behind down the valley.

"Coming up in the wagons," Wrayson answered. "She has been riding all day and was tired."

A Kaffir boy came out with a tray and glasses. Wrayson helped himself to a whisky and soda, and lit a cigar.

"I'll get my pony and ride back with you to meet them," Duncan said.

Wrayson detained him.

"One moment," he said, "I have something to say to you first."

Duncan glanced at him a little anxiously. Wrayson answered the look.

"Nothing—disturbing," he said. "You learnt the end of everything from my letters?"

"I think so," Duncan answered.

"The verdict on your father's death was absolutely unanimous," Wrayson said. "He was seen to stagger on the platform just as the train came in, and he seemed to make every effort to save himself. He was killed quite instantaneously. I do not think that any one had a suspicion that it was not entirely accidental."

Duncan nodded.

"And the other affair?"

"You mean the death of Sydney Barnes? No one has ever doubted that he committed suicide. Everything seemed to point to it. There is only one man who knew about Morris Barnes and probably guesses the rest. His name was Heneage, and he was your father's friend. He did not speak when he was alive, so he is not likely to now. There is the young woman, of course, Mrs. Morris Barnes. She has married again and gone to Canada. Louise looked after her."

Duncan took up his riding-whip from the table.

"Now tell me," he said, "what it is that you have to say to me."

"Do you read the papers?" Wrayson asked abruptly.

"Only so far as they treat of matters connected with this country," Duncan answered.

"You have not read, then, of the Mexonian divorce?"

The man's eyes were lit with fire. The handle of the riding-whip snapped in his hands.

"They have never granted it!" he cried.

"Not in its first form," Wrayson answered hastily. "The whole suit fell to the ground for want of evidence."

"It is abandoned, then?" Duncan demanded.

"On the contrary, the courts have granted the decree," Wrayson answered, "but on political grounds only. Every material charge against the Queen was withdrawn, and the divorce became a matter of arrangement."

"She is free from that brute, then," Duncan said quietly. "I am glad."

Wrayson glanced down towards the valley. A couple of wagons and several Kaffir boys with led horses were just entering the valley.

"Yes!" he said, "she is free!"

Something in his intonation, some change in his face, gripped hold of Duncan. He caught his visitor by the shoulder roughly.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded, "What difference does it make? She would never dare—to—"

"You can never tell," Wrayson said, with a little sigh, "what a woman will dare to do. Tell me the truth, Duncan. You care for her still?"

"God knows it!" he answered fiercely. "There has never been another woman. There never could be."

"Jump on your pony, then, and ride down and meet them. Gently, man! Don't break your neck." ...

Later on they sat out upon the veranda. The swift darkness was falling already upon the