“Nay, there’s no need to hurry.” said Elmscott comfortably, throwing his legs across a chair. “Marston will never start before the morning.”
“He has started,” I replied. “He has seven hours to the good already. He started between three and four of the afternoon.”
“But you were to follow him,” he exclaimed, starting up. “You knew the road he was going. You were to follow him.”
“He slipped through my fingers,” said I, with some shame, for Elmscott was regarding me with the same doubtful look which I had noticed so frequently upon Jack Larke’s face. “And as for knowing his road, ’twas a mere guess that flashed on me at the moment of your arrival.”
“Well, well,” said Elmscott, with a shrug, “order some supper, and if you can lend me a horse we will follow in half an hour.”
Udal fetched a capon and a bottle of canary from the larder, and together we made short work of the meal. For, in truth, I was no less famished than Elmscott, though it needed his appetite to remind me of the fact. Meanwhile, I related in what manner Marston had escaped me, and handed him the letter which the servant had delivered to me in the Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
“In a bale of carpets!” cried Elmscott, with a fit of laughter which promised to choke him. “Gadsbud, but the fellow deserves to win! Well wrapped up! Morrice, Morrice, I fear me he’ll trip up your heels!”
Elmscott’s hilarity, it may easily be understood, had little in it which could commend it to me, and I asked him abruptly by what means he had discovered that the Countess Lukstein was visiting in Bristol.
“I’ll tell you that as we go,” said he, with a mouth full of capon. “At present I have but one object, to fill my stomach.”
After we had set forth, which we did a short while before midnight—for I heard a clock tell that hour as we rode through the village of Knightsbridge—he explained how the conjecture had grown up in his mind.
“Marston came to you in the early morning, a week after the Countess had left London. He was muddied and soiled, as though he had ridden hard all night. In fact, he told you as much himself, and gave you the reason: that he had been fighting out his battle with him. I reasoned, therefore, that he had only heard of this secret, whatever it may be, which put you at his mercy, the evening before. Now that information came from his sister. It concerned Countess Lukstein. Lady Tracy, you told me, for some reason feared the Countess. I argued then that it could only be this fear which made her write to her brother. But then she had been in England a month already. How was it that she had not revealed her anxiety before? And further, how was it that Marston knew what you and every one else was ignorant of—where Countess Lukstein was staying? Lady Tracy, I was aware, had gone down to the family estate near Bristol; and I inferred in consequence that she had seen the Countess in the neighbourhood, that her alarm had been increased by the sight, and that she had promptly communicated her fears to her brother; which fears Marston made use of as a weapon against you. The period of Countess Lukstein’s departure jumped most aptly with my conjecture, and I thought it would be worth while to ride to Bristol and discover the truth.”
The notion seemed to me, upon his recounting it, so reasonable and clear that I wondered why it had never occurred to me, and expressed as much to Elmscott.
He laughed in reply.
“A man in love,” said he, “is ever a damned fool. He smothers his mind in a petticoat.”
The night was very open, the moon being in the last quarter, and the road, from the dry summer, much harder than when I had travelled over it in the previous year; so that we made a good pace, and drew rein before the “Golden Crown” at Newbury about seven of the morning. There we discovered that two travellers had arrived at the inn a little after midnight with their horses very wearied; but, since Thursday was market-day, and the inn consequently full, they had remained but a little while to water their beasts, and had then pushed on towards Hungerford. Elmscott was for breakfasting at the “Golden Crown,” but I bethought me that Hungerford was but nine miles distant, and that Marston was most like to have lain the night there. Consequently, if we pressed forward with all speed, there was a good chance that we might overtake my rival or ever he had started from the town; in which case Elmscott, at all events, would be able to take his meal at his leisure. To this view my companion assented, though with some reluctance, and we set off afresh across Wickham Heath. In a short time we came in view of the “Half-way House,” and I related to Elmscott my adventure with the landlord. As we rode past it, however, I perceived the worthy man going towards the stable with a bucket of water in his hand, and I hastily reined up.
“What is it?” asked Elmscott.
“The fellow has no horses of his own,” I replied. “It follows he must needs have guests.”
I dismounted as I spoke, and hailed the man.
“Potato!” I cried to him.
For a moment he looked at me in amazement, and then,—“Dang it!” he shouted. “The play-actor!” And he dropped the bucket, and ran towards me doubling his fists.
“I have a pass-word for you,” I said, when he was near. “It lags a year behind the time, it’s true—Wastwater. So you see the mare was meant for me no less than your slugs.”
He stopped, and answered doggedly,—“Well, ’twas your fault, master. You should have passed the word. The mare was left with me in strict trust, and you were ready enough with your pistol to make an honest man believe you meant no good.”
Elmscott broke in impatiently upon his apology with a demand for breakfast. His wife, the landlord assured us, was preparing breakfast even now for two gentlemen who had come over-night, and we might join them if they had no objection to our company. I asked him at what hour these gentlemen had ridden up to the inn, and he answered about one of the morning. I could not repress an exclamation of joy. Elmscott gave me a warning look and dismounted; he bade the landlord see the horses groomed and fed, and joined me in the road.
“Their faces will be a fine sight,” said he, rubbing his hands, “when we take our seats at the table. A guinea-piece will be white in comparison.” And he fell to devising plans by which our surprise might produce the most startling effect.
Strangely enough, it occurred to neither of us at the time that the surest method of outwitting Marston was to leave him undisturbed to his breakfast and ride forward to Bristol. But during these last days the anxiety and tension of my mind had so fanned my hatred of the man, that I could think of nothing but crossing swords with him. We were both, in a word, absorbed in a single quest; from wishing to outstrip, we had come to wish merely to overtake.
Elmscott gave orders to the innkeeper that he should inform us as soon as the two travellers were set down to their meal; and for the space of half an hour we strolled up and down, keeping the inn ever within our view. At the end of that time I perceived a cloud of dust at a bend of the road in the direction of Hungerford. It came rolling towards us, and we saw that it was raised by a berlin which was drawn at a great speed by six horses.
“They travel early.” said Elmscott carelessly. I looked at the coach again, but this time with more attention.
“Quick!” I cried of a sudden, and drew Elmscott through an opening in the hedge into the field that bordered the road. The next moment the berlin dashed by.
“Did you see?” I asked. “Otto Krax was on the box.”
“Ay,” he answered. “And Countess Lukstein within the carriage. What takes her back so fast, I wonder? She will be in London two days before her time.”
We came out again from behind the hedge, and watched the carriage dwindling to a speck along the road.
“If you will, Morrice,” said my cousin, with a great reluctance, “you can let Marston journey to Bristol, and yourself follow the Countess to town.”
“Nay!” said I shortly. “I have a mind to settle my accounts with Marston, and not later than this morning.”
He brightened wonderfully at the words.
“’Twere indeed I more than a pity to miss so promising an occasion. But as I am your Mentor for the nonce, I deemed it right to mention the alternative—though I should have thought the less of you had you taken my advice. Here comes the landlord to summon us to breakfast.”
We followed him along the passage towards the kitchen. The door stood half-opened, and peeping through the crack at the hinges, we could see Marston and his friend seated at a table.
“Gentlemen,” said Elmscott, stepping in with the politest bow, “will you allow two friends to join your repast?”
Marston was in the act of raising a tankard to his lips; but save that his face turned a shade paler, and his hand trembled so that a few drops of the wine were spilled upon the cloth, he betrayed none of the disappointment which my cousin had fondly anticipated. He looked at us steadily for a second, and then drained the tankard. His companion—a Mr Cuthbert Cliffe, with whom both Elmscott and myself were acquainted—rose from his seat and welcomed us heartily. It was evident that he was in the dark as to the object of our journey. We seated ourselves opposite them on the other side of the table. Elmscott was somewhat dashed by the prosaic nature of the reception, and seemed at a loss how to broach the subject of the duel, when Marston suddenly hissed at me,—
“How the devil came you here?”
“On a magic carpet,” replied Elmscott smoothly. “Like the Arabian, we came upon a magic carpet.”
Marston rose from the table and walked to the fireplace, where he stood kicking the logs with the toe of his boot, and laughing to himself in a short, affected way, as men are used who seek to cover up a mortification. Then he turned again to me.
“Very well,” he said, with a nod, “and the sooner the better. If Lord Elmscott and Mr Cliffe will arrange the details, I am entirely at your service.”
With that he set his hat carelessly on his head, and sauntered out of the room. Mr Cliffe looked at me in surprise.
“It is an old-standing quarrel between Mr Buckler and your friend,” Elmscott explained, “but certain matters, of which we need not speak, have brought it to a head. Your friend would fain have deferred the settlement for another week, but Mr Buckler’s engagements forbade the delay.”
So far he had got when a suspicion flashed into my head. Leaving Elmscott to arrange the encounter with Mr Cliffe, I hurried down the passage and out onto the road. On neither side was Marston to be seen, but I perceived that the stable door stood open. I looked quickly to the priming of my pistol—for, knowing that the Great West Road was infested by footpads and highwaymen, we had armed ourselves with some care before leaving London—and took my station in the middle of the way. Another minute and I should have been too late; for Marston dashed out of the stable door, already mounted upon his horse. He drove his spurs into its flanks, and rode straight at me. I had just time to leap on one side. His riding-whip slashed across my face, I heard him laugh with a triumphant mockery, and then I fired. The horse bounded into the air with a scream of pain, sank on its haunches, and rolled over on its side.
The noise of the shot brought our seconds to the door.
“Your friend seems in need of assistance,” said Elmscott. For Marston lay on the road struggling to free himself from the weight of the horse. Cliffe loosened the saddle and helped Marston to his feet. Then he drew aside and stood silent, looking at his companion with a questioning disdain. Marston returned the look with a proud indifference, which, in spite of myself, I could not but admire.
“There was more courage than cowardice in the act,” said I, “to those who understand it.”
“I can do without your approbation,” said Marston, flushing, as he turned sharply upon me. Catching sight of my face, he smiled. “Did the whip sting?” he asked.
I unsheathed my sword, and without another word we mounted the bank on the left side of the road and passed on to the heath.
The seconds chose a spot about a hundred yards from the highway, where the turf was level and smooth, and set us facing north and south, so that neither might get advantage from the sun. The morning was very clear and bright, and just here and there a feather of white cloud in the blue of the sky; and our swords shone in the sunlight like darting tongues of flame.
The encounter was of the shortest, since we were in no condition to plan or execute the combinations of a cool and subtle attack, but drove at each other with the utmost fury. Marston wounded me in the forearm before ever I touched him. But a few seconds after that he had pinked me, he laid his side open, and I passed my sword between his ribs. He staggered backwards, swayed for a moment to and fro in an effort to keep his feet; his knees gave under him, and he sank down upon the heath, his fist clasping and unclasping convulsively about the pommel of his sword. Cliffe lifted him in his arms and strove to stanch the blood, which was reddening through his shirt, while Elmscott ran to the inn and hurried off to Hungerford for a surgeon.
For a while I stood on my ground, idly digging holes in the grass with the point of my rapier. Then Marston called me faintly, and I dropped the sword and went to his side. His face was white and sweaty, and the pupils of his eyes were contracted to pin-points.
I knelt down and bent my head close to his.
“So,” he whispered, “luck sides with you after all. This time I thought that I had won the vole.”
He was silent for a minute or so, and then,—“I want to speak with you alone.”
I took him from Cliffe’s arms and supported his head upon my knee, he pressing both his hands tightly upon his side.
“Betty is afraid,” he continued, with a gasp between each word, as soon as Cliffe had left us. “Betty is afraid, and her husband’s a fool.”
The implied request, even at that moment, struck me as wonderfully characteristic of the man. So long as his own desires were at stake he disregarded his sister’s fears; but no sooner had all chance of gaining them failed, than his affection for her reasserted itself, and even drove him to the length of asking help from his chief enemy.
“I will see that no harm comes to her.”
“Promise!”
I promised, somehow touched by his trust in me.
“I knew you would,” he said gratefully; and then, with a smile: “I am sorry I hit you with my whip—Morrice, I could have loved you.”
Again he lay silent, plucking at the grass with the fingers of his left hand.
“Lift me higher! There is something else.”
I raised his body as gently as I could; but nevertheless the rough bandage which Cliffe had fastened over the wound became displaced with the movement, and the blood burst out again, soaking through his shirt.
“You spoke of a miniature—” he began, and then with a little gasping sob he turned over in my arms, and fell forward on the grass upon his face.
I called to Cliffe, who stood with his back towards us a little distance off, and ran to where I had laid my coat and cravat before the duel commenced. For the cravat was of soft muslin, and might, I fancied, be of some use as lint. With this in my hand, I hurried back. Cliffe was lifting Marston from the ground.
“Best let him lie there quietly,” I said.
He turned the body over upon its back.
“Ay!” he answered, “under God’s sky.”
I dropped on my knees beside the corpse, felt the pulse, laid my ear to the heart. The sun shone hot and bright upon his dead face. Cliffe took a handkerchief from his pocket, and placed it gently over Marston’s eyes.
“This means a year on the Continent for you, my friend,” he said.
When Elmscott and the surgeon arrived some half an hour later, they found me eating my breakfast in the kitchen.
“Where is he?” they asked.
“Who?” said I.
I remember vaguely that the surgeon looked at me with a certain anxiety, and made a remark to Elmscott. Then they went out of the room again. How long it was before they returned I have no notion. Elmscott brought in my coat, hat, and sword, and I got up to put them on; but the doctor checked him, and setting me again in my chair, bound up my arm, not without some resistance from me, for I saw that his hands were dabbled with Marston’s blood.
“Now,” said he to Elmscott, “if you will help, we will get him upstairs to bed.”
“No!” said I, suddenly recollecting all that had occurred. “I made Marston a promise. I must keep it! I must ride to town and keep it!”
“It will be the best way, if he can,” said Elmscott. “He will be taken here for a surety. I have sent a messenger to Bristol with the news.”
The surgeon eased my arm into the sleeve of my coat, and made a sling about my shoulders with my cravat. Elmscott buckled on my sword and led me to the stables, leaving me outside while he went in and saddled a horse.
“This is Cliffe’s horse,” said he; “yours is too tired. I will explain to him.”
He held the horse while I climbed into the saddle.
“Now, Morrice,” he said, “you have no time to lose. You have got the start of the law; keep it. Marston’s family is of some power and weight. As soon as his death is known, there will be a hue and cry after you; so fly the country. I would say leave the promise unfulfilled, but that it were waste of breath. Fly the country as soon as you may, unless you have a mind for twelve months in Newgate jail. I will follow you to town with all speed, but for your own sake ’twere best I find you gone.”
He moved aside, and I galloped off towards Newbury. The misery of that ride I could not, if I would, describe. The pain of my wound, the utter weariness and dejection which came upon me as a reaction from the excitement of the last days, and the knowledge that I could no longer shirk my confession, so combined to weaken and distress me, that I had much ado to keep my seat in the saddle. ’Twas late in the evening when I rode up to Ilga’s lodging. The door, by some chance, stood open, and without bethinking me to summon the servants, I walked straight up the staircase to the parlour, dragging myself from one step to the other by the help of the balustrade. The parlour door was shut, and I could not lay my fingers on the handle, but scratched blindly up and down the panels in an effort to find it. At last some one opened the door from within, and I staggered into the room. Mlle. Durette—for it was she—set up a little scream, and then in the embrasure of the window I saw the Countess rise slowly to her feet. The last light of the day fell gray and wan across her face and hair. I saw her as through a mist and she seemed to me more than ordinarily tall. I stumbled across the room, my limbs growing heavier every moment.
“Countess,” I began, “I have a promise to fulfil. Lady Tracy—” There I stopped. The room commenced to swim round me. “Lady Tracy—” I repeated.
The Countess stood motionless as a statue, dumb as a statue. Yet in a strange way she appeared suddenly to come near and increase in stature—suddenly to dwindle and diminish.
“Ilga,” I cried, stretching out my hands to her. She made no movement. I felt my legs bend beneath me, as if the bones of them were dissolved to water, and I sank heavily upon my knees. “Ilga,” I cried again, but very faintly. She stirred not so much as a muscle to help me, and I fell forward swooning, with my head upon her feet.