A Gamble with Life

On the whole, Sir Charles concluded that he had better let Gervase know all there was to be known. The simple truth might gain in importance in his eyes the longer it was kept from him.

"I don't think, Gervase, you need have the least fear that you have a rival," he said, at length, looking up with what he intended to be a reassuring smile. "There was a little circumstance some months ago that caused me a moment's uneasiness; but only a moment's. I soon saw that it meant nothing, that it never could mean anything, in fact."

"What was the circumstance?" Gervase asked, with a quick light of interest in his eyes.

"Well, it came about in this way," and Sir Charles told in an off-hand and apparently indifferent manner the story of Madeline's escapade.

Gervase listened in gloomy silence, tugging vigorously at his moustache all the time.

"And you say she visited him in his diggings?" he questioned, sullenly, when Sir Charles had finished.

"I understand she called twice. From her point of view it seemed right enough. He had broken his leg in rescuing her, and with her American notions of freedom and independence, she saw no harm in calling to see him when he was getting better."

"But you say she went twice?"

"She went a second time to take him some books she had promised to lend him."

"Are you sure she went only twice?"

"I think I may say yes to that question. Madeline is very truthful and very frank, and when I pointed out that it was scarcely in harmony with our English notions of propriety she fell in with the suggestion at once."

"And she made no attempt to see him after?"

"Not the smallest. She had expressed her gratitude and the episode had closed."

Gervase looked thoughtful, and not quite satisfied.

"Madeline can be as close as an oyster when she likes," he said, after a pause; "how do you know she has not been thinking about the fellow ever since?"

"Why should she?"

"Well, why shouldn't she? He saved her life, that is no small matter, especially to a romantic temperament like hers. He broke his leg, and nearly lost his life in doing it; that would add greatly to the interest of the situation. Then, if I remember rightly, he's a singularly handsome rascal, with an easy flow of speech, and a voice peculiarly rich and flexible."

"My dear boy, you can make a mountain out of a molehill, if you like," Sir Charles said, with a laugh. "That's your look-out. I thought it right to tell you everything – this incident among the rest; but I can assure you you need not worry yourself five seconds over the matter."

"Perhaps I needn't; or it may be there is more at the back of Madeline's mind than you think. One thing is clear to me, something has changed her, and I'm going to find out what it is; and by Jove! if – if – " and he clenched his fists savagely, and walked out of the room.

CHAPTER XXI
GERVASE SPEAKS HIS MIND

On New Year's Day Gervase felt determined, if possible, to bring matters to a head, and with this laudable purpose pulsing through every fibre of his body he made his way to the drawing-room where, he understood from his mother, Madeline was sitting alone. He found her, as he expected, intent on a book. She looked up with a bored expression when he entered, smiled rather wearily, but very sweetly, and then went on with her reading.

Gervase felt nettled and frowned darkly, but he had made up his mind not to be driven from his purpose by any indifference – pretended or genuine – on Madeline's part. For a whole week he had been beating the air and getting no nearer the goal of his desire; the time had now come when he would have an explicit answer. His worldly circumstances were desperate, and if Madeline failed him, he would have to exercise his wits in some other direction.

Moreover, the story of Madeline's adventure on the cliffs grew in importance and significance the longer he contemplated it. The fact that she and Rufus Sterne never met was nothing to the point. She might be eating her heart out in silence for all he knew. Girls did such foolish things. For good or ill he would have to find out how the land lay in that direction.

"Is your book very interesting, Madeline?" he asked, throwing himself into an easy chair near the fire.

"Rather so," she answered, without looking up.

"You seem very fond of reading," he said, after a brief pause.

"I am very fond of it."

Another pause.

"Don't you think it is very hurtful to the eyes to read so much?" he said, edging his chair a little nearer to the couch on which she sat.

"Really, I have never thought of it."

"But you ought to think of it, Madeline. The eyesight is most important."

"I suppose it is."

Another pause, during which Gervase threw a lump of wood on the grate. Madeline went on reading, apparently oblivious of his presence.

"I can't understand how people can become so lost in a book," Gervase said, a little petulantly.

"No?"

"No, I can't. It's beyond me."

"Do you never read?"

"Sometimes, but not often. I've too much else to do. Besides, doesn't the Bible say that much reading is a weariness to the flesh?"

"Does it?"

"I don't know; but I've heard it somewhere, and it's true."

"You've proved it?"

"Over and over again."

"What sort of books do you find so wearisome?"

"Oh, all sorts. There's not much to choose between them."

"Do you really think that?"

"Of course I do, or I shouldn't say it. I'm not the sort of man to say what I don't mean. I thought you had found that out long ago."

"I don't think I have thought much about it."

"I thought as much. It appears that I am of no account with you, Madeline. And yet I had hoped to be your husband. But devotion is lost, affection is thrown away, the burning hope of years is trampled upon."

"I thought we were to let that matter drop, Gervase, until we had had more time to think it over?"

"But I don't want more time, Madeline. My mind is quite made up. If I wait a year – ten years – it will be all the same. For me there is only one woman in the world, and her name is Madeline Grover."

"It is very kind of you to say so, Gervase, and I really feel very much honoured. But, you see, I have only known you about a week."

"Oh, Madeline, how can you say that? We have known each other for years."

"In a sense, Gervase, but not in reality. In fact, I find that all the past has to be wiped out, and I have to start again."

"Why so?"

"I cannot explain it very well, but I expect we have both changed. Madeline Grover, the school-girl, is not the Madeline Grover of to-day."

"By Jove, I fear that's only too true," he said, almost angrily.

"And the Captain Tregony I met in Washington – excuse me for saying it – is not the Gervase Tregony of Trewinion Hall."

"Have I deteriorated so much?" he questioned, with an angry flash in his eyes.

"I do not say that you have deteriorated at all," she said, with a smile. "Perhaps we have both of us vastly improved. Let us hope so at any rate. But what I am pointing out is, we meet – almost entirely different people."

"That you are different, I don't deny," he answered, sullenly. "In Washington you made heaps of me, now you are as cold as an iceberg. But I deny that I have changed. I loved you then, I have loved you ever since, I love you now."

"Well, have it that I only have changed," she said, with a touch of weariness in her voice. "I don't want to make you angry, Gervase, but you must recognise the fact that I was only a school-girl when we first met. I am a woman now. Hence, you must give me time to adjust myself if you will allow the expression. You see, I have to begin over again."

"That's very cold comfort for me," he said, angrily. "How do I know that some other fellow will not come along? How do I know that some adventurer has not come between us already?"

She glanced at him for a moment with an indignant light in her eyes, then picked up her book again.

"Pardon me, Madeline," he said, hurriedly, "I would not offend you for the world, but love such as mine makes a fellow jealous and suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?" she demanded.

"Well, you see," he said, slowly and awkwardly, turning away from her, and staring into the fire, "it's better to be honest about it, isn't it?"

"Honest about what?"

"I don't think I'm naturally jealous," he explained, "but father has told me all about your – your – well, your escapade with that scoundrel, Sterne."

"Is he a scoundrel?"

"You know nothing about him, of course, but he is just the kind of fellow that would take advantage of any service he had rendered."

"I was not aware – "

"Of course not," he interrupted, "but those – well, what I call low-born people have no sense of propriety; and in these days – I am sorry to have to say it – very little reverence for their betters."

"Well, what is all this leading to?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. Only father told me how he took some risks on your account, and I know that you are nothing if not grateful, and honestly I was half afraid lest the rascal had been in some way imposing on your good nature."

"You are quite sure that you know this Mr. Sterne?"

"I know of him, Madeline, which is quite enough for me. Of course, I have seen him dozens of times, but he is not the kind of man I should ever think of speaking to – except of course, as I would speak to a tradesman or a fisherman."

"Yes?"

"You see, those people who are too proud to work, and too ignorant and too poor to be gentlemen, and yet who try to ape the manners of their betters are really the most detestable people of all."

"Is that so?"

"It is so, I can assure you. As an American you have not got to know quite the composition of our English society. But you will see things differently later on. A good, honest working man, who wears fustian, and is not ashamed of it, is to be admired, but your working class upstart, with vulgarity bred in his bones, is really too terrible for words."

"And is there no vulgarity in what you call the upper classes?"

"Well, you see, the upper classes can afford to be anything they like, if you understand."

"You mean that they are a law unto themselves?"

"Well, yes, that is about the size of it. No one would think of criticising a duke, for instance, on a question of manners or taste."

"Well, now, that is real interesting," she said, with a cynical little laugh. "It explains a lot of things that I had not seen before."

"Then, too," he went on, warming to his theme, "it is largely a question of feeling. You can't explain some things; you can't say why they are wrong or right, only you feel they are so."

"That is quite true, Gervase," she answered, with a smile.

"For instance, I wear a monocle sometimes. Now that is quite right for a man in my position, and quite becoming."

"Most becoming, Gervase."

"But for Peter Day, the draper, for instance, to stand in his shop-door with a glass in his right eye would look simply ridiculous."

"You would conclude he was cross-eyed, wouldn't you?"

"You would conclude he was an idiot, and, between ourselves, that's just the trouble now-a-days. The common people seem to think that they have a perfect right to do what their betters do."

"But to copy their virtues – "

"That isn't the point exactly," he interrupted. "I don't pretend that we have any more virtues of the homely sort, than the cottage folk, but certain things belong to us by right."

"Do you mean vices?" she queried, innocently.

"Well, no, not in our case; but they might be vices if copied by the lower classes. I'm afraid I can't explain myself very clearly. But things that would be quite proper for the best people to do, would be simply grotesque, or worse, if the common orders attempted them."

"Really, this is most interesting," she said, half-banteringly, half-seriously. "Now, out in our country we have no varying standards of right and wrong."

"Ah! well, that is because you have no aristocracy," he said, loftily.

"And if I were to marry you, Gervase, and become a lady of quality I should be judged, as it were, by a different set of laws."

"You would become Lady Tregony when I succeeded to the title."

She laughed. "That, I fear, is scarcely an answer to my question."

"Not a full answer, but you see there are so many things that cannot be explained."

"Evidently. In the meanwhile I belong to the common herd – "

"No, no! Madeline," he interrupted, quickly.

"My father was only a working man," she went on, "and across the water we have no blue bloods; we have blue noses, but that's another matter, but we're all on the same footing there."

"Not socially, and dollars in America count for what name and titles count for here."

"But I haven't even the dollars," she said, with a laugh.

"But you have," he protested, quickly. "That is – I mean – you have not to work for your living. You are not a type-writer girl, or anything of that sort."

"And should I be any the worse if I were?"

"Well, of course, Madeline, you would be a lady anywhere, or under any circumstances," he said, grandiloquently.

"Thank you, Gervase, but suppose we get back again now to the point we started from."

"I'll be delighted," he said, eagerly. "I do want to start the new year with everything settled; that's the reason I pushed myself on to you, as it were, this afternoon. I hate beating about the bush, and all our friends are wondering why the engagement is not announced."

"Oh, dear! you have gone back miles further than I intended," she laughed. "I understood you wanted to warn me against somebody."

"I do, Madeline. I'm your best friend, if you'll only believe it. And I do beseech you, if you've been in the least friendly with that fellow Sterne, you'll drop him."

"You think he isn't a good man."

"Oh, blow his goodness. The point is, he's common, vulgar – bad form in every way, if you understand. Anyone in your position should never be seen speaking to him."

"But is there anything against his moral character?"

"Oh, confound his moral character," he said, with an oath, for which he apologised at once. "It isn't that I'm squeamish about. The point is, Madeline, he's no gentleman."

"He seemed to me to be quite a gentleman."

"I'm sorry to hear you say that," he said, mournfully, getting up and throwing another log on the fire. "It shows how you may be deceived by such scoundrels."

"But is that a nice word to use of any man against whose moral character you have no complaint to make?"

"No, it isn't a nice word, but he isn't a nice person. I don't care to mention such things, but you may not be aware that he is an infidel?"

"What is that, Gervase?"

"Oh! I don't know, but it's something bad, you bet. I heard the vicar talking about it last time I was at home, and he was pretty sick, I can assure you. If Sterne were to die to-morrow I question if the vicar would allow him to be buried in consecrated ground."

"And what would happen then?" she asked, wonderingly.

"Oh! don't ask me. I am not up in those things, but I just mention the matter to show you he's a pretty bad sort, and not the sort of person for any one like you to be on speaking terms with."

"But what I want to know is, has he ever done anyone any wrong. Ever cheated people, or told lies about them, or stolen their property. Or has he ever been known to get drunk, or to behave in any way unworthy of a gentleman?"

"My dear Madeline, I hate saying anything unpleasant about anyone. But a man who never goes to church, who doesn't believe in the Church, who has no respect for the clergy or the bishops, who has been heard to denounce some of our most sacred institutions, such as the land laws, who has even said that patriotism was a curse, and war an iniquity – what can you expect of such a man? He may not have actually stolen his neighbour's property, but he would very much like to."

"I don't think that necessarily follows," she said, seriously. "I think it is possible for a man to have very small respect for the clergy, and for what is called the Church, and yet for him to have a profound sense of honour, and an unquenchable love for righteousness."

"Then you don't think staying away from church is as bad as getting drunk?"

"I should think not, indeed," she answered, quickly. "A man who gets drunk, I mean an educated man, a gentleman – sinks beneath contempt."

"Sterne may get drunk for all I know," he said, uneasily. "You see, I have been out of England for a long time."

She closed her book with a sudden movement, and rose to her feet.

"No, you must not go yet," he said, in alarm. "We have not settled the matter which I wish particularly to have settled to-day."

"We have talked quite long enough for one afternoon," she answered, coolly.

"But, Madeline, have you no pity?" he said, pleadingly.

"It would be folly to rush into such a matter hastily," she answered, in the same tone.

"But – but, Madeline, answer me one question," he entreated. "Have you – have you seen this man Sterne since I came back?"

"You have no right to ask that question," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "Nevertheless, I will answer it. I have not," and without another word she swept out of the room.

Her heart was in a tumult of conflicting emotions. She was less satisfied with Gervase than she had ever been before, and less satisfied with herself. And yet she saw no way out of the position in which she found herself. It was next to impossible, situated as she was, to upset what had been taken for granted so long, particularly as she had acquiesced from the first in the unspoken arrangement. She felt as if in coming to England she had been lured into a trap, and yet it was a trap she had been eager to fall into. She had hoped when she saw Gervase, that all her old reverence and admiration and hero worship would flame into life again, instead of which his coming had been as cold water on the faggots. Whether he had lost some of the qualities she had so much admired or whether all the change was in herself, she did not know, but the glamour had all passed away, and her eyes ached with looking at the common-place.

She wondered if it were always so; if maturity always destroyed the illusions of youth, if the poetry of eighteen became feeble prose at twenty-one.

She went to her own room, and donned her hat and jacket, and then stole unobserved out of the house. "I must get a little fresh air," she said to herself, "and, perhaps, a long walk will put an end to this restlessness."

She turned her back upon St. Gaved, and made for the "downs" that skirted the cliffs. The wind was keen and searching, and the wintry sun was already disappearing behind the sea. "I suppose I shall have to say yes sooner or later," she went on, as she walked briskly forward. "I don't see how I can get out of it very well. All his people seem to be expecting it, and he is evidently very much in love with me. I am afraid there won't be very much romance on my side, but, after all, we may be very happy together."

Then she looked up with a start as a step sounded directly in front of her, and she found herself face to face with Rufus Sterne.

CHAPTER XXII
A HUMAN DOCUMENT

Rufus returned from Tregannon in a condition of mental unrest, such as he had not known before. It was Madeline Grover in the first instance who set him thinking along certain lines, and once started it was impossible to turn back. During all the time he remained a prisoner in the house, his brain had been unusually active. Unconsciously his fierce antagonisms subsided, his revolt against accepted creeds took new shapes, his belief in German philosophy began to waver.

The process of mental evolution went on so quietly and silently, that he was almost startled when he discovered that his philosophic watchwords no longer represented his real beliefs. He felt as though while he slept all his beliefs had been thrown into the melting-pot to be cast afresh, and were now being poured out into new moulds. What the result would be when the process was complete it was impossible to say, but already one thing was certain, the blank negatives in which he once found refuge, would never again satisfy him. He might never evolve into an orthodox believer. The religiosity of the Churches appealed to him as little as ever it did. He despised the smug hypocrisy that on all hands usurped the place of Christianity, and defiled its name. He loathed the pretensions of priests and clerics of all sects. But out of the fog and darkness and uncertainty, certain great truths and principles loomed faintly and fitfully.

The fog was no longer an empty void. The silence was now and then broken by a sound of words, though the language was strange to his ears. There appeared to be a moral order which answered to his own need, and a moral order implied the existence of what he had so long denied.

His visit to his grandparents quickened his thoughts in the direction they had been travelling. Everything tended to serious reflection. The awful mystery and solemnity of life were forced upon him at all points. The old people walked and talked "as seeing Him who is invisible."

He was quietly amused when he returned from his long walk on Christmas day to find his grandfather and the young minister engaged in a heated argument on the barren and thorny subject of verbal inspiration. He would have stopped the discussion if he could, for he discovered that his grandfather was getting much the worst of the argument, and was losing his temper in consequence. But the old man refused to be silenced. Getting his chance of reply he poured out a torrent of words that swept everything before it, and to which there seemed to be no end.

Fortunately, tea was announced just as the young minister was about to reply, and over the tea-table conversation drifted into an entirely different channel. After tea the Rev. Reuben retired to his study accompanied by his wife, and Rufus and Mr. Brook were left in possession of the sitting-room.

As there was no evening service on Christmas Day the young minister felt free to relax himself. Conversation tripped lightly from point to point, from general to particular, from gay to grave, from serious to solemn.

They talked till supper time, and after supper Rufus walked with the young minister to his lodgings, and remained with him till long after midnight. The conversation was a revelation to Rufus in many ways. Marshall Brook was a scholar as well as a thinker. He was as familiar with the German writers as with the English. He was alive to all modern questions, conversant with all the work of the higher critics, alive to all that was fundamental in the creeds of the Churches, contemptuous of the narrowness and bigotry that brought religion into contempt, tolerant of all fresh light, patient and even sympathetic with every form of human doubt, and large-hearted and clear-eyed enough to see that there was good in everything.

Marshall Brook had often heard of his predecessor's sceptical grandson, and was glad of the opportunity of meeting him, and was charmed with him when they did meet. It was easy to discover where the shoe pinched, easy to see how and when the revolt began, easy to trace the successive steps from doubt to denial, from unbelief to blank negation.

Rufus talked freely and well. He knew that the young minister regarded him as an infidel, and he thought he might as well live up to the description. Marshall Brook led him on by easy and almost imperceptible steps. His first business was to diagnose the case, and if possible to find out the cause. For the first hour he allowed all Rufus's arguments to go by default.

But when they got to close grips Rufus felt helpless. This young scholar could state his case better than he could state it himself. He had traversed all the barren and thorny waste, and much more carefully than Rufus had ever done. He knew the whole case by heart; knew every argument and every objection. He tore the flimsy fabric of Rufus's philosophy to shreds and left him with scarcely a rag to cover himself with.

Rufus remained three days at Tregannon and spent the major portion of the time with Marshall Brook. Apart from the interest raised by the questions discussed, it was a delight to be brought into contact with a mind so fresh and well disciplined. They hammered out the pros and cons of materialistic philosophy with infinite zest. They wrestled with the joy of striplings at a village fair. They fought for supremacy with all their might, but in every encounter Rufus went under.

When he returned to St. Gaved he was in a condition of mental chaos. Nearly every prop on which he supported himself had been knocked away. He was certain of nothing, not even of his own existence.

It was not an uncommon experience; most thinking men have passed through it at one time or another. Destruction has often to precede construction. The old has to be demolished even to the foundations before the new building can arise.

Yet none save those who have passed through it can conceive the utter desolation and darkness of soul, during what may be called the interregnum. The old has been destroyed, the new has not yet taken shape. The ark has been sunk and the mountain peaks have not yet begun to appear above the flood. The frightened soul flits hither and thither across the waste of waters, seeking some place on which to rest its feet, and finding none; and unlike Noah's dove there is no ark to which it can return. It must remain poised on wing till the floods have assuaged and the foundations of things have been discovered.

In the last resort every man writes his own creed. No man, even mentally, can remain in a state of suspended animation for very long. A philosophy of negations is as abhorrent to the sensitive soul as a vacuum is to Nature. After destruction there is bound to be construction. Like beavers we are ever building, and when one dam has been swept away by the flood, we straightway set to work to build another.

Rufus was trying to evolve some kind of cosmos out of chaos when he met Madeline on the downs. She came upon him suddenly and unexpectedly and his heart leaped like a startled hare. How beautiful she was. How lissom and graceful and strong.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, in her bright, frank, ingenuous way. "I am glad we have met."

"Yes?" he replied, not knowing what else to say.

"I have heard something about you recently and I would like to know if it is true."

"What have you heard?" he questioned, with a puzzled look on his face.

"That you are an infidel."

"Who told you that?"

"That is a matter of no consequence since it is common gossip."

For a moment he was silent, and turned his eyes seaward as if to watch the sun go down. "Are you pressed for time?" he asked without turning his eyes.

"No, I am quite free for the next hour," she answered, with a smile, though she wondered what the Tregonys would think if they knew.

"I owe a good deal to you," he began, slowly and thoughtfully.

"No, not to me, surely. I am the debtor," she interrupted.

"Yes, to you," he went on in the same slow, even way. "And if you care to know – that is, if you are interested – why then it will be a pleasure to talk to you – as it always has been – "

Then he paused and again turned his eyes toward the sea. She glanced at him shyly but did not reply.

"It is easy to call people names," he said, at length, without looking at her. "I do not complain, however. I have believed the things I could not help believing. Can we any of us do more than that?"

"I do not quite understand?" she answered, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"I mean that the things we believe, or do not believe, are matters over which we have no absolute control. You believe what you believe because you cannot help it. You have not been coerced into believing it. The evidence is all-sufficient for you though it might not be for me. On the same ground I believe what I believe – because – because I cannot help myself. Do you follow me? Faith after all is belief upon evidence, and if the evidence is insufficient – "

"But what if people reject the evidence without weighing it, stubbornly turn their backs upon the light?" she interrupted.

"Then they are not honest," he said, quickly; "but I hope you do not accuse me of dishonesty?"

"I accuse you of nothing," she answered. "I have only told you what people are saying."

"And you are sorry?" and he turned, and looked her frankly in the face.

"I am very sorry," she replied, with a faint suspicion of colour on her cheeks.

"It is generous of you to be interested in me at all," he said, after a pause. "And if I were to tell you how much I value that interest you might not believe me."

She darted a startled glance at him, but she did not catch his eyes for he was looking seaward again, and for a moment or two there was silence.

"I should like to tell you everything about myself," he went on, at length, "my early troubles and battles, my boyish revolt against cruel and illogical creeds, my almost unaided pursuit of knowledge, my steady drift into blank negation; but I should bore you – "

"No, no!" she said, quickly. "I should like to hear all the story. I should, indeed. Really and truly."

They walked away northward, while the light went down in the West. The twilight deepened rapidly, and the frosty stars began to glimmer in the sky. But neither seemed to heed the gathering darkness nor the rapid flight of time.

Rufus talked without reserve; it is easy to talk when those who listen are sympathetic. He told the story of his father's death abroad, of his mother's grief, of his own bitter sense of loss. He sketched his grandfather – upright and severe – preaching a creed that was more fearsome than any nightmare. He spoke of their slender means and their fruitless efforts to get any of the property his father left. Of his granny's wish that he should be a draper, of his own ambition to be an engineer, and the compromise which landed him in Redbourne as a bank clerk. And through all the story there ran the deeper current of his mental struggles till at last he fancied he found the ultima Thule in pure materialism.

Madeline listened quite absorbed. It was the most interesting human document that had ever been unfolded to her, and all the more interesting because it was told with such artlessness and sincerity. Yet it was not a very heroic story as he told it. Rufus was no hero in his own eyes, and he was too honest to pretend to be what he was not. Perhaps, in his hatred of pretence he made himself out a less admirable character than he was in reality.