Rufus was brought before the magistrates, and remanded for a week. Gervase in the meanwhile made the most of his opportunity. Fate, or Providence, it seemed to him, had delivered his enemy into his hand, and he conceived it to be his duty now to assist Providence, to the best of his ability.

Rufus treated the matter very lightly. He was out on bail, and he had little doubt that when he was allowed to tell his story before the magistrates he would be acquitted at once. Indeed, no other result seemed possible. He had only defended himself, and that a man should be punished for protecting his own head was almost unthinkable.

He did not consider, however, that nearly all the magistrates belonged to the class of which Gervase was a member. That almost unconsciously they would be predisposed in his favour. That they regarded it almost as a religious duty to uphold the rights and privileges of their class, and that any insult offered to one of their own order meant a distinct weakening of that iron hand which had ruled the country for centuries, unless such insult was promptly met and punished.

The magistrates were all of them honourable men. They belonged to the best county families. They had feasted at Sir Charles's table more than once, and ridden to hounds with his son. They had unbounded faith in the wisdom of the ruling classes, and an inborn contempt for what is vaguely termed the rights of the people. Political unrest was a dangerous symptom, and insubordination a crime.

The toast they drank with the greatest gusto at their public functions was "His Majesty's Forces" and "The Navy." The Church they did not recognise as a defensive power, and though they repeated nearly every Sunday, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God," they did not, in reality, believe it. The Gospel was all right for the social and domestic side of life, but when it came to larger affairs an army or a warship was much more to the purpose.

Rufus was not beloved by any of these dispensers of the law. He was reputed to hold Socialistic views; he was not over-burdened with reverence for the "upper classes," and, worse still, was not content with the lowly condition in which he was born.

On the day of the trial Rufus discovered that he had made a mistake in treating the matter so lightly. The prosecution had succeeded in working up a case. He was amazed when he discovered that he was charged, not only with assault but with drunkenness, and that the charge of drunkenness was sworn to by at least two witnesses. The terms of the indictment, by some oversight, had been furnished him too late for him to supply rebutting evidence. He had only his simple word of denial, and that stood him in no stead.

Gervase swore that the accused struck him without warning and without provocation; that, in fact, he was given no time to defend himself, that almost before he knew what had happened he was lying on the ground bruised and bleeding. The accused, who was clearly mad with drink, sprang upon him out of the darkness, and felled him with a single blow, and but for the interposition of his gardener, Micah Martin, he had little doubt would have killed him.

Micah corroborated his young master's evidence. He heard a cry for help, and running out saw the Captain on his back with the prisoner's knee on his chest. He was not absolutely certain as to the latter point, but that was his impression. Seeing him the prisoner staggered away, and leaned against a gate. He seemed to be just mad drunk, and in his judgment did not quite know what he was doing.

The next witness was Timothy Polgarrow, barman at the "Three Anchors." He swore that he supplied the prisoner with two whiskies on the evening in question; that he appeared to be excited when he came into the public-house bar, but quite sober. After the second whisky, however, he showed signs of intoxication so that a third whisky which he demanded was refused. It was quite early in the evening when he called, not much after dark. He was able to walk fairly straight when he left the "Three Anchors," but appeared to be terribly angry that he was refused any more drink.

Timothy gave his evidence glibly, and with great precision, and stuck to what he called his facts with limpet-like tenacity.

Rufus startled the court, and horrified the magistrates by asking Tim how much the Captain had paid him for committing perjury.

Rufus denied that he had ever crossed the threshold of the "Three Anchors." He had passed it on the evening in question on his way home from Redbourne, but he did not even slacken his pace, much less call.

Tim, however, stuck to his story, and was quite certain that he was not mistaken in his man.

As to the assault there could be no doubt. The Captain's face bore evidence of the severity of the attack. Rufus did not deny striking him and knocking him down, but persisted that Gervase was the aggressor.

"But why should he attack you?" the chairman asked.

"He accused me of something which I very much resented."

"What did he accuse you of?"

"I decline to say."

"Why do you decline?"

"Because it would introduce a name that I would not on any account have mixed up in this sordid affair."

"Oh! indeed." And the Bench smiled in an ultra superior way.

"Well, when he accused you of something you very much resented what did you do?"

"I called him a liar."

"Yes?"

"This angered him, and he struck at me."

"And what then?"

"I dodged the blow, and struck back."

"He didn't dodge the blow, I suppose?"

"It appears not by his appearance."

There was laughter in court at this reply, which was instantly suppressed.

"And what followed then?"

"What usually follows in such a case. Each tried to get at the other. I suppose my arm was the stronger or the longer. At any rate, when he found himself on his back he began to bellow for help."

"So that you wish us to believe that in a stand-up fight between a soldier and a civilian the soldier got the worst of it?"

"It looks as if he got the worst of it, at any rate."

"Does it not occur to you that your story does not hang well together? Is it likely that a soldier – or an ex-soldier, a man trained to the use of arms – would allow himself to be felled to the ground unless he were taken unawares?"

"Whether it is likely or not I have only stated the simple facts. Why should I attack him unawares, or attack him at all? His existence is a matter of supreme indifference to me. I should not have noticed him had he not charged me with conduct which I repudiate."

"But you refuse to say what it is he charged you with?"

"I do, and for the reasons I have already stated."

At this point the Captain's solicitor took up the running, and insisted that the case had been proved up to the very hilt. Timothy Polgarrow, a man of unimpeachable character, had sworn upon oath that he had served the accused with whiskies on the evening in question. Generally speaking, it was, no doubt, true, that the accused was a very temperate man. Hence, when he took drink at all, he the more quickly got out of bounds. An inveterate toper would have taken half-a-dozen whiskies, and carried a perfectly steady head. The accused was excited when he entered the "Three Anchors." Perhaps he had business worries. It was hinted that his schemes were hanging fire. Perhaps he had imbibed freely before he left Redbourne. People drank sometimes to drown their care. But the one clear fact was that he left the "Three Anchors" considerably the worse for liquor. Liquor makes some people hilarious, others it makes quarrelsome. The accused evidently belongs to the latter class. He was ready to fight anybody. As it happened, Captain Tregony, as he would still call him, though he had resigned his commission, was the first man he met. The Captain was taking a constitutional before dinner. It was a clear, frosty evening with plenty of starlight. The Captain was walking slowly with no thought of evil, when suddenly, out of the night, loomed the accused. The sequel you know. He fell upon the Captain unawares and struck him to the ground, and the chances are, in his drunken fury, would have murdered him, but for the timely assistance of Micah Martin.

The case was as simple and straightforward as any bench of magistrates could desire. The facts were borne out by independent testimony. There could be no shadow of doubt as to the drunkenness or the assault. The only matter to be considered was the measure of punishment to be meted out. They all agreed that drunkenness was no excuse for violence, while the offence was aggravated by a man in Rufus Sterne's position attacking a man of the rank of Captain Tregony.

One or two of the magistrates were for committing him to gaol without the option of a fine. It was a serious matter for a civilian to attack even an ex-soldier. It was a species of lèse majesté that ought not to be tolerated for a moment.

Unfortunately for these extremists a similar case had been tried a fortnight previously, and the accused – a man of considerable means – had got off with a fine of ten shillings and costs.

"And," argued the chairman, "we cannot with this case fresh in people's minds give colour to the fiction that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor."

So in order to prove their absolute impartiality, and to mark at the same time their sense of what was due to an ex-officer of His Majesty's forces they inflicted a fine of five pounds and costs, or a month's imprisonment.

Rufus was disposed at first not to pay the money. He was so angry that he almost felt that the seclusion of a prison cell would be a relief. But better thoughts prevailed. He was absolutely helpless. It was no use kicking or protesting. He could only grin, and abide, and hope that the day would come when justice would find her own.

It was a humiliating day for him. He left the court branded as a drunkard and a brawler. The case for the prosecution had been so clear and circumstantial that even his best friends were confounded. That he should deny the accusation was natural enough; but there was an unspoken fear in their hearts that worry had driven him to drink, and that alcohol acting upon a highly-strung temperament had thrown him momentarily off his mental and moral balance.

Madeline Grover was almost dumbfounded. Unconsciously she had been idealising Rufus for months past, while their last conversation had further exalted him in her estimation. Here was a man, honest in his doubts, sincere in his beliefs, and faithful to all his ideals. A man who "would not make his judgment blind," and who refused to play the hypocrite whatever the world might say in disparagement of him.

Among all her acquaintances there was no man who had struck her fancy so much. He stood apart from the common ruck. His very antagonism to the religious conventions of his time had something of nobleness in it. If he derided the Church it was because he believed it had departed from the spirit and teachings of its founder. His reverence for what was good and helpful had won her admiration.

And now suddenly it had been discovered to her that her idol had not only feet of clay, but was clay altogether, that he was a worse hypocrite than the hypocrites he derided. That behind all his pretence —

She stopped short at that. He had made no pretence. If he had talked about himself it was in disparagement rather than praise. He claimed no virtues beyond what his fellows possessed. He had always been singularly modest in his estimate of his own abilities.

Yet here were the facts in black and white. The unshaken testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, while poor Gervase's face bore unmistakable evidence of the fierceness of the onslaught.

Four days after the trial the local paper came out with a verbatim report. Madeline took a copy to her own room, and spent the whole afternoon in studying its pros and cons.

The points that fastened themselves upon her memory most tenaciously were first, Rufus's refusal to give the name of someone about whom they quarrelled, and second, his suggestion that Timothy Polgarrow had been bribed by Gervase to give false evidence.

Here was a phase of the question that seemed to grow larger and larger the more she looked at it. She would have to keep her eyes and ears open. Perhaps the last word on the subject had not been said. If Gervase was as honourable as she had always believed, then it was wicked of Rufus Sterne to throw out such a base and shameful insinuation. If, on the other hand, Rufus was as black as he had been painted, why this act of chivalry in the defence of the name of some unknown person?

The subject was full of knots and tangles. She would have to wait until some fresh light was thrown upon it.

As the days passed away she was pleased to note that Gervase showed no sign of triumph over the downfall of Rufus Sterne. He pointed no moral as he might reasonably have done. He did not come to her and say, "There, I told you so." His restraint and reserve were admirable, and she liked him all the better for his silence.

When, at length, she herself alluded to the matter, he spoke with genuine feeling and sympathy.

"I am really sorry for the fellow," he said. "Of course, he brought it upon himself. I could not possibly pass over the assault in silence. But all the same it is a pity that a man of parts should destroy his own reputation."

"It seemed a momentary and unaccountable outburst," she said, reflectively.

He smiled knowingly, and shook his head, but would not venture any further remark on the subject.

Madeline was greatly puzzled. She supposed she had been mistaken. It seemed for once her instincts had led her wrong, her intuitions were at fault. It was a painful discovery to make, and yet there was no other conclusion she could come to. It was impossible to believe that Gervase had deliberately plotted to ruin him, for Gervase, at any rate, was a gentleman.

Yet, somehow, she was never wholly satisfied. In spite of everything her sympathies were still with the accused man. She made no attempt, however, to see him again. She avoided every walk that would lead her across his path. She did her best to put him out of her thoughts and out of her life.

Gervase, meanwhile, played his part with great skill. He no longer pestered her with his attentions, no longer blustered. He felt he was safe now from any rival, and that time was on his side. It was very galling to have to wait so long, his fingers itched to touch her dollars, but he was wise enough to see that he would gain nothing by precipitancy. Madeline was not to be hurried or driven.

As the winter wore slowly away Madeline became more friendly and confidential. She sometimes asked him to take her a walk across the downs. She allowed him also to give her lessons in riding, she sought his advice in numberless little matters, in which she feared to trust her own judgment, and all unconsciously led him to think that the game was entirely in his own hands.

Between the Hall and the village there was little or no intercourse. Lady Tregony did most of her shopping in Redbourne. It was only the common and inexpensive things of household use that St. Gaved was deemed worthy to supply. Hence it happened that sometimes for a week on the stretch no local news found its way into the Hall.

Occasionally Madeline wondered whether Rufus Sterne after his sad fall, would give up in despair, and go to the bad altogether, or whether he would pull himself together and fight his battle afresh. She wondered, too, whether the scheme or invention in which he had risked his all would prove to be a success or a failure. She sometimes scanned the columns of the local paper, but his name was never mentioned, and somehow she had not the courage to ask anyone who knew him.

The weather continued so cold and cheerless, and so trying to the Captain after his Indian experiences, that it was suggested by Sir Charles that they should spend a month or two in the South of France.

Madeline caught at the idea with great eagerness, and that settled the matter. Both Sir Charles and Gervase were anxious to get her away from St. Gaved, but were not quite certain how it was to be accomplished. Madeline had grown so sick of London, and so eager to get back again to Trewinion Hall, that they were afraid she would object to going away again so soon.

Gervase glanced at his father knowingly, and his eyes brightened.

That evening father and son discussed affairs in the library.

"I think the way is clear at last," Sir Charles said, with a smile.

"Yes, I think so," Gervase answered, pulling at his briar.

"We'll get away as soon as we can, the sooner the better. Under the sunny skies of the Riviera her thoughts will turn to love and matrimony," and Sir Charles laughed.

"She's grown almost affectionate of late."

"That is good. If she ever cherished any romantic attachment for that scoundrel Sterne it is at an end."

"She never mentions his name."

"And by the time we have been away a week she will have forgotten his existence."

"I hope she will not be caught by some other handsome face."

"Not likely, my boy, if you play your cards well."

"I think, under the circumstances, I have played them remarkably well. Much better than you did when they were in your hands."

"No, no. Everything is going on as well as well can be. I don't think either of us has anything to blame himself with."

"I am not sure I did right in giving up my commission so soon. She was immensely taken, if you remember, with my uniform. She likes smart clothes."

"Oh, she's got over that. She's a woman now, and a wide-awake woman to boot."

"There's no doubt about her being wide-awake. But when shall we start?"

"Why not next Monday?"

"Aye, that will do. The sooner the better," and Gervase went off to his room to dream of matrimony and unlimited cash.

CHAPTER XXV
THE END OF A DREAM

It was not until March that Rufus realised that his dream was at an end. He had hoped against hope for weeks; had toiled on with steady persistency and tried to banish from his brain the thought of failure. The knowledge came suddenly, though he took a long journey to the North of England to seek it. When he turned his face toward home he knew that all his labour had been in vain.

Not that the invention on which he had bestowed so much toil and thought was worthless. On the contrary, he saw greater possibilities in it than ever before. But he had been forestalled. Another brain, as inventive as his own, and with far greater facilities for reducing theories to practice, had conceived the same idea and carried it into effect, while he was still painfully toiling in the same direction. When he looked at the work brought out by his competitor in the North, he felt as though there was no further place for him on earth.

"It is better than mine," he said to himself, sadly. "The main idea is the same, but he has shown more skill in developing it."

It was the advantage of the trained engineer over the untrained, of experience over inexperience. He had no feeling of bitterness in his heart against the man who had succeeded; he was of too generous a nature to be envious. The man who had won deserved to win.

He journeyed home like a man in a dream. The way seemed neither long nor short. The first faint odour of spring was in the air, but he did not heed it. His fellow passengers seemed more like shadows than real people. The world for him was at an end. He had no more to do. One question only was left to trouble him. How to put out life's brief candle without awakening any suspicion of foul play. He was more heavily stunned than he knew. Outwardly he was quite calm and collected, but it was the calmness of insensibility. For the moment he was past feeling; it was as though some powerful narcotic had been injected into his veins. He had an idea that nothing could ruffle him any more.

He had fretted a good deal at first over the loss of his good name. It seemed a monstrous thing that any man should have the power to rob him of what he valued more than all else on earth. That Gervase Tregony had deliberately bribed Tim Polgarrow and his own gardener to say he was drunk he had not the least shadow of a doubt, but he had no proof; and to accuse a man of inciting to perjury – especially a man in the position of Gervase Tregony – was a very dangerous thing. So he had to keep his mouth shut, and bear in silence one of the cruellest wrongs ever inflicted upon a man.

He was not at all sorry that he had disfigured the not too handsome face of Gervase Tregony for a few days. Indeed, he was human enough to feel that he would not mind paying another five pounds to be allowed to repeat the process. It was not "the assault" part of the affair that troubled him, nobody thought much the worse of him for that side of the episode. Gervase was not so popular in St. Gaved that he had many sympathisers.

But to be accused of drunkenness, and to have the accusation sworn to, and set down as proved, was as the bitterness of death to him. If there was any vice in the world he loathed it was drunkenness. It seemed to him the parent of so many other vices as well as the Hades of human degradation. It is true he was not a pledged abstainer. He never cared to pledge himself to anything, but in practice he was above reproach.

He knew, of course, why the charge of drunkenness had been tacked on to that of assault, without the former the latter would not hold water. It would be too humiliating to Gervase to admit that a sober man had beaten him in fair fight; hence the fiction that he was pounced upon suddenly and unawares by a man who was mad drunk. But the chief reason lay deeper still. He was not so blind that he could not see that Gervase was jealous of him, and sometimes he half wondered, half hoped, that he had reason to be jealous. It made his nerves tingle when he thought, that in the big house and before the Tregony family, Madeline Grover might have unwittingly let fall some word that could be construed into a partiality for him. It was a thought that would not bear to be looked at or analysed he knew. Nevertheless, it would flash across his brain, and that pretty frequently.

Hence, from Gervase's point of view the charge of drunkenness was what the man in the street would call "good business." He often pictured Gervase gloating over his triumph. If ever Madeline thought affectionately of him she would do so no longer. She would try to forget that he ever crossed her path, and, perhaps be sorry to the end of her days that she had shown him so much favour.

This was the bitterest part of the whole experience. That Madeline should think ill of him – the one woman that all unwittingly he had learned to love – was more painful than all the rest put together. It was bad enough to be held up as an awful example in Church and Sunday-school and Temperance meeting, as he heard was the case. But all that he did not mind so much. He might live it down in time. But if Madeline was once within his reach, and this cruel slander drove her into the arms of Gervase Tregony, that would be a tragedy that could never be lived down, that would darken his life to the end of the chapter.

For several weeks he kept hoping that he would meet Madeline again. He wanted to have one more conversation with her. He hoped that her generous nature would allow him to put his side of the case; or, if that was denied him that he might be allowed to say with all the emphasis he could command, that the accusation was false. But she gave him no such opportunity. He watched for her in the streets of St. Gaved. He took long walks across the downs, he loitered in the road that led past the lodge gates, but never once did she show her face. She evidently meant to let him see that their acquaintanceship was at an end.

Then came the news that the whole family had gone abroad, and that no one knew when they would return to Trewinion Hall again. He heard the news with a dull sense of pain at his heart. The brightest – the most beautiful thing – that had ever come into his life had gone out again, and he was left like a man stricken blind in a land of sunshine.

Yet, strangely enough, his sense of grief and shame and loss increased his desire for life. He did not want to hide himself – to pass out into silence and forgetfulness. He wanted to live so that he might redeem his life from the shadow that had fallen upon it, and prove to Madeline Grover, however late in the day, how cruelly he had been wronged.

On his return from the North, however, this and every other feeling was swallowed up in a strange insensibility to pain, both mental and physical. The one thought that dominated him was that he must keep his pledge to Felix Muller. As an honourable man he was bound to do that, and perhaps the sooner he did it the better.

He had spent three-fourths of the money he had borrowed. He had a few assets in the shape of tools, the rest would have to be scrapped, and would only be worth the value of old iron. In case there were no mishaps over the insurance money, Felix Muller would be well repaid for the risks he had taken and the world would go on just as if nothing had happened.

After a good deal of cogitation he came to the conclusion that the easiest way out of life would be by drowning. He was not a very good swimmer. He soon got exhausted and so was careful never to venture out of his depth. It would be quite easy, therefore, for him to swim out into deep water or take a header from a rock when the tide was up and then quietly drown.

That would mean that he would have to wait until summer. Nobody in St. Gaved bathed in the sea in March. To avoid any suspicion of foul play he would have to follow his normal habits and preserve as far as possible a cheerful temper.

It was soon whispered through the town that Rufus's great invention had proved a failure. Some sympathised with him. Some secretly rejoiced. For, curiously enough, no man can live in this world and do his duty without making enemies. There are narrow, ungenerous souls in every community who regard the success of their neighbours as a personal affront, who can see no merit in anyone, and who are never able to shape their lips to a word of praise or congratulation.

These people always complained that Rufus was a cut above his station. They said it would do him good "to be taken down a peg." But they were dreadfully sorry for the people whom he had induced to invest money in his wild-cat enterprise.

There were talks of his being made a bankrupt, and hints were thrown out that he might soon have to appear in a court of law on a worse charge than that of being drunk and disorderly. Moralists were able to see in his case striking illustrations of the truth that "the way of transgressors is hard." It was against the eternal order that a man should permanently prosper who had turned his back upon the faith of his fathers. His failure was heaven's punishment on him for neglecting church and chapel, and his fall into the sin of drunkenness was to be traced to precisely the same source.

Some of these things were repeated to Rufus by not too judicious friends, but they little guessed how deeply they hurt him. It was not his habit to betray his feelings. When he was most deeply stung he said the least.

A few days after his return Felix Muller drove over to see him. He came as usual after dark, and his excuse was that he had been to see clients in the neighbourhood.

Felix was full of sympathy and generous in his language of commiseration.

"We must still hope for the best," he said, after a long pause, looking into the fire with a grave and abstracted air. "You have several months yet to turn round in."

"It will be impossible for me to find the money except in the way we agreed upon," Rufus answered, without emotion.

"It may look so now," Muller answered, with pretended cheerfulness; "but in this topsy-turvy world there is no knowing what will turn up. I wish it were possible for me to allow you an extension of time."

"I fear it would not help me, if you could," Rufus said, absently.

"Well, perhaps it wouldn't, but all the same I should like to give you an extra chance or two if that were possible."

"I am not asking for any favours," Rufus said, indifferently. "I am getting things straight for you with as little delay as possible."

"And I shall loathe myself for being compelled to receive the money when you are gone."

Rufus looked at him for a moment with a doubtful light in his eyes.

"Why, what can it matter to you?" he questioned. "I thought you were a man without sentiment."

"I am in the main. I am just a man of business, and nothing else. Yet there's no denying I am fond of you. You are a man of my own way of thinking. May I not say you are a disciple of mine?"

"You may say what you like," Sterne replied, with a hollow laugh. "I believe you helped to destroy some of the illusions of my youth."

"And therefore you are grateful to me, and I am interested in you."

"I am not sure that I am particularly grateful," Rufus said, wearily, "What is there to be grateful for?"

"What is there to be grateful for?" Muller questioned, raising his eyebrows. "Surely it is something to have got out of the fogs of superstition into the clear light of reason. To have escaped from the bondage of creeds into the freedom of humanity. To have discovered the true value and proportion of things, to have been delivered from all fear of the future – "

"Are we not playing with words and phrases?" Rufus questioned, suddenly.

"My dear friend, what do you mean?" Muller asked in surprise.

"Suppose by reason and logic we can destroy everything until nothing is left? Is there any satisfaction in that? Is there any comfort in a philosophy of negations?"

"Explain yourself."

"Well, we will say for the sake of argument that we have proved there is no God and no future state. That all religions are myths and dreams. That matter explains everything, that thought is only sensation, that morality simply registers a stage in evolution, that death breaks up the elements which compose the individual, and they return to their native state. What then? Have we got any further? Are we not merely playing with words and phrases as children play with pebbles on the shore?"