CHAPTER XIII.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume IV, 1 April 1901, Page 514

CHAPTER XIII.

UNDER THE GOAD. " Yes, lam disengaged. I will see Mr, Osmond here."

The maid withdrew. Howard, with Frank's card in his hand, rose from his writing table, and drew himself up as though to meet a blow. The morning had barely given him time for action, yet a half-written letter lay on his desk ; on the floor was a litter of newspapers, hastily read and thrown

aside

In the moment that Howard stood awaiting his adversary, his face and figure set stiffly. To all appearance he had conquered the agitation of last night.

When the door closed behind him, Frank found himself received by a coldly courteous man, who bowed to him ceremoniously. Pale with excitement, Frank responded with formality as proud ; neither spoke. The dark spectacled eyes searched the face before him, which expressed nothing of memory of what had gone before. Into the moment's silence a rush of feeling came to Frank as he stood face to face with the man whom ho had first admired, then despised. He tried to bring from the storehouse of his wrong and suffering something of the bitterness he had hoarded with which to fight against the new weakness that was invading him. Instead he saw the age and pain on his enemy's face, the grey among the dark hair. Everything recurred to his memory save his hatred, his rehearsed and reiterated vengeance ! Matamata and they two together, the new ambition, the new desire of life this man had communicated.

Howard lifted his head and met the other's gaze with the cold, critical light in his eyes under which the younger man had quailed on the occasion of their first meeting. But there was no nervousness in the lad's look now. Shame and he seemed to have nothing in common ; two years had worked an extraordinary change. For the first time Howard saw the likeness to Caroline. "I congratulate you — until last night I believed you dead." The two men were watching each other as instinctive enemies watch. They both were experiencing one of those moments of understanding that do more than years of intercourse to separate, or reveal and cement more intimately than scenes of passion do. "Dead ? You believed me dead ?" " Drowned at Matamata." An exclamation escaped from Frank's lips ; he went an involuntary step nearer. In one hand he held his cap — similar to that he had left on the river bank, and which matched his blue serge morning suit — with his left hand he made a gesture of entreaty. A curious wish had arisen in his mind that he might find this man less

guilty than he thought him. It was possible the mistake had been made ; on that day when he and Howard had walked together he, Frank, had allowed himself utterance of his despair. " Drowned ?" He looked greatly disquieted. He took another step forward, and faced Howard on the hearthrug. Was this the explanation of his sister's acquiescence ? Had he been brooding over a wrong done to him, while he had inflicted an injury ? His anger, his grudge, the righteousness of his cause, all those considerations which had combined to make him aggressive were dwarfed by the new thought. " Will you explain ?" he asked abruptly. Howard had not moved his position on the hearth-rug. He straightened his shoulders now, and with his hands locked behind his back, very deliberately gave his reasons. He was brutal in his diagnosis. The weakness that had held a man from using his talents, and had made it possible for him to become a forger, he held consistent with a crowning act of despei'ation. Frank's face twitched. There seemed to him a supreme irony in last night's triumph placed beside this morning's reason why he should have died. Howai'd began his slow pace of the room in measured calculating tones, giving the reason for his belief in the other's death. " To me," he concluded, " it was more than a possibility ; circumstances justified the act ; when hope has no leality to a man, when he has lost confidence in his own power, life has no reality." Frank was dumbfounded. Whatever he had expected to hear, he had not expected the reasons why he. should not be alive. " In his uninspired moments," continued Howard, with a note of weariness in his voice, Frank did not recognise, " every man's life drags — but to feel the clog on the wheel always! damnable! With inspiration and motive gone, to live is simply to be an ape with mimicry enough to play the man !" He pushed his hair off his forehead with an impatient hand.

Frank met the sunken eyes with n strange feeling of fear. He had loved this man in an earlier day, set him apart — with the idealist's enthusiasm — from ordinary sin. The truth was dawning upon Frank that extraordinary men were not men exempt from sin, but by their repentance emancipated evil from platitude. That a strong man erred strongly and sounded the bottom of a

deep regret,

" I accepted the idea of your death as fact — and robbed a dead man. I did it deliberately."

Howard looked in cold dotianco at tho man he had wronged, neither triumphant nor degraded. His lip curled ; there was almost scorn in his tone. " That a man conscious of your gift could despair, I did not understand. I mistook your mood for ignorance. It seemed to me that you were blind to your advantage — that the gods had gifted you to no purpose. It was a satire that the rod which could divide my Red Sea should be scornfully thrown aside by an unappreciativo hand. I stooped. I picked up the rod, smote my waters, and passed over." His voice, harsh with feeling, grew husky at the words "I. stooped." There was confession in them, infinite humiliation. But his manner was conciliative only for a moment. He walked to his desk. " Hero," he continued, laying his hand upon the MS. on the table, "is the original of my famous book." His harsh laugh grated on tho silence of the room. " Whatever polish — shall we say polish ? — it has undergone the idea is unmistakably yours. Undeniably so. I would gladly yield all claim — what is the quotation about ' restoring fourfold ?' " Still Frank did not speak. His hand closed over the roll of paper. His face was as white as the face that looked into his. " I did covet it," said Howard. " I covet it still — for the honour it might have brought me." His voice was hoarse.

Still Frank did not speak. For a moment both men stood silently, then Frank quietly put the MS. on the fire, and said huskily :

" I, also, was a thief."

The burning MS. flared into bright flame, flickered into a red glow, darkened and went out, and with, it Evidence of Howard's guilt. The morning sunshine mocked the firelight, and made it vulgar, but neither of the men were conscious of the sunshine. A clock on the mantleshelf above their bowed heads ticked oif the shamed minutes hurriedly. "I also ! God! What a leveller !" If ever he had stood undecided between the reality of this man's crime and his own, Frank had linked them. In his pardon he had accused ; in his restraint he had abusedHoward winced to remember his old scorn of the man beside him. He also was a thief. He had fallen before into extreme depths, but Frank had forced him out of any cover he might find in his pit. He abhorred failux'e, and was not this moment the worst defeat when the man he had despised showed magnanimity on the ground of their common crime ? " You hit hard," he said. Frank looked up. His face flushed. His release from a death sentence had taught him sympathy. Fresh contact with the personality that had affected him so strongly at Matamata roused again in him something of the old worship. It was difficult to keep resentment and Howard so near. Last night appeared an effrontery ; an exaggerated expression of a past circumstance. His words had been intended as a conciliation ; but he saw the misery on the other's* face, and his almost womanly gentleness re-asserted itself, and swept before it all consideration save that for peace.

" Let us cry quits," he said. "We have both strained for a pomt — and gained it. Wehave communicated thought and strength to each other— does it matter so very much how ? I was held as in a vice by circumstance, had small self-judgment till you opened my eyes. You lacked a little nature to lead your art to genius. Well, we have both advanced. Must we cavil now ? May we; nat own that each has communicated to the other something of what the other

needed ? Could I, Frank Osmond, have won if it had not been for you ? Say that you -first' roused me by your energy into action, then shocked me into hatred and revenge ? Emulation, hatred even means life." His eyes glowed, his sensitive face quivered, in a tone like Caroline's tones when she pleaded, he asked : "Is the dead past to bury its dead ?"

The hand he half extended he rested on a chair back, checking his impulse. He might not. sue even now for the friendship he coveted. Perhaps in Howard's ejes the pollution of the. past still clung to him! Perhaps last night worked incalculable harm. Caroline had given this man her love, and he, Frank, had come between. In his blind hate had he made bad worse ? "My sister ?" He faltered and stopped. " Ah ! yes, there is Caroline !" Howard had been reminded of her claim. He had been engrossed by the idea that he would throw his shame overboard, get rid of his load thoroughly; it was a distinct temptation. He writhed under coals of fire. A final and effectual escape had presented itself in the confession which is reputed good for the soul. But it would weight Caroline. He did not relish the idea of making his wife the pack-horse to carry his disgrace. He must not let the world throw stones at her.

" Pray do not imagine that I am sheltering behind the fact that Caroline is your sister, Mr. Osmond," he said in his slowest drawl of anger, his eyes bright with a sudden blaze of recollection. " The man of your play did that, I recollect. Understand I gained nothing but youi* sister when I made her my wife. I had nothing to fear — she was ignorant that you had ever written a line — and to me you were dead, absolutely dead. I wanted nothing but your idea ; it haunted me awake or asleep ; the desire to possess it mastered me. I stole it, but there the meanness ends. I married Cai*oline to share possession. I have bungled badly — for I swear to you this moment that if it were not that you have reminded me it would bring

ignominy upon her, I'd throw the cursed weight off."

His voice had losts its drawl. He made a gesture with his shoulders as though he had shaken off a load, and drew iv his breath with a sigh of anticipated relief. " How you must hate me," said Frank, for he saw that his revenge had struck the wrong man ; he had planned it for a small one. "I do hate you," answered Howard, beginning again his restless walk. "We always hate those who dwarf us in our self-conceit. You've been magnanimous — damn magnanimity ! To owe no man anything — that's the most divine philosophy of life." " If that is true," replied Frank, sadly, as he turned to the door, " there is nothing more to say, for I — owe — everything." "You are at the beginning of your working time — you will not lack at the close," he said. Frank came back from the door. "Ah ! that's a question — weighted as I am !" His young face showed its pining. His sensitive mind was depressed by what seemed the defeat of the past hour. The spiritual note in him had been jarred by Howard's harshness. The necessity of his nature for comradeship and kinship had made him willing to concede any other right if the man who stood in such close relationship to his sister would but bury his lance. " I don't know !" reiterated Frank. "If my work had stood an individual test I should be surer. It owes so much to Geraldine Ward — it was she satisfied the critics." It seemed incredible to Howard that the young man should crave appreciation from him. Yet Frank's tone and manner, the look in his eyes, made it sure. Howard felt his trust. It broke him down completely. " Lad," he said huskily, resting his hand on the other's shoulder, " your youth is a gift of nature ; it has little to do with years — it will win by its everlasting hope, its recurring enthusiasm. I never was young

— some men are bovn old. One passion mastered me — ambition — greed of fame. I have made my name — . I ask your pardon — for my appropriation of your right. Honour is the recompense of labour ; there is uo way to make good " The dillieu.lt words took form slowly; their hands vvoro clasped when a knock at the door disturbed them. " It is I — Caroline." She stood for a moment on the threshold, the next she was in her brother's arms. When the first agitation of their meeting was over, and brother and sister sat together in the drawing-room, feasting eye and heart and tongue, through all her happiness, in spite of her flushed face and sparkling eyes, Frank saw something he did not understand in Caroline's manner. It was a familiar enough trait in her character, but strange in her intercourse with him, for unmistakably she was reserved. Every plea that he could urge he had brought forward for pardon of his desertion. Was he justified ? Yes ; he was justified. She had never doubted his love ! He bent forward pleadingly towards her, takiug her hand. "Ah, WaldneV and at the old endearing term he kissed the hand in his, "often! forgot the task before me, forgot everything that was due from me in my bitter need of you. Once I came to the window hero and looked in." She started. " Here ! Then you knew before to-day ?" He did not quite get her meaning. " Knew what, dear?" "That I was Howard's wife?" It was the first mention of his name between them, and they had talked for two hours. " Yes, I knew." He did not say that he was on another mission when he discovered her. Caroline, without further question, in a low voice, and without for a moment permitting her cloak of reserve from slipping away, sketched for her attentive listener the time of her waiting at Matamata ; the grey days ; the only living picture stood distinctly out to Frauk as with extraordinary force,

yet without apparent motive or emphasis she •drew the scene. When she had finished, though she had not said so, he understood that if it had not been for Howard she would have died. Frank drew in his breath. Was this mediation ? He could not tell. Her steady •eyes were almost feverish in their brightness ; something in the gaze stabbed him Was it reprt.ach of himself, or did she understand ? His hand went out to hers ; he felt a pressure of his fingers which reassured him. There was nothing hysterical in her manner. He could not know that her heart was bursting with shame. She got. up presently and walked to a bookcase, and taking down a volume asked : " Have you read A Man at Bay ?" It was a challenge. If Frank had anything to say, he should say it now. The line between her bi'ows was definitely defined, but there was no sign to show the beating of her heart. Frank looked across the room at her steadily. " For real strength it outstrips all Howard's previous work," he said. " But he must know !" thought Caroline. " Last night ! — oh, I remember every word ! — and yet this morning they were friends. Is it to be silence and burial ? Always silence and burial ! Am Ito be ever hedged about — shut out — kept in the dark ?" But not to any living soul would she own his delinquency, or that she felt herself aggrieved. Howard came in just then, and for one fierce moment a rage of passion mode it impossible for her to speak or look at, him. Both brother and husband had, loving her, found it possible to shame her. The world might begin again as before to them — but what for her ? What of her broken trnst ? Just then the arrogance that assumed protectiveuess and affection seemed an insult. The first phase of woman's love, "that believeth all things," was dying in pain, and pain only could give birth to the second phase which " en-

dureth all things !" Poor, poor Caroline !

Frank had left the room when she felt Howard approaching. If she had dared to look up she would have seen somethiug upon his face that was crying for deliverance. But she dared not ; her fingers trembled as she turned a leaf of the book she held. He waited in the patient way he always waited for her, missing perhaps the ready glance she usually turned to him, perhaps hungry for the abandonment of passion with which she had thrown herself into Frank's arms. He touched her hair gently. " You seem interested !" For answer she read in a low voice — into which she put every intonation of disbelief of which her voice was capable — a passage that Howard had written in an hour of his direst need when his maimed and bruised manhood had cried out to the woman for redemption. The scene had held Caroline by its power. A lover pleaded for the love that was more than life, that would by its regenerative power blot out the memory of sin. It was a cruel thing. Afterwards Caroline never knew how she came to do it. She did not recognise her own mocking laugh. The blood rose to Howard's brow, then left him deadly pale. In the silence that followed Caroline knew that she had slain something. When she looked up Howard was smiling. His face was so like it had been that first night she had seen him — the curling lip, the gleaming cold eyes — that she realised with a sudden anguish of realisation how the furnace had softened him, how gentle he had become beside her. He took his book from her hands. " Let me tear the leaf out — it is offensive to you," he said in his most hateful drawl. Caroline gave a half-articulate cry of protest. She felt that he was tearing a leaf from their life. Across and across the strong fingers wrenched the printed page, then opening the window he threw the pieces to the breeze.

" Come, child," he said, still smiling, " Lunch is waiting."

[to be continued.]