A Dead Reckoning. T. W. Speight
that you and I know so well, and here I am."
"I am very glad to see you."--Mr. George Crofton shrugged his shoulders.--"Why have you not called before now? Gerald has often wondered why we have seen nothing of you since our return from abroad."
"How kind, how thoughtful, of my dear cousin Gerald!" This was said with an unmistakable sneer.
"George!"
"You are not like yourself to-day."
"Look you, Clara--if you expect me to come here like an everyday visitor, to congratulate you on your marriage, you are mistaken. How is it possible for me to congratulate you?--and if I were to say that I wished you much happiness, it would be--well--a lie!"
"This from you!"
He drew a step nearer, flinging out his clenched hand with a quick passionate gesture. "Listen, Clara. You and I have known each other from childhood. As boy and girl we played together; when we grew older we walked and rode out together; and after you left school we met at balls, at parties, at picnics, and if a week passed without our seeing each other we thought that something must have happened. During all those years I loved you--ay, as no other man will ever love you--and you, being of the sex you are, could not fail to see it. But your father was poor, while I was entirely dependent on my uncle; so time went on, and I hesitated to speak. But a day came when I could keep silence no longer; I told you everything, and--you rejected me. If I had been wild and reckless before, I became ten times more wild and reckless then. If before that day I had offended my uncle, I offended him beyond all hope of forgiveness afterwards. But before I spoke to you, my irresistible cousin had appeared on the scene and had made your acquaintance. Your woman's wit told you that his star was in the ascendant, while mine was sinking. Pshaw! what need for another word. It is barely eighteen months since you and he first met, and now you are the mistress of Beechley Towers, while I am--what I am!"
It was with very varied emotions that Mrs. Brooke listened to this passionate outburst. When it came to an end she said in her iciest tones: "Was it to tell me this that you came here to-day?"
"It was."
"Then you had much better have stayed away. You do not know how deeply you have grieved me."
"I have told you nothing but the bitter truth."
"The truth, perhaps, as seen through your own distorted vision. From childhood you were to me as a dear playmate and friend, and as a friend I have regarded you till to-day."
"A friend! Something more than friendship was needed by me."
"That something would never have been yours."
"I will not believe it. Had not a rival crossed my path--a rival who wormed his way into my uncle's affections, who ousted me from the position that ought to have been mine, who is master here to-day where I ought to be master--had he never appeared, a love so strong and deep as mine must have prevailed in the end!"
"Never, George Crofton, as far as I am concerned! You deceive yourself utterly. You"---- She came to a sudden pause. A servant had entered, carrying a card on a salver. Mrs. Brooke took the card and read, "M. Paul Karovsky.--I never remember hearing the name before," she remarked to herself. Then aloud to the servant: "Where is the gentleman?"
"In the small drawing-room, ma'am. He said that he wanted to see Mr. Brooke on particular business."
"Your master is out at present; but I will see Monsieur Karovsky myself."
Turning to Crofton as soon as the servant had left the room, she said: "You will excuse me for a few moments, will you not? Gerald will be back in a little while, and I do so wish you would stay and meet him. George"--offering him her hand with a sudden gracious impulse--"let this afternoon be blotted from the memory of both of us. You will never say such foolish things to me again, will you?"
He took her proffered hand sullenly enough. "I have said my say," he muttered with averted eyes; with that he dropped her fingers and turned away.
A pained expression flitted across her face as she looked at him. "You will wait here till I come back, will you not?" she said; and then, without waiting for an answer, she quitted the room.
With his hands behind his back and his eyes bent on the ground, George Crofton paced the room once or twice in silence. Then he said, speaking aloud, as he had a trick of doing when alone: "It is a lie to say she would never have learned to love me! She may try to deceive herself by saying so; but she cannot deceive me. Had not my smooth-tongued cousin come between us, she would have been mine. I had no rival but him. Not only has he robbed me of the woman I loved, but of this old house and all this fair domain, which would all have been my own, had he not come between my uncle and me, and made the old man's bitterness against me bitterer still.
"Oh," he exclaimed bitterly, "I have every reason for loving my dear cousin Gerald!"
Presently he caught sight of the miniature of his cousin where it hung above the davenport. "His likeness!" he exclaimed. "The original is not enough for her; she must have this to gaze on when he is not by." He took the miniature off the nail on which it hung and scanned it frowningly. "To think that only this man's life stands between me and fortune--only this one life!" he said. "Were Gerald Brooke to die without heirs, I--even I, his graceless scamp of a cousin--would come into possession of Beechley Towers and six thousand a year! Only this one life!" He let the miniature drop on the hearth, and then ground it to fragments savagely under his heel. "If I could but serve the original as I serve this!" he muttered.
The sound of the shutting of a distant door startled him. He pressed his hands to his forehead for a moment, as though awaking from a confused dream; then he sighed deeply and took up his hat, gloves, and whip. "Adieu, Clara; but we shall meet again," he said aloud. With that he put on his hat and buttoned his coat and walked slowly out by the way he had come.
Two minutes later Mrs. Brooke re-entered the room. She looked round in surprise. "George gone?" she said to herself. "Why did he not wait and see Gerald?" She crossed to the window and looked out. "Yes; there he goes striding through the grass, and evidently not in the most amiable of humours. How strangely he has altered during the last three or four years; how different he is now from what he used to be when we were playmates together! If he had but some profession--something to occupy his mind--he would be far happier than he is. But George is not one to love work of any kind." With that Clara looked at her watch and dismissed Mr. Crofton from her thoughts. "I wish Gerald were back. What can that strange Monsieur Karovsky want with him? What can be the business of importance that has brought him here? I feel as if some misfortune were impending. Such happiness as mine is too perfect to last."
She was crossing the room in search of a book, when her eye was attracted by the fragments of the miniature on the hearth. She was on her knees in a moment. "What is this?" she cried. "Gerald's likeness, and trodden under foot! This is George's doing. Oh, cruel, cruel! What a mean and paltry revenge! It is the portrait Gerald gave me before we were married. I could never like another as I liked this one. Oh, how mean! Gerald must not know--at least not for the present." Tears of mingled anger and sorrow stood in her eyes as she picked up the fragments and locked them away in her desk. She had scarcely accomplished this when she heard her husband's footsteps. She hastily brushed her tears away and turned to greet him with a smile. "And this is what you call being half-an-hour away!" she said as he drew her to him and kissed her.
"Von Rosenberg and I were busy talking. We had got halfway through the wood before I called to mind where I was." He sat down and fanned himself with his soft felt hat. "He tells me," went on Gerald, "that he has taken Beaulieu for twelve months--furnished, of course--so that we are likely to be neighbours for some time to come."
"He must find English country-life very tame and unexciting after being used to Berlin and St. Petersburg."
"You may add, to Paris also. Some years ago he was attached to the German Embassy there."
"To live as he is now living must seem like exile to such a man."
"I am afraid it is little better. But the whisper goes that he is really exiled for