Part 4 — CHAPTER V THE AMBASSADOR

It was late that night when Ravencombe returned to his room. His face had the ghastly pallor that sometimes indicates intoxication, but his step was firm and light, absolutely controlled.

He entered to find the viands that he had provided for his guest still spread upon the table, the lights full on and the fire still burning. His glance went round the room in a swift flash and came in the fraction of a second to a broad burly figure that awaited him, upright and silent, on the hearth.

"Hullo!" he said. "Hullo!" And in his voice was a soft, almost stealthy intonation. It did not betray surprise, merely the acceptance of a fact not wholly welcome.

"Hullo!" said Silas. "I've waited here to talk to you."

Ravencombe came forward with that quick, steady step. His eyes were intensely bright, the pupils abnormally large, giving him almost the look of an animal that sees in the dark.

He stopped at the table and faced his visitor with a certain jauntiness. "Is it peace?" he asked, lifting a decanter.

"That depends," said Silas.

"Have a drink!" suggested Ravencombe smoothly. "It may help you to a decision."

"No, thanks," said Silas curtly. "I'm on business. You would oblige me very much by not drinking any more till I've done."

"Should I indeed?" Ravencombe proceeded to pour out a drink for himself with a smile. "I'm afraid I'm not in a very obliging mood. But my own vicious tendencies don't prevent me admiring virtue in others. I can see you haven't had a drink all the evening. I suppose beer and cider are more to your liking than this sort of thing, but—" he glanced round the table—"I am afraid they were omitted from the feast."

"I don't want anything, thanks," said Silas. He spoke with square determination. "All I want is a straight talk with you."

Ravencombe's eyes took a second swift and mocking survey of him. Then he pulled off his overcoat and threw it over the back of a chair. His tall lithe figure in faultless evening attire made a striking contrast to that of Silas in the plain brown suit of homely cut which Mary was wont to lay out for him with assiduous care on Sunday mornings. Yet that strange resemblance between them which Bobby had detected still persisted. They both bore the unmistakable stamp of good birth.

Ravencombe swallowed half his drink and came to the fire. "You are welcome to talk so far as I am concerned," he said. "But I won't undertake to do the same."

Silas moved slightly to one side. There was nothing threatening in his attitude. It merely denoted the most inflexible determination. His stern refusal to take offence bore strong testimony to this. Every inch of him was regulated by an iron self-control. He ignored the other's scarcely-veiled contempt just as he had refused to recognize Bobby's one-time efforts to keep him at a distance, employing what she had secretly termed his "steam-roller tactics" which were not always devoid of a certain subtlety despite their force.

"I'm sorry to intrude upon you," he said. "I assure you it gives me no more pleasure than it does you. But I've got to do it. You needn't think I'm trying to trade on any relationship between us either, for that is a fact which is a thousand times more objectionable to me than it can possibly be to you. And by that I don't mean anything personal. It's simply the Thorgrave blood which I detest—and always shall."

"I say," said Ravencombe suavely, "you're awfully complimentary—to us both. Have a cigarette!"

He proffered his case unexpectedly, with a sort of lightning graciousness in the midst of conflict against which the most churlish could scarcely have been proof. Bobby, had she seen him in that moment, would have said that it was the old Dick come to life.

Silas took the cigarette. In view of what he had just said, he had no choice. But he did not light it. He set it on the mantelpiece.

"Look here," he said. "I'm coming to the point. You probably know what I'm driving at. It's Miss Roberta—and her love-affair with you. It's no concern of mine, I admit, why you've kept away from her all these years that she's been waiting and slaving beyond her strength. I'm not on to that. Things happen often, I know, that can't possibly be foreseen and allowed for. But now you're back—now you're back—" he repeated the words with insistence—"what the devil is it now? You play a trick to get her here, and then you set to work and break her heart. What's the meaning of it? I want to know. I will know!"

Again he spoke with an emphasis that had the compulsion of sheer weight. But he was talking to one who paid small homage to open force.

Ravencombe merely lifted his eyebrows and lighted a cigarette.

After several seconds he permitted himself to ask a question which was more of the nature of a soliloquy than anything else. "Is she broken-hearted, I wonder?"

"She's down and out if you want to know," said Silas bluntly. "And I've got to know the meaning of it. She's done as much for you as any living woman has ever done for a man, uncomplainingly too when it's been enough to kill her. And it's always been with the hope of your coming back held in front of her. She'd almost given up hope when you did come back. And now what have you done to repay her? Just—trampled on her!"

His voice shook suddenly and his hands clenched, but in a moment he had controlled himself again. Only he moved a pace or two further away from the man whose eyes still seemed to mock him whenever they glanced his way.

Ravencombe took the cigarette from between his lips and examined it critically. "You're an extraordinary man, Hickory," he said, almost as if he were addressing it. "Do you really imagine that you can convince me that Miss Roberta—" he uttered the name with a faint sneer—"has been faithful to my memory all these years?"

"I know it," said Silas. "As to convincing you——"

"Yes, I am rather hard to convince." Ravencombe's attention was still concentrated upon his cigarette. He spoke deliberately, rather monotonously. "You see, there is somewhat damning evidence to the contrary."

"What is that?" said Silas.

Ravencombe turned his head slowly towards him. His eyes with their extraordinary, rapier-like brightness came to Silas's and for the first time remained fixed with a kind of contemptuous tenacity.

"I think you can furnish the answer to that question," he said.

Silas's face was as a blank wall, betraying nothing. "I shouldn't ask you if I could," he said.

"No?" said Ravencombe. He continued to examine him with much the same attention as he had bestowed upon his cigarette. "Well, we will leave that for the moment," he decided finally. "It's my turn to ask something now. Why haven't you married her yourself?"

Silas made a slight involuntary movement. The question was a surprise. But he answered it without hesitation.

"I asked Miss Roberta—" he spoke the name with reverence—"to marry me some time ago. She refused me then—on your account."

"This is interesting," said Ravencombe. "And since then?"

"Since then," there was stern self-restraint in Silas's voice, "she has been very ill, and during her illness I think she lost hope. It was at the time of Rosemary's disappearance."

"And so she accepted you?" suggested Ravencombe.

"She said that she would do so when Rosemary was found. That was before we knew of your return." Silas's words were brief and business-like; his face remained wholly expressionless.

Ravencombe turned to flick ash into the fender. "My return seems to have upset the apple-cart," he remarked. "But I still can't understand why the marriage did not take place long ago. It would have been far better for—Rosemary. And after all, she seems to have been the most important factor in Roberta's life."

"Rosemary and I have never had any use for each other," remarked Silas sombrely. "I doubt if it would have been better for her."

"Oh, indeed!" Ravencombe paused, his back half-turned. "You don't consider that your responsibilities extend to her then."

"My responsibilities! What do you mean?" said Silas.

Ravencombe faced him again, a very bitter smile on his face. "Oh, don't you try to stuff me with that aunt and niece fiction!" he said. "I've had enough of it."

"I'm not giving you any fiction that I know of," said Silas curtly. "In an affair of this sort one has to draw one's own conclusions. I drew mine long ago—as soon as I knew of your existence. I didn't know who you were: she never told me that. But I guessed that you had behaved like a damned scoundrel to her—though I never told her so."

His voice had taken a deeper note, but he still spoke with restraint. In the brief silence that followed, he stood with squared shoulders waiting for a counterthrust, yet still resolutely master of himself.

But Ravencombe made none. He only stood staring at him while the smile on his face slowly became one with the cruel scar that seamed it.

"Well," he said at length, "I'm glad that we've had this interview. It has elucidated one point at least. I see now that I have wronged you and I apologize. Perhaps you may feel moved to do the same when I tell you—on my oath—that I am no more Rosemary's father than you are."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of his voice in spite of that horrible disfiguring smile. Silas, grimly surveying him, knew that he spoke the truth.

He said nothing for several seconds while he readjusted his ideas. Then: "All right. I apologize too," he said, though somewhat as one making a concession. "But you had no reason for crediting me with anything of that sort, while you—you even ran away with the child. What did you do that for?"

Hostility bristled afresh in the question. Ravencombe made a half-whimsical, pacific gesture. "That," he said, "happened to be by her own wish. I've already been taken to task for it by the excellent young man who is now her husband, and luckily managed to establish the innocence of my motives and subsequent behaviour. Haven't you seen them, by the way? Didn't they come?"

"They had left the hotel," said Silas. "There was no getting hold of them."

Ravencombe clapped a tragic hand to his head. "Here have I been absenting myself in the haunts of vice all for nothing! I pictured a happy family re-union taking place. Instead of which, they've probably taken the night train for Bode."

"Very likely," agreed Silas with austerity. "But that is a minor matter. They can be traced in the morning. But there are still several points to be cleared up. You haven't yet explained your attitude to Miss Roberta. I've got to understand that."

"Why?" asked Ravencombe.

"Because," Silas spoke very steadily, "I am out for her happiness, and it seems to me you've tortured her long enough."

Torture! It was the word that Bobby herself had used. Ravencombe made a wry grimace as he heard it.

"Frankly," he said, "I think I've put up with a good deal with regard to this subject. My attitude, as you are pleased to call it, to Miss Roberta is one of strict neutrality. She has my full permission to console herself with whomever it may please her to select."

He uttered the last sentence with a gleam of malicious humour, and Silas stiffened almost instinctively.

"That won't do," he said. "You were not in a state of neutrality when you took the trouble to get her here on false pretences. What was that for? I've got to know, so you may as well tell me at once."

"Oh, you're going to bully me now, are you?" said Ravencombe. "I shouldn't if I were you. It's such a waste of time."

Silas pulled himself in again with an effort. The gibing note in the other's voice was like a cold douche. It had the effect of making him feel at a disadvantage, almost in the wrong. Also, his sneers notwithstanding, there was something oddly likable about this man. He fenced with adroitness, but there was no active hostility behind his point. If eventually he inflicted a wound, it would be rather by accident than design. Silas even had a disconcerting suspicion that he was rather favourably disposed towards him, and this—in spite of his most rigorous determination to maintain an unyielding front—was beginning to re-act upon himself. It is hard to force a quarrel upon one who persistently fails to see the necessity for one.

"I don't want to bully you," he said. "I only want to know the truth, and to make you realize—if I can—how abominably she has suffered. I've seen something of it, and I know."

"Ah!" Ravencombe made an odd movement, as if somehow the words pierced him unawares. He was looking at Silas speculatively, with a gradually awakening interest. "You say you are out for her happiness," he said. "That means, I suppose, that you care for her enough to give the past a more or less decent burial and—marry her. Well, my good fellow, why don't you start in and do it? I shan't get in the way."

"No, I know," Silas said. He turned very suddenly away from Ravencombe and stood staring straight before him for a few seconds. Then: "I believe I could do it," he said, his voice very low, strongly repressed. "I might persuade her to marry me. But—if I do, what's going to happen?"

"You'll make her happy presumably," said Ravencombe in his smooth emotionless tones.

Silas's hands clenched again, but it was not in anger. He stood rigid, as though he waited for something. Then, as suddenly as he had turned away, he wheeled back. "No, I can't make her happy," he said, and his voice held the brief stern ring of justice; no more. "She has always cared for you. She cares for you still, and I believe you care for her—though you won't own it. But remember, you have no proof against her. And even if you had, what right have you to judge her? Is there nothing in your past that you would like forgotten—washed out? And are you so well off and happy that you can afford to throw away the love—and devotion—of a woman like that?" His resolution failed abruptly; he lifted his two hands clenched above his head. "My God!" he cried out in a voice that quivered and broke. "If it were only mine—only mine!"

"Steady! Steady!" said Ravencombe. "Look here, man, don't! Have a drink!"

He pushed forward his own glass quickly as Silas went forward with his arms upon the mantelpiece and his face buried upon them.

"Don't!" he said again. "Don't!" and laid an urgent hand upon him. "Pull up, man! Drink! Here it is!"

Somehow the half-filled glass found its way into Silas's grasp, and he stood up and drained it; then, after a moment, turned round, his own master again.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Thanks! That was decent of you."

"I can be decent sometimes," said Ravencombe, with the ghost of his whimsical smile. "Look here! Sit down! We'll thrash this thing out. I'm not given to talking about myself, but I will for once. It may help. Anyhow, whatever you may think of me, I think you're damn' fine, and that stands."

It was in a sense a capitulation, and as such Silas recognized it. What he had been unable to accomplish by force had been done in a moment's weakness for which he despised himself. As he yielded to Ravencombe's insistence and sat down, he realized with a dull wonder that all animosity between them was gone. By a fantastic turn of the wheel of Fate, this man Ravencombe—Dick Dynamo—was no longer an enemy but a friend.

The fact that he was sitting on his hearth still holding his glass seemed to place them on the footing of host and guest, and though he was aware of a certain relief he did not quite know how to deal with the changed situation. Ravencombe, however, was by no means at a loss. He possessed a mental agility that seldom failed him, and possibly the change of attitude was not as complete on his side as on that of Silas.

He poked up the fire hospitably, showing no signs of embarrassment, then took the glass from Silas's hand with a casual, "Here, let me get you a decent one!"

But Silas refused. His weakness was over, and he turned back doggedly to the matter under discussion, though he approached it now from a different angle.

"No, I won't have any more, thanks. I want to get on with this business, but I seem to have tackled it the wrong way round. I don't know how you got the impression that I've known Roberta for many years. I haven't. It's only six since she took Little Staple. It's a small farm next to my own and belongs to me. The old man—her father—died there. I didn't know her so well in his time. He was a recluse."

"What! Colonel Wendholme!" ejaculated Ravencombe. "He used to be the jolliest man alive."

"He wasn't in those days," said Silas. "He lived and died almost a stranger in Stapleton. It was after he went, when Roberta had sole charge of the child, that I began to try and lend a hand and so got to know her better. You see, she did everything—literally everything—in that household, as well as ran the dairy and pigs and poultry. No man could have stood by and seen a woman slave as she slaved without doing something to help—though she wouldn't let me do much, beyond carting her pigs to market now and then and buying her calves." He paused for a moment or two; then: "That's how I came to care for her," he said simply. "I've never met with such pluck and independence in anyone. They lived on next to nothing, and she worked like a nigger, sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and always smiling, always sweet and ready for the next job. I don't see how anyone—" he spoke with a kind of heavy defiance of circumstance—"could have known her as I got to know her without loving her. It was my own funeral anyhow. It didn't matter to anyone else. She never had any feeling for me except friendship. I know that all right. I always knew it. I was beneath her too."

"You may yet be Lord Ravencombe," remarked Ravencombe with his cynical smile.

Silas looked at him. "I'll hang myself in my own barn first," he said.

"Don't you be a fool!" said Ravencombe. "You can't quarrel with your own blood. It didn't appeal to me at first. I was last but one on the waiting list. But I'm getting used to the idea now."

"You're a gentleman," remarked Silas bluntly.

Ravencombe bent with one of his lightning movements and laid a sudden friendly hand upon Silas as he sat. "I'll tell you what I am if you really want to know," he said. "I'm about the damnedest rotter that God ever put breath into, and knowing you hasn't made me feel any less so. Oh, let's talk sense if we can! You've told me your side of the story, now you shall hear mine."

He stood up again with the words and began to pace the room with that springy, animal-like tread of his while Silas remained seated, watching him with an odd dawning of sympathy in his eyes.

"I never expected to come into the title," Ravencombe said. "It might have made a difference if I had. I should probably have got married and lived a bit more respectably, though I don't know. I've been a free lance for a good long while now. There used to be four cousins between me and the succession, but two of them got killed flying and the other two petered out somehow, and the poor daft old man hung on till the only ones left to inherit were first myself and then you. Your mother seems to have been a cousin of my father; but I'm a bit hazy about it."

"It doesn't matter, does it?" said Silas.

"Not enormously at this stage," agreed Ravencombe. "But you've got to face the fact that you are my accredited heir. It's more than likely that I shall never have another."

"That isn't what we set out to talk about," Silas reminded him, still stubbornly tenacious to his point.

Ravencombe stopped to light another cigarette and threw him a half-bantering look as he did so.

"All right, man, all right. You shall have it," he said. "But if I've got to face my responsibilities, I'm damned if you shall shirk yours. It doesn't greatly matter, as you say; for I know very well you won't when it comes to the point. Here you are then! I've been what is known as an adventurer for the past twenty years or nearly. I first met Bobby—" He uttered the pet name almost unconsciously—"as a very junior captain with no expectations in her father's regiment. We were stationed at Budhpore in the Central Provinces, and she and her sister came out one cold weather. She was exquisite, like a rose—like Rosemary. Of course I fell. So did everyone else practically. At least, I think we were about equally divided.. Matilda had a good many admirers. I never knew quite why. I always thought her empty—rather stupid, though, I suppose, from the standpoint of sheer beauty, she may have been lovelier than Bobby. But beauty alone doesn't appeal to me—never did. Bobby—Bobby had brains as well—humour, sweetness, everything."

"I know," said Silas.

Ravencombe was prowling about the room once more, his head back as though he saw a vision. "I worshipped her like the rest, but I had nothing to offer her, so I held my tongue. I shall never forget how astounded I was when one day I met them out riding—she and Matilda—in charge of the Colonel's servant who was giving them lessons, and she deliberately gave them the slip and then when we were alone just put her hand into mine and said, 'Dick, why are you always struggling not to say to me what I want—so much—to hear?'" A queer sound, like laughter repressed by pain, broke through the words; but he went on with scarcely a pause, "After that of course it was all up with me. I was nearly mad with the joy of it. But I knew quite well I hadn't a chance with her father. He was out for much bigger game. So we settled to keep it dark for a time, and Matilda—who was also out for bigger game, but quite amiably disposed towards us—agreed to be given the slip with the groom whenever I met them, which was pretty often. It became an absolute joke between us. She and the soldier-servant would ride off in one direction and Bobby and I in the other. But the man—Alexander they called him—was a fellow I never quite trusted, and eventually we were given away. I always knew it was his doing though I couldn't bring it home to him. There was a most unholy row, and Matilda and Bobby were packed off to a hill station. The old man was furious with me, and it seemed to me that it was up to me to make good; so I got into touch with a relative of my mother's in California who had always wanted me to go out there and offered to chuck the Army if he would guarantee me a house and a screw that would justify me in taking a wife. I didn't want to chuck the Army in the least, but I wanted her—intensely, and I had no prospects." Ravencombe came to the hearth and stood gazing down into the fire. He might have been unconscious of his companion as he conjured up the picture of those long past days. "Well, then Matilda got engaged to her swell who was aide-de-camp to the Governor-General, and there was talk of a grand wedding. But I had secured my berth in California and sent in my papers before it was fixed, and I tried to persuade Bobby to marry me and come away then and there. But she wouldn't, though I knew she was hating every minute of it and would hate it worse when her sister was married and I was gone. She said she was wanted, and I couldn't move her, so I came away. But I got her father to consent to our engagement before I left, and we arranged that I was to come back and fetch her as soon as I had got a home to take her to. So off I went—to make a home." A grim note of cynicism crept into his speech. "I didn't go straight to California. I went to England first to see my people. I had no letter from her while in London, though I wrote to her from every port we touched. I concluded she must have sent her letters to my final destination, and after a fortnight at home I sailed for America. When at last I got to my cousin's place I found an Indian letter waiting for me. It was from Bobby. She said that she had thought things over and come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake. It was all beautifully written, beautifully expressed,—perhaps a trifle stiff, but otherwise a masterpiece. She hoped I would forgive her for any disappointment she had caused me, but she was sure that I should see the matter with her eyes eventually. And it was better to be wise in time, was it not? Meanwhile, her sister's marriage had been postponed, and they were all coming home to England, so that as she was unable to give me any address she could scarcely hope to hear from me again. However, she would always think kindly of me, and she hoped that I would try to do the same of her. That, I think, was the end, though I am not sure that I read it all. Anyhow, it was the end so far as I was concerned. I don't quite know what happened after that. I wasn't actually mad, but I wasn't exactly responsible for my actions either. I felt as if a fire had been lighted inside me that was gradually consuming everything vital in me. I couldn't stay where I was or attempt to settle down to anything. I threw up the whole show and broke away. My cousin tried to hold me, but it only made things worse, and I cleared out. I needn't go into all the horrible details. I've always tried ever since to forget each day as I got through it, to toss it on the rubbish-heap of time. Why I bothered to live I really don't know. Only somehow suicide never appealed to me. It isn't sporting to end your life just because it isn't worth living, though I've courted being killed over and over again. I went to Mexico eventually almost for the purpose, though I called it for the sake of adventure to myself. I used to do anything and everything in those days to deaden that awful feeling of being burned alive by a slow fire, or perhaps it was more like a corrosive acid that ate and ate always a little deeper into one's very being. I sinned all the sins that came my way and lived the life of several devils rolled into one. They used to laugh and call me the Prince of Evil. I don't quite know how I lived. We were a mad gang of profligates, and there was always some game on that spelt murder and sudden death. We dabbled in politics of course. Everyone does in Mexico. It's a land of quick promotion, and I became a sort of robber-chief—a dictator of bandits and cutthroats." He began to laugh under his breath in a subtle half-gratified fashion. His eyes were still upon the red depths of the fire. "I did a good many things that are not done either in love or war. I set myself impossible tasks and did them, just for the fun of the thing. I didn't enjoy it. I never enjoyed anything; but I'd got to the point where I didn't see why any lust should go unsatisfied, so I made a bonfire of all gentlemanly scruples and danced round it till nothing remained. They used to think I was mad, but I wasn't—at that time. I simply didn't care a damn what I did or how I did it. If people got in my way,—well, they were soon out of it, that's all. Whatever I wanted, I took, and threw the rest away. I never felt affection or regard for a single being during all the years we made pandemonium in that extremely volcanic corner of the world. That part of me was atrophied completely by the corroding process aforementioned. Things that would once have turned me sick simply had no effect upon me. But I still maintain that I was sane, because I kept my reasoning powers. It took a mighty lot of scheming before the other side caught me at last." He showed his teeth in that dreadful, upward-reaching smile of his. "And even after that, I gave them a lot of trouble. They wanted me to split on the rest and I wouldn't. Not that I cared a row of pins if they were caught or not. It was only that—being British—I objected to coercion. They did their damnedest to me with the exception of killing me, which was the one thing I wanted them to do. I can tell you exactly what a hot branding-iron feels like—among other things."

"Damnation!" said Silas deeply.

The other started at the interruption and looked round, "Hullo! What's the matter? Oh, that's nothing—nothing! Why my dear chap,"—he stopped himself—"No, I needn't tell you that. I did go mad in the end, tore free and ran amok. That's how I got this wound on my head. My face was split right open. But I got away, and I've reason to believe I gave a good account of myself first. After that came a blank period which lasted some time. One of those queer jades of the Rahab persuasion got hold of me and hid and nursed me till the hue and cry was over. A good sort she was, but I found eventually that she'd knife me if I didn't give her the slip, so I cleared out and left that hell behind. Not from any decent motive. I was sick and tired of it, that's all." He turned back to the fire with a gesture of weariness, "That's nearly all. I found my way back to civilization, and drifted to California again. I wasn't looking for my cousin, but he came upon me in San Francisco. I was pretty sick at the time and practically destitute and he took me back to his place. I don't know why people do these things unasked. I didn't want him to. But he was a good old chap. I stayed and worked with him for nearly three years. Then I heard from Raymond of old Ravencombe's death, and that I was the heir to title and estates, so I came back at last to enjoy the irony of it all. Being of a freakish turn, I gave my name as Graves at Bode because I didn't want everyone staring. And then—on Boxing Night—who should I find but the exact replica of Bobby herself, dressed as a bride, waiting for me?" He paused and stirred the fire thoughtfully with his foot as if to readjust some vision that he saw there. "That was about the shrewdest thrust Fate ever gave me," he said. "She was veiled at first, but there was something about her—her laugh, her general air—that made me determined to see more of her. So I inveigled her away from the rest, and after a little fooling I got her to my own room. There for the first time I saw her as she really was, and she recognized me as—Dick Dynamo—the man to whom her aunt had always been faithful! She had seen my portrait, it seemed. Poor little beggar!" Genuine pity sounded in his voice for the first time. "How horrified she was! So was I—when I realized—though I don't know why I should have been, I gave the show away, as I suppose I shouldn't have done if I had had time to think. And when she knew what it meant—knew that the aunt business was all a myth—she threw herself on my mercy and begged me to take her away—which I did."

He stopped, but Silas asked no question, merely sat gazing straight before him in unbroken silence, his brows closely drawn as though he wrestled with some problem to which he would not give expression.

Ravencombe glanced at him, then went to the table and poured out a drink. He looked unutterably tired, almost too tired to be cynical.

"Well, that's all, Hickory," he said, "except that in the absence of her aunt I created myself her uncle and behaved with a moral rectitude that really surprised myself, I took her to Italy, and there eventually we were discovered by young Donald Ross—Rosemary's unromantic but very persevering lover, and since I judged him to be a suitable sort of lad and the maid was willing, I gave my blessing to their union and saw that it was done properly. Then we all returned, and I—feeling freakish again—laid my plans to receive Bobby alone. I didn't mean to behave like a cad. I only wanted to ask a straight question or two, and—yes—just to see her once again." He lifted the glass to his lips with the words and drank. "But you frustrated me. I turned savage when I saw you. I apologize once more. I know now I had no reason." He smiled at Silas, but the heavy shadow of fatigue still rested on his face. "I haven't talked like this for years," he said. "You brought it on yourself, didn't you? It's a mighty long story and hardly worth the telling, after all. But that's the end."

"Yes," said Silas, speaking as one who slowly awakes, "It has been worth it."

He met Ravencombe's eyes as he got to his feet.

"It has been worth it," he said again. "And if you've got any patience left, I'll tell you why. First, I am perfectly certain," he spoke with the deliberation of great emphasis, "that the letter you speak of, turning you down, was never written by Bobby. All I have ever seen of her convinces me of that. If I could convince you too, would it make a difference?"

Ravencombe lifted his shoulders slightly without replying. "Why do you get up?" he said. "I can see it's going to be an all-night sitting."

"No, it isn't," said Silas squarely. "It's practically over now. That letter was not written by Bobby, and, whatever she has to hide, there is no altering the fact that she has been waiting for you, hoping for you, all these years. Does that make no difference either?"

Ravencombe made a quick movement that was somehow like the plunge of a goaded animal, but as swiftly he curbed himself. "Oh, damnation, Hickory!" he said, "Even if you could prove her faithfulness up to the hilt a dozen times over, can't you see that the difference in me is colossal? What is there left in me worth having now?"

"Ah! That's another story," Silas said. "That's a matter which neither of us is qualified to decide. But this other rests with you. And I am prepared to give you my word of honour—my oath—that she has been waiting for you all this time. I've no proof to offer, except that Rosemary herself once showed me a photograph of you in corroboration of it—in order to discourage me. I think I have mentioned before—" he spoke with a certain dreary humour—"that she and I have never had much use for each other. But she was not romancing about it. It was genuine. I'd found it out from Bobby herself before that." The humour dropped out of his voice, leaving it dead and toneless. "I knew it even before she told me. She is the sort of woman who could only care once. What's the good of talking round and round? I've done—I've finished—and I'm going. But just you remember this!" He paused a moment on his way to the door. "When a woman loves a man, she doesn't ask what his past has been. She simply gives him all she's got without a question, without even thinking of the past. If a man can't do the same,—well, he isn't worthy of her, that's all."

"Who said I was worthy of her?" flashed Ravencombe.

"No one," said Silas. "And perhaps it doesn't greatly matter. Anyhow, there's only one who can decide. Ask her!"

He was at the door as he ended. He opened it to go out. But Ravencombe's voice arrested him. Ravencombe himself came striding to him and gripped him forcibly by the arm, detaining him.

"Look here,—Silas!" he said. "We're both doggo and I won't keep you. But I must say just this. You're the whitest man I've ever come across and I'm damn' glad I've lived to meet you. If I could give you—the woman you love—to-morrow—to-night even—I would."

Silas stood facing him in his square forthright fashion. His eyes under the thick black brows were uncompromising in their utter directness. The other man was deeply moved and showed it, and in the showing the years fell from him, and he was young and keen again, save for the long cruel scar which marred the look of youth.

Silas spoke, breaking a silence that could not have existed between them earlier. "Do you say that because you no longer care yourself?"

"No," said Dick Dynamo as if compelled, and then confirmed the admission with a brief, half-grudging laugh. "Damn you,—no!"

It was an open admission of defeat just as his earlier gesture had been, but Silas made no attempt to press his advantage any further. He only said as their hands met in an almost involuntary grip of friendship, "That's just what I wanted. Thanks!"

They parted thereafter without further words.