The Great Discovery/Chapter 4

“Mr. Peter de Warren asks if he could speak a few minutes with you, sir.”

Mr. Ashley, who had been seated by his writing table in a hunched-up attitude of physical collapse, looked up with an eagerness which implied relief.

“Ah, yes—of course. Show him into the library, Thomas.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Ashley rose, pulled down his waistcoat, and arranged his disordered hair. Out of the corners of his eyes, he was watching the tall, girlish figure by the window with ill-concealed uneasiness.

“I am afraid you are very angry with your old father,” he said feebly. “He is a poor financier, and he has ruined you and himself. My dear, if there were any earthly thing I could do, at whatever sacrifice”

“Don't!” she interrupted, with a little gesture of quiet resignation. “I know that you would do anything; I would do anything myself. It's worse for you than for me. But I can't help you, either; I wish I could.”

“Do you, my dear?” He stood by the door, stroking his neat gray mustache with nervous fingers. “Do you really? Ah, I wonder?”

She turned quickly, looking at him with puzzled, unhappy eyes.

“Surely you know I would. Why do you ask?”

“I don't know—an idea—a thought. An opportunity might present itself. One never can tell—I wondered. Heaven knows, I wouldn't do anything to force you. I may be foolish, but I am not like that. Well, well, we will see”

He hurried out, leaving his jerky, disconnected sentences to do their work. Enid scarcely waited till the door had closed. What her father had said made little impression on her mind. All her thoughts and longings were centered on the man who waited for her, and she passed down the pathway leading to the highroad with a quiet, decided step. At the gate he met her. The half light of evening hid their faces in gray shadow, but the silent handclasp told more than any word or look could have done. She clung to his hand as though for support and comfort, yet she held herself bravely, a little defiantly.

“You have heard?” she asked scarcely above a whisper.

“Yes; I couldn't help hearing. Enid, what made him do it? Who advised him?”

“I don't know. He is mysterious. He won't tell me. Perhaps he has his reasons. I only know that the money has gone. In a few weeks we must leave here—where for I dare not think.” She gave his hand a little, desperate squeeze. “Oh, Wilfred, Wilfred! It will break his heart!”

“Hush! It's no use lamenting. We must face things.”

His voice rang hard, and his profile, clean cut against the evening sky, looked stonelike in its harsh decision.

“All my life is altered, too,” he said bitterly. “My allowance, my hope of a good practice, is gone. No one can help me.”

“Not even I!”

“No, not even you.”

Something in his voice drowned her own pain in a flood of generous pity.

“Oh, Wilfred, that is the worst of all! I had meant to help you. I had meant to make your road to fame so smooth. And now it is all taken from you—everything. Wilfred, what will you do?”

“Go on,” he said curtly. “Go on in the rut. The discovery must go. I have lost my best hope—I have lost you.”

“Wilfred!”

“We must face that, too, dear. Unless you wait for me”

“I will wait.”

He was silent a moment, as though listening to the echo of that quiet, confident voice. When he spoke again, it was with a hesitating gentleness:

“Are you so sure?”

“I am quite sure.”

“You will be tempted.”

“Do you think so little of me?”

He caught her almost roughly by the shoulders.

“If you will wait it will make up,” he said between his teeth. “And perhaps, after all, I shall win. There are two incentives behind me that have never failed—love and hate!”

“Hate?”

He nodded.

“My father lies there and looks at me,” he said, with a sudden harsh change of tone. “He cannot move or speak, but he looks at me and wills me: 'Find out the man who has done this, and make him suffer as I suffer.' There are no papers to guide me, but I have sworn to him that I shall obey. I shall not fail. Vengeance is mine!”

“Hush!” she interrupted. “You frighten me. You will do nothing reckless?”

“No. A reckless vengeance is a bad one. It must be slow, lingering.” He laughed suddenly, a short, harsh laugh of bitter self-mockery. “I talk like the stage hero—or villain—do I not? Powerful emotions are always theatrical, if one has the courage to express them. One must keep them out of sight. Forget what I have said.”

She looked at him. Even in the growing darkness, he could see the depth of feeling in her wide-open eyes.

“I shall not forget,” she said. “Vengeance is not womanly, and I am very much a woman. But I have been hurt too much not to understand. And I will make up to you, Wilfred; I will make good all this present trouble.”

He kissed her with a passion that was almost brutal.

“I know. I trust you. You have lifted a weight” He stopped, arrested by the sound of footsteps on the gravel pathway, and she disengaged herself gently from his arms.

“Go now,” she whispered. “If it is my father, I don't want to burden him with my own trouble. I shall see you next week, Wilfred. Good-by, dear.”

“Good-by.”

He had vanished into the gathering twilight before she turned to meet the newcomer. Even as she did so, a sudden warning instinct told her that it was not her father who had come to find her, and she gave no start of surprise as she saw Peter de Warren standing before her. In some strange, painful way, she had expected him, and she held out her hand with a quiet courtesy which hid an unreasoned fear.

“Your father said I might come and look for you,” Peter said simply. “I told him—I wanted to speak to you.”

It was all so abrupt that she could only look at him in tongue-tied anxiety. He was holding his slight figure very erect, but his face was ashy, and there was the familiar nervous movement of the lips which she had grown to hate. She withdrew her hand, and began to walk slowly toward the house.

“Is it anything important?” she asked, in a voice which did not sound like her own.

“Yes, very. I want to ask you to be my wife.” She stood still at that, horrified by this sudden crude realization of the worst, and he gave a little, uncomfortable laugh. “I'm not very eloquent, I know, but I'm not such a conceited fool as to believe that eloquence would help me. If I told you that—that I loved you as, perhaps, few men have ever loved, it would only disgust and anger you. You despise me—rightly—and what I feel is nothing to you. I knew all that days ago—when I funked at the hedge.” He drew his breath quickly. “It's not my love that I offer you, though God knows that love is there if you would like it.”

“I am afraid I don't understand,” she said unsteadily.

“I will explain. I will try and put it clearly to you, and try and keep my own feelings out of it. The other day, when I realized I hadn't a chance, I meant to give up and go away and leave you in peace. If I was a coward, I wanted to prove that I wasn't a cad. Then the crash came. That changed things. The same day my father settled half his fortune on me—on condition that I married you.”

“Stop!” she broke in, with a fierce gesture. “Do you think I want to hear all that?”

“No, no; yet I beg you to listen. If I have put it brutally, like the bounder I probably am, try and forgive me. And don't think harshly of my father. He and I—we both come of a common stock—and, strange as it may seem to you, he loves me. I'm his one weakness. And he knew I wanted you, and he tried in his own way to give me my heart's desire. He didn't understand that I couldn't buy you.”

“I am glad you, at least, realize that much,” she said, with bitter sarcasm.

“I couldn't, and I wouldn't,” he went on. “I care too much for that. If I offer you my name and wealth, it is not for my own sake, but because I want to shield you and those you love from trouble. If I could help you without thrusting myself upon you, I would. I ask nothing for myself—nothing—neither your affection nor friendship. If you would marry me, I would go away the very day you became my wife; you should never see me again.”

“Don't!” she interrupted wildly. “It's monstrous—impossible!”

“Not impossible—not monstrous. I have told you I ask nothing, and so I have the right to plead with you. I can save you from misery and poverty; that, perhaps, is nothing to you; but there is your father.”

She stood still. She had the feeling that an icy hand had laid hold upon her, choking, paralyzing her. She had felt so strong, and now something was nearing her against which she could do nothing.

“My father!” she echoed faintly.

“He is old. He loves you. It will break his heart to see you suffer through his fault. It will kill him to leave his house. His only hope is through you. He—wishes it.”

She smothered a groan. The Unknown Something was there—a dark, pitiless figure which she could not yet realize. Was it temptation—the temptation of which Otway had spoken—or duty? The two promises she had made stood opposite each other; in one short hour they had become antagonistic. One had to be broken. Which? She thought of the broad-shouldered man striding alone through the darkness, and a passionate protest against the sacrifice of their love rose up within her. Anything—but not that! She lifted her head, the refusal on her lips. Peter's eyes met hers in steady, doglike pleading.

“Can't you trust me?” he said. “Everything—everything shall be yours.”

He held out his hand. In that moment a new, blinding thought had flashed through her mind. Everything would be hers. Wealth—great wealth. And there was the Discovery—dearer to him than herself, than any other consideration. What if the two promises were reconcilable, synonymous? And in that moment of desperate agonizing indecision she heard her father's quavering voice coming from the house:

“Enid!” She turned. She saw him standing against the background of the lighted balcony window—a frail, broken figure—his hands outstretched in unsteady joy. “Enid, my dear child, is it really true?”

Then she understood. That which she would have thrust from her in loathing he had taken for granted—the certain fulfillment of her promise—her duty. She took Peter's outstretched hand in her own.

“It is true,” she said, in a low, broken voice. “I am to marry—Peter—if he is content”

He held her hand a moment, then dropped it.

“I am content,” he said gently.