LISLE GOES TO ENGLAND
Lisle had with some difficulty been dressed in dry clothes, and he lay with his eyes shut on a couch of cedar sprays beside a fire, when Batley rose and turned to Nasmyth.
“I don’t think we need be anxious,” he said. “The warmth is coming back to him and he’s breathing regularly. The knock on the head must have been a bad one, and it’s very likely that he got another thump or two washing down the rapid, and the water was icy cold; but he’ll feel better after a few hours’ sleep.”
Nasmyth was inclined to agree with this prediction and he stood up wearily.
“Then you won’t want me for a little while,” he replied, walking away from the fire.
Having given most of his clothes to Lisle, he was very lightly clad and the night was cold. He shivered as he plodded over the shingle, aching in every limb, but he looked about eagerly and after a while he found the cache. It was uncovered, but there were signs that Gladwyne had only begun his task when he had been surprised by the arrival of the party which had followed him.
Nasmyth did not pause to think what Lisle’s wishes might be, or whether he would resent his action. So far, he had kept his promise; but, with physical weariness reacting on his mental faculties, he was only conscious of a hazy idea that Gladwyne’s death had released him from his pledge. The traitor had expiated his offense; the tragic story must never be raked up again.
Stooping over the receptacle, he dragged out the different articles in it, and avoiding a direct glance at them or any attempt to enumerate them, he gathered them up and striding over the shingle hurled them as far as possible into the river. It cost him several journeys, but his heart grew lighter with every splash. When at last the work was finished and he had refilled the hole and scattered the stones that had covered it, he sat down with a great sense of relief. A burden which had long weighed upon his mind was gone; Mrs. Gladwyne and Millicent were safe at last from the grief and shame that a revelation would have brought them. Exhausted and confused as he was, he could not tell whether he felt any sorrow for Gladwyne’s tragic end; the man had passed beyond the reach of human censure, one could only let his memory sink into oblivion.
Growing very cold, he went back to the fire, but he offered no explanation of his absence. Lisle was still asleep or unconscious, but the natural color in his face was reassuring.
“I’ve heard nothing about your part in the water,” Nasmyth said to Batley.
“There’s not much to tell. It isn’t astonishing that my memory’s by no means clear. Anyhow, I wasn’t far from Gladwyne, who was swimming well, when he was swept away from me and in among the lower boulders by the swirl of an eddy. I suppose it didn’t quite reach me, but the next moment I was sucked into a rush of broken water and went down-stream, below the surface part of the time, because I was surprised when I found I could breathe and look about again. By good luck, I’d got into the smoothest, deepest flow, which swept me straight through. After a little, I saw somebody washing down in a slack and got hold of him. I didn’t know whether it was Gladwyne or Lisle; but I held on and a side-swing of the current brought us both ashore. Gladwyne, of course, must have gone under after being badly damaged among the rocks.”
“There’s only one place where he could have landed and I searched it while you were away,” Crestwick said gravely.
“Why did you go in after him?” Nasmyth asked Batley. “You must have seen that you couldn’t save him.”
“That,” Batley answered with a curious smile, “is more than I can clearly tell you; and I might suggest that Lisle’s venture is even harder to understand. I don’t honestly think I owe Gladwyne anything; but, after all, we passed for friends, and I used to be fond of swimming. Of course, there’s a more obvious explanation—I’d lent him a good deal of money and from what I’ve learned since, I may have some difficulty in enforcing my claim on the estate. It was natural that I should make an effort to recover the debt.”
Nasmyth did not think that the man had been most strongly influenced by that desire, but he addressed Crestwick:
“Hadn’t you better gather some more branches or driftwood for the fire, Jim?”
Crestwick disappeared, and Nasmyth filled his pipe before he turned to Batley.
“Now,” he said, “I don’t want to be offensive; but there are two people connected with this affair who must be spared any unnecessary suffering. That’s a fact you had better recognize.”
“I hardly think you do me justice,” returned Batley, looking amused. “It’s perfectly plain that there’s a mystery behind these recent events; one that has some relation to George Gladwyne’s death. Your idea is that an unscrupulous person of my description might find some profit in probing it?”
“You’ll never learn the truth. I’ve seen to that.”
“The fact is, I don’t mean to try.”
Nasmyth was a little astonished at finding himself ready to believe this.
“Then,” he asked, “what do you mean to do about your claim on Gladwyne?”
“In the first place, there’s the insurance; but I discovered by accident that the company Gladwyne had his policy on was the one that had insured his cousin. Whether they’ll be struck by the coincidence and the unusual nature of both accidents and make trouble or not, I can’t tell; but if they pay up there’ll be an end of the thing. Failing that, I’ll have to consider. My demands might be contested by the Gladwyne trustees—the deal was a little irregular in some respects—but I parted with the money and I’m going to make an effort to get it back.”
“How much did Clarence owe you?”
Batley told him and Nasmyth looked thoughtful.
“Well,” he requested, “if you meet with strong opposition, come to me before you decide on any course, and I’ll see what can be arranged. I dare say there’ll be some trouble, but I know the trustees—and, as I said, there are people who must be saved all needless pain, at any cost.”
“It’s promised,” agreed Batley. “I’ll make things as easy as possible, but that’s as far as I can go. I’m not rich enough to be recklessly generous.”
Lisle woke soon after this and asked one or two half-intelligible questions, but they gave him no information and he went to sleep again; then Crestwick arrived with more fuel and Nasmyth took the first watch while his companions rested. He was very cold, and now and then he saw Batley, who had discarded most of his wet clothes, wake up for a few moments and shiver. Once or twice he glanced longingly at the garments spread out round the fire, but when he felt them they were still too wet to put on. After a while Crestwick relieved him, and when he awakened dawn was breaking across the black ridges and the rushing river. Batley had left his place, and Crestwick began to stride up and down the beach, presumably to warm himself. To Nasmyth’s satisfaction and surprise, Lisle spoke to him.
“You slept pretty sound,” he said. “Didn’t hear me getting some information about what happened out of Batley.”
“Then you know?”
“Yes,” was the grim answer. “The thing’s finished; there’s nothing to be done.”
Nasmyth made a sign of agreement.
“Horribly sore all over, left side particularly. Struck a big boulder, and then drove in among a nest of stones before my senses left me. Tried to get up a while ago, but couldn’t manage it. What’s as much to the purpose, I’m feeling hungry.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing left for breakfast. One of us had better go up-stream and look out for the canoes.”
Lisle nodded.
“That’s your duty—I don’t envy you. Make them camp a little higher up. It would be better, in several ways, and I’d rather be on my feet again before they come here.”
Nasmyth set off, jaded and hungry, and he was feeling very limp when, as he plodded along a high ridge, he saw the canoes sliding down the river. He had hard work to reach the bank and he shrank from the task before him when the first canoe grounded upon the stones. Millicent and Bella were in it, and Millicent gazed at the lonely man with fixed, anxious eyes. He was ragged and looked very weary; his face was worn and haggard.
“Where are the rest?” she asked in a strained voice. “Something has happened—what is it?”
“Three of them are some miles down the river.”
“Three!” cried Millicent, in dismay. “Haven’t you found Clarence yet?”
Nasmyth hesitated, regarding her compassionately, but she made a sign of protest.
“Go on! Don’t keep me in suspense!”
“Clarence,” said Nasmyth quietly, “is dead. Lisle is rather badly damaged.”
Millicent left the canoe and sat down, very white in face, upon a neighboring stone. In the meanwhile the other canoes had grounded and her companions gathered about her. She did not speak to them and some time passed before she turned to Nasmyth.
“Tell me all,” she begged.
He briefly related what had happened, and there was an impressive silence when he finished. Then Millicent slowly rose.
“And Lisle’s badly hurt,” she said. “We must go on!”
They relaunched the canoes and Nasmyth had no further speech with her, for as they floated down-river she sat, still and silent, in another canoe. She was conscious chiefly of an unnerving horror and a sense of contrition. Clarence was dead, and she had been coldly hypercritical; hardly treating him as a lover, thinking of his failings. She blamed herself bitterly in a half-dazed fashion, but it was only afterward she realized that she had not been troubled by any very poignant sense of loss.
After a while Nasmyth said they would land, but Millicent roused herself to countermand his instructions and eventually they reached Batley’s camp. Lisle had got up during the day and he now walked painfully down to the water’s edge to meet her. When she landed he gravely pressed her hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “We did what we could to save him.”
“Oh, I know,” she responded. “Nobody could doubt that.”
Then Nasmyth landed with provisions and while the men ate two Indians strode into the camp and addressed Lisle angrily. They were curing salmon, they said, and had left a canoe on the shingle, in order to avoid a portage when returning, and they had gone in another craft to set some fish-traps in a lower rapid. To their surprise they had afterward seen their canoe drifting down-stream full of water and badly damaged, and they had set off at once to discover who was responsible.
Lisle offered them some silver currency, and after a little chaffering they departed satisfied.
“Now we know how the canoe came to be lying where Gladwyne found her,” he said to Nasmyth.
Then he sought Millicent.
“I think,” he told her gently, “we had better go on—to stay here would be painful.” He hesitated. “I’ll leave Crestwick and an experienced river-Jack packer to investigate. If you would rather, I’ll stay with them, though I’m afraid I can’t get about much.”
“Thank you,” she replied in a voice which had a break in it. “You must come with us; you don’t look fit to stand.”
Running the rapid, they slid away down-river, and once more Millicent sat very still, thinking confused thoughts, until at last they made camp for the night and she crept away to the shelter of her tent. A day or two later Crestwick and the packer overtook them, having discovered nothing; and then the party was animated by a strong desire to escape from the river and reach the trail to the settlements as soon as possible. Further search for Gladwyne was useless; the flood had swept him away and no one would ever know where his bones lay. He had set out on his longest and most mysterious journey, leaving only two women to mourn him, and of these one, who had tried to love him out of duty, would by and by forget.
On the evening before they left the river, Lisle stood with Millicent looking back up the long reach they had descended. They had reached the taller timber, and on one bank black firs, climbing the hillside, stood out against the fading light with a gauzy mist-curtain drawn across their higher ranks. The flood slid by, glimmering dimly, smooth and green, and from out of the distance came the throbbing clamor of a rapid.
“It’s your last look,” said Lisle. “We’ll be in the bush to-morrow and I expect to hire a wagon, or at least a horse or two, in a few days. Now I’m sorry I ever brought you here. You’ll be glad to get away.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself,” she told him. “We have only gratitude for you. You have no part in the painful memories.”
She glanced once more up the valley; and then moved back into the shadow of the firs.
“It’s all wildly beautiful, but it’s so pitiless—I shall never think of it without a shiver.”
“You have made plenty of notes and sketches for the book,” suggested Lisle, seeing her distress.
“The book? I don’t know that I shall ever finish it. I feel cut adrift, as if there were no use in working and I hadn’t a purpose left. First George went, and then Clarence—so far, there was always some one to think of—and now I’m all alone.”
She broke out into open sobbing and Lisle, feeling very sympathetic and half dismayed, awkwardly tried to soothe her.
“I’m better,” she said at last. “It was very foolish, but I couldn’t help it. I think we’ll go back to the others.”
He gave her his arm, for the way was rough, but as they approached the camp she stopped a moment amid the shadow and stillness of the great fir trunks.
“I have done with the river—I think I am afraid of it,” she confessed. “Can’t we get away early to-morrow?”
Lisle said it should be arranged and she turned to him gratefully.
“One can always rely on you! You’re just like George was in many ways. It’s curious that whenever I’m in trouble I think of him—”
She seemed on the verge of another breakdown, and she laid her hand in his for a moment before she went from him hurriedly with a low, “Good night!”
Lisle strolled back to the river and lighted his pipe. He had noticed and thought it significant that she spoke more of the brother whom she had lost several years ago than of the lover who had perished recently; but, from whatever cause it sprung, her distress troubled him.
His thoughts were presently interrupted by Nasmyth.
“There’s a thing I’d better tell you, Vernon,” he said, sitting down near by. “The night you were half drowned I emptied the cache and, without making any note of what was in it, pitched everything into the river.”
“So I discovered. At least, when I managed with some trouble to reach the place, I knew it was either you or Gladwyne, and I blamed you.”
“I’ve decided,” Lisle said gravely, “that you did quite right. It’s the end of that story.”
“Then you have abandoned the purpose you had in view?”
“I’ve been thinking hard, and it seems to me that if Vernon were with me now, the last thing that would please him would be to see the two women suffer; he was a big man in every way. There’s another thing—he left no relations to consider.”
Nasmyth laid a hand on his shoulder in a very expressive way.
“I felt all along that you’d come to look at it like that!”
“But there’s Batley; he has some suspicions.”
“I can silence him,” promised Nasmyth. “The man has his good points, after all.”
“That’s so,” Lisle agreed. “Still, I’ll come straight across to England and tackle him if you fail. If it’s a question of money, you can count me in—I’ve been prospering lately.” He rose and knocked out his pipe. “That’s the last word on the matter.”
They went back to camp, and starting soon after sunrise the next morning they reached a settlement on the railroad after a comparatively easy journey; and that evening Lisle stood with a heavy heart beside the track while the big cars moved away, his eyes fixed on a woman’s figure that leaned out from a vestibule platform, waving a hand to him.
After that he went back to his work, with Crestwick; and nearly twelve months had passed when he sent a cable to England and started for that country a day after receiving the answer. Crestwick insisted on going with him.
“You’ll no doubt want my support again,” he grinned. “There’s an office I mean to rob Nasmyth of, if I can.”
It was evening when they drove into sight of Millicent’s house. Lisle’s heart throbbed painfully fast as he got down, but he was not kept waiting. Millicent was standing in her drawing-room, and as he came in she held out her hand to him.
“You answered my message,” he said, seizing it. “You must have guessed what I meant when I asked if I might come across.”
“Yes,” she confessed softly; “I knew and I told you to come.”
He still held her a little away from him as he gave a quick glance at the refined and artistic appointments of the room.
“There’s a good deal you will have to give up,” he told her. “You’re not afraid of our new and rugged country? But it has something to offer—and we need such people as you.”
“It’s going to be a great country before very long,” she answered gravely; “and I have no dread of it now. But—I gave my dearest—I think it owes me something in return.”
He drew her masterfully into his arms.
“It discharges all its debts. You must teach me how to pay you back in full measure; that’s my one big task. You’re giving so much freely; but, of course, I’m glad—I don’t want duty.”
“This isn’t duty,” she smiled; “it’s love!”
THE END