COALS OF FIRE
Ralph returned home by way of Calais and Dover, and on the following day he came face to face with Dorothy outside the lodge gates. He raised his hat and would have passed on, but she would not let him.
"Surely we may be friends?" she said, extending her hand to him, and her eyes were pleading and pathetic.
He stopped at once and smiled gravely.
"I thought it was your wish that we should meet as strangers," he said.
"Did I say that?" she questioned, and she turned away her eyes from him.
"Something to that effect," he answered, still smiling, though he felt as if every reason for smiles had passed from him.
"I have been expecting to see you for days past," she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his.
"I have been from home," he answered. "In fact, I have been to Boulogne."
"To Boulogne?" she asked, with a start, and the blood mounted in a torrent to her neck and face.
"I went across to see your father," he said slowly.
"Yes?" she questioned, and her face was set and tense.
"He was obdurate. He said he would rather see you in your coffin."
For a moment there was silence. Then she said—
"Was he very angry?"
"I am sorry to say he was. He evidently dislikes me very much—a feeling which I fear is mutual."
"I wonder you had the courage to ask him," she said at length.
"I would dare anything for your sake," he replied, with averted eyes. "I would defy him if you were willing. And, indeed, I cannot see why he should be the arbiter of your fate and mine."
"You must not forget that he is my father," she said quietly and deliberately.
"But you defied him in the case of Lord Probus."
"That was different. To have married Lord Probus would have been a sin. No, no. The cases are not parallel."
"Then you are still of the same mind?" he questioned.
"It would not be right," she said, after a long pause, "knowing father as I do, and knowing how keenly he feels all this."
"Then it is right to spoil my life, to fling all its future in shadow?"
"You will forget me," she said, with averted eyes.
"Perhaps so," he answered a little bitterly; "time is a great healer, they say," and he raised his hat again and turned away.
But her hand was laid on his arm in a moment.
"Now you are angry with me," she said, her eyes filling. "But don't you see it is as hard for me as for you? Oh, it is harder, for you are so much stronger than I."
"If we are to forget each other," he replied quietly and without looking at her, "we had better begin at once."
"But surely we may be friends?" she questioned.
"It is not a question of friendship," he answered, "but of forgetting, or of trying to forget."
"But I don't want to forget," she said impulsively. "I could not if I tried. A woman never forgets. I want to remember you, to think of your courage, your—your——"
"Folly," he interrupted.
She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes.
"Is it folly to love?" she questioned.
"Yes, out of your own station. If I had loved anyone else but you——"
"No, no! Don't say that," she interrupted. "God knows best. We are strengthened and made better by the painful discipline of life."
He took her outstretched hand and held it for a moment, then raised it to his lips. So they parted. He could not feel angry or resentful. She was so sweet, so gentle, so womanly, that she compelled his reverence. It was better to have loved her and lost, than to have won any other woman on earth.
On the following afternoon, on reaching home, Ruth met him at the door with a puzzled expression in her eyes.
"Who do you think is in the parlour?" she questioned, with a touch of excitement in her voice.
"William Menire," he ventured, with a laugh.
"Then you are mistaken. William has gone to St. Hilary. But what do you say to the squire?"
"Sir John Hamblyn?"
She nodded.
"He's been waiting the best part of an hour."
For a moment he hesitated, then he strode past her into the house.
Sir John rose and bowed stiffly. Ralph closed the door behind him and waited for the squire to speak.
"I went down to the boat, hoping to catch you before you left Boulogne," Sir John began.
"I returned by way of Calais," was the quick reply.
"Ah, that explains. I was curious to have a little further talk with you. What you said about the lode excited me a great deal."
"I have little doubt of it."
"I own I have no claim upon you," Sir John went on, without heeding the interruption. "Still, keeping the knowledge to yourself can do you no good."
"That is quite true."
"While to me it would be everything."
"It might be a bad thing. In the past, excuse me for saying it, you have used your wealth and your influence neither wisely nor well. In fact, you have prostituted both to selfish and unworthy ends."
"I have been foolish, I own, and I have had to pay dearly for it. You think I pressed your father hard, but I was hard pressed myself. If I hadn't allowed myself to drift into the hands of those villainous Jews I should have been a better man."
"But are you not in their hands still?"
"Well, yes, up to a certain point I am. At present they are practically running the estates."
"And when will you be free?"
"Well, I hardly know. You see they keep piling up interest in such a way that it is difficult to discover where I am. But a rich lode would enable me to clear off everything."
"I am not sure of that. If during your lifetime they have got a hold on the estates, how do you know they would not appropriate the lode with the rest?"
Sir John looked blank, and for several moments was silent.
"Do you know," he said at length, "that I have already paid three times more in interest than the total amount I borrowed?"
"I can quite believe that," was the answer. "Would you mind telling me the amount you did borrow?"
Sir John named the sum.
Ralph regarded him in silence for several moments.
"It is a large sum," he said at length, "a very large sum. And yet, if I am not greatly mistaken, it is but a trifle in comparison with the value of the lode I have referred to."
"You do not mean that?" the squire said eagerly.
"But it would be folly to make its existence known until you have got out of the hands of those money-lenders," Ralph went on.
"They would grab it all, you think?"
"I fear so. If all one hears about their cunning is true, there is scarcely any hope for a man who once gets into their clutches. The law seems powerless. You had better have made yourself a bankrupt right off."
"I don't know; the disgrace is so great."
Ralph curled his lip scornfully.
"It seems to me you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," he said.
"I have been hard pressed," the squire answered dolefully.
For several seconds neither of them spoke again. Ralph was evidently fighting a hard battle with himself. It is not easy to be magnanimous when it is more than probable your magnanimity will be abused. Why should he be kind to this man? He had received nothing but cruelty at his hands. Should he turn his cheek to the smiter? Should he restrain himself when he had the chance of paying off old scores? Was it not human, after all, to say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Was not revenge sweet?
They were facing each other in the very house from which he and his mother and Ruth had been evicted, the house in which his father had died of a broken heart. Did not every stone in it cry out for vengeance? This man had shown them no mercy. In the hour of their greatest need he had been more cruel than any fabled Shylock. He had insisted upon his pound of flesh, though it meant beggary to them all. He had pursued them with a vindictiveness that was almost without a parallel. And now that the tables had been turned, and the tyrant, bereft of his power, was pleading for mercy, was he to kiss the hand that before had struck him?
Moreover, what guarantee was there that if this man were restored to his old position he would be any better than he was before? Was not his heart what it had always been? Was he not a tyrant by nature?
Sir John watched the look of perplexity gather and deepen on Ralph's face, and guessed the struggle that was going on within him. He felt very humble, and more penitent than Ralph knew.
The younger man lifted his head at length, and his brow cleared.
"I have been strongly tempted," he said slowly, "to mete out to you what you have measured to us."
"I have no claim to be considered," Sir John said humbly.
"You have thwarted me, or tried to thwart me, at every stage of my life," Ralph went on.
"I know I have been no friend to you," was the feeble reply.
"And if I help you back to power, I have no guarantee that you will not use that power to thwart me again."
The squire let his eyes fall to the ground, but did not reply.
"However, to play the part of the dog in the manger," Ralph went on, "is not a very manly thing to do, so I have decided to tell you all I know."
"You will reveal the lode to me?" he questioned eagerly.
"Yes. It will be good for the neighbourhood and the county in any case."
The squire sat down suddenly, and furtively wiped his eyes.
"But the money-lenders will have to be squared first. Will you allow me to tackle them for you? I should enjoy the bull-baiting."
"You mean——"
"I mean that in any case they must not be allowed to get the lode into their hands."
"I don't know how it is to be avoided."
"Will you leave the matter to me and William Menire?"
"You mean you will help me?"
"We shall be helping the neighbourhood."
Sir John struggled hard to keep the tears back, but failed.
"And you impose no condition?" he sobbed at length.
"No, I impose no condition. If the thing is to be done, let it be done freely."
"You unman me altogether," the squire said, with brimming eyes. "I did not expect, I really didn't. I have no claim, and I've been beastly hard on you. I know I have, and I'm sorry, real sorry, mind you; and if—if——"
"We'll let the 'ifs' go for the present, if you don't mind," Ralph said, with a dry laugh. "There are a good many present difficulties to be met. I should like to see your agreement with the money-lenders."
"You shall see everything. If you can only get me out of this hole you will make me the most thankful man alive!"
Ralph smiled dubiously.
"When can I see the papers?" he asked.
"To-day if you like. They are at the Manor."
"Very good. I will walk across after tea, or will you fetch them here?"
"If it would not be troubling you to walk so far——"
"I will come with pleasure."
The squire felt very chastened and humble as he made his way slowly back to the Manor, through Treliskey Plantation. Magnanimity is rarely lost on anyone, kindness will melt the hardest heart. The squire's pride was being slowly undermined, his arrogance seemed almost a contemptible thing.
By contrast with Ralph's nobler character he began to see how mean and poor was his own. He had prided himself so much on his name and pedigree, and yet he was only beginning to see how unworthy he had proved of both. What, after all, was the mere accident of birth in comparison with moral greatness? Measured by any right standard, Ralph Penlogan was an infinitely better man than he. He had not only intellect, but heart. He possessed that true nobility which enabled a man to forgive his enemy. He was turning in a very literal sense his cheek to the smiter.
Sir John entered the house with a curious feeling of diffidence. His home, and yet not his. The dowager made him welcome, and placed the library and a bedroom above at his disposal for as long as he might care to stay.
Dorothy was delighted to have her father with her again, and yet she was strangely puzzled as to the object of his visit. She was puzzled still more when a little later Ralph Penlogan was shown into the room where she and her father sat.
She rose to her feet in a moment, while a hot blush swept over her neck and face. For a second or two she stood irresolute, and glanced hastily from one to the other. What was the meaning of it all? Her father, instead of glaring angrily at his visitor, received him with the greatest cordiality and even deference, while Ralph advanced with no sign of fear or hesitation.
Neither of them appeared for the moment to be conscious of her presence. Ralph did not even look towards her.
Then her father said in a low voice—
"You can leave us for a little while, Dorothy."
She hurried out of the room with flaming cheeks and fast-beating heart. What could her father want with Ralph Penlogan? What was the mystery underlying his hurried visit? Could it have any reference to herself? Had her father relented? Had he at last come to see that character was more than social position—that a man was great not by virtue of birth, but by virtue of achievement?
For the best part of an hour she sat in her own room waiting and listening. Then the dowager summoned her to read an article to her out of the Spectator.
It grew dark at last, and Dorothy sought her own room once more, but she was so restless she could not sit still. The very air seemed heavy with fate. Her father and Ralph were still closeted in the library. What could they have to say to each other that kept them so long?
When the lamps were lighted she stole out of her room and waited for a few moments on the landing. Then she ran lightly down the stairs into the hall. The library door was still closed, but a moment later it was pulled slightly open. She drew back into a recess and pulled a curtain in front of her, though why she did so she hardly knew.
She could hear distinctly a murmur of voices, then came a merry peal of laughter. She had not heard her father laugh so merrily for years.
Then the two men walked out into the hall side by side, and began to converse in subdued tones. She could see them very distinctly. How handsome Ralph looked in the light of the lamp.
The squire went with his visitor to the front door, and opened it. She caught Ralph's parting words, "I will see to the matter without delay. Good-night!"
When the squire returned from the door he saw Dorothy standing under the lamp with a look of inquiry in her eyes.