"'Twill not be the first act of cowardice that you'll have committed, Cousin. This one will atone for the graver sin of a year ago. Take what I offer you. Now that we are both face to face with the problem of life or death, we can look back more soberly on the past. We have both done an innocent woman an infinite wrong. Fate hath so shuffled the cards that we can both atone; after all, methinks that mine is the easier rôle. It is ofttimes so much simpler to die than to live. Nay, Cousin, your part will not be altogether that of a coward, not even though your path in life will henceforth be strewn with roses. She loves you purely, loyally, good Coz. 'Tis your duty as a man to render her happy. Above all, think not of me. Odd's fish, man, death and I have looked at one another very straight many a time before—we are friends, he and I."
"But not such a death, Cousin—and the disgrace—"
"Bah, even disgrace and I have held one another by the hand ere this. And now before I leave you, Coz, your solemn word of honour that you will make her happy, for by God!" he added more lightly, "methinks my ghost would haunt you, if ever it saw her in tears."
"Will you take my hand, Cousin?" asked Rupert in simple response, as he somewhat timidly held his hand out to the other man.
Michael took it without a word and thus at last were the hands of these two men clasped for the first time in friendship. Kinsmen by blood, Fate and human passions had estranged them from one another; yet it was blood that told, else Rupert could not even for a moment—and despite his love of life and joy in living—have accepted the sacrifice.
Even now he hesitated. This taking of his cousin's hand, this tacit acceptance of another man's life to save his own, wore an ugly look of cowardice and of dishonour. Yet the young man was no coward. In open fight in a good cause, his valour would have been equal to that of any man, and he would on the field of honour have met death, no doubt, with fortitude. But what loomed ahead was far different to the glamour, the enthusiasm of courting death for honour. It meant disgrace and shame, the trial, the ignominy: death dealt by the hand of the executioner in sight of a jeering mob. It meant the torture of long imprisonment in a gloomy, filthy prison; it meant the ill-usage of warders and menials, insults from the judge, rough handling by the crowd. It meant, above all, the supreme disgrace of desecration after death, the traitor's head on Tyburn gates, the body thrown to the carrion, an ignominy from which even the least superstitious shrank in overwhelming horror. Ay, and there was worse shame, more supreme degradation still—for a traitor's death was rendered hideous by every means that the cruelty of man could invent.
This picture stood on one side of Rupert Kestyon's vision, on the other was only a hated marriage and the somewhat cowardly acceptance of another man's sacrifice.
Rupert Kestyon did hesitate, the while the insidious voice of Luxury and of Ease whispered sophistries in his ear:
"He does not do this for thee, man, but for the woman whom he loves. Why shouldst thou stand in the way of thine own future comfort and peace?"
The battle was a trying one and whilst it lasted Rupert Kestyon felt unwilling to meet his cousin's eyes. Yet had he done so, he would have seen nothing in them save expectancy, and from time to time that same humorous twinkle, as if the man derived amusement from the conflict which was raging within the other's heart.