A Gamble with Life

by Silas K. Hocking

When he yielded to the witchery of her presence before, there was some excuse for his doing so, but all the circumstances were different now. He had no excuse to-day, no right. His tenure of life hung on a thread. His chance of success was growing less hopeful day by day.

Even if Madeline were free and within his reach he would have no right to speak to her of love. While this sword of Damocles was suspended over his head he was bound in honour to be silent. But since she was neither free nor within his reach, and he was walking across a volcano that at any moment might burst open beneath his feet, it would be the part of a madman to put himself in her way if there was any chance of keeping out of it.

So he pursued his work with all the earnestness and intensity he could command, but he was conscious all the time that something had gone out of his life. The enthusiasm that springs from certainty had left him, the chill and lethargy of doubt had crept into his blood. Instead of constantly dwelling on the delights of success, he found himself brooding over the prospect of failure, and wondering what lay beyond the grim shadow of death.

By a curious combination of circumstances both life and death had become doubly hard to contemplate. Success had once been his dream. To-day success of itself seemed nothing. The one thing that was of value, that would have turned earth into heaven was love. He would have courted failure—gloried in it—if failure would have given him Madeline. But since Madeline was denied him, neither success nor failure mattered much, and life and death were both robbed of the light of hope. He told himself one minute that he did not care to live since Madeline could never be his, and the next minute he dreaded the thought of death, since death would blot out the sight of her and the thought of her for ever and ever. So, in whatever direction he looked, he found neither solace nor inspiration.

The thing that spurred him on from day to day was not so much the hope of victory as the humiliation of defeat. There was any number of people in St. Gaved who had no sympathy whatever with him in his ambitions, whose invincible creed was that a man ought to be content to remain in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. These people had expressed themselves with great freedom and candour on his folly in giving up a good position at the mine, and devoting all his time and energy to something in the clouds; and which, in all likelihood, would never be of any benefit to man or beast.

Rufus used to smile at the criticisms of these people, and anticipate the day when he would stand proud and triumphant before them. Now he began to fear that the day might come when they would triumph over him, when they would expand their chests and smile wisely, and say to their neighbours: "There, didn't we tell you so?" It was rather with the object of preventing such a triumph than of winning any triumph for himself that he toiled on from day to day, throwing into his work more of the energy of despair than the inspiration of hope.

Meanwhile Madeline had been suffering from what she called "an acute attack of the blues." For no sufficient reason, so she admitted to herself, she became restless and peevish, and generally discontented. She was not ill. Generally speaking, her appetite was as good as it had been, while her energy was greater than ever. But for some reason nothing satisfied her—things that at one time she would have gone into ecstacies over barely interested her. She was in the mood to be pleased at nothing, and to find fault with everything.

That this condition of things began on the day Sir Charles took her to task for visiting Rufus Sterne she was well aware; but why it should have continued was a puzzle. She had been angry with Sir Charles at the moment it was true, but after a day's reflection she had been led to see that he was perfectly in the right. Moreover Sir Charles had behaved very handsomely all the way through. She was convinced that it was very largely on her account that they went to London for the autumn, and while in London she had scarcely a wish that was not gratified. She had gone to receptions and balls and dinners by the dozen. She had been taken to every place of interest she wanted to see. She had blossomed out into what she termed "a tame celebrity," and had had more compliments showered upon her than ever before in her life, yet, in spite of all this, she was not happy. Indeed, after a few weeks, she tired utterly of London and wanted to return again to Trewinion Hall. That however, was shown to be an impossibility. The house had been taken practically till the end of the year, and the servants at Trewinion Hall had been put on board wages till Christmas.

"Are you sure you are quite well, Madeline?" Sir Charles said to her, when she preferred her request.