A Gamble with Life

by Silas K. Hocking

"Now I have said something foolish—something that has hurt you——" she began.

"My leg hurts me occasionally," he answered, with a poor attempt at a smile.

"I have been very thoughtless," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. "I did not think how I must be tiring you."

"But you have not tired me at all," he persisted. "You have done me good. You cannot think how intolerably irksome it is lying here helpless day after——" then he checked himself suddenly. It was his turn now to see a look of distress come into her eyes.

"And it is all my fault," she interrupted. "Oh, if I could only atone in some measure."

"You have atoned, if atonement were needed, by coming to see me. Will you not come again?"

"May I? Really and truly it would do me good if I could serve you in some way. I might read to you if you would let me, or write your letters."

He felt himself shaken as if with a tempest. He knew, as if by instinct, that he had reached the most fateful—perhaps the most perilous—crisis in his life. He had only to say the word and this beautiful girl would come and sit by his side day after day, come out of pure goodness and gratitude, never dreaming what her presence might mean to him.

He was only too painfully conscious that he was half in love with her already. She had touched his heart and imagination as no one had ever done before. From the time he caught that first glimpse of her face as she was driving from the station until now, she had been almost constantly in his thoughts. It was as though the fates—malicious as usual—had conspired to throw them together, for if he learned to love her, only misery and heart-ache could be the result. She would think of him only as someone she ought to be kind to. She was out of his circle. Whoever, or whatever she might have been in America, here she was the ward of Sir Charles Tregony, one of the proudest and most exclusive men in the county. Besides, for all he knew, she might be engaged already.

Beyond all, there was the fact that his life was at stake. If his project failed he was bound in honour to see that Felix Muller suffered no loss. The rights of the Life Assurance Company had not occurred to him even yet. There must be no human ties to make the struggle harder. If the worst came to the worst—a possibility that would persist in haunting him—he must go unmourned and unmourning into the darkness.