Routledge smiled, but spoke no word. Bingley regarded the strong, strange profile, haggard, darkened as a storm arena. He saddled savagely and rode after the other. It was fifty-five miles to Wangcheng, where he meant to catch the Chinese Eastern for Shanhaikwan to-morrow morning—fifty-five miles in the dark, over rain-softened roads.
“Hell! he can’t make it on foot,” Bingley muttered. “I’ll beat him to the train.”
And yet he was angered and irritated with the reflection that the man ahead had never yet been beaten.
NINETEENTH CHAPTER
NOREEN CARDINEGH, ENTERING A JAPANESE HOUSE AT EVENTIDE, IS CONFRONTED BY THE VISIBLE THOUGHT-FORM OF HER LOVER
Noreen Cardinegh buried her father alone. At least, those besides herself who took any part in the last service for the famous correspondent were only Japanese hired for the manual labor. To the English who were still at the hotel, eager to assist the woman, and charged to do so by Feeney, Finacune, and Trollope before they left, the morning was sensational. In spite of the fact that scarcely any one had been admitted to the Cardinegh room for the past two days, Talliaferro and others had arranged for the funeral. They were abroad at nine o’clock in the morning, and found the formality over.... The Japanese clerk told them all. At her request, he had made arrangements with a Tokyo director of such affairs. The body had been taken out at dawn. Miss Cardinegh had followed in her rickshaw. A place had been secured in the Kameido gardens—very beautiful now in the cloud of cherry blossoms. She had preferred a Buddhist to a Shinto priest; refusing the services of an American or English missionary. The clerk explained that he was permitted to tell these things now.... Possibly Miss Cardinegh would see one or two of her friends at this time.... Yes, she was in her room.
“Come,” she said in a low trailing tone, in response to Talliaferro’s knock.
Noreen was sitting by the window. The big room had been put in order. The morning was very still. The woman was dry-eyed, but white as a flower. She held out her hand to Talliaferro and tried to smile.... Strangely, he thought of her that moment as one of the queens of the elder drama—a queen of stirring destiny, whose personal history was all interpenetrated with national life, and whom some pretender had caused to be imprisoned in a tower. This was like Talliaferro.
“We were all ready and so eager to help you, Miss Cardinegh,” he began. “You know, some of the older of the British correspondents have dared to feel a proprietary interest in all that concerns you. Why did you disappoint us so?”
“I did not want anything done for him—that would be done on my account,” she said slowly. “It was mine to do—as his heritage is mine. I only ask you to think—not that anything can extenuate—but I want you to think that it was not my father, but his madness.”