Ainslee's Magazine/Winged Victory/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
Meanwhile, Rogers had battled his way across the open space that separated the house from the workshop. It was already late and only the light of a single window guided him. In spite of the storm, he stood for an instant looking up at it, as if for him it bore some significance, some message. Then, as he stood there, regardless of the pelting rain, the hall door opened, letting a flood of soft light pour out into the darkness.
“Oscar—is that you?”
He came forward instantly.
“It is I—Rogers,” he said. “I'm sorry if I startled you, Mrs. Delisle. I've just come over from the workshop and was enjoying a taste of the storm. Do you want me to take any message across?”
“No. I saw some one coming and thought it was my husband. But you must come in. You're wet through.”
She stood aside to let him pass, but as he made, awkwardly enough, for the stairs that led to his own room, she held out an impulsive hand.
“Mr. Rogers—I want to speak with you. There's a fire in my boudoir. If you could spare me a few moments”
She spoke jerkily, a little breathlessly, as if with an almost physical effort, and he turned and looked at her, his head as usual a little bent, so that the lower half of his face was in shadow. Then with an abrupt laugh he held out his grimy hands.
“I'm not a fit occupant for a lady's boudoir,” he said, “nor fit company for a lady.”
“May I not be judge of that?”
He shrugged his bent shoulders.
“If you wish to speak to me, I am at your service.”
She led the way across the hall, her soft white dress trailing over the carpets and lending her slight figure a pathetic dignity. The man behind her straightened for an instant as if in defiance of some violent emotion—then followed in silence. But as he crossed the threshold of the small, quietly lit room, he hesitated. She turned and looked back at him with a faint smile.
“Is it not what you expected?”
“It's a man's room!”
“It's my husband's room.”
He made no answer. His eyes traveled from one object to another—from the old writing table to the sword hanging above the mantelshelf, and finally to the well-worn armchair drawn up to the fireside.
“You have surrounded yourself with relics, Mrs. Delisle,” he said, with harsh amusement. “A truly feminine piece of unwisdom!”
“Do only women remember?” she returned, smiling wistfully.
“No—a man remembers, too—sometimes.”
He had gone over to the fireside and stood there, his head resting upon his hand, his eyes on the fire. She glanced at him for an instant, as if troubled by some vague recollection, then turned away, busying herself with the silver coffee urn. The rise and fall of the storm as it beat against the windows drowned the sound of her quiet movements, and when he found her standing beside him, he started violently.
“You will drink this, won't you? It will do you good. You look so ill to-night, Mr. Rogers.”
“There's nothing the matter.” He took the cup from her hands without lifting his eyes to her face. “Since my accident I have not been strong.”
“Your accident? I have never known what it was. Won't you tell me?”
He laughed in his short, restrained way.
“It was nothing very glorious. I had had trouble in England and went out to China to make a fresh start. I got a post as first engineer on board a leaky old tramp, and there was a mutiny among the coolies and I was rather knocked about. That's all.”
“All! It must have been very terrible.”
“It didn't make me more beautiful—as you may guess.”
She ignored the sneer in his low voice, and her eyes rested pityingly on the scarred hand upon the mantelshelf.
“Who cared for you?”
“No one. I mended as best I could. Don't let's talk about it.”
“And then—you came to England?”
“Yes. It didn't seem likely that any one would recognize me. I felt I could risk it. I'm a fairly expert hand with machinery and I got a place with an engineering firm. It was through them Captain Delisle heard of me. That is my whole history, Mrs. Delisle.”
His tone was still hard and almost repellent, and a slow flush crept into her pale cheeks. Yet she remained beside him, patient almost to obstinacy.
“It was a strange chance that brought you here, Mr. Rogers.”
“Strange? Perhaps. Why do you find it so?”
“I don't know—another man might have acted differently. I needed some one I could trust.”
“You trust me?” he questioned again, scarcely above his breath.
“Yes.” She was gazing into the fire and did not see his hands clench. “At first it was different. You seemed to me an enemy—an enemy of my dead husband's honor—and when little Fenton grew to love you, I was angry and afraid. Now I know that my son was wiser than I. He knew you better than I did.” He nodded a grave assent, and she added gently: “Even now I don't know why you should have acted as you have done—so nobly—so generously. You couldn't have understood how I felt. You might have thought me disloyal—to the present.”
“Are you not?”
She shook her head dreamily.
“It sometimes seems to me that you and I together may save everything—the honor of the dead and of the living—an old friendship”
“I don't understand,” he muttered.
“Mr. Rogers, we can't do wrong happily. The evil we do haunts us—drags us down into its own mire. I have learned that. Unconsciously I wronged some one and I shall not find peace until I have atoned. And it is because I am not guiltless that I can understand and pity—others. It is because I know atonement to be the only salvation that I thank you that you have made it possible—for us both.”
She was silent. The hall door had been roughly opened and then banged to, and a stumbling, uncertain step now sounded along the corridor. It hesitated outside for an instant—then dragged on. Involuntarily their eyes met.
“I think I understand,” the man said quietly. “And I think you are right.” A moment later he added in the same matter-of-fact tone: “I spoke to Captain Delisle to-night. He accepted my proposal. The monoplane will be ready in a fortnight to undergo its government trial. It will carry your son's name, Mrs. Delisle, and it will bring him his just inheritance.”
“What price have you paid for this?” she asked breathlessly.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“One that costs me very little. I have waived my own claims.”
“Mr. Rogers!” Impulsively she laid her white hand on his arm. “Why have you done all this? How can I thank you—repay you?”
“There is no need for thanks—or for payment. Or perhaps—yes, I will ask something of you in turn, not in payment, but as a free gift. In a week or two I shall go away from here—my work will have been done. You have been good to me. I am an ugly derelict and you have given me your confidence and. have allowed me to stand in this sanctuary among your sacred memories. May I keep what you have given—your confidence, my place—here in this room, in your home of memory? Is that too much to ask?”
His voice, usually so level and unmoved, shook with a hardly controlled emotion. His dark head, was bowed over her hand, and she could only guess at the suffering that convulsed the scarred features. Her own eyes filled.
“You have asked for something that was yours,” she said. “I couldn't forget—could I? When my son is a man, I will bring him here and tell him of his father and of the man who saved his inheritance—and I will tell him how his child's eyes recognized the goodness to which I at first was blind.”
For an instant he pressed her hand to his lips.
“I thank you. That is reward enough.”
She turned to go, but a heavy clap of thunder, following on a breathless lull in the storm, seemed to arrest him. The peal rolled on, ending in a sullen, far-off rumble, through which the violent opening of the door sounded startlingly loud. Mrs. Delisle uttered a stifled exclamation. Sir Richard Sinclair stood on the threshold. He was scarcely recognizable. It was as if the dead had risen. Drenched though he was with rain and mud, he had regained ten years of his life. He held himself upright. His sunken cheeks were flushed, and from the deep-set eyes the veil of insanity had been swept away, leaving a blazing consciousness.
“Where is Fenton?” he demanded clearly. “I must see Fenton at once.”
The man Rogers drew back into the shadow, but Eileen came forward, her hands outstretched pleadingly, soothingly.
“Father, Fenton is not here. You must go and change. You are wet through”
“I must see Fenton,” he interrupted passionately. “I'm ruined, Eileen! That scoundrel Corodo and his fellow scoundrel, Rochefort, have ruined me, and they'll try to ruin him. They tricked me into a swindling company, and now they'll try to get his monoplane. I've tracked Rochefort down. He was in the shed opposite, with Delisle. I thought Delisle was honest—curse him!—but he's selling Fenton's secret. The monoplane's to fail and then it will go to Germany—and succeed!” He broke off, gasping, and groped wildly forward, as if searching through a gathering darkness. “I must find Fenton and warn him Where is Fenton?”
“Fenton is safe—God knows!” She turned to lay her arms about his shoulders. “Father, if you remember now, tell me—it wasn't Fenton who ruined you—not my husband?”
“It was Corodo, I tell you. Corodo's a scoundrel. Where is Fenton? I tell you I heard them. They're cheating him. They'll keep their promise. They'll offer it to the English government, but it's to fail—break down Warn him” The loud, persistent voice weakened. He faltered, looking about him with eyes over which the veil was once more sinking. “Where am I? I don't understand Fenton—Fenton”
Then it was all over. The flame of life and intelligence, which had flared up for an instant, died down into complete darkness. The upright figure tottered and sank down helplessly into the great chair by the fireside. The white head hung in the old terrible apathy. Eileen bent over him with tender solicitude, but when she looked up a moment later, the tenderness had gone from her pale features.
“I think God sent him to warn me to-night,” she said bitterly. “I have learned more of my own injustice in the past. I have learned, too, my own punishment. There is no one I can trust—no one”
The man standing in the shadow took an involuntary step forward.
“You think I knew—approved of this double treachery?”
“What can I believe? How simple to cheat an ignorant woman, humbug her with a pretense, buy her gratitude, her faith, with a sham acquiescence”
“Mrs. Delisle, be careful! You have been unjust before on greater evidence. Be merciful!”
The hoarse pleading seemed to reach her, to penetrate her armor of bitter disillusion. She made a gesture of hopeless acknowledgment.
“I know. But I am so alone—I have lost faith. Is there no proof that you can give me—nothing that will make me believe?”
His hand, outstretched for a moment as if in triumph, sank wearily to his side.
“None!” he said.
He did not look at her. But he heard her slow, dragging step across the room and the closing of the door.