LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

is lying in the road,” he muttered, the sweat dropping from his face. “Heaven! lying glaring there, for any country clown to pick up and ruin me. I must – I will find it! Brandy – I must have some brandy – this – this is maddening me!”

      And indeed he seemed mad, for though he knew he had not passed it, he went back, still peering on the ground, the candle held above his head. Suddenly he stumbled up against some object, and, looking up, saw the tall figure of a man standing right in his path. With a wolfish cry of mingled fear and rage, he dropped the candle and sprang on to him.

      “You – you thief!” he cried, hoarsely; “give it to me – give it me!”

      The man made an effort to unlock the mad grasp of the hands round his throat, then scientifically and coolly knocked his assailant down, and, holding him down writhing, struck a match.

      Gasping and foaming, Stephen looked up and saw that it was Jack Newcombe – Jack Newcombe regarding him with cool, contemptuous surprise and suspicion.

      “Well,” he said contemptuously, “so it’s you! Are you out of your mind?” and he flung the match away and allowed Stephen to rise.

      Trembling and struggling for composure, Stephen brushed the dust from his black coat and stood rubbing his chest, for Jack’s blow had been straight from the shoulder.

      “What have you got to say for yourself?” said Jack, sternly. “I asked you if you had gone mad. What are you doing here with a candle, and behaving like a lunatic?”

      Stephen made a mighty effort for composure, and a ghastly smile struggled to his face.

      “My dear Jack, how you startled me!” he gasped. “I was never so frightened in my – my life!”

      “So it appeared,” said Jack, with strong disgust in his voice. “Pick up the candle – there it is.”

      And he pointed with his foot. But Stephen was by no means anxious for a light.

      “Never mind the candle,” he said. “You are quite right – I must have seemed out of my mind. I – I am very much upset, my dear Jack.”

      “Are you hurt?” inquired Jack, but with no great show of concern.

      “No, no!” gasped Stephen; “don’t distress yourself, my dear Jack – don’t, I beg of you. It was my fault, entirely. The – the fact is that I – ”

      He paused, for Jack had got the candle, lit it, and held it up so that the light fell upon Stephen’s face.

      “Now,” he said, his tone plainly intimating that he would prefer to see Stephen’s face while he made his explanation.

      “The fact is,” Stephen began again, “I have had the misfortune to lose a pocketbook – no, not a pocketbook, that is scarcely correct, but a paper which I fancied I had put in my pocketbook, and which must have dropped out. It – it was a draft of a little legal document which my lawyer had sent me – of no value, utterly valueless – oh, quite – ”

      “So I should judge from the calm way in which you accused the first man you met of stealing it,” said Jack, with quiet scorn.

      Stephen bit his lip, and a glance of hate and suspicion shot from under his eyelids.

      “Pray forgive me, my dear Jack,” he said, pressing his hand to his brow, and sighing. “If you had sat up for so many nights, and were so worn and overwrought, you would have some sympathy with my overstrained nerves. I am much shaken to-night, my dear Jack – very much shaken.”

      And indeed he was, for the Savage’s fist was by no means a soft one.

      Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, then held the candle toward him.

      “You had better go to the house and get some of the servants to help you look for the paper,” he said. “Good-night.”

      “Oh, it is of no consequence,” said Stephen, eagerly. “Don’t go – stop a moment, my dear Jack. I – I will walk with you as far as the inn.”

      “No, thanks,” said Jack, curtly; then, as a suspicious look gleamed in Stephen’s eyes, he added: “Oh, I see! you are afraid I should pick it up in the road. You had better come.”

      Stephen smiled, and laid his hand on Jack’s arm.

      “You – you are not playing a joke with me, my dear Jack? You haven’t got the – document in your pocket all the time?”

      “If I said that I hadn’t you wouldn’t believe me, you know,” he replied. “There, take your hand off my coat!”

      “Stop! stop!” exclaimed Stephen, with a ghostly attempt at a laugh. “Don’t go, my dear Jack; stop at the house to-night. I should feel very much obliged, indeed, if you would. I am so upset to-night that I – I want company. Let me beg of you to stop.”

      And in his dread lest Jack should escape out of sight, he held on to his arm.

      Jack shook him with so emphatic a movement of disgust that Stephen was in imminent danger of making a further acquaintance with the lawn.

      “Go indoors,” he said sternly, “and leave me alone. I’d rather not sleep under the same roof with you. As for your lost paper, whatever it may be, you had better look for it in the morning, unless you want to get into further trouble,” and he turned on his heel and disappeared.

      Stephen waited until he had got at a safe distance, and, blowing out the candle, followed down the road with stealthy footsteps, keeping a close watch on the rapidly-striding figure, and examining the road at the same time. But all to no purpose; Jack reached and entered the inn without stopping, and neither going nor returning could Stephen see anything of the missing will.

      Two hours afterward he crept back and staggered into the library more dead than alive, one question rankling in his disordered brain.

      Had Jack Newcombe found the will, and, if not, where was it?

      After a time the paroxysm of fear and despair passed, and left him calmer. His acute brain, overwhelmed but not crushed out, began to recover itself, and he turned the situation round and round until he had come to a plan of action.

      It was not a very definite one, it was rather vague, but it was the most reasonable one he could think of.

      There in Warden Forest, living as the daughter of a woodman, who was himself ignorant of her legitimacy, was the girl. I am sorry to say that he cursed her as he thought of her. Where was the will? Whoever had got it would no doubt come to him first to make terms, and, failing to make them, would go to the real heiress.

      Stephen, quick as lightning, resolved to take her away.

      But where?

      He did not much care for the present, so that it was somewhere under his eyes, or in the charge – the custody, really – of a trustworthy friend.

      The only really trustworthy friend whom Stephen knew was his mother.

      “Yes, that is it,” he muttered. “Mother shall take this girl as – as – a companion. Poor mother, some great ignorant, clodhopping wench who will frighten her into a nervous fit. Poor mother!” And he smiled with a feeble, malicious pleasure.

      There are some men who take a delight in causing pain even to those who are devoted to them.

      “Dear mother,” he wrote, “I have to send you the sad news of my uncle’s death. Need I say that I am utterly overwhelmed in grief. I have indeed lost a friend!” (“The malicious, mean old wolf,” he muttered, in parenthesis.) “How good he was to me! But, mother, even in the midst of our deepest sorrows, we must not forget the calls of charity. I have a little duty to perform, in which I require your aid. I fear it will necessitate your making a journey to Wermesley station on this line. If you will come down by the 10:20 on Wednesday, I will meet you at Wermesley station. Do not mention your journey, my dear mother; we must not be forgetful that we are enjoined to do good by stealth.

“In great affliction,“Your loving son,“Stephen Davenant.”

      It

Скачать книгу