The Ragged Edge - Harold MacGrath (best books under 200 pages TXT) 📗

remain here for several years-until the Hand had forgotten him. He must win this man's confidence, even at the risk of being called mad. So, in broken, rather breathless phrases, he told his story; and when he had done, he laid his arms upon the table and bent his head to them.

There followed a silence which endured several minutes; or, rather a tableau. The candles-for McClintock never used oil in his dining room-were burning low in the sconces. Occasionally the flames would bend, twist and writhe crazily as the punka-boy bestirred himself.

McClintock's astonishment merged into a state of mild hypnosis. That any human being could conceive and execute such a thing! A Roundhead, here in these prosaic times!-and mad as a hatter! Trying the rôle of St. Anthony, when God Himself had found only one man strong enough for that! McClintock shook his head violently, as if to dismiss this dream he was having. But the objects in his range of vision remained unchanged. Presently he reached out and laid his hand upon Spurlock's motionless shoulders.

"'Tis a cruel thing you've done, lad. Even if you were sick in the mind and did not understand what you were doing, it's a mighty cruel thing you have done. Probably she mistook you; probably she thought you cared. I'm neither an infidel nor an agnostic, so I'll content myself by saying that the hand of God is in this somewhere. 'He's a good fellow, and 'twill all end well'. You have set out to do something which is neither God's way nor man's. What'll you be doing?"

"What can I do?" asked Spurlock, raising his haggard face. "Can't you see? I can't hurt her, if ... if she cares! I can't tell her I'm a madman as well as a thief!... What a fool! What a fool!"

A thief. McClintock's initial revulsion was natural; he was an honest man. But this revulsion was engulfed by the succeeding waves of pity and understanding. One transgression; he was sure of that. The boy was all conscience, and he suffered through this conscience to such lengths that the law would be impotent to add anything. All this muddle to placate his conscience!

"Here-quick!" McClintock thrust a cigar into Spurlock's hand. "Put it in your teeth and light it. I hear her coming."

Spurlock obeyed mechanically. The candle was shaking in his hand as Ruth appeared in the doorway.

"I thought we were going to have some music," she said.

Her husband stared at her over the candle flame. Flesh and blood, vivid, alluring; she was no longer the symbol, therefore she had become, as in the twinkling of an eye, an utter stranger. And this utter stranger ... loved him! He had no reason to doubt McClintock's statement; the Scot had solved the riddle why Ruth Enschede had married Howard Spurlock. All emotions laid hold of him, but none could he stay long enough to analyze it. For a space he rode the whirligig.

"We were talking shop," said McClintock, rising. Observing Spurlock's spell-bound attitude, he clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Come along! We'll start that concert right away."

In the living room Spurlock's glance was constantly drawn toward Ruth; but in fear that she might sense something wrong, he walked over to the piano and struck a few chords.

"You play?" asked McClintock, who was sorting the rolls.

"A little. This is a good piano."

"It ought to be; it cost enough to get it here," said the Scot, ruefully. "Ever play one of these machines?"

"Yes. I've always been more or less music-mad. But machinery will never approach the hand."

"I know a man.... But I'll tell you about him some other time. I'm crazy over music, too. I can't pump out all there is to these compositions. Try something."

Spurlock gratefully accepted the Grieg concerto , gratefully, because it was brilliant and thunderous. Papillon would have broken him down; anything tender would have sapped his will; and like as not he would have left the stool and rushed into the night. He played for an hour-Grieg, Chopin, Rubenstein, Liszt, crashing music. The action steadied him; and there was a phase of irony, too, that helped. He had been for months without music of the character he loved-and he dared not play any of it!

McClintock, after the music began, left the piano and sat in a corner just beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp. His interest was divided: while his ears drank in the sounds, his glance constantly roved from Ruth to the performer and back to Ruth. These amazing infants!

Suddenly he came upon the true solution: that the boy hadn't meant to steal whatever it was he had stolen. A victim of one of those mental typhoons that scatter irretrievably the barriers of instinct and breeding; and he had gone on the rocks all in a moment. Never any doubt of it. That handsome, finely drawn face belonged to a soul with clean ideals. All in a moment. McClintock's heart went out to Spurlock; he would always be the boy's friend, even though he had dragged this girl on to the rocks with him.

Love and lavender, he thought, perhaps wistfully. He could remember when women laid away their gowns in lavender-as this girl's mother had. He would always be her friend, too. That boy-blind as a bat! Why, he hadn't seen the Woman until to-night!

From the first chord of the Grieg concerto to the finale of the Chopin ballade , Ruth had sat tensely on the edge of her chair. She had dreaded the beginning of this hour. What would happen to her? Would her soul be shaken, twisted, hypnotized?-as it had been those other times? Music-that took out of her the sense of reality, whirled her into the clouds, that gave to her will the directless energy of a chip of wood on stormy waters. But before the Grieg concerto was done, she knew that she was free. Free! All the fine ecstasy, without the numbing terror.

Spurlock sat limply, his arms hanging. McClintock, striking a match to relight his cigar, broke the spell. Ruth sighed; Spurlock stood up and drew his hand across his forehead as if awakening from a dream.

"I didn't know the machine had such stuff in it," said McClintock. "I imagine I must have a hundred rolls-all the old fellows. It's a sorry world," he went on. "Nobody composes any more, nobody paints, nobody writes-I mean, on a par with what we've just heard."

The clock tinkled ten. Shortly Ruth and Spurlock took the way home. They walked in silence. With a finger crooked in his side-pocket, she measured her step with his, her senses still dizzy from the echo of the magic sounds. At the threshold of the study he bade her good-night; but he did not touch her forehead with his lips.

"I feel like work," he lied. What he wanted desperately was to be alone.

"But you are tired!"

"I want to go over the story again."

"Mr. McClintock liked it."

"He couldn't help it, Ruth. It's big, thanks to you."

"You.... need me a little?"

"Not a little, but a great deal."

That satisfied something of her undefined hunger. She went to her bedroom, but she did not go to bed. She drew a chair to the window and stared at the splendour of the tropical night. By and by she heard the screen door. Hollo rumbled in his throat.

"Hush!" she said.

Presently she saw Spurlock on the way to the lagoon. He walked with bent head. After quarter of an hour, she followed.

The unexpected twist-his disclosure to McClintock-had given Spurlock but temporary relief. The problem had returned, made gigantic by the possibility of Ruth's love. The thought allured him, and therein lay the danger. If it were but the question of his reason for marrying her, the solution would have been simple. But he was a thief, a fugitive from justice. On that basis alone, he had no right to give or accept love.

Had he been sick in the mind when he had done this damnable thing? It did not seem possible, for he could recall clearly all he had said and done; there were no blank spaces to give him one straw of excuse.

Ruth loved him. It was perfectly logical. And he could not return this love. He must fight the thought continually, day in and day out. The Dawn Pearl! To be with her constantly, with no diversions to serve as barricades! Damn McClintock for putting this thought in his head-that Ruth loved him!

He flung himself upon the beach, face downward, his outflung hands digging into the sand: which was oddly like his problem-he could not grip it. Torment!

And so Ruth discovered him. She was about to rush to his side, when she saw his clenched hands rise and fall upon the sand repeatedly. Her heart swelled to suffocation. To go to him, to console him! But she stirred not from her hiding place. Instinctively she knew-some human recollection she had inherited-that she must not disturb him in this man-agony. She could not go to him when it was apparent that he needed her beyond all other instances! What had caused this agony did not matter-then. It was enough that she witnessed it and could not go to him.

By and by-as the paroxysm subsided and he became motionless-she stole back to the bungalow to wait. Through her door curtain she could see the light from the study lamp. If, when he returned, he blew out the light, she would go to bed; but if the light burned on for any length of time, she would go silently to the study curtain to learn if his agony was still upon him. She heard him come in; the light burned on.

She discovered him sitting upon the floor beside his open trunk. He had something across his knees. At first she could not tell what it was; but as her eyes became accustomed to the light, she recognized the old coat.


CHAPTER XXIII


Next morning Ruth did not refer to the episode on the sands of the lagoon. Here again instinct guided her. If he had nothing to tell her, she had nothing to ask. She did not want particularly to know what had caused his agony, what had driven him back to the old coat. He was in trouble and she could not help him; that was the ache in her heart.

At breakfast both of them played their parts skillfully. There was nothing in his manner to suggest the misery of the preceding night. There was nothing on her face to hint of the misery that brimmed her heart this morning. So they fenced with smiles.

He noted that she was fully dressed, that her hair was carefully done, that there was a knotted ribbon around her throat. It now occurred to him that she had always been fully dressed. He did not know-and probably never would unless she told him-that it was very easy (and comfortable for a woman) to fall into slatternly ways in this latitude. So long as she could remember, her father had never permitted her to sit at the table unless she came fully dressed. Later, she understood his reasons; and it had now become habit.

Fascination. It would be difficult to find another human being subjected to so many angles of attack as Spurlock. Ruth loved him. This did not tickle his vanity; on the contrary, it enlivened