The Odds - Ethel May Dell (read full novel .TXT) 📗

intolerable!" he exclaimed. "You are wrecking your life for an insane scruple. Child, listen! Tell me nothing whatever! Give yourself to me! No one shall ever take you away again. That I swear. And I will make you so happy, dear. Only trust me!"
But Mab covered her face as if to shut out a forbidden sight.
"Big Bear, I mustn't," she said, with a sharp catch in her voice. "I've done very wrong already. But I mustn't do this. Indeed I mustn't. It's real good of you. And I shall remember it all my life. I think you are the most charitable man I ever met, considering what you must think of me."
"Think!" said Merefleet, and there was a note of deep passion in his voice. "I don't think. I want you just as you are,--just as you are. Don't you know yet that I love you enough for that?"
Mab rose slowly at the words. She was very pale, and he could see her trembling as she stood.
"Big Bear," she said, "I've got something to say to you. What I told you yesterday was quite true. And I'm in great trouble about it. I thought we were going to Heaven together. That was how I came to say it. But it was very wicked of me to be so impulsive. I've done other things that were wicked in just the same way. It's just my nature. And p'r'aps you'll try to forgive me when you think how I truly meant it. I'm telling you this because I want you to do something for me. It'll be real difficult, Big Bear. Only you're so strong."
She faltered a little and paused to recover herself. Merefleet was standing close to her. He could have taken her into his arms. But something held him back. Moreover he knew the nature of her request before she uttered it.
"Will you do what I ask you?" she said suddenly, facing him directly. "Will you, Big Bear?"
Merefleet did not answer her.
She went on quickly.
"My dear, it's hard for me, too, though I'm bad and I deserve to suffer."
Her voice broke and Merefleet made a convulsive movement towards her. But he checked himself. And Mab ended in a choked whisper with an appealing hand against his breast.
"Just go right away!" she said. "Take up your life where it was before you met me! Will you, dear? It--will make it easier for me if you will."
A dead silence followed the low words. Then, moved by a marvellous influence which worked upon him irresistibly, Merefleet stooped and put the slight hand to his lips. He did not understand. He was as far from reading the riddle as he had been when he entered. But his love for this woman conquered his desire. He had thought to win an empire. He left the room a beaten slave.


CHAPTER XV

Men said that Bernard Merefleet, the gold-king, was curiously changed when once more he went among them. Something of the old grimness which had earned for him his _sobriquet_ yet clung to his manner. But he was undeniably softer than of yore. There was an odd gentleness about him. Women said that he was marvellously improved. Among such as had known him in New York he became a favourite, little as he attempted to court favour.
Towards the end of the year he went down to the Midlands to stay with his friend Perry Clinton. They had not met for several years, and Clinton, who had married in the interval, also thought him changed.
"Is it prosperity or adversity that has made you so tame, dear fellow?" he asked him, as they sat together over dessert one night.
"Adversity," said Merefleet, smiling faintly. "I'm getting old, Perry; and there's no one to take care of me. And I find that money is vanity."
Clinton understood.
"Better go round the world," he said. "That's the best cure for that."
But Merefleet shook his head.
"It's my own fault," he said presently. "I've chucked away my life to the gold-demon. And now there is nothing left to me. You were wise in your generation. You may thank your stars, Perry, that when I wanted you to join me, you had the sense to refuse. When I heard you were married I called you a fool. But--I know better now."
He paused. He had been speaking with a force that was almost passionate. When he continued his tone had changed.
"That is why you find me a trifle less surly than I used to be," he said. "I used to hate my fellow-creatures. And now I would give all my money in exchange for a few disinterested friends. I'm sick of my lonely life. But for all that, I shall live and die alone."
"You make too much of it," said Clinton.
"Perhaps. But you can't expect a man who has been into Paradise to be exactly happy when he is thrust outside."
Clinton took up the evening paper without comment. Merefleet had never before spoken so openly to him. He realised that the man's loneliness must oppress him heavily indeed thus to master his reserve.
"What news?" said Merefleet, after a pause.
"Nothing," said Clinton. "Plague on the Continent. Railway mishap on the Great Northern. Another American Disaster."
"What's that?" said Merefleet with a touch of interest.
"Electric car accident. Ralph Warrender among the victims."
"Warrender! What! Is he dead?"
"Yes. Killed instantaneously. Did you know him?"
"I have met him in business. I wasn't intimate with him."
"Isn't he the man whose first wife was killed in a railway accident?" said Clinton reflectively, glad to have diverted Merefleet's thoughts. "I thought so. I met her once and was so smitten with her that I purchased her portrait forthwith. The most marvellous woman's face I ever saw. The man I got it from spoke of her with the most appalling enthusiasm. 'Mab Warrender!' he said. 'If she is not the loveliest woman in U.S., I guess the next one would strike us blind.' Here! I'll show it you. Netta wants me to frame it."
Clinton got up and took a book from a cupboard. Merefleet was watching him with strained eyes. His heart was thumping as if it would choke him. He rose as Clinton laid the picture before him, and steadied himself unconsciously by his friend's shoulder.
Clinton glanced at him in some surprise.
"Hullo!" he said. "A friend of yours, was she? My dear fellow, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
But Merefleet hung over the picture with fascinated eyes. And his answer came with a curiously strained laugh, that somehow rang exultant.
"Yes, a friend of mine, old chap," he said. "It's a wonderful face, isn't it? But it doesn't do her justice. I shouldn't frame it if I were you."


CHAPTER XVI

"Isn't he a monster?" said Mab, as she sat before the kitchen fire in Quiller's humble dwelling with Mrs. Quiller's three months' old baby in her arms. "I guess he'd fetch a prize at a baby show, Mrs. Quiller. Isn't he just too knowing for anything?"
"He's the best of the bunch, miss," said Mrs. Quiller proudly. "The other eight, they weren't nothing special. But this one, he be a beauty, though it ain't me as should say it. I'm sure it's very good of you, miss, to spend the time you do over him. He'd be an ungrateful little rogue if he didn't get on."
"It's real kind of you to make me welcome," Mab said, with her cheek against the baby's head, "I don't know what I'd do if you didn't."
"Ah! Poor dear! You must be lonesome now the gentleman's gone," said Mrs. Quiller commiseratingly.
"Oh, no," said Mab lightly. "Not so very. I couldn't ask my cousin to give up all his time to me you know. Besides, he would come to see me at any time if I really wanted him."
"Ah!" Mrs. Quiller shook her head. "But it ain't the same. You wants a home of your own, my dear. That's what it is. What's become of t'other gentleman what used to be down here?"
Mab almost laughed at the artlessness of this query.
"Mr. Merefleet, you mean? I don't know. I guess he's making some more money."
At this point old Quiller, who had been toddling about in the November sunshine outside, pushed open the door in a state of breathless excitement.
"Here's Master Bernard coming, missie," he announced.
Mab started to her feet, her face in a sudden, marvellous glow.
"There now!" said Mrs. Quiller, relieving her of her precious burden. "Who'd have thought it? You'd better go and talk to him."
And Mab stepped out into the soft sunshine. It fell around her in a flood and dazzled her. She stood quite still and waited, till out of the brilliance someone came to her and took her hand. The waves were dashing loudly on the shore. The south wind raced by with a warm rushing. The whole world seemed to laugh. She closed her eyes and laughed with it.
"Is it you, Big Bear?" she said.
And Merefleet's voice answered her.
"Yes," it said. "I have come for you in earnest this time. You won't send me away again?"
Mab lifted her face with a glad smile.
"I guess there's no need," she said. "My dear, I'll come now."
And they went away together in the sunlight.
* * * * *


"And now I guess I'll tell you the story of the first Mrs. Ralph Warrender," said Mab, some time later. "I won't say anything about him, because he's dead, and if you can't speak well of the dead,--well it's better not to speak at all. But she was miserable with him. And after her baby died--it just wasn't endurable. Then came that railway accident, and she was in it. There were a lot of folks killed, burnt to death most of them. But she escaped, and then the thought came to her just to lie low for a bit and let him think she was dead.
"Oh, it was a real wicked thing to do. But she was nearly demented with trouble. And she did it. She managed to get away, too, in spite of her lovely face. An old negro woman helped her. And she came to England and went to a cousin of hers who had been good to her, whom she knew she could trust--just a plain, square-jawed Englishman, Big Bear, like you in some respects--not smart, oh no--only strong as iron. And he kept her secret, though he didn't like it a bit. And he gave her some money of hers that he had inherited, to live on. Which was funny, wasn't it?"
Mab paused to laugh.
"And then another man came along, a great, surly, fogheaded Englishman, who made love to her till she was nearly driven crazy. For though Warrender had married again before she could stop him, she wasn't free. But she couldn't tell him so for the other woman's sake. It doesn't matter now. It was a dreadful tangle once. And she felt real bad about it. But it's come out quite simply. And no one will ever know.
"Now, I'll tell you a secret, Big Bear, about the woman you know of. You must put your head down for I'll have to whisper. That's the way. Now! She's just madly in love with you, Big Bear. And she is quite, quite free to tell you so. There! And I reckon she's not Death's property any more. She's just--yours."
The narrative ended in Merefleet's arms.