d.i.c.k rose and stumbled about among the furniture. The setting sun fell just below the top of the cas.e.m.e.nt window, and its direct rays flooded the little room and showed d.i.c.k in a strange, unearthly light.

"I wronged you," he said bitterly. "Even in my pa.s.sions I'm a dull fool.

I thought you a d.a.m.ned cad, and I got more and more furious, and I drank--I was drunk all this afternoon--and madness came, and when I saw you kiss her--yes, I saw you, I was peeping from behind the screen--things went red before my eyes, and it was then that I loaded the pistol to shoot you on the spot. G.o.d forgive me! May G.o.d have mercy upon me."

He leant his arms on the sill and buried his face.

"I can't ask your forgiveness," he went on, after a moment. "It would be a mockery." He laughed mirthlessly. "How can I say. 'I'm sorry I meant to murder you--please don't think anything about it?'" He turned with a fierce gesture. "Oh, you must take it all as said, man! Now, have you finished with me? I can't stand it much longer, I agree to all your terms. I'll drive over to Witherby now and wait for the train--and you'll be free of me."

He turned again and moodily looked out of the window in the full flood of the sunset.

"We must play the game, d.i.c.k," said Austin gently, "and go through the horrible farce of dinner--for mother's sake."

d.i.c.k heard him vaguely. Below, on the terrace, Viviette was walking, and she filled his universe. She had changed the bedraggled frock for the green one she had worn the night before. Presently she raised her eyes and saw him leaning out of the window.

"Have they told you that dinner is not till a quarter past eight?" she cried, looking deliciously upwards, with a dainty hand to her cheek.

"Lord Banstead sent a message to mother that he was unexpectedly detained, and mother has put back dinner. Isn't it impudence?"

But d.i.c.k was far too crushed with misery to respond. He nodded dejectedly. She remained staring up at him for a while and then ran into the house.

d.i.c.k listlessly mentioned the postponement of dinner.

"I'm sorry I asked the little brute, but I couldn't avoid it."

"What does it matter?" said Austin. He was silent for a moment. Then he came close to d.i.c.k.

"d.i.c.k," said he. "Let us end this awful scene as friends and brothers.

As Heaven hears me, there is no bitterness in my heart. Only deep sorrow--and love, d.i.c.k. Shake hands."

d.i.c.k took his hand and broke down utterly, and said such things of himself as other men do not like to hear. Presently there was a light rap of knuckles at the door. Austin opened it and beheld Viviette.

"I won't disturb you," she said; "I only want to give this note to d.i.c.k."

"I will hand it to him," said Austin.

She thanked him and departed. He closed the door and gave d.i.c.k the note.

d.i.c.k opened it, read, and with a great cry of "Viviette!" rushed to the door. Austin interposed, grasped him by the wrist:

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to her," shouted d.i.c.k wildly, wrenching himself free. "Read this." He held up the note before Austin's eyes, with shaking fingers.

Austin read:

"I can't bear to see the misery on your face, when I can make you happy.

I love you, dear, better than anything on earth. I know it now, and I'll go out with you to Vancouver."

"She loves me. She'll marry me. She'll go out to Vancouver!" cried d.i.c.k.

"It changes everything. I must go to her."

"You shall not go," said Austin.

"Shall not? Who dares prevent me?'

"I do. I hold you to your word."

"But, man alive! she loves me--don't you see? The bargain is dissolved.

This is none of my seeking. She comes of her own free will. I am going to her."

Austin put both his hands affectionately on the big man's shoulders and forced him into a chair.

"Listen to me just for one minute, d.i.c.k. d.i.c.k, you dare not marry. Don't drive me to tell you the reason. Can't you see for yourself why I've imposed this condition on you all along?"

"I know no reason," said d.i.c.k. "She loves me, and that is enough."

The greyness deepened over Austin's face and the pain in his eyes.

"I must speak, then, in plain terms. That horrible murder impulse is the reason. Today, in a fit of frenzied jealousy, you would have killed me, your brother. Is there any guarantee that, in another fit of frenzied jealousy, you might not--?"

A shudder ran through d.i.c.k's great frame. He stretched out his hand.

"For G.o.d's sake--don't."

"I must--until you see this ghastly business in its true aspect. Look at the lighter side of Viviette's character. She is gay, fond of admiration, childishly fond of teasing, a bright creature of bewildering moods. Would she be safe in your hands? Might you not one day again see things red before your eyes and again go mad?"

"Don't say any more," d.i.c.k said in a choking voice. "I can't stand it."

"Heaven knows, I didn't want to say as much."

d.i.c.k shuddered again. "Yes, you are right. I am a man with a curse. I can't marry her. I daren't."

CHAPTER VI

VIVIETTE TAKES THE RISK

Presently d.i.c.k raised the face of Cain when he told the Lord that his punishment was greater than he could bear. Tears leaped to Austin's eyes, but he turned his head away lest d.i.c.k should see them. He would have given years of his life to spare d.i.c.k--everything he had in the world--save his deep convictions of right and wrong. He was responsible for Viviette. That risk of horror he could not let her run. He had hoped, with a great agony of hope, that d.i.c.k would have seen it for himself. To formulate it had been torture. But he could not weaken. The barrier between d.i.c.k and Viviette was not of his making. It was composed of the grim psychological laws that govern the abnormal. To have disregarded it would have been a crime from which his soul shrank. All the despair in d.i.c.k's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move him. It was terrible to be chosen in this way to be the arbiter of Destiny. But there was the decree, written in letters of blood and flame. And d.i.c.k had bowed to it.

"What's to become of her?" he groaned.

"This will be her home, as it always has been," said Austin.

"I don't mean that--but between us we shall break her heart. She has given it to me just in time for me to do it. My luck!"

Austin tried to comfort him. A girl's heart was not easily broken. Her pride would suffer most. Pain was inevitable. But Time healed many wounds. In this uncertain world nothing was ever so good as we hoped, and nothing ever so bad as we feared. d.i.c.k paid little heed to the plat.i.tudes.

"She must be told!"

"Not what happened this afternoon," cried Austin quickly. "That we bury forever from all human knowledge."