It may be that Laura did not look
upon the removal of her father as an unmixed misfortune.
Nothing was said to her as to the manner of the old
man’s seizure, but Robert informed her at breakfast
that he had thought it best, acting under medical
advice, to place him for a time under some restraint.
She had herself frequently remarked upon the growing
eccentricity of his manner, so that the announcement
could have been no great surprise to her. It
is certain that it did not diminish her appetite for
the coffee and the scrambled eggs, nor prevent her
from chatting a good deal about her approaching wedding.
But it was very different with Raffles
Haw. The incident had shocked him to his inmost
soul. He had often feared lest his money should
do indirect evil, but here were crime and madness
arising before his very eyes from its influence.
In vain he tried to choke down his feelings, and to
persuade himself that this attack of old McIntyre’s
was something which came of itself something
which had no connection with himself or his wealth.
He remembered the man as he had first met him, garrulous,
foolish, but with no obvious vices. He recalled
the change which, week by week, had come over him his
greedy eye, his furtive manner, his hints and innuendoes,
ending only the day before in a positive demand for
money. It was too certain that there was a chain
of events there leading direct to the horrible encounter
in the laboratory. His money had cast a blight
where he had hoped to shed a blessing.
Mr. Spurling, the vicar, was up shortly
after breakfast, some rumour of evil having come to
his ears. It was good for Haw to talk with him,
for the fresh breezy manner of the old clergyman was
a corrective to his own sombre and introspective mood.
“Prut, tut!” said he.
“This is very bad very bad indeed!
Mind unhinged, you say, and not likely to get over
it! Dear, dear! I have noticed a change
in him these last few weeks. He looked like a
man who had something upon his mind. And how
is Mr. Robert McIntyre?”
“He is very well. He was
with me this morning when his father had this attack.”
“Ha! There is a change
in that young man. I observe an alteration in
him. You will forgive me, Mr. Raffles Haw, if
I say a few serious words of advice to you. Apart
from my spiritual functions I am old enough to be
your father. You are a very wealthy man, and you
have used your wealth nobly yes, sir, nobly.
I do not think that there is a man in a thousand who
would have done as well. But don’t you think
sometimes that it has a dangerous influence upon those
who are around you?”
“I have sometimes feared so.”
“We may pass over old Mr. McIntyre. It
would hardly be just, perhaps, to mention him in this
connection. But there is Robert. He used
to take such an interest in his profession. He
was so keen about art. If you met him, the first
words he said were usually some reference to his plans,
or the progress he was making in his latest picture.
He was ambitious, pushing, self-reliant. Now he
does nothing. I know for a fact that it is two
months since he put brush to canvas. He has turned
from a student into an idler, and, what is worse,
I fear into a parasite. You will forgive me for
speaking so plainly?”
Raffles Haw said nothing, but he threw
out his hands with a gesture of pain.
“And then there is something
to be said about the country folk,” said the
vicar. “Your kindness has been, perhaps,
a little indiscriminate there. They don’t
seem to be as helpful or as self-reliant as they used.
There was old Blaxton, whose cowhouse roof was blown
off the other day. He used to be a man who was
full of energy and resource. Three months ago
he would have got a ladder and had that roof on again
in two days’ work. But now he must sit
down, and wring his hands, and write letters, because
he knew that it would come to your ears, and that you
would make it good. There’s old Ellary,
too! Well, of course he was always poor, but
at least he did something, and so kept himself out
of mischief. Not a stroke will he do now, but
smokes and talks scandal from morning to night.
And the worst of it is, that it not only hurts those
who have had your help, but it unsettles those who
have not. They all have an injured, surly feeling
as if other folk were getting what they had an equal
right to. It has really come to such a pitch that
I thought it was a duty to speak to you about it.
Well, it is a new experience to me. I have often
had to reprove my parishioners for not being charitable
enough, but it is very strange to find one who is too
charitable. It is a noble error.”
“I thank you very much for letting
me know about it,” answered Raffles Haw, as
he shook the good old clergyman’s hand.
“I shall certainly reconsider my conduct in
that respect.”
He kept a rigid and unmoved face until
his visitor had gone, and then retiring to his own
little room, he threw himself upon the bed and burst
out sobbing with his face buried in the pillow.
Of all men in England, this, the richest, was on that
day the most miserable. How could he use this
great power which he held? Every blessing which
he tried to give turned itself into a curse.
His intentions were so good, and yet the results were
so terrible. It was as if he had some foul leprosy
of the mind which all caught who were exposed to his
influence. His charity, so well meant, so carefully
bestowed, had yet poisoned the whole countryside.
And if in small things his results were so evil, how
could he tell that they would be better in the larger
plans which he had formed? If he could not pay
the debts of a simple yokel without disturbing the
great laws of cause and effect which lie at the base
of all things, what could he hope for when he came
to fill the treasury of nations, to interfere with
the complex conditions of trade, or to provide for
great masses of the population? He drew back with
horror as he dimly saw that vast problems faced him
in which he might make errors which all his money
could not repair. The way of Providence was the
straight way. Yet he, a half-blind creature, must
needs push in and strive to alter and correct it.
Would he be a benefactor? Might he not rather
prove to be the greatest malefactor that the world
had seen?
But soon a calmer mood came upon him,
and he rose and bathed his flushed face and fevered
brow. After all, was not there a field where all
were agreed that money might be well spent? It
was not the way of nature, but rather the way of man
which he would alter. It was not Providence that
had ordained that folk should live half-starved and
overcrowded in dreary slums. That was the result
of artificial conditions, and it might well be healed
by artificial means. Why should not his plans
be successful after all, and the world better for his
discovery? Then again, it was not the truth that
he cast a blight on those with whom he was brought
in contact. There was Laura; who knew more of
him than she did, and yet how good and sweet and true
she was! She at least had lost nothing through
knowing him. He would go down and see her.
It would be soothing to hear her voice, and to turn
to her for words of sympathy in this his hour of darkness.
The storm had died away, but a soft
wind was blowing, and the smack of the coming spring
was in the air. He drew in the aromatic scent
of the fir-trees as he passed down the curving drive.
Before him lay the long sloping countryside, all dotted
over with the farmsteadings and little red cottages,
with the morning sun striking slantwise upon their
grey roofs and glimmering windows. His heart
yearned over all these people with their manifold
troubles, their little sordid miseries, their strivings
and hopings and petty soul-killing cares. How
could he get at them? How could he manage to
lift the burden from them, and yet not hinder them
in their life aim? For more and more could he
see that all refinement is through sorrow, and that
the life which does not refine is the life without
an aim.
Laura was alone in the sitting-room
at Elmdene, for Robert had gone out to make some final
arrangements about his father. She sprang up as
her lover entered, and ran forward with a pretty girlish
gesture to greet him.
“Oh, Raffles!” she cried,
“I knew that you would come. Is it not
dreadful about papa?”
“You must not fret, dearest,”
he answered gently. “It may not prove to
be so very grave after all.”
“But it all happened before
I was stirring. I knew nothing about it until
breakfast-time. They must have gone up to the
Hall very early.”
“Yes, they did come up rather early.”
“What is the matter with you,
Raffles?” cried Laura, looking up into his face.
“You look so sad and weary!”
“I have been a little in the
blues. The fact is, Laura, that I have had a
long talk with Mr. Spurling this morning.”
The girl started, and turned white
to the lips. A long talk with Mr. Spurling!
Did that mean that he had learned her secret?
“Well?” she gasped.
“He tells me that my charity
has done more harm than good, and in fact, that I
have had an evil influence upon every one whom I have
come near. He said it in the most delicate way,
but that was really what it amounted to.”
“Oh, is that all?” said
Laura, with a long sigh of relief. “You
must not think of minding what Mr. Spurling says.
Why, it is absurd on the face of it! Everybody
knows that there are dozens of men all over the country
who would have been ruined and turned out of their
houses if you had not stood their friend. How
could they be the worse for having known you?
I wonder that Mr. Spurling can talk such nonsense!”
“How is Robert’s picture getting on?”
“Oh, he has a lazy fit on him.
He has not touched it for ever so long. But why
do you ask that? You have that furrow on your
brow again. Put it away, sir!”
She smoothed it away with her little white hand.
“Well, at any rate, I don’t
think that quite everybody is the worse,” said
he, looking down at her. “There is one,
at least, who is beyond taint, one who is good, and
pure, and true, and who would love me as well if I
were a poor clerk struggling for a livelihood.
You would, would you not, Laura?”
“You foolish boy! of course I would.”
“And yet how strange it is that
it should be so. That you, who are the only woman
whom I have ever loved, should be the only one in whom
I also have raised an affection which is free from
greed or interest. I wonder whether you may not
have been sent by Providence simply to restore my
confidence in the world. How barren a place would
it not be if it were not for woman’s love!
When all seemed black around me this morning, I tell
you, Laura, that I seemed to turn to you and to your
love as the one thing on earth upon which I could
rely. All else seemed shifting, unstable, influenced
by this or that base consideration. In you, and
you only, could I trust.”
“And I in you, dear Raffles!
I never knew what love was until I met you.”
She took a step towards him, her hands
advanced, love shining in her features, when in an
instant Raffles saw the colour struck from her face,
and a staring horror spring into her eyes. Her
blanched and rigid face was turned towards the open
door, while he, standing partly behind it, could not
see what it was that had so moved her.
“Hector!” she gasped, with dry lips.
A quick step in the hall, and a slim,
weather-tanned young man sprang forward into the room,
and caught her up in his arms as if she had been a
feather.
“You darling!” he said;
“I knew that I would surprise you. I came
right up from Plymouth by the night train. And
I have long leave, and plenty of time to get married.
Isn’t it jolly, dear Laura?”
He pirouetted round with her in the
exuberance of his delight. As he spun round,
however, his eyes fell suddenly upon the pale and silent
stranger who stood by the door. Hector blushed
furiously, and made an awkward sailor bow, standing
with Laura’s cold and unresponsive hand still
clasped in his.
“Very sorry, sir didn’t
see you,” he said. “You’ll excuse
my going on in this mad sort of way, but if you had
served you would know what it is to get away from
quarter-deck manners, and to be a free man. Miss
McIntyre will tell you that we have known each other
since we were children, and as we are to be married
in, I hope, a month at the latest, we understand each
other pretty well.”
Raffles Haw still stood cold and motionless.
He was stunned, benumbed, by what he saw and heard.
Laura drew away from Hector, and tried to free her
hand from his grasp.
“Didn’t you get my letter at Gibraltar?”
she asked.
“Never went to Gibraltar.
Were ordered home by wire from Madeira. Those
chaps at the Admiralty never know their own minds for
two hours together. But what matter about a letter,
Laura, so long as I can see you and speak with you?
You have not introduced me to your friend here.”
“One word, sir,” cried
Raffles Haw in a quivering voice. “Do I
entirely understand you? Let me be sure that
there is no mistake. You say that you are engaged
to be married to Miss McIntyre?”
“Of course I am. I’ve
just come back from a four months’ cruise, and
I am going to be married before I drag my anchor again.”
“Four months!” gasped
Haw. “Why, it is just four months since
I came here. And one last question, sir.
Does Robert McIntyre know of your engagement?”
“Does Bob know? Of course
he knows. Why, it was to his care I left Laura
when I started. But what is the meaning of all
this? What is the matter with you, Laura?
Why are you so white and silent? And hallo!
Hold up, sir! The man is fainting!”
“It is all right!” gasped
Haw, steadying himself against the edge of the door.
He was as white as paper, and his
hand was pressed close to his side as though some
sudden pain had shot through him. For a moment
he tottered there like a stricken man, and then, with
a hoarse cry, he turned and fled out through the open
door.
“Poor devil!” said Hector,
gazing in amazement after him. “He seems
hard hit anyhow. But what is the meaning of all
this, Laura?”
His face had darkened, and his mouth had set.
She had not said a word, but had stood
with a face like a mask looking blankly in front of
her. Now she tore herself away from him, and,
casting herself down with her face buried in the cushion
of the sofa, she burst into a passion of sobbing.
“It means that you have ruined
me,” she cried. “That you have ruined-ruined ruined
me! Could you not leave us alone? Why must
you come at the last moment? A few more days,
and we were safe. And you never had my letter.”
“And what was in your letter,
then?” he asked coldly, standing with his arms
folded, looking down at her.
“It was to tell you that I released
you. I love Raffles Haw, and I was to have been
his wife. And now it is all gone. Oh, Hector,
I hate you, and I shall always hate you as long as
I live, for you have stepped between me and the only
good fortune that ever came to me. Leave me alone,
and I hope that you will never cross our threshold
again.”
“Is that your last word, Laura?”
“The last that I shall ever speak to you.”
“Then, good-bye. I shall
see the Dad, and go straight back to Plymouth.”
He waited an instant, in hopes of an answer, and then
walked sadly from the room.