V

For the s.p.a.ce of a minute there was silence in the room, then outside in the still night three clocks simultaneously chimed eleven, and their announcement was taken up and echoed by half a dozen others, loud and faint, hoa.r.s.e and resonant; for all through the hours of darkness the neighborhood of Fleet Street is alive with chimes.

Chilcote, startled by the jangle, rose from his seat; then, as if driven by an uncontrollable impulse, he spoke again.

"You probably think I am mad--" he began.

Loder took his pipe out of his mouth. "I am not so presumptuous," he said, quietly.

For a s.p.a.ce the other eyed him silently, as if trying to gauge his thoughts; then once more he broke into speech.

"Look here," he said. "I came to-night to make a proposition. When I have made it you'll first of all jeer at it--as I jeered when I made it to myself; then you'll see its possibilities--as I did; then,"--he paused and glanced round the room nervously--"then you'll accept it--as I did." In the uneasy haste of his speech his words broke off almost unintelligibly.

Involuntarily Loder lifted his head to retort, but Chilcote put up his hand. His face was set with the obstinate determination that weak men sometime exhibit.

"Before I begin I want to say that I am not drunk--that I am neither mad nor drunk." He looked fully at his companion with his restless glance.

"I am quite sane--quite reasonable."

Again Loder essayed to speak, but again he put up his hand.

"No. Hear me out. You told me something of your story. I'll tell you something of mine. You'll be the first person, man or woman, that I have confided in for ten years. You say you have been treated shabbily. I have treated myself shabbily--which is harder to reconcile. I had every chance--and I chucked every chance away."

There was a strained pause, then again Loder lifted his head.

"Morphia?" he said, very quietly.

Chilcote wheeled round with a scared gesture. "How did you know that?"

he asked, sharply.

The other smiled. "It wasn't guessing--it wasn't even deduction. You told me, or as good as told me, in the fog--when we talked of Lexington. You were unstrung that night, and I--Well, perhaps one gets over-observant from living alone." He smiled again.

Chilcote collapsed into his former seat and pa.s.sed his handkerchief across his forehead.

Loder watched him for a s.p.a.ce; then he spoke. "Why don't you pull up?"

he said. "You are a young man still. Why don't you drop the thing before it gets too late?" His face was unsympathetic, and below the question in his voice lay a note of hard ness.

Chilcote returned his glance. The suggestion of reproof had accentuated his pallor. Under his excitement he looked ill and worn.

"You might talk till doomsday, but every word would be wasted," he said, irritably. "I'm past praying for, by something like six years."

"Then why come here?" Loder was pulling hard on his pipe. "I'm not a dealer in sympathy."

"I don't require sympathy." Chilcote rose again. He was still agitated, but the agitation was quieter. "I want a much more expensive thing than sympathy--and I am willing to pay for it."

The other turned and looked at him. "I have no possession in the world that would be worth a fiver to you," he said, coldly. "You're either under a delusion or you're wasting my time."

Chilcote laughed nervously. "Wait," he said. "Wait. I only ask you to wait. First let me sketch you my position--it won't take many words:

"My grandfather was a Chilcote of Westmoreland; he was one of the first of his day and his cla.s.s to recognize that there was a future in trade, so, breaking his own little twig from the family tree, he went south to Wark and entered a ship-owning firm. In thirty years' time he died, the owner of one of the biggest trades in England, having married the daughter of his chief. My father was twenty-four and still at Oxford when he inherited. Almost his first act was to reverse my grandfather's early move by going north and piecing together the family friendship. He married his first cousin; and then, with the Chilcote prestige revived and the shipping money to back it, he entered on his ambition, which was to represent East Wark in the Conservative interest. It was a big fight, but he won--as much by personal influence as by any other. He was an aristocrat, but he was a keen business-man as well. The combination carries weight with your lower cla.s.ses. He never did much in the House, but he was a power to his party in Wark. They still use his name there to conjure with."

Loder leaned forward interestedly.

"Robert Chilcote?" he said. "I have heard of him. One of those fine, unostentatious figures--strong in action, a little narrow in outlook, perhaps, but essential to a country's staying power. You have every reason to be proud of your father."

Chilcote laughed suddenly. "How easily we sum up, when a matter is impersonal! My father may have been a fine figure, but he shouldn't have left me to climb to his pedestal."

Loder's eyes questioned. In his newly awakened interest he had let his pipe go out.

"Don't you grasp my meaning?" Chilcote went on. "My father died and I was elected for East Wark. You may say that if I had no real inclination for the position I could have kicked. But I tell you I couldn't. Every local interest, political and commercial, hung upon the candidate being a Chilcote. I did what eight men out of ten would have done. I yielded to pressure."

"It was a fine opening!" The words escaped Loder.

"Most prisons have wide gates!" Chilcote laughed again unpleasantly.

"That was six years ago. I had started on the morphia tack four years earlier, but up to my father's death I had it under my thumb--or believed I had; and in the realization of my new responsibilities and the excitement of the political fight I almost put it aside. For several months after I entered Parliament I worked. I believe I made one speech that marked me as a coming man." He laughed derisively. "I even married--"

"Married?"

"Yes. A girl of nineteen--the ward of a great statesman. It was a brilliant marriage--politically as well as socially. But it didn't work.

I was born without the capacity for love. First the social life palled on me; then my work grew irksome. There was only one factor to make life endurable--morphia. Before six months were out I had fully admitted that."

"But your wife?"

"Oh, my wife knew nothing--knows nothing. It is the political business, the beastly routine of the political life, that is wearing me out." He stopped nervously, then hurried on, again. "I tell you it's h.e.l.l to see the same faces, to sit in the same seat day in, day out, knowing all the time that you must hold yourself in hand, must keep your grip on the reins--"

"It is always possible to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds."

"To retire? Possible to retire?" Chilcote broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh. "You don't know what the local pressure of a place like Wark stands for. Twenty times I have been within an ace of chucking the whole thing. Once last year I wrote privately to Vale, one of our big men there, and hinted that my health was bad. Two hours after he had read my letter he was in my study. Had I been in Greenland the result would have been the same. No. Resignation is a meaningless word to a man like me."

Loder looked down. "I see," he said, slowly, "I see."

"Then you see everything--the difficulty, the isolation of the position.

Five years ago--three--even two years ago--I was able to endure it; now it gets more unbearable with every month. The day is bound to come when--when"--he paused, hesitating nervously--"when it will be physically impossible for me to be at my post."

Loder remained silent.

"Physically impossible," Chilcote repeated, excitedly. "Until lately I was able to calculate--to count upon myself to some extent; but yesterday I received a shock--yesterday I discovered that--that"--again he hesitated painfully--"that I have pa.s.sed the stage when one may calculate."

The situation was growing more embarra.s.sing. To hide its awkwardness, Loder moved back to the grate and rebuilt the fire, which had fallen low.

Chilcote, still excited by his unusual vehemence, followed him, taking up a position by the mantelpiece.

"Well?" he said, looking down.

Very slowly Loder rose from his task. "Well?" he reiterated.