Brendon approved of this plan and when the launch returned, her uncle informed Jenny that the detective had left, to make certain inquiries, but would return early on the following morning. She expressed surprise that he had gone but declared that it would in any case have been necessary for him to do so before the fugitive arrived.

"We left the letter, the lamp, and the food and drink exactly where he indicated," she said, "on a forlorn spot, above that ancient, raised beach, where the great boulders are."

Thus the matter was settled. Mark had already taken up his position in the chamber aloft and Bendigo looked to it that he should not be interfered with. It was Mr. Redmayne's custom to keep the tower room locked when not himself in it, and he did so now until the night should come. He supped with Jenny and the Italian, having already provided Brendon with food in his hiding-place. It was understood that the sailor would ascend to his den about eleven o'clock, by which time Mark undertook to be safely hidden in the cupboard.

At the agreed time Doria and his master came up together, the former carrying a light. Jenny also joined them for a short while, but she stayed only ten minutes and then departed to bed. The weather had turned stormy and wet. A shouting wind from the west shook the lantern of the tower room and flung rain heavily against the gla.s.s, while Bendigo moved restlessly about and bent his brows to look out into the blackness of the night.

"The poor devil will be drowned, or break his neck climbing up from the sea in this darkness," he declared.

Giuseppe had brought up a jug of water, a bottle of spirits, a little keg of tobacco, and two or three clay pipes, for the old sea captain never smoked till after supper and then puffed steadily until he went to bed.

He turned now and asked Doria a question.

"You've cast your peepers over the poor chap to-day," he said, "and you're a clever man and know a bit of human nature. What did you make of my brother?"

"I looked closely and listened also," answered the servant; "and this I think--the man is very sick."

"Not likely to break out again and cut another throat?"

"Never again. I say this. When he killed Madonna's husband, he was mad; now he is not mad--not more mad than anybody else. He craves only one thing--peace."

CHAPTER VII

THE COMPACT

Bendigo lit his pipe and turned to his only book. It was "Moby d.i.c.k." Herman Melville's masterpiece had long ago become for the old sailor the one piece of literature in the world. It comprised all that interested him most in this life, and all that he needed to reconcile him to the approach of death and the thought of a future existence beyond the grave. "Moby d.i.c.k" also afforded him that ceaseless companionship with great waters which was essential to content.

"Well," he said to Doria, "get you gone. Look round as usual to see that all's snug aloft and below; then turn in. Leave only the light in the hall and the front door on the latch. Did you mark if he had a watch to know the hour?"

"He had no watch, but Mrs. Pendean thought upon that and lent him hers."

Bendigo nodded and picked up a clay pipe, while Doria spoke again.

"You feel quite steady in your nerves? You would not like me to lie in readiness to come forward if you want me!"

"No, no--turn in and go to sleep. And no spying, as you're a gentleman. I'll talk reason to the poor fellow. I reckon it's going to be all right. We know that he's had sh.e.l.l shock and all the rest of it, so I dare say the law won't be very hard upon him."

"The dead man's wife was an angel to Robert Redmayne. He thought at first that she had come to give him up. But her eyes showed him that she had come in mercy. May I speak of your niece a moment before I go?"

Bendigo shrugged his round shoulders and pushed his hand through his red hair.

"It's no good speaking of her till you've spoken to her," he said.

"I know what you are after very well. But it's up to her, I reckon, not me. She's gone her own way since she was a nipper--got her father's will hid under her woman's shape."

He reflected uncomfortably that Mark Brendon must hear every word about to pa.s.s; but there was no help for that.

"Our Italian way is to approach the parents of the loved one,"

explained Doria. "To win you is to be far on my way, for you stand to her in the place of parent. Is it not so? She cannot live alone.

She was not meant by G.o.d to be a single woman, or a widow woman.

There is a saying in my tongue, 'She who is born beautiful is born married.' I terribly fear that somebody else will come."

"But what about your ambitions--to wed an heiress and claim the t.i.tle and the territory of your vanished forbears?"

Doria swept his hands to right and left with a great gesture, as though casting away his former hopes.

"It is fate," he said. "I planned my life without love. I had never loved and never wanted to. I guessed that love would appear after I had married money and earned the necessary means and leisure to love. But now all is changed. The arrow has sped. There has come the spirit simpatica instead of the necessary rich woman. Now I do not want the rich woman but only she who wakens my pa.s.sion, adoration, worship. Life has nothing in it but Madonna--English Jenny. What are castles and t.i.tles--pomp and glory--when weighed against her? Dust, padron mio, all dust!"

"And what about her, Giuseppe?"

"Her heart is hidden; but there is that in her eyes that tells me to hope."

"And what about me?"

"Alas! Love is selfish. But you are the last I would seek to hurt or to rob. You have been very good to me and Madonna loves you. It is certain that if the very best happened, she would do nothing to offend one who has been to her as you have been."

"We can stow the subject for six months anyhow," replied Bendigo, lighting his long clay. "I suppose, in your country as well as mine, there's a right and a wrong way to approach a woman; and seeing my girl's a widow--made so under peculiarly sad circ.u.mstances--you'll understand that love talk is out of the question for a good bit yet a while."

"Most truly you speak. I hide even the fire in my eyes. I only dare look at her between the lids."

"There's a lot goes to Jenny, and no doubt such a keen blade as you knows that very well. But all's in the air at present. Her husband left no will and that means, since there's n.o.body else with any claim upon him, she has all his dough--five hundred a year perhaps.

But there's much more to her than that in the long run. My brother Albert and I are both old bachelors with n.o.body so near us as Jenny.

In fact you may say that if all goes right, she'll be pretty flush some day. Not enough to waste on ruined castles, but a mighty good income none the less. Then there's poor Bob's money; for however it falls out with him, it don't look as though he'd spend it now."

"All this is wind in the trees and the cackling of hens to me,"

declared Doria. "I have not thought about it and I do not want to think about it. The criterion of love, such as I feel to Jenny, is that nothing else weighs a mustard seed in the balance against it.

If she were a pauper, or if she owned millions, my att.i.tude of heart is not changed. I worship her with the whole of myself--so that there is not a cranny left in my spirit where hunger for money can find foothold, or fear of poverty exist. Happiness never depends upon cash, or the lack of it; but without love no real happiness shall be found in the world."

"That may be bunk.u.m, or it may be G.o.d's truth--I don't know. I've never been in love and n.o.body ever wasted an ounce of affection on me," replied Redmayne. "But you've heard me now. You can sit on the safety valve for six months anyway; and it will probably pay you best to do so; for one thing's certain: Jenny won't love you any better for making love under present circ.u.mstances."

"It is too true," answered the other. "Trust me. I will hide my soul and be exquisitely cautious. Her sorrow shall be respected--from no selfish motive only, but because I am a gentleman, as you remind me."

"Youth's youth, and you Italians have a good deal more fire kneaded into you than us northerners."

Suddenly Doria's manner changed and he looked half sternly, half curiously at Bendigo. Then he smiled to himself and ended, the conversation.

"Fear nothing," he said. "Trust me. Indeed there is no reason why you should do otherwise. No more of this for half a year. I bid you good night, master."

He was gone and for a moment only the hurtle of the rain on the ground windows of the tower room broke the silence; then Brendon emerged from his hiding-place and stretched his limbs. Bendigo regarded him with an expression half humorous and half grim.

"That's how the land lies," he said. "Now you've got it."

Mark bent his head.

"And you think that she--"