"Me gone! What do you mean, Legg? Me leave 'The Seven Stars' after thirty-four years?"

"No doubt your first would turn in his grave if you did," he admitted; "but what about it? When you're mistress of 'The Tiger'--well, then you're mistress of 'The Tiger,' and you can't be in two places at once--clever as you are."

He had given her something to think about. The possibility of guile in Mr. Legg had never struck the least, or greatest, of his admirers. He was held a simple soul of transparent probity, yet, for a moment, it almost seemed as though his last remark carried an inner meaning. Nelly dismissed the suspicion as unworthy of Job; but none the less, though he had doubtless spoken without any sinister purpose, his opinions gave her pause. Indeed, they shook her. She had been too much excited to look ahead. Now she was called to do so.

Mr. Legg removed the bunch of keys from its nail and prepared to go on his way.

She felt weak.

"To play second fiddle for the rest of your life after playing first for a quarter of a century is a far-reaching thought," she said.

"Without a doubt it would be," he admitted. "Of course, with some men you wouldn't be called to do it. With Richard Gurd, you would."

"To leave 'The Seven Stars'! Somehow I'd always regarded our place as a higher cla.s.s establishment than 'The Tiger'--along of the tea-gardens and pleasure ground and the cla.s.s of company."

"And quite right to do so. But that's only your opinion, and mine. It won't be his. Good night."

He left her deep in thought, then five minutes afterwards thrust his long nose round the door again.

"The English of it is you can't have anything for nothing--not in this weary world," he said.

Then he disappeared.

A week later Sarah Northover came to see her aunt and congratulate her on the great news.

"Now people know it," said Sarah, "they all wonder how ever 'twas you and Mister Gurd didn't marry long ago."

"We've been wondering the same, for that matter, and Richard takes the blame--naturally, since I couldn't say the word before he asked the question. But for your ear and only yours, Sarah, I can whisper that this thing didn't go by rule. And in sober honesty I do believe if he hadn't heard another man wanted me, Mister Gurd would never have found out he did. But such are the strange things that happen in human nature, no doubt."

"Another!" said Sarah. "They're making up for lost time, seemingly."

"Another, and a good man," declared her aunt; "but his name is sacred, and you mustn't ask to know it."

Sarah related events at Bridetown.

"You've heard, of course, about the goings on? Mister Ironsyde don't marry Sabina, and her mother wants to have the law against him; but though Sabina's in a sad state and got to be watched, she won't have the law. We only hear sc.r.a.ps about it, because Nancy Buckler, her great friend, is under oath of secrecy. But if he shows his face at Bridetown, it's very likely he'll be man-handled. Then, against that, there's rumours in the air he'll make great changes at the Mill, and may put up all our money. In that case, I don't think he'd be treated very rough, because, as my Mister Roberts says, 'Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' and always have been; and if he's going to better us it will mean a lot."

"Don't you be too hopeful, however," warned Mrs. Northover. "There's a deal of difference between holding the reins yourself and saying sharp things against them who are. He's hard, and last time he was in this house but one, he got as drunk as a lord and Legg helped him to bed. And he quarrelled very sharp with Mister Gurd for giving him good advice; and Richard says the young man is iron painted to look like wood. And he's rarely mistook."

"But he always did tell us we never got enough money for our work,"

argued Sarah. "And if anything comes of it and Nicholas and me earn five bob more a week between us, it means marriage. So I'm in a twitter."

"What does John Best say?"

"Nought. We can't get a word out of him. All we know is we're cruel busy and orders flow in like a river. But that was poor Mister Daniel's work, no doubt."

"Marriage is in the air, seemingly," reflected Nelly. "It mightn't be altogether a bad thing if you and me went to the altar together, Sarah.

'Twas always understood you'd be married from 'The Seven Stars,' and the sight of a young bride and bridegroom would soften the ceremony a bit and distract the eye from me and Richard."

"Good Lord!" answered the girl. "There won't be no eyes for small folks like us on the day you take Mister Gurd. 'Twould be one expense without a doubt; but I'm certain positive he wouldn't like for us little people to be mixed up with it. 'Twould lessen the blaze from his point of view, and a man such as him wouldn't approve of that."

"Perhaps you're right," admitted her aunt, with a ma.s.sive sigh. "He's a masterful piece, and the affair will be carried out as he wills."

"I can't see you away from 'The Seven Stars,' somehow, Aunt Nelly."

"That's what everybody says. More can't I see myself away for that matter. But Richard said 'The Tiger' would swallow 'The Seven Stars,'

and I know what he meant now."

CHAPTER XXV

THE WOMAN'S DARKNESS

The blood of Sabina Dinnett was poisoned through an ordeal of her life when it should have run at its purest and sweetest. That the man who had promised to marry her, had exhausted the vocabulary of love for her, should thus cast her off, struck her into a frantic calenture which, for a season, threatened her existence. The surprise of his decision was not absolute and utter, otherwise such a shock might indeed have killed her; but there lacked not many previous signs to show that Raymond Ironsyde had strayed from his old enthusiasm and found the approach of marriage finally quench love. The wronged girl could look back and see a thousand such warnings, while she remembered also a dark dread in her heart as to what might possibly overtake her on the death of Daniel. True the shadow had lasted but a moment; she banished it, as unworthy, and preferred to dwell on the increased happiness and prosperity that must accrue to Raymond; but the pa.s.sing fear had touched her first, and she could look back now and mark how deeply doubt tinctured all her waking hours since the necessity arose for Raymond to wed.

For a few days she raged and was only comforted with difficulty. Mr.

Churchouse and Jenny Ironsyde both visited Sabina and bade her control herself and keep calm, lest worst things should happen to her. Ernest was still sanguine that the young man would regret his suggestions; but Jenny quenched this hope.

"It is all of a piece," she said, "and, looking back, I see it. His instinct and will are against any such binding thing as marriage. He wants to make her happy; but if to do so is to make himself miserable, then she must go unhappy. Some bad girls might accept his offer; but Sabina, of course, cannot. She is not made of the stuff to sink to this, and it was only because he always insisted on the vital need for her to complete his life, that she forgot her wisdom in the past and believed they were really the complement of each other. As if a woman ever was, or ever will be, the real complement of a man, or a man, the complement of a woman! They are only complementary as meat and drink to the hungry."

After some days Sabina read Raymond's letter again and it now awoke a new pa.s.sion. At first she had hated herself and talked of doing herself an injury; but this was hysteria bred of suffering, since she had not the temperament to commit self-destruction. Now her rage burned against the child that she was doomed to bring into the world, and she brooded secretly on how its end might be accomplished. She knew the peril to herself of any such attempt; but while she could not have committed suicide, she faced the thought of the necessary risks. If the child lived, the hateful link must exist forever, if it perished, she would be free. So she argued.

Full of this idea, she rose from her bed, went about and found some little consolation in the sympathy of her friends. They cursed the man until they heard what he had written to her. Then a change came over their criticism, for they were not tuned to Sabina's pitch, and it seemed to them, from their more modest standards of education, combined with the diminished self-respect where ignorance obtains, that Raymond's offer was fair--even handsome. Some, indeed, still mourned with her and shared her fierce indignation; some simulated anger to please her; but most confessed to themselves that she had not much to grumble at.

A wise woman warned her against any attempt to tamper with the child. It was too late and the danger far too serious. So she pa.s.sed through the second phase of her sufferings and went from hatred of herself and loathing of her load, to acute detestation of the man who had destroyed her.

His offer seemed to her more villainous than his desertion. His ignorance of her true self, the insolence and contempt that prompted such a proposal, the view of her--these thoughts lashed her into fury.

She longed for some one to help her against him and treat him as he deserved to be treated. She felt equal to making any sacrifice, if only he might be debased and scorned and pointed at as he deserved to be. She felt that her emotions must be shared by every honourable woman and decent man. Her spirit hungered for a great revenge.

At first she dreamed of a personal action. She longed to tear him with her nails, outrage him in people's eyes and make him suffer in his flesh; but that pa.s.sed: she knew she could not do it. A man was needed to extort punishment from Raymond. But no man existed who would undertake the task. She must then find such a man. She even sought him.

But she did not find him. The search led to bitter discoveries. If women could forgive her betrayer; if women could say, as presently they said, that she did not know her luck, men were still more indifferent.

The att.i.tude of the world to her sufferings horrified Sabina. She had none to love her--none, at least, to show his love by a.s.saulting and injuring her enemy. Only a certain number even took up the cudgels for her in speech. Of these Levi Baggs, the hackler, was the strongest. But his misanthropy embraced her also. He had said harsh things of his new master; but neither had he spared the victim.

Upon these three great periods, of rage, futile pa.s.sion, and hate, there followed a lethargy from which Ernest Churchouse tried in vain to rouse Sabina. He apprehended worse results from this coma of mind and body than from the flux of her natural indignation. He spent much time with her and bade her hope that Raymond might still reconsider his future.

None had yet seen him since his brother's funeral, and his aunt received no answer to a very strenuous plea. He wrote to her, indeed, about affairs, and even asked her for advice upon certain matters; but they affected the past and Daniel rather than the future and himself.

She could not fail to notice the supreme change that power had brought with it; his very handwriting seemed to have acquired a firmer line; while his diction certainly showed more strength of purpose. Could power modify character? It seemed impossible. She supposed, rather, that character, latent till this sudden change of fortune, had been revealed by power. Her first fears for the future of the business abated; but with increasing respect for Raymond, the former affection perished. She was firm in her moral standards, and to find his first use of power an evasion of solemn and sacred promises, made Miss Ironsyde Raymond's enemy. That he ignored her appeals to his manhood and honesty did not modify her changed att.i.tude. She found herself much wounded by his callous conduct, and while his past weakness had been forgiven, his new strength proved unforgivable.

Her appeal was, however, indirectly acknowledged, for Sabina received another letter from Raymond in which he mentioned Miss Ironsyde's communication.

"My aunt," he wrote, "does not realise the situation, or appreciate the fact that love may remain a much more enduring and lively emotion outside marriage than inside it. There are, of course, people who find chains bearable enough, and even grow to like them, as convicts were said to do; but you are not such a craven, no more am I. We must think of the future, not the past, and I feel very sure that if we married, the result would be death to our friendship. We had a splendid time, and we might still have a splendid time, if you could be unconventional and realise how many other women are also. But probably you have decided against my suggestions, or I should have heard from you. So I suppose you hate me, and I'm awfully sorry to think it. You won't come to me, then. But that doesn't lessen my obligations, and I'm going to take every possible care of you and your child, Sabina, whether you come or not. He is my child, too, and I shan't forget it. If you would like to see me you shall when I return to Bridport, pretty soon now; but if you would rather not do so, then let me know who represents you, and I will hear what you and your mother would wish."

She wrote several answers to this and destroyed them. They were bitter and contemptuous, and as each was finished she realised its futility.

She could but sting; she could not seriously hurt. Even her sting would not trouble him much, for a man who had done what he had done, was proof against the scorn and hate of a woman. Only greater power than his own could make him feel. Her powerlessness maddened her--her powerlessness contrasted with his remorseless strength. But he used his strength like a coward.