A Gamble with Life. Hocking Silas Kitto

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СКАЧАТЬ were questions she was debating with herself when a new day stole into the room.

      CHAPTER IX

      THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER

      A few days later, Madeline received a letter from Captain Tregony, which contained a carefully-worded, though very definite, proposal of marriage. Gervase had been only too pleased to carry out his father's suggestion. The prospect of fingering at an early date a few of her surplus dollars was a very tempting one. He was not particularly in love with her. He had got through the sentimental age, so he believed. Moreover, he had seen so much of life and the world, and had had such a wide and varied experience of feminine kind that he was not likely to be carried off his feet by a pretty face or engaging manners.

      Nevertheless, if he was to marry at all – and since he was an only son and heir to a title and estates, marriage seemed a very obvious duty – then there was no one, all things considered, he would sooner take to his heart and endow with all his worldly goods than Madeline Grover. She was very young, very pretty, very sweet-tempered, and, best of all, very rich; and he knew no one else who possessed such a combination of excellencies.

      It had been a great relief to him when he went out to America to make the acquaintance of John Grover's daughter, to discover that she was such an unspoiled child of nature. He had been haunted by the fear that she might be ugly or ignorant or uneducated. Hence, when he found a charming school-girl, ingenuous, unsophisticated, impressionable, he heaved a big sigh of relief, and set to work at once to make a favourable and an abiding impression.

      He would have proposed then and there had he considered it politic to do so. His father, however, who was his chief adviser, would not hear of it. "You will spoil the whole game if you do," Sir Charles insisted. "Make a good impression now, and let time and absence deepen it. She will put a halo round your head after a few weeks' absence, and eagerly look forward to the next meeting."

      In this Sir Charles showed his knowledge of human nature, especially of feminine human nature.

      Gervase had hinted that, if he was not getting old, he was getting distinctly older, that the crows'-feet were very marked about his eyes, and that his hair was getting decidedly thin.

      "My dear boy," Sir Charles said, affectionately, "that is all in your favour. If she were eight or nine and twenty, she might cast longing eyes on the youths, but a girl of seventeen always dotes on an elderly man. Always! I don't know why it should be so, but I simply state a fact. Girls have not a particle of reverence or even respect for youths of twenty-one or two. They sigh for a man who bears the scars of years and battle."

      So Gervase went away to India, leaving his father to work the oracle for him at home. On the whole, Sir Charles's forecast had proved correct. Things had turned out much as he anticipated they would.

      Madeline read the Captain's letter with a distinct heightening of colour. She was still weak and a little inclined to be hysterical. Her adventure on the cliffs had shaken her nerves to an extent she was only just beginning to realise.

      She closed her eyes after she had put the letter back in the envelope, and tried to think. The Captain's proposal had not surprised her in the least, while the manner of it was just what she had expected. He had used just the right words and said neither too much nor too little.

      She admired him for his reticence, and for his strength in holding himself so well in check, and yet there was a passionate earnestness in his well-chosen words that revealed the depth of his affection, as well as his determination to win.

      Very adroitly and diplomatically also he had hinted of the good time they might have together. They would not settle down in a sleepy place like St. Gaved. They would have a town house, and perhaps a shooting-box in Scotland, and when tired of the United Kingdom they would travel on the Continent – Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, Florence, were delightful places to visit, and to tarry in for a few weeks or months. The common work-a-day world might roar and fret and toil and perspire, but they would live in a serener atmosphere, undisturbed by the jar and strife that went on around them.

      It was a very fair and enticing picture that his words conjured up, and one that she had often pictured for herself. This was the future that her friends, in conjunction with a kindly Providence, had shaped for her. There seemed nothing for her to do but say "Yes." It was all in the piece. Her life had been beautifully planned, and planned without effort or contrivance by anybody. The current had borne her along easily and gently to the inevitable union with Gervase Tregony.

      His face and form came up before her again as she last saw him. How handsome he looked in his uniform! How fierce his eyes were when he looked at other people, how gentle when he looked at her! Some people might think his voice harsh and raucous, but there was an undertone of music in it for her. It was the voice of a hero, of a man born to command. Its echoes seemed to be in the air even now.

      And yet for some reason her heart did not respond as it once did. Was it that her nerves had been shaken – that she had not quite got over the shock of the adventure? Something had happened during the last few days, but what it was she could not quite understand. The life of pleasure, to which she had looked forward, undisturbed by a single note of human pain, did not appeal to her, for some reason, as once it did. A new ingredient had been dropped into the cup, a new thought had come into her brain, a new impulse had shaken her heart.

      Had she looked at death so closely that life could never be the same to her again, or was it that she looked at life more truly and steadily? Had a change come over other people, or was the change wholly in herself? That something had happened she was certain, but what it was, was a question she could not definitely answer.

      Of one thing, however, she was sure. If the letter had come three or four days sooner, it would have found her in a wholly different frame of mind. Hence, whatever the change was, it was compassed by these few days.

      Her meditations were disturbed by a knock at the door, and a moment later Dr. Pendarvis entered. "Ah! you are better this morning," he said, in his bright, cheery fashion. "Now, let me feel your pulse." And he drew up a chair and sat down by her side.

      "A little inclined to be jumpy still, eh? Ah, well, you had rather a nasty experience. But you'll be all right again in a few days."

      "I think I am all right now," she said, with a smile. "Don't you think I might go out of doors?"

      "Well, now, what do you think yourself?" he questioned, stroking his chin and smiling.

      "I'm just a little shaky on my feet," she answered, "but I guess that would go off when I got into the fresh air."

      "And how about the bruises?"

      "Oh, they are disappearing one by one."

      "And how far do you think you could walk?"

      "I don't know, but I do know it's awfully dull being in the house."

      "And do you want to go anywhere in particular?" he asked innocently, and he glanced at her furtively out of the corner of his eye.

      "Oh, no!" she answered, blushing slightly; "or, at any rate, not just yet. Of course, when I get stronger I shall be glad to walk into St. Gaved again."

      "You ran into it last time," he said, laughing. "What a day of adventures you had to be sure!"

      "I was compelled to run," she said, averting her eyes and looking out of the window; "he would have drowned if I hadn't."

      "Exactly. And it was touch and go by all accounts. He couldn't have held out many minutes longer."

      "And СКАЧАТЬ