Читать книгу The Scales of Justice - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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George dropped back half angry and half ashamed. He had a burning desire now to be up and doing, to get away from here, even if it were into the black throat of the night. A snarling breath of wind shook the old house; there was a lash of thin snow on the windows. Exposure on a night like this meant death.

Flora seemed to divine what was passing through the mind of her guest, for she smiled faintly. The faded figure in the armchair nodded. Just for a moment her face lighted up, and then George saw what a naturally noble countenance it was. The features were vaguely familiar to him. He wondered where he had seen them before.

"You are exceedingly good to me," he faltered. "But for Miss Cameron, I hardly know what would have become of me to-night."

"It was foolish of you to quarrel with your uncle," Bernard Beard put in.

"He is a good and just man," Mrs. Cameron said. "A little hard, perhaps, but good and upright men are apt to be narrow. They do not make allowance for the follies of weaker men. In the days when we lived at Knaresfield—"

The speaker's voice grew weak again and hesitating. But George knew now where he had seen and heard of Mrs. Cameron before. The word Knaresfield recalled the past to his mind. Mrs. Cameron of Knaresfield had been a household word in the world of philanthropy. Could this faded, unhappy woman be the same grand, noble-looking being that George remembered as a boy? She had been a great friend of Sir Devereux's ten or twelve years ago; and here they had been living close together for four years, and, to all appearances, Sir Devereux was ignorant of his old friend's existence. And yet she was living on the Grange Court estate! What mystery was here, George wondered. He came out of the world of speculation with a sudden start.

"There was no quarrel with my uncle," he said. "A difference of opinion, let us say. I chose to remain silent. I could not ask a favour."

"It will be all right in God's good time," Mrs. Cameron said, suddenly. "You have much to live for."

The last words brought a strange comfort to George. They rang out like an inspiring prophecy. Indeed, he had much to live for, but, meanwhile, he was tired and worn out. The food had revived him, the grateful warmth had thawed his chilled bones, and a great desire for sleep had come over him; the room began to expand; the figures then grew hazy and indistinct. Somebody was asking a question.

"Really, I beg your pardon," George murmured. "I am not very strong yet, and I have travelled too far to-day. I will not trouble you after to-morrow. It is really good of you."

"It is exceedingly selfish of us to keep you up," Flora said. "I will show you to your room. A fire has been lighted there. When you are quite ready—"

But George was quite ready now. He bowed over the hand of the faded lady in the chair. He half hesitated in the case of Mr. Beard. But the latter seemed to be busy arranging some of the numberless white flowers, and returned the good-night with a careless nod. He seemed to be secretly amused about something.

Flora had taken up a bedroom candle, and had preceded George up the shallow oak stairs. It was a pleasant room that she came to at length, an octagonal room, with panelled walls and blazing log fire burning cheerfully on the dogs. The red curtains of the lattice windows were not yet drawn, so that there was a glimpse into the blackness of the night. The thin snow fluttered on the diamond-shaped panes.

"I think you will be comfortable here," Flora said. "Pray that you may be yourself in the morning. If you care to stay here for a day or two—"

"I could not so far trouble you," George said. He did not fail to note the strange hesitation in Flora's voice, the desire to be good and kind struggling with some hesitating fear. "You have been more than kind to me already, and, as your mother said to-night, I have much to live for. I must get back to London in the morning. I may not have a chance to speak freely to you again. Fate has placed you in possession of my story, or, rather, of a portion of it, but there is one thing I want you to believe—I am neither a coward nor a liar. Try to think that I am—"

"A good man struggling with misfortune," Flora interrupted. "I am certain of it. If I had not felt certain, do you suppose that I should have brought you here to-night? You are suffering for the sake of another who—"

"I am; and you know who that other is. That photograph of Ronald Cardrew—"

"Hush!" Flora whispered "You must ask me no questions. There are reasons why I cannot speak. If you only knew the story of this house of sorrows! If you only know why my dear mother has changed from a noble, honoured woman to a broken wreck in ten years! But I dare not think of it. I dare not! What is that?"

Across the gale came the sudden boom of a gun. The sound rolled suddenly away.

"From Greystone Prison!" George explained. "You must recognise the signal that a convict has escaped. Fancy the poor wretch being hunted through such a night as this. I heard that gun an hour ago on my way to Grange Court. If they fire two guns it is a signal the convict is near. When I left for India two years ago, they were putting up a search-light on the prison tower. They use that now, I understand."

Flora nodded. Her face was white and set. Her lips were parted as if she had run fast and far. Imagination seemed to be playing strange tricks with her.

"The searchlight was used twice last year," she said. "It is just possible that on the present occasion—Captain Drummond, if I should want a friend to-night, will you help me?"

"I will do anything in the wide world for you," George said passionately. "But for you—"

"Never mind me. It is merely possible that I may want your assistance before daybreak. If there was anybody else that I could trust—if you were not so worn and ill—"

"That matters nothing. I am feeling better already. Miss Cameron, I implore you?"

"Yes, yes. And yet I may be mistaken. I will knock gently on your door. Pray heaven that there may be no occasion to do anything of the kind. Good-night!"

The girl turned away, looking as if ashamed of the tears glittering in her eyes. George closed the door behind her, and flung himself on the bed. He was utterly worn out, weary in mind and body. The shock of the evening had told upon him more than he cared to own. It seemed so strange that he should be here in the very house where he used to play as a boy. Sybil and himself had been very fond of making adventures in the empty old house years before. George roused himself with an effort, and opened the casement window a little way; whatever the weather was, he never slept in a close room.

He flung himself half across the bed again, falling by habit into an attitude of prayer. But the unfinished prayer died on his lips to-night; nature was utterly exhausted. And then George Drummond slept as he knelt.

It seemed but a few moments before he was awake again—awake again with the curious feeling of alertness and the knowledge that he was needed by somebody.

He closed his eyes, but a strong light seemed to be upon them. The eyes opened languidly. There was no fancy, at any rate, for a great white glare played and flashed across the room. The wood fire had died down to sullen red embers; the candle had been extinguished before George knelt to say his prayers.

Then where was the light coming from? George's first idea was that the house was on fire. He sat up in bed and sniffed, but no smell came pungently to his nostrils, and the white light was far too steady and brilliant for an outbreak of fire. The gale outside must have fanned it to a roar. But still the light came and went in long, clear, penetrating glare, sometimes in the room and sometimes outside it.

Then George recognised what it was—the great electric searchlight from the tower of Greystone Prison. They were using the big arc and the rest for the wretched convict. A moment later and there came the sullen boom of two guns in quick succession. That meant that the search was nearly over, and that one party of hunters had signalled the near proximity of the quarry.

Fully awake now, George crossed to the window and opened it widely. The full force of the gale and the sting of the fine snow struck his face as with a whip. He could hear the pines on the hillside tossing and surging before the blast; the white, blinding band of the searchlight seemed to sweep and lick up the whole country.

Surely there was somebody tapping gently on the bedroom door. George scorned the notion as imagination playing tricks upon a brain already over-strained. But it was not imagination. He could distinctly hear the gentle touch of knuckles on the oak door. And suddenly Flora Cameron's strange request came into his mind. Again he heard the muffled sound of the two guns.

George softly crossed the room and opened the door. Flora stood in the dark passage with a candle in her hand. She had not undressed; her face was red and white by turns. Her confusion was pitiable to witness.

"It has come," she whispered—"the assistance that I so sorely needed. And yet I had no right to ask you—you, a soldier of the King, who—"

"Never mind that," George murmured. "If there is anything that I can do for you."

"Oh, you can do everything for me! If only you were not so worn by illness! You hear the sound of the guns—the two guns that tell that—But perhaps I am wrong—perhaps it is another convict, after all. Still, I heard the signal. Come this way."

A door seemed suddenly to open down-stairs, and a great breath of icy air came rushing along the corridor. The candle, shaking in the silver sconce in Flora's hand, guttered and flared, then there came another icy breath, and the candle was extinguished altogether. A moment later and George felt Flora's fingers gripping his own.

"Let the candle go," she whispered; "we are far safer without a light. Will you trust me? Will you let me take your hand and guide you?"

"To the end of the world," George said passionately. "To the end of the world for your sweet sake! Lead on and I will follow. The touch of your fingers gives me—"

George paused, as the flare of the searchlight seemed to fill the house again. It rose and fell through the great window at the end of the corridor; the place was light as day. Then the side sash of the parlour casement was lifted a little, and a white yet strong and sinewy hand appeared, grasping the edge of the frame.

"Look!" Flora whispered. "Look and tell me what you make of that!"

The white, hot flame seemed to beat fully upon the grasping hand. Then a steely wrist followed, and beyond the wrist the hideous yellow and the broad arrow of a convict's garb. And once more the two signal guns boomed out in quick succession.

"You are not afraid?" George asked.

"Afraid?" came the fiercely exultant reply. "Oh, no; I am glad, glad, glad!"