A Gamble with Life

Rufus left the lawyer's office feeling not a little perplexed, and ten minutes later Mr. Graythorne descended to the street with a look of annoyance on his face.

Getting on to the elevated railway, he was soon speeding in the direction of Central Park. Alighting at length, he made his way slowly along a quiet street for some considerable distance, paused for a moment in front of a house that had no distinguishing features, then ran lightly up the steps and rang the door bell.

He was ushered by a maid-servant into a comfortably but modestly furnished room, where he flung himself into an easy chair and waited.

In a few seconds a light step sounded outside; the door was pushed quickly open, and Madeline Grover came smiling and radiant into the room. The old lawyer rose slowly, and his face relaxed.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, brightly. "Have you been hearing again from Sir Charles?"

"Not a word. It's the other man we have to deal with now."

"What other man?"

"Why the man I sent the money to, of course."

"Well, what of him?"

"He's in New York, and has nearly worried the life out of me this morning!"

"In New York!" and the hot blood rushed suddenly to her neck and face.

"In New York! And if he don't clear out soon there'll be complications!"

"Why has he come?"

"To look after his property, of course. Are you surprised?"

"I am a little. It never occurred to me that he might come to America."

"Well, he has come, and the question is whether you are going to make – well, a clean breast of it, or allow him to ferret it out himself?"

"Oh! he must not know for the world!" she said, in a tone of alarm.

"He's bound to get to know sooner or later that somebody has made him a present of five thousand dollars – "

"No, it is only a loan," she interrupted, quickly.

Mr. Graythorne laughed. "A loan that was never to be paid, eh? A loan by an anonymous lender? Well, what's in a name? Call it a loan if the word pleases you better."

"But you know what I mean. Some day, of course, – years and years hence, when nothing matters" – and she blushed uncomfortably; "but just now nothing need be said or even hinted – "

"I understand," he said, with a twitching of the lips.

"You know very well that he has property out West somewhere, which he is bound to come into possession of soon, and it seemed a pity that he should starve and perhaps die while waiting for it."

"Well, yes; the motive does you credit."

"You ascertained beforehand, as you know, that he would have plenty to pay me back with later on, and, after all, the sum was only a small one."

"To you, perhaps."

"But to him it would mean everything, and I owe him more than gold can ever pay. As I told you before, he saved my life and nearly lost his own in doing it."

"Quite a pretty little romance, I own; worked up into a story it would read very well. But how about the present situation?"

"He must not know, of course."

"And you expect me, a lawyer, to equivocate – to say one thing and mean another – to talk, as it were, with my tongue in my cheek? Oh, Miss Grover, what would become of the profession – I mean morally – if all clients were like you?"

"It would be much nearer the kingdom," she said, with a laugh. "I don't ask you to tell lies; I only ask you to hold your tongue."

"But it is much easier said than done. You know this young man, and he ain't no fool either; and he has a pretty little way of asking point-blank questions. And if I ain't mistaken he can draw an inference as slick as most folks."

"But lawyers never reveal secrets," she said, smiling at him with her eyes.

"Nothing more quickly awakens suspicion than silence," he said. "And if he once gets on the trail – "

"He cannot possibly find me among eighty millions of people scattered over this continent."

"But suppose he were to drop on you by accident?" and the old lawyer pretended to be looking at a picture on the other side of the room.

She tried her best to keep back the tell-tale blush, but it would come. "Oh, we should shake hands," she said, in a tone of indifference, "and pretend to be surprised, of course, and then we should talk about what had happened in St. Gaved since I left."

"He is a very handsome young man," the lawyer said absently.

"Yes, he is rather good-looking, isn't he?" and the colour grew deeper on her usually pale face.

"I think you told me once you admired his spirit?"

"I admire him very much."

"And if he calls to-morrow I must say no more than I have said to-day?"

"Say what you like so long as you keep my name out of it."

"And you don't want to see him? And you wouldn't for the world that he should know you are alive in New York City?"

"For the present at any rate."

"I think I understand," he said, gravely, but a smile twinkled in the corner of his eye.

Meanwhile Rufus was busy reading through once more the papers he had obtained from his grandfather. He folded them up at length and replaced them in his portmanteau.

"It's not a bit of use waiting here," he said to himself. "That old lawyer knows no more about it than I do. I'll go westward to-night."

The next morning found him in the busy town of Pittsburg, where he spent a couple of days making inquiries; then he pressed forward again until he reached Reboth, on the borders of Ohio.

Settling himself in the most comfortable hotel he could find he commenced his investigations. It was here his father had lived for several years. It was here he died. Reboth was only a village then. Its mineral wealth was unknown; its blast furnaces had not been lighted, its coal seams undiscovered. Joshua Sterne foresaw some of its possibilities, and invested all his savings, lived long enough to see the prospect of great wealth, and then almost suddenly passed out of life.

After that followed years of litigation, Joshua Sterne had left no one who could fight his battles. The widow quickly yielded up the ghost, and the Rev. Reuben was too far away, too other-worldly, too lacking in business tact, and too suspicious of American lawyers and American ways to follow up any advantage that came to him.

The litigants appeared to be numberless. Disputes arose over boundaries. Part of the property appeared to be in Pennsylvania and part in Ohio. Different States had different laws. The findings of one court were rejected by another. So the fight went on in a fitful and desultory way year after year. Some of the claimants died and their heirs dropped the struggle. Others had their claims allowed. Others who never had any real case gave up the contention. But there were a few who held on like grim death. They had no real claim, but they hoped for a good deal, and in the end they succeeded in the case being hung up indefinitely.

In time it was practically forgotten. New judges were appointed. Important questions came before them which demanded immediate attention. The papers relating to the Sterne property grew yellow in their pigeon-holes. The rents accumulated, but the mineral wealth remained undeveloped.

One of the first discoveries Rufus made was that there had been no distribution of profits.

"There must be some mistake," he declared.

But the court was positive. There had been some inquiries lately through a New York solicitor, but beyond that there was no record of any kind for several years, but certainly no money had been paid.

Rufus felt bewildered. Why should Mr. Graythorne send him five thousand dollars on such a pretence? Why should anybody be so generous? Who was there in the whole of America who knew him or cared two straws whether he lived or died? As a matter of fact, he did not know a single soul on all that broad continent. But stop —

All the colour left his face in a moment. He did know one person. Madeline Grover was in America. Had she done this?

He felt himself trembling from head to foot; the very suggestion meant so much.

That night he lay awake for hours thinking. He recalled the night after his return from Tregannon – the long walk he had with Madeline Grover across the downs, the frank confession he made to her of his toils and struggles, the generous sympathy she had extended to him. It was their last walk and talk. He remembered now he had told her how his father's savings had been lost at Reboth, and how they had long given up hope of recovering a penny of it.

"I must get to know somehow," he said to himself. "Bless her! If she has done this she is the noblest woman on earth."

Rufus was not long in getting his father's case reopened. There were only two men left to be dealt with. The claims of the others had gone by default. The court was anxious that the case should be disposed of once for all.

Rufus employed the cleverest lawyer he could find, and together they struggled through the whole case from the beginning.

"Look here," said the lawyer; "if these fellows are ugly it may last years longer."

"Well, Mr. Mason, what do you advise?" Rufus questioned.

"Come to terms with them."

"They may not be reasonable."

"Or they may be. They don't appear to have the ghost of a claim, but they may keep the thing hanging on for ever and ever."

"There can be no harm in making the attempt," Rufus said.

"Then I will see their solicitors at once."

Rufus hung about Reboth two months longer, hoping, expecting, sometimes despairing. But in the end all the parties agreed that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. So terms were accepted and ratified by the court.

"Now," said Mr. Mason, "you can begin to develop your property."

"You think it is valuable?"

"No doubt about that. If it had been worthless the whole thing would have been settled a generation ago."

"But how should I begin?"

"Form a syndicate. Let me take the matter in hand for you."

Rufus was eager to go in search of Madeline. But he found himself, suddenly, one of the busiest men, so he believed, in the United States. Moreover, he refused to be rushed. A good many American methods he did not like, and would not have. There was any number of capitalists ready to stake large sums in the new venture. Any number of Stock Exchange men who flickered around like flies. Any number of sharpers who tried the confidence trick, but tried it in vain.

In a great many instances Yankee cuteness was pitted against British caution and common-sense, and in the end the caution and common-sense won the day.

Moreover, Rufus's sense of accountability was particularly keen. He had only just come out of the furnace, in which he had been tried as few men have been tried. The consciousness of God had not been blurred by long years of professionalism. There was no latent or acquired taint of Pharisaism in his nature. His faith was as pure and simple as that of a child.

He might have made his pile in a week in an exciting gamble. On the mere chance of mineral being found he might have become a rich man; but he refused to proceed on those lines. He wanted occupation for himself. He wanted moral authority for all he did.

The breathless haste to be rich which he saw all around him almost made him angry. The majority of men seemed to be too eager to be honest, they were tumbling over each other in their passion to be first in the field.

The Rebothites began to understand the young Englishman after a while, and to respect him. His sterling honesty, his refusal to take a mean advantage, won their admiration. It might not be business. Judged by local standards, his conduct was Quixotic. They could not understand a man who was not eager and impatient to scoop up the dollars when he had the chance. But they had to take him as they found him, and in their hearts they admired him while they blamed him.

Rufus came slowly to the consciousness that he was a man of considerable importance. Slowly, too, he realised that in time he would be a rich man, not through any merit of his own, but through the judgment and foresight of his father.

For months he only thought of Madeline Grover at odd moments. He was too busy with the tasks that had been thrown suddenly upon him. Fresh duties appeared nearly every day, and better still, from his point of view, fresh opportunities were given for the exercise of his inventive talent.

He was no longer cribbed, and cabined, and confined. There was a sense of freedom he had never known in other days. He had room to work in, scope for all his energies, and release from the bars and bands imposed by a landed aristocracy. There were many things American he cordially disliked, but the air of freedom that was over everything was most exhilarating. He felt as though his brain worked with only half the effort, and with no slightest sense of weariness.

Besides all that, he was free to adopt new methods. Nobody was bound by precedent. He could exercise his inventive faculty without hostility and without criticism. Hence, life became to him a daily unfolding of fresh interests.

The days grew rapidly into weeks, and the weeks into months. Autumn gave place to winter, and winter to spring, and spring to summer, and summer began to fade into autumn once more. He had expected to be in Reboth a month, and he had been there a year. And what a year it had been! The most crowded year of his life, and the most formative. He had found his feet at last, had taken the measure of his strength, and realised some of the things of which he was capable.

He heard from his grandfather every week, and now and then he got a letter from Captain Tom Hendy; but the old life was becoming more and more distant, while the last six months he spent in St. Gaved seemed like a hideous dream.

And yet there were times when it seemed an integral and necessary part of the great scheme of his life. A cog in the wheel that couldn't be dispensed with. How strangely he had been led, step by step, through darkness to light, through pain to peace.

It was not until nearly the end of September that he was able to leave Reboth for a little excursion to New York. He felt sure that Madeline was in that city, and his heart was aching for another sight of her face.

That he might have great difficulty in finding her he saw clearly enough, but after all he had passed through, nothing seemed impossible. He might fail in his first effort, and in his second, but he resolved to let nothing daunt him or lead him to give up the quest. Life could never be complete for him until he had found her. He must have answers to the questions that were baffling him to-day – must know the best or the worst.

So he made preparations for a stay of months, if necessary. But in his heart there was a secret hope that Providence was guiding him still.