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"That might not be to his disadvantage. 'A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth.'"
"Most people think it does, at any rate."
"But you know majorities are nearly always wrong."
"Excuse me, I claim no such knowledge. I know that majorities rule."
"And rule oppressively frequently."
"That may be so. Human nature is essentially tyrannical. Give a man power, and, without great grace, he becomes a tyrant right off."
"I don't think Rufus Sterne would ever become a tyrant."
"He might, my child, under some circumstances. Never trust a man too far. I hear he is coming east."
"Indeed!"
"Has some new scheme on hand, I expect," and Mr. Graythorne picked up his hat and smiled knowingly.
Left alone again, the look of perplexity in Madeline's eyes deepened. She had told Mr. Graythorne that she would take his advice and accept the Harveys' invitation. But she was disposed to change her mind again. She did not want to leave New York at present. She might hide the truth from other people, but she could not hide it from herself, that if Rufus Sterne came to New York she wanted to see him.
She would not own to herself that she was in love, or anything approaching it. But she was undeniably interested. She had been from the first. Rufus Sterne appealed to her as no other man had done. His loneliness, his self-reliance, his courage, his independence made him an object of curiosity, to use no stronger term.
Moreover, there was a certain aloofness about him – a curious air of detachment, that quickened her curiosity into something she had no name for. In their last conversation he had been wonderfully frank – had opened his heart to her in a way that touched her sympathies to the quick, yet she knew she had not fathomed him yet. She had a feeling all the time that he was greater than he appeared, that his reticence was much more marked than its opposite.
He had suffered wrong without a murmur, and suffered wrong for her sake. He had kept her name out of what he had called a sordid quarrel, and gone on his way in silence, asking no sympathy and seeking no revenge.
How was it possible, therefore, that she could fail to be interested in him? He was so different from most of the men she knew. So strong, so self-contained, so doggedly determined.
Some day he would find her out; she was sure of that. He was not the kind of man to remain in anyone's debt. She did not doubt for a moment that he guessed long ago who had sent him the money, but with the true instinct of chivalry he had not thrust himself upon her. He had allowed the months to go by, and had made no effort to find her; and during those months he had proved the stuff of which he was made. In an age of rush and greed and money-grabbing he had shown a fidelity to principle that even his detractors admired.
He might have "made his pile," in the slang phrase of the time, but he had shown no eagerness to do so. He had gambled once with life itself (though she did not know that); he would not gamble now with the things of life, with what men called "the world."
He had learnt his lesson and he would never forget it. To wrong a community was just as wicked as to wrong an individual. He refused to treat his employées as "hands"; they were men, not serfs to be exploited, but human beings to be protected and helped. He introduced a new industrial code and made himself one with his fellows.
Mr. Graythorne, who had followed his movements with great interest and curiosity, gave hints to Madeline every now and then, though he was never quite able to take the measure of Madeline's interest in him.
In truth, however, her interest had been a growing quantity. Silence and separation but quickened her imagination. The hints and fragments of news that reached her concerning him all helped in the same direction. His apparent indifference to her made her all the more curious to see him again.
"No, I cannot leave New York," she said to herself, at length. "If he comes I want to be here. He may think I have tried to discharge my debt with dollars and do not want to see him again. To convey such an impression would be to wrong myself, and – and – him, for there was a time – "
She did not finish the sentence, however, but the warm colour stole swiftly to her neck and face and a bright light came into her eyes.
On the following day she told the Harveys – much to Kitty's grief and disappointment – that she could not accept their invitation.
CHAPTER XXXVI
HIS HEART'S DESIRE
Rufus made his way to New York with the fixed intention of finding Madeline Grover if that were possible. He had come to very definite conclusions as to the part she had played; but there was a good deal still that wanted explaining, and he was eager to get the riddle solved and his fate determined once for all.
Of his own feelings he had no doubt. She was the one woman in the world he loved or ever could love. He owed to her not only his life, but all that made life worth living – his faith, his vision of God, his hope of immortality. It was she who had come to him in the darkest mental and moral night that had ever fallen upon him, and had touched his eyes with a new vision, and had opened up to him the promise of a larger day.
But what her feelings were in regard to him he did not know. That she was grateful he had had proof enough, but gratitude might exist where there was little or no love. It might exist even with positive dislike. Her attempts to discharge her debt of gratitude might not be any proof of affection. They might rather be evidence of a desire to get rid of an unpleasant responsibility.
He had hope, however, that Providence was in this as in other things. That God had moved her heart to send him help when he needed it most he could no longer doubt. And since she had been the inspiration of what was best in his life, it might be the purpose of that Higher Will that she should stand by his side during the rest of his life.
At any rate, he would prove the matter for himself, as far as it could be proved. New York – or even America – was not so big but he might find her with patience and determination.
On reaching New York he made his way to Mr. Graythorne's office. Presuming that it was she who had commissioned him to send the money, he would know where she lived. If it was not she, a new riddle would confront him, which he would have to try to solve sooner or later.
Mr. Graythorne received him, as before, without enthusiasm, and with no manifestation of surprise. Indeed, he quite expected that sooner or later he would call.
Rufus plunged into the object of his visit without any waste of words. Indeed, his first question was so sudden and direct that it threw Mr. Graythorne completely off his guard.
"I have called to ask you for the address of Miss Madeline Grover," he said.
Mr. Graythorne gave a start, and turned half round in his chair.
"Eh – eh? What's that?" he asked, abruptly.
"Miss Grover is a client of yours, I believe – "
"Who said she was a client of mine?"
Rufus smiled. "Of course, if you object to give me her address," he said, "I will not press the matter."
"I did not say I refuse, but such a request is somewhat unusual. Miss Grover may not care to have people calling on her. Her business affairs she leaves in my hands."
"And she is no doubt well advised in so doing. But I don't think Miss Grover will object to my calling."
"You know her?"
"A little. We met a few times when she was staying with the Tregonys."
"Oh, indeed." Mr. Graythorne expected he would say something about the five thousand dollars, but that was no part of his programme just then.
The lawyer felt in a quandary. He did not know what to do for the best. He could not very well refuse her address, and yet he was not sure she would like being pounced upon by this young man without a moment's warning. Unfortunately, he could not ring her up, for she had no telephone in her house. What was he to do? Rufus stood looking at him with a smile on his face.
"If you are acquaintances," he said at length, "that of course settles the matter," and he wrote the address on a sheet of paper and handed it to his visitor.
Rufus thanked him and turned to go at once.
"Your property has turned out all right, I hear?" the lawyer said, insinuatingly.
"Oh, yes, excellently."
"And you finished the litigation?"
"Easily. A little give and take, and the thing was done."
"More give than take, I am told."
"Perhaps so, but better that than fighting, and bad blood, and ruinous lawyers' fees."
Mr. Graythorne winced and grew red in the face, and before he could recover himself Rufus had slipped out of the room.
It did not take him long to reach the street in which Madeline lived. He looked down its long length and gave a little sigh of relief. It was not a street of mansions. It was unpretentious and comparatively obscure.
His heart was beating very fast when he walked slowly up the steps and rang the door-bell. He felt as though the supreme moment of his life had come.
He was shown into a room that harmonised with the street, quiet, cosy, comfortable, but quite unpretentious. He had not to wait many moments. Almost before he had time to turn round, the door was pushed open, and Madeline stood before him, bright, winning, smiling, and radiantly beautiful.
There was no trace of stiffness or embarrassment in her manner. Indeed, her greeting was more cordial than he had dared hope for. The embarrassment was on his side; he felt he had undertaken a task that would tax all his nerve.
"It is like old times to see you again," she said, in her old frank, ingenuous way. "Do you remember our last long walk over the downs?"
"Then you have not forgotten?" he replied, with a little sigh of relief.
"Why should I forget? I was so sorry not to see you again."
"I looked out for you once or twice; then I heard you had gone away."
"Did you look out for me? And I wanted so particularly to see you."
"Yes?" he questioned, eagerly.
"I wanted to let you know that I had discovered Gervase Tregony's perfidy."
"Before you went away?"
"Yes; but I was unable to make it known. However, all the truth has come out since."
"You have heard?"
"Oh, yes. I get Cornish news regularly."
"Then you knew I had left?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, with a blush and a smile, "I knew that also."
"I came to look after that disputed property of my father's I once told you about," he said, after a pause.
"Yes, I remember. You said you had given up all hope of ever getting a penny."
"You see, my grandfather and I were too far away to look after it, and too poor to fight it. So it was just hung up. You have heard, perhaps, that it has turned out well?"
She blushed again, and hesitated for a moment. She felt that his eyes were upon her. She knew she would gain nothing by fencing. The truth would have to come out sooner or later. This man had eyes so clear that he could see through all sham and pretence. So she answered quite frankly. "My solicitor knows a good deal about Reboth, and he has told me."
"You mean Mr. Graythorne?"
His eyes were still upon her and there was no escape.
"Yes," she answered, almost in a whisper.
For a moment or two there was an almost painful silence. She felt what was coming, and shrank from meeting it. He knew what he wanted to say, and yet had scarcely the courage to say it.
"There is something I want to find out very much," he said, at length; "perhaps you can help me."
She looked up with an inquiring light in her eyes, but did not reply.
"You heard that my invention failed, or rather that it had been forestalled?"
She nodded assent.
"What the failure meant to me only God knew. I had borrowed the money to develop and perfect my idea, and when failure came it was overwhelming. I was stripped of everything. I look back now as upon a long and hideous nightmare. I wonder how I endured?"
He paused for a moment, but she made no reply, but her eyes were full of eager interest.
"Well, when the night was darkest, and I was praying for death as the only escape for me, a letter came from Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne, enclosing a draft for five thousand dollars. The letter was long, and more or less incoherent, but it vaguely hinted that the money was a first instalment of the property left by my father.
"During that day, and I think for several days after, I was almost beside myself with joy. Then I went to see my grandfather, and he and I puzzled over the letter, but we could make very little out of it. In the end he suggested that I should come to America and look after the property myself.
"So I came, and at once called on Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne. Mr. Graythorne I found, but I left his office more perplexed than ever. He talked in generalities, but he appeared to know little or nothing about the matter, though he admitted, of course, sending me the money.
"That night I left New York and made my way to Reboth, where I discovered that no distribution of the property left by my father had been made. That the whole of it was still in Chancery, as we should say in England.
"You can imagine how perplexed I felt, and naturally I began to wonder what kind friend had commissioned Mr. Graythorne to send me so much money. I said to myself: 'There is not a soul on the American continent that I know.' Then I remembered that you were here. You will forgive me if I wrong you, but I could think, and can think, of no one else. The money was my salvation. It not only saved me from despair, but from all that follows despair, and now that God has prospered me I want to pay it back. May I give it to you?"
Her eyes were full almost to overflowing by this time, but she resolutely beat back her emotion.
"Yes, I will take it back," she answered, slowly. "I am glad it served you in the hour of need."
"You meant it as a loan, I know," he said, with a smile.
"That was as God should will," she answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "I heard in Nice of your misfortune. I knew from what you told me that you had risked your all, and I wondered if I could help you without wounding you. As soon as I reached home I commissioned Mr. Graythorne to make inquiries about your late father's property in Reboth. It seemed certain that you would be well off some day, and so I advanced five thousand dollars on account; it was but a small return for all you had done for me."
"But I might not have won the suit, might not have discovered who had befriended me."
"I should still have been in your debt," she replied, with a smile. "You saved my life, you know," and she rose and touched the bell.
He rose also, and moved towards the door.
"No, no," she said, "you must not go, I have rung for tea. I know the English habit, and you must be thirsty after so much talking," and she laughed merrily.
"Thank you," he said. "I shall be glad of a cup of tea," and he sat down again.
Over the teacups conversation became more general, and flowed more freely in consequence. They talked about St. Gaved, about the Tregonys, and Captain Tom Hendy, and Dr. Pendarvis, and Mrs. Tuke. She related some of her experiences at Trewinion Hall, and in London and Nice, and how and why she escaped from the guardianship of Sir Charles. The afternoon sped like a dream, and when he rose to go, he felt as though a new vision of life had been vouchsafed to him.
"You will call again?" she said, when he was leaving.
"May I?" he asked eagerly.
She laughed brightly in his face. "Does our American freedom or our lack of British formality shock you?" she questioned.
"No, no. I was not thinking of that at all," he answered, hurriedly. "May I call again to-morrow?"
"At the same hour?"
"Yes."
"I will wait in for you."
Rufus remained in New York as many weeks as he had expected to remain days. He fixed the date of his return to Reboth time after time, but when the day arrived he found some excuse for remaining a day or two longer. He did not call to see Madeline every day. Indeed, sometimes for days on the stretch he did not go near her house, but he discovered that New York furnished endless opportunities for meeting. He got to know when she went shopping, and when she rode or drove in the park, and so he way-laid her at all sorts of unexpected times, and discovered that his interest in her movements was the all-absorbing concern of his life.
Their conversation that winter evening on the Downs was picked up at the point at which it broke off, and Madeline got a yet clearer insight into the human document that had fascinated her from the first.
Rufus opened his heart to Madeline as he never did to any other. Her sympathy touched the deepest chords of his emotion, her generosity won his confidence.
Bit by bit the truth was revealed to her that she, under God, had been his salvation. Her quick imagination saw the path along which he had travelled. His loss of faith, his gropings in the desert of a barren philosophy.
She saw, too – not that he told her in so many words – that the loss of all sense of accountability was destroying the moral basis of conduct. That his honour was saved to him because he won back his faith.
It was no small satisfaction to her that she, in the supreme crisis of his life, had been his helper and his inspiration. If he had saved her, she, in a yet deeper sense, had saved him.
That the same thought should grow almost unconsciously in the minds and hearts of both was natural – perhaps inevitable. In due course it would blossom into speech.
He returned to Reboth in December – business demanded his presence – but he was back in New York again in January. Madeline looked up with a start of surprise when he was shown into the room in which she was reading.
"I hope I do not intrude?" he said, hesitatingly.
"No, no," she replied, with almost childish delight. "I am so glad to see you again. But I was not aware you were in New York."
"I arrived this morning," he answered, "and so took an early opportunity of looking you up."
"You are just in time for afternoon tea, and you must be almost frozen," and she rang the bell at once.
Rufus watched her moving about the room with almost hungry eyes. She was so dainty, so lissom, so strong. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her more than all else on earth, but he had not the courage yet.
He remained not only to tea, but to dinner; and during the evening conversation strayed over many subjects.
He was naturally reticent, and greatly disliked talking about himself. But when he was with Madeline all reticence disappeared. She was the warm sun that thawed the ice. He would have deemed it impossible once that he could have told anyone of his spiritual struggles, of the mental strain and agony through which he passed before his feet touched the rock. But Madeline was like a second self; there was nothing he wanted to hide from her.
Before the evening was out he found himself discussing the moral effects of materialism.
"It takes away the moral basis of conduct," he said, in reply to one of her questions. "I found myself losing the true sense of right and wrong —as right and wrong. Things might be wise or foolish, profitable or unprofitable, politic or impolitic; but right and wrong were becoming meaningless words in any moral sense. If there is no God there is no moral law, and the highest authority is the State."
"But materialists are sometimes very good people?" she questioned.
"Yes, that is true; but not because of their philosophy, but in spite of it. And yet is not their goodness mainly negative? Do they build hospitals, or endow charities, or sacrifice themselves in fighting the battles of Temperance and peace and purity? I speak from experience; it dulls the moral sensibilities. For a man to lose his sense of God is to lose his best. The noblest work of the world is done by the men who believe, who endure as seeing Him who is invisible."
"Then you think if you had remained a materialist – "
"I should have perished," he interrupted, gravely, "and I use that word in no thoughtless sense. But God sent me you – " then he paused, and for awhile silence fell.
When they began to talk again it was about some entirely different matter.
A few days later he called to say good-bye. He was going back to Reboth again the following day. For a full hour they chatted in the freest manner about matters of no importance. Then he rose suddenly and began to button his coat. He shook hands with her in silence and reached the door. For a moment he paused with his hand on the knob, then turned hurriedly round and faced her. His face was very pale, his lips were trembling.
"Madeline," he said, "I cannot go away without telling you that I love you. I belong to you. To you I owe more than life. I owe all that makes life worth living. You befriended me in my hour of greatest need. You led me out of darkness into the light. Will you be my inspiration still, my companion, the light of my eyes?"
He paused, almost breathless with the earnestness of his speech.
She stood looking at him, all the colour gone out of her face.
"Forgive me if I am presumptuous," he went on, in lower tones. "But I have loved you so long, so hopelessly, so passionately, that I could not keep the truth back any longer. Yet if you say there is no hope for me I will not trouble you again."
She came toward him slowly, a great light shining in her eyes, and placed her hands in his.
"You are sure you are not mistaken?" she said, and her eyes grew full of tears.
"Mistaken? Oh! Madeline, if I were only so sure of heaven! I have loved you since the day you read 'Snow Bound' to me – loved you with an ever-growing passion. I have never loved but you – I shall never love another!"
"Do not all men say that?" she questioned, with a pathetic smile.
"I know not what other men say," he replied, earnestly. "I only know that without you life will be dark. Oh! Madeline, have you no word of hope for me?"
"Do you need words?" she asked, smiling through her tears into his face. "Have I not shown my heart all too plainly?"
"Do you mean that – "
But the sentence was never finished. Swiftly he gathered her in his arms till she could feel the beating of his heart against her own. Silently their lips met in a passionate seal of love. Then he led her to a couch and sat down by her side, and for an hour they talked and the hour seemed but as the flying of a shuttle.