What be her cards you ask? Even these:—
The heart, that doth but crave
More, having fed; the diamond,
Skilled to make base seem brave;
The club, for smiting in the dark
The spade, to dig a grave.
—DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
The one supreme moment of complete and abject weakness was soon past; it had gone by in solitude. No one saw the fall of the defiant reprobate brought to the dust by the intensity of his grief. No one but God and triumphant Love.
Within a few minutes Michael had gathered together his scattered senses. What avail were tears and the bitter joys of lingering memories when there was still so much to do? Of a truth, Rose Marie's firm attitude of loyalty towards her rightful husband had not so much astonished Michael, for to a man who loves, the adored one necessarily possesses every virtue that ever adorned the halo of a saint; but he did not know that she loved her husband, and the warmth of her defence of the absent one had, in Michael's ears, sounded like the expression of her love. He did not stop to reason, to visualize the fact that Rose Marie did not know Stowmaries, that the passion in her voice had the ring of tragic despair in it, coupled with the sublime ardour of heroic self-sacrifice.
A man in love never stops to reason. Passion and the dormant seeds of ever-present jealousy still the powers of common sense.
The thought that Rose Marie loved him, the remembrance of that day when he had held her in his arms, feeling her young body quivering at his touch, seeing her eyes glowing in response to his ardour, her exquisite lips moist with the promise of a kiss, these had been his life during the past few months; they had been the very breath of his body, the blood in his veins, the strength which bore him through all that he had set himself to do.
The winning of name and estate, and then a reconquering of his snowdrop, with a foregone certainty of victory ahead, that had been his existence.
A foregone certainty of victory! How oft had he exulted at the thought, drugging his despair with the intoxicating potion of hope, and now one brief word from her and defeat had been more hopeless, more complete than before.
"I am his wife," she said; "his wife in the sight of God; his wife despite the infamy in which you bore the leading hand!"
Michael had thought of everything, had envisaged everything save this: that Rose Marie would turn from him, because she loved the other. Loyalty and love, love and passion, were all synonymous to the impatient ardour, the proud defiance of this splendid blackguard—splendid in this, that he never swerved from the path into which he had once engaged his footsteps, never looked back with purposeless longing, and neither cursed Fate nor ever gave way to despair.
Even now, he pulled himself together, and within half an hour of the Legros' departure from his house he was on his way to see his friend Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, first, and thence to his cousin's house on the outskirts of Piccadilly.
Rupert Kestyon—by the king's mandate no longer Lord of Stowmaries now—still occupied the same house into which he had made triumphant entry some two years ago on the death of the old earl. It was an ancient family mansion built a century and a half back, with gigantic and elaborate coat of arms carved in stone above the majestic porch. The serving-man who in response to Michael's peremptory knocking opened the massive door to him, gave no outward sign that so great a change had come, and with appalling suddenness, in the fortunes of his master.
He even addressed Michael as "sir" and spoke of "his lordship" being still in his room upstairs.
Impatiently waving the man aside, Michael threw hat and cloak down in the hall, and not waiting to be formally announced he ran quickly up the broad staircase. He knew the house well, for in childhood he had oft been in it, when his mother, holding him by the hand, came to ask for pecuniary assistance from the wealthy kinsman.
Without hesitation, therefore, Michael went up to the door of the principal bedroom and gave an impatient rap with his knuckles on the solid panel.
A fretful "Come in!" from within invited him to enter.
Rupert Kestyon was lying on the monumental four-post bedstead stretched out flat on his back and staring moodily into the glowing embers of the wood-fire which was burning in the wide-open grate.
At sight of his cousin he jumped up to a sitting posture; a deep frown of anger puckered his brow, and lent to the face a look of savagery. He stared at Michael for awhile, more than astonished at this unlooked-for appearance of his triumphant enemy; then he blurted out in his overwhelming wrath:
"Out of my house! Out of my house, you thief—you—out of here, I say—the men are still my servants—and I am still master here."
He put his feet to the ground, and made straightway for the door, but Michael intercepted him, and gripping the young man's wrists with his own strong fingers, he pushed him gently but firmly back.
"Easy, easy, Coz!" he said with kindly firmness; "by our Lady, but 'tis poor policy to harass the harbinger of good news."
"Good news," quoth Rupert, who was boiling over with rage, "good news from you, who have just robbed me of my inheritance!"
"'Twas an even game, good Coz," retorted Michael good-naturedly. "My father, my mother and I had all been robbed in the past, and left in a more pitiable plight, believe me, than it was ever my intention to leave you."
"Prate not of your intentions, man. You used my money, the money I myself did give you, in order to wage war against me, and press a claim which you never would have made good but for that money which I gave you."
"Let us be fair, good Coz. I offered you the whole of that money back on that memorable night in April at the inn of St. Denis."
"Ay, on a ridiculous condition to which I cared not to agree."
"The ridiculous condition," said Michael gravely, "consisted in your acknowledging as your lawful wife, an exquisitely beautiful and virtuous lady who already had claim on your loyalty."
"The exquisitely beautiful lady," retorted Rupert with an ugly sneer, "had, an I mistake not, already dragged her virtue in the wake of your chariot, my friend."
"Silence, man," said Michael sternly, "for you know that you lie."
"Will you attempt to deny that your magnanimous offer at St. Denis was made because you were in love with my wife?"
"I'll not deny it, but what my feelings were in the matter concerned no one but myself."
"Mayhap, mayhap, but e'en you admit, good Coz," quoth Rupert with obvious spite, "that a wife's conduct—"
"Your wife's conduct, Cousin, is beyond reproach," broke in Michael calmly, "as you know right full well."
"Pardi! Since she is in love with you—"
"That, too, is a lie—She loves no one but you."
"Mayhaps she told you so?" queried the young man, as with a yawn of ostentatious indifference he stretched himself out again—on a couch this time, with one booted leg resting on the ground and tapping it impatiently, whilst the other kicked savagely at an unoffensive sofa-cushion, tearing its silk cover to shreds.
"Yes!" replied Michael calmly, "she hath told me so." Then as the other broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh, he continued earnestly:
"Listen, Cousin, for what I am about to tell you concerns the whole of your future. You are a penniless beggar now—nay, do not interrupt me—I have well weighed every word which I speak, and have an answer for each of your sneers—you are a penniless beggar—through no fault of your own, mayhap, but I was a beggar, too, through none of mine. My mother was left—almost to starve—alone in a God-forsaken village. For years I kept actual starvation from her by courting wounds in order to get blood-money. That has been your fault ever since the old uncle's death, Cousin, for you knew that your kinswoman starved, and did naught to help her. But that is over, let it pass! I was a wastrel, a reprobate, a dissolute blackguard an you will! Had I been a better man than I was, you had never dared to offer me money to dishonour a woman. Let that pass too. But this I swear before God that I never meant to dishonour the girl. I was ready to take her to my heart, to give her all that she asked and more, the moment you in your wantonness had cast her off. But she is too proud to take anything from me, and wants nothing but her rights. Nay, you must listen to me patiently, till I have told you all—She is loyal to you, with heart and soul and body, and hath come to England to beg of you to render her justice."
"Have I not told you, man," here broke in Rupert Kestyon, with a blasphemous oath which momentarily drowned the quieter tones of the other man, "have I not told you that were that accursed tailor and his miserable wench to go on their knees to me, I would not have her—no, a thousand times no—with the last penny left in my pocket I'll obtain the decree of nullity, and marry the woman whom I love—"
"If she'll have you, Cousin," quoth Michael drily, "now that you are a beggar."
In a moment Rupert was on his feet again, burning with rage, swearing mad oaths in his wrath, and clenching his fists with a wild desire to rush at Michael and grip him by the throat.
"Nay, Coz," said the latter with a smile, "let us not fight like two brawling villains. My fist is heavier than yours: and if you attack me, I should have in defending mine own throat to punish you severely. But why should you rage at me; I have come to you with good intent. Think you, I would have left you to shift for yourself in this inhospitable world? Great God, do I not know what it means to shift for oneself—the misery, the wretchedness, the slow but certain degradation of mind and of body? By all the saints, man, I would not condemn mine enemy to such a life as I have led these past ten years."
"You do the tailor's wench no good anyhow by preaching to me," growled Rupert sulkily, feeling somewhat shamed.
He sat down once more, in an attitude of dejection, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands.
"I did not come to preach," rejoined Michael quietly. "A blackguard like me hath no right to preach, and a blackguard like you, Cousin, is not like to listen. Nay, man, we are quits; we have both of us a pretty black mark against us in the book of records up there. 'Tis nigh on a year ago now that you came to me with your proposals. They have had far wider reaching consequences than any of us had dreamed of at the time. When I made a proposal to you at the inn at St. Denis, you refused my terms peremptorily—they were not sufficiently munificent, it seems, to tempt you to right a great wrong. I felt my weakness, then. I had no more to offer than just the return of your own money. You were a rich man still and could afford to pay largely for the satisfaction of a wanton caprice. But now matters stand differently; the money which you so contemptuously flung away at St. Denis hath borne royal fruit. I made that money work; I forced it to toil and slave to gain my purpose. I have beggared you, Cousin, and made myself powerful and strong, not because I hated you, not because I any longer desire dignity and riches, but because I wanted to hold in my hand a bribe that would be regal enough to tempt you."
He paused awhile, with stern dark eyes fixed on the weak, somewhat feminine face before him. Rupert Kestyon's vacillating pupils searched his cousin's face, trying to divine his thoughts. He raised his head, and rubbed his eyes, like a man wakened from sleep, and stared at Michael as on a man bereft of his senses.
"I do not understand," he stammered in his bewilderment.
"Yet, 'tis simple enough," resumed Michael calmly. "The good tailor whom you despise hath come over from France because he had heard rumours that a charge of conspiracy against the king was being brought against you by false informers."
"Great God!" murmured Rupert, who at these words had suddenly become pale, whilst great beads of perspiration rose upon his forehead.
"Ay," said the other, "we know what that means, Cousin. Your name amongst those implicated in this so-called Popish plot—think you you'll escape the block? Hath any one escaped it hitherto who hath come within the compass of the lies told by that scoundrel Oates?"
"It's not true," murmured Rupert Kestyon.
"What is not true? That the information hath been laid against you? That, alas, is only too true. A man named Daniel Pye is the informant. It seems that his former mistress—your own liege lady, Coz—had him flogged for theft awhile ago. This has been his idea of revenge on her—to bring you to disgrace or death, he cares not which, so long as the desires of her life—which, it seems, are that she be wedded to you—are frustrated. I have all this from the Attorney-General whom I saw a quarter of an hour ago. Nay, there is no doubt that the blackguard hath informed against you, and in a vastly circumstantial manner. Come, you are a man, Coz," added Michael not unkindly, seeing that Rupert was on the point of losing his wits in the face of the awful prospect of this accusation, knowing full well its probable terrible consequences, "and men in these troublous times must know how to look on death in whatever grim guise it may appear."
"But not that," murmured the younger man involuntarily, "surely not that—"
"I trust not," rejoined the other. "Have I not told you that I was the bearer of good news?"
"Good news!"
"I own it sounds like irony, but, nevertheless, Coz, you'll presently see that it is better than it seems. Let me resume, and tell you all I know. Daniel Pye hath lodged his information against you. I have it directly from Sir William Jones, who in his turn had it from Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The villainous rogue says that on a certain day in April he was at the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris, in the company of one Legros—tailor of Paris—and that there he overheard you talking over with one of the ministers of the King of France, a plan whereby Charles Rex is to be murdered, the Duke of York to be placed on the English throne, and the whole of England sold to France and to Rome. It is one of those impudent and dastardly lies which, alas, find ready credence in our poor country just now. You remember Stailey's trial on the information of that scoundrel Oates, who in spite of his own obvious blunderings and contradictions was absolutely believed."
"I know, I know," said Rupert Kestyon with a groan, "I am undone, I know. Cousin, I must fly the country at once—I can reach Dover to-night."
"Nay, that you cannot, Cousin; your arrest is imminent. The warrant is out and would take effect the moment you attempted to leave your house."
"But in the name of God, is there no way out?" came in tones of tragic despair from the unfortunate man.
"Ay, that there is and a right simple one. The regal bribe, Cousin," said Michael with a grim smile, "which I promised to offer you."
"My life—do you mean my life? You have not the power to save my head from the block. If I am arrested and brought to trial on one of these infamous charges, the king himself could not save me."
"No; the king could not—but I can."
"How?"
"On one condition."
"I can guess it."
"The same I put before you at St. Denis."
Rupert Kestyon broke out into a laugh, a harsh, disagreeable laugh of irony and of despair.
"Man, the wench would not have me now. Am I not beggared and a fugitive from justice? Her father would now be the first to take her from me. She married the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx—"
But Michael interrupted him, saying:
"And after a brief sojourn with her in her old home in Paris you, as Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, will bring your wife back as chatelaine of Maries Castle, even before the last leaf has fallen from the oak."
"But you—'tis you who—"
"I stay here to meet the charge of high treason and conspiracy preferred against the Earl of Stowmaries," said Michael very quietly.
Like one in a dream, Rupert Kestyon passed a trembling hand over his damp forehead.
"You—you would—" he stammered.
"Am I not the Earl of Stowmaries?" queried the other simply. "Was I not actually in Paris on that memorable day in April? True, I am not a Romanist by religion, but the travesty of justice which, alas, now goes on under the guidance of Chief Justice Scroggs, will not ask too many questions and will be satisfied as long as it has one more prey to throw to the hungering intolerance of the mob. When I am gone, Cousin, you are the rightful heir to the title and estates which the king's mandate hath just conferred on me. You see how simple it is. It but rests with you to accept or refuse."
"But why—why should you do this?" murmured the other, whose brain seemed almost reeling with this sudden transition from tragic despair to the first glimmer of hope. "Why should you give your life—and—and mayhap die such an awful death?"
"Not for love of you, Coz; you may take an oath on that," said Michael with a humorous twinkle in his eye and a quick smile which softened the former stern expression of his face.
"No, I know that," retorted the other, "'tis because you love her—my wife."
"My head will no longer grace my shoulders when you return with your bride to England, Cousin; you have therefore no cause for jealousy."
There was silence between the two men now. Rupert was of a truth too dazed to understand fully all that his cousin's proposal would mean to him.
"But, by the Mass, man!" he said, "I cannot accept such a sacrifice."
"'Twill not be the first act of cowardice that you'll have committed, Cousin. This one will atone for the graver sin of a year ago. Take what I offer you. Now that we are both face to face with the problem of life or death, we can look back more soberly on the past. We have both done an innocent woman an infinite wrong. Fate hath so shuffled the cards that we can both atone; after all, methinks that mine is the easier rôle. It is ofttimes so much simpler to die than to live. Nay, Cousin, your part will not be altogether that of a coward, not even though your path in life will henceforth be strewn with roses. She loves you purely, loyally, good Coz. 'Tis your duty as a man to render her happy. Above all, think not of me. Odd's fish, man, death and I have looked at one another very straight many a time before—we are friends, he and I."
"But not such a death, Cousin—and the disgrace—"
"Bah, even disgrace and I have held one another by the hand ere this. And now before I leave you, Coz, your solemn word of honour that you will make her happy, for by God!" he added more lightly, "methinks my ghost would haunt you, if ever it saw her in tears."
"Will you take my hand, Cousin?" asked Rupert in simple response, as he somewhat timidly held his hand out to the other man.
Michael took it without a word and thus at last were the hands of these two men clasped for the first time in friendship. Kinsmen by blood, Fate and human passions had estranged them from one another; yet it was blood that told, else Rupert could not even for a moment—and despite his love of life and joy in living—have accepted the sacrifice.
Even now he hesitated. This taking of his cousin's hand, this tacit acceptance of another man's life to save his own, wore an ugly look of cowardice and of dishonour. Yet the young man was no coward. In open fight in a good cause, his valour would have been equal to that of any man, and he would on the field of honour have met death, no doubt, with fortitude. But what loomed ahead was far different to the glamour, the enthusiasm of courting death for honour. It meant disgrace and shame, the trial, the ignominy: death dealt by the hand of the executioner in sight of a jeering mob. It meant the torture of long imprisonment in a gloomy, filthy prison; it meant the ill-usage of warders and menials, insults from the judge, rough handling by the crowd. It meant, above all, the supreme disgrace of desecration after death, the traitor's head on Tyburn gates, the body thrown to the carrion, an ignominy from which even the least superstitious shrank in overwhelming horror. Ay, and there was worse shame, more supreme degradation still—for a traitor's death was rendered hideous by every means that the cruelty of man could invent.
This picture stood on one side of Rupert Kestyon's vision, on the other was only a hated marriage and the somewhat cowardly acceptance of another man's sacrifice.
Rupert Kestyon did hesitate, the while the insidious voice of Luxury and of Ease whispered sophistries in his ear:
"He does not do this for thee, man, but for the woman whom he loves. Why shouldst thou stand in the way of thine own future comfort and peace?"
The battle was a trying one and whilst it lasted Rupert Kestyon felt unwilling to meet his cousin's eyes. Yet had he done so, he would have seen nothing in them save expectancy, and from time to time that same humorous twinkle, as if the man derived amusement from the conflict which was raging within the other's heart.
As usual under these circumstances, Fate put her lean, sharp-pointed finger into this grim pie, and it was the small incident which settled the big issue in the end, for even as Rupert stood there, shamed, hesitating, fighting the inward battle, there came a timid rap at the door, and a serving-man entered, bearing a missive which was tied down with green cord but otherwise left unsealed.
"What is this?" asked Rupert Kestyon, who seemed to be descending from the stars, in so dazed a manner did he gaze at the man who was handing him the letter.
"A man hath just brought it, my lord; he said that the message was urgent but would not say from whence he came—he went away down the street very quickly as soon as I had taken the letter from him."
"Good; you may go."
With hands still trembling from recent emotion, Rupert Kestyon, as soon as the servant had gone, tore open the missive, on the outside cover of which he had at once recognised the ill-formed scrawls which emanated from the untutored pen of Mistress Peyton. It was addressed in that same illiterate but deeply loved hand to Mister Rupert Kestyon, erstwhile my lord of Stowmaries, and began:
"Honord Sir.
"This is to warn you that the villan Daniel Pye hath informed against you, he did make brag of it befor my servants to-day saying that you will be arrested for treson and he be thus revenged upon me. i think it were best you did not com to my house until this clowd has clered away. But i am yr frend always."
The lady had signed the missive with her name in full. The hot blood rushed to Rupert Kestyon's face, for despite his own natural vanity he could not help but see the callous indifference as to his own fate which pierced through the fair Julia's carefully-worded warning.
Without a word, however, he folded the letter and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. Then he turned once more to his cousin.
"Is there no other way?" he asked, whilst the weakness of his nature, the vacillation peculiar to his character, was very apparent now, in the ever-shifting expression of his face, the pains he took to avoid looking Michael quite square in the face.
"I see none now," rejoined the other. "Methinks, Coz, that you have received confirmation of what I told you."
"Yes. I have. Unless I leave the country to-day I shall be a prisoner ere nightfall."
"And Rose Marie, beyond all that we have made her suffer already, will be left to mourn for you. To torture a woman then leave her desolate! Nay, man, the shame of that were worse than a traitor's death."
"When shall I see her?"
"Anon, I think. Master Legros is on his way to you."
"Then I'll to France to-day, taking my wife with me," said Rupert resolutely, "and may God guard you, Cousin."
"Nay, we'll not ask Him to do that just now," rejoined the other with the same quaint smile; "rather may He protect her, and give her happiness. We both owe her that, methinks."
Thus was the compact sealed. It had of course been a foregone conclusion all along, and Michael had never for a moment anticipated that his cousin would refuse the sacrifice.
The great game begun a year ago across the supper table of a tavern and in the midst of a drunken orgy, ended here and now. Both the gamblers lost all that they had staked. One was losing his self-respect, the woman he loved with a capricious passion, the freedom which he had coveted; the other was throwing away his all so that a fair-haired girl, the cold ice-maid who had no love for him, should still be the only winner in the end.