Chapter XXXIII

“You followed me?” asked Lucius quietly, returning the bracelet to his pocket.

“Every step,” said Oliver. “You did not perceive me, did you, in the shrubbery when you passed? You were so bemused that you never thought there was anyone behind you!”

“I never thought that you would follow me,” said the young Earl quietly. “Why should I?”

“You’ve forgotten, then, what passed when we last met, eh?”

“No, of course I’ve not forgotten,” answered Lucius. “But I have discovered to-night, Oliver,” he added, with something of an effort, “that you have not mentioned this to Amy; and for that I respect you. You have not let that accusation, so wild and impossible, pass your lips to any but myself, and I am grateful.”

“It was not for your sake I kept silent,” said Oliver harshly, “but because I wished to settle the matter myself, with no interference. As for Amy, she’s a fool--or cunning; she’ll take you, knowing what she knows!”

“Amy knows nothing,” replied Lucius firmly. “What is there for her to know? Do not again try to force these wild imaginings on me, Oliver. I hoped that you had recovered from your insane delusions.”

“I think of nothing else, day and night,” replied Oliver in low tones, and with such agony in his look and voice that Lucius glanced at him with a deep compassion. “What else should I think of--what else can I ever think of?” Then he added fiercely, with a change of manner: “And you--what do you do here now? You didn’t return home, you see; you came to the cliffs. And there you’re standing, looking at the lighthouse, looking at the sea, staring at her bracelet.”

Lucius drew back a step before this violence.

“Take care,” he said quietly, “don’t go too far, Oliver. This is a dangerous matter to broach in this dangerous place.”

“Aye, dangerous indeed!” smiled Oliver. “It wasn’t far from here, was it, that they found her bonnet. I always admired those red flowers--she looked well in crimson.… I thought of her like that, you know--crimson flowers.”

Lucius was startled off his guard, for he, too, had thought of Fanny Caldini as a branch laden with warm red roses, and he could recall how this simile had come to him the last time she had been at Lefton Park, sitting there by the fire in her damp clothes, with her wet shoes; he had thought of her then, so vivid and beautiful, as a spray of crimson flowers.

“Oliver,” he cried now, with a wildness in his accent, “our silence is her best monument.”

“Maybe, there’ll be years of silence, I think,” retorted Oliver; “but meanwhile you and I must make our reckoning.”

“There’s no reckoning between us,” replied Lucius sternly.

But Oliver retorted violently:

“There’s a dreadful reckoning. You had her on that lighthouse for days, for weeks. You stole her away under my eyes. Either you’ve got her hidden somewhere on the Continent, or you let her drown. Either way you’re answerable to me. She was mine, I say! I might have endured to be cheated by death, but not by you!”

“You are not sober,” said Lucius, breathing quickly. “You would not have done a thing like this in your senses. You drink too heavily, Oliver, you’ll bring on another attack.”

“Look to yourself, and leave me.”

“I shall be glad when I’ve taken Amy away.”

“Taken Amy away!” sneered Oliver sombrely. “That’ll be a pretty wedding; some fine love-making there! She knows, I tell you; she knows! And Fanny, dead or alive, will always be between you. I’ve told her so.”

“You told her that?” exclaimed Lucius.

“Yes; and she wouldn’t hear it. She’ll cling on to you at any price. She hasn’t the courage to let you go. She’ll pay, poor wretch, she’ll pay,” he added bitterly. “As the years go on I dare swear her agony will be worse than yours.”

Lucius did not speak, but put his hand to his lips and stared out to sea.

“You think that you’ll gloss everything over by marrying Amy,” continued Oliver violently. “You salve your conscience by that--doing your duty, you call it--covering everything up. Well, you’ll have your reward for all your respectability and dutiful behaviour. You and Amy will come to hate each other, I have no doubt. That is, you would,” he added, “if I gave you a chance.”

Lucius looked at him swiftly, sensing the meaning of this last menace.

“I mean to kill you,” added Oliver. “For weeks my fingers have ached to be at your throat. I mean to throw you down now on the rocks and into the sea that you’re so fond of.”

“I had thought,” whispered Lucius, “that you had some such intention. I’ve seen it in your eyes several times.”

“I was only waiting an opportunity,” said Oliver, “and now I’ve found it.”

Lucius folded his arms on his breast. He knew that Oliver was immensely his superior in strength, and infuriated even beyond his ordinary powers by drink and long, brooding, violent passion.

The place was completely lonely. There was no house nearer than Lefton Park, which stood a mile or more away. He had no weapon against any attack on the part of Oliver, and for all he knew Oliver might have knife and pistol hidden on his person. Even if he had not, with his bare hands he could murder Lucius.

With contempt the young man said:

“This will be a cruel thing for Amy.”

“You’ll not save yourself,” retorted Oliver Sellar, “by talking of Amy. This is between you and me; we’ll leave Amy out of it. She’ll be happier withering and pining at Sellar’s Mead than married to you.”

“Even if you hang for this?” asked the young Earl haughtily.

“I shan’t hang,” replied Oliver, with a ghastly grin. “It will be an accident--the same kind of accident as befell Fanny Caldini.… I’m going to throw you over the cliff--you’ll be found there, dashed on the rocks. And then I shall go home, and nobody will know that I left the house to-night, and they’ll think that you were wandering here, dreaming about Fanny Caldini, and lost your balance, like the fool you are! I shall not hang for you!” He came closer to Lucius as he spoke, and Lucius, drawing farther away from him, found himself nearer to the edge of the cliff; and, as he did so, calculated coolly his chances of escape. He thought that these were slight enough; nothing would be likely to placate Oliver Sellar now, nor would he, Lucius, have the strength to resist his murderous onslaught; there would be a brief struggle before the strong man cast him down that drop of thirty feet or more on to the sharp rocks beneath. But his heart scarcely beat the faster for his peril. He reflected coolly that this was an odd and sudden end to it all, and one unexpected; and his mind turned to Amy, and the long lonely distress ahead of her; and then, oddly, to his stranger cousin, who would inherit his name and his property.… If it had not been for Amy, perhaps it was as well that it should end thus, leaving another man, a more fortunate man, to carry on his line.

“Oliver.” He spoke with proud indifference, staring with narrowed eyes through the moonlight. “You’re behaving like a fool, you know. This’ll only drive you into deeper madness when you think of it later on.”

He turned and stood his ground a couple of feet from the edge of the cliff, calculating as to whether, if he turned and ran inland, he could escape Oliver. He might do so, for he was the younger and the swifter; yet to do so would be like running away, and he could not bring himself to do that.

“Confess,” cried Oliver, standing close to him. “Confess that you had her on the lighthouse--that you know where she is. Tell me if she was drowned the night the French barque went ashore, or if you have her hidden somewhere. Tell me that, and I’ll let you go.”

“Do you, then, trust me to speak the truth now?” asked Lucius scornfully.

“Men generally speak the truth when there’s Death face to face with them,” cried Oliver, bearing down on him.

“You don’t know me,” replied the young Earl, “if you think I can be frightened. Lie or truth--take it which way you will--you’ll get nothing more out of me but what I told you in Lefton Park on the day of my father’s funeral.”

“We’ll see!” yelled Oliver.

Lucius expected the flash of a pistol, or the gleam of a knife in the moonlight; but there was neither. It was with his bare hands that Oliver Sellar came at him, making for his throat with clawing, greedy fingers.

The young man threw out his arm to ward off this attack, and at the same moment stepped swiftly aside, but he could not altogether evade his assailant, who got him, if not by the throat, by the shoulders, and shook him up and down, to and fro, snarling, screaming, raging incoherently.

“You fool!” panted Lucius, struggling frantically to wrench himself free, and exerting more strength than he knew himself to possess. “You’ll have us both over the cliff!”

“Speak, speak!” screamed Oliver. “Tell me where she is; tell me if she’s dead or hidden; confess you had her in the lighthouse!”

Lucius did not answer. He was fighting with all his force to keep his foothold, struggling not to be hurled to the ground or flung over the cliff by this lunatic strength which attacked him so ferociously.… He did not so greatly care if he died or no, but youth and health were strong in him, and he thought of Amy with real affection and tenderness, and desired to spare her this last tragedy. So he resisted fiercely the grip of Oliver, and once wrenched quite away, leaving a portion of his torn sleeve in the other man’s clutch.

“You had her, you had her!” shrieked Oliver. “Confess that you had her!”

“No,” panted Lucius, “no!”

Oliver did not, as he had expected, immediately attack him again, but stood for a second rigid, with his distorted face turned up, and bleached in the moonlight, with an unnatural, ashy pallor; there were blood and foam on his lips, and his hands clenched stiffly at his side; he seemed dead. Lucius remembered with horror the seizures to which the wretched man had lately been subject, and cried out:

“For God’s sake come away from the edge of the cliff--come away!” and made an attempt to seize that dark, erect, convulsed figure.

But Oliver turned, and struck out impotently, still rigid, still convulsed, and fell to his knees, then to his side, and then was gone, falling through the calm moonlit air.

Lucius sank prone on the ground, and covered his face with his hands; when he could compose his swirling, dizzy senses he rose and peered over the face of the cliff.

Oliver was lying below on the dark rocks, black and white in the moonlight--black clothes, white shirt, white face--so distinct in the moonlight.

“He, and not I, after all!” thought the young Earl curiously; and he began the painful descent of the face of the ragged cliff.

When, torn, bleeding, and exhausted, he reached Oliver, he discovered that he was dead, as he had known he must be dead from the moment he had seen him topple over the cliff--had known and yet not quite believed--dead… Oliver.…

“Another secret,” thought Lucius quietly.

He knelt beside the dead man with a certain tenderness. Oliver Sellar looked grotesque in his precise evening clothes, flung there on the wild rocks and lonely shore.

Lucius searched his pockets, and took from one of them a coral bracelet, which was the companion to that which he cherished himself; and, with both these ornaments in his trembling hand, he sat down on a rock near by, and by the light of the moon stared down on the dead man. He thought: “Never again will he ask me about Fanny Caldini--that’s over.”

The gentle boom of the sea was in his ears, and when he raised his eyes he could see the red and white flash of the lighthouse in the distance.

Another secret! No one need ever know; no one would be the better for knowing. Another accident on these treacherous rocks… he had been walking with Oliver on the cliff; Oliver had had a seizure and had fallen over… a simple story; a likely, if tragic incident; no one would doubt it, any more than anyone had doubted that other death he had had to report, that other accident of which he had been the sole witness, the end of that other victim of the sea--the youth lost on the lighthouse rocks.