The Keeper of the Door by Ethel M. Dell

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THE KEEPER OF THE DOOR

By ETHEL M. DELL

AUTHOR OF "The Way of an Eagle," "The Knave of Diamonds," "The Rocks of
Valpre," Etc.

A.L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by Arrangements with G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 1915

BY

ETHEL M. DELL

Fourth Impression

BY ETHEL M. DELL

The Way of an Eagle
The Knave of Diamonds
The Rocks of Valpre
The Swindler
The Keeper of the Door
Bars of Iron
Rosa Mundi
The Obstacle Race
Tetherstones
The Passerby and Other Stories
The Hundredth Chance
The Safety Curtain
Greatheart
The Lamp in the Desert
The Tidal Wave
The Top of the World
The Odds and Other Stories
Charles Rex
The Unknown Quantity
A Man Under Authority

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers G.P.
PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press, New York Made in the United States of America

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF ONE WHO WAITS BEYOND THE
DOOR FOR THOSE HE LOVES

"And the keepers before the door kept the prison."

_Acts xii. 6._

"A deep below the deep
And a height beyond the height!
Our hearing is not hearing,
And our seeing is not sight."

_The Voice and the Peak._

ALFRED TENNYSON.

CONTENTS

_PART ONE_

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE LESSON 1

II. THE ALLY 16

III. THE OBSTACLE 27

IV. THE SETTING OF THE WATCH 37

V. THE CHAPERON 47

VI. THE PAIN-KILLER 62

VII. THE PUZZLE 74

VIII. THE ELASTIC BOND 86

IX. THE PROJECT 97

X. THE DOOR 108

XI. THE IMPOSSIBLE 120

XII. THE PAL 129

XIII. HER FATE 149

XIV. THE DARK HOUR 155

XV. THE AWAKENING 167

XVI. SECRETS 177

XVII. THE VERDICT 189

XVIII. SOMETHING LOST 198

XIX. THE REVELATION 205

XX. THE SEARCH 217

XXI. ON THE BRINK 228

XXII. OVER THE EDGE 235

XXIII. AS GOOD AS DEAD 243

XXIV. THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 252

XXV. THE PRICE 264

_PART TWO_

I. COURTSHIP 281

II. THE SELF-INVITED GUEST 287

III. THE NEW LIFE 297

IV. THE PHANTOM 305

V. THE EVERLASTING CHAIN 317

VI. CHRISTMAS MORNING 327

VII. THE WILDERNESS OF NASTY POSSIBILITIES 340

VIII. THE SOUL OF A HERO 350

IX. THE MAN WITH THE GUN 357

X. A TALK IN THE OPEN 367

XI. THE FAITHFUL WOUND OF A FRIEND 376

XII. A LETTER FROM AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 390

XIII. A WOMAN'S PREJUDICE 403

XIV. SMOKE FROM THE FIRE 414

XV. THE SPREADING OF THE FLAME 426

XVI. THE GAP 437

XVII. THE EASIEST COURSE 452

XVIII. ONE MAN'S LOSS 462

XIX. A FIGHT WITHOUT A FINISH 472

XX. THE POWER OF THE ENEMY 487

XXI. THE GATHERING STORM 503

XXII. THE REPRIEVE 510

XXIII. THE GIFT OF THE RAJAH 518

XXIV. THE BIG, BIG GAME OF LIFE 528

XXV. MEMORIES THAT HURT 537

XXVI. A FOOL'S ERRAND 548

XXVII. LOVE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE 556

XXVIII. A SOLDIER AND A GENTLEMAN 570

XXIX. THE MAN'S POINT OF VIEW 578

XXX. THE LINE OF RETREAT 588

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE LESSON

"Then he's such a prig!" said Olga.

"You should never use a word you can't define," observed Nick, from the
depths of the hammock in which his meagre person reposed at length.

She made a face at him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which
caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was
wont pathetically to remark, everyone bullied him because he was small
and possessed only one arm, having shed the other by inadvertence
somewhere on the borders of the Indian Empire.

Certainly Olga--his half-brother's eldest child--treated him with scant
respect, though she never allowed anyone else to be other than polite to
him in her hearing. But then she and Nick had been pals from the
beginning of things, and this surely entitled her to a certain licence
in her dealings with him. Nick, too, was such a darling; he never minded
anything.

Having duly punished him for snubbing her, she returned with serenity to
the work upon her lap.

"You see," she remarked thoughtfully, "the worst of it is he really is
a bit of a genius. And one can't sit on genius--with comfort. It sort of
flames out where you least expect it."

"Highly unpleasant, I should think," agreed Nick.

"Yes; and he has such a disgusting fashion of behaving as if--as if one
were miles beneath his notice," proceeded Olga. "And I'm not a chicken,
you know, Nick, I'm twenty."

"A vast age!" said Nick.

For which remark she gave him another jerk which set him swinging like a
pendulum.

"Well, I've got a little sense anyhow," she remarked.

"But not much," said Nick. "Or you would know that that sort of
treatment after muffins for tea is calculated to produce indigestion in
a very acute form, peculiarly distressing to the beholder."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot the muffins." Olga laid a restraining hand upon
the hammock. "But do you like him, Nick? Honestly now!"

"My dear child, I never like anyone till I've seen him at his worst.
Drawing-room manners never attract me."

"But this man hasn't got any manners at all," objected Olga. "And he's
so horribly satirical. It's like having a stinging-nettle in the house.
I believe--just because he's clever in his own line--that he's been
spoilt. As if everybody couldn't do something!"

"Ah! That's the point," said Nick sententiously. "Everybody can, but it
isn't everybody who does. Now this young man apparently knows how to
make the most of his opportunities. He plays a rattling hand at bridge,
by the way."

"I wonder if he cheats," said Olga. "I'm sure he's quite unscrupulous."

Nick turned his head, and surveyed her from under his restless eyelids.
"I begin to think you must be falling in love with the young man," he
observed.

"Don't be absurd, Nick!" Olga did not even trouble to look up. She was
stitching with neat rapidity.

"I'm not. That's just how my wife fell in love with me. I assure you it
often begins that way." Nick shook his head wisely. "I should take steps
to be nice to him if I were you, before the mischief spreads."

Olga tossed her head. She was slightly flushed. "I shall never make a
fool of myself over any man, Nick," she said. "I'm quite determined on
that point."

"Dear, dear!" said Nick. "How old did you say you were?"

"I am woman enough to know my own mind," said Olga.

"Heaven forbid!" said Nick. "You wouldn't be a woman at all if you did
that."

"I don't think you are a good judge on that subject, Nick," remarked his
niece judiciously. "In fact, even Dr. Wyndham knows better than that. I
assure you the antipathy is quite mutual. He regards everyone who isn't
desperately ill as superfluous and uninteresting. He was absolutely
disappointed the other day because, when I slipped on the stairs, I
didn't break any bones."

"What a fiend!" said Nick.

"And yet Dad likes him," said Olga. "I can't understand it. The poor
people like him too in a way. Isn't it odd? They seem to have such faith
in him."

"I believe Jim has faith in him," remarked Nick. "He wouldn't turn him
loose on his patients if he hadn't."

"Of course, Sir Kersley Whitton recommended him," conceded Olga. "And he
is an absolutely wonderful man, Dad says. He calls him the greatest
medicine-man in England. He took up Max Wyndham years ago, when he was
only a medical student. And he has been like a father to him ever
since. In fact, I don't believe Dr. Wyndham would ever have come here if
Sir Kersley hadn't made him. He was overworked and wouldn't take a rest,
so Sir Kersley literally forced him to come and be Dad's assistant for a
while. He told Dad that he was too brilliant a man to stay long in the
country, and Dad gathered that he contemplated making him his own
partner in the course of time. The sooner the better, I should say. He
obviously thinks himself quite thrown away on the likes of us."

"Altogether he seems to be a very interesting young man," said Nick. "I
must really cultivate his acquaintance. Is he going to be present
to-night?"

"Oh, I suppose so. It's a great drawback having him living in the house.
You see, being his hostess, I have to be more or less civil to him. It's
very horrid," said Olga, upon whom, in consequence of her mother's death
three years before, the duties of housekeeper had devolved. "And Dad is
so fearfully strict too. He won't let me be the least little bit rude,
though he is often quite rude himself. You know Dad."

"I know him," said Nick. "He's licked me many a time, bless his heart,
and richly I deserved it. Help me to get out of this like a good kid! I
see James the Second and the twins awaiting me on the tennis-court. I
promised them a sett after tea."

He rolled on to his feet with careless agility, his one arm encircling
his young niece's shoulders.

"I shouldn't worry if I were you," protested Olga. "It's much too hot.
Don't waste your energies amusing the children! They can quite well play
about by themselves."

"And get up to mischief," said Nick. "No, I'm on the job, overlooking
the whole crowd of you, and I'll do it thoroughly. When old Jim comes
home he'll find a model household awaiting him. By the way, I had a
letter from him this afternoon. The kiddie is stronger already, and
Muriel as happy as a queen. I shall hear from her to-morrow."

"Don't you wish you were with them?" questioned Olga. "It would be much
more fun than staying here to chaperone me."

Nick looked quizzical. "Oh, there's plenty of fun to be had out of that
too," he assured her. "I take a lively interest in you, my child; always
have."

"You're a darling," said Olga, raising her face impulsively. "I shall
write and tell Dad what care you are taking of us all."

She kissed him warmly and let him go, smiling at the tuneless humming
that accompanied his departure. Who at a casual glance would have taken
Nick Ratcliffe for one of the keenest politicians of his party, a man
whom friend and foe alike regarded as too brilliant to be ignored? He
had even been jestingly described as "that doughty champion of the
British Empire"--an epithet that Olga cherished jealously because it had
not been bestowed wholly in jest.

His general appearance was certainly the reverse of imposing, and in
this particular, to her intense gratification, Olga resembled him. She
had the same quick, pale eyes, with the shrewdness of observation that
never needed to look twice, the same colourless brows and lashes and
insignificant features; but she possessed one redeeming point which Nick
lacked. What with him was an impish grin of sheer exuberance, with her
was a smile of rare enchantment, very fleeting, with a fascination quite
indescribable but none the less capable of imparting to her pale young
face a charm that only the greatest artists have ever been able to
depict. People were apt to say of Olga Ratcliffe that she had a face
that lighted up well. Her ready intelligence was ardent enough to
illuminate her. No one was ever dull in her society. Certainly in her
temperament at least there was nothing colorless. Where she loved she
loved intensely, and she hated in the same way, quite thoroughly and
without dissimulation.

Maxwell Wyndham, for instance, the subject of her recent conversation
with Nick, she had disliked wholeheartedly from the commencement of
their acquaintance, and he was perfectly aware of the fact. He could not
well have been otherwise, but he was by no means disconcerted thereby.
It even seemed as if he took a malicious pleasure in developing her
dislike upon every opportunity that presented itself, and since he was
living in the house as her father's assistant, opportunities were by no
means infrequent.

But there was no open hostility between them. Under Dr. Ratcliffe's eye,
his daughter was always frigidly polite to the unwelcome outsider, and
the outsider accepted her courtesy with a sarcastic smile, knowing
exactly how much it was worth.

Perhaps he was a little curious to know how she meant to treat him
during her father's absence, or it may have been sheer chance that
actuated him on that sultry evening in August, but Nick and his three
playfellows had only just settled down to a serious sett when the
doctor's assistant emerged from the house with his hands deep in his
pockets and a peculiarly evil-smelling cigarette between his firm lips,
and strolled across to the shady corner under the walnut-trees where the
doctor's daughter was sitting.

She was stitching so busily that she did not observe his approach until
escape was out of the question; but she would not have retreated in any
case. It was characteristic of her to display a bold front to the people
she disliked.

She threw him one of her quick glances as he reached her, and noted with
distaste the extreme fieriness of his red hair in the light of the
sinking sun. His hair had always been an offence to her. It was so
obtrusive. But she could have borne with that alone. It was the green
eyes that mocked at everything from under shaggy red brows that had
originally given rise to her very decided antipathy, and these Olga
found it impossible to condone. People had no right to mock, whatever
the colour of their eyes.

He joined her as though wholly unaware of her glance of disparagement.

"I fear I am spoiling a charming picture," he observed as he did so.
"But since there was none but myself to admire it, I felt at liberty to
do so."

Again momentarily Olga's eyes flashed upwards, comprehending the whole
of his thick-set figure in a single sweep of the eyelids. He was
exceedingly British in build, possessing in breadth what he lacked in
height. There was a bull-dog strength about his neck and shoulders that
imparted something of a fighting look to his general demeanour. He bore
himself with astounding self-assurance.

"Have you had any tea?" Olga inquired somewhat curtly. She was inwardly
wondering what he had come for. He usually had a very definite reason
for all he did.

"Many thanks," he replied, balancing himself on the edge of the hammock.
"I am deeply touched by your solicitude for my welfare. I partook of tea
at the Campions' half an hour ago."

"At the Campions'!" There was quick surprise in Olga's voice.

It elicited no explanation however. He sat and swayed in the hammock as
though he had not noticed it.

After a moment she turned and looked at him fully. The green eyes were
instantly upon her, alert and critical, holding that gleam of satirical
humour that she invariably found so exasperating.

"Well?" said Olga at last.

"Well, fair lady?" he responded, with bland serenity.

She frowned. He was the only person in her world who ever made her take
the trouble to explain herself, and he did it upon every possible
occasion, with unvarying regularity. She hated him for it very
thoroughly, but she always had to yield.

"Why did you go to the Campions'?" she asked, barely restraining her
irritation.

"That, fair lady," he coolly responded, "is a question which with regret
I must decline to answer."

Olga flushed. "How absurd!" she said quickly. "Dad would tell me like a
shot."

"I am not Dad," said the doctor's assistant, with unruffled urbanity.
"Moreover, fair lady--"

"I prefer to be called by my name if you have no objection, Dr.
Wyndham," cut in Olga, with rising wrath.

He smiled at something over her head. "Thank you, Olga. It saves trouble
certainly. Would you like to call me by mine? Max is what I generally
answer to."

Olga turned a vivid scarlet. "I am Miss Ratcliffe to you," she said.

He accepted the rebuff with unimpaired equanimity. "I thought it must be
too good to be true. Pardon my presumption! When you are as old as I am
you will realize how little it really matters. You are genuinely angry,
I suppose? Not pretending?"

Olga bit her lip in silence and returned to her work, conscious of
unsteady fingers, conscious also of a scrutiny that marked and derided
the fact.

"Yes," he said, after a moment, "I should think your pulse must be about
a hundred. Leave off working for a minute and let it steady down!"

Olga stitched on in spite of growing discomfiture. The shakiness was
increasing very perceptibly. She could feel herself becoming hotter
every moment. It was maddening to feel those ironical eyes noting and
ridiculing her agitation. From exasperation she had passed to something
very nearly resembling fury.

"Leave off!" he said again; and then, because she would not, he laid a
detaining hand upon her work.

Instantly and fiercely her needle stabbed downwards. It was done in a
moment, almost before she realized the nature of the impulse that
possessed her. Straight into the back of his hand the weapon drove, and
there from the sheer force of the impact broke off short.

Olga exclaimed in horror, but Max Wyndham made no sound of any sort. The
cigarette remained between his lips, and not a muscle of his face moved.
His hand with the broken needle in it was not withdrawn. It clenched
slowly, that was all.

The blood welled up under Olga's dismayed eyes, and began to trickle
over the brown fist. She threw a frightened glance into his grim face.
Her anger had wholly evaporated and she was keenly remorseful. But it
was no matter for an apology. The thing was beyond words.

"And now," said Max Wyndham, coolly removing the ash from his cigarette,
"perhaps you will come to the surgery with me and get it out."

"I?" stammered Olga, turning very white.

"Even so, fair lady. It will be a little lesson for you--in surgery. I
hope the sight of blood doesn't make you feel green," said Max, with a
one-sided twitch of the lips that was scarcely a smile.

He removed his hand to her relief, and stood up. Olga stood up too, but
she was trembling all over.

"Oh, I can't! Indeed, I can't! Dr. Wyndham, please!" She glanced round
desperately. "There's Nick! Couldn't you ask him?"

"Unfortunately this is a job that requires two hands," said Max.
"Besides, you did the mischief, remember."

Olga gasped and said no more. Meekly she laid her work on the chair by
the hammock and accompanied him to the house. It was the most painful
predicament she had ever been in. She knew that there was no escape for
her, knew, moreover, that she richly deserved her punishment; yet, as he
held open the surgery-door for her, she made one more appeal.

"I'm sure I can't do it. I shall do more harm than good, and hurt you
horribly."

"Oh, but you'll enjoy that," he said.

"Indeed, I shan't!" Olga was almost in tears by this time. "Couldn't you
do it yourself with--with a forceps?"

"Afraid not," said Max.

He went to a cupboard and took out a bottle containing something which
he measured into a glass and filled up with water.

"Fortify yourself with this," he said, handing it to her, "while I
select the instruments of torture."

Olga shuddered visibly. "I don't want it. I only want to go."

"Well, you can't go," he returned, "until you have extracted that bit of
needle of yours. So drink that, and be sensible!"

He pulled out a drawer with the words, and she watched him, fascinated,
as he made his selection. He glanced up after a moment.

"Olga, if you don't swallow that stuff soon, I shall be--annoyed with
you."

She raised it at once to her lips, feeling as if she had no choice, and
drank with shuddering distaste.

"I always have hated _sal volatile_," she said, as she finished the
draught.

"You can't have everything you like in this world," returned Max
sententiously. "Come over here by the window! Now you are to do exactly
what I tell you. Understand? Put your own judgment in abeyance. Yes, I
know it's bleeding; but you needn't shudder like that. Give me your
hand!" She gave it, trembling. He held it firmly, looking straight into
her quivering face. "We won't proceed," he said, "until you have quite
recovered your self-control, or you may go and slit a large vein, which
would be awkward for us both. Just stand still and pull yourself
together."

She found herself obliged to obey. The shrewd green eyes watched her
mercilessly, and under their unswerving regard her agitation gradually
died down.

"That's better," he said at length, and released her hand. "Now see what
you can do."

It seemed to Olga later that he took so keen an interest in the
operation as to be quite insensible of the pain it involved. She obeyed
his instructions herself with a set face and a quaking heart,
suppressing a sick shudder from time to time, finally achieving the
desired end with a face so ghastly that the victim of her efforts
laughed outright.

"Whom are you most sorry for, yourself or me?" he wanted to know. "I
say, please don't faint till you have bandaged me up! I can't attend to
you properly if you do, and I shall probably spill blood over you and
make a beastly mess."

Again his insistence carried the day. Olga bandaged the torn hand
without a murmur.

"And now," said Dr. Max Wyndham, "tell me what you did it for!"

She looked at him then with quick defiance. She had endured much in
silence, mainly because she had known that she had deserved it; but
there was a limit. She was not going to be brought to book as though she
had been a naughty child.

"You had yourself alone to thank for it," she declared with indignation.
"If--if you hadn't interfered and behaved intolerably, it wouldn't have
happened."

"What a naive way of expressing it!" said Max. "Shall I tell you how I
regard the 'happening'?"

"You can do as you like," she flung back. She was longing to go, but
stood her ground lest departure should look like flight.

Max took out and lighted another cigarette before he spoke again. Then:
"I regard it," he said very deliberately, "as a piece of spiteful
mischief for which you deserve a sound whipping--which it would give me
immense pleasure to administer."

Olga's pale face flamed scarlet. Her eyes flashed up to his in fiery
disdain.

"You!" she said, with withering scorn. "You!"

"Well, what about me?"

Carelessly, his hands in his pockets, Max put the question. Quite
obviously he did not care in the smallest degree what answer she made.
And so Olga, being stung to rage by his unbearable superiority, cast
scruples to the wind.

"I'd do the same to you again--and worse," she declared vindictively,
"if I got the chance!"

Max smiled at that superciliously, one corner of his mouth slightly
higher than the other. "Oh, no, you wouldn't," he said. "For one thing,
you wouldn't care to run the risk of having to sew me up again. And for
another, you wouldn't dare!"

"Not dare! Do you think I am afraid of you?"

Olga stood in a streak of sunlight that slanted through the wire blind
of the doctor's surgery and fell in chequers upon her white dress. Her
pale eyes fairly blazed. No one who had ever seen her thus would have
described her as colourless. She was as vivid in that moment as the
flare of the sunset; and into the eyes of the man who leaned against the
table coolly appraising her there came an odd little gleam of
satisfaction--the gleam that comes into the eyes of the treasure-hunter
at the first glint of gold.

Olga came a step towards him. She saw the gleam and took it for
ridicule. The situation was intolerable. She would be mocked no longer.

"Dr. Wyndham," she said, her voice pitched rather low, "do you call
yourself a gentleman?"

"I really don't know," he answered. "It's a question I've never asked
myself."

"Because," she said, speaking rather quickly, "I think you a cad."

"Not really!" said Max, smiling openly. "Now I wonder why! Sit down,
won't you, and tell me?"

The colour was fading from her face again. She had made a mistake in
thus assailing him, and already she knew it. He only laughed at her puny
efforts to hurt him, laughed and goaded her afresh.

"Why am I not a gentleman?" he asked, and drew in a mouthful of smoke
which he puffed at the ceiling. "Because I said I should like to give
you a whipping? But you would like to tar and feather me, I gather.
Isn't that even more barbarous?" He watched the smoke ascend, with eyes
screwed up, then, as she did not speak, looked down at her again.

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