The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"Did he know you?" motioned Constance.

"I don't know--I don't know.... I think he was--dying--before he saw
me--"

She was shuddering so violently that Constance could scarcely hold her,
scarcely guide her down the stairs, across the lawn toward her own
house. The doctor overtook and passed them on his way to his own
quarters, but he only bowed very pleasantly, and would have gone on
except for the soft appeal of Constance.

"Miss Palliser," he said, "I _don't_ know--if you want the truth. You
know all that I do; he is conscious--or was. I expect he will be, at
intervals, now. This young lady behaved admirably--admirably! The thing
to do is to wait."

He glanced at Shiela, hesitated, then:

"Would it be any comfort to learn that he knew you?"

"Yes.... Thank you."

The doctor nodded and said in a hearty voice: "Oh, we've got to pull him
through somehow. That's what I'm here for." And he went away briskly
across the lawn.

"What are you going to do?" asked Constance in a low voice.

"I don't know; write to my father, I think."

"You ought not to sit up after such a journey."

"Do you suppose I could sleep _to-night_?"

Constance drew her into her arms; the girl clung to her, head hidden on
her breast.

"Shiela, Shiela," she murmured, "you can always come to me. Always,
always!--for Garry's sake.... Listen, child: I do not understand your
tragedy--his and yours--I only know you loved each other.... Love--and a
boy's strange ways in love have always been to me a mystery--a sad one,
Shiela.... For once upon a time--there was a boy--and never in all my
life another. Dear, we women are all born mothers to men--and from birth
to death our heritage is motherhood--grief for those of us who
bear--sadness for us who shall never bear--mothers to sorrow
everyone.... Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"That is forbidden you, now."

"It was forbidden me from the first; yet, when I saw him I loved him.
What was I to do?"

Constance waited, but the girl had fallen silent.

"Is there more you wish to tell me?"

"No more."

She bent and kissed the cold cheek on her shoulder.

"Don't sit up, child. If there is any reason for waking you I will come
myself."

"Thank you."

So they parted, Constance to seek her room and lie down partly dressed;
Shiela to the new quarters still strange and abhorrent to her.

Her maid, half dead with fatigue, slept in a chair, and young Mrs.
Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through
the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the
furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by
personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New
York decorator, at Portlaw's request--a faultless monotony from garret
to basement.

There was a desk in one room; ink in the well, notepaper bearing the
name of Portlaw's camp. She looked at it and passed on to her bedroom.

But after she had unlaced and, hair unbound, stood staring vacantly
about her, she remembered the desk; and drawing on her silken
chamber-robe, went into the writing-room.

At intervals, during her writing, she would rise and gaze from the
window across the darkness where in the sick-room a faint, steady glow
remained; and she could see the white curtains in his room stirring like
ghosts in the soft night wind and the shadow of the nurse on wall and
ceiling.

"Dear, dear dad and mother," she wrote; "Mr. Portlaw was so
anxious for Louis to begin his duties that we decided to come at
once, particularly as we both were somewhat worried over the
serious illness of Mr. Hamil.

"He is very, very ill, poor fellow. The sudden change from the
South brought on pneumonia. I know that you both and Gray and
Cecile and Jessie will feel as sorry as I do. His aunt, Miss
Palliser, is here. To-night I was permitted to see him. Only his
eyes were visible and they were wide open. It is very dreadful,
very painful, and has cast a gloom over our gaiety.

"To-night Dr. Lansdale said that he would pull him through. I am
afraid he said it to encourage Miss Palliser.

"This is a beautiful place--" She dropped her pen with a shudder,
closed her eyes, groped for it again, and forced herself to
continue--"Mr. Portlaw is very kind. The superintendent's house
is large and comfortable. Louis begins his duties to-morrow.
Everything promises to be most interesting and enjoyable--" She
laid her head in her arms, remaining so, motionless until
somewhere on the floor below a clock struck midnight."

At last she managed to go on:

"Dad, dear; what you said to Louis about my part of your estate
was very sweet and generous of you; but I do not want it. Louis
and I have talked it over in the last fortnight and we came to
the conclusion that you must make no provision for me at present.
We wish to begin very simply and make our own way. Besides I know
from something I heard Acton say that even very wealthy people
are hard pressed for ready money; and so Phil Gatewood acted as
our attorney and Mr. Cuyp's firm as our brokers and now the Union
Pacific and Government bonds have been transferred to Colonel
Vetchen's bank subject to your order--is that the term?--and the
two blocks on Lexington Avenue now stand in your name, and Cuyp,
Van Dine, and Siclen sold all those queer things for me--the
Industrials, I think you call them--and I endorsed a sheaf of
certified checks, making them all payable to your order.

"Dad, dear--I cannot take anything of that kind from you.... I am
very, very tired of the things that money buys. All I shall ever
care for is the quiet of unsettled places, the silence of the
hills, where I can study and read and live out the life I am
fitted for. The rest is too complex, too tiresome to keep up with
or even to watch from my windows.

"Dear dad and dear mother, I am a little anxious about what Acton
said to Gray--about money troubles that threaten wealthy people.
And so it makes me very happy to know that the rather
overwhelming fortune which you so long ago set aside for me to
accumulate until my marriage is at last at your disposal again.
Because Gray told me that Acton was forced to borrow such
frightful sums at such ruinous rates. And now you need borrow no
more, need you?

"You have been _so_ good to me--both of you. I am afraid you
won't believe how dearly I love you. I don't very well see how
you can believe it. But it is true.

"The light in Mr. Hamil's sick-room seems to be out. I am going
to ask what it means.

"Good-night, my darling two--I will write you every day.

"SHIELA."

She was standing, looking out across the night at the darkened windows
of the sick-room, her sealed letter in her hand, when she heard the
lower door open and shut, steps on the stairs--and turned to face her
husband.

"W-what is it?" she faltered.

"What is what?" he asked coolly.

"The reason there is no light in Mr. Hamil's windows?"

"He's asleep," said Malcourt in a dull voice.

"Louis! Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes.... I'd tell you if he were dead. He isn't. Lansdale thinks there
is a slight change for the better. So I came to tell you."

Every tense nerve and muscle in her body seemed to give way at the same
instant as she dropped to the lounge. For a moment her mind was only a
confused void, then the routine instinct of self-control asserted
itself; she made the effort required of her, groping for composure and
self-command.

"He is better, you say?"

"Lansdale said there was a change which might be slightly favourable....
I wish I could say more than that, Shiela."

"But--he _is_ better, then?"--pitifully persistent.

Malcourt looked at her a moment. "Yes, he is better. I believe it."

For a few moments they sat there in silence.

"That is a pretty gown," he said pleasantly.

"What! Oh!" Young Mrs. Malcourt bent her head, gazing fixedly at the
sealed letter in her hand. The faint red of annoyance touched her
pallor--perhaps because her chamber-robe suggested an informality
between them that was impossible.

"I have written to my father and mother," she said, "about the
securities."

"Have you?" he said grimly.

"Yes. And, Louis, I forgot to tell you that Mr. Cuyp telephoned me
yesterday assuring me that everything had been transferred and recorded
and that my father could use everything in an emergency--if it comes as
you thought possible.... And I--I wish to say"--she went on in a
curiously constrained voice--"that I appreciate what you have done--what
you so willingly gave up--"

An odd smile hovered on Malcourt's lips:

"Nonsense," he said. "One couldn't give up what one never had and never
wanted.... And you say that it was all available yesterday?"

"Available!"

"At the order of Cardross, Carrick & Co.?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

"You made over all those checks to them?"

"Yes. Mr. Cuyp took them away."

"And that Lexington Avenue stuff?"

"Deeded and recorded."

"The bonds?"

"Everything is father's again."

"Was it yesterday?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You are absolutely certain?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

Malcourt slowly rolled a cigarette and held it, unlighted, in his
nervous fingers. Young Mrs. Malcourt watched him, but her mind was on
other things.

Presently he rose, and she looked up as though startled painfully from
her abstraction.

"You ought to turn in," he said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night."

He went out and started to descend the stairs; but somebody was banging
at the lower door, entering clumsily, and in haste.

"Louis!" panted Portlaw, "they say Hamil is dying--"

"Damn you," whispered Malcourt fiercely, "will you shut your cursed
mouth!"

Then slowly he turned, leaden-footed, head hanging, and ascended the
stairs once more to the room where his wife had been. She was standing
there, pale as a corpse, struggling into a heavy coat.

"Did you--hear?"

"Yes."

He aided her with her coat.

"Do you think you had better go over?"

"Yes, I must go."

She was trembling so that he could scarcely get her into the coat.

"Probably," he said, "Portlaw doesn't know what he's talking about....
Shiela, do you want me to go with you--"

"No--no! Oh, hurry--"

She was crying now; he saw that she was breaking down.

"Wait till I find your shoes. You can't go that way. Wait a moment--"

"No--no!"

He followed her to the stairs, but:

"No--no!" she sobbed, pushing him back; "I want him to myself. Can't
they let me have him even when he is dying?"

"You can't go!" he said.

She turned on him quivering, beside herself.

"Not in this condition--for your own sake," he repeated steadily. And
again he said: "For the sake of your name in the years to come, Shiela,
you cannot go to him like this. Control yourself."

She strove to pass him; all her strength was leaving her.

"You coward!" she gasped.

"I thought you would mistake me," he said quietly. "People usually
do.... Sit down."

For a while she lay sobbing in her arm-chair, white hands clinched,
biting at her lips to choke back the terror and grief.

[Illustration: "'You can't go!' he said."]

"As soon as your self-command returns my commands are void," he said
coolly. "Nobody here shall see you as you are. If you can't protect
yourself it's my duty to do it for you.... Do you want Portlaw to see
you?--Wayward?--these doctors and nurses and servants? How long would
it take for gossip to reach your family!... And what you've done for
their sakes would be a crime instead of a sacrifice!"

She looked up; he continued his pacing to and fro but said no more.

After a while she rose; an immense lassitude weighted her limbs and
body.

"I think I am fit to go now," she said in a low voice.

"Use a sponge and cold water and fix your hair and put on your shoes,"
he said. "By the time you are ready I'll be back with the truth."

She was blindly involved with her tangled hair when she heard him on the
stairs again--a quick, active step that she mistook for haste; and hair
and arms fell as she turned to confront him.

"It was a sinking crisis; they got him through--both doctors. I tell
you, Shiela, things look better," he said cheerily.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROLL CALL

As in similar cases of the same disease Hamil's progress toward recovery
was scarcely appreciable for a fortnight or so, then, danger of
reinfection practically over, convalescence began with the new moon of
May.

Other things also began about that time, including a lawsuit against
Portlaw, the lilacs, jonquils, and appleblossoms in Shiela's garden, and
Malcourt's capricious journeys to New York on business concerning which
he offered no explanation to anybody.

The summons bidding William Van Beuren Portlaw of Camp Chickadee, town
of Pride's Fall, Horican County, New York, to defend a suit for damages
arising from trespass, tree-felling, the malicious diversion of the
waters of Painted Creek, the wilful and deliberate killing of game, the
flooding of wild meadow lands in contemptuous disregard of riparian
rights and the drowning of certain sheep thereby, had been impending
since the return from Florida to her pretty residence at Pride's Fall of
Mrs. Alida Ascott.

Trouble had begun the previous autumn with a lively exchange of notes
between them concerning the shooting of woodcock on Mrs. Ascott's side
of the boundary. Then Portlaw stupidly built a dam and diverted the
waters of Painted Creek. Having been planned, designed, and constructed
according to Portlaw's own calculations, the dam presently burst and the
escaping flood drowned some of Mrs. Ascott's sheep. Then somebody cut
some pine timber on her side of the line and Mrs. Ascott's smouldering
indignation flamed.

Personally she and Portlaw had been rather fond of one another; and to
avoid trouble incident on hot temper Alida Ascott decamped, intending to
cool off in the Palm Beach surf and think it over; but she met Portlaw
at Palm Beach that winter, and Portlaw dodged the olive branch and
neglected her so selfishly that she determined then and there upon his
punishment, now long overdue.

"My Lord!" said Portlaw plaintively to Malcourt, "I had no idea she'd do
such a thing to me; had you?"

"Didn't I tell you she would?" said Malcourt. "I know women better than
you do, though you don't believe it."

"But I thought she was rather fond of me!" protested Portlaw
indignantly.

"That may be the reason she's going to chasten you, friend. Don't come
bleating to me; I advised you to be attentive to her at Palm Beach, but
you sulked and stood about like a baby-hippopotamus and pouted and shot
your cuffs. I warned you to be agreeable to her, but you preferred the
Beach Club and pigeon shooting. It's easy enough to amuse yourself and
be decent to a nice woman too. Even I can combine those things."

"Didn't I go to that lawn party?"

"Yes, and scarcely spoke to her. And never went near her afterward. Now
she's mad all through."

"Well, I can get mad, too--"

"No, you're too plump to ever become angry--"

"Do you think I'm going to submit to--"

"You'll submit all right when they've dragged you twenty-eight miles to
the county court house once or twice."

"Louis! Are you against me too?"--in a voice vibrating with reproach and
self-pity.

"Now, look here, William Van Beuren; your guests _did_ shoot woodcock on
Mrs. Ascott's land--"

"They're migratory birds, confound it!"

"--And," continued Malcourt, paying no attention to the interruption,
"you did build that fool dam regardless of my advice; and you first left
her cattle waterless, then drowned her sheep--"

"That was a cloud-burst--an act of God--"

"It was a dam-burst, and the act of an obstinate chump!"

"Louis, I won't let anybody talk to me like that!"

"But you've just _done_ it, William."

Portlaw, in a miniature fury, began to run around in little circles,
puffing threats which, however, he was cautious enough to make obscure;
winding up with:

"And I might as well take this opportunity to ask you what you mean by
calmly going off to town every ten days or so and absenting yourself
without a word of--"

"Oh, bosh," said Malcourt; "if you don't want me here, Billy, say so and
be done with it."

"I didn't say I didn't want you--"

"Well, then, let me alone. I don't neglect your business and I don't
intend to neglect my own. If the time comes when I can't attend to both
I'll let you know soon enough--perhaps sooner than you expect."

"You're perfectly welcome to go to town," insisted Portlaw, alarmed.

"I know it," nodded Malcourt coolly. "Now, if you'll take my advice
you'll behave less like a pig in this Ascott matter."

"I'm going to fight that suit--"

"Certainly fight it. But not the way you're planning."

"Well--how, then?"

"Go and see the little lady."

"See _her_? She wouldn't receive me."

"Probably not. That's unimportant. For heaven's sake, Portlaw, you're
becoming chuckle-headed with all your feeding and inertia and pampered
self-indulgence. You're the limit!--with your thirty-eight-inch girth
and your twin chins and baby wrists! You know, it's pitiable when I
think what a clean-cut, decent-looking, decently set-up fellow you were
only two years ago!--it's enough to make a cat sick!"

"Can I help what I look like!" bellowed Portlaw wrathfully.

"What an idiot question!" said Malcourt with weary patience. "All you've
got to do is to cuddle yourself less, and go out into the fresh air on
your ridiculous legs--"

"Ridiculous!" gasped the other. "Well, I'm damned if I stand _that_--!"

"You won't be able to stand at all if you continue eating and sitting in
arm-chairs. You don't like what I say, do you?" with easy impudence.
"Well, I said it to sting you--if there's any sensation left under your
hide. And I'll say something else: if you'd care for somebody beside
yourself for a change and give the overworked Ego a vacation, you'd get
along with your pretty neighbour yonder. Oh, yes, you would; she was
quite inclined to like you before you began to turn, physically, into a
stall-fed prize winner. You're only thirty-seven or eight; you've a
reasonable chance yet to exchange obesity for perspicacity before it
smothers what intellect remains. And if you're anything except what
you're beginning to resemble you'll stop sharp, behave yourself, go to
see your neighbour, and"--with a shrug--"marry her. Marriage--as easy a
way out of trouble as it is in."

He swung carelessly on his heel, supple, erect, graceful as always.

"But," he threw back over his shoulder, "you'd better acquire the
rudiments of a figure before you go a-courting Alida Ascott." And left
Portlaw sitting petrified in his wadded chair.

Malcourt strolled on, a humorously malicious smile hovering near his
eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window. He
had not seen Hamil during his illness or his convalescence--had made no
attempt to, evading lightly the casual suggestions of Portlaw that he
and his young wife pay Hamil a visit; nor did he appear to take anything
more than a politely perfunctory interest in the sick man's progress;
yet Constance Palliser had often seen him pacing the lawn under Hamil's
window long after midnight during those desperate hours when the
life-flame scarcely flickered--those ominous moments when so many souls
go out to meet the impending dawn.

But now, in the later stages of Hamil's rapid convalescence which is
characteristic of a healthy recovery from that unpleasant malady,
Malcourt avoided the cottage, even ceased to inquire; and Hamil had
never asked to see him, although, for appearance' sake, he knew that he
must do so very soon.

Wayward and Constance Palliser were visiting Mrs. Ascott at Pride's
Fall; young Mrs. Malcourt had been there for a few days, but was
returning to prepare for the series of house-parties arranged by Portlaw
who had included Cecile Cardross and Philip Gatewood in the first relay.

As for Malcourt there was no counting on him; he was likely to remain
for several days at any of the five distant gate-keepers' lodges across
the mountains or to be mousing about the woods with wardens and
foresters, camping where convenient; or to start for New York without
explanation. All of which activity annoyed Portlaw, who missed his
manager at table and at cards--missed his nimble humour, his impudence,
his casual malice--missed even the paternal toleration which this
younger man bestowed upon him--a sort of half-tolerant,
half-contemptuous supervision.

And now that Malcourt was so often absent Portlaw was surprised to find
how much he missed the veiled authority exercised--how dependent on it
he had become, how secretly agreeable had been the half-mocking
discipline which relieved him of any responsibility except as over-lord
of the culinary regime.

Like a spoiled school-lad, badly brought up, he sometimes defied
Malcourt's authority--as in the matter of the dam--enjoying his own
perversity. But he always got into hot water and was glad enough to
return to safety.

Even now, though his truancy had landed him in a very lively lawsuit, he
was glad enough to slink back through the stinging comments to the
security of authority; and his bellows of exasperation under reproof
were half pretence. He expected Malcourt to get him out of it if he
could not extract himself; he had no idea of defending the suit. Besides
there was sufficient vanity in him to rely on a personal meeting with
Mrs. Ascott. But he laughed in his sleeve at the idea of the necessity
of making love to her.

And one day when Hamil was out for the third or fourth time, walking
about the drives and lawns in the sunshine, and Malcourt was not in
sight, Portlaw called for his riding-breeches and boots.

He had not been on a horse in years and it seemed as though only faith
and a shoe-horn could get him into his riding-breeches; but with the aid
of Heaven and a powerful valet he stood before his mirror arrayed at
last; and presently went out across the lawn and through the grove to
Malcourt's house.

Young Mrs. Malcourt in pink gingham apron and sun-bonnet was digging
with a trowel in her garden when he appeared upon the landscape.

"I don't want you to tell Louis," he cautioned her with a very knowing
and subtle smile, "but I'm just going to ride over to Pride's this
morning and settle this lawsuit matter, and surprise him."

Shiela had straightened up, trowel in her gloved hand, and now stood
looking at him in amused surprise.

"I didn't know you rode," she said. "I should think it would be very
good for you."

"Well," he admitted, turning red, "I suppose I ought to ride now and
then. Louis has been at me rather viciously. But you won't tell him,
will you?"

"No," said Shiela.

"Because, you see, he doesn't think me capable of settling this thing;
and so I'm just going to gallop over and have a little friendly chat
with Mrs. Ascott--"

"Friendly?" very gravely.

"Yes," he said, alarmed; "why not?"

"Do you think Mrs. Ascott will receive you?"

"Well--now--Louis said something of that sort. And then he added that it
didn't matter--but he didn't explain what I was to do when she refused
to see me.... Ah--could--would you mind telling me what to do in that
case, Mrs. Malcourt?"

"What _is_ there to do, Mr. Portlaw, if a woman refuses to receive you?"

"Why--_I_ don't know," he admitted vacantly. "What would _you_ do?"

Young Mrs. Malcourt, frankly amused, shook her head:

"If Mrs. Ascott won't see you, she _won't_! You don't intend to carry
Pride's Fall by assault, do you?"

"But Louis said--"

"Mr. Malcourt knows quite well that Mrs. Ascott won't see you."

"W-why?"

"Ask yourself. Besides, her lawyers have forbidden her."

But Portlaw's simple faith in Malcourt never wavered; he stood his
ground and quoted him naively, adding: "You see Louis must have meant
_something_. Couldn't you tell me what he meant? I'll promise to do it."

"I suppose," she answered, laughing, "that he meant me to write a note
to Alida Ascott, making a personal appeal for your reception. He spoke
of it; but, Mr. Portlaw, I am scarcely on such a footing with her."

Portlaw was so innocently delighted with the idea which bore Malcourt's
stamp of authority, that young Mrs. Malcourt found it difficult to
refuse; and a few moments later, armed with a friendly but cautious
note, he climbed laboriously aboard a huge chestnut hack, sat there
doubtfully while a groom made all fast and tight for heavy weather,
then, with a groan, set spurs to his mount, and went pounding away
through the forest, upon diplomacy intent.

Hamil, walking about the lawns in the sunshine, saw him come careering
past, making heavy weather of it, and smiled in salute; Shiela on a
rustic ladder, pruning-knife in hand, gazed over her garden wall until
the woods swallowed rotund rider and steed. As she turned to descend,
her glance fell upon Hamil who was crossing the lawn directly below. For
a moment they looked at each other without sign of recognition; then
scarcely aware of what she did she made him a carelessly gay salute with
her pruning-knife, clinging to the ladder with the other hand in sheer
fear of falling, so suddenly unsteady her limbs and body.

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