The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"Yes," she said quietly, "in that."

He sat very still there in the afternoon sunshine, pondering; and
sometimes his gaze searched the valley depths below, lost among the
tree-tops; sometimes he studied the far horizon where the little blue
hills stood up against the sky like little blue waves at sea. His hat
was off; the cliff breeze played with his dark curly hair, lifting it at
the temples, stirring the one obstinate strand that never lay quite flat
on the crown of his head.

Twice she looked around as though to interrupt his preoccupation, but he
neither responded nor even seemed to be aware of her; and she sighed
imperceptibly and followed his errant eyes with her own.

At last:

"Is there no way out of it for you, Louis? I am not thinking of myself,"
she added simply.

He turned fully around.

"If there was a way out I'd take it and marry you."

"I did not ask for that; I was thinking of you."

He was silent.

"Besides," she said, "I know that you do not love me."

"That is true only because I _will_ not. I could."

She looked at him.

"But," he said calmly, "I mustn't; because there is no way out for
me--there's no way out of anything for me--while I live--down here."

"Down--where?"

"On this exotic planet called the earth, dear child," he said with
mocking gravity. "I'm a sort of moon-calf--a seed blown clear from
Saturn's surface, which fell here and sprouted into the thing you call
Louis Malcourt." And, his perverse gaiety in full possession of him
again, he laughed, and his mirth was tinctured with the bitter-sweet of
that humorous malice which jeered unkindly only at himself.

"All to the bad, Virginia--all to the bow-wows--judging me from your
narrow, earthly standard and the laws of your local divinity. That's why
I want to see the real One and ask Him how bad I really am. They'd tell
me down here that I'll never see Him. Zut! I'll take that chance--not
such a long shot either. Why, if I am no good, the risk is all the
better; He _is_ because of such as I! No need for Him where all the
ba-bas are white as the driven snow, and all the little white doves
keep their feathers clean and coo-coo hymns from dawn to sunset.... By
the way, I never gave you anything, did I?--a Chinese god, for example?"

She shook her head, bewildered at his inconsequences.

"No, I never did. You're not entitled to a gift of a Chinese god from
me. But I've given eighteen of them to a number of--ah--friends. I had
nineteen, but never had the--right to present that nineteenth god."

"What do you mean, Louis?"

"Oh, those gilded idols are the deities of secrecy. Their commandment
is, 'Thou shalt not be found out.' So I distributed them among those who
worship them--that is, I have so directed my executors.... By the way, I
made a new will."

He looked at her cheerfully, evidently very much pleased with himself.

"And _what_ do you think I've left to you?"

"Louis, I don't--"

"Why, the bridle, saddle, crop, and spurs I wore that day when we rode
to the ocean! Don't you remember the day that you noticed me listening
and asked me what I heard?"

"Y-yes--"

"And I told you I was listening to my father?"

Again that same chilly tremor passed over her as it had then.

The sun, over the Adirondack foot-hills, hung above bands of smouldering
cloud. Presently it dipped into them, hanging triple-ringed, like Saturn
on fire.

"It's time for you to go," he said in an altered voice; and she turned
to find him standing and ready to aid her.

A little pale with the realisation that the end had come so soon, she
rose and walked slowly back to where his horse stood munching leaves.

"Well, Virginia--good-bye, little girl. You'll be all right before
long."

There was no humour left in his voice now; no mocking in his dark gaze.

She raised her eyes to his in vague distress.

"Where are the others?" he asked. "Oh, up on those rocks? Yes, I see the
smoke of their fire.... Say good-bye to them for me--not _now_--some
day."

She did not understand him; he hesitated, smiled, and took her in his
arms.

"Good-bye, dear," he said.

"Good-bye."

They kissed.

After she was half-way to the top of the rocks he mounted his horse. She
did not look back.

"She's a good little sport," he said, smiling; and, gathering bridle,
turned back into the forest. This time he neither sang nor whistled as
he rode through the red splendour of the western sun. But he was very
busy listening.

There was plenty to hear, too; wood-thrushes were melodious in the late
afternoon light; infant crows cawed from high nests unseen in the leafy
tree-tops; the stream's thin, silvery song threaded the forest quiet,
accompanying him as he rode home.

Home? Yes--if this silent house where he dismounted could be called
that. The place was very still. Evidently the servants had taken
advantage of their master's and mistress's absence to wander out into
the woods. Some of the stablemen had the dogs out, too; there was nobody
in sight to take his horse, so he led the animal to the stables and
found there a lad to relieve him.

Then he retraced his steps to the house and entered the deserted garden
where pearl-tinted spikes of iris perfumed the air and great masses of
peonies nodded along borders banked deep under the long wall. A few
butterflies still flitted in the golden radiance, but already that
solemn harbinger of sunset, the garden toad, had emerged from leafy
obscurity into the gravel path, and hopped heavily forward as Malcourt
passed by.

The house--nothing can be as silent as an empty house--echoed his
spurred tread from porch to stairway. He went up to the first landing,
not knowing why, then roamed aimlessly through, wandering from room to
room, idly, looking on familiar things as though they were
strange--strange, but uninteresting.

Upstairs and down, in, around, and about he drifted, quiet as a cat,
avoiding only his wife's bedroom. He had never entered it since their
marriage; he did not care to do so now, though the door stood wide. And,
indifferent, he turned without even a glance, and traversing the hall,
descended the stairs to the library.

For a while he sat there, legs crossed, drumming thoughtfully on his
boot with his riding-crop; and after a while he dragged the chair
forward and picked up a pen.

"Why not?" he said aloud; "it will save railroad fare--and she'll need
it all."

So, to his lawyer in New York he wrote:

"I won't come to town after all. You have my letter and you know
what I want done. Nobody is likely to dispute the matter, and it
won't require a will to make my wife carry out the essence of the
thing."

And signed his name.

When he had sealed and directed the letter he could find no stamp; so he
left it on the table.

"That's the usual way they find such letters," he said, smiling to
himself as the thought struck him. "It certainly is hard to be
original.... But then I'm not ambitious."

He found another sheet of paper and wrote to Hamil:

"All the same you are wrong; I have always been your friend. My
father comes first, as always; you second. There is no third."

This note, signed, sealed, and addressed, he left with the other.

"Certainly I am not original in the least," he said, beginning another
note.

"DOLLY DEAR:

"You have made good. _Continuez, chere enfant_--and if you don't
know what that means your French lessons are in vain. Now the
usual few words: don't let any man who is not married to you lay
the weight of his little finger on you! Don't ignore convention
unless there is a good reason--and then don't! When you're tired
of behaving yourself go to sleep; and if you can't sleep, sleep
some more; and then some. Men are exactly like women until they
differ from them; there is no real mystery about either outside
of popular novels.

"I am very, very glad that I have known you, Dolly. Don't tint
yourself, except for the footlights. There are other things, but
I can't think of them; and so,

"LOUIS MALCOURT"

This letter he sealed and laid with the others; it was the last. There
was nothing more to do, except to open the table drawer and drop
something into the side pocket of his coat.

Malcourt had no favourite spots in the woods and fields around him; one
trail resembled another; he cared as much for one patch of woods, one
wild meadow, one tumbling brook as he did for the next--which was not
very much.

But there was one place where the sun-bronzed moss was deep and level;
where, on the edge of a leafy ravine, the last rays of the sinking sun
always lingered after all else lay in shadow.

Here he sat down, thoughtfully; and for a little while remained in his
listening attitude. Then, smiling, he lay back, pillowing his head on
his left arm; and drew something from the side pocket of his coat.

The world had grown silent; across the ravine a deer among the trees
watched him, motionless.

Suddenly the deer leaped in an ecstasy of terror and went crashing away
into obscurity. But Malcourt lay very, very still.

His hat was off; the cliff breeze played with his dark curly hair,
lifting it at the temples, stirring the one obstinate strand that never
lay quite flat on the crown of his head.

A moment later the sun set.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HAMIL IS SILENT

Late in the autumn his aunt wrote Hamil from Sapphire Springs:

"There seems to be a favourable change in Shiela. Her aversion to
people is certainly modified. Yesterday on my way to the hot
springs I met her with her trained nurse, Miss Lester, face to
face, and of course meant to pass on as usual, apparently without
seeing her; but to my surprise she turned and spoke my name very
quietly; and I said, as though we had parted the day before--'I
hope you are better'; and she said, 'I think I am'--very slowly
and precisely like a person who strives to speak correctly in a
foreign tongue. Garry, dear, it was too pathetic; she is so
changed--beautiful, even more beautiful than before; but the last
childish softness has fled from the delicate and almost undecided
features you remember, and her face has settled into a nobler
mould. Do you recollect in the Munich Museum an antique marble,
by some unknown Greek sculptor, called 'Head of a Young Amazon'?
You must recall it because you have spoken to me of its noble and
almost immortal loveliness. Dear, it resembles Shiela as she is
now--with that mysterious and almost imperceptible hint of sorrow
in the tenderly youthful dignity of the features.

"We exchanged only the words I have written you; she passed her
way leaning on Miss Lester's arm; I went for a mud bath as a
precaution to our inherited enemy. If rheumatism gets me at last
it will not be the fault of your aged and timorous aunt.

"So that was all, yesterday. But to-day as I was standing on the
leafy path above the bath-houses, listening to the chattering of
some excited birds recently arrived from the North in the first
batch of migrants, Miss Lester came up to me and said that Shiela
would like to see me, and that the doctors said there was no harm
in her talking to anybody if she desired to do so.

"So I took my book to a rustic seat under the trees, and
presently our little Shiela came by, leaning on Miss Lester's
arm; and Miss Lester walked on, leaving her seated beside me.

"For quite five minutes she neither spoke nor even looked at me,
and I was very careful to leave the quiet unbroken.

"The noise of the birds--they were not singing, only chattering
to each other about their trip--seemed to attract her notice, and
she laid her hand on mine to direct my attention. Her hand
remained there--she has the same soft little hands, as dazzlingly
white as ever, only thinner.

"She said, not looking at me: 'I have been ill. You understand
that.'

"'Yes,' I said, 'but it is all over now, isn't it?'

"She nodded listlessly: 'I think so.'

"Again, but not looking at me she spoke of her illness as dating
from a shock received long ago. She is a little confused about
the lapse of time, vague as to dates. You see it is four months
since Louis--did what he did. She said nothing more, and in a few
minutes Miss Lester came back for her.

"Now as to her mental condition: I have had a thorough
understanding with the physicians and one and all assure me that
there is absolutely nothing the matter with her except the
physical consequences of the shock; and those are wearing off.

"What she did, what she lived through with him--the dreadful
tension, the endless insomnia--all this--and then, when the
searching party was out all night long in the rain and all the
next day--and _then_, Garry, to have her stumble on him at
dusk--that young girl, all alone, nerves strung to the breaking
point--and to find him, _that_ way! Was it not enough to account
for this nervous demoralisation? The wonder is that it has not
permanently injured her.

"But it has not; she is certainly recovering. The dread of seeing
a familiar face is less poignant; her father was here to-day with
Gray and she saw them both.

"Now, dear, as for your coming here, it will not do. I can see
that. She has not yet spoken of you, nor have I ventured to. What
her attitude toward you may be I cannot guess from her speech or
manner.

"Miss Lester told me that at first, in the complete nervous
prostration, she seemed to have a morbid idea that you had been
unkind to her, neglected and deserted her--left her to face some
endless horror all alone. The shock to her mind had been
terrible, Garry; everything was grotesquely twisted--she had some
fever, you know--and Miss Lester told me that it was too pitiful
to hear her talk of you and mix up everything with military
jargon about outpost duty and the firing line, and some comrade
who had deserted her under fire.

"All of which I mention, dear, so that you may, in a measure,
comprehend how very ill she has been; and that she is not yet
well by any means, and perhaps will not be for a long time to
come.

"To-night I had a very straight talk with Mr. Cardross. One has
to talk straight when one talks to him. There is not in my mind
the slightest doubt that he knows exactly now what misguided
impulse drove Shiela to that distressing sacrifice of herself and
you. And at first I was afraid that what she had done from a
mistaken sense of duty might have hastened poor Louis' end; but
Mr. Cardross told me that from the day of his father's death he
had determined to follow in the same fashion; and had told Mr.
Cardross of his intention more than once.

"So you see it was in him--in the blood. See what his own sister
did to herself within a month of Louis' death!

"A strange family; an utterly incomprehensible race. And Mr.
Cardross says that it happened to his father's father; and _his_
father before him died by his own hand!

* * * * *

"Now there is little more news to write you--little more that
could interest you because you care only to hear about Shiela,
and that is perfectly reasonable."

"However, what there is of news I will write you as faithfully as
I have done ever since I came here on your service under pretence
of fighting gout which, Heaven be praised, has never yet waylaid
me!--_unberufen_!"

"So, to continue: the faithful three, Messieurs Classon, Cuyp,
and Vetchen, do valiantly escort me on my mountain rides and
drives. They are dears, all three, Garry, and it does not become
you to shrug your shoulders. When I go to Palm Beach in January
they, as usual, are going too. I don't know what I should do
without them, Virginia having decided to remain in Europe this
winter.

"Yes, to answer your question, Mr. Wayward expects to cruise as
far South as Palm Beach in January. I happen to have a note from
him here on my desk in which he asks me whether he may invite you
to go with him. Isn't it a tactful way of finding out whether you
would care to be at Palm Beach this winter?

"So I shall write him that I think you would like to be asked.
Because, Garry, I do believe that it is all turning out
naturally, inevitably, as it was meant to turn out from the
first, and that, some time this winter, there can be no reason
why you should not see Shiela again.

"I know this, that Mr. Cardross is very fond of you--that Mrs.
Cardross is also--that every member of that most wholesome family
cares a great deal about you.

"As for their not being very fashionable people, their amiable
freedom from social pretension, their very simple origin--all
that, in their case, affects me not at all--where any happiness
of yours is concerned.

"I _do_ like old-time folk, and lineage smacking of New
Amsterdam; but even my harmless snobbishness is now so completely
out of fashion that nobody cares. You are modern enough to laugh
at it; I am not; and I still continue faithful to my Classons and
Cuyps and Vetchens and Suydams; and to all that they stand for in
Manhattan--the rusty vestiges of by-gone pomp and fussy
circumstance--the memories that cling to the early lords of the
manors, the old Patroons, and titled refugees--all this I still
cling to--even to their shabbiness and stupidity and bad manners.

"Don't be too bitter in your amusement, for after all, you are
kin to us; don't be too severe on us; for we are passing, Garry,
the descendants of Patroon and refugee alike--the Cuyps, the
Classons, the Van Diemans, the Vetchens, the Suydams--and James
Wayward is the last of his race, and I am the last of the French
refugees, and the Malcourts are already ended. Pax!

"True it begins to look as if the gentleman adventurer stock
which terminates in the Ascotts and Portlaws might be revived to
struggle on for another generation; but, Garry, we all, who
intermarry, are doomed.

"Louis Malcourt was right; we are destined to perish; Still we
have left our marks on the nation I care for no other epitaph
than the names of counties, cities, streets which we have named
with our names.

"But you, dear, you are wise in your generation and fortunate to
love as you love. For, God willing, your race will begin the
welding of the old and new, the youngest and best of the nation.
And at the feet of such a race the whole world lies."

* * * * *

These letters from Constance Palliser to her nephew continued during the
autumn and early winter while he was at work on that series of public
parks provided for by the metropolis on Long Island.

Once he was obliged to return to Pride's Hall to inspect the progress of
work for Mrs. Ascott; and it happened during his brief stay there that
her engagement was announced.

"I tell you what, Hamil," said Portlaw confidentailly over their cigars,
"I never thought I could win her, never in the world. Besides poor Louis
was opposed to it; but you know when I make up my mind--"

"I know," said Hamil.

"That's it! First, a man must have a mind to make up; then he must have
enough intelligence to make it up."

"Certainly," nodded Hamil.

"I'm glad you understand me," said Portlaw, gratified. "Alida
understands me; why, do you know that, somehow, everything I think of
she seems to agree to; in fact, sometimes--on one or two unimportant
matters, I actually believe that Mrs. Ascott thought of what I thought
of, a few seconds before I thought of it," he ended generously; "but,"
and his expression became slyly portentous, "it would never do to have
her suspect it. I intend to be Caesar in my own house!"

"Exactly," said Hamil solemnly; "and Caesar's wife must have no
suspicions."

* * * * *

It was early November before he returned to town. His new suite of
offices in Broad Street hummed with activity, although the lingering
aftermath of the business depression prevented for the time being any
hope of new commissions from private sources.

But fortunately he had enough public work to keep the office busy, and
his dogged personal supervision of it during the racking suspense of
Shiela's illness was his salvation.

Twice a week his aunt wrote him from Sapphire Springs; every day he went
to his outdoor work on Long Island and forced himself to a minute
personal supervision of every detail, never allowing himself a moment's
brooding, never permitting himself to become panic-stricken at the
outlook which varied from one letter to another. For as yet, according
to these same letters, the woman he loved had never once mentioned his
name.

He found little leisure for amusement, even had he been inclined that
way. Night found him very tired; morning brought a hundred self-imposed
and complicated tasks to be accomplished before the advent of another
night.

He lived at his club and wrote to his aunt from there. Sundays were more
difficult to negotiate; he went to St. George's in the morning, read in
the club library until afternoon permitted him to maintain some
semblance of those social duties which no man has a right to entirely
neglect.

Now and then he dined out; once he went to the opera with the O'Haras;
but it nearly did for him, for they sang "Madame Butterfly," and
Farrar's matchless voice and acting tore him to shreds. Only the happy
can endure such tragedy.

And one Sunday, having pondered long that afternoon over the last letter
Malcourt had ever written him, he put on hat and overcoat and went to
Greenlawn Cemetery--a tedious journey through strange avenues and
unknown suburbs, under a wet sky from which occasionally a flake or two
of snow fell through the fine-spun drizzle.

In the cemetery the oaks still bore leaves which were growing while
Malcourt was alive; here and there a beech-tree remained in full autumn
foliage and the grass on the graves was intensely green; but the few
flowers that lifted their stalks were discoloured and shabby; bare
branches interlaced overhead; dead leaves, wet and flattened, stuck to
slab and headstone or left their stained imprints on the tarnished
marble.

He had bought some flowers--violets and lilies--at a florist's near the
cemetery gates. These he laid, awkwardly, at the base of the white slab
from which Malcourt's newly cut name stared at him.

Louis Malcourt lay, as he had wished, next to his father. Also, as he
had desired, a freshly planted tree, bereft now of foliage, rose,
spindling, to balance an older one on the other corner of the plot. His
sister's recently shaped grave lay just beyond. As yet, Bertie had
provided no headstone for the late Lady Tressilvain.

Hamil stood inspecting Malcourt's name, finding it impossible to realise
that he was dead--or for that matter, unable to comprehend death at all.
The newly chiselled letters seemed vaguely instinct with something of
Malcourt's own clean-cut irony; they appeared to challenge him with
their mocking legend of death, daring him, with sly malice, to credit
the inscription.

To look at them became almost an effort, so white and clear they stared
back at him--as though the pallid face of the dead himself, set for ever
in raillery, was on the watch to detect false sentiment and delight in
it. And Hamil's eyes fell uneasily upon the flowers, then lifted. And he
said aloud, unconsciously:

"You are right; it's too late, Malcourt."

There was a shabby, neglected grave in the adjoining plot; he bent over,
gathered up his flowers, and laid them on the slab of somebody aged
ninety-three whose name was blotted out by wet dead leaves. Then he
slowly returned to face Malcourt, and stood musing, gloved hands deep in
his overcoat pockets.

"If I could have understood you--" he began, under his breath, then fell
silent. A few moments later he uncovered.

It was snowing heavily when he turned to leave; and he stood back and
aside, hat in hand, to permit a young woman to pass the iron gateway--a
slim figure in black, heavy veil drawn, arms piled high with lilies. He
knew her at once and she knew him.

"I think you are Mr. Hamil," she said timidly.

"You are Miss Wilming?" he said in his naturally pleasant voice, which
brought old memories crowding upon her and a pale flush to her cheeks.

There was a moment's silence; she dropped some flowers and he recovered
them for her. Then she knelt down in the sleet, unconscious of it, and
laid the flowers on the mound, arranging them with great care, while the
thickening snow pelted her and began to veil the white blossoms on the
grave.

Hamil hesitated after the girl had risen, and, presently, as she did not
stir, he quietly asked if he might be of any use to her.

At first she made no reply, and her gaze remained remote; then, turning:

"Was he your friend?" she asked wistfully.

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