The Obstacle Race by Ethel May Dell (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📖

was beyond all reason he knew that they had come to a parting of the ways.
And there was no bond between them, no chain but that which his love had forged. She had pleaded to retain her freedom, and now with bitter intuition he knew wherefore. She had always realized that to which he in his madness had been persistently blind. She had known that there were obstacles insurmountable between them and the happy consummation of their love. She had faced the fact that the glory would depart.
Again he felt the clinging of her arms as he had felt it only that afternoon. Again against his lips there rose her quivering whisper, "Just for to-day, Dick! Just for to-day!" Yes, she had known even then. Even then for her the glory had begun to fade.
He clenched his hands in sudden fierce rebellion. It was unbearable. He would not endure it. This stroke of destiny--he would fight it with all the strength of his manhood. He would overthrow this nameless barrier that had arisen between them. He would sacrifice all--all he had--to reach her. Somehow--whatever the struggle might cost--he would clasp her again, would hold her against all the world.
And then--like a poisoned arrow out of the darkness--another thought pierced him. What if she were indeed of those who loved for a space and passed smiling on? What if the fatal taint of the world from which she had come to him had touched her also, withering the heart in her, making true love a thing impossible? What if she had indeed been fashioned in the same mould as the worthless woman whom she sought to defend?
But that was unthinkable, intolerable. He flung the evil suggestion from him, but it left a burning wound behind. There was no escape from the fact that she was on terms of intimacy with the man with whom that woman's name had been shamefully associated. And--remembering the discomfiture she had betrayed at their meeting--he told himself bitterly that she would have given much to have concealed that intimacy had it been possible.
But here his loyalty cried out that he was wronging her. Juliet--his Juliet of the steadfast eyes and low, sincere voice--was surely incapable of double dealing! Whatever her life in the past had been, however frivolous, however artificial, it had been given to him--perhaps to him alone--to know her as she was. A great wave of self-reproach went over him. How had he dared to doubt her?
The sea moaned with a dreary sound along the shore. A few heavy drops of rain fell around him. Mechanically he quickened his pace. He came at length down the steep cliff-path to the gate that led to the village. And here to his surprise a shuffling footstep told him of the presence of another human being out in the desolate darkness. Dimly he discerned a bulky shape leaning against the rail.
He came up to it. "Robin!" he said sharply.
A low voice answered him in startled accents. "Oh, Dicky! I thought you were never coming!"
"What are you doing here?" Dick said.
He took the boy by the shoulder with the words and Robin cowered away.
"Don't be cross! Dicky, please don't be cross! I only came to look for you," he said with nervous incoherence. "I didn't mean to be out late. I couldn't help it. Don't be cross!"
But Dick was implacable. "You know you've no business out at this hour," he said. "I warned you last time--when you went to The Three Tuns--" He paused abruptly. "Have you been to The Three Tuns to-night?"
"No!" said Robin eagerly.
Dick's hand pressed upon him. "Is that the truth?"
Robin became incoherent again. "I only came to meet you. I didn't think you'd be so late. And it was so hot to-night. And my head ached." He broke off. "Dicky, you're hurting me!"
"You have told me a lie," Dick said.
Robin shrank at his tone. "How did you know?" he whispered awestruck.
Dick did not answer. He shifted his hold from Robin's shoulder to his arm and turned him about. Robin went with him, shuffling his feet and trembling.
Dick led him in grim silence down the path to the village-road, past the Ricketts' cottage, now in darkness, up the hill beyond that led to the school.
Robin went with him submissively enough, but he stumbled several times on the way. As they neared the end of the journey he began to talk again anxiously, propitiatingly.
"I didn't mean to go, Dicky, but I was so hot and thirsty. And I met Jack and I went in with him. There were a lot of fellows there and Jack treated me, but I didn't have very much. My head ached so, and I sat down in a corner and went to sleep till it was closing time. Then old Swag made me get out, so I came to wait for you. I didn't hit him or anything, Dicky. I was quite quiet all the while. So you won't be cross, will you,--not like last time?"
"I am going to punish you if that's what you mean," Dick said, as he opened the garden-gate.
Robin shrank again, shivering like a frightened dog. "But, Dicky, I only--I only--"
"Broke the rule and lied about it," his brother said uncompromisingly. "You know the punishment for that."
Robin attempted no further appeal. He went silently into the house and blundered up to his room. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pay the penalty--of which Dick's wrath was infinitely the hardest part to bear.
He crouched down on the floor by the bed to wait. The light from the passage shone in through the half-open door and the great lamp at the lodge-gates of the Court opposite, which was kept burning all night, glared in at the unblinded window, but there was no light in the room. There was something almost malignant to Robin's mind about the searching brilliance of this lamp. He hid his eyes from it, huddling his face in the bed-clothes, listening intently the while for Dick's coming but hearing only the dull thumping of his own heart.
There was no one in the house except the two brothers. A woman came in every day from the village to do the work of the establishment. Now that Jack had found quarters elsewhere there was not a great deal to be done since Robin was accustomed also to making himself useful in various ways. It occurred to him suddenly as he crouched there waiting that Dick had been too hurried to eat much supper before his departure for High Shale that evening. The thought had been in his brain before, but subsequent events had dislodged it. Now, with every nerve alert and pricking with suspense, it returned to him very forcibly. Dicky was hungry perhaps--or consumed with thirst, as he himself had been. And he would certainly go empty to bed unless he, Robin, plucked up courage to go down and wait upon him.
It needed considerable courage, for his instinct was always to hide when he had incurred Dick's anger. Judicial though it invariably was, it was the most terrible thing the world held for him. It shook him to the depths, and to go down and confront it again with the penalty still unpaid was for a long time more than he could calmly contemplate. But as the minutes crept on and still Dick did not come, it was gradually borne in upon him that this, and this alone, was the thing that must be done. It was his job, forced upon him by an inexorable fate. Dick would probably be much more angry with him for doing it, but somehow in a vague, unreasoning fashion he realized that it had got to be done.
Even then it took him a long time to screw himself up to the required pitch of nervous energy required. He ached for the sound of Dick's step on the stairs, but it did not come. And so at last he knew there was no help for it. Whatever the cost, he must fulfil the task that had been laid upon him.
With intense reluctance he uncovered his face, flinching from the stark glare of the lamp across the road, and dragged himself to his feet. It was difficult to move without noise, but he made elaborate efforts to do so. He reached the head of the stairs and hung there listening.
Had he heard a movement below he would have stumbled headlong back to cover, but no sound of any sort reached him. The compelling force urged him afresh. He gripped the stair-rail and crept downward like a stealthy baboon.
The stairs creaked alarmingly. More than once he paused, prepared for precipitate retreat, but still he heard no sound, and gradually a certain desperate hope came to him. Perhaps Dicky was asleep! Perhaps the power that drove him would be satisfied if he collected some things on a tray and left them in the little hall for Dicky to find when he finally came up! If this could be done--and he could get back safe to the sheltering darkness before he found out! He would not mind the subsequent caning, if only he need not meet Dicky face to face again beforehand. Dicky's eyes when they looked at him sternly were anguish to his soul. And they certainly would not hold any kindness for him until the punishment was over. So argued poor Robin's anxious brain as he reached the foot of the stairs and stood a moment under the lamp dimly burning there, summoning strength to creep past the open door of the dining-room.
A candle was flickering on the table, so he was sure Dick must be there. Would he see him pass? Would he call him in? Robin's heart raced with terror at the thought. But no! The urging force drove him in sickening apprehension past the door, and still there was no sound.
He was at the kitchen-door at the end of the passage, his fingers fumbling at the latch when suddenly he remembered that he had no candle. There was no candle to be had! The only one available downstairs was the one Dick had taken into the dining-room. He could not go upstairs again to get another. He had no matches wherewith to explore the kitchen. He stood struck motionless by this fresh problem.
But Dicky was doubtless asleep or he must have heard those creaking stairs! Then there was still a chance. He might creep into the room and take the candle without waking him. He was gaining confidence by the prolonged silence. Dicky must certainly be fast asleep.
With considerably greater steadiness than he had yet achieved he returned to the open door and peeped stealthily in.
Yes, Dick was there. He had flung himself down at the table on which he had set the candle, and he was lying across it with his head on his arms. Asleep of course! That could be the only explanation of such an attitude. Yet Robin in the act of advancing, stopped in sudden doubt with a scared backward movement, his eyes upon one of Dick's hands that was clenched convulsively and quivering as if he were in pain. It certainly did not look like the hand of a man asleep.
The next moment Robin's ungainly form had knocked against the door-handle and Dick was sitting upright looking at him. His face was grey, he looked unutterably tired, his mouth had the stark grimness of the man who endures, asking nothing of Fate.
"Hullo, boy!" he said. "Why aren't you in bed?" Then seeing Robin's unmistakably hang-dog air, "Oh, I forgot! Go on upstairs! I'm coming."
Robin turned about like a kicked dog. But the driving force stopped him on the threshold.