Charles Rex by Ethel May Dell (easy readers .TXT) 📖

insight into his motives. Unstable, baffling, irresponsible as a monkey that swings from tree to tree, he had snatched his prize, and even Jake, who knew him better than most, could only speculate as to whether he would carry it high above disaster or tire and idly fling it away. Some vagrant sense of honour seemed to have actuated him so far, but never yet had he known such a motive to last for long. The man's face was beyond him, too fantastic for comprehension. He recognized that he was capable of greatness, but very few were the occasions on which he had achieved it. If the motive power were lacking in this instance, Toby's chances were indeed small.
He found an empty carriage and threw his belongings on to a seat. The train was not a favourite one, and there would be no crowd. He had some minutes to wait, and he lighted his pipe and began to pace the platform unencumbered. A few travellers straggling by eyed him with some interest. He was not a man to be passed unnoticed. The massive, thick-set shoulders had a bull-dog strength that must have marked him in any crowd. His height was unremarkable, but there was power in every dominant line of him. He had the free carriage of one accustomed to the wide places of the earth.
He took small note of his fellow-travellers, being engrossed in his own thoughts. He wondered how Maud would regard the situation, and half wished she had been with him to deal with it. For Maud possessed undoubted influence over Saltash. He reflected that she was probably the only person in the world who did.
He had strolled almost to the barrier and was in the act of turning back when something--some impulse for which he could never afterwards account--induced him to pause and take stock of the passengers passing through. The train was almost due to start, and there was some slight confusion and a quickening of feet on the platform. He realized that he ought to be going back to his own carriage, but something stayed him. He stood still, his keen eyes searching the hastening figures.
And so standing, in a moment his attention was focussed upon a girl in a blue cloak who came towards him at a run evidently intent upon catching the train. She passed him swiftly without seeing him, almost brushed against him. And behind her came a dark man with black moustache and imperial, following her closely with an air of proprietorship.
Jake wheeled in his tracks, for a second amazed out of all composure. But an instant later he was in pursuit. He had had but a fleeting glimpse of her face, and the blue cloak was quite unfamiliar to him; but there was no mistaking the boyish freedom of her gait, the athletic swing of her as she turned and leaped into a compartment that her companion opened for her.
The black-browed Italian was in the act of following when Jake arrived. The realization of another hand upon the door was the first intimation that reached him of the Englishman's presence. He turned and looked into a pair of red-brown eyes that regarded him with the utmost steadiness as a quiet voice made slightly drawling explanation.
"This lady is a friend of mine," said Jake Bolton. "I should like a word with her."
The Italian looked murderous for a moment, but he gave ground almost in spite of himself. Perhaps the calm insistence of the other man's bearing warned him at the outset of the futility of attempting any other course of action; Jake was actually in the carriage before he could jerk out a word of protest.
"_Sapristi!_ You go too far!" he blustered then. But Jake was already confronting the girl who had started up at his coming, and stood facing him white and shaken. He spoke, still quite quietly, even gently, but in the tone that no delinquent ever heard unmoved.
"Say," he said, "are you playing the game?"
She put up a hand to her throat. His sudden coming had unnerved her, and she had no words. But her quivering face and tragic eyes were more than sufficient answer for Jake. He had dealt with sudden emergencies before, and he treated this one with characteristic decision.
"You've no business here," he said, "and you know it. If you can't stick to the man you've married, come home with me to Maud!"
She made a sharp gesture toward him, as if on the verge of falling, and as sharply recovered herself. "Oh, I wish--how I wish I could!" she breathed.
Jake's hand, perfectly steady, full of sustaining strength, closed with authority upon her arm. "That's settled then," he said. "Come now!"
But at this point the Italian burst furiously in upon them with a flood of unintelligible language that made all further speech impossible.
Jake glanced momentarily over his shoulder as if disturbed by the buzzing of some insect, then with unruffled composure turned back to the girl. His eyes looked straight into hers for perhaps ten seconds, then in the same purposeful fashion he set her free and deliberately turned upon the man who raged behind him.
As he did so, there came a shouting and banging of doors along the platform, and the train began to move. Jake's massive shoulders braced themselves. Without words he seized the raving Italian in a grip there was no resisting, swept him, as a sudden gale sweeps a leaf, across the compartment, sent him with a neat twist buzzing forth upon the platform, and very calmly shut the door and came back.
Then there came a wild shriek of laughter from Toby, and she doubled up in her corner with hysterical mirth, gasping and gasping for breath, till he sat squarely down beside her and pulled her into the circle of his arm.
"Easy, my girl! Easy!" he said. "We're not going to have an exhibition at this stage. You keep a stiff upper lip till you feel better!"
But the stiff upper lip was rather painfully lacking on that occasion. She very soon ceased to laugh, but for a long time thereafter she lay sobbing and shuddering like a little terrified animal against his breast while the train rushed on through the night.
He was very gentle with her. Jake's stock of patience was practically limitless, and he and Toby had always had a certain comradeship between them. But when she grew calmer at last he began to talk in the quiet, direct fashion habitual to him.
"Say now! You've had a bit of a facer over this. But you needn't be frightened. You're safe enough from that damned Italian anyway. And you'll find me a better refuge than he is--if that's what you're wanting."
She shivered and pressed closer. "You--don't know--what you're in for," she whispered piteously.
"That so?" said Jake, unmoved. "Well, maybe you'd like to enlighten me."
But Toby shook her head with a sob. "I couldn't! I just couldn't, Jake. Do you mind?"
Jake considered the point with slightly drawn brows. "I guess there's no hurry," he decided at length. "We'll get home first anyway. That's the main point. You won't be sorry to get back to Maud, I take it?"
She answered him with a swift and passionate fervour that spoke more clearly than any words of the anguish of her soul. "Oh, Jake, I wish I'd died--I wish I'd died--before I left her!"
Jake's brows contracted more decidedly, but he said nothing further on the subject. Only after a moment or two he patted her shoulder reassuringly. "I'll take care of you," he said. "You go to sleep!"


CHAPTER VIII
THE TURNING-POINT

"You've brought her back!" said Bunny in amazement. "You've actually brought her back! Here, Jake? Not here?"
"It was the only thing to do." said Jake between puffs at his pipe. "I'm sorry on your account, but--well, you can keep out of her way."
Bunny's face was flushed. He stood on the hearth and stared down at Jake with a troubled countenance. "But you won't be able to keep her," he protested after a moment. "Charlie will come and get her away again--as soon as he knows. He's such a wily devil."
"He does know," said Jake.
"He knows? Who told him?"
"I told him," said Jake.
"You told him! What the devil for? I don't understand you, Jake." Bunny's tone had a touch of fierceness in it, almost of challenge.
Jake's eyes came up to him with absolute steadiness. "I told him," he said deliberately, "because he is the one person who has a right to know. He is her husband."
"I don't believe it!" said Bunny violently. "He'd never marry her! It was a damn trick if he pretended to."
"No," Jake said, "it was not a trick. He has married her, and it's up to him to make the next move."
"But what on earth for?" demanded Bunny. "What made him do such a thing?"
"God knows," said Jake, with a certain sombreness. "He did it. That's all I know."
Bunny stamped round in a sudden fury and began to pace the room. "I suppose he did it to defeat me! Did he actually think I should want her after--after--"
"Bunny!" Swift and sharp as a whip-lash Jake's voice cut across the words. "Stop that! Pull up and sit down!"
Bunny wheeled and came back in silence. His face was deadly pale, but he sat down on the edge of the table by Jake's side.
Jake reached out a leisurely hand and gripped him by the knee. "Between you and me, my son," he said, "I don't think you came into the reckoning at all. I can't tell you exactly what happened, because I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that Saltash married her from a somewhat stronger motive than just to put you out of the running. As you say, he could have done that without taking all that trouble. He's treated you damn badly, I admit, but it's just possible he couldn't help himself, and anyway I don't think he's hurt you seriously--except in the place where you keep your pride."
"You think I didn't love her!" broke in Bunny, moving restlessly under his hand.
Jake's eyes had the glimmer of a smile as he met the boy's hot look. "I think you don't love her now anyway, Bunny," he said.
"You're quite right," said Bunny shortly. "I don't. I never want to see her again--now I know what she is."
"You don't know," said Jake. "She has always been an unknown quantity to you. That's why I've always felt doubtful about you. Guess you never loved her quite enough, boy. That was your trouble."
"Didn't love her!" ejaculated Bunny.
Jake nodded. "Or you'd have understood her better--stood by her better."
"I'd have loved her fast enough if she'd loved me," protested Bunny. "But that scoundrel always came first with her. I never had a chance."
"Oh yes, you had." Again the faint smile showed for an instant in the elder man's eyes. "Not much of one, perhaps, but you had a chance. If she'd been quite sure of you, she wouldn't have run away."
"Wouldn't she? Then she can't be very sure of Saltash either." Bunny spoke with a certain gloomy triumph.
Jake blew forth a cloud of smoke and watched it rise thoughtfully. "I'm waiting for Saltash," he said. "I've got him on test."
"You believe in him?" questioned Bunny contemptuously.
Jake's eyes remained fixed. "I believe," he said slowly, "that there comes a turning-point in every man's life--whatever he's been--when he either makes good or throws in his hand altogether. I've been through it myself, and I know what it means. It's Saltash's turn now."
"Oh, rot, Jake!" Bunny turned on him with the old boyish admiration shining in his eyes. "You--why,