The dark, muffled figure of a man leaned against a section of theold wall that edged the lake--the figure of a man who prayed withall his soul that his vigil might be in vain. If she came, all wasover.
He was not armed. He had thrown his revolver away a week before. Hisonly desire now was to learn the extent of her duplicity. If sheobeyed the call of the letter then there could be no doubt thatshe was coming at the call of the lover. His hands twitched andhe shivered as if with a dreadful chill. His heart was shouting awarning to her, but his head was urging her to come and have donewith it all.
He was there early--long before the hour named in the decoy. Hiseyes never left the sidewalk that ran past his own home, but a shortdistance from the Drive. They stared without blinking across thatdark border, through the circle of light from the arc lamp and farinto the shadows of blackness beyond. It was very dark where hestood. The lake had battered through the sea wall for many rodsat this particular point and no one ventured out beyond the bridlepath for fear of slipping down into the cavities that had beenwashed out by the waves. His station was on the edge of the pilesof stone and cement that had been tossed up to await the pleasureof the park commissioners.
For a while, he tried to take Jane's future into consideration,but it was impossible to substitute anything before his own wrongs.David Cable was not the kind of man who would go on living with afaithless wife for the sake of appearances. He was not an apologist.Time and circumstance and the power of true love would adjust theaffair of Jane and Graydon Bansemer. This was HIS affair. Timecould not adjust it for him.
At last he saw a woman's figure hurrying down the street. The wild,eager hope that the light from the electric lamp would prove itto be other than that of his wife was quickly dispelled. His worstfears were true, His Frances--his wife of more than a score ofyears, his pretty sweetheart through all those days, was false tohim! As he fell back against the wall something seemed to snap inhis breast; a groan of misery arose to his lips.
With eyes which saw red with rage and anguish, he watchedthe hesitating approach of the woman. She stopped at the cornerand looked up and down the Drive, peering intently into the darkshadows by the lake. The sky was overcast; no stars peeped throughits blackness. With uncertain, halting steps she crossed the boulevard,still glancing about as if in search of someone. He moved forwardunconsciously, almost blindly, and she caught a glimpse of his tall,dark figure. He was not unlike Bansemer in height and carriage. Asshe drew near, his legs trembled and tears of despair flooded hiseyes.
A savage desire to grasp her by the throat and hurl her into thewaters beyond the break came over him with irresistible power. Thencame the pitiable collapse which conquered the murderous impulsesand left him weak and broken for the moment. With a sob he turnedand leaned upon the wall, his back to her, his face buried in histense arms--crushed, despised, dishonoured! Kill her? The horror ofit swept his brain clear for an instant. Kill his pretty Frances?Kill Jane's mother? How could he think of it?
It was a long time before the wretched man knew that she was standingclose behind him and was speaking to him. The sound of her voicecame through the noise of his pounding heart as if it were faraway and gentle. But what was it that she was saying? Her voicewas angry, suppressed, condemning.
"You may take it or refuse it, just as you please," were the firstwords his turbulent senses distinguished. "I can pay no more thanthat for your silence. The other is impossible. I will not discussit again with you." She paused as if waiting for him to respond.
"To-night I shall tell my husband everything--the whole story. Icannot endure the suspense any longer. I will not live in fear ofyou another hour. My only reason for coming out here to-night is toplead with you to spare your son and Jane. I am not asking anythingfor myself. It would break Jane's heart if Graydon should refuseto marry her. You must have a heart somewhere in that--" But thewords became jumbled in the ears of her listener. From time to timehis mind grasped such sentences as these, paralysing in theirbitterness: "I have the letters of adoption.... David will not believewhat you say.... He loves me and he loves Jane.... I am willingto pay all that I have to keep it from Graydon and Jane.... ButI intend to tell my husband. I will not deceive him any longer....He will understand even though he should hate me for it. He willlove Jane although she is not his own child."
David Cable seemed frozen to the spot. His brain was clearing; hewas grasping the full importance of every sentence that rushed fromher impassioned lips. The last appalling words fell like the blowof a club in the hands of a powerful man. He was dazed, stunned,senseless. It seemed to him that his breath had ceased to come andthat his whole body had turned to stone. His wide staring eyes sawnothing ahead of him.
"Well, what have you to say?" she was demanding. "Why have youasked me to come out here? You have my final answer. What have youto say? Are you going to tell Graydon that Jane is not our child?I must know."
"Not our child?" came from the palsied lips of David Cable, solow and lifeless that the sound was lost in the swish of the waterbelow. The intermittent red signal in the lighthouse far out in thelake blinked back at him, but to him it was a steady, vivid glare.
"Do you hear me? I have lied to my husband for the last time!"There was almost a tone of victory in the voice, now. "Do you hearme? You don't dare! David will not believe you--he will believemy--"
A terrible oath choked back the hopeful words in the woman's throat.Murder had come back into the man's heart.
"You lie!"
"David!"
"Yes, it's David! Liar! Whose child is she? Tell me?"
"David! David! For God's sake, hear me! There was no wrong, I swearit!"
"She's not my child and there's no wrong!" The sardonic laugh thatfollowed was that of a raging maniac. "You've fooled me, you fiend!You devil!"
At that word and with one look at her husband's terribly distortedfeatures, Frances Cable shrank back with a single terrified cry,turned from him and fled madly for her life. With the spring of thewild beast, Cable rushed after her, cursing her with every breath.In a few yards he had almost reached her, his hands outstretchedto grasp her neck. But, at that instant, the frightened woman'sstrength suddenly gave way; her knees received the fall of the limpbody. For a second she seemed huddled in a posture of prayer, thentoppled over, slipped easily forward through a fissure in the walland plunged headforemost into the chugging waters below.
In the lives even of the best of men there are moments when thehuman instincts are annihilated and supplanted by those of thebeast. Likewise, have there been instances in which the bravesthave been tried in the furnace and found wanting, while conversely,the supposedly cowards have proved to be heroes. Therefore, sinceno two situations can occur at a different time and yet have preciselysimilar conditions, it behooves us to forbear judging, lest we bejudged, and to approach the following incident in this man's careeras if we ourselves dwelt under a covering of glass.
From the time of his marriage up to this moment no man could havefought better the bitter struggle of life than David Cable; yet,now, in this hour--his hour of travail and temptation, he piteouslysuccumbed. Cowardice, the most despicable of all emotions, heldhim in her grasp.
He sank exhausted against the wall, his eyes fixed upon the blackhole through which his wife had disappeared; then, the stony glarechanged suddenly to a look of realisation--horrible, stupefying.He crept to the edge and peered intently into the water, not sixfeet below, his eyes starting from his head.
Black, sobbing water, darkness impenetrable! The instinctive fearof apprehension caused him to look in every direction for possibleeye-witnesses. Every drop of blood in his body seemed turned to icewith horror. Down there in that black, chill water lay the body ofhis wife, the woman he had loved through all these trying years,and he her murderer!
Terrified, trembling, panting, he tried to force himself into thewater with the vague hope of saving her, after all; but even ashe looked wildly about for help, a shout ready to spring from hisdr
y throat, the natural dread of the accused facing his accusertook possession of him. Fear, abject fear, held him in grasp; hecould not shout.
A man was running across the drive towards him--a long loping figurethat covered the ground rapidly. With a last horrified look in thewater, David Cable, craven for the moment, turned and fled throughthe night along the broken sea wall--fled aimlessly, his eyesunseeing, his feet possessed of wings. He knew not whither he ran,only that he was an assassin fleeing from the horrors behind.
Over the narrow strip of ground sped the long, eager figure that haddarted from the shadow of the homes across the street. In hoarse,raucous tones he shouted after the fleeing man:
"Stop! Wait! Halt!"
He dashed up to the spot where he had seen two figures but a momentbefore, the full horror of what had happened striking him for thefirst time. The man was Elias Droom, and he had been an eye-witnessto the dim, indistinct tragedy at the sea wall.
His presence is easily explained. He knew of Bansemer's telephonemessage to Mrs. Cable, together with his threat to expose her onthe following morning. It was only natural that she should make afinal plea---that night, of course. The old clerk realised the dangerof an encounter between his employer and his victim at a time sointense as this. He could not know that Bansemer would visit theCable home that evening, but he suspected that such would be thecase. It was his duty to prevent the meeting, if possible.
Bansemer would go too far, argued the old man; he must be stopped.That is why he lurked in the neighbourhood to turn Bansemer backbefore he could enter the home of David Cable.
He saw Mrs. Cable leave the house and go towards the lake. Followingsome distance behind he saw her cross the Drive and make her wayto the sea wall. Slinking along in the shadow of the buildings,cursing his luck and Bansemer jointly, he saw the two forms cometogether out there by the lake.
"Too late, curse him for a fool," Droom had muttered to himself."He ought to know this is bad business just now. She's come out tomeet him, too. Worse. It's my duty to look out for him as long ashe employs me. I'm doing my best and I can't help it if he betrayshimself. I'd like to see him--but I can't go back on him while I'mtaking money from him. Look at that!"
He chuckled softly as he saw the two figures approach each other.For all that he knew they might be contemplating a fond and lovingembrace, and he was not undeceived until he saw one of the figuresseparate itself, run from the other and go plunging to the earth.As he started up in surprise, the other figure leaned forward andthen straightened itself quickly. Droom did not hesitate. He dashedacross the street, conscious that something dreadful had happened.His instant thought was that Bansemer had lost his temper and hadstruck the woman down.
The flight of the man was proof positive. He called him to stop,certain that it was Bansemer. The runner turned his face towardshim for a moment. The light from the street may have deceived EliasDroom's eyes, but the face of the assailant was not that of JamesBansemer. Droom stopped short and looked after the man, paralysedwith amazement. Then he gave a snorting laugh at his own stupidity;of course, it was Bansemer. Who else could it be?
Arriving at the spot where he had last seen the couple, he wasamazed to find no one there. He realised, with horror, that thewoman must have been struck down; had fallen or had been throwninto the lake.
The gaunt old clerk groaned bitterly as he threw himself upon thewall and peered over into the water. He listened for the cries andstruggles of the woman. Gradually his eyes solved the situation.He saw the row of piles beyond the break in the sea wall and theswishing pool inside. Every incoming wave sent a flood of waterbetween the sturdy posts and into the cut of the wall.
Without a moment's hesitation he dropped into this seething prison,confident that the woman's body could be found there. A singleglance had shown him that he could crawl upward through the breakto safety and he knew that the water below was not dangerouslydeep.
A minute later he was scrambling out of this angry, icy water, upthrough the fissure, bearing in his long arms the inert form ofFrances Cable. He had found her half-submerged in the pool, everysweep of the waves through the sieve-like posts covering hercompletely.
He dropped the body on the ground after reaching the level andtook a quick shuddering glance about. Two men had stopped on theopposite of the Drive. He hesitated a second and then shouted tothem. They stood stockstill in alarm. Before they could respond tohis second shout, Elias Droom was tearing the woman's watch fromher belt and the rings from her fingers. His strong, nervous handsfound the necklace that she wore and it broke beneath their suddenjerk. Cunningly he tossed the necklace upon the ground and trampledit with his heel. The watch and rings went flying across the walland far out into the lake.
"This woman has been slugged!" he shouted. He did not know howmuch of the tragedy these men had witnessed. Boldness was his cuefor the moment; stealth could follow later. "She's been in thewater. I'm afraid it's murder. The man who did it went that way.Yell for the police!"
If the assailant was James Bansemer, Droom was doing his duty byhim. If it was another, he was doing his duty by society.
CHAPTER XVI
HOURS OF TERROR