XXXI

Jennings stood with a decanter in his hand, looking resentfully at his master's untasted wine. He shook his head ponderously. Not only was the wine untouched, but the Cumberland Times lay unopened upon the table. Grim and severe in his high-backed chair, Stephen Strangewey sat with his eyes fixed upon the curtained window.

"There's nothing wrong with the wine, I hope, sir?" the man asked. "It's not corked or anything, sir?"

"Nothing is the matter with it," Stephen answered. "Bring me my pipe."

Jennings shook his head firmly.

"There's no call for you, sir," he declared, "to drop out of your old habits. You shall have your pipe when you've drunk that glass of port, and not before. Bless me! There's the paper by your side, all unread, and full of news, for I've glanced it through myself. Corn was higher yesterday at Market Ketton, and there's talk of a bad shortage of fodder in some parts."

Stephen raised his glass to his lips and drained its contents.

"Now bring me my pipe, Jennings," he ordered.

The old man was still disposed to grumble.

"Drinking wine like that as if it were some public-house stuff!" he muttered, as he crossed the room, toward the sideboard. "It's more a night, this, to my way of thinking, for drinking a second glass of wine than for shilly-shallying with the first. There's the wind coming across Townley Moor and down the Fells strong enough to blow the rocks out of the ground. It 'minds me of the time Mr. John was out with the Territorials, and they tried the moor for their big guns."

The rain lashed the window-panes, and the wind whistled past the front of the house. Stephen sat quite still, as if listening—it may have been to the storm.

"Well, here's your pipe, sir," Jennings continued, laying it by his master's side, "and your tobacco and the matches. If you'd smoke less and drink a glass or two more of the right stuff, it would be more to my liking."

Stephen filled his pipe with firm fingers. Then he laid it down, unlit, by his side.

"Bring me back the port, Jennings," he ordered, "and a glass for yourself."

Jennings obeyed promptly. Stephen filled both glasses, and the two men looked at each other as they held them out.

"Here's confusion to all women!" Stephen said, as he raised his to his lips.

"Amen, sir!" Jennings muttered.

They set down the two empty glasses. Stephen lit his pipe. He sat smoking stolidly, blowing out great clouds of smoke. Jennings retreated, coughing resentfully.

"Spoils the taste of good wine, that tobacco do," he snapped. "Good port like that should be left to lie upon the palate, so to speak. Bless me, what's that?"

Above the roar of the wind came another and unmistakable sound. The front door had been opened and shut. There were steps upon the stone floor of the hall—firm, familiar steps.

Jennings, with his mouth open, stood staring at the door. Stephen slowly turned his head. The hand which held his pipe was as firm as a rock, but there was a queer little gleam of expectation in his eyes. Then the door was thrown open and John entered. The rain was dripping from his clothes. He was breathless from his struggle with the elements.

The two other men looked at him fixedly. They both realized the same thing at the same moment—there was no trace of the returned prodigal in John's countenance, or in his buoyant expression. The ten-mile ride seemed to have brought back all his color.

"Master John!" Jennings faltered.

Stephen said nothing. John crossed the room and gripped his brother's hand.

"Wet through to the skin, and starving!" he declared. "I thought I'd find something at Ketton, but it was all I could do to get Gibson, at the George, to lend me a horse. Give me a glass of wine, Jennings. I'll change my clothes—I expect you've kept them aired."

Not a word of explanation concerning his sudden return, nor did either of the two ask any questions. They set the bell clanging in the stable-yard and found shelter for the borrowed horse. Presently, in dry clothes, John sat down to a plentiful meal. His brother watched him with a grim smile.

"You haven't forgotten how to eat in London, John," he remarked.

"If I had, a ten-mile ride on a night like this would help me to remember! How's the land doing?"

"Things are backward. The snow lay late, and we've had drying winds."

"And the stock?"

"Moderate. We are short of heifers. But you didn't come back from London to ask about the farm."

John pushed back his plate and drew his chair opposite to his brother's.

"I did not," he assented. "I came back to tell you my news."

"I was thinking that might be it," Stephen muttered.

John crossed the room, found his pipe in a drawer, filled it with tobacco, and lit it.

"Old man," he said, as he returned to his place, "it's all very well for you and old Jennings to put your heads together every night and drink confusion to all women; but you know very well that if there are to be any more Strangeweys at Peak Hall, either you or I must marry!"

Stephen moved uneasily in his chair.

"If you're going to marry that woman—" he began.

"I am going to marry Louise Maurel," John interrupted firmly. "Stephen, listen to me for a moment before you say another word, please. It is all settled. She has promised to be my wife. I don't forget what we've been to each other. I don't forget the old name and the old tradition; but I have been fortunate enough to meet a woman whom I love, and I am going to marry her. Don't speak hurriedly, Stephen! Think whatever you will, but keep it to yourself. Some day I shall expect you to give me your hand and tell me you are glad."

Stephen knocked the ashes deliberately from his pipe.

"I will tell you this much now," he said. "I had rather that we Strangeweys died out, that the roof dropped off Peak Hall and the walls stood naked to the sky, than that this woman should be your wife and the mother of your children!"

"Let it go at that, then, Stephen," John replied. "It is enough for me to say that I will not take it ill from you, because you do not know her."

"But I do know her," Stephen answered. "Perhaps she didn't tell you that I paid her a visit?"

"You paid her a visit?"

"Aye, that I did! She wouldn't tell you. There'll be many a thing in life she won't tell you. I went to let her hear from my lips what I thought of her as a wife for you. I told her what I thought of a woman who plays the part of a wanton—"

"Stephen!" John thundered.

"The part of an adulterous wife upon the stage for every man and woman who pay their silver to go and gape at! It seems I did no good—no good, that is, if she has promised to marry you."

John drew a breath. His task was harder, even, than he had imagined. All the time he tried to keep one thought fixed in his mind. Stephen was his elder brother. It was Stephen who had been his guardian and his guide through all his youth. He thought of Stephen's fifty odd years of simple and strenuous living, of his charity, of his strength—that very strength which had kept him in the narrow way, which had kept him from looking to the right or to the left in his walk through life.

"Stephen," John said, "you are growing harder with the years. Was there never a time, when you were younger, when you were my age, when you felt differently toward women?"

"Never, thank Heaven!" Stephen replied. "I was too near the sorrow that fell upon our house when our father died with a broken heart. There were the other two as well—one with a bullet in his brain, the other a drunkard. Maybe, when I was your age, I felt at times what I suppose you feel. Well, I just took it in both hands and strangled it. If you must have a sweetheart, why don't you take the little fair-haired girl—Sophy, you called her? She'd do you as little harm as any of them."

"Because it is not a sweetheart of that sort I want," John protested vigorously. "I've had the same feelings as most men, I suppose, but I've fought my battle out to the end, only for a different reason. I want a wife and I want children."

"Will she bring you children, that woman?" Stephen asked bitterly.

"I hope so," John asserted simply. "I believe so."

There was a moment's silence. Stephen lit his pipe and puffed steadily at it, his eyes fixed upon the log that blazed on the hearth.

"There is a muzzle upon my mouth," he said presently. "There are words close to my lips which would part you and me, so I'll say no more. Go your own way, John. I'll ask you but one more question, and you must take that as man from man, brother from brother. How old is she?"

"Twenty-seven."

"And she has been an actress, playing parts like the one I saw her in, for how long?"

"Since she was nineteen," John replied.

"And you believe she's a good woman?"

John gripped at the sides of his chair. With a tremendous effort he kept the torrent of words from his lips.

"I know she is," he answered calmly.

"Has she told you so?"

"A man has no need to put such a question to the woman he cares for."

"Then you haven't asked her?"

John laid down his pipe and rose to his feet. He gripped his brother by the arm.

"Stephen," he said, "it's a hard fight for me, this, to sit face to face with you and know what you are thinking, with the love for this woman strong and sweet in my heart. You don't understand, Stephen; you're a long way from understanding. But you are my brother. Don't make it too hard! I am not a child. Believe in me. I would not take any woman to be my wife, and the mother of my children, who was not a good woman. I am off to-morrow morning, Stephen. I came all the way just on an impulse, because I felt that I must tell you myself. It would be one of the best things in the world to ride that ten miles back again to-morrow morning, to have told you how things are, to have felt your hand in mine, and to know that there was no shadow of misunderstanding between us!"

Stephen, too, rose to his feet. They stood together before the fire.

"Man to man, John," Stephen said, as he gripped his brother by the hands, "I love you this moment as I always have done and as I always shall do. And if this thing must be between us, I'll say but one last word, and you'll take it from me, even though I am the only man on earth you'd take it from. Before you marry, ask her!"