第37章

Jim reflected.'Baron,' he said, 'I am a plain man, and wish only to lead a quiet life with my wife, as a man should.You have great power over her--power to any extent, for good or otherwise.If you command her anything on earth, righteous or questionable, that she'll do.So that, since you ask me if you can do more for me, I'll answer this, you can promise never to see her again.I mean no harm, my lord; but your presence can do no good; you will trouble us.If Ireturn to her, will you for ever stay away?'

'Hayward,' said the Baron, 'I swear to you that I will disturb you and your wife by my presence no more.And he took Jim's hand, and pressed it within his own upon the hilt of Jim's sword.

In relating this incident to the present narrator Jim used to declare that, to his fancy, the ruddy light of the setting sun burned with more than earthly fire on the Baron's face as the words were spoken;and that the ruby flash of his eye in the same light was what he never witnessed before nor since in the eye of mortal man.After this there was nothing more to do or say in that place.Jim accompanied his never-to-be-forgotten acquaintance to the carriage, closed the door after him, waved his hat to him, and from that hour he and the Baron met not again on earth.

A few words will suffice to explain the fortunes of Margery while the foregoing events were in action elsewhere.On leaving her companion Vine she had gone distractedly among the carriages, the rather to escape his observation than of any set purpose.Standing here she thought she heard her name pronounced, and turning, saw her foreign friend, whom she had supposed to be, if not dead, a thousand miles off.He beckoned, and she went close.'You are ill--you are wretched,' he said, looking keenly in her face.'Where's your husband?'

She told him her sad suspicion that Jim had run away from her.The Baron reflected, and inquired a few other particulars of her late life.Then he said: 'You and I must find him.Come with me.' At this word of command from the Baron she had entered the carriage as docilely as a child, and there she sat beside him till he chose to speak, which was not till they were some way out of the town, at the forking ways, and the Baron had discovered that Jim was certainly not, as they had supposed, making off from Margery along that particular branch of the fork that led to London.

'To pursue him in this way is useless, I perceive,' he said.'And the proper course now is that I should take you to his house.That done I will return, and bring him to you if mortal persuasion can do it.'

'I didn't want to go to his house without him, sir,' said she, tremblingly.

'Didn't want to!' he answered.'Let me remind you, Margery Hayward, that your place is in your husband's house.Till you are there you have no right to criticize his conduct, however wild it may be.Why have you not been there before?'

'I don't know, sir,' she murmured, her tears falling silently upon her hand.

'Don't you think you ought to be there?'

She did not answer.

'Of course you ought.'

Still she did not speak.

The Baron sank into silence, and allowed his eye to rest on her.

What thoughts were all at once engaging his mind after those moments of reproof? Margery had given herself into his hands without a remonstrance, her husband had apparently deserted her.She was absolutely in his power, and they were on the high road.

That his first impulse in inviting her to accompany him had been the legitimate one denoted by his words cannot reasonably be doubted.

That his second was otherwise soon became revealed, though not at first to her, for she was too bewildered to notice where they were going.Instead of turning and taking the road to Jim's, the Baron, as if influenced suddenly by her reluctance to return thither if Jim was playing truant, signalled to the coachman to take the branch road to the right, as her father had discerned.

They soon approached the coast near Idmouth.The carriage stopped.

Margery awoke from her reverie.

'Where are we?' she said, looking out of the window, with a start.

Before her was an inlet of the sea, and in the middle of the inlet rode a yacht, its masts repeating as if from memory the rocking they had practised in their native forest.

'At a little sea-side nook, where my yacht lies at anchor,' he said tentatively.'Now, Margery, in five minutes we can be aboard, and in half an hour we can be sailing away all the world over.Will you come?'

'I cannot decide,' she said, in low tones.

'Why not?'

'Because--'Then on a sudden, Margery seemed to see all contingencies: she became white as a fleece, and a bewildered look came into her eyes.

With clasped hands she leant on the Baron.

Baron von Xanten observed her distracted look, averted his face, and coming to a decision opened the carriage door, quickly mounted outside, and in a second or two the carriage left the shore behind, and ascended the road by which it had come.