there is no whip needed there.
“Oh God! let me win,” bursts from the boy’s pale lips, as he tightens his rein ever so little, and touches the mare gently with the spur. He is surprised at the effect. He thought she had been going fast before, but she is going faster now. She is quite a length ahead of Corrie Glen, and the jockey of this latter is visibly surprised. He has begun to ride the horse at last, and his whip is actually out.
“Corrie Glen wins! Corrie Glen wins!” comes the wild shout from the stands, as the noble chestnut, with a supreme effort, closes with the Black Queen. They are hardly fifty yards from the winning post; the roar is terrific. Bernie hears it, but he can see nothing now. He makes, however, a final effort, and calls on the mare once more; he has never used his whip.
“Corrie Glen wins! Corrie Glen wins!” The words pierce to his brain. He has done his best, he cannot do more; he knows this well; yet would to God he could win!
“Corrie Glen wins!” Ah! they don’t know the Black Queen. She has answered the boy’s last call; she has made one more magnificent effort; and, shooting ahead of the favourite, passes the post a winner by a neck!
What a yell goes up from the ring! Blank deadly consternation is in the faces of the backers. In the stands there is very little cheering. Hardly a soul in all that vast crowd has backed the “dark” black mare.
And Sir Reginald Desmond is still standing where we left him. He is deadly pale; his arms are folded on his chest; there is despair in his eyes.
“Had a bad race, old chap? I fear we all have,” says a voice at his elbow. He laughs, and turns towards the speaker. This latter starts as he notices the ghastly, haggard look on the young baronet’s face.
“Yes—well, yes, haven’t had a good one,” answers Sir Reggie coolly, taking out his cigarette-case and leisurely selecting a cigarette therefrom. “Have a cigarette, Fernley?”
“No thanks, Desmond, am just going to have lunch. Wonderful race young Bernie Fontenoy rode there. Won’t the brat be proud?”
“Oh! ah! yes, won’t he?” answers Sir Reggie absently. His thoughts have wandered again. He is looking ahead into the black future. Now that it is too late, he is cursing himself for a fool and an idiot. Oh! why did he not take Flora’s advice?
The stand in which he is, is nearly empty. Every one is making off to get lunch; in a few minutes it is entirely deserted. He sits on alone in it. The cigarette he had lit so ostentatiously not long since has gone out, but it is still clenched between his teeth.
The future will rise to his mind. How can such as he face it? He has never been brought up to do any-thing; he is ill-read, ill-taught, and ignorant. He has never given his mind to anything but amusing himself; and now if he pays the ring what is justly owing to it he will be a beggar, with nothing to live on and nothing to look forward to but misery, and, in his eyes, disgrace.
Poor Sir Reginald I He feels his position acutely, it is burning itself into his brain. He feels that it is past endurance, that he cannot face it.
“I’ll go home,” he says wearily to himself. “I can’t face Flora after this; it’s all too dreadful.”
He rises wearily and goes out. The back of the stand is more or less crowded by the hangers-on and scum of every racecourse. How he hates and loathes the sight of them now; how their rough, coarse, pleasure-seeking faces bring up to his mind, with haunting horror, the great loss which he has sustained! He is staying near the race-course, and has not far to go, so he hurries through the crowd and makes straight for The Laurels, which is the name of the place. He reaches it, and tries the front door. It is locked; of course no one is expected back yet. He knows of a side-entrance though through the smoking-room. Ten to one the careful servants have forgotten it. He walks round and tries it. Yes, true enough, they have. Very quietly Sir Reginald slips in. In another moment he is upstairs and in his bedroom.
He turns the key in the door, and goes over to the writing table. His face is still deadly pale, and he walks like one who has had too much to drink. He sits at the table and scrawls a few hurried lines. They are as follows:—
“Flora dear, forgive me. I’ve been a brute and an idiot. Would to God I had taken your advice! But it’s too late now. You’ll pay the ring for me, dear. Let them know it was my last wish. If I lived we should be beggars, and I can’t condemn you and the ‘ little one ‘ to that. But at my death you’ll get all that money that is to come to you and the child. Good-bye, dear old girl. You’ve been good and kind to me. This is about all Reggie can do to show you he is grateful. Good-bye. Forgive.”
She has been looking for him a long time, and so has Hector D’Estrange, but there is no sign of Sir Reginald Desmond anywhere. At last she can stand it no longer.
“I must go back to The Laurels,” she says; “perhaps he is there.”
Estcourt, who is standing by her, offers to accompany her, and thither they proceed in silence. Of course when they reach the house no one has seen him. The servants assure her ladyship that Sir Reginald has not returned; they must have seen him if he had. They forget to add that the greater number of them have been perched on the high wall surrounding The Laurels, during the greater part of the day, watching the races.
“I’ll just run up to the bedroom and have a look,” says Flora to Estcourt. “I won’t be a minute.”
He waits below, but almost directly hears his name called,—
“Estcourt, come here.”
He races up the stairs. He finds her standing out-side the door of a bedroom.
“I can’t get in,” she says hurriedly. “I’ve called, but there is no reply. Oh, Estcourt! do you think he is in there?”
He makes no reply, but runs downstairs. In a few minutes he is back with a hatchet. Curious servants are following him.
“Stand back,” he says to Flora. She obeys, and the young man brings the hatchet with tremendous force against the lock. Three, four, five strokes, and he has broken it to shivers. Then he opens the door.
Sir Reginald Desmond is seated at his writing table. His left hand is beneath his chest, his head is resting on the table above it, his right is outstretched and hanging over the side. Just below it on the floor lies a revolver, and drip, drip, drip, dripping on to the chair on which he sits, is a stream of running blood. Who shall judge him as he lays there silent, and fast stiffening? for—
“He is dead, and blame and praise fall on his ear alike, now hushed in death.”
Those may do so who can. I cannot.
VII
WERE you in the Commons last night? Did you go to hear Hector D’Estrange?” “Rather; I think all the world was there, or trying to be there. I don’t think I have ever seen such a crowd before.”
“What a wonderful speaker he is, to be sure!” “Yes. With the exception of Gladstone, I don’t suppose there ever was one like him, or ever will be again. Talk of orators of bygone days! Pooh! they never came up to him.”
“Well, the women have got the Suffrage in full at last, thanks to him. The next thing is to see what use they’ll make of it.”
