Love and Money Read Online Free PDF Page A

what could have caused in her a revulsion of feeling so strong, so sudden, and so cruel?
    Only one thing, I think. What follows is all mere hypothesis, mere imagination, of course, but I explain the affair to myself in this way. The key to the puzzle is the death of Quarmby. That winning and light-hearted lad had courted the pretty Aline, and she, young and innocent and flattered, had taken his compliments and protestations more seriously than they deserved. They had strolled in the greenwood together, Quarmby had stolen a kiss or two, Aline had plighted her troth to him and meant it with all her heart. Then he had been dragged into the Elland murders by that horrible Lockwood, and finally he lay beneath an oak tree in the Ainleys wood, wounded and suffering, and Lockwood and Beaumont ran away and left him, and the Elland men found him and put him most cruelly to death. Lockwood ran away and left him! So Aline hated Lockwood with all her childish heart.
    Then Lockwood came to hide in Cannel Hall. He was not in the least what Aline expected, not a fierce rough overbearing ogre at all. He was kind and polite; his speech was far superior to her father’s, his manners were excellent. He was also handsome, sombre and strong. Her heart gave a strange leap the very first time she saw him, and as the days went by his lean strong hands, his crisp dark hair, the very eyelashes which lay so thick and black on his tanned cheek, made her feel weak every time she saw them. In a word, she loved him; not with the innocent unfledged liking she had felt for debonair Hugh Quarmby, but with a woman’s passion; she would do anything for Lockwood, suffer anything, follow him anywhere through any pain or toil.
    But all the time her vows to Quarmby nagged her. She had vowed, she had sworn, she had taken an oath, to be true to Quarmby, and now here she was, yielding her body to his murderer! For Lockwood, in her mind, was guilty of 28Quarmby’s death; Lockwood had betrayed Quarmby, deserted him, abandoned him, run away safe himself and left poor Hugh to his enemies’ knives. In Lockwood’s arms, in the very moment of passion, this fearful thought of her broken vows came and tormented her almost beyond bearing —she was not, perhaps, very strong in mind, poor Aline.
    And now there was fighting again, arrows and blood and cries of wounded men, and Lockwood, all tenderness laid aside, bent his bow lustily and cried out with joy when his shaft found its mark. It was all too terrible, it reminded her too fearfully of Quarmby; her gentle mind, too long troubled by a burden too heavy for it, shook till all seemed whirling and uncertain and then it cleared and settled and Aline’s decision was made. Aline would take vengeance on Lock-wood for Quarmby’s death, just this once, and then her vows would be kept and Quarmby’s spirit would be appeased, and she could lie in Lockwood’s arms and enjoy the rapture of his love without any sense of guilt. Just this one sharp stroke with her knife, and then she could be happy!
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    It did not turn out like that, of course. Aline’s vengeance recoiled, as throughout this and many other stories vengeance does recoil, upon the avenger.
    For inevitably Aline’s action delivered Lockwood to his death. His loud cry of unbelieving anguish as the severed bowstring twanged and parted, his savage grief and rage as he reviled Aline for a foul faithless harlot, may have given the watching men outside a hint of what had happened; the absence of those well-aimed, piercing arrows confirmed that their quarry now lacked his best weapon of defence. They rushed into the house; their combined weight soon pushed open the solar door; Lockwood drew his dagger and sprang back against a corner and hastily snatched a chair before him; where Aline was now he neither knew nor cared. The men, twelve in all, crowded in so as to leave him no opening for escape, but stood waiting for an order; none of them