The Betrayal Part 36

"He left me in January," she continued, "determined at least to have speech with his son. He heard then for the first time of the absconding trustee. He came to England, if not to implore his son's forgiveness, at least to place him above want. And in this country he has never been heard of. He has disappeared. I am here to find him. Perhaps," she added, leaning a little over towards Ray, and in a slightly altered tone, "perhaps you can help me?"

Again it seemed to me that Ray was troubled by a certain speechlessness.

When at last he found words, they and his tone were alike harsh, almost violent.

"Do you think," he said, "that I would stretch out the little finger of my hand to help you or him? You know very well that I would not. The pair of you, in my opinion, were long since outside the pale of consideration from any living being. If he is lost, so much the better.

If he is dead, so much the better still."

"It is because I know how you feel towards him," she said, slowly, "that I wondered--yes, I wondered!"

"Well?"

"Whether you could not, if you chose, solve for me the mystery of his disappearance."

There was as much as a dozen seconds or so of tense silence between them. She never once flinched. The cold question of her eyes seemed to burn its way into the man's composure. A fierce exclamation broke from his lips.

"If he were dead," he said, "and if it were my hand which had removed him, I should count it amongst the best actions of my life."

She looked at him curiously--as one might regard a wild beast.

"You can speak like this before his son?"

"I veil my words at no time and for no man," he answered. "The truth is always best."

Then the door opened, and Blenavon entered. His arm and head were bandaged, and he walked with a limp. He was deathly pale, and apparently very nervous. He attempted a casual greeting with Ray, but it was a poor pretence. Ray, for his part, had evidently no mind to beat about the bush.

"Lord Blenavon," he said, "this house is no fit place for your father's son. I have warned you before, but the time for advice is past. Your hostess here is a creature of the French police, and her business here is to suborn you and others whom she can buy or cajole into a treasonable breach of confidence. It is very possible that you know all this, and more. But I appeal to you as an Englishman and the representative of a great English family. Are you willing to leave at once with us and to depart altogether from this part of the country, or will you face the consequences?"

Blenavon was a coward. He shook and stammered. He was not even master of his voice.

"I do not understand you," he faltered. "You have no right to speak to me like this."

"Right or no right, I do," Ray answered. "If you refuse I shall not spare you. Last night was only one incident of many. I break my faith as a soldier by giving you this opportunity. Will you come?"

"I am waiting now for a carriage," Blenavon answered. "I have sent to the house for one."

"You will not return to the house," Ray said shortly. "You will leave here for the station, the station for London, and London for the Continent. You do this, and I hold my peace. You refuse, and I see Lord Chelsford and your father to-night."

From the first I knew that he would yield, but he did it with an ill grace.

"I don't see why I should go," he said, sulkily.

"Either you and I together, or I alone, are going to catch the six o'clock train to London," Ray said. "If I go alone you will be an exile from England for the rest of your life, your name will be removed from every club to which you belong, and you will have brought irreparable disgrace upon your family. The choice is yours."

Blenavon turned towards the woman as though for aid. But she stood with her back to him, pale and with a thin scornful smile upon her lips.

"The choice," Ray repeated, glancing at his watch, "is yours, but the time is short."

"I will go," Blenavon said. "I was off in a day or two, anyway. Of what you suspect me I don't know, and I don't care. But I will go."

Ray put his watch into his pocket. He turned to Mrs. Smith-Lessing.

"Better come too," he said quietly. "You have no more chance here.

Every one knows now who and what you are."

She looked at him with white expressionless face.

"It does not suit me to leave the neighbourhood at present," she said calmly.

If she had been a man Ray would have struck her. I could see his white teeth clenched fiercely together.

"It does not suit me," he said, in a low tone vibrate with suppressed pa.s.sion, "to have you here. You are a plague spot upon the place. You have been a plague spot all your life. Whatever you touch you corrupt."

She shrank away for a moment. After all, she was a woman, and I hated Ray for his brutality.

"What a butcher you are!" she said, looking at him curiously. "If ever you should marry--G.o.d help the woman."

"There are women and women," he answered roughly. "As for you, you do not count in the s.e.x at all."

She turned away from him with a little shudder, and for the first time during the interview she hid her face in her hands. It was all I could do to avoid speech.

"Come," he said, "do you agree? Will you leave this place? I promise you that your schemes here at any rate are at an end."

She turned to me. Perhaps something in my face had spoken the sympathy which I could not wholly suppress.

"Guy," she said, "I want to be rid of this man, because every word he speaks--hurts. But I cannot even look at him any more. At this war of words he has won. I am beaten. I admit it. I am crushed. I am not going away. I spoke truthfully when I said that I came to England in search of your father. We may both of us be the creatures that man would have you believe, but we have been husband and wife for eighteen years, and it is my duty to find out what has become of him. Therefore I stay."

I could see Ray's black eyes flas.h.i.+ng. He almost gripped my arm as he drew me away. We three left the house together. At the bottom of the drive we met a carriage sent down from Rowchester. Ray stopped it.

"Blenavon and I will take this carriage to the station," he said. "Will you, Ducaine, return to Lady Angela and tell her exactly what has happened?"

"Oh, come, I'm not going to have that," Blenavon exclaimed.

"It will not be unexpected news," Ray said sternly. "Your sister suspects already."

"I'm not going to be bundled away and leave you to concoct any precious story you think fit," Blenavon declared, doggedly. "I--"

Ray opened the carriage door and gripped Blenavon's arm. "Get in," he said in a low, suppressed tone. There was something almost animal in the fury of Ray's voice. I looked away with a shudder. Blenavon stepped quietly into the carriage. Then Ray came over to me, and as he looked searchingly into my face, he pointed up the carriage drive.

"Boy," he said, "you are young, and in h.e.l.l itself there cannot be many such as she. You think me brutal. It is because I remember--your mother!"

He stepped into the carriage. I turned round and set out for Rowchester.

CHAPTER XXV

MY SECRET