The Golden Web Part 15

"It is a telegraph boy," she interrupted. "I can see the wallet."

She clung to his arm. Deane found himself patting her fragile hand with his strong fingers. He drew her arm through his, and led her a few steps further forward. The boy jumped off his bicycle and opened his wallet, as he approached, with a familiar movement. Deane took the telegram into his fingers and tore it open. His arm suddenly went round her waist.

"Miss Rowan," he said, "be brave and I will tell you some good news.

See, you can read it for yourself. The reprieve is signed."

She suddenly fell a dead weight upon his arm, and almost as quickly she recovered herself. Her closed eyes were opened, she clung to him pa.s.sionately. "It is true?" she cried out.

He held the telegram in front of her face. "Read," he said. "'_Reprieve signed last night. Will be communicated to Rowan this morning.

Hardaway._'--That is the name of my solicitor, so there is no possible doubt about it. The matter is ended."

He turned to the boy, who stood looking on with wooden face. Then he drew a coin from his pocket. "My young friend," he said, "you are in luck. Take that and go home to your breakfast."

The boy looked at the sovereign and up at Deane. So far as his features were capable of expression at all, they spoke of stupefaction. Then, as though afraid that Deane might change his mind, he mounted his bicycle and rode rapidly away.

"It is a relief to you, of course," Deane said, trying to speak in as matter-of-fact a tone as possible; "but this thing was a certainty all the time. I have always tried to make you believe that. Come in now, and let us have some breakfast. You ought to have an appet.i.te."

She followed him without a word. She seemed, indeed, like a person dreaming, not wholly able to realize the things happening around her, even the moments that pa.s.sed. Deane waited upon her at breakfast, and talked in a matter-of-fact way, accepting her monosyllabic answers as natural things,--carrying on a conversation, too, with the man who waited at the sideboard. By degrees, a more natural expression came into her face. When at last the meal was over and the servant had left the room, she burst suddenly into tears. Deane took her outside and placed her in a chair, sitting by her side on the sands.

"Now," he said, "that is all over."

"When can I go back?" she asked suddenly. "They will let me see Basil. I must go and tell him."

"He knows, of course," Deane replied, "but naturally he will want to see you. You can leave here in about an hour. I am not sure--perhaps I may come with you."

She sat there quietly, absolutely content to lie still and gaze out at the sea. Presently Grant came out with a note, which Deane silently opened. It was dated from The Cottage, Rakney.

DEAR MR. DEANE,

My niece knows, and she insists upon going to London at once.

We are all very much disturbed. If it is not troubling you too much when you are pa.s.sing this way, we should be so grateful if you would call in for a minute.

Deane looked thoughtfully seaward, and his face hardened as he crumpled the note up in his hand. Then he rose to his feet. "I am going in to see about the trains for you," he said.

He hired a cart from the village, and they stood together on the platform of the nearest railway station, an hour or so later. She laid her arm upon his sleeve.

"Will you stop for a moment, please?" she said. "I am afraid I must have seemed ungracious. After all, I ought to be very grateful to you."

He shook his head. "No!" he answered. "It is always I who must be your debtor. I ought to have been firmer with your brother when I sent him to this man Sinclair to make terms. It was a desperate enterprise, after all, and I ought to have realized the danger of your brother being tempted to use violence. To me he was nothing more than a unit of humanity, and I took him at his word. If he had brought me the paper I wanted, I was quite prepared to ask him no questions whatever, and he would have been a rich man. I can't help feeling that in a sense I am responsible for his present position and yours."

She looked away from him. Her eyes were fixed upon the horizon. She appeared to be steadily thinking the matter out. The wind blew little wisps of fair hair over her face. Her eyes were steadfast, her forehead a little wrinkled. She seemed to be endeavoring to arrive at a conscientious decision.

"No!" she said, after some time, "I cannot see that you are to blame. I am sure that it never entered into your head that my brother might be tempted to use violence."

Deane looked away with a little frown. In his heart he knew very well that he was not so sure! "Well," he said, "we will let that go. At any rate, my responsibility to you remains. Tell me what I can do? How can I help you?"

She shook her head. "I am going back to my work," she said. "I need no help."

"Your work?" he repeated.

She nodded, with a little sigh. "I am a typist," she said. "You know what that means,--genteel starvation, long hours, gray days. Never mind, I am almost used to it."

"You need be a typist no longer unless you choose," he said. "Part of what I promised to your brother belongs to you."

She shook her head. "Don't speak of it!" she exclaimed. "I should feel that it was blood money."

"At least let me hear from you sometimes," he said. "Don't let me lose sight of you altogether while your brother is unable to help you."

She hesitated. Then, lifting her eyes to his, "I don't believe," she said softly, "that you would tell me anything that was not true."

"I don't believe that I should," he answered.

"Then tell me this," she said, "honestly. When you made my brother that offer, when you sent him to deal with this man Sinclair, can you tell me that you had not an idea in your mind that he might be led on to do something rash?"

Deane hesitated. He was not a man of over-strict scruples, but he hated lies. Somehow or other, it seemed to him impossible to look at this girl and tell her anything that was not the truth.

"I am not altogether sure," he answered. "At the back of my head there was just the idea that your brother was desperate, that he would gain what he wanted, somehow or other."

She turned away, and walked a little way down the platform. The train was already in the station. She entered a carriage and sat in the furthest corner. "Thank you," she said. "I am glad that you have told me the truth. Would you mind going away now, please?"

"I am sorry," Deane said simply. "Remember that I only did what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done in my place. I wanted that paper, and your brother begged for just such an enterprise."

She held out her hands. "If you please!" she said. "Good-bye!"

Deane turned away. The girl was a little fool, of course. Yet as he turned and watched the smoke of the train disappear, and thought of her in her empty third-cla.s.s carriage, alone, he was conscious of a sense of acute depression--none the less acute because it was vague. He turned back to the village, walking with heavy steps. It was as though a new trouble had come into his life.

CHAPTER XVII

A NEW DANGER

Deane was shown into what was apparently the morning-room of the Sarsby domicile by an open-mouthed and very country-looking domestic, who regarded him all the time with unaffected curiosity. Mr. Sarsby was sitting in an easy-chair, reading the _Times_. Directly he recognized his visitor he showed signs of nervousness.

"Ah, Mr. Deane!" he said, rising. "How do you do, Mr. Deane?"

Deane shook hands. His host did not ask him to sit down, nor did he himself resume his seat.

"I looked in," Deane explained, "to know what your niece had decided to do."

"She has decided to go to London at once," Mr. Sarsby answered,--"at once. It is very inconvenient for all of us. I am almost sorry that you ever happened to point out the paragraph, especially as there seems to be no property of any sort to be found."

The door was suddenly opened and Ruby Sinclair entered. There was a frown which was almost a scowl upon her dark, handsome face. Little Mr.

Sarsby seemed suddenly to have become a person of no importance.