The Golden Web Part 33

"Personally I have not thought about you," she answered. "Apart from that, I hate you. You represent the victor, and all that I have loved upon this earth have been the vanquished. Willingly I would not give you so much as the touch of my fingers. If I thought that my presence was a pleasure to you, I would shrink back into myself. If I thought that any happiness could come to you from our a.s.sociation, even now I would throw myself from the car and end it."

"Our prospects of matrimonial bliss," he remarked, "appear to me to be distinctly above the average."

"I do not expect," she answered, "to find any pleasure that may come to me in later life, at your hands."

"I shall certainly not allow you to flirt."

"I know the law," she answered. "I know what I may do and what I may not do. I shall not transgress it. I want your money, I want your position, I want your power. These things I will share with you. For the rest, you cannot keep too far away to please me."

He leaned towards her, heedless of the fact that she was shrinking away.

There was something a little pitiful in the blue-gray eyes which tried so hard to hold him at a distance. "Well," said he, "it will be an interesting experiment, at any rate. Personally, I think that you are a brave woman. I wonder that you did not take the money without me."

"What good would that have been to me?" she answered. "I have no name, no friends. Can't you imagine the sort of people who would have come hanging on to my skirts, if I had made my debut on the scene as a widow or a spinster with a large fortune, unattached, looking for companions?

No! I need your name, Mr. Stirling Deane."

"I am not at all sure," he answered grimly, "that you will find that much of an a.s.set."

"You must see to it that I do find it an a.s.set, and a valuable one," she answered. "You are relieved now from any fear of that deed being produced. There is no shadow of evidence to connect you with the man Sinclair, or with my brother's transaction with him. If your lawyers are clever and you are brave, you must win your case with honor, and Hefferom will be sent to prison. He deserves it, in any case."

Deane nodded. "I shall win my case all right," he said. "For me there never was any danger except in the production of that doc.u.ment, concerning which you have been so mysterious."

"It was mine," she answered. "I ran all the risk to get it. I ran risks the memory of which will haunt me all my days. I have lost Basil. All that I can do is to exact the utmost price that you can pay for that little paper."

"It isn't worth it, you know," said Deane. "I believe, even now, that I should win my case, anyhow."

She smiled--a curious little contraction of the corners of her lips. Her eyes mocked him. "Perhaps," she said, "but it is a different thing since Sinclair's murder. Its production to-day would ruin you inevitably, whether it were held a legal doc.u.ment or not."

"We all make mistakes," he said, looking out of the window.

"But too often others pay for them!" she murmured, turning away.

Presently he gave some instructions to the chauffeur. The pace of the car slackened as they reached the outskirts of London and turned westward.

"Well," he remarked, "the world is full of surprises for us. I little thought, when I came down to Rakney, that it was to find a bride!"

She s.h.i.+vered a little at his words, but made no reply.

"Forgive me," he said, "if I do not seem very coherent about it all. As a matter of fact, you see, I was not expecting to take up obligations of this sort again so quickly."

"If you do not mind," she said coldly, "we will not discuss it."

"I may at least be permitted to ask," he continued, "when it is your intention to--marry me?"

"In about two months' time," she answered.

"You would like our engagement announced?" he asked.

She hesitated for a few seconds. "In a fortnight's time," she declared.

"In the meantime," he inquired, "I shall have the pleasure of being received by you?"

"Certainly," she answered. "I shall expect to lunch and dine with you occasionally, to be taken to the theatres, and for short expeditions into the country--Ranelagh and Hurlingham, for instance."

"Delightful!"

The car stopped at one of the smallest and most famous of semi-private hotels, in the neighborhood of Bond Street. Deane a.s.sisted his companion to alight.

"If you will come in for a moment," he said, "I will arrange things for you here. They know me very well."

She followed him into the hotel and waited while he interviewed the manager. Then he took his leave of her, bowing over her reluctantly offered hand, and smiling into her face as though honestly anxious to penetrate behind its absolute imperturbability.

"I hope you will find the little suite comfortable," he said. "You must go to bed soon, and try and rest. They will do everything that is possible for you, I am sure, until you have your own maid and things.

Good-night!"

She raised her eyes for a moment to his, but there was more indignation than grat.i.tude in the glance she threw upon him. "I am very much obliged to you. Good-night!"

Deane drove back to his rooms. As yet he could scarcely realize the situation. Had anyone ever been confronted with a position so unique?

The mystery of the girl's impenetrability was solved at last!

CHAPTER XIII

DESPERATION

The curtain had fallen upon the first act of this little drama in Deane's life. Hefferom was committed for trial. Deane had walked into the court a few minutes late, as though the whole affair was one which interested him only indirectly. He had gone into the witness box without hesitation, and his story had been so perfectly rational and straightforward that people began to wonder whether, indeed, any defence was possible. Cross-examination only amused him. Hefferom, who went into court expecting to be released, was committed at once to the Old Bailey, and to everyone's surprise, his own included, was refused bail.

Deane left the court a few minutes after the case was closed, and paused for a moment to light a cigarette on the steps. On the edge of the pavement there was a woman who watched with steady and scrutinizing interest every person who left the entrance of the Law Courts. When Deane came out she advanced towards him. "Is Hefferom free?" she asked.

Deane looked at her, and recognized at once Ruby Sinclair.

"No!" he answered. "He is committed for trial."

"You--"

She leaned forward as though about to strike him. Deane neither shrank back nor showed any sign of interest in her words.

"What is Hefferom to you?" he asked quickly.

"He is no blackmailer, at any rate!" she answered fiercely.

"The Court has ventured to think otherwise," Deane declared.

She was almost at his side now. Suddenly his eyes caught the sight of something glittering, something half drawn from the pocket of her dress.

Her wrist was caught in a clasp of iron.