The Golden Web Part 41

She chose the easy-chair, and crossed her legs with a good deal of rustle and a considerable display of black silk stocking.

She looked at him curiously. "Are you still angry with me?" she asked.

"Well, I don't usually bear malice," he answered, "but I can scarcely forgive your method of dealing with Miss Rowan!"

"Or its results?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Well, I came out on the top, anyhow, and you must remember, Mr. Deane, that I was desperate,--you don't know how desperate," she continued, after a moment's pause. "I hadn't a s.h.i.+lling left in the world!--not a s.h.i.+lling!--not a friend! And somewhere in London there was wealth that belonged to me!"

"That," Deane remarked dryly, "is a matter which is as yet undecided."

"Well, I judge by facts," she answered with a little laugh. "Lawyers don't usually throw money away, do they? They're willing to advance me all I want on the security of the Little Anna Gold-Mine."

Deane smiled upon her genially. "My mine," he remarked.

"No!" she declared,--"the property of the legatees of Richard Sinclair!"

Deane shook his head. "My dear young lady," he said, "you were more in your element when you walked bareheaded upon the sands of Rakney, and saved me from a wetting, than in your present pose."

"And you," she declared, "were nicer to me, a great deal, for those few days."

"Naturally," he answered, smiling. "How can I be particularly amiable to a young lady who is trying to ruin me?"

She looked at him earnestly. In her fas.h.i.+onable attire she presented, indeed, a very different appearance from the eager, brown-skinned girl, with the shapely limbs and delightful carriage, whom he had first seen at Rakney. Yet he fancied that she was trying to reawaken his earlier impressions of her,--innocent of vanity as he was, he could not misunderstand her appealing gaze!

"I do not want to ruin you," she declared. "I do not want to do anything of the sort. Isn't there enough for both of us? Why should we fight?"

He sighed. "How can we compromise?" he asked. "The mine does not belong to me any longer. I sold it years ago to the Incorporated Gold-Mines a.s.sociation."

"You could not sell what didn't belong to you," she objected.

"They paid me the money for it, at any rate," he answered.

"If I win," she asked, "who will lose the money?"

"The Incorporated Gold-Mines a.s.sociation," he answered, "but they would have a claim upon me. I suppose, eventually, that I should."

She held out her hand--no longer brown and stained with seaweed, but delicately gloved, perfumed, elegant. "Let us be friends," she said. "I am sorry I was rough to your little ally! I couldn't help it. She was in my way. I chose the only means. We needn't consider her,--you and I are different sort of people. We know what we want. I am not only a money grubber. I want the rest of life, the whole thing,--the music, the poetry, the pa.s.sion! Remember my wretched, starved existence! Do you wonder that I am on fire to pa.s.s on to the other things. It isn't the money--your money or any one else's! I want life! I want the wine and the spices! I want the dregs! Can't you understand? You must!--you must!"

Her pa.s.sionate eyes sought his, her body swayed towards him. Deane looked downwards upon his blotter. In the outer office he could hear the clicking of typewriters, the subdued murmur of voices. Through the half-opened window came floating in the everlasting chorus,--the falling footsteps upon the pavement, the jingling of hansom bells, the far-off roar of the heavier traffic. All these things seemed to him curiously unreal. He was conscious only of the intensity of the moment, the pleading of her eyes, the warm breath upon his cheeks. He heard the rustling of her skirts. He felt that she was rising from her chair. Then he braced himself for his effort.

"My dear young lady," he said,--"if you really want to compromise--for a moderate amount--I will send for my lawyer. We cannot arrange this thing by ourselves."

She rose to her feet, but for a moment she was speechless. When he looked at her face, he found it almost unrecognizable. She dropped her veil quickly, but from behind it the flash of her eyes was in itself a threat.

"I am sorry," he said lamely. "I hope you understand."

She turned to the door, and pa.s.sed out without a word.

CHAPTER XX

THROUGH THE MILL

Deane stood at last on the other side of those long, dragging months of unspeakable weariness. Day after day, in the close atmosphere of the Courts, week after week of what seemed to him unnecessary repet.i.tions and delays,--so the great machine of the law moved on its slow and stately way, and the case of Sinclair _v._ The Incorporated Gold-Mines a.s.sociation crept on toward the end. One thing at least Deane had gained. His examination and cross-examination--and he was in the witness box altogether for nearly two days--failed to reveal a single weak joint in the armor of his truthfulness. His story was consistent and honorable throughout. He was able to prove the payment to Sinclair, to prove Sinclair's suggestion that he should have a try at the mine. At the end of the case, one thing remained certain, and that was that morally speaking the mine was Deane's when he had sold it to the Corporation.

Yet behind it all there were those t.i.tle-deeds, with which Sinclair had never parted, and which now formed the backbone of this present suit.

The more sensational part of the case, too, concerning which there had been endless rumors, collapsed immediately.

"Is it not true that Sinclair paid you a visit at your offices a few days before his murder?" counsel asked.

"Certainly!" Deane answered.

"Will you tell us what transpired at that interview?"

"Well, it scarcely amounted to an interview," Deane answered composedly.

"The man was drunk, and I found him offensive. He brandished the doc.u.ment at me on which the present case is founded, and I suspected him of an attempt at blackmail. I had him thrown out."

"Yet a few days afterwards you commissioned Rowan--the man who murdered Sinclair--to obtain that doc.u.ment from him," counsel said, amidst some sensation.

"Scarcely that," Deane answered. "Rowan, who had been a friend of mine in South Africa, and was a man of an altogether different stamp than Sinclair, called upon me a few days later. I told him the circ.u.mstances."

"You incited him to procure that doc.u.ment from Sinclair," counsel declared.

"I cannot admit that," Deane answered. "I told him that I had declined to be blackmailed by Sinclair, but that after all I would prefer to pay a reasonable sum of money for the doc.u.ment in question. Rowan had been on more friendly terms with Sinclair than any of us, and I thought that he might induce him to listen to reason."

"If the doc.u.ment was valueless, why should you bother about it?"

"I'm afraid that you don't know much about the mining world," Deane replied amiably. "Any prejudicial report, however malicious, however false, affects the market, and one must always consider one's stockholders."

"Very well, then," counsel said, "we come to this. You deputed Rowan to see what he could do with Sinclair. Do you realize your responsibility in this matter? You are aware of what happened?"

"Certainly," Deane answered. "I shall never cease to regret it. Sinclair was mad drunk and the two men quarrelled. The blow which killed him was struck in self-defence."

"The law did not take that view."

"I stood by Rowan when he died," Deane said, with a sudden note of solemnity in his tone. "He told me the truth then, and the truth is what I have told you."

"Nevertheless, he stole the doc.u.ment," counsel continued. "It was discovered afterwards in the possession of Miss Rowan."

"So I have heard," Deane answered calmly. "It was a pity that she did not hand it over to me."

"You would have destroyed it, I suppose?"

"Most certainly!" Deane answered. "The mine belonged to me. Sinclair had declared before witnesses that there were no papers, that the claim had not been worked for the requisite time; and, therefore, by the mining laws of the country my purchase was good."

The case lasted well over the Christmas recess. During the holidays, Deane spent a good part of his time seeking for some trace of Winifred Rowan. He went himself to her old employers, but they were able to tell him nothing. They could only show him the testimonial which they had written at her request, and which she had taken away with her a few days after her departure from the hotel. There was no one who seemed able to help him in the least. Very regretfully, he called in the services of a private detective, who, however, was equally unsuccessful. The holidays pa.s.sed, the case was reopened, and Deane was once more immersed in the struggle....

It was over at last. The strain remained,--the great judge who had heard it declined to p.r.o.nounce judgment immediately on the conclusion of the pleadings. It might be three days or it might be even a week before his decision was known. Deane turned away from the court with a strong and instinctive desire for solitude. The suspense long drawn out through the weeks and through the months, had become unbearable. He felt himself no longer able calmly to discuss the pros and the cons of the case with his fellow directors and friends. He was sick to heart of it all. He escaped from one or two pa.s.sers-by, and a reporter or so who tried to b.u.t.tonhole him, and ignoring his brougham, around which several others were waiting, he sprang into a hansom and drove to the garage where he kept his touring car. A few brief orders, a pencilled note to his servant, and Deane, leaving the garage by the other entrance, took the Tube to its terminus, walked out into the country, and was caught up within an hour by the car, in which his servant was sitting on the front seat by the side of the chauffeur.