A Perilous Secret Part 44

CHAPTER XIX.

A WOMAN OUTWITS TWO MEN.

"Oh, Mary, what can I say? I was simply mad, stung into fury by that foul-mouthed ruffian. Mary, I am deeply sorry, and thoroughly ashamed of my violence and my cruelty, and I implore you to think of the very many happy years we have spent together without an angry word--not that you ever deserved one. Let us silence all comments; return to me as the head of my house and the heiress of my fortune; you will bind Mr. Hope to me still more strongly, he shall be my partner, and he will not be so selfish as to ruin your future."

"Ay," said Hope, "that's the same specious argument you tempted me with twelve years ago. But she was a helpless child then; she is a woman now, and can decide for herself. As for me, I will not be your partner. I have a small royalty on your coal, and that is enough for me; but Grace shall do as she pleases. My child, will you go to the brilliant future that his wealth can secure you, or share my modest independence, which will need all my love to brighten it. Think before you answer; your own future life depends upon yourself."

With this he turned his back and walked for some distance very stoutly, then leaned upon the palings with his back toward Grace; but even a back can speak, and the young lady looked at him and her eyes filled; then she turned them toward Bartley, and those clear eyes dried as if the fire in the heart had scorched them.

"In the first place, sir," said she, with a cold and cutting voice, very unusual to her, "my name is not Mary, it is Grace; and, be a.s.sured of this, if there was not another roof in all the world to shelter me, if I was helpless, friendless and fatherless, I would die in the nearest ditch rather than set my foot in the house from which I was thrust out with shame and insult such as no lady ever yet forgave. But, thank Heaven, I am not at your mercy at all. He to whom nature has drawn me all these years is my father--Oh, papa, come to me; is it for _you_ to stand aloof?

It is into your hands, with all the trust and love you have earned so well from your poor Grace, I give my love, my veneration, and my heart and soul forever." Then she flung herself panting on his bosom, and he cried over her. The next moment he led her to the house, where he made her promise to repose now after this fresh trial; and, indeed, he would have followed her, but Bartley implored him so piteously, for the sake of old times, not to refuse him one word more, that he relented so far as to come out to him, though he felt it was a waste of time.

He said, "Mr. Bartley, it's no use; nothing can undo this morning's work: our paths lie apart. From something Walter Clifford let fall one day, I suspect he is the person you robbed, and induced me to rob, of a large fortune."

"Well, what is he to you? Have pity upon me; be silent, and name your own price."

"Wrong Walter Clifford with my eyes open? He is the last man in the world that I would wrong in money matters. I have got a stern account against him, and I will begin it by speaking the truth and giving him back his own."

Here the interview was interrupted by an honest miner, one Jim Perkins.

He came in hurriedly, and, like people of that cla.s.s, thrust everybody else's business out of his way. "You are wanted at the mine, Mr. Hope.

The shoring of the old works is giving way, and there's a deal of water collecting in another part."

"I'll come at once," said Hope; "the men's lives must not be endangered.

Have the cage ready." Jim walked away.

Hope turned to Bartley.

"Pray understand, Mr. Bartley, that this is my last visit to your mine."

"One moment, Hope," cried Bartley in despair; "we have been friends so long, surely you owe me something."

"I do."

"Well, then, I'll make you rich for life if you will but let Mary return to me and only just be silent; speak neither for me nor against me; surely that is not much for an old friend to ask. What is your answer?"

"That I will speak the truth, and keep my conscience and my child."

This answer literally crushed Bartley. His very knees knocked together; he leaned against the palings sick at heart. He saw that Colonel Clifford would extort not only Walter's legacy, but what the lawyers call the mesne profits, that is to say, the interest and the various proceeds from the fraud during fourteen years.

Whilst he was in this condition of bodily collapse and mental horror a cold, cynical voice dropped icicles, so to speak, into his ear.

"In a fix, governor, eh? The girl won't come back, and Hope won't hold his tongue."

Bartley looked round in amazement, and saw the cadaverous face and diabolical sneer of Leonard Monckton. Fourteen years and evil pa.s.sions had furrowed that bloodless cheek; but there was no mistaking the man. It was a surprise to Bartley to see him there and be spoken to by a knave who had tried to rob him; but he was too full of his immediate trouble to think much of minor things.

"What do you know about it?" said he, roughly.

"I'll tell you," said Monckton, coolly.

He then walked in a most leisurely way to the gate that led into the meadow whose eastern boundary was Hope's quick-set hedge, and he came in the same leisurely way up to Mr. Bartley, and leaned his back, with his hands behind him, with perfect effrontery, against the palings.

"I know all," said he. "I overheard you in your office fourteen years ago, when you changed children with Hope."

Bartley uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"And I've been hovering about here all day, and watched the little game, and now I am fly, and no mistake."

Bartley threw up his hands in dismay. "Then it's all over; I am doubly ruined. I can not hope to silence you both."

"Don't speak so loud, governor."

"Why not?" said Bartley, "others will, if I don't." He lowered his voice for all that, and wondered what was coming.

"Listen to me," said Monckton, exchanging his cynical manner for a quiet and weighty one.

Bartley began to wonder, and look at him with a sort of awe. The words now dropped out of Monckton's thin lips as if they were chips of granite, so full of meaning was every syllable, and Bartley felt it.

"It's not so bad as it looks. There are only two men that know you are a felon."

Bartley winced visibly.

"Now one of those men is to be bought"--Bartley lifted his head with a faint gleam of hope at that--"and the other--has gone--down a coal-mine."

"What good will that do me?"

The villain paused, and looked Bartley in the face.

"That depends. Suppose you were to offer me what you offered Hope, and suppose Hope--was never--to come up--again?"

"No such luck," said Bartley, shaking his head sorrowfully.

"Luck," said Monckton, contemptuously; "we make our own luck. Do you see that vagabond lying under the tree, that's Ben Burnley."

"Ah!" said Bartley, "the ruffian Hope discharged."

"The same, and a man that is burning to be revenged on him: _he's_ your luck, Mr. Bartley; I know the man, and what he has done in a mine before to-day."

Then he drew near to Bartley's ear, and hissed into it these fearful words:

"Send him down the mine, promise him five hundred pounds--if William Hope--never comes up again--and William Hope never will."

Bartley drew back aghast. "a.s.sa.s.sination!" he cried, and by a generous impulse of horror he half fled from the tempter; but Monckton followed him up and laid his hand upon his shoulder.

"Hush," said he, "you are getting too near that window; and it is open.

Let me see there's n.o.body inside."

He looked in. There was n.o.body. Grace was upstairs, but it did so happen that she came into the room soon after.