Starvecrow Farm Part 35

"At any rate," Clyne retorted, his rage at a white heat, "she has lied to me!"

"I admit it."

"And to others!"

The chaplain could only hold out his hands in deprecation.

"You will admit that she has continued to communicate with a man she should loathe? A man whom, if she were a modest girl, she would loathe? That she has stolen to midnight interviews with him, leaving this house as a thief leaves it? That she has cast all modesty from her?"

"Do not, do not be too hard on her!" Sutton cried, his face flus.h.i.+ng hotly. "Captain Clyne, I beg--I beg you to be merciful."

"It is she who is hard on herself! But have no fear," Clyne continued, in a voice cold as the winter fells and as pitiless. "I shall give her fifteen minutes to come to her senses and behave herself--not as a decent woman, I no longer ask that, but as a woman, any woman, the lowest, would behave herself, to save a child's life. And if she behaves herself--well. And if not, sir, it is not I who will punish her, but the law!"

"She will speak," the chaplain said. "I think she will speak--for you."

He was deeply and honestly concerned for the girl: and full of pity for her, though he did not understand her.

"But--suppose I saw her first?" he suggested. "Just for a few minutes?

I could explain."

"Nothing that I cannot," Captain Clyne answered grimly. "And for a few minutes! Do you not consider," with a look of suspicion, "that there has been delay enough already? And too much! Fifteen minutes," with a recurrence of the bitter laugh, "she shall have, and not one minute more, if she were my sister!"

Mr. Sutton's face turned red again.

"Remember, sir," he said bravely, "that she was going to be your wife."

"I do remember it!" Clyne retorted with a withering glance. "And thank G.o.d for His mercy."

CHAPTER XXI

COUSIN MEETS COUSIN

Nadin and the others had not left her more than ten minutes when Henrietta heard his voice under the window. She was still flushed and heated, sore with the things which they had said to her, bruised and battered by their vulgarity and bl.u.s.ter. Indignation still burned in her; and astonishment that they could not see the case as she saw it.

The argument in her own mind was clear. They must prove that Walterson had committed this new crime, they must prove that if she betrayed the man she would save the child--and she would speak. Or she would speak if they would undertake to release the man were he not guilty. But short of that, no. She would not turn informer against him, whom she had chosen in her folly--except to save life. What could be more clear, what more fair, what more logical? And was it not monstrous to ask anything beyond this?

She had wrought herself in truth to an almost hysterical stubbornness on the point. The romantic bent that had led her to the verge of ruin still inclined her feelings. Yet when she heard the father's step approaching along the pa.s.sage, she trembled. She gazed in terror at the door. The prospect of the father's tears, the father's supplication, shook her. She had to say to herself, "I must not tell, I must not! I must not!" as if the repet.i.tion of the words would strengthen her under the torture of his appeal. And when he entered, in the fear of what he might say she was before him. She did not look at him, or heed what message his face conveyed--or she had been frozen into silence. But in a panic she rushed on the subject.

"I am sorry, oh, I am so sorry!" she cried, tears in her voice. "I would do it, if I could, I would indeed. But I cannot," distressfully, "I must not! And I beg you to spare me your reproaches."

"I have none to make to you," he said.

It was his tone, rather than his words, which cut her like a whip.

"None!" she cried. "Ah, but you blame me? I am sure you do."

"I do not blame you," he replied in the same cold tone. "My business here has nothing to do with reproaches or with blame. I give you fifteen minutes to tell me what you know, and all you know, of the man Walterson's whereabouts. That told, I have no more to say to you."

She looked at him as one thunderstruck.

"And if I do not do that," she murmured, "within fifteen minutes? If I do not tell you?"

"You will go to Appleby gaol," he said, in the same pa.s.sionless tone.

"To herd with your like, with such women as may be there." He laid his watch on the table, beside his whip and glove; and he looked not at her, but at it.

"And you? You will send me?" she answered.

"I?" he replied slowly. "No, I shall merely undo what I did before. My coming last time saved you from the fate which your taste for low company had earned. This time I stand aside and the result will be the same as if I had never come. There is, let me remind you, a minute gone."

She looked at him, her face colourless, but her eyes undaunted. But the look was wasted, for he looked only at his watch.

"You are come, then," she said, her voice shaking a little, "not to reproach me, but to insult me! To outrage me!"

"I have no thought of you," he answered.

The words, the tone, lashed her in the face. Her nostrils quivered.

"You think only of your child!" she cried.

"That is all," he answered. And then in the same pa.s.sionless tone, "Do not waste time."

"Do not----"

"Do not waste time!" he repeated. "That is all I have to say to you."

She stood as one stunned; dazed by his treatment of her; shaken to the soul by his relentless, pitiless tone, by his thinly veiled hatred.

He who had before been cold, precise and just was become inhuman, implacable, a stone. Presently, "Three minutes are gone," he said.

"And if I tell you?" she answered in a voice which, though low, vibrated with resentment and indignation, "if I tell you what you wish to know, what then?"

"I shall save the child--I trust. Certainly I shall save him from further suffering."

"And what of me?"

"You will escape for this time."

Her breast heaved with the pa.s.sion she restrained. Her foot tapped the floor. Her fingers drummed on the table. Such treatment was not fit treatment for a dog, much less for a woman, a gentlewoman! And his injustice! How dared he! How dared he! What had she done to deserve it? Nothing! No, nothing to deserve this.

Meanwhile he seemed to have eyes only for his watch, laid open on the table before him. But he noted the signs, and he fancied that she was about to break down, that she was yielding, that in a moment she would fall to weeping, perhaps would fall on her knees--and tell him all. A faint surprise, therefore, pierced his pitiless composure when, after the lapse of a long minute, she spoke in a tone that was comparatively calm and decided.

"You have forgotten," she said slowly, "that I am of your blood! That I was to be your wife!"

"It was you who forgot that!" he replied.