SOME PLAIN SPEAKING
I took three steps toward her and stood still. For this was
Jacqueline; but it was not _my_ Jacqueline. It might have been
Jacqueline's grandmother when she was a girl--this haughty belle with
her high waist and side curls, and her flounced skirt and aspect of
cold recognition.
She did not stir as I approached her, but stood still, framed in the
door-way, looking at me as though I were an unwelcome stranger. My
outstretched arms fell to my sides. I halted three paces in front of
her. There was no answering welcome on her face, only a cold little
smile that showed she knew me.
"Jacqueline!" I cried. "It is I, Paul! You know me, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline inclined her head. "Oh, yes; I know you, _monsieur_," she
answered. "Why have you come here?"
"To see you, Jacqueline! To save you, Jacqueline!"
She made me a mocking courtesy. "I am infinitely obliged to you,
_monsieur_, for your good will," she said; "but I do not need your aid.
I am with friends now, M.--M. Paul!"
I withdrew a little way and leaned my hand against the table for
support, breathing heavily. Behind me I heard the click, click of the
roulette-ball as it pursued its course around the wheel. The old
dotard had already forgotten me, and was playing with his right hand
against his left again.
"Do you not want to see me, Jacqueline?" I asked, watching her through
a whirling fog.
"No, _monsieur_," she answered chillingly. "No, _monsieur_!"
"Do you wish me to go?"
She said nothing, and I walked unsteadily toward the door. She
followed me slowly. I went out of the room and pulled the door to
behind me. I knew that after it had closed I should never see
Jacqueline again.
She opened it and stood confronting me; and then burst into a flood of
impassioned speech.
"Why have you followed me here to persecute me?" she cried. "Are you
under the illusion that I am helpless? Do you think the friends who
rescued me from you have forgotten that you exist? You took advantage
of my helplessness. I do not want to see you. I hate you!"
"You told me that you loved me, and I believed you, Jacqueline," I
answered miserably, watching the colour flame to her lovely face. And
I could see she remembered that.
"When I was ill you used me for your own base schemes," she went on
with cutting emphasis. "And you--you followed me here. Do you think
that I am unprotected, and that you are dealing only with an old man
and a helpless woman? Why, I have friends who would come in and kill
you if I but raised my voice!"
"Raise your voice, _mademoiselle_. I am ready for your friends," I
answered.
She looked less steadily at me and seemed to waver.
"What have you come for?" she asked. "Have you not had money enough?
Do you want more?"
I seized her by the wrists. Thus I held her at arm's length, and my
fingers tightened until I saw the flesh grow white beneath them. The
intensity of my rage beat hers down and made it a puny thing.
"Jacqueline! You take me for an adventurer?" I cried. "Is _that_ what
they told you? Why do you think I brought you so near your home when
you were, as you said, helpless? Only a few nights ago you said you
loved me; that you would never send me away until I wished to go. What
is it that has happened to change you so, Jacqueline?"
I had her in my arms. She struggled fiercely, and I let her go.
"How dare you, _monsieur_!" she panted. "Go at once, or I shall call
for aid!"
So I went into the passage; and as I left the room I could still hear
the hellish click of the ivory ball in the roulette-wheel. I was
utterly confounded.
But before I reached the end of the little hall Jacqueline came running
back to me.
"Monsieur!" she gasped. "M. Paul! For the sake of--of what I once
thought you, I do not want you to be seen. You are in dreadful danger.
Come back!"
"Never mind the danger, _madame_," I answered, and I saw her flinch at
the word and look at me in dazed bewilderment. "Never mind my danger."
"It is for your own sake, _monsieur_," she said more gently.
"No, Mme. d'Epernay," I answered; and she winced again, as though I had
struck her across the face.
"For my sake," she pleaded, catching at my arm, and at that moment I
heard a door slam underneath and heavy footsteps begin slowly to ascend
the stairs.
"No, _madame_," I answered, trying to release my arm from her clasp.
Her face was full of fear, and I knew it was fear of the man below, not
me.
"Then for the sake of--our love, Paul!" she gasped.
I suffered her to lead me back into the room. In truth, I was in no
hurry to go. As she drew me back and closed the door behind us I heard
the footsteps pause and turn along the corridor.
I knew that heavy gait as well as though I already saw Leroux's hard
face before my eyes.
Jacqueline pushed me inside the room behind her father's chair and
closed, but did not hasp, the door. The room was completely dark, and
I did not know whether it connected with other rooms or was a mere
closet, but the freshness of the air in it inclined me to the former
view.
Over my head the torrent roared, and I had to stand very close to the
door to hear what passed.
I heard Leroux tramp in and his voice mingling with the _click-click_
of the ball in the roulette-wheel.
"Who is here?" he demanded.
"I am," answered Jacqueline.
"I thought I heard Lacroix," said Leroux thickly.
"I have not seen M. Lacroix to-day," Jacqueline returned.
Leroux stamped heavily about the room and then sat down. I heard the
legs of his chair scratch the wooden floor as he drew it up to the
table.
"_Maudit_!" he burst out explosively. "Where is d'Epernay? I am tired
of waiting for him!"
"I have told you many times that I do not know," answered Jacqueline;
and there followed the _click-click_ of the ball inside the wheel again.
"How long will you keep up this pretense, _madame_?" cried Leroux
angrily. "What have you to gain by concealing the knowledge of your
husband from me?"
"M. Leroux, why will you not believe that I remember nothing?" answered
Jacqueline.
"How can you have forgotten? Why did you run away after marrying him?
What were you doing in New York? Who was the man who accompanied you
to the Merrimac?" he shouted.
Through the chink of the door I saw the old man look up in mild protest
at the disturbing sounds. I clenched my fists, and the temptation to
make an end of Leroux was almost too strong for my restraint.
But to Jacqueline the insult conveyed no meaning, and Leroux continued
in more moderate tones.
"Come, _madame_, why do you not play fair with me?" he asked. "Who is
that man Hewlett, and why did he accompany you so far toward your
_château_? Before God, I know your husband and he have been plotting
with Tom Carson against me, but why he should thus place himself in my
power I cannot understand."
"Ah, you have spoken of a Tom Carson many times," said Jacqueline.
"Soon, _monsieur_, I shall begin to believe that such a person really
exists."
"Tell me where you met Hewlett."
"I tell you for the last time, _monsieur_, that I do not remember. But
what I do remember I shall tell you. After my father had turned M.
Louis d'Epernay out of his home, whither he had come to beg money to
pay his gambling debts, you brought him back. You made my father take
him in. He wanted to marry me. But I refused, because I had no love
for him. But you insisted I should marry him, because he had gained
you the entrance to the seigniory and helped you to acquire your power
over my father. Oh, yes, _monsieur_, let us be frank with each other,
as you have expressed the desire to be."
"Go on," growled Leroux, biting his lips. "Perhaps I shall learn
something."
"Nothing that you do not already know, _monsieur_," she flashed out
with spirit. "My father came here, long ago, a political fugitive, in
danger of death. You knew this, and you played upon his fears. You
brought your friends and encouraged him to gamble and waste his money
in his old age, when his mind had become enfeebled.
"Yes, you played on the old gambling instinct which had laid dormant in
him for forty years. You made him think he was acting the _grand
seigneur_, as his father had done in earlier days, in his other home at
St. Boniface.
"You drained him of his last penny, and then you offered him ten
thousand dollars to gamble with in Quebec, telling him of the delights
of the city and promising him immunity," the girl went on
remorselessly. "And for this he was to assign his property to Louis,
thinking, of course, that he could soon make his fortune at the tables.
And Louis was to marry me, and in turn sell the seigniory to you. And
so I married Louis under threat of death to my father.
"Oh, yes, _monsieur_, the plan was simple and well devised. And I knew
nothing of it. But Louis d'Epernay blurted it all out to me upon our
wedding night. I think the shame of knowing that I had been sold to
him unhinged my mind, for I ran out into the snows.
"Now you know all, _monsieur_, for I remember nothing more until I
found myself travelling back with M. Hewlett in the sleigh. You say I
was in New York. Well, I do not remember it.
"And as for Louis d'Epernay, I know nothing of him--but I will die
before he claims me as his wife!"
She had grown breathless as she proceeded with her scathing
denunciation and now stood facing him with an aspect of fearless
challenge on her face. And then I had the measure of Leroux. He
laughed, and he beat down her scorn with scorn.
"You have underestimated your price, _madame_," he sneered. "Since you
have learned so much, I will tell you more. You have cost me twenty
thousand dollars, and not ten; for besides the ten thousand paid to
your father, Louis got ten thousand also, upon the signing of the
marriage contract. So swallow that, and be proud of being priced so
high! And the seigniory is already his, and I am waiting for him to
return and sell me the ground rights for twenty-five thousand more, and
if I know Louis d'Epernay he will not wait very long to get his fingers
round it."
Jacqueline stood watching him with supreme indifference.
The man's coarse gibes had flown past her without wounding her, as they
would have hurt a lower nature.
"No doubt he will return," she answered quietly. "If he would take ten
thousand for me, surely he will take twenty-five thousand for the
seigniory. You have us in your power."
"Then why the devil doesn't he come?" roared Leroux. "If he is
intriguing with Carson, by God, I know enough to shut him up in jail
the rest of his life. And so, _madame_," he ended quietly, "it will
perhaps be worth your while to tell me why Tom Carson sent this Hewlett
back to the _château_; for no doubt the wolves have picked him pretty
clean by now."
"Listen to me, Simon Leroux," said Jacqueline, standing up before him,
as indomitable in spirit as he. "All your plots and schemes mean
nothing to me. My only aim is to take my father away from here, from
you and M. d'Epernay, and let you wrangle over your spoil. There are
more than four-legged wolves, M. Leroux; there are human ones, and,
like the others, when food is scarce they prey upon each other."
"I like your spirit!" exclaimed Simon, staring at her with frank
admiration.
And Jacqueline's head drooped then. Unwittingly Simon had pierced her
defences.
But he never knew, for before he had time to know the grey-beard rose
upon his feet and rubbed his thin hands together, chuckling.
"Never mind your money, Simon," he said. "I'm going to be richer than
any of you. Do you know what I did with that ten thousand? I gave it
to my little daughter, and she has gone to New York to make our
fortunes at Mr. Daly's gaming-house. No, there she is!" he suddenly
exclaimed. "She has come back!"
Leroux wheeled round and looked from one to the other.
"So that was the purpose of your visit to New York?" he asked the girl.
"So--you have not quite forgotten that, _madame_! Your price was not
too vile a thing for you to take it to New York with you! Your shame
was not too great for you to remember that your father had ten thousand
dollars!"
"It was not mine," she flashed back at Leroux. "My father would have
lost it again to you. I took it to New York because I thought that I
could make enough to give him a home during the rest of his days. Do
you think I would have touched a penny of it, _monsieur_?"
"I don't know," answered Leroux. "But we will soon find out. Where is
that money, _madame_?"
Jacqueline's lips quivered. I saw her glance involuntarily toward the
door behind which I was standing.
And suddenly the last phase of the problem became clear to me.
Jacqueline thought I had robbed her.
I stepped from behind the door and faced Leroux. "I have that money,"
I said curtly.
I saw his face turn white. He staggered back, and then, with a bull's
bellow, rushed at me, his heavy fists aloft. I think he could have
beaten out my brains with them.
But he stopped short when he saw my automatic pistol pointing at his
chest. And he saw in my face that I was ready to shoot to kill.
"You thief--you spy--you treacherous hound, I'll murder you!" he roared.
The dotard, who had been looking at me, came forward.
"No, no, I won't have him murdered, Simon," he protested, laying a
trembling hand on Leroux's shoulder. "He has almost as good a roulette
system as I have."