But for once he was singularly slow; minute followed minute, and there
was neither sign nor sound of him.
And presently the store door opened once more; the figure in the
dust-coat emerged as it had entered; and vanished as it had appeared, in
the direction of the horse-yard.
Once more the door was shut; but, once more, that thread of
incriminating light burnt like a red-hot wire beneath. And this time
Moya could not see it burn: the red-hot wire had entered her soul.
Theodore had been so long, he might be longer; risk it she must, and
take the consequences. Two steps carried her across the verandah;
lighter she had never taken in a ball-room, where her reputation was
that of a feather. Once in the kindly sand, however, she ran
desperately, madly, to the horse-yard. And she was just in time to hear
the dying beat of a horse's canter into infinity.
Then she must inform the wretch himself, the runaway ruffian in the
store! One sob came, and then this quick resolve.
She gained the store, panting; and instinctively tried the door before
knocking. To her amazement and alarm it was open. She stood confounded
on the threshold, and a head bending over the desk, under the lamp,
behind the counter, was suddenly transformed into a face. And it was not
the runaway at all; it was Rigden himself!
"I saw you come out!" she gasped, past recrimination, past anger, past
memory itself in the semi-insensibility of over-whelming surprise. He
looked at her very gravely across the desk.
"No, that was the man who has wrecked my life," he said. "I've got him
through them at last, I do believe."
And his eyes flashed their unworthy triumph.
"You could actually give him your horse!"
"I wish I could. It would be missed in a minute. No, he's only just to
run the gauntlet on it, and I shall find it at the first gate. But what
is it, Moya? You came for something?" and he was a miserable man once
more.
"I'm ashamed to say why I came--but I will!" cried Moya in a low voice.
"I did not want you to be found out through my own brother. He suspected
the man was in here--I don't know why. He was going to watch the store
all night, and I was watching it for him while he changed, and the light
under the door----"
Rigden held up his hand.
"Hush!" he said. "Here _is_ your brother."
Theodore was more than decent; he was positively gorgeous in striped and
tasselled silk. He stood in the doorway with expressive eyebrows and
eloquent nostrils, looking from Moya to Rigden until his gaze settled
upon the latter. It was almost an innocuous gaze by then.
"So it was you in here," he said. Rigden nodded. "Do you know who I was
ass enough to think it was?" continued Theodore, using a word which Moya
had never heard him apply to himself before, even in fun. "Has Moya told
you?"
"She has."
"I saw the light," said Moya, in elliptical explanation. Theodore
continued to address his host.
"I oughtn't to have interfered," he said, with a humility which was
already arousing Moya's suspicions. "I should have minded my own
business, Rigden, and I apologise. I'd got it into my head--I can't tell
you why. Will you forgive me? And have you any more whisky?"
"I've nothing to forgive," said Rigden, sincerely enough. "But a drink
we'll have; that's an excellent idea!"
But the counter was between them, and Theodore was the first to leave
the store; but on the threshold he stopped, and just turned to Moya for
an instant.
"By the way, you didn't see anybody else, I suppose?" said he.
There was an instant's pause. Then Moya committed her sin.
"Of course I didn't," were the words.
Theodore strolled over to the verandah. Moya waited behind as in
devotion while Rigden locked that fatal door for the last time.
"You see what you've brought me to!" she hissed. "But don't think it's
because I care a bit what happens to you--once I'm gone. And I _hate_
you for it--and I always shall!"
"Thank you," he said.
And that was all.