THE NET OF JOAN'S VENGEANCE
Success--complete, overpowering, unquestioned. Douglas Jesson's novel
was more than the book of the season--it became and still remains a
classic. There is much talk nowadays by minor writers of the difficulty
of making a name, of the inaccessibility of the public. As a matter of
fact there never was a time when good work was so quickly recognised
both by the press and the public, never a novel which sees the light of
day but meets with appreciably more or less than its merits. There was
never a second's hesitation about "The Destiny of Phillip Bourke." The
critics praised and the public bought it. Edition followed edition.
Douglas Jesson took his place without an effort amongst the foremost
writers of the day.
And this same success brought him face to face with one of the great
crises of his life. It brought Joan to him, successful at last in her
long search. Their interview, which, if unexpected, must surely have
savoured of the dramatic, was reduced more or less to the commonplace,
from the fact that she came to him prepared, already assured of his
identity, for who else could have immortalised so wonderfully the little
hillside village where they had both been brought up? He walked into
the waiting-room at the Courier equally prepared, for he had seen her
pass the window. She turned and faced him as he entered, carefully
closing the door behind him, with a grim smile of triumph about her
thin, set lips.
"At last, then, Douglas Guest," she exclaimed, laying his book upon the
table. "Are you not weary of skulking under a false name?"
"I chose it as much for your sake as mine, Joan," he gravely replied.
Her black eyes flashed hatred and disbelief upon him.
"You don't imagine that you can make me believe that," she answered,
passionately. "You have fooled many people, but I think your turn has
come at last. I did not come here to listen to any fairy tales."
"You will forgive me if I ask what you did come for, Joan. I would
rather you had come as a friend, but I fear there is no chance of that."
She laughed mockingly.
"I have searched for you many days," she said, "and many nights. I have
ransacked a city which was strange to me; I have walked many hundreds of
miles over its pavements until I have grown sick with disappointments.
And now that I have found you Douglas Guest, you are right when you say
that I do not come as your friend."
"You had a motive, I presume?"
"Yes, I had a motive. I wanted to look into your face and tell you that
the net of my vengeance is drawn close about you, and the cords are
gathered in my hands. To-day you are flushed with triumph, to-morrow
you will be pale with fear."
"Joan," he said, looking across the table into her face, distorted with
passion, "you believe that I killed your father?"
"Believe? I know it!"
"Nevertheless I did not raise my hand against him. I took money because
it was my own. I left him sound and well."
"There are others," she exclaimed scornfully, "who may believe that, but
not many, I should think."
"Joan," he said earnestly, "you will be a happier woman all your life if
you will listen to me now. Your father was killed that night and
robbed, but not by me. I took twenty pounds, which was not a tithe of
what belonged to me--not a penny more. It was after I had left--"
"Two in one night?" she interrupted. "It doesn't sound ingenious,
Douglas Guest, though you are welcome, of course, to your own story."
"Ingenious or not, it is true," he answered. "You are very bitter
against me, and some hard thoughts from you I have certainly deserved.
But of what you think I am not guilty, and unless you want to do a thing
of which you will repent until your dying day, you must put that thought
away from you."
"Do you think that I am a child?" she asked scornfully. "Do you think
that I am to be put off with such rubbish as that? I made all my
arrangements long ago for when I found you. In less than an hour you
will be in prison."
"Joan, you are very hard," he said.
"I loved my father, and I hate you," she returned, passionately.
He nodded.
"I misjudged you," he said reflectively. "I never gave you credit for
such tenacity of purpose. I did not think that love or hate would ever
burn their way into your life."
"Then you were a fool," she answered shortly. "You have never
understood me. Perhaps when you have the rope about your neck you will
read a woman's nature more truthfully."
"You are very vindictive, Joan."
"I want justice," she replied sharply, "and I hate you!"
"Listen," he said. "I am not going to make any attempt to escape. I
will answer this charge of yours when the time comes. Meanwhile there
is something which I want to show you. It will not take long and it may
alter your purpose."
"Nothing could ever alter my purpose," she remarked emphatically.
"You cannot tell," he answered. "Now, I declare to you most solemnly
that if you have me arrested before you do what I ask, you will never
cease to repent it all your life."
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
He took down his hat from a peg behind the door.
"It is something I have to show you. We must go to my rooms. They are
only just the other side of the Strand."
In absolute silence they walked along together. Joan had but one
fear--the fear which had made her grant his request--and that she put
resolutely behind her. "God was just," she muttered to herself again
and again, and He would not see her cheated of her vengeance. From
behind her thick veil she looked at Douglas. He was pale and serious,
but there was no look of fear in his face. Then he had always been
brave. She remembered that from the old days. He would walk to the
scaffold like that. She shuddered, yet without any thought of
relenting. On the way he met acquaintances and greeted them. Crossing
the Strand he held out his hand to steer her clear of a passing vehicle,
but she shrank away with a little gesture of indignation. When at last
they reached the street where his rooms were, and stopped in front of
the tall, grimy building she addressed him for the first time.
"What place is this? What are you bringing me here for?"
"This is where I live," he answered. "There is something in my rooms
which I must show you."
She stood still, moody and inclined to be suspicious.
"Why should I trust you? We are enemies, you and I. There may be evil
inside this house for me."
He threw open the door.
"You are quite safe," he said curtly, "and you know it. It is for your
good, not mine, that I have brought you here."
She entered and followed him upstairs. A vague sense of coming trouble
was upon her. She started when Douglas ushered her into a dimly-lighted
room, with a bed in one corner. A hospital nurse rose to meet them, and
looked reproachfully at Douglas. A man was leaning back amongst the
pillows, wild-eyed, and with flaring colour in his cheeks. When he saw
Joan he called out to her.
"You've come, then," he cried. "You know, Joan, I never meant to do it;
upon my soul, I didn't."
The nurse bent over him, but he thrust her aside.
"My sister!" he shouted. "My sister! I must talk with her. Listen,
Joan. I struck only one blow. It was an accident. I shall swear that
it was an accident. I had the money safe--I was ready to go. He was
mad to interfere with me, for I was desperate. It was only one blow--I
wanted to free myself, and down he went like a log. A hard man, too,
and a powerful, but he went down like a log. I didn't want his life. I
wanted money, for I was in rags and she wouldn't look at me. 'Come to
me properly clothed,' she said. I, who had ruined myself for her.
Joan, hist! Come here."
They were under the spell of his terrible excitement. The nurse fell
back, Joan took her place at his pillow. He gripped her arm with
claw-like fingers, but though he drew her down till his lips nearly
touched her ear, his hoarse whispering was distinctly heard throughout
the room.
"Two of us--father and son. Will you avenge us, eh? Listen, then. I
will tell you her name. She played with my life and wrecked it, she
took my time, my love, nay life, she gave me nothing. It was she who
poisoned my blood with the lust for gold; it was she who sent me over
the hills to Feldwick. Ay, it was she who nerved me to steal and to
kill. Joan, will you not avenge me and him, for I must die, and it is
she who has killed me--Emily de Reuss. Oh, may the gods, whoever they
be--the gods of the heathen, and the God of the Christian, your God,
Joan, and the God of Justice curse her! If I had lived I should have
killed her. If my fingers--were upon her throat--I could die happy."
He fell back upon the pillows. Douglas led Joan from the room. She
turned and faced him.
"Who is this woman?" she asked.