GIFFORD CONTINUES HIS STORY
"'Failing to get the regular invitation I had a right to expect, I have
had to take this mode of seeing you,' I just caught the words in
Henshaw's metallic, rather penetrating voice.
"The lady's reply was given in a tone so low that at the distance I stood
the words were indistinguishable.
"'Unmanly?' he exclaimed, evidently taking up her word. 'I don't admit
that for a moment. You know how we stand to one another and what my
feelings are towards you. It is no use for you to try to ignore them or
me. I won't stand being treated like this. There is no reason why my
advances should be repulsed as though they were an insult.'
"I caught the last words of the lady's reply: '--good reason, and
you know it.'
"It was more than clear to me now that I was to be the witness of a very
hateful piece of business. The man's tone, even more than his words, made
my blood boil, and I began to congratulate myself on being thus
accidentally in a position to protect, if need be, the girl whom this
fellow was evidently bullying. With the utmost care I crept nearer to the
small curtained arch which admitted to the larger room. The pitch
darkness of the little turret chamber in which I stood made me feel quite
safe from observation. And I had no qualms now about eavesdropping; the
situation surely justified it.
"I went forward till I could get a sight round the arch of the two
persons in the room. They were standing near the window at some distance
from me. In the obscurity, not quite as impenetrable as that out of which
I looked, I could distinguish the tall figure of the girl in a dark
ball-dress, and facing her, towards me, the big form of Henshaw."
"You had no idea who the lady was?" Edith Morriston interrupted
him to ask.
"Naturally not the vaguest," Gifford answered. "When I had gone as far
as was safe, I set myself to listen again.
"'I don't know what your game is or whether you think you can play the
fool with me,' Henshaw was saying in an ugly tone. 'But I warn you not to
try it; I am not a man to be fooled. Now let us be friends again,' he
added in a softer tone.
"It seemed as though he put out his hand for a caress, for the girl
started back and I heard her say 'Never!'
"'Folly!' he exclaimed. Then took a step forward. 'You are in love with
another man?' he demanded. I could hear the hiss of the question.
"'If I were I should not tell you,' was the defiant reply in a low voice.
"'You would not?' he snapped viciously. 'Let me tell you this, then. You
shall never marry another man while I live. I hold the bar to that, as
you will find.'
"'You mean to act like a cad?' I heard the girl say.
"'I mean to act,' he retorted, 'like a sensible man who has a fair
advantage and means, in spite of your caprice, to keep it.'
"'Fair?' the girl echoed in scorn.
"'Yes, fair,' Henshaw insisted with some heat. 'I saved you from a
scandal that would have ruined you, and it was natural I should ask my
reward. But your notions of gratitude, which had led me on to love you,
soon evaporated; but I am not so easily dismissed.'
"'You mean to continue your cowardly persecution?' There was a tremor in
the girl's voice that made me long to get at the man.
"'I mean to marry you,' he retorted. 'Or at least--'
"'Don't touch me!' she said hoarsely as he approached her.
"'You are coming away with me to-night,' he insisted. 'You need not
pretend to be horrified. It won't be your first nocturnal adventure, and
I have waited quite long enough.'
"He had driven her to the other corner on the window side of the room.
As I leaned forward ready to fasten on the man when he should offer
violence I heard a peculiar sound as of a loose piece of wood or iron
striking the sill.
"'Keep away!' the girl said in a hoarse whisper. 'If you drive me to
desperation I swear I will kill you.'
"There followed a vicious laugh from Henshaw and I could tell from the
panting which followed that a struggle was going on. Just then the moon
came out and I could see that Henshaw was trying to get some object--a
weapon, I guessed--away from the girl. It is a wonder that neither of
them saw me. In the dark opening I must have still been practically
hidden, and they too intent on their struggle to notice anything beyond.
"I was just on the point of springing out to the girl's assistance when
she staggered back and, turning, made a rush for the door. In a moment
Henshaw was after her, but in his blind haste he either tripped or
stumbled and fell heavily. I think it likely that in the dark he struck
against the corner of the rather massive oak table in the centre of the
room and was thrown off his balance. He rose immediately, but I was now
close behind him, and as he put out his arm to clutch the girl, who was
then half through the doorway, I gripped him by the collar and with all
my strength swung him back into the room.
"He must have been most horribly surprised, for he uttered a gasping cry
as he spun round, and instead of keeping his feet and rushing at me as I
expected he went down with a thud by the window."
They had stopped in their walk now, and Edith Morriston was listening
almost breathlessly to Gifford's graphic story. Never for a moment had he
suggested the lady's identity; for all that had passed neither of them
might have known it.
"I turned quickly to the door," Gifford continued, "but to my surprise
the lady whom I expected to find there had disappeared. I could neither
see nor hear any sign of her.
"I took a step back into the room, fully expecting an onslaught from the
infuriated Henshaw. 'You cowardly brute!' I exclaimed in the heat of my
anger and excitement. But no reply came, and to my wonder he lay still on
the floor where he had fallen."