We are back once more at Linden Villa. It is a March evening, and the
clock has just struck nine. George Crofton is smoking a cigar, and
gazing fixedly into the fire, seeing pictures in the glowing embers
which are anything but pleasant ones, if one may judge by the lowering
expression of his face. He looks haggard and careworn, and is no
longer so fastidious with regard to his personal appearance as he used
to be. Dissipation has set its unmistakable seal upon him; he has the
air of a man who is going slowly but surely downhill.
His wife is amusing herself somewhat listlessly at the piano. There is
a slightly worn look about her eyes, and the line of her lips looks
thinner and more hard set than it was wont to do. Married life had not
brought Stephanie the happiness, or even the content, she had looked
forward to. The awakening had come soon, and had not been a pleasant
one. Not long had it taken her to discover that she had mated herself
with an inveterate gambler, if not with something worse. So long as
plump young pigeons were to be had for the plucking, matters had gone
on swimmingly at Linden Villa. There had been no lack of money, and
Stephanie had never cared to inquire too curiously how it had been
come by. But after a time Crofton's wonderful luck at cards began to
be commented upon; people began to be shy of playing at the same table
with him; pigeons were warned to avoid him; and when, one unfortunate
evening, he was detected cheating at the club, and unmasked by a
member cleverer in that particular line than himself, his career in
that sphere of life came to an end for ever. But his ambition had not
been satisfied with the comparatively small gains of the card-table;
he had bet heavily on the St. Leger and other races, and had been
unfortunate in all. So far he had been able to meet his racing
liabilities, but the doing so had exhausted the whole of his available
resources, and matters at Linden Villa had now come to a pass that
might almost be termed desperate.
Stephanie brought her roulades to an end with a grand crash; then
turning half round she said in her clear metallic tones: "Have you
anything to talk about, mon ange? Have you nothing to say to me?" Her
husband's back was towards her as he sat brooding sullenly in front of
the fire. "It is not often that you stay at home of an evening, and
when you do--chut! I might as well be alone."
He shrugged his shoulders. What would you have me talk about? Our
debts--our difficulties--our"----
"Why not?" she broke in quickly. "If you talked about them a little
oftener, it might be all the better. You seem neither to know nor care
anything about them. You are out from morning till night. It is I who
have to promise, to cajole, to lie, first to one person and then to
another who come here demanding money when I have none to give them.
Oh, it is a charming life--mine! N'importe. It will end itself in a
little while."
"What do you mean? What new trick are you hatching now?" he demanded.
"It is nothing new--it has been in my head for a long time. Shall I
tell you what it is? Why not?" The fingers of one hand were still
resting on the piano. She struck a note or two carelessly, and then
went on speaking as quietly as though she were mentioning some
trifling detail of everyday life. "One evening, cheri, when you come
home you will not find me; I shall be gone. This life suits me no
longer. I will change it all. I will go back to the life I used to
love so well. I have had a letter. Signor Ventelli is at Brussels; he
prays to me to return to him. I shall go. You and I my friend, can no
longer live together. It will be better for both that we should part."
Again her fingers struck a note or two carelessly.
Crofton was roused at last. He started to his feet with an imprecation
and faced his wife. "What confounded stuff and nonsense you are
talking, Steph," he exclaimed. "As if I believed a word of it!"
"Do I ever say that I will do a thing when I do not intend doing it?"
she quietly asked.--In his own mind he was obliged to confess that she
did not.--"We have made a mistake, you and I, and have found it out in
time," she resumed. "We can be friends, always friends--why not! But
you will go your way, and I mine; that is all."
The cold indifference of her tone and manner stung him to the quick.
Evidently she was minded to cast him off as carelessly as she would an
old glove. The sullen fire in his heart blazed up in a moment. He
loved this woman after a fashion of his own, and was in nowise
inclined to let her go. "What you say is utter nonsense. I would have
you remember that you are my wife, and that I can claim you as such
anywhere and everywhere."
"And do you imagine that if I were twenty times a wife I should allow
you or any other man to claim me as such against my will!" demanded
Steph with a contemptuous laugh. "Tza! tza! my friend, you talk like a
child."
They were standing face to face, and for a few moments they stared at
each other without speaking; but the clear resolute light that shone
out of Steph's eyes cowed, for a time at least, the fitful, dangerous
gleam flickering redly in her husband's bloodshot orbs, as though it
were a reflection from some Tophet below.
George Crofton turned away, and crossing to the sideboard, poured
himself out a quantity of brandy. "You would be a fool, Steph, to
leave me as you talk of doing, were it only for one thing," he said
dryly. He seemed to have quite recovered his equanimity, and was
choosing a cigar as he spoke.
"If it pleases me to be a fool, why not?"
"Has it never occurred to you that any morning the newspapers may tell
us that my cousin, Gerald Brooke, has been captured? Every day, that
is the first news I look for."
"Ah, bah! you mock yourself. Your cousin will never be arrested now;
he has got safe away to some foreign country long ago."
"You have no ground for saying that. Any hour may bring the tidings of
his capture, and then---- But you know already what the result of his
conviction would be to you and me. Beechley Towers and six thousand a
year--nothing less."
"You deceive yourself," resumed Steph. "You are waiting for what will
never happen. Nine months have passed since the murder, and the crime
is half forgotten. You let Gerald Brooke slip through your fingers
once; but you will never have the chance of doing so again.--Let us
come back to realities, to the things we can touch. Dreams never had
any charms for me."
He went back to the fireplace with his cigar, and took up a position
on the hearthrug. "As you say--let us stick to realities; it may
perhaps be the wisest," he went on. "What, then, would you think, what
would you say, if I were to tell you as a fact that in less than six
weeks from to-day I shall be in possession of ten thousand pounds?"
"I should both think and say that it was not a fact, but a dream,
a--what do you call it?--a Will-o'-the-wisp."
"And yet it is not a dream, but a sober solid fact, as a very short
time will prove."
She raised her eyebrows; evidently, she was incredulous. "Yon made
sure that you would win two thousand pounds at Doncaster, whereas you
contrived to lose five hundred. You were just as certain that you
would win"----
"What I am referring to now has nothing to do with horseracing," he
broke in impatiently.--"Listen!" he added; and with that he planted
himself astride a chair and confronted her, resting his arms on the
back of it and puffing occasionally at his cigar as he talked. "I am
about to tell you something which it was my intention not to have
spoken about till later on; but it matters little whether you are told
now or a month hence." He moved his chair nearer to her, and when he
next spoke it was in a lower voice: "The young Earl of Leamington, who
is enormously rich, is to be married on the 27th of next month. On the
14th of April one of the partners in a certain well-known firm of
London jewellers, accompanied by an assistant, will start for the
Earl's seat in the north carrying with him jewelry of the value of
over twenty thousand pounds, for the purpose of enabling his lordship
to select certain presents for his bride. That box of jewelry will
never reach its destination."
Stephanie was staring at him with wide-open eyes. "You would
not"----she exclaimed, and then she paused.
"Yes, I would, and will," he answered with a sinister smile. "I and
certain friends of mine have planned to make that box our own. The
whole scheme is cut and dried; all the arrangements in connection with
the journey are known to us; and so carefully have our plans been
worked out, that it is next to impossible that we should fail."
"And you, George Crofton, my husband, have sunk to this--that you
would become a common robber, a thief, a voleur!"
His face darkened ominously, and the gash in his lip looked as large
again as it usually did. "What would you have?" he asked with a snarl.
"My cursed ill-luck has driven me to it. I cannot starve, neither will
I."
For a little while neither spoke.
"I didn't think you would take my news like this, Steph," he said
presently. "Think of the prize! How is it possible for a man fixed as
I am to resist trying to make it his own? One half comes to me because
the plan is mine, but of course I can't work without confederates. My
share will be worth ten thousand at the very least; and then, hey
presto for the New World and a fresh start in life with a clean
slate!--What say you, Steph?"
"At present, I say nothing more than I have said already," she
answered coldly. "I must have time to think."