MISS SINCLAIR'S OFFER
Miss Rowan had left two hours ago, and had taken all her luggage and
paid her bill. Apparently she had no idea of returning,--at any rate,
she had not reserved any rooms. The hall-porter of the little hotel
looked at Deane with some curiosity as he answered his rapid questions.
The manageress came rustling out of her office and beamed on Deane, who
had once stayed there for several weeks. She confirmed the information
which he had already received, and supplemented it with a few further
details.
"Miss Rowan paid her bill?" Deane asked.
"Certainly, sir," the manageress answered. "Miss Rowan was exceedingly
particular about paying her accounts the moment they were presented."
"And she left no message?" Deane asked.
"None at all, sir," was the answer.
He noticed the gleam of curiosity in her eyes, and promptly altered his
tactics. "Thank you very much," he said, turning away. "I quite
understood that Miss Rowan was not leaving until this afternoon. My
mistake, I daresay. By the bye, have you any instructions with regard to
letters?"
"None," the manageress replied. "If any come, we shall keep them until
we hear from her."
Deane turned away and reentered his brougham. "I shall find a note at my
rooms, I daresay," he remarked. "Good morning, Mrs. Merrygold."
His words were prophetic. He called at his rooms on his way to the club
for lunch, and found a note there addressed to him in Winifred's
handwriting:
Wednesday morning.
You will understand, of course, that this is the end. The
jewels which you gave me I have returned to-day by registered
post. One ring I have kept. It is, I think, the least valuable
of any, but I did not wish to part with it. If you insist,
however, it is always at your disposal.
I am going back where I belong--to the world which I should
never have quitted. Everything has been a great mistake. Please
understand that you are absolutely and entirely free in every
way. I only trust that I may live long enough to atone in some
measure for my folly.
WINIFRED ROWAN.
Deane read this letter over a dozen times. One thing alone seemed clear.
She had deserted him. She had not even waited for the final issue. She
had fled from the sinking ship with a haste almost indecent. She had
made no terms, suggested no compromise. Deane, when he thought the whole
matter over, was still puzzled. Such precipitancy was not logical. If
his hand was no longer strong enough to open the gates of the promised
land, it could at least have lifted her up from the miseries of her past
life. He found himself, after a study of her few lines, curiously
depressed. She had gone--willingly--apparently without regret except for
her wasted opportunities. He felt an emptiness in his life which he
failed to understand. There had been nothing of the sort when Lady Olive
had held out her hand and bidden him farewell. Was he getting
sentimental? He set his teeth. Absurd! It was an episode happily
concluded! Outside there was thunder in the air--a storm for him to
face!...
His solicitor did not beat about the bush. "In the face of that
document, Mr. Deane," he said, "the Treasury do not propose to proceed
with the prosecution of Hefferom. Its existence, of course, throws
altogether a different light upon the whole situation, whatever may be
its exact legal worth. Hefferom was simply engaged upon a task of
compromise. He had something solid behind him. There is not a shadow of
evidence against him."
"Very well," said Deane, "let Hefferom go. I confess that when I sent to
Scotland Yard I never anticipated that this particular document would
ever come into evidence."
"You knew of its existence?" the lawyer asked.
"Sinclair himself showed it to me," Deane answered calmly. "So far as
Sinclair himself was concerned the affair was a swindle, for it was he
who recommended me to jump the claim--said he thought that there was
some stuff there, but he had no money to work it. I let him off a
hundred pounds he owed me, and took his advice. But that is ancient
history. The mine is my property all right--or rather it was."
Mr. Hardaway listened with a grave face. "Deane," he said, "I hope and
believe that you may be speaking the truth, but the original deed is in
the hands of unscrupulous people. We had a notification this afternoon
that a suit is about to be commenced against your corporation."
"The sooner the better," Deane answered. "We'll know where we are, at
any rate. I claim that by the statute laws of the country that claim was
forfeit. If it was not, then the inducing me to sink capital and work
the claim was a damnable conspiracy."
"Your corporation fight with you, of course?" the lawyer asked.
"Of course," Deane answered. "What else could they do? We fight to the
end!"
That night, shares in the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association stood at
90. At closing time the following day they stood at 74. A few lines in
the paper had done it. An action had been started by Hefferom, and the
legatees of the estate of the late Richard Sinclair, claiming as their
property the Little Anna Gold-Mine. The thing had been talked about for
some time, but now that it had actually occurred, people seemed none the
less staggered. The city believed in Stirling Deane--it had believed in
him so implicitly that in its heart it had never placed any faith in
this cloud of rumors. Yet there it was now in black and white. It was no
longer possible to speak of compromise. The matter was to be fought out
in the open courts, and failure could spell nothing but ruin to one of
the richest corporations in London. Deane's photograph was in all the
papers--also the menu of a famous dinner which he gave to his directors.
He sent a cheque for five thousand pounds to a hospital, and was
reported to be going on the turf. The lawsuit he treated everywhere as a
joke. He was careful always to wear the usual bunch of violets in his
buttonhole, and to affect something of the dandy in his attire. His
personal demeanor kept his shares at least ten points higher than they
would otherwise have been.
But Deane, nevertheless, was in hell! He was badgered by his directors,
worried by his lawyers, and underneath it all, and apart from his
financial responsibilities, he was suffering from a sense of personal
loss, a wound whose pain left him but little peace. He never stopped to
admit to himself exactly what his suffering was. He sat for hours lost
in thought, and his thoughts were always of that pale lady of his dreams
who had stolen so abruptly from his arms, the girl who had played for a
few weeks so strange a part in his life. He tried to find what had
become of her, but in vain; she seemed to have completely vanished. He
puzzled over her behavior until the lines in his face grew set and hard.
Was she indeed ingrate--ready to abandon her strange bargain at the
first whisper of disaster? Or had she some other reason? He had accepted
her terms because of the power which she held--what if, at the loss of
that power, she had taken it for granted that their bargain was
cancelled, and had hurried away to avoid the shame of dismissal from
him! It was just what she would do--perhaps just what she had done!
Deane was careful, during these days of probation, to attend at his
office regularly, and to shrink from none of his customary duties. One
afternoon his clerk brought him in a card.
"A young lady to see you, sir!" he announced.
Deane's heart gave a jump, the blood rushed through his veins, he was
scarcely able to read the card which he had taken into his fingers with
well-affected carelessness. Then the pain came, the black disappointment
which seemed to turn his heart into a stone. It was not she! He found it
hard to take any interest in this caller, and yet he felt that her
coming was significant.
_Miss Ruby Sinclair._
"You can show the young lady in, Gray," Deane ordered.
When she arrived, Deane scarcely knew her. She was expensively dressed
from head to foot. She carried herself with an assurance which was
almost overdone. The fashion of her dress and hat were certainly not
chosen with a view to being overlooked. She was very modern--she
reminded him exactly of a young lady in a musical comedy with whom he
had once had a slight acquaintance. He would scarcely have been
surprised had he found, when she lifted her veil, that her eyebrows were
blackened.
"You didn't expect to see me, of course," she said, holding his hand for
a moment, and looking at him steadfastly. "May I sit down?"
"Of course," he answered.
She chose the easy-chair, and crossed her legs with a good deal of
rustle and a considerable display of black silk stocking.
She looked at him curiously. "Are you still angry with me?" she asked.
"Well, I don't usually bear malice," he answered, "but I can scarcely
forgive your method of dealing with Miss Rowan!"
"Or its results?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Well, I came out on
the top, anyhow, and you must remember, Mr. Deane, that I was
desperate,--you don't know how desperate," she continued, after a
moment's pause. "I hadn't a shilling left in the world!--not a
shilling!--not a friend! And somewhere in London there was wealth that
belonged to me!"
"That," Deane remarked dryly, "is a matter which is as yet undecided."
"Well, I judge by facts," she answered with a little laugh. "Lawyers
don't usually throw money away, do they? They're willing to advance me
all I want on the security of the Little Anna Gold-Mine."
Deane smiled upon her genially. "My mine," he remarked.
"No!" she declared,--"the property of the legatees of Richard Sinclair!"
Deane shook his head. "My dear young lady," he said, "you were more in
your element when you walked bareheaded upon the sands of Rakney, and
saved me from a wetting, than in your present pose."
"And you," she declared, "were nicer to me, a great deal, for those few
days."
"Naturally," he answered, smiling. "How can I be particularly amiable to
a young lady who is trying to ruin me?"
She looked at him earnestly. In her fashionable attire she presented,
indeed, a very different appearance from the eager, brown-skinned girl,
with the shapely limbs and delightful carriage, whom he had first seen
at Rakney. Yet he fancied that she was trying to reawaken his earlier
impressions of her,--innocent of vanity as he was, he could not
misunderstand her appealing gaze!
"I do not want to ruin you," she declared. "I do not want to do anything
of the sort. Isn't there enough for both of us? Why should we fight?"
He sighed. "How can we compromise?" he asked. "The mine does not belong
to me any longer. I sold it years ago to the Incorporated Gold-Mines
Association."
"You could not sell what didn't belong to you," she objected.
"They paid me the money for it, at any rate," he answered.
"If I win," she asked, "who will lose the money?"
"The Incorporated Gold-Mines Association," he answered, "but they would
have a claim upon me. I suppose, eventually, that I should."
She held out her hand--no longer brown and stained with seaweed, but
delicately gloved, perfumed, elegant. "Let us be friends," she said. "I
am sorry I was rough to your little ally! I couldn't help it. She was in
my way. I chose the only means. We needn't consider her,--you and I are
different sort of people. We know what we want. I am not only a money
grubber. I want the rest of life, the whole thing,--the music, the
poetry, the passion! Remember my wretched, starved existence! Do you
wonder that I am on fire to pass on to the other things. It isn't the
money--your money or any one else's! I want life! I want the wine and
the spices! I want the dregs! Can't you understand? You must!--you
must!"
Her passionate eyes sought his, her body swayed towards him. Deane
looked downwards upon his blotter. In the outer office he could hear the
clicking of typewriters, the subdued murmur of voices. Through the
half-opened window came floating in the everlasting chorus,--the falling
footsteps upon the pavement, the jingling of hansom bells, the far-off
roar of the heavier traffic. All these things seemed to him curiously
unreal. He was conscious only of the intensity of the moment, the
pleading of her eyes, the warm breath upon his cheeks. He heard the
rustling of her skirts. He felt that she was rising from her chair. Then
he braced himself for his effort.
"My dear young lady," he said,--"if you really want to compromise--for a
moderate amount--I will send for my lawyer. We cannot arrange this thing
by ourselves."
She rose to her feet, but for a moment she was speechless. When he
looked at her face, he found it almost unrecognizable. She dropped her
veil quickly, but from behind it the flash of her eyes was in itself a
threat.
"I am sorry," he said lamely. "I hope you understand."
She turned to the door, and passed out without a word.