"He was not as eager to play as I to have him," said Geoffrey.

He came back quietly, and stood looking down at her for a moment. Then he said, stretching out his hand:

"I want my Christmas present."

"I have none to give you."

"You had."

"I've changed my mind."

"Why?"

For the first time she looked at him. "Mr. Holland," she said, "you must think me singularly un.o.bservant. Do you suppose I don't see that you dislike my brother. You refused the pencil--you did refuse it plainly enough--because Billy had given it to me. I will not offer it to you again. I know that Billy sometimes does rub people up the wrong way, but I should think any one of any discernment could see that his faults are only faults of manner."

She said this almost appealingly, and Geoffrey unable to agree, turned with something like a groan, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, covered his face with his hands.

"Do you suppose that he does not see how you feel toward him? Are you by any chance a.s.suming that he bears with your manner on account of his own comfort? You might at least be generous or acute enough to see that it is only for my sake that he exercises so much self-control. He does not want to make my position here more unendurable by quarrelling with you.

It makes me furious to see what you force him to put up with, the way you speak to him, and look at him, as if he were your slave, or a disobedient dog. His self-control is wonderful. I admire him more than I can say."

"And is my self-control nothing?" he asked, without moving his hands from his face.

"Yours? I don't see any exercise of yours. Circ.u.mstances have put us at your mercy, you are rich and fortunate, and as insolent as you choose to be. Self-control? I don't see any evidence of it."

"No?" he said, and turning, looked at her with a violence that might have set her on the right track. Under his eyes she looked down and probably in the instant forgot all that she had been saying and feeling, for when he added: "I love you," her hands moved toward his, and she made no resistance when he took her in his arms.

VII

McVay was left so long at the piano that he finally resorted to a series of discords in order to recall himself to Holland's mind. His existence, if he had only realised the fact, was so completely forgotten that he might have made his escape with a good half hour to spare before either of the others appreciated that the music had ceased. Not knowing this, however, he did not dare stop his playing for an instant, until sheer physical fatigue interfered. It was at this point that the discords began, and brought Geoffrey into the hall.

The disposal of McVay for the night was a question to which Geoffrey had given a great deal of thought. The cedar closet presented itself as a safe prison, but in the face of McVay's repeated a.s.sertions that the air had barely sufficed to support him during his former occupancy, it looked like murder to insist. Geoffrey finally, when bed-time came, locked him in a dressing-room off his own room. The window--the room was on the third floor--gave on empty s.p.a.ce, and against the only door he placed his own bed, so that escape seemed tolerably difficult.

And to all other precautions, Geoffrey added his own wakefulness, although toward morning weariness triumphed over excitement and he fell asleep.

He was waked by an insistent knocking at his door, and he heard his name called by Cecilia. He sprang up and found her standing in the hall. She was wrapped in her sable coat, but shivering from cold or fear.

"There is some one getting into the house. I heard a window open and steps on the piazza, below my room. What can it be?"

Geoffrey flung himself past her. The instinct of the hunter joined to the obstinacy of his nature maddened him at the notion of McVay's escape. On the opposite side of the house there was a piazza and on the roof of this a neighbouring window opened. He threw it back and climbed out.

The snow had stopped, and the moon was shining, paling a little before the approaching dawn. Geoffrey could see a figure stealing quickly across the snow. There was no question of its ident.i.ty. His revolver, which he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from under his pillow and brought with him, he at once levelled on the vanishing form; his finger was on the trigger, when he felt a hand on his arm.

Leaning out of the window behind him the girl caught his arm. "Don't fire," she said. "Don't you see it is Billy?"

There was a pause--the fraction of a second, but momentous, for Geoffrey realised that all his threats to McVay had been idle, that with that touch on his arm he could not shoot.

Nevertheless he raised his voice and shouted thunderously: "McVay!"

The figure turned, hesitated, saw, perhaps, the gleam of the moon on steel and began to retrace his steps.

Steadily with the revolver still upon him he moved back to the house.

Under the piazza he stopped and waved his hand.

"I'm afraid they got away from us, Holland. I did my best."

"There _was_ a burglar then!" said the girl in the little whisper of recent fright.

"By Heaven, he shall not trouble you," returned Holland with more earnestness than seemed to be required. Then he left her and went down to meet McVay.

"You were just about half a second ahead of a bullet," he remarked, ushering him into the hall. To be caught and brought back is so ignominious a position that Geoffrey looked to see even McVay at a disadvantage, but looked in vain. The aspect worn was a particularly self-satisfied one.

"I was aware I took a risk," he answered; "I took it gladly for my sister's sake."

"For your sister's sake?"

"Yes, and yours. Be honest, Holland, what could be so great a relief to you as to find I had disappeared. You are too narrow-minded, too honourable, you would say, to connive at it, but you would be delighted to know that you need not prosecute me."

"If I shot you, I should be saved the trouble of prosecuting."

"But at what a cost! I refer to my sister's regard. No, no, the thing, if you had only been quick enough to see it, was for me to escape. It was a risk, of course, but a risk I gladly took for my sister's sake. I would take longer ones for her."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course."

"Then take this revolver and go out and shoot yourself."

McVay looked very thoughtful. Then, he said gravely, "No, no, Holland.

To take a risk is one thing,--to kill myself quite another. I have always had a strong prejudice against suicide. I think it a cowardly action. And it would be no help to you. She would not believe that I had committed suicide. She knows my views on the subject, and could imagine no motive. No, that would not do at all. I'm surprised at the suggestion. It is against my principles."

"Your principles!" Geoffrey sneered. Nevertheless, he was not a little altered in opinion. It had been something of a shock to him to find that he could not shoot at the critical instant. It had shaken his faith in himself. He began to doubt if he would be capable of sending the man to state's prison when Cecilia besought his pity. His own limitations faced him. He was not the relentless judge he had supposed himself. Yet on the other hand, the remembrance of Vaughan and the other men he was representing held him to his idea of justice. "Sit down," he said suddenly turning to McVay, "and write me out a list of everything you have stolen in this neighbourhood and where it is and how it may be obtained. Yes, I know it is difficult, but you had better try to do it for on the completeness of your list depends your only chance of avoiding the law. If I can return all properly, perhaps--I have a mine in Mexico, a h.e.l.l on earth, where you can go if you prefer it to penal servitude. There won't be much difference, except for the publicity of a trial. I've a man there who, when I give him his orders, would infinitely rather shoot you than take any risk of your getting away.

Which will you have?"

"Can you ask, Holland? Which will be easier for my sister?"

"Sit down and write your list, then."

"An interesting occupation, mining," observed McVay as he opened the portfolio. After this for a long time nothing was heard but the soft noise of the pencil and an occasional comment from the writer:

"A rare piece that. I parted with it absurdly low, but the dealer was a connoisseur--appealed to my artistic side."

Things had gone on thus for perhaps an hour when a step sounded outside and the door bell rang. Both men jumped to their feet.

"My G.o.d, Holland," said McVay, "if that is the police, keep your wits about you or we are lost."