Mr. Verrinder said, "Be good enough to sit down." To von Groner he said, "How are you, Bickford?"

CHAPTER V

Sir Joseph was staring at the new-comer, and his German nativity told him what Marie Louise had not been sure of, that von Groner was no German. When Verrinder gave him an English name it shook Marie Louise with a new dismay. Sir Joseph turned from the man to Marie Louise and demanded:

"Marie Louise, you ditt not theenk this man is a Cherman?"

This one more shame crushed Marie Louise. She dropped into a chair, appealing feebly to the man she had retrieved:

"Your name is not von Groner?"

Bickford grinned. "Well, in a manner of speakin'. You might say it's my pen-name. Not that I've ever been in the pen--except with Nicky."

"Nicky is in the-- He's not ill?"

"Well, he's a bit sick. He was a bit seasick to start with, and when we gave him the collar--well, he doesn't like his room."

"But his letters--" Marie Louise pleaded, her fears racing ahead of her questions.

"I was always a hand at forgery, but I thought best to turn it to the aid of me country. I'm proud if you liked me work. The last ones were not up to the mark. _I_ was hurried, and Nicky was ugly. He refused to answer any more questions. I had to do it all on me own. Ahfterwards I found I had made a few mistakes."

When Marie Louise realized that this man had been calmly taking the letters addressed to Nicky and answering them in his feigned script to elicit further information from Sir Joseph and enmesh him further, she dropped her hands at her sides, feeling not only convicted of crime, but of imbecility as well.

Sir Joseph and Lady Webling spread their hands and drew up their shoulders in surrender and gave up hope of bluff.

Verrinder wanted to be merciful and avoid any more climaxes.

"You see it's all up, Sir Joseph, don't you?" he said.

Sir Joseph drew himself again as high as he could, though the burden of his flesh kept pulling him down. He did not answer.

"Come now, Sir Joseph, be a sport."

"The Englishman's releechion," sneered Sir Joseph, "to be ein _Sportmann_."

"Oh, I know you can't understand it," said Verrinder. "It seems to be untranslatable into German--just as we can't seem to understand _Germanity_ except that it is the antonym of _humanity_. You fellows have no boyhood literature, I am told, no Henty or Hughes or Scott to fill you with ideas of fair play. You have no games to teach you. One really can't blame you for being such rotters, any more than one can blame a Kaffir for not understanding cricket.

"But sport aside, use your intelligence, old man. _I_'ve laid my cards on the table--enough of them, at least. We've trumped every trick, and we've all the trumps outstanding. You have a few high cards up your sleeve. Why not toss them on the table and throw yourselves on the mercy of his Majesty?"

The presence of Marie Louise drove the old couple to a last battle for her faith. Lady Webling stormed, "All what you accuse us is lies, lies!"

Verrinder grew stern:

"Lies, you say? We have you, and your daughter--also Nicky. We have--well, I'll not annoy you with their names. Over in the States they have a lot more of you fellows.

"You and Sir Joseph have lived in this country for years and years.

You have grown fat--I mean to say rich--upon our bounty. We have loved and trusted you. His Majesty has given you both marks of his most gracious favor."

"We paid well for that," sneered Lady Webling.

"Yes, I fancy you did--but with English pounds and pence that you gained with the help of British wits and British freedom. You have contributed to charities, yes, and handsomely, too, but not entirely without the sweet usages of advertis.e.m.e.nt. You have not hidden that part of your bookkeeping from the public.

"But the rest of your books--you don't show those. We know a ghastly lot about them, and it is not pretty, my dear lady. I had hoped you would not force us to publish those transactions. You have plotted the destruction of the British Empire; you have conspired to destroy ships in dock and at sea; you have sent G.o.d knows how many lads to their death--and women and children, too. You have helped to blow up munitions-plants, and on your white heads is the blood of many and many a poor wretch torn to pieces at his lathe. You have made widows of women and orphans of children who never heard of you, nor you of them. Nor have you cared--or dared--to inquire.

"Sir Joseph has been perfecting a great scheme to buy up what munitions-plants he could in this country in order to commit sabotage and slow up the production of the ammunition our troops are crying for. He has plotted with others to send defective sh.e.l.ls that will rip up the guns they do not fit, and powders that will explode too soon or not at all. G.o.d! to think that the lives of our brave men and the life of our Empire should be threatened by such people as you!

"And in the American field Sir Joseph has connived with a syndicate to purchase factories, to stop production at the source, since your U-boats and your red-handed diplomatic spies cannot stop it otherwise.

Your agents have corrupted a few of the Yankees, and killed others, and would have killed more if the name of your people had not become such a horror even in that land where millions of Germans live that every proffer is suspect.

"You see, we know you, Lady Webling and Sir Joseph. We have watched you all the while from the very first, and we know that you are not innocent even of complicity in the supreme infamy of luring the _Lusitania_ to her death."

He was quivering with the rush of his emotions over the broken dam of habitual reticence.

Lady Webling and Sir Joseph had quivered, too, less under the impact of his denunciation than in the confusion of their own exposure to themselves and to Marie Louise.

They had watched her eyes as she heard Mr. Verrinder's philippic. They had seen her pa.s.s from incredulity to belief. They had seen her glance at them and glance away in fear of them.

This broke them utterly, for she was utterly dear to them. She was dearer than their own flesh and blood. She had replaced their dead.

She had been born to them without pain, without infancy, born full grown in the prime of youth and beauty. They had watched her love grow to a pa.s.sion, and their own had grown with it.

What would she do now? She was the judge they feared above England.

They awaited her sentence.

Her eyes wandered to them and searched them through. At first, under the spell of Verrinder's denunciation, she saw them as two bloated fiends, their hands dripping blood, their lips framed to lies, their brains to cunning and that synonym for Germanism, _ruthlessness_--the word the Germans chose, as their Kaiser chose Huns for an ideal.

But she looked again. She saw the pleading in their eyes. Their very uncomeliness besought her mercy. After all, she had seen none of the things Verrinder described. The only real things to her, the only things she knew of her own knowledge, were the goodnesses of these two. They were her parents. And now for the first time they needed her. The mortgage their generosity had imposed on her had fallen due.

How could she at the first unsupported obloquy of a stranger turn against them? Her first loyalty was due to them, and no other loyalty was under test. Something swept her to her feet. She ran to them and, as far as she could, gathered them into her arms. They wept like two children whom reproaches have hardened into defiance, but whom kindness has melted.

Verrinder watched the spectacle with some surprise and not altogether with scorn. Whatever else Miss Webling was, she was a good sport. She stuck to her team in defeat.

He said, not quite harshly, "So, Miss Webling, you cast your lot with them."

"I do."

"Do you believe that what I said was true?"

"No."

"Really, you should be careful. Those messages you carried incriminate you."

"I suppose they do, though I never knew what was in them. No, I'll take that back. I'm not trying to crawl out of it."

"Then since you confess so much, I shall have to ask you to come with them."