With regard to Hamar's displeasure, she was not in the slightest degree disturbed. He would never dare say anything to her. And after all that had occurred he would never venture to "sack her." All the same she hated him. There was just sufficient in her conduct to make the name he had called her by applicable--therefore her bitterest wrath and indignation were aroused against him. He had behaved unpardonably. She could kill him for it.

"I'll just show him," she said to herself, "what that uncivil tongue of his can do. He shall see that it can do him infinitely more harm than all Kelson's love-making. For one thing I'll spoil his chances with Gladys Martin; and--I wonder if I could make use of what I know about him, as a means of getting friendly again with Shiel. At all events I'll try."

With this object in view she went round to Shiel's lodgings, and was informed by the landlady that Shiel was ill.

"Nothing serious I hope?" she asked.

"It has been," the landlady replied, "but he is better now. It all came through his not taking proper care of himself."

"May I see him, do you think?" Lilian Rosenberg inquired.

"I don't know," the landlady grumbled. "He's in a very touchy mood--no one can do nothing right for him. But maybe there won't be any harm in your trying," she added, her eyes wandering to the half-crown in Lilian Rosenberg's fingers.

She opened the door somewhat wider, and Lilian Rosenberg entered.

Shiel was immensely surprised to see her. Illness and solitude had very considerably subdued him, and though at first he showed some resentment, he speedily softened under her sympathetic solicitation for his health. She put his room straight and dusted the furniture, got tea for him, and when she had completely won him over by these kindly actions, and made him beg her pardon for ever having spoken harshly to her, she broached the subject all the while uppermost in her mind--the subject of Hamar and Gladys.

"He hasn't the slightest intention of marrying her," she said. "All he wants is to make her his mistress, so as to be able to throw her over the moment he gets tired of her, and then marry some one of t.i.tle. He is tremendously taken with her of course--her physical beauty, which he had the impudence to tell me surpa.s.sed that of any other woman he had seen, appeals strongly to his grossly sensual nature. If she won't give in to him now, she will be obliged to do so in six months' time."

"I don't understand you," Shiel said feebly; "why in six months'

time?"

Lilian Rosenberg then told him what she knew about the compact.

"So you see," she added, "that if the final stage is reached no woman will be safe--the trio will have any girl they fancy entirely at their mercy."

"How inconceivably awful!" Shiel exclaimed. "Surely there is some way of stopping them."

"There is only one way," Lilian said slowly, "the union between the three must be broken--they must quarrel, and dissolve partnership."

"You may be sure they will take good care not to do that."

"Don't be too sure," Lilian Rosenberg replied. "Matthew Kelson is very fond of me. With a little persuasion he would do anything I asked."

"Then do you think you could bring about a rupture between him and Hamar!" Shiel asked eagerly.

"I might!"

"And you will--you will save Gladys Martin after all!"

Lilian did not reply at once.

"Do you think she is the sort of girl who would marry poverty," she said, evasively, "poverty like this!" and she glanced round the room.

"I won't ask her to!" Shiel exclaimed. "Whilst I have been lying in bed, ill, I have thought of many things--and have come to the conclusion I have no right ever to think of marrying. It is difficult for me to earn enough to keep one person in comfort--and I've lost all hope of ever earning enough to keep two."

"Well, if you don't ask her," Lilian Rosenberg said, "there's one thing, she will never ask you. And I think you are remarkably well out of it. If you do ever marry, marry a girl that has grit--a girl that would be a real 'pal' to you--a girl that would help you to win fame!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHOM WILL HE MARRY?

Had Lilian Rosenberg been able to see the effect of her conversation upon Shiel after she had left him, she would have been disappointed.

He had, prior to this interview with Lilian Rosenberg, as he told her, made up his mind to abandon all idea of marrying Gladys Martin; and there is a possibility that had her name not been mentioned, had she not been recalled so vividly to his mind, he would have adhered to that resolution--at all events so long as he refrained from seeing her. But such is human nature--or at least man's nature--that directly Lilian Rosenberg had left him, Shiel's love for Gladys burst out with such wild, invigorated force that it swept reason and everything else before it. Gladys! He could think of nothing else! Every detail in her appearance, every word she had spoken, came back to him with exaggerated intensity. Her beauty was sublime. There was no one like her, no one that could inspire him with such a sense of ideality, no one that could lead him on to such dizzy heights of greatness. It was all nonsense to say, as Lilian Rosenberg had said, there were just as many good fish in the sea as had ever come out of it--there was only one Gladys. Hamar should never marry her--he would marry her himself.

She must be told at once of Hamar's infamous designs. A mad desire to see her came over him, and disregardful of the doctor's orders that he should remain in bed several more days, he got up, and dressing as fast as his weak condition would allow him, took a taxi and drove to Waterloo.

On reaching the Cottage, at Kew, he found Gladys at home, and to his great joy, alone.

There is nothing that appeals to a woman more than a sick man, and Shiel, in coming to Gladys in his present condition, had unwittingly played a trump card. Had he appeared well and strong she would probably have received him none too cordially--for she was very tired of men just then; but the moment her eyes alighted on his thin cheeks and she saw the dark rings under his eyes, pity conquered. This man at least was not to blame--he was not of the same pattern as other men, he was not like so many men whose adulations had grown fulsome to her, and--he was totally unlike Hamar.

In very sympathetic tones she inquired how he was, and on learning that he had been sufficiently ill to be kept in bed, asked why he had not told her.

"Aunty and I would have called to see you," she said, "and brought you jelly and other nice things. Who waited on you, had you no nurse?"

Fearful lest he should give her the impression he was speaking for effect, or trying to trade on her feelings (Shiel was one of those people who are painfully exact), he told her as simply as he could just how he had been placed.

"But why come here," Gladys demanded, "when you were told to stay in bed till the end of the week. It is frightfully risky."

Shiel then explained to her the purport of his visit.

"Then it was to warn me, to put me on my guard against Hamar, that you disobeyed the doctor's orders," she said.

Shiel nodded. "You are not displeased, are you?" he asked nervously.

"I am displeased with you for thinking so little of yourself," Gladys said, "and more than obliged to you for thinking so much of me. You know I only consented to marry Mr. Hamar to save my father--and you say he no longer has the power to work spells?"

"I believe that to be a fact," Shiel replied.

"Then he lied to me!" Gladys observed. "He threatened that unless I saw him as often as he wished, and went with him wherever he wanted, and a good many more things, he would inflict my father with every conceivable disease. You are quite sure your information is correct?"

"Absolutely!"

"Then, thank G.o.d!" Gladys said with a great sigh of relief. "I shall know how to act now."

"You will break off your engagement?" Shiel inquired eagerly.

"No! I can't do that!" Gladys said sadly. "I've promised to marry Mr.

Hamar, and, therefore, marry him I must."

"Promises made under such conditions are mere extortions, they don't count."

"I fear they do," Gladys replied. "I've never yet broken my word."

"Then there's no hope for me," Shiel gasped. "I must go--it maddens me to see you the affianced bride of that devil."