Miriam, accustomed as she was to his bad language, shrank.

"Percy! Your own father!" she whispered, with a shudder.

"Oh, don't go into heroics!" he said. "You'd curse everything and everybody, if you were in the plight I am. And look here, you've got to help me. You and the old man have been getting on better than I expected; if he hasn't taken a downright fancy to you, he's got used to you and treats you civilly. Can't you give him a hint about the diamonds? See here!" He leant forward, his hand gripping the table, the sweat gathering on his face again, his weak eyes bulging in his terrible eagerness. "I could raise money enough on the things to tide me over this bit of bad luck until I struck a winner. Directly he'd given them to you, we'd go up to town; he wouldn't know whether you were wearing them or not. But there! if it comes to that, we could easily get them copied in paste; they imitate them so closely you can't tell the real from the sham. Fact. Why, half the women in London are wearing shams, and n.o.body's any the wiser."

She rose, her hand clutching at the lace on her bosom.

"I--I can't do it, Percy! Besides, it wouldn't be any use. It's strange how little you know of the Marquess; you, his own son! Why, even I, who have known him so short a time, know that to ask for them, to hint for them, would be of no use. They are the family diamonds; they're something more than jewels in his eyes--don't you understand that?--he will have to grow to like me a good deal better than he does before he gives them to me. It's no use, Percy. You must think of something else."

"There is no other way," he said.

He dropped back, his head sunk on his breast, his teeth gnawing at the projecting under-lip; and she stood looking down at him, though scarcely seeing him. Suddenly he glanced up at her, his lips twitching; a certain furtive gleam in his light eyes.

"Oh, well, never mind, old girl!" he said, with an affectation of concurrence. "Perhaps you're right. We'll give it up. Don't worry; after all, I dessay I shall find another way out. Here! you'd better go back to the old man. Go and play to him; he likes you to." As she moved towards the door, he called to her in a cautious undertone. "Here!

Miriam, come back. Now I come to think of it, I'm sure you're right as to not giving him a hint. Don't do it; in fact, if he says anything about the diamonds, say that you'd rather not have them at present. You can say that we're likely to be moving about, and that you'd rather wait until we've settled down. You might lose 'em, don't you know."

Miriam looked at him, as if puzzled by this sudden _volte-face_; then, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, went out of the room. When the door had closed on her, Heyton rose and began to move about the room unsteadily. His narrow forehead was contracted, as if he were thinking deeply; his lips worked, his hands closed and unclosed in his pockets in which they were thrust, and he glanced from side to side furtively. So might a criminal look while plotting a coup more than usually risky and dangerous. Presently he came alongside the table on which the footman had placed the spirit-bottles and syphons. Heyton mixed himself a stiff gla.s.s of whisky and soda, drank it almost at a draught, then nodded at the reflection of himself in the mirror opposite him.

"I think I could work it," he muttered. "Yes, I think I could work it."

CHAPTER XXIII

Miriam went on to the drawing-room. The Marquess was sitting in his usual deep chair, his hands folded on his knees, his head bowed; he looked as if he were asleep, but he was not; he was thinking, at that moment, of the half-tipsy son he had left in the dining-room, of the thin, bent figure of the old man who had suddenly reappeared on that morning months ago at Sutcombe House. What a terrible tangle it was; what a mockery that he should be sitting here at Thexford Hall, while the real owner was living in poverty in London! His thoughts were almost too bitter to be borne, and the so-called Marquess crouched in his chair and stifled a groan.

Thinking he was dozing, Miriam went straight to the piano and began to play. When she had finished the piece, she was startled--for she had been going over and over in her mind the scene in the smoking-room--by the grave voice of the Marquess saying,

"Thank you, Miriam. That was very beautiful." He paused a moment. "My wife used to play that; it is a favourite of mine. Please go on, if you are not tired."

She played a nocturne of Chopin; and he rose and stood at the fireplace, with his hands folded behind his back. As she turned and looked at him, he said, with a smile,

"That is a pretty pendant, Miriam. I think you have not many jewels, have you?"

She started, and turned her head away from him.

"Oh, I have quite enough," she said, with a laugh. "You must remember, Lord Sutcombe, that I am a poor clergyman's fourth daughter, and that I am not accustomed to much jewellery."

"You are my son's wife, my dear Miriam," he said, with a slight smile.

"And a lady of your position has usually quite a quant.i.ty of jewellery.

Personally, I do not attach much importance to the decrees of fashion, but I suppose that it is as well to comply with them. Has Percy ever by chance spoken to you of the family diamonds?"

The blood mantled in Miriam's face for a moment; then left it paler than before.

"No," she replied.

"Ah!" said the Marquess. "Of course, there are some. Indeed, there are a great many, and some of them are very beautiful, very valuable; in fact, I do not think I should exaggerate if I were to say that some of the stones are priceless; not only in a monetary sense, but because of their size and quality. There are, too, historic a.s.sociations," he added, thoughtfully.

There was a pause; Miriam drooped over the piano, touching a note here and there softly.

"Yes, some of them are historic," resumed the Marquess meditatively.

"There is a necklace which belonged to Madame du Barri, and another which Queen Elizabeth gave to one of her ladies-in-waiting. An ancestor of ours was a son of hers. I think the time has arrived when the jewels should, so to speak, be resurrected; that they should pa.s.s into your possession."

Miriam's heart beat fast; but the flush of gratification did not rise to her face, for she was thinking of the base, the nefarious uses to which her husband would put these historic jewels.

"Indeed, they almost belong to you by right," said the Marquess. "They have always gone with the t.i.tle."

His voice grew gradually slower, and presently he stopped and looked straight before him, as if he had forgotten her presence. Indeed, he had done so; for as he spoke of the t.i.tle, there rose suddenly, like a cinematograph film thrown on the screen, the bent figure, grey face and piercing eyes of the real owner of the t.i.tle. Not for the first time, he, the false Marquess, was giving away that which belonged to the shabbily-dressed old man who had refused to accept the position which was his by right of inheritance. The pause was a momentary one only, and the Marquess went on,

"I am a widower; fortunately, Percy is married, and the family jewels really belong to you. You shall have them."

Miriam moistened her lips; her heart was beating thickly. As a woman, she desired the jewels; as a wife, she must obey Heyton.

"Oh, how good of you!" she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Indeed, it is more than kind of you, Lord Sutcombe. But--but I don't think I ought to accept them--now. They must be of very great value----"

"They are," he interjected, not complacently but with a sigh; for he recalled them as they shone on the neck and arms of his dead wife.

"And I feel as if they would be a great responsibility," Miriam continued. "Percy thinks of--of going abroad, of travelling for a time.

Perhaps, when we come back and have settled down, you--you will be so good, so kind as to give them to me. I can't thank you enough."

Her voice broke; for weak and foolish as she was, she could not but think of the still weaker and more vicious man who had planned so base a use for the Sutcombe diamonds.

"Very well, my dear," he said, in a kindly voice. "We will leave them to their repose in the safe upstairs. I brought them down from the bank, intending to give them to you."

"Upstairs?" she said, in something like a whisper, a frightened whisper.

"Why, yes," he said, simply. "They are in the safe in the little room adjoining my bedroom. I have not seen them since my wife died," he added, with unconscious pathos.

Scarcely knowing why, a vague dread, a presentiment of evil stirred within Miriam's breast.

"Oh, ought they not to be sent back to the bank, Lord Sutcombe?" she said in a low voice.

"Perhaps they ought," he said, gravely. "You are thinking of burglars,"

he added, with a smile. "You need not be apprehensive; the safe is a remarkably good one; one of the best, I believe, and I carry the key about with me always. I have it on my watch-chain. I don't think the most modern and scientific burglar could break open the safe; at any rate, he could not do so without making a noise which someone in the house would hear. Oh, they are quite secure from burglars, believe me, Miriam."

"I am glad," she said, almost inaudibly. "Shall I play you something else."

"Do," he responded. "Where is Percy?"

"In the smoking-room, I believe," she replied.

He went to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Percy is too fond of the smoking-room," he said, gravely. "Miriam, I do not wish to intrude--I have always held that no man has a right to interfere between his son and his wife. But--forgive me, Miriam--I am anxious about Percy. You, who are his wife, must have seen that--forgive me again--that he needs guidance. He is too fond of--what shall I say?--of pleasure, the sensation of the moment. I had hoped that his marriage would have wooed him from--from the self-indulgence to which he had yielded in early life. Miriam, I count a great deal upon your influence," he wound up lamely and with a deep sigh.