Lord Heyton dropped back into the chair and, covertly wiping the sweat from his face, which was white now, glanced from Dene to the fire, then back again; but his eyes could get no higher than Dene's waistcoat.

"I--I suppose you've come to kick up a row, to bully me?" he said, sullenly.

"Not at all," retorted Dene, coolly. "If I had wanted to kick up a row, to bully you--in other words, to round on you and show you up, I should have come before, the moment I knew how you had--sold me. Yes, that's the word; sold me."

"I--I was hard driven," said Heyton, almost inaudibly. "I tell you that, if I hadn't been able to put my hand on the money, I should have been ruined. A man in my position can't stand being declared a defaulter.

I--I thought it would be all right; that my father would have stumped up; but he left England for some beastly place abroad; where, I don't know even know, and there was no getting at him. And there wasn't a penny to be got out of those cursed lawyers----"

"Oh, you needn't trouble to explain," said Dene, grimly. "I understand it all--Miriam has been to see me."

The young man in the chair started, his face flushed, and he looked savagely, yet fearfully, at Dene.

"Miriam been to see you!" he repeated, huskily. "Why--what----!"

"When you told her that I was a forger, that I'd pa.s.sed a false cheque, you didn't think that she would go to me. You thought she would accept your statement, as she has accepted your other lies about me, and just drop me. Oh, yes; I know how you managed to get her away from me. Poor girl! Unawares she let out a great deal in the few minutes she was with me to-day. You blackened my character pretty considerably; and, by George! you must have done it very well, or you would not have got her to believe you. I've met some bad 'uns in my time, Heyton; but, upon my word, I think you're the very worst of the lot. You're black rotten, through and through. And yet you've got a decent girl not only to believe in you, but to marry you--a liar, a coward, and a scoundrel."

The other man rose, his hands clenched. Dene jerked his head towards the chair.

"Sit down," he said, as he sought in his pockets for a cigarette, found it, and began to smoke. "I'm glad to see that I've touched you on the raw. I didn't think there was a tender spot on you. Oh, sit down, man, and put your fists in your pockets; you haven't the pluck to strike me.

I wish you had"--his eyes flashed ominously--"for I might be tempted to give you the thrashing you deserve and I'm longing to give you. And yet--no, I shouldn't; for I wouldn't defile my hands by touching you."

There was a pause, then, with a gesture, as if he had mastered himself, Dene went on:

"Well, I have bullied you, after all, haven't I? And, upon my soul, I didn't mean to; for I knew it would be only waste of breath. Nothing can really touch you; and you'll forget every nasty thing I've said as soon as you've got rid of me safely. No; what I came to say was this: I'm not going to show you up. I'm going to take this thing upon me; you know why well enough."

Heyton shot a glance at him, a glance full of hate and jealousy.

"Yes, it's for Miriam's sake," said Dene, quietly, without any sign of emotion. "She and I were pals; nothing had ever come between us until you turned up. She would have married me but for you. Oh, I'm not blaming her; poor girl, there's a weak streak in her; she comes of a bad lot. Of course, the Earl of Heyton, the son of a marquess, was a better match than Derrick Dene, a n.o.body, with his fortune to make, his bare living to get; but, on my soul, I think she would have stood by me, and would have resisted the temptation, if you had not told lies about me and persuaded her that I was an utter blackguard. And, by the way, you did it rather well. I was quite astonished how she let things out just now when she came to me. You did it very well. And I thought you were an utter fool!"

The other man glanced wickedly under his brows and set his teeth, but he said nothing; he was afraid to utter a word lest he should rouse his victim from his state of calm and quiet.

"It was clever of you to saddle poor little Susie Morton's trouble on me, while you were really the man--the scoundrel, I should say; it was clever of you to rake up all my little sky-larkings and turn them into something worse. Well, they say that 'all is fair in love and war.' You won, you took her away from me--and it's about Miriam that I've come to talk to you."

Heyton moistened his lips and, with his eyes fixed on his patent leather boots, he said, thickly:

"Did you tell her that--the truth?"

Dene laughed shortly. "No; I didn't. Nine men out of ten would think I was a fool for not doing so; certainly you would. But most men wouldn't understand, and most a.s.suredly you wouldn't, why I didn't. No; I didn't tell her that I was innocent and that you were guilty; that you had forged a cheque and got me, like a fool, to present it. I didn't even tell her that it was you, you blackguard, who had ruined poor little Susie. You look surprised."

Heyton swiftly withdrew his eyes, in which astonishment, amazement, and something nearly approaching contempt, had shown, and Dene laughed with bitter scorn.

"You can't understand that a man who has once loved a woman loves her for always----"

He paused; for, at that moment, it was not the face of his old love, the woman who had jilted him for a better match, that rose before him, but that of the girl at Brown's Buildings who had stepped in between him and death, talked him back to reason, given him her last five-pound note.

"--And that even if he has ceased to love her, he'll stand a lot to save her from trouble; that he'll make any kind of sacrifice to keep disgrace and shame from her. That's how I feel towards Miriam. I thought of you being dragged off by a couple of bobbies to quod, and of how she would suffer; and I remembered--which was a precious lucky thing for you--that there was no one to suffer on my account. I thanked G.o.d--for the first time--I'd no one belonging to me. That thought made it easier for me to do what I am doing."

He tossed the end of the cigarette into the fire.

"I am going to make a bolt for it; and I looked in just to say a few words to you, Heyton. I'm standing between you and a complete bust-up.

I'm doing it for Miriam's sake, not yours; and I want you to bear this in mind: that if ever I hear of your treating her badly--oh, you needn't look so virtuously indignant; I know your sort; you'd treat her badly enough presently, if you hadn't a check on you. And I'm going to be that check. Let me hear even a whisper of your acting on the cross with her, and I'll come back, if it's from the other end of the world, to denounce you. I've proofs enough. Oh, I'm not such a fool as you think; and, if you don't treat Miriam fairly, I'll show you up, and probably give you, into the bargain, the thrashing that's owing to you."

"You needn't talk about Miriam like that," said her husband, sullenly, and with an affectation of righteous resentment. "I'm fond of her; I shouldn't have done--well, what I have done, if I hadn't been. You needn't insult me."

"My good man, I couldn't," said Dene. "One word more and, you'll be relieved to hear, I'm off. For some reason or other the police, the detectives, have been slow, or have failed to track me."

As he spoke, Heyton turned his head and looked at him curiously, with a furtive, cunning expression; but he said nothing; indeed, his lips closed tightly, as if in repression of speech.

"I shall leave England to-night," continued Dene; "and I may succeed in giving them the slip. I know one or two out-of-the-way places--but I needn't trouble you with my plans. All I want to say is that if I'm caught I shall continue to hold my tongue. And you hold yours, as much as you can; for, though you think you're pretty clever, you'd make a silly kind of a.s.s in a witness-box."

He got off the table, b.u.t.toned his coat, and took up his cap. The other man rose and stood, fidgeting with a silver cigarette-box on the table and looking from Dene's pale, haggard face to the floor.

"You're--you're behaving like a brick--you're doing me a good turn, Dene----" he muttered, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, don't do that!" broke in Dene, with contemptuous impatience. "Clear your mind of that idea. I'm playing the giddy-goat not for your sake, my man; but--but for your wife's, for Miriam's."

"You're crossing to-night?" asked Heyton, hesitatingly, fearfully. "If there's anything I can do to--to prove my grat.i.tude----"

"You couldn't prove what doesn't exist," said Dene, with a laugh.

"You're incapable of grat.i.tude. You hate me like poison, and, if it wasn't for the risk to yourself, you'd like to throw up that window, call for the police, and give me away." He paused a moment, and looked the bent, cowardly figure up and down, from toe to crown. "You don't mean to say that you were going to offer me money? Not really?" He laughed, and at the laugh Heyton's face crimsoned with shame and rage.

"That would be too funny. I'm off. Remember what I've said. Treat Miriam well, and you've seen and heard the last of me; let me hear a word--But I've told you that already; and you're not likely to forget it. A coward like you will think of his skin before anything else."

Heyton's teeth closed on his under-lip and he glanced at the window; Dene saw the glance and understood it; with a gesture of infinite scorn he sauntered slowly to the door, Heyton following him with clenched hands, the veins swelling in his forehead, his face livid.

As the door closed behind Dene, Heyton sprang towards the bell; his finger touched it, but he did not press it, and, with an oath, he sank into his chair and mopped his face.

Five minutes later, the woman whom Celia had seen in the corridor entered the room. She was a pretty, graceful woman, little more than a girl; but the beauty of the face was marred by a weak mouth and chin.

She was exquisitely dressed, her fingers were covered with rings, and diamonds glittered on her snowy neck. Her face was pale, and her eyes were swollen with weeping; and it was with something like a sob that she said, as she stood at the table and looked down at the sullen, ghastly face of her husband:--

"Someone has been here--just gone; I heard a footstep; I know it.

Derrick has been here."

He would have lied to her if he had thought she would have believed the lie.

"Yes," he said. "He has just gone. He--he came to say good-bye."

"Good-bye!" she repeated, her brows knitting with perplexity and trouble. "Is he going? Where? Why? Didn't you tell him that Mr. Brand, the lawyer, had--had paid the money and settled everything? Oh, if I had only known it when I went to Derrick; if the letter had only come before, so that I could have told him there was no need for him to fear any--any trouble! But you told him, Percy?"

"Yes, of course I told him," he said, staring at his boots; "but he had made up his mind to go abroad; and--and, 'pon my soul, I think it's the best thing he could do."

She looked down on him with a face still showing trouble and doubt.

"But--but, Percy, he hadn't any money; he admitted as much to me. And I couldn't give him any."

"That's all right," he said, clearing his throat. "I--I saw to that. I couldn't give him much, unfortunately; but I sc.r.a.ped together all I'd got. It will leave us pretty short of coin for a bit, Miriam."

She went to him quickly, put her arm round his shoulder, and, bending, kissed him. "You did! That was good of you; it was like you, Percy--after all that he has done, and the trouble he might have got you into. I'm glad you gave him all you'd got; and I don't mind running short."