Part 32 (1/2)

He stopped and turned then. She expected him to come back on to the lawn; but he stood still, and she had to go up the path to him.

She lifted her face, that some men, but not he, would have called beautiful, to his, and smiled.

”It needn't happen, you know,” she said.

He did not understand in the least, and looked his puzzlement--and his disgust of her. She dropped her eyes, and her seductive manner at the same time. ”Come and sit down again,” she said, ”and let us talk sensibly. I have worked off my anger. Now let us see what can be done.”

A slight gleam of hope came to him. Perhaps--now Susan was dead--she would see ... she could gain nothing....

He followed her to the seat obediently, and sat down.

”I have told you what I think of you,” she said, speaking now coolly and evenly. ”I had to do that to clear my mind. You have treated me with the meanest cruelty, and I mean every word I have said to you. I have suffered bitterly, and perhaps I have succeeded in showing you that I have it in my power to make you suffer in the same way. Revenge is very sweet, and I have tasted a little of it. But, after all, it can't do away with the past; and its savour soon goes. I shan't gain much by punis.h.i.+ng you, though you ought to be punished.”

”No,” he said eagerly. ”You can gain nothing. And look at the terrible--awful suffering you would bring upon those who are innocent of any offence against you.”

”Quite so,” she said coolly. ”I am glad you realise that. I meant you to.”

”It would be inhuman,” he went on. ”You would never be forgiven for it--in this world or the next.”

She laughed, this time without affectation. ”You are really rather funny,” she said. ”Well now, what do you suggest? That I shall hold my tongue and go away? Back to America, for instance, and settle down there for good, perhaps under another name?”

He could hardly believe his ears. ”You would do that?” he cried.

”I think perhaps I might be persuaded to. I am not unreasonable.”

”If you did that,” he broke out, his face aflame, ”the blessing of the innocent would be yours to the end of your life. You would be their saviour; you----”

”I suppose I should,” she interrupted dryly. ”I should like that. But the trouble is, you see, that one can't live on the blessing of the innocent. It isn't sustaining enough. And I have very little to live on.”

The light died slowly out of his face as he listened to her.

”You must help me,” she said. ”You are a rich man, and you can do it.

You allowed money to be paid before, to hush up this scandal; you offered a very large sum of money to free yourself of a mere disagreeable feeling of indebtedness, and took some risk in doing it too--I give you that much justice. I am glad Lord Sedbergh refused that money. Now you can lend it to me--I will pay you back some day--and a few thousands more. Let me have ten thousand pounds, Mr.

Clinton. You can ease your conscience of the wrong you have done me, and save your innocents at the same time--yourself, who are not innocent, into the bargain.”

Perhaps she had mistaken the motives which had led him to refuse to pay money to Gotch, and really thought that he had done it only to save his own skin, knowing that it would be paid elsewhere; in which case nothing in this proposal would shock him. Or perhaps she relied overmuch on having frightened him into acquiescence with any proposal.

Otherwise, with all her powers of finesse, she would hardly have plumped out her demand in this careless fas.h.i.+on.

She had restored him in some degree to himself. ”What!” he cried, his brows terrifically together. ”After all you have said, you now want me to pay blackmail to _you_. It's an impudent proposal; and I refuse it.”

She was quick to see her error. If he wanted his susceptibilities soothed, she was quite ready to do that.

”Oh, don't be absurd,” she said. ”I never really thought that you had looked on that transaction as blackmail; I only said so because I wanted to make you smart. Is it likely that I should be fool enough to suggest such a thing to you? Besides, whatever you may think of me, I am not a blackmailer; it wouldn't suit my book. You are not very clever, you know, Mr. Clinton. I will tell you what I want, and why I think you ought to help me to get it, as carefully as I can; and you must listen to me and try and understand it.”

Poor man! How could he help listening to her, with so much at stake!

”The mischief is done,” she said. ”I am innocent, but I am smirched--poor me!--and although I could make you suffer, and would, I tell you frankly, if I could do it without hurting myself, I don't believe I could ever get back--not all the way. I don't know that I want to try; I am not young now, whatever I look, and I have no heart for the struggle. I am young enough, at any rate, to enjoy my life, if I can begin it again, in quite new surroundings, and not dogged by poverty. It isn't much I want. What is ten thousand pounds for life to a woman like me, who has spent that in a year? I have something of my own, but not much. This would make me secure against that horrible wolf at the door, which frightens me more than anything.”

He was about to speak, but she silenced him with a lift of the hand, and said, ”Let me go on, please. Why should _you_ give it to me? you were going to ask--I drop the pretence of a loan, though you can call it that if you like. Because you are the only person I can ask it of.

It is compensation; and n.o.body but you--except Humphrey, of course--has offended against me. Sedbergh _thinks_ I stole the star, and so does Mary Sedbergh, and it is true that that is all I was actually found guilty of. Under the circ.u.mstances they are not to be blamed. The coincidences--and the perjury--were too strong for me. They owe me nothing--except out of kindness to an old friend whom they had done injustice to.”