Part 38 (1/2)
Her glance fell away, her lip trembled, and her smile at last took flight. He caught her hands, holding them in a grip that hurt her; he bent his head, and his eyes sought her own, but sought in vain.
”Have you considered--” he was beginning, when she interrupted him. Her face flushed upward, surrendering to that questing glance of his, and its expression was now between tears and laughter.
”You will be for ever considering, Ned. You consider too much, where the issues are plain and simple. For the last time--will you marry me?”
The subtlety he had employed had been greater than he knew, and it had achieved something beyond his utmost hopes.
He murmured incoherently and took her to his arms. I really do not see that he could have done anything else. It was a plain and simple issue, and she herself had protested that the issue was plain and simple.
And then the door opened abruptly and Sir Terence came in. Nor did he discreetly withdraw as a man of feeling should have done before the intimate and touching spectacle that met his eyes. On the contrary, he remained like the infernal marplot that he intended to be.
”Very proper,” he sneered. ”Very fit and proper that he should put right in the eyes of the world the reputation you have damaged for his sake, Sylvia. I suppose you're to be married.”
They moved apart, and each stared at O'Moy--Sylvia in cold anger, Tremayne in chagrin.
”You see, Sylvia,” the captain cried, at this voicing of the world's opinion he feared so much on her behalf.
”Does she?” said Sir Terence, misunderstanding. ”I wonder? Unless you've made all plain.”
The captain frowned.
”Made what plain?” he asked. ”There is something here I don't understand, O'Moy. Your att.i.tude towards me ever since you ordered me under arrest has been entirely extraordinary. It has troubled me more than anything else in all this deplorable affair.”
”I believe you,” snorted O'Moy, as with his hands behind his back he strode forward into the room. He was pale, and there was a set, malignant sneer upon his lip, a malignant look in the blue eyes that were habitually so clear and honest.
”There have been moments,” said Tremayne, ”when I have almost felt you to be vindictive.”
”D'ye wonder?” growled O'Moy. ”Has no suspicion crossed your mind that I may know the whole truth?”
Tremayne was taken aback. ”That startles you, eh?” cried O'Moy, and pointed a mocking finger at the captain's face, whose whole expression had changed to one of apprehension.
”What is it?” cried Sylvia. Instinctively she felt that under this troubled surface some evil thing was stirring, that the issues perhaps were not quite as simple as she had deemed them.
There was a pause. O'Moy, with his back to the window now, his hands still clasped behind him, looked mockingly at Tremayne and waited.
”Why don't you answer her?” he said at last. ”You were confidential enough when I came in. Can it be that you are keeping something back, that you have secrets from the lady who has no doubt promised by now to become your wife as the shortest way to mending her recent folly?”
Tremayne was bewildered. His answer, apparently an irrelevance, was the mere enunciation of the thoughts O'Moy's announcement had provoked.
”Do you mean to say that you have known throughout that I did not kill Samoval?” he asked.
”Of course. How could I have supposed you killed him when I killed him myself?”
”You? You killed him!” cried Tremayne, more and more intrigued. And--
”You killed Count Samoval?” exclaimed Miss Armytage.
”To be sure I did,” was the answer, cynically delivered, accompanied by a short, sharp laugh. ”When I have settled other accounts, and put all my affairs in order, I shall save the provost-marshal the trouble of further seeking the slayer. And you didn't know then, Sylvia, when you lied so glibly to the court, that your future husband was innocent of that?”
”I was always sure of it,” she answered, and looked at Tremayne for explanation.
O'Moy laughed again. ”But he had not told you so. He preferred that you should think him guilty of bloodshed, of murder even, rather than tell you the real truth. Oh, I can understand. He is the very soul of honour, as you remarked yourself, I think, the other night. He knows how much to tell and how much to withhold. He is master of the art of discreet suppression. He will carry it to any lengths. You had an instance of that before the court this morning. You may come to regret, my dear, that you did not allow him to have his own obstinate way; that you should have dragged your own spotless purity in the mud to provide him with an alibi. But he had an alibi all the time, my child; an unanswerable alibi which he preferred to withhold. I wonder would you have been so ready to make a s.h.i.+eld of your honour could you have known what you were really s.h.i.+elding?”