Part 17 (2/2)
Then she shot me like a dog. What will the end be?”
”It can be nothing worse, my boy. She has ruined you already; she cannot do it twice. Oh, why did you ever meet her! Why did not Heaven grant that a good woman, like Lettice Campion----”
”Do not name her here!” he cried sharply. ”Let there be something sacred in the world!”
He looked at his aunt as he spoke; but she did not return his gaze. She was sitting rigid in her chair, staring over his shoulder with affrighted eyes. Alan turned round quickly, and started to his feet.
The woman in the other room had stealthily opened the door, and stood there, disheveled and half-dressed, with a cunning smile on her face.
”Alan, my husband!” she said, in French, holding out both hands to him, and reeling a step nearer, ”here we are at last. I have longed for this day, my friend--let us be happy. After so many misfortunes, to be reunited once again! Is it not charming?”
She spoke incoherently, running her words into one another, and yet doing her best to be understood.
Alan looked at her steadily. ”What do you want?” he asked. ”Why have you sought me out?”
”My faith, what should I want? Money, to begin with.”
”And then?”
”And then--justice! Bah! Am I not the daughter of Testard, who dispensed with his own hand the justice of Heaven against his persecutors?”
”I have heard that before,” Alan said. ”It was at Aix-les-Bains. And you _still_ want justice!”
”Justice, my child. Was it not at Aix-les-Bains that you tried to kill Henri de Hauteville? Was it not in the park hard by that you shot at me, and almost a.s.sa.s.sinated me? But, have no fear! All I ask is money--the half of your income will satisfy me. Pay me that, and you are safe--unless my rage should transport me one of these fine days! Refuse, and I denounce you through the town, and play the game of scandal--as I know how to play it! Which shall it be?”
”You are my wife. Perhaps there is a remedy for that--now that you are here, we shall see! But, meanwhile, you have a claim. To-morrow morning I Will settle it as you wish. You shall not be left to want.”
”It is reasonable. Good-night, my friend! I am going to sleep again.”
She went back into the drawing-room, laughing aloud, whilst Alan, after doing his best to console Mrs. Bundlecombe, departed in search of a night's lodging under another roof.
CHAPTER XIII.
SIR JOHN PYNSENT PROPHESIES.
On a sultry evening in the middle of August, a few choice spirits were gathered together in one of the smoking-rooms of the Oligarchy.
All but one were members of the Upper or Lower House, and they were lazily enjoying the unusual chance (for such busy men, and at such a critical period of the session) which enabled them to smoke their cigars in Pall Mall before midnight on a Tuesday. Either there had been a count-out, or there was obstruction in the House, which was no immediate concern of theirs, or they had made an arrangement with their Whip, and were awaiting a telegram which did not come; but, whatever the reason, here they were, lazy and contented.
There was our old friend, Sir John Pynsent; and Charles Milton, Q.C., certain to be a law officer or a judge, as soon as the Conservatives had their chance; and Lord Ambermere; and the Honorable Tom Willoughby, who had been trained at Harrow, Oxford, and Lord's Cricket Ground, and who was once a.s.sured by his Balliol tutor that his wit would never make him a friend, nor his face an enemy. The last of the circle was Brooke Dalton, of whom this narrative has already had something to record.
”So Tourmaline has thrown up the sponge, Pynsent?” Charles Milton began, after a short pause in the conversation. ”Had enough of the Radical crew by this time!”
”Yes. Of course, he has been out of sympathy with them for a long while.
So have twenty or thirty more, if the truth were known.”
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