Part 9 (2/2)
”But you will surely tell what you know?” I urged quickly.
”At risk of incriminating myself? Not likely,” was her reply.
”Then when the blow falls--as fall it must--it will kill her,” I said, disregarding the man's presence, for I felt that he must certainly be aware of everything.
”Perhaps,” was her vague answer, in a hard strained voice. ”If I could help her I would. At present, however, it is utterly impossible.”
”Not after this great service she has rendered to you? She has rescued you, remember.”
”Because it is not to her own interests that she should be connected with the affair,” she remarked with what seemed a sneer.
Then, for the first time, I realised what a terrible mistake I had committed. The warning I had given this woman she actually believed to be an additional sign of weakness on the part of my well-beloved!
”But her very life depends upon your words,” I cried. ”You surely will not now withhold the truth?”
”I can say nothing--at least at present,” she responded evasively.
”But you must--you hear?” I cried. ”You must!”
”I shall not until it suits me,” was the woman's defiant answer, as her dark eyes flashed quickly upon me, and I recognised with what kind of person I had to deal. ”Tell her that in this matter the stake is her life, or mine--and I prefer to keep my own.” And she laughed that harsh discordant laugh of a Frenchwoman triumphant.
”Then you refuse to tell the truth?” I demanded fiercely.
”I do.”
In that instant a bold plan had suggested itself. She expected to escape, but now she defied me I had no intention that she should; therefore I sprang forward, seized her, and at the same time shrieked with all my might--
”Murder! Murder! Help--_help_!”
Her companion flung himself upon me, beating me about the head, but I had gripped them both, and in a few moments there sounded hurrying footsteps and several persons, including the detective Bullen, came tearing round the street-corner.
Next second the pair recognised how very neatly they had been trapped.
CHAPTER TEN.
THE EARL OF STANCHESTER SPEAKS HIS MIND.
”Let me go!” cried the woman, speaking in French in her excitement.
”Let us cry quits and I will tell the truth. If I am arrested, Lady Lolita must also fall into the hands of the police. You do not know everything or you would not do this! Let us go--and save her.”
There was something in her quick argument that struck me as truthful.
If the pair were arrested they might certainly lay some counter-charge, true or false, against my love, therefore with as sudden an impulse as I had raised the alarm I released my hold, saying--
”Very well. That's a bargain. I shall hold you both to it, remember.
Get away as quickly as you can.”
And before the detective, the newsvendor and the two other men attracted by my shouts could reach the spot, the pair had sped along the Chelsea Embankment as fast as their legs could carry them and turned into a narrow thoroughfare running parallel with Britten Street.
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