Part 42 (2/2)

”You are not going, Luke?”

”Indeed I am.”

”You condemn yourself for a crime which you have not committed.”

”I am already as good as condemned. But I do not choose to hang for the murder of the Clapham bricklayer's son.”

He laughed. It almost sounded like a natural laugh--would have done so, no doubt, to all ears except hers. Then he added dryly:

”Such a purposeless crime too. Fancy being hanged for killing Paul Baker.”

”Luke,” she said simply, ”you don't seem to realize how you are hurting me!”

One e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, ”My G.o.d!” escaped him then. He stood quite still, in the shadow, and presently his hand wandered with the old familiar gesture down the smooth back of his head. She remained on her knees and after awhile he came back to her, and sat down on the chair beside the desk, his eyes on a level with hers.

”Look here, Lou,” he said quietly, ”I have got to go and that's all about it. I have got to, do you understand? The consequences of this crime cannot be faced--not by any one--not by me. There's Uncle Rad to think of first. He is broken and ill; he has more than one foot in the grave. The trial and the scandal couldn't be kept from him; it would be bound to leak out sooner or later. It would be too big a scandal, and it would kill him outright. Then, you see, Lou, it would never do!

I should be Earl of Radclyffe and a felon--it wouldn't do, now would it? Who has ever heard of a peer undergoing a life sentence--or being hanged? It wouldn't do--you know it wouldn't do----”

He reiterated this several times, with quaint insistence, as if he were discussing with her the possibility or impossibility of attending a race meeting, or a ball in Lent, she proving obstinate.

She did not reply, leaving him to ramble on in his somewhat wild speech, hoping that if she let him talk on uninterruptedly, he would sooner or later betray something of that enigma which lay hidden behind the wooden mask which he still so persistently wore.

”Besides,” he continued, still arguing, ”there's Frank to think of--the next heir to the t.i.tle. I believe that people in penal servitude live an unconscionable time--especially if they are wanted to die. Think of poor old Frank waiting to come into his own--into an old t.i.tle held by a felon. It is all much too much of a muddle, Lou.

It is simpler that I should go----”

”But,” she said, really trying now to speak as simply, as calmly as he did himself, ”all these arguments which you are using now, Luke, will equally apply if you make yourself a fugitive from justice.”

”Oh, I shouldn't be that for very long!” he said lightly.

”You are thinking of suicide?”

”No,” he replied simply, ”I am not. Only of the chances of a wandering life.”

”You seem to look at every chance, Luke, except one.”

”Which one is that?”

”That though you might be arrested, though you might be accused and even tried for the murder of--of that man--truth might come out, and your innocence proved.”

”That would be impossible, Lou,” he said quietly.

”Why--in Heaven's name, Luke!” she exclaimed pa.s.sionately, ”why?”

”My dagger-stick was found inside the railings of the park--and the stains on it are irrefutable proofs.”

”That's only circ.u.mstantial evidence,” she argued, ”you can demolish it, if you choose.”

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