Part 22 (2/2)

”And you were outside the bank with Forbes when he cashed my cheque!”

I remarked in slow tones.

”I know,” she answered hoa.r.s.ely. ”I know that you must believe me to be their a.s.sociate, perhaps their accomplice. Ah! well. Judge me, Mr.

Biddulph, as you will. I have no defence. Only recollect that I warned you to go into hiding--to efface yourself--and you would not heed. You believed that I only spoke wildly--perhaps that I was merely an hysterical girl, making all sorts of unfounded a.s.sertions.”

”I believed, nay, I knew, Miss Pennington, that you were my friend.

You admitted in Gardone that you were friendless, and I offered you the friends.h.i.+p of one who, I hope, is an honest man.”

”Ah! thank you!” she cried, taking my hand warmly in hers. ”You have been so very generous, Mr. Biddulph, that I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is true an attempt was made upon you, but you fortunately escaped, even though they secured a thousand pounds of your money. Yet, had you taken my advice and disappeared, they would soon have given up the chase.”

”Tell me,” I urged in deep earnestness, ”others have been entrapped in that dark house--have they not? That mechanical chair--that devilish invention--was not constructed for me alone.”

She did not answer, but I regarded her silence as an affirmative response.

”Your friends at least seem highly dangerous persons,” I said, smiling. ”I've been undecided, since discovering that my grave was already prepared, whether to go to Scotland Yard and reveal the whole game.”

”No!” she cried in quick apprehension. ”No, don't do that. It could serve no end, and would only implicate certain innocent persons--myself included.”

”But how could you be implicated?”

”Was I not at the bank when the cheque was cashed?”

”Yes. Why were you there?” I asked.

But she only excused herself from replying to my question.

”Ah!” she cried wildly a moment later, clutching my arm convulsively, ”you do not know my horrible position--you cannot dream what I have suffered, or how much I have sacrificed.”

I saw that she was now terribly in earnest, and, by the quick rising and falling of the lace upon her bodice, I knew that she was stirred by a great emotion. She had refused to allow me to stand her friend because she feared what the result might be. And yet, had she not rescued me from the serpent's fang?

”Sylvia,” I cried, ”Sylvia--for I feel that I must call you by your Christian name--let us forget it all. The trap set by those blackguards was most ingenious, and in innocence I fell into it. I should have lost my life--except for you. You were present in that house of death. They told me you were there--they showed me your picture, and, to add to my horror, said that you, their betrayer, were to share the same fate as myself.”

”Yes, yes, I know!” she cried, starting. ”Oh, it was all too terrible--too terrible! How can I face you, Mr. Biddulph, after that!”

”My only desire is to forget it all, Sylvia,” was my low and quiet response. ”It was all my fault--my fault, for not heeding your warning. I never realized the evil machinations of those unknown enemies. How should I? As far as I know, I had never set eyes upon them before.”

”You would have done wiser to have gone into hiding, as I suggested,”

she remarked quietly.

”Never mind,” I said cheerily. ”It is all past. Let us dismiss it.

There is surely no more danger--now that I am forearmed.”

”May they not fear your reprisals?” she exclaimed. ”They did not intend that you should escape, remember.”

”No, they had already prepared my grave. I have seen it.”

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