Part 22 (2/2)

”Roger! I don't know whether you will allow it, but I met an American acquaintance of yours to-day, and, subject to your permission, I asked him to join our conference.”

Roger raised his head--it might have been thought, angrily.

”Who on earth----?”

”Captain Boyson?”

The young man's face changed.

”I don't mind him,” he said sombrely. ”He's an awfully good sort. He was in Philadelphia a few months ago, when I was. He knows all about me. It was he and his sister who introduced me to--my wife.”

French left the room for a moment, and returned accompanied by a fair-haired, straight-shouldered man, whom he introduced to Penrose as Captain Boyson.

Roger rose from his chair to shake hands.

”How do you do, Boyson? I've told them you know all about it.” He dropped back heavily into his seat.

”I thought I might possibly put in a word,” said the new-comer, glancing from Roger to his friends. ”I trust I was not impertinent? But don't let me interrupt anything that was going on.”

On a plea of chill, Boyson remained standing by the fire, warming his hands, looking down upon the other three. Penrose, who belonged to a military family, reminded himself, as he glanced at the American, of a recent distinguished book on Military Geography by a Captain Alfred Boyson. No doubt the same man. A capable face,--the face of the modern scientific soldier. It breathed alertness; but also some quality warmer and softer. If the general aspect had been shaped and moulded by an incessant travail of brain, the humanity of eye and mouth spoke dumbly to the humanity of others. The council gathered in the vicarage room felt itself strengthened.

Penrose resumed his questioning of Barnes, and the other two listened while the whole miserable story of the divorce, in its American aspects, unrolled. At first Roger showed a certain apathy and brevity; he might have been fulfilling a task in which he took but small interest; even the details of chicanery and corruption connected with the trial were told without heat; he said nothing bitter of his wife--avoided naming her, indeed, as much as possible.

But when the tale was done he threw back his head with sudden animation and looked at Boyson.

”Is that about the truth, Boyson? You know.”

”Yes, I endorse it,” said the American gravely. His face, thin and tanned, had flushed while Barnes was speaking.

”And you know what all their papers said of me--what _they_ wished people to believe--that I wasn't fit to have charge of Beatty--that I should have done her harm?”

His eyes sparkled. He looked almost threateningly at the man whom he addressed. Boyson met his gaze quietly.

”I didn't believe it.”

There was a pause. Then Roger sprang suddenly to his feet, confronting the men round him.

”Look here!” he said impatiently. ”I want some money at once--and a good lot of it.” He brought his fist down heavily on the mantelpiece.

”There's this place of my uncle's, and I'm dashed if I can get a penny out of it! I went to his solicitors this morning. They drove me mad with their red-tape nonsense. It will take some time, they say, to get a mortgage on it, and meanwhile they don't seem inclined to advance me anything, or a hundred or two, perhaps. What's that? I lost my temper, and next time I go they'll turn me out, I dare say. But there's the truth. It's _money_ I want, and if you can't help me to money it's no use talking.”

”And when you get the money what'll you do with it?” asked Penrose.

”Pay half a dozen people who can be trusted to help me kidnap Beatty and smuggle her over the Canadian frontier. I bungled the thing once. I don't mean to bungle it again.”

The answer was given slowly, without any bravado, but whatever energy of life there was in the speaker had gone into it.

”And there is no other way?” French's voice from the back was troubled.

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