Part 58 (1/2)

”Come here.”

”Stay where you are, Lily,” said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, from inside the closed door. ”Or perhaps you'd better get your wraps. I came to take you home.”

Akers had wheeled at the voice, and now stood staring incredulously.

First anger, and then a grin of triumph, showed in his face. Drink had made him not so much drunk as reckless. He had lost last night, but to-day he had won.

”h.e.l.lo, Cameron,” he said.

w.i.l.l.y Cameron ignored him.

”Will you come?” he said to Lily.

”I can't, w.i.l.l.y.”

”Listen, Lily dear,” he said gravely. ”Your father is searching the city for you. Do you know what that means? Don't you see that you must go home at once? You can't dine here in a private suite, like this, and not expose yourself to all sorts of talk.”

”Go on,” said Akers, leering. ”I like to hear you.”

”Especially,” continued w.i.l.l.y Cameron, ”with a man like this.”

Akers took a step toward him, but he was not too sure of himself, and he knew now that the other man had a swing to his right arm like the driving rod of a locomotive. He retreated again to the table, and his hand closed over a knife there.

”Louis!” Lily said sharply.

He picked up the knife and smiled at her, his eyes cunning. ”Not going to kill him, my dear,” he said. ”Merely to give him a hint that I'm not as easy as I was last night.”

That was a slip, and he knew it. Lily had left the window and come forward, a stricken slip of a girl, and he turned to her angrily.

”Go into the other room and close the door,” he ordered. ”When I've thrown this fellow out, you can come back.”

But Lily's eyes were fixed on w.i.l.l.y Cameron's face.

”It was you last night?”

”Yes.”

”Why?”

”Because,” w.i.l.l.y Cameron said steadily, ”he had got a girl into trouble, and then insulted her. I wouldn't tell you, but you've got to know the truth before it's too late.”

Lily threw out both hands dizzily, as though catching for support. But she steadied herself. Neither man moved.

”It is too late, w.i.l.l.y,” she said. ”I have just married him.”

CHAPTER x.x.x

At midnight Howard Cardew reached home again, a tired and broken man.

Grace had been lying awake in her bedroom, puzzled by his unexplained absence, and brooding, as she now did continually, over Lily's absence.