The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 270: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 How thankful I was for the ability to pull myself up in time! “Well,” I said, “ let me keep my own opinion about that. Anyway, you have not robbed me. As I have not suffered any loss, I may be inclined—wrong as it is to do so—to let you run Joose.” “You will!” She gasped out the words. “ You will let me go!” Tears found place in her eyes at last: relief—the thought of freedom— opened the sluice gates. But uf the dry eyes had been discon- certing before, how about the wet ones now? The effect was such that I stumbled over the words of my answer: “Conditionally. I am not going to be fool enough to let you go leaving my curiosity unsatisfied. I need to know how you became possessed of those keys; how you knew I[ had anything here worth taking away?” “T had no such intent.” Denial of what seemed manifest an- noyed me. I would much have pre- ferred the truth—bald as it might be. Had the girl thrown herself on my mercy, she would have been safe. As it was, I was irritated into saying: “I am afraid if you travel on the lines of deceit, it will mean your find- ing a policeman at the terminus after all.” She broke down at that. The tears which had come with her relieved feel- ing served to illustrate the renewal of her grief. A woman’s tears have on me—I am a chicken-hearted, sensitive’ sort of beast—as melting an effect as the sun’s rays on snow. In the present mstance I was impelled to say: “T don’t want to introduce the con- stable element—because I don’t want the trouble of attending a prosecution. It would have been different had I lost anything.” That was very weak of me; illustrates the fact that circumstances may arise in which any excuse is better than none. I continued: “ Now, tell me the truth, even if you don’t make a rule of it—let this occa- sion prove the exception. Tell me, hon- estly, how vou became possessed of those keys? ” “Through my father.” THE ARGOSY. “Oh!” I pricked up my ears. ‘“ There’s a man in it, is there? In the background! He puts you forward, I suppose, in the hope that—as is hap- pening in the present instance—the man you are trying to rob-_will have some sort of compassionate feeling for vou because you are a woman. Nice, brutal, skulksng kind of cur your father must be!” Oh, don’t!” The words were wailed out; again there came to me memory of an autumn day; gun in hand I was watching the death agonies of a rabbit. “Don’t talk of him like that.” Some of the astonishment I felt found place in an ejaculation; because the anxiety about the father’s good name seemed greater than about her own safety. I wondered what she ex- pected me to say of a man who started his daughter out on a burglarious ex- pedition. Putting another question to her—re- peating it—I failed to elicit any an- swer. Her throat was as full of sobs as her eyes were full of tears. Then suddenly the choking noise she had been making ceased; she lay right back im the chair in which she had been sitting—in a dead faint. That was not to my liking. I had not had much experience of women and their artifices. | - Yet instinct told me that this was not the sort of faint incidental, for in- stance, to a dance—not the kind for which a man’s supporting arm round the waist and a glass of champagne do wonders. The ‘girl was deathly pale. When I bent over her—thinking by touching to rouse her—TI felt her hand: felt that it was horribly cold despite the excite- ment through which she had just gone. This was not unconsciousness of the ball-room type. Irightened more than a trifle by this, I felt for her pulse; had a difficulty in getting it. I thought—hoped—I felt it beating. Then—a hand over her heart—I could make out only the very faintest throb. At that I got more frightened still. I do not know that I am hypersensitive, but certamly my nerves were in full dis- GOHMGOOo SS (COL