A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 42

"No!" she almost shouted. "A pretty conspiracy!--to d.a.m.n me and save Peggy Admaston. Why shouldn't Pauline have written it?"

Up to this he had listened to her with some patience. Now his face blazed at her for a moment. He sat down in the writing-chair, pulling it up to the table as he did so. "I'll show you," he said. "Sit down there."

She looked at him defiantly.

"Sit down there," he said again, and she did so. "Now take the pen and write what I dictate," he went on.

He began to dictate, "'Please destroy the other letter....'"

He leant over the table, tapping gently upon it with his knuckles.

"No! the other hand, please," he said.

The woman almost fell over the table.

"With my left hand?" she gasped. "What on earth do you mean? I can't write with my left hand."

"My expert thinks you can," he said sternly. "Come--write; or would you prefer to write to-morrow in court?"

She jumped up, and hysteria mastered her.

"I won't write!" she cried, in a voice which was hardly human. "Neither here nor in court! You can't make me ... the judge can't make me!"

Collingwood punctuated her shrill remarks with gentle taps of his firm hand upon the table. "You shall write to-morrow with all London looking on; they'll know I could not have done it--this book shows that. They'll hear how you tried to tear out the page."

"They won't believe you!" she gasped.

"They'll believe the evidence of Pauline," he went on calmly. "They'll hear from Peggy how you broke your arm and learnt to use your left hand.

Every newspaper in England will be full of it. _This_ is not the first time you've written with your left hand; there'll be other specimens somewhere--some other witness will be forthcoming. You have been very clever, but the cleverest of people like you bungle in the end. You've got to do it, Alice!"

Once more she sank down in the chair.

Her face was ghastly. "No!" was all that she could say.

"Believe me," he went on more calmly and more kindly--"believe me, you had better write now! Society may never know--Admaston may be generous.

Come! Write! And do it quickly."

Absolutely broken and submissive, Lady Attwill took up the pen in her left hand and began to write to Collingwood's dictation.

"'Please destroy the other letter....'" he began.

She wrote the first word, and then looked up at him with a face which was a white wedge of hate.

"Quickly, please," he said, tapping his foot upon the carpet. "Now, or to-morrow with all London."

The wretched woman bent down once more to her shameful task.

"'... and this,'" he went on, "'and save an old servant who honours the family....'"

Again she looked up at him.

"Quickly!" he said imperatively, rapping his knuckles upon the table.

"Quickly!--or----"

Cowed and subdued, she wrote again. "'... from the anger of Mrs.

Admaston,'" came the cool, dictating voice.

She finished, and as she did so her head fell upon her arms and she burst into a fit of hysterical sobs--shaking, convulsed, in a terrible downfall of remorse and shame.

Suddenly--as Collingwood held the precious paper in his hand and looked with a certain compa.s.sion at his old friend and companion of so many years, whom he had tortured so dreadfully--a high, joyous voice burst into the room.

It was Peggy calling.

The curtains which led to the terrace were pulled aside and she ran into the drawing-room.

Her face was radiant.

"Colling! Colling!" she cried. "George is here!" She hurried up to Collingwood, looking for a moment rather strangely at Alice Attwill.

George Admaston, big, burly, and with all the weariness of the past weeks sponged and smoothed from his face, followed her into the drawing-room.

"Hullo, Colling," he said rather shyly, but with real geniality in his voice.

Collingwood ignored the outstretched hand. "Wait first, please," he said. "Lady Attwill has written you another copy of the letter she wrote three days ago." He handed the confession to Admaston.

There was a dead silence in the room as Admaston scrutinised the confession.

Then he went up to Lady Attwill, crouching over the table as she was, and put his hand not unkindly on her shoulder. "Good G.o.d!" he said.

"Alice--why did you?"

A lovely tear-stained face looked up into the room.

A broken and unhappy voice sobbed out into the silence, "Let me go; let me go, I say!"

Admaston gently removed his hand. There was a swish of skirts, one deep sob, and then the door closed behind Alice Attwill.

Peggy went up to her husband and clung lovingly to his arm.

She looked at Collingwood. "Colling," she said, "how on earth did you find out?"

Collingwood pointed to the blotter. "Look there," he said.

Peggy and Admaston, still clinging together, went up to the writing-table and stared as if fascinated at the fatal and decisive page.

"Poor Alice!" Collingwood said. "I suppose it is because I have been a bit of a blackguard myself that I can't help feeling sorry for her.

Perhaps, Admaston, you will find it in your heart, when the great case is withdrawn to-morrow, to let her down as lightly as possible."

He hesitated for a moment, and then he said in a quiet voice, "I think in her heart she really loved you, don't you know."