For the Term of His Natural Life Part 79

"Well," said John Rex, "we are in private. What have you to say?"

"I want to tell you that I forbid you to carry out the plan you have for breaking up Sir Richard's property."

"Forbid me!" cried Rex, much relieved. "Why, I only want to do what my father's will enables me to do."

"Your father's will enables you to do nothing of the sort, and you know it." She spoke as though rehearsing a series of set-speeches, and Sarah watched her with growing alarm.

"Oh, nonsense!" cries John Rex, in sheer amazement. "I have a lawyer's opinion on it."

"Do you remember what took place at Hampstead this day nineteen years ago?"

"At Hampstead!" said Rex, grown suddenly pale. "This day nineteen years ago. No! What do you mean?"

"Do you not remember?" she continued, leaning forward eagerly, and speaking almost fiercely. "Do you not remember the reason why you left the house where you were born, and which you now wish to sell to strangers?"

John Rex stood dumbfounded, the blood suffusing his temples. He knew that among the secrets of the man whose inheritance he had stolen was one which he had never gained--the secret of that sacrifice to which Lady Devine had once referred--and he felt that this secret was to be revealed to crush him now.

Sarah, trembling also, but more with rage than terror, swept towards Lady Devine. "Speak out!" she said, "if you have anything to say! Of what do you accuse my husband?"

"Of imposture!" cried Lady Devine, all her outraged maternity nerving her to abash her enemy. "This man may be your husband, but he is not my son!"

Now that the worst was out, John Rex, choking with pa.s.sion, felt all the devil within him rebelling against defeat. "You are mad," he said. "You have recognized me for three years, and now, because I want to claim that which is my own, you invent this lie. Take care how you provoke me.

If I am not your son--you have recognized me as such. I stand upon the law and upon my rights."

Lady Devine turned swiftly, and with both hands to her bosom, confronted him.

"You shall have your rights! You shall have what the law allows you!

Oh, how blind I have been all these years. Persist in your infamous imposture. Call yourself Richard Devine still, and I will tell the world the shameful secret which my son died to hide. Be Richard Devine!

Richard Devine was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and the law allows him--nothing!"

There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was impossible that even a woman whose home had been desecrated, as hers had been, would invent a lie so self-condemning. Yet John Rex forced himself to appear to doubt, and his dry lips asked, "If then your husband was not the father of your son, who was?"

"My cousin, Armigell Esme Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered Lady Devine.

John Rex gasped for breath. His hand, tugging at his neck-cloth, rent away the linen that covered his choking throat. The whole horizon of his past was lit up by a lightning flash which stunned him. His brain, already enfeebled by excess, was unable to withstand this last shock.

He staggered, and but for the cabinet against which he leant, would have fallen. The secret thoughts of his heart rose to his lips, and were uttered unconsciously. "Lord Bellasis! He was my father also, and--I killed him!"

A dreadful silence fell, and then Lady Devine, stretching out her hands towards the self-confessed murderer, with a sort of frightful respect, said in a whisper, in which horror and supplication were strangely mingled, "What did you do with my son? Did you kill him also?"

But John Rex, wagging his head from side to side, like a beast in the shambles that has received a mortal stroke, made no reply. Sarah Purfoy, awed as she was by the dramatic force of the situation, nevertheless remembered that Francis Wade might arrive at any moment, and saw her last opportunity for safety. She advanced and touched the mother on the shoulder.

"Your son is alive!"

"Where?"

"Will you promise not to hinder us leaving this house if I tell you?"

"Yes, yes."

"Will you promise to keep the confession which you have heard secret, until we have left England?"

"I promise anything. In G.o.d's name, woman, if you have a woman's heart, speak! Where is my son?"

Sarah Purfoy rose over the enemy who had defeated her, and said in level, deliberate accents, "They call him Rufus Dawes. He is a convict at Norfolk Island, transported for life for the murder which you have heard my husband confess to having committed--Ah!----"

Lady Devine had fainted.

CHAPTER XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS.

Sarah flew to Rex. "Rouse yourself, John, for Heaven's sake. We have not a moment." John Rex pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead wearily.

"I cannot think. I am broken down. I am ill. My brain seems dead."

Nervously watching the prostrate figure on the floor, she hurried on bonnet, cloak, and veil, and in a twinkling had him outside the house and into a cab.

"Thirty-nine, Lombard Street. Quick!"

"You won't give me up?" said Rex, turning dull eyes upon her.

"Give you up? No. But the police will be after us as soon as that woman can speak, and her brother summon his lawyer. I know what her promise is worth. We have only got about fifteen hours start."

"I can't go far, Sarah," said he; "I am sleepy and stupid."

She repressed the terrible fear that tugged at her heart, and strove to rally him.

"You've been drinking too much, John. Now sit still and be good, while I go and get some money for you."

She hurried into the bank, and her name secured her an interview with the manager at once.

"That's a rich woman," said one of the clerks to his friend. "A widow, too! Chance for you, Tom," returned the other; and, presently, from out the sacred presence came another clerk with a request for "a draft on Sydney for three thousand, less premium", and bearing a cheque signed "Sarah Carr" for 200, which he "took" in notes, and so returned again.

From the bank she was taken to Green's Shipping Office. "I want a cabin in the first ship for Sydney, please."

The shipping-clerk looked at a board. "The Highflyer goes in twelve days, madam, and there is one cabin vacant."

"I want to go at once--to-morrow or next day."

He smiled. "I am afraid that is impossible," said he. Just then one of the partners came out of his private room with a telegram in his hand, and beckoned the shipping-clerk. Sarah was about to depart for another office, when the clerk came hastily back.

"Just the thing for you, ma'am," said he. "We have got a telegram from a gentleman who has a first cabin in the Dido, to say that his wife has been taken ill, and he must give up his berth."

"When does the Dido sail?"

"To-morrow morning. She is at Plymouth, waiting for the mails. If you go down to-night by the mail-train which leaves at 9.30, you will be in plenty of time, and we will telegraph."