Janice Meredith Part 9

Evatt bit his lip, and then forced a smile. "The old saying runs that three could keep a secret if two were but dead."

Charles smiled. "My two will never trouble me," he said meaningly, "so save your time and breath."

"Hadst best not be so sure," retorted Evatt, in evident irritation.

"'Twixt thine army service, the ship that fetched thee on, and that miniature, I have more clues than have served to ferret many a secret."

"And entirely lack the important one. Till you have that, I don't fear you. What is more, I'll tell you what 't is."

"What?" asked the man.

"A reward," sneered Fownes.

"I see I've a sly tyke to deal with," said the man. "But if ye choose not--" The speaker checked himself as Janice came through the opening in the hedge, and the two stood silently watching her as she approached.

"Charles," she said, when within speaking distance, while holding out the miniature, "I've decided you must take this."

Charles smiled pleasantly. "Then 't is your duty to make me, Miss Meredith," he replied, folding his arms.

"Won't you please take it?" begged Janice, not a little non-plussed by her position, and that Evatt should be a witness of it. "We know it belongs to you, and 't is too valuable for me to--"

"How know you that?" questioned the man, still smiling pleasantly.

"Because 't was with your clothes when you went in swimming,"

said Janice, frankly.

"Miss Meredith," replied Charles, "the word of a poor devil of a bond-servant can have little value, but I swear to you that that never belonged to me, and that I therefore have no right to it. If it gives you any pleasure, keep it."

"That is as good as saying ye stole it," a.s.serted Evatt.

Charles smiled contemptuously. "'All are not thieves whom dogs bark at,'" he retorted. "Nor are all of us sneaks and spies," he added, as, turning, he led away the horse toward the stable.

"Yon fellow does n't stickle at calling ye names, Miss Meredith,"

said Evatt.

"He has no right to call me a spy," cried the girl, indignantly.

"His words deserve no more heed than what he said t'other night at the tavern of ye."

"What said he at the tavern?" demanded Janice.

"'T is best left unspoken."

"I want to know what he said of me," insisted Miss Meredith.

"'T would only shame ye."

"He--he told of--he did n't tell them I took the miniature?"

faltered Janice.

Again Evatt bit his lip, but this time to keep from smiling.

"Worse than that, my child," he replied.

"Why should he insult me?" protested Janice, proudly, but still colouring at the possibility.

"Ye do right to suppose it unlikely. Yet 't is so, and while I can hardly hope that my word will be taken for it, his lies to us a moment since prove that he is capable of any untruth."

Evatt spoke with such honesty of manner, and with such an apparent lack of motive for inventing a tale, that Janice became doubtful. "He could n't insult me," she said, "for I--I have n't done anything."

"'T is certain that he did. Had I but known ye at the time, Miss Janice, he should have been made to swallow his coa.r.s.e insult. 'T was for that I sought him this morning. Had ye not interrupted us, 't would have fared badly for him."

"You were very kind," said Janice, dolefully, beginning, more from his manner than his words, to believe Evatt. "I did n't know there were such bad men in the world. And for him to say it at the tavern, where 't will be all over the county in no time! Was it very bad?"

"No one would believe a redemptioner," replied Evatt.

"Yet had I the right--"

"Ma.r.s.e Meredith send me to tell youse come to breakfast,"

interrupted Peg from the gateway in the box.

"Why!" exclaimed the girl. "It can't be seven."

"The squire ordered it early, that I might be in the saddle betimes," explained Evatt, and then as the girl started toward the house, he checked the movement by taking her hand.

"Miss Janice," he said, "in a half-hour I shall ride away--not because 't is my wish, but because I'm engaged in an important and perilous mission--a mission--can ye keep a secret--even from--from your father and mother?"

Janice was too young and inexperienced to know that a secret is of all things the most to be avoided, and though her little hand, in her woman's intuition that all was not right, tried feebly to free itself, she none the less answered eagerly if half-doubtfully, "Yes."

"I am sent here under an a.s.sumed name--by His Majesty.

Ye--I was indiscreet enough with ye, to tell--to show that I was other than what I pretend to be, but I felt then and now that I could trust ye. Ye will keep secret all I say?"

Again Janice, with her eyes on the ground, said, "Yes."

"I must do the king's work, and when 't is done I return to England and resume my true position, and ye will never again hear of me--unless--" The man paused, with his eyes fixed on the downcast face of the girl.

"Unless?" asked Janice, when the silence became more embarra.s.sing than to speak.

"Unless ye--unless ye give me the hope that by first returning here--as your father has asked me to do--that I may--may perhaps carry ye away with me. Ah, Miss Janice, 't is an outrage to keep such beauty hidden in the wilds of America, when it might be the glory of the court and the toast of the town."

Again a silence ensued, fairly agonising to the bewildered and embarra.s.sed girl, which lengthened, it seemed to her, into hours, as she vainly sought for some words that she might speak.

"Please let go my hand," she begged finally.

"Not till you give me a yea or nay.

"But I can't--I don't--" began Janice, and then as footsteps were heard, she cried, "Oh, let me go! Here comes Charles."

"May I come back?" demanded Evatt.

"Yes," a.s.sented the girl, desperately.

"And ye promise to be secret?"