The Giant's Robe Part 26

And the letter had that moment arrived. He saw no other possible conclusion than that, by some extraordinary chance, Holroyd had escaped the fate which was supposed to have befallen him. He was alive; a more dangerous rival after this than ever. This letter might even contain a proposal!

'No use speaking to Mabel after she has once seen this. Confound the fellow! Why the deuce couldn't he stay in the sea? It's just my infernal luck!'

As he thought of the change this letter would work in his prospects, and his own complete powerlessness to prevent it, the gloom and perplexity on his face deepened. He had been congratulating himself on the removal of this particular man as a providential arrangement made with some regard to his own convenience. And to see him resuscitated, at that time of all others, was hard indeed to bear. And yet what could he do?

As Caffyn stood by the window with Holroyd's letter in his hand, he felt an insane temptation for a moment to destroy or retain it. Time was everything just then, and even without the fragment he had been able to read, he could, from his knowledge of the writer, conclude with tolerable certainty that he would not write again without having received an answer to his first letter. 'If I was only alone with it!'

he thought impatiently. But he was a prudent young man, and perfectly aware of the consequences of purloining correspondence; and besides, there was Dolly to be reckoned with--she alone had seen the thing as yet. But then she _had_ seen it, and was not more likely to hold her tongue about that than any other given subject. No, he could do nothing; he must let things take their own course and be hanged to them!

His gloomy face filled Dolly with a sudden fear; she forgot her dislike, and came timidly up to him and touched his arm. 'What's the matter, Harold?' she faltered. 'Mabel won't be angry. I--I haven't done anything _wrong_, have I, Harold?'

He came out of his reverie to see her upturned face raised to his--and started; his active brain had in that instant decided on a desperate expedient, suggested by the sight of the trouble in her eyes. 'By Jove, I'll try!' he thought; 'it's worth it--she's such a child--I may manage it yet!'

'Wrong!' he said impressively, 'it's worse than that. My poor Dolly, didn't you really know what you were doing?'

'N--no,' said Dolly; 'Harold, don't tease me--don't tell me what isn't true ... it--it frightens me so!'

'My dear child, what can I tell you? Surely you know that what you did was stealing?'

'Stealing!' echoed Dolly, with great surprised eyes. 'Oh, no, Harold--not _stealing_. Why, of course I shall tell Mabel, and ask her for the stamp afterwards--only if I hadn't torn it off first, she might throw it away before I could ask, you know!'

'I'm afraid it was stealing all the same,' said Caffyn, affecting a sorrowfully compa.s.sionate tone; 'nothing can alter that now, Dolly.'

'Mabel won't be angry with me for that, I know,' said Dolly; 'she will see how it was really.'

'If it was only Mabel,' said Caffyn, 'we should have no reason to fear; but Mabel can't do anything for you, poor Dolly! It's the _law_ that punishes these things. You know what law is?--the police, and the judges.'

The piteous change in the child's face, the dark eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with rising tears, and the little mouth drawn and trembling, might have touched some men; indeed, even Caffyn felt a languid compunction for what he was doing. But his only chance lay in working upon her fears; he could not afford to be sentimental just then, and so he went on, carefully calculating each word.

'Oh, I won't believe it,' cried Dolly, with a last despairing effort to resist the effect his grave pity was producing; 'I can't. Harold, you're trying to frighten me. I'm not frightened a bit. _Say_ you are only in fun!'

But Caffyn turned away in well-feigned distress. 'Do I look as if it was fun, Dolly?' he asked, with an effective quiver in his low voice; he had never acted so well as this before. 'Is that this morning's paper over there?' he asked, with a sudden recollection, as he saw the sheet on a little round wicker table. 'Fetch it, Dolly, will you?'

'I must manage the obstinate little witch somehow,' he thought impatiently, and turned to the police reports, where he remembered that morning to have read the case of an unhappy postman who had stolen stamps from the letters entrusted to him.

He found it now and read it aloud to her. 'If you don't believe me,'

he added, 'look for yourself--you can read. Do you see now--those stamps were marked. Well, isn't _this_ one marked?'

'Oh, it is!' cried Dolly, 'marked all over! Yes, I do believe you now, Harold. But what shall I do? I know--I'll tell papa--he won't let me go to prison!'

'Why, papa's a lawyer--you know that,' said Caffyn; 'he has to _help_ the law--not hinder it. Whatever you do, I shouldn't advise you to tell him, or he would be obliged to do his duty. You don't want to be shut up for years all alone in a dark prison, do you, Dolly? And yet, if what you've done is once found out, nothing can help you--not your father, not your mamma--not Mabel herself--the law's too strong for them all!'

This strange and horrible idea of an unknown power into whose clutches she had suddenly fallen, and from which even love and home were unable to shield her, drove the poor child almost frantic; she clung to him convulsively, with her face white as death, terrified beyond tears.

'Harold!' she cried, seizing his hand in both hers, 'you won't let them! I--I can't go to prison, and leave them all. I don't like the dark. I _couldn't_ stay in it till I was grown up, and never see Mabel or Colin or anybody. Tell me what to do--only tell me, and I'll do it!'

Again some quite advanced scoundrels might have hesitated to cast so fearful a shadow over a child's bright life, and the necessity annoyed Caffyn to some extent, but his game was nearly won--there would not be much more of it.

'I mustn't _do_ anything for you,' he said; 'if I did my duty, I should have to give you up to---- No, it's all right, Dolly, I should never dream of doing that. But I can do no more. Still, if you choose, you can help _yourself_--and I promise to say nothing about it.'

'How do you mean?' said Dolly; 'if--if I stuck it together and left it?'

'Do you think that wouldn't be seen? It would, though! No, Dolly, if anyone but you and I catches sight of that letter, it will all be found out--must be!'

'Do you mean?--oh, no, Harold, I couldn't _burn_ it!'

There was a fire in the grate, for the morning, in spite of the season, had been chilly.

'Don't suppose _I_ advise you to burn it,' said Caffyn. 'It's a bad business from beginning to end--it's wrong (at least it isn't right) to burn the letter. Only--there's no other way, if you want to keep out of prison. And if you make up your mind to burn it, Dolly, why you can rely on me to keep the secret. _I_ don't want to see a poor little girl shut up in prison if I can help it, _I_ can tell you. But do as you like about it, Dolly; I mustn't interfere.'

Dolly could bear it no more; she s.n.a.t.c.hed the flimsy foreign paper, tore it across and flung it into the heart of the fire. Then, as the flames began to play round the edges, she repented, and made a wild dart forward to recover the letter. 'It's Mabel's,' she cried; 'I'm afraid to burn it--I'm afraid!'

But Caffyn caught her, and held her little trembling hands fast in his cool grasp, while the letter that Holroyd had written in Ceylon with such wild secret hopes flared away to a speckled grey rag, and floated lightly up the chimney. 'Too late now, Dolly!' he said, with a ring of triumph in his voice. 'You would only have blistered those pretty little fingers of yours, my child. And now,' he said, indicating the sc.r.a.p of paper which bore the stamp, 'if you'll take my advice, you'll send that thing after the other.'

For the sake of this paltry bit of coloured paper Dolly had done it all, and now that must go!--she had not even purchased Colin's forgiveness by her wrong--and this last drop in her cup was perhaps the bitterest. She dropped the stamp guiltily between two red-hot coals, watched that too as it burnt, and then threw herself into an arm-chair and sobbed in pa.s.sionate remorse.

'Oh, why did I do it?' she wailed; 'why did you make me do it, Harold?'

'Come, Dolly, I like that,' said Caffyn, who saw the necessity for having this understood at once. '_I_ made you do nothing, if you please--it was all done before I came in. I may think you were very sensible in getting rid of the letter in that way--I do--but you did it of your own accord--remember that.'

'I was quite good half an hour ago,' moaned the child, 'and now I'm a wicked girl--a--a thief! No one will speak to me any more--they'll send me to prison!'

'Now don't talk nonsense,' said Caffyn, a little alarmed, not having expected a child to have such strong feelings about anything. 'And for goodness' sake don't cry like that--there's nothing to cry about _now_.... You're perfectly safe as long as you hold your tongue. You don't suppose I shall tell of you, do you?' (and it really was highly improbable). 'There's nothing to show what you've done. And--and you didn't mean to do anything bad, I know _that_, of course. You needn't make yourself wretched about it. It's only the way the law looks at stealing stamps, you know. Come, I must be off now; can't wait for Mabel any longer. But I must see a smile before I go--just a little one, Juggins--to thank me for helping you out of your sc.r.a.pe, eh?'

(Dolly's mouth relaxed in a very faint smile.) 'That's right--now you're feeling jolly again; cheer up, you can trust me, you know.' And he went out, feeling tolerably secure of her silence.

'It's rough on her, poor little thing!' he soliloquised as he walked briskly away; 'but she'll forget all about it soon enough--children do. And what the deuce could I do? No, I'm glad I looked in just then.

Our resuscitated friend won't write again for a month or two--and by that time it will be too late. And if this business comes out (which I don't imagine it ever will) _I've_ done nothing anyone could lay hold of. I was very careful about that. I must have it out with Mabel as soon as I can now--there's nothing to be gained by waiting!'

_Would_ Dolly forget all about it? She did not like Harold Caffyn, but it never occurred to her to disbelieve the terrible things he had told her. She was firmly convinced that she had done something which, if known, would cut her off completely from home and sympathy and love; she who had hardly known more than a five minutes' sorrow in her happy innocent little life, believed herself a guilty thing with a secret.

Henceforth in the shadows there would lurk something more dreadful even than the bogeys with which some foolish nursemaids people shadows for their charges--the gigantic hand of the law, ready to drag her off at any moment from all she loved. And there seemed no help for her anywhere--for had not Harold said that if her father or anyone were to know, they would be obliged to give her up to punishment.

Perhaps if Caffyn had been capable of fully realising what a deadly poison he had been instilling into this poor child's mind, he might have softened matters a little more (provided his object could have been equally well attained thereby), and that is all that can be said for him. But, as it was, he only saw that he must make as deep an impression as he could for the moment, and never doubted that she would forget his words as soon as he should himself.

But if there was some want of thought in the evil he had done, the want of thought in this case arose from a const.i.tutional want of heart.

CHAPTER XVI.

A CHANGE OF FRONT.

'Well, Jane,' said Mr. Lightowler one evening, when he had invited himself to dine and sleep at the house in Malakoff Terrace, 'I suppose you haven't heard anything of that grand young gentleman of yours yet?'

The Ashburns, with the single exception of Trixie, had remained obstinately indifferent to the celebrity which Mark had so suddenly obtained; it did not occur to most of them indeed that distinction was possible in the course he had taken. Perhaps many of Mahomet's relations thought it a pity that he should abandon his excellent prospects in the caravan business (where he was making himself so much respected), for the precarious and unremunerative career of a prophet.

Trixie, however, had followed the book's career with wondering delight; she had bought a copy for herself, Mark not having found himself equal to sending her one, and she had eagerly collected reviews and allusions of all kinds, and tried hard to induce Martha at least to read the book.

Martha had coldly declined. She had something of her mother's hard, unimaginative nature, and read but little fiction; and besides, having from the first sided strongly against Mark, she would not compromise her dignity now by betraying so much interest in his performances.