The Man Without a Memory Part 9

"And pretending to have lost your memory?"

"Yes."

"Haven't you both spoken and acted lies to gain admission to this house?"

"I had to, of course."

"You convict yourself out of your own mouth, then?"

"Apparently."

"Aren't you trying to get employed in the Secret Service here?"

"Looks black, doesn't it?"

"Looks!" and she drew a long deep breath and repeated the word. "But you don't imagine for one instant that I will be a party to it!"

"You are already, for that matter."

"You shall leave this house at once and never set foot in it again, and I shall find the means to let Rosa know the disgraceful trick you have played."

"And if I refuse?"

"I'll expose you as surely as my name is Nessa Caldicott."

"You know what the result would be to me?"

"I neither know nor care."

"Then I'll tell you. I should certainly be imprisoned and most probably shot."

She wavered somewhat at that. "It is easy for you to avoid it by doing what I say--leave the house."

"That's out of the question."

"Do you expect me to allow you to go on imposing on the girl who has been my friend at a time when I was absolutely helpless? Wouldn't you be ashamed of me if I were to consent to such treachery? Can't you see what a vile degradation it would be, and that I should hate myself as well as you if I consented?"

"No. Yes. Yes. I wish you'd ask one question at a time."

"Do you expect me to smile at such insufferable flippancy as that?"

"No. But it wasn't flippancy at all. I was answering your questions in order. You appear to think that I like being compelled to deceive Miss von Rebling."

"How can you talk about having been compelled to do it?"

"Because it happens to be the truth."

"Your version of the truth, you mean?"

"Exactly. My version of the truth, although you won't believe it. I was forced into the thing against my will by a series of coincidences which I found it impossible to avoid; and, as a matter of fact, I am not harming Miss von Rebling in the least."

"Haven't you led her to believe you may break off the engagement?"

"I've been considering it."

"Don't you call that harming her?"

"No."

"How can you say that? What will happen when the real man arrives?"

"Not even then."

She gestured incredulously. "It's impossible," she cried. "In any case I insist upon her being told."

I stopped to think a bit. I knew Nessa so well that I could quite understand her mood. Her first fierce rush of anger had spent itself, checked, I was sure, by my statement of the consequences to me if the truth were told. She had not a suspicion of the reason for my being in Berlin, evidently believing that I had come as a spy, and knew even better than I what my end would be if I were denounced; and her words had cut me too deeply to let me tell her the truth then--that I had only come on her account.

At the same time I could quite appreciate how she would shrink from being made a partner, as she had said, and her impatience for me to leave the house. It was an awkward corner, but I thought I could see a way round it.

"I'll do what you suggest," I said at length.

"Go away?"

"No. Tell Miss von Rebling."

This alarmed her at once. "But you? What you said about the risk?" she protested.

"Oh, never mind about me. You said you couldn't endure it; and, of course, nothing matters compared with that. I should have taken care to let her know everything as soon as I'd done what I came to do."

"What is that?"

"Your mother is very anxious about you, and when she knew I was coming here, naturally wanted me to find out things."

"But they've had my letters, surely?"

"Not a line since some time after Christmas."

"Do you mean that, Jack? Oh, poor mother! I've written regularly every week. When Julia Wa.s.sermann died, her father, who hates the English and hated me because I'm English, turned me out of the house. I should have gone to one of these dreadful concentration camps, if it hadn't been for Rosa. That's why I can't bear the thought of deceiving her; but--I--I don't want to get you into any trouble. We--we can't tell her. We--we mustn't. You can go away, can't you?" and she bit her lip in desperate perplexity and distress.

"I'm going to tell her, Nessa," I said.

"But I don't wish it, Jack. I really don't. I didn't mean all the horrid things I said just now; I--I'm sorry. I've been just distracted."

"Don't worry. Nothing very terrible is likely to come to me; and I quite agree that she ought to know the truth."

She looked at me wonderingly. "How different you are, Jack. What has changed you so? You're so quiet and so--so firm. You don't look the same. Not a bit like you used to be in any way, manner, bearing, everything. I saw it the moment I came into the room."

"You didn't show it. You went for me in much the same old style, you know," I said with a smile. "You always did think me a rotter."