V
“Yes: it is quite true.” She had known it was—and yet, womanlike, she had clung to the hope that there was some mistake—some explanation. And now, alone with the man she had grown to love, the faint hope died. With his lazy smile, he stared down at her—a smile so full of sorrow and pain that she could not bear to see it.
“I’m Flash Pete—with an unsavoury reputation, as our friend so kindly told you, in three continents. It was I who broke open the safe at Smith’s last night, I who got the receipt from Gross. You see, I spotted the whole trick from the beginning; as I said, I had inside information. And Perrison is Smith and Co.; moreover he’s very largely Gross as well—and half a dozen other rotten things in addition. The whole thing was worked with one end in view right from the beginning: the girl your brother originally bought the pearls for was in it; it was she who suggested the pawning. Bill told me that the night before last.” He sighed and paced two or three times up and down the dim-lit conservatory. And after a while he stopped in front of her again, and his blue eyes were very tender.
“Just a common sneak-thief—just a common worthless sinner. And he’s very, very glad that he has been privileged to help the most beautiful girl in all the world. Don’t cry, my dear, don’t cry: there’s nothing about that sinner’s that’s worth a single tear of yours. You must forget his wild presumption in falling in love with that beautiful girl: his only excuse is that he couldn’t help it. And maybe, in the days to come, the girl will think kindly every now and then of a man known to some as Archie Longworth—known to others as Flash Pete—known to himself as—well, we won’t bother about that.”
He bent quickly and raised her hand to his lips; then he was gone almost before she had realised it. And if he heard her little gasping cry—“Archie, my man, come back—I love you so!” he gave no sign.
For in his own peculiar code a very worthless sinner must remain a very worthless sinner to the end—and he must run the course alone.
| IX | Jimmy Lethbridge’s Temptation |