“When I rode away from that spot,” he concluded, “it was with an unspeakable load lifted from my mind, a load that had weighed upon it for years. Everything was favourable. We had not been seen together, for we entered the country by different ways, and our meeting was entirely a chance one. He had found out somehow that I was bound for Ezulwini, and had started to catch me there, in order to squeeze out some more blackmail. He had missed his way and had wandered to where we met. I had not missed mine, for I had mapped out a way through all that wild part. When we did meet the first idea that flashed through my mind was that now and here was a chance such as I should never get again. Everything was favourable—the wild loneliness of the spot, seldom if ever travelled, and the fact that we had not been seen together. I would force him to sign a declaration which should put it out of his power for ever to harm me. But he flatly refused, and the rest you know. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that the sequel was the best that could have come about, for the declaration, being unwitnessed, would probably have been worth nothing at all. I must have been a bit off my head, or that would have occurred to me at the first. Now, Verna, why don’t you shrink from me?”
“Shrink from you?” and the clasp of her hand tightened on his. “It would take a great deal more than this to make me even begin to think of doing that. In fact, I can’t see anything so very dreadful about it at all. A blackmailer is the most pestilent vermin on earth, and shooting’s too good for him. Let me think. Ah! He tried to shoot you, you said?”
“He certainly would have if I’d given him the slightest chance. Still, there’s no getting over the fact that I fully intended to shoot him in the event of his persistently refusing to sign that paper.”
“And he deserved it. Moreover, didn’t you try to get him out of the water?”
“Yes. I couldn’t stand seeing even him finished off in such a beastly manner. Afterwards it occurred to me that it was the best possible thing that could have happened in that it would destroy all trace. You understand?”
“Perfectly. But now, if the worst came to the worst, couldn’t you make it out a case of self-defence?”
“A very poor plea,” he answered, with a gloomy shake of the head, “especially under all the circumstances. Besides, no end of things would be raked up and a motive established. But nothing more would have been heard of the affair if that infernal Stride hadn’t picked up the saddle. Then, when he heard I had come through the Makanya just about that time, he put two and two together. He more than hinted as much one evening in the club before them all. Before them all, mind! Of course I made some joke about it, but as sure as we are sitting here, Verna, I could see that two, at any rate, more than half believed there might be something in it. Those two were James and Hallam.”
Verna’s brows knitted. She did not like this feature in the case.
“Do you know why Stride is so vindictive in the matter, Verna?” he said, after giving her an account of his interview with the young prospector and the latter’s threats.
“I think I can guess.” Then she fell to thinking whether she could not turn Stride’s weakness for herself to account. But it was too late, she recognised. He had set the ball rolling—at first all innocently, it was true—but it had now rolled too far.