The Golden Web

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

"The law did not take that view."

"I stood by Rowan when he died," Deane said, with a sudden note of solemnity in his tone. "He told me the truth then, and the truth is what I have told you."

"Nevertheless, he stole the document," counsel continued. "It was discovered afterwards in the possession of Miss Rowan."

"So I have heard," Deane answered calmly. "It was a pity that she did not hand it over to me."

"You would have destroyed it, I suppose?"

"Most certainly!" Deane answered. "The mine belonged to me. Sinclair had declared before witnesses that there were no papers, that the claim had not been worked for the requisite time; and, therefore, by the mining laws of the country my purchase was good."

The case lasted well over the Christmas recess. During the holidays, Deane spent a good part of his time seeking for some trace of Winifred Rowan. He went himself to her old employers, but they were able to tell him nothing. They could only show him the testimonial which they had written at her request, and which she had taken away with her a few days after her departure from the hotel. There was no one who seemed able to help him in the least. Very regretfully, he called in the services of a private detective, who, however, was equally unsuccessful. The holidays passed, the case was reopened, and Deane was once more immersed in the struggle....

It was over at last. The strain remained,—the great judge who had heard it declined to pronounce judgment immediately on the conclusion of the pleadings. It might be three days or it might be even a week before his decision was known. Deane turned away from the court with a strong and instinctive desire for solitude. The suspense long drawn out through the weeks and through the months, had become unbearable. He felt himself no longer able calmly to discuss the pros and the cons of the case with his fellow directors and friends. He was sick to heart of it all. He escaped from one or two passers-by, and a reporter or so who tried to buttonhole him, and ignoring his brougham, around which several others were waiting, he sprang into a hansom and drove to the garage where he kept his touring car. A few brief orders, a pencilled note to his servant, and Deane, leaving the garage by the other entrance, took the Tube to its terminus, walked out into the country, and was caught up within an hour by the car, in which his servant was sitting on the front seat by the side of the chauffeur.

The evening passed swiftly into night as they thundered up the great north road into the darkness. Deane, wrapped in his thick coat and rugs, leaned back in his seat, with both windows down, feeling an inexpressible relief in the sharp sting of the night air, the flakes of snow and little clouds of rain blown every now and then through the open windows. He was free at last from the hateful environment of the last few months. No longer was there anyone to point him out as the man who had sold for a million pounds a mine which had never belonged to him. Save for the two motionless figures in front, he was alone. There was no one to ask him wearisome questions, no one to offer him sympathy or wish him good-fortune. On they sped through the night, till the villages were like dead haunts, without a light in the windows, and only an occasional lamp-post to mark the place where men slumbered. They passed through a town, which was like a city of the dead, and on again to the wilder country, where the rabbits rushed, terrified, before the streaming lights of the car, and the wind alone, of all Nature's voices, seemed left to remind him that this was not a world of ghosts through which he rushed.

Presently he saw the man at the wheel swerve a little in his seat, and he lifted the speaking-tube to his lips. "Can we get through to Rakney, Murray," he asked him, "or shall we stop at King's Lynn?"