"You are not drunk again, Stewart? You are not mad? If you are not, listen to me, for your fate is rushing upon you. The time may be counted by hours. Never mind my share in this new event, never mind what you really think, or what you pretend to think about it. It makes my appeal to you strong, irresistible. This is no fit of woman's terror; this is no whim, no wish to induce you to desert your harvest-field, to turn your back upon the promise of the only kind of life you care to live. Here is a link in the evidence against you, if suspicion lights upon you (and it must), which is of incontestable strength. Here, in Arthur Felton's writing, is the memoranda of the shares which you bought and paid for with Arthur Felton's money. Stewart, Stewart, are you blind and mad, indeed, that you stay here, that you let the precious time escape you, that you dally with your fate? Let us begone, I say; let us escape while we may. George Dallas is not our only foe, not our only danger--formidable, indeed; but remember, Stewart, Mr. Felton comes to seek for his son; remember that we have to dread the man's father!"
The pleading in her voice was agonizing in its intensity, the lustrous excitement in her blue eyes was painful, the pallor of her face was frightful. She had clasped her hands round his arm, and the fingers held him like steel fetters. He tried to shake off her hold, but she did not seem aware of the movement.
"I tell you," she continued, "no dream was ever wilder than your hope of escape, if those two men come to London and find you here; no such possibility exists. Let us go; let us get out of the reach of their power."
"By--, I'll put myself out of Dallas's reach by a very simple method, if you don't hold your cursed tongue," said Routh, with such ferocity that Harriet let go her hold of him, and shrank as if he had struck her. "If you don't want me to tell Mr. Felton what has become of his son, and put him on to George's trail myself, you'll drop this kind of thing at once. In fact," he said, with a savage sneer, "I hardly think a better way out of our infernal blunder could be found."
"Stewart, Stewart!" She said no more.
"Now listen to me, Harriet," he went on, in furious anger, but in a suppressed tone. "If you are anything like the wise woman you used to be, you won't provoke a desperate man. Let me alone, I tell you--let me get out of this as I best can. The worst part of it is what you have brought upon me. I don't want George Dallas to come to any serious grief, if I can help it; but if he threatens danger to me, he must clear the way, that's all. I dare say you are very sorry, and all that. You rather took to Master George lately, believed in his prudence, and his mother, and all that kind of thing; but I can't help that. I never had a turn for sentiment myself; but this you may be sure of--only gross blundering can bring anything of the kind about--if any one is to swing for Dean, it shall be Dallas, and not I."
A strong shudder shook Harriet's frame as she heard her husband's words. But she repressed it, and spoke:
"You refuse to listen to me, then, Stewart. You will not keep your promise--your promise which, however vague, I have built upon and lived upon since we left Homburg? You will not 'think of' what I said to you there? Not though it is a thousand times more important now? You will not leave this life, and come away to peace and safety?"
"No, no; a thousand times no!" said Routh, in the wildest fury. "I will not--I will not! A life of peace and safety; yes, and a life of poverty, and you--" he added, in a tone of bitterest scorn and hatred.
A wonderful look came into the woman's face as she heard his cruel and dastardly words. As the pink had faded into the white upon her cheeks, so now the white deadened into gray--into an ashen ghostly gray, and her dry lips parted slowly, emitting a heavy sigh.