With a great effort she mastered her agitation and answered him. "It's yours, Jake, all yours. The new boss is--is just an invention of Mr. Rafford's. You--you are--the new boss."
"What?" he said.
He got up suddenly, with a movement that verged upon violence, and stood over her, she felt, almost threateningly.
Through quivering distress she answered him again.
"I've played a double game. I met Mr. Rafford first at Liverpool and then I chanced to meet him again here after--after you had refused to have my money. And he was kind and sympathetic and offered to help me. I wanted you so to have the horses. And I couldn't bear to think that you should lose them through me. Oh, Jake, don't look so--so terrible!"
She sank back panting on her cushions. That one brief glimpse of his face had appalled her. He had the look of a man hard pressed and nearing the end of his strength. She saw that his hands were clenched.
He spoke after several tense seconds. "Why have you done this thing?"
She made a piteous gesture. "Oh, Jake, only--only because I loved you."
"Only!" he said, and with the word she saw his hand unclench.
For a moment a wild uncertainty possessed her, and then it was gone. Jake dropped down on his knees beside her and took her into his arms.