"Take me away from here," she whispered. "Take me out into the fresh air or I shall die. What have I done to deserve this degradation? And get my father to come, too. Has he lost all his manhood that he stays here?"
They went out into the sunshine and the air at length, and Dashwood was alone with Mayfield. The latter closed the door and lighted a cigarette. There was a grim ferocity in his eyes that caused Dashwood to turn sick.
"So you've done it, you rascal," Mayfield muttered. "I daresay you will tell me that your hand was more or less forced. Perhaps it was. And yet if I raise my little finger you will pass the next ten years of your life in gaol."
"Don't," Dashwood said with difficulty, "don't talk like that. The cards were all of them literally forced on me. Why should you mind?"
"Why should I mind? Why, man alive, you have 'queered my pitch' as some of your dissolute companions would say. I was going to marry Mary Dashwood, the great heiress, everything was ready to my hand. A little later and the thing would have been accomplished. Only one thing bothered me--I am at my wit's ends for some ready money, which I must have before long. And, as things stand at present, Mary Dashwood could not raise anything on her expectations. But I was going to play the bold game and risk everything, even my liberty, on this stake. I was never more surprised in my life than when that fellow Darnley explained the situation. I nearly gave you away."
"I saw that," Dashwood said hoarsely, "my heart was in my mouth. It was very good of you to remember an old pal who----"
"Old pal be hanged," Mayfield cried. "I'd have betrayed you fast enough had it been to my interest to do so. I saw my game like a flash. They are going to let you into the thing without a fight. But not for very long, my boy, so you had better make the most of your time. As Sir Vincent Dashwood you are all right, you can play ducks and drakes with the estate if you please; in fact, you are going to start with a mortgage of £50,000. That sum of money you will pay over to me."
"What for?" Dashwood asked uneasily. "Why should I do it?"
"Call it what you like. Call it blackmail. But I'm going to have it all the same."