Lying back in a chair, after she had almost crept to her room, she stared white-faced and frightened at the ceiling until it became peopled with her wretched thoughts. All along she had seen what was coming. The end was inevitable. Love as it grew for them had known no regard for her misery. She could not have prevented its growth; she could not now frustrate its culmination. And yet, as she sat there and stared into the past and the future, she knew that it was left for her to drink of the cup which they were filling—the cup of their joy and of her bitterness.
Fear of exposure at the hand of Graydon Bansemer's father had kept her purposely blind to the inevitable. Her woman's intuition long since had convinced her that Graydon was not like his father. She knew him to be honourable, noble, fair and worthy. Long and often had she wondered at James Bansemer's design in permitting his son to go to the extreme point in relation with Jane. As she sat there and suffered, it came to her that the man perhaps had a purpose after all—an unfathomable, selfish design which none could forestall. She knew him for all that he was. In that knowledge she felt a slight, timid sense of power. He stood for honour, so far as his son was concerned. In fair play, she could expose him if he sought to expose her.
But all conjectures, all fears, paled into insignificance with the one great terror: what would James Bansemer do in the end? What would he do at the last minute to prevent the marriage of his son and this probable child of love? What was to be his tribute to the final scene in the drama?
She knew that he was tightening his obnoxious coils about her all the time. Even now she could feel his hand upon her arm, could hear his sibilant whisper, could see his intense eyes full of suggestion and threat. Now she found herself face to face with the crisis of all these years. Her only hope lay in the thought that neither could afford the scandal of an open declaration. Bansemer was merciless and he was no fool.
Knowing Graydon to be the son of a scoundrel, she could, under ordinary circumstances, have forbidden her daughter to marry him. In this instance she could not say him nay. The venom of James Bansemer in that event would have no measure of pity. In her heart, she prayed that death might come to her aid in the destruction of James Bansemer.
It was not until she heard Graydon coming up the stairs that the solution flashed into her brain. If Jane became the wife of this cherished son, James Bansemer's power was gone! His lips would be sealed forever. She laughed aloud in the frenzy of hope. She laughed to think what a fool she would have been to forbid the marriage. The marriage? Her salvation! Jane found her almost hysterical, trembling like a leaf. She was obliged to confess that she had heard part of their conversation below, in order to account for her manner. When Jane confided to her that she had promised to marry Graydon in September—or June—she urged her to avoid a long engagement. She could say no more than that.
Now she sat limp before the two men, a wan smile straying from one to the other, exhausted by her suppressed emotions. Suddenly, without a word, she held out her hand to Graydon. In her deepest soul, she loved this manly, strong-hearted young fellow. She knew, after all, he was worthy of the best woman in the land.
"You know?" cried Graydon, clasping her hand, his eyes glistening. "Jane has told you? And you—you think me worthy?"
"Yes, Graydon—you are worthy." She looked long into his eyes, searching for a trace of the malevolence that glowed in those of his father. They were fair and honest and sweet, and she smiled to herself. She wondered what his mother had been like.
"Then I may have her?" he cried. She looked up at her husband and he nodded his head.