"All you have, no doubt. But your wife is very rich, and I believe has grown richer within the last year. I am anxious to know if you intend to follow the Rajah's generous example and meet your liabilities with her fortune."
The Colonel, who had been staring vacantly at her, gave a start of recollection.
"Yes!" he exclaimed energetically. "The settlement and Lois' own money—what's become of it all? Has that gone, too?"
"Of course not." Travers' hand tightened instinctively upon the arm of his chair. "I should never have dreamed of touching what was my wife's personal property. Nor do I intend to do so now. I am no more than the manager of the company—I am not responsible for its liabilities. Miss Cary's suggestion is beside the mark, and I warn her, for her own advantage"—there was a somewhat unpleasant note of warning in his rough voice—"not to pursue her questions further."
Beatrice rose to her feet. She was calm and, save for the vivid color in her cheeks, betrayed at first little of the seething storm of indignation which rose gradually above the barriers of her self-control. She did not look at the Rajah. She stared straight into Travers' face, and once she pointed at him.
"You have been good enough to threaten me," she said. "It would be best for you to know at once that your threats are quite useless. There is nothing you can say about me which I am not ready to say myself—and there is nothing you can do which will prevent me from revealing the true facts of this case. You have feathered your nest, Mr. Travers. That is what you told me to do, and now I understand what you meant. You saw this ruin coming at the very time that you were encouraging every one to partake further of the company's future success. You honored me, as a sort of accomplice, with a private piece of advice. Thank God, I did not take it, for then I should have been your debtor.
"As it is, I owe you absolutely nothing—not even the wealthy husband you promised me. There is a bottom to my depths. And even if I did owe you something, I should not hesitate to speak. You can call me a traitor if you like—I don't care. I am that—and I have been far worse than that to a man who did not deserve it—and I have, anyhow, not much reputation to lose. Besides, you have stood by without a word and let an innocent man bear your burden, and for that alone you have no right to claim loyalty from another."
She turned for the first time to Nehal Singh, and met his gaze boldly and recklessly. "Do not stand there and call yourself a dishonored man!" she exclaimed with increasing force. "You are not dishonored. Do not call Mr. Travers your 'tool.' He is not your tool, and never has been. You are his tool,—his and mine!" She paused, catching her breath as she saw him wince. Then she went on: "Don't burden yourself with the consciences of us all, for we have not got any; and what has been done we have done knowingly and wilfully. Do you remember that evening when you found me in the temple? You thought it was—chance—or—or the hand of God. Why, Mr. Travers hired one of your old servants to slip me through by the secret path, and I had on my prettiest frock and my prettiest smile and my prettiest ways—as I told them all afterward at a dinner-party—pious goodness, with a relieving touch of the devil—just to tempt you out of your cloister and make you do what we wanted.
[Illustration: "Do not call yourself a dishonored man!">[
"You followed like a lamb. It took five minutes to wheedle the club-house out of you—five minutes, I think you told me, Mr. Travers?—and the other things went just as smoothly. Do you remember that ride we had together after Mr. Travers' dance? He had broached the subject of the mine, but the next day something or other seemed to have shaken your implicit belief in our integrity and general holiness. At any rate, you asked me for my advice—my honest advice. I gave it you. I told you to go ahead—that Mr. Travers was an angel of goodness and perfection. That was what he suggested I should say, in a note he had sent me an hour before. So you went ahead. You did the dirty work for him, and took his responsibility upon your shoulders. You have ruined a few of us incidentally, but above all things you have ruined yourself and your people. Mr. Travers is unharmed. He has his wife's money."