“I will take the cabin. How much?”
“One hundred and thirty pounds, madam,” said he.
She produced her notes. “Pray count it yourself. We have been delayed in the same manner ourselves. My husband is a great invalid, but I was not so fortunate as to get someone to refund us our passage-money.”
“What name did you say?” asked the clerk, counting. “Mr. and Mrs. Carr. Thank you,” and he handed her the slip of paper.
“Thank you,” said Sarah, with a bewitching smile, and swept down to her cab again. John Rex was gnawing his nails in sullen apathy. She displayed the passage-ticket. “You are saved. By the time Mr. Francis Wade gets his wits together, and his sister recovers her speech, we shall be past pursuit.”
“To Sydney!” cries Rex angrily, looking at the warrant. “Why there of all places in God's earth?”
Sarah surveyed him with an expression of contempt. “Because your scheme has failed. Now this is mine. You have deserted me once; you will do so again in any other country. You are a murderer, a villain, and a coward, but you suit me. I save you, but I mean to keep you. I will bring you to Australia, where the first trooper will arrest you at my bidding as an escaped convict. If you don't like to come, stay behind. I don't care. I am rich. I have done no wrong. The law cannot touch me—Do you agree? Then tell the man to drive to Silver's in Cornhill for your outfit.”
Having housed him at last—all gloomy and despondent—in a quiet tavern near the railway station, she tried to get some information as to this last revealed crime.
“How came you to kill Lord Bellasis?” she asked him quietly.
“I had found out from my mother that I was his natural son, and one day riding home from a pigeon match I told him so. He taunted me—and I struck him. I did not mean to kill him, but he was an old man, and in my passion I struck hard. As he fell, I thought I saw a horseman among the trees, and I galloped off. My ill-luck began then, for the same night I was arrested at the coiner's.”