"No," said Mr. Wyndham, bitterly, "I expect nothing. You will turn Rhadamanthus, and have justice, though the heavens fall, I dare say. You will publish my misdoings on the house-tops, and at the street-corners. It will be a rare treat for Speckport, and Mr. Val Blake will awake all at once, and find himself famous!"
Mr. Blake listened with the same face of stone.
"I will do what is right and above-board, Mr. Wyndham. I will have no act or part in any plot as long as I live. The only one I ever had a hand in was that affair of Cherrie's, and I was sorry enough for that afterward. If Nathalie Marsh were my sister, I could scarcely care more for her than I do; but I tell you I would sooner know she was dead and buried out there, than living, and as she is. I am sorry for you, Mr. Wyndham, for I had some faith in you; but it is out of all reason to ask me to conceal such a crime as this."
"I ask for nothing," Paul Wyndham said, more in sorrow than in anger. "I am entirely at your mercy. Heaven knows it does not matter much what becomes of me, but it is hard to think of her name—my poor dear!—dragged through the slime of the streets."
Perhaps Val Blake was sorry for him in his secret heart—for it was a kindly heart, too, was Val's—but his face did not show it. He lifted his hat, and turned to go.
"I shall be as merciful as is compatible with justice," he said; "before I make this matter known to the proper authorities, you shall be warned. But there are others who must be told to-morrow. She must have medical advice at once, for she is evidently dying by inches; her mother must know, and—" His hand was on the lock of the door as he stopped, and faced round—"and the woman you have wronged. As to your secret power over her, you need not make such a mystery of it. I know what it is!"
"You!" Paul Wyndham said, turning his powerful gray eyes upon him. "You, Blake! Impossible!"
Mr. Blake nodded intelligently.
"She is not the true heiress! Ah! I see I am right! I have had reason to think so for some time past; but I never was sure until to-night. Oh, yes! I know the secret, and I know more. I think I can put my hand on one who is the heiress, before to-morrow's sun goes down."
There flashed through Paul Wyndham's mind what Olive had said, in that first stormy interview they had held, about the true heiress, who had made over to her the true estate. What if it had been true?