The Shady ’un contrived to nod, and to screw his head again in the direction of the door; Philip, glancing at it, saw that it stood some two inches open. Giving the Shady ’un one final squeeze and shake, he flung him away, so that he fell on his back on the mud—gently pushed open the door—and crept in. The Shady ’un, the instant that Philip had disappeared into the hut, got slowly to his feet, and then scurried away in the darkness towards the streets.
Inside the hut, Philip found himself in a maze of poles, and ropes, and planks, and dusty tattered sails; gliding among these—(the shed had evidently belonged to a boat-builder, and had long been abandoned)—he peered past them into the shed itself, where a faint light glimmered.
As his eyes became accustomed to the twilight of the place, he saw that the light in it came from a guttering candle, thrust into the neck of a bottle, and stood upon a table. Near this table, and at the further end of the room, stood Madge Barnshaw. At the side of it nearest to where Philip stood concealed, and with his back towards the door, stood Ogledon. With his hands clasped behind his back, and his head thrust forward towards the girl, he seemed to menace her, even while he was silent. And yet, though he seemed to have her at his mercy, he had about him a dogged air of being at bay himself, and desperate. From the first words Philip heard, as he stood there in the darkness watching them, it appeared that Madge had only just reached the place, and was still ignorant of the full extent of her own danger.
“You sent for me in desperate haste, Mr. Ogledon,” she said—“to tell me about Dandy Chater—to tell me the truth about him.”
“Yes—I’ll tell you all the truth about Dandy Chater,” he said, sneeringly.
“I have taken a long journey, in the full hope that you might help him—that you might show me a way to prove his innocence, and set him free,” she said, in the same earnest pleading voice. “If you can do that—if you will help him—I will bless you from the depths of my grateful heart; I will believe that you are true and kind and generous; and I will beg you to forget any harsh thing I may ever have said to you.”
He moved nearer to the table, and leant his hands upon it, and looked at her across the flickering candle-light. “I have read somewhere,” he said, slowly—“in some book made for babes and sucklings—that the love of a woman will make an angel of a man—and raise him up, and exalt him. It’s a lie; no such thing ever happened. So far as I have loved, the love of a woman is a thing wherein are bound up hatred and bitterness and murder—and every devil-made thing that belongs to the darkness. They talk of a woman scorned; what think you of a man scorned? What think you of a man, who—eating his heart out for one smile—one word of tenderness from a mere slip of a girl—is met by looks which show him only disgust and repugnance? You thought it a fine thing to fling aside the love of a man like myself, and take up with a mere boy—didn’t you?”
“I never flung aside your love,” replied the girl, scornfully. “I told you, from the first, that I could not care for you—that I loved some one else. Had you been a gentleman—even a man——”
“A gentleman!” he sneered. “What has gentility to do with this business? It’s a question between a man and a woman—and you shall find that the man wins. Oh—my pretty maid—I swore a long time ago that no other man should stand between you and myself; I swore that I would have you, and would bend you as it pleased me—or break you. Yes—you’ve roused a lurking devil in me—and I’ll stick at nothing now. First—let us understand each other, in regard to Dandy Chater.”
He took a turn or two about the room, with his head bent, as though undecided what to say, or what to leave unsaid. At last, going to his former position near the table and standing there, he began to say what he had to say.