[CHAPTER X
SIR PAUL IN PERIL]
It was all very well for Melun to tell Westerham that he was a strong man armed. But was he?
Westerham pondered over this problem with a puzzled frown. In spite of the checks he had met with, he still felt himself to be, as Melun had said, a strong man. And when he came to a tight corner he was armed for the struggle, and had less fear of things than had Melun.
At times also it seemed as if his ingenuity was greater than the captain's. But, for all that, did he really hold the upper hand? As he impartially summed the matter up for himself it seemed to him that he did not.
On the Gigantic he had laughed that Melun should hope to find in his possession anything to make him an easy prey to blackmail. Yet here he was, a prey to the worst blackmail of all—a species of blackmail of the heart. On every hand, and at every turn, no matter in what direction he might strike out, he was more than met and baffled by the one dominant fact that the faintest breath of publicity would inevitably lose him Lady Kathleen.
So great, however, and so entirely unselfish was his love for the Premier's daughter, that he would have faced even that loss bravely could it have brought any peace to the hunted girl's mind. But he realised that to relinquish his claims would be immediately to throw her into the arms of Melun. Westerham shuddered when he thought of that.
No, crippled and cramped though he was, he must certainly go on—go on in the blind hope that he could find something which would enable him to deal Melun a blow from which he could not recover.
This, however, on further thought, seemed a rather laissez faire policy to follow. It was ridiculous to think that, in spite of his handicap, he should be beaten and bested at every turn by such a man as Melun.