A woman's debt

by William Le Queux

“No, he did not forbid me, Dick, and I am almost as amazed as you are, but I think that reference to your mother softened him. It was a long time before he spoke, and then his words came very slowly. ‘If I allow you to do this, at any rate for the present, till I have thought matters out further, will you give me your solemn promise that you will only play the rôle of consoler, that you will do nothing rash?’ Of course I knew what he meant, that we might get secretly married. So I gave him that promise, Dick; do you blame me?”

“A thousand times No, my darling,” cried Croxton, as he took her in his arms and kissed away the tears on the sweet face. “And considering what he believes me to be, nay more, what he is sure I am, I cannot but marvel at his giving his consent.”

For a long time the young people talked together, and all through their conversation the one thought uppermost in Rosabelle’s mind was that her lover should take steps to clear himself, that he should not be content to rest under the unmerited stigma, that he should not meekly consent to pass out of their lives.

“If you do not act, I shall act myself,” she told him finally.

The young man listened attentively, and hope and resolution began to stir in him. He had been so stunned by the damning nature of the evidence against him, by the stern attitude of his once benevolent protector, that he had been crushed almost into insensibility, into a benumbing of his faculties. But, as the girl spoke in her bright, incisive way, the clouds about his brain seemed to melt. He seemed to see himself rehabilitated, able to prove to those whom it concerned that he was the honest man they had always believed him to be.

“The question is how to go to work,” he said gravely. “Mr. Morrice is right when he says that to call in Scotland Yard might lead to disastrous consequences. But we could employ a private detective to probe the mystery to the bottom. Even if he could not lay his hands on the actual thief, he might be able to prove my innocence.”

Rosabelle caught eagerly at the idea. “And where can we find the sort of man we want?”

“One of the cleverest is Gideon Lane; his office is in Shaftesbury Avenue. I know him a little, and Mr. Morrice knows him too. We employed him to watch a suspected clerk in our office, and he trapped him very cleverly.”

“Would it cost much to employ him?” asked the girl anxiously. She knew that Richard’s capital, like her own, was very small, and it was hardly likely that Morrice would spend any money on a case he had already pre-judged. It was not possible for her to help, for her uncle was her trustee and not likely to allow her to adventure a penny in such a cause.

But Croxton’s small amount of capital was entirely under his own control, and now that he was recovering from his despairing mood, he was fired with the desire to establish his innocence, and had no hesitation in employing some of it for the purpose.