CHAPTER XII.

We are back once more at Linden Villa. It is a March evening, and the clock has just struck nine. George Crofton is smoking a cigar, and gazing fixedly into the fire, seeing pictures in the glowing embers which are anything but pleasant ones, if one may judge by the lowering expression of his face. He looks haggard and careworn, and is no longer so fastidious with regard to his personal appearance as he used to be. Dissipation has set its unmistakable seal upon him; he has the air of a man who is going slowly but surely downhill.

His wife is amusing herself somewhat listlessly at the piano. There is a slightly worn look about her eyes, and the line of her lips looks thinner and more hard set than it was wont to do. Married life had not brought Stephanie the happiness, or even the content, she had looked forward to. The awakening had come soon, and had not been a pleasant one. Not long had it taken her to discover that she had mated herself with an inveterate gambler, if not with something worse. So long as plump young pigeons were to be had for the plucking, matters had gone on swimmingly at Linden Villa. There had been no lack of money, and Stephanie had never cared to inquire too curiously how it had been come by. But after a time Crofton's wonderful luck at cards began to be commented upon; people began to be shy of playing at the same table with him; pigeons were warned to avoid him; and when, one unfortunate evening, he was detected cheating at the club, and unmasked by a member cleverer in that particular line than himself, his career in that sphere of life came to an end for ever. But his ambition had not been satisfied with the comparatively small gains of the card-table; he had bet heavily on the St. Leger and other races, and had been unfortunate in all. So far he had been able to meet his racing liabilities, but the doing so had exhausted the whole of his available resources, and matters at Linden Villa had now come to a pass that might almost be termed desperate.

Stephanie brought her roulades to an end with a grand crash; then turning half round she said in her clear metallic tones: "Have you anything to talk about, mon ange? Have you nothing to say to me?" Her husband's back was towards her as he sat brooding sullenly in front of the fire. "It is not often that you stay at home of an evening, and when you do--chut! I might as well be alone."

He shrugged his shoulders. What would you have me talk about? Our debts--our difficulties--our"----

"Why not?" she broke in quickly. "If you talked about them a little oftener, it might be all the better. You seem neither to know nor care anything about them. You are out from morning till night. It is I who have to promise, to cajole, to lie, first to one person and then to another who come here demanding money when I have none to give them. Oh, it is a charming life--mine! N'importe. It will end itself in a little while."

"What do you mean? What new trick are you hatching now?" he demanded.

"It is nothing new--it has been in my head for a long time. Shall I tell you what it is? Why not?" The fingers of one hand were still resting on the piano. She struck a note or two carelessly, and then went on speaking as quietly as though she were mentioning some trifling detail of everyday life. "One evening, cheri, when you come home you will not find me; I shall be gone. This life suits me no longer. I will change it all. I will go back to the life I used to love so well. I have had a letter. Signor Ventelli is at Brussels; he prays to me to return to him. I shall go. You and I my friend, can no longer live together. It will be better for both that we should part." Again her fingers struck a note or two carelessly.

Crofton was roused at last. He started to his feet with an imprecation and faced his wife. "What confounded stuff and nonsense you are talking, Steph," he exclaimed. "As if I believed a word of it!"

"Do I ever say that I will do a thing when I do not intend doing it?" she quietly asked.--In his own mind he was obliged to confess that she did not.--"We have made a mistake, you and I, and have found it out in time," she resumed. "We can be friends, always friends--why not! But you will go your way, and I mine; that is all."

The cold indifference of her tone and manner stung him to the quick. Evidently she was minded to cast him off as carelessly as she would an old glove. The sullen fire in his heart blazed up in a moment. He loved this woman after a fashion of his own, and was in nowise inclined to let her go. "What you say is utter nonsense. I would have you remember that you are my wife, and that I can claim you as such anywhere and everywhere."

"And do you imagine that if I were twenty times a wife I should allow you or any other man to claim me as such against my will!" demanded Steph with a contemptuous laugh. "Tza! tza! my friend, you talk like a child."

They were standing face to face, and for a few moments they stared at each other without speaking; but the clear resolute light that shone out of Steph's eyes cowed, for a time at least, the fitful, dangerous gleam flickering redly in her husband's bloodshot orbs, as though it were a reflection from some Tophet below.

George Crofton turned away, and crossing to the sideboard, poured himself out a quantity of brandy. "You would be a fool, Steph, to leave me as you talk of doing, were it only for one thing," he said dryly. He seemed to have quite recovered his equanimity, and was choosing a cigar as he spoke.

"If it pleases me to be a fool, why not?"

"Has it never occurred to you that any morning the newspapers may tell us that my cousin, Gerald Brooke, has been captured? Every day, that is the first news I look for."

"Ah, bah! you mock yourself. Your cousin will never be arrested now; he has got safe away to some foreign country long ago."

"You have no ground for saying that. Any hour may bring the tidings of his capture, and then---- But you know already what the result of his conviction would be to you and me. Beechley Towers and six thousand a year--nothing less."

"You deceive yourself," resumed Steph. "You are waiting for what will never happen. Nine months have passed since the murder, and the crime is half forgotten. You let Gerald Brooke slip through your fingers once; but you will never have the chance of doing so again.--Let us come back to realities, to the things we can touch. Dreams never had any charms for me."

He went back to the fireplace with his cigar, and took up a position on the hearthrug. "As you say--let us stick to realities; it may perhaps be the wisest," he went on. "What, then, would you think, what would you say, if I were to tell you as a fact that in less than six weeks from to-day I shall be in possession of ten thousand pounds?"

"I should both think and say that it was not a fact, but a dream, a--what do you call it?--a Will-o'-the-wisp."

"And yet it is not a dream, but a sober solid fact, as a very short time will prove."

She raised her eyebrows; evidently, she was incredulous. "Yon made sure that you would win two thousand pounds at Doncaster, whereas you contrived to lose five hundred. You were just as certain that you would win"----

"What I am referring to now has nothing to do with horseracing," he broke in impatiently.--"Listen!" he added; and with that he planted himself astride a chair and confronted her, resting his arms on the back of it and puffing occasionally at his cigar as he talked. "I am about to tell you something which it was my intention not to have spoken about till later on; but it matters little whether you are told now or a month hence." He moved his chair nearer to her, and when he next spoke it was in a lower voice: "The young Earl of Leamington, who is enormously rich, is to be married on the 27th of next month. On the 14th of April one of the partners in a certain well-known firm of London jewellers, accompanied by an assistant, will start for the Earl's seat in the north carrying with him jewelry of the value of over twenty thousand pounds, for the purpose of enabling his lordship to select certain presents for his bride. That box of jewelry will never reach its destination."

Stephanie was staring at him with wide-open eyes. "You would not"----she exclaimed, and then she paused.

"Yes, I would, and will," he answered with a sinister smile. "I and certain friends of mine have planned to make that box our own. The whole scheme is cut and dried; all the arrangements in connection with the journey are known to us; and so carefully have our plans been worked out, that it is next to impossible that we should fail."

"And you, George Crofton, my husband, have sunk to this--that you would become a common robber, a thief, a voleur!"

His face darkened ominously, and the gash in his lip looked as large again as it usually did. "What would you have?" he asked with a snarl. "My cursed ill-luck has driven me to it. I cannot starve, neither will I."

For a little while neither spoke.

"I didn't think you would take my news like this, Steph," he said presently. "Think of the prize! How is it possible for a man fixed as I am to resist trying to make it his own? One half comes to me because the plan is mine, but of course I can't work without confederates. My share will be worth ten thousand at the very least; and then, hey presto for the New World and a fresh start in life with a clean slate!--What say you, Steph?"

"At present, I say nothing more than I have said already," she answered coldly. "I must have time to think."