Chapter 14

SOME PLAIN SPEAKING

I took three steps toward her and stood still. For this was Jacqueline; but it was not _my_ Jacqueline. It might have been Jacqueline's grandmother when she was a girl--this haughty belle with her high waist and side curls, and her flounced skirt and aspect of cold recognition.

She did not stir as I approached her, but stood still, framed in the door-way, looking at me as though I were an unwelcome stranger. My outstretched arms fell to my sides. I halted three paces in front of her. There was no answering welcome on her face, only a cold little smile that showed she knew me.

"Jacqueline!" I cried. "It is I, Paul! You know me, Jacqueline?"

Jacqueline inclined her head. "Oh, yes; I know you, _monsieur_," she answered. "Why have you come here?"

"To see you, Jacqueline! To save you, Jacqueline!"

She made me a mocking courtesy. "I am infinitely obliged to you, _monsieur_, for your good will," she said; "but I do not need your aid. I am with friends now, M.--M. Paul!"

I withdrew a little way and leaned my hand against the table for support, breathing heavily. Behind me I heard the click, click of the roulette-ball as it pursued its course around the wheel. The old dotard had already forgotten me, and was playing with his right hand against his left again.

"Do you not want to see me, Jacqueline?" I asked, watching her through a whirling fog.

"No, _monsieur_," she answered chillingly. "No, _monsieur_!"

"Do you wish me to go?"

She said nothing, and I walked unsteadily toward the door. She followed me slowly. I went out of the room and pulled the door to behind me. I knew that after it had closed I should never see Jacqueline again.

She opened it and stood confronting me; and then burst into a flood of impassioned speech.

"Why have you followed me here to persecute me?" she cried. "Are you under the illusion that I am helpless? Do you think the friends who rescued me from you have forgotten that you exist? You took advantage of my helplessness. I do not want to see you. I hate you!"

"You told me that you loved me, and I believed you, Jacqueline," I answered miserably, watching the colour flame to her lovely face. And I could see she remembered that.

"When I was ill you used me for your own base schemes," she went on with cutting emphasis. "And you--you followed me here. Do you think that I am unprotected, and that you are dealing only with an old man and a helpless woman? Why, I have friends who would come in and kill you if I but raised my voice!"

"Raise your voice, _mademoiselle_. I am ready for your friends," I answered.

She looked less steadily at me and seemed to waver.

"What have you come for?" she asked. "Have you not had money enough? Do you want more?"

I seized her by the wrists. Thus I held her at arm's length, and my fingers tightened until I saw the flesh grow white beneath them. The intensity of my rage beat hers down and made it a puny thing.

"Jacqueline! You take me for an adventurer?" I cried. "Is _that_ what they told you? Why do you think I brought you so near your home when you were, as you said, helpless? Only a few nights ago you said you loved me; that you would never send me away until I wished to go. What is it that has happened to change you so, Jacqueline?"

I had her in my arms. She struggled fiercely, and I let her go.

"How dare you, _monsieur_!" she panted. "Go at once, or I shall call for aid!"

So I went into the passage; and as I left the room I could still hear the hellish click of the ivory ball in the roulette-wheel. I was utterly confounded.

But before I reached the end of the little hall Jacqueline came running back to me.

"Monsieur!" she gasped. "M. Paul! For the sake of--of what I once thought you, I do not want you to be seen. You are in dreadful danger. Come back!"

"Never mind the danger, _madame_," I answered, and I saw her flinch at the word and look at me in dazed bewilderment. "Never mind my danger."

"It is for your own sake, _monsieur_," she said more gently.

"No, Mme. d'Epernay," I answered; and she winced again, as though I had struck her across the face.

"For my sake," she pleaded, catching at my arm, and at that moment I heard a door slam underneath and heavy footsteps begin slowly to ascend the stairs.

"No, _madame_," I answered, trying to release my arm from her clasp. Her face was full of fear, and I knew it was fear of the man below, not me.

"Then for the sake of--our love, Paul!" she gasped.

I suffered her to lead me back into the room. In truth, I was in no hurry to go. As she drew me back and closed the door behind us I heard the footsteps pause and turn along the corridor.

I knew that heavy gait as well as though I already saw Leroux's hard face before my eyes.

Jacqueline pushed me inside the room behind her father's chair and closed, but did not hasp, the door. The room was completely dark, and I did not know whether it connected with other rooms or was a mere closet, but the freshness of the air in it inclined me to the former view.

Over my head the torrent roared, and I had to stand very close to the door to hear what passed.

I heard Leroux tramp in and his voice mingling with the _click-click_ of the ball in the roulette-wheel.

"Who is here?" he demanded.

"I am," answered Jacqueline.

"I thought I heard Lacroix," said Leroux thickly.

"I have not seen M. Lacroix to-day," Jacqueline returned.

Leroux stamped heavily about the room and then sat down. I heard the legs of his chair scratch the wooden floor as he drew it up to the table.

"_Maudit_!" he burst out explosively. "Where is d'Epernay? I am tired of waiting for him!"

"I have told you many times that I do not know," answered Jacqueline; and there followed the _click-click_ of the ball inside the wheel again.

"How long will you keep up this pretense, _madame_?" cried Leroux angrily. "What have you to gain by concealing the knowledge of your husband from me?"

"M. Leroux, why will you not believe that I remember nothing?" answered Jacqueline.

"How can you have forgotten? Why did you run away after marrying him? What were you doing in New York? Who was the man who accompanied you to the Merrimac?" he shouted.

Through the chink of the door I saw the old man look up in mild protest at the disturbing sounds. I clenched my fists, and the temptation to make an end of Leroux was almost too strong for my restraint.

But to Jacqueline the insult conveyed no meaning, and Leroux continued in more moderate tones.

"Come, _madame_, why do you not play fair with me?" he asked. "Who is that man Hewlett, and why did he accompany you so far toward your _château_? Before God, I know your husband and he have been plotting with Tom Carson against me, but why he should thus place himself in my power I cannot understand."

"Ah, you have spoken of a Tom Carson many times," said Jacqueline. "Soon, _monsieur_, I shall begin to believe that such a person really exists."

"Tell me where you met Hewlett."

"I tell you for the last time, _monsieur_, that I do not remember. But what I do remember I shall tell you. After my father had turned M. Louis d'Epernay out of his home, whither he had come to beg money to pay his gambling debts, you brought him back. You made my father take him in. He wanted to marry me. But I refused, because I had no love for him. But you insisted I should marry him, because he had gained you the entrance to the seigniory and helped you to acquire your power over my father. Oh, yes, _monsieur_, let us be frank with each other, as you have expressed the desire to be."

"Go on," growled Leroux, biting his lips. "Perhaps I shall learn something."

"Nothing that you do not already know, _monsieur_," she flashed out with spirit. "My father came here, long ago, a political fugitive, in danger of death. You knew this, and you played upon his fears. You brought your friends and encouraged him to gamble and waste his money in his old age, when his mind had become enfeebled.

"Yes, you played on the old gambling instinct which had laid dormant in him for forty years. You made him think he was acting the _grand seigneur_, as his father had done in earlier days, in his other home at St. Boniface.

"You drained him of his last penny, and then you offered him ten thousand dollars to gamble with in Quebec, telling him of the delights of the city and promising him immunity," the girl went on remorselessly. "And for this he was to assign his property to Louis, thinking, of course, that he could soon make his fortune at the tables. And Louis was to marry me, and in turn sell the seigniory to you. And so I married Louis under threat of death to my father.

"Oh, yes, _monsieur_, the plan was simple and well devised. And I knew nothing of it. But Louis d'Epernay blurted it all out to me upon our wedding night. I think the shame of knowing that I had been sold to him unhinged my mind, for I ran out into the snows.

"Now you know all, _monsieur_, for I remember nothing more until I found myself travelling back with M. Hewlett in the sleigh. You say I was in New York. Well, I do not remember it.

"And as for Louis d'Epernay, I know nothing of him--but I will die before he claims me as his wife!"

She had grown breathless as she proceeded with her scathing denunciation and now stood facing him with an aspect of fearless challenge on her face. And then I had the measure of Leroux. He laughed, and he beat down her scorn with scorn.

"You have underestimated your price, _madame_," he sneered. "Since you have learned so much, I will tell you more. You have cost me twenty thousand dollars, and not ten; for besides the ten thousand paid to your father, Louis got ten thousand also, upon the signing of the marriage contract. So swallow that, and be proud of being priced so high! And the seigniory is already his, and I am waiting for him to return and sell me the ground rights for twenty-five thousand more, and if I know Louis d'Epernay he will not wait very long to get his fingers round it."

Jacqueline stood watching him with supreme indifference.

The man's coarse gibes had flown past her without wounding her, as they would have hurt a lower nature.

"No doubt he will return," she answered quietly. "If he would take ten thousand for me, surely he will take twenty-five thousand for the seigniory. You have us in your power."

"Then why the devil doesn't he come?" roared Leroux. "If he is intriguing with Carson, by God, I know enough to shut him up in jail the rest of his life. And so, _madame_," he ended quietly, "it will perhaps be worth your while to tell me why Tom Carson sent this Hewlett back to the _château_; for no doubt the wolves have picked him pretty clean by now."

"Listen to me, Simon Leroux," said Jacqueline, standing up before him, as indomitable in spirit as he. "All your plots and schemes mean nothing to me. My only aim is to take my father away from here, from you and M. d'Epernay, and let you wrangle over your spoil. There are more than four-legged wolves, M. Leroux; there are human ones, and, like the others, when food is scarce they prey upon each other."

"I like your spirit!" exclaimed Simon, staring at her with frank admiration.

And Jacqueline's head drooped then. Unwittingly Simon had pierced her defences.

But he never knew, for before he had time to know the grey-beard rose upon his feet and rubbed his thin hands together, chuckling.

"Never mind your money, Simon," he said. "I'm going to be richer than any of you. Do you know what I did with that ten thousand? I gave it to my little daughter, and she has gone to New York to make our fortunes at Mr. Daly's gaming-house. No, there she is!" he suddenly exclaimed. "She has come back!"

Leroux wheeled round and looked from one to the other.

"So that was the purpose of your visit to New York?" he asked the girl. "So--you have not quite forgotten that, _madame_! Your price was not too vile a thing for you to take it to New York with you! Your shame was not too great for you to remember that your father had ten thousand dollars!"

"It was not mine," she flashed back at Leroux. "My father would have lost it again to you. I took it to New York because I thought that I could make enough to give him a home during the rest of his days. Do you think I would have touched a penny of it, _monsieur_?"

"I don't know," answered Leroux. "But we will soon find out. Where is that money, _madame_?"

Jacqueline's lips quivered. I saw her glance involuntarily toward the door behind which I was standing.

And suddenly the last phase of the problem became clear to me. Jacqueline thought I had robbed her.

I stepped from behind the door and faced Leroux. "I have that money," I said curtly.

I saw his face turn white. He staggered back, and then, with a bull's bellow, rushed at me, his heavy fists aloft. I think he could have beaten out my brains with them.

But he stopped short when he saw my automatic pistol pointing at his chest. And he saw in my face that I was ready to shoot to kill.

"You thief--you spy--you treacherous hound, I'll murder you!" he roared.

The dotard, who had been looking at me, came forward.

"No, no, I won't have him murdered, Simon," he protested, laying a trembling hand on Leroux's shoulder. "He has almost as good a roulette system as I have."