Chapter 26

malady. Run and get it, Charley," and Millicent turned to meet her young married friend.

"Please don't trouble, Mr. Nelson. I am not in the least sea-sick," Millicent replied. "You might, however, spread out that deck chair for me. It is a passing faintness which will leave me directly."

She remembered nothing about the rest of the voyage, except that, when the steamer reached the wharf, her husband, who helped her down the gangway, said:

"I have promised to go to the conference and afterwards dine with the delegates, Millicent, so I dare say you will excuse me. I shall not be late if I can help it, and you might wait up for me."

Millicent, who had intended to wait for him, in any case, merely nodded, and went home alone. She sat beside the English hearth all evening with an open book upside down upon her knee, and her eyes turned towards the clock, which very slowly ticked away the last hours she would spend beneath her husband's roof. There was spirit in her, and though she hardly knew why, she dressed herself for the interview carefully. When Leslie entered, his eyes expressed admiration as she rose with cold dignity and stood before him. Leslie was sober, but unfortunately for himself barely so, for the delegates had been treated with lavish Western hospitality, and there had been many toasts to honor during the dinner. He leaned against the wall with one hand on a carved bracket, looking down upon her with what seemed to be a leer of brutal pride upon his slightly-flushed face.

"You excelled yourself to-day, Millicent. I saw no end of folks admiring you," he said. "Most satisfactory day! Everything went off famously! Enjoyed yourself, eh?"

"I can hardly say I did, but that is not what you asked me to wait for," was the cold answer, and Millicent with native caution waited to hear what the man wanted before committing herself.

"No. I meant it, but it wasn't. I couldn't help saying I was proud of you." Leslie paused, doubtless satisfied, his wife thought, that he had smoothed the way sufficiently by a clumsy compliment. His abilities were not at their best just then. Millicent's thin lips curled scornfully as she listened.

"Thurston will be here on Thursday," he continued. "Never liked the man, but he has behaved decently as your trustee, and I want to be fair to him. Besides, he's a rising genius, and it's as well to be on good terms with him. Couldn't you get him to stay to dinner and talk over the way they've invested your legacy?"

"Do you think he would care to meet you?" asked Millicent, cuttingly.

"Perhaps he mightn't. You could have the Nelsons over, and press of business might detain me. Anyway, you'll have no time to settle all about that money and your English property if he goes out on the Atlantic train. You two seem to have got quite friendly again, and I'm tolerably sure he'd stay if you asked him."

Millicent's anger was rising all the time; but, because her suspicions increased every moment, she kept herself in hand. Feeling certain this was part of some plot, and that her husband was not steady enough to carry out his _rôle_ cleverly, she desired to discover his exact intentions before denouncing him.

"Why should I press him?"

Had it been before the dinner Leslie might have acted more discreetly. As it was, he looked at the speaker somewhat blankly. "Why? Because I want you to. Now don't ask troublesome questions or put on your tragedy air, Millicent, but just promise to keep him here until after the east-bound train starts, anyway. I'm not asking for caprice--I--I particularly want a man to see him who will not be in the city until the following day."

Then, remembering what she had heard outside the steamer's deck house, a light suddenly broke in upon the woman. The man whose keen eyes would interfere with Shackleby's plans must be Thurston, and it was evident there was a scheme on hand to wreck his work in his absence. Once she had half-willingly assisted her husband to Thurston's detriment; but much had changed since then, and remembering that she had already, without knowing it, played into the confederate's hands by writing to him, her indignation mastered her.

"I could not persuade him against his wishes, and would not do so if I could," she declared, turning full upon her husband.

"You can and must," replied Leslie, whose passion blazed up. "I'm about sick of your obstinacy and fondness for dramatic situations. You could do anything with any man you laid yourself out to inveigle, as I know to my cost, and in this case--by the Lord, I'll make you!"

"I will not!" Millicent's face was white with anger as she fixed her eyes on him. "For a few moments you shall listen to me. What you and Shackleby are planning does not concern me; but I will not move a finger to help you. Once before you said--what you have done--and if I have never forgotten it I tried to do so. This time I shall do neither. I have borne very much from you already, but, sunk almost to your level as I am, there are things I cannot stoop to countenance. For instance, the draft I am to cajole from Thurston is not intended for a speculation in mining shares, but--for Coralie."

The little carved bracket came down from the wall with a crash, and Leslie, whose face was swollen with fury, gripped the speaker's arm savagely. "After to-morrow you can do just what pleases you and go where you will," he responded in a voice shaking with rage and fear. "But in this I will make you obey me. As to Coralie, somebody has slandered me. The money is for what I told you, and nothing else."

Millicent with an effort wrenched herself free. "It is useless to protest, for I would not believe your oath," she said, looking at him steadily with contempt showing in every line of her pose. "Obey--you! As the man I, with blind folly, abandoned for you warned me, you are too abject a thing. Liar, thief, have I not said sufficient?--adulterer!"

"Quite!" cried Leslie, who yielded to the murderous fury which had been growing upon him, and leaning down struck her brutally upon the mouth. "What I am you have made me--and, by Heaven, it is time I repaid you in part."

Millicent staggered a little under the blow, which had been a heavy one, but her wits were clear, and, moving swiftly to a bell button, the pressure of her finger was answered by a tinkle below.

"I presume you do not wish to make a public scandal," she said thickly, for the lace handkerchief she removed from her smarting lips was stained with blood. Then, as their Chinese servant appeared in the doorway, "Your master wants you, John."

Before Leslie could grasp her intentions she had vanished, there was a rustle of drapery on the stairway, followed by the jar of a lock, and he was left face to face was the stolid Asiatic.

"Wantee someling, sah?" the Chinaman asked.

Leslie glared at him speechless until, with a humble little nod, the servant said:

"Linga linga bell; too much hullee, John quick come. Wantee someling. Linga linga bell."

"Go the devil. Oh, get out before I throw you," roared Leslie, and John vanished with the waft of a blue gown, while Millicent's book crashed against the door close behind his head.