“And now, look here,” he went on with a sudden change of manner. He straightened himself and looked squarely at Edward Mottisfont. “Those letters have got to be kept.”
“Now I should have thought-” began Edward, but David broke in almost violently.
“For Heaven's sake, don't start thinking, Edward.” He said: “Just you listen to me. These letters have got to be kept. They 've got to sit in a safe at a lawyer's. We 'll seal 'em up in the presence of witnesses, and send ' em off. We 're not out of the wood yet. If this business were ever to leak out-and, after all, there are four of us in it, and two of them are women-if it were ever to leak out, we should want these letters to save our necks. Yes-our necks. Good Lord, Edward, did you never realize your position? Did you never realize that any jury in the world would have hanged you on the evidence? It was damning-absolutely damning. And I come in as accessory after the fact. No, thank you, I think we 'll keep the letters, until we 're past hanging. And there 's another thing-how many people have you told? Mary, of course?”
“Yes, Mary, but no one else,” said Edward.
David made an impatient movement.
“If you 've told her, you 've told her,” he said. “Now what you 've got to do is this: you 've got to rub it into Mary that it 's just as important for her to hold her tongue now as it was before the letter came. She was safe as long as she thought your neck was in danger, but do, for Heaven's sake, get it into her head that I 'm dead damned broke, if it ever gets out that I helped to hush up a case that looked like murder and turned out to be suicide. The law would n't hang me, but I should probably hang myself. I 'd be broke. Rub that in.”
“She may have told Elizabeth,” said Edward hesitatingly. “I 'm afraid she may have told Elizabeth by now.”
“ Elizabeth does n't talk,” said David shortly.
“Nor does Mary.” Edward's tone was rather aggrieved.
“Oh, no woman ever talks,” said David.
He laughed harshly and Edward went away with his feelings of gratitude a little chilled, and a faint suspicion in his mind that David had been drinking.
CHAPTER VII. ELIZABETH CHANTREY
“Whatever ways we walk in and whatever dreams come true,
You still shall say, “God speed” to me, and I, “God go with you.”
SOME days later Elizabeth Chantrey went away for about a month, to pay a few long-promised visits. She went first to an old school-friend, then to some relations, and lastly to the Mainwarings. Agneta Mainwaring had moved to town after her mother's death, and was sharing a small flat with her brother Louis, in a very fashionable quarter. She had been engaged for about six months to Douglas Strange, and was expecting to marry him as soon as he returned from his latest, and most hazardous journey across Equatorial Africa.
“I thought you were never coming,” said Agneta, as they sat in the firelight, Louis on the farther side of the room, close to the lamp, with his head buried in a book.
“Never, never, never!” repeated Agneta, stroking the tail of Elizabeth 's white gown affectionately and nodding at every word. She was sitting on the curly black hearth-rug, a small vivid creature in a crimson dress. Agneta Mainwaring was little and dark, passionate, earnest, and frivolous. A creature of variable moods and intense affections, steadfast only where she loved. Elizabeth was watching the firelight upon the big square sapphire ring which she always wore. She looked up from it now and smiled at Agneta, just a smile of the eyes.
“Well, I am here,” she said, and Agneta went on stroking, and exclaimed:
“Oh, it 's so good to have you.”
“The world not been going nicely?” said Elizabeth.
Agneta frowned.
“Oh, so, so. Really, Lizabeth, being engaged to an explorer is the devil. Sometimes I get a letter two days running, and sometimes I don't get one for two months, and I 've just been doing the two months' stretch.”
“Then,” said Elizabeth, “you 'll soon be getting two letters together, Neta.”
“Oh, well, I did get one this morning, or I should n't be talking about it,” Agneta flushed and laughed, then frowned again. Three little wrinkles appeared upon her nose. “What worries me is that I am such a hopeless materialist about letters. Letters are rank materialism. Rank. Two people as much in touch with one another as Douglas and I oughtn't to need letters. I 've no business to be dependent on them. We ought to be able to reach one another without them. Of course we do-really -but we ought to know that we are doing it. We ought to be conscious of it. I 've no business to be dependent on wretched bits of paper, and miserable penfuls of ink. I ought to be able to do without them. And I 'm a blatant materialist. I can't.”
Elizabeth laughed a little.
“I should n't worry, if I were you. It 'll all come. You 'll get past letters when you 're ready to get past them. I don't think your materialism is of a very heavy order. It will go away if you don't fuss over it. We 'll all get past letters in time.”
Agneta tossed her head.
“Oh, I don't suppose there 'll be any letters in heaven,” she said. “I 'm sure I trust not. My idea is that we shall sit on nice comfy clouds, and play at telephones with thought-waves.”
Louis shut his book with a bang.
“Really, Agneta, if that is n't materialism.” He came over and sat down on the hearth-rug beside his sister. They were not at all alike. Where Agneta was small, Louis was large. Her hair and eyes were black, and his of a dark reddish-brown.
“I did n't know you were listening,” she said.
“Well, I was n't. I just heard, and I give you fair warning, Agneta, that if there are going to be telephones in your heaven, I 'm going somewhere else. I shall have had enough of them here. Hear the bells, the silver bells, the tintinabulation that so musically swells. From the bells, bells, bells, bells-bells, bells, bells.”
Agneta first pulled Louis's hair, and then put her fingers in her ears.
“Stop! stop this minute! Oh, Louis, please. Oh, Lizabeth, make him stop. That thing always drives me perfectly crazy, and he knows it.”
“All right. It 's done. I 've finished. I 'm much more merciful than Poe. I only wanted to point out that if that was your idea of heaven, it was n't mine.”
“Oh, good gracious!” cried Agneta suddenly. She sprang up and darted to the door.
“What 's the matter?”
“I 've absolutely and entirely forgotten to order any food for to-morrow. Any food whatever. All right, Louis, you won't laugh when you have to lunch on bread and water, and Lizabeth takes the afternoon train back to her horrible Harford place, because we have starved her.”
Louis gave a resigned sigh and leaned comfortably back against an empty chair. For some moments he gazed dreamily at Elizabeth. Then he said: “How nicely your hair shines. I like you all white and gold like that. If Browning had known you he need n't have written. 'What's become of all the gold, used to hang and brush their bosoms.' You 've got your share.”
“But my hair is n't golden at all, Louis,” said Elizabeth.
Louis frowned.
“Yes, it is,” he said, “it 's gold without the dross-gold spiritualised. And you ought to know better than to pretend. You know as well as I do that your hair is a thing of beauty. The real joy for ever sort. It 's no credit to you. You did n't make it. And you ought to be properly grateful for being allowed to walk about with a real live halo. Why should you pretend? If it was n't pretence, you would n't take so much trouble about doing it. You 'd just twist it up on a single hairpin.”
“It would n't stay up,” said Elizabeth.
“I wish it would n't. Oh, Lizabeth, won't you let it down just for once?”