his freedom; and he believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life.'
To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly revealed in those four words.
In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest in her death? Knowing what I knew of him— believing him, as I did, to be capable of any atrocity—I trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour's notice, and he was the man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could make it.
'You don't seem to approve of our idea,' she said, noticing, in evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. 'I am very unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the second time.'
'You are quite mistaken,' I replied. 'I am only doubting whether your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to take place before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of insurance?'
'I know nothing about it,' she said, sadly.
'Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you.'
Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm.
'Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van Brandt,' she rejoined, 'and I will accept your help gratefully.'
I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present doubts and difficulties would be resolved.
She rose, as I rose—with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her cheeks.
'Kiss me,' she whispered, 'before you go! And don't mind my crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me.'
I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his presence, of speaking to her under his eyes?
The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the mother. It was only when the child's round, innocent little face laid itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world outside.
CHAPTER XXIX. OUR DESTINIES PART US.
DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to whom I could venture to address the question.
Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner.
'Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?' she asked. 'If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your place, I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!'
The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by personally communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now occurred to me that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, the proper persons to represent me in the matter—with this additional advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt himself.
I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner—the tried friend and adviser of our family— received me.
My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning my name to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for repayment—Mr. Van Brandt's note of hand!
'I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a gentleman can throw away his money,' the senior partner remarked. 'I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt!'
I left him, and went home.
The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her.
I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room.
'Well, George?' she said, without a word to prepare me for what was coming. 'How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?'
I was completely thrown off my guard.
'Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?' I asked.
'My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this time how you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van
