"But there is more," he answered, advancing again. "This time I can make the offer more attractive. Marry me, and Caryll is not only free to depart, but no evidence shall be laid against him. I swear it! Refuse me, and he hangs as surely—as surely as you and I talk together here this moment."
Cold eyes scathed him with contempt. "God!" she cried. "What manner of monster are you, my lord? To speak so—to speak of marriage to me, and to speak of hanging a man who is son to that same father of yours who lies above stairs, not yet turned cold. Are you human at all?"
"Ay—and in nothing so human as in my love for you, Hortensia."
She put her hands to her face. "Give me patience!" she prayed. "The insult of it after what has passed! Let me go, sir; open that door, and let me go."
He stood regarding her a moment, with lowering brows. Then he turned, and went slowly to the door. "He dies, remember!" said he, and the words, the sinister tone and the sinister look that was stamped upon his face, shattered her spirit as at a blow.
"No, no!" she faltered, and advanced a step or two. "Oh, have pity!"
"When you show me pity," he answered.
She was beaten. "You—you swear to let him go—to see him safely out of England—if—if I consent?"
His eyes blazed. He came back swiftly, and she stood, a frozen thing, passively awaiting him; a frozen thing, she let him take her in his arms, yielding herself in horrific surrender.
He held her close a moment, the blood surging to his face, and glowing darkly through the swarthy skin. "Have I conquered, then?" he cried. "You'll marry me, Hortensia?"
"At that price," she answered piteously, "at that price."
"Shalt find me a gentle, loving husband, ever. I swear it before Heaven!" he vowed, the ardor of his passion softening his nature, as steel is softened in the fire.
"Then be it so," she said, and her tone was less cold, for she began to glow, as it were, with the ardor of the sacrifice that she was making—began to experience the exalted ecstasy of martyrdom. "Save him, and you shall find me ever a dutiful wife to you, my lord—a dutiful wife."
"And loving?" he demanded greedily.
"Even that. I promise it," she answered.
With a hoarse cry, he stooped to kiss her; then, with an oath, he checked, and flung her from him so violently that she hurtled to a chair and sank to it, overbalanced. "No," he roared, like a mad thing now. "Hell and damnation—no!"
A wild frenzy of jealousy had swept aside his tenderness. He was sick and faint with the passion of it of this proof of how deeply she must love that other man. He strove to control his violence. He snarled at her, in his endeavors to subdue the animal, the primitive creature that he was at heart. "If you can love him so much as that, he had better hang, I think." He laughed on a high, fierce note. "You have spoke his sentence, girl! D'ye think I'd take you so—at second hand? Oh, s'death! What d'ye deem me?"
He laughed again—in his throat now, a quivering; half-sobbing laugh of anger—and crossed to the door, her eyes following him, terrified; her mind understanding nothing of this savage. He turned the key, and flung wide the door with a violent gesture. "Bring him in!" he shouted.
They entered—Mr. Caryll with the footmen at his heels, a frown between his brows, his eyes glancing quickly and searchingly from Rotherby to Hortensia. After him came her ladyship, no less inquisitive of look. Rotherby dismissed the lackeys, and closed the door again. He flung out an arm to indicate Hortensia.
"This little fool," he said to Caryll, "would have married me to save your life."
Mr. Caryll raised his brows. The words relieved his fears. "I am glad, sir, that you perceive she would have been a fool to do so. You, I take it, have been fool enough to refuse the offer."
"Yes, you damned play-actor! Yes!" he thundered. "D'ye think I want another man's cast-offs?"
"That is an overstatement," said Mr. Caryll. "Mistress Winthrop is no cast-off of mine."
"Enough said!" snapped Rotherby. He had intended to say much, to do some mighty ranting. But before Mr. Caryll's cold half-bantering reduction of facts to their true values, he felt himself robbed of words. "You hang!" he ended shortly.
"Ye're sure of that?" questioned Mr. Caryll.
"I would I were as sure of Heaven."
"I think you may be—just about as sure," Mr. Caryll rejoined, entirely unperturbed, and he sauntered forward towards Hortensia. Rotherby and his mother watched him, exchanging glances.
Then Rotherby shrugged and sneered. "'Tis his bluster," said he. "He'll be a farceur to the end. I doubt he's half-witted."
Mr. Caryll never heeded him. He was bending beside Hortensia. He took her hand, and bore it to his lips. "Sweet," he murmured, "'twas a treason that you intended. Have you, then, no faith in me? Courage, sweetheart, they cannot hurt me."
She clutched his hands, and looked up into his eyes. "You but say that to comfort me!" she cried.
"Not so," he answered gravely. "I tell you no more than what is true. They think they hold me. They will cheat, and lie and swear falsely to the end that they may destroy me. But they shall have their pains for nothing."
"Ay—depend upon that," Rotherby mocked him. "Depend upon it—to the gallows."
Mr Caryll's curious eyes smiled upon his brother, but his lips were contemptuous. "I am of your own blood, Rotherby—your brother," he said again, "and once already out of that consideration I have spared your life— because I would not have a brother's blood upon my hands." He sighed, and continued: "I had hoped that you had enough humanity to do the same. I deplore that you should lack it; but I deplore it for your own sake, because, after all, you are my brother. Apart from that, it matters nothing to me."
"Will it matter nothing when you are proved a Jacobite spy?" cried her ladyship, enraged beyond endurance by this calm scorn of them. "Will it matter nothing when it is proved that you carried that letter, and would have carried that other—that you were empowered to treat in your exiled master's name? Will that matter nothing?"
He looked at her an instant, then, as if utterly disdaining to answer her, he turned again to Rotherby. "I were a fool and blind, did I not see to the bottom of this turbid little puddle upon which you think to float your argosies. You are selling me. You are to make a bargain with the government to forbear the confiscations your father has incurred out of consideration of the service you can render by disclosing this plot, and you would throw me in as something tangible—in earnest of the others that may follow. Have I sounded the depths of your intent?"
"And if you have—what then?" demanded sullen Rotherby.
"This, my lord," answered Mr. Caryll, and he quoted: "'The man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him. Remember that!"'
They looked at him, impressed by the ringing voice in which he had spoken-a voice in which the ring was of mingled mockery and exultation. Then her ladyship shook off the impression, and laughed.
"With what d'ye threaten us?" she asked contemptuously.
"I—threaten, ma'am? Nay, I am incapable of threatening. I do not threaten. I have reasoned with you, exhorted you, shown you cause why, had you one spark of decency left, you would allow me to depart and shield me from the law you have invoked to ruin me. I have hoped for your own sakes that you would be moved so to do. But since you will not—" He paused and shrugged. "On your own heads be it."
"On our own heads be what?" demanded Rotherby.
But Mr. Caryll smiled, and shook his head. "Did you know all, it might indeed influence your decision; and I would not have that happen. You have chosen, have you not, Rotherby? You will sell me; you will hang me—me, your father's son. Poor Rotherby! From my soul I pity you!"
"Pity me? Death! You impudent rogue! Keep your pity for those that need it."
"That is why I offer it you, Rotherby," said Mr. Caryll, almost sadly. "In all my life, I have not met a man who stood more sorely in need of it, nor am I ever like to meet another."
There was a movement without, a tap at the door; and Humphries entered to announce Mr. Green's return, accompanied by Mr. Second Secretary Templeton, and without waiting for more, he ushered them into the room.
