“It’s no use. I can’t do it,” she gasped. “Leave me here. I shall be all right. You go on.”
He let her sink to the damp grass, and stood for a moment poised in fierce concentration. Dimly in the distance he could hear the muffled sounds made by the pursuit.
“I think we are safe enough for the time,” he said. “It would be a million to one chance if they lit on us in this. We might as well stay here for a while.”
“Couldn’t you leave me and go and get help?” she asked.
He laughed grimly. “I wouldn’t leave you in any event,” he said, “but, if I wanted to, I couldn’t. We are completely lost.”
XXIII
He took off his old tweed coat and, in spite of her protests, made her put it on to protect her from the clammy cold of the fog. Making her as comfortable as possible on the damp earth, he lit a cigarette and paced meditatively to and fro in short staccato strides, ever and again throwing a thoughtful glance upon the girl.
She lay passive and silent for a while, intent on regaining her strength, and her eyes followed him contentedly. As for Labar, he felt a sense of elation that he had at least got her from the clutches of Larry Hughes, though he chafed to think that he was held from any farther action till the night was out. He had a shrewd idea that when the pursuit proved hopeless things would happen swiftly at the house on the marshes. He could scarcely expect that Larry’s people would calmly await the return of Penelope or himself some time the next day with a posse of police. The only chance was that the fog which seemed likely to confine the girl and himself to the marsh for the night, would also delay any active measures of escape that the others might initiate.
“You are shivering,” said Penelope. “I wish you would take your coat. I feel quite warm. I really don’t need it.”
He smiled down at her. “I am perfectly all right while I move about. You rest yourself for the while. Presently we will move on, although I am afraid we shall get nowhere. Do you happen to have any idea where we are?”
She shook her head. “Beyond the fact that we are on the Romney Marshes I haven’t the faintest idea. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “It looks as if we may have to spend the night in the open. It will be a bit of an ordeal for you, I am afraid.”
The girl gave a little shiver, but she smiled at the same time. “I don’t mind that. At any rate I am out of the hands of Larry Hughes. I think I could stand anything better than the dread of what might have happened.”
He stopped abruptly in his walk, and his face became stern and set. “Did Hughes—has anyone—” He felt some difficulty in framing the question that was in his mind. “Have you been badly treated?”
“Not physically. There have been hints—threats.” She pulled herself to a sitting posture and spread an arm in an expressive gesture. “I have been on the edge of terror and despair for days. Oh, it was worse than anything that you can imagine.”
He came and sat down on the grass beside her. She made no resistance when he caught one of her hands in his own. “Not altogether,” he said. “I think that I can realise something of what you have gone through. Now I want you to tell me—not, if you will allow me to say so, as a police official but as a friend—what has happened since you were taken away from London.”
“As a friend,” she repeated.
“As something more than a friend if you will, Penelope,” he said, and his voice sounded in his own ears as a hoarse whisper. “As a man who would do anything in the world to be more than your friend. It is presumption—I am only a police inspector—you scarcely know me—but if—”
He paused aghast at his own incoherent ineptitude. The girl pulled her hand away from him and sat silent staring into the fog. Labar mentally cursed himself as something worse than an imbecile. How could it be supposed that this girl could have any interest in him in that way? If he had waited?
Penelope made an impetuous movement. He felt the rough sleeve of his old tweed coat about his neck. A cold face was near his own. He flung his arms about the girl and half laughing, half crying, she settled there in passive content. How long they remained thus he never knew. Night was adding a more sombre tinge to the fog, when she gently freed herself.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “You the wife of just an ordinary policeman.”
She put her hand in front of his mouth. “A very extraordinary policeman,” she corrected with a laugh. “I won’t have you call yourself names.”
He bent and kissed her, and then got to his feet. “Shall we move?” he asked. “You will be getting chilled.”
Hand in hand like two children, they strolled leisurely into the night and the fog. Although it was a summer night the cold was bitter. There was no possibility of finding a way out of the marsh till daylight or at least till the fog waned, but even a purposeless tramp was better than catching a cold.
As they walked they talked of many things, but at last the conversation drifted to the abduction of the girl. Although Harry Labar was a lover, he could not forget that he was also a police officer with an object to achieve.
There were
