When Rosalind's contemptuous eyes abandoned that silent interchange of looks, they fell upon the envelope in Hylda Prout's hand, nor could she help noticing that round the flap it was clumsily stained with gum. Yet Osborne had written her saying that it had been unopened....

The other woman stepped to the door of the cab.

"Miss Marsh?" she inquired, with an assumed lack of knowledge that was insolent in itself.

"Yes."

"Mr. Osborne left this for you, if you called."

"Thank you."

The business was ended, yet the lady-secretary still stood there, staring brazenly at Rosalind's face.

"Drive on——"

Rosalind raised her gloved hand to attract the driver's attention.

"One moment, Miss Marsh," said Hylda, also raising a hand to forbid him to move; "I want to tell you something—You are very anxious on poor Mr. Osborne's behalf, are you not?"

"I thought he was rich? You are not to say 'poor Mr. Osborne.'"

"Is that why you are so anxious, because he is rich?" and those golden-brown eyes suddenly blazed out outrageously.

"Driver, go on, please!" cried Rosalind again.

"Wait, cabman!" cried Hylda imperiously.... "Stay a little—Miss Marsh—one word—I cannot let you waste your sympathies as you do. You believe that Mr. Osborne is friendless; and you offer him your friendship——"

"I!"

Rosalind laughed a little, a laugh with a dangerous chuckle in it that might have carried a warning to one who knew her.

"Do you not say so in that letter? In it you tell him that since the night at the sun-dial, when you were 'brutal' to him——"

"You know, then, my letter—by heart?" said Rosalind, her eyes sparkling and cheeks aflame. "That is quite charming of you! You have been at the pains to read it?"

"No, of course, Mr. Osborne wouldn't exactly show it to me, nor did I ask him. But I think you guess that I am in Mr. Osborne's confidence."

"Mr. Osborne, it would seem, has—read it? He even thought the contents of sufficient importance to repeat them to his typist? Is that so?"

"Mr. Osborne repeats many things to me, Miss Marsh—by habit. You being a stranger to him, do not know him well yet, but I have been with him some time, you see. As to his reading it, I know that you telegraphed him not to, and he received the telegram before the letter, I admit; but, the letter once in his hand, it became his private property, of course. He had a right to read it."

A stone in Rosalind's bosom where her heart had been ached like a wound; yet her lips smiled—a hard smile.

"But then, having read, to be at the pains to seal it down again!" she said. "It seems superfluous, a contemptible subterfuge."

"Oh, well," sneered Hylda, with a pouting laugh, "he is not George Washington—a little harmless deception."

"But you cry out all his secrets!"

"To you."

"Why to me?"

"I save you from troubling your head about him. He is not so friendless as you have imagined."

"Happy man! And was it you who wrote me the anonymous information that he was not Glyn but Osborne?"

"No, that was someone else."

And now Rosalind, blighting her with her icy smile, which no inward fires could melt, said contemplatively:

"I am afraid you are not speaking the truth. I shall tell Mr. Osborne to get rid of you."

The dart was well planted. The paid secretary's lips twitched and quivered.

"Try it! He'll laugh at you!" she retorted.

"No, I think he will do it—to please me!"

Sad to relate, our gracious Rosalind was deliberately adding oil to the fires of hate and rage that she saw devouring Hylda Prout; and when Hylda again spoke it was from a fiery soul that peered out of a ghost's face.

"Will he?—to please you?" she said low, hissingly, leaning forward. "He has a record in a diary of the girls he has kissed, and the number of days from the first sight to the first kiss. He only wanted to see in how few days he could secure you."

This vulgarity astonished its hearer. Rosalind shrank a little; her smile became forced and strained; she could only murmur:

"Oh, you needn't be so bourgeoise."

Hylda chuckled again maliciously.

"It's the mere truth."

"Still, I think I shall warn him against you, and have you dismissed,"—this with that feminine instinct of the dagger that plunged deepest, the lash that cut most bitterly.

"You try!" hissed Hylda sharply, as it were secretly, with a nod of menace. "I am not anybody! I am not some defenseless housemaid, the only rival you have experienced hitherto, perhaps. I am—at any rate, you try! You dare! Touch me, and I'll wither your arm——"

"Drive on!" cried Rosalind almost in a scream.

"Wait!" shrilled Hylda—"you shall hear me!"

"Cabman, please——!" wailed Rosalind despairingly.

And now at last the cab was off, Hylda Prout running with it to pant into it some final rancor; and when it left her, she remained there on the pavement a minute, unable to move, trembling from head to foot, watching the vehicle as it sped away from her.

When she re-entered the library the first thing that she saw was Rosalind's cross-folded note to Osborne, and, still burning inwardly, she snatched it up, tore it open, and read:

I will write again. Meantime, high hope! I have discovered that your purloined dagger has been in the possession of the late lady's-maid, Pauline. "A small thing but mine own." I am now taking it to Inspector Furneaux's.

R. M.

Hylda dashed the paper to the ground, put her foot on it, then catching it up, worried it in her hands to atoms which she threw into a waste-paper basket. Then she collapsed into a chair at her desk, her arms thrown heedlessly over some documents, and her face buried between them.

"I have gone too far, too far, too far——"

Now that her passion had burnt to ashes this was her thought. A crisis, it was clear, had come, and something had to be done, to be decided, now—that very day. Rosalind would surely tell Osborne what she, Hylda, had said, how she had acted, and then all would be up with Hylda, no hope left, her whole house in ruins about her, not one stone left standing on another. Either she must bind Osborne irrevocably to her at once, or her brain must devise some means of keeping Osborne and Rosalind from meeting—or both. But how achieve the apparently impossible? Osborne, she knew, was at that moment at Rosalind's residence, and if Rosalind was now going home ... they would meet! Hylda moved her buried head from side to side, woe-ridden, in the grip of a hundred fangs and agonies. She had boasted to Rosalind that she was not a whimpering housemaid, but of a better texture: and if that was an actual truth, the present moment must prove it. Yet she sat there with a buried head, weakly weeping....

Suddenly she thought of the words in Rosalind's note to Osborne, which she had thrown into the basket: "I have discovered that your purloined dagger has been in the possession of the late lady's-maid, Pauline.... I am now taking it to Inspector Furneaux's...."

That, then, was the person who had the dagger which had been so sought and speculated about—Pauline Dessaulx!

And at the recollection of the name, Hylda's racked brain, driven to invent, invented like lightning. Up she sprang, caught at her hat, and rushed away, pinning it on to her magnificent red hair in her flight, her eyes staring with haste. In the street she leapt into a motor-cab—to Soho.

She was soon there. As if pursued by furies she pelted up two foul staircases, and at a top back room, rapped pressingly, fiercely, with the clenched knuckles of both hands upon the panels. As a man in his shirt-sleeves, his braces dropped, smoking a cigarette, opened the door to her, she almost fell in on him, and the burning words burst from her tongue's tip:

"Antonio!—it's all up with Pauline—the dagger she did it with—has been found—by a woman—the same woman from Tormouth whom you and I tracked to Porchester Gardens—Pauline is in her employ probably—tell Janoc—he has wits—he may do something before it is too late—the woman has the dagger—in a motor-cab—in a long, narrow box—she is this instant taking it to Inspector Furneaux's house—if she lives, Pauline hangs—tell Janoc that, Antonio—don't stare—tell Janoc—it is she or Pauline—let him choose——"

"Grand Dieu!"

"Don't stare—don't stand—I'm gone."

She ran out; and almost as she was down the stair Antonio had thrown on a coat and was flying down behind her.

He ran down three narrow streets to Poland Street, darted up a stair, broke into a room; and there on the floor, stretched face downwards, lay the lank length of Janoc's body, a map of Europe spread before him, on which with an ivory pointer he was marking lines from town to town. He glanced at the intruder with a frowning brow, yet he was up like an acrobat, as the tidings leapt off Antonio's tongue.

"Found!" he whispered hoarsely, "Pauline found!"

"Yes, and the dagger found, too!"

"Found! dearest of my heart! my sweet sister!"

Janoc clasped to his bosom a phantom form, and kissed thrice at the air.

"Yes, and the dagger found that she did it with——"

"The dagger?"

"Yes, and the lady is this minute taking it to Inspector Furneaux——"

"Lady?—Oh, found! found! dear, sweet sister, why didst thou hide thyself from me?"

Janoc spread his arms with a face of rapture. He could only assimilate the one great fact in his joy.

"But Janoc—listen—the lady——"

"Lady?"

"The lady who has the dagger! Listen, my friend—she is on the way to Inspector Furneaux with Pauline's dagger——"

"Mille diables!"

"Janoc, what is to be done? O, arouse yourself, pour l'amour de Dieu—Pauline will be hanged——"

"Hanged? Yes! They hang women, I know, in England—the only country in Europe—this ugly nest of savages. Yes! they hang them by the neck on the gallows here—the gallant gentlemen! But they won't hang her, Antonio! Let them touch her, and I, I set all England dancing like a sandstorm of the Sahara! Furneaux's house No. 12?"

"Yes."

"And the lady's address?"

"Porchester Gardens—unfortunately I did not notice the number of the house."

"Pity: weak. What is she like, this lady?"

"Middle-size—plentiful brown hair—eyes blue—beautiful in the cold English way, elegant, too—yes, a pretty woman—I saw her in Tormouth——"

"Come with me"—and Janoc was in action, with a suddenness, a fury, a contrast with his previous stillness of listening that was very remarkable—as if he had waited for the instant of action to sound, and then said: "Here it is! I am ready!"

Out stretched his long leg, as he bent forward into running, catching at his cap and revolver with one sweep of his right arm, and at Antonio with a snatch of the left; and from that moment his motions were in the tone of the forced marches of Napoleon—not an instant lost in the business he was at.

He took Antonio in a cab to Furneaux's house in Sinclair Street. There he was nudged by Antonio, as they drove up, with a hysterical sob of "See! There she is!"

Rosalind was driving away at the moment. She had, then, seen Furneaux? told Furneaux? given Furneaux the dagger? In that case, the battle would lie between Furneaux and Janoc that day. Janoc's flesh was pale, but it was the paleness of iron, his eyes were full of fire. In his heart he was a hero, in brain and head an assassin!

He alighted at the detective's house, letting Rosalind go. But the landlady of the flat told him that Furneaux had not been at home for two hours, and was not expected for another hour. Rosalind, then, had not seen him; and the battle swung back to its first ground as between Rosalind and Janoc. Had the lady who had just called left any parcel, or any weapon for Mr. Furneaux? The answer was "No." He hurried down into his cab, to make for Rosalind's boarding-house.

But Antonio had not noted the number, and, to discover it, Janoc started off to Osborne's house, to ask it of Miss Prout.

Now, Rosalind was herself driving to the same place. On learning that Furneaux was not at home, she had paced his sitting-room a little while, undecided whether to wait, or to leave a message and go home. Then the new impulse had occurred in her to go to Osborne's in the meantime, and then return to Furneaux. Hylda Prout had contrived to put a lump in her throat and a firebrand in her bosom, an arrogance, a hot rancor. How much of what the hussy had said against Osborne might contain some truth she did not know; it had so scorched her, and inflamed her gorge, and kindled her eyes, that she had not had time to question its probability in her preoccupation with the gall and smart of it. But that Osborne should have opened the letter, and then written to say he had not—this was a vileness that the slightest reflection found to be incredible. The creature with the red hair certainly knew what was in the letter, but—might she not have opened it herself? And if any part of her statements were false, all might be false. An impatience to see Osborne instantly seized and transported Rosalind. He had honest eyes—had she not whispered it many a time to her heart? She hurried off to him.... And by accident Janoc went after her.

Osborne himself had arrived home some ten minutes before this, after a very cold reception from Mrs. Marsh at Porchester Gardens.

As he entered the library, he saw Hylda Prout standing in the middle of the room with a face of ecstasy which astonished him. She, lately arrived back from her visit to the Italian, had heard him come, and had leapt up to confront him, her heart galloping in her throat.

"Anything wrong?" he asked with a quick glance at her.

"Miss Marsh has been here."

"Ah?... Miss Marsh?"

She made a mad step toward him. The words that she uttered rasped harshly. She did not recognize her own voice.

"I told her straight out that it is not the slightest good her running after you."

"You told her what?"

Amazement struggled with indignation in his face. All the world seemed to have gone mad when the pale, studiously sedate secretary used such words of frenzy.

"I meant to stop—her pursuit of you.... Mr. Osborne—hear me—I—I...." Excessive emotion overpowered her. In attempting to say more she panted with distress.

"What is it all about, Miss Prout? Calm yourself, please—be quiet"—he said it with some effort to express both his resentment and his authority.

"Mr. Osborne—I warn you—I cannot endure—any rival——"

"Who can't? you speak of a rival!"

"Oh, Heaven, give me strength—words to explain. Ah!..."

She had been standing with her left hand resting on a table, shivering like a sail in the wind, and now the hand suddenly gave way under her, and she sank after it, falling to the ground in a faint, while her head struck the edge of the table in her descent.

"Well, if this isn't the limit," muttered Osborne, as he ran to her, calling loudly for Jenkins. He lifted her to a sofa, and, in his flurry, not knowing what else to do, wet her forehead with a little water from a carafe. Jenkins had not heard his call, and by the time he looked round for a bell to summon help, her eyes unclosed themselves, and she smiled at him.

"You are there...."

"You feel better now?" He sat on a chair at her head, looking down on her, wondering what inane words he should use to extricate both himself and her from an absurd position.

"It is all right.... I must have fainted. I have undergone a great strain, a dreadful strain. You should be sorry for me. Oh, I have loved—much."

"Miss Prout——"

"No, don't call me that, or you kill me. You should be sorry for me, if you have any pity, any shred of humanity in your heart. I have—passed through flames, and drunk of a cup of fire. Ten women, yes, ten—have hungered and wailed in me. I tell you—yet to whom should I tell it but to you?"

She smiled a ravished smile of pain; her hand fell upon his heavily; her restless head swung from side to side.

"Well, I am very sorry," said Osborne, forced to gentleness in spite of the anger that had consumed him earlier. "It is impossible not to believe you sincere. But, you will admit, all this is very singular and unexpected. I am afraid now that I shall have to send you on a trip to—Switzerland; or else go myself. Better you—it is chilling there, on the glaciers."

Yet the attempt at humor died when he looked at her face with its languishing, sick eyes, its expression of swooning luxury. She sighed deeply.

"No, you cannot escape me now, I think, or I you," she murmured. "There are powers too profound to be run from when once at work, like the suction of whirlpools. If you don't love me, my love is a force enough for two, for a thousand. It will draw and compel you. Yes, I think so. It will either warm you, or burn you to ashes—and myself, too. Oh, I swear to Heaven! It will, it shall! You shouldn't have pressed my hand that night."

"Pressed your hand! on which night?" asked Osborne, who had now turned quite pale, and wanted to run quickly out of the house but could not.

"What, have you forgotten?" she asked with tender reproach, gazing into his eyes; "the night I was going to see my brother nine months ago, and you went with me to Euston, and in saying good-by you——"

She suddenly covered her eyes with her fingers in a rapture at the memory.

Osborne stared blankly at her. He recalled the farewell at Euston, which was accidental, but he certainly had no memory of having pressed her hand.

"I loved you before," her lips just whispered in a pitiful assumption of confidence, "but timidly, not admitting it to myself. With that pressure of your hand, I was done with maidenhood, my soul rushed to you. After that, you were mine, and I was yours."

The words almost fainted on her bitten under lip, and in Osborne, too, a rush of soul, or of blood, took place, a little flush of his forehead. It was a bewitching woman who lay there before him, with that fair freckle-splashed face couched in its cloud of red hair.

"Come, now," he said, valiantly striving after the commonplace, "you are ill—you hardly know yet what you are saying."

She half sat up suddenly, bending eagerly toward him.

"Is it pity? Is it 'yes'?"

"Please, please, let us forget that this has ever——"

"It would be 'yes' instantly but for that Tormouth girl! Oh, drive her out of your mind! That cannot be—I could never, never permit it! For that reason alone—and besides, you are about to be arrested——"

"I!"

"Yes: listen—I know more of what is going on than you know. The man Furneaux, who, for his own reasons, hates you, and is eager to injure you, has even more proofs against you than you are aware of. I happen to know that in his search of your trunks he has discovered something or other which he considers conclusive against you. And there is that housemaid at Feldisham Mansions, who screamed out 'Mr. Osborne did it!'—Furneaux only pretended at the inquest that she was too ill to be present, because he did not want to produce the whole weight of his evidence just then. But he has her, too, safe up his sleeve, and she is willing to swear against you. And now he has got hold of your Saracen dagger. But don't you fear him: I shall know how to foil him at the last; I alone have knowledge that will surely make him look a fool. Trust in me! I tell you so. But I can't help your being arrested—that must happen. Believe me, for I know. And let that once take place, and that Tormouth girl will never look at you again. I understand her class, with its prides and prejudices—she will never marry you—innocent or guilty—if you have once stood in the dock at an assize court. Such as she does not know what love is. I would take you if you were a thousand times guilty—and I only can prove you innocent—even if you were guilty—because I am yours—your preordained wife—oh, I shall die of my love—yes, kiss me—yes—now——"

The torrent of words ended in a fierce fight for breath. Her eyes were glaring like two lakes of conflagration, her cheeks crimson, her forehead pale. Unexpectedly, eagerly, she caught him round the neck in an embrace from which there was no escape. She drew him almost to his knees, and pressed his lips to hers with a passion that frightened and repelled him.

And he was in the thick of this unhappy and ridiculous experience when he heard behind him an astonished "Oh!" from someone, while some other person seemed to laugh in angry embarrassment.

It was Jenkins who had uttered the "Oh!" and when the horrified Osborne glanced round he saw Rosalind's eyes peering over Jenkins's shoulder. She it was who had so lightly, so perplexedly, laughed.

Before he could free himself and spring up she was gone. She had murmured to Jenkins: "Some other time," and fled.

As she ran out blindly, and was springing into the cab, Janoc, in pursuit of her, drove up. In an instant he was looking in through the door of the cab.

"Miss Marsh?" he inquired.

"Yes."

His hands met, wringing in distress.

"You are the lady I am searching for, the mistress of the young girl Pauline Dessaulx, is it not? I am her brother. You see—you can see—the resemblance in our faces. She threatens this instant to commit the suicide——"

Rosalind was forced to forget her own sufferings in this new terror.

"Pauline!" she cried, "I am not her employer. Moreover, she is ill—in bed——"

"She has escaped to my lodging during your absence from home! Something dreadful has happened to her—she speaks of the loss of some weapon—one cannot understand her ravings! And unless she sees you—her hands cannot be kept from destroying herself—Oh, lady! lady! Come to my sweet sister——"

Rosalind looked at him with the scared eyes of one who hears, yet not understands. There was a mad probability in all this, since Pauline might have discovered the loss of the daggers; and, in her present anguish of spirit, the thought that the man's story might only be a device to lure her into some trap never entered Rosalind's head. Indeed, in her weariness of everything, she regarded the mission of succor as a relief.

"Where do you live? I will go with you," she said.

"Lady! Lady! Thank God!" he exclaimed. "It is not far from here, in Soho."

"You must come in my cab," said Rosalind.

Janoc ran to pay his own cabman, came back instantly, and they started eastward, just as Osborne, with the wild face of a man falling down a precipice, rushed to his door, calling after them frantically: "Hi, there! Stop! Stop! For Heaven's sake——"

But the cab went on its way.