"He knows I like you, that I trust you; and just now he"s on edge about everyone I look at."
The surprising news which the first part of this sentence contained caused Joe to gape, and the girl looked away in concern, enabling him to control his expression. For she knew well enough that men hate to appear foolishly surprised. And particularly a fox like Joe Rix.
"But what"s the trouble, Nelly?" He added with a touch of venom: "I thought everything was going smoothly with you. And I thought you weren"t worrying much about what Lord Nick had in his mind."
She stared at him as though astonished.
"Do you think just the same as the rest of them?" she asked sadly. "Do you mean to say that you"re fooled just the same as Harry Masters and the Pedlar and the rest of those fools--including Nick himself?"
Joe Rix was by no means willing to declare himself a fool beforehand. He now mustered a look of much reserved wisdom.
"I have my own doubts, Nell, but I"m not talking about them."
He was so utterly at sea that she had to bite her lip hard to keep from breaking into ringing laughter.
"Oh, I knew that you"d seen through it, Joe," she cried softly. "You see what an awful mess I"ve gotten into?"
He pa.s.sed a hurried hand across his forehead and then looked at her searchingly. But he could not penetrate her pretense of concern.
"No matter what I think," said Joe Rix, "you come out with it frankly.
I"ll listen."
"As a friend, Joe?"
She managed to throw a plea into her voice that made Joe sigh.
"Sure. You"ve already said that I"m your friend, and you"re right."
"I"m in terrible, terrible trouble! You know how it happened. I was a fool. I tried to play with Lord Nick. And now he thinks I was in earnest."
As though the strength of his legs had given way, Joe Rix slipped down into a chair.
"Go on," he said huskily. "You were playing with Lord Nick?"
"Can"t you put yourself in my place, Joe? It"s always been taken for granted that I"m to marry Nick. And the moment he comes around everybody else avoids me as if I were poison. I was sick of it. And when he showed up this time it was the same old story. A man would as soon sign his own death warrant as ask me for a dance. You know how it is?"
He nodded, still at sea, but with a light beginning to dawn in his little eyes.
"I"m only a girl, Joe. I have all the weakness of other girls. I don"t want to be locked up in a cage just because I--love one man!"
The avowal made Joe blink. It was the second time that day that he had been placed in an astonishing scene. But some of his old cunning remained to him.
"Nell," he said suddenly, rising from his chair and going to her. "What are you trying to do to me? Pull the wool over my eyes?"
It was too much for Nelly Lebrun. She knew that she could not face him without betraying her guilt and therefore she did not attempt it. She whirled and flung herself on her bed, face down, and began to sob violently, suppressing the sounds. And so she waited.
Presently a hand touched her shoulder lightly.
"Go away," cried Nelly in a choked voice. "I hate you, Joe Rix. You"re like all the rest!"
His knee struck the floor with a soft thud.
"Come on, Nell. Don"t be hard on me. I thought you were stringing me a little. But if you"re playing straight, tell me what you want?"
At that she bounced upright on the bed, and before he could rise she caught him by both shoulders.
"I want Donnegan," she said fiercely.
"What?"
"I want him dead!"
Joe Rix gasped.
"Here"s the cause of all my trouble. Just because I flirted with him once or twice, Nick thought I was in earnest and now he"s sulking. And Donnegan puts on airs and acts as if I belonged to him. I hate him, Joe.
And if he"s gone Nick will come back to me. He"ll come back to me, Joe; and I want him so!"
She found that Joe Rix was staring straight into her eyes, striving to probe her soul to its depths, and by a great effort she was enabled to meet that gaze. Finally the fat little man rose slowly to his feet. Her hands trailed from his shoulders as he stood up and fell helplessly upon her lap.
"Well, I"ll be hanged, Nell!" exclaimed Joe Rix.
"What do you mean?"
"You"re not acting a part? No, I can see you mean it. But what a cold-blooded little--" He checked himself. His face was suddenly jubilant. "Then we"ve got him, Nell. We"ve got him if you"re with us. We had him anyway, but we"ll make sure of him if you"re with us. Look at this! You saw me put a paper in my pocket when I opened the door of my room? Here it is!"
He displayed before the astonished eyes of Nelly Lebrun a paper covered with an exact duplicate of her own swift, dainty script. And she read:
Nick is terribly angry and is making trouble. I have to get away. It isn"t safe for me to stay here. Will you help me?
Will you meet me at the shack by Donnell"s ford tomorrow morning at ten o"clock?
"But I didn"t write it," cried Nelly Lebrun, bewildered.
"Nelly," Joe Rix chuckled, flushing with pleasure, "you didn"t. It was me. I kind of had an idea that you wanted to get rid of this Donnegan, and I was going to do it for you and then surprise you with the good news."
"Joe, you forged it?"
"Don"t bother sayin" pretty things about me and my pen," said Rix modestly. "This is nothin"! But if you want to help me, Nelly--"
His voice faded partly out of her consciousness as she fought against a tigerish desire to spring at the throat of the little fat man. But gradually it dawned on her that he was asking her to write out that note herself. Why? Because it was possible that Donnegan might have seen her handwriting and in that case, though the imitation had been good enough to deceive Nelly herself, it probably would not for a moment fool the keen eyes of Donnegan. But if she herself wrote out the note, Donnegan was already as good as dead.
"That is," concluded Joe Rix, "if he really loves you, Nell."
"The fool!" cried Nelly. "He worships the ground I walk on, Joe. And I hate him for it."
Even Joe Rix shivered, for he saw the hate in her eyes and could not dream that he himself was the cause and the object of it. There was a red haze of horror and confusion in front of her eyes, and yet she was able to smile while she copied the note for Joe Rix.
"But how are you going to work it?" she asked. "How are you going to kill him, Joe?"