"That you marry me," said Percival Field with his steady eyes upon her face.
She was trembling from head to foot.
"You--you--have never seen me before to-day," she said.
"Yes, I have seen you," he said, "several times. I have known your face and figure by heart for a very long while. I haven"t had the time to seek you out. It seems to have been decreed that you should do that part."
Was there cynicism in his voice? It seemed so. Yet his eyes never left her. They held her by some electric attraction which she was powerless to break.
She looked at him, white to the lips.
"Are you--in--earnest?" she asked at last.
Again for an instant she saw his faint smile.
"Don"t you know the signs yet?" he said. "Surely you have had ample opportunity to learn them!"
A tinge of colour crept beneath her pallor.
"No one ever proposed to me--like this before," she said.
His hand was still upon her arm. It closed with a slow, remorseless pressure as he made quiet reply to her previous question.
"Yes. I am in earnest."
She flinched at last from the gaze of those merciless eyes.
"You ask the impossible," she said.
"Then it is all the simpler for you to refuse," he rejoined.
Her eyes were upon the hand that held her. Did he know that its grasp had almost become a grip? It was by that, and that alone, that she was made aware of something human--or was it something b.e.s.t.i.a.l--behind that legal mask?
Suddenly she straightened herself and faced him. It cost her all the strength she had.
"Mr. Field," she said, and though her voice shook she spoke with resolution, "if I were to consent to this--extraordinary suggestion; if I married you--you would not ask--or expect--more than that?"
"If you consent to marry me," he said, "it will be without conditions."
"Then I cannot consent," she said. "Please let me go!"
He released her instantly, and, turning, picked up her cloak.
But she moved away to the window and stood there with her back to him, gazing down upon the quiet river. Its pearly stillness was like a dream.
The rush and roar of London"s many wheels had died to a monotone.
The man waited behind her in silence. She had released the blind-cord, and was plucking at it mechanically, with fingers that trembled.
Suddenly the blast of a siren from a vessel in mid-stream shattered the stillness. The girl at the window quivered from head to foot as if it had pierced her. And then with a sharp movement she turned.
"Mr. Field!" she said, and stopped.
He waited with absolute composure.
She made a small but desperate gesture--the gesture of a creature trapped and helpless.
"I--will do it!" she said in a voice that was barely audible. "But if--if you ever come--to repent--don"t blame me!"
"I shall not repent," he said.
She pa.s.sed on rapidly.
"And--you will do your best--to save--Burleigh Wentworth?"
"I will save him," said Field.
She paused a moment; then moved towards him, as if compelled against her will.
He put the cloak around her shoulders, and then, as she fumbled with it uncertainly, he fastened it himself.
"Your veil?" he said.
She made a blind movement. Her self-control was nearly gone. With absolute steadiness he drew it down over her face.
"Have you a conveyance waiting?" he asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
He turned to the door. He was in the act of opening it when she stayed him.
"One moment!" she said.
He stopped at once, standing before her with his level eyes looking straight at her.
She spoke hurriedly behind her veil.
"Promise me, you will never--never let him know--of this!"
He made a grave bow, his eyes unchangeably upon her.
"Certainly," he said.
She made an involuntary movement; her hands clenched. She stood as if she were about to make some further appeal. But he opened the door and held it for her, and such was the finality of his action that she was obliged to pa.s.s out.
He followed her into the lift and took her down in unbroken silence.
A taxi awaited her. He escorted her to it.