"Shouldn"t have thought you knew how to do that," he said.
"I learned how to handle a revolver during the war," she returned grimly.
She crossed the room and very softly closed the door. "Now, Tony," she went on, turning back and forcing herself to speak composedly, "you"re going to tell me all about it. Things must be pretty bad for you to have thought of--this." She glanced down with shrinking repugnance at the weapon which she still held. All at once the apathy which seemed to have possessed him vanished. He turned on her with sudden violence.
"Why did you come? If you hadn"t, I should be safely out of it all!... Out of it all!... Oh, my G.o.d!..."
He dropped into a chair, burying his face in his hands, and the utter despair in his voice tore at Ann"s heart. What had happened--what could have happened that Tony should seek to take his own life? Mechanically she stooped to replace the revolver in the opened drawer from which he had evidently taken it. A few loose cartridges still lay there, together with some torn sc.r.a.ps of paper and a blank cheque. Almost unconsciously her glance took in the contents of the drawer. Then suddenly it checked--concentrated. She caught her breath sharply and looked at Tony, a horrified, incredulous question in her eyes. But he was still sitting with his head buried in his hands, silent and motionless.
Very slowly, as though she approached her hand to something nauseous and abhorrent, Ann reached out and withdrew one of the torn sheets of paper and stared at it. It was covered with repeated copyings of a single name--sometimes the whole name, sometimes only one or other of the initial letters to it. And the name which some one was taking such pains to learn to write was that of her G.o.dfather, Philip Brabazon... Philip Brabazon...
the sheet was covered with it, and some of the signatures were a very fair imitation of the old man"s handwriting.
Ann s.n.a.t.c.hed up the blank cheque. It was one that had been torn from Sir Philip"s cheque-book. She could see that at a glance--remembered so clearly noticing the same heading on the cheque which he had given her towards her trousseau--the Watchester and Loamshire Bank. She held out to Tony the two pieces of paper--the sheet of scribbled signatures and the blank cheque.
"Tony," she said, her voice cracking a little. "What--what are these?"
The tense, vibrating horror in her tones roused him. He looked up wearily.
Then, as he saw what she held, a dull red flush mounted slowly to his face.
For a moment he did not speak. When he did, his voice sounded dead--flat and toneless.
"Those," he said, "are attempts on my part to forge my uncle"s signature."
She stared at him speechlessly. Then, a sudden new fear shaking her, she went quickly to his side, thrusting the blank cheque under his eyes.
"Tony--you haven"t done it before?... This--this isn"t.... How many cheques of his have you had?"
"One," he said. "That one"--nodding towards the narrow pink slip she held.
Ann gave, a gasp of relief. "Yes," he went on, "I found I couldn"t do it.
The old man"s been decent to me, after all. He"d have hated the old name muddied by--by forgery."
"And do you think he"d like it stained by suicide?" she demanded fiercely.
"Oh, Tony, you coward! You coward!"
It was as if she had struck him across the face. He sprang up, his eyes blazing.
"How dare you say that?" he cried stormily.
"I say it because it"s true," she returned, her voice quivering. "Thank G.o.d you haven"t committed forgery! And thank G.o.d I was in time to stop your taking this cowardly--utterly cowardly--way out of things. You"ve got into a mess, and you wanted to get out of it--the easiest way. Did you ever stop to think of us--afterwards? Of your uncle, and me, or of Doreen Neville--all of us who cared for you? Oh! I wouldn"t have believed it of you, Tony!"
"You don"t know how bad things are," he said desperately. "You"ve _got_ to be hurt--you, and uncle, and--and Doreen." His voice broke, then steadied again. "I"ve got myself in such a mess that a bullet was the best way out--for everybody."
"I don"t believe it," answered Ann, with stubborn courage. "There"s some other way. There always is--only we"ve got to look for it--find it."
Suddenly her heart overflowed in pity for this white-faced, haggard boy who must have suffered so bitterly, must have gone down into the veriest depths of despair, before he had been driven to seek that short and terrible way out of life. She held out her hands to him. "Tony, let me help! Let"s look for a way out together. I"m your pal. I"ve always been your pal. Why did you bear all this alone instead of letting me share?"
At the touch of her strong, kind little hands he broke down for a moment.
Turning aside, he leaned his arms on the chimneypiece and hid his face. A hard, stifled sob tore its way through his throat and his shoulders shook.
Ann remained silent, giving him time in which to recover his self-command.
Her heart was full almost to breaking-point with that eager, mothering tenderness which a woman instinctively feels for a man in trouble. She is the eternal mother, then--he the eternal child.
When at last Tony lifted his head from his arms he was very pale, but his eyes held a look of resolution.
"I"ll tell you," he said jerkily.
Bit by bit the painful story came out--the same familiar story, only infinitely aggravated, of high play, losses, then still higher play in a desperate hope of recovery, and finally, the confession of heavy borrowings, of notes of hand given and accepted--and now falling due.
"That"s the devil of it--the time"s up and they"re due for payment," wound up Tony hoa.r.s.ely. "Payment! And I haven"t twenty pounds in the world."
As Ann listened to the stumbling recital, her face paled and grew very grave. This was worse--far worse than she had antic.i.p.ated.
"How much, do you owe--altogether, Tony?" she asked at last, when he had finished speaking.
"Twelve hundred."
"Twelve hundred pounds!" The largeness of the amount left her momentarily aghast, and the vague idea she had been harbouring that Robin and she might sc.r.a.pe up a hundred or two between them and so put matters straight crumbled to atoms.
Twelve hundred pounds! In her wildest imaginings she had never dreamed of Tony"s owing such a sum. She shivered a little, partly from nerves, partly from sheer physical cold. The fire had smouldered to black ash long ere this, and the chill air which precedes the dawn was creeping into the room.
Even the necessity of conducting the entire conversation in lowered tones, in order not to disturb the sleeping household, added to the aguish, strained feeling of which she was conscious.
"There is only one thing to do, Tony," she said at last. "You must tell Sir Philip."
A sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n escaped him, hastily stifled as she raised a warning finger enjoining silence.
"Sh! Don"t make a noise! We mustn"t wake any one," she cautioned him. "You _must_ tell Sir Philip," she resumed. "There"s simply nothing else to be done."
"It would be utterly useless," he replied with quiet conviction. "He wouldn"t pay. He said he wouldn"t, last time. And he meant it.... You"d better have let me blow out my brains while I was about it, Ann"--with, a mirthless laugh.
"Don"t talk rot," she returned succinctly.
"It"s not rot. Don"t you see I"m done for--gone in? A man who borrows, as I"ve done, and _can"t pay_, is finished. Outside the pale. You don"t suppose they"ll let Doreen marry me after this, do you?"
Ann shook her head voicelessly. She could see--only too clearly--all the consequences which must inevitably follow if the matter became public.
It signalled the end of things for Tony. It meant a ruined life--love, happiness, a clean name, all would go down in the general crash.
"The only thing I can do," he resumed hopelessly, "is to emigrate. Bolt, and start fresh somewhere."
Ann set her teeth.
"You"re not going to bolt," she said doggedly. She was silent for a moment, thinking feverishly. There must he some way out--some way, if she could only come upon it.
"Whom do you owe this money to?" she demanded at last. "Several different people, I suppose?"
"No. One man offered to be my banker till--till my luck came round again,"
confessed Tony. "And I let him. But I didn"t know I"d borrowed so much. It seemed to mount up all in a moment."
""In a moment!"" There was a tiny edge of contempt to Ann"s voice. "How long have you been borrowing from this man?"
"Oh, for a goodish time--on and off. I"ve paid back some. I"d have paid it all back if I"d only had a stroke of luck. But I"ve been losing every night for the last month."
Luck! The weak man"s eternal excuse for failure Ann felt as though she loathed the very word.