The Great God Gold Part 22

The tall man shrugged his shoulders. He saw that she was desperate and might make a rush to escape, therefore, though he begged her pardon he kept the doors locked and the keys in his pocket.

Before his arrival, it seemed, Jim Jannaway had placed provisions in the small larder in the kitchen, for there they found bread, tinned tongues, bottled beer, tea, condensed milk and other things. Hence he had no necessity to go forth to obtain food.

This struck him that an imprisonment of several days must be intended.

He felt sorry for the unfortunate girl, yet he dare not connive at her escape. He knew, alas! that he was now upon very dangerous ground.

The whole day they sat together gossiping. For luncheon they had cold tongue and bread, and for dinner the same.

The situation was indeed a curious one, yet as the hours went by and he attempted to amuse her by relating humorous incidents in his own adventurous life, she gradually grew to believe that he was devoid of any sinister intention.

Times without number she tried to persuade him to release her, but he explained his inability. Then, at evening, they sat at the fireside and while he smoked she chattered, though she told him practically nothing concerning herself.

He could not help admiring her neat daintiness and her self-possession.

She was a frank, sweet-faced girl, scarce more than a child, whose wonderful eyes held even him, an adventurer, in strange fascination.

And that night, when she retired to her room, he handed her the key of her door that she might lock herself in, and said:

"Sleep in peace, Miss Griffin. I give you my promise that you shall not be disturbed."

And he bowed to her with all the courtesy of a true-born gentleman.

He sat smoking, thinking deeply and wondering why the girl had been confined there. He was annoyed, for by her presence there he also was held a prisoner.

Just before midnight the bell of the front door rang, and a commissionaire handed him a telegram. The message was in an unintelligible code, which however, he read without hesitation. Then he tossed the message into the fire with an imprecation, switched off the light, and went to bed.

Next day pa.s.sed just as the first, but he saw, by the girl's pale face and darkening eyes, that the constant anxiety was telling upon her.

Yes, he pitied her. And she, on her part, began to regard him more as her protector than as her janitor.

He treated her with the greatest consideration and courtesy. And as they sat together at their meals, she presiding, they often burst out laughing at the incongruity of the situation. More than once she inquired his name, but he always laughingly evaded her.

"My name really doesn't matter," he said. "You will only remember me with hatred, Miss Griffin."

"Though you are holding me here against my will," she replied, "yet of your conduct towards me I have nothing to complain."

He only bowed in graceful acknowledgment. No word pa.s.sed his lips.

On the third morning, about noon, a ring came, and Gwen, startled, flew into her bedroom and locked the door.

The visitor was none other than Sir Felix Challas, who, grasping the tall man's hand, said:

"Welcome back, my dear Charlie. I'm sorry I couldn't come before, but I was called over to Paris on very important business." Then lowering his voice he said: "Got the girl here still--eh?"

The other nodded.

"I want to put a few questions to her," Sir Felix said in an undertone, when they were together in the sitting-room, "and if she don't answer me truly, then by Heaven it will be the worse for her. You remember the girl of that German inventor, three years ago--eh?" he asked with a meaning smile.

The tall man nodded. He recollected that poor girl's fate because she had refused to betray her father's secret to the great financier.

And this man whom the world so firmly believed to be a G.o.d-fearing philanthropist intended that pretty Gwen Griffin, sweet, innocent and inoffensive, little more than a child, should meet with the same awful fate. He held his breath. He could have struck the man before him--if he dared.

He must blindly do the bidding of this cruel, heartless man who held him so entirely in his power, this gigantic schemer whose "cat's-paw" he had been for years.

And he must stand helplessly by, unable to raise a hand to save that poor defenceless victim of a powerful man's pa.s.sion and avarice.

Alas! that the great G.o.d gold must ever be all-powerful in man's world, and women must ever pay the price.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

IS ABOUT THE DOCTOR.

Doctor Diamond, in his long Wellington boots and overcoat, was descending the steep hill into Horsford village one gloomy afternoon with Aggie at his side.

It had been raining, and the pair had been across the meadows to Overton, a small hamlet where, from a farmhouse, they obtained their weekly supply of b.u.t.ter. This, the fair-haired child, her clean white pinafore appearing below her navy-blue coat, carried in a small basket upon her arm. She had been dancing along merrily at the little man's side, delighted to be out with him for a walk, when, as they came over the brow of the hill, they saw a man in a long drab mackintosh ascending in their direction.

The man raised his hand to them, but at first Diamond did not recognise him. Then, as they drew nearer, he said:

"Why--who'd ever have thought it! Here's your father, Aggie!"

"Father!" echoed the girl, staring at the man approaching. "No, dad, surely that isn't my father! You're my own father." And the child, with her fair hair falling upon her shoulders, clung affectionately to his arm.

In a few moments the two men met.

"Hulloa, Doc!" cheerily cried the man known to his intimates as "Red Mullet". "Thought I'd give you a bit of a surprise. And little Aggie, too! My hat! what a big girl she grows! Why, my darling," he exclaimed, bending and kissing her, "I'd never have recognised you-- never in all my life!"

Her father's bristly red moustache brushed the child's face, and she withdrew bashfully.

"Ah! my pet," cried the tall, gaunt man, "I suppose you hardly knew me-- eh? You were quite a little dot when I was here last. But though your dad travels a lot, and is always on the move, yet he's ever thinking of you." He sighed. "See here!" And diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he took out a well-worn leather wallet which contained a photograph. "That is what your other dad sent to me last year! Your picture, little one."

The child exchanged glances with the Doctor, still clinging to his arm.

To her, Doctor Diamond was her father. She loved him, for he was always kind to her and always interested in her childish pleasure. True the payments made by "Red Mullet" were irregular and far between, but the ugly little man had formed a great attachment for the child, and when not at the village school she was usually in his company.

"Your wife told me the direction from which you would come, so I thought I'd just take a stroll and meet you," the tall fellow said. "Horsford does not seem to change a little bit."

"It hasn't changed, they say, for the past two centuries," laughed the Doctor. "We are quiet, steady-going folk here." And as he spoke the sweet-toned chimes rang forth from the square grey Norman tower on their left, the tower to see which archaeologists so often came from far and near.

"Well, well," exclaimed Mullet. "I had no idea my little Aggie had grown to be such a fine big girl. Very soon she'll be leaving school; she knows more about geography and grammar now than her dad does, that I'll be bound."

"Mr Holmes, the schoolmaster, is loud in her praises," remarked the Doctor, whereat the girl blushed and smiled.

"And how would you like to go back with me, and live in Paris--eh?"

inquired the father.

In a moment, however, the child clung closer to Diamond, and, burying her face upon his arm, burst into tears.

"No, no, dear," declared the red-haired man. "I didn't mean it. Why, I was only joking! Of course you shall stay here, and finish your education with the Doctor, who is so good and kind to you. See--I've brought you something."

And taking from his pocket a child's plain hoop bangle in gold, he placed it upon her slim wrist. Aggie, with a child's pardonable vanity, stretched forth her arm and showed the Doctor the effect. Then at the letter's suggestion, she raised her face and kissed her father for the present of the first piece of jewellery she had ever possessed in her life.

They walked back together to the cottage, and after a homely cup of tea, "Red Mullet" sat with the Doctor in the cosy panelled dining-room, the fire burning brightly, and the red-shaded lamp upon the table.