The Ancient Law Part 24

"Well, you've got the chance now, and what's more you've got to make it good."

"And leave you the open?"

"And leave me Tappahannock--yes."

"I don't want Tappahannock. To tell the truth I'm not particularly struck by its attractions."

"In that case you've no objection to leaving immediately, I suppose?"

"I've no objection on earth if you'll allow me a pretty woman to keep me company. I'm a deuced lonely bird, and I can't get on by myself--it's not in my nature."

Ordway placed his hand upon the table with a force which started the gla.s.ses rattling on the metal tray.

"I repeat for the last time that you are to leave Milly Trend alone," he said. "Do you understand me?"

"I'm not sure I do," rejoined Wherry, still pleasantly enough. "Would you mind saying that over again in a lower tone?"

"What I want to make plain is that you are not to marry Milly Trend--or any other women in this town," returned Ordway angrily.

"So there are others!" commented Wherry jauntily with his eye on the ceiling.

The pose of his handsome head was so remarkably effective, that Ordway felt his rage increased by the mere external advantages of the man.

"What I intend you to do is to leave Tappahannock for good and all this very evening," he resumed, drawing a sharp breath.

The words appeared to afford Wherry unspeakable amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I can't," he responded, after a minute in which he had enjoyed his humour to the full, "the train leaves at seven-ten and I've an engagement at eight o'clock."

"You'll break it, that's all."

"But it wouldn't be polite--it's with a lady."

"Then I'll break it for you," returned Ordway, starting toward the door, "for I may presume, I suppose, that the lady is Miss Trend?"

"Oh, come back, I say. Hang it all, don't get into a fury," protested Wherry, clutching the other by the arm, and closing the door which he had half opened. "Here, hold on a minute and let's talk things over quietly. I told you, didn't I? that I wanted to be obliging."

"Then you will go?" asked Ordway, in a milder tone.

"Well, I'll think about it. I've a quick enough wit for little things, but on serious matters my brain works slowly. In the first place now didn't we promise each other that we'd play fair?"

"But you haven't--that's why I came here."

"You're dead wrong. I'm doing it this very minute. I'll keep my mouth shut about you till Judgment Day if you'll just hold off and not pull me back when I'm trying to live honest."

"Honest!" exclaimed Ordway, and turned on his heel.

"Well, I'd like to know what you call it, for if it isn't honesty, it certainly isn't pleasure. My wife's dead, I swear it's a fact, and I swear again that I don't mean the girl any harm. I was never so much gone on a woman in my life, though a number of 'em have been pretty soft on me. So you keep off and manage your election--or whatever it is--while I go about my business. Great Scott! after all it ain't as if a woman were a bank note, is it?"

"The first question was mine. Will you leave to-day or will you not?"

"And if I will not what are you going to do about it?"

"As soon as I hear your decision, I shall let you know."

"Well, say I won't. What is your next move then?"

"In that case I shall go straight to the girl's father after I leave this room."

"By Jove you will! And what will you do when you get there?"

"I shall tell him that to the best of my belief you have a wife--possibly several--now living."

"Then you'll lie," said Wherry, dropping for the first time his persuasive tone.

"That remains to be proved," rejoined Ordway shortly. "At any rate if he needs to be convinced I shall tell him as much as I know about you."

"And how much," demanded Wherry insolently, "does that happen to be?"

"Enough to stop the marriage, that is all I want."

"And suppose he asks you--as he probably will--how in the devil it came to be any business of yours?"

For a moment Ordway looked over the whiskey bottle and through the open window into the street below.

"I don't think that will happen," he answered slowly, "but if it does I shall tell him the whole truth as I know it--about myself as well as about you."

"The deuce you will!" exclaimed Wherry. "It appears that you want to take the whole job out of my hands now, doesn't it?"

The flush from the whiskey had overspread his face, and in the midst of the general redness his eyes and teeth flashed brilliantly in an angry laugh. An imaginative sympathy for the man moved Ordway almost in spite of himself, and he wondered, in the long pause, what Wherry's early life had been and if his chance in the world were really a fair one?

"I don't want to be hard on you," said Ordway at last; "it's out of the question that you should have Milly Trend, but if you'll give up that idea and go away I'll do what I can to help you--I'll send you half my salary for the next six months until you are able to find a job."

Wherry looked at him with a deliberate wink.

"So you'd like to save your own skin, after all, wouldn't you?" he inquired.

Taking up his hat from the table, Ordway turned toward the door and laid his hand upon the k.n.o.b before he spoke.

"Is it decided then that I shall go to Jasper Trend?" he asked.

"Well, I wouldn't if I were you," said Wherry, "but that's your affair.

On the whole I think that you'll pay more than your share of the price."

"It's natural, I suppose, that you should want your revenge," returned Ordway, without resentment, "but all the same I shall tell him as little as possible about your past. What I shall say is that I have reason to believe that your wife is still living."

"One or more?" enquired Wherry, with a sneer.

"One, I think, will prove quite sufficient for my purpose."