Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/205

Rh he said. "But I suppose he wouldn't take chances. He never had much fancy for that."

"Well," Tempest looked round the room. "She's a brave little woman and I should fancy this would help her. She wouldn't bother to destroy evidence against him if she had already destroyed him—unless she was implicated also."

"That is a legal suggestion only, of course?"

"Of course. No one would suspect her privately. Well, we'd best go back. You can come over to-morrow and do the rest. I'll tell her that we are locking the room. But we might take the cyphers, and—what else?"

He rubbed his hand over his forehead wearily. The end of a long day usually found him weary now. Dick straightened from his stooping position and looked at him. But he was not thinking of the question. He was thinking of the man. There had always been such buoyant courage in Tempest. He was one of those finely-tempered rapiers which will bend hilt to point and swing back to balance again with such a resonant note of strength and verve. But the resilience seemed gone from the steel now. Some unseen furnace had taken the nature out of it for the time and whether it would ever come back Dick did not know any more than he could understand what had taken it. But he knew that he must find out, and to-night too. He felt a sharp stab of pain in that he had forgotten Tempest and all that he meant to do for him, and he felt a warmer glow of love than ever before as Tempest turned away, forgetting his question, and began to pack the papers together.

Those feelings held with him through the drive back to Grey Wolf; and when Tempest locked the papers in the safe and turned to put the lamp out Dick checked him.

"Can you give me a minute?" he asked. "I want to speak to you." "Will to-morrow do? I am very tired to-night, Dick."

Dick bit his lip. The cynicism in his nature was wide-awake, and he doubted if he could speak to Tempest without conveying his contempt for a man who could let go of all the essentials for the sake of love. And yet pity was strong in him too, and pride. He was so proud of