Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/246

244 well have been the pretence of handing over the cash and then at the last moment some specious difficulty, necessitating a short delay, is raised. That would account for the otherwise unnecessary detail of the lead counterfeits, for there is no need of them on Thursday. Then, when the danger is past, when the tricked scoundrel has lost his sting, then there is no attempt at evasion or compromise. 'Fool! What does it matter now?' is the contemptuously unguarded message and the five hundred doits are pressed upon him to complete his humiliation. Why doesn't it matter, Louis? Is there any other answer than that Miss Roscastle is safely married?"

"It certainly looks like it," agreed Mr Carlyle. "But if there was anything so serious as to have compromised the marriage, surely Hay could still have held it over her, as against her husband?"

"If it was as against the husband before—yes, perhaps. But suppose the chink in the armour was the good grace of some third person whose consent was necessary? This brilliant marriage . . . Well, I don't commit myself any further. At any rate, in the lady's estimation she is safe, and if she had deliberately sought to goad Hay into suicide she couldn't have done better. He read the single line that shattered his greedy dreams and its disdainful triumph struck him like a whip. He had spent literally his last penny on pressing his unworthy persecution, and now he stood, beggared and beaten, on the Embankment at midnight— 'he, a gentleman.' . . . It doesn't matter how he took it. He went over, and the muddy waters of the Thames closed over the last page of his rotten history."

"Max!" exclaimed Mr Carlyle with feeling. "Remember the poor beggar, with all his failings, is dead