The Golden WebOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Golden Web
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories
He turned around and pointed to the square stone tower which stood on
the edge of the sea. "I am stopping there," he answered,--"the old
Coastguard's Tower they call it, I believe. It is the queerest
habitation I have ever been in."
"You wonderful person!" she declared. "How ever did you get old Pegg and
his wife to clear out?"
"I paid them well," he answered. "At least I didn't do it myself. My
servant comes from these parts, and he told me about the place and
arranged everything. I am hoping to be able to buy it."
There was, as he had remarked from the first, not the slightest
reticence about her. She had almost the frankness of a child.
"You have a servant?" she asked, looking at him with renewed interest.
"Do you mean that he is there with you now?"
Deane nodded. "I could scarcely be expected to cook for myself, could
I?" he inquired. "He completes my establishment."
"I suppose," she said, "you are a rich man."
Deane shrugged his shoulders. "Wealth," he remarked, "is a relative
thing."
"Oh! I don't understand those fine sayings!" she declared, a little
impetuously. "I only know that to have money is grand, is wonderful. I
would give anything in the world to be rich, to have money to spend as I
wanted to spend it, and clothes, and jewels, and all the delightful
little things of life, to go where I wanted, live as I wished, buy the
things I wanted to buy. There's something hideous about being a pauper."
He looked at her curiously. She was certainly, for all her frankness, a
new type. Her frankness was more the frankness of a child than the
outspokenness of _gaucherie_.
"Some day," he said, "you may probably have your wish. There is your
uncle, for instance."
She nodded. "It is my one hope," she said, "my one hope. I go to meet
the postman every morning. It is three weeks since he wrote and said
that he was going to send for me. You don't think that he would change
his mind?" she asked, turning suddenly towards him with almost tragic
intensity.
"Very unlikely, I should say," he answered. "Has he any other
relatives?"
"None," she answered. "Even my uncle and aunt with whom I live here are
not relatives of his. You see, he was my father's brother. Mr. Sarsby
was my mother's brother."
"It is Mr. and Mrs. Sarsby with whom you live?" he remarked.
She nodded. "Yes! And my name is Sinclair," she said,--"Ruby Sinclair."
He stopped short for a minute in the middle of the dyke path. She was
walking a little ahead, and missing him in a few moments, turned around.
He was standing like a man turned to stone.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you tired, or aren't you well?"
He recovered himself with a little effort. "It is all right," he said.
"You know I told you I'd come down here to recoup a little. I get
nervous attacks. I was suddenly giddy then."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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