The man in the leather coat was with him. He had taken off his mask, and
he paused before Juliet--a cynical smile playing about his face. It was
a face of iron mastery, of pitiless self-assertion. The eyes were as
points of steel.
He bent towards her and spoke. "I thought I should find you sooner or
later, Lady Jo. I trust you have enjoyed your game--even if you have lost
your winnings!"
She spoke no word in answer, but she made a slight, barely perceptible
movement towards the man whose hand upheld her.
And Yardley laughed--an edged laugh that was inexpressibly cruel.
"Oh, go to the devil!" said Saltash with sudden fire. "It's where
you belong!"
Yardley's cold eyes gleamed with icy humour. "_Et tu, Brute_!" he said
with sneering lips. "I wish you--joy!"
He passed on. Saltash's arm went round Juliet like a coiled spring. He
impelled her unresisting to the door. Her hand rested on his shoulder as
she stepped down from the platform. She went with him as one in a dream.
The air smote chill as they left the heated atmosphere, and a great
shiver went through her.
She stood still for a moment, listening. The tumult had died down. A
man's voice--Dick's voice--clear and very steady, was speaking.
"Come away!" said Saltash in her ear.
But yet she lingered in the darkness. "He will be safe?" she said.
"Of course he will be safe! They treat him like a god. Come away!"
His arm was urging her. She yielded, shivering.
He hurried her up the slope to the place where he had left his car. It
stood at the side of the rough road that led to High Shale Point.
They reached it. Juliet was gasping for breath. The sea-mist was like
rain in their faces.
"Get in!" he said.
She obeyed, sinking down with a vague thankfulness, conscious of
great weakness.
But as he cranked the engine and she felt the throb of movement, she sat
up quickly.
"Charles, what am I doing? Where are you taking me?"
He came round to her and his hands clasped hers for a moment in a grip
that was warm and close. He did not speak at once.
Then, lightly, "I don't know what you'll do afterwards, _ma Juliette_,"
he said. "But you are coming with me now!"
She caught her breath as if she would utter some protest, but something
checked her--perhaps it was the memory of Dick's face as she had last
seen it, stony, grimly averted, uncompromisingly stern. She gripped his
hands in answer, but she did not speak a word.
And so they sped away together into the dark.
CHAPTER VIII
OUT OF THE NIGHT
It was very late that night, and the sea-mist had turned to a drifting
rain when the squire sitting reading in his library at the Court was
startled by a sudden tapping upon the window behind him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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