CHAPTER VIII THE RETURN

It was five o'clock and the stores were closing as Pen sought for the big car. She picked it out from afar, parked in the double rank that lined the Lexington street hill. For five hours it had completely passed out of her mind, and she was terrified now of facing the justly indignant chauffeur. To be sure she had told him she didn't know how long she would be, but five hours!

But it proved to be nothing in his life. That was how he spent the greater part of his days, waiting. It was easier to wait than to drive. He opened the door for her with a perfectly good-humored face, and Pen much relieved, asked him to drive to the Bellevue.

She expected another ordeal here. What sort of report would Riever's agent have made to his master? Riever was on the lookout for her. Without appearing to, Pen studied his face. Little was to be read there, though. The malicious smile told her nothing, for she had learned that it was merely a trick of his ugly features. Often when his smile was most devilish he was really trying to ingratiate himself.

When he got in, seeing Pen's meager bundles, he said: "Is that all you got all day?"

Pen suspected a thrust, though it was a natural enough remark. "I ordered most of the things sent by mail," she said. "It is quicker."

Before they had gone far Pen discovered that his humor had changed since morning. In a clumsy sort of way he was trying to express contrition for his ill-temper. He was not the sort of man who could bring out a frank apology. Pen wondered. The detective could not have given a disturbing report of her. Perhaps in order to conceal the fact that she had given him the slip, he had made up a harmless account of her day.

At any rate Riever was softened. He was less glib. He looked at Pen in a new way. He asked her little questions about her day, apparently not with any idea of entrapping her, but because he wanted to share in her concerns. Pen was much confused by this new aspect of his. It raised unanswerable questions. Was it possible that the horrible creature was really touched? How could he have a heart? Suppose instead of fighting her he came crawling to her feet? How would she meet that situation? It was horrible! horrible! Yet she was thrilled with a sense of power too. She could not have any compunctions against making Riever suffer. If only she were able to handle him! She foresaw breathless danger.

Meanwhile there they were cooped up together in the luxurious little cab. Had it been little Blanche Paglar sitting there beside Riever, her flesh would have been quivering with hatred. Pen was not of so simple a constitution. Her flesh took no alarm from his proximity. She could look at him coolly and speculatively. Her strongest feeling was one of contempt, seeing him begin to turn a little abject. He had terrible power, she never forgot that, but it was not in himself. There were moments when she found herself detached and a little sorry for him.

But while she was considering him thus dispassionately (they had got out in the country by this time) he pulled a little case out of his side pocket and snapping it open revealed a slender bracelet of platinum and diamonds exquisitely wrought.

"Will you accept it?" he murmured.

Pen started as if she had been stung, and a surprising feeling of rage welled up in her. She could scarcely speak for it.

"I couldn't possibly! I couldn't possibly!" she murmured.

"It wasn't very expensive," he murmured deprecatingly. "I purposely picked out something inexpensive."

Inexpensive! Pen stared at him. The thing had obviously cost thousands. But she saw that he was sincere in it.

"It attracted me," he went on. "It's so hard to find anything that looks as if any thought or care had gone into it. That's why I got it."

"You had no right to suppose that I would accept it," said Pen sorely.

"I didn't suppose it. I just took a chance."

Pen was reminded that she must keep on terms with him. "I'm sorry," she said more mildly. "I couldn't possibly."

"Is it because you detest me so?" he asked with ugly, curling lip.

Pen was startled. Her anger had betrayed her. She put her wits to work to repair the damage. "Not at all!" she said coolly. "It's because you're so rich. It sickens me the way people fawn on you, all expecting something. That's why I can't take it."

"You could take it ... without being like other people," he said.

A struggle was going on inside Pen. Not that she wanted the glittering bracelet. It was horrible to her. But her cooler self was saying: "You ought to take it to put his mind at ease. You can return it later. It is merely silly to be high-minded in dealing with a man like this!" But at the suggestion of taking it her fingers automatically closed until the nails were digging into her palms. It was useless to think of it. She knew that her fingers would break sooner than open to receive the little box.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Please put it away."

He snapped the box shut and dropped it in his pocket again. For a good while he looked out of the window without saying anything. Pen could not read his thoughts. She said to herself: "Oh well, it's got to be understood that he can't give me things!"

They dined in Annapolis. Evidently it had been ordered ahead by telephone. They were received by an expectant waiter, there were roses on the table, and the best that the little town afforded was ready and hot. Pen being a woman, could not but be pleased by such attentions, though a mocking little voice inside her whispered: "This is how silly women are snared!" She enjoyed the food thoroughly, and was charming to Riever, all the while a little dialogue went on within. One voice was saying accusingly: "Sitting here smiling and encouraging your lover's deadly enemy!" the other replying: "How else can I save my lover?"

It was eight o'clock and beginning to grow dark when they came out of the hotel. Pen shivered with repulsion at the thought of being cooped up with Riever for the sixty-mile drive through the night. She said offhand:

"Do you ever drive?"

"Oh yes," he said unsuspectingly.

"Let's put the chauffeur inside and ride out in the air. The moon will be up directly."

Riever scowled, and a hateful answer leaped to his lips. But he bit it back. "All right," he mumbled.

And so they rode.

He proved to be a skillful chauffeur. There was something quite impressive in the nonchalant way he spun the wheel with one hand on a curve. He had a bland disregard for speed laws having learned that few constables had the temerity to stop so princely an equipage. They went through Camp Parole at forty miles an hour, but fortunately without hitting any of the dark-skinned inhabitants of that humble suburb. At the green light which marks the W. B. & A. station they turned sharply and streaked away to the South to the throaty growl of an open exhaust.

Their conversation was fitful as needs be on the front seat of a speeding car. But they were entirely friendly. The episode of the bracelet had been forgotten. Both pairs of eyes were hypnotized by the strong path of light on the yellow road before them. The bordering leafage was shown up in a queer chemical green like stage scenery. The moon came up, but what's moonlight to automobilists? The reticent moon disdains to compete with headlights.

When they were within a few miles of Absolom's Island, Riever glancing at the clock under the cowl, said:

"We've come too fast. I didn't order the boat until 9.45."

He took his foot off the accelerator and the big car loafed along. Relieved of the strain, their eyes were free to wander around. All Riever's glances were for Pen's profile. He said abruptly:

"You're a funny one! One would think you blamed me for having a lot of money."

"Not blame you," said Pen. "Though I think it's unjust somehow. But you didn't make conditions."

"Why is it unjust?"

"Oh, don't ask me to argue it with you. I've never thought such things out. It's just a feeling I have."

"If somebody offered you a fortune would you turn it down?"

"Depends upon the condition attached," said Pen calmly.

"If there were no conditions."

"No, I wouldn't turn it down."

"Good!" he said. "All they say against money may be true, but just the same when people make out to despise it they're lying."

"No doubt," said Pen.

"I like to talk to you," he said. "You're real."

"Thanks," said Pen dryly.

"What do you think about me, really?" he blurted out.

"I don't know," said Pen.

"Well, it's true nobody really knows anybody else," he said..... "I wish I could get myself over to you. Since I've known you I've realized more than ever what a lot there is missing in my life. Nobody knows me.... There's a sort of wall cuts me off from everybody."

It was very confusing to Pen's ideas to discover that a man could be a black villain and sentimental too. "Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" she thought uncomfortably. Aloud she said rather sharply:

"Well, it's your own fault, isn't it?"

He chuckled. "I love the way you come back at me," he said. "... I suppose it is my own fault. I ought to climb over the wall. But it's difficult. They put me behind it young."

After awhile he said: "It's a great thought, isn't it, to think of having somebody you could be absolutely honest with?"

"Of course," said Pen. She was reminded of Blanche and Spike.

As Riever talked on she began to see how he reconciled villainy and sentiment in his mind.

"Of course it would have to be a person with a strong mind. For when I say honesty I don't mean all this sickening cant about goodness and unselfishness and meekness that the church hands out. Nobody takes that seriously any more. Man is by nature a rapacious animal. Out for what he can get. Well, his highest function must be to realize his nature. Therefore I say that the highest type of man is the man who gets what he wants regardless."

Pen thought wonderingly: "He actually looks upon himself as a romantic figure!"

As she made no answer he asked somewhat uneasily: "That's right, isn't it?"

"Not for me," said Pen. "Man may be a rapacious animal, but he is also capable of controlling his rapacity. And it seems to me it's only by controlling it that he can be even decently happy. I've read somewhere that beasts of prey always come to a violent end."

Riever smiled in a superior sort of way. "You're stronger than most women," he said with a sneer. "But you can't let go of your religious tags. I suppose it's too much to expect."

Pen only smiled.

"Now I suppose I've offended you," he said presently.

"Not in the least!" said Pen.

"No, you don't give a damn one way or the other," he said sorely.

Pen laughed. "Nothing I say pleases you!"

"You please me," he muttered, "but..." The end of his sentence trailed off unintelligibly.

What a queer mixture he was, Pen mused. Arrogance and self-distrust. Attempting to strut before her and collapsing at the lift of an eyebrow. She failed to take into account the terrible way in which her clear nature struck into the dark recesses of the ugly little man's being. He could assert himself strongly enough against anybody but her. And the more he was obliged to cringe to her, the more he desired her.

As they bowled over the causeway to the Island Riever said: "I haven't given up hope of you, though. You have a natural hatred of sham. I'll teach you to face the truth yet!"

Pen smiled on.

At the steamboat wharf at the other end of the Island the speed boat was waiting, her starboard light a startling gleam of emerald in a dusky gray world, her white-clad crew sitting quietly in the moonlight. Pen and her packages were handed aboard and they flew for Broome's Point.

Out on the water the moon indifferently resumed her sway. The whole earth was hers to tread on. The front of the island with its odd row of semi-detached, whitewashed shacks looked like something as foreign as Algiers. In the bow wave that rolled away from the speed boat there was a dull phosphorescent glow like saturated moonlight, and looking over through the shadow of the boat one could see fishes dart away like little balls of pale moonlight. Pen's face was as beautiful and passionless as the moon's.

In the sheltered nook astern the face of Riever the would-be strong man, the Devil's advocate, broke up like any calfish boy's. He fumbled clumsily for her hand.

"Don't!" whispered Pen sharply. "They'll see!"

"What of it?" he mumbled.

"I won't have it!" said Pen.

His eyebrows went up in a stare of indignant amazement. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that. But as it had absolutely no effect, they gradually came down again into the likeness of a sulky schoolboy's.

"Aw, Pen!"

She struggled hard with her repulsion. "Well ... well ... I hate to be touched!"

"One would think there was something the matter with me!" he muttered.

"This is simply weak of you," Pen said cunningly.

He looked away grinding his teeth.

Fortunately, as it was but three minutes to the Point, the scene could not be prolonged.

As they drew close to the old wharf they made out that there were a number of men upon it with lanterns and flash lights.

"What's going on there?" Riever asked his steersman.

"Couldn't say, sir. Everything was quiet when we started over."

They heard a hail from the wharf: "On board the Alexandra!"

And the answer: "Hello!"

"Give us some light here, please!"

The yacht's big search-light was thrown dazzlingly on the end of the wharf showing up all the figures in sharp silhouette.

The speed-boat approached unnoticed from the other side. The instant she drew alongside Riever sprang out and ran across. Pen guessed what was happening, and her heart seemed to stop and sink like a stone. But she followed Riever with a composed face.

All the men were looking over the other side, their heads down to keep the blinding glare out of their eyes. One had a rope with a grappling iron on the end of it. He was fishing for something while they all watched. The burly figure of Delehanty was conspicuous.

"What's wrong here?" demanded Riever.

"Don't know as there's anything wrong, sir. One of the men swimming here, said he dived into something suspicious. We're trying to locate it."

As he spoke the man with the rope said: "I've got it!" And started to haul in.

The green water surged up a little and the curved stem of the canoe rose out of it. The valise appeared, tied to a thwart.

Delehanty's harsh voice cried: "Counsell's canoe, by God! He never went away from here!"

Of one accord all the men turned and looked at Pen. She bore it unflinchingly. She disdained to turn away. Riever's face working uncontrollably with rage, looked truly devilish. Conscious that he was betraying himself, he turned his back sharply to the light.

When she had given them their fill of looking, Pen turned and commenced to walk slowly away.

"One moment, Miss!" said Delehanty.

Pen half turned. "I'm going home," she said in a composed voice. "If I'm wanted you'll find me there."

She walked on, taking care not to hurry herself. But her heart was beating with a bird's wings.

"No, you don't!" cried Delehanty, and started after her.

Riever with an odd, tense spring, caught his arm. There was a whispered colloquy, and as a result Delehanty stayed, and Riever went after Pen. The little man, tense with passion, had for the first time a sort of dignity. He was rather a terrible figure. Pen, hearing his cat-like steps behind her, was sorely afraid. He overtook her alongside the automobile that was waiting in the road.

"Will you get in?" he asked in a queer, thick voice.

Pen reflected that she would be safer in the car with the chauffeur than walking up the hill alone. She got in without speaking.

During the short ride up to the house they exchanged no word. Pen was pressed into her corner, Riever into his. He sat as still as an animal, his back slightly hunched, his hands on his thighs. Ugly-looking hands he had that the moonlight could not dignify: too small for a man, furtive-looking, hands acquainted with evil. Pen shuddered at them. When they passed between the broken gates and rounded the shrubbery, Pen saw with dismay that all the windows of the big house were dark. Her father had gone to bed.

When the car stopped she jumped out, avoiding Riever's offered assistance. Riever said to the chauffeur:

"You needn't wait. I'll walk back."

Pen was horribly afraid. Her instinct was to dart through the door, slam it in his face, and turn the key. But flight was too abject. If she yielded him ascendancy like that, she could never get it back again. She said to herself while her teeth chattered: "I'm not afraid of him! I'm not afraid of him! If I stand my ground I have nothing to fear!"

The car went back. Riever stepped up on the porch by the two boxes, his head sunk. Pen stood there.

"You tricked me!" he said with a violent gesture, but taking care not to raise his voice. "You said he'd gone from here! He's been here ever since! You're hiding him now! What did you go to town for to-day? What was in those packages you made me bring home in my car, a disguise for him?"

Pen was not dismayed by this. On the contrary as soon as he began to speak the man lost his curious, animal, impressiveness. Seeing him beside himself, Pen began to feel strong again.

"I left the packages in the boat," she said scornfully. "No doubt by this time Delehanty has examined them."

"What is this man to you?" demanded Riever.

"I've already told you. No more than any poor hunted creature."

"If you lied once you can lie again!"

Pen shrugged.

"Swear that he's not your lover!" he cried.

"To you?" cried Pen indignantly.

"Then he is your lover! You're keeping him close, I daresay. You don't shiver when he touches you!"

A great anger came to Pen's assistance. "You fool!" she cried. "Your disgusting money has turned your head! Who do you think you are to speak this way to me? I owe you nothing. Neither oaths nor explanations. Nothing!"

Riever could not stand up under it. His chin sunk, his body twisted. As a matter of fact he simply could not face the thought that the man he hated so had won the woman he desired. He snatched at any hope.

"Well ... if you're not hiding him, where is he?" he mumbled.

"I don't know. Far away, I hope."

"How could he have got away?"

"He walked up the Neck road while you were searching the shores."

"Oh God, if I could believe you!" groaned Riever.

"Well, I can't help you," said Pen. She saw that with every word she was regaining the upper hand, and her heart was strong.

A cajoling note crept into Riever's voice. "Well, you couldn't do him any further good by lying. If he's anywhere near we're bound to get him in the morning. Within an hour Delehanty 'll send a party by boat up to the head of Back Creek. They'll form a line across the Neck. At dawn we stretch another line across this end and close up. He can't escape between them."

Pen's heart contracted painfully, but she gave no outward sign. "What are you telling me this for?" she asked.

"You can't do him any further good. Leave him to his fate. Tell me where he is so I'll know you're on the square with me."

"It's nothing to me whether you think I'm on the square or not."

Riever raised his clenched hands in a gesture of impotent rage. "I've got to know!..."

"I wouldn't tell you if I knew," said Pen. "I wouldn't betray any man. Not you if you were in his place."

With a painful struggle for self-command he took still another tone. "Well, that's all right. I'll say no more about him.... But give me a pledge!"

"Why should I?" she said coldly.

Again the shaking gesture. "I can't stand this!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to!"

His voice became more abject. "Wait a minute! You don't understand. All I want is a word. You see how I am suffering. A word from you will end it!"

Pen was too startled to be angry any more. A terribly dangerous situation faced her, and she needed all her wits with which to meet it.

He took heart from her silence, her apparent uncertainty. "I'm asking you to marry me," he said with a touch of his old arrogance. "Do you get it? Mrs. Ernest Riever. Think what it means.... What do you say?"

"I won't answer you now," she murmured.

"You've got to answer me!" he said violently. "I've got to know how you stand towards me!"

She was silent.

"Look at it as a young fellow would look at a chance to advance himself," he rushed on. It was one kind of love-making. "Look what I have to offer you. A place in the sun! A place every living woman would envy you! Isn't that sweet to you? And by God! you'd grace it too, with your beauty and your high ways. You weren't shaped to wear print dresses, Pen. Think, think what you'd be. A sort of queen. A queen without any responsibilities. Carried about like a queen wherever you wanted to go, with an army to wait on you. Your slightest wish granted!"

"I don't want to be a queen," murmured Pen a little dizzied by this rush of words.

"Well then, anything you wanted.... Do you want to do good? You can have whatever sums you want to lay out in good works. Absolutely without limit. You can make a name as a philanthropist such as nobody ever had before. You couldn't refuse such a chance—you couldn't! ... What do you say?"

"I will not answer you now," repeated Pen. There was nothing else she could say.

He stared at her as if unable to credit that she should not jump at such a chance. "You've got to give me an answer!" he said showing his teeth. "I'm going to find out how you stand towards this murderer."

"Be careful!" cried Pen.

That cry of hers answered him really, but he would not face it. He became abject again. "Well, I'll say no more about him.... Suppose you have a sort of fancy for him. All right. I'll give you a chance to save him.... Marry me at once. Come away on the Alexandra with me, and I'll call off the chase. I'll withdraw the reward. With me out of it the case against Counsell would collapse like a pricked balloon. I couldn't offer fairer than that, could I? Come back with me now. The yacht has steam up. Will you? Will you?"

Pen was shaken. "Would you really take me on such terms?" she murmured.

"Oh God! I'd take you on any terms!" he groaned.

The thought flew into Pen's brain: "You couldn't trust him!" She energetically shook her head. "I won't be rushed into anything."

"Then I won't ask for a positive answer to-night," he stuttered. "But just a sign. Just a sign to show me I'm not hateful to you! .... Kiss me, Pen!"

She hesitated.

"Kiss me, Pen ... and I'll hold Delehanty back..."

She yielded. That is to say she yielded with her mind. But the flesh rebelled. He gathered her in his arms taut as a bow-string. As his face approached hers she snapped. With a wild, blind reaction she tore herself free. No man could have held her. The open door was behind her. She darted through and slammed it shut. He put his shoulder against it, but she was at least as strong as he. She got the key turned.

He beat on the door with the sides of his fists, cursing horribly, but as always, oddly careful not to make too much noise.

Pen, nauseated with disgust, thought: "To be married to such a maniac!"

Like a maniac he fell suddenly silent. She pictured him listening. Presently his voice came softly as if he had his lips to the crack of the door, wheedling, crafty, threatening; infinitely more disgusting than his rage.

"Are you there? ... Listen, I'll give you another chance. Open the door!"

A silence.

"If you don't he goes to the chair! ... By God! I'll spend every cent I possess to send him to the chair. Do you get that? Better open the door!"

A silence.

"It'll be too late when he's strapped in the chair with the black cap on and the electrode at the back of his handsome white neck... You'll remember it was really you put him there... Twelve hundred volts they give them. You can smell them burning ... Well, how about it?"

"Go away!" said Pen.

"Oh, all right! All right!" he cried violently.

She heard him leap down by the boxes. Looking through the narrow pane beside the door, she saw him run along the drive brandishing his clenched fists over his head.

Pen went up-stairs. A sudden weakness overcame her, and she could scarcely drag one foot after the other. As she reached the upper landing a door opened and her father came out, carrying a candle. She had to assume some semblance of self-possession.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing, Dad."

"I thought I heard a little commotion down-stairs. It wakened me."

"Only the closing of the front door. You must have been dreaming."

"Who brought you home?"

"Mr. Riever."

A note of pleased excitement crept into Pendleton's voice. "You have been with him all day?"

"Most all day."

He paddled close to her, the candle shaking a little in his agitation. He was wearing an old-fashioned night-shirt slit at the sides, and revealing an unexpectedly plump calf. "Oh, Pen, it's all right between you two, isn't it?" he said. "It means so much to me!"

Pen was too weary to get angry all over again. She merely smiled faintly at the irony of life.

He had put off his grand airs with his clothes. He was as simple now as his old-fashioned shirt. "Pen dear, think what it means to me! A frustrated old man! I'm a failure. I can't do anything for you. And I see this chance for you to establish yourself! Don't let any romantic youthful folly stand in the way, daughter. There's nothing in it. I know. Safety is everything!"

"Dad, you must leave this to me," Pen muttered painfully.

"I will! I will!" he said brightly. "I have every confidence in you. If you think of the matter at all there can be but the one answer!"

"Go to bed, dear," said Pen, kissing him.