FullReads

“You will know me better soon,” Lygon added, his head twitching with excitement.

Henderley recognized him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, but presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was forward here, and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail there would never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came straight to the point.

“You can do nothing; there is no proof,” he said, with firm assurance.

“There is Dupont,” answered Lygon, doggedly.

“Who is Dupont?”

“The French Canadian who helped me–I divided with him.”

“You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose you are lying now.”

Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out the wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it–he could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire and blood and shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history of his life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand this man before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever he had seen–he remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had acted on his instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder then, that the scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never looked on it as with eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending toward the solution of the problem by which he was faced flashed through his mind, and he rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the phrase “I suppose you are lying now.”

“Dupont is here–not a mile away,” was the reply. “He will give proof. He would go to jail or to the gallows to put you there, if you do not pay. He is a devil–Dupont.”

Still the great man could not see his way out. He must temporize for a little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by was his daughter, the apple of his eye.

“What do you want? How much did you figure you could get out of me, if I let you bleed me?” he asked, sneeringly and coolly. “Come now, how much?”

Lygon, in whom a blind hatred of the man still raged, was about to reply, when he heard a voice calling, “Daddy, Daddy!”

Suddenly the red, half-insane light died down in Lygon’s eyes. He saw the snake upon the ground by the reedy lake, the girl standing over it–the girl with the tawny hair. This was her voice.

Henderley had made a step toward a curtain opening into another room of the great tent, but before he could reach it the curtain was pushed back and the girl entered with a smile.

“May I come in?” she said; then stood still, astonished, seeing Lygon.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh–you!”

All at once a look came into her face which stirred it as a flying insect stirs the water of a pool. On the instant she remembered that she had seen the man before.

It was ten years ago in Montana, on the night of her birthday. Her father had been called away to talk with this man, and she had seen him from the steps of the “special.” It was only the caricature of the once strong, erect ranchman that she saw; but there was no mistake, she recognized him now.

Lygon, dumfounded, looked from her to her father, and he saw now in Henderley’s eyes a fear that was not to be misunderstood.

Here was where Henderley could be smitten, could be brought to his knees. It was the vulnerable part of him. Lygon could see that he was stunned. The great financier was in his power. He looked back again to the girl, and her face was full of trouble.

A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was responsible for this man’s degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the eyes.