: The Slave of Silence by White Fred M Fred Merrick - Mystery fiction

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

amiliarly on Beatrice's arm, and she could feel his fingers trembling.

"Very well," he said sulkily. "If you have made up your minds as to this course, I have no more to say. But there is nothing to gain by standing here all day. Beatrice, I have something to say to you."

"I am quite ready," Beatrice said. "I have also something to say to you. We will go on as far as my sitting-room. Please don't leave the hotel, Colonel Berrington; I may want you again."

The hard corners of Richford's mouth trembled, but he said nothing. He did not utter a word until the door of the sitting-room had closed upon Beatrice and himself. He motioned the girl to a chair, but she ignored the suggestion.

"I am glad you have come so quickly to the point," Beatrice said eagerly. "Am I your wife? I doubt it. I do not think I am your wife, because the ceremony was not quite completed and we did not sign the register. You know what my feelings have been all along; I have never made the slightest attempt to disguise them. If I had known that my father was dead--that he had died on the way to church, I should never have become Mrs. Stephen Richford. To save my father's good name I had consented to this sacrifice. My father is dead beyond the reach of trouble. If I had only known. If I had only known!"

The words came with a fierce whisper. They stung the listener as no outburst of contempt or scorn could. They told him clearly how the speaker loathed and despised him.

"Nobody did know," he sneered. "Nobody could possibly have known."

"That is not true," Beatrice cried. She had come a little closer to Richford; her cheeks were blazing with anger, her eyes flamed passionately. "It is a cowardly lie. There was one man who saw my father after his death, and I am going to prove the fact in a way that cannot possibly be disputed. One man was in my father's room after his death. That man saw my father lying there, and he crept away without giving the slightest alarm. You may sneer, you may say that such a thing is impossible, that the man I allude to would have nothing to gain by such a course; but as I said before, I am going to prove it. Look at this telegram I hold in my hand. It was sent before ten o'clock to-day to the person to whom it is addressed. It evidently relates to some Stock Exchange business. The address is quite clear; the time the telegram was delivered is quite clear, too; and by the side of my father's body I found the telegram, which could only have been dropped there by the party to whom it was addressed. So that party knew that my father was dead, and that party made no alarm. Why?"

"What are you going to do?" Richford asked sullenly.

Richford stood there shaking and quivering with passion, and yet not free from the vague terror that Beatrice had noticed all along. Beatrice could not repress a shudder as she looked at that evil, scowling face. To be with that man always, to share his home and his company, seemed to her a most impossible thing. She had lost her father; the future was black and hopeless before her, but she felt a strength and courage now, that she had been a stranger to for a long time. There was hope, too, which is a fine thing when allied with youth and vitality.

She need not live with this man; she had every excuse for not doing so. Beatrice cared very little, for the moment, whether she was married or not. It might possibly be that in the eyes of the law she was this man's wife; the law might compel her to share his home. But now Beatrice had a weapon in her hand and she knew how to use it.

"Give me that telegram," Richford said hoarsely. "Hand it over to me at once."

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!