‘Lud, sir, how can I answer you? When you are angry you terrify me. Is it a crime that I should be grateful to so obliging and handsome a gentleman? And so scrupulous withal. How many in your place but would have sought to take advantage of an unprotected woman? But that,’ she ended, with a wide-eyed adoring look, ‘is something you would never do.’
A flicker of self-complacency kindled in his heart. The flattery was gross enough; but was there not, after all, something to be said for her point of view? Embarrassed by the thought of his own nobility he gave a nervous cough and fixed his gaze on distance. But when his glance travelled, as it needs must, in her direction again, he found her eyes still softly shining upon him with undiminished radiance. And it could not be denied that they were uncommonly pretty eyes in their fashion.
‘You never would,’ she repeated. ‘Would you?’
‘Indeed I trust not,’ he answered: awkwardly enough, for self-satisfaction was giving place now to discomfort.
‘No,’ she said, in melting accents, ‘you would never betray me. Not even,’ she added, sighing wistfully, ‘not even if I asked you to.’
‘What do you mean?’ He looked at her steadily, but she did not flinch. Her meaning was evident enough, but her motive was obscure. If her passion was real, it was as inconvenient as flattering; but it was flattering first of all, and disturbing. If feigned, what did she think to gain by the pretence? But the answer to that was not beyond all conjecture; and suddenly it flashed into his mind that this was a woman who had just been bereaved of one she called her brother, and it made the case no better that in calling him so she had probably lied. ‘Mrs Robinson,’ said Marden coldly,’ for that is what you call yourself, I fancy, I think it time you heard some plain speaking. The man you called George Robinson, the man you called your brother, carried on his person some very curious marks and some very curious articles of property. Item, on his forearm an obscene drawing tattooed—unusual decoration for a gentleman. Item, an ill-scrawled letter written in thieves’ jargon: still more unusual. Item, a black mask for the eyes, such as gentlemen of the road are in the habit of assuming in their more modest moments. Item . . . but perhaps I weary you with these details?’
The change in her face startled him, even though he had expected it. Fear distorted her. She was hunted, an outcast. He wondered that he had ever thought her pretty.
‘I am a magistrate, Mrs Robinson, and during those days when you so wisely kept yourself retired to your room, prostrated as you were with your grief, I did my best to get at the truth of this affair. Your brother, or whatever he was to you, met his death by falling from his horse, the very horse you have been riding today. There was a witness, a man called Noke, and it would have been my duty to question that witness’s honesty but for one or two circumstances. First, the body had not been robbed; and there was no mark on it to suggest that he had been assaulted. Second, the pretty trifles I have enumerated for you, and other evidence which I took the trouble to obtain from other sources, convinced me that the world was well rid of a rascal.’ He paused, to note the effect of his words. The woman did not speak. Her face was gray, and she lacked even the presence of mind to faint. ‘There was another thing we found. A lady’s jewel-case.’
Her eyes grew wider. She nodded.
‘The jewels are yours?’ asked Marden.
She nodded again.
‘Or your mistress’s?’ said he. ‘Which is it?’
There was a long silence. The woman summoned all her reserves of courage, and Marden, watching, could not but admire her for it. She spoke at last in a voice quivering with suppressed hysteria. ‘I thought he was a gentleman. I swear I did. If I’d thought he was such a dirty rat . . .’
‘If he was the fellow I believe him to have been,’ said Marden, seeing that she was disinclined to continue, ‘he was not without a smattering of education. That makes him the more a scoundrel. These smooth-tongued gentlemanly rogues are the worst of a poisonous crew, and you were fortunate, my girl, that you did not have your throat cut. But that’s not all, as I’d best warn you. Had I done my strict duty I should have committed you to the Assizes on suspicion of being that fellow’s accomplice. But it would give me no pleasure to be the means of bringing a young woman to the gallows, so here we are, on our way to Upchurch, where, whatever you do or have done, you will be outside my jurisdiction.’ He rose. ‘Come along, madam,’ he said, with grim friendliness, ‘we must go see if our horses are ready. We’ve spent time enough here. We must make haste. And on the road you shall tell me who taught you to play the lady so deftly. It will make a good story, I’ll warrant.’