WHAT with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her voice, Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine emotion. His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively character, applauded both the matter and the style; but the more judicial functions of his mind refused assent.
It was an excellent story; and it might be true, but he believed it was not. Miss Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for a lady to wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so? His spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now fell to zero; and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank her for her narrative. His mind, indeed, was empty of everything beyond a dull longing for escape. From this pause, which grew the more embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden laughter of the lady. His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank merriment as put him instantly at ease.
'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with excellent spirit.'
'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter. But from this access she more speedily recovered.
'This is all very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'
At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.
'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should be delighted, I am sure. But our position is most unusual; and circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control, deprive me of the power - the pleasure - Unless, indeed,' he added, somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to the care of the police?'
She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and he saw with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.
'Do so,' she said, 'and - weigh my words well - you kill me as certainly as with a knife.'
'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.
'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light of the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge? My family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw yourself by what an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen to supply me with the funds for my escape. I admit that you are brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are you to prefer your opinion before that of my uncle, an ex-minister of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political experience? If I am mad, is he? And you must allow me, besides, a special claim upon your help. Strange as you may think my story, you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and assist me, to whom am I to turn?'
'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling singly on that fact.
'I begin to interest you,' she cried. 'But, frankly, you are condemned to help me. If the service I had to ask of you were serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more. But what is it? To take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another a sum of money! What can be more simple?'
'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'
She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had not yet found time to make the count, tore open the cover and spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England notes. It took some time to make the reckoning, for the notes were of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds sterling. The sight of so much money worked an immediate revolution in the mind of Challoner.
'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a perfect stranger?'
'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you as a stranger.'
'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession. Although of a very good family - through my mother, indeed, a lineal descendant of the patriot Bruce - I dare not conceal from you that my affairs are deeply, very deeply involved. I am in debt; my pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an irresistible temptation.'
'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you have removed my last hesitation? Take them.' And she thrust the notes into the young man's hand.
He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.
'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket; and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself reduced to the awkwardness of the pronoun.'
Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had come lightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he refuse so generous a trust? Upon none he saw, that was not unpardonably wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of his companion had already made a breach in the rampart of Challoner's caution. The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere mystification, which it were the height of solemn folly to resent. On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the public-house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so, could he desert her? There was a choice of risks: the risk of behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand. The story seemed false; but then the money was undeniable. The whole circumstances were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had the speech and manners of society.
