aurice
Gordon's hand was in the top right-hand drawer of his writing-table.
The good-natured blue eyes suddenly became fixed and steady. But Durnovo
seemed to make an effort over himself, and walked to the window, where
he drew aside the woven-grass blind and looked out into the glaring
sunlight. Still standing there, he turned and spoke in a low,
concentrated voice:

"No," he said, "I can't see that it is out of the question. On the
contrary, it seems only natural that she should marry the man who is her
brother's partner in many a little--speculation."

Maurice Gordon, sitting there, staring hopelessly into the half-breed's
yellow face, saw it all. He went back in a flash of recollection to many
passing details which had been unnoted at the time--details which now
fitted into each other like the links of a chain--and that chain was
around him. He leapt forward in a momentary opening of the future, and
saw himself ruined, disgraced, held up to the execration of the whole
civilised world. He was utterly in this man's power--bound hand and
foot. He could not say him no. And least of all could he say no to
this demand, which had roused all the latent chivalry, gentlemanliness,
brotherly love, that was in him. Maurice Gordon knew that Victor Durnovo
possessed knowledge which Jocelyn would consider cheap at the price of
her person.

There was one way out of it. His hand was still on the handle of the top
right-hand drawer. He was a dead shot. His finger was within two inches
of the stock of a revolver. One bullet for Victor Durnovo, another for
himself. Then the old training of his school days--the training that
makes an upright, honest gentleman--asserted itself, and he saw the
cowardice of it. There was time enough for that later, when the crisis
came. In the meantime, if the worst came to the worst, he could fight to
the end.

"I don't think," said Durnovo, who seemed to be following Gordon's
thoughts, "that the idea would be so repellent to your sister as you
seem to think."

And a sudden ray of hope shot athwart the future into which his listener
was staring. It might be so. One can never tell with women. Maurice
Gordon had had considerable experience of the world, and, after all, he
was only building up hope upon precedent. He knew, as well as you or
I, that women will dance and flirt with--even marry--men who are not
gentlemen. Not only for the moment, but as a permanency, something seems
to kill their percept