but he was too skilful
to play it then.

CHAPTER XXV. TO THE RESCUE

I must mix myself with action lest I wither by despair.

Jocelyn had not conveyed to her brother by word or hint the accusation
brought against him by Victor Durnovo. But when he returned home it
almost seemed as if he were conscious of the knowledge that was hers.
She thought she detected a subtle difference in his manner towards
herself--something apologetic and humble. This was really the result of
Victor Durnovo's threat made in the office of the factory long before.

Maurice Gordon was not the sort of man to carry through the burden of
a half-discovered secret. It needs a special temperament for this--one
that is able to inspire fear in whomsoever it may be necessary to hold
in check--a temperament with sufficient self-reliance and strength
to play an open game steadily through to the end. Since Durnovo's
plain-spoken threat had been uttered Gordon had thought of little else,
and it was well known that Jocelyn's influence was all that prevented
him from taking hopelessly to drink. When away from her at the
sub-factories it is to be feared that he gave way to the temptation.
There is nothing so wearing as a constant suspense, a never-resting
fear; and if a man knows that both may be relieved by a slight
over-indulgence he must be a strong man indeed if he can turn aside.

Gordon betrayed himself to Jocelyn in a thousand little ways. He
consulted her wishes, deferred to her opinion, and sought her advice in
a way which never had been his hitherto; and while both were conscious
of this difference, both were alike afraid of seeking to explain it.

Jocelyn knew that her repulse of Victor Durnovo was only a temporary
advantage; the position could not remain long undecided. Victor Durnovo
would have to be met sooner or later. Each day increased the strength of
her conviction that her brother was in the power of this man. Whether
he had really allowed himself to be dragged into the horrors of even a
slight connection with the slave-trade she could not tell; but she knew
the world well enough to recognise the fact that Durnovo had only
to make the accusation for it to be believed by the million
sensation-mongers who are always on the alert for some new horror.
She knew that should Durnovo breathe a word of this in the right
quarter--that is to say, into the eager journalistic ear--there would
hardly be a civilised country in the world w