"Sit down, Mr.--er----" said Bones.
There was a cold, cold feeling at his heart, a sense of coming
disaster, but Bones facing the real shocks and terrors of life was a
different young man from the Bones who fussed and fumed over its
trifles.
"I suppose you wonder why I have come to see you, Mr. Tibbetts," said
Hyane, taking a cigarette from the silver box on the table. "I rather
wonder why I have the nerve to see you myself. I've come on a very
delicate matter."
There was a silence.
"Indeed?" said Bones a little huskily, and he knew instinctively what
that delicate matter was.
"It is about Marguerite," said Mr. Hyane.
Bones inclined his head.
"You see, we have been great pals all our lives," went on Jackson
Hyane, pulling steadily at the cigarette--"in fact, sweethearts."
His keen eyes never left the other's face, and he read all he wanted to
know.
"I am tremendously fond of Marguerite," he went on, "and I think I am
not flattering myself when I say that Marguerite is tremendously fond
of me. I haven't been especially fortunate, and I have never had the
money which would enable me to offer Marguerite the kind of life which
a girl so delicately nurtured should have."
"Very admirable," said Bones, and his voice came to his own ears as the
voice of a stranger.
"A few days ago," Mr. Hyane went on, "I was offered a tea plantation
for fourteen thousand pounds. The prospects were so splendid that I
went to a financier who is a friend of mine, and he undertook to
provide the money, on which, of course, I agreed to pay an interest.
The whole future, which had been so black, suddenly became as bright as
day. I came to Marguerite, as you saw, with the news of my good luck,
and asked her if she would be my wife."
Bones said nothing; his face was a mask.
"And now I come to my difficulty, Mr. Tibbetts," said Hyane. "This
afternoon Marguerite and I played upon you a little deception which I
hope you will forgive."
"Certainly, certainly" mumbled Bones, and gripped the arms of his chair
the tighter.
"When I took Marguerite to lunch to-day," said Hyane, "it was to
be--married."
"Married!" repeated Bones dully, and Mr. Hyane nodded.
"Yes, we were married at half-past one o'clock to-day at the Marylebone
Registry Office, and I was hoping that Marguerite would be able to tell
you her good news herself. Perhaps"--he smiled--"it isn't as good news
to her as it is to me. But this afternoon a most tragic thing
happened."
He threw away his cigarette, rose, and paced the room with agitated
strides. He had practised those very strides all that morning, for he
left nothing to chance.