The Crowned Skull | Page 7

money. Also, I will put your father's affairs right.'
'Are you serious?' demanded the girl, with a red spot on either cheek.
'Perfectly. I never waste words.'
'Neither do I. Wait!'
She walked away, leaving Bowring wondering what she was about to
do, and speedily returned with Oswald Forde.
'I have asked this gentleman to come,' said Dericka coldly, 'so that he
and you may hear my answer. Oswald, Mr. Bowring and my father
have decided that I shall marry Morgan, the son of this man.'
'Dericka, you will not, when I--'
'When you love me,' she finished, and placing her arms round his neck
she kissed him fondly. Then, turning to Bowring, who looked on
grimly at this comedy, she said promptly, 'Do you require any further
answer?'
'What does all this mean?' asked Forde in angry tones.
'It means that Mr. Bowring wanted to buy me and that I am not for sale.
It means, Oswald, that I will marry you whenever you like.'
'It means also,' broke in Bowring, perfectly composed, 'that if you do
not obey your father and marry my son, Sir Hannibal Trevick, baronet

as he is, will be disgraced.'
'Disgraced! What do you mean?'
'I advise you to ask your father that,' said Bowring sarcastically. 'You
will find that he is on my side, and is anxious to call Morgan his
son-in-law. For the rest, I can wait. He pulled out his watch and
glanced at it. 'Five o'clock; I must go. I'll return to-morrow to see if
your conversation with your father has modified your attitude.
Good-day!'
When the millionaire had gone Dericka stared after him in
consternation.
'What does he mean?' she asked.
'Blackmail,' said Forde quietly. 'My legal experience tells me that much.
Your father was in South Africa and apparently got into some scrape.
This man knows all about it, and unless you marry this Morgan
Bowring he will tell all the world something, which your father would
rather keep concealed.'
'Oswald,' said Dericka rapidly, 'my father is weak and foolish in many
ways. But I do not believe that he has done, or would do, anything
disgraceful.'
'Then why is this man so certain that you will marry at his bidding?'
Dericka passed her hand across her forehead with a weary air.
'I do not know,' she said. 'This Morgan Bowring is half an idiot--a most
dreadful person to look upon. Were he sane I would not marry him,
much less when I know, what all St. Ewalds knows, that the man is not
responsible for his actions in a great measure. My father would never
consent to my marrying him. I am sure of that.'
Forde was silent. He knew that Sir Hannibal was a selfish man, and
probably had pages in his past life which he would not like read by the

world. To save himself from a single pang he would sacrifice Dericka
without a moment's hesitation. But he did not tell this to the girl for
obvious reasons, and remained awkwardly silent. It was the girl who
first recovered her speech.
'I shall see my father at once,' she said decisively, 'and confront him
with Mr. Bowring before he leaves this place.'
Forde acquiesced, but a search for the master of the house was in vain.
Sir Hannibal was not to be found in any of the rooms, nor in the
gardens. People, having exhausted the pleasures of the fete, were
already leaving, and Dericka, with Forde at her heels, went down to the
gates thinking to find her father there, saying farewell to some of his
visitors. Instead she found Mr. Bowring getting into a 50-hp. Hadrian
machine, more like a racer than a simple motor-car for travelling
country roads. Bowring addressed her:
'I cannot find my old friend Sir Hannibal,' he said with something like a
sneer, 'or I should have told him of our conversation. But I'll come
again to-morrow. Good evening.' And as the chauffeur placed his hands
on the wheel the motor swung off with a powerful hum, like a gigantic
bee.
Dericka stared after the machine, but found nothing to say. Then she
went back with Forde to again search for Sir Hannibal, and again was
unsuccessful.
What Bowring thought of the girl's defiance it is impossible to say. He
sat thinking deeply, sometimes with a grim smile, and again with a
frown corrugating his brows. The chauffeur, a quiet, fair young fellow
called Donalds, engineered the racer--for the Hadrian certainly was that,
from the speed she was going at--up the High Street of St. Ewalds and
out into the open country. Many people stopped to look at that low,
rakish form painted grey, and looking uncanny, which ran up the steep
ascent of the street like a fly up