Tourmalin's Time Cheques

He sped down the passage, and found, to his horror, that he had forgotten the number of his berth. However, he knew where it ought to be, and darted into an open door, which he fastened securely with hook and bolt, and sank breathless on one of the lower berths.

"You seem in a hurry, my friend!" said a voice opposite; and Peter's eyes, unused at first to the comparative dimness, perceived that a big man was sitting on the opposite berth, engaged in putting on a pair of spiked cricket-shoes. He had bolted himself inside the cabin with Mr. Perkins!

CHAPTER IX.

Compound Interest

The Bank Manager looked across at Peter with an amused smile; he seemed quite friendly. Whether he was in Peter's cabin, or Peter in his, did not appear; and perhaps it was not of much consequence either way. If the cabin belonged to Mr. Perkins, he did not, at all events, appear to resent the intrusion.

"You seem rather put out about something," he said again, as Peter was still too short of breath for words.

"Oh, no," panted Peter, "it's nothing. There was so much bustle going on above, that I thought I'd come in here for a little quiet; that's all."

"Well," said the Manager, "I'm glad you looked in; for, as it happens, you're the very man I wanted to see. I daresay you're wondering why I'm putting on these things?"

Peter nodded his head, which was all he felt equal to.

"Why, I've just been having a talk with that old she-griffin from Melbourne. Perhaps you don't know that her brother is coming on board directly?"

"Oh yes, I do!" said Peter.

"Well, it seems she means to denounce me to him as the slanderer of her father. She may, if she chooses; my conscience is perfectly clear on that score. No one can bring anything of the sort home to me; and I've no doubt I shall soon satisfy him that I'm as innocent as an unborn babe. Still, I want you, as a respectable man and the only real friend I have on board, to come with me and be my witness that you never heard such a rumour from my lips; and besides, sir, we shall have an opportunity at last of seeing the unutterable scamp who has had the barefaced impudence to say I told him this precious story! She's going to produce him, sir; and if he dares to stand me out to my face – well, he'll know why I've put on these shoes! Come along; I can't let you off."

Peter dared not refuse, for fear of attracting his friend's suspicions. He could only trust to slipping away in the confusion; and so, unfastening the cabin-door, the Manager caught the unresisting Tourmalin tightly by the arm, and hurried him along the central passage and up the companion.

Even Miss Davenport would have been a welcome diversion at that moment; but she was not there to intercept him, and he reached the upper deck more dead than alive.

"Where's that old vixen now?" exclaimed the Manager, dropping Peter's arm. "Here, just stay where you are a minute, till I find her and her confounded brother!"

He bustled off, leaving Tourmalin by the davits, quite incapable of action of any kind in the presence of this new and awful dilemma. He had been spreading a cruel and unjustifiable slander against an irreproachable Colonial magnate, whose son was now at hand to demand reparation with a horsewhip. He could only propitiate him by denouncing Perkins as his informant, and if he did that he would be kicked from one end of the ship to the other with a spiked boot! This was Nemesis indeed, and it was Sophia who had insisted upon his exposing himself to it. What a fool he was not to fly back to that cabin, while he could!

He turned to flee, and as he did so a hand was passed softly through his arm.

"Not that way, Peter!" said Miss Tyrrell's voice.

A wild, faint hope came to him that he might be going to receive one of the back quarters of an hour. The caprices of the Time Cheques were such that it was quite possible he would be thrown back into an earlier interview. Little as he felt inclined for any social intercourse just then, he saw that it would afford him a brief interlude – would at least give him breathing-time before his troubles began again.

"I will go wherever you choose," he said; "I am in your hands."

"I came," she said, "to take you to her. She is asking for you."

"She?" said Peter. "For heaven's sake, who?"

"Why, Miss Pinceney, of course. I knew who it was directly I saw her face. Peter, is it true, as papa tells me, that I misunderstood you just now – that she is not engaged to Alfred?"

"Alfred? No!" he replied. "If she is engaged to anyone at all, I have strong grounds for supposing it's to me!"

"Then we must submit, that is all," said Miss Tyrrell. "But we do not know her decision yet; there is still hope!"

"Yes," he said, "there is hope still. Let us go to her; make haste!"

He meant what he said. Sophia could at least extricate him from a portion of his difficulties. Miss Tyrrell – magnanimous and unselfish girl that she was, in spite of her talent for misapprehension – was ready to resign him to a prior claim, if one was made. And Sophia was bound to claim him; for if the engagement between them had been broken off, he could not now be her husband, as he was. Even Time Cheques must recognise accomplished facts.

He followed her across the ship, turning down the very passage in which he had sat through more than one cheque with Miss Davenport; and on the opposite side he found Sophia standing, with her usual composure, waiting for his arrival.

She was so identically the same Sophia that he had left so lately, that he felt reassured. She, at least, could not be the dupe of all this. She had come – how, he did not trouble himself to think, – but she had come with the benevolent intention of saving him!

"How do you do, my love?" he began. "I – I thought I should see you here."

"You only see me here, Peter," she replied, in a voice that trembled slightly, in spite of her efforts to command it, "because I felt very strongly that it was my duty to put an end at the earliest moment to a situation which has become impossible!"

"I'm sure," said Peter, "it is quite time it was put an end to – it couldn't go on like this much longer."

"It shall not, if I can help it," she said. "Miss Tyrrell, pray don't go away; what I have to say concerns you too."

"No; don't go away, Miss Tyrrell," added Peter, who felt the most perfect confidence in Sophia's superior wisdom, and was now persuaded that somehow it was all going to be explained. "Sir William, will you kindly step this way too? Sir William Tyrrell – Miss Pinceney. Miss Pinceney has something to tell you which will make my position thoroughly clear."

"I have only to say," she said, "that your honourable and straightforward conduct, Peter, has touched me to the very heart. I feel that I am the only person to blame, for it was I who insisted upon your subjecting yourself to this test."

"It was," said Peter. "I told you something would happen – and it has!"

"I would never hold you to a union from which all love on your side had fled; do not think so, Peter. And now that I see my – my rival, I confess that I could expect no other result. So, dear Miss Tyrrell, I resign him to you freely – yes, cheerfully – for, by your womanly self-abnegation you have proved yourself the worthier. Take her, Peter; you have my full consent!"

"My dear young lady," said the Judge, deeply affected, "this is most noble of you! Allow me to shake you by the hand."

"I can't thank you, dear, dear Miss Pinceney!" sobbed his daughter. "Peter, tell her for me how we shall both bless and love her all our lives for this!"

Peter's brain reeled. Was this Sophia's notion of getting him out of a difficulty?

As he gazed distractedly around, his eyes became fixed and glazed with a new terror. A stalwart stranger, with a bushy red beard, was coming towards him, with a stout riding-whip in his right hand. By his side walked the Manager, from whose face all vestige of friendliness had vanished.

"As soon as you have quite finished your conversation with these ladies," said the Manager, with iron politeness, "this gentleman would be glad of a few moments with you; after which I shall request your attention to a little personal affair of my own. Don't let us hurry you, you know!"

"I – I won't," returned Peter, flurriedly; "but I'm rather busy just now: a little later, I – I shall be delighted."

As he stood there, he was aware that they had withdrawn to a bench some distance away, where they conferred with the elderly lady from Melbourne. He could feel their angry glare upon him, and it contributed to rob him of the little self-possession he had left.

"Sophia," he faltered piteously, "I say, this is too bad – it is, really! You can't mean to leave me in such a hole as this – do let's get home at once!"

Before she could make any reply to an appeal which seemed to astonish her considerably, a thin, bilious-looking man, with a face twitching with nervous excitement, a heavy black moustache, and haggard eyes, in which a red fire smouldered, appeared at the gangway and joined the group.

"I beg your pardon," he said, lifting his hat; "forgive me if I interrupt you, but my business is urgent – most urgent! Perhaps you could kindly inform me if there is a – a gentleman" (the word cost him a manifest struggle to pronounce) – "a gentleman on board of the name of Tourmalin? I have a little matter of business" (here his right hand stole to his breast-pocket) "to transact with him," he explained, with a sinister smile that caused Peter to give suddenly at the knees.

"It's that infernal Alfred!" he thought. "Now I am done for!"

"Why," said Miss Tyrrell, who was clinging affectionately to Peter's arm, "this is Mr. Tourmalin! You can speak to him now – here, if you choose. We have no secrets from one another – have we, Peter?"

"I have lately learnt," said the gloomy man, "that a certain Mr. Tourmalin has stolen from me the affection of one who was all heaven and earth to me!"