The Trey o' Hearts/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Disclosures
IN A little office, in one of lower Manhattan's office-towers, a mouse-brown man sat over a big desk: a little man of big affairs, sole steward of one of America's most formidable fortunes.
At precisely the instant when Alan Law catapulted over the edge of a cliff in northern Maine the signal of the little man's telephone clicked, and, lifting receiver to ear, he nodded with a smile and said, "Ask her to come in at once, please." Jumping up, he placed a chair, the door opened, and a young woman entered.
The mouse-brown man bowed. "Miss Rose Trine?" he murmured.
The young woman returned his bow: "Mr. Digby?"
"You are kind to come in response to my—ah—unconventional invitation," said the little man. "Won't you—ah—sit down?"
She said, "Thank you," gravely, and took the chair he indicated.
"If you will permit me to say so," he said 
IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.
ALAN FOUND HIMSELF LOVING THE DAUGHTER OF HIS ENEMY.
The girl flushed. "Mr. Law has told you?"
"I am his nearest friend on this side, as well as his man of business. So I have ventured to request this—ah surreptitious appointment in order to—ah—take liberty of asking whether you have recently sent Alan a message."
"I have not communicated with Mr. Law in more than a year!"
"Precisely as I thought," Mr. Digby nodded. "None the less, Mr. Law not long since received what purported to be a message from you: In fact—a rose. I have the information over Mr. Law's signature—a letter received ten days ago—from Quebec."
"Alan in America!" the girl cried in distress.
"In response to—ah—the message of the rose."
"But I did not send it!"
"I felt sure of that," said Mr. Digby, watching her narrowly, "because of something that accompanied the rose, a playing card—a Trey of Hearts."
Her eyes were blank. "I must tell you, I see, that a Trey of Hearts invariably foresignalled an attempt on the life of Alan's father."
Her white lips stammered: "My father?"
"That is why I sent for you," Mr. Digby pursued. "Alan's letter reached me within twenty-four hours of his arrival in Quebec, and detailed his scheme to enter the United States secretly—as he puts it, by way of northern Maine—and promised to advise by telegraph as soon as he reached Moosehead Lake. He should have wired me ere this. Frankly, I am anxious about the boy!"
"And I!" the girl exclaimed pitifully. "To think that he should be brought into such peril through me!"
"You can tell me nothing?"
"Nothing—as yet. I did not dream that the message of the rose was known to any but Alan and myself. I cannot understand!"
"I may tell you that your father maintains a very efficient corps of secret agents."
"You think he spied upon me?"
"I know he did. In the service of my employer I, too, employ agents of my own. Your father sent you to Europe for the sole purpose of having you meet Alan."
"Oh!" she protested. "But what earthly motive"
"That Alan might be won back to America through you—and"
There was no need to finish. The girl was visibly mustering her wits to cope with this emergency.
"I may depend on you," Mr. Digby suggested, "to advise me if?"
A fine spirit of resolve set her countenance aglow. "You may count on me for action on my part, if circumstances warrant it. I promised not to marry Alan—but not to stand by and see him sacrificed. Tell me how I may communicate secretly with you—and let me go as soon as possible!"
Within the hour Rose Trine stood before her father in that sombre room whose sinister colour-scheme of crimson and black was the true livery of the passion for vengeance that alone kept warm the embers of his deathlike life. Two hours ago she could not have denied him compassion; now she looked down upon him with cold eyes, hardening her heart. When at length he decided to speak, it was with a ring of hateful irony in his strangely sonorous voice.
"Rose, I am told you have been to-day guilty of an act of disloyalty."
She said coolly: "You had me spied upon."
"Naturally, I had you watched."
She dropped an impassive monosyllable: "Well?"
"You have visited the servant and friend of the man I hate—and you love."
She said, without expression: "Yes."
"Repeat what passed between you."
"I shall not, but on one condition."
"And that is?"
"Tell me whether it was you who sent the rose— and, where is Judith?"
"I shall tell you nothing. Repeat"—the voice rang resolutely—"repeat what Digby told you!"
The girl was silent for a long minute. Then his hand moved toward the row of buttons sunk in the top of his desk.
"I warn you I have ways to make you speak"
With a quick movement the girl prisoned the bony wrist in her strong fingers. With her other hand she whipped open an upper drawer of the desk and took from it a revolver.
"On the contrary," she said quietly, "the time has passed when you could have me punished for disobedience. You will call nobody; if interrupted I shan't hesitate to defend myself. And now I shall find for myself what I wish to know."
For a moment he watched in silence as she bent over the desk, rummaging its drawers. Then with an infuriated gesture he began to curse her. …
She shuddered a little at the black oaths, but nothing could stay her in her purpose. He was breathless when she straightened up, studied intently for a moment a sheaf of papers, and thrust them into her hand-bag with the revolver. Then touching the push-button which released a secret door, she slipped from the room, and within another minute had made her way unseen from the house.