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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76981-0.txt b/76981-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07dd852 --- /dev/null +++ b/76981-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9909 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76981 *** + + + + + + EAGLE SERIES No. 550 + SAVED FROM HERSELF + BY + ADELAIDE STIRLING + + [Illustration] + + STREET & SMITH ~ PUBLISHERS ~ NEW YORK + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I. THE THEATER. + CHAPTER II. “A PENNILESS ADVENTURESS.” + CHAPTER III. THE ROSE-COLORED ROOM. + CHAPTER IV. “THE MYSTERY.” + CHAPTER V. A LUCKY CAST. + CHAPTER VI. A DREAM OF SAFETY. + CHAPTER VII. THREEFOLD DANGER. + CHAPTER VIII. THE LUCK OF MARCUS WRAY. + CHAPTER IX. “I WILL POSSESS HIM OR DIE.” + CHAPTER X. A KISS. + CHAPTER XI. A NET FOR HER FEET. + CHAPTER XII. “IF I ASK YOU?” + CHAPTER XIII. HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH. + CHAPTER XIV. MORE TREACHERY. + CHAPTER XV. COILED TO SPRING. + CHAPTER XVI. CIRCE’S EYES. + CHAPTER XVII. THE SPINET. + CHAPTER XVIII. “AT MIDNIGHT.” + CHAPTER XIX. AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN. + CHAPTER XX. THE EDGE OF DOOM. + CHAPTER XXI. THE DOG IN THE MANGER. + CHAPTER XXII. “A CHARMING MAN.” + CHAPTER XXIII. A GHOSTLY EAVESDROPPER. + CHAPTER XXIV. “I NEVER SAW IT BEFORE.” + CHAPTER XXV. THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE. + CHAPTER XXVI. “HER MOTHER’S CHILD!” + CHAPTER XXVII. TRUTH THAT LIED! + CHAPTER XXVIII. “MY NAME IS YESTERDAY.” + CHAPTER XXIX. A NIGHT’S WORK. + CHAPTER XXX. INTO THE LION’S MOUTH. + CHAPTER XXXI. “SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!” + CHAPTER XXXII. “THE DEED IN THE DARK.” + CHAPTER XXXIII. “HEAVENLY TRUE.” + CHAPTER XXXIV. “AND WHO IS THIS?” + CHAPTER XXXV. THE DIAMONDS. + + + + + The Eagle Series + OF POPULAR FICTION + + Principally Copyrights. Elegant Colored Covers + + PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK + + +This is the pioneer line of copyright novels. Its popularity has +increased with every number, until, at the present time, it stands +unrivaled as regards sales and contents. + +It is composed, mainly, of popular copyrighted titles which cannot be +had in any other lines at any price. The authors, as far as literary +ability and reputation are concerned, represent the foremost men and +women of their time. The books, without exception, are of entrancing +interest, and manifestly those most desired by the American reading +public. A purchase of two or three of these books at random, will make +you a firm believer that there is no line of novels which can compare +favorably with the EAGLE SERIES. + + +To be issued during December. + + 553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice + 552--At the Court of the Maharaja By Louis Tracy + 551--Pity--not Love By Laura Jean Libbey + 550--Saved From Herself By Adelaide Stirling + 549--Tempted By Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + + +To be issued during November. + + 548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice + 547--A Plunge Into the Unknown By Richard Marsh + 546--The Career of Mrs. Osborne By Helen Milecete + 545--Well Worth Winning By St. George Rathborne + + +To be issued during October. + + 544--In Love’s Name By Emma Garrison Jones + 543--The Veiled Bride By Laura Jean Libbey + 542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice + 541--Her Evil Genius By Adelaide Stirling + 540--A Daughter of Darkness By T. W. Hanshew + + +To be issued during September. + + 539--A Heart’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 538--The Fighting Chance By Gertrude Lynch + 537--A Life’s Mistake By Charles Garvice + 536--Companions in Arms By St. George Rathborne + + +To be issued during August. + + 535--The Trifler By Archibald Eyre + 534--Lotta, The Cloak Model By Laura Jean Libbey + 533--A Forgotten Love By Adelaide Stirling + 532--True To His Bride By Emma Garrison Jones + + +To be issued during July. + + 531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice + 530--The Wiles of a Siren By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 529--Hearts Aflame By Louise Winter + 528--Adela’s Ordeal By Florence Warden + 527--For Love and Glory By St. George Rathborne + + * * * * * + + 526--Love and Hate By Morley Roberts + 525--Sweet Kitty Clover By Laura Jean Libbey + 524--A Sacrifice of Pride By Mrs. Louisa Parr + 523--A Banker of Bankersville By Maurice Thompson + 522--A Spurned Proposal By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 521--The Witch from India By St. George Rathborne + 520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Magic Cameo.” + 519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 518--The Secret of a Letter By Gertrude Warden + 517--They Looked and Loved By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 516--Florabel’s Lover By Laura Jean Libbey + 515--Tiny Luttrell By E. W. Hornung + (Author of “Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman.”) + 514--The Temptation of Mary Barr By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 513--A Sensational Case By Florence Warden + 512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Golden Key.” + 511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 510--Doctor Jack’s Paradise Mine By St. George Rathborne + 509--A Penniless Princess By Emma Garrison Jones + 508--The King of Honey Island By Maurice Thompson + 507--A Mad Betrothal By Laura Jean Libbey + 506--A Secret Foe By Gertrude Warden + 505--Selina’s Love-story By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 504--Evelyn, the Actress By Wenona Gilman + 503--A Lady in Black By Florence Warden + 502--Fair Maid Marian By Mrs. Emma Garrison Jones + 501--Her Husband’s Secret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 500--Love and Spite By Adelaide Stirling + 499--My Lady Cinderella By Mrs. C. N. Williamson + 498--Andrew Leicester’s Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 497--A Chase for Love By Seward W. Hopkins + 496--The Missing Heiress By C. H. Montague + 495--An Excellent Story By May Agnes Fleming + 494--Voyagers of Fortune By St. George Rathborne + 493--The Girl He Loved By Adelaide Stirling + 492--A Speedy Wooing By the Author of “As Common Mortals” + 491--My Lady of Dreadwood By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 490--The Price of Jealousy By Maud Howe + 489--Lucy Harding By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 488--The French Witch By Gertrude Warden + 487--A Wonderful Woman By May Agnes Fleming + 486--Divided Lives By Edgar Fawcett + 485--The End Crowns All By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 484--The Whistle of Fate By Richard Marsh + 483--Miss Marston’s Heart By L. H. Bickford + 482--A Little Worldling By L. C. Ellsworth + 481--Wedded, Yet No Wife By May Agnes Fleming + 480--A Perfect Fool By Florence Warden + 479--Mysterious Mr. Sabin By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 478--For Love of Sigrid By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 477--The Siberian Exiles By Col. Thomas Knox + 476--Earle Wayne’s Nobility By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 475--Love Before Pride By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 474--The Belle of the Season By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 473--A Sacrifice To Love By Adelaide Stirling + 472--Dr. Jack and Company By St. George Rathborne + 471--A Shadowed Happiness By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 470--A Strange Wedding By Mary Hartwell Catherwood + 469--A Soldier and a Gentleman By J. M. Cobban + 468--The Wooing of a Fairy By Gertrude Warden + 467--Zina’s Awaking By Mrs. J. K. Spender + 466--Love, the Victor By a Popular Southern Author + 465--Outside Her Eden By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 464--The Old Life’s Shadows By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 463--A Wife’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 462--A Stormy Wedding By Mary E. Bryan + 461--Above All Things By Adelaide Stirling + 460--Dr. Jack’s Talisman By St. George Rathborne + 459--A Golden Mask By Charlotte M. Stanley + 458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice + 457--Adrift in the World By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 456--A Vixen’s Treachery By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 455--Love’s Greatest Gift By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 454--Love’s Probation By Elizabeth Olmis + 453--A Poor Girl’s Passion By Gertrude Warden + 452--The Last of the Van Slacks By Edward S. Van Zile + 451--Helen’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 450--Rosamond’s Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 449--The Bailiff’s Scheme By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 448--When Love Dawns By Adelaide Stirling + 447--A Favorite of Fortune By St. George Rathborne + 446--Bound with Love’s Fetters By Mary Grace Halpine + 445--An Angel of Evil By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 444--Love’s Trials By Alfred R. Calhoun + 443--In Spite of Proof By Gertrude Warden + 442--Love Before Duty By Mrs. L. T. Meade + 441--A Princess of the Stage By Nataly von Eschstruth + 440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice + 439--Little Nan By Mary A. Denison + 438--So Like a Man By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 437--The Breach of Custom By Mrs. D. M. Lowrey + 436--The Rival Toreadors By St. George Rathborne + 435--Under Oath By Jean Kate Ludlum + 434--The Guardian’s Trust By Mary A. Denison + 433--Winifred’s Sacrifice By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 432--Breta’s Double By Helen V. Greyson + 431--Her Husband and Her Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 430--The Honor of a Heart By Mary J. Safford + 429--A Fair Fraud By Emily Lovett Cameron + 428--A Tramp’s Daughter By Hazel Wood + 427--A Wizard of the Moors By St. George Rathborne + 426--The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie’s Terrible Secret + By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 425--A College Widow By Frank H. Howe + + + + + SAVED FROM HERSELF; + + OR, + + ON THE EDGE OF DOOM + + BY + ADELAIDE STIRLING + + AUTHOR OF + + “A Forgotten Love,” “Nerine’s Second Choice,” “A Sacrifice to Love,” + “Her Evil Genius,” “Above All Things,” “The Girl He Loved,” + “Love and Spite,” “When Love Dawns.” All published + exclusively in the EAGLE SERIES. + + [Illustration: S AND S NOVELS, STREET & SMITH, NEW YORK] + + NEW YORK + STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS + 79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE + + + + + Copyright, 1898 and 1899 + By STREET & SMITH + + Saved from Herself + + All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign + languages, including the Scandinavian. + + + + +SAVED FROM HERSELF + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE THEATER. + + +“I don’t see,” said Mrs. Trelane discontentedly, “why the woman could +not have kept you.” + +She spoke to her own reflection in the glass with an angry frown. What +was the good of an exquisite toilet, of a face that did not look within +ten years of its age, when seated on the sofa opposite was a grown-up +daughter whose presence in the house might spoil all her own well-laid +plans? + +Just a week ago her only child, aged seventeen, had been returned from +her cheap boarding-school with a scathing note from the principal +regarding her unpaid bills. It was unbearable, even though she had +forbidden the girl to be about the house or meet any of her visitors. + +To-night, when the table was laid for a party of two, the presence of a +third was--impossible! + +“Ismay,” Mrs. Trelane turned sharply to the tall, slim figure coiled on +the sofa, “couldn’t you take a maid and go out somewhere to-night? Oh, +no--I can’t spare you! Well, mind you don’t let Abbotsford see you--he +doesn’t know you are, you know!” + +The girl looked with somber impatience at her mother in her satin gown, +so great a contrast to her own shabby black serge. + +“All right,” she said quietly, “but if he keeps coming here every day +he is bound to find out my existence.” + +“It won’t matter--by and by.” Mrs. Trelane gave a little conscious +laugh and poured some peach-blossom scent on her handkerchief. Ismay, +as the delicate odor reached her, moved her head as if it sickened her. +Three years away from a mother who had never loved her had deadened +the memory of the regret, the loneliness, that had been her portion +always. But to-night she saw very clearly that she was, as always, a +stone in the road of Mrs. Trelane’s life. + +She got up, with a leisurely grace, and looked about her as the +door-bell rang and Mrs. Trelane swished softly out of the room. She +was used to being unpopular; at school no one had liked her, but yet +indifference from her mother cut her. + +And it was dull, deadly dull! There was nothing to read, nowhere to sit +but this disordered bedroom that smelled to nausea of almonds. + +A neat maid with a cross face came in at that moment and bumped down +an uninviting tray of tea and bread and butter on a table, with +an impertinence that was somehow galling. Ismay Trelane looked at +it, and a sudden light sprang into her strangely lovely face, that +was sometimes so much older than her years, as a smile came to her +delicate, thin lips. + +“There isn’t any room for me in mama’s life,” she thought quietly, +“it’s all taken up with Lord Abbotsford! She can’t surely think he +means to marry her, yet she never kept up the mask like this for any of +her other admirers.” + +Looking back with ungirlish wisdom into the past before she had been +shoved into Mrs. Barlow’s school, she added: + +“Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m not a child any more; I can amuse myself.” + +She felt in the pocket of her old black frock, that was too short, for +all the money she owned--ten shillings her mother had given her in a +moment of generosity. + +“She said to keep out of the way,” she reflected, “and I will. But I +won’t sit here all the evening, and I won’t”--pride getting the better +of hunger--“drink any of that horrid tea.” + +She slipped on her sailor-hat and jacket, a garment that had been +barely decent all summer, but was threadbare now, and with noiseless +haste made her way down-stairs and out into the street. + +The fresh, cool air did her good, and she walked quickly out of the +quiet Brompton Square into the bustling thoroughfare of the Brompton +Road. + +London at night was strange to her, and she was not even sure what she +wanted to do. + +“I’m out, though, and that’s the main thing,” she thought cheerfully. +“I think I’ll go for a drive on an omnibus! Then when I feel like it I +can get off and have something to eat somewhere.” + +She felt almost gay as she hailed the first bus that came thundering +by, and climbed to the roof of the unwieldy thing. + +How pretty it was! The long street like a shifting ribbon of light, +with its never-ending stream of carriage-lamps; its procession of +hansoms and carriages full of people--men chiefly--in evening dress. + +“Where do you go?” she asked the conductor as she paid her fare. + +“Piccadilly Circus, miss; Shaftesbury Avenue, past the Palace Theater.” + +“Theater!” + +Ismay’s heart gave a jump. Why not go to a theater? There was time; it +could not be more than half-past eight. After that she could take a cab +and go home. It was three years since she had been at a theater; but +she knew the Palace was a variety place, where it did not matter what +time you arrived. + +The November air was cold on top of the omnibus, but the girl’s blood +was warm, as she watched the surging panorama of the streets. This was +life; the shifting crowd went to her head like wine; her eyes burned +like stars as she looked about her at the never-ending drama of London. + +“Palace Theater, miss.” The conductor’s voice startled her. He helped +her down with a curious feeling that she was too young to be out alone. +But he was reassured as he saw her move composedly under the lighted +awning to the flaring entrance, where the lights shone red in the +box-office. She was older than she looked, he decided, as he signaled +the driver to go on. + +Ismay, as the swinging doors closed behind her, stood undecided for a +minute. There was a notice facing her: + +“Stalls, ten shillings. Dress-circle, seven and sixpence. Upper circle, +five shillings.” + +Stalls were out of the question. + +“One dress-circle,” she said composedly, making her way to the +ticket-seller’s window through the groups of men idling in the entrance. + +Most of them looked at her curiously; her strange beauty and her shabby +black clothes contrasted oddly. + +She read their thoughts as she turned with her ticket in her hand, and +her eyes glittered with pride under her long, dark lashes. + +Yet, as she followed the usher up the stairs to the dress-circle, she +walked as one in a dream, and stood for a moment in a sort of daze as +she was turned over to the white-capped attendant. + +The whole house was in darkness except for the lights upon the stage +and the constant glimmer of matches, for every one seemed to be +smoking, even many of the women in the boxes. + +Ismay stumbled to her seat still dazed. + +Was this a theater? Had she spend nearly all of her ten shillings for +this? + +Two badly painted women danced between the verses of a song, and their +antics seemed to amuse the crowd. + +Ismay drew her skirts away from the vicinity of a French hair-dresser +as she thought: + +“If that is all they have to do to earn their livings I could make +mine.” + +Then she started angrily. + +A common, flashily dressed man beside her had spoken to her. His tone +offended her, and she rose and swept past him like an insulted duchess. + +She walked up the steps to the third gallery, where men and women +were seated at small tables, eating olives and drinking liquor. As +she emerged into the bright light she stopped and leaned over the +balustrade with her beautiful eyes still glowing. + +“Beast!” she said under her breath, “to dare to speak to me!” + +A man standing quite near her glanced at her wonderingly, and as she +turned she found his eyes upon her. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said civilly, “but I could not help hearing +what you said.” + +Ismay Trelane lifted her strange eyes and saw a face that, dreaming or +waking, would haunt her to the end of her life. + +Bronzed, gray-eyed, clear-cut--it came near to being the handsomest +face in London. Many a woman had turned to look upon it, and some, like +Ismay, carried the remembrance forever. + +Something, she knew not what, made the girl tremble as she answered him. + +“A man spoke to me,” she said slowly. “You do not think he will come up +here, do you?” + +“I spoke to you, too,” her hearer’s voice was kind but a little puzzled. + +“You are different,” she said simply. “Oh,” with a little gasp, “he is +coming up!” + +“Stand by me and don’t look at him!” said the stranger authoritatively. + +Miss Trelane moved closer to him, as she was told, and the obnoxious +Frenchman, with a curious glance, passed by her. + +If she had looked up just then at her new friend she would have seen +that he was divided between wonder and--something else. Music-halls +were an old story to him, but this girl had apparently never been in +one. She looked so out of place, and yet--well, at all events, she was +beautiful! Though the beauty was not that of a young girl. This face +might have smiled on dead men out of Circe’s window, in strange lands +long ago. For the girl’s hair was an ashy flaxen without a hint of +gold; her skin was fine and milky white, and her lips so red as to be +startling in her colorless face. But it was her eyes more than anything +that were full of strange witchery, for they were as clear and dark a +green as the new shoots of a pine-tree in the spring. + +“Nonsense!” the man thought, “she is only some little milliner. But she +ought not to be here.” + +The girl looked up, as though she read his mind. + +“I don’t like it--here. I think I’ll go home,” she said slowly. + +“I think I would,” he returned, with a smile. “This is not a good place +to begin with when one has never been out alone before.” + +“How did you know I never was?” she asked sharply. + +“Oh, I thought so!” was the answer. “But if you do wish to go home you +had better let me take you down-stairs. It’s rather crowded, and--there +may be more Frenchmen!” + +“Home!” she looked at him queerly. “Oh, I can’t go home! It’s too--too +lonely.” Her lips quivered desolately at the thought of the long hours +before bedtime in that house where she was not wanted. + +As she looked at him the absolute beauty of his face struck her once +more. She had never spoken to a man like this; it had been a very +different sort of men she had been used to seeing in her childhood. How +immaculately dressed he was, and what lovely black pearls he wore as +shirt-studs. “I don’t think I’ll go home at all,” she ended abruptly. + +“Not go home?” He stared at her. “My dear child, you’re talking +nonsense. Do you mean that you live alone when you say it is too +lonely?” He felt suddenly sorry for her, and wondered afresh who she +was. Her dress was old and worn, fit for a servant out of place, but +her ungloved hand lying on the red velvet rail was exquisitely white +and smooth. + +As he looked at her she laughed, a little delicate laugh that was +somehow far older than her years. + +“Yes, of course,” she said, “utter nonsense; for I can live with my +mother.” + +She moved away as she spoke; even if the man was as good-looking as all +the gods, she would not stay talking with him after he had suggested +she should go. + +“Wait a moment, if you are lonely at home. I am lonely here,” he said, +and he was very tall as he looked down at her with a little laugh. + +“You--lonely!” her eyes darkened with surprise. “Why, you can go +anywhere you like in all London, you have not to sit alone evening +after evening till----” + +“No, but you see I don’t know anywhere I want to go,” he interrupted. +“And if we’re both here, and both lonely, why--I think we may as well +talk to one another.” + +They were moving slowly along the crowded promenade on their way to the +stairs, and the languid grace of the girl’s steps was apparent. + +“Are you tired?” he said suddenly. “You look pale.” + +“I’m always pale.” + +A swift intuition flashed over him. + +“I don’t think,” he observed deliberately, “that you have had any +dinner!” + +Miss Trelane flushed--exquisitely. + +The remembrance of the supper of bread and butter, which pride had made +her forego, was haunting her. She had eaten nothing since tea at five +o’clock. + +She raised her head haughtily, as a woman of the world would have +done, and caught a look on her companion’s face that made her suddenly +childlike again. + +“I--I didn’t wait,” she stammered. + +Her companion stopped at a vacant table, and put her into a chair. + +“Now that I think of it, I am hungry myself,” he observed, signaling to +a waiter, and then ordering sandwiches and some liquor. + +He sat looking at this waif from some other world as she ate the +sandwiches; the fiery cherry brandy made her less pale, the depths of +her strange eyes less somber. His first theory had been right: she +was very young. But the beautiful face was prophetic of tragedy and +passion; the scarlet lips cynical. She looked at him, raising slow +white lids, till he seemed to see unfathomable depths in her clear +green eyes. + +“Do you know you are the first person who has ever been kind to me in +all my life?” she said. “Tell me, why are you kind?” + +There was in her voice only calm inquiry, nothing to tell him that this +strange, pale girl was filled with passionate gratitude. + +“I’m not kind; it is a pleasure to sit and talk to you. You forget +that.” His manner was to the girl what it would have been to a duchess. +“But it’s getting late, and I’m going to take you home.” + +He raised his eyebrows a little as he sat by her in a hansom and heard +her give the man an address in Colbourne Square; it was not exactly a +haunt of poverty, and this girl was nearly out at elbows. + +“You live there with your mother?” he said involuntarily. + +She laughed with a curious mockery of mirth. + +“Yes, but you don’t know who I am, and I won’t tell you.” + +“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked, somewhat piqued. “My +name----” + +“Don’t tell me!” stopping him with a quick coldness. “I don’t want to +know. You have been kind to me--I’ll remember you by that best. No one +else ever was.” + +“I wonder,” he said abruptly, “if I will ever see you again.” + +“Do you wish to?” + +He nodded, and with a sudden flash of her spirit Ismay Trelane +determined to see him again if she had to tramp the world for a sight +of his face. + +“You won’t quite forget me, though you won’t let me tell you my name,” +he said more earnestly than he knew, for her strange beauty, her +strange manner, had gone a little to his head. + +Ismay turned to him as the hansom stopped at her mother’s door, and +looked once more at his strong, sweet face and broad shoulders. + +“No! I will not forget you,” she said, with her delicate smile that was +so much older than her manner. “And when I meet you again--remember, +you must be glad to see me.” + +“Shall I knock for you?” he asked, helping her out. + +“Knock? Oh, no!” Last night she would have been afraid to go out +secretly and come back openly with an utter stranger, but now there +was a lightness in her dancing blood that made her utterly indifferent +as to what reception she would get from her mother. The light from +the street-lamps fell on her face as she put her hand in his with a +gesture of dismissal, not learned, assuredly, at Mrs. Barlow’s school. +But at the clasp of his strong fingers she thrilled, and knew the world +would end for her before she forgot him. + +She drew a long, shivering breath as she watched him drive away. + +“I wish,” she thought, with a sudden vain longing, “that I had let him +tell me his name! But I will find him again some day, as sure as he and +I live in this world.” + +She little knew how she would find him--nor what terror would make her +almost forget him first--as she calmly rang at her mother’s door-bell. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +“A PENNILESS ADVENTURESS.” + + +Lord Abbotsford stood in front of the fire and broke what had been a +long silence. He was tall and rather good-looking; years younger than +the woman who sat opposite him, her haggard face hidden in her hands. +But his voice was rough to brutality as he spoke. + +“You knew I should have to marry some day. I can’t see why you are +making such a fuss.” + +Mrs. Trelane quivered with anger. She had known it, but of late it had +been herself whom she had thought of as Lady Abbotsford. After all, why +not? She was as well born as he, and there was nothing--that Abbotsford +knew--against her. She took her hands from her eyes and looked at him. + +“Be civil, it can’t hurt you,” she said coldly. + +“Well, you did know it, Helen!” But his eyes fell shiftingly, though +he could not know the reason for the despair in hers. Helen Trelane +was like a gambler who had put his all on one throw and seen it swept +off the board. Her last few hundred pounds of capital had gone in the +struggle to be always well dressed and to have a good dinner always for +Lord Abbotsford. She had played not for his love, but for his coronet. +And to-night his news had cut the very ground from under her feet. + +It was for this that she had forsaken the cheerful companions who +amused her; to have this dissipated boy stand up and tell her roundly +that he was going to be married, and would in future dispense with the +pleasure of her acquaintance. + +And this to her, who had been born à la Marchant! + +But the good blood in her veins did not let her forget that she was +penniless and ruined, and that she must drive a bargain with Abbotsford +or starve. + +She rose from her low chair and looked at him, a beautiful woman still, +and young. + +“Did you mean to marry a month ago, when you were ready to sell your +love to kiss my hand?” she said slowly, cuttingly. “You were ready +enough to come here to eat my bread; but it appears I am not fit to +eat yours in return. Your wife, Lord Abbotsford, has my sympathy. She +will marry a bad-tempered, miserly boy, who thinks of nothing but +his own pleasure. Your presents”--she tore some rings off and threw +them on a brass table, where they rang loud as they fell--“take them! +And go--leave my house. You have told me to my face that I am an +adventuress. I tell you that I am a penniless one, and that even so I +would rather be myself than you.” + +She was magnificent as she faced him, and he stammered when he would +have spoken. + +He might have said words that would have softened her, might only +have hurried the steps of the Nemesis at his heels, but he lost his +chance. The door of the small scented room opened quickly, and Ismay, +in her shabby clothes, the air still fresh on her cheeks, stood on the +threshold. + +Mrs. Trelane stood turned to stone. + +“Ismay!” she spoke at last. “What brings you here?” + +“I forgot. I thought you were alone!” the girl said quietly. She had +only a contemptuous glance for Abbotsford, that contrasted him with the +man she had just left. + +Her mother looked at her as she stood in the doorway; then at +Abbotsford, who was utterly astonished. + +“You hear,” she said, “this is my daughter. You did not know I had one? +Well, I have, and I let her be humiliated that I might have money--for +other things.” + +She walked over and put her arms round the girl, forgetting for the +moment how unwelcome she was in her fresh youth and beauty. + +“Go,” she said, over her shoulder; “leave us! We can starve together +without you and your wife.” + +Abbotsford walked by them without a word, but for once in his ill-spent +life he felt small. + +But the door had barely closed behind him before Mrs. Trelane drew away +from her daughter, and stood looking at her; the anger Abbotsford had +roused turned on the girl. + +“What madness is this?” she asked hardly. “Had you no sense that you +must come in here? And do you know what your freak means to me? If we +starve you have yourself to blame!” + +She threw herself into a chair, her nerves and temper thoroughly out of +hand. And then started at the sound in her own child’s voice. + +“Oh, no, we sha’n’t!” said the girl, with a cynical smile on her red +lips that were not like Mrs. Trelane’s. “You are too clever, and +so”--deliberately--“am I! You forget I’m not a child any longer.” + +Mrs. Trelane looked up, and met eyes which were somehow those of an +equal, another woman, and spoke truthfully in her raging disappointment. + +“That man who went out--he’s going to be married. And I, like a fool, +thought he meant to marry me!” + +“Can’t you get something out of him?” + +“I meant to marry him, I tell you”--roughly. “Those things are all he +ever gave me.” She pointed to the cast-off rings on the Moorish table. + +“What do you mean about starving?” Ismay asked. “Haven’t you any money? +Have you”--deliberately--“spent it all on him?”--with a nod toward the +door by which Lord Abbotsford had departed. + +Mrs. Trelane moaned. + +“I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought he meant to marry me,” she +said faintly. “That was why I kept you out of the way; I didn’t want +him to know how old I was till it was all settled. And now”--she flung +her hands out angrily--“I will pay him for it all if I kill him!” + +“You can sell these things,” Ismay said quickly, looking round her at +the costly furniture, the many ornaments. + +“There is a bill of sale on them already,” the woman said dryly, and +speaking perfectly openly, as if to another woman of her own age and +not to her daughter. It was a relief to speak out; she forgot how +she had treated the girl since her return, how she had neglected her +for the prospect of a rich marriage. “But I’ll get something out of +Abbotsford somehow, even if I have to call it a loan,” she added. + +“I wouldn’t ever speak to him again,” Ismay remarked scornfully. “And +why didn’t you bring me home from school long ago, if you’d no money?” + +“Because”--with absolute truth--“I didn’t want a grown-up girl about.” + +For a moment the two pairs of eyes met; then the girl shrugged her +shoulders. + +“Well, I’m here, and I’ll have to stay,” she retorted. “As for Lord +Abbotsford, you’re well rid of him. But I suppose you don’t think so. +Can I take this candle? There’s no light up-stairs, and I want to go to +bed.” + +Mrs. Trelane was utterly taken aback by the matter-of-fact conclusion. +Somehow Ismay seemed years older to-night, and she had no clue to what +had worked the miracle. She pushed a candlestick over to her without +answering, and not a word did the girl breathe of where and how she had +spent her evening. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ROSE-COLORED ROOM. + + +“Look.” Mrs. Trelane’s face was radiant as she threw a note across the +luncheon-table to Ismay the next day. It was from Lord Abbotsford. +“Look, he wants to see me this afternoon. He’s ill, can’t come out, and +he’s sent me this latch-key so that I can go in without his man seeing +me. He must be going to do something for me.” + +“Will you go? I wouldn’t,” Ismay said slowly. She was weary from a +stormy morning; sickened by the abuse of the two maid servants who had +smelled disaster and departed after vainly demanding their wages. + +“Go! What else should I do?” Mrs. Trelane seized the note again and +rose to leave the room. “Three o’clock, he says, and it’s two now. I’ll +go and dress.” + +“Where does he live?” the girl asked idly, yet with intention. Somehow +she did not like this expedition. + +“Not far; he has a house in Onslow Place.” + +“Well, if I were you, I would ring the bell and go openly; have the +servant announce you! I wouldn’t creep in with a key.” + +But Mrs. Trelane took no notice. + +It was a dark afternoon, and Onslow Place was very quiet. No one saw +her as she opened Lord Abbotsford’s door with the little latch-key. +She met no one as she went softly up the carpeted stair to his +sitting-room. She had been there before once, and knew the way. + +The room was strangely quiet as she opened the door. It was all hung +with pale pink, and furnished in a darker pink brocade; not like a +man’s room at all. There were bowls of hothouse carnations everywhere, +each great flower a fiery rose; and the silver lamps were already lit +under their rose-colored shades. + +Mrs. Trelane shut the door behind her, and as she did so a faint rustle +in the next room could easily have passed unheard. + +“Abbotsford,” she said softly, looking very young and handsome in her +plain tailor-made gown, “are you here?” + +A screen was drawn round the hearth, with room enough for a sofa +between it and the fire. A table stood by the window, and at first Mrs. +Trelane paid no heed to it, as she walked round the screen. + +Abbotsford was on the sofa asleep, his head lying on his arm. + +“Wake up, I’m here,” she said lightly. “I don’t wonder you’re asleep. +Your flowers are too strong; they smell just like bitter almonds.” + +Lord Abbotsford never moved; and once more the strange quiet of the +room struck on Helen Trelane’s nerves. + +“What’s the matter with you?” she said sharply. “Why can’t you wake up? +And what are you doing with all that?” For the letter on the table had +caught her eye; money, notes, and gold, in an open purple velvet box; +diamonds, a necklace, bracelets, a tiara. Her heart gave a leap. Had he +indeed repented and sent for her to give her these? + +Something else on the table softened her heart, too: the only +photograph she had ever had taken for years; it had been done for +Abbotsford. She remembered how he had taken the negative from the +photographer and broken it, for fear she might have more printed. He +had loved her then. Oh, if she could only rouse that love again for one +half-hour! + +The silk linings of her dark purple dress rustled as she moved toward +him where he slept, and sank on her knees beside him. + +“Wake up, sleepy boy, you sent for me, you know.” His hand was +strangely cool as she took it in hers; the next instant she had jumped +to her feet. + +“My God!” she cried, trembling like a leaf. “It can’t be.” + +She lifted the arm that was over the face, and kept, she never knew +how, from shrieking. John Inglesby, Lord Abbotsford, was dead--dead in +the pink, luxurious chamber where the flowers smelled of almonds, where +there was nothing to tell how he died. + +Was it a trap? Had he killed himself on purpose? Sent for her? + +Mrs. Trelane, with her skirts gathered up to make no sound, fled +swiftly from the room. The house was quite quiet, the servants all +down-stairs; the woman who had been young and radiant as she came in, +slipped out of that horrible house wan as the man up-stairs. She dared +not hurry away, though the early darkness of London was growing apace, +and she could not if she had tried, for her feet would scarcely carry +her. + +Suddenly she stopped short, for quick steps came behind her. Had any +one seen her go out? Had any one found that which lay up-stairs? She +turned, ready to drop. + +“Ismay!” The cry was hysterical, uncontrollable, for it was Ismay +hurrying after her. “What are you here for?” + +“Why not? I was going for a walk, and I came this way. What made you so +quick? You have not been there five minutes--you can’t have.” + +Her mother clutched her by the arm fiercely and whispered in her ear. + +“Don’t stop like this! walk on,” the girl said, very low, yet with +authority. “Did any one see you? You’re sure there was no one there?” + +“No one.” Mrs. Trelane’s teeth were chattering. + +“Is there anything in the room that might get you into trouble? Think, +quick!” + +“Oh, my photograph. It’s there on the table.” What a fool she had been +not to bring it. + +“Do the servants know you? Does any one know he was a friend of yours?” + +“No; no one! I was very careful. I did not want my past to come up--if +he married me.” The words were gasped out under her breath; for once +terror was too much for her. “You don’t think they’ll bring me into it, +Ismay?” + +Ismay turned round. + +“Go back,” she said, “quick, and get that photograph. It’s risky, +but it’s your only chance. Don’t you see that you might be suspected +through it?” + +“I can’t,” but she had turned, too. + +“You must! I’ll wait outside.” + +She almost pulled the elder woman back to the house she had but just +left; with a steady hand she fitted in the latch-key her mother could +not turn. Sick with fright, but desperate, she pushed her gently into +the dim hall and closed the door softly behind her. Helen Trelane, like +a guilty thing, crept back to that room of horror, and her daughter +strolled quietly along outside in terror. Suppose she had done just the +wrong thing? + +Ismay shivered in her thin coat, and then turned back in time to see +what made her blood thicken with a worse chill than the November air. + +A hansom cab was stopping at Abbotsford’s door. A tall man in a loose +overcoat, that was like every other fashionable overcoat in London, +jumped out and put his hand in his pocket to pay his fare. + +He was going into the house! He would find her mother, find Abbotsford; +he would find out, perhaps, more! With a horrible clearness those words +of her own mother’s came back to the girl. + +“I will pay him for it all if I kill him.” + +In her sick horror the girl’s breath failed her; before she could draw +it again the man, whose back was still turned to her in the dusk, had +put a key in the door--Lord Abbotsford was evidently generous with +keys--and disappeared within the house. + +If Ismay Trelane had thought it would have availed her anything, she +would have fallen on her knees in the street--and prayed! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +“THE MYSTERY.” + + +Mr. Marcus Wray laid down his morning paper on his lonely +breakfast-table with a queer sound in his throat. + +He had taken a deep interest in the affairs, as became a barrister in +fair standing, and now the verdict of the coroner’s jury stared him in +the face. So important a thing had called out a leading article, and +Mr. Wray had read it till he knew it by heart. Yet he picked up the +paper now, and looked at it again. + + “The mystery surrounding Lord Abbotsford’s death,” it ran, “has not + been lifted by the verdict at the inquest. The deceased clearly + came to his death by poisoning with cyanid of potassium, which + could not have been administered by his own hand, as no trace of + any bottle containing it was found anywhere in the house of the + unfortunate nobleman. And the verdict of murder by persons unknown + has only deepened the horror of the public, since no trace or clue + to the supposed murderer has been discovered. The evidence of the + servants--who were all able to prove an alibi on the afternoon of the + murder--that no one entered the house, has been rendered worthless + by the statement of Mr. Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry, who swore that he + had entered with a latch-key, gone up-stairs and put down a box of + cigarettes in the very room in which Lord Abbotsford was lying, and + gone out again at once without seeing him, where he lay on a sofa + behind a screen. He had hurried out to join a friend in the street: + half an hour later he went back to Lord Abbotsford’s house, and this + time discovered his body, and sent the servants at once for the + police. That Mr. Cylmer--who was a close friend of the deceased--was + guiltless, was amply proved at the inquest; but the criminal is still + to be found, and a large reward has been offered for his apprehension. + + “The only clue so far comes from the evidence of Mr. Cylmer, that, on + laying down the box of cigarettes, he had noticed on a small table + some bank-notes, a quantity of loose gold, some diamonds in an open + box, and a woman’s photograph, which he had not been accustomed to + see there. On his return and discovery of the dead body, the gold, + diamonds, and photograph were gone; the notes only remained. + + “Mr. Cylmer stated that he merely glanced at the photograph. Lord + Abbotsford had many women friends whom he did not know; but that he + remembered distinctly its being there. Of the diamonds missing, no + trace can be found, though they had only been purchased that day as + a gift for the betrothed wife of the dead man. But that such infamous + crimes can be committed with impunity in the house of a well-known + nobleman, in the very heart of London, is not to be thought possible, + and every means will be brought to bear to bring the perpetrator to + justice. No motive can be found for the murder, the robbery excepted. + His estates go to a distant cousin, at present a midshipman on foreign + service in the Royal Navy. The deepest of sympathy is extended + throughout society to the lady whose engagement to Lord Abbotsford was + announced only the day before his death.” + +“A pack of fools!” said the reader slowly. “And the man who wrote this +is the worst. They may hunt through every street in London and never +find a thread to help them. If Lord Abbotsford had had a clever man +servant”--he shrugged his lean shoulders--“but he would have country +bumpkins from his estate to wait on him, and no others!” + +He sat in a brown study for a long half-hour, and then roused himself +to eat his cold breakfast. He had not eaten much lately; his waitress, +when she cleared away, was glad his appetite had improved. He lived +alone in one of the curious rookeries known to the frequenters of the +Inns of Court. He was anything but a briefless barrister, yet his +briefs were usually of a sort another man would have looked at twice. + +Not Marcus Wray--the world owed him a living, and he must get it, +somehow. It did not concern him that the people who went up and down +his staircase--after dark--were not the cream of society. + +Contrary to his habits, he spent his morning in utter idleness, +smoking; his lean, round shoulders more humped than usual, his ugly, +clean-shaven face wrinkled repulsively. + +There was money to be got out of the Abbotsford tragedy, yet just +how would not come to him. His thick, red lips pressed hard on his +cigar, and the lean, knotted hand that lay on his knee never ceased a +curiously light movement, as if he were driving in a nail, carefully, +very carefully. Suddenly the tapping ceased as the man’s face relaxed. + +“I think I have it,” he said to himself. “Anyhow, I will go out +and--make a call!” + +He folded up his paper and put it safely in his overcoat pocket when he +was ready to start. He might want it--it had interested him. + +It had interested two other people in London--Ismay Trelane and her +mother. + +Till they read it they had hardly eaten or slept; the days had passed +somehow, that was all. If Mr. Cylmer’s evidence had been given early in +the inquiry they might have suffered less, but it had been kept to the +very last. + +Mrs. Trelane, pale and staring, was the first to speak when the morning +paper was read. + +“We’re all right,” she said thickly. + +Ismay nodded. “When he went in I thought you were lost. But it was +lucky you got that photograph. I suppose it’s Abbotsford’s sovereigns +you’ve been staving off your tradesmen with.” + +“They were no good to him”--cynically. + +“And not much to us; they’re all gone now.” + +Mrs. Trelane, who had scarcely spoken since that day of terror, who had +not gone out lest some one should know her, seemed turned into another +woman by the reading of that newspaper article. She looked at Ismay +almost triumphantly. + +“Very nearly gone, but--they’re not all!” + +“Then,” said Ismay slowly, “you did take the diamonds! How did you find +the courage? You were almost too frightened to walk when I pushed you +in the door.” Once more that horrible suspicion sickened her. + +“I don’t know,” said her mother simply. “You see, the shock of it was +over; after all, he was only a dead man, and I had seen dead people +before.” + +“But you were mad; they’re no good to us,” the girl gasped; “we daren’t +sell them.” + +“We do, to one man in London.” + +“As they are?” + +“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, he won’t dare ask questions. But +once they are sold we can get away from here; go somewhere and start +fresh. I won’t be comfortable till we are out of London. The sale of +the diamonds will pay nearly everything, and leave us money in hand.” + +“Are you wise?” Ismay asked hardly. “Or are you running into a trap?” + +“Not I! I am too old a resident in ‘underground London’ for that, +Ismay.” She stopped suddenly and listened. “Did I hear a bell ring?” + +“It’s the door-bell; some one has come for money. I’ll go.” + +Ismay left her mother huddling over their scanty fire--for the +coal-merchant was like every one else, unpaid--and went to the front +door. The shabby black gown that was her all was not even neat, and she +had no collar on; her wonderful flaxen hair was coiled anyhow round +her small head, but to the man who stood on the door-step her strange +beauty was a revelation. Was this the ugly child Helen Trelane had +shoved into a convenient boarding-school and forgotten? Instinctively +he took off his hat, as if he had seen Circe herself. + +“Is it possible that you are Ismay?” he said. + +The girl looked at him with somber dislike, his ugliness repelled, +almost sickened, her. And at the cold oiliness of his voice she +recoiled as at something tangibly evil. Who was he that he knew her? + +He held out his hand, but she would not see it. + +“You don’t remember me, of course,” he smiled. “Is your mother in? I +came to see her.” + +“I don’t know; she went out, but she may be back.” Some instinct made +her lie, and the man knew it. + +“Tell her,” he said, “that Marcus Wray has come to see her.” + +And before Ismay could shut the door he stood beside her in the little +white-paneled, turquoise-tiled hall, that felt so cold. + +Mrs. Trelane started when her daughter came in breathless from she knew +not what. + +“A man who wants you,” she said; “his name is Wray. And he called me +Ismay! Mother, who is he?” + +If she had spoken truly, Mrs. Trelane would have said her evil genius. +Instead, her eyes glittered for one instant in surprise. What had +brought him, whom three years ago she had shaken off forever? + +“Marcus Wray?” she said unbelievingly. “What could he want?” + +“You. Oh, what a hideous man! He is like a toad, a snake!” + +“Hush!” The woman whispered angrily. “He might hear, and he’s the man +I meant; the only man in London who will buy those diamonds. Bring him +here, it’s the only warm place in the house.” + +Ismay glanced at the untidy breakfast, not cleared away, the disorder +of the luxuriously furnished room; and Mrs. Trelane laughed. + +“He has seen worse,” she remarked quietly. “Bring him.” + +“I won’t stay in the room with him! He makes me sick.” + +“No one wants you to,” said her mother, yet as she looked in the glass +at her own worn beauty she felt a tinge of uneasiness. There was +something uncanny about this visit from a man she had not seen for +three years; his coming just when she had need of him. She wished she +could know what it meant. But as he entered, immaculately dressed as +she remembered him, Mrs. Trelane greeted him as if he were her dearest +friend. + +“You don’t mind my having you in here?” she said simply. “It is the +only fire. And where have you been all this time--do you know it is +years since you have remembered me?” + +“It is years since I have seen you,” he corrected her, “but you are +just the same. But the girl, your daughter”--the door had banged behind +him when he entered, making him smile covertly--“is not the same. She +is beautiful, though not like you; nor”--thoughtfully--“like Trelane.” + +Mrs. Trelane bit her lip. + +“Did you come to compliment me on my child?” she said prettily. “How +nice of you!” + +Marcus Wray took a chair by the fire, though his hostess was standing. + +“No,” he answered carelessly, his sharp, narrow eyes wandering round +the dusty costliness of the room. “No, I came--because you needed me.” + +“Needed you. I?” Every bit of color left her face; her uneasiness had +been well founded then; it was not chance that brought Marcus Wray. + +He nodded. + +“I thought so; perhaps I’m wrong. But this morning I felt certain that +if I did not come to see you, you would come to me; so I saved you the +trouble. By the way”--he pulled something from his overcoat pocket and +held it out to her--“have you seen this morning’s _Herald_?” + +Mrs. Trelane, standing by the table, put a sudden hand on it, as if her +strength had failed her. + +“You have, I see. Well!--sit down, you can talk better.” He pushed a +chair to her with his foot, contemptuously. + +“I have seen the paper--yes, of course! But what of it?” She had not +stirred to take the chair. The last time she had seen Marcus Wray she +had dictated to him--had he waited all this time to avenge himself? + +“I thought you’d like to sell them. It’s not safe, you know, to have +them.” + +“Sell what? Have what? I don’t know what you mean!” she panted. + +“Don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you! I was in a house in Onslow Square, +across the way from Lord Abbotsford’s, one afternoon last week; I was +dull, and looked out the window. You came, you went; you came, you +went”--moving his hand to and fro like a weaver’s shuttle--“the last +time you were agitated, but not your daughter; she pushed you in.” He +paused, looking deliberately at her. “The second time you came out you +hurried--needlessly.” + +“Mark, Mark.” She was beside him, clutching his arm hard with her slim +white hand. “He was dead when I went in, I swear he was dead! I went +back to get----” + +“Your photograph, and the--other things. Well, you got them! I +congratulate you. But as for his being dead”--he shrugged his rounded +shoulders, heedless of her desperate hold on his arm. + +“My God, do you think I killed him?” + +The words came bleakly after a silence, when the slow dropping of the +coals from the grate had sounded loud. + +“Would you like to stand your trial if I told all I saw? If you could +convince the jury, you could convince me afterward, you know.” The hand +on his arm relaxed suddenly. + +“Mark, Mark,” the woman said bitterly, “once I trusted you, when all +the world condemned you----” + +“And kicked me from your door afterward like a troublesome dog,” he +interrupted her quietly. “Well, it’s my turn now! Give me the diamonds, +and your dog holds his tongue.” + +“Do you mean sell them to you?” She had sunk into a chair as if she +could never rise again. + +“No, I mean give,” he said relentlessly. “Don’t you understand? It’s my +price; the price of silence.” + +“But I’m ruined! If you take them we are beggars on the street, the +girl and I. I took the diamonds because--look round you”--breaking off +desperately--“don’t you see we have nothing? There is a bill of sale on +the furniture, the lease of the house is up--do you want me to starve?” + +“You have never starved yet,” he retorted. “But if you prefer to hang, +keep the diamonds. I, too, want money, and if you don’t pay me, some +one else will. Look!” He held to her a printed paper, that swam before +her eyes. + +“I can’t read it,” she muttered. + +“No? It is that five hundred pounds reward is offered for the discovery +of the murderer of Lord Abbotsford. Your diamonds are worth eight +hundred, so you will pay me best. Only if you fail me--well, if one +can’t have cake, one takes gingerbread!” + +He leaned toward her threatening, sinister, yet smiling. + +“You had better give me the cake.” + +“How do I know”--after all, she was brave in her fashion, he could not +help wondering how she found courage to bargain--“how do I know that +you will not take my cake and their gingerbread? Giving you what you +say I have will not make you faithful.” + +“Nothing will make me faithful,” said Marcus Wray, with a noiseless +laugh. “But the diamonds will help, and if your daughter is a sensible +girl she will do the rest. I am coming to see her--very often.” + +He rose as he spoke and walked to the mantelpiece, where a heavily +framed picture hung. + +“I have not forgotten your ways,” he observed, drawing out a purple +velvet box stuck behind the picture and putting it carefully into his +breast pocket. “I thought they would be there.” He took up his shining +hat airily. + +“Au revoir, dear lady,” he said. “Tell your little girl to open the +door for me.” + +At the words a last hope dawned on Mrs. Trelane’s misery. Marcus +admired the girl--then, perhaps, she could manage him where her mother +had failed. + +“Wait here, I’ll find her,” she faltered; and hurried out. + +Ismay, sitting on her bed, wrapped in the coverlet to keep warm, +started at her mother’s livid face; started once again at her quick, +whispered sentences. + +“You let him frighten you! You let him know you had them!” She stamped +her foot. + +“What could I do? Oh! go to him, try----” + +Mrs. Trelane threw herself on the bed, broken with tearless sobbing +that she could not control; and her daughter, with a bravery that +sprang from ignorance, went down to try her strength against that of +Marcus Wray. + +Half an hour later she stood alone in the room she had entered with her +head high and her eyes blazing. Now she shivered as she heard the front +door close behind the strange visitor. + +Yet he had been perfectly civil. + +“The diamonds--since you insist these are diamonds--are quite safe. +So is the reputation of your mother while you take an interest in it. +Suppose you go to the theater with me to-morrow night?--it would do you +good,” he had said to her. + +His words rang in her ears, the tone had been perfectly polite, but the +veiled threat in it had staggered her. The next moment she had found +her courage. + +“With you? No, never!” + +“You had better think of it,” he said quietly. “I assure you I am a +good friend and a bad enemy. If I have taken a liking to you, why be +angry? You can’t get away from London, you know, without any money--nor +from me.” + +He was gone now, out of the house, yet a sudden terror of him shook +her. She turned and ran, as if she were hunted, to where her mother lay +shivering on the bed. + +“Mother,” she cried desperately, “think quickly! Isn’t there some way +we can be rid of that man?” + +“I’ll try--but I don’t think I can find one.” + +Mrs. Trelane shivered as she rose and went to her writing-table. + +Ismay, watching her haggard face, was terror-stricken afresh. How had +her mother been terrified into giving up those diamonds? Was there +something that Marcus Wray knew? + +Ismay could not finish that thought. She sat motionless, as Mrs. +Trelane, without even showing her the address of the letter she had +written, went out and posted it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A LUCKY CAST. + + +The great house lay very still in the evening sunshine that slanted +soft and red on its gray old walls and turned its many windows to amber +fires, its castellated roof to a rose-red carving against the pale +blue eastern sky. Over the great hall door that opened on a wide stone +terrace, grim with lions wrought in stone, was carved the motto of the +master of the house--“What Marchant held let Marchant hold.” + +The words were repulsive and ironical in their pride to the man who +looked up at them involuntarily as he got out of his carriage and went +into his house. He passed wearily through the hall to his library, and +locked the door behind him. + +He must have time to think; must be alone. He dreaded the sound of the +light knock at the door, which would mean Cristiane had come to see +what he had brought her from London. And the motto of his house over +his door had been like a blow on the eyes to him to-night. + +“What Marchant held let Marchant hold.” + +He, Gaspard le Marchant, had learned to-day that a resistless hand was +loosening his own grip on the house of his fathers; of his lands and +money; of his life itself. But it was not the losing of those things +that made his upper lip damp with sweat as he sat alone in the dim, +Russia leather scented library. + +“Cristiane,” he said to himself very quietly. “Who can I leave with +Cristiane?” + +His thought was all for his only daughter, the child of his love. +Seventeen years old, cherished, adored, beautiful--who would take care +of her when he was gone? And go he must, for the great London doctor +had told him so that very morning. + +“It is a matter of months, Sir Gaspard; perhaps of weeks.” + +The words in this hard gentleness seemed to ring still in the ears of +the man who sat alone. + +“A matter of a very few months, and if you have anything to arrange it +would be best, perhaps, to see to it at once.” + +Gaspard le Marchant’s voice had been quite quiet as he answered the +words that were his death-warrant, but he had gone straight from the +doctor’s house and taken the first train home to Marchant Place. + +He had not felt really well for a year past, but he had never thought +it was serious when he paid that two-days’ visit to London; he had gone +up more to buy new clothes than to see a doctor. It had been a cursory +visit, and, like many such things, had held the tidings of death in it. + +A few weeks more and Gaspard le Marchant would be done with this world, +and powerless to care for the child for whom that other Cristiane had +given her life seventeen years ago. + +At the thought, another thought, that had been in the man’s mind all +day, came over him with ineffable power. The doctor had meant that if +there was anything he wanted to do before he died he had better do +it. Well, there was one thing--call it the whim of a dying man if you +liked! He must go once more to that grave where they had laid all that +was left of the woman who loved him, seventeen years ago. + +He must bury his face in the grass that grew over her body; must tell +her that the parting was, after all, not long; the day very close at +hand now when he and she would walk together in the paths of paradise. + +“I can’t tell the child I’m going to die,” he thought. “And I must find +a guardian for her somehow. If I only knew a woman I could trust! God +knows the girl must have missed her mother many a day.” + +He was the last of the Le Marchants’; he had no relations except a +married cousin, of whom he had lost sight long ago, and his wife had +had no one. + +People said Cristiane’s mother had been an adventuress; certainly she +had left her daughter the legacy only of her own outlandish name, +her own wonderful red-gold hair, and a wild will that there was no +compelling. + +Cristiane Luoff her name had been, and Sir Gaspard had married her in +Rome. For a year they had been utterly happy--and now he was going to +look on her grave for the last time before he died. + +First, though, he must find some one to leave with Cristiane, and he +had no inkling where to turn. Men he knew--but Cristiane was too pretty +to leave to any of them; women--he could not think of one! + +He stared idly across the wide oak writing-table before him, and a neat +pile of letters caught his eye. Surely he had seen the writing on that +top envelope before--but where! + +Small, neat, dainty, it lay before his gaze, and he opened it, more to +turn his thoughts than because it could have to do with what was in his +mind. + +“Helen Trelane” it was signed, and he wondered no longer why the +writing had looked familiar, though it was years since he had seen it. + +Mrs. Trelane was his only relative, and had married a man of whom +report spoke variously as a scoundrel and a martyr. Only reports of the +first sort had reached Sir Gaspard. Trelane had long been dead, and, +living, had had few friends. One thing was certain, that with him Mrs. +Trelane had led a life of precarious poverty, till she had gradually +drifted utterly away from the people who had known her as Helen le +Marchant. + +When Trelane drank himself to death--or died of a broken heart, as some +people had it--Sir Gaspard had sent a large check to his widow, and she +had written more times than were quite necessary to thank him. He had +let the correspondence drop, but now he recognized the writing. + + “My Dear Gaspard,” the letter ran, “I suppose you will be surprised + at hearing from one of whom you have heard nothing since your great + kindness at a sad time. I would have written had I had anything + pleasant to say, but things have not gone well with me and my little + girl. + + “An imprudent man of business--I do not care to write a dishonest + one--the education of my child, which cost more than I imagined, and + perhaps my own foolish ignorance of money matters, have resulted in my + being nearly penniless. + + “I write to you now as my only relation, to tell you that I must find + a situation as governess or companion to support my child, and to ask + you if you will be good enough to act as reference to my employers, + when I find them. + + “If you answer this at once, this address will find me, but if not, + please write care May’s Employment Office, for my lease of this house + expires at the end of this week, and I do not know yet where I can go. + + “You have never seen Ismay. She is sixteen now. I think her pretty, + and I know her to be my only comfort. When I find a situation I shall + send her back to her school as a pupil teacher, but the parting will + be a hard one, and I have not yet found courage to tell her of it. + + “However, it must be; and I rely on your old kindness when I ask you + to let me refer to you as to my fitness to undertake the charge of + girls. + + “Your cousin, + “HELEN TRELANE. + + “1 Colbourne Square, London.” + +It was a letter that had given its writer some trouble, but +circumstances had rendered it a masterpiece. + +Could Helen Trelane have seen Sir Gaspard turn again to the few words +in which she spoke sadly of the parting with her daughter she would +have smiled in quiet triumph at the inspiration which had made her bait +her nearly hopeless hook with love for her child. She had asked for so +little, too; and there was nothing to let Sir Gaspard know that she +meant him to do for her treble what she asked. + +“Poor girl, poor Helen!” he thought. “What a fate to have to earn her +own living and be parted from her child. But if she is the woman I +think her, I can save her from that--only I must see her first.” + +It seemed to Le Marchant that the finger of Providence was in Helen +Trelane’s letter. Who would make a better guardian for Cristiane than +his own cousin, a mother herself? + +She had said something about her ignorance of money matters, but +he could leave Cristiane’s money so tied up that there would be no +question of managing it. + +He wrote a short note, appointing a time to see Mrs. Trelane in London. +Somehow his heart had lightened since reading that letter from another +Le Marchant, who was pained and desperate about her only child. + +As he sealed his note he started, like a child caught in mischief, for +there sounded an impatient tap at the door. + +It was Cristiane. And he was making plans for her he could not tell +her, with his heart full of an agony she must not suspect. + +“Are you here, father? May I come in?” + +How sweet and full the girl’s voice sounded through the oak door! + +The man’s heart fairly turned in his breast as he rose and let her in. + +But his handsome face was quite calm as the girl put up her fresh cheek +for his kiss; if his lip trembled under his fair mustache she was not +woman enough to know it. + +“Have you just come back? Why didn’t you let me know, daddy?” she +demanded imperiously. “Or were you busy?”--with a careless glance at +the newly written note that was to mean so much for her. He nodded. + +“Finished now? Tell me, chickabiddy, how did you get on without me?” He +could not keep from passing a hand that shook a little over the dear +waves of her red-gold hair. + +She faced him suddenly. + +“You’re tired, daddy; you look pale. We’ll have dinner early.” + +“Whenever you like.” + +He was looking at her as a man looks at the dearest thing on earth; how +fair, how heavenly fair she was as she stood, tall and slim, in her +white frock, the last sunset light catching her golden hair; falling +on her great dark-gray eyes, which were all but black, or sometimes +violet, as her mood varied; making lovely her faintly pink cheek, her +rose-red mouth. + +It was as though Cristiane Luoff had come back from the dead, in the +crown of her youth. + +“Oh, you are tired!” the girl cried, as she met his gaze. “You--you +look quite plain, daddy! I’ll ring for dinner now.” + +Somehow Gaspard le Marchant found strength to laugh at that time-worn +joke about his plainness, but the next instant his hard-held composure +was nearly out of hand. + +“You’ll never go away and leave me again, will you, daddy? I do miss +you so horribly.” + +“I--I won’t, if I can help it,” said Sir Gaspard, almost sharply. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A DREAM OF SAFETY. + + +“Mother, aren’t you awake?” + +Ismay, wrapped in an old flannel dressing-gown, stood knocking sharply +at Mrs. Trelane’s bedroom door, her knuckles blue with cold and her +face set peevishly. + +“Mother,” she repeated, “there isn’t any milk, and the milkman won’t +leave us any unless we pay for it. Haven’t you any money?”--running her +fingers impatiently over the bedroom door. It opened quietly as she +drummed on it. Mrs. Trelane, dressed for the day and exquisitely neat, +stood looking at her. + +“What’s the matter, what do you want?” she asked angrily. Her face was +drawn from a night of waking, and haggard as a gambler’s who has flung +down his last card and does not know what remains in his opponent’s +hand. “Money? You know I haven’t any. Can’t you do without milk?” + +“I suppose I must”--sullenly. “Breakfast’s ready, then--dry bread and +tea without milk! What made you sleep so late? It’s nearly eleven.” + +“What was the good of waking?” Not even to Ismay could she say that +she had never slept the livelong night for waiting for the day and the +postman’s knock; that when it came she had run to the door to find only +the big blue envelope she had dreaded, and not a word from the man to +whom she had turned in her despair. + +Ever since she had sat old and haggard in the morning light, her busy +brain thinking, to no end. Unless Gaspard le Marchant answered that +letter destruction looked her in the face. + +She dressed herself at last under the spur of Ismay’s incessant +knocking and calling, but though her iron nerve kept her face steady, +her knees were trembling under her as she followed the girl into the +bare kitchen, where half a loaf of bread and some weak tea represented +their morning meal. + +Ismay sat down on the table and regarded her mother over the piece of +dry bread she held to her lips. + +“Look here,” she remarked slowly, “don’t you think it’s about time you +did something? Are we going to sit here and starve? And do you know +that Marcus Wray was knocking here this morning and I wouldn’t go to +the door?” + +Even the dirty dressing-gown, the weariness that drew down her upper +lip, could not take away from her unearthly beauty as her mother stared +at her. + +“Do something!” she retorted. “I’ve done all I can. That is what’s the +matter. And we sha’n’t certainly sit here and starve, for I heard this +morning that we are to be turned out on Saturday and our things sold +for rent. We shall starve more romantically in the street.” + +“I sha’n’t.” + +“What can you do? Go back to your school as a pupil teacher?” + +“Do I look like a pupil teacher?” asked Ismay, with a sarcastic glance +at herself. + +“You look--well, I don’t know whether you are very beautiful or very +ugly!” the elder woman returned listlessly, trying to break some dry +bread with distasteful fingers. + +“You’ll soon be told! Mother”--with sudden energy--“if you can’t find +some way out of this, I shall. I can sing, and I’m going round to every +music-hall I know till some man gives me a chance. Do you suppose”--she +stripped back the sleeve of her dingy dressing-gown from an arm that +was curiously slender, yet round, and of a milky whiteness--“that I am +going to let that starve?” + +“And what about me? I suppose I can go out charing!” + +Ismay shrugged her shoulders. There was no waste of courtesy between +the two. + +In the silence that fell, the postman’s knock seemed to thunder through +the quiet. Mrs. Trelane put her cup down on the table. + +“You go,” she said, for at the sudden noise her head swam. Surely she +had not lost her nerve, that had stood her in such stead this many a +year! + +“Two letters--notes--for you.” + +Ismay threw them down on the table, and, after one glance of sick +terror lest they might not be what she waited for, Mrs. Trelane seized +them. Both were in the writing she had not seen for years, both sealed +with the Le Marchant lion crouching with his paw on his prey. But why +were there two? Had he promised something, and then repented? + +Sick with terror, Helen Trelane tore one open, and at first dared not +read it. Then the sense of it seemed to flash on her, and the reaction +made her dizzy. + +It was all right! The last card, on which she had staked her all, had +not failed her. The writer would be in London on Friday, and would come +to see her at twelve o’clock, when he hoped to have some better plan to +propose than what she had suggested in her letter. + + “Till then,” he ended kindly, “please do not fret about your own or + your daughter’s future, for I can promise you that I will arrange + something. + + “Affectionately yours, + “G. LE MARCHANT.” + +There was not a word in it about his daughter. Sir Gaspard was too +careful of her to do things blindly, but he meant when he wrote to +provide for Helen Trelane, even if she turned out unfit to be trusted +with his child. + +Ismay took the note calmly from her mother’s nerveless hand. + +“Who’s Gaspard le Marchant, and why is he yours affectionately?” she +asked curiously. “But it doesn’t matter. The chief thing is that he is +‘yours affectionately’ just in the nick of time. What’s in the other +note?” + +“I don’t know.” Mrs. Trelane lay back, nerveless, in her hard chair; +she had conquered fate once more, but the relief was too acute yet to +be pleasant. With a shaking finger she opened the other note, and there +fell out two strips of paper. + + “You may need this, and you and I can settle later. + + “G. LE M.” + +The yellow slip enclosed was a check for a hundred pounds. + +When another woman would have cried with gratitude, Mrs. Trelane only +caught her breath cynically. “A fool and his money were soon parted,” +but what a mercy it was that he had been so easily managed! + +“What about the music-halls, Ismay?” she said bitterly, lifting her +triumphant eyes to her daughter’s astonished face. + +“Go out,” said the girl, “and cash this, and we’ll have meat for lunch. +But tell me first, who is he? And why didn’t you try him before?” + +“He is Sir Gaspard le Marchant, and the only relation I own. And I did +try him before, in a way. He sent me money once before, but I didn’t +need it especially, and I didn’t want to have to go and stay in a +stupid country house or have my dear cousin come hunting me up. So I +did not write to him till it looked as though camping on the cold, cold +ground was going to be our fate.” + +“Is he married?” + +“His wife has been dead for years.” + +“And you never tried to be Lady Le Marchant?” + +Mrs. Trelane’s cheek grew slowly red. + +“His first wife, my dear, was a Russian adventuress,” she returned +cuttingly, “and only a born adventuress could hope to succeed her. You +have all the qualifications--you might try for the place.” + +And she walked airily out of the room, quite transformed from the +haggard woman she had been when she entered it. But, though she was +tall and fair and handsome, she was not in the least like the girl who +sat alone looking with eager interest at the Le Marchant seal, the +Le Marchant motto, on the back of one of the torn envelopes. No Le +Marchant and no Trelane had ever had those strange eyes, that uncanny, +colorless beauty, that mouth as red as new blood. + +“What Marchant held let Marchant hold!” she read aloud from the +seal. “Well, half of me is Le Marchant, and the other half ‘born +adventuress’! I feel sorry--really sorry--for Sir Gaspard.” And she +slipped gracefully to the floor, and went after her mother. But in the +hall a knock and ring at their front door made her run noiselessly to +the bedroom, where Mrs. Trelane was putting on her bonnet. + +“He’s here,” Ismay cried; “it must be he; for it’s twelve o’clock, and +it’s Friday! You’ll have to go and let him in, I can’t.” + +“No, you can’t! Don’t you come near us,” said her mother, with quick +insistence, “unless I call you. Mind--for you might spoil everything! +And when I do call you, come in a decent frock, with a plain linen +collar, and behave yourself. Don’t make eyes at him whatever you do, +and be affectionate to me. Remember, now!” + +And she was gone to open the door for the man who was to change the +very face of the world for her. + +Miss Ismay Trelane, left alone, made a face. + +“Where does she think I’m going to get a clean collar when the +washerwoman has clawed them all till she’s paid? And I won’t get +dressed for a minute.” + +Lithe and slim she moved, without a sound, to a door that opened into +the drawing-room, and, noiselessly setting it ajar, listened with all +her ears. + +When she crept away her eyes were blazing. + +“It means plenty of money, and getting away from here to where Marcus +Wray will never think of looking for us!” she exulted, as she began +to change her dressing-gown for her only dress; but a sudden thought +dashed her joy. + +To leave London would mean never to see again the man whose face had +never left her memory since that night at the Palace Theater. + +“Why didn’t I let him tell me his name?” she thought, as she stamped +with impotent rage at her own folly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THREEFOLD DANGER. + + +“Mrs. Trelane is father’s second cousin; and she and her daughter are +coming here for a visit; daddy has to go away, and he can’t take me, +and he won’t leave me alone.” + +Cristiane le Marchant leaned against the stem of a huge beech-tree that +overhung the broad lake at Marchant’s Hold. The sunlight came through +the leafless trees, and made the golden-red of her hair ruddier and +more glorious in contrast; her cheeks had a soft rose that melted into +creamy whiteness, and her eyes were very dark. + +Mr. Cylmer looked at her. She was certainly provokingly cool. + +“What are they like?” she asked curiously. + +“It doesn’t matter; they are a nuisance in any case,” said her +companion. + +“Why?” she asked, but did not look at him. + +“You never had a chaperon before,” he said dryly. “Oh! your father, I +know, but a woman’s--different. I know she’ll be in the way.” + +“In your way, Mr. Cylmer!” retorted Miss Le Marchant demurely, but her +eyes flashed mischievously at him through her heavy lashes. + +“Mr. Cylmer” kicked at the turf with vicious energy. + +“You needn’t rub it in, Cristiane,” he said crossly. “I know you don’t +care a button whether you see me alone or not.” + +He was very young-looking for his twenty-eight years; very brown and +big as he stood on the grass in his shooting-clothes. But he had not +been born yesterday for all his debonair face; there was very little +Mr. Cylmer had not done in this world; very little that his quick eye +did not see through. + +But all his worldly wisdom was wont to desert him when he found himself +alone with Cristiane. He was her humble slave, and it never occurred +to him that she would have valued him much more if she had known that +Miles Cylmer, who was such an every-day sort of person to her, could +have thrown his handkerchief to half the fine ladies in London, and had +it snapped up on the second; or that every woman he knew adored him, +from duchess to dairymaids. + +To Cristiane le Marchant he was plain Miles Cylmer, who had been in +and out of Marchant’s Hold all his life, and was to be regarded as a +convenient or inconvenient elder brother, as things might happen. + +“Come on,” she commanded practically, “I have to go to the house to +meet them.” + +“Is your father coming with them?” + +He stood looking down at her, six feet and to spare, his keen hazel +eyes full of annoyance, and his face quite grave. Had he not given up a +whole day’s shooting to be near Cristiane le Marchant? And now, instead +of a tête-à-tête with her, there would be two women to be disposed of; +two strangers to spoil it. + +“But your father’s coming with them,” he repeated, beginning to walk +slowly--very slowly--toward the house. + +“No, he isn’t!” Cristiane stopped short. “That’s what’s so funny about +these visitors. Father has sent them here, and he doesn’t know how long +he’ll be away, and he wrote me such a funny note.” And she pulled a +letter out of her pocket. + +“‘Write to me and tell me exactly what you think of Mrs. Trelane, if +you like her or not,’ she read. ‘But try and make friends with her +little daughter, for she needs a friend, and take time before you +write. Only write me your candid opinion.’ There, what do you think of +it? Why is this Mrs. Trelane so important, that I am to send daddy my +‘candid opinion.’ I can’t see any sense in it.” + +“By George, I can, then!” was on the tip of Mr. Cylmer’s tongue, but he +caught back the words in time. There could be only one meaning to the +letter; Sir Gaspard must be thinking of marrying again. + +Somehow Cylmer was unreasonably angry. From his earliest boyhood he had +been wont to gaze at the portrait of Cristiane’s mother, that hung +in Sir Gaspard’s room, with a wondering awe that any one could ever +have been so beautiful; it made him angry now in his manhood that the +husband she had loved should have dared to forget her. + +“No, I can’t see any sense,” he said lamely; “only be sure you tell +your father outright if you don’t like this Trelane woman. Otherwise he +might ask her to stay on, or something----” + +He jerked at his mustache irritably, quite unconscious how he was +wronging poor innocent Sir Gaspard. + +“I never would have thought Le Marchant the sort of man to marry +again,” he thought gloomily. “I’ll see him as soon as he gets back, and +tell him I--I want Cristiane. She sha’n’t have any stepmother about +while there’s a roof at Cylmer’s Ferry!” + +He looked doubtfully at the girl as she walked on before him. If only +he dared stoop and kiss those soft gold waves that were swept upward +from the back of her neck: dared to say he loved her from the crown of +her golden head to the tips of her little shoes. + +“Cristiane,” he said, “I want to speak to you. Do you know you have +never said you were sorry that these people were coming; never said you +would miss our long, happy days together?” + +“But I won’t,” she said calmly: “you’ll be here. You’re not going to +die, or anything, are you?” + +She had turned round to him as she spoke, and her violet-gray eyes were +raised to his, her rose-colored lips parted in a mockery that stung for +all its sweetness. + +Two hands that were light and yet hard as iron were laid on her +shoulders before she knew it. Miles Cylmer’s face, with a strange, +sweet pity on it that she had never seen there, was bent down to hers. + +“Cristiane, little girl, I want you to promise me something. If +anything goes wrong with you--will you come to me?” + +“What do you mean, Miles?” she said soberly. “What could go +wrong--while I have father?” + +His hands were hard on her shoulders. + +“I don’t know--but I love you, and somehow I’m afraid for you.” + +He spoke stumblingly--in his outraged pity that he thought was +love--how could he keep his raging pulse quiet? How could he make this +child, who did not love him, come to his heart? + +“Can’t you care a little, sweetheart?” he whispered. “Can’t you marry +me?” + +Marry him, Miles Cylmer, who was like a brother? + +“I--I don’t think I could, Miles,” Cristiane said slowly. “I----” + +“Try.” His face was close to hers, she could feel his breath, sweet +and warm, on her cheek. Was this Miles, who had never even thought of +making love to her? Why, he was trembling! + +With a sudden, wild rebellion the girl tore herself away from him. + +“Don’t touch me,” she panted. “Marry you--I would as soon marry Thomas +the butler; I’ve known him from a child, too!”--with angry scorn. + +Cylmer, very white and quiet, let his hands drop to his sides. + +“All right,” he said quietly, “we won’t speak of it. And I won’t come +over any more--after to-day.” + +“You needn’t.” She was struggling with tears. She did not know why. +“I--I wish you’d go home now!”--stamping her foot. + +“I will; but I’m going up to see these daughters of Heth first,” he +returned quietly. + +“Don’t dare to ask me to marry you again,” she cried childishly, +“because I don’t like it! And you’re not to stay to tea now--or come +here any more till I ask you.” + +“I will not. I shall let Thomas try his luck.” + +Mr. Cylmer’s voice was not without temper. He marched beside her over +the dun, wintry grass in silence, turning many things in his mind. + +“Oh!” cried Cristiane angrily, “there they are now, on the terrace. +Daddy said I was to be certain to meet them when they came, and I’m not +there, and it’s all your fault!” + +She hurried on to the great stone terrace that lay full in the wintry +sunshine. Two women stood there, both tall and slender, both dressed +in black. Cristiane was running now to join them, and a strange +superstitious feeling made Cylmer quicken his steps after her. Somehow +it was ominous--uncanny; the girl in all her youth and purity hurrying +toward those strange women in black. + +“God only knows when she’ll get rid of them!” Cylmer growled, with more +truth than he knew. + +As he neared them, Ismay, with a quick glance at his approaching figure +through the thick, spotted net of her veil, turned quietly and went +into the house. + +Who was this whose walk, whose face, she knew so well, even though it +was only once in her life that she had seen them? + +She looked sharply round the great, dim hall. It was empty, the +servants had gone. From its shelter, dark after the sun outside, the +girl peered carefully out through the wide crack of the hall door. + +Oh! if it were he, how should she meet him? Would he know her? And what +would he say? + +Her heart fairly stood still as she looked with her very soul in her +eyes through the crack to the group inside. And then it bounded with a +rapture that was pain. + +It was he--the man himself for whose sake she had been loath to leave +London lest she might miss the chance sight of his face in the streets! +Thirstily she drank in the strong beauty of his face, whose clear-cut +lines were stamped on her heart. Not a thread of his shooting-tweeds, +his dull-red tie, was lost on her. Her delicate hands were clenched +hard in her smart new gloves as she stared--for who was he, and what +was he doing here alone with this golden-haired girl? + +A wild jealousy caught her at the heart with a pain that was bodily. If +he were coming in, she dared not meet him under the eyes of her mother +and Cristiane le Marchant. She turned and fled swiftly into the first +room she saw; it was deserted and fireless, they would not come there. +And yet, while she hid, she would have given the life from her breast +to meet those grave, sweet eyes again with hers. + +Cylmer had scarcely noticed that the younger of the two strangers had +gone; he did not even look at the door through which she had vanished +as he stepped to Cristiane’s side with an involuntary instinct of +protectiveness. + +The girl grudgingly introduced him, as one might a troublesome child. + +“My cousin, Mrs. Trelane,” she said. She did not even mention Cylmer’s +name. + +Mrs. Trelane bowed graciously; if she had not been excited and +preoccupied at meeting Gaspard le Marchant’s daughter, on whom her stay +in safety and security at Marchant’s Hold depended, she might have seen +that Cylmer bent on her an uncomfortably searching stare. + +But Cristiane had turned toward him. + +“Good-by,” she said hastily; “so sorry you can’t come in.” And before +he could answer she had swept Mrs. Trelane into the house. + +Mr. Cylmer was dismissed in disgrace. + +Yet, as he turned away, he scarcely thought of it. + +“Now, what,” he said to himself, “does that woman remind me of? I never +saw her before.” Yet the carriage of her head, her long throat, was +somehow familiar; and as he thought there came to him the sudden vision +of a little rose-colored room, full of a haunting scent of bitter +almonds. + +“What nonsense!” he thought irritably. “Why should Sir Gaspard’s cousin +remind me of poor Abbotsford?” And then he stopped short, annoyingly +conscious that he must be making a fool of himself. + +For he remembered now that Mrs. Trelane had held a handkerchief in her +hands. He had smelled that smell of bitter almonds in reality; the +woman and her handkerchief reeked of peach-blossom. And yet he was +puzzled--and might have been more so had he known whose strange green +eyes had peered at him through the crack of a sheltering door. + +The woman in his thoughts was standing just then in her bedroom at +Marchant’s Hold, with her hostess beside her. + +“You must be tired,” Cristiane said; “do come to dinner in a tea-gown. +We shall be alone, for there was no one I could have asked to meet you +except Miles Cylmer, whom you saw just now.” + +“Miles Cylmer!” Mrs. Trelane turned her back sharply, in her sudden +sick surprise. + +“Mr. Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry. He lives near, and he comes very often +when father is at home.” + +A new self-consciousness born of the afternoon kept the girl from +looking at her guest. + +“Come down,” she said abruptly, “when you’re ready.” + +The door had hardly closed behind her before Ismay, in the next room, +heard herself called. + +“What is it?” she asked, standing in the doorway. “Are you ill?” + +For Mrs. Trelane was sitting down as if her strength were gone, gazing +straight before her as one who sees a ghost. + +“Ismay,” she said, “that man who was here this afternoon, do you know +who he is?” + +The girl hesitated; had her mother known more than she knew about her +visit to the Palace Theater? + +“Do I know his name?” she parried. “No--why?” + +Mrs. Trelane rose, staggered, and sat down again. + +“I can’t look,” she said. “Open the door into the passage and see if +that girl has gone. Quick!” + +“It’s all right,” Ismay said, after a contemptuous survey. “Why? I +don’t see why you’re looking as if you were going to be seasick.” + +“Look here,” Mrs. Trelane said roughly, “do you remember the Abbotsford +business? This man who was here to-day is Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry.” + +It was Ismay’s turn to stare with haggard eyes. + +“You don’t mean it?” she cried fiercely, but with the low voice of +caution. “You don’t mean to say that we’ll have to get out of here?” +How could she not have known him that day in Onslow Square? + +“I don’t know,” moaned the woman. A shudder shook her like a leaf. “Did +he look at me, or anything? I was too taken up--with the girl. I didn’t +notice”--her words coming in jerks. “Could you see from where you +were?” + +“Yes,” said the girl frankly; “he stared at you like anything.” + +“Get me a drink,” the elder woman said slowly. “There’s brandy in my +bag.” + +She swallowed it, and sat silent, with closed eyes. The color crept +back into her lips, and she lifted her head and looked at her daughter. + +“I’m making a fool of myself,” she ejaculated. “He never saw me, +never heard of me, any more than any one else did when there was all +that trouble. But it was that very Miles Cylmer who was Abbotsford’s +dearest friend, and strained every nerve to find out who the woman was +that--that was at the bottom of it.” + +Her eyes dilated till they looked black in her colorless face. Ismay +stared at her mother. + +“Do you think he ever saw that photograph I made you go back and get, +when you--found him?” she asked sternly. “If he did, you may have +trouble. He looked a determined sort of man, dogged, you know. But he’s +the handsomest man I ever laid eyes on!” + +“What does it matter what he looks like, if he is that Cylmer?” Mrs. +Trelane cried angrily. “I talk about life and death, and you go on +about the man’s looks. What do they matter to you?” + +“A great deal.” The girl’s eyes glittered very green to-night. “The +minute I saw him I meant to marry him. Do you suppose I’d take pains to +make him like me if he were ugly?” + +“I know you wouldn’t; not to save me from anything,” Mrs. Trelane +returned bitterly. She had good reason to know that no power on earth +could force Ismay to be civil. + +“But you’re talking nonsense,” she went on. “As things are, we must try +to keep the man from coming here. You can’t dare to try your hand on +him; we must steer clear of him.” + +“And set him wondering why we should try to avoid him? No, no! Let me +alone. Only try to throw your mind back. Did he get into Abbotsford’s +room before you had taken away that picture?” + +She looked like an accusing judge at her mother, cowering on the sofa +under her eyes. + +“Oh, Ismay!” the woman cried wretchedly, “I don’t know, I don’t know. +I went back for it--I was just taking it--when there was a noise. I +got behind a curtain. Some one came in, and went out again, without +noticing--Abbotsford”--her voice low, tremulous with weeping. “I took +the photograph and got out of the house somehow. I didn’t meet any one. +I must have been at home an hour before any one--found Abbotsford.” + +“Then why should you be so idiotic?”--jumping up in her relief. “It +could not have been Cylmer who came in----” + +“It was. He said so afterward.” + +“Well, he didn’t see you. As for the photograph, he couldn’t have +noticed it enough to know you by. You would have been ruined if you had +not gone back and got it, though!” + +“It was providential.” Mrs. Trelane breathed freer. + +“It was what?” cried Ismay. She went into a paroxysm of low laughter. +“Providence--and you! But I think you’re all right--you forgive my +smiling? I think he just stared at you because you and I are probably +in his way here; that was all. Only I wouldn’t let him see you in a +white evening gown; that might remind him.” + +“I wish I had never seen Abbotsford.” Mrs. Trelane’s tears had washed +channels in her powder. She looked wan and old where she sat. “I bore +the brunt--and Marcus has the diamonds.” + +“And we’re well out of it at that,” Ismay rejoined significantly. “For +at last I hope we’re rid of him. He’ll never find us here.” + +“He’d find us in our graves,” said the woman. “And you’ve got to manage +him. Don’t go and get into any mad pursuit of Mr. Cylmer, for if Marcus +caught you at it----” + +She paused, for Ismay was standing over her in a rage. + +“Marcus!” she said scornfully. “What do I care for your Marcus? I am +not bound to him; it is you that need fear him, not I! And as far as +you are concerned, what do I owe you? You neglected me, cast me off, +and when I came back to you, that madness about Lord Abbotsford came on +you. I told you not to go that day--I knew there would be trouble--and +now it may be going to ruin my whole life.” + +“What do you mean? You’re talking nonsense. And, considering you’ve +only seen Cylmer through the crack of a door, you’re pretty certain of +him,” cried her mother sneeringly. + +Ismay drew a long breath. + +“I’ve seen him before--never mind where,” she said. + +“And he may be Cristiane’s property,” was the angry warning. + +Ismay flung up her handsome head. + +“He may belong to all the saints in heaven,” she said, with her voice +hard as ice, “but he will come to me in the end.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE LUCK OF MARCUS WRAY. + + +Sir Gaspard le Marchant sat before an untasted breakfast in a Paris +hotel. + +He felt curiously ill; far worse than he had ever known himself; he +breathed with an effort that made his man servant nervous as he stood +behind his chair. Parker alone knew the secret of his master’s state of +health, knew that their journey to Rome had been put off first that Sir +Gaspard might consult a Parisian specialist, and then because the man +who bore his pain so bravely had not the strength to travel. + +“He looks pleased with Miss Cristiane’s letter; perhaps that’ll do him +good!” the man thought distressedly. “I wish he’d turn round and go +home.” + +“Parker,” Sir Gaspard said suddenly, and with almost his old +cheerfulness, “I’ve heard from Marchant’s Hold, and Miss Le Marchant is +very well.” + +“Yes, sir? I’m glad, sir.” + +“But I don’t think I’m feeling much better this morning; perhaps I’m +nervous. At any rate, I have a little piece of business to see to. Go +down and ask the proprietor if he could give you the address of some +good English lawyer, and then go and bring him here.” + +There were drops of cold dampness on his forehead as he finished +speaking. Parker, after one glance at him, went out with noiseless +haste. + +Yet, for all his pain, it was with a great thankfulness at his heart +that Sir Gaspard lay back in his chair. The letter from Cristiane had +been full of pleasant things concerning Helen Trelane and her daughter. +She was very happy with them, and if he did not mind, would he ask them +to stay on a little while when he came back. There was not a word about +Miles Cylmer in the letter; only praises of the two women. + +“So I can make it all right this morning,” the man thought feverishly, +“if only Parker can find the lawyer. And then I’ll go on to Rome.” + +His head felt light and dizzy with pain. He had but two thoughts, oddly +intermingled: to make everything easy for Cristiane, and then to creep +away to die where his love had died, so many years ago. + +He looked up in surprise as Parker came back. + +“I didn’t have to leave the hotel, sir,” he said; “there is an English +lawyer staying here, and I brought him up.” + +“You’re sure he’s all right--qualified--and that?” anxiously. “I don’t +want any trouble.” + +“Sure, sir. They know him well here.” + +“All right. Bring him in.” + +He looked at the stranger Parker ushered in with a momentary curiosity. +He was a very ugly man; tall, dark, thick-lipped, almost repulsive. But +he was well-dressed and clean-shaved, and moved with a certain air of +gentlemanliness. His voice, too, was cultivated. Sir Gaspard noticed +this as he introduced himself, and gave a card with his address in +London Chambers. + +“Mr. Marcus Wray,” the card read. + +The name meant nothing to Sir Gaspard, though his own lawyers could +have told him it was that of a clever man who sailed perilously +close to the wind, and had once very nearly been disbarred. Only his +cleverness had saved him; there were no proofs ever to be found against +Mr. Marcus Wray. His business in Paris just now was not too safe, but +he stayed at a good hotel and went about it so carefully as to pass for +a model of English propriety. + +He talked very little as Sir Gaspard gave his instructions. He +wished, he said, to make a new will, and draw up some papers for the +guardianship of his only daughter. + +“Please make it all short,” Le Marchant ended. “I had meant to have my +own lawyer do it when I got back to England, but----” he did not finish. + +Marcus Wray made no answer as he sat at a table Parker had covered with +writing-materials. The man was ill enough to have no time to lose, it +was plain--but not an inkling of that opinion showed itself on the +lawyer’s ugly, impassive face. + +The will was simple enough, yet at a certain name in it only an iron +self-control kept Marcus Wray from a sharp exclamation. + +So they had left London! And tried to shake him off. What a piece of +luck it was this man’s being taken ill in Paris! Without it, Helen +Trelane might have escaped him, and feathered her nest alone. Now---- + +“I beg your pardon, I did not catch that last.” + +Mr. Wray looked up with an unmoved face, though the beating of his own +heart was loud in his ears. + +Here was he, Marcus Wray, writing at the bidding of an utter stranger +words which would bring him the desire of his heart--aye, and gold to +gild it! + +He looked furtively at the pale, handsome man who seemed dying before +his eyes. Was this Helen’s last victim? Or could it be possible that he +was only a simple fool who believed in her? It must be, since he was +giving over his only daughter and heiress to her guardianship till she +was twenty-one. + +Well, even he had gone near to believing in her once! It was funny, +though, that this last game she had been at such pains to hide from him +should have been played straight into his hands like this. He held his +pen in air, looking at Sir Gaspard. + +“There is one thing, sir--if your daughter dies unmarried, or before +the age of twenty-one----” he left the sentence unfinished. + +“Unlikely, the girl is young, strong.” His hearer had winced. “But if +it were to happen, the place,” obstinately, “must go to a Le Marchant, +and Mrs. Trelane is the only one. It and the money can go to her, if my +daughter--but she won’t, she won’t!” + +“As you say, it is most unlikely.” + +Wray wrote hard as he spoke. The man seemed very weak and ill; better +to get everything signed and sealed as fast as possible. + +He rang the bell sharply for Parker, and sent him for the proprietor +and a well-known London clergyman who happened to be staying in the +house. They would be unimpeachable witnesses to the will; there must +be nothing doubtful about it. But Marcus Wray’s strong fingers were +tapping his knee with that curious hammering motion, while the two men +wrote their names. + +“What luck!” he thought, his eyes averted lest the gleam in them might +show. “All that money--for Helen--when this man dies. And he might die +to-morrow.” + +To Cristiane, the daughter, he never gave a thought. With a will like +that, and Helen Trelane knowing of it, she was not likely to come of +age to marry. + +And the money would be his, Marcus Wray’s, as the diamonds had been, +as anything belonging to Helen Trelane would be, at his nod. No more +slaving, no more risky transactions. The man rose abruptly and went +over to the window. He dared not think the thoughts that rang like +bells in his brain. + +Yet his face was absolutely quiet and gentle as he turned to see the +two witnesses to the will leaving the room, while Sir Gaspard, very +white and still, leaned back in his chair. + +“You are leaving for Rome, I think your man said?” The question was +kind, interested. Sir Gaspard was surprised, but he nodded. + +“You forgive my asking, but it seems a long journey,” musingly. “Might +it not be wiser to go home?” + +Parker waited breathlessly for the answer; it came loud, imperative. + +“No! I must go to Rome. I have to go.” He pointed to the signed +will, spread on the table. “Put it in an envelope, address it to my +solicitors, Bolton & Carey, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. It can be +sent there, Parker, when I die.” With curious gentleness he put it +in the breast pocket of his coat, and Marcus Wray knew, with the +intuition of a man who lives by his wits, that there it would stay till +Sir Gaspard’s eyes were shut to this world forever. He shrugged his +shoulders as he left the room. + +“Rome--and he wants to die there! I wonder why. Bah! he can die now in +the gutter, for all I care. He might have paid me my fee, though. It +may be a good while to wait for the indirect harvest.” + +He mounted to his room in the fourth story and had barely time to +light a cigar before there was a discreet knock on his door. It was +Sir Gaspard’s man servant with a note. As he took it, Wray noticed the +curious likeness of the man to his master, but only for the instant. + +“Discarded wardrobe does it, I suppose,” he thought, as he shut his +door and opened the note. + + “DEAR SIR: Permit me to discharge my great obligation to you, with my + best thanks. + + “Faithfully yours, + “GASPARD LE MARCHANT.” + +Two five-pound notes fell from the open envelope, but Wray scarcely +looked at them. Instead, he stared hard at the careless, gentlemanly +signature before him. At sight of it a thought had flashed up in his +brain, so daring that even he almost feared it. + +But it was so insistent, and it seemed so safe. + +“Nothing more will be heard of it--if he lives! If he dies, I can +always say I acted by his orders--dying men do curious things,” he +muttered. + +With his door locked, the lawyer worked hard for two hours. When at +last he stopped, with a long-drawn breath, a second copy of Sir Gaspard +le Marchant’s will lay before him, on the selfsame blue paper on which +the first had been written. On the floor lay many spoiled sheets of +paper covered with imperfect signatures; on the will itself the name of +Gaspard le Marchant was exact. The man himself could hardly have sworn +he had not written it. + +The ticklish part was yet to come--the witnesses. Wray shut his teeth +hard as he realized that he dared not try any guesswork about their +handwriting. + +Yet when he had cleared away all evidences of his morning’s work, and +put the folded will in his coat pocket, his face was quite passive. +So far the second will was only an experiment, concerning no one but +himself. If it proved impracticable--Mr. Wray shrugged his shoulders as +he went down-stairs to luncheon. + +Yet, as he entered the long salle-a-manger he almost started. + +At one of the first tables sat Sir Gaspard, and he beckoned Wray to +join him. + +“I was tired of my own society,” he said--and if ever a man’s face was +weary it was his!--“so I came down. If you are not afraid of a dull +companion, will you lunch with me?” + +Mr. Marcus Wray would be delighted. + +He sat down and did his best to be amusing; by the time the sweets +appeared Sir Gaspard was smiling. + +At the far end of the room, behind the baronet, Wray saw the stout form +of the London clergyman who had witnessed the will. He was enjoying his +luncheon, waited on by the proprietor in person. Truly, whatever gods +there were stood friendly to the man who sat so calmly with a forged +signature in his pocket. + +“I have forgotten something,” he said suddenly. “If you will excuse me, +Sir Gaspard, for one moment, I have a little matter to arrange with the +dean there. I know he is leaving immediately.” + +Sir Gaspard nodded, and, with quick, noiseless steps, Marcus Wray had +joined the dean. + +“I regret having to trouble you again,” he said courteously, “but my +poor friend over there wishes a copy of his will left here with the +proprietor. He wishes to know if you will be good enough to witness it; +Dubourg also,” to the affable little proprietor. + +The latter produced pen and ink from somewhere with incredible +quickness, and the dean wrote his ponderous signature with a glance at +Sir Gaspard, who seemed to sit expectant of his emissary’s return. + +“The poor monsieur is of the dying,” the landlord said, as he added his +name. Wray nodded. + +“I fear so,” he said. “This is to be deposited in your safe, Mr. +Dubourg,” he added, in an undertone as the man preceded him across +the room to draw out his chair at Sir Gaspard’s table. “Sealed, you +understand, and to remain there! In case you hear of Sir Gaspard’s +death you are to forward it. Otherwise, nothing is to be said about it.” + +The little man bowed. + +“I understand, it is for making sure,” he assented. “The poor man +leaves us to-night for Rome.” + +Sir Gaspard, quite unconscious of the meaning of the proprietor’s +compassionate glance, retired almost on Wray’s return, to rest for his +journey. But that individual, whose business in Paris was finished, did +not take the mail-train for London, as he had intended. The motto of +his existence was: “Never desert your luck”--that luck of Marcus Wray +that was a proverb in the Inns of Court. To go back to London and dream +of a golden future would be to act like a fool; many a dying man had +lived to laugh at his heirs, and so might this one. + +A prescience that the time was heavy with fate bade the lawyer not lose +sight of the invalid. Instead of going to London, his cab was just +behind Sir Gaspard’s on the way to the station. His last act before +leaving the hotel had been to deposit his sealed document in Monsieur +Dubourg’s safe. On bad news it was to be at once forwarded to Sir +Gaspard’s solicitors in London. + +As the southern train rushed on through the night, Sir Gaspard, +sleepless on his comfortable bed, never dreamed that in the very last +carriage of the train his acquaintance of the morning slept the sleep +of the unjust, that is sounder than any. + +The last carriage--truly there was something in that famous luck of +Marcus Wray! For as the pale light of dawn grew in the east something +happened; what, there was hardly time to say. Only a jar, a crash; +then for most people on that train a great void, a blotting out. The +train had left the track; the engine was down an embankment; all the +carriages but the very last a sickening, telescoped mass of shapeless +wood. + +In that last carriage Marcus Wray was flung on the floor from a sound +sleep. The lamp had gone out, in the dark a woman screamed, and the +sharp sound brought back his senses. The train was wrecked! + +With a quickness beyond belief he was on his feet, had slipped between +his struggling fellow passengers, and out the window, his narrow +shoulders doing him good service. + +“Sir Gaspard--the will!” + +He ran frantically along the track, passing the dead and dying, +thrusting a woman out of his way with brutal fingers. There was light +now beside the coming dawn, the light of burning carriages; and from +the reeking mass came sounds to turn a man sick, who had time to listen. + +This man with unerring instinct found the carriage in which he had been +too poor to travel; it was to be entered now without paying his fare, +for the whole side of it gaped. + +In the light of its burning roof he dragged at a heap that looked like +clothing, but he knew that ten minutes since it had been living men. + +He lifted with all his strength, and dragged off the first figure of +the mass. As if he were searching for one he loved, he turned the face +to the light. + +A dead man--a stranger in a fur coat! He dropped the bleeding head as +if it were but stone. + +The next? He panted as he tugged, for the dead are heavy, and the heat +was scorching. This was a man, too, with his arms round another in a +last instinctive protection. Parker--and he had given his life for his +master! For the servant’s brains oozed warm under the lifting hands. + +Try as he might, Marcus Wray could not loosen the arms that were +around that inert figure that had been Gaspard le Marchant! Was he +dead--living? He could not tell. + +The heat was scorching the searcher as he dragged the two that lay +clasped so close from the burning carriage together. In its light +he knelt down beside them, gasping for breath in the cold dawn. Sir +Gaspard’s face was hidden on the breast of his faithful servant. As +a man who seeks a friend, Wray turned it toward him, tenderly, never +forgetting that anywhere in that dreadful place there might be watchful +eyes upon him. + +In spite of his caution, his breath came in a great sigh of relief. + +Sir Gaspard le Marchant lay with closed eyes and stilled heart, his +face uninjured, his clothes scarcely disordered, only something in that +strange machine we call a body out of gear forever. + +“Dead!” the man breathed it softly in the light of the flaming +carriages, but if he had shrieked it to the sky above him it could not +have sounded louder in his own ears. The sound brought back his caution. + +His long fingers groped deftly in the breast pocket of Sir Gaspard’s +coat, and the luck of Marcus Wray lay in his hand! + +The man was drunk with his success as he turned away. This will need +never appear. When the news of Sir Gaspard’s death was telegraphed to +Paris an hour later Dubourg would forward his will to Bolton & Carey. +Marcus Wray would be out of the transaction, except for being the +lawyer employed by chance. + +Now, the sooner he was out of this the better. He turned away, careless +whether the dead were out of the way of the fire or not. Sir Gaspard +living, had served him well; Sir Gaspard dead, might burn or be buried. +It was all one to Marcus Wray. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +“I WILL POSSESS HIM OR DIE.” + + +Ismay Trelane stood alone in the great hall at Marchant’s Hold, +immaculately dressed in tight-fitting, dark-green cloth that showed +every curve of her slim body and seemed reflected in her strange eyes. + +Her cheeks for once were flushed, and there was a curious light in +the glance that she swept deliberately over the luxury around her and +finally let rest on her own reflection in the old mirror that hung over +the wide fireplace. + +“All this for one girl!” she whispered. The scarlet of her lips paled +with the tight pressure that drew them together. “And she has had it +all her life! If I had had one-tenth of it and been brought up like +her with white frocks in summer and good warm serge in winter, I might +have been quite--a nice girl!” She laughed at her own image in the new +clothes bought with Sir Gaspard’s money. But though she laughed, her +heart was not merry. She had seen too much that morning of how rich and +respectable people lived. + +She had risen as early as she dared, too restless to stay in bed, +and made a slow, careful progress through the big house, fresh from +the housemaid’s dusters. The carpets, the silver, the carvings and +tapestries, all so solid, so different from those flimsy London +furnishings that had been her nearest approach to luxury, made her +close her white teeth hard together. They had the same blood in their +veins, Cristiane le Marchant and she, and the one had lived like this, +while the other--Ismay sickened at the thought of her own neglected, +hungry girlhood, that the price of one Turkey carpet might have made at +least bearable. + +“It isn’t fair,” she thought hotly, “but it’s the way they manage the +world. And now I have a chance the world shall pay me all it owes. +Shabby clothes that were too tight,” she checked off her list on her +fingers airily, “one-quarter enough to eat, chilblains--I shall charge +a good price for chilblains”--remembering her swollen purple fingers +and her shame of them; “hateful girls who sneered at my stockings and +the holes in them--they were generally all holes--and a mother who did +not care whether I was alive or dead so that I was out of her way. +I have all that to make up to myself, and I will do it with--Miles +Cylmer.” + +She started; she had all but spoken his name aloud, and standing behind +her fresh as day was Cristiane le Marchant. Ismay’s veiled glance took +her in swiftly. Her tailor-made serge was not new, but it looked as if +she wore it every day; not like Ismay’s own, as if it were a new thing +to be well dressed at breakfast. + +“They told me you were down, so I hurried,” Cristiane said quickly. “I +was afraid you might be starving, and I did not think you would ring +for breakfast.” + +“I always got up early at school,” said Ismay, her voice light and +hard; “but I dare say I shall get over it. Mother is tired; she said I +was to ask you if she might breakfast up-stairs.” + +“Of course; I’ll send it up,” Cristiane said absently. “Come along and +we’ll have ours,” linking her arm through the slender one that was as +strong as steel, and never dreaming that Mrs. Trelane’s daughter had +rejoiced exceedingly that a bad night had reduced her mother’s temper +and complexions to an unpresentable state. + +They had been two weeks at Marchant’s Hold, and never till now had +Mrs. Trelane left the two girls together. It was not safe, while Ismay +had that mad freak in her head about Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry. A +chance word, a too hard-pressed question, might in those early days +have turned Cristiane’s growing liking for mother and daughter into +jealous distrust--that liking on which their safety and peace depended. +Mrs. Trelane worked harder to gain this one girl’s affection than she +had ever done for that of all the men who had loved her. With almost +superhuman cleverness she had warded off all mention of Cylmer’s name, +for who knew what wild thing Ismay might say? Mrs. Trelane felt chilly +as she remembered the ring of the girl’s voice that first day at +Marchant’s Hold. + +“If he belonged to all the saints in heaven, he should come to me at +the end.” + +It was no echo of her own voice, nor of Mrs. Trelane’s, and it made her +shiver. + +But this morning neuralgia made her forgetful; a chance sight some days +since of some words in Cristiane’s letter to her father left to dry on +the library table had soothed her soul to peace. She turned comfortably +to sleep in her warm bed up-stairs, careless that Ismay was at last +alone with her hostess. + +Cristiane was almost hidden behind the high silver urn and the tea and +coffee-pots. Ismay, as she began to drink her coffee, moved her chair +so that she could see the lovely face under its crown of gold-red hair. + +She waited till Thomas, the old butler, had supplied her with hot cakes +and cold game, and taken himself silently out of the room. Then she +laughed as she caught Cristiane’s eye. + +“It is rather different from school here,” she observed frankly. “Do +you think I might come and pinch you to see if you’re real?” + +“Indeed I don’t,” retorted Miss Le Marchant. “But I don’t see why you +didn’t like school. I found lessons with a governess very dull. Don’t +you miss the girls?” + +Ismay made a mental review of them; ugly, bad-mannered, eager to curry +favors with the principal by carrying tales of the girl whose bills +were unpaid. + +“I hated them,” she returned candidly. “You would have, too. Some of +them had warts on their hands and dropped their h’s.” + +“Oh, don’t!” Cristiane gave a little shriek, and covered her ears. “Why +did you stay there?” + +Ismay caught the truth on her lips and kept it back. + +“We had no money for a better school; mother never knew how horrid it +was,” she said quietly. “The nastiest thing about it was that all the +first class were in love with some dreadful man or other; one used to +be wild about the postman. I hate men.” + +“I don’t know any,” Cristiane said calmly, taking a large bite of +muffin, with her white teeth showing in a faultless half-circle. + +“What!” Ismay exclaimed. “Why, there was a lovely young man here the +first day we came.” + +Cristiane reddened. + +“That was only Miles Cylmer,” she said scornfully. “I’ve known him for +ages, but he is about as exciting as--as Thomas!” remembering her own +comparison of Mr. Cylmer to that worthy man. “He’s only a neighbor, and +a friend of father’s.” + +“Oh!” said Miss Trelane demurely. “He is good-looking.” + +“I never noticed him especially. He is often here when father is at +home.” + +The other girl made a mental comment, but she only said: + +“I suppose he wouldn’t come when you were alone?” + +Cristiane reflected. Miles had not been near her for a week, and, in +spite of her guests, she had missed him. + +“He has more amusing things to do, I dare say,” she said smartly. It +was so silly of Miles not to come just because she had refused him; +selfish, too, for there was a distinct blank in her afternoon rides +without him. + +Ismay smiled. + +“I believe you were horrid to him and told him not to come,” she +observed shrewdly. “Now, weren’t you?” + +“I don’t take enough interest in him,” said the other loftily. “I don’t +take any interest in any one but father. I wish he would come home.” +She looked out of the window, where the morning sun streamed in, over +the wide stretch of wintry park and great beech-trees. “This is a +hunting-morning; would you like to drive to the meet?” + +“I can’t leave mother,” was the answer. It would never do to have Miles +Cylmer see her seated in Cristiane’s high dog-cart for the first time +since that night in London. Somehow or other, she must manage to meet +him first alone. And as yet she had no idea even where he lived. + +“I suppose you can’t,” Cristiane assented disappointedly. “I will ride +over then by myself, but that’s dull.” + +“Haven’t you any near neighbors?” + +Both girls stood by the window as Ismay spoke. + +“Only Miles Cylmer, and he hunts,” said Cristiane crossly. “Besides, +even he lives four miles off, that much nearer to the meet than we do. +It’s seven miles to Stoneycross by that road you see there,” pointing +to a glimpse of a highway that was just visible on the side of a hill +far across the park. + +“Then he’s of no use.” Ismay turned into the room again to hide the +change in her face. Hurrah! she had got her bearings at last. If she +had to wait all day at his gate she would see him face to face this +very afternoon. + +“You won’t be dull if I go out and leave you alone? You see, I am used +to riding every day. But it is stupid for you,” said Cristiane. + +“Dull! I’m never dull.” Miss Trelane’s face wore that strange smile +that was so full of years and knowledge, her back still turned safely +to her hostess. Dull, with the prospect before her of hunting down +Miles Cylmer! She turned with quick, lovely grace. “Come, and I’ll help +you into your habit,” she cried; “I’m much cleverer than your maid.” + +“I think you’re wonderful; how you do your own hair as you do is beyond +me,” Cristiane said, as they went up-stairs. + +They were nearly of a height, and she ran her hand up the wonderful +flaxen waves that rippled up from the nape of Ismay’s white neck. + +The girl frowned sharply. + +“It’s hateful hair.” She moved her head away from the gentle hand. In +any case, she hated to be touched, and it was unbearable from a simple +little fool like Cristiane, who took her and her mother for decent +ladies. “Hateful! Some day I shall dye it,” and she slipped from the +other girl’s side and was up-stairs like a flash. + +Yet two hours after she was coiling and twisting that hair she had +said was hateful, with a care that made it look like golden threads +shot with silver. The dark-green, velvet toque she set on it made its +strange sheen more lovely; the green cloth coat with its velvet collar +set off to perfection the milk-white beauty of her face. As she turned +from the glass to draw on her gloves her scarlet lips parted in a smile +of triumph. Queer as her beauty was, it would move the heart of a man +more than Cristiane’s roses and cream, or there was no truth in her +glass. + +“Let me see,” she reflected, “four miles to Cylmer’s Ferry--he will be +at the meet and following the hounds--if they find a fox it will be +three o’clock or so before he gets home, perhaps later. There’s heaps +of time, but I had better get off before Cristiane gets home, or she +might be kind enough to go with me.” + +She bestowed no thought on the suffering parent she had been unable +to leave, nor had she visited her all the morning. The atmosphere of +Mrs. Trelane’s room, where scents fought with the smell of menthol, had +no charms for her daughter. The only pause she made was in the empty +dining-room, where the table was laid for lunch. The silver epergne +was piled with forced peaches and hothouse grapes, a bread-tray full +of crisp dinner rolls adorned the sideboard among a multitude of cold +meats. + +Miss Trelane stuffed two peaches into her pocket, inserted some cold +chicken that was ready cut between the halves of two rolls, calmly +wrapped up her spoils in a napkin, tucked them into her muff, and +departed unnoticed. + +“Wonderfully convenient, living like this,” she reflected, with a sweet +little grin. “Otherwise, Mr. Cylmer might have caused me to go forth +hungry.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +A KISS. + + +Ismay went out into the clear, soft sunlight, treading lightly in her +smart, thick boots, with joy in her heart. + +Things had played into her hands at last. Toward half-past two +o’clock, warm and lovely with her quick walk, she stood at Miles +Cylmer’s gates. They were heavy iron, hung from carved stone posts, +“Cylmer’s Ferry” cut deeply on them. She saw the significance of +the name, for a hundred yards in front of her a narrow river ran +sluggishly, cutting through Cylmer’s property for miles. There was a +high ivy-covered wall on both sides of the road, and the view, except +of the river, was limited. + +Miss Trelane glanced up and down. + +“Very considerate of Mr. Cylmer to have no lodge,” she observed aloud. +“A lodge-keeper and six children would have embarrassed me very much.” + +She marched deliberately to the ivy-covered wall opposite the gate, and +swung herself up with the ease of long practise over Mrs. Barlow’s wall +at school. She had come up-hill all the way from Marchant’s Hold, and +now from the top of the six-foot wall the country lay before her like a +map. + +She seated herself comfortably, and began with a capital appetite on +her lunch. As she took the peaches from her pocket she gave a little +nod of satisfaction. Far off down in the valley she could see the +hounds being taken home. There would be no late waiting for Mr. Cylmer, +since there had evidently been no sport to speak of. The peaches had +rubbed against her pocket and stained its smart green lining. + +“Bother!” said the girl, with the thriftiness of poverty. She turned +the pocket inside out to dry. + +“But the peaches are all right,” she added, as she finished them and +wiped her fingers on the fine damask napkin which she neatly bestowed +down a convenient hole in the wall. There were plenty more at Marchant +Hold, and it was greasy. + +For a moment her back was to the road. She did not see a man riding +toward her, and turned with a real start, to discover Miles Cylmer on +a big chestnut horse within ten yards of her. The sunlight fell on his +handsome, hard face, his tawny mustache, his splendid figure in his +red coat and white riding-breeches. The sight of him brought dismay to +Ismay’s heart. She forgot all she had meant to say in sheer foolish +excitement at seeing him. + +“I--I can’t get down,” she said childishly. + +Cylmer stopped his horse and sat staring at her in utter amazement. + +Who was this who sat on his wall like a lovely nymph, her water-green +eyes on his, her flaxen hair glinting like barley in the sun? There +flashed up before him the lights of the Palace Theater, a slim girl in +black who was hungry. + +“I beg your pardon,” he stammered in his surprise. Could there be two +girls in the world with such scarlet lips and strange eyes, for surely +this could not be the lonely girl he had taken home that night? How +could she get here? + +Ismay Trelane smiled in his perplexed face that slow, witch-smile that +was her best weapon. + +“Don’t you know me, Mr. Cylmer? I know you, you see, and--please take +me down!” She held out her hands entreatingly. + +Cylmer, like a man in a dream, swung himself off his horse and slipped +his arm through the reins. + +He had seen Cristiane at the meet, lovely in her blue habit, had ridden +up to greet her, and been smartly snubbed for his pains. Somehow it +had stung unbearably. And the joy on the face of the girl he had never +thought to see again was like balm to his wounds. + +Ismay, seated on the wall, leaned down and gave him both hands; her +eyes met his, strange and deep, with something in them that brought the +blood to his face. + +“I told you we should meet again!” she cried, with soft delight in her +voice. “Are you glad to see me?” + +Cylmer lifted her down, setting her safely clear of his fretting horse. +Her queer beauty dazzled him. + +“Very glad,” he answered slowly. + +For the first time in her life Ismay Trelane’s eyes fell before the +look of other eyes. + +Cylmer stooped and kissed her lips. + + * * * * * + +For a moment the whole world swung dizzily to Ismay Trelane. A golden +mist blotted out the bare trees and ivied walls; a sound as of many +waters was in her ears. She staggered helplessly, and from far, far +away heard a voice that was very low and pitiful. + +“My little girl, don’t look like that. I was a brute! Did I frighten +you?” + +Was it fright that made her feel her own blood running in her veins? +She did not know. With a sharp wrench she was clear of him, and stood +leaning against his horse’s shoulder, her breath coming fast and hard. + +Cristiane would have stamped her foot at him. Ismay only looked him +full in the face. + +“Why did you do that?” she said quietly, though her hand went to her +breast as if something hurt her. + +Cylmer bit his lip. + +“Because I----” he hesitated. The truth, because she was so fair, would +be an insult. + +“Never mind looking for a reason,” she said; and he saw that even her +lips were white. + +“You did it, and that’s enough. If you will move your horse out of the +way I will go home.” + +She shook from head to foot. He had kissed her, as a man kisses a girl +he has met alone at a music-hall, and she had kissed him like a nun who +kisses the cross. + +Her voice cut, but something in it made Miles Cylmer take off his hat +and stand bareheaded before her. + +“I won’t even ask you to forgive me.” His voice was low and sweet as +perhaps but one other woman knew it could be. “I behaved unpardonably. +Yet if you can believe me, I was so much more than glad to see you that +I--I forgot myself.” + +“And me!” she interrupted with a hard little smile. “You remembered me +as a toy: you greeted me as one. If it is of any interest to you I may +tell you the toy is--broken!” She made a little gesture and turned away +without looking at him. + +Cylmer, leading his horse, was at her side before she had taken ten +steps. + +“Don’t go away like this,” he said, a shamed color on his tanned +cheek. “I deserve all you can say to me, and more. I only want you +to let me beg your pardon. I won’t”--his keen eyes very sweet, very +honest--“even ask you to forgive me.” + +“It would be of no use if you did,” she returned quietly. “I never +forgave anything I had against any one in all my life. You were the +first person I ever knew who was kind to me, and now you have made me +sorry that you were.” + +Her even, level voice had an implacable ring to it. Cylmer, disgusted +with himself, went off on a new tack. + +“You looked so tired that night, and so childlike,” he said, with a +little pause before the last word. Ismay turned on him, her eyes full +of somber fire. + +“You thought me some little milliner,” she cried superbly. “Yet you +treated me there like a lady, while to-day----” she shrugged her lovely +shoulders as though she were at a loss for words. Yet presently, as she +went on, her tone softened. + +“I had run away that night. I had just come home from school and had no +dresses fit to wear. My mother had some one to dinner, and I was too +shabby to be seen. It was dull sitting alone, so I took all the money I +had and went out. The reason I was hungry was that I wouldn’t eat the +dinner that was sent up to me; it was horrid,” with a little laugh. + +“But it was a mad thing to do; don’t you know that?” he said +wonderingly. + +“I didn’t then; I do now.” Her self-possession had come back to her; +her smile had that indefinite womanly quality in it that had struck him +long ago, when he had been puzzled as to her age. + +“You mean I have taught you this morning! Will you give me leave to try +and make you forget that?” + +“You may never see me again.” + +“I will if you do not move to another planet,” remarked Mr. Cylmer +deliberately, “or tell the butler you are never at home to me.” + +“I cannot do either,” she said, with an indifference that he never +dreamed was imitation. “I have no butler, for one thing, and I don’t +mean to die if I can help it.” + +“My dear little lady, I didn’t mean that.” + +“Didn’t you? I do! I have a horror of dying.” She shivered suddenly, as +if neither the afternoon nor the quick blood in her veins could warm +her. “To die, and be put in the cold, damp earth, and not even know +the sun shone over your grave! I often think of it, just because it +terrifies me.” + +“You have all your life to live first,” he said, with a wandering +glance at her. She piqued him with her changes of mood. + +“Life is very amusing,” she observed calmly. “You see so much you are +not meant to see. Now I saw why you kissed me just now.” + +Mr. Cylmer’s bronzed cheek showed a faint trace of red. + +“I was an ungentlemanly beast,” he cried hotly. “Be kind and let us +forget it.” + +Ismay looked at him, and once more her beauty startled him. + +“Forget it, by all means--if you can!” she retorted. “But I don’t think +you will. Good-by, I am going home now.” And before he could speak she +had slipped through a gap in the hedge, which, she had seen as he came, +led by a short cut to Marchant’s Hold. + +“But you haven’t even told me your name, or how you know mine, or where +you live,” Mr. Cylmer spoke to the empty air apparently, but a light +laugh, sweet as spring, answered him from the other side of the hedge. + +“You can find out all those things by diligence,” returned a voice full +of mockery. + +Mr. Cylmer scrambled hastily through the gap in the hedge, reins in +hand, and his horse’s head pushing through behind him. + +“You’d better tell me,” he observed calmly. “I might tell, you know, +how you went to see the world one night.” + +“Ah, but you won’t!” She was suddenly radiant, suddenly conscious that +nothing on earth would have bound him to her like that kiss. “You have +too much honor, Mr. Cylmer. Now, I have no honor at all. I could tell +my mother that you spoke to me without any introduction.” + +He laughed, his eyes very sweet and kindly, as he said: “You won’t, +will you?” + +“No,” she answered slowly, “and if you ever meet me it must be for the +first time. You won’t stammer and be surprised or anything, will you?” + +“No, I think I can promise you that,” he said bluntly. “Only let me see +you; it was chaff, you know, about my telling tales.” + +The girl looked at him with hard scrutiny, and as he met her eyes he +could have cut his hand off for this morning’s work. For her face was +strangely innocent, and pitifully young to be that of a girl who was +allowed to wander about by herself to a music-hall. + +“My dear little lady,” he said slowly, “do you know that I can never +forgive myself? I don’t deserve your ever speaking to me or trusting me +again. And yet, I ask you to let me be your friend. Will you?” + +A little quiver shook her. Would he really be her friend? Yet, after +all, why not? But like a dream there rose before her the image of +Cristiane le Marchant, young, lovely, and rich; behind that the vision +of Marcus Wray, his thick red lips mocking her in her fancy. What could +either of them have to do with Miles Cylmer? Yet she was cold with +fright, standing there in the winter sun, lest Cristiane le Marchant +might have more of Cylmer’s heart than she knew, and lest Marcus +Wray might find her hiding-place with his secret that could make her +forswear the sight of Cylmer’s face for very terror. + +She drew a sharp breath. + +Cylmer’s face grew blank as he looked at her. + +“You won’t! You can’t forgive me?” he said gently. “Very well.” + +Ismay put her hand in his, but with the gesture of a woman, not a girl. + +“Be my friend, then!” she said slowly. “Promise me that you will +believe in me, and trust me. No one ever did that.” + +“I will trust you through anything,” he said, puzzled. “It is a +bargain; you are to forgive me, and I am to be your friend for always.” + +He clasped her hand hard, as if it were the hand of a comrade, and the +blood came red to her cheek. + +“Won’t you tell who you are?” he asked, smiling at the fancy that kept +her nameless, as he released her hand. + +“Don’t look so startled, it’s only the station bus!” For there was a +sound of wheels on the road behind him. It was a long instant before +she answered, and when she spoke she looked no longer the same girl. + +“I am no one--of any importance,” she said, with a languid nod; then +she turned away and was gone without even a good-by. + +Cylmer was forced to go through the hedge, outside of which his horse +was fretting and plunging with impatience. + +“I’d swear she never kissed a man before,” he mused as he mounted. “And +she’s right, I can’t forget it. I wonder who she’s staying with.” Not +for a moment connecting her with the strange woman at Marchant’s Hold. + +Yet the girl in his thoughts had at that moment forgotten all about him. + +She was running swiftly toward Marchant’s Hold, with a deadly terror +at her heart. It was senseless, unreasonable, yet the glimpse she had +had through the hedge of the occupant of the station bus was so like a +glimpse of Marcus Wray that she had turned sick. + +It was like waking from a dream of warmth and happiness, to find death +in the house. Yet it could not be that Wray had found them. + +“He would never think of us in a respectable house,” she thought, as +she hurried on. + +“But if he did, we have no more diamonds; we can’t buy him off any +more.” + +She reached an open field, below her in the level valley rose the +strong towers of Marchant’s Hold, with the flag of England’s glory +flying on the highest of them. As she looked the flag went suddenly +down to half-mast. Some one, a Le Marchant born, must be lying dead! + +Ismay Trelane, who hated death, would have stayed away for hours, but +she dared not. With lagging feet she came at last to the great hall +door, with its motto over it: “What Marchant held let Marchant hold,” +its pride a mockery, grim and trenchant, for there was a streamer of +crape on the door-handle. + +A deadly terror of being out there alone came over her. She pulled +desperately at the door-handle. If she had seen Marcus Wray he would be +on his way to Marchant’s Hold; she would die if he came and caught her +here alone. + +“Thomas,” she cried. “What’s the matter?” + +The old butler who let her in could hardly answer. + +“My master’s dead, Miss Trelane,” he whispered, “killed in a railway +accident.” + +“Dead!” she fairly staggered. That would mean turning out into the +world again. She ran wildly past him up-stairs to her mother’s room. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +A NET FOR HER FEET. + + +Mrs. Trelane, her face drawn and gray, stood staring out of the window. +As Ismay returned she turned with sharp relief. + +“Where have you been? Why did you go out like that and stay so long?” +she demanded fiercely. “I have been almost wild here, with no one to +speak to. Do you know that we’re ruined? That Sir Gaspard is dead?” + +The girl nodded. + +“I saw the flag half-mast--I asked Thomas.” Her face was suddenly very +tired. “How did you hear--and are you sure it’s true?” + +“True enough. Look here.” She tossed a telegram toward the girl, who +caught the fluttering paper deftly. + +“From Bolton & Carey to Mrs. Trelane,” the message ran. “Fatal accident +on the railway just before Aix. Have received wire that Sir Gaspard +le Marchant and servant are among those killed, and fear there is no +doubt it is not true. Break news to daughter. Will send particulars as +soon as they can be obtained.” + +“How did they know you were here?” + +“Sir Gaspard told them I was to be here during his absence. I know Mr. +Bolton--or I did when I was Helen le Marchant,” impatiently. “There’s +no mystery about that.” + +“Have you told Cristiane?” + +“No!” Mrs. Trelane flung herself into a chair and twisted her smooth +fingers uneasily. “She’s asleep. She came in dead tired and lay down. +Her maid is watching to tell her when she wakes. How can I tell her? If +I do it, it will make her hate me.” + +With quick contempt Ismay glanced at her. + +“On the contrary, it may be your only chance with her,” she said +angrily. “Tell me, had you any arrangement, any bargain, with Sir +Gaspard?” + +“None,” with a sullen shake of the head. “We were asked here on a +visit, you and I, ’till things could be arranged,’ he said. But I know +that we were here on approval, if you like to call it so. If the girl +liked us we were to stay on indefinitely----” + +“And you sit here when you know that, and run the chance of having that +maid whom she has had for years tell her that her father is dead!” +Ismay flung out her hands in exasperation. “Can’t you see that if any +one tells her but you or I we shall be outside of it all to Cristiane? +Move, please.” Mrs. Trelane’s chair blocked her path to the door. “I’m +going to tell her this minute.” + +With the grace of an angry animal, she was out of the room and up the +corridor to Cristiane’s door. Jessie, the girl’s own maid, opened it, +her face swelled with crying. + +“She’s asleep still, the poor lamb!” the woman whispered. + +With unnatural strength Ismay kept the contempt from her face; the +woman was in a very luxury of woe, and would have blurted out her bad +news, without doubt, the very instant her mistress awoke. What luck +that she had come home in time! + +“Oh, Jessie!” she said softly. “It’s so dreadful. And you must be +tired. Go and get your tea, and I’ll stay till you come back.” + +Jessie cast a glance backward at the bed. + +Cristiane, in a white dressing-gown, slept like a baby, her rose-leaf +lips just parted, her lovely cheek flushed. There was no sign of her +waking till dinner, and down-stairs there would be tea and muffins, and +solemn waggings of the head. Cook would be telling her dreams--she was +a great one for dreams. The prospect was too tempting. + +“Thank you, miss,” she said. “I’d be glad of a cup of tea. I’ll be back +in a jiffy; long before she wakes.” + +“Then you’ll be a clever woman, my good Jessie!” the girl thought, as +she nodded and passed silently by the woman, who stood respectfully out +of her way. + +She looked around the room, where a fire burned softly between brass +andirons, where the floor was covered with a pale-blue and rose carpet, +and the walls hung with blue silk that was covered with pink roses. At +the side of the bed, where she might slip her bare feet upon it as she +got up in the mornings, was Cristiane’s only legacy from her mother, a +great, white bearskin, brought long ago from farthest Russian snows. +Not one atom of the prodigal luxury about the room was lost on those +green, dilated eyes that stared so mercilessly. The very silver of +the toilet-trays and bottles, the white vellum binding of the rows of +books, the rose velvet dressing-gown lined with white fur that hung by +the bedside, each and all struck Ismay with a separate stab. + +“I will have them all before I die--all!” she said deliberately. “And +she’s got to help me, for now, at least, I can’t turn out into the +world again after I’ve seen this.” + +Noiselessly she turned and bolted the door; she would have no maid +coming to interfere with her work. With that same silent, sinuous grace +she walked to the bedside, and if there had been eyes to see her as +she knelt there they might have looked away as at the sight of a snake +ready to strike. + +Yet the hand she laid softly on Cristiane’s was utterly tender. +Perhaps the beauty of the gold-red hair that streamed over the +lace-trimmed pillow and the white satin quilt, the exquisite +unconsciousness of the lovely, girlish face, touched the onlooker in +some strange way, for her face softened miraculously. + +“Cristiane,” she whispered. “Cristiane, dear, wake up.” + +The girl stirred, muttered something with smiling lips, and was fast +asleep again. + +“Cristiane!” Ismay repeated; she touched her more firmly, for time was +going. + +“Yes.” The sleepy answer almost startled her. “Oh, it’s Ismay!” +Cristiane sat up, rubbing her eyes, drawing her hand from Ismay’s to +do it. “I’ve been asleep; I was so tired. Did you win a pair of gloves +from me?” + +Ismay’s eyes filled with tears; she did not know herself if they were +real or if she were merely warming up to her part. + +“I had such a funny dream!” Cristiane cried, with a little laugh of +pleasure. “I dreamed about daddy; he said he was coming home.” She +caught the look on Ismay’s face as she spoke. + +“You’re crying! What’s the matter?” The sleepy sound was gone from +the voice at once. “Ismay, what is it?” with both her hands on the +shoulders of the girl kneeling by the bed. + +“Mother has had a telegram. There was an accident----” Was it her own +voice that faltered so strangely? + +“Not from father--he’s not hurt?” the hands on Ismay’s shoulders fairly +bruised them. + +“Look at me, tell me!” Cristiane cried fiercely. “Is he hurt?” + +Ismay lifted her face, and saw Cristiane’s eyes, black, dilated, +imperious. + +“He’s not hurt!” she said dully; and then she flung her arms suddenly +round the girl who sat crouched in her white gown as though it were a +garment of fiery torture. “My dearest, nothing will ever hurt him any +more,” she said, in slow desperation. + +“You mean he’s dead!” The words seemed to come after an interminable +interval of time, in which the ticking of the silver clock, the +murmur of the fire burning in the gate, had sounded loud and somewhat +threatening to Ismay Trelane. With a face as hard as stone Cristiane +had risen from her bed and stood on the white bearskin, her eyes +narrowed, her lips set. + +“I mean he is happy”--as she had never thought in her life, Ismay +thought now for the words that would not come. “I mean he has gone to +be with your mother--till you come!” + +To the speaker the words were a childish fable, a lie; but they went +home. + +Cristiane swayed where she stood, and like a flash Ismay’s arms were +around her; but she seemed not to feel them. + +“What is that to me?” she cried, with a dreadful harshness, trembling +like a leaf. Over her shoulder Ismay saw the clock. It was after five. +At any moment some old friend might come and touch that chord in the +girl’s heart for which she was trying in vain. + +“Think!” she said quietly. “Put yourself in your father’s place. Your +mother loved him as you do. She died for his sake and yours when she +was but little older than you.” + +As she spoke, she was thankful she had drawn the story from her mother +one day in bored curiosity. “Do you think she did not beg him to hurry +after her? Do you think the years were not long to the man she left +behind? Think of the time when you were only a child and busy with +lessons and play; think how your father sat alone at night with his +sorrow; think of the things he could never say to her, and how he +longed for the touch of her hand many a time--and then say, if you can, +that it is nothing to you that they are together again, you that he +loved, you that she died for!” + +With a great cry Cristiane flung out her arms. + +“Ismay! Ismay! Help me to bear it! I know--I’ve always known--he wanted +her!” Tears came at last from her frozen eyes. She clung wildly to the +girl who held her. “But I never thought he’d leave me.” + +“God took him, Cristiane,” said Ismay, and as she said it she believed +it. + +“Tell me all you know, quick!” her voice thick with sobbing. + +With all the strength of her young, lithe body, Ismay lifted her and +sat down with her on her bed. + +“He was going to Rome--she died there,” she whispered. “The train was +wrecked at Aix. He was--Cristiane, it was night, he was asleep, and he +woke in paradise with the woman he loved so long!” + +Cristiane’s arms clutched her suddenly. + +“He didn’t suffer, tell me! I’ll be brave; he always liked me to be +brave.” + +Brave! Ismay could have laughed outright. If this were bravery, what +did you call the other thing? Not all death and hell could have made +her cry as Cristiane was crying now. + +“He never felt it, he never knew,” she answered, and if her voice +hardened Cristiane did not hear it. As if the words tore the very soul +out of her, she cried out: “I want father! Oh! I want my father!” + +Ismay Trelane at that cry for once was awed to silence. She stooped +and kissed the golden head that lay on her shoulder; kissed it with +a passion of pity, a sudden feeling of protection that was real, for +Cristiane le Marchant. + +A knock came on the closed door. + +“Tell them to go away,” Cristiane gasped. “Don’t move; don’t go. I +don’t want any one but you!” + +The leap of sudden rapture in Ismay’s heart made her clutch at her +side. This was what she had wanted. Her work was done as no one else +could have done it. + +“No one shall come in,” she answered softly. “Let me go and speak to +whoever it is for a minute and tell them to go away.” + +She laid Cristiane deftly on the pillows, and with noiseless swiftness +slipped into the passage, closing the door behind her. + +Mrs. Trelane was there, pale with nervous fright. + +“It’s that man Cylmer. He wants to see her. What shall I do? Does she +know about her father?” + +“Luckily for us, she does,” said the girl dryly. “Where do you suppose +we should have been if the maid had been with her and Mr. Cylmer had +come? She would have gone down and heard it from him.” + +“Why not him as well as any other?” asked her mother, with quick +suspicion. + +“Because I meant no one to tell her but me. Don’t you understand that +yet?” asked the girl sharply. Oh! how lucky she had been! But for her +it might have been Miles Cylmer Cristiane had clung to. Miles Cylmer +who had caught her as she swayed. The thought made Ismay sick, and for +another reason than the sake of her own bread and butter. + +“Shall I go to her?” Mrs. Trelane made a step toward the shut door. + +“No, better not! And don’t see Mr. Cylmer. It isn’t proper to see +people when there is any one dead,” she added. + +“I’m not anxious to see him, you needn’t worry. But he gave Thomas this +for Cristiane.” She held out a card. Ismay’s eyes flashed as she read +it. Was it thus that a man who was only a friend of her father’s would +write to the girl who lay prostrate with grief? + + “Be brave, dear. It may not be true. I am going up to town to-night + to find out all I can from the lawyers. I will be back as soon as + possible. Please let me try to help you. MILES.” + +“He must have seen the flag and come over at once,” she thought, a +wild, unreasoning terror at her heart that he cared for Cristiane. Men +were like that; they kissed one girl when they loved another. + +“I’ll give it to her. There’s no answer,” she said. And in the dusky +corridor her mother did not see that her lips had grown bloodless. +“Tell Thomas to say to Mr. Cylmer that Cristiane can’t see him. And +send up some tea or wine, or something.” She leaned hard on the door +for support. “I’m worn out; worn out!” She had been full of life five +minutes since, but now, when she must go and comfort this girl whom +Miles Cylmer had come in such haste to see, Ismay’s knees trembled +under her. If only she dared to leave Cristiane long enough to go to +him, to tell him----Bah! what could she tell him? + +Mr. Cylmer turned away from Marchant’s Hold perfectly unsuspicious that +the green witch eyes that had held his were those of no other than +Ismay Trelane. If he had known he might not have been the first to +spread a net for her feet. But what he did unconsciously she did with +meaning. His note never reached the girl to whom it was written. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +“IF I ASK YOU?” + + +Mr. Cylmer was not back at Marchant’s Hold as soon as he had expected. + +Three days after his arrival in London he was still there, and he sat +now in Mr. Bolton’s private office listening impatiently to the old +man’s precise sentences. He had been put off from day to day till now; +there was no news, nothing definite. Mr. Cylmer must excuse Mr. Bolton +for not seeing him, as he had nothing to communicate--and so on. Small +wonder that when at last he was admitted Miles Cylmer sat impatiently +in the client’s chair of Mr. Bolton’s sanctum. + +“The exact news is this,” the lawyer said slowly: “Sir Gaspard was +taken ill in Paris, and, being nervous, made a will, calling in a +lawyer who was in the hotel. The Dean of Chelsea, also a guest in the +house, and the proprietor were witnesses, and the will was placed by +the latter in his safe. A duplicate Sir Gaspard took with him on his +ill-fated journey. He left that night for Rome by the Mont Cenis route, +and at dawn the train was wrecked, just before it reached Aix. When I +say wrecked I mean there was an accident merely.” + +“Of course!” Cylmer fidgeted. What did it matter how the thing +happened; it had no connection with Sir Gaspard’s affairs. + +“In the sleeping-carriage, or just beside it, Sir Gaspard and his +servant were found by the guard, who had escaped injury and was able +to identify them, or, rather, the servant”--clearing his throat +hastily--“for the burning carriage had--well! the man knew it was Sir +Gaspard; he had noticed the fur-lined coat he traveled in, and there +were charred fragments of it around the body.” Mr. Bolton paused; +old friend as he was of Gaspard le Marchant, the manner of his death +sickened him. + +“Was there no one else in the carriage?” + +“One other man, a Frenchman. But he must have been caught in the +burning carriage and utterly destroyed. The railway people sent a very +clean report, and it has been corroborated by wire by the clerk I sent +over at once. He saw the bodies. I am afraid there is no doubt, for he +had often seen Parker. I was in the habit of sending him to Marchant’s +Hold on business. Sir Gaspard of late came to town very seldom.” + +“I remember that fur-lined coat,” Cylmer said unwillingly. He +remembered also the history of it; the sables of its lining had been a +present from Sir Gaspard’s Russian wife; it was for her sake that he +wore it. + +“But it was curious that he should have made a will in that sudden +way,” he protested. + +“Not in his state of health,” Bolton returned. “I saw his doctor +yesterday, and I learned from him that Sir Gaspard’s death was in any +case imminent. He had a mortal disease--and knew it. Personally, I +think he went to Rome to die there--at least he meant to do so. That, +you see, explains his making a will.” + +Cylmer nodded. + +“How did you hear of the will?” he asked. + +“I thought I told you,” patiently. “The will, with a letter from +Dubourg, the hotel proprietor, reached me yesterday. In it he mentioned +the Dean of Chelsea as one of the witnesses, and him I saw this +morning. It was all perfectly regular. The dean read both wills at Sir +Gaspard’s bidding. They were exactly alike. He thought him looking very +ill at the time.” + +“Poor little Cristiane!” Cylmer said involuntarily. “It is a great +responsibility for her, all that money and land.” + +“She is young”--with the unconscious cynicism of years--“the +world--life--will console her! But I could wish I had been left her +guardian.” + +“What!” Cylmer’s handsome face was blank. “Who is, then, if you are +not?” + +“Madam Trelane,” said the other dryly. “I can tell you that much +without a breach of confidence, for the dean will have told half London +by now.” + +“That woman he sent down to stay with Cristiane!” + +The words were irrepressible. At the mention of Mrs. Trelane there +sprang into Cylmer’s mind the memory of the only day he had seen her, +and once more he wondered why she made him think of Abbotsford. + +“Who is she? Did she mean to marry Le Marchant?” he said quickly. + +“My dear sir”--Mr. Bolton coughed dryly--“Mrs. Trelane was Helen le +Marchant, Sir Gaspard’s own cousin, and the nearest relative he had +except Cristiane. And she is said to be a clever woman.” + +“Where has she been all this time?” Cylmer said slowly. “I never heard +of her.” + +“In London.” There was no need to air all he knew of Helen Trelane. +Yet, in spite of his caution, there was deep distrust of her on his +face. + +“A clever woman!” he repeated quietly; “as you will see when the will +is read to-morrow.” + +Miles Cylmer got up, a strange look on his handsome face. + +“If he has left the money to any one but Cristiane,” he said with a +ring of reckless truth in his voice, “I’ll settle twenty thousand +pounds on her. I would marry her--but she won’t have me. Anyhow, as +long as I live she shall have all the money she wants.” + +“You are too hasty, Mr. Cylmer;” but there was a kind of pity in the +old lawyer’s eyes. “The child’s fortune is hers, but the reversion is +Mrs. Trelane’s and her daughter’s.” + +“Was Sir Gaspard a lunatic?” Miles cried. + +Mr. Bolton shook his head. + +“No; only a good man, who knew nothing of the world,” he answered +cynically. “Good morning, Mr. Cylmer. If you go to Marchant’s Hold +before I do be good enough to keep my confidence.” + +“I’m traveling down with you,” Cylmer returned with sudden haughtiness. +“I’ll meet you at the train to-night.” Yet as he turned he paused. + +“Has Mrs. Trelane a husband?” he asked. + +“Dead, years ago! A man who was his own enemy,” briefly. “She and her +daughter were alone and in poverty when Sir Gaspard found them.” + +“And paid their debts?” said Cylmer searchingly. + +“Very possibly.” Mr. Bolton was still negotiating with those unpaid +tradesmen, but he did not say so. “Mrs. Trelane was a very pretty girl, +Mr. Cylmer.” + +“Then she has developed into a very well-painted lady,” Cylmer +responded, and departed without more ceremony. + +“Trelane! It’s not a common name,” he thought as he went down-stairs. +“There must be some one in London who knows about her.” + +He turned into his club at lunch-time, and looked up irritably as old +Lord De Fort greeted him from the next table. + +“Sad news this about Le Marchant,” the neat old dandy said, tapping his +newspaper. “A young man, too. And not a relative to come in for all +that money but his daughter.” + +“His cousin, Mrs. Trelane--perhaps!” The last word with late wisdom. + +“Trelane? Not Helen Trelane?” Lord De Fort put up a shaky eye-glass and +stared at Cylmer. + +“That’s her name, yes! Why?” + +“Gad! So she is his cousin. I sincerely hope she’s forgotten it.” + +Cylmer got up and seated himself at Lord De Fort’s table. + +“Why?” he demanded. “Speak out. I only saw the woman once in my life.” + +Lord De Fort obliged him. Under the sharp tongue of the old dandy every +shred of honor and virtue fell away from Helen Trelane. Her life was +set forth in detail, till Cylmer bit his lip as he sat silent. This +was the woman to whom was given the guardianship of a young girl, this +adventuress whom even Lord De Fort despised. + +“She has a daughter,” Cylmer said at last, with a faint gleam of hope +that the girl might be different. + +“Who grew too clever and so was sent to school. I used to see the +child, a skinny imp of ten, going to the pawn-shop of a morning. Helen +Trelane was in deep waters then.” + +Cylmer got up to go, but something made him pause. + +“Tell me,” he said suddenly, “was this Mrs. Trelane ever a friend of +Abbotsford’s?” + +“What! The man who was murdered? My dear sir, I don’t know. What put it +into your head?” + +“It was just idle curiosity,” said Cylmer hastily. “I have no reason +to think so,” for, after all, he had no right to drag any woman’s name +into an affair like that. + +“Humph!” Lord De Fort gave a dry grunt. “I don’t think she ever knew +him. Mrs. Trelane is much too clever a woman to have ever known a +murdered man.” + +Cylmer’s head was dizzy as he left the club. To think of Cristiane down +in the country, away from every one, with a woman like that, in her +absolute power for years to come, made him burn with useless rage. + +A sudden thought came over him as he walked aimlessly down the street, +his features drawn with worry. If he could see the woman now, before +she knew of that iniquitous will, perhaps he could terrify her into +letting him buy her off. His promise to Mr. Bolton would not stand in +his way; that was only that he would not mention his knowledge of Sir +Gaspard’s will--surely the very last piece of information he would wish +to give to Helen Trelane. + +Mr. Cylmer took the first train for home. + +“I can make the country too hot to hold her, and I’ll tell her so,” he +reflected as he got out at the little way station for Marchant’s Hold. +But he was uncomfortably conscious that if she did not care, and said +so, he was powerless. + +Mrs. Trelane, in immaculate black, was seated cozily over the +drawing-room fire, outwardly calm, inwardly a prey to forebodings. She +never looked up as the door opened, and unannounced, unexpected, Miles +Cylmer walked in. She sprang to her feet, utterly astounded. Then she +remembered he had been Sir Gaspard’s most intimate friend. + +“It is Mr. Cylmer, is it not?” she said quietly, peering at him in the +firelight. “Have you any news?” + +He looked at her, at the tea-table where the silver glittered +sumptuously; at all the luxury of the room. It might all come to be +this woman’s own. Already she looked as though she were mistress. He +seemed not to see the hand she held out to him, and, white and smooth, +she let it fall to her black skirts. + +“No, there is no fresh news. It is all quite true, that is all.” His +voice rang harshly in spite of himself. + +Mrs. Trelane, looking at him, was somehow afraid. He looked as though +he had come for a purpose. + +“Poor Cristiane!” she said gently. “You would like to see her? I hardly +know--I am afraid----” + +“I came to see you!” This time he saw her quick start as the fire +blazed up. “I have just come from London. I met a friend of yours +there.” + +“A friend of mine?” she stammered. “Did they send you to me?” + +She had only one thought, Lord Abbotsford lying dead in the little +rose-colored room. Had anything come out? On a sudden her very throat +was dry. + +Cylmer had not sat down; she wished he would not stand over her, as if +he threatened her. + +“I have few friends,” her voice was wonderfully steady. “Who was this?” + +“Lord De Fort.” He looked at her masterfully. “Mrs. Trelane, you are a +clever woman. I think you will see that Marchant’s Hold will not give +your--abilities--scope!” + +Lord De Fort! It was he and his old stories that had made her shake in +her chair! She would have laughed aloud had she dared. + +“Lord De Fort hates me!” She shrugged her shoulders. “Have you come +down here to tell me so?” + +Her glance moved suddenly to a dark corner of the room. Did something +stir there? Or was it a curtain swaying in a draft? Cylmer was puzzled. +There was relief in her voice when he had implied that he knew what +would have overwhelmed another woman with shame--and at first she had +been terrified. What was she looking at now in the dark, over his +shoulder? + +He turned sharply. + +A slim girl, all in black, her flaxen head held high, her eyes very +dark in the fitful light, stood behind him, for once the witch-smile +absent from her mouth. + +“Mother, please go to Cristiane,” she said almost sternly, and Mrs. +Trelane without a word obeyed her. Ismay came a step nearer to Cylmer +and looked him in the eyes. + +“You!” she said, and the sound of her voice was like knives. “It is +you, who would”--she stopped as if something suffocated her. + +Cylmer put his hand on her shoulder, quick and hard. + +“What are you doing here--with her?” he nodded toward the door. + +“She is my mother,” the girl said simply. “I am Ismay Trelane!” + +In the silence neither knew how long they stood motionless. The girl +spoke first. + +“I heard all you said,” she uttered slowly. “I know--oh! I know--what +you meant. That we are not fit to stay here, my mother and I. Make your +mind easy; we shall be turned out when the will is read! We have no +money, nowhere to go; but that will not concern you.” + +Miles Cylmer felt suddenly contemptible. His righteous anger fell from +him like a garment. + +“You don’t understand,” he groaned. “You can’t.” + +“Oh! but I do. That old man told you to-day that we were poor, +disreputable. I tell you that Sir Gaspard found us starving, and he +gave us a chance; a chance to start fair, to pay our debts, to have +enough to eat and to wear! And then he died, and it was gone from +us--like that!” with a little flick of her exquisite hand. “You need +not threaten my mother; we shall be out of your way soon enough.” + +“Ismay!” he cried, involuntarily, “I could not know she was your +mother. What are you going to do?” + +She took no heed of his words. + +“Shall you tell Cristiane all you know? Or if I ask you”--there +was sudden passion in her even voice, sudden fire in her strange +eyes--“will you let us go from here as we came, just the decent, poor +relations that her innocent soul thinks us? She will know evil soon +enough. Will you tell her it is in her very house?” + +“I will tell her--nothing,” he answered slowly. “God forbid that I, +who promised to be your friend, should say the first word against your +mother.” + +Months afterward he knew that nothing on earth should have kept him +from speaking out. Yet to what good? The will was hard and fast; +nothing could be done to break it. + +He turned away from the pleading eyes as if he dared not look in them. +It was not till he was out in the frosty air that he remembered he had +never even asked after Cristiane le Marchant. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH. + + +The solemn memorial service in the parish church for Gaspard le +Marchant was over. Mr. Bolton had come away from it a puzzled man. +Helen Trelane and her daughter had sat facing him while the rector +read, and there was no triumph on either of their faces; only a +strained something that might have been despair. + +Could he have been too hasty? Did Helen Trelane know nothing of that +will, whose distasteful pages he must presently read aloud? + +Cristiane puzzled him, too. Why had she not had her father’s body +brought home to rest in peace with his kith and kin? Under her black +veil he saw that she sobbed pitifully, and saw, too, that her hand +throughout the service was fast in Ismay Trelane’s. Could he have +wronged them, mother and daughter? + +The old man coughed irritably as he sat in the library at Marchant’s +Hold, where Sir Gaspard had written that fateful letter to Helen +Trelane. Miles Cylmer, who sat there, too, as Sir Gaspard’s old friend +had a right, rose suddenly and aroused the old lawyer from his thoughts. + +The library door was opening; the hour had come for Cristiane le +Marchant; from now, good or bad, gentlewoman or adventuress, Helen +Trelane held her fate to mold at her will. + +And Cristiane came in first, slowly, reluctantly, as if to hear the +wishes of her father, who had been her all, cut her to the heart, now +that she would hear his voice no more. Ismay, her head held high as she +saw Miles Cylmer without seeming even to let her eyes rest on his face, +followed close behind. Last came the woman whom both the men standing +up to receive distrusted and despised. + +Calm, pale, handsome, Mrs. Trelane swept in, and read nothing friendly +in those waiting faces. + +Well, they would read the will! And then there would be the world to +face again for Helen Trelane. + +There was not even a flicker of her lowered eyelids as she sat down. +There would be no use in begging for mercy from men like these. She was +ready for dismissal, as a man who has lost all is ready for death. Mr. +Bolton, anxious to get his work over and be done, opened the envelope +containing the two foolscap pages that Gaspard le Marchant had never +signed. As he read, the silence of death was in the room. + +The world was going round dizzily to Mrs. Trelane as she listened. + +She, who sat there sick and hopeless, without a penny, was to have +the sole guardianship of Cristiane till she was twenty-one; was to be +allowed five hundred pounds a year for her life, to be shared with +her daughter; was--her heart fairly turned over in her breast as the +next clause came out--to be sole inheritrix if Cristiane were to die +unmarried, or without children, and in that case everything would be +Ismay’s in the end. + +She tried to speak, but there was only a queer little sound in her +throat; and opposite her, in her pride and triumph, sat Miles Cylmer, +who last night had insulted her when she was in despair. A hand of +steel clutched her arm at the thought. + +“Don’t look like that!” Ismay’s furious whisper was low in her ear, as +the lawyer went on reading unimportant clauses as to legacies to old +servants. “Play your game! Be careful!” + +No one else heard the words, or knew even that the girl had spoken. +Mrs. Trelane, with the paleness of death on her face, sat without +moving, as quiet and apparently as calm as when she entered the room. +Yet her heart was beating madly. + +“Safety, luxury, power!” it pounded in her ear. “Yours, all yours. A +dead past, a living present! No more duns, no more striving.” In sheer +terror, lest she should scream aloud in her joyful relief, lest it +should be written on her face that Gaspard le Marchant was no more to +her than a dead dog, Ismay tightened her warning hand till sheer pain +brought her mother to her senses. + +Once more the girl’s wits had been her salvation. As the lawyer +finished the short will and sat looking quietly at the neat sheets, +wherein he and Miles Cylmer were executors with the woman whose past +they knew, Mrs. Trelane rose to her feet. Her ghastly pallor, her +statuesque quiet, were magnificent as she faced them, only her eyes +were not on theirs. “Cristiane,” she said very gently, “this has +surprised me, and you, too! If you do not want me to live here and try +to make you happy, say so. And Mr. Bolton can perhaps make some other +arrangement.” + +Both men gasped stupidly in their amazement. The lawyer’s distrust of +her was already shaken--it vanished utterly at her words. Cylmer could +have killed her for daring to speak and propose what she knew could not +be done. And yet, as his eyes fell on Ismay, he could not help feeling +relief at the knowledge that she was not to be turned out as she had +foreseen. + +In the silence Cristiane spoke between her sobs. + +“No, no! Daddy wished it,” she cried out. “Oh, don’t go! I have no one +else, and I--I’m so lonely.” + +She crossed swiftly to where the elder woman stood waiting, and flung +her arms round her neck, where she stood faintly redolent of the +peach-blossom which had sickened Miles Cylmer as she entered. + +“You won’t leave me! I would die without you and Ismay! Ismay, who is +like my sister already.” Cristiane pleaded imploringly, and at the +sight of her young innocence, as she clung to the woman, it was not +in human nature that either of the men who looked on should repress a +start. Cylmer kept down a furious word, somehow, but he could not keep +from making a long step toward Cristiane, even though he knew he had no +right to tear her from the woman she clasped so closely. + +Yet some one else was more sick than he at the sight, though Helen +Trelane was her own mother. A touch gentle as velvet, more compelling +than steel, somehow had drawn Cristiane a yard away. + +“Hush, dear!” Ismay said softly. “Everything shall be as you say. But +let Mr. Bolton talk a little to mother.” + +She did not hold the girl; her touch was scarcely more innocent of +evil than her mother’s; and at the sharp flash of gratitude in Miles +Cylmer’s eyes her own were lowered angrily. + +“I suppose the will stands!” Mrs. Trelane was saying gently. + +“H’m! Yes--yes--of course!” Mr. Bolton returned. “If Cristiane did +not approve I suppose it could be put in chancery and guardians +appointed”--in his heart knowing it impossible. + +“But I do approve!” Cristiane cried imperiously. “It is what daddy +wanted, and what I wish, too. I will not have his will questioned in +courts.” + +All the wilfulness she had from her mother awoke in her; she looked at +the old lawyer with cried-out eyes that yet were steady. + +“You are sure, Cristiane?” Cylmer said sternly. + +“Sure!”--with a flash of her spirit. + +“You hear her?” Mrs. Trelane, gentle still, spoke to Mr. Bolton. “You +know that I stay, by her wish, not my own.” + +“By her wish!” he returned mechanically. + +“And the will!” Miles Cylmer murmured sarcastically, knowing she was +safe in her magnanimity, her self-forgetfulness, since no court in +England would doubt that clear will. + +“Then I will stay.” With a little sigh, as if she had been seeking +the right path, and at last found it, Mrs. Trelane moved nearer to +Cristiane; not very near, for somehow Ismay stood between them, her +eyes, that only her mother could see, blazing green with warning. + +She lowered them as her mother stood back, and was no longer between +her mother and the two men, and so did not see Mrs. Trelane for the +first time look full at Miles Cylmer. + +She had reason, since last evening, to hate him, yet it was not her +dislike that made him grow so pale. + +The merciless triumph in her hard blue eyes, whence a veil seemed to +have been lifted, the cold derision which said plainly, “Where are your +threats now?” troubled him more than the undying enmity that he saw on +her face. What would come to Cristiane in the hands of a woman like +this, who could act gentleness and magnanimity at one minute, and the +next show the true colors of an adventuress who has outwitted her enemy? + +Would she use her power to forbid him the house? Very likely, after +last night’s mad attempt to stay the tide of fate with a straw! + +“She will have her work cut out to do it,” he reflected, the muscles +round his mouth very set and grim. He moved quickly toward Cristiane. + +“You will let me come and see you sometimes,” he said very low, “even +now that you have new friends?” + +For he was sore and smarting that the girl who knew he loved her, who +had known him all her life, had never even given him a look since she +entered the room. + +She looked at him now indifferently. + +“If you care to come over, please do”--her voice quite cold and level. + +“You will let me do anything I can for you--you know I am always at +your service.” + +Cristiane’s lip curled, ever so faintly. If he were always at her +service, why had he never come, never written, when the dreadful news +was known? The new friends that he grudged her were more faithful than +the old, very surely! When she had wanted comfort it was not Miles +Cylmer who had given it. + +“I don’t think I want anything now,” she said proudly, never dreaming +of how he had tried to do his best for her. “But, of course, come when +you please.” + +She went quietly forward to speak to Mr. Bolton, and for a moment +Cylmer stood silent, sick at heart, though he had made his point, and +the door of Marchant’s Hold was not shut to him. Ismay’s eyes were deep +and green as she watched his face; he had made a point for her, too. + +“He will come to see Cristiane,” she thought triumphantly; “he shall +stay to see me!” She had no longer any fear lest her mother should +be connected in his mind with that missing photograph. She was too +different in her decorous black from the white-gowned, bare-armed woman +of the picture. + +She beckoned Cylmer close to her with a little backward motion of her +head. “Make it up with mother,” she said under her breath, Cylmer’s +broad shoulders shielding her from the others. “She will never really +forgive you, but she will pretend to.” + +Cylmer nodded. + +“And you?” he said uncomfortably. + +Ismay’s eyes met his, and for once they were true. + +“I am going to take care of Cristiane.” She little knew of all she +meant when she spoke; of the days of watching, the nights of fear; but +long after Miles Cylmer, remembering this day, knew that in her fashion +she had kept her word. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MORE TREACHERY. + + +“Do you think I should have a crape veil?” Mother and daughter sat +alone in the comfortable sitting-room that was Ismay’s own, when a +week had passed after the reading of the will and their security was +no longer a matter for ceaseless, exulting discussion. Around both of +them lay a wild confusion of dressmakers’ patterns, bits of black stuff +of all sorts, sketches of gowns which had been, till now, only dreams +of Ismay Trelane. Yet she pushed them suddenly off her lap and yawned +listlessly. A whole week had gone by without a sign of Cylmer; and yet +she knew he had patched up a hollow truce with her mother. + +“Oh, I wish I knew if he were in love with Cristiane,” she mused +moodily. “I could do more.” + +“Do listen, Ismay, and don’t look so sulky!” Mrs. Trelane said smartly. +“Do you think I had better have a crape veil or plain net?” + +“Crape. It hides your face more!”--with unpleasant significance. “Ugh! +How I hate mourning. Mother, where is Cristiane?” + +“Where she always is; sitting moaning in that library,” was the answer. +“She is so deathly in her plain black serge she makes me cold. And she +won’t talk of anything but her father’s grave, and how we must go to +Rome in the spring. I never heard of such nonsense as having him moved +there. As if he knew where he was buried!” + +“I don’t know that I would have dug him up, either,” said Ismay; “but +don’t, for Heaven’s sake, say so.” + +A faint, far-off sound, which might have been the clang of the +door-bell down-stairs, reached her as she spoke. Mrs. Trelane, not +nearly so quick-eared, went on gloating over the vision of a soft black +silk gown, that should glitter with jet, all veiled with cloudy crape. +She did not see Ismay stiffen in her chair. + +“It must be tea-time,” she suggested absently. “Perhaps you had better +go and find Cristiane.” + +“Perhaps I had.” Life in her eyes, the blood scarlet in her lips, Ismay +was up like a flash. It had been the door-bell; she had heard the great +hall door close dully in the silent house. And a visitor could be none +other than Miles Cylmer. Every drop of her blood ached to see him, and +there was another reason that hurried her through the passages. Miles +must not be allowed to see Cristiane while that scribbled card of his +reposed in Ismay’s pocket. His hand had written it, and Ismay Trelane +had lacked strength to burn the dangerous thing. + +“Even if he does tell her he’s called twice, she won’t believe him +now!” she reflected, pausing at the library door. + +It was shut. From inside came a murmur of voices. Cristiane’s strained, +wild, almost joyful; then another--oh! it was not Miles Cylmer’s. + +Sick with terror, Ismay clung to the door-handle. Whose voice was it +that she heard, cold, suave to oiliness? Surely she was dreaming; it +could not be that voice here! + +“Tell me, tell me everything!” Cristiane was crying, but her voice, +broken and piercing, was distinct to the girl whose feet were failing +under her. + +“All I know.” The answer was plain, and conviction struck heavy at +Ismay’s heart. + +It was he, Marcus Wray! But how had he got here, and what was he +telling Cristiane? His voice went on low and smooth, his words she +could not hear. And she dared not go in; she, Ismay Trelane, who had +said she feared nothing, was cold with fear now. She got up-stairs, +her knees trembling under her as she stumbled into the room where Mrs. +Trelane sat, gloating over her toilets. + +The blood gone from her cheek, her heart hammering at her side, Ismay +clutched her by the shoulder, her shut throat so dry that she could not +speak. + +“Are you crazy?” Mrs. Trelane cried angrily. “You hurt me; let me go.” + +Ismay shook her fiercely. + +“Go down, quick!” she muttered. “He’s there with Cristiane. He’s +telling her something--it must be about us. You must go and stop him.” + +“Him! Who?” + +Ismay’s grasp slackened. + +“Marcus Wray.” + +For a minute they looked at each other, the elder woman’s face turning +from unbelief to gray despair. How had her enemy found her? + +“Go! There’s no time to waste,” the girl said sharply. “I knew he’d +hunt us down. I didn’t think it would be so soon.” + +Mrs. Trelane drew a long breath. + +“Perhaps he will find it is different now,” she said. “We can keep him +quiet with money; oh, I know we can!” + +“It may be too late--now. And you once kept him quiet with +diamonds!”--contemptuously. + +“I’ll do what I can.” + +She was not so frightened as Ismay, though she knew Marcus Wray. +Startled she was at his finding her, yet surely now that she had money +and position she could make terms with a man who lived by his wits. A +sense of power had grown in her since the day she had looked defiance +into Miles Cylmer’s eyes; she felt strong now, even for Marcus Wray, +as she opened the library door and went in gracefully, languidly, as +though she expected nothing. + +Yet what she saw was staggering enough. Marcus Wray, in the flesh, sat +with his back to her, faultlessly dressed, as usual, his black hair +brushed to satin. Facing him was Cristiane, her checks crimson, her +violet eyes shining softly, the dyes of one moved to the depths. + +“Dear Mrs. Trelane”--the girl had started up and run to her--“I was +just going to send for you. This gentleman has been telling me things +I--I was sick to hear.” + +Helen Trelane’s upper lip was wet. + +“What things, dear?” she managed to say, as Marcus Wray turned round +and faced her. Cristiane’s hand was cold in hers, and the touch brought +back the deadly chill of Abbotsford’s hand as he lay in the little +rose-colored room. But she would not wait for an answer. + +“Mr. Wray!” she exclaimed; and, to her credit, there was pleased +surprise in her voice. “You here? I did not know you knew my little +ward!” + +Marcus Wray came forward and took the loose, lifeless hand that she +could not make steady, Cristiane clinging to the other the while. + +“It is an unexpected pleasure for me,” he murmured, with smooth +untruth. “I did not know Miss Le Marchant was your ward. I came to tell +her”--he paused almost imperceptibly, noting the tiny drops round Helen +Trelane’s mouth--“that I was with her father--at the end.” + +His eyes were on hers, in cold warning; yet, in spite of the hidden +threat there, the woman breathed again. At least, he had not been +telling Cristiane of Abbotsford--and the diamonds. + +“I did not know you knew Mrs. Trelane.” Cristiane glanced wonderingly +from one to the other. + +“You see, Miss Le Marchant,” he said courteously, “Mrs. Trelane and I +have been--friends--for some years.” + +“We have known each other--well, for a long time.” For her life, Helen +Trelane could not keep the angry scorn from her voice, but Cristiane +was not woman enough to hear it. + +“I am so glad,” she said, with a little sigh of pleasure, “for now +perhaps Mr. Wray will spend the night. I have so much to ask him--it +seems like a last message”--with a quiver of her lovely lips--“from +daddy.” + +Mrs. Trelane sat down, Cristiane beside her, on the wide sofa by the +fire. Her brain was whirling. Was it possible that Marcus Wray was +telling the truth, or was it all a lie to get into the house? + +“Please tell it all again,” Cristiane said pleadingly, and Marcus +Wray obeyed her, the story of the accident to the train only slightly +altered by his being with Sir Gaspard, having accompanied him from +Paris, instead of having followed him in that lucky last carriage. + +“It was all so quick he felt nothing,” he ended gently. “I would have +saved him if I could.” + +“Have you been in Aix ever since?” Mrs. Trelane asked dryly. + +Marcus Wray made his last, best point with Cristiane. + +“I have been to Rome,” he responded. “There was a telegram from Sir +Gaspard’s lawyers that he should be buried there, and I, as his only +friend, went, too, and saw him laid in his last resting-place. He had +told me, in Paris, that he would like to be buried in Rome----” + +“But was he ill in Paris?” Cristiane cried. + +“Very ill, I am afraid,” Wray answered gently. “He spoke of his wish, +at all events, and so I saw that it was fulfilled.” He drew out a +pocketbook and took some violets from it that were sweet still. + +“These are from your mother’s grave”--his voice reverential, softly +thrilled, he put them into Cristiane’s hand. “And he lies beside her.” + +But the tiny purple scented things fluttered to the ground, the very +flood-gates of her heart opened, she sobbed on Mrs. Trelane’s shoulder, +torn with her grief. + +“Oh, if I could go, too!” she moaned. “Father, father, if I could go, +too.” + +Mrs. Trelane caught the girl to her. + +“Darling, don’t cry like that; please don’t!” she said authoritatively. +“Come with me; come to Ismay.” + +She cast an indignant look at Marcus Wray. Why did he harrow the girl +with his lies? + +“Don’t let him go,” Cristiane gasped. “I want to ask him something.” + +“I will wait.” Marcus Wray’s voice and glance turned Mrs. Trelane’s +indignation to terror. + +Somehow she got Cristiane up-stairs, with the aid of Jessie, who was +all sympathy at the quick words Mrs. Trelane whispered. + +“My lamb, you must rest!” the woman said pityingly. “You shall see the +gentleman to-morrow. Come with Jessie now.” + +As the girl went to her room, worn out, Mrs. Trelane forgot to send +Ismay to soothe her; forgot everything on earth but Marcus Wray. +Cristiane was out of the way; it did not matter where Ismay was. + +She little knew how those early morning inspections of Ismay’s had +familiarized her with every room and nook and passage of the house. Nor +that a door opening into the library from the drawing-room was masked +by bookshelves on one side and curtains on the other, and had warped so +that it could never be quite closed from the weight of the shelves on +it. But Ismay knew! + +Crouched tailor-fashion on the floor, she had heard from her +hiding-place every word of Marcus Wray’s, and her quick brain was +working, as she waited for her mother’s return, like a detective’s on a +clue. + +“It was not to tell Cristiane that drivel that he came,” she thought +nervously, almost afraid to breathe, lest his quick ears should know +it. “There’s something more. Oh, I wish mother had listened to me and +never gone to Lord Abbotsford’s.” + +Her mother’s voice cut on her ears as the door from the hall closed +behind her. + +“You have nearly killed the girl with your lies,” she cried. “Why +couldn’t you come and ask for me, instead of playing a game like that? +I know quite well you came to see me.” + +“You are--partially--right!” Cristiane would not have recognized the +voice, so slow and insulting. “I did come to see you. But I did not +tell lies, but truth--embroidered.” + +“You knew I was here,” she retorted angrily. “You did!” + +“I did”--with amused mockery. + +“Then what do you want of me? Do your worst and go. I tell you I will +not live like this, to be bullied by you!” + +“Whom once you bullied,” the man answered quietly. “Sit down, Helen, +and don’t scream your conversation. I am here as your friend.” + +“My friend! How?” + +But Ismay heard the soft rustle of silks as Mrs. Trelane sat down. + +“I’ll tell you, only listen and be quiet. I was with Sir Gaspard +in Paris, but by chance, as a lawyer, not as his friend. Do you +understand?” + +“No.” Very low, and it was well Ismay could not see how her mother was +cowering before Marcus Wray’s contemptuous eyes. + +“Don’t you? Well, I made that will. Now, do you know what brought me +here?” + +“To make me pay you to go away”--bitterly. + +“No, not that. I do not mean to go away; and what good would the +pittance you could screw from five hundred a year be to me? I am going +to pay you short visits often; the girl likes me----” + +“Mark,” she broke in, “what for? Why do you want to come to a dull hole +like this if it was not to get money out of me?” + +A thought that sprang in her suddenly made her gasp, and then speak +louder. + +“Or do you want to make love to Cristiane, and marry her, and have me +turned out by betraying all you know?” + +“I don’t mean anything out of that exhaustive catalogue”--coolly. +“Let me recall a clause of the will to your memory: ‘If my daughter +Cristiane should die unmarried or without children, the property and +all moneys of which I am possessed shall go to my only remaining +relative, the aforesaid Helen Trelane, reverting on her decease to her +only daughter, Ismay Trelane.’ Now do you see my meaning?” His voice +was low as caution could make it; his eyes spoke terrors that could not +be said even to the wretched woman before him. + +With a dreadful, strangled wail she was on her knees beside him. + +“Mark, Mark! Would you make me a murderess?” + +His eyes burned into hers as he stooped closer to her, where she shook +on her knees. + +“What are you now, if I speak out?” he said slowly. “You can take your +choice.” + +“I can’t do it! It would be madness. She is young. Oh! for God’s sake, +say you didn’t mean it.” + +“Mean what? I said nothing. You need do nothing. But if that happens +you are free. Why, you fool! Do you think I want you to give her a +dagger?” + +“Marry her; let me go, and marry her! You’d be rich!” + +“I am going to marry Ismay,” said Marcus Wray. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +COILED TO SPRING. + + +Just how long she sat crouched in the dark Ismay Trelane never knew. +She heard a bell ring and lamps brought that shone through the chink +straight on her. Then there was a tinkle of glasses, and, as a bottle +was opened with a sharp explosion, she dared to steal away. + +“Oh, what wickedness! I never dreamed of such wickedness,” she thought, +gaining her own room and locking herself in, as though Wray might come +to seek her. “But he sha’n’t do it. I swear he sha’n’t do it, unless he +kills me first!” + +For she knew that somewhere, somehow, death would be lurking in her own +house for Cristiane le Marchant; not now, but later on, when people had +ceased to talk of Sir Gaspard’s death, and his strange will. + +Curiously enough, now that she knew the real danger, all her courage +had come back to her. It was with nerves of steel that she sat +thinking, thinking; her eyes gleaming green in the darkness like a +watching leopard’s, that waits to kill. + +“What shall I do? I can’t let mother know I heard--she would tell him, +and I wouldn’t have any chance.” Her anguish almost broke out into a +cry. “Oh! what have I done to have such a mother?”--her teeth gritting +as she kept back the words. “And he will marry me then, will he? He +will marry a dose of poison, and I will hang for it first! To sit there +in cold blood and talk of murder--and she so young.” She rocked to and +fro. Cristiane le Marchant was in her way, but that was a thing to +fight and triumph over. Not even to marry Miles Cylmer would Ismay let +that awful scheme of death be played out. + +And her mother had begged to him, not defied him; that cry of “Mark, +Mark!” still rang in the daughter’s ears. Could it be true what he +said, that it was she who had poisoned Abbotsford? Had her mother +managed to deceive even her when she swore she had no hand in it? + +“I will find out!” The girl’s dumb lips were awful in the dusk. “I will +make Marcus Wray a thing the world shudders at before I am done. I will +take care of Cristiane,” she moaned sharply, remembering how she had +said these very words to Cylmer. + +“Oh, you’ll love me in the end,” she panted, as though he could hear +the thought in her brain. “I would die for you; surely you’ll love me +in the end!” + +Frightened at her own passion, she got up in the dark and bathed her +face in cold water, and washed the hands that were soiled from the dust +in her ambush. Her mother would wonder, if she came in before dinner +and found her in a dress all gray with dust. + +She made a careful toilet, that she might be ready when the gong rang +for dinner, and looked at herself in the glass. But her own eyes were +dreadful to her, for they were the eyes of a hunted beast at bay. She +turned quickly from the glass. She could not think if she saw her own +face, and think she must before she had to meet Marcus Wray. + +She opened the window to the bitter winter air, and its chill cleared +her brain. + +First, there was that matter of Lord Abbotsford, and the hold it had +given Wray on her mother. He must have proof of what the latter denied, +or she would not be in such terror of him. The thought brought no new +terror to Ismay Trelane; true or not, the accusation was Marcus Wray’s +weapon, and she must look for one of her own that would turn its edge. + +Then there was Cylmer. He, too, would be against her mother if he knew +all, and Wray would stick at nothing if he once knew that Ismay loved +another man. He must know nothing of Cylmer; yet, if he stayed here, +how was he to be kept in the dark? + +And Cristiane? Suppose Ismay’s dull suspicion were true, and Cylmer +loved her, why should she live to come between him and Ismay Trelane? + +The girl, sitting, with clenched hands, on her bed, answered her own +question. + +“Because I hate, hate, hate Marcus Wray!” she whispered hoarsely. +“Because he shall never have a penny of Sir Gaspard’s money, nor my +little finger, to call his own. I must carry my own sins. I will not be +made to help carry Marcus Wray’s! Cristiane----” She went to the glass +again, and this time she did not flinch. “Cristiane cannot keep any man +from me! I will have it all, all, from marrying Miles Cylmer to beating +Marcus Wray at his own game.” + +For there faced her in the glass her own beauty, strange and glorious. +Not a curve of her milky cheeks, a wave of her flax-white hair, a line +of her scarlet mouth was lost on her. She gazed steadily into her own +eyes in the mirror till it seemed as if a soul not her own gazed back +at her from them. They were no longer the eyes of Ismay Trelane, a girl +not eighteen years old, but those of a woman who had lived and loved +and known the very wisdom of earth long ago, when the world was very +young. + +The old, old smile curved the girl’s lips as she turned away. + +There was her weapon to fight Marcus Wray--her beauty, her wits, her +self-reliance that should never again fail her as it had failed her +to-day. + +“I shall manage them all!” She flung back her lovely head triumphantly, +securely. “Who is Cristiane that I should be afraid of her, when he can +look at me? She shall help me with him! She shall be the bait that will +bring him to me. And I will not go to him with blood on my hands to +save Marcus Wray.” + +Not even to herself would she own that in spite of herself Cristiane +had grown dear to her, for to care for any one but oneself and a man +was to be a fool, to Ismay Trelane. Her mother--bah! Her mother was +safe enough while her enemy was playing for such high stakes. + +The only danger was lest Wray might think things about Cylmer, and +forget his caution in a mad rage of jealousy. That thick, yellow skin, +those dark red lips bore the very trade-mark on them of the most +ungovernable passion in the world. + +“It is I who must take care of that,” Ismay mused. “And before I am +done, it is Marcus Wray that shall tremble for his skin, not I, nor my +mother, nor Cristiane.” + +She went down-stairs as calm as a lake at dawn; cool and silent +she bowed to Marcus Wray where he stood with her mother in the +drawing-room, dressed for dinner. + +She had never seen him in evening clothes, and he was more repulsive in +the plain black and white than she had ever dreamed he could be. + +“What! You don’t shake hands?” he said, with amusement. + +Cristiane was not coming down, and Mrs. Trelane looked at her daughter +as if she longed to slap her. + +“Don’t be silly, Ismay!” she snapped. + +“Let her alone,” Wray said quietly. “It will come to the same thing in +the end. The harder it is to get a thing, the more I enjoy it.” + +Even Mrs. Trelane felt cold at his hideous, gloating look at her +daughter, but Ismay glanced at him with calm distaste, to which her +beauty lent a sting. + +“Let us go to dinner,” she said, as if he were beneath any direct reply. + +And as she sat at his right hand, opposite her mother, not even the +luck of Marcus Wray could warn him that a white adder, with gleaming +emerald eyes, coiled up to spring, would have been a safer neighbor for +him than Ismay Trelane. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +CIRCE’S EYES. + + +Nothing in the whole house was good enough for Marcus Wray. Ismay saw +that as soon as she came down to breakfast. + +Cristiane, behind the great urn, was changed from yesterday; a peace +was on her face, and for the first time since the news of her father’s +death her eyes bore no traces of a night spent in tears. Marcus Wray +had built better than he knew when he came as the one friend who had +done the very last things for Gaspard le Marchant. The news had spread +like wild-fire through the household. Thomas, the old butler, waited +on the strange gentleman from London with a noiseless assiduity he had +never shown to either of the Trelanes. + +“Must you go this morning?” Cristiane said wistfully. “I suppose there +is very little temptation to stay in a quiet house like this!” + +“There is every temptation,” Wray returned, with the frankness that was +so good an imitation, “to a tired man who has found old friends here +and the kindest of hospitality”--with a glance at Cristiane that made +Ismay wince. “But I am afraid I must go and look after my bread and +butter. I am one of the working-classes, Miss Le Marchant.” + +“But you don’t work always! If you have a Saturday and Sunday to spare, +will you remember you are wanted here?” + +For the man seemed a link with her dead father that she could not lose. + +Wray glanced at Mrs. Trelane. + +“Cristiane is right, Mr. Wray,” she said. “We shall always be glad to +see you, though, of course, at present we do not see any one but old +friends.” + +“Well, we live and learn,” reflected Ismay. “Fancy mother saying she +will be glad to see that man. She must be in a blue fright.” + +She heard in utter silence an arrangement made which would bring Marcus +Wray from London on the next Saturday fortnight. She had that much time +in which to see Cylmer. + +In the morning sunshine what she had overheard last night in the dusk +seemed monstrous and absurd. Yet there sat the man whose profession +was blackmail, and there sat the woman who feared him, pale, worn, and +harried, in the dainty breakfast-room. + +“There’s plenty of time, that is the only thing,” Ismay thought, as she +saw Cristiane leave the room with Wray and go out by the window onto +the terrace. The morning was almost warm, and they walked up and down +there, like old friends, a hideous sight to the girl who watched them +over her empty teacup. + +“Plenty of time; he is too clever to hurry and make a scandal in the +country.” She wondered morbidly how he would set about his hideous end +when the time was ripe. + +“Nonsense!” she said to herself smartly. “I shall have the upper hand +long before that, though I don’t know how yet.” + +She rose quickly and went out through the open French window. Cristiane +was alone now, and Ismay had no mind for a solitary conversation with +Mr. Wray, who had come into the house by the hall door to get ready for +his train. + +“Mother can talk to him if she chooses, not I!” she thought, with +a shrug of her shoulders. “I am a fool to mix myself up in it, I +believe, and yet I haven’t much choice. Some one must look after this +baby”--with a grudging glance at the girl whose bare head shone ruddy +in the winter sun. + +Cristiane slipped her arm through Ismay’s, a trick the latter hated, +yet she dared not take away her arm. + +“I feel so much better, Ismay,” she said softly, “as if I had been near +father. That friend of your mother’s has been very kind.” + +“Very,” said Ismay dryly. + +“Don’t you like him?” + +“I don’t like him at all. But, of course, he has been very kind to you.” + +“What is the matter with him?” Cristiane was up in arms at once. +“Nobody who wasn’t nice would do all he has done for utter strangers. +You have no real reason for disliking him, have you?” + +“A very small one,” Miss Trelane returned calmly. “I’ll tell it to you +some day--perhaps.” + +“Well, I have a very big reason for liking him, and I think you’re +rather horrid about it,” she replied injuredly. “Don’t you want him to +come back again?” + +“Not particularly,” said the girl, with an inward longing that he might +break his neck on the way to the station. + +Cristiane laughed. + +“How funny you are! You look at the man as if he were a toad, and you +only say ‘not particularly’ when I ask you if you mind his coming here.” + +“Well, then, I am sorry you asked him, if you must know.” + +“I wanted him,” Cristiane rejoined obstinately, “and I should be very +ungrateful if I didn’t.” + +Ismay laughed; it was safer not to go any further, and there would be +no good in driving Cristiane. + +“Gratitude is a vice; you never know where it may lead you,” she +remarked. “He is coming to say good-by to you. I shall go in;” and +she vanished. A thrill of relief went through her when she heard the +crunching of wheels over the gravel as Marcus Wray drove off. When +their last sound had died away, she stepped out on the terrace again +and stood staring, with an incredulous joy that was almost pain. + +Mr. Cylmer was coming up the avenue, a sight to make any woman look +with pleasure at him, in his spotless breeches and boots, and the +scarlet coat that showed to the utmost advantage every line of his +strong, splendid figure. He was walking and leading a very lame horse. + +“Why, here’s Miles!” Cristiane cried wonderingly. “And his horse can +hardly crawl. I wonder what is the matter.” + +She forgot there had been any gap in his coming and going to Marchant’s +Hold; his arriving at this unseemly hour was so like the old days, when +he had always been welcome. + +“What on earth has happened to you?” she called, as he came nearer. + +“Molly strained her shoulder at the bank down by your outfields,” he +returned, stopping in front of them, his handsome head glossy in the +sun as he lifted his hat. “So I came to ask you if I might put her in +your stable instead of taking her all the way home. I don’t know how it +happened; slipped, I fancy; she didn’t fall.” + +“I knew you’d do it some day. You go at your banks too fast.” Cristiane +frowned as she touched the mare’s shoulder with knowledgable fingers. +“Poor Molly! It’s a shame.” + +Mr. Cylmer was annoyed. Few men rode with more judgment than he, and he +knew it. + +“You needn’t think I like it, any more than Molly,” he returned, a +trifle crossly. + +“Come along to the stables,” Cristiane said. “The sooner she is seen to +the better. I’m glad you brought her. Come on, Ismay.” + +She had had time to recollect that Miles, who had forgotten her in his +sorrow, could remember now that she could be useful. She marched on in +front, leading the limping mare. Ismay and Cylmer were left to follow. + +“You’ve cut your hand,” said Ismay, and her voice fell softly on his +ears, that Cristiane’s words had left tingling. “It’s bleeding.” + +“It’s all right,” he replied shamefacedly. “I was stooping to make a +gap in the hedge for Molly, and she trod on it.” + +It was cut and bruised so that it ached abominably. He winced with pain +as he tried to move it. + +Ismay’s handkerchief, white, filmy, fine, and smelling of nothing but +fresh linen, was out in a second. + +“There is no sense in getting yourself all horrid with it,” she said +practically. “Hold out your hand.” + +There was an ugly circular jag across the back of the fingers, where +the horse’s shoe had come. + +“It’s too beastly,” he said. He did not want her to look at the mingled +blood and dirt that covered his hand. + +But she only laughed, a little low laugh, like a woman comforting the +hurt of a child. + +“Hold it out,” she repeated, and through the cool linen he could feel +the touch of her slim, deft fingers, a touch that somehow made him +thrill. + +Cristiane had never even seen his hand! + +She stood by while he and a groom saw to Molly, and then as they turned +away the bandage caught her eye. + +“What a baby you are, Miles!” she laughed. “Fancy binding up your whole +hand for a cut!” + +“It’s smashed flat,” he returned quietly. “And you’re an unsympathetic +little wretch. By the way, didn’t I meet a stranger driving down your +avenue?” + +“He isn’t a stranger,” she retorted. “It was Mr. Wray, a friend +of--father’s.” Her lips quivered suddenly. + +“Wray? I never heard of him”--soberly. + +Cristiane stamped her foot. + +“Well, you hear now!” she cried. “Ismay has been horrid about him, and +now I suppose you’re going to be; but I won’t stay and hear it. She +can tell you why”--with a great sob--“why he came!” and before the +astonished Cylmer could breathe, she had run away like a hare, in a +very tempest of tears. + +“What’s the matter with her? She is not at all like herself!” he +exclaimed. + +“She’s unstrung, poor little soul! And I don’t wonder. He came to tell +her he was with Sir Gaspard when he died.” + +“What!” But after that one quick word he listened in silence, as Ismay +told him all she saw fit to tell. + +“Why did she say you had been horrid about him?” he asked as she +finished. + +“I don’t like him. Mother and I knew him in London. He is so ugly--oh! +so ugly that I shiver when I look at him,” she returned lightly, yet +he saw there was something behind her words. Even in a casual glance +there had been something repulsive to him, too, in the face of the man +who had passed him so quickly; not a nice person to have make love to +you, as he guessed he had done to Miss Trelane. + +“Send for me if he comes again and you want to get rid of him,” he said +as lightly as she. “I’d like to see him, too”--with sudden gravity. “It +was strange, his being with Sir Gaspard at the end!” + +“He is a strange man, here to-day and gone to-morrow.” She spoke +wearily. “But, of course, I really know very little about him. I was +angry because his coming upset Cristiane so.” + +“Poor child.” But the tone in his voice was not that with which he +would have spoken of the girl a fortnight before. “Time and letting +alone are what she wants.” He glanced at the house as they neared it. + +“Do you think I am to be admitted?” he said. “Is your mother----” He +did not finish. + +“My mother can afford to forgive you”--with unconscious bitterness. +“And Cristiane would not like it if you did not come in.” + +“I don’t think it would disturb her,” he replied dryly. But he followed +Ismay into the house. + +They sat by the hall fire, that glowed with a gentle warmth, and talked +softly of nothings; with one consent of anything but the things that +were past. As the girl’s green eyes met his, the spell of her beauty +fell on him, till his love for Cristiane seemed a childish dream. Soft, +white, sinuous, she sat in her great chair, and as she looked at him +Miles Cylmer was powerlessly under her sway. + +“I will come to-morrow to bring back the horse,” he said softly, +forgetting it was not his house. “May I?” + +And his blood was quick in him as she gave a little languid nod, so +sweet and full of sorcery were her marvelous eyes. + +If he had dared he would have told her then and there that she was the +only woman in the world for him. He knew now that pity and affection +and an idle heart had made him fancy he cared for Cristiane. + +“You don’t hear what I’m saying, Mr. Cylmer!” + +Ismay’s little laugh roused him, and the man who had been loved by many +women in his time looked up in boyish confusion. + +“I beg your pardon. What was it?” + +“It was like me, a thing of no importance,” she answered lazily. “But +I wonder where your thoughts are”--and her hand, as if by accident, +covered for one instant her scarlet lips. + +Was she a witch who had read his thoughts? For all he knew, she might +be a very Circe, false as water, and yet he would have sworn that she +was heavenly true. + +“I will tell you where they were some day,” he said, wondering if +all the time she knew. For as she talked and he looked at her the +remembrance of her lips on his in that kiss he had taken on that +morning at his gates had come back to him with shame. + +He had kissed her as if she had been a pretty dairymaid and he a king. + +Now his soul went out in longing to have her for his own, to kiss her +as his queen, his wife. How had he dared to think of her in any other +way? + +Her history, her mother, were as nothing to him in face of her +loveliness that bewitched him. + +When at last his borrowed horse came to the door he rose reluctantly. + +“Till to-morrow. I must bring it back, you know,” he said, and at +something in his eyes she flushed, ever so faintly. + +“Till to-morrow,” she echoed quietly. + +And he never imagined that she watched him out of sight as he rode +away, her heart fairly plunging with rapture. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE SPINET. + + +It was tea-time when Cristiane appeared again from her bedroom, where +she had fled in her anger with Cylmer. She came straight to Ismay, +where she sat in the drawing-room with her mother, and kissed her +penitently. + +“I was horrid this morning,” she observed childishly. “But Miles was so +stupid. You forgive me, don’t you?” + +“I haven’t any need”--smiling, for she could have had no greater +service done to her. “But I had to go for a walk by myself this +afternoon, and I got drenched.” + +“The rain came on slowly enough,” Cristiane laughed, listening for a +minute to the driving flood that rustled at the windows. “But you are +such a town person! You might have known it was coming.” + +“I had to go out. I couldn’t sleep last night. It was very funny”--with +sudden animation--“perhaps you know something about it?” + +“What was funny?” Cristiane moved a little as Thomas arrived with the +tea, and began to arrange the table close to the two girls. + +“Why--the music! I don’t suppose you were playing on the piano at two +in the morning, were you? For some one was.” + +She looked at Cristiane with a little, puzzled frown. Then she started. + +Thomas, his face like ashes, had dropped the cream-jug; as he stood +staring at the ruin she caught his eyes on her in beseeching warning. + +“I was asleep,” said Cristiane. “Oh, Thomas, never mind! There is +plenty of cream, you needn’t look like that.” + +“Yes, miss! No, miss! I’m very sorry,” the old man said confusedly. “I +will fetch some more.” + +“What did you say about a piano? You must have been dreaming.” + +“I suppose I was”--slowly. “But I thought I woke up and heard some one +playing a queer tune on a piano. But, of course, it was a dream!” She +finished quietly, for there was something in the old servant’s face to +make her hold her tongue. + +“It is rather odd,” Cristiane said, as she carried Mrs. Trelane’s cup +to her, “for Jessie had the same dream once, and Thomas nearly ate her +for telling it. She is his daughter, you know.” + +Ismay drank her tea as lazily as usual, and watched her chance to slip +away after a while. + +Last night’s music had been no dream, and Thomas’ face had mystified +her. As soon as Cristiane and her mother was settled at a game of Halma +for chocolates, she departed unnoticed, and sought Thomas, who was in +his pantry. + +Miss Trelane walked in and closed the door behind her. + +“Why did you look at me like that in the drawing-room, Thomas?” she +asked, with a bluntness very foreign to her. “Why did not you want me +to speak of last night?” + +The old man turned from the decanters he was filling. + +“Because I won’t have Miss Cristiane made nervous,” he said doggedly. +“That’s why, Miss Trelane.” + +“How could it make her nervous to know I heard a piano in the night? +Robbers don’t play on pianos, Thomas.” + +“It’s not robbers I’m thinking of, and if you’re wise you’ll not +mention it again, miss,” he spoke imploringly. + +“I’ll speak of it now, once for all, then,” she said. “For I know it +wasn’t a dream, and you can’t scold me like you did Jessie”--with her +lovely smile. + +“Jessie’s a fool, for all her forty years,” he grumbled, “if she told +you that.” + +“She didn’t, it was Miss Cristiane. Listen, Thomas! Last night I woke +up, broad awake, as I never do, and I heard quite plainly some one +playing a queer tinkling tune on a piano, somewhere up-stairs. It +sounded so uncanny that I sat up to listen, and then I got out of bed +and found my door was open into the hall; out there I heard the music +plainer still, and it made me feel cold. But I thought I’d go and see +who it was.” + +The old man stood staring at her, his face twitching. + +“Well, I went up-stairs, in the dark, till I got to a hall I didn’t +know, and from a room that opened off it I heard that music as plainly +as you hear me now! But the door was shut.” + +“You didn’t go in? For God’s sake, Miss Trelane, never go in!” His +voice, full of horror, startled her. + +“Why? Who’s there? Who was playing that piano?” + +“No one”--heavily. “And it’s no piano, but a spinet that belonged to +Sir Gaspard’s grandmother. It’s haunted, that’s what it is, and to hear +it means trouble to this house. Jessie heard it before the master was +killed. But Miss Cristiane knows naught of it, and don’t you tell her.” + +“It’s mice in the strings,” she said. “Anything else is nonsense.” Yet +with a shudder she remembered the thing had played a tune. “If you +think it’s haunted, why don’t you break it up?” + +“Because we can’t. It isn’t healthy in that room,” he stammered. +“Before Lady Le Marchant died I was in there with one of the footmen, +and we opened the thing and looked all through it. There wasn’t a sign +of mice. And when we turned from it, it began to play, first a scale, +and then a tune that queer that we couldn’t move. And there in broad +daylight a wind went by us that was cold like snow. I’ve never been in +there since.” + +He wiped his forehead that was wet. + +“There must be something inside that’s like a musical-box,” she said, +more to herself than to him. But he shook his head. + +“There’s naught. I’ve seen it and I know. ’Tis the fingers of her that +plays it--and God knows that’s enough! Pray to Him that you never see +her, Miss Trelane”--reverentially. + +“Did any one ever?” she breathed sharply. + +“Yes! She walks--all over the house--of nights like this,” he admitted +unwillingly. “But I have the servants all sleep in the new wing, else +we’d have ne’er a one. But you stay in your bed, miss, and you’ll never +see her. And don’t tell Miss Cristiane; her father never let her hear +of any such tales.” + +“I won’t tell her; for one thing, I don’t believe in it,” Ismay said +sharply. But she showed no sign of leaving the pantry. + +“Who was the ghost, Thomas, and what did she do, that she +walks?”--seating herself on one end of his table. + +“She was a Lady Le Marchant,” he began sullenly, but at her interested +face he warmed suddenly to his tale. “You’ll give your word you’ll not +tell Miss Cristiane?” he promised. + +“Not I,” she answered, her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of +her hand, in a curious crouching attitude that brought her eyes full on +his as he faced her. + +“Go on, Thomas.” + +“Well, then, she was a Lady Le Marchant. And her husband, Sir Guy, +fairly doted on her; but she was a childless woman, and given up to +pleasure and dancing, and the like. She had lovers by the score, but +she never cared for one of them beyond the first day or so. Fair she +was, they say; as fair as you, Miss Trelane”--glancing at her flaxen +hair--“and ’tis her picture hangs in the room with the spinet. ’Twas +done by a foreign artist Sir Guy had over from Italy, and that man the +lady loved. + +“While the picture was being painted Sir Guy noticed nothing, but when +’twas done, and the man still stayed on, he wondered. And one day he +saw them kissing. She was playing the tune she loved best of all on +that spinet, and the foreign artist was behind her. And, not seeing her +husband, she throws back her head, and the man kisses her lips. + +“They say Sir Guy was a proud man. Anyhow, he turned and went away as +if he’d seen nothing. + +“But that night he told her, as she was singing herself that ungodly +tune she was forever playing on the spinet. + +“Whatever he said no one knows. But it must have maddened her, for she +whipped up a knife that was on a table and stabbed him to the heart. + +“He put out his hands to her, and one of them marked the dress she had +on with a stain of blood on the breast. But he lay dead in his chair, +and she with his blood wet on her gown went down-stairs to the artist, +and told him plump and plain what she’d done for his sake. And he would +have none of her.” + +“He was a fool; she must have been good stuff,” observed his listener +musingly. “But I don’t know. She should have known him better first.” + +“She was good stuff, Miss Trelane,” the old man went on quietly. “For +when he laid her crime before her, and told her he loved her no more, +she never even answered him. Just turned away silent, and up-stairs to +the room where Sir Guy lay dead. + +“They say she played that tune then, in that room with a murdered man +to listen; played it for the last time. For one of the servants heard +it as he passed. And she heard him, too, for she opened the door and +called him. + +“‘James,’ she says, ‘come here. Did you hear me playing just now?’ + +“‘Madam, yes,’ he answers. ‘’Tis all writ out in a book in the library. +You can see it if you like, miss.’ + +“‘And did you know the tune?’ + +“’Twas the one you’re so fond of, my lady.’ And he wondered at her for +asking, and for sitting without a light, for the room was dark and he +could not see into it. + +“‘You’ll have no chance to forget it, you and those that come after +you,’ she says very slow. ‘When I’m gone you’ll hear it, and always +for evil. When you hear it’--and she laughed till he thought she was +crazy--‘you’ll remember I told you that in my dying hour.’ + +“Then she draws herself up and speaks out loud and grand till they +heard her through the house. + +“‘Come in, man, and look at your master! He lies dead, and I killed +him; for I was weary of his face;’ and before he could know what she +meant, she had struck that bloody knife into her own breast, for she +was a strong woman, and she knew where to find her heart.” + +“Is that all?” Ismay spoke with a curious effort, like one in a dream. + +“All. Except that ’twas a stormy night like this will be, and ’tis +those times that she walks. And her spinet plays yet, and no one ever +heard it for good, or went into that room for luck.” + +“I’d like to, Thomas,” she said quietly. + +“Don’t you go,” he warned her. “For you might be frightened and run, +and them stairs outside and the rails of them are fairly crumbling +with dry-rot. If you tripped and fell against them, as like as not the +banisters would give way with you, and you’d fall to your death into +the great hall below. Mind now, Miss Trelane, for that’s the truth.” + +“What would you do if you saw her, Thomas?” she queried idly. + +“Me--miss?” he said shamefully. “Well! I’d run and get out of her way, +behind a locked door, and so would Jessie. As for the maids, they don’t +know, and if they did, they’d be gone without waiting to see her.” + +Ismay slipped off the table. + +“Thank you, Thomas,” she said. “I won’t tell Miss Cristiane, or any one +else. But it’s a queer story.” + +“Too queer when you know it’s true,” he muttered. “Excuse me, miss, but +the dressing-bell has rung.” + +“All right. I’m going.” + +But as she went slowly up the stairs she laughed to herself, and the +laugh was short and ugly. + +Surely she had found a weapon at last to do her good service against +Marcus Wray. + +“To hear is to know,” she thought; “but I hope it may be a long time +before I hear his voice in this house. But at least I will be prepared.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +“AT MIDNIGHT.” + + +The household retired to rest early, at Marchant’s Hold, and Ismay was +in her bed and asleep by ten o’clock, but with a purpose in her mind +that made her wake to the minute as the clock rang two. + +She had left her blinds up, and as she sat up in her bed she saw the +moonlight lying on the carpet. The rain was over. + +“That is lucky, I sha’n’t need much light,” she thought composedly, as +she got up and put on a warm, dark dressing-gown, and woolen slippers +that would make no sound. + +She must investigate that room up-stairs, and her only chance was at +night, when her mother and Cristiane were safe. + +“Besides,” she reminded herself quite gaily, “I shall have to use it +at night, when I need it; and I may as well get used to it. It is at +night that mother and Marcus Wray will make their plans, at night that +they will carry them out. And at night I always lock my door! I’m very +nervous--in the dark!” she laughed noiselessly. “I must impress that +on my parent.” But it was without a tremor that she slipped out into +the silent house and up the stairs, where there were no windows and the +darkness was inky. + +There was no sound of music to-night to guide her as she stood at +last in the black hall, where a dozen shut doors kept the darkness +inviolate. She felt in her pocket for her end of candle and matches. +They were there, but she dared not strike a light here in the corridor. +One hand held at arm’s length before her, she moved on cautiously, till +she felt a door. The handle turned under her fingers, and she went in +without a sound; without a sound the door closed behind her, though for +all she knew she stood alone at night, in the room where Thomas had +been terror-stricken in daylight. + +With steady fingers she lit the candle, and stared round her as it +burned dimly. The room was chilly and close, but it was not the room +she wanted, only an unused bedroom, a little dusty. She pinched out her +candle and went into the hall again. + +“What a fool I am not to remember!” she thought angrily; “it’s cold up +here, and no fun.” + +She tried three more rooms in succession; all had no sign in them of +any musical instrument, nor ghostly habitation. Could she be in the +wrong hall? + +She opened the next door in doubtful irritation, but her hand stopped +with a jerk as she lifted it to strike a match. + +Opposite her the moonlight poured through a wide, low window, till the +room seemed light as day after the dark hall, and in the very full +flood of the moonlight stood the little spinet on its high, thin legs, +its narrow ivory keyboard shining dustily in the moon-rays. + +An inexplicable terror that she was not alone clutched at the girl’s +bold heart. Thomas was right, there was something queer about this +room! Without turning, Ismay stretched out her arm backward, to shut +the door. But it was fast already; noiselessly it had swung back on its +hinges, without even a click of the latch. + +In the cold, musty air the girl felt choked. With quick, steady fingers +she lit her candle; to stay in this room with no light but the moon’s +was beyond her. As the lighted wick burned from blue into yellow, she +sighed with relief. + +“I--to be frightened by Thomas’ silly stories!” she thought +contemptuously. “If I had heard nothing about the room I should never +have thought of having cold chills down my back.” + +With the thought she had set the candle on the side of the old spinet +that was supposed to sound from the touch of fingers that had long been +mold. It was silent enough now. Not a sound came from it as she opened +the back and peered into the depths of the case where the strings were +stretched like a piano’s. She put her slim, long arm down inside it, +and felt the instrument all over. It was a plain, old-fashioned thing +enough, strong and good still. But it apparently held no trace of any +mechanism that would make it play alone at night. + +Ismay drew back and stared at it. In the fantastic mingling of +moonlight and candle-light her uncanny beauty was more witchlike than +ever, with the flaxen hair falling to her knees over the dark wrapper. + +“I should say Thomas was crazy if I had not heard the thing myself!” +she said aloud, and there was nothing but puzzled curiosity in her +voice. + +“But it’s got to be made to play again, and I don’t know the national +air of the mice.” + +She put a stool carefully in front of the spinet, and sat down, +fumbling at the keys. Clear, thin, and sweet, the notes tinkled softly +under her fingers. + +“The tune--how did it go?” she tried for it softly. It had been a +strange tune, with queer intervals; an air that was very old and +wailing. + +She played a few bars, stumblingly. + +How cold, how very cold the room was, and what was the matter with +the candle? Without a flicker the yellow flame had turned blue as she +stared at it, it went out; she could see the wick smoking in the +moonlight. + +“Truly,” said Ismay, to herself, “I must have iron nerves! I’m not +frightened. Yet I don’t think that was a draft.” + +Without moving, she tried the strange tune again, and this time the +very terror of death fell on her. Without turning her head, she knew +there was something behind her; something very cold and threatening; +something that in a minute would be at her throat, choking her till her +hand fell from the keyboard. She swung sharply round. There was nothing +there. + +“Thomas’ nonsense again, and my fancy,” she said deliberately, for the +room was certainly empty. “My nerves are playing me tricks, after all.” + +As she started, in the darkness beyond the patch of moonlight she saw +something, the picture of a woman hanging on the wall. + +“The late owner of the spinet!” + +She got up, and lit her candle. Light in hand, she went close to the +picture, till the painted eyes were plain. Dark eyes they were, in a +pale, cruel face, with red lips, like Ismay’s own. The fair hair was +piled high on the head; the dress was of the latter part of the last +century. + +“So you are the lady that walks! And you are a little like me, which is +all the better,” she murmured. “And if you are a wise ghost, you will +help me, and not hinder me, for you and I are all the defense Cristiane +le Marchant has.” + +Her eyes, that were full of a strange compelling, were fastened on the +picture. Childish and far-fetched as it was, it seemed to the girl that +she was bending something to her own ends, something both wickeder and +weaker than she. A strange delight thrilled her. + +“I am not afraid any more!” she cried out, with soft rapture, “and I +remember the tune now.” + +With a noiseless movement, she was at the spinet, under her fingers the +whole tune tinkled out, and this time there was no dread in her of a +lurking terror behind. Ghost, imagination, mice--whatever it was--she, +Ismay Trelane, was its mistress, by the very courage of her heart. + +There was nothing there, nothing! Yet there should be a terror there +that would walk in darkness, and hear, and know, and see, till Marcus +Wray was thwarted in this house, at least. + +The cold air of the room had struck to her bones, and she drew her warm +gown about her as she turned to go. She had learned enough to go on. +From now, not a word spoken at midnight, or a trap laid, would escape +Ismay Trelane. She was laughing to herself as she walked to the door. +But as she turned the handle, she stopped. + +The spinet was playing. Clear, unearthly, that strange tune tinkled +out, under her very eyes. + +Whatever it was, it was very queer. She stared incredulously, as Thomas +had done, but, unlike Thomas, she was not frightened. + +“Thank you!” she said gravely, and without bravado. “If you are a +musical box, or whatever you are, you are going to be my friend.” And +without a tremor she turned to the uncanny thing when its tune was +done, and peered once more into its depths. + +Had she been blind before? For now she saw plainly enough a small brass +bracket, black with age, almost invisible in dust. It was a plain +oblong slip, about the size of a railway-ticket, and it stuck out from +the inside of the case. + +Leaning down, Ismay pressed it, ever so lightly. + +Almost immediately the weird music poured into the room. + +The girl saw the whole thing now. The woman to whom it belonged had had +it made, so that she might hear the tune she loved without playing it. +Her threat to her servant had been a grim and mocking jest. + +Very quietly, she put out her light and went out into the dark hall and +down-stairs, and yet she was trembling. If it were all a trick, why had +her candle gone out? + +“If I had once been frightened I should have died of it, up there in +the moonlight!” she said to herself, with conviction. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN. + + +Time hung heavily on Mrs. Trelane’s hands for all the comfort and +luxury of the house. + +She missed the freedom, missed the theaters, the little suppers at +restaurants, missed more than either the companionship of the men who +were wont to gather round her in London--gentlemen with reputations out +at elbows, but clever, amusing, the very salt of life to Helen Trelane. + +Therefore, she said at breakfast, with a little distasteful sigh, that +she must go to London, to see the dressmaker. + +Ismay lifted her brows. + +“I wouldn’t, if I were you. You can bully people better in writing.” +Her tone was very significant. + +She supposed the “dressmaker” meant an appeal to the mercy of a man who +had none, and then a mad whirl of amusement, her mourning thrown to the +winds. + +But she was wrong. Mrs. Trelane had no thought of Wray. + +“I really must go,” she said, “annoying as it is. Should you mind, +Cristiane?” + +“Not a bit. You won’t stay long, will you? I shall teach Ismay to ride +while you are gone,” with a little, affectionate glance. “We shall be +quite happy.” + +“Oh, no! Not long, of course.” + +In spite of herself, her tone was joyous as a child’s. To be in London, +with money, to drink deep of life again. No wonder her voice betrayed +her. + +Ismay followed her to her room, where she stood, in her smart mourning. + +“The Gaiety, the Café Royal, and cards afterward till daylight may be +amusing,” she observed cuttingly, “but they are not worth your neck.” + +“What do you mean?” In her annoyance, Mrs. Trelane almost dropped the +bottle of peach-blossom scent in her hand. + +“I mean you’ll go to London, and wear a white gown in the evenings, +with a string of mock pearls round your neck. Because the gossip +about Lord Abbotsford has died away you are quite comfortable,” Ismay +retorted; “and about now the police will be waking up to their work. +London will not be a good retreat for the person who killed him!” + +“Ismay!” The scent-bottle crashed on the floor now from the loosened +fingers; strong and sickly, its contents flooded the room. “Ismay, are +you mad? What has come over you? You know that”--her voice fell to a +frightened whisper--“that he was dead when I went there.” She looked +old and wretched as she stood, ready dressed to start. + +“I know what you choose to tell me. Oh! mother,” passionately, “let us +both go away from here, go somewhere that is safe, and live quietly, +you and I. I’ll work for you----” + +A laugh cut her short. Yet Mrs. Trelane stood, wringing her hands. + +“You know we can’t get away,” she cried, “and why should we? I never +killed Abbotsford!” + +“Then why are you so frightened of Marcus Wray?” deliberately. + +“You little fool. I took the diamonds!” She stooped and picked up +the fragments of her cut-glass bottle. “You know all I did,” she +cried, straightening herself to face her daughter, her clean-cut +face very pale. “What on earth has changed you, till you talk like a +Sunday-school book? What has become of your fine plan for securing Mr. +Cylmer, that you try to frighten me into leaving here with your silly, +lying accusation? You work for me?” she laughed miserably. “Would you +take in washing?” + +Ismay’s passion of earnestness left her with her old manners, her old +catlike grace. She flung herself into a chair. + +“Never mind what I’d do. I meant it,” she retorted. “As for Mr. Cylmer, +you can let him alone. I would have let him go--for you--five minutes +ago. But I don’t think I would--now! Go to London,” politely, “but +don’t forget my advice. You ought to know by this time it’s more lucky +to take it.” + +“I know you are an ungrateful little idiot,” said Mrs. Trelane angrily. +And with that for her only farewell, she swept down-stairs to get into +her carriage. Ismay turning pious was a good joke. As for Cylmer, it +was simply girlish boasting. Mrs. Trelane felt quite safe on that score +as she drove away. It was not in the least likely that he would come to +Marchant’s Hold, or that Ismay would get hold of him, and bring down +the wrath of Marcus Wray. All girls had a hero, usually out of reach. +Why should Ismay be superior to the rest? And as for Wray and his awful +schemes, with his absence their very memory had vanished from the +light mind of the woman who lived to please herself. It was all absurd +nonsense, he would not dare to go any farther with it. + +All her fears soothed to rest, she proceeded to spend a cheerful +afternoon on reaching London, little knowing how she had rocked her +troubles to sleep with lying hopes. + +In his chambers, Marcus Wray sat reading a short newspaper paragraph +over and over, his fingers tapping at his knee, his lips hard set. + +Only a short paragraph, but it meant danger, and he frowned as he read. +Helen Trelane up in London, dressed in her best, was like a child +playing with a smoking bomb; if Mr. Wray had known of it he would have +packed her straight off to the country, and gone with her himself, +which it was well for Ismay that he did not do. + +She was very nervous about the sudden freak her mother had taken; +in some way or other it was sure to mean more trouble. And she was +disappointed about her afternoon. + +At lunch Cristiane had mentioned carelessly that Cylmer had sent a +groom over with the horse borrowed the day before; that was all, but +Ismay knew he had meant to come himself, and had thought better of it. + +She would not listen when Cristiane proposed lending her a habit and +taking her out riding. + +“I think I’ve got a headache,” she said wearily. “You go for a ride, +and I’ll walk a little by myself. I’ll be all right at tea-time.” + +She strolled out through the quiet winter lanes when Cristiane was +gone. She was very pale to-day, very languid, a presentiment of evil +was heavy at her heart. Her mother had been mad to go to London; she +herself was more idiotic, still, to think that Miles Cylmer would ever +care for her. + +Tired at last, she sat down on a stile between two fields, and leaned +back, staring in front of her. Somehow, her heart was faint within her +to-day, but why any more than yesterday? + +“Because I sha’n’t see him, and I want him,” she thought dreamily. “I +want something that will strengthen me, something that I can look back +to, and think that nothing matters since I was happy once. And I will +be happy. I will!” + +Her scarlet mouth was so determined that a man who had come up +unnoticed smiled as he saw it. Yet briefly, for her face was +pathetically weary, more than ever it bore that prophecy of tragedy +that seemed so out of place for Ismay Trelane. + +“Where are your thoughts?” Cylmer said lightly. “Oh, did I startle you?” + +For Ismay, who never blushed, had turned first a faint rose, then a +fiery scarlet, that burned on her smooth cheeks. + +“My thoughts?” Confused, she put her hands to her face. “Oh, anywhere. +Yes, of course, you startled me.” But she was mistress of herself again +now, and she smiled into his eyes as he stood before her, cap in hand. + +“I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?” Why did the girl’s glance go to his +head like wine? Why did he think of nothing, want nothing, but to sit +and talk with the daughter of an adventuress whom he scarcely knew? + +He sat down beside her on the stile. + +“I was going to see you,” he said, “though, I must say, I was shy about +it. Your mother, with excellent reason, hates me.” + +“My mother has gone to London,” simply. + +“And I don’t think Cristiane is overfond of my society.” + +“Why not?” she asked languidly. + +“Good taste, I suppose,” was the answer, and both laughed. + +“I was taking you something. Will you have it?” he asked, and she saw +that he carried something. Before she could answer he had laid in her +lap a great bunch of roses, crimson, sweet smelling. + +The girl stared at them as they lay in her lap. In all her life no one +had ever given her a flower. She put the roses to her face with a quick +tenderness no one had ever seen in her. + +As she looked up at him, her eyes were very deep and soft. She held the +roses tightly in both hands. + +“Why are you giving them to me?” she said wonderingly. + +“Because you’ve had so little. Because I thought you might like them.” + +“I do.” Her voice was very low. “But how do you know I’ve had--so +little?” + +“Lord De Fort told me,” was on his tongue, but it stuck there. + +“Do you remember that night at the Palace?” he asked, instead. “Shall I +tell you what I saw there? A girl in a threadbare black gown, worn at +the elbows, and too thin for the weather; a girl who was pale and very +tired, but more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen. Do you know +that, Ismay?” + +“No,” she whispered. + +“Then you know now,” he retorted, his face very pale, his eyes, that +were so sweet, close to hers. “I thought I cared for some one else, +then--now I know that I would let everything in this world go to be +with you--even honor!” + +Why did the two last words almost stop her heart, that was beating so +quick? Why should Ismay Trelane, to whom honor was but a foolish thing, +a mere word, turn cold, to think he would let it go--for her. She flung +out her hands with a little cry. + +“Why should you let it go--for me?” She was panting for breath. “Do you +mean that I, who am nobody, and have come here from the gutters, am a +thing you could not touch and keep your honor?” + +“No, no! Not that. Don’t think I dared mean that. It was only a way of +saying”--he took one little bare hand, and held it in strong fingers +that were very careful--“how much I love you.” + +“You love me?” For once she was not thinking or acting a part; not +thinking of all Cylmer could give her; not thinking of anything but +that he was beside her, his voice low in her ears, his hand in hers. + +“It can’t be true,” she said desperately. “When I came here you loved +Cristiane; I saw it in her face when she came in that first day.” + +For a minute he was staggered. + +“I thought I did.” And at the truth in his voice Ismay’s heart jumped. +“I know now I never did, for I love you. When I kissed you that day I +knew that your lips on mine had made me yours to take or leave. Which +will you do, Ismay?” + +“Yet a little time after you said things to my mother that----” She +stopped, and did not look at him. + +“I did not know she was your mother.” + +“It did not matter. They were true. They are just as true now. Can you +love me, knowing them?” + +For the first time she spoke with a purpose. There must be no slip +between the cup and the lip for want of a little plain speaking. + +“Can I love you? Can I help breathing?” almost angrily. “I tell you I +am yours to take or leave. Which is it, Ismay?” + +She turned her face to him deliberately; as she lifted her chin, he saw +the long, lovely line of it, that slipped into her throat; saw the +milky whiteness of her oval cheek, that just missed being hollow; saw +her eyes, dark and green, full of his own image; saw her lips--the man +was dizzy as she spoke. + +“Take me,” she whispered. “Love me, kill me, it is all one to me, +for I--love you!” And in her face there was all that miracle of pure +passion that had never shone on Cristiane’s, whom he had thought he +loved. + +With something very near to reverence, Miles Cylmer kissed her. As he +let her go, he was shaking. + +Hand in hand, like two children, they sat, as the winter sun set in a +pale glory behind the leafless trees. + +Ismay looked at him, soft malice in her eyes. + +“By the way, why are you here on a hunting-day?” she inquired demurely. + +“I’ve a sore bridle-hand,” he said calmly. + +She caught the quick look he flashed on her, that was both sweet and +mischievous. + +“What a story, Mr. Cylmer!” childishly. + +“Mr. who?” + +“Mr. Cylmer. It’s your name, isn’t it?” + +“Not to you.” He turned her face to him with a masterful hand. “Are you +going to call me that when you come to live over there?” he whispered, +and laughed with pleasure as the blood leaped to her face. + +“Live over there?” she stammered, looking to where, on the far-off +hill, the roof of Cylmer’s Ferry caught the last sunbeams. + +“I don’t see where else you’re going to live when you marry me.” + +“Marry you!” Every trace of color left her cheek. “I--can’t marry you.” + +“What! Why not?” His careless, teasing voice turned her cold. “Tell me, +why not, my witch?” + +Tell him! She turned with sudden passion, and clung to him, hiding her +face in his rough tweed coat. + +What had she done through this mad love that possessed her? What was +she to do? + +The first word of her marriage with another man would make a very devil +in Marcus Wray. She would look well being married to Cylmer, while her +mother was being tried for her life for the murder of Lord Abbotsford, +for that was what her stolen love would bring to her. + +“My love, my only love!” She crushed the words back against his +shoulder, thankful to hide her face, and yet agonized, for how long +would its shelter be hers if he knew? + +“Ismay, what’s the matter?” Cylmer was suddenly frightened at the wild +cling of her hand in his. “Why can’t you marry me? I thought you were +playing--do you mean you are in earnest?” + +In earnest, with the toils all around her; with murder past, and murder +to come! She set her teeth hard before she answered. + +“Mother would never hear of it,” she faltered lamely. + +“Why not?” He made her look at him. + +“She hates you.” + +“But if you loved me?” wonderingly. + +“It wouldn’t matter! And, besides----” + +“Besides what?” He was very grave, his lips hard under his tawny +mustache. + +“She wants me to marry some one else. If she thought you loved me, she +would do it all the more.” + +“She couldn’t,” very quietly. “Do you think I am a boy, to be bullied?” + +Ismay drew away from him. She could not think with her face against his +warm shoulder, and think she must. + +“Listen,” she said slowly. “I know my mother better than you. Let me +get her round by degrees before we tell her anything; let nobody know +just yet that you care.” + +“Who is the other man?” shortly. “Do you mean you are engaged to him?” + +Ismay turned, and looked at him. + +“I mean I hate him”--her voice low, with unutterable loathing--“as I +shall hate you, whom I love, if you dare to think that of me.” + +The truth and passion in her voice made him wince with shame. + +“Ismay!” he cried. “Oh, love, forgive me!” + +“I’d forgive you if you killed me,” recklessly. + +“But you must listen to me, and never tell you love me till I say it is +time.” + +“Through life and death and past the grave.” + +“Anything, if you love me, and only me.” + +They stood close now, his arms fast round her; through the silk of his +mustache she felt his lips on hers, and knew that, come what might, for +one long instant she had stood at the gate of heaven. + +“My sweet, how can I leave you?” he said, letting her go a little that +he might feast his eyes on her face, that was transfigured. + +“Leave me? Why should you leave me?” + +“Kiss me again, and I’ll tell you.” + +But she could not; a curious premonition had suddenly brought her back +to the old Ismay Trelane, who must watch, and think, and scheme. + +“Tell me, now,” she said, and at the weariness in her voice he drew +her to him, penitently. + +“Was I too rough with you, sweet? I’m so sorry. But I really have to go +away; that was why I came over to-day. I must go to London to-morrow.” + +“Away from me?” but she could not smile. + +“Does town count before me?” + +“Nothing does. But after you comes a duty to the dead.” + +“To the dead?” She stared at him. “Do you mean Sir Gaspard?” + +“No; but it’s a ghastly thing to talk of to-day.” + +“Tell me; you’re frightening me; I--I hate death.” + +“Don’t be frightened, sweet; it is nothing to do with you, not much +with me. But do you remember how they found Lord Abbotsford dead this +autumn? Or did you ever hear of it?” + +“I--I heard.” Her eyes, black, dilated, with terror, stared, unseeing, +at his unconscious face. + +“Well, I’ve had a detective working at it ever since--and--this is the +first secret I’ve ever told you, sweet, and it is a secret--he wants +to see me at once. He thinks he has got a clue to the murderer. Why, +Ismay! Darling! Why did I speak of such a horror to you?” with dismay. + +For she had slipped like water through his arms, a lifeless heap on the +cold ground. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE EDGE OF DOOM. + + +A cold black void; a struggle that was agony to get out of it; a +falling through deep waters that were loud in her ears, then blackness +once more, deep and awful. Slowly, slowly, it faded, and with a +sickness like death at her heart Ismay was conscious again. Where was +she? What was this? + +She lifted her head from the wintry earth, and let it fall again. + +“Lie still; don’t move.” Cylmer was kneeling beside her, inwardly +cursing himself for a fool, when he knew her horror of death. + +“Ismay, darling, forgive me, and forget it. I might have known it was +enough to sicken any woman.” + +“Death--murder--you!” she cried incoherently. “Ever since I came here +death has been round me, I”--her voice was shrill, hysterical--“I smell +death in Marchant’s Hold, and I meet it.” Her eyes closed again. + +“No, no! Don’t talk like that, my sweet,” gathering her close with +protecting arms. “I was a brute to tell you such things. You were tired +out, unstrung already. I was too rough and careless with you, my heart.” + +But she shrank away. + +“You--to bring any one to their death; to find clues that would hang +them!” + +“It is not I, it is justice. Oh! don’t draw away from me.” + +“Justice on the poor, the tempted!” A sudden sense of the danger that +her words held checked her. “Oh, why did you tell me? Why should I +know you are helping to hunt any poor wretch down?” + +“Oh, the tender woman’s soul that cannot bear anything to be hurt!” he +thought swiftly, loving her all the more for her weakness. + +“Would you let things go, and have the innocent suffer for the guilty?” +he said gravely. “I think not, dear.” + +The innocent! Was there any one in the world innocent? She had no +reason to love her mother, yet now, in her peril, she was ready to +fight, tooth and nail, for her, even when her enemy was Miles Cylmer, +whose kiss had opened heaven. + +All that he was doing she must know, and make of no avail, and at the +task before her the girl’s brave spirit quailed. Somehow she must save +her mother, and keep him! Her brain reeled as she thought that some +one, no matter how innocent, must have that crime brought home to them +to save the mother who was guilty. + +Ismay summoned all her strength, and sat up, very white. + +“Did you know I was such a baby?” she whispered. “I hate hearing of +horrors, and it startled me to know you had anything to do with things +like that. But you’re quite right. I won’t be so silly any more. Only +I--I was ready to cry in any case. I loved you, and you kissed me, +and----” + +“And then I had not any more sense than to blurt out things you should +never hear of,” he finished for her, kissing her again, very softly. +“I’m going to take you home now, and we’ll never speak of Abbotsford +again.” + +“You can as much as you like, now,” and if her lips were wan he did not +notice. “I know whatever you do will be for the right,” speaking the +truth, but not adding, “no matter the cost to me and mine.” + +“My little sweetheart,” he said, fastening the fur collar of her +coat, that he had unfastened to give her room to breathe when she lay +unconscious. “I wish I could carry you home. You aren’t fit to walk.” + +“I am fit to go anywhere with you,” she smiled, with all the strange +sorcery that was hers, a smile that covered deadly terror. “Bring my +roses. They are the first thing you ever gave me,” pointing to the +great bunch of blood-red flowers lying on the ground in the early +twilight. + +“They are not half so sweet and fine as you,” Cylmer said, as he saw +her put them to her face. “Do you know how beautiful you are? I wish +you would marry me to-morrow, so that you could put away all that +black, and let me see you in a white gown.” + +With a little shiver, she drew closer to him, where she walked within +his arm in the sheltering dusk. + +“Tell me about Lord Abbotsford,” she said, as his arm tightened round +her, for she must know; she dared not let him go back to talk of that +love that might turn so bitter in the end. + +“And make you faint again? Not I!” + +“I won’t. It wasn’t that.” He could not know the sweet shyness of her +voice was put there to cover the first lie she had ever told him. “I +was--tired.” + +And in the languor of happiness that was in his own blood, he believed +her. + +“But you hate those things!” + +“Not if you say they are right.” + +“They are, I suppose,” he answered slowly. “A man’s blood cries from +the ground for justice, and I was his only friend. But I don’t think I +ought to talk about it--to you.” + +“If I am going to be your wife, will you always hide unpleasant things +from me?” softly. “I don’t think I should like that.” + +“I’m never going to hide anything from you,” he cried, with love in his +voice. “But there isn’t much to tell.” + +She listened with a heart like ice as he told her all that she knew so +well--the missing photograph, the money, the diamonds--she had to hold +herself hard not to forestall him as he talked. Would he never come to +something new? But when he came to it she was thankful for the darkness +that hid her face. + +“The diamonds vanished utterly,” he was saying; “but the other day, one +of them, a very curious stone, with a pink tinge in it, turned up in +Amsterdam. The tracing of it will be long, but certain in the end; it +will ruin the man or woman who took it.” + +“Or woman!” The interruption was nearly a cry. “What woman would do +such things?” + +“It looked as if a woman had taken away the photograph.” He drew her +closer. “Look out, the path is slippery!” + +“Very slippery,” said Ismay Trelane, keeping down the dry sob in her +throat. Slippery, and on the very edge of doom, this path that she must +walk to the end. + +“You see, there must have been a woman in it somewhere, for Abbotsford +was going to be married, and he was leaving all the people he had been +friendly with, and arranging all his affairs.” + +“Say it plainly,” said the old Ismay Trelane, who had been brought up +to uncanny knowledge. + +“I can’t say it--to you,” Cylmer returned, with shame. + +“Go on, then, I know what you mean. Let us say the photograph was the +woman’s he was leaving for his wife.” + +“Then, don’t you see, it must have either been she or some man for her +who came back and took it.” + +“I think it must have been a man!” Her voice through her white lips +sounded almost indifferent. “A woman would not dare.” + +“Whichever it was, they were mad to take the diamonds. I don’t know,” +he continued, “that it’s going to make much difference. The diamonds +may be traced, of course, but they are not the clue I spoke about. +Kivers tells me there was something found in the room when they were +getting things ready for the new Lord Abbotsford’s family. It will +probably show clearly enough whether the murderer was a man or not.” + +“Something found! What, I wonder?” like lightning she was going over +that day. Her mother had not dropped or lost anything; she could not +have, or she would have missed it, and said so, Ismay thought, in new +terror. “Why must it belong to the man who killed him? What was found, +I mean? Fifty people may have been in and out of that room since he +died.” + +“No one has; it was locked and sealed after the inquest by my--the +detective,” quickly correcting himself. “It was only opened two days +ago by him, when he made a last search, before giving up hope, and +before the new family came to him. And in the last search he found +something.” + +“What?” Her impatience made her eyes burn in the dusk. + +“That’s what I’m going up to see. ‘A trinket, or a part of one,’ he +said.” + +“A trinket!” involuntarily the words escaped her, with an anxiety that +was pain. Yet she was sure that her mother had not lost anything that +awful day, unless--she had not known she did! + +“It may be something I have seen before,” said Cylmer coolly, and once +more that hand of ice was on her heart. “So I shall go up to-morrow.” + +“To-morrow!” What should she do all the long day when he was gone. When +each minute might be bringing detection nearer? “You won’t stay long?” +she added imploringly. “You’ll come back?” + +“As soon as I possibly can; the next day at farthest. Shall you miss +me?” + +“Miss you!” She gathered all her strength and laughed lightly, without +a trace of care. “I have not had you long enough to miss you.” + +They were close to Marchant’s Hold now. The lighted lamps shone rosy +from the drawing-room windows, and she kept carefully out of the +patches of light on the gravel where they stood. + +“I shall miss you, then, every second! And, look here, Ismay! I hate +the business. I only do it because he was my friend, and I feel bound +to it. Do you understand?” + +“I dare say you will hate it more before it is done,” she said, as if +in idleness, and afterward he remembered, when the stone he had set +rolling threatened to crush all he loved on earth. “But it interests me +in a dreadful sort of way. When you come back you will tell me what +you found, won’t you? I won’t tell. It shall be your secret, like your +loving me is mine.” + +“I’ll tell you anything you ask,” he said tenderly. “But I wish you +would let me have my way, and be engaged to you openly. I would like to +go in and tell Cristiane now!” He moved toward the great door with so +much purpose that she flew after him. + +“No, no!” she cried. “Mother hates you; she’d send me away straight +off; you’d never see me again. If you tell it means that I shall +suffer.” + +“Then I’ll wait forever.” In the shadow of an evergreen he caught her +to him, as a man holds his only love on earth. “Till you tell me to +speak I will hold my tongue. Will that satisfy you? And, instead of my +coming to Marchant’s Hold, will you meet me at the stile, at five, the +day after to-morrow? It will be best, if we are to keep our secret.” + +She gave a long sigh of relief, resting for perhaps the last time +against the strong shoulders of the man who might know things when he +came from London that would part them forever. + +“That is all I want,” she said; “just to let no one know but us two! I +must go now; good-by.” + +“But I want to come in.” He had not let her go. + +She smiled in the darkness. + +“And even Thomas would know from your face! And how should I look +coming home at this hour with you?” + +“You are too worldly-wise. How do you know all these things?” +half-proud of her shrewdness and sense. “You’re too young to know them.” + +“Sometimes I feel old, so old,” she answered gravely, “as if I had +lived lives and lives.” + +“And loved?” catching her jealously, as if they were not talking +nonsense. “And loved, Ismay?” + +For answer her arms went round his neck in quick passion. + +“I never loved any one on earth till I loved you,” she whispered. +“There is only you for me now, till I die. Even if you tire of me--or +hate me.” + +She stepped away from him and into the house before he could answer, +before he could even tighten his arms to hold her. He turned away for +his long walk home with a strange loneliness, as if his very soul had +left him when Ismay went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE DOG IN THE MANGER. + + +Could Cylmer have seen her through that night of wan fear? In and out +of her bed, like a restless ghost, she who had always before slept like +a baby; crouching sullenly over her fire, hardening her heart to meet +what must come; till a sudden thought would strike with an unendurable +pang of terror, and make her start to her feet and walk round and +round her room, wild and terrible in her beauty, all her flaxen hair +streaming over the face that was more white than her nightgown. + +“Murder will out, and by to-morrow night he may have brought it home to +her! What shall I do? Oh! What shall I do?” + +She stopped in front of the roses her lover had given her, and with +sudden frantic hands tore them to shreds; crimson petals, green leaves, +fluttered over her muslin night-dress; the thorns of the stripped +stalks tore her hands, wounded her bare white feet. As if the pain +had brought back her senses, she gave a long sigh, and stood quite +motionless; presently, she sat down very wearily on her tossed bed. + +“I’m behaving like a fool!” she thought. “He will be back and tell me +what was found before the police act on it, or can get very far if they +do. And, for all I know, it may be the greatest piece of luck we could +have, and draw suspicion off on a false scent, and save us. I will get +out of him all they are doing in time to run, if we must”--she winced +in spite of herself--“but we won’t run while there is one chance left. +I can’t, I won’t, lose him!” + +Her lips curved in that hard smile that could make even Mrs. Trelane +shrink. She rose and put on a thick dressing-gown. As calmly as if +it were broad daylight, and the proper time for sewing, Miss Trelane +opened a locked drawer, and took out a roll of material she had been at +some pains to obtain. She got down on the floor and cut out and sewed +hard for the next two hours, not that there was any haste to complete +her task, but for the solace of the effort. The thick softness of the +white satin she was working with made her frown with some emotion that +she fought down, for she thought of the dress that she would never wear +standing at the altar with the man she loved. + +“Well, I can bear it as other women have before!” she thought grimly, +sewing with firm, practical fingers. “Thank fortune, all this wants is +good, solid basting that can’t come out! I would find no joy in sewing +my fingers off, even to get a hold on Marcus Wray.” + +She gave a little stretch of fatigue, and surveyed her work when the +last stitch was in. Then she let her dressing-gown slip off her lovely +shoulders, and put on the dress she had so hastily run together. + +“Lucky I haven’t to powder my hair!” she thought, as she piled it high +on her head deftly, without going near the glass. “Powder dropped on +Miss Le Marchant’s red felt stair carpets would be too remarkable even +for Thomas!” She stooped as she spoke, took a filmy white scarf, yards +long, from the open dresser, and put it over her head and round her +slim body, leaving the long wide ends to float gauzily behind her as +she walked over to the long glass set in her wardrobe. + +And even she was startled at what she saw in the light of the nearly +burned-out candles. + +Tall and strangely slender in the short-waisted, tight-skirted gown, +that clung to her shape, her pale face ghostly under the filmy crape +that veiled it, only her eyes burning dark, fiery, and revengeful, +to give it any semblance of life, she stood the living image of the +pictured woman up-stairs. In her bare feet she moved to and fro in +front of the glass, till she learned a movement that made her look as +if she floated rather than walked. + +“That is all right, I think!” she mused. “Thomas and Jessie are +the only people I should ever be in danger of meeting, and I think +I am quite enough to make them howl and run, without stopping to +investigate. But as things are now I don’t feel so much interest in +sneaking round at night, trying to catch Marcus out. My parent’s neck +and my own happiness seem a trifle more important.” + +She pulled off the old-fashioned frock as carelessly as she dared, +considering its frail putting together, and stuffed it and the scarf +into the drawer, picked up every thread and scrap of satin that might +betray her occupation, and burned them. She was asleep almost before +she had extinguished the candles and got her head on her pillow, and +as she slept the night skies burst in rain, and at the roar of the +downpour on the windows, the girl’s quiet face twitched with pain. +In her dream it was the noise of the crowd waiting to see her mother +hanged! + +In the morning it still rained heavily. For one moment she hoped the +weather would keep Cylmer at home, but then she remembered that rich +people with closed carriages cared very little for rain and wind. And +she wanted him to go, the sooner she knew what had been found, the +better. + +“Ismay!” Cristiane said at breakfast, “what have you been doing to your +poor hands?” + +“Briars,” concisely. + +“You shouldn’t try to pick those thorny rose-berries without gloves, +town child!” + +And at the laughing voice Ismay shuddered. Truly, such as she had no +right with roses at all. + +“What are we going to do all day?” pursued the heiress discontentedly, +the riches and luxury of her house being too old a story to enjoy of a +wet day. “Just look at the rain! Let’s go out, and get dripping.” + +“And have pneumonia when we come in,” with practical experience of +wettings in the days when she ran errands, half-clad. “Not I!” + +“But I’m bored,” peevishly. + +“Are you? Then thank Heaven! It’s a very healthy state of mind,” said +Ismay drolly. “I wish I were.” + +“Aren’t you?” with her violet eyes wide. + +Ismay shook her head. + +“Too glad to be in out of that!” she observed coolly. “I used to be out +in it too often when we were poor.” + +“I’d like to be poor, and work,” Cristiane said thoughtfully. “It must +be so amusing never to know where you’re going to get to-morrow’s +dinner! Something like gambling.” + +“Very like it; when you lose, and have no dinner.” + +“You’re so material!” Cristiane said reproachfully. “Now I want to be +amused. Even stupid old Miles would be better than nobody.” + +Ismay was so startled that she had blushed crimson before she had time +to turn away her head. Utterly at loss she sat as guilty-looking as the +silliest schoolgirl who ever adored a music-master in secret! + +“Stupid old Miles!” she could have boxed her hostess’ ears with rage. +And for once her hostess was clear-eyed. + +A suspicion had sprung up full grown in her mind as she saw Ismay’s +confusion. Why should she get so red at the mere name of a man she +had only seen twice? Could those solitary walks of hers have covered +meetings with him? He was nearly always hanging about--or had been! + +Cristiane had refused him, certainly, but she was none the less stung +at the mere thought that he was daring to console himself; she felt +exactly like the proverbial dog in the manger, even if she did not want +the oats no one else should have them. For the first time, Miles Cylmer +seemed a desirable possession to the spoiled child. + +“What’s the matter?” she inquired. “Don’t look so cross.” + +Ismay threw back her head, with a lovely laugh, that rang with +innocence. + +“I’m not cross,” she cried, “it’s you that are a baby! I told you long +ago that you really liked him.” Her sweet voice gave no sign of the +fright in her mind lest this girl, who had everything, might try to get +back the one that was Ismay’s all, and so strike aside the arm that +stood between her and death. + +“I didn’t like him, or I could have married him,” Cristiane retorted, +with intention; Ismay should see that Miles was hers, and not to be +interfered with. + +“Why on earth didn’t you, then? He’s so good-looking,” said the other +imperturbably. + +“I get too tired of him. He was a friend of father’s, and always +bothering over here.” As usual, her crimson lips quivered at her +father’s name. + +“Oh, Cristiane--darling, forgive me!” Ismay kissed her, half with real +compunction, half to mislead her. “Don’t let’s talk of him any more.” + +“I don’t want to; I hate him. He never came near me when I was in +trouble, just because I wouldn’t marry him. Did you ever hear of +anything so selfish?” smarting tears in her eyes. + +Ismay reflected swiftly that she must burn that penciled card. + +“I suppose,” Cristiane was going on, “he will be back again +soon--saying he loves me, and all that, but he can die of love, for all +me.” + +In spite of her anxious heart it was all Ismay could do to restrain the +cold, clear laugh that was in her throat. + +“I wish that nice Mr. Wray was coming back sooner,” Cristiane observed, +when her equanimity was further restored. “A fortnight is a very long +time when you’re dull. I like him far better than Miles Cylmer. He’s so +much cleverer--and kinder,” dropping her voice. + +“Kinder? Look here, Cristiane, listen to me,” said Ismay, very +earnestly. “He isn’t kind at all, and I wouldn’t trust him, if I were +you, with my little finger.” + +“Why? I believe you’re cross, Ismay, because Mr. Wray talks more to +your mother and me than to you.” + +“I wish he were struck dumb, and would never speak again,” replied +Ismay viciously. “I don’t like him because I think he’s a bad man, that +is why.” + +“Then I shall like him,” with defiance. “Bad men in books are always +much the nicest; I have often longed to know one.” + +“Well, you have your wish!” returned Ismay calmly. + +“Listen, I hear wheels!” cried Cristiane suddenly. “There’s some one +coming. Even if it’s only Miles, he shall stay to lunch.” + +Indifferently, since Miles was in London, Ismay followed her, to look +out on the rain-beaten sweep of gravel. Yet could it be Miles? For a +closed fly from the station was in front of the hall door. + +Cristiane gave a little shriek. + +“It’s--why, Ismay, it’s your mother! And Mr. Wray,” as a man followed +Mrs. Trelane leisurely onto the streaming terrace. + +She rushed to the door to greet the arrivals. + +Ismay Trelane, white as ashes, was left alone to meet a terror that +made her arms fall inert to her sides. + +What had brought her mother back? And what was hurrying Marcus Wray, +that his fortnight of grace had been turned to two days? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +“A CHARMING MAN.” + + +Thomas, waiting that evening on the dinner-party, beamed as he directed +his subordinates, so joyful was he to see the old light of happiness +and gaiety on his young mistress’ face. + +The strange gentleman from London talked so well, and was so quietly +amusing, that the old man had to turn away at times to hide the smile +forbidden to a well-bred servant. But he showed his gratification by +pressing on Mr. Wray Sir Gaspard’s priceless Burgundy, which by degrees +warmed that individual to the heart, so that important things seemed +curiously less important, even to him. + +Ismay surveyed the party from a different point of view. + +There sat her mother, probably a murderess, certainly a thief; next +her, Wray, a receiver of stolen goods, a blackmailer, with an awful +crime waiting for committal; at the head of the table, Cristiane, with +death at her elbow, and against them all no one but a girl, fearing +all things, hoping nothing. It was certainly an unusual party. + +Mrs. Trelane, powdered, painted, nervously gay, was reckless in her +conversation. + +Ismay, with resigned despair, did not try to warn her even by a glance; +Cristiane, perhaps, did not understand her wildest sallies. + +“If she did, she’d leave the table,” the girl thought scornfully, +looking at the other girl’s smiling density. “But I wonder, wonder, +wonder, what brought him down!” + +Mr. Wray caught her glance that was so hard and searching. + +“Dear Ismay,” he said paternally, “have a little mercy! Don’t sit +there, wishing I had stayed at home.” + +“I didn’t know you had a home!” cuttingly. “Have you?” + +For some unknown reason the shot told; perhaps Mr. Wray knew more of +domesticity than he avowed, for he changed his smile with abruptness. + +“I hope to have one--some day!” his tone that of a man who takes an +undeserved wound bravely; his glance, that only Ismay saw, a cold and +savage threat. + +Cristiane flushed. How could Ismay, whom her father had saved from +starvation, dare to taunt a man, who could not be too well off, with +his poverty? + +“Homes are uncertain things!” she observed acidly, and Ismay could have +wrung her hands under the table as she saw her mother look with open +mockery at Wray. + +What were they going to do? + +“There’ll be no chance of my finding out by listening,” she thought +forlornly. “They must have done all the talking they needed in the +train. Their plans--his plan”--with bitter correction, “must be cut and +dried by now, and that idiot of a girl will walk into their trap! + +“But perhaps he means to stand by my mother on account of the money. He +must--it would be murder wasted, if he did not. And not even he would +waste murder.” + +Her face was more somber than she knew, as her thoughts, in spite +of her, flew to Cylmer and his business in London. And Wray saw it; +he was used to rudeness in her, but not to gloom, and, in spite of +the cheering Burgundy, he was suspicious. At bedtime, as he lit Mrs. +Trelane’s candle for her in the hall, he spoke to her angrily, and +quietly, having ignored her for Cristiane throughout the evening. + +“What’s the matter with Ismay? Have you been fool enough to tell her +things? She looks simply stuffed with righteous wrath.” + +Ismay, on the first step of the stairs, pricked up her ears at his +tone. But Cristiane, her arm through hers, was dragging her on--her +young blood as light from Marcus Wray’s respectfully adoring eyes as +his had been from her father’s Burgundy! + +Miss Trelane, for the second time that day, longed to box her ears. + +“I hate fools,” she thought grimly, “and this one will ruin herself +and me, too, if I can’t teach her some sense. And the worst of it is, +I can’t help trying to take care of the silly little donkey. I wish I +could speak out to her, but she’d only think me crazy.” + +Cristiane gave an ecstatic squeeze to the inert arm in hers. + +“Isn’t he a dear?” she whispered, as they turned the corner of the +great stairs. + +Ismay stopped the second they were out of sight from below, and was +listening with all her ears, but not to Cristiane. + +Wray was just underneath her, and his voice floated up to her in a +far-reaching whisper. + +“Mind you find out what ails the girl before you go to bed, and come +and tell me in the library. She makes me angry with her tragedy airs.” + +“Nothing so fatal as a whisper! I’ll mark that for future reference,” +reflected the eavesdropper, with lightning speed. “What did you say, +Cristiane, dear?” + +“If he’s a bad man, they’re charming things. And he’s going to stay a +week; I asked him. Won’t it be nice? Come now, tell the truth! Don’t +you honestly think he’s charming?” + +“Charming? Yes! But you’ll turn his head if you let him know it.” + +Charming was exactly the word; people used it about a snake fascinating +a bird before it killed it. + +“Of course, I sha’n’t let him know it,” returned Cristiane. “Good +night; mind you’re nice to him to-morrow, because he’s going to stay,” +with a laughing nod of power, since it was her house and her guest that +were in question. + +“She won’t let him know it! When she’s been gazing at him all the +evening,” said Miss Trelane derisively, when she was safe in her own +bedroom. “For pure downright idiocy, commend me to a well-brought-up +girl, who thinks the world is a playground where little geese can wear +gold collars and show them off to the nice, kind foxes!” but she did +not smile at her own parable, as she locked her door and got into bed +with incredible speed. + +She had not been there five minutes before the door-handle was turned +sharply. + +“Ismay, open the door at once! You can’t be in bed,” cried her mother, +from the corridor, with the assurance of a person who finds a door +unexpectedly locked. + +“Yes, I am!” with childlike surprise. “What’s the matter? I don’t want +to get up again.” + +“Let me in at once,” giving the door a cross jerk. + +“Delighted!” she crossed the floor with swift bare feet, and turned the +key. + +“What on earth did you lock your door for?” + +Mrs. Trelane banged it, too, behind her as she swept in, her gauzy, +glittering gown, that was fit for the stage, trailing behind her. + +“And you’ll never keep your looks if you’re going to get into bed like +a plowboy, without even washing your face.” + +“It’s quite clean. I never use powder,” was the retort. + +“Pray don’t be clever. I’m dead tired.” Mrs. Trelane dropped into the +most comfortable chair in the room. “I can’t appreciate it. I suppose +you locked your door because you’re annoyed with me for bringing Marcus +here?” + +Ismay, sitting on the edge of her bed, white and exquisite, rubbed one +foot with the shell-pink heel of the other; and looked ashamed, as one +who is about to disgrace herself by a chicken-hearted confession. + +“I always lock my door in this house at night,” looking at her feet. +“I’m--afraid!” + +“Afraid? What on earth of?” + +“Nothing--on earth,” whispering. “But haven’t you heard anything funny +since you came here?” + +“Nothing so funny as this!” contemptuously. “Do talk sensibly. I came +to say something. Do you suppose I came back to this dull hole for fun?” + +“I am talking sensibly.” For the first time Ismay looked up, and her +gaze would have made the fortune of a tragedienne. Deep, earnest, +magnetic, her eyes caught and held her mother’s. + +“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know about the things there is in +this house?” she demanded. “The thing that moves softly at night, +up and down the stairs, that you can hear if you stand in the +corridor--coming closer, closer every minute, till it passes you with a +cold like snow in your face, and you can’t move for fright----” She was +moving her hands in a strange waving motion to and fro, and a strange +uneasiness caught at Helen Trelane’s wretched soul, even while she gave +a scoffing laugh. + +“The thing that is very old and evil, and means no good to any in the +house. Because, if you don’t know, ask Thomas! You saw how frightened +he was the day I told before him my dream about the music at night,” +with a return to her practical manner that was somehow more impressive +than her mother liked. + +“What has your dream of a piano being played in the night got to do +with servants’ stories about ghosts?” Yet Mrs. Trelane could not help +glancing at the shut door. With Marcus in the house, with the world +against her on every side, it would be too awful to get nervous terrors +on her brain. + +“It wasn’t a dream--and it wasn’t a piano,” said Ismay quietly. “Thomas +can tell you; I’ve had enough without talking about it. And, if I were +you, I’d get to bed before it got much later; I want to get my door +locked. I don’t care much for those dark corridors outside. And if you +get frightened out there it won’t be of any use coming to my door, +for no power on earth would make me unlock it after twelve o’clock at +night. This is a vile, abominable house, and I’m afraid in it. So now +you know.” + +“I know I never heard anything so silly,” viciously; yet the cowering, +apprehensive look the girl gave at the corridor, as her mother threw +open the door into it made Mrs. Trelane uncomfortable. + +Ismay hesitated for an instant before she locked the door and returned +to bed. + +“I never found out why she came back, or why she brought him,” she +mused. “But it would have been no good to ask. She would only have +made up something; she never looked at me except that once, when I +made her. And it would not be wise to go down and listen after telling +her ghost-stories. She didn’t believe them, and she’ll tell him, and +he won’t believe them, and they’ll laugh. But all the same he will +investigate every mouse that squeaks in the passage, and I should get +caught.” + +She got into bed, suddenly conscious of being very weary as she nestled +into the warm sheets, but her mind was alert enough. + +“I’ll give them time to interview Thomas, and let my tale sink in a +little. I don’t believe they will say anything worth knowing to-night. +And by to-morrow night I shall know more. I’ll probably be able to +frighten her into anything by to-morrow night!” + +Yet the next instant she sat up and listened. She had been right; that +was the rustle of her mother’s dress, as she swept by to her bedroom. +Ismay sat perfectly quiet as the light steps paused and Mrs. Trelane +tried the door again. + +Not a sound answered her sharp “Ismay!” but the girl did not smile as +she spoke to herself when the steps had passed on. + +“I’ve convinced her that I’m not to be got at, at night, from fright,” +she muttered, “if I were not really sick with fright for her life--and +other things--it might be funny!” and as she lay down she shivered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +A GHOSTLY EAVESDROPPER. + + +Mr. Wray sat by the library fire the next night as the clock chimed +twelve. There was whisky beside him, and soda, but he was not drinking, +only staring at the hearth, and tapping with his finger on his knee, +with the old action of driving in a nail. + +The day had been long, hideously long, to every one but Cristiane le +Marchant, who had drunk in specious, covert admiration as a thirsty man +drinks water. To Mrs. Trelane it had been one effort of the nerves not +to give way to her misgivings; to Ismay the hours had dragged, and yet +flown, in her fears that to-morrow might be fraught with danger that +could not be evaded; her longing, that was yet a dread, for Cylmer’s +return. And, come what might, Wray must not see them together. + +Marcus, until ten o’clock, had been coldly uneasy, despite all his +careful politeness. Since then the deep lines about his mouth were +drawn less tightly, and yet the look on his face did not reassure Helen +Trelane, as she came noiselessly into the room. + +“Well, you have not overexerted yourself to get here!” he did not stop +the tapping that was enough to get on an innocent woman’s nerves. + +“Do you know I have been waiting for an hour? Though, of course I +should be at your disposal till four in the morning!” with sarcastic +deference. + +“I couldn’t come,” she retorted. “Cristiane came to my room to brush +her hair, and I had to pretend to get ready for bed.” + +“Evidently.” For her carefully dressed hair had been changed to a small +coil that made her ten years older. “Well, now you are here, I have +some news!” + +“Mark!” she caught him by the arm. “Quick, tell me. Good, or bad?” + +“It is always ‘Mark’ when you are afraid of your neck!” his tone was +smoothly uncivil, his action openly brutal as he shook off her hand. + +“Good, if one can believe it,” he took a telegram from his pocket. + +“And don’t you?” + +“I’ve no particular reason to; Van Hoeft was always a liar,” coolly. +“Yet I think he knows it wouldn’t pay to lie to me.” + +“Who’s Van Hoeft? Give it to me.” She snatched it from his hand. + +“A henchman of mine, in Amsterdam. Be good enough,” peremptorily, “not +to read it at the top of your sweetly penetrating voice.” + +“There’s no one to hear.” But she did moderate the strained pitch of +her voice a little. + +“‘The parcel cannot be traced beyond Paris. Will wire if any news of +it.’” + +“The parcel. Does he mean the diamonds?” she cried, raging at his +sullen calm. “Why don’t you answer?” + +“Of course he does, else why would it be good news?” + +“And you think he may be deceiving you?” + +“I think he may be fool enough to try to keep me quiet while he saves +his own skin.” + +“Then why don’t you go and find out,” her voice was harsh, ringing. +“Are you going to sit here and let us both be ruined?” + +“I am going to sit here, because I am afraid to be seen in either Paris +or Amsterdam,” he returned as carelessly as if he spoke of avoiding a +draft of air. “And because I’ve a good thing here, and the sooner it’s +managed the better.” + +Twice the woman tried to speak and could not. + +“What was in that paragraph, exactly?” she said at last. + +“Exactly this.” He drew out a clipping from his pocketbook and read it +aloud. + + “There is at last some clue to the mystery surrounding the death of + the late Lord Abbotsford, whose tragic end our readers will remember. + Some of the missing diamonds have been found at Amsterdam by a + clever detective, and the tracing of their whole history since their + disappearance can now be only a matter of time.” + +“You’re sure that’s all?” she moistened her lip with his full tumbler +of whisky and soda. + +“It’s enough, isn’t it? Oh, pray keep my drink!” as she handed it to +him. “I prefer a clean glass.” + +“Mark, you must see,” she wailed wretchedly, “that it’s no time to have +a nine days’ wonder here. It would be madness to draw attention to +either of us, now.” She leaned forward, haggard, imploring. “I’ll give +you anything, all I have, if you only go away and let the girl be.” + +“I told you before that was abject rot,” he exclaimed icily. “I’m not +playing for the few pounds you would forget to send when I was out of +your way. I mean to have all this”--glancing around him--“and Ismay, +in a satin gown, to take off my boots.” For once his calm was gone; he +breathed sharply. Mrs. Trelane rocked to and fro in her chair, with +fear and loathing. + +“She’ll never have you,” she said through her teeth. + +“Then you can swing,” said Mr. Wray, with a significant finger at his +own throat. + +And this time she made no protestation of her innocence. Any one +listening might well have believed in her guilt. When she spoke again +her voice was hollow, like a dying woman’s. + +“You can’t poison her without being found out.” + +Mr. Wray threw back his head and laughed noiselessly, as was his habit. +The joke, for some unknown reason, was apparently an excellent one. + +“Dear lady, how your mind reverts to a groove,” he said, surveying +her with half-shut eyes that made him more hideous than ever. “Your +method is not going to be employed again,” and he laughed once more, +unmercifully. + +“Mark,” she was crying hysterically, “don’t laugh like that! You’ll +kill me if you laugh. You frighten me--I could scream”--her sobs broke +her words. “Tell me what you mean, and let me go.” + +“I mean an accident, then; a common or garden accident. There couldn’t +be any fuss about that; it might happen to every one. And the less you +know about it the better. If you knew you’d do something foolish, and +the whole thing would be made a mess of.” + +“It will put us both in our graves, never mind what I do.” She turned +on him fiercely. + +He got up coolly and pulled up the blind, staring out into the +moonlight night. + +“Does it interest you to know that it’s freezing hard? And there’s not +a breath of wind on the lake,” he asked. + +“Nothing interests me while you live to curse my eyes,” she said with +unutterable bitterness, and in the silence of the room he laughed to +himself. + +“Then let me advise you to drink that whisky and go to bed,” he said, +dropping the blind and turning around. “Also to rejoice that you will +not encounter any one in the passages,” glancing distastefully at the +channels her tears had marked through her powder. + +“You have prepared me for a good night’s rest,” she returned heavily, +opening the door and making a few steps into the dark hall outside. + +The next minute she flew back again. + +“Mark, quick--for Heaven’s sake! There’s some one, something, there. I +can’t go.” + +“You don’t mean you are believing in that crazy lie of Thomas?” he said +after a contemptuous survey of the empty hall, lamp in hand. “There +isn’t a creature stirring.” + +“He believes it; Jessie believes it.” + +“And in spite of that they also believe that when any one dies they go +either to hell or to heaven,” he jeered. “Can’t you see the thing’s +absurd?” + +“But I heard something. I did, indeed. Oh, I’m nervous, unstrung. I +can’t face those dark stairs and passages. You will have to go up with +me.” + +“Because Thomas is hanging round to see that all the lights are out,” +shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose neither of those two girls would +come down for anything.” + +Mrs. Trelane shook her head. “Thomas thinks we are all in bed. He +hasn’t left a light anywhere. Jessie sleeps in a room off Cristiane’s; +she would never let her get out of her bed. And Ismay--oh, Mark! even +Ismay is afraid here at night. She locks her door and won’t open it +till daylight--for fear.” + +“Then she has her weak side, for all her airs.” + +He moved, lamp in hand, to the foot of the stairs. + +“There, I’ll stay here till you are in your room,” he said resignedly. +“I wonder why women were created cowards.” + +But she did not answer him. As quickly and almost as lightly as Ismay, +she had sped up the stairs and was groping through the dark hall above +their own room. When she reached it she was breathless; for just as +Ismay had said, she had heard that faint footfall, coming closer every +minute; inexorable, ghostly, in the silent house where no one waked +save she and Marcus Wray. + +The latter had heard nothing, nor would he have cared if he had. In so +old a house night noises were a foregone conclusion. + +He returned to his neglected whisky and soda, and a cigar. But there +was no bite to the whisky, no taste in the tobacco. His mind was not as +easy as he liked, in spite of his friend in Amsterdam. There had been +a weak point in the underground career of those diamonds, and Mr. Wray +knew it. + +“What has to be done must be done at once,” he said aloud, stretching +out his long legs in Sir Gaspard’s chair. “And then I’ll be off to lie +low till I can reap the harvest. My old friend here can’t escape me, +even if she dared to try. And the weather has turned cold,” his voice +changed abruptly, as if something pleased him. “It’s freezing hard. +If all goes well the day after to-morrow will see the fair Helen an +heiress, after which I shall spend a few months living retired--in +Bohemia.” + +Yawning, he extinguished the light and went up-stairs to bed. This +country life was at present convenient; in future it would be +profitable; but it was certainly deadly dull. + +“To-morrow I’ll amuse myself with my dear friend and well-wisher, +Ismay,” he reflected. “I like to see her hate me, it adds to the +pleasure of having her under my fingers. Hello!” as he stood in his +door, candle in hand--the candle he would not give Helen Trelane for +pure deviltry--“what’s that?” + +From somewhere far off a tinkling tune came softly, yet clearly; an +unearthly sound in the midnight hush. + +“Thomas is up to some game, I suppose, and I’m damned if I know why! +But I’ll choke him off now, once for all.” He started in search of the +mysterious sound, kicking off his patent-leather slippers that he might +steal unseen on the erring Thomas. At the head of the stairs the music +ceased, not suddenly, but with the curious falling cadence that marked +the end of the tune. But music was lost on Mr. Wray. + +“I’ve got off the track,” he thought, descending once more, somewhat +gingerly in his stocking feet. The instant he was in the lower passage +the air tinkled out again with a mocking lightness. The sound certainly +came from above him, and he ran up again, utterly careless if he were +heard or not. + +There was only an empty passage to be seen, door after door on each +side of it. He flung them open, one by one, but only disused bedrooms +met his scrutiny. As he threw the fifth door wide his candle went out, +not quickly, but slowly, as if something ailed the wick. Dim and blue +it faded slowly and the music that had seemed so near was gone. + +A cloud was over the moon; he could not see a yard into the room in +front of him, but the same cold disused air met him that he had felt in +all the other rooms. + +“Thomas and his remarkable ghost seem to be founded on fact,” he +thought angrily, jarred, in spite of himself, by that slow fading of +his light. “Well, they can play till doomsday for all I care; but first +I will make sure of Thomas!” + +He stumbled down to his own room in the dark, stubbing his toes +unmercifully. Then with a relit candle he sought the small room next +the butler’s pantry, where Thomas dwelt to guard his silver. + +The door was ajar, the old man peacefully sleeping. Whoever was +disturbing the house, it was not the gray-haired servant. Once more +Mr. Wray sought his bedroom, stopping only to try Ismay’s door with +infinite caution. + +It was locked, hard and fast. + +“The hypocritical little devil,” he muttered, “who told me that she +was never afraid of anything, and is terrified by a musical box that +some servant winds up at night! It’s just as well, though. I don’t want +Miss Ismay’s company of an evening when I am talking business with her +charming mother.” + +Ismay, seated somewhat breathless on her bed, shook with impotent rage +at that cautious hand on her door. + +“Insolent wretch!” she thought furiously. “I hope those doctored +library candles were a success. Who would think a schoolgirl trick of +a thread soaked in saltpeter and run through with a fine needle would +ever come in so usefully. But that was only a side-show. ‘The day after +to-morrow,’ he said--and ‘an accident.’ What can he have in his mind? +Oh, if I only knew. And if only Miles would come back. I could die with +this awful feeling that it is something of my own mother’s that was +found in that room.” + +She was weak with the vision flashing before her of disgrace, of the +police, of discovery, of Miles’ face when he knew, and in them she +forgot the most important words Wray had spoken that night, though she +had heard them well enough. + +“And the weather’s changed. It is freezing hard.” + +They carried Cristiane’s life and death, and her own fate hung on them, +and, shrewd as she was, Ismay overlooked them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +“I NEVER SAW IT BEFORE.” + + +The frost still held. The river that ran through Cylmer’s Ferry was +skimmed with ice; the lake at Marchant’s Hold was a shining, glittering +thing as Ismay passed it on her way to keep her tryst at the stile. +Only at one side, where a deep brook ran into it, was there a spot of +black ice. Ismay passed it without a glance as she hurried on. + +Wray had been at her elbow all the afternoon, hideous, revolting, +stinging her with veiled hints of the price that she, and she alone, +could pay for her mother’s safety. She had broken away from him at +last, with the arrival of tea and Cristiane, and before the eyes of the +heiress he had made no attempt to detain her. There was nothing she +could do down here at Marchant’s Hold. + +He laughed as he saw her hurrying out through the frozen park, as if to +get away from an unclean atmosphere and drink deep of the stainless air. + +And yet it was then that fate laughed, too, had he known it; laughed +even at that luck of Marcus Wray that the agony of a frail girl would +presently meet. + +Cylmer, straight from the station, strode to meet Ismay as she reached +the stile. + +The place was silent, deserted, and he took her in his arms. She felt +the cloth of his coat under her cheek, felt his arms tighten once more +about her, steeled herself to meet his kiss. + +Oh, God! In ten minutes, in five, would there be that between them that +would stop his kisses forevermore? + +“You’re pale.” He held her at arm’s length to look at her. “You’re +cold. I was a brute to bring you out in this freezing weather.” + +“No, no, I don’t feel it.” She led the way to the stile. “I think I am +tired. Let us sit down,” with a smile that was not like her own. + +“I thought I’d never get back,” he said, sitting down beside her, his +arm round her to draw her close. “You were right, Ismay. It was an +awful business. Don’t draw away from me, sweet! There’s not a soul to +see.” + +“Why was it awful?” For once her scarlet lips were dry. “Do you mean +you’ve found the murderer?” + +“No. But we shall; and the awful part is that it must have been a woman +who poisoned him. But let us talk of something else, of you and me. I’m +sick of the ugly side of life.” + +Sick? What would he be when he knew it all? + +“Tell me first. I like to know all you do, you know.” Would her heart +ever beat again, would he feel her strained breathlessness as she sat +within his arm? + +“What an exacting child it is,” he said. “I’ll tell you, and then we’ll +leave the whole hateful subject. When Kivers made that last search he +found where the carpet stopped at the threshold just inside the bedroom +a jewel, or a piece of one, wedged into the little crevice. It looked +as if it might have been a charm.” + +“A charm!” Mechanically she forced out the words. Oh, that tinkling +bunch of golden toys her mother always wore on a chatelaine! Why, had +she not long ago gone over them one by one? + +“I think so. For it isn’t a thing a man would be likely to wear. What +do you think?” Before she could draw her laboring breath he had laid +something in the frightened, relaxed hand that lay on her knee. “I got +Kivers to lend it to me. I wanted to look at it under a microscope.” + +“This!” She was bolt upright, clear of his embrace, staring at the +thing in her hand. “This!” relief that was agony in her voice. “I--I +never saw it before.” + +“Saw it before?” He stared at her. Then he laughed. “Saw one before, I +suppose you mean, little silly! It is an Egyptian scarab, one of their +sacred beetles that are so precious. Look at its color in the sunset.” + +Golden green, turquoise blue, in its gold setting; the beetle that was +older than Christianity glowed dully in her ungloved palm. + +But it was not its beauty that made her eyes shine, nor anything but +the rapture of knowing that never, never had her mother possessed a +thing like it. + +Had she been wronging her all this time? Had she been speaking the +truth, and Abbotsford been done to death by another hand before ever +she entered the house? If she had dared, she would have laughed out +wildly, flung her hands out in delirious joy; but she must even turn +her face from her lover, that he might not see the triumphant blood +mantling in her cheeks. + +There had been some one else in the room! + +It was all she could do not to shriek it aloud. + +“How excited you are!” he laughed. “Do you think you would make a good +detective when a little thing like this turns your head?” + +“Why should the thing have belonged to a woman?” she said irrelevantly. + +“Because a man could only wear it set in a ring, and this was never in +a ring. Don’t you see the light setting of gold round it and the broken +catch of a tiny chain? It has been a pendant, hanging for luck on a +woman’s bracelet. For deadly luck for some poor soul,” gravely. + +“You are sure it wasn’t Lord Abbotsford’s own?” with a persistence that +might make him wonder. + +“Certain. If you had ever seen Abbotsford you would see the absurdity. +He was never known to wear even a jeweled stud. He told me once that +he always thought of the money that was sunk in women’s diamonds, and +groaned inwardly at the waste of capital. He was never very free with +money, poor chap. He was a man’s man, not a woman’s.” + +“Yet you said he had a photograph that was not his fiancée’s?” +wonderingly. + +“Oh, that’s different.” Cylmer grew red under his bronze. “But you +wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want you to. Come home, darling mine; +it’s too cold for you here.” + +Home, to Marcus and his evil plots; to the mother she had wronged in +her thoughts ever since that awful day, but who, innocent or guilty, +was putting her head blindly into another noose. + +“I wish I were going home with you,” she cried, with a shyness +that made her hide her face the second the words were out. “I hate +Marchant’s Hold!” + +“You could come to-morrow if you would let me have my way,” rapture at +her avowal in his voice. “Look up, Ismay. Don’t be ashamed. There is +nothing that can’t be said between you and me.” + +“I wish I thought so,” she murmured with sudden significance. “Perhaps +I shall some day. What are you and the detectives going to do?” she +asked, holding the little beetle tight. + +“Find out who the woman is who was in his rooms that day--and then, I +suppose, I’ll strain every nerve to keep her from being hanged as she +deserves,” with a laugh at his own weakness. “Women have always been +kind to me, my Ismay,” simply and without the least conceit, as though +such kindness were a debt he must repay. But she guessed shrewdly that +many a woman had loved Miles Cylmer, and worn sorrow at her heart for +her folly. + +“Miles, if I had done it could you love me still?” she said, on an +impulse. + +“You? Don’t even in fun class yourself with a woman like that!” sternly. + +“Well, then, my mother!” It was almost a cry. “If she had done it would +you marry me? Tell me.” + +Cylmer was absolutely truthful. For a moment he looked away from her, +awkwardly. + +“Ismay, don’t ask me,” he answered very low. “I--I don’t know.” + +And he never turned to see that the knife had gone home to the hilt. + +“You’re quite right,” she spoke slowly, flatly. “I shouldn’t have said +it. Take me home now. You’ll tell me, won’t you, if you think you are +going to find--that woman?” + +“Yes,” reluctantly. “But I wish I had never named a woman like that to +you. Wait, Ismay,” with a motion of his broad shoulders, as if he shook +off the memory of a distasteful burden, “I want to give you something +first.” + +He drew a case from his pocket, and even in the light that was nearly +gone from the sky she saw something flash as he opened it. The next +instant he slipped a band of great diamonds, each one a fortune, on her +smooth white finger. + +“With my body I thee worship,” he quoted softly, his eyes, that were +her heaven, bent on her changing face. “I will say that once more when +I put another ring on your finger.” + +For a moment her hard-held composure was gone. + +“Mark,” she stammered, “I can’t wear it.” + +“Mark! My name isn’t Mark.” He looked at her hardly, sharply in the +dusk. “What do you mean, Ismay? Are you dreaming, or do you think you +are talking to another man?” + +Appalled by her own slip of the tongue, she could not speak. What was +this love doing to her, that she was losing her nerve, her self-command? + +“Ismay, answer me!” How stern his voice was. “Is there any other man +who ever said he loved you, that you should think of him now?” + +With the sure instinct that the truth alone could answer him, she +turned to him, her face white and hard as he had never seen it. + +“Did you think I meant you when I said ‘Mark’? I meant”--somehow, she +seemed as tall as he as she faced him--“the man my mother means to +marry me to. He is staying with us now. When I said his name and not +yours I meant that with his eyes on me I would never dare to wear it.” + +“Staying with you now? What for?” His heart revolted at the thought of +guests in a house of mourning. “And why should you mind his seeing it? +What is he to you?” + +“Nothing. A thing so small that I would kill myself before I fell into +his hands. And that is what would happen if he saw me wearing your +ring.” + +“Ismay, don’t speak in riddles. Tell me what you mean. What right has +any man to object to your wearing my ring?” + +“Don’t speak to me like that. I can’t bear it.” To his shame he saw +that she was crying. Ismay, who never cried, to whose eyes tears were +strangers! + +“Oh, he can do anything, anything,” she sobbed. “He--he knows something +about my mother; she is afraid of him.” + +“My sweet, my poor sweet.” The man who had done his best to threaten +that mother into leaving Marchant’s Hold felt suddenly guilty and +ashamed. “What can I say to you? But if you would listen to me and get +your mother on my side I think I could make short work of him for her.” + +“Can you blot out the past?” said Ismay Trelane. + +She wiped away her tears that shamed her; was she no stronger than +Cristiane that she must cry in her pain? + +Very pitifully the man kissed her. + +“I would do anything on earth for you!” he whispered. “Can’t you tell +me what it is he knows?” + +“She’s my mother.” Once more she held her head up, proudly, lest he +should see her wince at her mother’s shame. “And as for Marcus Wray, I +will beat him yet, and then you can marry me--if you will.” + +“I’d rather help you.” But she made no answer as they hurried homeward, +his ring still on her finger, the little scarab, that he had forgotten, +safe inside the palm of her other hand. + +“I’m coming over to-morrow to see Cristiane,” he threatened, as he left +her in the garden. + +“Oh, Miles, don’t,” she cried sharply; “or, if you come, wait for me +there by the lake behind those cedars. I daren’t see you before Marcus +Wray. And yet I may want you.” + +“What do you mean, sweet?” + +But she only laughed, and the laugh was not good to hear. + +“I don’t know; but you’ll see,” and she was gone. There was nothing to +tell him that by to-morrow she thought to catch Marcus Wray red-handed, +and so would never fear him any more. Her heart was lighter than for +many a day as she locked away the little blue-green beetle that Cylmer +had forgotten. The diamond ring she hid away with it. Never till the +owner of his scarab was found would she dare to put it on. And, oh! +would it be to-morrow? + +But at the thought her heart sank again. The owner of the lost scarab +must be found first, and how was she to do it? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE. + + +No day that held murder and sudden death in it ever dawned more fair to +see than the next morning. + +The sun shone sweetly on the frozen world, the robins came confidently +to the dining-room window, red-breasted, certain of crumbs; the lake +shone as glittering glass; the cold, sweet air of morning was like wine +to the nerves as Ismay, after breakfast, stood at the window feeding +the hungry birds. + +She almost wondered at her own fear of Marcus Wray this morning. The +look of latent savagery was all gone from his calm, clean-shaven face +as he stood by the fire idly smoking a cigarette. And the strained, +expectant horror was gone from her mother’s face. For some reason or +other, the awful purpose of the day had been postponed. There was +relief at Ismay’s heart as she read those faces. + +“We are a nice, harmonious, affectionate household for one more day. I +suppose he has his reasons,” she thought. But she did not want to catch +his eye. She stood with an indifferent shoulder to him as he moved +toward the door. “What, Cristiane?” She started from her reverie as if +she were shot. + +Cristiane was eying her like a kitten who has just scratched. + +“I only said you and Miles were very late last night,” she repeated +viciously. + +Ismay could not speak. She made instead a quick step toward the door +that had barely closed behind Wray. Was he out of hearing, or was he +there still? + +“I--and Miles!” she said coldly. “What do you mean?” + +Mrs. Trelane, reading a letter, fairly dropped it as she stared at the +two. What had Ismay been doing? Was the girl crazy? + +Cristiane laughed, like a child pleased with mischief. + +“Don’t look so angry,” she remarked. “I was only trying to pay you +for--you know what!” with a nod in the direction of the departed Wray. + +“You two children!” said Mrs. Trelane, with an indulgent smile, that +covered her relief that this was only play. + +But Ismay, facing Cristiane, was not so certain. There was a something +in the baby face of the only child that she did not like. + +“She saw us! And if she tells Marcus I’m done,” she reflected. + +But Cristiane, as she purred an amiable apology, had no intention of +telling Marcus. She meant to have Marcus and Miles both, and something +warned even her that it would not be well to speak of Ismay to Wray. + +And Ismay, in spite of the exquisite day, was feeling strangely dull. +A deadly lassitude was in all her limbs; the strain of constant, +racking thought for the girl who was so spoiled, the mother who was so +careless, was telling on her. + +She saw Wray go out, and Cristiane busy writing a note, to whom she did +not care, and crept away to a dark corner of the hall where a screen +hid her from passers-by. While things were quiet she must sleep, or she +would break down. Had there been anything the matter with her coffee? + +But she could think no longer. She dropped on the seat behind the +screen, never stopping to consider that she was clearly visible from +the turn of the stairs overhead, and slept like a dead thing. + +Hours passed, and she knew nothing, felt nothing, except that once +she tried to brush what felt like a fly from her cheek; once turned, +in what seemed a happy dream, to the familiar touch of a man’s rough +tweed coat on her face, stretching her arms out in sleep at the happy +thought; in her dream nestling close to the dear shoulder, till +suddenly a nightmare terror shook her. She tried to scream and could +not; woke for an instant to think she heard a footstep stealing away, +and, not half-awake, was asleep again almost before she realized her +thought. + +“Where can Ismay be?” Mrs. Trelane wondered at lunch. + +Cristiane shook her head with guileless innocence. + +Wray said carelessly that he did not know, but his face flushed a +little. + +Mrs. Trelane finished her lunch and went to find out. Half-way upstairs +she looked down; there was Ismay on her comfortably padded sofa, +stretching herself awake. + +“Well, of all the peculiar people! I never saw any one stretch so like +a cat. Ismay,” she said aloud, “what on earth are you doing there?” + +“I was tired--I think. Mother, come here a minute.” + +The unusual tone in her voice astounded the listener; she came +down-stairs hastily. + +“Tired! From what? And why did you go to sleep here? I couldn’t find +you anywhere, and I was terrified Cristiane might think something +about you and that horrid Cylmer. Tell me, did she mean anything this +morning?” sharply, seating herself on the end of the sofa. + +“Don’t know, and don’t care,” said the girl sleepily. “Of course not. +How could she? It was to pay me for saying Marcus was horrid.” + +“You said that to her!” + +“Oh, don’t be agitated. She didn’t believe me,” said Ismay flippantly. +“Mother, I want to speak to you. No, don’t move! It’s safer here than +anywhere. We can hear any one coming a long way off on this hard oak +floor. I want you to tell me--think hard, mother, I mean it--if you +don’t know of any one that might have been in Abbotsford’s room that +day?” + +“What makes you think of that now?” + +“I’m always thinking of it,” her hand to her head that felt so oddly +heavy. “I’m frightened.” + +“What of? I didn’t do it,” almost absently. “Think of some one, you +say. You little fool, do you suppose I have not tried and tried? There +was no one who had anything against Abbotsford. I know you don’t +believe me; I know you think I did it.” + +“You might as well have if we can’t find out who did,” Ismay said +wearily. “Look here, where was Marcus that day?” + +“Marcus!” She hushed the cry with a sudden remembrance of those two in +the dining-room; but she went on with unexpected freedom, recollecting +they were going out, were gone by now. + +“Oh, you needn’t think of him!” she said scornfully. “He was across the +way, waiting to see Florrie Bernstein, the dancer. She was out, and to +amuse himself the devil put it in his head to stare out the window. He +never had anything to do with the matter.” + +The strangely found beetle was on the girl’s lips, but the sleep was +off her brain now, and she dared not trust her secret to her mother’s +careless keeping. + +“I wish he had done it. I should like him to be hanged,” she muttered. + +“He’s too clever,” bitterly, “to do anything but bully women.” + +“Where is he now?” with late caution. + +“He and Cristiane have gone out skating,” she said carelessly, for +Marcus had assured her the night before that the time was not ripe yet +for any action. “They’re all right, you little idiot. There’s no need +for you to look like that.” + +Wild, dazed, swaying, Ismay was on her feet. All right, with that black +place in the ice, with that purpose in Wray’s mind! + +“Get out of my way! Move!” she cried. “Get me some water, brandy, +anything! I can’t stand.” + +Mrs. Trelane was in the dining-room and back almost before she knew at +the authority in the sharply breathed words. + +“What’s the matter? Are you going to be ill?” she cried. + +Ismay snatched the brandy and water. + +“Ill? No! If I am we’re ruined.” With quick, swaying steps she passed +her mother, letting the empty glass fall in shivers to the floor. + +“Then you’re crazy!” cried the mother. She stared stupidly at the +splinters, and by the time she had shrugged her shoulders amazedly +Ismay was gone. + +Out the great door, hatless, into the winter air, that struck cold on +her forehead and drove away the deadly faintness on her. Down the broad +avenue toward the lake, staggering at first. Then, as her strength +revived, running like young Diana, the beat of her flying feet only a +little heavier than usual as she tore along. + +Marcus and Cristiane--the wolf and the lamb! That black place in the +ice where the current came from a spring. And this awful stiffness that +cramped her like a vise as she ran. + +Could she ever get there? She could see the lake now as she mounted +the last rise in the avenue. And there was Marcus on the safe ice, and +Cristiane? On the other side of the black streak Cristiane was sliding, +without skates, drawing every minute nearer to it. Ismay knew now what +was in his brain. + +All alone out there, there was no one to hear him dare her to cross it, +and that was what he was doing. And Cristiane was heavy; it would never +bear her. To slip into that running water meant death. The thought +seemed to paralyze the girl who looked on. + +Helpless, rigid, great drops on her forehead for all the cold, she +stood in full view of Cristiane, who waved her hand at her; in full +view of some one else, long before his time at that tryst behind the +cedars, as Cristiane, step by step, drew closer to that thin film of +ice. + +With one piercing, ringing shriek, one bound, Ismay was running again, +like an arrow from a bow. Running with skirts drawn up, elbows down, +steady and fast as a man who must win a race. She dared not think what +it meant if she could not reach Cristiane before she was on that black +mockery of ice. + +No wonder her ringing scream sounded so wild and dreadful in the clear +air; no wonder she ran with the blood beating in her eyes and forehead, +the sharp air rasping in her agonized lungs. + +She shrieked again. No matter what Marcus thought if only she could +keep Cristiane off that ice. + +At that shrill cry Cristiane turned and went on faster. Ismay should +not frighten her before Marcus Wray, who had laughed and forbidden her +to dare the crossing, as if she were a town-bred baby. + +Miles Cylmer, a long way off behind his cedars, shouted in answer and +ran down the long shore, too late to stop what he saw. Cristiane, +laughing, defiant, on the edge of the black ice, a few rods behind her, +bareheaded, slim, nearly exhausted, Ismay running to cut her off. + +Wray had turned at the man’s voice and cried aloud: + +“Go back! Don’t try it.” But it was no accident that made him fall flat +as he spoke. + +Cylmer ran as he, too, had never run before, for the black ice had +crashed from under Cristiane’s feet. She went through like a stone as +she stepped on it. + +Yet the next second he saw her white hand flung up from the black ice, +the blacker water; saw Ismay, flung flat on the sound ice, stretch out +till she caught the hand in hers; did not see that Cristiane’s other +hand had clutched her as with a vise, nor that Ismay was completely +done and exhausted. + +And Cristiane le Marchant was a well-grown, heavy girl, Ismay slight +and dainty. Then inch by inch the sound ice cracked around them, as +Cristiane, in her frantic struggling, drew Ismay nearer and nearer +death. As Cylmer reached her it broke under her. But it was Mrs. +Trelane who screamed as she ran frantically down from the avenue, where +she had followed Ismay from pure wonder at the girl’s actions. + +“He told me he wouldn’t do it! Oh, I might have known,” she cried +helplessly, as she ran. She dropped on her knees with a great sob as +she reached the lakeshore, and hid her eyes in terror. + +On the grass beside Cristiane in her priceless, soaked furs, lay Ismay +in her thin house-gown. There was a crimson stain oozing from her set +and speechless mouth, and she was deadly still, the blood thick in that +clay-cold body that had been so quick and warm but now. + +For once Mrs. Trelane was careless of appearances. + +“What have you done?” she shrieked at Wray. “What----” But his hand was +on her shoulder. + +“Tried to save Ismay,” he said shortly, as was true, for he had done +his best to help Cylmer, only to be savagely thrust out of the way. + +“This gentleman had Miss le Marchant out of the water before I was +on my feet. I fell,” with rage in his tone because his plans had +miscarried, because it was Cristiane who could sit up and speak, not +Ismay. + +“Mr. Wray told me not to try,” Cristiane said, shivering. “And I would. +I’m cold. Take me home.” + +Cylmer looked at her. + +“Have you no thought for Miss Trelane, who tried to save you?” he said +sternly. + +Cristiane went off into wild hysterics. + +“She didn’t try to save me,” she gasped; “she stood on the hill and +watched me. I saw her. She could have got here long ago, but she hates +me. Oh, I know. Just because you love me.” Cylmer made one quick stride +to her. + +“Be silent. Have you no sense; no decency?” His face absolutely white, +he pointed to where Ismay lay on the grass. “You abuse her when for +all you know she may have died for you. Take Mrs. Trelane’s arm and go +home. I am ashamed that you are your father’s daughter.” + +Wray had not heard her. After he had frightened Mrs. Trelane to silence +with that cruel grasp of her shoulder he had run with all his speed to +the stables to send a man for a doctor. + +He was more savage than he had ever been in his life at his morning’s +work. No one knew as he did why Ismay had not been able to withstand +the shock of that icy water. And the heiress was to go scot-free! He +ground his teeth as he hurried. + +Never! Dead or alive, Ismay should not save her. But if he could do it, +there should be life kept in that sweet body of hers yet, for, in his +way, the man loved her. + +Cristiane, the icy water dripping from her, rose and looked at Cylmer +with chattering teeth. + +“She hates me, and she is a liar and a thief. Look what I found this +morning.” Her voice low and spiteful, never reached Mrs. Trelane, as +she hung over Ismay. + +She stuffed a little card, dirty and crumbled, into his hand, but +though he took it, it was without knowledge or care of what she said. + +“Go!” he repeated angrily. “Don’t you see you must get off your wet +clothes?” + +But without seeing what she did he had stooped and lifted in his arms +the girl who was to have been flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. + +An old, old cry was on his lips as he lifted his ice-cold, ghastly +burden: + +“Would that I had died for thee, I and none other!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +“HER MOTHER’S CHILD!” + + +Cylmer, waiting by the hall fire, his wet clothes steaming, thought the +doctor would never come down-stairs. + +To Wray he gave no thought; it never occurred to him that that astute +person was keeping out of the way, for fear of comments of his idiocy +in having taken Cristiane on ice he knew nothing about. And Mrs. +Trelane was with Ismay; Cristiane put to bed crying with temper and +fright. The empty feeling of the house drove Cylmer wild. He was more +glad to see the little country doctor than he had ever been at anything +in his life. + +“Miss Trelane!” he said bluntly. “Is she----” The words stuck in his +throat. + +“She’ll do now, I think,” the doctor said thoughtfully. “But it’s +a peculiar case. It was not that she was in danger of death from +drowning, but there seemed to have been something in the shock. I don’t +know”--more briskly--“but she will do well now. She looks frail, but +her vitality is tremendous. But, my dear man, you must go home at once +unless you wish to die of pneumonia. Come with me in the brougham. You +can come back again later on. There’s no sense in shivering to death +here when you can’t see either of the victims.” + +He carried Cylmer off, and deposited him, rolled in a fur rug, at his +own door. And not till he was being stripped of his soaked clothes by +his fussy servant did Miles discover that he held something in his +hand. It was the card Cristiane had given him, the penciled words only +a blur now. + +“Does she mean she never got it? Is that why she called Ismay a +liar and a thief for the carelessness of some servant?” he thought +contemptuously. “I must tell the lady a few plain truths, I fancy. +I’d tell her everything this very night if I could get Ismay to +consent. But, of course, she won’t be up. I sha’n’t see either of them, +probably. If I do Miss Cristiane shall retire in tears,” with a grim +smile. + +In spite of what the doctor had said, Mr. Cylmer only made a pretense +of eating his dinner. + +He drove over to Marchant’s Hold without so much as waiting for his +coffee. Even Mrs. Trelane, who hated him, would be civil to him +to-night, since but for him Ismay would be lying dead. + +He went straight into the drawing-room, prepared to meet Mrs. Trelane +only. But she was not there. He paused, and saw on a distant sofa +Cristiane, her head bowed on her hands. + +“Cristiane,” his heart had sickened at her attitude, “what’s the +matter? She’s not--not dead?” + +“She? Do you mean Ismay?” She lifted her lovely eyes, drowned in tears. +“Not she. Why, Miles? Do you care--so much?” + +“Never mind what I do. If she is all right why are you crying?” sternly. + +“Because she’s made me be so horrid to you!” + +“You needn’t cry on my account,” he said, looking down at her, “I can +assure you. And how do you mean she had made you horrid to me?” + +“Because that card I gave you--I never got it. I thought you had never +come near me, and so I hated you.” + +“Never got it! But you gave it to me.” + +“Ismay pulled it out of her pocket this morning with her handkerchief, +and I picked it up. Oh, Miles!” her downcast face sweet, imploring, +“can you ever forgive me?” + +“Forgive you?”--impatiently. “I don’t know what you’re driving at! You +don’t mean you think Ismay kept it from you on purpose? Was that why +you dared to call her a thief?” + +His tone maddened her. She sat up and looked at him, sorrowfully, with +pained surprise. + +“Miles, you don’t care for her?” she whispered. + +“Why do you speak of her like that? She saved your life”--coldly. + +“She didn’t. It was you”--slowly. “I tell you she saw what I was doing +and stood waiting. She never ran till she saw you, and knew she must. +She would rather I was dead; she hates me.” + +“Cristiane, are you out of your senses?” He shook her roughly by the +shoulder. “Your ingratitude I cannot help; your abuse of her I will not +bear. As for loving her, I love her with all my heart. I’d marry her +to-morrow if she would have me.” + +And this was the Miles she had thought of as miserable with his love +that she would have none of! She was all passion in the frank brutality +with which she turned on him. + +“She can’t do that; she daren’t! She’s playing a double game with you. +She’s a bad, wicked girl”--her voice rising angrily. “I saw her this +very day lying with her head on Mr. Wray’s shoulder. She was pretending +to be asleep, and she stretched out her arms and put them about his +neck, and----” + +“Look here, Cristiane,” Miles broke in angrily, frantically. “You can +shut up! If it is true I don’t want to hear it, but if it’s a lie, +you’ll have to pay for every word of it.” + +“Miles,” she said slowly, “it’s every word of it true. I saw her. I +was on the stairs and she was lying on the sofa in the hall. I saw +him come and kneel beside her. She’s a horrid, horrid girl--I’m so +miserable”--with sudden choking tears. “I wish I hadn’t told you. +But I know you were with her often lately. I couldn’t let you go on +without telling you.” + +“Then allow me to tell you your conscientious scruples do you no +credit,” he said stoutly. Yet he did not see in his pain that she had +changed her tactics utterly, even while he had been talking to her. It +was all too much of a piece with that fatal cry of Mark, that senseless +terror of having her engagement to him an open thing. Ismay, his Ismay, +untrue! The solid ground had been cut away under his feet, yet he was +stubbornly faithful. He would not believe this spoiled child, who was +not even grateful to the girl who had nearly died to save her. + +“You don’t believe me? Oh, Miles, what can I do?” Cristiane moaned. She +hid her angry, tearless eyes that he might think she cried. + +“I wouldn’t believe an angel from heaven against Ismay!” he said +stoutly. + +But he lied, and he knew it. + +As for the note Cristiane implied Ismay had kept back, he never gave +it a thought. Cristiane and her feelings were nothing to him now. But +Ismay and that man from London were another story. + +“Don’t dare to say she did not try to save you,” he said to drown his +thoughts. “I was there. I did not see your danger, no more did she.” + +“And yet--you saved me,” she said quietly, and before he knew it she +had kissed his strong hand softly. He drew it away as if her lips had +stung. + +“I saved you as I would have saved a drowning dog,” he said, his voice +ominously level. “Now you know. I care nothing for you. My love for you +was only play. I know it now.” + +“Miles, don’t,” she gasped; “you kill me. But I can do you one service, +and I will. I--I love you now. I will take you to Ismay.” + +“You can’t. She’s in bed.” + +“She’s up in her sitting-room;” and he could not see the spite in her +face. + +Marveling at her strange changes, Cylmer followed her, his heart +beating uncomfortably. But to see Ismay, to have in one word all +his doubts destroyed--for that he would have followed anywhere +unquestioning. + +“Mrs. Trelane?” he said doubtingly, as they mounted the stairs. + +“Is in the library. Besides, what matters?”--dully. “You have the +right. You mean to marry her.” + +She opened Ismay’s door softly--too softly--and parted the curtains. + +“Look,” she whispered in his ear, “there is the girl you love. Now, who +is right, you or I?” + +Cylmer gave one glance; then, sick, staggered, broken, he turned away. + +In a great chair Ismay sat; at her feet was Marcus Wray, holding her +hand, talking eagerly, very low. On the girl’s face was no sign of that +loathing she had professed, only a beseeching, doubtful look of dread +and hope. + +“Come away,” whispered Cristiane, and he obeyed her, dazed and +stumbling. + +Ismay, whom he would have sworn was true, whom he had loved as he had +never thought to love, Ismay was her mother’s child! + +His face was hard as iron and as relentless as he stopped in the hall. + +Cristiane shrank away from him like a child who fears a blow. + +“Don’t look like that. I didn’t know,” she lied breathlessly. “But, you +see, I told the truth.” + +“Curse the truth, and you,” he said between his teeth. “Get out of my +way.” + +She could not hear what he said, but she turned away again, crying +pitifully. + +“I couldn’t let you love her and not know. Don’t be so hard to me.” + +With an effort that wrenched his very soul, the man mastered himself. + +“All right, child. I know you meant to be straight. But run away to +bed. I can’t talk.” + +Humiliated to the last drop of his blood, he stood in the hall alone, +opposite the half-opened door of the library. + +Cristiane had spoken the truth again; Mrs. Trelane was there. And the +very spirit of evil and recklessness had prompted her to put on that +very white gown in which she had been photographed for Lord Abbotsford. +Ismay was not there to stop her; she had explained to Cristiane that +her black evening gown was torn; and now she stood, ignorant of any +stranger’s eyes, before the glass over the fireplace in the very +attitude of the photograph. + +Her round, languorous throat; her arms, lovely still; the very turn of +her head, Miles Cylmer--saw--and remembered. + +The mysterious woman of the photograph stood before him. + +No wonder Ismay had been interested in Abbotsford’s death; no wonder +she had paled when he brought out that broken trinket. She had it +still, and probably she and her mother had laughed together at +the cleverness with which she had wiled it from him. He had been +fooled--fooled by a pair of green eyes, a mouth all love, a smile all +witching. + +Mechanically, as a man in a dream, he put on his coat and hat and got +into his dog-cart that was waiting at the door. Cristiane was right. +Ismay Trelane was bad to the core. + +But the man could not see the road for the bitterness of his heart as +he drove home through the dark. + +Cristiane, in spite of her fright at his anger, smiled, well pleased, +as she went up-stairs to bed. + +She had really seen Marcus Wray kiss Ismay; she had only kept back that +the girl’s subtle instinct, even in her sleep, had made her moan and +turn away from him, so that he crept away lest she should awake. She +was cunning enough not to tell Wray what she had seen, but the sudden +enlightenment had made her furious. Was this girl to come here and take +every man she saw? Were her own good looks, her fortune, as nothing +compared with the strange beauty of the other? Not while Cristiane le +Marchant could stop it. + +Loved, caressed, guided in her every footstep by her dead father, +the girl was utterly spoiled. Without that firm and loving hand she +steered her own bark wildly, caring nothing for others, so that her own +vanity was satisfied. And Miles Cylmer that night had struck at the +self-conceit that was her most vulnerable part. + +“He’s going to hate her now,” she thought, with gleeful conviction. +“Then he’ll come back to me, and I’ll refuse him again. Oh, how I will +refuse him! And I’ll keep Mr. Wray here and make Miles wild.” + +She sank to sleep in a blissful reverie of Ismay driven out, Miles +sighing in vain, and she herself marrying a duke. She would wear white +satin and look very proud and cold. It would be delightful. And that +death had to-day only missed her by a hair’s breadth, and to-morrow +might strike again, she never thought. Nor that the girl she had +betrayed this very night was the only soul on earth who could save her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +TRUTH THAT LIED! + + +It was all so black, so terribly obvious as he looked at it. + +Cylmer thought long that night, in a weary circle that led back to the +same horror. The original of that photograph had been Mrs. Trelane, and +if Abbotsford’s death lay at her door, Ismay had known it. That little +cry of hers came back to him. + +“I never saw it before.” + +A lie and a foolish one, that looking back was damning. + +And Wray--she could deceive him for a brute like that? + +And then there rushed over him the awful thought of the disgrace to +come; the wheels that he had set in motion that were even now out of +his power to stop. Even in his disenchantment, with that raging pain +at his heart that she was false who seemed so true, he was glad that +that one clue, that one fatal bit of evidence, the blue-green beetle, +was in her hands. The detectives would never see it again; Mrs. Trelane +warned in time, would destroy it and the bracelet he was certain it had +belonged to--and Ismay. + +“Ismay can be consoled by Mark.” Yet at the thought his forehead was +wet. He would have given his soul not to have seen her to-night, to +have gone on believing in her; as he would never believe in any one +again. + +And yet it had all been so simple; if fate had not played into the +spiteful hands of Cristiane le Marchant, would have been another link +to bind him to the girl who for his sake was fighting with the world +against her. + +At eight o’clock Ismay had waked from a long sleep; waked weary and +languid in body, but with her brain more quick and clear than it had +been for two days. She was alone, and she lay for a little, thinking, +remembering. + +What had made her so drowsy, so strange all that day? Had Wray, to keep +her out of the way, given her anything? + +“There was only breakfast, he couldn’t!” she reflected. “We all had +the same, even my coffee Thomas poured out at the sideboard. Besides, +he doesn’t suspect me at all, thanks to Thomas’ version of my midnight +promenades.” She smiled to herself. + +Had not Thomas met her face to face one night, and had not Jessie +told her in deepest secrecy of how the lady had walked, with the +very blood-stain that was the mark of her crimes on her breast! That +blood-stain she had made in sewing her ghost’s gown, with fingers that +were torn by Cylmer’s roses. + +“Jessie.” Conviction flashed over her at the woman’s name. + +Jessie had put her early tea down outside the door this morning. Ismay +was sleepy and too lazy to get up and let the woman in. + +“I said to leave it, and I heard her go away,” she thought. “When I +took it in it was cold, and I thought it wasn’t nice, but I drank it. +He had plenty of time to put anything in it. If he passed and saw it +there he would not hesitate one second. Even if he did not suspect me +he may have been determined I should have to stay at home. One more +score against him.” + +Her anger lent her strength. She got out of bed and clothed herself +in a warm dressing-gown, utterly heedless of the doctor’s orders. +Something that was not herself made her think of the scarab and Marcus +Wray. Could she have in her very hands the destruction of her enemy, +and not know it? + +She took it out of its hiding-place, and saw the flash of Cylmer’s +ring, where it lay beside it. + +When Marcus Wray was routed, she could put it on--she turned away that +she might not see it, but the sight of it had deepened her hatred of +the man who stood between her and happiness, whom, for her mother’s +sake, she dared not defy. + +A step outside startled her. She had just time to throw the scarab into +the drawer and lock it, when her mother was in the room. + +Her mother in white, in that very gown she should have burned, long ago! + +“Why are you up? You’ll kill yourself!” Mrs. Trelane said sharply. + +“I’m all right. I couldn’t stay in bed. Mother, in Heaven’s name, why +have you got on that?” she pointed like an accusing judge at the tawdry +white dress. + +“Because I was sick of looking like a fright in black. It shows out +every line in my face. And there’s no one here but Marcus.” + +“Who is your worst enemy,” helplessly. “And it isn’t decent, with Sir +Gaspard not dead a month.” + +“Oh, bother! I told Cristiane my black one was torn,” lightly. “But +Ismay, are you really quite well? I was terrified about you this +morning!” + +“Terrified!” Ismay threw back her head with her old laugh of mockery. +She knew quite well the depth of that terror. A horrible sight, the awe +of death that lies in all of us; but if death had been there her mother +would have dried her tears as useless, aging things; forgotten her +daughter as soon as the earth had closed over her. + +“If you are going to be so brutal I shall go away,” Mrs. Trelane said +angrily. “If you have no feelings you might give me credit for some.” + +“Don’t go.” Ismay caught her dress. “Come into the sitting-room. Tell +me about this morning--what happened, who carried me home?” + +“Mr. Cylmer. Tell me, Ismay,” with quiet curiosity, “how well do you +know him? He looked like death when he carried you. And how did he +happen to be there?” + +“He just, happened, I suppose,” provokingly. + +“And I don’t suppose I was an engaging sight. What did Cristiane do?” + +“Had hysterics, I think. I wasn’t listening. I thought you were dead; +so did Marcus.” + +“You didn’t let him touch me? + +“He went straight off for the doctor. It was that man Cylmer who got +you out of the water.” + +“That man Cylmer!” The girl flushed with pride and joy. How she would +thank him when she saw him, with the strong arm that had saved her +close about her shoulders. + +“Marcus wants to see you. That’s why I came up,” Mrs. Trelane remarked. +“Do be civil to him, Ismay, he tried to help you.” + +“Me? yes?” enigmatically, and her mother shivered with a suspicion of +the girl’s knowledge, that died on the instant at her placid face. + +“See me?” Ismay amended. “Very well, send him up. No, don’t stay! I’ll +be civil, you needn’t worry.” + +Her eyes alert, her cheek feverish, she watched him come in. + +“What do you want?” she inquired calmly, as he hesitated on the +threshold. + +“To see for myself that you’re all right,” his cold sneering manner all +gone. “Ought you to be up? But you look quite well, quite yourself.” + +“I am quite myself. What made you think I shouldn’t be?” she said dryly. + +“The shock, the wetting,” he hesitated. + +“Neither the shock nor the wetting have affected me,” she assured him. + +Could she suspect anything about that tea? he gave her a searching +glance with narrowed eyes. But her face was as openly hostile as usual, +with no underlying doubt. + +“If you’re going to stay, sit down,” she yawned laughingly. “You make +me nervous fidgeting there by the door.” + +He drew a chair near to her sofa, and she let her eyes close sleepily. +Through their dark fringes they looked him all over searchingly. +Evening clothes, a shirt and collar as immaculate as usual, a neat +black tie, two pearl studs, rather flawed and too large. So he had a +taste for jewels. + +His hands, long, deceitful, cruel, lay on his knees. On one of them was +a diamond ring, too big for a man, too sparkling. + +“His cuffs!” she thought, with inspiration. But they were hidden under +his black coat-sleeve. One day she had laughed at Cylmer’s plain +mother-of-pearl cuff-studs, and he had said that there was nothing a +man was so wedded to as a peculiar kind of cuff-stud. + +“If he wears links, he always wears links, generally of the same +pattern. If he wears studs, he never changes the make.” + +The blood beat hard in her temples. That bluey-green Egyptian beetle +could well have been half of a cuff-link, florid, expensive, odd, as +were those shirt-studs of pearls and greenish gold. + +“Why are you so thoughtful, Ismay? Why will you go on hating me?” Wray +asked slowly. “Don’t you know it’s no use?” + +There was a biting answer on her tongue, but she kept it back. She +must say something--anything--that would make him hold out his hand to +her with a sharp, hasty gesture that would clear his shirt-cuff, links +upward, from his sleeve. + +“And if I did not hate you, what would you do for me?” she moved her +hand toward him as if by accident. + +The next instant he had seized it, was holding it in a grasp that was +loathsomely hot and strong. Words she did not listen to poured in a low +whisper from his lips. Intent, her face alight with eagerness, she was +gazing at his wrist, moving her hand till his lay palm upward under +hers. + +But if she expected to see the scarabs, of which she had one, she was +wrong. And yet her heart leaped. For he did wear links, not studs, and +they were showy and costly. Ovals of pink coral set round with seed +pearls. + +As she gazed, his low voice in her ears killed the sound as Cristiane +parted the curtain. Wray, with his back to the door and off his guard, +saw nothing, and Cylmer, cut to the heart, had seen enough. + +If Cylmer had been one moment later he would have seen her snatch her +hand away; wipe it with insolent care on her handkerchief; laugh, with +utter scorn in Marcus Wray’s furious face, as, her aim attained, she +spoke out: + +“You might give me the whole earth, and I should hate you,” she cried +out with insane bravery. “I hate death, but I would die before I +married a man like you!” + +Dazed, taken aback, he looked at her. + +“You can go,” she said, smiling like Circe, treacherous and merciless; +“I’m done with you.” + +In the long moment’s pause a door shut somewhere, and she could not +know it was Miles, going away. And Wray did not hear it. His hands +trembled, his face full of evil, he looked down at her insolent beauty. + +“But I am not done with you,” he said very low. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +“MY NAME IS YESTERDAY.” + + +Ismay was gay as any lark that next morning. Her path, that had been so +hard to tread, seemed sure and easy now; her course of action plain. +When Miles came, as of course he would come to see how she was, she +would tell him all--everything. With those showy cuff-links of Marcus +Wray’s in her remembrance, that broken jewel in her keeping, that had +never been her mother’s, she had something to go on. Miles should know +all; she would keep nothing back, and then they two, together, should +bring guilt home to Marcus Wray. + +For, with the certainty of a person whose intuitions are never wrong, +she was sure that it was he who had poisoned Abbotsford, he who had +managed so cleverly that if anything were discovered, it was Mrs. +Trelane who should bear the whole brunt. + +But the morning passed, and no Miles. The waiting, the hope deferred, +made her pale. And there was too much at stake--she could not afford to +wait. She slipped out to the stable and sent a groom with a note. + + “Please come to the stile at four. I’m quite well to-day, and I must + see you. I have something to tell you. + + “ISMAY.” + +Something to tell him! Cylmer’s face hardened as he read. He heard +beforehand the smooth, plausible story she would have made ready when +Cristiane--as Cristiane was sure to do--had told her of the night +before. + +“I won’t go. I can’t see her,” he thought wretchedly, and yet his +longing was too much for him. He would see her once more--once more +feast his eyes on her fatal beauty that had weaned him from all simple +loves forever; he would tell her that he knew, and bid her save herself +and her mother, and go. + +“I will be there at four,” he wrote, without beginning or signature, +and Ismay as she read it only thought how careful he was to write +nothing that could matter if other hands opened his note. + +“He hates writing. He never even says he is glad I’m all right.” She +kissed the little note before she burned it, not thinking that never +again would Miles Cylmer write to Ismay Trelane. + +She evaded the others that afternoon with some trouble, so that she +was late at the stile. Miles was there before her, very tall, very +handsome in the gray light. For the day was thawing drearily. + +“Miles”--her voice rang out sweetly, joyfully, as he had heard it in +his dreams--“I’m here! I’m quite well. Aren’t you glad?” She stopped +abruptly as she reached his side, saw his face. “Miles, what’s the +matter?” An agony of terror such as all her hunted life had never known +made her dizzy as she looked. + +He could not answer. He was fighting with that worst pain on earth when +a man has learned to distrust and hate all that has been most dear and +sweet and true. + +“Are you sorry you saved me?” She tried hard for his old light mirth. +“Is that it?” + +Cylmer shivered. Truly he would rather she had died than that he should +have known this of her. + +“I don’t know,” he said under his mustache, never moving a step toward +her, his hands, that were wont to clasp hers so eagerly, lax at his +sides. + +“What’s the matter? Look at me,” she cried desperately. “Why are you +like this, when I’ve come all this way to tell you something that will +take all my courage to tell?” + +“Then you can spare your courage, for I know.” + +“Know! You can’t.” She was panting, wild. “What can you know that has +changed you so?” + +“I know that it was your mother’s whose photograph was in Abbotsford’s +room,” he said hoarsely. + +“I know why you fainted here in my arms when I talked of it. I know how +you and she have made a fool of me; how you have deceived me for Wray.” + +“Wray!” She stared aghast. What did he mean? + +“I saw you last night--with Wray.” + +And at the look on his face the girl’s heart died within her. + +“You saw me?” Ismay repeated. “Last night--with Marcus Wray?” + +“Last night,” he echoed, “with Marcus Wray. He was alone with you in +your sitting-room, holding your hand. And you, who say you hate him, +lay looking at him so intently that you never knew I was there.” + +“You were there!”--her eyes wide, dilated, were almost stupid as she +stared at him. “What brought you there?” + +“To see you! But as it was an inconvenient moment”--with a short, angry +laugh--“I did not intrude.” + +“Miles,” she cried, “I had a reason; I held his hand for a purpose.” + +“I do not doubt it; you always have, I should fancy,” he said bitterly. +“Had you the same purpose in the morning, when you let him kiss you in +the hall, where the whole house might see?” + +“Kiss me? He never kissed me.” Her lips, no longer scarlet, were +parted, her forehead suddenly livid. + +Kissed her, Marcus Wray? With a sudden dread she remembered she had +dreamed of Cylmer, felt the tweed of his coat under her cheek. + +“Miles! Miles!”--with a revulsion that was agony. “I was asleep. I +thought, I dreamed”--faltering--“it was you.” + +“You forget, he never kissed you”--disdainfully. “You say you slept. +Do you think I, who loved you, would take advantage of your sleep to +kiss you? But why talk of it”--with a quick, slighting motion of his +hand--“since it is true?” + +Yes, it was true. Just as holding his hand last night was true, and yet +hell was no falser. + +“Who told you?” she asked quietly, without denial or protest. + +“The person who saw you. And because I would not believe I went +up-stairs to see you, and I saw--but I did not come to talk of what you +know so thoroughly.” + +“Then why did you come?” For the first time her voice was unsteady. To +his informant, as to Wray’s kisses, she never gave a thought; any one +might have seen her as she slept. + +“I came to tell you that I knew it all, everything; that I see now that +from the first day you have been your mother’s daughter. Forgive my +rudeness; it is an easy way--of putting it.” + +“I don’t understand.” How cold it was growing, and how dark, she +thought irrelevantly. Why could he not finish and go? + +He pulled a card from his pocket. + +“Who kept this from Cristiane?” he said roughly. “Was it you?” + +“So you want to go back to your Cristiane?” For one second her eyes +flashed. + +“I don’t care if I never see her again”--impatiently. “Yesterday, God +forgive me, I would have let her die for you.” + +Yesterday! The utter change in his voice hurt. + +“Don’t you see it isn’t Cristiane who is in question? It’s what you +did, or did not. Tell me, did you keep that card?” + +“I kept it,” very evenly. “I loved you, and I was afraid of her.” + +“You loved me?” he laughed, unbelieving. “Why, you had only seen me +once!” The contemptible thought of his money, his position, crowded +into his brain and maddened him. “Oh, not me!” he ended in a tone that +was an insult. + +But she never noticed it. + +She sat down on the stile, as if she were tired. That stile where the +gate of heaven had been closed on her. + +“So you came about that note and Wray!” she said. “Well, I did both +things! What next?” + +It was Cylmer’s turn to wince. + +“This next,” he answered, and he could not meet her eyes, that once had +been so sweet, so serene. “It was for your sake, because I pitied you, +that I told nothing of all I knew about your mother. When you asked me, +I was silent. And all the time you knew that she was not only unfit to +have charge of an innocent girl, but was a murderess.” + +“I thought so. Yes.” + +“And then I loved you. And you used my love to find out what the +police were doing. But even your nerves could not keep you from making +mistakes. You fainted when I told you the police were on the murderer’s +track, and I was too blind to know you had excellent reason. And +because I was a fool I gave you that scarab, and I suppose you have +profited by my folly, and destroyed the others, though you had ‘never +seen it before!’” + +“Miles, she is my mother.” Yet there was no pleading in her voice. + +“And I thought I was your lover. But it seems I was mistaken. There is +Wray. I will leave the field to him.” + +For the first time her temper rose. + +“And then you will tell what you know of my mother--and me--to the +police, and the countryside?” she said scathingly. To hear her cut +Cylmer to the quick. + +“That is what I will not do. To my shame, I will help you both to go. +I will let my friend lie unavenged. I will balk the investigation--if +I can, and for my shame I shall know I am a party to a crime. This is +what I came to tell you. It is not safe to stay here a day. You have +that scarab, but by this time a description of it is with all the +police in England, and any day they may be on you. If they ask me again +on my oath if I can identify that photograph, what can I answer? For I +saw your mother in that very attitude, that very dress, admiring her +reflection in a mirror last night. If you want money I will give it to +you; but make an excuse to Cristiane, and get your mother away. Let me +never see her again, that I may forget her.” + +“And me? You would forget me?” her voice oddly flat and lifeless. + +“Forget you? I would give my soul if I could,” simply. But there was +nothing in his bearing to comfort her. + +“You don’t love me--now?” She persisted. + +“No, not now. It will hurt you very little, as you have Wray.” There +was no taunt in his voice, only misery and conviction. + +She sat, dumb and quivering. + +“If you ever loved me, go!” he cried. “Can’t you see that any hour you +may be tracked?” + +Like lightning she was on her feet, facing him. Her eyes were splendid +in the dusk, her beauty appalling as she spoke. + +“If I ever loved you!” she cried. “I, who loved you as a nun adores +the cross; who was wicked, heartless, altogether evil, till you made me +see that truth and goodness were things to live and die for! It was for +your sake I fought for my mother. I hated her till I knew you; now I +pity her with all my heart. + +“Miles, if you listen now, I can tell you what would make even you +pitiful. I can show you what a lying truth yesterday was--only hear me.” + +“I would not believe you,” he cried wretchedly. “I should go home and +know it was only another act in the play; that you----” + +With a gesture she stopped him; she had raised both her hands with a +movement that was magnificent. She spoke solemnly, as a priest who +calls down the wrath of God. + +“Then it is on your head,” she said, and he could but just hear her. +“The sin, the crime, all that will come if you send me away. If I go +from you it will be to become all you think me; neither truth nor honor +nor pity will ever spring in me again. You will hear of me, and know +that it was you who made me that thing that I shall be; the memory of +it shall haunt you in life; it will cry out against you at the judgment +day. + +“As for my mother”--superb, powerful, she held him with her eyes--“I +will bring that crime home--but not to my mother. I would have told +you all the truth to-day, but you sealed my lips. I could tell you of +a thing so wicked that even I could not see it done--but why should I +warn you, when you think I am a liar?” + +“My God, Ismay! What are you saying?” A thought so awful in his mind +that he caught her by the arm till her flesh was bruised. + +“Let me go!” She wrenched herself free. “God--I believed in no God +till I knew you. Now, I believe, and as He hears me, I swear the day +will come when for this day’s work you could kill yourself. No, don’t +answer; don’t speak!” contemptuously. “By and by you will know that +once I was true, and by then I shall be a thing to shudder at, with +death on my hands----” Her voice broke wildly. “But the guilt of it +will be on you. I wash my hands of it. Take your ring. I was never fit +to wear it. But when I am dead and in hell, you can remember that you +put me there.” + +“Tell me what you mean!” authoritatively. + +“I came to tell you--and you would not hear me. Now it is too late.” +All her excitement was gone, her words were as quick and irrevocable as +Fate. + +“Ismay, love!” the man fairly groaned. “Do you mean me to believe all +you’ve been saying? Wait a minute; speak to me; forget everything but +that I loved you and you drove me mad!” + +“Loved me? A thief, a liar, the daughter of a murderess, whose name is +a byword!” Her voice rang out clear and wicked. + +“Oh, no, Mr. Cylmer! You did not love me. You thought you loved me +yesterday. Farewell!” + +His ring lay unheeded on the ground between them, as he sprang to stop +her. But she was quick and elusive as a shadow. Cylmer, his courage +gone, his heart faint within him, leaned on the stile, as weak as a +woman. + +In all her words there had been only one meaning to him. It was she +who had done it, and not her mother. And it was he who had stirred the +lagging investigation to fresh life. + +Girl, sorceress, woman! Whatever she was, she had been a child in his +hands till to-day. And it was he who had set the noose about her neck! + +“Ismay!” he sobbed once sharply, as a man does, from his very heart’s +core. + +Her blood would be on his head, and he loved her still. And yet she had +been right. Not all she could have said or sworn would have blotted out +those facts that, true or false, stood out so blackly against her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +A NIGHT’S WORK. + + +White, tense, her nerves like an overstrung bow that goes near to +breaking, Ismay ran through the dark to Marchant’s Hold. And as she +entered the great hall door any pity that might have lingered in her +breast was killed. + +Cristiane stood by the fire, dressed for dinner, her bare arms very +fair against her black dress. + +“What! alone, and so late. Wouldn’t he even see you home to-night?” she +laughed, for Ismay’s face was not hard to read. + +“He? Who do you mean?” She did not look a thing to play with as she +stopped short before the girl who mocked her. + +“Miles, of course. Wasn’t he nice to you, Ismay? Or did that card I +never got stick in his throat?” + +That card! So when she lost it, Cristiane had found it. It was she who +had given it to Cylmer. She who had told everything. + +“You did it. You!” She could hardly speak. + +“Yes, it was I,” cheerfully. “You see, I am not such a baby, after all. +But, cheer up. He will come back to-morrow. He won’t mind little things +like those.” + +“You took him to my door last night.” But it was not a question, only a +statement. + +“I withdrew him at once, promptly, when I saw it was a mistake,” calmly. + +And this was the girl whom only yesterday she had nearly died to save! +Well, that was over. She could die now, as she pleased. No more would +an arm be stretched out to protect her. Never again would a mock ghost +play the spy on Marcus Wray. + +Her eyes were very steady, very evil, as she looked up. + +“I took that card, and I am very sorry I did,” she answered quietly. +“He would have loved me without it. You can think of that for your +pains.” + +Cristiane was suddenly afraid, but she gave a last fling. + +“Did he love you very much to-day?” she asked involuntarily. + +Ismay’s face hardened like stone. + +“You are what people call good,” she said slowly; “and I was sorry for +you. I did my best for you--in a fashion. Stand still and let me look +at you--for I may never see you again.” + +Something in her eyes made Cristiane cold. + +“What do you mean?” she shrieked. “Are you going away?” She sprang +forward, and took Ismay’s hand, but the girl shook her off. + +“I am going to bed,” she said shortly. “Tell them not to disturb me. I +stole your note, Cristiane, but you are revenged. You have stolen from +me enough to make me go to bed without my dinner.” + +Lightly, pitilessly, she nodded as she turned away. Let Marcus do what +he liked, it was nothing to her that he should have one more sin on +his shoulders. For if ever a woman was mad with misery, it was Ismay +Trelane that night. + +Still in her outdoor dress she sat crouched on her bed, motionless as +a panther who waits to spring, death-driven, almost hopeless. In the +house the gong sounded for dinner; a servant came to the door, and was +sent petulantly away. Mrs. Trelane, all silks and rustle, knocked in +annoyance. + +“Aren’t you coming down?” she cried. + +“No. Please go away and leave me alone. I shall be all right in the +morning. I’m tired,” with a tearless sob. + +She was weary to the bone. The shock of yesterday had borne hard on her +vigorous young body; the shock of to-day had withered her very soul. +She was faint for want of food, but she could not break bread with +Cristiane or Marcus Wray, and yet she must eat, or this night’s work +would never be done. + +At a tap on her door she opened it, to see Jessie; Jessie, who honestly +loved her for many a kind word given when Cristiane had been cruelly +sharp with the faithful soul. + +“I brought some soup and wine, Miss Ismay,” she said. “Are you sick? +You’re that pale.” + +At the only kind word she had heard all day Ismay Trelane stooped and +kissed the honest, fresh cheek of the servant-woman. + +“No, I’m tired,” she said slowly. “Make them let me be till the +morning. Promise, Jessie.” + +“Will I get you to bed?” confused at the honor done her. “Will I fetch +Miss Cristiane?” + +“Don’t fetch any one, and I’ll lock my door now. I’m afraid of that +ghost.” + +“She don’t walk so early,” said the woman, with simple belief. “Good +night, Miss Ismay. I’ll not come in the morning till you ring.” + +Ismay laughed. + +“That’s a good soul,” she said. “Let me sleep--till I ring.” + +Jessie would scarcely have known her ten minutes later, as she stood in +front of her glass, putting on the old clothes some mood had made her +bring with her to Marchant’s Hold. + +Shabby, ugly, too short, the dress hung on her, the old-fashioned hat +set absurdly on her head. But there was color in her face from the soup +and wine, as she put into a safe hiding-place in her coat the scarab +that was all the clue she had. + +“Vulgar cuff-links are a very small thing to go on,” she reflected; +“but I will try, and in the meantime Cristiane and Miles can find out +what sort of a house this is without me. I don’t think they’ll have +long to wait, either.” + +She looked doubtfully at the few coins she had, as she put them into +her pocket. + +“If they’re not enough, looking at them won’t help,” she thought. “They +will get me there, and that’s all I care for. If I fail I am not likely +to need any. If I don’t fail”--she laughed--“some one else will pay my +fare for the last time to Marchant’s Hold.” + +She opened her door noiselessly and listened. There was only the +cheerful clink that came intermittently from the dining-room. There was +not a step or a sound on her floor. + +Without a click to betray her, she locked her door behind her, +pocketing the key. Her room was in darkness, and no one would know the +key was gone till late in the morning; when it did not matter if the +whole world knew. + +“Marcus may be certain I’ve gone to London, but it will take a cleverer +man than Marcus to find me,” she thought, as she went softly down the +stairs. The dining-room door was closed, the servants safe inside, the +front door swung noiselessly on its hinges as she slipped out unseen, +and closed it behind her without one telltale sound. + +In the dark she stood looking at the house, with curiously hard eyes. + +She was free. She was going to London with that scarab in her pocket, +to bring home his crime to the man who did it. Going alone, almost +penniless, to the cold winter streets, friendless, powerless, but +determined. And she left behind her, at the mercy of the merciless, +the girl whose only protection she had been. Left her with scarcely a +thought, without pity, with nothing in her hand but the one purpose--to +clear her mother before Cylmer and the world, to get out of Wray’s +power forever. + +A train would leave the station for London at half-past nine. At twelve +o’clock she would be there, with just one night’s start of Marcus +Wray. One night in which to ruin him. The girl’s lips tightened as she +hurried along her lonely road. + +“I may have more. They don’t know me at the station, and they will +never think it is a girl dressed like this whom he means. He will ask +for Miss Trelane, and I don’t look much like Miss Trelane.” + +She was right, for the man who sold her her ticket never glanced at +her. There had been an excursion to some races, and the station was +crowded. The shabbily dressed girl got into her third-class carriage +unnoticed. And once the train started and she was safe, she dropped +asleep, in utter weariness, never once stirring till they were in the +London station. + +She got out, and went quickly from the glaring lights and the crowd +into the comparative darkness of the streets. It was well they were +used to her locked door, otherwise they might have telegraphed and +stopped her. But once out of the station she was secure. + +Twelve o’clock, and the night before her, fresh and rested with her +sleep, but no tangible plan in her head, no notion of what she meant +to do. She trudged aimlessly through the streets. Once she passed a +lighted music-hall, and thought of her first meeting with Cylmer, but +with a curious distance, as if of a man long dead. + +Gradually, she left the thronged streets behind her, still unconscious +where she was going, till at last she stood in an open square, and knew +where she was. Round her were the lights of Onslow Square; at her very +feet the steps of Lord Abbotsford’s house. + +What had drawn her to that dreadful place, alone in the night? What had +guided her straying feet? She could see the windows of that little room +where the dreadful thing had been done. They were in darkness, like the +rest of the windows, but she knew them. + +Oh! why had she come here? Why was she wasting the priceless hours +like this? She turned to run, sick and trembling, but something black +on the door-step caught her eye. Ismay stooped down and peered at the +shapeless bundle. + +It was a very little boy, a bootblack, asleep on the homeless stones. +His box was clasped tight in his arms, and he sobbed in his sleep. + +The pity of the thing came home to the girl who had also nowhere to go, +no shelter from the freezing rain that was beginning to fall. She had +a shilling in her pocket besides what must pay for her breakfast, and +surely it was her guardian angel that prompted her to give it to the +boy. + +Very gently she touched his thin shoulder. + +He started up, awake at once, defiant, yet frightened, like a true +London waif. + +“Let me alone,” he said. “I ain’t done nothing. Who are you, anyway?” + +“I’m sleeping out, like you,” she answered. “But I’m grown up, and +you’re too little,” with a kind of reckless fellowship that reassured +the boy, who was ready for a run. + +“Ain’t you got nowhere to go, either? Oh!” He stared at her with the +uncanny wisdom of the streets. + +“Do you know anywhere to go if I give you a shilling?” she asked, more +for the comfort of talking than for anything else. + +“I can go home if I’ve a bob. I daresent without any money. Mother’d +lick me, and I’m sick. Will you give me a bob, honest? And no tracts, +nor nothing?” + +She nodded, ashamed by this time of her impulse. + +What had made her such a fool, when she might starve to-morrow for want +of that shilling? + +The boy stood up and stared resentfully at the dark house in front of +them. + +“It’s no good staying here. The man won’t let me in. He kicked me down +the steps last time I rung.” + +“Let you in!” She looked with wonder at the dirty, ragged mite. “What +do you want to go in for?” + +“I want to tell them something. It’s a shame,” with a man’s oath. “They +had Billy Cook in, and asked him things, and gave him half a crown, and +he didn’t know nothin’! And it was me that ought to had it. It was my +stand opposite, by that muddy crossing, and I took sick that day, and +stayed home ever since, and to-day when I come back Billy had my stand, +and what ought to ‘a’ been mine--and he didn’t know nothing, only +answered silly.” + +“Know nothing about what?” she echoed involuntarily, with no thought of +the answer that was to make her heart leap. + +“About the man that was in that house the day they said there was no +one in. I say, couldn’t you knock at the door, and I’d tell them. And +p’haps they’d give me ’arf a quid, and mother could get too dead drunk +to hit me?” + +“What man? Tell me, quick. I’ll get you more than half a sovereign.” + +She did not know how fierce her voice was till the boy started back +from her. + +“It ain’t no business of yours,” he cried. “I say, you ain’t got +nothing to do with the coppers, ’ave you?” he was on the defensive +instantly, all ready to flee. + +“No; no!” she said, so gently that he believed her. “But if you’ll tell +me, instead of them,” nodding at the big silent house, “I’ll get you +more money than you ever saw in your life.” + +“Girls like you don’t have none,” he retorted, with a distrustful +shiver. + +“I’ll get it for you in the morning. You needn’t let me out of your +sight all night, not till it’s in your hand, if you’ll tell me all you +know.” + +The boy gave a cheerful whirl. + +“Golly! I bet Billy Cook’ll be sick,” he exclaimed. “Do you mean it; +hope you may die?” + +“Hope I may die,” she asserted gravely, her marvelous eyes, that even +the child saw, bent on him. “But not here. Let’s walk on somewhere out +of the rain. I’m cold.” + +“I’m always cold,” returned the small bootblack. + +“It ain’t nothin’ when you’re used to it. But we’d better keep movin’; +cops comes round when you stands.” + +“Go on about the man,” she said shortly. “How do you know it was the +day of the murder?” + +“Ho! I’m not blind. Why, you never see such a how d’ye do in your +life. Cabs, and perlice, and reporters, and the cook screaming in the +area. I knowed right enough, but I never knowed they were looking for +no man till I come back to-day, and Billy Cook said so. He punched +me, too, because he’d got my stand, and I wanted it. And when I said +that ’arf-crown was mine, he punched me again. So I went to the house, +and the man told me to get out with my lies. They’d had the square +bootblack in a’ready. Billy Cook,” scornfully, “that never see the +square in his life till I got took bad with brownkeeters. He didn’t +see no man come out of the house, any day.” + +“Did you?” + +The great clock on the church-tower struck one. If the boy did not +hurry it would be too late to-night for what was in her mind. + +“I saw him go in about half after one. I saw a woman go in and out +twice, too; but that was after three. The last time there was a girl +with her, and they whispered, and while the woman was in a gentleman +went in and come out again quick. Him that raised the fuss afterward. +But my man he never come out till half-past four. I heard the clock, +when it was dusklike. He never see me, and he walked quick. And he was +crossing the street by my stand when he drops something out of his +hand, quick, right in the middle of the road, in the traffic. So I +jumped to get it before a bus went over it, and it was just a little +blue glass bottle that smelled funny.” + +“What did you do with it?” She was exultant, treading on air, the rain +falling unfelt on her thinly clad shoulders. And yet she dreaded that +at a question the boy’s story would fall to the ground. + +“Put it in my box. It’s there now. You bet I didn’t tell Billy Cook +anything about it to-day, when he was smelling round! I was sick when I +went home, and I never thought of it till to-day, and the man wouldn’t +let me speak.” + +“What did he look like, the man you saw come out of the house?” + +“He was big, and ugly, without no mustache. I’d know him if I see him. +Say, do you suppose there was stuff in that bottle to kill a man?” + +“I don’t know. Let me see it.” + +The boy yawned; but he took it from his box as they walked. In the +light of a street-lamp Ismay looked at it, shaking with excitement. An +ordinary chemist’s bottle, of blue glass, without a label. She pulled +out the cork, and a faint odor of bitter almonds met her nostrils. + +Prussic acid! And the bottle had held enough to kill ten men! + +In a wild fit of laughter that made the boy start, she shook from head +to foot. + +“Can’t you remember anything else about him?” she gasped, at last. + +“Dirty cuffs,” said the boy doubtfully. “I saw ’em in the lights when +he passed the shop at the corner. Oh! and blue things on them, on the +one next me.” + +“Blue things! What like?” + +“Oh, I dunno! They were blue. Studs, I guess. He was awful ugly, and +thin.” + +Ismay stopped short on the soaking pavement, and whistled to a belated +hansom. + +“Come on; we’re going to get that money!” she said, and before the boy +could object she had jerked him adroitly into the cab. + +But as she gave the driver an address that made him stare, her bold +heart was quailing. In another hour she might have given her own mother +over to be hanged! At best it would be touch and go. She caught the +bootblack’s dirty hand and clung to it despairingly, as if to her only +friend. Something not herself was driving her; something she must obey. +She shook in her terror, sitting close to the dirty little boy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +INTO THE LION’S MOUTH. + + +In the sickness of her suspense Ismay turned to the bootblack. Her +mouth was so stiff and dry that she questioned him chiefly to see if +her tongue would obey her. + +“Why didn’t you go straight to the police and tell them all you knew +this afternoon? That man in the house was only a servant, who didn’t +care what you knew.” + +“I ain’t lucky,” he said cunningly. “It’s all right if they comes to +you, then you has to answer. But it’s never no good to go and blow the +gaff on any one. You gets it in the neck after.” + +“That’s nonsense,” with uneasy sharpness. What if the child were right? + +“I never was in no cab before,” he remarked gaily. “It’s fine, ain’t +it? Where are we going?” + +“We’re nearly there.” She peered out into the silent, dreary streets +evasively. + +“I say, you’re not taking me to no refuge?” he cried suspiciously. +“Because I won’t go, and you can’t make me. I earn my living, I do.” + +“No, we’re not going to--a refuge,” she answered, with a pang at her +heart. For truly she was going into the lion’s mouth. + +They had turned under a stone archway, and the hansom stopped at an +open door, where the cold electric light shone relentlessly. + +She dared not stop to pay the cab, for the boy, with a yell, and a wild +squirm, was trying to get away from her. + +“I ain’t done nothing,” he screeched, “and you’re a liar. You said +you’d nothing to do with the coppers, and you’ve brought me to Scotland +Yard!” + +He bit at her hand as she forced him into the grim hall, under the +glaring lights. + +“Listen!” she cried; “no one’s going to hurt you. It’s I they’ll hurt +if it’s any one. You’re not going to get anything but good.” + +But the bootblack merely roared and kicked. Two policemen, who were +standing by a door, came forward. + +“What’s the matter, miss?” one asked affably. “Has he been picking your +pocket? I beg your pardon, madam!” for Ismay, without slackening her +hold on the writhing child, had looked at him as a queen looks at a +forward servant. + +“He has done nothing,” she said clearly. “Is the inspector here, Mr. +Davids?” she spoke on chance. Davids had been inspector here four years +ago. He might have left or died since then. + +“Yes, madam. But----” he hesitated. “It’s very late, and these things +usually go to the police court.” + +“Go and tell him I want to see him.” The tone was perfectly civil, but +the man went as if he had been shot out of a gun. Who was this that +came so late, in the clothes of a working girl, with the speech and +manner of a duchess? But the inspector, sitting wearily, waiting for a +report, was not much interested. He was too well used to women arriving +at strange hours, and they had generally lost their umbrellas. + +“Let her in,” he said resignedly. “Did you say she was a lady?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Ismay took her last coin from her pocket as the man came out. + +“Pay my hansom,” she said, and heard the second policeman laugh. + +“The like of them coming in hansoms!” And for a moment she regretted +her worn-out, ugly clothes. + +A lady! As the door closed behind her and the struggling boy, who was +fighting dumbly, too terrified to scream, the inspector looked up in +surprise. The girl was as shabby, if not as ragged, as the boy. + +“Please tell him that he is not to be hurt, that he’s safe,” she said +quickly. “He’s so frightened.” + +The inspector looked from her to the child. + +“Then what have you brought him here for at this hour?” he asked +sternly. + +“Because he knows something about the Onslow Square mystery.” Now that +the die was cast and she must speak, she could hardly drag out the +words. + +“What! that child?” said the inspector incredulously. But he rose and +went over to the gasping, terrified boy, and put a kindly hand on his +shoulder. + +“No one will hurt you,” he said, and the firm touch of his hand quieted +the child like magic. + +As he looked up he met Ismay’s eyes, darkly green, but dull as +malachite. + +“Mr. Davids, don’t you know me?” And in spite of her quiet voice he saw +she trembled. + +“I am Ismay Trelane. Do you remember the night you raided my mother’s +house in St. John’s Wood for a gambling-den? I was a child, and afraid. +You stopped me as I was running out of the house, and you carried me +up-stairs to my bed.” + +“Mrs. Trelane is your mother? You are that long-legged child?” He +stood, remembering the utter forlornness of the little girl, her +miserable bedroom in that sumptuous house, her pride that kept her from +crying as she clung to him. + +“How do you come here?” he asked. “I heard your mother had--had gone +back to her relations.” + +The boy, now that they talked of other things, was relieved; also +that no policemen were in the room was reassuring. He sat down in a +frightened way on the edge of a chair, staring at them. + +“I’m going to tell you.” Bravely she held up her small, lovely head, +till he wondered at her beauty and her hard-held agony. “If I’m wrong, +and there isn’t enough to go on----” she caught her breath. + +“Sit down.” The inspector pushed a chair toward her, his weariness all +gone. + +Slowly, clearly, she told him everything, except that Marcus Wray meant +Sir Gaspard’s daughter to die. Let her die; she would no longer raise a +finger to save her. It was not to prevent Wray’s crimes, but to bring +them home to him, that she was here. + +When she came to the scarab she faltered a little, for Davids was +frowning. Yet he could not wonder, looking at her marvelous face, at +Cylmer’s weakness in giving her his secret. He only wondered at the +blindness that had made the man refuse to hear her story. And still, +when it was all done, he shook his head very pitifully. + +“I’m afraid it isn’t enough,” he said, looking at the girl who had come +to London in despair to try and save the mother against whom things +looked so dark. + +Ismay pointed to the boy. + +“Ask him,” she said dully. “I went to Onslow Square. I found him on the +steps, crying because they wouldn’t let him in.” + +The child, who had sat dumb and only half-comprehending, shied at +first, then, under the half-teasing questions of the inspector, grew +garrulous, then proud of his importance. + +“I’d know him fast enough, if I see him,” he observed cheerfully. “He +upset my box when he passed me, and so I run after him, and I see him +drop that bottle. It was shiny, and I run and grabbed it.” + +“Or it would have been ground to powder?” the inspector said musingly. +“It would have been a clever idea if it had worked better.” + +He held out the scarab in its broken setting. + +“Was the blue thing on his cuff like this?” + +“I dunno. I hadn’t time to see. Won’t it soon be morning, mister? I’m +awful hungry.” + +“What are you going to do?” said Ismay, very low. For there had been no +change in that imperturbable face. + +Davids turned round from a cupboard, whence he produced some biscuits +for the boy, who fell on them ravenously. + +“Where does this man Wray live?” he asked, and she told him. + +He locked away the scarab and the bottle in silence, and the girl’s +beautiful face grew blank and wan. Was he going to do nothing? Had she +told her story in vain? + +“I won’t hide anything from you, Miss Trelane,” he said bluntly. “I’m +going myself to Wray’s rooms, and I must tell you if we find nothing +there, and have only this boy’s story to go on, the case against your +mother will scarcely be improved. The child can identify Wray, perhaps, +but he may be able to clear himself with the greatest of ease.” + +Ismay looked at him blankly. Her head ached till the pain numbed her, +her excitement had gone, and instead she felt sick. If she had told +all, only for Cylmer to triumph in her mother’s guilt, what should she +do? Yet her lips never quivered as she nodded in assent. + +“I am going to turn the key on you, too,” he said, so evenly that she +did not know whether he thought her an impostor or not. “And you’d +better try to sleep. I may be a long time.” + +He wondered afresh at her courage as he left her alone with the boy, +in a suspense that must be like the very grasp of death. He was not +too certain of her, either. She seemed truthful, but she was Mrs. +Trelane’s child. A long acquaintance with that lady’s career did not +lead to confidence in her daughter. Hour by hour the night wore on. The +bootblack slept coiled up on the floor; but Ismay sat bolt upright, +wide-awake, her damp clothes drying on her. + +Once she started to her feet at a noise outside. But whoever it was +passed on, and as the dark hour before dawn hung on the earth her head +fell backward on the leather chair. The night was so long, the day so +far off yet, and there was nothing to tell her what the sunrise would +bring. + +Davids, coming in before the first gray light began to make the lights +pale, stopped on the threshold and looked pitifully at the boy and +girl. Both were asleep; the boy with a tear-stained face; the girl +like a lovely marble image, an image of a woman who has drunk deep of +a bitter cup in her youth, and must remember the taste of it till her +dying day. The inspector was a hard man, and this was his trade, but +something in the sight touched his heart. + +“Poor children!” he said softly. “Poor babes that have never been +young,” and, with a gentle hand, he touched Ismay’s shoulder. + +“Wake up!” he cried softly. “You must catch the early train back to the +country. You can’t do any good here.” + +She started to her feet; wan, haggard, with black rings round her eyes. + +“Me alone?” she said. He noted approvingly that she showed no symptom +of screaming. “Yes, alone. It is our only chance. Can you get into your +room without being seen?” + +“I think so, if there’s time.” + +Her eyes widened like a cat’s as she looked at his face. She was awake +now to the new day. And at what she saw there she cried out aloud, her +icy calm shattered at last. + +“You’ve been very brave. Can you be braver still?” the man said slowly. + +And the girl, whose strength was nearly done, said “yes.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +“SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!” + + +The conversation had been exciting enough, yet Mr. Wray was bored. + +“Where is Ismay?” he asked shortly, as he finished his very late +breakfast. + +Mrs. Trelane shrugged her shoulders. + +“She’s in bed. She told Jessie she wasn’t to be disturbed till she +rang.” + +Wray’s eyebrows went up. Truly, these were airs in a girl who had been +used to cooking her own breakfast, and been glad to have it to cook. + +“I’ll go to her.” Mrs. Trelane rose quickly, reading his face +anxiously. She had watched him open his letters, and she had seen +annoyance in his face. + +“What do you want Ismay for?” Cristiane inquired coquettishly. + +Wray suppressed a bad word. All the previous evening Cristiane, whose +successes had gone to her head, had fairly flung herself at his head. +She had sung to him, talked to him, bored him, till he could have +strangled her. And now she was hammering the last few nails into her +coffin. + +“I don’t want her, especially,” he said coldly, wishing the little fool +would hold her tongue. + +Cristiane laughed. + +“Do you know what I think?” she asked. “I think you are in love with +her.” + +Under the table he shut one hand hard. + +“Do you? Why? + +“Ain’t people in love when they kneel down beside a girl, and kiss her, +once, twice, twenty times?” nodding her head knowingly at each number. + +Wray was for a moment taken back. + +So the little fool had seen him! Now she had begun to suspect; the next +thing she would begin to talk, perhaps to Cylmer; and if he carried out +his schemes it would be with a light on them that would make them plain +to the world. + +Cristiane had signed her own death-warrant. She was no longer innocent, +but dangerous and in the way. To-night she should be no longer one nor +the other. He looked at her with that frank gaze that always cloaked +his worst deceits. + +“When a man dare not ask for what he wants, because it is so far above +him, do you blame him for taking--what he can get?” His voice, full of +hopeless longing, made the blood of triumph spring to her cheeks. Here +again she would defeat Ismay! + +“Yes,” she said, her eyes on the table-cloth. “You could have--tried! +You need not have kissed her,” pettishly, “before my very eyes.” + +“Cristiane!” he was on his feet at her side, his voice thrilling with +simulated joy and passion; “you’re angry because I kissed her? You +care?” + +She did not care, beyond her vanity that was piqued, but she was afraid +to say so. Somehow the man dominated her till she sat an arrant coward. +She trembled before his eyes, that were full of a passion that she +thought was love; she had no intuition to tell her that it was hatred +and the threat of death. + +“I--I don’t know!” she stammered. + +“You shall know!” he retorted, knowing better than to plead with her. +His hand, softly brutal, was under her chin. “Kiss me,” he ordered. +“Tell me you love me.” + +Like a frightened child, she repeated the words, and he knew she +lied as she spoke. He was right, she was dangerous; weak, obstinate, +self-willed, with an utterly unbridled tongue. + +“Kiss me,” he repeated, longing to choke her instead, and having +nothing but distaste for her peachlike cheek, her parted lips. He was +relieved that she sprang away from him--and she never dreamed that he +let her go. + +From the door she looked back provokingly. “Not now--perhaps to-night!” +and she went off singing. + +Mrs. Trelane heard her, as, having been in a hurry despite her hasty +retreat, she stood leisurely at Ismay’s door. Her shrewd ears caught +the excited note in the girl’s voice. + +“He’s been making love to her,” she thought astutely. + +“Marcus making love at this hour in the morning! Can he mean to go that +way for his money, after all?” She knocked, this time with earnestness, +at Ismay’s locked door. It opened on the instant. + +Ismay, dressed as usual, stood inside, her eyes a little heavy, her +face unnaturally flushed. She had got back by the early train, driving +from the station to the gate in a fly, moneyless no longer, thanks to +Davids; by eight o’clock had gained her room, unseen by any one, since +the servants were at breakfast, and the rest of the house waiting till +half-past eight should bring their tea and hot water. + +As the girl bathed and dressed herself it almost seemed to her that +it was a dream, that she could never have been in London and got back +again in those few hours while the house slept. Only the instructions +she had from Davids told her it was no dream, but reality. At the sight +of her mother, for the first time in all her life she flung her arms +round her and kissed her. + +Mrs. Trelane gazed at her stupidly. + +“What’s the matter?” she drawled. “Why do you greet me as if I had been +buried for years? This isn’t the resurrection day.” + +Ismay smiled wickedly. It was more like the day of judgment, to her +mind. + +“What on earth have you been shutting yourself up for?” Mrs. Trelane +inquired crossly. “And why didn’t you answer last night when there was +all that fuss? You must have heard me knocking.” + +“What fuss? I told you long ago I wouldn’t open my door at night. I was +tired, too. I wanted to rest.” + +“You don’t look as if repose had agreed with you,” said her mother +acidly. “Your face is blazing, and I don’t see how you could rest with +Cristiane screaming. Don’t you want any breakfast?” + +“I’ve had it,” shortly, curiosity overwhelming her. “What was she +screaming about?” + +“That ghost of yours and Thomas’,” she began contemptuously, but her +face fell. “It’s too queer to be nice in this big house at night,” she +added, closing the door behind her and sitting down. “I don’t wonder +the girl screamed. I was frightened to death.” + +“My ghost couldn’t have frightened you last night!” For her life, Ismay +could not help the retort, but she was puzzled. “What do you mean?” + +“Well, the ghost, then,” quite unconscious of the significance of the +girl’s manner. “You were shut up in here, and I went to bed early. +Marcus and Cristiane stayed down-stairs----” + +“You left them together?” Ismay broke in with real dismay, for +Cristiane had probably profited by the opportunity to air Ismay’s +acquaintance with Cylmer. + +“I’m not Providence!” said the woman smartly; “and, besides, I had +neuralgia. At all events they sat up late, and when they came up-stairs +they heard that music. Marcus, of course, didn’t know Cristiane had +never heard about it, and he told her Thomas’ nonsense about the ghost.” + +“How did he know about it?” + +“Oh, I told him! I was frightened one night myself. Ismay,” her face +changing, “as sure as I see you this minute, I heard those awful steps, +coming closer and closer, till I was paralyzed with fear. And, later +on, Marcus went up-stairs to see who was playing that piano, and his +candle went out the moment he entered the room.” + +“I told you this wasn’t a nice house at night. But go on. What happened +last night?” + +“Well, Cristiane had hysterics--you must have heard her; declared her +father couldn’t rest in his grave, and what not. She nearly choked +Marcus holding on round his neck, so that he couldn’t go up and see. I +couldn’t stop her, and up came Thomas, half-dressed, and Jessie, and +altogether we got Cristiane to stop her shrieking. + +“Then Marcus ran up-stairs, and Thomas after him, begging him to let +the room alone. ‘There was a curse on it.’” + +“Well, did he?” with sudden interest. + +“That’s the queer part. When he got up there the door was locked, and +Thomas said he hadn’t locked it. Marcus was going to break open the +door, and I thought the old man would have killed him. He said that his +dead master’s orders were that no one was to enter that room, and he +was there to see them obeyed. Even Marcus had to give in to him.” + +“Good for Thomas!” the girl observed quietly. “Was the spirit playing +all this time?” + +“No; it was quieter than the grave. So Marcus shrugged his +shoulders--you know how he does--and we came down-stairs again. There +wasn’t another sound all night. But to-night he and Cristiane are going +up to investigate after Thomas is in bed. They planned it at breakfast, +and she’s going to get a key. I don’t know what Marcus is up to, for +I don’t think he believes in ghosts. I suppose it will be a good +opportunity for flirtation, for lately I think he’s made up his mind to +marry her.” + +“To-night, are they?” For some unknown reason Miss Trelane leaned back +in her chair and laughed, wrinkling up her eyes deliciously. + +“Oh, I don’t think he’ll marry her,” she remarked. “You forget he means +to marry me.” + +Mrs. Trelane flushed under her powder. + +“How do you know?” she said, with sudden suspicion. + +“If I don’t know it’s not for want of hearing,” the retort remarkably +misleading in its truth. + +“Oh, mother, how I hate him, don’t you? He has been our evil genius +ever since Abbotsford was murdered.” + +“I hate him well enough,” said her mother sullenly; “but I don’t want +him to tell I took those diamonds. I could never prove myself innocent +of the other, if it came out that it was I who took those.” + +“And yet you are innocent. You haven’t blood enough to sin--like that.” + +“Have you?” asked the woman, aghast, for the cold, queer eyes were a +thing to shudder at. + +“I wouldn’t murder; it’s generally so messy. But I could stand by if I +hated a man, and see him commit a murder, just so that I might see him +hanged for it. And so,” very deliberately, “would you!” + +“Ismay, you know?” the wretched woman, whose cunning had failed her, +crouched abjectly in her chair, as she whispered the words. + +“I know nothing; neither do you,” Ismay rejoined sternly. “But he +would--hang!” The words came out slowly, separately, like the blows of +a hammer. + +“I couldn’t see it,” the woman was sobbing wildly, the girl’s face set +like a rock. “Besides, he’d tell before he died--about the diamonds--it +wouldn’t be safe. Ismay, Ismay, you’re stronger than I ever was. For +God’s sake, save me from myself!” + +And it was the mother who bore her who was agonized at her daughter’s +feet, who prayed to her for help against herself. + +“Save me from myself!” the girl repeated mechanically. Was that her own +prayer, too? She trembled, and did not know. + +The next instant she was kneeling by her mother’s chair. + +“Mother, don’t look like that; don’t speak like that,” she implored, +and even Miles Cylmer would not have known the voice was hers. “I did +not mean it. I only said it from wickedness.” + +And all through that day that seemed unending, Ismay Trelane, eating, +drinking, talking, was fighting a battle between the good and evil in +her soul. + +Desperately, she thrust aside the importunate cry that rose in her +mind, bidding her kneel down and cry it aloud with her lips. + +“Save me from myself!” + +Fiercely, she tried to kill the best impulse of her life, and harden +her heart for the end. + +Cristiane, dead, could never get Cylmer back again, and Marcus Wray was +doomed already. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +“THE DEED IN THE DARK.” + + +The house was dark as the grave; quiet as death. From somewhere a clock +struck the hour with one solemn stroke, that clanged and echoed through +the silent halls. + +Mrs. Trelane, lying sleepless in her bedroom, where she had been sent +like a beaten dog by one glance from Wray, sprang up with causeless +terror. Only the remembrance of Ismay’s locked door kept her from +running to the girl for companionship, but she dared not stand outside +that door, even for one minute, and knock in vain, with perhaps those +awful steps behind her. + +Cowering in her pillows, she listened, but heard no more. Even to +herself she would not own that what she feared was not so much the +ghost, as what Marcus Wray might be going to do this night in the dark. +For she had seen him look once at Cristiane that day, and the look held +death in it. + +Once, earlier in the night, she had fancied she heard the noiseless +tread of cautious feet, as though people passed her door silently. She +had looked out, then, and seen nothing but Ismay, pale as death itself, +standing alone in the still lighted hall. + +“What’s the matter?” the girl said. “Don’t say you want me, because +I’m going to bed,” and she went into her room and locked the door +carelessly, as though death and retribution were left outside. + +There were quiet steps again now, but Mrs. Trelane’s fingers were in +her ears, and she never heard them. + +Marcus Wray and Cristiane had come up silently, he with a light in one +hand, the other round Cristiane’s waist, that terror might not make +her break away from him. + +Frightened she was, but like a child who enjoys a game that startles +it, but also a little afraid of the arm that was so grimly protective. +It was amusing to be hunting ghosts at night with a man who was in love +with you; but it was also, somehow, disquieting. + +There was not a sound as they stood at the turn of the stairs, with +only half a dozen more steps to mount to the hall the haunted room +opened from. Wray stopped, candle in hand. It was no ghost-hunting that +had brought him up here at the dead of night. + +“Why didn’t you go on?” she whispered. + +He kissed her, almost savagely. + +“I don’t hear anything. I’m waiting for the music.” + +“Oh, I’m frightened of it! I don’t want to hear it. Let us go down.” +Their voices were echoing in the hall above as in a whispering gallery. + +“Down!” The man held his candle aloft, and looked down the well of the +stairs. Down, down, it went till his eye lost in the blackness the hard +oak floor of the great hall below. There was no one to see him, and his +face was the face of a devil. He set his candle on the stair. + +“You can go down--presently,” he answered recklessly. He took a sharp +sideways step so that she was pressed near the banister. Far below +he saw the light of a candle. Thomas was carrying it, the old man +was coming up-stairs. It was all the better; an accident, without a +witness, sometimes smelled of murder. How slowly Thomas was mounting +the stairs! If some one in the hall above had seen Wray’s face, the +glare in his eyes, and caught their breath in swift horror, there might +have been precisely the little sound that reached Cristiane’s ears. + +“What was that? I heard a noise,” she whispered, gazing up the stairs +with great, startled eyes. + +“Nothing!” said Wray furiously. Thomas was nearly up now. + +“Cristiane!” Wray cried at the top of his voice: “what are you doing up +here? There’s no ghost, don’t run. For God’s sake, take care of those +banisters--they’re rotten!” and with God’s name on his lips in the lie +that was to make Thomas a witness who would clear him, he shoved her +suddenly, savagely, against the banisters, that were frail as reeds +with dry rot. + +Cristiane screamed the long, wild cry of a woman in the last pinch of +fear. + +“Help me!” she shrieked again, and for one second his grasp of her +relaxed. She had fallen flat on the stairs, still pressed against the +banisters where they were socketed in the steps. + +Wray put his shoulder against the rail; it cracked, crashed, with half +the uprights, down into the awful depths below. Only half-against the +splintered lower part Cristiane lay huddled. + +With an inarticulate curse, Marcus Wray stooped to do deliberate +murder, to pick up the girl, whose only sin was her wealth and her +defenselessness. Thomas was not come yet; there was no witness. + +But was there? + +Who was that who stood just above him, in a curious white satin gown, +marked with blood on the breast? Who stood dead-white through her +flimsy gauze veil, her eyes burning like cold, green flames? + +He looked, he sprang, kicking over the candle so that there was +darkness. But in that one glance he had known her. It was Ismay who +had played the ghost. Ismay who had seen him now! Beyond himself with +rage and terror, he leaped after her in the dark. In the dark she ran, +voiceless, weakened by the long strain on her, the horror of what she +had been within an ace of allowing to be done. + +A square of moonlight marked the open door that was her safety. She +leaped to it, but Marcus Wray was quicker still. Her flying dress +caught round her feet as he seized it. She fell headlong on the hard, +oak threshold, her head striking it with a dull and awful sound. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +“HEAVENLY TRUE.” + + +Over that quiet body, that had been so quick to dare and do, and need +do neither any more, a furious struggle in the dark, of three men +against one, who saw himself caught red-handed, and fought, not for his +own life, but to kill. + +Then lights in the haunted room, quiet only broken by the hard +breathing of panting men; Marcus Wray, with handcuffs on his wrists, +held fast by two policemen in plain clothes, a small and dirty boy +yelling with excitement: + +“That’s him! That’s the man. I told you I’d know him!” + +Thomas, haggard with frightened amazement, peering in at the door; +behind him Cristiane, crying desperately; Mrs. Trelane in a sumptuous +tea-gown, half-on, that was incongruous with her face, so wan without +its rouge and powder. + +Davids, his hard face full of triumph, since the unraveling of the +Onslow Square mystery was a glory even to him, stepped forward and +touched Marcus Wray’s shoulder. + +“For the murder of the Earl of Abbotsford,” he said, and Wray laughed +in his face. + +“You’ve no proofs!” he sneered. + +Davids drew out a broken cuff-link, a scarab from which a thin chain +dangled. + +“I found this in your rooms,” he said, “and the other half of it one of +my men found in Lord Abbotsford’s bedroom. And this boy saw you go in +and go out on the day of Lord Abbotsford’s murder; saw the blue thing +on your cuff as you threw the bottle that had held the poison into the +middle of the traffic at the corner, to be ground to powder.” + +Once more Wray laughed. + +He had seen a laden omnibus go over the very spot where he had flung +the bottle. + +“Powder, exactly!” he said. “And neither your boy nor your scarabs are +any use without that bottle.” Yet the scarabs had staggered even him. +He had forgotten to take them out; they had gone to the wash in his +shirt, and his washerwoman had returned them with tears, believing she +had broken off one of them in her ironing. + +And Wray, thinking so, too, had never given the missing scarab another +thought. The whole link and the broken one had been lying openly on his +dressing-table last night when the inspector had broken into his rooms. + +He had never thought of Abbotsford even when he fought so madly on +the threshold. It was that these men had seen his attempted murder of +Cristiane le Marchant that had made his case so desperate. + +Davids glanced at him, and at the look his lips grew dry. + +“I have the bottle,” the inspector said simply. “The boy kept it to +play with.” + +Wray looked from one to the other, like a devil incarnate that is +beaten. + +“May I ask you how you found out this rot?” He could not speak with the +old voice, but he tried. + +“I found it out because a girl was too shrewd and brave for you. Miss +Trelane, by a coincidence, obtained that broken cuff-link; she knew +the hold the stolen diamonds had given you on her mother; she came to +London by chance, came on the only night since the murder when she +could lay her hands on the evidence that was wanted; she found the boy, +and brought him straight to me, with the broken bit of jewelry that I +found the other half of in your room.” + +“She? Ismay!” His oath sounded loud in the quiet room. “She was a spy! +Well, it’s a comfort to me to know that I’ve killed her!” + +He stretched out his manacled hands and pointed where the girl lay on +the floor, face down. + +No one had noticed her at first. She had tripped and lay still, worn +out--that was all. + +But they looked now on a huddled heap of white satin, on slow blood +that oozed scarlet from her hidden forehead. + +Cristiane screamed from the depths of a penitent soul: + +“She’s dead! He’s killed her. And it was she who saved me just now. He +was trying to push me through the banisters, and I looked up and saw +her. She motioned with her hand for me to drop down flat, and I did. +It saved me, for the upper part of the banisters went, as I would have +gone if I’d been standing. I thought it was the ghost, but I saw her +eyes, and I knew her. I dropped as she meant me to, and then he stooped +to throw me over, and she sprang at him from behind. Oh! Ismay!” she +threw herself on the floor by the slight figure that was so awful in +its stillness. “Ismay, look up! Forgive me! Don’t lie like that!” + +But Ismay did not stir. + +Davids put out a hand that shook in his dread, to draw Cristiane away. + +But some one was quicker than he; some one who hurled himself through +the doorway, brushing past Thomas and Mrs. Trelane as if he did not see +them. + +Cylmer, by merest chance, had been hunting twenty miles off, doing +his best to forget the girl he loved, had stayed to dine with a noisy +party, and came back by train. + +As he stood on the station platform, waiting for his dog-cart, a man +had touched him on the shoulder. + +“Kivers!” he cried. “What brings you here?” + +“Good news for you, Mr. Cylmer!” the man said softly, though there was +no one in hearing. “The inspector has discovered Lord Abbotsford’s +murderer. He and three of the force are at Marchant’s Hold now. I’m +waiting here, in case there’s any accidents, and they make a run for +the station.” + +“They! Marchant’s Hold!” Cylmer was sick. Then the blow had fallen! + +“I’m going there,” he said, through set lips. Was he too late? Could he +carry off Ismay, or would he find her with handcuffs on her wrists? + +“Wait; they won’t let you in; our men won’t know you.” Kivers thrust +a hastily scrawled card in Cylmer’s hand, wondering not at all at his +excitement, when at last the murderer of his friend was in his hands. + +But the groom on the back of the two-wheeled cart prayed to the saints, +and clung for his life; the galloping horse, the swaying dog-cart, and +a master who had suddenly gone crazy, were too much for him. The wind +whistled past Cylmer’s ears with the speed of his going, but it seemed +years before he stopped his reeking, blown horse at Marchant’s Hold. He +was forced to wait while a policeman on guard read Kivers’ note and let +him into the house. + +But there was not a soul to be seen, not a sound anywhere. As he +listened in the dark, not knowing which way to turn, he heard a woman +sob, up-stairs, far above him. He was up three steps at a time, lost in +wonder as he ran. What in Heaven’s name were they doing in the garret? + +An open door; a lighted room; Mrs. Trelane and Thomas barring the way. + +Mrs. Trelane, free, scathless! + +Then it must be Ismay--Ismay! And he was too late. + +He could not move nor speak for the cruel pain that brought the cold +sweat on his forehead. + +“Ismay.” He listened, silent, breathless; he dared not go in lest he +should see her, now that he was too late. + +Davids’ voice, cold, incisive, startled him; then Wray’s. Yet it was +not till Cristiane was kneeling by Ismay that he saw her. And then he +saw nothing else. He was down by her side, lifting her, her blood on +his hands, his heart craving her. The girl his self-righteousness had +rejected, who, because he would not hear her and help her, had fought +her battle alone--to die from it. + +He would not, would not have it! She was stunned; it must be that she +was stunned. But the heart under his hand did not even flicker. + +“Are you going to let her die here?” he cried. “Move, Cristiane; let +me carry her to her bed. You are her mother”--turning fiercely on Mrs. +Trelane--“send some one for a doctor!” + +Tenderly, jealously, he lifted her, whom no other hands should touch. +And as he carried her her lovely head fell backward on his arm, her +hands hung at his side, swaying like a dead woman’s. + +Masterfully, as one who has a right, he sponged the blood from her +face, when she lay on her bed in her fantastic dress. There was but a +simple cut on her forehead--not enough to make her unconscious. + +“Why is she dressed like this?” he said sternly to Mrs. Trelane, who +stood, dazed and helpless, not even wondering why he was there. + +“The house was said to be haunted. She played the ghost to overhear +Marcus at night talking to me. She played it to-night to save +Cristiane, and to get Marcus up to the room where the police waited for +him,” for the inspector had spoken brutal truths to her, and at last +she knew what the girl had done for her sake. + +She drew the bloody scarf from Ismay’s head, and Cylmer could see. +Under her left ear was a bruise--only a little bruise; yet he groaned +as he saw it. Wray, as she tripped, had struck her there, as a +prize-fighter strikes, with the deadly accuracy of knowledge. No one +should have her if he could not. + +It was a man hopeless and helpless whom the doctor sent from the room, +for it was he who had done it. If he had heard her out that day she +would even now be warm with life. + +Mechanically, he found his way to the empty drawing-room, where one +lamp burned, forgotten. + +In the house were noises of many feet, as Davids and his men took +away Marcus Wray with handcuffs on his wrists; a going to and fro of +frightened servants on the staircases; then the hush of a house where a +soul is passing. But Miles Cylmer knew none of these things. + +He was down upon his face in very hell. + +If it were he, not she, who must die! How should he rise and look upon +the day when they came to tell him his love was dead? + +How should he live, when in a few days they would commit her sweet body +to the dust? + +As though tears of blood were rising from his heart to his eyes the +man looked into a red mist as some one came into the room, and he sat +up. + +It was the doctor. + +“Well?” It was all Cylmer could say. + +“I don’t know.” His voice changed suddenly to deepest pity at the +haggard face before him, livid as if with years. “My dear Cylmer, I +don’t know. She is alive; but the blow must have been a cruel one. She +may live for days in a stupor, as she lies now.” + +“And then?” + +“She is young and strong. She may have vitality enough----” But he +could not finish. He knew that in all human probability the candle of +her life would burn lower and lower, till scarcely even he would know +when it was burned away. + +“Can I go to her? I was going to marry her.” + +Cylmer’s voice was perfectly steady as he rose, a strange figure in +his overcoat, that he had never taken off, a scarlet stain on its +fawn-colored sleeve. + +The doctor nodded. + +“She won’t know you, Cylmer--she has never opened her eyes; but she +breathes still. I’ll be here till morning.” + +“Breathes still.” The gentle words rang in Cylmer’s ears as he went +up-stairs. But yesterday she had been all his own; to-day all that pity +could find to say was that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +“AND WHO IS THIS?” + + +For a day and a night he watched her as she lay. Sometimes he leaned +over her in sudden fright that she had ceased to breathe; sometimes he +fancied she stirred, that her eyelids quivered. But neither the good +nor the bad was true. The slow hours came and passed and died, and +there was no change on that quiet face. + +Cylmer turned away as the nurse approached the bed, bearing wine and +a spoon. He hated that useless cruelty of trying to feed her. It +sickened him to see the things they gave her ooze from the corners of +her lips. + +He stood leaning by the window and watched with listless inattention a +carriage driving to the door. Curious visitors came by the score, to +be turned away. Cristiane had no heart to see them; Mrs. Trelane, with +the prospect of going into court to account for those stolen diamonds +before her, would face no one. + +A quick, cautious cry from the nurse made Cylmer turn. With two strides +he was at the bedside. Had Ismay gone--passed from him without a word, +while he looked out on the sky whose glory was gone forever? + +“She’s not----” + +“Quick! Go tell the doctor to come here! He’s down-stairs with the +specialist from London. She swallowed that champagne.” + +Before the woman could lay down the spoon Cylmer was back, with the two +men at his heels. + +Ismay turned on her side, moaned. Slowly, very slowly, her eyes opened, +then shut again, seeing nothing. + +“Ismay! Is she--dying?” his tongue cleaving to his mouth. + +The little doctor laid a hand on Cylmer’s shoulder. + +“Dying! No; she’s saved.” For with a steady hand the nurse was putting +more wine to the lips that closed now on the spoon. + +With a little sigh Ismay Trelane opened her eyes. + +The shock in her brain had made her forget all recent things--Marcus +Wray, Davids, her quarrel with Cylmer, were all gone from her mind, as +a slate is sponged off. All she saw was the man she loved bending over +her, holding her hands. + +With a heavenly smile of rest and peace she smiled at him. + +“Miles,” she whispered. “My Miles!” + +“Lie still, my heart! I’m here,” he answered simply. + +“Hold my hand,” she sighed, and closed her eyes happily, in a sleep +that was sweet and natural. + +And, kneeling by her bed, he held that hand he loved, till with the +hours he, too, slept. + +When she woke again it was he who fed her, and then, and not till +then, he went away, cramped and stiff, but happy as he had not been in +his life. + +As he washed and dressed himself in the clothes that had come for him +from Cylmer’s Ferry, he heard a whispered conversation at his door, +then a knock that made him leap to open it. Was Ismay worse? + +But it was not Ismay. + +A man stood on the threshold--two men. + +Mr. Bolton, the lawyer, and another--bearded, thin, but hale and +strong. And yet Cylmer could not believe his senses. Had his long +watching made him see visions? + +“Gaspard!” he cried, wondering who this man could be that was so like +the man that was in his grave. “Not Gaspard--but who?” + +“It’s I, fast enough,” the man answered simply. “Let us in. I only got +to England to-day.” + +“To England?” Cylmer started foolishly. “But----” + +“But I was never killed, and never buried. I had lent my coat to a +Frenchman, and they buried what was left of him for me. I came to +myself and wandered away, quite cracked. When I woke up I was in bed in +a cottage, and a woman was looking after me. I didn’t know my own name, +even, and I was in hideous pain. + +“I lay like that for I don’t know how long. When I came to myself they +told me I was in the lodge of the country-house of the Duke of Tours, +and that he, on hearing a man was ill there, had sent his doctor from +Paris. He had done an operation that meant kill or cure, and it was +cure.” + +“But Bolton told me you were dying of heart-disease?” + +“So my doctors thought, but this one was young and very clever. He +thought it was something else, and it was. He cut it away. That’s all.” +He smiled in Cylmer’s puzzled face. + +“But the railway people. How was it they didn’t know?” + +Sir Gaspard laughed out. + +“You’re very anxious I should be an impostor. Did you wish to marry my +heiress?” he cried cheerfully. “There was no mark or wound on me; the +woman never connected me with the accident to the train, nor did any +one, till I was recovered and able to tell them. It was all so simple +that no one ever thought of it.” + +“You never wrote,” wonderingly. + +“No! I couldn’t have waited for the answer. When I was fit to write I +was fit to travel, so I came straight to Bolton, here, and he told me +things that brought me home on the double-quick. It’s all too awful. +And to think it was that will I made that was such a pitfall! Will that +poor child die?” + +“No.” Cylmer put down the hair-brush he had all the time been holding. +“Thank God, no!” he said slowly. “For I am going to marry her.” + +“Marry her.” It took all Sir Gaspard could do not to exclaim in +amazement. “Marry the daughter of a woman not yet out of suspicion of +murder, with the theft of the diamonds on her to a certainty!” + +Cylmer nodded. + +“Wait. I’ll tell you all,” he said, and Sir Gaspard listened in wonder. +“Marry her,” he had said, as though she were a leper, and but for her +Cristiane would be cold in her grave. He stretched out his hand and +took Cylmer’s in a clasp of gratitude, without a spoken word. + +“Have you seen Cristiane?” For the first time Cylmer thought of her. + +Sir Gaspard smiled. + +“Didn’t you hear us in the passage?” he asked. “I only persuaded her to +leave me for ten minutes by saying that you were certain to come to the +door half-dressed. She’s wild with joy; she can hardly believe in me +yet.” + +“She missed you.” And if the tone was dry Sir Gaspard did not notice +it. Not yet could Mr. Cylmer bear any good-will to Cristiane. + +Only one thing troubled Cylmer now. With Sir Gaspard’s return things +were smoothed out, indeed, all but this. It hung over him more and more +heavily as Ismay grew better, and at last could talk to him. + +Those stolen diamonds that could not be explained away! His mind was +full of them as he sat with Ismay alone in her sitting-room. But he +kept his trouble off his lips, and talked of other things that he might +not see it reflected in her eyes. + +“You never asked me how I managed the ghost-music,” she said suddenly, +with her old, lovely smile, that was so much more wistful than of old. + +“No. How did you? For it played of itself before you meddled with it, +Thomas says.” + +“I went up one night to see, and I was frightened out of my life, at +first. And then I found out. There was a spring--just a simple little +spring--so light that the weight of a rat on it could set the thing +going. And there were plenty of rats there. It was just an ordinary +old-fashioned spinet till the spring touched the mechanism, then it +played of itself. While it was playing like that you could not sound a +note on it. Afterward, when the tune was done, you could play. I made +a dress like the ghost’s, or the picture that was supposed to be the +ghost’s, so that if any one met me in the passages they would scream +and run. And I found out he meant to murder Cristiane while I was +behind the library door.” + +“Did you know Wray made Sir Gaspard’s will?” + +She nodded. + +“I heard him say so.” + +“And for fear it should go wrong he forged another,” Cylmer went on. +“Don’t look sad, darling. He deserves everything.” + +But she shivered. + +“It has all been such a nightmare. I wish I had had no hand in it. +Miles, can you truly love a girl like me?” She was earnest, pale, as +she looked at him. + +He kissed the hand that was in his, where a new ring shone. + +“Who nearly gave her life twice for another’s,” he said, with adoration. + +“I liked her, in a way. Till she told you things.” + +She hid her face on his arm. “Miles, do you know I meant to let her +die the last time? You were my world--she had taken you from me.” + +“You never meant it, my heart,” he whispered. “You only thought so.” + +“And I stole that card of yours, so that you might come to me.” + +Cylmer lifted the head that lay so low, and looked straight into her +shamed eyes. + +“Do you think a hundred cards would have mattered, if I had loved her?” +he demanded. “You were mine, and I was yours, from the first hour, +though I was too blind to know.” + +“But I meant when I left you to live----” He stopped her words on her +lips. + +“Let me forget--that day!” he begged, “for it was I who was to blame. +If you had slipped from me your life would have been on my head.” + +She looked at him with a curious pride. + +“Miles,” she said slowly, “I am my mother’s daughter still, and there +are the diamonds!” + +The man caught her close and hard. + +“If they were all the world it would not matter,” he said stoutly. +“If I had only seen you and passed by,” his voice full of love, of +reverence, “I should be proud of having once seen you, my witch that +was so true.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +THE DIAMONDS. + + +“If you owed him no ill-will, why did you steal those diamonds?” + +The court-room was crowded, packed with idle people come to see a man +tried for his life. + +It was more exciting than a theater, for the drama was real. + +Among them were perhaps a dozen people who sickened at the hideous +scene. Sir Gaspard, Mr. Bolton, Cylmer--turned away from the man in +the dock as his crimes were brought before him. Utterly hopeless, he +was venomous still. Not a question that could humiliate Helen Trelane +had his counsel spared her. Cylmer wondered at her courage as she stood +in the witness-stand. Pale, perfectly dressed, she stood unmoved, as +the question of the diamonds was asked. + +Neither Ismay nor Cristiane were there, and Cylmer was thankful. At +least they would not see the spectacle of a woman shamed before the +world. + +He started at the sound of Mrs. Trelane’s voice, as she answered the +question, her words distinct in the close hush. + +“I took them,” she said softly, “because they were mine! He sent for me +to give them to me. This note”--taking it from her pocket--“was on the +table.” + +There was absolute silence in court while the few lines were read aloud: + + “DEAR HELEN: I can’t forget last night. Will you take these and wear + them or sell them, as you like, in memory of our friendship. Yours + faithfully, + + “ABBOTSFORD. + + “P. S.--I wrote this, meaning to send the diamonds, but I have let it + stand, even now that you are coming to see me. You know I never was + much good at talking, and I might not get it said.” + +“Why did you not produce this at the time?” Wray’s counsel asked +sharply. + +“Because I was afraid! I thought I could not clear myself of the +murder,” she answered simply. + +Turning, she met the eyes of the prisoner at the bar, and for all his +desperate straits he smiled with understanding. She was Helen Trelane +still, adventuress to the bone. He knew quite well that she had stolen +that note. + +He had stuffed it into his pocket that day at Abbotsford’s, and had +not burned it for the pure pleasure of having in his hands the proof +that she was really not guilty; afterward, when Sir Gaspard’s will had +delivered her into his hands, he had kept it still, so that when all +was done and Ismay was his he could bring it out and laugh in their +faces. But he dared not say so now. It would only make his case more +black, his conduct more cold-blooded. And he could not see how she +had obtained it; so that his bare word would go for nothing. She had +outwitted him, and he made her a slight ironical sign of admiration +with his eyes. + +And yet it was simple enough. + +When Davids and his men searched Wray’s room at Marchant’s Hold, they +had never thought of a black frock coat that the housemaid had taken +to replace a button. When he was gone the girl had taken it to Mrs. +Trelane, and she had flung it on her bed with loathing, since it +was his. When the girl was gone she picked it up gingerly, to feel +something in the pocket, and so she found her salvation. She had +avoided people after that, not from terror, but to laugh at them in her +sleeve. + +And in the very face of the man who knew the note was stolen, she +left the witness-stand without a stain. He cared but little. He was +defeated, his case hopeless, and he was weary of the court, the curious +faces. Since it must all come out, it should come of his own free will. + +His counsel gasped as the prisoner leaned forward and asked leave of +the judge to make a statement. + +“My lord,” he began; he looked about him listlessly, as if he had very +little interest in his own words, “we have been here a long time, and +I for one am weary. The facts are these: I had lived on Abbotsford for +years, call it chantage, if you like. I lived on him. It was said he +hated women; he had reason. He had been trapped into a marriage with +a woman who was the worst of her sex. She was married already, but no +one knew that but I, for she was my wife.” His insolent, deliberate +voice paused an instant. “I was his best man, and the only witness of +his marriage with a woman whose very existence disgraced him. He paid +me to hold my tongue. But I drove him too far. He found the whole thing +out. He had supported my wife for years, since he was a mere boy, and +he had paid me to keep the marriage that was no marriage a secret, and +he threatened to expose me. I should have been ruined at the bar and +elsewhere. + +“I went to see him on the day his engagement was announced. On the way +I bought a bottle of prussic acid. If he gave me his word not to expose +me, well and good! If not”--he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I was +stronger than he. To knock him down and pour the prussic acid in his +mouth would not be hard. But I had no need. + +“I found him lying on his sofa, ill, but quite obstinate. That very +night should see me a marked and disgraced man; his letters were +written. And then he asked me--me to hand him something that was poured +out ready in a glass, because his throat was sore! I did, but first +I poured in what was in my bottle. He drank a mere mouthful. Then he +threw down the glass and tried to call. But that time was over. + +“I laid him back on the sofa, as if he slept, and I had barely +time to hide in the bedroom when that lady there”--looking at Mrs. +Trelane--“came in and found Lord Abbotsford dead. The rest you know, +even to the jewels that were her own! I trust, my lord, that the +case is done, and that the ladies and gentlemen who have honored the +court”--with an ironical bow--“have not found the entertainment more +dull than they expected.” + +A little rustle ran through the court. Never had there been so +extraordinary an ending to a trial for murder. A man who let his life +go because he was weary of the tedious defense of it! Not even the +judge could find voice for an instant. And then some one screamed. + +Marcus Wray had fallen in the dock like a slaughtered ox. + +“A fit! Poison!” Every soul there gasped out one word or the other. + +But it was neither. The long strain, the sudden effort of cool courage +had ruptured a blood-vessel in his brain. As he fell, so he lay; as +he lay, so he died; never speaking or moving again. The case for the +defense was closed. The luck of Marcus Wray had stuck by him to the +end. + +Ismay clung in silence to Cylmer when he told her. When she lifted her +face it was wet. + +“I’m glad, oh, glad!” she sobbed. “When I thought I had brought him to +it, that it was through me he must be hanged, I didn’t tell you, but I +thought it would drive me mad.” + +“Forget it, sweet. Blot it out from your mind,” was all he could find +to say. “We will never speak of it again.” + +“There’s one thing first. The boy! I promised him money, and I have +none.” + +“You!” he laughed. “You have fifteen thousand pounds a year, all I own. +You shall have the boy taught a trade, and set him up in it. I have +seen about it already!” He looked keenly at her face, that was too +pale, too weary. + +“Ismay,” he said quietly, “I am going to marry you in three weeks, +as soon as things can be arranged, and take you away to travel. Can +you bear that prospect? I’ve never known you go to church. Will you +come--once--with me?” + +The color flooded her face. + +“To marry you, do you mean?” She clung to him. Ismay, who had relied +on herself alone. “Yes; but, Miles, listen. I don’t want any wedding, +and I won’t wear a white gown. The only white gown I ever owned had a +blood-stain on it, and I can’t forget it--yet.” + +“As you like, my sweet.” And the touch of his lips on her forehead was +full of understanding. + +They were married as she wished, quietly, Sir Gaspard giving away the +bride, and portioning her with generosity born of his great gratitude. +It was two years before Miles Cylmer and Ismay came home to Cylmer’s +Ferry, two years that Mrs. Trelane spent gaily, having five hundred a +year allowed her by the baronet, and living where she liked. + +Cristiane, sobered and steadied, lived with her father, and he had his +wish of taking her to London, and seeing her marry a man who preferred +her before any green-eyed Circe in the world. + +To do her justice, Sir Gaspard never heard of that stolen card, only of +Ismay’s protection and bravery in the tragic chapters of her life. And +there is no cynicism now in the lines of Ismay Cylmer’s beautiful face. +The love that nearly was her doom has been her saving grace. + + +THE END. + + + + + EAGLE SERIES + + A weekly publication devoted to good literature. + December 10, 1907. + + No. 550 + + STREET & SMITH are now the + Owners of all + + CHARLES GARVICE’S + COPYRIGHTED NOVELS + + +We do not need to tell any of our patrons how popular the works of +Charles Garvice are because his name is a byword wherever first-class +novels are read and appreciated. We are pleased, therefore, to announce +the purchase of the plates of the only twenty-five copyrighted stories +by him that we did not have. + +This purchase makes Street & Smith the sole owners and publishers +of all of this celebrated author’s copyrighted stories. This only +emphasizes what has always been a patent fact--that Street & Smith +are the most progressive paper-book publishers in the world, and that +nowhere can the novel reader get so much for his or her money as in the +S. & S. lines. + + + STREET & SMITH, Publishers + New York + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes: + + +Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected (sometimes in +consultation with the original 1898-1899 serial appearance in _Street & +Smith’ New York Weekly_ to ensure accuracy to the author's intent). + +Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by +the transcriber. + +Inconsistent hyphenation of upstairs vs. up-stairs is preserved from +the original text. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76981 *** diff --git a/76981-h/76981-h.htm b/76981-h/76981-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe47ec5 --- /dev/null +++ b/76981-h/76981-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12044 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Saved from Herself | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: 2px solid;} + +.bt {border-top: 2px solid;} + +.bbox {border: 2px solid;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.tiny {font-size: 50%;} +.small {font-size: 75%;} +.medium {font-size: 125%;} +.large {font-size:150%;} +.sig0 {text-align: right; margin-right: 7.5em; } +.sig {text-align: right; margin-right: 2.5em; } + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe119_4375 {width: 60em;} +.illowe5 {width: 5em;} + +table.back { min-width: 40%; } +table.back td { width: 33%; vertical-align: top } + +table.listing { min-width: 40% } +table.listing td.tdl { min-width: 45%; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76981 ***</div> + + + +<figure class="figcenter illowe119_4375" id="cover"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<table> +<tr><td class="medium tdl">EAGLE SERIES</td><td class="medium tdr">No. 550</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc"> +<h1>SAVED FROM HERSELF</h1> +<p class="center medium">BY</p> +<p class="center large">ADELAIDE STIRLING</p> +<p class="center medium">STREET & SMITH ~ PUBLISHERS ~ NEW YORK</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="center"> + +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. THE THEATER.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. “A PENNILESS ADVENTURESS.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. THE ROSE-COLORED ROOM.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. “THE MYSTERY.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. A LUCKY CAST.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. A DREAM OF SAFETY.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. THREEFOLD DANGER.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. THE LUCK OF MARCUS WRAY.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. “I WILL POSSESS HIM OR DIE.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. A KISS.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. A NET FOR HER FEET.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. “IF I ASK YOU?”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. MORE TREACHERY.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. COILED TO SPRING.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. CIRCE’S EYES.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. THE SPINET.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. “AT MIDNIGHT.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. THE EDGE OF DOOM.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. THE DOG IN THE MANGER.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. “A CHARMING MAN.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. A GHOSTLY EAVESDROPPER.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. “I NEVER SAW IT BEFORE.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. “HER MOTHER’S CHILD!”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. TRUTH THAT LIED!</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. “MY NAME IS YESTERDAY.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. A NIGHT’S WORK.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX. INTO THE LION’S MOUTH.</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI. “SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII. “THE DEED IN THE DARK.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII. “HEAVENLY TRUE.”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV. “AND WHO IS THIS?”</a><br> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV. THE DIAMONDS.</a><br> +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"></div> +<table class="bbox"> +<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc"><h2 style="margin: 0">The Eagle Series</h2></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc bb medium">OF POPULAR FICTION</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc small" style="width: 50%">Principally Copyrights.</td><td class="tdc small" style="width: 50%">Elegant Colored Covers</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc bt medium">PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK</td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>This is the pioneer line of copyright novels. Its popularity +has increased with every number, until, at the present time, it +stands unrivaled as regards sales and contents.</p> + +<p>It is composed, mainly, of popular copyrighted titles which +cannot be had in any other lines at any price. The authors, as +far as literary ability and reputation are concerned, represent the +foremost men and women of their time. The books, without +exception, are of entrancing interest, and manifestly those most +desired by the American reading public. A purchase of two or +three of these books at random, will make you a firm believer +that there is no line of novels which can compare favorably with +the <span class="smcap">Eagle Series</span>.</p> + + +<h3>To be issued during December.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">553</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Queen Kate </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">552</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">At the Court of the Maharaja </td><td class="tdr">By Louis Tracy</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">551</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Pity—not Love </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">550</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Saved From Herself </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">549</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Tempted By Love </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +</table> + + +<h3>To be issued during November.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">548</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">’Twas Love’s Fault </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">547</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Plunge Into the Unknown </td><td class="tdr">By Richard Marsh</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">546</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Career of Mrs. Osborne </td><td class="tdr">By Helen Milecete</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">545</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Well Worth Winning </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +</table> + + +<h3>To be issued during October.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">544</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">In Love’s Name </td><td class="tdr">By Emma Garrison Jones</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">543</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Veiled Bride </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">542</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Once in a Life </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">541</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Her Evil Genius </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">540</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Daughter of Darkness </td><td class="tdr">By T. W. Hanshew</td></tr> +</table> + + +<h3>To be issued during September.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">539</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Heart’s Triumph </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">538</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Fighting Chance </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Lynch</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">537</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Life’s Mistake </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">536</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Companions in Arms </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +</table> + + +<h3>To be issued during August.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">535</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Trifler </td><td class="tdr">By Archibald Eyre</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">534</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Lotta, The Cloak Model </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">533</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Forgotten Love </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">532</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">True To His Bride </td><td class="tdr">By Emma Garrison Jones</td></tr> +</table> + + +<h3>To be issued during July.</h3> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">531</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Better Than Life </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">530</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Wiles of a Siren </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">529</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Hearts Aflame </td><td class="tdr">By Louise Winter</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">528</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Adela’s Ordeal </td><td class="tdr">By Florence Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">527</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">For Love and Glory </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<table class="listing"> +<tr><td class="tdr">526</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love and Hate </td><td class="tdr">By Morley Roberts</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">525</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Sweet Kitty Clover </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">524</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Sacrifice of Pride </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Louisa Parr</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">523</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Banker of Bankersville </td><td class="tdr">By Maurice Thompson</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">522</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Spurned Proposal </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">521</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Witch from India </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">520</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Heatherford Fortune </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Sequel to “The Magic Cameo.”</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">519</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Magic Cameo </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">518</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Secret of a Letter </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">517</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">They Looked and Loved </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">516</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Florabel’s Lover </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">515</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Tiny Luttrell </td><td class="tdr">By E. W. Hornung</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">(Author of “Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman.”)</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">514</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Temptation of Mary Barr </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">513</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Sensational Case </td><td class="tdr">By Florence Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">512</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Heritage of Love </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Sequel to “The Golden Key.”</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">511</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Golden Key </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">510</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Doctor Jack’s Paradise Mine </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">509</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Penniless Princess </td><td class="tdr">By Emma Garrison Jones</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">508</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The King of Honey Island </td><td class="tdr">By Maurice Thompson</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">507</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Mad Betrothal </td><td class="tdr">By Laura Jean Libbey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">506</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Secret Foe </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">505</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Selina’s Love-story </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">504</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Evelyn, the Actress </td><td class="tdr">By Wenona Gilman</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">503</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Lady in Black </td><td class="tdr">By Florence Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">502</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Fair Maid Marian </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Emma Garrison Jones</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">501</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Her Husband’s Secret </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">500</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love and Spite </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">499</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">My Lady Cinderella </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. C. N. Williamson</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">498</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Andrew Leicester’s Love </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">497</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Chase for Love </td><td class="tdr">By Seward W. Hopkins</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">496</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Missing Heiress </td><td class="tdr">By C. H. Montague</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">495</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">An Excellent Story </td><td class="tdr">By May Agnes Fleming</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">494</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Voyagers of Fortune </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">493</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Girl He Loved </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">492</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Speedy Wooing </td><td class="tdr">By the Author of “As Common Mortals”</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">491</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">My Lady of Dreadwood </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">490</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Price of Jealousy </td><td class="tdr">By Maud Howe</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">489</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Lucy Harding </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">488</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The French Witch </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">487</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Wonderful Woman </td><td class="tdr">By May Agnes Fleming</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">486</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Divided Lives </td><td class="tdr">By Edgar Fawcett</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">485</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The End Crowns All </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">484</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Whistle of Fate </td><td class="tdr">By Richard Marsh</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">483</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Miss Marston’s Heart </td><td class="tdr">By L. H. Bickford</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">482</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Little Worldling </td><td class="tdr">By L. C. Ellsworth</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">481</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Wedded, Yet No Wife </td><td class="tdr">By May Agnes Fleming</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">480</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Perfect Fool </td><td class="tdr">By Florence Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">479</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Mysterious Mr. Sabin </td><td class="tdr">By E. Phillips Oppenheim</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">478</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">For Love of Sigrid </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">477</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Siberian Exiles </td><td class="tdr">By Col. Thomas Knox</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">476</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Earle Wayne’s Nobility </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">475</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love Before Pride </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">474</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Belle of the Season </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">473</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Sacrifice To Love </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">472</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Dr. Jack and Company </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">471</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Shadowed Happiness </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">470</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Strange Wedding </td><td class="tdr">By Mary Hartwell Catherwood</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">469</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Soldier and a Gentleman </td><td class="tdr">By J. M. Cobban</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">468</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Wooing of a Fairy </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">467</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Zina’s Awaking </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. J. K. Spender</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">466</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love, the Victor </td><td class="tdr">By a Popular Southern Author</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">465</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Outside Her Eden </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">464</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Old Life’s Shadows </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">463</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Wife’s Triumph </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">462</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Stormy Wedding </td><td class="tdr">By Mary E. Bryan</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">461</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Above All Things </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">460</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Dr. Jack’s Talisman </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">459</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Golden Mask </td><td class="tdr">By Charlotte M. Stanley</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">458</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">When Love Meets Love </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">457</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Adrift in the World </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">456</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Vixen’s Treachery </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">455</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love’s Greatest Gift </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">454</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love’s Probation </td><td class="tdr">By Elizabeth Olmis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">453</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Poor Girl’s Passion </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">452</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Last of the Van Slacks </td><td class="tdr">By Edward S. Van Zile</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">451</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Helen’s Triumph </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">450</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Rosamond’s Love </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">449</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Bailiff’s Scheme </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Harriet Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">448</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">When Love Dawns </td><td class="tdr">By Adelaide Stirling</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">447</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Favorite of Fortune </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">446</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Bound with Love’s Fetters </td><td class="tdr">By Mary Grace Halpine</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">445</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">An Angel of Evil </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">444</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love’s Trials </td><td class="tdr">By Alfred R. Calhoun</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">443</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">In Spite of Proof </td><td class="tdr">By Gertrude Warden</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">442</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Love Before Duty </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. L. T. Meade</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">441</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Princess of the Stage </td><td class="tdr">By Nataly von Eschstruth</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">440</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Edna’s Secret Marriage </td><td class="tdr">By Charles Garvice</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">439</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Little Nan </td><td class="tdr">By Mary A. Denison</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">438</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">So Like a Man </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">437</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Breach of Custom </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. D. M. Lowrey</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">436</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Rival Toreadors </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">435</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Under Oath </td><td class="tdr">By Jean Kate Ludlum</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">434</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Guardian’s Trust </td><td class="tdr">By Mary A. Denison</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">433</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Winifred’s Sacrifice </td><td class="tdr">By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">432</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Breta’s Double </td><td class="tdr">By Helen V. Greyson</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">431</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">Her Husband and Her Love </td><td class="tdr">By Effie Adelaide Rowlands</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">430</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Honor of a Heart </td><td class="tdr">By Mary J. Safford</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">429</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Fair Fraud </td><td class="tdr">By Emily Lovett Cameron</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">428</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Tramp’s Daughter </td><td class="tdr">By Hazel Wood</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">427</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A Wizard of the Moors </td><td class="tdr">By St. George Rathborne</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">426</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie’s Terrible Secret</td> +<td class="tdr">By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">425</td><td class="tdc">—</td><td class="tdl">A College Widow </td><td class="tdr">By Frank H. Howe</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2>SAVED FROM HERSELF;</h2> +<p class="center">OR,</p> +<p class="center large">ON THE EDGE OF DOOM</p> +<p class="center tiny p6">BY</p> +<p class="center medium">ADELAIDE STIRLING</p> +<p class="center tiny">AUTHOR OF</p> +<p class="center small"> +“A Forgotten Love,” “Nerine’s Second Choice,” “A Sacrifice to Love,” +“Her Evil Genius,” “Above All Things,” “The Girl He Loved,” +“Love and Spite,” “When Love Dawns.” All published +exclusively in the <span class="smcap">Eagle Series</span>.</p> +<p class="p2"> </p> +<figure class="figcenter illowe5" id="i1"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i1.jpg" alt="S AND S NOVELS, STREET & SMITH, NEW YORK"> +</figure> +<p class="center medium">NEW YORK</p> +<p class="center large">STREET & SMITH, <span class="smcap">Publishers</span></p> +<p class="center medium"><span class="smcap">79-89 Seventh Avenue</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center small"> +Copyright, 1898 and 1899<br> +By STREET & SMITH</p> +<hr class="r5"> +<p class="center small">Saved from Herself</p> +<p class="center small p6"> +All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages,<br> +including the Scandinavian.</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SAVED_FROM_HERSELF">SAVED FROM HERSELF</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE THEATER.</p> + + +<p>“I don’t see,” said Mrs. Trelane discontentedly, “why +the woman could not have kept you.”</p> + +<p>She spoke to her own reflection in the glass with an +angry frown. What was the good of an exquisite toilet, +of a face that did not look within ten years of its age, +when seated on the sofa opposite was a grown-up daughter +whose presence in the house might spoil all her own +well-laid plans?</p> + +<p>Just a week ago her only child, aged seventeen, had +been returned from her cheap boarding-school with a +scathing note from the principal regarding her unpaid +bills. It was unbearable, even though she had forbidden +the girl to be about the house or meet any of her visitors.</p> + +<p>To-night, when the table was laid for a party of two, +the presence of a third was—impossible!</p> + +<p>“Ismay,” Mrs. Trelane turned sharply to the tall, slim +figure coiled on the sofa, “couldn’t you take a maid and +go out somewhere to-night? Oh, no—I can’t spare you! +Well, mind you don’t let Abbotsford see you—he doesn’t +know you are, you know!”</p> + +<p>The girl looked with somber impatience at her mother +in her satin gown, so great a contrast to her own shabby +black serge.</p> + +<p>“All right,” she said quietly, “but if he keeps coming +here every day he is bound to find out my existence.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t matter—by and by.” Mrs. Trelane gave a +little conscious laugh and poured some peach-blossom +scent on her handkerchief. Ismay, as the delicate odor +reached her, moved her head as if it sickened her. Three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +years away from a mother who had never loved her had +deadened the memory of the regret, the loneliness, that +had been her portion always. But to-night she saw very +clearly that she was, as always, a stone in the road of +Mrs. Trelane’s life.</p> + +<p>She got up, with a leisurely grace, and looked about +her as the door-bell rang and Mrs. Trelane swished softly +out of the room. She was used to being unpopular; at +school no one had liked her, but yet indifference from +her mother cut her.</p> + +<p>And it was dull, deadly dull! There was nothing to +read, nowhere to sit but this disordered bedroom that +smelled to nausea of almonds.</p> + +<p>A neat maid with a cross face came in at that moment +and bumped down an uninviting tray of tea and bread +and butter on a table, with an impertinence that was +somehow galling. Ismay Trelane looked at it, and a +sudden light sprang into her strangely lovely face, that +was sometimes so much older than her years, as a smile +came to her delicate, thin lips.</p> + +<p>“There isn’t any room for me in mama’s life,” she +thought quietly, “it’s all taken up with Lord Abbotsford! +She can’t surely think he means to marry her, yet she +never kept up the mask like this for any of her other +admirers.”</p> + +<p>Looking back with ungirlish wisdom into the past before +she had been shoved into Mrs. Barlow’s school, she +added:</p> + +<p>“Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m not a child any more; +I can amuse myself.”</p> + +<p>She felt in the pocket of her old black frock, that was +too short, for all the money she owned—ten shillings her +mother had given her in a moment of generosity.</p> + +<p>“She said to keep out of the way,” she reflected, “and +I will. But I won’t sit here all the evening, and I won’t”—pride +getting the better of hunger—“drink any of that +horrid tea.”</p> + +<p>She slipped on her sailor-hat and jacket, a garment +that had been barely decent all summer, but was threadbare +now, and with noiseless haste made her way down-stairs +and out into the street.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + +<p>The fresh, cool air did her good, and she walked +quickly out of the quiet Brompton Square into the bustling +thoroughfare of the Brompton Road.</p> + +<p>London at night was strange to her, and she was +not even sure what she wanted to do.</p> + +<p>“I’m out, though, and that’s the main thing,” she +thought cheerfully. “I think I’ll go for a drive on an +omnibus! Then when I feel like it I can get off and +have something to eat somewhere.”</p> + +<p>She felt almost gay as she hailed the first bus that +came thundering by, and climbed to the roof of the unwieldy +thing.</p> + +<p>How pretty it was! The long street like a shifting +ribbon of light, with its never-ending stream of carriage-lamps; +its procession of hansoms and carriages full of +people—men chiefly—in evening dress.</p> + +<p>“Where do you go?” she asked the conductor as she +paid her fare.</p> + +<p>“Piccadilly Circus, miss; Shaftesbury Avenue, past the +Palace Theater.”</p> + +<p>“Theater!”</p> + +<p>Ismay’s heart gave a jump. Why not go to a theater? +There was time; it could not be more than half-past eight. +After that she could take a cab and go home. It was +three years since she had been at a theater; but she +knew the Palace was a variety place, where it did not +matter what time you arrived.</p> + +<p>The November air was cold on top of the omnibus, +but the girl’s blood was warm, as she watched the surging +panorama of the streets. This was life; the shifting +crowd went to her head like wine; her eyes burned like +stars as she looked about her at the never-ending drama +of London.</p> + +<p>“Palace Theater, miss.” The conductor’s voice startled +her. He helped her down with a curious feeling that +she was too young to be out alone. But he was reassured +as he saw her move composedly under the lighted +awning to the flaring entrance, where the lights shone +red in the box-office. She was older than she looked, he +decided, as he signaled the driver to go on.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p> + +<p>Ismay, as the swinging doors closed behind her, stood +undecided for a minute. There was a notice facing her:</p> + +<p>“Stalls, ten shillings. Dress-circle, seven and sixpence. +Upper circle, five shillings.”</p> + +<p>Stalls were out of the question.</p> + +<p>“One dress-circle,” she said composedly, making her +way to the ticket-seller’s window through the groups of +men idling in the entrance.</p> + +<p>Most of them looked at her curiously; her strange +beauty and her shabby black clothes contrasted oddly.</p> + +<p>She read their thoughts as she turned with her ticket +in her hand, and her eyes glittered with pride under her +long, dark lashes.</p> + +<p>Yet, as she followed the usher up the stairs to the +dress-circle, she walked as one in a dream, and stood +for a moment in a sort of daze as she was turned over +to the white-capped attendant.</p> + +<p>The whole house was in darkness except for the +lights upon the stage and the constant glimmer of +matches, for every one seemed to be smoking, even many +of the women in the boxes.</p> + +<p>Ismay stumbled to her seat still dazed.</p> + +<p>Was this a theater? Had she spend nearly all of her +ten shillings for this?</p> + +<p>Two badly painted women danced between the verses +of a song, and their antics seemed to amuse the crowd.</p> + +<p>Ismay drew her skirts away from the vicinity of a +French hair-dresser as she thought:</p> + +<p>“If that is all they have to do to earn their livings I +could make mine.”</p> + +<p>Then she started angrily.</p> + +<p>A common, flashily dressed man beside her had spoken +to her. His tone offended her, and she rose and swept +past him like an insulted duchess.</p> + +<p>She walked up the steps to the third gallery, where +men and women were seated at small tables, eating +olives and drinking liquor. As she emerged into the +bright light she stopped and leaned over the balustrade +with her beautiful eyes still glowing.</p> + +<p>“Beast!” she said under her breath, “to dare to speak +to me!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> + +<p>A man standing quite near her glanced at her wonderingly, +and as she turned she found his eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said civilly, “but I could not +help hearing what you said.”</p> + +<p>Ismay Trelane lifted her strange eyes and saw a face +that, dreaming or waking, would haunt her to the end +of her life.</p> + +<p>Bronzed, gray-eyed, clear-cut—it came near to being +the handsomest face in London. Many a woman had +turned to look upon it, and some, like Ismay, carried +the remembrance forever.</p> + +<p>Something, she knew not what, made the girl tremble +as she answered him.</p> + +<p>“A man spoke to me,” she said slowly. “You do not +think he will come up here, do you?”</p> + +<p>“I spoke to you, too,” her hearer’s voice was kind but +a little puzzled.</p> + +<p>“You are different,” she said simply. “Oh,” with a +little gasp, “he is coming up!”</p> + +<p>“Stand by me and don’t look at him!” said the stranger +authoritatively.</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane moved closer to him, as she was told, and +the obnoxious Frenchman, with a curious glance, passed +by her.</p> + +<p>If she had looked up just then at her new friend she +would have seen that he was divided between wonder and—something +else. Music-halls were an old story to him, +but this girl had apparently never been in one. She +looked so out of place, and yet—well, at all events, she +was beautiful! Though the beauty was not that of a +young girl. This face might have smiled on dead men +out of Circe’s window, in strange lands long ago. For +the girl’s hair was an ashy flaxen without a hint of gold; +her skin was fine and milky white, and her lips so red +as to be startling in her colorless face. But it was her +eyes more than anything that were full of strange witchery, +for they were as clear and dark a green as the +new shoots of a pine-tree in the spring.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!” the man thought, “she is only some little +milliner. But she ought not to be here.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> + +<p>The girl looked up, as though she read his mind.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like it—here. I think I’ll go home,” she said +slowly.</p> + +<p>“I think I would,” he returned, with a smile. “This +is not a good place to begin with when one has never +been out alone before.”</p> + +<p>“How did you know I never was?” she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I thought so!” was the answer. “But if you do +wish to go home you had better let me take you down-stairs. +It’s rather crowded, and—there may be more +Frenchmen!”</p> + +<p>“Home!” she looked at him queerly. “Oh, I can’t go +home! It’s too—too lonely.” Her lips quivered desolately +at the thought of the long hours before bedtime in +that house where she was not wanted.</p> + +<p>As she looked at him the absolute beauty of his face +struck her once more. She had never spoken to a man +like this; it had been a very different sort of men she +had been used to seeing in her childhood. How immaculately +dressed he was, and what lovely black pearls he +wore as shirt-studs. “I don’t think I’ll go home at all,” +she ended abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Not go home?” He stared at her. “My dear child, +you’re talking nonsense. Do you mean that you live +alone when you say it is too lonely?” He felt suddenly +sorry for her, and wondered afresh who she was. Her +dress was old and worn, fit for a servant out of place, +but her ungloved hand lying on the red velvet rail was +exquisitely white and smooth.</p> + +<p>As he looked at her she laughed, a little delicate laugh +that was somehow far older than her years.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course,” she said, “utter nonsense; for I can +live with my mother.”</p> + +<p>She moved away as she spoke; even if the man was +as good-looking as all the gods, she would not stay +talking with him after he had suggested she should go.</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment, if you are lonely at home. I am lonely +here,” he said, and he was very tall as he looked down +at her with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>“You—lonely!” her eyes darkened with surprise. + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> + +“Why, you can go anywhere you like in all London, +you have not to sit alone evening after evening till——”</p> + +<p>“No, but you see I don’t know anywhere I want to go,” +he interrupted. “And if we’re both here, and both lonely, +why—I think we may as well talk to one another.”</p> + +<p>They were moving slowly along the crowded promenade +on their way to the stairs, and the languid grace +of the girl’s steps was apparent.</p> + +<p>“Are you tired?” he said suddenly. “You look pale.”</p> + +<p>“I’m always pale.”</p> + +<p>A swift intuition flashed over him.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think,” he observed deliberately, “that you +have had any dinner!”</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane flushed—exquisitely.</p> + +<p>The remembrance of the supper of bread and butter, +which pride had made her forego, was haunting her. She +had eaten nothing since tea at five o’clock.</p> + +<p>She raised her head haughtily, as a woman of the +world would have done, and caught a look on her companion’s +face that made her suddenly childlike again.</p> + +<p>“I—I didn’t wait,” she stammered.</p> + +<p>Her companion stopped at a vacant table, and put her +into a chair.</p> + +<p>“Now that I think of it, I am hungry myself,” he observed, +signaling to a waiter, and then ordering sandwiches +and some liquor.</p> + +<p>He sat looking at this waif from some other world as +she ate the sandwiches; the fiery cherry brandy made her +less pale, the depths of her strange eyes less somber. +His first theory had been right: she was very young. But +the beautiful face was prophetic of tragedy and passion; +the scarlet lips cynical. She looked at him, raising slow +white lids, till he seemed to see unfathomable depths in +her clear green eyes.</p> + +<p>“Do you know you are the first person who has ever +been kind to me in all my life?” she said. “Tell me, +why are you kind?”</p> + +<p>There was in her voice only calm inquiry, nothing to +tell him that this strange, pale girl was filled with passionate +gratitude.</p> + +<p>“I’m not kind; it is a pleasure to sit and talk to you.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +You forget that.” His manner was to the girl what it +would have been to a duchess. “But it’s getting late, +and I’m going to take you home.”</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows a little as he sat by her in a +hansom and heard her give the man an address in Colbourne +Square; it was not exactly a haunt of poverty, +and this girl was nearly out at elbows.</p> + +<p>“You live there with your mother?” he said involuntarily.</p> + +<p>She laughed with a curious mockery of mirth.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but you don’t know who I am, and I won’t tell +you.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked, somewhat +piqued. “My name——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell me!” stopping him with a quick coldness. +“I don’t want to know. You have been kind to me—I’ll +remember you by that best. No one else ever was.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” he said abruptly, “if I will ever see you +again.”</p> + +<p>“Do you wish to?”</p> + +<p>He nodded, and with a sudden flash of her spirit Ismay +Trelane determined to see him again if she had to +tramp the world for a sight of his face.</p> + +<p>“You won’t quite forget me, though you won’t let +me tell you my name,” he said more earnestly than he +knew, for her strange beauty, her strange manner, had +gone a little to his head.</p> + +<p>Ismay turned to him as the hansom stopped at her +mother’s door, and looked once more at his strong, sweet +face and broad shoulders.</p> + +<p>“No! I will not forget you,” she said, with her delicate +smile that was so much older than her manner. +“And when I meet you again—remember, you must be +glad to see me.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I knock for you?” he asked, helping her out.</p> + +<p>“Knock? Oh, no!” Last night she would have been +afraid to go out secretly and come back openly with an +utter stranger, but now there was a lightness in her dancing +blood that made her utterly indifferent as to what +reception she would get from her mother. The light +from the street-lamps fell on her face as she put her hand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +in his with a gesture of dismissal, not learned, assuredly, +at Mrs. Barlow’s school. But at the clasp of his strong +fingers she thrilled, and knew the world would end for +her before she forgot him.</p> + +<p>She drew a long, shivering breath as she watched him +drive away.</p> + +<p>“I wish,” she thought, with a sudden vain longing, +“that I had let him tell me his name! But I will find +him again some day, as sure as he and I live in this +world.”</p> + +<p>She little knew how she would find him—nor what +terror would make her almost forget him first—as she +calmly rang at her mother’s door-bell.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“A PENNILESS ADVENTURESS.”</p> + + +<p>Lord Abbotsford stood in front of the fire and broke +what had been a long silence. He was tall and rather +good-looking; years younger than the woman who sat +opposite him, her haggard face hidden in her hands. But +his voice was rough to brutality as he spoke.</p> + +<p>“You knew I should have to marry some day. I can’t +see why you are making such a fuss.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane quivered with anger. She had known +it, but of late it had been herself whom she had thought +of as Lady Abbotsford. After all, why not? She was +as well born as he, and there was nothing—that Abbotsford +knew—against her. She took her hands from her +eyes and looked at him.</p> + +<p>“Be civil, it can’t hurt you,” she said coldly.</p> + +<p>“Well, you did know it, Helen!” But his eyes fell +shiftingly, though he could not know the reason for the +despair in hers. Helen Trelane was like a gambler who +had put his all on one throw and seen it swept off the +board. Her last few hundred pounds of capital had gone +in the struggle to be always well dressed and to have a +good dinner always for Lord Abbotsford. She had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +played not for his love, but for his coronet. And to-night +his news had cut the very ground from under her +feet.</p> + +<p>It was for this that she had forsaken the cheerful companions +who amused her; to have this dissipated boy +stand up and tell her roundly that he was going to be +married, and would in future dispense with the pleasure +of her acquaintance.</p> + +<p>And this to her, who had been born à la Marchant!</p> + +<p>But the good blood in her veins did not let her forget +that she was penniless and ruined, and that she must +drive a bargain with Abbotsford or starve.</p> + +<p>She rose from her low chair and looked at him, a beautiful +woman still, and young.</p> + +<p>“Did you mean to marry a month ago, when you were +ready to sell your love to kiss my hand?” she said slowly, +cuttingly. “You were ready enough to come here +to eat my bread; but it appears I am not fit to eat yours +in return. Your wife, Lord Abbotsford, has my sympathy. +She will marry a bad-tempered, miserly boy, who +thinks of nothing but his own pleasure. Your presents”—she +tore some rings off and threw them on a brass +table, where they rang loud as they fell—“take them! +And go—leave my house. You have told me to my face +that I am an adventuress. I tell you that I am a penniless +one, and that even so I would rather be myself than +you.”</p> + +<p>She was magnificent as she faced him, and he stammered +when he would have spoken.</p> + +<p>He might have said words that would have softened +her, might only have hurried the steps of the Nemesis +at his heels, but he lost his chance. The door of the +small scented room opened quickly, and Ismay, in her +shabby clothes, the air still fresh on her cheeks, stood +on the threshold.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane stood turned to stone.</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” she spoke at last. “What brings you here?”</p> + +<p>“I forgot. I thought you were alone!” the girl said +quietly. She had only a contemptuous glance for Abbotsford, +that contrasted him with the man she had just +left.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> + +<p>Her mother looked at her as she stood in the doorway; +then at Abbotsford, who was utterly astonished.</p> + +<p>“You hear,” she said, “this is my daughter. You did +not know I had one? Well, I have, and I let her be humiliated +that I might have money—for other things.”</p> + +<p>She walked over and put her arms round the girl, forgetting +for the moment how unwelcome she was in her +fresh youth and beauty.</p> + +<p>“Go,” she said, over her shoulder; “leave us! We can +starve together without you and your wife.”</p> + +<p>Abbotsford walked by them without a word, but for +once in his ill-spent life he felt small.</p> + +<p>But the door had barely closed behind him before Mrs. +Trelane drew away from her daughter, and stood looking +at her; the anger Abbotsford had roused turned +on the girl.</p> + +<p>“What madness is this?” she asked hardly. “Had you +no sense that you must come in here? And do you know +what your freak means to me? If we starve you have +yourself to blame!”</p> + +<p>She threw herself into a chair, her nerves and temper +thoroughly out of hand. And then started at the sound +in her own child’s voice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, we sha’n’t!” said the girl, with a cynical smile +on her red lips that were not like Mrs. Trelane’s. “You +are too clever, and so”—deliberately—“am I! You forget +I’m not a child any longer.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane looked up, and met eyes which were +somehow those of an equal, another woman, and spoke +truthfully in her raging disappointment.</p> + +<p>“That man who went out—he’s going to be married. +And I, like a fool, thought he meant to marry me!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you get something out of him?”</p> + +<p>“I meant to marry him, I tell you”—roughly. “Those +things are all he ever gave me.” She pointed to the cast-off +rings on the Moorish table.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean about starving?” Ismay asked. +“Haven’t you any money? Have you”—deliberately—“spent +it all on him?”—with a nod toward the door +by which Lord Abbotsford had departed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane moaned.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + +<p>“I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought he meant to +marry me,” she said faintly. “That was why I kept you +out of the way; I didn’t want him to know how old I +was till it was all settled. And now”—she flung her +hands out angrily—“I will pay him for it all if I kill +him!”</p> + +<p>“You can sell these things,” Ismay said quickly, looking +round her at the costly furniture, the many ornaments.</p> + +<p>“There is a bill of sale on them already,” the woman +said dryly, and speaking perfectly openly, as if to another +woman of her own age and not to her daughter. +It was a relief to speak out; she forgot how she had +treated the girl since her return, how she had neglected +her for the prospect of a rich marriage. “But I’ll get +something out of Abbotsford somehow, even if I have to +call it a loan,” she added.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t ever speak to him again,” Ismay remarked +scornfully. “And why didn’t you bring me home from +school long ago, if you’d no money?”</p> + +<p>“Because”—with absolute truth—“I didn’t want a +grown-up girl about.”</p> + +<p>For a moment the two pairs of eyes met; then the girl +shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m here, and I’ll have to stay,” she retorted. +“As for Lord Abbotsford, you’re well rid of him. But I +suppose you don’t think so. Can I take this candle? +There’s no light up-stairs, and I want to go to bed.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane was utterly taken aback by the matter-of-fact +conclusion. Somehow Ismay seemed years older +to-night, and she had no clue to what had worked the +miracle. She pushed a candlestick over to her without +answering, and not a word did the girl breathe of where +and how she had spent her evening.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE ROSE-COLORED ROOM.</p> + + +<p>“Look.” Mrs. Trelane’s face was radiant as she +threw a note across the luncheon-table to Ismay the next +day. It was from Lord Abbotsford. “Look, he wants +to see me this afternoon. He’s ill, can’t come out, and +he’s sent me this latch-key so that I can go in without his +man seeing me. He must be going to do something for +me.”</p> + +<p>“Will you go? I wouldn’t,” Ismay said slowly. She +was weary from a stormy morning; sickened by the abuse +of the two maid servants who had smelled disaster and +departed after vainly demanding their wages.</p> + +<p>“Go! What else should I do?” Mrs. Trelane seized +the note again and rose to leave the room. “Three o’clock, +he says, and it’s two now. I’ll go and dress.”</p> + +<p>“Where does he live?” the girl asked idly, yet with +intention. Somehow she did not like this expedition.</p> + +<p>“Not far; he has a house in Onslow Place.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if I were you, I would ring the bell and go +openly; have the servant announce you! I wouldn’t +creep in with a key.”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Trelane took no notice.</p> + +<p>It was a dark afternoon, and Onslow Place was very +quiet. No one saw her as she opened Lord Abbotsford’s +door with the little latch-key. She met no one as she +went softly up the carpeted stair to his sitting-room. She +had been there before once, and knew the way.</p> + +<p>The room was strangely quiet as she opened the door. +It was all hung with pale pink, and furnished in a darker +pink brocade; not like a man’s room at all. There were +bowls of hothouse carnations everywhere, each great +flower a fiery rose; and the silver lamps were already lit +under their rose-colored shades.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane shut the door behind her, and as she did +so a faint rustle in the next room could easily have passed +unheard.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>“Abbotsford,” she said softly, looking very young and +handsome in her plain tailor-made gown, “are you here?”</p> + +<p>A screen was drawn round the hearth, with room +enough for a sofa between it and the fire. A table stood +by the window, and at first Mrs. Trelane paid no heed to +it, as she walked round the screen.</p> + +<p>Abbotsford was on the sofa asleep, his head lying on +his arm.</p> + +<p>“Wake up, I’m here,” she said lightly. “I don’t wonder +you’re asleep. Your flowers are too strong; they +smell just like bitter almonds.”</p> + +<p>Lord Abbotsford never moved; and once more the +strange quiet of the room struck on Helen Trelane’s +nerves.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with you?” she said sharply. +“Why can’t you wake up? And what are you doing with +all that?” For the letter on the table had caught her +eye; money, notes, and gold, in an open purple velvet +box; diamonds, a necklace, bracelets, a tiara. Her heart +gave a leap. Had he indeed repented and sent for her +to give her these?</p> + +<p>Something else on the table softened her heart, too: +the only photograph she had ever had taken for years; +it had been done for Abbotsford. She remembered how +he had taken the negative from the photographer and +broken it, for fear she might have more printed. He +had loved her then. Oh, if she could only rouse that +love again for one half-hour!</p> + +<p>The silk linings of her dark purple dress rustled as she +moved toward him where he slept, and sank on her knees +beside him.</p> + +<p>“Wake up, sleepy boy, you sent for me, you know.” +His hand was strangely cool as she took it in hers; the +next instant she had jumped to her feet.</p> + +<p>“My God!” she cried, trembling like a leaf. “It can’t +be.”</p> + +<p>She lifted the arm that was over the face, and kept, she +never knew how, from shrieking. John Inglesby, Lord +Abbotsford, was dead—dead in the pink, luxurious +chamber where the flowers smelled of almonds, where +there was nothing to tell how he died.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p> + +<p>Was it a trap? Had he killed himself on purpose? +Sent for her?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, with her skirts gathered up to make no +sound, fled swiftly from the room. The house was quite +quiet, the servants all down-stairs; the woman who had +been young and radiant as she came in, slipped out of +that horrible house wan as the man up-stairs. She dared +not hurry away, though the early darkness of London +was growing apace, and she could not if she had tried, +for her feet would scarcely carry her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she stopped short, for quick steps came behind +her. Had any one seen her go out? Had any one +found that which lay up-stairs? She turned, ready to +drop.</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” The cry was hysterical, uncontrollable, for +it was Ismay hurrying after her. “What are you here +for?”</p> + +<p>“Why not? I was going for a walk, and I came +this way. What made you so quick? You have not been +there five minutes—you can’t have.”</p> + +<p>Her mother clutched her by the arm fiercely and whispered +in her ear.</p> + +<p>“Don’t stop like this! walk on,” the girl said, very low, +yet with authority. “Did any one see you? You’re sure +there was no one there?”</p> + +<p>“No one.” Mrs. Trelane’s teeth were chattering.</p> + +<p>“Is there anything in the room that might get you into +trouble? Think, quick!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my photograph. It’s there on the table.” What +a fool she had been not to bring it.</p> + +<p>“Do the servants know you? Does any one know he +was a friend of yours?”</p> + +<p>“No; no one! I was very careful. I did not want my +past to come up—if he married me.” The words were +gasped out under her breath; for once terror was too +much for her. “You don’t think they’ll bring me into it, +Ismay?”</p> + +<p>Ismay turned round.</p> + +<p>“Go back,” she said, “quick, and get that photograph. +It’s risky, but it’s your only chance. Don’t you see that +you might be suspected through it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> + +<p>“I can’t,” but she had turned, too.</p> + +<p>“You must! I’ll wait outside.”</p> + +<p>She almost pulled the elder woman back to the house +she had but just left; with a steady hand she fitted in the +latch-key her mother could not turn. Sick with fright, +but desperate, she pushed her gently into the dim hall +and closed the door softly behind her. Helen Trelane, +like a guilty thing, crept back to that room of horror, and +her daughter strolled quietly along outside in terror. +Suppose she had done just the wrong thing?</p> + +<p>Ismay shivered in her thin coat, and then turned back +in time to see what made her blood thicken with a worse +chill than the November air.</p> + +<p>A hansom cab was stopping at Abbotsford’s door. A +tall man in a loose overcoat, that was like every other +fashionable overcoat in London, jumped out and put +his hand in his pocket to pay his fare.</p> + +<p>He was going into the house! He would find her +mother, find Abbotsford; he would find out, perhaps, +more! With a horrible clearness those words of her +own mother’s came back to the girl.</p> + +<p>“I will pay him for it all if I kill him.”</p> + +<p>In her sick horror the girl’s breath failed her; before +she could draw it again the man, whose back was still +turned to her in the dusk, had put a key in the door—Lord +Abbotsford was evidently generous with keys—and +disappeared within the house.</p> + +<p>If Ismay Trelane had thought it would have availed +her anything, she would have fallen on her knees in the +street—and prayed!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“THE MYSTERY.”</p> + + +<p>Mr. Marcus Wray laid down his morning paper on his +lonely breakfast-table with a queer sound in his throat.</p> + +<p>He had taken a deep interest in the affairs, as became +a barrister in fair standing, and now the verdict of the +coroner’s jury stared him in the face. So important a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +thing had called out a leading article, and Mr. Wray +had read it till he knew it by heart. Yet he picked up +the paper now, and looked at it again.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The mystery surrounding Lord Abbotsford’s death,” +it ran, “has not been lifted by the verdict at the inquest. +The deceased clearly came to his death by poisoning with +cyanid of potassium, which could not have been administered +by his own hand, as no trace of any bottle containing +it was found anywhere in the house of the unfortunate +nobleman. And the verdict of murder by persons +unknown has only deepened the horror of the public, +since no trace or clue to the supposed murderer has +been discovered. The evidence of the servants—who +were all able to prove an alibi on the afternoon of the +murder—that no one entered the house, has been rendered +worthless by the statement of Mr. Cylmer, of Cylmer’s +Ferry, who swore that he had entered with a latch-key, +gone up-stairs and put down a box of cigarettes in the +very room in which Lord Abbotsford was lying, and +gone out again at once without seeing him, where he lay +on a sofa behind a screen. He had hurried out to join +a friend in the street: half an hour later he went back +to Lord Abbotsford’s house, and this time discovered his +body, and sent the servants at once for the police. That +Mr. Cylmer—who was a close friend of the deceased—was +guiltless, was amply proved at the inquest; but the +criminal is still to be found, and a large reward has been +offered for his apprehension.</p> + +<p>“The only clue so far comes from the evidence of +Mr. Cylmer, that, on laying down the box of cigarettes, +he had noticed on a small table some bank-notes, a quantity +of loose gold, some diamonds in an open box, and +a woman’s photograph, which he had not been accustomed +to see there. On his return and discovery of the +dead body, the gold, diamonds, and photograph were +gone; the notes only remained.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cylmer stated that he merely glanced at the photograph. +Lord Abbotsford had many women friends +whom he did not know; but that he remembered distinctly +its being there. Of the diamonds missing, no trace<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +can be found, though they had only been purchased that +day as a gift for the betrothed wife of the dead man. +But that such infamous crimes can be committed with +impunity in the house of a well-known nobleman, in the +very heart of London, is not to be thought possible, and +every means will be brought to bear to bring the perpetrator +to justice. No motive can be found for the murder, +the robbery excepted. His estates go to a distant +cousin, at present a midshipman on foreign service in the +Royal Navy. The deepest of sympathy is extended +throughout society to the lady whose engagement to Lord +Abbotsford was announced only the day before his +death.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“A pack of fools!” said the reader slowly. “And the +man who wrote this is the worst. They may hunt +through every street in London and never find a thread +to help them. If Lord Abbotsford had had a clever man +servant”—he shrugged his lean shoulders—“but he would +have country bumpkins from his estate to wait on him, +and no others!”</p> + +<p>He sat in a brown study for a long half-hour, and then +roused himself to eat his cold breakfast. He had not +eaten much lately; his waitress, when she cleared away, +was glad his appetite had improved. He lived alone in +one of the curious rookeries known to the frequenters of +the Inns of Court. He was anything but a briefless barrister, +yet his briefs were usually of a sort another man +would have looked at twice.</p> + +<p>Not Marcus Wray—the world owed him a living, and +he must get it, somehow. It did not concern him that +the people who went up and down his staircase—after +dark—were not the cream of society.</p> + +<p>Contrary to his habits, he spent his morning in utter +idleness, smoking; his lean, round shoulders more humped +than usual, his ugly, clean-shaven face wrinkled repulsively.</p> + +<p>There was money to be got out of the Abbotsford +tragedy, yet just how would not come to him. His thick, +red lips pressed hard on his cigar, and the lean, knotted +hand that lay on his knee never ceased a curiously light<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +movement, as if he were driving in a nail, carefully, very +carefully. Suddenly the tapping ceased as the man’s +face relaxed.</p> + +<p>“I think I have it,” he said to himself. “Anyhow, I +will go out and—make a call!”</p> + +<p>He folded up his paper and put it safely in his overcoat +pocket when he was ready to start. He might want +it—it had interested him.</p> + +<p>It had interested two other people in London—Ismay +Trelane and her mother.</p> + +<p>Till they read it they had hardly eaten or slept; the +days had passed somehow, that was all. If Mr. Cylmer’s +evidence had been given early in the inquiry they might +have suffered less, but it had been kept to the very last.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, pale and staring, was the first to speak +when the morning paper was read.</p> + +<p>“We’re all right,” she said thickly.</p> + +<p>Ismay nodded. “When he went in I thought you were +lost. But it was lucky you got that photograph. I suppose +it’s Abbotsford’s sovereigns you’ve been staving off +your tradesmen with.”</p> + +<p>“They were no good to him”—cynically.</p> + +<p>“And not much to us; they’re all gone now.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, who had scarcely spoken since that day +of terror, who had not gone out lest some one should +know her, seemed turned into another woman by the +reading of that newspaper article. She looked at Ismay +almost triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“Very nearly gone, but—they’re not all!”</p> + +<p>“Then,” said Ismay slowly, “you did take the diamonds! +How did you find the courage? You were almost +too frightened to walk when I pushed you in the +door.” Once more that horrible suspicion sickened her.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said her mother simply. “You see, +the shock of it was over; after all, he was only a dead +man, and I had seen dead people before.”</p> + +<p>“But you were mad; they’re no good to us,” the girl +gasped; “we daren’t sell them.”</p> + +<p>“We do, to one man in London.”</p> + +<p>“As they are?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, he won’t dare ask<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +questions. But once they are sold we can get away from +here; go somewhere and start fresh. I won’t be comfortable +till we are out of London. The sale of the diamonds +will pay nearly everything, and leave us money in hand.”</p> + +<p>“Are you wise?” Ismay asked hardly. “Or are you +running into a trap?”</p> + +<p>“Not I! I am too old a resident in ‘underground London’ +for that, Ismay.” She stopped suddenly and listened. +“Did I hear a bell ring?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the door-bell; some one has come for money. +I’ll go.”</p> + +<p>Ismay left her mother huddling over their scanty fire—for +the coal-merchant was like every one else, unpaid—and +went to the front door. The shabby black gown +that was her all was not even neat, and she had no collar +on; her wonderful flaxen hair was coiled anyhow round +her small head, but to the man who stood on the door-step +her strange beauty was a revelation. Was this the +ugly child Helen Trelane had shoved into a convenient +boarding-school and forgotten? Instinctively he took off +his hat, as if he had seen Circe herself.</p> + +<p>“Is it possible that you are Ismay?” he said.</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him with somber dislike, his ugliness +repelled, almost sickened, her. And at the cold oiliness +of his voice she recoiled as at something tangibly +evil. Who was he that he knew her?</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, but she would not see it.</p> + +<p>“You don’t remember me, of course,” he smiled. “Is +your mother in? I came to see her.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; she went out, but she may be back.” +Some instinct made her lie, and the man knew it.</p> + +<p>“Tell her,” he said, “that Marcus Wray has come to +see her.”</p> + +<p>And before Ismay could shut the door he stood beside +her in the little white-paneled, turquoise-tiled hall, that +felt so cold.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane started when her daughter came in +breathless from she knew not what.</p> + +<p>“A man who wants you,” she said; “his name is Wray. +And he called me Ismay! Mother, who is he?”</p> + +<p>If she had spoken truly, Mrs. Trelane would have said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +her evil genius. Instead, her eyes glittered for one instant +in surprise. What had brought him, whom three +years ago she had shaken off forever?</p> + +<p>“Marcus Wray?” she said unbelievingly. “What could +he want?”</p> + +<p>“You. Oh, what a hideous man! He is like a toad, +a snake!”</p> + +<p>“Hush!” The woman whispered angrily. “He might +hear, and he’s the man I meant; the only man in London +who will buy those diamonds. Bring him here, it’s +the only warm place in the house.”</p> + +<p>Ismay glanced at the untidy breakfast, not cleared +away, the disorder of the luxuriously furnished room; +and Mrs. Trelane laughed.</p> + +<p>“He has seen worse,” she remarked quietly. “Bring +him.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t stay in the room with him! He makes me +sick.”</p> + +<p>“No one wants you to,” said her mother, yet as she +looked in the glass at her own worn beauty she felt a +tinge of uneasiness. There was something uncanny +about this visit from a man she had not seen for three +years; his coming just when she had need of him. She +wished she could know what it meant. But as he entered, +immaculately dressed as she remembered him, Mrs. +Trelane greeted him as if he were her dearest friend.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mind my having you in here?” she said +simply. “It is the only fire. And where have you been +all this time—do you know it is years since you have remembered +me?”</p> + +<p>“It is years since I have seen you,” he corrected her, +“but you are just the same. But the girl, your daughter”—the +door had banged behind him when he entered, +making him smile covertly—“is not the same. She is +beautiful, though not like you; nor”—thoughtfully—“like +Trelane.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane bit her lip.</p> + +<p>“Did you come to compliment me on my child?” she +said prettily. “How nice of you!”</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray took a chair by the fire, though his +hostess was standing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> + +<p>“No,” he answered carelessly, his sharp, narrow eyes +wandering round the dusty costliness of the room. “No, +I came—because you needed me.”</p> + +<p>“Needed you. I?” Every bit of color left her face; +her uneasiness had been well founded then; it was not +chance that brought Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“I thought so; perhaps I’m wrong. But this morning +I felt certain that if I did not come to see you, you would +come to me; so I saved you the trouble. By the way”—he +pulled something from his overcoat pocket and held +it out to her—“have you seen this morning’s <i>Herald</i>?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, standing by the table, put a sudden hand +on it, as if her strength had failed her.</p> + +<p>“You have, I see. Well!—sit down, you can talk better.” +He pushed a chair to her with his foot, contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“I have seen the paper—yes, of course! But what of +it?” She had not stirred to take the chair. The last +time she had seen Marcus Wray she had dictated to him—had +he waited all this time to avenge himself?</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d like to sell them. It’s not safe, you +know, to have them.”</p> + +<p>“Sell what? Have what? I don’t know what you +mean!” she panted.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you! I was in a house in +Onslow Square, across the way from Lord Abbotsford’s, +one afternoon last week; I was dull, and looked out the +window. You came, you went; you came, you went”—moving +his hand to and fro like a weaver’s shuttle—“the +last time you were agitated, but not your daughter; she +pushed you in.” He paused, looking deliberately at her. +“The second time you came out you hurried—needlessly.”</p> + +<p>“Mark, Mark.” She was beside him, clutching his +arm hard with her slim white hand. “He was dead when +I went in, I swear he was dead! I went back to get——”</p> + +<p>“Your photograph, and the—other things. Well, you +got them! I congratulate you. But as for his being +dead”—he shrugged his rounded shoulders, heedless of +her desperate hold on his arm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p> + +<p>“My God, do you think I killed him?”</p> + +<p>The words came bleakly after a silence, when the slow +dropping of the coals from the grate had sounded loud.</p> + +<p>“Would you like to stand your trial if I told all I saw? +If you could convince the jury, you could convince me +afterward, you know.” The hand on his arm relaxed +suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Mark, Mark,” the woman said bitterly, “once I +trusted you, when all the world condemned you——”</p> + +<p>“And kicked me from your door afterward like a +troublesome dog,” he interrupted her quietly. “Well, it’s +my turn now! Give me the diamonds, and your dog +holds his tongue.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean sell them to you?” She had sunk into +a chair as if she could never rise again.</p> + +<p>“No, I mean give,” he said relentlessly. “Don’t you +understand? It’s my price; the price of silence.”</p> + +<p>“But I’m ruined! If you take them we are beggars +on the street, the girl and I. I took the diamonds because—look +round you”—breaking off desperately—“don’t +you see we have nothing? There is a bill of sale +on the furniture, the lease of the house is up—do +you want me to starve?”</p> + +<p>“You have never starved yet,” he retorted. “But if +you prefer to hang, keep the diamonds. I, too, want +money, and if you don’t pay me, some one else will. +Look!” He held to her a printed paper, that swam before +her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I can’t read it,” she muttered.</p> + +<p>“No? It is that five hundred pounds reward is offered +for the discovery of the murderer of Lord Abbotsford. +Your diamonds are worth eight hundred, so you will pay +me best. Only if you fail me—well, if one can’t have +cake, one takes gingerbread!”</p> + +<p>He leaned toward her threatening, sinister, yet smiling.</p> + +<p>“You had better give me the cake.”</p> + +<p>“How do I know”—after all, she was brave in her +fashion, he could not help wondering how she found +courage to bargain—“how do I know that you will not +take my cake and their gingerbread? Giving you what +you say I have will not make you faithful.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<p>“Nothing will make me faithful,” said Marcus Wray, +with a noiseless laugh. “But the diamonds will help, +and if your daughter is a sensible girl she will do the +rest. I am coming to see her—very often.”</p> + +<p>He rose as he spoke and walked to the mantelpiece, +where a heavily framed picture hung.</p> + +<p>“I have not forgotten your ways,” he observed, drawing +out a purple velvet box stuck behind the picture and +putting it carefully into his breast pocket. “I thought +they would be there.” He took up his shining hat airily.</p> + +<p>“Au revoir, dear lady,” he said. “Tell your little girl +to open the door for me.”</p> + +<p>At the words a last hope dawned on Mrs. Trelane’s +misery. Marcus admired the girl—then, perhaps, she +could manage him where her mother had failed.</p> + +<p>“Wait here, I’ll find her,” she faltered; and hurried out.</p> + +<p>Ismay, sitting on her bed, wrapped in the coverlet to +keep warm, started at her mother’s livid face; started +once again at her quick, whispered sentences.</p> + +<p>“You let him frighten you! You let him know you +had them!” She stamped her foot.</p> + +<p>“What could I do? Oh! go to him, try——”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane threw herself on the bed, broken with +tearless sobbing that she could not control; and her +daughter, with a bravery that sprang from ignorance, +went down to try her strength against that of Marcus +Wray.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later she stood alone in the room she +had entered with her head high and her eyes blazing. +Now she shivered as she heard the front door close behind +the strange visitor.</p> + +<p>Yet he had been perfectly civil.</p> + +<p>“The diamonds—since you insist these are diamonds—are +quite safe. So is the reputation of your mother while +you take an interest in it. Suppose you go to the theater +with me to-morrow night?—it would do you good,” +he had said to her.</p> + +<p>His words rang in her ears, the tone had been perfectly +polite, but the veiled threat in it had staggered her. The +next moment she had found her courage.</p> + +<p>“With you? No, never!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> + +<p>“You had better think of it,” he said quietly. “I assure +you I am a good friend and a bad enemy. If I +have taken a liking to you, why be angry? You can’t +get away from London, you know, without any money—nor +from me.”</p> + +<p>He was gone now, out of the house, yet a sudden terror +of him shook her. She turned and ran, as if she +were hunted, to where her mother lay shivering on the +bed.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” she cried desperately, “think quickly! Isn’t +there some way we can be rid of that man?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try—but I don’t think I can find one.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane shivered as she rose and went to her +writing-table.</p> + +<p>Ismay, watching her haggard face, was terror-stricken +afresh. How had her mother been terrified into giving +up those diamonds? Was there something that Marcus +Wray knew?</p> + +<p>Ismay could not finish that thought. She sat motionless, +as Mrs. Trelane, without even showing her the address +of the letter she had written, went out and +posted it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A LUCKY CAST.</p> + + +<p>The great house lay very still in the evening sunshine +that slanted soft and red on its gray old walls and turned +its many windows to amber fires, its castellated roof to +a rose-red carving against the pale blue eastern sky. +Over the great hall door that opened on a wide stone +terrace, grim with lions wrought in stone, was carved the +motto of the master of the house—“What Marchant held +let Marchant hold.”</p> + +<p>The words were repulsive and ironical in their pride +to the man who looked up at them involuntarily as he got +out of his carriage and went into his house. He passed +wearily through the hall to his library, and locked the +door behind him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p> + +<p>He must have time to think; must be alone. He +dreaded the sound of the light knock at the door, which +would mean Cristiane had come to see what he had +brought her from London. And the motto of his house +over his door had been like a blow on the eyes to him +to-night.</p> + +<p>“What Marchant held let Marchant hold.”</p> + +<p>He, Gaspard le Marchant, had learned to-day that a +resistless hand was loosening his own grip on the house +of his fathers; of his lands and money; of his life itself. +But it was not the losing of those things that made his +upper lip damp with sweat as he sat alone in the dim, +Russia leather scented library.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane,” he said to himself very quietly. “Who +can I leave with Cristiane?”</p> + +<p>His thought was all for his only daughter, the child +of his love. Seventeen years old, cherished, adored, +beautiful—who would take care of her when he was +gone? And go he must, for the great London doctor +had told him so that very morning.</p> + +<p>“It is a matter of months, Sir Gaspard; perhaps of +weeks.”</p> + +<p>The words in this hard gentleness seemed to ring still +in the ears of the man who sat alone.</p> + +<p>“A matter of a very few months, and if you have anything +to arrange it would be best, perhaps, to see to it +at once.”</p> + +<p>Gaspard le Marchant’s voice had been quite quiet as +he answered the words that were his death-warrant, but +he had gone straight from the doctor’s house and taken +the first train home to Marchant Place.</p> + +<p>He had not felt really well for a year past, but he had +never thought it was serious when he paid that two-days’ +visit to London; he had gone up more to buy new clothes +than to see a doctor. It had been a cursory visit, and, +like many such things, had held the tidings of death in it.</p> + +<p>A few weeks more and Gaspard le Marchant would +be done with this world, and powerless to care for the +child for whom that other Cristiane had given her life +seventeen years ago.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p> + +<p>At the thought, another thought, that had been in the +man’s mind all day, came over him with ineffable power. +The doctor had meant that if there was anything he +wanted to do before he died he had better do it. Well, +there was one thing—call it the whim of a dying man if +you liked! He must go once more to that grave where +they had laid all that was left of the woman who loved +him, seventeen years ago.</p> + +<p>He must bury his face in the grass that grew over her +body; must tell her that the parting was, after all, not +long; the day very close at hand now when he and she +would walk together in the paths of paradise.</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell the child I’m going to die,” he thought. +“And I must find a guardian for her somehow. If I +only knew a woman I could trust! God knows the girl +must have missed her mother many a day.”</p> + +<p>He was the last of the Le Marchants’; he had no relations +except a married cousin, of whom he had lost +sight long ago, and his wife had had no one.</p> + +<p>People said Cristiane’s mother had been an adventuress; +certainly she had left her daughter the legacy +only of her own outlandish name, her own wonderful +red-gold hair, and a wild will that there was no compelling.</p> + +<p>Cristiane Luoff her name had been, and Sir Gaspard +had married her in Rome. For a year they had been utterly +happy—and now he was going to look on her grave +for the last time before he died.</p> + +<p>First, though, he must find some one to leave with +Cristiane, and he had no inkling where to turn. Men +he knew—but Cristiane was too pretty to leave to any of +them; women—he could not think of one!</p> + +<p>He stared idly across the wide oak writing-table before +him, and a neat pile of letters caught his eye. Surely +he had seen the writing on that top envelope before—but +where!</p> + +<p>Small, neat, dainty, it lay before his gaze, and he +opened it, more to turn his thoughts than because it could +have to do with what was in his mind.</p> + +<p>“Helen Trelane” it was signed, and he wondered no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +longer why the writing had looked familiar, though it +was years since he had seen it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane was his only relative, and had married a +man of whom report spoke variously as a scoundrel and +a martyr. Only reports of the first sort had reached Sir +Gaspard. Trelane had long been dead, and, living, had +had few friends. One thing was certain, that with +him Mrs. Trelane had led a life of precarious poverty, +till she had gradually drifted utterly away from the people +who had known her as Helen le Marchant.</p> + +<p>When Trelane drank himself to death—or died of a +broken heart, as some people had it—Sir Gaspard had +sent a large check to his widow, and she had written +more times than were quite necessary to thank him. He +had let the correspondence drop, but now he recognized +the writing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“My Dear Gaspard,” the letter ran, “I suppose you +will be surprised at hearing from one of whom you have +heard nothing since your great kindness at a sad time. +I would have written had I had anything pleasant to say, +but things have not gone well with me and my little girl.</p> + +<p>“An imprudent man of business—I do not care to write +a dishonest one—the education of my child, which cost +more than I imagined, and perhaps my own foolish ignorance +of money matters, have resulted in my being +nearly penniless.</p> + +<p>“I write to you now as my only relation, to tell you +that I must find a situation as governess or companion +to support my child, and to ask you if you will be good +enough to act as reference to my employers, when I find +them.</p> + +<p>“If you answer this at once, this address will find me, +but if not, please write care May’s Employment Office, +for my lease of this house expires at the end of this +week, and I do not know yet where I can go.</p> + +<p>“You have never seen Ismay. She is sixteen now. +I think her pretty, and I know her to be my only comfort. +When I find a situation I shall send her back to her +school as a pupil teacher, but the parting will be a hard +one, and I have not yet found courage to tell her of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> + +<p>“However, it must be; and I rely on your old kindness +when I ask you to let me refer to you as to my fitness +to undertake the charge of girls.</p> + +<p class="sig0">“Your cousin,</p> +<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Helen Trelane</span>.</p> + +<p>“1 Colbourne Square, London.”</p> +</div> + +<p>It was a letter that had given its writer some trouble, +but circumstances had rendered it a masterpiece.</p> + +<p>Could Helen Trelane have seen Sir Gaspard turn again +to the few words in which she spoke sadly of the parting +with her daughter she would have smiled in quiet triumph +at the inspiration which had made her bait her +nearly hopeless hook with love for her child. She had +asked for so little, too; and there was nothing to let Sir +Gaspard know that she meant him to do for her treble +what she asked.</p> + +<p>“Poor girl, poor Helen!” he thought. “What a fate +to have to earn her own living and be parted from her +child. But if she is the woman I think her, I can save +her from that—only I must see her first.”</p> + +<p>It seemed to Le Marchant that the finger of Providence +was in Helen Trelane’s letter. Who would make +a better guardian for Cristiane than his own cousin, a +mother herself?</p> + +<p>She had said something about her ignorance of money +matters, but he could leave Cristiane’s money so tied up +that there would be no question of managing it.</p> + +<p>He wrote a short note, appointing a time to see Mrs. +Trelane in London. Somehow his heart had lightened +since reading that letter from another Le Marchant, who +was pained and desperate about her only child.</p> + +<p>As he sealed his note he started, like a child caught in +mischief, for there sounded an impatient tap at the door.</p> + +<p>It was Cristiane. And he was making plans for her +he could not tell her, with his heart full of an agony she +must not suspect.</p> + +<p>“Are you here, father? May I come in?”</p> + +<p>How sweet and full the girl’s voice sounded through +the oak door!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> + +<p>The man’s heart fairly turned in his breast as he rose +and let her in.</p> + +<p>But his handsome face was quite calm as the girl put +up her fresh cheek for his kiss; if his lip trembled under +his fair mustache she was not woman enough to know it.</p> + +<p>“Have you just come back? Why didn’t you let me +know, daddy?” she demanded imperiously. “Or were +you busy?”—with a careless glance at the newly written +note that was to mean so much for her. He nodded.</p> + +<p>“Finished now? Tell me, chickabiddy, how did you +get on without me?” He could not keep from passing +a hand that shook a little over the dear waves of her +red-gold hair.</p> + +<p>She faced him suddenly.</p> + +<p>“You’re tired, daddy; you look pale. We’ll have dinner +early.”</p> + +<p>“Whenever you like.”</p> + +<p>He was looking at her as a man looks at the dearest +thing on earth; how fair, how heavenly fair she was as +she stood, tall and slim, in her white frock, the last sunset +light catching her golden hair; falling on her great +dark-gray eyes, which were all but black, or sometimes +violet, as her mood varied; making lovely her faintly +pink cheek, her rose-red mouth.</p> + +<p>It was as though Cristiane Luoff had come back from +the dead, in the crown of her youth.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you are tired!” the girl cried, as she met his gaze. +“You—you look quite plain, daddy! I’ll ring for dinner +now.”</p> + +<p>Somehow Gaspard le Marchant found strength to +laugh at that time-worn joke about his plainness, but the +next instant his hard-held composure was nearly out of +hand.</p> + +<p>“You’ll never go away and leave me again, will you, +daddy? I do miss you so horribly.”</p> + +<p>“I—I won’t, if I can help it,” said Sir Gaspard, almost +sharply.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A DREAM OF SAFETY.</p> + + +<p>“Mother, aren’t you awake?”</p> + +<p>Ismay, wrapped in an old flannel dressing-gown, stood +knocking sharply at Mrs. Trelane’s bedroom door, her +knuckles blue with cold and her face set peevishly.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” she repeated, “there isn’t any milk, and the +milkman won’t leave us any unless we pay for it. +Haven’t you any money?”—running her fingers impatiently +over the bedroom door. It opened quietly as she +drummed on it. Mrs. Trelane, dressed for the day and +exquisitely neat, stood looking at her.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, what do you want?” she asked +angrily. Her face was drawn from a night of waking, +and haggard as a gambler’s who has flung down his last +card and does not know what remains in his opponent’s +hand. “Money? You know I haven’t any. Can’t you +do without milk?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I must”—sullenly. “Breakfast’s ready, +then—dry bread and tea without milk! What made you +sleep so late? It’s nearly eleven.”</p> + +<p>“What was the good of waking?” Not even to Ismay +could she say that she had never slept the livelong night +for waiting for the day and the postman’s knock; that +when it came she had run to the door to find only the +big blue envelope she had dreaded, and not a word from +the man to whom she had turned in her despair.</p> + +<p>Ever since she had sat old and haggard in the morning +light, her busy brain thinking, to no end. Unless Gaspard +le Marchant answered that letter destruction looked +her in the face.</p> + +<p>She dressed herself at last under the spur of Ismay’s +incessant knocking and calling, but though her iron nerve +kept her face steady, her knees were trembling under her +as she followed the girl into the bare kitchen, where half +a loaf of bread and some weak tea represented their +morning meal.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p> + +<p>Ismay sat down on the table and regarded her mother +over the piece of dry bread she held to her lips.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” she remarked slowly, “don’t you think +it’s about time you did something? Are we going to sit +here and starve? And do you know that Marcus Wray +was knocking here this morning and I wouldn’t go to +the door?”</p> + +<p>Even the dirty dressing-gown, the weariness that drew +down her upper lip, could not take away from her unearthly +beauty as her mother stared at her.</p> + +<p>“Do something!” she retorted. “I’ve done all I can. +That is what’s the matter. And we sha’n’t certainly sit +here and starve, for I heard this morning that we are +to be turned out on Saturday and our things sold for +rent. We shall starve more romantically in the street.”</p> + +<p>“I sha’n’t.”</p> + +<p>“What can you do? Go back to your school as a +pupil teacher?”</p> + +<p>“Do I look like a pupil teacher?” asked Ismay, with a +sarcastic glance at herself.</p> + +<p>“You look—well, I don’t know whether you are very +beautiful or very ugly!” the elder woman returned listlessly, +trying to break some dry bread with distasteful +fingers.</p> + +<p>“You’ll soon be told! Mother”—with sudden energy—“if +you can’t find some way out of this, I shall. I can +sing, and I’m going round to every music-hall I know till +some man gives me a chance. Do you suppose”—she +stripped back the sleeve of her dingy dressing-gown from +an arm that was curiously slender, yet round, and of +a milky whiteness—“that I am going to let that starve?”</p> + +<p>“And what about me? I suppose I can go out +charing!”</p> + +<p>Ismay shrugged her shoulders. There was no waste +of courtesy between the two.</p> + +<p>In the silence that fell, the postman’s knock seemed to +thunder through the quiet. Mrs. Trelane put her cup +down on the table.</p> + +<p>“You go,” she said, for at the sudden noise her head +swam. Surely she had not lost her nerve, that had stood +her in such stead this many a year!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p> + +<p>“Two letters—notes—for you.”</p> + +<p>Ismay threw them down on the table, and, after one +glance of sick terror lest they might not be what she +waited for, Mrs. Trelane seized them. Both were in the +writing she had not seen for years, both sealed with the +Le Marchant lion crouching with his paw on his prey. +But why were there two? Had he promised something, +and then repented?</p> + +<p>Sick with terror, Helen Trelane tore one open, and at +first dared not read it. Then the sense of it seemed to +flash on her, and the reaction made her dizzy.</p> + +<p>It was all right! The last card, on which she had +staked her all, had not failed her. The writer would be +in London on Friday, and would come to see her at +twelve o’clock, when he hoped to have some better plan +to propose than what she had suggested in her letter.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Till then,” he ended kindly, “please do not fret about +your own or your daughter’s future, for I can promise +you that I will arrange something.</p> + +<p class="sig0">“Affectionately yours,</p> +<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">G. le Marchant</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>There was not a word in it about his daughter. Sir +Gaspard was too careful of her to do things blindly, but +he meant when he wrote to provide for Helen Trelane, +even if she turned out unfit to be trusted with his child.</p> + +<p>Ismay took the note calmly from her mother’s nerveless +hand.</p> + +<p>“Who’s Gaspard le Marchant, and why is he yours +affectionately?” she asked curiously. “But it doesn’t +matter. The chief thing is that he is ‘yours affectionately’ +just in the nick of time. What’s in the other +note?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” Mrs. Trelane lay back, nerveless, in +her hard chair; she had conquered fate once more, but +the relief was too acute yet to be pleasant. With a shaking +finger she opened the other note, and there fell out +two strips of paper.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“You may need this, and you and I can settle later.</p> + +<p class="sig"> +“<span class="smcap">G. le M.</span>” +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p> + +<p>The yellow slip enclosed was a check for a hundred +pounds.</p> + +<p>When another woman would have cried with gratitude, +Mrs. Trelane only caught her breath cynically. “A +fool and his money were soon parted,” but what a mercy +it was that he had been so easily managed!</p> + +<p>“What about the music-halls, Ismay?” she said bitterly, +lifting her triumphant eyes to her daughter’s astonished +face.</p> + +<p>“Go out,” said the girl, “and cash this, and we’ll have +meat for lunch. But tell me first, who is he? And why +didn’t you try him before?”</p> + +<p>“He is Sir Gaspard le Marchant, and the only relation +I own. And I did try him before, in a way. He +sent me money once before, but I didn’t need it especially, +and I didn’t want to have to go and stay in a stupid country +house or have my dear cousin come hunting me up. +So I did not write to him till it looked as though camping +on the cold, cold ground was going to be our fate.”</p> + +<p>“Is he married?”</p> + +<p>“His wife has been dead for years.”</p> + +<p>“And you never tried to be Lady Le Marchant?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane’s cheek grew slowly red.</p> + +<p>“His first wife, my dear, was a Russian adventuress,” +she returned cuttingly, “and only a born adventuress +could hope to succeed her. You have all the qualifications—you +might try for the place.”</p> + +<p>And she walked airily out of the room, quite transformed +from the haggard woman she had been when she +entered it. But, though she was tall and fair and handsome, +she was not in the least like the girl who sat alone +looking with eager interest at the Le Marchant seal, the +Le Marchant motto, on the back of one of the torn envelopes. +No Le Marchant and no Trelane had ever had +those strange eyes, that uncanny, colorless beauty, that +mouth as red as new blood.</p> + +<p>“What Marchant held let Marchant hold!” she read +aloud from the seal. “Well, half of me is Le Marchant, +and the other half ‘born adventuress’! I feel sorry—really +sorry—for Sir Gaspard.” And she slipped gracefully +to the floor, and went after her mother. But in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +hall a knock and ring at their front door made her run +noiselessly to the bedroom, where Mrs. Trelane was putting +on her bonnet.</p> + +<p>“He’s here,” Ismay cried; “it must be he; for it’s +twelve o’clock, and it’s Friday! You’ll have to go and +let him in, I can’t.”</p> + +<p>“No, you can’t! Don’t you come near us,” said her +mother, with quick insistence, “unless I call you. Mind—for +you might spoil everything! And when I do call +you, come in a decent frock, with a plain linen collar, +and behave yourself. Don’t make eyes at him whatever +you do, and be affectionate to me. Remember, +now!”</p> + +<p>And she was gone to open the door for the man who +was to change the very face of the world for her.</p> + +<p>Miss Ismay Trelane, left alone, made a face.</p> + +<p>“Where does she think I’m going to get a clean collar +when the washerwoman has clawed them all till she’s +paid? And I won’t get dressed for a minute.”</p> + +<p>Lithe and slim she moved, without a sound, to a door +that opened into the drawing-room, and, noiselessly setting +it ajar, listened with all her ears.</p> + +<p>When she crept away her eyes were blazing.</p> + +<p>“It means plenty of money, and getting away from +here to where Marcus Wray will never think of looking +for us!” she exulted, as she began to change her dressing-gown +for her only dress; but a sudden thought +dashed her joy.</p> + +<p>To leave London would mean never to see again the +man whose face had never left her memory since that +night at the Palace Theater.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t I let him tell me his name?” she thought, +as she stamped with impotent rage at her own folly.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THREEFOLD DANGER.</p> + + +<p>“Mrs. Trelane is father’s second cousin; and she and +her daughter are coming here for a visit; daddy has to +go away, and he can’t take me, and he won’t leave me +alone.”</p> + +<p>Cristiane le Marchant leaned against the stem of a +huge beech-tree that overhung the broad lake at Marchant’s +Hold. The sunlight came through the leafless +trees, and made the golden-red of her hair ruddier and +more glorious in contrast; her cheeks had a soft rose +that melted into creamy whiteness, and her eyes were +very dark.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer looked at her. She was certainly provokingly +cool.</p> + +<p>“What are they like?” she asked curiously.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t matter; they are a nuisance in any case,” +said her companion.</p> + +<p>“Why?” she asked, but did not look at him.</p> + +<p>“You never had a chaperon before,” he said dryly. +“Oh! your father, I know, but a woman’s—different. I +know she’ll be in the way.”</p> + +<p>“In your way, Mr. Cylmer!” retorted Miss Le Marchant +demurely, but her eyes flashed mischievously at +him through her heavy lashes.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cylmer” kicked at the turf with vicious energy.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t rub it in, Cristiane,” he said crossly. “I +know you don’t care a button whether you see me alone +or not.”</p> + +<p>He was very young-looking for his twenty-eight years; +very brown and big as he stood on the grass in his shooting-clothes. +But he had not been born yesterday for all +his debonair face; there was very little Mr. Cylmer had +not done in this world; very little that his quick eye did +not see through.</p> + +<p>But all his worldly wisdom was wont to desert him +when he found himself alone with Cristiane. He was her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +humble slave, and it never occurred to him that she +would have valued him much more if she had known +that Miles Cylmer, who was such an every-day sort of +person to her, could have thrown his handkerchief to half +the fine ladies in London, and had it snapped up on the +second; or that every woman he knew adored him, from +duchess to dairymaids.</p> + +<p>To Cristiane le Marchant he was plain Miles Cylmer, +who had been in and out of Marchant’s Hold all his life, +and was to be regarded as a convenient or inconvenient +elder brother, as things might happen.</p> + +<p>“Come on,” she commanded practically, “I have to go +to the house to meet them.”</p> + +<p>“Is your father coming with them?”</p> + +<p>He stood looking down at her, six feet and to spare, +his keen hazel eyes full of annoyance, and his face quite +grave. Had he not given up a whole day’s shooting to +be near Cristiane le Marchant? And now, instead of a +tête-à-tête with her, there would be two women to be +disposed of; two strangers to spoil it.</p> + +<p>“But your father’s coming with them,” he repeated, +beginning to walk slowly—very slowly—toward the +house.</p> + +<p>“No, he isn’t!” Cristiane stopped short. “That’s +what’s so funny about these visitors. Father has sent +them here, and he doesn’t know how long he’ll be away, +and he wrote me such a funny note.” And she pulled a +letter out of her pocket.</p> + +<p>“‘Write to me and tell me exactly what you think of +Mrs. Trelane, if you like her or not,’ she read. ‘But try +and make friends with her little daughter, for she needs +a friend, and take time before you write. Only write me +your candid opinion.’ There, what do you think of it? +Why is this Mrs. Trelane so important, that I am to send +daddy my ‘candid opinion.’ I can’t see any sense in it.”</p> + +<p>“By George, I can, then!” was on the tip of Mr. Cylmer’s +tongue, but he caught back the words in time. +There could be only one meaning to the letter; Sir Gaspard +must be thinking of marrying again.</p> + +<p>Somehow Cylmer was unreasonably angry. From his +earliest boyhood he had been wont to gaze at the portrait<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +of Cristiane’s mother, that hung in Sir Gaspard’s room, +with a wondering awe that any one could ever have been +so beautiful; it made him angry now in his manhood that +the husband she had loved should have dared to forget +her.</p> + +<p>“No, I can’t see any sense,” he said lamely; “only be +sure you tell your father outright if you don’t like this +Trelane woman. Otherwise he might ask her to stay on, +or something——”</p> + +<p>He jerked at his mustache irritably, quite unconscious +how he was wronging poor innocent Sir Gaspard.</p> + +<p>“I never would have thought Le Marchant the sort +of man to marry again,” he thought gloomily. “I’ll see +him as soon as he gets back, and tell him I—I want Cristiane. +She sha’n’t have any stepmother about while +there’s a roof at Cylmer’s Ferry!”</p> + +<p>He looked doubtfully at the girl as she walked on before +him. If only he dared stoop and kiss those soft +gold waves that were swept upward from the back of +her neck: dared to say he loved her from the crown of +her golden head to the tips of her little shoes.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane,” he said, “I want to speak to you. Do you +know you have never said you were sorry that these +people were coming; never said you would miss our long, +happy days together?”</p> + +<p>“But I won’t,” she said calmly: “you’ll be here. You’re +not going to die, or anything, are you?”</p> + +<p>She had turned round to him as she spoke, and her +violet-gray eyes were raised to his, her rose-colored lips +parted in a mockery that stung for all its sweetness.</p> + +<p>Two hands that were light and yet hard as iron were +laid on her shoulders before she knew it. Miles Cylmer’s +face, with a strange, sweet pity on it that she had never +seen there, was bent down to hers.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane, little girl, I want you to promise me something. +If anything goes wrong with you—will you come +to me?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Miles?” she said soberly. “What +could go wrong—while I have father?”</p> + +<p>His hands were hard on her shoulders.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know—but I love you, and somehow I’m +afraid for you.”</p> + +<p>He spoke stumblingly—in his outraged pity that he +thought was love—how could he keep his raging pulse +quiet? How could he make this child, who did not love +him, come to his heart?</p> + +<p>“Can’t you care a little, sweetheart?” he whispered. +“Can’t you marry me?”</p> + +<p>Marry him, Miles Cylmer, who was like a brother?</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t think I could, Miles,” Cristiane said slowly. +“I——”</p> + +<p>“Try.” His face was close to hers, she could feel his +breath, sweet and warm, on her cheek. Was this Miles, +who had never even thought of making love to her? +Why, he was trembling!</p> + +<p>With a sudden, wild rebellion the girl tore herself +away from him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t touch me,” she panted. “Marry you—I would +as soon marry Thomas the butler; I’ve known him from +a child, too!”—with angry scorn.</p> + +<p>Cylmer, very white and quiet, let his hands drop to +his sides.</p> + +<p>“All right,” he said quietly, “we won’t speak of it. +And I won’t come over any more—after to-day.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t.” She was struggling with tears. She +did not know why. “I—I wish you’d go home now!”—stamping +her foot.</p> + +<p>“I will; but I’m going up to see these daughters of +Heth first,” he returned quietly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t dare to ask me to marry you again,” she cried +childishly, “because I don’t like it! And you’re not to +stay to tea now—or come here any more till I ask you.”</p> + +<p>“I will not. I shall let Thomas try his luck.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer’s voice was not without temper. He +marched beside her over the dun, wintry grass in silence, +turning many things in his mind.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Cristiane angrily, “there they are now, on +the terrace. Daddy said I was to be certain to meet +them when they came, and I’m not there, and it’s all your +fault!”</p> + +<p>She hurried on to the great stone terrace that lay full<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +in the wintry sunshine. Two women stood there, both +tall and slender, both dressed in black. Cristiane was +running now to join them, and a strange superstitious +feeling made Cylmer quicken his steps after her. Somehow +it was ominous—uncanny; the girl in all her youth +and purity hurrying toward those strange women in +black.</p> + +<p>“God only knows when she’ll get rid of them!” Cylmer +growled, with more truth than he knew.</p> + +<p>As he neared them, Ismay, with a quick glance at his +approaching figure through the thick, spotted net of her +veil, turned quietly and went into the house.</p> + +<p>Who was this whose walk, whose face, she knew so +well, even though it was only once in her life that she +had seen them?</p> + +<p>She looked sharply round the great, dim hall. It was +empty, the servants had gone. From its shelter, dark +after the sun outside, the girl peered carefully out through +the wide crack of the hall door.</p> + +<p>Oh! if it were he, how should she meet him? Would +he know her? And what would he say?</p> + +<p>Her heart fairly stood still as she looked with her very +soul in her eyes through the crack to the group inside. +And then it bounded with a rapture that was pain.</p> + +<p>It was he—the man himself for whose sake she had +been loath to leave London lest she might miss the chance +sight of his face in the streets! Thirstily she drank in +the strong beauty of his face, whose clear-cut lines were +stamped on her heart. Not a thread of his shooting-tweeds, +his dull-red tie, was lost on her. Her delicate +hands were clenched hard in her smart new gloves as she +stared—for who was he, and what was he doing here +alone with this golden-haired girl?</p> + +<p>A wild jealousy caught her at the heart with a pain +that was bodily. If he were coming in, she dared not +meet him under the eyes of her mother and Cristiane +le Marchant. She turned and fled swiftly into the first +room she saw; it was deserted and fireless, they would +not come there. And yet, while she hid, she would have +given the life from her breast to meet those grave, sweet +eyes again with hers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + +<p>Cylmer had scarcely noticed that the younger of the +two strangers had gone; he did not even look at the door +through which she had vanished as he stepped to Cristiane’s +side with an involuntary instinct of protectiveness.</p> + +<p>The girl grudgingly introduced him, as one might a +troublesome child.</p> + +<p>“My cousin, Mrs. Trelane,” she said. She did not +even mention Cylmer’s name.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane bowed graciously; if she had not been +excited and preoccupied at meeting Gaspard le Marchant’s +daughter, on whom her stay in safety and security +at Marchant’s Hold depended, she might have +seen that Cylmer bent on her an uncomfortably searching +stare.</p> + +<p>But Cristiane had turned toward him.</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” she said hastily; “so sorry you can’t come +in.” And before he could answer she had swept Mrs. +Trelane into the house.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer was dismissed in disgrace.</p> + +<p>Yet, as he turned away, he scarcely thought of it.</p> + +<p>“Now, what,” he said to himself, “does that woman +remind me of? I never saw her before.” Yet the carriage +of her head, her long throat, was somehow familiar; +and as he thought there came to him the sudden +vision of a little rose-colored room, full of a haunting +scent of bitter almonds.</p> + +<p>“What nonsense!” he thought irritably. “Why should +Sir Gaspard’s cousin remind me of poor Abbotsford?” +And then he stopped short, annoyingly conscious that +he must be making a fool of himself.</p> + +<p>For he remembered now that Mrs. Trelane had held a +handkerchief in her hands. He had smelled that smell +of bitter almonds in reality; the woman and her handkerchief +reeked of peach-blossom. And yet he was puzzled—and +might have been more so had he known whose +strange green eyes had peered at him through the crack +of a sheltering door.</p> + +<p>The woman in his thoughts was standing just then in +her bedroom at Marchant’s Hold, with her hostess beside +her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> + +<p>“You must be tired,” Cristiane said; “do come to dinner +in a tea-gown. We shall be alone, for there was no +one I could have asked to meet you except Miles Cylmer, +whom you saw just now.”</p> + +<p>“Miles Cylmer!” Mrs. Trelane turned her back sharply, +in her sudden sick surprise.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry. He lives near, and +he comes very often when father is at home.”</p> + +<p>A new self-consciousness born of the afternoon kept +the girl from looking at her guest.</p> + +<p>“Come down,” she said abruptly, “when you’re ready.”</p> + +<p>The door had hardly closed behind her before Ismay, +in the next room, heard herself called.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she asked, standing in the doorway. +“Are you ill?”</p> + +<p>For Mrs. Trelane was sitting down as if her strength +were gone, gazing straight before her as one who sees a +ghost.</p> + +<p>“Ismay,” she said, “that man who was here this afternoon, +do you know who he is?”</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated; had her mother known more than +she knew about her visit to the Palace Theater?</p> + +<p>“Do I know his name?” she parried. “No—why?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane rose, staggered, and sat down again.</p> + +<p>“I can’t look,” she said. “Open the door into the passage +and see if that girl has gone. Quick!”</p> + +<p>“It’s all right,” Ismay said, after a contemptuous survey. +“Why? I don’t see why you’re looking as if you +were going to be seasick.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Mrs. Trelane said roughly, “do you remember +the Abbotsford business? This man who was +here to-day is Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry.”</p> + +<p>It was Ismay’s turn to stare with haggard eyes.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it?” she cried fiercely, but with the +low voice of caution. “You don’t mean to say that we’ll +have to get out of here?” How could she not have +known him that day in Onslow Square?</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” moaned the woman. A shudder +shook her like a leaf. “Did he look at me, or anything? +I was too taken up—with the girl. I didn’t notice”—her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +words coming in jerks. “Could you see from where +you were?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the girl frankly; “he stared at you like +anything.”</p> + +<p>“Get me a drink,” the elder woman said slowly. +“There’s brandy in my bag.”</p> + +<p>She swallowed it, and sat silent, with closed eyes. The +color crept back into her lips, and she lifted her head and +looked at her daughter.</p> + +<p>“I’m making a fool of myself,” she ejaculated. “He +never saw me, never heard of me, any more than any one +else did when there was all that trouble. But it was that +very Miles Cylmer who was Abbotsford’s dearest friend, +and strained every nerve to find out who the woman was +that—that was at the bottom of it.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes dilated till they looked black in her colorless +face. Ismay stared at her mother.</p> + +<p>“Do you think he ever saw that photograph I made +you go back and get, when you—found him?” she asked +sternly. “If he did, you may have trouble. He looked +a determined sort of man, dogged, you know. But he’s +the handsomest man I ever laid eyes on!”</p> + +<p>“What does it matter what he looks like, if he is that +Cylmer?” Mrs. Trelane cried angrily. “I talk about life +and death, and you go on about the man’s looks. What +do they matter to you?”</p> + +<p>“A great deal.” The girl’s eyes glittered very green +to-night. “The minute I saw him I meant to marry him. +Do you suppose I’d take pains to make him like me +if he were ugly?”</p> + +<p>“I know you wouldn’t; not to save me from anything,” +Mrs. Trelane returned bitterly. She had good reason +to know that no power on earth could force Ismay to be +civil.</p> + +<p>“But you’re talking nonsense,” she went on. “As +things are, we must try to keep the man from coming +here. You can’t dare to try your hand on him; we must +steer clear of him.”</p> + +<p>“And set him wondering why we should try to avoid +him? No, no! Let me alone. Only try to throw your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +mind back. Did he get into Abbotsford’s room before +you had taken away that picture?”</p> + +<p>She looked like an accusing judge at her mother, cowering +on the sofa under her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ismay!” the woman cried wretchedly, “I don’t +know, I don’t know. I went back for it—I was just taking +it—when there was a noise. I got behind a curtain. +Some one came in, and went out again, without noticing—Abbotsford”—her +voice low, tremulous with weeping. +“I took the photograph and got out of the house somehow. +I didn’t meet any one. I must have been at home +an hour before any one—found Abbotsford.”</p> + +<p>“Then why should you be so idiotic?”—jumping up in +her relief. “It could not have been Cylmer who came +in——”</p> + +<p>“It was. He said so afterward.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he didn’t see you. As for the photograph, he +couldn’t have noticed it enough to know you by. You +would have been ruined if you had not gone back and +got it, though!”</p> + +<p>“It was providential.” Mrs. Trelane breathed freer.</p> + +<p>“It was what?” cried Ismay. She went into a paroxysm +of low laughter. “Providence—and you! But I +think you’re all right—you forgive my smiling? I think +he just stared at you because you and I are probably in +his way here; that was all. Only I wouldn’t let him see +you in a white evening gown; that might remind him.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I had never seen Abbotsford.” Mrs. Trelane’s +tears had washed channels in her powder. She looked +wan and old where she sat. “I bore the brunt—and +Marcus has the diamonds.”</p> + +<p>“And we’re well out of it at that,” Ismay rejoined significantly. +“For at last I hope we’re rid of him. He’ll +never find us here.”</p> + +<p>“He’d find us in our graves,” said the woman. “And +you’ve got to manage him. Don’t go and get into any +mad pursuit of Mr. Cylmer, for if Marcus caught you +at it——”</p> + +<p>She paused, for Ismay was standing over her in a +rage.</p> + +<p>“Marcus!” she said scornfully. “What do I care for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +your Marcus? I am not bound to him; it is you that +need fear him, not I! And as far as you are concerned, +what do I owe you? You neglected me, cast me off, and +when I came back to you, that madness about Lord Abbotsford +came on you. I told you not to go that day—I +knew there would be trouble—and now it may be going +to ruin my whole life.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? You’re talking nonsense. And, +considering you’ve only seen Cylmer through the crack +of a door, you’re pretty certain of him,” cried her mother +sneeringly.</p> + +<p>Ismay drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen him before—never mind where,” she said.</p> + +<p>“And he may be Cristiane’s property,” was the angry +warning.</p> + +<p>Ismay flung up her handsome head.</p> + +<p>“He may belong to all the saints in heaven,” she said, +with her voice hard as ice, “but he will come to me +in the end.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE LUCK OF MARCUS WRAY.</p> + + +<p>Sir Gaspard le Marchant sat before an untasted breakfast +in a Paris hotel.</p> + +<p>He felt curiously ill; far worse than he had ever +known himself; he breathed with an effort that made his +man servant nervous as he stood behind his chair. Parker +alone knew the secret of his master’s state of health, +knew that their journey to Rome had been put off first +that Sir Gaspard might consult a Parisian specialist, and +then because the man who bore his pain so bravely had +not the strength to travel.</p> + +<p>“He looks pleased with Miss Cristiane’s letter; perhaps +that’ll do him good!” the man thought distressedly. +“I wish he’d turn round and go home.”</p> + +<p>“Parker,” Sir Gaspard said suddenly, and with almost +his old cheerfulness, “I’ve heard from Marchant’s Hold, +and Miss Le Marchant is very well.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, sir? I’m glad, sir.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t think I’m feeling much better this morning; +perhaps I’m nervous. At any rate, I have a little +piece of business to see to. Go down and ask the proprietor +if he could give you the address of some good +English lawyer, and then go and bring him here.”</p> + +<p>There were drops of cold dampness on his forehead +as he finished speaking. Parker, after one glance at +him, went out with noiseless haste.</p> + +<p>Yet, for all his pain, it was with a great thankfulness +at his heart that Sir Gaspard lay back in his chair. The +letter from Cristiane had been full of pleasant things +concerning Helen Trelane and her daughter. She was +very happy with them, and if he did not mind, would he +ask them to stay on a little while when he came back. +There was not a word about Miles Cylmer in the letter; +only praises of the two women.</p> + +<p>“So I can make it all right this morning,” the man +thought feverishly, “if only Parker can find the lawyer. +And then I’ll go on to Rome.”</p> + +<p>His head felt light and dizzy with pain. He had but +two thoughts, oddly intermingled: to make everything +easy for Cristiane, and then to creep away to die where +his love had died, so many years ago.</p> + +<p>He looked up in surprise as Parker came back.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t have to leave the hotel, sir,” he said; “there +is an English lawyer staying here, and I brought him up.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sure he’s all right—qualified—and that?” anxiously. +“I don’t want any trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Sure, sir. They know him well here.”</p> + +<p>“All right. Bring him in.”</p> + +<p>He looked at the stranger Parker ushered in with a +momentary curiosity. He was a very ugly man; tall, +dark, thick-lipped, almost repulsive. But he was well-dressed +and clean-shaved, and moved with a certain air +of gentlemanliness. His voice, too, was cultivated. Sir +Gaspard noticed this as he introduced himself, and gave +a card with his address in London Chambers.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Marcus Wray,” the card read.</p> + +<p>The name meant nothing to Sir Gaspard, though his +own lawyers could have told him it was that of a clever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +man who sailed perilously close to the wind, and had +once very nearly been disbarred. Only his cleverness +had saved him; there were no proofs ever to be found +against Mr. Marcus Wray. His business in Paris just +now was not too safe, but he stayed at a good hotel +and went about it so carefully as to pass for a model of +English propriety.</p> + +<p>He talked very little as Sir Gaspard gave his instructions. +He wished, he said, to make a new will, and +draw up some papers for the guardianship of his only +daughter.</p> + +<p>“Please make it all short,” Le Marchant ended. “I had +meant to have my own lawyer do it when I got back to +England, but——” he did not finish.</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray made no answer as he sat at a table Parker +had covered with writing-materials. The man was +ill enough to have no time to lose, it was plain—but not +an inkling of that opinion showed itself on the lawyer’s +ugly, impassive face.</p> + +<p>The will was simple enough, yet at a certain name in +it only an iron self-control kept Marcus Wray from a +sharp exclamation.</p> + +<p>So they had left London! And tried to shake him off. +What a piece of luck it was this man’s being taken ill +in Paris! Without it, Helen Trelane might have escaped +him, and feathered her nest alone. Now——</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, I did not catch that last.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Wray looked up with an unmoved face, though +the beating of his own heart was loud in his ears.</p> + +<p>Here was he, Marcus Wray, writing at the bidding of +an utter stranger words which would bring him the desire +of his heart—aye, and gold to gild it!</p> + +<p>He looked furtively at the pale, handsome man who +seemed dying before his eyes. Was this Helen’s last +victim? Or could it be possible that he was only a +simple fool who believed in her? It must be, since he +was giving over his only daughter and heiress to her +guardianship till she was twenty-one.</p> + +<p>Well, even he had gone near to believing in her once! +It was funny, though, that this last game she had been +at such pains to hide from him should have been played<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +straight into his hands like this. He held his pen in air, +looking at Sir Gaspard.</p> + +<p>“There is one thing, sir—if your daughter dies unmarried, +or before the age of twenty-one——” he left the +sentence unfinished.</p> + +<p>“Unlikely, the girl is young, strong.” His hearer had +winced. “But if it were to happen, the place,” obstinately, +“must go to a Le Marchant, and Mrs. Trelane +is the only one. It and the money can go to her, if my +daughter—but she won’t, she won’t!”</p> + +<p>“As you say, it is most unlikely.”</p> + +<p>Wray wrote hard as he spoke. The man seemed very +weak and ill; better to get everything signed and sealed +as fast as possible.</p> + +<p>He rang the bell sharply for Parker, and sent him +for the proprietor and a well-known London clergyman +who happened to be staying in the house. They would be +unimpeachable witnesses to the will; there must be nothing +doubtful about it. But Marcus Wray’s strong fingers +were tapping his knee with that curious hammering +motion, while the two men wrote their names.</p> + +<p>“What luck!” he thought, his eyes averted lest the +gleam in them might show. “All that money—for Helen—when +this man dies. And he might die to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>To Cristiane, the daughter, he never gave a thought. +With a will like that, and Helen Trelane knowing of it, +she was not likely to come of age to marry.</p> + +<p>And the money would be his, Marcus Wray’s, as the +diamonds had been, as anything belonging to Helen Trelane +would be, at his nod. No more slaving, no more +risky transactions. The man rose abruptly and went +over to the window. He dared not think the thoughts +that rang like bells in his brain.</p> + +<p>Yet his face was absolutely quiet and gentle as he +turned to see the two witnesses to the will leaving the +room, while Sir Gaspard, very white and still, leaned +back in his chair.</p> + +<p>“You are leaving for Rome, I think your man said?” +The question was kind, interested. Sir Gaspard was +surprised, but he nodded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p> + +<p>“You forgive my asking, but it seems a long journey,” +musingly. “Might it not be wiser to go home?”</p> + +<p>Parker waited breathlessly for the answer; it came +loud, imperative.</p> + +<p>“No! I must go to Rome. I have to go.” He +pointed to the signed will, spread on the table. “Put it +in an envelope, address it to my solicitors, Bolton & +Carey, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. It can be sent +there, Parker, when I die.” With curious gentleness he +put it in the breast pocket of his coat, and Marcus Wray +knew, with the intuition of a man who lives by his wits, +that there it would stay till Sir Gaspard’s eyes were +shut to this world forever. He shrugged his shoulders +as he left the room.</p> + +<p>“Rome—and he wants to die there! I wonder why. +Bah! he can die now in the gutter, for all I care. He +might have paid me my fee, though. It may be a good +while to wait for the indirect harvest.”</p> + +<p>He mounted to his room in the fourth story and had +barely time to light a cigar before there was a discreet +knock on his door. It was Sir Gaspard’s man servant +with a note. As he took it, Wray noticed the curious +likeness of the man to his master, but only for the instant.</p> + +<p>“Discarded wardrobe does it, I suppose,” he thought, +as he shut his door and opened the note.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: Permit me to discharge my great obligation +to you, with my best thanks.</p> + +<p class="sig0">“Faithfully yours,</p> +<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Gaspard le Marchant</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Two five-pound notes fell from the open envelope, but +Wray scarcely looked at them. Instead, he stared hard +at the careless, gentlemanly signature before him. At +sight of it a thought had flashed up in his brain, so +daring that even he almost feared it.</p> + +<p>But it was so insistent, and it seemed so safe.</p> + +<p>“Nothing more will be heard of it—if he lives! If +he dies, I can always say I acted by his orders—dying +men do curious things,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>With his door locked, the lawyer worked hard for two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +hours. When at last he stopped, with a long-drawn +breath, a second copy of Sir Gaspard le Marchant’s will +lay before him, on the selfsame blue paper on which +the first had been written. On the floor lay many +spoiled sheets of paper covered with imperfect signatures; +on the will itself the name of Gaspard le Marchant +was exact. The man himself could hardly have sworn +he had not written it.</p> + +<p>The ticklish part was yet to come—the witnesses. +Wray shut his teeth hard as he realized that he dared +not try any guesswork about their handwriting.</p> + +<p>Yet when he had cleared away all evidences of his +morning’s work, and put the folded will in his coat +pocket, his face was quite passive. So far the second +will was only an experiment, concerning no one but +himself. If it proved impracticable—Mr. Wray shrugged +his shoulders as he went down-stairs to luncheon.</p> + +<p>Yet, as he entered the long salle-a-manger he almost +started.</p> + +<p>At one of the first tables sat Sir Gaspard, and he +beckoned Wray to join him.</p> + +<p>“I was tired of my own society,” he said—and if ever +a man’s face was weary it was his!—“so I came down. +If you are not afraid of a dull companion, will you lunch +with me?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus Wray would be delighted.</p> + +<p>He sat down and did his best to be amusing; by the +time the sweets appeared Sir Gaspard was smiling.</p> + +<p>At the far end of the room, behind the baronet, Wray +saw the stout form of the London clergyman who had +witnessed the will. He was enjoying his luncheon, +waited on by the proprietor in person. Truly, whatever +gods there were stood friendly to the man who sat so +calmly with a forged signature in his pocket.</p> + +<p>“I have forgotten something,” he said suddenly. “If +you will excuse me, Sir Gaspard, for one moment, I have +a little matter to arrange with the dean there. I know +he is leaving immediately.”</p> + +<p>Sir Gaspard nodded, and, with quick, noiseless steps, +Marcus Wray had joined the dean.</p> + +<p>“I regret having to trouble you again,” he said courteously,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +“but my poor friend over there wishes a copy +of his will left here with the proprietor. He wishes to +know if you will be good enough to witness it; Dubourg +also,” to the affable little proprietor.</p> + +<p>The latter produced pen and ink from somewhere +with incredible quickness, and the dean wrote his ponderous +signature with a glance at Sir Gaspard, who +seemed to sit expectant of his emissary’s return.</p> + +<p>“The poor monsieur is of the dying,” the landlord +said, as he added his name. Wray nodded.</p> + +<p>“I fear so,” he said. “This is to be deposited in your +safe, Mr. Dubourg,” he added, in an undertone as the +man preceded him across the room to draw out his chair +at Sir Gaspard’s table. “Sealed, you understand, and to +remain there! In case you hear of Sir Gaspard’s death +you are to forward it. Otherwise, nothing is to be said +about it.”</p> + +<p>The little man bowed.</p> + +<p>“I understand, it is for making sure,” he assented. +“The poor man leaves us to-night for Rome.”</p> + +<p>Sir Gaspard, quite unconscious of the meaning of the +proprietor’s compassionate glance, retired almost on +Wray’s return, to rest for his journey. But that individual, +whose business in Paris was finished, did not take the +mail-train for London, as he had intended. The motto +of his existence was: “Never desert your luck”—that +luck of Marcus Wray that was a proverb in the Inns +of Court. To go back to London and dream of a +golden future would be to act like a fool; many a dying +man had lived to laugh at his heirs, and so might this +one.</p> + +<p>A prescience that the time was heavy with fate bade the +lawyer not lose sight of the invalid. Instead of going +to London, his cab was just behind Sir Gaspard’s on the +way to the station. His last act before leaving the +hotel had been to deposit his sealed document in Monsieur +Dubourg’s safe. On bad news it was to be at once +forwarded to Sir Gaspard’s solicitors in London.</p> + +<p>As the southern train rushed on through the night, +Sir Gaspard, sleepless on his comfortable bed, never +dreamed that in the very last carriage of the train his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +acquaintance of the morning slept the sleep of the unjust, +that is sounder than any.</p> + +<p>The last carriage—truly there was something in that +famous luck of Marcus Wray! For as the pale light +of dawn grew in the east something happened; what, +there was hardly time to say. Only a jar, a crash; then +for most people on that train a great void, a blotting +out. The train had left the track; the engine was down +an embankment; all the carriages but the very last a +sickening, telescoped mass of shapeless wood.</p> + +<p>In that last carriage Marcus Wray was flung on the +floor from a sound sleep. The lamp had gone out, in +the dark a woman screamed, and the sharp sound brought +back his senses. The train was wrecked!</p> + +<p>With a quickness beyond belief he was on his feet, had +slipped between his struggling fellow passengers, and +out the window, his narrow shoulders doing him good +service.</p> + +<p>“Sir Gaspard—the will!”</p> + +<p>He ran frantically along the track, passing the dead +and dying, thrusting a woman out of his way with brutal +fingers. There was light now beside the coming dawn, +the light of burning carriages; and from the reeking +mass came sounds to turn a man sick, who had time +to listen.</p> + +<p>This man with unerring instinct found the carriage +in which he had been too poor to travel; it was to be +entered now without paying his fare, for the whole side +of it gaped.</p> + +<p>In the light of its burning roof he dragged at a +heap that looked like clothing, but he knew that ten minutes +since it had been living men.</p> + +<p>He lifted with all his strength, and dragged off the +first figure of the mass. As if he were searching for one +he loved, he turned the face to the light.</p> + +<p>A dead man—a stranger in a fur coat! He dropped +the bleeding head as if it were but stone.</p> + +<p>The next? He panted as he tugged, for the dead are +heavy, and the heat was scorching. This was a man, +too, with his arms round another in a last instinctive +protection. Parker—and he had given his life for his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +master! For the servant’s brains oozed warm under the +lifting hands.</p> + +<p>Try as he might, Marcus Wray could not loosen the +arms that were around that inert figure that had been +Gaspard le Marchant! Was he dead—living? He could +not tell.</p> + +<p>The heat was scorching the searcher as he dragged +the two that lay clasped so close from the burning carriage +together. In its light he knelt down beside them, +gasping for breath in the cold dawn. Sir Gaspard’s face +was hidden on the breast of his faithful servant. As a +man who seeks a friend, Wray turned it toward him, +tenderly, never forgetting that anywhere in that dreadful +place there might be watchful eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>In spite of his caution, his breath came in a great sigh +of relief.</p> + +<p>Sir Gaspard le Marchant lay with closed eyes and +stilled heart, his face uninjured, his clothes scarcely disordered, +only something in that strange machine we call +a body out of gear forever.</p> + +<p>“Dead!” the man breathed it softly in the light of the +flaming carriages, but if he had shrieked it to the sky +above him it could not have sounded louder in his own +ears. The sound brought back his caution.</p> + +<p>His long fingers groped deftly in the breast pocket +of Sir Gaspard’s coat, and the luck of Marcus Wray lay +in his hand!</p> + +<p>The man was drunk with his success as he turned +away. This will need never appear. When the news +of Sir Gaspard’s death was telegraphed to Paris an +hour later Dubourg would forward his will to Bolton & +Carey. Marcus Wray would be out of the transaction, +except for being the lawyer employed by chance.</p> + +<p>Now, the sooner he was out of this the better. He +turned away, careless whether the dead were out of the +way of the fire or not. Sir Gaspard living, had served +him well; Sir Gaspard dead, might burn or be buried. +It was all one to Marcus Wray.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“I WILL POSSESS HIM OR DIE.”</p> + + +<p>Ismay Trelane stood alone in the great hall at Marchant’s +Hold, immaculately dressed in tight-fitting, dark-green +cloth that showed every curve of her slim body +and seemed reflected in her strange eyes.</p> + +<p>Her cheeks for once were flushed, and there was a +curious light in the glance that she swept deliberately +over the luxury around her and finally let rest on her +own reflection in the old mirror that hung over the wide +fireplace.</p> + +<p>“All this for one girl!” she whispered. The scarlet of +her lips paled with the tight pressure that drew them +together. “And she has had it all her life! If I had +had one-tenth of it and been brought up like her with +white frocks in summer and good warm serge in winter, +I might have been quite—a nice girl!” She laughed at +her own image in the new clothes bought with Sir Gaspard’s +money. But though she laughed, her heart was +not merry. She had seen too much that morning of +how rich and respectable people lived.</p> + +<p>She had risen as early as she dared, too restless to stay +in bed, and made a slow, careful progress through the +big house, fresh from the housemaid’s dusters. The carpets, +the silver, the carvings and tapestries, all so solid, +so different from those flimsy London furnishings that +had been her nearest approach to luxury, made her close +her white teeth hard together. They had the same blood +in their veins, Cristiane le Marchant and she, and the +one had lived like this, while the other—Ismay sickened +at the thought of her own neglected, hungry girlhood, +that the price of one Turkey carpet might have made at +least bearable.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t fair,” she thought hotly, “but it’s the way they +manage the world. And now I have a chance the world +shall pay me all it owes. Shabby clothes that were too +tight,” she checked off her list on her fingers airily, “one-quarter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +enough to eat, chilblains—I shall charge a good +price for chilblains”—remembering her swollen purple +fingers and her shame of them; “hateful girls who +sneered at my stockings and the holes in them—they +were generally all holes—and a mother who did not care +whether I was alive or dead so that I was out of her +way. I have all that to make up to myself, and I will do +it with—Miles Cylmer.”</p> + +<p>She started; she had all but spoken his name aloud, +and standing behind her fresh as day was Cristiane le +Marchant. Ismay’s veiled glance took her in swiftly. +Her tailor-made serge was not new, but it looked as if +she wore it every day; not like Ismay’s own, as if it were +a new thing to be well dressed at breakfast.</p> + +<p>“They told me you were down, so I hurried,” Cristiane +said quickly. “I was afraid you might be starving, +and I did not think you would ring for breakfast.”</p> + +<p>“I always got up early at school,” said Ismay, her +voice light and hard; “but I dare say I shall get over +it. Mother is tired; she said I was to ask you if she +might breakfast up-stairs.”</p> + +<p>“Of course; I’ll send it up,” Cristiane said absently. +“Come along and we’ll have ours,” linking her arm +through the slender one that was as strong as steel, and +never dreaming that Mrs. Trelane’s daughter had rejoiced +exceedingly that a bad night had reduced her +mother’s temper and complexions to an unpresentable +state.</p> + +<p>They had been two weeks at Marchant’s Hold, and +never till now had Mrs. Trelane left the two girls together. +It was not safe, while Ismay had that mad freak +in her head about Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry. A chance +word, a too hard-pressed question, might in those early +days have turned Cristiane’s growing liking for mother +and daughter into jealous distrust—that liking on which +their safety and peace depended. Mrs. Trelane worked +harder to gain this one girl’s affection than she had ever +done for that of all the men who had loved her. With +almost superhuman cleverness she had warded off all +mention of Cylmer’s name, for who knew what wild thing +Ismay might say? Mrs. Trelane felt chilly as she remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +the ring of the girl’s voice that first day at +Marchant’s Hold.</p> + +<p>“If he belonged to all the saints in heaven, he should +come to me at the end.”</p> + +<p>It was no echo of her own voice, nor of Mrs. Trelane’s, +and it made her shiver.</p> + +<p>But this morning neuralgia made her forgetful; a +chance sight some days since of some words in Cristiane’s +letter to her father left to dry on the library table +had soothed her soul to peace. She turned comfortably +to sleep in her warm bed up-stairs, careless that Ismay +was at last alone with her hostess.</p> + +<p>Cristiane was almost hidden behind the high silver +urn and the tea and coffee-pots. Ismay, as she began +to drink her coffee, moved her chair so that she could +see the lovely face under its crown of gold-red hair.</p> + +<p>She waited till Thomas, the old butler, had supplied +her with hot cakes and cold game, and taken himself silently +out of the room. Then she laughed as she caught +Cristiane’s eye.</p> + +<p>“It is rather different from school here,” she observed +frankly. “Do you think I might come and pinch you to +see if you’re real?”</p> + +<p>“Indeed I don’t,” retorted Miss Le Marchant. “But I +don’t see why you didn’t like school. I found lessons +with a governess very dull. Don’t you miss the girls?”</p> + +<p>Ismay made a mental review of them; ugly, bad-mannered, +eager to curry favors with the principal by carrying +tales of the girl whose bills were unpaid.</p> + +<p>“I hated them,” she returned candidly. “You would +have, too. Some of them had warts on their hands and +dropped their h’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t!” Cristiane gave a little shriek, and covered +her ears. “Why did you stay there?”</p> + +<p>Ismay caught the truth on her lips and kept it back.</p> + +<p>“We had no money for a better school; mother never +knew how horrid it was,” she said quietly. “The nastiest +thing about it was that all the first class were in love +with some dreadful man or other; one used to be wild +about the postman. I hate men.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know any,” Cristiane said calmly, taking a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +large bite of muffin, with her white teeth showing in a +faultless half-circle.</p> + +<p>“What!” Ismay exclaimed. “Why, there was a lovely +young man here the first day we came.”</p> + +<p>Cristiane reddened.</p> + +<p>“That was only Miles Cylmer,” she said scornfully. +“I’ve known him for ages, but he is about as exciting +as—as Thomas!” remembering her own comparison of +Mr. Cylmer to that worthy man. “He’s only a neighbor, +and a friend of father’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Miss Trelane demurely. “He is good-looking.”</p> + +<p>“I never noticed him especially. He is often here when +father is at home.”</p> + +<p>The other girl made a mental comment, but she only +said:</p> + +<p>“I suppose he wouldn’t come when you were alone?”</p> + +<p>Cristiane reflected. Miles had not been near her for +a week, and, in spite of her guests, she had missed him.</p> + +<p>“He has more amusing things to do, I dare say,” she +said smartly. It was so silly of Miles not to come just +because she had refused him; selfish, too, for there was +a distinct blank in her afternoon rides without him.</p> + +<p>Ismay smiled.</p> + +<p>“I believe you were horrid to him and told him not +to come,” she observed shrewdly. “Now, weren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t take enough interest in him,” said the other +loftily. “I don’t take any interest in any one but father. +I wish he would come home.” She looked out of the +window, where the morning sun streamed in, over the +wide stretch of wintry park and great beech-trees. “This +is a hunting-morning; would you like to drive to the +meet?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t leave mother,” was the answer. It would +never do to have Miles Cylmer see her seated in Cristiane’s +high dog-cart for the first time since that night in +London. Somehow or other, she must manage to meet +him first alone. And as yet she had no idea even where +he lived.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you can’t,” Cristiane assented disappointedly. +“I will ride over then by myself, but that’s dull.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> + +<p>“Haven’t you any near neighbors?”</p> + +<p>Both girls stood by the window as Ismay spoke.</p> + +<p>“Only Miles Cylmer, and he hunts,” said Cristiane +crossly. “Besides, even he lives four miles off, that +much nearer to the meet than we do. It’s seven miles +to Stoneycross by that road you see there,” pointing to +a glimpse of a highway that was just visible on the side +of a hill far across the park.</p> + +<p>“Then he’s of no use.” Ismay turned into the room +again to hide the change in her face. Hurrah! she had +got her bearings at last. If she had to wait all day at +his gate she would see him face to face this very afternoon.</p> + +<p>“You won’t be dull if I go out and leave you alone? +You see, I am used to riding every day. But it is stupid +for you,” said Cristiane.</p> + +<p>“Dull! I’m never dull.” Miss Trelane’s face wore that +strange smile that was so full of years and knowledge, +her back still turned safely to her hostess. Dull, with +the prospect before her of hunting down Miles Cylmer! +She turned with quick, lovely grace. “Come, and I’ll +help you into your habit,” she cried; “I’m much cleverer +than your maid.”</p> + +<p>“I think you’re wonderful; how you do your own +hair as you do is beyond me,” Cristiane said, as they went +up-stairs.</p> + +<p>They were nearly of a height, and she ran her hand +up the wonderful flaxen waves that rippled up from the +nape of Ismay’s white neck.</p> + +<p>The girl frowned sharply.</p> + +<p>“It’s hateful hair.” She moved her head away from +the gentle hand. In any case, she hated to be touched, +and it was unbearable from a simple little fool like +Cristiane, who took her and her mother for decent +ladies. “Hateful! Some day I shall dye it,” and she +slipped from the other girl’s side and was up-stairs like +a flash.</p> + +<p>Yet two hours after she was coiling and twisting that +hair she had said was hateful, with a care that made it +look like golden threads shot with silver. The dark-green, +velvet toque she set on it made its strange sheen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> +more lovely; the green cloth coat with its velvet collar +set off to perfection the milk-white beauty of her face. +As she turned from the glass to draw on her gloves her +scarlet lips parted in a smile of triumph. Queer as her +beauty was, it would move the heart of a man more than +Cristiane’s roses and cream, or there was no truth in her +glass.</p> + +<p>“Let me see,” she reflected, “four miles to Cylmer’s +Ferry—he will be at the meet and following the hounds—if +they find a fox it will be three o’clock or so before +he gets home, perhaps later. There’s heaps of time, but +I had better get off before Cristiane gets home, or she +might be kind enough to go with me.”</p> + +<p>She bestowed no thought on the suffering parent she +had been unable to leave, nor had she visited her all the +morning. The atmosphere of Mrs. Trelane’s room, +where scents fought with the smell of menthol, had no +charms for her daughter. The only pause she made was +in the empty dining-room, where the table was laid for +lunch. The silver epergne was piled with forced peaches +and hothouse grapes, a bread-tray full of crisp dinner +rolls adorned the sideboard among a multitude of cold +meats.</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane stuffed two peaches into her pocket, inserted +some cold chicken that was ready cut between the +halves of two rolls, calmly wrapped up her spoils in a +napkin, tucked them into her muff, and departed unnoticed.</p> + +<p>“Wonderfully convenient, living like this,” she reflected, +with a sweet little grin. “Otherwise, Mr. Cylmer +might have caused me to go forth hungry.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A KISS.</p> + + +<p>Ismay went out into the clear, soft sunlight, treading +lightly in her smart, thick boots, with joy in her heart.</p> + +<p>Things had played into her hands at last. Toward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +half-past two o’clock, warm and lovely with her quick +walk, she stood at Miles Cylmer’s gates. They were +heavy iron, hung from carved stone posts, “Cylmer’s +Ferry” cut deeply on them. She saw the significance +of the name, for a hundred yards in front of her a +narrow river ran sluggishly, cutting through Cylmer’s +property for miles. There was a high ivy-covered wall +on both sides of the road, and the view, except of the +river, was limited.</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane glanced up and down.</p> + +<p>“Very considerate of Mr. Cylmer to have no lodge,” +she observed aloud. “A lodge-keeper and six children +would have embarrassed me very much.”</p> + +<p>She marched deliberately to the ivy-covered wall opposite +the gate, and swung herself up with the ease of +long practise over Mrs. Barlow’s wall at school. She +had come up-hill all the way from Marchant’s Hold, and +now from the top of the six-foot wall the country lay +before her like a map.</p> + +<p>She seated herself comfortably, and began with a capital +appetite on her lunch. As she took the peaches from +her pocket she gave a little nod of satisfaction. Far off +down in the valley she could see the hounds being taken +home. There would be no late waiting for Mr. Cylmer, +since there had evidently been no sport to speak of. The +peaches had rubbed against her pocket and stained its +smart green lining.</p> + +<p>“Bother!” said the girl, with the thriftiness of poverty. +She turned the pocket inside out to dry.</p> + +<p>“But the peaches are all right,” she added, as she finished +them and wiped her fingers on the fine damask +napkin which she neatly bestowed down a convenient +hole in the wall. There were plenty more at Marchant +Hold, and it was greasy.</p> + +<p>For a moment her back was to the road. She did +not see a man riding toward her, and turned with a real +start, to discover Miles Cylmer on a big chestnut horse +within ten yards of her. The sunlight fell on his handsome, +hard face, his tawny mustache, his splendid figure +in his red coat and white riding-breeches. The sight of +him brought dismay to Ismay’s heart. She forgot all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +she had meant to say in sheer foolish excitement at seeing +him.</p> + +<p>“I—I can’t get down,” she said childishly.</p> + +<p>Cylmer stopped his horse and sat staring at her in +utter amazement.</p> + +<p>Who was this who sat on his wall like a lovely nymph, +her water-green eyes on his, her flaxen hair glinting like +barley in the sun? There flashed up before him the +lights of the Palace Theater, a slim girl in black who +was hungry.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he stammered in his surprise. +Could there be two girls in the world with such scarlet +lips and strange eyes, for surely this could not be the +lonely girl he had taken home that night? How could +she get here?</p> + +<p>Ismay Trelane smiled in his perplexed face that slow, +witch-smile that was her best weapon.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know me, Mr. Cylmer? I know you, you +see, and—please take me down!” She held out her +hands entreatingly.</p> + +<p>Cylmer, like a man in a dream, swung himself off his +horse and slipped his arm through the reins.</p> + +<p>He had seen Cristiane at the meet, lovely in her blue +habit, had ridden up to greet her, and been smartly +snubbed for his pains. Somehow it had stung unbearably. +And the joy on the face of the girl he had never +thought to see again was like balm to his wounds.</p> + +<p>Ismay, seated on the wall, leaned down and gave him +both hands; her eyes met his, strange and deep, with +something in them that brought the blood to his face.</p> + +<p>“I told you we should meet again!” she cried, with +soft delight in her voice. “Are you glad to see me?”</p> + +<p>Cylmer lifted her down, setting her safely clear of +his fretting horse. Her queer beauty dazzled him.</p> + +<p>“Very glad,” he answered slowly.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life Ismay Trelane’s eyes fell +before the look of other eyes.</p> + +<p>Cylmer stooped and kissed her lips.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>For a moment the whole world swung dizzily to Ismay<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +Trelane. A golden mist blotted out the bare trees and +ivied walls; a sound as of many waters was in her ears. +She staggered helplessly, and from far, far away heard +a voice that was very low and pitiful.</p> + +<p>“My little girl, don’t look like that. I was a brute! +Did I frighten you?”</p> + +<p>Was it fright that made her feel her own blood running +in her veins? She did not know. With a sharp +wrench she was clear of him, and stood leaning against +his horse’s shoulder, her breath coming fast and hard.</p> + +<p>Cristiane would have stamped her foot at him. Ismay +only looked him full in the face.</p> + +<p>“Why did you do that?” she said quietly, though her +hand went to her breast as if something hurt her.</p> + +<p>Cylmer bit his lip.</p> + +<p>“Because I——” he hesitated. The truth, because she +was so fair, would be an insult.</p> + +<p>“Never mind looking for a reason,” she said; and he +saw that even her lips were white.</p> + +<p>“You did it, and that’s enough. If you will move +your horse out of the way I will go home.”</p> + +<p>She shook from head to foot. He had kissed her, as +a man kisses a girl he has met alone at a music-hall, +and she had kissed him like a nun who kisses the cross.</p> + +<p>Her voice cut, but something in it made Miles Cylmer +take off his hat and stand bareheaded before her.</p> + +<p>“I won’t even ask you to forgive me.” His voice +was low and sweet as perhaps but one other woman +knew it could be. “I behaved unpardonably. Yet if you +can believe me, I was so much more than glad to see you +that I—I forgot myself.”</p> + +<p>“And me!” she interrupted with a hard little smile. +“You remembered me as a toy: you greeted me as one. +If it is of any interest to you I may tell you the toy is—broken!” +She made a little gesture and turned away +without looking at him.</p> + +<p>Cylmer, leading his horse, was at her side before she +had taken ten steps.</p> + +<p>“Don’t go away like this,” he said, a shamed color on +his tanned cheek. “I deserve all you can say to me, and +more. I only want you to let me beg your pardon. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +won’t”—his keen eyes very sweet, very honest—“even +ask you to forgive me.”</p> + +<p>“It would be of no use if you did,” she returned +quietly. “I never forgave anything I had against any +one in all my life. You were the first person I ever +knew who was kind to me, and now you have made me +sorry that you were.”</p> + +<p>Her even, level voice had an implacable ring to it. +Cylmer, disgusted with himself, went off on a new tack.</p> + +<p>“You looked so tired that night, and so childlike,” he +said, with a little pause before the last word. Ismay +turned on him, her eyes full of somber fire.</p> + +<p>“You thought me some little milliner,” she cried superbly. +“Yet you treated me there like a lady, while +to-day——” she shrugged her lovely shoulders as though +she were at a loss for words. Yet presently, as she went +on, her tone softened.</p> + +<p>“I had run away that night. I had just come home +from school and had no dresses fit to wear. My mother +had some one to dinner, and I was too shabby to be +seen. It was dull sitting alone, so I took all the money +I had and went out. The reason I was hungry was that +I wouldn’t eat the dinner that was sent up to me; it was +horrid,” with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>“But it was a mad thing to do; don’t you know that?” +he said wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t then; I do now.” Her self-possession had +come back to her; her smile had that indefinite womanly +quality in it that had struck him long ago, when he had +been puzzled as to her age.</p> + +<p>“You mean I have taught you this morning! Will +you give me leave to try and make you forget that?”</p> + +<p>“You may never see me again.”</p> + +<p>“I will if you do not move to another planet,” remarked +Mr. Cylmer deliberately, “or tell the butler you +are never at home to me.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot do either,” she said, with an indifference +that he never dreamed was imitation. “I have no butler, +for one thing, and I don’t mean to die if I can help +it.”</p> + +<p>“My dear little lady, I didn’t mean that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> + +<p>“Didn’t you? I do! I have a horror of dying.” She +shivered suddenly, as if neither the afternoon nor the +quick blood in her veins could warm her. “To die, and +be put in the cold, damp earth, and not even know the +sun shone over your grave! I often think of it, just +because it terrifies me.”</p> + +<p>“You have all your life to live first,” he said, with a +wandering glance at her. She piqued him with her +changes of mood.</p> + +<p>“Life is very amusing,” she observed calmly. “You +see so much you are not meant to see. Now I saw why +you kissed me just now.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer’s bronzed cheek showed a faint trace of +red.</p> + +<p>“I was an ungentlemanly beast,” he cried hotly. “Be +kind and let us forget it.”</p> + +<p>Ismay looked at him, and once more her beauty +startled him.</p> + +<p>“Forget it, by all means—if you can!” she retorted. +“But I don’t think you will. Good-by, I am going home +now.” And before he could speak she had slipped +through a gap in the hedge, which, she had seen as he +came, led by a short cut to Marchant’s Hold.</p> + +<p>“But you haven’t even told me your name, or how +you know mine, or where you live,” Mr. Cylmer spoke to +the empty air apparently, but a light laugh, sweet as +spring, answered him from the other side of the hedge.</p> + +<p>“You can find out all those things by diligence,” returned +a voice full of mockery.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer scrambled hastily through the gap in the +hedge, reins in hand, and his horse’s head pushing +through behind him.</p> + +<p>“You’d better tell me,” he observed calmly. “I might +tell, you know, how you went to see the world one +night.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but you won’t!” She was suddenly radiant, suddenly +conscious that nothing on earth would have bound +him to her like that kiss. “You have too much honor, +Mr. Cylmer. Now, I have no honor at all. I could tell +my mother that you spoke to me without any introduction.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p> + +<p>He laughed, his eyes very sweet and kindly, as he +said: “You won’t, will you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she answered slowly, “and if you ever meet +me it must be for the first time. You won’t stammer +and be surprised or anything, will you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I think I can promise you that,” he said bluntly. +“Only let me see you; it was chaff, you know, about my +telling tales.”</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him with hard scrutiny, and as he +met her eyes he could have cut his hand off for this +morning’s work. For her face was strangely innocent, +and pitifully young to be that of a girl who was allowed +to wander about by herself to a music-hall.</p> + +<p>“My dear little lady,” he said slowly, “do you know +that I can never forgive myself? I don’t deserve your +ever speaking to me or trusting me again. And yet, I +ask you to let me be your friend. Will you?”</p> + +<p>A little quiver shook her. Would he really be her +friend? Yet, after all, why not? But like a dream there +rose before her the image of Cristiane le Marchant, +young, lovely, and rich; behind that the vision of Marcus +Wray, his thick red lips mocking her in her fancy. +What could either of them have to do with Miles Cylmer? +Yet she was cold with fright, standing there in +the winter sun, lest Cristiane le Marchant might have +more of Cylmer’s heart than she knew, and lest Marcus +Wray might find her hiding-place with his secret that +could make her forswear the sight of Cylmer’s face for +very terror.</p> + +<p>She drew a sharp breath.</p> + +<p>Cylmer’s face grew blank as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>“You won’t! You can’t forgive me?” he said gently. +“Very well.”</p> + +<p>Ismay put her hand in his, but with the gesture of a +woman, not a girl.</p> + +<p>“Be my friend, then!” she said slowly. “Promise me +that you will believe in me, and trust me. No one +ever did that.”</p> + +<p>“I will trust you through anything,” he said, puzzled. +“It is a bargain; you are to forgive me, and I am to be +your friend for always.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> + +<p>He clasped her hand hard, as if it were the hand +of a comrade, and the blood came red to her cheek.</p> + +<p>“Won’t you tell who you are?” he asked, smiling at +the fancy that kept her nameless, as he released her +hand.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look so startled, it’s only the station bus!” For +there was a sound of wheels on the road behind him. It +was a long instant before she answered, and when she +spoke she looked no longer the same girl.</p> + +<p>“I am no one—of any importance,” she said, with a +languid nod; then she turned away and was gone without +even a good-by.</p> + +<p>Cylmer was forced to go through the hedge, outside +of which his horse was fretting and plunging with impatience.</p> + +<p>“I’d swear she never kissed a man before,” he mused +as he mounted. “And she’s right, I can’t forget it. I +wonder who she’s staying with.” Not for a moment +connecting her with the strange woman at Marchant’s +Hold.</p> + +<p>Yet the girl in his thoughts had at that moment forgotten +all about him.</p> + +<p>She was running swiftly toward Marchant’s Hold, with +a deadly terror at her heart. It was senseless, unreasonable, +yet the glimpse she had had through the hedge +of the occupant of the station bus was so like a glimpse +of Marcus Wray that she had turned sick.</p> + +<p>It was like waking from a dream of warmth and happiness, +to find death in the house. Yet it could not be +that Wray had found them.</p> + +<p>“He would never think of us in a respectable house,” +she thought, as she hurried on.</p> + +<p>“But if he did, we have no more diamonds; we can’t +buy him off any more.”</p> + +<p>She reached an open field, below her in the level valley +rose the strong towers of Marchant’s Hold, with the +flag of England’s glory flying on the highest of them. +As she looked the flag went suddenly down to half-mast. +Some one, a Le Marchant born, must be lying dead!</p> + +<p>Ismay Trelane, who hated death, would have stayed +away for hours, but she dared not. With lagging feet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +she came at last to the great hall door, with its motto over +it: “What Marchant held let Marchant hold,” its pride +a mockery, grim and trenchant, for there was a streamer +of crape on the door-handle.</p> + +<p>A deadly terror of being out there alone came over +her. She pulled desperately at the door-handle. If she +had seen Marcus Wray he would be on his way to Marchant’s +Hold; she would die if he came and caught her +here alone.</p> + +<p>“Thomas,” she cried. “What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>The old butler who let her in could hardly answer.</p> + +<p>“My master’s dead, Miss Trelane,” he whispered, +“killed in a railway accident.”</p> + +<p>“Dead!” she fairly staggered. That would mean turning +out into the world again. She ran wildly past him +up-stairs to her mother’s room.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A NET FOR HER FEET.</p> + + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, her face drawn and gray, stood staring +out of the window. As Ismay returned she turned with +sharp relief.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been? Why did you go out like +that and stay so long?” she demanded fiercely. “I have +been almost wild here, with no one to speak to. Do +you know that we’re ruined? That Sir Gaspard is +dead?”</p> + +<p>The girl nodded.</p> + +<p>“I saw the flag half-mast—I asked Thomas.” Her +face was suddenly very tired. “How did you hear—and +are you sure it’s true?”</p> + +<p>“True enough. Look here.” She tossed a telegram +toward the girl, who caught the fluttering paper deftly.</p> + +<p>“From Bolton & Carey to Mrs. Trelane,” the message +ran. “Fatal accident on the railway just before +Aix. Have received wire that Sir Gaspard le Marchant +and servant are among those killed, and fear there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +no doubt it is not true. Break news to daughter. Will +send particulars as soon as they can be obtained.”</p> + +<p>“How did they know you were here?”</p> + +<p>“Sir Gaspard told them I was to be here during his absence. +I know Mr. Bolton—or I did when I was Helen +le Marchant,” impatiently. “There’s no mystery about +that.”</p> + +<p>“Have you told Cristiane?”</p> + +<p>“No!” Mrs. Trelane flung herself into a chair and +twisted her smooth fingers uneasily. “She’s asleep. She +came in dead tired and lay down. Her maid is watching +to tell her when she wakes. How can I tell her? If +I do it, it will make her hate me.”</p> + +<p>With quick contempt Ismay glanced at her.</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, it may be your only chance with +her,” she said angrily. “Tell me, had you any arrangement, +any bargain, with Sir Gaspard?”</p> + +<p>“None,” with a sullen shake of the head. “We were +asked here on a visit, you and I, ’till things could be +arranged,’ he said. But I know that we were here on +approval, if you like to call it so. If the girl liked us +we were to stay on indefinitely——”</p> + +<p>“And you sit here when you know that, and run the +chance of having that maid whom she has had for +years tell her that her father is dead!” Ismay flung out +her hands in exasperation. “Can’t you see that if any +one tells her but you or I we shall be outside of it all to +Cristiane? Move, please.” Mrs. Trelane’s chair blocked +her path to the door. “I’m going to tell her this minute.”</p> + +<p>With the grace of an angry animal, she was out of +the room and up the corridor to Cristiane’s door. Jessie, +the girl’s own maid, opened it, her face swelled with +crying.</p> + +<p>“She’s asleep still, the poor lamb!” the woman whispered.</p> + +<p>With unnatural strength Ismay kept the contempt from +her face; the woman was in a very luxury of woe, and +would have blurted out her bad news, without doubt, +the very instant her mistress awoke. What luck that she +had come home in time!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, Jessie!” she said softly. “It’s so dreadful. And +you must be tired. Go and get your tea, and I’ll stay +till you come back.”</p> + +<p>Jessie cast a glance backward at the bed.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, in a white dressing-gown, slept like a baby, +her rose-leaf lips just parted, her lovely cheek flushed. +There was no sign of her waking till dinner, and down-stairs +there would be tea and muffins, and solemn waggings +of the head. Cook would be telling her dreams—she +was a great one for dreams. The prospect was too +tempting.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, miss,” she said. “I’d be glad of a cup +of tea. I’ll be back in a jiffy; long before she wakes.”</p> + +<p>“Then you’ll be a clever woman, my good Jessie!” the +girl thought, as she nodded and passed silently by the +woman, who stood respectfully out of her way.</p> + +<p>She looked around the room, where a fire burned softly +between brass andirons, where the floor was covered +with a pale-blue and rose carpet, and the walls hung with +blue silk that was covered with pink roses. At the side +of the bed, where she might slip her bare feet upon it +as she got up in the mornings, was Cristiane’s only +legacy from her mother, a great, white bearskin, brought +long ago from farthest Russian snows. Not one atom +of the prodigal luxury about the room was lost on those +green, dilated eyes that stared so mercilessly. The very +silver of the toilet-trays and bottles, the white vellum +binding of the rows of books, the rose velvet dressing-gown +lined with white fur that hung by the bedside, each +and all struck Ismay with a separate stab.</p> + +<p>“I will have them all before I die—all!” she said deliberately. +“And she’s got to help me, for now, at least, +I can’t turn out into the world again after I’ve seen +this.”</p> + +<p>Noiselessly she turned and bolted the door; she would +have no maid coming to interfere with her work. With +that same silent, sinuous grace she walked to the bedside, +and if there had been eyes to see her as she knelt +there they might have looked away as at the sight of a +snake ready to strike.</p> + +<p>Yet the hand she laid softly on Cristiane’s was utterly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +tender. Perhaps the beauty of the gold-red hair +that streamed over the lace-trimmed pillow and the white +satin quilt, the exquisite unconsciousness of the lovely, +girlish face, touched the onlooker in some strange way, +for her face softened miraculously.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane,” she whispered. “Cristiane, dear, wake +up.”</p> + +<p>The girl stirred, muttered something with smiling lips, +and was fast asleep again.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane!” Ismay repeated; she touched her more +firmly, for time was going.</p> + +<p>“Yes.” The sleepy answer almost startled her. “Oh, +it’s Ismay!” Cristiane sat up, rubbing her eyes, drawing +her hand from Ismay’s to do it. “I’ve been asleep; I +was so tired. Did you win a pair of gloves from me?”</p> + +<p>Ismay’s eyes filled with tears; she did not know herself +if they were real or if she were merely warming +up to her part.</p> + +<p>“I had such a funny dream!” Cristiane cried, with +a little laugh of pleasure. “I dreamed about daddy; he +said he was coming home.” She caught the look on +Ismay’s face as she spoke.</p> + +<p>“You’re crying! What’s the matter?” The sleepy +sound was gone from the voice at once. “Ismay, what +is it?” with both her hands on the shoulders of the girl +kneeling by the bed.</p> + +<p>“Mother has had a telegram. There was an accident——” +Was it her own voice that faltered so +strangely?</p> + +<p>“Not from father—he’s not hurt?” the hands on Ismay’s +shoulders fairly bruised them.</p> + +<p>“Look at me, tell me!” Cristiane cried fiercely. “Is +he hurt?”</p> + +<p>Ismay lifted her face, and saw Cristiane’s eyes, black, +dilated, imperious.</p> + +<p>“He’s not hurt!” she said dully; and then she flung +her arms suddenly round the girl who sat crouched +in her white gown as though it were a garment of fiery +torture. “My dearest, nothing will ever hurt him any +more,” she said, in slow desperation.</p> + +<p>“You mean he’s dead!” The words seemed to come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +after an interminable interval of time, in which the +ticking of the silver clock, the murmur of the fire burning +in the gate, had sounded loud and somewhat threatening +to Ismay Trelane. With a face as hard as stone +Cristiane had risen from her bed and stood on the white +bearskin, her eyes narrowed, her lips set.</p> + +<p>“I mean he is happy”—as she had never thought in +her life, Ismay thought now for the words that would +not come. “I mean he has gone to be with your mother—till +you come!”</p> + +<p>To the speaker the words were a childish fable, a lie; +but they went home.</p> + +<p>Cristiane swayed where she stood, and like a flash +Ismay’s arms were around her; but she seemed not to +feel them.</p> + +<p>“What is that to me?” she cried, with a dreadful +harshness, trembling like a leaf. Over her shoulder +Ismay saw the clock. It was after five. At any moment +some old friend might come and touch that chord in the +girl’s heart for which she was trying in vain.</p> + +<p>“Think!” she said quietly. “Put yourself in your +father’s place. Your mother loved him as you do. She +died for his sake and yours when she was but little older +than you.”</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she was thankful she had drawn the +story from her mother one day in bored curiosity. “Do +you think she did not beg him to hurry after her? Do +you think the years were not long to the man she left +behind? Think of the time when you were only a child +and busy with lessons and play; think how your father +sat alone at night with his sorrow; think of the things +he could never say to her, and how he longed for the +touch of her hand many a time—and then say, if you +can, that it is nothing to you that they are together +again, you that he loved, you that she died for!”</p> + +<p>With a great cry Cristiane flung out her arms.</p> + +<p>“Ismay! Ismay! Help me to bear it! I know—I’ve +always known—he wanted her!” Tears came at last +from her frozen eyes. She clung wildly to the girl +who held her. “But I never thought he’d leave me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p> + +<p>“God took him, Cristiane,” said Ismay, and as she said +it she believed it.</p> + +<p>“Tell me all you know, quick!” her voice thick with +sobbing.</p> + +<p>With all the strength of her young, lithe body, Ismay +lifted her and sat down with her on her bed.</p> + +<p>“He was going to Rome—she died there,” she whispered. +“The train was wrecked at Aix. He was—Cristiane, +it was night, he was asleep, and he woke in paradise +with the woman he loved so long!”</p> + +<p>Cristiane’s arms clutched her suddenly.</p> + +<p>“He didn’t suffer, tell me! I’ll be brave; he always +liked me to be brave.”</p> + +<p>Brave! Ismay could have laughed outright. If this +were bravery, what did you call the other thing? Not +all death and hell could have made her cry as Cristiane +was crying now.</p> + +<p>“He never felt it, he never knew,” she answered, and +if her voice hardened Cristiane did not hear it. As if +the words tore the very soul out of her, she cried out: +“I want father! Oh! I want my father!”</p> + +<p>Ismay Trelane at that cry for once was awed to silence. +She stooped and kissed the golden head that lay +on her shoulder; kissed it with a passion of pity, a +sudden feeling of protection that was real, for Cristiane +le Marchant.</p> + +<p>A knock came on the closed door.</p> + +<p>“Tell them to go away,” Cristiane gasped. “Don’t +move; don’t go. I don’t want any one but you!”</p> + +<p>The leap of sudden rapture in Ismay’s heart made her +clutch at her side. This was what she had wanted. Her +work was done as no one else could have done it.</p> + +<p>“No one shall come in,” she answered softly. “Let +me go and speak to whoever it is for a minute and tell +them to go away.”</p> + +<p>She laid Cristiane deftly on the pillows, and with +noiseless swiftness slipped into the passage, closing the +door behind her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane was there, pale with nervous fright.</p> + +<p>“It’s that man Cylmer. He wants to see her. What +shall I do? Does she know about her father?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<p>“Luckily for us, she does,” said the girl dryly. “Where +do you suppose we should have been if the maid had +been with her and Mr. Cylmer had come? She would +have gone down and heard it from him.”</p> + +<p>“Why not him as well as any other?” asked her +mother, with quick suspicion.</p> + +<p>“Because I meant no one to tell her but me. Don’t +you understand that yet?” asked the girl sharply. Oh! +how lucky she had been! But for her it might have been +Miles Cylmer Cristiane had clung to. Miles Cylmer who +had caught her as she swayed. The thought made Ismay +sick, and for another reason than the sake of her own +bread and butter.</p> + +<p>“Shall I go to her?” Mrs. Trelane made a step toward +the shut door.</p> + +<p>“No, better not! And don’t see Mr. Cylmer. It isn’t +proper to see people when there is any one dead,” she +added.</p> + +<p>“I’m not anxious to see him, you needn’t worry. But +he gave Thomas this for Cristiane.” She held out a +card. Ismay’s eyes flashed as she read it. Was it thus +that a man who was only a friend of her father’s would +write to the girl who lay prostrate with grief?</p> + +<p> +“Be brave, dear. It may not be true. I am going up +to town to-night to find out all I can from the lawyers. +I will be back as soon as possible. Please let me try to +help you.</p> +<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Miles.</span>”</p> + +<p>“He must have seen the flag and come over at once,” +she thought, a wild, unreasoning terror at her heart that +he cared for Cristiane. Men were like that; they kissed +one girl when they loved another.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give it to her. There’s no answer,” she said. +And in the dusky corridor her mother did not see that +her lips had grown bloodless. “Tell Thomas to say to +Mr. Cylmer that Cristiane can’t see him. And send up +some tea or wine, or something.” She leaned hard on +the door for support. “I’m worn out; worn out!” She +had been full of life five minutes since, but now, when +she must go and comfort this girl whom Miles Cylmer +had come in such haste to see, Ismay’s knees trembled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +under her. If only she dared to leave Cristiane long +enough to go to him, to tell him——Bah! what could +she tell him?</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer turned away from Marchant’s Hold perfectly +unsuspicious that the green witch eyes that had +held his were those of no other than Ismay Trelane. If +he had known he might not have been the first to spread +a net for her feet. But what he did unconsciously she +did with meaning. His note never reached the girl to +whom it was written.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“IF I ASK YOU?”</p> + + +<p>Mr. Cylmer was not back at Marchant’s Hold as soon +as he had expected.</p> + +<p>Three days after his arrival in London he was still +there, and he sat now in Mr. Bolton’s private office listening +impatiently to the old man’s precise sentences. +He had been put off from day to day till now; there +was no news, nothing definite. Mr. Cylmer must excuse +Mr. Bolton for not seeing him, as he had nothing to communicate—and +so on. Small wonder that when at last +he was admitted Miles Cylmer sat impatiently in the +client’s chair of Mr. Bolton’s sanctum.</p> + +<p>“The exact news is this,” the lawyer said slowly: “Sir +Gaspard was taken ill in Paris, and, being nervous, made +a will, calling in a lawyer who was in the hotel. The +Dean of Chelsea, also a guest in the house, and the proprietor +were witnesses, and the will was placed by the +latter in his safe. A duplicate Sir Gaspard took with +him on his ill-fated journey. He left that night for +Rome by the Mont Cenis route, and at dawn the train +was wrecked, just before it reached Aix. When I say +wrecked I mean there was an accident merely.”</p> + +<p>“Of course!” Cylmer fidgeted. What did it matter +how the thing happened; it had no connection with Sir +Gaspard’s affairs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p> + +<p>“In the sleeping-carriage, or just beside it, Sir Gaspard +and his servant were found by the guard, who had +escaped injury and was able to identify them, or, rather, +the servant”—clearing his throat hastily—“for the burning +carriage had—well! the man knew it was Sir Gaspard; +he had noticed the fur-lined coat he traveled in, +and there were charred fragments of it around the +body.” Mr. Bolton paused; old friend as he was of +Gaspard le Marchant, the manner of his death sickened +him.</p> + +<p>“Was there no one else in the carriage?”</p> + +<p>“One other man, a Frenchman. But he must have +been caught in the burning carriage and utterly destroyed. +The railway people sent a very clean report, +and it has been corroborated by wire by the clerk I sent +over at once. He saw the bodies. I am afraid there +is no doubt, for he had often seen Parker. I was in +the habit of sending him to Marchant’s Hold on business. +Sir Gaspard of late came to town very seldom.”</p> + +<p>“I remember that fur-lined coat,” Cylmer said unwillingly. +He remembered also the history of it; the +sables of its lining had been a present from Sir Gaspard’s +Russian wife; it was for her sake that he wore it.</p> + +<p>“But it was curious that he should have made a +will in that sudden way,” he protested.</p> + +<p>“Not in his state of health,” Bolton returned. “I saw +his doctor yesterday, and I learned from him that Sir +Gaspard’s death was in any case imminent. He had a +mortal disease—and knew it. Personally, I think he went +to Rome to die there—at least he meant to do so. That, +you see, explains his making a will.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer nodded.</p> + +<p>“How did you hear of the will?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I thought I told you,” patiently. “The will, with a +letter from Dubourg, the hotel proprietor, reached me +yesterday. In it he mentioned the Dean of Chelsea as +one of the witnesses, and him I saw this morning. It +was all perfectly regular. The dean read both wills at +Sir Gaspard’s bidding. They were exactly alike. He +thought him looking very ill at the time.”</p> + +<p>“Poor little Cristiane!” Cylmer said involuntarily. “It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> +is a great responsibility for her, all that money and +land.”</p> + +<p>“She is young”—with the unconscious cynicism of +years—“the world—life—will console her! But I could +wish I had been left her guardian.”</p> + +<p>“What!” Cylmer’s handsome face was blank. “Who +is, then, if you are not?”</p> + +<p>“Madam Trelane,” said the other dryly. “I can tell +you that much without a breach of confidence, for the +dean will have told half London by now.”</p> + +<p>“That woman he sent down to stay with Cristiane!”</p> + +<p>The words were irrepressible. At the mention of Mrs. +Trelane there sprang into Cylmer’s mind the memory +of the only day he had seen her, and once more he +wondered why she made him think of Abbotsford.</p> + +<p>“Who is she? Did she mean to marry Le Marchant?” +he said quickly.</p> + +<p>“My dear sir”—Mr. Bolton coughed dryly—“Mrs. Trelane +was Helen le Marchant, Sir Gaspard’s own cousin, +and the nearest relative he had except Cristiane. And +she is said to be a clever woman.”</p> + +<p>“Where has she been all this time?” Cylmer said +slowly. “I never heard of her.”</p> + +<p>“In London.” There was no need to air all he knew +of Helen Trelane. Yet, in spite of his caution, there +was deep distrust of her on his face.</p> + +<p>“A clever woman!” he repeated quietly; “as you will +see when the will is read to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Miles Cylmer got up, a strange look on his handsome +face.</p> + +<p>“If he has left the money to any one but Cristiane,” +he said with a ring of reckless truth in his voice, “I’ll +settle twenty thousand pounds on her. I would marry +her—but she won’t have me. Anyhow, as long as I live +she shall have all the money she wants.”</p> + +<p>“You are too hasty, Mr. Cylmer;” but there was a +kind of pity in the old lawyer’s eyes. “The child’s fortune +is hers, but the reversion is Mrs. Trelane’s and her +daughter’s.”</p> + +<p>“Was Sir Gaspard a lunatic?” Miles cried.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton shook his head.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p> + +<p>“No; only a good man, who knew nothing of the +world,” he answered cynically. “Good morning, Mr. +Cylmer. If you go to Marchant’s Hold before I do be +good enough to keep my confidence.”</p> + +<p>“I’m traveling down with you,” Cylmer returned with +sudden haughtiness. “I’ll meet you at the train to-night.” +Yet as he turned he paused.</p> + +<p>“Has Mrs. Trelane a husband?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Dead, years ago! A man who was his own enemy,” +briefly. “She and her daughter were alone and in poverty +when Sir Gaspard found them.”</p> + +<p>“And paid their debts?” said Cylmer searchingly.</p> + +<p>“Very possibly.” Mr. Bolton was still negotiating +with those unpaid tradesmen, but he did not say so. +“Mrs. Trelane was a very pretty girl, Mr. Cylmer.”</p> + +<p>“Then she has developed into a very well-painted lady,” +Cylmer responded, and departed without more ceremony.</p> + +<p>“Trelane! It’s not a common name,” he thought as he +went down-stairs. “There must be some one in London +who knows about her.”</p> + +<p>He turned into his club at lunch-time, and looked up +irritably as old Lord De Fort greeted him from the next +table.</p> + +<p>“Sad news this about Le Marchant,” the neat old +dandy said, tapping his newspaper. “A young man, too. +And not a relative to come in for all that money but +his daughter.”</p> + +<p>“His cousin, Mrs. Trelane—perhaps!” The last word +with late wisdom.</p> + +<p>“Trelane? Not Helen Trelane?” Lord De Fort put +up a shaky eye-glass and stared at Cylmer.</p> + +<p>“That’s her name, yes! Why?”</p> + +<p>“Gad! So she is his cousin. I sincerely hope she’s +forgotten it.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer got up and seated himself at Lord De Fort’s +table.</p> + +<p>“Why?” he demanded. “Speak out. I only saw the +woman once in my life.”</p> + +<p>Lord De Fort obliged him. Under the sharp tongue +of the old dandy every shred of honor and virtue fell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +away from Helen Trelane. Her life was set forth in detail, +till Cylmer bit his lip as he sat silent. This was the +woman to whom was given the guardianship of a young +girl, this adventuress whom even Lord De Fort despised.</p> + +<p>“She has a daughter,” Cylmer said at last, with a +faint gleam of hope that the girl might be different.</p> + +<p>“Who grew too clever and so was sent to school. I +used to see the child, a skinny imp of ten, going to the +pawn-shop of a morning. Helen Trelane was in deep waters +then.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer got up to go, but something made him pause.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” he said suddenly, “was this Mrs. Trelane +ever a friend of Abbotsford’s?”</p> + +<p>“What! The man who was murdered? My dear sir, +I don’t know. What put it into your head?”</p> + +<p>“It was just idle curiosity,” said Cylmer hastily. “I +have no reason to think so,” for, after all, he had no +right to drag any woman’s name into an affair like +that.</p> + +<p>“Humph!” Lord De Fort gave a dry grunt. “I don’t +think she ever knew him. Mrs. Trelane is much too +clever a woman to have ever known a murdered man.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer’s head was dizzy as he left the club. To think +of Cristiane down in the country, away from every one, +with a woman like that, in her absolute power for years +to come, made him burn with useless rage.</p> + +<p>A sudden thought came over him as he walked aimlessly +down the street, his features drawn with worry. +If he could see the woman now, before she knew of that +iniquitous will, perhaps he could terrify her into letting +him buy her off. His promise to Mr. Bolton would not +stand in his way; that was only that he would not mention +his knowledge of Sir Gaspard’s will—surely the +very last piece of information he would wish to give to +Helen Trelane.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer took the first train for home.</p> + +<p>“I can make the country too hot to hold her, and +I’ll tell her so,” he reflected as he got out at the little +way station for Marchant’s Hold. But he was uncomfortably<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> +conscious that if she did not care, and said so, +he was powerless.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, in immaculate black, was seated cozily +over the drawing-room fire, outwardly calm, inwardly +a prey to forebodings. She never looked up as the +door opened, and unannounced, unexpected, Miles Cylmer +walked in. She sprang to her feet, utterly astounded. +Then she remembered he had been Sir Gaspard’s +most intimate friend.</p> + +<p>“It is Mr. Cylmer, is it not?” she said quietly, peering +at him in the firelight. “Have you any news?”</p> + +<p>He looked at her, at the tea-table where the silver +glittered sumptuously; at all the luxury of the room. It +might all come to be this woman’s own. Already she +looked as though she were mistress. He seemed not +to see the hand she held out to him, and, white and +smooth, she let it fall to her black skirts.</p> + +<p>“No, there is no fresh news. It is all quite true, that +is all.” His voice rang harshly in spite of himself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, looking at him, was somehow afraid. +He looked as though he had come for a purpose.</p> + +<p>“Poor Cristiane!” she said gently. “You would like +to see her? I hardly know—I am afraid——”</p> + +<p>“I came to see you!” This time he saw her quick +start as the fire blazed up. “I have just come from +London. I met a friend of yours there.”</p> + +<p>“A friend of mine?” she stammered. “Did they send +you to me?”</p> + +<p>She had only one thought, Lord Abbotsford lying +dead in the little rose-colored room. Had anything come +out? On a sudden her very throat was dry.</p> + +<p>Cylmer had not sat down; she wished he would not +stand over her, as if he threatened her.</p> + +<p>“I have few friends,” her voice was wonderfully +steady. “Who was this?”</p> + +<p>“Lord De Fort.” He looked at her masterfully. “Mrs. +Trelane, you are a clever woman. I think you will see +that Marchant’s Hold will not give your—abilities—scope!”</p> + +<p>Lord De Fort! It was he and his old stories that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +had made her shake in her chair! She would have +laughed aloud had she dared.</p> + +<p>“Lord De Fort hates me!” She shrugged her shoulders. +“Have you come down here to tell me so?”</p> + +<p>Her glance moved suddenly to a dark corner of the +room. Did something stir there? Or was it a curtain +swaying in a draft? Cylmer was puzzled. There was +relief in her voice when he had implied that he knew +what would have overwhelmed another woman with +shame—and at first she had been terrified. What was +she looking at now in the dark, over his shoulder?</p> + +<p>He turned sharply.</p> + +<p>A slim girl, all in black, her flaxen head held high, +her eyes very dark in the fitful light, stood behind him, +for once the witch-smile absent from her mouth.</p> + +<p>“Mother, please go to Cristiane,” she said almost +sternly, and Mrs. Trelane without a word obeyed her. +Ismay came a step nearer to Cylmer and looked him in +the eyes.</p> + +<p>“You!” she said, and the sound of her voice was +like knives. “It is you, who would”—she stopped as if +something suffocated her.</p> + +<p>Cylmer put his hand on her shoulder, quick and +hard.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing here—with her?” he nodded toward +the door.</p> + +<p>“She is my mother,” the girl said simply. “I am Ismay +Trelane!”</p> + +<p>In the silence neither knew how long they stood motionless. +The girl spoke first.</p> + +<p>“I heard all you said,” she uttered slowly. “I know—oh! +I know—what you meant. That we are not fit +to stay here, my mother and I. Make your mind easy; +we shall be turned out when the will is read! We have +no money, nowhere to go; but that will not concern +you.”</p> + +<p>Miles Cylmer felt suddenly contemptible. His righteous +anger fell from him like a garment.</p> + +<p>“You don’t understand,” he groaned. “You can’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! but I do. That old man told you to-day that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +we were poor, disreputable. I tell you that Sir Gaspard +found us starving, and he gave us a chance; a chance to +start fair, to pay our debts, to have enough to eat and +to wear! And then he died, and it was gone from us—like +that!” with a little flick of her exquisite hand. +“You need not threaten my mother; we shall be out of +your way soon enough.”</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” he cried, involuntarily, “I could not know +she was your mother. What are you going to do?”</p> + +<p>She took no heed of his words.</p> + +<p>“Shall you tell Cristiane all you know? Or if I ask +you”—there was sudden passion in her even voice, sudden +fire in her strange eyes—“will you let us go from +here as we came, just the decent, poor relations that +her innocent soul thinks us? She will know evil soon +enough. Will you tell her it is in her very house?”</p> + +<p>“I will tell her—nothing,” he answered slowly. “God +forbid that I, who promised to be your friend, should +say the first word against your mother.”</p> + +<p>Months afterward he knew that nothing on earth +should have kept him from speaking out. Yet to what +good? The will was hard and fast; nothing could be +done to break it.</p> + +<p>He turned away from the pleading eyes as if he dared +not look in them. It was not till he was out in the +frosty air that he remembered he had never even asked +after Cristiane le Marchant.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH.</p> + + +<p>The solemn memorial service in the parish church for +Gaspard le Marchant was over. Mr. Bolton had come +away from it a puzzled man. Helen Trelane and her +daughter had sat facing him while the rector read, and +there was no triumph on either of their faces; only a +strained something that might have been despair.</p> + +<p>Could he have been too hasty? Did Helen Trelane<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +know nothing of that will, whose distasteful pages he +must presently read aloud?</p> + +<p>Cristiane puzzled him, too. Why had she not had +her father’s body brought home to rest in peace with +his kith and kin? Under her black veil he saw that she +sobbed pitifully, and saw, too, that her hand throughout +the service was fast in Ismay Trelane’s. Could he have +wronged them, mother and daughter?</p> + +<p>The old man coughed irritably as he sat in the library +at Marchant’s Hold, where Sir Gaspard had written +that fateful letter to Helen Trelane. Miles Cylmer, +who sat there, too, as Sir Gaspard’s old friend had +a right, rose suddenly and aroused the old lawyer from +his thoughts.</p> + +<p>The library door was opening; the hour had come for +Cristiane le Marchant; from now, good or bad, gentlewoman +or adventuress, Helen Trelane held her fate to +mold at her will.</p> + +<p>And Cristiane came in first, slowly, reluctantly, as if +to hear the wishes of her father, who had been her all, +cut her to the heart, now that she would hear his voice +no more. Ismay, her head held high as she saw Miles +Cylmer without seeming even to let her eyes rest on +his face, followed close behind. Last came the woman +whom both the men standing up to receive distrusted and +despised.</p> + +<p>Calm, pale, handsome, Mrs. Trelane swept in, and read +nothing friendly in those waiting faces.</p> + +<p>Well, they would read the will! And then there +would be the world to face again for Helen Trelane.</p> + +<p>There was not even a flicker of her lowered eyelids +as she sat down. There would be no use in begging for +mercy from men like these. She was ready for dismissal, +as a man who has lost all is ready for death. +Mr. Bolton, anxious to get his work over and be done, +opened the envelope containing the two foolscap pages +that Gaspard le Marchant had never signed. As he read, +the silence of death was in the room.</p> + +<p>The world was going round dizzily to Mrs. Trelane as +she listened.</p> + +<p>She, who sat there sick and hopeless, without a penny,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> +was to have the sole guardianship of Cristiane till she +was twenty-one; was to be allowed five hundred pounds +a year for her life, to be shared with her daughter; +was—her heart fairly turned over in her breast as the +next clause came out—to be sole inheritrix if Cristiane +were to die unmarried, or without children, and in that +case everything would be Ismay’s in the end.</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, but there was only a queer little +sound in her throat; and opposite her, in her pride and +triumph, sat Miles Cylmer, who last night had insulted +her when she was in despair. A hand of steel clutched +her arm at the thought.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look like that!” Ismay’s furious whisper was +low in her ear, as the lawyer went on reading unimportant +clauses as to legacies to old servants. “Play +your game! Be careful!”</p> + +<p>No one else heard the words, or knew even that the +girl had spoken. Mrs. Trelane, with the paleness of +death on her face, sat without moving, as quiet and apparently +as calm as when she entered the room. Yet her +heart was beating madly.</p> + +<p>“Safety, luxury, power!” it pounded in her ear. +“Yours, all yours. A dead past, a living present! No +more duns, no more striving.” In sheer terror, lest she +should scream aloud in her joyful relief, lest it should +be written on her face that Gaspard le Marchant was +no more to her than a dead dog, Ismay tightened her +warning hand till sheer pain brought her mother to her +senses.</p> + +<p>Once more the girl’s wits had been her salvation. As +the lawyer finished the short will and sat looking quietly +at the neat sheets, wherein he and Miles Cylmer were +executors with the woman whose past they knew, Mrs. +Trelane rose to her feet. Her ghastly pallor, her statuesque +quiet, were magnificent as she faced them, only +her eyes were not on theirs. “Cristiane,” she said very +gently, “this has surprised me, and you, too! If you do +not want me to live here and try to make you happy, say +so. And Mr. Bolton can perhaps make some other arrangement.”</p> + +<p>Both men gasped stupidly in their amazement. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +lawyer’s distrust of her was already shaken—it vanished +utterly at her words. Cylmer could have killed her for +daring to speak and propose what she knew could not +be done. And yet, as his eyes fell on Ismay, he could +not help feeling relief at the knowledge that she was not +to be turned out as she had foreseen.</p> + +<p>In the silence Cristiane spoke between her sobs.</p> + +<p>“No, no! Daddy wished it,” she cried out. “Oh, don’t +go! I have no one else, and I—I’m so lonely.”</p> + +<p>She crossed swiftly to where the elder woman stood +waiting, and flung her arms round her neck, where she +stood faintly redolent of the peach-blossom which had +sickened Miles Cylmer as she entered.</p> + +<p>“You won’t leave me! I would die without you and +Ismay! Ismay, who is like my sister already.” Cristiane +pleaded imploringly, and at the sight of her young +innocence, as she clung to the woman, it was not in +human nature that either of the men who looked on +should repress a start. Cylmer kept down a furious +word, somehow, but he could not keep from making a +long step toward Cristiane, even though he knew he had +no right to tear her from the woman she clasped so +closely.</p> + +<p>Yet some one else was more sick than he at the sight, +though Helen Trelane was her own mother. A touch +gentle as velvet, more compelling than steel, somehow +had drawn Cristiane a yard away.</p> + +<p>“Hush, dear!” Ismay said softly. “Everything shall +be as you say. But let Mr. Bolton talk a little to mother.”</p> + +<p>She did not hold the girl; her touch was scarcely more +innocent of evil than her mother’s; and at the sharp flash +of gratitude in Miles Cylmer’s eyes her own were lowered +angrily.</p> + +<p>“I suppose the will stands!” Mrs. Trelane was saying +gently.</p> + +<p>“H’m! Yes—yes—of course!” Mr. Bolton returned. +“If Cristiane did not approve I suppose it could be put +in chancery and guardians appointed”—in his heart +knowing it impossible.</p> + +<p>“But I do approve!” Cristiane cried imperiously. “It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +is what daddy wanted, and what I wish, too. I will not +have his will questioned in courts.”</p> + +<p>All the wilfulness she had from her mother awoke in +her; she looked at the old lawyer with cried-out eyes +that yet were steady.</p> + +<p>“You are sure, Cristiane?” Cylmer said sternly.</p> + +<p>“Sure!”—with a flash of her spirit.</p> + +<p>“You hear her?” Mrs. Trelane, gentle still, spoke to +Mr. Bolton. “You know that I stay, by her wish, not my +own.”</p> + +<p>“By her wish!” he returned mechanically.</p> + +<p>“And the will!” Miles Cylmer murmured sarcastically, +knowing she was safe in her magnanimity, her self-forgetfulness, +since no court in England would doubt that +clear will.</p> + +<p>“Then I will stay.” With a little sigh, as if she had +been seeking the right path, and at last found it, Mrs. +Trelane moved nearer to Cristiane; not very near, for +somehow Ismay stood between them, her eyes, that only +her mother could see, blazing green with warning.</p> + +<p>She lowered them as her mother stood back, and was +no longer between her mother and the two men, and so +did not see Mrs. Trelane for the first time look full at +Miles Cylmer.</p> + +<p>She had reason, since last evening, to hate him, yet it +was not her dislike that made him grow so pale.</p> + +<p>The merciless triumph in her hard blue eyes, whence +a veil seemed to have been lifted, the cold derision which +said plainly, “Where are your threats now?” troubled +him more than the undying enmity that he saw on her +face. What would come to Cristiane in the hands of a +woman like this, who could act gentleness and magnanimity +at one minute, and the next show the true colors +of an adventuress who has outwitted her enemy?</p> + +<p>Would she use her power to forbid him the house? +Very likely, after last night’s mad attempt to stay the +tide of fate with a straw!</p> + +<p>“She will have her work cut out to do it,” he reflected, +the muscles round his mouth very set and grim. He +moved quickly toward Cristiane.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p> + +<p>“You will let me come and see you sometimes,” he said +very low, “even now that you have new friends?”</p> + +<p>For he was sore and smarting that the girl who knew +he loved her, who had known him all her life, had never +even given him a look since she entered the room.</p> + +<p>She looked at him now indifferently.</p> + +<p>“If you care to come over, please do”—her voice quite +cold and level.</p> + +<p>“You will let me do anything I can for you—you know +I am always at your service.”</p> + +<p>Cristiane’s lip curled, ever so faintly. If he were always +at her service, why had he never come, never written, +when the dreadful news was known? The new +friends that he grudged her were more faithful than the +old, very surely! When she had wanted comfort it was +not Miles Cylmer who had given it.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I want anything now,” she said proudly, +never dreaming of how he had tried to do his best for +her. “But, of course, come when you please.”</p> + +<p>She went quietly forward to speak to Mr. Bolton, and +for a moment Cylmer stood silent, sick at heart, though +he had made his point, and the door of Marchant’s Hold +was not shut to him. Ismay’s eyes were deep and green +as she watched his face; he had made a point for her, +too.</p> + +<p>“He will come to see Cristiane,” she thought triumphantly; +“he shall stay to see me!” She had no longer +any fear lest her mother should be connected in his mind +with that missing photograph. She was too different in +her decorous black from the white-gowned, bare-armed +woman of the picture.</p> + +<p>She beckoned Cylmer close to her with a little backward +motion of her head. “Make it up with mother,” +she said under her breath, Cylmer’s broad shoulders +shielding her from the others. “She will never really +forgive you, but she will pretend to.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer nodded.</p> + +<p>“And you?” he said uncomfortably.</p> + +<p>Ismay’s eyes met his, and for once they were true.</p> + +<p>“I am going to take care of Cristiane.” She little +knew of all she meant when she spoke; of the days of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +watching, the nights of fear; but long after Miles Cylmer, +remembering this day, knew that in her fashion she +had kept her word.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">MORE TREACHERY.</p> + + +<p>“Do you think I should have a crape veil?” Mother +and daughter sat alone in the comfortable sitting-room +that was Ismay’s own, when a week had passed after +the reading of the will and their security was no longer +a matter for ceaseless, exulting discussion. Around both +of them lay a wild confusion of dressmakers’ patterns, +bits of black stuff of all sorts, sketches of gowns which +had been, till now, only dreams of Ismay Trelane. Yet +she pushed them suddenly off her lap and yawned listlessly. +A whole week had gone by without a sign of +Cylmer; and yet she knew he had patched up a hollow +truce with her mother.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I wish I knew if he were in love with Cristiane,” +she mused moodily. “I could do more.”</p> + +<p>“Do listen, Ismay, and don’t look so sulky!” Mrs. Trelane +said smartly. “Do you think I had better have a +crape veil or plain net?”</p> + +<p>“Crape. It hides your face more!”—with unpleasant +significance. “Ugh! How I hate mourning. Mother, +where is Cristiane?”</p> + +<p>“Where she always is; sitting moaning in that library,” +was the answer. “She is so deathly in her plain black +serge she makes me cold. And she won’t talk of anything +but her father’s grave, and how we must go to Rome in +the spring. I never heard of such nonsense as having +him moved there. As if he knew where he was buried!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that I would have dug him up, either,” +said Ismay; “but don’t, for Heaven’s sake, say so.”</p> + +<p>A faint, far-off sound, which might have been the clang +of the door-bell down-stairs, reached her as she spoke. +Mrs. Trelane, not nearly so quick-eared, went on gloating +over the vision of a soft black silk gown, that should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +glitter with jet, all veiled with cloudy crape. She did +not see Ismay stiffen in her chair.</p> + +<p>“It must be tea-time,” she suggested absently. “Perhaps +you had better go and find Cristiane.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I had.” Life in her eyes, the blood scarlet +in her lips, Ismay was up like a flash. It had been the +door-bell; she had heard the great hall door close dully +in the silent house. And a visitor could be none other +than Miles Cylmer. Every drop of her blood ached to +see him, and there was another reason that hurried her +through the passages. Miles must not be allowed to see +Cristiane while that scribbled card of his reposed in +Ismay’s pocket. His hand had written it, and Ismay +Trelane had lacked strength to burn the dangerous thing.</p> + +<p>“Even if he does tell her he’s called twice, she won’t +believe him now!” she reflected, pausing at the library +door.</p> + +<p>It was shut. From inside came a murmur of voices. +Cristiane’s strained, wild, almost joyful; then another—oh! +it was not Miles Cylmer’s.</p> + +<p>Sick with terror, Ismay clung to the door-handle. +Whose voice was it that she heard, cold, suave to oiliness? +Surely she was dreaming; it could not be that +voice here!</p> + +<p>“Tell me, tell me everything!” Cristiane was crying, +but her voice, broken and piercing, was distinct to the +girl whose feet were failing under her.</p> + +<p>“All I know.” The answer was plain, and conviction +struck heavy at Ismay’s heart.</p> + +<p>It was he, Marcus Wray! But how had he got here, +and what was he telling Cristiane? His voice went on +low and smooth, his words she could not hear. And +she dared not go in; she, Ismay Trelane, who had said +she feared nothing, was cold with fear now. She got up-stairs, +her knees trembling under her as she stumbled into +the room where Mrs. Trelane sat, gloating over her +toilets.</p> + +<p>The blood gone from her cheek, her heart hammering +at her side, Ismay clutched her by the shoulder, her +shut throat so dry that she could not speak.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p> + +<p>“Are you crazy?” Mrs. Trelane cried angrily. “You +hurt me; let me go.”</p> + +<p>Ismay shook her fiercely.</p> + +<p>“Go down, quick!” she muttered. “He’s there with +Cristiane. He’s telling her something—it must be about +us. You must go and stop him.”</p> + +<p>“Him! Who?”</p> + +<p>Ismay’s grasp slackened.</p> + +<p>“Marcus Wray.”</p> + +<p>For a minute they looked at each other, the elder woman’s +face turning from unbelief to gray despair. How +had her enemy found her?</p> + +<p>“Go! There’s no time to waste,” the girl said sharply. +“I knew he’d hunt us down. I didn’t think it would +be so soon.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he will find it is different now,” she said. +“We can keep him quiet with money; oh, I know we +can!”</p> + +<p>“It may be too late—now. And you once kept him +quiet with diamonds!”—contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“I’ll do what I can.”</p> + +<p>She was not so frightened as Ismay, though she knew +Marcus Wray. Startled she was at his finding her, yet +surely now that she had money and position she could +make terms with a man who lived by his wits. A sense +of power had grown in her since the day she had looked +defiance into Miles Cylmer’s eyes; she felt strong now, +even for Marcus Wray, as she opened the library door +and went in gracefully, languidly, as though she expected +nothing.</p> + +<p>Yet what she saw was staggering enough. Marcus +Wray, in the flesh, sat with his back to her, faultlessly +dressed, as usual, his black hair brushed to satin. Facing +him was Cristiane, her checks crimson, her violet eyes +shining softly, the dyes of one moved to the depths.</p> + +<p>“Dear Mrs. Trelane”—the girl had started up and run +to her—“I was just going to send for you. This gentleman +has been telling me things I—I was sick to hear.”</p> + +<p>Helen Trelane’s upper lip was wet.</p> + +<p>“What things, dear?” she managed to say, as Marcus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> +Wray turned round and faced her. Cristiane’s hand was +cold in hers, and the touch brought back the deadly chill +of Abbotsford’s hand as he lay in the little rose-colored +room. But she would not wait for an answer.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Wray!” she exclaimed; and, to her credit, there +was pleased surprise in her voice. “You here? I did not +know you knew my little ward!”</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray came forward and took the loose, lifeless +hand that she could not make steady, Cristiane clinging +to the other the while.</p> + +<p>“It is an unexpected pleasure for me,” he murmured, +with smooth untruth. “I did not know Miss Le Marchant +was your ward. I came to tell her”—he paused +almost imperceptibly, noting the tiny drops round Helen +Trelane’s mouth—“that I was with her father—at the +end.”</p> + +<p>His eyes were on hers, in cold warning; yet, in spite +of the hidden threat there, the woman breathed again. +At least, he had not been telling Cristiane of Abbotsford—and +the diamonds.</p> + +<p>“I did not know you knew Mrs. Trelane.” Cristiane +glanced wonderingly from one to the other.</p> + +<p>“You see, Miss Le Marchant,” he said courteously, +“Mrs. Trelane and I have been—friends—for some +years.”</p> + +<p>“We have known each other—well, for a long time.” +For her life, Helen Trelane could not keep the angry +scorn from her voice, but Cristiane was not woman +enough to hear it.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad,” she said, with a little sigh of pleasure, +“for now perhaps Mr. Wray will spend the night. I +have so much to ask him—it seems like a last message”—with +a quiver of her lovely lips—“from daddy.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane sat down, Cristiane beside her, on the wide +sofa by the fire. Her brain was whirling. Was it possible +that Marcus Wray was telling the truth, or was it +all a lie to get into the house?</p> + +<p>“Please tell it all again,” Cristiane said pleadingly, and +Marcus Wray obeyed her, the story of the accident to +the train only slightly altered by his being with Sir Gaspard,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +having accompanied him from Paris, instead of +having followed him in that lucky last carriage.</p> + +<p>“It was all so quick he felt nothing,” he ended gently. +“I would have saved him if I could.”</p> + +<p>“Have you been in Aix ever since?” Mrs. Trelane +asked dryly.</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray made his last, best point with Cristiane.</p> + +<p>“I have been to Rome,” he responded. “There was a +telegram from Sir Gaspard’s lawyers that he should be +buried there, and I, as his only friend, went, too, and saw +him laid in his last resting-place. He had told me, in +Paris, that he would like to be buried in Rome——”</p> + +<p>“But was he ill in Paris?” Cristiane cried.</p> + +<p>“Very ill, I am afraid,” Wray answered gently. “He +spoke of his wish, at all events, and so I saw that it was +fulfilled.” He drew out a pocketbook and took some +violets from it that were sweet still.</p> + +<p>“These are from your mother’s grave”—his voice reverential, +softly thrilled, he put them into Cristiane’s hand. +“And he lies beside her.”</p> + +<p>But the tiny purple scented things fluttered to the +ground, the very flood-gates of her heart opened, she +sobbed on Mrs. Trelane’s shoulder, torn with her grief.</p> + +<p>“Oh, if I could go, too!” she moaned. “Father, father, +if I could go, too.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane caught the girl to her.</p> + +<p>“Darling, don’t cry like that; please don’t!” she said +authoritatively. “Come with me; come to Ismay.”</p> + +<p>She cast an indignant look at Marcus Wray. Why did +he harrow the girl with his lies?</p> + +<p>“Don’t let him go,” Cristiane gasped. “I want to ask +him something.”</p> + +<p>“I will wait.” Marcus Wray’s voice and glance turned +Mrs. Trelane’s indignation to terror.</p> + +<p>Somehow she got Cristiane up-stairs, with the aid of +Jessie, who was all sympathy at the quick words Mrs. +Trelane whispered.</p> + +<p>“My lamb, you must rest!” the woman said pityingly. +“You shall see the gentleman to-morrow. Come with +Jessie now.”</p> + +<p>As the girl went to her room, worn out, Mrs. Trelane<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +forgot to send Ismay to soothe her; forgot everything +on earth but Marcus Wray. Cristiane was out of +the way; it did not matter where Ismay was.</p> + +<p>She little knew how those early morning inspections of +Ismay’s had familiarized her with every room and nook +and passage of the house. Nor that a door opening into +the library from the drawing-room was masked by bookshelves +on one side and curtains on the other, and had +warped so that it could never be quite closed from the +weight of the shelves on it. But Ismay knew!</p> + +<p>Crouched tailor-fashion on the floor, she had heard +from her hiding-place every word of Marcus Wray’s, and +her quick brain was working, as she waited for her mother’s +return, like a detective’s on a clue.</p> + +<p>“It was not to tell Cristiane that drivel that he came,” +she thought nervously, almost afraid to breathe, lest his +quick ears should know it. “There’s something more. +Oh, I wish mother had listened to me and never gone +to Lord Abbotsford’s.”</p> + +<p>Her mother’s voice cut on her ears as the door from +the hall closed behind her.</p> + +<p>“You have nearly killed the girl with your lies,” she +cried. “Why couldn’t you come and ask for me, instead +of playing a game like that? I know quite well you came +to see me.”</p> + +<p>“You are—partially—right!” Cristiane would not +have recognized the voice, so slow and insulting. “I did +come to see you. But I did not tell lies, but truth—embroidered.”</p> + +<p>“You knew I was here,” she retorted angrily. “You +did!”</p> + +<p>“I did”—with amused mockery.</p> + +<p>“Then what do you want of me? Do your worst and +go. I tell you I will not live like this, to be bullied by +you!”</p> + +<p>“Whom once you bullied,” the man answered quietly. +“Sit down, Helen, and don’t scream your conversation. +I am here as your friend.”</p> + +<p>“My friend! How?”</p> + +<p>But Ismay heard the soft rustle of silks as Mrs. Trelane +sat down.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you, only listen and be quiet. I was with Sir +Gaspard in Paris, but by chance, as a lawyer, not as his +friend. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p>“No.” Very low, and it was well Ismay could not +see how her mother was cowering before Marcus Wray’s +contemptuous eyes.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you? Well, I made that will. Now, do you +know what brought me here?”</p> + +<p>“To make me pay you to go away”—bitterly.</p> + +<p>“No, not that. I do not mean to go away; and what +good would the pittance you could screw from five hundred +a year be to me? I am going to pay you short visits +often; the girl likes me——”</p> + +<p>“Mark,” she broke in, “what for? Why do you want +to come to a dull hole like this if it was not to get money +out of me?”</p> + +<p>A thought that sprang in her suddenly made her gasp, +and then speak louder.</p> + +<p>“Or do you want to make love to Cristiane, and marry +her, and have me turned out by betraying all you know?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean anything out of that exhaustive catalogue”—coolly. +“Let me recall a clause of the will to your +memory: ‘If my daughter Cristiane should die unmarried +or without children, the property and all moneys of +which I am possessed shall go to my only remaining +relative, the aforesaid Helen Trelane, reverting on her +decease to her only daughter, Ismay Trelane.’ Now do +you see my meaning?” His voice was low as caution +could make it; his eyes spoke terrors that could not be +said even to the wretched woman before him.</p> + +<p>With a dreadful, strangled wail she was on her knees +beside him.</p> + +<p>“Mark, Mark! Would you make me a murderess?”</p> + +<p>His eyes burned into hers as he stooped closer to her, +where she shook on her knees.</p> + +<p>“What are you now, if I speak out?” he said slowly. +“You can take your choice.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t do it! It would be madness. She is young. +Oh! for God’s sake, say you didn’t mean it.”</p> + +<p>“Mean what? I said nothing. You need do nothing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> +But if that happens you are free. Why, you fool! Do +you think I want you to give her a dagger?”</p> + +<p>“Marry her; let me go, and marry her! You’d be +rich!”</p> + +<p>“I am going to marry Ismay,” said Marcus Wray.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">COILED TO SPRING.</p> + + +<p>Just how long she sat crouched in the dark Ismay Trelane +never knew. She heard a bell ring and lamps +brought that shone through the chink straight on her. +Then there was a tinkle of glasses, and, as a bottle was +opened with a sharp explosion, she dared to steal away.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what wickedness! I never dreamed of such wickedness,” +she thought, gaining her own room and locking +herself in, as though Wray might come to seek her. “But +he sha’n’t do it. I swear he sha’n’t do it, unless he kills +me first!”</p> + +<p>For she knew that somewhere, somehow, death would +be lurking in her own house for Cristiane le Marchant; +not now, but later on, when people had ceased to talk of +Sir Gaspard’s death, and his strange will.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, now that she knew the real danger, +all her courage had come back to her. It was with +nerves of steel that she sat thinking, thinking; her eyes +gleaming green in the darkness like a watching leopard’s, +that waits to kill.</p> + +<p>“What shall I do? I can’t let mother know I heard—she +would tell him, and I wouldn’t have any chance.” +Her anguish almost broke out into a cry. “Oh! what +have I done to have such a mother?”—her teeth gritting +as she kept back the words. “And he will marry me then, +will he? He will marry a dose of poison, and I will +hang for it first! To sit there in cold blood and talk of +murder—and she so young.” She rocked to and fro. +Cristiane le Marchant was in her way, but that was a +thing to fight and triumph over. Not even to marry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +Miles Cylmer would Ismay let that awful scheme of death +be played out.</p> + +<p>And her mother had begged to him, not defied him; +that cry of “Mark, Mark!” still rang in the daughter’s +ears. Could it be true what he said, that it was she +who had poisoned Abbotsford? Had her mother managed +to deceive even her when she swore she had no +hand in it?</p> + +<p>“I will find out!” The girl’s dumb lips were awful in +the dusk. “I will make Marcus Wray a thing the world +shudders at before I am done. I will take care of Cristiane,” +she moaned sharply, remembering how she had +said these very words to Cylmer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’ll love me in the end,” she panted, as though +he could hear the thought in her brain. “I would die +for you; surely you’ll love me in the end!”</p> + +<p>Frightened at her own passion, she got up in the dark +and bathed her face in cold water, and washed the hands +that were soiled from the dust in her ambush. Her +mother would wonder, if she came in before dinner and +found her in a dress all gray with dust.</p> + +<p>She made a careful toilet, that she might be ready +when the gong rang for dinner, and looked at herself +in the glass. But her own eyes were dreadful to her, +for they were the eyes of a hunted beast at bay. She +turned quickly from the glass. She could not think if +she saw her own face, and think she must before she had +to meet Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>She opened the window to the bitter winter air, and its +chill cleared her brain.</p> + +<p>First, there was that matter of Lord Abbotsford, and +the hold it had given Wray on her mother. He must +have proof of what the latter denied, or she would not +be in such terror of him. The thought brought no new +terror to Ismay Trelane; true or not, the accusation was +Marcus Wray’s weapon, and she must look for one of +her own that would turn its edge.</p> + +<p>Then there was Cylmer. He, too, would be against +her mother if he knew all, and Wray would stick at +nothing if he once knew that Ismay loved another man.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +He must know nothing of Cylmer; yet, if he stayed here, +how was he to be kept in the dark?</p> + +<p>And Cristiane? Suppose Ismay’s dull suspicion were +true, and Cylmer loved her, why should she live to come +between him and Ismay Trelane?</p> + +<p>The girl, sitting, with clenched hands, on her bed, answered +her own question.</p> + +<p>“Because I hate, hate, hate Marcus Wray!” she whispered +hoarsely. “Because he shall never have a penny +of Sir Gaspard’s money, nor my little finger, to call his +own. I must carry my own sins. I will not be made to +help carry Marcus Wray’s! Cristiane——” She went +to the glass again, and this time she did not flinch. “Cristiane +cannot keep any man from me! I will have it all, +all, from marrying Miles Cylmer to beating Marcus +Wray at his own game.”</p> + +<p>For there faced her in the glass her own beauty, +strange and glorious. Not a curve of her milky cheeks, +a wave of her flax-white hair, a line of her scarlet mouth +was lost on her. She gazed steadily into her own eyes in +the mirror till it seemed as if a soul not her own gazed +back at her from them. They were no longer the eyes +of Ismay Trelane, a girl not eighteen years old, but those +of a woman who had lived and loved and known the very +wisdom of earth long ago, when the world was very +young.</p> + +<p>The old, old smile curved the girl’s lips as she turned +away.</p> + +<p>There was her weapon to fight Marcus Wray—her +beauty, her wits, her self-reliance that should never +again fail her as it had failed her to-day.</p> + +<p>“I shall manage them all!” She flung back her lovely +head triumphantly, securely. “Who is Cristiane that I +should be afraid of her, when he can look at me? She +shall help me with him! She shall be the bait that will +bring him to me. And I will not go to him with blood +on my hands to save Marcus Wray.”</p> + +<p>Not even to herself would she own that in spite of +herself Cristiane had grown dear to her, for to care +for any one but oneself and a man was to be a fool, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> +Ismay Trelane. Her mother—bah! Her mother was +safe enough while her enemy was playing for such high +stakes.</p> + +<p>The only danger was lest Wray might think things +about Cylmer, and forget his caution in a mad rage of +jealousy. That thick, yellow skin, those dark red lips +bore the very trade-mark on them of the most ungovernable +passion in the world.</p> + +<p>“It is I who must take care of that,” Ismay mused. +“And before I am done, it is Marcus Wray that shall +tremble for his skin, not I, nor my mother, nor Cristiane.”</p> + +<p>She went down-stairs as calm as a lake at dawn; cool +and silent she bowed to Marcus Wray where he stood +with her mother in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner.</p> + +<p>She had never seen him in evening clothes, and he +was more repulsive in the plain black and white than +she had ever dreamed he could be.</p> + +<p>“What! You don’t shake hands?” he said, with amusement.</p> + +<p>Cristiane was not coming down, and Mrs. Trelane +looked at her daughter as if she longed to slap her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be silly, Ismay!” she snapped.</p> + +<p>“Let her alone,” Wray said quietly. “It will come to +the same thing in the end. The harder it is to get a +thing, the more I enjoy it.”</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. Trelane felt cold at his hideous, gloating +look at her daughter, but Ismay glanced at him with calm +distaste, to which her beauty lent a sting.</p> + +<p>“Let us go to dinner,” she said, as if he were beneath +any direct reply.</p> + +<p>And as she sat at his right hand, opposite her mother, +not even the luck of Marcus Wray could warn him that +a white adder, with gleaming emerald eyes, coiled up to +spring, would have been a safer neighbor for him than +Ismay Trelane.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">CIRCE’S EYES.</p> + + +<p>Nothing in the whole house was good enough for Marcus +Wray. Ismay saw that as soon as she came down +to breakfast.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, behind the great urn, was changed from +yesterday; a peace was on her face, and for the first time +since the news of her father’s death her eyes bore no +traces of a night spent in tears. Marcus Wray had built +better than he knew when he came as the one friend +who had done the very last things for Gaspard le Marchant. +The news had spread like wild-fire through the +household. Thomas, the old butler, waited on the strange +gentleman from London with a noiseless assiduity he +had never shown to either of the Trelanes.</p> + +<p>“Must you go this morning?” Cristiane said wistfully. +“I suppose there is very little temptation to stay in a +quiet house like this!”</p> + +<p>“There is every temptation,” Wray returned, with the +frankness that was so good an imitation, “to a tired man +who has found old friends here and the kindest of hospitality”—with +a glance at Cristiane that made Ismay +wince. “But I am afraid I must go and look after my +bread and butter. I am one of the working-classes, Miss +Le Marchant.”</p> + +<p>“But you don’t work always! If you have a Saturday +and Sunday to spare, will you remember you are wanted +here?”</p> + +<p>For the man seemed a link with her dead father that +she could not lose.</p> + +<p>Wray glanced at Mrs. Trelane.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane is right, Mr. Wray,” she said. “We shall +always be glad to see you, though, of course, at present +we do not see any one but old friends.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we live and learn,” reflected Ismay. “Fancy +mother saying she will be glad to see that man. She +must be in a blue fright.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p> + +<p>She heard in utter silence an arrangement made which +would bring Marcus Wray from London on the next +Saturday fortnight. She had that much time in which to +see Cylmer.</p> + +<p>In the morning sunshine what she had overheard last +night in the dusk seemed monstrous and absurd. Yet +there sat the man whose profession was blackmail, and +there sat the woman who feared him, pale, worn, and +harried, in the dainty breakfast-room.</p> + +<p>“There’s plenty of time, that is the only thing,” Ismay +thought, as she saw Cristiane leave the room with Wray +and go out by the window onto the terrace. The morning +was almost warm, and they walked up and down +there, like old friends, a hideous sight to the girl who +watched them over her empty teacup.</p> + +<p>“Plenty of time; he is too clever to hurry and make a +scandal in the country.” She wondered morbidly how +he would set about his hideous end when the time was +ripe.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!” she said to herself smartly. “I shall have +the upper hand long before that, though I don’t know +how yet.”</p> + +<p>She rose quickly and went out through the open +French window. Cristiane was alone now, and Ismay +had no mind for a solitary conversation with Mr. Wray, +who had come into the house by the hall door to get +ready for his train.</p> + +<p>“Mother can talk to him if she chooses, not I!” she +thought, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I am a fool to +mix myself up in it, I believe, and yet I haven’t much +choice. Some one must look after this baby”—with a +grudging glance at the girl whose bare head shone +ruddy in the winter sun.</p> + +<p>Cristiane slipped her arm through Ismay’s, a trick the +latter hated, yet she dared not take away her arm.</p> + +<p>“I feel so much better, Ismay,” she said softly, “as if I +had been near father. That friend of your mother’s has +been very kind.”</p> + +<p>“Very,” said Ismay dryly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you like him?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t like him at all. But, of course, he has been +very kind to you.”</p> + +<p>“What is the matter with him?” Cristiane was up in +arms at once. “Nobody who wasn’t nice would do all +he has done for utter strangers. You have no real reason +for disliking him, have you?”</p> + +<p>“A very small one,” Miss Trelane returned calmly. +“I’ll tell it to you some day—perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I have a very big reason for liking him, and I +think you’re rather horrid about it,” she replied injuredly. +“Don’t you want him to come back again?”</p> + +<p>“Not particularly,” said the girl, with an inward longing +that he might break his neck on the way to the station.</p> + +<p>Cristiane laughed.</p> + +<p>“How funny you are! You look at the man as if he +were a toad, and you only say ‘not particularly’ when I +ask you if you mind his coming here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I am sorry you asked him, if you must +know.”</p> + +<p>“I wanted him,” Cristiane rejoined obstinately, “and I +should be very ungrateful if I didn’t.”</p> + +<p>Ismay laughed; it was safer not to go any further, +and there would be no good in driving Cristiane.</p> + +<p>“Gratitude is a vice; you never know where it may +lead you,” she remarked. “He is coming to say good-by +to you. I shall go in;” and she vanished. A thrill +of relief went through her when she heard the crunching +of wheels over the gravel as Marcus Wray drove off. +When their last sound had died away, she stepped out +on the terrace again and stood staring, with an incredulous +joy that was almost pain.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer was coming up the avenue, a sight to +make any woman look with pleasure at him, in his spotless +breeches and boots, and the scarlet coat that showed +to the utmost advantage every line of his strong, splendid +figure. He was walking and leading a very lame +horse.</p> + +<p>“Why, here’s Miles!” Cristiane cried wonderingly. +“And his horse can hardly crawl. I wonder what is the +matter.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p> + +<p>She forgot there had been any gap in his coming and +going to Marchant’s Hold; his arriving at this unseemly +hour was so like the old days, when he had always been +welcome.</p> + +<p>“What on earth has happened to you?” she called, as +he came nearer.</p> + +<p>“Molly strained her shoulder at the bank down by your +outfields,” he returned, stopping in front of them, his +handsome head glossy in the sun as he lifted his hat. +“So I came to ask you if I might put her in your stable +instead of taking her all the way home. I don’t know +how it happened; slipped, I fancy; she didn’t fall.”</p> + +<p>“I knew you’d do it some day. You go at your banks +too fast.” Cristiane frowned as she touched the mare’s +shoulder with knowledgable fingers. “Poor Molly! It’s +a shame.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Cylmer was annoyed. Few men rode with more +judgment than he, and he knew it.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t think I like it, any more than Molly,” +he returned, a trifle crossly.</p> + +<p>“Come along to the stables,” Cristiane said. “The +sooner she is seen to the better. I’m glad you brought +her. Come on, Ismay.”</p> + +<p>She had had time to recollect that Miles, who had +forgotten her in his sorrow, could remember now that +she could be useful. She marched on in front, leading +the limping mare. Ismay and Cylmer were left to +follow.</p> + +<p>“You’ve cut your hand,” said Ismay, and her voice fell +softly on his ears, that Cristiane’s words had left tingling. +“It’s bleeding.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all right,” he replied shamefacedly. “I was +stooping to make a gap in the hedge for Molly, and she +trod on it.”</p> + +<p>It was cut and bruised so that it ached abominably. +He winced with pain as he tried to move it.</p> + +<p>Ismay’s handkerchief, white, filmy, fine, and smelling +of nothing but fresh linen, was out in a second.</p> + +<p>“There is no sense in getting yourself all horrid with +it,” she said practically. “Hold out your hand.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p> + +<p>There was an ugly circular jag across the back of the +fingers, where the horse’s shoe had come.</p> + +<p>“It’s too beastly,” he said. He did not want her to +look at the mingled blood and dirt that covered his hand.</p> + +<p>But she only laughed, a little low laugh, like a woman +comforting the hurt of a child.</p> + +<p>“Hold it out,” she repeated, and through the cool +linen he could feel the touch of her slim, deft fingers, a +touch that somehow made him thrill.</p> + +<p>Cristiane had never even seen his hand!</p> + +<p>She stood by while he and a groom saw to Molly, and +then as they turned away the bandage caught her eye.</p> + +<p>“What a baby you are, Miles!” she laughed. “Fancy +binding up your whole hand for a cut!”</p> + +<p>“It’s smashed flat,” he returned quietly. “And you’re +an unsympathetic little wretch. By the way, didn’t I +meet a stranger driving down your avenue?”</p> + +<p>“He isn’t a stranger,” she retorted. “It was Mr. +Wray, a friend of—father’s.” Her lips quivered suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Wray? I never heard of him”—soberly.</p> + +<p>Cristiane stamped her foot.</p> + +<p>“Well, you hear now!” she cried. “Ismay has been +horrid about him, and now I suppose you’re going to be; +but I won’t stay and hear it. She can tell you why”—with +a great sob—“why he came!” and before the astonished +Cylmer could breathe, she had run away like a +hare, in a very tempest of tears.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with her? She is not at all like +herself!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“She’s unstrung, poor little soul! And I don’t wonder. +He came to tell her he was with Sir Gaspard when +he died.”</p> + +<p>“What!” But after that one quick word he listened +in silence, as Ismay told him all she saw fit to tell.</p> + +<p>“Why did she say you had been horrid about him?” he +asked as she finished.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like him. Mother and I knew him in London. +He is so ugly—oh! so ugly that I shiver when I look at +him,” she returned lightly, yet he saw there was something +behind her words. Even in a casual glance there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +had been something repulsive to him, too, in the face of +the man who had passed him so quickly; not a nice person +to have make love to you, as he guessed he had done +to Miss Trelane.</p> + +<p>“Send for me if he comes again and you want to get +rid of him,” he said as lightly as she. “I’d like to see +him, too”—with sudden gravity. “It was strange, his being +with Sir Gaspard at the end!”</p> + +<p>“He is a strange man, here to-day and gone to-morrow.” +She spoke wearily. “But, of course, I really +know very little about him. I was angry because his +coming upset Cristiane so.”</p> + +<p>“Poor child.” But the tone in his voice was not that +with which he would have spoken of the girl a fortnight +before. “Time and letting alone are what she wants.” +He glanced at the house as they neared it.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I am to be admitted?” he said. “Is +your mother——” He did not finish.</p> + +<p>“My mother can afford to forgive you”—with unconscious +bitterness. “And Cristiane would not like it if +you did not come in.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it would disturb her,” he replied dryly. +But he followed Ismay into the house.</p> + +<p>They sat by the hall fire, that glowed with a gentle +warmth, and talked softly of nothings; with one consent +of anything but the things that were past. As the girl’s +green eyes met his, the spell of her beauty fell on him, +till his love for Cristiane seemed a childish dream. Soft, +white, sinuous, she sat in her great chair, and as she +looked at him Miles Cylmer was powerlessly under her +sway.</p> + +<p>“I will come to-morrow to bring back the horse,” he +said softly, forgetting it was not his house. “May I?”</p> + +<p>And his blood was quick in him as she gave a little +languid nod, so sweet and full of sorcery were her marvelous +eyes.</p> + +<p>If he had dared he would have told her then and there +that she was the only woman in the world for him. He +knew now that pity and affection and an idle heart had +made him fancy he cared for Cristiane.</p> + +<p>“You don’t hear what I’m saying, Mr. Cylmer!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> + +<p>Ismay’s little laugh roused him, and the man who had +been loved by many women in his time looked up in boyish +confusion.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon. What was it?”</p> + +<p>“It was like me, a thing of no importance,” she answered +lazily. “But I wonder where your thoughts are”—and +her hand, as if by accident, covered for one instant +her scarlet lips.</p> + +<p>Was she a witch who had read his thoughts? For all +he knew, she might be a very Circe, false as water, and +yet he would have sworn that she was heavenly true.</p> + +<p>“I will tell you where they were some day,” he said, +wondering if all the time she knew. For as she talked +and he looked at her the remembrance of her lips on his +in that kiss he had taken on that morning at his gates +had come back to him with shame.</p> + +<p>He had kissed her as if she had been a pretty dairymaid +and he a king.</p> + +<p>Now his soul went out in longing to have her for his +own, to kiss her as his queen, his wife. How had he +dared to think of her in any other way?</p> + +<p>Her history, her mother, were as nothing to him in +face of her loveliness that bewitched him.</p> + +<p>When at last his borrowed horse came to the door he +rose reluctantly.</p> + +<p>“Till to-morrow. I must bring it back, you know,” +he said, and at something in his eyes she flushed, ever so +faintly.</p> + +<p>“Till to-morrow,” she echoed quietly.</p> + +<p>And he never imagined that she watched him out of +sight as he rode away, her heart fairly plunging with +rapture.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE SPINET.</p> + + +<p>It was tea-time when Cristiane appeared again from +her bedroom, where she had fled in her anger with Cylmer. +She came straight to Ismay, where she sat in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +the drawing-room with her mother, and kissed her penitently.</p> + +<p>“I was horrid this morning,” she observed childishly. +“But Miles was so stupid. You forgive me, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t any need”—smiling, for she could have had +no greater service done to her. “But I had to go for a +walk by myself this afternoon, and I got drenched.”</p> + +<p>“The rain came on slowly enough,” Cristiane laughed, +listening for a minute to the driving flood that rustled at +the windows. “But you are such a town person! You +might have known it was coming.”</p> + +<p>“I had to go out. I couldn’t sleep last night. It was +very funny”—with sudden animation—“perhaps you +know something about it?”</p> + +<p>“What was funny?” Cristiane moved a little as +Thomas arrived with the tea, and began to arrange the +table close to the two girls.</p> + +<p>“Why—the music! I don’t suppose you were playing +on the piano at two in the morning, were you? For +some one was.”</p> + +<p>She looked at Cristiane with a little, puzzled frown. +Then she started.</p> + +<p>Thomas, his face like ashes, had dropped the cream-jug; +as he stood staring at the ruin she caught his eyes +on her in beseeching warning.</p> + +<p>“I was asleep,” said Cristiane. “Oh, Thomas, never +mind! There is plenty of cream, you needn’t look like +that.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, miss! No, miss! I’m very sorry,” the old man +said confusedly. “I will fetch some more.”</p> + +<p>“What did you say about a piano? You must have +been dreaming.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I was”—slowly. “But I thought I woke +up and heard some one playing a queer tune on a piano. +But, of course, it was a dream!” She finished quietly, +for there was something in the old servant’s face to +make her hold her tongue.</p> + +<p>“It is rather odd,” Cristiane said, as she carried Mrs. +Trelane’s cup to her, “for Jessie had the same dream +once, and Thomas nearly ate her for telling it. She is +his daughter, you know.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> + +<p>Ismay drank her tea as lazily as usual, and watched +her chance to slip away after a while.</p> + +<p>Last night’s music had been no dream, and Thomas’ +face had mystified her. As soon as Cristiane and her +mother was settled at a game of Halma for chocolates, +she departed unnoticed, and sought Thomas, who was +in his pantry.</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane walked in and closed the door behind her.</p> + +<p>“Why did you look at me like that in the drawing-room, +Thomas?” she asked, with a bluntness very foreign +to her. “Why did not you want me to speak of +last night?”</p> + +<p>The old man turned from the decanters he was filling.</p> + +<p>“Because I won’t have Miss Cristiane made nervous,” +he said doggedly. “That’s why, Miss Trelane.”</p> + +<p>“How could it make her nervous to know I heard a +piano in the night? Robbers don’t play on pianos, +Thomas.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not robbers I’m thinking of, and if you’re wise +you’ll not mention it again, miss,” he spoke imploringly.</p> + +<p>“I’ll speak of it now, once for all, then,” she said. +“For I know it wasn’t a dream, and you can’t scold me +like you did Jessie”—with her lovely smile.</p> + +<p>“Jessie’s a fool, for all her forty years,” he grumbled, +“if she told you that.”</p> + +<p>“She didn’t, it was Miss Cristiane. Listen, Thomas! +Last night I woke up, broad awake, as I never do, and +I heard quite plainly some one playing a queer tinkling +tune on a piano, somewhere up-stairs. It sounded so +uncanny that I sat up to listen, and then I got out of +bed and found my door was open into the hall; out there +I heard the music plainer still, and it made me feel cold. +But I thought I’d go and see who it was.”</p> + +<p>The old man stood staring at her, his face twitching.</p> + +<p>“Well, I went up-stairs, in the dark, till I got to a hall +I didn’t know, and from a room that opened off it I +heard that music as plainly as you hear me now! But +the door was shut.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t go in? For God’s sake, Miss Trelane, +never go in!” His voice, full of horror, startled her.</p> + +<p>“Why? Who’s there? Who was playing that piano?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> + +<p>“No one”—heavily. “And it’s no piano, but a spinet +that belonged to Sir Gaspard’s grandmother. It’s +haunted, that’s what it is, and to hear it means trouble +to this house. Jessie heard it before the master was +killed. But Miss Cristiane knows naught of it, and don’t +you tell her.”</p> + +<p>“It’s mice in the strings,” she said. “Anything else +is nonsense.” Yet with a shudder she remembered the +thing had played a tune. + +“If you think it’s haunted, why don’t you break it up?”</p> + +<p>“Because we can’t. It isn’t healthy in that room,” he +stammered. “Before Lady Le Marchant died I was in +there with one of the footmen, and we opened the thing +and looked all through it. There wasn’t a sign of mice. +And when we turned from it, it began to play, first a +scale, and then a tune that queer that we couldn’t move. +And there in broad daylight a wind went by us that was +cold like snow. I’ve never been in there since.”</p> + +<p>He wiped his forehead that was wet.</p> + +<p>“There must be something inside that’s like a musical-box,” +she said, more to herself than to him. But he +shook his head.</p> + +<p>“There’s naught. I’ve seen it and I know. ’Tis the +fingers of her that plays it—and God knows that’s +enough! Pray to Him that you never see her, Miss +Trelane”—reverentially.</p> + +<p>“Did any one ever?” she breathed sharply.</p> + +<p>“Yes! She walks—all over the house—of nights like +this,” he admitted unwillingly. “But I have the servants +all sleep in the new wing, else we’d have ne’er a one. +But you stay in your bed, miss, and you’ll never see her. +And don’t tell Miss Cristiane; her father never let her +hear of any such tales.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t tell her; for one thing, I don’t believe in it,” +Ismay said sharply. But she showed no sign of leaving +the pantry.</p> + +<p>“Who was the ghost, Thomas, and what did she do, +that she walks?”—seating herself on one end of his +table.</p> + +<p>“She was a Lady Le Marchant,” he began sullenly, +but at her interested face he warmed suddenly to his tale.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +“You’ll give your word you’ll not tell Miss Cristiane?” +he promised.</p> + +<p>“Not I,” she answered, her elbows on her knees, her +chin in the palm of her hand, in a curious crouching attitude +that brought her eyes full on his as he faced her.</p> + +<p>“Go on, Thomas.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, she was a Lady Le Marchant. And her +husband, Sir Guy, fairly doted on her; but she was a +childless woman, and given up to pleasure and dancing, +and the like. She had lovers by the score, but she never +cared for one of them beyond the first day or so. Fair +she was, they say; as fair as you, Miss Trelane”—glancing +at her flaxen hair—“and ’tis her picture hangs in +the room with the spinet. ’Twas done by a foreign +artist Sir Guy had over from Italy, and that man the +lady loved.</p> + +<p>“While the picture was being painted Sir Guy noticed +nothing, but when ’twas done, and the man still stayed +on, he wondered. And one day he saw them kissing. +She was playing the tune she loved best of all on that +spinet, and the foreign artist was behind her. And, not +seeing her husband, she throws back her head, and the +man kisses her lips.</p> + +<p>“They say Sir Guy was a proud man. Anyhow, he +turned and went away as if he’d seen nothing.</p> + +<p>“But that night he told her, as she was singing herself +that ungodly tune she was forever playing on the spinet.</p> + +<p>“Whatever he said no one knows. But it must have +maddened her, for she whipped up a knife that was on a +table and stabbed him to the heart.</p> + +<p>“He put out his hands to her, and one of them marked +the dress she had on with a stain of blood on the breast. +But he lay dead in his chair, and she with his blood +wet on her gown went down-stairs to the artist, and +told him plump and plain what she’d done for his sake. +And he would have none of her.”</p> + +<p>“He was a fool; she must have been good stuff,” observed +his listener musingly. “But I don’t know. She +should have known him better first.”</p> + +<p>“She was good stuff, Miss Trelane,” the old man +went on quietly. “For when he laid her crime before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +her, and told her he loved her no more, she never +even answered him. Just turned away silent, and up-stairs +to the room where Sir Guy lay dead.</p> + +<p>“They say she played that tune then, in that room with +a murdered man to listen; played it for the last time. +For one of the servants heard it as he passed. And she +heard him, too, for she opened the door and called him.</p> + +<p>“‘James,’ she says, ‘come here. Did you hear me playing +just now?’</p> + +<p>“‘Madam, yes,’ he answers. ‘’Tis all writ out in a +book in the library. You can see it if you like, miss.’</p> + +<p>“‘And did you know the tune?’</p> + +<p>“’Twas the one you’re so fond of, my lady.’ And he +wondered at her for asking, and for sitting without a +light, for the room was dark and he could not see into it.</p> + +<p>“‘You’ll have no chance to forget it, you and those +that come after you,’ she says very slow. ‘When I’m +gone you’ll hear it, and always for evil. When you hear +it’—and she laughed till he thought she was crazy—‘you’ll +remember I told you that in my dying hour.’</p> + +<p>“Then she draws herself up and speaks out loud and +grand till they heard her through the house.</p> + +<p>“‘Come in, man, and look at your master! He lies +dead, and I killed him; for I was weary of his face;’ and +before he could know what she meant, she had struck +that bloody knife into her own breast, for she was a +strong woman, and she knew where to find her heart.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all?” Ismay spoke with a curious effort, like +one in a dream.</p> + +<p>“All. Except that ’twas a stormy night like this will +be, and ’tis those times that she walks. And her spinet +plays yet, and no one ever heard it for good, or went +into that room for luck.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to, Thomas,” she said quietly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you go,” he warned her. “For you might be +frightened and run, and them stairs outside and the +rails of them are fairly crumbling with dry-rot. If you +tripped and fell against them, as like as not the banisters +would give way with you, and you’d fall to your death +into the great hall below. Mind now, Miss Trelane, for +that’s the truth.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> + +<p>“What would you do if you saw her, Thomas?” she +queried idly.</p> + +<p>“Me—miss?” he said shamefully. “Well! I’d run +and get out of her way, behind a locked door, and so +would Jessie. As for the maids, they don’t know, and +if they did, they’d be gone without waiting to see her.”</p> + +<p>Ismay slipped off the table.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Thomas,” she said. “I won’t tell Miss +Cristiane, or any one else. But it’s a queer story.”</p> + +<p>“Too queer when you know it’s true,” he muttered. +“Excuse me, miss, but the dressing-bell has rung.”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’m going.”</p> + +<p>But as she went slowly up the stairs she laughed to +herself, and the laugh was short and ugly.</p> + +<p>Surely she had found a weapon at last to do her good +service against Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>“To hear is to know,” she thought; “but I hope it may +be a long time before I hear his voice in this house. But +at least I will be prepared.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“AT MIDNIGHT.”</p> + + +<p>The household retired to rest early, at Marchant’s +Hold, and Ismay was in her bed and asleep by ten +o’clock, but with a purpose in her mind that made her +wake to the minute as the clock rang two.</p> + +<p>She had left her blinds up, and as she sat up in her +bed she saw the moonlight lying on the carpet. The +rain was over.</p> + +<p>“That is lucky, I sha’n’t need much light,” she thought +composedly, as she got up and put on a warm, dark +dressing-gown, and woolen slippers that would make no +sound.</p> + +<p>She must investigate that room up-stairs, and her only +chance was at night, when her mother and Cristiane +were safe.</p> + +<p>“Besides,” she reminded herself quite gaily, “I shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> +have to use it at night, when I need it; and I may as +well get used to it. It is at night that mother and +Marcus Wray will make their plans, at night that they +will carry them out. And at night I always lock my +door! I’m very nervous—in the dark!” she laughed +noiselessly. “I must impress that on my parent.” But +it was without a tremor that she slipped out into the +silent house and up the stairs, where there were no windows +and the darkness was inky.</p> + +<p>There was no sound of music to-night to guide her +as she stood at last in the black hall, where a dozen shut +doors kept the darkness inviolate. She felt in her pocket +for her end of candle and matches. They were there, +but she dared not strike a light here in the corridor. +One hand held at arm’s length before her, she moved +on cautiously, till she felt a door. The handle turned +under her fingers, and she went in without a sound; +without a sound the door closed behind her, though for +all she knew she stood alone at night, in the room where +Thomas had been terror-stricken in daylight.</p> + +<p>With steady fingers she lit the candle, and stared round +her as it burned dimly. The room was chilly and close, +but it was not the room she wanted, only an unused bedroom, +a little dusty. She pinched out her candle and +went into the hall again.</p> + +<p>“What a fool I am not to remember!” she thought +angrily; “it’s cold up here, and no fun.”</p> + +<p>She tried three more rooms in succession; all had no +sign in them of any musical instrument, nor ghostly habitation. +Could she be in the wrong hall?</p> + +<p>She opened the next door in doubtful irritation, but +her hand stopped with a jerk as she lifted it to strike +a match.</p> + +<p>Opposite her the moonlight poured through a wide, +low window, till the room seemed light as day after the +dark hall, and in the very full flood of the moonlight +stood the little spinet on its high, thin legs, its narrow +ivory keyboard shining dustily in the moon-rays.</p> + +<p>An inexplicable terror that she was not alone clutched +at the girl’s bold heart. Thomas was right, there was +something queer about this room! Without turning,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +Ismay stretched out her arm backward, to shut the door. +But it was fast already; noiselessly it had swung back on +its hinges, without even a click of the latch.</p> + +<p>In the cold, musty air the girl felt choked. With +quick, steady fingers she lit her candle; to stay in this +room with no light but the moon’s was beyond her. As +the lighted wick burned from blue into yellow, she +sighed with relief.</p> + +<p>“I—to be frightened by Thomas’ silly stories!” she +thought contemptuously. “If I had heard nothing about +the room I should never have thought of having cold +chills down my back.”</p> + +<p>With the thought she had set the candle on the side +of the old spinet that was supposed to sound from the +touch of fingers that had long been mold. It was silent +enough now. Not a sound came from it as she opened +the back and peered into the depths of the case where +the strings were stretched like a piano’s. She put her +slim, long arm down inside it, and felt the instrument all +over. It was a plain, old-fashioned thing enough, strong +and good still. But it apparently held no trace of any +mechanism that would make it play alone at night.</p> + +<p>Ismay drew back and stared at it. In the fantastic +mingling of moonlight and candle-light her uncanny +beauty was more witchlike than ever, with the flaxen +hair falling to her knees over the dark wrapper.</p> + +<p>“I should say Thomas was crazy if I had not heard +the thing myself!” she said aloud, and there was nothing +but puzzled curiosity in her voice.</p> + +<p>“But it’s got to be made to play again, and I don’t +know the national air of the mice.”</p> + +<p>She put a stool carefully in front of the spinet, and +sat down, fumbling at the keys. Clear, thin, and sweet, +the notes tinkled softly under her fingers.</p> + +<p>“The tune—how did it go?” she tried for it softly. +It had been a strange tune, with queer intervals; an air +that was very old and wailing.</p> + +<p>She played a few bars, stumblingly.</p> + +<p>How cold, how very cold the room was, and what +was the matter with the candle? Without a flicker +the yellow flame had turned blue as she stared at it, it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> +went out; she could see the wick smoking in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>“Truly,” said Ismay, to herself, “I must have iron +nerves! I’m not frightened. Yet I don’t think that +was a draft.”</p> + +<p>Without moving, she tried the strange tune again, +and this time the very terror of death fell on her. Without +turning her head, she knew there was something +behind her; something very cold and threatening; +something that in a minute would be at her throat, choking +her till her hand fell from the keyboard. She +swung sharply round. There was nothing there.</p> + +<p>“Thomas’ nonsense again, and my fancy,” she said +deliberately, for the room was certainly empty. “My +nerves are playing me tricks, after all.”</p> + +<p>As she started, in the darkness beyond the patch of +moonlight she saw something, the picture of a woman +hanging on the wall.</p> + +<p>“The late owner of the spinet!”</p> + +<p>She got up, and lit her candle. Light in hand, she +went close to the picture, till the painted eyes were plain. +Dark eyes they were, in a pale, cruel face, with red lips, +like Ismay’s own. The fair hair was piled high on the +head; the dress was of the latter part of the last century.</p> + +<p>“So you are the lady that walks! And you are a little +like me, which is all the better,” she murmured. +“And if you are a wise ghost, you will help me, and +not hinder me, for you and I are all the defense Cristiane +le Marchant has.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes, that were full of a strange compelling, +were fastened on the picture. Childish and far-fetched +as it was, it seemed to the girl that she was bending +something to her own ends, something both wickeder +and weaker than she. A strange delight thrilled her.</p> + +<p>“I am not afraid any more!” she cried out, with soft +rapture, “and I remember the tune now.”</p> + +<p>With a noiseless movement, she was at the spinet, +under her fingers the whole tune tinkled out, and this +time there was no dread in her of a lurking terror behind.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +Ghost, imagination, mice—whatever it was—she, +Ismay Trelane, was its mistress, by the very courage of +her heart.</p> + +<p>There was nothing there, nothing! Yet there should +be a terror there that would walk in darkness, and hear, +and know, and see, till Marcus Wray was thwarted in +this house, at least.</p> + +<p>The cold air of the room had struck to her bones, and +she drew her warm gown about her as she turned to go. +She had learned enough to go on. From now, not a +word spoken at midnight, or a trap laid, would escape +Ismay Trelane. She was laughing to herself as +she walked to the door. But as she turned the handle, +she stopped.</p> + +<p>The spinet was playing. Clear, unearthly, that +strange tune tinkled out, under her very eyes.</p> + +<p>Whatever it was, it was very queer. She stared incredulously, +as Thomas had done, but, unlike Thomas, +she was not frightened.</p> + +<p>“Thank you!” she said gravely, and without bravado. +“If you are a musical box, or whatever you are, you +are going to be my friend.” And without a tremor she +turned to the uncanny thing when its tune was done, +and peered once more into its depths.</p> + +<p>Had she been blind before? For now she saw plainly +enough a small brass bracket, black with age, almost +invisible in dust. It was a plain oblong slip, about the +size of a railway-ticket, and it stuck out from the inside +of the case.</p> + +<p>Leaning down, Ismay pressed it, ever so lightly.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately the weird music poured into the +room.</p> + +<p>The girl saw the whole thing now. The woman to +whom it belonged had had it made, so that she might +hear the tune she loved without playing it. Her threat +to her servant had been a grim and mocking jest.</p> + +<p>Very quietly, she put out her light and went out into +the dark hall and down-stairs, and yet she was trembling. +If it were all a trick, why had her candle gone +out?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span></p> + +<p>“If I had once been frightened I should have died +of it, up there in the moonlight!” she said to herself, +with conviction.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN.</p> + + +<p>Time hung heavily on Mrs. Trelane’s hands for all +the comfort and luxury of the house.</p> + +<p>She missed the freedom, missed the theaters, the little +suppers at restaurants, missed more than either the +companionship of the men who were wont to gather +round her in London—gentlemen with reputations out at +elbows, but clever, amusing, the very salt of life to +Helen Trelane.</p> + +<p>Therefore, she said at breakfast, with a little distasteful +sigh, that she must go to London, to see the dressmaker.</p> + +<p>Ismay lifted her brows.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t, if I were you. You can bully people +better in writing.” Her tone was very significant.</p> + +<p>She supposed the “dressmaker” meant an appeal to +the mercy of a man who had none, and then a mad whirl +of amusement, her mourning thrown to the winds.</p> + +<p>But she was wrong. Mrs. Trelane had no thought +of Wray.</p> + +<p>“I really must go,” she said, “annoying as it is. +Should you mind, Cristiane?”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit. You won’t stay long, will you? I shall +teach Ismay to ride while you are gone,” with a little, +affectionate glance. “We shall be quite happy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no! Not long, of course.”</p> + +<p>In spite of herself, her tone was joyous as a child’s. +To be in London, with money, to drink deep of life +again. No wonder her voice betrayed her.</p> + +<p>Ismay followed her to her room, where she stood, in +her smart mourning.</p> + +<p>“The Gaiety, the Café Royal, and cards afterward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +till daylight may be amusing,” she observed cuttingly, +“but they are not worth your neck.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” In her annoyance, Mrs. Trelane +almost dropped the bottle of peach-blossom scent +in her hand.</p> + +<p>“I mean you’ll go to London, and wear a white gown +in the evenings, with a string of mock pearls round your +neck. Because the gossip about Lord Abbotsford has +died away you are quite comfortable,” Ismay retorted; +“and about now the police will be waking up to their +work. London will not be a good retreat for the person +who killed him!”</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” The scent-bottle crashed on the floor now +from the loosened fingers; strong and sickly, its contents +flooded the room. “Ismay, are you mad? What +has come over you? You know that”—her voice fell +to a frightened whisper—“that he was dead when I +went there.” She looked old and wretched as she stood, +ready dressed to start.</p> + +<p>“I know what you choose to tell me. Oh! mother,” +passionately, “let us both go away from here, go somewhere +that is safe, and live quietly, you and I. I’ll work +for you——”</p> + +<p>A laugh cut her short. Yet Mrs. Trelane stood, +wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>“You know we can’t get away,” she cried, “and why +should we? I never killed Abbotsford!”</p> + +<p>“Then why are you so frightened of Marcus Wray?” +deliberately.</p> + +<p>“You little fool. I took the diamonds!” She stooped +and picked up the fragments of her cut-glass bottle. +“You know all I did,” she cried, straightening herself +to face her daughter, her clean-cut face very pale. +“What on earth has changed you, till you talk like a +Sunday-school book? What has become of your fine +plan for securing Mr. Cylmer, that you try to frighten +me into leaving here with your silly, lying accusation? +You work for me?” she laughed miserably. “Would +you take in washing?”</p> + +<p>Ismay’s passion of earnestness left her with her old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +manners, her old catlike grace. She flung herself into +a chair.</p> + +<p>“Never mind what I’d do. I meant it,” she retorted. +“As for Mr. Cylmer, you can let him alone. I would +have let him go—for you—five minutes ago. But I +don’t think I would—now! Go to London,” politely, +“but don’t forget my advice. You ought to know by +this time it’s more lucky to take it.”</p> + +<p>“I know you are an ungrateful little idiot,” said Mrs. +Trelane angrily. And with that for her only farewell, +she swept down-stairs to get into her carriage. Ismay +turning pious was a good joke. As for Cylmer, it was +simply girlish boasting. Mrs. Trelane felt quite safe +on that score as she drove away. It was not in the least +likely that he would come to Marchant’s Hold, or that +Ismay would get hold of him, and bring down the wrath +of Marcus Wray. All girls had a hero, usually out of +reach. Why should Ismay be superior to the rest? +And as for Wray and his awful schemes, with his absence +their very memory had vanished from the light +mind of the woman who lived to please herself. It was +all absurd nonsense, he would not dare to go any farther +with it.</p> + +<p>All her fears soothed to rest, she proceeded to spend +a cheerful afternoon on reaching London, little knowing +how she had rocked her troubles to sleep with lying +hopes.</p> + +<p>In his chambers, Marcus Wray sat reading a short +newspaper paragraph over and over, his fingers tapping +at his knee, his lips hard set.</p> + +<p>Only a short paragraph, but it meant danger, and +he frowned as he read. Helen Trelane up in London, +dressed in her best, was like a child playing with a smoking +bomb; if Mr. Wray had known of it he would +have packed her straight off to the country, and gone +with her himself, which it was well for Ismay that he +did not do.</p> + +<p>She was very nervous about the sudden freak her +mother had taken; in some way or other it was sure to +mean more trouble. And she was disappointed about +her afternoon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> + +<p>At lunch Cristiane had mentioned carelessly that Cylmer +had sent a groom over with the horse borrowed +the day before; that was all, but Ismay knew he had +meant to come himself, and had thought better of it.</p> + +<p>She would not listen when Cristiane proposed lending +her a habit and taking her out riding.</p> + +<p>“I think I’ve got a headache,” she said wearily. “You +go for a ride, and I’ll walk a little by myself. I’ll be +all right at tea-time.”</p> + +<p>She strolled out through the quiet winter lanes when +Cristiane was gone. She was very pale to-day, very +languid, a presentiment of evil was heavy at her heart. +Her mother had been mad to go to London; she herself +was more idiotic, still, to think that Miles Cylmer +would ever care for her.</p> + +<p>Tired at last, she sat down on a stile between two +fields, and leaned back, staring in front of her. Somehow, +her heart was faint within her to-day, but why +any more than yesterday?</p> + +<p>“Because I sha’n’t see him, and I want him,” she +thought dreamily. “I want something that will strengthen +me, something that I can look back to, and think +that nothing matters since I was happy once. And I +will be happy. I will!”</p> + +<p>Her scarlet mouth was so determined that a man +who had come up unnoticed smiled as he saw it. Yet +briefly, for her face was pathetically weary, more than +ever it bore that prophecy of tragedy that seemed so +out of place for Ismay Trelane.</p> + +<p>“Where are your thoughts?” Cylmer said lightly. +“Oh, did I startle you?”</p> + +<p>For Ismay, who never blushed, had turned first a faint +rose, then a fiery scarlet, that burned on her smooth +cheeks.</p> + +<p>“My thoughts?” Confused, she put her hands to +her face. “Oh, anywhere. Yes, of course, you startled +me.” But she was mistress of herself again now, and +she smiled into his eyes as he stood before her, cap in +hand.</p> + +<p>“I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?” Why did the +girl’s glance go to his head like wine? Why did he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> +think of nothing, want nothing, but to sit and talk +with the daughter of an adventuress whom he scarcely +knew?</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her on the stile.</p> + +<p>“I was going to see you,” he said, “though, I must +say, I was shy about it. Your mother, with excellent +reason, hates me.”</p> + +<p>“My mother has gone to London,” simply.</p> + +<p>“And I don’t think Cristiane is overfond of my society.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” she asked languidly.</p> + +<p>“Good taste, I suppose,” was the answer, and both +laughed.</p> + +<p>“I was taking you something. Will you have it?” +he asked, and she saw that he carried something. Before +she could answer he had laid in her lap a great +bunch of roses, crimson, sweet smelling.</p> + +<p>The girl stared at them as they lay in her lap. In +all her life no one had ever given her a flower. She +put the roses to her face with a quick tenderness no one +had ever seen in her.</p> + +<p>As she looked up at him, her eyes were very deep and +soft. She held the roses tightly in both hands.</p> + +<p>“Why are you giving them to me?” she said wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“Because you’ve had so little. Because I thought you +might like them.”</p> + +<p>“I do.” Her voice was very low. “But how do you +know I’ve had—so little?”</p> + +<p>“Lord De Fort told me,” was on his tongue, but it +stuck there.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember that night at the Palace?” he +asked, instead. “Shall I tell you what I saw there? +A girl in a threadbare black gown, worn at the elbows, +and too thin for the weather; a girl who was pale and +very tired, but more beautiful than any woman I had +ever seen. Do you know that, Ismay?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Then you know now,” he retorted, his face very +pale, his eyes, that were so sweet, close to hers. “I +thought I cared for some one else, then—now I know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +that I would let everything in this world go to be with +you—even honor!”</p> + +<p>Why did the two last words almost stop her heart, +that was beating so quick? Why should Ismay Trelane, +to whom honor was but a foolish thing, a mere +word, turn cold, to think he would let it go—for her. +She flung out her hands with a little cry.</p> + +<p>“Why should you let it go—for me?” She was panting +for breath. “Do you mean that I, who am nobody, +and have come here from the gutters, am a thing you +could not touch and keep your honor?”</p> + +<p>“No, no! Not that. Don’t think I dared mean that. +It was only a way of saying”—he took one little bare +hand, and held it in strong fingers that were very careful—“how +much I love you.”</p> + +<p>“You love me?” For once she was not thinking or +acting a part; not thinking of all Cylmer could give +her; not thinking of anything but that he was beside +her, his voice low in her ears, his hand in hers.</p> + +<p>“It can’t be true,” she said desperately. “When I +came here you loved Cristiane; I saw it in her face +when she came in that first day.”</p> + +<p>For a minute he was staggered.</p> + +<p>“I thought I did.” And at the truth in his voice Ismay’s +heart jumped. “I know now I never did, for I +love you. When I kissed you that day I knew that your +lips on mine had made me yours to take or leave. Which +will you do, Ismay?”</p> + +<p>“Yet a little time after you said things to my mother +that——” She stopped, and did not look at him.</p> + +<p>“I did not know she was your mother.”</p> + +<p>“It did not matter. They were true. They are just +as true now. Can you love me, knowing them?”</p> + +<p>For the first time she spoke with a purpose. There +must be no slip between the cup and the lip for want +of a little plain speaking.</p> + +<p>“Can I love you? Can I help breathing?” almost +angrily. “I tell you I am yours to take or leave. Which +is it, Ismay?”</p> + +<p>She turned her face to him deliberately; as she lifted +her chin, he saw the long, lovely line of it, that slipped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +into her throat; saw the milky whiteness of her oval +cheek, that just missed being hollow; saw her eyes, dark +and green, full of his own image; saw her lips—the +man was dizzy as she spoke.</p> + +<p>“Take me,” she whispered. “Love me, kill me, it +is all one to me, for I—love you!” And in her face +there was all that miracle of pure passion that had +never shone on Cristiane’s, whom he had thought he +loved.</p> + +<p>With something very near to reverence, Miles Cylmer +kissed her. As he let her go, he was shaking.</p> + +<p>Hand in hand, like two children, they sat, as the winter +sun set in a pale glory behind the leafless trees.</p> + +<p>Ismay looked at him, soft malice in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“By the way, why are you here on a hunting-day?” +she inquired demurely.</p> + +<p>“I’ve a sore bridle-hand,” he said calmly.</p> + +<p>She caught the quick look he flashed on her, that was +both sweet and mischievous.</p> + +<p>“What a story, Mr. Cylmer!” childishly.</p> + +<p>“Mr. who?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cylmer. It’s your name, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Not to you.” He turned her face to him with a +masterful hand. “Are you going to call me that when +you come to live over there?” he whispered, and laughed +with pleasure as the blood leaped to her face.</p> + +<p>“Live over there?” she stammered, looking to where, +on the far-off hill, the roof of Cylmer’s Ferry caught the +last sunbeams.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see where else you’re going to live when +you marry me.”</p> + +<p>“Marry you!” Every trace of color left her cheek. +“I—can’t marry you.”</p> + +<p>“What! Why not?” His careless, teasing voice +turned her cold. “Tell me, why not, my witch?”</p> + +<p>Tell him! She turned with sudden passion, and +clung to him, hiding her face in his rough tweed coat.</p> + +<p>What had she done through this mad love that possessed +her? What was she to do?</p> + +<p>The first word of her marriage with another man +would make a very devil in Marcus Wray. She would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +look well being married to Cylmer, while her mother +was being tried for her life for the murder of Lord +Abbotsford, for that was what her stolen love would +bring to her.</p> + +<p>“My love, my only love!” She crushed the words +back against his shoulder, thankful to hide her face, +and yet agonized, for how long would its shelter be hers +if he knew?</p> + +<p>“Ismay, what’s the matter?” Cylmer was suddenly +frightened at the wild cling of her hand in his. “Why +can’t you marry me? I thought you were playing—do +you mean you are in earnest?”</p> + +<p>In earnest, with the toils all around her; with murder +past, and murder to come! She set her teeth hard +before she answered.</p> + +<p>“Mother would never hear of it,” she faltered lamely.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” He made her look at him.</p> + +<p>“She hates you.”</p> + +<p>“But if you loved me?” wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t matter! And, besides——”</p> + +<p>“Besides what?” He was very grave, his lips hard +under his tawny mustache.</p> + +<p>“She wants me to marry some one else. If she +thought you loved me, she would do it all the more.”</p> + +<p>“She couldn’t,” very quietly. “Do you think I am a +boy, to be bullied?”</p> + +<p>Ismay drew away from him. She could not think +with her face against his warm shoulder, and think +she must.</p> + +<p>“Listen,” she said slowly. “I know my mother better +than you. Let me get her round by degrees before +we tell her anything; let nobody know just yet that you +care.”</p> + +<p>“Who is the other man?” shortly. “Do you mean +you are engaged to him?”</p> + +<p>Ismay turned, and looked at him.</p> + +<p>“I mean I hate him”—her voice low, with unutterable +loathing—“as I shall hate you, whom I love, if you +dare to think that of me.”</p> + +<p>The truth and passion in her voice made him wince +with shame.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p> + +<p>“Ismay!” he cried. “Oh, love, forgive me!”</p> + +<p>“I’d forgive you if you killed me,” recklessly.</p> + +<p>“But you must listen to me, and never tell you love +me till I say it is time.”</p> + +<p>“Through life and death and past the grave.”</p> + +<p>“Anything, if you love me, and only me.”</p> + +<p>They stood close now, his arms fast round her; +through the silk of his mustache she felt his lips on +hers, and knew that, come what might, for one long instant +she had stood at the gate of heaven.</p> + +<p>“My sweet, how can I leave you?” he said, letting +her go a little that he might feast his eyes on her face, +that was transfigured.</p> + +<p>“Leave me? Why should you leave me?”</p> + +<p>“Kiss me again, and I’ll tell you.”</p> + +<p>But she could not; a curious premonition had suddenly +brought her back to the old Ismay Trelane, who +must watch, and think, and scheme.</p> + +<p>“Tell me, now,” she said, and at the weariness in +her voice he drew her to him, penitently.</p> + +<p>“Was I too rough with you, sweet? I’m so sorry. +But I really have to go away; that was why I came over +to-day. I must go to London to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Away from me?” but she could not smile.</p> + +<p>“Does town count before me?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing does. But after you comes a duty to the +dead.”</p> + +<p>“To the dead?” She stared at him. “Do you mean +Sir Gaspard?”</p> + +<p>“No; but it’s a ghastly thing to talk of to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me; you’re frightening me; I—I hate death.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, sweet; it is nothing to do with +you, not much with me. But do you remember how +they found Lord Abbotsford dead this autumn? Or +did you ever hear of it?”</p> + +<p>“I—I heard.” Her eyes, black, dilated, with terror, +stared, unseeing, at his unconscious face.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve had a detective working at it ever since—and—this +is the first secret I’ve ever told you, sweet, +and it is a secret—he wants to see me at once. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +thinks he has got a clue to the murderer. Why, Ismay! +Darling! Why did I speak of such a horror to you?” +with dismay.</p> + +<p>For she had slipped like water through his arms, a +lifeless heap on the cold ground.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE EDGE OF DOOM.</p> + + +<p>A cold black void; a struggle that was agony to get +out of it; a falling through deep waters that were loud +in her ears, then blackness once more, deep and awful. +Slowly, slowly, it faded, and with a sickness like death +at her heart Ismay was conscious again. Where was +she? What was this?</p> + +<p>She lifted her head from the wintry earth, and let +it fall again.</p> + +<p>“Lie still; don’t move.” Cylmer was kneeling beside +her, inwardly cursing himself for a fool, when he +knew her horror of death.</p> + +<p>“Ismay, darling, forgive me, and forget it. I might +have known it was enough to sicken any woman.”</p> + +<p>“Death—murder—you!” she cried incoherently. +“Ever since I came here death has been round me, I”—her +voice was shrill, hysterical—“I smell death in +Marchant’s Hold, and I meet it.” Her eyes closed again.</p> + +<p>“No, no! Don’t talk like that, my sweet,” gathering +her close with protecting arms. “I was a brute to +tell you such things. You were tired out, unstrung +already. I was too rough and careless with you, my +heart.”</p> + +<p>But she shrank away.</p> + +<p>“You—to bring any one to their death; to find clues +that would hang them!”</p> + +<p>“It is not I, it is justice. Oh! don’t draw away from +me.”</p> + +<p>“Justice on the poor, the tempted!” A sudden sense +of the danger that her words held checked her. “Oh,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> +why did you tell me? Why should I know you are +helping to hunt any poor wretch down?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the tender woman’s soul that cannot bear anything +to be hurt!” he thought swiftly, loving her all the +more for her weakness.</p> + +<p>“Would you let things go, and have the innocent +suffer for the guilty?” he said gravely. “I think not, +dear.”</p> + +<p>The innocent! Was there any one in the world innocent? +She had no reason to love her mother, yet now, +in her peril, she was ready to fight, tooth and nail, for +her, even when her enemy was Miles Cylmer, whose +kiss had opened heaven.</p> + +<p>All that he was doing she must know, and make of +no avail, and at the task before her the girl’s brave spirit +quailed. Somehow she must save her mother, and keep +him! Her brain reeled as she thought that some one, +no matter how innocent, must have that crime brought +home to them to save the mother who was guilty.</p> + +<p>Ismay summoned all her strength, and sat up, very +white.</p> + +<p>“Did you know I was such a baby?” she whispered. +“I hate hearing of horrors, and it startled me to know +you had anything to do with things like that. But you’re +quite right. I won’t be so silly any more. Only I—I +was ready to cry in any case. I loved you, and you +kissed me, and——”</p> + +<p>“And then I had not any more sense than to blurt +out things you should never hear of,” he finished for +her, kissing her again, very softly. “I’m going to +take you home now, and we’ll never speak of Abbotsford +again.”</p> + +<p>“You can as much as you like, now,” and if her lips +were wan he did not notice. “I know whatever you +do will be for the right,” speaking the truth, but not +adding, “no matter the cost to me and mine.”</p> + +<p>“My little sweetheart,” he said, fastening the fur collar +of her coat, that he had unfastened to give her room +to breathe when she lay unconscious. “I wish I could +carry you home. You aren’t fit to walk.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span></p> + +<p>“I am fit to go anywhere with you,” she smiled, with +all the strange sorcery that was hers, a smile that covered +deadly terror. “Bring my roses. They are the +first thing you ever gave me,” pointing to the great +bunch of blood-red flowers lying on the ground in the +early twilight.</p> + +<p>“They are not half so sweet and fine as you,” Cylmer +said, as he saw her put them to her face. “Do you +know how beautiful you are? I wish you would marry +me to-morrow, so that you could put away all that black, +and let me see you in a white gown.”</p> + +<p>With a little shiver, she drew closer to him, where +she walked within his arm in the sheltering dusk.</p> + +<p>“Tell me about Lord Abbotsford,” she said, as his +arm tightened round her, for she must know; she dared +not let him go back to talk of that love that might turn +so bitter in the end.</p> + +<p>“And make you faint again? Not I!”</p> + +<p>“I won’t. It wasn’t that.” He could not know the +sweet shyness of her voice was put there to cover the +first lie she had ever told him. “I was—tired.”</p> + +<p>And in the languor of happiness that was in his own +blood, he believed her.</p> + +<p>“But you hate those things!”</p> + +<p>“Not if you say they are right.”</p> + +<p>“They are, I suppose,” he answered slowly. “A man’s +blood cries from the ground for justice, and I was his +only friend. But I don’t think I ought to talk about +it—to you.”</p> + +<p>“If I am going to be your wife, will you always hide +unpleasant things from me?” softly. “I don’t think I +should like that.”</p> + +<p>“I’m never going to hide anything from you,” he +cried, with love in his voice. “But there isn’t much to +tell.”</p> + +<p>She listened with a heart like ice as he told her all +that she knew so well—the missing photograph, the +money, the diamonds—she had to hold herself hard not +to forestall him as he talked. Would he never come to +something new? But when he came to it she was thankful +for the darkness that hid her face.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> + +<p>“The diamonds vanished utterly,” he was saying; +“but the other day, one of them, a very curious stone, +with a pink tinge in it, turned up in Amsterdam. The +tracing of it will be long, but certain in the end; it will +ruin the man or woman who took it.”</p> + +<p>“Or woman!” The interruption was nearly a cry. +“What woman would do such things?”</p> + +<p>“It looked as if a woman had taken away the photograph.” +He drew her closer. “Look out, the path is +slippery!”</p> + +<p>“Very slippery,” said Ismay Trelane, keeping down +the dry sob in her throat. Slippery, and on the very +edge of doom, this path that she must walk to the end.</p> + +<p>“You see, there must have been a woman in it somewhere, +for Abbotsford was going to be married, and he +was leaving all the people he had been friendly with, +and arranging all his affairs.”</p> + +<p>“Say it plainly,” said the old Ismay Trelane, who +had been brought up to uncanny knowledge.</p> + +<p>“I can’t say it—to you,” Cylmer returned, with shame.</p> + +<p>“Go on, then, I know what you mean. Let us say +the photograph was the woman’s he was leaving for his +wife.”</p> + +<p>“Then, don’t you see, it must have either been she +or some man for her who came back and took it.”</p> + +<p>“I think it must have been a man!” Her voice +through her white lips sounded almost indifferent. “A +woman would not dare.”</p> + +<p>“Whichever it was, they were mad to take the diamonds. +I don’t know,” he continued, “that it’s going +to make much difference. The diamonds may be traced, +of course, but they are not the clue I spoke about. Kivers +tells me there was something found in the room when +they were getting things ready for the new Lord Abbotsford’s +family. It will probably show clearly enough +whether the murderer was a man or not.”</p> + +<p>“Something found! What, I wonder?” like lightning +she was going over that day. Her mother had +not dropped or lost anything; she could not have, or +she would have missed it, and said so, Ismay thought, in +new terror. “Why must it belong to the man who killed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +him? What was found, I mean? Fifty people may +have been in and out of that room since he died.”</p> + +<p>“No one has; it was locked and sealed after the inquest +by my—the detective,” quickly correcting himself. +“It was only opened two days ago by him, when +he made a last search, before giving up hope, and before +the new family came to him. And in the last search +he found something.”</p> + +<p>“What?” Her impatience made her eyes burn in the +dusk.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I’m going up to see. ‘A trinket, or a +part of one,’ he said.”</p> + +<p>“A trinket!” involuntarily the words escaped her, +with an anxiety that was pain. Yet she was sure that +her mother had not lost anything that awful day, unless—she +had not known she did!</p> + +<p>“It may be something I have seen before,” said Cylmer +coolly, and once more that hand of ice was on her +heart. “So I shall go up to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow!” What should she do all the long day +when he was gone. When each minute might be bringing +detection nearer? “You won’t stay long?” she +added imploringly. “You’ll come back?”</p> + +<p>“As soon as I possibly can; the next day at farthest. +Shall you miss me?”</p> + +<p>“Miss you!” She gathered all her strength and +laughed lightly, without a trace of care. “I have not +had you long enough to miss you.”</p> + +<p>They were close to Marchant’s Hold now. The +lighted lamps shone rosy from the drawing-room windows, +and she kept carefully out of the patches of light +on the gravel where they stood.</p> + +<p>“I shall miss you, then, every second! And, look here, +Ismay! I hate the business. I only do it because he +was my friend, and I feel bound to it. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p>“I dare say you will hate it more before it is done,” +she said, as if in idleness, and afterward he remembered, +when the stone he had set rolling threatened to crush +all he loved on earth. “But it interests me in a dreadful +sort of way. When you come back you will tell me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> +what you found, won’t you? I won’t tell. It shall be +your secret, like your loving me is mine.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you anything you ask,” he said tenderly. +“But I wish you would let me have my way, and be engaged +to you openly. I would like to go in and tell +Cristiane now!” He moved toward the great door with +so much purpose that she flew after him.</p> + +<p>“No, no!” she cried. “Mother hates you; she’d send +me away straight off; you’d never see me again. If you +tell it means that I shall suffer.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll wait forever.” In the shadow of an evergreen +he caught her to him, as a man holds his only +love on earth. “Till you tell me to speak I will hold my +tongue. Will that satisfy you? And, instead of my +coming to Marchant’s Hold, will you meet me at the +stile, at five, the day after to-morrow? It will be best, +if we are to keep our secret.”</p> + +<p>She gave a long sigh of relief, resting for perhaps the +last time against the strong shoulders of the man who +might know things when he came from London that +would part them forever.</p> + +<p>“That is all I want,” she said; “just to let no one +know but us two! I must go now; good-by.”</p> + +<p>“But I want to come in.” He had not let her go.</p> + +<p>She smiled in the darkness.</p> + +<p>“And even Thomas would know from your face! And +how should I look coming home at this hour with you?”</p> + +<p>“You are too worldly-wise. How do you know all +these things?” half-proud of her shrewdness and sense. +“You’re too young to know them.”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes I feel old, so old,” she answered gravely, +“as if I had lived lives and lives.”</p> + +<p>“And loved?” catching her jealously, as if they were +not talking nonsense. “And loved, Ismay?”</p> + +<p>For answer her arms went round his neck in quick +passion.</p> + +<p>“I never loved any one on earth till I loved you,” she +whispered. “There is only you for me now, till I die. +Even if you tire of me—or hate me.”</p> + +<p>She stepped away from him and into the house before +he could answer, before he could even tighten his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +arms to hold her. He turned away for his long walk +home with a strange loneliness, as if his very soul had +left him when Ismay went.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE DOG IN THE MANGER.</p> + + +<p>Could Cylmer have seen her through that night of +wan fear? In and out of her bed, like a restless ghost, +she who had always before slept like a baby; crouching +sullenly over her fire, hardening her heart to meet what +must come; till a sudden thought would strike with +an unendurable pang of terror, and make her start to +her feet and walk round and round her room, wild and +terrible in her beauty, all her flaxen hair streaming +over the face that was more white than her nightgown.</p> + +<p>“Murder will out, and by to-morrow night he may +have brought it home to her! What shall I do? Oh! +What shall I do?”</p> + +<p>She stopped in front of the roses her lover had given +her, and with sudden frantic hands tore them to shreds; +crimson petals, green leaves, fluttered over her muslin +night-dress; the thorns of the stripped stalks tore her +hands, wounded her bare white feet. As if the pain had +brought back her senses, she gave a long sigh, and stood +quite motionless; presently, she sat down very wearily +on her tossed bed.</p> + +<p>“I’m behaving like a fool!” she thought. “He will +be back and tell me what was found before the police +act on it, or can get very far if they do. And, for all I +know, it may be the greatest piece of luck we could +have, and draw suspicion off on a false scent, and save +us. I will get out of him all they are doing in time to +run, if we must”—she winced in spite of herself—“but +we won’t run while there is one chance left. I can’t, I +won’t, lose him!”</p> + +<p>Her lips curved in that hard smile that could make +even Mrs. Trelane shrink. She rose and put on a thick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +dressing-gown. As calmly as if it were broad daylight, +and the proper time for sewing, Miss Trelane opened a +locked drawer, and took out a roll of material she had +been at some pains to obtain. She got down on the +floor and cut out and sewed hard for the next two +hours, not that there was any haste to complete her task, +but for the solace of the effort. The thick softness of +the white satin she was working with made her frown +with some emotion that she fought down, for she +thought of the dress that she would never wear standing +at the altar with the man she loved.</p> + +<p>“Well, I can bear it as other women have before!” +she thought grimly, sewing with firm, practical fingers. +“Thank fortune, all this wants is good, solid basting +that can’t come out! I would find no joy in sewing my +fingers off, even to get a hold on Marcus Wray.”</p> + +<p>She gave a little stretch of fatigue, and surveyed her +work when the last stitch was in. Then she let her +dressing-gown slip off her lovely shoulders, and put on +the dress she had so hastily run together.</p> + +<p>“Lucky I haven’t to powder my hair!” she thought, +as she piled it high on her head deftly, without going +near the glass. “Powder dropped on Miss Le Marchant’s +red felt stair carpets would be too remarkable +even for Thomas!” She stooped as she spoke, took a +filmy white scarf, yards long, from the open dresser, +and put it over her head and round her slim body, leaving +the long wide ends to float gauzily behind her as +she walked over to the long glass set in her wardrobe.</p> + +<p>And even she was startled at what she saw in the +light of the nearly burned-out candles.</p> + +<p>Tall and strangely slender in the short-waisted, tight-skirted +gown, that clung to her shape, her pale face +ghostly under the filmy crape that veiled it, only her +eyes burning dark, fiery, and revengeful, to give it any +semblance of life, she stood the living image of the +pictured woman up-stairs. In her bare feet she moved +to and fro in front of the glass, till she learned a movement +that made her look as if she floated rather than +walked.</p> + +<p>“That is all right, I think!” she mused. “Thomas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +and Jessie are the only people I should ever be in danger +of meeting, and I think I am quite enough to make +them howl and run, without stopping to investigate. +But as things are now I don’t feel so much interest in +sneaking round at night, trying to catch Marcus out. +My parent’s neck and my own happiness seem a trifle +more important.”</p> + +<p>She pulled off the old-fashioned frock as carelessly +as she dared, considering its frail putting together, and +stuffed it and the scarf into the drawer, picked up every +thread and scrap of satin that might betray her occupation, +and burned them. She was asleep almost before +she had extinguished the candles and got her head +on her pillow, and as she slept the night skies burst in +rain, and at the roar of the downpour on the windows, +the girl’s quiet face twitched with pain. In her dream +it was the noise of the crowd waiting to see her mother +hanged!</p> + +<p>In the morning it still rained heavily. For one moment +she hoped the weather would keep Cylmer at home, +but then she remembered that rich people with closed +carriages cared very little for rain and wind. And she +wanted him to go, the sooner she knew what had been +found, the better.</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” Cristiane said at breakfast, “what have +you been doing to your poor hands?”</p> + +<p>“Briars,” concisely.</p> + +<p>“You shouldn’t try to pick those thorny rose-berries +without gloves, town child!”</p> + +<p>And at the laughing voice Ismay shuddered. Truly, +such as she had no right with roses at all.</p> + +<p>“What are we going to do all day?” pursued the +heiress discontentedly, the riches and luxury of her house +being too old a story to enjoy of a wet day. “Just look +at the rain! Let’s go out, and get dripping.”</p> + +<p>“And have pneumonia when we come in,” with practical +experience of wettings in the days when she ran +errands, half-clad. “Not I!”</p> + +<p>“But I’m bored,” peevishly.</p> + +<p>“Are you? Then thank Heaven! It’s a very healthy +state of mind,” said Ismay drolly. “I wish I were.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<p>“Aren’t you?” with her violet eyes wide.</p> + +<p>Ismay shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Too glad to be in out of that!” she observed coolly. +“I used to be out in it too often when we were poor.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to be poor, and work,” Cristiane said thoughtfully. +“It must be so amusing never to know where +you’re going to get to-morrow’s dinner! Something like +gambling.”</p> + +<p>“Very like it; when you lose, and have no dinner.”</p> + +<p>“You’re so material!” Cristiane said reproachfully. +“Now I want to be amused. Even stupid old Miles would +be better than nobody.”</p> + +<p>Ismay was so startled that she had blushed crimson +before she had time to turn away her head. Utterly at +loss she sat as guilty-looking as the silliest schoolgirl +who ever adored a music-master in secret!</p> + +<p>“Stupid old Miles!” she could have boxed her hostess’ +ears with rage. And for once her hostess was clear-eyed.</p> + +<p>A suspicion had sprung up full grown in her mind as +she saw Ismay’s confusion. Why should she get so red +at the mere name of a man she had only seen twice? +Could those solitary walks of hers have covered meetings +with him? He was nearly always hanging about—or +had been!</p> + +<p>Cristiane had refused him, certainly, but she was none +the less stung at the mere thought that he was daring +to console himself; she felt exactly like the proverbial +dog in the manger, even if she did not want the oats no +one else should have them. For the first time, Miles Cylmer +seemed a desirable possession to the spoiled child.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” she inquired. “Don’t look so +cross.”</p> + +<p>Ismay threw back her head, with a lovely laugh, that +rang with innocence.</p> + +<p>“I’m not cross,” she cried, “it’s you that are a baby! +I told you long ago that you really liked him.” Her +sweet voice gave no sign of the fright in her mind lest +this girl, who had everything, might try to get back the +one that was Ismay’s all, and so strike aside the arm +that stood between her and death.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t like him, or I could have married him,” Cristiane<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +retorted, with intention; Ismay should see that Miles +was hers, and not to be interfered with.</p> + +<p>“Why on earth didn’t you, then? He’s so good-looking,” +said the other imperturbably.</p> + +<p>“I get too tired of him. He was a friend of father’s, +and always bothering over here.” As usual, her crimson +lips quivered at her father’s name.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Cristiane—darling, forgive me!” Ismay kissed +her, half with real compunction, half to mislead her. +“Don’t let’s talk of him any more.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to; I hate him. He never came near +me when I was in trouble, just because I wouldn’t marry +him. Did you ever hear of anything so selfish?” smarting +tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Ismay reflected swiftly that she must burn that penciled +card.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” Cristiane was going on, “he will be back +again soon—saying he loves me, and all that, but he can +die of love, for all me.”</p> + +<p>In spite of her anxious heart it was all Ismay could +do to restrain the cold, clear laugh that was in her throat.</p> + +<p>“I wish that nice Mr. Wray was coming back sooner,” +Cristiane observed, when her equanimity was further restored. +“A fortnight is a very long time when you’re +dull. I like him far better than Miles Cylmer. He’s so +much cleverer—and kinder,” dropping her voice.</p> + +<p>“Kinder? Look here, Cristiane, listen to me,” said +Ismay, very earnestly. “He isn’t kind at all, and I +wouldn’t trust him, if I were you, with my little finger.”</p> + +<p>“Why? I believe you’re cross, Ismay, because Mr. +Wray talks more to your mother and me than to you.”</p> + +<p>“I wish he were struck dumb, and would never speak +again,” replied Ismay viciously. “I don’t like him because +I think he’s a bad man, that is why.”</p> + +<p>“Then I shall like him,” with defiance. “Bad men in +books are always much the nicest; I have often longed +to know one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you have your wish!” returned Ismay calmly.</p> + +<p>“Listen, I hear wheels!” cried Cristiane suddenly.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> +“There’s some one coming. Even if it’s only Miles, he +shall stay to lunch.”</p> + +<p>Indifferently, since Miles was in London, Ismay followed +her, to look out on the rain-beaten sweep of gravel. +Yet could it be Miles? For a closed fly from the +station was in front of the hall door.</p> + +<p>Cristiane gave a little shriek.</p> + +<p>“It’s—why, Ismay, it’s your mother! And Mr. Wray,” +as a man followed Mrs. Trelane leisurely onto the streaming +terrace.</p> + +<p>She rushed to the door to greet the arrivals.</p> + +<p>Ismay Trelane, white as ashes, was left alone to meet +a terror that made her arms fall inert to her sides.</p> + +<p>What had brought her mother back? And what was +hurrying Marcus Wray, that his fortnight of grace had +been turned to two days?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“A CHARMING MAN.”</p> + + +<p>Thomas, waiting that evening on the dinner-party, +beamed as he directed his subordinates, so joyful was he +to see the old light of happiness and gaiety on his young +mistress’ face.</p> + +<p>The strange gentleman from London talked so well, +and was so quietly amusing, that the old man had to turn +away at times to hide the smile forbidden to a well-bred +servant. But he showed his gratification by pressing on +Mr. Wray Sir Gaspard’s priceless Burgundy, which by +degrees warmed that individual to the heart, so that important +things seemed curiously less important, even to +him.</p> + +<p>Ismay surveyed the party from a different point of +view.</p> + +<p>There sat her mother, probably a murderess, certainly +a thief; next her, Wray, a receiver of stolen goods, a +blackmailer, with an awful crime waiting for committal; +at the head of the table, Cristiane, with death at her elbow,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +and against them all no one but a girl, fearing all +things, hoping nothing. It was certainly an unusual +party.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, powdered, painted, nervously gay, was +reckless in her conversation.</p> + +<p>Ismay, with resigned despair, did not try to warn her +even by a glance; Cristiane, perhaps, did not understand +her wildest sallies.</p> + +<p>“If she did, she’d leave the table,” the girl thought +scornfully, looking at the other girl’s smiling density. +“But I wonder, wonder, wonder, what brought him +down!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Wray caught her glance that was so hard and +searching.</p> + +<p>“Dear Ismay,” he said paternally, “have a little mercy! +Don’t sit there, wishing I had stayed at home.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know you had a home!” cuttingly. “Have +you?”</p> + +<p>For some unknown reason the shot told; perhaps Mr. +Wray knew more of domesticity than he avowed, for he +changed his smile with abruptness.</p> + +<p>“I hope to have one—some day!” his tone that of a +man who takes an undeserved wound bravely; his glance, +that only Ismay saw, a cold and savage threat.</p> + +<p>Cristiane flushed. How could Ismay, whom her father +had saved from starvation, dare to taunt a man, who +could not be too well off, with his poverty?</p> + +<p>“Homes are uncertain things!” she observed acidly, +and Ismay could have wrung her hands under the table +as she saw her mother look with open mockery at Wray.</p> + +<p>What were they going to do?</p> + +<p>“There’ll be no chance of my finding out by listening,” +she thought forlornly. “They must have done all +the talking they needed in the train. Their plans—his +plan”—with bitter correction, “must be cut and dried by +now, and that idiot of a girl will walk into their trap!</p> + +<p>“But perhaps he means to stand by my mother on +account of the money. He must—it would be murder +wasted, if he did not. And not even he would waste +murder.”</p> + +<p>Her face was more somber than she knew, as her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +thoughts, in spite of her, flew to Cylmer and his business +in London. And Wray saw it; he was used to rudeness +in her, but not to gloom, and, in spite of the cheering +Burgundy, he was suspicious. At bedtime, as he lit +Mrs. Trelane’s candle for her in the hall, he spoke to +her angrily, and quietly, having ignored her for Cristiane +throughout the evening.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with Ismay? Have you been fool +enough to tell her things? She looks simply stuffed with +righteous wrath.”</p> + +<p>Ismay, on the first step of the stairs, pricked up her +ears at his tone. But Cristiane, her arm through hers, +was dragging her on—her young blood as light from +Marcus Wray’s respectfully adoring eyes as his had been +from her father’s Burgundy!</p> + +<p>Miss Trelane, for the second time that day, longed to +box her ears.</p> + +<p>“I hate fools,” she thought grimly, “and this one will +ruin herself and me, too, if I can’t teach her some sense. +And the worst of it is, I can’t help trying to take care +of the silly little donkey. I wish I could speak out to +her, but she’d only think me crazy.”</p> + +<p>Cristiane gave an ecstatic squeeze to the inert arm in +hers.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he a dear?” she whispered, as they turned the +corner of the great stairs.</p> + +<p>Ismay stopped the second they were out of sight from +below, and was listening with all her ears, but not to Cristiane.</p> + +<p>Wray was just underneath her, and his voice floated +up to her in a far-reaching whisper.</p> + +<p>“Mind you find out what ails the girl before you go +to bed, and come and tell me in the library. She makes +me angry with her tragedy airs.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing so fatal as a whisper! I’ll mark that for +future reference,” reflected the eavesdropper, with lightning +speed. “What did you say, Cristiane, dear?”</p> + +<p>“If he’s a bad man, they’re charming things. And he’s +going to stay a week; I asked him. Won’t it be nice? +Come now, tell the truth! Don’t you honestly think he’s +charming?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> + +<p>“Charming? Yes! But you’ll turn his head if you +let him know it.”</p> + +<p>Charming was exactly the word; people used it about +a snake fascinating a bird before it killed it.</p> + +<p>“Of course, I sha’n’t let him know it,” returned Cristiane. +“Good night; mind you’re nice to him to-morrow, +because he’s going to stay,” with a laughing nod +of power, since it was her house and her guest that were +in question.</p> + +<p>“She won’t let him know it! When she’s been gazing +at him all the evening,” said Miss Trelane derisively, +when she was safe in her own bedroom. “For pure +downright idiocy, commend me to a well-brought-up girl, +who thinks the world is a playground where little geese +can wear gold collars and show them off to the nice, kind +foxes!” but she did not smile at her own parable, as she +locked her door and got into bed with incredible speed.</p> + +<p>She had not been there five minutes before the door-handle +was turned sharply.</p> + +<p>“Ismay, open the door at once! You can’t be in +bed,” cried her mother, from the corridor, with the assurance +of a person who finds a door unexpectedly +locked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am!” with childlike surprise. “What’s the +matter? I don’t want to get up again.”</p> + +<p>“Let me in at once,” giving the door a cross jerk.</p> + +<p>“Delighted!” she crossed the floor with swift bare +feet, and turned the key.</p> + +<p>“What on earth did you lock your door for?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane banged it, too, behind her as she swept in, +her gauzy, glittering gown, that was fit for the stage, +trailing behind her.</p> + +<p>“And you’ll never keep your looks if you’re going to +get into bed like a plowboy, without even washing your +face.”</p> + +<p>“It’s quite clean. I never use powder,” was the retort.</p> + +<p>“Pray don’t be clever. I’m dead tired.” Mrs. Trelane +dropped into the most comfortable chair in the room. “I +can’t appreciate it. I suppose you locked your door because +you’re annoyed with me for bringing Marcus here?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p> + +<p>Ismay, sitting on the edge of her bed, white and exquisite, +rubbed one foot with the shell-pink heel of the +other; and looked ashamed, as one who is about to disgrace +herself by a chicken-hearted confession.</p> + +<p>“I always lock my door in this house at night,” looking +at her feet. “I’m—afraid!”</p> + +<p>“Afraid? What on earth of?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing—on earth,” whispering. “But haven’t you +heard anything funny since you came here?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing so funny as this!” contemptuously. “Do +talk sensibly. I came to say something. Do you suppose +I came back to this dull hole for fun?”</p> + +<p>“I am talking sensibly.” For the first time Ismay +looked up, and her gaze would have made the fortune +of a tragedienne. Deep, earnest, magnetic, her eyes +caught and held her mother’s.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know about the +things there is in this house?” she demanded. “The +thing that moves softly at night, up and down the stairs, +that you can hear if you stand in the corridor—coming +closer, closer every minute, till it passes you with +a cold like snow in your face, and you can’t move for +fright——” She was moving her hands in a strange +waving motion to and fro, and a strange uneasiness +caught at Helen Trelane’s wretched soul, even while she +gave a scoffing laugh.</p> + +<p>“The thing that is very old and evil, and means no +good to any in the house. Because, if you don’t know, +ask Thomas! You saw how frightened he was the day +I told before him my dream about the music at night,” +with a return to her practical manner that was somehow +more impressive than her mother liked.</p> + +<p>“What has your dream of a piano being played in the +night got to do with servants’ stories about ghosts?” Yet +Mrs. Trelane could not help glancing at the shut door. +With Marcus in the house, with the world against her +on every side, it would be too awful to get nervous terrors +on her brain.</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t a dream—and it wasn’t a piano,” said Ismay +quietly. “Thomas can tell you; I’ve had enough without +talking about it. And, if I were you, I’d get to bed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +before it got much later; I want to get my door locked. +I don’t care much for those dark corridors outside. And +if you get frightened out there it won’t be of any use coming +to my door, for no power on earth would make me +unlock it after twelve o’clock at night. This is a vile, +abominable house, and I’m afraid in it. So now you +know.”</p> + +<p>“I know I never heard anything so silly,” viciously; +yet the cowering, apprehensive look the girl gave at the +corridor, as her mother threw open the door into it made +Mrs. Trelane uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Ismay hesitated for an instant before she locked the +door and returned to bed.</p> + +<p>“I never found out why she came back, or why she +brought him,” she mused. “But it would have been no +good to ask. She would only have made up something; +she never looked at me except that once, when I made +her. And it would not be wise to go down and listen +after telling her ghost-stories. She didn’t believe them, +and she’ll tell him, and he won’t believe them, and they’ll +laugh. But all the same he will investigate every mouse +that squeaks in the passage, and I should get caught.”</p> + +<p>She got into bed, suddenly conscious of being very +weary as she nestled into the warm sheets, but her mind +was alert enough.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give them time to interview Thomas, and let my +tale sink in a little. I don’t believe they will say anything +worth knowing to-night. And by to-morrow night +I shall know more. I’ll probably be able to frighten her +into anything by to-morrow night!”</p> + +<p>Yet the next instant she sat up and listened. She had +been right; that was the rustle of her mother’s dress, as +she swept by to her bedroom. Ismay sat perfectly quiet +as the light steps paused and Mrs. Trelane tried the door +again.</p> + +<p>Not a sound answered her sharp “Ismay!” but the +girl did not smile as she spoke to herself when the steps +had passed on.</p> + +<p>“I’ve convinced her that I’m not to be got at, at night, +from fright,” she muttered, “if I were not really sick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +with fright for her life—and other things—it might be +funny!” and as she lay down she shivered.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A GHOSTLY EAVESDROPPER.</p> + + +<p>Mr. Wray sat by the library fire the next night as the +clock chimed twelve. There was whisky beside him, and +soda, but he was not drinking, only staring at the hearth, +and tapping with his finger on his knee, with the old +action of driving in a nail.</p> + +<p>The day had been long, hideously long, to every one +but Cristiane le Marchant, who had drunk in specious, +covert admiration as a thirsty man drinks water. To +Mrs. Trelane it had been one effort of the nerves not +to give way to her misgivings; to Ismay the hours had +dragged, and yet flown, in her fears that to-morrow +might be fraught with danger that could not be evaded; +her longing, that was yet a dread, for Cylmer’s return. +And, come what might, Wray must not see them together.</p> + +<p>Marcus, until ten o’clock, had been coldly uneasy, despite +all his careful politeness. Since then the deep lines +about his mouth were drawn less tightly, and yet the +look on his face did not reassure Helen Trelane, as she +came noiselessly into the room.</p> + +<p>“Well, you have not overexerted yourself to get here!” +he did not stop the tapping that was enough to get on +an innocent woman’s nerves.</p> + +<p>“Do you know I have been waiting for an hour? +Though, of course I should be at your disposal till four +in the morning!” with sarcastic deference.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t come,” she retorted. “Cristiane came to +my room to brush her hair, and I had to pretend to get +ready for bed.”</p> + +<p>“Evidently.” For her carefully dressed hair had been +changed to a small coil that made her ten years older. +“Well, now you are here, I have some news!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> + +<p>“Mark!” she caught him by the arm. “Quick, tell me. +Good, or bad?”</p> + +<p>“It is always ‘Mark’ when you are afraid of your +neck!” his tone was smoothly uncivil, his action openly +brutal as he shook off her hand.</p> + +<p>“Good, if one can believe it,” he took a telegram from +his pocket.</p> + +<p>“And don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve no particular reason to; Van Hoeft was always a +liar,” coolly. “Yet I think he knows it wouldn’t pay to +lie to me.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s Van Hoeft? Give it to me.” She snatched it +from his hand.</p> + +<p>“A henchman of mine, in Amsterdam. Be good +enough,” peremptorily, “not to read it at the top of your +sweetly penetrating voice.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no one to hear.” But she did moderate the +strained pitch of her voice a little.</p> + +<p>“‘The parcel cannot be traced beyond Paris. Will wire +if any news of it.’”</p> + +<p>“The parcel. Does he mean the diamonds?” she cried, +raging at his sullen calm. “Why don’t you answer?”</p> + +<p>“Of course he does, else why would it be good news?”</p> + +<p>“And you think he may be deceiving you?”</p> + +<p>“I think he may be fool enough to try to keep me quiet +while he saves his own skin.”</p> + +<p>“Then why don’t you go and find out,” her voice was +harsh, ringing. “Are you going to sit here and let us both +be ruined?”</p> + +<p>“I am going to sit here, because I am afraid to be +seen in either Paris or Amsterdam,” he returned as carelessly +as if he spoke of avoiding a draft of air. “And +because I’ve a good thing here, and the sooner it’s managed +the better.”</p> + +<p>Twice the woman tried to speak and could not.</p> + +<p>“What was in that paragraph, exactly?” she said at +last.</p> + +<p>“Exactly this.” He drew out a clipping from his +pocketbook and read it aloud.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span></p><div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“There is at last some clue to the mystery surrounding +the death of the late Lord Abbotsford, whose tragic +end our readers will remember. Some of the missing +diamonds have been found at Amsterdam by a clever +detective, and the tracing of their whole history since +their disappearance can now be only a matter of time.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“You’re sure that’s all?” she moistened her lip with +his full tumbler of whisky and soda.</p> + +<p>“It’s enough, isn’t it? Oh, pray keep my drink!” as +she handed it to him. “I prefer a clean glass.”</p> + +<p>“Mark, you must see,” she wailed wretchedly, “that +it’s no time to have a nine days’ wonder here. It would +be madness to draw attention to either of us, now.” She +leaned forward, haggard, imploring. “I’ll give you +anything, all I have, if you only go away and let the +girl be.”</p> + +<p>“I told you before that was abject rot,” he exclaimed +icily. “I’m not playing for the few pounds you would +forget to send when I was out of your way. I mean to +have all this”—glancing around him—“and Ismay, in a +satin gown, to take off my boots.” For once his calm +was gone; he breathed sharply. Mrs. Trelane rocked to +and fro in her chair, with fear and loathing.</p> + +<p>“She’ll never have you,” she said through her teeth.</p> + +<p>“Then you can swing,” said Mr. Wray, with a significant +finger at his own throat.</p> + +<p>And this time she made no protestation of her innocence. +Any one listening might well have believed in her +guilt. When she spoke again her voice was hollow, like a +dying woman’s.</p> + +<p>“You can’t poison her without being found out.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Wray threw back his head and laughed noiselessly, +as was his habit. The joke, for some unknown +reason, was apparently an excellent one.</p> + +<p>“Dear lady, how your mind reverts to a groove,” he +said, surveying her with half-shut eyes that made him +more hideous than ever. “Your method is not going to +be employed again,” and he laughed once more, unmercifully.</p> + +<p>“Mark,” she was crying hysterically, “don’t laugh like +that! You’ll kill me if you laugh. You frighten me—I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +could scream”—her sobs broke her words. “Tell me +what you mean, and let me go.”</p> + +<p>“I mean an accident, then; a common or garden accident. +There couldn’t be any fuss about that; it might +happen to every one. And the less you know about it +the better. If you knew you’d do something foolish, +and the whole thing would be made a mess of.”</p> + +<p>“It will put us both in our graves, never mind what I +do.” She turned on him fiercely.</p> + +<p>He got up coolly and pulled up the blind, staring out +into the moonlight night.</p> + +<p>“Does it interest you to know that it’s freezing hard? +And there’s not a breath of wind on the lake,” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Nothing interests me while you live to curse my +eyes,” she said with unutterable bitterness, and in the silence +of the room he laughed to himself.</p> + +<p>“Then let me advise you to drink that whisky and go +to bed,” he said, dropping the blind and turning around. +“Also to rejoice that you will not encounter any one in +the passages,” glancing distastefully at the channels her +tears had marked through her powder.</p> + +<p>“You have prepared me for a good night’s rest,” she +returned heavily, opening the door and making a few +steps into the dark hall outside.</p> + +<p>The next minute she flew back again.</p> + +<p>“Mark, quick—for Heaven’s sake! There’s some one, +something, there. I can’t go.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean you are believing in that crazy lie of +Thomas?” he said after a contemptuous survey of the +empty hall, lamp in hand. “There isn’t a creature stirring.”</p> + +<p>“He believes it; Jessie believes it.”</p> + +<p>“And in spite of that they also believe that when any +one dies they go either to hell or to heaven,” he jeered. +“Can’t you see the thing’s absurd?”</p> + +<p>“But I heard something. I did, indeed. Oh, I’m +nervous, unstrung. I can’t face those dark stairs and +passages. You will have to go up with me.”</p> + +<p>“Because Thomas is hanging round to see that all the +lights are out,” shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> +neither of those two girls would come down for anything.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane shook her head. “Thomas thinks we are +all in bed. He hasn’t left a light anywhere. Jessie sleeps +in a room off Cristiane’s; she would never let her get out +of her bed. And Ismay—oh, Mark! even Ismay is afraid +here at night. She locks her door and won’t open it +till daylight—for fear.”</p> + +<p>“Then she has her weak side, for all her airs.”</p> + +<p>He moved, lamp in hand, to the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>“There, I’ll stay here till you are in your room,” he +said resignedly. “I wonder why women were created +cowards.”</p> + +<p>But she did not answer him. As quickly and almost +as lightly as Ismay, she had sped up the stairs and was +groping through the dark hall above their own room. +When she reached it she was breathless; for just as Ismay +had said, she had heard that faint footfall, coming closer +every minute; inexorable, ghostly, in the silent house +where no one waked save she and Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>The latter had heard nothing, nor would he have cared +if he had. In so old a house night noises were a foregone +conclusion.</p> + +<p>He returned to his neglected whisky and soda, and a +cigar. But there was no bite to the whisky, no taste +in the tobacco. His mind was not as easy as he liked, in +spite of his friend in Amsterdam. There had been a +weak point in the underground career of those diamonds, +and Mr. Wray knew it.</p> + +<p>“What has to be done must be done at once,” he said +aloud, stretching out his long legs in Sir Gaspard’s chair. +“And then I’ll be off to lie low till I can reap the harvest. +My old friend here can’t escape me, even if she dared to +try. And the weather has turned cold,” his voice +changed abruptly, as if something pleased him. “It’s +freezing hard. If all goes well the day after to-morrow +will see the fair Helen an heiress, after which I shall +spend a few months living retired—in Bohemia.”</p> + +<p>Yawning, he extinguished the light and went up-stairs +to bed. This country life was at present convenient; in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +future it would be profitable; but it was certainly deadly +dull.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow I’ll amuse myself with my dear friend and +well-wisher, Ismay,” he reflected. “I like to see her hate +me, it adds to the pleasure of having her under my fingers. +Hello!” as he stood in his door, candle in hand—the +candle he would not give Helen Trelane for pure +deviltry—“what’s that?”</p> + +<p>From somewhere far off a tinkling tune came softly, +yet clearly; an unearthly sound in the midnight hush.</p> + +<p>“Thomas is up to some game, I suppose, and I’m +damned if I know why! But I’ll choke him off now, +once for all.” He started in search of the mysterious +sound, kicking off his patent-leather slippers that he +might steal unseen on the erring Thomas. At the head +of the stairs the music ceased, not suddenly, but with +the curious falling cadence that marked the end of the +tune. But music was lost on Mr. Wray.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got off the track,” he thought, descending once +more, somewhat gingerly in his stocking feet. The instant +he was in the lower passage the air tinkled out +again with a mocking lightness. The sound certainly +came from above him, and he ran up again, utterly careless +if he were heard or not.</p> + +<p>There was only an empty passage to be seen, door after +door on each side of it. He flung them open, one by +one, but only disused bedrooms met his scrutiny. As he +threw the fifth door wide his candle went out, not quickly, +but slowly, as if something ailed the wick. Dim and +blue it faded slowly and the music that had seemed so +near was gone.</p> + +<p>A cloud was over the moon; he could not see a yard +into the room in front of him, but the same cold disused +air met him that he had felt in all the other rooms.</p> + +<p>“Thomas and his remarkable ghost seem to be founded +on fact,” he thought angrily, jarred, in spite of himself, +by that slow fading of his light. “Well, they can play till +doomsday for all I care; but first I will make sure of +Thomas!”</p> + +<p>He stumbled down to his own room in the dark, stubbing +his toes unmercifully. Then with a relit candle he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +sought the small room next the butler’s pantry, where +Thomas dwelt to guard his silver.</p> + +<p>The door was ajar, the old man peacefully sleeping. +Whoever was disturbing the house, it was not the gray-haired +servant. Once more Mr. Wray sought his bedroom, +stopping only to try Ismay’s door with infinite +caution.</p> + +<p>It was locked, hard and fast.</p> + +<p>“The hypocritical little devil,” he muttered, “who told +me that she was never afraid of anything, and is terrified +by a musical box that some servant winds up at night! +It’s just as well, though. I don’t want Miss Ismay’s company +of an evening when I am talking business with her +charming mother.”</p> + +<p>Ismay, seated somewhat breathless on her bed, shook +with impotent rage at that cautious hand on her door.</p> + +<p>“Insolent wretch!” she thought furiously. “I hope those +doctored library candles were a success. Who would +think a schoolgirl trick of a thread soaked in saltpeter and +run through with a fine needle would ever come in so +usefully. But that was only a side-show. ‘The day +after to-morrow,’ he said—and ‘an accident.’ What can +he have in his mind? Oh, if I only knew. And if only +Miles would come back. I could die with this awful +feeling that it is something of my own mother’s that was +found in that room.”</p> + +<p>She was weak with the vision flashing before her of +disgrace, of the police, of discovery, of Miles’ face when +he knew, and in them she forgot the most important +words Wray had spoken that night, though she had +heard them well enough.</p> + +<p>“And the weather’s changed. It is freezing hard.”</p> + +<p>They carried Cristiane’s life and death, and her own +fate hung on them, and, shrewd as she was, Ismay overlooked +them.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“I NEVER SAW IT BEFORE.”</p> + + +<p>The frost still held. The river that ran through Cylmer’s +Ferry was skimmed with ice; the lake at Marchant’s +Hold was a shining, glittering thing as Ismay +passed it on her way to keep her tryst at the stile. Only +at one side, where a deep brook ran into it, was there +a spot of black ice. Ismay passed it without a glance as +she hurried on.</p> + +<p>Wray had been at her elbow all the afternoon, hideous, +revolting, stinging her with veiled hints of the price +that she, and she alone, could pay for her mother’s safety. +She had broken away from him at last, with the arrival +of tea and Cristiane, and before the eyes of the heiress +he had made no attempt to detain her. There was nothing +she could do down here at Marchant’s Hold.</p> + +<p>He laughed as he saw her hurrying out through the +frozen park, as if to get away from an unclean atmosphere +and drink deep of the stainless air.</p> + +<p>And yet it was then that fate laughed, too, had he +known it; laughed even at that luck of Marcus Wray that +the agony of a frail girl would presently meet.</p> + +<p>Cylmer, straight from the station, strode to meet Ismay +as she reached the stile.</p> + +<p>The place was silent, deserted, and he took her in his +arms. She felt the cloth of his coat under her cheek, felt +his arms tighten once more about her, steeled herself to +meet his kiss.</p> + +<p>Oh, God! In ten minutes, in five, would there be that +between them that would stop his kisses forevermore?</p> + +<p>“You’re pale.” He held her at arm’s length to look at +her. “You’re cold. I was a brute to bring you out in +this freezing weather.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, I don’t feel it.” She led the way to the stile. +“I think I am tired. Let us sit down,” with a smile that +was not like her own.</p> + +<p>“I thought I’d never get back,” he said, sitting down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +beside her, his arm round her to draw her close. “You +were right, Ismay. It was an awful business. Don’t +draw away from me, sweet! There’s not a soul to see.”</p> + +<p>“Why was it awful?” For once her scarlet lips were +dry. “Do you mean you’ve found the murderer?”</p> + +<p>“No. But we shall; and the awful part is that it must +have been a woman who poisoned him. But let us talk +of something else, of you and me. I’m sick of the +ugly side of life.”</p> + +<p>Sick? What would he be when he knew it all?</p> + +<p>“Tell me first. I like to know all you do, you know.” +Would her heart ever beat again, would he feel her +strained breathlessness as she sat within his arm?</p> + +<p>“What an exacting child it is,” he said. “I’ll tell you, +and then we’ll leave the whole hateful subject. When +Kivers made that last search he found where the carpet +stopped at the threshold just inside the bedroom a jewel, +or a piece of one, wedged into the little crevice. It looked +as if it might have been a charm.”</p> + +<p>“A charm!” Mechanically she forced out the words. +Oh, that tinkling bunch of golden toys her mother always +wore on a chatelaine! Why, had she not long ago gone +over them one by one?</p> + +<p>“I think so. For it isn’t a thing a man would be +likely to wear. What do you think?” Before she could +draw her laboring breath he had laid something in the +frightened, relaxed hand that lay on her knee. “I got +Kivers to lend it to me. I wanted to look at it under a +microscope.”</p> + +<p>“This!” She was bolt upright, clear of his embrace, +staring at the thing in her hand. “This!” relief that was +agony in her voice. “I—I never saw it before.”</p> + +<p>“Saw it before?” He stared at her. Then he laughed. +“Saw one before, I suppose you mean, little silly! It is +an Egyptian scarab, one of their sacred beetles that are +so precious. Look at its color in the sunset.”</p> + +<p>Golden green, turquoise blue, in its gold setting; the +beetle that was older than Christianity glowed dully in +her ungloved palm.</p> + +<p>But it was not its beauty that made her eyes shine, nor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +anything but the rapture of knowing that never, never +had her mother possessed a thing like it.</p> + +<p>Had she been wronging her all this time? Had she +been speaking the truth, and Abbotsford been done to +death by another hand before ever she entered the house? +If she had dared, she would have laughed out wildly, +flung her hands out in delirious joy; but she must even +turn her face from her lover, that he might not see the +triumphant blood mantling in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>There had been some one else in the room!</p> + +<p>It was all she could do not to shriek it aloud.</p> + +<p>“How excited you are!” he laughed. “Do you think +you would make a good detective when a little thing like +this turns your head?”</p> + +<p>“Why should the thing have belonged to a woman?” +she said irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>“Because a man could only wear it set in a ring, and +this was never in a ring. Don’t you see the light setting +of gold round it and the broken catch of a tiny chain? +It has been a pendant, hanging for luck on a woman’s +bracelet. For deadly luck for some poor soul,” gravely.</p> + +<p>“You are sure it wasn’t Lord Abbotsford’s own?” with +a persistence that might make him wonder.</p> + +<p>“Certain. If you had ever seen Abbotsford you +would see the absurdity. He was never known to wear +even a jeweled stud. He told me once that he always +thought of the money that was sunk in women’s diamonds, +and groaned inwardly at the waste of capital. He +was never very free with money, poor chap. He was a +man’s man, not a woman’s.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you said he had a photograph that was not his +fiancée’s?” wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s different.” Cylmer grew red under his +bronze. “But you wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want +you to. Come home, darling mine; it’s too cold for you +here.”</p> + +<p>Home, to Marcus and his evil plots; to the mother she +had wronged in her thoughts ever since that awful day, +but who, innocent or guilty, was putting her head blindly +into another noose.</p> + +<p>“I wish I were going home with you,” she cried, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +a shyness that made her hide her face the second the +words were out. “I hate Marchant’s Hold!”</p> + +<p>“You could come to-morrow if you would let me have +my way,” rapture at her avowal in his voice. “Look up, +Ismay. Don’t be ashamed. There is nothing that can’t +be said between you and me.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I thought so,” she murmured with sudden significance. +“Perhaps I shall some day. What are you +and the detectives going to do?” she asked, holding the +little beetle tight.</p> + +<p>“Find out who the woman is who was in his rooms +that day—and then, I suppose, I’ll strain every nerve to +keep her from being hanged as she deserves,” with a +laugh at his own weakness. “Women have always been +kind to me, my Ismay,” simply and without the least conceit, +as though such kindness were a debt he must repay. +But she guessed shrewdly that many a woman had loved +Miles Cylmer, and worn sorrow at her heart for her +folly.</p> + +<p>“Miles, if I had done it could you love me still?” she +said, on an impulse.</p> + +<p>“You? Don’t even in fun class yourself with a woman +like that!” sternly.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, my mother!” It was almost a cry. “If +she had done it would you marry me? Tell me.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer was absolutely truthful. For a moment he +looked away from her, awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“Ismay, don’t ask me,” he answered very low. “I—I +don’t know.”</p> + +<p>And he never turned to see that the knife had gone +home to the hilt.</p> + +<p>“You’re quite right,” she spoke slowly, flatly. “I +shouldn’t have said it. Take me home now. You’ll tell +me, won’t you, if you think you are going to find—that +woman?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” reluctantly. “But I wish I had never named a +woman like that to you. Wait, Ismay,” with a motion of +his broad shoulders, as if he shook off the memory of a +distasteful burden, “I want to give you something first.”</p> + +<p>He drew a case from his pocket, and even in the light +that was nearly gone from the sky she saw something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +flash as he opened it. The next instant he slipped a band +of great diamonds, each one a fortune, on her smooth +white finger.</p> + +<p>“With my body I thee worship,” he quoted softly, +his eyes, that were her heaven, bent on her changing face. +“I will say that once more when I put another ring on +your finger.”</p> + +<p>For a moment her hard-held composure was gone.</p> + +<p>“Mark,” she stammered, “I can’t wear it.”</p> + +<p>“Mark! My name isn’t Mark.” He looked at her +hardly, sharply in the dusk. “What do you mean, Ismay? +Are you dreaming, or do you think you are talking to +another man?”</p> + +<p>Appalled by her own slip of the tongue, she could not +speak. What was this love doing to her, that she was +losing her nerve, her self-command?</p> + +<p>“Ismay, answer me!” How stern his voice was. “Is +there any other man who ever said he loved you, that +you should think of him now?”</p> + +<p>With the sure instinct that the truth alone could answer +him, she turned to him, her face white and hard +as he had never seen it.</p> + +<p>“Did you think I meant you when I said ‘Mark’? I +meant”—somehow, she seemed as tall as he as she faced +him—“the man my mother means to marry me to. He +is staying with us now. When I said his name and not +yours I meant that with his eyes on me I would never +dare to wear it.”</p> + +<p>“Staying with you now? What for?” His heart revolted +at the thought of guests in a house of mourning. +“And why should you mind his seeing it? What is he +to you?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. A thing so small that I would kill myself +before I fell into his hands. And that is what would happen +if he saw me wearing your ring.”</p> + +<p>“Ismay, don’t speak in riddles. Tell me what you +mean. What right has any man to object to your wearing +my ring?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t speak to me like that. I can’t bear it.” To his +shame he saw that she was crying. Ismay, who never +cried, to whose eyes tears were strangers!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, he can do anything, anything,” she sobbed. “He—he +knows something about my mother; she is afraid of +him.”</p> + +<p>“My sweet, my poor sweet.” The man who had +done his best to threaten that mother into leaving Marchant’s +Hold felt suddenly guilty and ashamed. “What +can I say to you? But if you would listen to me and +get your mother on my side I think I could make short +work of him for her.”</p> + +<p>“Can you blot out the past?” said Ismay Trelane.</p> + +<p>She wiped away her tears that shamed her; was she +no stronger than Cristiane that she must cry in her +pain?</p> + +<p>Very pitifully the man kissed her.</p> + +<p>“I would do anything on earth for you!” he whispered. +“Can’t you tell me what it is he knows?”</p> + +<p>“She’s my mother.” Once more she held her head up, +proudly, lest he should see her wince at her mother’s +shame. “And as for Marcus Wray, I will beat him yet, +and then you can marry me—if you will.”</p> + +<p>“I’d rather help you.” But she made no answer as +they hurried homeward, his ring still on her finger, the +little scarab, that he had forgotten, safe inside the palm +of her other hand.</p> + +<p>“I’m coming over to-morrow to see Cristiane,” he +threatened, as he left her in the garden.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Miles, don’t,” she cried sharply; “or, if you come, +wait for me there by the lake behind those cedars. I +daren’t see you before Marcus Wray. And yet I may +want you.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, sweet?”</p> + +<p>But she only laughed, and the laugh was not good to +hear.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; but you’ll see,” and she was gone. +There was nothing to tell him that by to-morrow she +thought to catch Marcus Wray red-handed, and so would +never fear him any more. Her heart was lighter than +for many a day as she locked away the little blue-green +beetle that Cylmer had forgotten. The diamond ring +she hid away with it. Never till the owner of his scarab<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +was found would she dare to put it on. And, oh! +would it be to-morrow?</p> + +<p>But at the thought her heart sank again. The owner +of the lost scarab must be found first, and how was +she to do it?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE.</p> + + +<p>No day that held murder and sudden death in it ever +dawned more fair to see than the next morning.</p> + +<p>The sun shone sweetly on the frozen world, the robins +came confidently to the dining-room window, red-breasted, +certain of crumbs; the lake shone as glittering +glass; the cold, sweet air of morning was like wine to +the nerves as Ismay, after breakfast, stood at the window +feeding the hungry birds.</p> + +<p>She almost wondered at her own fear of Marcus Wray +this morning. The look of latent savagery was all gone +from his calm, clean-shaven face as he stood by the fire +idly smoking a cigarette. And the strained, expectant +horror was gone from her mother’s face. For some reason +or other, the awful purpose of the day had been postponed. +There was relief at Ismay’s heart as she read +those faces.</p> + +<p>“We are a nice, harmonious, affectionate household +for one more day. I suppose he has his reasons,” she +thought. But she did not want to catch his eye. She +stood with an indifferent shoulder to him as he moved +toward the door. “What, Cristiane?” She started from +her reverie as if she were shot.</p> + +<p>Cristiane was eying her like a kitten who has just +scratched.</p> + +<p>“I only said you and Miles were very late last night,” +she repeated viciously.</p> + +<p>Ismay could not speak. She made instead a quick step +toward the door that had barely closed behind Wray. +Was he out of hearing, or was he there still?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> + +<p>“I—and Miles!” she said coldly. “What do you +mean?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, reading a letter, fairly dropped it as +she stared at the two. What had Ismay been doing? +Was the girl crazy?</p> + +<p>Cristiane laughed, like a child pleased with mischief.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look so angry,” she remarked. “I was only +trying to pay you for—you know what!” with a nod in +the direction of the departed Wray.</p> + +<p>“You two children!” said Mrs. Trelane, with an indulgent +smile, that covered her relief that this was only +play.</p> + +<p>But Ismay, facing Cristiane, was not so certain. There +was a something in the baby face of the only child that +she did not like.</p> + +<p>“She saw us! And if she tells Marcus I’m done,” she +reflected.</p> + +<p>But Cristiane, as she purred an amiable apology, had +no intention of telling Marcus. She meant to have Marcus +and Miles both, and something warned even her that +it would not be well to speak of Ismay to Wray.</p> + +<p>And Ismay, in spite of the exquisite day, was feeling +strangely dull. A deadly lassitude was in all her limbs; +the strain of constant, racking thought for the girl who +was so spoiled, the mother who was so careless, was telling +on her.</p> + +<p>She saw Wray go out, and Cristiane busy writing a +note, to whom she did not care, and crept away to a +dark corner of the hall where a screen hid her from +passers-by. While things were quiet she must sleep, or +she would break down. Had there been anything the +matter with her coffee?</p> + +<p>But she could think no longer. She dropped on the +seat behind the screen, never stopping to consider that +she was clearly visible from the turn of the stairs overhead, +and slept like a dead thing.</p> + +<p>Hours passed, and she knew nothing, felt nothing, except +that once she tried to brush what felt like a fly from +her cheek; once turned, in what seemed a happy dream, +to the familiar touch of a man’s rough tweed coat on her +face, stretching her arms out in sleep at the happy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> +thought; in her dream nestling close to the dear shoulder, +till suddenly a nightmare terror shook her. She tried +to scream and could not; woke for an instant to think she +heard a footstep stealing away, and, not half-awake, was +asleep again almost before she realized her thought.</p> + +<p>“Where can Ismay be?” Mrs. Trelane wondered at +lunch.</p> + +<p>Cristiane shook her head with guileless innocence.</p> + +<p>Wray said carelessly that he did not know, but his +face flushed a little.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane finished her lunch and went to find out. +Half-way upstairs she looked down; there was Ismay on +her comfortably padded sofa, stretching herself awake.</p> + +<p>“Well, of all the peculiar people! I never saw any +one stretch so like a cat. Ismay,” she said aloud, “what +on earth are you doing there?”</p> + +<p>“I was tired—I think. Mother, come here a minute.”</p> + +<p>The unusual tone in her voice astounded the listener; +she came down-stairs hastily.</p> + +<p>“Tired! From what? And why did you go to sleep +here? I couldn’t find you anywhere, and I was terrified +Cristiane might think something about you and that horrid +Cylmer. Tell me, did she mean anything this morning?” +sharply, seating herself on the end of the sofa.</p> + +<p>“Don’t know, and don’t care,” said the girl sleepily. +“Of course not. How could she? It was to pay me for +saying Marcus was horrid.”</p> + +<p>“You said that to her!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t be agitated. She didn’t believe me,” said +Ismay flippantly. “Mother, I want to speak to you. +No, don’t move! It’s safer here than anywhere. We +can hear any one coming a long way off on this hard +oak floor. I want you to tell me—think hard, mother, I +mean it—if you don’t know of any one that might have +been in Abbotsford’s room that day?”</p> + +<p>“What makes you think of that now?”</p> + +<p>“I’m always thinking of it,” her hand to her head that +felt so oddly heavy. “I’m frightened.”</p> + +<p>“What of? I didn’t do it,” almost absently. “Think +of some one, you say. You little fool, do you suppose I +have not tried and tried? There was no one who had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> +anything against Abbotsford. I know you don’t believe +me; I know you think I did it.”</p> + +<p>“You might as well have if we can’t find out who did,” +Ismay said wearily. “Look here, where was Marcus that +day?”</p> + +<p>“Marcus!” She hushed the cry with a sudden remembrance +of those two in the dining-room; but she went on +with unexpected freedom, recollecting they were going +out, were gone by now.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you needn’t think of him!” she said scornfully. +“He was across the way, waiting to see Florrie Bernstein, +the dancer. She was out, and to amuse himself the devil +put it in his head to stare out the window. He never had +anything to do with the matter.”</p> + +<p>The strangely found beetle was on the girl’s lips, but +the sleep was off her brain now, and she dared not trust +her secret to her mother’s careless keeping.</p> + +<p>“I wish he had done it. I should like him to be +hanged,” she muttered.</p> + +<p>“He’s too clever,” bitterly, “to do anything but bully +women.”</p> + +<p>“Where is he now?” with late caution.</p> + +<p>“He and Cristiane have gone out skating,” she said +carelessly, for Marcus had assured her the night before +that the time was not ripe yet for any action. “They’re all +right, you little idiot. There’s no need for you to look +like that.”</p> + +<p>Wild, dazed, swaying, Ismay was on her feet. All +right, with that black place in the ice, with that purpose +in Wray’s mind!</p> + +<p>“Get out of my way! Move!” she cried. “Get me +some water, brandy, anything! I can’t stand.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane was in the dining-room and back almost +before she knew at the authority in the sharply breathed +words.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter? Are you going to be ill?” she +cried.</p> + +<p>Ismay snatched the brandy and water.</p> + +<p>“Ill? No! If I am we’re ruined.” With quick, swaying +steps she passed her mother, letting the empty glass +fall in shivers to the floor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>“Then you’re crazy!” cried the mother. She stared +stupidly at the splinters, and by the time she had shrugged +her shoulders amazedly Ismay was gone.</p> + +<p>Out the great door, hatless, into the winter air, that +struck cold on her forehead and drove away the deadly +faintness on her. Down the broad avenue toward the +lake, staggering at first. Then, as her strength revived, +running like young Diana, the beat of her flying feet only +a little heavier than usual as she tore along.</p> + +<p>Marcus and Cristiane—the wolf and the lamb! That +black place in the ice where the current came from a +spring. And this awful stiffness that cramped her like a +vise as she ran.</p> + +<p>Could she ever get there? She could see the lake +now as she mounted the last rise in the avenue. And +there was Marcus on the safe ice, and Cristiane? On the +other side of the black streak Cristiane was sliding, without +skates, drawing every minute nearer to it. Ismay +knew now what was in his brain.</p> + +<p>All alone out there, there was no one to hear him +dare her to cross it, and that was what he was doing. +And Cristiane was heavy; it would never bear her. To +slip into that running water meant death. The thought +seemed to paralyze the girl who looked on.</p> + +<p>Helpless, rigid, great drops on her forehead for all the +cold, she stood in full view of Cristiane, who waved her +hand at her; in full view of some one else, long before his +time at that tryst behind the cedars, as Cristiane, step by +step, drew closer to that thin film of ice.</p> + +<p>With one piercing, ringing shriek, one bound, Ismay +was running again, like an arrow from a bow. Running +with skirts drawn up, elbows down, steady and fast as a +man who must win a race. She dared not think what it +meant if she could not reach Cristiane before she was +on that black mockery of ice.</p> + +<p>No wonder her ringing scream sounded so wild and +dreadful in the clear air; no wonder she ran with the +blood beating in her eyes and forehead, the sharp air +rasping in her agonized lungs.</p> + +<p>She shrieked again. No matter what Marcus thought +if only she could keep Cristiane off that ice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> + +<p>At that shrill cry Cristiane turned and went on faster. +Ismay should not frighten her before Marcus Wray, who +had laughed and forbidden her to dare the crossing, as +if she were a town-bred baby.</p> + +<p>Miles Cylmer, a long way off behind his cedars, shouted +in answer and ran down the long shore, too late to stop +what he saw. Cristiane, laughing, defiant, on the edge +of the black ice, a few rods behind her, bareheaded, +slim, nearly exhausted, Ismay running to cut her off.</p> + +<p>Wray had turned at the man’s voice and cried aloud:</p> + +<p>“Go back! Don’t try it.” But it was no accident that +made him fall flat as he spoke.</p> + +<p>Cylmer ran as he, too, had never run before, for the +black ice had crashed from under Cristiane’s feet. She +went through like a stone as she stepped on it.</p> + +<p>Yet the next second he saw her white hand flung up +from the black ice, the blacker water; saw Ismay, flung +flat on the sound ice, stretch out till she caught the hand +in hers; did not see that Cristiane’s other hand had +clutched her as with a vise, nor that Ismay was completely +done and exhausted.</p> + +<p>And Cristiane le Marchant was a well-grown, heavy +girl, Ismay slight and dainty. Then inch by inch the +sound ice cracked around them, as Cristiane, in her +frantic struggling, drew Ismay nearer and nearer death. +As Cylmer reached her it broke under her. But it was +Mrs. Trelane who screamed as she ran frantically down +from the avenue, where she had followed Ismay from +pure wonder at the girl’s actions.</p> + +<p>“He told me he wouldn’t do it! Oh, I might have +known,” she cried helplessly, as she ran. She dropped on +her knees with a great sob as she reached the lakeshore, +and hid her eyes in terror.</p> + +<p>On the grass beside Cristiane in her priceless, soaked +furs, lay Ismay in her thin house-gown. There was a +crimson stain oozing from her set and speechless mouth, +and she was deadly still, the blood thick in that clay-cold +body that had been so quick and warm but now.</p> + +<p>For once Mrs. Trelane was careless of appearances.</p> + +<p>“What have you done?” she shrieked at Wray. +“What——” But his hand was on her shoulder.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p> + +<p>“Tried to save Ismay,” he said shortly, as was true, +for he had done his best to help Cylmer, only to be +savagely thrust out of the way.</p> + +<p>“This gentleman had Miss le Marchant out of the water +before I was on my feet. I fell,” with rage in his tone +because his plans had miscarried, because it was Cristiane +who could sit up and speak, not Ismay.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Wray told me not to try,” Cristiane said, shivering. +“And I would. I’m cold. Take me home.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer looked at her.</p> + +<p>“Have you no thought for Miss Trelane, who tried to +save you?” he said sternly.</p> + +<p>Cristiane went off into wild hysterics.</p> + +<p>“She didn’t try to save me,” she gasped; “she stood on +the hill and watched me. I saw her. She could have got +here long ago, but she hates me. Oh, I know. Just because +you love me.” Cylmer made one quick stride to +her.</p> + +<p>“Be silent. Have you no sense; no decency?” His +face absolutely white, he pointed to where Ismay lay on +the grass. “You abuse her when for all you know she +may have died for you. Take Mrs. Trelane’s arm and go +home. I am ashamed that you are your father’s daughter.”</p> + +<p>Wray had not heard her. After he had frightened +Mrs. Trelane to silence with that cruel grasp of her shoulder +he had run with all his speed to the stables to send a +man for a doctor.</p> + +<p>He was more savage than he had ever been in his life +at his morning’s work. No one knew as he did why +Ismay had not been able to withstand the shock of that +icy water. And the heiress was to go scot-free! He +ground his teeth as he hurried.</p> + +<p>Never! Dead or alive, Ismay should not save her. +But if he could do it, there should be life kept in that +sweet body of hers yet, for, in his way, the man loved +her.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, the icy water dripping from her, rose and +looked at Cylmer with chattering teeth.</p> + +<p>“She hates me, and she is a liar and a thief. Look +what I found this morning.” Her voice low and spiteful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +never reached Mrs. Trelane, as she hung over Ismay.</p> + +<p>She stuffed a little card, dirty and crumbled, into his +hand, but though he took it, it was without knowledge or +care of what she said.</p> + +<p>“Go!” he repeated angrily. “Don’t you see you must +get off your wet clothes?”</p> + +<p>But without seeing what she did he had stooped and +lifted in his arms the girl who was to have been flesh +of his flesh, bone of his bone.</p> + +<p>An old, old cry was on his lips as he lifted his ice-cold, +ghastly burden:</p> + +<p>“Would that I had died for thee, I and none other!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“HER MOTHER’S CHILD!”</p> + + +<p>Cylmer, waiting by the hall fire, his wet clothes steaming, +thought the doctor would never come down-stairs.</p> + +<p>To Wray he gave no thought; it never occurred to +him that that astute person was keeping out of the way, +for fear of comments of his idiocy in having taken Cristiane +on ice he knew nothing about. And Mrs. Trelane +was with Ismay; Cristiane put to bed crying with temper +and fright. The empty feeling of the house drove Cylmer +wild. He was more glad to see the little country +doctor than he had ever been at anything in his life.</p> + +<p>“Miss Trelane!” he said bluntly. “Is she——” The +words stuck in his throat.</p> + +<p>“She’ll do now, I think,” the doctor said thoughtfully. +“But it’s a peculiar case. It was not that she was in danger +of death from drowning, but there seemed to have +been something in the shock. I don’t know”—more +briskly—“but she will do well now. She looks frail, but +her vitality is tremendous. But, my dear man, you must +go home at once unless you wish to die of pneumonia. +Come with me in the brougham. You can come back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> +again later on. There’s no sense in shivering to death +here when you can’t see either of the victims.”</p> + +<p>He carried Cylmer off, and deposited him, rolled in a +fur rug, at his own door. And not till he was being +stripped of his soaked clothes by his fussy servant did +Miles discover that he held something in his hand. It +was the card Cristiane had given him, the penciled words +only a blur now.</p> + +<p>“Does she mean she never got it? Is that why she +called Ismay a liar and a thief for the carelessness of +some servant?” he thought contemptuously. “I must tell +the lady a few plain truths, I fancy. I’d tell her everything +this very night if I could get Ismay to consent. +But, of course, she won’t be up. I sha’n’t see either of +them, probably. If I do Miss Cristiane shall retire in +tears,” with a grim smile.</p> + +<p>In spite of what the doctor had said, Mr. Cylmer only +made a pretense of eating his dinner.</p> + +<p>He drove over to Marchant’s Hold without so much +as waiting for his coffee. Even Mrs. Trelane, who hated +him, would be civil to him to-night, since but for him +Ismay would be lying dead.</p> + +<p>He went straight into the drawing-room, prepared to +meet Mrs. Trelane only. But she was not there. He +paused, and saw on a distant sofa Cristiane, her head +bowed on her hands.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane,” his heart had sickened at her attitude, +“what’s the matter? She’s not—not dead?”</p> + +<p>“She? Do you mean Ismay?” She lifted her lovely +eyes, drowned in tears. “Not she. Why, Miles? Do +you care—so much?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind what I do. If she is all right why are +you crying?” sternly.</p> + +<p>“Because she’s made me be so horrid to you!”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t cry on my account,” he said, looking +down at her, “I can assure you. And how do you mean +she had made you horrid to me?”</p> + +<p>“Because that card I gave you—I never got it. I +thought you had never come near me, and so I hated +you.”</p> + +<p>“Never got it! But you gave it to me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span></p> + +<p>“Ismay pulled it out of her pocket this morning with +her handkerchief, and I picked it up. Oh, Miles!” her +downcast face sweet, imploring, “can you ever forgive +me?”</p> + +<p>“Forgive you?”—impatiently. “I don’t know what +you’re driving at! You don’t mean you think Ismay kept +it from you on purpose? Was that why you dared to +call her a thief?”</p> + +<p>His tone maddened her. She sat up and looked at him, +sorrowfully, with pained surprise.</p> + +<p>“Miles, you don’t care for her?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Why do you speak of her like that? She saved your +life”—coldly.</p> + +<p>“She didn’t. It was you”—slowly. “I tell you she +saw what I was doing and stood waiting. She never ran +till she saw you, and knew she must. She would rather +I was dead; she hates me.”</p> + +<p>“Cristiane, are you out of your senses?” He shook +her roughly by the shoulder. “Your ingratitude I cannot +help; your abuse of her I will not bear. As for loving +her, I love her with all my heart. I’d marry her to-morrow +if she would have me.”</p> + +<p>And this was the Miles she had thought of as miserable +with his love that she would have none of! She +was all passion in the frank brutality with which she +turned on him.</p> + +<p>“She can’t do that; she daren’t! She’s playing a +double game with you. She’s a bad, wicked girl”—her +voice rising angrily. “I saw her this very day lying with +her head on Mr. Wray’s shoulder. She was pretending +to be asleep, and she stretched out her arms and put +them about his neck, and——”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Cristiane,” Miles broke in angrily, frantically. +“You can shut up! If it is true I don’t want +to hear it, but if it’s a lie, you’ll have to pay for every +word of it.”</p> + +<p>“Miles,” she said slowly, “it’s every word of it true. I +saw her. I was on the stairs and she was lying on the +sofa in the hall. I saw him come and kneel beside her. +She’s a horrid, horrid girl—I’m so miserable”—with sudden +choking tears. “I wish I hadn’t told you. But I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> +know you were with her often lately. I couldn’t let you +go on without telling you.”</p> + +<p>“Then allow me to tell you your conscientious scruples +do you no credit,” he said stoutly. Yet he did not see +in his pain that she had changed her tactics utterly, even +while he had been talking to her. It was all too much +of a piece with that fatal cry of Mark, that senseless +terror of having her engagement to him an open thing. +Ismay, his Ismay, untrue! The solid ground had been +cut away under his feet, yet he was stubbornly faithful. +He would not believe this spoiled child, who was not +even grateful to the girl who had nearly died to save her.</p> + +<p>“You don’t believe me? Oh, Miles, what can I do?” +Cristiane moaned. She hid her angry, tearless eyes that +he might think she cried.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t believe an angel from heaven against +Ismay!” he said stoutly.</p> + +<p>But he lied, and he knew it.</p> + +<p>As for the note Cristiane implied Ismay had kept back, +he never gave it a thought. Cristiane and her feelings +were nothing to him now. But Ismay and that man +from London were another story.</p> + +<p>“Don’t dare to say she did not try to save you,” he +said to drown his thoughts. “I was there. I did +not see your danger, no more did she.”</p> + +<p>“And yet—you saved me,” she said quietly, and before +he knew it she had kissed his strong hand softly. He +drew it away as if her lips had stung.</p> + +<p>“I saved you as I would have saved a drowning dog,” +he said, his voice ominously level. “Now you know. I +care nothing for you. My love for you was only play. I +know it now.”</p> + +<p>“Miles, don’t,” she gasped; “you kill me. But I can +do you one service, and I will. I—I love you now. I +will take you to Ismay.”</p> + +<p>“You can’t. She’s in bed.”</p> + +<p>“She’s up in her sitting-room;” and he could not see +the spite in her face.</p> + +<p>Marveling at her strange changes, Cylmer followed +her, his heart beating uncomfortably. But to see Ismay,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +to have in one word all his doubts destroyed—for +that he would have followed anywhere unquestioning.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Trelane?” he said doubtingly, as they mounted +the stairs.</p> + +<p>“Is in the library. Besides, what matters?”—dully. +“You have the right. You mean to marry her.”</p> + +<p>She opened Ismay’s door softly—too softly—and +parted the curtains.</p> + +<p>“Look,” she whispered in his ear, “there is the girl +you love. Now, who is right, you or I?”</p> + +<p>Cylmer gave one glance; then, sick, staggered, broken, +he turned away.</p> + +<p>In a great chair Ismay sat; at her feet was Marcus +Wray, holding her hand, talking eagerly, very low. On +the girl’s face was no sign of that loathing she had +professed, only a beseeching, doubtful look of dread and +hope.</p> + +<p>“Come away,” whispered Cristiane, and he obeyed her, +dazed and stumbling.</p> + +<p>Ismay, whom he would have sworn was true, whom he +had loved as he had never thought to love, Ismay was +her mother’s child!</p> + +<p>His face was hard as iron and as relentless as he +stopped in the hall.</p> + +<p>Cristiane shrank away from him like a child who fears +a blow.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look like that. I didn’t know,” she lied breathlessly. +“But, you see, I told the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Curse the truth, and you,” he said between his teeth. +“Get out of my way.”</p> + +<p>She could not hear what he said, but she turned away +again, crying pitifully.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t let you love her and not know. Don’t be +so hard to me.”</p> + +<p>With an effort that wrenched his very soul, the man +mastered himself.</p> + +<p>“All right, child. I know you meant to be straight. +But run away to bed. I can’t talk.”</p> + +<p>Humiliated to the last drop of his blood, he stood in +the hall alone, opposite the half-opened door of the library.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p> + +<p>Cristiane had spoken the truth again; Mrs. Trelane +was there. And the very spirit of evil and recklessness +had prompted her to put on that very white gown in +which she had been photographed for Lord Abbotsford. +Ismay was not there to stop her; she had explained to +Cristiane that her black evening gown was torn; and now +she stood, ignorant of any stranger’s eyes, before the +glass over the fireplace in the very attitude of the photograph.</p> + +<p>Her round, languorous throat; her arms, lovely still; +the very turn of her head, Miles Cylmer—saw—and remembered.</p> + +<p>The mysterious woman of the photograph stood before +him.</p> + +<p>No wonder Ismay had been interested in Abbotsford’s +death; no wonder she had paled when he brought out +that broken trinket. She had it still, and probably she +and her mother had laughed together at the cleverness +with which she had wiled it from him. He had been +fooled—fooled by a pair of green eyes, a mouth all love, +a smile all witching.</p> + +<p>Mechanically, as a man in a dream, he put on his coat +and hat and got into his dog-cart that was waiting at +the door. Cristiane was right. Ismay Trelane was bad +to the core.</p> + +<p>But the man could not see the road for the bitterness +of his heart as he drove home through the dark.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, in spite of her fright at his anger, smiled, +well pleased, as she went up-stairs to bed.</p> + +<p>She had really seen Marcus Wray kiss Ismay; she had +only kept back that the girl’s subtle instinct, even in her +sleep, had made her moan and turn away from him, so +that he crept away lest she should awake. She was cunning +enough not to tell Wray what she had seen, but the +sudden enlightenment had made her furious. Was this +girl to come here and take every man she saw? Were +her own good looks, her fortune, as nothing compared +with the strange beauty of the other? Not while Cristiane +le Marchant could stop it.</p> + +<p>Loved, caressed, guided in her every footstep by her +dead father, the girl was utterly spoiled. Without that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> +firm and loving hand she steered her own bark wildly, +caring nothing for others, so that her own vanity was +satisfied. And Miles Cylmer that night had struck at +the self-conceit that was her most vulnerable part.</p> + +<p>“He’s going to hate her now,” she thought, with gleeful +conviction. “Then he’ll come back to me, and I’ll refuse +him again. Oh, how I will refuse him! And I’ll keep +Mr. Wray here and make Miles wild.”</p> + +<p>She sank to sleep in a blissful reverie of Ismay driven +out, Miles sighing in vain, and she herself marrying a +duke. She would wear white satin and look very proud +and cold. It would be delightful. And that death had +to-day only missed her by a hair’s breadth, and to-morrow +might strike again, she never thought. Nor that +the girl she had betrayed this very night was the only +soul on earth who could save her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">TRUTH THAT LIED!</p> + + +<p>It was all so black, so terribly obvious as he looked +at it.</p> + +<p>Cylmer thought long that night, in a weary circle that +led back to the same horror. The original of that photograph +had been Mrs. Trelane, and if Abbotsford’s death +lay at her door, Ismay had known it. That little cry of +hers came back to him.</p> + +<p>“I never saw it before.”</p> + +<p>A lie and a foolish one, that looking back was damning.</p> + +<p>And Wray—she could deceive him for a brute like +that?</p> + +<p>And then there rushed over him the awful thought of +the disgrace to come; the wheels that he had set in motion +that were even now out of his power to stop. Even +in his disenchantment, with that raging pain at his heart +that she was false who seemed so true, he was glad that +that one clue, that one fatal bit of evidence, the blue-green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> +beetle, was in her hands. The detectives would +never see it again; Mrs. Trelane warned in time, would +destroy it and the bracelet he was certain it had belonged +to—and Ismay.</p> + +<p>“Ismay can be consoled by Mark.” Yet at the +thought his forehead was wet. He would have given his +soul not to have seen her to-night, to have gone on believing +in her; as he would never believe in any one +again.</p> + +<p>And yet it had all been so simple; if fate had not +played into the spiteful hands of Cristiane le Marchant, +would have been another link to bind him to the girl who +for his sake was fighting with the world against her.</p> + +<p>At eight o’clock Ismay had waked from a long sleep; +waked weary and languid in body, but with her brain +more quick and clear than it had been for two days. She +was alone, and she lay for a little, thinking, remembering.</p> + +<p>What had made her so drowsy, so strange all that +day? Had Wray, to keep her out of the way, given her +anything?</p> + +<p>“There was only breakfast, he couldn’t!” she reflected. +“We all had the same, even my coffee Thomas poured +out at the sideboard. Besides, he doesn’t suspect me at +all, thanks to Thomas’ version of my midnight promenades.” +She smiled to herself.</p> + +<p>Had not Thomas met her face to face one night, and +had not Jessie told her in deepest secrecy of how the +lady had walked, with the very blood-stain that was +the mark of her crimes on her breast! That blood-stain +she had made in sewing her ghost’s gown, with fingers +that were torn by Cylmer’s roses.</p> + +<p>“Jessie.” Conviction flashed over her at the woman’s +name.</p> + +<p>Jessie had put her early tea down outside the door +this morning. Ismay was sleepy and too lazy to get up +and let the woman in.</p> + +<p>“I said to leave it, and I heard her go away,” she +thought. “When I took it in it was cold, and I thought +it wasn’t nice, but I drank it. He had plenty of time +to put anything in it. If he passed and saw it there he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> +would not hesitate one second. Even if he did not suspect +me he may have been determined I should have to +stay at home. One more score against him.”</p> + +<p>Her anger lent her strength. She got out of bed and +clothed herself in a warm dressing-gown, utterly heedless +of the doctor’s orders. Something that was not herself +made her think of the scarab and Marcus Wray. Could +she have in her very hands the destruction of her enemy, +and not know it?</p> + +<p>She took it out of its hiding-place, and saw the flash +of Cylmer’s ring, where it lay beside it.</p> + +<p>When Marcus Wray was routed, she could put it on—she +turned away that she might not see it, but the sight +of it had deepened her hatred of the man who stood between +her and happiness, whom, for her mother’s sake, +she dared not defy.</p> + +<p>A step outside startled her. She had just time to +throw the scarab into the drawer and lock it, when +her mother was in the room.</p> + +<p>Her mother in white, in that very gown she should +have burned, long ago!</p> + +<p>“Why are you up? You’ll kill yourself!” Mrs. Trelane +said sharply.</p> + +<p>“I’m all right. I couldn’t stay in bed. Mother, in +Heaven’s name, why have you got on that?” she pointed +like an accusing judge at the tawdry white dress.</p> + +<p>“Because I was sick of looking like a fright in black. +It shows out every line in my face. And there’s no one +here but Marcus.”</p> + +<p>“Who is your worst enemy,” helplessly. “And it isn’t +decent, with Sir Gaspard not dead a month.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother! I told Cristiane my black one was torn,” +lightly. “But Ismay, are you really quite well? I was +terrified about you this morning!”</p> + +<p>“Terrified!” Ismay threw back her head with her +old laugh of mockery. She knew quite well the depth of +that terror. A horrible sight, the awe of death that lies +in all of us; but if death had been there her mother +would have dried her tears as useless, aging things; forgotten +her daughter as soon as the earth had closed over +her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p> + +<p>“If you are going to be so brutal I shall go away,” +Mrs. Trelane said angrily. “If you have no feelings +you might give me credit for some.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t go.” Ismay caught her dress. “Come into the +sitting-room. Tell me about this morning—what happened, +who carried me home?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cylmer. Tell me, Ismay,” with quiet curiosity, +“how well do you know him? He looked like death +when he carried you. And how did he happen to be +there?”</p> + +<p>“He just, happened, I suppose,” provokingly.</p> + +<p>“And I don’t suppose I was an engaging sight. What +did Cristiane do?”</p> + +<p>“Had hysterics, I think. I wasn’t listening. I thought +you were dead; so did Marcus.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t let him touch me?</p> + +<p>“He went straight off for the doctor. It was that man +Cylmer who got you out of the water.”</p> + +<p>“That man Cylmer!” The girl flushed with pride and +joy. How she would thank him when she saw him, with +the strong arm that had saved her close about her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Marcus wants to see you. That’s why I came up,” +Mrs. Trelane remarked. “Do be civil to him, Ismay, he +tried to help you.”</p> + +<p>“Me? yes?” enigmatically, and her mother shivered +with a suspicion of the girl’s knowledge, that died on the +instant at her placid face.</p> + +<p>“See me?” Ismay amended. “Very well, send him +up. No, don’t stay! I’ll be civil, you needn’t worry.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes alert, her cheek feverish, she watched him +come in.</p> + +<p>“What do you want?” she inquired calmly, as he hesitated +on the threshold.</p> + +<p>“To see for myself that you’re all right,” his cold +sneering manner all gone. “Ought you to be up? But +you look quite well, quite yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I am quite myself. What made you think I shouldn’t +be?” she said dryly.</p> + +<p>“The shock, the wetting,” he hesitated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + +<p>“Neither the shock nor the wetting have affected +me,” she assured him.</p> + +<p>Could she suspect anything about that tea? he gave +her a searching glance with narrowed eyes. But her +face was as openly hostile as usual, with no underlying +doubt.</p> + +<p>“If you’re going to stay, sit down,” she yawned laughingly. +“You make me nervous fidgeting there by the +door.”</p> + +<p>He drew a chair near to her sofa, and she let her +eyes close sleepily. Through their dark fringes they +looked him all over searchingly. Evening clothes, a shirt +and collar as immaculate as usual, a neat black tie, two +pearl studs, rather flawed and too large. So he had a +taste for jewels.</p> + +<p>His hands, long, deceitful, cruel, lay on his knees. On +one of them was a diamond ring, too big for a man, too +sparkling.</p> + +<p>“His cuffs!” she thought, with inspiration. But they +were hidden under his black coat-sleeve. One day she +had laughed at Cylmer’s plain mother-of-pearl cuff-studs, +and he had said that there was nothing a man was +so wedded to as a peculiar kind of cuff-stud.</p> + +<p>“If he wears links, he always wears links, generally +of the same pattern. If he wears studs, he never changes +the make.”</p> + +<p>The blood beat hard in her temples. That bluey-green +Egyptian beetle could well have been half of a cuff-link, +florid, expensive, odd, as were those shirt-studs +of pearls and greenish gold.</p> + +<p>“Why are you so thoughtful, Ismay? Why will you +go on hating me?” Wray asked slowly. “Don’t you +know it’s no use?”</p> + +<p>There was a biting answer on her tongue, but she kept +it back. She must say something—anything—that would +make him hold out his hand to her with a sharp, hasty +gesture that would clear his shirt-cuff, links upward, +from his sleeve.</p> + +<p>“And if I did not hate you, what would you do for +me?” she moved her hand toward him as if by accident.</p> + +<p>The next instant he had seized it, was holding it in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +a grasp that was loathsomely hot and strong. Words +she did not listen to poured in a low whisper from his +lips. Intent, her face alight with eagerness, she was +gazing at his wrist, moving her hand till his lay palm +upward under hers.</p> + +<p>But if she expected to see the scarabs, of which she +had one, she was wrong. And yet her heart leaped. +For he did wear links, not studs, and they were showy +and costly. Ovals of pink coral set round with seed +pearls.</p> + +<p>As she gazed, his low voice in her ears killed the sound +as Cristiane parted the curtain. Wray, with his back to +the door and off his guard, saw nothing, and Cylmer, cut +to the heart, had seen enough.</p> + +<p>If Cylmer had been one moment later he would have +seen her snatch her hand away; wipe it with insolent +care on her handkerchief; laugh, with utter scorn in +Marcus Wray’s furious face, as, her aim attained, she +spoke out:</p> + +<p>“You might give me the whole earth, and I should +hate you,” she cried out with insane bravery. “I hate +death, but I would die before I married a man like +you!”</p> + +<p>Dazed, taken aback, he looked at her.</p> + +<p>“You can go,” she said, smiling like Circe, treacherous +and merciless; “I’m done with you.”</p> + +<p>In the long moment’s pause a door shut somewhere, +and she could not know it was Miles, going away. And +Wray did not hear it. His hands trembled, his face full +of evil, he looked down at her insolent beauty.</p> + +<p>“But I am not done with you,” he said very low.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“MY NAME IS YESTERDAY.”</p> + + +<p>Ismay was gay as any lark that next morning. Her +path, that had been so hard to tread, seemed sure and +easy now; her course of action plain. When Miles came,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> +as of course he would come to see how she was, she +would tell him all—everything. With those showy cuff-links +of Marcus Wray’s in her remembrance, that broken +jewel in her keeping, that had never been her mother’s, +she had something to go on. Miles should know all; +she would keep nothing back, and then they two, together, +should bring guilt home to Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>For, with the certainty of a person whose intuitions +are never wrong, she was sure that it was he who had +poisoned Abbotsford, he who had managed so cleverly +that if anything were discovered, it was Mrs. Trelane +who should bear the whole brunt.</p> + +<p>But the morning passed, and no Miles. The waiting, +the hope deferred, made her pale. And there was too +much at stake—she could not afford to wait. She slipped +out to the stable and sent a groom with a note.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Please come to the stile at four. I’m quite well to-day, +and I must see you. I have something to tell you.</p> + +<p class="sig"> +“<span class="smcap">Ismay.</span>” +</p> +</div> + +<p>Something to tell him! Cylmer’s face hardened as he +read. He heard beforehand the smooth, plausible story +she would have made ready when Cristiane—as Cristiane +was sure to do—had told her of the night before.</p> + +<p>“I won’t go. I can’t see her,” he thought wretchedly, +and yet his longing was too much for him. He would +see her once more—once more feast his eyes on her fatal +beauty that had weaned him from all simple loves forever; +he would tell her that he knew, and bid her save +herself and her mother, and go.</p> + +<p>“I will be there at four,” he wrote, without beginning +or signature, and Ismay as she read it only thought how +careful he was to write nothing that could matter if other +hands opened his note.</p> + +<p>“He hates writing. He never even says he is glad +I’m all right.” She kissed the little note before she +burned it, not thinking that never again would Miles +Cylmer write to Ismay Trelane.</p> + +<p>She evaded the others that afternoon with some +trouble, so that she was late at the stile. Miles was there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +before her, very tall, very handsome in the gray light. +For the day was thawing drearily.</p> + +<p>“Miles”—her voice rang out sweetly, joyfully, as he +had heard it in his dreams—“I’m here! I’m quite well. +Aren’t you glad?” She stopped abruptly as she reached +his side, saw his face. “Miles, what’s the matter?” An +agony of terror such as all her hunted life had never +known made her dizzy as she looked.</p> + +<p>He could not answer. He was fighting with that worst +pain on earth when a man has learned to distrust and +hate all that has been most dear and sweet and true.</p> + +<p>“Are you sorry you saved me?” She tried hard for +his old light mirth. “Is that it?”</p> + +<p>Cylmer shivered. Truly he would rather she had died +than that he should have known this of her.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he said under his mustache, never +moving a step toward her, his hands, that were wont +to clasp hers so eagerly, lax at his sides.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter? Look at me,” she cried desperately. +“Why are you like this, when I’ve come all this +way to tell you something that will take all my courage +to tell?”</p> + +<p>“Then you can spare your courage, for I know.”</p> + +<p>“Know! You can’t.” She was panting, wild. “What +can you know that has changed you so?”</p> + +<p>“I know that it was your mother’s whose photograph +was in Abbotsford’s room,” he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“I know why you fainted here in my arms when I +talked of it. I know how you and she have made a fool +of me; how you have deceived me for Wray.”</p> + +<p>“Wray!” She stared aghast. What did he mean?</p> + +<p>“I saw you last night—with Wray.”</p> + +<p>And at the look on his face the girl’s heart died within +her.</p> + +<p>“You saw me?” Ismay repeated. “Last night—with +Marcus Wray?”</p> + +<p>“Last night,” he echoed, “with Marcus Wray. He was +alone with you in your sitting-room, holding your hand. +And you, who say you hate him, lay looking at him so +intently that you never knew I was there.”</p> + +<p>“You were there!”—her eyes wide, dilated, were almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> +stupid as she stared at him. “What brought you +there?”</p> + +<p>“To see you! But as it was an inconvenient moment”—with +a short, angry laugh—“I did not intrude.”</p> + +<p>“Miles,” she cried, “I had a reason; I held his hand +for a purpose.”</p> + +<p>“I do not doubt it; you always have, I should fancy,” +he said bitterly. “Had you the same purpose in the +morning, when you let him kiss you in the hall, where +the whole house might see?”</p> + +<p>“Kiss me? He never kissed me.” Her lips, no longer +scarlet, were parted, her forehead suddenly livid.</p> + +<p>Kissed her, Marcus Wray? With a sudden dread she +remembered she had dreamed of Cylmer, felt the tweed +of his coat under her cheek.</p> + +<p>“Miles! Miles!”—with a revulsion that was agony. +“I was asleep. I thought, I dreamed”—faltering—“it +was you.”</p> + +<p>“You forget, he never kissed you”—disdainfully. +“You say you slept. Do you think I, who loved you, +would take advantage of your sleep to kiss you? But +why talk of it”—with a quick, slighting motion of his +hand—“since it is true?”</p> + +<p>Yes, it was true. Just as holding his hand last night +was true, and yet hell was no falser.</p> + +<p>“Who told you?” she asked quietly, without denial or +protest.</p> + +<p>“The person who saw you. And because I would not +believe I went up-stairs to see you, and I saw—but I did +not come to talk of what you know so thoroughly.”</p> + +<p>“Then why did you come?” For the first time her +voice was unsteady. To his informant, as to Wray’s +kisses, she never gave a thought; any one might have +seen her as she slept.</p> + +<p>“I came to tell you that I knew it all, everything; that +I see now that from the first day you have been your +mother’s daughter. Forgive my rudeness; it is an easy +way—of putting it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand.” How cold it was growing, and +how dark, she thought irrelevantly. Why could he not +finish and go?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> + +<p>He pulled a card from his pocket.</p> + +<p>“Who kept this from Cristiane?” he said roughly. +“Was it you?”</p> + +<p>“So you want to go back to your Cristiane?” For one +second her eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care if I never see her again”—impatiently. +“Yesterday, God forgive me, I would have let her die for +you.”</p> + +<p>Yesterday! The utter change in his voice hurt.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you see it isn’t Cristiane who is in question? +It’s what you did, or did not. Tell me, did you keep +that card?”</p> + +<p>“I kept it,” very evenly. “I loved you, and I was +afraid of her.”</p> + +<p>“You loved me?” he laughed, unbelieving. “Why, +you had only seen me once!” The contemptible thought +of his money, his position, crowded into his brain and +maddened him. “Oh, not me!” he ended in a tone that +was an insult.</p> + +<p>But she never noticed it.</p> + +<p>She sat down on the stile, as if she were tired. That +stile where the gate of heaven had been closed on her.</p> + +<p>“So you came about that note and Wray!” she said. +“Well, I did both things! What next?”</p> + +<p>It was Cylmer’s turn to wince.</p> + +<p>“This next,” he answered, and he could not meet her +eyes, that once had been so sweet, so serene. “It was +for your sake, because I pitied you, that I told nothing +of all I knew about your mother. When you asked me, +I was silent. And all the time you knew that she was +not only unfit to have charge of an innocent girl, but +was a murderess.”</p> + +<p>“I thought so. Yes.”</p> + +<p>“And then I loved you. And you used my love to +find out what the police were doing. But even your +nerves could not keep you from making mistakes. You +fainted when I told you the police were on the murderer’s +track, and I was too blind to know you had excellent +reason. And because I was a fool I gave you +that scarab, and I suppose you have profited by my folly,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> +and destroyed the others, though you had ‘never seen it +before!’”</p> + +<p>“Miles, she is my mother.” Yet there was no pleading +in her voice.</p> + +<p>“And I thought I was your lover. But it seems I +was mistaken. There is Wray. I will leave the field +to him.”</p> + +<p>For the first time her temper rose.</p> + +<p>“And then you will tell what you know of my mother—and +me—to the police, and the countryside?” she said +scathingly. To hear her cut Cylmer to the quick.</p> + +<p>“That is what I will not do. To my shame, I will +help you both to go. I will let my friend lie unavenged. +I will balk the investigation—if I can, and for my +shame I shall know I am a party to a crime. This is +what I came to tell you. It is not safe to stay here +a day. You have that scarab, but by this time a +description of it is with all the police in England, and +any day they may be on you. If they ask me again on +my oath if I can identify that photograph, what can I +answer? For I saw your mother in that very attitude, +that very dress, admiring her reflection in a mirror last +night. If you want money I will give it to you; but +make an excuse to Cristiane, and get your mother away. +Let me never see her again, that I may forget her.”</p> + +<p>“And me? You would forget me?” her voice oddly +flat and lifeless.</p> + +<p>“Forget you? I would give my soul if I could,” simply. +But there was nothing in his bearing to comfort +her.</p> + +<p>“You don’t love me—now?” She persisted.</p> + +<p>“No, not now. It will hurt you very little, as you +have Wray.” There was no taunt in his voice, only +misery and conviction.</p> + +<p>She sat, dumb and quivering.</p> + +<p>“If you ever loved me, go!” he cried. “Can’t you +see that any hour you may be tracked?”</p> + +<p>Like lightning she was on her feet, facing him. Her +eyes were splendid in the dusk, her beauty appalling as +she spoke.</p> + +<p>“If I ever loved you!” she cried. “I, who loved you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +as a nun adores the cross; who was wicked, heartless, +altogether evil, till you made me see that truth and +goodness were things to live and die for! It was for +your sake I fought for my mother. I hated her till I +knew you; now I pity her with all my heart.</p> + +<p>“Miles, if you listen now, I can tell you what would +make even you pitiful. I can show you what a lying +truth yesterday was—only hear me.”</p> + +<p>“I would not believe you,” he cried wretchedly. “I +should go home and know it was only another act in +the play; that you——”</p> + +<p>With a gesture she stopped him; she had raised both +her hands with a movement that was magnificent. She +spoke solemnly, as a priest who calls down the wrath +of God.</p> + +<p>“Then it is on your head,” she said, and he could but +just hear her. “The sin, the crime, all that will come if +you send me away. If I go from you it will be to become +all you think me; neither truth nor honor nor pity +will ever spring in me again. You will hear of me, and +know that it was you who made me that thing that I +shall be; the memory of it shall haunt you in life; it will +cry out against you at the judgment day.</p> + +<p>“As for my mother”—superb, powerful, she held him +with her eyes—“I will bring that crime home—but not +to my mother. I would have told you all the truth to-day, +but you sealed my lips. I could tell you of a thing +so wicked that even I could not see it done—but why +should I warn you, when you think I am a liar?”</p> + +<p>“My God, Ismay! What are you saying?” A thought +so awful in his mind that he caught her by the arm till +her flesh was bruised.</p> + +<p>“Let me go!” She wrenched herself free. “God—I +believed in no God till I knew you. Now, I believe, and +as He hears me, I swear the day will come when for +this day’s work you could kill yourself. No, don’t answer; +don’t speak!” contemptuously. “By and by you +will know that once I was true, and by then I shall be +a thing to shudder at, with death on my hands——” Her +voice broke wildly. “But the guilt of it will be on you. +I wash my hands of it. Take your ring. I was never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> +fit to wear it. But when I am dead and in hell, you +can remember that you put me there.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me what you mean!” authoritatively.</p> + +<p>“I came to tell you—and you would not hear me. Now +it is too late.” All her excitement was gone, her words +were as quick and irrevocable as Fate.</p> + +<p>“Ismay, love!” the man fairly groaned. “Do you mean +me to believe all you’ve been saying? Wait a minute; +speak to me; forget everything but that I loved you and +you drove me mad!”</p> + +<p>“Loved me? A thief, a liar, the daughter of a murderess, +whose name is a byword!” Her voice rang out +clear and wicked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, Mr. Cylmer! You did not love me. You +thought you loved me yesterday. Farewell!”</p> + +<p>His ring lay unheeded on the ground between them, +as he sprang to stop her. But she was quick and elusive +as a shadow. Cylmer, his courage gone, his heart +faint within him, leaned on the stile, as weak as a +woman.</p> + +<p>In all her words there had been only one meaning to +him. It was she who had done it, and not her mother. +And it was he who had stirred the lagging investigation +to fresh life.</p> + +<p>Girl, sorceress, woman! Whatever she was, she had +been a child in his hands till to-day. And it was he +who had set the noose about her neck!</p> + +<p>“Ismay!” he sobbed once sharply, as a man does, from +his very heart’s core.</p> + +<p>Her blood would be on his head, and he loved her +still. And yet she had been right. Not all she could +have said or sworn would have blotted out those facts +that, true or false, stood out so blackly against her.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">A NIGHT’S WORK.</p> + + +<p>White, tense, her nerves like an overstrung bow that +goes near to breaking, Ismay ran through the dark to +Marchant’s Hold. And as she entered the great hall +door any pity that might have lingered in her breast +was killed.</p> + +<p>Cristiane stood by the fire, dressed for dinner, her bare +arms very fair against her black dress.</p> + +<p>“What! alone, and so late. Wouldn’t he even see +you home to-night?” she laughed, for Ismay’s face was +not hard to read.</p> + +<p>“He? Who do you mean?” She did not look a thing +to play with as she stopped short before the girl who +mocked her.</p> + +<p>“Miles, of course. Wasn’t he nice to you, Ismay? Or +did that card I never got stick in his throat?”</p> + +<p>That card! So when she lost it, Cristiane had found +it. It was she who had given it to Cylmer. She who +had told everything.</p> + +<p>“You did it. You!” She could hardly speak.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was I,” cheerfully. “You see, I am not such +a baby, after all. But, cheer up. He will come back +to-morrow. He won’t mind little things like those.”</p> + +<p>“You took him to my door last night.” But it was not +a question, only a statement.</p> + +<p>“I withdrew him at once, promptly, when I saw it +was a mistake,” calmly.</p> + +<p>And this was the girl whom only yesterday she had +nearly died to save! Well, that was over. She could +die now, as she pleased. No more would an arm be +stretched out to protect her. Never again would a mock +ghost play the spy on Marcus Wray.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were very steady, very evil, as she looked +up.</p> + +<p>“I took that card, and I am very sorry I did,” she +answered quietly. “He would have loved me without +it. You can think of that for your pains.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> + +<p>Cristiane was suddenly afraid, but she gave a last +fling.</p> + +<p>“Did he love you very much to-day?” she asked involuntarily.</p> + +<p>Ismay’s face hardened like stone.</p> + +<p>“You are what people call good,” she said slowly; +“and I was sorry for you. I did my best for you—in a +fashion. Stand still and let me look at you—for I may +never see you again.”</p> + +<p>Something in her eyes made Cristiane cold.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” she shrieked. “Are you going +away?” She sprang forward, and took Ismay’s +hand, but the girl shook her off.</p> + +<p>“I am going to bed,” she said shortly. “Tell them +not to disturb me. I stole your note, Cristiane, but you +are revenged. You have stolen from me enough to make +me go to bed without my dinner.”</p> + +<p>Lightly, pitilessly, she nodded as she turned away. +Let Marcus do what he liked, it was nothing to her that +he should have one more sin on his shoulders. For if +ever a woman was mad with misery, it was Ismay Trelane +that night.</p> + +<p>Still in her outdoor dress she sat crouched on her +bed, motionless as a panther who waits to spring, death-driven, +almost hopeless. In the house the gong sounded +for dinner; a servant came to the door, and was sent +petulantly away. Mrs. Trelane, all silks and rustle, +knocked in annoyance.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you coming down?” she cried.</p> + +<p>“No. Please go away and leave me alone. I shall +be all right in the morning. I’m tired,” with a tearless +sob.</p> + +<p>She was weary to the bone. The shock of yesterday had +borne hard on her vigorous young body; the shock +of to-day had withered her very soul. She was faint +for want of food, but she could not break bread with +Cristiane or Marcus Wray, and yet she must eat, or +this night’s work would never be done.</p> + +<p>At a tap on her door she opened it, to see Jessie; Jessie, +who honestly loved her for many a kind word given<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +when Cristiane had been cruelly sharp with the faithful +soul.</p> + +<p>“I brought some soup and wine, Miss Ismay,” she +said. “Are you sick? You’re that pale.”</p> + +<p>At the only kind word she had heard all day Ismay +Trelane stooped and kissed the honest, fresh cheek of +the servant-woman.</p> + +<p>“No, I’m tired,” she said slowly. “Make them let me +be till the morning. Promise, Jessie.”</p> + +<p>“Will I get you to bed?” confused at the honor done +her. “Will I fetch Miss Cristiane?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t fetch any one, and I’ll lock my door now. I’m +afraid of that ghost.”</p> + +<p>“She don’t walk so early,” said the woman, with simple +belief. “Good night, Miss Ismay. I’ll not come in +the morning till you ring.”</p> + +<p>Ismay laughed.</p> + +<p>“That’s a good soul,” she said. “Let me sleep—till +I ring.”</p> + +<p>Jessie would scarcely have known her ten minutes later, +as she stood in front of her glass, putting on the +old clothes some mood had made her bring with her to +Marchant’s Hold.</p> + +<p>Shabby, ugly, too short, the dress hung on her, the +old-fashioned hat set absurdly on her head. But there +was color in her face from the soup and wine, as she +put into a safe hiding-place in her coat the scarab that +was all the clue she had.</p> + +<p>“Vulgar cuff-links are a very small thing to go on,” +she reflected; “but I will try, and in the meantime Cristiane +and Miles can find out what sort of a house this +is without me. I don’t think they’ll have long to wait, +either.”</p> + +<p>She looked doubtfully at the few coins she had, as she +put them into her pocket.</p> + +<p>“If they’re not enough, looking at them won’t help,” +she thought. “They will get me there, and that’s all I +care for. If I fail I am not likely to need any. If I +don’t fail”—she laughed—“some one else will pay my +fare for the last time to Marchant’s Hold.”</p> + +<p>She opened her door noiselessly and listened. There<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> +was only the cheerful clink that came intermittently +from the dining-room. There was not a step or a sound +on her floor.</p> + +<p>Without a click to betray her, she locked her door behind +her, pocketing the key. Her room was in darkness, +and no one would know the key was gone till late +in the morning; when it did not matter if the whole +world knew.</p> + +<p>“Marcus may be certain I’ve gone to London, but it +will take a cleverer man than Marcus to find me,” she +thought, as she went softly down the stairs. The dining-room +door was closed, the servants safe inside, the front +door swung noiselessly on its hinges as she slipped out +unseen, and closed it behind her without one telltale +sound.</p> + +<p>In the dark she stood looking at the house, with curiously +hard eyes.</p> + +<p>She was free. She was going to London with that +scarab in her pocket, to bring home his crime to +the man who did it. Going alone, almost penniless, to +the cold winter streets, friendless, powerless, but determined. +And she left behind her, at the mercy of the +merciless, the girl whose only protection she had been. +Left her with scarcely a thought, without pity, with nothing +in her hand but the one purpose—to clear her mother +before Cylmer and the world, to get out of Wray’s power +forever.</p> + +<p>A train would leave the station for London at half-past +nine. At twelve o’clock she would be there, with +just one night’s start of Marcus Wray. One night in +which to ruin him. The girl’s lips tightened as she +hurried along her lonely road.</p> + +<p>“I may have more. They don’t know me at the station, +and they will never think it is a girl dressed like +this whom he means. He will ask for Miss Trelane, and +I don’t look much like Miss Trelane.”</p> + +<p>She was right, for the man who sold her her ticket +never glanced at her. There had been an excursion to +some races, and the station was crowded. The shabbily +dressed girl got into her third-class carriage unnoticed.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> +And once the train started and she was safe, she +dropped asleep, in utter weariness, never once stirring +till they were in the London station.</p> + +<p>She got out, and went quickly from the glaring lights +and the crowd into the comparative darkness of the +streets. It was well they were used to her locked door, +otherwise they might have telegraphed and stopped her. +But once out of the station she was secure.</p> + +<p>Twelve o’clock, and the night before her, fresh and +rested with her sleep, but no tangible plan in her head, +no notion of what she meant to do. She trudged aimlessly +through the streets. Once she passed a lighted +music-hall, and thought of her first meeting with Cylmer, +but with a curious distance, as if of a man long +dead.</p> + +<p>Gradually, she left the thronged streets behind her, +still unconscious where she was going, till at last she +stood in an open square, and knew where she was. +Round her were the lights of Onslow Square; at her +very feet the steps of Lord Abbotsford’s house.</p> + +<p>What had drawn her to that dreadful place, alone in +the night? What had guided her straying feet? She +could see the windows of that little room where the +dreadful thing had been done. They were in darkness, +like the rest of the windows, but she knew them.</p> + +<p>Oh! why had she come here? Why was she wasting +the priceless hours like this? She turned to run, sick +and trembling, but something black on the door-step +caught her eye. Ismay stooped down and peered at the +shapeless bundle.</p> + +<p>It was a very little boy, a bootblack, asleep on the +homeless stones. His box was clasped tight in his arms, +and he sobbed in his sleep.</p> + +<p>The pity of the thing came home to the girl who had +also nowhere to go, no shelter from the freezing rain +that was beginning to fall. She had a shilling in her +pocket besides what must pay for her breakfast, and +surely it was her guardian angel that prompted her to +give it to the boy.</p> + +<p>Very gently she touched his thin shoulder.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + +<p>He started up, awake at once, defiant, yet frightened, +like a true London waif.</p> + +<p>“Let me alone,” he said. “I ain’t done nothing. Who +are you, anyway?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sleeping out, like you,” she answered. “But I’m +grown up, and you’re too little,” with a kind of reckless +fellowship that reassured the boy, who was ready +for a run.</p> + +<p>“Ain’t you got nowhere to go, either? Oh!” He +stared at her with the uncanny wisdom of the streets.</p> + +<p>“Do you know anywhere to go if I give you a shilling?” +she asked, more for the comfort of talking than +for anything else.</p> + +<p>“I can go home if I’ve a bob. I daresent without +any money. Mother’d lick me, and I’m sick. Will you +give me a bob, honest? And no tracts, nor nothing?”</p> + +<p>She nodded, ashamed by this time of her impulse.</p> + +<p>What had made her such a fool, when she might starve +to-morrow for want of that shilling?</p> + +<p>The boy stood up and stared resentfully at the dark +house in front of them.</p> + +<p>“It’s no good staying here. The man won’t let me in. +He kicked me down the steps last time I rung.”</p> + +<p>“Let you in!” She looked with wonder at the dirty, +ragged mite. “What do you want to go in for?”</p> + +<p>“I want to tell them something. It’s a shame,” with +a man’s oath. “They had Billy Cook in, and asked +him things, and gave him half a crown, and he didn’t +know nothin’! And it was me that ought to had it. It +was my stand opposite, by that muddy crossing, and I +took sick that day, and stayed home ever since, and to-day +when I come back Billy had my stand, and what +ought to ‘a’ been mine—and he didn’t know nothing, +only answered silly.”</p> + +<p>“Know nothing about what?” she echoed involuntarily, +with no thought of the answer that was to make her +heart leap.</p> + +<p>“About the man that was in that house the day they +said there was no one in. I say, couldn’t you knock at +the door, and I’d tell them. And p’haps they’d give me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> +’arf a quid, and mother could get too dead drunk to +hit me?”</p> + +<p>“What man? Tell me, quick. I’ll get you more than +half a sovereign.”</p> + +<p>She did not know how fierce her voice was till the boy +started back from her.</p> + +<p>“It ain’t no business of yours,” he cried. “I say, you +ain’t got nothing to do with the coppers, ’ave you?” he +was on the defensive instantly, all ready to flee.</p> + +<p>“No; no!” she said, so gently that he believed her. +“But if you’ll tell me, instead of them,” nodding at the +big silent house, “I’ll get you more money than you +ever saw in your life.”</p> + +<p>“Girls like you don’t have none,” he retorted, with a +distrustful shiver.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get it for you in the morning. You needn’t let +me out of your sight all night, not till it’s in your hand, +if you’ll tell me all you know.”</p> + +<p>The boy gave a cheerful whirl.</p> + +<p>“Golly! I bet Billy Cook’ll be sick,” he exclaimed. +“Do you mean it; hope you may die?”</p> + +<p>“Hope I may die,” she asserted gravely, her marvelous +eyes, that even the child saw, bent on him. “But +not here. Let’s walk on somewhere out of the rain. I’m +cold.”</p> + +<p>“I’m always cold,” returned the small bootblack.</p> + +<p>“It ain’t nothin’ when you’re used to it. But we’d +better keep movin’; cops comes round when you stands.”</p> + +<p>“Go on about the man,” she said shortly. “How do +you know it was the day of the murder?”</p> + +<p>“Ho! I’m not blind. Why, you never see such a how +d’ye do in your life. Cabs, and perlice, and reporters, +and the cook screaming in the area. I knowed right +enough, but I never knowed they were looking for no +man till I come back to-day, and Billy Cook said so. +He punched me, too, because he’d got my stand, and I +wanted it. And when I said that ’arf-crown was mine, +he punched me again. So I went to the house, and the +man told me to get out with my lies. They’d had the +square bootblack in a’ready. Billy Cook,” scornfully, +“that never see the square in his life till I got took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> +bad with brownkeeters. He didn’t see no man come +out of the house, any day.”</p> + +<p>“Did you?”</p> + +<p>The great clock on the church-tower struck one. If +the boy did not hurry it would be too late to-night for +what was in her mind.</p> + +<p>“I saw him go in about half after one. I saw a woman +go in and out twice, too; but that was after three. The +last time there was a girl with her, and they whispered, +and while the woman was in a gentleman went in and +come out again quick. Him that raised the fuss afterward. +But my man he never come out till half-past four. +I heard the clock, when it was dusklike. He never see +me, and he walked quick. And he was crossing the +street by my stand when he drops something out of his +hand, quick, right in the middle of the road, in the +traffic. So I jumped to get it before a bus went over +it, and it was just a little blue glass bottle that smelled +funny.”</p> + +<p>“What did you do with it?” She was exultant, treading +on air, the rain falling unfelt on her thinly clad +shoulders. And yet she dreaded that at a question the +boy’s story would fall to the ground.</p> + +<p>“Put it in my box. It’s there now. You bet I didn’t +tell Billy Cook anything about it to-day, when he was +smelling round! I was sick when I went home, and I +never thought of it till to-day, and the man wouldn’t +let me speak.”</p> + +<p>“What did he look like, the man you saw come out +of the house?”</p> + +<p>“He was big, and ugly, without no mustache. I’d +know him if I see him. Say, do you suppose there was +stuff in that bottle to kill a man?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Let me see it.”</p> + +<p>The boy yawned; but he took it from his box as they +walked. In the light of a street-lamp Ismay looked at +it, shaking with excitement. An ordinary chemist’s bottle, +of blue glass, without a label. She pulled out the +cork, and a faint odor of bitter almonds met her nostrils.</p> + +<p>Prussic acid! And the bottle had held enough to kill +ten men!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<p>In a wild fit of laughter that made the boy start, she +shook from head to foot.</p> + +<p>“Can’t you remember anything else about him?” she +gasped, at last.</p> + +<p>“Dirty cuffs,” said the boy doubtfully. “I saw ’em in +the lights when he passed the shop at the corner. Oh! +and blue things on them, on the one next me.”</p> + +<p>“Blue things! What like?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I dunno! They were blue. Studs, I guess. He +was awful ugly, and thin.”</p> + +<p>Ismay stopped short on the soaking pavement, and +whistled to a belated hansom.</p> + +<p>“Come on; we’re going to get that money!” she said, +and before the boy could object she had jerked him +adroitly into the cab.</p> + +<p>But as she gave the driver an address that made him +stare, her bold heart was quailing. In another hour she +might have given her own mother over to be hanged! +At best it would be touch and go. She caught the bootblack’s +dirty hand and clung to it despairingly, as if +to her only friend. Something not herself was driving +her; something she must obey. She shook in her terror, +sitting close to the dirty little boy.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">INTO THE LION’S MOUTH.</p> + + +<p>In the sickness of her suspense Ismay turned to the +bootblack. Her mouth was so stiff and dry that she +questioned him chiefly to see if her tongue would obey +her.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you go straight to the police and tell them +all you knew this afternoon? That man in the house +was only a servant, who didn’t care what you knew.”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t lucky,” he said cunningly. “It’s all right if +they comes to you, then you has to answer. But it’s +never no good to go and blow the gaff on any one. You +gets it in the neck after.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s nonsense,” with uneasy sharpness. What if +the child were right?</p> + +<p>“I never was in no cab before,” he remarked gaily. +“It’s fine, ain’t it? Where are we going?”</p> + +<p>“We’re nearly there.” She peered out into the silent, +dreary streets evasively.</p> + +<p>“I say, you’re not taking me to no refuge?” he cried +suspiciously. “Because I won’t go, and you can’t make +me. I earn my living, I do.”</p> + +<p>“No, we’re not going to—a refuge,” she answered, +with a pang at her heart. For truly she was going into +the lion’s mouth.</p> + +<p>They had turned under a stone archway, and the hansom +stopped at an open door, where the cold electric +light shone relentlessly.</p> + +<p>She dared not stop to pay the cab, for the boy, with +a yell, and a wild squirm, was trying to get away from +her.</p> + +<p>“I ain’t done nothing,” he screeched, “and you’re a +liar. You said you’d nothing to do with the coppers, +and you’ve brought me to Scotland Yard!”</p> + +<p>He bit at her hand as she forced him into the grim +hall, under the glaring lights.</p> + +<p>“Listen!” she cried; “no one’s going to hurt you. It’s +I they’ll hurt if it’s any one. You’re not going to get +anything but good.”</p> + +<p>But the bootblack merely roared and kicked. Two policemen, +who were standing by a door, came forward.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, miss?” one asked affably. “Has +he been picking your pocket? I beg your pardon, +madam!” for Ismay, without slackening her hold on the +writhing child, had looked at him as a queen looks at +a forward servant.</p> + +<p>“He has done nothing,” she said clearly. “Is the inspector +here, Mr. Davids?” she spoke on chance. Davids +had been inspector here four years ago. He might +have left or died since then.</p> + +<p>“Yes, madam. But——” he hesitated. “It’s very late, +and these things usually go to the police court.”</p> + +<p>“Go and tell him I want to see him.” The tone was +perfectly civil, but the man went as if he had been shot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +out of a gun. Who was this that came so late, in the +clothes of a working girl, with the speech and manner +of a duchess? But the inspector, sitting wearily, waiting +for a report, was not much interested. He was too +well used to women arriving at strange hours, and they +had generally lost their umbrellas.</p> + +<p>“Let her in,” he said resignedly. “Did you say she +was a lady?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>Ismay took her last coin from her pocket as the man +came out.</p> + +<p>“Pay my hansom,” she said, and heard the second policeman +laugh.</p> + +<p>“The like of them coming in hansoms!” And for a +moment she regretted her worn-out, ugly clothes.</p> + +<p>A lady! As the door closed behind her and the struggling +boy, who was fighting dumbly, too terrified to +scream, the inspector looked up in surprise. The girl +was as shabby, if not as ragged, as the boy.</p> + +<p>“Please tell him that he is not to be hurt, that he’s +safe,” she said quickly. “He’s so frightened.”</p> + +<p>The inspector looked from her to the child.</p> + +<p>“Then what have you brought him here for at this +hour?” he asked sternly.</p> + +<p>“Because he knows something about the Onslow +Square mystery.” Now that the die was cast and she +must speak, she could hardly drag out the words.</p> + +<p>“What! that child?” said the inspector incredulously. +But he rose and went over to the gasping, terrified boy, +and put a kindly hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“No one will hurt you,” he said, and the firm touch +of his hand quieted the child like magic.</p> + +<p>As he looked up he met Ismay’s eyes, darkly green, +but dull as malachite.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Davids, don’t you know me?” And in spite +of her quiet voice he saw she trembled.</p> + +<p>“I am Ismay Trelane. Do you remember the night +you raided my mother’s house in St. John’s Wood for a +gambling-den? I was a child, and afraid. You stopped +me as I was running out of the house, and you carried +me up-stairs to my bed.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p> + +<p>“Mrs. Trelane is your mother? You are that long-legged +child?” He stood, remembering the utter forlornness +of the little girl, her miserable bedroom in that +sumptuous house, her pride that kept her from crying +as she clung to him.</p> + +<p>“How do you come here?” he asked. “I heard your +mother had—had gone back to her relations.”</p> + +<p>The boy, now that they talked of other things, was +relieved; also that no policemen were in the room was +reassuring. He sat down in a frightened way on the +edge of a chair, staring at them.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to tell you.” Bravely she held up her +small, lovely head, till he wondered at her beauty and +her hard-held agony. “If I’m wrong, and there isn’t +enough to go on——” she caught her breath.</p> + +<p>“Sit down.” The inspector pushed a chair toward +her, his weariness all gone.</p> + +<p>Slowly, clearly, she told him everything, except that +Marcus Wray meant Sir Gaspard’s daughter to die. Let +her die; she would no longer raise a finger to save her. +It was not to prevent Wray’s crimes, but to bring them +home to him, that she was here.</p> + +<p>When she came to the scarab she faltered a little, +for Davids was frowning. Yet he could not wonder, +looking at her marvelous face, at Cylmer’s weakness +in giving her his secret. He only wondered at the +blindness that had made the man refuse to hear her story. +And still, when it was all done, he shook his head very +pitifully.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it isn’t enough,” he said, looking at the +girl who had come to London in despair to try and save +the mother against whom things looked so dark.</p> + +<p>Ismay pointed to the boy.</p> + +<p>“Ask him,” she said dully. “I went to Onslow +Square. I found him on the steps, crying because they +wouldn’t let him in.”</p> + +<p>The child, who had sat dumb and only half-comprehending, +shied at first, then, under the half-teasing questions +of the inspector, grew garrulous, then proud of +his importance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p> + +<p>“I’d know him fast enough, if I see him,” he observed +cheerfully. “He upset my box when he passed me, and +so I run after him, and I see him drop that bottle. It +was shiny, and I run and grabbed it.”</p> + +<p>“Or it would have been ground to powder?” the inspector +said musingly. “It would have been a clever +idea if it had worked better.”</p> + +<p>He held out the scarab in its broken setting.</p> + +<p>“Was the blue thing on his cuff like this?”</p> + +<p>“I dunno. I hadn’t time to see. Won’t it soon be +morning, mister? I’m awful hungry.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?” said Ismay, very low. +For there had been no change in that imperturbable face.</p> + +<p>Davids turned round from a cupboard, whence he +produced some biscuits for the boy, who fell on them +ravenously.</p> + +<p>“Where does this man Wray live?” he asked, and she +told him.</p> + +<p>He locked away the scarab and the bottle in silence, +and the girl’s beautiful face grew blank and wan. +Was he going to do nothing? Had she told her story +in vain?</p> + +<p>“I won’t hide anything from you, Miss Trelane,” he +said bluntly. “I’m going myself to Wray’s rooms, and +I must tell you if we find nothing there, and have only +this boy’s story to go on, the case against your mother +will scarcely be improved. The child can identify Wray, +perhaps, but he may be able to clear himself with the +greatest of ease.”</p> + +<p>Ismay looked at him blankly. Her head ached till +the pain numbed her, her excitement had gone, and instead +she felt sick. If she had told all, only for Cylmer +to triumph in her mother’s guilt, what should she +do? Yet her lips never quivered as she nodded in assent.</p> + +<p>“I am going to turn the key on you, too,” he said, so +evenly that she did not know whether he thought her +an impostor or not. “And you’d better try to sleep. I +may be a long time.”</p> + +<p>He wondered afresh at her courage as he left her alone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +with the boy, in a suspense that must be like the very +grasp of death. He was not too certain of her, either. +She seemed truthful, but she was Mrs. Trelane’s child. +A long acquaintance with that lady’s career did not lead +to confidence in her daughter. Hour by hour the night +wore on. The bootblack slept coiled up on the floor; +but Ismay sat bolt upright, wide-awake, her damp clothes +drying on her.</p> + +<p>Once she started to her feet at a noise outside. But +whoever it was passed on, and as the dark hour before +dawn hung on the earth her head fell backward +on the leather chair. The night was so long, the day so +far off yet, and there was nothing to tell her what the +sunrise would bring.</p> + +<p>Davids, coming in before the first gray light began +to make the lights pale, stopped on the threshold and +looked pitifully at the boy and girl. Both were asleep; +the boy with a tear-stained face; the girl like a lovely +marble image, an image of a woman who has drunk deep +of a bitter cup in her youth, and must remember the taste +of it till her dying day. The inspector was a hard man, +and this was his trade, but something in the sight touched +his heart.</p> + +<p>“Poor children!” he said softly. “Poor babes that +have never been young,” and, with a gentle hand, he +touched Ismay’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Wake up!” he cried softly. “You must catch the +early train back to the country. You can’t do any good +here.”</p> + +<p>She started to her feet; wan, haggard, with black rings +round her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Me alone?” she said. He noted approvingly that she +showed no symptom of screaming. “Yes, alone. It is +our only chance. Can you get into your room without +being seen?”</p> + +<p>“I think so, if there’s time.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes widened like a cat’s as she looked at his face. +She was awake now to the new day. And at what she +saw there she cried out aloud, her icy calm shattered at +last.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> + +<p>“You’ve been very brave. Can you be braver still?” +the man said slowly.</p> + +<p>And the girl, whose strength was nearly done, said +“yes.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!”</p> + + +<p>The conversation had been exciting enough, yet Mr. +Wray was bored.</p> + +<p>“Where is Ismay?” he asked shortly, as he finished +his very late breakfast.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>“She’s in bed. She told Jessie she wasn’t to be disturbed +till she rang.”</p> + +<p>Wray’s eyebrows went up. Truly, these were airs in +a girl who had been used to cooking her own breakfast, +and been glad to have it to cook.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go to her.” Mrs. Trelane rose quickly, reading +his face anxiously. She had watched him open his letters, +and she had seen annoyance in his face.</p> + +<p>“What do you want Ismay for?” Cristiane inquired +coquettishly.</p> + +<p>Wray suppressed a bad word. All the previous evening +Cristiane, whose successes had gone to her head, +had fairly flung herself at his head. She had sung to +him, talked to him, bored him, till he could have strangled +her. And now she was hammering the last few +nails into her coffin.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want her, especially,” he said coldly, wishing +the little fool would hold her tongue.</p> + +<p>Cristiane laughed.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what I think?” she asked. “I think +you are in love with her.”</p> + +<p>Under the table he shut one hand hard.</p> + +<p>“Do you? Why?</p> + +<p>“Ain’t people in love when they kneel down beside +a girl, and kiss her, once, twice, twenty times?” nodding +her head knowingly at each number.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> + +<p>Wray was for a moment taken back.</p> + +<p>So the little fool had seen him! Now she had begun +to suspect; the next thing she would begin to talk, +perhaps to Cylmer; and if he carried out his schemes +it would be with a light on them that would make them +plain to the world.</p> + +<p>Cristiane had signed her own death-warrant. She was +no longer innocent, but dangerous and in the way. To-night +she should be no longer one nor the other. He +looked at her with that frank gaze that always cloaked +his worst deceits.</p> + +<p>“When a man dare not ask for what he wants, because +it is so far above him, do you blame him for taking—what +he can get?” His voice, full of hopeless +longing, made the blood of triumph spring to her cheeks. +Here again she would defeat Ismay!</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, her eyes on the table-cloth. “You +could have—tried! You need not have kissed her,” pettishly, +“before my very eyes.”</p> + +<p>“Cristiane!” he was on his feet at her side, his voice +thrilling with simulated joy and passion; “you’re angry +because I kissed her? You care?”</p> + +<p>She did not care, beyond her vanity that was piqued, +but she was afraid to say so. Somehow the man dominated +her till she sat an arrant coward. She trembled +before his eyes, that were full of a passion that she +thought was love; she had no intuition to tell her that it +was hatred and the threat of death.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know!” she stammered.</p> + +<p>“You shall know!” he retorted, knowing better than +to plead with her. His hand, softly brutal, was under +her chin. “Kiss me,” he ordered. “Tell me you love +me.”</p> + +<p>Like a frightened child, she repeated the words, and +he knew she lied as she spoke. He was right, she was +dangerous; weak, obstinate, self-willed, with an utterly +unbridled tongue.</p> + +<p>“Kiss me,” he repeated, longing to choke her instead, +and having nothing but distaste for her peachlike cheek, +her parted lips. He was relieved that she sprang away +from him—and she never dreamed that he let her go.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p> + +<p>From the door she looked back provokingly. “Not +now—perhaps to-night!” and she went off singing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane heard her, as, having been in a hurry +despite her hasty retreat, she stood leisurely at Ismay’s +door. Her shrewd ears caught the excited note in the +girl’s voice.</p> + +<p>“He’s been making love to her,” she thought astutely.</p> + +<p>“Marcus making love at this hour in the morning! +Can he mean to go that way for his money, after all?” +She knocked, this time with earnestness, at Ismay’s +locked door. It opened on the instant.</p> + +<p>Ismay, dressed as usual, stood inside, her eyes a little +heavy, her face unnaturally flushed. She had got back +by the early train, driving from the station to the gate +in a fly, moneyless no longer, thanks to Davids; by +eight o’clock had gained her room, unseen by any one, +since the servants were at breakfast, and the rest of +the house waiting till half-past eight should bring their +tea and hot water.</p> + +<p>As the girl bathed and dressed herself it almost seemed +to her that it was a dream, that she could never have +been in London and got back again in those few hours +while the house slept. Only the instructions she had +from Davids told her it was no dream, but reality. At +the sight of her mother, for the first time in all her life +she flung her arms round her and kissed her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane gazed at her stupidly.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” she drawled. “Why do you +greet me as if I had been buried for years? This isn’t +the resurrection day.”</p> + +<p>Ismay smiled wickedly. It was more like the day of +judgment, to her mind.</p> + +<p>“What on earth have you been shutting yourself up +for?” Mrs. Trelane inquired crossly. “And why didn’t +you answer last night when there was all that fuss? You +must have heard me knocking.”</p> + +<p>“What fuss? I told you long ago I wouldn’t open +my door at night. I was tired, too. I wanted to rest.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t look as if repose had agreed with you,” +said her mother acidly. “Your face is blazing, and I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> +don’t see how you could rest with Cristiane screaming. +Don’t you want any breakfast?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had it,” shortly, curiosity overwhelming her. +“What was she screaming about?”</p> + +<p>“That ghost of yours and Thomas’,” she began contemptuously, +but her face fell. “It’s too queer to be +nice in this big house at night,” she added, closing the +door behind her and sitting down. “I don’t wonder +the girl screamed. I was frightened to death.”</p> + +<p>“My ghost couldn’t have frightened you last night!” +For her life, Ismay could not help the retort, but she was +puzzled. “What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Well, the ghost, then,” quite unconscious of the significance +of the girl’s manner. “You were shut up in +here, and I went to bed early. Marcus and Cristiane +stayed down-stairs——”</p> + +<p>“You left them together?” Ismay broke in with real +dismay, for Cristiane had probably profited by the opportunity +to air Ismay’s acquaintance with Cylmer.</p> + +<p>“I’m not Providence!” said the woman smartly; “and, +besides, I had neuralgia. At all events they sat up late, +and when they came up-stairs they heard that music. +Marcus, of course, didn’t know Cristiane had never heard +about it, and he told her Thomas’ nonsense about the +ghost.”</p> + +<p>“How did he know about it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I told him! I was frightened one night myself. +Ismay,” her face changing, “as sure as I see you this +minute, I heard those awful steps, coming closer and closer, +till I was paralyzed with fear. And, later on, Marcus +went up-stairs to see who was playing that piano, +and his candle went out the moment he entered the +room.”</p> + +<p>“I told you this wasn’t a nice house at night. But go +on. What happened last night?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Cristiane had hysterics—you must have heard +her; declared her father couldn’t rest in his grave, and +what not. She nearly choked Marcus holding on round +his neck, so that he couldn’t go up and see. I couldn’t +stop her, and up came Thomas, half-dressed, and Jessie,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +and altogether we got Cristiane to stop her shrieking.</p> + +<p>“Then Marcus ran up-stairs, and Thomas after him, +begging him to let the room alone. ‘There was a curse +on it.’”</p> + +<p>“Well, did he?” with sudden interest.</p> + +<p>“That’s the queer part. When he got up there the +door was locked, and Thomas said he hadn’t locked it. +Marcus was going to break open the door, and I thought +the old man would have killed him. He said that his +dead master’s orders were that no one was to enter that +room, and he was there to see them obeyed. Even Marcus +had to give in to him.”</p> + +<p>“Good for Thomas!” the girl observed quietly. “Was +the spirit playing all this time?”</p> + +<p>“No; it was quieter than the grave. So Marcus +shrugged his shoulders—you know how he does—and we +came down-stairs again. There wasn’t another sound +all night. But to-night he and Cristiane are going up +to investigate after Thomas is in bed. They planned +it at breakfast, and she’s going to get a key. I don’t +know what Marcus is up to, for I don’t think he believes +in ghosts. I suppose it will be a good opportunity +for flirtation, for lately I think he’s made up his mind +to marry her.”</p> + +<p>“To-night, are they?” For some unknown reason Miss +Trelane leaned back in her chair and laughed, wrinkling +up her eyes deliciously.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t think he’ll marry her,” she remarked. +“You forget he means to marry me.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane flushed under her powder.</p> + +<p>“How do you know?” she said, with sudden suspicion.</p> + +<p>“If I don’t know it’s not for want of hearing,” the +retort remarkably misleading in its truth.</p> + +<p>“Oh, mother, how I hate him, don’t you? He has +been our evil genius ever since Abbotsford was murdered.”</p> + +<p>“I hate him well enough,” said her mother sullenly; +“but I don’t want him to tell I took those diamonds. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> +could never prove myself innocent of the other, if it came +out that it was I who took those.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you are innocent. You haven’t blood enough +to sin—like that.”</p> + +<p>“Have you?” asked the woman, aghast, for the cold, +queer eyes were a thing to shudder at.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t murder; it’s generally so messy. But I +could stand by if I hated a man, and see him commit +a murder, just so that I might see him hanged for it. +And so,” very deliberately, “would you!”</p> + +<p>“Ismay, you know?” the wretched woman, whose cunning +had failed her, crouched abjectly in her chair, as +she whispered the words.</p> + +<p>“I know nothing; neither do you,” Ismay rejoined +sternly. “But he would—hang!” The words came out +slowly, separately, like the blows of a hammer.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t see it,” the woman was sobbing wildly, +the girl’s face set like a rock. “Besides, he’d tell before +he died—about the diamonds—it wouldn’t be safe. Ismay, +Ismay, you’re stronger than I ever was. For God’s +sake, save me from myself!”</p> + +<p>And it was the mother who bore her who was agonized +at her daughter’s feet, who prayed to her for help against +herself.</p> + +<p>“Save me from myself!” the girl repeated mechanically. +Was that her own prayer, too? She trembled, +and did not know.</p> + +<p>The next instant she was kneeling by her mother’s +chair.</p> + +<p>“Mother, don’t look like that; don’t speak like that,” +she implored, and even Miles Cylmer would not have +known the voice was hers. “I did not mean it. I only +said it from wickedness.”</p> + +<p>And all through that day that seemed unending, Ismay +Trelane, eating, drinking, talking, was fighting a +battle between the good and evil in her soul.</p> + +<p>Desperately, she thrust aside the importunate cry that +rose in her mind, bidding her kneel down and cry it +aloud with her lips.</p> + +<p>“Save me from myself!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> + +<p>Fiercely, she tried to kill the best impulse of her life, +and harden her heart for the end.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, dead, could never get Cylmer back again, +and Marcus Wray was doomed already.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“THE DEED IN THE DARK.”</p> + + +<p>The house was dark as the grave; quiet as death. +From somewhere a clock struck the hour with one solemn +stroke, that clanged and echoed through the silent +halls.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, lying sleepless in her bedroom, where she +had been sent like a beaten dog by one glance from +Wray, sprang up with causeless terror. Only the remembrance +of Ismay’s locked door kept her from running +to the girl for companionship, but she dared not +stand outside that door, even for one minute, and knock +in vain, with perhaps those awful steps behind her.</p> + +<p>Cowering in her pillows, she listened, but heard no +more. Even to herself she would not own that what +she feared was not so much the ghost, as what Marcus +Wray might be going to do this night in the dark. For +she had seen him look once at Cristiane that day, and +the look held death in it.</p> + +<p>Once, earlier in the night, she had fancied she heard +the noiseless tread of cautious feet, as though people +passed her door silently. She had looked out, then, and +seen nothing but Ismay, pale as death itself, standing +alone in the still lighted hall.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” the girl said. “Don’t say you +want me, because I’m going to bed,” and she went into +her room and locked the door carelessly, as though +death and retribution were left outside.</p> + +<p>There were quiet steps again now, but Mrs. Trelane’s +fingers were in her ears, and she never heard them.</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray and Cristiane had come up silently, he +with a light in one hand, the other round Cristiane’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> +waist, that terror might not make her break away from +him.</p> + +<p>Frightened she was, but like a child who enjoys a +game that startles it, but also a little afraid of the arm +that was so grimly protective. It was amusing to be +hunting ghosts at night with a man who was in love +with you; but it was also, somehow, disquieting.</p> + +<p>There was not a sound as they stood at the turn of +the stairs, with only half a dozen more steps to mount +to the hall the haunted room opened from. Wray +stopped, candle in hand. It was no ghost-hunting that +had brought him up here at the dead of night.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you go on?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>He kissed her, almost savagely.</p> + +<p>“I don’t hear anything. I’m waiting for the music.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m frightened of it! I don’t want to hear it. +Let us go down.” Their voices were echoing in the hall +above as in a whispering gallery.</p> + +<p>“Down!” The man held his candle aloft, and looked +down the well of the stairs. Down, down, it went till +his eye lost in the blackness the hard oak floor of the +great hall below. There was no one to see him, and +his face was the face of a devil. He set his candle on +the stair.</p> + +<p>“You can go down—presently,” he answered recklessly. +He took a sharp sideways step so that she was +pressed near the banister. Far below he saw the light +of a candle. Thomas was carrying it, the old man was +coming up-stairs. It was all the better; an accident, +without a witness, sometimes smelled of murder. How +slowly Thomas was mounting the stairs! If some one +in the hall above had seen Wray’s face, the glare in his +eyes, and caught their breath in swift horror, there might +have been precisely the little sound that reached Cristiane’s +ears.</p> + +<p>“What was that? I heard a noise,” she whispered, +gazing up the stairs with great, startled eyes.</p> + +<p>“Nothing!” said Wray furiously. Thomas was nearly +up now.</p> + +<p>“Cristiane!” Wray cried at the top of his voice: “what +are you doing up here? There’s no ghost, don’t run.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> +For God’s sake, take care of those banisters—they’re +rotten!” and with God’s name on his lips in the lie that +was to make Thomas a witness who would clear him, +he shoved her suddenly, savagely, against the banisters, +that were frail as reeds with dry rot.</p> + +<p>Cristiane screamed the long, wild cry of a woman in +the last pinch of fear.</p> + +<p>“Help me!” she shrieked again, and for one second +his grasp of her relaxed. She had fallen flat on the +stairs, still pressed against the banisters where they were +socketed in the steps.</p> + +<p>Wray put his shoulder against the rail; it cracked, +crashed, with half the uprights, down into the awful +depths below. Only half-against the splintered lower +part Cristiane lay huddled.</p> + +<p>With an inarticulate curse, Marcus Wray stooped to +do deliberate murder, to pick up the girl, whose only +sin was her wealth and her defenselessness. Thomas +was not come yet; there was no witness.</p> + +<p>But was there?</p> + +<p>Who was that who stood just above him, in a curious +white satin gown, marked with blood on the breast? +Who stood dead-white through her flimsy gauze veil, +her eyes burning like cold, green flames?</p> + +<p>He looked, he sprang, kicking over the candle so +that there was darkness. But in that one glance he had +known her. It was Ismay who had played the ghost. +Ismay who had seen him now! Beyond himself with +rage and terror, he leaped after her in the dark. In +the dark she ran, voiceless, weakened by the long strain +on her, the horror of what she had been within an ace +of allowing to be done.</p> + +<p>A square of moonlight marked the open door that +was her safety. She leaped to it, but Marcus Wray was +quicker still. Her flying dress caught round her feet as +he seized it. She fell headlong on the hard, oak threshold, +her head striking it with a dull and awful sound.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“HEAVENLY TRUE.”</p> + + +<p>Over that quiet body, that had been so quick to dare +and do, and need do neither any more, a furious struggle +in the dark, of three men against one, who saw himself +caught red-handed, and fought, not for his own life, +but to kill.</p> + +<p>Then lights in the haunted room, quiet only broken +by the hard breathing of panting men; Marcus Wray, +with handcuffs on his wrists, held fast by two policemen +in plain clothes, a small and dirty boy yelling with +excitement:</p> + +<p>“That’s him! That’s the man. I told you I’d know +him!”</p> + +<p>Thomas, haggard with frightened amazement, peering +in at the door; behind him Cristiane, crying desperately; +Mrs. Trelane in a sumptuous tea-gown, half-on, +that was incongruous with her face, so wan without its +rouge and powder.</p> + +<p>Davids, his hard face full of triumph, since the unraveling +of the Onslow Square mystery was a glory +even to him, stepped forward and touched Marcus Wray’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“For the murder of the Earl of Abbotsford,” he +said, and Wray laughed in his face.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no proofs!” he sneered.</p> + +<p>Davids drew out a broken cuff-link, a scarab from +which a thin chain dangled.</p> + +<p>“I found this in your rooms,” he said, “and the other +half of it one of my men found in Lord Abbotsford’s +bedroom. And this boy saw you go in and go out on the +day of Lord Abbotsford’s murder; saw the blue thing +on your cuff as you threw the bottle that had held the +poison into the middle of the traffic at the corner, to be +ground to powder.”</p> + +<p>Once more Wray laughed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> + +<p>He had seen a laden omnibus go over the very spot +where he had flung the bottle.</p> + +<p>“Powder, exactly!” he said. “And neither your boy +nor your scarabs are any use without that bottle.” +Yet the scarabs had staggered even him. He had forgotten +to take them out; they had gone to the wash in +his shirt, and his washerwoman had returned them +with tears, believing she had broken off one of them in +her ironing.</p> + +<p>And Wray, thinking so, too, had never given the missing +scarab another thought. The whole link and the +broken one had been lying openly on his dressing-table +last night when the inspector had broken into his rooms.</p> + +<p>He had never thought of Abbotsford even when he +fought so madly on the threshold. It was that these men +had seen his attempted murder of Cristiane le Marchant +that had made his case so desperate.</p> + +<p>Davids glanced at him, and at the look his lips grew +dry.</p> + +<p>“I have the bottle,” the inspector said simply. “The +boy kept it to play with.”</p> + +<p>Wray looked from one to the other, like a devil incarnate +that is beaten.</p> + +<p>“May I ask you how you found out this rot?” He +could not speak with the old voice, but he tried.</p> + +<p>“I found it out because a girl was too shrewd and +brave for you. Miss Trelane, by a coincidence, obtained +that broken cuff-link; she knew the hold the stolen +diamonds had given you on her mother; she came +to London by chance, came on the only night since the +murder when she could lay her hands on the evidence +that was wanted; she found the boy, and brought him +straight to me, with the broken bit of jewelry that I +found the other half of in your room.”</p> + +<p>“She? Ismay!” His oath sounded loud in the quiet +room. “She was a spy! Well, it’s a comfort to me to +know that I’ve killed her!”</p> + +<p>He stretched out his manacled hands and pointed +where the girl lay on the floor, face down.</p> + +<p>No one had noticed her at first. She had tripped and +lay still, worn out—that was all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p> + +<p>But they looked now on a huddled heap of white satin, +on slow blood that oozed scarlet from her hidden forehead.</p> + +<p>Cristiane screamed from the depths of a penitent soul:</p> + +<p>“She’s dead! He’s killed her. And it was she who +saved me just now. He was trying to push me through +the banisters, and I looked up and saw her. She motioned +with her hand for me to drop down flat, and I +did. It saved me, for the upper part of the banisters +went, as I would have gone if I’d been standing. I +thought it was the ghost, but I saw her eyes, and I knew +her. I dropped as she meant me to, and then he stooped +to throw me over, and she sprang at him from behind. +Oh! Ismay!” she threw herself on the floor by the slight +figure that was so awful in its stillness. “Ismay, look +up! Forgive me! Don’t lie like that!”</p> + +<p>But Ismay did not stir.</p> + +<p>Davids put out a hand that shook in his dread, to draw +Cristiane away.</p> + +<p>But some one was quicker than he; some one who +hurled himself through the doorway, brushing past +Thomas and Mrs. Trelane as if he did not see them.</p> + +<p>Cylmer, by merest chance, had been hunting twenty +miles off, doing his best to forget the girl he loved, had +stayed to dine with a noisy party, and came back by +train.</p> + +<p>As he stood on the station platform, waiting for his +dog-cart, a man had touched him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Kivers!” he cried. “What brings you here?”</p> + +<p>“Good news for you, Mr. Cylmer!” the man said +softly, though there was no one in hearing. “The inspector +has discovered Lord Abbotsford’s murderer. He +and three of the force are at Marchant’s Hold now. I’m +waiting here, in case there’s any accidents, and they +make a run for the station.”</p> + +<p>“They! Marchant’s Hold!” Cylmer was sick. Then +the blow had fallen!</p> + +<p>“I’m going there,” he said, through set lips. Was he +too late? Could he carry off Ismay, or would he find +her with handcuffs on her wrists?</p> + +<p>“Wait; they won’t let you in; our men won’t know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +you.” Kivers thrust a hastily scrawled card in Cylmer’s +hand, wondering not at all at his excitement, when +at last the murderer of his friend was in his hands.</p> + +<p>But the groom on the back of the two-wheeled cart +prayed to the saints, and clung for his life; the galloping +horse, the swaying dog-cart, and a master who had +suddenly gone crazy, were too much for him. The wind +whistled past Cylmer’s ears with the speed of his going, +but it seemed years before he stopped his reeking, blown +horse at Marchant’s Hold. He was forced to wait while +a policeman on guard read Kivers’ note and let him into +the house.</p> + +<p>But there was not a soul to be seen, not a sound anywhere. +As he listened in the dark, not knowing which +way to turn, he heard a woman sob, up-stairs, far above +him. He was up three steps at a time, lost in wonder +as he ran. What in Heaven’s name were they doing in +the garret?</p> + +<p>An open door; a lighted room; Mrs. Trelane and +Thomas barring the way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trelane, free, scathless!</p> + +<p>Then it must be Ismay—Ismay! And he was too late.</p> + +<p>He could not move nor speak for the cruel pain that +brought the cold sweat on his forehead.</p> + +<p>“Ismay.” He listened, silent, breathless; he dared +not go in lest he should see her, now that he was too +late.</p> + +<p>Davids’ voice, cold, incisive, startled him; then Wray’s. +Yet it was not till Cristiane was kneeling by Ismay that +he saw her. And then he saw nothing else. He was +down by her side, lifting her, her blood on his hands, +his heart craving her. The girl his self-righteousness +had rejected, who, because he would not hear her and +help her, had fought her battle alone—to die from it.</p> + +<p>He would not, would not have it! She was stunned; it +must be that she was stunned. But the heart under his +hand did not even flicker.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to let her die here?” he cried. “Move, +Cristiane; let me carry her to her bed. You are her +mother”—turning fiercely on Mrs. Trelane—“send some +one for a doctor!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span></p> + +<p>Tenderly, jealously, he lifted her, whom no other hands +should touch. And as he carried her her lovely head +fell backward on his arm, her hands hung at his side, +swaying like a dead woman’s.</p> + +<p>Masterfully, as one who has a right, he sponged the +blood from her face, when she lay on her bed in her +fantastic dress. There was but a simple cut on her +forehead—not enough to make her unconscious.</p> + +<p>“Why is she dressed like this?” he said sternly to +Mrs. Trelane, who stood, dazed and helpless, not even +wondering why he was there.</p> + +<p>“The house was said to be haunted. She played the +ghost to overhear Marcus at night talking to me. She +played it to-night to save Cristiane, and to get Marcus +up to the room where the police waited for him,” for +the inspector had spoken brutal truths to her, and at +last she knew what the girl had done for her sake.</p> + +<p>She drew the bloody scarf from Ismay’s head, and +Cylmer could see. Under her left ear was a bruise—only +a little bruise; yet he groaned as he saw it. Wray, +as she tripped, had struck her there, as a prize-fighter +strikes, with the deadly accuracy of knowledge. No one +should have her if he could not.</p> + +<p>It was a man hopeless and helpless whom the doctor +sent from the room, for it was he who had done it. +If he had heard her out that day she would even now +be warm with life.</p> + +<p>Mechanically, he found his way to the empty drawing-room, +where one lamp burned, forgotten.</p> + +<p>In the house were noises of many feet, as Davids and +his men took away Marcus Wray with handcuffs on his +wrists; a going to and fro of frightened servants on +the staircases; then the hush of a house where a soul is +passing. But Miles Cylmer knew none of these things.</p> + +<p>He was down upon his face in very hell.</p> + +<p>If it were he, not she, who must die! How should +he rise and look upon the day when they came to tell +him his love was dead?</p> + +<p>How should he live, when in a few days they would +commit her sweet body to the dust?</p> + +<p>As though tears of blood were rising from his heart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> +to his eyes the man looked into a red mist as some one +came into the room, and he sat up.</p> + +<p>It was the doctor.</p> + +<p>“Well?” It was all Cylmer could say.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” His voice changed suddenly to +deepest pity at the haggard face before him, livid as if +with years. “My dear Cylmer, I don’t know. She is +alive; but the blow must have been a cruel one. She +may live for days in a stupor, as she lies now.”</p> + +<p>“And then?”</p> + +<p>“She is young and strong. She may have vitality +enough——” But he could not finish. He knew that +in all human probability the candle of her life would burn +lower and lower, till scarcely even he would know when +it was burned away.</p> + +<p>“Can I go to her? I was going to marry her.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer’s voice was perfectly steady as he rose, a +strange figure in his overcoat, that he had never taken +off, a scarlet stain on its fawn-colored sleeve.</p> + +<p>The doctor nodded.</p> + +<p>“She won’t know you, Cylmer—she has never opened +her eyes; but she breathes still. I’ll be here till morning.”</p> + +<p>“Breathes still.” The gentle words rang in Cylmer’s +ears as he went up-stairs. But yesterday she had been +all his own; to-day all that pity could find to say was +that.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">“AND WHO IS THIS?”</p> + + +<p>For a day and a night he watched her as she lay. +Sometimes he leaned over her in sudden fright that she +had ceased to breathe; sometimes he fancied she stirred, +that her eyelids quivered. But neither the good nor the +bad was true. The slow hours came and passed and died, +and there was no change on that quiet face.</p> + +<p>Cylmer turned away as the nurse approached the bed, +bearing wine and a spoon. He hated that useless cruelty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> +of trying to feed her. It sickened him to see the +things they gave her ooze from the corners of her lips.</p> + +<p>He stood leaning by the window and watched with +listless inattention a carriage driving to the door. Curious +visitors came by the score, to be turned away. Cristiane +had no heart to see them; Mrs. Trelane, with the +prospect of going into court to account for those stolen +diamonds before her, would face no one.</p> + +<p>A quick, cautious cry from the nurse made Cylmer +turn. With two strides he was at the bedside. Had Ismay +gone—passed from him without a word, while he +looked out on the sky whose glory was gone forever?</p> + +<p>“She’s not——”</p> + +<p>“Quick! Go tell the doctor to come here! He’s down-stairs +with the specialist from London. She swallowed +that champagne.”</p> + +<p>Before the woman could lay down the spoon Cylmer +was back, with the two men at his heels.</p> + +<p>Ismay turned on her side, moaned. Slowly, very slowly, +her eyes opened, then shut again, seeing nothing.</p> + +<p>“Ismay! Is she—dying?” his tongue cleaving to his +mouth.</p> + +<p>The little doctor laid a hand on Cylmer’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Dying! No; she’s saved.” For with a steady hand +the nurse was putting more wine to the lips that closed +now on the spoon.</p> + +<p>With a little sigh Ismay Trelane opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>The shock in her brain had made her forget all recent +things—Marcus Wray, Davids, her quarrel with Cylmer, +were all gone from her mind, as a slate is sponged off. +All she saw was the man she loved bending over her, +holding her hands.</p> + +<p>With a heavenly smile of rest and peace she smiled +at him.</p> + +<p>“Miles,” she whispered. “My Miles!”</p> + +<p>“Lie still, my heart! I’m here,” he answered simply.</p> + +<p>“Hold my hand,” she sighed, and closed her eyes happily, +in a sleep that was sweet and natural.</p> + +<p>And, kneeling by her bed, he held that hand he loved, +till with the hours he, too, slept.</p> + +<p>When she woke again it was he who fed her, and then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +and not till then, he went away, cramped and stiff, but +happy as he had not been in his life.</p> + +<p>As he washed and dressed himself in the clothes that +had come for him from Cylmer’s Ferry, he heard a whispered +conversation at his door, then a knock that made +him leap to open it. Was Ismay worse?</p> + +<p>But it was not Ismay.</p> + +<p>A man stood on the threshold—two men.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bolton, the lawyer, and another—bearded, thin, but +hale and strong. And yet Cylmer could not believe his +senses. Had his long watching made him see visions?</p> + +<p>“Gaspard!” he cried, wondering who this man could +be that was so like the man that was in his grave. “Not +Gaspard—but who?”</p> + +<p>“It’s I, fast enough,” the man answered simply. “Let +us in. I only got to England to-day.”</p> + +<p>“To England?” Cylmer started foolishly. “But——”</p> + +<p>“But I was never killed, and never buried. I had lent +my coat to a Frenchman, and they buried what was left +of him for me. I came to myself and wandered away, +quite cracked. When I woke up I was in bed in a cottage, +and a woman was looking after me. I didn’t know +my own name, even, and I was in hideous pain.</p> + +<p>“I lay like that for I don’t know how long. When I +came to myself they told me I was in the lodge of the +country-house of the Duke of Tours, and that he, on +hearing a man was ill there, had sent his doctor from +Paris. He had done an operation that meant kill or cure, +and it was cure.”</p> + +<p>“But Bolton told me you were dying of heart-disease?”</p> + +<p>“So my doctors thought, but this one was young and +very clever. He thought it was something else, and it +was. He cut it away. That’s all.” He smiled in Cylmer’s +puzzled face.</p> + +<p>“But the railway people. How was it they didn’t +know?”</p> + +<p>Sir Gaspard laughed out.</p> + +<p>“You’re very anxious I should be an impostor. Did +you wish to marry my heiress?” he cried cheerfully. +“There was no mark or wound on me; the woman never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> +connected me with the accident to the train, nor did +any one, till I was recovered and able to tell them. It +was all so simple that no one ever thought of it.”</p> + +<p>“You never wrote,” wonderingly.</p> + +<p>“No! I couldn’t have waited for the answer. When +I was fit to write I was fit to travel, so I came straight +to Bolton, here, and he told me things that brought me +home on the double-quick. It’s all too awful. And to +think it was that will I made that was such a pitfall! +Will that poor child die?”</p> + +<p>“No.” Cylmer put down the hair-brush he had all +the time been holding. “Thank God, no!” he said slowly. +“For I am going to marry her.”</p> + +<p>“Marry her.” It took all Sir Gaspard could do not +to exclaim in amazement. “Marry the daughter of a +woman not yet out of suspicion of murder, with the +theft of the diamonds on her to a certainty!”</p> + +<p>Cylmer nodded.</p> + +<p>“Wait. I’ll tell you all,” he said, and Sir Gaspard +listened in wonder. “Marry her,” he had said, as though +she were a leper, and but for her Cristiane would be +cold in her grave. He stretched out his hand and took +Cylmer’s in a clasp of gratitude, without a spoken word.</p> + +<p>“Have you seen Cristiane?” For the first time Cylmer +thought of her.</p> + +<p>Sir Gaspard smiled.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you hear us in the passage?” he asked. “I +only persuaded her to leave me for ten minutes by saying +that you were certain to come to the door half-dressed. +She’s wild with joy; she can hardly believe +in me yet.”</p> + +<p>“She missed you.” And if the tone was dry Sir Gaspard +did not notice it. Not yet could Mr. Cylmer bear +any good-will to Cristiane.</p> + +<p>Only one thing troubled Cylmer now. With Sir Gaspard’s +return things were smoothed out, indeed, all but +this. It hung over him more and more heavily as Ismay +grew better, and at last could talk to him.</p> + +<p>Those stolen diamonds that could not be explained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> +away! His mind was full of them as he sat with Ismay +alone in her sitting-room. But he kept his trouble +off his lips, and talked of other things that he might +not see it reflected in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“You never asked me how I managed the ghost-music,” +she said suddenly, with her old, lovely smile, that +was so much more wistful than of old.</p> + +<p>“No. How did you? For it played of itself before +you meddled with it, Thomas says.”</p> + +<p>“I went up one night to see, and I was frightened out +of my life, at first. And then I found out. There was +a spring—just a simple little spring—so light that the +weight of a rat on it could set the thing going. And +there were plenty of rats there. It was just an ordinary +old-fashioned spinet till the spring touched the +mechanism, then it played of itself. While it was playing +like that you could not sound a note on it. Afterward, +when the tune was done, you could play. I made +a dress like the ghost’s, or the picture that was supposed +to be the ghost’s, so that if any one met me in the passages +they would scream and run. And I found out +he meant to murder Cristiane while I was behind the +library door.”</p> + +<p>“Did you know Wray made Sir Gaspard’s will?”</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>“I heard him say so.”</p> + +<p>“And for fear it should go wrong he forged another,” +Cylmer went on. “Don’t look sad, darling. He deserves +everything.”</p> + +<p>But she shivered.</p> + +<p>“It has all been such a nightmare. I wish I had had +no hand in it. Miles, can you truly love a girl like me?” +She was earnest, pale, as she looked at him.</p> + +<p>He kissed the hand that was in his, where a new ring +shone.</p> + +<p>“Who nearly gave her life twice for another’s,” he said, +with adoration.</p> + +<p>“I liked her, in a way. Till she told you things.”</p> + +<p>She hid her face on his arm. “Miles, do you know I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> +meant to let her die the last time? You were my world—she +had taken you from me.”</p> + +<p>“You never meant it, my heart,” he whispered. “You +only thought so.”</p> + +<p>“And I stole that card of yours, so that you might come +to me.”</p> + +<p>Cylmer lifted the head that lay so low, and looked +straight into her shamed eyes.</p> + +<p>“Do you think a hundred cards would have mattered, +if I had loved her?” he demanded. “You were mine, +and I was yours, from the first hour, though I was too +blind to know.”</p> + +<p>“But I meant when I left you to live——” He stopped +her words on her lips.</p> + +<p>“Let me forget—that day!” he begged, “for it was +I who was to blame. If you had slipped from me your +life would have been on my head.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a curious pride.</p> + +<p>“Miles,” she said slowly, “I am my mother’s daughter +still, and there are the diamonds!”</p> + +<p>The man caught her close and hard.</p> + +<p>“If they were all the world it would not matter,” he +said stoutly. “If I had only seen you and passed by,” +his voice full of love, of reverence, “I should be proud +of having once seen you, my witch that was so true.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">THE DIAMONDS.</p> + + +<p>“If you owed him no ill-will, why did you steal those +diamonds?”</p> + +<p>The court-room was crowded, packed with idle people +come to see a man tried for his life.</p> + +<p>It was more exciting than a theater, for the drama +was real.</p> + +<p>Among them were perhaps a dozen people who sickened +at the hideous scene. Sir Gaspard, Mr. Bolton,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> +Cylmer—turned away from the man in the dock as his +crimes were brought before him. Utterly hopeless, he +was venomous still. Not a question that could humiliate +Helen Trelane had his counsel spared her. Cylmer wondered +at her courage as she stood in the witness-stand. +Pale, perfectly dressed, she stood unmoved, as the question +of the diamonds was asked.</p> + +<p>Neither Ismay nor Cristiane were there, and Cylmer +was thankful. At least they would not see the spectacle +of a woman shamed before the world.</p> + +<p>He started at the sound of Mrs. Trelane’s voice, as she +answered the question, her words distinct in the close +hush.</p> + +<p>“I took them,” she said softly, “because they were +mine! He sent for me to give them to me. This note”—taking +it from her pocket—“was on the table.”</p> + +<p>There was absolute silence in court while the few lines +were read aloud:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Helen</span>: I can’t forget last night. Will you +take these and wear them or sell them, as you like, in +memory of our friendship. Yours faithfully,</p> + +<p class="sig"> +“<span class="smcap">Abbotsford</span>. +</p> + +<p>“P. S.—I wrote this, meaning to send the diamonds, +but I have let it stand, even now that you are coming +to see me. You know I never was much good at talking, +and I might not get it said.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Why did you not produce this at the time?” Wray’s +counsel asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Because I was afraid! I thought I could not clear +myself of the murder,” she answered simply.</p> + +<p>Turning, she met the eyes of the prisoner at the bar, +and for all his desperate straits he smiled with understanding. +She was Helen Trelane still, adventuress to +the bone. He knew quite well that she had stolen that +note.</p> + +<p>He had stuffed it into his pocket that day at Abbotsford’s, +and had not burned it for the pure pleasure of +having in his hands the proof that she was really not +guilty; afterward, when Sir Gaspard’s will had delivered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +her into his hands, he had kept it still, so that when all +was done and Ismay was his he could bring it out and +laugh in their faces. But he dared not say so now. It +would only make his case more black, his conduct more +cold-blooded. And he could not see how she had obtained +it; so that his bare word would go for nothing. +She had outwitted him, and he made her a slight ironical +sign of admiration with his eyes.</p> + +<p>And yet it was simple enough.</p> + +<p>When Davids and his men searched Wray’s room at +Marchant’s Hold, they had never thought of a black +frock coat that the housemaid had taken to replace a +button. When he was gone the girl had taken it to +Mrs. Trelane, and she had flung it on her bed with loathing, +since it was his. When the girl was gone she picked +it up gingerly, to feel something in the pocket, and so +she found her salvation. She had avoided people after +that, not from terror, but to laugh at them in her sleeve.</p> + +<p>And in the very face of the man who knew the note +was stolen, she left the witness-stand without a stain. +He cared but little. He was defeated, his case hopeless, +and he was weary of the court, the curious faces. Since +it must all come out, it should come of his own free +will.</p> + +<p>His counsel gasped as the prisoner leaned forward +and asked leave of the judge to make a statement.</p> + +<p>“My lord,” he began; he looked about him listlessly, +as if he had very little interest in his own words, “we +have been here a long time, and I for one am weary. +The facts are these: I had lived on Abbotsford for +years, call it chantage, if you like. I lived on him. It +was said he hated women; he had reason. He had been +trapped into a marriage with a woman who was the worst +of her sex. She was married already, but no one knew +that but I, for she was my wife.” His insolent, deliberate +voice paused an instant. “I was his best man, and the +only witness of his marriage with a woman whose very +existence disgraced him. He paid me to hold my tongue. +But I drove him too far. He found the whole thing out. +He had supported my wife for years, since he was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> +mere boy, and he had paid me to keep the marriage that +was no marriage a secret, and he threatened to expose +me. I should have been ruined at the bar and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>“I went to see him on the day his engagement was +announced. On the way I bought a bottle of prussic +acid. If he gave me his word not to expose me, well +and good! If not”—he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, +I was stronger than he. To knock him down and pour +the prussic acid in his mouth would not be hard. But I +had no need.</p> + +<p>“I found him lying on his sofa, ill, but quite obstinate. +That very night should see me a marked and disgraced +man; his letters were written. And then he +asked me—me to hand him something that was poured +out ready in a glass, because his throat was sore! I did, +but first I poured in what was in my bottle. He drank +a mere mouthful. Then he threw down the glass and +tried to call. But that time was over.</p> + +<p>“I laid him back on the sofa, as if he slept, and I had +barely time to hide in the bedroom when that lady there”—looking +at Mrs. Trelane—“came in and found Lord +Abbotsford dead. The rest you know, even to the jewels +that were her own! I trust, my lord, that the case is +done, and that the ladies and gentlemen who have honored +the court”—with an ironical bow—“have not found +the entertainment more dull than they expected.”</p> + +<p>A little rustle ran through the court. Never had there +been so extraordinary an ending to a trial for murder. +A man who let his life go because he was weary of the +tedious defense of it! Not even the judge could find +voice for an instant. And then some one screamed.</p> + +<p>Marcus Wray had fallen in the dock like a slaughtered +ox.</p> + +<p>“A fit! Poison!” Every soul there gasped out one +word or the other.</p> + +<p>But it was neither. The long strain, the sudden effort +of cool courage had ruptured a blood-vessel in his brain. +As he fell, so he lay; as he lay, so he died; never speaking +or moving again. The case for the defense was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> +closed. The luck of Marcus Wray had stuck by him to +the end.</p> + +<p>Ismay clung in silence to Cylmer when he told her. +When she lifted her face it was wet.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad, oh, glad!” she sobbed. “When I thought +I had brought him to it, that it was through me he must +be hanged, I didn’t tell you, but I thought it would drive +me mad.”</p> + +<p>“Forget it, sweet. Blot it out from your mind,” was +all he could find to say. “We will never speak of it +again.”</p> + +<p>“There’s one thing first. The boy! I promised him +money, and I have none.”</p> + +<p>“You!” he laughed. “You have fifteen thousand +pounds a year, all I own. You shall have the boy taught +a trade, and set him up in it. I have seen about it already!” +He looked keenly at her face, that was too pale, +too weary.</p> + +<p>“Ismay,” he said quietly, “I am going to marry you +in three weeks, as soon as things can be arranged, and +take you away to travel. Can you bear that prospect? +I’ve never known you go to church. Will you come—once—with +me?”</p> + +<p>The color flooded her face.</p> + +<p>“To marry you, do you mean?” She clung to him. +Ismay, who had relied on herself alone. “Yes; but, +Miles, listen. I don’t want any wedding, and I won’t +wear a white gown. The only white gown I ever owned +had a blood-stain on it, and I can’t forget it—yet.”</p> + +<p>“As you like, my sweet.” And the touch of his lips on +her forehead was full of understanding.</p> + +<p>They were married as she wished, quietly, Sir Gaspard +giving away the bride, and portioning her with +generosity born of his great gratitude. It was two years +before Miles Cylmer and Ismay came home to Cylmer’s +Ferry, two years that Mrs. Trelane spent gaily, having +five hundred a year allowed her by the baronet, and living +where she liked.</p> + +<p>Cristiane, sobered and steadied, lived with her father, +and he had his wish of taking her to London, and seeing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> +her marry a man who preferred her before any green-eyed +Circe in the world.</p> + +<p>To do her justice, Sir Gaspard never heard of that +stolen card, only of Ismay’s protection and bravery in +the tragic chapters of her life. And there is no cynicism +now in the lines of Ismay Cylmer’s beautiful face. The +love that nearly was her doom has been her saving grace.</p> + + +<p class="p2 center">THE END.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<table class="back"> +<tr><td class="medium tdl"> +EAGLE SERIES +</td> +<td class="small tdc"> +A weekly publication devoted to good literature.<br> +December 10, 1907.</td> +<td class="medium tdr"> +No. 550 +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<h2>STREET & SMITH are now the<br> +Owners of all<br> +<span class="large">CHARLES GARVICE’S</span><br> +COPYRIGHTED NOVELS<br> +</h2> +</div> + + +<figure class="figleft illowe5" id="i2"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i2.jpg" alt="W"> +</figure><p class="medium">E do not need to tell any of our +patrons how popular the works +of Charles Garvice are because +his name is a byword wherever +first-class novels are read and +appreciated. We are pleased, therefore, to +announce the purchase of the plates of the +only twenty-five copyrighted stories by him +that we did not have.</p> + +<p class="medium">This purchase makes Street & Smith the +sole owners and publishers of all of this +celebrated author’s copyrighted stories. This +only emphasizes what has always been a +patent fact—that Street & Smith are the +most progressive paper-book publishers in +the world, and that nowhere can the novel +reader get so much for his or her money as +in the S. & S. lines.</p> + + +<p class="center large"><b> +STREET & SMITH, Publishers<br> +New York +</b></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="transnote"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes:</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected (sometimes in +consultation with the original 1898-1899 serial appearance in <i>Street & +Smith’s New York Weekly</i> to ensure accuracy to the author's intent).</p> + +<p>Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by +the transcriber.</p> + +<p>Inconsistent hyphenation of upstairs vs. up-stairs is preserved from the original text. +</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76981 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76981-h/images/cover.jpg b/76981-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..effdf59 --- /dev/null +++ b/76981-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76981-h/images/i1.jpg b/76981-h/images/i1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6511fb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/76981-h/images/i1.jpg diff --git a/76981-h/images/i2.jpg b/76981-h/images/i2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..96f4ff6 --- /dev/null +++ b/76981-h/images/i2.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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