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+Project Gutenberg's The Castle Of The Shadows, by Alice Muriel Williamson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Castle Of The Shadows
+
+Author: Alice Muriel Williamson
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2006 [EBook #19901]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Suzanne Shell, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Some changes have been made to correct typographical errors and
+inconsistencies.
+
+The author's use of a mixture of US and UK English spelling has been
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Book cover]
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS
+
+
+
+
+  Books by
+  C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON
+
+  THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR
+  THE PRINCESS PASSES
+  MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
+  LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
+  ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
+  MY LADY CINDERELLA
+  THE CAR OF DESTINY
+  THE CHAPERON
+  THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA
+  SET IN SILVER
+    ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+            The
+    Castle of the Shadows
+            By
+    MRS. C. N. WILLIAMSON
+
+ [Illustration: Doubleday logo]
+
+         New York
+  Doubleday, Page & Company
+           1909
+
+
+
+
+   AUTHORIZED EDITION
+  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
+
+
+
+
+          TO
+   A GOOD MARCHESE
+    THIS STORY OF
+  A WICKED MARCHESE
+
+
+
+
+        CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                               PAGE
+     I. Where Dreamland Began             3
+    II. The Story Told by Two            31
+   III. A Mystery and a Bargain          61
+    IV. The Closed Door                  84
+     V. The Lady on the Verandah        108
+    VI. The End of the World            134
+   VII. The Gates Open                  158
+  VIII. Number 1280                     178
+    IX. A Cry Across the Water          201
+     X. "Once on Board the Lugger"      224
+    XI. Virginia's Great Moment         248
+   XII. Stand and Deliver!              270
+  XIII. The Game of Bluff               294
+
+
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS
+
+
+
+
+The Castle of the Shadows
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHERE DREAMLAND BEGAN
+
+
+According to the calendar it was winter; but between Mentone and the
+frontier town of Ventimiglia, on the white road inlaid like a strip of
+ivory on dark rocks above the sapphire of the Mediterranean, it was
+fierce summer in the sunshine. A girl riding between two men, reined in
+her chestnut mare at a cross-road which led into the jade-green twilight
+of an olive grove. The men pulled up their horses also, and all three
+came to a sudden halt at a bridge flung across a swift but shallow river,
+whose stony bed cleft the valley.
+
+The afternoon sunshine poured down upon them, burnishing the coils of the
+girl's hair to gold, and giving a dazzling brilliancy to a complexion
+which for twenty years to come need not fear the light of day. She was
+gazing up the valley shut in on either side with thickly wooded hills,
+their rugged heads still gilded, their shoulders already half in shadow;
+but the eyes of the men rested only upon her. One was English, the other
+Italian; and it was the Italian whose look devoured her beauty, moving
+hungrily from the shining tendrils of gold that curled at the back of her
+white neck, up to the small pink ear almost hidden with a thick, rippling
+wave of hair; so to the piquant profile which to those who loved Virginia
+Beverly, was dearer than cold perfection.
+
+"Oh, the olive woods!" she exclaimed. "How sweet they are! See the way
+the sunshine touches the old, gnarled trunks, and what a lovely light
+filters through the leaves. One never sees it anywhere except in an olive
+grove. I should like to live in one."
+
+"Well, why not?" laughed the Englishman. "What prevents you from buying
+two or three? But you would soon tire of them, my child, as you do of
+everything as soon as it belongs to you."
+
+"That's not fair," replied the girl. "Besides, if it were, who has helped
+to spoil me? I _will_ buy an olive grove, and you shall see if I tire of
+it. Come, let's ride up the valley, and find out if there are any for
+sale. It looks heavenly cool after this heat."
+
+"You'll soon discover that it's too cool," said the Italian, in perfect
+English. "The sun is only in these valleys for a few hours, and it's gone
+for the day now. Besides, there's nothing interesting here. One sees the
+best from where we stand."
+
+Virginia Beverly turned her eyes upon him, and let them dwell on his face
+questioningly. "Of course, you must know every inch of this country," she
+said, "as you used to live just across the Italian border."
+
+For once he did not answer her look. "I haven't spent much time here for
+several years. Paris has absorbed me," he said evasively. "One forgets a
+good deal; but if you want to see a really charming valley, we had better
+go farther on. Then I think I can show you one."
+
+Virginia's pretty brows, which were many shades darker than her hair,
+drew together. "But I don't want to go farther," she said. "And I like
+this valley."
+
+"Spoilt child!" ejaculated the Englishman, who claimed rights of
+cousinship, though by birth Virginia was American.
+
+At that moment two members of the riding party, who had contrived to be
+left behind, came leisurely up. One was a very handsome, dark woman, who
+succeeded in looking not more than thirty, the other a young man of
+twenty-five, enough like Virginia to suggest that they were brother and
+sister.
+
+"What are you stopping for?" inquired Lady Gardiner, who would not have
+been sorry to keep her friends in advance.
+
+"Waiting for you," said Virginia promptly. "I want to explore this
+valley."
+
+As she spoke she gave her mare a little pat on the velvety neck. The
+animal, which was Virginia's own, brought from her namesake state, had
+never known the touch of the whip, but understood the language of hand
+and voice. She went off at a trot up the shadowed road; and the Marchese
+Loria was the first to follow. But he bit his lip under the black
+moustache, pointed in military fashion at the ends, and appeared more
+annoyed than he need because a pretty girl had insisted upon having her
+own way.
+
+It was not yet cold, as he had prophesied, but it was many degrees cooler
+than in the sunshine; and as they rode on the valley narrowed, the soft
+darkness of the olive grove closing in the white road that overhung the
+rock-bed of the river.
+
+The hills rose higher, shutting out the day, and there was a brooding
+silence, only intensified by the hushed whisper of the water among its
+pebbles.
+
+The shoulders of the heights were losing their gold glitter now; and
+Virginia had a curious sensation of leaving reality behind and entering a
+mysterious dreamland.
+
+For a long time they rode without speaking. Then Virginia broke the spell
+of constraint which had fallen upon them.
+
+"Where are the persons who gather the olives?" she asked of the Italian,
+who rode almost sullenly beside her.
+
+"This isn't the time of year for that," he replied, more abruptly than
+was his custom in speaking to her.
+
+"I never saw such a deserted place!" exclaimed the girl. "We have ridden
+ever so far into the valley now--two miles at least--and there hasn't
+been a sign of human habitation; not a person, not a house, except the
+little ruined tower we passed a few minutes ago, and that old château
+almost at the top of the hill. Look! the last rays of the sun are
+touching its windows before saying good-bye to the valley. Aren't they
+like the fiery eyes of some fierce animal glaring watchfully down at us
+out of the dusk?"
+
+Pointing upward, she turned to him for approval of her fancy, and to her
+surprise saw him pale, as if he had been attacked with sudden illness.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked quickly.
+
+"Nothing at all," he replied. "A slight chill, perhaps."
+
+"No, there is more than that," Virginia said slowly. "I'm sure of it.
+I've been sure ever since we stood on the bridge looking up this valley.
+You wanted to go on. You could hardly bear to stop, and when I proposed
+riding in you made excuses."
+
+"Only for your sake, fearing you might catch cold."
+
+"Yet you suggested going on to another valley. Would it have been warmer
+than this? Oh, Marchese, I don't like you when you are subtle and
+secretive. It reminds me that we are of different countries--as different
+as the north can be from the south. Do tell me what is really in your
+mind. Why do you hate this valley? Why has coming into it tied your
+tongue, and made you look as if you had seen a ghost?"
+
+"You exaggerate, Miss Beverly," said Loria. "But if you care to know the
+precise truth you shall, on one condition."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That you turn your horse's head and consent to go out into the sunshine
+again. When we are there I will tell you."
+
+"No. If I hear your story, and think it worth turning back for, I will. I
+mean to have a nearer glimpse of that château. It must have a lovely
+view over the tops of the olive trees."
+
+She touched the mare, who changed from a trot into a gallop. In five
+minutes more they would be under the castle; but almost instantly Loria,
+obliged to follow, had caught up with her again.
+
+"One of the greatest sorrows of my life is connected with this valley,"
+he answered desperately. "Now will you take pity upon me and turn round?"
+
+Virginia hesitated. The man's voice shook. She did not know whether to
+yield or to feel contempt because he showed emotion so much more readily
+than her English and American friends. But while she hesitated they were
+joined by her cousin, Sir Roger Broom, who had been riding behind with
+her half-brother, George Trent, and Lady Gardiner.
+
+"Look here, Loria," he exclaimed, with a certain excitement underlying
+his tone; "it has just occurred to me that this is--er--the place that's
+been nicknamed for the last few years the 'Valley of the Shadow.'"
+
+"You are right," answered Loria. "That is why I didn't wish to come in."
+
+Sir Roger nodded toward the château, which now loomed over them, gray,
+desolate, one half in ruins, yet picturesquely beautiful both in position
+and architecture. "Then that is----" he began, but the Italian cut him
+short.
+
+"Yes. And won't you help me persuade Miss Beverly that we've seen enough
+of this valley now?"
+
+"Why, the castle's for _sale_!" cried Virginia suddenly, before Roger
+Broom had had time to speak.
+
+She pointed to one of the tall gate-posts at the foot of the hill, close
+to the road, which showed a notice-board announcing in both French and
+Italian that the Château de la Roche was to be sold, permission to view
+being obtainable within.
+
+"Poor people; they must have been reduced to sad straits indeed!"
+murmured Sir Roger, looking at the board with its faded lettering, half
+defaced by time and weather.
+
+"Yes, it was all very unfortunate, very miserable," Loria said hastily.
+"Shall we go back?"
+
+The Englishman seemed hardly to hear. "I'd seen photographs of the
+valley, but I'd quite forgotten, until suddenly it began to look
+familiar. Then, all in a flash, I remembered."
+
+"What do you remember; and why do you call this the Valley of the
+Shadow?" demanded Virginia. "You are both very mysterious. But perhaps
+it's the influence of the place. Everything seems mysterious here."
+
+Roger Broom sighed, and roused himself with an effort from his reverie.
+"Queer that we should have drifted here by accident," he
+said--"especially with _you_, Loria."
+
+"Why especially with me?" the other asked with a certain sharpness.
+
+"You were the poor fellow's friend. Oh, Virginia, forgive me for not
+answering you. This place is reminiscent of tragedy. A man whom I used to
+know slightly, and Loria intimately, lived here. That grim old house
+perched up on the hillside has been the home of his ancestors for
+hundreds of years. Now, you see, it is for sale. But it's likely to
+remain so. Who would buy it?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Virginia. "Is it haunted?"
+
+"Only by melancholy thoughts of a family ruined, a man cut off from life
+at its best and brightest, to be sent into exile worse than death. By the
+way, Loria, do you know what became of the sister?"
+
+"I have heard that she still lives here with an aunt and one old
+servant," answered the Italian, his face gray-white in the greenish dusk
+of the olive woods.
+
+"Is it possible? What a life for a girl! I suppose that there is
+absolutely not money enough to keep up another establishment, no matter
+how small. Why, were there no relatives--no one to help?"
+
+"The relatives all believed in her brother's guilt, and she would have
+nothing to do with them. As for help, her family is a difficult one to
+help. Of course it would be a good thing for her to sell the château."
+
+Virginia sat her horse between the two others, impatient and curious. It
+was easy to see how distasteful the conversation was to the Marchese
+Loria. He answered Sir Roger's questions only by an effort; and as for
+her cousin, even he was moved out of the imperturbable _sang-froid_ which
+sometimes pleased, sometimes irritated Virginia, according to her mood.
+
+"Was it because of this young man's guilt that the place was called the
+Valley of the Shadow?" she asked again.
+
+"Yes. A mere nickname, of course, though an ominous one," said Roger.
+"You see, the Dalahaides used to keep open house, and spend a great deal
+of money at one time, so that their ruin threw a gloom over the country
+even colder than the evening shadows. The father took his own life in
+shame and despair, the mother died of grief, and only a girl is left of
+the four who used to be so happy together."
+
+"But what of the fourth--the brother?" In spite of herself, Virginia's
+voice sank, and the penetrating chill of the valley crept into her
+spirit.
+
+"He is worse than dead," answered Roger evasively. "By Jove! Loria is
+right. It _is_ cold here. Let us turn back."
+
+"I should like to buy that château," announced the American girl, as
+calmly as if she had spoken of acquiring a new brooch.
+
+"Good gracious! What next?" exclaimed Sir Roger. "But you're not in
+earnest, of course."
+
+"I am in earnest," said she. "I should love to have it. It's an ideal
+house, set on that great rocky hill, and ringed round with olive groves.
+Though the sun is gone so soon from the bottom of the valley, where we
+are, the château windows are still bright. The place fascinates me. I am
+going to ride in and ask to see the house. Who will come with me?"
+
+Virginia looked at the Marchese with a half-smiling challenge; but he did
+not speak, and Lady Gardiner's black eye gave out a flash. She was as
+poor as she was handsome and well-born, and her life as the American
+girl's chaperon was an easy one. The thought that Virginia Beverly might
+make up her mind to become the Marchesa Loria was disagreeable to Kate
+Gardiner, and she was glad that the Italian should displease the spoilt
+beauty.
+
+"I'll go with you, dear, if you are really bent on the adventure," said
+the elder woman.
+
+"Forgive me, Miss Beverly. But I--once knew these people. I could not go
+into their house on such an errand. They would think I had come to spy on
+their misfortune," protested Loria miserably.
+
+"I knew them too," said Roger Broom, "and I'll stay down here and keep
+Loria company."
+
+Lady Gardiner looked at George Trent, with whom she was having an amusing
+flirtation, which would certainly have been more than amusing if he had
+been only a quarter as rich as his half-sister.
+
+"I'll take you and Virgie up to the door, anyhow," he responded to the
+look, and springing from his horse, he pushed open the tall gate of rusty
+iron.
+
+Then, mounting again, the three passed between the gray stone gate-posts
+with an ancient carved escutcheon obliterated with moss and lichen. They
+rode along the grass-grown avenue which wound up the hill among the
+cypresses and olive trees, coming out at last, as they neared the
+château, from shadow into a pale, chastened sunshine which among the
+gray-green trees had somewhat the effect of moonlight.
+
+"Have you ever heard of the Dalahaides?" Virginia demanded of her
+chaperon.
+
+"If I have, I've forgotten," said Lady Gardiner. "And yet there does seem
+to be a dim memory of something strange hovering at the back of my
+brain."
+
+They were above the grove now, on a terrace with a perspective of ruined
+garden, whence the battered faces of ancient statues peeped out,
+yellow-white from behind overgrown rose bushes and heliotrope. The
+château was before them, the windows still reflecting the sunlight; but
+this borrowed glitter was all the brightness it had. Once beautiful, the
+old battlemented house had an air of proud desolation, as if scorning
+pity, since it could no longer win admiration.
+
+"You would have to spend thousands of pounds in restoring this old ruin
+if you should really buy it, Virginia," said Lady Gardiner.
+
+"Well, wouldn't it be worth while to spend them?" asked the girl. "I
+certainly----" She stopped in the midst of her sentence, a bright flush
+springing to her face; for turning a corner of the avenue which brought
+them close to the château, they came suddenly upon a young woman, dressed
+in black, who must have heard their last words.
+
+Instantly George Trent had his hat in his hand, and before Virginia could
+speak he had dismounted and plunged into explanations. He begged pardon
+for the intrusion, and said that, as they had seen the announcement that
+the château was for sale, they had ventured to ride up in the hope of
+being allowed to see the house. As he spoke, in fairly good though rather
+laboured French, he smiled on the girl in black with a charming smile,
+very like Virginia's. And Lady Gardiner looked from one to the other
+gravely. She was not as pleased as she had been that George Trent had
+come here with them, for the girl in the shabby black dress had a
+curiously arresting, if not beautiful face, and her surroundings, the
+background of the desolate castle, and the circumstances of the meeting,
+framed her in romance.
+
+Lady Gardiner did not like the alacrity with which Trent had snatched off
+his hat and sprung from his horse, nor did she approve of the expression
+in his eyes, though Virginia's were just as eager.
+
+To the surprise of all three, the girl answered in English; not the
+English of a French _jeune fille_, instructed by an imported "Miss," but
+the English of an Englishwoman, pure and sweet, though the voice was sad
+and lifeless. Her melancholy dark eyes, deep and sombre as mountain
+tarns, wandered from the brother's handsome face to the beautiful one of
+the sister.
+
+"Pray don't speak of an intrusion," she said. "Our servant will be glad
+to show you through the house, and afterward, if you really think of
+buying the place, he will give you the address of an agent in Mentone who
+can tell you everything."
+
+"Then shan't we find you again when we have seen the château?" asked
+Virginia wistfully.
+
+The girl smiled for the first time, but there was no brightness in the
+smile. "I shall be very pleased to speak with you before you go if there
+is anything you care to say to me," she replied, mechanically raising
+the great bunch of heliotrope she had been gathering to her lips.
+
+"Now I will call our servant. He will put up your horses while you go in;
+though I'm afraid that we have no very good accommodation for them, as
+our stables have been empty for a long time."
+
+"Oh, thank you, we needn't give him that trouble," said Trent. "I can
+fasten the horses' bridles to some tree or other, and they will be all
+right."
+
+The girl disappeared, a slender, youthful figure in the plain black gown,
+yet her step, though it was not slow, had none of the lithsomeness of
+youth. She seemed to have lost all joy of life, though she could scarcely
+have been more than twenty-two or three.
+
+"Another mystery!" Virginia said in a low voice. "How comes she to be
+English? Is she the girl they were talking about down below, or is she a
+companion?"
+
+"She looks like a banished princess," said Trent. "I never saw such
+wonderful eyes. Deep as a well, reflecting a night of stars."
+
+Lady Gardiner's lips tightened a little. She was rather vain of her eyes.
+"I think the girl would appear a very ordinary young person," she
+remarked, "if one saw her anywhere but here."
+
+George lifted her down from the horse without answering, but Virginia did
+not wait to be helped. She sprang to the ground, and by the time that
+George had tethered the horses an old man in a faded livery came limping
+out from the side door through which the girl in black had lately
+disappeared.
+
+Almost crippled with rheumatism, he had still all the dignity of a
+trusted servant of an ancient house, and his old eyes seemed gravely to
+defy these prosperous young people to criticize his threadbare clothing.
+
+"Mademoiselle" had desired him to take monsieur and mesdames over the
+château, he politely announced in French, and went on to beg that they
+would give themselves the trouble of being conducted to the door at the
+front, that they might go in by the great hall. He also regretted that
+the visitors had not arrived earlier in the day, as the rooms could not
+be seen at their best advantage so near to sunset.
+
+Virginia's heart began to beat oddly as she entered the house. She had
+still the feeling of having left realities behind and strayed into
+dreamland; but with the opening of the heavy door it seemed to her that
+the dream was about to change into a vision which would mean something
+for her future.
+
+Of course it was all nonsense, she told herself, as the old man led them
+across the shadowy, tapestry-hung hall, and from one huge, dim,
+wainscotted or frescoed room to another; yet always, as they approached a
+doorway, she caught herself thinking--"Now a strange thing is going to
+happen."
+
+"This is the state drawing-room; this is the library; this is the chapel;
+this is the bride's suite," the servant announced laconically. But though
+the castle was evidently very ancient and must have a private history of
+its own, centuries old, he offered no garrulous details of past grandeur,
+as most servants would. As they walked through a dining-room of
+magnificent proportions, but meagrely furnished, they passed a half-open
+door, and Virginia had a glimpse of a charming little room with a huge
+projecting window. Mechanically she paused, then drew away quickly as she
+saw that mademoiselle was seated at a table arranging the flowers she had
+gathered in the melancholy garden. The old man hobbled on, as if the door
+had not existed, and Virginia would have followed, had not the girl in
+black stepped forward and invited them in, with a certain proud humility.
+
+"This is our sitting-room--my aunt's and mine," she said. "My aunt is not
+here now, so come in, if you will. It is a small room; still, it is one
+of the brightest and most home-like we have left."
+
+She held open the door, and the three visitors obeyed her gesture of
+invitation; but suddenly the girl's face changed. The blood streamed up
+to her forehead, then ebbed again, leaving her marble-pale. She gave a
+slight start, as if she would have changed her mind and kept the
+strangers from entering; yet she made no motion to arrest them.
+
+"She has just remembered something in this room that she doesn't wish us
+to see," thought Virginia; but it was too late to retreat, without
+drawing attention to an act which she could not explain. They all went
+in, the others apparently suspecting nothing; but in a second Virginia
+instinctively guessed the reason of her hostess's sudden constraint, and
+the sympathetic thrill that ran through her own veins surprised her. In a
+panel of the darkly wainscotted and curiously gilded wall was placed a
+life-size portrait of a man. It was an oil-painting, defective in
+technique, perhaps, but so spirited, so extraordinarily lifelike as to
+give an effect, at first glance in the twilight, as if a handsome young
+man were just stepping in through an open door. Virginia seemed to meet
+the brilliant, audacious eyes; the frank, almost boyish smile was for
+her; and--whether because of the half-told story of this strange house,
+or because of the brave young splendour of the figure in the
+portrait--her heart gave a bound such as it had never yet given for a
+man.
+
+She did not need to be told that this was the counterfeit presentment of
+him who, in some mysterious way, had brought ruin upon those who loved
+him; and suddenly she understood the full meaning of Loria's words when
+he had said, "The relatives all believed in his guilt, so his sister
+would have nothing to do with them."
+
+Virginia Beverly, headstrong, wilful, passionate, was only superficially
+spoilt by the flattery which had been her daily diet as a great beauty
+and a great heiress. She was impulsive, but her impulses were true and
+often unselfish. Now her warm heart went out to meet the loyal heart of
+the pale, sad girl in black, whom an hour ago she had never seen, whose
+very name she had not known. "She is right to believe in him," Virginia
+said to herself. "Loyalty is the finest virtue of all. I believe in him
+too. Whatever crime they say he committed, I'm sure he was innocent.
+What--a criminal, with that face? It's not possible, and I wish I could
+tell her so."
+
+She could scarcely tear her eyes from the portrait, though she feared to
+let her interest be observed, lest it should unjustly be put down to
+vulgar curiosity. And when the old man who conducted them, having met and
+answered a quick glance from his mistress, invited the visitors to
+continue their tour of inspection, Virginia left her thoughts behind in
+the room of the portrait, walking as in a dream through the series of
+lofty, half-dismantled apartments which still remained to be visited.
+
+She hoped that, when they should see their hostess again for the promised
+leave-taking, it would be in the same room as before. But she was doomed
+to disappointment. Mademoiselle met the party in the great hall, and,
+hearing from George Trent that his sister thought seriously of buying the
+château, gave them the address of an estate agent in Mentone.
+
+Virginia was not a self-centred girl, and at any other time she would
+have been surprised at the encouragement given to this new whim of hers
+by her half-brother; she would have sought some underlying cause, for
+George Trent--who was her mother's son by a first marriage--was nearly
+five years older than she, and rather piqued himself upon influencing
+her to ways of wisdom. But now, though he extolled the charms of the
+Château de la Roche, and made light of the expenses of restoration, as
+they rode down the avenue under the olive trees, Virginia was too much
+occupied with the mystery of the house and the portrait's original to
+observe the young man's manner. It did not escape Lady Gardiner's
+observation, however, and her thoughts were troubled.
+
+She was thirty-six and George Trent was ten years younger; but she
+confessed to twenty-nine, and really did not look more, except when
+certain worries, which she usually kept in the background, pressed
+heavily upon her. For a year, ever since Virginia had left America for
+England and the Continent, she had lived with the sister and brother, and
+had been reaping a harvest almost literally of gold and diamonds. She did
+not want Virginia to marry and free herself from chaperonage; and if she
+could not marry George Trent herself, since he was neither old enough nor
+rich enough, she could not bear the thought that he might forget his
+passing admiration for her, and fall seriously in love with some one
+else.
+
+She, too, was curious concerning mademoiselle and her past, but with a
+very different curiosity from Virginia's, and she determined to learn the
+story of the Dalahaides and their château above the Valley of the Shadow.
+She did not, however, wish to appear curious before Virginia or her
+brother, and hoped that the American girl, with her wonted audacity,
+would at once approach the topic when they had rejoined Sir Roger Broom
+and the Marchese Loria. But Virginia asked no questions, contenting
+herself with answering those of her cousin, which for some reason
+confined themselves entirely to the château. Lady Gardiner was sure,
+since he admitted having known the Dalahaides, that, being human, Roger
+would have liked to hear something of the girl who lived there like
+Mariana in the Moated Grange; and it would have been interesting to know
+why he refrained from mentioning her.
+
+As they rode through the valley, dark and sad now, in the chill of its
+early dusk, she brought her horse to Virginia's side in so narrow a
+defile of the road that Roger, who was with the girl, dropped behind.
+
+"Have you noticed that the Marchese hasn't asked us a single question
+about your château?" she remarked. "He is a changed man since we came
+into this valley. I wonder if there was ever anything between him and
+that tragic-looking girl up there? Perhaps Sir Roger knows, and that's
+the reason he didn't speak of her."
+
+"Perhaps," echoed Virginia listlessly, and Kate Gardiner said no more.
+
+An odd restraint seemed to have settled on the whole party, which had
+started out so gaily in the sunshine. Each one was sunk deep in his or
+her own thoughts, as if the twilight had touched them with its delicate
+melancholy.
+
+They were stopping at the Cap Martin hotel, high on the hill in its
+beautiful garden, and among its pines; and there was a dance that night,
+for which Virginia had promised Loria several waltzes; but she complained
+that the ride had tired her.
+
+Instead of dancing she went after dinner to the private sitting-room
+which she and Lady Gardiner shared, having quietly asked Roger Broom if
+he would come to her there for a few minutes. He found her, not in the
+room, but on the balcony, in floods of moonlight, which gave her beauty
+an unearthly charm as she lay on a _chaise longue_, wrapped in an evening
+cloak of white and silver brocade.
+
+"You don't mind leaving the dance a little while--for me?" she asked.
+
+Roger smiled his quiet, pleasant smile. "There's nothing in the world I
+would mind leaving for you, Virginia," he said, "and I think you know
+that very well."
+
+"Sometimes I believe it's true. I should like to believe it to-night,"
+she answered, "because I need your help. There's a secret, and I must
+find it out."
+
+As the girl spoke there was a slight sound in the room beyond the big,
+open window.
+
+"What's that?" exclaimed Roger. "Who is there?"
+
+"Nobody," said Virginia. "It must be a log of olive-wood falling in the
+fireplace."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STORY TOLD BY TWO
+
+
+Roger waited. He knew that Virginia was gathering her forces together,
+and that he might expect the unexpected.
+
+"I want you to tell me all about that girl in mourning who lives at the
+Château de la Roche," she said after a moment; "and what her brother
+did."
+
+Roger was slow in answering. "It's not a pleasant story for your ears. I
+was sorry this afternoon that I had spoken even as freely as I did about
+it before you. Loria took me to task rather, after you'd gone up to the
+château, and he was right. By Jove! Virginia, I believe that if I'd said
+nothing, the idea of buying the place would never have occurred to you."
+
+"Perhaps not," she admitted. "But it _has_ occurred to me, and once I
+have an idea in my head I keep it tenaciously--as all my long-suffering
+friends know to their sorrow. Will you go to-morrow to the agent whose
+address I have and make inquiries?"
+
+"Certainly, if you wish."
+
+"Oh, you think if no one thwarts me, I'll get over the fancy. But I
+won't! I'm going to have that château among the olive trees for mine if
+it costs me fifty thousand pounds (which it won't, I know), even if I
+only live in it for one month out of five years. The thing is, to feel
+it's my own. So now, you see, as the place is practically my property,
+naturally I'd like to know something of the people who have been its
+owners."
+
+"I don't see why. When one buys a house one doesn't usually agitate
+oneself much about the family history of one's predecessors."
+
+"Roger, you know this is different. I want you and no one to else tell
+me. Still, if you won't----"
+
+"Oh, if you insist you must be gratified, I suppose, up to certain
+limits. What do you want to know?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"H'm! Rather too large an order, my child. However, to begin with, the
+Dalahaides of the Château de la Roche were English in the last
+generation, but the family is of French origin. When the last member of
+the French branch died, a banker in London was the next heir. He gave the
+château and the Dalahaide house in Paris as a wedding present to his son,
+who was about to be married. The bride and bridegroom came over on their
+honeymoon, and took such a fancy to the château that they made their home
+there, or rather between it and the old house in Paris. This young couple
+had in time a son, and then a daughter. Perhaps you saw the daughter
+to-day?"
+
+"Yes, it was she. You didn't ask me about her before."
+
+"No; the fact is, I thought that further conversation on the subject
+would be too painful for poor Loria. You must have seen that he was
+upset."
+
+"I couldn't help seeing. But go on."
+
+"Well, the father and mother and their two children were a most devoted
+family. They were all handsome and clever and popular, and if they were
+not millionaires, they were extravagant, for they gave delightful
+entertainments here and in Paris, and their purses were open for any one
+who wished to dip in his fingers.
+
+"The son Maxime, always called Max, inherited his father's generous,
+reckless, extravagant ways. He was drawn into the fastest set in Paris,
+and lost a lot of money at baccarat. That wouldn't have mattered much,
+perhaps, if at the same time some large investments of the father's
+hadn't gone wrong and crippled the family resources. Then, as misfortunes
+generally come in crowds, there was a slight earthquake along this part
+of the coast, and the château was partly ruined, as you saw to-day, for
+they were not able then to have it restored. 'Next year,' they said; but
+there was no next year for the Dalahaides. Only a few months after the
+first two blows came the third, which was to crush the family for ever.
+Max Dalahaide was accused of murder, tried, and condemned."
+
+"What--he is _dead_, then? I thought you said--I----" Virginia's heart
+gave so sudden and violent a bound that she stammered, and grew red and
+white under the revealing moonlight. She was thinking of the
+portrait--seeing it again, looking into the eyes which had seemed to
+speak. Dead! Executed as a murderer! The thought was horrible; it stifled
+her.
+
+"No, he is not dead," answered Roger gravely; "at least, if he is I
+haven't heard of it. But--if he still exists--one can't call it
+living--he must have wished a hundred times a day to die and be out of
+his misery. Perhaps death has come to him. It might, and I not have
+known; for from out of the pit which has engulfed him, seldom an echo
+reaches the world above."
+
+"Roger, you frighten me! What do you mean?" the girl exclaimed.
+
+"Forgive me, child. I forgot for a moment, and was thinking aloud. I
+don't often forget you, do I? I said to-day that Max Dalahaide was dead
+in life. That is true. Family influence, the tremendous eloquence of a
+man engaged to plead his cause, the fact that Max insisted upon his
+innocence, while the evidence was entirely circumstantial, saved him from
+the guillotine, which I believe he would have preferred, in his
+desperation. He was sent to that Hades upon earth, New Caledonia, a
+prisoner for life."
+
+"But--he was _English_!"
+
+"No. His parents had been English, but he, having been born in France,
+was a French subject. He had even served his time in the army. Naturally
+he was amenable to French law; and he is buried alive in Noumea, the most
+terrible prison in the world."
+
+"And he was innocent!"
+
+Roger, who had been gazing out over the sea, turned a surprised look upon
+Virginia.
+
+"No! He was not innocent," he said quickly. "Everything proved his guilt.
+It is impossible that he should have been innocent."
+
+"His sister believed in him."
+
+"Yes, his sister. What does that prove? The father thought him guilty,
+and killed himself. As for the mother--who knows? At all events, she
+died--broken-hearted. Every penny the family possessed, after their great
+losses, went for Maxime's defense; but, except that his life was saved,
+it was in vain."
+
+"You knew him--he was your friend--yet you believed in his guilt?"
+
+"I hardly knew him well enough to call myself a friend. I admired him,
+certainly Max Dalahaide was the handsomest, wittiest, most fascinating
+fellow I ever met. Neither man nor woman could resist him, if he set out
+to conquer. Loria and he were like brothers; yet Loria thought with the
+rest of the world. He can't be blamed for disloyalty, either, for really
+there was nothing else to think, if one used one's reason."
+
+"If he had been _my_ friend, I would not have used my reason!" exclaimed
+Virginia. "What is the use of reason, when one has instinct?--and that is
+never wrong. But it is good of you to defend the Marchese, for I know you
+don't like him."
+
+"Don't I?" echoed Roger. "If I don't, I'm afraid it is because you _do_.
+You won't have me, dear; you've told me that, and I don't mean to bother
+you again; but I'm weak enough to be jealous when I think there's danger
+of your saying 'Yes' to anybody else."
+
+"I don't know that there is any such danger in this case," said Virginia.
+"But the Marchese is very handsome, and rather romantic, and he sings
+like an angel. Oh, yes, I am almost in love with him when he sings--or I
+was till yesterday. And how he dances! It's poetry. When I am waltzing
+with the Marchese Loria I invariably make up my mind that I will accept
+him next time he asks. Then, afterward, something holds me back. To-day,
+in that valley of shadows, he affected me quite differently. It was as
+if--as if the shadows had shut down between us. I saw him in the shadow,
+his features changed--repellent. As the French say, he 'made me horror.'
+Yet I didn't know why. Now I begin to understand. It was my precious
+instinct warning me, saying: 'This man is disloyal. Don't trust him.'"
+
+"You are unjust," said Roger. "I should like to let you misjudge him, but
+I can't be a bounder, you know. He really behaved extremely well in the
+Dalahaide affair. The man couldn't believe, against a mountain of
+evidence; nevertheless, he did what he could for his friend, guilty as he
+thought him. All this happened four years ago, when you were a demure
+little schoolgirl--if you ever _could_ have been demure!--in your own
+Virginia, not allowed even to hear of, much less read, the great
+newspaper scandals of the moment. I can't remember every detail of the
+affair, but it was said to be largely through Loria's efforts that Max
+was saved from capital punishment for his crime."
+
+"You haven't told me yet what that crime was."
+
+"Yes. I have said it was murder."
+
+"Ah! but that is only a crude statement. I ask for the story."
+
+"You won't have it from me, my child," answered Roger coolly. "I'm not a
+sensation-monger. It was a horrid affair, and one doesn't talk of such
+things to little girls. You know all from me that you will know. Buy
+your château, if you choose. You've money enough to squander on twenty
+such toys and not miss it. No doubt poor Madeleine Dalahaide will be
+benefited by the exchange--her castle for your money. Fortunate for her,
+perhaps, that she is the last of the French Dalahaides, and has the right
+to sell the château."
+
+"You will tell me nothing more?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Then I will tell _you_ one thing. I believe that the man was innocent. I
+have seen his portrait. I have seen his sister. That is enough for me.
+But what you will not tell me I shall learn for myself, and then--and
+then--you shall see what you shall see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Virginia slept restlessly that night. In her dreams she was always in the
+Valley of the Shadow, striving to find her way out into the sunlight; and
+sometimes the valley seemed but the entrance to that bottomless pit of
+shame where Maxime Dalahaide was entombed. She awoke from a dream
+forgotten, in a spasm of cold fear, before it was dawn, and switching on
+the electric light near the bed, she drew her watch from under the
+pillow. It was just six o'clock; and for a few moments Virginia lay
+still, thinking over the events of yesterday. After all, what did they
+mean for her? Nothing, said Reason; everything, said a Voice to which she
+could give no name.
+
+Suddenly her heart began to beat quickly with the excitement of a strange
+thought that seemed to spring out of herself, and then turn to face her.
+It pushed the girl from her bed, and she rose, shivering; for even here
+at Cap Martin it was cold in the early morning before the vivid sun had
+warmed the air.
+
+She was used to lying in bed until a fire of fragrant pine cones and
+olive wood crackled on the hearth, and her own maid had filled the bath
+in the bathroom adjoining. But now she bathed in the cold, dressing
+herself in her riding-habit, and even arranging her hair without help. By
+seven her toilet was made, and, turning off the electric light, she found
+that the sky was pink and golden with the winter sunrise.
+
+The girl rang for coffee, and ordered her horse to be ready. She and Kate
+Gardiner never met before ten o'clock, at earliest; thus three hours
+would pass before any one save her maid would begin to wonder where she
+was; and for the maid she would leave a line of explanation, mentioning
+that she had gone out on business, and that nothing was to be said unless
+Lady Gardiner inquired.
+
+Virginia had a ride of nearly two hours before she could reach the
+destination she had planned; but neither the fresh air, the beauty of the
+scene, nor the exercise which she loved, could calm the fever in her
+blood. It was as if some power stronger than herself pushed her on; and
+though she had always been too healthy in mind and body to suffer from
+superstition, she now believed, half fearfully, that such an influence
+had possession of her.
+
+"What is the matter with me?" she asked. "I am no longer myself. It is as
+if I were only an instrument in hands that use me as they will. Why do I
+go this morning to the Château de la Roche? I don't know. I don't know
+what I shall say to excuse myself when I am there. Yet, somehow, the
+words will come to me--I feel it."
+
+For it was to the château above the Valley of the Shadow that she was
+going.
+
+When she reached the gates, half-way up the slope of the wooded hill
+which the whole party had climbed together yesterday, suddenly the
+nervous exaltation that had carried her courageously so far, broke like a
+violin string too tightly drawn. She was horrified at her own boldness.
+She half turned back; then, setting her lips together, she slipped down
+from her saddle and opened the gate.
+
+This morning no slim, black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of
+neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three
+stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker
+on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty
+spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She
+said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the
+last summons she would take it as a sign that she ought not to have
+come, and she would steal away. But just as the limit of time she
+mentally set had passed, and she was in the act of turning from the door,
+it opened.
+
+The servant who had guided Virginia and her friends through the house the
+day before appeared, his pale, dignified old face showing such evident
+signs of surprise that the American girl, who had never flinched before
+any one or anything, stammered and blushed as she asked for Mademoiselle
+Dalahaide.
+
+The old man politely ushered her in, but he was unable to hide his
+embarrassment. Mademoiselle should be informed at once, if she were at
+home, but, in fact, it was possible---- He hesitated, and Virginia saw
+well that he prepared a way of escape for his young mistress in case she
+wished to avoid the unexpected caller.
+
+"Pray tell mademoiselle that--that----" Virginia began. She had meant to
+finish by saying that her business was urgent. But--supposing when she
+found herself face to face with the girl in black, the fugitive desires
+which had dragged her here refused to be clothed in coherent words?
+
+As the servant waited respectfully for the end of the message, a door
+which Virginia remembered as leading into the family chapel suddenly
+opened. Mademoiselle Dalahaide came slowly out, her head bent, her long
+black dress sweeping the stone floor of the hall in sombre folds. She did
+not see the stranger at first; but a faint ejaculation from the lips of
+the old Frenchman caused the dark head to be quickly raised.
+
+The eyes of the two girls met. Mademoiselle Dalahaide drew back a little,
+her tragically arresting face unlighted by a smile. She looked the
+question that she did not speak; but she gave the American no greeting,
+and there was something of displeasure or distrust in her level,
+searching look.
+
+The moment which Virginia had dreaded, yet sought for, had come. All
+self-consciousness left her. She went to meet the other in an eager,
+almost childlike way.
+
+"Do forgive me," she said in English. "I had to come. I could not sleep
+last night. I got up before any one else was awake, because I--because I
+wanted so much to see you, that I couldn't wait: and I wanted to come to
+you alone."
+
+Madeleine Dalahaide's faint frown relaxed. Virginia in that mood was
+irresistible, even to a woman. Still the girl in black did not smile. She
+had almost forgotten that it was necessary and polite to force a smile
+for strangers. She had been so much alone, she and sorrow had grown so
+intimate, that she had become almost primitively sincere. The ordinary,
+pleasant little hypocrisies of the society in which she had once lived
+during what now seemed another state of existence, no longer existed for
+her.
+
+Nevertheless, she was not discourteous. "You are kind to have taken this
+trouble," she said. "It is something about the château, no doubt--some
+questions which perhaps you forgot to ask yesterday?"
+
+The old man, who understood not a word of English, had discreetly and
+noiselessly retired, now that fate had taken the management of the
+situation from his hands. The two girls were alone in the great hall, the
+chapel door still open behind Madeleine Dalahaide, giving her a
+background of red and purple light from a stained-glass window.
+
+"No," Virginia answered. "If I said that business about the château
+brought me, it would be merely an excuse. It would make things easier for
+me in beginning, but--I wish to say to you only things that are really
+true. I came because--because I want to help you."
+
+The white oval of the other's face was suddenly suffused with scarlet.
+The dark head was lifted on the slender throat.
+
+"Thank you," she said coldly. "But I am not in need of help. If that is
+your reason for thinking of buying this house, I beg----"
+
+"But it is not my reason. What can I say that you won't misunderstand?
+There is one whom you love. Just now you were praying for him in that
+chapel. I know it. You were praying to God to help him, weren't you? What
+if I should be an instrument sent you to be used for that purpose?"
+
+The tragic eyes stared at the eager, beautiful face, dazed and
+astonished.
+
+Virginia went on, not seeming to choose her words, but letting them flow
+as they would.
+
+"I know how you have suffered. It is only a little while that I have
+known, but it seems long, very long. I have seen _his_ portrait, and
+partly I came up to tell you this morning that I believe in his
+innocence; partly that, but most of all I came to say that he must be
+saved."
+
+"Saved?" echoed Madeleine Dalahaide. "But that is not possible. Only
+death can save him now."
+
+Neither had uttered a name; neither was aware that it had not been spoken
+by the other. For Madeleine always, for Virginia in this hour, one name
+rang through the world. There was no need to give it form. And,
+strangely, Madeleine was no longer surprised at Virginia's mission.
+Perhaps, indeed, she believed her an incarnate answer to prayer; and in a
+moment all conventionalities had crumbled to pieces at their feet.
+
+"Why do you say that?" cried the American girl. "Prisoners are released
+sometimes."
+
+"Not life-prisoners at Noumea," replied the other; and the answer fell
+desolately on Virginia's ear. Yet the thought, lit into life by her own
+words, as a flame is lighted by striking a match, had given her courage
+which would not die.
+
+"Then he will be the first," she said. "I have been thinking. Oh! it has
+all been very vague--a kind of dream. But now I see everything clearly.
+Time unravels mysteries not easily solved at first. His innocence must be
+proved. Powerful friends shall give all their thoughts, all their
+ingenuity----"
+
+"We have no friends," Madeleine answered bitterly.
+
+"You have one friend. You have me."
+
+Then at last a sense of the strangeness of this scene rushed in a wave
+over the consciousness of the lonely dweller in the castle.
+
+"I don't understand," she said slowly. "Yesterday we had never met. I
+only knew your name because you spoke of buying this poor, sad home of
+mine. I----"
+
+"Neither do I understand," broke in Virginia. "But I have never
+understood myself. I only know that this seems to be the thing I was born
+for. And if I fail in what I want to do for you and yours, why, I shall
+have come into the world for nothing, that is all."
+
+"But you are wonderful!" exclaimed Madeleine Dalahaide, realizing with
+sudden force the other's extreme beauty and strong magnetism. "Did
+you--is it possible that you ever knew my brother?"
+
+"I never heard his name till yesterday. But I have seen you, I have seen
+this house, I have heard something of the story, and--I have seen his
+portrait. Nobody told me, of course, that it was his; nobody could. But I
+knew at once. And I wondered how any one who had ever known him could
+have believed that--that----"
+
+"Don't be afraid to say it. Believed that he was a murderer. Oh,
+friends--_friends_! Friendship is a flower that withers with the first
+frost."
+
+"You shan't have cause to think that of me--if you are going to take me
+for a friend."
+
+"I shall thank heaven for you. Even if you can do nothing, to think that
+there is one human being in the world besides my poor aunt and me who
+believe in him, is like balm on an open wound. Come with me into the room
+where you saw the portrait. I painted it the year before--the end. I talk
+to it sometimes, and for a moment I almost forget the horrible
+truth--when the eyes smile back at me just as they used to do when we had
+some joke together."
+
+"As they will again," finished Virginia.
+
+They went into the room of the portrait and stood before it in silence.
+Each one felt that its look was for her.
+
+"And yet," Madeleine said, as if answering a question, "there must be
+some one who thinks of us, and remembers us with kindness, giving _him_
+at least the benefit of a doubt; some one who talked to you of Max and
+told you the story of--of his so-called crime in such a way as not to
+fill your mind with horror."
+
+"No one has told me the story yet," hesitated Virginia. "I have only
+heard hints. They said--the word--_murder_! But that is not the face of
+a murderer. How could any one believe it?"
+
+"You don't know--the story?"
+
+Virginia shook her head.
+
+"When you know it, you will turn away from us, as every one else has."
+
+"No--no! Be sure I will not."
+
+"How can I be sure? Ah, almost all the solace of hope has gone now! You
+will hear the horrible details, and--that will be the end."
+
+Virginia caught the slender, cold fingers that twisted together
+nervously. "Tell me yourself," she cried. "Tell me all--you, his sister.
+Then you will see how I shall bear it, and whether I shall fail you."
+
+"I will!"
+
+Madeleine Dalahaide's breath came unevenly. For a moment she could not
+speak. Then she began, her eyes not on Virginia, but on the portrait.
+
+"There was a woman," she said in a low, choked voice. "She was an
+actress. Max was in love with her, or thought he was. She was handsome.
+I have seen her on the stage. Other men besides Max were mad about her.
+But she seemed to care for him. He wanted to marry her, and when father
+and mother didn't approve, he quarrelled with them, for the first time in
+his life. We had always been so happy before that--so united. Everything
+began to go wrong with my poor Max then. He played cards at his club, and
+lost a great deal of money. And as if that were not enough, father's
+losses came. He could do nothing for Max. Besides, the woman Max loved
+made him jealous. He suspected that she cared for somebody else. He told
+me that the last time I saw him before--the terrible thing happened. But
+he didn't tell the man's name. Perhaps he didn't know him. We had a long
+talk, for I had been his friend and confidante through all. I didn't want
+him to marry the woman; but even that would be better than to have him
+miserable, as he said he must be without her. And it was the next night
+that the murder was committed. But it was not known until the day
+after."
+
+"Was it--the man of whom he was jealous who was murdered?"
+
+"No, the woman, Liane Devereux. She had been shot--in the face. Oh, it
+was horrible! It is horrible now to talk to you of it. Her features were
+so destroyed that she could be recognized only by her hair, which was
+golden-red, and her figure--her beautiful figure which all the world
+admired so much. Even her hands--she must have held them up before her
+face, the poor creature, instinctively trying to save herself, to
+preserve her beauty, for they, too, were shattered. Her jewels were all
+gone, and she had had many jewels. Soon the police discovered that they
+had been pawned. And Max was accused of pawning them, to get money to pay
+gambling debts."
+
+"How could they accuse him of that?"
+
+"He really had pawned them, at her request. She wanted money, and would
+not listen to his objections to getting it in that way. He had pawned
+them on the day of the murder, and still had the tickets, which he had
+forgotten to enclose with the money for the jewels, when he sent it to
+Mademoiselle Devereux. She had asked him to pawn the things in his name,
+so that hers could be protected, and, of course, that went dreadfully
+against Max. He couldn't possibly prove, when the woman was dead, that he
+had pawned the jewels for her, because the money he had raised had
+disappeared. He would have taken it to her himself, but on returning to
+his own flat from the pawnbroker's he received a strange letter saying
+that she hated him, and never wished to see him again. It was all quite
+sudden, and Max was angry. Still, he might have gone, insisting that she
+should tell him what she meant by such a letter, but he had arranged a
+hurried journey to England. They arrested him on the way. He was going
+there in the hope of borrowing some money from his godfather, a cousin of
+ours, who had told Max that if at any time he should be in difficulties
+he must apply to him. But what proof had Max of his own intentions? Every
+one thought that he was escaping to England to hide himself, after having
+committed a cowardly murder.
+
+"There were other bits of evidence against him, too; for instance, the
+revolver with which the woman was shot was his, with a silver monogram on
+it. Everybody--even the best of his friends--believed him guilty. And
+father--poor father!--but I can't talk about that part. It is too cruel.
+Oh, you are pale, and changed! I knew it would be so. You are like the
+rest. But how could I expect anything else when you have heard such a
+story? Everything against him--nothing in his favour. Even Max himself
+was dazed. Over and over again he said that he had no explanation to give
+of the mystery."
+
+"There is only one explanation, since he was innocent--and I'm as sure of
+that as before," said Virginia firmly. "It was a diabolically clever
+plot, planned with fiendish ingenuity, to ruin your brother--all your
+family, perhaps."
+
+"Hundreds of times I have thought of that," sighed Madeleine Dalahaide.
+"Many, many times I spoke of it to the man who defended Max at his trial.
+But there was no one it would be reasonable to suspect. We had
+absolutely no enemy. Max had none. Everybody adored him--in his happy
+days."
+
+"The man whom Liane Devereux loved better than your brother?"
+
+"Ah, but you must see, as the advocate saw, that if she loved the other
+better he had no motive either to kill the woman or ruin Max. Where there
+had been no injury, there need be no revenge. And if Max knew who the man
+was he never told his name."
+
+"There was nobody--_nobody_ who had a right to think himself injured by
+your brother, even long before?"
+
+"Not by my brother, so far as we could find out. The theory of a plot was
+advanced, of course, and--and I clung to it; but it fell to the ground.
+There seemed nothing to support it."
+
+"And yet, from the way you speak, I can't help thinking that you suspect
+some one."
+
+"Oh, _I_! But I am only a woman. I was a very young girl then. Every one
+I spoke to--even Max--thought my idea a mad one, and said it would do our
+case far more harm than good to have it mentioned."
+
+"Tell me, won't you, what it was?"
+
+Madeleine hesitated. "I dare not," she answered. "My reason says that the
+thing is impossible. If I wrong the man, it would be shameful to create a
+prejudice in your mind against one, no doubt a stranger to you, but whom
+you might one day meet, and, meeting, remember my words. Besides, it can
+do no good to speak. It would be hopeless to prove anything against him,
+even if his hand had been in a plot."
+
+"Yet you said that your brother had no enemy?"
+
+"This man was _my_ enemy. It had not always been so. Once we were
+friends. But--something happened, and afterward I think he hated me."
+
+"Is it possible that you are speaking of the Marchese Loria?"
+
+The question sprang from Virginia's lips before she had stopped to
+reflect whether it were wise to ask it, and she was terrified at the
+effect of her impulsive words.
+
+Madeleine Dalahaide's pale, sad face became ashen, her great eyes
+dilated, and there was something of fear, perhaps even of distrust, in
+the look she turned upon Virginia.
+
+"You know him?" she exclaimed, her voice suddenly sharp.
+
+"Yes," admitted the American girl.
+
+"Then I think that you and I cannot be friends."
+
+"Not friends? But if I give up the Marchese Loria for you?"
+
+"I do not ask or wish you to do that."
+
+"If he is your enemy he shall not be my friend."
+
+"I have not said he was my enemy."
+
+"I have heard that he loved your brother dearly."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"And yesterday----"
+
+"What of yesterday?"
+
+"He was with us when we rode into the valley. He turned pale, and begged
+not to come, because the place, he said, was connected with a great
+sorrow in his life."
+
+"He would not meet me face to face! Did _he_ suggest that you should try
+to save my brother?"
+
+"No, he did not speak his name before me. He does not know what is in my
+mind. No one knows yet but you. It was my cousin, Roger Broom, who met
+you long ago, and told me that the Marchese Loria had done much to save
+your brother's life."
+
+"It may be that he did. I don't deny it. But if you are to be my friend I
+ask you this: say nothing of Maxime Dalahaide to Loria."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A MYSTERY AND A BARGAIN
+
+
+Lady Gardiner stood at Virginia's door, remained for a moment undecided,
+then tapped gently. The girl's voice answered "Come in!" and Kate obeyed.
+
+Virginia sat at a small writing-table in a window reading a book; but at
+sight of Lady Gardiner she snatched up a paper and hastily laid it over
+the volume. "Oh, I thought it was George," she exclaimed, blushing
+brilliantly. "He has asked me to take a walk."
+
+"Now," thought Kate, "what has that book she's hiding from me to do with
+the mystery that's been going on for the past three days?" but aloud, she
+said, without appearing to notice the hurried movement or the tell-tale
+blush: "I came to ask if you would go down to town with me for a little
+shopping."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't," Virginia answered. "You see--er--I promised
+George."
+
+"Perhaps he wouldn't mind if we arranged for him to meet us in about an
+hour; and we might all three have tea together at Rumpelmayer's."
+
+Virginia looked embarrassed, which was unusual for her. "We didn't think
+of going into Mentone," she said. "We shall just stroll about, for the
+fact is, we've business to talk over."
+
+"You seem to have had a great deal of business to talk over these last
+few days, you and Mr. Trent and Sir Roger. Would it be indiscreet to ask,
+dear child, if there has been any hitch about the purchase of your new
+toy? Oh, don't look vexed--your château, then?"
+
+"No, there's been no hitch. What made you think that?"
+
+"Well, business talks are so new for you. A little while ago you fled
+from the first hint of business. But now--you are very much changed these
+last few days, since we went to the château, Virginia. I've been wanting
+to speak to you about it. However, you are going out to walk, and I must
+wait."
+
+Virginia met her eyes firmly; yet the violet gaze was not quite as
+frankly open and childlike as it used to be. "You needn't wait, if your
+shopping can," she said. "Do sit down. I dare say it may be twenty
+minutes before George comes for me. He's with Roger--somewhere."
+
+"Yes, I saw them. Virginia, do you know, I've been rather unhappy for
+several days?"
+
+"I didn't know. I'm very sorry. Is it anything I've done?"
+
+"Yes and no." Kate did not sit down, but perched on the arm of a big
+cushioned chair between the writing-desk and the dressing-table. "You
+see, dear," she went on in her softest voice, to which she could give a
+pretty, tearful _tremolo_ at will, "I'm in rather a peculiar position.
+You have been so sweet all this year and more that we've been together,
+that I suppose you've spoilt me. I've forgotten often that I'm only a
+paid chaperon, and have felt like a friend and confidante."
+
+"Why, so you are," returned Virginia.
+
+"Wait, dear; let me finish. I've told you my various troubles, and you've
+told me things, too. Now, suddenly, everything is changed. Why, you even
+sit in your bedroom, instead of in our sitting-room, or on the balcony
+with me, as you used. You don't seem to want my society; you make excuses
+if I suggest going anywhere. You and your brother and cousin are
+continually getting away by yourselves and talking in whispers. Oh, I'm
+not hurt. It isn't that. I'm not so thin-skinned and stupid. But I've
+been thinking that perhaps I'd offended you, or you were simply tired of
+me, and, being kind-hearted, didn't like to send me about my business.
+You know, dear, if you would rather have any one else----"
+
+"Oh, Kate, you _are_ stupid!" cried Virginia. "Of course I'm not tired of
+you. We really have had business--not about the château. I--didn't mean
+to tell you until things were more settled, but since you've been talking
+like this, I will. I've discovered lately that I'm tired of the Riviera,
+heavenly as it is here. We've been a month now----"
+
+"I always told you that Monte Carlo was more amusing, while as for
+Cannes----"
+
+"But I've seen enough of the Riviera for a while."
+
+"What about your château, then--your château in the olive woods that you
+so adore?"
+
+"That won't be ready until next winter. There's lots to be done.
+And--I've set my heart on a yachting trip."
+
+Kate Gardiner's face fell. She was a wretched sailor, and Virginia knew
+it. Even the crossing from Dover to Calais was torture to her on a calm
+day.
+
+"A _long_ yachting trip?" she asked, controlling her voice.
+
+"I don't quite know yet. Some weeks, perhaps. The only difficulty is
+about you."
+
+Kate did not answer for a moment. _Was_ this an excuse to get rid of her,
+and if so, why? Could it be that Roger Broom had been warning Virginia
+that her half-brother was in danger of making a fool of himself about a
+woman many years his senior? A short time ago she might have believed
+that this was the explanation, for Roger Broom knew a good deal about
+Lady Gardiner. He was aware that her dead husband was but a city man,
+knighted when he was sheriff; that she had been governess to the gruff
+old widower's one daughter; that she had married him for his money, and
+spent it freely until what remained was lost in a great financial panic;
+that since then she had lived as she could, trading upon her own
+aristocratic connections to chaperon girls, chiefly Americans, who wished
+to see "English society from the inside." Roger knew her real age, or
+something near it; he knew that she had been in debt when she had got
+this chance with Virginia, to whom she had been recommended by an
+American duchess; and as there was nothing against her character, he had
+been too good-natured--as she would have expressed it--to "put a spoke in
+her wheel." However, if he suspected designs upon George, he might not
+have continued to be as discreet; but during these last three days of
+mysterious confabs, George Trent had appeared as much changed toward her
+as his half-sister had, so that Roger need have had no new fears for him.
+George had never ceased to be courteous, but there was a subtle
+difference in his manner, in his way of looking at her. He appeared
+preoccupied; he no longer sought her out. And this alteration had only
+come about since the day when they had visited the Château de la Roche.
+
+Perhaps, then, it was George who was tired of her. He had never been the
+same since he had seen that girl in black, with the tragic eyes and the
+dead-white face, with no more life in it than a marble statue. Maybe he
+was planning to attach that girl to the party in some way, and would find
+the society of the woman with whom he had flirted a constraint.
+
+At this thought Kate Gardiner felt her blood grow hot. It was unbearable
+that she should be sent out of George Trent's life to make room for a
+younger woman. She would not have it--she would not! If it killed her to
+go on this hateful yachting trip she would go; she would not be whistled
+down the wind.
+
+"Oh, if the difficulty is only about me," she said sweetly, "it needn't
+be a difficulty at all. I dare say I shall be ill for a few days, but it
+can't last forever. I shall simply stop in my stateroom until I am fit
+to lie in a deck-chair and be a more or less interesting invalid."
+
+As she spoke she watched Virginia's face through half-lowered lashes, and
+was certain that it changed. There could no longer be any doubt on that
+subject. For some reason Virginia did not want her on the yacht.
+
+"I should hate you to be a martyr," said the girl uncomfortably. "Roger
+and I have been thinking it over, and I was wondering, in case we went
+(nothing is actually decided yet), whether you would like to wait here. I
+would keep on your room and the sitting-room, and the victoria, and you
+should have my maid and your own horse. Your income would be the same as
+always, of course; and you have a lot of friends here, so you wouldn't be
+lonely."
+
+"How sweet and thoughtful you are, dearest child!" exclaimed Kate
+gratefully; while within she was saying, "Oh, so this is the game, is it?
+Come now; at least you're showing your hand. Roger and you have been
+'talking things over?' You seem to have thought out the details pretty
+well; and I'm to be bribed. But it won't work, my love, it won't work."
+She rose, and going to Virginia, took her hand, looking affectionately
+down at the beautiful face. "You are always ready to sacrifice yourself
+for me. But what would you do for a chaperon if I stopped behind?"
+
+"Oh, you see, George and Roger and I would be all the party on board.
+Surely George is chaperon enough?"
+
+"Poor Marchese!" murmured Kate. "I'm afraid he also is suffering from an
+eclipse."
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Virginia, her colour deepening. "Why
+should he expect an invitation to go with us?"
+
+"Ah! why? Unless, indeed, he had hopes that he was soon to be given some
+rights over you. Only the other day I used to fancy that you and he were
+half engaged."
+
+"We never were. I--I found him rather interesting. But I don't think I
+have behaved very badly. I really meant--oh, I don't know _what_ I meant
+then; but I know I don't mean it now. The Marchese Loria is the _last_
+person I should wish to have go on this yachting trip, and as it's only
+us three, we'll chaperon each other."
+
+"Can it be that she means to marry Roger Broom after all?" Kate Gardiner
+asked herself. "To my certain knowledge, she's refused him. I heard him
+reminding her of it the other night. But one never knows how many times a
+girl may change her mind. The more I think of it the more determined I am
+to be of the party on that yacht."
+
+"Unless I should be one too many, I'd really love to go," said she aloud.
+"I must get over my horror of the sea. Mayn't I be with you, dear, if you
+have really made up your mind? I've grown so fond of you. I should feel
+deserted here."
+
+"Even for a few weeks?"
+
+"Even for a few weeks. When you marry, or go home to the States, I must
+lose you, but do let me be with you as long as I can."
+
+"You shall go if you really wish to so much," said Virginia, trying in
+vain not to appear constrained. "Only I warn you, you may find that
+you've made a mistake."
+
+"Why, how seriously you speak. One would think you meditated a voyage to
+the North Pole. Probably, though, you'll simply linger about in the
+Mediterranean; go to Naples, Greece, perhaps, and Egypt?"
+
+"Something of the sort, I suppose," Virginia answered, dropping her eyes
+and playing with the paper she had used to conceal her book. "It's rather
+vague at present. Roger and George are looking for a yacht. We'll talk of
+it again later. I only mentioned it now to show you that we've really had
+business. And by the way, Kate, I'd rather you didn't say anything about
+it yet to people outside. It seems like making it of so much importance
+and I'd hate being asked three times a day: 'Well, when do you start on
+that yachting trip?'"
+
+"I shall be discreet, never fear," replied Kate, more sure than ever that
+some mystery which she could not fathom hid itself under this new plan of
+Virginia's. "And now for something else I wanted to ask you. Do, like a
+dear, good girl, lend me ten pounds. You know how stupidly hard up I
+always am. I'll pay it back in a few days."
+
+Virginia was on her feet in an instant and at the dressing-table,
+rummaging among scented laces and pretty odds and ends for the
+gold-netted purse with "V. B." on it in brilliants. For a moment her back
+was turned, and during that moment Kate Gardiner, standing close to the
+desk which the girl had left noiselessly, raised a corner of the paper
+and peeped underneath. The book which Virginia had been reading lay open.
+It was French, and at the top of the page Kate saw the word "Noumea." She
+dared look no longer, but let the paper drop, and had wheeled round with
+her back to the desk just as Virginia found the purse.
+
+"Thank you _so_ much," purred Lady Gardiner, who knew from experience
+that Virginia would beg her not to give back the money, and that, with a
+grateful kiss, and perhaps a tear or two, she would allow herself to be
+persuaded.
+
+At this instant there came a knock at the door leading into the
+sitting-room, which Kate had left half-open on entering, and George Trent
+appeared, looking excited and eager. His eyes fell upon Virginia, and he
+began to speak before he had seen Lady Gardiner, standing at a little
+distance and out of his view at the door.
+
+"I say, Virgie," he exclaimed, "the most ripping piece of luck. We can
+get hold of a steam yacht with four cannon--toys, but fit for work--only
+you'll have to buy, not hire----"
+
+He stopped short, a look passing between him and Virginia, quick as a
+flash of light, yet not too quick to be seen by Kate.
+
+"Good!" said the girl. "Well, we'll talk about it as we walk. Kate's
+going shopping." Evidently she intended to change the subject, but Lady
+Gardiner was not ready for another.
+
+"Mercy! Are you fitting out as pirates?" she demanded, laughing.
+
+George Trent flushed with annoyance under her unsparing eyes, but he
+smiled carelessly and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, you mean the cannon? They happen to be there. It wouldn't be worth
+while to have the yacht dismantled. I think myself they'd give
+distinction. It isn't everybody who goes yachting in such conditions."
+
+"Indeed, no. I only wish we may have a chance to use them. Perhaps we
+may, if we can get far enough up the Nile. You see, Virginia has told me
+of the trip and promised that I may go. I hope you don't mind."
+
+Of course George said that it would be charming to have her on board, and
+he opened the sitting-room door when she went out, making the necessary
+agreeable remarks about her shopping expedition. But when the door had
+closed after Lady Gardiner, and Virginia had joined him in the
+sitting-room, he was no longer smiling.
+
+"So we're to have another passenger, are we?" he said in a low voice.
+
+"She _says_ she wants to go, but she may change her mind. You know what a
+wretched sailor she is. Perhaps even after starting she'll think better
+of it and beg to be put off at the nearest port. I had to tell her about
+the yacht, for she was so inquisitive concerning the business that has
+occupied you and Roger and me for the past three days. But she has
+promised not to say anything outside till she has permission."
+
+"How much does she know?"
+
+"Nothing at all, except that I'm tired of the Riviera and want to go
+yachting somewhere--almost anywhere."
+
+"Sure she doesn't suspect?"
+
+"How could she?"
+
+"Well, I suppose she couldn't. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't see
+why we shouldn't trust her as if she were one of ourselves; a nice, jolly
+little woman, with no harm in her. What motive could she possibly have
+for blocking our game?"
+
+"What, indeed? But you know I said so to Roger, and he vowed he'd have
+nothing to do with it if any one knew except you and Madeleine Dalahaide
+and me. He wouldn't hear of poor Kate's being told, though I assured him
+one might trust her. It was all I could do to get him to promise us,
+anyway."
+
+"How _did_ you get him to, by the by? He poured whole cataracts of
+ice-water on the scheme at first."
+
+"I--I--suppose I wheedled."
+
+"Virgie! I'll bet you said you'd marry him if he'd go in with us!"
+
+"I didn't--exactly say I _wouldn't_."
+
+"Poor old Roger! Shall you be cad enough to chuck him afterward?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't do that. I shall be so grateful to him for this, that I
+shall feel no reward could be too great for him--that is, if we
+_succeed_. He is a dear, kind fellow, and I have often made him unhappy.
+I've always thought, somehow, that I should end by marrying him."
+
+"Yet you've refused him three times."
+
+"That was to put off the evil day."
+
+"And you came jolly near accepting Loria."
+
+"Did I really, do you think? It seems so long ago, I can hardly remember.
+Anyway, everything is different now."
+
+"I'm with you there. By Jove, what a funny world it is! What will Roger
+say when he hears that Kate Gardiner is bent on going? If he consents to
+her being on board, I don't see why he should go on refusing to take Miss
+Dalahaide."
+
+"That's not the same thing at all. One can never do things quite
+secretly. They always leak out. Already it has got into the papers
+somehow--I suppose through that stupid agent--that I have bought the
+Château de la Roche, and interest has been revived in the Dalahaide
+story. It's so unfortunate that people should begin to talk again just
+now! And then if, on top of all this, should come the news that we'd
+taken Madeleine Dalahaide off with us on a mysterious yachting
+expedition, what would be said? Roger is quite right."
+
+"It seems cruel that she should be left out of it."
+
+"It would be more cruel to have her in, and perhaps ruin everything. She
+feels that herself though, of course, it's hard. Still, think how awful
+for her if--we _failed_! But I will not think of that. There's no such
+word as fail!"
+
+"According to Roger, there's no such word as success. He's absolutely
+hopeless, and is only going into the adventure to please you--to _win_
+you, perhaps. And, by Jove, it _will_ be an adventure!"
+
+"Tell me about the yacht you've heard of."
+
+They went out together, walking among the pine trees surrounding the
+hotel; and meanwhile Kate Gardiner had driven into the bright little
+town of Mentone, with its background of mountains, its foreground of
+blue-green sea. In the neighbourhood of the shops, she sent away her
+victoria, which was to pick her up at Rumpelmayer's at five o'clock. She
+was charmingly dressed, and had secured ten pounds with which to buy an
+exquisite antique Italian watch which had taken her fancy a day or two
+before; never had there been so little need to worry about the future
+from a pecuniary point of view; still, Kate was not happy. She had lost
+interest in the watch, lost interest in her shopping expedition
+altogether, and was lingering outside the jeweler's wondering whether she
+should spend the ten pounds as she had planned or not, when a man's voice
+at her shoulder made her turn. It was the Marchese Loria; and Lady
+Gardiner noticed, as the sun streamed full into his face when he took his
+off hat, that he looked sallow and haggard.
+
+He was staying at the Cap Martin also, but they had not seen each other
+that day, and now it struck Kate that he was surprisingly changed since
+the afternoon when they had so gaily ridden off to find the Valley of the
+Shadow. She was certain that, for some reason which puzzled her sorely,
+Loria had completely lost his chance with Virginia, and because his
+interests no longer threatened her own, she felt more friendly toward
+him. They both seemed to be rather left out in the cold, and she found
+herself suddenly sympathizing with the Italian.
+
+He was quick to note the unusual cordiality of her smile, and was curious
+as to its motive, for Loria knew that Lady Gardiner was one of the few
+women who never act without one; and he had been fully aware that she did
+not favour his cause with Virginia Beverly.
+
+"Has something in this window caught your fancy?" he inquired, stopping
+and joining her.
+
+Kate pointed to a serpent belt, crusted with diamond scales,
+emerald-eyed, and having its open mouth lined with rubies. "Isn't that
+lovely?" she asked. "An antique, of course; everything is in this window.
+I daren't look at it. It's far beyond my means."
+
+"I'm thinking of buying it myself," said Loria calmly. "I mean to give it
+to a woman I know, as a little souvenir of my gratitude for very great
+kindness."
+
+"Lucky woman!" exclaimed Kate enviously, for she really wanted the
+diamond snake. "She must have done you some tremendous favour to have
+earned that."
+
+"She hasn't done anything yet. But I hope she will. I hope very much that
+she will tell me certain things I'm anxious to know, and afterward help
+me, if necessary, to make use of the knowledge. I wonder if she will do
+it?"
+
+There was now a meaning in his voice which could not be mistaken. Kate
+looked up quickly and met his eyes. For, a long instant they gazed at
+each other, then she said: "I think the woman would be foolish if she
+didn't."
+
+"Will you come with me when I buy the thing?" asked Loria.
+
+Kate smiled and flushed faintly through the white rose balm which gave an
+illusion of youth. They went in, and Loria asked to be shown the serpent
+belt from the window.
+
+A very old man, an Italian, brought the glittering thing and laid it on a
+piece of black velvet, which he spread as a background on the counter.
+
+"It is only two thousand francs," he announced, "and it has a history.
+Perhaps I am indiscreet to mention it, but it may add to the interest,
+and I see that the illustrious Signor is a countryman of my own. This
+jewel was an heirloom in a very ancient family; but great misfortunes
+overtook them some years ago. The heir was accused of crime, and banished
+for life to Noumea. They were forced to sell everything of value."
+
+Loria was ghastly. With an instinctive gesture of horror, he pushed the
+velvet away, not touching the serpent and averting his eyes.
+
+"Let us choose something else," he said hoarsely to Lady Gardiner. But
+she was merciless. He had as much as offered her the belt, and she would
+not give it up easily.
+
+"There is nothing else half as pretty or quaint," she said. "I think this
+bit of history makes it all the more interesting."
+
+Loria did not look again at the serpent glittering on its black velvet
+cushion, but, having hesitated for a barely perceptible space, he
+abruptly ordered the jeweler to send the belt to his hotel, where it
+would be paid for on delivery. Kate decided that, as she was in such a
+vein of luck, she would have the watch she fancied, and keep the Marchese
+while she made the purchase. Half maliciously she said to the shopkeeper:
+"I suppose this pretty thing has no such story as the other?"
+
+"Rather strangely, madame has chosen another heirloom disposed of by the
+same family," returned the man, as he placed the old blue-enameled watch
+in a box filled with pink cotton. It seemed as if Fate persisted in
+linking them with these Dalahaides!
+
+Loria did not speak, but Kate's observant eyes saw that the gloved hand
+nearest her closed tightly on the stick it held. A moment later she had
+paid for her purchase, and they were out in the street again.
+
+"You look very down," she remarked. "I believe you must have been losing
+a lot at Monte, and that a little sympathy and good advice would do you
+good. I meant to go to Rumpelmayer's presently, but suppose we go now and
+have tea together?"
+
+Neither he nor she had said in so many words that there was to be a
+bargain between them; but Loria understood what the suggestion of a
+tête-à-tête at Rumpelmayer's meant, and augured well of Kate's genuine
+good-will, by her readiness to give the opportunity he wanted.
+
+She was curious, he labouring under suppressed excitement, and they did
+not speak much as they walked. At the confectioner's Loria chose a table
+in a corner, far from the few early customers who had already arrived. It
+was not yet four o'clock, and the rooms would not begin to be crowded for
+half an hour. In that time much could be said, much, perhaps, planned for
+the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CLOSED DOOR
+
+
+The Marchese Loria ordered tea, and the two newly made allies pretended
+to have no important more business than eating and drinking. But certain
+that nobody was within hearing distance, Loria squandered little time in
+frivolities. At any moment some one they knew might come in and interrupt
+their talk.
+
+"You said that I looked 'very down,'" he began abruptly. "That is cool
+English for broken-hearted, no doubt. I'm half mad, I think, Lady
+Gardiner. For four nights I haven't slept; for three days I've scarcely
+eaten. You know why; there's no use in wasting words on explanation."
+
+"You love her so much?" exclaimed Kate.
+
+"I love her so much. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes; for you have the reputation of being a rich man, and it can't be
+all a bubble, or you wouldn't buy eighty-pound presents--for gratitude,
+and rather premature gratitude at that."
+
+"Ah! the gift hasn't been made yet."
+
+"I fancy it will be made. And the principle is the same. You can't be a
+fortune-hunter, like many agreeable, titled countrymen of yours whom I
+have met."
+
+"If a man began by seeking out Miss Beverly as a fortune-hunter, he would
+end by being her lover. She is the most beautiful girl on earth, and--the
+most maddening. I think I shall go mad if I am to lose her."
+
+"How you Italians can love--and hate!"
+
+"Yes, we can hate also, it is true. There is no half-way with us. Lady
+Gardiner, I used to think that you disliked me; but to-day you are
+different. I was as desperately in need of help as a drowning man, and I
+caught at the new look of kindness in your eyes, as such a man catches at
+a floating spar."
+
+"Perhaps it was the appeal in your eyes that called out the answer in
+mine," said Kate, half believing that she told the truth; for there was a
+certain magnetic power in the man's passion, which was, at least,
+sincere. "What help can I give you?"
+
+"First of all, you can answer a few questions. What have I done to change
+Miss Beverly so completely?"
+
+"Frankly, I don't know. There's something odd going on--something which
+interests her so much that she can think of nothing else."
+
+"The change began on the day of--our ride. Our last ride! The last of
+everything worth having, it has been for me. She was angry because I was
+unwilling to go into--that valley. But afterward, when she learned how
+intimately I had been associated with the people at the château there,
+how could she blame me? I suppose she _did_ learn the story?"
+
+"She learned something of it, I know, the night after we rode up the
+valley. You remember there was a dance? I had left my fan in our
+sitting-room, and ran up to find it. There was no light in the room, and
+Virginia and Sir Roger were on the balcony. Of course, I didn't mean to
+listen, but I couldn't find the fan at first, and I didn't like to
+startle them by suddenly switching on the light, so I--er--I overheard a
+little of the conversation. Sir Roger was telling her the story of that
+unfortunate Maxime Dalahaide--why, Marchese, how you must have loved him!
+The very mention of his name turns you pale."
+
+"We were like brothers," said Loria in a low voice. "But go on. Did Sir
+Roger Broom mention me in connection with the story?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The scoundrel! That explains all, then. This is your honourable English
+gentleman, who traduces a man behind his back, to ruin him with the girl
+they both love!"
+
+"You do Roger Broom injustice. He defended you. Virginia thought that
+your friendship was not worth much, since you believed Maxime Dalahaide
+guilty, but Sir Roger assured her you had behaved exceedingly well."
+
+"H'm! One knows what faint praise can do. Did he give her all the details
+of that loathsome story?"
+
+"No; he refused. I was rather sorry, as I was interested by that time.
+Besides, I had wanted to know, and I couldn't think of any one it would
+be convenient to ask, except Sir Roger or you."
+
+"I wish he had told her all! If he had, she would never have wished to
+hear of the Dalahaides again."
+
+"You speak bitterly of your old friends."
+
+"I? No, you misunderstand. I mean only that a girl--a stranger--would be
+horrified if she could know the full details. It was a ghastly affair. I
+loved Max, but there was no excuse for him--none. And it would be better
+for Miss Beverly to have nothing to do with that family. They bring
+unhappiness to all who come near them. It is as if they were under a
+curse, which every one connected with them must share. I can't bear to
+think that so black a shadow should darken _her_ sunlight. Already, you
+see, she has changed. She goes once to the Château de la Roche, and the
+spell falls upon her."
+
+"I'm not sure that she hasn't been more than once," said Lady Gardiner.
+
+"Ah! that was one of the things I wished to ask. You think so?"
+
+"I don't know. The morning after we all went there she disappeared for
+hours, and would say nothing except that she had slept badly, got up
+early, and gone off for a ride. Whether Mr. Trent was with her or not I
+can't tell but when I first saw her, after looking everywhere, they were
+together, so absorbed in what they were saying that I believe if a
+revolver had been fired within a dozen yards of them they would hardly
+have heard it. At luncheon that same day, Sir Roger was telling me how he
+had seen the agent, and found out about the château, as it appears she
+had asked him to do--she has but to ask and to have, with him, you must
+know!--and though she was pleased and interested to a certain extent,
+still, she seemed to be thinking of something else."
+
+"That _something else_! If I could find out what that was, I might know
+who is taking her from me."
+
+"I'm afraid it's not as simple an affair to unravel as that; for I can
+tell you one of the things, at least, which was apparently occupying her
+thoughts at the time, yet I can't quite see why or how it could have much
+to do with you. You remember, perhaps, that you came while we were at
+luncheon the day after our ride into the Valley of the Shadow, and
+proposed that we should all go to Monte Carlo on your motor-car, that we
+should spend the afternoon in the Casino, and dine with you at the Hôtel
+de Paris? Virginia said that she had important letters to write, and
+couldn't go; and her manner was rather distant."
+
+"It chilled my heart."
+
+"Well, she asked Sir Roger and Mr. Trent to come up to her sitting-room
+after luncheon. Naturally, I was there too; I've been told to look upon
+the room as my own. She did not tell what she had been doing in the
+morning, but, wherever she had been, she had contrived to discover a good
+deal more about the Dalahaide story than Sir Roger had been willing to
+tell her the night before, and she announced boldly, that in spite of
+everything, she believed Maxime Dalahaide was innocent. She demanded of
+Roger--who has spent a good deal of time in France, you know, and is
+supposed to be well up in French law--whether it wouldn't be possible to
+have the case brought up again, with the best lawyers in the country,
+expense to be no object. When Roger had shown her that the thing couldn't
+be done, and there was no use discussing it, she wanted him to say that
+by setting some wonderful detectives on the trail of the real criminal
+the truth might be discovered, and the man unjustly accused brought home
+in triumph from Noumea by a penitent Government. Sir Roger assured her
+that was hopeless. That, in the first place, Maxime Dalahaide wasn't
+innocent, and that, in the second place, even if he were, his innocence
+would be still more impossible to prove after all these years than it
+would have been at the time of the trial."
+
+"What did she reply to that?"
+
+"Nothing. She was silent and seemed impressed. She became very
+thoughtful. Since then I have not heard her say one word of the
+Dalahaides, except incidentally about the château, which she actually
+means to buy, and have restored in time to come to it, if she likes, next
+year. Now, I don't see why her interest in the Dalahaides, if she
+continues to feel it, should interfere with her friendship for you."
+
+Loria did not answer. He sat thinking intently, his dark eyes staring
+unseeingly out of the window. At last he spoke. "Why--_why_ should she
+interest herself in this cold-blooded murderer, whose best friends turned
+from him in horror at his crime? Is it pure philanthropy? Has the sister
+implored Miss Beverly to throw her money into this bottomless gulf? What
+happened when you were at the château that day I never knew."
+
+"We thought that the subject was disagreeable to you," said Kate. "We saw
+and spoke with Miss Dalahaide, a pale, cold girl, dressed in black, with
+a voice that somehow sounded--_dead_. She did not mention her brother,
+and seemed so reserved that I should think it would be difficult to break
+the ice with her. Indeed, she appeared very annoyed at the necessity for
+showing us a little room with a life-size picture in it, which I fancied
+must be a portrait of the brother."
+
+A curious shiver passed through Loria's body.
+
+"Miss Beverly saw that portrait?" he asked in a low, strained voice.
+
+"Yes, and I noticed that she kept glancing at it again and again while we
+stopped in the room. I suppose a morbid sort of curiosity regarding a
+murderer is natural, even in a young girl, provided his personality is
+interesting."
+
+Once more Loria remained silent, his face set in hard lines.
+
+"Such a man as Maxime Dalahaide must have been before his fall, would be
+a dangerous rival," Lady Gardiner went on, with a spice of malice. She
+was watching Loria as she spoke, and thrilled a little at the look in his
+eyes as he turned them upon her. "Oh, these Italians!" she thought. "They
+are so emotional that they frighten one. Their passions are like caged
+tigers, and you never quite know whether the cage door is safely locked."
+
+"Maxime Dalahaide will never be dangerous to any man again on this
+earth--not even to himself, since the worst has happened to him that can
+happen," answered Loria.
+
+"Strange if, although he is buried in a prison-land at the other end of
+the world, he might still, in a vague, dim way, be a rival to fear more
+than another," Kate reflected dreamily. Aloud she went on: "It seems
+ridiculous to say so, but I believe that Virginia is making a hero of
+him. She has never seen this man--she never can see him; yet his
+image--evolved from that portrait at the château which was his old
+home--may blur others nearer to her."
+
+"Great heavens! You believe that?"
+
+"I merely suggest it. The idea only occurred to me at this moment. But
+Virginia is certainly thinking of Maxime Dalahaide. To-day, she was
+reading a French book about Noumea. She hid it when I came into the room;
+but later I came across it by accident. Yes, she is thinking of him, but
+it is only a girl's foolish, romantic fancy, of course--a spoilt child,
+crying for the moon, because it's the one thing that no adoring person
+can get for her. I shouldn't worry about it much, if I were you. Indeed,
+perhaps she sees herself that she is not very wise, and wants to forget.
+Now she has set her heart on a yachting trip; but you must not speak of
+it to her or the others, for she asked me not to tell."
+
+"She gives me little enough chance to speak of anything. A short time ago
+she would not have cared for a yachting trip, unless I were to be of the
+party. Now, I suppose, her wish is to be rid of me."
+
+"Her wish is also to be rid of me."
+
+"You are not to go?"
+
+"Not if Virginia can make a decent excuse to leave me behind."
+
+"Who, then, goes with her?"
+
+"Her half-brother, and Sir Roger Broom. She isn't even going to take a
+maid."
+
+"Heavens! It is Sir Roger Broom, then, who will win her!"
+
+"I don't know what to think. She has refused him; he is many years older
+than she, and she has known him since she was a child, for Sir Roger went
+often to America while her father--his cousin--was alive. Why should she
+suddenly make up her mind to marry him? He was her guardian during her
+minority, or what remained of it after her father's death; now she has
+had her one-and-twentieth birthday, and is her own mistress. I fancied
+that she intended to remain so for a time, unless she lost her head--or
+her heart--and Sir Roger, nice as he is, is scarcely the man to make a
+girl like Virginia Beverly do either. Still, I don't understand the
+yachting trip. It is in every way mysterious; and since you have asked my
+advice, it is this: find out where they are going, and appear there, as
+if by chance. By that time our spoiled beauty's mind may have changed."
+
+"Won't you tell me where they are going?"
+
+"I would if I could." This was true, since Kate was sure that, change as
+Virginia might, she would never return to her brief, ballroom fancy for
+the Italian. "I hinted at Naples, Greece, and Egypt, and Virginia
+answered that it would be 'something of the sort'--answered evasively,
+saying nothing was decided yet; and so the conversation would have ended
+if George Trent hadn't come bursting in, very excited, exclaiming before
+he saw me that he'd got hold of exactly the right steam yacht, with _four
+cannon_."
+
+Loria started like a sensitive woman. "A yacht with four cannon! What can
+they want with cannon?"
+
+"I asked if they were fitting out for pirates, and Mr. Trent assured me
+that the cannon being on board was a mere accident; they would not have
+them removed, but they had no intention of making use of them. Still,
+there's no doubt that there's some mystery behind this yachting
+expedition. I can't make it out at all. Whether it is Mr. Trent's
+plan----"
+
+"But he would not wish to go without you."
+
+"A few days ago, perhaps not. But others besides Virginia have changed.
+That day when we rode up the Valley of the Shadow, as they call it, was
+destined to be an eventful day for us all."
+
+"You mean----"
+
+"I mean that George Trent is a different man since he went to the Château
+de la Roche."
+
+A dark flush rose to Loria's forehead. "He met Madeleine Dalahaide?"
+
+"One might think, from your expression and accent, that you were
+jealous."
+
+"One would think wrongly then. A man can't be in love with two women at
+the same time."
+
+"Can't he? I wasn't sure. Men are strange; perhaps there's something of
+the dog in the manger about them, at times. At all events, George Trent
+is much interested in the yachting trip, and he _doesn't_ want me to go.
+Perhaps Miss Dalahaide is to be of the party; and in that case I should
+be the odd woman. Not that it matters to me. George was pleasant to flirt
+with but I should not marry again, unless I married money. Virginia's
+great fortune comes from her father, George's step-father, who was
+jealous of the mother's affection for the first husband's son, and
+disliked him. George will accept nothing from Virginia, and has only what
+his mother could leave him--a miserable five thousand dollars a year."
+
+Loria scarcely listened. His level black brows were drawn together. "She
+was reading a book about Noumea," he said slowly. "What if--no, it is
+impossible--impossible!"
+
+"What is impossible? If I am to help you, you must have no secrets from
+me."
+
+"She could not hope, if she went there, to see him. Bah! The bare thought
+is monstrous."
+
+"It is a little far-fetched," said Kate. "I should think the adventure
+they are undertaking will be no more startling than an attempt to reach
+the Second Cataract. The cannon _might_ be needed there, you know."
+
+"That is true. But, Lady Gardiner, you must find out where they are
+going, and let me know. A hundred diamond serpents would not be enough to
+testify my gratitude. You mean to go with them?"
+
+"If they will take me."
+
+"They must take you. They must! You are my only hope, the only link that
+will be left between me and Virginia Beverly. Listen! We are talking
+frankly to each other, you and I. We never thought to be such
+friends--but we are friends, and must trust each other to succeed. You
+often speak, half-jestingly, of being poor. I have money--I don't say
+enough; who has enough? But I am not a poor man. Watch Virginia for me;
+watch Sir Roger Broom. Let me know where this yacht is taking you, whom
+she carries, all that happens on board of her. Advise me, from what you
+see of passing events; and for all these services, worth an inestimable
+sum to me, I will give you what I can afford--say, a thousand pounds. You
+shall have half down the day you start, and the other half the day that
+you return."
+
+"You are generous; and--I will be loyal," said Kate. "It will not be my
+fault, I promise you, if the yacht sails without me. Now I must go. We
+must have been talking here for more than an hour, for Virginia's
+carriage, which she lent me, has just driven up to the door. Whenever
+there is a new development of this mystery, which interests us both, you
+shall know it. I wish I could take you up to Cap Martin with me, if you
+are ready to go that way, but perhaps it would be wiser not--especially
+as the victoria isn't my own."
+
+Kate Gardiner had not been in the hotel an hour when a box was brought to
+her door by the Marchese Loria's valet. Inside was the diamond serpent.
+She told herself that she had done a very good afternoon's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon every one knew that the American heiress and beauty, Miss Virginia
+Beverly, had bought, for twenty thousand pounds, the famous steam yacht
+which the mad Spanish Prince d'Almidares had used as a despatch boat at
+the time of the American war with Spain. For some time it had been for
+sale, lying in harbour at Nice; but it had been too costly a toy; the
+cannon with which it was armed were worth only the price of old iron to
+most buyers of yachts. They were equally useless to Miss Beverly and her
+party, as she and George Trent and Roger Broom impressed upon all who
+asked questions; but, then, what was the use in wasting time enough to
+dismantle the yacht, as she was wanted immediately, and the cannon were
+too cleverly concealed to injure the smart appearance of the little
+craft?
+
+It was given out that the _Bella Cuba_ would touch at Greece, go on to
+Egypt, and perhaps visit Algiers and Lisbon, steaming at last up the
+Thames to Tilbury. Virginia Beverly ostentatiously bought thin summer
+clothing, saying that it would be summer weather on the sea before she
+bade good-bye to the water. Still, Virginia announced that she did not
+wish to be bound down to a definite programme, and Kate Gardiner had to
+be satisfied with a prospect of vagueness if she intended to be of the
+party.
+
+Not for a single moment had she abandoned that intention. Even if she had
+not stood to earn a thousand pounds she would have moved heaven and earth
+to go, for more and more, as the days of preparation went on, her
+curiosity and excitement increased.
+
+Roger Broom, it was clear, had been intensely annoyed when he was
+informed that Lady Gardiner had so far overcome her fear of the sea, as
+to wish to be a passenger on the _Bella Cuba_. He had said little, but
+his face was expressive, and Kate was of opinion that he would have said
+a great deal more, had not some strong motive restrained him. Perhaps,
+she thought, this motive was fear of rousing her suspicions if he too
+emphatically advocated her stopping behind. But--suspicions of _what_?
+That was the question she often asked herself, and could never answer.
+
+She had asked it of Loria also, when they met--as secretly as if the bond
+between them had been a forbidden love. But if the truth about the
+yachting trip had been told, even he had no solution ready for the
+puzzle.
+
+At last the yacht, which had been re-painted, was ready, the captain and
+crew of picked men, all Englishmen, were engaged, and the _Bella Cuba_
+steamed into the harbour at Mentone, exactly one month from the date (as
+Kate happened to remember) of the eventful ride into the Valley of the
+Shadow.
+
+They were to start in two days, and Lady Gardiner's heart sank at the
+thought of all the physical suffering she was doomed to endure.
+Nevertheless, when Virginia hinted that, if she chose to think better of
+her decision, it was not yet too late, she courageously assured the girl
+that she was looking forward to the trip. She had always wanted to see
+Egypt!
+
+The yacht was swift, and had proved herself seaworthy, but she was
+comparatively small, and when Kate went on board with Virginia to inspect
+the accommodation, she was surprised to be shown only five passenger
+cabins. Still, as she had been informed that there were to be but four in
+the party, she did not see why it would be impossible for Virginia's maid
+to go, and ventured to say as much.
+
+"But we have decided to take a doctor," explained Virginia. "We shall be
+so long at sea that otherwise it really wouldn't be safe."
+
+"For my part I'd much rather have a maid than a doctor," sighed Kate, to
+whom Virginia's Celestine had made herself agreeably useful. "We shall
+have nothing worse the matter with us than seasickness; and how _are_ we
+to do our hair?"
+
+Thus bemoaning her fate, she passed along the line of white and gold
+painted doors, and stopped suddenly at a sixth, the only one which was
+closed. Gently she tried the handle. It did not yield.
+
+"One would think that this ought to be another cabin," she remarked
+sweetly; "else what becomes of the symmetry? Now, if only it _were_ one,
+you might take Celestine. You'd be so _much_ more comfortable."
+
+"That cabin can't be used," Virginia said, her eyes very bright, her
+cheeks very red. "And if you want Celestine, Kate, you must stop on
+land."
+
+Lady Gardiner at once protested that she was not thinking of _herself_;
+oh, indeed no! but merely of her _dear_ girl, who was not used to being
+her own maid. She said no more of the locked door, but she could think of
+nothing else. Why could the cabin not be used, and why had Virginia
+suddenly grown cross at the bare suggestion that it should be? Was it
+possible that Madeleine Dalahaide was going after all, that her presence
+was to be kept secret from Kate until the last moment, and that she was
+to have this stateroom? Perhaps, Lady Gardiner's jealous suspicion
+whispered, she was already in the cabin, and had locked herself in,
+fearing just such an intrusion as the turned key had prevented.
+
+That night she saw Loria, and told him precisely what had happened on
+board. "I shouldn't wonder," she said reflectively, "if the whole mystery
+of this trip were not on the other side of that closed door. Something
+tells me it is so."
+
+"When do you start?" asked the Italian.
+
+"To-morrow, at five in the afternoon."
+
+"Could you make an excuse to go on board in the morning alone?"
+
+"Yes. Celestine has taken most of our things on to-day, and put them away
+for us. We are not supposed to leave the hotel till three o'clock. But I
+could say I had lost something, and hoped that I'd left it on the _Bella
+Cuba_. Or perhaps I could slip on board without saying anything until
+afterward. But what good would it do me? The door isn't likely to be
+unlocked; and I can see nothing through the keyhole. I tried this
+afternoon."
+
+"I will get you a key which, if there isn't one already on the inside,
+will open the door."
+
+In the night Kate Gardiner had strange dreams of the locked cabin. Twenty
+times in her sleep she was on the point of finding out the secret, but
+always woke before she had made it her own. She was up early in the
+morning, and went out, saying, as if carelessly, to Celestine, that she
+must buy a few last things which she had forgotten. In the town she met
+Loria, as they had arranged over-night, and he put into her hand
+something in a sealed envelope.
+
+"You are sure this will do it?" she asked.
+
+"Sure," returned the Italian.
+
+Then they parted; Kate took a small boat and was rowed out to the _Bella
+Cuba_, which lay anchored not far from shore.
+
+"I have come on board to look for a diamond ring which I think I dropped
+in my cabin yesterday," she remarked to the captain.
+
+He turned away, all unsuspicious and Kate hurried to the saloon off which
+the cabins opened. Already she had broken the seal on the envelope, and
+taken out a small, peculiarly shaped steel implement. With a quick glance
+over her shoulder and a loud beating of the heart, she thrust the
+master-key into the lock of the closed door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LADY ON THE VERANDAH
+
+
+No one was coming; Lady Gardiner dared to turn the key. The door opened,
+and she looked into the room beyond.
+
+It was a cabin, of the same size as the others, and fitted up as a
+stateroom, but furnished and decorated differently. The five which Kate
+had been shown yesterday were comfortable, but not particularly
+luxurious, and she had wondered, since this was ostensibly a pleasure
+trip, that beauty-loving Virginia had not thought it worth while to have
+her own cabin, at least, made more dainty.
+
+In the locked stateroom, whose secret Kate was violating, the berth was
+hung with old brocaded silk of blue and silver, the curtains edged with
+curious thick lace, yellowed by time. On the floor lay a beautiful
+tiger-skin, covering it from end to end. A large fitted travelling-bag
+stood open on a cushioned seat, showing silver-topped bottles; and the
+wall on one side of the cabin was almost hidden with photographs and
+sketches which had been tacked up, over a low book-shelf, filled with
+volumes in uniform binding of blue and gold. The photographs were of
+places as well as people, and Kate had just identified the Valley of the
+Shadow, dominated by the Château de la Roche, when a sudden sound sent
+her out of the cabin and into the saloon, with her heart pounding and her
+nerves throbbing, in shamed fear of discovery.
+
+She had just time to lock the door and pass on to that of her own
+stateroom when Celestine appeared, carrying various small parcels. She
+had been sent to the yacht by her mistress to finish a few preparations
+for the voyage, and was surprised to see Lady Gardiner. Kate, however,
+was prepared with her story of the lost ring, which no doubt Celestine
+would repeat to Virginia, and produced the jewel, saying that fortunately
+she had found it on the floor of her cabin.
+
+The maid had no suspicion, probably did not dream that the _Bella Cuba_
+had a secret to keep, and Lady Gardiner was rowed back to shore,
+confident that she had come safely out of the morning's adventure. The
+mystery, however, remained a mystery, except that Kate was certain now of
+one thing which she had only suspected. There was to be a passenger on
+board the _Bella Cuba_, whose expected presence had carefully been
+concealed from her. For this passenger elaborate preparations had been
+made. Everything behind that locked door was beautiful, but nothing was
+new. In the fleeting glimpse Kate had obtained before the sound of
+Celestine's descending steps had sent her flying from her stolen
+inspection, she had been impressed with the feeling that the decorations
+of the stateroom had all been taken from some other room, with the view
+of surrounding its occupant with old associations.
+
+Lady Gardiner hoped to see Loria before going back to the hotel, and an
+appointment had been made, to be kept as nearly to the time as possible;
+but he was not at Rumpelmayer's, the place of meeting, and, astonished at
+his defection, she was obliged to return to the Cap Martin without the
+expected talk. In her room she found a line from the Italian. Sir Roger
+Broom had seen him at Rumpelmayer's, he explained, and had joined him
+there. Fearing that Lady Gardiner might come in while they were together,
+he pleaded an engagement and went out, still accompanied by Broom. Now,
+Loria asked, was it possible that Miss Beverly's cousin suspected
+anything? Had Lady Gardiner been imprudent and dropped the slightest hint
+of their new allegiance?
+
+Kate had begun a note in reply, when Virginia knocked at her door,
+inquiring whether she were ready for luncheon. "Wait for me just a moment
+in the sitting-room," said the elder woman, and, her ideas confused in
+the necessity for haste, she merely scrawled: "Don't think Sir Roger or
+any one suspects. Must have been an accident. Key worked well. I saw
+cabin. It is ready for a passenger. I would wager that that passenger is
+Madeleine Dalahaide. Probably we shall not have a word together in
+private now before we go, but will write you from every port, or wire if
+necessary and possible.--K. G."
+
+This note she took down to the dining-room with her, and barely had a
+chance to press it into Loria's palm as he bade her, with the others, a
+rather formal farewell.
+
+The Marchese was not one of those who went out to the yacht to see the
+last of the beautiful American girl and her party. Virginia had
+definitely refused him now, and the old, pleasant intimacy had been
+brought to a sudden end. Nevertheless, he sent her flowers--a great
+basket of roses big enough to fill up half of her stateroom on the _Bella
+Cuba_--which she promptly gave to Kate, with various other elaborate
+offerings, keeping for her own cabin only a small bunch of fragrant
+violets sent by some one whose name she seemed to guess, although there
+was no card.
+
+So, at last, they were off; and no sad-faced girl in black had appeared.
+Besides the original party of four, there was only a little dark,
+keen-eyed English doctor, taken from his practice in Mentone. He looked
+like a man who would know how to keep a secret, and Kate wondered whether
+the mystery of the _Bella Cuba_ were a mystery to Dr. Grayle.
+
+"Miss Dalahaide will come on board at Naples," Kate said to herself when
+it became certain that they would stop there. "She is well known in
+Mentone, no doubt, and didn't wish it to leak out that she was going on
+this yachting trip."
+
+But they arrived at Naples, sent off telegrams and letters, coaled, and
+left without taking on another passenger. Always it seemed to Kate that
+Virginia's manner showed suppressed nervous excitement. She was restless,
+capricious, took an interest in nothing for more than ten minutes
+together. She had never been to Naples before, yet she appeared to grudge
+the two or three hours they spent in driving about, and would not listen
+to Kate's suggestion that they should stop long enough for a visit to
+Pompeii.
+
+"Next time," she said evasively. Altogether, she had not at all the air
+of a young woman yachting for pleasure, as of course she must be, since
+what other object could the trip have? "I am in a hurry to see Cairo,"
+she replied, when Lady Gardiner inquired the reason of her impatience.
+
+After all, they did not touch at Greece, but went straight on to
+Alexandria, the sea being so calmly unruffled that even Kate had no
+excuse for illness. She might have been very happy in these long, lazy,
+blue-and-gold days, if George Trent had been his old self. But the frost
+which had withered the flower of his fancy for her that day in the Valley
+of the Shadow, had never thawed. He read and smoked a great deal, leaving
+Roger Broom to amuse Virginia and Lady Gardiner.
+
+Something went wrong with the engine the morning when they expected to
+reach Alexandria and Kate heard talk of a "heated bearing on the
+crankshaft," which might have to be taken off, thus delaying them a
+couple of days. "But a couple of days!" she exclaimed in surprise.
+"Surely you mean to stop longer than that!"
+
+"We hadn't thought of it," answered Roger drily.
+
+"Are you going up the Nile then?"
+
+"No; the _Bella Cuba_ is rather big, you know."
+
+"Not so big as the excursion boats that go, is she?"
+
+"Virginia doesn't care about it, anyhow; she loves the sea for its own
+sake, and hasn't come as much for sight-seeing as for a complete rest.
+While the repairs are being done we shall run up to Cairo by rail, stop a
+night at the Ghezireh Palace, and drive out for a look at the Sphinx and
+the Pyramids."
+
+"You really are the most extraordinary people!" ejaculated Kate. "I don't
+know what to make of you."
+
+Roger smiled, and was silent. He had the air of thinking it of small
+importance whether or not Lady Gardiner, who had insisted upon coming on
+this trip, knew what to make of her hosts and hostess. But, then, Sir
+Roger Broom had never more than tolerated this most charming of
+companions.
+
+Kate had kept the master-key which Loria had given her, and had never
+ceased to hope for another chance to investigate the locked stateroom,
+which might, she told herself sometimes, have a hidden occupant. To be
+sure, so far as she knew, no other passengers had come on board at
+Naples; but, then, they had all been away from the yacht for several
+hours, and some one might have been smuggled into the cabin. With this
+fancy lurking in her mind, she would have given much for a second peep;
+but she had never found a moment when it seemed safe to run the risk.
+
+She could imagine no reason, if Madeleine Dalahaide had come on board at
+Naples, beyond spying-distance of old acquaintances, why she should
+remain hidden in the stateroom, unless, indeed, there were some truth in
+Loria's suggestion that the yacht was bound for New Caledonia, to take
+the girl out to her convict brother. In that case, perhaps, it might
+conceivably be necessary to keep the captain and crew in ignorance of her
+presence, lest they should gossip in port. Still, Virginia's
+restlessness, her lack of interest in the beautiful places so easy to
+visit, her desire to remain on board when the _Bella Cuba_ was in port,
+seemed to point to some peculiar motive under her indifference to all
+pleasures of the trip.
+
+In Alexandria, the girl "did not see why they should pack up to stop a
+night in Cairo." What if the crankshaft could be repaired sooner than
+they supposed? Then they would be wasting time. But she was overruled,
+and just before sunset they drove up to one of the most beautiful hotels
+in the world.
+
+The evening chill was beginning to fall, yet many people still lingered
+on the huge terrace overlooking the Nile, where the "winging" sails of
+the little boats were pink and golden as mother-o'-pearl, reflecting the
+crimson glory of the sky. A woman sitting alone at a little table looked
+up as they passed, and with a slight start. Virginia half stopped,
+staring almost rudely at the face which was lifted for a moment. But it
+was only for a moment.
+
+The woman, who was exceedingly handsome, of the most luscious Spanish
+type of beauty, flushed under the American girl's intent gaze, drew up a
+sable cape which had partly fallen from the shoulders of her white cloth
+dress, and turned a resentful back.
+
+"What a handsome creature, but awfully made up!" whispered Kate, who had
+no mercy on her own sex.
+
+Virginia did not answer. She walked on, looking as if she had awakened
+from a dream.
+
+At dinner that night, next to the party from the yacht, was a small table
+laid for one. It was unoccupied until they had half finished dinner; then
+heads began suddenly to turn toward the door; people whispered, there was
+a perceptible, though scarcely definable thrill of interest, and a tall
+woman in sequined black tulle, glittering with diamonds, came slowly up
+the room. She must have known that all eyes were upon her, yet she
+appeared unconscious. Her lashes were cast down as she moved toward a
+chair held obsequiously ready by a waiter at the little empty table, and
+their dusky length was not second even to Virginia's. As the newcomer sat
+down, she faced Roger Broom.
+
+"That woman's face looks somehow familiar to me," he said, "yet I can't
+think where, if ever, I have seen it. I suppose it can only be a chance
+resemblance to somebody or other."
+
+Virginia opened her lips to speak, but closed them again hastily. Kate
+then threw a questioning glance her way, and saw that she had suddenly
+grown pale. "I wish you or George would find out who she is," the girl
+said presently. "She is one of the handsomest women I ever saw. If
+possible, I should like to know her."
+
+"I can promise that you shall at least know her name," replied Roger,
+smiling. "It wouldn't be safe to say more." And, true to his word, an
+hour after dinner he came to the private drawing-room where Virginia and
+Lady Gardiner sat, with the required information.
+
+"The strange beauty is a Portuguese countess," he announced. "Her name is
+De Mattos, and she is a widow, spending the winter here alone, except for
+her maid. She is much admired, especially by men, but apparently does not
+care to make acquaintances; otherwise, as she seems to be a person whose
+name the gossips respect, your wish might perhaps have been gratified."
+
+"Have you remembered yet where you saw her before?"
+
+"I've remembered where I saw some one like her. But it is not the same
+woman."
+
+"You're sure?"
+
+"Absolutely. The other was a blonde with Titian hair. And she has been
+dead for years."
+
+Virginia said no more, and appeared to forget the Portuguese countess.
+But when Lady Gardiner complained of being tired, and went off to bed,
+that she might be fresh for sight-seeing next morning, also to write a
+puzzled letter to the Marchese Loria, Virginia remained. George Trent had
+gone to a Cairene theatre, and she and Roger were alone together.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed upon Kate Gardiner, when the girl sprang up
+from her chair, and before Roger knew what she meant to do, was sitting
+on a divan beside him, her hand on his sleeve.
+
+"Roger," she exclaimed, "I thank you a thousand, thousand times for
+insisting that I should come here."
+
+"You haven't seen anything yet," he returned. "Thank me after to-morrow."
+
+"It's the most wonderful thing in the world that we should have come,"
+she went on. "If we had employed the cleverest detectives in Paris and
+London they might never have discovered what chance, merest chance--if
+there is such a thing as chance--has put into our hands to-night."
+
+"What are you talking about, dear child?" asked Roger.
+
+"I'm talking about Liane Devereux, the actress that Maxime Dalahaide is
+supposed to have murdered. You've been very good, Roger. I've appreciated
+it, for you never believed in his innocence. Now you must believe, in
+spite of yourself, since she is here, calling herself the Countess de
+Mattos."
+
+Roger stared at her in amazement. "But this is madness, dear," he said.
+"Liane Devereux was murdered; whether Maxime Dalahaide or another was her
+murderer, there is no possible doubt that she is dead. You can't know the
+story as well as I thought you did, if you don't put that beyond
+questioning."
+
+"I tell you, Liane Devereux is in this house, and Providence sent me here
+to see her. It's that which is beyond question."
+
+"Did Madeleine Dalahaide show you the woman's picture?"
+
+"Yes, two pictures; a photograph and an ivory miniature. She kept them
+because they were her brother's, just as she kept everything of his. I
+looked at them again and again, until I knew the features line by line. I
+can't be mistaken. This is the same woman. There was an even deeper
+mystery about that murder than Maxime Dalahaide's best friends guessed."
+
+Roger Broom shrugged his shoulders with a despairing laugh. "For
+light-hearted trampling on established facts, give me an American girl!"
+he exclaimed. "A woman is murdered, her body found, identified, buried.
+Four or five years afterward another woman appears, a brunette, while
+Number One was blonde. Number One, a Frenchwoman, was murdered in Paris;
+Number Two, a Portuguese, is spending the winter in Cairo. There is
+absolutely nothing to link these women together except a resemblance of
+feature, which, though strong, is not convincing even to a man who saw
+Number One on the stage many times. Yet here comes a maiden from the
+States, who was in the schoolroom in her own country when Number One was
+murdered, and insists, because she has seen a portrait or two, that Liane
+Devereux, the dead actress, and the Countess de Mattos are one and the
+same."
+
+"I know it sounds childish," admitted Virginia, with unwonted meekness;
+"nevertheless, I'm absolutely sure. I'd stake my life on it, if it were
+necessary."
+
+"How do you proceed to explain the identification and burial of Liane
+Devereux's body if she is now alive in Cairo?"
+
+"I don't pretend to explain--yet. There was a mistake--that's all I can
+say."
+
+"Liane Devereux was too well known for that to be possible. Besides, if
+there had been such a mistake, another woman, murdered and buried in her
+place, must have been missing. As a matter of fact, no other woman was
+missing."
+
+"You mean no other woman's disappearance was discovered."
+
+"You're incorrigible! I know you're wrong; but, admitting for the sake of
+argument that you might be right, what use could you make of this
+marvellous private information, supplied to your brain only? If the
+Countess de Mattos is really Liane Devereux, come to life, one might be
+sure that a woman clever enough to plan from the beginning so astounding
+an affair would be too clever to leave any tracks behind her."
+
+"Yes, that is one of the difficulties," said Virginia. "Only somehow we
+must get over it."
+
+"I hope, my dear free-lance detective, that you aren't plotting to accuse
+the Countess to her face, and have a dramatic scene in the hall of the
+Ghezireh Palace?"
+
+"I don't know yet what to do," the girl answered slowly. "But I don't
+want to leave Cairo until after we've done something."
+
+"Believe me, there's nothing to do. We are on a wild-goose chase as it
+is; don't let's complicate things by a suit for slander just as it's
+begun. My advice is, dear, put this mad idea out of your head, and let's
+get on about our business as quickly as we can--as quickly as you
+yourself wanted to do a few hours ago."
+
+"Then I'm sorry I can't take your advice," said Virginia. "I'm growing
+superstitious. I believe that I was brought here for a particular
+purpose, and I don't mean to go until, in some way, I've accomplished
+that purpose."
+
+Roger sighed, and said no more. He had exhausted his stock of arguments;
+he knew Virginia almost as well as he loved her. He had promised
+coöperation; and though there had been no bargaining, she had voluntarily
+led him to hope for a reward which, to him, was beyond any other
+happiness the world might hold. Therefore he could do nothing but bow to
+the inevitable, and await developments, which meant, with a girl like
+Virginia Beverly, expecting the unexpected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly in the night Virginia sat up in bed and exclaimed aloud: "Oh, if
+I could!" Kate Gardiner, in a room adjoining, heard her, and supposed
+that she was talking in her sleep. But the truth was that a plan had at
+that instant sprung fully armed from her brain, like Minerva from the
+head of Jove; a plan so daring that the bare thought was an electric
+shock.
+
+She could not sleep after its conception, but lay tossing and tingling
+until it was time to get up. Every moment would be long now until the
+machinery could be set in motion, and she bathed and dressed hastily,
+having long ago ceased actively to miss Celestine's lost ministrations.
+
+There was no sound in the next room. Kate was not yet awake, evidently;
+and so, as she took quite two hours for dressing and beautifying, it
+would be foolish to wait for her. Virginia went downstairs, looking about
+in vain for Roger or George, and stepped out on to the wide verandah, for
+a look at the Nile by morning light. To her joy the beautiful Portuguese
+countess was there, breakfasting alone, with a yellow-covered French
+novel open on the little table before her. Virginia instantly decided
+that she would also breakfast on the verandah, and as near to the
+Countess as possible.
+
+As the American girl's pale blue serge rustled its silk lining along the
+floor, the Portuguese woman raised her eyes from the novel she was
+reading as she sipped her coffee. The eyes had appeared almost black in
+the evening; now Virginia saw that they were a curious, greenish gray,
+and her heart gave a leap, for the eyes of Liane Devereux, in the painted
+ivory miniature, had been gray.
+
+Now or never, Virginia said to herself, was the time to begin the
+campaign. She seized the tide of fortune at its flood, and spoke in
+English, making the most of the pretty, drawling Southern accent of the
+State after which she had been named, because American girls were
+privileged to be eccentric.
+
+"Good morning," she said. "Oh, I do hope you understand my language,
+because I want to tell you something."
+
+The green-gray eyes of the Countess shone keenly between their heavy
+black fringes during a silent moment of inspection, which must have shown
+her Virginia divinely young, and childishly innocent of guile. At the end
+of the moment she smiled.
+
+"Yes, I understand English, and speak it a little," she responded, with a
+charming accent, and in a voice musical but unexpectedly deep. "You are
+American, is it not? What have you to tell me--that we have met before,
+somewhere?"
+
+At this--or Virginia imagined it--there came again a steely flash from
+the black lashes. "Oh, no," said the girl hurriedly. "I never saw you
+until yesterday. What I want to tell you is, that I hope you will forgive
+me for staring at you as I did then. I was afraid you'd think me rude.
+But I just couldn't help it, you are so beautiful. I adore beauty. You
+can be sure now I'm American, can't you? for nobody but an American girl
+would say such things to a perfect stranger. I'm glad I _am_ American,
+for if I didn't speak I don't see exactly how I should get to know you.
+And I want to know you very much. I made my cousin, Sir Roger Broom--he's
+English, though I'm American--ask who you were, so I heard your name.
+Mine is Virginia Beverly. Now we're introduced, aren't we?"
+
+The Countess laughed and looked pleased. "I have seen your name in the
+journals," she said--"the journals of society all over the world, that
+one reads in hotels when one has nothing better to do, is it not? They
+told the truth in one thing, for they said that you were _très belle_.
+And you have bought the yacht of a Spanish gentleman, whom I have known a
+little. Yes, I remember it was a Miss Virginia Beverly, for it is not a
+name to forget; and I love yachting."
+
+By this time, Virginia had ordered her breakfast and received it, but she
+was far too excited to make more than a pretense at eating. It was almost
+as if the Countess de Mattos were playing into her hands. It seemed too
+good to be true. She was afraid that something would happen to ruin all;
+that she would lose her head, and by her precipitancy put the other on
+her guard; yet the opportunity was too admirable to be entirely
+neglected.
+
+"If you like yachting, it would be nice if you could come and have a
+day's run with us," said the girl. "The _Bella Cuba_ is at Alexandria,
+and we should all love taking you. My cousin and my half-brother, George
+Trent, couldn't talk of anything but you last night. Perhaps, later, we
+might arrange it, if the railway journey both ways wouldn't bore you."
+
+"On the contrary, I should be charmed," replied the Countess. She
+flushed, and her eyes brightened. Virginia looked at her admiringly, yet
+sharply, and said to herself: "If that rich, dark complexion of yours is
+make-up--as it must be to prove my theory right--then it's the cleverest
+make-up that any woman ever had as a disguise."
+
+At this moment Sir Roger Broom and George Trent came out on to the
+verandah together, both looking very much surprised to see Virginia in
+conversation with the Countess de Mattos.
+
+"Can she have said anything?" Roger thought quickly. But the calm
+expression of the beautiful, dark face was in itself an answer to his
+silent question.
+
+The two men strolled up to Virginia, who asked and received permission
+from the Countess to introduce her brother and cousin; and soon they were
+talking as if they had known each other for days instead of moments.
+
+The Portuguese beauty was distinctly ingratiating in her manner to all
+three, so much so that Roger became thoughtful. He was more certain than
+ever, if that were possible, that this woman was not Liane Devereux, for
+the voice was many tones deeper, and the Countess spoke English with an
+accent that was not at all French.
+
+It seemed to him that no woman could disguise herself so
+completely--face, voice, mannerisms, accent--no matter how clever she
+might be; besides, Virginia's idea was ridiculous. But he began to wonder
+whether the lovely Portuguese had a right to her title, or, if she had,
+whether it were as well gilded as her charming frocks and her residence
+at this expensive hotel would suggest at first sight.
+
+It seemed to him that she caught too readily at new acquaintances for a
+rich and haughty daughter of Portuguese aristocracy, and though he
+believed that he understood, only too well, Virginia's motive for
+cultivating a friendship, he was inclined to fear that the girl might be
+victimized by an adventuress.
+
+The Countess de Mattos was too handsome and too striking not to have been
+remarked in Cairo, no matter how quietly she might live at the Ghezireh
+Palace Hotel, and he determined to make inquiries of some officers whom
+he knew there.
+
+At all events, plans for the present were changed. Instead of a day or
+two in Cairo they were to stay on indefinitely. George, as well as Roger,
+was taken into the secret, but Lady Gardiner was told only the fact. She
+was pleased at first, for she was fond of Cairo, and had never had a
+chance to stop there in luxury before. She did not, however, like the
+Countess de Mattos, who was much too handsome to be acceptable to her;
+and before the slower and more prudent Roger had learnt anything, she was
+primed with all the gossip of the hotel regarding the Portuguese beauty.
+There was a certain Mrs. Maitland-Fox at the Ghezireh Palace, whom Lady
+Gardiner had met before, and from her she gathered the crumbs of gossip
+with which she immediately afterward regaled Virginia.
+
+"They" said that the Countess de Mattos, although she might really be a
+countess (and there were those who pretended to vouch for this), had
+scarcely a penny. She traded on her beauty and the lovely clothes with
+which some trusting milliner must have supplied her, to pick up rich or
+influential friends, from whom she was certain to extort money in some
+way or another. And it was Mrs. Maitland-Fox's advice that Miss Beverly
+should be warned to beware of the beautiful lady.
+
+Among his friends, Roger heard something of the same sort, and though he
+was bound to admit that it was all very vague, he begged Virginia to
+abandon a forlorn hope, and let the Portuguese woman alone.
+
+"If she were really a Portuguese woman she might vanish from before my
+eyes, for all I should care," obstinately returned the girl. "But she is
+Liane Devereux, and if she breathed poison I wouldn't let her go till I
+had torn out her secret."
+
+"How do you mean to set about doing that?" demanded Roger.
+
+"That is _my_ secret," said Virginia. "Only let me alone and don't thwart
+me, or you'll spoil everything."
+
+Roger waited, expectant and apprehensive. He had not to wait long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE END OF THE WORLD
+
+
+They stayed a week in Cairo, and at the end of that time the Countess de
+Mattos had accepted an invitation to go yachting; not for a day, but for
+a vague period of "dawdling," as Virginia evasively expressed it. The
+beautiful Portuguese woman had hesitated at first, and confided to the
+American girl that, on account of the delay in receiving an expected sum
+of money, she did not quite see how she could get away in time. But
+Virginia had begged the Countess not to let such a small difficulty
+trouble her for a moment. She really must accept a loan to tide over the
+little annoyance; it would indeed be too hard to lose the pleasure of her
+companionship for the sake of a few paltry dollars, so that would be no
+favour at all, or rather, the favour would be the other way round.
+
+The "few paltry dollars" necessary turned out to be three thousand; but
+if they had been three times three thousand Virginia would have lent them
+just as cheerfully without the prospect of, or even wish for, their
+return. With the money obtained from Virginia's practically unlimited
+letter of credit in her pocket, and a hint delicately expressed that more
+would be at her service whenever she wished, "as it was such a nuisance
+having to keep in touch with one's bankers and people like that on a long
+yachting trip when nothing was less settled than one's plans," the
+Countess thought herself very well off.
+
+"Are you in a hurry to be anywhere in particular during the next few
+weeks?" asked the girl of her new friend. "No? How nice! Then let us
+throw all the responsibility of planning things upon the men. What fun
+never to know where we are going, but to be surprised always when we
+arrive anywhere."
+
+And the Countess de Mattos agreed. She would have agreed with almost
+anything that Virginia said that day. If the American girl believed that
+Providence had directed her to cross the path of this beautiful woman,
+the beautiful woman was equally sure that the god of luck had put this
+infatuated young heiress in her way.
+
+Roger would hardly have consented to the carrying out of Virginia's plan,
+which he called "kidnapping," had George Trent not joined his arguments
+to his sister's.
+
+"It does seem a mad idea," he admitted, "but if the woman isn't Liane
+Devereux, no harm will be done, except that she'll be taken a longer
+journey than she expects. If she is--ah! I know what you think, old chap,
+without your lifting your eyebrows up to your hair; but, by Jove!
+Virgie's got an instinct that's like the needle of a compass. When she
+says 'north,' I'd bet my bottom dollar it _was_ north, that's all. If I
+don't object to Virgie's associating with the Countess, you needn't--yet,
+anyhow. She isn't the kind of girl to be hurt by that sort of thing, and,
+besides, she'll have the dickens of a tantrum if we try to thwart her now
+she's set her heart on this trick. She'd be equal to slipping anchor with
+the Countess on board and leaving us in the lurch. Let's see the little
+girl through on her own lines, and if the snap doesn't come off, she
+can't blame _us_. Anyway, it's rougher on me than on you, for Virgie's
+put me up to do the agreeable to the Countess and keep her from getting
+restless before we attempt to spring our mine. A while ago I wouldn't
+have asked anything better than flirting all day with such a woman, who
+is as pretty and as fascinating as they're made, but I'm not in the mood
+for it now, somehow. Still, we're playing for big stakes--you for yours,
+Roger, I for mine."
+
+This was the only reference he made to his interest in Madeleine
+Dalahaide; but Roger guessed what was in his mind.
+
+Lady Gardiner floundered deeper than ever into the quicksands of mystery
+when she heard that the Countess de Mattos was to be one of the party for
+the rest of the voyage--wherever it was to take them. What could be
+Virginia's object in picking up this woman? Was it really true that she
+had taken the violent and sudden fancy to her that she feigned to feel,
+or did that pretense cloak a hidden motive? Kate had no clue, unless the
+fact that Virginia had asked her never to mention Madeleine Dalahaide or
+the Château de la Roche before the Countess could be called a motive. She
+would have disobeyed Virginia, by way of a curiosity-satisfying
+experiment, if she had not feared that the result might be disastrous and
+that she would be found out.
+
+At least she would in a gentle, tactful way have suggested objections to
+the Countess de Mattos's presence on the yacht, had she not been certain
+that Virginia would have frankly advised her to stay behind if she did
+not like the arrangements for the rest of the trip. Much as she loved
+Cairo in the height of its gay season, much as she hated the sea at all
+seasons, nevertheless she was doggedly determined to see this adventure
+to the end (bitter though it might be), not only to earn her thousand
+pounds, but to know the secret which actually kept her waking and
+wondering at night.
+
+It really was the strangest thing that Virginia should want this
+adventuress on the yacht, Kate indignantly remarked to Mrs.
+Maitland-Fox. The girl had refused to take a maid because there would
+not be room, yet now she dragged this creature on board to flirt with
+George Trent and perhaps inveigle him into a marriage under the
+impression that he was as rich as he was handsome.
+
+But with Virginia herself, after the first few moments of surprise, Lady
+Gardiner had been circumspect. She had not even dared to ask the question
+burning on her lips--whether the Countess would have the locked
+stateroom, or what arrangement would be made for her accommodation?
+Obliged to wait for this information until the hour of going on board
+again, once the Countess de Mattos's presence was to be expected without
+hope of change, Kate began to be impatient to start.
+
+The party, counting quiet, keen-eyed little Dr. Grayle, was now increased
+to six, an equal number of men and women, for the Countess had readily
+given up her maid. They all travelled to Alexandria together one morning,
+and, boarding the yacht, Kate eagerly watched for the new guest to be
+taken to her stateroom. Would the locked door be opened? No; Virginia
+led her past that mysterious, closed door, to the cabin formerly occupied
+by George Trent, and Kate saw that the young man's belongings, just
+brought back from Cairo, had been set down inside the stateroom once
+sacred to the doctor alone. In this there were two berths, and evidently
+George and the medical man would "chum" together for the rest of the
+voyage. The discovery did not add to Lady Gardiner's love for the
+Portuguese woman, for, half forgetting her uneasiness concerning
+Madeleine Dalahaide, she was now jealous of the new beauty, and it was
+gall and wormwood to Kate that George Trent, lost to her, should be
+making gallant sacrifices of his personal comfort for another woman.
+
+She had written to the Marchese Loria on the first night of their arrival
+in Cairo, before the acquaintance with the Countess had begun, and, as
+she could learn nothing of the future programme for the voyage, it had
+not seemed worth while to write again. As for the invitation to the
+Portuguese woman, Kate did not see that it could be of personal interest
+to Loria, and she never wrote unless she had something to say which was
+of importance to him; therefore the Italian remained in ignorance that
+the Countess de Mattos was a member of the little party on the _Bella
+Cuba_.
+
+So far as the trip had gone, there was nothing to excite his anxiety save
+that the girl he coveted for her beauty and her money was going farther
+and farther from him. But one day a telegram came for him to the Cap
+Martin Hotel, where he still remained. It was dated from Port Said.
+"Bound for Australia," were the three words the message contained; and
+they were words of heavy import to Loria.
+
+Australia! There was no reason why Virginia Beverly should not visit
+Australia. He had heard her say that she would not be satisfied until she
+had seen all the world. But if she had thought of going to Australia
+before she left Mentone, she had carefully refrained from saying so. It
+was more the fact that she had concealed such an intention than that she
+was now carrying it out, which seemed ominous to Loria. Sydney was the
+nearest place of departure for New Caledonia. In a Messageries mail boat
+it took ten days to reach Noumea from Sydney; it would perhaps take
+longer in a yacht like the _Bella Cuba_. And the sensible question to ask
+would be, Was it likely that a bright, erratic, butterfly being like
+beautiful Virginia Beverly would go so far simply for the pleasure of
+seeing the prison which contained a stranger, a convicted assassin for
+whom she had conceived a girlishly romantic interest?
+
+It was not as if she could hope to meet and talk with Maxime Dalahaide
+himself, have the pleasure of carrying him messages from his sister, or
+perhaps even bring Madeleine to him (for the Château de la Roche was
+empty now, in the hands of workmen, and no one, not even Loria, had been
+able to learn where Mademoiselle Dalahaide and her aunt had gone). The
+Italian was not unlearned in such lore of the far-away French prison-land
+as could be obtained, and he had read that, though strangers were allowed
+to land at Noumea, and a few had been enabled through influence to
+penetrate inside the prison walls, all personal intercourse with the
+convicts was strictly interdicted. Since the one almost miraculous
+escape, over thirty years ago, of Henri Rochefort and Humbert, watch and
+ward had been more strictly kept than ever; besides, they had escaped
+from Ducos, on the Isle of Pines, which in those days had been sacred to
+political prisoners, and discipline there had been, even then, lax
+compared to that of the Ile Nou, the very heart of prison-land, where
+Maxime Dalahaide was dragging out the weary years of his lost life.
+
+Yet what if Virginia should have formed the extraordinary resolve of
+going to Noumea? What was it to him--Loria--since she could accomplish
+nothing there? Suppose, even, that among other miserable convicts she saw
+Maxime--pallid, thin, sullen and hopeless, his good looks and his
+brilliant audacity crushed and gone--would not the romantic feeling she
+had conceived for him be instantly turned into horror and disgust? When
+such a chill had withered a girl's fancy for a man, there could be no
+future blossoming, and her heart might be caught in the rebound. Once,
+Loria had thought that Virginia had been on the point of caring for him.
+Perhaps when they met she would turn to him again, remorseful for the
+pain she had caused, grateful for his unwavering loyalty; and, telling
+himself these things, he was almost persuaded that it would do him more
+good than harm if Virginia did go to Noumea. But he was never wholly
+persuaded. A strange fear knocked at his heart, a fear that had no name.
+He never quite saw its face. Like a haunting ghost, it was always behind
+him, and he could hear the swish of its garments, the stealthy sound of
+its footfalls; but when he turned upon it the thing was gone, leaving
+only the impression of a black shadow with a veiled face inexpressibly
+awful.
+
+Loria could not sleep by night, and by day he was restless. He began to
+dread an illness, and was constantly troubled with headache, which gave
+him an excuse for believing that the vague, nervous apprehension he
+suffered was largely the result of physical causes.
+
+What else, indeed, could it be? He had absolutely nothing to fear. Of
+this he was still continually reminding himself, when another telegram
+came from Lady Gardiner, dated Sydney. "Leaving here to-morrow," she
+said. "Destination unknown."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Bella Cuba_ was ten days out from Sydney Heads. Her passengers rose
+early, for in the morning it was good to be alive. Virginia, fresh from
+her cold, salt bath, came on deck, and saw the Countess de Mattos there,
+with George Trent. Far away lay a strip of land, turning slowly from
+violet to emerald as the yacht steamed nearer. Virginia saw it and
+flushed. She knew what it must be, and quickly she glanced at George,
+with an eager question in her eyes.
+
+It was tacitly understood that the task of informing the Countess de
+Mattos what her destination was to be must be left to Virginia; she
+coveted it, while the two men did not. Still, the Portuguese might have
+guessed, on seeing that strip of violet; or George might inadvertently
+have given her a clue, and she would be on her guard.
+
+But George's blue eyes met his sister's; and with the faintest shake of
+his head he contrived to convey to her the intelligence that the secret
+still remained a secret.
+
+Virginia's heart was beating fast as she joined her brother and the
+Countess, and her hand was not quite steady as she offered her
+field-glass to the beautiful Portuguese, who had long ago begged the two
+ladies on board to call her "Manuela."
+
+"What a large island!" exclaimed the Countess. "And we seem to be making
+for it. What can it be? Mr. Trent says perhaps it is a mirage. But I
+think that is his joke. He likes teasing."
+
+"I think," replied Virginia calmly, though her eyes were on the face of
+Manuela, "that we must be coming in sight of New Caledonia."
+
+As she gave this answer, Roger Broom came up the companionway, and heard
+the last words, which rang out, distinctly. Instantly he knew that the
+moment for which Virginia had been waiting was at hand, and he, too,
+watched the Countess.
+
+She had taken Virginia's field-glass, and was gazing through it at the
+far-off land which with each moment seemed to grow more distinct. Only
+the delicate, aquiline profile could be seen by the eager eyes that
+looked for a sign of weakness. She did not speak at first, but a visible
+shiver ran through her body. The field-glass came down rather suddenly,
+and her fingers gripped it tightly as they rested on the rail. But she
+did not turn her face, and continued gazing landward as at last she
+echoed the words, "New Caledonia!"
+
+"Is not that a prison for the French _forçats_?" she slowly asked.
+
+Tacitly, the two men left the answer to Virginia. "Yes," said the girl.
+"Noumea is a penal settlement. They say it is very interesting to see. We
+thought that we might stop for a day or two in the harbour there."
+
+This time the Countess turned. "Oh, but that would be terrible!" she
+exclaimed. "We--they might rob and murder us, these convicts. You did not
+say that we were coming to Noumea."
+
+"It was to be one of our surprises," replied Virginia. "I thought that
+you would like it."
+
+"No, no!" ejaculated Manuela. "I do not like it at all. I have a horror
+of such places and such people. This is a pleasure trip, is it not? There
+is no pleasure in visiting a prison-land. Dear Virginia, dear Mr. Trent
+and Sir Roger, do let us turn our faces another way and go somewhere
+else."
+
+Virginia had not lost a single changing shade of expression on the
+Countess de Mattos's darkly beautiful face; but if she had been
+questioned, she would have had to confess that she was disappointed in
+the great effect toward which she had so long been working up. She had
+half expected to see this wicked woman who, in some deadly and mysterious
+way, had plotted to destroy Maxime Dalahaide, turn livid under the brown
+stain which she (Virginia) suspected, gasp, totter, and perhaps fall
+fainting when she heard those fatal names--"New Caledonia, Noumea." But
+Manuela gave none of these evidences of distress. If she paled, the dusky
+stain in whose existence Virginia so tenaciously believed hid the sign
+of her emotion. It allowed a deep flush to be seen; even Virginia could
+not deny that, but pallor was difficult to trace where complexion and
+even lips were tinted brown and red; and the slight quivering of the
+body, the dropping of the hand with the field-glass, were not so marked
+that they might not be due to an ordinary, disagreeable surprise.
+
+"I'm sorry you feel so about the place," said Virginia. "That's the worst
+of planning surprises, isn't it? One can't always be sure of bringing off
+a success. Now, I'm afraid we must make the best of it, for as we
+arranged to come here, our stores won't last long enough to avoid New
+Caledonia and go farther. We must buy butter and milk and vegetables, and
+chickens and lots of things, to say nothing of coaling. But you needn't
+see anything of the prison and the prisoners unless you like. The harbour
+is said to be glorious, and you can stop on board and read novels, while
+the rest of us do our sight-seeing, which won't take us very long."
+
+"Sight-seeing in a prison!" exclaimed the Countess. "You English and
+Americans are strange. We Latins, we never give ourselves pain that can
+be avoided. There is enough that is unpleasant in life without that. Ugh!
+I would rather do without butter and milk than buy it of convicts, who
+may poison us in sheer spite because we are more fortunate than they.
+Could we not turn round, and get back to Sydney without starving?"
+
+"No, it couldn't be managed," said Virginia.
+
+Manuela turned pleading eyes upon Roger and George. They were men; they
+knew more about such things than women; besides she could usually make
+men do what she wished. But for once she found creatures of the opposite
+sex who were not to be melted by her pleading. They agreed with Virginia
+that it was impossible now to avoid New Caledonia.
+
+"And how long shall we stay?" plaintively inquired the Countess, when she
+had been obliged to resign herself to the inevitable, which, to her
+credit, she did with a very pretty grace. "Shall we leave again to-night,
+with our poisoned food?"
+
+"Wait till you have seen the rocks in the harbour," answered George. "If
+they're as bad as the book says, they must be something to see. Anyhow,
+it's only possible to get in or out between sunrise and sunset. I'm
+afraid, Countess, you'll have to put up with it till to-morrow."
+
+"Oh!" Manuela sighed a long sigh. She asked no more questions, she made
+no more protests. She turned her back upon New Caledonia, and appeared to
+dismiss the land of lost souls from her mind.
+
+"Well," said Roger, when he and Virginia had walked away, leaving the
+Countess and George Trent to the flirtation which was so embittering the
+daily life of Lady Gardiner. "Well, was I right or wrong about this
+woman?"
+
+"Wrong," firmly answered Virginia.
+
+"You say that still, after the way she took your _grand coup_? But this
+is only because you hate giving up, beaten."
+
+"I'm not beaten yet," the girl returned doggedly. "I hoped for something
+different--yes, I admit that. But her game means as much to her as ours
+does to us. She's playing it for all it's worth. If she weren't such a
+wretch, I should have admired her pluck. How she held her ground! Taken
+by surprise as she was, almost her first thought was whether we had
+purposely caught her in this trap, or whether she had only an avenging
+fate to thank for such a terrible and startling coincidence. I saw that,
+at least, in her eyes and her face, Roger, though I didn't see all I had
+been looking for. Think what she must have been feeling! She helped to
+send an innocent man who had loved and trusted her into this exile, worse
+than death. She thought herself free from him forever, because he was at
+the other end of the world, dead-alive, in the grave where she buried
+him. Suddenly she finds herself looking at that grave, unable to escape.
+At any moment it may open, and the dead appear to accuse her. What a
+situation!"
+
+"What an imagination!" exclaimed Roger. "Dear child, you have let it
+carry you away as far from the truth as you've carried this woman from
+her home--this woman whom you've so audaciously kidnapped."
+
+"Wait," said Virginia, her voice trembling. "I haven't done with her.
+This is only the first turn of the thumbscrew. She doesn't dream yet of
+the ordeal she'll have to go through."
+
+"May have to go through," quietly amended Roger Broom.
+
+"You mean--oh, Roger, don't you think we'll succeed in what we've come
+for so far, so very far?"
+
+Virginia, with tears sparkling in uplifted eyes, was irresistible.
+
+"I hope it, dear," the man who loved and wanted her said, gravely. "I
+never thought it, you know. But the way hasn't seemed far to me, because
+I have been with you and the time will not have been wasted for me if we
+fail, because it has kept me by your side. I shall think, 'I have done
+what I could, and it has pleased Virginia.'"
+
+"It has made Virginia grateful for all her life long," said the girl
+softly, "and whatever happens she will never forget. You have done so
+much already! Disapproving my plan, still you loyally did all you could
+to forward it. You used your influence to get us the one chance here,
+without which we could hope to do nothing. You wrote to the French
+Ambassador in London, the English Ambassador in France, and finally, when
+our interests were so twisted up in masses of official red-tape that it
+seemed they could never get disentangled, you ran on to Paris yourself to
+call on the Minister of the Colonies. If it had not been for the permit
+you got from him, we might as well have given up coming here, for all the
+prison doors would have been shut to us. Now, through him, and through
+you, they will be open, and our first step is clear. All this made me
+feel hopeful, when we were far away; I felt sure that we should succeed.
+But now that we have come these thousands of miles in our poor little
+boat; now that we have arrived at the end of the world and our real work
+is still before us, my heart suddenly sinks down--down. I'm
+frightened--I'm almost ill: and your words and your face are so grave,
+Roger! Your very tenderness and kindness make it worse, for somehow, it's
+as if you thought there might be a good-bye. It makes me realize that,
+after all, the greatest danger is to be run by you and George. You have
+both come for my sake; and--you are going to risk your lives."
+
+"Risk your lives!" repeated a voice; and turning quickly, Virginia and
+her cousin saw Lady Gardiner, who had lately developed a rather stealthy
+way of creeping noiselessly behind her friends.
+
+Virginia's mood was not one to promote presence of mind. She was
+speechless; but Roger stepped in to the breach.
+
+"We were talking of a swim that George and I propose to have in these
+pleasant waters," he remarked. "There are supposed to be a good many
+sharks about, and Virginia is advising prudence."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Lady Gardiner. "She is quite right. We will all join our
+persuasions to hers. But the Countess tells me this island is actually
+New Caledonia, the French penal settlement. Isn't that where your friend
+Miss Dalahaide's brother is imprisoned?"
+
+"I believe so," said Virginia.
+
+"How exciting! And how well you've kept the secret of this expedition! Is
+there any chance of our coming across the interesting murderer?"
+
+"Don't call him that!" Virginia cried hotly. "How do you suppose that it
+would be possible for us to come across him? Do tourists who go to
+Portland 'come across' prisoners who have been convicted of
+murder--whether innocent or not? Noumea isn't the only port we have
+visited. It is on our way. We shall stop a day or two, and then--we shall
+go on somewhere else."
+
+"Quite so," drily returned Lady Gardiner.
+
+It was noon when they slowly steamed into the beautiful harbour of
+Noumea, and before them lay the crime-cursed land, fair with the fatal
+fairness of deadly nightshade.
+
+There, for nearly five years, Maxime Dalahaide had not lived, but
+existed. To give him back to life, she had come thousands of miles and
+spent more than twenty thousand pounds. What would they find that he had
+become, if those precious documents which Roger had obtained proved as
+potent as they hoped? Would his brain and heart have been strong enough
+to bear the hopeless agony, the shame, the hideous associations of those
+years which to him must have seemed a century of despair; or would he
+have fallen under the burden?
+
+Virginia shivered as if with cold, as she fancied a hard, official voice
+announcing that Number So-and-So was dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GATES OPEN
+
+
+The Countess de Mattos had a headache which was so severe, she announced,
+that it would prevent her from landing; besides, she was not interested
+in convicts. Lady Gardiner, on the contrary, was greatly interested.
+Never had she been more alert; never had her black eyes been so keen. She
+wanted to go everywhere; she wanted to see everything. She thought Noumea
+a charming place; she had "really _no_ sympathy for the prisoners." One
+might commit a crime solely for the pleasure of being sent here.
+
+The party of five went ashore, and Kate's principal preoccupation seemed
+to be to keep as close to Virginia as possible. She had the air of
+expecting some choice excitement, which she might miss if the girl were
+lost sight of for a moment. But nothing in the manner of Virginia or her
+brother or cousin suggested that they had come to this strange spot "at
+the end of the world" with any object save that of amusement. They
+behaved just as they had behaved at Sydney, or any other port at which
+they had called. All five strolled up, under a blaze of tropical
+sunshine, to the Place des Cocotiers, and sitting on the shaded verandah
+of the Hôtel de France, sipped a cooling drink concocted of oranges,
+lemons and pineapple. Then they sauntered on again, much observed by a
+few weary-looking persons they met, through broad streets, with long,
+low, white houses.
+
+Dr. Grayle kept beside Lady Gardiner now, and they walked in front, as
+the former was supposed to have studied the subject of the penal
+settlement so thoroughly as to be qualified for guide.
+
+Kate glanced over her shoulder often; but Dr. Grayle succeeded in
+genuinely interesting her in a story of an atrocious criminal who had
+been expatriated to Noumea some years before. When she looked hurriedly
+back, ostensibly to ask Roger Broom if he had ever heard the spicy
+narrative, the three had disappeared.
+
+Lady Gardiner flushed in anger with them for their duplicity, with
+herself for her carelessness in letting them slip away. "Dear me! what
+_has_ become of the others?" she exclaimed. "We must turn back and find
+them."
+
+Dr. Grayle took the defection calmly--so calmly that Kate leaped to the
+conviction that he was in the plot against her. The others wanted to go
+somewhere or do something without her, and this little brown-faced,
+sharp-eyed man had been told off as a kind of decoy duck. But she would
+circumvent them yet. She _would_ know what was going on.
+
+"They have probably gone to buy some bit of carving or other souvenirs of
+convict make," said the doctor. "Certainly we'll turn back if you like."
+
+They did turn back, and wandered about in all the (according to Dr.
+Grayle) most likely places to find the lost ones, but in vain. Kate could
+have burst into tears of rage. She was hot, tired, dusty, and--worst of
+all--thwarted. It was hateful to feel herself helpless in the plotters'
+hands, being made to dance when they pulled the strings, and to know that
+this "horrid little brown man" was secretly laughing at her behind his
+polite air of concern. Yet she _was_ helpless, and had to acknowledge it.
+If she left the doctor and went off on an expedition of independent
+exploration she would not know which way to go, and might get into
+trouble. But at last she could no longer bear her wrongs in silence; and,
+after all, she had nothing to gain by being nice to Dr. Grayle.
+
+"I suppose you think," she burst out angrily, "that you are making a fool
+of me, and that I don't know it. But I'm not as simple as you seem to
+believe. I'm perfectly well aware that there's a mystery going on, and
+that all these elaborate precautions are to keep me out of it."
+
+Dr. Grayle raised his eyebrows. "Then you are much more enlightened than
+I am," he returned mildly. "I'm really quite at loss to know what you
+mean, Lady Gardiner."
+
+"In plain words, I mean that you are walking me off my feet to cover the
+others' escape. You know perfectly well where they are, but they've
+ordered you to keep out of the way, and you are doing as you're told,
+like a nice, obedient little man. I never was so abominably treated in my
+life."
+
+"I can't see, even if Miss Beverly and her two relations choose to go off
+for a little private sight-seeing on their own account, that either you
+or I have anything to complain of," said the doctor. "We are outsiders,
+and are both very well paid for our services. My opinion is that few
+persons in our position receive as much consideration from their
+employers as we do."
+
+Kate was so furious at this snub (which found a vital spot) that she was
+literally speechless for a moment. She would have liked to strike the
+impertinent little wretch who dared put her on a level with himself; but
+she could hardly do that, even in Noumea. When the wave of angry blood
+flowed back from her brain, and she recovered presence of mind, she
+turned abruptly and walked away from the doctor. But he was at her side
+again almost immediately, keeping up with her without any appearance of
+haste, though she quickened her pace in spite of fatigue, looking as
+cool, as serene, as if he had been taking an afternoon stroll in Bond
+Street. Evidently he had torn a leaf out of Roger Broom's book; and Kate
+recalled the forgotten fact that it was Roger who had recommended him to
+Virginia's notice.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you are now going toward that part of
+the town which was burnt down at the time of the plague here, about three
+years ago. It is leading you rather out of the way of the hotel, where we
+were all to meet for luncheon; but perhaps you have a curiosity to see
+it? I have studied a map of the place, and if you like can point out----"
+
+"I do not like!" Lady Gardiner cut in sharply. "I wish to send a
+cablegram."
+
+"Unfortunately, that is impossible."
+
+"_What!_ One can't telegraph from this loathsome place?"
+
+"I thought you were so charmed with it? One cannot telegraph to-day."
+
+"Why not to-day? Is it a holiday for the operators?"
+
+"So far as we are concerned."
+
+"Ah! I see what you mean now. You intend to prevent my communicating with
+my friends! But this is too much. I will do so."
+
+"I fancied you were attached to Miss Beverly."
+
+"What has that to do with it?"
+
+"A good deal. We are Miss Beverly's guests--or her servants, whichever
+you please. In either case, we surely owe her fealty. I have been
+informed that she does not wish to have any communication made with the
+outside world, from Noumea."
+
+"_I_ was not informed of this mandate."
+
+"I dare say she thought that you would be guided by my counsel."
+
+"Counsel! A strange word for your tyranny. At least, I suppose, there are
+no orders against returning to the hotel?"
+
+"None. So long as we are discreet."
+
+"And in what does your idea of discretion consist, pray?"
+
+"Keeping ourselves to ourselves. They are rather suspicious folk in New
+Caledonia. Few tourists come this way. Probably we are the first people
+who have landed here not on business for many a long year."
+
+"I am not at all sure that we haven't come on business--very particular
+business."
+
+"I wouldn't make that remark before anybody else, if I were you. You
+might--get into trouble."
+
+As Dr. Grayle said this he looked steadily at Lady Gardiner. Their eyes
+met, and so peculiarly cold and menacing was the expression of his that
+she felt unpleasantly chilled, and even subdued. Those steady eyes so
+underscored his words with sinister meaning, that Kate dared not ask
+whether the "trouble" to which he suggestively referred would come to her
+through him or the inhabitants of Noumea. She thought that he looked
+capable of reducing her to helplessness by violence, if she showed signs
+of resisting his will, and she relapsed into silence. But she had not
+given up the hope of cabling to Loria. She resolved to watch her chance.
+
+They walked back to the Hôtel de France, but the others had not returned,
+though the time fixed was long past. Kate was so hungry and weary that
+again she could have wept, and was secretly glad when Dr. Grayle ordered
+luncheon for two, though the prospect of a meal _tête-à-tête_ was not
+enjoyable. She complained, however, of being too warm and dusty to eat,
+unless she could refresh herself by splashing a little in cold water, and
+she had to look down to hide the light which flashed into her eyes when
+Grayle consented without protest to her taking a room, and re-making her
+toilet before lunch.
+
+"Now I shall get off that cable," she said to herself. Hardly had she
+entered the bare, poorly furnished bedroom when she rang, and stood
+waiting eagerly for a servant to answer the summons. Presently came the
+expected knock. She flew to open the door, and--there stood the little
+doctor, behind him approaching a maid, probably an ex-convict.
+
+"You rang, Lady Gardiner," said Dr. Grayle, "to ask for a telegraph form,
+just as you might in a civilized place, didn't you? But this isn't a
+civilized place, and the methods are not all civilized. Now, here is the
+servant you rang for. If you persist in carrying out your intention I
+shall lock you in this room, take the key, and tell the landlord that you
+are a harmless lunatic, under my medical supervision. I think I shall not
+in that case lack for assistance in keeping you within bounds."
+
+Kate glared at him, panting, for a moment. Then, controlling her voice,
+she asked the servant in French for some hot water. Having done this, she
+slammed the door in the little man's face, which was the only
+satisfaction she got out of the incident. She was inclined to remain
+sulking in the bedroom, but though the spirit was willing the flesh was
+weak, and the pangs of hunger drove her forth. Dr. Grayle was awaiting
+her in the corridor, a watchdog, patient and placid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The missing three did no more aimless sauntering after they had slipped
+round a corner and eluded Kate Gardiner's curious eyes. Had their
+business not been of life-and-death importance, they would have felt like
+children escaped from school; since the least imprudence might lose them
+the stake for which they played, and Kate's presence had been a check and
+cause of delay. Fortunately, it was not yet the hour of _déjeuner_, even
+in Noumea, and they made up for lost time by hastening to the Governor's
+offices, which were in a white-painted, two-story building of wood, with
+a verandah facing the almost deserted street.
+
+It was Sir Roger Broom who had used his influence in obtaining a special
+letter from the Minister of Colonies to the Governor of New Caledonia,
+and he now sent it in with his card, and those of his friends, by a
+clerk. For a few moments they waited, soldiers in gay uniforms, gendarmes
+and convict messengers passing in and out on various errands, all gazing
+with surprised, if furtive, interest at the extraordinarily beautiful
+girl in white. Presently the Governor was ready to receive his guests,
+and his turn came to be astonished by Virginia. She was the first lady
+who had ever come to Noumea, he said, on a journey of pleasure. Ah, the
+American young ladies, they were wonderful, amazing! He asked a few
+questions about the yacht, the trip they had had, and his old friend the
+Minister of Colonies, then countersigned the credentials for the party,
+and dashed off a letter to the Director of the Penitentiary
+Administration.
+
+It was upon the latter official that everything depended. So far all was
+satisfactory; but if the Director (who was supreme in authority over the
+prison, not answerable even to the Governor) chose to be ungracious, they
+might go back whence they had come without even attempting that bold
+stroke in the hope of which they had paid this visit. They had dared,
+however, show no signs of their consuming anxiety. With smiling thanks
+they bade good-bye to the Governor and went on, in the fitful silence of
+suspense, to the Direction.
+
+Again the letters and cards were borne away by a clerk. There was more
+waiting; and when they were ushered into a large, cool, dusky room,
+strangely still behind its heavy double doors, Virginia was glad of the
+gloom, lest her pallor should excite suspicion.
+
+Afterward Roger and George said to each other that if it had not been
+for Virginia they believed the Director would have politely, but firmly,
+refused to grant the special privileges they craved. Others had received
+ordinary permits to "view" the penitentiary establishment, yet very few,
+indeed (save those who went because they must), had been suffered by the
+authorities to pass the prison gates. But what Frenchman could refuse any
+favour in his power to the all-conquering Virginia? The Director would
+have been well within his rights, and could not have been accused of
+discourtesy, if he had allowed a certain short, concise sentence at the
+left-hand corner of the official sheet of paper which he signed, to
+remain. But instead he scratched it out with two quick strokes of the
+pen; and the doors of the prison and its cells were practically thrown
+open.
+
+He, too, asked questions, and seemed wistfully loth to part with these
+interesting visitors from a far-away world, whose echoes he seldom heard.
+He smiled indulgently when Virginia fluently told the story prepared
+beforehand: the book she and her brother had been commissioned to write
+by a prominent American publishing firm; how it was to be all about this
+yachting trip, with Noumea as the _pièce de resistance_ of the story.
+They expected, George Trent chimed in by saying, to stop on board their
+yacht in the harbour for a day or two perhaps, but (and he made the most
+of his engaging Southern accent) what they particularly wanted was to
+"do" the Ile Nou, which all the books said was so "mighty" interesting.
+
+The Director obligingly scrawled a letter to the Commandant of the prison
+in New Caledonia, explained to his guests what they must do, and
+cordially invited them to lunch with him. The thought of eating was
+repulsive to Virginia; but Roger telegraphed her a warning look, and she
+knew that she must accept. It would not be wise to let it be seen that
+they were in a hurry; they were eccentric pleasure-seekers, sea-tourists;
+to be in haste was to throw aside disguise.
+
+After _déjeuner_, which seemed interminable, they were allowed to depart.
+So to a group of white, gray-roofed buildings set in brilliant little
+squares of garden--the offices of the executive police. Passing on, they
+reached a small wooden quay, belonging to the penitential administration.
+Men in ugly gray clothing, their faces shaded with broad, ribbonless
+straw hats, were working at loading a boat with large boxes, which they
+carried to the quay from a truck on a miniature local railway line. These
+men were directed in their labour by other men in white; and Virginia
+shivered all over, for this was her first sight of the convicts. What if
+Maxime Dalahaide were among these forlorn wretches who toiled and sweated
+in the blazing sun, with no encouragement save the rough exhortations of
+the white-clad surveillants with revolvers on their hips? If he were
+here, did any voice whisper to him of hope?
+
+The _canot_ for the Ile Nou was to start almost immediately. The
+credentials of the party were examined at the _douanerie_, and they were
+permitted to go on board. Twelve convicts were the rowers. They sat under
+an awning which protected them as well as the passengers from the sun,
+but Virginia, glancing almost fearfully at their faces, saw that their
+skins were tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure. Their features
+were, without one exception, marked with the indefinable yet
+not-to-be-mistaken stamp of criminality, and she breathed more freely
+when she had assured herself that the man they sought was not one of
+them.
+
+All they had to go upon was the vague information derived from Madeleine
+Dalahaide, that her brother was supposed to be on the Ile Nou. The time
+had not come yet to ask the questions that burnt their tongues; but it
+was coming nearer now with each wide sweep of the convicts' oars.
+
+The Director had been thoughtful enough to telegraph to the Ile Nou of
+the visitors' arrival, and as the _canot_ approached the quay of the
+strange little settlement, an officer of the prison, who had the
+appearance of a superior warder, stepped forward, touching his white hat.
+
+Virginia felt, with a thickly beating heart, that the long preface was
+finished, the first chapter of the book about to begin. She looked at
+this island of exile and punishment with an emotion that was not
+curiosity, but which could be classified by no other word. The Ile Nou
+was not to the eye the terrible place of which she had so often dreamt.
+There were more low, white houses, clustering cosily together or
+separated by thick, dark trees, and there were shaded streets and more
+blazing _flamboyant_ flowers making patches of red in the deep green. But
+beyond the town rose a hill, and there the great prison buildings stood
+out grimly against the cloudless blue of the tropical sky.
+
+They landed. The warder begged them with French politeness to give
+themselves the trouble of accompanying him to the quarters of the
+Commandant, who expected their visit.
+
+The programme of conspiracy was all planned; each one's part had been
+carefully mapped out, and a thousand times Virginia had gone through the
+ordeal of this day in her mind. Yet now the beating in her temples
+confused her thoughts. She was afraid that she should forget, that she
+should make some irretrievable blunder, and that everything would be
+ruined by her fault. But much might depend now upon a look or a gesture,
+and she held herself in a vice of self-control, fearing that her smile on
+greeting the courteous old Commandant was suspiciously forced, her voice
+unnatural, or the look in her eyes a betrayal of desperate anxiety.
+
+But the gallant Frenchman saw only the most entrancing vision of a girl
+his eyes had ever looked upon. Within the bounds of reason--which meant
+in honour and within the regulations of the establishment--he would have
+done anything to win one of those distracting smiles which brought into
+play two little round dimples. He ordered his own carriage to take his
+guests to the grim hill behind the town; he sat by Virginia as they were
+driven up the white, winding road; and when at last the convict coachman
+drew up the horses at a great door of black iron in the blank side of a
+high white wall, it was he who helped her to alight.
+
+"You will be the only lady, not the wife or daughter of an official of
+the place, who has ever entered at this gate, mademoiselle," he remarked
+as the key of the surveillant grated in the lock.
+
+The door opened, and Virginia passed through, trembling, the Commandant
+at her side. They were in a long, oddly-shaped courtyard. "The place of
+execution," said her guide. "In the early morning, at sunrise, a
+condemned man is brought here to die by the guillotine. Through that door
+yonder he comes, the priest walking by his side. To-morrow there will be
+such an execution. But I suppose you would scarcely care to see that,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Virginia, shuddering. "I would die myself,
+sooner. What has he done--this unfortunate one--that he must suffer
+death?"
+
+"He attempted to escape----"
+
+"What--you kill them for that, if--they are retaken?"
+
+"No; but wait, mademoiselle. I will tell you the story. It may be of use
+as an anecdote for the book you will write. This man who is to die
+to-morrow morning, and who will not know that his time has come until the
+knock at the door of his cell when the hour strikes--this man and
+another, who were imprisoned at the Isle of Pines, stole a small open
+fishing-boat, and with the branch of a tree for a mast and a shirt for a
+sail, started out in the desperate hope of eventually reaching Australia.
+But the alarm was soon given, and they were pursued by such a _canot_ as
+that in which you came here, mademoiselle, from Noumea. One of the
+fugitives was mad enough to jump from the boat, scarcely knowing what he
+did. In a moment he had ceased to live."
+
+"He was shot?"
+
+"Ah, no, mademoiselle. The waters here are literally alive with sharks.
+Bathing even near shore is dangerous. A little farther out--but I will
+say no more. You grow pale."
+
+"That is nothing. And the other man--what of him?"
+
+"He was captured; but he is a young, athletic fellow, and in his fury at
+being retaken he snatched a surveillant's revolver and shot him dead. He
+was tried, condemned to death, and to-morrow at sunrise, as I said, will
+expiate his crime and folly."
+
+Virginia was very white now--almost as white as the frock which she had
+chosen from her prettiest for the subjugation of these men in authority.
+
+"What is the man's name?" she ventured to ask, her voice sounding strange
+and metallic in her own ears, her lips dry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+NUMBER 1280
+
+
+"The man is without a name," said the Commandant. "He is a number. But
+once he was known as Jean Fourneau."
+
+Virginia breathed again. "And the one who was with him?"
+
+"The man eaten by the sharks? He was called, in the world, Pierre Duval."
+
+The girl could hardly restrain a murmur of the infinite relief she felt.
+But she dared show no emotion. "I suppose you have all sorts and
+conditions of men here?" she asked.
+
+"From the highest to the lowest."
+
+"Then there must be many interesting cases--quite romances. Do tell us
+something about a few of the best."
+
+"That is difficult. There are many cases which might interest you; but
+they would shock you as well."
+
+"I would trust you to choose. Have you any young men of good family who,
+perhaps, committed their crimes for love?"
+
+The Commandant smiled. "We have many such. There is the man who is called
+the New Caledonian Dreyfus--Chatelain--who sold his country to please the
+woman he loved. He is at Ducos. But perhaps the most notable example of
+the type you desire is a young scion of French and English aristocracy
+whom we have here, on the Ile Nou. He is now known as Number 1280; but a
+few years ago he figured brilliantly in the great world as Maxime
+Dalahaide. You may have heard of him, mademoiselle."
+
+The words rang strangely in the girl's ears. She "might have heard of
+him"! But her presence of mind had not left her, as a few moments ago she
+had feared it might, when it should be needed most.
+
+She was simply carrying out her part of the programme, and she knew that
+Roger and George were watching her from behind half-closed lids. If they
+could help her they would; but the time had not come for their help yet.
+
+"I left America only a year ago," she answered, "and one forgets things
+of this sort when they happen very far away."
+
+"Naturally. But it was an uncommon case. Maxime Dalahaide was condemned
+to death for murdering a beautiful young actress, with whom he was in
+love--jealousy alleged as the cause. However, powerful influence saved
+him from death and sent him to us. I do not know that he was properly
+thankful."
+
+Virginia showed a little decorous interest, such as a stranger might
+legitimately take in the hero of such a tale. "This story ought to make a
+splendid anecdote for our book," she exclaimed. "Is the man handsome?"
+
+"You might not think so if you saw him now. The costume of the _forçat_
+is not becoming. But he is still quite young, between twenty-eight and
+nine. You can see his portrait if you like, mademoiselle, at the Bureau
+of Anthropometry, where each convict's photograph is taken, with every
+possible view of his face, when he first becomes an inmate of the
+prison."
+
+"I would rather see the man himself," answered Virginia. "If you would
+_only_ let my brother and me have an interview with him; think how it
+would help our book! Ah, monsieur, that _would_ be kind. I should never
+forget your goodness in giving me such a chance."
+
+The gallant Commandant hesitated. But--the permit in the possession of
+these three favoured visitors was very explicit. They were to have
+privileges scarcely ever granted before, and he had therefore the best of
+excuses for obliging the beautiful American girl.
+
+"Do say yes!" persuasively added Virginia.
+
+"I really think I may conscientiously do so," replied the old Frenchman,
+delighted to please the most radiant being he had seen for many a long
+year. "Number 1280 has acted for some time as secretary in one of the
+bureaux; but another convict, displaced for Dalahaide because of
+carelessness and inaccuracy, was jealous of the favour shown the
+aristocrat (ah, I assure you they know all about each other's affairs
+and circumstances here!), contrived to make a rough knife out of a piece
+of flint, and stabbed his rival in the back, narrowly missing the lungs.
+As it was, the wound was a serious one, and Dalahaide is in the hospital.
+The would-be murderer is now undergoing punishment in what we call the
+Black Cell."
+
+"The wound was not actually dangerous?" Roger hastened to inquire, seeing
+that Virginia's lips were white.
+
+"He ought not to be dangerously ill," said the Commandant. "He is young,
+and quite one of our athletes--or was. The life he had led here, though
+not what he would choose, has not been unhealthful. But the doctor, with
+whom I have discussed his case, says that the wish to recover is lacking.
+The man is hopeless. He would rather die than live; and his physician
+thinks it exceedingly likely that he will do so."
+
+"That is sad," said Sir Roger, his eyes still on Virginia.
+
+The Commandant shrugged his shoulders. "We are accustomed to sadness
+here," he replied. "But the exile and degradation of Noumea are no doubt
+harder of endurance to a man like Dalahaide--proud, sensitive, refined,
+intellectual, accustomed to every luxury. He was like a madman when he
+first came, four or five years ago. Several times he attempted escape and
+suicide. Then he became sullenly despairing; but I began to take an
+interest in him, believing that he was not at bottom such a desperate
+character as the surveillants had grown to consider him. I did what I
+could to soften his lot, having him introduced to more congenial work in
+the bureau; but this was not until he had known three months in the Black
+Cell. Some men lose their minds in the _Cachot Noir_, though its horrors
+have been mitigated of late years. But Dalahaide's brain did not fail;
+and he has proved a valuable man at secretarial work. Also during the
+plague, three years ago, he volunteered as a nurse, and was admirable.
+You shall see him in hospital, since you wish it, and even talk with him;
+but you must not leave New Caledonia with the impression that all
+convicts are like this man. Now we will finish the inspection of the
+prison here, and then my carriage shall drive us to the hospital, which
+is at a little distance."
+
+How Virginia got through the next half-hour she did not know. If she had
+dared, she would have begged to go on at once to the hospital; but she
+did not dare. It was necessary to submit to the delay of being guided
+through the prison, to be shown the galleries and the cells, the
+Prétoire, and to hear patiently the explanation of the Bertillon system.
+At last, however, they were once more in the carriage which had been kept
+waiting for them; but even then they must still exercise patience, for a
+Disciplinary Camp was on the road along which they must pass, and to
+betray too much eagerness to reach their journey's end (when avowedly
+they had come to New Caledonia for information) would have been
+dangerous. At the camp they must perforce squander twenty or thirty
+minutes, Virginia and George pretending to take notes of what they saw
+and heard; and then they turned westward. Before them stretched a long
+avenue of strangely bent and sloping palms. It was the avenue of the
+hospital.
+
+They drove down it to a stone archway, glittering white in the sun, and
+saw beyond a green and shaded garden, jewelled with gorgeous flowers, and
+heavy with richly mingling scents.
+
+"If Dalahaide is no worse to-day, we shall probably find him in the
+garden here," said the Commandant. "He must have read at least half a
+dozen times an old copy of Dante which I lent him; the books in the
+prison library are not much to his taste."
+
+No one answered, not even Roger. In fact, at the moment Roger was more
+anxious, perhaps, than any other member of the party, for he realized the
+existence of a certain danger which Virginia and her brother had
+apparently lost sight of, although long ago it had been discussed by them
+all. It had also been provided against; but the suggestion that Maxime
+Dalahaide might be met here in the garden, the thought that at any moment
+they might come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly, upset these prudent
+calculations.
+
+As Maxime and Roger had known each other five years ago, it had been
+decided that a meeting must be avoided at first, lest in his surprise at
+seeing a familiar face--like a ghost from another world--the prisoner
+should cry out, and involuntarily put those who watched upon their guard.
+The three had planned among themselves, when this day was still in the
+future, that if they should succeed in their first step, and gain access
+to Maxime Dalahaide, Roger must keep in the background until his mind had
+been prepared by Virginia and George Trent for what was to come. The
+other two, as strangers to him, could approach the prisoner without risk.
+But they had expected to see him, if at all, in some room or cell, to
+which certain members of the party might be conducted by request; while
+here, in this vast garden, with its ambushes of trees and shrubs, any one
+of the half-hidden gray figures which they could distinguish in the green
+shadows might prove to be Dalahaide.
+
+Roger did not know what to do. He might offer to stop behind and wait in
+the carriage outside the garden gates. But if he did this it would seem
+strange and even ungracious to the Commandant, who was taking so much
+trouble to entertain them, and to "seem strange" was alone enough to
+constitute danger. He compromised, keeping behind with George, while
+Virginia walked ahead with the old Frenchman.
+
+In the midst of the garden stood the quadrangular building of the
+hospital, the steep roof forming broad verandahs. There were gray figures
+sitting or lounging there also, but the Commandant said that Number 1280
+would not be found among these, for he fled as much as might be from the
+society of his fellow-convicts.
+
+They turned the corner of a shaded path and came out under a green canopy
+made by four large palms. A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his
+arm, his face upturned--a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly
+grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared
+that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. She
+started, and caught at the arm of the Commandant, who turned to her in
+concerned surprise.
+
+"One would think you had guessed that this was our man," he said in a low
+voice, for the convict, whose face was ghastly pale in the green dusk,
+seemed to sleep.
+
+"I beg your pardon," whispered Virginia. "I stepped on a stone and
+twisted my foot. Is this, then, the man we have come to find?"
+
+How well she knew that it was he! How well she knew, though the terrible
+years had changed the brave young face in the portrait almost beyond the
+recognition of a stranger. All the gay audacity was gone, therefore much
+of the individuality which had distinguished it for Virginia. The strong,
+clear features of the man looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had
+been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows
+in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the
+dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips
+drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and
+extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it
+might have been the form of a dead man.
+
+Roger, without seeing the sleeping face, guessed by the abrupt stop and
+the low-spoken words of the two in front that Maxime Dalahaide was found.
+He drew back slightly, with a meaning glance at George, who stepped
+forward to join the others.
+
+Suddenly the black line of lashes trembled; a pair of dark, tragic eyes,
+more like those of Madeleine Dalahaide than the laughing ones of the
+portrait, opened and looked straight into Virginia's. For a few seconds
+their gaze remained fixed, as if the white vision had been a broken
+dream; then a deep flush spread over the thin face of the young man, and
+he rose to his feet.
+
+"This lady and her brother have come a long way to see New Caledonia,"
+said the Commandant kindly. "They wish to talk to you."
+
+Maxime Dalahaide bowed. Virginia saw that he pressed his lips together,
+and that the muscles of his face quivered. She guessed how he must suffer
+at having to gratify--as he supposed--the morbid curiosity of a girl, and
+it hurt her to think that she must be the one to give him this added
+pain.
+
+She turned to the Commandant, and, with a voice not quite steady, asked
+if she and her brother might speak to the man alone. She felt that she
+should be less embarrassed in her questions, she said, if no one
+listened. With a smile the old Frenchman consented, bowing like a
+courtier, and joined Roger Broom, who stood at a little distance out of
+sight of the convict.
+
+"I thought there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more
+strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away
+down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this
+expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are
+permitted"; and he touched the camera, slung over his shoulder, of which
+he had already made ostentatious use on several occasions. "May I have a
+snapshot of the hospital, with all those chaps on the verandahs? Thanks;
+we must go a little to the right, then. By Jove! what a lot of gray
+figures there are about. How do you make sure they can't escape, if they
+choose, out here where they don't seem to be guarded?"
+
+"It is only 'seem,'" retorted the Commandant, laughing. "All these men
+are invalids; we make short work of malingerers. Very few could run a
+dozen yards without falling down, and most of them are well contented as
+they are. But, if any one should be mad enough to attempt a dash for
+freedom, four or five surveillants would be on him before he could count
+twenty. They do not make themselves conspicuous here, that is all."
+
+Sir Roger Broom looked across the eastern wall of the hospital garden,
+over the green expanse of the great lagoon, and thought much; but he said
+nothing. Quietly he prepared to take the suggested photograph, and the
+hand that held the camera did not shake, though he could guess of what,
+by this time, George Trent and Virginia were talking with the convict
+under the palms.
+
+When the Commandant had left them alone with him, Maxime Dalahaide
+remained silent, Virginia's beauty filled him--not with happy worship of
+its perfection, but rather with an overwhelming bitterness. He was a
+Thing, of whom this exquisite, fresh young girl wished to ask a few
+questions, so that she might go back to her world, thousands of miles
+away, and say, "Only fancy, I talked to one of the convicts--an awful
+creature. He had murdered a woman, but he was quite quiet, and, as my
+brother was close beside me, I was not one bit afraid."
+
+Just because he was a Thing, with no right to pride and self-respect, she
+could ask what she pleased, and he would answer her; but she must begin,
+not he.
+
+She did begin, yet so differently from the cut-and-dried beginning which
+he had scornfully expected, that a flash of vivid amazement swept the
+hardness from the exile's face.
+
+"Be very careful," she said rapidly in English. "Don't speak, don't show
+anything you may feel. Perhaps we are watched. You are Maxime Dalahaide.
+We haven't come here for curiosity, as you think, but to save you. We
+have come thousands of miles for that."
+
+"Why?" It was as if the question fell from his lips without volition. The
+man did not believe his own ears. He thought that he must have been
+seized with delirium.
+
+"Because we believe in you and because we are friends of your sister's,"
+Virginia answered. "A man you once knew is with us--Roger Broom. Do you
+remember?"
+
+"Roger Broom!" Maxime repeated dazedly. "It is like an echo from the
+past. Yes--yes, I remember."
+
+"It is through him that we have been able to reach you. He is close by,
+but dared not let you see him, until you had been warned. Now, we must
+arrange everything in a few minutes for your escape; the Commandant has
+been kind, but he may not give us long together."
+
+"I think I must be dreaming," stammered Maxime, all his bitterness
+forgotten. "I've been ill. I don't understand things as quickly as I
+used. Escape! You have come here to--help me to escape. Yes, it is
+certainly a dream. I shall wake up by and by!"
+
+"You will wake up free," said Virginia not daring to raise her voice
+above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from
+France to take you home."
+
+Suddenly a glaze of tears overspread Maxime Dalahaide's dark eyes.
+"Home?" he echoed wistfully. "Home! Ah, if it might be!"
+
+"It shall be," returned Virginia. "George, tell him our plan. You can do
+it better than I."
+
+"The thing is to get you on board the yacht," said Trent. "After that,
+you're all right. We can show our heels to pretty well anything in these
+parts."
+
+Dalahaide shook his head. "There are no words to thank you for what you
+have done, and would do for me," he answered. "But it is impossible. Once
+I thought of escape. I tried and failed, as others have tried and failed.
+After the second time, they put me in the Black Cell, and I saved myself
+from madness by calling to memory all of Shakespeare that I had ever
+learned. I don't say 'impossible' because I am afraid of that again. I
+have passed beyond fear of anything. What have I left to dread? I know
+the worst; I have lived through the worst that can befall a man. But in
+that dreadful blackness, where my very soul seemed to dissolve in night,
+I realized that, even if I could escape, how useless freedom would be if
+my innocence were not proved. I could not go to France or England. I
+should live a hunted life. As well be an exile here as nearer
+home--better, perhaps, now that the first bitterness has passed."
+
+"You think this because you've been ill, and your blood runs slow," said
+George Trent. "All you need is to be strong again, and----"
+
+"Strong again!" echoed Maxime, with sorrowful contempt. "I've been
+thanking heaven that I hadn't strength enough left to care for anything.
+It's true, as you say; the oil in my lamp of life burns low, and so much
+the better for me. What I want now is to get it all over as soon as may
+be. You are kind--you are so good to me that I am lost in wonder; yet
+even you cannot give me a freedom worth having. Take back my love to my
+sister, but tell her--tell her that I am content to stay as I am."
+
+"Content to die, you mean!" cried Virginia.
+
+"Oh, you are ill indeed to feel like this. How can you bear to stay here,
+when you have a chance to be a free man--even if not a happy man--to stay
+here, and let your enemy, who sent you to this place, laugh and think how
+his plot against you has succeeded?"
+
+The dreamy look of weary resignation on Maxime Dalahaide's face changed
+to alertness. "Why do you speak of an enemy, and a plot against me?" he
+asked. "That poor girl was murdered; but I have never thought that she
+was killed because her murderer wished to involve me. That part was an
+accident. Liane Devereux----"
+
+"Is not dead," broke in Virginia. "She is on our yacht now, in the
+harbour of Noumea. When you come, and she sees you, she will confess the
+whole plot."
+
+"But I saw her lying dead--a thousand times that sight has been before my
+eyes."
+
+"It was not she. If you want to know all, to fathom the whole mystery,
+and learn how to prove your own innocence, you will not refuse to do what
+we ask."
+
+Maxime's thin face no longer looked like a carving in old ivory. The
+statue had come to life. The spring of hope had begun to stir in his
+veins. "If it were possible to prove it--at this late day!" he exclaimed.
+"But even if it were--you forget the tremendous difficulties in the way
+of escape. How could I reach your yacht? It could not come near enough to
+shore here to pick me up; even a small boat would be seen----"
+
+"Not at night," said Virginia.
+
+"Remember, it is moonlight. The night will be like day. Long before a
+small boat could reach the yacht from the beach she would be followed,
+overtaken, and not only should I be brought back, but I should have the
+misery of knowing that I had been the cause of bringing my brave friends
+into trouble. They would fire upon us. If I were killed it would matter
+little enough; but if you were to be shot----" He spoke to George Trent,
+but his eyes moved quickly to Virginia's face.
+
+"My sister would be waiting for us on board the _Bella Cuba_," said
+Trent. "Roger Broom and I will take jolly good care of ourselves--and of
+you, too, if you'll only give us a chance."
+
+"If you'd come here a month ago," sighed the prisoner, "before I got this
+wound in my back! Now I'm afraid it's too late. I've let myself go. I
+thought I saw the one door of escape for me opening--death; and instead
+of turning my back I walked toward it. I've let my strength down. I
+haven't eaten or slept much, and I began to have a pleasant feeling of
+slipping easily out with the tide. Now there's an incentive to stop, the
+tide's too strong and I'm too weak. I can't count on myself."
+
+"Count on us," said George. "We'll see you through, you bet. And think of
+your sister. We promised we'd take you back with us. We can't go to her
+without you, after raising her hopes. It would kill her." Trent glanced
+at Virginia, as if expecting her to add encouraging arguments to his; but
+she was silent, her eyes alone appealing to Dalahaide. George Trent was
+her half-brother, and had known her all her life, but he felt the thrill
+of that look in the girl's beautiful eyes. How much more, then, must
+Maxime Dalahaide have felt it, he said to himself.
+
+"It is the risk for you I think of--if I fail," the prisoner exclaimed.
+"If I had only myself to consider I should hesitate no longer."
+
+"We have come a long, long way to you," Virginia's eyes said; and her
+lips would have added something had not George's hand fallen suddenly in
+warning on her shoulder. "Somebody is coming," he whispered. "For all our
+sakes, don't fail us, Dalahaide. We shall look for you to-night--there,"
+and he nodded toward the water. "Make your way to the beach and hide
+among the rocks till you see our little boat. Don't take to the
+water--remember the sharks. If you're not there to-night, we'll hang
+about till the next."
+
+"We'll wait till you come, if we wait a year," said Virginia.
+
+There was time for no more. The Commandant, with Roger Broom by his side,
+appeared round the corner of the winding path near by.
+
+"Well, mademoiselle, have we given you time to finish your interview,
+and has it been satisfactory?" asked the old Frenchman good-naturedly.
+
+"You have given us just enough time, and it has been most satisfactory,
+thank you," the girl answered. "I hope," she added, "to make the very
+best use of it later." And again her eyes met those of the statue that
+she had waked to life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CRY ACROSS THE WATER
+
+
+It was night in the harbour of Noumea; a night of pitiless, white,
+revealing moonlight which sharpened the black outline of every shadow,
+and made the whitewashed wall of each low house gleam like
+mother-o'-pearl. Had there been no secret business on foot, Virginia
+Beverly's beauty-loving soul would have been on its knees in worship of
+the scene as she sat on the deck of the yacht, which seemed not to float
+in water, but to hang suspended in the transparent, mingling azure of sea
+and sky. To her the moon was an enemy, cruel and terrible. She would have
+given her right hand for a dark curtain cloud to be drawn across that
+blazing lamp and the scintillating stars reflected in the water like
+sequins shining through blue gauze.
+
+Midnight was near, and the yellow lights of the town were fewer than
+they had been. The quay was quiet and deserted, and the Ile Nou was a
+black shape in the translucent glitter of the water. On the _Bella Cuba_
+all was very still, and each whisper of the little waves that lapped
+against the side of the yacht came distinctly to Virginia's ears.
+
+The Countess de Mattos had not appeared at dinner, but had sent excuses,
+her head being much worse. But it was Virginia's opinion that, once out
+of sight of Noumea, the lady intended to be convalescent. Kate Gardiner
+also was in retirement, and had for once shown temper even to Virginia;
+but Dr. Grayle's report of the day was reassuring, and as Kate had had no
+opportunity of doing harm, even if she had wished it, she and her
+grievances were dismissed from Virginia's mind in these supreme moments.
+
+Her eyes were straining after a small electric launch, which was already
+distant. Virginia could not look away, and still she tried to persuade
+herself that she could not see the little black gliding thing distinctly,
+because, if it was plainly visible to her, it must be so to other eyes
+also--if eyes on shore were waking and watching now.
+
+Suddenly the boat disappeared behind a buttress of rock silhouetted on
+the silver track of the moon, and at the same instant the yacht's anchor
+began slowly to be hauled up.
+
+Virginia knew what that meant. To-night's work was for Roger and George,
+not for her; but she had each detail of the programme at her fingers'
+ends--indeed, had helped to arrange it. When the launch had gone a
+certain distance from the _Bella Cuba_, on its stealthy way toward the
+Ile Nou, the yacht's captain--an Englishman, discreet and expert--had
+orders to follow slowly. The start had not been made earlier, because it
+was desirable that town and prison should be asleep, and the danger of
+discovery minimized. If the yacht were seen moving in the night suspicion
+would be aroused, for leaving the harbour of Noumea is a perilous
+undertaking except between sunrise and sunset; yet she must move, and
+follow the boat like one of the great black sharks swimming with grim
+expectancy behind her, lest the little bark should be overtaken in case
+of alarm and pursuit.
+
+No explanation had been given to Captain Gorst, who neither needed nor
+desired any. His orders were to follow the boat, and stand in as near the
+Ile Nou as possible without arousing attention on shore; there to wait
+until the launch returned, or to approach still closer to the island, if
+pursuit rendered it advisable. These orders Virginia knew he would obey
+to the letter; and she knew also, though no word had been spoken to her
+on the subject, that the little cannon, which had been silent since the
+_Bella Cuba_ had been a lightly armoured despatch-boat in the
+American-Spanish War, were ready to speak to-night, if worst came to
+worst.
+
+It was that vague "worst" that troubled Virginia's soul as, almost
+soundlessly, the heart of the _Bella Cuba_ began to beat, and she glided
+through the glimmering water. If only one could know exactly where and
+how to expect the blow, the thought that it might fall would be more
+bearable, the girl felt. But one of many things might happen to wreck
+their hopes; and failure now probably meant failure forever.
+
+Maxime Dalahaide might be too ill to make the attempt to-night, or he
+might be watched in the act of making it. The men in the launch might
+miss seeing him, even if he had contrived to escape from the hospital and
+gain the beach. Or his flight might be discovered, and the launch only
+arrive near the shore in time for its occupants to see him dragged back
+to the old life, with all its past horrors, and many new ones added by
+way of punishment. Possibly the coral reefs and jagged rocks might
+prevent the launch getting close to shore, and Maxime would have to swim
+out to it. Then, there were the sharks. Virginia had already seen two or
+three to-day--hideous, black shapes swimming far down below the surface
+of the clear water--and she shuddered as she remembered the great snouts
+and cold, evil eyes of the man-eaters. What was that the Commandant had
+said in the afternoon? "The sharks are the best guardians the Ile Nou can
+have." Were those horrible watch-dogs of the sea on the lookout now?
+
+At the same moment, the same thought was in the minds of Roger Broom and
+George Trent, as the little electric launch rounded the point of rock and
+lost sight of the _Bella Cuba_. The water, as they looked toward the Ile
+Nou, which must be their destination, was a flood of molten silver poured
+from the white-hot furnace of the full moon. They knew how black the
+launch must be on this sheet of radiance, how conspicuous an object to
+watchful eyes on shore; and though the glittering sheen destroyed the
+transparent effects of the water here, they guessed what gliding shapes
+were surely upon their track, coldly awaiting disaster.
+
+Sitting in the boat they could not see the hospital; not a light was
+visible in any prison building; and they had the feeling that in any one
+of a dozen great masses of shadow armed surveillants might be hiding, to
+spring out upon Maxime Dalahaide as he crept toward his friends and
+far-off safety. There was no sound except the crisp rustle of the water
+as the launch cut through it; but as they entered the lagoon, where among
+tall reeds the image of the moon lay unbroken like a fallen silver cup,
+a whispering ran through the rushes, as if to pass the news of their
+approach from ear to ear.
+
+Suddenly a tall figure rose up on a slight eminence and waved its arms,
+then disappeared again so quickly that it might almost have been a
+fantastic shadow; but quickly as it had come and gone, Roger and George
+knew that their hope had not been in vain. Convict 1280 had completed the
+first stage of his journey. He had seen them coming to the rescue, and he
+had given them the secret of his hiding-place.
+
+The two men were alone in the launch. Now, without a word, Roger Broom
+headed it for the point where the figure had appeared. There was a
+strange confusion of emotions in his brain, which still left it clear to
+act. Under his habitual air of lazy indifference he hid strong feelings,
+and at this moment they worked within him like fermenting wine. In this
+adventure he was playing for great stakes. Twice in the last year had
+Virginia refused him; her love and her beautiful self were all that Roger
+craved for in the world, but he had meant never to ask for them again,
+when this mad scheme of rescue had been conceived. He had opposed it as
+foolish and impossible; then Virginia had hinted that, if he would join
+her in it, giving help and advice, she would refuse him nothing. After
+that day he had thrown himself into the adventure heart and soul, saying
+little, but doing all that man could do. Though his few words had
+sometimes discouraged Virginia's ardent hopes, he had doggedly meant to
+succeed if he had to die in the supreme effort. He had put his whole soul
+into the work, with no other thought until to-day. Then--he had seen what
+George Trent had seen; a certain look in Virginia's eyes as they pleaded
+with Maxime Dalahaide to free himself. Her lips had said: "Do this for
+your sister's sake." But her eyes had said: "Do it for mine." Never had
+such a light shone in those beautiful eyes for Roger; never would it so
+shine for him; and he knew it well, with a dull, miserable sickening of
+the heart, which was like a pinch from the hand of Death.
+
+In a moment the whole face of the world had changed for him. He was a
+man of honour, and he would go on along the path which he had traced out
+for himself; but the wish to succeed in his task for the sake of success
+was murdered by that sweet light in a girl's eyes. Something coldly
+calculating said to Roger Broom that it would be a good thing for him if
+Maxime failed to come to the rendezvous, on that night or any other
+night; or, if, in case he came, he should be retaken. Should this happen,
+Virginia's implied promise need not hold good, but Roger thought he knew
+her generous heart well enough to be certain that she would in the end
+reward him for what he had tried to do, even though--not through his
+fault--the fight had been in vain. On the other hand, if he and George
+succeeded in saving Dalahaide, in bringing Dalahaide to Virginia--but
+Roger would not quite finish that thought in his mind. Resolutely he
+turned his back upon it, yet it grinned an evil, skeleton grin over his
+shoulder, and he could not make his ears deaf to the whisper that though
+he could and would hold Virginia to the keeping of her bargain, her
+heart would always have a holy of holies shut away from him.
+
+Roger hated the cold Voice that explained his heart to his head, and he
+did his best not to listen. But all he could compass was not to let
+himself be guided by its promptings. If he had desired Dalahaide's escape
+as whole-heartedly as before, he could have worked for it no harder than
+he did; still, he experienced no warmth of gladness at sight of the dark
+figure silhouetted for an instant against a moonlit haze. Trent was not
+close to him in the launch, and yet somehow he felt the thrill of joyous
+relief which shot through the younger man's body at the signal, and
+envied it. But all was different with George; he could afford to be
+single-minded. Roger knew very well that George was in love with
+Madeleine Dalahaide, and that there was nothing he would not sacrifice
+for the happiness of giving her back her brother.
+
+As Roger Broom wrestled with his own black thoughts, the launch, which
+had hitherto slipped swiftly toward its goal, dividing the rushes and
+reeds of the lagoon, refused to move on. The lush, green barricade was
+too thick to be cut through by its clean bow and the force of its
+powerful little electric motor.
+
+"It's no good," whispered George. "We can't get on any farther. This is
+what I was afraid of. He'll have to come out to us. Thank goodness, if we
+can't get through, neither can the sharks."
+
+"Where is he? Can you see him?" Roger asked. And the Voice was loud in
+his ears again.
+
+"No, I wish I could. I don't like to sing out. This luck of ours so far
+is too good to last."
+
+"Stand up and wave your hand. Perhaps he'll see and reply," said Roger.
+
+Somehow he wanted George to take the initiative now. He was afraid of
+being unconsciously guided by the Voice.
+
+George stood up and waved a handkerchief. No figure rose in response, but
+as if in answer, they heard a distant splashing in the water, and then,
+following so quickly that it blurred the impression of the first stealthy
+sound, came the sharp explosion of a shot. Instantly the slumberous
+silence of the tropical night was shattered by a savage confusion of
+noises. Other shots were fired, a great bell began to clang, another
+boomed a sullen echo, and from far away spoke the deep, angry voice of a
+cannon.
+
+"Good heavens! that's the cannon on board that beastly steam tub of
+theirs!" cried George. "Luckily for us it's a makeshift concern and no
+gunboat; but it can catch us on our way back to the yacht, and if it
+does, all's up."
+
+Roger did not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the
+water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din
+of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to
+save all three lives; and it would take some time at best for Dalahaide
+to wade, and swim, and fight his way to them, among the tangling reeds.
+The escaping prisoner was weak still from his recent wound; no matter how
+high his courage might be now, it could not in a moment repair the
+physical waste which he had voluntarily allowed to go on, courting the
+sole release he had then foreseen.
+
+The one chance left, now the alarm was given, lay in the hope that,
+though Dalahaide's flight from the prison hospital had been discovered,
+the direction he had chosen was not yet known. But the lagoon was at
+least as likely a place for the search to begin as any other; and then
+the launch might have been seen moving across the bright streak of the
+moon's track before it could reach the shelter of the rocks on its way to
+the lagoon. A few minutes at most, and the hounds would be on the right
+scent.
+
+These things Roger told himself, but he had not sat still to listen.
+After the first second of straining attention, he sprang up, threw off
+his coat and waistcoat, and kicked off his shoes.
+
+"I'm going to help him if I can," he said. "His strength may fail, or
+some stray shark may be a little cleverer than its fellows and find its
+way through the rushes. Anyhow, here goes; and if Dalahaide gets to you
+before me, don't wait. Push out the best you can, and I'll catch you up,
+swimming."
+
+There was no time for arguing or objecting, even if it had been in
+Trent's mind to do either. Since it was right for one to go, and Roger
+chose to be that one, he must stay; but, even for Maxime's sake, and for
+Madeleine's, he could not, he decided, leave Roger Broom to follow--for
+there were the sharks. No, they three must stand or fall together,
+whatever happened now.
+
+The lagoon, in the spot where Roger left the launch, was too deep for
+wading, nor could he swim there. Somehow--he scarcely knew how--he seemed
+to tread water, his feet slipping among the slimy tangled stems that were
+like a network under the surface, a brackish taste in his mouth, the
+rank, salt smell of seaweeds in his nostrils, and his ears a soft, sly
+rustling which might mean the disturbed protest of a thousand little
+subterranean existences, or--the pursuit of an enemy more deadly than any
+on land.
+
+It was a harder task than he had thought; still he persevered.
+"Dalahaide, where are you?" he called.
+
+"Here!" came the answer, only a few yards away. "I'm caught in something,
+and up to my knees in mud. I think my wound's broken out again. For
+heaven's sake, go back and let them take me. After all, what does it
+matter for me? I'm done. A thousand times better die than get you all
+into trouble."
+
+"You _all_!" Even in that moment Roger said to himself that "all" meant
+Virginia. Dalahaide was thinking of her. He would rather die than she
+should be punished for this bold attempt to break the law. But aloud
+Roger cried out that he would go back with Maxime or he would not go back
+at all, and cheering the other, with death in his own heart, he struggled
+along, half swimming, half wading, but always moving on, how he hardly
+knew. Then at last he saw a dark head, and a face, white in the
+moonlight, floating seemingly on the reedy surface of the lagoon, like a
+water lotus on its stem.
+
+Roger grasped a handful of slippery stems and held out a strong left hand
+to the wounded man.
+
+"Take hold, and I'll pull you out," he said.
+
+The two hands met, one thin and white with a prison pallor, the other
+brown and muscular and dependable. They joined, and Roger held on to the
+bunch of slippery stems so hard that they cut into his fingers. Once he
+thought they were yielding, but at that instant Dalahaide was lifted out
+of the mud in which he had sunk. Roger caught him under the arm and held
+him up. Scrambling, rustling, pushing, sinking, rising, spitting out
+salt, brackish water, they struggled back toward the launch.
+
+There it was, waiting, Trent crouching down, scarcely breathing in his
+agony of impatience. They saw him, and at the same time their heads came
+into sight for him, among the tall, dark spears of the rushes. In another
+moment George in the launch and Roger in the water were pulling and
+pushing Maxime, half fainting now, up over the side of the swaying boat.
+
+As he tumbled in, limply, Roger saw a dark stain on the wet, gray convict
+jacket. It was black in the moonlight, but Roger knew it would be red by
+day. The wound in his back had broken out again, as he had thought; even
+if they saved him now, it might only be to die. It was the cold Voice
+that said this; and Roger shuddered, yet half his nature welcomed the
+suggestion. "I've done what I could, let him die," was the answer that
+came. Quickly the little launch began to back out from the entanglement
+of the rushes, and as soon as there was room George turned her and sent
+her out like an arrow from the lagoon to deeper, clearer water. Beyond a
+certain point of rock the _Bella Cuba_ should lie by this time, and once
+on board her all might yet be well, for she could easily show her heels
+to anything that walked the sea in these waters.
+
+They headed straight for the place where they hoped to find the yacht
+waiting, and with an exclamation Trent pointed to the sky, across which
+floated a black, gauzy scarf of smoke.
+
+"Ripping old chap, Captain Gorst," chuckled George. "That's his signal.
+Trust him to be where he's wanted on time and a bit before."
+
+But Roger was silent. There was a thought in his mind with which he could
+not darken George's mood by speaking out. Sufficient for the moment was
+the evil thereof.
+
+They were close to the jutting rock now, and it seemed within ten minutes
+of safety. But something shot into sight round the point, something big,
+and black, and swift, with a gleam of fiery eyes and a belching stream
+of smoke streaked with fire.
+
+"By thunder!" stammered George. "It's not the _Cuba_. It's the Government
+boat, coming down on us. We're trapped, sure as fate."
+
+The words rang in Maxime Dalahaide's ears and reached his dimmed
+consciousness. The danger was not for him alone, but for the others who
+were risking everything to save him. It was this thought which seemed to
+grip him, and shake him into sudden animation. He sat up, resting on one
+elbow, not even wincing at the grinding pain that gnawed within the lips
+of his re-opened wound.
+
+"Not trapped yet," he said. "Keep to the right; to the right--not too far
+out. She daren't come where we are, for she'd be ripped to pieces on the
+reef, and she knows that."
+
+"Hark! They've spotted us. She's hailing!" cried Roger Broom.
+
+"_Halte! halte!_" came harshly across the moonlit space of water, as,
+obedient to Dalahaide's quick hint, the course of the launch was
+changed.
+
+The three fugitives were mute, and again a raucous cry broke the silence
+of the sea.
+
+"Halt, or we fire!"
+
+"They've two cannon," said Maxime. "I was mad to bring this on you, my
+friends. If they fire----"
+
+"Let them fire, and be hanged to them!" grumbled George Trent. "Two can
+play at that game. In heaven's name, where's the yacht? Ah--you _would_,
+would you!"
+
+This in answer to a shot that, with a red blaze and a loud report, came
+dancing across the water, churning up spray and missing the launch by a
+man's length.
+
+"Keep her going, George," said Roger as quietly as was his wont. "Our
+hope's in speed now, and dodging, till the _Bella Cuba_ takes a part in
+this game."
+
+As if the calling on her name had conjured her like a spirit from the
+"vasty deep," the graceful form of the yacht came into sight. George,
+tingling with the joyous lust of the battle, could not resist a hurrah;
+but his shout was deadened by the din of another shot, and then an
+answering roar from the _Bella Cuba_. One of those cannon of hers had
+"paid for its keep" at last. Now the yacht, and every one on board
+her--to say nothing of the three who wished to be on board--were in for a
+penny, in for a pound.
+
+The act just committed was an offense against law and justice (not always
+the same) and joined hands with piracy. To be caught meant punishment the
+most severe for all, possibly even international complications. If the
+French prison-boat sunk the yacht and the launch, and drowned every soul
+concerned in this mad adventure, she would be within her rights, and the
+fugitives knew it well. The _Bella Cuba_ had flung the red rag into the
+face of the bull, and Roger Broom and George Trent thought they saw
+Virginia's hand in the unhesitating challenge. Captain Gorst might have
+thought twice before assuring himself that the time had come to obey
+orders given in case of dire necessity; but once would be enough for
+Virginia.
+
+"She's given herself away!" laughed George, keeping the launch between
+the lagoon and an irregular line of dark horns which, rising just above
+the shining surface of the water, marked a group of coral reefs. "There
+won't be much doubt in Johnny Crapaud's mind now as to what part that
+tidy little craft's cast to play in this show, eh? Hello-o!"
+
+Another blaze and a following roar drew the exclamation; but before
+George had had time to draw breath after it, he and Roger and Maxime were
+all three in the water. The ball from the little cannon of the
+prison-boat had done its work better this time, striking the electric
+launch on her nose and shattering her to pieces.
+
+George Trent was a brave man, but his first thought was "Sharks!" and the
+horror of it caught his throat with a sensation of nausea. The instinct
+of self-preservation is strong in all healthy men, and, though an instant
+later he was ashamed on realizing it, the fear that thrilled him was for
+himself. He expected, as his momentarily scattered senses told him what
+had happened and where he was, to feel huge teeth, sharp as scythes, meet
+round his thigh and cut off a leg as cleanly as a surgeon's knife.
+
+While he still quivered with this living horror, he remembered that the
+danger was Roger's and Maxime's as well as his, and manhood and
+unselfishness came back. He forgot himself in his fear for them, more
+especially for Maxime--poor Maxime, who had suffered so much that it
+would be hard indeed if he were to meet a ghastly death in the very act
+of achieving safety and freedom. Madeleine's beautiful, tragic face rose,
+clear as a star, before his eyes, and he knew that it would be reward
+enough for him if he could give his life for the brother she loved so
+well. If she should say afterward, "Poor fellow, he died that you might
+live, Maxime," he felt that the words and the gratitude in the girl's
+heart would warm him even, if his grave were to be under these dark
+waters at the other end of the world.
+
+He had gone down at first, and a hundred thoughts seemed to have spun
+themselves in his head by the time he rose to the surface. Shaking the
+water out of his eyes, he looked anxiously round for Roger and Maxime.
+They were nowhere to be seen, and a pang shot through George Trent's
+breast like a dagger of ice. What if one or both of them had already met
+the terrible fate which he had pictured for himself?
+
+His whole soul was so concentrated upon this fear that for a few seconds
+he was deaf and blind to everything outside; but suddenly he realized
+that the firing between the yacht and the Government boat was still going
+on, a further cannonade which woke strange echoes over the water.
+
+"Roger--Dalahaide!" he called. No answer came, but, as his eyes strained
+through the haze of moonlight, a dark dot appeared on the bright mirror
+of the sea, moving fast, and a cry was raised which, though not loud,
+carried clearly, and seemed to George Trent the most terrible he had ever
+heard:
+
+"A shark--a shark!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"ONCE ON BOARD THE LUGGER"
+
+
+It was Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout
+so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place
+where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second
+head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.
+
+That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the
+years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime
+had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to
+imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But
+that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so
+horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp
+agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he could not go back to
+Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.
+
+His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling
+sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the
+world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was
+young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger
+and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for
+help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the
+French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it
+would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to his
+companions, would make a meal of him, and whether it would hurt much, or
+if unconsciousness would come soon. Mechanically he swam on, more or less
+in the direction of the _Bella Cuba_ and the French boat, which were at
+close quarters now; and perhaps there was a scarcely defined hope in his
+heart that a stray shot might finish him before the hideous "guardians of
+the Ile Nou" found their chance.
+
+The state of his own brain and nerves became a matter of cold surprise
+to him; the suspense without fear, though tingling with physical dread,
+and the capacity for separation of emotions. He found himself thinking of
+Virginia, and pitying her. This would break her heart, he told himself.
+She would have a morbid feeling that she was to blame for the disaster;
+that she had caused the death of her brother and cousin, and the other
+man so strangely important in her life of late. He wished that he might
+talk to her, and tell her not to mind, because it was not in the least
+her fault, and she had done nothing but good.
+
+Then he began to wonder why the yacht and the French boat had ceased
+firing. The latter had only two guns, while the _Bella Cuba_ had four,
+and, as he had said to Roger a few minutes (or was it years?) ago, she
+was but a poor "makeshift," rigged up more as a kind of "scarecrow" for
+_forçats_ meditating escape than for actual service. Still, she must
+carry at least ten or twelve rounds of ammunition. Could it be that the
+little _Bella Cuba_ had contrived to knock a hole in her hull, and that
+her men must choose between beaching her immediately or having her sink?
+It looked as if this explanation might be the right one, for she was
+certainly retiring, and that with haste. To beach she must go round the
+point whence she had come in, approaching the lagoon, and this she was
+doing, the yacht having no more to say to her.
+
+"The Frenchies know what their sea-wolves have done," George thought
+grimly, "and so they can afford to let things slide and save themselves.
+No good sending out a boat and trying to pick up their man under the nose
+of the enemy, for the poor fellow's gone where neither friends nor foes
+can get him. The episode is closed. And all the _Bella Cuba_ wanted was
+to put the prison boat out of the running. There's no good being
+vindictive. I could get to her now, if I liked--provided those brutes
+would let me. But it's impossible--I won't think of it. Afterward I
+should loathe myself for being a coward and going back to life without
+the others. I couldn't have helped them--but it would seem as if I might
+have, and didn't. Heavens! When is this going to end? I can't bear it
+long. The best thing I could do would be to drown myself like a man, and
+get it over before the worst can happen."
+
+He flung up his arms, meaning to sink, and wondering whether it would be
+really possible for a strong swimmer deliberately to drown himself, or
+whether instinct would keep on countermanding the brain's orders, until
+exhaustion did its work. One last look at the world he gave before the
+plunge, and that look showed him a thing which he could not believe.
+Between him and the black horns of the outer reef he saw once more two
+dark heads close together.
+
+"It can't be!" Trent said to himself; nevertheless, instead of flinging
+away life, with all his strength he struck out lustily toward those
+floating dots in the water. Then, suddenly, something cold and solid
+rubbed against his leg. How the knowledge of what it was and what to do
+came to him so quickly, and how he acted upon that knowledge swiftly
+almost as light moves, he could not have told; but he knew that a shark
+was after him; he knew that it must turn over on its back in the water
+before the cavernous, fang-set jaws could crunch his bone and flesh, and
+like a flash he dived. Queerly, as he shot down through the water, he
+thought again of something outside the desperate need of
+self-preservation. "This is what happened when I saw their heads go down
+before and supposed it was all up with them both!" he said to himself.
+"That's what they are supposing about me now, if they're looking my way.
+Well, we shall see. It's going to be a race between this infernal brute
+and me. I'd bet on him--but the dark horse sometimes gets in."
+
+After that he had no more consecutive thoughts. Primitive instinct guided
+him, and hope was the light which marked the goal. The others were not
+dead yet, so he had a right to his life, if he could keep it; and toward
+that end he strained, swimming as he had never swum before, diving,
+darting this way and that, feeling rather than seeing which spot to
+avoid, which to strive for. At last his foot touched rock. He had reached
+that part of the jagged coral-reef which rose out of the sea. He ceased
+to swim, and found that slipping, sliding, stumbling on a surface, which
+felt to clinging hands and feet as if coated with ice, and smeared with
+soap, he could scramble up to a point above water. He got to his knees,
+then to his feet, and as he stood up, dripping and dizzy, a shout came to
+him. Roger's voice again!--but no longer sharp with horror and loathing.
+There he stood on another low peak of the reef, and Dalahaide was beside
+him, slimmer, taller, and straighter than he, as the two figures were
+darkly outlined against the light.
+
+They were safe, at least from the sharks; and from the _Bella Cuba_ a
+boat with four rowers was swiftly approaching. The reaction of joy after
+the resignation of despair was almost too great. George Trent's throat
+contracted with a sob, and there was a stinging of his eyelids which was
+not caused by the salt of the sea.
+
+"Hurrah!" he cried out, waving his hand to the two men on the reef, and
+to the rowers in the boat. While his shout still rang in the air a
+_canot_, such as that in which they had crossed from Noumea to the Ile
+Nou, manned by twelve rowers, leaped round the point of rock behind
+which the French boat had disappeared, and came straight as an arrow for
+the reef on which the three men stood.
+
+Now it was a race once more for life and death. The yacht's boat had the
+start, but those twenty-four oars carried the _canot_, heavy as it was,
+far faster through the water. The _Bella Cuba_ could not use her cannon
+lest she should destroy her own friends, so nearly did the two boats
+cross each other as both from, different directions, sped toward the same
+goal.
+
+The yachtsmen's blood was up, and they worked like heroes, but they were
+four to twelve. The _canot_ shot ahead and got the inside track. The
+race, as a race, could now have but one end. The _canot_ was bound to be
+first at the spot where the runaway _forçat_ and one of his English
+friends stood side by side out of reach of the hungry sharks, but not
+beyond the grasp of justice. The fugitives, who had fought so long with
+the sea, were unarmed, while the four surveillants in the _canot_ had
+revolvers, and would either recapture or kill.
+
+But Maxime Dalahaide spoke a word to his companion; and, as if the
+triumph of the _canot_ over the yacht's boat had been a signal, the two
+sprang from the shelf of the reef into the sea. George Trent knew well
+what was in their minds; they preferred to risk being food for sharks to
+certain capture; and without hesitating for an instant, George followed
+their example. If they could swim under water to the yacht's boat before
+the sharks took up the prison cause, all was not yet lost, for the boat
+would do its best to dodge the _canot_ while the _Bella Cuba's_ cannon
+seized their chance to work once more.
+
+George kept under water as long as he could, then came up to breathe and
+venture a glance round. Crack! went a pistol-shot close to his head, and
+he dived again; but not before he had seen the yacht's boat not thirty
+yards off. How near the _canot_ lay he had not been able to inform
+himself, but the narrow shave he had just had gave him a hint that it
+could not be far distant. He aimed for the boat as well as he could
+judge, felt an ominous, cold touch, dived deeper for a shark, forged
+ahead again, trying to forget the double danger, came up to breathe
+because he must, and could have yelled for joy, if he had had breath
+enough in his lungs, to see that either Roger or Maxime was being pulled
+into the yacht's boat, while a second head bobbed on the water a couple
+of yards away. The air cracked with revolver-shots, but George was not
+the target now: the eyes of the surveillants were for the fugitives
+nearest safety. Whether Roger or Dalahaide were hit, George could not
+tell, but he kept his head above water in sheer self-forgetfulness until
+both had been hauled on board. Then he dived again, and when he rose to
+the surface he was close to the boat. It was his turn to be helped over
+the side and to become a target. Something whizzed past his ear, leaving
+it hot and wet, and he had a sudden burning pain in his left arm; but
+nothing mattered, for there were Roger and Maxime, and he was beside
+them. The rowers had set to their work with a will once more, not to
+reach the _Bella Cuba_ with the best speed, but to dodge from between her
+guns and the _canot_. Once she could let her cannon speak, the _canot_
+was no longer to be feared. Brave as the Frenchmen were, clearly as they
+had right on their side, from their point of view, they would have to
+recognize that they were helpless, that the rest of the battle was to the
+strong.
+
+A moment more, and one of the little cannon roared a warning. She did not
+try to hit the _canot_; the message she sent was but to say, "Hands off,
+or take the consequences." And the men of the _canot_ understood. Not
+only did they cease firing, but began to retire with leisurely dignity
+toward the point which hid the disabled prison boat.
+
+Now, suddenly, when all such peril was over, the thought of that slimy,
+cold touch on his flesh, and what it had meant, turned George Trent sick.
+He did not see how he or his friends had escaped the horror. If it were
+to come again he was sure that escape would be impossible; and somehow he
+knew, as if by prevision, that there would be nights so long as he lived
+when he would dream of that touch in the water, and wrench himself awake,
+with sweat on his forehead and his hands damp.
+
+"Roger, are you all right, and Dalahaide, too?" he asked, wondering at
+the weight he felt on his chest and the effort it was to speak.
+
+"Thanks to Dalahaide, I am all right," Roger answered. "If it hadn't been
+for his quickness and presence of mind, twice I should have been nabbed
+by a shark. Weak as he was, he pulled me down for a dive that I should
+have been too dazed to think of without him."
+
+"I have cause enough to know something of these waters and their danger,"
+Maxime said slowly, as if he too found it an effort to speak. "I was
+weak, yes, but strength comes of great need, I suppose; and already I
+owed you so much. I had to think and act quickly; besides, it was for
+myself too."
+
+"Thank heaven it's all over," exclaimed Roger, with a great sigh. "We've
+a good doctor on board. He'll know how to make you fit once we have you
+there. And that will be shortly now. See, here's the yacht! In ten
+minutes you'll be in the stateroom that has been ready for you ever since
+we left Mentone a few hundred years ago, bound for New Caledonia."
+
+"Yes, your passage was engaged from the first," chuckled George, with an
+odd little catch in his voice that would have been hysterical if he had
+been a woman. "And I'll bet something you'll like your quarters. Two
+lovely ladies took a lot of trouble with them--your sister and mine."
+
+"I don't know what to say, or how to thank you," stammered Maxime. "It
+goes so far beyond words."
+
+"Just try to _live_ your thanks, if you think they're worth while. I
+reckon that's what our two sisters would say on the subject. Don't let
+there be any more talk about dying like there was to-day, that's all, you
+know. And oh, by Jove! doesn't it feel queer to be gabbling this way,
+when you remember what we've just come out of--those grinning brutes down
+there, with their red mouths in their white shirt fronts, so to speak.
+Ugh! I don't want to think of it, but I'm hanged if I can help it. I say,
+did those Johnnies' revolvers do any damage here?"
+
+"Dalahaide got a bullet in his shoulder, as if the wound in his back
+wasn't enough to remember the place by," said Roger. "He says it's
+nothing, and I hope that's the truth" (he actually did hope it now, at
+least for the moment); "as for me, I believe they've saved the yacht's
+barber a little trouble in cutting my hair on the left side, that's all;
+luckily no harm done to any of our men."
+
+All these scraps of conversation had been flung backward and forward
+inside five minutes. Then they were at the yacht's side. Maxime, forced
+to yield to his own weakness in the reaction now, was being helped on
+board, the others following.
+
+A slim, white figure, ethereal and spirit-like in the sheen of the moon,
+was waiting to give them welcome. Virginia stood on deck, weeping and
+laughing, Dr. Grayle by her side.
+
+"Thank heaven! Thank heaven!" she sobbed at sight of Maxime. The cry was
+for him, the look, the tears, the clasped hands, all for him. Roger and
+George came together for her in a second thought, and Roger knew; though
+he was not surprised, because he had guessed her secret, such joy of
+success as even he, being a man, had felt, was blotted out for him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down below, locked into their staterooms, Lady Gardiner and the Countess
+de Mattos had passed a strange and terrible hour, each in a different
+way.
+
+To Kate there was little mystery, though much fear. She had sulkily shut
+herself up, and, not dreaming what was appointed for the night, had
+finally dropped asleep, while meditating reprisals for the bad treatment
+she had received that day. But though her suspicions had not gone as far
+as an actual rescue in dramatic fashion, with the first shot from the
+prison boat which woke her from a sound sleep, she divined what was
+happening. Bounding from her berth, while hardly yet awake, she darted to
+her porthole, which was wide open. It faced the wrong way to afford her a
+glimpse of what was going on, but she could hear more firing at a
+distance, doubtless at the prison on the Ile Nou, the ringing of bells,
+and much tramping overhead on the deck of the yacht. She felt the throb
+of the engine too, and though the _Bella Cuba_ had been lying quietly at
+anchor in the harbour when Kate had fallen asleep, now she was moving at
+a rapid rate through the water, which gurgled past her sides.
+
+Kate had known, of course, that they had not come thousands of miles for
+nothing, and the moment she was certain that New Caledonia was to be the
+_Bella Cuba's_ destination she realized that an attempt would be made to
+save Maxime Dalahaide. She had been anxious to earn the other half of the
+Marchese Loria's money, and at the same time to pay Virginia and George
+Trent for their secretiveness, by letting Loria hear of their arrival, at
+least, even if she could tell him no more. That desire had been thwarted
+by Dr. Grayle, but Kate considered the act merely postponed. Next time
+they coaled--since they must coal somewhere before long--she would
+certainly find a way of wiring to Loria, and probably she would have
+something much more definite to tell him, that was all. Exactly what that
+"something" might be, had been rather vague in her mind; but she had
+thought that Virginia, George, and Roger would most likely have found
+means to communicate with Dalahaide and give him hope for the future;
+perhaps they might even try to put in his hands some means of escape,
+after which the _Bella Cuba_ would linger about in these waters, out of
+sight of New Caledonia, until he either succeeded in getting away or
+failed signally to do so. This plan Kate had considered not beyond the
+bounds of possibility; or (she had told herself) Virginia, who was so
+enormously, absurdly rich, might be counting upon bribing some lesser
+prison authority to help the convict to escape. So daring a girl, sure of
+the power of beauty and wealth, and with millions of pounds to play with,
+might have conceived such a scheme and have the boldness to carry it out.
+She could offer any bribe she liked, and--every man was said to have his
+price. It was conceivable now to Kate that Virginia and Madeleine
+Dalahaide had had confidences together, and that the mysterious locked
+stateroom had been specially fitted up for the benefit of the prodigal.
+It would be like Virginia to have made such a wild plan, and to persuade
+Roger Broom and George Trent to aid her in carrying it out; yet Kate had
+not guessed to what desperate lengths they would be ready to go. She had
+forgotten about the yacht's cannon; but when she heard the shot from the
+French boat she suddenly remembered them, and wondered, in great terror,
+whether they would be put to use. She realized that the trio meant to
+stop at nothing to gain their end and that this end was to have Maxime
+Dalahaide out of prison at any cost to themselves and others.
+
+Into the midst of her confused deductions broke the yell of a shot from
+one of the yacht's guns. It was as if the _Bella Cuba_ were alive and had
+given a tiger-spring out of the water. Kate shrieked with fear, and
+staggered away from the porthole. Her first thought was to run out of the
+stateroom and seek refuge somewhere--anywhere. But, with her hand on the
+bolt with which she had fastened the door, she realized that she was as
+safe where she was as she could be elsewhere, in the dreadful
+circumstances--perhaps safer. But she was in deadly terror. As a roar
+from the French boat was answered by another roar from the yacht, which
+again shivered and leaped like a wounded thing, her knees gave way under
+her, and she half fell, half crouched on the floor of the stateroom,
+shuddering and moaning. The danger seemed as appalling, as hopeless to
+escape from, as an earthquake which, go where you would, might tear
+asunder the ground under your feet and bury you alive.
+
+It was clear that the _Bella Cuba_ and the strange, ugly-looking
+steamboat she had seen in the harbour, with its two unmasked cannon, were
+waging fierce war upon one another. For all that Lady Gardiner knew,
+Dalahaide was already on board, and the prison boat was giving chase; yet
+that could not be true, surely, for suddenly the yacht's engines ceased
+to move; it was as if her heart had stopped beating. Had the _Bella Cuba_
+been struck? Was she sinking? Even if not, one of those horrible
+cannon-balls might come crashing into the yacht's side at any moment,
+and every one on board might be instantly killed.
+
+Kate knew not what to do; whether to remain where she was, or to crawl
+out into the cabin and try to find some one--even the hateful doctor--who
+would tell her how great the danger was, and what one must do to be saved
+from it. She forgot all about Loria, and Dalahaide, and her many
+grievances, and only knew that she wished to be spared from death, no
+matter whose schemes failed or succeeded, or who else lived or died.
+
+The Countess de Mattos had not been asleep. Her headache, perhaps, had
+kept her nerves at high tension, and made rest impossible. As she had
+confessed to Virginia early that morning, on discovering the name of the
+next landing-place, she did not like New Caledonia. The thought of the
+place, and the secrets it must hold, oppressed her. She wondered, with a
+kind of disagreeable fascination which invariably forced her weary mind
+back to the same subject, whether the convicts' life was very terrible;
+whether they lived long in this land of exile, or whether they were
+notoriously short-lived. The climate must be trying, and then there were
+countless hardships to endure--hardships which must be less bearable to
+those who had known luxury and refinements. She did not like to dwell
+upon anything that was painful or even sordid; and when memory persisted
+in dragging before her reluctant eyes the dead body of any particularly
+hateful scene in her past, as a cat will sometimes obstinately lay before
+its master a rat it has mangled, she was in the habit of dulling her
+sensibility by drinking a little absinthe in which some chlorodyne had
+been dropped.
+
+When she travelled, she always carried two or three bottles of the liquor
+with her, wrapped in laces and cambric, in her luggage, for she had grown
+used to it, and could hardly support life without its soothing influence
+now. She was careful not to take too much, however, for she worshipped
+her own beauty; and absinthe was an enemy to a woman's complexion.
+
+She felt to-night, lying in the harbour of Noumea, as she had felt
+sometimes during a furious _sirocco_ in Sicily--restless, unnerved,
+fearful of some vague evil, though common sense assured her that nothing
+of the kind she dimly pictured could possibly happen. She remembered
+uncomfortable things more vividly and painfully than usual, too; and, at
+last, she could deny herself the wished-for solace no longer. She rose
+from her berth, trailing exquisite silk and lace (for the woman must
+always frame her beauty worthily, even for her own eyes alone), poured
+out half a glass of absinthe, dropped in her allowance of the drug, added
+water, till the mixture looked like liquid opal, and sipped the beverage
+with a kind of dainty greed.
+
+In a few minutes she had ceased to care whether the _Bella Cuba_ lay in
+the harbour of Noumea or off Sydney Heads. What did it matter? What harm
+could come?
+
+Presently, lying in her berth, dreamily staring out at the moonlight
+through the open porthole, her lovely arms pillowing her head, the
+Countess became aware that the yacht was moving. So they were getting out
+to sea again, she told herself. A little while ago she would have been
+delighted, as if at an escape, because, as she had said, Noumea was
+hateful, and no place for pleasure-seekers. But now that the absinthe and
+chlorodyne soothed her nerves she was comparatively indifferent whether
+they stopped or steamed away. Nothing unpleasant had happened. Of course
+not; why should it? She had racked her nerves, and given herself a
+headache all in vain. Still, it was good to know that she would see no
+more of that terrible land of beauty and despair.
+
+She shut her eyes comfortably, and was on the way to the more welcome
+land of sleep when the boom of the gun, which had wakened Lady Gardiner,
+roused her from her lotus mood of soft forgetfulness--the greatest joy
+which she could ever know.
+
+Her brain was dazed with the liquor and the drug she had taken, and she
+was utterly unable to comprehend the tumult and confusion which followed.
+
+Kate Gardiner had a clue to the mystery which the Countess de Mattos did
+not possess. The Portuguese beauty had no means of guessing what had
+brought the _Bella Cuba_ to Noumea. She had never heard any one on board
+speak the name of Dalahaide, or that of any convict imprisoned at New
+Caledonia, and the firing between the yacht and the French boat suggested
+nothing to her but horror.
+
+She, too, was afraid, half-stunned with fear, and she was angry with
+herself now for having taken the absinthe and chlorodyne, because they
+prevented her from thinking clearly--the very thing which, a short time
+ago, she had wished not to do. At first she lay still, burying her head
+in the pillows; then she murmured prayers to more than one saint, for she
+was an ardent Catholic; and at last, unable to bear the suspense and
+isolation any longer, she threw open the stateroom door and ran out into
+the cabin.
+
+No one was there; but above the sound of trampling overhead she thought
+she could distinguish voices, and Virginia Beverly's was among them. If
+Virginia were on deck, the Countess said in her mind, it would be well
+for her to be there too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+VIRGINIA'S GREAT MOMENT
+
+
+She went up on deck, moving dazedly, with a strange sense of unreality
+upon her, as if she had somehow wandered into a cold, dim world of
+dreams.
+
+The firing had ceased, and the yacht was no longer in motion. The
+confused whirlwind of brain-shaking events which revolved in her memory
+might now have been a part of the dream in which she was still entangled.
+The Countess de Mattos's beautiful eyes swept the moon-drenched scene for
+enlightenment, but none came.
+
+They were not now in the harbour, that alone was clear; but land was
+close, and black horns of rock stood up out of the shining water as if
+they had broken through a great sheet of looking-glass. Across this
+bright, mirror-like surface a small boat was being quickly rowed toward
+the yacht. It was very near now, and several dark figures could be
+distinguished in it besides those of the four rowers. Another boat, much
+larger, with more than twice the number of oars, swiftly rising and
+falling, was hurrying away in the direction of a high, rocky point on the
+island itself.
+
+A chill premonition of evil fell upon the woman's soul. It was like a
+heavy nightmare weight that might only be felt, not seen, and could not
+be shaken off. But the Countess de Mattos had experienced this
+undefinable misery before, when the reaction came after taking too large
+a dose of chlorodyne with her "solace." She hoped that it was merely this
+now--that it was no real warning of trouble or threatening danger.
+
+Virginia stood talking to Dr. Grayle and gazing eagerly toward the
+advancing boat. The Countess de Mattos glanced at the two wistfully,
+longing to go to them and ask questions. Yet something seemed to hold her
+back. It was as if a whisper in her ear advised that there were things it
+was better not to know. This was ridiculous, of course. It was always
+more prudent to know about disagreeable things before they could happen,
+and then sometimes they could be prevented, or at least staved off till
+one was more prepared to grapple with them. But all the beautiful woman's
+prudence was in abeyance to-night. The quality had not been born in her,
+but acquired; which can never be the same.
+
+She felt weak and unnerved, with a great longing to cling to some one
+stronger and wiser than herself. But there was no such person at hand for
+her. These others had their own interests. If they really cared for her
+at all it was because she was ornamental, a thing of beauty which it is
+pleasant to have within sight; and usually it was very convenient to the
+Countess de Mattos to be considered thus. Indeed, most of the luxuries
+which she loved so much more dearly than the necessities of life came
+through her distinct value as an ornament. But now what was ordinarily
+enough for her failed to satisfy. She felt horribly alone in the world,
+as if she had slipped upon some terrible ledge of rock overhanging a
+sheer precipice, and there was no one--no one on earth to help her back
+to safety. Tears of self-pity rose hot in her eyes as she stood, not far
+from Virginia and the doctor, hesitating what to do.
+
+They were so absorbed in watching the approach of the boat that they were
+unconscious of her presence, and suddenly it began to fascinate the
+Countess de Mattos also, as if it were one of the discs which hypnotists
+give to their patients. She, too, bent over the rail and gazed at the
+boat as the rowers brought it nearer and nearer, but she could not see
+the faces of its occupants. For three or four minutes she stood thus, and
+then the boat was under the yacht's side and the men were coming up the
+ladder.
+
+The Countess moved nearer to Virginia and Dr. Grayle. She no longer
+intended--for the moment at least--to catechize them, but it occurred to
+her that, by merely standing within earshot while the others exchanged
+questions and answers, the mystery of this night's alarming work would be
+explained to her. Without being seen by her hostess or the little doctor,
+she was so close now that the trailing silk and lace of her _robe de
+chambre_ was blown by the light breeze against Virginia's white dress.
+
+"Thank heaven--thank heaven!" she heard the girl exclaim as some one came
+on board. The pair in front of her crowded so closely toward this person
+that she could not see who it was, and could only suppose that it must be
+Sir Roger Broom or George Trent returning from some strange adventure.
+Then, suddenly, she saw the newcomer's face, with the moon shining full
+upon it, chiselling it into the perfection of a marble masterpiece of
+old, thrown up by the sea from some long engulfed palace.
+
+She stared, incredulous, her breath in abeyance, her heart stopped like a
+jarred clock. Then, over Virginia's shoulder, a pair of dark eyes found
+hers--eyes darkened with tragedy while youth and joy should still have
+shone in their untroubled depths.
+
+Ah, the awfulness of that instant, the ghastly horror of it! Something in
+the woman's brain seemed to snap, and, with a loud shriek that cut the
+new-fallen silence as a jagged knife-blade of lightning cuts the sky, she
+threw out her hands to shut away the sight and fell backward, fainting.
+Virginia turned, and knew that her great moment had come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Countess de Mattos came to herself she awoke gazing straight
+upward at the stars, which danced a strange, whirling measure as the
+horizon rose and dipped with the swift forging of the yacht. She was
+lying on the deck, her head supported on something low and soft, and Dr.
+Grayle bent over her, kneeling on one knee.
+
+"All right again?" he inquired cheerfully, in his blunt way.
+
+She did not answer, for with desperate haste she was collecting her
+thoughts, linking together broken impressions. An awful thing had
+happened. What? she asked herself. Then suddenly the vision flashed back
+to her, and she shuddered. Lowering her lids, so that the thick, black
+fringe of lashes veiled her eyes, she glanced anxiously about. Had it
+been a vision and no more, or was it real, and should she have to meet
+those accusing eyes again? As she debated thus Virginia stepped forward.
+
+"I think, Countess, that you will do now," said Dr. Grayle. "There is a
+wounded man below who needs my services, but refused them until you
+should have recovered."
+
+"Oh, go--go!" murmured his patient in irritable weakness.
+
+The little doctor got up, and as he walked quickly away Virginia took his
+place.
+
+"Can I do anything for you?" she asked.
+
+The Countess shook her head. Her face looked lined and haggard, despite
+its beauty, in the bleaching light of the moon, and Virginia was almost
+sorry for her. She could afford to pity the woman now, she thought, for
+she had triumphed. Her case was proved beyond all doubt, and even Roger,
+who had heard the scream of recognition and witnessed the fainting fit,
+could no longer deny that the Countess de Mattos and Liane Devereux were
+one. Virginia would not strike a blow at a fallen enemy, and, holding
+this woman in the hollow of her hand, as she believed she did, she was
+ready to give such help as could be given without injuring the cause she
+served.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go back to your stateroom?" she went on. "You have
+had a great shock, and----"
+
+The Countess sat up quickly, pushing her disordered hair away from her
+eyes. "I don't know what you mean by a shock," she said, "unless you
+refer to the terrible cannonading. That was enough, I should think, to
+frighten the bravest. No wonder I fainted. And then, seeing that ghastly
+man, dressed like a _forçat_, all dripping wet, and stained red with
+blood, was the last drop in the cup of fear. I cannot think what horrors
+have been happening to-night."
+
+All Virginia's pity was swept away. Her heart hardened toward this
+tiger-woman.
+
+"Cannot you think?" she echoed bitterly. "Then I will tell you. We have
+been rescuing an innocent man, who for years has suffered untold miseries
+for a crime never committed. Thank heaven that his sufferings are ended
+at last, for we have him on board this yacht, which is carrying him away
+from New Caledonia at about twenty knots an hour, and we have the proof
+with us which will establish his innocence before many days have passed."
+
+"It is a crime for a _forçat_ to evade his prison--a crime to aid him,"
+cried the Countess.
+
+"We are not afraid of the punishment," said Virginia, hot, indignant
+blood springing to her cheeks. "_We_ are ready to face the consequences
+of our own actions."
+
+The emphasis was an accusation, but the Countess de Mattos did not wince
+under the lash. Even a coward may be brave in a hand-to-hand fight for
+life; and it was only physically that she was a coward.
+
+"You are courageous," she said, almost wholly mistress of herself now,
+"and, of course, you know your own affairs best, dear girl. But I am not
+so brave. This awful night has tried me severely, and has come near to
+spoiling our so pleasant trip. It has sickened me of the sea and of
+yachting. I shall beg to be landed as soon as convenient to you."
+
+"It will be convenient to us when you have confessed everything in
+writing," Virginia flung at her, stung into mercilessness by the woman's
+brazen defiance. "Then, and not before, you may leave this yacht."
+
+The Countess de Mattos arose from her lowly place as gracefully and with
+as much dignity as such an act could be performed. While she sat on the
+floor and Virginia towered over her, the enemy had too much advantage of
+position. The two were of one height, and, standing, they faced each
+other like contending goddesses.
+
+"You speak in riddles," said the elder woman.
+
+"Riddles to which you have the key."
+
+"I do not know what you mean, except that it seems to me it is your
+intention to be insolent."
+
+"In your code, perhaps, honesty is insolence. But I do not wish to forget
+that, in a way, you are my guest. I asked you to come for a purpose, I
+admit; yet----"
+
+"Ah! you admit that. Possibly you will condescend to inform me what your
+purpose was?"
+
+"My purpose was to make assurance doubly sure. To-night I have done
+this."
+
+"Evidently you do not wish me to understand you."
+
+"Say, rather, you do not wish to understand me. I think you must do so,
+in spite of yourself; but lest you should not, I will tell you. I
+suspected that you were the woman whom Maxime Dalahaide was accused of
+murdering. Now I _know_ that you are not the Countess de Mattos, but
+Liane Devereux!"
+
+The woman's green-gray eyes were like steel in the moonlight. "Maxime
+Dalahaide; Liane Devereux," she slowly repeated. "I never heard these
+names."
+
+Virginia was struck dumb by the other's effrontery, almost frightened by
+it. If this terrible creature withdrew into a brazen fortress of lies,
+who could tell how long a siege she might be able to withstand? The girl
+had been astonished and dismayed in the morning, when the first sally of
+the attack had failed; but then her strongest forces, her most deadly
+weapons, had been still in reserve. Now they had been brought against the
+enemy's defenses and--the walls had not fallen; there was no sign of
+capitulation. A cold misgiving began to stir in Virginia's mind. Would it
+mean failure if the Countess de Mattos obstinately refused to tell the
+truth?
+
+After all, she was only a girl, opposed to a woman whose varied
+experience of thirty years or more had endowed her with infinite
+resource. Virginia's stricken silence gave the other a new advantage.
+
+"As you have said yourself," icily began the Countess once more, "you are
+my hostess. You flattered me; you made me think that you were my friend;
+you asked me on board your yacht, and I came, trustingly, ignorant that,
+under some wild mistake which even now I do not comprehend, you plotted
+my betrayal. Why, it was a Judas act!"
+
+"If I did evil, I did it that good might come," said poor Virginia. "And
+it _shall_ come. You are Liane Devereux. _You_ were guilty of the 'Judas
+act.' Maxime Dalahaide loved you; and with what motive I don't yet know,
+but mean to know, you betrayed him to a fate worse than death. For that
+you deserve anything. Yes, I kidnapped you. That's what Roger called it,
+and I don't repent now. You are here on this yacht with Maxime Dalahaide,
+and we are on the open sea. Unless you jump overboard, you cannot get
+away from your atonement. Atonement--that is the word. Oh, woman,
+woman--if you _are_ a woman and not a stone, think what atonement would
+mean for you! You must have had terrible moments, living with
+remembrances like yours--a man who loved you sent to a living grave. Now
+it is in your power to make up to him--ever so little, perhaps, but a
+thousand times better than nothing--for the wrong you did. Do this--do
+it, and be thankful all the rest of your life for the blessed chance
+which heaven has sent you."
+
+The Countess laughed. "You change your tone suddenly--from threats to an
+appeal. You would make quite a good preacher, but your eloquence can have
+no effect on my conscience, as I have not the remotest idea what you are
+talking about. I had let myself grow fond of you, and I was grateful for
+all these lazy, pleasant weeks, and for the money you lent me; but now
+that I know what was underneath your seeming kindness I am no more
+grateful, and I shall do my best to punish you for the wicked trick you
+have played upon me. As for attempting to prove that I am--what name did
+you give the woman?--well, anybody except myself, you will find it
+impossible. I have powerful friends who would travel far to save me from
+any trouble. You cannot keep me a prisoner on board this yacht. You must
+touch again at land before long, and then I shall go away and tell every
+one what has happened on your _Bella Cuba_."
+
+"We shall see," said Virginia.
+
+"We _shall_ see," echoed the Countess. "And now I am going to my
+stateroom. Perhaps I may hope to be free from persecution there."
+
+She swept away, looking gorgeously beautiful, and as proud as a queen
+bent on holding her crown against the people's will.
+
+Virginia stood still, watching her; and when the tall, stately figure had
+disappeared, a crushing sense of defeat fell upon the girl.
+
+Only a few moments ago, as time counted, she had felt that, with Maxime
+Dalahaide's rescue, she had every wish of her heart fulfilled. But now
+she saw the position of affairs with changed eyes. It was as different as
+a flower-decked ballroom seen by the light of a thousand glittering
+candles, and again by sunrise when the candles had burnt down and the
+flowers faded.
+
+Maxime was out of prison; there was that, at all events, to be thankful
+for, and there was nothing at New Caledonia which could even attempt to
+give chase to the wicked little _Bella Cuba_. Nevertheless, the French
+Government had a long arm, and would not quietly let a convict sentenced
+for life be snatched away without making a grab to get him back again.
+Virginia had known this from the first, but when Roger had pointed the
+fact out to her as one of the difficulties to be encountered, she had
+said in the beginning: "If we have the luck to rescue him we shall have
+the luck to hide him," and afterward, when she had seen the Countess de
+Mattos at Cairo, she had amended the prophecy by saying: "If they catch
+us we shall be able to prove his innocence."
+
+It had all seemed very simple, and she had been impatient with Roger for
+bringing up so many discouraging objections to her impulsively formed
+plans. He had gone in with them at last, without, however, pretending to
+be convinced, and she had bribed him with a virtual promise of marriage.
+He had done all that she had asked of him, and more; and she would have
+to keep her promise, but--had she accomplished enough that was good for
+Maxime, to pay for the sacrifice? It would be a sacrifice--a greater one
+than she had known at first, greater than, somehow, she had realized
+until to-day. She must pay the price; and Maxime--what of him?
+
+If his innocence could not be proved, through the dead woman miraculously
+come alive, he could never, at best, go back to France; and as the crime
+of which he was accused came under the extradition treaty, he would be
+safe nowhere. He must--as he himself had said--lead "a hunted life,"
+wherever he might be. Neither money, nor influence, nor yearning
+sister-love, nor--the love of friends who would give their heart's blood
+to save him, could shield Maxime Dalahaide from the sword of Damocles,
+ever suspended, ever ready to fall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Marchese Loria received Lady Gardiner's telegram from Sydney, he
+was stunned. "Leaving here to-morrow," the message ran; "destination
+unknown."
+
+Unknown to her the destination might be, but it was not unknown to him.
+He was almost as sure that the _Bella Cuba_ was bound for New Caledonia,
+as if Dr. Grayle had allowed Kate Gardiner to send her desired word from
+prison-land; and although he had constantly assured himself that if
+Virginia did go there it could do no harm, now that he was morally
+certain she would go, he quivered with vague apprehension.
+
+At first, he could not force his mind to concentrate itself upon the
+intricacies of the situation. He walked up and down his room, like a
+caged animal, trying to think how, if it were by moving heaven and earth,
+he could prevent Virginia Beverly and the convict Max Dalahaide from
+coming together. Then, with the thought that they might meet seething in
+his head, he would stop abruptly and say to himself, as he had said so
+often before: "Nonsense; you are a fool. They cannot come together. There
+is everything against it." Still, the root of fear was there, and grew
+again as soon as burned away.
+
+If he chose, he might send a warning to the prison authorities at New
+Caledonia. He could say that the _Bella Cuba_ was a suspicious craft, and
+ought not to be allowed in the harbour for a single hour. But to do this,
+he would be obliged either to proceed to Paris and give satisfactory
+reasons why such proceedings should be taken, or wire the warning message
+himself, signing his own name. No other method would be of any avail, as
+the governor of the prison would pay no attention to an anonymous
+telegram, and there was now no time to write a letter. He would be
+obliged also to assert positively that he knew the _Bella Cuba's_ errand
+to be treacherous; and, whether he went to Paris, or telegraphed, through
+Sydney, to New Caledonia, in either case Virginia was certain to find
+out, later, what he had done. Such secrets could not be successfully
+hidden, and she would hate him for his interference. If there was little
+hope for him now, there would be none then.
+
+When his wits began to work he regarded the situation from all points of
+view. He admitted the remote--extremely remote--possibility that the
+party on the _Bella Cuba_ might actually contemplate a rescue. He would
+almost have been ready to stake his life that, if such an attempt were
+made, it would fail ignominiously, with disaster to all
+concerned--perhaps death to more than one. But--it _might_ succeed. If it
+did, what would happen?
+
+They would not dare to put back to Sydney Heads. The yacht must be coaled
+and provisioned somewhere. He consulted maps, and saw that the most
+likely place for the _Bella Cuba_ to proceed on leaving New Caledonia was
+Samoa. It seemed to him that she must go there, in any case.
+
+Loria did not wish to appear as an active enemy of Maxime Dalahaide's. It
+was largely owing to his efforts on the prisoner's behalf that Max had
+been saved from the guillotine, and all the Dalahaides must have known
+that. Virginia, no doubt, knew it too. But what was to be done, if he
+were not to fling aside the cloak of his reputation as a friend of that
+unfortunate family? The spirit of high romance ran in Virginia Beverly's
+blood. She was capable of marrying an escaped prisoner, and sharing his
+miserable, hunted existence. Such a thing must not be. Loria felt that it
+would be less bearable to lose her through Max Dalahaide than through any
+other man. He would rather see her Roger Broom's wife than Maxime's, but
+he had not yet given up all hope of having her for his own.
+
+He would have just time to go to Samoa and meet the _Bella Cuba_ there,
+if he started at once. The yacht would not leave Sydney Heads till next
+day, according to the news in the telegram. Then it would take her ten
+days more to reach New Caledonia. There she was sure to remain for some
+hours, at the very least. If he, Loria, caught a certain "greyhound of
+the sea" which was sailing from Cherbourg for New York the following
+morning, took a fast express from New York for San Francisco, and then
+sailed immediately for Samoa, he could not fail to be in time for the
+_Bella Cuba_. But the important thing was to find an excuse to account
+for his being there when the _Bella Cuba_ arrived.
+
+He was not, luckily for his present plan, supposed to know for what parts
+the yacht had been bound; therefore, if he went to Samoa to visit his
+friend the French Consul, who had once really invited him to do so, even
+Virginia need not suspect his motive. His opportune appearance might pass
+merely as a rather odd coincidence.
+
+If the _Bella Cuba_ took away a fugitive on board, the authorities at New
+Caledonia would not remain idle. They would at once wire to Sydney of a
+convict's escape, and the telegram would be sent on to Samoa from there.
+A description of the yacht would be given, and inquiries would be made.
+But those inquiries! It was because of them that Loria was ready to make
+so strong an effort to be there in time. Without him, the fugitive from
+justice might be allowed to escape, despite the extradition treaty. With
+him, Loria thought that he saw a way to make the detention of the
+prisoner sure, and that without showing the hand he played.
+
+He had not lost many hours in indecision. As soon as he had made up his
+mind what to do, he wired to find out if there were still a berth to be
+had on board the New York bound ship sailing from Cherbourg next day.
+Even if he had been forced to travel in the steerage he would have gone,
+though he keenly disliked physical hardships; but he was fortunate, and
+obtained a good cabin for himself. As soon as this matter was arranged he
+left for Cherbourg; and next day, on board his ship, gazing across the
+tumbled gray expanse of sea, he thought of Virginia on her little yacht,
+and smiled. About this time, perhaps, the _Bella Cuba_ was steaming
+boldly from Sydney Heads, bound for New Caledonia--on what strange,
+desperate errand, who could tell? The girl's heart was beating high with
+hope, no doubt. How little she guessed that, half across the world, a man
+was setting forth to defeat her plans, even if they attained success!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+STAND AND DELIVER!
+
+
+The Marchese Loria had always been lucky in games of chance. In this
+biggest game of all Fortune still stood behind him and, with a guiding
+finger, pointed out the cards to play.
+
+There were no delays in his programme. His ship arrived in port precisely
+at the appointed hour. He was able to go on immediately to San Francisco.
+There he was just in time to catch a boat for Samoa. He wired to his
+friend, Monsieur de Letz, the French Consul, that he was coming, and
+received an enthusiastic welcome. The Consul was a bachelor, approaching
+middle age, was intensely bored with the monotony of life on an island of
+the Pacific, and was ravished with the chance of entertaining a personage
+so brilliant in the great far-away world as the Marchese Loria. He had a
+charming house, and a good cook; some wine also, and cigars of the best.
+Loria arrived at dinner-time, and afterward, smoking and talking in the
+moonlight on a broad verandah, the guest led up to the question he was
+half dying to ask.
+
+"Have you heard any exciting news lately?" he airily inquired, in a tone
+that hovered between pleasantry and mystery.
+
+"Does one ever hear exciting news in this place?" groaned the French
+Consul. "Nothing has happened for years. Nothing is ever likely to happen
+again now that we have become so dull and peaceful here."
+
+"No news of another visitor?"
+
+"Another visitor?"
+
+"A gentleman from New Caledonia."
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ How did you know that?"
+
+"Is it then so difficult to know, _mon ami_?"
+
+"One hopes so. It is not good that these things should leak out and reach
+the public ear. The information is very private. The authorities at home
+and abroad do all they can to keep it dark, and yet it seems----"
+
+"My ear isn't exactly the 'public ear,' as I'll presently explain. But it
+is a fact, then, that a convict has escaped from the Ile Nou, and you
+have got word that he is likely to turn up here on board a steam yacht?"
+
+"It is a fact. I see you have the whole story. But how did you get it?"
+
+"I'll tell you that later. First, just a question or two, if you don't
+mind, for I happen to be interested in the affair. How long ago did the
+fellow get away--or rather, when may the yacht, the _Bella Cuba_, be
+expected here, if at all?"
+
+"She might come in to-morrow."
+
+Loria gave a long sigh. He was lying back in a big easy-chair and sending
+out ring after ring of blue smoke, which he watched, as they disappeared,
+with half-shut eyes. One would have fancied him the embodiment of happy
+laziness, unless one had chanced to notice the tension of the fingers
+which grasped an arm of the chair.
+
+"What will happen when she does come in?"
+
+"Oh, trouble for me, and nothing to show for it."
+
+"What do you mean?"--with a sudden change of tone.
+
+"All I could do, I have done; which is to inform the Government
+authorities here that on board the expected yacht is a runaway _forçat_
+belonging to France, and ask that he be arrested on the yacht's arrival."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then a boat will go out to meet this _Bella Cuba_ as she comes into the
+harbour, and she will be requested to give up the man. Her people will
+say that there's no such person there, and refuse to let any one on
+board."
+
+"But surely you could detain the yacht and search? The _Bella Cuba_ comes
+from Sydney and New Caledonia. If you had reason to believe that there
+was a case of plague on board, for instance, the yacht would be
+quarantined."
+
+"Yes; but if she were detained, and the convict found on board, he
+couldn't be identified by any one here. There has been no time for a
+photograph to arrive from New Caledonia. He won't be dressed like a
+convict; his hair will have grown. I have only the description
+telegraphed. His friends will take care he doesn't answer to that. Even
+if the Government fellows here had any pluck and wanted to attempt an
+arrest they wouldn't dare, with no one to identify the _forçat_. You see,
+the yacht will be flying the English or American flag, and so----"
+
+"I can identify him."
+
+"You? There is a mystery then. I scented it at your first words."
+
+"Scarcely a mystery. You have been very good to answer my questions.
+Answer one more now, and I'll explain everything. Suppose I can put you
+in the way of identifying this man, without chance of error; suppose I
+can put you up to a trick for detaining the yacht, is there any hope, if
+I proved to you it would be for your own advantage, as well as of
+everybody else concerned, that you could have the man arrested, and sent
+back where he deserves to be?"
+
+The Frenchman hesitated. Then he said slowly, and more gravely than he
+had yet spoken: "Yes, I think I could."
+
+"That is well, for he is a fiend in human shape, not fit to be at large.
+Worse than all, if he escapes, he is almost certain to ruin the life of
+the woman I love, and end my hopes of winning her."
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ We must send him back to New Caledonia, to spend the rest of
+his life in the Black Cell!" enthusiastically exclaimed De Letz. "But my
+curiosity is on the stretch. A moment more unsatisfied, and it snaps."
+
+"It shall be satisfied on the instant. I'll tell you the story in as few
+words as may be. You remember the crime committed by this fellow--for of
+course you know that, before he was Convict 1280, he was Maxime
+Dalahaide?"
+
+"I know that. I know he is a murderer. But it is eight years, you must
+recollect, since I was in France, long before the thing happened. I took
+no particular interest in the crime, as I had never met the Dalahaides.
+He killed a woman: so much I recall. You were acquainted with him, I
+suppose?"
+
+"To my sorrow. I thought he was my friend. He was a traitor. I cared for
+his sister. She loved and would have married me; but because I knew too
+much about him and his evil ways, he did not want me in the family. He
+told the girl and her parents lies. They believed them and sent me away.
+He borrowed huge sums of money of me, and never paid--never meant to pay.
+Always he was my secret enemy, yet when the world knew he was a murderer
+I strained every nerve to save his life, for his sister's sake. I did
+save it. But for every one concerned it was better that he should be
+removed where he could no longer strike at society, and I could scarcely
+regret his fate. Four years passed; I loved again, this time a beautiful
+American girl, the most perfect creature I have ever seen, and a great
+heiress. Madeleine Dalahaide had learned to detest me. She prejudiced
+this girl against me, and, not satisfied with that, excited her romantic
+nature to sympathy for the murderer, as a victim of injustice. The _Bella
+Cuba_ is this girl's yacht--Miss Beverly's. She bought it in the hope of
+rescuing Maxime Dalahaide, and if he can escape, there is little doubt
+that she will put her hand in his, red though it is with a detestable
+crime. She must be saved from so ghastly a fate. But if she learns that
+she owes the failure of her plans to me, she will hate me to the death,
+and I shall lose all hope of her; whereas, if my agency in this affair
+could be hidden from her knowledge, the chances are that, if I could keep
+my head, I might win back her heart, after it is healed from its first
+disappointment. Help me to accomplish this, De Letz, for the sake of old
+times, and there's nothing you can ask of me that I will not do. Italian
+though I am, you know that my French cousins have powerful political
+influence. They shall use it to the utmost for you, and get you what post
+you please. I promise it--and I never break a promise to a friend."
+
+"You fire me with your own enthusiasm!" cried De Letz. "We shall work the
+thing between us. But if you, and you alone, can identify this man, how
+will your part in the business be kept dark?"
+
+"I will tell you how. I have brought several photographs of him, which I
+have always kept within reach. These I will give to you, and you can use
+them. If possible, I should, however, like to appear, not in the
+character of an enemy, but that of a friend. You may think this a low way
+of playing the game; but, you know, 'all is fair in love and war.' I want
+Miss Beverly to think I am here at this time by chance; that I have tried
+to soften your heart toward Dalahaide, and that I come with you, not as
+your ally against her, but to offer her and her cause what help I can. Of
+course, I shall fail in that effort, and you will win; but the little
+comedy will have brought me the girl's gratitude, which is worth all the
+world at this ticklish stage of the game. Will you aid me to play the
+part on these lines?"
+
+De Letz laughed. "So, I am to be the villain of the piece? Well, I do not
+mind. We will stage the play realistically, and I----"
+
+"And you will never regret your rôle in it," returned Loria.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the _Bella Cuba_ left Mentone all probable contingencies of the
+mission had been foreseen, and as far as possible provided for, by Roger
+Broom, George Trent, and Virginia Beverly, in council. They had talked
+over what must be done in case of failure or success, and the only event
+which Virginia had not felt able to discuss had been the death of one or
+more of the three men concerned in the rescue. They knew that, if the
+_Bella Cuba_ should be lucky enough to get away from New Caledonia with
+Max Dalahaide on board, the news of the convict's escape would certainly
+reach the next port at which they must touch, before they could arrive
+there. Virginia's hope had been, after meeting the Countess de Mattos,
+that the woman's confession would exculpate Maxime, and that the peace of
+his future would be secured by the great _coup_ of "kidnapping" her. But
+now this glimpse of brightness seemed likely to prove a mirage. Virginia
+was as sure as ever that Manuela de Mattos was Liane Devereux; even Roger
+Broom's contrary opinion had been somewhat shaken by the woman's
+horrified shriek at sight of Max Dalahaide's white face and tragic eyes
+in the moonlight. But the Countess had hardened once more into marble
+self-control, and Maxime, after an hour or two on board the yacht, had
+fallen into a state of fever and delirium. For the time being he could do
+nothing to assist in proving her identity; indeed, even if he had kept
+his senses, he might not have been able to swear that she was Liane
+Devereux, so many were the differences of personality. Months might have
+to pass before the truth of the strange conjecture could be proved--if it
+could ever be proved--while the Countess de Mattos remained entrenched in
+her strong position as a much injured and innocent lady.
+
+They could not count upon her, and were forced to rely wholly upon the
+plan formed before the beautiful Manuela had entered into their
+calculations. On reaching Samoa it was to be, as George Trent expressed
+it, a "game of bluff." One hope of saving Max lay in the fact that no
+photograph of him could have arrived from New Caledonia; there were a
+hundred chances to one that there would be no one at Samoa who had ever
+seen him; he could not, therefore, be positively identified, and as the
+_Bella Cuba_, owned by an American girl, flew the stars and stripes, it
+was not likely that the authorities would care to invite trouble by
+attempting to detain a yacht sailing under American colours. It was well
+known to the initiated also, that successful "evasions" from the French
+penal settlements were hushed up with nervous caution whenever possible
+and that the news of even an attempted escape was seldom printed in
+French papers. This was another advantage for the guilty _Bella Cuba_. It
+might be considered better to let one convict go free, than precipitate
+an international complication, a world-wide sensation, especially as
+there was no one with a personal interest to serve in recovering this
+particular prisoner.
+
+They steamed boldly on toward Samoa. The morning that the island was
+sighted, Dr. Grayle had pronounced Max Dalahaide better. The delirium had
+passed. He was quiet, though still very weak.
+
+"I suppose he wouldn't be able to confront that wicked woman and accuse
+her to her face?" asked Virginia of the little brown man.
+
+Dr. Grayle shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "Our motto must be
+forward, but not too fast. He isn't fit yet for any strong excitement,
+since we don't want to risk a relapse now that he's getting on so well. I
+was rather afraid the sight of all those souvenirs of the past in his
+cabin would upset him when he should be in a state of mind to recognize
+them, but the effect has apparently been precisely opposite. At first,
+before he entirely realized things, and remembered where he was and how
+he had got there, he seemed to think that he was at home, and was
+continually talking to his mother or sister, or calling for his father,
+sometimes in English, sometimes in French. Now he knows all, and when he
+heard how it was your thought and his sister's to have so many familiar
+objects surrounding him, to give an atmosphere of home to the cabin
+prepared in case of a rescue, the tears came to his eyes, and he turned
+away his head on the pillow to hide them from me. He believes that, even
+in his unconsciousness, these things must have made an impression upon
+his mind, and by their soothing influence drawn his thought toward home,
+otherwise he must have raved about the prison in his delirium, instead of
+returning to old, happy days. So you see, Miss Beverly, he has one more
+reason to thank you, this poor fellow who has suffered so much, and kept
+so brave and strong through all."
+
+Virginia had been pale of late, but she flushed at these words. "You
+believe him innocent, Dr. Grayle!" she exclaimed. "You wouldn't speak of
+him like that unless it were so."
+
+"No one could have been with him as I have these past few days, and not
+believe him innocent," said the little doctor in his quiet voice. "Sir
+Roger thinks as I do, too, now. You will be glad to hear that."
+
+"I am glad," Virginia answered. But Roger was not glad. Above all things
+he was just--sometimes in spite of himself. He had helped to nurse Max
+Dalahaide; he had changed his opinion of him, and felt bound to say so;
+yet he was not glad to change. He would have preferred to go on believing
+Dalahaide a guilty man.
+
+Virginia had not the key to Roger's heart, however, and she did not know
+that he had the key to hers--to one hidden place there into which she had
+hardly dared to look. She would have kept it always locked, even from
+herself, if she could; but because she knew that there was something
+there to hide, she invited Roger to go with her when Max sent word
+through Dr. Grayle, begging to see his hostess. She did not want Roger to
+be present when she talked with Maxime Dalahaide for the first time since
+his escape. She would have liked to be alone with him, if that had been
+possible; but for the very reason that the wish was so strong in her
+heart, she denied it. Her cousin Roger had risked his life to please her,
+and she had a promise to keep. She meant to keep it; and he had a right
+to be by her side when she went to the man whom he had so nobly helped to
+save.
+
+But Roger refused. "No, dear," he said. "Soon we shall be in the harbour
+at Samoa. There is plenty to do. I want to be on hand with George to do
+it. Let Dr. Grayle take you to Maxime. He will know how long and how
+much it is best for him to talk."
+
+"We will be in harbour so soon?" exclaimed Virginia. "The Countess! She
+will try to get away, you know."
+
+"She'll try in vain," responded Roger. "We won't give her a boat."
+
+"But there'll be ships and boats in the harbour. She may call for help,
+and make us trouble."
+
+"I'll see to her," said Roger. "I don't think we shall get much good out
+of detaining her; but we've gone so far now, we may as well go a little
+further."
+
+They were talking in the saloon, out of which the cabins opened, but they
+had spoken in low voices, guarding against being overheard. Nor could
+they have been overheard, unless by some one making a special effort to
+listen. Such an effort the Countess de Mattos was making. She had kept to
+her cabin since the eventful night of the escape from New Caledonia, and
+had demanded her meals and other attentions with the air of an insulted
+queen claiming her just rights. She always bent herself eagerly to
+listen when she heard the murmur of voices in the saloon, especially if
+they seemed to be suppressed. She did not now catch every word, but she
+heard "the harbour of Samoa"; "soon in"; "the Countess--try to get away";
+"call for help--make us trouble"; "I'll see to her"; and she pressed her
+lips together in fierce anger, her delicate nostrils quivering.
+
+From her porthole she had not seen the land in sight, and had had no
+means of knowing that the time for her to act was so near at hand. Since
+the night of her terrible shock, she had revolved many plans in her mind,
+but the only one upon which she had definitely decided was to leave the
+_Bella Cuba_ at all costs, and as soon as possible. Her nerves were not
+in a state to stand an indefinite strain, and she realized that she could
+not bear much more. Even with the chlorodyne and absinthe she hardly
+slept now, and she scarcely cared to project her thoughts beyond the time
+of escape from the hateful yacht.
+
+Now, she had one thing for which to thank Virginia Beverly; the
+suggestion that she should call for help when the _Bella Cuba_ had
+steamed into the harbour of Samoa. At once her excitable brain seized the
+picturesqueness of a dramatic situation. She saw herself, effectively
+dressed, rushing to the rail and hailing any passing ship which might be
+nearest. Sir Roger Broom, or her late friend George Trent, might try to
+stop her, but their violence would be seen from some other ship, and her
+cause against them would be strengthened.
+
+Surely her appeals would not be ignored; men, of whatever class or
+country, were never blind to the distress of a woman as beautiful as she.
+Yes, she would be rescued. The story that she would tell must rouse
+indignation against Virginia Beverly and her companions. She herself had
+nothing to fear--nothing. And the man on whose advice she had spent years
+of exile would admire her more than ever, when he knew what she had
+endured, without breaking down. The end of her probation had come. The
+reason for delay had disappeared now, after all these years. They would
+marry, he and she, and he would help her to forget the past.
+
+Manuela's reflections did not cause her to waste time. They were a mere
+accompaniment to her rapid action. Virginia had said they would soon be
+in the harbour. She must prepare herself to leave the yacht, and get
+ready to carry with her such things as were indispensable. Hurriedly she
+threw off the _robe de chambre_ of silk and lace which she had been
+wearing, and put on a charming dress, suitable for travelling. The long
+outstanding account for this _confection_ had been paid with Virginia
+Beverly's money; but that was a detail.
+
+When she was ready to go up on deck--which she would do as soon as the
+yacht dropped anchor--she took her jewels from the large leather box
+where they were kept, and wrapping everything in a soft silk scarf, she
+stuffed the thick parcel into a handbag, which already held several
+mysterious-looking bottles with the labels carefully taken off. This bag
+was always locked, except when the Countess was at her toilet; then, for
+a brief time, the bottles came out, and a few tiny boxes and brushes;
+but she never forgot to put them back into the bag again, turn the key,
+and slip the latter on to the gold key-ring which she wore on her
+chatelaine.
+
+The bag packed with jewels, as well as its legitimate contents, Manuela
+turned her attention to the larger luggage. This she could not carry away
+with her, if she were gallantly rescued from her sea-prison by a _coup
+d'état_; but it would be as well to have the things which she most valued
+ready to go later. She had filled her cabin-box, and was in the act of
+locking it, when the yacht's screw ceased to throb. The _Bella Cuba_ had
+stopped. Orders were being shouted up above; and then came a grinding
+sound as the anchor was slowly dropped. The Countess de Mattos knew that
+they must be in the harbour of Samoa. She flung open the door of her
+cabin and stepped out into the saloon. There sat George Trent, who, as
+she appeared, looked up from a book which he was reading, or seemed to
+read.
+
+"Good morning, Countess," he said coolly, rising and flinging away his
+book. "I'm glad you're better, but I don't think, now I see you in the
+light, that you look well enough to be out."
+
+"I was never ill," she answered haughtily--for Virginia Beverly's brother
+could only be an enemy.
+
+"It's mighty brave of you to try and keep up like this," said George,
+"but that was a bad attack of yours the other night. I can see you're not
+fit yet. You'd better go back and lie down while we coal. The blacks will
+be flying around, you know, and you'll get them in your lungs."
+
+"Let me pass," exclaimed the Countess, making a rush to push by him and
+reach the companionway.
+
+"I'd do a good deal for you, Countess, but I can't do that," retorted
+George. "It's against the doctor's orders."
+
+"How dare you!" she panted. "Oh, you shall suffer for this!"
+
+"All I'm worried about now is that _you_ don't suffer. You really mustn't
+excite yourself. It's not good, you know. It's as much as my place is
+worth to let you upstairs. I expect it would be the best thing for your
+health to go and lie down, but if you won't do that, why, I'll try and
+entertain you here as well as I can."
+
+The beautiful woman looked the tall young man full in the eyes, hers
+dilated and burning with the impotent fury in her soul. She was wise
+enough to see that he was not to be beguiled. If he, like other men, had
+his price, nothing that she could offer would pay it. He did not mean to
+let her go up on deck, and it would be as useless as undignified to
+attempt carrying out her will with a high hand. If there were any hope,
+it was in stratagem. Without breaking another lance against the
+impenetrable armour of his obstinacy, she turned her back upon him, swept
+into her cabin, and shut the door. Having done so--her little bag still
+grasped in her hand--she flew to the porthole and peered out. If a boat
+had been passing, or a ship at anchor visible near by, she would have
+screamed for help; but nothing promising was to be seen for the moment.
+
+Meanwhile, Virginia had spent the most heavenly half-hour of her life.
+She had been so divinely happy that she had forgotten the danger ahead.
+To sit beside Max Dalahaide, to meet his eyes, tragic no longer, but
+bright with passionate gratitude; to know that he was out of danger, that
+he would live, and owe his life to her and hers; to hear the thanks,
+spoken stammeringly, but straight from his heart, filled her with an
+ecstasy such as she had never known. It was akin to pain, and yet it was
+worth dying for, just to have felt it once.
+
+She was with him still when the yacht dropped anchor.
+
+"This is Samoa?" he said, half rising on his elbow, and a quick flush
+springing to his thin cheeks.
+
+"Yes," Virginia answered. "But there is no danger. My cousin says they
+will dare nothing. We shall have coaled in a couple of hours, and
+then----"
+
+At this moment a sound of voices came through the open porthole, which
+was on the side of the yacht opposite to Manuela's.
+
+Some one in a boat was calling to some one on the deck of the _Bella
+Cuba_; and evidently the boat was near.
+
+Virginia's sentence broke off. She forgot what she had been saying, and
+sprang to her feet, her heart in her throat. It was the Marchese Loria's
+voice that she had heard.
+
+What could his presence here signify? Did it mean unexpected disaster?
+Involuntarily her frightened glance went to Maxime's face. Their eyes
+met. She saw in his that he, too, had recognized those once familiar
+tones.
+
+"I will go on deck," she said brokenly, trying to control her voice.
+"I--when I can I will come back again. And--of course, Dr. Grayle, you
+will stay here."
+
+"You may trust me," said the little brown man, with meaning in his
+words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE GAME OF BLUFF
+
+
+Roger Broom had seen the boat coming from afar. Already the lighters were
+alongside, and the process of coaling was about to begin. This would be
+got through as soon as possible, and necessary provisions bought from the
+boats plying from the town with fresh milk, butter, eggs, meat, fowls,
+and green vegetables. But Roger knew well that, expedite their business
+as they might, the _Bella Cuba_ would not steam out of the harbour
+without a challenge from the law. The only shock of surprise he
+experienced at sight of the official-looking little craft, making
+straight for the yacht, was in recognizing the Marchese Loria, the last
+man he had expected to see.
+
+As he stood on deck beside the quartermaster near the rail, Loria hailed
+him by name, while the boat came alongside, and the four rowers shipped
+their dripping oars.
+
+"Ah, Sir Roger, you are surprised to see me!" the Marchese cried. "But,
+by our old friendship, I hope you will let me come on board. These
+gentlemen in the boat with me are the United States Consul, Mr. Chandler;
+the French Consul, Monsieur de Letz; and Herr Dr. Sauber, the medical
+officer for the health of the port."
+
+"Speaking for Miss Beverly as well as myself, we shall be very pleased to
+see you," said Roger. "Herr Dr. Sauber's business with us it is easy to
+guess, and he is prompt in carrying it out. Mr. Chandler and Monsieur de
+Letz are, no doubt, your friends, Marchese, who have come with you to pay
+us a friendly visit. We shall be delighted to entertain them on board as
+well as we can during the dreary process of coaling."
+
+"I can't let you receive us on false pretenses, sir," replied the United
+States Consul. "My business and that of Monsieur de Letz is not wholly
+friendly, unfortunately, although we are both particularly anxious it
+should be carried out in a friendly spirit. It is in this hope that
+certain formalities have been waived. It is, as you know, your duty to
+receive Dr. Sauber on board, and as you fly the American colours it is
+your duty to receive me as the representative of the authority of the
+United States."
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure, to see you in any capacity," said Roger, his tone
+unchanged. "Though what the authority of the United States should have to
+do in procuring us the pleasure, I----"
+
+"The authority of the United States supports France, as it is bound to
+do, in accordance with the extradition treaty, in demanding that you give
+up the fugitive convict, 1280, who came on board your yacht at New
+Caledonia."
+
+"We have no convict with us," retorted Roger.
+
+"In that case you cannot object to search being made," said Monsieur de
+Letz.
+
+"We do most certainly object to being insulted," Roger replied. "Mr.
+Chandler, the owner of this yacht is an American lady, Miss Beverly. I
+call upon you as her Consul to protect her interests, not to sacrifice
+them."
+
+"Sir Roger," Loria broke in, before Chandler could answer, "I beg once
+more that you will let me come on board with the doctor as a friend. I
+will explain why, when we can talk together. Though I am with these
+gentlemen, their errand is not mine."
+
+"The doctor I feel bound to receive," said Roger. "But Miss Beverly, it
+seems to me, has as much right to choose who her guests shall be on board
+her own yacht as in her own house. If she were here to speak for
+herself----"
+
+"She is here to speak for herself," said Virginia, at his shoulder.
+"Marchese Loria, I invite you to come on board. I invite also the United
+States Consul, whose protection I claim. But I do not choose to have
+other guests."
+
+"The health officer has a right to board us, you know, Virginia," said
+Roger in a loud tone; then close to her ear: "Hang it all! we are more or
+less at their mercy. We can't get away without coaling, and they know it.
+Our poor little cannon are of no use to us here. We can't afford to defy
+any of the powers interested; they've got too many gunboats in the
+harbour. Bluff is our game, and we've got to play it for all it's worth.
+But you're perfectly right about the Consul. Only, if you don't want
+Loria, you needn't----"
+
+"I do want him," Virginia hastily whispered--"for a special reason. And I
+want to talk to him alone. But for heaven's sake keep the Frenchman off!
+Who knows what _coup_ he may be planning?"
+
+As if in answer, though he could not possibly have heard, De Letz
+announced from the boat that he did not wish to insist upon boarding the
+yacht. He would trust his business in Mr. Chandler's hands, since the
+lady preferred it. This easy-going courtesy alarmed Virginia. She felt
+instinctively that the enemy had a strong trump with which to confound
+her unexpectedly. Still, if she did not quite see the enemy's game, at
+least they could not see hers.
+
+The gangway was let down. Loria, Chandler, and the medical officer of the
+port came on board. Then the gangway was drawn up, though the French
+Consul and the four oarsmen sat placidly in the boat.
+
+The purser, who was busy receiving stores, was sent for, to be
+interviewed by the doctor. Roger, standing by, gave half his attention to
+the conversation between these two, and half to the United States Consul,
+who plunged at once into the subject of the escaped convict.
+
+Monsieur de Letz had informed him, he announced, that if the fugitive
+were not given up to justice by the American yacht, it would be regarded
+by France as a direct and deliberate affront. Meanwhile, the medical
+officer bombarded the unfortunate purser with questions. What ports had
+been visited? Where had the passengers been taken on? None since
+Alexandria? Humph! Alexandria was considered an infected port at present.
+Any one ill on board? No? Where, then, were the remaining members of the
+party? In their cabins? The doctor must ask, as a mere matter of form, to
+see them.
+
+Roger Broom's lips were suddenly compressed. So this was the game. He saw
+it all now. The doctor was in the plot. He meant to detain the yacht in
+quarantine. If he succeeded in doing this, Maxime Dalahaide was lost.
+Everything else they had thought of, but not this.
+
+"May I speak with you alone, Miss Beverly?" Loria had begun to plead, the
+instant he had set foot on deck. "Believe me, it is partly for your own
+sake, partly for the sake of others whose welfare is dear to you, that I
+ask it."
+
+It was the thing for which Virginia had been wishing. "Come down with me
+into the saloon," she said.
+
+"Could we not speak here, at a little distance from the others?" urged
+Loria, who knew that the doctor intended to visit the cabins.
+
+"It is better below," the girl answered. She was determined to be already
+in the saloon before the others came down. "Come quickly, and we can talk
+without being disturbed."
+
+There was nothing for Loria to do but to obey.
+
+They went down the companionway; and George Trent, on guard with his book
+near the Countess de Mattos's cabin door, jumped up at sight of Loria.
+
+"What, you here, Marchese?" he began. But Virginia cut him short with a
+look and gesture both imploring and imperative.
+
+"Leave us, George, I beg," she said. "Later, there will be time for
+explanations."
+
+Without a word, the young man bowed and walked away. But he did not go
+farther than his cabin. He wished to be at hand if he were needed, as he
+might be, by and by.
+
+On the other side of the stateroom door stood the Countess, half
+crouching, like a splendid tigress ready to spring.
+
+"Marchese," George Trent had said. Who was this Marchese? Could it be
+possible that it was the one man of all others for whom her heart had
+cried out? Had his soul, in some mysterious, supernatural way, heard her
+soul calling to him across the world? Had he heard, and come to her here,
+to save her from her enemies? In another moment she must hear the voice
+of the newcomer whom George had addressed as "Marchese," and then she
+would know.
+
+Even as she told herself this, schooling her impatience, the voice
+spoke. "Miss Beverly--Virginia," it said brokenly, imploringly, "for the
+love of heaven don't misjudge me. I came with those men to-day, not to
+help them, but to help you--if I can. You must know I would give my life
+to serve you. My life, do I say? I would give my soul. It was in
+ignorance of what would happen that I visited Samoa. The French Consul is
+an old school friend. He told me everything--I mean, the news from New
+Caledonia. He has photographs of Maxime. I tried to get them away,
+without his knowledge, but I didn't succeed. You must not be embroiled
+further in this terrible affair. The best thing is for you to give the
+poor fellow up, and I swear to you that, for your sake, and for his--even
+though I believe him guilty--I will find some means of saving him. The
+doctor has been promised all sorts of favours if he will state that there
+is a suspicious case of illness on board; a stateroom door locked against
+him will be enough to raise suspicions that you are hiding a case of
+plague. You can do nothing. Unless you give Maxime up, and it is seen
+that you have a clean bill of health, you will be detained indefinitely
+in quarantine. Further advices will arrive from New Caledonia,
+representations will be made to the authorities here, it will become an
+international question, and you will be forced to surrender the escaped
+prisoner. Maxime will then be lost, for I should be unable to help him,
+if things had gone so far--the hue and cry would be too furious. De Letz
+is determined to thwart you, but he doesn't know that I am a secret ally
+of your plans. Trust to me. Give Maxime up while there is time, and you
+will never repent it."
+
+"You make brave promises, Marchese," returned Virginia. "But you do not
+name your price. I suppose, like other men, you have a price for what you
+say you can do?"
+
+"I make no conditions," answered Loria. "It hurts me that you could think
+of it. All I want is a little gratitude from you--ah, no, I cannot say
+that is all I _want_. Only, it is all I ask. What I want more than
+anything on earth, more than anything which even Heaven could give, is
+the treasure of your love. For that, I could fight my way, and Maxime
+Dalahaide's way, through the place of lost spirits, and laugh at the
+tortures of Hades. I dare not ask for that treasure now. Give me what you
+can, that is all, and my life's blood is yours, for I worship you,
+Virginia. I dream of you night and day. If I cannot have you for my wife,
+I shall go to my grave unmarried, and the sooner the better. There's
+nothing but you in the world; no other woman but you; there never has
+been for me, and never will be."
+
+"It's false!" cried the voice of a woman, husky with passion; and
+throwing open the door of her cabin, the Countess de Mattos stood on the
+threshold, not six feet distant from the two in the saloon.
+
+Carried away on the tide of his very real love for Virginia Beverly,
+whose pale, spiritualized beauty had gone to his head like wine, the
+hot-blooded Italian was at a disadvantage. Strength had gone out of him
+in his appeal. Physically and mentally he was spent.
+
+The passionate voice, the flaming eyes of the woman suddenly seen in the
+doorway, struck him like a double blow aimed at a drowning man. "Liane!"
+he cried, before he could regain the self-mastery which meant all the
+difference between life and death.
+
+"Yes," she flung at him in French, "I _am_ Liane--Liane Devereux. Come,
+every one, and hear what I have to say. This man is a traitor--traitorous
+friend and treacherous lover!" She stopped for an instant, and threw a
+glance round the saloon. Loria and Virginia Beverly were no longer alone
+there. George Trent, Sir Roger Broom, Kate Gardiner, and two men who were
+strangers had suddenly appeared as if by a conjuring trick. The woman
+stood with her head held high, like some magnificent wild creature of the
+forest at bay, fearing nothing save loss of vengeance. She was glad that
+all these people had come. The more there were to hear the tale she meant
+to tell, the more sure the stroke of her revenge. Yes, she was glad,
+glad! And though she died for it, under the knife of the guillotine, she
+would ruin the man who had deceived her.
+
+"He pretended to love me," she went on. "But now I know that he never
+did, for when he vowed love and devotion his voice did not once sound as
+I have heard it now, speaking to that white-faced girl when he did not
+dream I was near.
+
+"I am Liane Devereux, not a Portuguese woman, not the Countess de Mattos,
+therefore Maxime Dalahaide is not a murderer, since I live. It was the
+Marchese Loria who arranged everything--even my name, and credentials,
+and proofs of my identity as Manuela de Mattos, in case they were ever
+needed. Oh, there was nothing neglected. But now I know that it was not
+for my sake, as I thought, but to serve his own ends, and I am willing to
+die to hold him back from success.
+
+"I will tell you the whole story from the beginning. Five years ago I was
+an actress in Paris. I made two or three failures. A powerful dramatic
+critic had vowed to drive me off the stage. He had begun his work; and at
+this perilous time in my career, just as I had quarrelled with my
+manager, Maxime Dalahaide fell in love with me. I thought he was rich.
+It occurred to me that if I became his wife I could leave the stage in a
+blaze of glory. Besides, he was brilliant and handsome. I was flattered
+by his admiration, and felt that it would be easy to love him. I did all
+I could to win an offer of marriage from him. When it came I accepted.
+But soon after our engagement his father lost a great deal of money. I
+realized that Maxime would not be as good a match as I had counted upon
+making. Still, I did not throw him over; for by that time I cared for his
+handsome face, and I was of far too jealous a nature to risk throwing him
+into the arms of another woman. If we parted, I thought I knew to what
+woman he would turn. There was an English girl singing at the Opera
+Comique, whose name at one time had been coupled with Maxime Dalahaide's.
+She had a good voice and a pretty enough face, but she would not have
+succeeded in Paris, people whispered, if Maxime had not helped her. I had
+spoken to him of this girl, and he had denied caring for her. She was a
+very ordinary, uninteresting creature, apart from her beauty, he said;
+but she had been friendless and in hard luck, and as he was half English
+himself, he had done what he could to aid a lonely and deserving young
+countrywoman, that was all. Still, I was never sure that he was not
+deceiving me. Altogether, in those days, I was unhappy. The Marchese
+Loria, Maxime's best friend--as I thought--was very sympathetic. He came
+often to see me, both with Maxime and alone. One day they quarrelled in
+my house. It was Loria who began it. He accused Maxime of prejudicing his
+sister Madeleine against him, and Maxime admitted that, though he loved
+Loria, he did not think he would made a good husband, and did not wish
+him to marry Madeleine. With a look of jealous hatred in his eyes, which
+I have never forgotten, Loria cried out that Maxime had always taken away
+from him everything he wanted most--love of friends and women,
+popularity, all that a man values in life. Then, almost before Maxime
+could answer to vow that never, consciously, had he been Loria's rival or
+injured him in any way, Loria begged forgiveness, said he had spoken in
+anger--that in his heart he did not mean a word. So the quarrel--if
+quarrel you could call it--was made up. But I guessed then that Loria had
+never really loved Maxime.
+
+"It was only a few days after this that I found myself in great trouble
+with my creditors. Maxime had had too many losses to help me much, though
+he lent me two or three thousand francs. I asked him to pawn my jewels,
+which were worth a good deal, and to do it in his own name. It was Loria
+who put this idea into my head. He said that by this means I should
+prevent the pawn-tickets from being seized by other creditors. Late that
+very afternoon, when, against his will, Maxime had taken my jewels, the
+English girl, Olive Sinclair, came to my flat, saying that she must talk
+to me of an affair of great importance to us both. I was curious, and my
+jealousy was up in arms. She was admitted by my maid, who was just going
+out for the whole evening, by my permission.
+
+"Olive Sinclair came in. We were alone together in the flat. She began by
+saying that she was going to England by the late boat that night, and
+that Maxime Dalahaide was going with her. As soon as possible, the girl
+went on, they would be married at a registrar's office, and the marriage
+kept secret from his family until she came of age the next year, when she
+would inherit a fortune, which she should be only too glad to share with
+her beloved Maxime. She had heard, she said, that I went about boasting
+everywhere of my engagement to Maxime Dalahaide, and that she could bear
+it no longer, so she had come to tell me the real truth, and humble my
+pride. Perhaps I would not have believed her if I had not known that
+Maxime _did_ intend to go to England that night. He had told me that he
+wanted to see an uncle there on business. At once his story seemed
+improbable. I believed that the girl was telling me the truth. I have
+always had a hot temper, which often escapes beyond control. A wave of
+rage rushed up to my head, and made a red flame leap before my eyes. As
+the girl talked on, smiling insolently, I struck her in my passion. She
+staggered, and fell on the floor, her head pressed up against the fender
+in a curious way. Dear heaven, I can see her now, lying there, her eyes
+staring wide open, seeming to look at me, her lips apart! She did not cry
+out or move; and as I stood watching her, frightened at what I had done,
+a few drops of blood began to ooze from her mouth.
+
+"I went down on my knees, and shook her by the shoulder, calling her
+name; but her head fell on one side, as if she had been a horrid dummy
+made of rags; and still her eyes were staring and her blood-stained lips
+smiling that foolish, awful smile. It was at this moment that I heard a
+knocking at the door.
+
+"At first I kept quite still, dazed, not knowing what I should do. But
+then I thought it might be Maxime, who had changed his mind about selling
+the jewels, and come back soon to tell me. I was in the mood to see him
+at whatever cost. I called through the door to know who was there.
+Loria's voice answered. I let him in, explained confusedly what had
+happened, and begged him to bring the girl back to consciousness. Five
+minutes later he told me that she was dead. In falling, and striking
+against the fender, she had broken her neck.
+
+"'What is to become of me?' I asked. 'I did not mean to kill her, and
+yet--I am a murderess. Will they send me to the guillotine for this?'
+
+"'No, because I will save you,' Loria answered. Then, quickly, he made me
+understand the scheme that had come into his mind. So cunning, so
+wonderfully thought out it was, that I asked myself if he had somehow
+planned all that had happened; if he had sent the girl to me, and told
+her to say what she had said, counting on my hot blood for some such
+sequel as really followed. But I could not see any motive for such
+plotting, and in a moment I forgot my strange suspicions, in gratitude
+for his offer to save me. Sometimes I had fancied that, in spite of his
+wish to marry Madeleine Dalahaide, he loved me; now he swore to me the
+truth of this, and I was scarcely surprised. He would give everything he
+had in the world to save me, he said. What a fool I was to believe him!
+All I had to do in return was to promise that I would obey implicitly.
+Gladly I promised, and I did not falter even when the full horror of his
+plan was revealed. It was that or a disgraceful, terrible death for me.
+Oh, I would have done anything then to escape the guillotine!
+
+"First of all he made me write a letter to Maxime, telling him that I
+hated him and never wished to see him again; that I loved another man
+better. I did this gladly. That was nothing. And Loria let me go out and
+send the letter, while he began the awful work which had to come next. I
+thanked him for that. I had not nerve enough left to help much after what
+I had gone through.
+
+"When I came back to the flat after sending off the letter, Loria
+unlocked the door for me. Already the worst was over.
+
+"His idea was for me to escape and let it seem that _I_ had been
+murdered. This could be done, because Olive Sinclair would not be missed.
+She had given up her rooms to leave for England that night. In a bag
+hanging from her belt were her tickets for train and boat. We were of
+much the same figure. Loria, in speaking to me of her before, had
+mentioned this slight resemblance. Her hair was brown, while mine was
+red-gold. Hers would have to be bleached, now that she lay dead. But
+there was no great difficulty in that, for I had the stuff in the house,
+as I used it in very small quantities to give extra brightness to mine.
+
+"While I had been gone Loria had fired shot after shot into the poor dead
+face, from a revolver, which he did not show me. Afterward, when I was
+far away, I heard that the weapon was Maxime's; but, honestly, I did not
+think at the time that Maxime would be implicated in this affair. I was
+half mad. I thought only of myself, and of Loria's self-sacrifice.
+Already I could have worshipped him for what he was doing to save me.
+
+"He shot the hands, too, that they might be shattered, for Olive
+Sinclair's hands were not like mine; but before he did that, he had
+slipped two or three of my rings, which he had found on my
+dressing-table, upon the dead fingers.
+
+"All this was finished when I dragged myself home. But together we
+bleached the dark hair till it was the colour of mine, and together we
+dressed the body in my clothes, Loria having removed the gown before he
+used the revolver. Oh, the horror of that scene! It is part of my
+punishment that I live it over often at night. At last we arranged the
+shattered hands to look as if the girl had flung them up to protect her
+face from the murderer.
+
+"I put on her travelling dress, and her hat, with a thick veil of my own.
+Meanwhile, a knock had come at the door. I feared that the shots had been
+heard, and that we would be arrested. But Loria quieted me. He said the
+revolver was small, and had made scarcely any sound; that, as no one
+lived in the flat above or just underneath, it was quite safe. We did not
+answer the knock, though it came again and again. But afterward, in the
+letter-box on the door, there was a packet containing the money which
+Maxime had got from the pawnbroker for my jewels. That I took with me,
+and Loria gave me more. Whether Maxime himself brought the money, or sent
+it by messenger, I did not know; but, afterward, the _concierge_ bore
+witness that he had passed into the house before the murder must have
+taken place, and gone out long afterward. And dimly I remembered, in
+thinking of Loria as he had looked in that dreadful hour, that he had
+worn a coat and hat like Maxime's. How can I tell what were the details
+of his scheme? But when Maxime was accused of the murder, and Loria made
+no effort to exonerate him, it took all my faith in the Marchese as a
+lover to believe that he was sacrificing his friend wholly for my sake.
+As for me--why should I give myself up to the guillotine for a man who
+would have betrayed me for an Olive Sinclair--especially when he was not
+condemned to death, but only to imprisonment?
+
+"I went to England in Olive Sinclair's place. Fortunately for me, she had
+no relatives. No one asked questions, no one cared what had become of
+her. She was not a celebrity, in spite of the way in which Maxime
+Dalahaide had worked to help her. After a while I left England for
+Portugal. Meanwhile I had dyed my hair, and stained my complexion with a
+wonderful clear olive stain which does not hurt the skin, and shows the
+colour through. Here are the things I use, in this bag. I keep it always
+locked and ready to my hand.
+
+"Loria bought me a little land and an old ruined house near Lisbon,
+belonging to an ancient family, of whom the last member had died. The
+title went with the land. It was supposed that I was a distant cousin,
+with money, and a sentiment of love for the old place. But really I hated
+it. It was dull--deadly dull. I travelled as much as possible, and Loria
+had promised that at the end of the five years he would marry me, saying
+always that he loved me well; that if he had sinned it was for love of
+me, and to save me. When the world had forgotten the affair of Maxime
+Dalahaide we would be married, and live in countries where no one had
+heard the story, and nothing would remind us of the past. I forced
+myself to believe him, for he was my all--all that was left to me in
+exile. But now I know him for what he is. I would swear that he planned
+everything from the beginning to ruin Maxime Dalahaide. He here to help
+his old enemy! No, it is he who must have set the bloodhounds on his
+track. I fight under Loria's banner no longer. He loves Virginia Beverly.
+Now that she knows him as he is, and what he has done for hatred, let her
+put her hand in his if she will."
+
+The woman's voice fell from a shrill height into silence. Her
+olive-stained face was ash-gray with exhaustion. No one had interrupted,
+or tried to check the fierce flood of the confession, not even Loria. All
+had stood listening, breathless; and Virginia had known that, behind the
+door of his locked cabin, Maxime Dalahaide must hear every clear-cadenced
+word of fine, Parisian French.
+
+Loria had stood listening with the rest, a sneer on his lips, though his
+eyes burned with a deep fire. If he had taken a step, hands would have
+been thrust out to stop him. But he did not move except, in the midst of
+Liane Devereux's story, to play nervously with an old-fashioned ring of
+twisted, jewel-headed serpents on the third finger of his left hand.
+
+Suddenly, as the woman finished, he raised the hand to his lips and
+seemed to bite the finger with the ring. Then he dropped his hand and
+looked at his accomplice with a strained smile. But the smile froze; the
+lips quivered into a slight grimace. His eyes, glittering with agony,
+turned to Virginia.
+
+"I loved you," he said, and fell forward on his face.
+
+"He has taken poison!" exclaimed Chandler, the United States Consul. "It
+must have been in that queer ring."
+
+He and Roger Broom and George Trent and the German doctor pressed round
+the prostrate figure, but the woman who had denounced him was before them
+all. With a cry she rushed to the fallen man, and, flinging herself down,
+caught up the hand with the ring. They saw what she meant to do, and
+would have snatched her away, but already her lips had touched the spot
+where his had been, and found the same death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whole situation was changed by the unexpected developments on board
+the _Bella Cuba_. Dr. Sauber had relinquished, indeed, almost forgotten,
+the clever plan by which the yacht was to be detained. The French Consul,
+Loria's host, was hurriedly brought on board, to be dumbfounded by a
+recital of what had happened. With Loria dead, and guilty, the fugitive
+concealed on the _Bella Cuba_ innocent, De Letz's personal motive for
+detaining the prisoner disappeared. His chivalry was fired by Virginia's
+beauty and the brave part she had played. In the end, instead of making
+difficulties for the party, he consented to take charge of his friend's
+body and that of Liane Devereux, which latter duty was his by right, as
+consul to the country from which she came. The dead man and dead woman
+would be carried ashore in the boat which had brought the four men out
+to the yacht; and De Letz would, acting on the statement of those who had
+heard the confession, make such representations to France as would
+eventually obtain for Maxime Dalahaide a free pardon with permission to
+return to his own land. Meanwhile he (De Letz) reiterated that it was as
+much his duty as before to bring about the arrest of the escaped convict,
+who had no more right to break his prison bonds if innocent than if he
+were guilty. To bring it about if possible! But--_was_ it possible? And
+the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, half smiling at Virginia. Mr.
+Chandler advised him that, in the present circumstances, it would be
+unwise to make the attempt. De Letz was inclined to agree, and, as Dr.
+Sauber had apparently found a clean bill of health, the _Bella Cuba_ must
+take her own sweet way, rebel though she was.
+
+So when the yacht had finished coaling she steamed out of the harbour of
+Samoa with Convict 1280 still on board.
+
+Virginia's desire was to make for America, and to send for Madeleine,
+who had been living all this time with her aunt in an old Surrey
+manor-house belonging to Roger Broom. The brother and sister should stay
+at her house in Virginia until Maxime was free to return to France, and
+he would grow strong and well, and everybody concerned would be happy. It
+would be madness, she urged, for Maxime to put himself in the power of
+French law until such time as his innocence was officially acknowledged.
+
+But Maxime thought otherwise. His innocence had been declared, and would
+sooner or later be acknowledged. The manly and honourable thing to do was
+to trust to the generosity of his adopted land. To France he would go,
+and boldly throw himself upon her mercy.
+
+"He is right, Virginia," said Roger, fearing the while that secret
+jealousy influenced his decision.
+
+"He is right," echoed George Trent, with no hidden thoughts at all.
+
+Virginia held her peace, though her heart was full; and the ultimate
+destination of the _Bella Cuba_ was France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+France did not disappoint Maxime's trust, but months passed before he was
+a free man. Meantime hope had given him new life. His sister was near
+him. Virginia Beverly was in Paris with an elderly relative of Roger
+Broom's as her chaperon-companion, instead of Kate Gardiner. Though he
+was virtually a prisoner, since the eye of the law was upon him, and the
+voice of the law pronounced that he should go so far and no farther,
+still he was happy, so happy that he often awoke from prison dreams, not
+daring to believe the present reality.
+
+Then at last the day came when he was free. Madeleine was staying with
+Virginia. He would see them together. There was heaven in the thought.
+George Trent was there, but not Roger Broom. Roger had been called to
+England on business, but he was returning that evening.
+
+Never had there been such a dinner as that which celebrated Maxime's
+release from the old bonds. Virginia had taken a beautiful house which
+had been to let furnished, near the Bois de Boulogne.
+
+After the dinner the two girls with their brothers went out into the
+garden, the old aunt, exhausted with over-much joy, remaining indoors.
+
+Virginia knew what would come next, and drew Madeleine away from the two
+young men that George might have the chance of asking Maxime for his
+sister. Five minutes later Maxime was squeezing Madeleine's hand, and
+telling her that no news could have made him so happy. Then, somehow, the
+lovers disappeared, and Virginia Beverly and Maxime Dalahaide were alone
+together.
+
+"Everything good comes to us from you," he said, his voice unsteady.
+"What can I do to show you how I--how we worship you for all you have
+done, all you have been?"
+
+"There is one thing you can do," Virginia answered softly. "A favour to
+me. There is a little gift I want to make to you, on this day of all
+others. I have been planning it, thinking of it for a long time. Here is
+this paper. Take it and read. You will see then what I mean, and why I
+want it so much."
+
+It was a long, folded document of legal aspect which she thrust into his
+hand, and in the blue evening light he opened it. At sight of the first
+words the blood leaped to his dark face, marble no longer, but a man's
+face, young, handsome, and virile. He looked from the paper to Virginia.
+
+"Why, it is a deed of gift!" he exclaimed. "The château--no, Miss
+Beverly, you are more than generous, but this cannot be. The château is
+yours--I would rather it belonged to you than to any one on earth, even
+myself--and yours it must remain."
+
+"I bought it for you. It will break my heart if you refuse," said
+Virginia, with tears in her voice.
+
+The sound of her pain smote him with anguish. He lost his head and forgot
+the barrier between them--that he was poor, with a dark past and an
+uncertain future, that she was a great heiress.
+
+"Break your heart!" he repeated. "My darling, my angel, I would give all
+the blood in mine for one smile from you. I never meant to say this. I
+oughtn't to say it now, but--it said itself. You must have known before.
+You are the very soul of me, though I'm not worthy to touch your dear
+hand. I couldn't take the old home from you--don't you understand? I
+couldn't live there again with this love of you in my heart, for it would
+make it so much the harder. I can't forget you; I would rather die than
+forget you. This love is too sweet to live without, but I know very well
+that we can never be anything to each other, and my plans are all made.
+As soon as Madeleine is married I shall go out to Africa and try for luck
+as other men have tried--and found it. It is better for me to be far away
+from you----"
+
+"No, no, I love you!" cried Virginia. Then putting him from her with a
+quick gesture: "But it will be I who go far away from you. I have no right
+to care. My cousin, Roger Broom, will take me to England--anywhere--it
+doesn't matter. I promised long ago to marry him. In the winter
+perhaps----"
+
+"In the winter you and Max here will be spending your honeymoon at the
+Château de la Roche," said Roger's voice, with a hard cheerfulness. "That
+old promise--why, I never meant to hold you to it, dear. I don't take
+bribes, and--I saw this coming long ago. I'm quite content it should be
+so. You'll forgive me for overhearing, won't you, girlie? I didn't mean
+to give you such a surprise, but I'm not sorry now. Give me your hand,
+Max, old man, and you, Virginia. There! I'm glad it should be the old
+cousin-guardian who joins them together."
+
+"You mean it, Roger?" panted Virginia.
+
+"Of course I mean it."
+
+The two hands joined under his. And the man and the girl were too happy
+to read anything save kindness in its nervous pressure.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Castle Of The Shadows, by 
+Alice Muriel Williamson
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