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diff --git a/75930-0.txt b/75930-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5ab428 --- /dev/null +++ b/75930-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10119 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75930 *** + + + + + + NEW EAGLE SERIES NO. 1118 + + HER EVIL + GENIUS + + [Illustration] + + _By_ Adelaide Stirling + + + + +POPULAR COPYRIGHTS + +New Eagle Series + +PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS + +Carefully Selected Love Stories + +_Note the Authors!_ + + +There is such a profusion of good books in this list, that it is an +impossibility to urge you to select any particular title or author’s +work. All that we can say is that any line that contains the complete +works of Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, Charles Garvice, Mrs. Harriet Lewis, +May Agnes Fleming, Wenona Gilman, Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller, and other +writers of the same type, is worthy of your attention, especially when +the price has been set at 15 cents the volume. + +These books range from 256 to 320 pages. They are printed from good +type, and are readable from start to finish. + +If you are looking for clean-cut, honest value, then we state most +emphatically that you will find it in this line. + + +_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_ + + 1--Queen Bess By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 2--Ruby’s Reward By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 7--Two Keys By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 9--The Virginia Heiress By May Agnes Fleming + 12--Edrie’s Legacy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 17--Leslie’s Loyalty By Charles Garvice + (His Love So True) + 22--Elaine By Charles Garvice + 24--A Wasted Love By Charles Garvice + (On Love’s Altar) + 41--Her Heart’s Desire By Charles Garvice + (An Innocent Girl) + 44--That Dowdy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 50--Her Ransom By Charles Garvice + (Paid For) + 55--Thrice Wedded By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 66--Witch Hazel By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 70--Sydney By Charles Garvice + (A Wilful Young Woman) + 73--The Marquis By Charles Garvice + 77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 79--Out of the Past By Charles Garvice + (Marjorie) + 84--Imogene By Charles Garvice + (Dumaresq’s Temptation) + 85--Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold By Charles Garvice + 88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 95--A Wilful Maid By Charles Garvice + (Philippa) + 98--Claire By Charles Garvice + (The Mistress of Court Regna) + 99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 102--Sweet Cymbeline By Charles Garvice + (Bellmaire) + 109--Signa’s Sweetheart By Charles Garvice + (Lord Delamere’s Bride) + 111--Faithful Shirley By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 117--She Loved Him By Charles Garvice + 119--’Twixt Smile and Tear By Charles Garvice + (Dulcie) + 122--Grazia’s Mistake By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 130--A Passion Flower By Charles Garvice + (Madge) + 133--Max By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 136--The Unseen Bridegroom By May Agnes Fleming + 138--A Fatal Wooing By Laura Jean Libbey + 141--Lady Evelyn By May Agnes Fleming + 144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 146--Magdalen’s Vow By May Agnes Fleming + 151--The Heiress of Glen Gower By May Agnes Fleming + 155--Nameless Dell By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 157--Who Wins By May Agnes Fleming + 166--The Masked Bridal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 168--Thrice Lost, Thrice Won By May Agnes Fleming + 174--His Guardian Angel By Charles Garvice + 177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 181--The Baronet’s Bride By May Agnes Fleming + 188--Dorothy Arnold’s Escape By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 203--Only One Love By Charles Garvice + 210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 213--The Heiress of Egremont By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 215--Only a Girl’s Love By Charles Garvice + 219--Lost: A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 223--Leola Dale’s Fortune By Charles Garvice + 231--The Earl’s Heir By Charles Garvice + (Lady Norah) + 233--Nora By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 236--Her Humble Lover By Charles Garvice + (The Usurper; or, The Gipsy Peer) + 242--A Wounded Heart By Charles Garvice + (Sweet as a Rose) + 244--A Hoiden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 250--A Woman’s Soul By Charles Garvice + (Doris; or, Behind the Footlights) + 255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 257--A Martyred Love By Charles Garvice + (Iris; or, Under the Shadows) + 266--The Welfleet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 267--Jeanne By Charles Garvice + (Barriers Between) + 268--Olivia; or, It Was for Her Sake By Charles Garvice + 272--So Fair, So False By Charles Garvice + (The Beauty of the Season) + 276--So Nearly Lost By Charles Garvice + (The Springtime of Love) + 277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 280--Love’s Dilemma By Charles Garvice + (For an Earldom) + 282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 283--My Lady Pride By Charles Garvice + (Floris) + 287--The Lady of Darracourt By Charles Garvice + 288--Sibyl’s Influence By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 292--For Her Only By Charles Garvice + (Diana) + 296--The Heir of Vering By Charles Garvice + 299--Little Miss Whirlwind By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 300--The Spider and the Fly By Charles Garvice + (Violet) + 303--The Queen of the Isle By May Agnes Fleming + 304--Stanch as a Woman By Charles Garvice + (A Maiden’s Sacrifice) + 305--Led by Love By Charles Garvice + Sequel to “Stanch as a Woman” + 309--The Heiress of Castle Cliffs By May Agnes Fleming + 312--Woven on Fate’s Loom, and The Snowdrift By Charles Garvice + 315--The Dark Secret By May Agnes Fleming + 317--Ione By Laura Jean Libbey + (Adrien Le Roy) + 318--Stanch of Heart By Charles Garvice + 322--Mildred By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 326--Parted by Fate By Laura Jean Libbey + 327--He Loves Me By Charles Garvice + 328--He Loves Me Not By Charles Garvice + 330--Aikenside By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 333--Stella’s Fortune By Charles Garvice + (The Sculptor’s Wooing) + 334--Miss McDonald By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 340--Bad Hugh. Vol. I. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 341--Bad Hugh. Vol. II. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 344--Tresillian Court By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 345--The Scorned Wife By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 346--Guy Tresillian’s Fate By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 347--The Eyes of Love By Charles Garvice + 348--The Hearts of Youth By Charles Garvice + 351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 352--Family Pride. Vol. I. By Mary J. Holmes + 353--Family Pride. Vol. II. By Mary J. Holmes + 354--A Love Comedy By Charles Garvice + 360--The Ashes of Love By Charles Garvice + 361--A Heart Triumphant By Charles Garvice + 367--The Pride of Her Life By Charles Garvice + 368--Won By Love’s Valor By Charles Garvice + 372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 373--A Thorn Among Roses By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “A Girl in a Thousand” + 380--Her Double Life By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 381--The Sunshine of Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + Sequel to “Her Double Life” + 382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice + 449--The Bailiff’s Scheme By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 450--Rosamond’s Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + Sequel to “The Bailiff’s Scheme” + 451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 456--A Vixen’s Treachery By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 457--Adrift in the World By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + Sequel to “A Vixen’s Treachery” + 458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice + 464--The Old Life’s Shadows By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 465--Outside Her Eden By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + Sequel to “The Old Life’s Shadows” + 474--The Belle of the Season By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 475--Love Before Pride By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + Sequel to “The Belle of the Season” + 481--Wedded, Yet No Wife By May Agnes Fleming + 489--Lucy Harding By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes + 495--Norine’s Revenge By May Agnes Fleming + 511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Golden Key” + 519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Magic Cameo” + 525--Sweet Kitty Clover By Laura Jean Libbey + 531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice + 534--Lotta, the Cloak Model By Laura Jean Libbey + 542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice + 543--The Veiled Bride By Laura Jean Libbey + 548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice + 551--Pity--Not Love By Laura Jean Libbey + 553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice + 554--Step by Step By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 557--In Cupid’s Chains By Charles Garvice + 630--The Verdict of the Heart By Charles Garvice + 635--A Coronet of Shame By Charles Garvice + 640--A Girl of Spirit By Charles Garvice + 645--A Jest of Fate By Charles Garvice + 648--Gertrude Elliott’s Crucible By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 650--Diana’s Destiny By Charles Garvice + 655--Linked by Fate By Charles Garvice + 663--Creatures of Destiny By Charles Garvice + 671--When Love Is Young By Charles Garvice + 676--My Lady Beth By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 679--Gold in the Gutter By Charles Garvice + 712--Love and a Lie By Charles Garvice + 721--A Girl from the South By Charles Garvice + 730--John Hungerford’s Redemption By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 741--The Fatal Ruby By Charles Garvice + 749--The Heart of a Maid By Charles Garvice + 758--The Woman in It By Charles Garvice + 774--Love in a Snare By Charles Garvice + 775--My Love Kitty By Charles Garvice + 776--That Strange Girl By Charles Garvice + 777--Nellie By Charles Garvice + 778--Miss Estcourt; or Olive By Charles Garvice + 818--The Girl Who Was True By Charles Garvice + 826--The Irony of Love By Charles Garvice + 896--A Terrible Secret By May Agnes Fleming + 897--When To-morrow Came By May Agnes Fleming + 904--A Mad Marriage By May Agnes Fleming + 905--A Woman Without Mercy By May Agnes Fleming + 912--One Night’s Mystery By May Agnes Fleming + 913--The Cost of a Lie By May Agnes Fleming + 920--Silent and True By May Agnes Fleming + 921--A Treasure Lost By May Agnes Fleming + 925--Forrest House By Mary J. Holmes + 926--He Loved Her Once By Mary J. Holmes + 930--Kate Danton By May Agnes Fleming + 931--Proud as a Queen By May Agnes Fleming + 935--Queenie Hetherton By Mary J. Holmes + 936--Mightier Than Pride By Mary J. Holmes + 940--The Heir of Charlton By May Agnes Fleming + 941--While Love Stood Waiting By May Agnes Fleming + 945--Gretchen By Mary J. Holmes + 946--Beauty That Faded By Mary J. Holmes + 950--Carried by Storm By May Agnes Fleming + 951--Love’s Dazzling Glitter By May Agnes Fleming + 954--Marguerite By Mary J. Holmes + 955--When Love Spurs Onward By Mary J. Holmes + 960--Lost for a Woman By May Agnes Fleming + 961--His to Love or Hate By May Agnes Fleming + 964--Paul Ralston’s First Love By Mary J. Holmes + 965--Where Love’s Shadows Lie Deep By Mary J. Holmes + 968--The Tracy Diamonds By Mary J. Holmes + 969--She Loved Another By Mary J. Holmes + 972--The Cromptons By Mary J. Holmes + 973--Her Husband Was a Scamp By Mary J. Holmes + 975--The Merivale Banks By Mary J. Holmes + 978--The One Girl in the World By Charles Garvice + 979--His Priceless Jewel By Charles Garvice + 982--The Millionaire’s Daughter and Other Stories By Charles Garvice + 983--Doctor Hathern’s Daughters By Mary J. Holmes + 984--The Colonel’s Bride By Mary J. Holmes + 988--Her Ladyship’s Diamonds, and Other Stories By Charles Garvice + 998--Sharing Her Crime By May Agnes Fleming + 999--The Heiress of Sunset Hall By May Agnes Fleming + 1004--Maude Percy’s Secret By May Agnes Fleming + 1005--The Adopted Daughter By May Agnes Fleming + 1010--The Sisters of Torwood By May Agnes Fleming + 1015--A Changed Heart By May Agnes Fleming + 1016--Enchanted By May Agnes Fleming + 1025--A Wife’s Tragedy By May Agnes Fleming + 1026--Brought to Reckoning By May Agnes Fleming + 1027--A Madcap Sweetheart By Emma Garrison Jones + 1028--An Unhappy Bargain By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 1029--Only a Working Girl By Geraldine Fleming + 1030--The Unbidden Guest By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller + 1031--The Man and His Millions By Ida Reade Allen + 1032--Mabel’s Sacrifice By Charlotte M. Stanley + 1033--Was He Worth It? By Geraldine Fleming + 1034--Her Two Suitors By Wenona Gilman + 1035--Edith Percival By May Agnes Fleming + 1036--Caught in the Snare By May Agnes Fleming + 1037--A Love Concealed By Emma Garrison Jones + 1038--The Price of Happiness By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller + 1039--The Lucky Man By Geraldine Fleming + 1040--A Forced Promise By Ida Reade Allen + 1041--The Crime of Love By Barbara Howard + 1042--The Bride’s Opals By Emma Garrison Jones + 1043--Love That Was Cursed By Geraldine Fleming + + + + + HER EVIL GENIUS; + + OR, + + Within Love’s Call + + BY + + ADELAIDE STIRLING + + Author of “A Forgotten Love,” “Love and Spite,” + “A Sacrifice to Love,” etc. + + [Illustration] + + STREET & SMITH CORPORATION + PUBLISHERS + 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York + + + + + Copyright, 1899 + + By STREET & SMITH + + Her Evil Genius + + + (Printed in the United States of America) + + All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign + languages, including the Scandinavian. + + + + +HER EVIL GENIUS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I. THE CONVENT PRELUDE. + CHAPTER II. A FRIENDLESS FUGITIVE. + CHAPTER III. THE WHEELS OF FATE. + CHAPTER IV. THE LOVELY ANDRIA. + CHAPTER V. HER EVIL GENIUS. + CHAPTER VI. LORD ERCELDONNE MARKS THE KING. + CHAPTER VII. FIRST BLOOD TO ERCELDONNE. + CHAPTER VIII. A WOMAN’S DIARY. + CHAPTER IX. ON BOARD THE YACHT. + CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE BY THE SEA. + CHAPTER XI. TWO WARNINGS. + CHAPTER XII. THE HAUNTING EYES. + CHAPTER XIII. THE PATTERING FOOTSTEPS. + CHAPTER XIV. THE EYES OUTSIDE THE JALOUSY. + CHAPTER XV. A STRANGE POWER. + CHAPTER XVI. IN THE WOODS OF PARADISE. + CHAPTER XVII. OLD SINS AWAKENED. + CHAPTER XVIII. DOUBTING THOMAS. + CHAPTER XIX. TRUSTED TOO LATE. + CHAPTER XX. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL. + CHAPTER XXI. STRANGERS. + CHAPTER XXII. BEHIND THE CYPRESS BOUGHS. + CHAPTER XXIII. THE CRY IN THE STARLIGHT. + CHAPTER XXIV. THE MADMAN. + CHAPTER XXV. THE LAUGH IN THE DARK. + CHAPTER XXVI. A SEALED PACKET. + CHAPTER XXVII. THE HAND OF FATE. + CHAPTER XXVIII. A MURDER IN THE DARK. + CHAPTER XXIX. THE DEATH-TRAP. + CHAPTER XXX. MOTHER FELICITAS. + CHAPTER XXXI. HOPELESS AND HELPLESS. + CHAPTER XXXII. AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH. + CHAPTER XXXIII. A DREAM OF VENGEANCE. + CHAPTER XXXIV. A LITTLE GOLD. + CHAPTER XXXV. THE BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT. + CHAPTER XXXVI. “A BOY!” + CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DARK HOUSE. + CHAPTER XXXVIII. DREAMS. + CHAPTER XXXIX. TAKEN UNAWARES. + CHAPTER XL. THE EXPIATION OF MOTHER FELICITAS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE CONVENT PRELUDE. + + +The summer holidays had begun and the great convent school was +deserted, all its pupils gone but two, who were in the alcove belonging +to the elder of them, and, as if that breakage of rule were not enough, +were seated on the small white bed which was counted a crime to rumple. + +The elder girl was eighteen, and after to-day convent rules would +concern her no more, for that very afternoon she was going out into +“the world” to earn her own living as a governess. She was wild +with excitement, and would have been enraptured with the foretaste +of liberty had it not been for the child who clung to her, sick and +exhausted with stormy crying. + +She looked down on her pityingly, and the reverend mother could have +told you Andria Heathcote was not given to compassion. Her red-brown +hair grew too strongly on her forehead for that; her full rose lips +were too heavy. Yet something in the very strangeness of the girl who +clutched her had caught at her hard young heart. + +For Beryl Corselas was only a child, and young for her years at +that. It seemed to Andria that the sins of eleven years old were too +seriously taken when they were considered crimes, and yet her goblin +ways were enough to provoke a saint--or Sister Felicitas! + +“Beryl, look here,” repeated Andria; “don’t cry any more. I’ll write to +you. I’m not going very far away.” + +The child lifted her face from the girl’s shoulder. It was a curious +face, with something almost vacant about it, yet what the lack was +no one could quite say. She had extraordinary eyes, strangely and +uncannily beautiful, so light a brown as to be almost yellow, tawny +golden under the heavy eyelashes, that were black as ink. The warm +whiteness of her cheeks was blurred with crying, paled with real +despair, and the startling crimson of the childish lips had been hard +bitten to check the sobs that might be heard. + +She pushed away the long cloud of straight hair that was not black nor +brown, but dusky, a cloud of darkness with no color to be named, from +her face, and spoke with sullen, unchildlike contempt. + +“You won’t write!” Her eyes were like burned-out coals. “You’ll mean +to, but you won’t. You’re always trying to save other people’s feelings +outside, but inside you never care. You’ll forget!” + +“I’ll try not to,” said Andria, with a sudden pang. Was she really what +Beryl said? Did her hatred of giving pain really make her more cruel in +the end? She kissed the wet cheek. + +“If I do forget, if I am like that, will you promise me something? +Remember that I don’t mean to forget, and that I don’t, really. Think +to yourself it’s just my way, and that some day you’ll see me again. +Will you try, Beryl?” + +“It’s no use my trying anything without you--in the house with Sister +Felicitas!” + +“Keep out of her way, then! Why are you always getting into her black +books?” + +“Because she hates me. I’m never myself with her.” + +“You are with Mother Benedicta!” + +“I might as well be comfortable with the statue in the chapel! I see +about as much of her.” + +She clung suddenly to the arm that enwrapped her. + +“Oh, it’s you I want--you!” she gasped. “If I’m going to be good it +will be for you. Who else do I like? Just you and animals--and I +haven’t any of them except my rabbits. And I hate, hate, hate Sister +Felicitas!” + +A shadow, tall, slight, and angular, fell on them. + +Andria looked up with a start, since convent tradition was still +strong in her, and she was breaking rules openly. Sister Felicitas +stood in the doorway, black against the sunlit passage. + +“You’ve no right to be here, Beryl Corselas,” her voice seemed to float +out into the shaded whiteness of the alcove, calm and cool as frost. +“Go away and do your weeding. Your garden is not a pretty sight.” + +Andria felt the quick shudder in the child’s body. + +“Please, sister,” she said, “let me stay. Andria is going away.” + +“I have nothing to do with that. But while I am in charge of the +kitchen-garden you must do your share there. Go at once,” she said very +softly, but the downcast eyes were angry. Andria Heathcote could not +be reprimanded, and Sister Felicitas longed to do it; she was always +making that hateful child rebel against lawful authority. But to-morrow +she would be gone. + +“A few minutes more or less cannot matter to you. Go to your weeding,” +she said scornfully. + +Beryl Corselas sat up, her slim, childish body quivering. + +“I won’t go!” her voice low and passionate. “You know there are no +weeds for me to dig up. I hate gardens. I wish everything in yours +would die, or else choke you when you ate it--nasty, nasty old onions!” +she cried, in a transport of temper. + +“Beryl!” Even Andria, who hated Sister Felicitas, was aghast. + +“You can do your weeding or not, that is for you to say,” said Sister +Felicitas, whose face was quite untroubled, but she was trilling her +fingers against her black habit. “But it is for me to say what will +happen to you if you disobey.” + +“I don’t care what you do to me!” + +“No?” Andria knew that far-off sound in Sister Felicitas’ voice; there +was not a girl in the convent whose nerves did not twitch when she +heard it. “Then I suppose I can send those rabbits of yours to market! +It will be time for rabbit-soup soon.” + +“No, no, no!” The child’s voice was dreadful in its wild scream of +supplication. If there had been any one in the empty corridor they +must have hurried to the sound of it. + +“Not my bunnies. I love them. They’re truly people. You--you couldn’t +be so wicked!” + +“If you can talk such nonsense about your rabbits, the sooner they are +gone the better,” said Sister Felicitas icily. “No--get up, child! You +will tear my habit.” + +For Beryl Corselas was on the floor, clutching at the immaculate black +folds of the sister’s robe. + +“You won’t take them away--say you won’t, sister!” She paid no +attention to the hand that tried to disengage hers. “I’ll do anything, +I’ll work in the garden, I’ll say I’m sorry----” The miserable voice +made a listener start, but Sister Felicitas only drew her skirts away +deftly. + +“That you will be obliged to do,” she said. + +“I’ll beg your pardon now,” sobbed Beryl, “only please don’t send my +rabbits to market! I’ll go and weed--I truly will.” + +“You make an idol of senseless things. You will be better without +them.” In “the world” the tone would have been called cruel. + +The child jumped to her feet, her wild, dusky hair streaming, her face +white and furious. + +“If you take them away I’ll kill you!” she cried out, shaking and +gasping. “I hate you! You make me wicked, and then punish me. I----” +She stopped as if something had turned her to stone. + +In the doorway stood the reverend mother. Mother Benedicta, who had +never been known to visit an alcove, who was high above the girls and +their rulers, was in front of her, a gracious, stately figure in her +black habit and white bands. There was a curious look on her beautiful, +placid face, enough to stop the tongue even of Beryl Corselas in a +temper. Yet she was not looking at the child, but at Sister Felicitas. + +“I think breaking rules and sorrow at Andria’s going has made some one +a little hysterical this morning! Is that it, Beryl? Come to me, my +child;” and she put an arm round the sinner, who stood petrified, as if +at the sight of a saint from heaven. Mother Benedicta’s cool fingers +felt the hot throbbing of the child’s lax hands, and her face grew +sterner. + +“You are sorry for your rudeness to the good sister, is it not so, +Beryl? Yes!” at the dumb nod that was a lie of despair. “I will see to +the child, then, sister. I know you are busy. Sister Ignatia is waiting +for you. She needs your help.” + +Sister Felicitas’ face grew white. + +“Yes, reverend mother,” she returned quietly, but her face was not +quiet as she left the alcove. To have Andria Heathcote incite that +hideous child to mutiny was bad enough, but to have Mother Benedicta +set aside her authority was worse. And there had been that in the face +of the reverend mother that told Sister Felicitas that even rancorous +hatred must go softly. + +“Reverend mother, my rabbits!” gasped the culprit, as the sister’s +steps died away. “You won’t let her take them?” + +“It was not meant, Beryl! The good sister thought to touch your heart; +that is a hard little heart, is it not?” she said, smiling. “But run +away now and wash your face. Then you can go to my room and wait there +quietly till Andria and I come to you. I will ask Sister Felicitas to +let her onions wait for to-day.” + +But there was no smile on her face as the child slipped away, radiant +with gratitude. + +“It was a pity you had her here, Andria!” she said. “But it is the +holidays, after all--only it provokes Sister Felicitas, who is always +so conscientious.” + +Andria Heathcote was brave enough, but, as a child had been quick to +see, she was too apt to let things go, to put a good face on ugly +matters. Yet now that curious politeness of hers left her. + +“You heard, reverend mother,” she said quickly. “That goes on all day +long. The child is growing sullen and strange.” + +“Do you mean that, Andria?” Mother Benedicta was not apt to talk so +freely, but Andria was going away. + +“Yes, reverend mother! I knew you did not know. And it is +true”--flushing at her own boldness--“that the sister dislikes Beryl.” + +Mother Benedicta sighed. + +“The child is difficult, they tell me, and incorrigibly idle;” but she +said it chiefly to hear the answer. + +“She can speak Spanish, and she works hard at that, though no one knows +but Sister De Sales. School is bad for her; the girls bully her. Could +you not send her home sometimes, dear mother?” + +“She has no home; did you not know? She has been here since she was a +baby. We do not even know who she is.” For once the Mother Superior had +forgotten herself. + +“Sister Felicitas knows,” said Andria quietly. + +“What! Why do you say that?” + +“Because”--once launched, Andria was floating well--“I heard her tell +the child that she came by her mad temper honestly--was her mother over +again.” + +Mother Benedicta stood dumb. + +She had heard more than she liked of Sister Felicitas’ methods this +morning, but this passed all bearing. + +“You must be mistaken,” she said, for the honor of the convent, but +Andria saw her breathing quicken. “But I have been wrong. After this I +will see more of the child. I promise you that much.” + +To think of Sister Felicitas having known all this time the parentage +of Beryl Corselas, which had been the mystery of the quiet convent +lives, was too much even for her charity. It seemed but yesterday since +a woman, wild, despairing, with the hand of death already on her, had +brought the child to the convent. She had been told that no baby of +three years could be taken, and had sunk into the nearest chair as if +her last hope were gone. + +Mother Benedicta had pitied her, seeing her so ill. (Afterward she had +altered her mind about the illness; it might easily have been furious +disappointment that had sapped her strange visitor’s strength.) She +left the room to tell a lay sister to bring wine and food, but, though +she was absent only a minute, when she returned the woman was gone. The +window was open on the garden, and in the room sat a pale, yellow-eyed +child, in exquisite clothing that was marked “Beryl Corselas.” + +That was all. Never from that day to this had they been able to find +out anything more, and only that the convent charter provided for +certain charity pupils could the rules have been stretched to keep the +waif. + +Yet kept she was, and now a curious thrill made the superior tremble. +Yet it was impossible. It had been six months before Sister Felicitas +joined the community, and the woman who had flung the child on their +charity had been pink-cheeked, golden-haired. Sister Felicitas was pale +and dark. And still the Mother Superior---- She forced herself to speak. + +“I do not know what is to become of the child,” she said. “As you say, +she is very strange. I never hear any good of her.” + +“There is good in her. But Sister Felicitas has a repulsion for the +child. You can see it.” + +“I hope not,” said the good woman; but her own thoughts frightened her. +“You had better write to her, Andria. I will see she gets your letters.” + +She had quite forgotten the reason that had brought her to Andria +Heathcote’s alcove in this sudden suspicion that had sprung up. She +looked unseeingly at the girl who had spoken out against all her +secretive nature. Yet Andria’s was not an ordinary face, and worth the +watching. + +Cleverness and self-reliance were written on the forehead, from which +the hair was brushed back convent fashion; cleverness again in the +wide eyebrows; perfect bravery was in the full-lipped mouth, and +dogged patience in the clean chin; but the warm blue eyes had a veiled +something in them that told of reluctance to speak out, of a temper +that would hold out a right hand to an enemy and stab effectually with +the left. Not from treachery, but because things were more easily done +in that manner. + +Mother Benedicta had meant to speak of these things, but she turned +away with only one sentence as she signed to the girl to follow her. + +“You will have to fight your own battles, Andria,” she said, almost +absently. “Do it well and openly, as you fought Beryl’s to-day. And +do not forget that this convent life has been but the prelude to your +warfare.” + +Andria bowed her head for the blessing that followed. She thought the +reverend mother looked strangely old and worn to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +A FRIENDLESS FUGITIVE. + + +Mother Benedicta, careful of many things, had meant to add the mystery +of Beryl Corselas to her burden, but fate was stronger than she, who +had been for so many years the capable head of the community. + +Two days after Andria’s departure, death had called her very quietly. +Unanointed, unshriven, and with the questions she had meant to ask +Sister Felicitas yet unspoken, the good mother had followed the beaten +pathway the saints have left toward heaven. + +It was Sister Felicitas who found her dead in her bed, but it was not +prayer for the superior’s soul that sent the sister to her knees, but +utter thankfulness that a stumbling-block was gone from her path. Beryl +Corselas heard the news in stony silence. Only once had the reverend +mother ever noticed her; and yet she felt alone. Andria, though the +weeks went by, never wrote, just as the child had prophesied; for +with all her unchildlike wisdom she never thought that it was Sister +Felicitas who opened the letters now, and that Andria’s promise was +well kept for a year. + +After that year perhaps she dared not write to the convent--who shall +say? But her letters ceased. And Sister Felicitas rose steadily in the +community, till five years after Mother Benedicta’s death she had been +made Mother Superior. + +Only Beryl Corselas knew what the story of those five years had been. +Years of injustice, of petty tortures--Mother Benedicta was not cold +in her grave before the rabbits were killed by the cook before the +very eyes of their shrieking, fainting owner--years of slow warping of +a child’s spirit till, now a girl of sixteen, she was deceitful from +fear, silent from sullen hopelessness, and almost ugly from misery. + +She sat alone in an empty class-room, where her face was but a white +spot in the growing dusk of evening. The heavy lids drooped over her +tearless eyes; she was past crying now, as she was past all childish +things. Mother Benedicta would have turned in her grave had she seen +how those years of pain had changed the child’s looks, how tall +and ill-nourished she was in her out-grown convent uniform. Sister +Felicitas punished by depriving the growing girl of proper food; she +was under sentence now where she sat in the empty class-room, and heard +the clatter of other hungry girls in the refectory. And hunger--and +something else--was making her as dangerous as a wild beast. + +“If I don’t get out of this I’ll kill her!” she thought, clasping +and unclasping her strong young hands. “And I know she doesn’t mean +me ever to get out. She means to make me a nun, and it’s no use my +telling Father Parker I’ve no vocation, for he’s deaf, and never hears +what I say. She can take her time and yell at him. If I shout in the +confessional I only get punished. The other nuns would stand up for +me--some of them. But, though this might keep me from being made a +novice, they couldn’t keep me from being made a lay sister; for it’s +in the charter that charity girls must pay the convent back for their +keep, somehow. And she’ll never let me go out into the world to do it. +I--I’d be willing to starve if I could only get away!” + +She got up and went to the window, heedless of bumps against the empty +forms. But outside there was nothing to see but a November garden, cold +and barren, and a homeless cat, crossing it furtively. + +The girl watched the miserable creature with the painful sympathy she +felt for all animals. In the dusk she saw it leap nimbly to the top of +the high wall and disappear. The convent rebel did not even know what +was on the other side of that wall; but she knew too well what was on +this side. A lay sister’s life, spent in the kitchens; in scrubbing and +killing fowls. She shuddered. And Mother Felicitas’ eye was always on +her; always with the same threat, the same malice. + +She peered into the twilight. The stray cat was gone. Beryl Corselas +stretched her young body, stiff with long sitting, just as the cat +itself might have done before it started on its furtive journey. But +when a sad-eyed nun came and let her out of the locked class-room her +face was as sullenly vacant as usual. There was no one, not even Mother +Felicitas, full of self-conceit at her realized ambition, to know that +the girl’s pulses were playing a wild tune that night, and that the +childhood that had sat so strangely on her had fallen from her like a +garment. + +Unnoticed, Beryl slipped up to bed before the other charity pupil; and +undressed in their joint alcove. Pale and too slender in her white +cotton nightgown, she passed under the white sheet that separated her +cubicle from the next. It belonged to a rich West Indian girl, and in +a box on the table were sovereigns, as she had known there would be. +Without a pang of hesitation Beryl Corselas took two in the glimmer +of the floating night-light. Then she lifted the sheet and slipped +under it, back to her own alcove, just in time. As she put the coins +noiselessly into her bed, the stout girl who shared the alcove came +in. She whispered sharply, though talking was forbidden: “You’re to be +moved to-morrow; sent to the kitchen with Sister Agnes. I wish I was +you; you’ll get enough to eat. Sister Agnes is just sweet.” + +Beryl raised her eyebrows significantly. The sister in charge was +clapping her hands as a signal for the girls to say their evening +prayers. But there were no prayers on the lips of one girl on her knees. + +Would it ever be quiet? Would the tossing of the girls never cease as +they twisted on their narrow beds? It seemed years to Beryl, lying +motionless in hers, longing for the dead middle of the night to bring +quiet breathing to the hundred sleepers round her. A wakeful devil +seemed to be making his rounds among them; girl after girl turned, +tossed, and coughed; not till long after midnight was the hush settled +and complete, and not till then did Beryl Corselas, whose blood was +thumping with suspense and determination, stir on her hard bed. + +Absolutely without sound she sat upright and looked about her. + +Her business would have been more easily done in the dark, but in +every alcove there floated a wick in an inch of oil buoyed up in a jar +full of water. In the glimmering, unearthly light the white sheets +separating the alcoves seemed to stir, but she was used to that; and to +have put out the dull light would have waked the heavy sleeper in the +next bed. + +Barefooted, Beryl slipped to the cold floor, dressed, put her stolen +money in her pocket, and, shoes in hand, crept through the wide +corridor between the double row of alcoves. + +Even the sister in charge heard no sounds as the light step passed, +and not a soul stirred in the convent as the girl stole down the wide, +polished stairs in her stocking feet. In the lower flat it was dark; +she was forced to keep one hand stretched out at arm’s length before +her as she crept inch by inch through the silent house. + +The schoolroom door creaked as she opened it, but once inside floods of +moonlight made her way clear. She looked round the room, where she had +sat a hungry prisoner from afternoon school till bedtime, and in her +fierce exultation at leaving it forgot she was still hungry. + +The window-fastening gave under her strong fingers, the sash moved +easily, without noise, and, as quietly as the cat she had watched +that evening, the girl dropped in the frozen grass outside. Skirting +the wall she moved quickly to the very spot where the cat had crossed +it, from a kind of superstition that she must climb over at no other +place; and there mounted it with an effortless spring just as the other +wandering thing had done. + +With a laugh she slipped to the ground and put on the shoes she +carried. For the cat had been a good pilot. She stood on a road that +she knew led to London, and she stretched out her arms in a kind of +rapture. + +She was free from Mother Felicitas at last! + +But a waving shadow that came suddenly before her eyes killed her hasty +joy. It was only the shadow of a bare, crooked tree, but its outline +was like an arm outstretched to catch her. “Beryl, you fool!” she +thought. “By morning you will be caught again unless there are miles +between you and the convent.” + +She began to run, and not a girl in the school could run like her. Yard +by yard she got over the hard road, till by daylight she found herself +in the suburbs of the great city, though where she did not know. She +walked on soberly till she came to a baker’s shop, and there bought a +roll. There were early risers about, but no one looked at her, for her +plain hat and coat were ordinary enough. Presently she grew bold enough +to stop at a street coffee-stall. + +The hot, strong stuff did her good, and as she paid for it she began to +think coherently for the first time since she had gone to bed. + +“I must have a place, and I haven’t one!” she pondered as she walked on +refreshed. “If I could get to Andria I should be all right, but----” +Her face grew too grim and bitter for her years. Andria had long ago +forgotten her, and more pertinently still the child of five years ago +had never known where the grown-up girl had gone. There was no hope +in Andria. Without a friend in the world the girl walked quietly on +her aimless way. Long before her absence was discovered--for her stout +roommate merely thought stolidly that Beryl Corselas had got up early, +and said nothing about her empty bed till breakfast-time--she was +adrift like many another waif in the interminable streets of London. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE WHEELS OF FATE. + + +Two days afterward a shabby little chemist in a shabby shop on the +Euston road looked carelessly at a strange customer. + +A tall, big-boned girl in a frock too short for her had asked for +laudanum for a toothache. She looked half-wild with pain--or despair; +the chemist never thought of the latter, and he sold her some. Her face +grew livid as he pushed a book toward her and requested her to sign her +name. It was always done, he explained, when people bought poisons. + +With a frightened hand she scrawled something, but the name was so +outlandish to the man as he stood peering at it that he never noticed +with what haste his customer had left the shop. She had been a fool +ever to have entered it, yet in the new and dreadful knowledge that +two days of London streets had crowded on her she had felt there was +nothing else to do. + +Perhaps her very innocence of the world had made her pass scatheless +through perils she only half-realized, but that half was enough. Behind +her lay the convent, and she could never go back to that; round her +were the awful streets where policemen kept hurrying her on, where +people passed her indifferent-eyed, or else--Beryl Corselas turned sick +and faint at the thought of those other people who had not passed on. + +Her money had been stolen, all but the few shillings she had put in +the bodice of her frock, and when that was done, what in all the world +remained to her? No one had ever liked her. She had no belief in any +one’s charity, and the girl’s heart swelled as she answered her own +question. + +“Only just death,” she thought, fingering the little bottle of laudanum +she had been forced to sign her name to get, “or Mother Felicitas--for +she’ll trace me by it. Well, I’d rather die out here than live in the +convent.” She had walked on aimlessly enough, and looked up to see +that she was in front of the entrance to a railway-station, where +people kept going in and out. With a sudden inspiration she followed +a woman inside, and stood behind her at the booking-office. A train +was waiting, ready to leave; on the carriage nearest her was a sign, +“For Blackpool.” She knew where that was, even with her badly learned +geography lessons; it was a long way off from London and Mother +Felicitas. + +She bought a second-class ticket, imitating the woman in front of her. +At least she could rest in the train, since her tired feet would hardly +carry her. She had no money at all when she had paid for her ticket, +and could just manage to follow a porter and stumble into the carriage +marked Blackpool. + +To her joy no one else entered it, and the train started. + +The cushioned carriage was rapture to her tired body, but before she +stretched herself out on its scant luxury, she drained the little +bottle the chemist had sold her, and threw it away. Then she curled +herself up and slept; at first uneasily, with the unaccustomed sounds +of the moving train in her dreams, and then heavily, as people sleep +themselves to death. + +There was no peace in the world for such as she, and at sixteen Beryl +Corselas had found it out. She had tried to get employment, but the +women at whose doors she had knocked wanted no such unearthly-looking +nursemaids, and she could do nothing else. To sleep her life away was +all she could do, and there would be plenty of time for that between +London and Blackpool. + +Remorselessly as the wheels of fate the train rolled on, and +dreamlessly the girl slept. + +If she had known two things she might have flung the laudanum from her +like a snake. The first was that Andria Heathcote had been longing for +her, yet not daring to visit her in the safe refuge of the convent. The +second, that if Mother Felicitas had known that her missing pupil had +gone to Blackpool she would have laughed silently, since that was the +only part of England Beryl Corselas had to avoid. But in ignorance and +despair the girl had drugged herself till a creepy warmth was in her +veins, and so, bound and helpless, would deliver herself to a worse +than Mother Felicitas, unless Death, like a quiet friend, called her +before such things could be. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE LOVELY ANDRIA. + + +While Beryl Corselas slept like a dead girl in the flying +railway-carriage, a woman sat in a beautiful house in London and +wondered why she was remembering the strange goblin child. “I’m not fit +to think of her or the convent, either,” she thought grimly. “Who would +believe that I was ever Andria Heathcote, or brought up in a convent +school?” + +She got up and looked at herself in a glass with an insight that does +not come to happy women. The world had taught her that a woman with a +clear skin and good teeth has it in her own hands to be beautiful, but +it was something else that had taught her to build up her beauty as an +architect builds a palace for a king. + +Her red-brown hair was but a little ruddier than in convent-days. She +had been too wise to dye it; her round, young face was chiseled into +the firmness of a delicate cameo by the sure hands of Love and vain +longing; her brave mouth was more scornful, more self-reliant than of +old, and the queer, veiled look was gone from her blue eyes. They were +bold, under the lashes and brows she had learned to darken, and the +head that had bowed so easily to rebuke was set proudly now. And yet +there was little for Andria Erle to glory in. She turned sharply from +the glass. “Bah! The child would not know me, nor I her,” she thought. +“I wonder why I am thinking of her. Oh, I’m nervous--nervous! And I +have no real cause, I can’t have any.” + +But the step with which she paced the room was not that of a woman at +ease. She was sick with a terror that grew daily, and she knew it. She +looked at the magnificence about her, not indifferently, as she had +been wont to look, but like a woman who holds luxury by a frail tenure +and fears to lose it. Yet the luxury of the place came last to her +troubled mind. There was more than that to lose; love and trust, that +might go any day. To keep her thoughts away from that she tried to +remember the convent, but it only maddened her. + +“Oh, Mother Benedicta!” she said to herself. “You knew too little +about the world when you sent me to a house like lady Parr’s. You and +the good sisters would have thought that house hell on earth from the +things that went on there. I might have, too, if I hadn’t been a blind +fool. But I wouldn’t go back. I’ve been happy; I’ve had my day--and +I’ve no reason to think it’s done yet. I know,” deliberately, “I’ve no +reason!” and while she swore it to herself she kept listening for the +postman’s knock. + +It seemed to thunder through the house before she knew it. But the +servant who brought in the one letter that had come found his mistress +sitting reading, her exquisite paled satin tea-gown in careful folds +about her languid figure. + +Her heart knocked at her ribs as she took the letter; as the door +closed behind the man she sprang to her feet, crushing the thin note to +her breast. + +“Oh, thank God!” she breathed, “thank God. I knew it would come. I knew +he didn’t mean to throw me over.” + +She kissed the senseless letter like a living thing. She knew each line +of the address--every letter was dear to her; yet Beryl Corselas would +not have known the name on the envelope, which certainly was not Andria +Heathcote. To Mother Felicitas it might not have been so strange. + +It was not for five minutes that Andria opened the letter, and when she +did so she no longer thanked God for it. + +It was a white, haggard wretch who crawled to a sofa and lay there +staring at the written sheet in her hand like one who cannot +understand. Yet it was plain English, and began, “Dear Andria,” as +letters do. But her face was convulsed out of all beauty as she felt +those few sentences burning into her brain; a dreadful trembling took +her. + +“I’m going to cry; and I won’t cry!” she said savagely. She was on her +feet and across the room to where a stand of spirits and soda waited +for a visitor who would never come back to that house. But though she +poured out neat whisky and drank it, it could not stop that horrible +trembling. + +“I’m to go. He’s done with me!” she thought. “I--that thanked God at +the sight of his letter;” her lips quivered in spite of her; “who’ve +been faithful for five years.” + +She tried to read the letter slowly and sanely, but one sentence in +it seemed to leap to her eyes. “Of course you know our marriage was +nonsense. The clergyman was never even ordained. It would not hold good +anywhere, even in Scotland.” + +“Then what am I?” thought Andria, and, being a brave woman, kept in the +cry. She read on mechanically. + +“The fact is I’m ruined. I haven’t got a penny left, and my father is +nearly as bad. You have plenty of sense, you will see for yourself that +I must give in to him and marry money. He will be beside himself till +we are on our feet again and there is an heir to the property. He would +never hear of my marrying you, even if our madness had not passed by +this time. You will understand this is not a pleasant letter for me to +write, so I will close it. I send you what money I can spare, but you +need not expect any more, for I haven’t got it. The sheriff will seize +the furniture to-morrow, but my father’s agent will take over the house +and pay the servants. Let me have your address, like a sensible girl. +But I know you will see reason, especially as you are not tied to me in +any way, and the end would have had to come some day.” + +There was no signature, and there were two pages preceding what was, +after all, the gist of the matter. Andria Heathcote, who had never been +Andria Erle except in her own mind, crept to her sofa and lay there, +her face buried in the silk cushions Raimond Erle had chosen that very +spring. But now it was November, and this was “a last year’s nest.” + +She bit at her arm fiercely that pain might keep away tears. None of +Raimond Erle’s servants should see that the woman who had never been +his wife had been crying in her shame and anger. She wondered how +much they knew. All London probably knew more than she had done. She +remembered how Raimond had had no friends but men, how she had gone +among them by the nickname of “The Lovely Andria”; how some of them had +openly thought her shameless--the remembrance made her writhe where she +lay. + +A silver clock chimed, and she counted the sweet strokes. + +“Five!” Five already, and she would not sleep another night under this +roof. The whisky had steadied her, helped her; she rose and looked in +the glass that an hour ago had reflected a woman who had hope left in +her and saw that no eye but her own would see any difference. Andria +Erle had looked nervous; Andria Heathcote was only a shade paler, a +little harder-eyed. + +She turned to ring the bell, and saw something on the hearth-rug. It +was a check for ten pounds, and at first she would have let it lie. +After five years he was turning her out of the house with ten pounds! +But it occurred to her suddenly that she had no other money in the +world. + +“It is bad to have been made a fool of, but it is worse to keep on +being a fool,” she said, with queer calmness, and stooped for the check. + +Another woman would have sat down and written an answer to that letter, +which would have cut even Raimond Erle. But to quarrel openly was not +Andria’s way. If an opportunity came to repay she would repay; it was +no use to write what he need not read unless he chose. Once more she +turned to ring for a servant, and this time did not falter. + +“Send my maid to me,” she said. “I have had a letter from Mr. Erle. He +is not returning and I am going away. Lord Erceldonne’s agent will pay +your wages.” + +She spoke gently as she always did, and the servant admired her for +it; he knew, as she thought, that things were at an end. But he liked +her, as did every one who had ever served her, and he kept his sympathy +from his face. + +Her maid came as quickly as if she had been waiting outside the door. + +“I want you to pack for me at once, Louise, I am going away to-night, +and I must leave you here.” + +“But, madam, you can never do without me,” said the girl awkwardly. She +would like to go with the mistress who had never spoken unkindly even +when she was displeased. + +“There is no room for you where I am going.” Andria’s voice was gentle +still. “You need not pack my evening gowns. But you must hurry, Louise.” + +“Madam’s jewels, of course!” said the maid, with tears in her eyes. All +the household but the mistress had known the end was coming. + +Andria turned to the windows. + +“I will see to the jewels,” she answered in a suffocated voice. “I will +not take them.” + +The maid dared not say more. But it was well that Andria did not see +her packing. Every gorgeous gown her mistress owned was in the boxes +decorously covered with underlinen and every-day clothes by the time +Mrs. Erle came up-stairs. + +Her jewels were spread out on the toilet-table; perhaps the faithful +maid thought the sight of them would tempt her mistress to take them. +But she shivered as the gorgeous, shining things glittered in the +candle-light. Every one of them had meant something in the days when +love was young; each stone held its separate insult now. She put +them back in her jewel-case with averted face and ungentle hands. +Diamonds and pearls, opals and beryls, not one would she keep; and +her wedding-ring fell with a clink on the mass. Andria Heathcote had +nothing to do with the baubles Andria Erle had loved. + +She stood up straight and fair as Louise dressed her in a plain black +gown. For three months she had been dreading this day, fearing heavily +to note the small signs of its approach; but now that it was here she +felt curiously calm. + +“Tell James to call a cab,” she said, “and this is for you! You are +a kind girl, Louise, and I have liked you.” She held out a long gold +chain set with pearls. It was her own, not his; she had a right to give +it away. + +But the maid was crying. + +“Don’t cry, child, for me,” she said steadily, “and take care of the +jewels till Mr. Travers, the agent, comes to-morrow. He will give you a +receipt for them, and you must send it to Mr. Erle at the club.” + +“But you’ll come back, madam?” cried Louise, sobbing. + +“No. Oh! my poor Louise, cheer up. There are better mistresses than +I’ve been.” + +“No, no!” said the girl passionately, “none. What haven’t you done for +me and my mother?” The French girl would have kissed Andria’s hand, but +with a queer feeling of superstition her mistress stooped and kissed +her cheek. It was something to have a creature to say farewell to; +there would be none to greet her home. + +“Get the cab,” she repeated. And when the girl was gone she went +to her writing-table. There was a photograph there and she stared +at it. Why had she loved him? He was just a long-legged, haggard, +gentlemanly-looking man, like scores of others, yet she had sold her +soul for him. + +Her hand was on the picture to put it in the fire, but a sudden thought +flamed in her eyes and stayed her hand. On the back of it was written: +“Raimond to Andria; on their wedding-day.” She would keep it! The +world was thick, they might never meet; but if they did that writing +might confound his dearest plans. She slipped the photograph into her +pocket and went down-stairs. The French girl, with a pang at her heart, +watched her get into the cab and drive away. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +HER EVIL GENIUS. + + +The train stopped with a jerk and a long jolting jar that startled +all the passengers, and flung a solitary traveler from her seat in a +second-class carriage. + +She lay on the floor, lax, inert as the dead; but her eyes were open. +Where was she? What was this hard, narrow place, where a light burned +dimly? She thought for one awful instant of her alcove at the convent, +and screamed wildly; but the train was starting and the whistles of the +engine covered it. The noise of the wheels reassured the drugged wits +of the girl on the floor. + +“No; it’s not the convent--it’s the train, and I’ve waked up! Oh, why +didn’t I die? Am I going to live after all that stuff?” + +She struggled up and back to her seat, dizzy and sick from the +laudanum. She tried to think. What should she--what could she--do now? +Life was before her, and not the death she had craved. Presently the +train would stop; they would put her out into the cold and darkness, +and she had no money for shelter or bread. + +“They ought to kill girls like me!” she sobbed. “What good has life +ever been to me! And what shall I do if I’ve been tracked--if a +telegram from Mother Felicitas is before me at Blackpool?” + +Every one’s hand had been against her all her life, and it was well for +her now. For a madness of determination came over her. + +“They sha’n’t find me! No one shall find me,” she thought, clenching +her hands. “I’ll hide somewhere and starve sooner than go back to +Mother Felicitas!” + +She opened the carriage window and drank in the cold evening air. It +drove the fumes of laudanum from her and stopped the headache that was +rending her. She had no reason to go to Blackpool; she could starve +as easily in some other place. What if she got out the first time the +train stopped, and slipped away into the dark? But it had been the +stoppage of the train at Preston that had wakened her; she did not know +there would be no pause between that and Blackpool. The train seemed to +whirl interminably on, and she shut the window and lay back against the +cushions; she would have warmth and rest as long as she could. + +Strangely enough, she felt better for that drugged sleep--more +reasonable, more sane. + +But, think as she might, she could see nothing but a miserable, +lingering death before her, and the death that had passed her by would +have been easy. + +The train whistled, then stopped; the guard came and took her ticket. + +“Blackpool, miss,” he said to the pale girl with the swollen, weary +eyes. The convent uniform was black and he thought cursorily that she +was in mourning, a thought that served her well afterward. + +She hurried by him without answering, and stood for one moment in the +glaring station, bewildered by the crowd. + +Her white face, her tawny eyes, with that strange vacancy about them +which long years of bullying had brought there, were striking enough +among the commonplace crowd that surged by her. + +A long-legged, gentlemanly-looking man, whose handsome face was haggard +and drawn till it almost came to being care-worn, pulled his brown +mustache as he stood waiting for the London train. + +“Looks as if she were in a mess!” he thought idly. “She might be +handsome, too--it’s a pity!” and he turned away. It was some other +fellow’s business; he had enough on his own hands without taking up a +girl who stared past him till she caught his eyes on her and then ran +with a sudden, frightened bound out of the lighted station. + +“The wicked flee when no man pursueth,” thought Mr. Erle; he was rather +fond of the Bible, for amusement merely. And he got into his train and +thought of other things, not too comfortably. + +He had had an exceedingly annoying interview with his father. After all +he had done to please him, the elder man would scarcely listen to his +question, or indeed speak to him. + +At a strenuous appeal for money, indeed Lord Erceldonne had broken out +savagely: + +“You had better discover a lady who possesses it,” he had said roughly, +unlike himself. “As for Erceldonne, you needn’t count on the succession +to it.” + +“What do you mean?” his son stared. + +But Lord Erceldonne had recovered himself. + +“Nothing,” he returned icily, “except that every stick we own is +mortgaged. You must forage yourself.” + +But his son had seen him crumple up a telegram that lay on the table. +It was not those ancient mortgages that troubled him. + +“I wonder what the deuce it was!” he reflected now in the train, for +distasteful as London was, it was better than his father’s society. + +“For a moment I thought my reverend parent was about to impart to me +that I was not the rightful heir!” sneeringly. “He’s got something on +his mind, but that would be rot! There’s been no question of it for +years.” + +The strange girl had completely left his memory as the train reached +London; indeed, she had never stayed there. Mr. Erle glanced at his +watch as he took a cab at Euston. It was not eleven o’clock; he would +see what fortune had done for him before he went--by George! he had +forgotten. He could not show himself in town. There was that business +of the sheriff, and Andria! + +“The Continent!” said he to himself. “As soon as possible! But first I +must visit my--well, I hope he’ll be my banker!” He stopped the cab and +got out at the very shop where Beryl had bought that useless laudanum +no farther back than the morning. + +“A shabby chemist’s,” she had thought, quite unconscious that the +drugs were but an outward show, and that the proprietor was one of +the largest book-makers in London, though he never attended a race. +Sometimes he had provided Mr. Erle with sums that tided him over; but +of late that gentleman had not been lucky. He entered the shop with a +languid nod, and was glad to see the proprietor was alone. + +For once, too, he seemed to be paying some attention to his legitimate +trade. He was studying a greasy blank-book that was not out of his +inside office. + +“Ah, Mr. Erle!” he said. “I have some money for you--a hundred or more.” + +Mr. Erle never moved a muscle, though he needed the money and had not +expected it. + +“Right!” he returned carelessly. “What have you got there?” + +“Only my register, sir. By the way, could you read that name?” He +pushed the book across the counter. + +“B. Corselas,” in an unsteady, childish hand stared Mr. Erle in the +face. B. Corselas, and his father, neither to hold nor to bind! There +could be nothing in it, and yet--Mr. Erle was startled. + +“No,” he said coolly. “Cassels, or something. Why?” + +“Well, she was a slip of a thing,” dryly, “and she bought laudanum. She +had a queer look about her--very light eyes!” + +“Tall, charming?” scoffingly. + +“No, Mr. Erle. Childish and frightened-looking. Will you have a check, +or notes? They’re both here. She would have been handsome if she hadn’t +looked hungry.” + +“Notes,” said Erle slowly. “You’ll get into trouble yet, Peters, with +your drugs. Good night!” + +He was richer than he had been for many a day; but he was not thinking +of that as he got into his cab and drove back to Euston. + +It was queer that he felt so assured that he had seen at Blackpool the +very girl who had signed Peter’s book. He dismissed his cab at the +Euston Hotel, but before he entered it he returned to the station. +A few inquiries made him surer than ever, but the “B. Corselas” +staggered him. It might be all right, but if, after all these years, +it was going to be all wrong, it was no joke. + +He wrote a brief note to his father, for there was no sense in trusting +a country telegraph office, and then retired to bed. + +“Paris for me!” he reflected as he put out the light. “If there is +anything queer the farther I’m out of it the better. Besides, other +things. But, of course, it’s all a silly coincidence.” + +He little knew the trouble it would have saved him if he had spoken +kindly to that girl at Blackpool. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LORD ERCELDONNE MARKS THE KING. + + +On the shore of St. Anne’s, that is a day’s walking from Blackpool, +was the wreck of a brig. Dismantled, gaunt in the daylight, black and +gruesome at night, it lay canted on the beach a grim sign-post on a +coast where the life-boat men are seldom idle. + +The lamplighter looked at it as he finished his rounds in the dusk. + +“’Tis said it’s haunted,” he remarked to himself, “but ghosts have +quieter tongues than Margery! And ’tis the only place she’ll not rout +me out of.” His conscience was not clear nor his legs quite reliable as +he made an unostentatious progress over the shingle to the wreck. He +was not drunk to his own mind, but he would be drunk to a certainty in +the eyes of the rate-payers and his wife. Mr. Ebenezer Davids had no +mind to be brought up before the vestry or the domestic tribunal. + +He scrambled on board the weather-beaten hull of the _Highland +Mary_, and made his way below, down a companionway that slanted at a +discomposing angle. The darkness of the cabin was musty, but Mr. Davids +was not squeamish. He felt his way to a moldy locker and collapsed on +it. Something rustled, but he cared nothing for rats. He only turned +more comfortably and let the joyful slumber of semi-intoxication +possess him utterly. + +The tide was rising; it lipped against the seaward side of the +_Highland Mary_ with a noise that was oddly like the frightened +breathing of a weak creature. But there was no other sound till the +lamplighter’s snores began to fill the cabin. Then came a faint +rustling in the berth opposite him, a gasp as if a desperate resolve +had taken away some one’s breath. The snoring kept on. + +In the dark there was a sound of cautious feet; feet that had no +strength or weight; but if any one stole up to the lamplighter he did +not hear. In his sleep he flung out his arm, and it struck something +that gave; something that was bending over him, trying to reach a red +cotton bundle that lay between him and the wall. It was his supper of +bread and cheese that he had not eaten, and the smell of the cheese, +combined with the regular snoring, had drawn a living thing to his side. + +He started up, sobered with terror, sweating with fear. What had +touched him in the dark? What had screeched in his ear? + +“The place is haunted, curse it!” he said, and was frightened afresh. +For the instant he spoke a low moaning broke out at his very feet. + +The lamplighter was a little man, and not brave. In sheer desperation +and terror he remembered that he carried the tools of his trade in a +bag at his side, and with a shaking hand he lit his long wax taper. As +it burned blue in the close cabin he recoiled. + +The place was haunted, indeed! + +What was this on the floor, like a white-faced girl, whose long, black +hair streamed over her? No living woman could be so thin, could have +such strange, golden eyes. + +“What--what are you? Get away!” cried the lamplighter wildly. He raised +his foot to kick at the thing on the floor. + +“Don’t! Oh, don’t hurt me!” The cry was human, utterly desolate. “I +didn’t mean to steal, but I’m hungry,” cried the girl, with a sullen +sob. + +“Hungry!” said the lamplighter stupidly, and his taper nearly fell in +his surprise. “What are you doing here if you’re hungry, frightening +honest folk?” He grew angry as he remembered how nearly she had sent +him flying back to Margery with a bogy tale that would have made him a +laughing-stock. + +“I’ve nowhere else to go.” + +At the answer he stuck his taper upright in a convenient crack in the +floor of the _Highland Mary_, and with a rough kindness lifted the girl +to the locker. She was a threadpaper slip of sixteen or so, with the +queerest eyes he had ever seen; even the lamplighter, who was familiar +with poverty, had never seen a human being so thin. + +“Why, you’re starved, lass!” he cried. “What ever made you come to this +old hulk? You might have knowed there was no roast beef here. Where do +you come from?” for his keen little eyes saw that her shoes were not +the shoes of a tramp. + +She did not answer, except to point to the red handkerchief that +smelled of cheese. + +“You can have it, certain!” he had a foolish lump in his throat as he +stuffed the thick, unappetizing stuff into her hand. And he turned away +as he saw how she tore at it with sharp white teeth like a dog’s. But +she only ate a mouthful or two. + +The lamplighter took a seat on the locker and stared at her. + +“Come now, missus,” he said, not unkindly, “let us know what brought +you here. You can’t stay here till you die--like this!” + +“Where can I go? No one wants me.” + +“Go back to your friends, lass!” + +“I haven’t any, I haven’t any money, either, and it was cold and rainy, +so I came in here. I’ve been ill, I think. It seems a long time.” + +“By gum!” the lamplighter was nonplused. “Why didn’t you beg? Have you +had anything to eat?” sharply. + +“I hate people, and they hate me. No one would give me anything. I went +out in the nights and got water at a brook over there, and I found some +bread one evening.” She did not say it was crusts a dog had despised. + +“How long have you been like this?” he gasped. + +“I don’t know. More than a week. I’ve been ill, I----” Her head fell +forward with a stifled groan. + +“You’re sick, now, my lass!” he said pitifully. “Come, your way’s +with me, and I’ll take you----” He stopped; he dared not take her to +Margery, and the only other place was the workhouse. + +“I won’t go to a convent,” she muttered, “I won’t!” + +“It’s not a convent,” he said, puzzled. “Just a--well, there!--it’s +hell on earth to my mind, but it’s better than this,” he broke out +roughly, for the strange girl could not hear him; she was in a dead +faint at his feet. + +Staggering, sweating, Davids managed to carry her up the companionway +to the deck that was keeled over at such an angle that, burden and all, +he nearly slipped through the broken bulwarks to the stony beach. But +he clawed and staggered valiantly, till he had laid the girl, who to +his mind was dying, safely on the ground. Then he gazed about him. What +was to be done next? + +“There ain’t no choice as I can see,” remarked the bewildered +Samaritan. “Though she’s gey and heavy for such a bag of bones.” + +He shouldered her like a sack of potatoes, fearful that she might die +on his hands. + +“Here goes, and prays I that Margery don’t hear of it!” he muttered, +and with toil and cursing, gained the highway, a ludicrous figure in +the light of the November moon. His only thought was by what byway he +could come at the workhouse, and as he puzzled at it he ran into a tall +man in an Inverness cape who was coming from the opposite direction. + +“What the devil!” cried the latter furiously. “Why don’t you look where +you’re going?” + +“Beg your pardon, my lord,” gasped the despairing Davids. “I couldn’t +look, she’s too mortal heavy.” + +“She--who? Why, it’s you, Davids! What are you doing?” Lord Erceldonne +stared as he had never stared in all his ill-spent life. + +“Going to the workhouse,” said the man wretchedly. + +“What for? And--why, it’s a woman!” said Lord Erceldonne, with unkind +enjoyment. A squint-eyed, frowsy lamplighter with a romance was too +delightful. + +“It’s a lady, if you ask me,” retorted the man, with some dignity. “And +I think she’s over near to dying for laughter.” + +“What d’ye mean?” cried Lord Erceldonne, enraged at the just rebuke. +Ebenezer told him. But it was too dark for him to see how Lord +Erceldonne’s hand flew to his pocket where two letters lay. + +“Put her down,” he ordered. “Let me look at her.” + +Ebenezer obeyed, with some relief. + +Straight and tall, her long limbs as nerveless as if she were dead, +the girl lay on the ground. Her white face showed gaunt with famine in +the moonlight as her matted, wild hair lifted in the night wind. For a +moment both men thought her dead. + +Erceldonne knelt down by her. + +“Did she tell you her name?” His voice was thick. + +“Not she!” + +“Then she’ll never tell it now--she’s dead!” There was something so +like recognition, exultation, in the pitiless words that Davids looked +angrily at the speaker. Then he started. + +The pale, worn face bent over the girl was hers almost line for line; +allowing for the difference between sixteen years and fifty. + +“My soul!” thought the lamplighter. “She is the very spit and image of +his lordship.” He turned almost fiercely on the man, as if he had been +his equal. + +“She ain’t dead, and she ain’t going to die, while I can help it. Move, +my lord--and let me carry her to the workhouse while there’s time.” + +A stranger look than ever was on Erceldonne’s face. This was fate--but +he had conquered fate before. He burst into a cackling laugh that made +Davids jump; long and loud he laughed in the light of the moon over the +girl who lay dying on the ground. + +“Get on with you, then, to the workhouse!” he cried indifferently, but +as he turned away his eyes were still full of laughter, in strange +contrast to his savage temper when he met Ebenezer. + +“I mark the king, it seems!” said Lord Erceldonne to the desolate +night. “I mark the king, after all!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +FIRST BLOOD TO ERCELDONNE. + + +Mother Felicitas sat in her white-walled parlor, and her lean face +looked gray against the whitewashed background from which the pictured +saints and martyrs looked down indifferent-eyed. Opposite her sat +her man of business--for even convents have such things--and his +matter-of-fact manner was driving her mad. + +“You traced that misguided child,” she said smoothly, “to Blackpool, I +think you said.” She could hardly sit still in her chair. + +“Easily. And then to St. Anne’s. But I regret to say I was too late. +She had been hiding on an old wreck there starving, for nearly a +fortnight, till a lamplighter found her and took her to the workhouse. +I went there, of course, but the matron, a civil-spoken woman, told me +the girl had been taken away only that morning by a Mrs. Fuller, who +wished to adopt her.” + +“Did they hand her over to a strange woman without any references?” +said the mother, moistening her dry lips. + +“It seems so,” he answered bluntly. “They had the address in Liverpool, +but when I went there the caretaker told me Mrs. Fuller had that +morning gone to the Continent with a young lady till the spring. Oh, +I fancy it’s all right, reverend mother! You are too troubled about a +good-for-nothing runaway.” + +“Yes,” she said, and hid her hands in her sleeves that he might not see +the trembling of them. + +“But her well-being is naturally a--sacred charge to me. I feel all +this terribly.” She wondered while she spoke how she was to find out +what was racking her, indeed. + +“Lord Erceldonne is lord of the manor at St. Anne’s--I suppose--he had +not been interested in the sad case,” she observed. + +“He was away. I heard by chance.” The lawyer had not got speech of +Ebenezer Davids, who was too unimportant. “He had not been there for +months.” + +Mother Felicitas’ heart gave a bound of relief. + +Then it was, after all, what it looked! Some tender-hearted fool had +adopted the girl. She was not beaten--yet! + +“Yes, yes!” she said indifferently. “But did the child, by the way, +tell her name?” + +“Certainly,” he answered, rather surprised; but Mother Felicitas, of +course, had never raised her saintly eyes and did not see. + +That was a blow; but still Erceldonne was away and he would certainly +never see the workhouse register. He was in her power still. + +“That is all, I think. Thank you,” she said calmly. “We must first +wait till this Mrs. Fuller returns. You have her address? And then +perhaps our stray may be induced to return to us. You will take some +refreshment before you leave, Mr. Mayhew?” + +But when he was gone Mother Felicitas sat cold and speechless. Perhaps +she saw herself excommunicated if the whole story of her connection +with Beryl Corselas ever came out. + +“At least, he does not know and never shall,” she thought, when thought +would come. “He shall fear me till he dies, as he has feared me this +many a year. He shall pay, as he has always paid, to the enrichment of +our order,” for she, of all the convent, had alone known the source of +the roll of notes that came anonymously each year to her. + +She frowned thoughtfully as she began to write a letter, dignified +and guarded. It might be months in reaching the man it was meant +for, but it would reach him in the end. It informed the guardians of +the workhouse at St. Anne’s that the lady who had so kindly adopted +the stray child had been authorized to do so by her only friend, the +Mother Superior of the Convent of St. Mary; and that it was hoped the +arrangement would be most satisfactory. + +“As I hear that Viscount Erceldonne had kindly interested himself in +the case, perhaps you would be so good as to let him know the ending,” +the letter concluded, and when it was gone Mother Felicitas breathed +more easily. Erceldonne should know that she was in keeping of his +secret still; that the sword that hung over his head had not left her +grasp. + +But, clever as she was, she never dreamed of Erceldonne’s face when the +letter was forwarded to him in London. He was very busy, but he let his +business stand while he chuckled over that courteous epistle. + +“There’s nothing so dangerous as being too clever,” he said, wiping +tears of laughter from his eyes; “and this is too good! Mrs. +Fuller--oh! Mother Felicitas! since that’s your name now--truly you +have strange friends, for a nun.” + +He drew from his pocket two papers, the very ones to which his hand had +flown on the night he had met the lamplighter. On one was written in an +uneducated scrawl: “The Gurl is gone Run Away.” + +It had never entered the mind of the reverend mother that Lord +Erceldonne had no idea of paying the hush-money for a dead or vanished +girl, or that he had established a spy in her very house in the shape +of the loutish boy who carried her vegetables to market, the only +male being in her employ. It did not even strike her when, in a week +or so, the boy gave warning and returned to his natural orbit in Lord +Erceldonne’s employ. He was used to watching ladies for his master, and +this was only a queerer item than usual on the list. + +The other letter was the “coincidence” his son had thought worth +telling him--a letter that would have been wasted but for the +lamplighter. Lord Erceldonne had reason to laugh that night. + +He swept his correspondence into a drawer as a light knock came on his +door. + +“Come in!” he cried, and rose punctiliously, yet mockingly, for he knew +who his visitor was. + +A little woman, exceedingly pretty, charming mannered, and exquisitely +dressed, stood on the threshold. + +“May I?” her voice was not quite of a piece with the rest of her. “Dear +Erceldonne! how warm your room is!” she exclaimed, seating herself. + +“Bad habit!” he returned vaguely. “I suppose you’ve come to say you’re +off?” + +She nodded. + +“Paris!” she cried gaily. “Having accomplished your lordship’s wishes +and played nursemaid for a month, I suppose I may go and amuse myself +again. My kind godmother, as you know,” she said flippantly, “is on the +Continent!” + +Erceldonne laughed. Truly that Mrs. Fuller whose address in Liverpool +he had borrowed knew nothing of this one, nor of Beryl Corselas, either. + +“What are you going to do with that child?” she continued. “Not bring +her here, surely. It would not be edifying--for Raimond!” + +Erceldonne’s middle-aged handsome face was utterly blank. He had no +idea of telling his charming friend anything. She had served his +purpose, and now the sooner he saw the last of her pretty person the +better. + +“St. John’s Wood is still standing,” he remarked easily. “As for +Raimond, no one sees less of him than I,” yet she had made him angry; +there was no one weaker than Raimond about a handsome face, and he had +been struck with this penniless girl already. + +“I hear the lovely Andria is----” she hesitated. + +“Gone the way of all flesh, I believe, in hope of further exaltation,” +he said, shrugging his shoulders. + +No one would have believed how hard he had worked to obtain just that +result as he sat looking at his visitor with critical admiration. She +really wore wonderfully! + +“Well, you’re off! And you may have those diamonds you wanted, to take +with you.” He had caught her expectant eyes. “What! Something finer?” + +“I--I would rather have that paper of mine. Please, Erceldonne!” she +said, with an earnestness that sat ill on her. + +He rose, flicked her cheek lightly, and laughed. + +“Not yet, my dear Emeline; I can’t spare it.” + +There were tears in her hard eyes as he put a velvet case in her hand, +but she dared not implore him. She knew him. She had got his “fancy” +for him; she had hoped that would have wiped off the old score; but the +man was too careful a blackguard. + +Only one shot did the supposed “Mrs. Fuller” fire as she said good-by. + +“The girl is a handful, even for you. I don’t think you can do anything +with her.” + +“Perhaps not.” Lord Erceldonne laughed in that sudden, unpleasant, loud +cackle. “Oh, my dear Emeline! you have a short memory.” + +The poor, painted, little sinner started; for the blow was cruel. +Erceldonne laughed again as she crept out of the room she had entered +so jauntily. He knew all her secrets; and she had not even touched the +garment’s hem of his. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A WOMAN’S DIARY. + + + “Tuesday, Dec. 7th. + +“I never knew how much I read till now, when I have no books. Time +hangs and hangs; writing this thing helps to pass it, though there is +nothing to put down. I can’t think; I feel as if all this were a dream. +This horrid room in Chelsea, and all those boxes left ‘to be called +for’ at Paddington station. When they come to sell them--for that’s +what they do with unclaimed things--they will wonder how the owner had +the heart to forget them. But perhaps they won’t know each one of those +plain dresses cost twenty pounds. + +“I wish I had what they cost; I never realized what it took to live. I +am going to realize it well enough next week, when I must get something +to do, or starve. + +“I write down all these sordid little sentences because I daren’t write +the only thought that is in my mind. I would go mad if I let myself +remember--and I can’t forget. Better to put down how I’ve lived for a +month on ten pounds. I, who threw away as much of a morning to pass the +time! + +“I pay, let me see, fifteen shillings a week here, and buy my food +besides. I ought never to have taken this room, but it looked dreadful +enough; how was I to know that I could have got one for eight in a +worse place? I’ve been here four weeks; that disposes of five pounds, +counting my food, though I know the woman cheats me. My bread and tea +never cost ten shillings from Saturday to Saturday. There are two +pounds in my purse, and the other three have melted. How many fees +have I paid at registry-offices? How many women have looked me up +and down when I asked for a governess’ place, have seen through me +with their disapproving eyes? I don’t know and I don’t care--but I’ll +care to-morrow. I’m too tired to-night from tramping in search of an +engagement and too cold in this room. And I’m afraid. Afraid of meeting +him in the streets and having him pass me by. I’ve no spirit. I believe +I could forgive him, but in an hour I may be just as sure I never could. + +“The loneliness of it all frightens me, too. This room, where no one +ever comes, the streets I walk all day in terror of meeting some man +who knows. To-morrow I must get work. I’m losing all my courage. I’d +give half my life to-night just to----” + + * * * * * + +The writing broke off, the page smeared where a quick hand had closed +the book while the ink was wet. But on the other side it began again. + + * * * * * + + “Thursday. + +“What have I done? And why does such a simple piece of business make +me feel creepy, as if I had entered into a bargain with the devil! I’m +saved! I’ve found a situation! But I feel something saying to me that I +would have done better to starve in the streets. + +“It was yesterday, two days after I last wrote in this diary. I +was standing in the register’s office and two women who had wanted +governesses had told me I would not do. I felt dizzy, for I had been +walking too far. I leaned against the wall, too tired to go home, and +the registry-office was warm. + +“I was not noticing anything because my head swam. I was thinking that +for women like me the world had only one path, and I would die before +I walked on it--any farther. I was fighting off the horror of it when +some one touched me on the arm. + +“It was the registry woman. She had left her desk and there was no one +in the room but her and me, and a middle-aged man. + +“‘Miss Holbeach,’ she was saying--I dared not go back to Heathcote +when I found I had no right to Erle. Every one knew Andria Heathcote’s +story, and Holbeach was not noticeable--‘Miss Holbeach, don’t you hear +Mr. Egerton speaking to you?’” + +“‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, for I was stupid. + +“The man handed me a chair as if I were a lady and not a would-be +governess. I sat down and then I looked at him. I don’t know now what +there was in his face that seemed familiar. I only saw it in that first +glance; afterward I knew perfectly well that he was an utter stranger. + +“He was rather tall and rather dark and thin. I think now that if he +had let it his hair would have been gray, but then I just saw it was +black. He had a pale face, wrinkled and full of crow’s-feet round the +eyes, and they were very dark, almost black. They puzzled me--their +shape--I seemed to know that. But the way they looked at me was not +like any eyes I know or ever have known. He wore beautiful clothes and +had a London man’s manner. I mean those men you meet in the season who +are so civil and so quiet, as if no one in the world was their superior +and there was no occasion to assert themselves. I ought to know that +manner by this time. + +“This man seemed to take me in without looking at me. I remembered I +had on old gloves. + +“‘This lady, I think,’ he said to the registry woman, ‘wishes to be a +governess?’ + +“‘Miss Holbeach? Yes, sir,’ She frowned at me to stand up, but I +couldn’t. The man sat down by me, and it was then I saw how lined his +face was. He looked fifty when you were close to him. + +“‘Miss Holbeach; thank you!’ He just glanced at her, but she went away +as if he had pushed her. Then he spoke to me. He wanted a governess, or +rather a companion, for his ward, a girl of sixteen. Lessons were not +so much an object as being willing to go abroad. His ward was obliged +to winter in the South. She was not strong. I could only stare at him; +the thought of getting a situation and getting out of England at the +same time nearly made me cry with joy--till I remembered a man like +this would never take me for his ward’s governess. + +“‘I won’t do,’ I said. ‘You will not want me. I have not any--any +references!’ My own voice sounded so odd to me, as if I had never heard +it before. + +“‘Oh,’ he said slowly, ‘you have no references,’ and I saw something so +queer in his look that I could not answer from astonishment. + +“A woman like me, who watches a man’s face for sunshine or bad weather, +learns little things. This man’s forehead, instead of contracting +between the eyebrows with annoyance, had grown smooth with relief. +I couldn’t understand it then, and I can’t now; but I know he was +relieved that I had no references. + +“‘This woman knows you?’ he said. + +“‘Only because I came here for work,’ it was no use pretending things, +and I didn’t try. + +“‘You have not always been a governess, is that it?’ He spoke so +quietly that I knew the woman at the desk could not hear him, but I +answered out loud: + +“‘I was educated for a governess, but I have had no need to earn money +for some years. Now I must--do something,’ and I couldn’t keep my lips +steady. + +“‘Ah!’ he said. ‘And without a character you have been unsuccessful!’ +But I saw he was not sorry for me, only thinking what to do or how to +do it. For I knew, as I know that I sit here in this room with its fire +and the rain on the window, that he was going to engage me. + +“And he did. Without a rag of reference, with only a few questions--and +now that I come to think of it he never asked me where I was educated. +I couldn’t have told him. I suppose Mother Benedicta knows how I ran +away from Lady Parr’s with--but I won’t write that name. + +“But it has all come to this: I, who had no hope of ever getting an +engagement, am to be companion to a girl at a salary of a hundred +pounds a year. And I know that I’m not fit to be with any girl; the +five pounds that he gave me for expenses looks like a fee from the +devil as it shines on the table. For the more I think of it, the more +sure I am that he was certain I was a woman with a past and not +anything else in the world. + +“But past or no past, I will write it down here in this book, and +sign my name to it, that no girl shall ever learn harm from me, or +anything but hatred for evil. My schooling has been hardly paid for; +it can at least be useful in helping some poor girl to keep out of the +agony I have known. There is no peace or joy for women like me, and I +would never see any girl stray on the bitter road that I trod. If Mr. +Egerton, for reasons of his own, has engaged me because I am what I +am, he has burned his own boats. If the girl is as sly and sullen as +he hints, I will be a better guardian for her than a saint like Mother +Benedicta was for me. + +“I have read this over, and it seems far-fetched and ungrateful. The +man is kind and he is giving me a chance to live honestly; but yet I +cannot feel that in my heart. There is something behind his kindness. + +“Whether there is or not, I can’t get out of my bargain now. I am to +go to Southampton to-morrow, to join Mr. Egerton and his ward on his +yacht; a steam-yacht, thank goodness! I hate the sea. We are to go to +Bermuda, of all places in the world! Not that I know any one there, but +it seems the very end of the world. + +“Mr. Egerton has a house there, and if his ward likes it, we may stay +till spring. It is all one to me, since I shall be out of England. +To-morrow I must get those boxes at Paddington that I never meant to +call for. I would be glad never to wear any of those clothes again, but +I have no choice. The five pounds he gave me would not buy my ticket to +Southampton and get me a governess’ outfit ‘warranted to wear’ into the +bargain. + +“I write very prettily. As I look at the neat, close pages of this +book, I wonder how they could have been written with so heavy a heart. +The past sickens me and the future frightens me, though it may be with +a senseless terror that I shall laugh at by and by. + +“The future! I laugh now when I see I have written that word. There is +no future, Andria Heathcote, alias Holbeach, for such women as you; if +you dare but touch the smallest joy that may be offered you a hand will +come from the past when you least expect it and snatch the new wine +from your lips. + + “‘This is your solace and your reward, + That have drained life’s dregs from a broken shard,’ + +“Good-night, Andria, and no dreams to you! + +“May you do your work and live decently, till such time as your story +comes out!” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +ON BOARD THE YACHT. + + +Mr. Egerton sat in the smoking-room of the steam-yacht _Flora_ and +reflected--it was the first day the sea had favored reflection--on his +plans. + +They had given him more trouble than anything for sixteen years, but +this very elaboration of detail pleased the man. He was a very cruel +person, and a very cautious one, or he might have solved all his +difficulties more easily and inexpensively. But wonderful as his luck +had been lately, he was not out of the wood yet. He took up a tumbler +of whisky and soda, and watched the mounting bubbles as if he were +watching the workings of his own mind. + +“First,” he mused, “there was getting out of the power of that woman +in the convent. She can never threaten me now, to any effect; or turn +on me. I know nothing of any girl. She cannot say there ever was one. +She never could have, really. Second, there were those letters. Raimond +is an ass, but if it hadn’t been for him I never should have stayed +at Erceldonne, or come across that girl with the lamplighter. That +saved me from having to scorn all England and from having to trust +detectives--who retire and write books. And the ‘Mrs. Fuller’ comedy +was lucky; it prevented my appearing in any way. And ‘Mrs. Fuller,’ +having played her part, will never bother her head about what happened +to her charge. If she did, she would never connect ‘Mr. Egerton,’ the +governess, and his ward, with Lord Erceldonne’s queer ‘fancy.’” He +laughed aloud. And then he thought of that diplomatic epistle of Mother +Felicitas’, that had been so futile a lie. + +“She could dictate to me while she had the girl, but not when there is +no girl for her to produce. Third,” he resumed his counting, “there was +my coming on that woman in the registry-office. The minute I saw her I +knew she had a history, was at the end of her tether and in despair. No +troublesome questions from a woman like that! She swallowed everything +I told her because, forsooth, I had taken her without references. A +woman who had no references and was dressed like a duchess was a fitter +woman for my purpose than all the Mrs. Grundys in England. She stood +being hustled on board and hurried off without a sight of her charge +like a lamb, just because she didn’t care a straw what happened to her. +I could see it in her face. And it’s just as well she doesn’t!” His own +face contracted a little as at something slightly, yet unavoidably, +unpleasant. “Well, no one will inquire about either of the ladies if +their absence is prolonged! + +“I didn’t tell her that obstinate little devil down-stairs wouldn’t see +her, wouldn’t hear of her. She’ll find out soon enough what a handful +she has before her, while it lasts. But whatever happens, no one will +be able to root out dangerous tales of me and my tawny-eyed young +friend. Mr. Egerton and his ward and governess having disappeared into +space will not trouble Erceldonne. + +“It was lucky Raimond was out of the way; it would have suited him +to rout out things he would be a fool to know. He might even have +fancied the girl. I wonder what set his mind on an old story! But it +doesn’t matter. The affair will be nothing but a lying rumor soon; an +absolutely absurd canard.” + +He drank down the whisky and soda with small enjoyment, for it was +flat, and the only troublesome reflection of the afternoon came to him. + +“Damn that fool who put Beryl Corselas and her adventures in the +papers,” he thought angrily. “The name might have set people thinking. +But I don’t think so. I stayed long enough in London to be sure there +was no revival of stale talk. Anyhow, if there were, it doesn’t matter. +She’s disappeared, and by ---- this time she’ll stay disappeared!” + +He rose and looked out of the window. + +It was a deck cabin, and almost within reach of his arm sat the +governess looking vaguely out over a sea that was blue for the first +time in the six days since they had left England. + +It was rough still, but the rollers had purple hollows instead of +gray ones, and curled over blue and clear. But the governess was not +thinking of them, and her employer knew it. He rang the bell. + +“Take this to Miss Holbeach,” he ordered, penciling a note, and then +buried himself in a French novel as one who is luckily far away from +an unpleasant business. That little tiger-cat had fought hard. First, +against the departure of “Mrs. Fuller,” to whom she had taken a fancy; +and then against the installation of a governess. To “Mr. Egerton” +himself she maintained a stony sulkiness; she did not like him, and +took no pains to hide it. She had openly accused him of tricking her +about Mrs. Fuller, and would not listen to his plausible tale of +explanation. + +“I don’t know why you bother about me!” she had said, staring at him. +“But I don’t seem able to get away from you. I don’t suppose you and +the governess can be any worse than Mother Felicitas! Yes, I know +you’ve been good to me, but----” She had stopped, afraid to go on. Only +anger with this strange man who had carried her off from Mrs. Fuller +had made her so outspoken, and as he looked at her, she dared not go +on. She had turned and fairly run to her cabin, where she had stayed +ever since, too seasick even to wonder at the strange turn her life had +taken. + +Andria took the little note the steward handed her. He was an Italian, +as were all the ship’s company, even to the stewardess. None of them +could speak a word of English, and she knew no Italian. It had come to +her oddly that one of the few questions Mr. Egerton had asked her was +whether she knew Italian. But she resolutely assured herself that the +two things had no connection. The note was just a line. + +“Would Miss Holbeach kindly go and see Mr. Egerton’s ward in her cabin.” + +The writer, to be truthful, had wanted the meeting over between the +two. The die was cast now; neither could get away from the other, +and if they had sense they would make friends. They would need to be +friendly! And he grinned over his novel, wondering if the headstrong +child would try to scratch the governess’ eyes out. If faces meant +anything, this Holbeach woman had managed men in her day. + +Andria was half-way down the companionway as he thought it; and stood +presently at a closed door. She knocked, and the stewardess came out. + +For a moment the governess was silent. She did not know the name of her +pupil, had never heard it all this time; she did not know who to ask +for. Then she laughed, for the Italian woman would not have understood +her in any case. At the sudden lifting of the lowered blue eyes the +maid moved aside. Andria, without waiting, went into the cabin. + +It was full of fresh air from an open port-hole, but in the berth, +heedless of air or sun, lay a huddled figure with its face to the wall. + +Nothing could be seen of the girl but a pale averted cheek, and a wild +mass of dusky hair neither black nor brown. Why did the years roll +back at the sight of that hair, dark and lusterless, a color without a +name? Andria was weary and unstrung, body and soul; she started at the +uncanny, waveless hair. + +“Are you better?” she said, and her voice was oddly troubled. “I hope +you are.” + +“Go away! I don’t want you,” said an angry, stifled voice from the +pillows. + +At the sound of it Andria honestly gasped. Was she dreaming that she +was back in the convent again, or--did she know it? + +With the quick gentleness that was of convent learning, she shut the +door on the waiting stewardess. + +“Beryl!” she cried, under her breath. “Beryl, is it you?” + +The figure in the berth started up, sweeping aside its veil of hair +with a hand and arm as thin as a goblin’s. The strangest yellow eyes +in the world stared from a white face at the intruder. + +“Yes, it’s I,” said the indifferent, insolent voice of long ago. “I +suppose you’re his governess?” + +“Don’t you know me?” Andria was trembling with nameless joy. Could it +be true that her pupil was no stranger, but the child she had loved +long ago? + +“No!” said Beryl Corselas, with the old vacancy in her face. +“Unless----” she paused and looked straight in Andria’s eyes. The +next instant she was out of bed, taller than Andria in her long white +night-dress. “Andria!” she cried; “Andria,” and flung her thin young +arms around the woman in her black Redfern gown. “How did you come +here? Where have you been all this time? Did he find you for me?” + +“I don’t know,” said Andria helplessly. “How are you his ward, and when +did you leave the convent?” She held the girl off and looked at her. + +It was Beryl Corselas, indeed, but the five years that had passed must +have dealt hardly with her to have made her into a girl like this. A +quick pang shot through Andria at the sullen hopelessness of those +yellow-brown eyes. + +“Tell me,” she said quickly, “did you never get my letters? Did Mother +Benedicta never speak of me?” + +“Mother Benedicta died the week you left,” the girl answered simply. +“Sister Felicitas is reverend mother now.” + +“But you--how are you here?” + +The girl told her, leaving out nothing. And if Andria had been +distrustful before, she was frightened now. + +Mr. Egerton, whoever he was, had no right to Beryl Corselas. There was +more in his adoption of her than appeared. Andria saw quite well why he +had dispensed with references in engaging a governess; he did not want +any one with a good character as a trustworthy person. + +“Beryl,” she said slowly, “don’t tell him you know me. Let me tell him +myself.” + +“I never tell him anything. I don’t like him,” she said calmly. “But +doesn’t he know? Didn’t he get you on purpose?” + +“No. He never even told me what your name was. And oh! I----” she +stammered, “my name’s Holbeach now, don’t forget and say Heathcote!” + +“Are you married? And----” she stopped, looking at Andria’s black gown +awkwardly. + +“Don’t!” said Andria sharply. “I’ll tell you by and by,” for some one +had knocked at the door. It was the stewardess, and she pointed to the +open port-hole. + +“We shall be there to-morrow. We are arrived,” she said. The words +Andria did not understand, but the gesture was plain enough, and the +governess looked out of the open port. + +Something like a blue cloud was visible as the yacht rose and fell. +Andria ran on deck. There it stood on the port bow, a high, blue coast, +mountainous against the sunset. As she stood leaning over the rail she +saw Egerton at her elbow. + +“What is that land?” she said quickly. “I did not know we passed any +after Madeira!” + +“Neither we do. This is Bermuda,” he said carelessly. Not a muscle +moved in the governess’ face. No yacht could go from Southampton to +Bermuda in six days; even a big liner could not do it. + +“Already?” she said slowly. + +“The boat is fast,” he answered, but he turned away quite satisfied, +for there had been no hidden meaning in her voice. + +Andria, left alone, never stirred. + +Where this man was taking her and Beryl, or for what mysterious reason, +she did not know; but that high land that towered against the sunset +was certainly not Bermuda. + +The governess’ nerves tightened sharply. + +What could this mystery round Beryl Corselas be? And of what evil was +that lie about Bermuda the beginning? + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE HOUSE BY THE SEA. + + “The chill is in my bones.” + + +Calm water and the stoppage of the engines roused Andria from her first +sleep after a wakeful night. It was daylight, and the sun was shining. +She was on deck as soon as she could dress, but her very hurry made her +take a long time. + +The yacht lay in a small, almost landlocked, bay; the water was +exquisitely blue, shoaling to green where it lapped on a white beach. +A keen, heavy scent of wild orange-blossoms came from the high shores +that looked an impenetrable tangle of thick woods; and behind, dark +against the rose and gold of the morning sky, rose a high mountain, +that cast a long, threatening shadow over the smaller slopes that ran +to its feet. + +Utterly puzzled, Andria stood staring, scarcely even noticing the +warmth of the scented air. She turned as Beryl Corselas came to her +side, pale and half-awake. + +“Is this Bermuda?” she said pettishly. “Thank goodness, for I hate the +sea! But I don’t see the house.” + +“What house?” asked Andria sharply. + +“Mr. Egerton’s, where you and I are to spend the winter with him. +Didn’t you know?” + +Andria was speechless, for the place looked a desert island. + +“Look, there he is now!” she said, with surprise. “He must have been on +shore.” Beryl pointed to one of the yacht’s boats that was pulling off +to them from the white beach. It was certainly Egerton who sat in the +stern. + +“Beryl,” Andria said sharply, “I hate teaching you to be deceitful, but +mind you don’t let him know you’ve ever heard of me before. I don’t +know why, but I don’t trust him!” + +“Neither do I. Yet but for him I might be back with Mother Felicitas.” + +“I know, and I’d be starving. I was very poor when he found me. But +I’ll tell you all that later on.” + +“Not all,” she thought, as she moved from the girl as Egerton reached +the yacht; “just enough. I wonder if I should have told her this isn’t +Bermuda! I don’t see what good it would have done. Whatever it is, we +can’t get away from it or him. There’s something queer, and Beryl’s the +key to it. But I can’t do anything till I find out a little more. I +wonder”--looking at the pale, indifferent face of her charge--“if she +knows more than she pretends. All this may be clear as daylight to her, +for all I know.” + +For sullen reserve was written on the handsome, obstinate face, and +Beryl had always been odd enough. + +“So,” said Egerton lightly, as he joined the governess, “you have been +making friends with your pupil. She is a queer mortal.” + +Andria, looking at him, could hardly repress a start. She saw now what +had been familiar to her in this man’s face. He was as like Beryl +Corselas as middle age can be like youth, except about the mouth. Where +the girl’s was sullen and timid, his was clear-cut, decisive. But the +difference in the eyes was only in color; his were all but black; hers +uncanny, tawny gold, like old wine; the shape of the eye-socket was +exactly similar in both faces. + +A queer compunction came over Andria. Perhaps the man was Beryl’s +father! That would explain almost everything--except that senseless lie +about Bermuda. + +“We have made friends, yes,” she said slowly. “Miss Corselas tells me +we are to stay here?” + +He nodded, and watched her as she looked all round the tree-covered +hills, where no houses were to be seen. + +“You don’t see anywhere to live? My house is up there, a short distance +from the shore,” said Egerton, pointing directly in front of him. “I +have just been there to see that the servants were prepared; we are +going on shore to breakfast. Please don’t turn pale, we will have some +coffee before we go.” + +As in a dream, Andria Holbeach--who had so short a time since been +Andria Erle in a very different place, but with no better right--found +herself being put on shore like cargo. There seemed no need for such +haste, and she saw with wonder how quickly the sailors were getting out +of the boats not only her own and Beryl’s boxes, but packing-cases of +stores. But she had little time to watch them. The instant Mr. Egerton +set foot on the firm, white sand, he led the way up a narrow path that +could not be seen from the yacht. + +“After me, please, Miss Holbeach,” he said, with a total change of +manner. “And look out for the llanos.” + +What llanos were she did not know, but she soon saw. Great ropes of +some vine were thick across the neglected path, a very trap for unwary +feet. Sharp edges of uneven rock cut her boots as she hurried after +Egerton. The man, for his age, was getting over the ground marvelously. + +High on each side of the path were wild orange-trees, pinky-white with +blossoms and headily sweet. Scarlet hibiscus flaunted great flowers the +size of her two hands; lilies sprang everywhere on the lower ground; +pink and white heaths showered her with their tiny petals as she +brushed past thickets of them. + +“I can’t walk so fast,” said Beryl from behind her. “Tell him to wait.” + +Egerton looked round. + +“It is not a good place to loiter in, this low ground,” he observed; +“the scents are heady in the early morning.” + +Andria, to her surprise, saw that his hurry was not put on; he was +glancing round him with real apprehension. And what could there be to +fear in a paradise of flowers like this? + +“Do you mean there is fever here?” she asked, catching up to him. + +“No,” he answered shortly; “merely what I said. The flowers give one +headache; the place is overgrown with them.” + +It was to a certainty. Blossoms she had never heard of dangled +sweet-scented tassels in her face; the soft, warm air was like a +greenhouse. But she had no time to look as Egerton hurried on. The +path, at times, was but a thread; she had to help Beryl over rocks and +through thickets, for her head was still dizzy from the voyage. And +all the while the anxiety on their guide’s face was plain; it shook +Andria’s nerves in spite of herself. + +Suddenly the rough path ended among great rocks, higher than a man’s +head. Egerton led the way through them, and they emerged suddenly on an +open space of coarse turf, with great trees scattered over it. Hot and +breathless as she was, Andria saw that the apprehension was gone from +Egerton’s face; whatever their danger had been, it was past. + +“There is the house,” he said; and as they went slowly across the dewy +grass an exclamation broke from her. + +She had expected a low wooden bungalow. The house that they came on +from behind a screen of trees was fit for a palace. + +High and white it stood in the morning sun, built of creamy stone; all +porticos and shady verandas. Green jalousies shaded the balconies, +and behind the great pile the ground sloped upward, so that it stood +against a background of flowering trees. + +Yet something in the look of the place filled Andria with terror. She, +who feared nothing since she had nothing left to dread, felt her blood +turn cold. The house looked evil; evil and wickedness lurked in it as +in a nightmare; the orange and scarlet creepers that decked the lower +verandas flaunted like sins in the morning sun. + +As she went up the broad, white steps and crossed the threshold into +the hall, a shudder of unutterable fear took her. And yet there was +nothing but luxury in the room she entered. She looked at Beryl. There +was only weariness in the girl’s face as she sat down in the first +chair she came to and looked listlessly about her. + +An empty vestibule had led into a large room, lined, floored, and +ceiled with polished wood. Gorgeous rugs, gorgeous silk cushions +covered the plainness of the wickerwork furniture; tastelessly arranged +flowers were everywhere, and even a piano stood against the wall. + +Egerton, his face as calm and matter-of-fact as if he had never hurried +them up that narrow path like a man in dread, pulled an old-fashioned +bell-rope; a colored woman in spotless white stood in the doorway +before the sound of the bell had ceased. + +“Breakfast waiting, sir,” she said, gazing at the two strange ladies +curiously. + +He nodded. + +“Here is your new mistress, Salome,” he said, turning to Andria. “Mind +you take care of her and this young lady.” + +“For de Lawd’s sake, sir,” said Salome, “dat’s certain. Don’t I +always----” + +Andria, behind Egerton’s back, knew that his eye had cut the woman +short. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +TWO WARNINGS. + + +All through breakfast she sat like a woman whose every perception +is sharpened by fear. The very ordinariness of that meal, served +faultlessly by Salome and another colored woman, only seemed to make +her more curiously fearful. The lie about Bermuda, the breathless hurry +up the path, the sudden relaxing of the vigilance in Egerton’s eyes as +they came out on open ground, were all parts of a puzzle she could not +fit together. She sat ready for anything as she ate mechanically; but +even she was not prepared for what was coming next. + +From her seat at the table she had heard the voices of the sailors as +they brought up the endless boxes, heard the thump with which each one +was deposited in some back veranda--for solid as the house looked, +inside it resembled a whispering gallery. A colored woman came in and +told Egerton the things had come. Should the men go? + +He rose hastily, and said something from the veranda to the waiting +sailors before he turned to the maid. + +“Give them breakfast,” he said shortly, “and then we’ll be off!” + +We! Even Beryl looked at him, though so far nothing in this strange +place had seemed to rouse her from a dull apathy. + +“Yes,” Egerton said quietly, “I’m going, too. I shall leave you two +ladies in Salome’s charge. I may be gone a month or six weeks. I have +some business. But you will be quite comfortable here; it is certainly +quiet;” and he laughed in that harsh cackle that was so out of +character with his polished voice and manner. The sound of it grated on +Andria’s nerves. + +“But what,” she began, “I mean, is there no one in the +neighborhood--are we alone on this island? What shall I do if Miss +Corselas is ill?” She was so confounded she could scarcely speak. + +“Salome can look after her. She has all sorts of medicines,” he +returned. “Neighbors? No, you have none. You need fear no interruptions +in either your work or play.” + +“But I thought there were any amount of people in Bermuda!” Beryl had +lifted her head and was staring at him with those strange, tawny eyes. + +“Bermuda is a big place,” he said, with a slow smile. “You won’t see +many people, and I shall come back as soon as I can----” He turned +suddenly to Andria, who sat pale and motionless, certain that his +coming back would be a long time in arriving. “My leaving you is +unavoidable,” he said, as if he knew her thoughts, “and also for the +best. You will learn to know each other better without a third person. +You may go about as you like, but I may as well tell you that most of +the country behind the house is impenetrable scrub, but quite safe if +you care to try it.” And it seemed as if his harsh laugh broke out +against his will, so quickly did he check it. + +“The only things I warn you not to do,” he went on, “are to go out +at night, and to go up and down to the shore by that short cut we +used this morning. You might easily hurt yourselves there; slip on +the rocks, trip on the vines; a hundred things. And Salome will show +you a better road when you wish to bathe or sit by the sea. But above +everything”--and he lifted his hand impressively, and Andria stared as +if she were fascinated where she sat--“do not stay out after sundown, +and never, never stir one step outside after dark.” + +There was something in his voice that carried warning and conviction. + +“If you take my advice,” he continued, a shade less earnestly, “you +will not even walk on the upper verandas after nightfall. The lower one +you must never think of but by daylight. The air is health itself in +the day, but at night it gives fever. You understand?” + +“Quite,” said Andria, whiter than a sheet of paper. “Quite.” + +“Then I will bid you good-by. It will be no time before you see me +again. The days slip by here, you will find.” + +He opened the door for them to leave the room, and shook hands with +studied courtesy as they passed. + +The governess never looked at him; she was quivering with rage. + +Beryl was so like him that she might easily be his daughter, and he +was leaving her here with a woman of whom he knew less than nothing, +whom he had chosen because she had absolutely no qualifications. And +leaving her, too, in a place he owned was fever-haunted. If it had been +in Andria’s power she would have knocked him down, and taken Beryl at a +run to the boat. But, even if she did this, it would avail her nothing. + +Beryl was tired out, and one of the colored women showed her to her +room. + +Andria remained in the dining-room, absorbed in her reflections. + +Suddenly she heard the sound of voices on the veranda without. She went +to the window, and, screened by the jalousy, saw Egerton and Salome. + +“So you haven’t seen anything of him lately?” Egerton was saying. + +“No,” answered Salome; “not a hoof of him been round here since summer. +Dey won’t be no more accidents dis time. He’s gone, and--dey’s gone, +too.” + +“Well! that’s good news,” he said slowly; and why did she think there +was disappointment in his voice? + +“But don’t let those two ladies go out after dark, all the same! +There’s fever; remember that!” + +“Might as well kill ’em as scare ’em to death,” said the woman +shrewdly. “But I’ll lock up every night same as always. Dat nigh shook +me into my grave, dat last trouble.” + +“See, then, that there’s no more,” he said sternly. “You’re responsible +for them till I come back. And I’ll have no talking to them, mind +that. You can’t afford to know anything about accidents, and I suppose +neither of the others know anything to tell.” + +“Not one of ’em.” Her voice shook as if at some horrible memory. “You +think I tell what I find, and bury? Nobody knows nothing ’bout dis +nigger----” + +“But me,” said Egerton slowly. “And what is done here you are +responsible for, and you know it.” + +She had good reason to. She broke out into a flood of protestations +that he cut short; and while the listener stood trying to make sense of +them she heard the man’s soft, quick footfall leaving the veranda. + +She had no mind to speak to him now. She knew there would be no +satisfaction from him; nothing but smooth lies. Before she could move +she heard Salome speaking to herself where Egerton had left her. + +“‘Take care o’ dem ladies,’ he says,” she broke out in a kind of wail. +“‘You’s ’sponsible.’ But who’s going to take care of me, an’ Chloe, an’ +Amelia Jane? Nothin’ but our own black skins. Praise de Lawd dis day +dat I ain’t white!” + +She shuffled off, and Andria went up-stairs, pale and half-distraught. +What sixth sense made her sure that all this show of warning, of +caution, only covered something that was meant to happen. + +“You’re responsible,” he had said to Salome, and a horrible conviction +was cold at Andria’s heart. If anything dreadful overtook her and +Beryl, Egerton would have washed his hands of it. He had warned them +and their keeper! + +Sick with apprehension, Andria almost ran against Amelia Jane, waiting, +stout and attentive, on the landing. + +“You looks terrible tuckered out, missus,” she said respectfully. “Best +lie down and rest.” + +Andria nodded; and then spoke on a sudden impulse. + +“Is this place Bermuda?” she said. + +“Law’s sake, missus, certain it is! Didn’t you know dat?” the colored +woman said emphatically. + +“No,” said Andria slowly, walking past her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE HAUNTING EYES. + + +Beryl Corselas, wearied out, had slept from ten in the morning till +late afternoon. + +Now, as she sat in the drawing-room with the western sun pouring +through the open doorway, she looked a different girl; one whom Egerton +would scarcely have known. + +Her dusky hair was dressed like Andria’s, her golden-tawny eyes shone +serene in her pale face; even the crimson of her lips was brighter. +For the first time in all her miserable young life she was happy. As +a child, she had worshiped Andria Heathcote, and to be alone with the +only human being she had never feared or deceived was rapture to her; +even in this lonely island, with not a creature but themselves and the +black servants. The drawing-room looked wonderfully homelike, with its +open piano and comfortable tea-table, to the two who were so strangely +met after five years. + +“Andria,” Beryl said, drawing a long breath and clasping her thin young +arms round her knees, “why are you so quiet? Why aren’t you like me, +ready to dance because you’re free? Free--but you can’t know what it is +to me!” + +“‘Free among the dead,’” quoted the elder woman softly under her +breath, but Beryl’s ears were good. + +“What do you mean?”--looking up from her low seat with eyes like wells +of golden light. + +Andria rose, and opened the two doors of the room. There was not a soul +in sight, and from somewhere she could hear the servants talking over +their tea. + +“Beryl, how brave are you?” She had shut the doors softly and come very +close, so that her voice was but a whisper. + +“I don’t know!” said Beryl, startled. “Rough words--Mother +Felicitas--always made me a coward. But there are neither here.” + +“There’s something. I don’t know what. Listen”--Andria’s voice was +suddenly protecting, motherly--“and don’t speak loud! You heard Mr. +Egerton warn us not to go out after dark on the verandas, or use that +path. Well, there is some reason, I can’t tell what. I heard him +talking to Salome, and I know the place isn’t safe. And he knew it when +he brought us here.” + +“He only said we’d get fever if we went out after sunset. If he wanted +us to, he wouldn’t have warned us,” said Beryl sensibly. + +“I know! But----” The shrewd reason of Salome’s “might as well kill ’em +as scare ’em to death” came back to her. She must not fill the girl +with fear like her own--only she wished she had not overheard that talk +about accidents! She began to walk up and down the room restlessly. + +“I can’t see why he brought us here!” she cried, but guardedly. “What +reason could he have? Think, Beryl, why do you imagine he ever took you +away from that Fuller woman? What did he say?” + +“Nothing; but that she was too poor to be able to afford to be kind.” + +“Do you think he knows anything about you--is anything to you?” + +“No, but kind as he has been, I can’t like him.” + +“Why did he pretend to bring us to Bermuda, and leave us in a place +like this? That is what puzzles me. I would think he knew something of +you; wanted to hide you away safely, if----” she broke off. It was no +use to say “if I didn’t feel that this was a dangerous place, and that +he deceives us about it because he didn’t want us even to know where he +had taken us.” + +“What do you mean?” said Beryl, staring. “Isn’t this Bermuda?” + +Andria laughed as Beryl’s Andria had not known how. + +“No!” she returned contemptuously. “Bermuda is a lot of small islands; +small and low, not high like this. And it’s full of people--an English +garrison and American visitors. I knew a man who went there.” + +Beryl’s eyes dilated like a cat’s. + +“Then what’s this?” she whispered. + +“I don’t know,” answered Andria, shrugging her shoulders. “I haven’t +enough geography.” + +“Andria, you don’t believe he means to leave us here or murder us,” +said Beryl, with a queer calmness. + +“The first, perhaps! Not the last, or he wouldn’t have told Salome to +take care of us.” + +“Did he?” + +Andria nodded. There was no need to say she was sure he had not meant +it. + +“But there’s nothing to take care of us from!” continued Beryl +ungrammatically. + +“He said there was. Oh, Beryl! I think and think, and I can’t see +daylight. Why he brought us, why he lied to us; what it all means! +He never saw me in his life, nor heard of me, so it must be on your +account. No one in the convent ever knew who you were except Mother +Felicitas----” + +“Did she?” asked Beryl sharply. + +“Yes. But never mind her now, I only guessed that she knew. Think if +you can remember anything before you ever came to the nuns.” + +Beryl shook her head hopelessly. + +“I’ve often tried. I can’t remember one thing but a woman who used to +hold me so tight and hard against her that I cried. It seemed to be in +a room with a queer violet light in it--but it may be just a dream!” + +“It’s no more useful.” Andria walked to the open door and stood +watching the sun dip into the bay they had reached that morning; it lay +empty now, blank, rose, and opal under a gorgeous sky, but she was not +thinking of it. She was no girl like Beryl, but a woman, with a woman’s +sense of responsibility. Beryl was her charge, she would take care of +her--but how? That queer, blank feeling of thoughts that would not come +overpowered her as it had the day she had learned she was not Andria +Erle, but only Andria Heathcote, dishonored and deserted. A soft, heavy +step made her start. + +“’Scuse me, missus,” said Salome civilly, “but it’s mighty nigh +sundown, and I got to lock up dis place.” + +“Lock up now!” Andria’s gentle voice was even, as usual. “Why, Salome?” + +“It’s dark here, missus, de minute after de sun drops. I always does +like dis;” and she moved from jalousy to jalousy, round the long +veranda, drawing down and bolting each stout wooden shutter with easy +strength. + +To the remonstrance of the new mistress she paid no more attention than +to a child’s; and, in truth, Andria could not wish it. Since there was +some danger, somewhere, by all means let Salome bar it out! But she +meant to discover and fight it openly before long. + +As the black woman barred the front door, Andria noticed how strong it +was, and how heavy. Was it to shut in--or to shut out--that the bolts +were so big! + +“Where do you sleep, Salome?” she asked suddenly. + +“In de quarters behind de kitchen.” + +“Out of the house, do you mean?” she asked, with an uncontrollable +start. + +“Yes, missus, after de ladies’ dinner, at half-past seven, Chloe an’ me +an’ Amelia Jane goes to our own house.” + +“But we can’t stay all alone, Salome! If we wanted anything in the +night----” said Andria, aghast now in good earnest. + +“De ladies ring de bell,” returned the woman anxiously. “Dat’s de only +way.” + +“May I come and see? I’d like to.” + +Salome chuckled. She led the way through what seemed half a mile of +empty rooms and disused pantries into the kitchen; from its barred and +grated window Andria saw a paved courtyard, with a high wall on two +sides, on the third a stone house. + +“Oh, you’re not far! I could run to you.” + +“Please don’t, missus! Ring de bell; we’ll do de running,” said Salome +anxiously. + +“Then you’re not afraid to cross the courtyard in the dark?” she asked, +with sudden quickness. + +Salome looked nervously at the courtyard wall. + +“No, missus,” she answered. “Colored people ain’t got time to be +frightened o’ de dark.” + +Andria remembered what the woman had said about her black skin +protecting her. What could she have meant? + +By the time she was back in the drawing-room again she saw Salome had +been right about the darkness. It had dropped on the world like a +curtain the instant the sun vanished. + +There were no blinds to the windows, and in the lamplight after dinner +the dark squares of them were like blind eyes. As the two lonely girls +sat talking, each, without telling the other, felt a growing dislike to +those black windows, through which the darkness of the shut-up veranda +showed like a solid wall. By degrees a curious quietude fell on the +two. How silent the house was, and how silent the night outside. + +“Andria,” said Beryl softly, “have the servants gone to their funny +little house? Who puts out these lights?” + +“I do. We leave the hall lights burning, Salome said.” + +Beryl gave a sudden shiver. + +“Let’s go to bed! I don’t like it here in this room.” + +“Don’t you? Why?” + +The girl, with an infinitesimal movement of her finger, pointed to the +unblinded windows. + +“Those!” she whispered. “I feel as if some one were looking in.” + +So did Andria. A dreadful feeling that they were watched had come on +her as they talked. Brave as she was, she would have given a good deal +to have had her back to the wall instead of those windows, that might +suddenly splinter and crash in. + +“That’s nonsense!” she said, more to herself than Beryl. “The jalousies +are shut; no one could see in.” + +“They could--through the slats!” + +“You goose, there isn’t any one within miles!” If Andria’s quick laugh +jarred a little, Beryl did not notice it as the elder girl extinguished +the lamps. + +“Come along to bed--you’re getting nervous,” she commanded; and +purposely blundered against a chair in the dark. + +Once in her own room she put out the light there, and knelt by the +shut jalousies of the veranda--listening. She had heard something +down-stairs; had laughed that Beryl might not hear it, too. Now, in the +hush of the veiled moonlight, she heard it still. + +Some one was below her, in the garden, going round and round the house +with a fevered eagerness, almost running. Holding her breath, she heard +those quick, quick steps, and her blood grew chill. + +Who could be there? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE PATTERING FOOTSTEPS. + + +In a less lonely place the governess would have thought nothing of +those footsteps, but here she had been expressly told two things--there +were no neighbors and there was danger abroad at night. + +“I wonder if I dare!” she thought, and peered through the slats of +the jalousy. The moon was on the other side of the house; she could +see that much, for this side was in deep shadow. No one below could +possibly see if a jalousy were pushed out an inch or not. She unbolted +the smallest division of the heavy hanging shutters, and noiselessly +pushed it outward as far as she dared. + +All she could see was the strip of garden and shrubbery directly +beneath her; darkly shadowed as it was she could not tell if there was +any one there. + +“The night is dreadful in this place--dreadful!” she thought. “There +might be devils behind every bush. The very moonlight is not like the +good, clear light I know. Mr. Egerton need not have warned me not to go +out--nothing would take me into those dreadful shadows, that veiled, +honey-colored light.” + +The heavy jalousy tired her wrist, in another minute she must let +it go, and so far had learned nothing. She had known down in the +drawing-room that some person or thing was outside. Nothing moved now +in the stirless garden--those strangely light, quick steps had ceased. +But out of the quiet another sound and a nearer smote on her senses, a +creaking as of wood rubbing on wood. + +Her aching wrist forgotten, she peered through the crack, and with +horror, for the creepers were swaying below her. + +Some one was climbing up! + +Somehow, she shut the jalousy, bolted it and got back into her room. +Something noiseless, light, a darker shadow against the dark, clung +for an instant to the very shutter she had just closed, clung and was +gone. She heard the quick slither of it as it went down the creepers, +but whether it had been man or beast she could not tell. + +Her terror had taken her to the opposite wall of the room, that she +might at least have something solid behind her back, and for a long +minute she stood there, sick with the horror of the thing. + +Yet as she stood there, trembling-kneed, her heart grew strangely +light; she felt suddenly uplifted, happy, in the midst of she knew not +what mysterious dangers. Here was the chance to do as Mother Benedicta, +that saint on earth, had bidden her long ago. To fight Beryl’s battles +bravely, and in doing it rub out, perhaps, those years that had been so +evil. For evil they had been; she had never been sure as she pretended +that Raimond Erle and she were man and wife. She had snatched at +happiness, had cared little if that happiness were a sin, and now---- + +“I have my chance to blot it out,” she said to herself deliberately. +“I’ll save the child if I have to die for her. Perhaps Mother +Benedicta’s saints won’t shut me out of heaven then.” + +The hope that had never yet left her, that Raimond Erle might some day +come back to her, ceased suddenly, as her thoughts of revenging herself +died in the new hope that came over her. + +“I’ll never see him again,” she thought, little knowing, “and I’ll +beat Mr. Egerton yet! A better woman would have been a far more easily +managed governess. One like me knows too much. For I’m sure--sure that +he brought that girl here to put her out of the way, and his warnings +to Salome and me were nothing but a blind.” + +The danger she was in made her almost gay. + +Quite boldly she stepped out on the veranda and looked through those +shutters where that strange, hunting thing had scented her. + +What was it? It had looked, with its spread-eagle arms and legs, like +an ape. She would find out in the morning if there were such things +here. Then she shuddered, with a quailing at even her cold heart. + +Salome had thanked Heaven she was black! + +Then the thing, whatever it was, only attacked white people. Could it +be some dreadful, half-crazy black man, run wild in the woods? + +“I can’t get a pistol,” mused Andria dryly, “but I can get a knife!” +and she went quietly in to bed. The thing, whatever it was, was gone. + + * * * * * + +Bright and early she woke to a new day. + +Amelia Jane, with a tea-tray, stood by her bed, and Andria, after a +dazed instant, remembered where she was, and saw, too, that Amelia +Jane looked tired. She was the youngest of the colored women and the +stupidest, and she stared as she answered Andria’s good morning. + +Fully dressed, she had lain down on her bed, her only toilet for the +night having been to take out the pins from the great circle of ruddy +hair that hung round her in a glorious mass. Under the servant’s +wondering eyes, she laughed. + +“I must have fallen asleep,” she said. “Don’t tell any one, Amelia.” + +“You wasn’t awake late, was you?” the woman returned curiously. + +“I don’t know. I thought I heard footsteps, Amelia, last night!” + +Amelia Jane put down her tray. + +“Don’t speak of ’em--they isn’t lucky!” she said. “They’s haunts, miss.” + +“Do you mean ghosts?” + +“Jus’ ghosts. My soul! I slep’ here in this house once. I heard them +steps all night. Hurry, hurry--hunt, hunt--but I never see nothin’. +Bermuda’s haunted, I tell you so.” + +“Is the house called Bermuda?” asked Andria quickly. + +“Yas’m. And if it isn’t haunted, why is it that they’s no footsteps +heard out’n the quarters? Only in the big house.” + +So the house was called Bermuda! + +That was what Amelia had meant on the stairs. + +Andria’s heart lightened a little, for at least it showed the servants +were not in league with Egerton to deceive her. + +“Nobody ever sees the ‘haunt,’ do they?” she asked. + +“No’m! Sometimes ’taint here at all. Salome she say it’s nonsense--but +I don’t hear it. An’ yet it ain’t never amounted to nothing, only jus’ +noises.” + +“Are there monkeys here, Amelia?” + +Amelia Jane laughed till she had to cover her face with her apron. + +“Monkeys! No’m. I been here three years, an’ I never hear tell of no +monkeys. There ain’t no beasts ’tall. When you’ve had you bath’m kin +I brush out your hair? It’s tangled till if you piroots round in it +you’ll tear it out.” + +Andria thanked her, her heart warming to the kindly voice. But when her +toilet was done and she stood, fresh and fair, in front of the glass, +some one knocked at the door. It was Salome, and her fat face was +anxious. + +“Morning, missus,” she said hastily. “I come to tell you little miss +must habe gone out. I can’t see her nowhere.” + +“Out! Alone?” Andria gasped, “Oh, Salome! Which way? Not down that +path?” + +“You clear out and look down de road, ‘Melia Jane!” commanded the +housekeeper, and stopped Andria, as she would have followed. + +“Don’t you say nothin’ of dat path to ‘Melia Jane,” she whispered. +“She’d be faint-hearted of de place ef she got skeered. But run, +missus, do; and get little miss. She didn’t know no other way to go.” + +“Then you heard--last night!” cried Andria, almost running through the +house, Salome at her heels. + +“Heard what? Dey ain’t nothin’ to hear. Don’t you listen to tales from +‘Melia Jane ’bout haunts. Dey’s fever in dat path, dat’s all,” said the +woman, lying obstinately. + +Andria shot out of the house like an arrow from a bow. + +Down that uncanny path, with its hot, strong scents and gaudy flowers, +she ran as she had never thought she could run; her skirts caught to +her knees, she leaped and stumbled and slid over the tangled vines and +sharp rocks. Suddenly a gleam of white caught her eyes, and between two +high rocks she saw Beryl, kneeling over something on the ground. + +“Beryl,” she screamed, hoarse with fear and anger at the girl’s +disobedience; “Beryl, why did you come here? Come home!” + +“Hush!” said the girl softly, turning her head, “I’m all right! Come +here quietly and see what I’ve found. Such a darling kitten!” + +Andria, her pulses thumping and her breath gone, caught back an angry +word. What did the child mean? She had noticed last evening that Salome +had no dogs or cats. And then her heart contracted. + +On the ground beside Beryl, playing with her hand, was a small cat--all +marked with curious black rings on its yellow-white coat. + +But it was no cat. Its face was square, its eyes wild, as it stopped +its play at the sight of a second person. Beryl, her own strange eyes +intent and masterful, began to stroke it with soft, strong fingers. + +“Pussy, pussy--little, little cat!” she whispered in the thing’s small +ear; and as if it knew her it lay on its back and patted her with +velvet paws. + +What she had seen in the night came back to the governess. Had it been +a full-grown thing like this that had smelled her out on the upper +veranda? Trembling, she stepped to the girl’s side. + +“Beryl, put it down! Come home,” she begged, for orders, when the +girl’s face was absent and obstinate, were useless. “It may have its +mother somewhere, you don’t know! Come home.” + +“She wouldn’t hurt me!” said Beryl, and for a moment those strange, +yellow eyes met Andria’s, not so unlike the eyes of the queer, wild +kitten. + +“No, but she might me,” said Andria quietly, as a forlorn hope. + +Beryl turned pale. + +“Oh, Andria, forgive me!” she cried. “I forgot. There, little cat, run +home! Or shall I take it with us and feed it?” + +“No, no! Oh, come away!” with a wild horror she thought of being +followed up the path by a prowling thing like she had seen the night +before. Almost she stamped her foot as Beryl lingered, kissing her +new-found toy. Instead of scratching, it purred and rubbed its head +against her, and Andria knew that if she had touched it the thing would +have clawed her eyes out. Her heartbeats, which had shaken her from +breathlessness, shook her now with terror. Who could tell what moment +death might not be on them? + +But Beryl, putting down the kitten very gently, slipped her arm through +Andria’s with quick compunction. + +“Come along,” she said sweetly. “I’d forgotten this was a bad place and +we weren’t to come here. Run home, little cat! See, Andria, it will +follow us!” + +“Yes,” said Andria, with stiff lips. “It won’t come far, I fancy.” She +pushed Beryl in front of her so that if more than the kitten should +follow the girl would have a chance to run, and found herself glancing +every which way just as Egerton had done the morning before. To her +despair Beryl turned suddenly off the path. + +“Look!” she cried, “here’s the kitten again! It’s caught up with us. +And here’s the dearest little pond, Andria!” She did not believe for +one second in that fairy-tale of the kitten’s mother. “See it--all +white sand, and so clear.” + +Andria was utterly furious. + +“Beryl, please come! I’m so hungry,” she said. “I believe you want me +to get fever.” + +“How can you!” said Beryl. “You poor dear, I’ll come now.” + +And she did, hurrying with easy steps up the stony path. The kitten +stayed behind, and that terrified Andria anew. She turned to follow +Beryl, and her foot slipped. For a moment she fell on her knees, faint +with pain; her face bent over the still water of the little pond that +mirrored her clearly. The next second her heart seemed to die in her. +There was more than her own face reflected in the water. Over her +shoulder, leering, mouthing as if it jabbered at her, was a second +face, so wild and dreadful that her throat grew shut and dry with fear. +With her newborn instinct of facing an enemy, she wrenched herself +round on her knees and scrambled to her feet. + +The space behind her was utterly empty! Even the wild kitten was gone. + +Not a rustle, a moving leaf, stirred the gorgeous shrubs anywhere, +and yet she knew some one had vanished into them but now. That face +that had leered at her from the water mirror had been no dream, but a +dreadful reality. + +“Reflection can’t lie,” she thought. “And I saw it face to face with +me.” She could scarcely move as she realized how close it must have +been to her to have peered over her very shoulder. + +“Beryl!” She suddenly remembered the girl she had sworn to herself to +take care of, and forgot her turned ankle as she raced after her. At +the end of the path she almost sobbed with joy. There stood Beryl, +fresh and lovely in the sunshine that flooded the open turfed lawns. +Her face was quite careless and untroubled. + +“I won’t tell her,” Andria thought swiftly. “She’s seen nothing.” But +even there in the open ground she made her charge walk in front of her +all the way to the house, for fear of what might yet be behind them. + +Salome stood waiting at the door, and turned away as she saw them. + +“What on earth’s the matter with Salome?” Beryl said, laughing. +“Andria, she was truly pale! She was gray!” + +But Andria said nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE EYES OUTSIDE THE JALOUSY. + + +The weather changed that afternoon. A high, hot wind blew from the +southwest under a gray sky; the sea thundered on the beach below the +house; and as Beryl looked out listlessly, rainlike waterspouts came +thrashing down. + +“Hateful!” she said pettishly. “I was going out.” Andria, whose bruised +foot ached, began to laugh. + +“You needn’t laugh! If you do I’ll go still,” she said, with babyish +wilfulness. + +“It wasn’t that,” said the so-called governess; “it’s only this--do you +know that we were supposed to do lessons, and there isn’t a sign of a +book in the house! Not even a novel. Amelia Jane has half a Bible, and +she says that’s the only book there is.” + +“I believe he’s just stuck us here to mold away and die,” returned +Beryl quite calmly. “He didn’t care whether I learned anything or not, +in spite of his grandfatherly ways. But I’m not going to mold or die +either. I like the place!” she continued coolly. “I hope he’ll never +come back.” + +“You won’t like it long,” muttered Andria to herself. “You won’t have a +chance,” for her adventures were heavy on her mind, and it took all her +will not to pour them out to this careless listener. + +“I like it out, I mean! I didn’t like it indoors much.” Beryl went on, +blessedly ignorant of the thoughts in her companion’s mind. “That’s +rather funny about the books, but I don’t care. I wouldn’t do any more +lessons if we’d a library. All I want to do is to lie under the trees +and be lazy.” + +“You need it, you poor baby,” said Andria pitifully. For tall and +strong as the girl was, she was too thin, and the lovely outline of +her pale, warm cheeks too hollow. But in Andria’s mind was that there +would be few days to be out of doors in sun or shade; if things went +on as now this house would not be their prison alone--their only safety +would be inside its stout stone walls. + +“Hurrah, here comes tea!” cried Beryl gaily. “Salome, I haven’t +anything to do, and it’s raining. Couldn’t Amelia Jane go out and look +for my cat?” + +The tray clattered on the table. Salome had all but dropped it. + +“Cat?” she said. “Cat! Dey ain’t no cats here. For the land’s sake, +Miss Ber’l, what you mean?” + +“Just what I said,” answered Beryl provokingly. “Why? Don’t you like +cats, Salome?” + +Salome opened her eyes till they looked all whites. + +“Dey ain’t none on de island,” she persisted obstinately. “What you +mean? You didn’t bring no cat. I didn’t see none.” + +“I did, then, and I didn’t bring it either,” said Beryl, with a +cheerful laugh. “The dearest little cat, Salome! I found it on the path +on the shore this morning--all yellow with black spots.” + +“My gracious sakes, little miss!” said the woman slowly, and Andria saw +she was holding herself hard. “Don’t you come and tell ole Salome dem +tales.” + +“She did find a cat, Salome!” Andria interrupted. “I saw it, too. But +it wasn’t like a common cat. I think it was a wild one. Why didn’t you +tell me there were wildcats?” + +The woman drew her breath so sharply that it was all but a sob. + +“Dey ain’t--no wildcats!” she returned faintly. + +“I told you so, Andria,” Beryl stuck in gaily, helping herself to tea. +“I knew it was tame! It was so soft, and had such sweet fur.” + +“You didn’t go for to touch it?” and almost fiercely Salome turned to +the girl. + +“Why not, if it was only a dream-cat, like you say?” said Beryl, with +that goblin look in her queer face. “Salome, you silly woman, of course +I did! I played with it for ages.” + +“An’ you never seen nothin’ else? Nothin’ ’tall?” she insisted, her big +chest heaving. + +“No, of course not. Andria said its mother might come and eat us, but +she didn’t.” + +Andria’s eyes, full of meaning, caught Salome’s from behind Beryl’s +shoulder. The colored woman read them like print. If one had not seen, +the other had--and been silent. For an instant the black woman looked +rebelliously at the white. If the new red-haired mistress meant there +should be accidents Salome would have no hand in them. She moved, stiff +with angry suspicion, to the front door. + +“Guess I’ll lock up now,” she muttered. “Don’t want none o’ dem cats in +my kitchen.” + +“Salome, don’t shut up!” Beryl cried, running to the nearest window. +“My cat may be out there; wait till I look. I’m going to bring the poor +thing in out of the rain if it’s there.” + +She stared out into the blinding white mist of wild and streaming rain. +It was impossible to see through it if there had been fifty cats; +against it there was almost no difference in color between the gray +tree-trunks and the green leaves, so blanched was the world. Suddenly +lightning passed before her eyes, short, white, and vicious through the +pearl-white rain, like a striking sword. After it thunder that shook +the very earth. Under cover of the deafening peal of it Andria spoke in +Salome’s ear. + +“Don’t tell her, don’t frighten her,” she whispered. “You and I must +take care of her. Oh, Salome, I saw something!” + +The woman’s face changed as if by magic. “I was suspicioning you,” she +said, banging the door. “I don’t fancy dis place an’ dat’s a fact. But +if you don’t, neither, I guess we’ll get over dem--all o’ dem,” she +laughed savagely, but Andria caught at her black hand as at the hand of +a friend. “I trust you, Salome!” she breathed. + +“Fo’ the Lawd, you kin,” said the woman shortly. “But dey ain’t no time +now. You wait, missus, till to-night.” + +“Oh!” shrieked Beryl. “There’s my cat. I saw it. It’s looking for me. +I’ll get it.” + +Salome, with a bound that was ludicrous in a stout person who shook as +she walked, caught the girl half out of the window. “Does you want to +get killed by dat lightning?” she cried authoritatively. “I tell you +dey ain’t no playing wid de sword of de Lawd in dis country. See dat!” +she cried sharply. + +A tall tree was struck as she spoke, and the thunder drowned the fall +of it, as the rain quenched its smoking limbs. “Dey ain’t no cats worf +frizzling for, I tell you.” + +To Andria’s surprise Beryl turned obediently from the window. Salome, +with feverish haste, shut up her fortress and lit the lamps. + +“Dey’ll be good men drowned in dat wind,” she said soberly. “You pray +for dem, Miss Ber’l, instead o’ chasing after no cats.” + +A sudden heavy gust against the house corroborated her. The wind would +be a hurricane by and by. In the noise of it the woman muttered to +herself despairingly. “She see dat cat in daylight--broad daylight. +Oh! my soul--and dey’ll be wind to-night. I dunno what I’m gwine do. +I daresn’t tell ’em; he’d murder me just like dat if I did. I got to +piroot some way out of it.” And she shook her head meaningly as Andria +would have followed her from the room. + +Chloe and Amelia Jane waited at dinner. Salome was absent doing other +things. Strange things enough in that lonely place, far from towns and +tramps. The woman was strong as a man, and she worked feverishly at +her self-appointed task; piled packing-cases before the doors opening +on the lower veranda, put heaps of some strange-smelling, dried herb +on the verandas themselves. The top ones she never thought of, knowing +nothing of Andria’s vision the night before. When she had finished her +poor precautions she regarded them doubtfully enough. + +“Broad daylight, and I’d been sure dey was clean gone,” she groaned. +“And here it’s night, and de wind risin’. Pray dey’s grit in ole +Salome yet! But I ain’t knowing just what to do. Dey tells me +red-haired white women is liars, and how do I know ’bout dis one! She +kin trust me sure enough, but I ain’t trying no speriments on her.” + +Yet that very wind that was racking Salome’s nerves had set Andria’s +at rest. There could be no prowling spies on a night like this; not +even that strange being, whose leering, mocking face she scarcely dared +remember, could be abroad in such a storm. The face had been barely +human; animal greed and hatred had been in it, hungry fierceness in its +glittering eyes as it grinned at her. She longed to go and pour out her +story to Salome, but when she looked into the kitchen all was darkness. + +“Salome needn’t have deserted us!” she thought, like a hurt child, and +then resolutely banished all fear of their great loneliness in the +inclemency of the night. + +“Look out!” cried Beryl, as Andria returned to the drawing-room. “See +what I’ve found. Isn’t it fun?” + +She had from somewhere unearthed a long ugly dagger, very fine and +sharp. On the floor she had put a row of oranges, and with unerring +aim was throwing the dagger at them. She never missed; each orange as +it was struck was nailed to the floor. Andria took the dagger from the +orange where it stood quivering. How sharp it was! She had fairly to +drag it from the polished board. + +“Let me try!” and to her surprise, after the first failure, the thing +was easy. Only the fear of breaking the new toy made her stop; she +might have need of it. + +“I found some cards, too, and a book!” Beryl cried. “Such a funny old +book. Listen!” She read aloud from a battered calf octavo: “‘As sure as +the turquoise brings love and the amethyst repels it, so does the opal +attract misfortune and the beryl bring bad dreams.’ There, the beryl’s +me! What kind of a stone is it? I never saw one.” + +“It’s green,” said Andria absently; “pale-green; something the color of +that wild kitten’s eyes.” + +“Then look here!” exclaimed Beryl excitedly. “Is this one? It was shut +up in the book. Trust me to rummage round and find things.” + +She held up a tarnished gold ring, thin and old, set with a pale-green +stone that glittered in the lamplight. + +Andria seized it. + +“It’s a beryl, certainly,” she said slowly. “I wonder whose it is!” + +“It’s mine now,” said Beryl, snatching it and slipping it on her +finger. “I’m going to wear it.” + +“Bad dreams, the book says, and you’ve no right to it, you know,” said +Andria. + +“Neither has old Egerton any right to me. I’ll bring him bad dreams, +too, if I can. Oh, Andria! Isn’t it pretty? I never wore a ring in my +life.” + +Andria looked silently at her own bare fingers where once the diamonds +had felt heavy. “They didn’t bring happiness,” she said softly. “But +you can wear it if you like. Where are the cards? I’ll teach you to +play euchre.” + +Curiously enough, all Beryl’s nervousness of the night before had +vanished. She sat down calmly with her back to the uncurtained windows +and bestowed her whole attention on the game. Her left hand, with the +cards in it, was held high, with the ring glittering on it, so that if +there had been any one to look in they could have seen it plainly. The +storm made the house shake, solid as it was, and the noise of it was +deafening. There could be no one abroad to-night, yet suddenly Andria +seemed to stiffen in her chair. + +“Beryl,” she whispered, putting down a card that was all wrong, +“there’s the queerest sound in the wind! Like something sniffing at the +door. Can’t you hear it?” + +“I heard it ages ago,” said Beryl gaily. “Perhaps it’s my cat. Shall I +let it in?” + +“No! Don’t move. It’s too loud; no kitten could make it. It sounds like +a horse sniffing dust and blowing it out again.” + +The girl listened. + +Very, very soft, in the battering wind, came another sound; a scratch, +scratch, scratch at the door. + +“It is my kitten! I”--with a curious look in her eyes Beryl had +risen--“I must go.” + +“You sha’n’t stir,” said Andria, with a sudden ugly gentleness. “You +don’t know what’s outside. Come up-stairs; it isn’t safe here.” She +caught Beryl’s arm and fairly pushed her from the room, catching up +that lean, sharp dagger as she passed it. The instant they were over +the threshold the scratching ceased, as if whatever was outside knew +they had gone. + +Half-way up-stairs a sudden crash as if some one had upset a heavy +table stopped both girls short. Fear caught Andria by the throat; +silent and dry-lipped she pushed Beryl against the wall and stood in +front of her, the dagger in her hand. Had something got in up-stairs? +Was she to fight for both their lives--now--on these stairs? The +next second she heard Salome’s voice: “Ladies, ladies,” she called +frantically, “come up out o’ dat. Oh, my soul! Dey’s smelled de white +blood--de white blood!” + +“Salome! I thought you’d gone to your own house. What is it?--there’s +something--outside at the door.” + +“Come up, come up!” The black woman ran down to them, her snowy turban +askew on her frizzy hair. “Oh, Miss Holbeach, I been here six years and +I never seen nothin’ like dis. Dey’s hunted you down, hunted----” her +voice broke horribly. + +“What?” said Beryl sharply. She broke from Andria’s hands and ran +up-stairs. + +Andria tore after her, and stopped short at what she saw. + +Beryl was out on the veranda, staring into the darkness. Opposite +her, not two yards from her face, something shone through the bar +of the jalousies. Two great eyes, green as the stone she had found, +glittering, ravenous, were fixed on her; but not even a shadow of the +thing in whose head they shone showed against the black storm outside. + +“Come in,” said Andria, paralyzed. “Come in! Oh, what is it?” + +At the sound of her voice there came a snarl that made her blood cold, +but the creature, whatever it was, could not loose its foothold to claw +at the bars. + +“It’s an animal,” said Beryl, in a queer singsong tone, “I’m not afraid +of animals. Go in, or you’ll be killed.” + +She walked nearer to those awful eyes, crooning softly to herself. The +snarling ceased, but as Andria, in mad fear, leapt after the girl, +it broke out so wildly, with such a guttural note of rage, that she +screamed. The thing had got foothold! It was clawing at the bars. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +A STRANGE POWER. + + +With a quick, backward sweep of her long, young arm Beryl Corselas sent +Andria staggering backward, but she never looked to see Salome catch +her dexterously and drag her inside the room. + +Without taking her eyes from the fierce ones outside the stout, wooden +shutters, the girl began to croon again and the hungry scratching of +the iron claws ceased. Monotonous, scarcely rising or falling, that +queer chant went on, till through it there rose a purr like a great +cat’s. + +Closer, closer Beryl drew to the jalousy; the horrified watchers saw +her all but touch it. She stopped and gazed through the slats, straight +into the wonderful eyes. Very slowly the great animal relaxed, scraping +against the wood. Something heavy, yet strangely light-footed, leaped +softly to the ground. The thing was gone. + +Exactly as if she walked in her sleep Beryl Corselas came straight to +the other two. + +“I want a drink of water,” she said, very low. “That was a jaguar.” + +Salome struck a light and shut the door on the awful darkness of the +veranda before she brought a tumbler from the wash-stand. + +“How do you know? You never saw one.” Andria’s voice was thick with +shame. She had been so grand about saving Beryl; and it was Beryl who +had saved her! She threw her dagger down angrily; it would have been no +use at all in a struggle with a beast like that. + +“I don’t know.” Beryl gulped at the water. “But I do know, somehow,” +she said in her natural, every-day voice. + +Salome took the tumbler from her with a curious gesture of respect. + +“My soul! You saved us! Oh! my glory!” she cried hysterically. “Glory, +glory!” her voice rang out between sobs and laughter. “You’s one o’ +dem.” + +“What do you mean?” Andria had played a small part and hated herself. + +“You knows much as I knows,” said Salome sullenly. “You seen! She was +de beat of ’em. Dey’s some born like dat. Oh, missy, glory be dis +night!” Her chest heaved as she turned to Beryl, but the girl only +walked away. + +“Salome,” Andria broke out angrily, “you don’t trust me! I tell you I +love the child. I have nothing to do with Mr. Egerton’s plots against +her. I’ve known her ever since she was a baby.” + +“Don’t never hear o’ no plots,” said Salome sharply. But at the look +on Andria’s face she buried her own in her hands. “I will trust you, +missus,” she whispered. “Fo’ de Lawd, ole Salome couldn’t tell ’bout +you. I’m sick o’ dis life and dis yer place, dat’s true.” + +“Then tell me what it all means,” commanded Andria sternly. “Why are we +besieged here every night by wild beasts and worse?” + +Salome caught her by the arm. + +“Listen!” she cried. “I can’t tell you nothin’. I took my Bible +oath”--on Amelia Jane’s poor relic of religion!--“to hole my tongue. +But I took another in my mind to take care of dat child.” + +“Then tell me who I saw last night!” said Andria frantically. “Whose +hateful face jabbered at me this morning, down the path----” + +“You done see him! My soul!” said the woman, as if hell had opened +under her feet. “Den we’s gone, sure enough. Dey’s more than jaguars.” + +Beryl, as if she listened to something very far off, had drawn to the +other end of the room. She stood, a tense white figure, deaf to all +other sounds but those. Andria pointed to her dumbly. + +“Don’t say anything,” she breathed. “She is afraid of people, never of +animals. At the convent she once saved a sister from an ox that turned +on her----” + +“Dey’s born so, I tell you,” Salome returned, with a kind of pride. + +“Salome, if you don’t speak out to me I’ll go mad,” Andria said +desperately. “What can I do if I don’t know what it all means?” + +“I can’t tell you nothin’,” answered Salome slowly. “I couldn’t +get clear if I did. And you knows all I knows now. I don’t know no +more. Black people in the house, no one comes--white women! You seen +to-night.” + +“Do you mean the place is safe for black people?” + +“De white blood draws ’em,” she answered in a whisper that thrilled. + +“But men; Mr. Egerton----” + +“When he comes back you see. He ain’t going to stay long. He sleep up, +up in de roof, last time he come.” + +“And he brought two women here!” Every drop of Andria’s blood recoiled. + +“Dat’s what I can’t understand,” said Salome eagerly. “He say, ‘Salome, +you take care on ’em!’ And I seem to feel he don’t mean it.” + +“He can’t,” said Andria simply. “Oh! Salome, can’t we get away? Isn’t +there any one on all this island but us? Isn’t there a village--boats?” + +“If dey is dey’s behind miles o’ bush and scrub dat we can’t scrape +through,” Salome returned, very low. “Boats, if you means getting away +by de sea, dey ain’t none, ’less we make ’em. I never see no living +soul since I been here--but what you see to-night!” + +“But why are you here?” + +“’Cause he brought me. He tell me he take me to good place in Bermuda, +and I came here. Oh, missus! I’m not old--but I’m wore out with misery.” + +“But you’re not a slave! Why did you stay?” + +“Niggers has no choice,” she answered darkly. And something told Andria +there was a black story that Salome would not tell. “By and by he bring +Chloe an’ Amelia Jane. He tell dem dis is Bermuda. And dey never fret, +dey only caring to eat and save deir wages. De Lawd knows if we ever +get away from here. Don’t you ’spose I never tried, ’cause dat’s what +I did try. But--I ain’t gone yet!” + +“I’ll make him let us go!” + +Salome clutched her, really ashy with terror. + +“You never say nothin’, or dey’s no more o’ dis world for me. You mind +now. I never tell you nothin’; you never tell me nothin’; you see and I +sees; and we beat them if we can. Dey’s here, dey’s always been here, +but when dey ain’t no one but niggers in de house dey goes. Dey get +master yet,” she said savagely, “for all he dares ’em.” + +“But you told me there were no animals--where did that thing come from?” + +“Sometimes I think dey spring out o’ de earth. I don’t know. But +dey’s worse--you tell me he jabbers at you dis morning,” interrupting +herself, “an’ she’s afraid of people! If he’s going round in de +daylight like dat, an’ she’s afraid, he’ll get her sure!” + +“But who is he?” + +“Dat’s what I don’t know. But he climbs and--Miss Holbeach, it ain’t no +jaguar dat chokes de life out o’ my lambs and don’t tear no flesh nor +skin!” + +Andria’s flesh crawled at the slow words. In the silence the storm +outside was like the end of the world. The battering of the wind, the +crash of falling trees, the roar of the rain covered the low voices +of the two women. In the uproar Beryl, like a statue that lived and +listened, drew her breath long and slow. Suddenly she spoke, without +turning. + +“There are more than that one, and they’re hunting and yapping like +dogs. I wish I could see them! But it’s too dark.” + +“Are they hunting us?” cried Andria, shuddering. Already she seemed to +feel the ripping claws, the crunching teeth of the great beast outside. + +“Not me!” said Beryl dreamily. + +Salome watched her with awestruck eyes. + +“If we dies, we dies,” she said hardly. “Better lie down on dem beds +an’ rest. Dey ain’t got in yet. Pray de Lawd we ain’t going to be de +meat at a jaguar wedding dis night!” + +With the stoical courage born of long endurance of fear she lay down on +a rug. Andria, in sheer despair, sat down silently. And in the midst of +the storm she seemed to hear what Beryl was hearing--a wild snarling, a +medley of quick cries--and set her teeth. Any minute, through any door, +a square, savage head might show itself with death in its green eyes. +She looked at Beryl. + +The girl was curled up on her bed like a kitten, sound asleep. + +Black woman and white looked at each other, then with one consent sat +up and kept their useless, terrified watch till the lamp burned dim. +The wind had fallen, the horrid outcry in the garden had ceased, and, +lulled by the quiet, the two slept in their chairs, worn out. + +As the dawn flushed in the east the girl on the bed sat up, looked at +the two weary figures, the dying lamp, and like a ghost stole by them. +When the clear sunlight at last roused them she had not come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +IN THE WOODS OF PARADISE. + + “Drink to the men that were broken! + They were better men than you.” + + +Scorching morning sun on a barren point of rock and sand, and on great +waves that thudded and broke emerald-green and white on the wet beach; +and nothing else to tell of the past night’s storm. + +Nothing, unless if any one had shaded their eyes to gaze at the beach, +where the hot air quivered, they might have seen a huddled thing lying +there just out of the reach of the waves; a thing that last night had +been a man, and to-day--motionless, lax, it seemed but the body that +some one had cast aside. If something did move in the bushes, it did +not disturb that quiet sleeper in the sun. + +“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” + +Brian Heriot had been put into the Guards at twenty, had lived as gaily +as if money grew on every bush, till the crash came and undeceived +him. His father died without a will, and his elder brothers quietly +threw him over. The new Lord Heriot was a Plymouth brother and a +philanthropist; he had no money to waste on idle young butterflies +in the Guards. The Honorable Brian Heriot grinned without much mirth +when he realized his position. He disgusted his dear friends by calmly +taking what little money he had to pay his debts, and then, without a +word to any one, quietly “went under.” His old haunts knew him no more; +people forgot him, no one troubling to remember that if Lord Heriot was +a pious prig, Brian, his brother, was a born adventurer. + +Strange lands, strange occupations knew him. He grew very tanned, very +handsome, with a look in his face that made women turn their heads as +he passed. But he made no money, only kept body and soul together; +a rolling stone that yet did not go down-hill. For he kept his soft +speech and manner, his good heart that hated cruelty and a lie. Somehow +he had drifted to Fayal, and there being penniless, if cheerful, had +shipped on a small coasting-vessel that gathered cargo for the European +steamers. + +That was a week ago. This morning there was neither vessel, cargo, nor +crew; nothing but Brian Heriot washed ashore almost dead. He had swum +till he could swim no more; that was all he knew. That, and a great +crashing of water, and utter darkness. But the very wave that had +stunned him had cast him high and dry like a bit of driftwood on the +sandy point where he lay. + +As the sun warmed him he stirred, ever so faintly. + +Had something touched him? Stooped over him with clammy fingers on his +bare throat? He tried to open his eyes, but he saw only one fleeting +shimmer of sun on water before they closed again. There was a deadly +heaviness in his limbs, an utter indifference in his brain; he did not +know whether he was alive or dead, and did not care. Presently he knew +he was dreaming. + +He thought he was lying in hot, hot sun, on hotter sand, and turned +away from the hungry sea that pounded in his ears. And just before his +eyes stood a girl; a tall girl in white, with a great veil of dusky +hair streaming over her. Round her feet played two jaguar cubs, and in +her arms was a third, that she cuddled and crooned to as if it were a +child. Step by step she came close to him, and over her shoulder there +peered from the bushes another face that leered and laughed as if in +malice. A dreadful fright for the girl came over Brian Heriot, but in +his nightmare he could not stir. He tried to shout, and the dream went. +Something wet and cool on his head roused him; a shadow that was heaven +came between him and the sun; a girl’s voice scolded something that +seemed to be running and jumping over him. + +With an effort that racked every bone Brian Heriot sat up, and +stared about him. Half his dream was true. He was on a beach, a wet +handkerchief was bound on his head, but there was no one there. + +“Please come back!” he said. “I won’t hurt you,” and then laughed +ruefully. Sick and dizzy, with a cut head and a wrenched ankle, he +certainly would not hurt any one. “Oh, do come back!” he cried again, +with a kind of vexed impatience, and wished he could remember some +Portuguese instead of this useless English. + +But even as he spoke the bushes parted, and a girl slipped out of them. +She stood looking at him with great eyes almost as yellow as topaz, and +he saw the color come and go in her creamy cheeks. + +“I thought you were Mr. Egerton at first,” she said slowly, almost +sullenly. “Did you come with him? Is he back?” + +Ill and exhausted as he was, the incongruity of the thing made him +stare. Where had he got to, that a girl played with jaguar cubs and +spoke in English? + +“I don’t know any one named Egerton,” he said, propping himself up on +one arm. “My name’s Heriot.” + +“How did you get here? You really mean you don’t know him?” + +“I mean I never heard of him,” he answered stupidly. “I got here +because my ship was wrecked last night. If you hadn’t waked me I think +I should have had a touch of sun.” + +“You must get out of it,” said the girl quickly. She twisted her hair +into a knot, as if she had just remembered it. As she did so a ring on +her finger glittered green, and at the sight of it something in the +bushes drew back sharply. + +At the rustle she bounded like a frightened child closer to the man in +the sand, whose eyes were so blue in his handsome face, handsome in +spite of blood-stains. + +“Did you see anything besides me, a little while ago?” she whispered. +“Quick, tell me!” + +“I thought I saw a man,” he answered, surprised. “But I wasn’t myself; +I don’t know.” + +She put her hand on his shoulder, and to his amaze he felt it tremble. + +“So did I!” she whispered, lower still. “Get up. I’ll help you. I’ll +take you with me. But,” suspiciously, “you mean what you say? Mr. +Egerton didn’t send you?” + +“No one sent me.” He forgot she was a girl, and spoke with rough truth +as to a man. “God knows you haven’t much choice when you’re washed +overboard. I didn’t mean to come. Why should I lie about it?” + +“Most people,” she said composedly, “lie. But”--she stopped, +listened--“come, come away!” she cried. “I’m afraid here.” + +“You can’t be afraid of much,” he answered, full of wonder. “I saw you +playing with jaguar cubs just now, unless I dreamed it.” + +The girl laughed. That rough denial of Egerton had somehow made her +trust the man. “Those were my cats. I’m not afraid of animals. I hate +people, though, except Andria.” + +“By George!” thought Heriot, “I’d rather face ten men than one jaguar. +Who is the girl? And who’s Andria? I knew one Andria, but----” He +smiled at the idea; it could not be she! + +“You don’t know anything about animals.” She had read his face with a +queer anger. Turning from him, she began to croon, very low, and at a +call a yellow, white, black-spotted kitten came out of the bushes. But +it only rubbed against her skirt and bounded away. Beryl Corselas grew +pale. + +“Come,” she said, and took his hand. “Can you walk?” + +“Yes.” He got on his feet and gritted his teeth with the pain in his +ankle. “Is it far?” + +“Yes; I don’t know,” she said absently, staring round her. Who was +calling the cats that they would not stay with her? What horrible face +had she seen for one instant through the bushes? “Don’t let go my +hand!” she said suddenly, childishly; and Heriot, for all his pain, saw +that this girl who played with jaguars was frightened. + +But as he went with her up what was surely a path, though not worn by +shod feet, the feeling that it was all a dream came over him again. +If it had not been for the pain in his foot he might have been Adam +walking with Eve in Eden for the loneliness and the beauty of the +place. The wet scrub was a mass of flowers, gorgeous butterflies swam +through thickets of white and rose heaths, strange blossoms flaunted in +his face. And never in all his days had he seen a beauty so strange as +that of the girl who led him by the hand. Yet for all its unlined youth +the face was pathetic, tragic; the dull rose lips were lips that had +tasted grief. + +“What do you mean by saying you’re afraid of people?” he said, the pain +in his ankle making him talk, for fear he should groan. + +“Animals are simple; I understand them,” she returned, without +slackening her pace. “People all have an animal in them. I see it in +their faces, but an animal turned bad. Mother Felicitas was a white +wolf.” + +“You are not afraid of me?” He was afraid himself of her answer. + +“No!” she answered carelessly. “No more than I would be of a dog. Come +on!” + +Heriot had stopped. He leaned against a tree, faint with pain. He would +cheerfully have given a thousand pounds for a drink. + +“You’ll have to wait,” he said ruefully. “I mean I will. There’s +something wrong with my foot.” + +With feverish haste the girl picked up a stick that lay on the path +and shoved it into his hand. “It’s green, it won’t break. Use it for a +walking-stick,” she ordered. “And try to hurry. Don’t you know there’s +something following us?” + +He had not heard a sound. + +“What sort of thing?” + +“Something dumb,” she whispered, “that leers and jabbers, and I can’t +manage it, for I’m afraid.” + +Heriot put his hand in his trousers pocket. His pistol was gone. + +“Walk ahead,” he said, setting his teeth. And as she obeyed he heard +behind him a faint rustling that grew no nearer. He limped on in +purgatory from the heat and his foot. His head swam as the sweat poured +off him. If it had not been for the terror of the girl with him he +would have sat down and waited for what was following them rather than +have walked another step. + +Suddenly she cried out, and, reaching back for his hand, fairly dragged +him after her. They were out of the scrub, standing at the edge of a +great, open meadow, with trees scattered over it. As in a dream he +saw a white house, quite near; nearer still a black woman and a white +running to them. He was so dizzy that he reeled and nearly pulled the +girl backward as she clutched his hand. + +“Beryl!” cried a voice high and sweet. “Oh, Beryl, where have you +been--who’s that?” asked Andria, with a quick note of startled surprise. + +The whole world swam before Mr. Heriot’s eyes. He tried to steady +himself, to speak. + +“Mrs. Erle,” he began, quite calmly, and fainted dead away on the grass +at Andria’s feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +OLD SINS AWAKENED. + + +Andria’s heart contracted where she sat in the pleasant, green-shaded +room. The three colored women had made nothing of carrying the +unconscious man into an unused room in the upper story of the servants’ +quarters; Salome’s eyes had told Andria he must not be taken into the +big house. And there in the spotless bareness of the darkened chamber +Andria had sat ever since, like a woman who sees a ghost, waiting for +this man who knew her to come to his senses. + +For he knew her quite well. He had been a friend of Raimond Erle’s, had +believed like the rest of London that the woman who was called “the +lovely Andria” had been the true cause of his financial ruin. When he +found what she was doing here, would he warn Beryl what a wicked woman +she was who masqueraded as a governess and guardian? + +She lifted her bowed head to look at him, and saw he had wakened from +the heavy sleep that had come on him after his fainting-fit. + +“Mrs. Erle,” he said again stupidly. + +She walked over to him swiftly. + +“I’m not Mrs. Erle; I never was!” she said, with a kind of passion. “My +name is Andria Heathcote, but they call me Holbeach here.” + +“But----” + +“I know,” she cut him short. “I have begun again. I am Beryl’s +governess, the girl who brought you home. She knows my real name, but I +told her I called myself Holbeach for reasons of my own.” + +“Governess!” he said, staring. + +“I’m not fit, you think!” she said bitterly. + +“I would not say so,” said the man slowly, and the blood came to his +face. + +“You think I’m bad--an--adventuress----” + +“I think you ruined Raimond Erle,” he answered bluntly. + +With a queer gesture she put her hand to her heart as if it hurt her. +This man was of the world, would judge as the world; and he could tell. + +“I----” She could not finish. A man who did not know her would have +been a rock of defense, to whom she could have told everything. This +man would never believe she was not in Egerton’s pay, to get rid of +Beryl Corselas. He would remember the evil places, the evil company he +had seen her in; would think it right to destroy Beryl’s faith in the +only soul she trusted. + +No! Let him think this was an ordinary house, she masquerading as an +ordinary governess. Salome said it would be weeks before he could walk; +let him stay here in this secluded room, where no noises would wake +him. He was only another burden, not a help. + +“Mr. Heriot,” she said quietly, “you will do as you like, of course, +about airing what you know of me. But if you will wait you will see +perhaps that I’m not all bad--not what you may think. Don’t tell Beryl +that I was Andria Erle till you see reason to mistrust me,” and even +while she spoke she knew he would see reason enough as soon as Beryl’s +careless, indifferent tongue told the queer story of Egerton and the +happenings in this evil house. No sane person would believe that if +such things were possible in this every-day world the woman Egerton +paid was not on his side in them. And what Egerton’s side was did not +puzzle Andria, if it did Salome. + +“I don’t go about blackmailing people,” said Heriot coldly. “Don’t look +so nervous.” + +“But you don’t think I ought to be in the house with any girl,” she +said quietly, and he could not see the bitterness in her face. + +“If you ask me,” unwillingly, “no! But God knows I can’t throw the +first stone at you, especially when you take me in and nurse me,” but +the old dislike of her and her kind was in his voice as he spoke. + +“Then try and think kindly of me,” she broke out, and there were tears +in the eyes he had always seen so hard. “I have begun again; I’ve put +all that behind me.” With a gesture of loathing he understood. + +“My dear lady,” he returned quickly, “don’t plead like that! It is +no business of mine what you were. I see you here as Miss Holbeach, +and--as for the girl, I am not her keeper.” + +“No, but I am!” she retorted, for his tone hurt unbearably. “And keep +her I will. I will send your dinner now,” she said, with a change of +manner that said more for her self-control than her honesty; “it is +nearly six o’clock; you must be starving.” + +“Tell me,” said Heriot quickly, “who is the child? What did she mean +this morning by saying she was frightened?” + +He was not prepared for the look on Mrs. Erle’s face. + +“Frightened!” she stammered. “What of--did she say? Not of those +horrible cats?” + +“If you mean jaguar cubs, she was playing with them. No; some one dumb, +she said, who leered and mouthed at her--and I thought I saw a queer +face myself, too!” + +Involuntarily Andria did the worst thing possible. + +“You were hurt and half-senseless,” she returned coolly. “You imagined +you saw what the child romanced about.” + +But he had seen her dismayed and confounded face, and knew she lied. + +“That woman here!” he thought, as she left the room, shutting his eyes +and seeing her as he had seen her in Raimond Erle’s house, covered with +diamonds, surrounded by the worst men in town. “And with that innocent, +fairy-tale sort of child and her queer pets. Why did she lie to me just +now? And why are either of them here? This must be Flores or Corvo; one +of the Azores, anyhow! And what is she about to let things frighten the +girl?” + +The whole thing made him thoughtful. Were there only the governess +and the girl--where were the master and mistress? Intuitively the man +felt there was something wrong. With a resistless impulse to see at +least where he was, he managed to drag himself over to the window. +Through the half-open jalousy he saw a small, stone courtyard, strong +as a prison, shaded by a high building from the sinking sun. And as he +stared voices floated up to him. + +“Salome, she saw--you know something that jabbered at her! She told +him. What shall we do?” + +“Why’d she tell him?” The second voice was richer, more guttural. “Oh, +my glory, missus! Mr. Egerton----” and the rest was in a whisper. + +“I know. This man won’t help us, Salome!” + +“No! An’ if Mr. Egerton he come back and find him here, de onliest +thing dat’ll happen is de Death Trap.” + +“What do you mean?” But the voice was not surprised, only appalled. + +“Pray he don’t find out. Best keep Miss Ber’l away from him. If she +tells him things, an’ he sees--he’ll go out fur to fight! And you +knows, missus,” earnestly, “he might have friends. Dey’d be coming +round asking for him. Onless you kin trust him to help us?” with a +searching accent that was an entreaty. + +“He’ll never help us. He’ll be against us, not for us,” bitterly. “You +daren’t tell, Salome?” + +“Den if he won’t help us, de sooner he goes de better. I can’t tell. +Ain’t nothin’ to me, one white man! An’ if Mr. Egerton finds people +spyin’ round here, it’s de end of me, sure!” + +“He can’t hear anything up there?” + +“No! No more’n ’Melia Jane does. Onless little miss screams!” + +“She sha’n’t scream!” + +Heriot drew away from the window, but not so far that he did not see +Andria Erle cross the courtyard with a light, quick step that went ill +with the grim sound in her voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +DOUBTING THOMAS. + + +Mr. Heriot, to his disgust, was extremely ill after that rash journey +to the window. + +For a fortnight he had fever, and was nursed untiringly by Salome, +silent as a statue. When he had mended enough to be left alone and +could walk about his room, he discovered he was to all intents a +prisoner. His stout nurse had calmly locked the door on him to keep him +out of mischief. + +“Serves me right for spying on them!” he thought, ashamed and angry, +standing at the window, as he had done that first evening. “But, all +the same, I think there’s some devilment going on here--hello!” he +pushed the jalousy from him and leaned out. + +Beryl Corselas, idle and listless, stood in the courtyard alone. He +had never seen her since she had brought him from the shore, and her +beauty, that was so young and so pathetic, struck him afresh. + +“Are you better?” she cried, waving her hand to him. “Why don’t you +come out?” + +“I can’t,” he answered calmly. “Salome has locked me in.” + +“Wait,” said the girl promptly. She ran across the yard, and he heard +her light feet on the stair outside. + +“You were locked in!” she cried, opening the door and standing there, +tall and lovely, her dark hair no longer hanging round her and her +white dress immaculate, instead of being soaked with dew. “How funny!” + +“Isn’t it?” returned Heriot gravely. He led the way out, limping; he +had no notion that Mrs. Erle should find her charge in his room. + +“Everything’s funny here, though,” the girl said thoughtfully. “I’m +getting used to it. But even Andria has got queer since you came. She +just sits and thinks, and she won’t let me out of her sight. She has +a headache to-day, poor Andria! And Salome and the others are busy +washing. This is the way, out this door.” + +She led him into the house through the empty kitchen, and at the +voices, and laughter that came from the wash-tubs the man felt he must +be a fool with his suspicions. Everything here was ordinary. Was he +thinking all sorts of nonsense because he had heard a conversation not +meant for him? + +In the drawing-room he was amazed at the luxury round him; the silk +cushions and gorgeous embroideries that were so strange in this corner +of the Azores. + +His companion made him sit down, and seated herself on the floor. She +looked up at him, her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, +and for the first time he saw what a curious face she had. + +There was something almost vacant in it, and yet it was not a stupid +face, only utterly indifferent. The eyes that met his were startling in +their strangeness, the irises raying out a tawny golden-yellow, while +the eyebrows and lashes were like ink. The girl’s lips were a thrilling +crimson, and yet the mouth bore a look of suppression, as if too early +it had been acquainted with grief. + +“Yes,” she said, with a sudden laugh that startled him, “it is queer +here. I am queer myself.” + +Heriot smiled, though he was taken aback. + +“You’re a child,” he said calmly; “you haven’t found yourself yet.” + +“Me? I never was a child,” she said, and her eyes darkened as if some +inward flame had been extinguished. “No one who’s been Beryl Corselas +all her life could ever be a child.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“I mean the convent, and Mother Felicitas,” she said somberly, “and +Andria and me. If Andria had not gone away it might have been better.” + +She looked straight at him, and something in his look reminded her of +Andria. His blue eyes had the same look of self-reliance. His good +looks did not strike her at all; the golden-brown hair and mustache and +the debonair face that had turned many a woman’s head never touched +Beryl Corselas one whit. He looked kind and strong, and she liked him. +That was all. Yet Andria could have told her that in his day Heriot had +been the handsomest, most spoiled man in London. + +“Do you mean Miss Holbeach,” he asked, with perceptible hesitation and +utter surprise, “was ever in a convent?” + +Beryl nodded. + +“I’ll tell you,” she said. “It’s all very queer. If you read it in +a book you wouldn’t believe it. And that reminds me,” she went on, +laughing, “Andria was brought here to teach me, and there isn’t a book +in the house but that funny, old one on the floor there. Mr. Egerton +couldn’t have really cared whether we did lessons or not.” + +“Begin at the beginning,” said Heriot, with the soft voice women had +found so sweet. “I can’t understand, you know.” + +But when she had reeled out the whole extraordinary tale he leaned back +and whistled softly. + +Egerton, whoever he was, must know something of Beryl Corselas’ history +and want her out of the way. No better place could have been found +for a superfluous girl to live than this unknown nook in the Azores. +And no other kind of woman than the late Mrs. Erle could have been +got to take pay for accompanying a kidnaped girl. There was probably +very little mystery in the affair to her; she must know something from +those far-away convent days about the history of Beryl Corselas; which +might also explain why it had been convenient to get her here, too, in +addition to being a pliant tool in the hands of a clever man. And that +the girl had an affection for her was another reason. Heriot knew the +power of a woman over a girl who idolizes her. That the whole thing had +been blind chance, he never thought for an instant. + +“Why do you think he brought you here?”--he kept his interest out of +his voice. + +“I think,” she answered calmly, “to be eaten up. And so does Andria. +But Salome says he made her swear to take care of us. And he did warn +us himself, of course; but I think that was for show, and so does +Andria.” + +“Eaten up!” Mr. Heriot gasped. He began to wonder if the girl were +queer in the head. + +Beryl nodded. + +“You don’t know. You don’t sleep in the house,” she returned. “And, +anyhow, it’s all right now, for they know me.” + +“Who?” + +“The two old jaguars,” she said calmly, “and their kittens. You saw +their kittens this morning.” + +“Know you! Jaguars!” This was worse and worse. The girl was stark mad. +If he had not seen her with the cubs he would have thought it a lie +from the word go. + +“Yes, they do!” she asserted pettishly. “I sing--like this--and they +come. I can make them go away, too. Even Andria is getting to know that +I can.” + +She sat upright and began the queer croon he had heard once before, but +this time he recognized it. It was a snake-charmer’s song, wordless; a +thing to make the flesh crawl on the bones. + +“Where did you learn it?” he asked, cutting her short. He was not +blood-brother to jaguars, and had no wish to have them called in the +open windows. + +“I’ve always known it: I never learned it. I can do anything with +animals. Andria says mother must have been a dompteuse--a lion-tamer, +you know.” + +“It does go from mother to daughter, they say,” he returned rather +faintly. He wondered if this Egerton were, perhaps, her father, and +then--but no man could be so cold-bloodedly cruel as that! “There ought +not to be wild animals here,” he said out of his thoughts. “Are these +jaguars wild?” + +Every vestige of animation left the girl’s face. + +“No!” she breathed more than spoke. “And that’s the only thing that +frightens me. They’re trained; they have a master, and they obey him. +Do you remember I saw a face that morning? Well,” as he nodded, “I +think they are his. I think he tries to set them on to kill us, and +I’ve managed them so far. If I could only get them to like me best; +they would obey me like dogs; but sometimes I can’t get them to come to +me at all. Andria is afraid to let me play with them. One night I went +out, but she came after me and dragged me in. There was nearly dreadful +work that time; I could hardly keep them off her--the cubs, I mean. If +the old ones had been there she would have been killed.” + +“Then she does try to take care of you!” the words escaped him, to his +instant shame. + +“Andria? She loves me! She came out to me when they might have torn +her up. But she isn’t afraid of that thing that hunts with them. It +climbs up the jalousies, and hurries round the house all night, like a +dried-up monkey--only I know it’s a man!” + +“Has she seen it?” + +“I don’t know. But I have, and I’m afraid of it. And Andria gets wild +if I talk of it. She says it’s all a dream.” + +“It’s a damned unpleasant one, then!” thought Heriot, utterly at sea. +If Egerton meant to do away with both women, the lovely Andria was +a fool to be here. If only Beryl was to be got rid of, how was Mrs. +Erle to save herself? As he thought of her she came into the room. She +looked paler and more girlish than he had ever dreamed she could look; +her red-brown hair was coiled simply round her head, and her plain, +white gown was as strange on her as the absence of her rings from her +rose-white hands. + +“Oh!”--she stopped at the sight of him--“Mr. Heriot, how did you--that +is,” lamely, “I’m glad you are better!” + +“I don’t think you are, Mrs. Erle,” said Heriot’s blue eyes. Somehow, +the very sight of her had strengthened the mistrust that was beginning +to weaken. + +“I managed to escape my stern jailer,” he said lightly. “I suppose she +thought my fever was catching, for she locked me in.” + +Andria turned scarlet. He saw quite well who had instructed Salome. She +sat down quite composedly, though she did not look at him. + +“Beryl, tell Salome we want tea, will you?” she said, and, as the door +closed on the girl, turned to Heriot. “It was I who had you locked in,” +she said hardly; “I was afraid you might be tempted out and make your +fever worse.” + +“You were very kind,” the irony in his voice barely visible. “But I may +as well tell you that Miss Corselas has told me all about this queer +business.” + +“And you think I am paid by Mr. Egerton to get rid of her?” she said, +without a flicker of her eyes. “I don’t think I am--yet! But I may be.” + +“I won’t let you do it,” he answered calmly. + +“Neither you nor any one else has a right to say that to me,” she said, +very low. “Because you know my past is no reason I am all bad. And if +I suspect Mr. Egerton a hundred times over, I must remember that he +warned me to keep her out of danger. If he had meant her to run into it +he would have held his tongue.” + +“He warned you, perhaps!” he was behaving like a cad, and he knew it. +But he could not believe in the late Mrs. Erle. + +“He knows nothing of me, and cares less.” + +“Why don’t you take the girl away from here, if you care for her?” + +“How? You forget I don’t even know where we are. Do you?” + +Heriot winced. + +“No,” he said unwillingly; “either Flores or Corvo, in the Azores, but +in an uninhabited part of either.” + +“And I am to drag a delicate girl like that through miles of scrub, +with no money if I do get to a town? If you think I knew what sort of +place I was coming to you are mistaken. He told me this was Bermuda.” + +“Bermuda!” + +She nodded. + +“And I would think he meant us to live and die here if he had not said +he would come back and take me away if I did not like it.” + +“Did he say he would take the girl?” he asked sharply. + +“I--no!” she stammered. “I suppose he meant it.” + +“Yet you ask me to believe you know nothing of his plans?” he asked +politely. “Do you know, Mrs. Erle, I have a great mind to help that +poor child away myself?” + +Quick as light she had risen and stood looking down on him, her face +as hard and brazen as that Andria Erle’s whom he had despised, all its +new-found purity gone. + +“And do you think I would let you?” Her voice was soft as usual, but +for once it was not gentle. “Why should I hand her over to any man, to +suffer, perhaps, as I’ve suffered? Believe me or not as you like, but +I will take care of her, against you and ten like you--against Egerton +himself, when he comes!” + +“You couldn’t, if it came to main strength.” + +“Could you?”--she pointed to his foot that was still bandaged. He felt +her contemptuous eyes on his body that was thin and shaken with fever. +“And have you money that you could send her to England and take care of +her? Supposing she and you ever got out of the scrub! + +“This is my house to all purposes. If I told the black women to put you +out to-night they would do it. And I suppose you know what would come +to you then! You can believe in me or not, as you like,” she said, with +sudden quietude, “but you cannot dictate terms to me, or threaten me.” + +For a long minute there was utter silence in the room. Then Heriot, +very white about the mouth, rose. + +“I have to beg your pardon,” he said. “You are quite right. I am in +your debt.” + +But as he turned to go back to his old quarters and get away from +this woman, she saw that she had only made him distrust her more +determinedly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +TRUSTED TOO LATE. + + +To Heriot’s utter surprise, Salome at seven o’clock brought him a +message that the ladies were expecting him at dinner. It occurred to +him suddenly that second thoughts had convinced the late Mrs. Erle that +a man who had been able to come to her secluded retreat would be able +to get away from it, and that the strange disappearance of even an +orphan girl might be a thing to report to the police. To be the jailer +of a kidnaped damsel would not add glory to the record of any woman. + +Before Beryl neither of the two betrayed their private position. Andria +was quiet, that was all. She let Heriot talk to the girl as freely as +he liked, and, in spite of his prejudice, he saw that she never tried +to stop any disclosures of the terror that haunted them at night. + +It was only when dinner was over that he saw her expression change. A +quick remembrance had come to her. The servants had gone to bed; she +dared not let even her enemy, who might at any minute betray Beryl’s +faith in her, cross that courtyard in the dark. + +Walls were no obstacles to the evening visitors at the house; she had a +quick, sickening vision of a snarling pounce, a sound of worrying, and +then a scream and a crunching and tearing of flesh. And in the vision, +too, something that squatted on the wall and hounded on its dreadful +servants. + +“Mr. Heriot,” she had risen abruptly from the comfortable chair where +her thoughts had been a torment that even Heriot might have pitied, +thoughts of old days that had come back to her as if risen with this +man from the dead, “Mr. Heriot, it’s dark! Do you know you can’t go +back to your rooms?” + +“I never meant to,” he answered quietly. “Did you think that, after +hearing all I have, I was going to leave you two alone to face the +night?” + +To his surprise, it was Beryl who bestowed a somber glance on him; +there was a queer relief on Andria’s face. + +“You ought to have gone!” the girl cried. “You will only be a trouble +here.” + +“I’ll try not to be,” he laughed, in spite of himself. “I can sleep +quite well on this sofa.” + +“If you sleep anywhere!” + +“She’s right,” said Andria. “It will be worse if those beasts smell you +out. You should have gone.” + +But, though she hated him for his unkindness, she was glad of his +company. Even an extra dog would have been welcome in that house. + +“Let us hope they won’t scent me.” He was only half in earnest, +thinking they exaggerated, as women do. + +“I can manage them,” said Beryl softly. “They’re tame, really,” and, +without reason, Heriot’s heart thrilled with pride at the fearless, +almost careless, voice. + +It was torture to Andria to sit in the room with the man who knew her +history and despised her for it. It brought back those London nights +with the supper-room windows open on a moonlit garden, when Andria +Erle, in satin and diamonds, had fleeted time carelessly, reckless +of what men thought of her. She cared now. She would have given all +her beauty to have seen respect in Heriot’s eyes, casual acquaintance +though he was. And the very way he turned his sentences brought back +Raimond, haggard, brown-eyed, gentlemanly, with that way he had of +smiling. + +In spite of herself her heart cried out for the man who had been her +all. To shake off her thoughts she rose as soon as she dared, and +carried Beryl off to bed. + +Heriot, left alone, remembered something. + +Salome, at a word from Andria, had produced cigars. He rummaged about +and found them on a side table. They were Egerton’s, but Heriot was +in no mood to be particular. He had had nothing to smoke in the three +weeks he had been in this queer place. + +He lit a perfecto and leaned back in sweet content as the blue smoke +curled upward. For a little while he forgot everything but the joy of +his smoke, and then the close heat of the room annoyed him. He limped +over to a window and unbarred it, but hardly a breath came in. Without +a thought of the tales of jaguars or their strange master, Heriot +opened the veranda jalousies and sniffed the air of the gorgeous night. + +A honey-colored moon swam in the sky, even the colors of the flowers in +the garden were visible, and the scent of oleander-blossoms rose like +incense in his nostrils. With a sigh of content, he turned back into +the room and picked up the only book it contained. The yellow pages +opened of their own accord at a worn passage, and as he read it he +wondered. + +“As sure as the turquoise attracts love and the amethyst repels it, so +does the beryl bring bad dreams.” + +He turned to the title-page. + +“Jewels--Their Verye Majicke Vertue,” he saw in thick, old lettering, +and went back to the passage he was reading. + +“This is a queer Beryl; I wonder if she will bring bad dreams,” he +thought sleepily, as his cigar burned out. Too lazy to move, he dozed +in his chair, while the lamps burned low and flickered in the rising +breeze. + +A pleasant sound, hurrying, pattering, like heavy rain on a roof, +soothed him dreamily. + +His head rested more heavily on the silk cushions of his deep chair; he +still saw the dimly lighted room, but mistily, as in a dream. + +His eyelids fell at last, his long lashes rested on his brown cheek. + +The hurrying patter outside ceased. + +If any one looked with wild incredulity through the open jalousy Heriot +did not see them; if softly and soundlessly something slipped in and +crept behind his chair he did not hear, or know what curved, crooked +fingers itched to clutch at his throat, and yet were kept from it by a +cunning mind. + +The man was asleep; would stay asleep till--something woke him. + +A minute later Heriot opened his eyes, and leaped to his feet as one +who shakes off a dream at a half-heard sound. + +Had he seen, for one second, a face, jeering and malicious, glance back +at him from the door into the passage? And did he see that door closing +softly now? And did he hear quite close, and coming nearer, quick, +yelping whines, as of beasts hunting? + +Heriot rushed to the open jalousy, tore it to him and barred it; shut +and locked the window into the room. And not an instant too soon, for +something soft, yet tremendously heavy, had hurled itself against his +jalousy; but the good wood held. + +“The jaguars! It was true, then,” he thought almost unconsciously, for +there was no time for thinking when something worse than a jaguar was +on its way to those two defenseless women up-stairs. Regardless of his +lameness, he raced up-stairs. + +There were lights everywhere, and perfect silence everywhere, too. Had +he dreamed that evil, fleering face--that misshapen body, with its +crooked claws of hands? + +A scream, so wild and dreadful in that lonely house that it turned his +blood to fire, answered him. Yet the thrilling note of it was rage--not +fear! + +“All right!” he shouted; “I’m coming!” and ran in the direction of the +sound. + +Andria Erle, white as ashes, her teeth showing as her lips curled +back from them, was half-facing him, as she threw Beryl back through +a half-open door. As Heriot ran to her she banged it to, and shut it +on the girl; and then he saw what sickened him. There were hands like +claws clasped round Mrs. Erle’s bare throat, and a monster that bit +buried in the nape of her lovely neck. + +“Bolt the door, Beryl--quick!” her voice came choked. “Never mind--me!” + +Heriot’s arms shot over her shoulder as she spoke. But he missed the +ghastly thing that clung around her. He jumped to drag it off her, but +it eluded him; with the noiseless spring of a cat it had dropped to the +ground and vanished somewhere in the winding passage. + +Andria panted desperately. + +“Beryl is all right,” she said. “He can’t get at her. Beryl, can you +let us in?” + +“Yes. Oh, Andria!” in anguish, “no! The bolt’s stuck.” + +“Don’t move it, then.” Andria was trembling from head to foot. “Lock +your window. Is Salome there?” + +“Yes, missus! Wait, we’ll get you in.” + +“No!” with authority. “I’m all right; Mr. Heriot’s here. Don’t open +that door, Salome, till I tell you to. Promise!” + +“I can’t open it,” said the black woman with despair. “Oh, Miss +Holbeach! Run somewhere--quick! He’s in; he’ll let dem in!” + +Andria clutched Heriot’s arm. + +“She’s right!” she cried. “Come! See my room. I left a light there, and +now it’s dark!” + +“I’ll break the crazy brute’s neck!” said Heriot furiously. “Let go my +arm, please!” To his anger, she was strong as he. + +“Not without a revolver,” she said imperiously. “Have you no sense? You +can’t do anything but get killed--and then I’m gone, too. Come!” + +Even in his rage Heriot saw she was right. He was in no trim to fight a +madman, with no weapon but his hands. + +In utter silence he ran with her up the lighted stairs and into the +first room they came to. There was a lamp burning, for it was Egerton’s +sitting-room, and by his orders never dark, even in his absence. But as +they entered it they heard pattering footsteps on their trail. + +“Stop!” Andria caught Heriot as he would have shut the door. “We +daren’t. He might get in at Beryl.” + +She seized a hard-stuffed bolster from a corner, and, before he could +stop her, had sent it twice through the window, with a crash and fall +of splintered glass. There was a veranda outside, but no jalousies; +nothing to keep an evil thing imprisoned. With an irresistible force +she dragged Heriot behind a table, whose cloth reached the ground, and +made him crouch there beside her. His arm felt like iron under her +fingers. He was waiting for a fight, and saw nothing in her breaking +the window but an attempt to fly that way, quickly abandoned as useless. + +The hurrying, relentless steps came in, stopped. Then, with a snarling +cry of wordless rage, their strange enemy saw the open window. Like a +flash, he bounded to it, through it; and Heriot, quicker than he had +ever moved in his life, leaped after him. Andria pointed to a heavy +chest of drawers. + +“That!” she cried. “Keep him out!” and, somehow, the two moved the +heavy thing across the window. From outside, without a purchase, it +would have taken a Sandow to move it; but the two, with one consent, +moved quickly from the room. Heriot shut and locked the heavy door +behind them, rejoicing in the iron clamps on the solid wood, but +marveling no longer. + +“How did he get in?” cried Andria; she leaned against the wall, pale +and trembling. + +“Come back to Beryl. It’s all right now.” + +“Yes,” but he did not move. “Turn round,” he said authoritatively; “let +me see your neck! Do you know that brute bit you?” + +His whole manner utterly changed, and he laid a hand on her shoulder, +where her white dressing-gown was torn to ribbons. He felt a shudder +run through her. + +“I didn’t--feel it!” she said jerkily. “I was so frightened for Beryl.” + +Heriot’s face was dark with shame. + +“My God!” he muttered as he saw the deep marks of teeth in the nape of +her neck. “I ought to be kicked. Mrs. Erle, I have to beg your pardon a +thousand times. I’ve behaved like a beastly cad. I--do you know, it’s +all my fault?” + +“Is it deep? Will it be poisoned?” She took no heed of his words, and +he saw that at last there was terror in her face. + +“No!” he lied bravely, sickening at the jagged marks, where the blood +oozed. “Come here! Where can I get some water?” but as he spoke his +quick eye caught a can standing at the head of the stairs, ready to +fill the morning baths. + +“Kneel down, and don’t be frightened, please,” he said gently. “If +there is any poison I’ll get it out.” + +Half-mad with disgust, she did not realize what he meant to do till she +felt his lips on her neck. He was sucking the poison from the wound! + +At first she nearly flung him from her, and then she buried her face in +her hands. There was no one else. Beryl she could not let do it, and +Salome was black. But Andria was whiter than marble and cold from head +to foot. When the sickening business was done, as she rose from her +knees she staggered. + +“I ought to thank you,” but she did not look at him. “You----” + +“I’m not fit to black your shoes,” he cut her short, with a queer sound +in his voice. “For God’s sake, Mrs. Erle, forgive me if you can. I +thought you were on Egerton’s side, and in his pay to get rid of the +girl. And I’ve just seen you ready to chuck your life away for her.” + +“I’m not what you think me. I never was.” She put her hand to her +throat and cried out at the pain of the bruised flesh she touched. + +“I think you are a good woman,” said Heriot, “and the bravest on God’s +earth. I can’t forgive myself. Do you know, it was I let that brute in?” + +From very weakness the tears came in her eyes as he told her how; yet +spoke up bravely. + +“I don’t care. I’m not frightened of the bite if you trust me now. +You’ve seen--you must believe me!” + +Heriot looked at her, pale and wild in her torn dressing-gown, her +beautiful face ghastly. This was the woman he had dared to judge; +and she had dared to risk her life for the very girl he had thought +she meant to betray. And it was he who had really caused that wound +that bled still. He could have gone on his knees in his shame and +humiliation. + +“Come,” he said quietly, “get the others to let you in, and go to bed.” + +“I can’t sleep;” she shook like a leaf, but she followed him. + +Salome got the door open in what seemed an endless time, as Andria +stood outside with chattering teeth. + +“Miss Holbeach!” the woman cried wildly, “it’s daylight! An’ I heard de +engines in de bay. De ship’s got back!” she ran past Andria to the top +of the house. + +The world lay quiet in the hour of daybreak, and Egerton’s yacht lay at +anchor in the gray wanness of the calm water. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL. + + “‘Bone of thy bone,’ said God to Adam. + ‘Core of my core,’ say I to thee.” + + +“You’re sure, Salome?” Andria cried. Too stiff and weary to move, only +her eyes looked alive in her pale face. + +“It’s de boat, it mayn’t be him. Oh, my land, Miss Holbeach, dey’s +blood on you dress! He’ll kill me. Honey, let ole Salome see! Whata +done got yer?” + +But Heriot saw she knew. + +“If it is Egerton,” he observed grimly, “he won’t have everything his +own way. He’ll be amenable enough when he finds he hasn’t only women to +bully.” + +Andria started. + +“He mustn’t find you here!” she cried. “Perhaps he has come to take us +away. You must go back to the quarters till I find out what he means to +do.” + +“We can’t go away and leave him here!” said Beryl sharply, pointing to +Heriot. + +“We won’t. If Egerton means to take us back to England we’ll make him +take Mr. Heriot, too. He mayn’t know how dreadful things are here--he +may be better than we think.” + +“He knows, honey,” said Salome pitifully. “Don’t you put no trust in +dat.” + +“You must hide, don’t you see it?” Andria repeated. “This is Egerton’s +house. If he finds you here he can turn you out. And then what help +could you be to us?” + +“He’d have his work cut out,” Heriot returned, almost smiling, standing +straight and tall among the three women. + +“He wouldn’t cut out no more’n he could do,” observed Salome dryly. +“Dat crew on board dat yacht is all cutthroat dagos, dey’d do whatever +he tell ’em, knife you or drown you. I been six years in dis house, and +you mind me--dey ain’t no chance here in a fight for any one but Mr. +Egerton heself!” + +“If you want to help us,” begged Andria, “go into the quarters and +wait. Chloe and Amelia Jane won’t tell, they’re too frightened of him +to speak to him if they can help it.” It was the best way. To see a +strange man here might turn Egerton’s good intentions into bad ones. + +“Oh, I can’t!” said Heriot, with an angry laugh. “I’d rather have +things out with the man.” + +A slim, cool hand was on his wrist as he spoke. + +“Wait and see,” said Beryl. “Please, Mr. Heriot. Then if he means badly +to us you’ll be here to help us.” + +Voice and touch were exactly like a child’s. Heriot flushed as he met +the tawny eyes that were so innocent. + +“All right,” he returned reluctantly. “But if there’s going to be any +delay about taking you away from this you’ll let me know, won’t you?” + +Andria nodded. This girl, fresh from the convent, had bent the man’s +will as all her own worldly wisdom could not do. She glanced from one +to the other with a pang at her heart. Love was a bitter thing. If it +grew up between them how would it end? She bit her lip, remembering her +own love’s beginning. + +Salome had run out into the veranda. She came back now frowning with +excitement. + +“It’s him, he’s back! Coming up de path wid two sailors,” she cried. +“Whatever’ll we do if he sees Mr. Heriot?” + +“He won’t!” said Beryl promptly. “Mr. Heriot’s going into the quarters +to wait and see what happens. Chloe and Amelia won’t tell.” + +“Ain’t no sense in trusting dem niggers. You stay here, and I’ll tell +’em you’re gone--went last night. Dey won’t tell you’s been here when +dey might tell you is here,” she said shrewdly, and she was off and +back before it seemed possible. + +“Come, down de side stairs,” she whispered. “Chloe and ’Melia’s comin’ +up de front ones now to get ready master’s room. Hurry!” + +She dragged him off as she spoke, and Beryl turned to Andria. + +“What are you going to do?” she asked. + +“Look!” said Andria, and bent down. + +The girl drew back with a cry. + +“You got that, to save me!” + +“I got it, anyhow,” grimly. “I’ll show him that and the broken window +in his room where the man went out. I dare him to leave us here after +that. I wonder what brought him back so soon?” + +“He could have been here before. It’s only six days to England. Andria, +do you think he’s come to take us away?” + +“What else?” + +“I don’t know,” said Beryl, very low. “But I think he hates me worse +than Mother Felicitas did. Listen; don’t tell him those jaguars are +tame--don’t tell him I play with the kittens. Let him think we’re +afraid.” + +“I am afraid. There’s no thinking about it.” + +“Tell him about the crazy man, make more of that, for that’s really the +root of all,” Beryl persisted, with more truth than she knew. + +“Why don’t you want him to know the beasts aren’t really dangerous?” + +“They are,” coolly, “as far as he is concerned. Andria, are you going +to meet him like that, all torn and bloody?” looking at the other +woman’s flimsy muslin gown, whose real lace was in shreds. + +“It won’t hurt him to see it, I had to feel it,” Andria answered dully. +“Beryl, did you notice something last night? When that dreadful, +wizened creature came jabbering into our room last night, it wasn’t you +he sprang at, it was I! If he had made for you I couldn’t have done +anything.” + +“I saw,” but to Andria’s surprise she broke into a passion of tears. +“Oh, Andria,” she sobbed, “what’s wrong with me that all strange things +fear me? Am I half a beast, or crazy, like that dumb, jabbering man?” + +But Andria never answered. For once she let the girl she loved cry +to her in vain. She was on her feet, breathless, listening with every +nerve. + +Did every one who came to this dreadful house lose their senses? or did +she in very truth hear a voice she had never thought to hear this side +of the grave? + +Frantic, she hushed the girl who sobbed beside her. + +“Be quiet, listen!” her hand like a vise on Beryl’s shoulder. “There’s +some one else there with Mr. Egerton.” + +A man’s voice, sweet and drawling, came up the stairs from the +entrance-hall. + +“By George! You do yourself well in your country retreat. The man must +have been crazy to sell it to you for such a song!” + +“Perhaps he was,” the answer was dry and significant. “My dear boy,” +Egerton said in his ordinary tone, “did you expect me to keep my ward +in a tent?” + +Andria staggered back against Beryl, whose tears had dried on her +cheeks. + +“I’m faint,” she muttered, “ill. Tell them they can’t see me. I’m going +to bed.” + +The strength gone from her muscles, her feet barely carrying her, she +wrenched herself from Beryl’s hold and crept, more than walked, to her +room. That was Egerton down-stairs, and with him was--Raimond Erle! + +Why was he here? What had brought him? + +She flung herself down on her bed, laughing and crying with incredulous +joy. There could be but one reason, he must have found out from Egerton +that she was here; must have wearied for her as she had for him, and +come himself to tell her that that letter was all a lie; that she was +still his wife, always had been and always would be, world without end. + +“Thank God! Oh, thank God!” gasped Andria Erle, face down on her bed. +She knew now that she could never forget the man who had been all hers, +never look on any other but with indifferent eyes. She could forgive +Egerton for all the mystery that was round her, could thank him even +with that smarting wound at the back of her neck that had brought her +here. She had been but half-alive all these weeks, a ghost of herself. +Now she could rise again as from her grave, and dress herself to go +down fresh and fair when Raimond sent for her. For the first time she +was glad the French maid had disobeyed her and packed the gowns she had +never meant to wear again. + +Not even a thought of all she had to forgive crossed her mind. He was +here, he had come for her; that was all. + +She rose with feverish haste. There was a pale lilac gown he had +liked--“he said I looked like spring in it,” she thought, hunting in +her boxes till she found it. + +She looked like spring indeed when she had it on and remembered the day +he had bought it for her. It deepened her blue-gray eyes into violet, +set off her cream-white skin and ruddy hair. Heriot, the past night, +forgotten as if they had never been, she stared at herself. + +“I’m handsomer than I was,” she thought, with a leaping heart, “fairer, +softer! He will be glad, glad when he sees me. But I won’t go down till +he sends.” + +The soft lilac stuff fell in lovely folds round her as she turned at a +knock at the door. + +“Come in!” she cried; she could not make her voice quiet. “Come in.” + +It was Amelia Jane, carrying her breakfast. + +“I thought you was sick!” she cried. “My soul, I dunno when I see you +look so well.” + +“I’m better--well! Tell me”--the question came beyond her +will--“did--did Mr. Egerton send me any message? Is Miss Beryl at +breakfast?” + +“Yes’m. She an’ Mr. Egerton an’ another gentleman. No, he didn’t send +no message.” + +“Very well,” she said, her voice oddly flat and unmusical. + +“Put the breakfast down, please, Amelia.” + +But when the woman was gone she made no attempt to eat; only sank into +a chair as if her new-found strength had somehow failed her. If she had +been in Raimond Erle’s place, could she have waited all this time? + +“Not one minute of it,” said her starving heart. “Not one minute!” + +The color faded from her face as she sat and watched the clock. Ten +minutes, twenty, three-quarters of an hour--and he had not come, though +breakfast must long have been over. She could not sit still and wait +like this, dared not go down and meet him before the others. + +“I’ll get up and walk up and down. Perhaps by the time I count a +thousand steps he’ll be here! Only a thousand little steps, dear +saints, and I’ll see him, kiss him, be in his arms.” + +She had barely counted a hundred in her wild walk when a man’s step +sounded in the hall, a man’s knock on her door. + +Radiant, triumphant, incredulous of her own joy, she sprang to the door +and flung it wide. + +Every drop of blood in her body seemed to surge back to her heart. +Egerton, tall, suave, middle-aged, stood on her threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +STRANGERS. + + “Thou shalt meet him, but wilt thou greet him?” + “Ah, no.” + + +“My dear Miss Holbeach,” he said, “good morning. I am sorry to find you +not well. I hope my unexpected arrival did not startle you.” + +And indeed she looked ill enough, and startled enough for anything, +as she leaned hard on the door-handle that she might not fall. Every +vestige of color had gone from her face, even her lips were ashy. + +“I’m only faint--I had a fright,” she could only mutter incoherently, +as she tried for the breath that came so hardly, “a fright--last night.” + +“My poor lady,” he said quite kindly. “I see you are altogether +unstrung. I came to ask you to come to my room. I wish to tell you----” + +“Oh! not there,” she cried, with an uncontrollable shudder. “Not there!” + +“May I come in here, then?” he asked courteously. “This is your +sitting-room, I imagine.” + +Andria glanced backward at the door she had so carefully closed that +Raimond Erle might not see her disordered bedroom, where she had thrown +down gown after gown in the search for this one that should please him. + +“Come in,” she said, with white lips, anxious only to get the door into +the passage shut lest Raimond might pass by, and Egerton looked at her +covertly as she sank into a chair, too nerveless to stand. There must +have been wild work here to make this woman look as she did. He had +heard nothing from either Beryl or Salome, who had both been silent and +sullen; but he knew from Andria’s face that she had seen what perhaps +he had meant her to see when he brought her here, but what now--since +his purpose had changed--he had nearly burst the boilers of his yacht +in trying to get here in time to prevent. + +For Andria was right, he had never meant to return, his warnings to +her and Salome had all been a blind; Beryl Corselas, when first he +found her, had been a burden to get rid of, he had not dared to let her +stay in England or let his name be heard in connection with her. Here +in this island he had meant her to disappear for good and all--but, +of course, to his deep sorrow and surprise! He was so careful a +scoundrel that he had acted a part even before the servant who was his +miserable slave and the woman he had engaged because of her probable +unscrupulousness. That he had warned them had been all that kept +Egerton from cursing himself for a fool all the way from England. One +paragraph in a paper had made those sham warnings real. Lord Erceldonne +had sent for his son, and two days after set out in hot haste for his +secret retreat, terrified that his plans might have flourished so well +as to ruin him. + +In the long pause Andria’s slow pulses were loud in her ears; but she +had pulled herself together. After all, it was natural that Egerton +should come first, natural that he should be puzzled how to open a +difficult subject; and of course he must be in Raimond’s confidence. +But when he did speak it was not about the man he had brought with him. + +“Miss Holbeach,” he said slowly, “you said you had been frightened. Do +you mean in this house? Or out of doors? I warned you, you remember!” + +“You warned me, and yet you left me here with a defenseless girl,” she +said almost inaudibly. She cared little now for the horrors she had +suffered; he had come to take them away. Raimond was here; it was all +past and gone. + +“There was no reason not to leave you here,” he lied calmly. “I will +be quite frank with you, there had been a reason; but I learned from +Salome that it had quite disappeared.” + +There was a sort of lethargy in Andria’s soul; nothing mattered now +but Raimond. Yet at the plausible untruth she shook it off. + +“It appeared again the very night you left here!” she cried. “A man +came, a little, wizened man, like an ape, that hurried around the house +and climbed up the jalousies like a monkey. And the next day I saw his +face over my shoulder in the pond, a leering thing that mouthed at +me----” + +“The pond! I told you to keep away from that path,” the anger that was +sincere at last steadied her nerves. + +“I went to get Beryl. She had strayed there.” The governess looked him +in the face with eyes that were magnificent. “I took care that she +never went again. But that’s not all. There are beasts here, dreadful +jaguars. All night long they hunt and sniff about the house, they climb +the jalousies and--I’ve seen their eyes!” with a shudder. “Oh, Mr. +Egerton, take us away!” + +The man had started to his feet. + +“It is what I came to do,” he answered hurriedly. “Believe me, I had no +idea of this. I thought the place was safe--Salome said so.” + +“Safe for white women!” She rose, too, as the scornful cry broke from +her. “I will show you how safe it is. Look here!” She pulled down the +lace and ribbon at the back of her collar. “Look at that. Do you know +there was nearly murder done here last night. I don’t know why there +wasn’t.” + +She bent her head, and at sight of the double rows of deep-crimson +punctures where the piece had been all but bitten out, the man who had +brought her to this evil place was dumb, though a month ago it might +have suited him well enough. She straightened her collar again with +trembling fingers. + +“What did that?” Egerton moistened his lips. “Not a beast? You--you +never could have got away!” + +“A man,” she said quietly, “a man, dumb, and crazy, and strong, so +strong that only God saved me from him. We were standing in Beryl’s +room when he came in on us, running, stooping so low that he seemed +to be on all fours. I ran between him and Beryl and he jumped on my +back. I felt his teeth through my flesh. I ran out into the hall with +his fingers round my throat and shut the door on the girl. Then”--her +hesitation was so momentary that he did not see it--“something +frightened the thing. It let me go and I ran. Did you see there was +a chest of drawers against your sitting-room window? It was I put it +there. I broke the window when I ran in there, and the man thought +I had gone out through the broken pane and followed me. I moved the +chest--locked the door”--her chest heaved at the memory; tears born of +that suspense that was eating at her heart blinded her. “Oh, surely you +didn’t know what you were leaving us to!” she cried. + +“Where was Salome?” He was not given to swearing, but he barely kept in +a furious oath. + +“In Beryl’s bedroom. She saw nothing, knew nothing till I and--that +thing--were out in the hall. She has done everything to keep us safe.” + +“Whereas you evidently think I brought you here to be murdered!” he +returned, a queer look in his black eyes that seemed blacker than ever. +“Well, I can’t wonder if you do! Sit down, please, and rest. I owe you +a very deep gratitude.” + +He bent his head to hide his face, which was not grateful. In his +inmost soul he would have been glad if this foolhardy woman had behaved +like a good, sensible coward. It would have cut the knot that galled +him night and day, though it would have cost him a fortune. Perhaps not +that, he would have been in a position to seek other girls with money. + +“It’s a long story,” he cut off his thoughts hastily, since what was +done was done, “but I must tell it to you to explain. Might I smoke? +You don’t mind? Perhaps you will have a cigarette yourself?” + +“I? No, I never smoke,” she said, with annoyed surprise. + +Mr. Egerton broke out into that hoarse cackle of a laugh that always +jarred on Andria’s nerves. He had noticed cigar smoke heavy in the +shut-up drawing-room the very instant he had entered the house +at dawn; had seen the butt of one of his own cigars reposing in a +flower-pot. And now the governess’ hasty lie amused him even in his +annoyance. A cigar, too, of all things! + +“Many women do smoke, even cigars,” he said urbanely. “I beg your +pardon if I thought you had the habit. It seemed quite possible.” + +Then he did know about her past when the few women she had known smoked +like chimneys! She never remembered having told Salome that Heriot must +have cigars; she only wished Egerton would go on. Would he never get +to Raimond Erle? She looked at his face and imagined it pleased him to +tantalize her. + +“What does it all mean?” she asked. “Though I suppose it doesn’t matter +if we are going away.” + +“It does matter. I don’t want you to think me a murderer,” he said, +so gently that it brought back to her another voice which each minute +seemed an hour till she heard. “But I must go back a long way to make +you understand. Twenty years ago I saw this place first. I was yachting +and found it by chance. The house stood exactly as it does now, but it +was surrounded by magnificent gardens, was full of servants and luxury. +There were only two people in it, a retired planter of forty, and his +daughter. She was the most beautiful person I have ever seen, but +that,” hastily, “was not my affair, nor, if her father could help it, +any one else’s. I saw then the man was mad. He told me he would shoot +the first man who wished to marry his daughter, had brought her here +out of the world that she might live and die unmarried; a girl who was +more beautiful than any woman alive! + +“‘He would not have her suffer as women suffered,’ he said. ‘All +men were cruel, she should not be at the mercy of any.’ She was his +idol. His only other interest was wild animals. He had a regular +menagerie--lions, a tiger, jaguars--and he and that girl would +play with them as if they were lambs. It used to make my blood run +cold to see them. She would sit among the jaguars crooning a queer +song”--Andria’s hands that lay on her knees clenched with the effort +not to cry out; did he know how dreadful a thing he was telling her? +did he mean the madman’s daughter was Beryl’s mother?--“till the beasts +came fawning round her like a kitten. Oh, I know it sounds like a +fairy-tale! But I saw it.” + +Only her innate caution, her habit of distrust, kept her from a quick +disclosure. Long afterward she knew she had saved her life by holding +her peace. + +“Well, I went away! The girl was nothing to me,” he continued, looking +not at Andria, but his half-smoked cigarette, so that, being a woman, +she knew the girl had been everything to him and he nothing at all to +her. “I came back again two years afterward--and I would not have known +the place. The beautiful gardens were a tangle of creepers and weeds, +the servants were all gone; the animals dead from starvation in their +enclosures, all but the jaguars, that had broken loose and foraged for +themselves. The man I found at last, ragged, thin, half-naked, and at +first he would not speak to me; would only jabber at me without words.” + +“Then it was he!” she gasped. + +“Wait,” he nodded. “He was dumb, mad, but by and by his madness cleared +a little and he told me what had happened. A stranger had come to the +island; it was the old story that I need not dwell on”--reflecting +hastily that it was one this woman probably knew from cover to cover. +“She defied her father and ran away with him in a native boat. The man +dismissed his servants and sat alone in his misery, and then heard +that all his money, which had been in Brazilian bonds, was lost. He +had not a penny to go and seek her through the world. He forgot, as I +said, even his animals; almost forgot the use of his tongue, for only +at intervals could I make him talk. Well, I was sorry for him!” What +vindictive light lit his eyes to her sharp vision! “I liked the place +and bought it for a toy, merely that the old man,” he continued slowly, +“might be free to go and find his daughter who had deserted him.” + +The words were so gently spoken that it took all her cleverness to +grasp their meaning. He had tried to set a madman on the track of the +woman who had refused him and the man she had loved. Her eyes dilated +with abhorrence, and yet his next words came so smoothly that she did +not know what to think, and there was no one to tell her how cunningly +he was mingling the truth with lies. + +“You would have pitied him, too; he had aged twenty years in the two +that had passed. All he wanted was to find his daughter, yet when I +gave him money he was too crazy to go. He threw it before my eyes into +that pond you spoke of and went off to some lair in the woods with +his jaguars.” He did not say how pitifully inadequate had been the +purchase-money, nor that the lawful owner had been hunted away by men +with guns. “In all the years I have been coming here I have only once +had any evidence that he was alive”--that once would have made any +other man long for the grave that he might hide his shame there!--“and +Salome, who has been in charge here for six years, swore to me when I +brought you that the place was safe. I am more shocked and horrified +than I can say that you should have been in such danger from that +lunatic and his animals. To-morrow, if you like, I will have my yacht’s +crew scour the country till we find him.” + +“Let him be,” said Andria pitifully. “Besides, if we are going away! +And we shall be quite safe with you in the house”--“and Raimond!” she +added in her mind, the thought of him bringing light to her eyes, color +to her lips. + +“Yes, exactly,” he agreed quickly, though he had no idea of sleeping +in the house or letting the man he had brought with him sleep there +either. That madman would tear him limb from limb if he could; Mr. +Egerton knew only too well that the very sight of him would rouse +boundless fury in the dumb thing that ran up and down the deserted +gardens whence his delight had fled. He would never dare to stay in the +house knowing that his crazy enemy had ever been able to enter it. + +“How did he get in?” he asked. + +“I don’t quite know,” she stammered. “I was up-stairs.” + +She had forgotten all about Heriot stuffed away in the servants’ +quarters till now. She had it on the tip of her tongue to avow +everything, but something furtive, dishonest, in Egerton’s face stopped +her. + +“Better wait,” she thought. “I can tell Raimond first. He will know +what to do.” + +And though Egerton had explained far more than he had imagined to her +all was not clear yet. As he rose to go she rose, too, and looked at +him. + +“Why did you tell me this was Bermuda?” she asked suddenly. + +“From inadvertency, at first--the house is called Bermuda. Then because +I feared you would rebel against being banished to an uninhabited part +of the Azores. I fancied you had not been accustomed to--dulness!” and +at the covert meaning of the words and the lie that began them, she +caught her breath. There had been no inadvertence in his mention of +Bermuda, first or last. + +“I wanted Beryl out of England, you’re right!” he added, as if he knew +what was in her mind. “I pitied her. I had no wish to see a long arm +stretched out from the convent to claim her, for of course she has told +you her story. I hope to see her happily married, not dragging out +existence in prison, all but the name. And I knew no other place to put +her. But that,” with his queer laugh, “will be remedied now.” + +Something in the assured expectancy of his voice woke a dreadful +thought in Andria Erle. Like a flash the glamour fell from her eyes, +she put two and two together. He meant to see Beryl safely married; +he had brought Raimond Erle to this place; the things dovetailed with +horrible accuracy, though she could not see what Raimond had to do with +Egerton. + +“You mean----” she said; she could hardly speak. + +“I mean one never knows what the day may bring forth,” he answered +lightly. “If you look from your window you may understand.” + +She had no need to. Their voices, Beryl’s and Raimond’s, came up to +her gaily where she stood. Had she been deaf not to have heard them +before? + +It was as if a gulf of darkness had opened under her feet, yet she +would not flinch if pride could keep her steady. Raimond--did Egerton +mean it was for her sake he had come? + +Egerton, watching the hot color come and go in the governess’ face, +wondered he had never seen how beautiful she was. She would be a +dangerous rival for that half-fledged girl down-stairs. He hoped there +were not going to be any troublesome complications. + +“You are not coming down to-day, you said!” he suggested. “Perhaps you +are right, and it would be well to rest.” + +She was ready to say she would go down now, this instant, when she +remembered he was her master; that governesses did not always come to +the table with guests. + +“Perhaps it would,” she answered, and the coldness of her voice pleased +him. + +“I have not mentioned you, at least your name,” he had the grace not to +look at her, even though he had no idea she and Erle had ever met; “I +thought, perhaps, you would prefer not to meet strangers.” + +“No,” and by good luck he did not see her face, “not strangers, though +there is no earthly reason you should not mention my name,” for +Holbeach would mean nothing to Raimond. “I will go down when you send +for me.” + +As the door closed behind him she caught at the table to hold herself +up. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, and her nostrils pinched as she +breathed. From the scented shade of the oleanders below her there +floated up a man’s laugh, low and sweet. Agony racked her as even she +had not known it could without killing her. + +“Strangers,” she said in a dreadful whisper, “he and I!” + +Her face convulsed out of all beauty, she ran to the window and looked +out behind the jalousy. In the garden, tall, handsome in a haggard, +hard-bitten way--and oh, God, beloved!--lounged the man who had been +her husband for five years. It took all her will to crush back the +cry on her lips. She knew from his face it was not for her he had come +back. He had forgotten. + +“Then why is he here?” she asked herself. But she dared not answer her +own soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +BEHIND THE CYPRESS BOUGHS. + + +“Andria!” a soft tap came at her locked door. “Let me in. Why haven’t +you been down all day?” + +“I was busy,” Andria answered, shutting the door behind Beryl. She had +been busy, indeed, and if Egerton had seen her now he would have had +no fears that her beauty might be a snare to any man’s feet. The pale +mauve gown had vanished with all the others that littered her bedroom; +in the plainest black gown she owned, Andria stood, tall and pale, her +eyes sunken, her mouth drawn; it was as if she had aged ten years. + +Beryl sat down on the table, a bright rose spot burning in each cheek. + +“I wish you’d come down. I don’t like it without you,” she said +restlessly. “Isn’t your throat well enough?” + +“I don’t know. I’d forgotten it. Why do you want me? Don’t you +like--him?” for her life she could not say the name. + +“Who? Mr. Egerton. I’ve always loathed him,” Beryl said angrily, “and I +always shall. If it were not for being with you, I’d rather he’d left +me in the workhouse!” + +“No”--hesitating--“the other?” + +“I don’t know. No, I don’t think I do! I liked him when I was with +him, but I hate him when I remember his eyes. He looked at me as if I +were something to eat,” she said pettishly. “No, I don’t like him. He +frightens me.” + +“How?” incredulously. Any other than Beryl she would have turned from +contemptuously if they had dared to criticize Raimond Erle. “What do +you mean?” + +“I don’t know exactly. But he wanted me to go out in the yacht with +him this afternoon, and I said I wouldn’t without you. I wouldn’t go +anywhere alone with him.” + +“Without me! You said--Beryl, quick, what did you call me? Not Andria?” +white as death she stood over the girl. + +“No. I did slip and say Miss Heathcote, but I corrected myself and said +Miss Holbeach. Why do you look like that? He didn’t notice. You don’t +mean he knows you?” + +“Not now,” said Andria, holding herself hard. “He did, once. What did +he say when you slipped on my name?” + +“Nothing. Half-shut his eyes like some people do when they smell a +nasty smell.” + +“You’re more truthful than polite.” + +“Well, you asked me, and that was exactly how he did look. Mr. Egerton +swam into the conversation with something about ‘Miss Holbeach being +my governess and an excellent woman,’ and Mr. Erle looked comfortable +again.” + +Andria did not wonder. “An excellent woman!” No words could have been +found that would have better set Raimond at rest. + +“Did he say any more?” she asked wretchedly. + +Beryl turned crimson. + +“No, he--he’s a beast, and I hate him!” she said passionately. “He said +he was glad I did not produce you at meals; learned ladies took away +his appetite.” + +“I won’t interfere with it; he needn’t agitate himself! Beryl, dear, +don’t speak of me to him; don’t tell him my Christian name, and don’t +let Heathcote slip again. I knew him once. I don’t want him to know I’m +here. At least,” hastily, “not now.” + +Every pulse of her longed to meet him, but not before Egerton and +Beryl. If she was to go to England in the same ship she must see him +first, but it should be no chance meeting before strangers. + +“I won’t say a word about you,” and, with a rare caress, she flung her +arms round Andria’s neck--“if you say not. Are you afraid of him, too?” + +“No!” said Andria sharply. “I can’t meet any one I ever knew till I’m +better--that’s all. See how ugly and swollen my throat is.” + +“I hate you being hurt for me. I wish it had been me that was bitten!” +Beryl said, with more force than grammar. + +“Did you tell him about that?” + +“No, I didn’t! I don’t believe he would have listened if I had. He only +talked nonsense.” + +“Do you mean he made love to you? Bah! Don’t answer me,” she cried, “I +was a fool to ask. He would make love to a girl who kept pigs, if she +were pretty.” + +“I don’t want him to think I’m pretty!” said Beryl, ruffled as a cat +stroked the wrong way, utterly ignorant of the way she was betraying +her own thoughts. “What have you done about Mr. Heriot? Have you told?” + +“No; I--waited!” answered Andria, with a ghastly smile, knowing she had +waited for what would never be. “Beryl, come here, look! There go Mr. +Egerton and--his friend--down to the shore. What for, do you suppose?” + +“Didn’t you know? They’re not going to stay here. They’re going to dine +and sleep on board the yacht and come back in the morning. And Mr. Erle +isn’t his friend--he’s his nephew. That’s why I came; I thought we +might go”--flushing--“and speak to Mr. Heriot. Didn’t you get anything +out of Mr. Egerton about our going away? And did he say anything about +that dreadful man, and the jaguars?” + +“Yes,” said Andria, as if she talked in her sleep. “I’ll tell you +by and by.” She leaned from the window looking after the man whose +shoulders and walk she would know among a thousand. He knew nothing +of her being here. Beryl’s slip of “Heathcote” had been to him only a +disagreeable coincidence, reminding him of things he wished to forget. +Then, what had brought him? + +“Beryl!” It was as if another person had spoken aloud in her ear. +“Egerton means to marry him to Beryl!” + +She could think of no reason why, and yet she was sure. And why not? +For all she knew, Beryl Corselas might be any one’s daughter, and +whatever her secret history was, Egerton must know it. + +“He’ll never do it, never! Whether I’m Raimond’s wife or not, I’ll +stop it,” she thought, wild passion at her heart. “I’ll tell anything, +everything. Mr. Heriot will back me up----” + +Beryl pinched her. + +“What are you dreaming about, with your face all screwed up?” she said. +“Let’s go and see Mr. Heriot. How those two men do loiter! If they’re +going, why don’t they go?” + +Andria stared at her. Beryl--Raimond--Heriot--what a tangle it was! And +would Heriot back her up? He knew nothing of her but that she had been +called “the Lovely Andria,” and had been thought to have fastened like +a leech on Raimond Erle, dragging him to that financial ruin which had +certainly overtaken him--though not through her, Heaven knew! And when +Heriot saw Raimond here, he would never believe Andria was not in the +whole scheme, let it be what it might. + +“I don’t care what he thinks!” she reflected swiftly. “Nothing matters +to me but Raimond. And I may be wronging him. Egerton may be trying to +keep me out of his way.” + +She turned impulsively to Beryl. + +“Stay here,” she said impetuously, “wait for me. I don’t know what to +do. I must go and think.” + +But it was not to think that she ran out into the gardens, brushing +by Salome, who tried to stop her in the hall to say something--what, +Andria neither knew nor cared. Only one thing was in her mind--to find +out why Raimond Erle was here, if not for her. Why should she believe +Egerton; who had lied to her before? + +The front door was in full view of the two men, who stood talking +still just where she had first seen them. Andria ran to a disused side +veranda and dropped down on a flower-bed. She wanted no one to see +her, least of all Beryl from her window. She vanished into a tangle of +overgrown bushes that Beryl called “the cat’s walk.” It cut the long +road to the shore--that instinct told her the two men would take--at +a right angle, and then ran parallel with it almost to the bay. There +would be only a yard of impervious thicket between her and Raimond, if +she got there in time to keep pace with him as he walked down the wide +road. + +She did not care as she ran that it was nearly sunset, and that those +teeth that had marked her neck might not be shaken off twice; she was +not even breathless with her breakneck pace as she reached the angle +of the path. She need only reach it, and whatever Raimond spoke of she +would hear. + +“It’s low--contemptible!” she thought grimly, “but I don’t care. I must +find out what I can, and----” the thought broke off unfinished. They +were coming! + +White-faced over her black dress, the governess, “that excellent +woman,” crouched behind the thicket of black cypress that was all that +stood between her and the man who had been her husband. + +And, sharpened as her senses were, she never dreamed that two yards +in front of her stood some one else, equally quiet, but from widely +different motives. + +Raimond’s voice--how the woman’s heart burned in her at the rich note +of it!--came on her ears. + +“You do hurry so unmercifully,” he was saying, “even down to that +confounded ship of yours. Why wouldn’t you stay up there and sleep in a +decent bed? Would you mind waiting one instant? My cigar’s gone out.” + +“Light it and be good enough to come on!” returned Egerton sharply. +“It’s nearly sunset, and I have no desire to get fever. You can talk on +the yacht.” + +“Oh, damn the yacht! That cook has the same menu every night. I wanted +to see what your niggers would give us for dinner.” + +Andria heard a match struck, then another. + +“Take my box,” said Egerton irritably, “and if you must dawdle here, +tell me what you mean to do. Isn’t the girl handsome enough for you, +or--you’re not still thinking of that wretched woman in London!” said +Egerton suspiciously. + +“Her? Oh, Lord, no! To be candid with you, I’d had enough of that; +I wasn’t sorry to be well out of it. She was a good-looking woman, +though! But I was tired of that house in Pont Street.” + +“You told me the truth when you said you weren’t fool enough to marry +her?” + +In the dead silence the woman they spoke of heard the man she loved +puffing at a cigar that would not draw; more interested in that than in +the question on which her life seemed to hang. The screen of trees was +thick, but if either man had seen the face behind it he would not have +known the white mask of agony. Would Raimond never answer? When he did, +it was with a laugh, and the governess, poor fool! winced. + +“I was mad enough for anything--at first! When I took her away from +Lady Parr’s,” he said coolly. “But I drew the line at that, more by +good luck than good management. At first I thought the marriage legal +enough, but then I found the man who did it was only a student--no +more ordained than you or I, though he’s since become a priest. Oh, +I’m perfectly eligible, my dear sir,” with another slight laugh. “But +though I see excellent reasons for my marrying this particular girl, +I’m not in much haste. She looks too much of a tiger-cat, for one +thing! Now, the late Mrs. Erle had faults, but she was never more +gentle than when she was in a furious rage.” + +“What became of her?” asked Egerton shortly. + +“Don’t know, and don’t care. I don’t see why you should, either, +when you were always at me to get rid of her. But that’s beside the +question. What you don’t seem to see is that you can’t hurry this girl. +She shies off if I look at her. You’re always too nippy. You shoved +her off here to get rid of her, and then tore your hair because you’d +done it. Let me remind you, it was I put you on her track in the first +place; without me, you’d never have put a finger on her. You chose to +treat me as a fool, and sneaked her off here. Then when you see that +a certain Spanish grandee is dead and--oh, don’t interrupt me; there +is not a soul about--has left all his money to a certain lady or her +heirs, and that those heirs are being advertised for, you fall on my +neck and beseech me to save your credit and your acres. Well, it suits +me well enough! I fancy the girl. But I’m going to do it in my own way. +So far, I beg to tell you, you’ve made a mess of it, in yours.” + +“Raimond!” the man’s voice was furious. “Don’t play the fool, don’t +dare. You don’t know all that hangs on it. It’s not the money only, +nor even the succession, it’s----” his voice dropped so low that even +Andria, whose very soul was listening, could not hear. + +“What!” cried Erle, startled for once. “But she dare not tell, there!” + +“No; we’ve got her in our hands in a way--but only in a way. +She--Mother Felicitas, they call her now,” with that uncontrollable, +jarring laugh of his, “has long claws! She will want the money, too, to +go to the convent--and the Lord knows she’ll have to pay well for her +seat in heaven!” + +“But why,” said Raimond, stupefied, “if you knew about her all along, +didn’t you have her out of the convent long ago?” + +“With publicity--back debts to pay up--to take you or leave you as +seemed good to the half-fledged brat! No! And I couldn’t have got her. +If you will have it, I’d been taken in. That woman held her over my +head till I found her--and I didn’t know about the money till I got +back from here. Before that, if I’d claimed her, I’d have brought out +old stories, ruined myself, ousted you or saddled you with a penniless +wife.” + +“Whereas, now, I’m made or marred by what a pale little devil with +cat’s eyes chooses to answer me,” replied Raimond coarsely. “Well, +there’s no choice! I’ll marry her if she says yes to my somewhat mature +charms. If she says no, I fail to see what’s to be done next!” + +“Then,” said Egerton angrily, “you’ve less sense than I imagined. Why +do you suppose I hired a yacht with money I haven’t got, and brought +her and you to this God-forsaken hole? If she says no, she can live and +die here. She’ll never get back to England, and she doesn’t know who +she is in any case. I should fancy it was simple as A B C. We’ll lose +the money, but we’ll save the rest.” + +Raimond Erle for a long minute said nothing. The wretched listener who +shrank appalled behind the screen of cypress could not see that he was +looking the other man up and down. + +“Well,” he remarked at last, “you must have been a daredevil when you +were young! But I quite agree with you. There’s only one character +in which your protégée can be taken to England, but you must give me +a little time to play the game. Come on out of this,” with sudden +distaste. “I don’t know why, but I feel as if there were devils behind +every bush in your secluded retreat.” + +“There’s one; oh, there’s one!” said Andria Heathcote, who knew now +that she had never been Andria Erle, though she had hoped against hope +even when she was turned out on the world with ten pounds. “I’ll ruin +you--ruin you! If there’s a God in heaven, you shall never have Beryl +to torture as you tortured me!” + +A thousand slights, a thousand dreadful positions he had put her in +where she must hold up her head till women called her brazen--aye, and +men, too!--came back to her. One kindly word, one pitying regret for +the woman he had once been mad for, and she might have played into his +hands for no other reason than that he had spoken of her softly for old +sake’s sake. But now--she could hate him now! + +Blindly, not seeing or caring where she was going, she stumbled +forward on the rough path, and round the very next bush nearly fell +against--Heriot! + +Pale, quivering from head to foot, she stood quite still. For a moment +she could not speak for the ungovernable fury of rage in her that he +should have heard her shamed. + +“You listened!” she cried at last. “You heard.” In the last low rays of +the sinking sun he stood before her bareheaded. + +“I slipped out for some air,” he said, very low. “I stood here because +I did not want them to see me till I knew what you had done. Yes, I +heard.” + +If he had dared to pity her she would have stood like a stone, but +now something in his voice reached the heart that felt frozen in her +breast. She broke into such a dreadful sobbing as he had never heard. + +“I knew it before,” she cried; “though I wouldn’t believe it. Even when +he turned me away, I wouldn’t believe it. I thought I was his wife. He +shall never have Beryl--never, unless he kills me to get her!” + +“Come back to the house. It is too late to be out,” was all Heriot +could find to say. He turned away that he might not see the shame and +agony in her distorted face. + +“He whispered,” she cried, distracted. “I couldn’t hear. Why, besides +the money, does his uncle want him to marry her?” + +“His uncle!” Heriot exclaimed. He was glad as he had not often been +that he had heard all that had been said, or not for a hundred oaths +from her would he have believed this woman knew nothing of the dirty +work Erle had on hand. And he had wronged her enough by judging her. +If it had not been for his self-righteousness she would have told him +everything long ago. “That wasn’t his uncle. That was his father, Lord +Erceldonne! He is not Egerton at all.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE CRY IN THE STARLIGHT. + + +“Erceldonne!” the world swam with her. + +For how many years had that name been her terror, its owner her evil +genius. Sometimes it had been clear even to her blinded eyes that his +anger was used as a pretext for not acknowledging her, and again she +had known when he had really put pressure on his son, and nothing but +a dogged, cross-grained temper had kept Raimond from giving her up. +And here she was taking his money, the paid servant of the man who had +ruined her life; for if it had not been for the fear of disinheritance, +Raimond would have married her openly in the days when love was young. +And Erceldonne---- + +To Heriot’s horror, she broke out into a harsh scream of laughter. +What would Erceldonne say if he knew the very woman he had been at his +wit’s end to get rid of had been brought by his own accord under his +very roof? She turned to Heriot, wiping away the tears born of that +horrible, mirthless laughter. + +“What a merry-andrew patchwork it is!” she cried. “‘Three blind mice, +see how they run’--now you come in, and then Raimond and the others; +we’re all in the dreadful round. And by and by the farmer’s wife will +come and cut all our tails off! Why don’t you laugh?” she cried wildly. + +He might have answered with perfect truth, because there was nothing +further from his mind than laughter. Here in the fast-growing gloom of +the cypress thicket, where Andria’s face was already but a patch of +white against the dark foliage, they were half a mile from the house; +and he knew now what the dangers were in this place after nightfall. +The very man who had brought two women here had not cared to stay and +face them. + +“What a fool I was to lie low!” he thought angrily. “If I had appeared +at first everything would have had to be open and aboveboard. Now, I +can’t come out after slinking away as I did. I wonder why I listened to +that child?” + +But he knew quite well why he had listened. From the very first day her +slow, soft voice, her strange eyes, had bewitched him. It was for more +than Andria’s sake that he was aghast at the cold wickedness of the man +who was pleased to call himself Egerton. + +“Come home, come back to the house!” he said sharply. “We’ve only +got to-night before us to settle what we must do;” but in his mind +there was, of course, only one thing to be done. He must reckon with +Erceldonne in the morning. + +He dared not even talk as he hurried his companion up the path. His +foot was stiff still, though his strength had come back to him; but no +man’s strength and his bare hands were going to avail anything against +a madman and two jaguars; and the woman at his side would welcome death +as a friend. + +If he had been alone he would have returned to the house with his hands +in his pockets--he could only die once, and life was not so sweet to +a broken man that he should worry about it. But with this silent, +listless woman on his hands, Heriot’s heart was in his mouth at every +strange shadow in the ever-deepening dark. When they were free of the +woods he felt easier. The good stars shone down on them as they reached +the open garden and drew near the house, and a quick compassion ran +through him for Andria Erle, whose only refuge was under the roof of +her enemy. + +“Look! What’s that?” he said quietly. “Let me go first.” + +“There’s no need,” returned Andria lifelessly. “If you mean that black +thing in the shadow by the steps, it’s Salome. She’s waiting for me; +she saw me go out.” + +The woman came to them swiftly, her finger on her lips. + +“Don’t speak,” she said softly; “Chloe’s in de dining-room. Oh, my +Lawd! I didn’t know where you was both got to.” + +“Send her away,” whispered Andria, with sudden passion. “Tell her +you’ll wait on me, anything!” She would go mad if she had to sit +through dinner alone, if Heriot must hide when there was so little time +to make a plan. + +“I’ll tell her and ’Melia Jane dey must iron dem two white dresses for +Miss Ber’l to-night. Dey won’t be no more’n time, and when dey gits out +in de wash-house,” she said shrewdly, “dey’ll be skeered to come in +again. Dey’ll sneak up-stairs to deir beds.” + +“Anything, only be quick!” Heriot should stay where he was till he +heard all she had to say; all the dreadful tale Egerton had let out +about Beryl, without knowing that she was putting two and two together. +“Lock them out, Salome,” she added feverishly. + +“Yes’m! You come into de house, de two of you. Just you sit in de +drawing-room an’ don’t speak till I tell you dey’s gone.” + +Heriot had almost to push Andria in. It seemed as if she courted death +out under the stars. + +When he had bolted the heavy door noiselessly, he followed her into +the dark drawing-room. What was Salome doing that she was so long? He +heard her voice in the back of the house; not raised in authority, but +wild with astonishment and fright. Before he could draw breath, the fat +black woman had thrown open the dining-room door, her shapeless figure +grotesque against the lighted dinner-table as she stared into the gloom +where the two sat. + +“Oh, missus,” she said, “missus! And dem niggers never told me.” + +“Told you what?” cried Andria. Heriot, with that open door in front of +him dared not speak. + +“Little miss is gone out. Dat man, de tall one, wid de marks o’ de +devil’s claws round his eyes, he come back for her. He said you was +waiting for her down at de shore, you was both going to dinner on de +yacht. An’ she’s went wid him, after last night. Dey’ll be et.” + +Heriot let out an astonished oath. If it had not been for that stupid +lie about the governess and his private knowledge, it might have seemed +natural enough that Beryl should dine on the yacht. But Andria’s wits +were quicker, and she knew Raimond Erle. + +He had been bored with his father’s society, and must have come +straight back by the short cut. The girl was handsome. Even without +getting her on board the _Flores_, a starlight walk with her would +pass the time. That lie about the governess had been told when she +refused to go with him; it was the first thing he would think of. She +knew how obstinate he was about anything he might take in his head. He +knew nothing about the dangers of the island; if he did, recklessness +and a revolver would make him laugh at them. A beautiful girl, whom he +must make love to for reasons he had seen fit to exclaim at; a night +warm and silent, heavy with flower scents, the soft stars ablaze in +the sky!--his discarded wife clenched her teeth. Not anything on earth +would have balked Raimond of his evening walk. + +“But I will!” she cried to herself, wild and bitter in her rebellion. +“I, that he shamed and turned out,” she fumbled blindly on a table in +the dark. + +“I must go,” she said, with something cold and dreadful in her voice +that Salome took for fear, like her own. “If he said I was at the +shore, I’ll be there. There will be time by the short cut.” + +“Oh, don’t you do it! You won’t do no good,” cried the black woman. +“Mr. Egerton he’ll take care of little miss--if ever she gets to de +boat!” + +“He’ll take such care of her that she’ll never come back,” Andria +muttered. + +Yet it was not fear for the girl that was in her heart, but the +jealousy that is more cruel than the grave. No one knew as she did what +Raimond could be when he chose. She did not believe for one instant +that any girl could resist him. She was past Heriot like a flash, +regardless of anything but those two walking down to the shore in the +scented night, under the gorgeous stars--a man and a maid. + +“Hold on!” Heriot was at her side. “Did you think I wasn’t coming? +Though I don’t see what good either of us can do if she’s gone on +board the yacht. What’s that?” + +His hand, swinging against hers as they walked, had touched something +cold and sharp. Before she knew what she was doing it was in his grasp, +not hers. In the starlight he saw what it was. + +“This will do to fight the jaguars with,” he said coolly, pocketing the +lean, ugly dagger just as if he had not seen her face in the square +patch of light from the dining-room door as she ran past him. “I’ll +attend to that, if you’ll catch your charge. Hold on, that’s not the +way!” + +“It’s the way I’m going,” she replied savagely. + +She began to run as once before she had run down that path; every turn +of it seemed familiar to her, even in the veiled light. She took no +more thought for Heriot than if he had been a dog; he had the dagger; +let him take care of himself. + +Round the great boulders, through the thickets of flowers, she fled +as one possessed; hatred at her heart, jealousy tearing her. Heriot, +stumbling over the tough, trailing vines, missing the dim track a +hundred times, was soon far behind. The more he hurried, the less he +got on. He had taken the dagger from her because he had seen red murder +in her eyes, yet now he almost wished she had it. He knew from instinct +that there was more abroad in the woods than Raimond Erle and the +girl he had decoyed away. Yet not a sound reached him as he doggedly +followed the governess. He gave a sudden, contemptuous laugh at himself +for being mixed up in such a wild-goose chase--and at Erle, who had had +to cajole a girl to go with him by a lie! The next instant he laughed +no longer. + +He was out of the wooded path on the open shore. Before him was the +dark figure of Andria Erle, standing motionless; as he came up to her +she pointed dumbly. + +The moon had risen, and perfectly distinct on the calm waves of the bay +was a boat with a solitary figure in it, a man rowing with a quick, +ill-tempered stroke. + +“She left him. She hasn’t gone with him!” Heriot exclaimed. “But where +is she?” + +“I don’t know,” answered Andria, with chattering teeth. What would have +seemed nothing in another place was eery here, after the strange story +of that other girl who sang to animals. And yet her heart was lighter +as she turned away. It was something, at least, that Beryl had not gone +to the yacht. + +But now that her passion of rage and fear was dead, she dared not go +back to the house by that path she had been warned not to use in broad +daylight. It was by the long way that she hurried Heriot to the house; +yet it was he, not she, who was nervous about the girl who had gone +back alone. If Egerton’s tale were true, neither the madman nor his +dreadful familiars would hurt Beryl; but still Andria winced when they +reached the house and found she had not come in. + +“What shall we do?” She sat down on the door-steps sick at heart. + +“Go and look for her. At least, I will. You stay here,” but he had not +gone twenty yards when he recoiled. + +“Did you call?” he cried sharply. + +“No one did,” but through her words there came the echo of a faint cry, +low and wailing like a lost soul. + +Heriot, running as if he had been shot out of a gun, made for the +moonlit woods. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE MADMAN. + + +He might well have run at that cry, for nothing but sheer terror had +forced it from Beryl Corselas. + +Half from real dislike of the man, half from wanton mischief, she had +dexterously slipped away from Erle and vanished like a spirit into an +opening in the thick bush. Full of laughter, she had run and doubled +like a hare, while he crashed after her through the scrub, till, angry +and crestfallen, he had flung himself into his boat and departed. + +Breathless, Beryl sat down on a convenient stone and chuckled. + +“How cross he was! And that was a horrid lie about Andria expecting +me. But he has lovely eyes, and he is--yes, he is amusing! But I don’t +think I like him. I don’t like men at all,” she said, with sudden +gravity. “I hate Mr. Egerton, for I don’t believe a word he says, and +Mr. Heriot treats me like a child. Mr. Erle doesn’t do that.” She got +up crossly and began to saunter homeward. She was almost sorry she had +not gone with Erle in spite of that lie. It was dull at home, where +Heriot seemed only to care to talk to Andria. + +“I never would have stirred a foot with Mr. Erle if Andria and Mr. +Heriot had not gone off and left me like that,” she thought, with +an unreasonable lump in her throat, her short-lived joy at having +outwitted Erle all gone. + +It was pitch-dark in the woods as she began to walk back to the house. +She had run and doubled so that she was not too sure where she was, and +an uneasy feeling came over her that she was not on the right path. +There was a queer rustling, too, in the bushes, and she listened, her +heart going like a frightened bird’s. + +“It must be my cats,” she thought determinedly, and with a voice that +was not too steady she began her queer calling croon. But not a +stealthy footstep sounded anywhere; no yellow-green eyes looked from +the bushes; no cubs bounded from the black underbrush. Instead there +fell in the wood a sudden, deathlike silence, far more threatening to +the girl than the sight of those beasts who were tame for all their +fierce looks. + +“The man!” Her heart gave a rending bound. “That crazy, jabbering man. +And he’s hunting me!” + +Wild with terror she looked round her, and had no idea which way to +run. She was lost, alone in the trackless scrub; it was so dark she +could not even see where she walked. And only one thing could keep the +cats away if there were in sound of her call--their master’s voice that +was stronger than hers, meaningless jabber though it was. + +In desperation she pushed straight before her, tearing through the +thick bushes; stumbling, great drops of perspiration on her face from +the airless heat. As she crashed forward, making noise enough to wake +the dead, her ears caught above all the sounds of crackling branches +and tearing vines that slight, slight rustling, as of feet that were +keeping pace with her, very close beside her. + +She turned sharply and burst through a screen of bushes, to find +herself standing by the clear pool she had seen one morning. The moon +shone down as bright as day, after the dreadful darkness of the woods +the clear sheet of water looked like home; and then she screamed, a +long, wailing shriek that had turned Heriot cold. + +At her side, almost touching her, was the apelike thing that had bitten +Andria to the bone. The next instant its long claws of fingers were on +hers. In utter despair she shut her eyes and waited for the horror that +was coming. Would the thing tear her limb from limb? + +But except for that hand on hers it was not touching her, and as she +stood, sick and stony with fear, a hoarse voice spoke to her. + +“Dearest of my soul,” it said in Spanish; “dearest of my soul.” + +With a cry of astonishment she opened her eyes. The man was not dumb, +then, nor utterly dangerous! For he was down on his knees by her, +kissing the hem of her garment. The soft language she had learned by +stealth in the convent came back to her like a flash. + +“Who are you?” she cried. “What do you want? Why do you frighten us so?” + +“You have come home; come back to me!” The voice was the voice of an +old man, the kneeling figure pitifully thin and ragged. “I am the old +man who loves you--don’t you remember me? It was I gave you that ring!” +He touched the green beryl on her finger pleadingly. + +She stared at him; yet she dared not say she had found the ring. + +“You frightened me, you hurt my governess last night,” she cried +angrily. “Go away and let me alone!” + +“I did not know you liked her. I thought she was his servant,” the old +man whimpered. He began to beg her pardon a hundred times. + +“I to frighten you, I that love you!” he cried. “I will never touch a +hair of any one that belongs to you. I’ll never leave you again.” + +“You must go away--and never come back,” cried Beryl, stamping her +foot, seeing no meaning in the words Andria would have understood too +well. + +The thing crouched at her feet. + +“Little dearest, I will go,” said the broken old voice, and tears of +pity came to Beryl’s eyes. “But if he comes,” it was fierce again, +“call me and I will send him away. He shall never steal you again.” + +“Beryl! Where are you?” The sudden shout was stern and yet anxious. +“Answer me.” + +Heriot’s voice. What should she do? She looked at the crazy face beside +her, in an instant all the humanity had been wiped off it as the man +scrambled to his feet. + +“I will call my cats,” he whispered, with the leering grin that had +terrified Andria. “They will claw him.” + +“No!” she said hastily. She stooped and put her hand on those bent, +repulsive shoulders. “No. Listen--this man who’s coming is my friend, +look at him well. When I call you, you and your cats can claw--but +never him nor my governess. If you hurt them I’ll never let you see me +again.” + +He winced pitifully. + +“My soul is yours,” he said. “I will not come near the house nor let +the cats come--till you call us with the song I taught you. I will keep +away from the house. But, _querida mia_, do not go with him again! This +time I will be quicker, and save you.” + +“Go!” said the girl in a frantic whisper, hearing Heriot breaking +through the bushes. “Go, till I do call you.” + +Almost as she spoke Heriot sprang out into the open space. Was he +dreaming, or did he see beside the girl in her white gown a crouching +thing like an ape? + +He ran to her, round the pool. There should be an end of this thing +that hunted women! Mad or sane, the man deserved no more mercy than a +venomous beast. But as he reached the girl he stopped short. She was +absolutely alone. + +“Run to the house!” he cried. “That brute’s behind you, and I’m going +to finish him once for all. Did he hurt you?” he cried savagely. + +She lifted her face, and he saw she was crying. + +“No, no,” she said as gently as Andria might. “Nothing hurt me. +And--there’s no one here!” + +“But I saw him,” replied Heriot grimly. “And I heard you scream.” + +She laid a quick hand on his arm as he would have passed her. + +“There’s no one here; if there was, he’s gone,” she said. “I did not +mean to scream. Did I frighten Andria?” + +“What was it?” he insisted almost roughly, for he was certain he had +seen that crouching, wizened figure at her side, though there was no +sign of it now, nor even a leaf stirring in the warm moonlight. + +Instead of answering she looked him in the face with the moonlight +full on her strange, tawny eyes till they looked like wells of light, +deep and golden. Something in them seemed to strike him like a blow. +Yesterday they had been a child’s eyes, careless, almost shallow. +To-night--Heriot’s heart began to pound. The girl had come into her +birthright of womanhood, of a marvelous witchery that would be a snare +to the feet of men. + +“What made you scream, Beryl?” and this time he did not speak as to a +child. “Tell me.” + +“I lost myself. It was dark. I meant to call, and I suppose I +screamed.” She could not tell the truth, for the old shame that was on +her that beasts and strange creatures loved and obeyed her. + +“Why did you leave Erle?” though Heaven knew it was no business of his! +“You were in his charge. What did he mean by letting you come back by +yourself?” + +“He couldn’t help it,” she said, with a laugh in her eyes. “I led him a +dance, you know. He went away disgusted, for he couldn’t find me.” + +“Do you like him?” asked Heriot. There was a curious look in the +handsome face that had seldom darkened for any woman’s words. + +“I don’t know,” said Beryl, with provocation. “When I find out shall I +tell you?” + +There was the faintest stir in the thicket, and suddenly Heriot knew +that whatever the evening’s adventures had been she did not mean him to +know them. + +“Oh, I!” he said lightly; “just as you like.” He led the way up the +path in silence till they reached the open ground and could see the +house. + +“I’ll watch you safely in,” and he took off his cap; “you’ll be all +right from here. Good night.” + +“Aren’t you coming to dinner? They won’t be back.” + +“No!” he returned, for to be hidden in Erceldonne’s house and eat his +bread any longer was impossible. + +“You had better. You won’t see us much longer,” she said coolly. “Do +you know Mr. Egerton’s going to take us away?” + +“If----” he stopped himself. It was no business of his. If she chose to +marry Erle, regardless of his past and Andria’s, that was her affair. +Till Andria told her, he had no right to. + +“If what?” + +“Nothing,” he said awkwardly. + +“You are treating me like a child again, just as I had begun to like +you!” she cried pettishly, and the very childlike ring of her voice +appealed to him. Yet he stood utterly silent. + +If he, a broken man, a penniless adventurer, should make love to a girl +who eavesdropping had told him was an heiress, the thing would not be +called by a pretty name. He did not care two straws for the mystery +about her if only she were the waif she seemed. + +“Yet after all,” he thought swiftly, “even a broken-down devil like me +would make her a better husband than Erle--supposing he’s free, which +I don’t believe! Because she may have money and I have none am I going +to hand her over to the first roué who wants her? By George! I’m going +to do no such thing.” But even he dared not tell her what he knew about +Raimond Erle. + +In the moonlight she stepped to his side like a lovely ghost, and as +she brushed him in passing, a quick rapture ran through him. There was +no sense in reasoning, he loved her--for life and death and the world +to come. At a word from her he would sweep Erle and his father from her +path like straws. He would not tell her the trap she was in, she must +choose for herself freely and without bias. But he would not let her +go. If she should learn to love Erle--and Heaven knew why, but many +women did--what would she feel when Andria made the scene she was sure +to do? + +“Why don’t you speak?” she broke out petulantly. “I know what you’re +thinking--that if Mr. Egerton is going to take us away you’re going +to start off through the bush to-night and try for the town there is +across the island! You’re going to wash your hands of Andria and me.” + +“What else can I do, if you’re going back with him?” and his voice was +utterly grim. + +“You can go with us.” + +“In the first place I wouldn’t go, and in the second they wouldn’t take +me. No; if you’re going in the yacht I should be off to-night, if it +weren’t for leaving you and Mrs.--Miss Holbeach to that crazy brute I +let in last night.” + +The girl recoiled as if he had struck her. Heriot cursed himself for +having haggled at Andria’s name. But it was not that. + +“Oh,” cried Beryl, with a sob of shame, “he won’t come! He’ll never +come any more, nor his cats, either. Don’t speak to me, don’t ask me +why, Andria knows,” she was crying bitterly, “that all queer animals +and things come to me. And I met him to-night, and I did scream, though +I told you a lie! He was so old--and so pitiful--I couldn’t let you +hurt him. But he was there all the time I said he was gone.” + +“Darling!” said Heriot softly. “Little brave darling, don’t cry.” He +put his arm round the bowed shoulders as gently as a woman, and with as +self-forgetful a tenderness. He knew no other girl would have pitied a +man who filled her with terror, who had bitten like a beast before her +eyes only last night. + +“Don’t cry!” he repeated. “And why do you mind that animals trust you +and miserable things come to you? I loved you for it the very first day +I saw you.” + +“Mother Felicitas said I wasn’t human! I was half a beast,” she sobbed. +“And it makes me afraid of--who I am.” + +“Beryl, look at me,” said the man softly. + +She stopped crying; just in time, if she had known it, to keep her sobs +from jealous ears close by. + +“Do you know,” Heriot said, “why things like that trust you? Because +you love them and have no fear of them. I would give half my life to +have dumb animals come to me as they do to you. Don’t you know that no +wild thing will come to any one who isn’t so good that they know it?” + +“No!” she whispered. + +He nodded gravely. + +“There is something else just as true,” he said very low. “I love you, +too,” he stooped his handsome head and kissed her hands. + +At the light touch of his lips she shivered. + +“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. For his life he could not speak above +his breath. + +“You can’t!” she cried. “No one does but Andria.” + +“Look at me,” he repeated more gently than ever, and as she raised her +eyes the sweetness and truth in his overmastered her. “Tell me, can’t +you love me--only a little?” + +“I don’t know;” but she had loved him madly, jealously, since the very +day he came. “I don’t know.” + +“I think you do.” He had seen her eyes. “Beryl!” + +She clung to him suddenly. + +“They would murder you! Salome said so. Oh! take me away from this +place--from Mr. Egerton.” + +“I’ll try!” said Heriot soberly. And suddenly the task before him +flashed out in its true colors. He realized that unless he could be +outwitted Erceldonne would kill the girl before he let her get away. + +“You can do it if you want to!” Somehow she was disappointed, taken +aback. The slow words that were so much better than a rash promise had +chilled her almost to distrust. Before he could answer she had broken +away from him and was scudding across the grass to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE LAUGH IN THE DARK. + + +A weakness like the lethargy that comes before death had bound Andria +hand and foot. Where she had sunk down on the door-step she stayed, +caring nothing for the dark shadows of the garden, or the beasts, and +worse, that might be hidden in them. + +Raimond had left Beryl and gone to the yacht--that was the only thing +really in her thoughts. But he would not be so balked a second time. It +would be better if death came and took her where she sat, found Beryl +in the lonely woods, for it would cut the coil around them both, the +coil the girl understood not at all--the woman too well. She bowed her +head on the cold stone door-steps, too hopeless to care how the matter +ended. + +The moon rose and poured a flood of light on the lovely, desolate +figure, almost lying on the steps with hidden face. Her misery, her +shame that another had heard, had numbed the woman’s wits. Raimond was +done with her, would care no more for her claim on him than for his +last year’s neckties. If Beryl fell in love with him she might not +care either. Andria could not think past that, except to be sure that +she would never leave the island, even if she chose to go in the yacht +with Raimond and the girl who was to stand lawfully in her own unlawful +shoes. + +A sudden touch roused her. Salome, like a black statue, was sitting +beside her. + +“I been down in de woods,” she whispered. “I seen him kiss her. She’s +coming now. Oh, missus, dey’ll be murder!” + +“Seen who?” fierce, suddenly alive in every nerve, she sprang up. Had +she been mistaken, and it was not Raimond she had seen rowing away! +“For God’s sake, Salome, who?” + +“Mr. Heriot,” but she sprang up, too, at the dreadful laugh that came +from Andria. “Don’t do like dat for de land’s sake!” she exclaimed. +“Dey ain’t never no good come from dat kind o’ laughin’. And I tell you +he must go out o’ dis to-night. Mr. Egerton he tell me Miss Ber’l gwine +to marry dat nephew he brung. What’ll he say when he finds out?--for +she’ll never marry him now, dat I tell you!” + +“Oh, Salome!” the white woman seized the black one’s hand, more +relieved than if she had brought her the riches of the world. “What a +fool I’ve been. I never thought of that. Hush! Here’s Miss Beryl now. +But--she’s alone!” + +Yet as she looked at the girl’s face in the warm moonlight she knew +Salome was right. The indifferent child of yesterday was gone. This was +a woman, and surely, surely, she would fight as women do, tooth and +claw, for the man she loved. + +“Where’s Mr. Heriot?” she asked softly. + +“Coming.” She hesitated. “Andria----” + +“I know,” a wave of pity came over her for the girl whose wooing would +be so stormy, and then a cold terror. Salome knew Egerton--she knew +Raimond--neither would hesitate in this lonely island at anything +that would put out of the way the man and woman who threatened their +schemes. She looked up and saw Heriot approaching as carelessly as if +the terrors of the place did not exist, and the foolhardy thing they +were all doing came over her. + +“Come in; it isn’t safe to sit here,” she cried, and as Beryl broke +from her at the coming steps she turned to Salome. “Take her in and put +her to bed. Make her eat something,” she whispered. “I’ll talk to him.” + +Salome nodded. + +“Make him go,” she breathed. “Get him out o’ dis. Dey’ll murder him if +dey finds out. It ain’t no use his wantin’ to marry her nor trying to +fight for her. Dey’ll just walk plunk over him, and all she’ll ever +know is dat he ain’t come back some morning.” + +She shambled off after the girl, but there was tragedy in her working +face. + +From old, old times she had known that there was no way but giving in +with Egerton. If the girl were meant for his nephew he would have her +in spite of ten Heriots and without an open refusal. + +“Come in,” repeated Andria, as Heriot stood irresolute in the doorway. +“I think we must all be mad to stay out of doors after last night.” + +She spoke with an irrepressible shiver; he looked so handsome and +debonair, and the odds against him were so great. + +“I’d rather not go into Erceldonne’s house,” he hesitated, “but there’s +so much to say. And you can’t stay out here.” + +“I don’t think you can either,” he said dryly. + +Then Beryl had said nothing! But there had been no time. And after all, +why should he trust their safety to a madman’s word? + +“Perhaps so,” he returned irrelevantly, entering and fastening the +door. “Look here. I--I wonder if you’ll think I’ve behaved like a +blackguard? I don’t know. I mean to marry that girl, and I haven’t one +farthing to rub against another, while she--you heard what Erceldonne +said about her?” + +“You told her so?” + +“Not about the money, nor anything but myself. I--oh, it’s been a mad +evening! Do you know she saw that crazy old man and spoke to him?” + +“Then she did scream!” said Andria sharply. + +“Yes: but when I got there she had tamed him as she tamed the jaguars. +He could have killed her, but instead she says he promised not to hurt +us any more.” + +Andria turned swiftly away from the lamp that he might not see her face +as Egerton’s story about the madman came back to her. The remembrance +of all it must mean chilled her to the bone. + +“Begin at the beginning,” she temporized. “How did she get away +from----” she could not say the name. She sat silent as he obeyed. If +Egerton’s story were true, that jabbering lunatic’s daughter must have +been Beryl’s mother! And yet, how could she tell it to Heriot? + +A queer, dull passion rose in her and seemed to choke down the words +she would have tried, perhaps, to say. Heriot was all that really stood +between Raimond and Beryl--let him find out her history for himself. + +“Besides, I don’t believe it!” she thought, and knew she lied. She +scarcely dared look up lest he might ask if she knew who the crazy +creature was that haunted the place. + +“Mr. Heriot,” she said quickly, “you’re in earnest about Beryl?” + +“Yes,” he answered very quietly, but she saw his mouth tighten. “What +right Erceldonne has to her I don’t know, but it isn’t any better than +mine. As for her being rich,” with a quick, sweet laugh, “when I get +her away from here I’ll never inquire about her fortune.” + +“Or her people?” She could not keep in the dangerous question. + +“I don’t care who she is as long as she’s my wife.” But she could not +salve her conscience with the answer; she knew he would care. “Once +we’re out of this, and I’ve settled with her delightful friends down +there”--with a motion of his head toward the harbor. + +“You can’t settle with him!” said Andria quickly. “Do you mean you are +going to meet them in the morning?” + +“I fail to see any other way,” he replied, laughing. “Why?” + +“Do you know what facing them would mean?” There was an indescribable +flatness in her voice. “None of us would ever get away from the island, +except perhaps Beryl, and what would become of her I know better than +you.” + +“He wouldn’t marry her against her will,” he said shortly. “And as for +carrying her off, he couldn’t keep her. There is a law in England.” + +“There’s no law for the dead--I mean you and I could never rescue her, +for we--they would never let us leave this island alive! You, because +you love the girl; I because----” but she could not go on, and he knew +well enough that a deserted and discarded woman would get short rope +from Raimond Erle. + +She was right, of course; an open struggle would be madness. Erle +and Erceldonne he might manage, but the yacht’s crew could easily +overpower a man who had no revolver. And yet he ached to try the fight. + +Andria looked at him, with hot, smarting eyes. + +“Twenty to one,” she said slowly. “Three of them you might account for, +with my dagger, and then you would tell no tales! And Beryl, married to +Raimond, would kill herself.” + +“What else can I do?” + +“Go away,” she said very gently. “No, don’t look like that!” for he was +staring at her as if she had lost her senses. “You think I would play +into Raimond’s hands if you did? You don’t know women! If he had loved +me still I might have been his willing tool, I’m bad enough for that. +But now”--her voice sank to an ugly whisper--“I’m all hatred for him; +when I think of him I burn like fire. I only live to thwart him, to pay +some of an old score. Oh! talk of something else!” she cried, with a +sudden wild outbreak. “It is nothing to you that I wake at night and +long to kill him with my hands.” + +Heriot turned his eyes away from her ashy face. Once he would have +laughed at believing in that Andria Erle whose name had been a byword, +but he trusted her now. If he had trusted her before this night all +might have been safely away by this time. But as it was he knew her +broken heart and her broken pride would fight a better battle for the +girl he loved than all his strength could do. + +“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “You have a plan?” + +Andria nodded. + +“I want you to go and find a village and get a boat. You are the only +one who can do it. But you must go alone, for if you took Beryl and me, +even if we reached a town Egerton’s steamer would be there before us +and cut us off. He knows every inch of the island. He’d guess where we +were going--that is, if there’s a town to get at, as Salome says.” + +“There must be,” he answered quickly. “This is either Flores or Corvo, +I don’t know which. But on the eastern side of each there’s a town.” + +“Across the mountain?” + +“Yes. Santa Cruz in Flores, Rosario in Corvo; either would do. But I +think this is Flores. We left Fayal for Grasiosa and were blown off +our course by a southeast wind. The boat must have gone to pieces on +the southeast point of Flores--there was too much east in the wind for +Corvo.” + +“Then we’ll suppose we’re on the southwest side of Flores. How far +would it be to Santa Cruz?” + +“Ten miles, as the crow flies. Twenty or more, allowing for the +mountain and no track. I could be there to-morrow.” + +“And get a boat and sail back. You could slip into some little bay and +come for us at dawn the day after, if you’d had a fair wind. I’ll bring +food, and we could hide in some tiny inlet the yacht would never notice +if they sailed round the island till doomsday. Then when they get tired +and go, we can sail to Fayal. How far is it?” + +“A hundred and fifty miles or so. You wouldn’t be afraid in an open +boat?” + +“I’d take her away from him if we had to go on a raft,” she said +hardly. “Come and eat now, and then you’d better go. Have you a +compass?” + +“I don’t want one. I can go by my watch and the sun. You don’t think +they’ll try to take you both while I’m gone?” + +“They won’t try to take me, and I don’t think they’ll dare to hurry her +so. Raimond will take his time, even in making love. And he won’t find +her very kind, if she’s promised to marry you.” + +“She hasn’t, in so many words.” + +“It doesn’t matter,” Andria answered wearily. “She means it. Come and +eat; you must be on your way before daylight. You’re not afraid of the +man and his beasts?” + +“I’m afraid to leave you alone here for two days,” he said shortly. “I +tell you plainly I don’t like it.” + +She had opened the door into the dining-room where her neglected dinner +stood cold on the table. Under the bright light of the hanging lamp she +turned on him with a wild passion that there was no gainsaying. + +“Listen to me!” she cried--and if her face was ghastly, over her black +gown her red-brown hair shone like fire and her eyes swayed him, for +all their weariness and red rims--“listen to me. The girl is yours, +but the man is mine! It is my quarrel, and I will settle my debts for +myself. If you stay you may kill him before you’re killed yourself, if +it comes to main force; but do you think it is death I want for the man +who’s killed all the good in me? I want more than that. I want him to +live, with all his schemes ruined; to suffer as he has made me suffer; +to starve as he turned me out to starve. If he gets the girl he will +have to kill me first--I, that was bone of his bone! But it won’t come +to that. I’ll put him off. I’ll make Beryl make time; I’ll tell her +my secret that has ruined me, body and soul. But there won’t be any +need before you’re back,” and with a sudden listlessness she sat down +at the table. “Eat his meat and drink his wine; it will be as good a +weapon against him as a revolver,” she said, with an evil look in her +half-closed eyes. But he knew it was not she, but what a man had made +her, that had taught her that look. + +“I’ve no money,” he began shamefacedly. + +“I have. Salome’s wages,” and she drew a roll of gold out of her +pocket. “Salome’s wages for Erceldonne’s work!” but her laugh made +Heriot wince. + +“I’ll go now!” he said, pushing back his plate. “Tell her!” + +Andria could only nod. + +She was helping Beryl to freedom and happiness, and to what was she +helping herself? Only to the just payment for her broken life. Even +Mother Benedicta could not blame her. + +“So,” she said, very low; “the dawn is coming. But be quick. I can’t +promise to protect her for more than three days.” + +“I’ll be back in one--at dawn to-morrow.” + +Andria sprang to her feet. + +“Hush!” she whispered. “Did you hear anything?” + +Heriot shook his head. + +“You’re done up, tired out,” he returned gently. “There’s nothing--not +a sound!” + +For sole answer she put out the light. He felt her hand on his wrist as +she led him in the dark across the room and out on a disused veranda. + +“Go this way, and be quick, quick!” she cried in the same toneless +whisper. “It’s the only chance to save her now.” + +She watched him as he ran across a narrow belt of moonlight and +disappeared in the blackness of the scrub. Then, noiseless in her +stocking feet, she searched every inch of the wide veranda round the +house. + +There was no one there, no one in the garden. Her wrought-up nerves +must have deceived her, and it had been fancy that she heard out +of the darkness of the veranda behind the dining-room Egerton’s +uncontrollable, cackling laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +A SEALED PACKET. + + +Reassure herself as she might, Andria fairly fled through the empty +passages to Beryl’s room. + +“I’m worn out,” she thought; “I’m beginning to imagine things. It +couldn’t have been Egerton’s laugh I heard, for he wouldn’t dare come +here at night--and he couldn’t have known he’d any reason to watch us.” +But argue as she liked, some sound had shaken her nerves till she dared +not strike a light lest some watcher outside might see. + +“Beryl,” she said, standing by the girl’s bed in the dark, “Beryl!” + +“Hush!” said a voice, “I’m here,” and Andria made out a white figure +by the window, and groped to the girl’s side. “Something woke me, I +thought. Andria, I thought I heard a shot! Where’s Mr. Heriot?” + +“A shot!” Andria turned cold, till she remembered she had watched him +safely out of sight and not a sound had broken the stillness. “You +couldn’t have,” she said, bringing all her common sense to her aid; +“you must have been dreaming! He’s gone away, Beryl. I made him go.” + +“Gone! Where--what for?” she stared in the dark. + +“I sent him. I was afraid to let him stay. Beryl, we’re in a dreadful +place. His going was the only chance to save us.” + +“What do you mean he’s to save us from?” cried Beryl, stamping her bare +foot. “If there’s anything to save us from he’d better be here.” She +was wild with misery. That was what his half-hearted answer had meant, +and he did not care enough even to bid her good-by. + +“He couldn’t do anything here. They’d kill him if they found him. Do +you know what I heard to-night?” + +But the girl did not answer. She was putting on her clothes in the dark. + +“Why did you send him--what for?” she asked harshly. + +“I sent him to a town--he says there is one--to get a boat and come +back and take us away. It’s all we can do. Egerton isn’t Egerton at +all, he only calls himself that, and he means to carry you off and +marry you to Mr. Erle or leave you here to die.” + +“I’ll never go with him. Why did you send Mr. Heriot away? There’d be +time after we’re left here to run away in a boat.” + +“There’d be no time for anything, for Heriot and me.” But the words did +not touch the girl. For the first time a distrust of Andria seized her. + +“You sent him away because he loves me!” she cried. “I don’t believe +Mr. Erle wants to marry me. I’ve believed everything you say, like a +fool, and I don’t even know why you call yourself Holbeach. For all I +know your name may be Heriot. He knew you when he came here.” + +“My God!” said Andria Erle. No blow of her life had ever hurt her like +this one. She pulled a sealed envelope from the bosom of her dress and +thrust it passionately into Beryl’s hand. + +“Look at that, and you’ll see my name,” she cried, “and may God forgive +you! I swear before Him that Heriot is not and never was anything to +me.” + +Something in the utter agony of the voice broke through the suspicion, +the jealousy, of Beryl Corselas’ heart. + +“Andria, Andria!” she cried. “Forgive me! I don’t want to know who you +are, I don’t care, except that you’re my Andria. I’m wild; if Heriot +loved me he wouldn’t have gone, and he may have gone to his death. I +must go out and find the old man and his cats. I’m frightened what they +may do.” + +“Not love you--Heriot! He loves you enough not to care that you’re----” +she stopped. She could not tell and there was no chance now, for the +girl was past her like a whirlwind. + +If she had known, she could have found a better way, and now it might +be too late. These very jaguars she had kissed and stroked might even +now be tearing Heriot’s flesh out on the hillside. With a throat that +was dry with fear for him, she stood in the garden and quavered out her +strange, crooning song. She believed Andria, and yet, oh! if Heriot +would only come back and swear to her that he loved her! + +The moon had set, and in the hushed darkness that comes before dawn the +woods lay silent and terrible. Trembling and desperate the girl crooned +on, and presently from far away there came a low, wailing cry. It was +so far off that she shook for fear she was too late. Staring vainly +into the darkness in the direction Heriot must have taken, she almost +cried out as a cold hand touched hers from behind. The old man, bent +almost double, was at her feet, his dreadful pets behind him. + +“Where have you been?” she cried, agonized loathing in her voice. “What +have you done?” + +“Little dearest,” he answered submissively, “you told me to go and I +went. I was asleep; my cats were tired, for it is nearly dawn.” + +“Have you seen any one?” her strong young hand gripped him fiercely. +“Tell me!” + +“No one.” + +“Oh, listen!” Beryl said, tears of relief in her hot eyes, for the +man spoke quite sanely and there was truth in his voice. “I told you +to-night you must not hurt that man who came to me----” + +“We have not touched him, _querida mia_,” he answered, cringing under +her hard grasp. “Was that why you called?” + +“No,” she sobbed. “Try to understand. I sent him to the town--there is +a town?” + +“Yes,” he muttered, “a town of cruelty, where animals are beaten until +they die, and men laugh at you if you ask for bread.” + +“Well, he’s gone there, to get a boat and come back for me. You must +catch him and bring him back now. Tell him if he loves me he must come +back, but not to the house. You and he must hide near it, for that man +in the yacht wants to carry me off.” + +The dawn had come on them as she spoke, and in the sudden, wan light, +she saw his face flush with sudden fury. + +“Do you understand?” she cried sharply. “You must make him hide, or we +shall all be killed. But you must be ready to fight for me when I call +you.” + +“Fight!” the crazy old voice rang out with a sound that made the two +great beasts behind him bristle up and lash their tails. “We will kill! +My cats will kill. We would have fought for you last time, but we were +too late. Now you have come back he shall never get you again.” He +began to leer and jabber at her until, brave as she was, she feared +him. Would a thing so crazy ever distinguish between Heriot and another? + +“If you save me you shall never leave me again,” she said very slowly, +and with that same touch with which she made the jaguars obey her, she +laid her hand on his wrinkled, repulsive forehead. + +“_Querida mia!_” he stammered, and for the first time he met her eyes. + +“See,” he said painfully, “I understand. This is your lover in the +woods, but you will not leave the old man for him. And the black-eyed +one shall not steal you as he did before. We, your lover and I, will +hide near the house with the cats. When we are there you will hear my +cats laughing, laughing loud, till the black-eyed one’s blood turns to +water. And when you call us we will come. We will not let him get you.” + +“Not me, nor the woman with red hair.” + +“I bit her. I will never bite her again,” he shuffled with shame. “I +will go now.” + +“Wait!” she cried. “Can you speak English?” + +“English?” he clenched his hands. “No, no English! It was English took +you away.” + +“Then take this,” she pulled the beryl ring off her finger, “and tell +him to come back. He must know Spanish enough for that.” + +“At noon we will be back. My cats will sleep there in the shade,” he +pointed to an oleander thicket. “But first they shall laugh till you +hear them.” + +He turned and ran, bent so low that he might have been a beast like the +sinuous, spotted things that followed him. Almost before she could draw +breath they had all disappeared in the scrub. Oh, it was an ill-omened +messenger to send! And yet Beryl was certain that to let Heriot go +would mean his coming back to an empty house--or worse. + +“Did you find Heriot?” said Andria, when the girl returned, pale and +soaked with dew. + +“I didn’t try.” She turned her face away as she told what she had done. + +“Andria,” she whispered, wan in the first sun rays, “I wish I knew who +I was! For I can’t help thinking I--I remember that crazy man’s face. I +can’t be anything to him. Oh, tell me I can’t!” + +Andria could not answer. For pity could not tell this girl who played +with jaguars that her mother, the madman’s daughter, had done the same. + +“You dreamed it,” she faltered, “you could never have seen him. You +were too little when you came to the convent to remember anything,” but +as she lied she turned away, sick at heart. + +Erle would marry the girl for his own ends. He would not care one straw +for the madness in her blood. But if she found out, would she ever let +Heriot call her wife? Child as she was, Andria knew that was beyond her. + +“Aren’t you going to take what I gave you?” she said, pointing to that +big envelope on the floor. + +“Yes,” replied Beryl deliberately, “but only to remind myself I was a +beast. I won’t open it. I’ll keep it. It’s none of my business why you +call yourself Holbeach.” + +Even then Andria could not bring her shame to her lips. Beryl should +never know if she could help it. If not, she had the envelope; it would +save her if Heriot were not back and Raimond got her. He might swear +till he was black in the face and his own handwriting would damn him. + +“We may just have a scene and be left here,” thought Andria, “but +somehow I don’t think so.” She looked from her bedroom window with +weary eyes and saw there was no sign of any one coming off the yacht. +“I wish I knew just what they meant to do.” + +But it would have comforted her very little if any one had told her +that Brian Heriot had known these two hours past. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE HAND OF FATE. + + “Thou sleepest? Awake! + What darest thou get for her sake?” + + +Mr. Egerton stood in his cabin on the _Flores_ making a hasty toilet. + +His thin face was savage as he shaved, and his hand shook as if from +bodily fatigue. + +“Why the devil doesn’t Raimond come?” he thought, and gashed his cheek +till he swore aloud, though at the same instant the door had opened on +his son, a disheveled object in silk pajamas. + +“You’d better sit down and wait a moment!” said the newcomer. “Have a +drink?” + +Erceldonne mopped his bleeding face. + +“Have the goodness not to drawl, I hate it,” he said angrily. “You +can’t be as indifferent as you pretend after the night’s work!” + +“I’m not. I’m much less indifferent,” he said, with a short laugh. “I +begin to have a hankering after that little devil, now since she’s been +sharp enough to deceive you. I believe if you threw a girl into the sea +she’d come up smiling in some man’s arms!” + +“It wasn’t the girl. It was that damned governess. But how the man ever +got here----” + +“Doesn’t matter now, that I can see,” answered Egerton, with a shrug. +“You’re sure it was the governess? I thought you said she was old.” + +“I said she was an excellent woman,” replied Egerton dryly. + +“All the same. But Mattel said he saw the girl in his arms. Heriot’s! +And the last man in the world to----But it doesn’t matter.” + +“I didn’t believe Mattel, like a fool! Or we could----” + +“We couldn’t have done any better. I thought it was all up when I heard +you laugh and saw the light go out. I was in time, though. But, by the +Lord, if I’d known it was Heriot I don’t think I’d have done it!” + +“You would have turned out Erceldonne penniless, I suppose, and let him +walk into your shoes! You’re sure it’s all right?” + +“Yes, I tell you!” said Raimond, with sudden vicious savagery. “Let it +alone!” It was the son who was pale now, not the father. + +“Curse Mattel and his prowling on shore,” he added, biting his +mustache. But the girl he had been willing to marry for her money--and +something else--had suddenly grown desirable to him since another man +had found her fair. She would be hard to get, too, judging from the way +she had slipped from him to Heriot--and nothing but the unattainable +was ever coveted by Raimond Erle. If Andria had not been too faithful +he might have been at her feet still. + +“If it hadn’t been for Mattel,” said Erceldonne practically, “we’d +never have known there was a man on the island. If Heriot kissed the +girl he would have married her.” The past conditional came curiously, +but to the listener it sounded natural enough. + +“For God’s sake, wash your face!” he said, with womanish disgust, or +perhaps because it was not so long since he had cleansed a like red +stain from his hands. “And throw away the water. Mattel might think +things if he saw it was bloody. He didn’t follow us, I suppose!” + +“Mattel is a Maltese thief, who daren’t think or do anything,” but he +was careful enough to follow his son’s advice. “No one knows anything +but you and me,” and his hand grew unsteady again as he thought of the +awful danger he had dared last night for the sake of Raimond--Raimond +and Erceldonne. + +Beryl Corselas had builded worse than she knew when she had bidden +the madman and his dreadful servants to keep far away on the night of +all nights when they might have defended her. But all Erceldonne had +thought was that luck was on his side still. + +“I suppose there’s no reason to stay on here,” said Erle, with a glance +of loathing out the port-hole. “I’ll do what I can with the girl and +we’ll take her and the governess off to-night. I can make love to her, +if I must, at sea.” + +Erceldonne nodded. He was himself again. No one would have known him +for the man of two hours before. + +“The sooner the better,” he returned briefly. “Before they have time to +wonder why he doesn’t come back.” + +“Let him alone!” cried Raimond, with that black rage again. “If you +keep harping on him I’ll chuck the whole thing. I don’t care a damn for +the succession, it’s only the money--and that won’t make me stand your +conversation!” + +“Then you’d better tell the girl so,” said Erceldonne dryly. “Do you +suppose she is going to avoid the subject?” + +“I know it. She thinks we don’t know anything about him,” replied +Raimond grimly. “She won’t dare give herself away. And once married to +her----” he laughed, and Andria might have known why. + +But Andria, for once, was wearied out. It was no more than eight +o’clock and she knew Raimond never faced existence till eleven. It +seemed safe to sleep, and sleep she must, or she could not think or +act. If Salome came in softly and darkened the room it was without an +idea of the mischief she was doing, nor how Andria Erle would wake. +Beryl, with a strange color in her cheeks, a strange brightness in +her tawny eyes, was freshly dressed and out even as Andria closed her +eyes. From pure humiliation she had put that thin, sealed packet in her +pocket, but she was not thinking of it now. Up and down the garden she +stepped with a quiet fierceness that might have been learned from the +jaguars she played with. There was no sign of the crazy old man, let +her call and search as she would; no sign of Heriot, and her heart grew +full of fear. + +Yet there seemed little cause for terror. + +If she had thought to see Egerton and his son come hurrying up from the +yacht to carry her off she was mistaken. Neither of them appeared. + +She wondered wretchedly why Heriot had left her. Surely not because +they said she had money; it meant nothing to her, instinct told her +little to Heriot. Why did he not come back? + +She was afraid of these two men who had come with lies. Why should +Erceldonne call himself Egerton to a girl to whom neither name meant +anything? It came over her sharply that an obscure Mr. Egerton might +leave England unobserved in a yacht, while Lord Erceldonne’s departure +would have been chronicled in all the papers. + +“Whatever he means to do with me, he’ll do it secretly,” she thought, +trembling. “But oh, if I could only hear the cats scream! I must just +wait. Only wait.” + +But though she waited till the sun rose high and the hours passed at +noon, she was waiting still. + +And it was so that Raimond Erle came up from the shore and saw her; +standing straight and tall in the blazing sun among the gorgeous +flowers; young, lithe, magnificent with her dusky hair and her golden +eyes, and that strange color on her cheeks; a woman any man might +covet. And for the first time he cared nothing for the thing he had +done. + +Every bit of color went from her face as she saw who it was, though she +had known the step was not Heriot’s. + +“Well,” she said defiantly, “what do you want?” + +“Only to say good morning. You’re not going to run away again, are +you?” for she had moved restlessly under his eyes. + +“I don’t want to run away. Why should I?” she replied, with a slow +glance of dislike she had not known the trick of yesterday. “I want to +talk. When is--Mr. Egerton--going to take us away?” + +“To-day, if you like. But don’t talk here, it’s too scorching. +Come into the house.” There was nothing but his own comfort in the +suggestion, but his glance said it was hers. + +The girl shaded her eyes and looked once round the empty garden, the +stirless noontide woods. There was not a soul. + +“Come in, then.” She had caught her breath curiously. She led the way, +not into the house itself, but up by an outside stair to the veranda +that opened off Andria’s bedroom. From it she could see the faintest +signal from the hillside down which Heriot must come, if he came in +time; would be within call of Andria, sleeping like the dead behind her +closed shutters. + +Erle looked at her. + +She had a crushed hibiscus blossom in her hand that was not so crimson +as her mouth. He would get her by fair means or foul, if it were only +for that and her tawny eyes. + +“So you’re anxious to get away?” he said slowly, but she hesitated +instead of assenting. + +“I don’t see why I was brought here at all!” she returned at last, +frowning. + +He smiled. + +“Don’t you? I do. Look at me, don’t you remember me?” + +“Look at me!”--with what different eyes another man had said those very +words! + +“Remember you!” she retorted. “No; how could I?” + +But she shivered. The man was lying, as Andria had warned her he would +lie. + +“Think!” he said. “Have you forgotten one evening at Blackpool station? +And a frightened girl who stood there without anywhere to go? Because I +remember, if you don’t.” + +But like a flash it had come back to her. His white duck clothes made +him look different, but it was the same face she had seen. And she +remembered there had been no pity in the man’s eyes as he watched her. + +“You do remember!” he said. “Well, don’t be angry if I tell you +something. I went away and you haunted me. I couldn’t forget you. +When I heard of the girl found starving in the wreck I knew it was +you. I sent my father to get you from--the woman”--with a momentary +hesitation, since he had never known exactly about that part of the +business and dared not invent--“who had adopted you. It was I who +suggested bringing you here,” he continued calmly lying. “I knew +convent arms are long and you weren’t safe in England. But if you want +to go back you can, though it’s a living grave, a convent, for a +beautiful girl,” he spoke dreamily, and so impersonally that yesterday +she would not have noticed the flattery. + +“Why did you care?” abruptly. “I was nothing to you.” + +“I wanted to help you live your life,” he said, with a queer shrug. +“That was all. Oh! you are a child still. You’ve seen nothing. Not +diamonds, nor satin gowns, nor balls where the music gets into your +blood and you know half the men in the room are mad about you.” + +“To that life?” said Beryl slowly, for Brian Heriot had told her none +of these things. Yet she searched the empty hillside once more with her +eyes. + +“That, and more. I don’t know why I cared you should be saved from the +convent, but I did. You can go back, as I said, if you like.” + +“No!” she said, with a shudder, remembering only the cruelty of Mother +Felicitas and nothing of the kindness of the other nuns. “They said I +had no name, that I was a charity child. Am I? If you know anything +about me, tell me!” she could not keep back the question, though she +knew it was useless, but the slow, insolent answer turned her blood to +fire. + +“You are Beryl, and you have golden eyes. I don’t know, or care for +anything more.” + +“You do know who I am!” she flashed out at him, “else why would your +father trouble with me? If he is your father and not your uncle, as you +said.” + +His face changed ever so slightly. Well, Heriot was paid for talking! + +“I know nothing but that I have done my best to help you from that very +first night I saw you,” he said, very low. + +There was a passion on his face there had never been on Heriot’s, but +she was not old enough to know that passion in a man is the very last +reason for a woman to trust in him. And the sudden softening of the +haggard lines round his mouth, the widening of his eyes, made her for +the first time wonder if, after all, he were speaking the truth. + +“Where do you want to take me?” She was staring at him with great, +fascinated eyes. If he had been like this yesterday she would never +have run away from him, unwarned as she was then. + +“Back to England--to London--to the world. Why should you be buried +here?” he said slowly. + +“But you said it wasn’t safe,” she faltered. “The convent----” + +“Can’t recall you if you’ll let me take care of you,” he answered, with +his voice utterly caressing. “Will you?” + +For the first time she saw what he meant, what he had been meaning all +along. And it was just what Andria had said. With a start of fright she +sprang up. + +“Do you mean you want me to marry you?” she cried, wide-eyed, and, +without her will, Heriot’s face sprang to her memory. + +She was so beautiful as she stood aghast and trembling that the man +lost his head. + +“Yes,” he said, “just that!” and before she could move had caught her +to him and kissed her madly. + +She could not cry out because his lips crushed her mouth, but the +stifled moan would have brought any other man to his senses. She fought +against him till her lips were free. + +“I hate you,” she stormed. “Why did I ever listen to you when +Andria--ah!” she screamed at the top of her voice. “Andria!” + +If she had stabbed him he could not have let her go more suddenly. + +“What do you mean?” he said. “Who is Andria?” + +But it was another voice that answered him from behind his back. + +“I!” said Andria Erle, standing like a ghost in her white dressing-gown +between the open green shutters of her bedroom window. + +Raimond Erle turned livid. + +It was Andria; Andria who was the governess, who had been engaged to +take care of the only girl in the world she should never have met! + +He saw once more the pale face, the red-brown hair of the woman he had +called his wife--and the only emotion it brought him was furious hatred. + +He looked from her to Beryl and back again and knew what he must do. + +“And who,” he said calmly, “are you?” + +“No one,” she answered steadily, “now! Shall I tell you who I was?” + +Her eyes blazed at him, standing at the window of the very room where +she had thanked God he had come back to her. The man shrugged his +shoulders. + +“No,” he said, “stand back! I will tell you what you were, and are. A +woman who is no fit companion for an innocent girl, who is here under +false pretenses and a feigned name.” + +His quick ear had caught footsteps coming up the stairs, and as Andria +caught her breath at the words that were true enough in their way, +Raimond Erle turned to his father. + +“So this is your governess!” he cried, before she could speak. “Do you +know who she is? A woman who was the talk of all London--a woman no +girl should so much as see!” + +“Raimond!” She had been his wife for five years, or she thought so; +small wonder she cried out as if he had struck her. She reeled where +she stood. + +“Take the girl away,” said Erle savagely. “Don’t you understand?” + +But at that cry of his son’s name Lord Erceldonne had understood indeed. + +It was this woman and no other who had enslaved Raimond for five years, +and the very irony of fate had brought her here to ruin him. + +“Andria, what does he mean? What does he know about you?” + +Beryl had sprung between the two men and flung her arms round Andria’s +neck. But the woman stood cold as marble. + +“Come!” said Erceldonne, between his teeth. He laid his hand on Beryl’s +shoulder and she tore it away. + +“Andria, speak to me, don’t mind them!” she cried. “I believe in you. +I don’t care what they say, Andria, darling.” + +Erle’s discarded wife caught her in her arms and stood back, knowing +that the time was come. + +“I am what you made me!” she cried to the man whom once she had loved. +“I will take care you have no other girl to torture as you have +tortured me. Oh, I know why you want her, why you changed your minds +about letting her die here!” She came a step nearer to Erle, still +holding Beryl clasped in one arm. “But you forgot me!” + +Her breast heaved as if she could not breathe. She kept her eyes on +Raimond’s face and never saw Erceldonne as he slipped behind her. + +There was no stopping the tongue of a furious woman, but if Beryl heard +her story the game was up. And without the girl, ruin stared him in +the face. Dead or alive, they must have her, and there was no driving +Raimond when he had the bit in his teeth. He would have her quick, not +dead, in spite of all the discarded women in London. + +“Come,” he repeated, with a voice he tried to make shocked but only +made angry. “This is no place for you. And as for you, madam,” to +Andria, “we will leave you to the society of your friend, Mr. Heriot. I +may say that what I saw last night shocked and pained me inexpressibly.” + +He took Beryl by the arm, but she struck back at him wildly, with all +the strength of her young arm. For an instant the man staggered; the +next he had caught his son’s eye. + +“Settle it,” he said, with an ugly word. And with hands that were +strong as steel he forced the two women apart. It was done so +dexterously that neither had time to make a sound, but the girl turned +on him viciously, wrenched away from him, and fell backward down the +wooden stairs. As she fell she screamed, but another cry covered it. + +Half an hour afterward Raimond Erle came quietly out of a house that +seemed strangely still. There was blood on his hand and he wiped it +away with fastidious care. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +A MURDER IN THE DARK. + + +“Salome, I am going to shut up the house and take all the ladies away! +They have gone down to the yacht already. Pack your things, and be as +quick as you can, the three of you. I don’t want to waste any time in +getting off.” + +The servants’ quarters were on the other side of the house from +Andria’s shaded veranda; the three women had heard nothing as they +sat chattering with the doors shut to keep out the noontide heat. Yet +Salome leaped to her feet with a sudden foreboding, as she saw her +master open the door. + +There was a look on his face she had reason to know, and as he spoke +her own grew ashy. Yet to Chloe and Amelia Jane his matter-of-fact +words were joyful tidings indeed, and scarcely uttered before they were +gone to gather their belongings. But Salome stood just as she was when +she sprang up and saw her master’s face. + +“Go!” he said sharply. “I’ve no time to wait for you.” + +“Where’m I going?” she asked sullenly. “Where’ve I got to go?” + +“Where you like, but out of this and away from me! I’ve no further use +for a servant who harbors men in my house in secret.” + +So he knew! Salome’s face grew a shade more gray. + +“He’s gone!” she said. “He went last night.” + +“He’s gone, but you’ll go, too!” he answered, with a meaning not lost +on her. “Get your things.” + +“Master, master!” her voice came strangled as she threw herself at his +feet. “I can’t go nowhere, you know dat.” + +“It’s no concern of mine. I’ve hidden you long enough when you betray +me. You can come or stay, or drown or hang, as you like. Thank your +stars I don’t send you back to Jamaica! You fool, who’s to know you in +England?” + +But she had seen his eyes as she scrambled to her feet. There would +be no England for her. She knew too much to leave, and too much to +tell where he was going. A dark night, a high wind and a heavy sea, +and--even her miserable life was dear to her! + +“Dat’s true, dey’s no one’ll know me in England,” she said softly; too +softly if the man had been his usual acute self. She turned quietly +away and followed the other women. + +Her master’s heart “beat quick and thick, like a madman on a drum,” as +he stood in the scorching courtyard. No one could get to the big house +without crossing the paved yard, which no one should do. Raimond, with +his white sleeve rolled up till an ugly stain was hidden, had carried +Beryl down to the yacht. Her fall had stunned her, and she hung heavy +like the dead in his arms. What he had begun in Andria’s room the +crazy man and his jaguars would finish, when the house lay empty and +deserted, with no one to bar the doors. + +Erceldonne turned with a sharp word as the three black servants came +out, each with a bundle on her head. + +Something had quieted Chloe and Amelia Jane, or else it was the dreaded +presence of their master that lent speed to their feet as they hurried +down the path before him. Salome had never opened her lips as she +gathered up her clothes. She walked before Egerton with a slowness that +maddened him, for he dared not precede her. The great door of the house +stood open as they passed, and she saw it. What man in his senses would +go away and leave his house open, for the things that haunted the place +to ravage? Yet she said nothing as they went on in the blazing sun. + +There was not a sound anywhere; not a breeze even, when they reached +the corner of the path and saw the open bay before them, with the boat +waiting at the shore and Chloe and Amelia Jane already in it in their +haste to be gone. Yet even Chloe and ’Melia Jane leaped to their feet +at the sudden strident howl that waked the noonday hush. They had heard +that cry before; in the night it had broken their dreams, but in the +broad daylight it brought the terror of death on them. + +From far up behind the house it rang, something between a wail and a +scream, but full of a hideous menace, a ravening fierceness. Before +Erceldonne could draw breath, it seemed as though hell had broken loose +behind him. Sharp, snarling cries ran under that awful, ceaseless +wailing, and each second were louder and louder. + +“Run!” cried the man, with white lips, feeling in his pocket for the +revolver that was not there. “Run!” + +But Salome, like a black statue, stood in his way. + +“Dey smells de white blood,” she said politely. “De meat fur de +jaguars’ wedding.” + +With a furious word, Erceldonne sprang past her. He was brave enough, +but not for the terror that runs scenting its prey in daylight. He +tripped and fell headlong over the bundle she threw in front of him, +but before she could seize him he was up on his feet and running +wildly. In the hideous uproar that came nearer and nearer, Salome +laughed. + +“Run, run!” she screamed aloud. “You ain’t going quick enough; dey +got de heels of you!” She bowed and swayed in horrible derision, as +he stumbled, recovered himself, and tore on. The next instant she had +taken to her heels and was running faster than Erceldonne himself. But +not to the boat. Something yellow and white had flashed by her, hunting +silently, without a sound. By instinct, she ran, she knew not where; +and as she ran she shrieked. + +The Italian captain of the _Flores_ had been a cutthroat from his youth +up, and now made an excellent livelihood by hiring out his yacht and +asking no questions. But even he was pale as he stood on the bridge +and took the boat away from that accursed island. That there should be +wild animals in so desolate a place seemed natural enough to a man who +knew nothing of the Azores except the name; yet he had never seen even +tigers so fierce as to hunt men in broad day. And hunt they had. Mr. +Egerton had saved his life by a bare fifty yards, and the screams of +the black servants, who had been too fat to run, rang in the captain’s +ears still. + +No wonder the signorina had been carried on board half-dead, or that +the two colored women crouched, weeping, on the deck. + +“The place is accursed,” he said sharply to his first officer, who +would have liked to stay and hunt the strange, fierce beast that had +stood snarling at the very water’s edge and disappeared like magic as +he drew his revolver. “If Mattel had not been a son of the devil he +would not have got off in his skin last night.” + +Mr. Raimond Erle drew a long breath of relief as he sat with his father +in the saloon and heard the steady sound of the screw. He glanced at +Erceldonne, seated opposite him, and aged by ten years by that flight +down the glaring hillside. + +“That was a damned lucky escape,” he said slowly. “I didn’t +half-believe in your beasts before. But they’ve done well by you now!” + +“How?” + +Erceldonne’s breath came unevenly still. + +“Do you ever read the papers?” but his own hand shook as he lifted his +whisky and soda, for, for form’s sake, the two sat at luncheon, waited +on by the servants, who could not understand a word they said. “Well, +it will be an item: ‘Strange and Terrible Story From’--we can find a +place. But it will go like this: + +“‘News comes through Reuter’s Agency’--and they shall get their +information in some very natural way that can’t be challenged--‘news +comes through Reuter’s Agency that the Honorable Brian Heriot, +heir-presumptive to Baron Heriot, and his wife have been killed while +jaguar-hunting in--South America? The late Mr. Heriot was at one time +well known in London society, and his wife, who perished with him, was +a whilom celebrated beauty, known, for want of another name, as “The +Lovely Andria.” The present Lord Heriot is unmarried and the title will +devolve on the Heriots of Maxwellton. No particulars of the tragedy +have yet been obtained by our correspondent.’ There, that will explain +the sad tale we have to tell our charges, and everything will be +perfectly open and aboveboard!” + +The whisky had warmed him. He never flinched at the thought of how +Andria Erle must die. + +“Have you no sense?” cried Erceldonne angrily. + +“We dare not set any rumors going.” + +“Public press--nothing to do with us. Some Englishman is certain to +have been killed jaguar-hunting--South America is a big place, and his +name will do for the first unidentified fool that gets eaten. Put a +thing into people’s heads and they’ll think it.” + +“That won’t explain the girl knowing of it!” + +Raimond leaned across the table and spoke so low his father could just +hear. + +“The girl is my affair,” he said slowly. “You made a fool of yourself +with your island and your governess, and your fright of an old woman +over whom you knew you had the whip-hand the instant you found the +girl. If it hadn’t been for your crazy friend and his jaguars we should +have been up a tree. When Beryl’s my wife we can find out who she +is--and no reverend mother can get her away then!” + +“How do you propose to make her sign the register? I’ve no reason to +suppose you can make a marriage under a false name any more legal than +the rest of the world!” said his father cynically. + +“That’s my concern,” answered Raimond fiercely. “You’ve managed this +business so far, and you’ve made a mess of it. If it hadn’t been for +you carrying off the girl like a pirate in a dime novel and getting the +only woman you had reason to fear for her governess, there would have +been no trouble. The girl was coming to me like a tame bird when that +red-haired devil opened the shutters! As it is, she heard nothing to +matter; your ‘excellent woman’ had evidently kept a close tongue in her +head. But thanks to you, I’ve a hard job instead of an easy one. I tell +you plainly that if she were not as beautiful as women are made, I’d +let her go to the devil--or Mother Felicitas!” + +“And her money to the convent and Erceldonne to the hammer--or you and +I kicked out!” + +“Exactly.” + +The brief courage of whisky had died out of him; he was suddenly cold +in the hot, close cabin. To Andria he gave no thought except that a +millstone was gone from about his neck. But from Brian Heriot, who had +been his friend, he could not get his thoughts. + +That blind shot in the dark, that long carrying of a burden under which +he had sweated, though his father had helped in the task; that sudden +light of the match the latter had struck as they lifted a man’s body +for the last time to cast it down a rocky gully that reeked with a +strange, wild scent--the man who had fired the shot turned sick as the +match burned out, for, in its flickering light, he had seen the face +that would not leave his memory. + +In his amazed and horrified recognition of the man who had been his +friend, he might even then have tried to save him, but his very start +of astonishment sent the body the faster into that black gully. What +happened next he scarcely knew. It was all a dream of mad panic, with +himself and Erceldonne flying through the night till dawn came and +found them in their boat. + +There was no one on watch on the deserted deck, not even Mattel knew +when they returned, careful body-servant though he was. It had taken +all Raimond Erle’s nerve to put on his night-clothes and lie down on +his bed. He had been acting, acting ever since, except for those few +minutes alone with the woman who had risen as if from the dead to balk +him. + +He had feigned nothing there, only given rein to his fury till, with a +last jerk of his wrist, his work was done. And he was tired of feigning +now. + +“Listen!” he said, with outspoken brutality, “once for all. If you so +much as name him to me again, I’m done with you. You can sink or swim, +as you like. I will never have him spoken of in my hearing.” + +For answer, a girl’s voice rang out from a shut cabin near-by, high and +shrill as voices are in delirious pain. + +“Brian!” it called. “Brian, where are you? Heriot, Heriot!” + +For a moment the man trembled, and then the very rage of hell came over +him, that it was Beryl who called on Heriot and not Andria. + +So it had been for her sake that Heriot was on the island! For a moment +he grinned like an angry dog; and then he saw the servants gazing at +him in scared amazement, and forced himself to laugh. + +“Let her call,” he said to his father, in the English they could not +understand. “She’s got to call louder yet to wake the dead!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE DEATH-TRAP. + + +In the wild panic that had overtaken her, Salome ran on and on, +crashing in bewilderment through the thick scrub without knowing or +caring where she was going. Fat as she was, she got over the ground +with marvelous speed, till she tripped on a tough vine and fell +sprawling. + +The jar and shock brought back her senses. At first she shook where she +lay, lest the beast she had seen might leap on her and tear her life +out, not caring if she were black or white. But as the minutes passed +and nothing stirred anywhere, the stout colored woman scrambled up, and +stood quivering and panting. + +She could hear nothing, though she listened with all her might; those +horrible, snarling cries no longer made the woods ring. Stupefied, she +felt her arms and legs, as if to make sure they were whole, and then +slowly and falteringly began to make her way back to the house with the +instinct of a lost dog. + +“Dey got him dat time, sure!” she thought, stumbling through the hot, +dark undergrowth, a ludicrous fat figure in stained white clothes, +crowned with a frizzy mop of hair that would have humiliated her, could +she have seen it. + +“I’ll go back to de big house; if dey ain’t gone I kin hide, and dey +can’t lock me in so I can’t get out again. And I ain’t got nowhar +else to go. Dese woods ain’t wholesome at night; black meat and white +looking mighty like in de dark!” + +But as she came cautiously out on the hillside and could see the bay, +she flung herself down behind some bushes and crept on all fours into +thicker cover. + +The yacht was going. She could see it rounding the point. + +“Glory, glory!” said the woman soberly. “Dey’s gone. I kin go up to de +house and get rested, and to-morrow I’ll tramp through de woods to dat +place Mr. Heriot’s went to. I guess I kin take in washing wid de best +of ’em, and dey ain’t no one going to know me, neither. ’Cause a man +dat’s inside a jaguar ain’t goin’ to talk--and der ain’t no one else!” + +She walked on wearily to the great hall door, and was just closing it +behind her when, from the hillside behind the house, the dreadful cry +of a hunting jaguar brought her heart to her mouth. With frenzied haste +she bolted the heavy door and the lower windows; but there came no +sound of padded feet in the garden, no soft, heavy tread against window +or door. Only that wailing cry rang out insistently, as if some beast +called to its mate in vain. + +Salome, safe in her fortress, had time to listen; and knew in another +instant that it was no beast that called. The imitation was good enough +for Egerton, but not for Salome, who knew the real thing. + +“’Pears like de end o’ de world!” she said to herself; but, with the +end of Egerton, her heart had an end of fear. “Dat crazy man’s on top +dis time, but de Lawd be praised, I ain’t out on no sea dis day! Oh, my +poor ladies, my poor ladies! But you’re free dis minute same as me. De +master’s dead!” + +She said it with a shudder, for the beast that had passed her with +long, noiseless bounds had not gone so quickly that she had not had +time to see the dreadful teeth in its red, drooping jaw. + +From very force of habit, she turned and went round the house, +inspecting each bolted door. She must sleep in here to-night, for she +was too shaken to cross the courtyard with that snarling whine ringing +in her ears. + +She was dizzy, too, with her long run in the heat, and she climbed +up-stairs painfully. It would feel safer to sleep up there, but her +trembling legs would scarcely carry her. + +The room at the head of the stairs had been the governess’, and the +exhausted Salome turned into it, only to sink on her knees with a groan +of superstitious terror. + +The governess had gone. Then, who was this who lay like a log on the +floor, face down? + +“Lawd, Lawd!” moaned Salome, her eyes all whites in her ashy face. +“Missus, missus!” + +But the white thing on the floor never moved. Only the rising afternoon +breeze came through the open window and lifted the long locks of loose, +ruddy hair, and through the silence came that endless, blood-curdling +wail of the madman outside. + +Inch by inch the black woman crawled nearer, her eyes standing out with +terror. + +If this thing on the floor should leap up and spring at her, as ghosts +and haunts were well known to do! + +But it never stirred. + +With the last remnant of her waning courage, Salome stretched out a +shaking, black hand, and then recoiled with a yell of sheer horror. It +was no ghost, but the governess herself; but, whether dead or alive, +the servant could not tell. Her weariness all forgotten, she lifted the +quiet body in her arms, and saw why it had lain so motionless. + +On one temple was a dark bruise, a deep, oozing cut, such as might +be made by the sharp edges of a man’s signet ring. And a man’s +handkerchief had bound the slack wrists together; a man’s clumsy, +hurried hand tied a thick, wet bath-towel over the unconscious face, +and knotted the cord from the curtain cruelly tight around the slim, +bare feet. + +There were scissors on the toilet-table, and it took Salome no time to +cut the double-knotted towel from Andria’s head and face. But it took +minutes before the almost suffocated lungs did their work again. Salome +was frightened as she dashed water on the swollen, crimson face. + +“Set up, my lamb!” she cried quickly, when the first struggle for +breath was over. “You ain’t hurt. Wait, ole Salome’ll cut your hands +an’ feet loose!” + +To her unutterable joy, Andria began to move. Presently, she lifted her +hand to the cut on her head, but it fell again, limply. + +“Dat’s right,” said Salome, fanning her, “dat’s just right. You’s +coming round, honey. Lean against Salome!” She looked down at the face +on her knee, and the torn, white dressing-gown, and poured eau de +cologne with a lavish hand on the bare, white throat. + +At the pungent scent of it, Andria’s eyelids flickered. + +“Beryl,” she said, “Beryl.” + +Salome nearly dropped her. + +“Ain’t she here?” she cried, and something in her voice roused Andria +more than all the restoratives in the world. “Oh, missus! Ain’t she in +her room?” for if they had not taken one, surely they had not taken the +other. + +Dizzy and sick, Andria clutched at her. + +“They took her,” she said thickly, as if her throat hurt her. “Salome, +where are they? Why do you look like that?” She raised herself till she +could see the dark face. + +“Oh, missus, dey’s gone!” Salome cried wildly. “Dey’s gone in de +steamer, all but him; and he’s et. De jaguar done got him.” + +She pointed out the window. “Hark at dat!” she whispered. “De ole man’s +singing ’cause master’s dead.” + +“Gone!” Andria got somehow to her feet, and nearly fell with the pain +in her swimming head. “Quick, when--did they go?” It hurt intolerably +to speak, but the dizziness was passing. + +Salome told her, but to the story of Egerton’s race with death Andria +hardly listened. Raimond had got Beryl, and would have killed her to do +it. + +Mad with rage at seeing her, he had struck her down on the floor; and +then, for fear of what she might come to herself and do, had tied her, +hand and foot, and left her to the jaguars. She was a woman, and too +faithful. There is no sin on earth a man resents so much. + +“Go look through the house!” she cried, holding her aching head and +feeling her hand, wet with her blood from the cut Raimond’s ring had +left. But she knew the search was useless. And Egerton’s death was +neither here nor there. He might have been murdered before his son’s +eyes, but Raimond would not let the girl go on account of it. + +“I fought so badly,” she thought, in wild self-reproach. “I made him +furious. And I knew, if he were angry, he would stop at nothing. Oh, +Beryl, Beryl!” + +Sick at heart, with the knowledge of what lay before the girl when +Raimond should tire of her--for a legitimate wife can be neglected as +well as another when her novelty palls--she leaned against Salome, +utterly motionless and despairing. + +“If I’d a gun,” said the woman, suddenly and savagely, “I’d kill dat +ole man out dere! Standing yelling at de house like a meowing cat.” + +“Which man?” but, as if new life had sprung in her, Andria sat erect +and listened. The cry that was enough like a jaguar’s to deceive most +people, rose across the stillness, and the sound of it made the slow +blood come into her pale cheeks. + +Just so, Beryl had told her, would the old man make his cats cry when +Heriot and he came back. But for Beryl Corselas they had come too late. + +“Salome!” Andria exclaimed, and for the first time there were tears in +her hopeless eyes. “It’s Mr. Heriot, he’s come back! Come, help me. We +must go out, or he won’t know we’re alone.” + +“Go out--and it gettin’ on to sundown! Lie down, my lamb,” said Salome +coaxingly, “and rest your head.” For the poor soul could only think the +blow had taken her mistress’ wits. + +“No, no!” said Andria. Between laughing and crying she poured out all +that Salome did not know, and saw, even then, that the woman did not +believe her. “You can stay here,” she ended. “I’ll go. You know the old +man won’t hurt us now.” + +“Not wid little miss at our backs, p’r’aps,” said Salome grimly. “How +do you know he won’t say we’ve took and killed her? Where’d we be den?” + +But she followed Andria down-stairs, helped her across the garden, too +stanch to leave her alone, though great beads of sweat rolled off her +forehead in her fright. + +“Mr. Heriot!” Andria called, leaning against Salome’s terrified bulk. +“Mr. Heriot!” + +But nothing answered, till, in the sudden silence that had fallen as +those beastly cries ceased, her own voice echoed back to her from the +wooded hillside. + +“Heriot, Heriot--Heriot!” it mocked, thin and clear; and died away. + +With a sob that choked her, Andria remembered that to call the old man +she must croon like Beryl had done, and she could not remember the +weird tune, or sing it if she could. + +“Stay here,” she said. “I must go to them.” + +But Salome’s heart was white. + +“Might as well die as be scared to death,” she answered, with +chattering teeth, and, with her arms round the swaying figure of her +mistress, she walked on--to death, for all she knew. + +“Mr. Heriot!” Andria called again, as they reached the outlying fringes +of the impenetrable scrub. The old man’s name--if he had one--she did +not know. But as she thought it, he stood before her, come out of the +bushes as if by magic. + +Salome groaned as only a black person can. But Andria saw the man’s +face, and, for the first time, there was no fleering mockery in it. In +the low sunlight he looked not the madman she had fought with in the +night, but an old, miserable creature, wizened and bowed, and clothed +in rags that were strangely clean. And yet she recoiled involuntarily +against Salome as he ran to her, bent forward in the old way, so that +his lean, knotted hands almost touched the ground. + +To her utter amazement, he fell at her feet and kissed the hem of her +gown. The next minute he stood up and began to talk very slowly in +Spanish. What he said she could not tell, but she knew it was a string +of questions. She touched her own breast with a quivering finger, then +Salome pointed, as his wild eyes met hers, with utter despair, to the +sea. + +He understood her, for his face grew fierce, and his cry of mad rage +turned her cold. To her ears, he seemed once more to be jabbering +at her, but, to her wild surprise, Salome answered him. Salome, an +ignorant black woman, a minute ago palsied with fright, had gone boldly +to his side, and was talking swiftly enough in a strange bastard +Spanish. + +The old creature hid his face in his hands with a pitiful, smothered +cry as he heard. Then he turned to Andria with what--if she had known +it--were miserable wails for pardon, wretched gratitude that she had +at least tried to save the girl whom his crazed brain still took for +another. + +Salome, the respectful, shook Andria as if she had been a child. + +“Missus, he won’t hurt us! I told him all we knows, and he say to come +to his place in de woods. Mr. Heriot dere wid him. And he say his cats +is tame, ’cept when he makes dem hunt. You hear him call out when I say +master’s dead? He say: ‘De vengeance o’ God!’ Just dat, over and over. +Missus, de black work dat I knows been here ain’t nothin’ to what’s +been done to dis poor ole man!” + +“Why is Mr. Heriot in the woods?” cried Andria. “Ask him.” + +“Because dey shot him; shot him like dey’d shoot a dog!” she answered +bitterly. “Come, missus, come! We got to get him to de big house before +dark.” + +Great tears pouring down her black face, she walked on, not daring to +tell that the old man had said Heriot was dead. + +It had seemed a long, rough way last night in the dark to that rocky +gully for the two men who sweated under their burden, with eyes +everywhere for the dangers they must dare if Heriot’s end were to be +sure. It was a risky thing--for the throwers--to cast an insensible man +down into a jaguar’s den, and they ran for their lives afterward for +what seemed miles--would have run vainly if chance had not taken the +old man and his beasts to sleep elsewhere. + +But it was really no distance, even for a woman swaying with pain and +dizziness, by the smooth, narrow track the old man took. There was no +room for two to walk abreast, and the black woman put her strong hands +under Andria’s arms from behind and steadied her, for pain made her +reel. + +In between two high rocks they passed, and then squeezed through a +narrow passage that wound and burrowed like the dried-up brook it was, +between two high cliffs. Over their heads the blue sky showed like a +narrow ribbon; the dark air of the passage felt like a cellar, and, +with each step they took after the crazy man, a strange, wild smell +grew pungent in their nostrils. + +“It’s de cats,” began Salome disgustedly, and then yelled in Andria’s +ear, and nearly threw her down with her start. Something had touched +her skirts, and over her shoulder she saw at her very heels, what +seemed an endless procession of wild beasts, walking softly in her +footsteps. + +“Oh, my soul!” Salome yelled again, and scuffled wildly to pass Andria. +“Dey’s got me.” + +The old man turned with a grin. + +“Be quiet, woman!” he said, in his guttural Spanish. “Those are my +sisters and brothers and their children. They will not touch you till +I say--kill!” but at the word the nearest beast gave a whining snarl, +and Salome, with one bound of terror, passed their master, nearly +squeezing him to death, and out of the passage into a round, open space +like a quarry that narrowed up into the rocky gully, where last night a +murderer had thrown his victim. + +But Andria cared nothing for Salome or the jaguars. Straight opposite +the rocky wall of the queer place was undermined into an overhanging +cave, and under it, rolled in a ragged blanket, was the motionless +figure of a man. + +“Heriot!” she sobbed, and ran to him. But he did not open his eyes, as +she knelt beside him, and the hand she seized in hers was stone-cold in +the hot, close air. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +MOTHER FELICITAS. + + +“Ah!” + +It was an indescribable sound, and it stopped sweet-faced Sister +De Sales in the serious business of laying out her neat little +account-books. + +Mother Felicitas sat in her straight-backed chair in her own parlor +and gripped the table in front of her, as if only by holding fast to +something could she keep from drifting out on the great sea of death. + +She had not been herself since that strange disappearance of Beryl +Corselas. A constant, agonized fear that ate at her heart had made even +her agonized nerves give way, her step that had been noiseless, heavy +and uncertain, her pale skin like parchment stretched over bone. And +this morning she had heard that which wrung a cry from her stiff lips, +though she was not alone to bear her terror. + +“Dear mother, what is it?” cried Sister De Sales, flurriedly rising. +“You are ill--suffering?” + +For the reverend mother’s face was more grayish-white than the +whitewashed plaster of the parlor walls. + +Mother Felicitas nodded speechlessly. But for all that sudden pang +at her heart, she moved her hand jerkily, so that it covered an open +letter on the table. + +“Water--a faintness!” she managed to say. But when Sister De Sales got +back with water and wine the reverend mother was lying back in her +chair. + +The sister was a simple soul, and saw only that the Mother Superior’s +ill turn was over; not--what the dead Mother Benedicta would have +seen--that a certain pale-blue, gold-embossed note that had been +conspicuous enough among a batch of business-letters had disappeared +from sight. + +It was the day for going over the week’s accounts, and Sister De Sales +was wont to dread it, in spite of possessing a good head for figures, +so sharp were the reverend mother’s sunken eyes and so keen her instant +detection of a penny out in the balance-sheet. But to-day she would +willingly have seen her books all proved wrong if only the superior +could have strength to do it. + +“You are not well, dear mother; you would see the doctor if I sent for +him?” she said timidly, looking at the gray pallor of the hard face. + +Mother Felicitas roused herself. + +“No, sister, no!” she said, with a sort of panic, and forced her manner +to its old authority. “It is nothing. I am not so young as I was, and I +forget it, perhaps. But we will leave the accounts till to-morrow. I--I +will rest now.” + +She made no demur as the anxious sister placed a stool under her feet, +but at the gentle coaxing to drink some wine she frowned harshly. + +“No, no! Go,” she said, “and let me rest. Those things, as I said, can +wait.” + +Sister De Sales withdrew, softly, aghast. Never in all her convent-life +had she known any duty postponed “till to-morrow.” The reverend mother +must be very ill, indeed. She would see Sister Agnes; between them they +might make Mother Felicitas see reason and a doctor. The excuse for her +sudden faintness was but the unselfish desire to spare others pain. +“Not so young as I was,” she had said, and Sister De Sales, stout and +forty-five, knew that she was the elder of the two by a year or more. + +Yet behind that closed door it was an old, old woman who dragged +herself to it and shot the bolt. It had taken all her self-control not +to scream at Sister De Sales to be silent with her foolish talk about a +doctor. She would have no doctor to speak learnedly to the next in rank +of an overworked body and a troubled mind. + +“I won’t have any doctor,” she said to herself, as she sank on her hard +chair again. “I’m not dying--not yet! I can’t die,” she whispered with +a shudder. “I should see them all standing round my coffin, I should +hear their astonishment. Sister De Sales, who thinks I am a saint; +Father Maurice, the new chaplain, almost crying because I had withheld +my sins from him in the confessional.” Her face grew strong again as +she thought where they would bury her--in unconsecrated ground. + +She was a clever woman; she knew even in her wretchedness now that of +all the convent not one nun had a personal ambition but herself. She +had felt the gentle piety round her stifling often enough, though she +had managed never to show it. There had been reasons for her to leave +the world, but even here in seclusion she had worked and strained for +the power she had reached--worked half for safety, that there might be +no one over her, half to find peace for her miserable mind. + +Well, she had had her way! She ruled the convent as no one before her +had ever done. The community had never been so rich, so respected; +the nuns, if they did not love her, held her in awe for her saintly +austerity, her ceaseless industry--and here was what it had all come +to. Every one of those good and gentle women, who were saints, indeed, +would shrink from the holy mother raised above them if her secret +history were revealed. Alive, she would be excommunicated; dead, she +writhed in her chair as she thought of the hushed astonishment, the +shocked amazement of the little world she ruled. + +“No, no, no!” she said to herself. “As I have lived I will die and be +buried; no one shall ever know. But I can’t die yet.” + +She stretched out her hand for the wine she had refused, and drank it +eagerly. No woman in the world had lived a harder, more self-denying +life than she. Was it all to count for nothing now, just for the want +of a little resource, a little more courage? + +“No one shall know,” she said again, as the wine brought some warmth to +her slow blood. As she lifted her eyes they caught the inscription of a +picture on the wall. + +“‘Death and the Judgment.’” The words struck her like an actual blow, +but she never lowered her startled eyes. + +What she had done she had done. She was willing to bear the brunt of +it, but not the shame of humiliation before the nuns, who revered her +in their pure and gentle hearts. + +“‘Death and the Judgment,’” she thought, but she dared not say it +aloud, when, for all she knew, Death might be at her very elbow, and +for the Judgment she was unprepared. + +Yet no idea of a tardy repentance, a confession at the eleventh hour, +entered her fevered mind, as she drew that terrible letter out of the +folds of her habit. She had fought her own battles; she would fight +them once more, and then die, if she must, in the odor of sanctity. She +thrust away the thought that this strange horror at her heart was the +beginning of repentance. Almost she felt her own strong self again, as +she deliberately opened and reread the letter that had shaken her nerve +till she cried out. + +Yet it was only a civil, well-meaning letter from one woman to another. + + “Mrs. Fuller presents her compliments to the superioress of St. Mary’s + Convent, and begs to inform her that she knows nothing of the missing + pupil of that institution who was supposed to be traveling on the + Continent in her care. Mrs. Fuller was both surprised and horrified + to find that unscrupulous persons had made use of her name to deceive + the matron and guardians of St. Anne’s Workhouse. The unknown woman + who carried off the girl under Mrs. Fuller’s name must have been + fully cognizant of her movements, as she had certainly spent the + winter abroad with an invalid niece. Mrs. Fuller begged to assure the + superioress of her deep sympathy in her anxiety for the young girl who + was lost, and also to inform her that she had set a detective to work + to trace out the wretches who have made so wicked and cruel a use of + her name. As yet no clue had been found to their identity.” + +A second note was enclosed in another hand, and it was this that +had brought the reverend mother low, though it was but a rather +disconcerted epistle from a well-known detective to his employer, +regretting that so far he had discovered nothing. + + “I may mention as a curious coincidence,” ran that paragraph that had + wrung a cry from the wretched woman, “that if the missing girl’s name + is really Beryl Corselas, her discovery is a matter of importance, + as it may throw light on an unexplained case of murder and abduction + which puzzled the whole force years ago, and, incidentally, may + deprive a certain noble family of their estates. But that, of course, + is between you and me.” + +It struck Mother Felicitas that the detective’s letter was not +especially businesslike; but it would have put fresh terror in her +soul had she known why. The man was under a deep obligation to Mrs. +Fuller, had thorough trust--this time misplaced--in her discretion, +and was ready to turn the world upside down to find out the person +who had dared to take such liberties with her name. But as it was, +Mother Felicitas had read enough. She thought of that note written to +the guardians in which she had said that it was on her authority Mrs. +Fuller had taken the girl from the workhouse. + +“I can explain that if I am obliged to,” she thought heavily. “My +lawyer will bear me out that I sent him to make inquiries,” but her +brain went swiftly as she wondered if the workhouse authorities had +that letter--or Erceldonne. + +If he had it, her foolhardiness alone had put it in his hands. + +“He would not dare to use it,” she thought, and wiped her upper lip, +that was wet. “It must be he who has the girl; no one else would be +bold enough. And if he has her, he would not keep her. The money that I +meant----” The pain struck her heart again, and more dizzily than ever +she caught at the table for support. When it passed she could no longer +force herself to think. + +Dim visions passed before her eyes of a boy she had loved; of another, +a half-grown lad, whom she had not known existed till he was brought +home from Eton and coolly introduced to her as Erceldonne’s eldest son; +of a baby girl she had loathed because she was what a fair-haired boy +could never be; of a thing she had done to make a man stand in terror +of her, and for hatred of a woman who had never wronged her. It had +been in that man’s interest to keep Mother Felicitas quiet--if he knew +her secret--all of it!--or not. + +If he knew! + +She groaned aloud. He must have found out something or he would never +have burdened himself with a homeless girl, long ago thought dead and +gone. He must know about the money, and meant it and the girl to go to +his son with the hard, brown eyes, for whose sake another lad had been +turned out on the world to sink or swim as he liked. + +Hand in hand, the miserable woman seemed to see that brown-eyed boy +and that baby girl, though the years had long since made them man and +woman. If they stood so, indeed, Erceldonne could defy her, could +afford to stand aside in silence and let her old sins come to light. + +Looking back, Mother Felicitas could see with what a devilish +cleverness he had always stood aside, trusting to chance and the hour +to do what he dared not put his hand to. Only once had she known him +to show any trace of human feeling--when he took that fair-haired +boy, who had no other real name but Guy, from the third-rate school, +where he was a half-starved teacher, and gave him five hundred pounds +to start for himself in sugar-planting in Jamaica. She knew that was +true, for she had seen the boy’s grateful letters to the man he only +knew as a distant friend of his father. It had been sent to her, she +knew very well by whom, as the easiest way of telling a professed nun. +It began: “My dear Mr. Egerton,” but Mother Felicitas knew that Lord +Erceldonne’s conscience would not require him to tell the truth when +he did a kindness. That memory had softened her heart a little to the +man she hated; it was as well for him that she did not know the bloody +fragments of that uncashed check had lain on a sunny hillside till they +blew away, instead of being cashed at Lord Erceldonne’s bankers. + +“I can’t remember that; it wouldn’t save me,” she thought restlessly. +“I must think of myself.” + +While there was life in her she would make one struggle more; once +more, perhaps, feel the joy of power stir in her and bring a hard man +to terms. + +Some one knocked at the door. To the reverend mother it sounded like +the hand of fate that will not be denied. It seemed to her racked +nerves that it must be Erceldonne himself who stood outside, ready to +cry her shame aloud. It took all her strength to open the bolted door, +and as it swung back the two nuns who waited there stood petrified. + +The reverend mother towered over them, clutching the door-handle and +glaring at them with the eyes of a wild beast. At the sight of their +startled faces she broke into a loud, hysterical laugh that nearly made +Sister De Sales, the timid, turn and run. + +Holding the door-handle, the superior laughed and laughed till the +tears ran down her cheeks. + +“I’m better--quite well!” she cried, that strange laughter ending as +abruptly as it began. “But Sister De Sales is right. I’m not myself. +Next week I will go to the retreat at the convent in Blackpool for a +change.” + +The waters of terror were up to her very chin, but she would wade +through them as she had always done, and get back to firm ground. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +HOPELESS AND HELPLESS. + + +“Oh, Salome, he’s--we’re too late!” Andria, a ghostly figure enough in +her torn white dressing-gown, in which she had lain down to take the +sleep which had betrayed her trust, and with smears of dried blood on +her face, leaned backward where she knelt. “They’ve killed him.” + +“It ain’t de first,” answered Salome grimly, for all her panic of +the slinking beasts that stood round their queer master. She dropped +heavily down beside Heriot, and would have lifted the torn blanket that +covered him, but a quiet word stopped her hand. + +“Wait!” cried the old man. “It is not good that they smell the blood.” +He waved his open hand with a queer circular motion, and the great cats +turned and seemed to pour into the narrow passage in a living stream of +yellow-white fur. + +“I have told them to hunt for themselves,” he said slowly. “They will +not come back till dawn.” + +“Praise de Lawd for dat!” grunted Salome devoutly. She could put all +her mind on the dead man now, and she swept off the blanket that +covered him only to recoil in her turn, for so blood-soaked were his +clothes that she could not tell where he had been wounded. His face was +colorless and quiet over the crimson clothes that had been white; the +woman touched him, peered into his face, and cried out: + +“He ain’t dead, nor he ain’t dying,” she asserted. She undid his bloody +shirt. “De ball must o’ glanced up on de bone. His ribs is broke from +some reason--I dunno what, unless dey flung him down here!” She turned +sharply to the old man who stood silently by. + +“Where you find him?” she asked in the bad Spanish that had been her +mother tongue years ago. + +“She sent me out to get him, and I looked and looked. I came back and +struck a track, wide like that,” measuring with his misshapen hands, +“and blood on the bushes. At the top of the gully it stopped, and +another track began, as if men had run--but light--with empty hands. +And my cats whined and jumped down here. So I found him,” he answered +simply. “It was not deep where he fell like it is here.” + +Andria looked at the high cliff over her head and thanked Heaven the +man who did this thing had been in the hurry that comes of mortal fear. + +“You moved him here! How?” she cried, and Salome repeated her question. + +He took a stone and rolled it over and over. But it was lucky for +Andria she understood only the pantomime, not the words that went with +it. + +“I put him in the shade. Dead things bring flies in the sun, and I +wanted him for my cats if she said I could have him. I went back to the +house and called and called to ask her, but she never came.” + +“Shut your head!” said Salome furiously, but also, with prudence, in +English. “We got to take him home,” she went on; “he may die there or +he mayn’t, but we must carry him. No, you ain’t fit; you’d stumble. +I’ll take de head, and dat ole feller can carry de feet. We’ll lift him +in de blanket.” + +The old man nodded willingly enough when she explained, and Andria saw +that it was even with alacrity that he lifted his end of the burden. +She had reason to know his strength, yet she marveled at it in so +miserable a body. + +Salome’s stout arms were tense, and her breath came hard as she moved +steadily along; but the wizened man seemed to feel neither weight nor +fatigue. + +Slowly and carefully the wretched procession reached the great white +house that stood open in the desolate, red light of the sinking sun. +Salome had seen wounds before, and it was as coolly as a hospital +nurse that she did her poor best with this one. When she had done +all she could she drew back and looked at Heriot lying on the wide, +drawing-room sofa that must do duty for a bed, since it was impossible +to carry him up-stairs. + +“Now you can give him de brandy--just a little taste,” she said. “It +wasn’t no good to bring him to just to wrestle wid me and jar dem +bones.” + +But even the brandy did not rouse him, since there was hardly any blood +left in him. His eyelids flickered, and he swallowed; that was all. +Yet Salome regarded him with a satisfied nod. He had begun to breathe +better already. She waddled off to her kitchen to get something to eat, +and sang hymns while she cooked, talking to herself with ludicrous +effect between the verses. + +“Glory, glory in de shining sky!” she sang, and broke off between tears +and laughter. “He meant to leave dem two fur de jaguars to eat alive, +and he meant to put me in de sea, for I see it in his face. And he’s +dead and gone and et himself! I’m free! I’m free!” and in the midst of +her ecstasy she stopped short at the thought of the girl who was taken. + +“Pray. Miss Ber’l, pray!” she cried loudly, as if the girl could hear +her. “Pray for de grave, for we can’t help you.” + +Outside in the darkness of the drawing-room, Andria lay in a low chair, +too exhausted to think, and felt a sudden, humble touch on her arm. The +old man fell on his knees beside her and began to pour out a torrent of +whispered Spanish. Half of it she knew to be questions, but she could +not answer them, and, dazed, she shook her head. + +With a hoarse cry of hopeless disappointment, the poor wretch leaped +to his feet, and before she could call to Salome, was gone through the +open door. + +Andria sat up and put her hands to her aching head. It might be months +before Heriot was himself again, and by that time what could they do? + +There was a wounded man, herself, a black servant, and a madman to cope +with Raimond Erle, who was already out of reach. With such poor allies +and no money, how could she hope to reach England in time--or ever? +With a gesture of sheer despair, she sank back again and closed her +eyes. The very thing that would keep Raimond and Beryl apart she had +never told the girl. She cursed her cowardice that could not speak out, +that had solved itself by that photograph in a sealed envelope. She +knew she had never opened it by the very way she had been bewildered, +and looked from one to the other. It was useless now; she would not +even look for the thing, that must be lying in Beryl’s room somewhere. +She never wanted to see it again. It was too tangible a reminder of her +trust that she had not kept from cowardly reluctance to speak her own +shame. + +In the dark, hushed room there sounded the faint breathing of the +wounded man and a low sobbing that came from the very depths of a +woman’s broken, desolate heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH. + + +“It’s no use,” thought Beryl Corselas, “nothing was ever any use. +They’ve got us, body and soul, again.” + +She stared at the sea through the open port-hole, as if it would help +her to think. + +How long had she lain in this hot, close cabin, hearing the endless jar +of the screw and the wash of stormy water on the closed port-hole? And +where was Andria? + +“She opened the shutters and pulled me away, and he called her things. +Oh, I can’t remember! But I’m on the yacht again. She must be here, +too, for unless I dreamed it, I saw Amelia Jane in the cabin. I must +get up and find her. Surely, surely they would never leave her behind!” + +She sat up, and did not even notice how steady the ship was, though it +was only that which had revived her. Between a slight concussion of the +brain and being the very worst sailor possible, things had reason to be +hazy to her. But as she looked about for her shoes and stockings the +door opened softly and Amelia Jane’s face peered in. + +“Amelia!” cried Beryl. “Then I wasn’t dreaming. You were here! Where’s +Miss Holbeach? Tell her I want her.” + +The woman’s face changed convulsively. + +“You knows,” she said rudely; “what’s the good of askin’ me?” + +“Answer me! Come in and shut the door.” + +But it was only the long habit of servitude, and perhaps something in +the yellow eyes, that made the woman obey her. + +“Tell me what you mean. Quick!” + +Amelia Jane shrank against the door. + +“You knows dat poor, sweet lady won’t come to you no more,” she said, +more civilly. + +“They left her!” cried Beryl. She cared nothing for the servant’s +changed manner. “Amelia, they didn’t leave her behind?” She flung out +her hands as if to beg the woman to contradict her. + +But Amelia Jane only nodded dumbly. Great tears began to pour down her +cheeks. + +“It was dem beasts you called in,” she said. “But dere’s no more +trouble in dis world for Miss Holbeach. She’s gone clean away from +trouble. De golden chariot’s swung low to fetch her.” + +“Do you mean she’s dead?” Beryl’s eyes were dry, her tones perfectly +even, but Amelia Jane made haste to nod. + +“Who killed her?” Beryl said, with a dreadful matter-of-factness, her +voice very low and steady. But Amelia Jane saw nothing strange in the +question. + +“Dem beasts,” she sobbed. “Dem beasts Salome said was haunts. Dey got +her and poor old Salome. Dey chased master to de edge of de sea; he +save you first, but he ain’t save de others. Chloe and you and me’s +here--but----” she dropped her dark hands with a gesture of despair. + +The girl sprang toward her, a dreadful, tragic figure, in her white +nightgown, her wild, dusky hair streaming. + +“Mr. Heriot----” she said, between her teeth, and, weak as she was, +grasped Amelia Jane’s shoulder and shook her like a reed; “where was +Mr. Heriot?” + +“Gone, too; dey all gone.” Amelia was curiously, cringingly civil now. +“He never got far dat night he went away, for dey found him on de +hillside. Dat was how come dey feared de place and started to take us +away.” + +Beryl Corselas caught her breath hard, so that the woman waited for the +sharp cry, the torrent of tears, that yet she did not expect. And when +no cry came she trembled. + +“Dress me,” came the sharp order. “Tell Mr. Egerton I want to see him,” +and something in her eyes made Amelia Jane hurry as she had never +hurried before. + +“You can’t see him here,” she ventured timidly, looking at the +disordered cabin. “Better come on deck; we’s nearly to de land.” + +“Bring him here!” and Amelia Jane fled for her life at the sudden, +dangerous ring in the voice. + +But it was not Egerton who presently knocked at the door. + +“Come in,” said Beryl evenly, and did not start as she saw Raimond +Erle--only looked him up and down with strange eyes. + +For a moment he could not think what to say to her. There was something +terrible in her face, something like a beast waiting to spring in the +tense lines of her body as she stood opposite him. + +He stepped across the threshold in silence, and he did not close the +door behind him, but she seemed not to notice. + +“Where is Andria?” she said. “Where is Mr. Heriot? How is it that you +and your father and I are alive when they are dead?” + +Then Amelia Jane had told her, as she was meant to do! It is easier to +amplify bad news than to break it. He would strike at the hardest part +first. + +“So you knew he was there!” he said, with a shudder that was not all +put on. “Beryl, don’t look at me like that,” using her name as if he +had used it many times to himself. “I know what you think--that only a +selfish coward could have got away from that island and left a woman to +be killed. But don’t judge me yet.” + +“Answer me!” she said fiercely. “What happened to Andria? You were with +her last!” + +He nodded, but there was no shame on his face. “I was with her last,” +he said slowly, “but--Heriot was with her first.” + +“What do you mean?” She drew a step nearer to him; another, and she +would fly at his eyes. + +“Listen; be patient. I don’t know how to tell you, but if you will have +it----” + +“Go on.” + +He saw the wild blood in her cheeks. + +“It was this,” he answered very low. “That man Heriot had been in love +with her for a long time--may have been married to her for all I know. +Anyhow, he followed her. I suppose she sent for him. I don’t know.” + +“How could she send, when we were told the place was Bermuda?” Beryl +asked scornfully. + +“You were told that for your own safety. There were others besides +Heriot who might have followed you,” he answered somberly. “Oh, I’m not +defending my father! He made mistakes, but he meant well.” He dared +not lift his eyes to the fierce-light gaze of hers, but he kept on +steadily: “The man knew she was there; it doesn’t matter how. He hid in +our house and crept away in the night rather than face us.” + +The girl deliberately turned her back to him. He had his eyes on the +ground--anywhere but on her--and did not see her pull a flat thing out +of her pocket, nor notice the rustle of the thin, foreign envelope that +covered the carte de visite. + +“Look at that if you would doubt me!” Andria had said. She would look +at it now. + +But when she saw and read she was struck dumb. No wonder Andria had +feared to meet him. No wonder she had been livid with fury when he saw +her. No wonder---- + +She wheeled and faced him, the photograph hidden in the folds of her +wide silk belt. + +“I----” but she stopped the words on her very lips. Let him tell all +his lies, let him think her a fool! No one could know better than he +that Heriot was not Andria’s lover. + +“Perhaps he knew you,” she said, with an insolence for which he could +have struck her, though he did not know all she meant. + +“Yes, he knew me. Knew me,” he answered slowly, “enough to know I would +not have my father’s roof--or you--dishonored. But his fear drove him +to his death, and hers, too. + +“When my father came to us that morning on the veranda, it was to say +he had found a man dead, torn to pieces, not ten yards from the house. +And that, if such things could happen, it was no place for two women. +But you were too excited to listen. You were terrified that you might +be taken away from a woman who had no right even to speak to you. You +fell backward down the steps before you could be told of the danger, or +the strange man who had been killed by the jaguars.” + +“How do you know they were jaguars?” + +Not a cry had been wrung from her, though her soul was sick to think +how the madman and the cats had betrayed her. How Heriot--she dared not +think or she would break down in her icy calm. + +“We had excellent reason. You fell--my father told that woman her lover +was dead, and she must come with us and you. She laughed. She said she +would die with him sooner than live with us. She--I took you and ran +with you to the boat. My father called the colored servants and went +back for the stubborn woman up-stairs. But she tore away from him and +ran--ran straight to her death. He saw her torn to pieces before his +eyes, as he saw Salome afterward. + +“The other two women had gone on. They will tell you how they sat in +the boat and saw him but just escape with his life. How they heard +Salome scream.” His face was white and damp as he finished, for what he +knew was a thousand times worse than the lying tale he told. + +Beryl looked at him, and the scornful, accusing words died on her lips. +What did a lie more or less matter when Andria and Heriot were dead? + +“Beryl,” said Erle softly, “try not to distrust me! My father and I +are the only friends you have. You cannot think either he or I would +willingly let such things be. Your--the governess”--he watched her face +now for answering knowledge, for defiance that was not there--“was +nothing to us but a misguided woman. We would have no motive----” + +“What do you mean to do with me?” she said, as if he had not spoken. + +“Take you with us; make your life happy, till you forget the horrible +things you have known. Hate me,” he exclaimed with sudden passion, +casting the memory of his crimes behind him, “if you like, but let me +help you--keep you--love you----” + +Her voice rang in the little cabin. + +“You killed her!” she said, and pointed at him. “You!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +A DREAM OF VENGEANCE. + + +“I never touched a hair of her head,” said the man who had merely tied +her up to suffocate or be eaten. “Beryl believe me! I knew her long +ago, when first she was Heriot’s--friend.” + +“I don’t believe you.” She was clasping and unclasping her hands. +“Oh,”--she drew her breath and faced him like the little devil he had +once called her--“not one word you say is the truth. My cats never +touched her. I--they----” but she could not go on. + +He had made one mistake--one glaring blunder--that made everything seem +the lie. It was when he had linked Heriot’s name with Andria’s to a +girl who had his own damnation in her pocket. + +“I will never believe you--never! You may kill me, too, if you like,” +she added, with a slow malice that made him hasten to clinch his lie. + +“It’s true. The black woman told you what she saw. If I don’t tell you +all I saw, it’s because I want to spare you.” + +But she was not listening. The tireless jar of the engines had stopped; +the yacht was lying quiet on a quiet sea. + +“We’re at home in England,” said Erle coolly. “What will you do?” + +“Accuse you--give you up,” she thought, and said nothing. To be silent +was the only chance of doing it. She wished now that she had held her +tongue, as she felt in her sash her only proof that he might have had +a motive, since Andria was his discarded wife. She must play her game +better than this. If he feared her he would never let her go. “Oh,” +she said, with a pitiful shrinking from the awful task of avenging the +dead, “tell me, swear to me that all you’ve said is true. Then I’ll go +away with Amelia and Chloe and never trouble you any more.” + +“Look!” said Erle, and pointed out the port-hole. There in a boat with +their bundles were Chloe and Amelia Jane. + +“You can’t; they won’t take you. All they want is to get safe on shore. +Let them go, ungrateful beasts! Do you know they dared to say you had +the evil eye?” + +Amelia Jane’s queer manner and terror of her returned to Beryl’s +memory, all of a piece with her hurry to be gone. He was telling the +truth now, and her face grew white and vacant. The black woman had +deserted her. + +She was too stunned to imagine the truth, that they were being hurried +off to join an outbound vessel for Jamaica; they knew too much to be +let stay in England. + +Erle was quick to see his advantage. + +“Let them go,” he repeated, “I do not want any servants who say of you +what you say of me--that it was through you death came.” + +“Through me!” + +“They said--oh, it’s ghastly nonsense! But they said it was you +who could make those jaguars come and go as you pleased; that it +was you who set them on. You see, I am not the only person who is +thought--guilty!” + +He did not say how, when Amelia Jane had owned to seeing Beryl play +with jaguar cubs, it had been easy to put the rest of the wicked +thought in her head, nor who had put it there. But the girl in dumb +agony saw where she stood. She was utterly in his power. He might ask +her where she meant to go, but it was all pretense. She would never get +away from him and his father. + +With a strange quiet she turned from him, but it was the silence of +danger, not of despair. + +“You see,” he said, with the soft voice women had loved, “other people +might be as hard to you as you have been to me, mad as it sounds. Can +I never make you understand we are your only real friends? If we turn +against you----” + +“Yes,” she said, “I hear you. Please go, Mr. Erle. I--I can’t talk any +more.” + +Was the man utterly callous that he did not care that his wife was +killed, that he could lie about the dead? As the door closed behind him +she stood rigid, in raging, biting desire for vengeance. + +“I made a mistake when I taxed him with it,” she thought. “But I know +it’s true, for I saw him wince. Oh, my Andria!” the tears coming at +last to her burning eyes. “I should have stayed by her, held her tight, +never let her go. She warned me what he was like. Why did I ever listen +to him? And what am I, that he wants me--that he means to have me, even +over a grave? Andria--Heriot----” She crushed her hands against her +mouth that she might not cry out the names she loved. + +“You died for me,” she whispered, anguish shaking her; “because I am +what I am; they killed you to get me. That man was right. It was I who +killed you. Oh, who am I, that they drag me with them? That they want +me? I would give”--she stopped short, her strange eyes dilated--“I’ll +give my life, Andria; I have no more!” she whispered. + +Two hours afterward there came a knock at her cabin door. To Erle’s +astonishment, she opened it quite readily and stood quietly before him. +It had grown dark, and the electric light in the cabin dawned slowly +and lit up her face that was white as chalk, but absolutely indifferent. + +“Come,” he said, hiding his surprise, “we are going ashore. Let the +stewardess pack your things.” + +“I have none--not even a hat.” + +“It’s dark and warm; it doesn’t matter. You shall have all you want as +soon as you land.” + +He could hardly take his eyes from the strange beauty of her face. +Transcendental, unearthly, she stood in the pale electric light as one +who sees a vision. The quick thought came to him that she meant to +drown herself as they landed. But, though he kept at her elbow for +fear, she never even glanced at the dark water round the ship. + +Only as Erceldonne spoke to her did her strange calm flicker; hatred +sprang into her eyes as she turned silently away. + +In the boat, on the pier, at the station, Erle waited breathlessly +for her to break away. But she stood like a statue, and never asked +a question--moved when he led her without a sign of dissent. If +Mother Felicitas had seen her face she would have been ready for some +outburst, effective as it was unexpected. The two men merely thought +the shock of what she had heard had cowed her. + +All that night as she sat in a railway-carriage, one thought rang like +bells in her head. The man at whose door two deaths lay should pay for +them. And to do it she must go with him, find out who she was and why +she was desirable. If she tried to run away they would catch her; if +she went back to the convent she could find out no more than if she +were in her grave. She sat with eyes shut till they thought her asleep, +and planned and replanned her revenge; that she might not remember +Brian Heriot and fall to crying for the face that she would see no more. + +They changed carriages at dawn, where, she did not know, nor where they +were taking her. She looked for hours at the flying country and could +not tell, till, as the train stopped, great, black letters on a white +sign-board caught her eye. “Blackpool,” she read in the veiled sunshine +of the February morning, and remembered it was here she had first seen +the haggard, listless-eyed man who had been her evil genius. + +“We change here,” said Erle, rising and not noticing her as he leaned +out of the carriage window to glance at the station, which was fuller +than he liked. But he was reassured by the look of the crowd, who +were excursionists. Neither he nor his father saw her glance at the +lining of the hat they had bought for her when they landed. “Pearce, +Plymouth,” was stamped on it. They had come all the way across England +here; they must have a reason. Were they taking her back to the +workhouse at St. Anne’s? + +She got out as quietly as if she neither knew nor cared, but half-way +across the station she gasped and stood still. + +Opposite her, with her back to her, but unmistakable, was Mother +Felicitas, Sister De Sales at her side! + +They stood, as religious women do, with their eyes cast down; they had +not seen her. + +“Mother Felicitas!” she said, with a horrible fear, not for herself, +but for the vengeance that would slip from her if the superior saw +and claimed her. An instinct like an animal told her she would get no +credence of her tale in the convent. + +“Go on,” said Erceldonne in her ear furiously. “Go on!” + +The girl faltered, almost fell, and at Erle’s wondering exclamation +Mother Felicitas looked up. Her terror was before her eyes! + +For one instant she stood speechless. Before she could move, Beryl +Corselas had been hustled into a train that was already moving out of +the station. + +“The reverend mother has overtaxed her strength,” said Sister De Sales +quickly to a porter. “Water, please, and I will get her to a cab.” + +She was short-sighted, and had seen nothing. If she had, she would +merely have marveled that the reverend mother should lean heavily +against her in sudden faintness at the sight of a runaway schoolgirl. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +A LITTLE GOLD. + + +“I couldn’t help it,” said Andria, “they were too quick for me. I am +slow-witted. I see now it was madness to have sent you away, and worse +to send that dreadful old man after you. He might have saved us.” + +“How long have I been laid up?” Heriot, pretty white and bloodless, +lay propped with pillows on the sofa; he was stiff, and his wound was +painful, but his mind was clear. “How did I get her ring?” for the +green beryl glowed on his finger. + +“Not a week,” replied Andria wretchedly, for by now the yacht must have +reached England. “I told you every two or three times, but it didn’t +seem to reach you.” + +“It all seemed a part of the pain, I thought--‘beryls bring bad +dreams,’” he quoted. “I wish this was one.” + +“The old man must have put the ring on your finger. Oh, if he would +only go away and not sit outside and moan!” + +“Why? What is it to him?” + +Even then she could not tell him. She turned away. “Call the man,” said +Heriot sharply. + +Andria never looked up as the forlorn wretch shambled in and stared +at Heriot with lack-luster eyes. What would he tell? or, rather, what +would Salome make of it in her translation? + +“She is gone,” he said slowly in Spanish. “This time it is forever.” + +Andria started. + +Heriot understood--was answering him in as good Spanish as his own. +Salome stood goggle-eyed, straining every nerve to comprehend. Only to +Andria was it an incomprehensible medley of sounds. + +“What does he say, Salome? Tell me,” she ordered frantically; but +Salome only waved her aside and groaned aloud. It seemed hours as the +words she could not understand went on. + +“It’s a lie, Mr. Heriot!” broke out Salome fiercely. “She ain’t look +like him; she ain’t be like him----” But the words died on her tongue +remembered how the girl had mastered the jaguar as it ravened at the +bars. + +So the secret was out! + +“Salome, hush--wait!” cried Andria frantically. “Mr. Heriot, stop him; +tell me what he says.” + +“He wanders,” said Heriot; his bloodless face was ghastly. “He’s mad; +he’s--my God, he says she’s his daughter!” + +“Then it was true.” Andria covered her face. “I knew; Egerton told +me--let it slip,” she whispered. “But it is her mother who must have +been his child, not she.” + +She thought of the strange moods of the girl, her miraculous power over +animals, of the strain that must be hereditary in her young blood. + +“This is the story,” said Heriot. His face was set. “Erceldonne and +another man came here in a yacht. The second man never came up to the +house, apparently; certainly never had anything to do with the girl.” +(Oh, the pity of that first girl’s silence about the man who truly +never came to the house, but who met her in secret, unknown!) “And +Erceldonne came every day, and the girl would have nothing to say to +him--hated him. One day the old man heard her scream--not once--many +times. He ran down to the shore, and was just in time to see Erceldonne +put her into a boat and shove off with her. He had no boat himself, and +I think he must have had a fit there in the sun. For all he knows after +that is that he lost all his money in Brazilian bonds; he couldn’t +follow her. The servants apparently all left him; he used to sit all +day on the shore with his jaguars--and one day Erceldonne came back.” + +“Well?” said Andria breathlessly, for Heriot paused. + +“He said he never took the girl; that she left the yacht that same +night with the other man--all lies, of course. He landed with men and +guns, shot the jaguars--though two of them got off into the woods +without his knowledge--and, of all things--offered to buy the house +from the miserable father; wanted him to take the money and go and look +for the girl.” + +“De ole man crazy,” Salome burst in, “but cunning--oh, cunning! He says +yes, he sell de place. He creep away into de woods to find his jaguars +dat was left, and he sit and sit again to watch. One day he catch +master, sure!” + +Heriot nodded. + +“Erceldonne gave him money--something adequate--but the poor soul threw +it in that pool. ‘Gold,’ he said, ‘a little gold to pay for much flesh +and blood,’ so he threw it away. But he got no chance at Erceldonne, +for he went off again the next day. God knows why he wanted the place!” + +“He wanted the crazy man to go on the track of the girl and her lover,” +Andria cried. “The other man must----” + +“Beryl,” said Heriot slowly, “is in some way the living image of Lord +Erceldonne. No! Don’t say it; let me finish,” for he knew what was on +her tongue. + +“There were years after that when no one came to the island. Then one +day Erceldonne came back, opened the house and put in it Salome and a +lad of twenty and went away. The jaguars tore the boy to bits.” + +Salome threw up her arms. + +“It’s true,” she cried. “It’s true! I set here and hear dem in de +broad day. After dat he brung Chloe and Amelia Jane, and why, I never +knew. He brung me because--oh, missus, I had a child! I killed it in +Jamaica because it had de master’s eyes. He bring me here and leave me +because--oh!” wildly, “I couldn’t help myself. I was young den, and he +took me for to keep house. I was mad wid de shame, wid de eyes ob de +white child.” She cowered at Andria’s feet as she stood aghast. Was +there no end to this man’s crimes? + +The next moment she put her hand on the black woman. Who was Andria +Erle, to judge her? + +“Poor Salome! Poor soul!” she whispered. + +“He brung me,” sobbed the woman. “He didn’t care whether I live or die. +He say dey hang me if ever I dare leave dis place.” + +Heriot said something under his breath. Jamaica had been his first +abode when he left England; he remembered a queer story he had heard +there about a woman named Salome who wanted to murder her child because +it was white. She and her lover had fled, leaving the dead child where +it lay, and afterward---- + +“Listen, Salome,” he said quickly, “the child was asleep, had slept all +day. You were frightened and shook it----” + +“I shook de life out of it; it died,” she said, with a hoarse groan. +“It died.” + +“It didn’t die,” returned Heriot, with a queer laugh. “A woman found it +and ran with it to the doctor. It had been put to sleep with morphia; +it’s alive now! And so is the chemist that sold the morphia to a white +man. Your master had excellent reason on his own account to retire from +Jamaica! + +“I saw your boy running round selling papers in Kingston, and some man +told me his history. Your shaking couldn’t have killed a boy like that, +Salome, even when he was a baby.” + +She could only stare at him. Then she broke out into incoherent +words--into dreadful laughter. + +“My soul’s clean!” she screeched, “clean! I’m free; I’m free!” laughing +still. She rushed out of the house and leaped and danced in the blazing +sun. + +“Let her be,” said Heriot softly. “The man was an iniquitous devil, but +he’s paid for it.” + +“But Beryl----” Andria’s lips were white. Had the story of Beryl’s +mother put her out of Heriot’s heart? + +“I can’t travel for another week,” said Heriot simply, and a shame came +over her at the matter-of-fact words. “Then we’ll take her away from +Erle somehow.” + +“But--if he’s married her?” + +“He can’t. Don’t you see, she must be Erceldonne’s daughter?” + +“He can’t be--his son! That must be what they whispered,” she was +whispering herself. “Don’t you see that solves the whole thing? Her +money will set them on their feet--oh! the money must be a lie to get +Raimond to marry her. She can’t have any money--and neither have we. +How are we to get to England?” + +“That’s the easiest part,” Heriot added something to the old man who +stood looking from one to the other, with eyes that were frightened but +sane enough. + +He leaped to his feet at the word and ran out after Salome. + +“It’s the succession,” Andria cried, harking back to her own thoughts. +“Raimond will be all right if he marries her.” + +Heriot moved gingerly on his pillows; his face was pale, but his eyes +were shining. + +“I’m going to marry her myself,” he said quietly. “I don’t care if the +devil’s her grandfather.” + +The old man came running in and poured a stream of wet, green coins on +Heriot’s bed. + +They were Erceldonne’s own sovereigns! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +THE BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT. + + +Mother Felicitas grew strangely worse at Blackpool. She only stayed for +a week in the quiet convent, and neither rested nor slept till she was +back in her own place. + +But if she had thought to find there a letter from the man she dreaded +she was mistaken. Three weeks went by, and instead of being reassured +by his silence she was more terrified as each day passed without a +letter. + +She had known him well enough at the station. Sixteen years and more +had not changed a line in his face. If his son married the girl, her +history would have to come out--if she were to be a profitable bride. +And Erceldonne could tell it with such iniquitous cleverness that it +would not be he who should be involved in crime or shame. + +Mother Felicitas would have liked to send out messengers to ransack all +England for Beryl Corselas--she had learned easily enough that they had +not taken her to Erceldonne--since, with the girl in her hands, she +could once more have dictated terms to the man who had been too clever +for her. But she had no one to send; would not have dared if she had +had the cleverest detective in England to let him try to get the girl +and fail. + +And if Erceldonne did not write, the real Mrs. Fuller did: She assured +the reverend mother, with great gusto, that every effort was being made +to find the missing girl. + +“It is no business of a stranger’s--an outsider’s!” Mother Felicitas +said, with stony calm that covered fury. “Why does this Fuller woman +make it hers?” + +But even while she asked the question of the bare walls of her own +convent parlors she knew the answer. + +Years ago there had been a hue and cry over the sudden death of a woman +and the disappearance of her child. It was Mrs. Fuller’s friend the +detective that was so hot upon the trail. To solve a mystery that +thirteen years ago had been given up by the whole force would make his +reputation. + +The woman who said to herself that she never repented was perilously +near to repentance now. The dread of shame and disgrace distorted her +face where she sat alone. + +“He means that son to marry her--for the Corselas millions that are +crying for their owners, for the succession that can be assured in no +other way. And the announcement of that marriage under her own name or +her mother’s will spring the mine under me! And I can’t stir a finger. +It’s a month since I saw them with her; it may be too late now. Every +one in England but me may know the missing girl is found.” + +She could not keep her hands still nor her mouth steady. Retribution +was coming to her--punishment for those long years when her whole life +had been a blasphemous lie. She had no hope that Erceldonne would hold +his tongue when the announcement of his son’s marriage brought a stern +order for an explanation from the law of the land; from chancery, too, +that had the Corselas money in trust. There was one point where nothing +but the truth would clear Erceldonne himself, and there was no hope +that he would not tell it. + +“If I could stop the marriage!” almost she said it aloud. + +But she could think of no way that a dying woman in a convent could +balk the will of Erceldonne. + +A sharp clang of the old bell that was just outside the parlor door +made her start. It was Tuesday--visiting-day. She drew herself together +to clap her hands for a lay sister and say that Sister De Sales must +see the anxious mothers of pupils--that she herself was too weary. + +The portress was a new one and not used to her work. Before the +reverend mother had more than lifted her shaking hands a knock came +to her door--a stereotyped convent knock such as pupils gave--not a +visitor’s. + +“Come in!” cried Mother Felicitas, and straightened up in her chair. + +She was nearly ruined, and her power would soon be a byword; but at +least she could still crush a pupil who dared to come unsummoned to her +private room. + +But it was no girl with a grievance who opened the door. On the +threshold there stood a tall and beautiful woman whose eyes were less +gentle than her mouth, and whose red-brown hair---- + +“Andria Heathcote!” said Mother Felicitas, who never forgot a face. + +“Yes,” said the visitor, and involuntarily curtsied, as she had never +dared to enter that room without doing. Yet the next instant she had +coolly turned and shut the door behind her. + +Old pupils often came back to visit the convent; there was no reason +for the return of this one to be more than ordinary, yet the Mother +Superior seemed to lack strength to hold out her hand. Andria, after +the first glance, could hardly look at her. She had been handsome once +in a hard, ascetic way; now her face was but skin drawn over bone, and +her sunken eyes like fires long burned out. + +“You are surprised to see me, reverend mother?” she began gently. She +had never liked Mother Felicitas, but that might have been her own +fault, and the superior was her one hope now. + +“I am not well. I see few visitors,” was the slow answer. “As you see, +there have been many changes even here since your day.” + +“Poor Mother Benedicta!” said Andria, and could not go on. She had no +right to stand in this quiet convent parlor and play the hypocrite to a +woman who might be hard and cold, but was, nevertheless, a saint in her +way. + +“Happy, happy Mother Benedicta,” her successor was thinking +passionately. “Free among the dead!” But she only said slowly. + +“Surprised? No; many girls come back. They think of us sometimes. I +suppose you have married, Andria!” with perfunctory interest, wishing +the inopportune visitor would go. + +“Married!” said Andria, who once had thought she was Andria Erle. “No!” + +The words were almost a cry, and for the first time the Mother Superior +looked at her. + +“Mother Felicitas,” she began, forcing herself to speak out under those +unfriendly eyes. “I have no right to be here, no right to force myself +on any one like you--but one. I am in great trouble. I have been a +wicked woman, but--I am in great trouble.” + +“And you want to come back!” came the answer slowly. Trouble was the +only thing that ever brought them back--to stay! + +“No,” said Andria, looking round her with a shudder; she would eat her +heart out here. “No! Mother Felicitas, I told you I had been wicked--a +fool----” + +“They are the same,” said Mother Felicitas shortly. + +“But I woke up from my dream. I tried to do faithfully the work that +was put into my hands, and--I failed! I have no one to turn to; I am in +despair, yet, perhaps, there is time to save my trust yet, if you will +help me. No one else can.” She held her hands clasped tight before her, +and spoke in a whisper. “Oh! reverend mother, who was Beryl Corselas?” + +The quiet room heaved like a sea before her hearer’s eyes. The black +letters under the picture she dreaded seemed to spring into life, to +speak aloud: + +“Death and the Judgment!” + +Well, Death was coming, and here, against all canons, was the beginning +of the Judgment before it! Yet the superior managed to answer: + +“Is that your trouble?” she said. “It is a very old one, and I know no +more about it than you.” + +“Oh, Mother Felicitas, think! Try to remember,” with sudden gentleness +that was more dangerous than the other woman’s passion. “You knew once. +Long, long ago you told Beryl her mad temper came to her honestly--that +her mother was the same.” + +“I!” The superior was, for an instant, staggered. “If I did I was much +to blame,” she went on lamely enough. “We thought at one time we had +a clue to her parentage, but it proved a wrong one. When she ran away +from us we knew it.” + +“Mother, listen!” said Andria, more gently still. “You don’t know what +hangs on it. Even now that poor child may be trapped into a marriage +she hates--may be----” + +“You know where she is?” + +“If I did I would not come to you.” That quick cry had made her old +distrust wake armed. “But I know who has her. When you know, you may +perhaps remember--something--that may help me to find her. + +“I have been a governess since December, and Beryl Corselas was my +pupil.” + +Mother Felicitas leaned back and gripped the table in the old way. She +could not speak. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +“A BOY!” + + +“Last autumn,” Andria looked straight at the rigid figure in the chair, +“I was in London, deserted, nearly starving. A man who called himself +Egerton engaged me, without a character, to travel with his ward. And +the ward was Beryl. + +“He said we were to go to Bermuda, but he took us to a place the merest +child would have known was not that. A lonely island with one house, in +miles of scrub”--there was no change on the superior’s face; could she +have heard of that island before?--“a house that was locked every night +like a fortress for fear of a crazy man and of wild beasts that hunted +to the very door. He left us there to die, with no one but three black +women to protect us. To die, reverend mother, as a boy died whom he +took there five years before.” + +Death--Death and the Judgment! Mother Felicitas’ face bore no longer +the look of a human countenance. + +“Five years,” she said. “A boy?” + +“He seemed a boy, Salome said, because he was so young in his ways, had +such merry gray eyes and was so gay; but he was twenty. And the jaguars +tore him to bits, as they were meant to tear us.” + +“No, no, no!” and if there can be such a thing as a whispered shriek it +came from the tortured lips of the Mother Superior. + +“I frighten you? It’s too horrible to hear? It was more horrible----” + +“The boy!” Mother Felicitas clutched Andria’s arm as she had been +clutching the table. “The--the poor boy! You said he was called----” + +She had said nothing, but she did not remember. + +“Guy, Salome called him, but I never heard his other name.” + +“Guy.” All hell had opened under Mother Felicitas, but not the hell +she had feared. Pain a thousand times worse than the disgrace she had +dreaded made her groan aloud, and then a very recklessness of fury +shook her, as it might a mother whose only son has been murdered. + +“Go on,” she said, and drew her breath through her teeth. “Er-Egerton +took him there--and he died.” + +“He was killed! Then we came and Beryl could master the jaguars, could +master the madman afterward; they never touched us. But we were left +for worse than jaguars. Egerton came back, and his son, Raimond Erle. +Egerton--I say--but I mean Lord Erceldonne--and they plotted to take +Beryl away and marry her to Erle for her money and something else. +Think, Mother Felicitas! Can’t you remember anything? Who was the girl +that they wanted a waif like her?” + +“I--I never knew!” and then in her terror strength came back to her. “I +tell you,” she cried fiercely, “I know nothing. How could I know, who +have been dead to the world these thirteen years?” + +“The year Beryl Corselas was brought here.” + +It was said musingly, and yet it carried meaning. + +The reverend mother could grow no paler, but her eyes were like living +coals now instead of dead ones. + +“Is that all?” she said. For the moment Beryl Corselas was nothing +to her. She could only think of the boy who had been taken to the +uttermost parts of the earth to be got rid of, from mere wanton +weariness of his face. + +“No, they took--at least Raimond Erle took--Beryl away and left me tied +up with cords, towels, anything, that I might die like the boy. Lord +Erceldonne--oh!” she cried, “Mother Felicitas, Lord Erceldonne is dead. +The jaguars killed him as he meant them to kill us, before something +made him change his plans and want Beryl to go with him and marry his +son.” + +“Dead! When? Speak, Andria.” But if for an instant a fierce hope glowed +in her, the next it died. + +“Five weeks ago, on the island.” + +The Mother Superior dragged herself to her feet. + +“Go!” she said, and her voice was strong and resonant. “Go. You said +well that you were a wicked woman, when you dare to come here with +lies.” + +It was a trap. By a very hair she had escaped it. Erceldonne himself +must have sent this woman here. + +But Andria never stirred. She had been right about what the superior +knew--for Mother Felicitas was afraid! + +“I’ve not finished,” she said as she looked straight into those awful +eyes that seemed to see things that had shriveled them to look on. +“That madman said Erceldonne had taken away his daughter years ago, +that Beryl was this same daughter come back again. He said----” + +“What is it to me?” cried Mother Felicitas. “I know none of them. Why +do you come to me?” + +For a moment a spirit as harsh as her own looked out of Andria +Heathcote’s eyes. + +“You do know,” she retorted, “and you will know more unless you help +me to stop this marriage and save Beryl Corselas. Do you think if +Erceldonne had sent me I should have let out that story about the boy +who was killed on the island that you--know of? And he could not send +me, for he’s dead!” + +She turned to go, but a hand colder than death fell on hers. + +“Wait,” said Mother Felicitas, “wait!” + +She tottered to her chair, and signed to Andria Heathcote to lock the +door. + +She was speaking the truth according to her lights, and the reverend +mother knew it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE DARK HOUSE. + + +That Beryl Corselas was not at Erceldonne Mother Felicitas knew. But +that he owned a disused, rat-haunted house in Westmoreland even the +superior had almost forgotten. + +And it had been a very simple business to double on their own track at +Blackpool and get off at a desolate little station in Westmoreland. + +It was pouring rain. Beryl, hurried into a close carriage, had not +time to see the whilom convent “boy of all work” was the driver. They +drove on endlessly it seemed to the girl. Through the rain she could +see nothing but endless, rolling moors. When at last they stopped it +was pitch-dark. Dazed and weary Beryl got out and for the first time +trembled. + +A dark house, without a lighted window, stood before them. Erceldonne +was unlocking the door with a key from his pocket, and as he swung back +the door a close, cold air of emptiness and desolation came out on the +girl. What were they going to do with her? How could she avenge Andria +here? + +She fought down the cowardly thought that at least she would have been +safe in the convent, and followed Erle into the dark hall. The cold air +of it breathed like death and the grave. + +He struck a match and opened the first door he came to. + +“Why is it like this?” he said to his father angrily. “Do you want us +to die of cold and discomfort? Where is the woman?” But before there +was time for an answer a door opened, and against a blaze of light that +made her blink Beryl saw the woman who had taken her from the workhouse. + +“Mrs. Fuller!” she cried. + +“Yes,” returned the woman slowly, “Mrs. Fuller.” + +She was not given to pity, but for one weak instant compassion rose in +her. The next she swept it away. There was no need to pity the girl. +Erle meant to marry her. She drew back as Beryl ran to her. + +“Your dinner is ready,” she said to Erceldonne. “Such as it is.” + +Tone and manner were so changed from the Mrs. Fuller she had known that +Beryl stood astounded. Then it came to her with an awful sinking of her +heart that this woman was in the plot against her, was a part of the +mystery she loathed and feared. There would be no help from her. + +She looked around the room into which Erle led her gently. There was a +huge fire, a mean lamp, a table with meat, bread, and wine. Everything +else was bare and desolate. She was suddenly conscious that this was +her prison, where she might live and die unless she did what they told +her. All her fine dreams had come to this. For she knew by the tinned +food on the table that the pale woman with golden hair had put it +there, and that there was not another soul in the house. + +She sat down and could not eat--only looked up with a start to see Erle +and Mrs. Fuller finish and leave the room. She was alone with the man +who called himself Egerton. + +“Listen,” he said coldly, stretching his feet out and lighting a +cigarette. “My son tells me you say he killed your governess and the +man you and she saw fit to hide in my house. You had better disabuse +your mind of that; and to help you I will tell you who you are--the +granddaughter of that crazy old man on the island. You may break away +from here and tell all you imagine, and if you do I will prove you as +mad as he.” + +He waited for an answer, but she only cowered as if he had struck her. +Somehow it was no surprise. All her life she had been told there was +something about her that was inhuman, horrible. She knew what it was +now--remembered with horror how she had soothed the madman’s cats with +a song she must have inherited the trick of. + +“You see,” he said, “you can do nothing. Your friends, as you chose to +think them, are dead.” + +“I can go back to the convent,” she muttered, for at least she could +hide her head there. + +“You can go nowhere,” he answered coldly. “We did our best to take care +of you, and you repay us with ingratitude. If I were wise I would put +you in an asylum at once before you had a chance to spread your crazy +imaginings. But I will give you a chance. See,” he went on slowly, “if +with solitude and quiet you will perhaps come to your right mind. My +son----” + +“Why did you say he was your nephew?” + +This man could only kill her, and at least she would strike back at him +first. + +“Did I?” he returned coolly. “If you think, you will find it was Salome +who told you that.” + +The memory of that morning flashed back on her. It had not been Salome +who introduced “My nephew, Mr. Erle.” + +“You see,” he pursued, with a shrug, “you cannot remember anything +correctly.” + +“I remember this much,” and a tide of fury swept over her, taking all +her terror away. She sprang up and faced him, with the resemblance +to him more marked than ever. “You knew that island wasn’t safe, but +something made you change your mind about letting me die there. The +evening you went back to the yacht because you were afraid to stay +after what happened to Andria, she followed you. She heard every word +you said to your nephew where you stood behind the cypress thicket--and +Heriot heard, too. You have done nothing but lie to me. Even your name +isn’t true!” + +She shook with passion where she stood over him and for once he lost +his self-control. + +“This knowledge didn’t last long,” he said brutally, for he was not +afraid of the dead, “nor will yours, if you make me angry. Your +governess was a treacherous, infamous woman, who made use of my house +to send for her lover.” + +“She never sent. He was wrecked there,” she could hardly speak for +rage. “Oh, you did well to kill him! In another day he would have saved +us both.” + +Erceldonne’s face was livid. + +“I have had enough heroics,” he said. “No one has murdered any one, as +you are crazy enough to think, and if you were in your right mind no +one would be kinder to you than I. As it is, all I mean to do with you +is to keep you here till you come back to your senses. You’ll never get +away while you rave like this. I told you who your mother was--that +lunatic’s daughter, but I did not tell you who your father was. You +little fool, I am your only relation, your only legal guardian!” + +“No, no!” she cried, and covered her eyes with her hands that at least +she might not see his face when he said he was her father. Yet if he +did it would make Erle her brother, unless he were really his nephew! + +“You’re quite wrong,” said Erceldonne, with his jarring laugh, as he +saw that at last he had made her flinch. “It was not I who had the +doubtful felicity of being your parent.” + +“Then I am----” she faltered; she did not believe his denial of her. +What could she be, who had madness and wickedness for father and mother? + +“You’re no one,” he answered shortly, “while you cling to your crazy +delusions. If you give them up you’ll get away from me and be Raimond’s +wife. But he doesn’t want a crazy one, and you can think that over at +your leisure.” + +An older woman would have realized that whoever she was, she must be +worth having for them to care nothing for her strain of lunacy; or else +that there was a lie somewhere. Beryl was ignorant of the world. + +The old vacancy came into her eyes as she stared at the dying coals on +the hearth. This house was her prison; she would never get away from it +except as the wife of a man who, instinct told her, was a murderer. And +she had let them take her past Mother Felicitas, trusting in her own +strength to bring home crime to men like these. + +In all the world there was no one to help her; those two she had loved +were dead. This was a house the world thought empty. No one would come +here, or hear her if she screamed her life out. She did not even know +where it stood. + +She looked up to see Erceldonne was gone, and Mrs. Fuller standing by +her. + +“You had better go to bed,” the woman said, not unkindly. “You are to +sleep with me.” + +But the girl never answered. + +Oh! why had she not died with Andria? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +DREAMS. + + +As if she were blind and dumb Beryl Corselas followed Mrs. Fuller +up-stairs to a bedroom as bare as the rest of the house. + +The woman would have talked to her, but she shrank away, conscious that +she was a prisoner, and Mrs. Fuller one of her jailers. She saw another +thing as time went on--that day and night changed places in this house. +There were no blazing fires in the daylight, only smoldering coals that +made no smoke that tell a tale of habitation. And the doors were never +unlocked, nor was she ever alone to try them. + +Mrs. Fuller and Erceldonne were with her turn about. Erle had vanished, +and all count of time seemed to have vanished, too. + +Day after day went by, and Beryl never opened her lips. Her sullen +silence was as hopeless as her pale face, but both got on the nerves of +her jailers. If Lord Erceldonne had dared, with what good-will he would +have put an end to them! + +Raimond had gone to London, and sent back a letter by the round-faced +boy that made his father curse at each day passed with nothing done. +Would he never come back? Was he out of his senses that he did not see +there was no time to lose? Why was he “unexpectedly detained”? + +As the third week crawled by Lord Erceldonne lost patience. Night after +night he paced the gravel, listening for the wheels that never came. +But when the fourth was gone, and the fifth, he dared not listen, for +he imagined wheels in each gust of wind. And the wind blew eerily at +nights over the moorland. + +“The boy is mad!” he said to himself, aloud, alone in that lonely room +down-stairs, when the two women were gone to bed. + +Behind him some one laughed, or was it outside the open window? + +Lord Erceldonne forgot patience. He stared round the empty room, flung +open the thick wooden shutters on the gusty spring night, and called +aloud: + +“Raimond! Raimond! Why the devil don’t you come in?” + +There was no answer. From far away he heard the sound of a moorland +brook that his strained ears had surely turned into mocking laughter. +Yet he drew sharply back from the window, and shut it with frenzied +haste. It was no brook that had whispered in his very ear from the +darkness under the window. + +“Mad, mad!” like an echo. + +“It’s the solitude, the cursed waiting.” He wiped his forehead. “It’s +got on my nerves.” + +For the whispers had been labored, un-English, as if some one repeated +sound, not sense; the voice that of the madman on the island. +Imagination was making a fool of him; the thing was impossible. Yet he +dared not go to bed, and his thoughts even Mother Felicitas might not +have envied. + +The next afternoon, in broad day, he fairly gasped with astonishment, +for his long-looked-for son drove up to the door. Lord Erceldonne, +opening it, could hardly contain himself as he saw he was not alone. A +quiet man, in black clerical clothes, sat in the carriage. + +“Where have you been?” said Erceldonne in a whisper almost soundless, +as his son got out, “Who are you bringing here? You’re mad--to dare!” + +“Shut up,” returned Raimond, shaking hands as if he greeted him. “Open +some windows in this musty hole; make everything look all right. This +is the very man we want, and an old friend of mine,” raising his voice, +“whom I’ve had hard work to find. Father Maurice,” turning quickly, +“this is my father. And he is afraid you will find it rough work +staying in a shooting-box like this.” + +“I have seen worse places,” said the man. + +As he stood on the door-step Erceldonne saw he was a clergyman of the +Church of Rome. Might have seen also that here was a man impossible +to coerce or deceive, a strange friend for Raimond Erle; but Lord +Erceldonne was not the quick-eyed man he had been. Bad dreams had +wrought on his nerves. + +“Raimond’s friends are always welcome,” he said stiffly, “but we are +indeed roughing it here,” and he cursed Raimond silently for having +called the place a shooting-box when there was not a gun in the house. + +And there were no servants! It was enough even to make “an old friend” +suspicious. + +“Why did you bring him?” he said, when the priest had been put in his +own room for want of another habitable one. “And where have you been?” + +“Finding out things.” And now that they were alone his face was haggard +enough. “Do you know there is five hundred reward offered for her? Some +detective’s at the bottom of it, but God knows who is offering the +money!” + +“And you stayed away all this time, knowing that?” cried Erceldonne, +with uncurbed fury. + +“I stayed because I could not help it. I had to get some one to trust, +and I had to scour all England for this man,” little knowing by what +chance he had found him ready to come. + +“Who is he?” + +“He had the honor,” said Erle cynically, “of marrying me to the first +Mrs. Erle!” + +Erceldonne cursed him up and down for a fool. + +“Then why, of all things, do you want him here?” he ended. + +“To marry me to the second. Oh, don’t waste your breath! I know what +you’re going to say, but it will be legal enough this time. He had no +right to do it before. I found out afterward that it was before he had +entered the church. I can hold that over him if he kicks. But he won’t. +He’s sorry for me, because my wife died so soon. He will tie this knot +with true pleasure.” + +“Do you think that sullen vixen up-stairs will have it tied without +raving to him? For I don’t.” + +Erle laughed. + +“I think she will,” he said suavely. “You can’t manage women with +sledge-hammers--unless they love you. That’s where you go wrong! Take +the priest out of the way--anywhere--round the moors, and send Beryl +here to me. But don’t warn her I’m here.” + +Out of doors a mountain mist had fallen, and the damp twilight of it +made him nervous as he waited. There would be no coercing her if the +wet drove Father Maurice back before the work was done. He went to the +window, and fancied he saw the black figures of his father and the +priest dimly visible through the fog; and turned impatiently to go to +this Vashti who would not come. But the door opened before he could +reach it, and even in the twilight he started at Beryl Corselas’ eyes. + +“You!” she said, full of amazement not only at his presence, but at the +changed look of the room, whose windows were unshuttered as she had +never seen them. But it had been a week and more since she had left her +bedroom, and they might well have grown careless. + +“Yes,” he said. “I--dear; what have they done to you while I was gone? +Have they frightened you? You look so pale. I should never have left +you. My father is hasty, unjust! But I’ll take care of you now.” + +“I don’t want you to,” she said lifelessly. Her eyes were on the window +that was open to the fresh air, and she went to it, like a prisoner who +is strange to the light of day. + +Erle took no notice; it was too high from the ground to be dangerous. +He went to the fire, and threw on dry wood till the room was light +as day. There was no sense in mystery or concealment now, since the +thing must be done and published before a week at farthest. After that +detectives could root out what they liked. + +As he turned his back she leaned from the window, and her helplessness +stung her afresh as she breathed the damp, sweet air. She was high +above the ground, there was not even grass to break the fall if she +dared to jump out. There was ivy, but not directly below the window; +its trails swayed at the sides out of her reach. Swayed--she watched it +with vague wonder. Why should it move in the stirless air? Why did the +woody stems creak in the twilight at her right hand? + +A log Erle laid on the fire slipped, and rolled blazing on the hearth. +He kicked it back impatiently, with a noise that must have startled her +in the silent room, for she gave a queer, stifled cry. + +“Confound the thing!” he said irritably, for the log had slipped again. +As he wrestled with it he did not notice her lean from the window +perilously, and stare through the twilight at something that was not an +ivy branch; something that moved, but not with the chill, evening air. + +A lean hand she knew, a hand no one could mistake who had once seen +it, was stretched out to her from the ivy where something clung like a +hat. It pressed a scrap of paper into her outstretched fingers; a voice +whispered in her very ear. But she had no time to hear the low words; +Erle’s light, delicate step was coming toward her. + +Clutching a scrap of paper, she drew back from the window just in time. + +Erle was at her shoulder. And oh! was she mad as they said, to dream +she had seen the lunatic she had left thousands of miles away? Her +heart thumped till she was sure Erle must hear it. How could she get +rid of him long enough to read that paper that seemed to sting in her +hand? + +“What’s the matter?” he said quickly. “Don’t shake like that; I’m not +going to hurt you.” + +He looked over her shoulder out the window, fearful the wet would drive +back his father and the priest; and Beryl’s heart contracted. Had he +seen--been nearer than she knew? + +“I’m cold!” she said sharply, and walked away from him to the fire. If +he had seen, that paper should burn before he got it! But he did not +even follow her. + +“What has my father done to you?” he said, his worn, handsome face +haggard in the firelight. “But I needn’t ask--I know! I was a fool ever +to leave you.” + +“Why? I did not miss you.” She stood before the fire, her hands behind +her back, so that her face was in shadow, while the light played on his. + +“Do listen and try to trust me,” he said slowly, hunting for words that +would terrify her into submission. “You’ve made my father hate you, +because of those wild things you said of me when you were shocked, +frightened, not yourself. He’s a strange man, and takes fancies that +are soon over. His liking for you was one of them.” + +“He always hated me,” she said calmly. + +Erle shrugged his shoulders. + +“That is nonsense. But what I am going to say is earnest, horribly +earnest. My father insists you are not in your right mind, that----” + +“I am the granddaughter of a madman.” She was strangely cold by the +fire. “Well?” + +“He’s going to put you in an asylum,” replied Erle brutally. “He will +send you away to-morrow.” + +Send her away! The house that was her prison seemed suddenly the only +place she could not leave. + +“He can’t--he daren’t!” she cried. “I would tell all I know.” + +“A story of an island, of jaguars, of madness and sudden death,” he +continued slowly. “Can’t you see that story would make any doctor call +you mad? He wants to get you out of his way; he would stick at nothing +to be rid of you.” + +“Let me go there!” she muttered. + +“Where?” He came toward her, his face changing. “Beryl, do you know +what I heard in London? Mother Felicitas is offering a reward for you! +How far would you get before she would have you?” + +“Mother Felicitas!” she recoiled. She had almost forgotten her. + +“A living grave in a convent, or in an asylum, there is not much to +choose.” He watched her standing rigid with fear. “Don’t look like +that!” he cried, as if pity had overmastered him. “You sha’n’t go to +either. I’ll help you; no one shall lay a finger on you.” + +“You!” + +“I know you hate me,” he said softly, “but I--love you! I’ve forgotten +all the cruel things you said, you had had a shock that was enough +to drive you wild. And, hate me or not, I mean to take you out of my +father’s hands.” + +“How?” But she knew. + +“In the only way I can. Beryl, marry me. Come away with me out of this +nightmare.” He was not acting now, for excellent reasons his very soul +was in his eyes. “What have I done to you, but tell you the truth about +a woman who was not fit to be near you? Come to me and forget all that. +You don’t know what life can be. Are you going to throw yours away? If +I could convince my father you are in your right mind I would not tell +you all this, but I can’t. All I can do is to make you my wife, and +then not all the world can harm you.” + +“It is your father who wants you to marry me,” she broke in scornfully. +“Why do you pretend?” + +“My father would get me the earth if I fancied it. And you may believe +me, if he could see you dead rather than my wife, it would suit him +equally well, take it or leave it.” For the first time there was a +threat in his voice. Where did she get her courage, that she never so +much as shrank as he leaned over her? + +“To-morrow you can go to the asylum, or marry me! After to-morrow I +won’t try to save you. For all I care you can do both!” The words were +so easily said, so sinister, that nothing but the scrap of paper in her +hand kept her from crying out. + +“Scream if you choose,” he said, seeing her tightened lips; “there is +no one to hear you. Think, and try, and place, you will see there is no +one to help you but me. Oh, Beryl, is it so hard to trust me! You make +me brutal, because you make me despair of helping you----” + +“Liar! murderer!” she said in his face. For three fierce sentences he +had dropped his mask, and she knew there was no love in him, but only +most evil passion. + +She wrenched away from the hand he stretched out to seize her, and ran +from the room. + +For once her own was empty. Mrs. Fuller was in the kitchen making +ready a decent meal with furious, incapable fingers. Had she been able +she would have poisoned the man who forced her to be a servant in his +house. Beryl knelt by the fire, and unrolled the paper, all creased +from her hot clasp. The next instant she threw it in the fire. It was +all a trap. That hand she thought she knew must have been another’s +like enough to serve, for the paper held only one sentence, in English, +that the madman did not know: “Do all they tell you.” + +Dull, lifelessly, Beryl watched it turn to ashes; saw Mrs. Fuller +come in and lay a white gown on the bed. And Mrs. Fuller was crying, +“Beryl,” and she threw her arms around the motionless girl, “marry +him. Give in. Don’t you see?” she pointed to the bed, “it’s a +wedding-dress,” she sobbed, for she was frightened for herself now. + +“It will do very well,” said Beryl Corselas, with stiff lips, “for a +shroud.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +TAKEN UNAWARES. + + +“You have a chapel?” asked Father Maurice. + +He was an abstemious man; his vile dinner had not troubled him. Indeed, +if he had not been afraid to risk weakness, he would not have eaten a +crust in this house. + +“Yes.” + +The late owners of the place had been Catholics. + +“But it is disused; in sad repair.” + +“It is the only place for a marriage,” said the priest, and Raimond +smiled, remembering the inn parlor in which this very man had married +him to Andria Heathcote. “If you will allow me and provide me with some +candles, I will go and prepare it early in the morning. You wished to +have the wedding at seven?” + +He looked at Raimond. + +“At six. I should have liked you to have seen the bride to-night, +but----” he laughed, “well, she was shy! I could not induce her to come +down.” + +“Yes, yes,” said the priest hastily, and rose, that they might not see +his face. “I will go to my room if you will excuse me. I am tired, and +must rise early.” + +“Your friend may be trustworthy, but he’s damnably unpleasant,” said +Erceldonne, as soon as the priest’s back was turned. + +“It won’t matter what he is to-morrow morning after the register is +signed.” + +But even Erle was not easy about the task before him. + +“Call Mrs. Fuller, will you? I want to talk to her.” + +The low hum of their voices reached Father Maurice, where he paced +up and down his room. Regardless of the damp outside, he opened his +window and leaned out, and if there had been any one to see his face, +something in it might have made them marvel. It was not the face of a +fool, or of a friend of Raimond Erle’s. + +Then he did a strange thing for a priest and a guest. He took off +his shoes, and left the room without a sound. He was gone perhaps ten +minutes, and when he came back there were only two voices in that +murmur from the room below. Mrs. Fuller’s was missing. He went to the +window again and scanned the misty darkness, as if he expected some +one, but nothing stirred. + +“At dawn,” he thought. “I pray I have not acted unwisely. There are +many hours till dawn,” and he sat listening and watching, long after +the house was silent. + +His task was abhorrent to him; he loathed this semblance of doing evil +that good might come, yet he saw no way out of it. When the night +changed to dawn, he went his way to a deserted chapel that stood in the +grounds. + +It was open, and he lit candles on the desolate altar. He was strangely +pale after his night’s vigil, and he watched the growing light with +grudging eyes. + +“Ah!” he said suddenly. He turned away into the moldy vestry and +knelt down to pray. When he came out into the empty chapel a beam of +sunlight struggled through the dusty glory of the stained windows, and +shone like an auriole round him as he stood in his vestments. But to +Erceldonne, who entered at that moment, it looked as if the priest were +bathed in blood. + +Without speaking, he motioned to some one behind him. + +Raimond Erle took a girl’s passive hand and laid it on his father’s +arm; and passed on to the right hand of the altar. + +Step by step, Erceldonne advanced with a terror at his heart for which +he had no reason, since the license was right, by what means his son +best knew. + +The bride, all in white, with a thick lace veil over her dusky hair and +pale face, never looked up as she leaned on his arm; made no sign of +surprise or dissent as she saw the waiting priest. + +Father Maurice, book in hand, never moved as they approached him, but +as they sank on their knees he raised his hand, and his voice thrilled +through the cold chapel. But not in the familiar Latin Erceldonne, who +had been a Catholic when he was anything, expected. + +“‘Behold, I will repay, saith the Lord,’” the strong, clear words rang +out over the kneeling wedding-party. “‘I have laid a snare for thee, O +Babylon; and thou art also taken, for thou wast not aware.’” + +“The Presbyterian will come out!” thought Erle, mindful of the +priest’s history, and never stirred a finger at the magnificent cry of +denunciation. + +But Lord Erceldonne knew better. + +He had seen the priest’s finger that pointed to something behind him; +had turned his head, sprung up, and stood turned to stone. + +The chapel was empty no longer. + +Between him and the sunlight outside the open door, between him and the +desire of his eyes, stood two that were risen from the dead. Behind +them, strange men in plain clothes. To Erceldonne the place seemed +swarming. He could not draw his breath, and he shook from him the +terrified woman’s hand that clutched his arm. + +The strange pause made the bridegroom turn. But even he could not speak. + +Andria--Andria stood there, with her eyes on his. And Heriot held her +hand! Heriot, that was dead in Flores! + +Father Maurice stepped to Erle’s side, and touched him lightly on the +shoulder. + +“Be glad,” he said, “that you have not had time to take another sin +upon you! There stands your wife, whom you deserted and left to die. +Go to her, ask her pardon on your knees. You told her I was no priest; +that I had no right to marry you. I was a minister in the Church of +Scotland, and you know it. You were married as hard and fast as I could +marry you to-day, when I am an unworthy servant of the Catholic church.” + +But Erle never answered. He stood as if he did not feel that hard, +light hand on his shoulder, and stared at the woman who was, after all, +his wife. + +“It’s a lie!” cried Erceldonne fiercely. He caught his son’s nerveless +hand. “Raimond, it’s a plot! The priest’s in some one’s pay!” + +“The priest,” said Father Maurice, “is in the service of God. Lord +Erceldonne, I am the chaplain of St. Mary’s Convent. It was Mother +Felicitas who sent me to find your son, and save an innocent girl.” + +“Mother Felicitas!” But his jarring laugh stopped unfinished. There was +something in the priest’s face, something in the absolute silence of +the strange man at the door, that killed his laughter in his throat. + +“Your Mother Felicitas is a--a--you fool, she was my mistress! She----” + +“She is dead,” said Father Maurice, with a voice that rang. “Her sins +lie buried with her. Her confession is in my hands, her repentance in +the hands of God, her temptations--are put down to the account of a man +whose crimes cry aloud. Long ago, Lord Erceldonne, it seems to you, +you tried to take from an old man by violence his adopted daughter. +Adopted, not his own, as you well knew. Your elder brother saw you, +saved her in one of your own yacht’s boats, and married her. When your +elder brother died, leaving a wife and a young child, who was it sent +a woman to them? A woman, who thought herself your wife, who loved you +till she forgot God in heaven; a desperate, miserable woman, who saw +nothing but that her son and yours was disinherited if that little girl +lived. Who gave her the morphin that killed Lady Erceldonne? Who asked +no questions when the child disappeared and was never found? Who, when +a most unhappy woman came to him with all her sins on her head, laughed +and told her she was no wife of his--that she and her son were nameless? + +“She had done your work. You had no more need of her. But, to keep her +lips shut, you promised to care for her boy, to bring him up away from +you, but happily, as long as she was silent. And silent she was--till +she learned how you kept your promise. How you wearied of supporting +the lad, and sent him to the other side of the world to be killed. + +“You had no thought, Lord Erceldonne, that such a sinner would confess; +that the girl you kidnaped and meant to let die would be your ruin, as +soon as you found out that if she lived her mother’s money would set +you on your feet. You said she was a madman’s daughter, and you knew +all the time she was of the best blood in Spain. A child who was a +born dompteuse, an animal-tamer, who had run away to a circus, whose +owner retired and took her and his animals to his home in the Azores. +Her brother died a year ago; since then, you know best how every part +of the world has been ransacked for the daughter of the lost sister, +to whom he left his fortune. Beryl, she was christened, for a ring her +mother had always worn till she left the circus; Corselas, because +the murdered Lady Erceldonne always hoped to take the child to Spain +and find her relatives. It was under that name, which seemed a fancy +one, that she was left at the convent. That name, which has led to the +unraveling of all. The church’s arm is long, Lord Erceldonne, for you. +For that most miserable woman, Mother Felicitas, her mercy is infinite.” + +“You have no proofs! It is a conspiracy, a lie!” said Erceldonne, but +his lips were white. + +“This is not a court of justice, nor am I your judge,” returned Father +Maurice icily. He beckoned to the men at the door, but some one was +nearer, quicker than they. + +From an empty vestry there ran a strange figure, bent almost double, +that screamed in Spanish as it ran. + +“Liar! You said you knew nothing of her? You swore you had no brother. +You took the light from my eyes with your story of a stranger, and her +shame.” + +Before any one could reach him, the jabbering thing had sprung at +Erceldonne’s back, and stabbed him with that very dagger that had lain +so long idle in his own house. + +A shriek ran through the chapel, but it was not Lord Erceldonne’s; he +lay quiet on the stone floor, face down. + +It was Salome, whom he had wronged, whose life had been hell through +him; and the shriek was savage, exultant. + +“Be silent,” said Andria fiercely. + +As she spoke, the madman flew by her, running and leaping like a +monkey, two of the strange men at his heels. + +What was the matter with Beryl, that she neither spoke nor came to her; +that she never looked up as Heriot laid a hand on her shoulder? Had +they drugged her--was she---- + +Andria Erle ran to the strange figure that was hidden under the lace +veil. + +“Beryl!” she cried, “it’s I, Andria! You’re safe!” + +She put the veil back from the face and stared aghast. + +A strange woman stood before her, painted, hollow-eyed; her head +covered with long locks cut from Beryl’s hair, wound deftly round it. + +“Father! Father Maurice!” cried Andria, in the one breathless instant +before the priest could speak and tell her this strange bride was +part of his last night’s work. She turned and ran from the church +like an arrow from the bow after some one else who had also stared +unbelievingly at the false bride. + +All she thought was that this was not Beryl, and that Raimond had had +a minute’s start of her in the confusion, when all eyes were on the +escaping madman and the dead man on the floor. + +Across the wet grass, in the light of the wet morning sun, she ran, +into the desolate house. Up-stairs, through endless passages, sobbing, +stumbling, calling, she went in wild fear. + +And each door she opened showed an empty room, each passage led to +nothing. + +“Beryl!” she screamed. “Beryl!” and from somewhere heard a sound. + +She was here, then. And she had read Raimond’s face aright. + +“Heriot! Father Maurice!” Andria shrieked from a stair-window, and +dared not wait for their coming. She ran on blindly, and burst into the +room that was Beryl’s and Mrs. Fuller’s. + +There, having waited irresolute a little too long, instead of running +to the carriage Father Maurice had told her would be waiting by the +chapel, was Beryl Corselas struggling hideously with a man, who had +also a carriage waiting with a bullet-headed boy for driver. + +“Raimond!” Andria cried. “Run--they are coming! Let her go.” + +At her voice he let Beryl go; stood an instant, staring. + +“Go!” said Andria, in a dreadful whisper. “Go! Thank God that I am your +wife, and must hold my tongue. It is my shame that I ever loved you.” + +“Andria,” said her husband softly, very easily. “The Lovely Andria!” + +He came toward her, with the long, easy step she had loved. + +“Devil!” he cried, and struck her between the eyes. + +But there was no force in the blow. A girl’s whole weight had caught +him back from behind. He shook it off, and ran down a back stair. Lord +Erceldonne’s son had nothing to stay for. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +THE EXPIATION OF MOTHER FELICITAS. + + +“Andria!” said Beryl wildly, unbelievingly. + +“Andria, they told me you were dead.” + +She had never spoken when the woman she thought dead had run in; pale, +breathlessly, but Andria herself and no ghost. She had only gazed +dumfounded; then leaped with the instinct of an animal, and caught +Erle’s arm as he would have paid his debt to his wife in full. + +“Oh! how did you get here?” + +“I’ll tell you in a minute.” + +Erle’s fist had only grazed her, yet she was leaning helplessly against +the wall. She hated him, despised him, and yet--he had struck her; and +if he had held out a finger instead she would have gone to the ends of +the earth with him still. He was gone out of her sight forever. What +ailed her that she could not be glad? + +“Didn’t know I was coming?” she forced herself to speak. “Didn’t Father +Maurice tell you?” + +“Nothing but that Mrs. Fuller was to take my place and I was to run +to the carriage. We spoke to her out in the hall, and she was like a +child. She did everything he said. She hated Erceldonne, but she was +afraid of him. She had owed him money she could not pay; he had her +note and could have taken everything she had. Father Maurice told her I +would pay everything she owed if she helped me. It was she who thought +of cutting off my hair for a wig. Oh, never mind all that! Tell me what +has happened?” + +She dared not ask for Heriot, lest only one, not two, might have come +back alive from Flores. + +“Look!” said Andria gently. “Salome and the poor old man saved us.” + +Her heart contracted as she thought of the lunatic running over the +moors for his life. He had seemed sane enough till now; had begged +them with tears to take him to England to see the dearest of his +soul again. Had been times messenger to Beryl before they dared come +themselves, and now would finish his life in an asylum, away from the +animals that he loved. + +But Beryl thought of only one thing, one person. Here in the doorway, +behind the priest, stood Brian Heriot, alive. He stretched out his +hands, and she ran to him. At the sight the woman whom love would know +no more turned away. + +“Father Maurice,” she said, “let us get away from this dreadful place.” + +“Wait,” the priest whispered, “they are bringing him in. It is better +for her not to see.” + +“Him!” she stammered, thinking of the man who had run from the house. + +“Lord Erceldonne.” + +He laid a hand on her arm. + +“Mr. Erle has gone,” he said quietly, knowing she would never speak +that name again. “I must stay and arrange matters for the funeral.” + +“But I don’t really understand yet,” Beryl cried out still in the +embrace of Heriot. “You were shot and----” + +“The poor old crazy man you sent saved me. Salome nursed me back to +life again.” + +“The old man!” she cried, with a cry that stopped Father Maurice and +Andria in their low talk. Beryl dragged her hand from Heriot’s. + +“Let me go,” she said, “don’t touch me! I am his granddaughter. It was +no wonder I could manage the cats. I am like him, I----” + +“You are no relation to him,” said Father Maurice quietly. “Your mother +was his adopted daughter; but he had gone too crazy to remember it. She +ran away from him and married Lord Erceldonne’s elder brother. You are +their daughter.” + +“My mother?” she said, in a thick whisper. + +“Died long ago,” he would not tell her how yet, “and you were stolen +and hidden away in the convent. Only Mother Felicitas knew you were +the heiress of Erceldonne. The Lord Erceldonne you knew had never any +right to the title, which is one of the few that descend in direct +line to male or female heirs. You would have been left to die on that +island, but for a fortune left you by your mother’s brother. The papers +were full of advertisements for you; so, you see, you were suddenly +worth more alive than dead. A marriage with you would not only secure +the succession to Raimond Erle, but set him and his father on their +feet as to money. You would not have been told of your parentage till +you were married. A penniless waif might accept without question a +husband whom a viscountess in her own right would refuse.” + +“But Andria! He couldn’t have married me.” + +“Not if she lived. But he thought her dead. It was she, under Heaven, +who saved you. Raimond Erle was married to her by me, at that time a +minister in the Presbyterian church, who had given up my charge because +I could not preach those things I no longer believed. When he heard, +afterward, that I had become a priest of the Catholic church, he made +use of it to tell her she was not, nor never had been, his wife. + +“Wife or no wife, she was a menace to him; he left her to die. The +black servant saved her; the madman gave money to her and Mr. Heriot +which brought them to England; to Mother Felicitas, to me, who had +performed the ceremony Erle dared call null and void.” + +“Mother Felicitas!” she cried. “Do you mean I must go back to her? I +won’t! I’ll----” + +“Mother Felicitas is dead,” the priest said gravely. “But you are +wrong to hate her. She was your friend--in the end. It was she who, +when Erceldonne was found tenantless, thought of this Moorland house. +She, who, on hearing Mrs. Erle’s story, sent for me, the chaplain of +the convent, the only person in all England, by God’s grace, who knew +of her marriage. I went to London and discovered Mr. Erle as if by +accident; I seemed to believe all he told me. And when I came to this +evil house, his wife, Heriot, and the police were at my heels. But I +had no time to tell you.” + +“But Mother Felicitas,” she said incredulously. “She hates me!” + +“Yes,” he answered slowly, “she hated you, but not as you thought. She +was a great sinner, but she died like a martyr. She repented.” + +Even now he remembered with how great a courage. There had been no +half-measures in her atonement; no shielding of herself, or of that +reputation that had been dearer than life. + +He had been as stunned as the nuns when, after a service for the dead +for which she asked him, the Mother Superior had risen in her stall in +the chapel and faced them all--every nun in the convent and himself. + +She was the color of ashes, even to her lips; and she swayed as she +stood. + +She began very quietly; she asked their prayers, their patience. + +When her long story was done, each nun was on her knees. Was the +reverent mother raving, that she should call herself a murderess, a +hypocrite, a blasphemer? That she gave chapter and verse of her sins, +her great humiliation? + +She stood in the silence that was full of hushed weeping, and beckoned +to the convent chaplain, then led the way to the confessional. + +In agony she wrote a deposition, in agony she gave those directions +that had saved Beryl Corselas, and fell on her knees. + +“You will excommunicate me!” she said. + +Father Maurice had raised his hands, and spoken. And as he finished a +great cry rang out to the listening nuns. + +He had absolved her, as One Higher than he had forgiven the dying thief +on the cross. But when he would have raised her from her knees, she was +dead. + +He roused himself now, and looked for a long moment at Beryl Corselas. + +“Pray,” he said gently, “that you may make as good an ending.” Then he +went away, to begin his watch by the dead. + +“Come,” said Heriot softly. “Let us go.” + +And, with Andria’s hand in hers, Beryl Corselas, who was Beryl Corselas +no longer, left that house of crime. + +There is little more to tell. + +The madman who had paid his lifelong debt to Lord Erceldonne was never +found. If he perished miserably on the wild moorlands, his misshapen +bones were never discovered; if with the cunning of madness, he made +his way back to the Azores, there was no one who suggested it to the +police, though perhaps Andria Erle might have been able to, had she +wished. + +Raimond Erle, rather than face bankruptcy and disinheritance, slipped +away to Mexico; and there he died in a gambling-brawl. + +In his stead there reigned Beryl, Viscountess Erceldonne, whose husband +was the Honorable Brian Heriot, next heir to the baronage of Heriot, +for his brother never married. He was true to his word; he never +touched a penny of her vast fortune. She spent it nearly all in helping +the outcast and wretched. + +The sham Mrs. Fuller was a white slave no more. She lived at peace with +the husband she loved--the man whom Lord Erceldonne had sworn to ruin, +and thus had maintained an overmastering influence over her. + +Ebenezer Davids lighted lamps no more. He and his wife left the lodge +at the great gate of Erceldonne, and he prided himself greatly that +it was he who first discovered his present mistress was “the spit and +image of his lordship.” + +And the whole truth about Mother Felicitas Lady Erceldonne never knew. +There is no loyalty like that of religious women. Not a nun in the +convent ever opened her lips, not one but was helped on the narrow path +by the memory of the expiation of Mother Felicitas. + +Salome, faithful still, worshiped Beryl’s child, which was named Andria. + +And Andria? + +At twenty-four no one can say their life is done. + +Andria Erle took up hers and was living it, not a pensioner on Beryl’s +bounty, nor a nun in a convent. + +On the boards of the Queen’s Theater she became an actress whom princes +were glad to applaud, whom great ladies visit. Men laid titles and +fortunes at her feet, but she remained Andria Erle; beautiful, gentle, +and a little unapproachable! + +Time, instead of adding lines to her face, had smoothed the hardness +and bitterness from it. + +But to no one had she ever spoken of Raimond Erle. + + +THE END. + + +No. 1119 of THE NEW EAGLE SERIES, entitled “In Love’s Paradise,” by +Charlotte M. Stanley, is bright and entertaining from the first line +and will keep the reader engrossed until the last chapter is read. + + + + +15c + +is the right price--the fair price under present conditions. + +Therefore, the + +S. & S. Novels + +sell at fifteen cents, no more, no less. + +We have an established reputation for fair dealing acquired during +sixty years of active publishing. + +The reduction in the price of our novels means that we are living up to +our reputation. + + + STREET & SMITH CORPORATION + 79 Seventh Avenue New York City + + + + + _Adventure Stories_ + _Detective Stories_ + _Western Stories_ + _Love Stories_ + _Sea Stories_ + +All classes of fiction are to be found among the Street & Smith novels. +Our line contains reading matter for every one, irrespective of age or +preference. + +The person who has only a moderate sum to spend on reading matter will +find this line a veritable gold mine. + + + STREET & SMITH CORPORATION, + 79 Seventh Avenue, + New York, N. Y. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. + +Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by +the transcriber. + +The line: “‘Miss Holbeach; thank you!’ He just glanced at” was missing +from the book due to a typesetting error; the lost text was restored +from the original serial appearance in _Street & Smith’s New York +Weekly_, v. 54, no. 50 (September 30, 1899), page 1. + +On page 214, the line “the words died on her tongue remembered how the +girl had mastered the jaguar” appears to be missing words. The original +serial installment for this chapter could not be located, and this is +reproduced here as printed in the book version. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75930 *** |