Burgo stood staring at the door without stirring for quite two minutes after the captain of theNaiadhad disappeared down the staircase, his brain in such a maze of stupefaction and bewilderment that more than once he caught himself saying aloud, "Yes, it is really a fact that I'm awake."
Hitherto he had only been half dressed, and he now proceeded in an automatic way to finish his toilet, after which he went on to cram and strap his portmanteau so that everything might be in readiness when the promised moment of his deliverance should have arrived.
"As my old nurse used to be so fond of remarking, it never rains but it pours," he said to himself with a philosophic shrug. "If I could only have foreseen what was going to happen, I might have spared myself all my drudgery with the file. And yet it has done me no harm. It has helped to divert my thoughts and to while away the time. Besides, had I not been seen from the yacht while at work at the window I should have been left to effect my escape alone as best I could. In any case, I shall regain my freedom twenty-four hours before I expected to do, which, circumstanced as I am, may prove an invaluable boon. As for this remarkable stranger--why he should be so eager to do me a service; why he and his fellows, if they are nothing more than peaceful yachtsmen, should be going about at midnight armed to the teeth, and why, by some means at present unknown to me, they should have forced their way into the tower for no apparent purpose except that their leader might be able to satisfy an apparently idle curiosity--are conundrums all which I should be no nearer solving at the end of a year than I am now. Let us hope that my friend with the cutlass will solve them satisfactorily before we part. He said he would be back in an hour. Will he keep his promise? Yes; I have faith in him."
When all was done that there was to do, Burgo sat down and lighted a cigarette. Now that he had nothing to distract his attention he became conscious of certain vague diffused sounds which had not obtruded them selves on him before. What he heard was like a low confused murmur of several voices, broken now and then by the clear imperative ring of one voice, as though some one were giving orders to the others. Then the murmur ceased, and he heard what seemed to him like the faint plash of muffled oars. Impelled by a vague curiosity he crossed to the window, but an unbroken pall of darkness was all that met his gaze. If the steam yacht were still at her moorings opposite the tower, she was apparently showing no light either fore or aft, which was a piece of highly culpable negligence on the part of those in command. Burgo went back to his chair more puzzled than before.
He now gave himself up to a consideration of what steps it behoved him to take first when he should have regained his liberty, and he had arrived at no clear decision on the point when he became once more aware of footsteps on the stairs. Then the captain of theNaiadappeared, followed by a man carrying a mat-basket containing tools of various kinds. "I have not failed to keep my promise, Mr. Brabazon," said the captain with a nod and a smile. Then to the man, "I want you to force the lock of this door, and be as handy about it as you can."
He stood aside while the man went to work, and nothing more was said. In something less than five minutes the lock was forced, and the door flung open, whereupon the man took up his bag and went.
Then the captain strode forward into the room and grasped Burgo by the hand. "Let me be the first, Mr. Brabazon, to congratulate you on the recovery of your liberty," he said.
"It is you whom I have to thank for it. Will you not let me know to whom I am so greatly indebted?"
"To be sure I will. I was just on the point of introducing myself. My name is Felix Marchment, and, as I think I have already remarked, I am, among other things, both owner and captain of theNaiad. But even now that I have told you this I suppose you are still at a loss to comprehend why I should have expressed myself as being so especially glad to have met you, and still more gratified, as I undoubtedly am, that it has been in my power to render you some slight service."
"A very signal service, Mr. Marchment. But, as you observe, I am still awaiting enlightenment."
"Then you shall not wait a minute longer. But what I have to say must be said quickly, for to-night I have serious business on hand. Even now theNaiadis getting up steam, and with the first streak of daylight we shall trip anchor and away."
He drew a chair up and seated himself astride it, while Burgo perched himself on a corner of the table.
"You must know, then," resumed Marchment, "that your father and mine were midshipmen together on board theArcturus, and that it was young Mr. Brabazon's good fortune to save my dad's life, or my dad's good fortune to have his life saved by him; put it which way you like. Anyhow, it was a very heroic action. My dad, who couldn't swim a stroke, had fallen overboard while carrying out some orders aloft, and your dad at once plunged after him, although the water was known to be swarming with sharks, and succeeded in keeping him afloat till a boat's crew picked them both up. A few months afterwards, when the ship was paid off, the two middies parted, never to meet again. But my father, sir, was a man who never forgot an obligation--in that respect, I am sorry to say, hardly resembling the majority of his fellows--and I have often heard him express his regret that in the chances and changes of life he should have so wholly lost sight of his preserver."
"My father, Mr. Marchment, died while still quite a young man."
Marchment bowed gravely. "In that case one can understand how it was they never met again. But even when on his deathbed my father did not forget what he owed to Lieutenant Brabazon (as he had become when he last heard of him), and he laid it on me as a sacred charge that, should I ever find myself face to face with him, or any of his kin, and should it be in my power to do him, or them, a service of any kind, no matter at what cost to myself, I should not fail to do it. His words have lived in my memory, and to-day, by rare good luck, I have been enabled to repay to the son some small portion of the debt originally owing to the father."
He paused for a moment while he looked at his watch.
"And now, Mr. Brabazon, I have said my say. The door is open, and you are a free man. But before we part, tell me frankly whether there is anything more I can do for you. If there is, you may command me to the full extent of my ability. The circumstances under which I find you here are exceptional, to say the least"--this with a frank smile--"consequently, without the slightest hankering to pry into matters which do not concern me, I may perhaps be allowed to sayMe voici à votre service, cher monsieur!"
Few people could have helped being touched by an offer so frankly and spontaneously tendered, and Burgo was not one of those few.
"Mr. Marchment, for what you have already done for me I thank you from the bottom of my heart," he said in a tone which carried conviction with it. "But whether you can help me further is another matter, and one which it will rest with yourself to determine when you have been told to what circumstances I owe my enforced detention in this place. I don't forget that your time is precious, and three or four minutes will suffice for what I have to say."
"My best attention is yours, Mr. Brabazon."
"Again, thanks. In the first place, then, you must know that Sir Everard Clinton, the owner of this tower and of the house known as Garion Keep, which stands some threescore yards away from it, and between which and it there is an underground communication, is my uncle. He came from London to the Keep several weeks ago--he and his wife, the latter being an Italian by birth and a woman half his own age. Unknown to either, I followed them, somewhat later, and took up my quarters in the village. I had very cogent reasons for believing that my uncle was being slowly done to death, and my object was to rescue him from the hands of those in whose power he was. Only by stratagem could this be effected, because the evidence in my possession was not of a kind which admitted of my invoking the aid of the law. But before I could do anything my presence in the village was discovered, and one night I was murderously set upon, struck down, and brought here in a state of unconsciousness. Here I have been ever since, and no doubt the intention was to keep me under lock and key till the last act of the tragedy should have been consummated. But a certain person came to my help, who supplied me with a couple of files and a length of rope to enable me to effect my escape by way of the window; while, by means of a stratagem, Lady Clinton was temporarily got rid of. My hope was that to-morrow night would see me at liberty, when I should at once make my way to my uncle, explain to him for what purpose I was there, and induce him to leave the Keep with me before his wife's return. That once accomplished, I felt sure we should be able to set Lady Clinton at defiance, and--and in short, my dear old uncle would have been rescued from the jaws of death."
"And you had planned to carry this out in the course of to-morrow night?"
"I had."
"Well, and now that you find yourself at liberty twenty-four hours before you expected----?"
"I shall do--or attempt to do--to-night what I should otherwise have been obliged to defer till to-morrow night."
"Can I assist you in any way to carry out your scheme?--although, as I have already remarked, the time at my command is limited."
"If you can let me have a couple of your fellows to help me while I get my uncle out of the house, I shall be grateful. There is a truculent fellow there, Lady Clinton's brother, who will be pretty sure to give some trouble, and he has a couple of ferocious brutes of dogs. Then there is Vallance, my uncle's valet, who----"
"My dear Brabazon, not another word. I will go with you myself and take four of my men, all well armed.Allons. We have no time to lose." He stepped to the door, and was in the act of putting a whistle to his lips when an exclamation on Burgo's part arrested him.
"Good heavens!" cried the latter as he smote his forehead with his open palm; "what can I have been thinking of? My uncle is an all but helpless invalid. Even when I shall have succeeded in getting him out of the house, what then? He is unable to walk more than a dozen yards, and at this hour of the morning, and in this lonely corner of the world there will be no possibility of obtaining a conveyance of any kind. Had it been to-morrow night I should have had my arrangements made beforehand."
His intention had been to let himself down from the window of the tower as soon as his supper had been brought him, to make his way to Crag End, enlist the services of Tyson, and through him obtain the loan of a vehicle of some kind; hurry back to the Keep, and, a little later, drive away in triumph with his uncle, with, perchance (oh, blissful possibility!), Dacia Roylance to make up a happy trio. But to-night, without any vehicle to which to transfer the sick man, with Dacia unadvised of what had happened within the last couple of hours, and with the Keep shut up back and front, and all its inmates abed, it was a wholly different matter. Burgo was utterly nonplussed.
"Then I seem to have done you an ill turn rather than a good one," said Mr. Marchment, but still quite pleasantly. "Is there no way in which I can remedy it? You can't very well stay here till to-morrow night, because my rascals have broken open the door, and been guilty of some further trifling damage downstairs, which cannot fail to be discovered in the course of the next few hours."
"No, most certainly I will stay here no longer than I can help," answered Burgo. "Instead of waiting till to-morrow night before attempting to see my uncle--when some one would have been prepared to admit me to the house unknown to the rest of the inmates--I will make a bold dash about breakfast-time to-morrow or rather, to-day, for we are now in the small hours--and try whether I can't effect my purpose by acoup de main."
Somehow, he was unable to divest himself of an uncomfortable notion that Lady Clinton might return unexpectedly at any moment, and he was determined, now the opportunity had come to him, to lose no time before making his grand attempt.
Marchment took a turn across the floor and back.
Then taking Burgo by the lapel of his coat, and looking him straight between the eyes, he said: "I suppose that neither you nor your uncle would object to a short voyage in my yacht if you and I together could succeed in getting Sir Everard clear away?"
The question almost took Burgo's breath. He stared, but for the moment words refused to come.
"I can read in your face that I have found a way out of the difficulty," laughed Marchment. "And now every minute is precious."
This time he blew his whistle, but by no means shrilly. It was responded to so promptly that Burgo could only conclude the man had been in waiting at the foot of the stairs.
"Take this portmanteau and have it put into the boat," said Marchment. Then turning to Burgo: "One last word, my dear Brabazon," he went on, with a sudden added gravity of tone and manner. "You will probably have gathered from what I have let fall already that my errand here is of a somewhat peculiar kind; indeed, I may add that it is of a very serious kind, and not without a spice of danger. But when I have told you that, I have told you as much as it is good for you to know, and as much as I am at liberty to reveal. Anything out of the ordinary which may come under your notice while you and I are together, I must ask you to see, as the children say, with your eyes shut, and to forget as quickly as possible. In acting as I have decided to do, I feel assured that I am running no risk whatever, because I am trusting myself into the hands of a man of honour, and not myself alone, but interests which are dearer to me than life. And now that we understand each other, no more need be said."
Burgo held out his hand, which the other gripped.
"My dear Marchment, you have my word of honour that whatever I may chance to see or hear while with you will be as sacred as if it were confided to the dead."
"I feel sure of it. Let us go."
As Burgo glanced for the last time round the room which had been his prison for so many days and nights, a sigh sprang involuntarily to his lips. He felt that for long to come he should revisit it in his dreams. For him it would ever be haunted with memories--some of them unspeakably precious, others very much the reverse.
A man standing on one of the lowermost stairs with a lantern lighted Burgo and Mr. Marchment on their way down.
Burgo now found himself on the ground-floor of the tower. He had been unconscious when brought there, and he looked about him with some measure of curiosity. There were a couple of doors facing each other, the larger and more substantial of which he rightly conjectured to be the one which gave admittance to the tower from the outside, and that the other led down to the underground passage. What, however, struck him most was a hole in the wall, where the masonry, which lay in a confused heap on the floor, had been knocked away, leaving a gaping chasm large enough for a man to pass through. But he had only just time to note these things before the sailor with the lantern led the way through the gap in the wall. As Marchment beckoned Burgo to follow him, he said laughingly: "You can see for yourself that I and my fellows were put to some little trouble before we could get at you. But you were such a puzzle to us--some of my men would have it the tower was haunted, and you the ghost--that we couldn't rest till we had found out all about you."
Burgo had vaguely expected that on stepping through the gap he should find himself in the open air, instead of which he was in a tiny chamber, just big enough to hold three men, built in the thickness of the wall, with a narrow flight of steps at his feet, apparently leading down into the foundations of the tower. But there was no time to wonder: down the steps they went in single file, slowly and carefully, coming before long to a larger chamber, measuring about twenty feet by twelve, hollowed out of the body of the cliff on which the tower was built. Burgo could now plainly hear the plash and beat of the tide, which sounded close at hand.
As before, however, there was only just time to glance around, for the man with the lantern was still leading the way. There was still another flight of steps to descend, much broader and of rougher construction than the first, with a massivegrille, or open-work iron door, at the bottom of them, now wide open, and beyond that a cavern of some spaciousness open to the sea, with, a little lower than thegrille, a sort of rude causeway formed of big, slippery sea-worn slabs, which reached nearly to the mouth of the cave, and was evidently washed over by every tide. Not far from the end of this landing-place, the tide being now on the turn, a boat was waiting with a couple of men in her. The one with the lantern held out his hand to Burgo to help him over the slippery footway, Marchment followed, and a couple of minutes later the boat was pushed off, and the oars unshipped. As they swept out of the cavern on the summit of a reflex wave, the light of the lantern was extinguished. The oars were muffled, and the men pulled almost without a sound. The night was dark and moonless, canopied with heavy clouds which would probably shed themselves in rain before many hours were over. Not a word above a whisper was spoken till they pulled up under the lee of theNaiad, which showed like some huge black monster of the deep, with not a single gleam of light anywhere visible.
"All well?" demanded a voice softly from out the darkness.
"All well!" responded a voice from the boat.
"Await my return," whispered Marchment to Burgo.
Then everybody left the boat save Burgo and one of the men. But barely five minutes had passed before Marchment was back, and one by one four men followed him. They began at once to give way, and, as nothing was said to them, they had doubtless had their orders beforehand. Marchment seated himself in the stern and took the tiller; but first he passed a revolver to Burgo, whispering as he did so: "One never knows what may happen, and it is just as well to be prepared for eventualities."
Burgo took no heed in which direction they were steering, his mind was full of other things; and, indeed, just then he had much to think of. In all probability the next hour would prove one of the most eventful of his life. He was roused from his reverie by the grating of the boat's keel on the sandy beach.
"Here we are," said Marchment in a low voice.
"Whereishere?" queried Burgo.
"We are opposite a gully, or break in the cliff, about half a mile to the west of Garion Keep. This we shall ascend, and then make our way back along the summit of the cliff till we reach the Keep, after which we shall put ourselves in your hands and obey implicitly whatever instructions you may choose to give us."
About twenty minutes later the little party were gathered under the garden wall of the Keep, which on that side was about six feet high. As they were coming along Burgo imparted his plan to Marchment, so that there was now no loss of time. One of the sailors, a sturdy, broad-set fellow, proceeded to make what schoolboys call a "back" against the wall, as if for a game of leap-frog, thus serving as a sort of stepping-stone for the others to the top of the wall, whence one after another they dropped to the ground on the other side. They were now in the shrubbery which fringed the lawn on the cliff side of the Keep. Sperani's dogs, as it may be remembered, were turned loose at night in the courtyard which shut in the Keep on the landward side. Two facts had been borne in mind by Burgo--one, that his uncle had caused a bow window with centre glass doors to be built out on the cliff side, and the other that he, Sir Everard, slept on the ground floor. It was in the direction of the bow window, the position of which he could pretty well guess at, that Burgo now led the little party in silence across the lawn. It seemed to him that there would be found the most vulnerable point for gaining admittance to the Keep.
His surmise proved to be correct. When the bow window was found it did not take one of the men--the same who had forced the door of Burgo's prison, and who had been apprenticed to a locksmith before he ran away to sea--very many minutes to effect an entrance. The party now found themselves in a room which had been appropriated by Lady Clinton for her own especial use, from which they made their way into the main corridor of the house. A couple of dark lanterns had already been produced, and their light flashed around. So far everything had succeeded almost beyond Burgo's expectations. Turning to him, Marchment now said: "What is our next proceeding,mon ami?" and Burgo was about to answer: "To find my uncle's bedroom," when he was spared the necessity of replying by the unexpected appearance of Vallance, who issued from a room half-way down the corridor. He had been lying, half-dressed and half-asleep, on the couch in Sir Everard's dressing-room, ready to attend on his master at a moment's notice, when he had been disturbed by a noise for which he could not account, and had ventured into the corridor in his desire to ascertain the origin of it.
"Seize that man," cried Burgo, the moment his eyes fell on him; and before the valet could gather his scattered wits he had not merely been seized, but bound hand and foot by two of the seamen, one of whom said gruffly to him: "Look here, my hearty, if you don't want a bullet in your gizzard, you'll keep a still tongue in your head." Then by Burgo's orders he was thrust into an empty room, and the key turned on him.
Another of the men meanwhile, by Marchment's directions, had lighted the Argand lamp which hung from the ceiling at one end of the corridor.
Burgo had at once concluded that Vallance was in attendance on his uncle, and he lost not a moment in passing through the door which the valet had left open, and so from the dressing-room into the bedroom beyond, in both of which a light was burning. There he found his uncle, who was sitting up in bed, and who had already with his enfeebled voice called twice for Vallance without avail.
His mind was clear, his memory unclouded, and he recognised Burgo on the instant. A low cry broke from his lips. "Oh, my boy, my boy!" he exclaimed, "why did you leave me? Where have you been all this weary time? They told me--but it matters nothing what they told me. It was all lies--lies! They thought to deceive me, but they were mistaken. But you have come back to me at last, and you won't leave me again, will you, my boy?" His voice quavered and broke as the last words left his lips.
"Never, so help me Heaven!" exclaimed Burgo fervently as he bent and touched his uncle's forehead with his lips. "But we will talk about the past another time. I have come to take you away from here--and to take you away from her. I have good friends outside to help me. But there is no time to lose. Come--let me help you to dress."
There was a decanter on the table containing brandy. He mixed a portion of it with some water, and at his request Sir Everard drank it off.
The baronet comprehended that a crisis had come, and he wasted no time in asking questions. He let Burgo help him to dress; indeed, he was quite as eager to be gone as his nephew was to get him away.
It was evident that he was very weak, but excitement had lent him a fictitious strength, which, however, would presently evaporate for lack of stamina to back it up. His face, too, had grown greyer and more haggard in the interval since Burgo had seen him last, and his hair was now as colourless as driven snow.
As Burgo was helping his uncle to put on his fur-lined overcoat, he said; "Do you think, sir, that Miss Roylance would leave here in your charge? It would be a thousand pities--would it not?--to leave her behind."
"It would indeed. She is a good girl, a noble girl, and--and I'm afraid she is not very happy here. She ought to go with us by all means." It never struck him to ask how it happened that his nephew was acquainted with Dacia Roylance.
After placing his uncle in an easy-chair, and administering a little more brandy-and-water, he left the room in order to speak to Marchment. Although not more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since they set foot inside the Keep, he knew that the latter would be growing impatient. And yet to go and to be compelled to leave Dacia behind, and that without the chance of a parting word between them, was a prospect which wrung his heart with anguish of a kind such as heretofore he had not known. If only he could have seized upon Mother Sprowle, or one of the female domestics, and have sent a message to Dacia that he wanted to see her without loss of time But there was no one to send. Except Vallance and his uncle, no one in the house appeared to have been disturbed, for the servants slept in another wing. What to do he knew not.
Marchment and his men were gathered in the entrance-hall out of which the corridor led. The captain of theNaiadhad seated himself on one of the lower stairs, and was smoking a cigarette with an air of the utmostsang-froid.
"I hope I have not altogether exhausted your patience," said Burgo as he came up. "My uncle is now ready, and----"
He stopped like one suddenly stricken dumb. His eyes had caught a glimpse of something white on the stairs. Looking up, he beheld Dacia coming slowly down, her crutch under her left arm, and her right hand gliding over the balusters, but on the soft carpet her crutch made no sound. Late as the hour was, she had not gone to bed, and on hearing a murmur of strange voices in the hall she had quitted her room and crept to the darkest corner of the gallery, whence she could see all that went on below without any risk of discovery. Alarmed, and utterly at a loss to account for the presence of armed strangers in the house, who yet had something about them which seemed to mark them out from common burglars, she had not known what to do. But the moment she saw Burgo emerge from the corridor in which his uncle's bedroom was situated she hesitated no longer. So long as he was there, everything must be right.
Marchment had sprung to his feet, and his eyes had followed the direction of Burgo's when the latter's speech stopped suddenly short. At sight of that white-robed figure coming down he flung his cigarette away, and drew somewhat aside.
Dacia was always pale, but to-night, in her whitepeignoir, and by the dim light of the solitary lamp, she looked more like a phantom than a creature of flesh and blood.
"Oh, Mr. Brabazon," she cried with a sort of breathless eagerness, "I am so glad you are here--so glad to have an opportunity of telling you I won't stop now to ask you how it is I find you here; you can tell me that another time. What I want to say is, that in the course of yesterday afternoon (for this is Wednesday morning) Signor Sperani received a telegram, which I am nearly sure, although not able to speak positively, was sent by Lady Clinton. In any case, he has taken the landau and driven to the junction, a dozen miles away--the night mail does not stop at Oakbarrow--and although he has not yet returned, he may be here at any moment. My intention was to have sent you a message by Mrs. Sprowle, but I found that Sperani had taken the key of the underground passage with him."
"Then we may yet be in time to get clear away before his return," said Burgo. "For my uncle's sake I would fain avoid a scene, if it be possible to do so. I shall have much to tell you, Miss Roylance, later on. This is my friend, Mr. Marchment, to whose good offices I owe it that I am here. I was wondering how I could best find, the means of communicating with you, when you appeared. Fortune sometimes does one a good turn unexpectedly. Miss Roylance, my uncle will quit this roof within ten minutes from now, under the charge of Mr. Marchment and myself, and it is his most earnest wish that you should accompany him."
"I! Oh, Mr. Brabazon!" It was as though she had been suddenly transformed from some dim crepuscular phantom into a rosy young goddess of the dawn.
"Consider--think what it will be for you to stay on here alone, with Sperani and her ladyship, after my uncle is gone! He would plead with you himself were he not so feeble and our minutes here so few. But he has sent me to plead for him--would that I could do it with more eloquence, more fervour!" He paused, and drew a deep breath. His eyes were luminous with a love unconfessed in words. "Youmustgo with us, indeed you must! I ask it for his sake--and my own."
She was trembling a little, but her eyes met his bravely; to Burgo it seemed as if they were searching his very soul. There was a pause long enough for half a dozen heart-beats, then Dacia said very gently: "Tell dear Sir Everard, please, that, since it is his wish, I will go with him. Five minutes at the most will see me ready to start."
As she turned to go back upstairs she had a glimpse of her lover's face--for that he was her lover now it would have been folly to deny. It was as the face of one transfigured. Her equable pulses were stirred as they had never been stirred before; the blood in her veins seemed to have been changed into wine--the wine of youth and love and happiness. She felt how good a thing it was to be alive.
Five minutes later everything was in readiness for a start. Marchment had been introduced to Sir Everard, and warmly greeted by him. Dacia had reappeared, habited in blue serge, and with no other luggage than a handbag, a waterproof, and an umbrella; and the baronet, with one of her hands clasped in his tenuous fingers, had said, with a tremulous smile: "My child, you have made me very happy by consenting to keep me company in my exile." Burgo and Marchment had drawn aside to consult as to the best mode of transporting Sir Everard from the house to the boat, for that he would have to be carried was a matter of course. Marchment had just said, with a smile: "There will be nothing for it but for Sir Everard to put his dignity in his pocket, and allow my fellows to carry him pick-a-back, turn and turn about. They are as strong as bulls, and will think nothing of it," when all there were startled into vivid life by a burst of deep hoarse-mouthed baying, intermixed with short, sharp barks and savage growls. It was the Italian's dogs, on guard in the courtyard, who had suddenly given tongue. But the clamour died down almost as quickly as it had arisen, as if the brutes had discovered that they had made a mistake. Then the sound of wheels was audible on the pebbled sweep, followed by the sudden pulling-up of some vehicle at the front door.
The eyes of Burgo and Dacia met. "It is Signor Sperani come back," said the girl in a low voice. Upon all present there was a sense as if something unforeseen were about to happen.
A few seconds later there was a cautious knocking at the door, which it was doubtless intended that Vallance should have responded to, instead of which it was Mr. Brabazon who now stepped forward and flung wide the door. On the threshold stood Sperani and her ladyship. They made a couple of steps forward and then paused--thunderstruck.
On her arrival in Paris, Lady Clinton, finding herself with a couple of hours to spare before the departure of the express for Pontarlier, as most fond mothers would have done, telegraphed to Lausanne, requesting to be informed whether her son was better or worse. In about an hour's time came the reply: "Cannot understand purport of your message. Young Offredi in most robust health. Has not suffered an hour's illness since his arrival at Lausanne."
Lady Clinton let the express go without her. One or two more messages passed between herself and the head of thelycée, and then she set her face homeward, satisfied that for once in her life she had been outwitted, and a prey to fears such as turned her soul faint within her. Who was the unknown enemy that had lured her from home by a fictitious telegram? And by what hidden motive had he, or she, been influenced? What might not have happened during her absence from the Keep? Above all, what might not have beendiscovered?
As she stood for a few seconds just within the doorway, white, haggard, travel-soiled, nothing of her seeming alive save her eyes, and as she took in the picture before her--her husband, supported on one side by Mr. Brabazon and on the other by Miss Roylance, with a group of armed strangers in the background--she could not but recognise that the game for which she had played so high and so desperately, and had risked so much, was lost almost beyond redemption. Still, she was a woman of an indomitable courage and resource, and she would have one final throw. If that should fail, then----!
All in an instant her face changed. It was as if a mask had suddenly fallen aside, leaving exposed to view the living, breathing, palpitating woman which it had hidden; while the cold, hard light of her eyes became veiled, as it were, with a luminous haze, through which she gazed at her husband with an expression of imploring tenderness, the power of which she was not now testing for the first time.
"What is the meaning of all this, Everardo mio?" she said in Italian, and with an unwonted thrill in her full, rich tones. "What business has brought these strangers here? And why are you out of bed at this hour of the night?"
She moved quickly forward as if to join him, but an imperious gesture on the part of Sir Everard arrested her mid-way.
"It means, Giulia," said the baronet, his left hand clasped firmly within his nephew's arm, "it means that here--now--to-night I leave you for ever. Never will I willingly set eyes on you again. By what reasons I have been actuated in coming to this resolve, you do not, I am sure, need to be told. Who should know them better than yourself? When one touches, as you and I do at this moment, one of the supreme crises of life, mere words seem idle and irrelevant. Therefore I leave you, without saying more, to the keeping of whatever conscience may still be existent within you. Madam, my lawyer will communicate with you in the course of a few days. Burgo, I am ready."
He had spoken with such a cold, sustained dignity, and with a manner so magisterial and aloof--as though he were a judge addressing some criminal in the dock--that the last faint ray of hope which her ladyship might have cherished was, there and then, quenched for ever. Her features stiffened into an expression of ineffable scorn, hate, and baffled rage. Her eyes blazed, and could looks have killed, few there would have been left alive. As Sir Everard and the others advanced she drew aside, not without dignity, so as not to impede their going. "And you too, Dacia?" she murmured, as Miss Roylance passed her.
"And I too, madam," responded the girl.
Sperani had disappeared, like the coward that he was. He had scented a possible scrimmage, and it had seemed to him that he would be better out of the way.
No thought of quitting the house except by way of the front door had occurred to Sir Everard, nor had it struck him to ask by what means Burgo and the rest had gained admittance to the Keep at that hour of the night. There, by a fortunate chance, they found the landau which had brought back Sperani and his sister still waiting. Nobody had given the driver any instructions, and there he was. Sperani's first act on alighting had been to chain up his dogs. There was no longer any question of how Sir Everard should be got to the boat. He and Miss Roylance were assisted into the carriage, and the little procession set off at a walking pace.
The front door of the Keep had been left open, and Burgo, glancing back, could discern a tall, black-clothed figure--which, as it stood framed by the doorway, with the lamp-light thrown on it from behind, looked as if it might be chiselled out of black marble--staring straight out into the night. Then, as the carriage passed out of the gates, which one of the sailors had hurried forward to open, Burgo beheld the figure fling up its arms and then fall forward on the flagged floor.
Already the first tentative pencillings of the dawn were visible in the eastern sky.
As Burgo paced along by the side of the landau he called to mind that that day week would be the 12th of October.
Sir Everard Clinton had gone through so much, both physically and mentally, in the course of the preceding two hours that as soon as he found himself on board the yacht, the inevitable reaction set in. Mr. Marchment gave up his own cabin to him, and that he lacked nothing in the way of nursing and attention on the part of Dacia and Burgo goes without saying. He was terribly weak and low, but beyond that, there seemed nothing chronically amiss with him. "All that I need is rest--rest," he murmured more than once. It was rest of mind as much, or more perhaps, than rest of body that he stood in need of. There was nothing now to debar him of it. At length he knew that he was safe, and in that fact everything was implied.
TheNaiadhad weighed anchor at daybreak, and the forenoon was well advanced when Burgo went on deck to stretch his legs and enjoy a smoke. By that time they were out of sight of land. True to the promise he had given, Burgo asked no questions. To him it mattered not at all where they were, or for what port they were bound. He had achieved all that he wanted. He had rescued his uncle from the fate which had too surely threatened him, and the girl he loved was here on board with him. What more could any reasonable being long for? He felt that he would have been quite content to go on voyaging in theNaiadfor an indefinite period. To-day he was more like the Burgo Brabazon of other days than he had been since the date of that memorable meeting in Great Mornington Street when he and Lady Clinton crossed weapons for the first time.
By-and-by Miss Roylance came on deck. Sir Everard was sleeping soundly, and might be left for a little while.
Marchment had a deck chair brought for her, and she sat for upwards of an hour, drinking in the briny life-giving air and enjoying the novelty of the scene and its surroundings.
In the afternoon the long-threatened rain began to fall, and they seemed to have got into one of those cross seas which are apt to make non-sailors feel somewhat qualmish. Marchment and the crew had donned their oilskins.
In the dusk of the afternoon Burgo again went on deck and found a sheltered nook abaft the funnel where his pipe would not be put out by the rain. They were now well within sight of land again, and in point of fact were leisurely skirting, at a distance of three or four miles, a rocky picturesque-looking coast which stretched as far as the eye could reach nearly due north and south of their course.
Some hours later, long after night had fallen, the screw of theNaiadceased to revolve, an intermission which Miss Roylance, at any rate, did not fail to appreciate. Then presently (as it appeared to those below) a boat seemed to put off from the yacht and other boats to put out to her from the shore. There was the tramp of many footsteps and a confused murmur of many voices, and to Burgo it seemed as if the contents of the hold, or part of them--whatever they might consist of--were being brought up by degrees and transferred to the boats; yet all was done with such an evident caution and such an absence of more noise than was absolutely unavoidable, that if there had been some one on boardin extremisgreater care could scarcely have been used. In less than an hour and a half the last boat left the yacht, and then, after a few minutes' interval, the screw began slowly to revolve.
While this mysterious business had been going forward all lights below deck had been extinguished. Marchment had apologised, almost humbly, for the necessity he was under of asking his guests to so far oblige him; but, as Mr. Brabazon told him, his guests would only have been too glad had they been called upon to oblige him in some matter of far greater moment than that.
When Burgo went on deck at an early hour next morning theNaiadwas again out of sight of land. Presently he was joined by Marchment, who said, "I got rid of my business last evening, and am now my own master. Perhaps you will ask Sir Everard in the course of the morning what his programme is, provided he has one. If he would like a few days' cruise in the yacht, I and it are wholly at his service. On the other hand, if he would prefer to be landed at some port within, say, a couple of hundred miles of where we are, we are equally at his command."
"Marchment, you are weighing us down with obligations which we can never repay. But may I be permitted to ask whereabouts on the map of Europe we are just now?"
"It will perhaps be near enough to satisfy you if I tell you that we are within a score miles of the Mull of Galloway."
When the subject was mentioned to the baronet and he had taken time to think it over, he said that if it would not be inconveniencing Mr. Marchment too much, he should like to be landed at Ardrossan. He had an old friend living within a dozen miles of that place whom he had not seen for years, and who had lately acquired some very rare Byzantine coins which he, Sir Everard, was particularly desirous of examining.
Accordingly the yacht's head was put about and Ardrossan made in due course. There Marchment and his new-found friends took leave of each other, not without many expressions of hearty goodwill on both sides, one may be sure. As for Burgo and Marchment, they by no means intended to lose touch of each other in time to come.
It was three weeks later. Sir Everard, Miss Roylance, and Burgo were still at Hazeldean, where the Marrables had accorded them the heartiest of welcomes, and with that large-hearted hospitality for which they were noted, would not hear of their leaving short of a month at the very soonest. Besides, Sir Everard was "picking up wonderfully," as Mrs. Marrable termed it The bracing Scotch air had proved the finest of tonics, and it would be a thousand pities for him to quit Hazeldean with his cure only half accomplished.
But although the baronet and Burgo were going to stay on a while longer, the eve of Miss Roylance's departure was come. A cousin of her mother, a widow lady of mature years, of whose existence Dacia had hardly been aware, had found her out quite by accident, and had written her such a pressing invitation to go and visit her in Edinburgh, where she resided, and stay with her for as long as she liked, that, under the circumstances in which she was placed, the girl felt she had no option but to accept the offer. She and Burgo had spent a very happy time together; the more they saw of each other the stronger became the bond of attraction between them. Although no word of love had been spoken, each knew the other's secret. They had been happy from day to day, as children are happy, and had not troubled themselves about the future. But such halcyon moments could not last for ever, and this sudden summons must necessarily bring them to an end.
It was not likely, however, that Burgo would consent to let Dacia go without coming to an understanding with her. But indeed, whether she stayed or went, he told himself that further silence on his part might be construed into a proof of dilatoriness, and that was one of the last of a lover's crimes which he would willingly have had imputed to him.
So now, on the eve of Dacia's departure--she was to start almost immediately after breakfast next morning--he sought his opportunity and found it.
It was a mild November afternoon, overcast for the most part, yet with now and then a passing gleam of pallid sunshine. Not a breath of air fluttered the last poplar leaves which still hung, ragged and forlorn, on the two tall trees that fronted the house. There seemed a hush over all things; it was as though the dying year lay with shut eyes and folded hands awaiting its end. Sir Everard, together with his host and hostess, had gone in the brougham to visit some archaeological remains a dozen miles away. Our young people had the house to themselves. It was possible that kind-hearted Mrs. Marrable had had some hand in this arrangement. She was a born matchmaker, and had quite early seen how the land lay as between Burgo and Dacia, while it was equally a matter of course that her husband should not have seen anything.
The grounds at Hazeldean were extensive, and Dacia, hampered as she was with her crutch, found them quite ample enough to wander about in. She and Burgo had been strolling about for half an hour or more, when they came to a seat fixed at a point from which an especially fine view was to be had. Here they sat down as they had many times before. It was not often that Burgo was absent-minded, but he had been so to-day, and for the last ten minutes he had hardly spoken a word. Dacia had made no attempt to break his spell of silence, but had glanced at him once or twice a little timorously. Had she any prevision of what it was he was about to say to her?
He had been staring straight before him for some little time, but seeing nothing save some inner vision of his own. Suddenly he turned, and bending his glowing eyes full upon her, said: "And so you are going to leave us to-morrow; but for how long, Dacia?--that is the question, for how long?"
It was not the first time by several that he had called her by her baptismal name, and she did not seem to resent the liberty.
"You know what my cousin, Mrs. Croxford, said in her letter," she replied in a low voice. "She virtually offers me a home. Although we have never met, she is my nearest living relative, and I have no option but to go to her."
"But not to stay with her long, Dacia--oh, no!--not to stay with her long. I love you, Dacia--that you have known for days and weeks; it needed no words on my part to tell you that--and I want you to be my wife. My uncle knows and approves. During the last few weeks you have become very dear to him. He loves you as if you were his own child--I have his word for it--and he has charged me to tell you that the dearest wish left him in life is that you should--well, become the wife of his good-for-nothing nephew."
"Dear Sir Everard! I would do much to please him," said Dacia, softly.
"But you must not think I am trying to make love by proxy," continued Burgo. "It is on my own account I woo you--that you know full well. If I could only make love to you more pleadingly, and in softer fashion! but I can't. I know that in such things I am as uncouth as a bear; Nature has made me so; but, trust me, dearest, the bear knows how to love! Dacia, will you, dare you, take me with all my imperfections on my head? Search the world over, and nowhere will you find a truer, more devoted love than mine, nowhere a man who will strive harder than I to make you happy! O Dacia!--dearest!--what can I say more? I know my words must sound terribly trite and commonplace, but for once my tongue has turned traitor. Before I opened my lips I thought I was going to be eloquent in a way I had never been before, and the result is a thin, feeble trickle of words which seem to carry no conviction with them. It is most pitiable. Still, Dacia, it all comes to this: I love you!--I love you!"
To Dacia it seemed as if his words were lacking neither in eloquence nor passion; but then, no one had ever spoken to her in such fashion before; while there was such a fervour of sincerity in his utterances that even had she not been predisposed in his favour, her heart could scarcely have failed to be touched. It was her turn now to gaze straight before her. She durst not let her eyes meet his; she felt that they would have betrayed her in her own despite, and the moment for surrender had not yet come.
There was no coyness about Dacia, no shilly-shallying; she had a way of speaking straight to the point which was sometimes eminently disconcerting to others. She was unconventional, and she knew it.
"You ask me, Mr. Brabazon, whether Idareaccept you," she said, trying her best to speak without any trace of emotion, but not quite succeeding. "I dare do a number of things; but when you further ask me whether Iwillaccept you, your question becomes one which can only be met by a straightforward and categorical answer. My answer to it is, No--for your own sake."
"No--for my own sake!" gasped Burgo. "I wholly fail to apprehend your meaning."
"Have you considered, have you thought seriously, of all that is involved in your proposal to wed a girl who is both a cripple and a hunchback? No, you cannot have done so. You are letting a temporary infatuation (which before long will seem to you nothing more than am foolish dream which it were wise to forget as quickly as possible) blind you to the consequences of a step which you would soon see cause to bitterly rue that you had ever taken. I should be a clog and an incubus to you all your life, or at least till death stepped in and severed the tie between us. When you took me into society, which you would very quickly tire of doing, think of the lifted eyebrows and the meaning glances that would be shot from one to another, and of the whisperings behind your back! 'A cripple and a hunchback! whatcouldhe have been thinking about?' How you would writhe in your impotence and turn hot and cold by turns! And then your love for me would inevitably cool, and by-and-by it would change into positive dislike. Oh, I seem to see it all! Therefore, Mr. Brabazon, my answer is, No."
"But it is an answer which I utterly refuse to accept," he retorted impetuously. "If you have nothing to urge against my suit but that, you might just as well have left it unsaid for any effect it has upon me. Such an objection I brush away as the flimsiest of cobwebs. As for the hobgoblins you have tried to conjure up, they are the merest futilities, and you yourself would be the first to despise a man who did not laugh them to scorn. On that score you shall not despise me. For me the world holds no other woman than you, and that is enough. Dacia, you are mine!"
His arms enfolded her, he drew her to him, he kissed her again and again. His masterful style of love-making deprived her of all further power of resistance. But indeed her heart had been his long before.
Once she murmured while his arms were still round her, her eyes searching his the while, "Oh, but to think of it! a cripple and----" but she could not say more for the kiss that sealed her lips.
When they got back to the house an hour later--and it was an hour which neither of them would ever forget--Sir Everard and the others had not yet returned. They went together into the library, which was one of the cosiest rooms in the house, as befitted the purpose to which it was devoted. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate by way of antidote to the dull November afternoon. "Sit down here," said Dacia to her lover, indicating a big easy-chair, "while I go and take off my outdoor things. I shall not be gone more than a few minutes."
Burgo was quite content to wait. He had won her, she was his, and a few minutes more or less were of no consequence.
Whether he had sat there five minutes or half an hour he could not afterwards have told, so pleasantly had his thoughts been occupied, when the sound of the opening door, which faced him at the other end of the room, caused him to lift his eyes. On the threshold stood Dacia, looking at him with an enigmatic smile. She had changed her heavier outdoor dress for one of pale blue corded silk which fitted her to perfection. While Burgo was still staring at her she dropped him an elaborate curtsey; then, still with that strange smile, she came a little way nearer and dropped him a second curtsey; and then she ran--yes, actually ran--across the room and sank on her knees by the side of his chair. Burgo could hardly believe the evidence of his eyes.
"What has become of your crutch?" he asked in a half-dazed kind of way.
"Gone."
"And--and your----?" He could not bring himself to utter the hateful word.
"My hump, I suppose you mean? Gone too--both gone for ever."
He drew a deep breath. "You altogether bewilder me," he said. "Is there anything real about you?" laying a hand on one of her shoulders--"or may I look to see you vanish piecemeal and leave not a wrack behind?"
She sprang to het feet with a happy musical laugh. "No," she replied, "you will be burdened with the residue of me--and serve you right, after what you said and did this afternoon--for the term of your natural life." And thereupon she proceeded to waltz gravely round him some half-dozen times.
"And to whom are you, or I, or both of us, indebted for this miracle?" he asked when she had brought her gyrations to an end and was again kneeling by the side of his chair.
"Why, you dear old simpleton, who should be the miracle-monger but myself? It is one of the most annoying traits of your sex that you always want so many explanations. You must know, then, most high and mighty seigneur, that once on a time--that is to say, somewhere about a year ago--I met with an accident which necessitated my walking with a crutch for several months afterwards; and even after I was well enough to cast it aside there were odd times and seasons when a return of the old pain compelled me to again seek its help for a day or two, so that I continued to keep it by me like an old servant whom one cannot afford to discard. Well, sir, when I first conceived the audacious scheme of seeking an interview with you I said to myself, 'What if he should get the notion into his head that I have forced myself upon him simply in the hope that he may fall in love with me?' The thought was intolerable so I determined to make your acquaintance in a guise which would--as I fondly imagined--effectually dispose of any such idea should even the germ of it have found lodgment in your mind. Hence it was that I called my old crutch into requisition and manufactured an artificial hump for myself. But alas, and alack-the-day! my labours were all in vain, my good intentions were utterly thrown away. There are some people who cannot be made to see when they are well off, and if theywillpersist in taking on themselves a lot of unnecessary burdens simply because they are, as they term it, in love--well, one can afford to pity them, but that will hardly make their punishment easier to bear."
"I, at any rate, am prepared to undergo my punishment without the ghost of a grumble. But tell me this, you young deceiver, how did you contrive to impose upon my uncle? He, at least, must have known that----"
"Oh! I took dear Sir Everard into my confidence. He promised not to betray me, and of course he didn't."
"And simple-minded, kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Marrable--you have deceived them?"
Dacia hung a contrite head, or pretended to do so. "I am very sorry, but I couldn't help it," she whispered.