The doctor's consulting-room was as uninteresting as the rest of the house, inside and out; and whilst Christina looked at the orthodox red walls, the few conventional engravings, the closely-curtained windows, and the severely correct chairs and tables, a feeling of depression stole over her. Almost unconsciously she had hoped that the doctor of whom she had come in search, would prove to be an individual of no ordinary description; she had an odd fancy that the situation with which he would have to deal, would be one that was out of the common, and the bare thought of sending a commonplace, country doctor to help the beautiful lady with the anguished face, was intolerable to her. More than once, whilst she sat and waited in the dreary room, whose outlook into the depths of the pine woods was as depressing as everything else about it, she half-rose, with a determination to go elsewhere and seek another doctor. Remembering, however, the urgency of her message, and the uncertainty of finding another medical man within any reasonable distance, she was deterred from acting upon this impulse, though her heart sank with apprehension when the door at last opened. But the man who entered was in no sense the kind of man she had dreaded to see; there was nothing ordinary or commonplace, either in his own personality or in his greeting of her, and Christina could only feel devoutly thankful that she had not been misled by the mere externals of house and furniture.
"Now will you tell me what I can do for you?" The voice was cheery and kind; it gave her a sense of helpfulness, and the man's personality, like his voice, brought into the room an atmosphere of power and strength.
He was a short man, with very bright brown eyes, a clean-shaven face, and a mouth in which humour and determination struggled for the mastery. But beyond and above everything else, it was a reliable face: Christina knew, with a subtle and sure instinct, that whatever this man undertook, would be carried through, if heaven and earth had to be moved to bring about the carrying.
"Doctor Stokes?" she said enquiringly.
"No, I am not Doctor Stokes," he answered. "Doctor Stokes is away; he was summoned away suddenly. My name is Fergusson, and I am doing Doctor Stokes's work."
"I am very glad," Christina exclaimed naïvely, with a fervour of which she was not aware, until she saw the twinkle of amusement in the brown eyes watching her.
"Oh!—I—beg your pardon," she stammered. "I ought not——"
"It is not my pardon you must beg," the doctor answered, laughing a spontaneous, and very boyish laugh, "and I will promise not to tell Doctor Stokes what you said," he added, his eyes still twinkling as he saw the girl's confusion.
"But indeed—please—oh! do understand," she faltered; "I don't know Doctor Stokes. I am a stranger here, and I never saw him in my life, but——"
"Then why were you so glad to find I was not he?" asked Fergusson, his amused look turning to one of puzzled enquiry.
"It sounds so silly," Christina said with seeming irrelevance, "but—I didn't think the person who lived in—this kind of room—was the sort of doctor I wanted to find."
Fergusson threw back his head and laughed.
"Do you judge all humanity by the rooms in which it lives?" he asked.
"Nobody but a commonplace person could live contentedly in a room like this," Christina answered vehemently, "or call his house Pinewood Lodge, or have a house just like this house."
"I rather agree with you, but Doctor Stokes is a total stranger to me too; we may be libelling him entirely; and—meanwhile, what can I do for you?
"I have come to ask you to go somewhere, on a matter of life and death," she answered, "but——"
"Life and death?"—the doctor's smiling face grew grave—"then we must not delay. Where am I wanted?" He touched a bell by the fireplace. "I will order the car at once. Tell me all details as briefly as possible."
His humorous accent had dropped; he spoke in terse, business-like tones, his brown eyes looked searchingly at her.
"Bring the car round immediately," he said to a man who answered his bell. "Now, tell me everything quickly," he went on, turning back to Christina.
"Before you go, I have to ask you to promise not to tell any living soul where you have been; and you must swear to tell nobody what you see and hear when you get to the house."
Fergusson stared at her blankly.
"Swear secrecy about where I go, and what I find there?" he said.
"Yes—swear it," she answered, quailing a little before the sudden sternness of his eyes.
"But why?—in heaven's name, why?" he questioned, his voice growing imperious. "What reason can you have for making such extraordinary conditions?"
"Oh!—I have nothing to do with the conditions," Christina cried, "and please—pleasedon't look doubtful, and as if you didn't mean to do what I ask. I have only come here as a messenger. There was nobody else to send, and the poor, beautiful lady seemed nearly distracted with grief."
"What poor, beautiful lady? You are talking in riddles. Try to tell me quietly where I have to go, and what is the name of the lady who needs me."
"I—don't know," Christina faltered, conscious of how strangely her words must fall upon his ears, when she saw the bewilderment deepen on his face.
"I was passing a house," she said quickly, before he could speak, "and a lady came running out—a very beautiful lady. She asked me to fetch a doctor. She said it was a matter of life and death, and she made me promise to ask the doctor to swear secrecy—absolute secrecy. That is all I know—really all I know. But I am sure she is urgently in need of help."
"What an extraordinary story!" the doctor said in a low voice, "and you don't know who is ill? or what is the matter?"
"Not in the least. I conclude the patient is a man, because the lady spoke of 'him' and 'he,' but I know nothing more than I have told you. You will go to her? You will make the promise she asks? I can't bear to think of her sad, beautiful face, and her wonderful eyes."
"I will go—yes, certainly I will go," Fergusson exclaimed, after a moment's pause; "if it is really a matter of life and death, I have no choice but to go."
"And—you will promise?"
He looked into her face with a curiously grave and questioning glance.
"You know of no reason why I should refuse to take such an unprecedented oath?" he asked.
"I know nothing!" she answered emphatically. "I know of no reason, either for or against your doing it. Only—when I think of her beautiful face, and of her eyes that seemed to hold all the sorrow in the world, I feel as if you could only do what she asked you."
"And if I refuse to swear?"
"Then I shall refuse to tell you where the lady lives," she answered with spirit, "and I shall go and find another doctor. But—oh! please do what she asks."
A smile broke over Fergusson's grave face.
"I don't half like the business," he said; "I am not fond of swearing in the dark, so to speak, and what guarantee have I that I am not going to mix myself up in some discreditable affair?"
"The lady I saw could not do anything discreditable," Christina exclaimed warmly; "it is unthinkable."
Fergusson's smile deepened.
"She has a warm advocate in you; you are not a friend of hers?"
"I never saw her before," Christina answered. "I am staying near Graystone. I am nurse to Lady Cicely Redesdale's little girl, and it was only by chance that we were passing the beautiful lady's house to-day."
"There comes the car," Fergusson said, as the crunching of wheels on gravel became audible; "now I will drive you as far as our ways go together, and you shall tell me where I am to go. I will not take my man, lest there should be any risk of my destination being discovered. And—I will take the required oath. Mind—I do it much against my will, but, if it is a matter of life and death, I—can't refuse it. Come—your beautiful lady's secrets will be absolutely safe with me."
As well as she was able, Christina gave a minute description of the lonely house in the valley, where she had received the strange message, and Fergusson, having deposited her safely within a very few hundred yards of Mrs. Nairne's farm, raced on across the moor and down the steep lane, which the little cart had traversed so short a time before.
"Never knew therewasany house down here," he mused, as he drove further and further along the lane; "uncanny sort of place." The short December day was drawing to a close. No ray of the sunshine that still shone on the moorland above, penetrated into this valley, whose steep, thickly-wooded sides threw deep shadows across it. "What on earth possessed anybody to build a house in this gloomy hole, when all the uplands were there to be built upon?" So Fergusson's musings ran on, whilst the shadows thickened round him, the gloom of the place beginning to oppress him like a nightmare. The roughness and steepness of the road obliged him to proceed slowly and with great caution, and the fast-fading light made his progress a difficult one. It was a relief to him, therefore, when, through the semi-darkness, he became aware of a high stone wall on his right, and descried, above the wall, the dim outline of a chimney, from which smoke issued.
"This, presumably, is the place," he muttered, stopping the car before a door in the wall; "and now, how does one get into such a very prison-like abode?"
He had by this time alighted, and was standing in the lane, looking first at the closed green door, then at the frowning wall, and finally up the steep way by which he had come—a way which, in the fast-falling darkness, was beginning to resemble a long black tunnel.
Now that the sound of his car's machinery had ceased, the silence around him was very eerie, and Fergusson found that some words of the burial service were beating backwards and forwards in his brain—
"The grave and gate of death ... The grave and gate of death."
He made a great effort to shake off his uncanny sensations, but they were only heightened by the gloom about him, and by the death-like silence which brooded over the valley. The lane, as he could faintly see, ended only a few yards beyond the gate at which he stood, and merged itself into a grassy track amongst the densest woodland; and the house, with its surrounding wall, was so enclosed by woods, that they seemed to be on the point of swallowing it up altogether.
"What a place for a crime—for any number of crimes," Fergusson reflected, with a shudder, as he peered about the green door, trying to discover any means of making his presence known to the inmates of the house beyond the wall. But neither bell nor knocker was visible, and the doctor, after banging vainly on the wood of the door, moved away, and walked slowly round the wall, seeking for another entrance. A narrow, grass-grown path, evidently rarely used, ran close under the wall, but Fergusson made the whole circuit of the place without finding any other means of entrance, excepting an old iron gate, rusty with age, choked up with weeds and rank grass. It was obvious that the gate had not been opened for years, and that it was certainly not reckoned by the inhabitants of the house as one of the entrances. Fergusson peered through the bars, but the light was so dim, and the grass and undergrowth so thick and high, that beyond getting an impression of a neglected garden, he saw nothing. He fancied, however, that he could catch a distant murmur of voices, and he called out loudly:
"Is there any means of getting in here? I am the doctor." Total silence answered him, a silence only broken by the sharp clang of a closing door inside the house. When the echoes of the sharply clanging door died away, silence settled down more deeply than ever upon the place; and Fergusson, as he completed his circuit of the walls, and found himself once more at the green door, felt strongly tempted to climb into his car again and drive away.
But the remembrance of the girl who had so lately stood in his consulting-room, looking at him with wistful eyes, speaking in so appealing a voice, determined him to make one more attempt to gain access to the inaccessible house, and, lifting up his hands, he battered on the green door with heavy thuds that reverberated loudly in the silence.
"They must be all deaf or dead, if that fails to bring them out," he exclaimed grimly, pausing for a moment to take breath; then, when no one responded to his efforts, he was beginning again to hammer at the door, when the sound of a footstep fell on his ears, and a woman's voice from within the gate cried—
"Who is there?"
"The doctor—Dr. Fergusson," he answered impatiently; and upon that, he heard the grinding of a key in the lock, bolts were shot back, and the door was opened. A woman stood in the aperture, a woman whom Fergusson took to be a servant, and she stood aside, a little, as though inviting him to enter.
"I was asked to come here," he said. "Is there someone ill? Am I wanted?"
"Yes, sir," the woman answered quietly. "Will you come in? I am sorry there was any delay in answering the door, but—I—couldn't get away."
Her voice was low and shaken, and Fergusson now observed that she was trembling violently.
"Come—in—quickly, sir," she jerked out. "I am afraid what may happen—come quickly!" Whilst she spoke, she was locking and bolting the green door again; then, without uttering another syllable, she led the way up a flagged path, across a bare and deserted garden, to a white stone house, through whose open front door a stream of light fell across an unkempt, overgrown lawn.
"This way, sir," the woman said, when, having entered the door, she turned across a wide hall; "this way—quickly!" As she uttered the last word, a little cry broke the stillness of the house—a woman's cry, sharp with fear, and the doctor's guide, her face suddenly grown livid and pinched, broke into a run. They were passing along a corridor, which intersected the hall at one end, and even in his hurry Fergusson noticed the thickness of the carpet beneath his feet, and the heavy curtains that shrouded the windows on his right; noticed, too, that after that one short sharp cry, a silence had fallen over the house again—a silence as sinister and uncanny as that in the valley outside.
His guide paused before a door on their left, and as she turned her plain but kindly face towards him, he saw how strained and ashen it had grown, and what a great fear looked out of her eyes.
"It is so quiet," she whispered in low, horror-stricken accents, "so quiet—I—am—afraid!"
Pushing her aside, Fergusson opened the door, ashamed of feeling how hard his own heart was knocking against his ribs, ashamed of that momentary shrinking from what he might find inside the room; but his involuntary shrinking did not bring with it even a second of hesitation. He opened the door widely, and stepped straight into the apartment. Excepting for a night-light burning on a chest of drawers, the room was in darkness, and he could make out nothing of his surroundings. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he uttered a short exclamation of horror, and moved hurriedly forwards, calling to the woman behind him to bring a light, and to bring it quickly.
Christina's thoughts that evening often travelled to the silent valley, and to the beautiful woman with the anguished face, who had made so profound an impression upon her. Having tucked Baba safely into her cot, and heard the soft breathing which indicated that the blue-eyed baby was sleeping, Christina returned to the sitting-room, and drawing an armchair close to the fire, took up a novel in which she was deeply interested. But to-night her thoughts refused to follow the chequered fortunes of her heroine, and she no longer felt herself the least thrilled over the approaching climax of the story. The strange piece of real life into which she had been unwittingly plunged, interested her far more than any heroes or heroines of fiction, and she soon found herself with her book on her lap, and her own eyes fixed on the glowing coals, whilst her mind recapitulated all the events of the past few hours.
"It is just like something entrancingly exciting in a melodrama," she reflected: "that lonely house, and the beautiful lady with the white face, and that silent valley." Remembering the silence in the valley, she shuddered a little, and wondered whether the lady of the unfathomable eyes ever minded the loneliness and silence; whether sometimes she was afraid—down there in the stillness of those sheltering woodlands.
"I don't suppose I shall ever know any more about her," the girl's thoughts ran on, "but I should like to see her again. I never saw anybody like her in my life before, and she looked so sad; I wish I could have helped her more." From this point her reflections passed on to subsequent events of the day: to her own audacious stopping of the big motor; to the grey-eyed man whose failure to recognise her had given her just a tiny pang of regret; to the blue-eyed man, who had looked at her with an admiration to which she was quite unaccustomed. The memory of it brought a little flush to her face, even now that she sat alone in the firelight, and brought with it, too, a stab of resentment.
"I don't think I quite like anybody to look at me like that," she thought; "and, after all, even if I am only a nurse, earning my own living—I—am still a woman." She drew up her head with a proud gesture characteristic of her, and then her reflections slipped away from the two men who had driven her to the doctor's house, and wandered on to the doctor himself.
"I likethatman," she murmured emphatically, lifting her foot to push a protruding coal between the bars; "he wouldn't ever look at any woman as if he didn't respect her, and a woman might put her whole trust in him; so she might in—that other!" Rupert's face rose again before her mental vision, and she wondered as she had wondered many times that afternoon and evening, what was the pain that had carved such deep lines in his face, and brought so haunting a look of misery into his eyes.
"His eyes seem as if he was looking all the time for something he has lost," she thought, repeating her former musings; "perhaps, if he is Lady Cicely's cousin, I may see him again some day. I wonder what his name is—besides Rupert? I only heard him called Rupert." She leant back in her chair, her book still upon her knee, her eyes seeing many pictures in the coals—pictures in which a man with a rugged face, and kind grey eyes, seemed to be continually walking beside a tall lady with a beautiful white face, and eyes of unfathomable sadness and mystery, until the pictures merged themselves into dreams, and Christina slept peacefully. A loud knocking at the door startled her into wakefulness, and jumping to her feet, she confronted Mrs. Nairne, who looked at her with injured amusement.
"Been asleep by the fire, missy, I suppose. I couldn't make you hear nohow, knock as I might. There's a gentleman in a motor-car at the door, wanting to speak to you all in a hurry."
"A gentleman—in a motor—wantingme?" Christina asked, feeling that she must still be in the world of dreams.
"Well, he said he wanted to speak to the young lady who was staying here, with the little girl," Mrs. Nairne answered, and Christina, a faint hope stirring at her heart that Lady Cicely's cousin might have come to ask her about Baba, went quickly to the farmhouse door, to be greeted by Dr. Fergusson, who awaited her with obvious impatience.
"I came to see if I could get some help from you," he said, with no other preamble. "I have been to the house in the valley, and things there are pretty bad."
"But—how can I help?" Christina asked.
"I want you to come back with me to the house, and stay there for the night, with the lady of whom you told me to-day."
"I could not do that," Christina answered decidedly; "it is out of the question. I am here in charge of a little child. I could not go away for the night, and leave her."
"Wouldn't she be safe with the woman of the house?" Fergusson asked imperiously; "she looked to me a very reliable body."
Although they were alone at the door, he and Christina spoke in low voices; perhaps some of the mystery of the lonely valley and shut-in house, lingered with them still.
"Mrs. Nairne is in every way reliable, but Lady Cicely, my little charge's mother, has trusted me so entirely, I should feel I was abusing her trust if I did what you ask."
"I am at my wits' end to know what to do," was the answer. "I don't profess to be able to understand the inwardness of all I saw at the house I have just left, but it is plain that there is some vital need for secrecy. I can't possibly send a woman from the village to these people, and yet they must have somebody for the night. I came to you, because I am sure you can hold your tongue."
"Certainly I can do that"; Christina laughed a little, and drew more closely round her the cloak she had snatched from its peg as she came to the door, "and I would gladly—oh, most gladly, do anything I could to help that poor lady. But, my duty seems to lie here."
"I should only ask you to come for a few hours. I will undertake that you shall be back here before your little charge is ready for you in the morning. It is vitally necessary that someone should be with 'that poor lady,' as you rightly call her, and my thoughts flew at once to you."
"I wish I knew what was right to do," Christina said wistfully; and at her words, Dr. Fergusson sprang from his car and seized her hands in his.
"I will tell you," he said firmly; "it is right to come with me. I will explain to Mrs. Nairne as much of the circumstances as it is necessary she should know, and I have no doubt she will come to the rescue. Go and fetch whatever you will need for the night; it will be a night spent in sitting-up, not in bed; and I will settle with the good woman."
Swept off her feet by the masterfulness which brooked no resistance, Christina obediently did his bidding, and when she returned to the door, found Mrs. Nairne in close conversation with the doctor.
"There, missy, that'll be all right, never you fear," she said as Christina appeared; "the doctor, he've been telling me there's a poor lady in great trouble, and that you could comfort her by sitting up with her a bit. Why, I'll sleep with the little missy with all the pleasure in life, and you can feel as safe about her, as if you was here yourself."
When the doctor had handed her into the car, and they drove swiftly away, the girl felt as if she were merely a puppet, whose strings were being pulled by Fergusson's strong hands. She had a curious sense of helplessness, that was not wholly unpleasant. So dominating was the personality of the man who sat beside her, that she was convinced he was only doing what was right in whirling her away with him through the darkness; and his brown eyes were so steadfast, so reliable, that when their glance met hers, she felt safe. He spoke scarcely at all to her, until they had turned off the moorland into the steep lane, that led to the house amongst the woods. Then he said quietly, steering the car at a walking pace:
"I found an uncomfortable state of things in the house to which we are going, when I got there to-day."
"Was someone very ill?" Christina questioned; "the lady said 'a matter of life and death.'"
"It was certainly that," he answered grimly, "considering I was only just in time to save her from being murdered, by as violent a homicidal maniac as I ever saw."
"Oh!" Christina exclaimed with horror.
"At first, I couldn't get into the place at all. Then a servant came to the gate, and she seemed in a terrible state. No wonder! She took me into the house, and in one of the rooms I found the lady of whom you have been speaking, in the grip of a madwoman, lighting for her life. My God! I was only just in time. It seems the woman had been ill, and had had paroxysms of what they thought was delirium. As a matter of fact it was acute mania; and, as I say, I was only just in time."
"What have you done with——" Christina broke off with a shudder, but Fergusson saw that her face was white.
"With the unfortunate madwoman? I have secured her for the time, and I mean to drive her over to-night to the nearest asylum. But I must take the servant with me, and that is why I want you. Your beautiful lady cannot be left alone."
"I thought it must have been a man who was ill," Christina said; "she certainly spoke of 'him' and 'he.'"
"I saw no man, only the madwoman and a servant."
"And why is there all this mystery?" Christina said, with bewilderment in her voice; "what makes so much secrecy necessary?"
"Ah! that I do not know," the doctor answered gravely. "I can't understand it myself, but it is quite obvious that for some reason the lady of the house is most anxious to keep her whereabouts hidden from the world. And—when one looks at her, one feels it is impossible to do anything but respect her wishes, and help her keep her secret—whatever it may be," he added under his breath.
"My beautiful lady has bewitched him, too," Christina reflected shrewdly; and, for the rest of the way, spent her time in silently speculating upon what lay before her.
The green door stood ajar now, and a lighted lantern had been placed on the ground just inside it. By its rather uncertain light, Fergusson led her across the garden and into the hall, where a wood fire was burning brightly. They did not, however, linger here, but, crossing it, ascended a wide staircase to the floor above, on which were several rooms. The door of one of these stood wide open, a stream of light from it flooded the landing, and the doctor, tapping gently on the door, entered, Christina following him half fearfully, dreading what she might see. But no dreadful sight met her gaze. She saw only a simply-furnished bedroom, and in the bed, propped up by pillows, and with her face turned anxiously towards the door, lay the beautiful woman, whose image had haunted the girl ever since the afternoon. She looked, if possible, even whiter than when she had accosted Christina in the lane, and her eyes seemed darker and more heavily pencilled with shadows; but she greeted her visitors with a smile, and held out her hand in welcome.
"How good of you to come," she said, grasping the girl's hand in a nervous, clinging clasp; "how very good of you. I think I should really have been quite safe just for a few hours, but the doctor would not let me stay here——"
"Alone?" Fergusson exclaimed, when her sentence remained unfinished; "certainly not. Now, see here, Miss——" he paused and looked at Christina.
"It sounds very absurd to say so, but I don't know your name," he added.
"Moore," she answered.
"Well, Miss Moore, all I want you to do is to sit with this lady, see that she takes some food through the night, and don't allow her to worry about anything."
A faint laugh broke from the woman in the bed.
"What an easy order to give, and what a hard one to carry out," she said; "but—I will promise—to try and keep my mind at rest—as far as possible," she added under her breath; "and you are taking poor Marion where she will be safe and well cared for?"
"I am taking her where she will do no one any harm," Fergusson answered grimly, "and I will bring your servant back as soon as I can. She is a treasure, that servant of yours."
"I think she is worth her weight in gold," was the quiet answer; "she is more than servant; she is a friend—a faithful, loyal friend."
"You are fortunate to have found such an one," Fergusson smiled, "and now I must go and get that poor soul away; and Miss Moore will keep you company, and take care of you, until I bring your servant back."
As he spoke the last words he was gone, closing the door softly behind him, and carrying with him some of the sense of health-giving strength and vitality, with which his very presence seemed to fill the room.
Unusual as was the position in which she found herself, Christina had sufficient perception to see that the nerves of the woman she had come to tend, were already stretched to breaking point, and that a normal manner, and matter-of-fact way of taking the situation for granted, would do more than anything else to relieve the tension.
She took off her hat and cloak, therefore, with quiet deliberation, unrolled the dressing-gown she had brought with her, and was proceeding to hang it over a chair before the fire, when her patient said suddenly:
"Watch them go; tell me when they have gone. Tell me when you and I are alone."
Christina moved from the fire to the bedside.
"You want me to see them off from the gate?" she asked, and the other nodded.
"Yes. Lock and bolt the gate after them. When the doctor comes back, we shall hear him. But the door must be locked behind them now." Her voice rose in feverish excitement, her hands moved restlessly on the sheet, her eyes were bright with eagerness, and Christina could have sworn that fear looked out of them, too.
"Of course I will go and do as you wish," she said very gently, her hand stroking the restlessly moving hands; "you will lie very quietly here whilst I am gone?"
"Yes, oh yes!" the accents were impatient. "Only go—go down now. They must be ready to start."
Slipping on her cloak again, Christina ran downstairs, pausing half-way as she heard a sound of voices and footsteps coming from the corridor that intersected the hall, and that was just out of her sight.
"Carefully—lift her feet a little—take care round this corner—so," she heard the sentence jerked out in the doctor's voice, and from her post of observation, she presently saw him emerge slowly into the hall, walking backwards, and holding an inanimate woman's head and shoulders in his arms. Holding her feet, bearing half the burden of her unconscious form, was a tall woman of the servant class, upon whose face the rays of the hall lamps fell fully, and Christina could see all the shrewd kindliness of the plain features.
"Gently—wait a moment to rest. There—that's right—now then. Ah! the lantern," he exclaimed; "we must have the lantern across that dark garden."
"I will bring the lantern," Christina called out, rather tremulously, but running down the stairs without delay. "I was sent to lock the gate after you; I can light you across the garden."
She picked up the lantern from the hall table upon which Fergusson had placed it; and, with one shuddering glance at the flushed, heavily-breathing woman, who was being carried from the house, she put herself at the head of the strange little procession, lighting their footsteps as well as she was able. It was no easy task to lift the unfortunate creature, first through the green door, and then into the car, but Fergusson being an athletic man, with muscles in excellent order, and the tall servant being strong and well-built, their joint efforts succeeded in laying their burden along the cushions.
Christina stood at the door for a moment, watching the car turn up the lane, but when its brilliant lights were engulfed by the darkness, she turned back with a shiver into the garden, locking and bolting the door with trembling fingers, and running up the dark path as though all the powers of evil were at her heels. The front door of the house she secured as firmly as the other, then, more than half-ashamed of the nameless terror that shook her, she sat down for a moment on an oak chest by the fire.
"You silly coward," she said to herself; "you know you and a sick woman are alone in the house, and what are you afraid of?" But for all her attempt at courage, as she flew up the stairs again, she repeatedly looked over her shoulder, with a nervous dread of she knew not what.
"Have they gone—safely gone? And is the door locked?" The words greeted her ears directly she entered the bedroom upstairs, and the dark eyes of the woman in the bed looked at her, with agonised questioning and dread.
"Yes; they have driven away, and everything is locked up, and now I want to make you comfortable, and poke up the fire, and we shall be quite cosy in this nice warm room." Christina spoke cheerfully, all trace of her own nervous fears had vanished; she was intent on calming the troubled woman, whose feverish excitement was still only too apparent.
"Nice and cosy?" the woman laughed drearily. "I can't rest quietly until I know:—he—— Can I trust you?" She pulled herself bolt upright in the bed, and looked fixedly at Christina; "will you be silent about everything you see, everything you hear?"
"Why, of course. But, you will try and go to sleep now, won't you?" Christina said soothingly, with a startled certainty that her beautiful charge must be delirious.
"Go to sleep?" The dreary laugh came again. "How could I sleep? I must lie here; there is no help for that. Marion has done her work well, though, poor soul! she did not mean to harm me. But I can't lie here whilst he—you will promise to keep silence?"
"I promise," Christina said hastily, intent only on quieting her at any cost; "is there something you want me to do?"
The other nodded.
"Go along the passage that leads off this landing," she said, "knock at the third door on the left; and ask—my—the person who is there if there is anything he needs. He may need—food—we could do nothing for him whilst Marion—and the doctor——"
She dropped back upon the pillow with closed eyes, and so exhausted a look, that Christina bent over her, too anxious about her well-being to think of her own surprise at the order just given her.
"Never mind me," the dark eyes opened, the brows drew together in a frown; "only go to him—and do what he needs. I shall be all right; it is only he who matters."
Unfeignedly puzzled, and with all her nervous tremors trooping back upon her, Christina went across the landing, and turned along the passage as directed. Who and what was she going to find in that third room on the left? And why was there a necessity for all this secrecy? Her heart beat very fast, so fast that it nearly suffocated her, as she passed on and paused at the third door, wondering again with a sinking dread, what new mystery was to be revealed to her? To her soft knock, a man's voice responded:
"Come in," and she entered a warm and luxuriously-furnished apartment, which appeared to be sitting-room and bedroom combined. Closely wrapped in a thick dressing-gown, and seated in an armchair by the fire, was a man whose cadaverous face and sunken eyes seemed to show recent recovery from some severe illness; and his efforts to rise, when he saw a stranger at the door, only resulted in his sinking back with a groan.
"Who are you?" he asked; "why have you come? Where is Madge?"
Christina fancied she detected a faint foreign accent in his words, though he spoke fluent English.
"I was sent by—by the lady of the house," Christina answered. "I—don't know her name, but she is—very tired." She substituted that word for "ill," when she saw how the sick man started and flushed. "She asked me to come and see if there is anything you need."
"Madge tired?" he said in a slow, dreamy voice; "it is so difficult to think that Madge can be tired. She used to be such a tower of strength, always such a tower of strength."
His sunken eyes glanced wistfully at Christina; she felt compelled to utter some words of comfort.
"Perhaps she is only tired—just for the time," she answered, though in uttering the words a remorseful remembrance smote her of the fragile white face of the woman she had left. "She will feel stronger again soon."
"Do you think so? Do you really think so." He leant forward, and Christina saw how his hands were trembling; "you see, I feel—I can't help feeling—that it is my fault—all my fault. First, the old trouble; and then, my coming back to burden—— But you are a stranger to us," he exclaimed, breaking off and looking at her with a new alertness; "why did Madge send a stranger? Where is Elizabeth?"
Christina, jumping to the conclusion that Elizabeth must be the kindly-faced servant, and anxious to check the sick man's rising excitement, said gently:
"She is busy just now, and they sent me because I am a friend; and you may be quite sure that I shall never speak a word to anyone of what I see or hear in this house."
"Then you don't know——" he began, breaking off again, and looking at her almost furtively.
"I know nothing," was the grave response. "I came here just for to-night, to help—because—because Elizabeth is busy. That is all."
To her great relief, he accepted her explanation without further questioning, the truth being that his brain, exhausted by illness, refused to work with any rapidity, being ready enough to accept whatever was put before it; and, with a weary sigh, he turned away from the girl, and held out his thin hands to the fire.
"Now, can I fetch you anything, or do anything for you?" Christina asked brightly; "try to look upon me as—as Elizabeth, and let me do for you what she would do if she were here."
His eyes turned to her again; he smiled.
"You are not very like Elizabeth," he said, his glance taking in the slight figure in its neat green gown—the girlish face, the eager eyes; "a very fertile imagination would be needed to see Elizabeth in you."
"I am afraid I am not half so capable as Elizabeth," she said, ignoring the subtle compliment, "but I will do my best."
"Will you give me your arm to the bed then? I am too much of a cripple to walk there alone, but I can get myself into it when I am there. And if you would further be good enough to bring me from next door some milk, and whatever other eatables Elizabeth has prepared for me, I shall be very grateful. Though I cannot imagine why Elizabeth is leaving me to a stranger to-night," he went on, with the petulance of a sick child.
Christina thought it best to ignore the latter half of this sentence, and having fetched from the dressing-room next door, a tray of appetising viands, which she deposited on a table by the bed, she came to the sick man's side to give him the help he needed. It was with great difficulty that he dragged himself from his chair, and the girl's strength was taxed to the utmost to support his weight, when he leant heavily upon her shoulder. He was considerably taller than he had looked when sitting in the chair; and he was so weak, and apparently so crippled, that his progress across the room was a slow and painful one. Short though the transit was from chair to bed, his breath came fast as he sank down upon the pillow, and for several seconds he looked so worn and exhausted, that Christina did not dare to leave him. Into the milk put ready for him, she poured some brandy from a flask on the tray, and, holding the glass to his lips, was thankful to see that he could drink its contents, and that having done so, the colour gradually returned to his face.
"Better now," he said slowly, opening his sunken eyes and looking at Christina with a smile that gave his face a pathetic wistfulness. "I shall be all right soon."
"Can't I do anything more for you?" Christina asked, still troubled by his exhausted looks.
"No, nothing more. Come back in half an hour to see if I am all right—just to console Madge," he answered, smiling again, as she softly stole away.
"Did he ask many questions? Had he heard anything of what happened? He was not frightened or upset?" The questions poured out in a torrent from the lips of the white-faced woman in the other room, when Christina re-entered it. She was sitting up in the bed, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes dark with anxiety.
"He asked very little," Christina answered, "and I think he could not have been upset by hearing anything that happened. I am sure he could have heard nothing," she added earnestly; "he is going to bed now, and I am to go back presently to see that he is all right. He said it would comfort Madge."
A smile flickered over the white face.
"My poor Max," she whispered under her breath. "I could not bear it if anything else happened to hurt him; I couldnotbear it." The passion in her voice brought a lump into Christina's throat. "He has had so much to bear. Ah! my God! give him peace at the last!"
The vehement voice died into silence, and Christina, feeling very young and forlorn, and quite unable to cope with a grief and passion so intense, could only stand silently by the bed, her hand just touching the restless hand, on which a thick wedding ring was the only ornament.
"You don't know what it means to care like that for a man," the passionate voice spoke again; "you are so young—just a slip of a girl"; the woman's dark eyes rested tenderly, almost sadly, on Christina's face. "You don't know what it means, to care so much for a man that—no matter what he is, or does, he is your world, your whole world. Do you?" she asked, leaning forward and seizing the girl's hands in her own hot ones.
"No—o," Christina faltered, whilst, unbidden, there flashed into her mind the vision of a rugged face, and two grey eyes full of hidden pain, "but—I think I can understand," she ended shyly.
"You dear little girl," the two hot hands drew her down, and Christina felt a gentle kiss on her cheek; "some day you will know, if I judge your eyes aright. Nature did not give you those eyes, and that face for nothing. I wonder——" the woman's glance suddenly concentrated itself upon the girl. "I wonder why something in your face seems to me familiar. Can I ever have seen you before?"
"No, I could not ever forget you if I had seen you," Christina answered quickly; and the other, though she smiled, still looked into the girl's face with a puzzled expression.
Half an hour later, Christina, upon whom her responsibilities weighed with double heaviness, now that she had realised the presence of the sick man in the house, went to visit the room along the passage. The patient there was now in bed, and the girl observed that the look of intense exhaustion had left his face, and that he was breathing normally and quietly.
"Tell Madge I am quite all right," he said, his voice sounding stronger than before; "don't let her worry about me. She must rest herself if she is tired. Tell her I shall sleep like a top!"
To Christina the night that followed was one of her most curious experiences. In a strange house, with people of whose very names she was ignorant, and about whom hung a mystery, the nature of which was unknown to her, she felt as though she had become part of a story, or of a puzzling dream, from which she should presently awake in her own bed at Graystone, with Baba's cot beside her.
Wrapped in her thick dressing-gown she sat by the fire in the room of the woman, who in her own mind she called "the beautiful lady," sometimes turning the leaves of a book she had found on the table, sometimes looking dreamily at the flickering flames. In accordance with the doctor's orders, she occasionally fed her patient, who, though very wide-awake, spoke but little during the long night hours. Christina, by the light of the softly-shaded lamp, could see how seldom her companion's eyes were closed, how almost continually they were fixed, either upon her, or upon the firelit walls.
Once or twice she uttered some brief remark, but no word was said that made clear to the watching girl any of the strange happenings in this strange house. But when the grey light of dawn was beginning to steal through the window curtains, the woman in the bed said gently:
"It was wonderfully good of you to come here and take care of me like this. I wonder whether you are thinking you have come into a place of mad people?"
"No, I did not think that."
"You have taken a great deal on trust, and though it is very much to ask of a stranger, I am going to ask you still—to take me—on trust. I have not done—anything wrong; if it is folly—well, I shall have to pay the price."
To this enigmatical sentence Christina could think of no reply, but she went to the bedside, and gently touched the shapely hand on which rested that plain gold ring.
"Your eyes tell me you are a faithful soul," the low voice continued; "you belong to the race of people who make good friends. I have another—good friend in the world, but he—will you still take me on trust?" she ended abruptly, her fingers closing round Christina's hand.
"I couldn't do anything else," the girl answered quickly; "you need not tell me you have done nothing wrong; I know it. Nobody who looked into your face could ever distrust you," she added, in a burst of girlish enthusiasm.
"Some day—if we meet again, and if you care to hear it—you shall hear all the story, but not now—not now. And you—you will keep silence—about—everything here?" The dark eyes searched her face anxiously. "Remember, even the doctor knows nothing."
"I will keep silence about everything," Christina answered solemnly, stooping for the second time to touch the beautiful face with her lips.