The two men sat in the great bare room of the House at Setchevo and watched the ebbing firelight as it played upon the dead man's face and declared the horror of it. Not a sound came to them but that of their heavy breathing. They feared almost to raise a hand lest by any movement the living should be called to avenge the dead. Just as he had fallen, heavily and in anger, so the old Chevalier lay, his face upturned, the sightless eyes still open as though gazing now upon the eternal mysteries. And none knew better than Gavin Ord that death might be their worst enemy, loosing upon them the worst passions of their jailers and forbidding them any longer even to hope.
This he knew, and yet there came no profit of the knowledge. If he feared death, it was for Evelyn's sake. Sitting there by the firelight, waiting in tense doubt for the coming of the dead man's friends, he could recall a picture of Evelyn as first he saw her in the hall of the Manor. How stately she was; with what dignity she had received him! And what an odd mental hallucination he had suffered when he thought to hear her crying to him from the river. But was it altogether an hallucination and did this explanation satisfy? Here, to-night, it seemed that he must die because of his friendship for her. How foolish, then, the call from the unseen world had been if its meaning were so, and his own death had been the subject of the prophecy! That he could not believe. The firm idea that he had been chosen to love and befriend this beautiful girl remained his own even in this momentous hour. He must suffer this to save her—how or by what means he did not pretend to say—nor would he account death as other than a friend if by death salvation came to one who alone among women had taught him to say, "I love."
A wolf howled upon the hills without and the lingering, doleful cry, taken up by a thousand lifted throats, came upon the silence as the dead man's requiem. Arthur Kenyon shivered when he heard it and beat the fire down as though darkness were preferable to this aureole upon the staring face. When Gavin said "Hush," and bade him listen, he half turned, upon an impulse, toward the dead man as though the dead were about to speak. The terrible strain of that suspense had become insupportable. What mattered it since the end must be the same—sooner or later, to-night or to-morrow, the reckoning, the vengeance? He was young, and life might have much in store for him; but travel had taught him to say "Kismet" and he said it unflinchingly.
"There would be snow on the hills," he cried at last, as though his thoughts were out there upon the lonely mountain road.
Gavin, for answer, gripped him by the arm and forced him to listen.
"Do you not hear!" he cried in a broken whisper; "some one is calling the Chevalier?"
They bent together as though to hear more keenly. In the courtyard without, footsteps could now be heard and a voice crying, "Master, master!" The hour had come then! Here were those who sought them.
"Will you speak to them, Gavin?"
"Hush for God's sake—I must think, think——"
"That's a second footstep—can't you hear it? My God, Gavin, what shall we do?"
"Let me think, Arthur, let me think."
He buried his face in his hands and could feel his temples throbbing. For Evelyn's sake, for her—ah, if that miracle of love could but come to pass! To open the gates, to defy the perils of the hills, to pass as in flight by towns, rivers, cities, the abodes of men, the lonely passes, the lights of towns, the storms of seas, to venture all for Evelyn's sake. If it could be that? The voice of reason answered, "Fool, the men are at the door."
He rose excitedly from his chair and gripped his friend by the arm.
"Tap the pavement," he said, "tap as the old Chevalier used to. I must think, Arthur—for God's sake now tap with the stick."
Kenyon obeyed him as a child would have done. He tapped upon the stone floor with the stick but did not speak a word. Gavin had him by the arm now and appeared almost as one in a trance. His eyes were half-closed; he muttered to himself, stretching out his hand and feeling, as it were, for a path which the darkness would disclose to him. And the word upon his lips was "Evelyn"—oft repeated, as though she were near and did not hear him.
"What are you going to do, Gavin?"
"To lead you from this house, Arthur—do not speak to me; some one is calling us, Arthur."
He passed out into the bare stone corridor leading to the banqueting hall. From the shadows one of the gypsies appeared with the swiftness of an apparition. He carried a lantern in his hand and lifted it while he spoke.
"Master!" he cried, and then reeled back, the words broken upon his lips.
They passed him by, leaving him cowering by the wall; he did not cry after them or raise an alarm. And Gavin went on swiftly, still toward the gate, as though his will would open it.
"No man could cross the hill road to-night," Kenyon said presently. He was thinking that if they passed the gates, their allies would be the wolves. Gavin did not answer him at all this time. He had come to the gate by which you reach the courtyard, and, lifting the latch, he went out unquestioned.
"You see," he said, "that fellow has just unlocked it. I knew it must be so, Arthur."
"He has gone to bring the others, Gavin."
"They will not hear him. Or if they come, they will be powerless to harm us, Arthur. It must be so. I hear Evelyn's voice. She would not call me if the gates were shut."
Kenyon knew not what to say. Once or twice before he had known and seen Gavin in such a mood as this, led by unseen hands and speaking with another's voice. Never had he scoffed at it or misunderstood his friend. He took it to be a force within that was beyond his own experience. To-night, at least, it had led them out of the death-chamber to look once more upon the heaven of stars above.
"I will follow wherever you lead, Gavin," he said in a whisper, "only tell me what I must do."
"We are going to the bridge, Arthur. Tap as the old Chevalier did. I shall cry 'Open!' when we come there. They will let us out and we shall cross the mountains."
The idea in his head remained there ineradicably. Despite the horde of gypsies that was concealed somewhere in the darkened rooms of that weird house, Gavin pushed his way toward the portcullis and demanded that the keeper should open to him. This was the first time he had spoken aloud since he quitted the room where the dead man lay; and instantly at his words the courtyard became alive with the murmur of voices and the sounds of shuffling footsteps.
"Quick, Gavin, they are after us," Kenyon cried, holding his friend's arm and trying to draw him aside to a place of safety.
Gavin would not move, however. Imitating, as well as he could, the voice he had heard so often challenging the keeper of the bridge, he continued to shout, "Open—I wait!" None the less, he knew that armed men were all about him and that any moment might bring them at his throat.
"Open—I wait!"
The gate-keeper, awakened from a heavy sleep, came from the rude watch-tower above the bridge and stood there with a lantern in his hand. Raising it he looked upon the faces of the men, and drew back with hand uplifted.
"Why do you call to me in my master's voice?" he asked.
They could not answer him. A great shouting in the courtyard behind them warned them that the truth was known. The gypsies had discovered the dead man's body and pell-mell they began to swarm about those they believed to be his assassins. Haggard, in the weird light, their figures in phantom shapes, they pressed on, searching every nook and cranny with the naked blade of sword and scimitar, wailing their doleful lament and encouraging one another to the pursuit. Nor had Gavin any belief that he could escape them. Called by the peril from the unnatural trance which had fallen upon him, he swung round upon his heel as though to protect his friend whose life he had thus jeopardized; but in his heart he believed that nothing could save them. This was the moment when the uttermost penalty of folly must be paid. It found him ready with a dogged courage, but lacking all ideas except that supreme determination too fight for his life to the end.
"Give me the bludgeon, Arthur—I am the stronger."
"Don't think of that—there's something left in my locker still. Side by side, old chap, unto the end. What luck! We'd have been across the bridge in another ten seconds."
"Some of them are going to remember us anyway. Stand close to me, Arthur—it won't be long now."
Indeed one of the gypsies discovered him as he spoke and with a loud cry to the others made known his news. The horde swept on with the ferocity of wolves. Knives gleaming, eyes bright in the darkness, some voices cursing, some howling in brutish anger, they came pell-mell toward the gate. And then, as suddenly, they halted and a silence as of the dead of night fell upon the house.
Some one upon the mountain road without had fired a rifle. The report of it, echoing in the lonely hills, was like a sharp peal of thunder, rattling from peak to peak with monstrous sounds near by and low rumblings far away. To the gypsies it spoke a message which they alone understood. They stood altogether, shivering and gibbering in the darkness. Their muttered words were unintelligible to Gavin. Beyond the sound of the rifle-shot he could hear nothing—or when the silence was broken again, it was by the tongue of wolves indescribably haunting and long drawn as a dirge of woe.
"There is some one on the mountain road and they are afraid of him," he said quickly to Kenyon.
The idea of profit to come by the truce occurred to him in the same breath; and, crying loudly, again he bade the doorkeeper to open.
"Open, open!"
Twenty voices took up the cry. The gypsies vied with each other in shouting the summons. For they understood the signal. The rope was about their own necks, they said. The last chance was to open the gate to their prisoners. When the doorkeeper hesitated, trembling and afraid, they stabbed him to the heart and he rolled headlong to the foot of the bridge near by which his life had been lived.
But Gavin and Arthur Kenyon passed out to the mountain road, and looking down to the valley they perceived the flame of bivouac fires in the wood below; and they understood immediately that cavalry had been sent from Bukharest to their aid and that the hour of their peril had passed.
Evelyn recovered consciousness after that which seemed a very night of evil dreaming, but which was in reality no more than a brief half-hour of insensibility. Greatly weakened by the struggle and the swoon attending it, she lay for some while unable to lift herself upon the bed where they had laid her or to take any notice of the room to which she had been carried. When her strength returned somewhat, and a sudden memory of the circumstances of her visit recurred to her, she sat up immediately, a great fear at her heart and a dread upon her such as she had never suffered before.
What house was it? Who was its owner? What was the meaning of the insult placed upon her? The questions raced through her brain so quickly that she found an answer to none of them. At one time she could almost believe that her own father was privy to the outrage and had led to this desperate course by his detestation of the rôle she played in London. Rejecting this immediately because of her love for him, she was then tempted to say that Odin relied upon his threats and believed that she would submit to him to save Gavin's life. This appeared the more plausible story. Was not the man from the East a Roumanian with but primitive ideas of a modern civilization and the son of a country wherein women were still little better than the silent victims of men's passions? Perhaps he believed that he could carry her out of England. It might be even that.
She was in a spacious bedroom, furnished, so far as the dim light would permit her to see, in a modern style and with many evidences of later-day luxury. A fresh fire, burning with a light flame in an open grate, cast flashing rays upon darkly-papered walls and the heavy pictures which ornamented them. A sofa had been drawn up before the fire and showed its pattern in the fitful beams; there was an electric chandelier above a dressing-table and a single reading lamp upon a little table by the bedside. Afraid of the darkness in a degree unknown to her, Evelyn tried to find the switch by which the lamp might be lighted; but her cold hands bungled it and, despairing, she rose from the bed and crossed the room toward the heavily-curtained window.
Was escape to be thought of? In sober reason, no; but sober reason says nothing to a woman driven by the supreme dread of wrong and guarding her courage even while she is afraid. Evelyn knew in her own mind that so shrewd and daring a schemer as Count Odin would leave her no loophole, neglect no precaution, nor spare any insult by which his own safety might be assured. She knew it and yet must go to the window and draw the curtains back and touch the heavy shutters and feel her heart sink when she came to see that they were twice barred and that no woman's hand could open them. Despair alone could have led her to believe that the Count would be so foolish; but despair did not mock her twice and she left the door untried lest she should brand her own intelligence with contempt. Let it be sufficient that she was the prisoner of the house, far from any human aid, alone with her own courage for her friend. She admitted it and sank down upon the sofa, to stretch her hands to the warming blaze, and to breathe that simple prayer to God for aid which is the supreme pathos of womanhood.
The night was silent without the silence of mid-winter; the fire blazed as though in enmity to the cold of the early morning hours. Evelyn had no watch, nor did she know what hour it might be. When a distant bell chimed, she caught a faint sound upon the still air, but it told her nothing. And with the passing hours there came upon her a desperation she could not master; a desire to kill this man who had so affronted her, to brave him at whatever cost, even if it were to die at his feet. Etta Romney lived again in this, the Etta of the East, the child of the mountains which knew few laws but those of might. She was her mother's daughter now; the voice of heritage spoke, and she would not still it.
The distant church clock chimed again and she counted three strokes upon its bells. It was three o'clock in the morning then, and another four hours must pass before dawn came. Or would it ever come in that shuttered and curtained room which she must call her prison? Sometimes she could have wished that the Count would throw down the challenge to her and that she might answer him there and then. Suspense as ever tortured her nerves; but in her case also contributed to the victory of reason. For Gavin's sake the evil in her heart must die, she said. She must act not only as a brave woman but as a wise one. Moreover, her true self, beginning to speak, reminded her that there would be an outcry through all London to-morrow, and that such a man as Count Odin would never face the publicity of it; his one sure weapon was his threat against her lover. At this she cowed and knew that her heart had grown cold again.
Could she, indeed, save Gavin by a word? Had she believed it she would have spoken that word, so greatly did she love. But she did not believe it. Her faith in a brave man's resolution, in his daring and success, remained unshaken. Gavin might even come to this house, she thought; and dreamingly she sat very still by the fireside and listened for the sound of his footstep. A profound silence followed upon the foolish act. When next she moved it was with agitation and a sudden spasm of fear she could not quell.
She was no longer alone in the room. How she had come to believe herself so she could not even imagine. Out of the darkness a pair of jet black eyes were looking up to her own. The wavering firelight becoming stronger as the coal reddened and burst into brighter flame, showed her the huddled figure of a young girl crouching by the grate and watching her so intently that the very glance seemed a tragedy.
"Djala!" she cried in spite of herself—"Djala, the gypsy girl!"
She knew it was no other and her fear passed with the knowledge. Many a day had she seen this child with the gypsies who had followed the Count to England. That she should be in this house at such a time was the greater mystery. Evelyn knew not whether the omen were good or bad.
"Why do you not speak to me?" she said; "why are you silent?"
The gypsy started up as though the sound of a voice had waked her also from reverie.
"Excellency," she answered, speaking in such broken English that Evelyn caught her meaning with difficulty; "excellency, I wait for my brother and then we will go away."
"Who are you, child—how did you come here?"
"I am Zallony's daughter, excellency—my brother brought me across the sea from my own country."
"Yes, yes, you were in Derbyshire at my father's house. When did you leave there, child?"
"A month ago, excellency. My brother came to London. We had little money and were poor. The Count would follow us, he said. So we waited, but there was no message. Excellency, he should not have treated us so ill, for he was my lover and owes it to me. He should have come to us, excellency ... and then I would not have told them. God help him now, for my brother will kill him. Yes, I followed him here, but none knew of it. And to-night I told them the truth. Excellency, had you not come here I never would have told them ... but I have loved him and he has forgotten, and I must go back to my own country alone and ashamed."
She spoke in such a low tone, the childish eyes were so wide open, the heart beating so rapidly beneath the fine lace which covered her breast, that one who knew nothing of her Eastern birth or of all that the love of a man meant to her, might well have believed her story an hysterical fiction and turned from it with just impatience. To Evelyn, however, it spoke of danger as no other word of all that evil night had done. The peril of the house, the vengeance which might fall upon it—the price of the betrayal, her own silence when a word might save a man from the penalty of his sins—this all flashed through her troubled brain and left her with a new sense of helplessness and surpassing dismay.
"How did you come here; how did you enter this room?" she asked quickly.
"Molines, my uncle, who brought you here—he keeps the keys, excellency."
"Then he let you in—he knows of your being here?"
"He knows, excellency, and is afraid. We must save the English lady, he said. That is why he sent me to you."
"I must see your uncle at once, Djala.... I must tell the Count. What you speak of is a great crime. Let us make them hear us. Oh, my God, we cannot be silent."
The doubt and suspense of it all became overwhelming, and she stood groping in the dim light for the doorway and beating upon it with both her hands. No one, however, answered her. The little gypsy crouching by the fire seemed afraid to move or to speak. The silence of the house remained unbroken. Evelyn turned away in such despair as seemed to her scarcely human.
"When is your brother coming here?" she asked the child.
Djala answered without looking up.
"I do not know, but he will come, excellency ... and he will speak for me to the Count. Yes, and then——"
The words were stilled upon her lips and she sat up to listen. A sound of men's voices suddenly made itself audible in the room below. The gypsy heard it first and spoke no more of her vengeance.
"That is my brother's voice," she said—and then, realizing what she had done, she caught at Evelyn's dress with both her hands and implored her pity.
"Save him, excellency, for Christ's dear sake, save the man I love," she implored.
"I cannot save him, Djala—am I not as helpless as you? ... I cannot save him."
They waited together, hand in hand, listening to the story which the voices told them. Now it would be to the voice of argument, then to that of entreaty, ultimately to the swift interchange of phrase which spoke of anger. When the duologue ceased, the silence had greater terrors of doubt than any they had yet suffered. What had happened, then? Why did none come to them? They could but hope that reason had prevailed.
"Let us light a lamp, excellency; I am afraid of the dark."
"I cannot do it, Djala.... I cannot find the switch."
"Let us try together, excellency—how your hands tremble! And mine are cold, so cold. Let us try to find the light."
They felt along the wall, gathering courage from their occupation. The main switch was upon the landing outside the door, but they found the plug of the bedside lamp and managed to fix it, getting for their reward a little aureole of light upon the bed and greater shadows upon the further walls. That, however, which pleased them better was a green silken bell-rope hanging down by the bedside and revealed now by the lamp. Evelyn took the cord in both her hands and pulled it thrice. But no bell rang.
"It is broken, Djala; they did not mean us to ring it—hush—listen—they are talking again—that is the Count's voice..."
She caught the child's hand impulsively and drew her to the door as though it would help them to hear the voices more plainly. The controversy below had been resumed suddenly and with a bare preface of civil words. Loud above the other the Count's voice could be heard in threatening expostulation. It ceased upon a haunting cry—lingering, horrible, and to be heard by the imagination long after it had died away.
Djala did not speak when she heard the cry; she seemed as one transfixed by terror, unable to move from the place and afraid to learn the truth. Presently low sobs escaped her; she became hysterical and sank at Evelyn's feet, moaning and trembling.
"They have killed him, excellency ... oh, my God, my God!"
Evelyn could answer nothing. Stooping, she lifted the fainting girl and laid her upon the bed. While she was not less afraid or distressed than the gypsy, this nearer danger had quickened her faculties and awakened her to action. Once more, though the act seemed folly, she caught at the silken bell-rope and pulled it with all her strength. The answer was a jarring tintinabulation heard clearly in the silence. She stood to listen and knew that footsteps were approaching the landing. Then the key turned in the lock and a man, whom she had seen before, a Tzigany beyond all question, entered without ceremony.
"Lady," he said in broken English, "come with me—you must leave this house."
"I will not go until I know the truth; I cannot leave the child," she said, pointing to Djala.
"There are those who will care for her. As for the truth ... it is a man's quarrel. They will be friends to-morrow, lady. Obey me and go quickly."
"I will not leave the child," she protested—not knowing whether his story were false or true and fearing greatly.
For answer, he took her by the arm menacingly and drew her toward the door.
"Go before ill befall you. The child is our daughter. Are we of the people who do not care for their own children? Go, lest worse follow! The man will live—I, Molines, say it."
The words found her without argument. This child had been with the gypsies at the Manor. What harm would befall her if she remained with them here? And it was no time for woman's pity. The story of the house lay upon her as a heavy shadow. She had the desire to flee far from it; to blot it out of her dreams; to forget its humiliations; to escape its darkness. A voice called her to the way of salvation and she went with the gypsy.
"The carriage will take you as you came," he said; "ask no questions, lady; do not betray us if you value your life and that of another. That which has happened in this house to-night will never be known to the world. Seek not the story, for it is not yours to seek."
She had no rejoinder for him. There were lamps still alight in the hall as they descended the staircase and the door of a room upon the right hand side was a little way open. Evelyn half-believed that she saw the body of a man lying upon the table there as she passed swiftly by; but the door closed immediately and the gypsy hurried her from the house.
"Remember," he said, "be silent ... it is your only hope, lady."
She shuddered and drew away from him. The electric brougham which had carried her from the theatre now rolled slowly up the drive. She entered it without a word and so was driven swiftly away.
It wanted an hour of dawn when Evelyn quitted the lonely house. She had given no instructions to the driver, nor did he appear to expect any. In truth, his orders were very far from being in accordance with the old gypsy's promise. A deed of blood had been done and the daylight would discover it. The woman who could tell something of the story would tell it at once if liberty were given her. So said those who entrapped her ... and, desiring to withhold liberty as long as might be, they sent the carriage westward, away toward Harrow and the villages.
Evelyn herself did not suspect this; nor would it have alarmed her had she done so. As one awakened from a dream of death, she tried to shut the picture of the house from her heavy eyes, to drown the cries she had heard, to forget the humiliations. Dark and lonely as the way was, the black shapes of the trees seemed emblems of her liberty; the silent houses so many tokens of the world regained. She cared not where or why, so long as she might breathe the sweet air and tell herself that God's mercy had saved her. For Gavin would she live—her whole life should be spent in quest of the man she loved; of one who seemed to call her even from the darkness. And of Gavin were her thoughts when the carriage stopped at last and the driver bade her descend.
She perceived him to be an African, of pleasant face and starlike eyes. To all her questions, however, he did but shake his head and show grinning teeth which would as well become a snarl as laughter, she thought. It was dawn then, and there were gray mists drifting above the hedges. They had stopped in a lane and nothing human was in sight.
"Very sorry, missy—go back now. No far to go, master says so."
"Where are we, where have you brought me?" she asked, obeying him in some fear.
He answered her, still grinning:
"You get back to London, quick, missee. Master says so. Dis am his carriage. Verry sorry, missy."
She perceived that he played a part and would contend with him no more. Still nodding his black head and showing his white teeth, he turned the carriage about and disappeared down the lane. When the rolling sound of the wheels had quite died away, Evelyn began to walk along the lane in that which she believed to be the direction of London. The mists lifted as the sun began to warm them. She was terribly cold, chilled to the very bone, and exhausted both bodily and mentally; but she pushed on bravely and presently out of the mists a cottage appeared and then another. Yet a hundred yards farther down the lane and she espied some modern villas in the Queen Anne style and after that quite a considerable village lying in the hollow.
It would have been about eight o'clock of the morning by this time; and workmen passed her with the firm tread and the cheery "Good-morning, miss," which are still to be seen and heard within ten miles of the metropolis. At first she scarcely had the courage to ask where she was; for she realized how strangely the question must fall upon other ears at such a time and under such circumstances; but plucking up her courage presently as a lad approached her, she stopped him and learned that this was the village of Pinner, and that it lay just thirteen miles from London.
"Yonder's the station, miss, just round there to the right. I suppose you've walked over from Harrow. Lots of ladies do now they've took to hockey. I don't like that—not me. It hurts the shins unless you've got thick 'uns like the new girls has."
He was quite a conversationalist, the boy, and he rambled on with a precise account of his own intimate affairs, dating from the happy anniversary of a present of five shillings from a gentleman in a "broke-in-half" motor car to the recent arrival of a little sister, with whom he expected he would shortly quarrel. One of his most cheerful items of information was that which revealed the near proximity of an inn, styled by him "a public"; but which, nevertheless, brought to Evelyn such visions of hot steaming coffee and new warm bread and a fireside whereby she might thaw her frozen hands that she bestowed a whole shilling upon him willingly; and for that he, as a true cavalier, conducted her immediately to the hostelry.
"And I do hope you'll walk over from Harrow another morning, and that I'll meet you in the lane," he said with an interested and mercenary laugh delightful to hear. It was good after all to listen to the sound of an honest voice. And this boy spoke in the accustomed tongue of men.
She found the people of the inn awake and bustling. The story told for her by the loquacious lad was a veryopen sesame. A dear old lady with a very dirty face ushered her into a prim parlor and put out the Sunday tea service. Workmen in the bar raised their voices for her benefit, and one of them narrated at length how formerly he had kept a servant at "twenty shilling a week, same as you get, Bill." The coffee, however, could not have been better. Evelyn drank it greedily, and, learning that there were trains to London frequently, she caught one at ten o'clock and by a little after half-past she was in a hansom going down to Baker Street.
Her direction to the cabman had been "the Carlton Theatre"—why exactly she could not say. Naturally, she felt shy for the moment of returning to her hotel, dishevelled and weary as she was. The theatre would be open, she knew; for a rehearsal had been called at twelve o'clock, and the great Mr. Izard expected her there to hear of a new play which he had already passed as "bully." Fortunately for her, she slipped by old Jacob at the stage door so quietly that he was quite unaware of her presence ... and then going to her own dressing-room, to her chagrin she discovered it to be locked and remembered that her maid had the key.
They had set a scene upon the stage, the garden scene of "Haddon Hall"; and weird and cold and melancholy was its aspect in this morning light. To Evelyn it seemed as an emblem of those scenes of her girlhood which she had forever quitted. The loneliness of her life, the pity of it, the quenched fires of ambition—thoughts of these came to her one by one and said "there is no longer hope in the world." Etta Romney, that daughter of passion and the soul's unrest, love had killed her, and never would she be reborn. There stood in her place an Evelyn who believed herself to be utterly alone, forsaken of all, even of him who had taught her the supreme lesson of her being. For her father she had an abiding pity. The harvest he had reaped had been of his own sowing; but her affection for him rose above any consideration of judgment and she accused herself because she had left him in the hour of trial. For the rest the dreadful story of the night remained her chief burden. To whom should she tell it; who must be her confidant? Should she run hysterically to the police, saying, "I believe that a crime has been committed in an unknown house at Hampstead?" To whose profit! The two men might have met in fair fight according to the custom of their country. And would anyone be found in the house by even the cleverest detective after those hours had passed! She knew not which would be the prudent course. Her own despair spoke louder than any claim of human justice.
The great Mr. Izard appeared at the theatre at eleven o 'clock. His first cheery greeting to her ended abruptly when he perceived the state of distress into which she had fallen ... her haggard eyes, her white face, the restlessness of mood and quick changing attitudes which betrayed her.
"Miss Romney!" he exclaimed aghast, "are you ill, my dear? ... Good God! what has happened?"
"I cannot play to-day," she said.... "I am going to my home, Mr. Izard, to my father. I shall never play in your theatre again. My acting days are done."
He saw that she was really ill and would not trouble her with any of the old arguments. His own carriage, he said, should take her to the station. Her assurance that she would go down to Derbyshire alone troubled him, for he was a big-hearted man, as most of his kind. When Evelyn left him, she knew that she was leaving a friend ... and how few friends has any man or woman among us! Perhaps the truth of this helped her upon her long journey to Derbyshire. She was going to her father, to him who had loved her ... she was going to him to tell him every word of that story and to say to him, "Take me to Gavin, let us go together and forget that another has ever come between us." All else in the world, its rewards, its prizes, its teachings, seemed less to her than this gospel of love now warming her heart to life and bidding her look up. By it should peace come to him—to them both if Gavin lived!
Ah, if Gavin lived! How often by the way did that voice of doubt cry the question in her ears? As a heavy cloud upon the garden of her hopes so the thought recurred and would not be put away. If Gavin lived! Evelyn heard the words wherever she turned; they were spoken to her upon the breezes of that winter day, rolled out by the humming wheels as the train carried her northward, uttered by unknown voices which compelled her to listen. They followed her to Moretown; they were with her when she dismissed the hired carriage at the gates of Melbourne Hall and set out to walk across the park toward her home. Her desire to enter the house without observation or effusive welcome was in great part the fruit of her thoughts. She must be alone; she must have the full command of herself before she told her father the true story of yesternight.
The sun had set upon a glorious winter's day; a day of clear skies and bright scenes and fresh invigorating breezes. Now when eve fell the west wind ebbed away with the hours and left a twilight deeply still and beautiful. Not a branch of the leafless trees stirred in all that vast park about Melbourne Hall. Wide vistas of glade and avenue might have known no human foot since their story began. The deer browsed or moved with step so light that the quickest ear could not detect it. To Evelyn it mattered not whether she trod the park at dawn or dusk. Every landmark seemed as her own possession. Here was the dell wherein, long ago, she had played Di Vernon's part to the summer skies; there, the arbor to which she had carried the romances upon which her young imagination feasted. Far away, dark and gray between the trees, stood her home, offering her so chill a welcome that her heart sank wearily and tears came to her burning eyes. How if her father also had left her; if she found the great house empty and the gates of it shut! Such an end to her journey was not impossible; but the dread of it was in itself a heavy sorrow.
To be alone even at the gates of her home. Yes, it might be that. Standing upon the little bridge that spanned the river; she listened to its melancholy song and echoed it in her heart. Alone, it said—the dream lived, love lost, the world empty. What mattered it now that God's providence had saved her yesternight? Better, she thought in her distress, that she lay in yonder silent pool, drifting upon the slow eddies to rest and oblivion. For what had the world to give her? The tears flowed fast at the remembrance of all she had hoped, all she had suffered, all she had lost. "Gavin," she cried aloud, "save me, Gavin, for I cannot live alone."
*****
He came to her swiftly out of the darkness. But yesterday he had returned from Bukharest and, just as she to-day, had gone to Melbourne Hall to find it shuttered and empty. A good act of his destiny made it known to him at Moretown station that the Lady Evelyn had returned from London. He followed her swiftly and overtook her upon the bridge.
And so as in the dream of the unforgotten days he took her from the shadow of the river to his heart and, holding her close, he said:
"Evelyn, beloved, I am here as you wish."
"Evelyn, beloved, I am here as you wish.""Evelyn, beloved, I am here as you wish."
"Evelyn, beloved, I am here as you wish.""Evelyn, beloved, I am here as you wish."
In the Spring of the year following upon Gavin Ord's return from Bukharest, the Reverend Harry Fillimore playing, as he claimed, "the game of his life" upon the links at Moretown, found himself to his chagrin both oblivious of the troubles of others and utterly unsympathetic toward his old friend Doctor Philips.
"My dear fellow," he would say, "what can you expect when you will take your eye off the ball? Now do be patient. For my sake, be patient."
The doctor, driving his ball with savage ferocity into a deep and awful pit, treated these observations with the just scorn they merited. He neither criticised nor contested them; but having struck the offending ball five times with little result, he picked it up deliberately and uttered a remark which the vulgar at any rate might have considered appropriate.
"She's at Gibraltar," he said without preface.
"Come, dear fellow—now do be patient. I will not encourage strong language; you know that I will not."
Dr. Philips laughed such a melancholy laugh that even the good-natured parson looked up from his beloved ball.
"I was talking of the Lady Evelyn," he said quietly.
"I'm sorry—I'd forgotten it, Fred."
"Oh, well, memory isn't a jewel in these cases. I had a letter from the Earl this morning—eh, yes? He says the yacht's become a nest of turtledoves. They're going on to Malta if the weather's not too hot. He doesn't mean to come here at all this year, you see. That's what I wanted to tell you. It seems that the man Odin went back to Bukharest and is now fighting the Government for his father's property. They confiscated it or something, according to the criminal law there. Pity the gypsies didn't kill him at Hampstead—eh? They seem to have come pretty near it by all accounts."
The vicar expressed the opinion that the gypsies were the only honest men that Bukharest would be likely to send to Moretown; but neither spoke of Evelyn again until they were alone with their cigars after dinner that night. Then, as a sacred confidence between them, Harry Fillimore confessed something that had long been on his mind.
"Father and daughter," he said, "shared the burden of a terrible heritage. One might have said that they had been born under an Eastern sun and had inherited Eastern passions. In all of us, as the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson believed, there are two personalities—the good and the evil; and our lives are lived as we conquer the one and foster the other. Robert Forrester never made an honest effort to extirpate those weaker traits of character which ruined his career at the beginning. Evelyn, on her part, did not realize the meaning of her life until Gavin Ord taught her to love him. Her escapade in London, the craving for light and music and glitter ... there you had the East speaking to her. But the man's voice was the voice of the West, and she listened to it. Such a woman has found peace or none will ever find it. Her will has saved both herself and her father. Let us grudge her nothing of her happiness, Fred. You loved her? What man that had not loved would not? But you'll wish a blessing on her and lift a glass to her as I do, just because you're what you are—a great big-hearted Englishman, who will share his joys with all, but will tell his sorrows to none."
The doctor turned his head away. Very slowly and deliberately he filled his glass, and, lifting it, he said:
"God bless her!"
THE END
THE HUNDRED DAYS
12mo, Cloth, $1.50
Napoleonic history, or something near to it, will be found in Max Pemberton's "The Hundred Days," a dashing romance with an English hero, invincible, of course, and a French heroine of daring and spirit.—Philadelphia Public Ledger.
THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THRONE
12mo, Cloth, $1.50
Max Pemberton's new romance proves that the life of to-day may suggest romance, mystery, incident, and adventure in as fascinating forms as the life of the days of lance and armor. The novel deals with Russian social and political intrigue, a field wherein he is fully at home. A charming love story is carried through a stirring series of adventures to a fortunate end.—Washington Post.