Dauntrey walked with his head down, his hat pulled over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. Mary noticed that, though the wind was the coldest she had known at Monte Carlo, he wore no overcoat. She wondered if even that had been taken from him by the people to whom he owed money. Once he looked back lingeringly. "Eve must have gone to sit down," he said; and then, in shamed apology, "the poor girl is almost mad, and so am I. You mustn't think too much of what passed between us. We—we love each other, and come what may I believe we always will."
"I'm certain of that," Mary answered, in a warm voice which came from her heart.
They had walked on for a moment or two in silence, when Dauntrey asked abruptly: "Do you know what you're letting yourself in for?"
"Not quite," Mary admitted. "But whatever it is, I don't think I shall much mind if I can help you."
"I believe you really can help," he assured her. "I'm going to apply for what's called theviatique. It's a sum of money the Casino people grant to—to us broken gamblers, if we can prove that we've lost a lot. It's a way of getting rid of us, withouttoo much trouble to themselves or—as my wife said—danger of scandal. They'll give a ticket second class, to take you home if you're dead broke, even if your home's as far off as Bombay, and enough money to pay for your food on the journey. It's very decent of them—generous, considering they don't ask you to come here and gamble, and that they always play fair. But a railway ticket and a few louis in my pocket are no good in my case. I've Eve to think of—and some sort of a future, God help me! She hopes because I happen to have a title which used to be of some importance I may bluff them into giving me a good lump sum. I'm afraid there isn't much in that. Nobody ever heard of their offering more than two thousand francs, so far as I know, and that was exceptional, a classic sort of case. But it may be they'll be influenced by you. Every one knows you're going to marry the Duke di Rienzi's son. And you've been rather a famous gambler. You're of some importance. Heaven knows I'm not! If I get something worth what I have to go through, you'll be the one to thank—to say nothing of the moral support. I've gone to pieces so the last few days, I doubt if I could have faced this alone."
They came to the Casino, and Mary was challenged by one of the doorkeepers because of her bag. He reminded her politely that no one was allowed to go in with a parcel of any description. "Ever since a lady tried to blow us all up with a bomb in a paper package," he added, smiling.
"I'll leave my bag in thevestiaire," Mary promised; and being well known she was allowed to pass.
The attendant in whose care she indifferently placed the locked jewel-case had no idea that he guarded valuables worth two thousand pounds or more. The hand-bag had a modest air of containing a few pretty trifles for a toilet in a motor car.
Mary's heart had begun to beat fast, for Lord Dauntrey's face was so pale and rigid that she realized his dread of an ordeal and began to share it. It was many days since she had entered the Casino. The atrium, once so familiar, almost dear to her eyes, looked strange. It was odd to find there the same faces she had often seen before. She felt as if years had passed since she was one of those who eagerly frequented this place. What if Vanno could see her now? she thought. He would not like to have her come to the Casino with Lord Dauntrey, yet if she could make him understand all, she told herself that he would not be angry. Angelo might be, and even unforgiving, but not Vanno.
"Where must we go to ask for theviatique?" she inquired of Dauntrey in a low voice, looking anxiously at the different closed doors, behind which any mystery might hide, for few ever saw them open.
"We have to go through the Salle Schmidt," he answered doggedly.
That seemed worse than she had thought, but she said nothing. She found herself suddenly missing Hannaford, and wishing that his calm face with its black bandage might appear among all these facesthat meant nothing to her. If he were here he would stand by them, or perhaps go alone with Lord Dauntrey in order to spare her. He had always tried to save her from everything disagreeable, from the very beginning of their friendship until its end.
The mellow golden light in the great gaming room, and the somnolent musky scent which she had called the "smell of money," seized upon Mary's imagination with renewed vividness, even as on the first night when as a stranger she timidly yet eagerly entered the Casino. She felt again the powerful influence of the place, but in a different way. The pleasant, kindly animal to which she had likened the Casino was now a mighty monster, who must be approached with caution and even fear, whose gentle, feline purring was the purr of a tiger sitting with claws in sheath. How the great golden beast could strike and tear sometimes, the desperate face of her companion told. Mary feared for his sake that people might read the lines of misery, and whisper that here was one of Monte Carlo's wrecks.
She had often noticed in the gilded Salle Schmidt those four long mirrors in the corners, which could only be known as doors when some inspector or other functionary pressed his foot on a trigger level with the floor in front of one of them. When this was done, a mirror would instantly move so promptly that Mary had named those doors the "open sesames."
Now, when she had walked with Dauntrey to the farthest door on the right-hand side of the room, hestopped. Near by stood two blue-coated, gold-braided Casino footmen, as if keeping guard; and suddenly Mary remembered that these or other footmen were always hovering at that spot. Often, too, she had seen shamed and sad-looking men and women sitting dejectedly on the leather cushioned seat by the side of the door. She had never thought about them particularly, but in this moment of enlightenment she guessed why they haunted this corner, like starved birds waiting in the hope of crumbs. She was thankful to see that the seat was deserted. It would have been terrible to be one of those who had to wait while everybody who knew the secret of the door passed by and saw, and stared curiously or pityingly. She began to understand how it was that Eve's shattered nerves had forbidden her to come and "stand by" Lord Dauntrey.
Leaving the girl a pace or two behind, he squared his shoulders and went up to the footmen. Mary could not hear what he said, but the Casino servant's answer was distinctly audible. It was politely spoken, yet there was, or seemed to be, in the man's manner a slight indifference, and even disdain, which would not have been there in addressing a successful, not a broken, gambler.
"Monsieur is engaged at present, but will be free in a few moments," she heard.
Dauntrey came quickly back to her, as to a refuge. The eyes of both footmen rested upon her for an instant. They were almost, but not quite, expressionless. Under control yet visible was surpriseand animal curiosity. The men knew Miss Grant by sight and reputation as "one of the lucky ones," and she felt that they were wondering if she too had lost all, and come whining to the "management" for aviatique.
"For heaven's sake let's stand out of the way," Dauntrey whispered, "so every one won't know what we're after." They moved to a little distance, and Lord Dauntrey began trying to make conversation, but could think of nothing to say. Long pauses fell. Both tried not to look at the mirror door, but their eyes were drawn there, as if by an unseen power behind it. They could see themselves and each other in the glass. Mary thought that no one could help noticing how anxious and strained were their faces.
After some moments, which seemed long, the door opened without sound and a woman appeared. She hung her head, and her face was concealed with a veil such as Princess Della Robbia had worn when she came to Rose Winter's flat. A footman with a yellow paper in his hand preceded the drooping figure, steering toward the outer door of the Salle Schmidt, as if going to the atrium. He had a peculiarly stolid air, as if performing a business duty to which he was so used that he could do it very well while other matters engaged his thoughts.
"She'sgot something, anyhow," mumbled Lord Dauntrey, in a sickly voice. "Come along, please. It's our turn now."
He identified Mary with his own interests, as if they were intimately hers. Politely, or perhaps incowardice, he stood aside to let her go before him. Immediately and without noise the door was closed behind them.
Mary's hands were cold. A little pulse was beating in her throat, and its throbbing made her feel slightly sick. She looked up, wide-eyed, into the face of a man who had dismissed the veiled woman, and stood waiting to receive them.
He was spare, elderly, black-coated, almost absurdly respectable looking, with his gray beard and mild gaze behind gold-rimmed pince-nez. The small bare room with its plain desk and two or three chairs made a bleak background for the neat figure of the man. The austerity of the closet-like enclosure, in contrast with the magnificence outside, seemed meant as a warning to let petitions be brief, to the point, and above all strictly within the bounds of reason.
"What do you wish me to do for you?" As he asked this question, with cool civility, the benevolent yet cautious eyes peered through their glass screen at Mary; and the thought sprang into her mind that this elderly man of commonplace appearance had perhaps listened to more harrowing stories of human misery and ruin than any other person in the world. Even the most popular father confessor of the church could scarcely have heard as many agonizing appeals. He must be able to discriminate between truth and falsehood, to read faces and judge voices, for no doubt, as Mary guessed, people must often come to him swearing they hadlost many thousands of francs, when in reality their losses amounted only to a few hundreds.
Dauntrey, whose hand was unsteady, held out his season card of admission to the Casino. "I suppose you know who I am," he said.
The man in the black coat looked at the name on the card, and inclined his head slightly as if in affirmation.
"I've lost all I had in the world," Dauntrey went on in a dead voice, "and all my wife had. I've been here since the beginning of December and had the most cursed luck. I—Miss Grant will bear me out. She was staying at our house. You've seen her before no doubt. One of your lucky ones. You—you'll have to do something decent for me. Unfortunately I've got into debt—my rent—and tradesmen. No good having a scandal. You've had a lot out of me—close on ten thousand pounds. You can afford to give me back 10 per cent., can't you?"
The official's face hardened. He looked a man who could be obdurate as well as benevolent. "I regret," he replied in English, "that it is impossible to give any such sum. Nothing like it has ever been granted, not even to those who have lost great fortunes. If the Casino made such presents it would cease to exist. And I cannot help thinking that my lord in excitement exaggerates his losses. I have heard that he has lost not more than four thousand pounds, and that three fourths of that sum belonged to his friends, for whom he kindly played. In my lord's case, two first-class tickets to London——"
"Of no use whatever," Dauntrey broke in sharply. "What would you have me do when my wife and I get to England without a penny?"
"After all, that is your lordship's affair."
Dauntrey's face crimsoned, and the veins stood out in his temples. Then the red faded, leaving him yellow pale.
"It will be your affair if I kill myself here, as I shall be driven to do if you won't help me. My name will cause some little sensation after I'm dead, if it never made any stir while I lived."
"Couldn't the Casino spare Lord Dauntrey five hundred pounds, at least?" Mary begged, stumbling to the rescue. "It would be so dreadful for everybody concerned if—if—anything happened."
"The administration cannot allow itself to be threatened," its mouthpiece answered.
"My threat isn't an empty one," Dauntrey persisted. "You leave only one exit open for me."
"I am sorry, but I have no authority to grant large sums to any one, on any pretext." The tone was firm, but something in the eyes encouraged Mary to persevere. She pleaded as nothing imaginable could have induced her to plead for herself, and at last the man with the pince-nez promised to "recommend the administration" to give his lordship two thousand francs. Dauntrey was provided with a bit of yellow paper, such as Mary had seen in the hand of the veiled woman. This, he was told, must be presented upstairs, and in the morning Dauntrey would receive the gift, or "loan," of two thousand francs.
Mary had expected him to be bitterly disappointed, but when she had secured her hand-bag and they were leaving the Casino together, he seemed comparatively cheerful. "With this money I may win everything back at baccarat in Nice," he said, "if Eve doesn't object. We've got to go somewhere. Why not there? And if I lose, things won't be any worse with us than they are now. What use is two thousand francs except to gamble with? Still, I didn't think they'd give me as much, and they wouldn't, by half, if it hadn't been for you."
"I hope Lady Dauntrey won't be disappointed," Mary ventured.
"I don't know—I don't know," he muttered. "Eve is in a strange state of mind. It makes me anxious for the future. But what's the good of worrying? Perhaps there won't be any future."
Lady Dauntrey was sitting on an iron seat near the top of the gardens. She sprang up when the lamplight showed her the two figures she knew, walking side by side.
"Well?" she asked breathlessly.
"Two thousand francs—thanks to Miss Grant," her husband answered; and Mary was afraid of an angry outburst, but it did not come.
"Two thousand francs!" Eve echoed, dully. "Better than nothing. But what's to become of us? Where shall we go? If we buy tickets even second class for England, there's a lot gone. If only we could get away to some place near by and hide ourselves for a while, till we could have time to lookround and make up our minds!" She turned quickly to Mary. "While you were both gone," she said, "I was thinking. It's true, isn't it, that Captain Hannaford left the château he bought to you?"
"Yes," Mary admitted.
"I was wondering if you'd let us live in it for a few days—or a few weeks."
"I'm going there myself to-night," Mary said impulsively. Then a curious sensation gripped her, as if she were caught by a wave and swept onward, in spite of herself, toward something which she feared and even hated. She wished intensely that Lady Dauntrey had not mentioned the Château Lontana, and that it had been possible to be silent about her own plans. She had spoken without stopping to think; but even now that she did think, she could not see how silence would have been easy. It seemed that unless she were willing to be hard and ungenerous to this unhappy man and woman she could not avoid offering them shelter for a few days. Quickly she told herself that she must give them money in addition to theviatiquewhich Lord Dauntrey would receive in cash to-morrow. If he still refused to accept anything more from her, Lady Dauntrey would need no persuasion. Mary was instinctively sure of this. And she thought that when the husband and wife were in possession of a few hundred pounds they would be only too glad to leave the gloomy Château Lontana and go to England or somewhere else, to recover themselves.
While she hesitated, feeling compelled to invite the Dauntreys, yet facing the necessity with almost exaggerated reluctance, Eve saved her the responsibility of deciding. "Won't you take us with you?" she asked humbly. "It seems—providential—for us that you're going. So strange, too, that it should be to-night; and so queer the idea coming into my head. Just as if it was meant to be!"
Now the matter had passed beyond control, Mary had the impulse to rebel. The wave had got her and was bearing her along. She tried to catch at safety.
"But—Lord Dauntrey must stay in Monte Carlo—till to-morrow. And I have to go to-night," she stammered. "I don't quite see——"
"You're going alone?" Eve asked.
"Yes."
"How queer of the Princess Della Robbia to let you do that!"
"She doesn't know." The girl defended Marie.
"Doesn't know where you're going?"
"No." Mary felt obliged to explain. "I was—vexed at something that happened to-day. So I—finished my visit sooner than I expected."
"Oh! And does your friend Mrs. Winter approve?"
"She doesn't know, either. She's at Nice for the day, with her husband."
"Surely somebody must know what you're doing. Your own Prince Vanno?"
Mary shrank a little from the familiar name onlips that had no right to it; yet she answered gently: "Even he doesn't know. He's in Rome; but perhaps you've heard. It was in the paper, Marie—Princess Della Robbia told me. I shall write to him, of course."
"Of course. Meanwhile, you seem to be—sneaking off the stage when nobody's looking." Lady Dauntrey laughed a staccato laugh at her own rather lumbering joke.
"Nobody but you and Lord Dauntrey, as it happens."
"Well," Eve began to speak slowly, as if on reflection, "I'm sure you must have some wise reason for what you're doing, dear; but whatever it is, I can't help thinking it will be a very good thing for you to have us with you. You're too young and pretty to be running about by yourself, and going to stay in lonesome villas. There are servants at the Château Lontana who expect you, anyhow, I suppose?"
"Only a caretaker Captain Hannaford put in. I haven't had time to let her know."
"Dear me, you are casual! The place is near Ventimiglia, isn't it? I've never seen it."
"I've only passed, motoring to Bordighera. It's not very far beyond the frontier."
"Good! That simplifies matters. Dauntrey can easily run back to Monte to-morrow and get his money. When are you starting, dear?"
"I must find out about trains. And before I leave, I have to go to the Galerie Charles Trois andget a jeweller there to take back one or two pieces of jewellery, for I must have some money. When I—decided to start this evening, the bank was already shut."
Lady Dauntrey darted a sudden glance of interest at the bag in Mary's hand, which she had been too preoccupied to notice until now. Her guest had kept most of the much talked of jewels at the bank, while staying at the Villa Bella Vista, but it was not difficult to guess that at present they were in their owner's hand.
"You won't get nearly what the things are worth," she said. "A pity to sell just because you were too late to cash a cheque! I've got a hundred francs. Why not let us all three go to Italy with that, and Dauntrey can finance you with the Casino money till you get some from your bank? He can take over a cheque of yours. That would save time, you know—for it's late already."
"Very well," Mary agreed. A heavy sense of depression had fallen upon her. The eager anxiety she had felt to reach the end of her journey and write to Vanno died down like a fire quenched by water.
"You didn't tell me that you had a hundred francs," Dauntrey reproached his wife.
"No," she replied. "And I wouldn't have told you now, if you weren't obliged to keep out of the Casino."
He turned his head aside, and was silent.
"Aren't you taking luggage?" Lady Dauntrey inquired of Mary.
"Yes. I have a small trunk and a hand-bag with me."
"Where are they?"
"In the room of the concierge at Mrs. Winter's."
"Let me think a minute," said Eve. "Why should we wait for a train? There's sure not to be one when we want it. We have no luggage, and you say your trunk is small. We might hire a carriage and drive. It would be much pleasanter. Perhaps you can lend me a few things for to-night?"
"Of course," Mary answered, trying to be cordial.
"How good you are to us!" Eve exclaimed. "We can never be grateful enough. Dauntrey, will you go on to the railway station and order a commissionnaire to fetch Mary's things from the Winters' house? He can bring them back to the station in his cart."
"Why shouldn't we pick the things up on our way, if we're to have a carriage?" her husband argued.
"Because my plan's the best," she insisted. "We must eat before we start. There won't be much food in the villa, as Mary's paying a surprise visit. We'll go to a little hotel by the station. I'm frozen, and food will do us all good. By the time we're ready to start the man will have brought the luggage."
"It sounds unnecessarily complicated," Dauntrey muttered; but Eve gave him a gimlet look from under level brows, and he slouched away obediently, leaving his wife to follow slowly with the girl.
The last familiar face Mary saw as she left Monte Carlo was that of the hunchbacked dwarf at St. Roman. He was hobbling away from his pitch to go home, and from the window of the closed landau Mary waved a hand to him as the horses trotted by.
"Who was that?" Eve asked, leaning forward, then throwing herself back as if she wished not to be seen.
"Only the dwarf beggar at the bridge," Mary answered.
"Oh, only a beggar!" Lady Dauntrey settled herself comfortably again.
The voice of the waves came up with the wind in a ceaseless moan, and for the first time Mary hated the sound of the sea. It was like the wailing of a great company of mourning women. Far above the road, Roquebrune clock struck seven. It was scarcely night, but darkness loomed ahead like a black wall, toward which the horses hurried yet could never pass. In this wall glittered square peepholes of light, which were windows of houses at Cap Martin—Angelo's house among others. When with a turn of the road the bright spots vanished, Mary was overwhelmed with homesickness, such pangs as children suffer. She did not wish to be inthe Villa Mirasole, but leaving it behind in the darkness and travelling toward the unknown made her feel that she was shut out in the night alone, far from Vanno, far from all that could remind her of him.
"Remember eternal!" She thought with a superstitious pang of the tablet and of the parted lovers.
Marie had "seen pigeons," and said that they meant sorrow and separation. The girl had written of this to Vanno, only a few hours ago, in a spirit of laughter, but she had been young and happy then. Now she felt deserted and old. She was not glad to have the Dauntreys with her. She would rather have been going alone to the Château Lontana. Eve's figure sitting beside her, Lord Dauntrey's opposite, with his back to the horses, looked black against blackness. They spoke seldom and they were like dreams of the night, which had taken life. Mary remembered how she had dreamed of Eve, and how glad she had been to wake. But now she was awake and Eve was by her side. It was like a garden game the big girls had made her play when she was the youngest child in the convent-school. They had wound long, thick strings round her waist and ankles; then they had made her run, and when she had gone a certain distance they drew her back, slowly and firmly, or with violence, according to their mood. This had been a torture to the imaginative little girl, and Sister Marie-des-Anges, seeing it one day, ordered the older children to stop, and the game had been forbidden. This benevolent edicthad given Mary a warm sense of being protected; but there was no one to protect her now.
If the girl had been happy, she could have laughed at these memories, coming up in connection with the two silent, dark figures of the man and woman she was to shelter in her house; but in her perplexity their presence made the desolation of the night more desolate.
Mentone streets were empty and the shops shut: only hotel and villa windows were bright. The carriage passed through the town, and beyond the last houses of Garavan the night was blacker than before.
They came to the Italian frontier, broken off from the rich slopes of France by the deep Gorge of St. Louis, resonant with singing water. Mary knew how by daylight the mountains of Italy loomed cold in contrast to the warm cultivation of the western hills, bare as a series of stone shelves at an antiquary's, spread with a few rags of faded green to show off some sparsely scattered jewels. But in the night she could see nothing, and could hear only the moan of sea and wind, mingled strangely with the high complaining voice of hidden streams. On the mountainside twinkled the feeble lights of Grimaldi, a poor rock-town once the fortress house of Monaco's princes; and after another plunge into the darkness of folding hills and olive groves they passed La Mortola. Not more than a mile or two beyond the village and the sleeping garden, Mary, with her face always at the window, said:
"Now we are coming to the Château Lontana!"
Eve and her husband both leaned forward, straining their eyes to make out a height rising above the road, and the black shape of a house with towers which seemed cut in the purple curtain of the sky. There were black nunlike forms of cypress trees also, which stood grouped together as if looking down thoughtfully from their tall slopes, and old, wide-branching olives were filmy as a gray cloud in the darkness.
The Monte Carlo coachman evidently knew the place, for he slowed down without being asked, and stopped in front of a large double gate of iron between glimmering columns of pale stone. This was the entrance from the road; but an avenue ran steeply up the rocky slope, twisting in zigzags to reach the house. Jumping down from his box the man tried the gates, expecting to find them locked, but they yielded to a stout push, and a moment later he drove in. The horses, tired from breasting the wind on many hills, went up the incline slowly, the wheels grating over small stones on the ill-kept drive. Mary thought the noise of hoofs and wheels so sharp and unmistakable that she looked to see some eye of light suddenly open in the black face of the house. It was not yet nine o'clock, and the caretaker could hardly have gone to bed. But there was no sign of life; and the dark château among crowding trees might have stood in silence and desolation for a century of sleep, like the lost palace of the enchanted beauty.
A flight of marble steps went up to a colonnaded terrace, and Lord Dauntrey mounted first to ring the bell.
"Perhaps the caretaker has given herself a holiday, and we can't get in after all," he gloomily suggested. His wife did not answer; but Mary, sitting beside the silent woman, heard her breathing fast. This betrayal of anxiety seemed tragic. "Poor Lady Dauntrey!" the girl said to herself in pity. "Here is her one hope of shelter. She's afraid it may fail." And Mary tried to be glad that whatever happened it was in her power to help the unlucky couple.
The carriage lights gilded the marble stairs, showing cracks and a green, mossy growth under each shallow step. There was a heavy fragrance of datura flowers, sickly sweet, that mingled with a scent of moss and mouldy, unkempt growing things, touching the imagination like the perfume of sad memories.
Lord Dauntrey rang again and again the old-fashioned bell whose insistent voice could be heard jangling through the house. At last, when he had rung four times, a wavering light suddenly streaked with yellow the glass crescent above the door. There was a noise of a chair falling, a bolt slipping back, a key turning rustily; and through these sounds of life the shrill yap, yap of a little dog cut like sharp crackings of a whip. The door opened a few inches, and the yellow light haloed a dark head.
"Who is it?" a woman's voice called out in bad Italian, through the shrill bursts of barking.
Lord Dauntrey could neither speak nor understand Italian; but already Mary was halfway up the steps. "It is the Signorina Grant, of whom you have heard," she explained. "You know from the lawyer that Captain Hannaford has given his place to me?"
"Ah, the Signorina at last!" exclaimed the voice, with an accent of joy. "Be thou still, little ten times devil!" The door opened wide, and a gust of wind would have blown out the flame of the lamp in the woman's hand had she not hastily stepped back into the shelter of a vestibule, at the same time squeezing the miniature wolf-hound under her arm, so that its yap was crushed into a stricken rumble.
Lady Dauntrey now began to ascend the steps, and the coachman, anxious to get home, alertly dismounted the two pieces of baggage. He brought the small trunk and big dressing-bag up to the door, plumping them down on the marble floor of the terrace so noisily that the dog again convulsed itself with rage. The price the man asked was paid without haggling; he and Lord Dauntrey between them dragged Mary's possessions into the vestibule, and the door was shut. As the girl heard the sounds of hoofs trotting gayly away, she would have given much to call after the driver, to spring into the carriage and let herself be taken anywhere, if only she need not stay with the Dauntreys and the yapping dog in this desolate house, which was a dead man's gift to her.
Her spirits faintly revived when the lamplight had shown her the richly coloured dark face of the womanwith the dog. It was a young face, though too full and heavy chinned to be girlish: and from under an untidy crown of black hair two great yellow-brown eyes, faithful and lustrous as a spaniel's, gazed with eager curiosity at the Signorina. If the caretaker of the Château Lontana had been old and forbidding Mary's cup of misery would have overflowed, but the pleased smile of this red-lipped, full-bosomed, healthy creature gave light and warmth to the house.
"Welcome, Signorina," she said in the guttural Italian of one accustomed to apatois. "It has been very lonely here since the poor Captain ceased to come. The lawyer from Ventimiglia said perhaps the new mistress would arrive and surprise me one day, but the time seemed long, alone with the dog. Will the Signorina and her friends come in? Think nothing of the baggage. I am strong and can carry it without help. What a pity I did not know of the good fortune this night would bring! There is nothing to eat but a little black bread, cheese, and lettuce with oil: to drink, only coffee or some rough red wine of the country, and fires nowhere except in the kitchen. But I have pleased myself by keeping the best rooms prepared as well as I could. Fires are laid in three of the fireplaces, and three beds can be ready when a warming pan full of hot embers has been passed between the sheets. It was the poor, good Captain himself who told me to be prepared. He too seemed to think that the Signorina might come with friends, and talked to me of it the last day he was here."
As the woman rambled on, she led the way into a large hall opening out from the vestibule. In the dim light cast by her lamp the high ceilinged, white-walled, sparsely furnished space was dreary as a snow-cave, and as cold; but Mary could see that by day there might be possibilities of stately charm. She forced herself to praise the hall in order to please the caretaker, whose eyes begged some word of admiration.
"Oh, there are many beautiful rooms, Signorina," the Italian woman said. "In sunlight they are lovely. To-morrow, if the Signorina permits, I will show her all over the house, and tell her what things the Captain liked best. But night is the bad time here. I do not know how I should get on were it not for my dog, which the Captain allowed me to bring down from my home in the mountains."
"Ask her if she speaks or understands French," said Eve.
Mary obeyed.
"Ah, Signorina, unfortunately I have but little French. It was all I could do to learn Italian well. With us up there, we have apatois, but the curé of our village makes the children study Italian. Afterward we are glad. Such French as we have, we pick up later by ourselves."
"Where is your village?" Mary inquired.
"Very far away, Signorina, and very high up, where the snows lie always in winter. It is a town built on a rock where in oldest days once stood a temple of Baal. Our houses are very ancient, andthey stand back to back like soldiers fighting. The Signorina cannot conceive how wild we are there. And the dogs are wild, too. They often run away from the village when they are young and go to live with the wolves, farther up the mountain. Then they regret sometimes; and when the smell of cooking mounts on the wind, the poor animals creep down as far as they dare, to sit on a ridge of rock where they can see people moving below. But they can never come back, for the wolves would be angry and run after, to kill them in revenge. Look at my dog, how like a baby wolf he is. All our dogs are born with the faces of wolves. I have an aunt at home who is a witch. The whole village fears her, for she curses those she hates, and works wicked spells. Me she hates worst of all because I refused to live in her house when I was young. I had to run away at last with my dog, or she would have murdered me, in spite of the curé. He sent me to a woman he knew, who had been cook in this house. When I came she had died, and the place was already sold. But I met the Captain and he engaged me to be caretaker."
"He told me," Mary said, "that your name was Apollonia, and that you were honest and good."
"He spoke to me of the Signorina, too," answered the young woman. "He described her as very beautiful, like a saint or an angel, with kind, sweet eyes, and hair like the sun in a mist. That is why, when I saw the Signorina to-night, I knew she must be the right one. If it had been the other lady who camefirst to the house, I should not have believed she was the Captain's Signorina. It is very strange, but her eyes are the eyes of my aunt who is the witch. I hope the Signorina will not be offended with me for saying this of her friend, for I can not help remarking it. My aunt is not old, though older than that Signora. And she is handsome; but of course the Signora is much handsomer and grander than a poor peasant woman."
"I think," said Mary, willing to change the subject, "that we had better see our rooms, and have the fires lighted. Give my friends the best there is—two rooms adjoining, and I will take what is left. We shall stay with you a few days—perhaps more. We can't settle our plans quite yet."
"The longer, the better for me, Signorina," Apollonia replied. She smiled at her new mistress; but when her look turned to Lady Dauntrey she secretly "made horns" with the first and last fingers of the hand that held the dog; the sign which Italians and Arabs use to keep off the evil eye.
She opened doors, holding her smoky lamp high, and with the air of a hospitable queen (such as most Italian peasant women have), she showed to the Signorina the splendours of her domain. They were, to be sure, but tarnished and dilapidated splendours, nevertheless Mary began to understand even in the gloom of night how these great rooms, peopled now with shadows, had appealed to Hannaford. She could guess what the view from windows and garden must be like, and had she come to the house in happier circumstances she would have looked forward to seeing everything in morning sunshine. As it was, she wished for one thing only: for the moment when she could be alone, to think, and write her letter to Vanno.
Mary and her guests refused food but accepted coffee, made quickly and well by Apollonia. They drank from cracked or chipped but beautiful cups of old Sèvres, and shivered in an immense Empire dining-room, while Apollonia lighted fires and warmed beds in the "best rooms" upstairs, which they had not yet mustered courage to visit. Lady Dauntrey became more cheerful over the hot coffee, and atoned to her husband for past taunts and reproaches by a manner of almost deprecating affection. Mary had never seen her so soft and sweet. She was a different woman, and even her expression was changed. The girl could not help remembering what Apollonia had said about the "witch-eyes"; but she thought the Italian would not have found a likeness to the terrible aunt could she now have seen Lady Dauntrey for the first time. Mary was glad of the change for Lord Dauntrey's sake, because, though he was weak, perhaps unworthy, she pitied him with a pity akin to pain.
When Apollonia came back to say that all was ready for the night, the three followed her up the wide and beautifully designed marble staircase which led to the first and second stories.
There was no question of choice in apportioning the three "best rooms," prepared for occupation,because two adjoined each other, with a door between; and these suggested themselves naturally for Lord and Lady Dauntrey. The third and smaller room was at a distance, and had only one door, which opened to the hall; but there was a great French window leading to a balcony and evidently looking southward, over the slopes of the garden down to the sea.
"This was the room the poor Captain loved," Apollonia announced; "therefore it is right the Signorina should have it for her own. He hoped she might choose it, I know. Sometimes he spent a night here, toward the last. Perhaps he can see the Signorina at this moment, and if he can, I am sure he is very happy."
Had there been a possibility of changing from that room to any other in the house, even the worst and meanest, Mary would have changed gladly; but she could not take one of the rooms she had given the Dauntreys; and to order another got ready would have seemed heartless to Apollonia, whose quick intuition would have told her the reason.
Mary resigned herself to sleep in the room where Hannaford had thought and dreamed of her.
When they had bidden their hostess good-night, and their doors were locked, Lord and Lady Dauntrey stood together for a moment at one of the long windows of the larger room. This Eve had taken, and on the bed with the high, carved walnut back lay the night-dress borrowed from Mary. Throughtorn clouds a few stars glittered like coins in a gashed purse, and very far away to the west, at the end of all things visible, was a faint, ghostly gleam which meant the dazzling lights of the Casino and its terrace, at Monte Carlo.
Lady Dauntrey rested against her husband's shoulder, as if his companionship were dear and essential to her. She had done this often before their marriage and shortly after; but not once for many months now. It seemed to him that he could remember every one of the caresses which had bound him to her as with ropes from which he could not, and did not desire to, escape. A long time ago in South Africa, when she had first made him love her, she had been pleased when he called her his "beautiful tigress." She had kissed him for the name, and said that of all animals she adored tigers; that she believed she had been a tigress once; and when they were rich—as they would be some time—he must buy her a splendid tiger skin to lie on. This very day the tigress thought of her had been in his heart, but not as a loving fancy. She had seemed to him cruel and terrible as a hungry animal despising her mate because he fails to bring her prey as food. He had said to himself in shame and desolation of soul that she had never cared for him really, but only for what he might give; and because he had disappointed her, giving little, she hated and would perhaps leave him, to better herself. Now the touch of her shoulder against his breast, and the tired, childlike tucking of her head into his neck, warmedhis blood that had run sluggishly and cold as the blood of a prisoner in a cell. New courage flowed back to his heart. Vague thoughts of suicide flapped away like night-birds with the coming of light. If Eve cared for him still he had the incentive to live.
"That place seems to haunt us," she murmured, as they stood together in seeming love and need of one another. He knew what she meant. Their eyes were on the distant glimmer of Monte Carlo. "Its influence follows us."
"From here the lights look pure white, like the lights of some mysterious paradise, seen far off across the sea," Dauntrey said.
"No," his wife answered; "to me they're more like the light that comes out of graves at night time; the strange, phosphorescent light of decayed, dead things. We've done with that lure light forever, haven't we?"
"I suppose so!" A sigh of yearning and regret heaved his breast, under the nestling head. "If you're going to be kind to me again, Eve, I can do anything and go anywhere."
"Good!" she said in the soft, purring tone which had made him think of her as a beautiful tigress, when their life together lay before them. "Iwillbe kind, very kind, if only you'll prove that you really love me. You never have proved it yet."
"Haven't I? I thought I had, often—to-day, even——"
"Oh! don't let's go back to that. I can't bearto think of it. We weren't ourselves—either of us. If I was cross, forgive me, dear."
"I deserved it all," he said, pressing her against his side. "Now you're making me a man again."
"You must be a man—a strong man—if you want me to love you as I once did, and as Icanlove. Oh, and I can—I can love! You don't know yet how much."
"What shall I have to do?" he asked. "Do you mean anything in particular, or——"
"Yes, I mean something in particular."
"I'll do it, darling, whatever it may be. I feel the strength."
She wrapped him in her arms and clung to him, talking softly, with her lips against his hollowed cheek, so that her breath fluttered softly past it with each half-whispered word.
"That's a promise," she said. "I won't let you break it. But you won't want to break it. I'll love you so much—enough to make up for everything. Enough to keep you from remembering those lights over there."
"They're nothing to me," he assured her. "I don't believe I'll ever want to see them again. There are other places where I can do better than at Monte Carlo. Baccarat's a safer game than roulette or trente et quarante, I begin to think, and I could adapt the system——"
"Never mind the system now! You'll have to go back to Monte to-morrow to get your eighty pounds, and a cheque cashed for Mary Grant—abig one, I hope. Then you can redeem some of our things. One trunk for each of us will be enough, for I want to go a long way off and travel quickly."
"Where do you want to go?" Dauntrey asked, indulgently, in a dreaming voice, as if her love and the force of her fierce vitality were hypnotizing him. He spoke as if he were so near happiness again that he would gladly go anywhere, to find it once more with Eve.
"I haven't made up my mind about that yet."
"Oh, I thought you had! You always make up your mind so quickly when you want anything."
"I've been putting my mind to what we must do first, before we go away. Thereisa thing to do; and it will have to be done soon, or it will be too late."
Her tone was suddenly sharp as a knife rubbed against steel.
"What thing?" her husband asked, startled out of his dream.
Instantly she softened again and clung to him and round him more closely than before. "Darling," she said, "you've just told me that you'd do anything for my sake."
"So I would. So I will."
"Sometimes men are ready to do anything except the one thing the women who love them ask them to do."
"It won't be like that with me, Eve. Try me and see."
"I will. I want you to go with me far, far away, where we've never been before, to make a new life,and belong only to each other. But before we go, so that we can be happy and not wretched, miserable beggars, we—not you alone—but we two together must do what will give us money to start all over again. And listen to this, dearest: it will be a thing which will draw us so closely together that we'll be one in body and soul forever and ever, in this world and the next."
"You almost frighten me," Dauntrey said.
"Don't be frightened," she implored, her mouth close to his. "If you're frightened, you'll fail me—and then it's all over between us."
"All over between us!"
"Yes, because if you fail, you break your solemn promise, and you're not the man I thought you were—not the man I can love. I'll go out of your life and find some one who is stronger, because I've got too much love in me to waste."
"What do you want me to do?"
"To find a plan, at once—to-morrow, after you come back—for us to get Mary Grant's jewels and all the money you bring to her from Monte Carlo, and then to go safely away—together, where we can be happy."
"Good God!" He broke loose from her clinging arms, and pushed her off. "You want me to murder the girl!"
They faced one another in the dreary glimmer of the two candles. For an instant neither spoke, but each could hear the other breathing in the semi-darkness.
"What a horrible thought!" Eve flung herself upon him again and caught his hands, which had been hot as they clasped hers but had suddenly grown cold, as a stone is chilled when the sun leaves it in shadow. He did not snatch his hands away, but they gave no answering pressure. He bowed his head like a man who is very tired, having come to the end of his strength.
"Have we sunk to this?" he groaned under his breath, yet Eve caught the words.
"Wait! You've misunderstood me," she reassured him eagerly. "I don't want you to—take her life. Only—we must have money, and those jewels of hers—she doesn't need them. We do. And we'remeantto have them, else why should we have been thrown in her way just at the right moment? Why should we be now in this lonely house, no one knowing that we're here? It's Destiny. I saw that when she spoke about the jewel-case. Didn't you guess what was in my mind?"
"I was past guessing," Dauntrey said. "I had enough to think of without putting problems to myself."
"It's lucky my brain kept awake. That was why I proposed driving here instead of coming by train, where somebody might have seen us: that was why I wouldn't call for the luggage at Mrs. Winter's."
"Do you dream for a moment that if—if there were any inquiry the police wouldn't be able find out we were in this thing?" Dauntrey asked in bitter impatience. "How like a woman!"
"I'm not so simple. If we're clever, there won't be an inquiry. And even if there were any accident, we should be all right. There'd be nothing against us. And we'd be out of the way before the fuss began. They couldn't even get at us as witnesses."
"What's in your mind? You talk as if you had some definite plan."
"I have. But it depends on you. Surely with all your knowledge, you know a drug that can temporarily weaken a person's will? There must be something that girl could take which would make her willing to follow our suggestions? She's in such a nervous condition, a sudden illness would seem quite natural. Once she was in the right state, I could persuade her to give us her jewels and some cheque. Then we wouldn't let the grass grow under our feet. We'd be off—and in no danger."
"There's no drug of that sort," said Dauntrey.
"I don't believe you. Oh, say there is! I don't know what I may be driven to do, with my own hands, if you refuse to help me."
"I tell you there's no such thing—that isn't dangerous to life."
She caught at this admission. "What is the thing in your mind?" she whispered tensely.
"A plant that grows in this garden," he admitted sullenly. "You must have smelt the perfume when we drove in."
"Datura! I remember. The Kaffirs make a decoction of it in South Africa. They think it's a love potion."
"Yes, that's what I mean. There are two ways of using it. One way it's a deadly poison. The other makes those who take the stuff stupid. But even so it's dangerous. I've seen one or two victims of that experiment who didn't come back to their senses, but remained dull and melancholy, caring for nothing and nobody."
"That's a risk we must run," said Eve, with the briskness of hope and a decision arrived at. "It's simply providential!"
"Good Lord, what a word to use!"
"It slipped out. I suppose, after all, I'm conventional. Providence and destiny are the same. Think how everything has worked up to this. Even the datura in the garden!"
"It can stay there!" Dauntrey blurted out, savagely.
With a hand on each of his shoulders, she held herself off from her husband at arm's length, looking him straight in the eyes with her level, compelling gaze.
"I swear to you," she said slowly, giving each word its full value, "that if you won't do this for me, I will kill Mary Grant, and go away with her jewels, to lead my own life without you. If you choose you can denounce me. But in no other way, unless you help, and so save her life, can you prevent me from keeping my word. I love you now, and if you're brave enough to get fortune and a new start for us at this small risk, I'll love you all the rest of my life as no woman ever loved a man. If not——"
"I'll do it!" he answered, the blood streaming up to his face.
She laced her fingers round his neck and drew him against her bosom. For a moment they stood thus, very still, clasped in each other's arms, her lips pressed to his.
At last Mary had time to think, and to write to Vanno.
In her dressing-bag, which the caretaker had carried up to her room, were writing materials. On a table in the middle of the room was the best lamp in the house. Apollonia had brought it to the beloved Signorina, as her ancestresses in the wild mountain village might have laid offerings on Baal's shrine. The new mistress was to have all the most beautiful and desirable things that the house could provide—was to have them in spite of herself; for Apollonia's heart held no warmth for those friends whom the Signorina had placed in the best rooms.
Mary was not conscious of fatigue, yet she sat with her elbows resting heavily on the table, her chin in her hands. The lamp stood at the left side; and in front was the great uncurtained window. As her eyes looked to the stars, it was as if their eyes flashed brightly back, through rents in the black veil of cloud.
"What am I to say to Vanno?" she asked herself.
The first hopefulness grasped as a crutch for failing courage had broken down hours ago. At best it had been something unseen to which she might cling in the dark. She had said: "By andby I shall know what to do. I won't give him up. I shall tell him I'm innocent. He'll believe in me without any proof." But now she was face to face with the great question, and must meet point after point as it was presented to her mind.
She had promised Marie to keep the secret. She had sworn by her love for Vanno and Vanno's love for her that she would not tell him nor any one; that she would not even speak out in confession to a priest. Yes! But when she promised she did not dream that her whole future happiness and perhaps Vanno's would depend upon the issue. Surely she could not be expected to sacrifice everything for Marie, who had betrayed her, who had made the cruellest use of a friend's loyalty. The most severe judge would grant the right to tell Vanno the history of this day: what Marie had done; and how in spite of all, even when Angelo insulted her, she, Mary, had kept silence for the sake of the family honour and peace.
The girl told herself this; but deep down, under the repeated assurances which she forced upon her conscience, a whisper made itself clearly heard. "Even if you have this right," the voice said, "will it bring you happiness to use it? Think what it means. You tell Vanno that his brother's wife is a woman who sinned before her marriage and deceived her husband. That she lied and let you suffer for her sake, rather than Angelo should find out what she was; that Angelo insulted you, saying you were no fit companion for his wife, whom you had saved;that because of his insults you had to leave his house. When Vanno hears these things from you he will believe them, and, besides, they can very well be proved. But can you make up to him by your love for all he will have to lose? He will not consent to let you suffer for Marie. He will insist on proving to Angelo which of the two is guilty. The brothers will hate each other. Marie perhaps may kill herself. The Duke will know that Vanno and Angelo have quarrelled hopelessly, even if he learns no more than that. The family life which has been happy will be embittered—through you. On the other hand, Vanno will have nothing but your love."
All this the voice said, and Mary had no argument with which to talk it down.
There was one alternative, and she turned to it desperately: She could write, or even telegraph Vanno, saying, "Come to me before you see Angelo. I have something to tell you." He would come, and she could say, "Your Cousin Idina Bland tried to ruin Marie with her husband. There was a story about a girl who had been at the convent where I was brought up. Marie said it must be true not of her but of me, if it were true at all. The only part really true is that I was at the Convent of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake. I did none of the things Angelo may tell you I did. Do you love me enough and want me enough to take me without proof of what I say? Because I have a good reason for not even trying to give any proof."
This would seem very strange to Vanno—thatshe should have a good reason for not trying to prove her truth; but Mary thought, now that he knew her well and loved her well, he would take her in spite of all, rather than give her up. But—could she let him take her in that way?
No matter how great his love, the question must creep into his mind sometimes: "What if she is the woman Angelo thinks her? What if she has made a fool of me?" Such thoughts, even though thrust out by him with violence, must mingle poison with his happiness, and at last cloud the brightness of his love. Besides, they two would have to live apart from his people. If she were Vanno's wife, he and Angelo could not be friends.
It began to seem, after all, as if there were no way out. Whether she kept her word to Marie or broke it, as Marie deserved, never, it seemed, could she and Vanno know untroubled happiness together. The music of their love must at best be jarred by discords: and looking to the stars behind the drifting clouds, Mary told herself with a bursting heart that it would be kinder to break with Vanno now.
For a long time she sat at the table without moving, her chin in her hands, her eyes always on the window. The fire of wood which Apollonia had lighted died down to a heap of red-jewelled ashes. The room, long unused and but superficially heated, became cold with the harsh, relentless cold of a vault. Mary's body lost its warmth, and grew chill as marble. When she was ready to write she couldscarcely move her hands, but she warmed her fingers by breathing upon them, and at last began her letter to Vanno.