For the moment the words trembled on my lips, but I pressed them back.
We stood the while in silence.
"It has been so terrible that I can scarcely dare to hope," she murmured, her voice unsteady.
"Hope! For what, Althea?" I whispered.
She raised her head and our eyes met. All was clear to us both then.
"You may hope, Althea. I am sure."
Instinctively I stretched out my arm, and of herself she came to me and laid her head on my shoulder.
"You know what I have hoped, then?"
"Paul!" Just a sigh of happiness and full content.
"You love me? Ah, Althea!"
I lifted her head from my shoulders and took the sweet face between my hands, and then our lips met in the lingering ecstasy of love"s first kiss.
"My dearest!" I whispered.
A little fluttering sigh of delight escaped her as her head was again pillowed on my shoulder; and in that realm of love"s entrancing bliss we remained oblivious of all save our own rapture, and heedless each of everything except that together we had come into our own kingdom of happiness and perfect understanding.
We were roused by the sound of footsteps approaching the room. Althea drew away from me in tremulous confusion, her eyes shining radiantly, her colour mantling her cheeks.
It was my sister. "I was just coming for you, Bess," I said hurriedly, meeting her as she entered.
"I couldn"t think where you were. You were awfully quiet"; and she looked from one to the other doubtfully, and then went toward Althea.
Althea turned quickly on her approach, and kissed her very lovingly, and put her arms round her waist. And seeing her eyes, Bessie understood.
"Oh!"
Her glance at me was an eloquent subst.i.tute for anything more. And then in her turn she put her arms round Althea and hugged her.
"I"m going to my room, Bess; come to me presently," I exclaimed, and left them together.
At first the sense of the rapturous happiness which had come to me filled my thoughts to the exclusion of all else, and it was only Bessie"s arrival that called me down from the clouds.
She was a good chum but not usually demonstrative. Now, however, she came straight up to me and kissed me. "It"s just lovely, Paul; but of course I"ve been expecting it; and you two have been a long time coming to an understanding."
I laughed. I was in the mood to laugh at anything. "All right," I said inanely.
"Ah, you don"t understand women, Paul, or you"d have seen as plainly as I have that Althea has cared for you ever so long," she said sententiously.
"Where is she?"
"Gone upstairs to her father. That"s the only part I don"t like in it.
But poor Althea can"t help that. And now, haven"t we a lot to do yet?
One of the three must be practical and think of things; and Althea can"t. Oh, Paul, I never saw anything like her delight."
"Yes, I suppose one must be practical even at such a time"; and then we plunged into the discussion of my make-up for the evening"s business.
She had brought Althea"s dress down with her, and she fitted on the skirt and made such alterations as were needed. I kept it on, in order to accustom myself to it and be able to walk without tumbling over it.
I should wear it over my own things of course as I knew that I must be able to get it off when the need arose.
The bodice proved impossible, however; so Bessie cleverly improvised a subst.i.tute; and we arranged that I should wear a short cloak of hers which would come just below my waist. And she so contrived everything that I could readily rea.s.sume my own garb.
When all was finished I went up to my room to shave off my moustache, and we laughed long and heartily together at my clumsy efforts to follow her instructions about holding up the skirt in getting upstairs.
It might have been a sort of mad frolic we were planning instead of the grim business which I knew that night would see.
Then came the face make-up and the arrangement of the wig, hat and veil; and while Bessie was intent upon this, I slipped a loaded revolver into the pocket of my jacket, to which I had arranged ready access.
"I declare, you make quite a pretty girl, Paul; but you"re dreadfully awkward. You must take shorter steps or you"ll be found out the instant you leave the house," said Bessie, turning to survey the effect a moment later.
"Thank goodness there are only a few steps to walk in any event. The only tough part will be in the carriage with the beggar. By Jove, it"s close to the time. I"d better be ready in the drawing-room."
Just as we reached the room, Ellen met us. She took me for Althea, and was so astonished at seeing her dressed for the street that she exclaimed: "Are you going out, miss?"
I did not open my mouth and went on, but Bessie replied: "Yes, Ellen. A carriage is coming directly for Fraulein von Ringheim"--since Althea"s visit to the police when I had been taken away, we had dropped all attempt at concealing her name--"and when it arrives you will just come to this room and tell her."
"I could scarcely keep a straight face with Ellen," she said as she joined me.
"It took her in anyhow, and that"s hopeful; and now I"ll spend the last few minutes in practising this infernal walk."
I managed it better after a time, and I was in the middle of the practice when Althea came down. For the moment she mistook me for a friend of Bessie"s, and was going out quickly when she recognized her own dress.
"I declare I shouldn"t have known you, Paul."
I walked up to her with the little mincing gait and held out a gloved hand. "I hope you are well," I said in a falsetto voice. I saw how really anxious she was about the thing and was resolved to treat it as a joke.
But Althea was too overwrought to see any but the dangerous side of the affair. "I hope no harm will come to you," she exclaimed fervently.
"There is not the slightest fear of anything of the sort. But there mustn"t be three of us in the room when Ellen comes in or she"ll take one of us for a ghost. And the time"s up."
She came very close to me and I saw she was trembling. "I pray to Heaven all will be well," she cried earnestly.
"Within five minutes of our reaching his house I shall have that fellow on his knees. And now, you must go, or I shall be tempted to upset all these beastly arrangements on my head and--well, you know," I laughed.
At that moment we heard the sound of the carriage and she hurried away upstairs.
Then I saw how my sister had been hiding her real apprehension under a light laughing humour. "It will be all right, Paul? You are sure?" she asked, her lip trembling.
I replied in the same light vein as to Althea. "Unless the fool tries to kiss me in the carriage, or I give myself away, I cannot fail. I shall be back again in a very short time; and remember what I told you--you may have to rush off by the mail to-night. Be ready."
Ellen opened the door then and announced that the carriage had come.