"You!--then it was you--John Steele--that they--"
"The convict they tried to arrest? Yes."
"You? I don"t--" Her voice was almost childlike.
"I will help you to--understand!" An ashen shade came over his face, but it pa.s.sed quickly; his voice sounded brusk. "For months, since a fatal evening all light, brilliancy, beauty!--the convict has been trying to hold back the inevitable; but the net whose first meshes were then woven, has since been drawing closer--closer. In the world two forces are ever at work, the pursuers and the pursued. In this instance the former," harshly, "were unusually clever. He struggled hard to keep up the deception until he could complete a defense worthy of the name. But to no avail! He felt the end near; did not expect it so soon, however, this night!--this very night--!"
The man paused; there was a strange gleam in the dark eyes that lingered on her; its light was succeeded by another, a fiercer expression. For the first time she moved, shrank back slightly. "I"m afraid I used a few of them roughly," he said with look derisory. "There was no time for soft talk; it was cut and run--give "leg bail," as the thieves say." Did he purposely relapse into coa.r.s.er words to clench home the whole d.a.m.ning, detestable truth? Her fine soft lips quivered; it may be she felt herself awakening--slowly; one hand pressed now at her breast. In the grate the fire sank, although a few licking flames still thrust their fiery tongues between black lumps of coal.
"But it was a close call, out there in the garden! They were before the convict in the woods; he must needs double back to the shadow of the house! At the bottom of a moat he looked up to a balcony overhead, small as Juliet"s---though I swear he thought it led to armory hall, not here; had he known the truth, he would have stayed there first, and--But, as it was, he heard voices around the corner; afar, men approaching. The ivy at Strathorn House is almost as old as the house itself, the main branches larger than a man"s arm. It was not difficult to get here, though I wish now--" he dared smile bitterly--"they had come on me first."
The breeze at the window slightly shook the curtain; it waved in and out; the ta.s.sels struck faint taps on the sill.
"But why--?" she began at length, then stopped, as if the question were gone almost as soon as it suggested itself.
"--did I return here,--reenter Strathorn House?" he completed it for her. "Because there seemed nothing else to do; it was probably only temporizing with the inevitable--but one always temporizes."
She moved slowly out into the room; his face was half-averted; all the light that came from the grate, rested now on hers. At that instant she seemed like a shadow, beautiful, but a shadow, going toward him as through no volition of her own. The thick texture on the floor drowned the sound of her steps; she paused with her fingers on the gilded frame of a settee. He did not turn, although he must have known she was near; with his back toward her he gazed down at the soft, bright hues of the rug, and on it a white thing, a tiny bit of lace, a handkerchief that some time before had fluttered to the floor and had been left lying there.
"But--" she spoke now--"you--you who seemed all that was--I can"t believe--it is impossible--inconceivable--"
His features twitched, the nerves seemed moving beneath the skin; but he answered in a hard tone. "I have told you the truth; because," the words broke from him, "I had to! Must I," despite himself there was an accent of acutest pain in his voice, "repeat it?"
"No!" said the girl. "Oh, no."
"You guessed I was going away. I was going so that you might never learn what you know now."
"I--guessed you were going? Ah, to-night--on the balcony!"
Did he divine what her words recalled, could not but bring to mind? A tint sprang to her white face; it spread even to the white throat. The blue eyes grew hard, very hard; the little hand he had so short a while before held in his, closed; the slender figure which had then seemed to waver, straightened. He read the thought his words had evoked, did not meet her eyes now.
"You tell me what you have--And yet you have come--dared to come here--under this roof--?"
It may be she also recalled his look when first he had entered this room, and, turning, had seen her; that her mind retained the impress of a bearing, bold, mocking.
"Oh," she said, "it was infamous!"
The word struck him like a whip, lashed his face to a dull red; the silence grew.
"I would not presume to dispute or to contradict any conclusion you may have reached," he spoke at length in a low, even voice. "I had not, as I said, intended this last, this most inexcusable intrusion. You have now only one course to pursue--" His gaze turned to the long silken bell-rope on the wall. "And I promise not to resist."
Her glance followed his, returned to his face, to his eyes, quietly challenging. She took a step.
"Well?" he said.
She had suddenly stopped; in the hall voices were heard approaching; he too caught them.
"That simplifies matters," he remarked.
Her breast stirred; she stood listening; they came nearer--now were at the door. A measured knocking broke the stillness.
"Jocelyn!" The voice was that of Sir Charles. "Are you there?" She did not answer. "Kindly unlock the door."
CHAPTER XIV
AN ANSWER
The girl made no motion to obey and the knocking was repeated; mechanically she moved toward the threshold. "Yes?" All the color had left her face. "What--what is it?"
"Don"t mean to alarm you, my dear, but Mr. Gillett thinks the convict might be concealing himself somewhere in the house; indeed, that it is quite likely. So we are making a little tour of inspection. Shall we not go through your rooms? There! don"t be frightened!" quickly, "only as a matter of precaution, you know."
"I," she seemed to catch her breath, "it is really quite unnecessary. I have been through them myself."
"Might have known that!" with an attempt at jocoseness. "But thought we would make sure. Your balcony, you have looked there?"
"Yes."
"Very well; lock your window leading to it. Only as a matter of precaution," he repeated hastily. "No need of our coming in, I fancy.
You had retired?"
"I--was about to."
"Quite right." A moment the party lingered. "Shall I send one of the maids to sleep in your dressing-room? Company, you know! Your voice sounds a little nervous."
"Does it? Not at all!" she said hastily. "I am--not in the least nervous."
"Good night, then!" They went. "One of my men in the garden felt sure he had seen him return toward the house," Mr. Gillett"s voice was wafted back, became fainter, died away.
The man in the room stood motionless now, his face like that of a statue save for the light and life of his eyes. The clock beat the moments; he looked at her. The girl was almost turned from him; he saw more of the bright hair than the pale profile, so still against the delicately carved arabesques of the panel.
"The other way would have been--preferable!"
There was nothing reckless or bold in his bearing now; but, looking away, she did not see. Was he tempted, if only in an infinitesimal degree, to suggest a plea of mitigating circ.u.mstances--not for his own sake but for hers; that she might feel less keenly that sense of hurt, of outraged pride, for having smiled on him, admitted him to a certain frank, free intimacy? Before the words fell from his lips, however, she turned; her gaze arrested his purpose, made him feel poignantly, acutely, the distance now between them. "What were you," she hesitated, emphasized over-sharply the word, "transported for?"
An instant his eyes flashed suddenly back at her, as if he were on the point of answering, telling her all, disavowing; but to what end? To ask more of her than of others, throw himself on her generosity?
"What does it matter?"
True; what did it matter to her; he had been in prisons before, by his own words.
"Your name, of course, is not John Steele?"