"He"s not the most cheery person in the world, is he? I"ve begun to imagine I"ve caught some terrible germ or other."
Therese smiled as she rose from her chair.
"I shouldn"t worry, that is simply his way. I am sure he didn"t mean to alarm you. I am just going to scribble a note before dinner, while that is being done," she added, and went into her own room, closing the door.
"That was a stroke of luck," whispered Roger. "She wasn"t in the least offended, was she? She positively met me half-way."
"She really is a good sort, Roger," returned the old lady cautiously.
"I only wish we..."
She was unable to complete the sentence because of the doctor"s re-entry. He approached the table near the fire and laid his leather case upon it, then carefully began to spread out various things--cotton-wool, gauze, scissors, a bottle of iodine. With mechanical precision he prepared a long strip of gauze, plodding steadily ahead, entirely concentrated on his occupation. His broad back was turned to Roger and also to the hall door. He did not even trouble to turn around when the door opened rather suddenly, and the voice of Chalmers, sounding somewhat strained, spoke.
"Beg pardon, miss, but here is Miss..."
He did not finish, for just then an apparition, startling in the extreme, pushed violently past him and into the room. It was a girl"s figure, hatless, bedraggled, mudstained, her hair wild and drenched with rain, her eyes staring strangely, while one lividly pale cheek was defaced by a long smear of blood. Her breath came in gasps, laboured, terrible to hear, as though her heart threatened to burst its walls.
She cast one swift, penetrating glance at the three occupants of the room, then a sort of hoa.r.s.e scream came from her lips.
"Roger----!"
Almost speechless with incredulity, Roger leapt to his feet.
"Esther! You--where have you come from?"
"Roger! Roger!" came the odd, croaking voice again. "Stop him--don"t let him touch you--for G.o.d"s sake don"t let him touch your hand!"
Utterly astonished, the sickening suspicion rushed upon him that the doctor was right. She was in the grip of some dreadful delusion. At the same moment he was poignantly aware of her slenderness and fragility, the trembling of her hands. He reached her side, put out his hand to her to find her still staring at him, wild-eyed, panting for breath.
"Don"t touch that bandage, he wants to kill you. He killed your father, he and Lady Clifford between them, now he"s trying to get you, too. Oh, oh! thank G.o.d I reached you in time!"
Something seemed to snap, she wavered an instant like a drunken person, then all at once crumpled into a heap on the floor, where she lay shivering and sobbing.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
For a full second all the onlookers merely gazed, completely dumbfounded. Miss Clifford seemed unable to make a move, the doctor stood rooted to the spot by the table, his face expressionless, his fingers holding the long strip of gauze, which fluttered in the draught from the open door. The first to stir was Roger, who knelt beside the sobbing girl, and putting his arms around her body tried to lift her a little. The startling denunciation she had given voice to had hardly registered upon his brain, meaning to him only a confirmation of the deplorable truth which Sartorius had foreseen. She was, almost without doubt, unhinged: her whole appearance and manner went to prove it. In an agony of mind Roger took in the details of her sodden clothing, her wet, tangled hair, her dreadful pallor. His imagination flashed a swift vision of the poor girl wandering alone in the streets of Cannes for two days and nights. What was this terrible idea that obsessed her? how had she come by it? He spoke to her as to a child, with extreme gentleness.
"Esther, you poor little thing, what on earth is this all about? Try to tell me where you"ve been since you left here."
Her eyes, which were falling shut from exhaustion, tried to open for a moment. She made an effort to speak, but could not manage it, convulsive sobs still shaking her like a storm. The doctor and Miss Clifford had now come up and were bending over her.
"Oh, oh, so he was right, after all!" the old lady murmured in deep pity and consternation. "Poor girl; what a dreadful condition! What on earth can we do for her?"
Less moved than the others Sartorius motioned to Roger with his head, at the same time putting a firm hand on Esther"s trembling shoulder.
"I will attend to her, Mr. Clifford, leave her to me. I have dealt with these cases often. It is a mistake to sympathise too much; what they are playing for is sympathy. Just help me to get her to that sofa."
Right or wrong the cold-bloodedness of his att.i.tude repelled Roger strongly. He could not believe that Esther was playing for sympathy, but before he was able to voice any objection a fresh alarm came from his half-fainting charge. As though galvanised into life by the doctor"s touch, she uttered a shriek and cowered away from him.
"No! No! Not again! If he does that again I"m finished!"
The note of abject terror in the appeal struck a chill to Roger"s heart. Whatever this delusion was, it had reduced Esther to a serious state. Trembling violently she clung to him, her face buried in his neck. Miss Clifford, who had hastened to arrange the cushions on the high-backed canape that was set against the wall at the right of the room, looked on nonplussed, then after a moment approached and spoke soothingly.
"My dear, my dear, it"s quite all right, the doctor won"t hurt you.
There"s nothing to be afraid of."
"But there is, there is!" Roger heard a low whisper between chattering teeth. "For G.o.d"s sake protect me, don"t let him come near me!"
Sartorius straightened up slowly and shook his head in a disparaging fashion.
"I was afraid of this," he commented coldly. "It is going to be a little difficult to deal with her, unless----"
"Leave her to me, doctor," Roger said in a low tone. "It"s no good exciting her."
He picked her up and carried her to the canape, where very gently he laid her down. Even in that disturbed moment the touch of her damp curls and the faint odour of her skin moved him strangely. She might be demented, but it was not easy for him to forget that she was Esther.
"Don"t be afraid," he whispered in her ear. "I promise you he sha"n"t come near you."
She sank back with a quivering sigh; only the faintest pressure of her hand on his showed him she understood. He looked about with the idea of discovering some cover to put over her, for she seemed on the verge of a chill. As he did so he discovered Therese standing motionless in her doorway, a silent spectator. His eyes caught hers, and the expression on her face made him stare fixedly at her. Why was she gazing in that way at him and at Esther? He felt he had caught something in her eyes which she had not meant to be seen. What was it?
It looked like fear--sudden, abject fear. Why were her eyes widened in that fashion? He found himself examining her curiously....
All at once an impossible idea shot across his brain, searing it like a red-hot iron. Could there, after all, be some underlying grain of truth in that wild accusation Esther had uttered a moment ago? At least some deceptive semblance of fact in it? It was nonsense, of course, to consider such a thing, yet... The expression in the grey eyes altered completely, the look he had seen was gone. Lady Clifford came forward with an exclamation of concern.
"_Mon Dieu_, what is all this? How did that poor creature get here, and in such a state? Why, look--her clothes are soaking! She must have been in the rain for hours! And blood here on her face!"
The old lady whispered an explanation.
"She rushed in here a moment ago, Therese, you must have heard her.
She seems so queer and upset, and has been saying the wildest things!
And, isn"t it odd, she refuses to allow the doctor to come near her at all!"
"Does she? Very odd, indeed!"
With another glance at the canape, Lady Clifford turned towards the doctor.
"What do you think one ought to do, doctor?" she inquired. "She can"t stay here, naturally. Don"t you think one should try to get her into some really safe place, where she could be properly looked after?"
Something a little tense and sharp in the tone riveted Roger"s attention. With his arm still about Esther he turned his head and listened. He heard the heavy tones of Sartorius make answer evenly, without emotion of any kind:
"She is still raving; we must simply let her be for the moment till she quiets down. I will see what can be done. There is a mental home near Gra.s.se where I believe they would take her; I can telephone and find out. They would keep her under observation until we can get in touch with her people."
"Oh, doctor, do you really think that will be necessary?" asked Miss Clifford regretfully.
She had just come out of Therese"s room bringing a rose taffeta quilt to throw over the shivering girl. Roger made an impatient sign to the others to be careful what they said, but to his relief Esther appeared not to hear. He himself was peculiarly upset by the doctor"s matter-of-fact reference to the mental home, and on the spot he resolved firmly to defeat any arrangements that might be made for placing the girl where she could be kept "under observation." Yet what ought one to do? She was clearly in need of medical attention. She seemed now to be delirious, babbling incoherently, repeating in an undertone and in that strange hoa.r.s.e voice fragments of words and phrases that in spite of their wildness arrested his attention.
Listening closely to her he thought that all the happenings of the past two months of her life had become interwoven into the fabric of her delusion. Such words as "typhoid," "toxin," "hypodermic," "bandage,"
recurred again and again, then "culture"--she was back in the doctor"s laboratory now, without doubt, watching his experiments. Suddenly a name caught his ear, he bent closer. What was this she was saying about Holliday? Holliday? How did he come into it? A low, frightened whisper followed; he had to strain his ears to catch it: "_She wanted the money now, you know, so she could keep him with her!_"