In an instant she grew pale as death, and stood there quivering in fear.
Her defiance had given place to abject terror, and she dared not utter a word lest she should betray herself. Holding her in suspicion, as I did, I was quick to note the slightest wavering, to detect the least fear as expressed in her flawlessly beautiful countenance.
"You may make whatever allegation you think fit," she responded, in a harsh tone. "It makes no difference. The man who loves me will not heed you."
"But he shall!" I cried, in anger. "I will not allow him to be victimised as poor Roddy was. Your very words betray you!" I burst forth again. "When you allege that he committed suicide six months before he died in London you lie!"
"I have spoken the truth," she answered, meeting my gaze with a calmness which seemed incredible. "Some day, perhaps, you will have proof."
"Why may not proof be given me now?" I demanded. "Why cannot you explain all, and end this mystery?"
"It is impossible."
"Impossible!" I cried. "Nonsense! You seek to conceal your evil deeds beneath a cloak of improbabilities, and fancy I am sufficiently credulous to believe them!"
"Surely heated argument is useless," she observed. "I love a man who is your friend, and you love a woman who is mine. Plainly speaking, our interests are identical, are they not? Your love is in hiding. She had a reason for fleeing from you, just as my lover"s religious views caused him to endeavour to escape me. He knew me not, or he would not have endeavoured to hide himself from me. You, who know me better, are aware that from me there is no escape; that I spare not my enemies nor those who hate me. Before my touch men and things wither as gra.s.s cast into an oven."
"True, I love Muriel," I said. "She is in hiding, and you, if you will, can direct me to where she is." Aline, the mysterious handmaiden of evil, paused. Her full breast rose beneath her thin summer bodice and fell slowly, and for an instant her well-arched brows were knit as she thought deeply.
"Yes," she answered at length. "Your surmise is correct. I am aware where your love has concealed herself."
"Little escapes you," I observed, a strange feeling of terror creeping over me. "Sin is always more powerful than righteousness, and cunning more invincible than honesty of purpose. Why will you not impart to me the knowledge that I seek, and tell me where I may find Muriel? As you have very truly said, our interests are identical. I am ready to make any compact with you, in return for your a.s.sistance."
"Very well," she answered quickly, with a little undue eagerness, I thought. Then, fixing me again with her eyes, she said: "Once you gave yourself to me body and soul and implored me to love you. But I spurned you--not because I entertained any affection for you, but for the sake of the one woman who loved you--Muriel Moore."
"Then you knew Muriel?" I interrupted quickly, in an endeavour to at least clear up that single fact.
"No," she answered, "I did not know her. A reader of the heart, I was, however, aware that she was madly enamoured of you, therefore I was frank enough to urge you to reciprocate her love, and thus obtain felicity. Well, she has hidden herself from you, but you shall find her on one condition--namely, that you render yourself pa.s.sive in my hands-- that you give yourself entirely to me."
"What do you mean?" I gasped, holding back instinctively and glaring at her. "Are you the Devil himself that you should make this proposal which in the mediaeval legend Mephistopheles made to Faust?"
"My intentions are of no concern," she responded, in a strange voice like one speaking afar off. "Will you, or will you not accept my conditions?"
"But to give myself to you when I love another is impossible!" I protested.
"I make this demand not in any spirit of coquetry," she replied. "That you should be mine, body and soul, is necessary, in order that you should preserve the silence which is imperative."
"To put it plainly you desire, in return for the service you will render me, that I should utter no word to your lover of my suspicions?" I said, gradually grasping her meaning.
Again the glint of evil seemed to shine from those blue eyes, which changed their hue with every humour.
"Exactly," she answered, her slim fingers nervously twisting the golden chain of her lorgnette. "But you must become mine, to do as I bid and act entirely as I direct," she declared. "Unless you give me your word of honour to do this there can be no agreement between us. Remember that your silence will be for our mutual benefit, for I shall remain happy while you will gain the woman you love."
For a single moment only I hesitated. But one thought was in my mind, that of Muriel. At all costs I felt that I must discover her, for her disappearance had driven me to distraction. Never before had I known what it really was to love, or the blankness that falls upon a man when the woman he adores has suddenly gone out of his life. I may have been foolish, nay, I knew I was; nevertheless, in the sudden helplessness that was upon me, I turned and answered--
"I am ready to do as you wish."
Next instant I held my breath, and the perspiration broke forth upon my brow when I realised that my great love for Muriel had led me into an abyss of evil. Heedless of the dire consequences which must follow, I had flung myself into the toils of this mysterious woman whom I held in fear; a woman whose very touch was sacrilegious, and who was more fiendish than human in her delights and hates.
"Then it is agreed," she said in that strange voice which had several times impressed me so. "Henceforth you are mine, to do my bidding.
Recollect that pa.s.sive obedience is absolutely essential. If I command you will obey pa.s.sively, without seeking to inquire the reason, without heed of the difference between good and evil. Do you agree to such conditions?" she inquired in deep earnestness.
"Yes," I responded, my mouth dry and parched. This speech of hers convinced me that she was possessed of some superhuman power which was as subtle as it was mysterious.
"Then having entered into the compact with me, first seek not to discover who or what I am. Secondly, say no word to my lover of the things you have seen or of your suspicions regarding me; and thirdly, rest confident that what I have told you regarding your friend Morgan"s suicide is the absolute truth. Seek not to argue," she went on, noticing my intention to interrupt; "remain in patience."
"But where shall I discover Muriel?"
She hesitated in thought.
"You wish to see her to-night--eh?" she inquired. Then, after a pause, she added: "Well, to-night if you go to Aldersgate Street Station, and remain in the booking-office, you will meet her there at nine o"clock."
"How do you know her movements so intimately?"
I asked in wonderment.
But she only smiled mysteriously. If it were the truth, as I now felt convinced, that she was possessor of a power supernatural, there was surely nothing strange in her knowledge of the actions of those beyond her range of vision. Had she not already told me that she was "a reader of hearts?"
Suddenly she glanced at the clock, declaring that it was time she went, drew on her gloves and re-arranged her veil.
As she stood ready to go I asked her for her address. But she only said that such knowledge was unnecessary, and if she wished to see me she would call.
Thus she left, and I stood again unmanned and undecided, just as I had been when she had left me on the last occasion, only I had now rendered myself helpless and pa.s.sive in her hands.
I tried to shake off the gruesome thoughts which crept over me, but found myself unable. Already I seemed pervaded by a spirit of evil.
The miasma of h.e.l.l was upon me.
That night I went eagerly forth to the Aldersgate Street Station of the Underground Railway. Time after time I pa.s.sed through the booking-office, and out upon the long balcony whence the stairs lead down to the platform, until, almost on the stroke of nine, I caught sight of the woman I loved, neatly dressed, but a trifle worn and pale.
I dashed up to greet her, but next second drew back.
She was not alone. A man was with her, and in an instant I recognised him.
It was the thin, shabby-genteel man whom I had seen with Aline in the Park--the man who had urged her to commit some crime the reason of which was a mystery.
She was laughing at some words her companion had uttered, and brushing past me unnoticed took his arm as she descended the stairs, worn slippery by the tramp of the million wearied feet.
I hesitated in amazement. This shabby scoundrel was her lover. She had preferred him to me. A great jealousy arose within me, and next moment I rushed after them down the stairs.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
AFTER BUSINESS HOURS.
Almost at the same instant a train emerged from the tunnel and stopped at the platform. Following close behind Muriel and her companion, unnoticed among the crowd of foot-pa.s.sengers, I saw them enter a third-cla.s.s compartment; therefore in order to discover my love"s hiding-place, I sprang into another compartment a little farther off.
At King"s Cross they alighted, and it suddenly occurred me that the woman whom Ash had been sent by his master to meet at the Great Northern terminus might have been Muriel herself.
The pair ascended to the street, and after standing on the kerb for a few moments entered a tram car, while I climbed on top. I had been careful that Muriel should not detect me, and now felt a certain amount of satisfaction in tracking her to her abode, although I confess to a fierce jealousy of this shabby, miserable specimen of manhood who accompanied her. Up the Caledonian Road to the junction of Camden Road with Holloway Road they travelled, alighting in the latter road, and walking slowly along, still deep in earnest conversation, until they came to the row of shops owned by Spicer Brothers, a firm of drapers of that character known in the trade as a "cutting" house, or one who sold goods at the lowest possible price. It was, of course, closed at that hour, but its exterior was imposing, one of those huge establishments which of late years have sprung up in the various residential centres of London.