"You do Roger Broom injustice. He defended you. Virginia thought that your friendship was not worth much, since you believed Maxime Dalahaide guilty, but Sir Roger a.s.sured her you had behaved exceedingly well."
"H"m! One knows what faint praise can do. Did he give her all the details of that loathsome story?"
"No; he refused. I was rather sorry, as I was interested by that time.
Besides, I had wanted to know, and I couldn"t think of any one it would be convenient to ask, except Sir Roger or you."
"I wish he had told her all! If he had, she would never have wished to hear of the Dalahaides again."
"You speak bitterly of your old friends."
"I? No, you misunderstand. I mean only that a girl--a stranger--would be horrified if she could know the full details. It was a ghastly affair. I loved Max, but there was no excuse for him--none. And it would be better for Miss Beverly to have nothing to do with that family. They bring unhappiness to all who come near them. It is as if they were under a curse, which every one connected with them must share. I can"t bear to think that so black a shadow should darken _her_ sunlight. Already, you see, she has changed. She goes once to the Chateau de la Roche, and the spell falls upon her."
"I"m not sure that she hasn"t been more than once," said Lady Gardiner.
"Ah! that was one of the things I wished to ask. You think so?"
"I don"t know. The morning after we all went there she disappeared for hours, and would say nothing except that she had slept badly, got up early, and gone off for a ride. Whether Mr. Trent was with her or not I can"t tell but when I first saw her, after looking everywhere, they were together, so absorbed in what they were saying that I believe if a revolver had been fired within a dozen yards of them they would hardly have heard it. At luncheon that same day, Sir Roger was telling me how he had seen the agent, and found out about the chateau, as it appears she had asked him to do--she has but to ask and to have, with him, you must know!--and though she was pleased and interested to a certain extent, still, she seemed to be thinking of something else."
"That _something else_! If I could find out what that was, I might know who is taking her from me."
"I"m afraid it"s not as simple an affair to unravel as that; for I can tell you one of the things, at least, which was apparently occupying her thoughts at the time, yet I can"t quite see why or how it could have much to do with you. You remember, perhaps, that you came while we were at luncheon the day after our ride into the Valley of the Shadow, and proposed that we should all go to Monte Carlo on your motor-car, that we should spend the afternoon in the Casino, and dine with you at the Hotel de Paris? Virginia said that she had important letters to write, and couldn"t go; and her manner was rather distant."
"It chilled my heart."
"Well, she asked Sir Roger and Mr. Trent to come up to her sitting-room after luncheon. Naturally, I was there too; I"ve been told to look upon the room as my own. She did not tell what she had been doing in the morning, but, wherever she had been, she had contrived to discover a good deal more about the Dalahaide story than Sir Roger had been willing to tell her the night before, and she announced boldly, that in spite of everything, she believed Maxime Dalahaide was innocent. She demanded of Roger--who has spent a good deal of time in France, you know, and is supposed to be well up in French law--whether it wouldn"t be possible to have the case brought up again, with the best lawyers in the country, expense to be no object. When Roger had shown her that the thing couldn"t be done, and there was no use discussing it, she wanted him to say that by setting some wonderful detectives on the trail of the real criminal the truth might be discovered, and the man unjustly accused brought home in triumph from Noumea by a penitent Government. Sir Roger a.s.sured her that was hopeless. That, in the first place, Maxime Dalahaide wasn"t innocent, and that, in the second place, even if he were, his innocence would be still more impossible to prove after all these years than it would have been at the time of the trial."
"What did she reply to that?"
"Nothing. She was silent and seemed impressed. She became very thoughtful. Since then I have not heard her say one word of the Dalahaides, except incidentally about the chateau, which she actually means to buy, and have restored in time to come to it, if she likes, next year. Now, I don"t see why her interest in the Dalahaides, if she continues to feel it, should interfere with her friendship for you."
Loria did not answer. He sat thinking intently, his dark eyes staring unseeingly out of the window. At last he spoke. "Why--_why_ should she interest herself in this cold-blooded murderer, whose best friends turned from him in horror at his crime? Is it pure philanthropy? Has the sister implored Miss Beverly to throw her money into this bottomless gulf? What happened when you were at the chateau that day I never knew."
"We thought that the subject was disagreeable to you," said Kate. "We saw and spoke with Miss Dalahaide, a pale, cold girl, dressed in black, with a voice that somehow sounded--_dead_. She did not mention her brother, and seemed so reserved that I should think it would be difficult to break the ice with her. Indeed, she appeared very annoyed at the necessity for showing us a little room with a life-size picture in it, which I fancied must be a portrait of the brother."
A curious shiver pa.s.sed through Loria"s body.
"Miss Beverly saw that portrait?" he asked in a low, strained voice.
"Yes, and I noticed that she kept glancing at it again and again while we stopped in the room. I suppose a morbid sort of curiosity regarding a murderer is natural, even in a young girl, provided his personality is interesting."
Once more Loria remained silent, his face set in hard lines.
"Such a man as Maxime Dalahaide must have been before his fall, would be a dangerous rival," Lady Gardiner went on, with a spice of malice. She was watching Loria as she spoke, and thrilled a little at the look in his eyes as he turned them upon her. "Oh, these Italians!" she thought. "They are so emotional that they frighten one. Their pa.s.sions are like caged tigers, and you never quite know whether the cage door is safely locked."
"Maxime Dalahaide will never be dangerous to any man again on this earth--not even to himself, since the worst has happened to him that can happen," answered Loria.
"Strange if, although he is buried in a prison-land at the other end of the world, he might still, in a vague, dim way, be a rival to fear more than another," Kate reflected dreamily. Aloud she went on: "It seems ridiculous to say so, but I believe that Virginia is making a hero of him. She has never seen this man--she never can see him; yet his image--evolved from that portrait at the chateau which was his old home--may blur others nearer to her."
"Great heavens! You believe that?"
"I merely suggest it. The idea only occurred to me at this moment. But Virginia is certainly thinking of Maxime Dalahaide. To-day, she was reading a French book about Noumea. She hid it when I came into the room; but later I came across it by accident. Yes, she is thinking of him, but it is only a girl"s foolish, romantic fancy, of course--a spoilt child, crying for the moon, because it"s the one thing that no adoring person can get for her. I shouldn"t worry about it much, if I were you. Indeed, perhaps she sees herself that she is not very wise, and wants to forget.
Now she has set her heart on a yachting trip; but you must not speak of it to her or the others, for she asked me not to tell."
"She gives me little enough chance to speak of anything. A short time ago she would not have cared for a yachting trip, unless I were to be of the party. Now, I suppose, her wish is to be rid of me."
"Her wish is also to be rid of me."
"You are not to go?"
"Not if Virginia can make a decent excuse to leave me behind."
"Who, then, goes with her?"
"Her half-brother, and Sir Roger Broom. She isn"t even going to take a maid."
"Heavens! It is Sir Roger Broom, then, who will win her!"
"I don"t know what to think. She has refused him; he is many years older than she, and she has known him since she was a child, for Sir Roger went often to America while her father--his cousin--was alive. Why should she suddenly make up her mind to marry him? He was her guardian during her minority, or what remained of it after her father"s death; now she has had her one-and-twentieth birthday, and is her own mistress. I fancied that she intended to remain so for a time, unless she lost her head--or her heart--and Sir Roger, nice as he is, is scarcely the man to make a girl like Virginia Beverly do either. Still, I don"t understand the yachting trip. It is in every way mysterious; and since you have asked my advice, it is this: find out where they are going, and appear there, as if by chance. By that time our spoiled beauty"s mind may have changed."
"Won"t you tell me where they are going?"
"I would if I could." This was true, since Kate was sure that, change as Virginia might, she would never return to her brief, ballroom fancy for the Italian. "I hinted at Naples, Greece, and Egypt, and Virginia answered that it would be "something of the sort"--answered evasively, saying nothing was decided yet; and so the conversation would have ended if George Trent hadn"t come bursting in, very excited, exclaiming before he saw me that he"d got hold of exactly the right steam yacht, with _four cannon_."
Loria started like a sensitive woman. "A yacht with four cannon! What can they want with cannon?"
"I asked if they were fitting out for pirates, and Mr. Trent a.s.sured me that the cannon being on board was a mere accident; they would not have them removed, but they had no intention of making use of them. Still, there"s no doubt that there"s some mystery behind this yachting expedition. I can"t make it out at all. Whether it is Mr. Trent"s plan----"
"But he would not wish to go without you."
"A few days ago, perhaps not. But others besides Virginia have changed.
That day when we rode up the Valley of the Shadow, as they call it, was destined to be an eventful day for us all."
"You mean----"
"I mean that George Trent is a different man since he went to the Chateau de la Roche."
A dark flush rose to Loria"s forehead. "He met Madeleine Dalahaide?"
"One might think, from your expression and accent, that you were jealous."
"One would think wrongly then. A man can"t be in love with two women at the same time."
"Can"t he? I wasn"t sure. Men are strange; perhaps there"s something of the dog in the manger about them, at times. At all events, George Trent is much interested in the yachting trip, and he _doesn"t_ want me to go.
Perhaps Miss Dalahaide is to be of the party; and in that case I should be the odd woman. Not that it matters to me. George was pleasant to flirt with but I should not marry again, unless I married money. Virginia"s great fortune comes from her father, George"s step-father, who was jealous of the mother"s affection for the first husband"s son, and disliked him. George will accept nothing from Virginia, and has only what his mother could leave him--a miserable five thousand dollars a year."
Loria scarcely listened. His level black brows were drawn together. "She was reading a book about Noumea," he said slowly. "What if--no, it is impossible--impossible!"
"What is impossible? If I am to help you, you must have no secrets from me."