"You can go now, Hortense," her mistress ordered. "I will have my coffee half an hour earlier to-morrow morning."
"Very good, madame," the girl answered. "There is nothing else to-night, then?"
"Nothing, thank you," Wilhelmina answered. "You had better go to bed now. I have been keeping you up rather late the last few evenings. We must both turn over a new leaf."
Hortense departed, smiling to herself. It was always like this--when it came. One thought of others and one wanted to be alone. She, too, hummed a few bars of that love-song as she climbed the stairs to her room.
Wilhelmina rose from her chair and stood for a moment looking at herself in the long, oval looking-gla.s.s. Hortense had chosen for her a French dressing-jacket, with the palest of light blue ribbons drawn through the lace. Wilhelmina looked at herself and smiled. Was it the light, the colouring, or was she really still so good to look at? Her hair, falling over her shoulders, was long and silky, the lines seemed to have been smoothed out of her face--she was like herself when she had been a girl!
She followed the slender lines of her figure, down past the lace of her petticoat to her feet, still encased in her evening slippers with diamond buckles, and she laughed softly to herself. What was she yet but a girl? Fate had cheated her of some of the years, but she was barely twenty-five. How wonderful to be young still and feel one"s blood flow to music like this! Her thoughts ran riot. Her mouth trembled and a deeper colour stained her cheeks. Then she heard a voice behind her, a living voice in her room. And as swiftly as those other mysterious thoughts had stolen into her heart, came the chill of a deadly, indescribable fear.
"Charming! Ravishing! It is almost worth the six years of waiting, dear wife!"
She began to tremble. She could not have called out or framed any intelligible sentence to save her life. It was like a nightmare. The horror was there, without the power of movement or speech.
He moved his position and came within the range of her terrified vision. Hurd"s twenty pounds and a little more added to it had done wonders. He wore correct evening clothes, correctly worn. Except for his good looks--the good looks of a devil--he would have attracted notice nowhere. He leaned against the couch, and though his lips curled into a sneer, there was a flame in his eyes, a horrible admiration.
She tried to pray.
"You are overcome," he murmured softly. "Ah! Why not? Six years since our happiness was s.n.a.t.c.hed from us, cherie! Ah! but it was cruel! You have thought of me, I trust! You have pitied me! Ah! how often I have lain awake at night in my cell, fondly imagining some such reunion--as this."
She forced herself to speak through lips suddenly pale. What strange words they sounded, frozen things, scarcely audible! Yet the effort hurt her.
"I will give you--the money," she said. "More, if you will!"
"Ah!" he said reflectively, "the money! I had forgotten that. It was not kind of you to run away and hide, little woman! It was not kind of you to send me nothing when I was in prison! Oh! I suffered, I can tell you!
There is a good deal to be made up for! Pet, if you had not reminded me, just now these things seem so little. Dear little wife, you are enchanting. Almost you turn my head."
He came slowly towards her. She threw up her hands.
"Wait!" she begged, "oh, wait! Listen! I am in your power. I admit it. I will make terms. I will sign anything. What is it that you want? You shall be rich, but you must go away. You must leave me now!"
He looked at her steadily and it seemed to her that his eyes were on fire with evil things.
"Little wife," he said, with a shade of mockery in his lowered tone. "I cannot do that. Consider how you were s.n.a.t.c.hed from my arms! Consider the cruelty of it. As for the money--bah! I have come to claim my own.
Don"t you understand, you bewitching little fool? It is you I want! The money can wait! I cannot!"
He came nearer still and she shrank, like a terrified dumb thing, against her magnificent dressing-table, with its load of priceless trinkets. She tried to call out, but her voice seemed gone, and he only laughed as he laid his hand over her mouth and drew her gently towards him. With a sudden unnatural strength she wrested herself from his arms.
"Oh! listen to me, listen to me for one moment first," she begged frantically. "It"s true that I married you, but it was all a plot--and I was a child! You shall have your share of my money! Leave me alone and I swear it! You shall be rich! You can go back to Paris and be an adventurer no longer. You shall spend your own money. You can live your own life!"
Even then her brain moved quickly. She dared not speak of Annette, for fear of making him desperate. It was his cupidity to which she appealed.
"I am no wife of yours," she moaned. "You shall have more money than you ever had before in your life. But don"t make me kill myself! For I shall, if you touch me!"
He was so close to her now that his hot breath scorched her cheek.
"Is it that another has taken my place?" he asked.
"Yes!--no! that is, there is some one whom I love," she cried. "Listen!
You know what you can do with money in Paris. Anything! Everything!"
He was so close to her now that the words died away upon her lips.
"Little wife," he whispered, "don"t you understand--that I am a man, and that it is you I want?"
Again she tried to scream, but his hand covered her mouth. His arm was suddenly around her. Then he started back with an oath and looked towards the door of her bedroom.
"Who is in that room?" he asked quickly.
"My maid," she lied.
He took a quick step across the room. The door was flung open and Macheson entered. Wilhelmina fainted, but forced herself back into consciousness with a sheer effort of will. Sobbing and laughing at the same time, she tried to drag herself towards the bell, but Jean le Roi stood in the way. Jean le Roi was calm but wicked.
"What are you doing in my wife"s bedroom?" he asked.
"I am here to see you out of the house," Macheson answered, with one breathless glance around the room. "Will you come quietly?"
"Out of my own house?" Jean le Roi said softly. "Out of my wife"s room?
Who are you?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BONE SNAPPED, AND THE KNIFE FELL FROM THE NERVELESS FINGERS. Page 301]
"Never mind," Macheson answered. "Her friend! Let that be enough. And let me tell you this. If I had come too late I would have wrung your neck."
Jean le Roi sprang at him like a cat, his legs off the ground, one arm around the other"s neck, and something gleaming in his right hand.
Nothing but Macheson"s superb strength saved him. He risked being throttled, and caught Jean le Roi"s right arm in such a grip that he swung him half round the room. The bone snapped, and the knife fell from the nerveless fingers. But Macheson let go a second too soon. Jean le Roi had all the courage and the insensibility to pain of a brute animal.
He stretched out his foot, and with a trick of his old days, tripped Macheson so that he fell heavily. Jean le Roi bent over him on his knees, breathing heavily, and with murder in his eyes. Macheson scarcely breathed! He lay perfectly still. Jean le Roi staggered to his feet and turned towards Wilhelmina.
"You see, madame," he said, seizing her by the wrist, "how I shall deal with your lovers if there are any more of them. No use tugging at that bell. I saw to that before you came! I"m used to fighting for what I want, and I think I"ve won you!"
He caught her into his arms, but suddenly released her with a low animal cry. He knew that this was the end, for he was pinioned from behind, a child in the mighty grip which held him powerless. "You are a little too hasty, my friend," Macheson remarked. "I was afraid I might not be so quick as you on my feet, so I rested for a moment. But no man has ever escaped from this grip till I chose to let him go. Now," he added, turning to Wilhelmina, "the way is clear. Will you go outside and rouse the servants? Don"t come back."
"You are--quite safe?" she faltered.
"Absolutely," he answered. "I could hold him with one hand."
Jean le Roi lifted his head. His brain was working swiftly.
"Listen!" he exclaimed. "It is finished! I am beaten! I, Jean le Roi, admit defeat. Why call in servants? The affair is better finished between ourselves."
Wilhelmina paused. In that first great rush of relief, she had not stopped to think that with Jean le Roi a prisoner, and herself as prosecutrix, the whole miserable story must be published. He continued.
"Give me money," he said, "only a half of what you offered me just now, and you shall have your freedom."
Wilhelmina smiled. Something of the joy of a few hours ago came faintly back to her.
"I have already that," she answered. "I learnt the truth to-night."