Walter Butler turned to her, amazed, doubting his ears.
"A jest," she continued carelessly, "to amuse Mr. Renault."
"Amuse _him_! It is in his own hand!" stammered Butler.
"Apparently. But I wrote it, imitating his hand to plague him. It is indifferently done," she added, with a shrug. "I hid it in the cupboard he uses for his love-letters. How came it in your fingers, Mr. Butler?"
In blank astonishment he stood there, the letter half extended, his eyes almost starting from his face. Slowly she moved forward, confronting him, insolent eyes meeting his; and, ere he could guess what she purposed, she had s.n.a.t.c.hed the blotted fragment from him and crushed it in her hand, always eying him until he crimsoned in the focus of her white contempt.
"Go!" she said. Her low voice was pa.s.sionless.
He turned his burning eyes from her to Lady Coleville, to Sir Peter, then bent his gaze on me. What he divined in my face I know not, but the flame leaped in his eyes, and that ghastly smile stretched the muscles of his visage.
"My zeal, it seems, has placed me at a sorry disadvantage," he said.
"Error piled on error growing from a most unhappy misconstruction of my purposes has changed faith to suspicion, amity to coldness. I know not what to say to clear myself--" He turned his melancholy face to Elsin; all anger had faded from it, and only deepest sadness shadowed the pale brow. "I ventured to believe, in days gone by, that my devotion was not utterly displeasing--that perhaps the excesses of a stormy and impetuous youth might be condoned in the humble devotion of an honest pa.s.sion----"
The silence was intense. He turned dramatically to Sir Peter, his well-shaped hand opening in graceful salute as he bowed.
"I ask you, sir, to lend a gentle judgment till I clear myself. And of your lady, I humbly beg that mercy also." Again he bowed profoundly, hand on hilt, a perfect figure of faultless courtesy, graceful, composed, proudly enduring, proudly subduing pride.
Then he slowly raised his dark head and looked at me. "Mr. Renault," he said, "it is my misfortune that our paths have crossed three times. I trust they cross no more, but may run hereafter in pleasant parallel. I was hasty, I was wrong to judge you by what you said concerning the Oneidas. I am impatient, over-sensitive, quick to fire at what I deem an insult to my King. I serve him as my hot blood dictates--and, burning with resentment that you should dare imperil my design, I searched your chamber to destroy the letter you had threatened warning the Oneidas of their coming punishment. How can you blame me if I took this lady"s playful jest for something else?"
"I do not blame you, Captain Butler," I said disdainfully.
"Then may we not resume an intercourse as entertaining as it was full of profit to myself?"
"Time heals--but Time must not be spurred too hard," I answered, watching him.
His stealthy eyes dropped as he inclined his head in acquiescence.
Then Sir Peter spoke, frankly, impetuously, his good heart dictating ever to his reason; and what he said was amiable and kind, standing there, his sweet lady"s arm resting on his own. And she, too, spoke graciously but gravely, with a gentle admonition trailing at the end.
But when he turned to Elsin Grey, she softened nothing, and her gesture committed him to silence while she spoke: "End now what you have said so well, nor add one word to that delicate pyramid of eloquence which you have raised so high to your own honor, Captain Butler. I am slow-witted and must ask advice from that physician, Time, whom Mr.
Renault, too, has called in council."
"Am I, then, banished?" he asked below his breath.
"Ask yourself, Mr. Butler. And if you find no reply, then I shall answer you."
All eyes were on her. What magic metamorphosis had made this woman from a child in a single night! Where had vanished that vague roundness of cheek and chin in this drawn beauty of maturity? that untroubled eye, that indecision of caprice, that charming restlessness, that childish confidence in others, accepting as a creed what grave lips uttered as a guidance to the lesser years that rested lightly on her?
And Walter Butler, too, had noted some of this, perplexed at the reserve, the calm self-confidence, the unimagined strength and cold composure which he had once swayed by his pa.s.sion, as a fair and clean-stemmed sapling tosses in tempests that uproot maturer growth.
His furtive, unconvinced eyes sought the floor as he took his leave with every ceremony due himself and us. Dawn already whitened the east.
He mounted by the tavern window, and I saw him against the pallid sky in silhouette, riding slowly toward the city, Jessop beside him, and their horses" manes whipping the rising sea-wind from the west.
"What a nightmare this has been!" whispered Lady Coleville, her husband"s hands imprisoned in her own. And to Elsin: "Child! what scenes have we dragged you through! Heaven forgive us!--for you have learned a sorry wisdom here concerning men!"
"I have learned," she said steadily, "more than you think, madam. Will you forgive me if I ask a word alone with Mr. Renault?"
"Not here, child. Look! Day comes creeping on us yonder in the hills.
Come home before you have your talk with Carus. You may ride with him if you desire, but follow us."
Sir Peter turned to gather up his pistols; but Elsin laid her hand on them, saying that I would care for everything.
"Sure, she means to have her way with us as well as with Walter Butler," he said humorously. "Come, sweetheart, leave them to this new wisdom Elsin found along the road somewhere between the Coq d"Or and Wall Street. They may be wiser than they seem; they could not well be less wise than they are."
The set smile on Elsin"s lips changed nothing as Sir Peter led his lady, all reluctant, from the coffee-room, where the sunken candles flickered in the pallid light of morning.
From the front windows we saw the coach drive up, and Lady Coleville, looking back in protest, enter; and after her Sir Peter, and Dr.
Carmody with his cases.
"Come to the door and make as though we meant to mount and follow," she said quietly. "Here, take these pistols. Raise the pan and lower the hammers. They are loaded. Thrust them somewhere--beneath your coat. Now follow me."
I obeyed in silence. As we came out of the tavern-door Lady Coleville nodded, and her coach moved off, pa.s.sing our horses, which the hostlers were bringing round.
I put Elsin up, then swung astride my roan, following her out into the road--a rod or two only ere she wheeled into the honeysuckle lane, reining in so that I came abreast of her.
"Now ride!" she said in an unsteady voice. "I know the man you have to deal with. There is no mercy in him, I tell you, and no safety now for you until you make the rebel lines."
"I know it," I said; "but what of you?"
"What of me?" She laughed a bitter laugh, striking her horse so that he bounded forward down the sandy lane, I abreast of her, stride for stride. "What of me? Why, I lied to him, that is all, Mr. Renault. _And he knew it!_"
"Is that all?" I asked.
"No, not all. _He_ told the truth to you and to Sir Peter. And _I_ knew it."
"In what did he tell the truth?"
"In what he said about--his mistress." Her face crimsoned, but she held her head steady and high, nor faltered at the word.
"How is it that you know?"
"How does a woman know? Tell me and I"ll confess it. I know because a woman knows such things. Let it rest there--a matter scarcely fitted for discussion between a maid and a man--though I am being soundly schooled, G.o.d wot, in every branch of infamy."
"Then turn here," I said, reining in, "and ride no more with what men call a spy."
But she galloped on, head set, flushed and expressionless, and I spurred to overtake her.
"Turn back!" I said hoa.r.s.ely. "It may go hard with you if I am taken at the lines!"
"Those pa.s.ses that Sir Henry gave you--you have them?"
"Yes."
"For Sir Peter and his lady?"
"So they are made out."