"You are not going in there at all?"
"Not at all."
Again she played a little more loudly for a few moments. Then the music died away once more.
"What reason did he give for keeping possession of that?"
"Another hobby," Hamel replied. "He is an inventor, it seems. He has the model of something there; he would not tell me what."
She shivered a little, and her music drifted away. She bent over the keys, her face hidden from him.
"You will not go away just yet?" she asked softly. "You are going to stay for a few days, at any rate?"
"Without a doubt," he a.s.sured her. "I am altogether my own master."
"Thank G.o.d," she murmured.
He leaned with his elbow against the top of the piano, looking down at her. Since dinnertime she had fastened a large red rose in the front of her gown.
"Do you know that this is all rather mysterious?" he said calmly.
"What is mysterious?" she demanded.
"The atmosphere of the place: your uncle"s queer aversion to my having the Tower; your visitor up-stairs, who fights with the servants while we are at dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be law not only to you but to your brother, who must be of age, I should think, and who seems to have plenty of spirit."
"We live here, both of us," she told him. "He is our guardian."
"Naturally," Hamel replied, "and yet, it may have been my fancy, of course, but at dinnertime I seemed to get a queer impression."
"Tell it me?" she insisted, her fingers breaking suddenly into a livelier melody. "Tell it me at once? You were there all the time. I could see you watching. Tell me what you thought?"
She had turned her head now, and her eyes were fixed upon his. They were large and soft, capable, he knew, of infinite expression. Yet at that moment the light that shone from them was simply one of fear, half curious, half shrinking.
"My impression," he said, "was that both of you disliked and feared Mr.
Fentolin, yet for some reason or other that you were his abject slaves."
Her fingers seemed suddenly inspired with diabolical strength and energy. Strange chords crashed and broke beneath them. She played some unfamiliar music with tense and fierce energy. Suddenly she paused and rose to her feet.
"Come out on to the terrace," she invited. "You are not afraid of cold?"
He followed her without a word. She opened the French windows, and they stepped out on to the long, broad stone promenade. The night was dark, and there was little to be seen. The light was burning at the entrance to the waterway; a few lights were twinkling from the village. The soft moaning of the sea was distinctly audible. She moved to the edge of the palisading. He followed her closely.
"You are right, Mr. Hamel," she said. "I think that I am more afraid of him than any woman ever was of any man in this world."
"Then why do you live here?" he protested. "You must have other relations to whom you could go. And your brother--why doesn"t he do something--go into one of the professions? He could surely leave easily enough?"
"I will tell you a secret," she answered calmly. "Perhaps it will help you to understand. You know my uncle"s condition. You know that it was the result of an accident?"
"I have heard so," he replied gravely.
She clutched at his arm.
"Come," she said.
Side by side they walked the entire length of the terrace. When they reached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind. She battled along, and he followed her. They were looking inland now.
There were no lights visible--nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness. From somewhere below him he could hear the wind in the tree-tops.
"This way," she directed. "Be careful."
They walked to the very edge of the palisading. It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.
"Can you see?" she whispered.
By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.
"Come here again in the morning," she whispered. "You will see then. I brought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accident happened."
"What accident?"
"Mr. Fentolin"s," she continued. "It was here that he went over. He was picked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he would live."
Hamel shivered a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.
"What a horrible thing!" he exclaimed.
"It was more horrible than you know," she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear. "I do not know why I tell you this--you, a stranger--but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!"
"By whom?" he asked.
She clung to his arm for a moment.
"Ah, don"t ask me!" she begged. "No one knows. My uncle gave out, as soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident."
"That, at any rate, was fine of him," Hamel declared.
She shivered.
"He was proud, at least, of our family name. Whatever credit he deserves for it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became his slaves: nothing but that--his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if he would, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His life was, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, little thinking what was in store for us. Five years ago we came here to live.
Gerald wanted to go into the army; I wanted to travel with my mother.
Gerald has done all the work secretly, but he has never been allowed to pa.s.s his examinations. I have never left England except to spend two years at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken and fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadow of this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to do his bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body and soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say--oh, I cannot say! It is bad for us, but--there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect h.e.l.l!"
A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bending the trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascended precipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behind rattled. She looked around nervously.
"I am afraid of him all the time," she murmured. "He seems to overhear everything--he or his creatures. Listen!"
They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closely that through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.
"You are telling me half," he said. "Tell me everything. Who threw your uncle over the parapet?"