Chapter IX: A Picture

In the ordinary course of things, it would have been natural for Mabin to conclude, on seeing a man’s hand inside her door in the middle of the night, that the intruder was a burglar. But her mind had been rendered more clear, her perceptions more acute, by the stimulating mystery which she had been for the past two days trying to solve.

Instead, therefore, of screaming, or stretching out her hand to the old-fashioned bell-rope which hung by the fireside at a little distance from her right hand, she waited, watched, and listened. Apparently she had unconsciously made some slight noise as she turned in her chair to look behind her, for the intruder, whoever he was, instead of entering, waited and listened also.

There was a pause; and then the hand which had crept so stealthily round the door was slowly and quietly withdrawn. Mabin, fascinated, watched the long, bloodless fingers as they gradually disappeared from her sight; and was sufficiently self-possessed to observe that the hand was that of a gentleman. And upon this discovery there sprang up in her mind a strong curiosity to see the face of the intruder.

Even while she felt the last remains of fear give place to courage and vivid interest, Mabin, with her wits all sharpened with excitement, wondered at the change in herself. She sprang lightly to her feet, and with the intention of taking him by surprise, ran lightly round on the tips of her toes toward the door. But the candles, flickering in the draught caused by her light hanging sleeves, caused the shadows on the dingy rose-covered wall to dance and quiver. The mysterious visitor, as much on the alert as the girl was, closed the door softly between her and himself.

Mabin, however, sprang forward and seized the door-handle. She heard the sound of rapid footsteps on the other side, and for one moment she hesitated to go in pursuit. With the clearness of intellect which belongs to the night, when there are no sounds of busy life, no distractions of bright light and vivid color to divert the attention, she saw both the dangers on the one hand, the attractions on the other, of a deeper dive into the mystery which surrounded her. For a few seconds the impulses struggled against each other, and then curiosity and youthful daring carried the day.

Throwing open the door, which had not been relocked, and in which there was no key, Mabin, considering this circumstance as she went, dashed through in pursuit.

It was indeed a daring thing to do, for she was not even mistress of the topography of the house. The room in which she now found herself she had never been in before, and the only light to guide her footsteps came through the window and was obscured by a yellow-white blind. It was by this light that Mabin knew that the dawn had come, and the knowledge gave her more courage. She could follow the intruder with greater security now that she knew that, if she chased him to the place where he had entered the house, she would see his face in the daylight.

As she entered the room the man was in the act of opening a door on the left which led into the corridor. Mabin saw him for a moment, against the brighter light which came through the windows on the east side of the house; and then this door closed between her and him as the other had done.

By the time she had got into the corridor in her turn, she saw the man disappear down the stairs at the end. She followed still. He reached the hall; he went down the four steps to the drawing-room, through the doorway of which he again passed out of her sight.

In the midst of the excitement which hurried her on to the drawing-room door, the young girl felt a chill in her blood as she remembered Mrs. Dale’s description of the gloom of the deserted apartment. She had described it as “a damp and mouldy mausoleum.” Mabin would have avoided the room if she could. The meeting with her mysterious visitor would be more uncanny there than in the warmer, more habitable parts of the house.

But she went on. Dashing into the room with impetuosity all the greater for her vague fears, Mabin found herself in a very long, wide, low-ceilinged room, the roof of which was supported by two rows of pillars, and the air of which struck a chill into her.

There were three large windows, two on the right hand, and one at the end of the room, in front of her. Above the shutters of those on her right the gray rays of the morning were creeping, making the marble of the heavy old mantelpiece look livid, and showing the stains of damp on the white and gold wall-paper.

This was all that the girl had time to notice when suddenly the shutters of the window at the end of the room were thrown back with a clatter of wood and a clang of iron, and she saw the green of the trees outside, and the man of whom she was in pursuit standing in the opening he had made. And then she saw that the French window was open, and knew that this was the way by which he had entered the house.

The word “Stop!” was on her lips when suddenly he seemed to stagger, and she heard him gasp and struggle for his breath. Surely this was no burglar, this man with the thin white hands, who could not run a distance of a hundred yards without inconvenience.

She tumbled over a footstool, and as she drew herself up again, she saw that she was alone in the room.

Running lightly and quickly to the window she looked out into the garden. The fresh morning breeze blew the open window against the wooden shutter with a loud crash. At the same moment she caught sight of the figure of which she had been in pursuit so long, under the trees to the right. At the noise of the crashing window the man turned quickly round, and in the pale light of the dawn Mabin saw his face distinctly.

In a moment the last trace of fear of him which had lingered in her heart disappeared. Almost as pale as a mask of the dead, the face she saw was that of a man on whom every form of suffering seemed to have left its mark. The hollow eyes were full of unspeakable sadness; the deep lines about the mouth were those of illness or sorrow rather than of age; while even the thick sprinkling of gray hairs among the brown which Mabin detected in the searching cold light of the morning told the same tale of weight of grief rather than of years.

All these things the girl’s quick young eyes saw in one brief look. Then, instinctively, she took a step forward into the garden, with some vague intention of asking him a question. But the moment she moved he turned; and disappearing from her sight behind the trees and shrubs which grew between the lawn and the spot where she stood, left her in a state of surprise and bewilderment from which it took her some minutes to recover.

It was the physical fact that she began to shiver violently in the keen morning air which at last roused her from the dazed condition into which the chase and its end had thrown her. She got into the house again, shut the window, fastened the shutter carefully, wondering by what magical means it had been opened from the outside, and stumbled along the musty drawing-room in the half-light until she reached the door.

Opening it quickly, she caught sight of Annie, the housemaid, rapidly turning the corner of the staircase above. With suspicion in her mind, she called the girl; but Annie disappeared into the upper regions of the house, paying no attention to her.

Uneasy, interested, puzzled, Mabin went slowly upstairs, started violently when the tall clock on the stairs struck four close to her ear, and stood before the open door of the room through which the intruder had passed on his way to and from hers.

Who was this man with the grave, sad, handsome face, who got into the house by night, and stole his way to the very bed-chamber of Mrs. Dale? In what relation did he stand to the lovely widow?

No honest man, whether relation, friend, or lover, would pay his mysterious visits like these! And yet there was something in his face so attractive, so interesting, that Mabin would fain have believed that there was some reason, some excuse, for his strange conduct. And the one excuse which she unwillingly had to find was this: the man must be mad.

This began to show a way out of the mystery; but it was by no means cleared up. Was he the man who had taken her father’s house as “Mr. Banks”? This seemed probable, and at any rate this could be easily ascertained. If so, and if “Mr. Banks” was a madman, why was he unattended by any keeper?

And what, “Mr. Banks” or no “Mr. Banks,” was the meaning of these stealthy nocturnal visits? That they were so unexpected, so unwelcome, as to be inconceivable on the part of Mrs. Dale, had been abundantly proved by the fact that she had believed the visitor to be a vision of her imagination only, and not a human being. For Mabin could not doubt that the appearance which Mrs. Dale had taken for a horrible dream had been in reality the living man she had just seen.

Who then could he be, and what could he want? Was the refined, sensitive face, with its sad eyes and worn mouth, the mask and not the index of the man?

The more Mabin thought, the clearer it seemed to grow to her that the man was either a relation or a lover, who had gone out of his mind, and whose insanity had taken this strange form of nocturnal persecution.

But then, again, if he had been insane, would not Mrs. Dale have heard of it? And was it not rather the act of a sane man than of a madman to assume a name not his own in order to hide his identity from the woman he meant to harass? Again, was the intruder the tenant of “Stone House” at all?

Even of this she was not sure; and Mabin decided that this question must be answered definitely before she could think herself on the road to the discovery of the mystery.

In the mean time, the door of the room through which she had passed in pursuit of the intruder being still open, she entered, and instinctively looked round, to see if he had left any trace of his presence.

She drew up the blind and let the daylight stream into the corners.

The room was like the rest of the house, shabby and furnished with little taste. It had perhaps been a study or a school-room, for in front of the one window there was a large leather-covered writing-table, much splashed with ink. The rest of the furniture consisted of a couple of small ottomans and half a dozen chairs, all covered with green rep, and trimmed with green worsted fringe, and of a mahogany bookcase which stood near the door.

Mabin, with one glance round, had satisfied herself that nothing in the room betrayed the recent presence of an intruder, when her attention was suddenly arrested by a picture on the wall to her left.

It was a portrait in oils of a man, very young, very handsome, and bearing, as she saw at once, a great resemblance to the man she had seen a quarter of an hour before escaping from the house.

A great resemblance, that was all; it did not occur to her for some minutes that the man in the picture and the man she had seen could be the same person. But as her fascinated eyes pored over the painting, studying each feature, it grew upon her gradually that the likeness between it and the man was that of a face in happiness to a face in sorrow, and she saw the possibility that they were one and the same person.

As this thought crossed her mind, she stepped back startled by her own discovery. The light, growing stronger every moment, began to bathe the picture in the brightness of a summer morning, and she noticed then with what care it had been preserved. A tiny rod ran along the top of the picture, and from it hung two curtains, now drawn aside, of dark blue satin, hung with bullion fringe, and embroidered richly in shades of blue and gold.

Mabin’s eyes, attracted by the beautiful colors, were fixed upon this handsome hanging, when a piercing cry, uttered by a voice she did not recognize, but which thrilled her by its wild grief, made her start and turn round.

Just within the door by which she had entered the room Mrs. Dale was lying prone, motionless, on the floor.

Mabin, trembling from head to foot, went down on her knees beside her friend, and found that she had fainted. Not wishing to call the servants, she ran into the adjoining bedroom, fetched some water, and sprinkled it on the face of the unconscious woman. But at first Mrs. Dale gave no sign of life, and Mabin had time to reflect on the course she had better take.

And as, she thought, Mrs. Dale’s sudden loss of consciousness must be in some way connected with the picture, it would be better that she should find herself, on recovering, in another room.

Mabin was so much taller than Mrs. Dale that she found it a comparatively easy task to drag the little, slenderly made creature into the adjoining bedroom, and when she got her upon the sofa at the foot of the bed she found that the pink color was returning to her patient’s cheeks, that her hands and eyelids were moving slightly, and that a sigh was struggling up to her lips.

“Do you feel better now, dear?” asked Mabin rather tremulously.

For she had some doubts as to the scene which might be impending.

Mrs. Dale opened her eyes, but made no answer. She did not seem to hear Mabin; she seemed to be listening, trying to remember.

“Would you like a little water?” went on Mabin, rather frightened by the silence, and betraying her feelings in her tone and in the expression of her face. Then Mrs. Dale sat up, and the rather vacant look on her face grew into one of weary sadness.

“No, dear, thank you. I am not thirsty; and I--and I--am quite well.”

As she said this she rose, and glanced anxiously round the room. Then she looked at the door which communicated with the adjoining apartment, and suddenly sprang toward it.

“Don’t, don’t go in there!” cried Mabin, quickly, imploringly.

Mrs. Dale, with a deadly white face, stopped short, turned and looked at her.

“Why not?” she asked abruptly, in a whisper.

“Why, because--because--” stammered the girl, “it was in there you fainted. Don’t you remember?”

She took one of Mrs. Dale’s ice-cold hands in her own, in the hope of communicating the warmth of her own young blood to her terror-stricken friend.

“I--I remember. I found you looking----”

She broke off suddenly, snatched her hand from the girl’s, and ran into the next room. Mabin followed hesitatingly, and found her standing in front of the picture, with her eyes fixed upon it. Mabin said nothing, afraid lest by some unlucky word she should increase the mental distress of the unhappy woman. She uttered a cry as Mrs. Dale, turning upon her fiercely, asked in a tone which she had never used to her before:

“Why did you come in here? And what made you draw back the curtains?” Then evidently regretting her violence of manner when she saw how strong an effect it had upon the girl, she added with an abrupt change to apologetic gentleness, and with tears of penitence in her eyes: “I beg your pardon, dear; but--but it is not like you to be so curious.”

Mabin hesitated. She did not dare to tell Mrs. Dale what it was that had brought her into the room. For, she argued to herself, if the mere sight of this man’s portrait, and the belief that she had only dreamed she saw him, had such an effect upon the little woman, what might not the result be of finding that he had been there in the flesh?

“The door was open,” she said at last.

And she felt quite glad that Mrs. Dale evidently doubted her word, and looked again in a puzzled manner at the portrait.

“What made you draw back the curtains?” was her next question.

“I didn’t. I found the picture like that. I haven’t touched it,” answered Mabin quickly and rather indignantly.

But her transitory anger passed away when she saw the change to deep trouble which instantly took place in Mrs. Dale’s face. Putting up her handkerchief with shaking fingers to her wet, white face, the little lady clung with the other hand to the old writing-table, by which she was standing. She was in a state of great agitation, but Mabin did not know whether she ought to appear to be conscious of the fact or not. At last Mrs. Dale asked, in a hoarse whisper:

“That noise--I heard a noise in the house--and Annie, I saw Annie running upstairs--What was it?”

“The drawing-room window had been left open and it banged against the shutter,” replied Mabin. “I went down and shut it, and Annie went down too.”

She was ashamed to have to make this equivocal answer, but she dared not tell the whole truth--yet. She must have more of her friend’s confidence first, she must know more. And again she asked herself whether this man was some old lover of Mrs. Dale’s, who had been shut up on account of insanity, and of whose confinement Mrs. Dale had heard. She thought she would make an attempt to find out.

“What a handsome face this is!” she said, controlling her own nervous agitation as well as she could, and fixing her gaze upon the picture. “I don’t think I ever saw a face I admired so much.”

There was a pause, and Mabin, without looking round, heard her companion draw a deep breath. Presently, however, the latter recovered her self-possession sufficiently to ask, with an assumption of her usual playful tone:

“Not--Rudolph’s?”

Mabin was taken completely off her guard. Her mind filled with the story of her friend, she had for the time forgotten her own.

“Oh, that is a different type of face, quite different,” she replied, relapsing at once into the formal tone of the shy school-girl.

“But not without its good points?” suggested Mrs. Dale, coming behind the girl and putting her little hands on her waist.

Mabin, with an inspiration of astuteness, thought she received a short cut to her friend’s confidence, a confidence which would clear the ground for further discoveries, further enlightenments.

“Haven’t you ever felt that one--person--was outside everything else? And not to be measured by standards at all?” she asked in a soft, shy voice.

Mrs. Dale’s answer, the answer, too, of a widow, came upon her like a thunderbolt.

“No, dear. I have had no such experience myself. I have never cared for a man in all my life.”

And she spoke with the accents of sincerity.