Chapter VI: Part 6

I felt my face burn as I bowed and sat down--upon her bidding. I could hardly credit my good fortune, and I lacked breath to reply.

"You have been very good to me," she murmured. "Why was it, Brown?"

Still I could not reply. I dared not even look at her.

She did not, however, appear to notice my confusion, or else my eyes played false. Her voice was just as even as it wandered on at the impulse of her rambling fancy, as I thought.

"I have been thinking, Brown, that you were not born a servant," she said quietly. "Will you tell me if I guessed aright?"

No prescience warned me of a snare. Had any other woman asked me such a question I should have smiled and lied, knowing well that woman's deepest policy is to persuade with flatteries. But Marion questioned, and I answered from my heart.

"My father was a gentleman by birth, madam."

"Ah!" she sighed. "He met with some unhappiness, no doubt?"

"He lies in a pauper's grave. He was a great musician."

"And have you inherited his talent?"

"I play the flute and violin indifferently well, madam."

"And you are educated too, for I have marked your speech?"

"My father did his best for me, madam, though I was slow, I fear, to learn. He was the wisest man, and yet the most unfortunate, whom I have ever known."

"Some day I may ask you to give me his history."

She sighed again, and for a time was silent, but at length she fixed her eyes upon my face and said: "You have a foreign 'air,' monsieur; I, who am French, as you certainly must have guessed, have marked it. Is it possible that your father was my countryman?"

"He had not that honour, mademoiselle."

She gave a little frown. "And yet your name, Hume--I think you said it might be French?"

"No, mademoiselle; but my mother was a Parisienne. That will account to you perhaps for the foreign 'air' you have marked in me."

She nodded her head, and half closing her eyes she began in a low voice of melting sweetness to hum to the tune of a famous little chansonette, whose refrain is inexpressibly mournful and pathetic, Maeterlinck's exquisite little poem, "Et s'il revenait un jour!"

Knowing well the sadness in her which the sadness of her song expressed, I felt my heart ache and my eyes grew strangely blurred.

Of a sudden she stopped and, leaning forward, gave me a look which seemed to reveal a longing to be comforted.

"Ah, sir!" she said in French. "I see you have a heart that might vibrate to woman's tears. And yet you cannot know how sad I am, how very, very miserable!"

And as she gazed at me her eyes overflowed with two such tears as she had spoken of.

There are times when a passion of insensate anger seizes me to look back upon my folly. Ah! woman's wiles, woman's wiles! The greatest and the least of us have been their victims. And who am I to rave of my undoing, when a Sampson, a Nelson, and even a Napoleon, that man of iron, shared my fate.

But I was blind, blind! Pierced by the sight of those tears to the very fibres of my being, I sprang up, then falling on my knee before her, I seized and passionately kissed her hand.

"Mademoiselle, you spoke justly," I cried in French. "Here is a heart that only beats to serve you, without seeking, ay, even without desiring a reward, except that which you must give me of your pleasure or without, when I shall see upon your face some promise of your happiness repaired!"

The glance of involuntary horror that she gave me, and the swift withdrawal of her hand from my embrace, should have warned me of my fatuous self-betrayal. But there is no limit to the errors of a truly clever mind astray in seeking to retrieve itself. I thought that I had angered her in venturing to hint that her disease of sorrow might be cured.

"Pardon me," I pleaded earnestly, "I have offended you with words. If any part of me could so offend, that member I would straightaway destroy."

She looked at me more kindly, and even now I believe that she was touched by the sincerity and singleness of my devotion.

"Rise, monsieur!" she murmured with an effort. "I thank you for your sympathy, but it is not seemly that you kneel to me."

I obeyed, and at her nod resumed my chair. She closed her eyes, and for a long period was deathly still. Her lovely face was extraordinarily pallid and she scarcely seemed to breathe. Then I thought her in the throes of reawakened grief for Cavanagh's death, and my pain to watch her was intense. Now I know that in her silence she was struggling with herself. Or rather that pity in her, a woman's unfailing pity for a loving being, however wretchedly unworthy of compassion, was striving to silence her ideas of duty.

At last her eyes opened and she looked at me. Her regard was mysteriously wistful, cold, and it seemed to me a little self-ashamed. Indeed, she faintly blushed.

"Sir William Dagmar does not know that you can speak French!" she murmured. "You have deceived him, monsieur! That is wrong. I think that you should go away."

Thrice triple fool I was. Her pity had cajoled her conscience and she was offering me a chance to escape. I, in my infatuation, only thought that she chided me for my deceit.

"Ah! mademoiselle," I muttered. "It is true that I deceived him, but when I did so I was penniless and starving. I pray you from my soul that you will not bid me leave you nor inform Sir William Dagmar of my sin."

"You do not wish to go?"

"Mademoiselle!" I cried, "not though it were to Paradise assured!"

She blushed deeply, nevertheless her eyes hardened and she frowned. She was doubtless thinking--

"He has had his opportunity. His fate henceforth must be upon his own head! I wash my hands of it!"

I dreamed she was offended at my too ardent gaze. I lowered my eyes at once in sad humility.

"Stay then!" she said, and her voice assumed a tone of witching tenderness.

I looked up in quick delight to meet a dazzling smile. With such a smile Judith lured Holofernes to destruction. But it needed not that with me; I was destroyed already.

"My friend," she said, and she extended me her hand. "I thank you for your company, but, alas! the hours speed, and I have much to do. Good night!"

I tried to reply, but I could not. She permitted me to kiss her hand, however, and even smiled again. I left the room in a delirium of happiness, poor fool, and not one of my enraptured dreams that night disclosed to me the precipice upon whose brink I stood.

The days that followed were over full of strange, untried experiences for me to properly describe them. Marion was by my side whenever chance allowed. But every hour she showed to me a different mood, a varied and elusive distortion of her inmost self; so that I came to wonder more and more whether I knew truly aught of her except that she was beautiful in all her moods, and that I loved her irretrievably. One moment she was sad and steeped in cold unbending gloom. The next she was a gay companion, chattering of this and that as lightly and as brightly as a bird on sunlit bough. Again she was both grave and friendly at a time, and we conversed together of men, and books, and serious philosophies like two grey-haired, sober-minded savants. Sometimes, yet more infrequently, she forced upon me quarrels in caprice, to give her opportunity to scorch me with her scorn. And yet, again, more rarely still, she led me on with shy, alluring glances, or even bolder looks, provocative of passion, to woo her as I could; whereon, her will too readily achieved, she swiftly changed from melting fire to ice, and I was left in agonized confusion, swung like Mahommed's coffin between despair and hope.

So another week elapsed, and a third began. My master's life no longer stood in any danger, and his health and strength slowly but steadily improved. Sir Charles Venner still paid him daily visits, but they were more to satisfy the claims of friendship than of need. The great surgeon had always a smile and kindly word for me. It seemed that his suspicions had long ago been utterly eradicated, and that a liking had usurped their place. Sometimes I wondered if his penetrating insight had remarked my love for Marion. But he was far too profound an enigma for me to solve; and in any case Marion engrossed my life and mind so utterly that I had neither room nor inclination for any other problem. A sort of madness had come over me. Apart from her I dreamed; standing, sitting, or reclining as the case might be, idle and immovable as stone. I awoke to look upon her face, or listen to her voice, on instant a creature of pulsating passion; yet her humble and devoted slave, responding to her slightest will, as swiftly and obediently as a needle to the pole. And slowly but surely hope grew stronger in my breast. A thin wild hope it was at first, the veritable offspring of despair. But fostered by my passion and her wayward moods, it developed force and form, and I could at last no more deny it place in my imaginings. I hoped to win her. Yes; I hoped to win her! There were times when I forgot the gulf dug between us by her purity and my too criminal unworthiness, and I remembered only that she was a woman and I a man. The law of sex is hard to supersede. It recognizes neither morals nor conventions. It despises ethical distinctions, and it laughs with love at every human effort to confine its boundaries. At its command I began not only to hope, but to aspire. One morning Marion came to me and said: "Monsieur, Sir Charles Venner, who has just departed, has ordered me to take a holiday to-morrow. He says that I am looking pale, and that I need a little open air and sunshine. I think that he is wise, and I shall comply with his command!"

"But," I stammered, for the thought of losing her even for a day was a torture hardly to be borne, "what of Sir William Dagmar? How will he get on without you?"

"Sir Charles has promised to send another nurse this evening, who will take my place."

"I trust, mademoiselle, that you--that you will enjoy yourself," I muttered in a trembling voice. "The house will be dull without you, though--for me."

She gave me a swift, shy glance, then cast down her eyes, folding and unfolding her hands before her.

"How could I enjoy myself--do you think--alone?" she whispered. "It will be a sad day also for me."

"Let me go with you," I blurted out. "I am not needed here. Ah! I am mad to dream that you would condescend so far. Forgive me of your pity, and forget the insolence of my presumption!"

But she clapped her hands and laughed as blithely as a child. "Will you come?" she cried. "But that will be magnificent. Ah! let us see!" She darted across the room and perched herself upon the dresser. "Come here, monsieur, quite close to me. Nay, not too close. So! Now we shall plan our day. At sunrise we shall wake and dress, and we shall have an early breakfast here, so as not to waste a single moment of our day, our day!"

I gazed at her as a Peri might at Paradise, and she rippled on.

"Afterwards we shall drive to the station, and take a train to somewhere in the country, where we may wander through green fields and flower-scattered meadows, hand in hand like children. Shall we not, monsieur?"

I nodded, lost in a perfect dreamland of delight.

"But, no!" she cried quite suddenly. "It is beautiful, that picture, yet not so beautiful as this. Listen, monsieur--but you can row a boat, of course."

I nodded again.

"Then, listen! We shall go by train to Hampton, and there we shall take boat. The river is most lovely thereabouts, and you shall slowly row me up the stream towards Staines and Windsor through the hottest hours; slowly, slowly past the green-lawned banks and pretty houses, and among the darling little osier islets. And as you row I'll sing. And we'll forget our cares and open wide our hearts to the sunshine and to happiness without an afterthought. And when the noon comes we shall eat our lunch upon an island; a merry interlude between two golden dreams. For afterwards we'll float upon our way again. And when the day is done and twilight falls we shall land at the loveliest place of all. I know it well. It is an old, old park garden, thick planted with many great solemn trees. A private park, but lonely, for the house is haunted, so they say. And there I shall lead you by the hand into a little marble, many pillared temple, open to the stars, wherein a tiny spring is born within a pool, a wishing well. And you shall look therein and I, and we shall see fresh mirrored on its surface--the faces of our loves. Shall we do all this, monsieur?"

I could but bend my head, for her siren voice had woven round my faculties a spell of charmed silence, and not one of Circe's victims was ever more powerless than I was then. When I looked up she had gone. How I lived through that day and night I scarcely know. I can in fact remember nothing clearly of the hours that followed until the moment came when I saw her seated before me in the boat, the rudder lines slipping slowly through her folded hands. It was early in the morning of an absolutely perfect day. Of the river, the witching scenery, I knew but noted little, for I looked only upon her face. She was simply and yet elegantly clad in some rich clinging stuff of purest white; her loveliness it is beyond me to portray. But this I know--she seemed to love me, and her mood was yielding and submissive to the point of tenderness. Very generously did she fulfil her promise. As I rowed, she sang to me the sweetest songs of France, and Italy, and love songs all. It was indeed a rapturous, golden dream. When at times she ceased to sing we neither of us spoke, but gazed silently into each other's eyes, until the music in her woke to song again.

We came at noon to the pretty little island she foretold; and I made her sit upon a rug while I prepared our lunch. It was strange indeed how truly all her prophesies came true. The lunch was a very merry interlude. We both ate heartily, and we pledged each other often in champagne. Afterwards we started on our way again, and only when we came upon a lock did I remember that there was a world of living people near us. So slow and idle was our journeying that twilight had already fallen as we passed by Staines. About that time I noticed that Marion maintained a longer silence than her wont, and a little later I felt a sudden thrill to see her shivering. She was looking over the side of the boat, gazing sadly on the rippled surface of the stream.

"Are you cold, dear one?" I asked, and I paused to watch her, leaning on the sculls.

She shook her head.

"Then you shivered at a thought," I ventured. "Please to tell me what it was?"

"I thought of death," she said, and turning, looked into my eyes. Her own were alight with a rich sombre glow.

"Of death! and why of death--to-day?"

"Death, Agar, my friend," she answered--she had named me so since morning,--"is never long a stranger from my thoughts."

"What! and you so young, so beautiful," I cried.

"It is because I fear death, Agar. I have seen him in a thousand forms, and each form was more dreadful than the last. There are some who grow familiar with his face and finish by despising him. I, on the contrary, fear him more and more. But you, my friend, how do you regard him?"

"I have never asked myself the question."

"Then ask it now!"

"A morbid fancy, Marion!"

"Yet humour me, my friend; I wish to know."

To me her eyes seemed passionately curious, and I marvelled at her mood. But I answered gravely.

"I neither despise nor fear him, Marion. When in the press of time he calls for me, I shall bow to the inevitable with what dignity I can."

"I think you are a brave man, Agar," she replied. "You must be indeed, yet it is a thing that puzzles me."

"Why?" I questioned with a smile.

"Because a brave man should be honest too, and you are not."

"You are remembering the deceit I practised on Sir William Dagmar?"

"Yes; and other happenings."

"What else?"

"I am remembering the night my lover died!" She bent a little forward as she spoke, and her eyes burned into mine. I caught my breath, and I felt my hand gripped as with a hand.

"You bore me from the room of death," she proceeded in a tense passionate whisper, "and you laid me down upon my bed, and then you kissed my brow. I did not know you at the time, for you were very cunningly disguised--but now I know."

It never occurred to me to deny, or even to demand the origin of her discovery. Indeed, incredible as it may appear, I experienced some sort of delight to learn that she was thoroughly acquainted with my villainy. Quick as a flash I said to myself: "She knows, and yet she has not turned from me. It must be that she loves!"

"I believed that you were utterly insensible," I gasped.

She sighed and leaned back in her seat. A long silence fell between us. My thoughts were in a tangled whirl. I could not grasp the skein of them, and I seemed to be plucking helplessly after a dozen elusive phantom-like ideas.

At last I heard her say: "It was for me he died, Agar!" She was alluding to the dead man, George Cavanagh, and her tones were full of bitterness.

I waited with my eyes upon her averted face. "He died in vain," she went on presently. "Ah, but doubtless you already know."

"Nothing!" I muttered. "Nothing."

"He was ruined," she said sadly, "and he wished his death to profit me--with money. Money! As if money could atone!"

"Then he was dishonest too, as well as I," I muttered, trying hard to smoothe all triumph from my tones.

She uttered a low moan of pain, and wrung her hands together. "No, no," she wailed. "He wished to be perhaps, but I gave the money back to them."

"I am glad of that," I cried.

She threw at me a look of fiery scorn. "You!" she hissed; "you! Get to your work and row."

In mournful humility I immediately obeyed, and we glided on our way again. For a long while I dared not look at her, and when I dared I could not see for the dark. But I knew that she was weeping, and though I longed to comfort her, I set my teeth and kept resolutely to my work, rowing hard in an effort to forget. It was she who interrupted me. I saw her white figure start suddenly erect.

"Stop!" she cried; "we have passed the place. Go back!"

I put the boat about, and slowly we returned. Soon at her word I shipped the sculls and allowed the craft to drift. The silence afterwards was full of brooding melancholy. The long, dark shadows on the river were interspersed with flecks of shapeless mist, which fancy shaped to spirit forms, and ghostly arms outstretched to beckon or to wave forbiddingly. How Marion fared I cannot guess, but I was wretched and sunk deep in gloom. It was a miserable ending to so glorious a day, and my heart ached strangely as I thought of it, although I did not reckon all my pain until I found relief at last in her command to seek the shore. We landed upon a long green sloping bank, fringed heavily with willows, to one of which I moored the boat. She left me at that occupation, and slowly climbed the bank. But her white dress shone out through the shadows of the grove, and soon I stood before her. She laid her hand upon my lips and drew me then into a very gloomy little dell entirely girt with trees. I wondered vaguely at her action and her cautious silence, yet as always I obeyed her wish, and waited on her mood.

For a moment she kept very still, and then she put her hands upon my breast.

"You love me," she said simply.

I clasped my hands on hers and answered, "Yes."

"How much?" she whispered--very low.

"More, Marion, than life."

"And you respect me?"

"More reverently than death."

"What do you wish of me?"

"Your love!"

"What will you give for it?"

"All that I can."

"And will you suffer for it? What?"

"All that you ask."

"Then kiss me, Agar."

I bent my head and pressed my lips to hers. Her lips were very cold. But the contact set my blood on fire and I caught her in my arms, and strained her to my breast. She shivered in my clasp and deeply sighed, but I rained hot kisses on her cheeks, and eyes, and lips passionately, striving to warm her with my passion, for I knew that she was cold, and unresponsive too, in spite of her surrender.

But of a sudden she tore herself from my embrace and fled. I caught her on a stretch of lawn and held her close again. To my dismayed astonishment she was weeping wildly. I kissed the tears away and frantically implored her for their reason. And yet she would do nought but sob, and gaze around her like one distraught and terrified. "Oh, my God!" she cried at last; "I cannot, I cannot! I was mad to undertake this thing--mad--mad!"

"What thing, my sweetheart?" I demanded in amazement.

For answer she threw herself into my arms and kissed me with all the passion of her soul, once, twice. Then drawing back, she caught my hand in one of hers, and with the other pointed towards the river, trembling violently the while. "Ask me nothing now," she panted; "but let us go--quickly, quickly. This place is haunted! See, I am half sick with terror."

I passed my arm about her waist and would have led her to the boat, but at that moment a short shrill whistle sounded from the willows, and was answered by two others from the wood. The first, however, had hardly pierced the air, when Marion uttered a frightful scream, and sank swooning at my feet.

I understood then that the woman I loved had in some fashion betrayed me. For one desperate second I stood listening for sounds and thinking of escape. Then anguish overwhelmed me. The transition from my paradise of beliefs to the hell of certainties was too rapid, for hope to spring readily therefrom, and I thought to myself--

"Let even death come, for what is there good in life when love is wrecked and ruined!"

Uttering a groan, I fell on my knee beside her, not knowing what I did, not caring what might happen.

Next instant I dimly heard a rush of feet upon the grass, a cry of rage from right to left. A sharp pain quivered through my brain. I saw a blaze of light that faded quickly into unalleviated blackness. I felt the world swing with a sickening revolution round, and then came sweet encompassing oblivion.

VIII

TORTURE

I dreamed that my nostrils were being tickled with a straw. After awhile the sensation became intolerable. I knew that I was dreaming, yet I wished to wake up. Sleep, however, pressed with a heavy hand upon my eyelids, and I contended long and desperately without at all persuading him to go.

At last a voice said, "That will do, Jussieu, he is coming round."

I opened my eyes at once, with extraordinary ease, considering my long struggle, and I looked up into the impassive countenance of Sir Charles Venner. I was seated upright in a high-backed chair, strapped securely in position, strapped in such a way indeed that I could move only my fingers and my toes. The negro surgeon, Jussieu, whom I had last seen at the Kingsmere Hospital for Consumptives, was standing to the right of Sir Charles, and three of us were grouped about the centre of a small uncarpeted brick-floored room scarce twelve feet square, that was furnished only with the chair I occupied and a bracket oil lamp whose wick was smoking. There was one other person in the room. The negro, Beudant, stood near the closed door, wiping upon a cloth a blood-smeared lancet. I noticed that my left sleeve had been ripped open, and that my arm was bandaged just above the elbow. Evidently they had bled me. But why? And where was Marion? Of a sudden I remembered all. Marion had lured me to this river park and betrayed me with a Judas kiss into the hands of my enemies. Too late she had repented of her treachery and tried to save me. She had swooned; I had knelt beside her body, and someone had stunned me with a club. It was all very simple. I had been a contemptible fool, and now I must pay the price of my folly. What price would they exact? I wondered. But I most wondered at my indifference. They can only kill me, I reflected, and the thought scarcely disturbed me. Yet I was curious. There were many things I wished to know.

"Where am I?" I asked, looking at Sir Charles.

"You are in the cellar of my private house at Staines," he answered civilly enough. "I may inform you that I keep no servants except these men you see, and the house is set in the middle of a small park some hundred and fifty yards distant from the river and at least a quarter mile from any other building. You may therefore spare yourself the useless trouble of shouting for help, should you have been so minded."

"Thank you!" said I.

"Question me further, if you wish, Mr. Hume. It will be my turn soon to play inquisitor, when you are stronger."

"Where is Marion Le Mar?"

"She returned to London, this morning. You have been four and twenty hours insensible."

"A clever woman that," I muttered coolly. "You may congratulate yourself, Sir Charles, on her assistance. But for her I would long ago have been in France."

He smiled ironically. "You praise her too much!" he replied. "She has served me well, it is true; but for the last fortnight you have been practically my prisoner."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"What I say. Do you remember Miss Le Mar calling you to her room one certain evening and asking you questions of your race and parentage?"

"Yes."

"Had you left the house that evening, even the very second she dismissed you, and indeed at any moment since, you would have been arrested on the instant."

"By whom?"

"By my detectives!"

"What, did you commit yourself with the police?"

He smiled again. "Oh, no! Nevertheless, you would have been arrested, Mr. Hume, and you would have thought--by the police!"

"I--see; but--but--how could you have known, I mean, how could you have been sure that I was I--until you had communicated with--with her?"

For a third time he smiled, and when he spoke it was in a tone of genuine admiration. "You are an able man, Mr. Hume!" said he, "but no chain is stronger than its weakest link, and your weakest link was revealed to me that very morning!"

"Ah! what was it?"

"An advertisement in the personal column of the _Daily Mail_."

"You deal in mysteries!" I cried impatiently, "I never inserted such an advertisement in my life."

"It ran like this"--replied Sir Charles. "If the gentleman who left a plain, oak coffin in the front room of number 904 Old Kent Road on the morning of the ---- day of ----, does not claim it within fourteen days from date, it will be sold to pay expenses. Sarah Rosenbaum!"

"The idiot!" I gasped. "I gave it to her!"

Sir Charles burst out laughing. "Did you?" he cried--"did you indeed? Well luckily for me she could not have understood you!"

"Do you mean to say, sir, it was only that advertisement which put you on my track?"

"That, and only that. I suspected you before, but I confess that you were adroit enough to allay my suspicions and hoodwink me completely!"

"Oh! Lord," I groaned. "To think that a frowsy, oily haired Jewess should be the cause of my undoing. Why in the name of goodness was she not satisfied to take the coffin for a gift!"

"Perhaps she was afraid to sell it, or perhaps she tried to sell it and could not show a title to its would-be purchaser. You should not condemn her, Hume, upon _ex parte_ evidence. Pardon me for saying it, but the fault was yours. You should not have given her the coffin at all. You should have got rid of it by other means!"

"Too true!" I groaned. "But I only wanted a day's grace then, or I'd not have been so careless!"

"You had seven!" he exclaimed. "The advertisement did not appear for a week!"

I felt my cheeks crimson. "After all," I muttered, "you owe everything to Marion."

"Were you really such a fool," he cried.

I nodded. "Give me to drink!" I said. "I'm feeling weak and sick."

He made a sign, and one of the negroes hurried out. I was very near swooning, when I felt my chair tipped back, and something was forced between my teeth. I drank and was revived. Then one of the negroes fed me with a bowl of soup and soon my strength was perfectly restored. Sir Charles Venner waited all the time before me, occasionally feeling my pulse. He seemed satisfied at last that my condition warranted his promised inquisition, and he proceeded straight away to business.

"Where are the jewels?" he demanded. "The jewels you purchased with the ten thousand pounds that you extorted from me?"

"In a safe place." I replied.

"But you must tell me where, Mr. Hume," he said, in a pleasant but determined voice.

"Ah, but you must first tell me what you intend to do with me, Sir Charles."

He shrugged his shoulders. "What can I do but kill you?" he replied. "I dare not let you go, and you are too infernally adroit to keep a prisoner! Come, Hume, I'll make a bargain with you. Give me the jewels, and I'll promise you your choice of deaths."

"Done with you!" I cried. "I choose old age!"

"Senility is not for you, my friend; I spoke of sudden deaths."

"Then we can't trade, Sir Charles!"

"Let me remind you that I am a surgeon, Hume. Some deaths are extraordinarily painful. You, who are no anatomist, I think, would be surprised to learn how tenaciously the soul may cling to its clay casket, and how deep are the wells of agony that it will often plumb before it can be prevailed upon to seek another sphere of usefulness. Now I am not a cruel man, and I should not like to see you suffer too protractedly. Let me persuade you not to force my hand."

"Give me a night to think it over," I replied.

"Why delay? No, Hume, I cannot grant your wish in any case. I have to perform a difficult operation to-morrow, and if my mind were occupied with doubts, I might not do my patient justice. If I left you here alive I should be uneasy, my knife might slip--a thousand accidents might happen. Improbable as it seems, you might escape."

"You have determined then to murder me tonight?" I gasped.

"Yes."

"But, you fool!" I cried, seeing one gleam of hope. "How then can you be sure of getting the jewels. I have only to tell you a lie in order to rob you of them for ever!"

The man positively started; nor did he attempt to conceal his mind.

"Hum!" he muttered. "That is a point I had overlooked." Of a sudden, however, his lips parted in a smile and his eyes gleamed.

"Well, well," he said. "Since there's no help, I needs must let you live a day or two. But in order to save time, Hume, be good enough to tell me your first lie at once?"

"You mean?"

"I'll be quite frank with you, my man. This is my meaning. You will presently mention a place where the jewels may be but are not. I shall prove during to-morrow that you have lied. And to-morrow night we'll speak again--and you will then tell me the truth. You understand?"

"You mean, that to-morrow night you will torture me?"

"Just so."

"And if I refuse to speak to-night?"

"You will sleep poorly, I'm afraid, my friend. But come, be reasonable. You pleaded for a night's reflection. I offer it to you."

"But with a sure prospect of torture on the morrow."

"Unless you speak the truth to-night."

"Then I shall!" I cried with a shudder. "Better death than torture!"

"Well?"

"The jewels are in Sir William Dagmar's house. You will----"

"You lie," he interjected sharply. "I drugged and searched you the night that you returned from robbing me."

"I know that, sir; but the very next day I went out and brought them to the house, I couldn't bear to have them any longer out of my reach."

"Ah!" His looks pierced me, but I did not flick an eyelash as I steadily returned his stare.

"Go on!" he said at length. "Where are they hidden, then?"

"Marion Le Mar has them, Sir Charles. I gave them to her when we left the house last morning?"

"What?" he shouted. "What?"

"It is true," I answered glibly. "I gave them to her wrapped up in a small sealed parcel, which I asked her to keep for me in her box until we had returned. I acted so for this reason. It occurred to me that you or someone might take a notion to search my room while I was away, but I felt pretty sure you'd never dream of searching Marion's box."

It were as well for me perhaps to explain straight away the monstrous falsehood last recorded. An instinct taught me that Sir Charles Venner entertained but small respect for women. I saw that he wanted the jewels very badly, and I fancied that if I could make him believe the story I had so readily invented, I might still live for many days. His natural course would be at once to demand from Marion the packet which I declared that I had given her. As I had given her nothing, she would truthfully repudiate his claim. But Sir Charles Venner's want of respect for women would immediately induce him to doubt the honesty of Marion's denial. He would think, "she has opened the packet, and the jewels--treasures so dear to women's eyes--have stolen her honour."

I would act thereafter so as subtly to foster his suspicions, and I hoped that at last, in order to satisfy himself whether Marion or I spoke true, he would confront me with the beautiful woman, for love of whom I had to die. I felt that I would be content to perish, given in exchange one opportunity to hurl at her my hate. As deep and tender as had been my love, so bitter and so ardent was my hate!

Sir Charles eyed me for a moment in thoughtful silence. Then very slowly he nodded his head.

"Did you tell her what it was you gave her?" he demanded.

"No."

"Why do you tell me now? It will cost you a day of life if you spoke the truth."

I permitted myself a show of passion.

"A life of which I am weary, weary! Have you ever loved, you man of ice? Have you ever been betrayed by the creature you adored?" I cried. "I would to God that you had killed me as I knelt beside her body in the park. I had then hardly realized her treachery!" I closed my eyes and shuddered, straining my muscles as though in a paroxysm of mental agony, the while.

"Hume!" said Sir Charles, "if you are not acting, you are desperate, and you have not lied to me. Take my advice and die while you are desperate! A pin prick and all will be over. I can promise you no pain."

The fact is I had acted far too well. It was necessary then to surpass my former effort in order to save my life, and at the same time make him continue to believe in me.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him, at first with a vacant stare. "She sold me with a Judas kiss!" I muttered, "a cursed traitress--with a Judas kiss. You've promised me my choice of deaths. You'll keep your word, Sir Charles, or by the God above us--you'll die a fouler death than I."

I gave him a look of such concentrated rage as I concluded, that, bound though I was, he started back a step and bit his lip.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed, "I'll keep my word, you need not fear."

"Then bring me a cross, and nail me to it--in my senses while I live, and while I bleed to death--you'll drag her here to see me--so that I may curse her as I die!"

"The man is mad!" he gasped, "mad as a March hare!"

"Keep your word!" furiously I hissed. "I bind you to your word!"

Sir Charles exchanged fearful glances with the negroes. I watched him, frowning like a thunder-cloud.

"Come, come!" he said at last. "You must sleep over this, Hume! You must not set me a task beyond my power--I----"

But I broke in upon him with a curse. "What!" I shrieked. "You bragged and bleated of the torture you had in store for me--and when I bid you kill me as I wish to die, you shrink and blanch and mouth your feminine humanity. But you've given me your promise--and you'll keep it or by--" I finished with a storm of maledictions so blasphemously horrible, and which I delivered with such wild and awful force, that even the stolid negroes staggered back and rolled their eyes. As for Sir Charles, he turned sheet white before I was half through, and with a look of something marvellously resembling terror, he turned and simply rushed out of the room.

I screamed my curses after him, straining and tugging at my bonds like one possessed. But at length, thoroughly outworn with the exertion, I stopped and feigned to swoon.

Next moment the cellar was in darkness, and I heard the negroes stumble out and bolt the door behind them.

I'll not relate the anguish I endured that night, more than to say it made an old man of me--in mind, if not in body. I did not sleep. I could not if I would, for I was companied with memories sharp enough to sting a soul from torpor deep as death. And I would not, if I could, because I feared that those were by me who might take advantage of my slumber to extend my sleep beyond mortality.

But none came near me, and through the dragging hours I heard no sound. Morning came without the black dark lessening one whit, until the negro, Beudant, brought a candle with some breakfast. He was plainly afraid of me at first, and without doubt I was not a pleasant thing to gaze upon. But his fears faded as he fed me and saw me grateful for the food.

"You are in a gentler mood, monsieur, than overnight," he presently remarked. "It is better so, believe me. If I were you, I would not die upon a cross."

"Just so," I answered quickly. "I do not wish to die at all, would you like to make yourself a rich man, M. Beudant?"

"Why, yes, monsieur."

"Then help me to escape, and I shall fill your hands with gold."

"But in that case I should incur my patron's enmity."

"And in the other you will run a very certain risk of being hanged."

"Even so, monsieur."

"You fear your patron more keenly than the law!" I cried. "Believe me, you are wrong."

"Pardon!" he interrupted, "you mistake, monsieur. I fear no man. Sir Charles Venner is my patron and my teacher. But he is also my friend. I would suffer death for him, if need arose."

I sighed. "Will he really kill me, do you think?" I asked.

The negro pursed out his thick, black lips. "I feel sure of it," he muttered. "As soon as once the jewels that he seeks are in his hands, you'll die."

"Then my hours are numbered," I said gloomily, "for that will be to-day."

"But then, can it be, you told him truly, yesternight, monsieur?"

"I was mad!" I groaned aloud. "Mad. Last night I cared for nothing! I was torn apart with rage and with despair. But now it is different." I groaned again. "Ah! M. Beudant, is there no hope for me? You do not look inhuman! Would you have the murder of a fellow being on your soul. Help me to live, if only for a little while--a few short hours? One other day? I am not fit to die, Beudant. Great God, no! I am not fit to die!"

"What can I do for you, monsieur?"

"Oh! it is not much I ask. Go to your patron and persuade him that I lied last night."

"Impossible, monsieur! He has already left the house."

"Then follow him, Beudant. I am bound or I would beseech you on my knees. Beudant for the love of God----"

"Monsieur, monsieur!"

"Kind, sweet Beudant!" I wailed. "Beautiful, excellent Beudant, do this little thing for me. See it is a dying man entreats you. Sweet Beudant, pretty Beudant."

The poor negro looked the picture of distress. His eyes rolled in his head, and he knew not what to do or say.

"I cannot deceive my patron!" he cried at last.

But at that I shrieked aloud and drove him from the room with venomous blood-curdling curses. In his agitation he forgot to take with him the candle, which he had set upon the floor, and that circumstance gave me an occupation for some hours which in some degree alleviated my dark mood of bitterness. I thought that by dint of great stress and labour I might work my chair beside the flame and sear through some or other of my bonds. In four hours of constant effort I had moved a foot perhaps, but then I gave up in despair, for I had still a yard to go and already the candle guttered in its socket.

Jussieu was the next to visit me, bearing on a tray my mid-day meal. After eating heartily, I tested him in much the fashion I had tried on Beudant. He gave me similar replies, and I rewarded him with similar maledictions. But instead of flying from my oaths as the other negro had, to my astonishment, he quelled me with a rolling sermon, delivered in the finest Lutheran style. Texts quivered from his tongue, like shafts of lightning in a storm, and the black canting hypocrite, who was ready at his master's nod to murder me, dared preach to me of penitence, and summoned me in thunderous tones to prepare my soul for death.

At first rage and indignation held me speechless; but when the humour of the situation struck me properly, I yelled with laughter, and laughed and laughed until my ribs ached and the tears trickled down my cheeks.

When I had sobered he was gone, and I was glad, despite the dark. I am too good a hypocrite myself to endure a man whose hypocrisy may be pierced with a pin. And though I had laughed at him, too much of Jussieu would have made me sick.

Seven hours later Sir Charles Venner entered my prison cellar with his ebony attendants, who bore between them a small table spread with lamps, and one or two strange ugly looking implements.

The surgeon wore a gloomy look, and he made no answer to my courteous greeting. But bidding Beudant shut the door, he turned to me and said:--

"Hume, after all you lied to me!"

"What!" I cried as if dumbfounded. Then quickly recovering my countenance, I exclaimed. "Oh, yes, yes. You have discovered it. Yes, yes, I lied to you. The jewels are really hidden behind the second volume of Bruton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" in the bookshelf on the eastern wall of Sir William Dagmar's library."

Sir Charles favoured me with a black frown. "You are such an accomplished liar!" he said coldly, "that I can no longer rely upon your unsupported word."

"What would you do?" I cried.

"Persuade you to be honest with a foretaste of damnation!"

At that I felt my blood turn cold within me, and yet strange to say a hot sweat broke out on my forehead and my face.

"You monster!" I gasped. "You would really torture me?"

"I shall," he retorted. "Jussieu, will you please to operate."

"But certainly, monsieur," replied the brutal preacher, with a grin of malice which showed me that my laughter had not failed to prick his vanity.

He seized one of the implements that I had noted and immediately approached my chair. In another moment my left hand was encased in a curious steel glove, which held the fingers widely separated in rigid iron stalls. I tremulously assured myself this was a farce to try my nerve; and resolving not to watch the leering villain at his work, I looked up at Sir Charles, who met my eyes as impassively as ever.

"A test?" I sneered.

"Yes, a test," said he.

Next instant I uttered a scream of agony, for a burning pain had suddenly pierced my thumb. I looked at it and saw that a long needle had been inserted down the joint between the nail and quick. Jussieu was already busy at my forefinger. "Mercy mercy," I shouted. "I'll tell you the truth, the truth!"

"Then speak!"

"She has them, Marion!"

"Once more, Jussieu?" said Sir Charles.

Again that penetrating agony. Again I raved and screamed. Again I swore I'd tell the truth.

"Speak!" cried Sir Charles.

"They are in Sir William Dagmar's library, where I said before, behind----"

"Once more, Jussieu!" interrupted the surgeon.

I lost sight of the agonizing periods. I fainted more than once and was restored to life by pain. Sometimes I lied, more often still I shrieked aloud the truth, and was not credited. But at last growing wise under the torture, I perceived what my inquisitor wished me most to say, and I vowed time after time that Marion possessed the jewels, and Marion alone. At last Sir Charles decided to believe me, and my mangled hand was grudgingly released. I was by then well-nigh incapable of feeling, and they might have murdered me without exciting in my breast one added solitary pang.

I fell into a heavy sleep before they left the room, and when I awoke I was benumbed and very listless. I became, however, gradually aware that much had been done during my unconsciousness which must have lasted hours. The table remained in the room, and a lamp thereon cast a yellow glitter round the plastered walls. To the left of my chair there yawned a deep hole in the floor, something coffin shaped, with bricks and earth and stones heaped against the wall behind. Two spades were sticking in the rubble, and a pick. Very patently it was a grave, my grave! I gazed at it with a sort of solemn wonder, but I thought it might prove a friend, if it would only save me from such horrors as I shuddered to remember I had lately undergone. After a time I realized that I was listening to a faint bubbling sound that seemed to issue from my grave. Then I noted in the shadowy depths a whitish froth, and understood! My grave promised me, as well as death, obliteration, nay, absolute annihilation. It was partly filled with seething quicklime!

Beudant came and made me eat and drink. I was very faint and only asked him for the time. He told me it was two o'clock upon the fourth day of my imprisonment.

While wondering at the news, I fell asleep. Beudant awoke me with more food and drink. Again I fell asleep, and again I awoke to find myself being softly carried from the cellar of my grave, into an adjoining room that was also situated underground, for it, too, was plastered walled and windowless. It contained, however, a long rack furnished with some dozens of champagne, neck downwards, and most carefully bestowed.

"A good vintage! I should say," I said to Beudant. Satan himself could not have made me to speak to Jussieu, except with sneers.

"You shall judge, monsieur!" replied the negro, and when he set me down, he took a bottle from the rack and proceeded to unfold the cork.

"Why this sudden kindness to an _ame damnee_!" I asked indifferently. "Has my last hour come?"

"God knows, monsieur; but you are, I think, to have a visitor, and I have orders! Kindly drink!"

He poured out a full cup of the frothy nectar, and held it to my lips. I quaffed it slowly, and felt the life blood surge anew along my veins. Also I felt my lacerated hand begin to pain, and soon I groaned aloud. Beudant on instant was a kind physician, and I blessed him as he poured some warm and grateful balsam on the wounds, and bound my injured fingers in a swathe of silk.

"Beudant." said I, "whichever takes me, Beelzebub or Satan, when I go, I'll sing your praises to him as a man of heart."

"Peace, blasphemer!" grated Jussieu.

"Peace yourself, you canting hound!" I cried.

For answer he smote me on the mouth. But that was too much even for me, who till that moment honestly believed that I was destitute of pride. I discovered at the touch of a blackfellow's paw that, at all events, I had a pride of race. I filled my lungs with air and shouted like a Stentor: "Help! Help! Murder! Murder!"

Jussieu shook like a leaf. "You blasted pig!" he muttered--very low. "God strike you dead!"

Truly his religion, for all his preaching, was not deep.

But Sir Charles Venner's voice answered at once, in very angry tones: "Beudant, Jussieu, what the devil are you doing?"

Next instant the door opened. I saw the tail end of a flight of brick steps, and into the room rushed Marion Le Mar, followed less quickly by the surgeon, who stopped to lock the door behind him. The girl stopped midway on the floor. But I did not look at her. I was too deeply agitated, and I wished to gather up my strength for later use.

I heard Sir Charles repeat his question. Jussieu replied--"Master, he blasphemed, and I struck him on the mouth."

Pride of race is a curious thing. I found I could not argue with the negro, though he had lied.

The surgeon whipped his servant with a dozen scorching words, then strode beside my chair.

"For this insult, Hume," he said, "I offer you my sincere apologies. Such a thing will not occur again!"

"Give me another cup of wine," I cried, "and I'll forgive you."

Within a moment it was held up to my lips, and I drained it at one draught. I was passionately craving strength to show my hate to Marion. Heaven! How I hated her!

"More?" asked Sir Charles.

"No," I answered sullenly; my eyes fell upon the floor.

"Mademoiselle Le Mar denies that you gave her any packet, Hume?"

"Does she?"

"Yes, and she is here to confront you?"

"Why?"

"To induce you to confess your falsehood!"

"And if I don't?"

"It will go harder with you than before!"

I ground my teeth. "Bah!" I snarled, "you doubt her word, or you'd not have brought her here. I see your game, you wish to make her own her theft by witnessing my torture. But you will fail, you fool. Do you forget that she betrayed me? She'll laugh to hear my screams!"