Chapter XIX: The Outer Darkness

Something was waking her. Someone seemed to be knocking on the outer door of her brain. She came back to consciousness as one returning from a far, far journey that yet had occupied but a very brief space of time. An inner sense of urgency awoke and responded to that outer knocking. As through a maze of disconnected impressions she heard a voice.

"I give you ten seconds, my lord," it said. "Just--ten--seconds!"

The words were absolutely quiet, they sounded almost suave; but the deadly determination of them smote upon her like the call of a trumpet. She started up.

The next instant she was staring about her in utter bewilderment. She was lying on a deep couch in a room she had never seen before, a strange, conical chamber, oak-panelled, lighted by a domed skylight. It was furnished with bizarre Eastern luxury. The couch on which she lay was a nest of tiger-skins.

But she saw these details but vaguely. That voice she had heard had made all else of no importance. It had spoken close to her, but it was not in the room with her, and she could not for the moment tell whence it had come. She could only listen with caught breath for more, listen with starting eyes fixed on the stuffed skin of a cobra poised on a small table near as if ready to strike. She even fancied for a moment that the thing was alive, and then realized with a passing relief that it had been converted into the stem of a reading-lamp.

Again the voice came. It was counting slowly, with the utmost regularity.

But it was not allowed to continue. Saltash's voice; quick and imperious, broke in upon it. "Be quiet, you damn' fool! If you murder me, you'll only be sorry afterwards. I have told you I don't know where she is."

"You have told me a lie, my lord." Grim as fate came the answer, and following it a movement that turned her sick with fear.

She sprang to her feet with a wild cry. "Jake! Jake! I am here! Jake,--come to me!"

She threw herself against the panelling of the wall in a frenzy of terror, and beat upon it fiercely, frantically. There was a door behind her, but instinct warned her that it did not lead whither she desired to go. It was through the panelling that those sinister words had reached her.

But it resisted her wild efforts. She beat in vain. "Oh, Jake!" she cried again, and broke into agonized sobbing. "Jake, where are you?"

And then she heard his voice again, short this time and commanding. "Let her out, my lord! The game is up."

"Trust a woman to give it away!" said Saltash, and laughed a cold, hard laugh.

The panelling against which she stood suddenly yielded, slid back. She found herself standing on the threshold of the music-room, close to one of the carved fireplaces. And there, face to face with her, one hand thrust deep into his breeches-pocket, stood her husband, stood Jake. All her life she was to remember the look he wore.

Saltash was nearer still, but she scarcely saw him. She went past him, sobbing, inarticulate, unnerved. She stretched out trembling, beseeching hands to the man in whose eyes she read the lust of murder. She cried aloud to him in her agony!

"Come away! Oh, come away! Be merciful this once--only this once! Jake! Jake!"

She reached him, she clung to him; she would have knelt to him. But he thrust his left arm around her, forcibly holding her up.

He did not speak to her, did not, she believed, so much as look at her. His eyes were fixed with a terrible intensity upon the man beyond her. His attitude was strained and unyielding. The untamed ferocity of the wilds was in every line of him, in every tense muscle. Ruthlessness, lawlessness, savagery unshackled, fiercely eager, beat in every pulse, every sinew of his frame. She felt as if she were holding back a furious animal from his prey, as if at any moment he would burst free, and rend and tear till the demon that possessed him was satisfied.

But she clung to him faster and faster, seeking to pinion the murderous right hand that was thrust so deeply away out of her reach. She heard another laugh from Saltash, but she did not dare to turn. And then came a sound like the click of a spring-trap.

The tension went suddenly out of Jake. He relaxed and with a certain cowboy roughness took his hand from his pocket and grasped her by the shoulders. His eyes came from beyond her, and looked straight into hers. And she knew without turning her head that her own hour of reckoning had come. They were alone.

For many, many seconds he looked at her so with a red-hot glow in his eyes that seemed as though it would burn its way to her most secret soul. She endured it with a desperate courage. If he had caught her by the throat she would not have flinched. But his hold, though insistent, was without violence. And at last very, very slowly he let her go.

"I guess that ends it," he said.

"What do you mean?" Through quivering lips she asked the question. She felt as if an icy wind had suddenly caught her. She was cold from head to foot.

He made a slight gesture as of one indicating the obvious, and turned away. She saw his square figure moving away from her, and a terrible fear went through her. Her very heart felt frozen within her. She tried to speak, to utter his name; but her throat only worked spasmodically, making no sound.

He reached the door, opened it, and then--as if he could not help it--he looked back at her. And in that moment with frantic effort she burst the bonds that held her. She threw out her arms in wild entreaty.

"Jake!" she gasped. "Jake! Don't--don't leave me!"

He stopped, but he did not return. There was a curious look on his face. He seemed to stand irresolute.

She began to move towards him, but found herself trembling too much to walk. She tottered to the mantel-piece for support. But she still looked towards him, still tremulously entreated him.

"Jake, you--you don't understand! You never will understand if you leave me now. I'm going under--I'm going under! Jake,--save me!"

She bowed her head suddenly upon her hands, and stood quivering. She had made her last piteous effort to escape from the toils that held her. Nothing but a miracle could save her now. Nothing but the power of that love that dieth not.

Seconds passed. She thought that he had gone, had abandoned her to her fate, left her to the mercy of a man who would compass her ruin. And she wondered in her agony if she could muster sufficient strength to flee from that evil place and snatch her own deliverance down on the dark, lonely shore, where no one could ever drag her back again.

And then very suddenly a hand touched her, closed upon her arm. It was as if a current of electricity ran through her. She turned with a great start.

Jake's eyes, very level, quite inscrutable, looked straight into hers. "I guess we'll be getting along home," he said.

His hand urged her steadily, indomitably. He led her speechless from the room, supporting her when she faltered, but never hesitating or suffering her to pause.

They came out at the top of the great, branching staircase. The hall below them was lighted only by the soft glow that surrounded Saltash's favourite statue. The hand that held Maud's arm tightened to a grip. They went down the stairs together, and passed the tragic figure by.

As they moved down the long hall, a man stepped suddenly out from behind the statue, and looked after them with eyes that shone derisively. He did not utter a word, and his movements were without sound.

Neither of the two was aware of his presence. Only as they paused at the outer door, Maud glanced back and saw the arc of light about the statue vanish.

She uttered a quick exclamation, for it was as if the marble itself had come to life and fled from her gaze. And then she was aware of Jake's hands fastening her waterproof about her, and she forgot all but her longing to escape--to escape.

A few seconds more, and she heard the heavy door shut behind them. She was out in the gathering darkness with Jake, and the rain was beating in her face.

It was then that her weakness came back to her, a sense of terrible exhaustion that gave her the feeling of dragging heavy chains. She fought against it desperately, dreading every instant lest he should misinterpret her dragging steps and leave her. An overwhelming drowsiness was creeping over her, numbing all her facilities. She struggled to fling it off, but could not. It crowded upon her like an evil dream. She staggered, stumbled, almost fell.

Jake stopped. "Reckon you're tired," he said.

She answered him with a rush of tears. "I can't help it! Really, I can't help it! I--I believe I must be ill."

She tried to cling to his supporting arm, but her hands slipped weakly away. She felt herself sinking, sinking into a black sea of oblivion, and knew it was futile to struggle any longer.

Yet a vague sense of comfort came to her with the consciousness of his arms tightening around her. She gave herself to him like a tired child. She even feebly thanked him as he lifted her.

And then for a long, long space she knew nothing. Billows and billows of unfathomable nothingness were over her, under her, all about her. Sometimes her drugged brain stirred as if about to register an impression, but no actual impression reached it. The things of earth had faded utterly away. She was as one vaguely floating in a nebulous cloud through which now and then, now and then, a dim star shone for a moment and then went out.

After a time even this slender link was snapped. She went into a deeper darkness, and there for awhile her troubled wanderings were stayed. She slept as she had never slept before. It was as if for a long, long space she ceased to be....

Out of the silence at last came a fearful dream. Out of a great emptiness she entered another world, a world of demon shapes and demon voices, of faces that jeered and vanished, a world of terrible, outer darkness, in which she seemed to be bereft of all things, to stand as it were naked and alone. She dreamed that the statue had come to life indeed, and behold, it was herself! In horror unutterable, in shame that was agony she went her appointed way,--a fallen woman who could never rise again.

And ever a voice within seemed urging her to soar, to soar; but she could not. Wings had been given her, but she could not use them. One wing had been broken, how she knew not. Perhaps it was in beating against the bars of a cage. Some such struggle hovered vaguely in her memory, but all struggling was over now. All hope of escape was dead.

Again the demon-faces came all about her, demon-hands clutched at her, pulling her down. And every face was the face of Charlie Burchester, every hand wore the ring which twice over he had given to her. And still she heard his laugh, that cruel, bitter laugh with which he had left her alone in the music-room with Jake.

At last she knew that she cried aloud to die, but instantly she realized the futility of her prayer. There was no God to hear her in this awful place. And there was no Death.

Yet it was then that it seemed to her that a door was opened somewhere very far above her, and a gracious breath of purity came down. Crushed as she was, over-whelmed with evil, grossly besmirched and degraded, it came to her like a puff of morning wind from the clean, open spaces of the earth. She turned her face upwards. She gasped and opened her eyes.

And then all in a moment the dreadful vision passed away from her, and she saw Jake's face gazing, gazing into hers.