Chapter XVIII: Father and Daughter

It was past midnight.

Thyra stood leaning upon the marble terrace of the Villa Sergio, still gazing upon the moonlit sea.

Below, a few lights twinkled in the town, while across on the headland of the island of Lacroma shone out the warning beacon. The feathery palms and bamboos above her whispered in the faint breeze, but the dead silence of the night was over everything.

Alone, standing there in silence, it seemed to her that some mysterious being, black in the night shadows, had smitten her heart. She had awakened from the evil stupor of the past few hours. She was making a supreme effort to rid herself of the shadow, of the weight of the incubus, or else she felt that she must fall beneath its weight, crushed by the black shadow upon her. She must die.

This hour of conflict she had dreaded. From day to day she had put it from her like a bitter cup, but she had at last faced the ordeal—and it was over.

Yet she still felt a mysterious fear. What would Richard Jervoise say—what would he do when he learnt the ghastly truth? She was in the maze of an evil dream.

A footstep sounded close to her. It was her father, come to her again at that same spot where he had stood in the afternoon.

“My child!” he said softly, placing his big hand upon her shoulder. “Peter has told me. I—I have come to offer you my congratulations, dearest.”

“Thank you, dad,” she answered coldly, her face still turned from him.

“You do not know, Thyra—you cannot know—all that I feel—all that your marriage to Peter Sundt means to me,” he faltered in a low tone. “Ah! my child, I hardly dared to hope that, after all, you would give him your hand.”

The girl turned suddenly, and, burying her face upon her father’s shoulder, burst into tears.

“I know! I know!” he exclaimed in a low, sympathetic voice, endeavouring to comfort her. “I know all that you must feel—with the man you loved only dead so short a time. But, child, you must forget him—after all—he deceived you—he was worthless.”

“Who told you that?” she asked suddenly, drying her tears and raising her face to his. “Who makes any allegations against Paul?”

Her father was silent. Her question was a distinctly awkward one.

“Well,” he said uneasily, “there are curious rumours current, my dear. They say that Paul Grinevitch was not an officer, as he declared, and that his parentage was not what he made it out to be—that’s all.”

“But do you think, even though it be so, that his memory is any the less vivid to me, father?” she asked reproachfully.

“No, I do not,” he answered. “Indeed, that is just why your decision to-night was to me so unexpected—and so mysterious.”

She did not speak. He held her around the waist, while her head fell upon the shoulder of his thick pea-jacket, which, on landing, he had not removed.

“I have promised to marry Peter Sundt—to become mistress of this place—for one single reason, father,” she said at last in a toneless voice.

“Go on.”

His voice resounded in the silence of the night.

“There is nothing more to say,” she declared.

“Ah! I know, Thyra,” he whispered, holding her closer to him. “You have done this for my sake, child—to save me!”

“To save you, dad—I—I don’t understand!” she cried, looking into his face, puzzled, white, and haggard in the moonlight.

“Did Peter tell you nothing, then?”

“Nothing, dad. He only asked me once again to become his wife—and—and I consented.”

Jorgen Berentsen held his breath. At least this man who had been the friend of his youth had not betrayed him to his daughter. He had threatened, it was true, but he had been too loyal to his old friendship to carry out his threat.

“I—I can only congratulate you, my dear child,” her father ejaculated uneasily.

“But what should he tell me?” she asked. “How could it be that I could save you, dad? Please explain yourself.”

“Oh, nothing, dear—really nothing,” he declared. “I only wondered whether Peter had told you something—well, something that is confidential between us, that’s all.”

“Then if I am to be Peter’s wife I may surely know the secret?” she said quickly, at once interested. That secret which she had guessed long ago had, for months, caused her to ponder.

“One day, perhaps,” he said, with an attempt to laugh; “at present place your mind entirely at rest. It is nothing very serious, I assure you.”

But she was not satisfied.

“Dad,” she exclaimed in a low, intense voice, “you and Peter have had a secret together for a long time. I have known of your constant consultations. Why did you go so often to see him at the Ritz in London?”

“I went to him often, it is true,” replied the sturdy old fellow, “but it is not in connection with—with my secret,” he answered lamely.

“Then why—why didn’t you tell me at the time that Peter was in London?”

“Well, because he and I were engaged in making inquiries concerning your dead husband.”

“What interest had Peter in him, pray?”

“Only because he loved you, I think.”

“Love!” she echoed quickly, in a tone of disgust and reproach. “Please do not utter that word again, dad.”

“Then—then it is true,” the old man whispered in her ear, “you do not love him, eh?”

“I hate him, father!” was her frank response; “yet, though I hate him, I must nevertheless marry him.”

“Why?”

“For reasons of my own. I loved once, remember—I cannot love again.”

“Except one man,” he remarked very quietly as he bent to her ear.

“Whom do you mean, father?”

“Mr. Jervoise.”

She drew a deep breath, but no word escaped her lips. Jorgen Berentsen knew that he had spoken the truth. He had seen love in Dick Jervoise’s eyes when he came to Bayswater. Sometimes he had been secretly glad that his heart-broken daughter had won the affection of the clean, long-limbed Englishman, yet a moment afterwards he would reflect upon the admission Doctor Odd had made to Peter, and the proof that Thyra and Jervoise had met clandestinely on the very first day of her marriage.

Why? Ah! that was the problem. A thousand times he had reflected upon it—a thousand times, as he had sat with Dick at table, in the car, at the theatre, he had tried to learn from his demeanour the true nature of his secret accord with his daughter. But the Englishman, ever upon his guard, had remained silent as the sphinx.

The sweet breath of the flowers filled the night air where they stood. The soft musical bell of the Convent of San Francesco came up from the town below, followed by the deep-toned notes of those of the Duomo, of San Biagio, and the Orologio; the slight zephyr from the sea stirred the feathery branches above—a scented night of spring in beautiful Dalmatia.

On the left, the open French windows of the villa let forth a flood of light across the splendid garden. But Peter Sundt remained in his Arabesque fumoir at the further end of the house, for at his suggestion had Jorgen gone forth to find his daughter.

“Thyra,” exclaimed her father very tenderly, “I want to ask you one question, dear. Now that the painful affair in Christiania is all of the past and forgotten by everyone save yourself, perhaps, I think that I have a right as your father—as a man who loves his daughter devotedly—to know the truth.”

“What truth, dad?” she asked, turning to him in quick surprise.

“I know, child,” the man went on, his hand placed lovingly upon her slim shoulder; “I know that what I am about to ask must cause you pain. But I cannot avoid it—where the honour of you, my dear daughter, is at stake!”

“I don’t understand, father,” she ejaculated, turning her face to his.

“Then, listen, child,” he said in a low, serious tone. “It is alleged that you met Richard Jervoise on the afternoon of Paul’s death—that—that you are aware of the identity of his assassin!” he blurted forth.

“Father!” gasped the girl, falling back as though she had been struck a blow. “Who says this—who makes such an allegation?”

“Your enemies, my child.”

“Then if my enemies say this,” she answered, holding her breath, “surely you, my father, should not heed them! Am I to have no peace of mind?” she sobbed bitterly. “Is this the latest charge against me—that I am an accessory to my husband’s murder?”

“I do not believe it, my dear child,” he assured her. “How can you think that I could ever believe any ill of you?”

“Does—does this man Peter Sundt believe it?” she asked in a dry, hard voice.

“Why, of course not—or he would never have asked you to become his wife,” was the man’s response, not, however, without just a moment’s hesitation. Was it not Peter himself who had made the startling allegations? he reflected.

Father and daughter stood together in silence for a long time. At last she said:

“Peter has to-night told me something of which I was hitherto unaware, father. He is, it seems, a widower.”

Jorgen Berentsen drew a deep breath.

“Ah! he has told you that, has he? Well, perhaps, child, it is better for you to know now than afterwards that he has been married before.”

“You, who have known Peter nearly all his life, knew his wife, of course, dad. What was she like?” asked the girl with some curiosity.

“Oh, it was so many years ago that I scarcely recollect her, save that she was a pretty, dark-haired girl, Marguerite Meunier—a French governess in the household of a prominent member of the Storthing. That was, well, fully twenty-five years ago. They lived for about two years in Tromso, for in those days Peter was not wealthy. Then the rigours of the climate were too severe for her, and he took her to live in Christiania, and afterwards, I think, to Copenhagen. She died of phthisis, in Mentone, I believe, three years after her marriage. Peter was devoted to her, and after her death was like a man demented.”

“Did he treat her well?” asked the girl, gazing thoughtfully upon the long line of the moon’s brilliance across the rippling sea.

“He lived, it seemed, only for her,” declared her father. “I remember how they used to be pointed out as a model pair, for both of them were young and both were handsome. It was our climate of the north that killed her, poor fragile little woman. She had been born and bred in the south—in the Jura, I have heard.”

“And she went back to France to die!” sighed the girl.

“Since her death Peter has devoted his whole time and energies to the amassing of wealth,” remarked her father. “His case is not unique. In the past of many a man who is to-day hard and embittered will be found a similar hidden episode. Look at myself, Thyra! I have never been the same man since God thought fit to take your dear mother from me. When I lost her, I, alas! lost everything that was dear to me in this world—except you,” he sighed. “And now—and now you are to leave me!” and he swallowed the big lump that rose in his throat.

“Not of my own free will, dad,” she assured him, twining her long arms about his neck and kissing him fondly.

“Then what has induced you to consent to this marriage?” asked the sturdy old man, much puzzled. “Why have you made—well, this sacrifice?” he blurted forth again.

“I have reasons—reasons that are mine alone,” was her ambiguous answer, as her breast rose and fell slowly—“reasons rendered the stronger now that I know the cruel allegations made against me and—and against——” She could not finish the sentence. She burst again into tears.

“And against the man you love, child,” he added very softly. “Ah, yes! I know. I know all that you must feel—all that this must have cost you to give your hand to this man. Believe me, I have tried to prevent it all, but, alas! I have been powerless. I deeply regret, now, that we ever accepted his invitation to come to this gilded palace of his.”

“I do not. It is for the best undoubtedly. Marriage with Peter Sundt, though he is older than you, my father, will perhaps save me from a worse fate, now that love and happiness are in future utterly debarred me.”

“No, child; don’t speak so despondently. You are still young, with all your life before you. Come, dry your dear eyes,” he urged, drawing her tenderly to him. “It’s late; let me see you to your room.”

She restrained her emotion, but in the light he saw that the expression upon her face had entirely changed. She seemed years older. The light of youth had faded from her lovely countenance; her eyes were hard and stony, and upon her mouth was an expression which showed the determination with which she had made her self-sacrifice, had renounced her love, and with it all in the world she had held most dear.

That night she did not close her eyes. Instead, she wrote a long letter of many pages to Dick Jervoise.