May Eve; or, What You Must/Part 3
A STORY IN THREE PARTS—PART III.
CHAPTER VIII.
MONSIEUR L'INCONNU turned to his other captors. He, for the first time, seemed thoroughly roused. He did not look at the fifth man. He addressed himself to the others, his eyes wandering rapidly from face to face.
“Gentlemen,” he said earnestly, “I appeal to you. I seem to be unable to convince the person who—justifiably or not, I don't know, I have no means of knowing—has constituted himself your spokesman. But I hope you will listen to me. I can't seem to prove to him that I am not Boston Harry—there are no means, of course, of proving it to you—if you are, like him, convinced. I can only give you my word that I am not he, and trust to your knowledge of human nature to show you that I am speaking the truth.”
He was interrupted by the man with the pudding-face. “Ah, g'wan, Harry,” he said; “give us a breeze!”
Monsieur l'Inconnu bit his lips. “I see I don't convince you,” he said. “Well, I can only ask you to release me. What earthly good will it do,” he questioned reasonably, “if I stay here?”
The one-eyed man turned to their chief. “That's so, boss,” he said. “What's the use? Get rid of them, I say.”
“Oh, no,” the other disagreed. “I've got my little argument with Harry. I sha'n't have such a chance to talk with him again in a hurry. Let me have it out with him.” He turned half-way round in his chair and addressed his companions. “I haven't told you who I am yet, have I? Well, I'll tell you now. I'm John Farrell. I had just escaped from Charlestown when I joined you a week ago. I had to come here; I didn't have any choice. Well, you all know that I was settled fifteen years ago, after the Fenton Job, because Harry here squealed. Well, here's my chance to get square with him, and I'm going to do it, even if I send you all to the stir and I go back to Charlestown.”
“John Farrell!” his companions repeated surprisedly, and there was suddenly a something in their manner besides respect, a something of admiration, a something almost of awe. They drew together, and there was a short, excited parley.
Silver-Rose listened keenly. Incomprehensible words and phrases were bandied between them. “Chi” and “Cincie” she heard them say, and there were frequent references to the “queer,” to “paper,” to “shovers,” “beefers,” “bundles,” “blokes,” “bulls.” Their discussion lasted for five minutes. And then, suddenly, they were silent. “Go on, John,” one of them said; “this is your business—we won't interfere.”
“It's your funeral, Farrell,” Cig added, “and we'll let you run it—only remember we don't want to be pulled.”
“I'll take care of that,” Farrell promised smoothly. He transferred his attention to Boston Harry. The others talked in mysterious low tones among themselves, but gradually they became interested in the conversation again.
Boston Harry had watched them carefully. “If you want money,” he said to the group, “and you'll give me the necessary time, I'll get for you any sum in reason.”
They smiled at this offer, but nobody bothered to take any notice of it. He turned to Farrell. “Do I understand that you all refuse to release me?” he asked.
“That's what we're trying to drive into you,” Farrell said, his tones so smooth and soft they seemed almost a whisper.
Here Silver-Rose suddenly obtruded herself. “Shall I scream?” she asked of her companion, in her clear, silvery tones.
She had been, up to that instant, absolutely quiet, but she had listened keenly. At first, after the revelation of her companion's identity, all the possibilities of her adventure had rushed madly back and forth through her mind. The situation had filled her with a terror of him so piercing that it seemed to dry her blood, to render her numb. But the more terrifying turn that the conversation had taken later had had, curiously enough, the opposite effect. It seemed to calm her, as if her fright were so great that it devoured itself. She must be alert, she realized, on her guard, ready for anything. Strange things were going to happen. Much might depend on herself. And after awhile she became aware of a novel mental condition, of a new element in her consciousness. Her blood was tingling, her pulses snapping, her thoughts leaping with the sense of danger. But the sensation was not an unpleasant one.
The men in the room hitherto, had paid little attention to her. It was as if she were invisible to them, or that she seemed a being of so different an order that she failed to interest them. Once in awhile a glance had been shot in her direction, and then withdrawn; and so quickly that she wondered afterward if she had imagined its come and go. Her question brought the gaze of every pair of eyes in the room upon her, and thereafter, openly, they stared at her.
She stood erect, her hands clasping and unclasping, or pulling nervously at her golden chain, Her big hat flared in front up and away from her brow. The situation seemed to have changed her physically, to have exaggerated every tint in her face. It no longer appealed delicately to the sight like an opening flower. She bloomed opulently, like a woman. The close, hot air of the foul-smelling room had brought to her cheeks a flush that seemed actually to flame through her pure skin. Her lips parted and curled away from her white teeth, like a rosebud that had been split and filled with snow. Her eyes were dilated with excitement; they had grown purple—a change that her eyelids, drooping from their weight of shadows, augmented. Her hair had pulled low on her forehead—it lay like a wave of gold there; little, straggling wisps of its abundance crowded about her temples and ears.
Farrell surveyed her with easy nonchalance before he spoke.
“Scream away, my dear; scream your pretty head off,” he adjured her affably; “and that's all right—that's all the good it will do you. You're as safe as if you were in a padded cell. If your own father was in the next room, he couldn't hear you.”
His words dropped like successive leaden plummets into her heart, sounding there unguessed depths of horror and despair. But, with her eyes on her comrade's face, she continued to ignore him, That face underwent a swift change at the familiarity that came with their tormentor's words and manner. A look so sinister overspread it—it was as if a black cloud blotted out its expression—a menace so murderous breathed from it, that her own heart contracted.
“Scream!” his stern lips commanded.
Farrell surveyed her with easy nonchalance before he spoke.
Silver-Rose drew a long breath; then, with all the strength of her vigorous young lungs, she screamed once, twice; frenziedly again and again. There was no movement among the occupants of the room. They listened politely, almost in a detached sort of a way. But the thick bundle of clothes on one of the shake-downs on the floor stirred feebly, revealing itself thereby to be a man.
“Very nice, indeed,” Farrell commented suavely, as she paused, exhausted; “very pretty. Try it again, my love, I like to hear it. We ain't heard for a long time here the sweet voice of a woman.”
“Doesn't the fact that I asked this lady to scream prove to you that I'm not Harry Pryor?” Monsieur l'Inconnu said. His free look asked the question of his entire audience. “If I had just escaped from State's prison, would I be likely to invite the aid of the police in this manner?”
“I've just been thinking, Harry, what a clever dodge that was,” Farrell said. “You know as well as we do that outside this house you can't hear a sound of what's going on inside. You remember the last time we was here together, we had occasion to make a test of that. You surely ain't forgotten our little experience with Cincie Charley? That was over a lady, as I remember—a pretty little lady, too; Charley's sister, weren't she? I didn't like your taste in those days, but I must say you've improved.” He stared at Silver-Rose a moment. “Who's your friend?” he asked urbanely.
“Leave the lady out of the question,” Monsieur l'Inconnu commanded curtly. “Well, supposing I am Harry Pryor,” he went on peremptorily; “what's your business with me? Out with it, and have it over with.”
“Then you admit it?” Farrell sneered questioningly.
Monsieur l'Inconnu appeared to undergo a short mental struggle. “I suppose I've got to admit it,” he said sullenly.
“I thought you would,” the other laughed.
“Well, what do you want of me?” Boston Harry threw at him.
“What do I want of you?” Farrell repeated, in a high, thin voice. “What do I want of you? To wish you a happy New Year, I don't think. What do you suppose I want of you, after the Fenton job?”
“That's not telling me,” said his interlocutor coolly. “Still I don't understand.”
“Well, let me help you a little,” the other suggested kindly. “We went into the Fenton affair together. When we were caught, to save your precious skin you peached, and I went to prison. I paid for both of us. I paid for myself and I paid for you. I didn't kick at the time, but I didn't forget. Now I want you to pay me back.”
“What do you want?” the other asked. “Money?”
His tormentor laughed his silent, irritating laugh. “No, dear,” he said mockingly. “Money won't pay me—not a little bit.”
“What do you want, then?” Pryor demanded.
Farrell brought his ten finger-tips together again, in the position that was, evidently, a mannerism with him. He put his lean, long head luxuriously back against the rickety chair-top. He contemplated Boston Harry with half-closed lids and smiling lips, but there smoldered deep down in his eyes a steady glow, as of a rising fire—it burned through the fringe of his thick lashes. Between his thin, waxy lips flashed the white of strong, me looking teeth. “That's just what I'm thinking about,” he admitted purringly; “just what I'm thinking about.”
He continued to meditate with half-shut eyes. The room was very silent; all conversation, even the occasional buzz of comment, had ceased. Boston Harry moved nearer to Silver-Rose. He turned his back upon their audience.
“Don't let anything I say frighten you,” he breathed; “I've got to play a strange game.”
His eyes were glittering with excitement, but they softened as they rested on her face. “Keep your courage up. Things can't be so bad as they look, and I'll save you some way or other.”
“If only,” she breathed, with equal quiet; “if only we could put that light out, Mr. Pryor; we're standing just in front of the secret closet. The spring's in a knot in the wood, in the series that runs up from the floor. It's the fifth—just where your hand is.”
Pryor contemplated the door fixedly, as if still hoping that he might burst it open. His gaze wandered away from it, and casually he examined the wall back of them.
Farrell contemplated their whisperings with amused indulgence.
“I don't know,” he said tolerantly, “as I can handle the two of you. I guess I'll get rid of one of you. Say, Cig, take that poker and heat it over that lamp, will you?”
“Say, you ain't going to make this any murder,” Cig charged him, his alarmed eyes widening. “I ain't in it, if you do.”
There was a little assenting murmur from the others.
He was still busy, heating the poker over the lamp.
“Oh, no, nothing of the sort,” their chief reassured him. He waved his hand airily to the others. “It's only a little lesson I'm going to teach Harry. Those long nights in Charlestown I worked it out just what I was going to do to pretty Harry if ever I got my claws on him again. That's all settled in my mind, and it won't hang anybody.” He paused with the utmost nonchalance, and thought further. “But I can't for the life of me think,” he continued, interestedly taking them all into his confidence, “what else I want to do with him. I don't know's I want to bother with both of you. Here,” he decided, “I guess I've got to make a choice. Well, I tell you what I'll do,” he burst out suddenly, as if seized with a fit of generosity; “I'll tell you what I will do. I'll be perfectly fair and square with you, Harry dear. After I've attended to that little matter of the poker, I'll give,you your choice of two things. You can stay here with us, and we'll send the lady away; or we'll keep the lady for awhile, and send you away. Now, that's a square deal, isn't it, boys? Which'll you take, Harry?”
CHAPTER IX.
Boston Harry's face went white, and it contracted strangely. Farrell watched him appreciatively.
“I guess if you're really consulting me, you can send me away, and keep the lady,” Boston Harry decided, after a pause.
“Why, why, why!” the other exclaimed, in a voice filled with pseudo surprise. “That ain't at all what a gentleman should do, Harry. It ain't pretty at all. You jess shock me beyond words. No, come to think of it, Harry, we can't do that. No, Harry, I guess we'll have to send her away, and keep you.”
“I refuse to be separated from Mr. Pryor,” Silver-Rose struck in clearly, her enunciation as keen as a silver bell.
Farrell fixed his sneering eyes on her. “Oh, do you, my dear?” he said indulgently. “Well, how are you going to prevent yourself from being separated?”
“I'll go to the nearest police station,” she asserted, “the moment I am free.”
“We shouldn't any of us be here by that time, lovey. My, you are a nice looking girl,” he paused to say, as if it had just dawned on him. “I don't see how Harry could bear to leave you. Harry ain't the boy he was once, or he'd never do it.”
“You're welcome to her, if you'll let me go,” Boston Harry asserted sullenly.
Farrell looked steadily at him. “Is that the way you feel about it?” he said. “All right, then, you shall have you way; it'll suit me to a T. Ain't she a sweet little dear, boys? Looks like a swell, too. I do like blondes—oh, we won't let her regret that she joined us. One of us'll just keep her amused every second of the time. Say, Cig, you've got plenty of peter left?”
“Plenty,” Cig promised cheerfully. He was still busy heating the poker over the lamp.
“Well, then, I'll tell you just what the program's going to be. You see, Harry's always been a great boy with the ladies. They always like him somehow, and his heart is so big it can hold any number at a time, as easy as falling off a log. He don't seem to get old, like other men; he looks younger and handsomer now than he did four years ago. Now, I think I'll take this opportunity to fix Harry up so's he won't bother the ladies any more. I guess what we'd better do is to spoil his pretty looks. What I propose is to mark his initials with the red-hot poker on both his cheeks; it'll be a great help to the police, too. Then we'll give him some of the knockout drops, and take him out into the garden and leave him. As for you, my dear, you can stay here to-night. By to-morrow we'll have to leave these pleasant quarters. You don't have to go with us, but by that time I wouldn't be surprised if you was so attached to our company that you'd prefer to.”
There was a long silence.
Then Boston Harry spoke. “Gentlemen,” he said, and his voice rang out sternly, “I am in your power, and I know it. I'm willing to pay all the penalties of the situation; and I'll pay them like a man. But I want to do the paying myself. Surely you can't intend to revenge on this lady your feeling against me. Gentlemen, I throw myself on your mercy—she is my wife, and I love her better than my own safety and my own life. Only take her away from here, open that door, let her get out, and I'll submit to any revenge that your ingenuity will suggest.”
One of his auditors—the little ferret-faced Cig—sneered: “Let her go, that's a healthy idea—and come back with a dozen cops.”
“That's exactly what I will do—if you separate me from Mr. Pryor,” Silver-Rose informed them generally.
“I'll make her swear on her sacred word of honor not to reveal what has passed to-night,” Boston Harry said. “I can make her, I think; and I will make her. Look at her—you know she's different from any woman you ever saw; you know she's a lady; you know her word would be absolutely good.”
“My word would be good,” Silver-Rose pronounced deliberately, “so good that no power on earth will make me take that oath.”
Boston Harry turned to her. He pleaded with her. “Sylvia,” he said, “if you have an atom of mercy in your heart don't interrupt, now that I see a way out. You can fancy what I'm suffering. I can handle these men, once you're off my mind. Let me get you out of here.”
She smiled wonderfully up at him. She shook her head. “Not without you,” she said.
He groaned. He turned to their audience again. “I can make her swear that,” he assured them; “and I will yet. You see the sort of woman she is. You are as safe with her as with each other. Give her,” he suggested electrically, and he smiled with the joy that the idea brought him—“give her the knockout drops. Then we can carry her over to the Wrexmere place, and leave her somewhere near the house. She won't be found until to-morrow morning. They're giving a dance there this evening. Every servant in the house will be busy all night long. You can gag me and leave me here—when you've finished with me.”
Farrell shook his head. “She's too pretty,” he said casually; “I can't bear to see her go.”
Boston Harry thought for a moment. “You want revenge,” he said; “and you want it more than anything else in the world. Well, I can understand that feeling, and I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll take her away, I'll agree to shoot myself here before you all—or you can shoot me, if you won't trust me with a weapon. I'll sign a paper, confessing to suicide, if you wish.”
“If you agree to that,” Silver-Rose turned on her captors, “you'll have to kill me, too. I have, as it happens, plenty of money at my disposal. I'll hunt you all down if it takes every cent I have in the world. I'll swear in court that you made him write that letter, that you made him kill himself to protect me.”
Boston Harry looked at her somberly. Then he smiled into her face. “If you'll give me a revolver I'll shoot her and then myself,” was his final proposal.
Farrell's eyes fell to the floor. “Harry Pryor,” he admitted, “you've got grit.”
“Harry Pryor?” Monsieur l'Inconnu said impatiently. He laughed shortly. “What nonsense! Let's drop that. I'm not Harry Pryor, and I've never been Harry Pryor.” He drew his hand over his face for a second, as if to cover his eyes. “Oh, by Jove!” he cried, “it's these things that deceive you, of course.” With a double movement of his hand he ripped off his mustache and imperial.
It made a change in him. It drew from the foreign quality of his appearance, and added to the American look that, with every hour, Silver-Rose saw growing more strong in his face. It further displayed a firm chin and a determined mouth, the latter with clean-cut corners.
“Now am I Harry Pryor?” he demanded.
“Of course you're Harry Pryor,” Farrell reassured him.
And then two things happened.
The bundle of rags lying on the floor pulled itself up to a sitting posture—a fat, bulbous creature, with the pale-brown bristles of three-days' beard protruding from its flabby cheeks and pendulous chin, the sleep of unnumbered, torpid hours hanging in its watery eyes and its cracked lips. It blinked and scowled, it sighed and groaned, but it looked, through it all, steadfastly at Boston Harry. It looked for a full half minute.
“What yer giving us?” its husky voice promulgated after awhile. “Harry Pryor your grandmother! Harry Pryor had a three-cornered scar under his left eye.”
The others started. Their eyes darted swiftly to Harry Pryor's face. In their look Silver-Rose saw swift denial change to uncertainty; saw uncertainty deepen into convinced surety; saw every face grow serious, grow pale with the sense of complication that the new outlook brought.
“By thunder, he's right!” Farrell said.
And then, as they still all stood silent, some rigid, some gaping, the door burst open, and four policemen came into the room.
The confusion was immediate. The lamp was overturned and, miraculously, in its own fall, put out. There was the sound of voiceless scramblings and struggles, then the rush of locked bodies into the hall, their race and pitch down-stairs. In the midst of it there was a slight clicking sound. Silver-Rose felt her companion's arm go swiftly about her. She felt herself being lifted and drawn backward, and she submitted blindly to the power that was compelling her. She felt herself surrounded by a staler air and a deeper gloom. There was another click, and they were alone. She realized that they were in the secret closet.
They stood and listened, his arm still about her, holding her firm and close. The racket in the old house lessened, ceased; the echoes died. The silence, for fifteen minutes, was complete. Then there was the sound of heavy footsteps, and they were conscious that two men had returned to the garret room. She conjectured that they were the policemen, searching with their lanterns every nook and cranny of the old place.
“It was Boston Harry,” one of them said; “I could swear to that.”
“But how did they get out? Where'd they get out? And when'd they get out?” the other asked.
“That's it,” the first man retorted grimly. “They was the first ones to get out; they was safe, and getting safer every minute, while we was grappling with the others. They wasn't the only ones to get away.”
“Well, we've got Farrell,” the other said; “that's sure.”
“And there ain't no reward for him,” his companion returned disgustedly.
There was no more conversation, and presently it was evident that they gave up the search. The heavy footsteps went clumping down the stairs and about the house, as they pursued their last, hopeless, fruitless search.
“We must stay here,” Monsieur l'Inconnu breathed into Silver-Rose's ear, “just as long as you can stand the air.”
And they stayed, noiseless, moveless, almost breathless, as long as she could stand the air; and, indeed, a little longer. For suddenly, after an immeasurable sweep of time, as, still open-eyed, she gazed straight ahead into impenetrable gloom, that gloom, like a solid block of black adamant, seemed to rise out of space and fall directly on her, crushing her into bleak insensibility. She felt herself collapse—it was as if she shut up, like a fan. She fell forward into her companion's arms.
CHAPTER X.
When Silver-Rose regained consciousness she was being carried swiftly through the garden. She could feel the evening air blowing soft and cool on her face. She stirred languidly, and lifted her head from the shoulder on which it rested.
“Where—where” she murmured.
“Don't move. You're all right.” It was the voice of Boston Harry. “In a moment we shall be over the wall and in your own grounds.”
But she was struggling definitely now, and her struggles grew mad as his grip on her slender body tightened.
“Put me down,” she commanded.
“Quietly,” he urged softly. “I am not sure that we are quite safe yet. Wait until you are on your own estate. I can carry you more quickly than you can walk. You are not strong enough.” She relaxed weakly. In a few minutes she felt him lift her over the wall, and then he put her carefully on her feet. But he was right; she staggered as he withdrew his support, and wilted uncontrollably into the arms he quickly held out. Without further ado he threw his arm about her. They walked for a distance into the pine-grove. Suddenly he stopped.
“Perhaps you would like to recover a bit before you go indoors,” he explained.
He looked down at her for an intent second.
It was a glorious night still—warm and dry. But the air seemed cool beside the fetid warmth of the garret room or the musty staleness of the secret chamber, and Silver-Rose took long breaths, filling her lungs with it. Then she lay for awhile silent, allowing the dark and dew to revive her. When she opened her eyes she stared up into the sky for a long interval. It was almost as if her gaze got tangled, got lost, among the stars; through the interlacing pine-needles they seemed actually to drip—multitudes of gold globules, pendulous from the purple sky. The pine-needles were soft to her tired figure, and soothing to her wearied head; but after awhile she sat up, with her back against a tree-trunk.
The light from the house flooded near. If she had turned her head, a shaft would have illumined her face. Her companion stood still all this time. Once he walked away a few irresolute steps, then he came back. At length he threw himself on the ground beside her, and waited.
“Tell me you feel better,” he begged finally.
“Who are you?” she asked collectedly.
“The king of the fairies,” he replied forlornly.
“Who are you?” she reiterated.
“Monsieur l'Inconnu,” he rejoined smilelessly.
“Who are you?” she persisted.
He did not, at first, answer, and the pause grew monotonous. He turned his head away and back.
“I am Harry Eveleth,” he said finally.
She was silent.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
Another pause.
“Tell me about it, but begin at the beginning,” she commanded presently.
“To begin with, you must know,” he said, “that ever since that first time I saw you in the Louvre I have been in love with you—hopelessly, of course, but none the less; perhaps, in consequence, the more madly. I tell you this not to be impertinent, but because it is the keynote of everything. I saw you twice in Paris four years ago, as I told you. That was not very much, of course, to account for such an obsession, but I began to theorize about you, to romance about you, to put you, as it were, bodily into my existence. You became the constant companion of my thoughts; you were as inevitable in my life as my very shadow. Of course I knew the whole thing was idiotic; I've had the matter out with myself millions of times. There was no chance of my meeting you, no hope of impressing you if I did meet you. I was as poor as the Marquis of Carrabas, and perhaps even more infernally proud; and you—oh, of course everybody was at your feet. I read about you from time to time—everything I could find, in short. The papers, you know, had a cheerful habit of engaging you to a new lover regularly once a month. That sort of thing kept up for two years. My infatuation—my unrest—grew rather than diminished. You, in the meantime, had gone back to America. I thought—I even hoped—that that might end it. But it didn't end it; it made it worse. After awhile I couldn't stand it any longer. I decided to come to America for the chance of seeing you. I confess it with shame I had always regarded the United States with loathing. Until you came here I had never had the sign of an impulse to look up the record of my ancestors. That was two years ago—remember, please, that I had been in love with you for two years. Does this prolixity bore you?” he asked suddenly.
“Go on,” she said.
“I came to America—it was in the spring recess. You were in New York. I stayed in New York. You went to Washington. I followed you there. There I saw you at a dance, as I told you—that was my third glimpse of you. I went to the dance. I had been doing newspaper work, and I got in that way. Oh, the exquisite refinement of the tortures of that night—to see you dancing with men—any number of them, lucky beggars! Montfort was there—it was his first visit to America. You danced with him three times. There was murder in my heart.” He stopped.
“Go on,” she commanded.
“You came to Boston. I followed you. You were doing work in Radcliffe. In the fall I took some courses at Harvard. And then suddenly, although we were in the same city, under the same sky, breathing the same air, you dropped out of my life completely. That is to say, I didn't see you again for nearly a year; until the spring, in fact. I haunted the places where I fancied you might be. I have sauntered for hours at a time up and down before your house. I was always casually just passing Fay House, but I never saw you once—never, not one comforting once. And all the time my hunger for you ate at my heart. I grew morbid, despairing, desperate. Finally there was the rumor in Cambridge that you were going to play Maire in 'The Land of Heart's Desire.' I was beside myself. There was no possible way of my seeing the thing—the English Club is so pig-headedly exclusive. The sum and substance of it was, finally, that I bribed the caterer to let me black up and go as a waiter. I actually did that. I went there. I saw you act. I stared at you for a whole evening. I even handed you an ice.”
Silver-Rose laughed.
“I wish I could laugh,” he said simply. He stopped. “Shall I go on?” he asked carefully.
“Please,” she entreated.
“I made all sorts of efforts to see you the next year—that was this last year, of course. But still a malign fate seemed to follow me. Wherever I was you were not; where you were I was not. We were like buckets in a well. The eternal hide and seek got on my nerves. And two months ago I had it out with myself. I had put in, I reckoned, the better part of four miserable years adoring you. I didn't begrudge the adoration; it was the uncertainty of it all that was wearing me out. It was, literally, a chase of a phantom, or a will-o'-the-wisp. I made a mighty resolution to put an end to it. Perhaps I should say that I am, by ambition, a novelist; that I have a trunk full of rejected manuscripts. I received a month ago a big offer—Paris correspondent of the London Hour. I decided to accept it; I did accept it. I sail, by the way, on the Sappho to-morrow. In the meantime, however, I had got into the Hasty Pudding Club theatricals. They came off to-night, you know. I appeared only in the first act; I had a song. I intended, when my stunt was over, to get out into the audience and watch the show from the front. But when I came off and went into the dressing-room, it came over me very suddenly, and with a terrible—oh, an aching—sense of desolation that I was leaving you forever. I could not stand the thought that we should be thereafter in separate hemispheres. I am very erratic, as you doubtless have discovered, and the impulse came over me to go out to your house and make one final effort to see you. The idea took hold of me like a kind of possession. It left me no peace; I could not wait an instant; I had to obey immediately. I didn't even stop to take off my mustache and imperial. I had, during the evening, managed to give my arm a nasty sort of cut, but I couldn't take the time to do that up properly. I simply rolled it in a muffler and started off. It seemed like something providential, something psychic, because when I got into my car you were there.” He stopped.
“Go on,” she commanded inflexibly.
“Here's the part I'm ashamed of,” he muttered. “There's no excuse for it,” he insisted to himself, “except that I wanted to know you and talk with you more than I had ever before wanted anything. You were almost the first person I noticed after I got into the car. I discovered that you were alone, and the situation nearly crazed me. I cast over in my mind all the possibilities of my opportunity, and I could see only one way out of it—to throw myself on your mercy and tell you the whole history. But I was very averse to doing that. Presently, in spite of my preoccupation, I noticed that there were two men opposite me who were watching, and very furtively, every movement that I made. I realized in a second, of course, that it was my very palpable disguise that was attracting their attention. And then, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, the whole scheme came to me—a way to your sympathy. To pretend that I was in danger and throw myself on your protection. I calculated if the plan failed I would have lost nothing, and if it succeeded I would have gained heaven itself. The rest you know. Of course it never entered my head that the night could end with the awful scrape we got into.” He stopped and groaned. “It's inconceivable, even to myself, that I have the effrontery to ask your forgiveness,” he went on quietly; “and yet you must be able to imagine what I feel—to have endangered all that I hold loveliest and most precious, and in such a monstrous way. God, my blood runs ice!” He shuddered. “It's worse now than then. Then I had to think, to act; now I can meditate coolly on the possibilities.”
Silver-Rose sat silent, her head still leaning against the tree-trunk.
“Sylvia,” he began softly, after awhile, “I'm going to leave you presently, but tell me first that you forgive the way. I've lied to you; tell me you forgive me that awful experience in the Eveleth house. If you knew how I've loved you, how I've worshiped you, how I've hungered for a sight of you and thirsted for a sound of you. Oh, Sylvia—Sylvia” he stopped suddenly.
Silver-Rose stirred at length. “As for what happened in the Eveleth house, that's my own fault,” she said clearly. “I made you go into it—I made you take me with you. But as for the lying—well, they say all's fair, you know. I suppose I would have done the same thing in your place.”
“Ah!” he uttered. He rose slowly to his feet. He looked down at her for an intent second—at her white face, set in an oval of gold; her big eyes, shining in the shaft of light. “Good-by,” he whispered; and he turned and walked away.
“Don't go,” Silver-Rose called softly after him; “don't go—yet.”
He walked swiftly back.
“You must resemble Boston Harry very closely,” she began abruptly.
He laughed a little. “Yes, it's pleasant, isn't it, to discover that you've got a criminal record, and that your picture's in the rogues' gallery?”
“I wonder if they got Farrell?” she mused.
“Oh, yes, one of the policeman distinctly said so. Anyway, we shall read all about it in to-morrow's papers.”
“Do you suppose he really would have branded you?” she inquired.
“Oh, very likely,” he replied indifferently; “he was a determined duffer; and then he wanted revenge—I can understand that perfectly—I believe in revenge, you know. I am naturally very vindictive.”
“And what would they have done to you afterward?” she continued fearfully.
“I haven't the remotest idea. I think very likely the branding would have satisfied him.”
“Do you know,” she apprised him suddenly, “I wasn't so awfully frightened during our imprisonment—at least not so frightened as I would have prophesied about myself?”
“Frightened,” he repeated. “I should say you weren't. You were my despair. I couldn't seem to wake you up to the seriousness of the occasion.”
“Of course,” she murmured, “at first I was afraid, but more particularly of you; and it hurt me to think that you had deceived me, had allowed me to get in such a position. But when you said you were not Harry Pryor, I believed you. And after that, after my trust in you had returned, I—I almost enjoyed myself. At any rate, I had a sensation that was not unpleasant—a tingling consciousness of peril. I felt that I was living. Oh, I can't tell you how heavenly it was to live—I can't describe it to you. If you could only realize the frightful monotony of my life, its maddening iterations—oh, how it tires me—how it bores me! I am as much on a wheel as any squirrel in a cage.”
“'Oh, Rose,'” he quoted under his breath; “'thou art sick.'”
“Egypt's the only place that's never bored me,” she pursued her meditations dreamily. “You've never seen stars until you've camped out on the desert. They're sheer white fire—a conflagration in the sky. And the sunsets melted ruby and beryl. And the storms, and the silence—oh, it's different.”
She broke off. “Do you know,” she said suddenly, in very businesslike tones, “that there's a chance that I may sail on the Sappho to-morrow?”
CHAPTER XI.
He threw himself at her feet. “A chance,” he echoed. “Come,” he pleaded; then a little softer: “Come, dear.”
“Why?” she asked, still dreamily.
“Because you must, my child,” he said quietly; “because it's your fate to go, and you can't fight fate. Sylvia,” he said, “all my life I have known that some time I should have a big moment. I have known that that moment would bring me the bliss of heaven or the pangs of hell. I've waited all my life for it to come, and I've held myself in readiness for anything that it might hold for me. And I say to you now, whatever it brings, I'm glad I've waited for it. It has come, Sylvia—Sylvia—this is my moment.”
Silver-Rose started. She stared at him steadily. When he ceased to speak she turned and stared quite as intently away from him. The light from the window fell on eyes that blazed like happy stars.
“Oh, the wonderful coincidences,” she murmured at last; “the wonderful, wonderful coincidences!”
“You see—you must come on the Sappho to-morrow,” he ventured.
“I'm afraid,” she whispered.
“Do you recall,” he helped her whimsically, “that the fairies may steal new-married brides upon May Eve? And you are, by your own confession, a new-married bride; and I am, by your own selection, the king of the fairies.”
She smiled at him.
“'Come newly married bride,'” he quoted softly.
“I”
“White bird, white bird, come with me, little bird.'”
“But”
“Come little bird with crest of gold”
“'I think that I would stay—and yet—and yet'” she supplemented him softly.
“'Come little bird with silver feet.'”
“Let's look at the dancers,” she said suddenly, rising.
He sighed deeply, but he followed her.
They found a secluded, vine-wreathed corner in the wide piazza, where, through one of the long windows, they could see without being seen.
It was like looking into a crystal. Many of the long, high walls were merely mirrors, and these alternated frequently with high, wide windows. There were, suspended from the ceiling, three huge crystal chandeliers, of an old-fashioned tiered and bulbous variety. Along the walls there were supplementing sprays of lights, whose flames spurted through calyxes of crystal. It happened that many of the women wore tulle that night—pale pinks and blues and greens. They drifted in the ambient atmosphere like flowers submerged in liquid, like complicated floating bells, that would have arisen to the surface and escaped if they had not been moored to their black and white partners.
Silver-Rose turned to her companion suddenly. “You must be about my brother's height,” she said.
“Yes, I have seen him—we must be about the same height,” Eveleth assured her.
“And what time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “One to those people in there, eleven to me, he said. “Oh, what will they say to you? What will they do to you?” he groaned.
“Nothing,” she said composedly. “I am my own mistress. Now, let me see; there are at least two more hours of dancing. My brother Beaufort is away. Won't you come in and get into his things?—and we'll have a dance together.”
He stared at her. “You do have ideas,” he said dazedly, “but—but is it possible?”
“Perfectly,” she announced tranquilly; “the servants will take care of you beautifully; and I'll tell mother I brought you along from Doris'. I'll fix Doris over the phone to-morrow. Do you care?”
“Care?” he said. Then he sighed again, but this time not unhappily.
“Well, come, then,” she ordered.
“I'll make a bargain with you,” he said ardently. “I'll wear your brother's things if you'll wear the gown I saw you in—in Langwall's studio—that white, crapy affair.”
“It's very old,” she said.
“Please.”
“I don't think it fits now. I'm not nearly so slender.”
“Please.”
“And I have a new one—a very pretty one.”
“Please.”
“White tulle,” she tempted him; “it's as delicate as a cobweb.”
“Please.”
She stared again into the dance. “There are a great many tulles,” she meditated; “they will take it as another evidence of my eccentricity—my insanity,” she added. “Well, I will,” she conceded. “Come.”
“I hate to leave them,” he admitted, with a backward glance.
“Leave whom?” she asked surprisedly.
“Prince Hal and the Princess Daylight.”
“Perhaps we shall find them again some time,” she suggested softly. “Are you coming?” He seized her hands.
“Tell me first,” he begged, “that you will sail to-morrow on the Sappho—tell me—oh, tell me.” He pressed her hands hard.:
Silver-Rose gazed inscrutably into the darkness. Dreams were filling her brilliant eyes; and tired shadows, that her youth rendered pearly, were accentuating them.
“Perhaps,” she said, at length.
“My little Daylight, my heart of gold, my lune de miel,” he whispered; and suddenly his words broke away from their English cages, softening into a flood of Italian diminutives. His arms went gently about her. Her lids drooped, but she did not stir. He drew her closer to him, and their lips met in a long kiss; soft as velvet, fine as fire.
(From the Boston Herald, Sunday, May 2.)
Among the passengers on the Sappho, sailing from Boston yesterday, were the Sampson-Somersets and their two daughters, Barbara and Muriel. At the last moment Miss Sylvia Wrexmere very unexpectedly joined their party.
(From the Boston Herald, Sunday, May 2.)
The dance given by the Wrexmeres at their house in Brookline the evening of April 30 was the prettiest and jolliest of the season. It took place the night the Pudding play was given in Cambridge, and all the principals appeared at the dance, shortly after midnight. Mr. Henry Eveleth, who made so great a success of his song in the first act, was among them. Mr. Eveleth, it will be recalled, is the owner of the fine old Eveleth mansion in Brookline. He is the son of the late Hamlin Eveleth. Miss Sylvia Wrexmere was detained away from home, so that she was unable to join her mother's guests until after midnight. She was, as usual, the belle of the occasion, although—with the touch of eccentricity that distinguishes her—she appeared in a gown of two seasons back, a white crape, the front ornamented with a cascade of bride-roses that extended from the shoulders to the knees. Mrs. Wrexmere wore purple panne, the Misses Somerset, etc., etc.
(From the Boston Herald, Sunday, May 2.)
Mr. Henry Eveleth sailed for England on the Sappho yesterday. Mr. Eveleth has just accepted the position of Paris correspondent of the London Hour.
(From the Boston Herald, May 4.)
Harry Pryor, better known to the Boston police as Boston Harry and Snappy Harry, was captured in New York this morning. He escaped from Sing Sing on April 28, and he has been at large until to-day. A reward offered, etc.
(From the “Looker-On” Column in the Boston Record.)
A good joke on a pair of Boston's finest guns is going the rounds and exciting any amount of comment in police circles. It will be recalled that Harry Pryor—or Boston Harry, as the Boston police best know him—escaped from Sing Sing about ten days ago. A reward of one thousand dollars was offered for his recapture. Two of our Boston detectives, remembering that Boston Harry once took refuge in a tramps' roost in the old Eveleth mansion in Brookline, conceived the idea of watching that vicinity closely. They insist that they saw Boston Harry enter the house on the night of April 30, accompanied by a woman. They telephoned for help and raided the place. Boston Harry had either gone, or he got away during the mêlée. He was captured within a few days in New. York. But the curious part of the whole affair is that they did recapture the notorious John Farrell, who had escaped from Charlestown the week before, and had been hiding, in the interval, in the Eveleth house. Some small fry in the way of petty criminals were also arrested there that night. The men all swear that Boston Harry was not among their number. There was no reward offered for Farrell.
(From the Boston Herald, August 30.)
To the tremendous surprise of her friends—and of even her parents, it is whispered—Miss Sylvia Wrexmere was married very suddenly on Friday last to Mr. Henry Eveleth, at the villa of Mr. and Mrs. Langwall at Grez. Mr. Eveleth is the Paris correspondent of the London Hour. His first novel, “The Choice,” has just been published, and is the literary and financial success of the London season. Mr. Eveleth, it is understood, has been in love with Miss Wrexmere for years, but their friendship has not been of long standing. It is hinted that it was a case of love at first sight. The wedding was strictly in accordance with the bride's well-known reputation for eccentricity. Only members of the family were present at the ceremony, which, it has leaked out, took place, by stipulation of the groom, by the light of the new moon, out of doors, in the Langwalls' garden. Miss Wrexmere wore what was also the groom's choice, the gown in which she appears in Mr. Langwall's very remarkable portrait: white crape and pearls, the corsage decorated with bride-roses. The groom's gift to the bride, in deference, doubtless, to the occasion, was a set of antique East Indian jewelry: It was made of crescents of dull wrought gold, set with some very remarkable moonstones. The young people went to Egypt on their wedding-trip.
THE END.