“Turk has been in Brussels,” said Quentin to her on the day
following her underground adventure. She was walking in the
courtyard, and her brain was busy with a new interest. Again had the
lonely priest passed along the road far below, and she had made him
understand that he was wanted at the castle gates. When he turned
off the road and began slowly to climb the steep, she was almost
suffocated with nervous excitement. Her experience of the day before
had left her unstrung and on the verge of collapse, and she was
beginning to enjoy a strange resignation.
She was beginning to feel that there were terrors worse than those
of the kindly prison, and that escape might be tenfold more
unpleasant than confinement. Then she saw the priest, and her
half-hearted attempt to attract his attention to her plight,
resulted so differently from what she had expected that her nerves
were again leaping with the old desire to outwit her captors. He was
coming to the castle, but how was she to acquaint him with the true
state of affairs? She would not be permitted to see him, much less
to talk with him; of that she was sure. Not knowing what else to do,
she went into the courtyard and loitered near the big gates, trying
to appear at ease. She prayed for but a few moments' time in which
to cry out to him that she was a prisoner and the woman for whom
100,000 francs were offered in Brussels.
But now comes Quentin upon the scene. His voice was hoarse, and it
was plain that he had taken a heavy cold in the damp cellar. She
deliberately turned her back upon him, not so much in disdain as to
hide the telltale confusion in her face. All hope of conversing with
the priest was lost if Quentin remained near by.
“I sent him to Brussels, Dorothy, and he has learned something that
will be of vital interest to you,” Philip went on, idly leaning
against the gate as if fate itself had sent him there to frustrate
her designs.
“Don't talk to me now, Philip. You must give me time. In an hour,
when I have gotten over this dreadful headache, I will listen to
you. But now, for heaven's sake, leave me to myself,” she said,
rapidly, resorting to deception.
“I'm sorry I have disturbed you. In an hour, then, or at any time
you may feel like listening. It concerns Prince Ugo.”
“Is he--what has happened to him?” she demanded, turning to him with
alarm in her eyes.
“It is not what has happened to him, but to one who was his
intimate. The woman who warned me to beware of his treachery has
been murdered in Brussels. Shall I come to you here in an hour?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly, the consciousness of a new dread showing
itself in her voice. It was not until he reentered the house that
she became fully possessed of a desire to learn more of this
startling news. Her mind went back to the strange young woman who
came to her with the story of the prince's duplicity, and her blood
grew cold with the thought that brutal death had come to her so soon
after that visit. She recalled the woman's voice, her unquestioned
refinement, her dignity of bearing and the positiveness with which
she declared that Ugo would kill her if he knew the nature of her
visit to his promised wife. And now she was dead--murdered! By whom?
That question burst upon her with the force of a heavy blow. Who
killed her?
A pounding on the heavy gate brought her sharply to the project of
the moment. She walked as calmly as her nerves would admit to the
gate and called in French:
“Who is there?”
“Father Paul,” came a subdued voice from the outside. “Am I wrong in
believing that I was called here by some one in the castle? Kindly
admit me. I am fatigued and athirst.”
“I cannot open the gate, good Father, You must aid me to escape from
this place,” she cried, eagerly, her breast thumping like a hammer.
There was no interruption, and she could have shrieked with triumph
when, five minutes later, the priest bade her be of good cheer and
to have confidence in him. He would come for her on the next night
but one, and she should be freed. From her window in the castle she
saw the holy man descend the steep with celerity not born of
fatigue. When he reached the road below he turned and waved his hand
to her and then made his way swiftly into the forest.
After it was all over and relief was promised, her excitement
subsided and in its place began to grow a dull contemplation of what
her rescue would mean to the people who were holding her captive. It
meant exposure, arrest, imprisonment and perhaps death. The appeal
she had succeeded in getting to the ears of the passing priest would
soon be public property, and another day might see the jubilant
minions of the law in front of Castle Craneycrow demanding her
release and the surrender of the culprits. There was not the joy in
her heart that she had expected; instead there was a sickening fancy
that she had done something mean and treacherous. When she rejoined
the unsuspecting party downstairs soon afterward, a mighty weakness
assailed her, and it was she, instead of they who had boldly stolen
her from her home, that felt the pangs of guilt. She went into the
courtyard where Savage and Lady Jane were playing handball, while
the Saxondales looked on, happily unconscious of a traitor in their
midst. For an instant, pale and remorseful, she leaned against the
door-post, struggling to suppress the tears of pity and contrition.
Before she had fully recovered her strength Lady Jane was drawing
her into the contest with Dickey. And so she played cravenly with
those whose merry hearts she was to crush, listening to the plaudits
of the two smiling onlookers. It was too late to save them, for a
priest of God had gone out into the world to herald their guilt and
to deal a blow that would shatter everything.
Quentin came down a little later, and she was conscious that he
watched the game with eyes in which pleasure and trouble fought for
supremacy. Tired at last of the violent exercise, the trio threw
themselves upon the bench in the shade of the wall, and, with
glowing faces and thumping breasts, two of them laughed over the
antics they had cut. Dorothy's lawless lover stood afar off, lonely
and with the resignation of the despised. Presently he drew near and
asked if he might join them in the shade.
“What a dreadful cold you have taken, Phil,” cried Lady Saxondale,
anxiously.
“Commonest sort of a cold, I assure you. Damp cellars don't agree
with me,” he said.
“I did not want your coat, but you would give it to me,” said
Dorothy, as if called upon to defend herself for some crime.
“It was you or I for the cold, you know,” he said, simply, “and I
was your protector.”
“Right and good,” agreed Dickey. “Couldn't do anything else. Lady
needed a coat, had to have it, and she got it. Duty called and found
him prepared. That's why he always wears a coat in the presence of
ladies.”
“I've had your friend, the skeleton, buried,” said Lord Bob. “Poor
chap, he seemed all broken up over leaving the place.”
“Yes--went all to pieces,” added Dickey.
“Dickey Savage, do you think you are funny?” demanded Lady Jane,
loftily. “I would not jest about the dead.”
“The last I saw of him he was grinning like the--”
“Oh, you wretch!” cried the girl, and Dorothy put her fingers to her
ears.
“Shut up, Dickey,” exclaimed Quentin. “Do you care to hear about
that woman in Brussels, Dorothy?”
“It is of no great consequence to me, but I'll listen if you like,”
she said, slowly.
Thereupon he related to the party the story of the finding of the
dead woman in a house near the Garrison home in the Avenue Louise.
She had been dead for two days and her throat was cut. The house in
which she was found was the one into which Turk had seen Courant
disappear on the night of the veranda incident at the Garrison's.
Turk had been sent to Brussels by Quentin on a mission of
considerable importance, arriving there soon after the body was
discovered. He saw the woman's face at the morgue and recognized her
as the one who had approached Quentin in the train for Paris. Turk
learned that the police, to all appearances had found a clew, but
had suddenly dropped the whole matter and the woman was classified
with the “unknown dead.” An attendant at the morgue carelessly
remarked in his hearing that she was the mistress of a great man,
who had sent them word to “throw her in the river.” Secretly Turk
assured himself that there was no mistake as to the house in which
she had been found, and by putting two and two together, it was not
unnatural to agree with the morgue officer and to supply for his own
benefit the name of the royal lover. The newspapers which Turk
brought from Brussels to Castle Craneycrow contained accounts of the
murder of the beautiful woman, speculated wildly as to her idenity
and termed the transaction a mystery as unsolvable as the great
abduction. The same papers had the report, on good authority, that
Miss Garrison had been murdered by her captors in a small town in
Spain, the authorities being so hot on the trail that she was put
out of the way for safety's sake.
But the papers did not know that a bearded man named Turk had
slipped a sealed envelope under a door at the Garrison home, and
that a distressed mother had assurance from the brigand chief that
her daughter was alive and well, but where she could not be found.
To prove that the letter was no imposition, it was accompanied by a
lock of hair from Dorothy's head, two or three bits of jewelry and a
lace handkerchief that could not have belonged to another. Dorothy
did not know how or when Baker secured these bits of evidence, When
Quentin told her the chief object of Turk's perilous visit to
Brussels, her eyes filled with tears, and for the first time she
felt grateful to him.
“I have a confession to make,” she said, after the story was
finished and the others had deliberately charged Ugo with the crime.
“That poor woman came to me in Brussels and implored me to give up
the prince. She told me, Phil, that she loved him and warned me to
beware of him. And she said that he would kill her if he knew that
she had come to me.”
“That settles it!” exclaimed he, excitedly, the fever of joy in his
eyes. “He killed her when he found that she had been to you.
Perhaps, goaded to desperation, she confessed to him. Imagine the
devilish delight he took in sniffing out her life after that! We
have him now! Dorothy, you know as well as I that he and he alone
had an object in killing her. You have only to tell the story of her
visit to you and we'll hang the miserable coward.” He was standing
before her, eager-eyed and intense.
“You forget that I am not and do not for some time expect to be in a
position to expose him. I am inclined to believe that the law will
first require me to testify against you, Philip Quentin,” she said,
looking fairly into his eyes, the old resentment returning like a
flash. Afterward she knew that the look of pain in his face touched
her heart, but she did not know it then. She saw the beaten joy go
out of his eyes, and she rejoiced in the victory.
“True,” he said, softly. “I have saved the woman I love, while he
has merely killed one who loved him.” It angered her unreasonably
when, as he turned to enter the house, Lady Saxondale put her arm
through his and whispered something in his ear. A moment or two
later Lady Jane, as if unable to master the emotion which impelled,
hurried into the castle after them. Dickey strolled away, and she
was left with Lord Bob. It would have been a relief had he expressed
the slightest sign of surprise or regret, but he was as
imperturbable as the wall against which he leaned. His mild blue
eyes gazed carelessly at the coils of smoke that blew from his lips.
“Oh,” she wailed to herself, in the impotence of anger, “they all
love him, they all hate me! Why does he not mistreat me, insult me,
taunt me--anything that will cost him their respect, their devotion!
How bitterly they feel toward me for that remark! It will kill me to
stay here and see them turn to him as if he were some god and I the
defiler!”
That night there was a battle between the desire to escape and the
reluctance she felt in exposing her captors to danger. In the end
she admitted to herself that she would not have Philip Quentin
seized by the officers: she would give them all an equal chance to
escape, he with the others. Her heart softened when she saw him, in
her imagination, alone and beaten, in the hands of the police, led
away to ignominy and death, the others perhaps safe through his
loyalty. She would refuse absolutely, irrevocably, to divulge the
names of her captors and would go so far as to perjure herself to
save them if need be. With that charitable resolution in her heart
she went to sleep.
When she arose the next morning, Baker told her that Mr. Quentin was
ill. His cold had settled on his lungs and he had a fever. Lady
Saxondale seemed worried over the rather lugubrious report from
Dickey Savage, who came downstairs early with Phil's apologies for
not presenting himself at the breakfast table.
While Quentin cheerfully declared that he would be himself before
night, Dickey was in a doleful state of mind and ventured the
opinion that he was “in for a rough spell of sickness.” What
distresed the Saxondales most was the dismal certainty that a doctor
could not be called to the castle. If Quentin were to become
seriously ill, the situation would develop into something extremely
embarrassing.
He insisted on coming downstairs about noon, and laughed at the
remonstrances of Lord Bob and Dickey, who urged him to remain in bed
for a day or two, at least. His cough was a cruel one, and his eyes
were bright with the fever that raced through his system. The
medicine chest offered its quinine and its plasters for his benefit,
and there was in the air the tense anxiety that is felt when a child
is ill and the outcome is in doubt. The friends of this strong,
stubborn and all-important sick man could not conceal the fact that
they were nervous and that they dreaded the probability of disaster
in the shape of serious illness. His croaking laugh, his tearing
cough and that flushed face caused Dorothy more pain than she was
willing to admit, even to herself.
As night drew near she quivered with excitement. Was she to leave
the castle? Would the priest come for her? Above all, would he be
accompanied by a force of officers large enough to storm the castle
and overpower its inmates? What would the night bring forth? And
what would be the stand, the course, taken by this defiant sick man,
this man with two fevers in his blood?
She had not seen or spoken to him during the day, but she had
frequently passed by the door of the library in which he sat and
talked with the other men. An irresistible longing to speak to him,
to tell him how much she regretted his illness, came over her. There
was in her heart a strange tenderness, a hungry desire to comfort
him just the least bit before she took the flight that was to
destroy the hope his daring and skillfully executed scheme had
inspired.
Three times she hesitated in front of the library door, but her
courage was not as strong as her desire. Were he alone she could
have gone in and told him frankly that she would not expose him to
the law in the event that she ever had the opportunity. But the
other men were with him. Besides, his cough was so distressing that
natural pity for one suffering physical pain would have made it
impossible to talk to him with the essential show of indifference.
At last, in despair, she left Lady Saxondale and her companion in
the courtyard and started up the stairs, resolved to be as far as
possible from the sound of that cough. Quentin met her at the foot
of the steps.
“I'm going to lie down awhile,” he said, wearily. “They seem to be
worried about this confounded cold, and I'll satisfy them by packing
myself away in bed.”
“You should be very careful, Phil,” she said, a suffocating feeling
in her throat. “Your cough is frightful, and they say you have a
fever. Do be reasonable.”
“Dorothy,” he said, pausing before her at the steps, his voice full
of entreaty, “tell me you don't despise me. Oh! I long to have you
say one tender word to me, to have one gentle look from your eyes.”
“I am very sorry you are suffering, Philip,” she said, steeling her
heart against the weakness that threatened.
“Won't you believe I have done all this because I love you and----”
he was saying, passionately, but she interposed.
“Don't! Don't, Phil! I was forgetting a little--yes, I was
forgetting a little, but you bring back all the ugly thoughts. I
cannot forget and I will not forgive. You love me, I know, and you
have been a kind jailer, but you must not expect to regain my
respect and love--yes, it was love up to the morning I saw you in
the dining-room of this castle.”
“I'll create a new love in your heart, Dorothy,” he cried. “The old
love may be dead, but a new one shall grow up in its place. You do
not feel toward me to-day as you did a week ago. I have made some
headway against the force of your hatred. It will take time to win
completely; I would not have you succumb too soon. But, just as sure
as there is a God, you will love me some day for the love that made
me a criminal in the eyes of the world. I love you, Dorothy; I love
you!”
“It is too late. You have destroyed the power to love. Phil, I
cannot forgive you. Could I love you unless full forgiveness paved
the way?”
“There is nothing to forgive, as you will some day confess. You will
thank and forgive me for what I have done.” A fit of coughing caused
him to lean against the stair rail, a paroxysm of pain crossing his
face as he sought to temper the violence of the spell.
“You should have a doctor,” she cried, in alarm. He smiled
cheerlessly.
“Send for the court physician,” he said, derisively, “The king of
evil-doers has the chills and fever, they say. Is my face hot
Dorothy?”
She hesitated for a moment, then impulsively placed her cool hand
against his flushed forehead. Despite her will, there was a caress
in the simple act, and his bright eyes gleamed with gladness. His
hand met hers as it was lowered from the hot brow, and his lips
touched the fingers softly.
“Ah, the fever, the fever!” he exclaimed, passionately.
“You should have a doctor,” she muttered, as if powerless to frame
other words.