'WITH YOUR LIPS TO THE HURT.'
A few minutes later a knocking came to Madame de Sagan's door. It was
low and urgent. She ran to open it, her heart in her throat. A hand
pushed her aside with the rough careless force of full control. She
recoiled with an exclamation, for a glance showed her that the Count was
in one of his most deadly moods.
'What have you done--where is Selpdorf's daughter?' he snarled.
As Madame de Sagan shrank from the menacing hand the door opened a
second time, and Valerie herself stumbled in with a bloodless face.
At the sight of the Count, she drew herself together like one who faces
an unexpected peril.
'I apologise for coming, but I am frightened. The storm is dreadful. So
I came to you, Isolde.'
Isolde put out her arms with a sobbing cry.
'I am frightened, too,' she said with a swift resentful glance at her
husband; 'I was coming for you. Stay with me, Valerie; I will not be
left alone!'
Sagan looked from one to the other of the two beautiful faces, and a
sensation of surprised dismay, to which he was a stranger, arose in his
mind. Hitherto women had been to him possessions, not problems. Now a
very ancient truth burst in upon him with all the force of a revelation.
To own a woman is not always to understand her. The unexpected defiance
on his wife's face confounded him.
'Isolde!' he began, stepping towards her.
But the young Countess clung to Valerie.
'Stay with me, Valerie!' she implored. 'I am far more frightened than
you, for I know what there is to fear.'
With a loud curse of bewilderment he strode out, banging the door behind
him. Isolde sprang to it, slipping the bolts with trembling fingers.
Then she threw herself upon a couch and broke into pitiful sobbing.
Valerie stood looking down at her in an agony of suspense, yet
remembering that self-control is the chief rule of every game. Presently
she put her hand on Isolde's shoulder. The young Countess started up
with a suppressed scream. 'I had forgotten you were there. Valerie, he
will murder me! He hates me! Oh, I have no one to save me!'
Valerie looked round. After the scene she had just witnessed, this
suggestion did not sound so wild as it would have done at another time.
'You are nervous, Isolde; one could fancy anything on such a night,' she
said soothingly.
'Have you lived so long in Maäsau without knowing that here at Sagan
everything is possible? He threatens me, and oh, my God, what shall I
do?'
Valerie sat down beside her and put a steady hand upon her arm. She had
her own object in this visit, but it must be approached with caution.
'I am here. I will help you!' she said reassuringly.
Isolde sat up and put her arm round her companion's shoulders.
'I must trust you--though----Valerie, there is one person who might be
able to help me to-night,' she whispered close to the girl's ear. 'He
might save me. But he must come to me--here--now! I dare not leave this
room. Simon----' she shivered.
'Who is it?' A new coldness crept into Valerie's voice as she listened.
'Can you not guess? It is Captain Rallywood.'
Valerie had braced herself to meet this, and it only added proof to her
own fears for his safety. Come what might, she would undertake any
message from Isolde to get the opportunity of warning the Duke's guard
of the coming danger, and to tell the fate of that gallant figure
tossing to and fro in the battering rush of the Kofn. She drew herself
away from Isolde's embrace with a shudder.
'What is the matter with you?' Isolde peered up at her with a quick
scrutiny. 'You are shaking all over. Valerie, is it because of him?'
'I am very cold,' returned the girl with a smile. 'I am quite willing to
bring--Captain Rallywood. But where is he?'
'He is on guard in the Duke's ante-room.' She turned her head away.
'Then, Isolde, you know it is impossible! He cannot come!'
'Even if it costs my life?' said the Countess bitterly. 'Oh, how cheap
you hold other people's lives, Valerie! You are a true Maäsaun!'
Valerie thought a moment. The request of Madame de Sagan fell in with
her own plan. It would enable her to solve the doubt that was agonising
her; yet if she found him safe, how could she lend herself to tempt him
to his own dishonour? A cruel question rose within her. Should she put
him to the supreme test of life and love--would she not rather know him
dead in the cold river, than living and false to her dim ideal of him?
'There is no time to spare.' Isolde's voice broke in upon her. 'If you
could make him know the danger I stand in, he must come! Remind him of
his promise to me.'
'But if he will not come?' Valerie forced the words.
'Then ask him to give you the cigarette case of Maäsaun leather-work.
That will remind him of many things. But he will come,' she ended more
confidently.
Valerie rose.
'I am ready. I know the passages are watched. I saw no one, yet I felt
the shadows were full of eyes. Lend me your sable cloak, Isolde;
everyone will recognize that, and with this lace about my head, I shall
be free to go where I please as the Countess Sagan.'
'Valerie'--Madame de Sagan held the girl back--'listen to me, you must
make him come! I must tell you all. Rallywood is in danger, nothing can
save him unless you separate him from the Duke----' she stopped,
panting, then bared her arm. 'Remind him how he promised me--with his
lips upon the hurt! Now go!'
The next second Valerie Selpdorf found herself alone in the dim
corridor, in which the lights burned low. She stood quite still, the
shock of the last sentence 'with his lips upon the hurt' still ringing
in her ears. Rallywood! Rallywood with the clear grey eyes and that look
in them which remained persistently in her memory. Her father had taught
her to suspect the whole world. But she had chosen to think differently
of this man, even when she told herself she hated him. Different from
others--exempt from the universal stain of hypocrisy--one to be trusted,
if it were possible to trust any. Then she turned upon herself. After
all had he deceived her, had she not rather deceived herself? He had
spoken openly to her of his despairing secret, of the woman he could
never hope to win. And she had concluded what? Nothing definite, but
there had been a dim thought. Oh, it was unbearable! But why did she
linger to think of this, while Maäsau itself was in danger?
She hurried along the passages, moving with a soft swiftness of silken
garments, and as she passed the hidden eyes of the watchers looked out
after the muffled figure. Madame de Sagan was free to come and go.
From the head of the great staircase a narrow corridor branched away to
the Duke's quarters. A very dim light shone from the embrasure at the
end as she hurried along and, before she could stop herself, she ran
right into the arms of a tall man who was coming out towards her.
He put her gently back against the wall and looked at her, but the lace
was drawn close about her face.
'I must pass,' she said.
The man's back was to the light, but she knew the shape of the head and
shoulders.
'No one can pass, Madame.'
The relief of knowing Rallywood was safe jarred in her mind with the
hideous suspicion that Isolde's allurements had after all conquered his
allegiance to the Duke. He clearly recognised the cloak and believed her
to be the Countess. She would have been more than woman not to take
advantage of the mistake. She bent forward a little.
'Come with me,' she whispered.
'I cannot.'
'Do you forget your promise?'
'Under the circumstances'--he glanced back at the Duke's door--'you know
I could make none.'
'But I am in danger--and you promised, surely you promised, with your
lips there!'
Rallywood stared at the shapely hand and firm white wrist thrust out
from the dark sables, with a great leap at his heart. The sight took him
unawares.
'Valerie!' he exclaimed.