Jealousy.
At the door of her home Blakeney parted from Anne Mie, with all the
courtesy with which he would have bade adieu to the greatest lady in his
own land.
Anne Mie let herself into the house with her own latch-key. She closed
the heavy door noiselessly, then glided upstairs like a quaint little
ghost.
But on the landing above she met Paul Déroulède.
He had just come out of his room, and was still fully dressed.
"Anne Mie!" he said, with such an obvious cry of pleasure, that the
young girl, with beating heart, paused a moment on the top of the
stairs, as if hoping to hear that cry again, feeling that indeed he was
glad to see her, had been uneasy because of her long absence.
"Have I made you anxious?" she asked at last.
"Anxious!" he exclaimed. "Little one, I have hardly lived this last
hour, since I realised that you had gone out so late as this, and all
alone."
"How did you know?"
"Mademoiselle de Marny knocked at my door an hour ago. She had gone to
your room to see you, and, not finding you there, she searched the house
for you, and finally, in her anxiety, came to me. We did not dare to
tell my mother. I won't ask you where you have been, Anne Mie, but
another time, remember, little one, that the streets of Paris are not
safe, and that those who love you suffer deeply, when they know you to
be in peril."
"Those who love me!" murmured the girl under her breath.
"Could you not have asked me to come with you?"
"No; I wanted to be alone. The streets were quite safe, and--I wanted to
speak with Sir Percy Blakeney."
"With Blakeney?" he exclaimed in boundless astonishment. "Why, what in
the world did you want to say him?"
The girl, so unaccustomed to lying, had blurted out the truth, almost
against her will.
"I thought he could help me, as I was much perturbed and restless."
"You went to him sooner than to me?" said Déroulède in a tone of gentle
reproach, and still puzzled at this extraordinary action on the part of
the girl, usually so shy and reserved.
"My anxiety was about you, and you would have mocked me for it."
"Indeed, I should never mock you, Anne Mie. But why should you be
anxious about me?"
"Because I see you wandering blindly on the brink of a great danger, and
because I see you confiding in those, whom you had best mistrust."
He frowned a little, and bit his lip to check the rough word that was on
the tip of his tongue.
"Is Sir Percy Blakeney one of those whom I had best mistrust?" he said
lightly.
"No," she answered curtly.
"Then, dear, there is no cause for unrest. He is the only one of my
friends whom you have not known intimately. All those who are round me
now, you know that you can trust and that you can love," he added
earnestly and significantly.
He took her hand; it was trembling with obvious suppressed agitation.
She knew that he had guessed what was passing in her mind, and now was
deeply ashamed of what she had done. She had been tortured with jealousy
for the past three weeks, but at least she had suffered quite alone: no
one had been allowed to touch that wound, which more often than not,
excites derision rather than pity. Now, by her own actions, two men knew
her secret. Both were kind and sympathetic; but Déroulède resented her
imputations, and Blakeney had been unable to help her.
A wave of morbid introspection swept over her soul. She realised in a
moment how petty and base had been her thoughts and how purposeless her
actions. She would have given her life at this moment to eradicate from
Déroulède's mind the knowledge of her own jealousy; she hoped that at
least he had not guessed her love.
She tried to read his thoughts, but in the dark passage, only dimly
lighted by the candles in Déroulède's room beyond, she could not see the
expression of his face, but the hand which held hers was warm and
tender. She felt herself pitied, and blushed at the thought. With a
hasty good-night she fled down the passage, and locked herself in her
room, alone with her own thoughts at last.