AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH.
“It’s no use,” thought Beryl Corselas, “nothing was ever any use.
They’ve got us, body and soul, again.”
She stared at the sea through the open port-hole, as if it would help
her to think.
How long had she lain in this hot, close cabin, hearing the endless jar
of the screw and the wash of stormy water on the closed port-hole? And
where was Andria?
“She opened the shutters and pulled me away, and he called her things.
Oh, I can’t remember! But I’m on the yacht again. She must be here,
too, for unless I dreamed it, I saw Amelia Jane in the cabin. I must
get up and find her. Surely, surely they would never leave her behind!”
She sat up, and did not even notice how steady the ship was, though it
was only that which had revived her. Between a slight concussion of the
brain and being the very worst sailor possible, things had reason to be
hazy to her. But as she looked about for her shoes and stockings the
door opened softly and Amelia Jane’s face peered in.
“Amelia!” cried Beryl. “Then I wasn’t dreaming. You were here! Where’s
Miss Holbeach? Tell her I want her.”
The woman’s face changed convulsively.
“You knows,” she said rudely; “what’s the good of askin’ me?”
“Answer me! Come in and shut the door.”
But it was only the long habit of servitude, and perhaps something in
the yellow eyes, that made the woman obey her.
“Tell me what you mean. Quick!”
Amelia Jane shrank against the door.
“You knows dat poor, sweet lady won’t come to you no more,” she said,
more civilly.
“They left her!” cried Beryl. She cared nothing for the servant’s
changed manner. “Amelia, they didn’t leave her behind?” She flung out
her hands as if to beg the woman to contradict her.
But Amelia Jane only nodded dumbly. Great tears began to pour down her
cheeks.
“It was dem beasts you called in,” she said. “But dere’s no more
trouble in dis world for Miss Holbeach. She’s gone clean away from
trouble. De golden chariot’s swung low to fetch her.”
“Do you mean she’s dead?” Beryl’s eyes were dry, her tones perfectly
even, but Amelia Jane made haste to nod.
“Who killed her?” Beryl said, with a dreadful matter-of-factness, her
voice very low and steady. But Amelia Jane saw nothing strange in the
question.
“Dem beasts,” she sobbed. “Dem beasts Salome said was haunts. Dey got
her and poor old Salome. Dey chased master to de edge of de sea; he
save you first, but he ain’t save de others. Chloe and you and me’s
here--but----” she dropped her dark hands with a gesture of despair.
The girl sprang toward her, a dreadful, tragic figure, in her white
nightgown, her wild, dusky hair streaming.
“Mr. Heriot----” she said, between her teeth, and, weak as she was,
grasped Amelia Jane’s shoulder and shook her like a reed; “where was
Mr. Heriot?”
“Gone, too; dey all gone.” Amelia was curiously, cringingly civil now.
“He never got far dat night he went away, for dey found him on de
hillside. Dat was how come dey feared de place and started to take us
away.”
Beryl Corselas caught her breath hard, so that the woman waited for the
sharp cry, the torrent of tears, that yet she did not expect. And when
no cry came she trembled.
“Dress me,” came the sharp order. “Tell Mr. Egerton I want to see him,”
and something in her eyes made Amelia Jane hurry as she had never
hurried before.
“You can’t see him here,” she ventured timidly, looking at the
disordered cabin. “Better come on deck; we’s nearly to de land.”
“Bring him here!” and Amelia Jane fled for her life at the sudden,
dangerous ring in the voice.
But it was not Egerton who presently knocked at the door.
“Come in,” said Beryl evenly, and did not start as she saw Raimond
Erle--only looked him up and down with strange eyes.
For a moment he could not think what to say to her. There was something
terrible in her face, something like a beast waiting to spring in the
tense lines of her body as she stood opposite him.
He stepped across the threshold in silence, and he did not close the
door behind him, but she seemed not to notice.
“Where is Andria?” she said. “Where is Mr. Heriot? How is it that you
and your father and I are alive when they are dead?”
Then Amelia Jane had told her, as she was meant to do! It is easier to
amplify bad news than to break it. He would strike at the hardest part
first.
“So you knew he was there!” he said, with a shudder that was not all
put on. “Beryl, don’t look at me like that,” using her name as if he
had used it many times to himself. “I know what you think--that only a
selfish coward could have got away from that island and left a woman to
be killed. But don’t judge me yet.”
“Answer me!” she said fiercely. “What happened to Andria? You were with
her last!”
He nodded, but there was no shame on his face. “I was with her last,”
he said slowly, “but--Heriot was with her first.”
“What do you mean?” She drew a step nearer to him; another, and she
would fly at his eyes.
“Listen; be patient. I don’t know how to tell you, but if you will have
it----”
“Go on.”
He saw the wild blood in her cheeks.
“It was this,” he answered very low. “That man Heriot had been in love
with her for a long time--may have been married to her for all I know.
Anyhow, he followed her. I suppose she sent for him. I don’t know.”
“How could she send, when we were told the place was Bermuda?” Beryl
asked scornfully.
“You were told that for your own safety. There were others besides
Heriot who might have followed you,” he answered somberly. “Oh, I’m not
defending my father! He made mistakes, but he meant well.” He dared
not lift his eyes to the fierce-light gaze of hers, but he kept on
steadily: “The man knew she was there; it doesn’t matter how. He hid in
our house and crept away in the night rather than face us.”
The girl deliberately turned her back to him. He had his eyes on the
ground--anywhere but on her--and did not see her pull a flat thing out
of her pocket, nor notice the rustle of the thin, foreign envelope that
covered the carte de visite.
“Look at that if you would doubt me!” Andria had said. She would look
at it now.
But when she saw and read she was struck dumb. No wonder Andria had
feared to meet him. No wonder she had been livid with fury when he saw
her. No wonder----
She wheeled and faced him, the photograph hidden in the folds of her
wide silk belt.
“I----” but she stopped the words on her very lips. Let him tell all
his lies, let him think her a fool! No one could know better than he
that Heriot was not Andria’s lover.
“Perhaps he knew you,” she said, with an insolence for which he could
have struck her, though he did not know all she meant.
“Yes, he knew me. Knew me,” he answered slowly, “enough to know I would
not have my father’s roof--or you--dishonored. But his fear drove him
to his death, and hers, too.
“When my father came to us that morning on the veranda, it was to say
he had found a man dead, torn to pieces, not ten yards from the house.
And that, if such things could happen, it was no place for two women.
But you were too excited to listen. You were terrified that you might
be taken away from a woman who had no right even to speak to you. You
fell backward down the steps before you could be told of the danger, or
the strange man who had been killed by the jaguars.”
“How do you know they were jaguars?”
Not a cry had been wrung from her, though her soul was sick to think
how the madman and the cats had betrayed her. How Heriot--she dared not
think or she would break down in her icy calm.
“We had excellent reason. You fell--my father told that woman her lover
was dead, and she must come with us and you. She laughed. She said she
would die with him sooner than live with us. She--I took you and ran
with you to the boat. My father called the colored servants and went
back for the stubborn woman up-stairs. But she tore away from him and
ran--ran straight to her death. He saw her torn to pieces before his
eyes, as he saw Salome afterward.
“The other two women had gone on. They will tell you how they sat in
the boat and saw him but just escape with his life. How they heard
Salome scream.” His face was white and damp as he finished, for what he
knew was a thousand times worse than the lying tale he told.
Beryl looked at him, and the scornful, accusing words died on her lips.
What did a lie more or less matter when Andria and Heriot were dead?
“Beryl,” said Erle softly, “try not to distrust me! My father and I
are the only friends you have. You cannot think either he or I would
willingly let such things be. Your--the governess”--he watched her face
now for answering knowledge, for defiance that was not there--“was
nothing to us but a misguided woman. We would have no motive----”
“What do you mean to do with me?” she said, as if he had not spoken.
“Take you with us; make your life happy, till you forget the horrible
things you have known. Hate me,” he exclaimed with sudden passion,
casting the memory of his crimes behind him, “if you like, but let me
help you--keep you--love you----”
Her voice rang in the little cabin.
“You killed her!” she said, and pointed at him. “You!”