Too amazed to speak, too stunned to think, Hugh Pryde stood
rigid—dumfounded. Helen was breathing rapidly, her breast rising and
falling in great heaves, waves of alternate shadow and sunset veiling
and lighting her face, her eyes far off and set, her hands reaching out
to——
“Helen, my dear——” he said, brought to himself by her strangeness.
“Oh!” she cried fiercely, great longing fluting her voice—she was more
intensely nervous than her companion had ever seen any one before, and
he had seen hundreds of untried boys on the eve of battle—“Oh! it must
be so. Why should the same thought come to us both—you at the front—I
in London—come—so—vividly? And without any reason!—I am sure it’s
Daddy.”
At the sight of her exaltation all his cocksure masculinity reasserted
itself. He laid a patronizing, affectionate hand on her arm. “Don’t
distress yourself with this, dear,” he said soothingly, “I can’t let
you. Our both having the same feeling must have been only a
coincidence.”
She shook off his hand with gentle impatience, the sex impatience of
quick woman with man’s dullness, a delicate rage as old as the Garden of
Eden. “No, no,” she said chidingly. “It wasn’t only that—it wasn’t only
that.”
Her earnestness shook him a little—and perhaps his wish did too: any
port in a storm, even a supernatural one!
“But if Uncle Dick could bring us to this room,” he asked slowly, “why
doesn’t he show us what to do?”
“He will,” she said—almost sternly—“he will—now that he has brought
us here—why, that proves it! Don’t you see? I see!—now that he has
brought us here—_He will come to us._” She sank down into a low chair
near the writing-table, her eyes rapt, riveted on space.
Again masculine superiority reasserted itself, and something
creature-love, and chivalry too—jostling aside the “almost I am
persuaded” that the moment before had cried in his soul, and Hugh put a
pitying hand on her shoulder, saying,
“I don’t want to make you unhappy, Helen, but that’s impossible.”
Thought-transference, spiritual-wireless—um—well, perhaps—but
_ghosts_!—perish the folly!
Helen looked up, and, at something in her face, he took his hand from
her shoulder. The girl shivered. And in another moment the khaki-clad
man shivered too—rather violently. “How cold it is here,” he said, and
repeated somewhat dreamily—“How cold!”
“Yes,” Helen echoed in an unnatural voice, “cold.”
“I must have left the window open,” Hugh said with an effort. He went to
the casement. “No,” he said with a puzzled frown. “I did close
it—tight.” He crossed to Helen again and stood looking down on
her—worried and at sea. She sighed and looked up—almost he could see
her mood of exaltation, or emotion, or whatever it was, pass. She spoke
to him in a clear, natural voice. “What are we going to do, Hugh? We
must do something.”
“I don’t know,” he said hopelessly—and began moving restlessly about
the room.
Suddenly Helen sat upright and gave a swift half-frightened look over
her shoulder.
“Hugh!”
He came to her at once. “Yes.”
“Don’t think me hysterical—but we don’t _know_ that Daddy couldn’t come
back—we _can’t be sure_. What if he were here, in this room now, trying
to tell us something, and we couldn’t understand?”
“Helen, my dearest,” Hugh deprecated.
“Wait,” she whispered, rising slowly. “Wait!” For an instant she stood
erect, her slim height carved by the last of the sunshine out of the
shadows—trance-like, rigid. But at that sybil-moment Stephen Pryde
opened the door softly and came through it. The girl’s taut figure
quivered, relaxed, and with a moan—“No—no—I—no—no——” she sank
down again and buried her face in her hands.
Richard Bransby come from the dead could scarcely have confounded
Stephen more than the sight of Hugh did. For a moment of distraught
dismay the elder brother stood supine and irresolute on the threshold.
Then forcing himself to face dilemma, and to deal with it, if possible,
as such natures do at terribly crucial moments—until they reach their
breaking point—he called his brother by name.
Hugh swung round with a glad exclamation of surprise, and held out his
hand. Stephen gripped it; and, when he could trust his voice, he said,
“I had no idea you were here.”
Helen rose and went to them eagerly. “He has come back to us, Stephen,
he has been to France—he has been offered a commission—he has proved
himself,” she poured out in one exultant breath.
“I am glad to see you, Hugh, very glad——” Stephen said gravely, “but
you shouldn’t have come.”
“Why not?” the girl demanded.
Stephen turned to her then; he had paid no attention to her before,
scarcely had known of her presence.
“The warrant,” he said to her sadly. “Hugh,” at once turning again to
him, “didn’t you know that there was a warrant out for your arrest?”
“I only heard of it a day or two ago.”
“Then you must realize what a risk you run in coming here. Why did you
take such a chance?”
“He came to clear himself,” Helen interposed.
“What?” Stephen cried, his dismay undisguised, but the others were too
overwrought to catch it. “What?” Stephen repeated huskily.
“He believes—and so do I——” Helen answered—“that there is something
in this room that will prove his innocence.”
“In this room?” Stephen Pryde’s voice trembled with fear; fear so
obvious that only the intensest absorption could have missed it.
“Yes,” Helen said firmly.
Stephen controlled himself with a great effort—it was
masterly—“What—what is it?” he forced himself to ask, turning directly
to Hugh and looking searchingly into his eyes.
“I don’t know—yet,” Hugh said regretfully. Stephen gave a breath of
relief, and sat down; his legs were aching from his mental anxiety and
tension. “But,” Hugh went on, “I am certain I can find something that
will clear me, if Helen will allow me to search this room.”
Hugh search this room! At that suggestion, panic, such as even yet he
had not known, in all these hideous months of hidden panic, caught
Stephen Pryde and shook him, man as he was and man-built, as if
palsy-stricken. Neither Helen nor Hugh could possibly have overlooked a
state so pitiful and so abject, if either had looked at him at that
moment. But neither did.
“Allow!” the girl said scornfully, both hands on Hugh’s shoulders.
“Allow! Me allow you! You are master here,” she added proudly.
Once more Stephen Pryde commanded himself. It was bravely done. Hugh’s
head was bent over Helen—the woman Stephen loved—Hugh’s lips were
lingering on her hair. Stephen commanded himself, and spoke with quiet
emphasis—
“No—no! You must not do that.”
“Why not?” Helen said sharply, turning a little in Hugh’s arm.
“Don’t you see?” Stephen answered smoothly, his eyes very kind, his
voice affectionate and solicitous. “Every moment you stay here, Hugh,
you run a great risk. You must get away, at once, to some safe place,
and then—I’ll make the search for you. Indeed I intended doing so.”
“No—no—that wouldn’t be right,” Hugh said impulsively, not in the
least knowing why he said it. “I don’t know why,” he added slowly, “but
that wouldn’t be right.” As he spoke he turned his head and looked over
his shoulder almost as if listening to some one from whose prompting he
spoke. The movement of his head was unusual and somehow suggested
apprehension. And he spoke hesitatingly, automatically, as if some one
else threw him the word.
“What are you looking at?” Stephen said uneasily.
Hugh turned back with an awkward laugh. “Ah—um—nothing,” he said
lamely.