Blind Policy Part 32

She gave a violent start, the blood suffused her cheeks, and then fled, leaving her deadly pale, as she gazed at him with dilating eyes.

"I beg your pardon," she said coldly, "you addressed me?"

"Yes," he said in a low voice which trembled a little from the excess of his emotion, "but we are alone now, Marion. For pity's sake let there be an end to this."

"Ah, I remember," she said in her low, musical tones, "you are the strange gentleman who addressed me before. You are repeating your mistake, sir."

"Indeed!" he said reproachfully, as he fixed her eyes with his. "Do you think I could ever be mistaken?"

She bowed slightly and drew a little back, glancing hurriedly at the driver, and then looking ahead as if eager for the carriage to proceed.

"How can you be so cruel?" he whispered. "Marion, you are maddening me!"

He saw her wince, but with wonderful self-command she sat rigid as she said slowly--

"I beg, sir, that there may be an end of this. Can you not see that you are making a mistake, and are insulting an unprotected woman?"

She looked him fully in the eyes now with a calm air of wonderment, and for the moment he was in doubt.

But the next moment his heart said no, and his pulses increased their beat. No accidental resemblance could have produced that effect upon him. He knew that there was something which he could not explain--a strange vitality or occult force which bound him to her, and, though his eyes might have erred, his nature could have made no such blunder, and he was eager to continue the attack now the opportunity was there.

"Mistaken?" he said in a low, impa.s.sioned tone; "how could I be mistaken? From the first moment you came to me, your looks, the tones of your voice in your appeal to me for help, awoke something which till then had slumbered within me. I had lived in ignorance of the reality of such a pa.s.sion, one which has gone on growing like a torrent ever since. It has swept all before it since the hour I knew that I had found my fate."

"My good sir," she said firmly and gently; "indeed you are taking me for someone else."

He smiled as he gazed at her intently.

"For whom?" he said.

"I cannot say; some friend. It is an accidental resemblance, and once more--I appeal to you as a gentleman to cease this persecution."

He shook his head sadly.

"Accidental resemblance? No. There is but one Marion on earth. No woman ever resembled you in any way. This is impossible. Marion, be merciful. After the night on which I saw you last, what must you think of me? Of what manner of man could I be if, after striving so hard to gain an interview like this, I could let you throw me over in so cruel a way? Marion, for pity's sake. There must be stronger reasons than I already know of to make you act like this."

She glanced round wildly for a moment or two, as if in dread that they were being observed and his words were taking the attention of the people around, then up at the coachman, but he sat erect and stolid, too well schooled in his duties to have a thought or eyes for anything but the beautiful pair of horses under his charge. Then, as she realised the fact that they were perfectly un.o.bserved by the busy throng around, she recovered her pa.s.sing composure, and said quite calmly, and with a suggestion of pity in her tone for one who seemed to her to be suffering from some slight mental aberration--

"Can you not see that you are mistaken?"

"No," he said, smiling sadly; "only that it is impossible."

There was a faint quiver of the lips, but it pa.s.sed off, and her beautiful eyes flashed, and the colour rose in her cheeks, as she made a strong effort to be firm. Then there was a touch of anger in her voice as she said coldly--

"Must I appeal to someone pa.s.sing, sir, or to one of the police?"

Her words stung him to the quick, "No," he whispered huskily; "there is no need. If you are made of steel and can act to me like this, I must suffer; but do not insult me by treating me as if I were insane. I could bear it from your brother; not from you, Miss Clareborough."

She winced slightly at the utterance of her name, and he fancied that there was the light of compa.s.sion for one brief moment in her eyes.

His own face hardened now in the bitterness and despair of the moment as he took out his pocket-book, and in spite of her self-command she watched his action narrowly as he drew out the carefully-folded handkerchief stained with blood.

"I saved this inadvertently," he continued. "Yours; marked with your initials."

He looked her full in the eyes as he spoke, bitterly now.

"When I found it where I had hurriedly thrust it into my pocket that night, it seemed to offer itself as an excellent clue for the police to track out the mystery of the house to which I was taken."

She leaned forward quickly and caught at the handkerchief to cover it with her hand, while he still retained his hold.

"For G.o.d's sake, no!" she whispered, and her face convulsed with fear.

"Don't do that--the police!"

The stained sc.r.a.p of cambric formed a bond between them as he gazed deeply in her eyes now, while a faint smile dawned upon his lip.

"I checked the thought at once," he said softly. "I told myself that such an act might hurt you--might give you pain; and I set to and tried to track you without, all through the months of agony and dread for what you might have to fear from him. Take it, to destroy or save, as you will. It is yours; but do not do me the injustice to think I would retain it to hold over you in terrorem. Marion, I love you too well."

He breathed these words in the faintest tones, but he could read that they fell heavily upon her ears, for in spite of her rigid position he saw that her eyes looked wildly and imploringly into his.

"For Heaven's sake be silent!" she whispered faintly.

"I am your slave," he said softly. "Take the handkerchief."

"No, no; I trust you," she whispered back. "I will not try to dissimulate any longer. It is impossible; but you must never speak to me again--never recognise me. I cannot explain--I am not my own mistress. It would injure others. Be merciful to me, for I have suffered deeply. Think of all that has pa.s.sed as some dream. I cannot--must never see you more."

The carriage began to move on, but he walked by the side as she continued--

"Spare me--spare those I love. I ask it of you. Now, farewell for ever, for your own sake--for mine."

"No," he said softly, as he walked on, unnoticed by the many they pa.s.sed, for it was a commonplace thing enough to see a gentleman by a carriage door talking to its occupant. "No. You have made me more happy then I can express. The dense black cloud that has been over my life has pa.s.sed away, for I know now that you have been wearing this mask for the sake of others whom you wish to spare. But you have let me see behind it; just one glimpse, but enough to show me the true nature of the woman I love."

"Oh, hush!" she whispered. "Believe me, that is impossible. Now leave me, pray."

"Nothing is impossible to a man who loves as I love you," he whispered.

"No, no; once more, I tell you that we must never meet again."

"And I tell you," he whispered back, "that you are part of my life, and that while my heart beats I will never give you up. Marion, we must meet again sooner or later; I live for nothing else. Your hand one moment."

"No, no!" she moaned.

"Your hand--life of my life," he whispered softly; and as she gazed at him wildly, her hand, as if drawn by the magnetism of his nature, glided slowly into his, and was clasped in his nervous grasp.

"I am going to wait."

"No," she said more firmly. "This for the last time. They would kill me--they would kill you."

"No," he said. "An hour ago I would have welcomed death; now life opens before me in its fullest sunshine of joy. They shall not kill you; they shall not kill me, for I know you love me and have suffered, and it has made me strong."

"Impossible, impossible," she whispered, with her eyes fixed upon his.