By Wit of Woman Part 27

As soon as they had gone I opened Madame's door and entered.

"Come, Ernestine, I want you. What do you mean by going away like that?" she said crossly, not seeing me.

"Perhaps I can help you, Henriette. Ernestine is busy downstairs;" and I locked the door behind me.

"Christabel! You?"

"I have had to come back to keep my word and save you. You are in great danger. M. Constans must have picked up the scent of the inquiries I made recently. I have this telegram;" and I put into her hands the telegram which I had received from Paris.

I thought she was going to faint. The man must have had some great hold over her; for she was certainly overwhelmed with deadly fear. She stared with horror-struck eyes at the paper as though it reeked with the threat of instant death. Then she turned to glare at me, with not a vestige of colour on her face.

"_Nom de Dieu_, he will kill me. He will kill me;" she said, in a low, strained, husky whisper, as she fell into a chair, and began to gasp and choke hysterically.

"I know nothing about that," I said, callously; "but if you make a fool of yourself in that way, you will have no time left to get out of his reach. If you want to die, you had better faint now. However, I've done with you;" and I turned toward the door.

"Don't go, Christabel, for the love of heaven don't leave me. I can't think for myself. Oh, don't leave me," she cried. "What shall I do?"

"As he's your husband I should think you ought to stay and meet him.

This was sent off from the railway station, you see, and I find his train reaches here just before nine. He'll just be in time for the ceremony to-night."

"Oh, don't, don't, don't," she wailed. "Don't mock me like that.

Don't be so hard. Help me. Do, do! I tell you, he'll kill me. I know he will. He tried to once before. You don't want to see me murdered. You can't. Oh Christabel, dear Christabel, say what I had better do."

"If you'll be sensible, I'll help you. You can get away without the least difficulty. Luckily your trunks are all packed, and as the mail for Breslau and Berlin leaves at half-past eight, you can be away before his train arrives. But you must be quick. You have only half an hour, and had better get your luggage away at once with Ernestine."

"How clever you are," she cried; and forthwith began to finish her dressing with feverish haste, her one thought now to fly.

I called up Ernestine, who started on seeing me as though I were a ghost. I explained that urgent reasons had caused her mistress to change her plans; and before Madame d'Artelle had finished dressing, the baggage was on its way to the station.

"What will you do about things here, Henriette?"

"I don't know. I don't care. In face of this I can do nothing."

"Count Karl will be disappointed and his brother angry."

"My life is in danger, would you have me think of anything else?

Mother of Heaven, do you think I will be murdered to please a hundred counts?"

"Some one must see to things."

"Let me only get away and I care for nothing else." This was precisely the mood I desired her to be in. She was literally fear-possessed, and flight had become the one all-absorbing pa.s.sionate desire.

I said no more until we were in the fly hurrying to the station. I meant to see the last of her.

"What of to-night's business--Count Karl?"

"I care nothing. The carriage will come for me and can go away again.

I value my life. Holy Virgin, how slow the cab goes. We shall miss the train; I know we shall. And then?" her fear pa.s.sed beyond words, and the sentence remained unfinished. "If he finds and kills me, my death will be at your door. You have brought him here."

"Why are you so afraid of him? He may be only coming to make peace with you and come to an understanding."

"Peace? The peace a tiger makes with a lamb. I know him."

She did not quite fit my idea of a lamb--except in her terror, perhaps; and about that there could be no mistake.

"Shall you come back to Pesth?" I asked.

"Am I insane, do you mean, when he knows the very name I have here?

"What about the servants, then? Paying them, I mean?"

"Let them go to Count Gustav. Thank heaven, here is the station," she cried, and the instant the vehicle stopped she got out and asked excitedly for the mail to Berlin.

There were some five minutes to spare, but she had bundled Ernestine into the carriage and was following when I stopped her.

"One question, Henriette? How is it that as I was out of the way the ceremony fixed for to-night did not take place earlier in the day?

"Don't stop me, the train may start. He could not be induced to get drunk enough; that's all." She said it almost viciously as she scrambled into the carriage.

I waited until the train started and then drove back to the house. I had to settle matters there with the servants. It would not suit my plans for them to go to Count Gustav with the story of this hurried flight.

I took Peter into the salon.

"You are a man of discretion, and your mistress and I both rely upon you, Peter. You know that Madame was contemplating a journey and at the last moment her plans have been hurried by news which I brought her."

"It is not for us servants to ask what our employers do, miss," he said, very respectfully. Part of the respect may have been due to the fact that I had laid some notes and gold on the table.

"The house will be shut up for a month, Peter; and all the servants except yourself, will leave. And they will leave to-night. You understand--to-night. I trust you to see to this. Go and find out what wages are due. This money is to pay them double that amount. I will settle with you afterwards. I do not wish them to know I am in the house."

He scented more reward, and went off with the important air of a major-domo; and on his return I gave him the necessary money.

"I shall pay you what is due to you, Peter, and give you three months'

wages in addition. You will see the house locked up to-night and send the keys to me to this address, and let me know where I can write to you. But you can take another situation at once if you wish;" and I gave him the address of the first house I had taken.

That I was able to think of all these small details at such a time has often been a cause of some surprise--and I think of satisfaction. I have always rather prided myself upon my capacity to concentrate my thoughts upon the matter of the moment: to think in compartments, so to speak: and to throw myself thoroughly into the part which I was playing for the time. I was just as cool and collected in all this as though the settlement of the servants' wages was the only thing I had then to do or think of.

"I think that is all, Peter; I am leaving directly. I have a carriage coming for me; and when I go, you will see that none of the other servants are about."

"The servants are already upstairs packing their things, miss," he replied. "I will watch for the carriage and let you know."

When he left me, I walked up and down the room in busy thought. So far as I could see, my preparations were now complete. Count Gustav believed I had left the city; I had frightened Madame d'Artelle away; I had cut off the chance of his discovering her absence; and the only risk of such discovery would be at the moment when he brought Karl to the carriage.

There would not be much risk then, if I did not give myself away. I recalled Madame's words about Karl--"He could not be induced to get drunk enough," for the matter to go through earlier in the day. He was thus to be drugged now; and when he joined me, would be too stupefied to recognize me.

Then a question occurred. What would Count Gustav do as soon as he thought his brother had gone? Had he planned a marriage ceremony similar to the farce he had played with Gareth? If so, did he mean to be present at it to make sure his plan succeeded? Would he enter the carriage with Karl to drive to the house? Or would he be content to trust the work to the man he might hit upon to play the part of priest?

Wait--would it be a real priest; and so was it a real marriage he contemplated? And I was puzzling myself with little problems of the kind, when Peter came to say the carriage was waiting.