Dangerous Ground Part 45

At last two or three policemen have appeared upon the scene. He shakes himself loose from the people about him, and strides toward one of these functionaries; Van Vernet is himself again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A form comes reeling out from among the smoke and fire-tongues, staggering beneath a burden."--page 237.]

The eyes of the crowd follow his movements in amazement. They see him speak a few words in the ear of one of the officers; see that worthy beckon to a second, and whisper to him in turn. And then, leaning upon the arm of officer number one, and following in the wake of officer number two, who clears the way with authoritative waves of his magic club, he pa.s.ses them by without a word or glance, and soon, with his double escort, is lost in the darkness, leaving the throng baffled, dissatisfied and, more than all, astounded.

"And he never stops to ask who saved him!" cries a woman's shrill voice.

"Oh, the wretch!"

"What shameful ingrat.i.tude!"

And now their thoughts return to the rescuer, the gallant fellow who has risked his life to save an ingrate.

But he, too, is gone. In the moment when their eyes and their thoughts were following Vernet, he has disappeared.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

IN THE CONSERVATORY.

Several days have pa.s.sed since the visit of Mamma Francoise to the Warburton mansion, with all its attendant circ.u.mstances; since the flight from the Francoise tenement, and Van Vernet's rescue from a fiery death.

The Warburton Mansion is closed and gloomy. The splendid drawing-rooms are darkened and tenantless. The music-room is silent and shut from any ray of light. The library, where a dull fire glows in the grate, looks stately and somber. Only in the conservatory--where the flowers bloom and send out breaths of fragrance, and where the birds chirp and carol as if there were no sorrow nor death in the world--is there any light and look of cheer.

Yesterday, the stately doors opened for the last exit of the master of all that splendor. He went out in state, and was followed by an imposing cortege. There was all the solemn pomp, all the grandeur of an aristocratic funeral. But when it was over, what was Archibald Warburton more than the poorest pauper who dies in a hospital and is buried by the coroner?

To-day the doors are closed, the house is silent. The servants go about with solemn faces and hushed voices. Alan Warburton has kept his own room since early morning, and Leslie has been visible only to her maid and to Winnie French.

She is alone in her dressing-room, at this moment, standing erect before the daintily-tiled fire-place, a look of hopeless despair upon her countenance.

A moment since, she was sitting before the fire, so sad, so weary, that it seemed to her that death had left the taint of his presence over everything. Now, that which she held in her hand had brought her back to life, and face to face with her future, with fearful suddenness.

It was a note coa.r.s.ely written and odorous of tobacco, and it contained these words:

We have waited for you five days. If you do not come to us before two more, they shall know at police headquarters that you can tell them who killed Josef Siebel. You see we have changed our residence.

Then followed the street and number of the Francoises' new abode. There was no date, no address, no signature. But Leslie knew too well all that it did not say; comprehended to the full its hidden meaning.

She had not antic.i.p.ated this blow; had never dreamed that they would dare so much. Standing there, with her lips compressed and her fingers clutching the dirty bit of paper, she looked the future full in the face.

Stanhope had bidden her ignore their commands and fear nothing. But then he never could have antic.i.p.ated _this_. If she could see him; could consult him once again. But that was impossible; he had told her so.

For many moments she stood moveless and silent, her brow contracted, the desperate look in her eyes growing deeper, her lips compressing themselves into fixed firm lines.

Then she thrust the note into her pocket, and turned from the grate.

"It is the last straw!" she muttered, in a low monotone. "But there shall be no more hesitation; we have had enough of that. They may do their worst now, and--" she shut her teeth with a sharp sound--"and I will frustrate them, at the cost of my honor or my life!"

There was no timidity, no tremor of hesitation in her movements, as she crossed the room and opened the door. Her hand was firm, her step steady, her face as fixed as marble; but it looked, in its white immobility, like a face that was dead.

She crossed the hall and entered the chamber occupied by her friend. A maid was there, engaged in sewing.

Miss French had just left the room, she said. Miss French felt oppressed by the loneliness and gloom. She had gone below, probably to the conservatory.

Winnie was in the conservatory, holding a book in one listless hand, idly fingering a trailing vine with the other. Her eyes, usually so merry and sparkling, were tear-dimmed and fixed on vacancy. Her pretty face was unnaturally woeful; her piquant mouth, sad and drooping.

She sprang up, however, with a quick exclamation, when Leslie's hand parted the cl.u.s.tering vines, and Leslie's self glided in among the exotics.

"Sit where you are, Winnie," said Leslie, in a voice which struck her listener as strangely chill and monotonous. "Let me sit beside you. It's not quite so dreary here, and I've something to say to you."

Casting a look of startled inquiry upon her, Winnie resumed her seat among the flowery vines, and Leslie sank down beside her, resuming, as she did so, and in the same even, icy tone:

"Dear, I want you to promise me, first of all, to keep what I am about to say a secret."

Winnie lifted two inquiring eyes to the face of her friend, but said no word.

"I know, Winnie, that you have ever been my truest, dearest friend,"

pursued Leslie. "But now--ah! I must put your friendship to a new, strange test. I feel as if my secret would be less a burden if shared by a true friend, and you are that friend. Winnie, I have a sad, sad secret."

The young girl turned her face slowly away from Leslie's gaze, and when it was completely hidden among the leaves and blossoms, she breathed, in a scarcely audible whisper:

"I know it, Leslie; I guessed."

"What!" queried Leslie, a look of sad surprise crossing her face, "you, too, have guessed it? And I thought it so closely hidden! Oh," with a sudden burst of pa.s.sion, "did my husband suspect it, too, then?"

"No, dear," replied Winnie, turning her face toward Leslie but keeping her eyes averted; "no, I do not believe that Archibald guessed. He was too true and frank himself to suspect any form of falsity in another."

"_Falsity!_" Leslie rose slowly to her feet, her face fairly livid.

Winnie also arose, and seizing one of Leslie's hands began, in a broken voice:

"Leslie, forgive the word! Oh, from the very first, I have known your secret, and pitied you. I knew it because--because I, too, am a woman, and can read a woman's heart. But Archibald never guessed it, and Alan--"

She broke off abruptly, wringing her hands as if tortured by her own words.

But Leslie coldly completed the sentence. "Alan! He knows it?"

"Oh, yes. It began by his doubting your love for his brother, and then--the knowledge--that you cared--for him--"

Across Leslie's pallid face the red blood came surging, and a bitter cry broke from her lips; a cry that bore with it all her constrained calmness.

"_That I cared!_" she repeated wildly. "Winnifred French, what are you saying! G.o.d of Heaven! is _that_ madness known, too?"

She flung herself upon the divan, her form shaken by a pa.s.sion of voiceless sobs.