Jeanne of the Marshes Part 48

"Open the door, man," he whispered. "Don't stand fumbling there.

Remember you are angry at being disturbed. Send them away, whoever they are. Look sharp! They are going to ring again. Can't you hear that beastly bell-wire quivering?"

Cecil set his teeth, turned the huge key, and pulled back the heavy door. He gave a little gasp of astonishment. It was a woman who stood there. He held out his electric torch and stepped back with a sharp exclamation.

"Kate!" he cried. "What on earth are you doing here at this hour? What do you mean by ringing the bell like that?"

The girl stepped into the hall.

"Close the door," she said. "The wind will blow the pictures off the walls, and I can scarcely hear you speak."

Cecil obeyed at once.

"Light a lamp," she said. "It is not fair that you should have all the light. I want to see your face too."

"But Kate," Cecil interrupted, "why did you come like this? Why did you not--"

She interrupted.

"Never mind," she answered sternly. "Perhaps I did not come to see you at all. Light the lamp. There is something I have to say to you."

Forrest stepped forward from the obscurity and struck a match. The girl showed no signs of fear at his coming. As the lamp grew brighter she looked at him steadfastly.

"So this is the reason we are waked up in the middle of the night,"

Forrest remarked, with a smile which somehow or other seemed to lose its suggestiveness. "A little affair of this sort, eh, Mr. Cecil? Why don't you teach the young lady a simpler way of summoning you than by that infernal bell?"

Still Kate did not reply. She was standing with her back to the oak table in the centre of the hall, and the men, who were both watching her covertly, were conscious of a certain significance in her att.i.tude.

Her black hair was tossed all over her face; from its tangled web her eyes seemed to gleam with a steady inimical gaze. Her dress of dark red stuff was splashed in places with the salt water, and her feet were soaking. With her left hand she clasped the table; her right seemed hidden in the folds of her skirt.

"What do you want, Kate?" Cecil asked at last. "What do you mean by coming here like this? If you want to see me you know how, without arousing the whole household at this time of night."

"You are not fool enough," Kate said calmly, "to imagine that I came to-night to listen to your lies. I came to know whom it is that you are keeping hidden away in the smugglers' room."

Neither man answered. They looked at one another, and Cecil's face grew once more as pale as death.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "What rubbish is this you are talking, Kate?" he added, in a sharper tone. "There is no one there that I know of."

"You lie," she answered calmly. "You lie, as you always do whenever it answers your purpose. Only an hour ago I lay upon the turf in the plantation there, and I heard a man moaning down in the store-room. Now tell me the truth, Cecil de la Borne. I do not wish to bring any harm upon you, although G.o.d knows you deserve it, but if you do not bring me the man whom you have down there, and set him free before my eyes at once, I'll bring half the village up to the mound there and dig him out."

Forrest stepped forward. His manner was suave and his tone was smooth, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes.

"This is rather absurd, Cecil," he said. "I do not know whom this young lady is, but I feel sure that she will listen to reason. There is no one down in the smugglers' store-room. If she heard anything, it was probably the rabbits."

"Lies!" Kate answered calmly. "You are another of the breed; I can see it in your face. I would not trust the word of either of you."

Forrest shrugged his shoulders. He glanced towards Cecil with a slight uplifting of the eyebrows.

"Your friend, my dear Cecil," he remarked, "is like most of her s.e.x, a trifle unreasonable. However, since she says that she will believe no evidence save the evidence of her eyes, show her the smugglers' room.

It would be a quaint excursion to take at this time of night, but I will go with you for the sake of the proprieties," he added, with a little laugh.

Cecil looked at him for a moment steadily, and then turned away. There was fear now upon his face, a new fear. What was this thing which Forrest could propose?

"She can come if she insists," he said slowly, "but the place has not been opened for a long time. The air is bad. It really is not fit for any human being."

The girl faced them both without shrinking.

"Perhaps you think that I should be afraid," she answered. "Perhaps you think that when I am there it would be very easy to dispose of me, so that I shall ask no more inconvenient questions. Never mind. I am not afraid. I will go with you."

Cecil shrugged his shoulders as he led the way across the hall.

"There is nothing to fear," he said, "except the bad air and the ghosts of smugglers, if you are superst.i.tious enough to fear them. Only, when you are perfectly satisfied, and you are convinced that your errand here has been fruitless, perhaps I may have something to say."

The girl's lips parted. Curiously enough there was a note almost of real merriment in the laugh which followed.

"I am not very brave, my dear Cecil," she said, "but I am not afraid of you. I think that one does not fear the things that one understands too well, and you I do understand too well, much too well."

They reached the empty gun-room. Cecil threw open the hidden door.

"Will you go first or last?" he said to the girl. "Choose your own place."

The girl laughed.

"The door seemed to open easily," she remarked, "considering that it has not been used for so long."

"Never mind about that," Cecil said sharply. "Are you coming with us?"

"I am coming," Kate answered composedly, "and I will walk last."

"As you please," Cecil answered. "Come, Forrest, you may as well see this thing through with me."

As they stumbled along the narrow way, Cecil whispered in Forrest's ear.

"What are we going to do with her?"

"G.o.d knows!" Forrest answered. "Do you suppose that any one knows where she is? Who is she?"

"One of the village girls," Cecil answered, "an old sweetheart of mine.

They are strange people, and have few friends. I doubt whether any one knows that she is out to-night."

Forrest pa.s.sed on.

"If we are going to put our necks into the halter," he muttered, "a little extra trouble won't hurt us."

They paused before the door. The girl was looking at the padlock.

"A new padlock, I see," she remarked. "Listen!"

They all listened, and now there was no doubt about it. From inside the room they could hear the sound of a man, half singing, half moaning.

"Are those rabbits?" the girl asked, leaning forward, so that her eyes seemed to gleam like live coal through the darkness. "Cecil, you are being made a fool of by this man. I don't wish you any harm. Do the right thing now, and I'll stick by you. Let this man free, whoever he is. Don't listen to what he tells you," she added, pointing toward Forrest.