Madcap Part 40

"I'm sure I don't know--or care in the least," she sighed. "I'll go to prison willingly in the morning if they'll only let me sleep now. I'm tired. I didn't know I could ever be so tired."

Markham glanced at her and then quickly poured out a gla.s.s of wine, brought it to her, and in spite of her protests made her drink.

"Stolen," she muttered between sips.

"It's no less useful because of that," he said, coolly helping himself.

"It's medicine--for both of us. We've had eighteen hours to-day.

_Salut_, Yvonne! We'll pay for it some day."

"To whom?"

"To the chap who owns this lodge--a man of taste, a good Samaritan and a gentleman, if a mere vagabond may be a judge of Amontillado." He finished the gla.s.s at a gulp and set it upon the table. From her couch she watched him as he opened the windows and closed and fastened the shutters. Then he went outside and she heard him pottering around in the rain with Clarissa, undoing the pack and bringing it into the house, and leading the donkey off in the direction of the shed.

"An excellent man, our host," he laughed from the doorway. "Clarissa is up to her ears in hay."

He dripped with moisture, and, mindful of the furniture, took off his coat and hat and shook them in the hall.

"Now, child, we're snug. It's raining hard. No one would venture here in such a night. You must sleep--at once."

"What will you do?" she asked drowsily.

"I'm perishing for a smoke. You don't mind, do you?"

"Oh, no,--but you must--must sleep--too. I'm--very tired--very--" The words trailed off into mumbling, and before he could fill his pipe she was breathing deeply.

He got up and laid her coat over her feet and then stood beside her, his soul in his eyes, watching.

"Poor little madcap," he whispered; "mad little--sad little madcap."

He bent over her tenderly, with a longing to smooth away the tired lines at her eyes with caresses, to take her in his arms and soothe her with gentleness. She seemed very small, very slender, too small, too childish to have raised such a tempest in the deeper currents of his spirit, and he groped forward, his fingers trembling for the touch of her.

He straightened with a sigh. He could not and he knew it; for she trusted him and trust in him was her defence, a valiant one even against his tenderness. It had always been one of the hardest burdens he had to bear. He watched her a while longer, then turned away and sank into a chair by the table, soberly lit his pipe and smoked, his eyes roving. There were colored prints upon the wall, well chosen ones of deer and fox hunters in full chase; upon the table an ash tray of Satsuma ware and several books. He took up the one nearest him, a volume on big game hunting, and turned the pages idly. Their unconscious and unwilling host took his sports seriously, it seemed.

He dropped the book upon his knees, and as he did so it fell open at the fly leaf, upon which in a feminine scrawl a name was inscribed. He read it with surprise and concern. "Madeleine de Cahors!" Olga Tcherny's Norman friend--who lived--

Alenon! What a dolt he was! This was the forest of ?couves--or a part of it--and in the night he had come into the preserve of the wealthy marquis. Olga's friends--and Olga! A fine escape he had made of it, into the very sphere of the Countess Tcherny's activities! The Ch?teau must be near here, at the most not more than a few kilometers distant. He was a clod-pate, nothing less. For with all the Oire to choose from he had stumbled blindly into the one path that led to danger. What was to be done?

He got to his feet stealthily and went through the lodge. A dining room, kitchen and pantry upon the other side of the hallway, deserted, but like the living room, giving signs of recent use. He opened the door and looked out. The shadows of the forest were barely discernible through the driving rain. It was a boisterous night, its inclemency heightened when viewed from the shelter of this friendly roof, one which must defy their sleuth, the chauffeur, had he had the temerity or the stealth to follow them through the forest. Markham watched for a while, nevertheless, and then, satisfied that for the night at least they were safe from discovery, returned to the living room and dropped into his chair, determining to sit and listen a while and then perhaps take a few hours of sleep.

There was nothing else to be done. His companion was beyond moving, unless he carried her, and this he knew in his present condition could not be far. To-morrow morning they must be abroad early and make their way at top speed out of the forest, trusting to luck that had so far favored them to bring them out of harm's way. It was curious, though, the way Olga had persisted in his thoughts. Marry? _Him_?

Incredible! Had she not taken the pains so long ago to make him understand that marriage was the last thing in the world she would ever think of again? Their agreement on the fundamentals of independence had been one of their strongest ties. That kiss in Hermia's rose garden meant nothing to Olga--or to him. An accident--physical only--the possibility of which their former agreements had unfortunately not foreseen. Hermia was mistaken--that was all. And yet--why this pursuit? It all seemed a little too deep for his comprehension at the present moment. His mind groped for lucidity, failed, and then was blank.

CHAPTER XXI

NEMESIS

The storm had blown itself out in the night and the sun came blithely up, awaking the forest to its orisons. The oaks dripped jewels and the black pines lifted their gilded spires above the clearing and nodded solemnly to the rosy East. The sun climbed higher and a thin pall of vapor roamed up the hillside from the gorges of the stream and sought the open sky.

Nature had wept out the gusts of her pa.s.sion and her smiles were the more beautiful through the vestiges of her tears. The sunlight was spattered lavishly among the shadows, glowing with a lambent light in the hidden places under shrub and thicket and dancing madly on leaf and bough. There was mischief in the air and it took but a little flight of the fancy to conjure Pan and his nymphs gamboling about the sleeping house of the vagabonds.

Morning had importuned their shutters long before Markham awoke and gazed with startled eyes at the diagonal bar of orange light which cut the obscurity of their hiding place. Then, rubbing his eyes, he stumbled to his feet and stared at his watch. It was nine o'clock.

Hermia still slept, huddled under her overcoat, one rosy cheek pillowed on her open palm, her tumbled hair flooding riotously about her shoulders. Markham stopped a moment to gaze at her again, but she stirred under his look, so he moved quickly away to the door and peered cautiously out, searching the forest with eager eyes. Gaining courage, he went out, making the round of the house with eyes and ears intent.

There was much ado among the tree tops and a scurrying of four-footed among the underbrush, but of two-footed things he saw nothing. He fetched a pail of water for Clarissa and was in the act of entering the house when a gun cracked sharply at some distance on his left. The forest stopped to listen with him for a full moment as the echoes went bounding among the rocks. And then a whirring of wings great and small, hither and yon, announced that there were other vagabonds as startled as he. Two more shots, this time in the distance behind him, followed quickly by a startling noise close at hand.

Clarissa, her whole soul in the note, was incontinently braying.

It was an unearthly sound and an unfamiliar one. For never in the smooth course of their acquaintance had she been guilty of such an indiscretion. He hurried to the shed, but before he reached the door she ceased, and when he entered, regarded him with a wistful eye of recrimination which forestalled his reproaches. After all, she was only an a.s.s! The damage, if damage there was, had already been done.

In grave doubt as to his own immediate course, he hurried to the lodge, where he found Hermia sitting wide-eyed upon her couch, fearfully awaiting him.

"What on earth has happened, Philidor?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," he laughed. "Our host is abroad with a shotgun.

Clarissa objects, and is so much of an a.s.s that she can't hold her tongue about it."

She smiled and got to her feet.

"I must have slept--"

"Precisely seven hours. It's half-past nine. We must be off at once--by the back door if there is one--"

"Are they coming this way?"

"I didn't stop to inquire. They're near enough, at any rate."

"We could explain, couldn't we--I mean about the storm and the door being open?"

"Hardly--this shooting lodge, my child,--this forest, too, is the property of the De Cahors. See--" and he showed her the book.

"O Philidor! What shall we do?"

"Get out at once. They mustn't see you at any cost. If they come _you_ must take to the bushes, and meet me in Hauterire. It's a case of the devil take the hindmost--the hindmost being me and the devil being--" he paused significantly.

"Olga! Do you think she can be shooting, too?"

He shrugged. "She's quite apt to be doing precisely that," he said shortly.

Hermia flew to the window and, unlatching the shutter, peered timidly forth. Markham heard her gasp and looked over her shoulder through the aperture.

"Olga!" she whispered in dismay.

There in the path to the deep wood, smartly attired in gaiters, a short skirt and Alpine hat, her shotgun in the hollow of her arm, was Nemesis. She came up the path at a leisurely gait, and stopped not a hundred feet away, her head held upon one side, smiling and carelessly surveying the premises.

Hermia shrank back and huddled down upon the couch.

"O Philidor, we're lost--"

But he caught her by the shoulder and hurried her out into the hall.

"Up the ladder quickly! It's our only chance. There's a window in the gable and a trellis. I saw it a while ago. You must go--that way when I get her inside. We'll meet at Hauterire. Leave the rest to me."