The Avenger Part 13

"None," she answered quietly. "I am an outcast."

He glanced around him.

"You are rich!"

"On the contrary," she a.s.sured him, "I am nearly a pauper."

"How do you live, then?" he asked breathlessly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Why do you ask me these questions?" she said. "I cannot answer them.

Whatever my life may be, I live it to myself."

He leaned a little towards her. His breath was coming quickly, and she, too, caught something of the nervous excitement of his manner.

"There are better things," he began.

"Not for me," she interrupted quickly. "I tell you that I am an outcast. Of you, I ask only that you go away--now--before the Baroness returns, and do your best to blot out the memory of that one night from your life. Remember only that you did a generous action. Remember that, and no more."

"Too late," he answered; "I cannot do it."

"You are a man," she answered, "and you say that?"

"It is because I am a man, and you are what you are, that I cannot," he answered slowly.

There was a moment's breathless silence. Only he fancied that her face had somehow grown softer.

"You must not talk like that," she said. "You do not know what you are saying--who or what I am. Listen! I think I hear the Baroness."

She leaned a little forward, and the madness fired his blood. Half stupefied, she yielded to his embrace, her lips rested upon his, her frightened eyes were half closed. His arms held her like a vise, he could feel her heart throbbing madly against his. How long they remained like it he never knew--who can measure the hours spent in Paradise! She flung him from her at last, taking him by surprise with a sudden burst of energy, and before he could stop her she had left the room. In her place, the Baroness was standing upon the threshold, dressed in a wonderful blue wrapper, and with a cigarette between her teeth. She burst into a little peal of laughter as she looked into his distraught face.

"For an Englishman," she remarked, "you are a little rapid in your love affairs, my dear Mr. Wrayson, is it not so? So she has left you _plante la_!"

"I--was mad," Wrayson muttered.

The Baroness helped herself to whisky and soda.

"Come again and make your peace, my friend," she said. "You will see no more of her to-night."

Wrayson accepted the hint and went.

CHAPTER XI

FALSE SENTIMENT

With his nerves strung to their utmost point of tension Wrayson walked homeward with the unseeing eyes and mechanical footsteps of a man unable as yet fully to collect his scattered senses. But for him the events of the evening were not yet over. He had no sooner turned the key in the latch of his door and entered his sitting-room, than he became aware of the fact that he had a visitor. The air was fragrant with tobacco smoke; a man rose deliberately from the easy-chair, and, throwing the ash from his cigarette into the fire, turned to greet him. Wrayson was so astonished that he could only gasp out his name.

"Heneage!" he exclaimed.

Heneage nodded. Of the two, he was by far the more at his ease.

"I wanted to see you, Wrayson," he said, "and I persuaded your housekeeper--with some difficulty--to let me wait for your arrival. Can you spare me a few minutes?"

"Of course," Wrayson answered. "Sit down. Will you have anything?"

Heneage shook his head.

"Not just now, thanks!"

Wrayson took off his hat and coat, threw them upon the table, and lit a cigarette.

"Well," he said, "what is it?"

"I have come," Heneage said quietly, "to offer you some very good advice. You are run down, and you look it. You need a change. I should recommend a sea voyage, the longer the better. They say that your paper is making a lot of money. Why not a voyage round the world?"

"What the devil do you mean?" Wrayson asked.

Heneage flicked off the ash from his cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully into the fire.

"Three weeks ago last Thursday, I think it was," he began, reflectively, "I had supper with Austin at the Green Room Club, after the theatre. He persuaded me, rather against my will, I remember, for I was tired that night, to go home with him and make a fourth at bridge. Austin's flat, as you know, is just below here, on the Albert Road."

Wrayson stopped smoking. The cigarette burned unheeded between his fingers. His eyes were fixed upon his visitor.

"Go on," he said.

"We played five rubbers," Heneage continued, still looking into the fire; "it may have been six. I left somewhere in the small hours of the morning, and walked along the Albert Road on the unlit side of the street. As I pa.s.sed the corner here, I saw a hansom waiting before your door, and you--with somebody else, standing on the pavement."

"Anything else?" Wrayson demanded.

"No!" Heneage answered. "I saw you, I saw the lady, and I saw the cab.

It was a cold morning, and I am not naturally a curious person. I hurried on."

Wrayson picked up the cigarette, which had fallen from his fingers, and sat down. He could scarcely believe that this was not a dream--that it was indeed Stephen Heneage who sat opposite to him, Heneage the impenetrable, whose calm, measured words left no indication whatever as to his motive in making this amazing revelation.

"You are naturally wondering," Heneage continued, "why, having seen what I did see, I kept silence. I followed your lead, because I fancied, in the first place, that the presence of that young lady was a personal affair of your own, and that she could have no possible connection with the tragedy itself. You were evidently disposed to shield her and yourself at the same time. I considered your att.i.tude reasonable, if a little dangerous. No man is obliged to give himself away in matters of this sort, and I am no scandalmonger. The situation, however, has undergone a change."

Wrayson looked up quickly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To-night," Heneage said calmly, "I recognized your nocturnal visitor with the Baroness de Sturm.

"And what of that?" Wrayson demanded.