The Avenger Part 39

"I couldn't," she answered. "It isn't my secret."

Wrayson looked for a moment away from her, across the valley with its flower-spangled meadows, parted by that sinuous poplar-fringed line of silver, the lazy, slow-flowing river stealing through the quiet land to the sea. The full summer heat was scarcely yet in the air, but already a faint blue haze was rising from the lowlands. Up on the plateau, where they were sitting, a slight breeze stirred amongst the trees; Monsieur Jules had indeed some ground for his pride in this tiny sylvan paradise.

"I think," he said, "that for one day we will forget all this tangle of secrets and unaccountable doings. What do you say, Louise?" he whispered, taking her unresisting hand into his. "May I tell Monsieur Jules to serve breakfast for two in the arbour there?"

She laughed softly into his face. There was the look in her eyes which he loved to see, half wistful, half content, almost happy.

"But you are never satisfied," she declared. "If I give you a day, a whole precious day out of my valuable life--"

"They belong to me, all of them," he declared, bending over her till his lips touched her cheek. "Some day I am very sure that I shall take them all into my charge."

She disengaged herself from his embrace with a sudden start. Wrayson turned his head. Within a yard or two of them, Madame de Melbain had paused in the centre of the little plot of gra.s.s. She was looking at them from underneath her lace parasol, with faintly uplifted eyebrows, and the dawn of a smile upon her beautiful lips. Louise sprang to her feet, and Wrayson followed her example. Madame de Melbain lowered her parasol as though to shut out the sight of the two.

"May I come on?" she asked. "I want to speak to Louise, although I am afraid I am shockingly _de trop._"

Wrayson had an idea, and acted upon it promptly.

"Madame de Melbain," he said, "I believe that you have some influence with Louise, I am sure that you are one of those who sympathize with the unfortunate. Can't I bespeak your good offices?"

She lowered her parasol to the ground, and leaned a little forward upon it. Her eyes were fixed steadily upon Wrayson.

"Go on," she said briefly.

"I love Louise," Wrayson said, "and I believe she cares for me.

Nevertheless, she refuses to marry me, and will give no intelligible reason. My first meeting with her was of an extraordinary nature. I a.s.sisted her to leave a house in which a murder had been committed, since which time I think we have both run a risk of trouble with the authorities. Louise lives always in the shadow of some mystery, and when I, who surely have the right to know her secrets, beg for her confidence, she refuses it."

"And what is it that you wish me to do?" Madame de Melbain asked softly.

"To use your influence with Louise," Wrayson pleaded. "Let her give me her confidence, and let her accept from me the shelter of my name."

Madame de Melbain was silent for several moments. She seemed to be thinking. Louise's face was expressionless. She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it.

From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees. But between the two women and the man there was silence--silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called softly upon all the saints of his acquaintance to explain to him of what nature was this mystery, which seemed to be developing, as it were, under his own surveillance.

At last Madame de Melbain appeared to come to a decision. She moved slowly forward, until she stood within a few feet of him. Then she raised her eyes to his and looked him long and earnestly in the face.

"You look," she said, half under her breath, "like a man who might be trusted. I will trust you. I will be kinder to you than Louise, for I will tell you all that you want to know. But when I have told you, you will have in your keeping the honour of an unfortunate woman whose name alone is great."

Wrayson looked her for a moment in the eyes. Then he bowed low.

"Madame," he said, "that trust will be to me my most sacred possession."

She smiled at him faintly, nodding her head as though to keep pace with her thoughts.

"I believe you, Mr. Wrayson," she said. "Yes, I believe you! Let me tell you this, then. I count it amongst my misfortunes that my own troubles have become in so large a manner the troubles of my friends. You will appreciate that the more, perhaps, when I tell you that Madame de Melbain is not the name by which I am generally known. I am that unfortunate woman the Queen of Mexonia!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE QUEEN OF MEXONIA

Wrayson, who had been prepared for something surprising, was yet startled out of his composure. The affairs of the unhappy Royal House of Mexonia were the property of the world. He half rose to his feet, but Madame de Melbain instantly waved him back again.

"My friends," she said, "deem it advisable that my whereabouts should not be known. I certainly am very anxious that my incognita should be preserved."

She paused, and Wrayson, without hesitation, answered her unspoken question. Unconsciously, too, he found himself using the same manner of address as the others.

"Madame," he said, "whatever you choose to tell me will be sacred."

She bowed her head slightly.

"I am going to tell you a good deal," she said, glancing across at Louise.

Louise opened her lips as though about to intervene. Madame de Melbain continued, however, without a break.

"I am going to tell you more than may seem necessary," she said, "because I believe that I am one of those unfortunate persons whose evil lot it is to bring unhappiness upon their friends. So far as I can avoid this, Mr.

Wrayson, I mean to. Further--it is possible that I may ask you--presently--to render me a service."

Wrayson bowed low. He felt that she was already well aware of his willingness.

"First, then, let me tell you," she continued, leaning back in her chair, and looking away across the valley with eyes whose light was wholly reminiscent, "that we three were schoolgirls together, Louise, Amy--whom you know better, perhaps, as the Baroness de Sturm--and myself. We were at a convent near Brussels. There were not many pupils, and we three were friends....

"We had a great deal of liberty--more liberty, perhaps, than our friends would have approved of. We worked, it is true, in the mornings, but in the afternoons we rode or played tennis in the Bois. It was there that I met Prince Frederick, who afterwards became my husband.

"I was only sixteen years old, and just as silly, I suppose, as a girl brought up as I had been brought up was certain to be. I was very much flattered by Prince Frederick's attentions, and quite ready to respond to them. My own family was n.o.ble, and the match was not considered a particularly unequal one, for though Frederick was of the Royal House, he was a long way from the succession. Still, there was a good deal of trouble when a messenger from Frederick went to my father. He declared that I was altogether too young; my mother, on the other hand, was just as anxious to conclude the match. Eventually it was arranged that the betrothal should take place in six months--and Frederick went back to Mexonia."

Madame de Melbain paused for a moment. Wrayson felt, from her slightly altered att.i.tude and a significant lowering of her voice, that she was reaching the part of her narrative which she found the most difficult.

"We girls," she continued, "went back to school, and just at that time Louise's brother came over to Brussels. I think that I have already told you that the supervision over us was far from strict. There was nothing to prevent Captain Fitzmaurice being a good deal with us. We had picnics, tennis parties, rides! Long before the six months were up I understood how foolish I had been. I wrote to Prince Frederick and begged him to release me from our uncompleted engagement. His answer was to appear in person. He made a scene. My mother and father were now wholly on his side. Within a few weeks he had lost both a cousin and a brother. His succession to the throne was almost a certainty. His own people were just as anxious to have him married. I did not know why then, but I found out later on. They had their way. I believe that things are different in an English home. In mine, I can a.s.sure you that I never had any chance. I entered upon my married life without the least possibility of happiness. Needless to say, I never realized any! For the last four years my husband has been trying for a divorce! Very soon it is possible that he will succeed."

Wrayson leaned a little towards her.

"Is it permitted, Madame, to ask a question?"

"Why not?"

"You have fought against this divorce, you and your friends, so zealously. Yet your life has been unhappy. Release could scarcely have been anything but a relief to you!"

Madame de Melbain raised her head slightly. Her brows were a little contracted. From her eyes there flashed the silent fire of a queen's disdain.

"Release! Yes, I would welcome that! If it were death it would be very welcome! But divorce--he to divorce me, he, whose brutality and infidelities are the scandal of every Court in Europe! No! A divorce I never shall accept. Separation I have insisted upon."

Wrayson hesitated for a moment.

"May I be pardoned," he said, "if I repeat to you what I saw in print lately--in a famous English paper? They spoke of this divorce case which has lasted so long; they spoke of it as about to be finally decided.

There was some fresh evidence about to be produced, a special court was to be held."