The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias Part 18

"Yesterday."

"And your father may have come down here in order to be able to watch me?" I suggested.

She did not reply, although her troubled breast heaved and fell quickly in agitation.

"I know that you hesitate to accept me as your friend," I went on earnestly. "But before your final decision I would urge you to seek some information about me, for I can only repeat what I have already said, that our interests are in common, and that we should defend ourselves."

"From what?"

"From the evil which you fear may fall upon you," I answered, recollecting her words in Harpur Street.

"Ah, no!" she cried bitterly, as her fine eyes filled with tears. "It is useless for you to tell me this--perfectly useless! I, alas! know the truth. Before tomorrow," she added in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "I shall have ceased to trouble you."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE HAND AND THE GLOVE.

Do you believe in love at first sight? I did not until the moment when, in my brief conversation with the Earl's daughter, I detected the beauty of her character. I had often heard it said that only fools love a woman at first meeting her. Yet within that woman's heart was a fathomless well of purest affection, although its waters slept in silence and obscurity--never failing in their depth, and never overflowing in their fullness. Everything in her seemed somehow to lie beyond my view, affecting me in a manner which I felt rather than perceived. At first I did not know that it was love for her. Amid the strange atmosphere of mystery and conspiracy into which I had so suddenly been plunged, amid convulsions of doubt and fear which had during those past few days harrowed my soul, the tender influence of this woman came like that of a celestial visitant, making itself felt and acknowledged, although I could not understand it. Like a soft star that shines for a moment from behind a stormy cloud, and the next is swallowed up in tempest and darkness, the impression it left was beautiful and deep, but vague.

Perhaps you may blame me. Most probably you will. But man is ever the jetsam of the wind of destiny.

I glanced at her, and took in every detail of her countenance and dress.

She was no longer in shabby black, but in a pretty costume of dove-grey cashmere, with silken tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of a somewhat darker shade; she looked daintily bewitching, supple and slim, grey lending relief to the delicate roundness, the gentle curves of a figure in which early womanhood was blooming with all its sweet and adorable charm. Her fair hair, streaked here and there with gold, was covered with a hat that suited her exquisitely, whether the eye sought harmony of colour or unity of lines. She wore no veil, and thus I could freely feast my eyes upon her beauty.

"I really don't understand you," I exclaimed, after a pause. "You do not trouble me, for until I saw you by chance pa.s.sing into the street we were entire strangers."

"No benefit can be obtained by discussing the matter," she answered blankly. "Why were you watching in Harpur Street if not to witness my despair?"

"I had a motive in watching," I answered.

"Of course you had. You cannot deny that. My father has already spoken of you, and told me everything."

"And he is still triumphant?" I queried, recollecting his expression of satisfaction on seeing the fatal sign.

She was silent, her lips set closely, her fair face turned towards the open expanse of grey sea.

"Am I not right in suggesting that your enemy is a person named Selby, and that he--"

"Who told you that?" she cried. "How did you know?"

"By my own observations," I replied, as calmly as I could, yet secretly gratified that she should have thus betrayed the truth.

"Ah?" she sighed. "I see! I was not mistaken. You are not my friend, Mr Kennedy."

"But I am," I declared. "Give me an opportunity of proving my friendship. You apparently believe that I am implicated in some plot against you, but I swear I am innocent of it all. I myself am a victim of some extraordinary conspiracy--just as you are."

She looked me straight in the face as though hesitating whether she dared speak the truth. Next instant, however, her natural caution a.s.serted itself, and, with tactful ingenuity, she turned the conversation into a different channel. She seemed uneasy, and eager to escape from my cross-examination; while I, on my part, became determined to obtain from her the truth and to convince her of my good intentions.

I was in a difficulty, because to reveal my connection with The Closed Book might upset all my plans. For aught I knew, she might inform the man Selby, who, gaining knowledge of my presence in England, would suspect that the precious volume had come again into my possession.

Therefore I was compelled to retain my secret, and by so doing was, of course, unable to convince her of my intention to be her friend.

Mine was a painful position--just as painful as hers. For some reason quite unaccountable she held me in terror, and now that dusk was darkening to night, was in haste to return to Saxlingham, about three miles distant. It was apparent that my admission of having watched her and her father in Harpur Street had aroused her suspicion of me, a suspicion which no amount of argument or a.s.sertion would remove.

She was disinclined to discuss the matter further; and, after some desultory conversation regarding the beauties of Norfolk, she called her dog Rover, preparatory to taking leave of me.

"You must excuse me, Mr Kennedy," she said, with a smile, the first I had seen on that sad, sweet face. "But it is growing late, and it will be dark before I get back."

"May I not walk with you half the distance?" I urged.

"No," she responded. "It would be taking you right out of your way for Sheringham. I have known the roads about here ever since I was a child, and therefore have no fear."

"Well," I said, putting forth my hand and lifting my hat to her, "I can only hope, Lady Judith, that when next we meet you will have learned that, instead of being your enemy, I am your friend."

She placed her hand in mine rather timidly, and I held it there while she replied, with a sigh, "Ah, if I could only believe that you speak the truth!"

"It is the truth!" I cried, still holding her tiny hand in my grip.

"You are in distress, and although you decline to allow me to a.s.sist you, I will show you that I have not lied to you tonight. Recollect, Lady Judith," I went on fervently, for I saw that some nameless terror had driven her to despair, "recollect that I am your friend, ready to render you any a.s.sistance or perform any service at any moment; only, on your part, I want you to give me a promise."

"And what is that?" she faltered.

"That you will tell no one that you met me. Remember that, although you are not aware of it, your enemies are mine."

For a moment she was silent, with eyes downcast; then she answered in a low voice, "Very well, Mr Kennedy. If you wish it, I will say nothing.

Good-night."

"Good-night," I answered, and having released her hand she turned from me with a sad smile of farewell, and with her collie bounding by her side made her way over the brow of the hill along the straight white road, while I, after watching until she had disappeared from view, turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Anything like mystery, anything withheld or withdrawn from our notice, seizes on our fancy by awakening our curiosity. Then we are won more by what we half-perceive and half-create than by what is openly expressed and freely bestowed. But this feeling is part of our life; when time and years have chilled us, when we can no longer afford to send our souls abroad, nor from our own superfluity of life and sensibility spare the materials out of which we build a shrine for our idol, then do we seek, we ask, we thirst, for that warmth of frank, confiding tenderness which revives in us the withered affections and feelings buried, but not dead. Then the excess of love is welcome, not repelled; it is gracious to us as the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk with its few green leaves.

Like every other man I had had my own affairs of the heart. I had loved unwisely more than once, but the sweetness, sensibility, magnanimity, and fort.i.tude of the unhappy Judith's character appealed to me in all the freshness and perfection of what a true woman should be.

I cared nothing for the repugnance she felt towards myself, because I knew that it must be the outcome of some vile calumny or some vague suspicion.

As I pa.s.sed back along the narrow path over the cliffs, my face set towards the gathering night, I calmly examined my life, and saw now that seven years had gone since the great domestic blow had fallen upon me and caused me to ramble aimlessly across the Continent; that I still stood yet in the morning of life, and that it was not too late to win the glorious prize I had asked of life--love incarnate in sovereign beauty, endowed with all n.o.bility and fervour and tenderness and truth.

In any case, whether she became mine or not, I loved her with my whole heart; and to know that I could love again, in spite of all the torture of the past, was in itself both comfort and delight.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

WALTER WYMAN REJOINS ME.

That night I slept little, my mind being full of thoughts of the evening's adventure. Before my eyes I had constantly that pale, tragic face, just as, previously, visions of the countenance of the woman I had seen in the prior's dim study in Florence seemed ever before me. Was it by intuition that I knew that these two women were destined to influence my life to a far greater degree than any woman had done before? I think it must have been; for while I loved the one, I held the other in a constant, indefinable terror. Why, I know not until this day--not even now that I am sitting here calmly chronicling all that occurred to me in those wild days of ardent love, reckless adventure, and impenetrable mystery.

At noon Walter Wyman unexpectedly walked into my room with a cheery greeting, and, throwing himself down upon the couch in the window that looked over the sea, exclaimed, "Well, old chap, what does this extraordinary book contain, after all?"

I took the transcript from the place where I had hidden it, and, seating myself on the edge of the table, read it through to him.

"Oh, hang it!" he exclaimed excitedly, when I had finished, "then we may, if we are persevering and careful, actually discover this great treasure!"