The Lady Evelyn Part 28

He bent over her and tried to touch her hand. She did not doubt that she had become, as he said, the great hope of his life. And just as she had said in Derbyshire, "Etta Romney would marry him," so now for an instant did the same voice speak to her to tell her the truths of such a pa.s.sion as this and to put the spell of its great temptation upon her. Then, white and trembling, the true Evelyn spoke.

"Count Odin," she said, "I love another man. I must answer you once and forever--this cannot be; it is impossible."

He heard her patiently, did not yet threaten her, and, indeed, continued to be such a lover as he had declared the men of his nation to be.

"I believe nothing of the kind. This man has appeared before you as a hero. He goes like a new Don Quixote to tilt against the windmills of his folly. You do not love such a man--and he--he knows nothing of what love is."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I do love him," she said very calmly. "I love him, and I shall marry him."

"When he returns from Roumania?"

"When he returns, or when I go to him there."

He laughed now at her earnestness.

"We will go together--you and I," he said. "We will start for Paris to-morrow. It is a stage upon our journey. I sent for you so--to go to Paris with me to-morrow. Of course, your father goes. He will tell you so when he comes here. He goes with us, and is pleased to be out of England. Why should he not be? Here is all the town gaping at his daughter. That pains him. I, too, dislike it, for I do not wish the world to call my wife an actress. No, Lady Evelyn, we shall prevent it--your father and I. In France, you will forget all this. The day will come when you will know that we have been your friends."

He would have had it appear that he spoke with sincerity and earnestness; but Evelyn heard little of that which he said. The deep-laid plot never for a moment deceived her. She knew that her father was in no way concerned in it; she understood that she had been brought to the house by a subterfuge and that courage alone would save her.

"Count Odin," she said as she rose and faced him, "when my father wishes me to go to Paris he will tell me so. Your threats I treat with contempt. You are one of those men whose part in life is to be woman's enemy. I know you now, and am not even afraid of you. Let me leave this house quietly and I will forget that I ever came here. Compel me to stay and I will find a way to the nearest police station in spite of you. That is my answer. I have nothing further to say."

He listened to her as though he had expected just such an answer as this.

"Dear lady," he said with provoking insolence, "do you know that it is one o'clock and that we are nearly five miles from Charing Cross?"

"It would make no difference to me if we were fifty."

"But your father is coming here----"

"That is not true."

"Come, you compel me to be angry. Understand that I have no intention whatever of letting you go. If you persist, I must speak more frankly."

"A new experience. Stand aside, please. I am going to leave this house."

He laughed brutally.

"Go to your English friend. I will telegraph that you are coming. Go to him--if he is still alive, dear lady."

She shuddered but did not flinch.

"I will tell the story where all the world may read it to-morrow."

"To-morrow--to-morrow, how far off is to-morrow sometimes. Beware of to-morrow, Lady Evelyn."

He drew aside and opened the door for her; and she, wondering greatly at his apparent compliance, put her furs about her shoulders. Just for one instant she stopped and with a woman's instinct would have bargained with him for Gavin's life.

"Give me your word of honor that no harm shall happen to Mr. Ord and I will be silent," she said.

He crossed the room and looked closely into her face.

"We will speak of that to-morrow--when your father comes," he said.

The words perplexed her. She hesitated but had nothing more to say.

Outside in the hall, the fire still burned brightly in the open grate, and the gas lamps were lighted. Not a sound could be heard; no human being appeared to inhabit that remote and lonely tenement. Trembling with excitement and afraid, she knew not of what, Evelyn had reached the front door and was stooping to unbolt it when a pair of strong arms were clasped suddenly about her and a heavy cloak thrown over her head.

Taken utterly by surprise, overwhelmed by terror of the circ.u.mstance, she felt herself lifted from her feet and carried swiftly from the hall. All her strength could not fling those strong arms from her nor put aside the cloak which stifled her cries. Inanimate, afraid as she had never been in all her life, she lay almost senseless in the man's arms and let him do as he would with her.

For she knew that she was Odin's prisoner, and that no act or will of hers could save her from the plot so subtly contrived.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A SHOT IN THE HILLS

The two men sat in the great bare room of the House at Setchevo and watched the ebbing firelight as it played upon the dead man's face and declared the horror of it. Not a sound came to them but that of their heavy breathing. They feared almost to raise a hand lest by any movement the living should be called to avenge the dead. Just as he had fallen, heavily and in anger, so the old Chevalier lay, his face upturned, the sightless eyes still open as though gazing now upon the eternal mysteries. And none knew better than Gavin Ord that death might be their worst enemy, loosing upon them the worst pa.s.sions of their jailers and forbidding them any longer even to hope.

This he knew, and yet there came no profit of the knowledge. If he feared death, it was for Evelyn's sake. Sitting there by the firelight, waiting in tense doubt for the coming of the dead man's friends, he could recall a picture of Evelyn as first he saw her in the hall of the Manor. How stately she was; with what dignity she had received him! And what an odd mental hallucination he had suffered when he thought to hear her crying to him from the river. But was it altogether an hallucination and did this explanation satisfy? Here, to-night, it seemed that he must die because of his friendship for her.

How foolish, then, the call from the unseen world had been if its meaning were so, and his own death had been the subject of the prophecy! That he could not believe. The firm idea that he had been chosen to love and befriend this beautiful girl remained his own even in this momentous hour. He must suffer this to save her--how or by what means he did not pretend to say--nor would he account death as other than a friend if by death salvation came to one who alone among women had taught him to say, "I love."

A wolf howled upon the hills without and the lingering, doleful cry, taken up by a thousand lifted throats, came upon the silence as the dead man's requiem. Arthur Kenyon shivered when he heard it and beat the fire down as though darkness were preferable to this aureole upon the staring face. When Gavin said "Hush," and bade him listen, he half turned, upon an impulse, toward the dead man as though the dead were about to speak. The terrible strain of that suspense had become insupportable. What mattered it since the end must be the same--sooner or later, to-night or to-morrow, the reckoning, the vengeance? He was young, and life might have much in store for him; but travel had taught him to say "Kismet" and he said it unflinchingly.

"There would be snow on the hills," he cried at last, as though his thoughts were out there upon the lonely mountain road.

Gavin, for answer, gripped him by the arm and forced him to listen.

"Do you not hear!" he cried in a broken whisper; "some one is calling the Chevalier?"

They bent together as though to hear more keenly. In the courtyard without, footsteps could now be heard and a voice crying, "Master, master!" The hour had come then! Here were those who sought them.

"Will you speak to them, Gavin?"

"Hush for G.o.d's sake--I must think, think----"

"That's a second footstep--can't you hear it? My G.o.d, Gavin, what shall we do?"

"Let me think, Arthur, let me think."

He buried his face in his hands and could feel his temples throbbing.

For Evelyn's sake, for her--ah, if that miracle of love could but come to pa.s.s! To open the gates, to defy the perils of the hills, to pa.s.s as in flight by towns, rivers, cities, the abodes of men, the lonely pa.s.ses, the lights of towns, the storms of seas, to venture all for Evelyn's sake. If it could be that? The voice of reason answered, "Fool, the men are at the door."

He rose excitedly from his chair and gripped his friend by the arm.

"Tap the pavement," he said, "tap as the old Chevalier used to. I must think, Arthur--for G.o.d's sake now tap with the stick."

Kenyon obeyed him as a child would have done. He tapped upon the stone floor with the stick but did not speak a word. Gavin had him by the arm now and appeared almost as one in a trance. His eyes were half-closed; he muttered to himself, stretching out his hand and feeling, as it were, for a path which the darkness would disclose to him. And the word upon his lips was "Evelyn"--oft repeated, as though she were near and did not hear him.