The Master of the Ceremonies Part 5

No: the jewel-casket was not on the dressing-table, and with a spasm of dread shooting through her, Claire Denville stepped quietly to the bedside, drew back the curtain, holding the candle above her head, let fall the curtain and staggered back with her eyes staring with horror, her lips apart, and her breath held for a few moments, but to come again with a hoa.r.s.e sob.

She did not shriek aloud; she did not faint. She stood there with her face thrust forward, her right arm crooked and extended as if in the act of drawing back the curtain, and her left hand still holding the candlestick above her head--stiffened as it were by horror into the position, and gazing still toward the bed.

That hoa.r.s.e sob, that harsh expiration of the breath seemed to give her back her power of movement, and, turning swiftly, she ran from the room and down the short pa.s.sage to rap quickly at her father's door.

"Papa! Papa!" she cried, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, trembling now in every limb, and gazing with horror-stricken face over her shoulder, as if she felt that she was being pursued.

Almost directly she heard a faint clattering sound of a gla.s.s rattling on the top of the water-bottle as someone crossed the room, the night-bolt was raised, the door opened, and the Master of the Ceremonies stood there, tall and thin, with his white hands tightly holding his long dressing-gown across his chest.

His face was ghastly as he gazed at Claire. There was a thick dew over his forehead, so dense that it glistened in the light of the candle, and made his grey hair cling to his white temples.

He had evidently not been undressed, for his stiff white cravat was still about his neck, and the silken strings of his pantaloons were still tied at the ankles. Moreover, the large signet-ring that had grown too large for his thin finger had not been taken off. It was as if he had hastily thrown off his coat, and put on his dressing-gown; but, though the night was warm, he was shivering, his lower lip trembling, and he had hard work to keep his teeth from chattering together like the gla.s.s upon the carafe.

"Father," cried Claire, catching him by the breast, "then you have heard something?"

"Heard--heard something?" he stammered; and then, seeming to make an effort to recover his _sang froid_, "heard something? Yes--you-- startled me."

"But--but--oh, papa! It is too horrible!"

She staggered, and had to hold by him to save herself from falling. But recovering somewhat, she held him by one hand, then thrust herself away, looking the trembling man wildly in the face.

"Did you not hear--that cry?"

"No," he said hastily, "no. What is the matter?"

"Lady Teigne! Quick! Oh, father, it cannot be true!"

"Lady--Lady Teigne?" he stammered, "is--is she--is she ill?"

"She is dead--she is dead!" wailed Claire.

"No, no! No, no! Impossible!" cried the old man, who was shivering visibly.

"It is true," said Claire. "No, no, it cannot be. I must be wrong.

Quick! It may be some terrible fit!"

She clung to his hand, and tried to hurry him out of the room, but he drew back.

"No," he stammered, "not yet. Your--your news--agitated me, Claire.

Does--wait a minute--does anyone--in the--in the house know?"

"No, dear. I thought I heard a cry, and I came down, and she--"

"A fit," he said hastily, as he took the gla.s.s from the top of the water-bottle, filled it, gulped the water down, and set bottle and gla.s.s back in their places. "A fit--yes--a fit."

"Come with me, father, quick!" cried Claire.

"Yes. Yes, I'll go with you--directly," he said, fumbling for his handkerchief in the tail of the coat thrown over the chair, finding his snuff-box, and taking a great pinch.

"Come, pray come!" she cried again, as she gazed at him in a bewildered way, his trembling becoming contagious, and her lips quivering with a new dread greater than the horror at the end of the pa.s.sage.

"Yes--yes," he faltered--"I'll come. So alarming to be woke up--like this--in the middle of the night. Shall I--shall I ring, Claire? Or will you call the maids?"

"Come with me first," cried Claire. "It may not be too late."

"Yes," he cried, "it is--it is too late."

"Father!"

"You--you said she was dead," he cried hastily. "Yes--yes--let us go.

Perhaps only a fit. Come."

He seemed to be now as eager to go as he had been to keep back, and, holding his child's hand tightly, he hurried with her to Lady Teigne's apartment, where he paused on the mat to draw a long, catching breath.

The next moment the door had swung to behind them, and father and daughter stood gazing one at the other.

"Don't, don't," he cried, in a low, angry voice, as he turned from her.

"Don't look at me like that, Claire. What--what do you want me to do?"

Claire turned her eyes from him to gaze straight before her in a curiously dazed manner; and then, without a word, she crossed to the bedside and drew back the curtain, fixing her father with her eyes once more.

"Look!" she said, in a harsh whisper; "quick! See whether we are in time."

The old man uttered a curious supplicating cry, as if in remonstrance against the command that forced him to act, and, as if in his sleep, and with his eyes fixed upon those of his child, he walked up close to the bed, bent over it a moment, and then with a shudder he s.n.a.t.c.hed the curtain from Claire's hand, and thrust it down.

"Dead!" he said, with a gasp. "Dead!"

There was an awful silence in the room for a few moments, during which the ticking of the little clock on the table beyond the bed sounded painfully loud, and the beat of the waves amid the shingle rose into a loud roar.

"Father, she has been--"

"Hush!" he half shrieked, "don't say so. Oh, my child, my child!"

Claire trembled, and it was as though a mutual attraction drew them to gaze fixedly the one at the other, in spite of every effort to tear their eyes away.

At last, with a wrench, the old man turned his head aside, and Claire uttered a low moan as she glanced from him to the bed and then back towards the window.

"Ah!" she cried, starting forward, and, bending down beside the dressing-table, she picked up the casket that was lying half hidden by drapery upon the floor.

But the jewel-casket was quite empty, and she set it down upon the table. It had been wrenched open with a chisel or knife-blade, and the loops of the lock had been torn out.

"Shall we--a doctor--the constables?" he stammered.

"I--I do not know," said Claire hoa.r.s.ely, acting like one in a dream; and she staggered forward, kicking against something that had fallen near the casket.

She involuntarily stooped to pick it up, but it had been jerked by her foot nearer to her father, who bent down with the quickness of a boy and s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, hiding it hastily beneath his dressing-gown, but not so quickly that Claire could not see that it was a great clasp-knife.

"What is that?" she cried sharply.