By Wit of Woman by Arthur W. Marchmont (best book reader txt) 📖

mine to the test, and how use it for my own purposes. But before I could decide, I heard hesitating steps in the corridor outside my room. Some one knocked gently at the doors of other rooms and then at mine.

"Are you there, miss?"

It was James Perry's voice. "Yes," I answered; and closing the window and drawing down the blind, I opened the door.

"The gentleman is asking for Madame d'Artelle, miss," he said. "What answer am I to give him?"

"I will take it myself," I replied. I switched on the light and made sure that my hair was all right. "What about the servants, James?" I asked.

"There are two woman servants only, miss; and my father and myself. We did as you said, and sent away a footman who was here."

"You have done very well. If you are asked any more questions about Madame d'Artelle, say that she left the house the moment after the carriage arrived, and that I have been here some hours."

"Yes, miss." He was very perplexed and, I think, troubled. We went downstairs, and he showed me the room where Karl was. It was directly under that in which I had been.

It was to the window of that room, then, I had seen Colonel Katona cross in the moonlight.

CHAPTER XVI A WISP OF RIBBON

Karl was sitting in an attitude of moody dejection; his elbow on the arm of the chair, and face resting on his hand; and he turned slowly as I opened the door. The look of gloomy indifference vanished, and he rose quickly with a glance of intense surprise.

"Chris—Miss Gilmore!" he exclaimed.

"You asked for Madame d'Artelle. I have come to say she has left the house," I said in a quite steady tone.

"But you—how do you come to be here? I don't understand."

"I thought you knew I was Madame d'Artelle's companion."

"But they told me you had gone away—to Paris."

"I did start, but I came back."

"I have been twice to-day to her house to ask for you. I was very nearly rushing off to Paris after you. I'm glad I didn't." He said this quite simply, and then his face clouded. "But if I understand all this, may I—may I take to opium again?" His eyes cleared, and he smiled as he spoke the last words.

"I hope you will never do that," I replied.

"No, I shan't—now. Do you remember what I said to you in the gardens yesterday? Yesterday—why it seems twenty years ago."

"You mean that you would hate me if I stopped you taking it?"

"Yes, that's it. I have hated you too, I can tell you. I couldn't help it—but I haven't taken any since. It's cost something to keep from it; but I've done it. And I shall be all right—now. I nearly gave in, though, when I heard you'd left the city."

"I knew that you had the strength to resist when I spoke to you yesterday," and I looked at him steadily. He returned the look for a moment.

"It's wonderful," he murmured. "Positively wonderful." Then in a louder tone: "I think you must have hypnotised me."

"Oh, no. I only appealed to your stronger nature—your former self. You have the strength to resist, but you let it rust."

"I wonder if you would like to know why?"

"No, thank you," I cried rather hurriedly.

My haste seemed to amuse him. "Well, I don't suppose it matters. Then you're not going to Paris?"

"Not yet—at any rate."

"Then I shall see you sometimes. I must if I'm to keep from it, you know."

"Yes, if possible and necessary."

"It is necessary, and I'll make it possible. You don't know the responsibility you've taken on yourself so lightly."

"Perhaps I have not taken it lightly, but intentionally."

"You can't be here intentionally," he said, with a start. "You can't, because—do you mean that you know what I'm supposed to have come here for?" Half incredulous, this.

"Yes, quite well."

"That they want to drive me to marry Hen—Madame d'Artelle? And that my brother will be here with a priest in half an hour or so?"

"I did not know your brother was coming," and the news gave me a twinge of uneasiness. "But my object was to prevent the marriage taking place."

"Why?" he asked, somewhat eagerly.

"Her husband is still living."

"I mean, why did you wish to prevent it?"

"I will tell you that presently."

"Tell me now."

"No."

"Yes—I insist."

"That is no use with me."

"Isn't it? We'll see. You know what I carry here;" and he slid his fingers into the pocket from which I had before seen him take the opium pills. "I shall take it if you don't tell me."

"You must do as you please. But you have none with you."

"How do you know?"

"You told Madame d'Artelle so, in the carriage."

He laughed and took out a little phial half full of them, and held it up. "She is stupid. Do you think I should regard it as more than half a victory if I didn't carry this with me? Will you drive me back to it now?"

He took out one of the pills, held it up, and gazed at it with eyes almost haggard with greedy longing.

"This is childish," I said.

"No, it's a question of your will or mine. Will you tell me or shall I take this? One or the other. You can undo your own work. I can scarcely bear the sight of it."

"I accept the challenge," I answered after a second's pause. "It is your will or mine. Rather than see you take that I will tell you——"

"I knew you would," he broke in triumphantly.

"But if I do, I declare to you on my honour that the instant I have told you, I will leave the room and the house, and never see you again."

The look of triumph melted away slowly. "I don't want victory on those terms. You've beaten me. Look here." He opened the long French window, flung the pill out into the night, and then emptied the phial. "Rather than—than what you said;" and he looked round and sighed.

"Thank you," I said.

In the pause the sound of horses' hoofs on the hard road, reached us through the open window.

"Here come Gustav and the priest, I expect."

I bit my lip. "I don't want him to see me," I said, hurriedly.

"What does it matter?"

"Everything."

He closed the window. "What will you do?"

"I will lock myself in one of the rooms upstairs and tell my servants to say Madame d'Artelle is too ill to see him."

"Your servant?"

"Don't stop to ask questions. I can explain all presently. Do as I wish—please. He thinks you are—are drugged——"

"Not drugged—drunk; but how do you know that?"

"Madame d'Artelle thought so at first." The horses were now so near that I could hear them through the closed window. "You can still pretend. Lie on the sofa there. For Heaven's sake be quick. There are but two or three minutes at most now."

"Oh, I'll get rid of them."

I took this for assent, and hurried out of the room as the carriage stopped at the door. Calling James Perry I told him what do to and ran up again to the room where I had been before.

I would not have a light but sat first on the edge of the bed, wondering what would happen, whether I should be discovered, how long Count Gustav would stay, and how Karl would do as he had said.

The house was badly built, and I could hear the murmur of voices in the room below. I slipped to the floor and lay with my ear to the ground in my anxiety to learn what went on. I could hear nothing distinctly, however. The murmurs were louder, but I could not make out the words.

Then I remembered about Colonel Katona, and crossing to the window pulled the blind aside and looked out wondering whether he was still near the house.

The moonlight was brighter, but the shadows of the trees thicker and darker; and for a long time I could distinguish nothing. The carriage remained at the door; the jingling of the harness, the occasional pawing of the impatient horses, and the checking word of the coachman told me this.

If the Colonel was still there, the presence of the carriage no doubt made him keep concealed.

Presently other sounds reached me. Some one unfastened the windows of the room below and flung them wide open. A man went out and I heard his feet grate on the gravel.

"It's no use. He's dead drunk. We may as well——"

It was Gustav's voice, and the rest of the words were lost to me, for I shrank back nervously.

Then an instinctive impulse caused me to lay my ear to the ground and listen for the window to be shut. I heard it closed; but there was no sound of the bolt being shot.

Dark as it was and alone though I was in the room, I know that I turned deathly white at the possible reason for this which flashed upon me in that moment; and when I passed my hand across my forehead the beads of perspiration stood thick upon it. I felt sick and dazed with the horror that was born of that thought; and my limbs were heavy as I dragged them back across the room to the bed and sat there, listening intently for the sounds of Count Gustav's departure, and ready to rush downstairs the instant he had gone.

There was no longer any need for me to stare vaguely out into the garden. I knew now that the watcher was there, and why he was there. I had guessed the secret of that noisily opened window, of the loudly spoken words, and the closed but unbolted casement.

The carriage went at last, after I had heard Count Gustav's voice in the hall below speaking to some one who answered in a lower and indistinct tone.

While the two were still speaking, I unlocked my door softly and crept out to the head of the stairs; and even as the front door was shut by James Perry and the carriage started, I ran down.

"Go in there at once, James, fasten the bolt of the big window, and if the blind is up, draw it down. Quick, at once," I told him, and followed him into the room.

Karl was still lying on the couch.

"Leave the window open, you," he said. "I like the air."

"I told him to shut it," I said, as I entered and James went out. "I can't stand the draught and can't bear the look of the dark."

He sat up when he heard my voice and stared at me.

"You afraid of the dark? You?"

"Have you been lying on the couch all the time?" I asked.

"Yes, Gustav fooled me about and tried to make me get up, but I wouldn't, but what has that to do with anything? You do nothing but bewilder me—and Gustav too, for that matter."

"It's time that some things were made clear," I replied. "How did you prevent them coming in search of me?"

"Very easily. I told him Madame had gone to bed, ill—ill with temper, because I was drunk, and swore I would do her some damage if she came near me. By the way, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I've succeeded already in the chief part of my purpose, and am not ready yet for the next."

"What is your purpose?"

"I am going to tell you. One thing was to prevent your marrying Madame d'Artelle."

"You said that before when you wouldn't tell me the reason. What is the reason?"

"Because I know why the marriage was being forced."

"So do I—but it doesn't interest me. Although I meant to make Madame tell me many things."

"Probably I can tell you all you wish to know."

"Why do you think I was to marry Madame d'Artelle?"

"To complete your ruin in the eyes of the country, to make you impossible as your father's heir in the event of the plans of the Patriots succeeding. Such a mésalliance, added to the reputation for dissoluteness and incapacity which you have