The Avenger, E. Phillips Oppenheim [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

only in blurred outline; the tall trees, whose tops were unstirred by even the slightest breeze, stood out like silent sentinels against the violet sky. Madame de Melbain stopped short upon the threshold of the terrace, with head slightly thrown back, and half-closed eyes.

"Suzanne was right," she murmured, "there is peace here—peace, if only it would last!"

The Baron came hastily forward. He seemed to be eyeing Wrayson a little doubtfully. Madame de Melbain pointed down the avenue.

"I think," she said, "that it would be pleasant to walk for a little way. Give me your arm, Baron. We will go first. Mr. Wrayson will follow with Louise."

They descended the steps, crossed the lawn, and through a gate into the broad grass-grown avenue, cut through the woods to the road. Wrayson at first was silent, and Louise seemed a little nervous. More than once she started at the sound of a rabbit scurrying through the undergrowth. There was something a little mysterious about the otherwise profound silence of the impenetrable woods. Even their footsteps fell noiselessly upon the spongy turf.

Wrayson spoke at last. They had fallen sufficiently far behind the others to be out of earshot.

"Do you know what Madame de Melbain has been saying to me?" he asked.

Louise turned her head a little. There was the faintest flicker of a smile about her lips.

"I cannot imagine," she declared, looking once more straight ahead.

"She has been inciting me to bold deeds," Wrayson said. "How should you like to be carried off in mediæval fashion—married, willing or unwilling?"

"Is that what Madame de Melbain has been recommending you to do?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Yes! And I am thinking of taking her advice," he said coolly.

She laughed quietly, yet his ears were quick, and he caught the note of sadness which a moment later crept into her eyes.

"It would solve so much that is troublesome, wouldn't it?" she remarked. "May I ask if that has been the sole topic of your conversation?"

"Absolutely! Louise! Dear!"

She turned a little towards him. His voice was compelling. The fingers of her hand closed readily enough upon his, and the soft touch thrilled him.

"You have some fancy in your brain," he said, in a low, passionate whisper. "It is nothing but a fancy, I am assured. You have heard what your own friend has advised. You don't doubt that I love you, Louise, that I want to make you happy."

She leaned a little towards him. A sudden wave of abandonment seemed to have swept over her. He drew her face to his and kissed her with a sudden passion. Her lips met his soft and unresisting. Already he felt the song of triumph in his heart. She was his! She could never be anybody else's now. Very softly she disengaged herself. The other two were still in sight, and already the curve of the moon was creeping over the trees.

"Don't spoil it," she murmured. "Don't talk of to-morrow, or the future! We have to-night."...

There followed minutes of which he took no count, and then of a sudden her hand clutched his arm.

"Listen," she whispered hoarsely.

He came suddenly down to earth. They were walking in the shadow of the trees, close to the side of the wood, and their footsteps upon the soft turf were noiseless. Wrayson almost held his breath as he leaned towards the dark chaos of the thickly planted trees. Only a few yards away he could distinctly hear the dry snapping of twigs. Some one was keeping pace with them inside the wood, now he could see the stooping figure of a man creeping stealthily along. A little exclamation broke from Louise's lips.

"It is a spy after all," she muttered. "They said that every entrance to the place was guarded."

Wrayson had time to take only one quick step towards the wood, when a shrill cry rang out upon the still night. Then there was the trampling under foot of bushes and undergrowth, the sound of men's voices, one English and threatening, the other guttural and terrified. Madame de Melbain and her escort had paused and were looking back. Louise was moving towards them, and Wrayson was on the point of entering the wood. Into the little semicircle formed by these four people there suddenly strode Wrayson's friend from the inn, grasping by the collar a shrinking and protesting figure in a much dishevelled tweed suit.

"We were right, Mr. Wrayson," the former remarked quietly. "This fellow has been spying round all day. You had better ask your friends what they wish done with him."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SCENE IN THE AVENUE

There followed a few minutes of somewhat curious silence. At the first sound of the voice of the man who had made so startling an appearance in their midst, a cry, only half suppressed, had broken from Madame de Melbain's lips. She had moved impulsively a little forward; the moon, visible now from over the tree tops, was shining faintly upon her absolutely colourless face and dilated eyes. For some reason she seemed terror-stricken, both she and Louise, who was clinging now to her arm. Neither of them seemed even to have glanced at the cowering figure of the man, who had relapsed now into a venomous silence. Both of them were gazing at his captor, and upon their faces was the strangest expression which Wrayson had ever seen on any human features. It was as though they stood upon the edge of the world and peered downwards, into the forbidden depths; as though they suddenly found themselves in the presence of a thing so wonderful that thought and speech alike were chained. Wrayson involuntarily followed the direction of their rapt gaze. The stranger certainly presented a somewhat formidable appearance. He was standing upon slightly higher ground, and the massive proportions of his tall, powerful figure stood out with almost startling distinctness against the empty background. His face was half in the shadow, yet it seemed to Wrayson that some touch of the mystery which was quivering in the drawn face of the two women was also reflected in his dimly seen features. Something indefinable was in the air, something so mysterious and wonderful, that voices seemed stricken dumb, and life itself suspended. An owl flew slowly out from the wood with ponderous flapping of wings, and sailed over their heads. Every one started: Madame de Melbain gave a half-stifled shriek. The strain was over. Louise and she were half sobbing now in one another's arms.

"I will leave this fellow to be dealt with as the owners of the chateâu may direct," the stranger said stiffly, turning to Wrayson. "You can tell them all that we know about him."

He turned on his heel, but the Baron laid his hand upon his shoulder and peered into his face inquisitively.

"We should like to know," he said, "whom we have to thank for the capture of this intruder!"

"I am a stranger here, and to all of you," was the quiet answer. "You owe me no thanks. I have seen something of this fellow before," he added, pointing to his captive, who was now standing sullenly in the centre of the group. "I felt sure that he was up to no good, and I watched him."

For the first time the fair-haired little tourist, who had been dragged so submissively into their midst, suffered a gleam of intelligence to appear in his face. He changed his position so that he could see his captor better.

"Ah!" he muttered, "you have seen me before, eh? And I you, perhaps! Let me think! Was it—"

Wrayson's friend leaned a little forwards, and with the careless ease of one flicking away a fly, he struck the speaker with the back of his hand across the face. The blow was not a particularly severe one, but its victim collapsed upon the turf.

"Look here," his assailant said, standing for a moment over him, "you can go on and finish your sentence if you like. I only want to warn you, that if you do, I will break every bone in your body, one by one, the next time we meet. Go on, if you think it worth while."

The man on the ground was dumb, because he was afraid. But the same thought presented itself to all of them. The Baron, who was least of all affected, expressed it.

"Perhaps, sir," he said, "you will not object to telling me—the Baron de Courcelles—whom we have to thank for the discovery of this—intruder!"

Wrayson's friend edged a little away. There was no response in his manner to the courtesy with which the Baron had sought to introduce himself.

"You have nothing to thank me for," he said shortly. "My name would be quite unknown to you, and I am leaving this part of the world at once. Permit me to wish you good evening!"

He had already turned on his heel when Madame de Melbain's voice arrested him. Clear and peremptory, the first words which had passed her lips since the surprise had come to them, seemed somehow to introduce a new note into an atmosphere from which an element of tragedy had never been lacking.

"Please stop!"

He turned and faced her with obvious unwillingness. She stretched out her hand as though forbidding him to go, but addressed at the same time the two men, apparently gamekeepers, who had suddenly emerged from the wood.

"Monsieur Robert," she said, "we have caught this man trespassing in the woods here, notwithstanding the precautions which I understood you had taken. Take him away at once, if you please. I trust that you will be able to hand him over to the gendarmes."

Monsieur Robert, the steward of the estates, an elderly man, whose face was twitching with anxiety, stepped forward with a low bow.

"Madame," he said, "we had word of this intrusion. We were even now upon the track of this ruffian. There was another, also, who climbed the wall—ah! I see him! The Englishman there!"

"He is our friend," Madame de Melbain said. "You must not interfere with him."

"As Madame wills! Come, you rascal," he added, gripping his prisoner by the shoulder. "We will show you what it means to climb over walls and trespass on the estate of Madame la Baronne. Come then!"

The intruder accepted the situation with the most philosophic calm. Only one remark he ventured to make as he was led off.

"It is not hospitable, this! I only wished to see the chateâu by moonlight!"

Wrayson's fellow guest at the Lion d'Or turned to follow them.

"The fellow might try to escape," he muttered; but again Madame de Melbain called to him.

"You must not go away," she said, "yet!"

Then she moved forward with smooth, deliberate footsteps, yet with something almost supernatural in her white face and set, dilated eyes. It was as though she were looking once more through the windows of the world, as though she could see the figures of dead men playing once more their part in the game of life. And she looked always at the Englishman.

"Listen," she said, "there is something about you, sir, which I do not understand. Who are you, and where do you come from?"

He made no answer. Only he held out his hand as though to keep her away, and drew a little further back.

"You shall not escape," she continued, the words leaving her lips with a sort of staccato incisiveness, crisp and emotional. "No! you are here, and you shall answer. Who are you who come here to mock us all; because it is a dead man who speaks with your voice, and looks with your eyes? You will not dare to say that you are Duncan Fitzmaurice!"

The figure in the shadows seemed to loom larger and larger. He was no longer shrinking away.

"I know nothing of the man of whom you speak!" he declared. "I am a wanderer. I have no name and no home."

Madame de Melbain reeled and would have fallen. Then for a moment events seemed to leap forward. White and fainting, she lay in the arms of the