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The Castle Of The Shadows

by A. M. Williamson · English · Gutenberg #19901 · 349,129 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Castle Of The Shadows

Author: A. M. Williamson


        
Release date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19901]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19901

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Suzanne Shell, and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


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Produced by Chris Curnow, Suzanne Shell, and the Online
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Transcriber's Notes:

Some changes have been made to correct typographical errors and
inconsistencies.

The author's use of a mixture of US and UK English spelling has been
retained.




[Illustration: Book cover]


THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS




  Books by
  C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON

  THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR
  THE PRINCESS PASSES
  MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
  LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
  ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
  MY LADY CINDERELLA
  THE CAR OF DESTINY
  THE CHAPERON
  THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA
  SET IN SILVER
    ETC., ETC.




            The
    Castle of the Shadows
            By
    MRS. C. N. WILLIAMSON

 [Illustration: Doubleday logo]

         New York
  Doubleday, Page & Company
           1909




   AUTHORIZED EDITION
  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.




          TO
   A GOOD MARCHESE
    THIS STORY OF
  A WICKED MARCHESE




        CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                               PAGE
     I. Where Dreamland Began             3
    II. The Story Told by Two            31
   III. A Mystery and a Bargain          61
    IV. The Closed Door                  84
     V. The Lady on the Verandah        108
    VI. The End of the World            134
   VII. The Gates Open                  158
  VIII. Number 1280                     178
    IX. A Cry Across the Water          201
     X. "Once on Board the Lugger"      224
    XI. Virginia's Great Moment         248
   XII. Stand and Deliver!              270
  XIII. The Game of Bluff               294




THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS




The Castle of the Shadows




CHAPTER I

WHERE DREAMLAND BEGAN


According to the calendar it was winter; but between Mentone and the
frontier town of Ventimiglia, on the white road inlaid like a strip of
ivory on dark rocks above the sapphire of the Mediterranean, it was
fierce summer in the sunshine. A girl riding between two men, reined in
her chestnut mare at a cross-road which led into the jade-green twilight
of an olive grove. The men pulled up their horses also, and all three
came to a sudden halt at a bridge flung across a swift but shallow river,
whose stony bed cleft the valley.

The afternoon sunshine poured down upon them, burnishing the coils of the
girl's hair to gold, and giving a dazzling brilliancy to a complexion
which for twenty years to come need not fear the light of day. She was
gazing up the valley shut in on either side with thickly wooded hills,
their rugged heads still gilded, their shoulders already half in shadow;
but the eyes of the men rested only upon her. One was English, the other
Italian; and it was the Italian whose look devoured her beauty, moving
hungrily from the shining tendrils of gold that curled at the back of her
white neck, up to the small pink ear almost hidden with a thick, rippling
wave of hair; so to the piquant profile which to those who loved Virginia
Beverly, was dearer than cold perfection.

"Oh, the olive woods!" she exclaimed. "How sweet they are! See the way
the sunshine touches the old, gnarled trunks, and what a lovely light
filters through the leaves. One never sees it anywhere except in an olive
grove. I should like to live in one."

"Well, why not?" laughed the Englishman. "What prevents you from buying
two or three? But you would soon tire of them, my child, as you do of
everything as soon as it belongs to you."

"That's not fair," replied the girl. "Besides, if it were, who has helped
to spoil me? I _will_ buy an olive grove, and you shall see if I tire of
it. Come, let's ride up the valley, and find out if there are any for
sale. It looks heavenly cool after this heat."

"You'll soon discover that it's too cool," said the Italian, in perfect
English. "The sun is only in these valleys for a few hours, and it's gone
for the day now. Besides, there's nothing interesting here. One sees the
best from where we stand."

Virginia Beverly turned her eyes upon him, and let them dwell on his face
questioningly. "Of course, you must know every inch of this country," she
said, "as you used to live just across the Italian border."

For once he did not answer her look. "I haven't spent much time here for
several years. Paris has absorbed me," he said evasively. "One forgets a
good deal; but if you want to see a really charming valley, we had better
go farther on. Then I think I can show you one."

Virginia's pretty brows, which were many shades darker than her hair,
drew together. "But I don't want to go farther," she said. "And I like
this valley."

"Spoilt child!" ejaculated the Englishman, who claimed rights of
cousinship, though by birth Virginia was American.

At that moment two members of the riding party, who had contrived to be
left behind, came leisurely up. One was a very handsome, dark woman, who
succeeded in looking not more than thirty, the other a young man of
twenty-five, enough like Virginia to suggest that they were brother and
sister.

"What are you stopping for?" inquired Lady Gardiner, who would not have
been sorry to keep her friends in advance.

"Waiting for you," said Virginia promptly. "I want to explore this
valley."

As she spoke she gave her mare a little pat on the velvety neck. The
animal, which was Virginia's own, brought from her namesake state, had
never known the touch of the whip, but understood the language of hand
and voice. She went off at a trot up the shadowed road; and the Marchese
Loria was the first to follow. But he bit his lip under the black
moustache, pointed in military fashion at the ends, and appeared more
annoyed than he need because a pretty girl had insisted upon having her
own way.

It was not yet cold, as he had prophesied, but it was many degrees cooler
than in the sunshine; and as they rode on the valley narrowed, the soft
darkness of the olive grove closing in the white road that overhung the
rock-bed of the river.

The hills rose higher, shutting out the day, and there was a brooding
silence, only intensified by the hushed whisper of the water among its
pebbles.

The shoulders of the heights were losing their gold glitter now; and
Virginia had a curious sensation of leaving reality behind and entering a
mysterious dreamland.

For a long time they rode without speaking. Then Virginia broke the spell
of constraint which had fallen upon them.

"Where are the persons who gather the olives?" she asked of the Italian,
who rode almost sullenly beside her.

"This isn't the time of year for that," he replied, more abruptly than
was his custom in speaking to her.

"I never saw such a deserted place!" exclaimed the girl. "We have ridden
ever so far into the valley now--two miles at least--and there hasn't
been a sign of human habitation; not a person, not a house, except the
little ruined tower we passed a few minutes ago, and that old château
almost at the top of the hill. Look! the last rays of the sun are
touching its windows before saying good-bye to the valley. Aren't they
like the fiery eyes of some fierce animal glaring watchfully down at us
out of the dusk?"

Pointing upward, she turned to him for approval of her fancy, and to her
surprise saw him pale, as if he had been attacked with sudden illness.

"What is the matter?" she asked quickly.

"Nothing at all," he replied. "A slight chill, perhaps."

"No, there is more than that," Virginia said slowly. "I'm sure of it.
I've been sure ever since we stood on the bridge looking up this valley.
You wanted to go on. You could hardly bear to stop, and when I proposed
riding in you made excuses."

"Only for your sake, fearing you might catch cold."

"Yet you suggested going on to another valley. Would it have been warmer
than this? Oh, Marchese, I don't like you when you are subtle and
secretive. It reminds me that we are of different countries--as different
as the north can be from the south. Do tell me what is really in your
mind. Why do you hate this valley? Why has coming into it tied your
tongue, and made you look as if you had seen a ghost?"

"You exaggerate, Miss Beverly," said Loria. "But if you care to know the
precise truth you shall, on one condition."

"What is it?"

"That you turn your horse's head and consent to go out into the sunshine
again. When we are there I will tell you."

"No. If I hear your story, and think it worth turning back for, I will. I
mean to have a nearer glimpse of that château. It must have a lovely
view over the tops of the olive trees."

She touched the mare, who changed from a trot into a gallop. In five
minutes more they would be under the castle; but almost instantly Loria,
obliged to follow, had caught up with her again.

"One of the greatest sorrows of my life is connected with this valley,"
he answered desperately. "Now will you take pity upon me and turn round?"

Virginia hesitated. The man's voice shook. She did not know whether to
yield or to feel contempt because he showed emotion so much more readily
than her English and American friends. But while she hesitated they were
joined by her cousin, Sir Roger Broom, who had been riding behind with
her half-brother, George Trent, and Lady Gardiner.

"Look here, Loria," he exclaimed, with a certain excitement underlying
his tone; "it has just occurred to me that this is--er--the place that's
been nicknamed for the last few years the 'Valley of the Shadow.'"

"You are right," answered Loria. "That is why I didn't wish to come in."

Sir Roger nodded toward the château, which now loomed over them, gray,
desolate, one half in ruins, yet picturesquely beautiful both in position
and architecture. "Then that is----" he began, but the Italian cut him
short.

"Yes. And won't you help me persuade Miss Beverly that we've seen enough
of this valley now?"

"Why, the castle's for _sale_!" cried Virginia suddenly, before Roger
Broom had had time to speak.

She pointed to one of the tall gate-posts at the foot of the hill, close
to the road, which showed a notice-board announcing in both French and
Italian that the Château de la Roche was to be sold, permission to view
being obtainable within.

"Poor people; they must have been reduced to sad straits indeed!"
murmured Sir Roger, looking at the board with its faded lettering, half
defaced by time and weather.

"Yes, it was all very unfortunate, very miserable," Loria said hastily.
"Shall we go back?"

The Englishman seemed hardly to hear. "I'd seen photographs of the
valley, but I'd quite forgotten, until suddenly it began to look
familiar. Then, all in a flash, I remembered."

"What do you remember; and why do you call this the Valley of the
Shadow?" demanded Virginia. "You are both very mysterious. But perhaps
it's the influence of the place. Everything seems mysterious here."

Roger Broom sighed, and roused himself with an effort from his reverie.
"Queer that we should have drifted here by accident," he
said--"especially with _you_, Loria."

"Why especially with me?" the other asked with a certain sharpness.

"You were the poor fellow's friend. Oh, Virginia, forgive me for not
answering you. This place is reminiscent of tragedy. A man whom I used to
know slightly, and Loria intimately, lived here. That grim old house
perched up on the hillside has been the home of his ancestors for
hundreds of years. Now, you see, it is for sale. But it's likely to
remain so. Who would buy it?"

"Why not?" asked Virginia. "Is it haunted?"

"Only by melancholy thoughts of a family ruined, a man cut off from life
at its best and brightest, to be sent into exile worse than death. By the
way, Loria, do you know what became of the sister?"

"I have heard that she still lives here with an aunt and one old
servant," answered the Italian, his face gray-white in the greenish dusk
of the olive woods.

"Is it possible? What a life for a girl! I suppose that there is
absolutely not money enough to keep up another establishment, no matter
how small. Why, were there no relatives--no one to help?"

"The relatives all believed in her brother's guilt, and she would have
nothing to do with them. As for help, her family is a difficult one to
help. Of course it would be a good thing for her to sell the château."

Virginia sat her horse between the two others, impatient and curious. It
was easy to see how distasteful the conversation was to the Marchese
Loria. He answered Sir Roger's questions only by an effort; and as for
her cousin, even he was moved out of the imperturbable _sang-froid_ which
sometimes pleased, sometimes irritated Virginia, according to her mood.

"Was it because of this young man's guilt that the place was called the
Valley of the Shadow?" she asked again.

"Yes. A mere nickname, of course, though an ominous one," said Roger.
"You see, the Dalahaides used to keep open house, and spend a great deal
of money at one time, so that their ruin threw a gloom over the country
even colder than the evening shadows. The father took his own life in
shame and despair, the mother died of grief, and only a girl is left of
the four who used to be so happy together."

"But what of the fourth--the brother?" In spite of herself, Virginia's
voice sank, and the penetrating chill of the valley crept into her
spirit.

"He is worse than dead," answered Roger evasively. "By Jove! Loria is
right. It _is_ cold here. Let us turn back."

"I should like to buy that château," announced the American girl, as
calmly as if she had spoken of acquiring a new brooch.

"Good gracious! What next?" exclaimed Sir Roger. "But you're not in
earnest, of course."

"I am in earnest," said she. "I should love to have it. It's an ideal
house, set on that great rocky hill, and ringed round with olive groves.
Though the sun is gone so soon from the bottom of the valley, where we
are, the château windows are still bright. The place fascinates me. I am
going to ride in and ask to see the house. Who will come with me?"

Virginia looked at the Marchese with a half-smiling challenge; but he did
not speak, and Lady Gardiner's black eye gave out a flash. She was as
poor as she was handsome and well-born, and her life as the American
girl's chaperon was an easy one. The thought that Virginia Beverly might
make up her mind to become the Marchesa Loria was disagreeable to Kate
Gardiner, and she was glad that the Italian should displease the spoilt
beauty.

"I'll go with you, dear, if you are really bent on the adventure," said
the elder woman.

"Forgive me, Miss Beverly. But I--once knew these people. I could not go
into their house on such an errand. They would think I had come to spy on
their misfortune," protested Loria miserably.

"I knew them too," said Roger Broom, "and I'll stay down here and keep
Loria company."

Lady Gardiner looked at George Trent, with whom she was having an amusing
flirtation, which would certainly have been more than amusing if he had
been only a quarter as rich as his half-sister.

"I'll take you and Virgie up to the door, anyhow," he responded to the
look, and springing from his horse, he pushed open the tall gate of rusty
iron.

Then, mounting again, the three passed between the gray stone gate-posts
with an ancient carved escutcheon obliterated with moss and lichen. They
rode along the grass-grown avenue which wound up the hill among the
cypresses and olive trees, coming out at last, as they neared the
château, from shadow into a pale, chastened sunshine which among the
gray-green trees had somewhat the effect of moonlight.

"Have you ever heard of the Dalahaides?" Virginia demanded of her
chaperon.

"If I have, I've forgotten," said Lady Gardiner. "And yet there does seem
to be a dim memory of something strange hovering at the back of my
brain."

They were above the grove now, on a terrace with a perspective of ruined
garden, whence the battered faces of ancient statues peeped out,
yellow-white from behind overgrown rose bushes and heliotrope. The
château was before them, the windows still reflecting the sunlight; but
this borrowed glitter was all the brightness it had. Once beautiful, the
old battlemented house had an air of proud desolation, as if scorning
pity, since it could no longer win admiration.

"You would have to spend thousands of pounds in restoring this old ruin
if you should really buy it, Virginia," said Lady Gardiner.

"Well, wouldn't it be worth while to spend them?" asked the girl. "I
certainly----" She stopped in the midst of her sentence, a bright flush
springing to her face; for turning a corner of the avenue which brought
them close to the château, they came suddenly upon a young woman, dressed
in black, who must have heard their last words.

Instantly George Trent had his hat in his hand, and before Virginia could
speak he had dismounted and plunged into explanations. He begged pardon
for the intrusion, and said that, as they had seen the announcement that
the château was for sale, they had ventured to ride up in the hope of
being allowed to see the house. As he spoke, in fairly good though rather
laboured French, he smiled on the girl in black with a charming smile,
very like Virginia's. And Lady Gardiner looked from one to the other
gravely. She was not as pleased as she had been that George Trent had
come here with them, for the girl in the shabby black dress had a
curiously arresting, if not beautiful face, and her surroundings, the
background of the desolate castle, and the circumstances of the meeting,
framed her in romance.

Lady Gardiner did not like the alacrity with which Trent had snatched off
his hat and sprung from his horse, nor did she approve of the expression
in his eyes, though Virginia's were just as eager.

To the surprise of all three, the girl answered in English; not the
English of a French _jeune fille_, instructed by an imported "Miss," but
the English of an Englishwoman, pure and sweet, though the voice was sad
and lifeless. Her melancholy dark eyes, deep and sombre as mountain
tarns, wandered from the brother's handsome face to the beautiful one of
the sister.

"Pray don't speak of an intrusion," she said. "Our servant will be glad
to show you through the house, and afterward, if you really think of
buying the place, he will give you the address of an agent in Mentone who
can tell you everything."

"Then shan't we find you again when we have seen the château?" asked
Virginia wistfully.

The girl smiled for the first time, but there was no brightness in the
smile. "I shall be very pleased to speak with you before you go if there
is anything you care to say to me," she replied, mechanically raising
the great bunch of heliotrope she had been gathering to her lips.

"Now I will call our servant. He will put up your horses while you go in;
though I'm afraid that we have no very good accommodation for them, as
our stables have been empty for a long time."

"Oh, thank you, we needn't give him that trouble," said Trent. "I can
fasten the horses' bridles to some tree or other, and they will be all
right."

The girl disappeared, a slender, youthful figure in the plain black gown,
yet her step, though it was not slow, had none of the lithsomeness of
youth. She seemed to have lost all joy of life, though she could scarcely
have been more than twenty-two or three.

"Another mystery!" Virginia said in a low voice. "How comes she to be
English? Is she the girl they were talking about down below, or is she a
companion?"

"She looks like a banished princess," said Trent. "I never saw such
wonderful eyes. Deep as a well, reflecting a night of stars."

Lady Gardiner's lips tightened a little. She was rather vain of her eyes.
"I think the girl would appear a very ordinary young person," she
remarked, "if one saw her anywhere but here."

George lifted her down from the horse without answering, but Virginia did
not wait to be helped. She sprang to the ground, and by the time that
George had tethered the horses an old man in a faded livery came limping
out from the side door through which the girl in black had lately
disappeared.

Almost crippled with rheumatism, he had still all the dignity of a
trusted servant of an ancient house, and his old eyes seemed gravely to
defy these prosperous young people to criticize his threadbare clothing.

"Mademoiselle" had desired him to take monsieur and mesdames over the
château, he politely announced in French, and went on to beg that they
would give themselves the trouble of being conducted to the door at the
front, that they might go in by the great hall. He also regretted that
the visitors had not arrived earlier in the day, as the rooms could not
be seen at their best advantage so near to sunset.

Virginia's heart began to beat oddly as she entered the house. She had
still the feeling of having left realities behind and strayed into
dreamland; but with the opening of the heavy door it seemed to her that
the dream was about to change into a vision which would mean something
for her future.

Of course it was all nonsense, she told herself, as the old man led them
across the shadowy, tapestry-hung hall, and from one huge, dim,
wainscotted or frescoed room to another; yet always, as they approached a
doorway, she caught herself thinking--"Now a strange thing is going to
happen."

"This is the state drawing-room; this is the library; this is the chapel;
this is the bride's suite," the servant announced laconically. But though
the castle was evidently very ancient and must have a private history of
its own, centuries old, he offered no garrulous details of past grandeur,
as most servants would. As they walked through a dining-room of
magnificent proportions, but meagrely furnished, they passed a half-open
door, and Virginia had a glimpse of a charming little room with a huge
projecting window. Mechanically she paused, then drew away quickly as she
saw that mademoiselle was seated at a table arranging the flowers she had
gathered in the melancholy garden. The old man hobbled on, as if the door
had not existed, and Virginia would have followed, had not the girl in
black stepped forward and invited them in, with a certain proud humility.

"This is our sitting-room--my aunt's and mine," she said. "My aunt is not
here now, so come in, if you will. It is a small room; still, it is one
of the brightest and most home-like we have left."

She held open the door, and the three visitors obeyed her gesture of
invitation; but suddenly the girl's face changed. The blood streamed up
to her forehead, then ebbed again, leaving her marble-pale. She gave a
slight start, as if she would have changed her mind and kept the
strangers from entering; yet she made no motion to arrest them.

"She has just remembered something in this room that she doesn't wish us
to see," thought Virginia; but it was too late to retreat, without
drawing attention to an act which she could not explain. They all went
in, the others apparently suspecting nothing; but in a second Virginia
instinctively guessed the reason of her hostess's sudden constraint, and
the sympathetic thrill that ran through her own veins surprised her. In a
panel of the darkly wainscotted and curiously gilded wall was placed a
life-size portrait of a man. It was an oil-painting, defective in
technique, perhaps, but so spirited, so extraordinarily lifelike as to
give an effect, at first glance in the twilight, as if a handsome young
man were just stepping in through an open door. Virginia seemed to meet
the brilliant, audacious eyes; the frank, almost boyish smile was for
her; and--whether because of the half-told story of this strange house,
or because of the brave young splendour of the figure in the
portrait--her heart gave a bound such as it had never yet given for a
man.

She did not need to be told that this was the counterfeit presentment of
him who, in some mysterious way, had brought ruin upon those who loved
him; and suddenly she understood the full meaning of Loria's words when
he had said, "The relatives all believed in his guilt, so his sister
would have nothing to do with them."

Virginia Beverly, headstrong, wilful, passionate, was only superficially
spoilt by the flattery which had been her daily diet as a great beauty
and a great heiress. She was impulsive, but her impulses were true and
often unselfish. Now her warm heart went out to meet the loyal heart of
the pale, sad girl in black, whom an hour ago she had never seen, whose
very name she had not known. "She is right to believe in him," Virginia
said to herself. "Loyalty is the finest virtue of all. I believe in him
too. Whatever crime they say he committed, I'm sure he was innocent.
What--a criminal, with that face? It's not possible, and I wish I could
tell her so."

She could scarcely tear her eyes from the portrait, though she feared to
let her interest be observed, lest it should unjustly be put down to
vulgar curiosity. And when the old man who conducted them, having met and
answered a quick glance from his mistress, invited the visitors to
continue their tour of inspection, Virginia left her thoughts behind in
the room of the portrait, walking as in a dream through the series of
lofty, half-dismantled apartments which still remained to be visited.

She hoped that, when they should see their hostess again for the promised
leave-taking, it would be in the same room as before. But she was doomed
to disappointment. Mademoiselle met the party in the great hall, and,
hearing from George Trent that his sister thought seriously of buying the
château, gave them the address of an estate agent in Mentone.

Virginia was not a self-centred girl, and at any other time she would
have been surprised at the encouragement given to this new whim of hers
by her half-brother; she would have sought some underlying cause, for
George Trent--who was her mother's son by a first marriage--was nearly
five years older than she, and rather piqued himself upon influencing
her to ways of wisdom. But now, though he extolled the charms of the
Château de la Roche, and made light of the expenses of restoration, as
they rode down the avenue under the olive trees, Virginia was too much
occupied with the mystery of the house and the portrait's original to
observe the young man's manner. It did not escape Lady Gardiner's
observation, however, and her thoughts were troubled.

She was thirty-six and George Trent was ten years younger; but she
confessed to twenty-nine, and really did not look more, except when
certain worries, which she usually kept in the background, pressed
heavily upon her. For a year, ever since Virginia had left America for
England and the Continent, she had lived with the sister and brother, and
had been reaping a harvest almost literally of gold and diamonds. She did
not want Virginia to marry and free herself from chaperonage; and if she
could not marry George Trent herself, since he was neither old enough nor
rich enough, she could not bear the thought that he might forget his
passing admiration for her, and fall seriously in love with some one
else.

She, too, was curious concerning mademoiselle and her past, but with a
very different curiosity from Virginia's, and she determined to learn the
story of the Dalahaides and their château above the Valley of the Shadow.
She did not, however, wish to appear curious before Virginia or her
brother, and hoped that the American girl, with her wonted audacity,
would at once approach the topic when they had rejoined Sir Roger Broom
and the Marchese Loria. But Virginia asked no questions, contenting
herself with answering those of her cousin, which for some reason
confined themselves entirely to the château. Lady Gardiner was sure,
since he admitted having known the Dalahaides, that, being human, Roger
would have liked to hear something of the girl who lived there like
Mariana in the Moated Grange; and it would have been interesting to know
why he refrained from mentioning her.

As they rode through the valley, dark and sad now, in the chill of its
early dusk, she brought her horse to Virginia's side in so narrow a
defile of the road that Roger, who was with the girl, dropped behind.

"Have you noticed that the Marchese hasn't asked us a single question
about your château?" she remarked. "He is a changed man since we came
into this valley. I wonder if there was ever anything between him and
that tragic-looking girl up there? Perhaps Sir Roger knows, and that's
the reason he didn't speak of her."

"Perhaps," echoed Virginia listlessly, and Kate Gardiner said no more.

An odd restraint seemed to have settled on the whole party, which had
started out so gaily in the sunshine. Each one was sunk deep in his or
her own thoughts, as if the twilight had touched them with its delicate
melancholy.

They were stopping at the Cap Martin hotel, high on the hill in its
beautiful garden, and among its pines; and there was a dance that night,
for which Virginia had promised Loria several waltzes; but she complained
that the ride had tired her.

Instead of dancing she went after dinner to the private sitting-room
which she and Lady Gardiner shared, having quietly asked Roger Broom if
he would come to her there for a few minutes. He found her, not in the
room, but on the balcony, in floods of moonlight, which gave her beauty
an unearthly charm as she lay on a _chaise longue_, wrapped in an evening
cloak of white and silver brocade.

"You don't mind leaving the dance a little while--for me?" she asked.

Roger smiled his quiet, pleasant smile. "There's nothing in the world I
would mind leaving for you, Virginia," he said, "and I think you know
that very well."

"Sometimes I believe it's true. I should like to believe it to-night,"
she answered, "because I need your help. There's a secret, and I must
find it out."

As the girl spoke there was a slight sound in the room beyond the big,
open window.

"What's that?" exclaimed Roger. "Who is there?"

"Nobody," said Virginia. "It must be a log of olive-wood falling in the
fireplace."




CHAPTER II

THE STORY TOLD BY TWO


Roger waited. He knew that Virginia was gathering her forces together,
and that he might expect the unexpected.

"I want you to tell me all about that girl in mourning who lives at the
Château de la Roche," she said after a moment; "and what her brother
did."

Roger was slow in answering. "It's not a pleasant story for your ears. I
was sorry this afternoon that I had spoken even as freely as I did about
it before you. Loria took me to task rather, after you'd gone up to the
château, and he was right. By Jove! Virginia, I believe that if I'd said
nothing, the idea of buying the place would never have occurred to you."

"Perhaps not," she admitted. "But it _has_ occurred to me, and once I
have an idea in my head I keep it tenaciously--as all my long-suffering
friends know to their sorrow. Will you go to-morrow to the agent whose
address I have and make inquiries?"

"Certainly, if you wish."

"Oh, you think if no one thwarts me, I'll get over the fancy. But I
won't! I'm going to have that château among the olive trees for mine if
it costs me fifty thousand pounds (which it won't, I know), even if I
only live in it for one month out of five years. The thing is, to feel
it's my own. So now, you see, as the place is practically my property,
naturally I'd like to know something of the people who have been its
owners."

"I don't see why. When one buys a house one doesn't usually agitate
oneself much about the family history of one's predecessors."

"Roger, you know this is different. I want you and no one to else tell
me. Still, if you won't----"

"Oh, if you insist you must be gratified, I suppose, up to certain
limits. What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"H'm! Rather too large an order, my child. However, to begin with, the
Dalahaides of the Château de la Roche were English in the last
generation, but the family is of French origin. When the last member of
the French branch died, a banker in London was the next heir. He gave the
château and the Dalahaide house in Paris as a wedding present to his son,
who was about to be married. The bride and bridegroom came over on their
honeymoon, and took such a fancy to the château that they made their home
there, or rather between it and the old house in Paris. This young couple
had in time a son, and then a daughter. Perhaps you saw the daughter
to-day?"

"Yes, it was she. You didn't ask me about her before."

"No; the fact is, I thought that further conversation on the subject
would be too painful for poor Loria. You must have seen that he was
upset."

"I couldn't help seeing. But go on."

"Well, the father and mother and their two children were a most devoted
family. They were all handsome and clever and popular, and if they were
not millionaires, they were extravagant, for they gave delightful
entertainments here and in Paris, and their purses were open for any one
who wished to dip in his fingers.

"The son Maxime, always called Max, inherited his father's generous,
reckless, extravagant ways. He was drawn into the fastest set in Paris,
and lost a lot of money at baccarat. That wouldn't have mattered much,
perhaps, if at the same time some large investments of the father's
hadn't gone wrong and crippled the family resources. Then, as misfortunes
generally come in crowds, there was a slight earthquake along this part
of the coast, and the château was partly ruined, as you saw to-day, for
they were not able then to have it restored. 'Next year,' they said; but
there was no next year for the Dalahaides. Only a few months after the
first two blows came the third, which was to crush the family for ever.
Max Dalahaide was accused of murder, tried, and condemned."

"What--he is _dead_, then? I thought you said--I----" Virginia's heart
gave so sudden and violent a bound that she stammered, and grew red and
white under the revealing moonlight. She was thinking of the
portrait--seeing it again, looking into the eyes which had seemed to
speak. Dead! Executed as a murderer! The thought was horrible; it stifled
her.

"No, he is not dead," answered Roger gravely; "at least, if he is I
haven't heard of it. But--if he still exists--one can't call it
living--he must have wished a hundred times a day to die and be out of
his misery. Perhaps death has come to him. It might, and I not have
known; for from out of the pit which has engulfed him, seldom an echo
reaches the world above."

"Roger, you frighten me! What do you mean?" the girl exclaimed.

"Forgive me, child. I forgot for a moment, and was thinking aloud. I
don't often forget you, do I? I said to-day that Max Dalahaide was dead
in life. That is true. Family influence, the tremendous eloquence of a
man engaged to plead his cause, the fact that Max insisted upon his
innocence, while the evidence was entirely circumstantial, saved him from
the guillotine, which I believe he would have preferred, in his
desperation. He was sent to that Hades upon earth, New Caledonia, a
prisoner for life."

"But--he was _English_!"

"No. His parents had been English, but he, having been born in France,
was a French subject. He had even served his time in the army. Naturally
he was amenable to French law; and he is buried alive in Noumea, the most
terrible prison in the world."

"And he was innocent!"

Roger, who had been gazing out over the sea, turned a surprised look upon
Virginia.

"No! He was not innocent," he said quickly. "Everything proved his guilt.
It is impossible that he should have been innocent."

"His sister believed in him."

"Yes, his sister. What does that prove? The father thought him guilty,
and killed himself. As for the mother--who knows? At all events, she
died--broken-hearted. Every penny the family possessed, after their great
losses, went for Maxime's defense; but, except that his life was saved,
it was in vain."

"You knew him--he was your friend--yet you believed in his guilt?"

"I hardly knew him well enough to call myself a friend. I admired him,
certainly Max Dalahaide was the handsomest, wittiest, most fascinating
fellow I ever met. Neither man nor woman could resist him, if he set out
to conquer. Loria and he were like brothers; yet Loria thought with the
rest of the world. He can't be blamed for disloyalty, either, for really
there was nothing else to think, if one used one's reason."

"If he had been _my_ friend, I would not have used my reason!" exclaimed
Virginia. "What is the use of reason, when one has instinct?--and that is
never wrong. But it is good of you to defend the Marchese, for I know you
don't like him."

"Don't I?" echoed Roger. "If I don't, I'm afraid it is because you _do_.
You won't have me, dear; you've told me that, and I don't mean to bother
you again; but I'm weak enough to be jealous when I think there's danger
of your saying 'Yes' to anybody else."

"I don't know that there is any such danger in this case," said Virginia.
"But the Marchese is very handsome, and rather romantic, and he sings
like an angel. Oh, yes, I am almost in love with him when he sings--or I
was till yesterday. And how he dances! It's poetry. When I am waltzing
with the Marchese Loria I invariably make up my mind that I will accept
him next time he asks. Then, afterward, something holds me back. To-day,
in that valley of shadows, he affected me quite differently. It was as
if--as if the shadows had shut down between us. I saw him in the shadow,
his features changed--repellent. As the French say, he 'made me horror.'
Yet I didn't know why. Now I begin to understand. It was my precious
instinct warning me, saying: 'This man is disloyal. Don't trust him.'"

"You are unjust," said Roger. "I should like to let you misjudge him, but
I can't be a bounder, you know. He really behaved extremely well in the
Dalahaide affair. The man couldn't believe, against a mountain of
evidence; nevertheless, he did what he could for his friend, guilty as he
thought him. All this happened four years ago, when you were a demure
little schoolgirl--if you ever _could_ have been demure!--in your own
Virginia, not allowed even to hear of, much less read, the great
newspaper scandals of the moment. I can't remember every detail of the
affair, but it was said to be largely through Loria's efforts that Max
was saved from capital punishment for his crime."

"You haven't told me yet what that crime was."

"Yes. I have said it was murder."

"Ah! but that is only a crude statement. I ask for the story."

"You won't have it from me, my child," answered Roger coolly. "I'm not a
sensation-monger. It was a horrid affair, and one doesn't talk of such
things to little girls. You know all from me that you will know. Buy
your château, if you choose. You've money enough to squander on twenty
such toys and not miss it. No doubt poor Madeleine Dalahaide will be
benefited by the exchange--her castle for your money. Fortunate for her,
perhaps, that she is the last of the French Dalahaides, and has the right
to sell the château."

"You will tell me nothing more?"

"Nothing."

"Then I will tell _you_ one thing. I believe that the man was innocent. I
have seen his portrait. I have seen his sister. That is enough for me.
But what you will not tell me I shall learn for myself, and then--and
then--you shall see what you shall see."

       *       *       *       *       *

Virginia slept restlessly that night. In her dreams she was always in the
Valley of the Shadow, striving to find her way out into the sunlight; and
sometimes the valley seemed but the entrance to that bottomless pit of
shame where Maxime Dalahaide was entombed. She awoke from a dream
forgotten, in a spasm of cold fear, before it was dawn, and switching on
the electric light near the bed, she drew her watch from under the
pillow. It was just six o'clock; and for a few moments Virginia lay
still, thinking over the events of yesterday. After all, what did they
mean for her? Nothing, said Reason; everything, said a Voice to which she
could give no name.

Suddenly her heart began to beat quickly with the excitement of a strange
thought that seemed to spring out of herself, and then turn to face her.
It pushed the girl from her bed, and she rose, shivering; for even here
at Cap Martin it was cold in the early morning before the vivid sun had
warmed the air.

She was used to lying in bed until a fire of fragrant pine cones and
olive wood crackled on the hearth, and her own maid had filled the bath
in the bathroom adjoining. But now she bathed in the cold, dressing
herself in her riding-habit, and even arranging her hair without help. By
seven her toilet was made, and, turning off the electric light, she found
that the sky was pink and golden with the winter sunrise.

The girl rang for coffee, and ordered her horse to be ready. She and Kate
Gardiner never met before ten o'clock, at earliest; thus three hours
would pass before any one save her maid would begin to wonder where she
was; and for the maid she would leave a line of explanation, mentioning
that she had gone out on business, and that nothing was to be said unless
Lady Gardiner inquired.

Virginia had a ride of nearly two hours before she could reach the
destination she had planned; but neither the fresh air, the beauty of the
scene, nor the exercise which she loved, could calm the fever in her
blood. It was as if some power stronger than herself pushed her on; and
though she had always been too healthy in mind and body to suffer from
superstition, she now believed, half fearfully, that such an influence
had possession of her.

"What is the matter with me?" she asked. "I am no longer myself. It is as
if I were only an instrument in hands that use me as they will. Why do I
go this morning to the Château de la Roche? I don't know. I don't know
what I shall say to excuse myself when I am there. Yet, somehow, the
words will come to me--I feel it."

For it was to the château above the Valley of the Shadow that she was
going.

When she reached the gates, half-way up the slope of the wooded hill
which the whole party had climbed together yesterday, suddenly the
nervous exaltation that had carried her courageously so far, broke like a
violin string too tightly drawn. She was horrified at her own boldness.
She half turned back; then, setting her lips together, she slipped down
from her saddle and opened the gate.

This morning no slim, black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of
neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three
stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker
on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty
spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She
said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the
last summons she would take it as a sign that she ought not to have
come, and she would steal away. But just as the limit of time she
mentally set had passed, and she was in the act of turning from the door,
it opened.

The servant who had guided Virginia and her friends through the house the
day before appeared, his pale, dignified old face showing such evident
signs of surprise that the American girl, who had never flinched before
any one or anything, stammered and blushed as she asked for Mademoiselle
Dalahaide.

The old man politely ushered her in, but he was unable to hide his
embarrassment. Mademoiselle should be informed at once, if she were at
home, but, in fact, it was possible---- He hesitated, and Virginia saw
well that he prepared a way of escape for his young mistress in case she
wished to avoid the unexpected caller.

"Pray tell mademoiselle that--that----" Virginia began. She had meant to
finish by saying that her business was urgent. But--supposing when she
found herself face to face with the girl in black, the fugitive desires
which had dragged her here refused to be clothed in coherent words?

As the servant waited respectfully for the end of the message, a door
which Virginia remembered as leading into the family chapel suddenly
opened. Mademoiselle Dalahaide came slowly out, her head bent, her long
black dress sweeping the stone floor of the hall in sombre folds. She did
not see the stranger at first; but a faint ejaculation from the lips of
the old Frenchman caused the dark head to be quickly raised.

The eyes of the two girls met. Mademoiselle Dalahaide drew back a little,
her tragically arresting face unlighted by a smile. She looked the
question that she did not speak; but she gave the American no greeting,
and there was something of displeasure or distrust in her level,
searching look.

The moment which Virginia had dreaded, yet sought for, had come. All
self-consciousness left her. She went to meet the other in an eager,
almost childlike way.

"Do forgive me," she said in English. "I had to come. I could not sleep
last night. I got up before any one else was awake, because I--because I
wanted so much to see you, that I couldn't wait: and I wanted to come to
you alone."

Madeleine Dalahaide's faint frown relaxed. Virginia in that mood was
irresistible, even to a woman. Still the girl in black did not smile. She
had almost forgotten that it was necessary and polite to force a smile
for strangers. She had been so much alone, she and sorrow had grown so
intimate, that she had become almost primitively sincere. The ordinary,
pleasant little hypocrisies of the society in which she had once lived
during what now seemed another state of existence, no longer existed for
her.

Nevertheless, she was not discourteous. "You are kind to have taken this
trouble," she said. "It is something about the château, no doubt--some
questions which perhaps you forgot to ask yesterday?"

The old man, who understood not a word of English, had discreetly and
noiselessly retired, now that fate had taken the management of the
situation from his hands. The two girls were alone in the great hall, the
chapel door still open behind Madeleine Dalahaide, giving her a
background of red and purple light from a stained-glass window.

"No," Virginia answered. "If I said that business about the château
brought me, it would be merely an excuse. It would make things easier for
me in beginning, but--I wish to say to you only things that are really
true. I came because--because I want to help you."

The white oval of the other's face was suddenly suffused with scarlet.
The dark head was lifted on the slender throat.

"Thank you," she said coldly. "But I am not in need of help. If that is
your reason for thinking of buying this house, I beg----"

"But it is not my reason. What can I say that you won't misunderstand?
There is one whom you love. Just now you were praying for him in that
chapel. I know it. You were praying to God to help him, weren't you? What
if I should be an instrument sent you to be used for that purpose?"

The tragic eyes stared at the eager, beautiful face, dazed and
astonished.

Virginia went on, not seeming to choose her words, but letting them flow
as they would.

"I know how you have suffered. It is only a little while that I have
known, but it seems long, very long. I have seen _his_ portrait, and
partly I came up to tell you this morning that I believe in his
innocence; partly that, but most of all I came to say that he must be
saved."

"Saved?" echoed Madeleine Dalahaide. "But that is not possible. Only
death can save him now."

Neither had uttered a name; neither was aware that it had not been spoken
by the other. For Madeleine always, for Virginia in this hour, one name
rang through the world. There was no need to give it form. And,
strangely, Madeleine was no longer surprised at Virginia's mission.
Perhaps, indeed, she believed her an incarnate answer to prayer; and in a
moment all conventionalities had crumbled to pieces at their feet.

"Why do you say that?" cried the American girl. "Prisoners are released
sometimes."

"Not life-prisoners at Noumea," replied the other; and the answer fell
desolately on Virginia's ear. Yet the thought, lit into life by her own
words, as a flame is lighted by striking a match, had given her courage
which would not die.

"Then he will be the first," she said. "I have been thinking. Oh! it has
all been very vague--a kind of dream. But now I see everything clearly.
Time unravels mysteries not easily solved at first. His innocence must be
proved. Powerful friends shall give all their thoughts, all their
ingenuity----"

"We have no friends," Madeleine answered bitterly.

"You have one friend. You have me."

Then at last a sense of the strangeness of this scene rushed in a wave
over the consciousness of the lonely dweller in the castle.

"I don't understand," she said slowly. "Yesterday we had never met. I
only knew your name because you spoke of buying this poor, sad home of
mine. I----"

"Neither do I understand," broke in Virginia. "But I have never
understood myself. I only know that this seems to be the thing I was born
for. And if I fail in what I want to do for you and yours, why, I shall
have come into the world for nothing, that is all."

"But you are wonderful!" exclaimed Madeleine Dalahaide, realizing with
sudden force the other's extreme beauty and strong magnetism. "Did
you--is it possible that you ever knew my brother?"

"I never heard his name till yesterday. But I have seen you, I have seen
this house, I have heard something of the story, and--I have seen his
portrait. Nobody told me, of course, that it was his; nobody could. But I
knew at once. And I wondered how any one who had ever known him could
have believed that--that----"

"Don't be afraid to say it. Believed that he was a murderer. Oh,
friends--_friends_! Friendship is a flower that withers with the first
frost."

"You shan't have cause to think that of me--if you are going to take me
for a friend."

"I shall thank heaven for you. Even if you can do nothing, to think that
there is one human being in the world besides my poor aunt and me who
believe in him, is like balm on an open wound. Come with me into the room
where you saw the portrait. I painted it the year before--the end. I talk
to it sometimes, and for a moment I almost forget the horrible
truth--when the eyes smile back at me just as they used to do when we had
some joke together."

"As they will again," finished Virginia.

They went into the room of the portrait and stood before it in silence.
Each one felt that its look was for her.

"And yet," Madeleine said, as if answering a question, "there must be
some one who thinks of us, and remembers us with kindness, giving _him_
at least the benefit of a doubt; some one who talked to you of Max and
told you the story of--of his so-called crime in such a way as not to
fill your mind with horror."

"No one has told me the story yet," hesitated Virginia. "I have only
heard hints. They said--the word--_murder_! But that is not the face of
a murderer. How could any one believe it?"

"You don't know--the story?"

Virginia shook her head.

"When you know it, you will turn away from us, as every one else has."

"No--no! Be sure I will not."

"How can I be sure? Ah, almost all the solace of hope has gone now! You
will hear the horrible details, and--that will be the end."

Virginia caught the slender, cold fingers that twisted together
nervously. "Tell me yourself," she cried. "Tell me all--you, his sister.
Then you will see how I shall bear it, and whether I shall fail you."

"I will!"

Madeleine Dalahaide's breath came unevenly. For a moment she could not
speak. Then she began, her eyes not on Virginia, but on the portrait.

"There was a woman," she said in a low, choked voice. "She was an
actress. Max was in love with her, or thought he was. She was handsome.
I have seen her on the stage. Other men besides Max were mad about her.
But she seemed to care for him. He wanted to marry her, and when father
and mother didn't approve, he quarrelled with them, for the first time in
his life. We had always been so happy before that--so united. Everything
began to go wrong with my poor Max then. He played cards at his club, and
lost a great deal of money. And as if that were not enough, father's
losses came. He could do nothing for Max. Besides, the woman Max loved
made him jealous. He suspected that she cared for somebody else. He told
me that the last time I saw him before--the terrible thing happened. But
he didn't tell the man's name. Perhaps he didn't know him. We had a long
talk, for I had been his friend and confidante through all. I didn't want
him to marry the woman; but even that would be better than to have him
miserable, as he said he must be without her. And it was the next night
that the murder was committed. But it was not known until the day
after."

"Was it--the man of whom he was jealous who was murdered?"

"No, the woman, Liane Devereux. She had been shot--in the face. Oh, it
was horrible! It is horrible now to talk to you of it. Her features were
so destroyed that she could be recognized only by her hair, which was
golden-red, and her figure--her beautiful figure which all the world
admired so much. Even her hands--she must have held them up before her
face, the poor creature, instinctively trying to save herself, to
preserve her beauty, for they, too, were shattered. Her jewels were all
gone, and she had had many jewels. Soon the police discovered that they
had been pawned. And Max was accused of pawning them, to get money to pay
gambling debts."

"How could they accuse him of that?"

"He really had pawned them, at her request. She wanted money, and would
not listen to his objections to getting it in that way. He had pawned
them on the day of the murder, and still had the tickets, which he had
forgotten to enclose with the money for the jewels, when he sent it to
Mademoiselle Devereux. She had asked him to pawn the things in his name,
so that hers could be protected, and, of course, that went dreadfully
against Max. He couldn't possibly prove, when the woman was dead, that he
had pawned the jewels for her, because the money he had raised had
disappeared. He would have taken it to her himself, but on returning to
his own flat from the pawnbroker's he received a strange letter saying
that she hated him, and never wished to see him again. It was all quite
sudden, and Max was angry. Still, he might have gone, insisting that she
should tell him what she meant by such a letter, but he had arranged a
hurried journey to England. They arrested him on the way. He was going
there in the hope of borrowing some money from his godfather, a cousin of
ours, who had told Max that if at any time he should be in difficulties
he must apply to him. But what proof had Max of his own intentions? Every
one thought that he was escaping to England to hide himself, after having
committed a cowardly murder.

"There were other bits of evidence against him, too; for instance, the
revolver with which the woman was shot was his, with a silver monogram on
it. Everybody--even the best of his friends--believed him guilty. And
father--poor father!--but I can't talk about that part. It is too cruel.
Oh, you are pale, and changed! I knew it would be so. You are like the
rest. But how could I expect anything else when you have heard such a
story? Everything against him--nothing in his favour. Even Max himself
was dazed. Over and over again he said that he had no explanation to give
of the mystery."

"There is only one explanation, since he was innocent--and I'm as sure of
that as before," said Virginia firmly. "It was a diabolically clever
plot, planned with fiendish ingenuity, to ruin your brother--all your
family, perhaps."

"Hundreds of times I have thought of that," sighed Madeleine Dalahaide.
"Many, many times I spoke of it to the man who defended Max at his trial.
But there was no one it would be reasonable to suspect. We had
absolutely no enemy. Max had none. Everybody adored him--in his happy
days."

"The man whom Liane Devereux loved better than your brother?"

"Ah, but you must see, as the advocate saw, that if she loved the other
better he had no motive either to kill the woman or ruin Max. Where there
had been no injury, there need be no revenge. And if Max knew who the man
was he never told his name."

"There was nobody--_nobody_ who had a right to think himself injured by
your brother, even long before?"

"Not by my brother, so far as we could find out. The theory of a plot was
advanced, of course, and--and I clung to it; but it fell to the ground.
There seemed nothing to support it."

"And yet, from the way you speak, I can't help thinking that you suspect
some one."

"Oh, _I_! But I am only a woman. I was a very young girl then. Every one
I spoke to--even Max--thought my idea a mad one, and said it would do our
case far more harm than good to have it mentioned."

"Tell me, won't you, what it was?"

Madeleine hesitated. "I dare not," she answered. "My reason says that the
thing is impossible. If I wrong the man, it would be shameful to create a
prejudice in your mind against one, no doubt a stranger to you, but whom
you might one day meet, and, meeting, remember my words. Besides, it can
do no good to speak. It would be hopeless to prove anything against him,
even if his hand had been in a plot."

"Yet you said that your brother had no enemy?"

"This man was _my_ enemy. It had not always been so. Once we were
friends. But--something happened, and afterward I think he hated me."

"Is it possible that you are speaking of the Marchese Loria?"

The question sprang from Virginia's lips before she had stopped to
reflect whether it were wise to ask it, and she was terrified at the
effect of her impulsive words.

Madeleine Dalahaide's pale, sad face became ashen, her great eyes
dilated, and there was something of fear, perhaps even of distrust, in
the look she turned upon Virginia.

"You know him?" she exclaimed, her voice suddenly sharp.

"Yes," admitted the American girl.

"Then I think that you and I cannot be friends."

"Not friends? But if I give up the Marchese Loria for you?"

"I do not ask or wish you to do that."

"If he is your enemy he shall not be my friend."

"I have not said he was my enemy."

"I have heard that he loved your brother dearly."

"Perhaps."

"And yesterday----"

"What of yesterday?"

"He was with us when we rode into the valley. He turned pale, and begged
not to come, because the place, he said, was connected with a great
sorrow in his life."

"He would not meet me face to face! Did _he_ suggest that you should try
to save my brother?"

"No, he did not speak his name before me. He does not know what is in my
mind. No one knows yet but you. It was my cousin, Roger Broom, who met
you long ago, and told me that the Marchese Loria had done much to save
your brother's life."

"It may be that he did. I don't deny it. But if you are to be my friend I
ask you this: say nothing of Maxime Dalahaide to Loria."




CHAPTER III

A MYSTERY AND A BARGAIN


Lady Gardiner stood at Virginia's door, remained for a moment undecided,
then tapped gently. The girl's voice answered "Come in!" and Kate obeyed.

Virginia sat at a small writing-table in a window reading a book; but at
sight of Lady Gardiner she snatched up a paper and hastily laid it over
the volume. "Oh, I thought it was George," she exclaimed, blushing
brilliantly. "He has asked me to take a walk."

"Now," thought Kate, "what has that book she's hiding from me to do with
the mystery that's been going on for the past three days?" but aloud, she
said, without appearing to notice the hurried movement or the tell-tale
blush: "I came to ask if you would go down to town with me for a little
shopping."

"I'm afraid I can't," Virginia answered. "You see--er--I promised
George."

"Perhaps he wouldn't mind if we arranged for him to meet us in about an
hour; and we might all three have tea together at Rumpelmayer's."

Virginia looked embarrassed, which was unusual for her. "We didn't think
of going into Mentone," she said. "We shall just stroll about, for the
fact is, we've business to talk over."

"You seem to have had a great deal of business to talk over these last
few days, you and Mr. Trent and Sir Roger. Would it be indiscreet to ask,
dear child, if there has been any hitch about the purchase of your new
toy? Oh, don't look vexed--your château, then?"

"No, there's been no hitch. What made you think that?"

"Well, business talks are so new for you. A little while ago you fled
from the first hint of business. But now--you are very much changed these
last few days, since we went to the château, Virginia. I've been wanting
to speak to you about it. However, you are going out to walk, and I must
wait."

Virginia met her eyes firmly; yet the violet gaze was not quite as
frankly open and childlike as it used to be. "You needn't wait, if your
shopping can," she said. "Do sit down. I dare say it may be twenty
minutes before George comes for me. He's with Roger--somewhere."

"Yes, I saw them. Virginia, do you know, I've been rather unhappy for
several days?"

"I didn't know. I'm very sorry. Is it anything I've done?"

"Yes and no." Kate did not sit down, but perched on the arm of a big
cushioned chair between the writing-desk and the dressing-table. "You
see, dear," she went on in her softest voice, to which she could give a
pretty, tearful _tremolo_ at will, "I'm in rather a peculiar position.
You have been so sweet all this year and more that we've been together,
that I suppose you've spoilt me. I've forgotten often that I'm only a
paid chaperon, and have felt like a friend and confidante."

"Why, so you are," returned Virginia.

"Wait, dear; let me finish. I've told you my various troubles, and you've
told me things, too. Now, suddenly, everything is changed. Why, you even
sit in your bedroom, instead of in our sitting-room, or on the balcony
with me, as you used. You don't seem to want my society; you make excuses
if I suggest going anywhere. You and your brother and cousin are
continually getting away by yourselves and talking in whispers. Oh, I'm
not hurt. It isn't that. I'm not so thin-skinned and stupid. But I've
been thinking that perhaps I'd offended you, or you were simply tired of
me, and, being kind-hearted, didn't like to send me about my business.
You know, dear, if you would rather have any one else----"

"Oh, Kate, you _are_ stupid!" cried Virginia. "Of course I'm not tired of
you. We really have had business--not about the château. I--didn't mean
to tell you until things were more settled, but since you've been talking
like this, I will. I've discovered lately that I'm tired of the Riviera,
heavenly as it is here. We've been a month now----"

"I always told you that Monte Carlo was more amusing, while as for
Cannes----"

"But I've seen enough of the Riviera for a while."

"What about your château, then--your château in the olive woods that you
so adore?"

"That won't be ready until next winter. There's lots to be done.
And--I've set my heart on a yachting trip."

Kate Gardiner's face fell. She was a wretched sailor, and Virginia knew
it. Even the crossing from Dover to Calais was torture to her on a calm
day.

"A _long_ yachting trip?" she asked, controlling her voice.

"I don't quite know yet. Some weeks, perhaps. The only difficulty is
about you."

Kate did not answer for a moment. _Was_ this an excuse to get rid of her,
and if so, why? Could it be that Roger Broom had been warning Virginia
that her half-brother was in danger of making a fool of himself about a
woman many years his senior? A short time ago she might have believed
that this was the explanation, for Roger Broom knew a good deal about
Lady Gardiner. He was aware that her dead husband was but a city man,
knighted when he was sheriff; that she had been governess to the gruff
old widower's one daughter; that she had married him for his money, and
spent it freely until what remained was lost in a great financial panic;
that since then she had lived as she could, trading upon her own
aristocratic connections to chaperon girls, chiefly Americans, who wished
to see "English society from the inside." Roger knew her real age, or
something near it; he knew that she had been in debt when she had got
this chance with Virginia, to whom she had been recommended by an
American duchess; and as there was nothing against her character, he had
been too good-natured--as she would have expressed it--to "put a spoke in
her wheel." However, if he suspected designs upon George, he might not
have continued to be as discreet; but during these last three days of
mysterious confabs, George Trent had appeared as much changed toward her
as his half-sister had, so that Roger need have had no new fears for him.
George had never ceased to be courteous, but there was a subtle
difference in his manner, in his way of looking at her. He appeared
preoccupied; he no longer sought her out. And this alteration had only
come about since the day when they had visited the Château de la Roche.

Perhaps, then, it was George who was tired of her. He had never been the
same since he had seen that girl in black, with the tragic eyes and the
dead-white face, with no more life in it than a marble statue. Maybe he
was planning to attach that girl to the party in some way, and would find
the society of the woman with whom he had flirted a constraint.

At this thought Kate Gardiner felt her blood grow hot. It was unbearable
that she should be sent out of George Trent's life to make room for a
younger woman. She would not have it--she would not! If it killed her to
go on this hateful yachting trip she would go; she would not be whistled
down the wind.

"Oh, if the difficulty is only about me," she said sweetly, "it needn't
be a difficulty at all. I dare say I shall be ill for a few days, but it
can't last forever. I shall simply stop in my stateroom until I am fit
to lie in a deck-chair and be a more or less interesting invalid."

As she spoke she watched Virginia's face through half-lowered lashes, and
was certain that it changed. There could no longer be any doubt on that
subject. For some reason Virginia did not want her on the yacht.

"I should hate you to be a martyr," said the girl uncomfortably. "Roger
and I have been thinking it over, and I was wondering, in case we went
(nothing is actually decided yet), whether you would like to wait here. I
would keep on your room and the sitting-room, and the victoria, and you
should have my maid and your own horse. Your income would be the same as
always, of course; and you have a lot of friends here, so you wouldn't be
lonely."

"How sweet and thoughtful you are, dearest child!" exclaimed Kate
gratefully; while within she was saying, "Oh, so this is the game, is it?
Come now; at least you're showing your hand. Roger and you have been
'talking things over?' You seem to have thought out the details pretty
well; and I'm to be bribed. But it won't work, my love, it won't work."
She rose, and going to Virginia, took her hand, looking affectionately
down at the beautiful face. "You are always ready to sacrifice yourself
for me. But what would you do for a chaperon if I stopped behind?"

"Oh, you see, George and Roger and I would be all the party on board.
Surely George is chaperon enough?"

"Poor Marchese!" murmured Kate. "I'm afraid he also is suffering from an
eclipse."

"I don't know what you mean," said Virginia, her colour deepening. "Why
should he expect an invitation to go with us?"

"Ah! why? Unless, indeed, he had hopes that he was soon to be given some
rights over you. Only the other day I used to fancy that you and he were
half engaged."

"We never were. I--I found him rather interesting. But I don't think I
have behaved very badly. I really meant--oh, I don't know _what_ I meant
then; but I know I don't mean it now. The Marchese Loria is the _last_
person I should wish to have go on this yachting trip, and as it's only
us three, we'll chaperon each other."

"Can it be that she means to marry Roger Broom after all?" Kate Gardiner
asked herself. "To my certain knowledge, she's refused him. I heard him
reminding her of it the other night. But one never knows how many times a
girl may change her mind. The more I think of it the more determined I am
to be of the party on that yacht."

"Unless I should be one too many, I'd really love to go," said she aloud.
"I must get over my horror of the sea. Mayn't I be with you, dear, if you
have really made up your mind? I've grown so fond of you. I should feel
deserted here."

"Even for a few weeks?"

"Even for a few weeks. When you marry, or go home to the States, I must
lose you, but do let me be with you as long as I can."

"You shall go if you really wish to so much," said Virginia, trying in
vain not to appear constrained. "Only I warn you, you may find that
you've made a mistake."

"Why, how seriously you speak. One would think you meditated a voyage to
the North Pole. Probably, though, you'll simply linger about in the
Mediterranean; go to Naples, Greece, perhaps, and Egypt?"

"Something of the sort, I suppose," Virginia answered, dropping her eyes
and playing with the paper she had used to conceal her book. "It's rather
vague at present. Roger and George are looking for a yacht. We'll talk of
it again later. I only mentioned it now to show you that we've really had
business. And by the way, Kate, I'd rather you didn't say anything about
it yet to people outside. It seems like making it of so much importance
and I'd hate being asked three times a day: 'Well, when do you start on
that yachting trip?'"

"I shall be discreet, never fear," replied Kate, more sure than ever that
some mystery which she could not fathom hid itself under this new plan of
Virginia's. "And now for something else I wanted to ask you. Do, like a
dear, good girl, lend me ten pounds. You know how stupidly hard up I
always am. I'll pay it back in a few days."

Virginia was on her feet in an instant and at the dressing-table,
rummaging among scented laces and pretty odds and ends for the
gold-netted purse with "V. B." on it in brilliants. For a moment her back
was turned, and during that moment Kate Gardiner, standing close to the
desk which the girl had left noiselessly, raised a corner of the paper
and peeped underneath. The book which Virginia had been reading lay open.
It was French, and at the top of the page Kate saw the word "Noumea." She
dared look no longer, but let the paper drop, and had wheeled round with
her back to the desk just as Virginia found the purse.

"Thank you _so_ much," purred Lady Gardiner, who knew from experience
that Virginia would beg her not to give back the money, and that, with a
grateful kiss, and perhaps a tear or two, she would allow herself to be
persuaded.

At this instant there came a knock at the door leading into the
sitting-room, which Kate had left half-open on entering, and George Trent
appeared, looking excited and eager. His eyes fell upon Virginia, and he
began to speak before he had seen Lady Gardiner, standing at a little
distance and out of his view at the door.

"I say, Virgie," he exclaimed, "the most ripping piece of luck. We can
get hold of a steam yacht with four cannon--toys, but fit for work--only
you'll have to buy, not hire----"

He stopped short, a look passing between him and Virginia, quick as a
flash of light, yet not too quick to be seen by Kate.

"Good!" said the girl. "Well, we'll talk about it as we walk. Kate's
going shopping." Evidently she intended to change the subject, but Lady
Gardiner was not ready for another.

"Mercy! Are you fitting out as pirates?" she demanded, laughing.

George Trent flushed with annoyance under her unsparing eyes, but he
smiled carelessly and shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, you mean the cannon? They happen to be there. It wouldn't be worth
while to have the yacht dismantled. I think myself they'd give
distinction. It isn't everybody who goes yachting in such conditions."

"Indeed, no. I only wish we may have a chance to use them. Perhaps we
may, if we can get far enough up the Nile. You see, Virginia has told me
of the trip and promised that I may go. I hope you don't mind."

Of course George said that it would be charming to have her on board, and
he opened the sitting-room door when she went out, making the necessary
agreeable remarks about her shopping expedition. But when the door had
closed after Lady Gardiner, and Virginia had joined him in the
sitting-room, he was no longer smiling.

"So we're to have another passenger, are we?" he said in a low voice.

"She _says_ she wants to go, but she may change her mind. You know what a
wretched sailor she is. Perhaps even after starting she'll think better
of it and beg to be put off at the nearest port. I had to tell her about
the yacht, for she was so inquisitive concerning the business that has
occupied you and Roger and me for the past three days. But she has
promised not to say anything outside till she has permission."

"How much does she know?"

"Nothing at all, except that I'm tired of the Riviera and want to go
yachting somewhere--almost anywhere."

"Sure she doesn't suspect?"

"How could she?"

"Well, I suppose she couldn't. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't see
why we shouldn't trust her as if she were one of ourselves; a nice, jolly
little woman, with no harm in her. What motive could she possibly have
for blocking our game?"

"What, indeed? But you know I said so to Roger, and he vowed he'd have
nothing to do with it if any one knew except you and Madeleine Dalahaide
and me. He wouldn't hear of poor Kate's being told, though I assured him
one might trust her. It was all I could do to get him to promise us,
anyway."

"How _did_ you get him to, by the by? He poured whole cataracts of
ice-water on the scheme at first."

"I--I--suppose I wheedled."

"Virgie! I'll bet you said you'd marry him if he'd go in with us!"

"I didn't--exactly say I _wouldn't_."

"Poor old Roger! Shall you be cad enough to chuck him afterward?"

"Oh, I couldn't do that. I shall be so grateful to him for this, that I
shall feel no reward could be too great for him--that is, if we
_succeed_. He is a dear, kind fellow, and I have often made him unhappy.
I've always thought, somehow, that I should end by marrying him."

"Yet you've refused him three times."

"That was to put off the evil day."

"And you came jolly near accepting Loria."

"Did I really, do you think? It seems so long ago, I can hardly remember.
Anyway, everything is different now."

"I'm with you there. By Jove, what a funny world it is! What will Roger
say when he hears that Kate Gardiner is bent on going? If he consents to
her being on board, I don't see why he should go on refusing to take Miss
Dalahaide."

"That's not the same thing at all. One can never do things quite
secretly. They always leak out. Already it has got into the papers
somehow--I suppose through that stupid agent--that I have bought the
Château de la Roche, and interest has been revived in the Dalahaide
story. It's so unfortunate that people should begin to talk again just
now! And then if, on top of all this, should come the news that we'd
taken Madeleine Dalahaide off with us on a mysterious yachting
expedition, what would be said? Roger is quite right."

"It seems cruel that she should be left out of it."

"It would be more cruel to have her in, and perhaps ruin everything. She
feels that herself though, of course, it's hard. Still, think how awful
for her if--we _failed_! But I will not think of that. There's no such
word as fail!"

"According to Roger, there's no such word as success. He's absolutely
hopeless, and is only going into the adventure to please you--to _win_
you, perhaps. And, by Jove, it _will_ be an adventure!"

"Tell me about the yacht you've heard of."

They went out together, walking among the pine trees surrounding the
hotel; and meanwhile Kate Gardiner had driven into the bright little
town of Mentone, with its background of mountains, its foreground of
blue-green sea. In the neighbourhood of the shops, she sent away her
victoria, which was to pick her up at Rumpelmayer's at five o'clock. She
was charmingly dressed, and had secured ten pounds with which to buy an
exquisite antique Italian watch which had taken her fancy a day or two
before; never had there been so little need to worry about the future
from a pecuniary point of view; still, Kate was not happy. She had lost
interest in the watch, lost interest in her shopping expedition
altogether, and was lingering outside the jeweler's wondering whether she
should spend the ten pounds as she had planned or not, when a man's voice
at her shoulder made her turn. It was the Marchese Loria; and Lady
Gardiner noticed, as the sun streamed full into his face when he took his
off hat, that he looked sallow and haggard.

He was staying at the Cap Martin also, but they had not seen each other
that day, and now it struck Kate that he was surprisingly changed since
the afternoon when they had so gaily ridden off to find the Valley of the
Shadow. She was certain that, for some reason which puzzled her sorely,
Loria had completely lost his chance with Virginia, and because his
interests no longer threatened her own, she felt more friendly toward
him. They both seemed to be rather left out in the cold, and she found
herself suddenly sympathizing with the Italian.

He was quick to note the unusual cordiality of her smile, and was curious
as to its motive, for Loria knew that Lady Gardiner was one of the few
women who never act without one; and he had been fully aware that she did
not favour his cause with Virginia Beverly.

"Has something in this window caught your fancy?" he inquired, stopping
and joining her.

Kate pointed to a serpent belt, crusted with diamond scales,
emerald-eyed, and having its open mouth lined with rubies. "Isn't that
lovely?" she asked. "An antique, of course; everything is in this window.
I daren't look at it. It's far beyond my means."

"I'm thinking of buying it myself," said Loria calmly. "I mean to give it
to a woman I know, as a little souvenir of my gratitude for very great
kindness."

"Lucky woman!" exclaimed Kate enviously, for she really wanted the
diamond snake. "She must have done you some tremendous favour to have
earned that."

"She hasn't done anything yet. But I hope she will. I hope very much that
she will tell me certain things I'm anxious to know, and afterward help
me, if necessary, to make use of the knowledge. I wonder if she will do
it?"

There was now a meaning in his voice which could not be mistaken. Kate
looked up quickly and met his eyes. For, a long instant they gazed at
each other, then she said: "I think the woman would be foolish if she
didn't."

"Will you come with me when I buy the thing?" asked Loria.

Kate smiled and flushed faintly through the white rose balm which gave an
illusion of youth. They went in, and Loria asked to be shown the serpent
belt from the window.

A very old man, an Italian, brought the glittering thing and laid it on a
piece of black velvet, which he spread as a background on the counter.

"It is only two thousand francs," he announced, "and it has a history.
Perhaps I am indiscreet to mention it, but it may add to the interest,
and I see that the illustrious Signor is a countryman of my own. This
jewel was an heirloom in a very ancient family; but great misfortunes
overtook them some years ago. The heir was accused of crime, and banished
for life to Noumea. They were forced to sell everything of value."

Loria was ghastly. With an instinctive gesture of horror, he pushed the
velvet away, not touching the serpent and averting his eyes.

"Let us choose something else," he said hoarsely to Lady Gardiner. But
she was merciless. He had as much as offered her the belt, and she would
not give it up easily.

"There is nothing else half as pretty or quaint," she said. "I think this
bit of history makes it all the more interesting."

Loria did not look again at the serpent glittering on its black velvet
cushion, but, having hesitated for a barely perceptible space, he
abruptly ordered the jeweler to send the belt to his hotel, where it
would be paid for on delivery. Kate decided that, as she was in such a
vein of luck, she would have the watch she fancied, and keep the Marchese
while she made the purchase. Half maliciously she said to the shopkeeper:
"I suppose this pretty thing has no such story as the other?"

"Rather strangely, madame has chosen another heirloom disposed of by the
same family," returned the man, as he placed the old blue-enameled watch
in a box filled with pink cotton. It seemed as if Fate persisted in
linking them with these Dalahaides!

Loria did not speak, but Kate's observant eyes saw that the gloved hand
nearest her closed tightly on the stick it held. A moment later she had
paid for her purchase, and they were out in the street again.

"You look very down," she remarked. "I believe you must have been losing
a lot at Monte, and that a little sympathy and good advice would do you
good. I meant to go to Rumpelmayer's presently, but suppose we go now and
have tea together?"

Neither he nor she had said in so many words that there was to be a
bargain between them; but Loria understood what the suggestion of a
tête-à-tête at Rumpelmayer's meant, and augured well of Kate's genuine
good-will, by her readiness to give the opportunity he wanted.

She was curious, he labouring under suppressed excitement, and they did
not speak much as they walked. At the confectioner's Loria chose a table
in a corner, far from the few early customers who had already arrived. It
was not yet four o'clock, and the rooms would not begin to be crowded for
half an hour. In that time much could be said, much, perhaps, planned for
the future.




CHAPTER IV

THE CLOSED DOOR


The Marchese Loria ordered tea, and the two newly made allies pretended
to have no important more business than eating and drinking. But certain
that nobody was within hearing distance, Loria squandered little time in
frivolities. At any moment some one they knew might come in and interrupt
their talk.

"You said that I looked 'very down,'" he began abruptly. "That is cool
English for broken-hearted, no doubt. I'm half mad, I think, Lady
Gardiner. For four nights I haven't slept; for three days I've scarcely
eaten. You know why; there's no use in wasting words on explanation."

"You love her so much?" exclaimed Kate.

"I love her so much. You believe me?"

"Yes; for you have the reputation of being a rich man, and it can't be
all a bubble, or you wouldn't buy eighty-pound presents--for gratitude,
and rather premature gratitude at that."

"Ah! the gift hasn't been made yet."

"I fancy it will be made. And the principle is the same. You can't be a
fortune-hunter, like many agreeable, titled countrymen of yours whom I
have met."

"If a man began by seeking out Miss Beverly as a fortune-hunter, he would
end by being her lover. She is the most beautiful girl on earth, and--the
most maddening. I think I shall go mad if I am to lose her."

"How you Italians can love--and hate!"

"Yes, we can hate also, it is true. There is no half-way with us. Lady
Gardiner, I used to think that you disliked me; but to-day you are
different. I was as desperately in need of help as a drowning man, and I
caught at the new look of kindness in your eyes, as such a man catches at
a floating spar."

"Perhaps it was the appeal in your eyes that called out the answer in
mine," said Kate, half believing that she told the truth; for there was a
certain magnetic power in the man's passion, which was, at least,
sincere. "What help can I give you?"

"First of all, you can answer a few questions. What have I done to change
Miss Beverly so completely?"

"Frankly, I don't know. There's something odd going on--something which
interests her so much that she can think of nothing else."

"The change began on the day of--our ride. Our last ride! The last of
everything worth having, it has been for me. She was angry because I was
unwilling to go into--that valley. But afterward, when she learned how
intimately I had been associated with the people at the château there,
how could she blame me? I suppose she _did_ learn the story?"

"She learned something of it, I know, the night after we rode up the
valley. You remember there was a dance? I had left my fan in our
sitting-room, and ran up to find it. There was no light in the room, and
Virginia and Sir Roger were on the balcony. Of course, I didn't mean to
listen, but I couldn't find the fan at first, and I didn't like to
startle them by suddenly switching on the light, so I--er--I overheard a
little of the conversation. Sir Roger was telling her the story of that
unfortunate Maxime Dalahaide--why, Marchese, how you must have loved him!
The very mention of his name turns you pale."

"We were like brothers," said Loria in a low voice. "But go on. Did Sir
Roger Broom mention me in connection with the story?"

"Yes."

"The scoundrel! That explains all, then. This is your honourable English
gentleman, who traduces a man behind his back, to ruin him with the girl
they both love!"

"You do Roger Broom injustice. He defended you. Virginia thought that
your friendship was not worth much, since you believed Maxime Dalahaide
guilty, but Sir Roger assured her you had behaved exceedingly well."

"H'm! One knows what faint praise can do. Did he give her all the details
of that loathsome story?"

"No; he refused. I was rather sorry, as I was interested by that time.
Besides, I had wanted to know, and I couldn't think of any one it would
be convenient to ask, except Sir Roger or you."

"I wish he had told her all! If he had, she would never have wished to
hear of the Dalahaides again."

"You speak bitterly of your old friends."

"I? No, you misunderstand. I mean only that a girl--a stranger--would be
horrified if she could know the full details. It was a ghastly affair. I
loved Max, but there was no excuse for him--none. And it would be better
for Miss Beverly to have nothing to do with that family. They bring
unhappiness to all who come near them. It is as if they were under a
curse, which every one connected with them must share. I can't bear to
think that so black a shadow should darken _her_ sunlight. Already, you
see, she has changed. She goes once to the Château de la Roche, and the
spell falls upon her."

"I'm not sure that she hasn't been more than once," said Lady Gardiner.

"Ah! that was one of the things I wished to ask. You think so?"

"I don't know. The morning after we all went there she disappeared for
hours, and would say nothing except that she had slept badly, got up
early, and gone off for a ride. Whether Mr. Trent was with her or not I
can't tell but when I first saw her, after looking everywhere, they were
together, so absorbed in what they were saying that I believe if a
revolver had been fired within a dozen yards of them they would hardly
have heard it. At luncheon that same day, Sir Roger was telling me how he
had seen the agent, and found out about the château, as it appears she
had asked him to do--she has but to ask and to have, with him, you must
know!--and though she was pleased and interested to a certain extent,
still, she seemed to be thinking of something else."

"That _something else_! If I could find out what that was, I might know
who is taking her from me."

"I'm afraid it's not as simple an affair to unravel as that; for I can
tell you one of the things, at least, which was apparently occupying her
thoughts at the time, yet I can't quite see why or how it could have much
to do with you. You remember, perhaps, that you came while we were at
luncheon the day after our ride into the Valley of the Shadow, and
proposed that we should all go to Monte Carlo on your motor-car, that we
should spend the afternoon in the Casino, and dine with you at the Hôtel
de Paris? Virginia said that she had important letters to write, and
couldn't go; and her manner was rather distant."

"It chilled my heart."

"Well, she asked Sir Roger and Mr. Trent to come up to her sitting-room
after luncheon. Naturally, I was there too; I've been told to look upon
the room as my own. She did not tell what she had been doing in the
morning, but, wherever she had been, she had contrived to discover a good
deal more about the Dalahaide story than Sir Roger had been willing to
tell her the night before, and she announced boldly, that in spite of
everything, she believed Maxime Dalahaide was innocent. She demanded of
Roger--who has spent a good deal of time in France, you know, and is
supposed to be well up in French law--whether it wouldn't be possible to
have the case brought up again, with the best lawyers in the country,
expense to be no object. When Roger had shown her that the thing couldn't
be done, and there was no use discussing it, she wanted him to say that
by setting some wonderful detectives on the trail of the real criminal
the truth might be discovered, and the man unjustly accused brought home
in triumph from Noumea by a penitent Government. Sir Roger assured her
that was hopeless. That, in the first place, Maxime Dalahaide wasn't
innocent, and that, in the second place, even if he were, his innocence
would be still more impossible to prove after all these years than it
would have been at the time of the trial."

"What did she reply to that?"

"Nothing. She was silent and seemed impressed. She became very
thoughtful. Since then I have not heard her say one word of the
Dalahaides, except incidentally about the château, which she actually
means to buy, and have restored in time to come to it, if she likes, next
year. Now, I don't see why her interest in the Dalahaides, if she
continues to feel it, should interfere with her friendship for you."

Loria did not answer. He sat thinking intently, his dark eyes staring
unseeingly out of the window. At last he spoke. "Why--_why_ should she
interest herself in this cold-blooded murderer, whose best friends turned
from him in horror at his crime? Is it pure philanthropy? Has the sister
implored Miss Beverly to throw her money into this bottomless gulf? What
happened when you were at the château that day I never knew."

"We thought that the subject was disagreeable to you," said Kate. "We saw
and spoke with Miss Dalahaide, a pale, cold girl, dressed in black, with
a voice that somehow sounded--_dead_. She did not mention her brother,
and seemed so reserved that I should think it would be difficult to break
the ice with her. Indeed, she appeared very annoyed at the necessity for
showing us a little room with a life-size picture in it, which I fancied
must be a portrait of the brother."

A curious shiver passed through Loria's body.

"Miss Beverly saw that portrait?" he asked in a low, strained voice.

"Yes, and I noticed that she kept glancing at it again and again while we
stopped in the room. I suppose a morbid sort of curiosity regarding a
murderer is natural, even in a young girl, provided his personality is
interesting."

Once more Loria remained silent, his face set in hard lines.

"Such a man as Maxime Dalahaide must have been before his fall, would be
a dangerous rival," Lady Gardiner went on, with a spice of malice. She
was watching Loria as she spoke, and thrilled a little at the look in his
eyes as he turned them upon her. "Oh, these Italians!" she thought. "They
are so emotional that they frighten one. Their passions are like caged
tigers, and you never quite know whether the cage door is safely locked."

"Maxime Dalahaide will never be dangerous to any man again on this
earth--not even to himself, since the worst has happened to him that can
happen," answered Loria.

"Strange if, although he is buried in a prison-land at the other end of
the world, he might still, in a vague, dim way, be a rival to fear more
than another," Kate reflected dreamily. Aloud she went on: "It seems
ridiculous to say so, but I believe that Virginia is making a hero of
him. She has never seen this man--she never can see him; yet his
image--evolved from that portrait at the château which was his old
home--may blur others nearer to her."

"Great heavens! You believe that?"

"I merely suggest it. The idea only occurred to me at this moment. But
Virginia is certainly thinking of Maxime Dalahaide. To-day, she was
reading a French book about Noumea. She hid it when I came into the room;
but later I came across it by accident. Yes, she is thinking of him, but
it is only a girl's foolish, romantic fancy, of course--a spoilt child,
crying for the moon, because it's the one thing that no adoring person
can get for her. I shouldn't worry about it much, if I were you. Indeed,
perhaps she sees herself that she is not very wise, and wants to forget.
Now she has set her heart on a yachting trip; but you must not speak of
it to her or the others, for she asked me not to tell."

"She gives me little enough chance to speak of anything. A short time ago
she would not have cared for a yachting trip, unless I were to be of the
party. Now, I suppose, her wish is to be rid of me."

"Her wish is also to be rid of me."

"You are not to go?"

"Not if Virginia can make a decent excuse to leave me behind."

"Who, then, goes with her?"

"Her half-brother, and Sir Roger Broom. She isn't even going to take a
maid."

"Heavens! It is Sir Roger Broom, then, who will win her!"

"I don't know what to think. She has refused him; he is many years older
than she, and she has known him since she was a child, for Sir Roger went
often to America while her father--his cousin--was alive. Why should she
suddenly make up her mind to marry him? He was her guardian during her
minority, or what remained of it after her father's death; now she has
had her one-and-twentieth birthday, and is her own mistress. I fancied
that she intended to remain so for a time, unless she lost her head--or
her heart--and Sir Roger, nice as he is, is scarcely the man to make a
girl like Virginia Beverly do either. Still, I don't understand the
yachting trip. It is in every way mysterious; and since you have asked my
advice, it is this: find out where they are going, and appear there, as
if by chance. By that time our spoiled beauty's mind may have changed."

"Won't you tell me where they are going?"

"I would if I could." This was true, since Kate was sure that, change as
Virginia might, she would never return to her brief, ballroom fancy for
the Italian. "I hinted at Naples, Greece, and Egypt, and Virginia
answered that it would be 'something of the sort'--answered evasively,
saying nothing was decided yet; and so the conversation would have ended
if George Trent hadn't come bursting in, very excited, exclaiming before
he saw me that he'd got hold of exactly the right steam yacht, with _four
cannon_."

Loria started like a sensitive woman. "A yacht with four cannon! What can
they want with cannon?"

"I asked if they were fitting out for pirates, and Mr. Trent assured me
that the cannon being on board was a mere accident; they would not have
them removed, but they had no intention of making use of them. Still,
there's no doubt that there's some mystery behind this yachting
expedition. I can't make it out at all. Whether it is Mr. Trent's
plan----"

"But he would not wish to go without you."

"A few days ago, perhaps not. But others besides Virginia have changed.
That day when we rode up the Valley of the Shadow, as they call it, was
destined to be an eventful day for us all."

"You mean----"

"I mean that George Trent is a different man since he went to the Château
de la Roche."

A dark flush rose to Loria's forehead. "He met Madeleine Dalahaide?"

"One might think, from your expression and accent, that you were
jealous."

"One would think wrongly then. A man can't be in love with two women at
the same time."

"Can't he? I wasn't sure. Men are strange; perhaps there's something of
the dog in the manger about them, at times. At all events, George Trent
is much interested in the yachting trip, and he _doesn't_ want me to go.
Perhaps Miss Dalahaide is to be of the party; and in that case I should
be the odd woman. Not that it matters to me. George was pleasant to flirt
with but I should not marry again, unless I married money. Virginia's
great fortune comes from her father, George's step-father, who was
jealous of the mother's affection for the first husband's son, and
disliked him. George will accept nothing from Virginia, and has only what
his mother could leave him--a miserable five thousand dollars a year."

Loria scarcely listened. His level black brows were drawn together. "She
was reading a book about Noumea," he said slowly. "What if--no, it is
impossible--impossible!"

"What is impossible? If I am to help you, you must have no secrets from
me."

"She could not hope, if she went there, to see him. Bah! The bare thought
is monstrous."

"It is a little far-fetched," said Kate. "I should think the adventure
they are undertaking will be no more startling than an attempt to reach
the Second Cataract. The cannon _might_ be needed there, you know."

"That is true. But, Lady Gardiner, you must find out where they are
going, and let me know. A hundred diamond serpents would not be enough to
testify my gratitude. You mean to go with them?"

"If they will take me."

"They must take you. They must! You are my only hope, the only link that
will be left between me and Virginia Beverly. Listen! We are talking
frankly to each other, you and I. We never thought to be such
friends--but we are friends, and must trust each other to succeed. You
often speak, half-jestingly, of being poor. I have money--I don't say
enough; who has enough? But I am not a poor man. Watch Virginia for me;
watch Sir Roger Broom. Let me know where this yacht is taking you, whom
she carries, all that happens on board of her. Advise me, from what you
see of passing events; and for all these services, worth an inestimable
sum to me, I will give you what I can afford--say, a thousand pounds. You
shall have half down the day you start, and the other half the day that
you return."

"You are generous; and--I will be loyal," said Kate. "It will not be my
fault, I promise you, if the yacht sails without me. Now I must go. We
must have been talking here for more than an hour, for Virginia's
carriage, which she lent me, has just driven up to the door. Whenever
there is a new development of this mystery, which interests us both, you
shall know it. I wish I could take you up to Cap Martin with me, if you
are ready to go that way, but perhaps it would be wiser not--especially
as the victoria isn't my own."

Kate Gardiner had not been in the hotel an hour when a box was brought to
her door by the Marchese Loria's valet. Inside was the diamond serpent.
She told herself that she had done a very good afternoon's work.

       *       *       *       *       *

Soon every one knew that the American heiress and beauty, Miss Virginia
Beverly, had bought, for twenty thousand pounds, the famous steam yacht
which the mad Spanish Prince d'Almidares had used as a despatch boat at
the time of the American war with Spain. For some time it had been for
sale, lying in harbour at Nice; but it had been too costly a toy; the
cannon with which it was armed were worth only the price of old iron to
most buyers of yachts. They were equally useless to Miss Beverly and her
party, as she and George Trent and Roger Broom impressed upon all who
asked questions; but, then, what was the use in wasting time enough to
dismantle the yacht, as she was wanted immediately, and the cannon were
too cleverly concealed to injure the smart appearance of the little
craft?

It was given out that the _Bella Cuba_ would touch at Greece, go on to
Egypt, and perhaps visit Algiers and Lisbon, steaming at last up the
Thames to Tilbury. Virginia Beverly ostentatiously bought thin summer
clothing, saying that it would be summer weather on the sea before she
bade good-bye to the water. Still, Virginia announced that she did not
wish to be bound down to a definite programme, and Kate Gardiner had to
be satisfied with a prospect of vagueness if she intended to be of the
party.

Not for a single moment had she abandoned that intention. Even if she had
not stood to earn a thousand pounds she would have moved heaven and earth
to go, for more and more, as the days of preparation went on, her
curiosity and excitement increased.

Roger Broom, it was clear, had been intensely annoyed when he was
informed that Lady Gardiner had so far overcome her fear of the sea, as
to wish to be a passenger on the _Bella Cuba_. He had said little, but
his face was expressive, and Kate was of opinion that he would have said
a great deal more, had not some strong motive restrained him. Perhaps,
she thought, this motive was fear of rousing her suspicions if he too
emphatically advocated her stopping behind. But--suspicions of _what_?
That was the question she often asked herself, and could never answer.

She had asked it of Loria also, when they met--as secretly as if the bond
between them had been a forbidden love. But if the truth about the
yachting trip had been told, even he had no solution ready for the
puzzle.

At last the yacht, which had been re-painted, was ready, the captain and
crew of picked men, all Englishmen, were engaged, and the _Bella Cuba_
steamed into the harbour at Mentone, exactly one month from the date (as
Kate happened to remember) of the eventful ride into the Valley of the
Shadow.

They were to start in two days, and Lady Gardiner's heart sank at the
thought of all the physical suffering she was doomed to endure.
Nevertheless, when Virginia hinted that, if she chose to think better of
her decision, it was not yet too late, she courageously assured the girl
that she was looking forward to the trip. She had always wanted to see
Egypt!

The yacht was swift, and had proved herself seaworthy, but she was
comparatively small, and when Kate went on board with Virginia to inspect
the accommodation, she was surprised to be shown only five passenger
cabins. Still, as she had been informed that there were to be but four in
the party, she did not see why it would be impossible for Virginia's maid
to go, and ventured to say as much.

"But we have decided to take a doctor," explained Virginia. "We shall be
so long at sea that otherwise it really wouldn't be safe."

"For my part I'd much rather have a maid than a doctor," sighed Kate, to
whom Virginia's Celestine had made herself agreeably useful. "We shall
have nothing worse the matter with us than seasickness; and how _are_ we
to do our hair?"

Thus bemoaning her fate, she passed along the line of white and gold
painted doors, and stopped suddenly at a sixth, the only one which was
closed. Gently she tried the handle. It did not yield.

"One would think that this ought to be another cabin," she remarked
sweetly; "else what becomes of the symmetry? Now, if only it _were_ one,
you might take Celestine. You'd be so _much_ more comfortable."

"That cabin can't be used," Virginia said, her eyes very bright, her
cheeks very red. "And if you want Celestine, Kate, you must stop on
land."

Lady Gardiner at once protested that she was not thinking of _herself_;
oh, indeed no! but merely of her _dear_ girl, who was not used to being
her own maid. She said no more of the locked door, but she could think of
nothing else. Why could the cabin not be used, and why had Virginia
suddenly grown cross at the bare suggestion that it should be? Was it
possible that Madeleine Dalahaide was going after all, that her presence
was to be kept secret from Kate until the last moment, and that she was
to have this stateroom? Perhaps, Lady Gardiner's jealous suspicion
whispered, she was already in the cabin, and had locked herself in,
fearing just such an intrusion as the turned key had prevented.

That night she saw Loria, and told him precisely what had happened on
board. "I shouldn't wonder," she said reflectively, "if the whole mystery
of this trip were not on the other side of that closed door. Something
tells me it is so."

"When do you start?" asked the Italian.

"To-morrow, at five in the afternoon."

"Could you make an excuse to go on board in the morning alone?"

"Yes. Celestine has taken most of our things on to-day, and put them away
for us. We are not supposed to leave the hotel till three o'clock. But I
could say I had lost something, and hoped that I'd left it on the _Bella
Cuba_. Or perhaps I could slip on board without saying anything until
afterward. But what good would it do me? The door isn't likely to be
unlocked; and I can see nothing through the keyhole. I tried this
afternoon."

"I will get you a key which, if there isn't one already on the inside,
will open the door."

In the night Kate Gardiner had strange dreams of the locked cabin. Twenty
times in her sleep she was on the point of finding out the secret, but
always woke before she had made it her own. She was up early in the
morning, and went out, saying, as if carelessly, to Celestine, that she
must buy a few last things which she had forgotten. In the town she met
Loria, as they had arranged over-night, and he put into her hand
something in a sealed envelope.

"You are sure this will do it?" she asked.

"Sure," returned the Italian.

Then they parted; Kate took a small boat and was rowed out to the _Bella
Cuba_, which lay anchored not far from shore.

"I have come on board to look for a diamond ring which I think I dropped
in my cabin yesterday," she remarked to the captain.

He turned away, all unsuspicious and Kate hurried to the saloon off which
the cabins opened. Already she had broken the seal on the envelope, and
taken out a small, peculiarly shaped steel implement. With a quick glance
over her shoulder and a loud beating of the heart, she thrust the
master-key into the lock of the closed door.




CHAPTER V

THE LADY ON THE VERANDAH


No one was coming; Lady Gardiner dared to turn the key. The door opened,
and she looked into the room beyond.

It was a cabin, of the same size as the others, and fitted up as a
stateroom, but furnished and decorated differently. The five which Kate
had been shown yesterday were comfortable, but not particularly
luxurious, and she had wondered, since this was ostensibly a pleasure
trip, that beauty-loving Virginia had not thought it worth while to have
her own cabin, at least, made more dainty.

In the locked stateroom, whose secret Kate was violating, the berth was
hung with old brocaded silk of blue and silver, the curtains edged with
curious thick lace, yellowed by time. On the floor lay a beautiful
tiger-skin, covering it from end to end. A large fitted travelling-bag
stood open on a cushioned seat, showing silver-topped bottles; and the
wall on one side of the cabin was almost hidden with photographs and
sketches which had been tacked up, over a low book-shelf, filled with
volumes in uniform binding of blue and gold. The photographs were of
places as well as people, and Kate had just identified the Valley of the
Shadow, dominated by the Château de la Roche, when a sudden sound sent
her out of the cabin and into the saloon, with her heart pounding and her
nerves throbbing, in shamed fear of discovery.

She had just time to lock the door and pass on to that of her own
stateroom when Celestine appeared, carrying various small parcels. She
had been sent to the yacht by her mistress to finish a few preparations
for the voyage, and was surprised to see Lady Gardiner. Kate, however,
was prepared with her story of the lost ring, which no doubt Celestine
would repeat to Virginia, and produced the jewel, saying that fortunately
she had found it on the floor of her cabin.

The maid had no suspicion, probably did not dream that the _Bella Cuba_
had a secret to keep, and Lady Gardiner was rowed back to shore,
confident that she had come safely out of the morning's adventure. The
mystery, however, remained a mystery, except that Kate was certain now of
one thing which she had only suspected. There was to be a passenger on
board the _Bella Cuba_, whose expected presence had carefully been
concealed from her. For this passenger elaborate preparations had been
made. Everything behind that locked door was beautiful, but nothing was
new. In the fleeting glimpse Kate had obtained before the sound of
Celestine's descending steps had sent her flying from her stolen
inspection, she had been impressed with the feeling that the decorations
of the stateroom had all been taken from some other room, with the view
of surrounding its occupant with old associations.

Lady Gardiner hoped to see Loria before going back to the hotel, and an
appointment had been made, to be kept as nearly to the time as possible;
but he was not at Rumpelmayer's, the place of meeting, and, astonished at
his defection, she was obliged to return to the Cap Martin without the
expected talk. In her room she found a line from the Italian. Sir Roger
Broom had seen him at Rumpelmayer's, he explained, and had joined him
there. Fearing that Lady Gardiner might come in while they were together,
he pleaded an engagement and went out, still accompanied by Broom. Now,
Loria asked, was it possible that Miss Beverly's cousin suspected
anything? Had Lady Gardiner been imprudent and dropped the slightest hint
of their new allegiance?

Kate had begun a note in reply, when Virginia knocked at her door,
inquiring whether she were ready for luncheon. "Wait for me just a moment
in the sitting-room," said the elder woman, and, her ideas confused in
the necessity for haste, she merely scrawled: "Don't think Sir Roger or
any one suspects. Must have been an accident. Key worked well. I saw
cabin. It is ready for a passenger. I would wager that that passenger is
Madeleine Dalahaide. Probably we shall not have a word together in
private now before we go, but will write you from every port, or wire if
necessary and possible.--K. G."

This note she took down to the dining-room with her, and barely had a
chance to press it into Loria's palm as he bade her, with the others, a
rather formal farewell.

The Marchese was not one of those who went out to the yacht to see the
last of the beautiful American girl and her party. Virginia had
definitely refused him now, and the old, pleasant intimacy had been
brought to a sudden end. Nevertheless, he sent her flowers--a great
basket of roses big enough to fill up half of her stateroom on the _Bella
Cuba_--which she promptly gave to Kate, with various other elaborate
offerings, keeping for her own cabin only a small bunch of fragrant
violets sent by some one whose name she seemed to guess, although there
was no card.

So, at last, they were off; and no sad-faced girl in black had appeared.
Besides the original party of four, there was only a little dark,
keen-eyed English doctor, taken from his practice in Mentone. He looked
like a man who would know how to keep a secret, and Kate wondered whether
the mystery of the _Bella Cuba_ were a mystery to Dr. Grayle.

"Miss Dalahaide will come on board at Naples," Kate said to herself when
it became certain that they would stop there. "She is well known in
Mentone, no doubt, and didn't wish it to leak out that she was going on
this yachting trip."

But they arrived at Naples, sent off telegrams and letters, coaled, and
left without taking on another passenger. Always it seemed to Kate that
Virginia's manner showed suppressed nervous excitement. She was restless,
capricious, took an interest in nothing for more than ten minutes
together. She had never been to Naples before, yet she appeared to grudge
the two or three hours they spent in driving about, and would not listen
to Kate's suggestion that they should stop long enough for a visit to
Pompeii.

"Next time," she said evasively. Altogether, she had not at all the air
of a young woman yachting for pleasure, as of course she must be, since
what other object could the trip have? "I am in a hurry to see Cairo,"
she replied, when Lady Gardiner inquired the reason of her impatience.

After all, they did not touch at Greece, but went straight on to
Alexandria, the sea being so calmly unruffled that even Kate had no
excuse for illness. She might have been very happy in these long, lazy,
blue-and-gold days, if George Trent had been his old self. But the frost
which had withered the flower of his fancy for her that day in the Valley
of the Shadow, had never thawed. He read and smoked a great deal, leaving
Roger Broom to amuse Virginia and Lady Gardiner.

Something went wrong with the engine the morning when they expected to
reach Alexandria and Kate heard talk of a "heated bearing on the
crankshaft," which might have to be taken off, thus delaying them a
couple of days. "But a couple of days!" she exclaimed in surprise.
"Surely you mean to stop longer than that!"

"We hadn't thought of it," answered Roger drily.

"Are you going up the Nile then?"

"No; the _Bella Cuba_ is rather big, you know."

"Not so big as the excursion boats that go, is she?"

"Virginia doesn't care about it, anyhow; she loves the sea for its own
sake, and hasn't come as much for sight-seeing as for a complete rest.
While the repairs are being done we shall run up to Cairo by rail, stop a
night at the Ghezireh Palace, and drive out for a look at the Sphinx and
the Pyramids."

"You really are the most extraordinary people!" ejaculated Kate. "I don't
know what to make of you."

Roger smiled, and was silent. He had the air of thinking it of small
importance whether or not Lady Gardiner, who had insisted upon coming on
this trip, knew what to make of her hosts and hostess. But, then, Sir
Roger Broom had never more than tolerated this most charming of
companions.

Kate had kept the master-key which Loria had given her, and had never
ceased to hope for another chance to investigate the locked stateroom,
which might, she told herself sometimes, have a hidden occupant. To be
sure, so far as she knew, no other passengers had come on board at
Naples; but, then, they had all been away from the yacht for several
hours, and some one might have been smuggled into the cabin. With this
fancy lurking in her mind, she would have given much for a second peep;
but she had never found a moment when it seemed safe to run the risk.

She could imagine no reason, if Madeleine Dalahaide had come on board at
Naples, beyond spying-distance of old acquaintances, why she should
remain hidden in the stateroom, unless, indeed, there were some truth in
Loria's suggestion that the yacht was bound for New Caledonia, to take
the girl out to her convict brother. In that case, perhaps, it might
conceivably be necessary to keep the captain and crew in ignorance of her
presence, lest they should gossip in port. Still, Virginia's
restlessness, her lack of interest in the beautiful places so easy to
visit, her desire to remain on board when the _Bella Cuba_ was in port,
seemed to point to some peculiar motive under her indifference to all
pleasures of the trip.

In Alexandria, the girl "did not see why they should pack up to stop a
night in Cairo." What if the crankshaft could be repaired sooner than
they supposed? Then they would be wasting time. But she was overruled,
and just before sunset they drove up to one of the most beautiful hotels
in the world.

The evening chill was beginning to fall, yet many people still lingered
on the huge terrace overlooking the Nile, where the "winging" sails of
the little boats were pink and golden as mother-o'-pearl, reflecting the
crimson glory of the sky. A woman sitting alone at a little table looked
up as they passed, and with a slight start. Virginia half stopped,
staring almost rudely at the face which was lifted for a moment. But it
was only for a moment.

The woman, who was exceedingly handsome, of the most luscious Spanish
type of beauty, flushed under the American girl's intent gaze, drew up a
sable cape which had partly fallen from the shoulders of her white cloth
dress, and turned a resentful back.

"What a handsome creature, but awfully made up!" whispered Kate, who had
no mercy on her own sex.

Virginia did not answer. She walked on, looking as if she had awakened
from a dream.

At dinner that night, next to the party from the yacht, was a small table
laid for one. It was unoccupied until they had half finished dinner; then
heads began suddenly to turn toward the door; people whispered, there was
a perceptible, though scarcely definable thrill of interest, and a tall
woman in sequined black tulle, glittering with diamonds, came slowly up
the room. She must have known that all eyes were upon her, yet she
appeared unconscious. Her lashes were cast down as she moved toward a
chair held obsequiously ready by a waiter at the little empty table, and
their dusky length was not second even to Virginia's. As the newcomer sat
down, she faced Roger Broom.

"That woman's face looks somehow familiar to me," he said, "yet I can't
think where, if ever, I have seen it. I suppose it can only be a chance
resemblance to somebody or other."

Virginia opened her lips to speak, but closed them again hastily. Kate
then threw a questioning glance her way, and saw that she had suddenly
grown pale. "I wish you or George would find out who she is," the girl
said presently. "She is one of the handsomest women I ever saw. If
possible, I should like to know her."

"I can promise that you shall at least know her name," replied Roger,
smiling. "It wouldn't be safe to say more." And, true to his word, an
hour after dinner he came to the private drawing-room where Virginia and
Lady Gardiner sat, with the required information.

"The strange beauty is a Portuguese countess," he announced. "Her name is
De Mattos, and she is a widow, spending the winter here alone, except for
her maid. She is much admired, especially by men, but apparently does not
care to make acquaintances; otherwise, as she seems to be a person whose
name the gossips respect, your wish might perhaps have been gratified."

"Have you remembered yet where you saw her before?"

"I've remembered where I saw some one like her. But it is not the same
woman."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely. The other was a blonde with Titian hair. And she has been
dead for years."

Virginia said no more, and appeared to forget the Portuguese countess.
But when Lady Gardiner complained of being tired, and went off to bed,
that she might be fresh for sight-seeing next morning, also to write a
puzzled letter to the Marchese Loria, Virginia remained. George Trent had
gone to a Cairene theatre, and she and Roger were alone together.

Scarcely had the door closed upon Kate Gardiner, when the girl sprang up
from her chair, and before Roger knew what she meant to do, was sitting
on a divan beside him, her hand on his sleeve.

"Roger," she exclaimed, "I thank you a thousand, thousand times for
insisting that I should come here."

"You haven't seen anything yet," he returned. "Thank me after to-morrow."

"It's the most wonderful thing in the world that we should have come,"
she went on. "If we had employed the cleverest detectives in Paris and
London they might never have discovered what chance, merest chance--if
there is such a thing as chance--has put into our hands to-night."

"What are you talking about, dear child?" asked Roger.

"I'm talking about Liane Devereux, the actress that Maxime Dalahaide is
supposed to have murdered. You've been very good, Roger. I've appreciated
it, for you never believed in his innocence. Now you must believe, in
spite of yourself, since she is here, calling herself the Countess de
Mattos."

Roger stared at her in amazement. "But this is madness, dear," he said.
"Liane Devereux was murdered; whether Maxime Dalahaide or another was her
murderer, there is no possible doubt that she is dead. You can't know the
story as well as I thought you did, if you don't put that beyond
questioning."

"I tell you, Liane Devereux is in this house, and Providence sent me here
to see her. It's that which is beyond question."

"Did Madeleine Dalahaide show you the woman's picture?"

"Yes, two pictures; a photograph and an ivory miniature. She kept them
because they were her brother's, just as she kept everything of his. I
looked at them again and again, until I knew the features line by line. I
can't be mistaken. This is the same woman. There was an even deeper
mystery about that murder than Maxime Dalahaide's best friends guessed."

Roger Broom shrugged his shoulders with a despairing laugh. "For
light-hearted trampling on established facts, give me an American girl!"
he exclaimed. "A woman is murdered, her body found, identified, buried.
Four or five years afterward another woman appears, a brunette, while
Number One was blonde. Number One, a Frenchwoman, was murdered in Paris;
Number Two, a Portuguese, is spending the winter in Cairo. There is
absolutely nothing to link these women together except a resemblance of
feature, which, though strong, is not convincing even to a man who saw
Number One on the stage many times. Yet here comes a maiden from the
States, who was in the schoolroom in her own country when Number One was
murdered, and insists, because she has seen a portrait or two, that Liane
Devereux, the dead actress, and the Countess de Mattos are one and the
same."

"I know it sounds childish," admitted Virginia, with unwonted meekness;
"nevertheless, I'm absolutely sure. I'd stake my life on it, if it were
necessary."

"How do you proceed to explain the identification and burial of Liane
Devereux's body if she is now alive in Cairo?"

"I don't pretend to explain--yet. There was a mistake--that's all I can
say."

"Liane Devereux was too well known for that to be possible. Besides, if
there had been such a mistake, another woman, murdered and buried in her
place, must have been missing. As a matter of fact, no other woman was
missing."

"You mean no other woman's disappearance was discovered."

"You're incorrigible! I know you're wrong; but, admitting for the sake of
argument that you might be right, what use could you make of this
marvellous private information, supplied to your brain only? If the
Countess de Mattos is really Liane Devereux, come to life, one might be
sure that a woman clever enough to plan from the beginning so astounding
an affair would be too clever to leave any tracks behind her."

"Yes, that is one of the difficulties," said Virginia. "Only somehow we
must get over it."

"I hope, my dear free-lance detective, that you aren't plotting to accuse
the Countess to her face, and have a dramatic scene in the hall of the
Ghezireh Palace?"

"I don't know yet what to do," the girl answered slowly. "But I don't
want to leave Cairo until after we've done something."

"Believe me, there's nothing to do. We are on a wild-goose chase as it
is; don't let's complicate things by a suit for slander just as it's
begun. My advice is, dear, put this mad idea out of your head, and let's
get on about our business as quickly as we can--as quickly as you
yourself wanted to do a few hours ago."

"Then I'm sorry I can't take your advice," said Virginia. "I'm growing
superstitious. I believe that I was brought here for a particular
purpose, and I don't mean to go until, in some way, I've accomplished
that purpose."

Roger sighed, and said no more. He had exhausted his stock of arguments;
he knew Virginia almost as well as he loved her. He had promised
coöperation; and though there had been no bargaining, she had voluntarily
led him to hope for a reward which, to him, was beyond any other
happiness the world might hold. Therefore he could do nothing but bow to
the inevitable, and await developments, which meant, with a girl like
Virginia Beverly, expecting the unexpected.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly in the night Virginia sat up in bed and exclaimed aloud: "Oh, if
I could!" Kate Gardiner, in a room adjoining, heard her, and supposed
that she was talking in her sleep. But the truth was that a plan had at
that instant sprung fully armed from her brain, like Minerva from the
head of Jove; a plan so daring that the bare thought was an electric
shock.

She could not sleep after its conception, but lay tossing and tingling
until it was time to get up. Every moment would be long now until the
machinery could be set in motion, and she bathed and dressed hastily,
having long ago ceased actively to miss Celestine's lost ministrations.

There was no sound in the next room. Kate was not yet awake, evidently;
and so, as she took quite two hours for dressing and beautifying, it
would be foolish to wait for her. Virginia went downstairs, looking about
in vain for Roger or George, and stepped out on to the wide verandah, for
a look at the Nile by morning light. To her joy the beautiful Portuguese
countess was there, breakfasting alone, with a yellow-covered French
novel open on the little table before her. Virginia instantly decided
that she would also breakfast on the verandah, and as near to the
Countess as possible.

As the American girl's pale blue serge rustled its silk lining along the
floor, the Portuguese woman raised her eyes from the novel she was
reading as she sipped her coffee. The eyes had appeared almost black in
the evening; now Virginia saw that they were a curious, greenish gray,
and her heart gave a leap, for the eyes of Liane Devereux, in the painted
ivory miniature, had been gray.

Now or never, Virginia said to herself, was the time to begin the
campaign. She seized the tide of fortune at its flood, and spoke in
English, making the most of the pretty, drawling Southern accent of the
State after which she had been named, because American girls were
privileged to be eccentric.

"Good morning," she said. "Oh, I do hope you understand my language,
because I want to tell you something."

The green-gray eyes of the Countess shone keenly between their heavy
black fringes during a silent moment of inspection, which must have shown
her Virginia divinely young, and childishly innocent of guile. At the end
of the moment she smiled.

"Yes, I understand English, and speak it a little," she responded, with a
charming accent, and in a voice musical but unexpectedly deep. "You are
American, is it not? What have you to tell me--that we have met before,
somewhere?"

At this--or Virginia imagined it--there came again a steely flash from
the black lashes. "Oh, no," said the girl hurriedly. "I never saw you
until yesterday. What I want to tell you is, that I hope you will forgive
me for staring at you as I did then. I was afraid you'd think me rude.
But I just couldn't help it, you are so beautiful. I adore beauty. You
can be sure now I'm American, can't you? for nobody but an American girl
would say such things to a perfect stranger. I'm glad I _am_ American,
for if I didn't speak I don't see exactly how I should get to know you.
And I want to know you very much. I made my cousin, Sir Roger Broom--he's
English, though I'm American--ask who you were, so I heard your name.
Mine is Virginia Beverly. Now we're introduced, aren't we?"

The Countess laughed and looked pleased. "I have seen your name in the
journals," she said--"the journals of society all over the world, that
one reads in hotels when one has nothing better to do, is it not? They
told the truth in one thing, for they said that you were _très belle_.
And you have bought the yacht of a Spanish gentleman, whom I have known a
little. Yes, I remember it was a Miss Virginia Beverly, for it is not a
name to forget; and I love yachting."

By this time, Virginia had ordered her breakfast and received it, but she
was far too excited to make more than a pretense at eating. It was almost
as if the Countess de Mattos were playing into her hands. It seemed too
good to be true. She was afraid that something would happen to ruin all;
that she would lose her head, and by her precipitancy put the other on
her guard; yet the opportunity was too admirable to be entirely
neglected.

"If you like yachting, it would be nice if you could come and have a
day's run with us," said the girl. "The _Bella Cuba_ is at Alexandria,
and we should all love taking you. My cousin and my half-brother, George
Trent, couldn't talk of anything but you last night. Perhaps, later, we
might arrange it, if the railway journey both ways wouldn't bore you."

"On the contrary, I should be charmed," replied the Countess. She
flushed, and her eyes brightened. Virginia looked at her admiringly, yet
sharply, and said to herself: "If that rich, dark complexion of yours is
make-up--as it must be to prove my theory right--then it's the cleverest
make-up that any woman ever had as a disguise."

At this moment Sir Roger Broom and George Trent came out on to the
verandah together, both looking very much surprised to see Virginia in
conversation with the Countess de Mattos.

"Can she have said anything?" Roger thought quickly. But the calm
expression of the beautiful, dark face was in itself an answer to his
silent question.

The two men strolled up to Virginia, who asked and received permission
from the Countess to introduce her brother and cousin; and soon they were
talking as if they had known each other for days instead of moments.

The Portuguese beauty was distinctly ingratiating in her manner to all
three, so much so that Roger became thoughtful. He was more certain than
ever, if that were possible, that this woman was not Liane Devereux, for
the voice was many tones deeper, and the Countess spoke English with an
accent that was not at all French.

It seemed to him that no woman could disguise herself so
completely--face, voice, mannerisms, accent--no matter how clever she
might be; besides, Virginia's idea was ridiculous. But he began to wonder
whether the lovely Portuguese had a right to her title, or, if she had,
whether it were as well gilded as her charming frocks and her residence
at this expensive hotel would suggest at first sight.

It seemed to him that she caught too readily at new acquaintances for a
rich and haughty daughter of Portuguese aristocracy, and though he
believed that he understood, only too well, Virginia's motive for
cultivating a friendship, he was inclined to fear that the girl might be
victimized by an adventuress.

The Countess de Mattos was too handsome and too striking not to have been
remarked in Cairo, no matter how quietly she might live at the Ghezireh
Palace Hotel, and he determined to make inquiries of some officers whom
he knew there.

At all events, plans for the present were changed. Instead of a day or
two in Cairo they were to stay on indefinitely. George, as well as Roger,
was taken into the secret, but Lady Gardiner was told only the fact. She
was pleased at first, for she was fond of Cairo, and had never had a
chance to stop there in luxury before. She did not, however, like the
Countess de Mattos, who was much too handsome to be acceptable to her;
and before the slower and more prudent Roger had learnt anything, she was
primed with all the gossip of the hotel regarding the Portuguese beauty.
There was a certain Mrs. Maitland-Fox at the Ghezireh Palace, whom Lady
Gardiner had met before, and from her she gathered the crumbs of gossip
with which she immediately afterward regaled Virginia.

"They" said that the Countess de Mattos, although she might really be a
countess (and there were those who pretended to vouch for this), had
scarcely a penny. She traded on her beauty and the lovely clothes with
which some trusting milliner must have supplied her, to pick up rich or
influential friends, from whom she was certain to extort money in some
way or another. And it was Mrs. Maitland-Fox's advice that Miss Beverly
should be warned to beware of the beautiful lady.

Among his friends, Roger heard something of the same sort, and though he
was bound to admit that it was all very vague, he begged Virginia to
abandon a forlorn hope, and let the Portuguese woman alone.

"If she were really a Portuguese woman she might vanish from before my
eyes, for all I should care," obstinately returned the girl. "But she is
Liane Devereux, and if she breathed poison I wouldn't let her go till I
had torn out her secret."

"How do you mean to set about doing that?" demanded Roger.

"That is _my_ secret," said Virginia. "Only let me alone and don't thwart
me, or you'll spoil everything."

Roger waited, expectant and apprehensive. He had not to wait long.




CHAPTER VI

THE END OF THE WORLD


They stayed a week in Cairo, and at the end of that time the Countess de
Mattos had accepted an invitation to go yachting; not for a day, but for
a vague period of "dawdling," as Virginia evasively expressed it. The
beautiful Portuguese woman had hesitated at first, and confided to the
American girl that, on account of the delay in receiving an expected sum
of money, she did not quite see how she could get away in time. But
Virginia had begged the Countess not to let such a small difficulty
trouble her for a moment. She really must accept a loan to tide over the
little annoyance; it would indeed be too hard to lose the pleasure of her
companionship for the sake of a few paltry dollars, so that would be no
favour at all, or rather, the favour would be the other way round.

The "few paltry dollars" necessary turned out to be three thousand; but
if they had been three times three thousand Virginia would have lent them
just as cheerfully without the prospect of, or even wish for, their
return. With the money obtained from Virginia's practically unlimited
letter of credit in her pocket, and a hint delicately expressed that more
would be at her service whenever she wished, "as it was such a nuisance
having to keep in touch with one's bankers and people like that on a long
yachting trip when nothing was less settled than one's plans," the
Countess thought herself very well off.

"Are you in a hurry to be anywhere in particular during the next few
weeks?" asked the girl of her new friend. "No? How nice! Then let us
throw all the responsibility of planning things upon the men. What fun
never to know where we are going, but to be surprised always when we
arrive anywhere."

And the Countess de Mattos agreed. She would have agreed with almost
anything that Virginia said that day. If the American girl believed that
Providence had directed her to cross the path of this beautiful woman,
the beautiful woman was equally sure that the god of luck had put this
infatuated young heiress in her way.

Roger would hardly have consented to the carrying out of Virginia's plan,
which he called "kidnapping," had George Trent not joined his arguments
to his sister's.

"It does seem a mad idea," he admitted, "but if the woman isn't Liane
Devereux, no harm will be done, except that she'll be taken a longer
journey than she expects. If she is--ah! I know what you think, old chap,
without your lifting your eyebrows up to your hair; but, by Jove!
Virgie's got an instinct that's like the needle of a compass. When she
says 'north,' I'd bet my bottom dollar it _was_ north, that's all. If I
don't object to Virgie's associating with the Countess, you needn't--yet,
anyhow. She isn't the kind of girl to be hurt by that sort of thing, and,
besides, she'll have the dickens of a tantrum if we try to thwart her now
she's set her heart on this trick. She'd be equal to slipping anchor with
the Countess on board and leaving us in the lurch. Let's see the little
girl through on her own lines, and if the snap doesn't come off, she
can't blame _us_. Anyway, it's rougher on me than on you, for Virgie's
put me up to do the agreeable to the Countess and keep her from getting
restless before we attempt to spring our mine. A while ago I wouldn't
have asked anything better than flirting all day with such a woman, who
is as pretty and as fascinating as they're made, but I'm not in the mood
for it now, somehow. Still, we're playing for big stakes--you for yours,
Roger, I for mine."

This was the only reference he made to his interest in Madeleine
Dalahaide; but Roger guessed what was in his mind.

Lady Gardiner floundered deeper than ever into the quicksands of mystery
when she heard that the Countess de Mattos was to be one of the party for
the rest of the voyage--wherever it was to take them. What could be
Virginia's object in picking up this woman? Was it really true that she
had taken the violent and sudden fancy to her that she feigned to feel,
or did that pretense cloak a hidden motive? Kate had no clue, unless the
fact that Virginia had asked her never to mention Madeleine Dalahaide or
the Château de la Roche before the Countess could be called a motive. She
would have disobeyed Virginia, by way of a curiosity-satisfying
experiment, if she had not feared that the result might be disastrous and
that she would be found out.

At least she would in a gentle, tactful way have suggested objections to
the Countess de Mattos's presence on the yacht, had she not been certain
that Virginia would have frankly advised her to stay behind if she did
not like the arrangements for the rest of the trip. Much as she loved
Cairo in the height of its gay season, much as she hated the sea at all
seasons, nevertheless she was doggedly determined to see this adventure
to the end (bitter though it might be), not only to earn her thousand
pounds, but to know the secret which actually kept her waking and
wondering at night.

It really was the strangest thing that Virginia should want this
adventuress on the yacht, Kate indignantly remarked to Mrs.
Maitland-Fox. The girl had refused to take a maid because there would
not be room, yet now she dragged this creature on board to flirt with
George Trent and perhaps inveigle him into a marriage under the
impression that he was as rich as he was handsome.

But with Virginia herself, after the first few moments of surprise, Lady
Gardiner had been circumspect. She had not even dared to ask the question
burning on her lips--whether the Countess would have the locked
stateroom, or what arrangement would be made for her accommodation?
Obliged to wait for this information until the hour of going on board
again, once the Countess de Mattos's presence was to be expected without
hope of change, Kate began to be impatient to start.

The party, counting quiet, keen-eyed little Dr. Grayle, was now increased
to six, an equal number of men and women, for the Countess had readily
given up her maid. They all travelled to Alexandria together one morning,
and, boarding the yacht, Kate eagerly watched for the new guest to be
taken to her stateroom. Would the locked door be opened? No; Virginia
led her past that mysterious, closed door, to the cabin formerly occupied
by George Trent, and Kate saw that the young man's belongings, just
brought back from Cairo, had been set down inside the stateroom once
sacred to the doctor alone. In this there were two berths, and evidently
George and the medical man would "chum" together for the rest of the
voyage. The discovery did not add to Lady Gardiner's love for the
Portuguese woman, for, half forgetting her uneasiness concerning
Madeleine Dalahaide, she was now jealous of the new beauty, and it was
gall and wormwood to Kate that George Trent, lost to her, should be
making gallant sacrifices of his personal comfort for another woman.

She had written to the Marchese Loria on the first night of their arrival
in Cairo, before the acquaintance with the Countess had begun, and, as
she could learn nothing of the future programme for the voyage, it had
not seemed worth while to write again. As for the invitation to the
Portuguese woman, Kate did not see that it could be of personal interest
to Loria, and she never wrote unless she had something to say which was
of importance to him; therefore the Italian remained in ignorance that
the Countess de Mattos was a member of the little party on the _Bella
Cuba_.

So far as the trip had gone, there was nothing to excite his anxiety save
that the girl he coveted for her beauty and her money was going farther
and farther from him. But one day a telegram came for him to the Cap
Martin Hotel, where he still remained. It was dated from Port Said.
"Bound for Australia," were the three words the message contained; and
they were words of heavy import to Loria.

Australia! There was no reason why Virginia Beverly should not visit
Australia. He had heard her say that she would not be satisfied until she
had seen all the world. But if she had thought of going to Australia
before she left Mentone, she had carefully refrained from saying so. It
was more the fact that she had concealed such an intention than that she
was now carrying it out, which seemed ominous to Loria. Sydney was the
nearest place of departure for New Caledonia. In a Messageries mail boat
it took ten days to reach Noumea from Sydney; it would perhaps take
longer in a yacht like the _Bella Cuba_. And the sensible question to ask
would be, Was it likely that a bright, erratic, butterfly being like
beautiful Virginia Beverly would go so far simply for the pleasure of
seeing the prison which contained a stranger, a convicted assassin for
whom she had conceived a girlishly romantic interest?

It was not as if she could hope to meet and talk with Maxime Dalahaide
himself, have the pleasure of carrying him messages from his sister, or
perhaps even bring Madeleine to him (for the Château de la Roche was
empty now, in the hands of workmen, and no one, not even Loria, had been
able to learn where Mademoiselle Dalahaide and her aunt had gone). The
Italian was not unlearned in such lore of the far-away French prison-land
as could be obtained, and he had read that, though strangers were allowed
to land at Noumea, and a few had been enabled through influence to
penetrate inside the prison walls, all personal intercourse with the
convicts was strictly interdicted. Since the one almost miraculous
escape, over thirty years ago, of Henri Rochefort and Humbert, watch and
ward had been more strictly kept than ever; besides, they had escaped
from Ducos, on the Isle of Pines, which in those days had been sacred to
political prisoners, and discipline there had been, even then, lax
compared to that of the Ile Nou, the very heart of prison-land, where
Maxime Dalahaide was dragging out the weary years of his lost life.

Yet what if Virginia should have formed the extraordinary resolve of
going to Noumea? What was it to him--Loria--since she could accomplish
nothing there? Suppose, even, that among other miserable convicts she saw
Maxime--pallid, thin, sullen and hopeless, his good looks and his
brilliant audacity crushed and gone--would not the romantic feeling she
had conceived for him be instantly turned into horror and disgust? When
such a chill had withered a girl's fancy for a man, there could be no
future blossoming, and her heart might be caught in the rebound. Once,
Loria had thought that Virginia had been on the point of caring for him.
Perhaps when they met she would turn to him again, remorseful for the
pain she had caused, grateful for his unwavering loyalty; and, telling
himself these things, he was almost persuaded that it would do him more
good than harm if Virginia did go to Noumea. But he was never wholly
persuaded. A strange fear knocked at his heart, a fear that had no name.
He never quite saw its face. Like a haunting ghost, it was always behind
him, and he could hear the swish of its garments, the stealthy sound of
its footfalls; but when he turned upon it the thing was gone, leaving
only the impression of a black shadow with a veiled face inexpressibly
awful.

Loria could not sleep by night, and by day he was restless. He began to
dread an illness, and was constantly troubled with headache, which gave
him an excuse for believing that the vague, nervous apprehension he
suffered was largely the result of physical causes.

What else, indeed, could it be? He had absolutely nothing to fear. Of
this he was still continually reminding himself, when another telegram
came from Lady Gardiner, dated Sydney. "Leaving here to-morrow," she
said. "Destination unknown."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Bella Cuba_ was ten days out from Sydney Heads. Her passengers rose
early, for in the morning it was good to be alive. Virginia, fresh from
her cold, salt bath, came on deck, and saw the Countess de Mattos there,
with George Trent. Far away lay a strip of land, turning slowly from
violet to emerald as the yacht steamed nearer. Virginia saw it and
flushed. She knew what it must be, and quickly she glanced at George,
with an eager question in her eyes.

It was tacitly understood that the task of informing the Countess de
Mattos what her destination was to be must be left to Virginia; she
coveted it, while the two men did not. Still, the Portuguese might have
guessed, on seeing that strip of violet; or George might inadvertently
have given her a clue, and she would be on her guard.

But George's blue eyes met his sister's; and with the faintest shake of
his head he contrived to convey to her the intelligence that the secret
still remained a secret.

Virginia's heart was beating fast as she joined her brother and the
Countess, and her hand was not quite steady as she offered her
field-glass to the beautiful Portuguese, who had long ago begged the two
ladies on board to call her "Manuela."

"What a large island!" exclaimed the Countess. "And we seem to be making
for it. What can it be? Mr. Trent says perhaps it is a mirage. But I
think that is his joke. He likes teasing."

"I think," replied Virginia calmly, though her eyes were on the face of
Manuela, "that we must be coming in sight of New Caledonia."

As she gave this answer, Roger Broom came up the companionway, and heard
the last words, which rang out, distinctly. Instantly he knew that the
moment for which Virginia had been waiting was at hand, and he, too,
watched the Countess.

She had taken Virginia's field-glass, and was gazing through it at the
far-off land which with each moment seemed to grow more distinct. Only
the delicate, aquiline profile could be seen by the eager eyes that
looked for a sign of weakness. She did not speak at first, but a visible
shiver ran through her body. The field-glass came down rather suddenly,
and her fingers gripped it tightly as they rested on the rail. But she
did not turn her face, and continued gazing landward as at last she
echoed the words, "New Caledonia!"

"Is not that a prison for the French _forçats_?" she slowly asked.

Tacitly, the two men left the answer to Virginia. "Yes," said the girl.
"Noumea is a penal settlement. They say it is very interesting to see. We
thought that we might stop for a day or two in the harbour there."

This time the Countess turned. "Oh, but that would be terrible!" she
exclaimed. "We--they might rob and murder us, these convicts. You did not
say that we were coming to Noumea."

"It was to be one of our surprises," replied Virginia. "I thought that
you would like it."

"No, no!" ejaculated Manuela. "I do not like it at all. I have a horror
of such places and such people. This is a pleasure trip, is it not? There
is no pleasure in visiting a prison-land. Dear Virginia, dear Mr. Trent
and Sir Roger, do let us turn our faces another way and go somewhere
else."

Virginia had not lost a single changing shade of expression on the
Countess de Mattos's darkly beautiful face; but if she had been
questioned, she would have had to confess that she was disappointed in
the great effect toward which she had so long been working up. She had
half expected to see this wicked woman who, in some deadly and mysterious
way, had plotted to destroy Maxime Dalahaide, turn livid under the brown
stain which she (Virginia) suspected, gasp, totter, and perhaps fall
fainting when she heard those fatal names--"New Caledonia, Noumea." But
Manuela gave none of these evidences of distress. If she paled, the dusky
stain in whose existence Virginia so tenaciously believed hid the sign
of her emotion. It allowed a deep flush to be seen; even Virginia could
not deny that, but pallor was difficult to trace where complexion and
even lips were tinted brown and red; and the slight quivering of the
body, the dropping of the hand with the field-glass, were not so marked
that they might not be due to an ordinary, disagreeable surprise.

"I'm sorry you feel so about the place," said Virginia. "That's the worst
of planning surprises, isn't it? One can't always be sure of bringing off
a success. Now, I'm afraid we must make the best of it, for as we
arranged to come here, our stores won't last long enough to avoid New
Caledonia and go farther. We must buy butter and milk and vegetables, and
chickens and lots of things, to say nothing of coaling. But you needn't
see anything of the prison and the prisoners unless you like. The harbour
is said to be glorious, and you can stop on board and read novels, while
the rest of us do our sight-seeing, which won't take us very long."

"Sight-seeing in a prison!" exclaimed the Countess. "You English and
Americans are strange. We Latins, we never give ourselves pain that can
be avoided. There is enough that is unpleasant in life without that. Ugh!
I would rather do without butter and milk than buy it of convicts, who
may poison us in sheer spite because we are more fortunate than they.
Could we not turn round, and get back to Sydney without starving?"

"No, it couldn't be managed," said Virginia.

Manuela turned pleading eyes upon Roger and George. They were men; they
knew more about such things than women; besides she could usually make
men do what she wished. But for once she found creatures of the opposite
sex who were not to be melted by her pleading. They agreed with Virginia
that it was impossible now to avoid New Caledonia.

"And how long shall we stay?" plaintively inquired the Countess, when she
had been obliged to resign herself to the inevitable, which, to her
credit, she did with a very pretty grace. "Shall we leave again to-night,
with our poisoned food?"

"Wait till you have seen the rocks in the harbour," answered George. "If
they're as bad as the book says, they must be something to see. Anyhow,
it's only possible to get in or out between sunrise and sunset. I'm
afraid, Countess, you'll have to put up with it till to-morrow."

"Oh!" Manuela sighed a long sigh. She asked no more questions, she made
no more protests. She turned her back upon New Caledonia, and appeared to
dismiss the land of lost souls from her mind.

"Well," said Roger, when he and Virginia had walked away, leaving the
Countess and George Trent to the flirtation which was so embittering the
daily life of Lady Gardiner. "Well, was I right or wrong about this
woman?"

"Wrong," firmly answered Virginia.

"You say that still, after the way she took your _grand coup_? But this
is only because you hate giving up, beaten."

"I'm not beaten yet," the girl returned doggedly. "I hoped for something
different--yes, I admit that. But her game means as much to her as ours
does to us. She's playing it for all it's worth. If she weren't such a
wretch, I should have admired her pluck. How she held her ground! Taken
by surprise as she was, almost her first thought was whether we had
purposely caught her in this trap, or whether she had only an avenging
fate to thank for such a terrible and startling coincidence. I saw that,
at least, in her eyes and her face, Roger, though I didn't see all I had
been looking for. Think what she must have been feeling! She helped to
send an innocent man who had loved and trusted her into this exile, worse
than death. She thought herself free from him forever, because he was at
the other end of the world, dead-alive, in the grave where she buried
him. Suddenly she finds herself looking at that grave, unable to escape.
At any moment it may open, and the dead appear to accuse her. What a
situation!"

"What an imagination!" exclaimed Roger. "Dear child, you have let it
carry you away as far from the truth as you've carried this woman from
her home--this woman whom you've so audaciously kidnapped."

"Wait," said Virginia, her voice trembling. "I haven't done with her.
This is only the first turn of the thumbscrew. She doesn't dream yet of
the ordeal she'll have to go through."

"May have to go through," quietly amended Roger Broom.

"You mean--oh, Roger, don't you think we'll succeed in what we've come
for so far, so very far?"

Virginia, with tears sparkling in uplifted eyes, was irresistible.

"I hope it, dear," the man who loved and wanted her said, gravely. "I
never thought it, you know. But the way hasn't seemed far to me, because
I have been with you and the time will not have been wasted for me if we
fail, because it has kept me by your side. I shall think, 'I have done
what I could, and it has pleased Virginia.'"

"It has made Virginia grateful for all her life long," said the girl
softly, "and whatever happens she will never forget. You have done so
much already! Disapproving my plan, still you loyally did all you could
to forward it. You used your influence to get us the one chance here,
without which we could hope to do nothing. You wrote to the French
Ambassador in London, the English Ambassador in France, and finally, when
our interests were so twisted up in masses of official red-tape that it
seemed they could never get disentangled, you ran on to Paris yourself to
call on the Minister of the Colonies. If it had not been for the permit
you got from him, we might as well have given up coming here, for all the
prison doors would have been shut to us. Now, through him, and through
you, they will be open, and our first step is clear. All this made me
feel hopeful, when we were far away; I felt sure that we should succeed.
But now that we have come these thousands of miles in our poor little
boat; now that we have arrived at the end of the world and our real work
is still before us, my heart suddenly sinks down--down. I'm
frightened--I'm almost ill: and your words and your face are so grave,
Roger! Your very tenderness and kindness make it worse, for somehow, it's
as if you thought there might be a good-bye. It makes me realize that,
after all, the greatest danger is to be run by you and George. You have
both come for my sake; and--you are going to risk your lives."

"Risk your lives!" repeated a voice; and turning quickly, Virginia and
her cousin saw Lady Gardiner, who had lately developed a rather stealthy
way of creeping noiselessly behind her friends.

Virginia's mood was not one to promote presence of mind. She was
speechless; but Roger stepped in to the breach.

"We were talking of a swim that George and I propose to have in these
pleasant waters," he remarked. "There are supposed to be a good many
sharks about, and Virginia is advising prudence."

"Oh!" breathed Lady Gardiner. "She is quite right. We will all join our
persuasions to hers. But the Countess tells me this island is actually
New Caledonia, the French penal settlement. Isn't that where your friend
Miss Dalahaide's brother is imprisoned?"

"I believe so," said Virginia.

"How exciting! And how well you've kept the secret of this expedition! Is
there any chance of our coming across the interesting murderer?"

"Don't call him that!" Virginia cried hotly. "How do you suppose that it
would be possible for us to come across him? Do tourists who go to
Portland 'come across' prisoners who have been convicted of
murder--whether innocent or not? Noumea isn't the only port we have
visited. It is on our way. We shall stop a day or two, and then--we shall
go on somewhere else."

"Quite so," drily returned Lady Gardiner.

It was noon when they slowly steamed into the beautiful harbour of
Noumea, and before them lay the crime-cursed land, fair with the fatal
fairness of deadly nightshade.

There, for nearly five years, Maxime Dalahaide had not lived, but
existed. To give him back to life, she had come thousands of miles and
spent more than twenty thousand pounds. What would they find that he had
become, if those precious documents which Roger had obtained proved as
potent as they hoped? Would his brain and heart have been strong enough
to bear the hopeless agony, the shame, the hideous associations of those
years which to him must have seemed a century of despair; or would he
have fallen under the burden?

Virginia shivered as if with cold, as she fancied a hard, official voice
announcing that Number So-and-So was dead.




CHAPTER VII

THE GATES OPEN


The Countess de Mattos had a headache which was so severe, she announced,
that it would prevent her from landing; besides, she was not interested
in convicts. Lady Gardiner, on the contrary, was greatly interested.
Never had she been more alert; never had her black eyes been so keen. She
wanted to go everywhere; she wanted to see everything. She thought Noumea
a charming place; she had "really _no_ sympathy for the prisoners." One
might commit a crime solely for the pleasure of being sent here.

The party of five went ashore, and Kate's principal preoccupation seemed
to be to keep as close to Virginia as possible. She had the air of
expecting some choice excitement, which she might miss if the girl were
lost sight of for a moment. But nothing in the manner of Virginia or her
brother or cousin suggested that they had come to this strange spot "at
the end of the world" with any object save that of amusement. They
behaved just as they had behaved at Sydney, or any other port at which
they had called. All five strolled up, under a blaze of tropical
sunshine, to the Place des Cocotiers, and sitting on the shaded verandah
of the Hôtel de France, sipped a cooling drink concocted of oranges,
lemons and pineapple. Then they sauntered on again, much observed by a
few weary-looking persons they met, through broad streets, with long,
low, white houses.

Dr. Grayle kept beside Lady Gardiner now, and they walked in front, as
the former was supposed to have studied the subject of the penal
settlement so thoroughly as to be qualified for guide.

Kate glanced over her shoulder often; but Dr. Grayle succeeded in
genuinely interesting her in a story of an atrocious criminal who had
been expatriated to Noumea some years before. When she looked hurriedly
back, ostensibly to ask Roger Broom if he had ever heard the spicy
narrative, the three had disappeared.

Lady Gardiner flushed in anger with them for their duplicity, with
herself for her carelessness in letting them slip away. "Dear me! what
_has_ become of the others?" she exclaimed. "We must turn back and find
them."

Dr. Grayle took the defection calmly--so calmly that Kate leaped to the
conviction that he was in the plot against her. The others wanted to go
somewhere or do something without her, and this little brown-faced,
sharp-eyed man had been told off as a kind of decoy duck. But she would
circumvent them yet. She _would_ know what was going on.

"They have probably gone to buy some bit of carving or other souvenirs of
convict make," said the doctor. "Certainly we'll turn back if you like."

They did turn back, and wandered about in all the (according to Dr.
Grayle) most likely places to find the lost ones, but in vain. Kate could
have burst into tears of rage. She was hot, tired, dusty, and--worst of
all--thwarted. It was hateful to feel herself helpless in the plotters'
hands, being made to dance when they pulled the strings, and to know that
this "horrid little brown man" was secretly laughing at her behind his
polite air of concern. Yet she _was_ helpless, and had to acknowledge it.
If she left the doctor and went off on an expedition of independent
exploration she would not know which way to go, and might get into
trouble. But at last she could no longer bear her wrongs in silence; and,
after all, she had nothing to gain by being nice to Dr. Grayle.

"I suppose you think," she burst out angrily, "that you are making a fool
of me, and that I don't know it. But I'm not as simple as you seem to
believe. I'm perfectly well aware that there's a mystery going on, and
that all these elaborate precautions are to keep me out of it."

Dr. Grayle raised his eyebrows. "Then you are much more enlightened than
I am," he returned mildly. "I'm really quite at loss to know what you
mean, Lady Gardiner."

"In plain words, I mean that you are walking me off my feet to cover the
others' escape. You know perfectly well where they are, but they've
ordered you to keep out of the way, and you are doing as you're told,
like a nice, obedient little man. I never was so abominably treated in my
life."

"I can't see, even if Miss Beverly and her two relations choose to go off
for a little private sight-seeing on their own account, that either you
or I have anything to complain of," said the doctor. "We are outsiders,
and are both very well paid for our services. My opinion is that few
persons in our position receive as much consideration from their
employers as we do."

Kate was so furious at this snub (which found a vital spot) that she was
literally speechless for a moment. She would have liked to strike the
impertinent little wretch who dared put her on a level with himself; but
she could hardly do that, even in Noumea. When the wave of angry blood
flowed back from her brain, and she recovered presence of mind, she
turned abruptly and walked away from the doctor. But he was at her side
again almost immediately, keeping up with her without any appearance of
haste, though she quickened her pace in spite of fatigue, looking as
cool, as serene, as if he had been taking an afternoon stroll in Bond
Street. Evidently he had torn a leaf out of Roger Broom's book; and Kate
recalled the forgotten fact that it was Roger who had recommended him to
Virginia's notice.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you are now going toward that part of
the town which was burnt down at the time of the plague here, about three
years ago. It is leading you rather out of the way of the hotel, where we
were all to meet for luncheon; but perhaps you have a curiosity to see
it? I have studied a map of the place, and if you like can point out----"

"I do not like!" Lady Gardiner cut in sharply. "I wish to send a
cablegram."

"Unfortunately, that is impossible."

"_What!_ One can't telegraph from this loathsome place?"

"I thought you were so charmed with it? One cannot telegraph to-day."

"Why not to-day? Is it a holiday for the operators?"

"So far as we are concerned."

"Ah! I see what you mean now. You intend to prevent my communicating with
my friends! But this is too much. I will do so."

"I fancied you were attached to Miss Beverly."

"What has that to do with it?"

"A good deal. We are Miss Beverly's guests--or her servants, whichever
you please. In either case, we surely owe her fealty. I have been
informed that she does not wish to have any communication made with the
outside world, from Noumea."

"_I_ was not informed of this mandate."

"I dare say she thought that you would be guided by my counsel."

"Counsel! A strange word for your tyranny. At least, I suppose, there are
no orders against returning to the hotel?"

"None. So long as we are discreet."

"And in what does your idea of discretion consist, pray?"

"Keeping ourselves to ourselves. They are rather suspicious folk in New
Caledonia. Few tourists come this way. Probably we are the first people
who have landed here not on business for many a long year."

"I am not at all sure that we haven't come on business--very particular
business."

"I wouldn't make that remark before anybody else, if I were you. You
might--get into trouble."

As Dr. Grayle said this he looked steadily at Lady Gardiner. Their eyes
met, and so peculiarly cold and menacing was the expression of his that
she felt unpleasantly chilled, and even subdued. Those steady eyes so
underscored his words with sinister meaning, that Kate dared not ask
whether the "trouble" to which he suggestively referred would come to her
through him or the inhabitants of Noumea. She thought that he looked
capable of reducing her to helplessness by violence, if she showed signs
of resisting his will, and she relapsed into silence. But she had not
given up the hope of cabling to Loria. She resolved to watch her chance.

They walked back to the Hôtel de France, but the others had not returned,
though the time fixed was long past. Kate was so hungry and weary that
again she could have wept, and was secretly glad when Dr. Grayle ordered
luncheon for two, though the prospect of a meal _tête-à-tête_ was not
enjoyable. She complained, however, of being too warm and dusty to eat,
unless she could refresh herself by splashing a little in cold water, and
she had to look down to hide the light which flashed into her eyes when
Grayle consented without protest to her taking a room, and re-making her
toilet before lunch.

"Now I shall get off that cable," she said to herself. Hardly had she
entered the bare, poorly furnished bedroom when she rang, and stood
waiting eagerly for a servant to answer the summons. Presently came the
expected knock. She flew to open the door, and--there stood the little
doctor, behind him approaching a maid, probably an ex-convict.

"You rang, Lady Gardiner," said Dr. Grayle, "to ask for a telegraph form,
just as you might in a civilized place, didn't you? But this isn't a
civilized place, and the methods are not all civilized. Now, here is the
servant you rang for. If you persist in carrying out your intention I
shall lock you in this room, take the key, and tell the landlord that you
are a harmless lunatic, under my medical supervision. I think I shall not
in that case lack for assistance in keeping you within bounds."

Kate glared at him, panting, for a moment. Then, controlling her voice,
she asked the servant in French for some hot water. Having done this, she
slammed the door in the little man's face, which was the only
satisfaction she got out of the incident. She was inclined to remain
sulking in the bedroom, but though the spirit was willing the flesh was
weak, and the pangs of hunger drove her forth. Dr. Grayle was awaiting
her in the corridor, a watchdog, patient and placid.

       *       *       *       *       *

The missing three did no more aimless sauntering after they had slipped
round a corner and eluded Kate Gardiner's curious eyes. Had their
business not been of life-and-death importance, they would have felt like
children escaped from school; since the least imprudence might lose them
the stake for which they played, and Kate's presence had been a check and
cause of delay. Fortunately, it was not yet the hour of _déjeuner_, even
in Noumea, and they made up for lost time by hastening to the Governor's
offices, which were in a white-painted, two-story building of wood, with
a verandah facing the almost deserted street.

It was Sir Roger Broom who had used his influence in obtaining a special
letter from the Minister of Colonies to the Governor of New Caledonia,
and he now sent it in with his card, and those of his friends, by a
clerk. For a few moments they waited, soldiers in gay uniforms, gendarmes
and convict messengers passing in and out on various errands, all gazing
with surprised, if furtive, interest at the extraordinarily beautiful
girl in white. Presently the Governor was ready to receive his guests,
and his turn came to be astonished by Virginia. She was the first lady
who had ever come to Noumea, he said, on a journey of pleasure. Ah, the
American young ladies, they were wonderful, amazing! He asked a few
questions about the yacht, the trip they had had, and his old friend the
Minister of Colonies, then countersigned the credentials for the party,
and dashed off a letter to the Director of the Penitentiary
Administration.

It was upon the latter official that everything depended. So far all was
satisfactory; but if the Director (who was supreme in authority over the
prison, not answerable even to the Governor) chose to be ungracious, they
might go back whence they had come without even attempting that bold
stroke in the hope of which they had paid this visit. They had dared,
however, show no signs of their consuming anxiety. With smiling thanks
they bade good-bye to the Governor and went on, in the fitful silence of
suspense, to the Direction.

Again the letters and cards were borne away by a clerk. There was more
waiting; and when they were ushered into a large, cool, dusky room,
strangely still behind its heavy double doors, Virginia was glad of the
gloom, lest her pallor should excite suspicion.

Afterward Roger and George said to each other that if it had not been
for Virginia they believed the Director would have politely, but firmly,
refused to grant the special privileges they craved. Others had received
ordinary permits to "view" the penitentiary establishment, yet very few,
indeed (save those who went because they must), had been suffered by the
authorities to pass the prison gates. But what Frenchman could refuse any
favour in his power to the all-conquering Virginia? The Director would
have been well within his rights, and could not have been accused of
discourtesy, if he had allowed a certain short, concise sentence at the
left-hand corner of the official sheet of paper which he signed, to
remain. But instead he scratched it out with two quick strokes of the
pen; and the doors of the prison and its cells were practically thrown
open.

He, too, asked questions, and seemed wistfully loth to part with these
interesting visitors from a far-away world, whose echoes he seldom heard.
He smiled indulgently when Virginia fluently told the story prepared
beforehand: the book she and her brother had been commissioned to write
by a prominent American publishing firm; how it was to be all about this
yachting trip, with Noumea as the _pièce de resistance_ of the story.
They expected, George Trent chimed in by saying, to stop on board their
yacht in the harbour for a day or two perhaps, but (and he made the most
of his engaging Southern accent) what they particularly wanted was to
"do" the Ile Nou, which all the books said was so "mighty" interesting.

The Director obligingly scrawled a letter to the Commandant of the prison
in New Caledonia, explained to his guests what they must do, and
cordially invited them to lunch with him. The thought of eating was
repulsive to Virginia; but Roger telegraphed her a warning look, and she
knew that she must accept. It would not be wise to let it be seen that
they were in a hurry; they were eccentric pleasure-seekers, sea-tourists;
to be in haste was to throw aside disguise.

After _déjeuner_, which seemed interminable, they were allowed to depart.
So to a group of white, gray-roofed buildings set in brilliant little
squares of garden--the offices of the executive police. Passing on, they
reached a small wooden quay, belonging to the penitential administration.
Men in ugly gray clothing, their faces shaded with broad, ribbonless
straw hats, were working at loading a boat with large boxes, which they
carried to the quay from a truck on a miniature local railway line. These
men were directed in their labour by other men in white; and Virginia
shivered all over, for this was her first sight of the convicts. What if
Maxime Dalahaide were among these forlorn wretches who toiled and sweated
in the blazing sun, with no encouragement save the rough exhortations of
the white-clad surveillants with revolvers on their hips? If he were
here, did any voice whisper to him of hope?

The _canot_ for the Ile Nou was to start almost immediately. The
credentials of the party were examined at the _douanerie_, and they were
permitted to go on board. Twelve convicts were the rowers. They sat under
an awning which protected them as well as the passengers from the sun,
but Virginia, glancing almost fearfully at their faces, saw that their
skins were tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure. Their features
were, without one exception, marked with the indefinable yet
not-to-be-mistaken stamp of criminality, and she breathed more freely
when she had assured herself that the man they sought was not one of
them.

All they had to go upon was the vague information derived from Madeleine
Dalahaide, that her brother was supposed to be on the Ile Nou. The time
had not come yet to ask the questions that burnt their tongues; but it
was coming nearer now with each wide sweep of the convicts' oars.

The Director had been thoughtful enough to telegraph to the Ile Nou of
the visitors' arrival, and as the _canot_ approached the quay of the
strange little settlement, an officer of the prison, who had the
appearance of a superior warder, stepped forward, touching his white hat.

Virginia felt, with a thickly beating heart, that the long preface was
finished, the first chapter of the book about to begin. She looked at
this island of exile and punishment with an emotion that was not
curiosity, but which could be classified by no other word. The Ile Nou
was not to the eye the terrible place of which she had so often dreamt.
There were more low, white houses, clustering cosily together or
separated by thick, dark trees, and there were shaded streets and more
blazing _flamboyant_ flowers making patches of red in the deep green. But
beyond the town rose a hill, and there the great prison buildings stood
out grimly against the cloudless blue of the tropical sky.

They landed. The warder begged them with French politeness to give
themselves the trouble of accompanying him to the quarters of the
Commandant, who expected their visit.

The programme of conspiracy was all planned; each one's part had been
carefully mapped out, and a thousand times Virginia had gone through the
ordeal of this day in her mind. Yet now the beating in her temples
confused her thoughts. She was afraid that she should forget, that she
should make some irretrievable blunder, and that everything would be
ruined by her fault. But much might depend now upon a look or a gesture,
and she held herself in a vice of self-control, fearing that her smile on
greeting the courteous old Commandant was suspiciously forced, her voice
unnatural, or the look in her eyes a betrayal of desperate anxiety.

But the gallant Frenchman saw only the most entrancing vision of a girl
his eyes had ever looked upon. Within the bounds of reason--which meant
in honour and within the regulations of the establishment--he would have
done anything to win one of those distracting smiles which brought into
play two little round dimples. He ordered his own carriage to take his
guests to the grim hill behind the town; he sat by Virginia as they were
driven up the white, winding road; and when at last the convict coachman
drew up the horses at a great door of black iron in the blank side of a
high white wall, it was he who helped her to alight.

"You will be the only lady, not the wife or daughter of an official of
the place, who has ever entered at this gate, mademoiselle," he remarked
as the key of the surveillant grated in the lock.

The door opened, and Virginia passed through, trembling, the Commandant
at her side. They were in a long, oddly-shaped courtyard. "The place of
execution," said her guide. "In the early morning, at sunrise, a
condemned man is brought here to die by the guillotine. Through that door
yonder he comes, the priest walking by his side. To-morrow there will be
such an execution. But I suppose you would scarcely care to see that,
mademoiselle?"

"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Virginia, shuddering. "I would die myself,
sooner. What has he done--this unfortunate one--that he must suffer
death?"

"He attempted to escape----"

"What--you kill them for that, if--they are retaken?"

"No; but wait, mademoiselle. I will tell you the story. It may be of use
as an anecdote for the book you will write. This man who is to die
to-morrow morning, and who will not know that his time has come until the
knock at the door of his cell when the hour strikes--this man and
another, who were imprisoned at the Isle of Pines, stole a small open
fishing-boat, and with the branch of a tree for a mast and a shirt for a
sail, started out in the desperate hope of eventually reaching Australia.
But the alarm was soon given, and they were pursued by such a _canot_ as
that in which you came here, mademoiselle, from Noumea. One of the
fugitives was mad enough to jump from the boat, scarcely knowing what he
did. In a moment he had ceased to live."

"He was shot?"

"Ah, no, mademoiselle. The waters here are literally alive with sharks.
Bathing even near shore is dangerous. A little farther out--but I will
say no more. You grow pale."

"That is nothing. And the other man--what of him?"

"He was captured; but he is a young, athletic fellow, and in his fury at
being retaken he snatched a surveillant's revolver and shot him dead. He
was tried, condemned to death, and to-morrow at sunrise, as I said, will
expiate his crime and folly."

Virginia was very white now--almost as white as the frock which she had
chosen from her prettiest for the subjugation of these men in authority.

"What is the man's name?" she ventured to ask, her voice sounding strange
and metallic in her own ears, her lips dry.




CHAPTER VIII

NUMBER 1280


"The man is without a name," said the Commandant. "He is a number. But
once he was known as Jean Fourneau."

Virginia breathed again. "And the one who was with him?"

"The man eaten by the sharks? He was called, in the world, Pierre Duval."

The girl could hardly restrain a murmur of the infinite relief she felt.
But she dared show no emotion. "I suppose you have all sorts and
conditions of men here?" she asked.

"From the highest to the lowest."

"Then there must be many interesting cases--quite romances. Do tell us
something about a few of the best."

"That is difficult. There are many cases which might interest you; but
they would shock you as well."

"I would trust you to choose. Have you any young men of good family who,
perhaps, committed their crimes for love?"

The Commandant smiled. "We have many such. There is the man who is called
the New Caledonian Dreyfus--Chatelain--who sold his country to please the
woman he loved. He is at Ducos. But perhaps the most notable example of
the type you desire is a young scion of French and English aristocracy
whom we have here, on the Ile Nou. He is now known as Number 1280; but a
few years ago he figured brilliantly in the great world as Maxime
Dalahaide. You may have heard of him, mademoiselle."

The words rang strangely in the girl's ears. She "might have heard of
him"! But her presence of mind had not left her, as a few moments ago she
had feared it might, when it should be needed most.

She was simply carrying out her part of the programme, and she knew that
Roger and George were watching her from behind half-closed lids. If they
could help her they would; but the time had not come for their help yet.

"I left America only a year ago," she answered, "and one forgets things
of this sort when they happen very far away."

"Naturally. But it was an uncommon case. Maxime Dalahaide was condemned
to death for murdering a beautiful young actress, with whom he was in
love--jealousy alleged as the cause. However, powerful influence saved
him from death and sent him to us. I do not know that he was properly
thankful."

Virginia showed a little decorous interest, such as a stranger might
legitimately take in the hero of such a tale. "This story ought to make a
splendid anecdote for our book," she exclaimed. "Is the man handsome?"

"You might not think so if you saw him now. The costume of the _forçat_
is not becoming. But he is still quite young, between twenty-eight and
nine. You can see his portrait if you like, mademoiselle, at the Bureau
of Anthropometry, where each convict's photograph is taken, with every
possible view of his face, when he first becomes an inmate of the
prison."

"I would rather see the man himself," answered Virginia. "If you would
_only_ let my brother and me have an interview with him; think how it
would help our book! Ah, monsieur, that _would_ be kind. I should never
forget your goodness in giving me such a chance."

The gallant Commandant hesitated. But--the permit in the possession of
these three favoured visitors was very explicit. They were to have
privileges scarcely ever granted before, and he had therefore the best of
excuses for obliging the beautiful American girl.

"Do say yes!" persuasively added Virginia.

"I really think I may conscientiously do so," replied the old Frenchman,
delighted to please the most radiant being he had seen for many a long
year. "Number 1280 has acted for some time as secretary in one of the
bureaux; but another convict, displaced for Dalahaide because of
carelessness and inaccuracy, was jealous of the favour shown the
aristocrat (ah, I assure you they know all about each other's affairs
and circumstances here!), contrived to make a rough knife out of a piece
of flint, and stabbed his rival in the back, narrowly missing the lungs.
As it was, the wound was a serious one, and Dalahaide is in the hospital.
The would-be murderer is now undergoing punishment in what we call the
Black Cell."

"The wound was not actually dangerous?" Roger hastened to inquire, seeing
that Virginia's lips were white.

"He ought not to be dangerously ill," said the Commandant. "He is young,
and quite one of our athletes--or was. The life he had led here, though
not what he would choose, has not been unhealthful. But the doctor, with
whom I have discussed his case, says that the wish to recover is lacking.
The man is hopeless. He would rather die than live; and his physician
thinks it exceedingly likely that he will do so."

"That is sad," said Sir Roger, his eyes still on Virginia.

The Commandant shrugged his shoulders. "We are accustomed to sadness
here," he replied. "But the exile and degradation of Noumea are no doubt
harder of endurance to a man like Dalahaide--proud, sensitive, refined,
intellectual, accustomed to every luxury. He was like a madman when he
first came, four or five years ago. Several times he attempted escape and
suicide. Then he became sullenly despairing; but I began to take an
interest in him, believing that he was not at bottom such a desperate
character as the surveillants had grown to consider him. I did what I
could to soften his lot, having him introduced to more congenial work in
the bureau; but this was not until he had known three months in the Black
Cell. Some men lose their minds in the _Cachot Noir_, though its horrors
have been mitigated of late years. But Dalahaide's brain did not fail;
and he has proved a valuable man at secretarial work. Also during the
plague, three years ago, he volunteered as a nurse, and was admirable.
You shall see him in hospital, since you wish it, and even talk with him;
but you must not leave New Caledonia with the impression that all
convicts are like this man. Now we will finish the inspection of the
prison here, and then my carriage shall drive us to the hospital, which
is at a little distance."

How Virginia got through the next half-hour she did not know. If she had
dared, she would have begged to go on at once to the hospital; but she
did not dare. It was necessary to submit to the delay of being guided
through the prison, to be shown the galleries and the cells, the
Prétoire, and to hear patiently the explanation of the Bertillon system.
At last, however, they were once more in the carriage which had been kept
waiting for them; but even then they must still exercise patience, for a
Disciplinary Camp was on the road along which they must pass, and to
betray too much eagerness to reach their journey's end (when avowedly
they had come to New Caledonia for information) would have been
dangerous. At the camp they must perforce squander twenty or thirty
minutes, Virginia and George pretending to take notes of what they saw
and heard; and then they turned westward. Before them stretched a long
avenue of strangely bent and sloping palms. It was the avenue of the
hospital.

They drove down it to a stone archway, glittering white in the sun, and
saw beyond a green and shaded garden, jewelled with gorgeous flowers, and
heavy with richly mingling scents.

"If Dalahaide is no worse to-day, we shall probably find him in the
garden here," said the Commandant. "He must have read at least half a
dozen times an old copy of Dante which I lent him; the books in the
prison library are not much to his taste."

No one answered, not even Roger. In fact, at the moment Roger was more
anxious, perhaps, than any other member of the party, for he realized the
existence of a certain danger which Virginia and her brother had
apparently lost sight of, although long ago it had been discussed by them
all. It had also been provided against; but the suggestion that Maxime
Dalahaide might be met here in the garden, the thought that at any moment
they might come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly, upset these prudent
calculations.

As Maxime and Roger had known each other five years ago, it had been
decided that a meeting must be avoided at first, lest in his surprise at
seeing a familiar face--like a ghost from another world--the prisoner
should cry out, and involuntarily put those who watched upon their guard.
The three had planned among themselves, when this day was still in the
future, that if they should succeed in their first step, and gain access
to Maxime Dalahaide, Roger must keep in the background until his mind had
been prepared by Virginia and George Trent for what was to come. The
other two, as strangers to him, could approach the prisoner without risk.
But they had expected to see him, if at all, in some room or cell, to
which certain members of the party might be conducted by request; while
here, in this vast garden, with its ambushes of trees and shrubs, any one
of the half-hidden gray figures which they could distinguish in the green
shadows might prove to be Dalahaide.

Roger did not know what to do. He might offer to stop behind and wait in
the carriage outside the garden gates. But if he did this it would seem
strange and even ungracious to the Commandant, who was taking so much
trouble to entertain them, and to "seem strange" was alone enough to
constitute danger. He compromised, keeping behind with George, while
Virginia walked ahead with the old Frenchman.

In the midst of the garden stood the quadrangular building of the
hospital, the steep roof forming broad verandahs. There were gray figures
sitting or lounging there also, but the Commandant said that Number 1280
would not be found among these, for he fled as much as might be from the
society of his fellow-convicts.

They turned the corner of a shaded path and came out under a green canopy
made by four large palms. A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his
arm, his face upturned--a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly
grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared
that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. She
started, and caught at the arm of the Commandant, who turned to her in
concerned surprise.

"One would think you had guessed that this was our man," he said in a low
voice, for the convict, whose face was ghastly pale in the green dusk,
seemed to sleep.

"I beg your pardon," whispered Virginia. "I stepped on a stone and
twisted my foot. Is this, then, the man we have come to find?"

How well she knew that it was he! How well she knew, though the terrible
years had changed the brave young face in the portrait almost beyond the
recognition of a stranger. All the gay audacity was gone, therefore much
of the individuality which had distinguished it for Virginia. The strong,
clear features of the man looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had
been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows
in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the
dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips
drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and
extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it
might have been the form of a dead man.

Roger, without seeing the sleeping face, guessed by the abrupt stop and
the low-spoken words of the two in front that Maxime Dalahaide was found.
He drew back slightly, with a meaning glance at George, who stepped
forward to join the others.

Suddenly the black line of lashes trembled; a pair of dark, tragic eyes,
more like those of Madeleine Dalahaide than the laughing ones of the
portrait, opened and looked straight into Virginia's. For a few seconds
their gaze remained fixed, as if the white vision had been a broken
dream; then a deep flush spread over the thin face of the young man, and
he rose to his feet.

"This lady and her brother have come a long way to see New Caledonia,"
said the Commandant kindly. "They wish to talk to you."

Maxime Dalahaide bowed. Virginia saw that he pressed his lips together,
and that the muscles of his face quivered. She guessed how he must suffer
at having to gratify--as he supposed--the morbid curiosity of a girl, and
it hurt her to think that she must be the one to give him this added
pain.

She turned to the Commandant, and, with a voice not quite steady, asked
if she and her brother might speak to the man alone. She felt that she
should be less embarrassed in her questions, she said, if no one
listened. With a smile the old Frenchman consented, bowing like a
courtier, and joined Roger Broom, who stood at a little distance out of
sight of the convict.

"I thought there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more
strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away
down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this
expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are
permitted"; and he touched the camera, slung over his shoulder, of which
he had already made ostentatious use on several occasions. "May I have a
snapshot of the hospital, with all those chaps on the verandahs? Thanks;
we must go a little to the right, then. By Jove! what a lot of gray
figures there are about. How do you make sure they can't escape, if they
choose, out here where they don't seem to be guarded?"

"It is only 'seem,'" retorted the Commandant, laughing. "All these men
are invalids; we make short work of malingerers. Very few could run a
dozen yards without falling down, and most of them are well contented as
they are. But, if any one should be mad enough to attempt a dash for
freedom, four or five surveillants would be on him before he could count
twenty. They do not make themselves conspicuous here, that is all."

Sir Roger Broom looked across the eastern wall of the hospital garden,
over the green expanse of the great lagoon, and thought much; but he said
nothing. Quietly he prepared to take the suggested photograph, and the
hand that held the camera did not shake, though he could guess of what,
by this time, George Trent and Virginia were talking with the convict
under the palms.

When the Commandant had left them alone with him, Maxime Dalahaide
remained silent, Virginia's beauty filled him--not with happy worship of
its perfection, but rather with an overwhelming bitterness. He was a
Thing, of whom this exquisite, fresh young girl wished to ask a few
questions, so that she might go back to her world, thousands of miles
away, and say, "Only fancy, I talked to one of the convicts--an awful
creature. He had murdered a woman, but he was quite quiet, and, as my
brother was close beside me, I was not one bit afraid."

Just because he was a Thing, with no right to pride and self-respect, she
could ask what she pleased, and he would answer her; but she must begin,
not he.

She did begin, yet so differently from the cut-and-dried beginning which
he had scornfully expected, that a flash of vivid amazement swept the
hardness from the exile's face.

"Be very careful," she said rapidly in English. "Don't speak, don't show
anything you may feel. Perhaps we are watched. You are Maxime Dalahaide.
We haven't come here for curiosity, as you think, but to save you. We
have come thousands of miles for that."

"Why?" It was as if the question fell from his lips without volition. The
man did not believe his own ears. He thought that he must have been
seized with delirium.

"Because we believe in you and because we are friends of your sister's,"
Virginia answered. "A man you once knew is with us--Roger Broom. Do you
remember?"

"Roger Broom!" Maxime repeated dazedly. "It is like an echo from the
past. Yes--yes, I remember."

"It is through him that we have been able to reach you. He is close by,
but dared not let you see him, until you had been warned. Now, we must
arrange everything in a few minutes for your escape; the Commandant has
been kind, but he may not give us long together."

"I think I must be dreaming," stammered Maxime, all his bitterness
forgotten. "I've been ill. I don't understand things as quickly as I
used. Escape! You have come here to--help me to escape. Yes, it is
certainly a dream. I shall wake up by and by!"

"You will wake up free," said Virginia not daring to raise her voice
above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from
France to take you home."

Suddenly a glaze of tears overspread Maxime Dalahaide's dark eyes.
"Home?" he echoed wistfully. "Home! Ah, if it might be!"

"It shall be," returned Virginia. "George, tell him our plan. You can do
it better than I."

"The thing is to get you on board the yacht," said Trent. "After that,
you're all right. We can show our heels to pretty well anything in these
parts."

Dalahaide shook his head. "There are no words to thank you for what you
have done, and would do for me," he answered. "But it is impossible. Once
I thought of escape. I tried and failed, as others have tried and failed.
After the second time, they put me in the Black Cell, and I saved myself
from madness by calling to memory all of Shakespeare that I had ever
learned. I don't say 'impossible' because I am afraid of that again. I
have passed beyond fear of anything. What have I left to dread? I know
the worst; I have lived through the worst that can befall a man. But in
that dreadful blackness, where my very soul seemed to dissolve in night,
I realized that, even if I could escape, how useless freedom would be if
my innocence were not proved. I could not go to France or England. I
should live a hunted life. As well be an exile here as nearer
home--better, perhaps, now that the first bitterness has passed."

"You think this because you've been ill, and your blood runs slow," said
George Trent. "All you need is to be strong again, and----"

"Strong again!" echoed Maxime, with sorrowful contempt. "I've been
thanking heaven that I hadn't strength enough left to care for anything.
It's true, as you say; the oil in my lamp of life burns low, and so much
the better for me. What I want now is to get it all over as soon as may
be. You are kind--you are so good to me that I am lost in wonder; yet
even you cannot give me a freedom worth having. Take back my love to my
sister, but tell her--tell her that I am content to stay as I am."

"Content to die, you mean!" cried Virginia.

"Oh, you are ill indeed to feel like this. How can you bear to stay here,
when you have a chance to be a free man--even if not a happy man--to stay
here, and let your enemy, who sent you to this place, laugh and think how
his plot against you has succeeded?"

The dreamy look of weary resignation on Maxime Dalahaide's face changed
to alertness. "Why do you speak of an enemy, and a plot against me?" he
asked. "That poor girl was murdered; but I have never thought that she
was killed because her murderer wished to involve me. That part was an
accident. Liane Devereux----"

"Is not dead," broke in Virginia. "She is on our yacht now, in the
harbour of Noumea. When you come, and she sees you, she will confess the
whole plot."

"But I saw her lying dead--a thousand times that sight has been before my
eyes."

"It was not she. If you want to know all, to fathom the whole mystery,
and learn how to prove your own innocence, you will not refuse to do what
we ask."

Maxime's thin face no longer looked like a carving in old ivory. The
statue had come to life. The spring of hope had begun to stir in his
veins. "If it were possible to prove it--at this late day!" he exclaimed.
"But even if it were--you forget the tremendous difficulties in the way
of escape. How could I reach your yacht? It could not come near enough to
shore here to pick me up; even a small boat would be seen----"

"Not at night," said Virginia.

"Remember, it is moonlight. The night will be like day. Long before a
small boat could reach the yacht from the beach she would be followed,
overtaken, and not only should I be brought back, but I should have the
misery of knowing that I had been the cause of bringing my brave friends
into trouble. They would fire upon us. If I were killed it would matter
little enough; but if you were to be shot----" He spoke to George Trent,
but his eyes moved quickly to Virginia's face.

"My sister would be waiting for us on board the _Bella Cuba_," said
Trent. "Roger Broom and I will take jolly good care of ourselves--and of
you, too, if you'll only give us a chance."

"If you'd come here a month ago," sighed the prisoner, "before I got this
wound in my back! Now I'm afraid it's too late. I've let myself go. I
thought I saw the one door of escape for me opening--death; and instead
of turning my back I walked toward it. I've let my strength down. I
haven't eaten or slept much, and I began to have a pleasant feeling of
slipping easily out with the tide. Now there's an incentive to stop, the
tide's too strong and I'm too weak. I can't count on myself."

"Count on us," said George. "We'll see you through, you bet. And think of
your sister. We promised we'd take you back with us. We can't go to her
without you, after raising her hopes. It would kill her." Trent glanced
at Virginia, as if expecting her to add encouraging arguments to his; but
she was silent, her eyes alone appealing to Dalahaide. George Trent was
her half-brother, and had known her all her life, but he felt the thrill
of that look in the girl's beautiful eyes. How much more, then, must
Maxime Dalahaide have felt it, he said to himself.

"It is the risk for you I think of--if I fail," the prisoner exclaimed.
"If I had only myself to consider I should hesitate no longer."

"We have come a long, long way to you," Virginia's eyes said; and her
lips would have added something had not George's hand fallen suddenly in
warning on her shoulder. "Somebody is coming," he whispered. "For all our
sakes, don't fail us, Dalahaide. We shall look for you to-night--there,"
and he nodded toward the water. "Make your way to the beach and hide
among the rocks till you see our little boat. Don't take

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