The Mask Part 46

"That depends--on you."

"What do you mean?"

Again he waved her to a seat.

"Sit down and I'll tell you."

Trembling, she dropped once more on to a chair and waited. He puffed deliberately at his cigarette for a few moments and then, turning his glance in her direction, he smiled in a peculiar, horrible way and his eyes ran over her figure in a way that made the crimson rush furiously to her cheek. There was no mistaking that smile. It was the bold, l.u.s.tful look of the voluptuary who enjoys letting his eyes feast on the prey that he knows cannot now escape him.

"Mrs. Traynor," he began in the caressing, dulcet tones which she feared more than his anger, "you are an exceptional woman. To most men of my temperament you would not appeal. They would find your beauty too statuesque and cold. I know you are clever, but love cannot feed on intellect alone, I have loved many women, but never a woman just like you. Your coldness, your haughty reserve, your refinement would intimidate most men and keep them at a distance, but not me. Your aloofness, your indifference only spurs me, only adds to the acuteness of my desire. I swore to myself that I would conquer you, overcome your resistance, bend you to my will. You turned me out of your home.

I swore to be avenged."

He stopped for a moment and watched her closely as if studying and enjoying the effect of his words. Then, amid a cloud of blue tobacco smoke, he went on:

"I knew only one way to win you--it was to humiliate you, to place you in a position where you would have to come to me on your knees."

She half rose from her chair.

"I would never do that," she cried. "I would rather die!"

"Oh, yes, you will," he continued, calmly, making a gesture to her to remain seated. "When I've told you all, you'll see things in a different light." Fixing her steadily with his piercing black eyes, he asked: "Have you noticed any difference in your husband since his return."

She looked up quickly.

"Yes--what does it mean? Can you explain?"

He nodded.

"Did you ever hear your husband speak of a twin brother he once had?"

Her face turned white as death and her heart throbbing violently, she stared helplessly at her persecutor. She tried to be calm, but she could not. Yet, why be so alarmed, why should this single question so agitate her? In the deepest recesses of her being she knew that it was her unerring instinct warning her that she was about to hear something that would entail worse suffering than any she had yet endured.

"Yes--yes--why do you ask?" she gasped.

"You all thought the brother dead."

"Yes."

"You were mistaken. He is alive."

"Where is he?" she faltered.

"Here in New York."

"Where?"

"In your house. The man who returned home was not your husband. He was your husband's twin brother."

She looked at him as one bewildered, as if she did not understand what he was saying, as if words had suddenly lost their meaning. Her face, white as in death, she faltered:

"Not Kenneth--then where is Kenneth?"

"He is dead!"

Her powers of speech paralyzed, her large eyes starting from their sockets from terror, an expression of mute helpless agony on her beautiful face, she looked up at him with horror. Not yet could she fully grasp the meaning of his words. At last the frightful spell was broken. With an effort the words came:

"Then you," she cried. "You are his a.s.sa.s.sin!"

He shook his head as he replied carelessly:

"No--not I--his brother!"

She gave a cry of anguish and, starting to her feet, made a movement forward, her hands clutching convulsively at her throat. Air! air!

She must have air. She felt sick and dizzy. The room was spinning round like a top, and then everything grew dark. Lurching heavily forward she would have fallen had he not caught her.

Instantly she shrank from the contact as from something unclean, and with a low moan sank down on a chair and buried her face in her hands.

Her instinct had told her true. Her loved one was dead, she would never see him again, and that man who had come into the sanct.i.ty of her home and fondled her in his arms was his murderer. Oh, it was too horrible!

The bitter, cynical smile was still on Keralio's lips as he went on:

"You see the folly of resisting me. Had you surrendered at that time all might have been well. The price was not too much to pay. I would have been discreet. No one but ourselves would have known that you and I were----"

He did not complete the sentence, for at that moment she sprang forward like an enraged tiger cat, and, seizing a cane that stood close by, struck him across the face with all the force of her outraged womanhood.

"Murderer! a.s.sa.s.sin!" she cried indignantly. "How dare you talk like that to me? I will denounce you to the whole world. I will not rest till I see you and that other scoundrel punished and my poor husband is avenged. On leaving here I shall go direct to the police."

Imbued with strength she never dreamed she possessed, she was about to hit him again when he seized the cane and threw it away. But across his pale, handsome face lay a telltale red mark, the smart of which burned into his soul.

His eyes flashed with anger and he made a visible effort to control himself. He took a step forward and, as he advanced she saw an expression in his face which prompted her to retreat precipitately. It was a dangerous look, the look of a man who knew he had a helpless woman in his power, a man who was desperate and would stop at nothing to encompa.s.s his ends. Now thoroughly frightened, she looked around for some way to escape. The windows were impossible, the only way was by the door and he barred the way. Besides, she would never go without her child.

He noticed the movement and look of alarm, and he smiled. Continuing to advance, he said:

"There's no use making a fuss. No one could hear you if you shouted for help till the crack of doom. You are alone with me--and absolutely in my power. Do as I ask and there is nothing you shall not have.

Refuse, and I answer for nothing. Come----"

Her whole body trembling, her face white with terror, she kept on retreating:

"Leave me alone!" she gasped, "or I will scream."

"Scream away," he laughed. "There's no one here to hear you."

Suddenly he made a quick lunge forward and seized her. She struggled and resisted with all the energy born of despair, pus.h.i.+ng, twisting, scratching. But they were too unevenly matched. She was like an infant in the grasp of an Hercules. Slowly, she felt her strength leaving her. His iron grasp gradually closed on her, nearer and nearer he drew her into his embrace.

With a last, superhuman effort, she managed to wrench herself free, out of his grip, and breaking completely away, she fled into the next room.

But he was after her in a minute and again seized her, but not before she screamed at the top of her voice:

"Help! Help! Kenneth! Wilbur! Help! Help!"

He tried to gag her mouth to stifle her cries, but it was too late.