Charles Rex Part 73

"You came. If you'd been an angel from heaven, you couldn't have been more wonderful. You helped me--believed in me--gave me always--the benefit of the doubt--made a way of escape for me--made life possible--even--even--beautiful!" She choked a little over the word. "I offered you just everything. I couldn't help it. You were the only man in the world to me. How could I help wors.h.i.+pping you? You--you--you were always so splendid--so--so great. You made me--you made me realize--that life was worth having. You made me--believe in G.o.d." She broke into sudden wild tears. "And you didn't love me enough even to take the little I had to give! I didn't want you to marry me. I never dreamt of such a thing. I had kept myself from harm, but I knew very well I wasn't fit to be your wife. Only--I loved you so. And when I knew that Bunny was turning against me--would never believe in me--I just couldn't help turning to you again. And then--and then--you went and married me!" She wrung her hands tragically. "I ought not to have let you. G.o.d will never forgive me for it. I don't deserve to be forgiven. But I loved you--I loved you!"

She covered her face and sobbed.

Saltash reached out a hand and took her by the shoulder. "Nonette!

Nonette!" he said, in a voice that was strangely uncertain. "Don't cry, child! Don't cry!"

She drew herself away from him. "Don't--don't! I don't want you to. I just came to tell you--that's all--in case you should think I ever--cared for--Bunny. Maud says--you ought to know that. We only--only--played together. We never--really--loved each other. I wasn't his sort--or he mine. He doesn't want me back. I wouldn't go if he did. I ran away--with that d.a.m.n cur Spentoli--to give you a chance--to drop me. I couldn't face you after you knew everything. You'd never loved me, and I'd tricked you too badly. I knew you'd want to get free. Why didn't you start in and get a divorce? Why didn't you? Why didn't you?"

She suddenly lifted her face, storming the words, electrified as it were by the wild force of her pa.s.sion. Again he reached a hand towards her, but she eluded him with a desperate gesture.

"No! No! Don't touch me! Don't touch me! I can't bear it! I'm going now!

I'm going right away. You'll never see me again--never hear of me. And you'll be free! Do you understand? You'll be quite free. I'll keep that promise I made to you. It won't be difficult. No one shall ever know how--and only you--you who never even pretended to love me--will be able to guess why."

She turned about with the words, and wrenched furiously at the door behind her. In another moment she would have been gone. But in that moment Saltash moved, perhaps more swiftly than he had ever moved in his life before, and in a flash he had her in his arms.

She fought for her freedom then like a terrified animal, twisting this way and that, straining with frenzied effort to escape. And when, his hold encompa.s.sing her, he broke down her resistance, pressing her indomitably closer and closer till she lay powerless and palpitating against his breast, she burst into agonized tears, beseeching him, imploring him, to set her free.

"Why should I?" he said, still holding her. "Don't you know yet that it's the very last thing I mean to do?"

"You must! Oh, you must!" she cried back. "You can't--you--you can't--hold me--against my will!"

"That's true," said Saltash, as if struck by something. "And are you capable of leaving me--against mine?" His hold relaxed with the words, and instantly she sprang away from him--sprang like a fleeing bird upon the low parapet beside them, and in a second was sliding out upon the narrow ledge that surrounded the great stone b.u.t.tress of the turret.

"h.e.l.l!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Saltash, and gave a great leap as if he would pursue her, then with abrupt effort checked himself.

He stood with one foot on the parapet, and watched her, and in the vague starlight his eyes burned with the old mocking devilry behind which he had so long sheltered his soul.

"So you think you'll get away from me that way, do you?" he said, and laughed his gibing laugh. "Well, you may try. Either stay there till you've had enough--or throw yourself over! I'll get you in any case."

She came to a stand, her hands spread out on each side of her, her eyes turning back to him across the awful s.p.a.ce that yawned between. Sheer depth was below her, but she did not seem aware of it.

"I will throw myself over," she said with tense purpose, "unless you promise--unless you swear--to let me go."

He laughed again, but there was no mirth in the glittering eyes that looked back at her, neither mirth nor dismay, only the most arrogant and absolute mastery that she had ever encountered.

"I promise nothing," he said, "except that one way or the other I'm going to have you. You can take your choice. You can sink or swim. But you won't get away. There is a bond between us that you can't break, however hard you try. Fling yourself over if you think it's worth it? And before you get to the bottom I shall be with you. I'll chase you through the gates of Hades. I've travelled alone far enough. For the future--we go together. That I swear to G.o.d!"

Across the abyss he flung his tremendous challenge, the laugh still on his lips and in his eyes the blazing derision that mocks at fate.

And as she heard it, the girl's heart suddenly failed her. She began to tremble. Yet, even so, she made a last desperate bid for pride and freedom.

She clutched at the cold stones on each side of her with nerveless, quivering fingers. "There is--no bond between us!" she gasped forth piteously. "There never--never has been!"

He flung back the words like a missile, unerring, blindingly direct. "No bond between us! Good G.o.d! Would I follow you through death if there were not?" And then suddenly, with an amazing change to tenderness that leapt the void and enchained her where she stood:--"Toby--Toby, you little a.s.s--don't you know I've loved you from the moment _The Night Moth_ struck?"

There was no questioning the truth of those words. A great sob broke from Toby, and the tension went out of her att.i.tude. She stood for a few seconds with her head raised, and on her face the unutterable rapture of one who sees a vision. Then, with sharp anguish, "I can't come back!" she cried like a frightened child. "I'm going to fall!"

Saltash straightened himself. His forehead was wet, but he did not pause for a moment. "I'm coming to you," he said. "Keep as you are and I'll give you a hand to hold!"

She obeyed him as one dazed into submission. Blindly she waited, till with a monkey-like agility, he also had traversed that giddy ledge to where she stood. His fingers met and gripped her own.

"Now," he said, "come with me and you are safe! You can't fall. My love is holding you up."

She heard the laugh in his voice, and her panic died. Mutely she yielded herself to him. By the strength of his will alone, she left the abyss behind. But when he lifted her from the parapet back to safety, she cried out as one whom fear catches by the throat, and fainted in his arms.

Out of a great darkness, the light dawned again for Toby. She opened her eyes gasping to find that the scene had changed. She was lying upon tiger-skins in Saltash's conical chamber, and he, the king of all her dreams, was kneeling by her side.

That was the first thing that occurred to her--that he should kneel.

"Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" she said quickly. "I am not--not Maud."

He regarded her humorously, but the old derisive lines were wholly gone from his dark face. His eyes held something that was unfamiliar, something that made her quiver with a quick agitation that was not distress.

"So I am only allowed to kneel to Maud!" he said.

She tried to meet his look and, failing, hid her face. "I--I know you have always loved her," she murmured rather incoherently. "You couldn't--you couldn't--pretend to--to--to really love anyone else--after Maud!"

There fell a brief silence, and she thought the beating of her heart would choke her. Then there came the touch of his hand upon her head, and its wild throbbing grew calmer.

"No," he said, and in his voice was a new deep note unknown to her. "I am not pretending, Nonette."

The light touch drew her as it were magnetically. With a swift, impulsive movement she raised herself, gave herself to him, hiding her face still more deeply against his breast.

"But you--you--you couldn't really love me!" she whispered like an incredulous child. "You sure you do?"

His arms went round her, holding her fast. He made no other answer.

Saltash, the glib of tongue and ready of gibe, was for once speechless in the presence of that which has no words.

She nestled closer to him as a little furry animal that has found its home. Her incredulity was gone, but she kept her face hidden. "But why didn't you tell me before?" she said.

He bent his black head till his lips reached and rested against her hair.

"Nonette," he said, "you told me that I had made you believe in G.o.d."

"Yes?" she whispered back rather breathlessly. "Yes?"

"That's why," he said. "You got me clean through my armour there. Egad, it made me a believer too. If I'd failed you after that--well, He'd have been justified in d.a.m.ning me, body and soul!"

"But you couldn't!" she protested. "You couldn't fail me!"

His dark face twisted with the old wry grimace. "I've failed a good many in my time, Nonette. But--no one ever trusted me to that extent. You practically forced me--to prove myself."

A little gasp of relief came from Toby. She spoke with more a.s.surance.

"Oh, was that it? You were just trying--to be good?"

"Just--trying!" said Saltash.