The Avenger Part 38

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

You will not dare to say that you are Duncan Fitzmaurice!"

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

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

Madame de Melbain reeled and would have fallen. Then for a moment events seemed to leap forward. White and fainting, she lay in the arms of the man who had sprung to her succour, yet through her half-opened eyes there flashed a strange and wonderful light--a light of pa.s.sionate and amazing content. He held her, almost roughly, for several moments, yet his lips were pressed to hers with a tenderness almost indescribable. No one of the little group moved. Wrayson felt simply that events, impossible for him to understand, had marched too quickly for him. He stood like a man in a dream, whose limbs are rigid, whose brain alone is working. And the others, too, seemed to have become part of a silent and wonderful tableau. For years after Wrayson carried with him the memory of those few minutes,--the perfume from the woods, faint but penetrating; the shadowy light, the pa.s.sionate faces of the man and the woman, the woman yielding to a beautiful dream, and the man to a moment of divine madness.

Movement, when it came, came from the princ.i.p.al actors in that wonderful scene. Madame de Melbain was alone, supported in Louise's arms, the Englishman's heavy footsteps were already audible, cras.h.i.+ng through the undergrowth. Louise pointed to the wood and called out to Wrayson:

"Follow him! Don't let him out of your sight! Quick!"

Wrayson turned and sped down the avenue. When he reached the wall, he stood there and waited. Presently Duncan came cras.h.i.+ng through the wood and vaulted the wall. Wrayson met him in the middle of the hard white road.

"We will walk back to the _Lion d'Or_ together," he said calmly, "I have a few things to say to you!"

CHAPTER XXIX

A SUBSTANTIAL GHOST

Monsieur Jules, of the _Lion d'Or,_ was in a state of excitement bordering upon frenzy. Events were happening indeed with him, this placid August weather. First the occupancy of the chateau by the mysterious lady, and the subsequent edict of the steward against all strangers; then the coming of this tourist yesterday, who had gone for an evening stroll without paying his bill, and was now a prisoner of the law, Heaven only knew on what charge! Added to this--a matter of excitement enough surely--the giant Englishman, who had been his guest for nearly three weeks--a model guest too,--had departed at a minute's notice, though not, the saints be praised, without paying his bill. And now, though the hour was yet scarcely nine o'clock, a carriage with steaming horses was standing at his door, and the beautiful young English lady was herself inside his inn. He was indeed conducting her down the grey stone pa.s.sage out on to the rose-bordered garden, which was the pride of his heart, and where monsieur, the remaining Englishman, was smoking his morning cigarette.

She barely waited until Monsieur Jules had bowed himself out of hearing distance. She looked at Wrayson, at the table laid for one only, and at the empty garden.

"Where is he--your friend?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Gone," Wrayson answered. "I am sorry, but I did my best. He went away at daylight. I saw him off, but I could not keep him."

"Where to?" she asked. "You know that, at least."

He pointed towards the distant coast line.

"In that direction! That is all I know."

"He told you nothing before he went?" she asked eagerly.

"Nothing at all," he answered. "He refused to discuss what had happened.

Sit down, Louise," he added firmly. "I want to talk to you."

He placed a chair for her under the trees. She sank into it a little wearily.

"A certain measure of ignorance," he said, "I am willing to put up with, but when you exhibit such extraordinary interest in another man, I really feel that my limit has been reached. Who is he, Louise? You must tell me, please!"

"I wish I could tell you," she answered. "I wish I could say that I knew.

Half the night the three of us have talked and wondered. I have heard plenty of theories as to a second life on some imaginary planet, but I never heard of the dead who lived again here, in this world!"

He looked puzzled.

"Do you mean," he asked, "that he was like some one whom you believed to be dead?"

She was silent for a moment. The sun was hot even where they sat, but he fancied that he saw her s.h.i.+ver. She looked into his face, and something of the terror of the night before was in her eyes.

"To us," she said slowly, "to Madame de Melbain and to me, he was a ghost, an actual apparition. He spoke to us with the voice of one whom we know to be dead. He came to us, in his form."

Wrayson looked across at her with a quiet smile.

"There was nothing of the ghost about Duncan!" he remarked. "I should consider him a remarkably substantial person. Don't you think that we were all a little overwrought last night? A strong likeness and a little imagination will often work wonders."

"If it was a likeness only," she said, "why did he leave us so abruptly, why has he left this place at a moment's notice to avoid us?"

Wrayson was silent for a few seconds.

"Look here," he said, "this is a matter of common sense after all. If you were _not_ deceived by a likeness, it was the man himself! That goes without saying. What reasons had you for supposing that he was dead?"

"The newspapers, the War Office, even the return of his effects."

"From where?" Wrayson asked.

"From South Africa. He was shot through the lungs in Natal!"

"Men have turned up before, after having been reported dead," he remarked sententiously.

"But he was in the army," she replied. "Don't you see that if he was alive now, he would be a deserter. He has never rejoined. He was certified as having died in the hospital at Ladysmith!"

Wrayson looked steadily into her agitated face.

"Supposing," he said, "that he turned out to be the man whom you have in your mind, what is he to you?"

"My brother," she answered simply.

Wrayson's first impulse was of surprise. Then he drew a long breath of relief. He looked back upon his long hours of anxiety, and cursed himself for a fool.

"What an idiot I have been!" he declared. "Of course, I know that you lost a brother in South Africa. But--but what about Madame de Melbain?"

"Madame de Melbain and my brother were friends," she said quietly. "There were obstacles or they would have been more than friends."

Wrayson nodded.

"Now supposing," he said, "that, by some miracle, your brother still lived, that this was he, is there any reason why he should avoid you both?"

She thought for a moment.

"Yes!" she said slowly, "there is."

"I suppose," he continued tentatively, "you couldn't tell me all about it?"