The Lady in the Car Part 11

He asked her to tell him. A slight shudder ran through her, and she shook her head mournfully, no word escaping her lips. She sighed, the sigh of a young girl who had a burden of apprehension upon her sorely troubled mind. He could scarcely believe that this was the bright, happy, laughing girl who, half an hour ago, had been putting her stones along the ice, wielding her besom with all her might, and clapping her dainty little hands with delight when any of her own side knocked an opponent off "the pot lid."

At last, after long persuasion, during which time dusk had almost deepened into darkness in that silent snow-covered wood, she, in a faltering voice, and with many sentences broken by her emotion, which she vainly strived to suppress, told him a most curious and startling story to which he listened with breathless interest.

The first of the series of remarkable incidents had occurred about two years ago, while she was at school in Versailles. She, with a number of other elder girls, had gone to spend the summer at a branch of the college close to Fontainebleau, and they often succeeded, when cycling, in getting away un.o.bserved and enjoying long runs in the forest alone.

One summer's evening she was riding alone along a leafy by-way of the great forest when, by some means, her skirt got entangled in the machine and she was thrown and hurt her ankle. A rather well-dressed Frenchman who was coming along a.s.sisted her. He appeared to be very kind, gave her a card, with the name "Paul Berton" upon it, was told her name in response, and very quickly a friends.h.i.+p sprang up between them. He was an engineer, and staying at the Lion d'Or, in Fontainebleau, he said, and having wheeled her machine several miles to a spot quite near the college, suggested another meeting. She, with the school-girl's adventurous spirit, consented, and that proved to be the first of many clandestine rendezvous. She was not quite seventeen while he was, she thought, about twenty-six.

She kept her secret from all, even from her most intimate schoolmate, fearing to be betrayed to the head governess, so all the summer these secret meetings went on, she becoming more and more infatuated on every occasion, while he, with apparent carelessness, learned from her the history of her family, who they were, and where they resided.

"One thing about Paul puzzled me from the very first evening we met,"

she said reflectively as she was describing those halcyon days of forbidden love. "It was that I noticed, high upon his left wrist, about four inches from the base of the hand, a scarlet mark, encircling the whole arm. It looked as though he had worn a bracelet that had chafed him, or perhaps it had been tattooed there. Several times I referred to it, but he always evaded my question, and seemed to grow uneasy because I noticed it. Indeed, after a few meetings I noticed that he wore s.h.i.+rts with the cuffs b.u.t.toned over with solitaires, instead of open links. Well--" she went on slowly with a strange, far-away look in her face. "I--I hardly like to tell you further."

"Go on, little friend," he urged, "your secret is in safe keeping with me--whatever it may be. You loved the man, eh?"

"Ah! yes!" she cried. "You are right. I--I loved him--and I did not know. We met again in Paris--many times. All sorts of ruses I resorted to, in order to get out, if only for half an hour. He followed me to London--when I left school--and he came up here."

"Up here!" he gasped. "He loved you, then?"

"Yes. And when I went to Dresden he went there also."

"Why?"

She held her breath. Her eyes looked straight into his, and then were downcast.

"Because--because," she faltered hoa.r.s.ely, "because he is my husband!"

"Your husband. Great heavens!"

"Yes. I married him six months ago at the registry office in the Blackfriars Road, in London," she said in a strangely blank voice. "I am Madame Berton."

He stood utterly dumbfounded. The sweet, refined face of the child-wife was ashen pale, her white lips were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. He could see she wished to confide further in him.

"Well?" he asked. It was the only word he could utter.

"We parted half an hour after our marriage, and I have only seen him six times since. He comes here surrept.i.tiously," she said in a low voice of despair.

"Why?"

"Because evil fortune has pursued him. He--he confessed to me a few weeks ago that he was not so rich as he had been. He will be rich some day, but now he is horribly poor. He being my husband, it is my duty to help him--is it not?"

Garrett's heart rose against this cowardly foreigner, who had inveigled her into a secret marriage, whoever he might be, for, according to French law, he might at once repudiate her. Poor child! She was evidently devoted to him.

"Well," he said, "that depends upon circ.u.mstances. In what manner is he seeking your a.s.sistance?"

She hesitated. At last she said:

"Well--I give him a little money sometimes. But I never have enough.

All the trinkets I dare spare are gone."

"You love him--eh?" asked the young man seriously.

"Yes," was her frank reply. "I am looking forward to the day when he can acknowledge me as his wife. Being an engineer he has a brilliant idea, namely, to perform a great service to my father in furthering his business aims, so that it will be impossible for him to denounce our marriage. Towards this end I am helping him. Ah! Mr Hebberdine, you don't know what a dear, good fellow Paul is."

The young man sniffed suspiciously.

"He has invented a new submarine boat which will revolutionise the naval warfare of the future. Father, in secret, builds submarine boats, you know. But Paul is anxious to ascertain what difference there is between those now secretly building and his own invention, prior to placing it before dear old dad."

"Well?"

She hesitated.

"I wanted to ask you, Mr Hebberdine, if you will do me a favour to-night," she said presently. "Paul is staying at the `Star,' down in the village, in the name of Mr James. I dare not go there, and he dare not approach me. There have been thieves about in this neighbourhood lately, and dad is having the castle watched at night by detectives."

At this Garrett p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Glenblair was, in those circ.u.mstances, no place for his Highness and his clerical companion.

"I wonder," she suggested, "whether you would do me a great favour and go down to the village to-night about ten and--and give him this."

From within her fur bolero she produced an envelope containing what seemed to be a little jewellery box about two inches long by an inch and a half broad. This she handed to him saying, "Give it into the hand of n.o.body except Paul personally. Tell him that you are my friend--and his."

So devoted was the girl-wife to her husband, and so unhappy did she seem that Garrett, filled with the romance of the affair, at once agreed to carry out his promise. Her remarkable story had amazed him. He alone knew her secret.

As they sat at dinner that night, her eyes met his once or twice, and the look they exchanged was full of meaning. He was the bearer of some secret message to her husband.

At half-past nine when the men had gone to the billiard-room, Garrett slipped upstairs to his room to put on a pair of thick boots, for he had a walk through the snow a good couple of miles to the village.

Scarcely had he closed the door when it opened again, and the Prince, his finger raised in silence, entered, and in a low excited whisper exclaimed:

"It's all up! We must get away on the car as soon as possible. Every moment's delay means increased peril. How have you got on with Elfrida?"

The chauffeur stared at him without uttering a word.

"Elfrida!" he echoed at last. "Well, she's told me a most remarkable story, and made me her confidante." Then, as briefly as possible, he told him everything. How her husband was staying in Glenblair village as Mr James; and how he had promised to convey the little packet to him.

When he had finished the Prince fell back in his chair utterly dumbfounded. Then, taking the little packet, he turned it over in his hand.

"Great Heavens!" he cried. "You don't know what you've done, Garrett.

There's something very funny about all this!" he added quickly. "Wait here, and I'll run along to Clayton," and he left the young man instantly, carrying the packet in his hand.

An hour later Garrett was driving the Prince and the Rev Thomas Clayton in the car due south, and they were travelling for all they were worth over the hard frozen snow. Of the reason of that sudden flight, Garrett was in complete ignorance. All he knew was that he had orders to creep out to the garage, get the car, and await his companions who, in a few moments, came up out of the shadows. Their big overcoats were in the car, therefore their evening clothes did not trouble them. Then, with as little noise as possible, they ran down a back drive which his Highness, having reconnoitred, knew joined the main Perth road. An idling constable saw them, and wished them good evening. They were guests from the Castle, therefore he allowed them to pa.s.s unmolested.

The constable would scarcely have done this, however, had he known what they were carrying away with them.

They took the road by Dunblane and Stirling, and then straight south into Glasgow, where at two o'clock in the morning, Garrett's two companions alighted in a deserted snow-covered street in the suburbs of the city, and bidding him farewell, gave him orders to get back to London with all haste.

The run was a most dismal one. All through the snowstorm next day he kept on, making but poor progress.

Next night, Garrett spent alone in Carlisle, and on the following morning started direct for London, being compelled, owing to the abominable state of the roads, to take two days over the run.