Part 8

She had refused to come to him. It was probably better, she had written, that they should not meet again. She could imagine nothing in the way of explanation that would form an adequate excuse for his action of the afternoon before. And that was all. Only five lines in a large hand.

The self-chastisement of the man was pitiless; his contrition pathetic. He was willing now to make any sacrifice, to suffer any abasement, to risk any punishment, to sustain any loss if by so doing he could gain forgiveness, achieve reinstatement in favour--aye, even attain the privilege of pleading his cause. He had been so sure of her; it had not seemed possible that she could ever be other than love and devotion and loyalty personified. Her smile was the one sun he thought would never set and never be clouded. And now she had taken this light from his life forever. With that gone, he asked himself, what else in all the world mattered? What were honour, position, credit, fortune, if she were not to share them?

He smoothed out the crumpled sheet and read it again, slowly, carefully, weighing each word, measuring each phrase, considering each sentence. And then the utter hopelessness of his expression changed. “It is probably better,” he repeated, quoting from the note, and the “probably” seemed larger and more prominent than any other eight letters on the page. There was nothing absolutely final about that. It was an assertion, to be sure, but there was a lot of qualification in that “probably.” And further on, she had not said: “There is nothing in the way of explanation you can offer,” but “_I can imagine_ nothing.” He thanked God for that “I can imagine.” Oh, yes, indeed, there was a very large loophole there; and so he took heart of grace, and even smiled, and got up swinging his stick jauntily. All he wanted was a fighting chance. He had won her a year ago from a score of rivals, and he would win her now from herself. And not from herself, either, for with the return of hope he felt that he would have no more stanch ally than she. It was with her sense of what was fit and becoming that he must battle--her pride and her self-esteem which he had outraged. He would go to her, bravely, as he should have done before, instead of asking her to meet him in this clandestine fashion. He had been a fool, but he would make amends and she would forgive him. Yes, he was quite sanguine now that he could win her pardon.

He retraced his steps briskly to the Place Vendôme and turned in at the Ritz with head erect and chin thrust forward. He had no cards, of course, but he scribbled “_Carey Grey_” upon a slip of paper and asked that it be sent to Miss Van Tuyl at once. And then he waited, nervously, smoking one cigarette after another, walking back and forth, sitting down, only to get up again, agitatedly, and to resume his pacing to and fro.

“Miss Van Tuyl is not at home, monsieur.”

It was the _portier_ who delivered the message. Grey stood for a full half-minute, staring stupidly. He had not counted upon this. He had been all confidence. That she was in the hotel he felt very certain; but she would not see him. He might have foreseen that consistency demanded this attitude of her. To send him a note one moment refusing to permit him to explain and at the next to grant him an audience was not to be expected of a young woman of Hope Van Tuyl’s sterling character. There was, therefore, but one course open to him. What he had to say he must put in writing.

“I’ll leave a note,” he said to the _portier_; and he went into the writing-room and sat down at a table. But when he came to write he was embarrassed by the flood of matter that craved expression. There was so much to tell, so much to make clear, so much to plead that he was staggered by the contemplation. Again and again he began, and again and again he tore the sheet of paper into tiny bits. He dipped his pen into the ink and held it poised while he made effort to frame an opening sentence; and the ink dried on the nib as one thought after another was evolved only to be rejected.

For the fifth time he wrote: “My Very Dearest,” and then, nettled over his laggard powers, he dove straight and determinedly into the midst of the subject that engrossed him, writing rapidly and without pause until he had finished:

“I cannot find it in my heart to question the justice of your decision,” he began. “Viewed in the light of your meagre knowledge, or rather ignorance, of facts, I must look indeed very black. But I am guiltless; that I swear. Under the circumstances you must know how anxious I am to prove this, and how, in justice to you and myself, I must let no opportunity pass to discover and convict the real culprits. To have recognised you at Versailles yesterday before the man you were with would have been to ruin every chance of accomplishing what I have set out to do. Imagine, my dear, the alternative from which I had to choose. Had it been simply a question of my personal liberty, you cannot doubt which course I should have taken. I was burning to speak to you--to look into the eyes I love, to hear the voice I adore--and yet for both our sakes I had to deny myself. The child who was with me is sweet and charming, and in no way implicated in the plot against me. When you know her, as I hope you will one day, you will be very fond of her. But I can understand how the situation must have appeared to you. I would give all I have and all I hope for if I could but be with you and tell you everything. All I ask now is that you trust me. I am leaving Paris this afternoon for Kürschdorf by the Orient Express. I cannot say when I shall return. But when I do it will be to search for you, and with honour vindicated and no further need of secrecy. My heart is with you always, my darling. _’Au revoir._”

The letter dulled, in a measure, the keenness of Grey’s disappointment and reinspired him to the accomplishment of the task that lay before him. After luncheon he had up his trunks from the hotel storeroom and with Baptiste’s assistance accomplished his packing. Already O’Hara had engaged places for three on the train, for Miss von Altdorf’s destination was the same as theirs. She had a married sister living in Kürschdorf, and she was most anxious to join her at the earliest possible moment.

By half-past five everything was in readiness for their departure; Baptiste had retired with a liberal tip, and Grey and O’Hara were making themselves ready for the journey. Just at this juncture there was a knock at the door, and in answer to Grey’s command to enter, it swung open to reveal, bowing on the threshold, the sturdy little figure, pale face, and close-cropped yellow head of Johann.

The two occupants of the room stood astonished, their eyes wide with surprise.

“Johann!” they exclaimed together.

“Yes, Herr Arndt,” said the lad, bowing again; “it is as you see--I have come back.”

“Back from where, Johann?” Grey asked.

“I started for Kürschdorf with the Herr Captain Lindenwald; but I am come back from Strasburg.”

“And why?” queried the American, very much puzzled.

“Because, Herr Arndt, I knew it was not right for me to be going with the Herr Captain. I was in your service, and perhaps if you were seized with madness you have all the more need of me.”

“Madness!” repeated Grey, frowning. “What is this? Who said I was mad?”

“The Herr Captain and Lutz,” confessed Johann, stolidly, with scarce a change of expression.

O’Hara laughed. “Oh, ho!” he shouted, dropping into a chair, “now we have it. You are mad, and so you cannot go to Budavia to claim your own.”

Johann nodded; and Grey, leaning against the edge of the table, was lost for a moment in thought.

“But the Fraülein?” O’Hara questioned. “What did they say of her? Was she to be left with the madman?”

“No, Herr O’Hara; only for a little. The Herr Captain Lindenwald had arranged, Lutz told me, to have Herr Arndt taken to an asylum by the doctors and then the Fraülein was to be brought to Kürschdorf.”

Grey smiled, grimly. “The doctors were the gentlemen you chased out of the window last night, Jack,” he said. And then he asked of Johann: “Did they say anything of Baron von Einhard?”

“No, Herr Arndt.”

“You are quite sure?”

“I have not heard of his name, Herr Arndt.”

Then Johann was told of the plan of departure and was sent off to telephone for another place on the Orient Express for himself. When he returned the American said to him:

“It was very good of you, Johann, to come back.”

“Ah, Herr Arndt,” he returned, in a tone of appreciation, “I could not do less. Can I ever, do you think, forget that it was you who saved my life?”

Grey’s surprise must have shown in his eyes, but he asked no questions. Later, however, just as they were about to start for the Gare de Strasbourg, he found himself alone with O’Hara for a moment and put the query to him:

“What is this about my having saved Johann’s life?”

“You don’t remember it? Oh, of course not,” the Irishman answered. “Well, you had your pluck with you, lad, if you didn’t have your memory. We were in that fire at the Folsonham, in Piccadilly. It happened in the early morning when the whole house was asleep, and that the death list was not larger was little short of a miracle. The front stairs were burning as Schlippenbach, the Fraülein and you and I reached them. When I got to the bottom I missed you, and looking back saw you through the smoke still standing at the top. ‘For God’s sake, make haste, man!’ I called, ‘the stairs may fall at any minute.’ But you had seen a figure staggering down, half suffocated, from the floor above. Well, instead of saving yourself you went back to help that figure, which proved to be Johann. And even at that moment the staircase fell with a crash. But you caught the stumbling, dazed Budavian from out a hurricane of sparks, rushed him through a room filled with blinding smoke and climbed with him hanging limp over your shoulder out of a window onto an already burning ten-inch cornice. And there you held him, against the wall, God only knows how, until a ladder was run up and the pair of you brought safely to the street just as the cornice crumbled and went down. And, good Lord, but didn’t the crowd cheer! Only fancy your not remembering anything of it!”

“I’m glad I managed it,” said Grey, simply. But the story depressed him. What else had he done in those five months of somnambulism? The thought of that period and its possibilities had grown distressful to him. He had committed a great crime and he had performed a brave deed. They were the opposite poles of that world of sleep. But what other acts lay between? What other incidents of right and wrong filled the intermediate zones? He shrank from asking general questions on the subject, and speculation was as distasteful as it was futile. When, as in this instance, accident had revealed something, the result was a sort of emotional nausea.

XII

On the platform of the Gare de l’Est, with ten minutes to spare before the departure of the Orient Express, Grey and O’Hara, with the fair Minna von Altdorf between them, strolled leisurely up and down beside the long and lugubrious train of _wagons-lit_. There was the usual bustle incident to the leaving of the great transcontinental flyer. Passengers were nervously seeking their locations; blue-overalled porters wheeling trucks piled high with trunks and boxes hurried towards the luggage vans, and others with smaller impedimenta in hand crowded on the narrow platforms of the cars and ran into the still smaller passageways upon which the compartments opened. English and American tourists unable to speak the language of the country were besieging the interpreters; friends and kinsfolk with lingering handshakes, effusive embraces, and kisses upon either cheek were bidding departing travellers farewell, and dapper-uniformed guards were at intervals repeating the stereotyped command: “_En voiture, messieurs!_” There was the distracting hissing of escaping steam, the shrill piping of whistles, the rumble and roar of arriving trains. And over all hung an atmosphere of intolerably humid heat.

O’Hara and the Fraülein were chatting animatedly, but Grey was still depressed and silent. The delay irritated him. He was impatient to be gone. For the hundredth time he was wondering whether he had said too much or too little in his letter to Hope Van Tuyl; wondering how she regarded it; whether she was still obdurate. He had not given her an address and there was no way in which she could communicate with him. He regretted this now. A word from her would be a talisman.

His memory of her as he had seen her yesterday at Versailles was very vivid. It was only a glimpse, but in that instant he had drunk in greedily the marvellous perfection of her beauty; and the picture had dwelt with him since. Sleeping and waking he could see the bronze dusk of her hair, the gentleness of her eyes, the softly flushed curve of her cheek, the tender sympathy of her mouth, the supple grace of her figure. The portrait was not new to him, to be sure--he had many times revelled in fond contemplation of those rare features--but absence had its usual effect, and it had been centuries, it seemed, since his vision had been so blessed. Against the dull, dun, grimy background of the railway station this radiant reflection was projected, clear and sharp. He saw her mentally just as he had seen her physically on the previous afternoon.

And as he gazed a miracle was wrought. For into and out of the image came and grew the reality, and he suddenly realised that she was standing before him, that in one hand he was holding his hat and that his other hand was clasping hers. All the sights and sounds of the platform died away, and he saw only her, more beautiful even than he had dreamed, her eyes alight with love, her lips smiling forgiveness.

O’Hara and the Fräulein had passed on, and he and the one woman in the world had drawn aside out of the hurry and scurry. A few steps away stood Marcelle, the maid, her interest decorously diverted.

“Oh, how good you are!” Grey was saying, his heart in his voice; “how very, very good you are!”

Her hand answered the ardent pressure of his.

“I just couldn’t let you go without seeing you,” she returned. “You cannot imagine what I have suffered. I tried to be brave--I tried so hard, dear; but I’m only a weak woman and my soul longed for you every minute.”

What bliss it was to hear her speak! It set the man’s pulses surging. His face was flushed and young and happy again, as it had not been since his awakening.

“The whole thing has been frightful,” he told her, clenching his teeth at the recollection. “You haven’t an idea what a net of circumstance has been thrown around me.”

“Yes,” she hastened, “I know--they told me you had been ill, irresponsible; that you had had brain fever or something, and--oh, Carey, why did you do that?” and she pointed to his beard.

He smiled grimly.

“I didn’t do it,” he answered, with emphasis. “You surely don’t think I’d be guilty of such a ridiculous transformation, do you?”

“But----”

“I’ll explain some day, dear heart,” he interrupted her, “but there isn’t time now; the train leaves in about five minutes, and I want all of that in which to tell you how very beautiful you are and how very, very much I love you.”

She wore a perfectly fitting gown of white with rich lace, and a large hat of pale blue with a circling ostrich plume of the same delicate tint. Her tall and shapely figure was quite unavoidably a little conspicuous, and a target for admiring glances.

“Leaves in five minutes?” she repeated, dolorously. “But I can’t let you go in five minutes. I have so much to say to you. It has been five months since I spoke to you. You must wait and take the next train--wait until tomorrow.”

“If only I might!” Grey replied, his eyes in hers. “If it could only be we should never part again, never! Ah, my own, how my arms ache for you!”

“But you can stay,” she urged. He was still holding her hand, and now she placed her other hand over his as she pleaded. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t. What difference will twenty-four hours make? Are you going for the King’s funeral? It is set for Friday, you know. We are thinking of going ourselves. Wait until tomorrow, and you and papa and I can go together.”

“But, my darling,” Grey protested, arguing against his inclination, “don’t you see that that would be quite impossible? Your father could not afford to be seen with me. I am a supposed fugitive from justice. He would be guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal,” and he smiled grimly again.

“What would he care?” the young woman demanded, airily. “He doesn’t believe you guilty. He knows you are not. He has said as much. I can’t let you go, dear; I can’t--I won’t.”

“Please, please don’t make it more difficult for me to part from you than it is already,” he begged. “You know how much I long to have you with me, and yet another day’s delay might ruin everything. I should be in Kürschdorf at this very minute.”

Her eyes glistened and tears hung on her lashes.

“Why?” she asked, simply.

“All my hopes of undoing the wrong that has been done me lie in that direction,” he answered, gravely. “It was a conspiracy, dear, involving men high in the Budavian government. The work of unmasking them will grow more difficult with each hour it is put off.”

She gazed at him in sudden alarm.

“You are going into danger,” she murmured. Her voice trembled. Anxiety was in her tone. She pressed his hands nervously, convulsively. “Tell me the truth. You are, aren’t you?”

Grey laughed to reassure her.

“Not a bit, my darling,” he answered, with an assumption of nonchalance; “the whole affair can, I think, be adjusted most peacefully.”

For a moment she was silent, her eyes reading his thoughts.

“I’m going with you,” she exclaimed, suddenly.

Grey stared at her in surprise.

“I only wish you could,” he said, refusing to take her seriously, “but I don’t see just how----”

“I’m going,” she interrupted, determinedly. “I shan’t be in the least in your way, that I promise. But I’m going. I refuse to be left behind.”

“_En voiture, messieurs et mesdames!_”

The guard’s command had grown imperative. The second bell had rung.

Grey pulled out his watch. It showed thirty seconds of starting time. O’Hara was standing at the car’s step looking anxiously towards him. Johann was at his side, his hat deferentially raised.

“The train is now to start, Herr Arndt,” he said.

The man turned to the woman he loved.

“I am going with you,” she reiterated before he could speak; and she beckoned to Marcelle.

“_En voiture!_” shouted the guards.

There was no time for further protest or parley. The four crossed the platform hurriedly. Hope entered the car, her maid following; and then Grey, with O’Hara at his heels and Johann bringing up the rear, stepped from the platform of the station to the platform of the _wagon-lit_.

The third bell rang; the locomotive whistled its piping treble, gates clashed, doors slammed, and the Orient Express drew slowly and solemnly out of the hot, dingy station into the red glare of the torrid June sunset.

After the presentation of Miss von Altdorf and Lieutenant O’Hara had been accomplished Grey left Hope in their company and went in search of the conductor. As it happened, there were several berths to spare in the sleeping-car, and he arranged for the accommodation of Miss Van Tuyl and her maid. There would be no stop, however, he learned, until they reached Château-Thierry, at 8.15. From there, the conductor told him, a telegram might be sent.

Before returning to the compartment Grey lit a cigarette and stood for a few minutes in the refreshing draft that swept through the narrow passage. To have Hope with him was a joy undreamt, and yet he could not repress a little uneasiness over her action. He feared that in a calmer mood she might regret her impulsiveness as savouring too strongly of a sensational elopement. He wondered how Nicholas Van Tuyl would regard it. He was, Grey knew, the most indulgent of fathers, but his anxiety over her absence would necessarily be poignant, and there was no possible means of getting word to him of her safety until hours after he had missed her. But in spite of these reflections Carey Grey was experiencing a gratified pride in the fact that the girl had acted as she had. She was proving her love for him and her faith in him by a disregard of convention that was undeniably very flattering, particularly grateful after his recent trying experiences, and his affection for her, if possible, waxed warmer under the stimulus of appreciation.

Meanwhile the trio Grey had left to their own devices, with scarcely a word of explanation, were getting into a wellnigh inextricable tangle.

“Fancy my deciding to run off this way on the spur of the moment, without even a handful of luggage,” Miss Van Tuyl had exclaimed, “but Mr. Grey and I have so much to talk about I just couldn’t think of waiting another twenty-four hours, and he said he couldn’t possibly stop over another day in Paris.”

Minna had recognised her minutes before on the platform, as the beautiful lady she had noticed the previous afternoon at Versailles, and she had been and was still wondering how it came about that her Uncle Max had not seen her and spoken to her there. And now this mention of a Mr. Grey perplexed her. Was he in another car or another compartment? And if she had so much to say to him why had she stood talking to another man until the train was on the point of leaving? and why was she sitting here now instead of being with him?

“American women are such fun,” O’Hara was saying, his cheery, ruddy face one broad smile. “I admire them awfully. They’re so superbly self-reliant.”

“You’re an American, Miss Van Tuyl?” the Fräulein ventured. “Oh, of course. It was in America, I suppose, you met Uncle Max?”

Hope stared questioningly.

“Uncle Max?” she questioned. “I don’t understand you. Who is----”

“Didn’t you know he was my uncle?” the girl asked, a little embarrassed.

“Really, I--” she began again. And then O’Hara came to the rescue:

“Our mutual friend, Miss Van Tuyl. After all, what’s in a name? Miss von Altdorf calls him ‘Uncle Max’ and you--what is your favourite pet name for him? Or is it rude of me to ask?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Hope implored, addressing the fair-haired girl beside her; “how stupid of me! Yes, of course; I met him in America when we were both very young. You were with him yesterday at Versailles, weren’t you? I remember you distinctly. Mr. Grey wrote me something very nice about you.”

“About me? Mr. Grey?” It was the Fräulein’s turn to be audibly perplexed.

“Yes, certainly, Mr. Grey wrote me about you.”

“But I don’t know any Mr. Grey.”

O’Hara laughed aloud. Should he or should he not, he asked himself, set them right and thus end this game of cross-purposes? It was very amusing, it appealed to his native love of fun and he enjoyed it, so he concluded to let the play go on.

“Why, my dear Miss von Altdorf,” Hope insisted, “do you mean to tell me that you don’t know your Uncle Max’s name is Grey?”

Minna’s eyes were wide with amazement. Could it be possible that her uncle was known in the United States by another name? The supposition was preposterous.

“My Uncle Max’s name is Arndt,” she said, very decidedly. “He is my mother’s brother, and my mother’s name was Arndt before she married.”

Hope leaned back in the hot, stuffy cushions of the railway carriage, nonplussed. This was altogether beyond her understanding. And the Fräulein, a little nettled, but triumphant, sat looking at her with something of pity in her great long-lashed blue eyes, while O’Hara on the seat opposite was bent double in a convulsion of merriment.

“I don’t really see, Mr. O’Hara,” Minna observed, rebukingly, a moment later, “what there is to laugh over. Would you mind telling me?”