Part 10

He frowned. “That's the second time you've used the phrase. Can't you tell me plainly?”

“If it's not too late, I'll show you.”

She darted out of the hut. When he joined her in the open, she was waiting impatiently to secure the door behind him. The moment it was fastened, she set off at a run. She raced like a boy, with none of a woman's awkwardness. With an occasional backward glance, up the long deserted avenue of the camp she fled. At first he was content to follow for the pleasure he had in watching her. She was so swift and young. She was like a deer in her slenderness. Sudden eagerness had transformed her. The hood had slipped back to her shoulders; the wind of her going fluttered in her hair.

Outside the camp she bore to the left in a direction leading further afield. Over gorse and bracken dew had flung a silver net. The turf was a tapestry sewn with jewels. Larks were springing up. The keen fragrance of seaweed mingled with the honeyed perfumes of the land.

He caught up with her. “Why?” he panted.

She had no breath to waste in words. Turning on him a flushed and laughing face, she pointed ahead.

Just short of the cliff-edge, where the sheer drop began, she sank to her knees, clasping her breast. While she recovered, he gazed about him. He discovered no sign of the thing she was pursuing. The sea was blanketed in mist. Above the blurred horizon, the red eye of the sun stared at him. From the foot of the cliff came the lapping of waves. No other sound.

She had risen. He was about to speak. She pressed a finger to her lips. Taking him by the hand, she led him to the edge.

At first, as he gazed down, he saw only the crumbling face of the chalk. Then he made out a winding path descending; it seemed no broader than a track that a goat might follow.

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

She dragged excitedly on his arm.

Distinctly, above the lapping of waves, he heard the click of oars working in oar-locks. Beneath the fog a vessel was hiding. It had dropped a boat which was pulling toward the land.

“The road out,” she whispered.

“But Santa----”

She nodded. “It's not so difficult as it looks. It was used by smugglers. We use it----”

She broke off. Oars were being shipped. The prow grounded. There was a muttering of men's voices. Some sort of discussion. A pause. Then oars were put out again. The rowing recommenced, growing fainter and fainter.

X

Gone!”

She pressed against him in her gladness.

Seeing the relief in her eyes, he questioned, “What does this mean to you, Anna?”

“Safety.”

“Anything else?”

“Freedom, perhaps.”

“You mean you think that Santa had received word of your husband and that that was why----?”

“I don't want to think or mean; I only want to feel. It's as though I'd been living in a prison and the door had been flung wide. I wasn't one of them. They condemned me. In their hearts they despised me. I was too weak. I couldn't bear their cross.” She clenched her hands against her cheeks till the knuckles showed white. “What's the good of being crucified? It's so much better to live and be glad for people.”

“And Santa,” he asked, “where she's going, what will happen to her?”

She raised her face. “Pain. She'll be hounded and hunted. She's getting too well known. Prince Rogovich thought he recognized her. She'll be always escaping, rushing from hiding to hiding, till one day---- To have been loved so much and to be pushed out of life----”

Behind the mist they heard the creak of ropes running over pulleys. A gasoline engine was started. For an instant the shadow of a trawler loomed through the wall of opaqueness. The tiller was thrust over. She vanished. They stood very silently, listening and watching. In imagination Hindwood followed the vessel's course. It was not of the vessel he was thinking, but of the woman on board her. “To have been loved so much and to be pushed out of life----” If he had had the chance, what could he have done for her? She had fascinated him; but he had not loved her. She was past reclaiming. Love with a woman of her kind would have meant passion--nothing more. A fierce flame, self-consuming! A slow degrading of an emotion that was fine! Yet he was filled with pity and unreasoning remorse. Some day her enemies would overtake her--good, respectable men like Major Cleasby; the good men who by the injustice of their prejudices had made her what she was.

“It's a chapter ended,” he said quietly.

Slipping his arm through hers, as though she already belonged to him, he was turning inland toward the peace of the rolling country, when his step was arrested. He caught the sound of labored breathing and the rattle of sliding chalk. Hands groped above the edge of the cliff, searching for a holding. They were followed by the head and shoulders of a man with a face intensely white, in which a pair of pale green eyes smoldered. Lower down and out of sight a woman spoke. The voice was Santa's.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH--THE GREEN EYES CAST A SPELL

I

HINDWOOD stood rooted to the ground. He had thrust Anna behind him. She was tugging at his hand with the tenacity of terror. He scarcely dared breathe while he watched the green-eyed man dragging himself inch by inch to safety. To go to his assistance might cause his death. Any move that startled him might fling him back over the precipice. In falling he would sweep away the unseen woman who must be clinging to the face of the cliff below him.

To Hindwood it seemed that he was present at a fantastic rehearsal of the Day of Resurrection. When the last trumpet blew, it would probably be precisely in some such fashion that the sea would give up its dead. It would happen about sunrise, when mankind was still abed. It would commence very quietly, when clouds were hanging low and the first of the barnyard cocks were crowing. Without warning, graves would open, and all the tired people, who had been so long resting, would begin to stir. Like the sound of falling rain, they would patter through the drowsing country, searching for their ancient dwellings. At first they would walk alone, then in groups, later in crowds. By the time the living looked out of their windows there would be no standing room on earth. Across seas and oceans the drowned would come swimming. They would wade through waves and clamber up cliffs, just as this man was doing.

The vision became so probable that Hindwood glanced behind him to make sure that it was not happening. In a shimmering expanse of dew and autumn coloring lay the sweet, green landscape of living men, the kindly hedgerows, the sheltering valleys, the friendly villages. Everything was gentle and unaltered. It was only at this barrier, which the green-eyed stranger was struggling to surmount, that the tranquillity ended. At its brink eternity commenced, a pulsating oblivion of mist and grayness across which the rising sun peered curiously.

The stranger was too occupied with his danger to be aware that he was being observed. Clutching at tufts and digging with his fingers, he was easing himself out of the abyss. Little by little he was gaining ground till at last, pulling his knees clear of the edge, he sprawled exhausted on the turf. But it was only for a moment. Twisting about, still lying flat, he reached down to his companion. As she appeared, he retreated, steadying her efforts and dragging her with him. Side by side they collapsed, breathing heavily and staring in dazed defiance at the death they had avoided.

Hindwood made a step to approach them. He found himself tethered. Anna was gazing up at him, silently imploring. Her hair seemed a mass of solid gold, weighing her down. The blue veins in her temples stood out beneath her fairness. Her throat was milk-white and stretched back. Her lips were parted, revealing the coral of her mouth. It was as though she had been caught from behind by an assailant and brutally jerked back. With little endearing motions she caressed Hindwood's hand. He tried to fathom her necessity; in the presence of her weakness there was nothing that he would not have granted.

The man with the green eyes had recovered. In the act of rising he had caught sight of them. His jaw had dropped open. If it was possible, his complexion had gone a shade whiter. His expression bore testimony to the medley of his emotions, the chief of which was astonishment. He made an oddly pathetic figure, with his scratched hands and torn clothing, crouching in that hunted attitude. He had lost his hat in the ascent. His brown hair was lank with perspiration. He was a lean man and graceful as a greyhound. Even in his present ungainly posture there was a hint of something swift and gallant in his bearing. One forgot that he was a vagabond who had eluded formalities and completed an illegal landing; he looked more like a champion unhorsed in a tourney. His brow was wide and noble, but the top of his head was shaped like a deformity and rose into a point like a dunce's cap. His eyes were well-spaced and piercing; they penetrated with a sense of power. His mouth was thin-lipped and sensitive--too sensitive for a man's. His face was narrow and smooth as a girl's. He had a haggard appearance of perpetual suffering, which the extremeness of his pallor served to enhance. He was indefinably tragic. He might have sat equally well for a portrait of Lucifer or of Harlequin overtaken by his folly.

Very wearily he lifted himself from the ground and stumbled toward them. As he did so, Santa uttered a nervous cry and turned--after which she watched broodingly what happened.

Paying no attention to Hindwood, the man made straight for Anna. Bending over her humbly, he whispered unintelligible words. Her terror left her. Making no sound, she raised to him eyes eloquent with compassion.

“What did he say?” Hindwood questioned.

She was prepared to reply, when the stranger stayed her with a gesture. “I was apologizing in Russian for having returned.”

Hindwood glanced at the ragged edge of the cliff and shrugged his shoulders. “An apology's scarcely necessary. You're to be congratulated. You seem to have recognized this lady. Who are you?”

The stranger drew himself erect. A grim smile played about his mouth. “Ivan Varensky, at your service.”

II

Hindwood stared at him with a frown. He was contrasting this Ivan Varensky with the leader of men whose deeds of three years ago had so deeply stirred him. One picture stood out ineffaceably. It was of a sea of panic-stricken soldiers, patriotism forgotten, arms flung away, in wild retreat, and of Ivan Varensky driving forward alone, as though he, by his single courage, could turn back the enemy. And this was the man--the white knight of Russia, the scape-goat, the magician of words! Had he met him three years ago, he would have knelt to him. Now all he could do was to frown.

It was necessary to say something. He spoke gruffly. “You've chosen an odd method of returning. We had news you were dead.”

“I was,” the green eyes narrowed, “nearly. I'm always nearly dying. Isn't that so, Anna? And then I come back. This last time, as you observed, I had the discourtesy to forget. I was thinking of Santa. Actually I struggled to survive. Believe me, that's unlike me.”

The forbearance of his manner was rebuking. Making an effort to be genial, Hindwood held out his hand. “It's a strange way to meet. I've long been your admirer. It was a close call--as close as a man could have.”

Varensky winced as the powerful grip closed about his fingers. They were long and pointed, more like a woman's than a man's. “A close call!” He smiled. “You're American? It wasn't--not for me. I could tell you-- But perhaps one day, when I've become past history, Anna will do that.”

As he mentioned his wife, he gave her a look at once tender and furtive--a look which acknowledged without rancor the truth of the situation. She started forward, but his eyes held her. She stopped half-way.

“However you return,” she said chokingly, “and however often, you know that I'm glad. It's the certainty that I shall lose you--that however often you return I shall never have you--”

She bowed her head. From the edge of the cliff, without a trace of emotion, the other woman watched her.

Tilting her face with his bruised fingers, Varensky regarded her earnestly. “As if I wasn't aware of that!” And then, “Let's be going.”

Side by side, but always separate, they moved across the downs. There was no backward glance. Hindwood followed them with his eyes till they sank into a hollow. The last he saw was the raw gold of her hair and the conical top of his pointed head, growing more distant above the bracken.

III

And I, too, have to apologize. I failed to keep my appointment.”

He swung round at the mockingly spoken words, to find that Santa had stolen up behind him. Until now he had had no time to notice her. His anger was so intense that it held him silent. After all that she had done and had intended to do to him, she had the effrontery to jest! Did she think that he was as much her dupe as the fool who had died for her in the woods of Vincennes?

But his anger was short-lived and left him sternly cold. She was changed. Her fastidious elegance was a thing of the past. She was commonly attired as any fisher-girl. Her cheap blouse was rent at the neck; its sleeves were stained and in tatters. Her rough skirt had been nearly trodden off. She was tom and disheveled. She had suffered even more from her adventure than had Varensky. Her hat lay crushed at her feet in the grass. With her wounded hands she “was doing her best to twine the thick coils of her hair into place. She stood confessed for what she was, a fugitive from justice. The wildness of the landscape made a fitting setting. She looked startlingly untamed. She might have passed for a peasant Ophelia, except that her gray eyes were calm and her manner nonchalant.

“There are a good many things, besides missing your appointment, for which you have to apologize.”

“I can explain--”

He cut her short. “Between you and me no explanations are necessary.”

She jerked back her head, flattening her hands against her sides like a soldier standing at attention. “Why not?”

He took his time to answer. “Because you're nothing to me.”

Her face went white, then flamed scarlet, as though he had struck her with his open palm. “Nothing to you!” She spoke slowly. “I, Santa Gorlof, am nothing to you! You're the first man to whom I ever offered my heart. I would lie down in the mud that you might walk over me. I'd let you beat me like a dog if I might only follow you. I'd starve that you might be fed, go thirsty that you might drink, break my body that you might not suffer. I would die if it would give you pleasure.” Seeing that her rhetoric was having no effect, she sank her voice. “When I could have escaped, I waited for you. I risked my freedom for one last sight of you.” She clutched at her breast, choking down a sob. “And you tell me that I'm nothing to you!”

He was determined to remain unmoved by her emotion. Regarding her stonily, he asked: “What right had you to believe that you were anything to me?”

She laughed forlornly. “No right at all.”

“If I had ever cared for you,” he continued, “in your present predicament it would all be ended.”

She raised her brows contemptuously. “Of course.”

“You see, I've found out the sort of woman you are.”

“What sort?”

“Need I recall?”

He turned away, searching hollows and clumps of bushes for bobbing heads of watchers. Her captors might be closing in on her. Her indifference to her danger was disconcerting. With eyes still fixed on the distant landscape, he revealed his thoughts.

“Your talk of love is paltry. It's tragic farce. You have a husband. You're liable to be jailed at any moment.”

He expected she would retort. When she maintained silence, he glanced down at his feet, ashamed of what he felt himself compelled to tell her.

“Love! If it were true, and if your affection were desired, you have no love to offer. Nothing that is you is yours. Your hours are numbered. Your body and your life are forfeit. The man who is your husband is leading the hue-and-cry against you. If you think you can persuade me to go to the scaffold for you, rid yourself of the thought. There'll be no repetition of the woods of Vincennes. The victim in that case was your lover; I'm not.” He met her eyes. “You never deceived me for a second. From the moment we left the _Ryndam_, I knew who it was had pushed Prince Rogovich overboard.”

“If you knew,” she asked quietly, “why didn't you have me arrested?”

“It was none of my business.”

“But you were kind after we'd landed. At the hotel you arranged to breakfast with me.”

“I couldn't bring myself to believe you were guilty.”

“And yet, after you had believed, you followed me to Seafold.”

“The detective instinct.” He spoke testily. “Morbid curiosity.”

“No.” She said it wistfully. Her face softened. “You followed me because, even against your will, you still cared for me. You pitied me. You were chivalrous. You refused to condemn me unheard. You hoped there was some mistake. You followed me to make sure.”

“And you've made me sure.” He rapped out the words. “Since you insist on the truth, I came to Seafold hoping to find you innocent. If I had I should have fought for you. Whereas--”

“Whereas?” she prompted nervously.

“I found you'd done to me what you've done to every other man who ever befriended you--betrayed me and had me lured into an ambush where, for all I know, you'd given orders for me to be shot.”

“But you weren't.”

“No thanks to you. Your husband was ahead of you, hidden in the bushes, waiting for you. If we hadn't given the signal that warned you--”

“But you gave it.” She spoke triumphantly. “I'd trapped you, and yet you didn't want me to be caught. To have shown generosity at a moment when you thought that I was threatening your life, you must still have been fond of me.”

“Thought!” He drew back from her, revolted by her insincerity. “You left no room for thought. You were diabolically explicit. You knew that I could prove your guilt. You meant to kill me in order that I might be silenced.”

Her eyes filled. She stretched out her arms beseechingly. They fell hopelessly as he retreated from her.

“Don't misjudge me,” she implored. “I'm a woman who's finished. A woman, as you reminded me, whose hours are numbered--my body and my life are forfeit. It's true what you said: nothing that I am belongs to me. If you like to put it that way, I'm a woman who has nothing to offer. And yet I love you--the first man with whom I was ever in love, now when it's too late. You don't believe me; you're thinking of the many others. Let it pass. I had to see you once more. I couldn't come to you; you were surrounded by my enemies. To persuade you to come to me, I had to trick you. Until it was safe to visit you, I had to have you held by force. I compelled Anna, Madame Varensky to--”

He made an impatient gesture. “Enough! I'm wondering to how many men you've made that speech before. I've heard all about your appeals to chivalry. If you were a man---- Unfortunately you're not, so I have a sentimental compunction about abandoning you. What are your plans? When I saw the ship I hoped you had escaped.”

“I had.”

“And you came back! Why?”

“Varensky was landing from the boat that had been sent to take me off.” She was laying claim to some obscure nobility, making a final bid for his admiration.

“The mist's clearing,” he said brusquely. “In another half-hour you'll be visible for miles. If you're seen here, you'll be taken.”

“I won't.”

“You think not?”

She smiled languidly. It was her arch, mysterious way of smiling that had first attracted him. “Why don't you go?” she whispered in her hoarse, parched voice. “You loathe and despise me. You grudge me every moment we're together. I've done what was right; I'm willing to pay the penalty. I've earned a rest. I'm tired--you can't guess how tired.”

Now that she wanted him to go, he gazed at her with a new interest. If the trackers were hot upon his trail, what would be his sensations? Would he be able to be courteous and to talk calmly? Whatever might be her crimes, she had courage. What if it were true that by some tortuous process of reasoning she did actually believe she had done right? And what if it were true that she had intended him no harm, but had only attempted to win him by violence? The uneasy doubt took shape in his mind that he might have misjudged her. It would be a splendid memory to have, if she were wrongly executed--this gleaming morning, the larks singing, the blue-patched sky, the valiant sun, the rosy-tinted dew, and himself fleeing from the forlornness of a woman! Every man's hand was against her. She believed she had done right.

He regarded her less coldly. She was perfect as on the day when all Europe had gone wild over her. And this masterpiece of loveliness, which had been known as Santa Gorlof, was doomed to be destroyed!

“Go.” She stamped her foot hysterically. “You torture me.”

He faced her obstinately. “What are you proposing? You've some plan in mind. Madame Varen-sky called this 'the road out.' Is it possible for you to take it?”

“I know a shorter route.”

“You're certain?”

“Please leave me. You must leave me. I'm a woman who has nothing to offer. You're a man who has everything to lose.”

He squared his lips. “I don't like the sound of this shorter route. I want to know more about it.”

As he made a step toward her, she dodged and broke from him, dashing toward the cliff. On the very edge he caught her. She struggled dangerously, but he stumbled back with her crushed against him.

“You little fool!”

She lay quiet, her face pressed against his cheek. Then she fell to sobbing.

“What difference would it make? Why wouldn't you let me do it?”

IV

Why wouldn't he? It was the question he himself was asking. He had done nothing humane in preventing her. He had merely spared his own feelings. If she had succeeded, he would have found himself in an ugly situation. He would have been suspected of a crime similar to hers. There would have been no evidence to hang him, but he could never have established his innocence. He looked down at the woman shuddering in his arms, for all the world as though he were her lover. He had been within an ace of inheriting her isolation.

“I didn't let you do it--” He hesitated. Then he took the plunge. “Because I intend to save you.”

She stirred. She glanced up at him. As her eyes met his, their expression of wonder gave way to one of gratitude. She strove to reach his lips, but he restrained her.

“Promise me you'll live.”

“If you'll help me.”

How much she implied oy “help me,” he did not stop to question.

“We've no time to lose.” He spoke hurriedly. “Where's the safest place of hiding?”

“My old one. A hut----”

“I know,” he interrupted. “I'll go ahead to make sure the way is clear; you follow at a distance. Keep me in sight. If I look back, take cover.”

Without more ado, he turned away, retracing his steps to the camp.

He attempted to walk jauntily, like a nature-lover who had risen early to enjoy the first freshness of the morning. Here and there he stooped to pluck a blackberry. He pulled a sprig of heather for his lapel. He flattered himself that, if he were being watched, his conduct was artistically normal.

For all his display of carelessness, he advanced warily. There was nothing in the billowy expanse of greenness that escaped him. Somewhere within a radius of four miles the Major was waiting to make his pounce. He might be crouched in the next patch of bracken. He might be lying behind the nearest mound. The dapper, gallant-appearing old gentleman, who bore such a striking resemblance to Lord Roberts, assumed the terror of nemesis in his imagination. He seemed everywhere and nowhere. He would pop up, suave and neatly bespatted, at the moment when he was least expected.