Part 21 (2/2)

”Come,” she said.

Side by side they walked the entire length of the terrace. When they reached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind. She battled along, and he followed her. They were looking inland now.

There were no lights visible--nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness. From somewhere below him he could hear the wind in the tree-tops.

”This way,” she directed. ”Be careful.”

They walked to the very edge of the palisading. It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.

”Can you see?” she whispered.

By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.

”Come here again in the morning,” she whispered. ”You will see then. I brought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accident happened.”

”What accident?”

”Mr. Fentolin's,” she continued. ”It was here that he went over. He was picked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he would live.”

Hamel s.h.i.+vered a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.

”What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.

”It was more horrible than you know,” she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear. ”I do not know why I tell you this--you, a stranger--but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!”

”By whom?” he asked.

She clung to his arm for a moment.

”Ah, don't ask me!” she begged. ”No one knows. My uncle gave out, as soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident.”

”That, at any rate, was fine of him,” Hamel declared.

She s.h.i.+vered.

”He was proud, at least, of our family name. Whatever credit he deserves for it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became his slaves: nothing but that--his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if he would, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His life was, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, little thinking what was in store for us. Five years ago we came here to live.

Gerald wanted to go into the army; I wanted to travel with my mother.

Gerald has done all the work secretly, but he has never been allowed to pa.s.s his examinations. I have never left England except to spend two years at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken and fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadow of this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to do his bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body and soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say--oh, I cannot say! It is bad for us, but--there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect h.e.l.l!”

A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bending the trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascended precipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behind rattled. She looked around nervously.

”I am afraid of him all the time,” she murmured. ”He seems to overhear everything--he or his creatures. Listen!”

They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closely that through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.

”You are telling me half,” he said. ”Tell me everything. Who threw your uncle over the parapet?”

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