Part 42 (1/2)

And Payton's livid, scowling, bleeding face was hate itself. ”Behind the yews in the garden?” he said, disregarding her presence.

”Ah, I'll meet you there!” The McMurrough answered, pot-valiant. ”And, more by token, order your coffin, for you'll need it!” Drink and rage left no place in his brain for fear.

”That will be seen--to-morrow,” the Englishman answered, in a tone that chilled the girl's marrow. Then, with his kerchief pressed to his cheek to staunch the blood, he retreated into his room, and slammed the door.

They heard him turn the key in it.

Flavia found her voice. She looked at her brother. ”Ah, G.o.d!” she cried. ”Why did I open my door?”

James, still pot-valiant, returned her look. ”Because you were a fool, you s.l.u.t!” he said. ”But I'll spit him, never fear! Faith, and I'll spit him like a fowl!” In his turn he went on unsteadily to his room, disappeared within it, and closed the door. He took the candle with him, but from Asgill's open door, and from Flavia's, which stood ajar, enough light issued to illumine the pa.s.sage faintly.

Flavia and Asgill remained together. Her eyes met his. ”Ah, why did I open my door?” she cried. ”Why did I open my door? Why did I?”

He had no comfort for her. He shook his head, but did not speak.

”He will kill him!” she said.

Asgill reflected in a heavy silence. ”I will think what can be done,”

he muttered at last. ”I will think! Do you go to bed!”

”To bed?” she cried.

”There is naught to be done to-night,” he answered, in a low tone. ”If the troopers were not with him--then indeed; but that is useless.

And--his door is locked. Do you go to bed, and I will think what we can do!”

”To save James?” She laid her hand on Asgill's arm, and he quivered.

”Ah, you will save him!” She had forgotten her brother's treatment of her earlier in the day.

”If I can,” he said slowly. His face was damp and very pale. ”If I can,” he repeated. ”But it will not be easy to save him honourably.”

”What do you mean?” she whispered.

”He'll save himself, I fancy. But his honour----”

”Ah!” The word came from her in a cry of pain.

CHAPTER XXIII

BEHIND THE YEWS

Under the sky the pale softness of dawn had yielded place to the sun in his strength--in more poetical words, Aurora had given way to Phoebus--but within, the pa.s.sages were still grey and chill, and silent as though night's ghostly sentinels still walked them, when one of the bedchamber doors opened and a face peeped out. The face was Flavia's. The girl was too young, too full of life and vigour, to be altered by a single sleepless night, but the cold reflection of the whitewashed walls did that which watching had failed to do. It robbed her eyes of their brightness, her face of its colour, her hair of its l.u.s.tre. She stood an instant, and gazed, frowning, at the doors that, in a row and all alike, hid nevertheless one a hope, and another a fear, and a third perhaps a tragedy. But drab, silent, closed, each within a shadow of its own, they told nothing. Presently the girl stepped forward--paused, scared by a board that creaked under her naked foot--then went on again. She stood now at one of the doors, and scratched on it with her nail.

No one answered the summons, and she pushed the door open and went in.

And, as she had feared, enlightened by Asgill's hint and by what she had seen of her brother's conduct earlier in the day, she found. James was awake--wide awake--and sitting up in his bed, his arms clasped about his knees. His eyes met hers as she entered, and in his eyes, and in his form, huddled together as in sheer physical pain, she read beyond all doubt, beyond all mistake--fear. Why she had felt certain, courageous herself, that this was what she would find, she did not know. But there it was, as Asgill had foretold it, and as she had foreseen it, through the long, restless, torturing hours; as she had seen it, and now denied it, now, with a sick heart, owned its reality.

James tried to utter the oath that, deceiving her, might rid him of her presence. But his nerves, shaken by his overnight drink, could not command his voice even for that. His eyes dropped in shame, the muttered ”What the plague will you be wanting at this hour?” was no more than a querulous whisper.

”I couldn't sleep,” she said, avoiding his eyes.