Part 18 (2/2)

She did not know what to do, as step by step she approached that black and gaping hole. If she kept up her pretense, if she had sufficient courage to go ahead, of what would it avail Richard or Monsieur Lefevre, should she maintain her a.s.sumed character at the expense of a broken leg, or neck? On the other hand, to halt, to hold back, would be to destroy at once all chance of her being of any further service to her husband, and that, too, at a time when he most sorely needed her.

These considerations flashed through her brain with the speed of light itself. She had scarcely taken half a dozen steps before she found herself upon the brink of the opening, and realized that the next step, if she took it, might be her last.

Then she suddenly collapsed. The effort was too great--she sank helplessly upon the floor, her face buried in her arms, her whole body shaking with the force of her sobbing.

In an instant Hartmann had sprung across the opening and grasped her by the wrist, while his companion was engaged in rapidly replacing over the gap the section of flooring which had been removed. Within a few moments the pa.s.sageway was as it had been before, and the doctor was dragging her roughly into the laboratory.

She did not cry out--there was no one from whom she could expect aid.

She drew herself up and faced her captor with dry eyes and a face calm, though pale. ”What do you mean, Dr. Hartmann,” she demanded, steadily, ”by treating me in this way?”

He forced her into a chair. ”Sit down, young woman,” he said, gruffly.

”I have a few questions to ask you.”

She did so, without protest, summoning to her aid all her powers of resistance and will. He should get nothing from her, she determined.

”Why have you come into my house,” he presently asked, glaring at her in anger, ”under pretense of desiring medical treatment? What is it you want here?”

She made no reply, gazing at him steadily--fearlessly.

”What is this man Duvall to you?” he shouted. ”Tell me, or it will be the worse for you both.”

Again she faced him, refusing to answer. Her resistance made him furious. ”Your silence will profit you nothing,” he went on. ”You can do no further harm here, for I know your purpose. You are working with him--you are a detective--a spy, as he is. You pretend to be a somnambulist in order to carry out your ends. I suspected you long ago.

Now I know. This man has robbed me of something that I am determined to have. What he has done with it--where it is concealed, I do not know, but I mean to have it--be sure of that. If you know--you had better confess, if you have any regard for his welfare.”

His words, his brutal manner, brought the tears to her eyes. She realized that she had but to say a few words, to save Richard from she knew not what fate, yet equally she knew that she could not say them--that he would not want her to say them. In her agitation she took a handkerchief from her dress and pressed it to her eyes.

The man Mayer had been regarding her in silence throughout the whole scene. Suddenly he stepped forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the handkerchief from her hand. His quick eyes had detected a monogram in one corner of the bit of cambric, and with an air of triumph he held it beneath the light, examining it closely.

Hartmann came to him. ”What is it, Mayer?” he asked, eagerly.

His a.s.sistant extended the handkerchief to him. Grace realized with a sinking heart that it was one of several she had herself embroidered during the weeks preceding her marriage. With what pride, she reflected, she had worked over the G and D, lovingly intertwined in one corner.

”His wife!” she heard Hartmann cry, with a harsh laugh. ”That explains everything. That was why he did not leave Brussels at once--he was waiting for her--he would not go without her.” He turned to Grace with a new expression on his face. ”So you are his wife, eh? Very well. Now we shall see whether or not you will tell me what I want to know. Your husband is confined in the room below us. This”--he indicated the small black box with wires attached--”is a device which I have constructed for producing certain light rays--light rays which have a marvelous power, both for curing, and producing disease. Look!” He held his powerful hand before her eyes. ”This is what they did to me, before I discovered how to control them.” She saw, stretching across the back of his hand and wrist, a broad red patch, like the scar remaining after a burn. ”Now come here.” He seized her by the wrist and dragged her toward the apparatus at the center of the room. ”Look--in there.” He indicated a short bra.s.s tube which rose from the center of the box, resembling the eyepiece of a microscope. ”Look!”

Grace bent over and applied her eye to the bra.s.s tube, then shrank back with an exclamation of horror. ”Richard!” she screamed, then turned on Hartmann with the fury of a tigress. ”Let him go--let him go--I say, or I will--” She realized her helplessness--the futility of her threats, and fell into the chair in a paroxysm of sobbing. Through the bra.s.s tube, and the powerful lens which focused the light rays upon the s.p.a.ce below, she had seen Richard's face, white and drawn, within a disk of blinding light, and apparently so near to her that she could have reached out and touched it. In her momentary glance, she noted his reddened eyes, the tears which coursed from beneath their lids, the agony which distorted his countenance.

”Now will you tell me what I ask?” cried Hartmann, triumphantly.

Still she made no reply. Her heart was breaking, her suffering at the knowledge of his suffering made her faint and weak, but even now she could not bring herself to break the trust which Monsieur Lefevre had placed in her. She sat huddled up in the chair, shaking from head to foot with sobs.

Hartmann saw that her resistance was as yet unbroken. ”Take her arm, Mayer,” he called out, as he seized her by one wrist. ”Come along now.

We'll see if a closer view will have any effect.” He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a broad leather strap from a shelf along the wall, then, with Mayer's a.s.sistance, half-led, half dragged her to the iron stairway in the corner. In a few moments they had paused before the door of the room where the detective lay confined. Hartmann threw it open and pushed Grace inside, while he and Mayer followed, closing the door behind them.

For a moment Grace was dazzled by the brightness of the light cone, and the darkness of the remainder of the room. Then seeing Richard lying helpless on the floor before her, she threw herself to her knees, put her arms about his neck, and covered his face with kisses. ”My darling--my poor boy!” she cried, as she bent over him, her shoulders shutting off from his tortured face the blinding rays of the light.

”What have they done to you?”

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