Part 29 (2/2)
The cry was bitterness itself, but it pa.s.sed unheeded. Mr. Ransom could not speak and Hazen had other cares in mind.
”Where is this woman Bela now?” he asked.
Georgian was too absorbed or too unwilling, to answer.
He repeated the question, this time with an authority she could not resist. Rising slowly, she faced him for one impressive moment.
”My G.o.d!” came from her lips in startled surprise. ”How pale you are! Sit down or you will fall.”
He shook his head impatiently.
”It's nothing. Answer my question. Where is this Bela now?”
”I don't know. She is beyond my reach--and _yours_. I told her to lose herself. I think she is clever enough to do so. The money I paid her was worth a few years spent in obscurity.”
The spark lighting his eye brightened into baleful flame, but she met it calmly. An indomitable spirit confronted one equally indomitable, and his was the first to succ.u.mb. Turning from her, Hazen took out pencil and paper from his pocket, and, crossing to the window with that same peculiar and oscillating motion of which he seemed unconscious, or which he found it impossible to subdue, he wrote a line, folded it, and before even Harper was aware of his purpose threw up the sash and flung it out, uttering a quick, sharp whistle as he did so.
”What's that you're up to?” shouted the lawyer, rus.h.i.+ng to the window and peering over the other's shoulder into the open s.p.a.ce below, from which a man was just disappearing.
”Am I a prisoner of the police that you should ask me that?” returned Hazen, haughtily.
”No, but you should be,” retorted Harper. ”I don't like your ways, Hazen.
I don't like what you and your sister have said about the Cause and the conscienceless obedience exacted from its members. I don't like any of it; least of all this pa.s.sing over of poor Bela's name to one whose duty it will possibly be to make trouble for her.”
Hazen smiled and moved from the window. No one there had ever seen such a smile before, and the oppression which it brought heightened Georgian's fear to terror.
”Let be!” she cried, lifting her hands towards Harper in inconceivable anxiety. ”A quarrel with him will not help you and it may greatly injure _me_. Alfred, what am I to expect? Something dreadful, I can see. Your face is not the face of one who forgives, or who sees in a gift of money an adequate recompense for a cowardly withdrawal.”
”You read rightly,” said he. ”Your fortune will be accepted by the Chief, but he will never forget the cowardice. What faith can he put in one who prefers her own happiness to the general good? You must prepare for punishment.”
”Punishment!” broke scornfully from Harper's lips.
She hushed him with a look before which even he stood aghast.
”You will only waste words,” she cried. ”If he says punishment, I may expect punishment.” And turning back to Ransom, in a burst of longing and pa.s.sion, she raised her eyes to him again, saying, ”You do not forgive because you do not realize my danger. But you will realize it when I am gone.”
Ransom, under a sudden releas.e.m.e.nt of the tension of doubt and awe which had hitherto held him speechless, gave her one wild stare, then caught her to his breast.
She uttered a happy sigh.
”Ah!” she murmured in the soft ecstasy and boundless relief of the moment, ”how I have learned to love you during the fears and agonies of this awful week.”
”And I you,” was the whispered answer. ”Too deeply,” he impetuously added in louder tones, ”to let any harm come to you now.”
She smiled; but desperation fought with love in that smile. Gently releasing herself, she cast another glance at Hazen, upon whose gray and distorted countenance there had settled a great gloom, and pa.s.sionately exclaimed:
”Had law or love been able to interfere with the judgment of our Chief, I should not have been driven into the herculean task of deceiving you and the whole world as to my real ident.i.ty.” Then with slowly drooping head, and the manner of one who has heard his doom p.r.o.nounced, she hoa.r.s.ely whispered; ”The death-mark was scrawled upon my door last night. This is never done without the consent of the Chief. No one can save me now, not even my own brother.”
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