Part 20 (2/2)
CHAPTER XXII
”That day is a day of wrath--a day of clouds and thick darkness.”--_The Bible_.
”India!” repeated Leonie, ”India!”
She flung round towards the sea, standing on the very edge of the cliff, the violence of the wind against her the only barrier between her and certain death.
”Tell me,” she cried, pointing to the heaving, raging ma.s.s of waters with a hand above which shone dully a blood-soaked bandage. ”Tell me what I did to myself down there just now. I awoke in a different place from which I went to sleep. I had no--I am cut and bruised. Terrible things happen wherever I am--they follow me. I woke one night in a pitch dark room and saw two green eyes staring at me from the wall.
They were my eyes--reflected in a looking-gla.s.s--_mine_--they s.h.i.+ne at night like a cat's--and there's a voice calling--often. Oh! I tell you I'm haunted, bewitched, _cursed_!”
”Come to me, beloved.”
She turned and went like a child into the outstretched arms, and he, having wet his handkerchief on the mist-damped gra.s.s, bent the weary head back against his shoulder, and wiped away the blood-stains from the despairing face.
”You walk in your sleep, Leonie, by reason of the workings of an overwrought brain, that is all. India is the problem, and your ayah is the answer. _I_ think she frightened you somehow, made some deep impression on you, on your baby brain, and we are going to India to find her. It's very simple, dear, once find the cause we can easily find the remedy, and it will be much better if you come with me. By the way, who gave you that cat's-eye?”
He had made a slip.
”When did you see it?” answered Leonie quickly, ”I never showed it to you! Were--were you down _there_ near me, _before_ you called?”
”No,” steadily lied the man, ”but the thing slipped through your blouse one day--it's a brute. Who gave it to you?”
”My ayah! Do you know, I think you are quite wrong about her. Auntie says Mother told her that she nearly broke her heart when I left India, seventeen years ago, and she writes to me regularly every three months.
Only last week I had a letter from----”
”Do you speak Hindustani?” interrupted Cuxson abruptly, with a frown on his face.
”Not a word!”
”Or Sanskrit?”
”Oh! no, neither, but the letters are in English, evidently written by one of those letter writers, who get so much for each letter they write for the illiterate poor. And in every one she says how she loves me and longs for my return, and although she is very happy in the service of some Ranee in the north of India, she wants to give it up and come to me.”
There was a pause, broken by the nearing thunder and the crash of the waves against the cliffs.
”Don't let's worry about that yet, dear, as everything is settled splendidly and----”
But Leonie pulled away and stood facing him with her hands in his against his heart.
”Do you really _love_ me?”
The whisper was almost lost in the tumult of the breakers beneath.
”_Love_ you, Leonie, _love_ you!”
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