Part 29 (1/2)

In an instant she grew pale as death, and stood there quivering in fear.

Her defiance had given place to abject terror, and she dared not utter a word lest she should betray herself. Holding her in suspicion, as I did, I was quick to note the slightest wavering, to detect the least fear as expressed in her flawlessly beautiful countenance.

”You may make whatever allegation you think fit,” she responded, in a harsh tone. ”It makes no difference. The man who loves me will not heed you.”

”But he shall!” I cried, in anger. ”I will not allow him to be victimised as poor Roddy was. Your very words betray you!” I burst forth again. ”When you allege that he committed suicide six months before he died in London you lie!”

”I have spoken the truth,” she answered, meeting my gaze with a calmness which seemed incredible. ”Some day, perhaps, you will have proof.”

”Why may not proof be given me now?” I demanded. ”Why cannot you explain all, and end this mystery?”

”It is impossible.”

”Impossible!” I cried. ”Nonsense! You seek to conceal your evil deeds beneath a cloak of improbabilities, and fancy I am sufficiently credulous to believe them!”

”Surely heated argument is useless,” she observed. ”I love a man who is your friend, and you love a woman who is mine. Plainly speaking, our interests are identical, are they not? Your love is in hiding. She had a reason for fleeing from you, just as my lover's religious views caused him to endeavour to escape me. He knew me not, or he would not have endeavoured to hide himself from me. You, who know me better, are aware that from me there is no escape; that I spare not my enemies nor those who hate me. Before my touch men and things wither as gra.s.s cast into an oven.”

”True, I love Muriel,” I said. ”She is in hiding, and you, if you will, can direct me to where she is.” Aline, the mysterious handmaiden of evil, paused. Her full breast rose beneath her thin summer bodice and fell slowly, and for an instant her well-arched brows were knit as she thought deeply.

”Yes,” she answered at length. ”Your surmise is correct. I am aware where your love has concealed herself.”

”Little escapes you,” I observed, a strange feeling of terror creeping over me. ”Sin is always more powerful than righteousness, and cunning more invincible than honesty of purpose. Why will you not impart to me the knowledge that I seek, and tell me where I may find Muriel? As you have very truly said, our interests are identical. I am ready to make any compact with you, in return for your a.s.sistance.”

”Very well,” she answered quickly, with a little undue eagerness, I thought. Then, fixing me again with her eyes, she said: ”Once you gave yourself to me body and soul and implored me to love you. But I spurned you--not because I entertained any affection for you, but for the sake of the one woman who loved you--Muriel Moore.”

”Then you knew Muriel?” I interrupted quickly, in an endeavour to at least clear up that single fact.

”No,” she answered, ”I did not know her. A reader of the heart, I was, however, aware that she was madly enamoured of you, therefore I was frank enough to urge you to reciprocate her love, and thus obtain felicity. Well, she has hidden herself from you, but you shall find her on one condition--namely, that you render yourself pa.s.sive in my hands-- that you give yourself entirely to me.”

”What do you mean?” I gasped, holding back instinctively and glaring at her. ”Are you the Devil himself that you should make this proposal which in the mediaeval legend Mephistopheles made to Faust?”

”My intentions are of no concern,” she responded, in a strange voice like one speaking afar off. ”Will you, or will you not accept my conditions?”

”But to give myself to you when I love another is impossible!” I protested.

”I make this demand not in any spirit of coquetry,” she replied. ”That you should be mine, body and soul, is necessary, in order that you should preserve the silence which is imperative.”

”To put it plainly you desire, in return for the service you will render me, that I should utter no word to your lover of my suspicions?” I said, gradually grasping her meaning.

Again the glint of evil seemed to s.h.i.+ne from those blue eyes, which changed their hue with every humour.

”Exactly,” she answered, her slim fingers nervously twisting the golden chain of her lorgnette. ”But you must become mine, to do as I bid and act entirely as I direct,” she declared. ”Unless you give me your word of honour to do this there can be no agreement between us. Remember that your silence will be for our mutual benefit, for I shall remain happy while you will gain the woman you love.”

For a single moment only I hesitated. But one thought was in my mind, that of Muriel. At all costs I felt that I must discover her, for her disappearance had driven me to distraction. Never before had I known what it really was to love, or the blankness that falls upon a man when the woman he adores has suddenly gone out of his life. I may have been foolish, nay, I knew I was; nevertheless, in the sudden helplessness that was upon me, I turned and answered--

”I am ready to do as you wish.”

Next instant I held my breath, and the perspiration broke forth upon my brow when I realised that my great love for Muriel had led me into an abyss of evil. Heedless of the dire consequences which must follow, I had flung myself into the toils of this mysterious woman whom I held in fear; a woman whose very touch was sacrilegious, and who was more fiendish than human in her delights and hates.

”Then it is agreed,” she said in that strange voice which had several times impressed me so. ”Henceforth you are mine, to do my bidding.