Part 40 (1/2)
How long she might have borne it and retained sanity is doubtful. It surely could not have been long. With the smallest gleam of sympathy it might have been possible to endure. But there was no sympathy. The gloom of her outlook from her windows, the awesome grandeur of her rooms, the cold antagonism of those who waited upon her as prison warders,--all these things aggravated her trouble, just as they were calculated to aggravate.
Then in the very depths of her despairing misery there suddenly shone out a vague, flickering light of hope. It was no less than a stealthy and secret visit from Ludwig von Salzinger. It came in the night. Vita had abandoned sleeping at night fearing lest the murder would be committed during the hours of darkness. She had allowed her imagination to run riot till she almost came to fear her own shadow.
She was sitting in an upright chair. She was gazing straight before her with eyes staring upon the door. Such was her terror of the night that she had been reduced to this impotent watching. Her thought was teeming, going over and over again every horrible fancy a distorted brain could conjure. Then suddenly, in the midst of it all, she started. Her straining eyes dilated. She leapt from her seat and sprang behind her chair, grasping its back, prepared to defend herself. The door was slowly and silently opening.
Widely ajar it stopped. The next instant a head was thrust round it, a square head with a shock of close-cut hair. The woman breathed a sigh, but remained ready to defend herself. She had recognized Ludwig von Salzinger.
The man recognized her att.i.tude, and signed to her to remain silent.
His warning had instant effect. Vita drew another sigh, and her grip upon the chair-back relaxed. With eyes wide with doubt and fear she watched the man's movements. They were stealthy and secret.
He thrust the door further open. Quickly and silently he stepped into the room. Then, with the door still ajar, he gazed back cautiously down the corridor beyond, in both directions. Having satisfied himself he closed the door with the greatest care and came towards her.
”If you speak,” he whispered, ”don't raise your voice, or--we shall be overheard.”
”What have you come for?” demanded Vita, nevertheless obedient to his caution.
The man's brows went up and his eyes were urgent.
”Why, to get you out of this,” he said quickly. ”Do you think I can stand by while that devil Von Berger does you, a woman, to death? You, the woman I love--have always loved? G.o.d! I hate that man,” he added, and an unmistakable ring of truth sounded in his final words. ”Look here, Vita, I'm part of this diabolical machinery, I know; I can't help it; but to submit to the murder of a woman--you--G.o.d! I can't do it--if it costs me my own life. Oh, yes, I know what you'll think. You know the discipline. You know that I was forced into a.s.sisting in bringing you here, under orders I dared not disobey. I know all that, and you must think of me as you will, but I love you--madly--and I'll not consent to anything that threatens your life. I tell you, I've done with it all--all--our country. I'm going to get out of it all and flee to America, and--take you with me. You'll come with me? Say you'll come with me, and together we'll outwit this devil of a man. You've done nothing, nothing on earth to warrant the punishment he's preparing for you. Your father--that's different. But you--you--oh, it's horrible.
Ach! I could kill that man when I think of it, and all he has said to me yesterday of his devil's plans.”
While he was speaking it seemed to Vita that it must be some angel talking disguised in the angular, hard exterior of this Prussian. Every nerve in her body which had been so straining seemed suddenly to have relaxed. It seemed as though years of suffering had been suddenly lifted from her poor tortured brain. She recalled how from the beginning she had thought that if hope there were for her it must lie in this very Von Salzinger who had been disgraced through her father's and her agency. She gazed upon him now in wonder, and was half inclined to weep with grat.i.tude and relief.
But she restrained herself. And quite suddenly she remembered something else. She remembered the man who claimed her love, and she remembered the love this man was now offering her. The relief of the moment changed to doubt, and, finally, to a renewed despair.
There was only one course open to her, and she adopted it frankly and without restraint. She shook her head.
”I--honor you for the sacrifice you would make, but I'm afraid it's useless. Besides, I feel it would be impossible to defeat these people.
I must tell you, and by doing so I may lose forever your good-will. I do not love you. All the love I have to give has pa.s.sed from my keeping----”
”Ruxton Farlow.” There was a sharp, brutal ruthlessness in the manner in which Von Salzinger broke in.
Vita shrank at the tone.
”Yes,” she said. ”I love Ruxton Farlow, and have pledged myself to be his wife.”
”Wife?” There was a smile in the man's eyes which did not conceal his jealous pa.s.sion. ”What chance have you of becoming his wife? None.
There is only one chance--your escape from here. Your escape from here can only be contrived by me. Am I--I going to risk my life, and all my future, to hand over the woman I love to--Ruxton Farlow? Vita, I am only a man--a mere human man. I will risk all for you. I will dare even the vengeance of Von Berger if you but promise me. But no power on earth can make me stir a hand to deliver up all I care for in the world to--Ruxton Farlow.”
The frank, ruthless honesty of the man's denial was not without its appeal to Vita. She even smiled a faint, gentle smile.
”It is as I said--useless. It is only as I could have expected. I could not hope it would be otherwise. I love Ruxton Farlow.”
”Whom you can never hope to see again.” Again came that savage crudeness of method which Vita recognized as part of the man. Then his eyes lit with a deep, primitive pa.s.sion. ”Oh, yes, I must seem brutal, a devil, like that Von Berger. Maybe I am, but I can see plain sense.
In less than a week you will die here, murdered. How, I can only guess at. Von Berger knows no mercy. Your father is surrounded at Dorby, and will suffer a similar fate. All your plans and schemes will be frustrated. The works at Dorby are even now destroyed. There is no power on earth that can give you to this man you say you love. Well? Is not life still sweet to you? Is not your father's escape also something to you? I tell you I can contrive these things. All I ask is that you will marry me. Your solemn pledge. I love you, and will teach you to love me and forget this Englishman. It is madness to refuse. It is your one single chance of life, and you would fling it away for a shadow, a dream which can never be realized.”
There was something in the man's manner which appealed to Vita. Perhaps it was the rugged brutality of his force. The repugnance in which she had held him had lessened. To her his genuineness was unmistakable. And he was honest enough to make no claim to generosity in the course he was prepared to adopt at her bidding.
Von Salzinger saw something of the effect he had achieved upon her and resolutely thrust home the advantage.