Part 18 (1/2)

He felt the sudden quiver, like a little shock, that ran through her.

He crushed his face down, so that it lay in her hair, still damp from its wetting. He drew her closer, tightening his arms about her slender body, and a little cry came from her a cry that was a broken thing, a sob without tears.

”Marette!”

It was all he said. It was all he could say in that moment when his heart was beating like a drum against her breast. And then he felt the slow pressure of her hands against him, saw her white face, her wide, staring eyes within a few inches of his own, and she drew away from him, back against the wall, still huddled like a child on the bed, with her eyes fixed on him in a way that frightened him. There were no tears in them. She had not been crying. But her face was as white as he had seen it down in Kedsty's room. Some of the horror and shock had gone out of it. In it was another look as her eyes glowed upon Kent. It was a look of incredulity, of disbelief, a thing slowly fading away under the miracle of an amazing revelation. The truth thrust itself upon him.

Marette had not expected that he would come to her like this. She had believed that he would take flight into the night, escaping from her as he would have run from a plague. She put up her two hands, in the trick they had of groping at her white throat, and her lips formed a word which she did not speak.

Kent, to his own amazement, was smiling and still on his knees. He pulled himself to his feet, and stood up straight, looking down at her in that same strange, comforting, all-powerful way. The thrill of it was pa.s.sing into her veins. A flush of color was driving the deathly pallor from her face. Her lips were parted, and she breathed quickly, a little excitedly.

”I thought--you would go!” she said.

”Not without you,” he said. ”I have come to take you with me.”

He drew out his watch. It was two o'clock. He held it down so that she could look at the dial.

”If the storm keeps up, we have three hours before dawn,” he said. ”How soon can you be ready, Marette?”

He was fighting to make his voice quiet and unexcited. It was a terrific struggle. And Marette was not blind to it. She drew herself from the bed and stood up before him, her two hands still clasped at her throbbing throat.

”You believe--that I killed Kedsty,” she said in a voice that was forced from her lips. ”And you have come to help me--to pay me for what I tried to do for you? That is it--Jeems?”

”Pay you?” he cried. ”I couldn't pay you in a million years! From that day you first came to Cardigan's place you gave me life. You came when the last spark of hope in me had died. I shall always believe that I would have died that night. But you saved me.

”From the moment I saw you I loved you, and I believe it was that love that kept me alive. And then you came to me again, down there, through this storm. Pay you! I can't. I never shall be able to. Because you thought I had killed a man made no difference You came just the same.

And you came ready to kill, if necessary--for me. I'm not trying to tell myself _why_! But you did. You were ready to kill. And I am ready to kill--tonight--for you! I haven't got time to think about Kedsty. I'm thinking about you. If you killed him, I'm just telling myself there was a mighty good reason for it. But I don't believe it was you who killed him. You couldn't do it--with those hands!”

He reached out suddenly and seized them, slipping his grip to her wrists, so that her hands lay upward in his own, hands that were small, slim-fingered, soft-palmed, beautiful.

”They couldn't!” he cried, almost fiercely. ”I swear to G.o.d they couldn't!”

Her eyes and face flamed at his words. ”You believe that, Jeems?”

”Yes, just as you believe that I did not kill John Barkley. But the world is against us. It is against us both now. And we've got to hunt that hidden valley of yours together. Understand, Marette? And I'm--rather glad.”

He turned toward the door. ”Will you be ready in ten minutes?” he asked.

She nodded. ”Yes, in ten minutes.”

He ran out into the hall and down the stair, locking the front door.

Then he returned to his hiding-place under the roof. He knew that a strange sort of madness was in his blood, for in the face of tonight's tragedy only madness could inspire him with the ecstatic thrill that was in his veins. Kedsty's death seemed far removed from a more important thing--the fact that from this hour Marette was his to fight for, that she belonged to him, that she must go with him. He loved her.

In spite of whoever she was and whatever she had done, he loved her.

Very soon she would tell him what had happened in the room below, and the thing would be clear.

There was one little corner of his brain that fought him. It kept telling him, like a parrot, that it was a tress of Marette's hair about Kedsty's throat, and that it was the hair that had choked him. But Marette would explain that, too. He was sure of it. In the face of the facts below he was illogical and unreasonable. He knew it. But his love for this girl, who had come strangely and tragically into his life, was like an intoxicant. And his faith was illimitable. She did not kill Kedsty. Another part of his brain kept repeating that over and over, even as he recalled that only a few hours before she had told him quite calmly that she would kill the Inspector of Police--if a certain thing should happen.

His hands worked as swiftly as his thoughts. He laced up his service boots. All the food and dishes on the table he made into a compact bundle and placed in the shoulder-pack. He carried this and the rifle out into the hall. Then he returned to Marette's room. The door was closed. At his knock the girl's voice told him that she was not quite ready.

He waited. He could hear her moving about quickly in her room. An interval of silence followed. Another five minutes pa.s.sed--ten--fifteen. He tapped at the door again. This time it was opened.

He stared, amazed at the change in Marette. She had stepped back from the door to let him enter, and stood full in the lamp-glow. Her slim, beautiful body was dressed in a velvety blue corduroy; the coat was close-fitting and boyish; the skirt came only a little below her knees.