Part 51 (1/2)
”You--kissed me while--I slept!”
He paled at the look with which she scorched him, then broke out, doggedly:
”You wanted me; you drew me close. You can't undo that moment--you can't. My G.o.d! Don't tell me it was all a mistake. That would make it unendurable. I could never forgive myself.”
She hid her face with a choking cry of shame. ”No, no! I didn't know--”
He approached and touched her arm timidly. ”Margherita,” he said, ”if I thought you really did not call me--if I were made to believe that I had committed an unpardonable offense against your womanhood and our friends.h.i.+p--I would go and kill myself. But somehow I cannot believe that. I was beside myself--but I was never more exalted. Something greater than my own will made me do as I did. I think it was your love answering to mine. If that is not so--if it is all a delusion--there is nothing left for me. I have played my part out to the end. My work is done, and I do not see how I can go on living.”
There was an odd mingling of pain and rapture in the gaze she raised to his. It gave him courage.
”Why struggle longer?” he urged, gently. ”Why turn from love when Heaven wills you to receive it and learn to be a woman? I was in your thoughts and you longed for me, as I have never ceased, all these years, to hunger for you. Please! Please! Margherita! Why fight it longer?”
”What have you done? What have you done?” she whispered over and over.
She looked toward the open door as if with thought of escape or a.s.sistance, and despite his growing hope Blake was miserable at sight of her distress.
”How came you here, alone with me?” she asked at length. ”Oliveta was here only a moment ago.”
”I came with good news for both of you. I met Oliveta as she went out, and when I had told her she sent me to you. Don't you understand, dear? It was good news. Our quest is over, our work is done, and G.o.d has seen fit to deliver our enemy--”
She flung out a trembling hand, while the other hid itself in the silk and lace at her breast.
”What is this you tell me? Maruffi? Am I still dreaming?”
”Maruffi has been arrested.”
”Is it possible?--this long nightmare ended at last like this? Maruffi is arrested? You are safe? No one has been killed?”
”It is all right. O'Neil telephoned me and I came here at once to tell you and Oliveta.”
”When did they find him? Where?”
”Not half an hour ago--at his house. We have been watching the place ever since he disappeared, feeling sure he'd have to return sooner or later, if only for a moment. He is under lock and key at this instant.”
Blake attributed a stir in the hall outside to the presence of the maid-servant; Margherita, whose eyes were fixed upon him, failed to detect a figure which stood in the shadow just beyond the open door.
”Does he know of our part in it--Oliveta's part?” she asked.
”O'Neil didn't say. He'll learn of it shortly, in any event. Do you realize what his capture means? I--hardly do myself. For one thing, there's no further need of concealment. I--I want people to know who you are. It seems hardly conceivable that Belisario Cardi has gone to meet his punishment, but it is true. Lucrezia has her revenge at last.
It has been a terrible task for all of us, but it brought you and me together. I don't intend ever to let you go again, Margherita. I loved you there in Sicily. I've loved you every moment, every hour--”
Blake turned at the sound of a door closing behind him. He saw Margherita start, then lean forward staring past him with a look of amazement, of frightened incredulity, upon her face. Some one, a man, had stepped into the dim-lit room and was fumbling with the lock, his eyes fixed upon them, meanwhile, over his shoulder. The light from the windows had faded, the faint illumination from the taper before the shrine was insufficient fully to pierce the gloom. But on the instant of his interruption all triumph and hope, all thoughts of love, fled from Norvin's mind, bursting like iridescent bubbles, at a touch. The flesh along his back writhed, the hair at his neck lifted itself; for there in the shadow, huge, black, and silent, stood Caesar Maruffi.
XXI
UNDER FIRE