Phroso: A Romance. Hope Anthony
loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed to measure the distance.
‘Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?’ I asked. ‘Have you friends there?’
She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.
‘No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you.’
‘Yet there’s some one in the cottage up there,’ I observed. ‘It belongs to Constantine, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ she answered defiantly. ‘Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?’
‘As long as we are four against a hundred I dare only skulk,’ I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. ‘But do you think he’s there?’
‘There! No; he’s in the town; and he’ll come from the town to kill you to-morrow.’
‘Then is nobody there?’ I pursued.
‘Nobody,’ she answered.
‘You’re wrong,’ said I. ‘I saw somebody there to-day.’
‘Oh, a peasant perhaps.’
‘Well, the dress didn’t look like it. Do you really want to go there now?’
‘Haven’t you mocked me enough?’ she burst out. ‘Take me back to my prison.’
Her tragedy-air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up to something which I thought she ought to know.
‘There’s a woman in that cottage,’ said I. ‘Not a peasant; a woman in some dark-coloured dress, who uses opera-glasses.’
I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.
‘It’s false,’ she cried. ‘There’s no one there. Constantine told me no one went there except Vlacho and sometimes Demetri.’
‘Do you believe all Constantine tells you?’ I asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s my cousin, and – ’
‘And your suitor?’
She flung her head back proudly.
‘I have no shame in that,’ she answered.
‘You would accept his offer?’
‘Since you ask, I will answer. Yes. I had promised my uncle that I would.’
‘Good God!’ said I, for I was very sorry for her.
The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.
‘Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?’ I demanded.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘He told me what she said.’
‘That I told him he was his uncle’s murderer?’
‘Did you tell her to say that?’ she asked, with a sudden inclination of her body towards me.
‘I did. Did he give you the message?’
She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.
‘On my honour, I saw what I have told you at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come with him. Did any lady come with him?’
‘Are you mad?’ she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and put my hands behind my back.
‘Go to the cottage if you like,’ said I. ‘But I won’t answer for what you’ll find there.’
‘You set me free?’ she cried with eagerness.
‘Free to go to the cottage; you must promise to come back. Or I’ll go to the cottage, if you’ll promise to go back to your room and wait till I return.’
She hesitated, looking towards where the cottage was; but I had stirred suspicion and disquietude in her. She dared not face what she might find in the cottage.
‘I’ll go back and wait for you,’ she said. ‘If I went to the cottage and – and all was well, I’m afraid I shouldn’t come back.’
The tone sounded softer. I would have sworn that a smile or a half-smile accompanied the words, but it was too dark to be sure, and when I leant forward to look, Euphrosyne drew back.
‘Then you mustn’t go,’ said I decisively; ‘I can’t afford to lose you.’
‘But if you let me go I could let you go,’ she cried.
‘Could you? Without asking Constantine? Besides, it’s my island you see.’
‘It’s not,’ she cried, with a stamp of her foot. And without more she walked straight by me and disappeared over the ledge of rock. Two minutes later I saw her figure defined against the sky, a black shadow on a deep grey ground; then she disappeared. I set my face straight for the cottage under the summit of the hill. I knew that I had only to go straight and I must come to the little plateau scooped out of the hillside, on which the cottage stood. I found, not a path, but a sort of rough track that led in the desired direction, and along this I made my way very cautiously. At one point it was joined at right angles by another track, from the side of the hill where the main road across the island lay. This, of course, afforded an approach to the cottage without passing by my house. In twenty minutes the cottage loomed, a blurred mass, before me. I fell on my knees and peered at it.
There was a light in one of the windows. I crawled nearer. Now I was on the plateau, a moment later I was under the wooden verandah and beneath the window where the light glowed. My hand was on my revolver; if Constantine or Vlacho caught me here, neither side would be able to stand on trifles; even my desire for legality would fail under the strain. But for the minute everything was quiet, and I began to fear that I should have to return empty-handed; for it would be growing light in another hour or so, and I must be gone before the day began to appear. Ah, there was a sound, a sound that appealed to me after my climb, the sound of wine poured into a glass; then came a voice I knew.
‘Probably they have caught her,’ said Vlacho the innkeeper. ‘What of that? They will not hurt her, and she’ll be kept safe.’
‘You mean she can’t come spying about here?’
‘Exactly. And that, my lord, is an advantage. If she came here – ’
‘Oh, the deuce!’ laughed Constantine. ‘But won’t the men want me to free her by letting that infernal crew go?’
‘Not if they think Wheatley will go to Rhodes and get soldiers and return. They love the island more than her. It will all go well, my lord. And this other here?’
I strained my ears to listen. No answer came, yet Vlacho went on as though he had received an answer.
‘These cursed fellows make that difficult too,’ he said. ‘It would be an epidemic.’ He laughed, seeming to see wit in his own remark.
‘Curse them, yes. We must move cautiously,’ said Constantine. ‘What a nuisance women are, Vlacho.’
‘Ay, too many of them,’ laughed Vlacho.
‘I had to swear my life out that no one was here, and then, “If no one’s there, why mayn’t I come?” You know the sort of thing.’
‘Indeed, no, my lord. You wrong me,’ protested Vlacho humorously, and Constantine joined in his laugh.
‘You’ve made up your mind which, I gather?’ asked Vlacho.
‘Oh, this one, beyond doubt,’ answered his master.
Now I thought that I understood most of this conversation, and I was very sorry that Euphrosyne was not by my side to listen to it. But I had heard about enough for my purposes, and I had turned to crawl away stealthily – it is not well to try fortune too far – when I heard the sound of a door opening in the house. Constantine’s