C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
girl rang for coffee, and ordered her horse to be ready. She and Kate Gardiner never met before ten o'clock, at earliest; thus three hours would pass before any one save her maid would begin to wonder where she was; and for the maid she would leave a line of explanation, mentioning that she had gone out on business, and that nothing was to be said unless Lady Gardiner inquired.
Virginia had a ride of nearly two hours before she could reach the destination she had planned; but neither the fresh air, the beauty of the scene, nor the exercise which she loved, could calm the fever in her blood. It was as if some power stronger than herself pushed her on; and though she had always been too healthy in mind and body to suffer from superstition, she now believed, half fearfully, that such an influence had possession of her.
"What is the matter with me?" she asked. "I am no longer myself. It is as if I were only an instrument in hands that use me as they will. Why do I go this morning to the Château de la Roche? I don't know. I don't know what I shall say to excuse myself when I am there. Yet, somehow, the words will come to me—I feel it."
For it was to the château above the Valley of the Shadow that she was going.
When she reached the gates, half-way up the slope of the wooded hill which the whole party had climbed together yesterday, suddenly the nervous exaltation that had carried her courageously so far, broke like a violin string too tightly drawn. She was horrified at her own boldness. She half turned back; then, setting her lips together, she slipped down from her saddle and opened the gate.
This morning no slim, black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the last summons she would take it as a sign that she ought not to have come, and she would steal away. But just as the limit of time she mentally set had passed, and she was in the act of turning from the door, it opened.
The servant who had guided Virginia and her friends through the house the day before appeared, his pale, dignified old face showing such evident signs of surprise that the American girl, who had never flinched before any one or anything, stammered and blushed as she asked for Mademoiselle Dalahaide.
The old man politely ushered her in, but he was unable to hide his embarrassment. Mademoiselle should be informed at once, if she were at home, but, in fact, it was possible—— He hesitated, and Virginia saw well that he prepared a way of escape for his young mistress in case she wished to avoid the unexpected caller.
"Pray tell mademoiselle that—that——" Virginia began. She had meant to finish by saying that her business was urgent. But—supposing when she found herself face to face with the girl in black, the fugitive desires which had dragged her here refused to be clothed in coherent words?
As the servant waited respectfully for the end of the message, a door which Virginia remembered as leading into the family chapel suddenly opened. Mademoiselle Dalahaide came slowly out, her head bent, her long black dress sweeping the stone floor of the hall in sombre folds. She did not see the stranger at first; but a faint ejaculation from the lips of the old Frenchman caused the dark head to be quickly raised.
The eyes of the two girls met. Mademoiselle Dalahaide drew back a little, her tragically arresting face unlighted by a smile. She looked the question that she did not speak; but she gave the American no greeting, and there was something of displeasure or distrust in her level, searching look.
The moment which Virginia had dreaded, yet sought for, had come. All self-consciousness left her. She went to meet the other in an eager, almost childlike way.
"Do forgive me," she said in English. "I had to come. I could not sleep last night. I got up before any one else was awake, because I—because I wanted so much to see you, that I couldn't wait: and I wanted to come to you alone."
Madeleine Dalahaide's faint frown relaxed. Virginia in that mood was irresistible, even to a woman. Still the girl in black did not smile. She had almost forgotten that it was necessary and polite to force a smile for strangers. She had been so much alone, she and sorrow had grown so intimate, that she had become almost primitively sincere. The ordinary, pleasant little hypocrisies of the society in which she had once lived during what now seemed another state of existence, no longer existed for her.
Nevertheless, she was not discourteous. "You are kind to have taken this trouble," she said. "It is something about the château, no doubt—some questions which perhaps you forgot to ask yesterday?"
The old man, who understood not a word of English, had discreetly and noiselessly retired, now that fate had taken the management of the situation from his hands. The two girls were alone in the great hall, the chapel door still open behind Madeleine Dalahaide, giving her a background of red and purple light from a stained-glass window.
"No," Virginia answered. "If I said that business about the château brought me, it would be merely an excuse. It would make things easier for me in beginning, but—I wish to say to you only things that are really true. I came because—because I want to help you."
The white oval of the other's face was suddenly suffused with scarlet. The dark head was lifted on the slender throat.
"Thank you," she said coldly. "But I am not in need of help. If that is your reason for thinking of buying this house, I beg——"
"But it is not my reason. What can I say that you won't misunderstand? There is one whom you love. Just now you were praying for him in that chapel. I know it. You were praying to God to help him, weren't you? What if I should be an instrument sent you to be used for that purpose?"
The tragic eyes stared at the eager, beautiful face, dazed and astonished.
Virginia went on, not seeming to choose her words, but letting them flow as they would.
"I know how you have suffered. It is only a little while that I have known, but it seems long, very long. I have seen his portrait, and partly I came up to tell you this morning that I believe in his innocence; partly that, but most of all I came to say that he must be saved."
"Saved?" echoed Madeleine Dalahaide. "But that is not possible. Only death can save him now."
Neither had uttered a name; neither was aware that it had not been spoken by the other. For Madeleine always, for Virginia in this hour, one name rang through the world. There was no need to give it form. And, strangely, Madeleine was no longer surprised at Virginia's mission. Perhaps, indeed, she believed her an incarnate answer to prayer; and in a moment all conventionalities had crumbled to pieces at their feet.
"Why do you say that?" cried the American girl. "Prisoners are released sometimes."
"Not life-prisoners at Noumea," replied the other; and the answer fell desolately on Virginia's ear. Yet the thought, lit into life by her own words, as a flame is lighted by striking a match, had given her courage which would not die.
"Then he will be the first," she said. "I have been thinking. Oh! it has all been very vague—a kind of dream. But now I see everything clearly. Time unravels mysteries not easily solved at first. His innocence must be proved. Powerful friends shall give all their thoughts, all their ingenuity——"
"We have no friends," Madeleine answered bitterly.
"You have one friend. You have me."
Then at last a sense of the strangeness of this scene rushed in a wave over the consciousness of the lonely dweller in the castle.
"I don't understand," she said slowly. "Yesterday we had never met. I only knew your name because you spoke of buying this poor, sad home of mine. I——"
"Neither do I understand," broke in Virginia. "But I have never understood myself. I only know that this seems to be the thing I was born for. And if I fail in what I want to do for you and yours, why, I shall have come into the world for nothing, that is all."