The de Bercy Affair

Yet the attempt at humor died when he looked at her face with its languishing, sick eyes, its expression of swooning luxury. She sighed deeply.

"No, you cannot escape me now, I think, or I you," she murmured. "There are powers too profound to be run from when once at work, like the suction of whirlpools. If you don't love me, my love is a force enough for two, for a thousand. It will draw and compel you. Yes, I think so. It will either warm you, or burn you to ashes – and myself, too. Oh, I swear to Heaven! It will, it shall! You shouldn't have pressed my hand that night."

"Pressed your hand! on which night?" asked Osborne, who had now turned quite pale, and wanted to run quickly out of the house but could not.

"What, have you forgotten?" she asked with tender reproach, gazing into his eyes; "the night I was going to see my brother nine months ago, and you went with me to Euston, and in saying good-by you – "

She suddenly covered her eyes with her fingers in a rapture at the memory.

Osborne stared blankly at her. He recalled the farewell at Euston, which was accidental, but he certainly had no memory of having pressed her hand.

"I loved you before," her lips just whispered in a pitiful assumption of confidence, "but timidly, not admitting it to myself. With that pressure of your hand, I was done with maidenhood, my soul rushed to you. After that, you were mine, and I was yours."

The words almost fainted on her bitten under lip, and in Osborne, too, a rush of soul, or of blood, took place, a little flush of his forehead. It was a bewitching woman who lay there before him, with that fair freckle-splashed face couched in its cloud of red hair.

"Come, now," he said, valiantly striving after the commonplace, "you are ill – you hardly know yet what you are saying."

She half sat up suddenly, bending eagerly toward him.

"Is it pity? Is it 'yes'?"

"Please, please, let us forget that this has ever – "

"It would be 'yes' instantly but for that Tormouth girl! Oh, drive her out of your mind! That cannot be – I could never, never permit it! For that reason alone – and besides, you are about to be arrested – "

"I!"

"Yes: listen – I know more of what is going on than you know. The man Furneaux, who, for his own reasons, hates you, and is eager to injure you, has even more proofs against you than you are aware of. I happen to know that in his search of your trunks he has discovered something or other which he considers conclusive against you. And there is that housemaid at Feldisham Mansions, who screamed out 'Mr. Osborne did it!' – Furneaux only pretended at the inquest that she was too ill to be present, because he did not want to produce the whole weight of his evidence just then. But he has her, too, safe up his sleeve, and she is willing to swear against you. And now he has got hold of your Saracen dagger. But don't you fear him: I shall know how to foil him at the last; I alone have knowledge that will surely make him look a fool. Trust in me! I tell you so. But I can't help your being arrested – that must happen. Believe me, for I know. And let that once take place, and that Tormouth girl will never look at you again. I understand her class, with its prides and prejudices – she will never marry you – innocent or guilty – if you have once stood in the dock at an assize court. Such as she does not know what love is. I would take you if you were a thousand times guilty – and I only can prove you innocent – even if you were guilty – because I am yours – your preordained wife – oh, I shall die of my love – yes, kiss me – yes – now – "

The torrent of words ended in a fierce fight for breath. Her eyes were glaring like two lakes of conflagration, her cheeks crimson, her forehead pale. Unexpectedly, eagerly, she caught him round the neck in an embrace from which there was no escape. She drew him almost to his knees, and pressed his lips to hers with a passion that frightened and repelled him.

And he was in the thick of this unhappy and ridiculous experience when he heard behind him an astonished "Oh!" from someone, while some other person seemed to laugh in angry embarrassment.

It was Jenkins who had uttered the "Oh!" and when the horrified Osborne glanced round he saw Rosalind's eyes peering over Jenkins's shoulder. She it was who had so lightly, so perplexedly, laughed.

Before he could free himself and spring up she was gone. She had murmured to Jenkins: "Some other time," and fled.

As she ran out blindly, and was springing into the cab, Janoc, in pursuit of her, drove up. In an instant he was looking in through the door of the cab.

"Miss Marsh?" he inquired.

"Yes."

His hands met, wringing in distress.

"You are the lady I am searching for, the mistress of the young girl Pauline Dessaulx, is it not? I am her brother. You see – you can see – the resemblance in our faces. She threatens this instant to commit the suicide – "

Rosalind was forced to forget her own sufferings in this new terror.

"Pauline!" she cried, "I am not her employer. Moreover, she is ill – in bed – "

"She has escaped to my lodging during your absence from home! Something dreadful has happened to her – she speaks of the loss of some weapon – one cannot understand her ravings! And unless she sees you – her hands cannot be kept from destroying herself – Oh, lady! lady! Come to my sweet sister – "

Rosalind looked at him with the scared eyes of one who hears, yet not understands. There was a mad probability in all this, since Pauline might have discovered the loss of the daggers; and, in her present anguish of spirit, the thought that the man's story might only be a device to lure her into some trap never entered Rosalind's head. Indeed, in her weariness of everything, she regarded the mission of succor as a relief.

"Where do you live? I will go with you," she said.

"Lady! Lady! Thank God!" he exclaimed. "It is not far from here, in Soho."

"You must come in my cab," said Rosalind.

Janoc ran to pay his own cabman, came back instantly, and they started eastward, just as Osborne, with the wild face of a man falling down a precipice, rushed to his door, calling after them frantically: "Hi, there! Stop! Stop! For Heaven's sake – "

But the cab went on its way.

CHAPTER XII

THE SARACEN DAGGER

Next morning, just as the clock was striking eight, Osborne was rising from his bed after a night of unrest when Jenkins rapped at the door and came in, deferential and calm.

"Mrs. Marsh below to see you, sir," he announced.

Osborne blinked and stared with the air of a man not thoroughly awake, though it was his mind, not his body, that was torpid.

"Mrs.," he said, "not Miss?"

"No, sir, Mrs."

"I'll be there in five minutes," he hissed with a fierce arousing of his faculties, and never before had he flung on his clothes in such a flurry of haste; in less than five minutes he was flying down the stairs.

"Forgive me!" broke from his lips, as he entered the drawing-room, and "Forgive me!" his visitor was saying to him in the same instant.

It was pitiful to see her – she, ever so enthroned in serenity, from whom such a thing as agitation had seemed so remote, was wildly agitated now. That pathetic pallor of the aged when their heart is in labor now underlay her skin. Her lips, her fingers, trembled; the tip of her nose, showing under her half-raised veil, was pinched.

"The early hour – it is so distressing – I beg your forgiveness – I am in most dreadful trouble – "

"Please sit down," he said, touching her hand, "and let me get you some breakfast."

"No, nothing – I couldn't eat – it is Rosalind – "

Now he, too, went a shade paler.

"What of Rosalind?"

"Do you by chance know anything of her whereabouts?"

"No!"