The Castle of the Shadows | Page 7

being human, Roger would have liked to hear something of the girl who lived there like Mariana in the Moated Grange; and it would have been interesting to know why he refrained from mentioning her.
As they rode through the valley, dark and sad now, in the chill of its early dusk, she brought her horse to Virginia's side in so narrow a defile of the road that Roger, who was with the girl, dropped behind.
"Have you noticed that the Marchese hasn't asked us a single question about your chateau?" she remarked. "He is a changed man since we came into this valley. I wonder if there was ever anything between him and that tragic-looking girl up there? Perhaps Sir Roger knows, and that's the reason he didn't speak of her."
"Perhaps," echoed Virginia listlessly, and Kate Gardiner said no more.
An odd restraint seemed to have settled on the whole party, which had started out so gaily in the sunshine. Each one was sunk deep in his or her own thoughts, as if the twilight had touched them with its delicate melancholy.
They were stopping at the Cap Martin hotel, high on the hill in its beautiful garden, and among its pines; and there was a dance that night, for which Virginia had promised Loria several waltzes; but she complained that the ride had tired her.
Instead of dancing she went after dinner to the private sitting-room which she and Lady Gardiner shared, having quietly asked Roger Broom if he would come to her there for a few minutes. He found her, not in the room, but on the balcony, in floods of moonlight, which gave her beauty an unearthly charm as she lay on a chaise longue, wrapped in an evening cloak of white and silver brocade.
"You don't mind leaving the dance a little while--for me?" she asked.
Roger smiled his quiet, pleasant smile. "There's nothing in the world I would mind leaving for you, Virginia," he said, "and I think you know that very well."
"Sometimes I believe it's true. I should like to believe it to-night," she answered, "because I need your help. There's a secret, and I must find it out."
As the girl spoke there was a slight sound in the room beyond the big, open window.
"What's that?" exclaimed Roger. "Who is there?"
"Nobody," said Virginia. "It must be a log of olive-wood falling in the fireplace."
CHAPTER II
THE STORY TOLD BY TWO
Roger waited. He knew that Virginia was gathering her forces together, and that he might expect the unexpected.
"I want you to tell me all about that girl in mourning who lives at the Chateau de la Roche," she said after a moment; "and what her brother did."
Roger was slow in answering. "It's not a pleasant story for your ears. I was sorry this afternoon that I had spoken even as freely as I did about it before you. Loria took me to task rather, after you'd gone up to the chateau, and he was right. By Jove! Virginia, I believe that if I'd said nothing, the idea of buying the place would never have occurred to you."
"Perhaps not," she admitted. "But it has occurred to me, and once I have an idea in my head I keep it tenaciously--as all my long-suffering friends know to their sorrow. Will you go to-morrow to the agent whose address I have and make inquiries?"
"Certainly, if you wish."
"Oh, you think if no one thwarts me, I'll get over the fancy. But I won't! I'm going to have that chateau among the olive trees for mine if it costs me fifty thousand pounds (which it won't, I know), even if I only live in it for one month out of five years. The thing is, to feel it's my own. So now, you see, as the place is practically my property, naturally I'd like to know something of the people who have been its owners."
"I don't see why. When one buys a house one doesn't usually agitate oneself much about the family history of one's predecessors."
"Roger, you know this is different. I want you and no one to else tell me. Still, if you won't----"
"Oh, if you insist you must be gratified, I suppose, up to certain limits. What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"H'm! Rather too large an order, my child. However, to begin with, the Dalahaides of the Chateau de la Roche were English in the last generation, but the family is of French origin. When the last member of the French branch died, a banker in London was the next heir. He gave the chateau and the Dalahaide house in Paris as a wedding present to his son, who was about to be married. The bride and bridegroom came over on their honeymoon, and took such a fancy to the chateau that they made their