The Crooked House | Page 6

"Monsieur Dupont has just arrived from Paris."
"Delighted," said Copplestone, shaking hands with great heartiness. "Forgive this unhappy beginning. We'll make up for it now. Come along to dinner. It's all ready."
In the dining-room they sat down to a table that glittered and gleamed with a hundred lights, concealed under strands of white crystallized leaves, springing from a frosted tree. Such a table might have been set in Fairyland, for the betrothal feast of Oberon.
"Glad we didn't miss this," said the theatrical manager.
He regaled the company with a selection of his less offensive stories, and found ready applause. The gayety was loud and forced. Every one attempted to keep it at fever-heat. Jest followed jest with increasing rapidity. Laughter rang out on the smallest provocation. It was a competition in hilarity. And the gayest of all were Christine Manderson, and Mrs. Astley-Rolfe.
The night was hot and sultry. The distant roll of thunder added to the tenseness of the atmosphere. And hearing it, Christine Manderson shuddered.
"Storms are unlucky to me," she said, listening until the sullen roll died away. "Why should we have one to-night--of all nights?"
The clergyman adroitly twisted the subject of lightning into a compliment. As the dinner drew to a somewhat loud conclusion, Copplestone's face grew flushed, and his hands unsteady. The manager's voice and stories thickened, and the thoughts of the Russian danseuse became fixed on Aberdeen. Tranter and Monsieur Dupont were abstemious guests. But the Frenchman seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
They rose from the fairy table, and strolled out through the open windows into the garden. The air had grown hotter and more oppressive, the thunder louder. Frequent flashes lit up the darkness.
The glowing tips of cigars and cigarettes disappeared in various directions across the lawns.
* * * * *
Monsieur Dupont discovered, to his cost, the truth of his remark that the house was surrounded by crooked paths. The grounds were a veritable maze. He had purposely slipped away alone, and in five minutes was involved in a network of twisting, thickly-hedged paths, all of which seemed only to lead still further into the darkness.
He stopped, and listened. He could hear no voices. Not a sound, except the gathering thunder, disturbed the silence. He was completely cut off. Even the lights of the house were hidden from him. He had turned about so many times that he did not even know in which direction it lay. Coupled with the effect of what had happened in the house, the influence of this tortuous garden was sinister and unnerving. In the lightning flashes, now more vivid and frequent, he tried in vain to determine his position. He wandered about, trying path after path, doubling back on his own tracks--only to find himself more and more helplessly lost.
"Nom de Dieu," said Monsieur Dupont, in despair.
He halted suddenly, standing as still as a figure of stone. On his right the hedge was thick and high. He could see nothing. But the whisper of a voice had reached him.
The path took a sharp turn. He stepped noiselessly on to the grass border, and crept round, with wonderful agility for a man of his size. The foliage gradually thinned, and kneeling down he was able to listen and peer through until the next flash should reveal what lay beyond.
The whisper thrilled with indescribable passion.
"I love you. You are my body, my soul, my god, my all. I love you--I love you--I love you."
It was the voice of Christine Manderson.
Not a tremor escaped the listener. Parting the leaves with a hand as steady as the ground itself, he waited for the light.
"I have no world but you--no thought but you. I want nothing but you ... you ... you." A sob broke her voice.
"Go," the answer was almost inaudible in its tenseness. "Go--and forget. I have nothing for you."
The lightning came. In a small open space on the other side of the hedge it illuminated the wild tortured face of Christine Manderson. And standing before her, gripping both her hands and holding her away from him--John Tranter.
She struggled to bring herself closer to him.
"I thought you were dead," she gasped.
"I am dead," he answered. "I am dead to you. Let me go."
The listener could almost hear the effort of her breathing.
"I waited for you," she panted. "I was broken. I had to seem happy--but my heart was a tomb. You were all my life--all my hope. I know I wasn't what I might have been. I was what people call an adventuress. But my love for you was the one great, true thing of my life. Oh, why did you leave me?"
"For your own sake," he said slowly. "I am no mate for such a woman as you."
"My own sake?" she repeated. "My own sake--to take from me the only thing I had--my