The Crooked House | Page 7

only chance?--to throw my life into the shadows? My own sake ... to have made me what I am?"
"I would have spared you this meeting," he returned, "if I had known. But the name Christine Manderson was strange to me. I had never heard it before."
"I changed my name," she said sadly. "I couldn't bear that any one should use the name that you had used. I called myself Christine Manderson, and went on the stage in New York. Oh, it was dreadful. All those long years since you left me I have lived under a mask--as you have seen me to-night. You thought I was smiling--but I didn't smile. You thought I was laughing--but I didn't laugh. It was all ... only disguised tears ... to hide myself."
"Go," his voice was torn. "For God's sake go ... Thea."
A second flash showed them again to the listener. Tranter was still holding her away from him. In that vivid fraction of a second the agony of her face was terrible.
"Thea!" she echoed pitifully. "Ah, yes--call me Thea! Poor Thea! Oh, doesn't that name awaken ... something? Hasn't it still some charm? Once you said it was the only name in all the world. Is it nothing to you now?"
"Nothing," he answered.
In spite of his resistance she was forcing herself nearer to him. The magic of her presence was binding him.
"Am I less beautiful?" she whispered. "Have I lost anything that used to draw you? Is not my hair as golden? Are not my eyes as bright--my lips as red? Am I not as soft to touch? Where could you find anything better than me?"
"Keep back!" he muttered.
Her hands were about him. In the darkness he could feel the deadly loveliness of her face almost touching his own. He was yielding, inch by inch. The warmth of her breath ... the perfume of her body.... Her closeness was intoxicating--maddening.
"Oh, let me come to you," she prayed. "I will follow you barefooted to the end of the world. I will live for you--slave for you--die for you. Only let me come. Let me leave all this--and come to you ... to-morrow...."
A groan was wrung from him. He crushed her to him.
"Come then!" he cried desperately. "Come, if you will!..."
A vivid flash, which seemed to burst almost over their heads, showed them locked in each other's arms, their lips pressed together.
Monsieur Dupont raised himself quickly. There was the sound of running footsteps on the path behind him. Monsieur Dupont had just time to turn the corner before the disordered figure of the theatrical manager loomed up before him.
"The madman is in the garden! He ran this way."
"Diable!" said Monsieur Dupont.
"I found him sneaking towards the house. He bolted out here."
Unaccustomed to physical exertion, the manager laid a heavy hand on Monsieur Dupont's shoulder, and mopped his forehead breathlessly.
"The scoundrel means mischief," he declared. "He must be found."
"Where is Mr. Copplestone?"
"I called him, but couldn't get an answer. He must be away at the other end of the garden."
"No one has passed this way," Monsieur Dupont assured him. "For a half-hour I have been wandering about these horrible paths."
"It's a devil of a garden," the manager admitted. "The fellow won't get very far. Let's look about here."
Fortified with a fresh supply of breath, he released Monsieur Dupont's shoulder, and made a brisk movement towards the direction from which the Frenchman had come.
Monsieur Dupont blocked the way.
"No, no--it would be a waste of time. I have come from there."
"To the river, then," the manager cried, bearing him round. "He may be trying to get across."
He was evidently familiar with the intricacies of the garden. In a few minutes, after a dozen turnings, they reached the gleam of water.
"Keep your eyes open for the next flash," the manager directed.
He peered about. A moment later the lightning lit up the calm stretch of the river and the broad lawns sloping down to it. Monsieur Dupont detected no form or movement--but with a startling shout, the manager bounded away from him across the lawns.
Monsieur Dupont blinked after him in astonishment.
He was alone again--in a new and even darker part of the endless garden.
CHAPTER IV
DESTRUCTION
A deep-toned clock in the house struck twelve.
Rain began to fall. A few moments later the financier hurried across the lawns with his collar turned up. The danseuse followed him. She seemed a disappointed and indignant woman.
"It's almost an insult," she complained overtaking him.
"Noth a penny more," said the financier firmly.
They both turned quickly. Her hand gripped his arm convulsively. Wild shouting arose in the darkness, and the sound of someone forcing a headlong way through hedge and bush.
The Reverend Percival Delamere was rushing towards the house as if the entire penalties of sin were at his heels.
"A corpse! A corpse by the river! Miss Manderson