The Crooked House | Page 7

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 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