“Turk has been in Brussels,” said Quentin to her on the day following her underground adventure. She was walking in the courtyard, and her brain was busy with a new interest. Again had the lonely priest passed along the road far below, and she had made him understand that he was wanted at the castle gates. When he turned off the road and began slowly to climb the steep, she was almost suffocated with nervous excitement. Her experience of the day before had left her unstrung and on the verge of collapse, and she was beginning to enjoy a strange resignation.
She was beginning to feel that there were terrors worse than those of the kindly prison, and that escape might be tenfold more unpleasant than confinement. Then she saw the priest, and her half-hearted attempt to attract his attention to her plight, resulted so differently from what she had expected that her nerves were again leaping with the old desire to outwit her captors. He was coming to the castle, but how was she to acquaint him with the true state of affairs? She would not be permitted to see him, much less to talk with him; of that she was sure. Not knowing what else to do, she went into the courtyard and loitered near the big gates, trying to appear at ease. She prayed for but a few moments' time in which to cry out to him that she was a prisoner and the woman for whom 100,000 francs were offered in Brussels.
But now comes Quentin upon the scene. His voice was hoarse, and it was plain that he had taken a heavy cold in the damp cellar. She deliberately turned her back upon him, not so much in disdain as to hide the telltale confusion in her face. All hope of conversing with the priest was lost if Quentin remained near by.
“I sent him to Brussels, Dorothy, and he has learned something that will be of vital interest to you,” Philip went on, idly leaning against the gate as if fate itself had sent him there to frustrate her designs.
“Don't talk to me now, Philip. You must give me time. In an hour, when I have gotten over this dreadful headache, I will listen to you. But now, for heaven's sake, leave me to myself,” she said, rapidly, resorting to deception.
“I'm sorry I have disturbed you. In an hour, then, or at any time you may feel like listening. It concerns Prince Ugo.”
“Is he—what has happened to him?” she demanded, turning to him with alarm in her eyes.
“It is not what has happened to him, but to one who was his intimate. The woman who warned me to beware of his treachery has been murdered in Brussels. Shall I come to you here in an hour?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly, the consciousness of a new dread showing itself in her voice. It was not until he reentered the house that she became fully possessed of a desire to learn more of this startling news. Her mind went back to the strange young woman who came to her with the story of the prince's duplicity, and her blood grew cold with the thought that brutal death had come to her so soon after that visit. She recalled the woman's voice, her unquestioned refinement, her dignity of bearing and the positiveness with which she declared that Ugo would kill her if he knew the nature of her visit to his promised wife. And now she was dead—murdered! By whom? That question burst upon her with the force of a heavy blow. Who killed her?
A pounding on the heavy gate brought her sharply to the project of the moment. She walked as calmly as her nerves would admit to the gate and called in French:
“Who is there?”
“Father Paul,” came a subdued voice from the outside. “Am I wrong in believing that I was called here by some one in the castle? Kindly admit me. I am fatigued and athirst.”
“I cannot open the gate, good Father, You must aid me to escape from this place,” she cried, eagerly, her breast thumping like a hammer. There was no interruption, and she could have shrieked with triumph when, five minutes later, the priest bade her be of good cheer and to have confidence in him. He would come for her on the next night but one, and she should be freed. From her window in the castle she saw the holy man descend the steep with celerity not born of fatigue. When he reached the road below he turned and waved his hand to her and then made his way swiftly into the forest.
After it was all over and relief was promised, her excitement subsided and in its place began to grow a dull contemplation of what her rescue would mean to the people who were holding her captive. It meant exposure, arrest, imprisonment and perhaps death. The appeal she had succeeded in getting to the ears of the passing priest would soon be public property, and another day might see the jubilant minions of the law in front of Castle Craneycrow demanding her release and the surrender of the culprits. There was not the joy in her heart that she had expected; instead there was a sickening fancy that she had done something mean and treacherous. When she rejoined the unsuspecting party downstairs soon afterward, a mighty weakness assailed her, and it was she, instead of they who had boldly stolen her from her home, that felt the pangs of guilt. She went into the courtyard where Savage and Lady Jane were playing handball, while the Saxondales looked on, happily unconscious of a traitor in their midst. For an instant, pale and remorseful, she leaned against the door-post, struggling to suppress the tears of pity and contrition. Before she had fully recovered her strength Lady Jane was drawing her into the contest with Dickey. And so she played cravenly with those whose merry hearts she was to crush, listening to the plaudits of the two smiling onlookers. It was too late to save them, for a priest of God had gone out into the world to herald their guilt and to deal a blow that would shatter everything.
Quentin came down a little later, and she was conscious that he watched the game with eyes in which pleasure and trouble fought for supremacy. Tired at last of the violent exercise, the trio threw themselves upon the bench in the shade of the wall, and, with glowing faces and thumping breasts, two of them laughed over the antics they had cut. Dorothy's lawless lover stood afar off, lonely and with the resignation of the despised. Presently he drew near and asked if he might join them in the shade.
“What a dreadful cold you have taken, Phil,” cried Lady Saxondale, anxiously.
“Commonest sort of a cold, I assure you. Damp cellars don't agree with me,” he said.
“I did not want your coat, but you would give it to me,” said Dorothy, as if called upon to defend herself for some crime.
“It was you or I for the cold, you know,” he said, simply, “and I was your protector.”
“Right and good,” agreed Dickey. “Couldn't do anything else. Lady needed a coat, had to have it, and she got it. Duty called and found him prepared. That's why he always wears a coat in the presence of ladies.”
“I've had your friend, the skeleton, buried,” said Lord Bob. “Poor chap, he seemed all broken up over leaving the place.”
“Yes—went all to pieces,” added Dickey.
“Dickey Savage, do you think you are funny?” demanded Lady Jane, loftily. “I would not jest about the dead.”
“The last I saw of him he was grinning like the—”
“Oh, you wretch!” cried the girl, and Dorothy put her fingers to her ears.
“Shut up, Dickey,” exclaimed Quentin. “Do you care to hear about that woman in Brussels, Dorothy?”
“It is of no great consequence to me, but I'll listen if you like,” she said, slowly.
Thereupon he related to the party the story of the finding of the dead woman in a house near the Garrison home in the Avenue Louise. She had been dead for two days and her throat was cut. The house in which she was found was the one into which Turk had seen Courant disappear on the night of the veranda incident at the Garrison's. Turk had been sent to Brussels by Quentin on a mission of considerable importance, arriving there soon after the body was discovered. He saw the woman's face at the morgue and recognized her as the one who had approached Quentin in the train for Paris. Turk learned that the police, to all appearances had found a clew, but had suddenly dropped the whole matter and the woman was classified with the “unknown dead.” An attendant at the morgue carelessly remarked in his hearing that she was the mistress of a great man, who had sent them word to “throw her in the river.” Secretly Turk assured himself that there was no mistake as to the house in which she had been found, and by putting two and two together, it was not unnatural to agree with the morgue officer and to supply for his own benefit the name of the royal lover. The newspapers which Turk brought from Brussels to Castle Craneycrow contained accounts of the murder of the beautiful woman, speculated wildly as to her idenity and termed the transaction a mystery as unsolvable as the great abduction. The same papers had the report, on good authority, that Miss Garrison had been murdered by her captors in a small town in Spain, the authorities being so hot on the trail that she was put out of the way for safety's sake.
But the papers did not know that a bearded man named Turk had slipped a sealed envelope under a door at the Garrison home, and that a distressed mother had assurance from the brigand chief that her daughter was alive and well, but where she could not be found. To prove that the letter was no imposition, it was accompanied by a lock of hair from Dorothy's head, two or three bits of jewelry and a lace handkerchief that could not have belonged to another. Dorothy did not know how or when Baker secured these bits of evidence, When Quentin told her the chief object of Turk's perilous visit to Brussels, her eyes filled with tears, and for the first time she felt grateful to him.
“I have a confession to make,” she said, after the story was finished and the others had deliberately charged Ugo with the crime. “That poor woman came to me in Brussels and implored me to give up the prince. She told me, Phil, that she loved him and warned me to beware of him. And she said that he would kill her if he knew that she had come to me.”
“That settles it!” exclaimed he, excitedly, the fever of joy in his eyes. “He killed her when he found that she had been to you. Perhaps, goaded to desperation, she confessed to him. Imagine the devilish delight he took in sniffing out her life after that! We have him now! Dorothy, you know as well as I that he and he alone had an object in killing her. You have only to tell the story of her visit to you and we'll hang the miserable coward.” He was standing before her, eager-eyed and intense.
“You forget that I am not and do not for some time expect to be in a position to expose him. I am inclined to believe that the law will first require me to testify against you, Philip Quentin,” she said, looking fairly into his eyes, the old resentment returning like a flash. Afterward she knew that the look of pain in his face touched her heart, but she did not know it then. She saw the beaten joy go out of his eyes, and she rejoiced in the victory.
“True,” he said, softly. “I have saved the woman I love, while he has merely killed one who loved him.” It angered her unreasonably when, as he turned to enter the house, Lady Saxondale put her arm through his and whispered something in his ear. A moment or two later Lady Jane, as if unable to master the emotion which impelled, hurried into the castle after them. Dickey strolled away, and she was left with Lord Bob. It would have been a relief had he expressed the slightest sign of surprise or regret, but he was as imperturbable as the wall against which he leaned. His mild blue eyes gazed carelessly at the coils of smoke that blew from his lips.
“Oh,” she wailed to herself, in the impotence of anger, “they all love him, they all hate me! Why does he not mistreat me, insult me, taunt me—anything that will cost him their respect, their devotion! How bitterly they feel toward me for that remark! It will kill me to stay here and see them turn to him as if he were some god and I the defiler!”
That night there was a battle between the desire to escape and the reluctance she felt in exposing her captors to danger. In the end she admitted to herself that she would not have Philip Quentin seized by the officers: she would give them all an equal chance to escape, he with the others. Her heart softened when she saw him, in her imagination, alone and beaten, in the hands of the police, led away to ignominy and death, the others perhaps safe through his loyalty. She would refuse absolutely, irrevocably, to divulge the names of her captors and would go so far as to perjure herself to save them if need be. With that charitable resolution in her heart she went to sleep.
When she arose the next morning, Baker told her that Mr. Quentin was ill. His cold had settled on his lungs and he had a fever. Lady Saxondale seemed worried over the rather lugubrious report from Dickey Savage, who came downstairs early with Phil's apologies for not presenting himself at the breakfast table.
While Quentin cheerfully declared that he would be himself before night, Dickey was in a doleful state of mind and ventured the opinion that he was “in for a rough spell of sickness.” What distresed the Saxondales most was the dismal certainty that a doctor could not be called to the castle. If Quentin were to become seriously ill, the situation would develop into something extremely embarrassing.
He insisted on coming downstairs about noon, and laughed at the remonstrances of Lord Bob and Dickey, who urged him to remain in bed for a day or two, at least. His cough was a cruel one, and his eyes were bright with the fever that raced through his system. The medicine chest offered its quinine and its plasters for his benefit, and there was in the air the tense anxiety that is felt when a child is ill and the outcome is in doubt. The friends of this strong, stubborn and all-important sick man could not conceal the fact that they were nervous and that they dreaded the probability of disaster in the shape of serious illness. His croaking laugh, his tearing cough and that flushed face caused Dorothy more pain than she was willing to admit, even to herself.
As night drew near she quivered with excitement. Was she to leave the castle? Would the priest come for her? Above all, would he be accompanied by a force of officers large enough to storm the castle and overpower its inmates? What would the night bring forth? And what would be the stand, the course, taken by this defiant sick man, this man with two fevers in his blood?
She had not seen or spoken to him during the day, but she had frequently passed by the door of the library in which he sat and talked with the other men. An irresistible longing to speak to him, to tell him how much she regretted his illness, came over her. There was in her heart a strange tenderness, a hungry desire to comfort him just the least bit before she took the flight that was to destroy the hope his daring and skillfully executed scheme had inspired.
Three times she hesitated in front of the library door, but her courage was not as strong as her desire. Were he alone she could have gone in and told him frankly that she would not expose him to the law in the event that she ever had the opportunity. But the other men were with him. Besides, his cough was so distressing that natural pity for one suffering physical pain would have made it impossible to talk to him with the essential show of indifference.
At last, in despair, she left Lady Saxondale and her companion in the courtyard and started up the stairs, resolved to be as far as possible from the sound of that cough. Quentin met her at the foot of the steps.
“I'm going to lie down awhile,” he said, wearily. “They seem to be worried about this confounded cold, and I'll satisfy them by packing myself away in bed.”
“You should be very careful, Phil,” she said, a suffocating feeling in her throat. “Your cough is frightful, and they say you have a fever. Do be reasonable.”
“Dorothy,” he said, pausing before her at the steps, his voice full of entreaty, “tell me you don't despise me. Oh! I long to have you say one tender word to me, to have one gentle look from your eyes.”
“I am very sorry you are suffering, Philip,” she said, steeling her heart against the weakness that threatened.
“Won't you believe I have done all this because I love you and——” he was saying, passionately, but she interposed.
“Don't! Don't, Phil! I was forgetting a little—yes, I was forgetting a little, but you bring back all the ugly thoughts. I cannot forget and I will not forgive. You love me, I know, and you have been a kind jailer, but you must not expect to regain my respect and love—yes, it was love up to the morning I saw you in the dining-room of this castle.”
“I'll create a new love in your heart, Dorothy,” he cried. “The old love may be dead, but a new one shall grow up in its place. You do not feel toward me to-day as you did a week ago. I have made some headway against the force of your hatred. It will take time to win completely; I would not have you succumb too soon. But, just as sure as there is a God, you will love me some day for the love that made me a criminal in the eyes of the world. I love you, Dorothy; I love you!”
“It is too late. You have destroyed the power to love. Phil, I cannot forgive you. Could I love you unless full forgiveness paved the way?”
“There is nothing to forgive, as you will some day confess. You will thank and forgive me for what I have done.” A fit of coughing caused him to lean against the stair rail, a paroxysm of pain crossing his face as he sought to temper the violence of the spell.
“You should have a doctor,” she cried, in alarm. He smiled cheerlessly.
“Send for the court physician,” he said, derisively, “The king of evil-doers has the chills and fever, they say. Is my face hot Dorothy?”
She hesitated for a moment, then impulsively placed her cool hand against his flushed forehead. Despite her will, there was a caress in the simple act, and his bright eyes gleamed with gladness. His hand met hers as it was lowered from the hot brow, and his lips touched the fingers softly.
“Ah, the fever, the fever!” he exclaimed, passionately.
“You should have a doctor,” she muttered, as if powerless to frame other words.
Eleven o'clock that night found Castle Craneycrow wrapped in the stillness of death. Its inmates were awake, but they were petrified, paralyzed by the discovery that Dorothy Garrison was gone. Scared eyes looked upon white faces, and there was upon the heart of each the clutch of an icy hand. So appalling was the sensation that the five conspirators breathed not nor spoke, but listened for the heartbeats that had stopped when fears finally gave way to complete conviction. They were as if recovering from the fright of seeing a ghost; spirits seemed to have swept past them with cold wings, carrying off the prisoner they thought secure; only supernatural forces could be charged with the penetration of their impregnable wall.
The discovery of the prisoner's flight was not made until Baker knocked on Lady Saxondale's door and inquired for Miss Garrison at bedtime. Then it was recalled that she had left the others at nine o'clock, pleading a headache, but she did not go to her room. Investigation revealed the fact that her jewelry, a cape and a traveling hat were missing. Remembering her first attempt to escape and recalling the very apparent nervousness that marked her demeanor during the day, Lady Saxondale alarmed the house.
Ten minutes later the conspirators and a knot of sleepy servants stood in the courtyard, staring at the great gate. It was closed but unlocked. There were but two known keys to the big lock, and since the arrival of the party at the castle they had not been out of Lord Saxondale's possession. The girl could not have used either of them and the lock had not been forced; what wonder, then, that in the first moments of bewilderment they shrank back as if opposed by the supernatural?
No one present had seen her leave the castle, and there was no way of telling how long she had been gone, except that it was not longer than two hours. After the first shock of realization, however, the men came to the conclusion that assistance had come from the outside, or that there was a traitor on the inside. They were excitedly questioning the long-trusted servants when Lady Jane made a second discovery.
“Where is Turk?” she cried, and every eye swept through the group.
“Gone, by God!” exclaimed Quentin, in helpless amazement. No one had given thought to his illness in the excitement of the moment. He had been called forth with the rest, and when he coughed not even he took note of the fact. This was no time to think of colds and fevers and such a trifling thing as death. He shivered, but it was not with the chill of a sick man; it was the shiver of fear.
“Good Lord, he can't be the one! Turk would die for me!” he cried, almost piteously.
“He is gone, and so is she,” grated Lord Bob. “What are we to infer? He has sold us out, Quentin; that's the truth of it.”
“I'm damned!” almost wept Dickey Savage. “They'll have a pack of officers here before morning. I don't give a hoot for myself, but Lady Saxondale and—”
“Great heaven! what have I brought you to in my folly?” groaned Quentin, covering his face with his hands.
“Open the gate!” called a hoarse voice outside the wall, and every heart stopped beating, every face went white. A heavy boot crashed against the gate.
“The officers!” whispered Lady Jane, in terror. Dickey Savage's arm went round her.
“Let me in! Git a move on!'
“It's Turk!” roared Quentin, springing toward the gate. An instant later Turk was sprawling inside the circle of light shed by the lantern, and a half-dozen voices were hurling questions at him.
The little man was in a sorry plight. He was dirt-covered and bloody, and he was so full of blasphemy that he choked in suppressing it.
“Where is she? Where have you been?” cried Quentin, shaking him violently in his agitation.
“Gimme time, gimme time!” panted Turk. “I've got to git my breath, ain't I? She's flew th' coop, an' I couldn't head her off. Say, has a priest been loafin' aroun' here lately?”
“A priest!” cried Lord Bob. “There hasn't been one here since Father Bivot came three years ago to—”
“I mean this week, not t'ree years ago. She's gone with a priest, an' I'm nex' to who he is, too. He ain't no more priest 'n I am. It's that French detective, Courant, an' he's worked us to a fare-you-well. He's th' boy!”
This startling news threw the party into deeper consternation than before. The little ex-burglar was not a fluent talker at best, but he now excelled himself in brevity. In three minutes he had concluded his story, and preparations were well under way for the pursuit.
He was, according to his narrative, sitting in the lower end of the courtyard about nine o'clock, calmly smoking his pipe, when his attention was caught by the long, shrill call of a night bird. No such sound had come to his ears during his stay at the castle, and his curiosity was aroused. Not dreaming of what was to follow, he slowly walked toward the front of the castle. A woman stood in the shadow of the wall near the gate. Hardly had his eyes made out the dim figure when the whistle was repeated. Before he fully grasped the situation, the big gate swung slowly inward and another figure, at first glance that of a woman, stood inside the wall. He heard the woman call softly: “Is that you, Father?” A man's voice replied, but the words were too low to be distinguished. The woman drew back as if to return to the house, but the newcomer was at her side, and his hand was on her arm.
There was a moment of indecision, then resistance, two or three sharp words from the man, and then the two seemed to fade through the wall. The ponderous gate was closing before the dumbfounded watcher could collect his wits. Like a shot he was across the stones, now alive to the meaning of the strange proceeding. With desperate hands he grasped the bar of the gate and pulled, uttering a loud shout of alarm at the same time. Surprised by the sudden interference, the man on the other side gave way and Turk was through the opening and upon him. A stunning blow on the head met him as he hurled himself forward, and he plunged headlong to the ground. As he struggled to his feet another blow fell, and then all was darkness.
When he opened his eyes again two figures were careening down the steep path, a hundred yards away. They were running, and were plainly distinguishable in the moonlight. Turk knew that the woman was Dorothy Garrison. He had heard her cry, after the first blow, “Don't! Don't kill him, Father! It is Turk!” Crazed with anger and determined to recapture her single-handed, Turk neglected to call for help. With the blood streaming down his face, he dashed off in pursuit. There was in his heart the desire to kill the man who had struck him down. Near the foot of the hill he came up with them and he was like a wildcat.
Miss Garrison had fallen to her knees and was moaning as if in pain. The priest crouched behind her, protecting his person from a possible shot from the pursuer. “For God's sake, don't shoot him!” screamed the girl, but a moment later there was a flash of light, a report, and a pistol ball whizzed by Turk's ear. He was unarmed, but he did not stop. Throwing himself forward, he stretched out his arms to grasp the crouching priest, hoping to prevent the firing of another shot. But he had not reckoned on the cleverness of the man at bay. The priest dropped flat to the ground and Turk plunged over his body, wildly clutching for the prostrate man as he went. With the cunning of a fox, the priest, on realizing that he could not avoid a personal conflict, had looked about for means to end the pursuit effectually.
Retarded in his progress by the tired, trembling girl, he saw that a stand against the oncomer was unavoidable. He cleverly selected the spot for this stand, and braced himself as for the onslaught. Scarcely a yard beyond his position there was a sharp declivity among the rocks, with a clear drop of a dozen feet or more to the bottom of a wide crevasse. His shot went wild and he could not repeat it, for Dorothy was frantically clutching his arm. The strategem worked well, and he had the satisfaction of hearing a mighty oath as Turk, unable to check himself, slipped from the edge and went crashing to the rocks below.
With the speed of a hunted animal, the priest leaped to his feet, dragging the girl after him, and a harsh laugh came from his throat as they dashed onward. A quick glance behind showed there had been but one pursuer, and the man in the robes of holiness chuckled exultantly. But, if Dorothy Garrison believed him to be the priest his robes declared, the moonlight told the fallen Turk the truth. Indeed, it was the intentness with which the little ex-burglar gazed upon the white face of Courant that prevented him from seeing the ledge as he dashed up to the couple.
How long it was afterward that Turk came to his senses and crawled back to the roadway, dizzy, weak and defeated, he knew not. He could only groan and gnash his teeth when he stood erect again and saw that he was utterly alone. Courant and the girl were gone. In shame and humiliation he climbed the hill to call for help.
Just as the searching party was about to rush recklessly from the courtyard, servants having been instructed to bring out the horses, Lady Jane espied a white piece of paper on the ground near the gate. And then it was that they read the parting message from the girl who was gone. With a trembling voice Lady Saxondale read:
“I have found a way, and I am going, if nothing prevents. With the help of my good angel I shall soon be far from this place. A holy man in passing saw my signal of distress and promised rescue. You have been good to me, and I can only repay you by refusing to expose you. This priest does not know who you are. I shall not tell him or any who may be with him. No one shall ever know from me that you were my abductors. God grant that you may never have to pay the penalty. Go, while you may, for the truth may become known without my help, and I may not be able to save you. Save yourselves, all of you. I mean Philip Quentin, too, because I know he loves me.
“Dorothy.”
Philip Quentin took the forlorn, even distressed, message from the hands of Lady Saxondale, kissed it devoutly, and placed it in his pocket.
“Philip is too ill to go out on this desperate chase,” cried Lady Saxondale.
“Ill! I'll die if I am not gone from here in five minutes! Great Lord, Bob, those fools have been an hour getting the horses!” groaned Quentin, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
“Don't get excited, Phil; keep your head. You're not fit to be running about in a business like this, but all Christendom couldn't stop you. It may be a wild goose chase, after all,” said Lord Bob.
“She's been carried back to the accursed villain who employs Courant, and I'll die before I'll let him have her. Oh, what fools we've been!”
“Here's a puzzler, old man,” said Dickey. “Why was not Ugo here to help Courant if he knew anything about the fellow's actions? By cracky, I don't believe Ugo knows anything about the Frenchman's find.”
“He owns Courant, body and soul!”
“That jacky is out for the hundred thousand francs, and he's working on his own hook this time, my boy. He's after the reward, and he's the only one that has been keen enough to find us out. Mark me, he is working alone.
“Sure, he is,” added Turk. “He's got no pardners in th' job, er he'd a' had em along to-night. S'pose he'd run into a gang like this alone if he had anybody t' fall back on? Not on your life. We're a mighty tough gang, an' he takes no chances with us if he's workin' fer anybody else.”
“We're not a tough gang!” wailed Lady Jane, in tears. “Oh, what will become of us!”
“The Lord only knows, if we fail to get both Dorothy and Courant,” said Quentin, in real anguish.
“They may be in Luxemburg by this time,” said Saxondale. “Gad, this is working in the dark!”
“That road down there don't go t' Luxemburg direct, m' lord,” quickly interposed Turk. “It goes off into th' hills, don't you remember? An' then out th' valley some place 'way to th' north. If he'd been goin' to th' city he'd 'a' taken th' road back here an' kep' from goin' down th' hill.”
“You're right, Turk,” exclaimed Lord Bob. “He has gone up the valley, headed for one of the little towns, and will steer clear of the Luxemburg officers for fear they may demand a part of the reward.”
“God, Saxondale, are those horses never coming?” fumed Quentin. “I won't wait!” and he was off like a madman through the gate and down the steep. Behind him tore Turk, the faithful.
When Turk pitched over the crouching form of the priest and into the dark chasm beyond Dorothy for the first time began to appreciate the character of her cowled rescuer. Panting and terrified, she looked into his hideously exultant face as he rose and peered over the ledge after the luckless pursuer. It was not the face of a holy man of God, but that of a creature who could laugh in the taking of a human life.
“Come on!” he cried, grasping her by the wrist with no gentle regard. “He's out of the way, but we have no time to lose. The others may miss you at any moment, and we must be in the wood if we hope to fool them.”
“I have changed my mind—” she began, holding back as he dragged her after him down the slope.
“It is too late,” he said, harshly. “You will soon be with your friends, my child. Do not lose heart, but trust to me.”
“Who are you? You are not a priest. Why have you disguised yourself—”
“Not so loud, my child, not so loud! They may have guards even here. If I am not a priest, then may heaven shut its gates on me forever. Because I am a man and have undone one of your enemies, you should not question my calling. It is no time for prayer. When we are safe from pursuit, you will regret the doubt you have just expressed. Trust to me, my child. But run, for God's sake, run! Don't hang back when all depends on our speed in the next half-hour.”
“Where are you taking me? Answer, or I shall refuse to go another step with you!” she exclaimed, now thoroughly aroused and determined.
“My wagon is hitched in the wood over there. In it we will go to a town up the valley, where I have the promise of help. I could have brought a big force of men with me, but don't you see what a mistake it would have been? Rather than surrender you to a force they would have killed you and secreted your body in the passages under the castle. It is commonly known that the cellars are paved with skeletons.” Here Dorothy shuddered in recollection. “Strategy was the only means of getting you out safely.”
“They would not have killed me,” she cried, breathlessly. They were moving rapidly along the level roadway now, and his grip on her wrist was like a clasp of iron.
“To save themselves? Of course, they would—as they would a dog!” he said.
“They are my friends, and they are the best, the truest in the world,” she gasped, eager to keep the promise of protection made in the farewell note.
“You think they are, madam, but how could they treat you as they have if they are friends?” He had turned into the wood, and it was necessary to proceed more cautiously on account of the darkness. She realized that she had erred in saying they were friends, and turned cold with apprehension.
“I mean, they treated me well—for criminals,” she managed to say.
“Criminals!” he snarled. “Bah! Of course they are criminals of the worst kind, but they will never be punished.”
“I'm afraid they are so clever that no one will ever find out who they really are.”
He stopped with a lurch, and she could feel that he was looking at her in amazement.
“I know who they are, and you know them, too,” he said, slowly. “Perhaps nobody else knows, but we know that my Lord and Lady Saxondale and the two Americans were your abductors. The man I dumped into the ravine was that little villain Turk.”
Her heart almost stopped beating with the shock of knowing that nothing could now shield her captors from exposure.
“But—but it will be very hard to prove,” she said, hoarsely, almost defiantly.
“You have only to take oath,” he said, meaningly.
“I don't know the name or face of a person in that castle,” she said, deliberately. He was silent for a full minute.
“You intend to shield them?” he demanded. There was no answer to the question. Now she was positive that the man was no priest, but some one who knew the world and who had made it his business to trace her and her captors to the very gates of the castle. If he knew, then others must also be in possession of the secret.
“Who are you?” she demanded, as he drew her deeper into the wood. There was now the wild desire to escape from her rescuer and to fly back to the kindly jailers on the hill.
“A poor priest, by the grace of God,” he said, and she heard him chuckle.
“Take me back to the road, sir!” she commanded.
“I will take you to your mother,” he said, “and to no one else.”
“But I am afraid of you,” she exclaimed, her courage going. “I don't know you—I don't know where you are taking me.”
“We will not go far to-night. I know a place where you can hide until I secure help from the city.”
“But you said you had a wagon.”
“The horse must have strayed away, worse luck!” said he, with a raucous laugh.
She broke from his grasp suddenly, and like a frightened deer was off through the darkness knowing not whither she went or what moment she might crash against a tree. The flight was a short one. She heard him curse savagely as he leaped upon her from behind after a chase of a few rods, and then she swooned dead away.
When she regained consciousness a faint glow of light met her eyes as the lids feebly lifted themselves from their torpor. Gradually there came to her nostrils a dank, musty odor and then the smell of tobacco smoke. She was lying on her back, and her eyes at last began to take in broad rafters and cobwebby timbers not far above her head. The light was so dim that shadows and not real objects seemed to constitute the surroundings. Then there grew the certainty that she was not alone in this dismal place. Turning her head slightly, she was able, with some effort, to distinguish the figure of a man seated on the opposite side of the low, square room, his back against the wall, his legs outstretched. At his elbow, on a box, burned a candle, flickering and feeble in its worthlessness. He was smoking a pipe, and there was about him an air of contentment and security.
Slowly past events crowded themselves into the path of memory, and her brain took them up as if they were parts of a dream. For many minutes she was perfectly quiet, dumbly contemplating the stranger who sat guard over her in that wretched place. In her mind there was quickly developed, as one brings the picture from the film of a negative the truth of the situation. She had escaped from one set of captors only to give herself into the clutches of others a thousand times more detestable, infinitely more evil-hearted.
“You've come back to life, have you?”
She started violently and shivered as with a mighty chill at the sound of these words. They came from the slouching smoker.
“Where am I?” she cried, sitting up, a dizzy whirling in her head. Her bed was no more than a heavy piece of old carpet.
“In the house of your friends,” laconically responded the voice, now quite familiar. Her eyes swept the room in search of the priest. His robes lay in a heap across her feet. “Where is Father Paul?” she demanded. “He is no more,” said the man, in sombre tones. “I was he until an hour ago.”
“And you are no priest? Ah, God help me, what have I done? What have I come to in my miserable folly?” she cried, covering her face with her hands.
“Look here, Miss Garrison,” said the man, quietly. “I am no priest, but you have nothing to fear because of that fact. The truth is, I am a detective. For a month I was in the employ of Prince Ravorelli, and it was no honest business, I can tell you. What I have done to-night is straight and honest. I mean you no harm, and you have but to follow my instructions in order to find yourself safe in Brussels once more. I have been interested in a number of queer transactions but let me say this in my own defence: I was never employed in any game so detestable, so low, as the one your noble prince was playing when you were snatched away from him. The only regret I have in taking you back to your mother comes from the fear that you may go ahead and marry that knave.”
Dorothy was listening, with wide eyes and bated breath, to the words of the lounging smoker.
“I will never, never marry him,” she cried, vehemently.
“Stick to that resolve, my child,” said Courant, with mock benevolence. “He is a scoundrel, and I cut loose from him to do this little job down here on my own responsibility.”
“Tell me, if you know, did he plan to kill Mr. Quentin? I must have the truth,” she cried, eagerly.
“He did worse than that. He made the attempt, or rather his agents did. You see, Quentin was a dangerous rival because he knew too much.”
“I don't understand.”
“Well, he knew all about the prince when he was with the opera company in Brazil. I can't tell you much about it, but there was a murder committed over there and your prince was believed to be guilty. A woman was killed, I believe. Quentin knew all about it, it seems.”
“And never told me?” she cried.
“He was not positive, I suppose. There was the danger of being mistaken, and this American friend of yours seems honest. He only told you what he knew to be a fact, I conclude.”
“Yesterday I heard that a woman had been murdered in Brussels, a woman who came to warn me against the prince. Do you know who killed her?”
“Good God! Has she been killed? Ah, I knew it would come; he was obliged to get rid of her. I did not know of her death, but I leave you to guess who was responsible for it. God, he is a devil! You owe a great deal, Mademoiselle, to the clever men who stole you from him.”
“Alas, I am beginning to know it, now that it is too late. And he was ill when I stole away to-night. I implore you, take me back to the castle!” she pleaded, her heart wrung by the anguish in her soul.
“So he is in the castle, eh? Just as I thought. I'd like to take you to him, especially as he is ill, but I must take care of number one. When I dropped out of one villain's employment I went into business for myself. You see, there is about 100,000 francs reward for you, and there is the same for the bodies of the abductors. If I turn you over to your mother or her agents—not the prince, by the way—I earn the reward. If I can procure the arrest of your abductors I get double the amount. You see how unbusiness-like it would be if I were to let my sympathies get the better of me.”
“But I will give you 100,000 francs if you will take me back to the castle,” she cried, standing before him.
“Have you the money with you?”
“Of course I have not, but it shall be yours as soon as I can—”
“Pardon. You are worth nothing to me in that castle, and you will bring a fortune in Brussels.”
In vain she pleaded with the stubborn detective, finally threatening him with dire punishment if he refused to accede to her demands. Then he arose in sudden wrath, cursing her roundly and vowing she should not leave the room alive if she persisted in such threats. He told her that she was in a cave beneath the ruins of an old church, long the haunt of robbers, now the home of snakes and bats. Indeed, as he spoke a flittermouse scurried through the air within a foot of her ear.
“We rest here until to-morrow night, and then we start out to walk. You cannot be seen in that dress, either. I have clothing here in this box for you to wear. My dear young lady, you must make believe that you are my younger brother for a day or two, at least.”
A look of horror came into her face, succeeded by the deep red of insulted modesty, and then the white of indignation.
“I will die first, you wretch!” she exclaimed. In that moment she believed she could have killed the smiling rogue with her own hands.
“We shall see,” he said, roughly. “Look at them; they are respectable in cut and they are clean.” He drew the garments from the box, piece by piece, and held them before her flaming face. “I'm going out to take a look about the valley. You are quite safe here. No one knows where you are, and the robbers have been dead for twenty years. One of them still has his skeleton in the room just off this one, but he is a harmless old fellow. In an hour I will return, and we will eat. It is now three o'clock, and the sun will soon be rising. To-night we venture forth as brothers, remember.”
He pulled his cap down over his eyes, buttoned his coat about his throat, changed a revolver from one pocket to another, and deliberately stalked across the room to the narrow door. An instant later she heard the key rasp in the lock and she was alone.
“Oh, heaven, if Philip Quentin could see me now! If he could but hear my sobs and see my tears! How he would rejoice, how he would laugh, how he would pity me. This is your triumph, Philip Quentin, but you are not here to claim the wretched victory. Fool! Fool! Fool!”
She had thrown herself face downward on the patch of carpet and was writhing in the agony of fear and regret. Suddenly there came to her ears the distant report of a firearm, the rush of feet and then something heavy crashed against the little door. She was on her feet in an instant, cowering in the far corner of the room, her face among the cobwebs. Panic seized her, and she screamed aloud in her terror. Outside the door there were sounds of a savage struggle, but they rapidly became indistinct, and finally passed beyond hearing altogether. She ran to the door and pounded on it with hands that knew not the bruises they were acquiring, and she moaned in the fear that the rescuers, for such they surely must be, were leaving her behind.
“Phil! Phil!” she cried again and again. But there suddenly came to her a terrifying thought, and she fell back, cold and voiceless. Ugo! What if he had at last run the treacherous Courant to earth? What if the rescuer were he?
She slunk away from the door, the dampness of dread sending a chill to her heart. And when again the rush of footsteps brought a heavy body against the door, she had not the voice to cry out, so sure was she that Ugo Ravorelli was coming to her in that dismal hole.
Then the door gave way, and Philip Quentin came plunging into the room, hatless, coatless, his shirt in shreds. The mighty draft of air from the open door killed the sickly candle-flame, but not before they had seen each other. For the second time that night she lost consciousness.
At the bottom of a deep ravine lay the body of Courant. He had fled from before the two adversaries after a vain attempt to reenter the room below the church and had blindly dashed over the cliff. Turk, with more charity than Courant had shown not many hours before, climbed down the dangerous steep, and, in horror, touched his quivering hand. Then came the last gasp.