Saved from herself or, On the edge of doom
a mere word, turn cold, to think he would let it go--for her. She flung
out her hands with a little cry.
“Why should you let it go--for me?” She was panting for breath. “Do you
mean that I, who am nobody, and have come here from the gutters, am a
thing you could not touch and keep your honor?”
“No, no! Not that. Don’t think I dared mean that. It was only a way of
saying”--he took one little bare hand, and held it in strong fingers
that were very careful--“how much I love you.”
“You love me?” For once she was not thinking or acting a part; not
thinking of all Cylmer could give her; not thinking of anything but
that he was beside her, his voice low in her ears, his hand in hers.
“It can’t be true,” she said desperately. “When I came here you loved
Cristiane; I saw it in her face when she came in that first day.”
For a minute he was staggered.
“I thought I did.” And at the truth in his voice Ismay’s heart jumped.
“I know now I never did, for I love you. When I kissed you that day I
knew that your lips on mine had made me yours to take or leave. Which
will you do, Ismay?”
“Yet a little time after you said things to my mother that----” She
stopped, and did not look at him.
“I did not know she was your mother.”
“It did not matter. They were true. They are just as true now. Can you
love me, knowing them?”
For the first time she spoke with a purpose. There must be no slip
between the cup and the lip for want of a little plain speaking.
“Can I love you? Can I help breathing?” almost angrily. “I tell you I
am yours to take or leave. Which is it, Ismay?”
She turned her face to him deliberately; as she lifted her chin, he saw
the long, lovely line of it, that slipped into her throat; saw the
milky whiteness of her oval cheek, that just missed being hollow; saw
her eyes, dark and green, full of his own image; saw her lips--the man
was dizzy as she spoke.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Love me, kill me, it is all one to me,
for I--love you!” And in her face there was all that miracle of pure
passion that had never shone on Cristiane’s, whom he had thought he
loved.
With something very near to reverence, Miles Cylmer kissed her. As he
let her go, he was shaking.
Hand in hand, like two children, they sat, as the winter sun set in a
pale glory behind the leafless trees.
Ismay looked at him, soft malice in her eyes.
“By the way, why are you here on a hunting-day?” she inquired demurely.
“I’ve a sore bridle-hand,” he said calmly.
She caught the quick look he flashed on her, that was both sweet and
mischievous.
“What a story, Mr. Cylmer!” childishly.
“Mr. who?”
“Mr. Cylmer. It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Not to you.” He turned her face to him with a masterful hand. “Are you
going to call me that when you come to live over there?” he whispered,
and laughed with pleasure as the blood leaped to her face.
“Live over there?” she stammered, looking to where, on the far-off
hill, the roof of Cylmer’s Ferry caught the last sunbeams.
“I don’t see where else you’re going to live when you marry me.”
“Marry you!” Every trace of color left her cheek. “I--can’t marry you.”
“What! Why not?” His careless, teasing voice turned her cold. “Tell me,
why not, my witch?”
Tell him! She turned with sudden passion, and clung to him, hiding her
face in his rough tweed coat.
What had she done through this mad love that possessed her? What was
she to do?
The first word of her marriage with another man would make a very devil
in Marcus Wray. She would look well being married to Cylmer, while her
mother was being tried for her life for the murder of Lord Abbotsford,
for that was what her stolen love would bring to her.
“My love, my only love!” She crushed the words back against his
shoulder, thankful to hide her face, and yet agonized, for how long
would its shelter be hers if he knew?
“Ismay, what’s the matter?” Cylmer was suddenly frightened at the wild
cling of her hand in his. “Why can’t you marry me? I thought you were
playing--do you mean you are in earnest?”
In earnest, with the toils all around her; with murder past, and murder
to come! She set her teeth hard before she answered.
“Mother would never hear of it,” she faltered lamely.
“Why not?” He made her look at him.
“She hates you.”
“But if you loved me?” wonderingly.
“It wouldn’t matter! And, besides----”
“Besides what?” He was very grave, his lips hard under his tawny
mustache.
“She wants me to marry some one else. If she thought you loved me, she
would do it all the more.”
“She couldn’t,” very quietly. “Do you think I am a boy, to be bullied?”
Ismay drew away from him. She could not think with her face against his
warm shoulder, and think she must.
“Listen,” she said slowly. “I know my mother better than you. Let me
get her round by degrees before we tell her anything; let nobody know
just yet that you care.”
“Who is the other man?” shortly. “Do you mean you are engaged to him?”
Ismay turned, and looked at him.
“I mean I hate him”--her voice low, with unutterable loathing--“as I
shall hate you, whom I love, if you dare to think that of me.”
The truth and passion in her voice made him wince with shame.
“Ismay!” he cried. “Oh, love, forgive me!”
“I’d forgive you if you killed me,” recklessly.
“But you must listen to me, and never tell you love me till I say it is
time.”
“Through life and death and past the grave.”
“Anything, if you love me, and only me.”
They stood close now, his arms fast round her; through the silk of his
mustache she felt his lips on hers, and knew that, come what might, for
one long instant she had stood at the gate of heaven.
“My sweet, how can I leave you?” he said, letting her go a little that
he might feast his eyes on her face, that was transfigured.
“Leave me? Why should you leave me?”
“Kiss me again, and I’ll tell you.”
But she could not; a curious premonition had suddenly brought her back
to the old Ismay Trelane, who must watch, and think, and scheme.
“Tell me, now,” she said, and at the weariness in her voice he drew
her to him, penitently.
“Was I too rough with you, sweet? I’m so sorry. But I really have to go
away; that was why I came over to-day. I must go to London to-morrow.”
“Away from me?” but she could not smile.
“Does town count before me?”
“Nothing does. But after you comes a duty to the dead.”
“To the dead?” She stared at him. “Do you mean Sir Gaspard?”
“No; but it’s a ghastly thing to talk of to-day.”
“Tell me; you’re frightening me; I--I hate death.”
“Don’t be frightened, sweet; it is nothing to do with you, not much
with me. But do you remember how they found Lord Abbotsford dead this
autumn? Or did you ever hear of it?”
“I--I heard.” Her eyes, black, dilated, with terror, stared, unseeing,
at his unconscious face.
“Well, I’ve had a detective working at it ever since--and--this is the
first secret I’ve ever told you, sweet, and it is a secret--he wants
to see me at once. He thinks he has got a clue to the murderer. Why,
Ismay! Darling! Why did I speak of such a horror to you?” with dismay.
For she had slipped like water through his arms, a lifeless heap on the
cold ground.
CHAPTER XX.
THE EDGE OF DOOM.
A cold black void; a struggle that was agony to get out of it; a
falling through deep waters that were loud in her ears, then blackness
once more, deep and awful. Slowly, slowly, it faded, and with a
sickness like death at her heart Ismay was conscious again. Where was
she? What was this?
She lifted her head from the wintry earth, and let it fall again.
“Lie still; don’t move.” Cylmer was kneeling beside her, inwardly
cursing himself for a fool, when he knew her horror of death.
“Ismay, darling, forgive me, and forget it. I might have known it was
enough to sicken any woman.”
“Death--murder--you!” she cried incoherently. “Ever since I came here
death has been round me, I”--her voice was shrill, hysterical--“I smell
death in Marchant’s Hold, and I meet it.” Her eyes closed again.
“No, no! Don’t talk like that, my sweet,” gathering her close with
protecting arms. “I was a brute to tell you such things. You were tired
out, unstrung already. I was too rough and careless with you, my heart.”
But she shrank away.
“You--to bring any one to their death; to find clues that would hang
them!”
“It is not I, it is justice. Oh! don’t draw away from me.”
“Justice on the poor, the tempted!” A sudden sense of the danger that
her words held checked her. “Oh, why did you tell me? Why should I
know you are helping to hunt any poor wretch down?”
“Oh, the tender woman’s soul that cannot bear anything to be hurt!” he
thought swiftly, loving her all the more for her weakness.
“Would you let things go, and have the innocent suffer for the guilty?”
he said gravely. “I think not, dear.”
The innocent! Was there any one in the world innocent? She had no
reason to love her mother, yet now, in her peril, she was ready to
fight, tooth and nail, for her, even when her enemy was Miles Cylmer,
whose kiss had opened heaven.
All that he was doing she must know, and make of no avail, and at the
task before her the girl’s brave spirit quailed. Somehow she must save
her mother, and keep him! Her brain reeled as she thought that some
one, no matter how innocent, must have that crime brought home to them
to save the mother who was guilty.
Ismay summoned all her strength, and sat up, very white.
“Did you know I was such a baby?” she whispered. “I hate hearing of
horrors, and it startled me to know you had anything to do with things
like that. But you’re quite right. I won’t be so silly any more. Only
I--I was ready to cry in any case. I loved you, and you kissed me,
and----”
“And then I had not any more sense than to blurt out things you should
never hear of,” he finished for her, kissing her again, very softly.
“I’m going to take you home now, and we’ll never speak of Abbotsford
again.”
“You can as much as you like, now,” and if her lips were wan he did not
notice. “I know whatever you do will be for the right,” speaking the
truth, but not adding, “no matter the cost to me and mine.”
“My little sweetheart,” he said, fastening the fur collar of her
coat, that he had unfastened to give her room to breathe when she lay
unconscious. “I wish I could carry you home. You aren’t fit to walk.”
“I am fit to go anywhere with you,” she smiled, with all the strange
sorcery that was hers, a smile that covered deadly terror. “Bring my
roses. They are the first thing you ever gave me,” pointing to the
great bunch of blood-red flowers lying on the ground in the early
twilight.
“They are not half so sweet and fine as you,” Cylmer said, as he saw
her put them to her face. “Do you know how beautiful you are? I wish
you would marry me to-morrow, so that you could put away all that
black, and let me see you in a white gown.”
With a little shiver, she drew closer to him, where she walked within
his arm in the sheltering dusk.
“Tell me about Lord Abbotsford,” she said, as his arm tightened round
her, for she must know; she dared not let him go back to talk of that
love that might turn so bitter in the end.
“And make you faint again? Not I!”
“I won’t. It wasn’t that.” He could not know the sweet shyness of her
voice was put there to cover the first lie she had ever told him. “I
was--tired.”
And in the languor of happiness that was in his own blood, he believed
her.
“But you hate those things!”
“Not if you say they are right.”
“They are, I suppose,” he answered slowly. “A man’s blood cries from
the ground for justice, and I was his only friend. But I don’t think I
ought to talk about it--to you.”
“If I am going to be your wife, will you always hide unpleasant things