The dangerous game
good news. A telegram from Karl says he is coming on Wednesday to
London because a good berth has been offered him. I wonder what it is.
Do you know anything about it?”
“How should I? He was employed by an International Commission in
Germany, so I suppose the offer may come from them. Well, Edris, much
as I object to your association with that man, I hope he may be
successful in getting the job,” he said grimly. “And now let us talk
of something else, darling.”
“Really, dearest, you are awfully kind to me after your unfounded
suspicions concerning Karl,” she said. “You know I love you; that you
are my great and wonderful lover. You need not fear Karl coming to
London. I would like to go and meet him, but if you forbid it, then I
am in your hands.”
Her arms were entwined about his neck. Her enticing feminine wiles
were wonderful, her artfulness and subterfuge marvelous. Were he not
possessed of that secret information he held he would have believed
her words. But in view of his knowledge they stifled him.
He felt inclined to curse her and uphold her to ridicule. On the
contrary, however, he placed both hands upon her shoulders, and,
looking straight into her gray eyes, asked:
“Tell me the truth, Carina. Do you really love me, or is all this a
mere hollow pretense?”
He saw her face change instantly.
“I--I really love you,” she faltered. “Have I not told you so a
hundred times? Cannot you believe me, darling?”
He drew a long breath as he looked straight into her pretty face, and
then, smiling doubtfully, he sighed, “I suppose I must.”
Next day he accompanied her back to Stagsden, but he perceived that
all her thoughts were of the man she was longing to meet at Victoria
on Wednesday night. He smiled within himself when he thought how
quickly and secretly his hidden hand would send his rival to his doom
in Russia. He knew the man to be boastful and arrogant, fond of
relating his own deeds of daring--fictitious, of course--to the women
whom he could so easily fascinate. The secret inquiries he had made
concerning him showed him to be of that shallow, unstable type of
foreigner, devoid of any of those good qualities which the average
hard-working Swiss possesses. Darville could only think, from the
daily letters he received so full of poetic affection, that he was
fascinating Edris against her will. Indeed, the girl’s letters in
reply had now become briefer, and contained less passion.
She had written in secret to him daily--though she assured him that
she did not write--and the gardener posted her letters in secret.
This, however, did not trouble him, for ere her letters left London
the copies reached him through Bennett, who naturally believed they
had something to do with some enemy plot.
“I suppose you are looking forward to meeting Karl in London?” he
asked her suddenly on the second night that he was back at the fine
country mansion and they were sitting in the firelight alone after
tea.
“No, not exactly,” was her reply. Then she rose, and, crossing to his
chair, sank upon the floor and placed her head against his knee, an
attitude she often assumed when they were alone. “I did not expect
him. I thought he would sail from Cherbourg. I--I didn’t want to meet
him again.”
“That’s very strange,” he remarked, rather indifferently.
“Why? I love you--and only you!”
He did not reply. She looked up into his face, and then, in the fitful
light of the fire, saw a hard, determined look such as she had never
seen there before.
“What’s the matter, Seti?” she asked in her cajoling way, taking his
hand and kissing it.
In an instant he withdrew it, as though he had been stung, and,
rising, said:
“Edris, I’ll tell you what is the matter. You are lying to me!”
“Lying! What do you mean?” she asked indignantly.
“I mean that ever since that day at Interlaken station when you met
Karl Weiss you have deceived me--_deceived me until this very
moment!_”
“I love you!” she cried, her face pale as she sprang towards him. But
he threw her off, and in a cold, hard voice replied:
“Lies flow from your lips like water, Edris! I know the truth! I know
everything! On the night you left Interlaken you threw me over, and
became engaged in secret to Karl Weiss. Deny it if you can!”
She stood open-mouthed, her face blanched, her hands trembling. She
was aghast. She tried to speak, to protest, but was unable to
articulate.
He knew the truth!
“Ah! You, who have all along pretended to love me, are engaged to that
man,” he said. “In your beautiful love-letters to him you have said
hard things about me, and he, in his replies to you, has jeered at me
on account of my age, and poisoned your mind against me. It was you
who urged him to come to London to see you--because you are infatuated
with him. I have known everything from the very first, and I have kept
my silence until now! Go to him on Wednesday! I, too, shall go to
London to-morrow, and----”
“You’ve been reading my letters!” she managed to gasp in dismay.
“Yes, I have! And I had you watched when you met the fellow in
Interlaken. When you returned I knew you were not telling me the
truth,” he said bitterly. “All along I have watched you, and I knew
that you were betraying and deceiving me. I warned you in Wengen that
you were playing with fire, but you, who swore to me that no man
should ever come between us, were already fascinated by the man whom
I foolishly thought to be my friend. Well,” he went on in a broken
voice, after a pause, “you shall go to your lover, and I will go out
of your life. But when you see him, tell him from me that I know the
extent of the base deceit of you both, and----”
“But you won’t leave me, Seti!” she cried in an agonized voice. “I do
love you. I swear that I do!” And she clung to him.
Then, sinking to the ground, she clutched his legs convulsively,
beseeching his forgiveness.
“You can’t leave me!” she cried, sobbing. “You are mine--Seti--my
wonderful lover! What I have told you is true--true! I swear it! I
love you!”
But Darville shook his head. In his grief-stricken eyes stood a look
of blank, unutterable despair, and she saw that her deceit had sunk
too deep into his heart.
“I don’t believe you, Edris,” he said slowly in a low, hoarse voice.
“You cannot love me when you are engaged to another.”
“But I do love you, darling. I swear that I do.”
Seton laughed contemptuously, saying:
“Please do not insult my intelligence further. How can you have the
audacity to tell me that you have a single spark of affection for me
after those letters you have written to your lover? Recall what he
said about me, and how you never contradicted him--the abominable and
insulting things he wrote concerning me. And you actually asked me to
obtain employment for him! Ah, it is all a terrible tragedy for me!
You have been false ever since that accursed day when we set foot in
Switzerland. And I loved you, Edris,” he added in a tense whisper. “I
loved you. But you have trodden my affection under your feet and
become fascinated by a man who, judged by his past, is utterly
unworthy of you!”
“Yes, Seti. I know I’ve been a rotter to deceive you. But how can I
explain?”
“How can you explain the reason of your conduct towards me? I am glad
you admit your double dealing!” he said in a hard tone. “I hope you
are ashamed of yourself. When I have gone to-morrow you will, perhaps,
reflect upon the suffering you have caused me--how I have lived in
hell these many weeks, loving you as devotedly as I have done, and
knowing that you were no longer mine, in spite of your kisses and
false pretense. Your kisses have nauseated me. Your very presence has
become repugnant to me, and your----”
“Seti, forgive me!” she cried in an agonized voice. “Let me try and
explain,” she went on as she clung to him. “I know you won’t believe
me, but I will tell you the truth--now----”
“Thanks, I don’t wish to hear the truth,” he said, his sympathetic
heart having now been turned to stone. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe
you, whatever you may say, or whatever excuse you may make.”
She held her breath, realizing that all his confidence in her had
gone. Little wonder was it, after all.
She threw out her arms with a despairing gesture and cried:
“Seti, I love you! Think what you may of my behavior, I swear that I
still love you. I’ve acted damnably towards you, I know. But one day,
when you hear and know the truth, you will pity me--even though you
cannot forgive.”
Seton Darville gazed at her tearful countenance, lit only by the
flames of the great wood fire, and remained silent. He still loved her
to distraction, but with the secret knowledge he held, he could not
bring himself to accept any protestation of affection as the truth.
She had urged Karl to come to England, a fact which in itself showed
that she loved him.
He was coming to London where, all unconscious of the fate in store
for him, he would be sent to his doom.
CHAPTER XXVI.
REMORSE
That night the pair experienced a feeling of estrangement such as
neither of them had ever felt before.
Edris, while dressing for dinner, was suddenly seized by a fit of
remorse, and throwing herself wildly upon her bed, gave way to a
violent outburst of tears.
“Oh, why did I do it? I must have been mad!” she cried aloud between
her sobs. “Why did I do it, when I love Seti so well? But I know his
nature. He will never forgive me now that he has learned the depths of
my deceit. Yes, I am base and worthless. I am unworthy of his great
passion for me. What must he think? What must he think?” she cried in
despair, as the tears flowed in torrents.
She remembered how Karl, with his craft and cunning, had fascinated
her with those winning ways which he had so often practiced upon other
women. She recalled his pretty speeches--how, by slow degrees, he had
sought to possess her and poison her mind against the man she loved;
how he had so constantly declared that he was too old for her, and the
cruel and harsh things he had uttered concerning the man whom she held
in such esteem and admiration. She admired Karl for his figure, for
his physique, and for his own brave deeds which he related to her,
little dreaming, even then, that her hero was only a pinchbeck one,
and that his strong, manly figure was, after all, only stuffed with
sawdust.
That evening, however, she began, by slow degrees, to gauge the man at
his true worth. For the first time in her life she compared him with
Seton, and at once realized the great difference in their characters.
She began to wonder why she had ever become infatuated with Karl.
Then once again, in her bitter, tearful regret, she cried aloud: “Seti
can never forgive me! He knows the truth! He will go--and will never
meet me again. Oh, God!” she sobbed. “How can I convince him that I
love him, and have loved him all along--that I still love him; that
whatever I may have said--whatever I may have done--I am his, and his
alone?”
A long, deep sigh escaped her, for she saw plainly that he would never
believe that such was the real truth; that he would never believe in
her honesty; that, alas! he would never trust her in future.
“Why did I become engaged to Karl?” she cried to herself, her heart
bursting with grief and remorse. “Why did I tell him that I loved him
when it was not true? I must have been mad--utterly mad that night. He
fascinated me, just as a serpent fascinates a bird. I was helpless in
his hands when, an hour before the train left, he compelled me to
engage myself to him. He knew that I loved Seti, and I told him so.
But he would not hear me. And he forced me to accept him. What I felt
when, half an hour later, I faced Seti at the train--and I thought he