CHAPTER XVIII.

DOUBTING THOMAS.

Mr. Heriot, to his disgust, was extremely ill after that rash journey to the window.

For a fortnight he had fever, and was nursed untiringly by Salome, silent as a statue. When he had mended enough to be left alone and could walk about his room, he discovered he was to all intents a prisoner. His stout nurse had calmly locked the door on him to keep him out of mischief.

“Serves me right for spying on them!” he thought, ashamed and angry, standing at the window, as he had done that first evening. “But, all the same, I think there’s some devilment going on here--hello!” he pushed the jalousy from him and leaned out.

Beryl Corselas, idle and listless, stood in the courtyard alone. He had never seen her since she had brought him from the shore, and her beauty, that was so young and so pathetic, struck him afresh.

“Are you better?” she cried, waving her hand to him. “Why don’t you come out?”

“I can’t,” he answered calmly. “Salome has locked me in.”

“Wait,” said the girl promptly. She ran across the yard, and he heard her light feet on the stair outside.

“You were locked in!” she cried, opening the door and standing there, tall and lovely, her dark hair no longer hanging round her and her white dress immaculate, instead of being soaked with dew. “How funny!”

“Isn’t it?” returned Heriot gravely. He led the way out, limping; he had no notion that Mrs. Erle should find her charge in his room.

“Everything’s funny here, though,” the girl said thoughtfully. “I’m getting used to it. But even Andria has got queer since you came. She just sits and thinks, and she won’t let me out of her sight. She has a headache to-day, poor Andria! And Salome and the others are busy washing. This is the way, out this door.”

She led him into the house through the empty kitchen, and at the voices, and laughter that came from the wash-tubs the man felt he must be a fool with his suspicions. Everything here was ordinary. Was he thinking all sorts of nonsense because he had heard a conversation not meant for him?

In the drawing-room he was amazed at the luxury round him; the silk cushions and gorgeous embroideries that were so strange in this corner of the Azores.

His companion made him sit down, and seated herself on the floor. She looked up at him, her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, and for the first time he saw what a curious face she had.

There was something almost vacant in it, and yet it was not a stupid face, only utterly indifferent. The eyes that met his were startling in their strangeness, the irises raying out a tawny golden-yellow, while the eyebrows and lashes were like ink. The girl’s lips were a thrilling crimson, and yet the mouth bore a look of suppression, as if too early it had been acquainted with grief.

“Yes,” she said, with a sudden laugh that startled him, “it is queer here. I am queer myself.”

Heriot smiled, though he was taken aback.

“You’re a child,” he said calmly; “you haven’t found yourself yet.”

“Me? I never was a child,” she said, and her eyes darkened as if some inward flame had been extinguished. “No one who’s been Beryl Corselas all her life could ever be a child.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the convent, and Mother Felicitas,” she said somberly, “and Andria and me. If Andria had not gone away it might have been better.”

She looked straight at him, and something in his look reminded her of Andria. His blue eyes had the same look of self-reliance. His good looks did not strike her at all; the golden-brown hair and mustache and the debonair face that had turned many a woman’s head never touched Beryl Corselas one whit. He looked kind and strong, and she liked him. That was all. Yet Andria could have told her that in his day Heriot had been the handsomest, most spoiled man in London.

“Do you mean Miss Holbeach,” he asked, with perceptible hesitation and utter surprise, “was ever in a convent?”

Beryl nodded.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “It’s all very queer. If you read it in a book you wouldn’t believe it. And that reminds me,” she went on, laughing, “Andria was brought here to teach me, and there isn’t a book in the house but that funny, old one on the floor there. Mr. Egerton couldn’t have really cared whether we did lessons or not.”

“Begin at the beginning,” said Heriot, with the soft voice women had found so sweet. “I can’t understand, you know.”

But when she had reeled out the whole extraordinary tale he leaned back and whistled softly.

Egerton, whoever he was, must know something of Beryl Corselas’ history and want her out of the way. No better place could have been found for a superfluous girl to live than this unknown nook in the Azores. And no other kind of woman than the late Mrs. Erle could have been got to take pay for accompanying a kidnaped girl. There was probably very little mystery in the affair to her; she must know something from those far-away convent days about the history of Beryl Corselas; which might also explain why it had been convenient to get her here, too, in addition to being a pliant tool in the hands of a clever man. And that the girl had an affection for her was another reason. Heriot knew the power of a woman over a girl who idolizes her. That the whole thing had been blind chance, he never thought for an instant.

“Why do you think he brought you here?”--he kept his interest out of his voice.

“I think,” she answered calmly, “to be eaten up. And so does Andria. But Salome says he made her swear to take care of us. And he did warn us himself, of course; but I think that was for show, and so does Andria.”

“Eaten up!” Mr. Heriot gasped. He began to wonder if the girl were queer in the head.

Beryl nodded.

“You don’t know. You don’t sleep in the house,” she returned. “And, anyhow, it’s all right now, for they know me.”

“Who?”

“The two old jaguars,” she said calmly, “and their kittens. You saw their kittens this morning.”

“Know you! Jaguars!” This was worse and worse. The girl was stark mad. If he had not seen her with the cubs he would have thought it a lie from the word go.

“Yes, they do!” she asserted pettishly. “I sing--like this--and they come. I can make them go away, too. Even Andria is getting to know that I can.”

She sat upright and began the queer croon he had heard once before, but this time he recognized it. It was a snake-charmer’s song, wordless; a thing to make the flesh crawl on the bones.

“Where did you learn it?” he asked, cutting her short. He was not blood-brother to jaguars, and had no wish to have them called in the open windows.

“I’ve always known it: I never learned it. I can do anything with animals. Andria says mother must have been a dompteuse--a lion-tamer, you know.”

“It does go from mother to daughter, they say,” he returned rather faintly. He wondered if this Egerton were, perhaps, her father, and then--but no man could be so cold-bloodedly cruel as that! “There ought not to be wild animals here,” he said out of his thoughts. “Are these jaguars wild?”

Every vestige of animation left the girl’s face.

“No!” she breathed more than spoke. “And that’s the only thing that frightens me. They’re trained; they have a master, and they obey him. Do you remember I saw a face that morning? Well,” as he nodded, “I think they are his. I think he tries to set them on to kill us, and I’ve managed them so far. If I could only get them to like me best; they would obey me like dogs; but sometimes I can’t get them to come to me at all. Andria is afraid to let me play with them. One night I went out, but she came after me and dragged me in. There was nearly dreadful work that time; I could hardly keep them off her--the cubs, I mean. If the old ones had been there she would have been killed.”

“Then she does try to take care of you!” the words escaped him, to his instant shame.

“Andria? She loves me! She came out to me when they might have torn her up. But she isn’t afraid of that thing that hunts with them. It climbs up the jalousies, and hurries round the house all night, like a dried-up monkey--only I know it’s a man!”

“Has she seen it?”

“I don’t know. But I have, and I’m afraid of it. And Andria gets wild if I talk of it. She says it’s all a dream.”

“It’s a damned unpleasant one, then!” thought Heriot, utterly at sea. If Egerton meant to do away with both women, the lovely Andria was a fool to be here. If only Beryl was to be got rid of, how was Mrs. Erle to save herself? As he thought of her she came into the room. She looked paler and more girlish than he had ever dreamed she could look; her red-brown hair was coiled simply round her head, and her plain, white gown was as strange on her as the absence of her rings from her rose-white hands.

“Oh!”--she stopped at the sight of him--“Mr. Heriot, how did you--that is,” lamely, “I’m glad you are better!”

“I don’t think you are, Mrs. Erle,” said Heriot’s blue eyes. Somehow, the very sight of her had strengthened the mistrust that was beginning to weaken.

“I managed to escape my stern jailer,” he said lightly. “I suppose she thought my fever was catching, for she locked me in.”

Andria turned scarlet. He saw quite well who had instructed Salome. She sat down quite composedly, though she did not look at him.

“Beryl, tell Salome we want tea, will you?” she said, and, as the door closed on the girl, turned to Heriot. “It was I who had you locked in,” she said hardly; “I was afraid you might be tempted out and make your fever worse.”

“You were very kind,” the irony in his voice barely visible. “But I may as well tell you that Miss Corselas has told me all about this queer business.”

“And you think I am paid by Mr. Egerton to get rid of her?” she said, without a flicker of her eyes. “I don’t think I am--yet! But I may be.”

“I won’t let you do it,” he answered calmly.

“Neither you nor any one else has a right to say that to me,” she said, very low. “Because you know my past is no reason I am all bad. And if I suspect Mr. Egerton a hundred times over, I must remember that he warned me to keep her out of danger. If he had meant her to run into it he would have held his tongue.”

“He warned you, perhaps!” he was behaving like a cad, and he knew it. But he could not believe in the late Mrs. Erle.

“He knows nothing of me, and cares less.”

“Why don’t you take the girl away from here, if you care for her?”

“How? You forget I don’t even know where we are. Do you?”

Heriot winced.

“No,” he said unwillingly; “either Flores or Corvo, in the Azores, but in an uninhabited part of either.”

“And I am to drag a delicate girl like that through miles of scrub, with no money if I do get to a town? If you think I knew what sort of place I was coming to you are mistaken. He told me this was Bermuda.”

“Bermuda!”

She nodded.

“And I would think he meant us to live and die here if he had not said he would come back and take me away if I did not like it.”

“Did he say he would take the girl?” he asked sharply.

“I--no!” she stammered. “I suppose he meant it.”

“Yet you ask me to believe you know nothing of his plans?” he asked politely. “Do you know, Mrs. Erle, I have a great mind to help that poor child away myself?”

Quick as light she had risen and stood looking down on him, her face as hard and brazen as that Andria Erle’s whom he had despised, all its new-found purity gone.

“And do you think I would let you?” Her voice was soft as usual, but for once it was not gentle. “Why should I hand her over to any man, to suffer, perhaps, as I’ve suffered? Believe me or not as you like, but I will take care of her, against you and ten like you--against Egerton himself, when he comes!”

“You couldn’t, if it came to main strength.”

“Could you?”--she pointed to his foot that was still bandaged. He felt her contemptuous eyes on his body that was thin and shaken with fever. “And have you money that you could send her to England and take care of her? Supposing she and you ever got out of the scrub!

“This is my house to all purposes. If I told the black women to put you out to-night they would do it. And I suppose you know what would come to you then! You can believe in me or not, as you like,” she said, with sudden quietude, “but you cannot dictate terms to me, or threaten me.”

For a long minute there was utter silence in the room. Then Heriot, very white about the mouth, rose.

“I have to beg your pardon,” he said. “You are quite right. I am in your debt.”

But as he turned to go back to his old quarters and get away from this woman, she saw that she had only made him distrust her more determinedly.