CHAPTER XXV.

THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE.

No day that held murder and sudden death in it ever dawned more fair to see than the next morning.

The sun shone sweetly on the frozen world, the robins came confidently to the dining-room window, red-breasted, certain of crumbs; the lake shone as glittering glass; the cold, sweet air of morning was like wine to the nerves as Ismay, after breakfast, stood at the window feeding the hungry birds.

She almost wondered at her own fear of Marcus Wray this morning. The look of latent savagery was all gone from his calm, clean-shaven face as he stood by the fire idly smoking a cigarette. And the strained, expectant horror was gone from her mother’s face. For some reason or other, the awful purpose of the day had been postponed. There was relief at Ismay’s heart as she read those faces.

“We are a nice, harmonious, affectionate household for one more day. I suppose he has his reasons,” she thought. But she did not want to catch his eye. She stood with an indifferent shoulder to him as he moved toward the door. “What, Cristiane?” She started from her reverie as if she were shot.

Cristiane was eying her like a kitten who has just scratched.

“I only said you and Miles were very late last night,” she repeated viciously.

Ismay could not speak. She made instead a quick step toward the door that had barely closed behind Wray. Was he out of hearing, or was he there still?

“I--and Miles!” she said coldly. “What do you mean?”

Mrs. Trelane, reading a letter, fairly dropped it as she stared at the two. What had Ismay been doing? Was the girl crazy?

Cristiane laughed, like a child pleased with mischief.

“Don’t look so angry,” she remarked. “I was only trying to pay you for--you know what!” with a nod in the direction of the departed Wray.

“You two children!” said Mrs. Trelane, with an indulgent smile, that covered her relief that this was only play.

But Ismay, facing Cristiane, was not so certain. There was a something in the baby face of the only child that she did not like.

“She saw us! And if she tells Marcus I’m done,” she reflected.

But Cristiane, as she purred an amiable apology, had no intention of telling Marcus. She meant to have Marcus and Miles both, and something warned even her that it would not be well to speak of Ismay to Wray.

And Ismay, in spite of the exquisite day, was feeling strangely dull. A deadly lassitude was in all her limbs; the strain of constant, racking thought for the girl who was so spoiled, the mother who was so careless, was telling on her.

She saw Wray go out, and Cristiane busy writing a note, to whom she did not care, and crept away to a dark corner of the hall where a screen hid her from passers-by. While things were quiet she must sleep, or she would break down. Had there been anything the matter with her coffee?

But she could think no longer. She dropped on the seat behind the screen, never stopping to consider that she was clearly visible from the turn of the stairs overhead, and slept like a dead thing.

Hours passed, and she knew nothing, felt nothing, except that once she tried to brush what felt like a fly from her cheek; once turned, in what seemed a happy dream, to the familiar touch of a man’s rough tweed coat on her face, stretching her arms out in sleep at the happy thought; in her dream nestling close to the dear shoulder, till suddenly a nightmare terror shook her. She tried to scream and could not; woke for an instant to think she heard a footstep stealing away, and, not half-awake, was asleep again almost before she realized her thought.

“Where can Ismay be?” Mrs. Trelane wondered at lunch.

Cristiane shook her head with guileless innocence.

Wray said carelessly that he did not know, but his face flushed a little.

Mrs. Trelane finished her lunch and went to find out. Half-way upstairs she looked down; there was Ismay on her comfortably padded sofa, stretching herself awake.

“Well, of all the peculiar people! I never saw any one stretch so like a cat. Ismay,” she said aloud, “what on earth are you doing there?”

“I was tired--I think. Mother, come here a minute.”

The unusual tone in her voice astounded the listener; she came down-stairs hastily.

“Tired! From what? And why did you go to sleep here? I couldn’t find you anywhere, and I was terrified Cristiane might think something about you and that horrid Cylmer. Tell me, did she mean anything this morning?” sharply, seating herself on the end of the sofa.

“Don’t know, and don’t care,” said the girl sleepily. “Of course not. How could she? It was to pay me for saying Marcus was horrid.”

“You said that to her!”

“Oh, don’t be agitated. She didn’t believe me,” said Ismay flippantly. “Mother, I want to speak to you. No, don’t move! It’s safer here than anywhere. We can hear any one coming a long way off on this hard oak floor. I want you to tell me--think hard, mother, I mean it--if you don’t know of any one that might have been in Abbotsford’s room that day?”

“What makes you think of that now?”

“I’m always thinking of it,” her hand to her head that felt so oddly heavy. “I’m frightened.”

“What of? I didn’t do it,” almost absently. “Think of some one, you say. You little fool, do you suppose I have not tried and tried? There was no one who had anything against Abbotsford. I know you don’t believe me; I know you think I did it.”

“You might as well have if we can’t find out who did,” Ismay said wearily. “Look here, where was Marcus that day?”

“Marcus!” She hushed the cry with a sudden remembrance of those two in the dining-room; but she went on with unexpected freedom, recollecting they were going out, were gone by now.

“Oh, you needn’t think of him!” she said scornfully. “He was across the way, waiting to see Florrie Bernstein, the dancer. She was out, and to amuse himself the devil put it in his head to stare out the window. He never had anything to do with the matter.”

The strangely found beetle was on the girl’s lips, but the sleep was off her brain now, and she dared not trust her secret to her mother’s careless keeping.

“I wish he had done it. I should like him to be hanged,” she muttered.

“He’s too clever,” bitterly, “to do anything but bully women.”

“Where is he now?” with late caution.

“He and Cristiane have gone out skating,” she said carelessly, for Marcus had assured her the night before that the time was not ripe yet for any action. “They’re all right, you little idiot. There’s no need for you to look like that.”

Wild, dazed, swaying, Ismay was on her feet. All right, with that black place in the ice, with that purpose in Wray’s mind!

“Get out of my way! Move!” she cried. “Get me some water, brandy, anything! I can’t stand.”

Mrs. Trelane was in the dining-room and back almost before she knew at the authority in the sharply breathed words.

“What’s the matter? Are you going to be ill?” she cried.

Ismay snatched the brandy and water.

“Ill? No! If I am we’re ruined.” With quick, swaying steps she passed her mother, letting the empty glass fall in shivers to the floor.

“Then you’re crazy!” cried the mother. She stared stupidly at the splinters, and by the time she had shrugged her shoulders amazedly Ismay was gone.

Out the great door, hatless, into the winter air, that struck cold on her forehead and drove away the deadly faintness on her. Down the broad avenue toward the lake, staggering at first. Then, as her strength revived, running like young Diana, the beat of her flying feet only a little heavier than usual as she tore along.

Marcus and Cristiane--the wolf and the lamb! That black place in the ice where the current came from a spring. And this awful stiffness that cramped her like a vise as she ran.

Could she ever get there? She could see the lake now as she mounted the last rise in the avenue. And there was Marcus on the safe ice, and Cristiane? On the other side of the black streak Cristiane was sliding, without skates, drawing every minute nearer to it. Ismay knew now what was in his brain.

All alone out there, there was no one to hear him dare her to cross it, and that was what he was doing. And Cristiane was heavy; it would never bear her. To slip into that running water meant death. The thought seemed to paralyze the girl who looked on.

Helpless, rigid, great drops on her forehead for all the cold, she stood in full view of Cristiane, who waved her hand at her; in full view of some one else, long before his time at that tryst behind the cedars, as Cristiane, step by step, drew closer to that thin film of ice.

With one piercing, ringing shriek, one bound, Ismay was running again, like an arrow from a bow. Running with skirts drawn up, elbows down, steady and fast as a man who must win a race. She dared not think what it meant if she could not reach Cristiane before she was on that black mockery of ice.

No wonder her ringing scream sounded so wild and dreadful in the clear air; no wonder she ran with the blood beating in her eyes and forehead, the sharp air rasping in her agonized lungs.

She shrieked again. No matter what Marcus thought if only she could keep Cristiane off that ice.

At that shrill cry Cristiane turned and went on faster. Ismay should not frighten her before Marcus Wray, who had laughed and forbidden her to dare the crossing, as if she were a town-bred baby.

Miles Cylmer, a long way off behind his cedars, shouted in answer and ran down the long shore, too late to stop what he saw. Cristiane, laughing, defiant, on the edge of the black ice, a few rods behind her, bareheaded, slim, nearly exhausted, Ismay running to cut her off.

Wray had turned at the man’s voice and cried aloud:

“Go back! Don’t try it.” But it was no accident that made him fall flat as he spoke.

Cylmer ran as he, too, had never run before, for the black ice had crashed from under Cristiane’s feet. She went through like a stone as she stepped on it.

Yet the next second he saw her white hand flung up from the black ice, the blacker water; saw Ismay, flung flat on the sound ice, stretch out till she caught the hand in hers; did not see that Cristiane’s other hand had clutched her as with a vise, nor that Ismay was completely done and exhausted.

And Cristiane le Marchant was a well-grown, heavy girl, Ismay slight and dainty. Then inch by inch the sound ice cracked around them, as Cristiane, in her frantic struggling, drew Ismay nearer and nearer death. As Cylmer reached her it broke under her. But it was Mrs. Trelane who screamed as she ran frantically down from the avenue, where she had followed Ismay from pure wonder at the girl’s actions.

“He told me he wouldn’t do it! Oh, I might have known,” she cried helplessly, as she ran. She dropped on her knees with a great sob as she reached the lakeshore, and hid her eyes in terror.

On the grass beside Cristiane in her priceless, soaked furs, lay Ismay in her thin house-gown. There was a crimson stain oozing from her set and speechless mouth, and she was deadly still, the blood thick in that clay-cold body that had been so quick and warm but now.

For once Mrs. Trelane was careless of appearances.

“What have you done?” she shrieked at Wray. “What----” But his hand was on her shoulder.

“Tried to save Ismay,” he said shortly, as was true, for he had done his best to help Cylmer, only to be savagely thrust out of the way.

“This gentleman had Miss le Marchant out of the water before I was on my feet. I fell,” with rage in his tone because his plans had miscarried, because it was Cristiane who could sit up and speak, not Ismay.

“Mr. Wray told me not to try,” Cristiane said, shivering. “And I would. I’m cold. Take me home.”

Cylmer looked at her.

“Have you no thought for Miss Trelane, who tried to save you?” he said sternly.

Cristiane went off into wild hysterics.

“She didn’t try to save me,” she gasped; “she stood on the hill and watched me. I saw her. She could have got here long ago, but she hates me. Oh, I know. Just because you love me.” Cylmer made one quick stride to her.

“Be silent. Have you no sense; no decency?” His face absolutely white, he pointed to where Ismay lay on the grass. “You abuse her when for all you know she may have died for you. Take Mrs. Trelane’s arm and go home. I am ashamed that you are your father’s daughter.”

Wray had not heard her. After he had frightened Mrs. Trelane to silence with that cruel grasp of her shoulder he had run with all his speed to the stables to send a man for a doctor.

He was more savage than he had ever been in his life at his morning’s work. No one knew as he did why Ismay had not been able to withstand the shock of that icy water. And the heiress was to go scot-free! He ground his teeth as he hurried.

Never! Dead or alive, Ismay should not save her. But if he could do it, there should be life kept in that sweet body of hers yet, for, in his way, the man loved her.

Cristiane, the icy water dripping from her, rose and looked at Cylmer with chattering teeth.

“She hates me, and she is a liar and a thief. Look what I found this morning.” Her voice low and spiteful, never reached Mrs. Trelane, as she hung over Ismay.

She stuffed a little card, dirty and crumbled, into his hand, but though he took it, it was without knowledge or care of what she said.

“Go!” he repeated angrily. “Don’t you see you must get off your wet clothes?”

But without seeing what she did he had stooped and lifted in his arms the girl who was to have been flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.

An old, old cry was on his lips as he lifted his ice-cold, ghastly burden:

“Would that I had died for thee, I and none other!”