Her strained attitude did not relax, nor, to his utmost scrutiny, was the complete astonishment of her distended gaze altered one whit, but a hint of her accustomed high color was again upon her cheek and her lip trembled a little, like that of a child about to weep. The flicker of hope in his breast increased prodigiously, and the rush of it took the breath from his throat and choked him. Good God! was she going to believe him?
"I remembered--you!"
"What?" she said, wonderingly.
Art returned with a splendid bound, full-pinioned, his beautiful and treacherous Familiar who had deserted him at the crucial instant; but she made up for it now, folding him in protective wings and breathing through his spirit. In rapid and vehement whispers he poured out the words upon the girl in the doorway.
"I have a friend, and I would lay down my life to make him what he could be. He has always thrown everything away, his life, his talents, all his money and all of mine, for the sake of--throwing them away! Some other must tell you about that room; but it has ruined my friend. Tonight I discovered that he had been summoned here, and I made up my mind to come and take him away. Your father has sworn to shoot me if I set foot in his house or on ground of his. Well, my duty was clear and I came to do it.
And yet--I stopped at the foot of the stair--because--because I remembered that you were Robert Carewe's daughter. What of you, if I went up and harm came to me from your father? For I swear I would not have touched him! You asked me not to speak of `personal' things, and I have obeyed you; but you see I must tell you one thing now: I have cared for this friend of mine more than for all else under heaven, but I turned and left him to his ruin, and would a thousand times, rather than bring trouble upon you! `A thousand times?' Ah! I swear it should be a thousand times a thousand!"
He had paraded in one speech from the prisoner's dock to Capulet's garden, and her eyes were shining into his like a great light when he finished.
"Go quickly," she whispered. "Go quickly! Go quickly!"
"But do you understand?"
"Not yet, but I shall. Will you go? They might come-my father might come-at any moment."
"But---"
"Do you want to drive me quite mad? Please go!" She laid a trembling, urgent hand upon his sleeve.
"Never, until you tell me that you understand," replied Crailey firmly, listening keenly for the slightest sound from overhead. "Never--until then!"
"When I do I shall tell you; now I only know that you must go."
"But tell me- "
"You must go!"
There was a shuffling of chairs on the floor overhead, and Crailey went.
He went even more hastily than might have been expected from the adaman- tine attitude he had just previously assumed. Realizing this as he reached the wet path, he risked stealing round to her window:
"For your sake! "he breathed; and having thus forestalled any trifling imperfection which might arise in her recollection of his exit from the house, he disappeared, kissing his hand to the rain as he ran down the street.
Miss Betty locked her door and pulled close the curtains of her window. A numerous but careful sound of footsteps came from the hall, went by her door and out across the veranda. Silently she waited until she heard her father go alone to his room.
She took the candle and went in to Mrs. Tanberry. She set the light upon a table, pulled a chair close to the bedside, and placed her cool hand lightly on the great lady's forehead.
"Isn't it very late, child? Why are you not asleep?"
"Mrs. Tanberry, I want to know why there was a light in the cupola-room tonight?"
"What?" Mrs. Tanberry rolled herself as upright as possible, and sat with blinking eyes.
"I want to know what I am sure you know, and what I am sure everybody knows, except me. What were they doing there tonight, and what was the quarrel between Mr. Vanrevel and my father that had to do with Mr. Gray?"
Mrs. Tanberry gazed earnestly into the girl's face. After a long time she said in a gentle voice:
"Child, has it come to matter that much?"
"Yes," said Miss Betty.
