He walked up the semi-circle and returned. This time he moved suddenly forward, lifting his head. It seemed to him that a sound--an odd sound--came from the bedroom above the parlour, a room he knew to be Mrs. Randolph's.

At first the sound, owing to the superior masonry of the walls, was m.u.f.fled; but, gradually, Thorpe's hearing, naturally acute, and abnormally sensitive at the moment, distinguished the oral evidence of a scuffle, then the half-stifled notes of angry and excited voices. He listened a moment longer. The sounds increased in volume. There was a sudden sharp note, quickly hushed. Thorpe hesitated no longer. If the house of a man whose guest he had been were invaded by thieves, and perhaps murderers, it was clearly his duty to render a.s.sistance, apart from more personal reasons.

He took out his pistol, c.o.c.ked it, then vaulted through the window, and groping his way to a door opened it and found himself in the kitchen entry. A taper burned in a cup of oil; and guided by the feeble light he ran rapidly up the stair.

He opened the door at the head, paused a a moment and listened intently.

The house teemed with m.u.f.fled sounds; but they fell from above, and through closed doors, and from one room. Suddenly the hand that held the pistol fell to his side. The colour dropped from his face, and he drew back. Was he close upon the Randolph skeleton? Had he not better steal out as he had come, refusing to consider what the strange sounds proceeding from the room of that strange woman might mean? There were no signs of burglars anywhere. A taper burned in this hall, likewise, and on the table beside it was a gold card-receiver. There had been a heavy rainfall during the evening, but there was no trace of muddy boots on the red velvet carpet.

Then, as he hesitated, there rang out a shriek, so loud, so piercing, so furious, that Thorpe, animated only by the instinct to give help where help was wanted, dashed down the hall and up the stair three steps at a time. Before he reached the top, there was another shriek, this time abrupt, as if cut short by a man's hand. He reached Mrs. Randolph's room and flung open the door. But he did not cross the threshold.

The room flared with light. The bedding was torn into strips and scattered about. Every fragile thing the room contained was in ruins and littered the carpet. And in their midst, held down by Mr. Randolph and his servant, Cochrane, was a struggling, gurgling, biting thing which Thorpe guessed rather than knew was the mother of Nina Randolph. Her weak evil face was swollen and purple, its brutality, so decently cloaked in normal conditions, bulging from every muscle. Her ragged hair hung in scant locks about her protruding eyes. Over her mouth was the broad hand of the man, Cochrane. Mrs. Rinehardt, her face flushed and her dress in disorder, stood by the mantel crying and wringing her hands.

Thorpe's brain received the picture in one enduring flash. He was dimly conscious of a cry from unseen lips, and the vanishing train of a woman's gown. And then Mr. Randolph looked up. He relaxed his hold and got to his feet. His face was ghastly, and covered with great globes of sweat.

"Thorpe!" he gasped. "You! Oh, go! go!"

Thorpe closed the door, his fascinated gaze returning for a second to the Thing on the floor. It no longer struggled. It had become suddenly quiet, and was laughing and muttering to itself.

He left the house, and walked out of the park and city, and toward the Presidio. It was a long walk, over sand drifts and rocks, and through thickets whose paths he had forgotten. The cold stars gave little light, for the wind drove a wrack aslant them; and when the colder dawn came, greying everything, the flowers that looked so brilliant in the sunlight, the heavy drooping trees, the sky above, he found himself climbing a high sand hill, with no apparent purpose but to get to the top; a cut about its base would have shortened the journey. He reached the summit, and saw the grey swinging ocean, the brown forts in their last sleep.

He sat down, and traced figures on the sand with his stick. Chaos had been in him; but the tide had fallen, and his thoughts were shaping themselves coherently. Nina Randolph was the daughter of a madwoman, and the seeds were in her. Her strange moods, her tragic despair, her hints of an approaching fate, her att.i.tude to himself, were legible at last.

And Miss Hathaway knew, and had tried to warn him. Doubtless others knew, but the secret had been well kept.

He was filled with bitterness and dull disgust, and his heart and brain were leaden. The mad are loathsome things; and the vision of Nina, foaming and hideous and shrieking, rose again and again.

That pa.s.sed; but he saw her without illusion, without idealisation. She had been the one woman whose faults were entrancing, whose genuine temperament would have atoned for as many more. She seemed now a very ordinary, bright, moody, erratic, seductive young person who was making the most of life before she disappeared into a padded cell. He wondered why he had not preferred Miss Hathaway, or Mrs. Earle, or Miss McDermott. He had not, and concluded that her first influence had been her only one, and that his imagination had done the rest.

The sunrise gun boomed from the Presidio. The colours of dawn were on horizon and water. He rose and walked rapidly over the hills and levels; and when he reached his room, he went to bed and slept.

XVI

At two o'clock, just after Thorpe had breakfasted, Mr. Randolph's card was brought to him, and he went at once into the general sitting-room.

No one but Mr. Randolph occupied it at the moment. He was sitting listlessly on the edge of a chair, staring out of the window. Commonly the triggest of men, his face to-day was unshaven, and he looked as if he had not been out of his clothes for forty-eight hours. And he looked as if he had been picked up in the arms of Time, and flung across the unseen gulf into the greyness and feebleness of age.

As he rose mechanically, Thorpe took his hand in a strong clasp, forgetting himself for the moment.

Mr. Randolph did not return the pressure. He withdrew his hand hurriedly, and sat down.

"An explanation is due you," he said, and even his voice was changed.

"You have stumbled upon an unhappy family secret."

Thorpe explained how he had come to enter the house.

"I supposed that it was something of the sort, or rather Cochrane did; he found the window and lower door open. It was a kind and friendly act.

I appreciate the motive." He paused a moment, then went on, "As I said just now, an explanation is due you, if explanation is necessary. As you know, I had recognised that as Nina's right--to speak when she saw fit.

That is the reason I did not explain the other day--I usually manage to have her in the country at such times," he added, irrelevantly.

"Such attacks are always more or less unexpected, I suppose." Thorpe hardly knew what to say.

Mr. Randolph fumbled at his hat, "More or less."

"Were any other members of her family--similarly afflicted?"

"Her father and mother were well-conducted people. I know nothing of any further antecedents."

"It sometimes skips a generation," said Thorpe, musingly.

Mr. Randolph brought his hand close above his eyes, and pressed his lips together. He opened his mouth twice, as if to speak, before he articulated, "Sometimes, not always."

Thorpe rose abruptly and walked to the window, then returned, and stood before Mr. Randolph.

"And Nina?" he demanded, peremptorily. "What of her?"

Mr. Randolph pressed his hand convulsively against his face.

Thorpe turned white; his knees shook. He went out and returned with some brandy. "Here," he said. "Let us drink this and brace up and have it out. We are not children."

Mr. Randolph drank the brandy. Then he replied, "She is on the way. In a few years she will be as you saw her mother last night; no power on earth can save her. I would give my wretched failure of a life, I would burn at the stake--but I can do nothing."

"Perhaps I can. I intend to marry her."

"No! No! She, who is stronger than I, would never have permitted it. She told me that this morning. For the matter of that I am her amba.s.sador to-day. She charged me to make it clear to you that she expected you to stand by your part of the compact. She is immovable; I know her."

"Tell her that I will take no messages at second hand, not even from you. Unless she sees and comes to an understanding with me, I shall consider myself engaged to her, and shall announce it."

"Do you mean to say that you would marry her, knowing what you do?"

"I would rather I had known it when I first came. I should have avoided her, or left the place. But I gave her my word, voluntarily, that nothing, no matter what, should interfere with my determination to marry her, and nothing shall."

"You _are_ an Englishman!" said Mr. Randolph, bitterly. "I wish I were as good a one; but I am not. My record is clean enough, I suppose; but I am a weak man in some respects, and I started out all wrong. I wish to G.o.d that everything were straight, Thorpe; I would rather you married her than any man I have ever known."

"Thank you. Will you arrange an interview for me?"

Mr. Randolph fidgeted, "I tell you what I think, Thorpe; you had better wait a little. She is in no mood to listen to reason, nor for love-making--take my word for that. I have never seen her in so black a mood. But women are naturally buoyant, and she particularly so.

Go and take your trip through the State. Let it last--say two months, and then appear unexpectedly at Redwoods. I do not give you any encouragement,--in all conscience you ought not to want any; but I think that under the circ.u.mstances I suggest your final interview will at least not be an unpleasant one. Nina lives an out of door life there and is with the other girls most of the time."

"Very well. I don't know but that I prefer it that way. Meanwhile, will you tell her all that I have said?--except that I would rather I had known it sooner."

Mr. Randolph rose and gathered up his hat and gloves. "I will tell her,"

he said. "Good-bye. You are badly broken up, but you may be thankful that you are in your shoes, not mine."

XVII