They halted at my door, and there was a firm, deliberate knock. Before I could reply, the handle was turned, and a figure stood upon the threshold.

My little chamber was in darkness, but the clear, cold voice struck a vague note of familiarity.

"I seek Adrea Kiros! Are these her rooms? Are you she?"

I struck a match with trembling fingers, and looked eagerly towards the doorway. A man stood there, dark, stern, and forbidding, looking steadfastly towards me. My memory had not deceived me! It was Father Adrian!

"You have found me out," I said slowly. "Come inside and close the door."

He moved slowly forward, and stood in the middle of the room. His face was as white as marble and as steadfast; but his dark eyes, which seemed to be challenging mine to meet them, were full of smouldering fire. I summoned up all my courage, and threw myself into a low chair, with a little laugh.

"You are not exactly cordial," I said. "If you have anything to say to me, won't you sit down?"

"If I have anything to say to you!" he repeated, and his whole tone seemed vibrating with hardly subdued pa.s.sion. "If I have anything to say to you! Is this your greeting?"

"Why, no, not if you come as a friend! But when you stand and glare at me _comme cela_, what do you expect? Nothing very cordial, surely!"

He advanced a step further towards me. I watched him steadfastly, and I knew that the old madness was not dead. I was glad. It made the struggle between us more even.

"Have I no cause to look at you sternly, Adrea?" he demanded,--"you who deceived us! you who lied to us, to win our aid! Where would you have been now had it not been for me? At Cruta! Would to G.o.d my hand had withered before it had set you free!"

"You are very kind!"

"Girl, are you mad? At Cruta you were thoughtless and gay, but G.o.d knows your heart was pure. Now you are a paid dancing girl!"

I turned upon him suddenly, rising to my full height, and looking him straight in the face. He did not flinch, but a faint colour rose to his forehead as he continued.

"Stop!" I said. "You are talking of those things which you do not understand. You could not possibly understand. You and I are different; we belong to different worlds. The things of your world are not the things of mine. Leave me now, and for ever, and let us go our own ways. We measure things by different quant.i.ties. You are a priest, and very much a priest, and I am a woman, and very much a woman!

For the past I am grateful; for its sake I forget the insults of the present. Now go!"

I knew quite well that he would not take me at my word, nor did he.

"Adrea, I cannot go and lose all knowledge of you for ever," he said sadly. "For my own sake I would say, Would to G.o.d that I could! but it is impossible. Within me there is a voice which whispers 'Fly,' but I cannot; your future is still as dear to me as in the old days. Oh!

Adrea! I have sorrowed and mourned lest our last parting had been for ever, and now, alas! I would that it had been; I would to G.o.d that I had never found you out!"

"You can forget it," I said coldly.

"I can never forget it," he answered fiercely. "Girl! you seem to me sometimes like a scourge! Your memory is a very nightmare of sin! You have brought me nothing but pain and remorse and anguish of heart. For all my suffering there is no brighter side; yet I cannot forget it!"

Despite his fierce words, which for a moment had burned in my ears, I pitied him. In the old days he had been my champion, and it was his hand, together with hers, which had aided my escape from Cruta. So I spoke to him softly.

"I am sorry! As I said, we are of different moulds, and we belong to a different branch of humanity. We are neither of us inclined to change!

Let us go our own ways, and apart!"

He was close by my side now, and his hand was resting on the back of my chair. I laid mine upon it for a moment; it was cold as ice, and shaking. The old madness was upon him indeed.

"You were kind to me at Cruta," I continued. "I do not forget it, and I thank you for it! But we are as far apart as the poles, and we must continue so."

The position between us seemed reversed. He stood by my side, pale and pa.s.sionate, with his clear eyes full of a strange wistfulness.

"All that you say is, in a measure, true," he said in a low tone; "yet do not send me away from you! Some day you may see things differently; some day trouble may come to you, and I may be your helper! There is only one thing: I would have you look upon me as a brother, and I would have you give me a brother's confidence."

"I would gladly be friends with you," I answered, "only do not seek more than I choose to tell you. As for the things you charge me with, there is truth and falsehood in them. It is true that I have earned my living by dancing, but it has been in private only. Of course, you know nothing about it; how should you? But I am not a ballet dancer, as I believe you think."

"You are not upon the stage, then?"

"No! nor do I dance in short skirts! Some day I will give you an exhibition in this room! Now don't look like that," I added quickly; "I was only joking. I would not defile the air around your saintliness for the world! But I want to tell you this: my dancing is recognised as an art. I rank everywhere with the men and women who are called artists, the men and women who are ever striving to realize in some manner a particular ideal of beauty through different channels. The highest development of physical beauty in the human form is in grace of motion. I aim at the beautiful in ill.u.s.trating this. I didn't know it myself until a great painter told me so, but I am beginning to understand. I don't expect you to; you must take it on trust."

"It sounds strange to me, but I do not doubt that there is truth, some truth in it," he admitted gravely.

"You and I look upon life, and all its connections, with different eyes," I continued. "What may seem sin to you, may be justified to me.

Yet I will stoop to answer your unspoken question. As I was at Cruta, so I am now! It may be that I am better, for I have done a good action!"

He held up his hand, but I took no notice.

"I will tell it you. A few days ago, chance brought in my way a most unhappy woman. She had escaped from an odious captivity, only to find herself alone, friendless and penniless in a strange city. The man on whom she had counted for help she could not find. He had given her an address where she might always hear of him. Day by day she inquired there in vain. It may have been through no fault of his, but she was in sore straits."

"Her name?"

"I found her, and brought her home. She lives with me; she is here!"

The door was opening as I spoke, and she entered. They stood face to face, silent with the shock of so sudden a meeting. Then he stepped quickly forward, and, taking her hands, drew her to him. I slipped away, and left them alone together.

CHAPTER XIII

"THE PATH THAT LEADS TO MADMEN'S KINGDOMS"

A north-country storm of rain and wind had suddenly blown up from the sea, and the few remaining followers of the De Vaux hounds were dispersed right and left, making for home with all possible speed. The sky had looked dull and threatening all day long, and with the first shades of twilight the rain had commenced to fall in a sudden torrent.

There had been some little hesitation on the part of the master about drawing this last cover, for the hounds had had a rough day, and the field was small; and directly the storm broke, the horn was blown without hesitation, the pack was re-called, and the huntsman, cracking his whip, started for home at a long, swinging trot. The day's sport was over.

There were only a handful of hors.e.m.e.n waiting outside when the signal was given, and with collars turned up to their ears, and cigars alight, they were very soon riding down the hill to the village whose lights were beginning to twinkle out from the darkness in the valley below. At the cross-roads, Paul, who had been riding in the midst of them, wheeled his horse round and took the road to Vaux Abbey amidst a chorus of farewells.

"Are you going for the Abbey, De Vaux?" Captain Westover asked, reining in his horse. "Better come home with me, and dine! I'll send you back to-night, and they'll look after your mare all right in the stables. Come along!"

Paul shook his head. "I'll get home, thanks!" he answered. "A wetting won't hurt me, and there's only a mile or two of it."

Captain Westover shrugged his shoulders. "Just as you like. My people would be very glad to see you! By the bye, you were to have called last week, weren't you? Lady May was asking where you were this morning! Come and dine to-morrow night!"

"Thanks! Unless I send word over to the contrary, I will, then!

Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

Captain Westover cantered on after the others, and Paul turned off in the opposite direction, riding slowly, with bent head and loose bridle. In his pocket was Adrea's letter, scarcely a week old; and now that the physical excitement of the day was over, his thoughts, as usual, were full of it again. It was an uphill battle that he was fighting! All day long he had been striving to forget it! He had spared neither himself nor his horses in the desperate attempt to reach such a stage of physical exhaustion as should make his mind a blank--as should free it, at any rate, from those torturing memories, and the fierce restlessness which they begat. He had tried his utmost, and he had failed. His pink hunting-coat and tops, immaculate at the start, were covered with thick mud, and his horse (his second mount) was scarcely able to put one foot before the other. Yet he had failed utterly. Hunger and fatigue seemed things far away to him. Wherever he looked--out into the grey mists, which came rolling across the moor, soaking him with moisture, or down into the road, fast becoming a bog, or up into the dim sky--he seemed to see the pages of Adrea's letter standing out before him, word for word, phrase for phrase. Every sentence of it seemed to him as vivid and real as though it had been spoken in his ears; nay, he could almost fancy that he saw the great tears welling slowly out of those soft, dark eyes, and could hear the pa.s.sionate quiver in her faltering tones. Day by day it had been a desperate struggle with him to resist the mad desire which prompted him to order a dogcart, drive to the nearest town, and catch the mail train to London. Beyond that--how she would receive him, what he would say to her--everything was chaos; he dared not trust himself to think about it.