"Say it!" Adrea interrupted impatiently.

She glanced at Paul. He made a movement as though to quit the room, but Adrea prevented him. "You need not go!" she said. "Anything that is to be said can be said to you as well as to me. I prefer to have no secrets! You were going to say something to me," she added, turning to her companion.

"Yes! I have no objection to say it before Mr. de Vaux. I simply want to ask you whether you consider him a proper visitor in this house?"

"I choose it! I am mistress here!"

For a moment an angry reply seemed to quiver upon the woman's lips, but it died away.

"You are right! I thank you for reminding me of it," she said quietly.

"And yet, Adrea, hear me! You are doing an evil thing! Was your father's murder so light a thing to you that you can join hands with his murderer's son? Remember that day! Think of your father lying across that chamber floor, stricken dead in a single moment by Martin de Vaux--by his father! It is not seemly that you two should stand there, hand in hand! It is not seemly for you to be under the same roof! It is horrible!"

There was a moment's silence. Then Adrea threw open the door, and pointed to it.

"Go!" she ordered coldly. "You have had your say, and that is my answer! You were my father's friend; I believe that he loved you! It was for his sake that I offered you shelter! It was for his sake that I brought you here! But, remember this: if you wish to stay with me, let me never hear another word from you on this subject!"

She went out silently. Adrea closed the door, and turned round with all the hardness fading swiftly out of her features. A moment before there had been a look of the tigress in her eyes; and Paul, watching her, had shuddered. It was gone now. She came close up to Paul, and led him to a chair.

"Was I very undignified?" she said, laughing. "I am afraid I was. I was very angry!"

He shook his head. "You were not undignified," he said, "but you were very severe. I think that she will go away."

Adrea's face hardened again. "I do not care! I would hate the dearest friend I had on earth who tried to come between us. Oh! Paul, Paul!

don't you feel as I do; as though the world were empty, and my mind swept bare of memories,--as though there were no background to it all, nothing save you and I, and our love?"

Paul drew her to him. For him, at that moment, there was no past nor any future. The dreamy _abandon_ of her manner seemed to have raised an echo within him.

"Listen! What is that?" Adrea exclaimed suddenly.

There was the ring of a horse's hoofs in the avenue, and immediately afterwards a loud peal at the bell. Paul and Adrea looked at one another breathlessly. Who could it be?

The outer door was opened and closed, and then quick steps pa.s.sed across the hall. The drawing-room door was thrown open, and Arthur de Vaux, pale and splashed with mud from head to foot, stood upon the threshold.

CHAPTER XX

"THE NEW, STRONG WINE OF LOVE"

The situation, although it was only a brief one, was for a moment possessed of a singularly dramatic force. The grouping and the colouring in that dimly lit drawing-room were all that an artist could desire, and the facial expressions bordered upon the tragic. Of all men in the world, his brother was the last whom of his own choosing Paul would have wished to see.

There was a brief silence. Arthur, breathless through his hasty entrance, could only stand there upon the threshold, his face white to the lips, and his eyes flashing with pa.s.sionate anger and dismay.

To him the situation was more than painful; it was horrible. To have believed ill of Paul from hearsay would have been impossible; his confidence in his elder brother had been unbounded. He had always looked up to him as the mirror of everything that was honorable and chivalrous. Even now, perhaps there might be some explanation--some partial explanation, at any rate. Paul was standing back amongst the shadows, and his face was only barely visible. Doubtless it was only surprise which held him silent. In a moment he would speak, and explain everything. It was this thought which loosened Arthur's tongue.

"Paul," he cried, and stepping forward into the room, "and Adrea! You here, and together! Tell me what it means! I have a right to know. I will know."

He had determined to be cool, to bear himself like a man, but their silence maddened him. Adrea, it is true, showed no signs of guilt or confusion in her cold, questioning face. But the deceit, if deceit there had been, was not hers. It was Paul who was responsible to him, and it was Paul who should have spoken--Paul, who stood there with a hidden face, a silent, immovable figure.

"Are you stricken dumb?" he cried angrily. "You can see who I am, can't you, Paul? Speak to me! Tell me whether there is any truth in these stories which are flying about the county, with no one to contradict them."

What might have been the tragedy of the situation vanished for Paul at the sound of his brother's words. After all, it was not the just anger of a deceived man with which he was confronted, but the empty scream of a boy's pa.s.sion. Arthur's infatuation had but skimmed the surface of his light nature. He was p.r.i.c.ked, not wounded. Yet, though in a sense this realization brought its relief, Paul felt humbled into the dust. He was actually conscious of his own humiliation. So far as a nature such as his could be conventional, he had become so in deference to the opinion of those who looked up to him as the head of a great house, and of whom much was to be expected, both socially and politically. What must become of that opinion now, Arthur's words too plainly foreshadowed.

He moved forward into the centre of the room, and faced his brother.

There was only a small table between them.

"I do not know who sent you here, Arthur," he said, "or what reports you have heard, but it seems to me, that any explanation you may wish had better be deferred until our return home."

Arthur struck the table violently with his riding-whip, "I will not wait!" he cried. "Here is the proper place! I have been deceived and cajoled by--by--you, Adrea, and by my own brother! It is shameful! You hypocrite, Paul! You, to come up to London, and solemnly lecture me about a dancing girl. You d----d hypocrite!"

Before his pa.s.sion, Paul's grave and steadfast silence gained an added dignity. Adrea, with a red spot burning on her cheeks, sailed between the two.

"Arthur, you are mad," she said, turning suddenly upon him, with her eyes afire. "Have I ever deceived you? Have I ever pretended to care for you? Bah, no! You are only an unformed, hysterical boy. Before, you were indifferent to me. Now, I am very quickly growing to hate you! Begone! Leave this house!"

He stood quite still, white and trembling. The scorn of her words had fallen like ice upon his heart. Then he turned, and groped for the door, as though there were a mist before his eyes.

"I suppose you are quite right," he faltered out. "I didn't see it quite the same way, that's all. I understand now."

The door opened and shut. In a moment or two the sound of his horse's hoofs were heard in the avenue, growing rapidly less distinct as he galloped away into the darkness. To Paul it sounded like the knell of his self-respect, but Adrea felt only the relief. Her eyes, full of soft invitation, sought his; but he did not move. He stood there, silent and motionless, with his face turned towards the window. Those dying sounds meant so much to him,--so much that she could never understand.

The consciousness of her near presence suddenly disturbed him. He turned round. Her warm breath was upon his cheek, and her white arms were twined about his neck.

"Paul," she whispered, "do not look so miserable, please! Come and talk to me."

Her arms tightened around him. He looked down at her with a peculiar helplessness. Their light weight seemed to him like a chain of iron weighing him down! down! down!

He had told himself that he had come to bid her farewell; that Father Adrian's words, vague though they were, yet had a definite meaning, and were worthy of his regard. But at that moment their memory was like a dying echo in his ears. This first pa.s.sion of his life was strong upon him, and everything else was weak. The future was suddenly bounded for him by a pair of white, clinging arms, and a dark, beautiful face pressed close to his. He saw no more; he could see no further.

CHAPTER XXI

"ADREA'S DIARY"

"By love stalks hate, his brother and his mate."

I am scarcely calm enough to write! Yet I must write! My heart is full; my very pulses are throbbing with excitement! What is it that has happened? It is all confused in my mind. Let me try and set it down clearly; then perhaps I shall be able to see my way.

Yesterday it seemed to me that my being was all too small for one pa.s.sion. Now it holds two! The one, perhaps, intensifies the other.

That is possible, for they are opposites, and one has grown out of the other. Now I cannot tell which is the stronger, the love or the hate.

I love one man, and I hate another. Perhaps I should say I love one man because I hate another. You, my dumb confidant, may be trusted with names, so I will be clearer still. I love Paul de Vaux, and I hate Father Adrian!

Oh! that he should have dared! that he should have dared to speak so to me! If only Paul had been there, he should have beaten him. If I had had the strength and the means, I would have killed him where he stood, and silenced those thin, cruel lips for ever. I could have stabbed him to the heart, and my hand would never have faltered.