"Sing!" cried old Mother Merry, with an authority against which I instinctively rebelled, though I had seen the object of it for only a couple of minutes. "You feel like it, and I feel like hearing you.

SING!"

The woman's throat throbbed. She stopped just where she was and threw out her arms. Then she smiled and then--she sang.

I have heard Guilbert, I have heard Loftus, but neither of them ever made my temples throb, my heart swell, or my breath falter as this woman did. That she chose the saddest of all sad songs--she who a moment before seemed hardly able to contain her laughter--could not quite account for this effect; nor the fact that these flights of tragic melody rose from out a misery which no laughter could cover up.

It was genius, great and wonderful genius, misdirected and lost, but still heaven-given and worthy of an artist's recognition. As she sang on I yielded her mine, for my heart swelled almost to bursting, and when she had finished and stood poised, rapt, ecstatic, enthralled with her own melody and beautiful with her own feeling, I found my cheeks wet with tears. I had never wept at anyone's singing before.

"Dance!" came in fresh command from the miserable hag behind me.

I had forgotten Mother Merry.

But the raised face I was contemplating drooped forward at these words, and the arms, which had moved all through the singing, fell inert.

"I have no strength," she wailed. Yet in another instant she was swaying, turning, rising, and falling in mazes of movement so full of grace and charm that I scarcely missed the music which should have accompanied them. It was more than a dance: it was a drama; instinctively I followed her feelings and knew as by a species of revelation what each motion was meant to convey. I watched her as I would some charmed being; for the marks of care had vanished from her features, and the lips, which had been drawn and white, burned redly, and the hair, which had hung in dishevelled locks, now blew out in live curls, athrill with pa.s.sion and breathing forth rapture and love.

Suddenly she paused. Mother Merry had pointed me out with the words:

"The gentleman is looking at you."

Instantly her beauty shrivelled and vanished. Her hands went up to her face; and she crouched like a lost thing against the floor.

"No, no!" she wailed, and would have fled, but Mother Merry forced her back.

"The gentleman wants something. He wants a drop of what you gave the other one that night. You remember, the night the boys slid away and left us to the police."

Instinctively her right hand went to her bosom and her eyes looked wildly into mine. Suddenly she saw the moisture on my cheeks.

"Oh! he's been crying, Mother Merry, been crying. Perhaps now I can cry, too. I should like to; it's better than singing." And she broke into sobs so violent that I stood aghast in mingled pity and amazement.

Just then the policeman looked in.

"How now?" he cried. "What's up?"

My impulse was to shield her from this fellow's curiosity. Motioning him away, I whispered in her ear:

"You haven't said whether you would give me what I have come for."

"What is that?"

"A drop of what kills trouble; kills it at once, instantly, and forever. I am wretched, heartbroken." (G.o.d knows I spoke the truth.)

She stared, and what remained of light in her face went out.

"I have none--now," she hoa.r.s.ely a.s.sured me.

"Then get it where you got that."

"I cannot. I got that when it was easier to smile, and dancing was not followed by dreadful pain. Now--" She tried to laugh as she had a few moments before, but her jocund mood had pa.s.sed. One would never imagine from her present aspect that she had just floated through the room an embodiment of joyousness and grace.

"You gave it all to him, _all_?" I questioned.

The emphasis did not strike her, or rather it a.s.sumed a different place in her mind than on my lips. "To him?" she repeated, shrinking back with evident distrust.

"Yes," I pursued, following her and speaking in her ear; "the sailor lad who took it away from here that night. Poison--prussic acid--a phial you could hide in your hand."

She broke into laughter, not the expression of joy, but that of defiance if not derision. She was but a common woman now.

"Sailor lad!" she repeated, and laughed again.

I felt that the moment had come for speaking the significant word.

Looking around and seeing that Mother Merry was not too near, I whispered:

"A sailor lad with a gentleman's name. You know the name; so do I--Leighton Gillespie."

She had not expected me to go so far. Smothering a frightened cry, she struck her hands together over her head and dashed towards the door by which she had come in. Mother Merry stood before it laughing. Then she turned to escape by the street; but there she was confronted by the heavy form of the policeman, who had thrust himself across the threshold. Crouching, she folded her arms over her breast and made a plunge for the door communicating with the den beyond. It opened under her pressure and she fell gasping and bruised upon the threshold. I hastened to her aid, but she was up before I could reach her.

"I don't know the man you talk of; I don't know you. I am a free woman! a--free--woman!--" she shrieked, bounding to the trap and opening it. As she uttered the last words she swung herself down. I tried to stop her, but she was as agile as a cat. As I leaned over the hole I saw her disappearing among a confusion of oozy piles; and shuddering with the chill of the mephitic air that came pouring up, I drew back.

"That's the end of her for to-day," muttered the harsh voice of Mother Merry behind me. "When she's like that you might as well make for other quarters. But you've had your money's worth. You've heard her sing; you've seen her dance. It's not every man can boast of that.

She's shy of men; at least she'll never sing for them."

Perhaps I looked surprised; perhaps I only looked dejected.

Misinterpreting the expression, whichever it was, old Mother Merry sidled up closer, and, as I made for the door, whispered with a leer:

"If you really want what you say, come back in a week; and if I can get it you shall have it."

I gave her another coin.

"What do you call that girl?" I asked, with my hand on the latch.

The money made her loquacious.

"Millie," she answered. "That is not how she speaks it, but it's how we all call her."

It was, then, as I had thought. I had seen and listened to Mille-fleurs, the woman to whom Leighton Gillespie had addressed those appealing lines.

XXII

A DISAGREEABLE HOUR WITH A DISAGREEABLE MAN

This interview made an astonishing impression upon me. Never had I supposed myself capable of being stirred to such sympathy by a being so degraded as this wonderful Mille-fleurs.

Was it the contrast between her genius and the conditions under which that genius had shown itself? Possibly. Or was it that a recognition of the latent sweetness underlying her wild nature had caused a feeling of rebellion against the degradation into which a creature of such amazing possibilities had fallen?

Whatever it was, I was conscious of a haunting sense of regret such as had followed few experiences in my life, and began to look upon the man who could make use of such a ruin of womanhood for the obtaining of a deadly drug, with something deeper and more active than mere distrust.