This time he made no more objections, but went into the adjoining room, my boudoir. The key was in the door; I turned it in the lock, s.n.a.t.c.hed it out, and dropped it into a bowl of flowers on a table close by. That done, I flew out of the drawing-room into the little entrance hall, and opened the front door. There stood Raoul, his face dead white, and very stern in the light of the hall lamp. I had never seen him like that before.

"I know why you're here," I began quickly, before he could speak. "Count G.o.densky told me what he said to you. I--hoped you would come."

"Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?" he asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice.

"No. For I hadn't deceived you," I answered. "I haven't deceived you now. If you loved me, you'd believe me, Raoul."

I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me draw him into the house.

"For G.o.d's sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can," he said.

"It's death to lose it. I came here wanting to die."

"After you'd killed me, as you said?"

"Perhaps. I couldn't keep away. I had to come. If you have any explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is."

"You know me, and you know G.o.densky--yet you need an explanation of anything evil said of me by him?" In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a power had jealousy over his better self.

"Don't play with me!" he exclaimed. "I can't bear it. You sent me away.

Yet you had an appointment with G.o.densky. You took him into your carriage; and now--"

"Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should have packed her off by herself, alone, that I--might be alone with you.

Oh, Raoul, it isn't _possible_ you believe that I could lie to you for G.o.densky's sake--a man like that! If I'd cared for him, why shouldn't I have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do you think?"

"I don't think; I'm not able to think. I can only feel," he answered.

"Then--feel sure that I love you--no man but you--now and always."

"Oh, Maxine!" he stammered. "Am I a fool, or wise, to let myself believe you?"

"You are wise," I answered, as firmly as if I deserved the full faith I was claiming from him as my right. "If you wouldn't believe, without my insisting, without my explaining and defending myself, I'd tell you nothing. But you _do_ believe, just because you love me--I see it in your face, and thank G.o.d for it. So I'll tell you this. Count G.o.densky hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you because he thinks I love you. He--" I paused for a second. A wild thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was G.o.densky, not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of G.o.densky's to revenge himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality, innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened afterward.

It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd helped to set, G.o.densky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too, was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would.

All these thoughts rushed through my head in a second; and I think that Raoul could hardly have noticed the pause before I began to speak again.

"He--G.o.densky--would do anything to part you and me," I said. "There's no plot too sly and vile for him to conceive and carry out against me--and you. No lie too base for him to tell you--or others--about me.

He sent me a letter at the theatre--soon after you'd left me the first time. In it, he said that I must give him a few minutes after the play, unless I wanted some dreadful harm to come to _you_--something concerning your career. That frightened me, though I might have guessed it was only a trick. Indeed, I did guess, but I couldn't be sure, so I saw him. I didn't want you to know--I tell you that frankly, Raoul.

Because I'd told you not to come home with me, I hoped you wouldn't find out that I meant to let Count G.o.densky drive part of the way back with me and Marianne. I ran the risk, and--the very thing happened which I ought to have known would happen. As for what he had to tell me, it was nothing; only vague hints of trouble from which he, as one of an inner circle, might save you, if I--would be grateful enough."

"The scoundrel!" broke out Raoul, convinced now, his eyes blazing.

"I'll--"

He stopped suddenly. But I knew what had been on his lips to say. He meant to send a challenge to Count G.o.densky. I must prevent him from doing that.

"No, Raoul," I said, as if he had finished his sentence, "you musn't fight. For my sake, you mustn't. Don't you see, it's just what he'd like best? It would be a way of doing me the most dreadful injury. Think of the scandal. Oh, you _will_ think of it, when you're cooler. For you, I would not fear much, for I know what a swordsman you are, and what a shot--far superior to G.o.densky, and with right on your side. But I would fear for myself. Promise you won't bring this trouble upon me."

"I promise," he answered. "Oh, my darling, what wouldn't I promise you, to atone for my brutal injustice to an angel? How thankful I am that I came to you to-night! I meant not to come. I was afraid of myself, and what I might do. But at last I couldn't hold out against the something that seemed forcing me here in spite of all resistance. Do you forgive me?"

"As a reward for your promise," I said, smiling at him through tears that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. "Now are you happy again?" I asked.

"Yes, I'm happy," he said. "Though on the way to this house I didn't dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in this world. And even at your gate--" He stopped suddenly, and his face changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn't mean to go on, I could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my gate.

"Even at the gate--what?" I asked.

"Nothing. I'm sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust you now, by not speaking of that."

But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in this moment of exaltation he did not doubt.

"Yes, speak of it," I said. "All the more because it is nothing. For it _can_ be nothing."

"I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about G.o.densky, by not allowing you to explain this other thing," insisted poor, loyal, repentant Raoul. "Then--at the time--it made all the rest seem worse, a thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see through rose-coloured ones."

"I'd rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles.

You must tell me what you're thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not yours."

"Well--if you will know. But, remember, darling, I'm going to put it out of my mind. I'll ask you no questions, I'll only--tell you the thing itself. As I said, I didn't come here directly after seeing G.o.densky get into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman--and I thought of the Seine."

"Oh--you must indeed have been mad!"

"I was. But that something saved me--the something that drove me to find you. I walked here, by roundabout ways, but always coming nearer and nearer, as if being drawn into a whirlpool. At last, I was in this street, on the side opposite your house. I hadn't made up my mind yet, that I would try to see you. I didn't know what I would do. I stood still, and tried to think. It was very black, in the angle between two garden walls where the big plane tree sprouts up, you know. n.o.body who didn't expect to find a man would have noticed me in the darkness. I hadn't been there for two minutes when a man turned the corner, walking very fast. As he pa.s.sed the street lamp just before reaching the garden wall, I saw him plainly--not his face, but his figure, and he was young and well dressed, in travelling clothes. I thought he looked like an Englishman. He went straight to your gate and rang. A moment later someone, I couldn't see who, opened the gate and let him in.

Involuntarily I took a step forward, with the idea of following--of pushing my way in to see who he was and who had opened the gate. But I wasn't quite mad enough to act like a cad. The gate shut. Oh, Maxine, there were evil and cruel thoughts in my mind, I confess it to you--but how they made me suffer! I stood as if I were turned to stone, and I only wished that I might be, for a stone knows no pain. Just then a motor cab going slowly along the street stopped in front of your gate.

There were two women in it. I could see them by the light of the street lamp, though not as plainly as I'd seen the man, and they appeared to be arguing very excitedly about something. Whatever it was, it must have been in some way concerned with you, or your affairs, because they were tremendously interested in the house. They both looked out, and one pointed several times. Even if I'd intended to go in, I wouldn't have gone while they were there. But the very fact that they _were_ there roused me out of the kind of lethargy of misery I'd fallen into. I wondered who they were, and if they meant you harm or good. When they had driven away I made up my mind that I would see you if I could. I tried the gate, and found it unlocked. I walked in, and--there were lights in these windows. I knew you couldn't have gone to bed yet, though you'd said you were so tired. There was death in my heart then, for you and for me, Maxine, for--the gate hadn't opened again, and--"

"I know what you thought!" I broke in, my heart beating so now that my voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm. "You said to yourself, 'It was Maxine who let the man in. He is with her now. I shall find them together.'"

"Yes," Raoul admitted. "But I didn't try the handle of the door, as I had of the gate. I rang. I couldn't bring myself to take you unawares."

"Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you ring?" I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the experience. I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, though he strove to lash them back. I dared not bring Ivor out from the other room, if he were still there. He was too handsome, too young, too attractive in every way. If Raoul had been jealous of Count G.o.densky, whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my house after midnight? I was thankful I hadn't taken Ivor's advice and introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have listened to no explanations. He and I would never have arrived at the understanding we had reached now. And not having been frank at first, I must be secret to the end.)

The very asking of such a bold question--"Do you think I let a man in, and hid him?" helped my cause with Raoul.

"No," he said, "I can't think it. I won't, and don't think it. And you need tell me nothing. I love you. And so help me G.o.d, I won't distrust you again!"

Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint sound in the next room. He was there still.

Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, saying, "Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in,"

I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover the sound if it should come again.

"Oh, Raoul!" I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I surprised him. "You're taking this too seriously. A thousand times I thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but--after all, _were_ they so much against me? You seem to think I am the only young woman in this house. Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it's true. But I have a _femme de chambre_ and a _cuisiniere_, both under twenty-five, both pretty, and both engaged to be married." (This was true. Ah, what a comfort to speak the truth to him!) "Doesn't it occur to you that, at this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the seat under the old yew arbour? Can't you imagine how they started and tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate and came up the path?"

"Forgive me!" murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again.

"Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?"

"Leave them in peace, by all means."

"The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt. Both Therese and Annette are good little girls."