High Noon Part 4

For answer, Paul turned again and knelt at the fat man's side. He inserted his hand skilfully over the unconscious man's heart, and then rose to his feet again.

"No," he said, almost with a laugh. "Just knocked him out; that is all. He will be all right directly, and I fancy he will be glad to walk away without a.s.sistance. I imagine he is not a character who would care for much fuss and attention at this time of the night."

Again Paul drew near to the girl and peered gravely and keenly, but at the same time with all deference, into her face.

"I think," he said quietly, "that it will be better for you to walk away while we are still undisturbed. If you will allow me, I will accompany you toward the hotel. If I may be permitted to say so, it is hardly fitting that a lady carrying so much property about with her should be strolling here unattended."

His tones were so kind and cheering that the lady smiled back at him.

"At least," she said, "you are a very st.u.r.dy escort."

She walked beside him without saying anything more, apparently satisfied to be in his charge.

Paul said not another word except, "This is the way," and then, guiding the girl through the trees, he reached the main path and helped her to step over the low iron railing; thence he piloted her in silence until the hotel was in sight.

As the building loomed up in the darkness, Paul stopped, and said earnestly:

"I trust you will permit me to wait and see you safely on your road.

Apparently one never knows what may happen, and, believe me, I have no wish you should suffer a second adventure such as the one through which you have just pa.s.sed."

"Thank you," said the girl in a scarcely audible voice. Then turning towards him, she stretched out her hand impulsively.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you. I cannot tell you how much I thank you. You are a gentleman. It is not necessary to ask you as a gentleman not to mention to anyone in the world what you have seen or heard to-night."

Paul bowed.

"You may trust me absolutely," he said. "I give you my word of honour that not one single word of this shall pa.s.s my lips. But may I say something else? May I be allowed to make an offer of help? I have money, I have many resources at my command. I would willingly pledge myself to serve you in any way. I should be only too proud, too glad to help."

"No, no!" cried the girl, sharply, with a piteous little gesture and a note almost of agony in her voice.

The distress in her tones was so real that Paul made no further effort to persuade her. So, lifting his hat, he stood waiting for her to take leave of him. Once more she stretched out her hand impulsively, and he took it in his own.

"Thank you," she said, in the same low, earnest voice, "thank you again and again." Then she turned and walked quickly away.

Paul strolled slowly back to the hotel, in a more perplexed state of mind than before. Was it possible that he had stepped suddenly into the midst of some tragic mystery? What sorrow, what terror had made the eyes of the girl so wistful and so beckoning?

That she might be suffering some profound grief, or might be the centre of some bit of distressing family history, might well be conceived. But what extraordinary combination of inappropriate events could possibly cause her to seek to buy quittance of such a man as he had left insensible?

He sat far into the night, turning all these things over in his mind.

Obviously it was not some question of personal honour which involved the necessity of maintaining some sordid and disgraceful secret, or the lady would not be risking her personal safety, and to a great extent her reputation, by being present at such a rendezvous.

Whatever it might be--the mystery which embraced her--Paul determined, whether it pleased her or not, that he would range himself on her side.

To do this, however, it would be necessary to discover what the mystery was, and he proceeded to set up and then demolish a thousand and one theories to account for her plight; and he was still far from the solution when he fell asleep.

CHAPTER VII

Again the mid-day sun was gilding the canopy of his couch when Paul awoke. He sprang up and dressed hurriedly. That day he must discover who the lady was.

Renewed inquiries of Monsieur Jacques yielded no further information.

Rose-red lips and coils of raven hair no longer made on the _maitre d'hotel_ the same impression as in the golden days when the band played dreamy waltzes and das.h.i.+ng gentlemen leaned caressingly over dazzling shoulders.

Of the man he had felled, Paul spoke never a word. Apparently he had vanished as he had come--unknown.

"Truly, Sir Paul, there has been no lady here to answer your description. But stop! A Russian lady perhaps, you say? _Il est possible._" Monsieur Jacques laid a searching finger on his speculative brow. "Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, _peut-etre_. Yes--tall, surely,--a brunette, too, like most of those Russians. She left this morning, quite early."

Paul's heart leaped, only to stop again at the last sentence.

"Left? Where did she go, _mon ami_?" He and Monsieur Jacques were good friends, and Paul knew that his interest, though perhaps unaccountable to the old inn-keeper, was still in safe hands.

"That I do not know. But we shall see what we shall see. One moment, Monsieur."

Calling a porter, the _maitre d'hotel_ gesticulated with him for a moment. Then he returned to where Paul waited impatiently.

"Emil here says that he purchased bookings to Langres for the lady,"

he said.

Langres! Isabella and London were a million miles from Langres at that instant! The memory of that kiss alone remained.

Paul's mind was made up. He would start for Langres that very day. He hurried to his rooms, where Baxter was soon packing his boxes. And then Paul's eye fell on the table, on the picture of Isabella that he had brought with him. She had given him an excellent likeness, in a leather case, the day he came away. Her frank eyes seemed to smile at him amusedly.

Paul pulled himself together.

"I am mad!" he told himself--"to be carried away by a momentary impulse, to forget all for a fancied resemblance!... Paris! Baxter!"

he said curtly, turning to his valet.

And when Paul reached the station it was with the firmest of resolutions to hurry home, stopping only one night in Paris to break the tiresome journey.

"_En voiture!_" the guards sang out, and Paul climbed into his carriage, once more the staid M. P. he thought--But was he? Could he ever be again?

Toward Paris, then, the fast mail bore him rapidly; and at the same time toward Langres. When they reached Bale, Baxter telegraphed to the _Hotel du Rhin_ in Paris for a suite. At Belfort Paul directed him to send another message cancelling the reservation. And--alas for Paul's good resolutions!--at the station of Langres-Marne, a mile from the old cathedral town itself, he left the train, taking only a big Gladstone bag with him, and sent Baxter on alone to Paris, to wait until he should arrive.

Another short journey remained, so in company with the inevitable soldier, priest, and old lady with a huge umbrella, Paul took a seat in one of the open cars of the little rack-and-pinion railway that runs up the steep hill through the apple orchards to the old cathedral city. In a few minutes the train stopped at a miniature station.

It had begun to rain, and Paul was conscious that he was an object of interest as he stood on the steps of the station looking about him in search of a _fiacre_.

No vehicle was in sight, so he set himself to tramp up the hill to the _Hotel de l'Europe_, at which he had stayed long years before, and of which he still entertained a lively recollection of its cleanness and its quaintness.

The _hotel_ slept, and Verdayne heard the bell pealing through the silent house as he stood s.h.i.+vering and waiting on the doorstep.

Presently he heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn and a shock-headed night porter thrust his face out into the damp evening air.