The Knave of Diamonds Part 33

Then Lucas turned again to Anne. "Drink this," he said. "It will revive you."

She groped for the gla.s.s he held towards her, but trembled so much that she could not take it.

"Let me," he said, and put it himself to her lips.

She drank slowly, shuddering, her teeth chattering against the gla.s.s.

"Lay your head down upon the cus.h.i.+on," he said then, "and shut your eyes.

You will be better soon."

"You--you won't go?" she managed to whisper.

"Why, no," he said. "It's for your sake I've come. I guess I'm a fixture for so long as you want me."

She breathed a sigh of relief and lay back.

A long time pa.s.sed. Anne lay motionless with closed eyes, too crushed for thought. And Lucas Errol watched beside her, grave and patient and still.

Suddenly there came a sound, piercing the silence, a sound that made Anne start upright in wild terror.

"What is it? What is it?"

Instantly and rea.s.suringly Lucas's hand clasped hers. "Don't be afraid!"

he said. "They are moving him to another room, that's all."

She sank back, shuddering, her face hidden. The sound continued, seeming to come nearer--the sound of a man's voice shrieking horribly for help, in piercing accents of terror that might have come from a torture-chamber. Suddenly the yells became articulate, resolved into words: "Anne! Anne! Anne!" in terrible crescendo.

She sprang up with a sharp cry.

But on the instant the man beside her spoke. "Anne, you are not to go."

She paused irresolute. "I must! I must! He is calling me!"

"You are not to go," he reiterated, and for the first time she heard the dominant note in his voice. "Come here, child! Come close to me! It will soon be over."

Her irresolution pa.s.sed like a cloud. She looked down, saw his blue eyes s.h.i.+ning straight up at her, kind still, but compelling. And she dropped upon her knees beside him and hid her face upon his shoulder, with the cry of, "Help me! Help me! I can't bear it!"

He folded his arms about her as though he had been a woman, and held her fast.

Long after the awful sounds had died away Anne knelt there, sobbing, utterly unstrung, all her pride laid low, herself no more than a broken, agonised woman. But gradually, from sheer exhaustion, her sobs became less anguished, till at length they ceased. A strange peace, wholly unaccountable, fell gently upon her torn spirit. But even then it was long before she moved. She felt an overwhelming reluctance to withdraw herself from the shelter of those quiet arms.

"What must you think of me?" she whispered at last, her face still hidden.

"My dear," he said, "I understand."

He did not offer to release her, but as she moved she found herself free, she found herself able to look into his face.

"I shall never forget your goodness to me," she said very earnestly.

He smiled a little, after a fas.h.i.+on she did not wholly comprehend. "My dear Lady Carfax! You underrate friends.h.i.+p when you say a thing like that. Sit down, won't you? And let me tell you what brought me here."

"Nap told you--" she hazarded.

"Yes, Nap told me. And I decided I had better come at once. I wasn't in when he got back, or I should have been here sooner. I saw there had been a gross misunderstanding, and I hoped I should be able to get your husband to take a reasonable view."

"Ah!" she said, with a s.h.i.+ver. "I--I'm thankful you didn't meet."

"I am sorry," Lucas said quietly. And though he said no more, she knew that he was thinking of her.

"How is Nap?" she ventured hesitatingly.

"Nap," he said with deliberation, "will be himself again in a very few weeks. You need have no anxiety for him."

Again she did not wholly understand his tone. She glanced at him nervously, half afraid that he was keeping something from her.

"You really mean that?"

His eyes met hers, very level and direct. "He is badly battered, of course. But--he is not quite like other men. He has no nerves to speak of in a physical sense. He will make a quick recovery. Broken bones mean very little to a man of his calibre."

She heard him with relief mingled with a faint wonder at his confidence on this point.

"The doctor has seen him?" she asked.

"Yes; and I have sent my man in the motor to ask him to come on here."

She s.h.i.+vered again irrepressibly. "Giles hates Dr. Randal."

"I do not think that will make any difference," Lucas said gently.

Thereafter they sat together almost in silence, till the buzzing of the motor told of the doctor's arrival. Then with the aid of a stick Lucas began to drag himself laboriously to his feet. Anne rose to help him.

He took her arm, looking at her shrewdly.

"Lady Carfax, will you let me speak to him alone?"

"If you wish it," she said.

"I do wish it." His eyes pa.s.sed hers suddenly and rested upon the lace at her neck. In one place it was torn, and the soft flesh was revealed; revealed also was a long red stripe, swollen and turning. In an instant his glance fell, but she saw his brows contract as if at a sharp twinge of pain. "I do wish it," he said again very gently. "P'r'aps you will wait for me here."

And with that he relinquished her arm, and made his halting, difficult way across the room to the door.

Anne sat down before the fire to wait. She had, to a large extent, recovered her self-control, but a deadly weariness was upon her which she found it impossible to shake off. She kept it at bay for a time while she listened for any sound. But no sound came, and at length exhausted nature prevailed.

When Lucas came back she was sunk in her chair asleep.

He took up his stand near her while he waited for the doctor, and again that deep furrow showed between his brows. But the eyes that watched her were soft and tender as a woman's. There was something almost maternal in their regard, a compa.s.sion so deep as to be utterly unconscious of itself. When the doctor's step sounded at length outside he shuffled away without disturbing her.

It was hours later when Anne awoke and sat up with a confused sense of something wrong. She was still in her easy-chair before the fire, which burned brightly as ever, while on the other side of the hearth, propped upright upon cus.h.i.+ons and watching her with those steady blue eyes, whose kindness never varied, was Lucas Errol.