Caught in a Trap Part 29

Susan was equipped in a moment; and they went out of the house, Markworth slamming the door behind him.

"_Mon Dieu_!" said the little fat landlady, who was superintending the cooking of her supper, to her husband, looking out of the window of her kitchen above, as she heard the door bang, and saw the pair go down the steps. "_Mon Dieu, Auguste! V'la Msieu et Madame qui'ls s'en vont sortir, et Monsieur, il ne fait que d'entrer_! _C'est bien tard promener_!"

"_Hein_!" observed her _bon homme_, reflectively, from his seat in the corner, where he was salivating a stick of chocolate to pa.s.s the time while waiting anxiously for the _potage_ to be ready. "_C' n'est pas mon affaire_!" and he proceeded to suck his _chocolat_ calmly, which he had withdrawn for a moment from his mouth for the exigencies of conversation.

Markworth walked on rapidly, Susan keeping up with difficulty by his side, through the town, which was now partly overhung by the sea-fog, up to the heights of Ingouville, where the air was clearer, and the lights shone out from the trim little rows of villa residences.

The promenade was quite deserted; but Markworth proceeded without speaking a word until he had pa.s.sed all the houses, and had reached a lonely part of the road, with the cliff above the footpath, and a precipitous descent on the other side nearest the town, below which was the zigzag street, up which they had come.

Markworth now stopped suddenly, seeing that Susan was quite out of breath from the exertions she had made to keep up with him.

"At last," he said, "I can speak to you quietly;" and he paused a second, as if to think over his words.

He did not know that Nemesis was close behind him, for it was nearly dark: the thud of the sea in the distance, splas.h.i.+ng against the pier, and the sound of the waters of the Seine at their embouchure, mingling with the tide, drowned even the sound of a pa.s.sing footstep.

It was a crisis in Markworth's fate.

"Susan," he said, abruptly, "I have to leave you. I have to go away for a long time, and I shall send you back to-morrow to your people in England."

He spoke rapidly. To do him justice, he knew what a pang it would be to the poor girl; but he could not possibly take her with him, so he was anxious to get the "scene," as he called it, over as quickly as he could.

"Oh, Allynne! Allynne!" she cried out, piteously; "you are not going to leave me! I shall die if I go back there!"

And she flung her arms round his neck, as if to hold him for ever. He was her life, her all!

The avenger was close behind.

"Don't be so foolish, Susan!" Markworth said, in a half-angry, half-coaxing manner. "I'm not going to leave you now, child. I'm talking about to-morrow. I've been away before, and I can't be with you always."

And he tried to unclasp her hands from his neck.

"Oh, Allynne! I can't go back there! I shall die! Take my money, everything I've got; but do let me stay with you--don't send me back there!" she sobbed out in broken accents.

The allusion to the money, and her entreaties seemed to madden him.

"Have done, girl! Idiot!" he said, roughly, tearing away her hands with violence, and throwing her from him.

The poor girl started back as pale as death, as if she had been shot.

"Idiot! idiot!" she cried out, in tones that seemed to come from the depths of a broken heart. "Oh, Allynne! That word from you! from you!"

she moaned, and wrung her hands in bitterness of spirit.

As she started back--the pathway was very narrow--she stood on the very verge of the rocky precipice which bordered the road.

And as she uttered the last words, her foot slipped. With a scream of genuine terror, re-echoed by Markworth, she fell back, and he could hear the heavy fall of a body below.

"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed aloud, rus.h.i.+ng forward and peering into the gulf down which she had disappeared, "she must be killed!"

He turned round hurriedly, for he could not get down to the bottom of the cliff without retracing his steps by the winding road up which they had just come.

And, as he turned, he found himself face to face with--

Clara Kingscott.

END OF VOLUME TWO.

Volume 3, Chapter I.

AT BAY!

"Gracious Heavens, Clara! What brings you here?" uttered Markworth, half in astonishment, half in terror, as he suddenly turned round, and was confronted by Miss Kingscott, immediately after Susan had fallen back over the precipice.

"Murderer!" she exclaimed, standing right before him in the narrow pathway. "Thank G.o.d! I came in time to witness your crime!"

"Woman!" cried Markworth, trying to brush past her. "You're mad! What do you mean? Let me pa.s.s!"

"Murderer!" she repeated, with withering bitterness, still blocking the way. "Murderer!"

"Good G.o.d! Clara, what do you mean?"

"Mean, Allynne Markworth? What do I mean! That you are caught at last in your own toils! I knew you were a swindler, a cheat, a villain! I can now prove that you are a murderer as well!"

"For G.o.d's sake, Clara, do not say that! You don't think I've murdered the girl?"

She still looked him full in the face, but made no reply; so he went on hurriedly--

"Why, she fell over the cliff herself! I never touched her! I was just--"

"Ha! ha!" she laughed, a cold, bitter laugh. "Tell that to the officers of justice who will be soon in pursuit of you! To the jury who will try you! To the judge who will sentence you to your final end! I don't want to hear your lying story!"

Markworth turned pale and shook with fear. "What do you mean, woman?

Who will accuse me? G.o.d knows I never meant the poor girl any harm!

She slipped, and fell back by accident; and I was just hastening down to her a.s.sistance when you--you--"

"Murderer!"

"Let me go, woman!" he cried, excitedly, shoving past the governess, who threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back.

"She's dying, perhaps! I'll be too late! Curse you, let me go!"

"Help! Help! Murder!" she screamed. "You're mad! Let me go at once or it will be the worse for you." And he struggled with her to get away, while the air rung with her loud screams for help. At length he got one arm free, although she still clung with desperation to him.

"Curse you!" he muttered, between his clenched teeth, raising his fist and dealing her a savage blow in the face. "You've brought it on yourself!"

Another half-uttered scream was checked on her lips, and she sank back in a heap on the ground, while Markworth rushed past her, and flew rather than ran down the heights.

In spite of lung logic, Clara Kingscott's cries for help remained unheard. No one came to her a.s.sistance; and when she recovered her consciousness after the insensibility produced by Markworth's blow, she found herself cold and alone, lying stretched out along the side of the narrow path where she had fallen. And he? Where was he?

Gone!