The Flaming Jewel - Robert W. Chambers (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

at him out of gentian-blue eyes, "if _you_ are sleepy I shouldn't dream of asking you to stay."

"I'm not intending to sleep."

"What are you going to do?"

"Take a chair on the landing outside your door."

"What!"

"Certainly. What did you expect me to do, Eve?"

"Go to bed, of course. The beds in the guest rooms are all made up."

"Your father didn't expect me to do that," he said, smiling.

"I'm not afraid, as long as you're in the house," she said.

She looked up at him again, wistfully. Perhaps he was restless, bored, sitting there beside her half the day, and, already, half the night. Men of that kind--active, nervous young men accustomed to the open, can't stand caging.

"I want you to go out and get some fresh air," she said. "It's a wonderful night. Go and walk a while. And--if you feel like--coming back to me----"

"Will you sleep?"

"No, I'll wait for you."

Her words were natural and direct, but in their simplicity there seemed a delicate sweetness that stirred him.

"I'll come back to you," he said.

Then, in his response, the girl in her turn became aware of something beside the simple words--a vague charm about them that faintly haunted her after he had gone away down the stairs.

_That_ was the man she had once tried to kill! At the sudden and terrible recollection she shivered from curly head to bandaged feet. Then she trembled a little with the memory of his lips against her bruised hands--bruised by handcuffs which he had fastened upon her.

She sat very, very still now, huddled on the bed's edge, scarcely breathing.

For the girl was beginning to dare formulate the deepest of any thoughts that ever had stirred her virgin mind and body.

If it was love, then it had come suddenly, and strangely. It had come on that day--at the very moment when he flung her against the tree and handcuffed her--that terrible instant--if it were love.

Or--what was it that so delicately overwhelmed her with pleasure in his presence, in his voice, in the light, firm sound of his spurred tread on the veranda below?

Friendship? A lonely passion for young and decent companionship? The clean youth of him in contrast to the mangy, surly louts who haunted Clinch's Dump,--was that the appeal?

Listening there where she sat clasping the book, she heard his steady tread patrolling the veranda; caught the faint fragrance of his brier pipe in the still night air.

"I think--I think it's--love," she said under her breath.... "But he couldn't ever think of me----" always listening to his spurred tread below.

After a while she placed both bandaged feet on the rug. It hurt her, but she stood up, walked to the open window. She wanted to look at him--just a moment----

By chance he looked up at that instant, and saw her pale face, like a flower in the starlight.

"Why, Eve," he said, "you ought not to be on your feet."

"Once," she said, "you weren't so particular about my bruises."

Her breathless little voice coming down through the starlight thrilled him.

"Do you remember what I did?" he asked.

"Yes. You bruised my hands and made my mouth bleed."

"I did penance--for your hands."

"Yes, you kissed _them_!"

What possessed her--what irresponsible exhilaration was inciting her to a daring utterly foreign to her nature? She heard herself laugh, knew that she was young, pretty, capable of provocation. And in a sudden, breathless sort of way an overwhelming desire seized her to please, to charm, to be noticed by such a man--whatever, on afterthought, he might think of the step-child of Mike Clinch.

Stormont had come directly under her window and stood looking up.

"I dared not offer further penance," he said.

The emotion in his voice stirred her--but she was still laughing down at him.

She said: "You _did_ offer further penance--you offered your handkerchief. So--as that was _all_ you offered as reparation for--my lips----"

"Eve! I could have taken you into my arms----"

"You _did_! And threw me down among the spruces. You really did everything that a contrite heart could suggest----"

"Good heavens!" said that rather matter-of-fact young man, "I don't believe you have forgiven me after all."

"I have--everything except the handkerchief----"

"Then I'm coming up to complete my penance----"

"I'll lock my door!"

"Would you?"

"I ought to.... But if you are in great spiritual distress, and if you really and truly repent, and if you humbly desire to expiate your sin by doing--penance----" And hesitated: "Do you so desire?"

"Yes, I do."

"Humbly? Contritely?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Say 'Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.'"

"Mea maxima culpa," he said so earnestly, looking up into her face that she bent lower over the sill to see him.

"Let me come up, Eve," he said.

She strove to laugh, gazing down into his shadowy face--but suddenly the desire had left her,--and all her gaiety left her, too, suddenly, leaving only a still excitement in her breast.

"You--you knew I was just laughing," she said unsteadily. "You understood, didn't you?"

"I don't know."

After a silence: "I didn't mean you to take me seriously," she said. She tried to laugh. It was no use. And, as she leaned there on the sill, her heart frightened her with its loud beating.

"Will you let me come up, Eve?"

No answer.

"Would you lock your door?"

"What do you think I'd do?" she asked tremulously.

"You know; I don't."

"Are you so sure I know what I'd do? I don't think either of us know our own minds.... I seem to have lost some of my wits.... Somehow...."

"If you are not going to sleep, let me come up."

"I want you to take a walk down by the pond. And while you're walking there all by yourself, I want you to think very clearly, very calmly, and make up your mind whether I should remain awake to-night, or whether, when you return, I ought to be asleep and--and my door bolted."

After a long pause: "All right," he said in a low voice.


V

She saw him walk away--saw his shadowy, well-built form fade into the starlit mist.

An almost uncontrollable impulse set her throat and lips quivering with desire to call to him through the night, "I do love you! I do love you! Come back quickly, quickly!----"

Fog hung over Star Pond, edging the veranda, rising in frail shreds to her window. The lapping of the water sounded very near. An owl was very mournful in the hemlocks.

The girl turned from the window, looked at the door for a moment, then her face flushed and she walked toward a chair and seated herself, leaving the door unbolted.

For a little while she sat upright, alert, as though a little frightened. After a few moments she folded her hands and sat unstirring, with lowered head, awaiting Destiny.

* * * * *


It came, noiselessly. And so swiftly that the rush of air from her violently opened door was what first startled her.

For in the same second Earl Leverett was upon her in his stockinged feet, one bony hand gripping her mouth, the other flung around her, pinning both arms to her sides.

"The packet!" he panted, "--quick, yeh dirty little cat, 'r'I'll break yeh head off'n yeh damn neck!"

She bit at the hand that he held crushed against her mouth. He lifted her bodily, flung her onto the bed, and, twisting sheet and quilt around her, swathed her to the throat.

Still controlling her violently distorted lips with his left hand and holding her so, one knee upon her, he reached back, unsheathed his hunting knife, and pricked her throat till the blood spurted.

"Now, gol ram yeh!" he whispered fiercely, "where's Mike's packet? Yell, and I'll hog-stick yeh fur fair! Where is it, you dum thing!"

He took his left hand from her mouth. The distorted, scarlet lips writhed back, displaying her white teeth clenched.

"Where's Mike's bundle!" he repeated, hoarse with rage and fear.

"You rat!" she gasped.

At that he closed her mouth again, and again he pricked her with his knife, cruelly. The blood welled up onto the sheets.

"Now, by God!" he said in a ghastly voice, "answer or I'll hog-stick yeh next time! Where is it? Where! where!"

She only showed her teeth in answer. Her eyes flamed.

"Where! Quick! Gol ding yeh, I'll shove this knife in behind your ear if you don't tell! Go on. Where is it? It's in this Dump som'ers. I know it is--don't lie! You want that I should stick you good? That what you want--you dirty little dump-slut? Well, then, gol ram yeh--I'll fix yeh like Quintana was aimin' at----"

He slit the sheet downward from her imprisoned knees, seized one wounded foot and tried to slash the bandages.

"I'll cut a coupla toes off'n yeh," he snarled, "--I'll hamstring yeh fur keeps!"--struggling to mutilate her while she flung her helpless and entangled body from side to side and bit at the hand that was almost suffocating her.

Unable to hold her any longer, he seized a pillow, to bury the venomous little head that writhed, biting, under his clutch.

As he lifted it he saw a packet lying under it.

"By God!" he panted.

As he seized it she screamed for the first time: "Jack! Jack Stormont!"--and fairly hurled her helpless little body at Leverett, striking him full in the face with her head.

Half stunned, still clutching the packet, he tried to stab her in the stomach; but the armour of bed-clothes turned the knife, although his violence dashed all breath out of her.

Sick with the agony of it, speechless, she still made the effort; and, as he stumbled to his feet and turned to escape, she struggled upright, choking, blood running from the knife pricks in her neck.

With the remnant of her strength, and still writhing and gasping for breath, she tore herself from the sheets and blankets, reeled across the room to where Stormont's rifle stood, threw in a cartridge, dragged herself to the window.

Dimly she saw a running figure in the night mist, flung the rifle across the window sill and fired. Then she fired again--or thought she did. There were two shots.

"Eve!" came Stormont's sharp cry, "what the devil are you trying to do to me?"

His cry terrified her; the rifle clattered to the floor.

The next instant he came running up the stairs, bare headed, heavy pistol swinging, and halted, horrified at sight of her.

"Eve! My God!" he whispered, taking her blood-wet body into his arms.

"Go after Leverett," she gasped. "He's robbed daddy. He's running away--out there--somewhere----"

"Where did he hurt you, Eve--my little Eve----"

"Oh, go! go!" she wailed,--"I'm not hurt. He only pricked me with his knife. I'm not hurt, I tell you. Go after him! Take your pistol and follow him and kill him!"

"Oh," she cried hysterically, twisting and sobbing in his arms, "don't lose time here with me! Don't stand here