The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

this world. The slim fingers, as they

clasped the wire screen of the lantern, held my gaze for

a second. The red tam-o’-shanter that I had associated

with her youth and beauty was tilted rakishly on one

side of her pretty head. To find her here, seeking, like

a thief in the night, for some means of helping Arthur

Pickering, was the bitterest drop in the cup. I felt as

though I had been struck with a bludgeon.

 

“I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed. “There

doesn’t seem to be anything to say, does there? Well,

we do certainly meet under the most unusual, not to say

unconventional, circumstances, Squire Glenarm. Please

go away or turn your back. I want to get out of this

donjon keep.”

 

She took my hand coolly enough and stepped down

into the passage. Then I broke upon her stormily.

 

“You don’t seem to understand the gravity of what

you are doing! Don’t you know that you are risking

your life in crawling through this house at midnight?

—that even to serve Arthur Pickering, a life is a pretty

big thing to throw away? Your infatuation for that

blackguard seems to carry you far, Miss Devereux.”

 

She swung the lantern at arm’s length back and forth

so that its rays at every forward motion struck my face

like a blow.

 

“It isn’t exactly pleasant in this cavern. Unless you

wish to turn me over to the lord high executioner, I will

bid you good night.”

 

“But the infamy of this—of coming in here to spy

upon me—to help my enemy—the man who is seeking

plunder—doesn’t seem to trouble you.”

 

“No, not a particle!” she replied quietly, and then,

with an impudent fling, “Oh, no!” She held up the lantern

to look at the wick. “I’m really disappointed to

find that you were a little ahead of me, Squire Glenarm.

I didn’t give you credit for so much—perseverance.

But if you have the notes—”

 

“The notes! He told you there were notes, did he?

The coward sent you here to find them, after his other

tools failed him?”

 

She laughed that low laugh of hers that was like the

bubble of a spring.

 

[Illustration: “I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed.]

 

“Of course no one would dare deny what the great

Squire Glenarm says,” she said witheringly.

 

“You can’t know what your perfidy means to me,” I

said. “That night, at the Armstrongs’, I thrilled at

the sight of you. As you came down the stairway I

thought of you as my good angel, and I belonged to you,

—all my life, the better future that I wished to make

for your sake.”

 

“Please don’t!” And I felt that my words had

touched her; that there were regret and repentance in

her tone and in the gesture with which she turned from

me.

 

She hurried down the passage swinging the lantern

at her side, and I followed, so mystified, so angered by

her composure, that I scarcely knew what I did. She

even turned, with pretty courtesy, to hold the light for

me at the crypt steps—a service that I accepted perforce

and with joyless acquiescence in the irony of it.

I knew that I did not believe in her; her conduct as to

Pickering was utterly indefensible—I could not forget

that; but the light of her eyes, her tranquil brow, the

sensitive lips, whose mockery stung and pleased in a

breath—by such testimony my doubts were alternately

reinforced and disarmed. Swept by these changing

moods I followed her out into the crypt.

 

“You seem to know a good deal about this place, and

I suppose I can’t object to your familiarizing yourself

with your own property. And the notes—I’ll give myself

the pleasure of handing them to you to-morrow.

You can cancel them and give them to Mr. Pickering—

a pretty pledge between you!”

 

I thrust my hands into my pockets to give an impression

of ease I did not feel.

 

“Yes,” she remarked in a practical tone, “three hundred

and twenty thousand dollars is no mean sum of

money. Mr. Pickering will undoubtedly be delighted

to have his debts canceled—”

 

“In exchange for a life of devotion,” I sneered. “So

you knew the sum—the exact amount of these notes.

He hasn’t served you well; he should have told you that

we found them to-day.”

 

“You are not nice, are you, Squire Glenarm, when you

are cross?”

 

She was like Olivia now. I felt the utter futility of

attempting to reason with a woman who could become

a child at will. She walked up the steps and out into

the church vestibule. Then before the outer door she

spoke with decision.

 

“We part here, if you please! And—I have not the

slightest intention of trying to explain my errand into

that passage. You have jumped to your own conclusion,

which will have to serve you. I advise you not

to think very much about it—to the exclusion of more

important business—Squire Glenarm!”

 

She lifted the lantern to turn out its light, and it

made a glory of her face, but she paused and held it

toward me.

 

“Pardon me! You will need this to light you home.”

 

“But you must not cross the park alone!”

 

“Good night! Please be sure to close the door to the

passage when you go down. You are a dreadfully heedless

person, Squire Glenarm.”

 

She flung open the outer chapel-door, and ran along

the path toward St. Agatha’s. I watched her in the

starlight until a bend in the path hid her swift-moving

figure.

 

Down through the passage I hastened, her lantern

lighting my way. At the Door of Bewilderment I closed

the opening, setting up the line of wall as we had left

it in the afternoon, and then I went back to the library,

freshened the fire and brooded before it until Bates came

to relieve me at dawn.