Charles Rex - Ethel May Dell (i love reading .TXT) 📗

and found himself in a stone passage, actually on the castle wall, between two parapets; the one on his left towering above the inner portion of the castle with its odd, uneven roofs of stone, the one on his right still sheer above the terrace--a drop of a hundred feet or more.
The emptiness and the silence seemed to strike at him with a nebulous hostility as he went. He had a vague sense of intrusion, of being in a forbidden place. The blood was no longer hot in his veins. He even shivered in the warmth of the summer night as he followed the winding walk between the battlements.
But he was his own master now, and as he moved forward through the glimmering starlight he called to her:
"Toby! Toby, I say! Come out! I'm not playing."
He felt as if the silence mocked him, and again that icy construction about the heart made him catch his breath. He put up a hand to his brow and found it wet.
"Toby!" he cried again, and this time he did not attempt to keep the urgency out of his voice. "The game's up. Come back!"
She did not answer him, neither did she come; but he had a strong conviction that she heard. A throb of anger went through him. He strode forward with decision. He knew that the battlement walk ended on the north side of the Castle in a blank wall, built centuries before as a final defence from an invading enemy. Only by scaling this wall could the eastern portion be approached. He would find her here. She could not possibly escape. Something of confidence came back to him as he remembered this. She could not elude him much longer.
He quickened his stride. His face was grim. She had carried the thing too far, and he would let her know it. He rounded the curve of the castle wall. He must be close to her now. And then suddenly he stopped dead. For he heard her mocking laughter, and it came from behind him, from the turret through which he had gained the ramparts.
He wheeled round with something like violence and began to retrace his steps. He had never been so baffled before, and he was angry,--hotly angry.
He rounded the curve once more, and approached the turret. His eyes were accustomed to the dim half-light, but still he could not see her. Fuming, he went back the whole distance along the ramparts till he came to the iron-clamped door that had banged behind him. He put forth an impatient hand to open it, for it was obvious that she must have eluded him by hiding behind it, and now she was probably on the stair. And then, very suddenly, from far behind him, in the direction of the northern wall, he heard her laugh again.
He swung about in a fury, almost too incensed to be amazed. She had the wings of a Mercury, it was evident; but he would catch her--he would catch her now, or perish in the attempt. Once more he traversed the stony promenade between the double line of battlements, searching each embrasure as he went.
All the way back to the wall on the north side he pursued his way with fierce intention, inwardly raging, outwardly calm. He reached the obstructing wall, and found nothing. The emptiness came all about him again. The ghostly quiet of the place clung like a tangible veil. She had evaded him again. He was powerless.
But at that point his wrath suddenly burst into flame, the hotter and the fiercer for its long restraint. He wheeled in his tracks with furious finality and abandoned his quest.
His intention was to go straight down by the way he had come and leave her to play her will-o'-the-wisp game in solitude. It would soon pall upon her, he was assured; but in any case he would no longer dance to her piping. She had fooled him to the verge of frenzy.
Again he rounded the curve of the wall and came to the door of the turret. A great bastion of stone rose beside this, and as he reached it a small white figure darted forward from its shadow with dainty, butterfly movements, pulled at the heavy oak door and held it open with an elaborate gesture for him to pass.
It was a piece of exquisite daring, and with an older man it would have taken effect. Saltash would have laughed his quizzing, cynical laugh and accepted his defeat with royal grace. But Bunny was young and vehement of impulse, and the flame of his anger still scorched his soul with a heat intolerable. She had baffled him, astounded him, humiliated him, and his was not a nature to endure such treatment tamely.
He hung on his stride for a single moment, then hotly he turned and snatched her into his arms.


CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE GAME

She cried out sharply as he caught her, and then she struggled and fought like a mad creature for freedom. But Bunny held her fast. He had been hard pressed, and now that the strain was over, all the pent passion of that long stress had escaped beyond control. He held her,--at first as a boy might hold a comrade who had provoked him to exasperation; then, as desperately she resisted him, a new element suddenly rushed like fire through his veins, and he realized burningly, overwhelmingly, that for the first time in his life he held a woman in his arms.
It came to him like a blinding revelation, and forth-with it seemed to him that he stepped into a new world. She had tried him too far, had thrown him off his balance. He was unfit for this further and infinitely greater provocation. His senses swam. The touch of her intoxicated him as though he had drunk a potent draught from some goblet of the gods. He heard himself laugh passionately at her puny effort to resist him and the next moment she was at his mercy. He was pressing fevered kisses upon her gasping, quivering lips.
But she fought against him still. Though he kissed her, she would have none of it. She struck at him, battering him frantically with her hands, stamping wildly with her feet, till he literally swung her off the ground, holding her slender body against his breast.
"You little madcap!" he said, with his hot lips against her throat. "How dare you? Do you think I'd let you go--now?"
The quick passion of his voice or the fiery possession of his hold arrested her. She suddenly ceased to battle with him, and stiffened in his grasp as if turned to stone.
"Let me go!" she said tensely.
"I will not," said Bunny.
He was mad with the fever of youth; he held her with a fierce exultation. There could be no returning now, nor did he wish to return.
"You little wild butterfly!" he said, and kissed the throbbing white throat again. "I've caught you now and you can't escape."
"You've--had your revenge," Toby flung back gaspingly. "You--you--you're a skunk if you take any more."
Oddly that sobered him as any protest more feminine would have failed to do. He set her on her feet, but he held her still.
"I haven't done with you," he said, with a certain doggedness.
"Oh, I know that," she returned very bitterly. "You're like all the men. You can't play fair. Men don't know how."
That stung him. "Fair or unfair, you've done all the playing so far," he said. "If you thought I was such a tame fool as to put up with it--well, that's not my fault."
"No, it's never your fault," said Toby. She made a little vehement movement to extricate herself, but finding him obdurate, abandoned the attempt. "You're not a fool, Bunny Brian. You're a beast and a coward,--there!"
"Be careful!" warned Bunny, his dark eyes gleaming ominously.
But she uttered a laugh of high defiance. "Oh, I'm not afraid of you. You're not full-grown yet. You're ashamed of yourself already."
He coloured deeply at the taunt, but he maintained his hold upon her.
"All right," he said. "Say I did it all! It doesn't matter how you put it. The fact remains."
"What fact?" said Toby swiftly.
He clasped her a little closer. "Well,--do you think I'm going to let you go--after this?"
She caught her breath sharply. "What do you mean? I--I--I don't know what you mean!"
There was quick agitation in her voice. Again she sought to free herself, and again he frustrated her. But the violence had gone out of his hold. There was even a touch of dignity about him as he made reply.
"I mean, you little wild butterfly, that now I've got you, I'm going to keep you. You'll have to marry me and make the best of me."
"Marry you!" said Toby as one incredulous.
"Yes. What's the matter with the idea? Don't you want to?" Bunny's good-looking young face came close to hers. He was laughing, but there was a half-coaxing note in his voice as well.
Toby was silent for a moment. Then: "You're mad!" she said tersely.
"I'm not!" said Bunny. "I'm perfectly serious. Don't you understand that when this kind of thing gets hold of you, there's no getting away from it? We can't possibly go back to where we were before--behave as if nothing had happened. You wouldn't want to, would you?"
There was a hint of pleading in his tone now. Toby made a curious little gesture that seemed to express a measure of reassurance. But, "I don't know," she said somewhat dubiously.
"You aren't angry, are you?" said Bunny softly.
She hesitated. "I was."
"Yes, but not now--when you've begun to realize what a jolly thing life together would be. It isn't as if we'd never met before. We're pals already."
"Yes; we're pals," said Toby, but still her voice was dubious.
"I say, be a sport!" the boy urged suddenly. "You said you weren't afraid of me. Don't chuck the best thing in life for want of a little ordinary courage!"
"What is--the best thing in life?" said Toby.
His hold grew close again, but it remained gentle. "You marry me," he said, "and I'll show you!"
There was something sublime rather than ridiculous in his assurance. Toby caught her breath again as if about to laugh, and then quite suddenly, wholly unexpectedly, she began to cry.
"You poor little darling!" said Bunny.
She leaned her head upon his shoulder, fighting great sobs that threatened to overwhelm her. It was not often that Toby cried, and this was no mere child's distress. Indeed there was about it something that filled her companion with a curious kind of awe. He held her closely and comfortingly, but for some reason he could not speak to her, could not even attempt to seek the cause of her trouble. As his sister had done before him, though almost unconsciously, he sensed a barrier that he might not pass.
Toby regained her self-command at last, stood for a space in silence, her face still hidden, then abruptly raised it and uttered a little quivering laugh.
"You great big silly!" she said. "I'm not going to marry you, so there! Now let me go!"
Her tone and action put him instantly at his ease. This was the Toby he knew.
"Yes, you are going to marry me. And I shan't let you go," he said. "So there!"
She looked him straight in the face. "No, Bunny!" she said, with a little catch in her breath. "You're a dear to think of it, but it won't do."
"Why not?" demanded Bunny.
She hesitated.
He squeezed her shoulders. "Tell me why not!"
"I don't want to tell you," said Toby.
"You've got to,"