The Tidal Wave - Ethel May Dell (top books to read TXT) 📗

sinking away. He took out his watch.
"The dramatic moment approaches," he remarked, after a pause. "Are you ready?"
She did not speak.
"I'll tell you why I want to see you unmask," he said, speaking very quietly. "It is because there is something about you that reminds me of someone I know, but the resemblance is so subtle that it has eluded me all the evening."
"You do not know me," she said. And he felt that she spoke with an effort.
"I am not so sure," he answered. "But in any case--"
He paused. The music had ceased altogether, and an expectant silence prevailed. He looked at her intently as he waited, till aware that she shrank from his scrutiny.
A long deep note boomed through the house, echoing weirdly through the intense silence. Carey put up his hand without speaking, and stripped off his mask. He crumpled it into a ball as the second note struck, and looked at her. She had not moved. He waited silently.
At the sixth note she made a sudden, almost passionate gesture and rose. Carey remained motionless, watching her. Swiftly she turned, and began to walk away from him. He leaned forward. His eyes were fixed upon her.
Three more strokes! She stopped abruptly, turning back as if he had spoken. Moving slowly, and still masked, she came back to him. He met her under a lamp. His face was very pale, but his eyes were steady and piercingly keen. He took her hand, bending over it till his lips touched her glove.
"I know you now," he said, his voice very low.
Three more strokes, and silence.
A ripple of laughter suddenly ran through the house, a gay voice called for three cheers, and as though a spell had been lifted the merriment burst out afresh in tune to the lilting dance-music.
Carey straightened himself slowly, still holding the slender hand in his. Her mask had gone at last, and he stood face to face with the woman of his dream--the woman whose hard-won security he had only that morning pledged himself to shatter.


VII

"You know me," she said.
"Yes; I know you. And I know your secret, too."
The words sounded stern. He was putting strong restraint upon himself.
She faced him without flinching, her look as steady as his own. And yet again it was to Carey as though he stood in the presence of a queen. She did not say a word.
"Will you believe me," he said slowly, "when I tell you that I would give all I have not to know it?"
She raised her beautiful brows for a moment, but still she said nothing.
He let her hand go. "I was on the point of searching to the world's end for you," he said. "But since I have found you here of all places, I am bound to take advantage of it. Forgive me, if you can!"
He saw a gleam of apprehension in her eyes.
"What is it you want to say to me?" she asked.
He passed the question by.
"You know me, I suppose?"
She bent her head.
"I fancied it was you from the first. When I saw your hand at supper, I knew."
"And you tried to avoid me?"
"When you have something to conceal, it is wise to avoid anyone connected with it."
She answered him very quietly, but he knew instinctively that she was fighting him with her whole strength. It was almost more than he could bear.
"Believe me," he said, "I am not a man to wantonly betray a woman's secret. I have kept yours faithfully for years. But when within the last few days I came to know who you were, and that your husband, Major Coningsby, was contemplating making a second marriage, I was in honour bound to speak."
"You told him?" She raised her eyes for a single instant, and he read in them a reproach unutterable.
His heart smote him. What had she endured, this woman, before taking that final step to cut herself off from the man whose name she had borne? But he would not yield an inch. He was goaded by pitiless necessity.
"I told him," he answered. "But I had no means of proving what I said. And he refused to believe me."
"And now?" she almost whispered.
He heard the note of tragedy in the words, and he braced himself to meet her most desperate resistance.
"Before I go further," he said, "let me tell you this! Slight though you may consider our acquaintance to be, I have always felt--I have always known--that you are a good woman."
She made a quick gesture of protest.
"Would a good woman have left the man who saved her life lying ill in a strange land while she escaped with her miserable freedom?"
He answered her without hesitation, as he had long ago answered himself.
"No doubt the need was great."
She turned away from him and sat down, bowing her head upon her hand.
"It was," she said, her voice very low. "I was nearly mad with trouble. You had pity then--without knowing. Have you--no pity--now?"
The appeal went out into silence. Carey neither spoke nor moved. His face was like a stone mask--the face of a strong man in torture.
After a pause of seconds she spoke again, her face hidden from him.
"The first Mrs. Coningsby is dead," she said. "Let it be so! Nothing will ever bring her back. Geoffrey Coningsby is free to marry--whom he will."
The words were scarcely more than a whisper, but they reached and pierced him to the heart. He drew a step nearer to her, and spoke with sudden vehemence.
"I would help you, Heaven knows, if I could! But you will see--you must see presently--that I have no choice. There is only one thing to be done, and it has fallen to me to see it through, though it would be easier for me to die!"
He broke off. There was strangled passion in his voice. Abruptly he turned his back upon her, and began to pace up and down. Again there fell a long pause. The music and the tramp of dancing feet below rose up in his ears like a shout of mockery. He was fighting the hardest battle of his life, fighting single-handed and grievously wounded for a victory that would cripple him for the rest of his days.
Suddenly he stood still and looked at her, though she had not moved, unless her head with its silvery hair were bowed a little lower than before. For a single instant he hesitated, then strode impulsively to her, and knelt down by her side.
"God help us both!" he said hoarsely.
His hands were on her shoulders. He drew her to him, taking the bowed head upon his breast. And so, silently, he held her. When she looked up at last, he knew that the bitter triumph was his. Her face was deathly, but her eyes were steadfast. She drew herself very gently out of his hold.
"I do not think," she said, "that there is anyone else in the world who could have done for me what you have done tonight." She paused a moment looking straight into his eyes, then laid her hands in his without a quiver. "Years ago," she said, "you saved my life. Tonight--you have saved something infinitely more precious than that. And I--I am grateful to you. I will do--whatever you think right."
It was a free surrender, but it wrung his heart to accept it. Even in that moment of tragedy there was to him something of that sublime courage with which she had faced the tumult of a stormy sea with him five years before. And very poignantly it came home to him that he was there to destroy and not to deliver. Like a wave of evil, it rushed upon him, overwhelming him.
He could not trust himself to speak. The wild words that ran in his brain were such as he could not utter. And so he only bent his head once more over the hands that lay so trustingly in his, and with great reverence he kissed them.


VIII

It was on a cold, dark evening two days later that Major Coningsby returned from the first run of the year, and tramped, mud-splashed and stiff from hard riding, into his gloomy house. A gust of rain blew swirling after him, and he turned, swearing, and shut the great door with a bang. It had not been a good day for sport. The ground had been sodden, and the scent had washed away. He had followed the hounds for miles to no purpose and had galloped home at last in sheer disgust. To add to his grievances he had called upon Lady Emberdale on his way back, and had not found her in. "Gone to tea with her precious Admiral, I suppose!" he had growled, as he rode away, which, as it chanced, was the case. The suspicion had not improved his mood, and he was very much out of humour when he finally reached his own domain. Striding into the library, he turned on the threshold to curse his servant for not having lighted the lamp, and the man hastened forward nervously to repair the omission. This accomplished, he as hastily retired, glancing furtively over his shoulder as he made his escape.
Coningsby tramped to the hearth, and stood there, beating his leg irritably with his riding-whip. There was a heavy frown on his face. He did not once raise his eyes to the picture above him. He was still thinking of Lady Emberdale and the Admiral. Finally, with a sudden idea of refreshing himself, he wheeled towards the table. The next instant, he stood and stared as if transfixed.
A woman dressed in black, and thickly veiled, was standing facing him under the lamp.
He gazed at her speechlessly for a second or two, then passed his hand across his eyes.
"Great heavens!" he said slowly, at last.
She made a quick movement of the hands that was like a gesture of shrinking.
"You don't know me?" she asked, in a voice so low as to be barely audible.
For a moment there flashed into his face the curious, listening look that is seen on the faces of the blind. Then violently he strode forward.
"I should know that voice in ten thousand!" he cried, his words sharp and quivering. "Take off your veil, woman! Show me your face!"
The hunger in his eyes was terrible to see. He looked like a dying man reaching out impotent hands for some priceless elixir of life.
"Your face!" he gasped again hoarsely, brokenly. "Show me your face!"
Mutely she obeyed him, removed hat and veil with fingers that never faltered, and turned her sad, calm face towards him. For seconds longer he stared at her, stared devouringly, fiercely, with the eyes of a madman. Then, suddenly, with a great cry, he stumbled forward, flinging himself upon his knees at the table, with his face hidden on his arms.
"Oh, I know you! I know you!" he sobbed. "You've tortured me like this before. You've made me think I had only to open my arms to you, and I should have you close against my heart. It's happened night after night, night after night! Naomi! Naomi! Naomi!"
His voice choked, and he became intensely still crouching there before her in an anguish too great for words.
For a long time she was motionless too, but at last, as he did not move, she came a step toward him, pity and repugnance struggling visibly for the mastery over her. Reluctantly she stooped and touched his shoulder.
"Geoffrey!" she said, "it is I, myself, this time."
He started at her touch but