The Zeppelin's Passenger - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📗

Philippa and Helen met in the drawing-room, a few minutes before eight that evening. Philippa was wearing a new black dress, a model of simplicity to the untutored eye, but full of that undefinable appeal to the mysterious which even the greatest artist frequently fails to create out of any form of colour. Some fancy had induced her to strip off her jewels at the last moment, and she wore no ornaments save a band of black velvet around her neck. Helen looked at her curiously.

“Is this a fresh scheme for conquest, Philippa?” she asked, as they stood together by the log fire.

Philippa unexpectedly flushed.

“I don’t know what I was thinking about, really,” she confessed. “Is that the exact time, I wonder?”

“Two minutes to eight,” Helen replied.

“Mr. Lessingham is always so punctual,” Philippa murmured. “I wonder if Captain Griffiths would dare!”

“We’ve done our best to warn him,” Helen reminded her friend. “The man is simply pig-headed.”

“I can’t help feeling that he’s right,” Philippa declared, “when he argues that they couldn’t really prove anything against him.”

“Does that matter,” Helen asked anxiously, “so long as he is an enemy, living under a false name here?”

“You don’t think they’d - they’d - “

“Shoot him?” Helen whispered, lowering her voice. “They couldn’t do that! They couldn’t do that!”

The clock began to chime. Suddenly Philippa, who had been listening, gave a little exclamation of relief.

“I hear his voice!” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness!”

Helen’s relief was almost as great as her companion’s. A moment later Mills ushered in their guest. He was still wearing his bandage, but his colour had returned. He seemed, in fact, almost gay.

“Nothing has happened, then?” Philippa demanded anxiously, as soon as the door was closed.

“Nothing at all,” he assured them. “Our friend Griffiths is terribly afraid of making a mistake.”

“So afraid that he wouldn’t come and dine. Never mind, you’ll have to take care of us both,” she added, as Mills announced dinner.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, offering his arm.

If the sword of Damocles were indeed suspended over their heads, it seemed only to heighten the merriment of their little repast. Philippa had ordered champagne, and the warmth of the pleasant dining room, the many appurtenances of luxury by which they were surrounded, the glow of the wine, and the perfume of the hothouse flowers upon the table, seemed in delicious contrast to the fury of the storm outside. They all three appeared completely successful in a strenuous effort to dismiss all disconcerting subjects from their minds. Lessingham talked chiefly of the East. He had travelled in Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, and he had the unusual but striking gift of painting little word pictures of some of the scenes of his wanderings. It was half-past nine before they rose from the table, and Lessingham accompanied them into the library. With the advent of coffee, they were for the first time really alone. Lessingham sat by Philippa’s side, and Helen reclined in a low chair close at hand.

“I think,” he said, “that I can venture now to tell you some news.”

Helen put down her work. Philippa looked at him in silence, and her eyes seemed to dilate.

“I have hesitated to say anything about it,” Lessingham went on, “because there is so much uncertainty about these things, but I believe that it is now finally arranged. I think that within the next week or ten days - perhaps a little before, perhaps a little later - your brother Richard will be set at liberty.”

“Dick? Dick coming home?” Philippa cried, springing up from her reclining position.

“Dick?” Helen faltered, her work lying unheeded in her lap. “Mr. Lessingham, do you mean it? Is it possible?

“It is not only possible,” Lessingham assured them, “but I believe that it will come to pass. I have had to exercise a little duplicity, but I fancy that it has been successful. I have insisted that without help from an influential person in Dreymarsh, I cannot bring my labours here to a satisfactory conclusion, and I have named as the price of that help, Richard’s absolute and immediate freedom. I heard only this morning that there would be no difficulty.”

Helen snatched up her work and groped her way towards the door.

“I will come back in a few minutes,” she promised, her voice a little broken.

Lessingham, who had opened the door for her, returned to his place. There were no tears in Philippa’s brilliant eyes, but there was a faint patch of colour in her cheeks, and her lips were not quite steady. She caught at his hands.

“Oh, my dear, dear friend!” she said. “If only that little nightmare part of you did not exist. If only you could be just what you seem, and one could feel that you were there in our lives for always! I feel that I want to talk to you so much, to you and not the sham you. What shall I call you?”

“Bertram, please,” he whispered.

“Then Bertram, dear,” she went on, “for my sake, because you have really become dear to me, because my heart aches at the thought of your danger, and because - see how honest I am - I am a little afraid of myself - will you go away? The thought of your danger is like a nightmare to me. It all seems so absurd and unreasonable - I mean that the danger which I fear should be hanging over you. But I think that there is just a little something back of your brain of which you have never spoken, which it was your duty to keep to yourself, and it is just that something which brings the danger.”

“I am not afraid for myself, Philippa,” he told her. “I took a false step in life when I came here. What it was that attracted me I do not know. I think it was the thought of that wild ride amongst the clouds, and the starlight. It seemed such a wonderful beginning to any enterprise. And, Philippa, for one part of my adventure, the part which concerns you, it was a gorgeous prelude, and for the other - well, it just does not count because I have no fear. I have faith in my fortune, do you know that? I believe that I shall leave this place unharmed, but I believe that if I leave it without you, I shall go back to the worst hell in which a man could ever

“Bertram,” she pleaded, “think of it all. Even if I cared enough -=20 and I don’t - there is something unnatural about it. Doesn’t it strike you as horrible? My brother, my cousins, my father, are all fighting the men of the nation whose cause you have espoused! There is a horrible, eternal cloud of hatred which it will take generations to get rid of, if ever it disappears. How can we two speak of love! What part of the world could we creep into where people would not shrink away from us? I may have lost a little of my heart to you, Bertram, I may miss you when you go away, I may waste weary hours thinking, but that is all. Oh, you know that it must be all!”

“I do not,” he answered stubbornly.

“Oh, you must be reasonable,” she begged, with a little break in her voice. “You know very well that I ought not to listen to you. I ought not to welcome you here. I ought to be strong and close my ears.”

“But you will not do that!”

“No!” she faltered. “Please don’t come any nearer. I - “

She broke off suddenly. The struggle in her face was ended, her expression transformed. Her finger was held up as though to bid him listen. With her other hand she clutched the back of the couch. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. The little patch of wonderful colour faded from her cheeks.

“Listen!” she cried, with a note of terror in her voice. “That was the front door! Some one has come! Can’t you hear them?”

Lessingham’s hand stole suddenly to his pocket. She caught the glitter of something half withdrawn, and shrank back with a half-stifled moan.

“Not before you, dear,” he promised. “Please do not be afraid. If this is the end, leave me alone with Griffiths. I shall not hurt him. I shall not forget. And if by any chance,” he added, “this is to