“Not an injection of morphia!”
“Oh, no.”
Ninon set her box down on the mantelpiece, and opened it with deft fingers. She extracted a small cylinder of glass and then a long needle which gleamed as brightly as the box gleamed. She fitted the needle to the point of the syringe. Then she crossed the room to the washstand and poured a little water into the tumbler with which it was furnished.
“It is not morphia, I swear it,” she stated.
Sacha was sitting up again. She followed every movement of the medium with restless attention, but she did not utter any further protest. The strain of the last hours had exhausted all her nerves, so that she could no longer think clearly on any subject. Only the fear which clutched at her heart held her from utter oblivion.
Ninon carried the tumbler to the mantelpiece and set it down there. She took a tiny pellet from a phial which was contained in the lid of the box, and dropped it into her syringe.
Then she filled the syringe with water by gently drawing back its glass plunger. She rotated it slowly between her fingers until the pellet was completely dissolved.
Then she came to Sacha, and bade her lie down again and close her eyes.
“It will hurt you a very little,” she warned, in low tones.
Next moment Sacha felt a sharp sting on her forearm, and then a duller pain, which seemed to vanish almost as quickly as the sting.
“That is all—”
Ninon returned to the mantelpiece, and put her syringe back in its box. She shut the box with a click.
“You feel better?” she asked.
“Oh yes, much better.”
Sacha was smiling now, and the look of weariness had vanished miraculously from her eyes. Her cheeks were no longer draw and haggard. She sighed, as those sigh who are rid of an overwhelming burden.
“I feel wonderful — just wonderful.”
She stretched out her hands to Ninon who came and clasped them.
“Oh please, please forgive me for my rudeness when you came at first.”
The girl did not reply. She had stiffened suddenly, and was listening with every sense strained to the utmost.
Sacha listened also.
They heard slow, heavy footsteps approaching along the corridor.
Chapter VIII
“Your Beatrice”
The footsteps came to the door of the room and stopped. Ninon’s cheeks had grown dreadfully pale. She whispered:
“It is Lord Templewood.”
She moved away from the bed and stood looking wildly about her, as if seeking for some means of escape. She wrung her hands in her dismay.
“He must not find me here. To-night I am too tired to help him. Oh, you do not know how terrible is his anger!”
Her voice shook; all her self-confidence had vanished. Sacha slipped out of bed, and ran across the room to the door. She turned the key in the door.
The lock had not been used for a long time. It grated noisily. That sound roused the silent visitor to sudden activity. He struck on the panels with his fist, calling:
“Sacha— Sacha—” in shrill tones.
Sacha switched out the light, and then came back to Ninon.
“Get into bed,” she whispered, “and cover yourself up. I am not afraid of him—”
She was completely self-possessed now, a being, as it seemed, transformed. She waited while the girl at her side obeyed her and then returned to her place behind the door. Lord Templewood knocked again, this time with great violence.
“Open,” he shouted, “open, Sacha, for God’s sake!”
Sacha switched up the light. She glanced at the bed and then, with a swift movement of both her wrists, unlocked and opened the door. The sight which met her eyes as she did so, caused her to gasp in amazement and horror.
The front of her uncle’s pyjamas was covered with blood. Small trickles of blood were running down his neck from a wound in his throat. And yet his eyes were quite vacant.
With a thrill of wonder, she realized that he was asleep.
He stumbled into the room, and must have fallen, had not Sacha caught him in her arms. Half-carrying, half-supporting she brought him to the armchair beside the fire and set him down in it. Then she ran to the washstand to get a towel to bind about his neck.
She was standing there, at the wash-stand, with the towel in her hand when, suddenly, she knew that he had risen from the chair, and was following her on stealthy feet.
With a movement as swift as that of a wild animal, she turned and faced him.
And then she saw that he was holding an open razor in his right hand. What was he going to do?
Even in that awful moment, Sacha’s newfound strength did not desert her. She drew back a little way, smiling.
“Please go back to your chair—”
Lord Templewood started at the sound of her voice, but she saw that his eyes remained blank, like the eyes of a dreamer turned inward on his dream. He raised the knife, and the light flashed on its blade. She heard him murmur, more to himself than to her, the name of his dead fiancée Beatrice.
That name came to Sacha as a gift from heaven. She realized suddenly that, in some mysterious way, in his dream, he was confusing her with the girl he had loved and lost. She extended her arms to him, and cried in low tones which pleaded with the silence:
“Oh Gerald, Gerald — you would not hurt me. Do you not know me? Look, I am Beatrice, your Beatrice, who was lost.”
Chapter IX
What Usually Happens
That name, uttered in those tones, smote Lord Templewood like a sword. The strength seemed to go out of his tall body. He reeled, and caught the rail of the bedstead to support himself. The razor fell from his hand to the carpet.
“Beatrice!”
In an instant, Sacha was beside him. She put her arms round him to hold him up. But, with a gesture of supreme repudiation, he flung her away from him.
“My God, no!”
He was still holding the rail of the bedstead. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes seemed to have become bloodshot. Sacha felt herself start with amazement as she looked at him. She was aware of a queer “sense of recollection,” as if, long ago, she had played a part in this very scene which must now be reenacted.
So strange, and so commanding was that feeling, that she awaited the next words he should speak to her in a tension that was almost painful. They fell from his lips with overwhelming bitterness.
“Never again. For you there is no forgiveness.”
His eyes were fixed on her face. In their dimness, but half-veiled by sleep, was such misery and regret as she had never before seen in any human eyes. Instinctively she shrank away from him. What secret was this, of his heart, which her necessity had surprised?
Had his love of Beatrice, then, even that great love, been crossed with pain and disillusionment? She glanced at the red scar across his throat, at the pitiful bloodstains on his nightclothes, at his withered, clutching hands so lately turned against his own life.
The powers and principalities of evil, of which he had spoken to the doctor, were, surely, gathered against him now in overwhelming array. Sacha felt a new sense of compassion for him. If only she could arouse him from this nightmare in which he dwelt with so stubborn a persistence. She took a step toward him, and began to speak his name.
But, at that same moment, she saw Ninon Darelli raise herself in the bed. Ninon’s voice came to her across the silence.
And, at the sound of Ninon’s voice, so rich, so full-toned, Lord Templewood’s sleep was resolved. His expression changed, passing from dull despair to beatitude. He allowed Sacha to lead him back to his chair.