Ninon broke off and shuddered.
“Last night,” she whispered, “I was so tired that I thought I would not be able to call his Beatrice to him. I was dreadfully frightened then, because if Beatrice does not come, he grows violent.”
“So it was you who called Beatrice!” Sacha exclaimed. “I felt sure of it.”
“Of course. When she — his Beatrice — spoke to him, it was your lips which spoke, but the accents of the voice were not your accents. Do you know what that means?”
Ninon’s tones had grown suddenly peremptory. Sacha shook her head.
“No.”
“It means that you also have the soul of a medium, a little of that soul, at any rate.”
She rose as she spoke, and crossed to a table in the far corner of the room. She took a black box, like a large jewel-case, from the table, and brought it to Sacha. She set it down on the arm of the sofa, close to where the girl was sitting. She opened it. A ball of crystal was revealed, set on a pedestal of black velvet.
“It is possible,” Ninon said, “that if you look for a time, you may see.”
Sacha glanced at the shining ball, with its mysterious deep lights, and then turned away from it. She raised pleading eyes to Ninon’s face.
“Will you not give me the medicine now,” she begged. “I am so tired.”
Ninon went to fetch her syringe. She was in the act of administering the dose, when the bell rang sharply. A moment later, Barrington Bryan strode into the room.
At the sight of the cruel little needle gleaming on Sacha’s white skin, he uttered a cry of dismay.
Chapter XII
A Girl on Horseback
“What are you doing?” Barrington demanded, in tones the anxiety of which he was not able to control.
He addressed himself to Ninon. She did not so much as look up from the task on which she was engaged. With a swift movement, she drove the plunger of the little syringe home, so that a small lump, made by the injected contents, appeared on the skin of Sacha’s forearm.
She withdrew the needle, and laid her finger on the puncture which it had made in the skin.
“Say, what is that stuff you have given her?”
“Some medicine.”
Ninon’s voice was soft and melodious as ever. She rose from her knees, and turned to greet her visitor.
“Since you have come,” she said, “you had better stay. Mrs. Malone, whom I think you know, is going to try her powers as a gazer into the crystal—”
Her eyes and her smiling lips challenged the man and quelled him. A look of fear dawned in his face.
“Oh, very well,” he said, “if you wish it; though I had business to discuss with you — about the Friday Club.”
Ninon turned to Sacha, who was still gazing fixedly at the puncture mark on her arm, so that she might avoid meeting Barrington’s eyes.
“Let me arrange you comfortably,” she said.
She brought a small table, and set it in front of the girl. Then she placed the case with the crystal on the table. She motioned Barrington to be seated, and sat down herself.
“Look at it steadily,” she instructed, “and then allow your thoughts to drift anywhere they like. Don’t try to concentrate your attention.”
Sacha bent forward over the shining glass. Her cheeks were bright again, and the careworn expression had vanished from her eyes. Her long lashes swept her cheeks in delicious composure.
“Shall I tell you what I see?” she asked, in quiet tones.
“No, no. It is not necessary.”
Silence wrapped them about, so that the traffic in Brook Street became a vivid background to their thoughts. Ninon closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply in a slow rhythm. She had thrown her head back against the chair on which she was sitting, and her delicate throat was revealed) with its swift, earnest lines and curves.
But Barrington had no eyes for that delectable revelation. His eyes were on Sacha’s face, framed in its living aureole, and grown wild, with a new, mysterious beauty. He leaned forward in his chair that he might, the more greedily, imbibe the wine of her beauty.
And so he did not perceive that, from beneath half closed lids, Ninon was watching him even as he was watching Sacha. He did not see that her little hands were clenched tight, until the knuckles were bloodless.
Sacha’s voice broke the spell of the silence.
“There is a girl on horseback,” she whispered, “riding up to the door of The Black Tower—”
She was silent during many minutes after that, but Barrington saw the expression of her face change gradually, from repose to anxiety. He strained forward still closer to her, gripping the arms of his chair with his two hands.
“Now she is talking to a young man in my uncle’s room. Oh, dear, it must be my uncle to whom she is talking. And he is sc terribly angry with her—”
Sacha clutched at the crystal, and drew it nearer to her eyes. Her breath came sharply, as if she were weeping.
“Oh, dear, he has wounded himself! Look! Look! Ah!”
She uttered a scream and stood erect with staring eyes. She flung the little table violently away from her.
The crystal fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Chapter XIII
Injection of Madness
Ninon came and put her hand on Sacha’s arm. She called her by name. The girl started and then, like a sleeper awakening, drew her hand across her brow. She murmured:
“I have had such a terrible dream.”
She sank back on the sofa and closed her eyes again. In an instant, as it seemed, she was sleeping soundly. Ninon brought a rug and covered her. Then she turned to Barrington.
“You see. I have done more even than you asked me to do.”
There was a note of challenge in her voice. He caught his breath in a gasp.
“It is horrible.”
The girl’s dark eyes flashed dangerously.
“So — you are sorry for her, are you?” she sneered.
“God knows — yes. I am sorry for her.”
He did not raise his head. Ninon stood looking at him with frowning brows.
“You love her, eh?”
He started.
“No — of course not.”
“Of course not — since you love me.”
A bitter laugh accompanied these last words. Ninon’s anger was rising very quickly. The man looked at her and recoiled from that pale fury.
“Don’t be a fool, Ninon. You know that I love you. You know that I have always loved you.”
He put out his hand to her, but she eluded his hand. She nodded, as if she confirmed the forebodings of her own mind.
“Always. It is true. Until this girl of white and gold has come to you. But now—”
She snapped her fingers in his face, and the sound was sharp and vehement, like her anger. Barrington wilted before her anger.
“You will ruin everything with your jealousy,” he exclaimed, in faltering tones.
“I do not care. No more. I do not care.”
“Listen to me.” He put his hand out again, and this time succeeded in grasping her wrist and drawing her toward him. “My nerves are weak to-day. I have had a touch of my war fever. The sight of that needle of yours made me feel ill. See, I am shaking now.”
He stretched out his disengaged hand before her, showing her its unsteadiness. In an instant the hardness vanished from her eyes.
“I am sorry.”
She turned to him with a new gentleness in her expression.
“You love me?” she pleaded, in accents that were piteous.