He took a car to the Siebensternstrasse. His idea of Peter’s manner of living those days was exceedingly vague. He had respected Peter’s reticence, after the manner of men with each other. Peter had once mentioned a boy he was looking after, in excuse for leaving so soon after the accident. That was all.
The house on the Siebensternstrasse loomed large and unlighted. The street was dark, and it was only after a search that Stewart found the gate. Even then he lost the path, and found himself among a group of trees, to touch the lowest branches of any of which resulted in a shower of raindrops. To add to his discomfort some one was walking in the garden, coming toward him with light, almost stealthy steps.
Stewart by his tree stood still, waiting. The steps approached, were very close, were beside him. So intense was the darkness that even then all he saw was a blacker shadow, and that was visible only because it moved. Then a hand touched his arm, stopped as if paralyzed, drew back slowly, fearfully.
“Good Heavens!” said poor Harmony faintly.
“Please don’t be alarmed. I have lost the path.” Stewart’s voice was almost equally nervous. “Is it to the right or the left?”
It was a moment before Harmony had breath to speak. Then:—
“To the right a dozen paces or so.”
“Thank you. Perhaps I can help you to find it.”
“I know it quite well. Please don’t bother.”
The whole situation was so unexpected that only then did it dawn on Stewart that this blacker shadow was a countrywoman speaking God’s own language. Together, Harmony a foot or so in advance, they made the path.
“The house is there. Ring hard, the bell is out of order.”
“Are you not coming in?”
“No. I—I do not live here.”
She must have gone just after that. Stewart, glancing at the dark facade of the house, turned round to find her gone, and a moment later heard the closing of the gate. He was bewildered. What sort of curious place was this, a great looming house that concealed in its garden a fugitive American girl who came and went like a shadow, leaving only the memory of a sweet voice strained with fright?
Stewart was full of his encounter as he took the candle the Portier gave him and followed the gentleman’s gruff directions up the staircase. Peter admitted him, looking a trifle uneasy, as well he might with Marie in the salon.
Stewart was too preoccupied to notice Peter’s expression. He shook the rain off his hat, smiling.
“How are you?” asked Peter dutifully.
“Pretty good, except for a headache when I’m tired. What sort of a place have you got here anyhow, Byrne?”
“Old hunting-lodge of Maria Theresa,” replied Peter, still preoccupied with Marie and what was coming. “Rather interesting old place.”
“Rather,” commented Stewart, “with goddesses in the garden and all the usual stunts.”
“Goddesses?”
“Ran into one just now among the trees. ‘A woman I forswore, but thou being a goddess I forswore not thee.’ English-speaking goddess, by George!”
Peter was staring at him incredulously; now he bent forward and grasped his arm in fingers of steel.
“For Heaven’s sake, Stewart, tell me what you mean! Who was in the garden?”
Stewart was amused and interested. It was not for him to belittle a situation of his own making, an incident of his own telling.
“I lost my way in your garden, wandered among the trees, broke through a hedgerow or two, struck a match and consulted the compass—”
Peter’s fingers closed.
“Quick,” he said.
Stewart’s manner lost its jauntiness.
“There was a girl there,” he said shortly. “Couldn’t see her. She spoke English. Said she didn’t live here, and broke for the gate the minute I got to the path.”
“You didn’t see her?”
“No. Nice voice, though. Young.”
The next moment he was alone. Peter in his dressing-gown was running down the staircase to the lower floor, was shouting to the Portier to unlock the door, was a madman in everything but purpose. The Portier let him out and returned to the bedroom.
“The boy above is worse,” he said briefly. “A strange doctor has just come, and but now the Herr Doktor Byrne runs to the drug store.”
The Portier’s wife shrugged her shoulders even while tears filled her eyes.
“What can one expect?” she demanded. “The good Herr Gott has forbidden theft and Rosa says the boy was stolen. Also the druggist has gone to visit his wife’s mother.”
“Perhaps I may be of service; I shall go up.”
“And see for a moment that hussy of the streets! Remain here. I shall go.”
Slowly and ponderously she climbed the stairs.
Stewart, left alone, wandered along the dim corridor. He found Peter’s excitement rather amusing. So this was where Peter lived, an old house, isolated in a garden where rambled young women with soft voices. Hello, a youngster asleep! The boy, no doubt.
He wandered on toward the lighted door of the salon and Marie. The place was warm and comfortable, but over it all hung the indescribable odor of drugs that meant illness. He remembered that the boy was frail.
Marie turned as he stopped in the salon doorway, and then rose, white-faced. Across the wide spaces of the room they eyed each other. Marie’s crisis had come. Like all crises it was bigger than speech. It was after a distinct pause that she spoke.
“Hast thou brought the police?”
Curiously human, curiously masculine at least was Stewart’s mental condition at that moment. He had never loved the girl; it was with tremendous relief he had put her out of his life. And yet—
“So it’s old Peter now, is it?”
“No, no, not that, Walter. He has given me shelter, that is all. I swear it. I look after the boy.”
“Who else is here?”
“No one else; but—”
“Tell that rot to some one who does not know you.”
“It is true. He never even looks at me. I am wicked, but I do not lie.” There was a catch of hope in her voice. Marie knew men somewhat, but she still cherished the feminine belief that jealousy is love, whereas it is only injured pride. She took a step toward him. “Walter, I am sorry. Do you hate me?” She had dropped the familiar “thou.”
Stewart crossed the room until only Peter’s table and lamp stood between them.
“I didn’t mean to be brutal,” he said, rather largely, entirely conscious of his own magnanimity. “It was pretty bad up there and I know it. I don’t hate you, of course. That’s hardly possible after—everything.”
“You—would take me back?”
“No. It’s over, Marie. I wanted to know where you were, that’s all; to see that you were comfortable and not frightened. You’re a silly child to think of the police.”
Marie put a hand to her throat.
“It is the American, of course.”
“Yes.”
She staggered a trifle, recovered, threw up her head. “Then I wish I had killed her!”
No man ever violently resents the passionate hate of one woman for her rival in his affections. Stewart, finding the situation in hand and Marie only feebly formidable, was rather amused and flattered by the honest fury in her voice. The mouse was under his paw; he would play a bit. “You’ll get over feeling that way, kid. You don’t really love me.”
“You were my God, that is all.”
“Will you let me help you—money, I mean?”
“Keep it for her.”
“Peter will be here in a minute.” He bent over the table and eyed her with his old, half-bullying, half-playful manner. “Come round here and kiss me for old times.”
“No!”
“Come.”
She stood stubbornly still, and Stewart, still smiling, took a step or two toward her. Then he stopped, ceased smiling, drew himself up.