The Bond of Black Part 20

She spoke sensibly, as few of her age would speak. Her parents had been honest, upright, G.o.d-fearing folk, and she had been taught to view life philosophically.

"But you have loved," I suggested. "You can't really tell me with truth that of all these men who have escorted you about of an evening and on Sundays there is not one for whom you have developed some feeling of affection."

She blushed and glanced up at me shyly.

"It really isn't fair to ask me that," she protested, flicking at the last year's leaves with the point of her umbrella. "A woman must have a heart like stone if she never experiences any feeling of love. If I replied in the negative I should only lie to you. That you know quite well."

"Then you have a lover, eh?" I exclaimed quickly, perhaps in a tone of ill-concealed regret.

"No," she responded, in a low, firm voice, "I have no lover." Then after a few moments' pause she inquired, "Why do you ask me that?"

"Because, Muriel," I said seriously, taking her hand, "because I desire to know the truth."

"Why?" she asked, looking at me in mingled amazement and alarm. "We are friends, it is true; but your friends.h.i.+p gives you no right to endeavour to learn the secret of my heart," and she gently withdrew her hand from my grasp.

I was silent, unable to reply to such an argument.

"And you love this man?" I said, in a rather hard voice.

But she merely shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced laugh answered--

"Oh, let's talk of something else. We are out to enjoy ourselves to-day, not to discuss each other's love affairs."

We had approached the Diana fountain, and she stood pensively beside it for a moment watching the shoal of lazy carp, some of which have lived in that pond for over a century.

"I do not wish to discuss my own affairs of the heart, Muriel," I burst forth pa.s.sionately, as I stood beside her. "Yet, as one who holds you in esteem, who has ever striven for your welfare, I feel somehow that I ought to be still your confidant."

"You only wish to wring my secret from me because it amuses you," she protested, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng resentfully. "You know that's the truth.

When you have nothing better to do you bring me out, just because I'm company. If you had held me in esteem, as you declare you do, you would have at least wished me farewell before you went abroad for the winter."

This neglect had annoyed her, and in sudden pique she was reproaching me in a manner quite unusual to her. I had never before seen her a.s.sume so resentful an air.

"No," I responded, pained that she should thus charge me with amusing myself at leisure with her society, although when I reflected I was compelled to admit within myself that her words were the absolute truth.

For several years I had merely treated her as a friend to be sought when I had no other person to dine with or accompany me out. Yes, of late, I had neglected Muriel sadly.

"I don't think you are quite fair," I said. "That I hold you in esteem you must have seen long, long ago, and the reason why I did not wish you farewell was because--well, because I was just then very much upset."

"You had met a woman whom you believed you loved," she said harshly.

"It is useless to try and conceal the truth from me."

"I have not attempted to conceal anything," I responded, nevertheless starting at her mention of that woman who had been enveloped in such mystery, and who, after a few days' madness, had now so completely gone out of my life. How could she have known?

In answer she looked me straight in the face with her dark, fathomless eyes.

"You have told me nothing of your love," she exclaimed in a hoa.r.s.e tone.

"If you cannot trust me with your confidences as once you used to do, then we can no longer remain the fast friends we have been. We must drift apart. You have already shown that you fear to tell me of your fascination--a fascination that was so near to becoming fatal. You know nothing of Aline Cloud--of who or what she is--yet you love her blindly!" Her well-arched brows knit themselves, her face became at that instant pale and hard set, and she held her breath, as if a sudden determination had swept upon her.

She knew my secret, and I stood confused, unable to reply to those quick, impetuous words which had involuntarily escaped her.

Did she love me? I wondered. Had jealousy alone prompted that speech?

Or was she really aware of the truth concerning the blue-eyed woman whom I had adored for those few fleeting days, and whom I was now seeking to hunt down as a criminal?

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"YOU! OF ALL MEN!"

"No," I admitted, "I was not aware who Aline Cloud was, nor did I know that you were acquainted with her."

She started. She had unwittingly betrayed herself.

"I--acquainted with her!" she cried in a voice of indignation. "You are mistaken."

"But you know her by repute," I said. "Tell me the truth about her."

She laughed, a light, nervous laugh, her eyes still fixed upon the water.

"You love her!" she exclaimed. "It is useless for me to say anything."

"No, no, Muriel," I cried. "I do not love her. How could I love her when I know nothing whatsoever of her? Why, I only saw her twice."

"But you were with her a sufficient length of time to declare your love."

How could she know? I wondered. Aline herself must have told her. She uttered a falsehood when she declared that she did not know the mysterious fair-faced woman whose power was so mysterious and unnatural.

I was puzzled.

"Well," I said at length, "I admit it. I admit that in a moment of mad ecstasy I made a foolish declaration of affection--an avowal which I have ever since regretted."

She gave me a pitying, scornful look, a glance which proved to me how fierce was her hatred of Aline.

"If you had told me of your fascination I might have been able to have explained the truth concerning her. But as you have thought fit to preserve your secret, no end can now be gained by the exposure of anything I know," she said, quite calmly.

"What do you know about her, Muriel?" I inquired, laying my hand upon her arm in all seriousness. "Tell me."

But she shook her head, rather sadly perhaps. The bright expression of happiness which had illuminated her countenance until that moment had died away and been replaced by a look of dull despair. The sun shone down upon her brightly, the birds were singing in the trees and all around was gladness, but she seemed troubled and oppressed as one heartbroken.

"No!" she answered in a low tone, her breast slowly heaving and falling.

"If you have really escaped the enthralment it is enough. You may congratulate yourself."

"Why?"

"Merely because you have avoided the pitfall set in your path," she answered. "She was beautiful. It was because of her loveliness that you became entranced, was it not?"

"There is no necessity to conceal anything," I said.

"You speak the truth."

"And you had some ill.u.s.trations of the evil influence which lay within her?" Muriel asked.