The Golden Triangle Part 34

He made another effort and caught hold of her hands:

"It is your duty to go," he whispered, "and, when you are free, to do all that you can to save me."

"What are you saying, Patrice?"

"Yes," he repeated, "to save me. There is no reason why you should not escape from that scoundrel's clutches, report him, seek a.s.sistance, warn our friends. You can call out, you can play some trick. . . ."

She looked at him with so sad a smile and such a doubting expression that he stopped speaking.

"You are trying to mislead me, my poor darling," she said, "but you are no more taken in by what you say than I am. No, Patrice, you well know that, if I surrender myself to that man, he will reduce me to silence or imprison me in some hiding-place, bound hand and foot, until you have drawn your last breath."

"You really think that?"

"Just as you do, Patrice. Just as you are sure of what will happen afterwards."

"Well, what will happen?"

"Ah, Patrice, if that man saves my life, it will not be out of generosity. Don't you see what his plan is, his abominable plan, once I am his prisoner? And don't you also see what my only means of escape will be? Therefore, Patrice, if I am to die in a few hours, why not die now, in your arms . . . at the same time as yourself, with my lips to yours? Is that dying? Is it not rather living, in one instant, the most wonderful of lives?"

He resisted her embrace. He knew that the first kiss of her proffered lips would deprive him of all his power of will.

"This is terrible," he muttered. "How can you expect me to accept your sacrifice, you, so young, with years of happiness before you?"

"Years of mourning and despair, if you are gone."

"You must live, Coralie. I entreat you to, with all my soul."

"I cannot live without you, Patrice. You are my only happiness. I have no reason for existence except to love you. You have taught me to love.

I love you!"

Oh, those heavenly words! For the second time they rang between the four walls of that room. The same words, spoken by the daughter, which the mother had spoken with the same pa.s.sion and the same glad acceptance of her fate! The same words made twice holy by the recollection of death past and the thought of death to come!

Coralie uttered them without alarm. All her fears seemed to disappear in her love; and it was love alone that shook her voice and dimmed the brightness of her eyes.

Patrice contemplated her with a rapt look. He too was beginning to think that minutes such as these were worth dying for. Nevertheless, he made a last effort:

"And if I ordered you to go, Coralie?"

"That is to say," she murmured, "if you ordered me to go to that man and surrender myself to him? Is that what you wish, Patrice?"

The thought was too much for him.

"Oh, the horror of it! That man . . . that man . . . you, my Coralie, so stainless and undefiled! . . ."

Neither he nor she pictured the man in the exact image of Simeon. To both of them, notwithstanding the hideous vision perceived above, the enemy retained a mysterious character. It was perhaps Simeon. It was perhaps another, of whom Simeon was but the instrument. a.s.suredly it was the enemy, the evil genius crouching above their heads, preparing their death-throes while he pursued Coralie with his foul desire.

Patrice asked one more question:

"Did you ever notice that Simeon sought your company?"

"No, never. If anything, he rather avoided me."

"Then it's because he's mad. . . ."

"I don't think he is mad: he is revenging himself."

"Impossible. He was my father's friend. All his life long he worked to bring us together: surely he would not kill us deliberately?"

"I don't know, Patrice, I don't understand. . . ."

They discussed it no further. It was of no importance whether their death was caused by this one or that one. It was death itself that they had to fight, without troubling who had set it loose against them. And what could they do to ward it off?

"You agree, do you not?" asked Coralie, in a low voice.

He made no answer.

"I shall not go," she went on, "but I want you to be of one mind with me. I entreat you. It tortures me to think that you are suffering more than I do. You must let me bear my share. Tell me that you agree."

"Yes," he said, "I agree."

"My own Patrice! Now give me your two hands, look right into my eyes and smile."

Mad with love and longing they plunged themselves for an instant into a sort of ecstasy. Then she asked:

"What is it, Patrice? You seem distraught again."

He gave a hoa.r.s.e cry:

"Look! . . . Look . . ."

This time he was certain of what he had seen. The ladder was going up.

The ten minutes were over.

He rushed forward and caught hold of one of the rungs. The ladder no longer moved.

He did not know exactly what he intended to do. The ladder afforded Coralie's only chance of safety. Could he abandon that hope and resign himself to the inevitable?

One or two minutes pa.s.sed. The ladder must have been hooked fast again, for Patrice felt a firm resistance up above.

Coralie was entreating him:

"Patrice," she asked, "Patrice, what are you hoping for?"

He looked around and above him, as though seeking an idea, and he seemed also to look inside himself, as though he were seeking that idea amid all the memories which he had acc.u.mulated at the moment when his father also held the ladder, in a last effort of will. And suddenly, throwing up his leg, he placed his left foot on the fifth rung of the ladder and began to raise himself by the uprights.

It was an absurd attempt to scale the ladder, to reach the skylight, to lay hold of the enemy and thus save himself and Coralie. If his father had failed before him, how could he hope to succeed?

It was all over in less than three seconds. The ladder was at once unfastened from the hook that kept it hanging from the skylight; and Patrice and the ladder came to the ground together. At the same time a strident laugh rang out above, followed the next moment by the sound of the skylight closing.