pupil of the convent stood before him.
For all the sombre suggestiveness of her disguise and its ungraceful
contour, there was no mistaking the adorable little head, tumbled all
over with silky tendrils of hair from the hasty withdrawal of her coif,
or the blue eyes that sparkled with frank delight beneath them. Key
thought her more beautiful than ever. Yet the very effect of her
frankness and beauty was to recall him to all the danger and
incongruity of her position.
"This is madness," he said quickly. "You may be followed here and
discovered in this costume at any moment!" Nevertheless, he caught the
two little hands that had been extended to him, and held them tightly,
and with a frank familiarity that he would have wondered at an instant
before.
"But I won't," she said simply. "You see I'm doing a 'half-retreat';
and I stay with Sister Seraphina in her room; and she always sleeps two
hours after the Angelus; and I got out without anybody knowing me, in
her clothes. I see what it is," she said, suddenly bending a
reproachful glance upon him, "you don't like me in them. I know
they're just horrid; but it was the only way I could get out."
"You don't understand me," he said eagerly. "I don't like you to run
these dreadful risks and dangers for"--He would have said "for me," but
added with sudden humility--"for nothing. Had I dreamed that you cared
to see me, I would have arranged it easily without this indiscretion,
which might make others misjudge you. Every instant that you remain
here--worse, every moment that you are away from the convent in that
disguise, is fraught with danger. I know you never thought of it."
"But I did," she said quietly; "I thought of it, and thought that if
Sister Seraphina woke up, and they sent for me, you would take me away
with you to that dear little hollow in the hills, where I first heard
your voice. You remember it, don't you? You were lost, I think, in
the darkness, and I used to say to myself afterwards that I found you.
That was the first time. Then the second time I heard you, was here in
the hall. I was alone in the other room, for Mrs. Barker had gone out.
I did not know you were here, but I knew your voice. And the third
time was before the convent gate, and then I knew you knew me. And
after that I didn't think of anything but coming to you; for I knew
that if I was found out, you would take me back with you, and perhaps
send word to my brother where we were, and then"-- She stopped
suddenly, with her eyes fixed on Key's blank face. Her own grew blank,
the joy faded out of her clear eyes, she gently withdrew her hand from
his, and without a word began to resume her disguise.
"Listen to me," said Key passionately. "I am thinking only of YOU. I
want to, and WILL, save you from any blame,--blame you do not
understand even now. There is still time. I will go back to the
convent with you at once. You shall tell me everything; I will tell
you everything on the way."
She had already completely resumed her austere garb, and drew the veil
across her face. With the putting on her coif she seemed to have
extinguished all the joyous youthfulness of her spirit, and moved with
the deliberateness of renunciation towards the door. They descended the
staircase without a word. Those who saw them pass made way for them
with formal respect.
When they were in the street, she said quietly, "Don't give me your
arm--Sisters don't take it." When they had reached the street corner,
she turned it, saying, "This is the shortest way."
It was Key who was now restrained, awkward, and embarrassed. The fire
of his spirit, the passion he had felt a moment before, had gone out of
him, as if she were really the character she had assumed. He said at
last desperately:--
"How long did you live in the hollow?"
"Only two days. My brother was bringing me here to school, but in the
stage coach there was some one with whom he had quarreled, and he
didn't want to meet him with me. So we got out at Skinner's, and came
to the hollow, where his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Barker, lived."
There was no hesitation nor affectation in her voice. Again he felt
that he would as soon have doubted the words of the Sister she
represented as her own.
"And your brother--did you live with him?"
"No. I was at school at Marysville until he took me away. I saw
little of him for the past two years, for he had business in the
mountains--very rough business, where he couldn't take me, for it kept
him away from the settlements for weeks. I think it had something to
do with cattle, for he was always having a new horse. I was all alone
before that, too; I had no other relations; I had no friends. We had
always been moving about so much, my brother and I. I never saw any
one that I liked, except you, and until yesterday I had only HEARD you."
Her perfect naivete alternately thrilled him with pain and doubt. In
his awkwardness and uneasiness he was brutal.
"Yes, but you must have met somebody--other men--here even, when you
were out with your schoolfellows, or perhaps on an adventure like this."
Her white coif turned towards him quickly. "I never wanted to know
anybody else. I never cared to see anybody else. I never would have
gone out in this way but for you," she said hurriedly. After a pause
she added in a frightened tone: "That didn't sound like your voice
then. It didn't sound like it a moment ago either."
"But you are sure that you know my voice," he said, with affected
gayety. "There were two others in the hollow with me that night."
"I know that, too. But I know even what you said. You reproved them
for throwing a lighted match in the dry grass. You were thinking of us
then. I know it."
"Of US?" said Key quickly.
"Of Mrs. Barker and myself. We were alone in the house, for my brother
and her husband were both away. What you said seemed to forewarn me,
and I told her. So we were prepared when the fire came nearer, and we
both escaped on the same horse."
"And you dropped your shoes in your flight," said Key laughingly, "and
I picked them up the next day, when I came to search for you. I have
kept them still."
"They were HER shoes," said the girl quickly, "I couldn't find mine in
our hurry, and hers were too large for me, and dropped off." She
stopped, and with a faint return of her old gladness said, "Then you
DID come back? I KNEW you would."
"I should have stayed THEN, but we got no reply when we shouted. Why
was that?" he demanded suddenly.
"Oh, we were warned against speaking to any stranger, or even being
seen by any one while we were alone," returned the girl simply.
"But why?" persisted Key.
"Oh, because there were so many highwaymen and horse-stealers in the
woods. Why, they had stopped the coach only a few weeks before, and
only a day or two ago, when Mrs. Barker came down. SHE saw them!"
Key with difficulty suppressed a groan. They walked on in silence for
some moments, he scarcely daring to lift his eyes to the decorous
little figure hastening by his side. Alternately touched by mistrust
and pain, at last an infinite pity, not unmingled with a desperate
resolution, took possession of him.
"I must make a confession to you, Miss Rivers," he began with the
bashful haste of a very boy, "that is"--he stammered with a half
hysteric laugh,--"that is--a confession as if you were really a sister
or a priest, you know--a sort of confidence to you--to your dress. I
HAVE seen you, or THOUGHT I saw you before. It was that which brought
me here, that which made me follow Mrs. Barker--my only clue to you--to
the door of that convent. That night, in the hollow, I saw a profile
at the lighted window, which I thought was yours."
"I never was near the window," said the young girl quickly. "It must
have been Mrs. Barker."
"I know that now," returned Key. "But remember, it was my only clue to
you. I mean," he added awkwardly, "it was the means of my finding you."
"I don't see how it made you think of me, whom you never saw, to see
another woman's profile," she retorted, with the faintest touch of
asperity in her childlike voice. "But," she added, more gently and
with a relapse into her adorable naivete, "most people's profiles look
alike."
"It was not that," protested Key, still awkwardly, "it was only that I
realized something--only a dream, perhaps."
She did not reply, and they continued on in silence. The gray wall of
the convent was already in sight. Key felt he had achieved nothing.
Except for information that was hopeless, he had come to no nearer
understanding of the beautiful girl beside him, and his future appeared
as vague as before; and, above all, he was conscious of an inferiority
of character and purpose to this simple creature, who had obeyed him so
submissively. Had he acted wisely? Would it not have been better if he
had followed her own frankness, and--
"Then it was Mrs. Barker's profile that brought you here?" resumed the
voice beneath the coif. "You know she has gone back. I suppose you
will follow?"
"You will not understand me," said Key desperately. "But," he added in
a lower voice, "I shall remain here until you do."
He drew a little closer to her side.
"Then you must not begin by walking so close to me," she said, moving
slightly away; "they may see you from the gate. And you must not go
with me beyond that corner. If I have been missed already they will
suspect you."
"But how shall I know?" he said, attempting to take her hand. "Let me
walk past the gate. I cannot leave you in this uncertainty."
"You will know soon enough," she said gravely, evading his hand. "You
must not go further now. Good-night."
She had stopped at the corner of the wall. He again held out his hand.
Her little fingers slid coldly between his.
"Good-night, Miss Rivers."
"Stop!" she said suddenly, withdrawing her veil and lifting her clear
eyes to his in the moonlight. "You must not say THAT--it isn't the
truth. I can't bear to hear it from YOUR lips, in YOUR voice. My name
is NOT Rivers!"
"Not Rivers--why?" said Key, astounded.
"Oh, I don't know why," she said half despairingly; "only my brother
didn't want me to use my name and his here, and I promised. My name is
'Riggs'--there! It's a secret--you mustn't tell it; but I could not
bear to hear YOU say a lie."
"Good-night, Miss Riggs," said Key sadly.
"No, nor that either," she said softly. "Say Alice."
"Good-night, Alice."
She moved on before him. She reached the gate. For a moment her
figure, in its austere, formless garments, seemed to him to even stoop
and bend forward in the humility of age and self-renunciation, and she
vanished within as into a living tomb.
Forgetting all precaution, he pressed eagerly forward, and stopped
before the gate. There was no sound from within; there had evidently
been no challenge nor interruption. She was safe.
CHAPTER VII.
The reappearance of Chivers in the mill with Collinson, and the brief
announcement that the prisoner had consented to a satisfactory
compromise, were received at first with a half contemptuous smile by
the party; but for the commands of their leaders, and possibly a
conviction that Collinson's fatuous cooperation with Chivers would be
safer than his wrath, which might not expend itself only on Chivers,
but imperil the safety of all, it is probable that they would have
informed the unfortunate prisoner of his real relations to his captor.
In these circumstances, Chivers's half satirical suggestion that
Collinson should be added to the sentries outside, and guard his own
property, was surlily assented to by Riggs, and complacently accepted
by the others. Chivers offered to post him himself,--not without an
interchange of meaning glances with Riggs,--Collinson's own gun was
returned to him, and the strangely assorted pair left the mill amicably
together.
But however humanly confident Chivers was in his companion's
faithfulness, he was not without a rascal's precaution, and determined
to select a position for Collinson where he could do the least damage
in any aberration of trust. At the top of the grade, above the mill,
was the only trail by which a party in force could approach it. This
was to Chivers obviously too strategic a position to intrust to his
prisoner, and the sentry who guarded its approach, five hundred yards
away, was left unchanged. But there was another "blind" trail, or
cut-off, to the left, through the thickest undergrowth of the woods,
known only to his party. To place Collinson there was to insure him
perfect immunity from the approach of an enemy, as well as from any
confidential advances of his fellow sentry. This done, he drew a cigar
from his pocket, and handing it to Collinson, lighted another for
himself, and leaning back comfortably against a large boulder, glanced
complacently at his companion.
"You may smoke until I go, Mr. Collinson, and even afterwards, if you
keep the bowl of your pipe behind a rock, so as to be out of sight of
your fellow sentry, whose advances, by the way, if I were you, I should
not encourage. Your position here, you see, is a rather peculiar one.
You were saying, I think, that a lingering affection for your wife
impelled you to keep this place for her, although you were convinced of
