THE LAST ORDEAL

What impulse she obeyed she knew not; only she wanted to hear the nightingale, to drink in the fragrance, to feel the healing balm upon her heart.  Her feet carried her noiselessly over the grass to that shining splendour of water, and turned along the path that led past the seat under the cedar where Nap had joined her on that evening that seemed already far away, and had told her that he loved her still.  By this path he and Bertie would have gone to the Dower House; by this path he would probably return alone.

Her heart quickened a little as she passed into the deep shadow.  She was not nervous as a rule, but there was something mysterious about the place, something vaguely disquieting.  The gurgle of the stream that fed the lake sounded curiously remote.

She turned towards the rustic seat on which she had rested that day, and on the instant her pulses leapt to sudden alarm.  There was a stealthy movement in front of her; a crouching object that looked monstrous in the gloom detached itself from the shadow and began to move away.  For a moment she thought it was some animal; then there came to her the unmistakable though muffled tread of human feet, and swift as an arrow comprehension pierced her.  The thing in front of her was Tawny Hudson.

But why was he skulking there?  Why did he seek thus to avoid her?  What was the man doing?  The agitated questions raced through her brain at lightning speed, and after them came a horrible, a sickening suspicion.

Whence it arose she could not have said, but the memory of Nap’s face only half an hour before, when Tawny Hudson had been under discussion, arose in her mind and confirmed it almost before she knew that it was there.  She had often suspected the half-breed of harbouring a dislike for Nap.  More often still she had noted Nap’s complete and perfectly obvious contempt for him.  He had tolerated him, no more, for Lucas’s sake.  Was it not highly probable that now that the restraining influence was gone the man’s animosity had flamed to hatred?  And if he were really crazy, as Bertie believed, to what lengths might he not carry it?

Fear stabbed her, fear that was anguish.  At any moment now Nap might be returning, and if Tawny were indeed lying in wait for him—­

She traversed the deep shadow cast by the cedar and looked forth into the park beyond.  The man had disappeared.  He must have doubled back among the trees of the shrubbery; and she knew he must be crouching somewhere in concealment not far away, for all sound of footsteps had ceased.  Did he fancy she had not seen him, she wondered?  Was he hoping that she would turn and go back by the way she had come, leaving him free to accomplish his purpose, whatever it might be?

And then her heart suddenly stood still, for away in the distance, walking with his light, swinging gait over the moonlit sward, she saw Nap.

In that moment her fear took definite and tangible form, and a horror of the thing that lurked in the shadows behind her seized her, goading her to action.  She passed out into the quiet moonlight and moved to meet him.