CHAPTER XVI
"'TWIXT YOU AND ME A NOISOME SHADOW CAST"
"Adrea!"
It was a cry which seemed to ring through the room, an interruptionso sudden and strange that they started apart like guilty children,gazing towards the lifted curtain which divided the apartment withwondering, half-fearful faces. The woman whom Adrea had called herstep-mother stood there, pale and bloodless, with her great black eyesflashing, and behind her a tall, dark figure was gazing sternly atthem.
Adrea was the first to recover her composure. She was a little furtheraway, and she could see only her step-mother.
"What do you want?" she exclaimed quickly. "I desire to be alone! Whydo you stand there?"
There was no answer. Then the momentary silence was broken by a quick,startled cry from Paul, which seemed to cleave the semi-darkness ofthe room.
"My God!"
The dark figure had moved forward, and was standing, pale and austere,before them. It was Father Adrian.
There was a moment's intense silence. Then Paul turned swiftly roundto where Adrea stood, a little behind him. But the suspicions whichhad commenced to crowd in upon him vanished before even they had takento themselves definite shape. Her surprise was as great as his; and,as their eyes met, she shuddered with the memory which his presencehad recalled.
"Paul de Vaux, I had no thought of meeting you here," Father Adriansaid sternly.
Paul met his gaze haughtily. There was a rebuke, almost a threat, inthe priest's tone which angered him. Whatever his presence here mightbetide, he was in no way responsible for it to Father Adrian.
"Nor I you," he answered. "I imagined that you were staying at themonastery."
"I am staying there."
Madame de Merteuill stepped slowly into the room. She was stilltrembling, and had all the appearance of a woman sore stricken by someunexpected calamity. Even her voice was faint and broken.
"Father Adrian is a visitor here only--an unexpected one--likeyourself."
"Why is he here?" Adrea asked slowly. "Has he come to see us again?What does he want?"
Father Adrian turned towards her, grave and severe. "I have come tosee Madame de Merteuill. I bring her a message from an old manwhom, by her absence, she is wronging. You I did not expect to findhere,--and thus."
She made no answer. The priest drew a little nearer to her, and histhin, ascetic face seemed suddenly ablaze with scorn and anger.
"Child! your destiny is surely to bring sorrow upon all those whowould watch over you, and shape your life aright. Where you have beenliving, and how, since your flight, I do not know. You have hiddenyourself well! You have shown more than the ordinary selfishness ofchildhood! You have thought nothing of those who may have troubled foryou! I do not ask for your confidence. This is enough for me: I findyou here in his arms--his of all men in the world! False to yourChurch; false to your sex; false to your father's memory! Shameless!"
She did not flinch from before him. She looked him in the face, coldlyand without fear.
"You are a priest, and you do not understand. Be so good as toremember that I am no longer now in your power or under yourauthority. You cannot threaten to make me a nun any longer. Rememberthat I am outside your life now, and outside your religion."
"You can be brought back," he said calmly. "I have powers."
"Powers which I defy. Your religion is a cold, dry farce, and I hateit. You cannot frighten me; you cannot alarm me in the least. You cando ugly things, I know, in the name of your Church; and if you had meback at the convent, or on that awful island, I should be frightenedat you. Here, I am not."
Instinctively she glanced toward Paul. Already in her thoughts, he wasassuming the protector. He would not suffer harm to come to her.He was strong and rich and powerful. The horror of days gone by hadalready grown faint with her; it was little more than memory. It wasgone, and could not come again.
"I have not come here to talk with you, child," he answered quietly."My errand has been with Madame de Merteuill, and it is accomplished,I go now. Paul de Vaux, our ways lie together for a mile or more, andI have a word to say to you. Let us go."
Paul was slowly recovering from a state of mental stupor, and, withhis discovery, something of the glamour of his late intoxication waspassing away. He had no regret, there was nothing which he would haverecalled; but his eyes were stronger to pierce the mists, and he wasable to bring the weight of impersonal thought to bear upon all thathad passed between Adrea and himself. Wheresoever it might lead, therewas a tie between them now which could not be lightly severed.
"It is time I went," Paul answered. "Adrea, I will come and see youto-morrow."
She looked at the priest, suspicious and troubled. "What does he wantwith you, Paul?" she whispered. "Don't go with him!"
"I must!" he answered sadly. "He has something to say to me which Iwish to hear. I will come and see you to-morrow."
"If you must, then, until to-morrow. But, Paul!"
She drew him on one side. "Beware of him! Oh! beware of him!" shesaid quickly, her eyes full of fear. "He is a fanatic, a Jesuit. Don'ttrust him! Have little to say to him. Hush! don't answer me! He iswatching. Good-night, beloved! my beloved!"