At The Villa Rose

"Do you hear any sound?"

"No."

"Was that a hand which touched me?"

"No."

"We must wait."

And so silence came again, and suddenly there was quite a rush of

light into the recess. Celia was startled. She turned her head

back again towards the window. The wooden door had swung a little

more open. There was a wider chink to let the twilight of that

starlit darkness through. And as she looked, the chink slowly

broadened and broadened, the door swung slowly back on hinges

which were strangely silent. Celia stared at the widening panel of

grey light with a vague terror. It was strange that she could hear

no whisper of wind in the garden. Why, oh, why was that latticed

door opening so noiselessly? Almost she believed that the spirits

after all... And suddenly the recess darkened again, and Celia sat

with her heart leaping and shivering in her breast. There was

something black against the glass doors--a man. He had appeared as

silently, as suddenly, as any apparition. He stood blocking out

the light, pressing his face against the glass, peering into the

room. For a moment the shock of horror stunned her. Then she tore

frantically at the cords. All thought of failure, of exposure, of

dismissal had fled from her. The three poor women--that was her

thought--were sitting unwarned, unsuspecting, defenceless in the

pitch-blackness of the salon. A few feet away a man, a thief, was

peering in. They were waiting for strange things to happen in the

darkness. Strange and terrible things would happen unless she

could free herself, unless she could warn them. And she could not.

Her struggles were mere efforts to struggle, futile, a shiver from

head to foot, and noiseless as a shiver. Adele Rossignol had done

her work well and thoroughly. Celia's arms, her waist, her ankles

were pinioned; only the bandage over her mouth seemed to be

loosening. Then upon horror, horror was added. The man touched the

glass doors, and they swung silently inwards. They, too, had been

carelessly left unbolted. The man stepped without a sound over the

sill into the room. And, as he stepped, fear for herself drove out

for the moment from Celia's thoughts fear for the three women in

the black room. If only he did not see her! She pressed herself

against the pillar. He might overlook her, perhaps! His eyes would

not be so accustomed to the darkness of the recess as hers. He

might pass her unnoticed--if only he did not touch some fold of

her dress.

And then, in the midst of her terror, she experienced so great a

revulsion from despair to joy that a faintness came upon her, and

she almost swooned. She saw who the intruder was. For when he

stepped into the recess he turned towards her, and the dim light

struck upon him and showed her the contour of his face. It was her

lover, Harry Wethermill. Why he had come at this hour, and in this

strange way, she did not consider. Now she must attract his eyes,

now her fear was lest he should not see her.