CHAPTER XVI

"'TWIXT YOU AND ME A NOISOME SHADOW CAST"

"Adrea!"

It was a cry which seemed to ring through the room, an interruption so sudden and strange that they started apart like guilty children, gazing towards the lifted curtain which divided the apartment with wondering, half-fearful faces. The woman whom Adrea had called her step-mother stood there, pale and bloodless, with her great black eyes flashing, and behind her a tall, dark figure was gazing sternly at them.

Adrea was the first to recover her composure. She was a little further away, and she could see only her step-mother.

"What do you want?" she exclaimed quickly. "I desire to be alone! Why do 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 of the 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 round to where Adrea stood, a little behind him. But the suspicions which had commenced to crowd in upon him vanished before even they had taken to themselves definite shape. Her surprise was as great as his; and, as their eyes met, she shuddered with the memory which his presence had recalled.

"Paul de Vaux, I had no thought of meeting you here," Father Adrian said sternly.

Paul met his gaze haughtily. There was a rebuke, almost a threat, in the priest's tone which angered him. Whatever his presence here might betide, he was in no way responsible for it to Father Adrian.

"Nor I you," he answered. "I imagined that you were staying at the monastery."

"I am staying there."

Madame de Merteuill stepped slowly into the room. She was still trembling, and had all the appearance of a woman sore stricken by some unexpected calamity. Even her voice was faint and broken.

"Father Adrian is a visitor here only—an unexpected one—like yourself."

"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 to see Madame de Merteuill. I bring her a message from an old man whom, by her absence, she is wronging. You I did not expect to find here,—and thus."

She made no answer. The priest drew a little nearer to her, and his thin, ascetic face seemed suddenly ablaze with scorn and anger.

"Child! your destiny is surely to bring sorrow upon all those who would watch over you, and shape your life aright. Where you have been living, and how, since your flight, I do not know. You have hidden yourself well! You have shown more than the ordinary selfishness of childhood! You have thought nothing of those who may have troubled for you! I do not ask for your confidence. This is enough for me: I find you here in his arms—his of all men in the world! False to your Church; false to your sex; false to your father's memory! Shameless!"

She did not flinch from before him. She looked him in the face, coldly and without fear.

"You are a priest, and you do not understand. Be so good as to remember that I am no longer now in your power or under your authority. You cannot threaten to make me a nun any longer. Remember that 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 hate it. You cannot frighten me; you cannot alarm me in the least. You can do ugly things, I know, in the name of your Church; and if you had me back at the convent, or on that awful island, I should be frightened at you. Here, I am not."

Instinctively she glanced toward Paul. Already in her thoughts, he was assuming the protector. He would not suffer harm to come to her. He was strong and rich and powerful. The horror of days gone by had already grown faint with her; it was little more than memory. It was gone, 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, and I have a word to say to you. Let us go."

Paul was slowly recovering from a state of mental stupor, and, with his discovery, something of the glamour of his late intoxication was passing away. He had no regret, there was nothing which he would have recalled; but his eyes were stronger to pierce the mists, and he was able to bring the weight of impersonal thought to bear upon all that had passed between Adrea and himself. Wheresoever it might lead, there was a tie between them now which could not be lightly severed.

"It is time I went," Paul answered. "Adrea, I will come and see you to-morrow."

She looked at the priest, suspicious and troubled. "What does he want with you, Paul?" she whispered. "Don't go with him!"

"I must!" he answered sadly. "He has something to say to me which I wish 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!" she said quickly, her eyes full of fear. "He is a fanatic, a Jesuit. Don't trust him! Have little to say to him. Hush! don't answer me! He is watching. Good-night, beloved! my beloved!"