The Shadow of the East

She beamed on him graciously as with a murmur of thanks Craven turned to mount the stone staircase. A feeling of relief came to him at the thought of the warm hearted self-appointed guardian sitting in kindly vigilance in the big armchair below. Here, too, it would appear, Gillian had made herself beloved. As he passed quickly upward the unnatural calm that had come over him gave place to a very different feeling. It was brought home to him all at once that what he had longed and prayed for was on the point of taking effect. He realised that the ghastly waiting time was over, that in a few moments he would see her, and his heart began to throb violently. Every second that still separated them seemed an age and he took the last remaining flight two steps at a time. But he stopped abruptly as he reached the level of the landing. The open door was within a few feet of him but screened from where he stood.

It was her voice that had arrested him, speaking with an accent of weariness he had never heard before that sent a sudden quiver to his lips. His fingers clenched on the soft hat he held.

“But it does not do at all,” she was saying, and the racking cough that accompanied her words struck through Craven’s heart like a knife, “it is the expression that is wrong. If you look like that I can never believe that you are what you say you are. Think of some of the horrible things you have told me—try and imagine that you are still tracking down that brute who took your little Colette from you—” A husky voice interrupted her. “No use, Madame, when I remember that I can only think of you and the American doctor who gave her back to me, and our happiness.”

“You don’t deserve her, and she hates the things you do,” came the quick retort, and the man who had been speaking laughed.

“But not me,” he answered promptly, “and the things I do keep a roof over our heads,” he added grimly. “But, see, I will try again—does that satisfy Madame?”

Craven moved forward as he heard her eager assent and her injunction to “hold that for a few minutes,” and in the silence that ensued he reached the door. For a moment his entrance passed unobserved.

The stark bareness of the room was revealed to him in a single comprehensive glance and the chill of it sent a sudden feeling of anger surging through him. His face was drawn and his eyes almost menacing with pain as they rested on the slight figure bending forward in unconscious absorption over the easel propped in the middle of the rugless floor. Then his gaze travelled slowly beyond her to the model who stood on the little dais, and he understood in a flash the reason of the old concierge’s vigilance as he saw the manner of man she was painting. The slender darkly clad youth with head thrust forward and sunk deep on his shoulders, with close fitting peaked cap pulled low over his eyes shading his pale sinister face was a typical representative of the class of criminal who had come to be known in Paris as les apaches; no artist’s model masquerading as one of the dreaded assassins, but the genuine article. Of that Craven was convinced. The risk she had taken, the quick resentment he felt at the thought of such a presence near her forced from him an exclamation.

Artist and model turned simultaneously. There was a moment of tense silence as husband and wife stared into each other’s eyes. Then the palette and brushes she was holding dropped with a little chatter to the floor.

“Barry,” she whispered fearfully, “Barry—”

Both men sprang forward, but it was Craven who caught her as she fell. She lay like a featherweight in his strong clasp, and as he gazed at the delicate face crushed against his breast a deadly fear was knocking at his heart that he had come too late. Convulsively his arms tightened round the pitifully light little body and he spoke abruptly to the man who was scowling beside him. “A doctor—as quick as you can—and tell the concierge to come up.” Anxiety roughened his voice and he turned away without waiting to see his orders carried out. For a second the apache glowered at him under narrowing lids, his sullen face working strangely, then he jerked the black cap further over his eyes and slipped away with noiseless tread.

With a broken whisper Craven caught his frail burden closer, as though seeking by the strength and warmth of his own body to animate the fragile limbs lying so cold and lifeless in his arms, and he bent low over the pallid lips he craved and yet did not dare to kiss. They were not for him to take, he reflected bitterly, and in her unconsciousness they were sacred.