Francis Stevens - Citadel of Fear

"I'm going in town now."

"Yes," said Cliona quietly. "And we are going with you."

"You're not."

"Before anyone goes," Rhodes interposed with great firmness, "we shall have to talk things over a little further."

"There's nothing to talk about," began Colin in his most obstinate manner, but just then the door opened and a timid, beautiful face appeared in the aperture.

"May I-is it fitting that I enter?"

"Of course-come right in, dear. Did you find it too lonely in your room?"

Cliona, though she had good cause to dislike this ************** who had brought sorrow to all of them, was incapable of treating her in other than a kindly manner. Rising she went to the door and opened it for her fair and singular guest.

The green gown was no longer in evidence, though Colin darkly suspected it of being somewhere beneath the pale lavender peignoir which now adorned her person. Cliona knew better. That unfortunate garment had been removed by herself at 3 A.M., after an expenditure of diplomacy sufficient to settle the fate of nations, but barely enough to persuade her guest out of it and into one of her own dainty nightrobes.

Under Cliona's guidance the girl entered and seated herself in the fourth chair at the small, square table, facing Colin. Every motion she made, every glance of her bright, mournful eyes, expressed the timidity of a graceful wild creature, anxious to please and to believe in the sincerity of those about it, but intensely conscious of the strangeness of its surroundings.

She had been given no opportunity to tell her story. Last night they had all seemed desperately concerned over the killing of one who she well knew deserved his death-so concerned that no attention could be spared her, and every effort she made to speak-went wrong, some way.

They would look at her, kindly, pityingly-and very courteously indicate that silence on her part was greatly to be preferred. The more important part of her story she had not dared even begin on. That was for her lord's ear alone. Surely he, who was so irrevocably bound to her, must understand and believe.

Strange how the speaking or withholding of one word will sometimes affect whole destinies! One word-one of several names that were on her very tongue-tip-and the hindering veil of miscomprehension would have fallen.

But she deemed her "lord" as ignorant of those names as everyone else of the few she had been allowed to meet in this mad world that lay outside her native hills. She knew him and he her, and they knew each other not at all-a paradox that was to cost dear before the finish.

The girl was beautiful enough, in all conscience-more beautiful in the morning sunshine than he had thought her by the lights of night. Her hair was dry now, and had that dull black softness about her face which had caused O'Hara to name her "Dusk Lady" on first sight. Her smooth skin possessed a pearly, translucent whiteness, almost like alabaster with a faint pink light behind it, and her eyes were pleadingly, deceptively intelligent. Yet just now Rhodes felt that Colin himself was a sufficient problem and the presence of his insane protégée superfluous.

"Did you sleep well, Miss Reed?" he inquired.

And she replied with an admirable simplicity: "I slept."

"And why not?" demanded Colin, heavily cheerful. "You're out of that house, and not even your father shall put you back there, little lady."

"My-father? Oh! You mean he who names himself Chester Reed? He is not my father."

"No?" Rhodes tried to look interested. "Your name not Reed, then?"

The girl drew herself up with a funny little air of hauteur, and replied surprisingly: "I have no name!"

A pained expression flashed across O'Hara's frank face. Again he was troubled by that double emotion-shame for her pitiful speeches, and, deeper than that, a sympathy which took no count of madness.

She saw the pain in his eyes, the momentary astonishment of the two other faces, and its instant veiling behind that kindly, intolerable tolerance with which well-bred sanity confronts an unsound mind. She saw, for she shrank back in her chair and her dark eyes glimmered.

"You know, dear child," said Cliona gently, "because we all have names ourselves, we get in the habit of expecting other people to have them, too. But indeed, if you are wishing it to be so, you need have no name with us."

Frowning, the girl glanced from one to another, as if trying to determine exactly what they, their surprise and Cliona's too-soothing assurance might really mean. The she said in a very low tone, speaking only to herself, it seemed: "All the customs are so strange!"

"They are that," conceded O'Hara with suspicious heartiness. "But now don't you be troubling your mind for the matter a minute longer. What do we care for names-the four of us here? Faith, 'tis the same to us if there were no names at all in the world-you need none, little lady, nor your mother nor your father — "

"Oh," cried the girl, brightening unexpectedly, "but of course my father had a name, and gave one to my mother likewise, but for me, I am not wed. Do your unwed maidens bear names, then?"

"Generally." Rhodes sighed. He supposed they must humor the poor girl. "If you would tell us your father's name we could call you that, you know-that is if you object to 'Miss Reed.'"

For the first time she laughed. "To call me as if I were my father! How strange are your customs!"

Then she looked anxiously about the table.

"I have heard him say that some harm had come to his name-what, I did not understand-so that it would bring him sorrow in this, the land of his birth. But you are my friends-you will not speak it to others. You are friends, are you not?"

Colin, though he groaned in the soul of him, nodded and smiled bravely. Rhodes laughed in a kindly, encouraging way, and Cliona, filled with pity, leaned over and kissed the poor, sick girl on her beautiful forehead.

"We are friends," she replied softly. Then: "Oh-what is it, Masters?"

The butler, who had just entered, straightened himself with a resolutely passive face. "There are two men in the reception hall, and they asked me to tell you, Mr. Rhodes, that they are from headquarters and wish to see Mr. O'Hara at once. One of them says his name is MacClellan, sir."

Masters had come to Green Gables shortly after O'Hara's departure for "South America," and consequently, though MacClellan had previously visited the house several times, he was unknown to the butler. But Masters did know that he disapproved of a household in which red-haired giants appeared at breakfast dressed in worn, water-proofed khaki, and were then called upon by plain-clothes men.

However, Masters' inward disturbance was nothing compared to the consternation roused by his announcement in the bosoms of three of his hearers.

No one said anything, but their eyes, meeting across the table, spoke volumes. Then Rhodes turned to his stately servitor with what calmness he could command at the moment.

"All right, Masters. Go tell them to wait a few minutes-right there in the hall."

"Very well, sir."

Masters' restraining presence removed, O'Hara came straight to the point.

"They traced me so soon! Indeed, I've never given that lad MacClellan credit for such intelligence. Well, it's sorry I am, Tony, that they should take me from your house."

But as Colin was rising from the table, Rhodes stopped him.

"Wait a minute! I don't think they've come for that, and I want you not to see them. I have something to tell you — "

"Let it wait!" Colin shook off his brother-in-law's hand and stood up. His face was darkly flushed but his eyes shone with a grim determination. He dominated the rest of them like a giant at a pigmies tea-party.

"Not see them? Would you have me sneak out the back door, then? Be sure they'll see me if I'm in the house-and I'll not run away. Do you stay here."