"Only this, man," said Andor sombrely, "that it is you who are mad—or drunk."
"Oh! not mad. What harm is there in it? You chose to interfere between Klara and me, and I only want to show you that I am the master of my own affairs."
"But it'll get known. Old Rézi's cottage is not far and she is a terrible gossip. Back door or no back door, someone will see you sneaking in or out."
"And if they do—have you any objection, my dear friend?"
"It'll be all over the village—Elsa will hear of it."
"And if she does?" retorted Béla, with a sudden return to his savage mood. "She will have to put up with it: that's all. She has already learned to-day that I do as I choose to do, and that she must do as I tell her. But a further confirmation of this excellent lesson will not come amiss—at the eleventh hour, my dear friend."
"You wouldn't do such a thing, Béla! You wouldn't put such an insult on Elsa! You wouldn't . . ."
"I wouldn't what, my fine gentleman, who tried to sneak another fellow's sweetheart?" sneered Béla as he drew a step or two nearer to Andor. "I wouldn't what? Come here and have supper with Klara while Elsa's precious friends are eating the fare I've provided for them and[Pg 247] abusing me behind my back? Yes, I would! and I'll stay just as long as I like and let anyone see me who likes . . . and Elsa may go to the devil with jealousy for aught I care."
He was quite close to Andor now, but being half a head shorter, he had to look up in order to see the other eye to eye. Thus for a moment the two men were silent, measuring one another like two primitive creatures of these plains who have been accustomed for generations past to satisfy all quarrels with the shedding of blood. And in truth, never had man so desperate a longing to kill as Andor had at this moment. The red mist enveloped him entirely now, he could see nothing round him but the hideous face of this coarse brute with its one leering eye and cruel, sensuous lips.
The vision of Elsa had quite faded from before his gaze, her snow-white hands no longer tried to dissipate that hideous blood-red veil. Only from behind Erös Béla's shoulder he saw peering at him through the mist the pale eyes of Leopold Hirsch. But on them he would not look, for he felt that that way lay madness.
What the next moment would have brought the Fates who weave the destinies of mankind could alone have told. Béla, unconscious or indifferent to the menace which was glowing in Lakatos Andor's eyes, never departed for a moment from his attitude of swaggering insolence, and even now with an ostentatious gesture he thrust the key into his waistcoat pocket.
Andor gave a hoarse and quickly-smothered cry like that of a beast about to spring:
"You cur!" he muttered through his teeth, "you d——d cur!"
His hands were raised, ready to fasten themselves on[Pg 248] the other man's throat, when the door of the inner room was suddenly thrown open and Ignácz Goldstein's querulous voice broke the spell that hung over the two men.
"Now then, my friends, now then," he said fussily as he shuffled into the room, "it is time that this respectable house should be shut up for the night. I am just off to catch the slow train to Kecskemét—after you, my friends, after you, please."
He made a gesture toward the open door and then went up to the table and poured himself out a final stirrup-cup. He was wrapped from head to foot in a threadbare cloth coat, lined with shaggy fur, a fur-edged bonnet was on his head, and he carried a stout stick to which was attached a large bundle done up in a red cotton handkerchief. This now he slung over his shoulder.
"Klara, my girl," he called.
"Yes, father," came Klara's voice from the inner room.
"I didn't see the back-door key—the duplicate one I mean—hanging in its usual place."
"No, father, I know," she replied. "It's all right. I have it in my pocket. I'll hang it up on the peg in a minute."
"Right, girl," he said as he smacked his lips after the long draft of wine. "You are quite sure Leopold changed his mind about coming with me?"
"Quite sure, father."
"I wonder, then, he didn't wait to say good-bye to me."
"Perhaps he'll meet you at the station."
"Perhaps he will. Now then, gentlemen," added the old Jew as he once more turned to the two men.
Indeed Andor felt that the spell had been lifted from him. He was quite calm now, and that feeling of being[Pg 249] in dreamland had descended still more forcibly upon his mind.
"You have nothing more to say to me, have you, my good Andor?" said Béla, with a final look of insolent swagger directed at his rival.
"No," replied Andor slowly and deliberately. "Nothing."
"Then good-night, my friend!" concluded the other, with a sarcastic laugh. "Why not go to the barn, and dance with Elsa, and sup at my expense like the others do? You'll be made royally welcome there, I assure you."
"Thank you. I am going home."
"Well! as you like! I shall just look in there myself now for half an hour—but I am engaged later on for supper elsewhere, you know."
"So I understand!"
"Gentlemen! My dear friends! I shall miss my train!" pleaded old Ignácz Goldstein querulously.
He manœuvred the two men toward the door and then prepared to follow them.
"Klara!" he called again.
"Coming, father," she replied.
She came running out of the room, and as she reached the door she called to Andor.
"Andor, you have not said good-night," she said significantly.
"Never mind about that now," said Ignácz Goldstein fretfully, "I shall miss my train."
He kissed his daughter perfunctorily, then said:
"There's no one in the tap-room now, is there? I didn't notice."
"No," she replied, "no one just now."
"Then I'd keep the door shut, if I were you. I'd rather[Pg 250] those fellows back from Arad didn't come in to-night. The open door would attract them—a closed one might have the effect of speeding them on their way."
"Very well, father," she said indifferently, "I'll keep the door closed."
"And mind you push all the bolts home to both the doors," he added sternly. "A girl alone in a house cannot be too careful."
"All right, father," she rejoined impatiently, "I'll see to everything. Haven't I been alone like this before?"
The other two men were going down the verandah steps. Goldstein went out too now and slammed the door behind him.
And Klara found herself alone in the house.
* * *
[Pg 251]
CHAPTER XXVI
"What had Andor done?"
She waited for a moment with her ear glued to the front door until the last echo of the men's footsteps had completely died away in the distance, then she ran to the table. The tray was there, but no key upon it. With feverish, jerky movements she began to hunt for it, pushing aside bottles and mugs, opening drawers, searching wildly with dilated eyes all round the room.
The key was here, somewhere . . . surely, surely Andor had not played her false . . . he would not play her false . . . He was not that sort . . . surely, surely he was not that sort. He had come back from his errand—of course she had seen him just now, and . . . and he had said nothing certainly, but . . .
Well! He can't have gone far; and her father wouldn't hear if she called. She ran back to the door and fumbled at the latch, for her hands trembled so that she bruised them against the iron. There! At last it was done! She opened the door and peered out into the night. Everything was still, not a footstep echoed from down the street. She took one step out, on to the verandah . . . then she heard a rustle from behind the pollarded acacia tree and a rustle amongst its leaves. Someone was there!—on the watch!—Leopold!
She smothered a scream of terror and in a moment had fled back into the room and slammed and bolted the door behind her. Now she stood with her back against it,[Pg 252] arms outstretched, fingers twitching convulsively against the wood. She was shivering as with cold, though the heat in the room was clos
e and heavy with fumes of wine and tobacco: her teeth were chattering, a cold perspiration had damped the roots of her hair.
She had wanted to call Andor back, just to ask him definitely if he had been successful in his errand and what he had done with the key. Perhaps he meant to tell her; perhaps he had merely forgotten to put the key on the tray, and still had it in his waistcoat pocket; she had been a fool not to come out and speak to him when she heard his voice in the tap-room awhile ago. She had wanted to, but her father monopolized her about his things for the journey. He had been exceptionally querulous to-night and was always ready to be suspicious; also Béla had been in the tap-room with Andor, and she wouldn't have liked to speak of the key before Béla. What she had been absolutely sure of, however, until now was that Andor would not have come back and then gone away like this, if he had not succeeded in his errand and got her the key from Count Feri.
But the key was not there: there was no getting away from that, and she had wanted to call Andor back and to ask him about it—and had found Leopold Hirsch standing out there in the dark . . . watching.
She had not seen him—but she had felt his presence—and she was quite sure that she had heard the hissing sound of his indrawn breath and the movement which he had made to spring on her—and strangle her, as he had threatened to do—if she went out by the front door.
Mechanically she passed her hand across her throat. Terror—appalling, deadly terror of her life—had her in[Pg 253] its grasp. She tottered across the room and sank into a chair. She wanted time to think.
What had Andor done? What a fool she had been not to ask him the straight question while she had the chance. She had been afraid of little things—her father's temper, Erös Béla's sneers—when now there was death and murder to fear.
What had Andor done?
Had he played her false? Played this dirty trick on her out of revenge? He certainly—now she came to think of it—had avoided meeting her glance when he went away just now.
Had he played her false?
The more she thought on it, the more the idea got root-hold in her brain. In order to be revenged for the humiliation which she had helped to put upon Elsa, Andor had chosen this means for bringing her to everlasting shame and sorrow—the young Count murdered outside her door, in the act of sneaking into the house by a back way, at dead of night, while Ignácz Goldstein was from home; Leopold Hirsch—her tokened fiancé—a murderer, condemned to hang for a brutal crime; she disgraced for ever, cursed if not killed by her father, who did not trifle in the matter of his daughter's good name. . . . All that was Andor's projected revenge for what she had done to Elsa.
The thought of it was too horrible. It beat into her brain until she felt that her head must burst as under the blows of a sledge-hammer or else that she must go mad.
She pushed back the matted hair from her temples, and looked round the tiny, dark, lonely room in abject terror. From far away came the shrill whistle of the engine which bore her father away to Kecskemét. It must be nearly half-past nine, then, and close on half an hour since she[Pg 254] had been left here alone with her terrors. Yet another half-hour and . . .
No, no! This she felt that she could not endure—not another half-hour of this awful, death-dealing suspense. Anything would be better than that—death at Leopold's hands—a quick gasp, a final agony—yes! That would be briefer and better—and perhaps Leo's heart would misgive him—perhaps . . . but in any case, anything must be better than this suspense.
She struggled to her feet; her knees shook under her: for the moment she could not have moved if her very life had depended on it. So she stood still, propped against the table, her hands clutching convulsively at its edge for support, and her eyes dilated and staring, still searching round the room wildly for the key.
At last she felt that she could walk; she tottered back across the room, back to the door, and her twitching fingers were once more fumbling with the bolts.
The house was so still and the air was so oppressive. When she paused in her fumbling—since her fingers refused her service—she could almost hear that movement again behind the acacia tree outside, and that rustling among the leaves.
She gave a wild gasp of terror and ran back to the chair—like a frightened feline creature, swift and silent—and sank into it, still gasping, her whole body shaken now as with fever, her teeth chattering, her limbs numb.
Death had been so near! She had felt an icy breath across her throat! She was frightened—hideously, abjectly, miserably frightened. Death lurked for her, there outside in the dark, from behind the acacia tree! Death in the guise of a jealous madman, whose hate had[Pg 255] been whetted by an hour's lonely watch in the dark—lonely, but for his thoughts.
Tears of self-pity as well as of fear rose to the unfortunate girl's eyes; convulsive sobs shook her shoulders and tore at her heart till she felt that she must choke. She threw out her arms across the table and buried her face in them and lay there, sobbing and moaning in her terror and in her misery.
How long she remained thus, crying and half inert with mental anguish and pain, she could not afterwards have told. Nor did she know what it was that roused her from this torpor, and caused her suddenly to sit up in her chair, upright, wide-awake, her every sense on the alert.
Surely she could not have heard the fall of footsteps at the back of the house! There was the whole width of the inner room and two closed doors between her and the yard at the back, and the ground there was soft and muddy; no footstep, however firm, could raise echoes there.
And yet she had heard! Of that she felt quite sure, heard with that sixth sense of which she, in her ignorance, knew nothing, but which, nevertheless, now had roused her from that coma-like state into which terror had thrown her, and set every one of her nerves tingling once more and pulsating with life and the power to feel.
For the moment all her faculties seemed merged into that of hearing. With that same sixth sense she heard the stealthy footsteps coming nearer and nearer. They had not approached from the village, but from the fields at the back, and along the little path which led through the unfenced yard straight to the back door.
These footsteps—which seemed like the footsteps of ghosts, so intangible were they—were now so near that[Pg 256] to Klara's supersensitive mind they appeared to be less than ten paces from the back door.
Then she heard another footstep—she heard it quite distinctly, even though walls and doors were between her and them—she heard the movement from behind the acacia tree—the one that stands at the corner of the house, in full view of both the doors—she heard the rustle among its low-hanging branches and that hissing sound as of an indrawn breath.
She shot up from her chair like an automaton—rigid and upright, her mouth opened as for a wild shriek, but all power of sound was choked in her throat. She ran into the inner room like one possessed, her mouth still wide open for the frantic shriek which would not come, for that agonizing call for help.
She fell up against the back door. Her hands tore at the lock, at the woodwork, at the plaster around; she bruised her hands and cut her fingers to the bone, but still that call would not come to her throat—not even now, when she heard on the other side of the door, less than five paces from where she lay, frantic with horror, a groan, a smothered cry, a thud—then swiftly hurrying footsteps flying away in the night.
Then nothing more, for she was lying now in a huddled mass, half unconscious on the floor.
* * *
[Pg 257]
CHAPTER XXVII
"The shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers."
How Klara Goldstein spent that terrible night she never fully realized. After half an hour or so she dragged herself up from the floor. Full consciousness had returned to her, and with it the power to feel, to understand and to fear.
A hideous, awful terror was upon her which seemed to freeze her through and through; a cold sweat broke out all over her body, and she was trembling from head to foot. She cr
awled as far as the narrow little bed which was in a corner of the room, and just managed to throw herself upon it, on her back, and there to remain inert, perished with cold, racked with shivers, her eyes staring upwards into the darkness, her ears strained to listen to every sound that came from the other side of the door.
But gradually, as she lay, her senses became more alive; the power to think coherently, to reason with her fears, asserted itself more and more over those insane terrors which had paralysed her will and her heart. She did begin to think—not only of herself and of her miserable position, but of the man who lay outside—dying or dead.
Yes! That soon became the most insistent thought.
Leopold Hirsch, having done the awful deed, had fled, of course, but his victim might not be dead, he might be only wounded and dying for want of succour. Klara—closing her eyes—could almost picture him, groaning and[Pg 258] perhaps trying to drag himself up in a vain endeavour to get help.
Then she rose—wretched, broken, terrified—but nevertheless resolved to put all selfish fears aside and to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy which had been enacted outside her door. She lit the storm-lantern, then, with it in her hand, she went through the tap-room and opened the front door.
She knew well the risks which she was running, going out like this into the night, and alone. Any passer-by might see her—ask questions, suspect her of connivance when she told what it was that she had come out to seek in the darkness behind her own back door. But to this knowledge and this small additional fear she resolutely closed her mind. Drawing the door to behind her, she stepped out on to the verandah and thence down the few steps into the road below.
A slight breeze had sprung up within the last half-hour, and had succeeded in chasing away the heavy banks of cloud which had hung over the sky earlier in the evening.