Grey Mask

CHAPTER XLIV

Long hours of the night-very long-very dark.

Charles explored the cellar and found it about twelve feet square. There was no sign of any other opening. He lifted Margaret as high as he could hold her. She could just touch the roof.

Later he broke her scissors in a vain attempt to dig through the wall into the wine-cellar; the points slid and broke on very hard cement. The door itself would have withstood a battering ram. There was nothing for it but to wait.

They talked. There was so much to talk about. And then, quite suddenly, Margaret fell asleep with his arm about her and her head against his shoulder. The air was heavy and rather warm; it had the curious smell of underground places where no light ever comes. Presently Charles slept too.

He awoke with a consuming thirst; and as he moved, Margaret stirred and woke too. Her little cry of surprise cut him to the heart. She had forgotten. Now she must remember and face a black day of dwindling hope. In those night hours Charles had come to think their chance of being discovered a very slender one indeed.

Margaret said, “I’d forgotten-I was dreaming.” A little shuddering laughter shook her. “It felt so real-a great deal more real than this. I suppose-Charles, I suppose this isn’t the dream?”

If it were. If they could wake up and be together in the light. Charles put his face against hers.

“What did you dream, Meg?”

“I don’t know-it’s gone. It was something-happy. You were there. We were frightfully happy.”

If they could wake up. He held her hard for a minute. Then his clasp relaxed, and he said with sudden violence.

“That little devil must be starting.”

“Is it morning?”

“Yes-seven o’clock-quite light outside.”

A most terrible longing for the light swept over Margaret. She had a picture of the grey morning, and an aeroplane rising higher and higher until the sunlight struck the wings and made them shine. She cried out:

“I can’t bear it! Charles, if they don’t come today-if they don’t come soon, he’ll get there-he’ll get to Vienna! And she doesn’t know-she’ll be waiting for him, and she doesn’t know!”

“We’re all in the same boat, my dear.”

“I can’t bear it!” There were tears in her voice. “It’s so awful not to be able to do anything. When I think that she’s alive, I want to sing for joy; and when I think of him- getting nearer and nearer, and no one to warn her, I-I-Charles!”

She clung to him in a passion of bitter weeping.

“She’s got more chance than we have, darling.” The blunt fact came out bluntly. “In a sort of a way he cares for her, and-they may find us, you know.”

Margaret’s passion sank strangely into calm.

“You don’t think they will.”

Charles Moray was silent.