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diff --git a/41711.txt b/41711.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0eed5bd..0000000 --- a/41711.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6876 +0,0 @@ - A WOMAN MARTYR - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: A Woman Martyr -Author: Alice Mangold Diehl -Release Date: December 26, 2012 [EBook #41711] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN MARTYR *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - -[Illustration: Cover] - - - - -[Illustration: "She turned a white set face upon her self-elected -escort." _A Woman Martyr_. _Page 10_.] - - - - - A WOMAN MARTYR - - - BY - ALICE MANGOLD DIEHL - - AUTHOR OF "PASSION PUPPETS" - "THE KNAVE OF HEARTS" "FIRE" ETC. ETC - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADOLF THIEDE - - - - LONDON - WARD, LOCK AND CO. LIMITED - NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE - 1903 - - - - - Contents - -CHAPTER I -CHAPTER II -CHAPTER III -CHAPTER IV -CHAPTER V -CHAPTER VI -CHAPTER VII -CHAPTER VIII -CHAPTER IX -CHAPTER X -CHAPTER XI -CHAPTER XII -CHAPTER XIII -CHAPTER XIV -CHAPTER XV -CHAPTER XVI -CHAPTER XVII -CHAPTER XVIII -CHAPTER XIX -CHAPTER XX -CHAPTER XXI -CHAPTER XXII -CHAPTER XXIII -CHAPTER XXIV -CHAPTER XXV -CHAPTER XXVI -CHAPTER XXVII -CHAPTER XXVIII -CHAPTER XXIX -CHAPTER XXX -CHAPTER XXXI -CHAPTER XXXII -CHAPTER XXXIII -CHAPTER XXXIV -CHAPTER XXXV - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -A sharp shower pattering on the foliage of the sycamores and elms was -scattering the equestrians in the Row. Fair girls urged their hacks -into a canter and trotted swiftly homewards. Other riders, glancing -upwards, and deciding that the clouds had done their worst, drew up -under the trees. Among these was a slight, graceful girl in a -well-fitting habit with a pale, classic face, and the somewhat Venetian -combination of dark brown eyes and red-gold hair. With a slight wave of -her whip to her groom--who halted obediently under a neighbouring -tree--she reined in her slender-limbed bay mare under a horse-chestnut -tree whose shelter was still undemanded. - -There she sat still in her saddle, with a slight frown--biting her -lip--as she asked herself again and again, "Did he see me? Has he ridden -out of the park?" - -When she cantered along just as the shower began, she fancied she -recognised an admirer she had believed to be far away, walking his horse -in the same direction as herself. This was Lord Vansittart--a man who -had several times repeated his offer of marriage--an offer she did not -refuse because he had not stirred her heart--for she loved him, and -passionately--but for other reasons. Although it had caused her bitter -pain, she had at least been determined enough in her "No" to send him -off, in dudgeon, to seek forgetfulness in other climes. - -And now he had appeared again! - -Her first feeling had been dismay, mingled with involuntary ecstacy -which startled her. Then came a wild, almost uncontrollable impulse just -to speak to him--to touch his hand, to look into those love laden eyes -once more--only once more! - -She gazed furtively here and there, divided between the hope and fear -that her longing would be sated--she would meet him. Riders passed and -repassed. The little crowds gathered, thickened, dispersed. She was -disappointedly telling herself that as the shower had temporarily -subsided she ought to be returning home, when her heart gave a leap. A -rider who was trotting towards her was the man--the man strongly if -slightly built, handsome, fair, if stern--who alone among men had -conquered that heart, who, although despair had driven her to hold her -own against him, was her master. - -It was all over--fate had decided--they two must once more meet! There -was no escape. - -He rode up. She blanched, but looked him steadily in the face. He -gazed sadly, beseechingly, yet with that imperious compelling glance -which had so often made her quail--into those beautiful brown eyes. - -"We meet again, you see," he said, in a harsh, strained voice. He felt -on the rack--to him, wildly panting, yearning to take her in his arms -after weary, maddening months of longing, that gulf between them seemed -a very hell. - -"So it seems," she said, with a pitiful attempt at a laugh. "I thought -you were in Kamschatka, or Bombay--or anywhere!" - -"I have come back," he returned, lamely, mechanically accompanying her -as she rode out of shelter--she would not, could not, stay there and -bandy words with him! "I felt--I must know--the worst!" - -Involuntarily she reined in, and so suddenly that she startled her -steed, and it was some moments before the mare's nerves were calmed. -Then she turned a white, set face upon her self-elected escort. - -"What do you mean, Lord Vansittart?" she asked scornfully, and her eyes -flashed. - -"You--know," he hoarsely said. "I am not so utterly vain as to think -that where I have failed, other and--and--more attractive fellows may -not succeed!" - -"You know, or ought to know, that what you are saying is absurd!" she -faltered. What had she thought, feared? She hardly knew, she only felt -a tremendous relief. Thank Heaven, even had she been secretly vowed to -the cloister, her conduct since their parting could not have borne -closer scrutiny! "You must remember--what I said--I never, never, intend -to marry--anyone. I shall never, never, change my mind--about _that_!" - -He said nothing; but glanced at her--a curious glance. A puzzle to him -since he first had felt encouraged to believe from symptoms which only a -watchful, anxious lover would perceive, that she involuntarily, perhaps -even unconsciously, loved him--she had remained an insoluble problem -during the long days of their separation when he pondered on the subject -the slow, lagging hours through--and, now again, she bid fair to be as -great a problem as ever. For he felt, he knew, that her reception of -him--her pallor, the strange look in her eyes and the curious pitch of -her voice--why, the veriest fool alive would not have mistaken her -demeanour or one of its details for indifference! - -"I--I think you mistake yourself," he began slowly, revolving certain -ideas which he had jotted down at intervals for his future guidance, in -his mind. "I suppose you do not believe in marriage. You have seen its -failure! Is that it?" - -"Perhaps," she said. "I really can't tell, myself. All I know is, that -I am firmly resolved not to marry--any one!" She spoke doggedly, with -almost a childish obstinacy. - -"But--you do not bar friendship?" he said, earnestly, appealingly. -"Supposing some one of the unfortunate men you determine to have nothing -to do with were to wish to devote his whole life and energies to you, -secretly, but entirely--with the absolute devotion of a would-be -anchorite or martyr--what then? You would not refuse to give the poor -devil a chance? I mean, to give him something in return; if friendship -were too much to expect, tolerance, pity, a look now and then, or a -word, you would allow him to play your faithful knight, of course in -strict secrecy, from afar, unsuspected by the world?" - -A faint colour suffused her lovely face. She looked at him, furtively. -"Some people may care for that sort of thing--I don't!" she bluntly -said. "Oh, Lord Vansittart! why will you not, can you not, see and -understand that all I want of--of--everyone is to be let alone? I have -my own ideas of what my life should be; surely any one professing -interest in me ought to respect them!" - -"I respect your every thought," he eagerly, if somewhat perplexedly -returned. "Only--I should like thoroughly to understand the kind of -life you wish to lead. Because--well, I will not beat about the bush. -Joan! you know I love you! You are my very life! And if I cannot be -nearer than I am now, my only happiness and motive for living must be to -serve you in some way, to see you, speak to you, help you, be your very -slave----" - -Just as his voice was most impassioned his appeal was interrupted. An -elderly gentleman rode swiftly up and tapped him on the arm. - -"Why, Vansittart! can I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed, somewhat -breathlessly. "Joan, where has he dropped from?" - -It was Sir Thomas Thorne, the wealthy uncle who had adopted Joan, his -late brother's only child, at her mother's death a few years previously. -The admired beauty, whose only flaw seemed to be her adamantine pose in -regard to her many suitors, was known to be sole heiress of the wealthy -baronet and his wife, who were not only childless, but curiously devoid -of near relations. - -"From Paris, Sir Thomas," he replied, as easily as he could. Then he -gave a brief account of his wanderings. He seemed to have roamed and -ranged over the earth, prowling about for some interest, which evaded -him from Dan to Beersheba. Sir Thomas listened with a peculiar twist of -his thin, fine lips and a curious twinkle in his shrewd, handsome old -eyes. - -"Come in to lunch," he genially, if abruptly, proposed, as they left the -park. "My lady will be delighted to see you--you are one of her -particular favourites." - -What could Vansittart do but accept? With many deprecatory glances at -Joan--which, as she rode on looking straight before her, she either did -not, or would not see,--he accompanied uncle and niece through the pale -sunshine which now bathed the wet streets and shone upon the dripping -bushes and bright green foliage of the trees, to the door of Sir Thomas' -tastefully beflowered mansion in one of the largest West-end squares. - -Here, before the groom had had time to wait upon his mistress, he was -off his horse, and at her stirrup. - -"Forgive me," he pleaded, as she eluded his help and sprang lightly -down. "I could not resist the temptation!" - -Had she heard him? She had marched on into the house. "She will not -appear at luncheon," he told himself bitterly, as he accompanied the -very evidently friendly Sir Thomas up the steps and through the hall. -"She will make some plausible excuse to avoid me, as she has always -done, worse luck!" - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -But for once Lord Vansittart's good star seemed in the ascendant. Joan -was seated at the end of the long table in the big, finely furnished -diningroom, where luncheon was already being handed round by the men in -Sir Thomas' fawn-and-silver livery to some ladies and a man or two who -had dropped in and been invited to stay by Lady Thorne. As the kindly, -middle-aged, motherly-looking lady welcomed him with what he felt to be -pleasurable astonishment, he felt less sickened by the mingled scent of -savoury entrees and the pines, forced strawberries and rich rose blooms -that decorated the luncheon-table in profusion. Perhaps--she seemed to -smile upon him, almost to sympathize, indeed, as Sir Thomas had made no -secret of doing some months previously--his hostess might stand his -friend in his hitherto dismally unsuccessful wooing. - -While he accepted a vacant place on her right hand, and chatted about -his travels, his ear was pitched to hear what Joan was talking so -brightly about to Lady Mound and her daughters at the other end of the -table. He lost the thread of Lady Thorne's remarks, until she startled -him agreeably by asking him whether they would meet him that afternoon -at the concert at Dulwich House. - -"Are you--is Miss Thorne--going?" he stammered. "I--of course I only -arrived last night, but Lady Dulwich is such an old friend, I know I -should be quite the _bien-venu_!" - -"Joan, you are coming with me to Lady Dulwich's this afternoon, of -course?" asked her aunt, when there was a lull in the conversation. -"No? Why not?" - -"I am riding to Crouch Hill to see poor Nana," she said, and the -determined tones of her resonant young voice seemed to strike upon -Vansittart's hot, perturbedly beating heart. "I know it is not a month -yet since I went last--my uncle is an autocrat, as I daresay you know, -Lady Mound! He only allows me to see my poor old nurse once a month! -But I had a letter from her, she is worse than usual. I meant to have -told you, auntie, but you were busy, and I thought it did not matter." - -"It matters very much, unless you drive, for I cannot accompany you this -afternoon," said her uncle, raising his voice so that his wife could -hear. "Joan can drive with her maid, my dear." He was well aware that -Joan detested driving accompanied by her maid. "You can postpone it -till to-morrow? I could not go with you then, Joan, I have to attend a -meeting. Perhaps Vansittart will spare time to escort you? You are not -deep in engagements yet I expect, my boy, are you?" - -"I should be only too pleased, if Miss Thorne will accept my services, -as she has done on occasion in the hunting-field," he said, with an -effort not to betray his violent delight at such an opportunity to plead -his cause. - -"London is not the country, Lord Vansittart, thanks," said Joan, calmly; -although she had suddenly paled to lividity with dread, with the -indescribable fear she felt of self betrayal to this man who loved her. -"I shall be perfectly safe, alone. One only meets a few wagons and -carts along the highroads." - -There was a slightly displeased expostulation from her uncle, a -deprecatory word or two in favour of Vansittart as her squire on the -part of Lady Thorne; and Joan, desperate, capitulated, feeling unequal -to being focussed by all the pairs of eyes around the table. She went -upstairs to change her habit and hat for one more suited to the muddy -suburban roads, and presently found herself trotting northwards on her -spirited grey mare Nora, Vansittart at her side. - -She had chosen Nora, she coldly remarked--she meant to be an icicle to -Vansittart, it was her only chance--because she "wanted a good gallop," -and Nora had not been out that day. And as soon as the young mare had -frisked and capered through the suburbs in a manner which made -Vansittart somewhat anxious, and effectually prevented conversation, she -and her mistress bounded off in a canter, and literally tore along the -soft roads, startling the few pedestrians and drivers of tradesmen's -carts, Lord Vansittart's horse galloping after, and the groom scampering -in the rear to keep in sight of the pair. Joan only slackened speed for -more than a few moments when she saw the row of cottages where old Mrs. -Todd lived, at the foot of the wide sloping road that wound downhill. - -"There is the cottage," she said, pointing with her whip. "The poor old -soul who lives in it loves me best in the world, and I think I return it -with interest! She was my nurse when I was a child, helped my mother -nurse my father through his long illness, then nursed her to her death, -and only left me because she felt too helpless to be of any use!" - -"And now you make her life happy by seeing her now and then," he said, -gazing passionately at the pure, white, girlish profile under the felt -hat. - -"She can hardly be happy--doubled up with rheumatism, lonely, poor--it -is ridiculous to suggest such a thing!" she said, disgustedly--then, -touching Nora's flank lightly with her heel, she rode off; he followed, -springing down to assist her to alight. But she frowned at him. - -"You had better hold her, please," she suggested. "Where is that groom -of mine? Oh, there he is! I shall be quite half an hour. You might -inspect the neighbourhood." - -"Thanks for the suggestion, perhaps I shall!" he good humouredly -returned, with a scrutinizing glance at a stern old face framed by the -cottage window panes, which disappeared as he looked; and as Joan -slipped nonchalantly off her panting steed and went within, -congratulating herself upon having furnished herself with a good chance -of losing or evading him and returning alone, he decided to remain well -out of sight of the cottage, but only where he could keep his eye on the -groom and the horses. - -"Well, Nana, here I am, you see," said Joan, entering and embracing the -worn old crone who stood leaning on her stick in the middle of the -kitchen and parlour combined. It was a dark, low room, filled with some -old-fashioned furniture--remnants of Joan's vicarage home. A big old -arm-chair stood by the fireplace, where there was a bright little fire, -although in a few weeks it would be midsummer. "Sit down at once!" She -led her gently back to her chair. "Poor old dear! You have been bad -this time, haven't you? You mustn't spare the doctor--send his bill to -me! You got that chicken panada and jelly? That's right! I've brought -some money for little things----" - -"Never mind money, dearie! but tell me who's the gentleman?" said the -old woman, whose large, shining eyes shone living in her emaciated, -deathly face--shading her eyes with her skinny, clawlike hand, and -gazing anxiously at Joan, who had drawn a low folding chair near and was -seated opposite the fire. "I like his face, that I do! I saw him as -you got down from your horse." - -"It is Lord Vansittart," said Joan, frowning slightly. - -The old woman bent forward, and scrutinized her nursling's expressive -features. - -"You like him?" she suddenly asked. "Oh, if you do, may the Lord be -praised!" - -Joan gave a bitter, hopeless laugh. - -"What good would it do me if I did?" she mournfully said. - -"What good?" The aged crone leant forward and clasped Joan's gauntleted -wrists with her dark, clawlike hands. "Oh, my blessed darlint! If you -could only be married--to a real gentleman like him--and would forget -all about that business, and that wretched chap, I should die happy, -that I should! You have forgot him, haven't you, dearie?" - -Mrs. Todd gazed anxiously at Joan's gloomy, miserable, yet most -beautiful eyes. There was a far away look--a look of mingled dread and -aversion, as if beyond all, she could see some loathsome, terrible -object. - -"Forget the curse of my life?" she bitterly exclaimed. "For, while I do -not know where he is, if he is alive or dead, my life is accursed.... -How dare I--love--care for--any good man, saddle any one's life with my -miserable folly, confess to any honest person my--my--association with -_him_? Why, I blush and groan and grovel and tear my hair when I think -of it, and if my uncle knew-- Heavens! he might curse me and turn me -out of doors and leave me to starve! He does not love me as if I were -his own child, I know that--how can he when he was at daggers drawn with -my father all those years? And auntie, kind though she is, she is only -his wife--she is good to me because he wishes her to be! They are only -pleased with me because I please in society--people like me, like my -looks--if they knew--if they knew--oh! my God!" - -She clasped her hands over her face, and writhed. The old woman's -features worked, but her brilliant, unearthly eyes were riveted firmly -on her darling. - -"You were once a great fool, dearie! But don't 'ee be a fool now, never -no more," she said, sonorously, solemnly. "There was summat you once -used to say, poetry, when you was home from school--it did go right down -into my heart like a bullet dropped into a well--summat like 'a dead -past oughter bury its dead.' Can your uncle, or your aunt, or this lord -who loves you, or you, or me, or the finest parson or king or pope or -anything or body in this world, bring back one single blessed minnit, -let alone hours or days? That's where common sense comes in, as your -dear dead par used to say to me often and often! No, you can't bring it -back, nor he can't! It's dead! He's dead--that brute--and if he ain't -dead to you, he can't worry or annoy you, bein' in prison if he's alive, -as a fellow of his sort is safe as sure to be----" - -"Hush! For Heaven's sake, Nana, don't talk like that!" Joan trembled, -and glanced a despairing, furtive glance out of the window--above the -pots of arums, and prickly cactus, and geranium cuttings, where the -long, attenuated tendrils of the "mother of thousands" in the wire -basket dangled in the draught. Much and often as she thought of her -past, that secret past which only this faithful old soul really knew the -facts of, she felt as if she could not bear it put into words. - -"Who's to hear? The girl's out!" exclaimed the old woman, who was -roused, excited. Her nursling's troubles, the obstacles to her becoming -a great lady, were to her the worst trials of her suffering, lonely -life. - -"I tell you this, dearie, if you won't have anything to do with that -splendid lord who loves you, and you say you like, I shall think you -hanker after _him_--that viper who ain't fit to live, let alone to black -that noble gentleman's boots! What--you don't? Then what should stand -between you and him as loves you? That--that nonsense of that fellow's? -What do it matter if he's dead, or in prison? It's four years ago, -ain't it? If you are so partickler, you could wait another three, and -then he wouldn't have any sort of claim upon ye, if he has any now, -which I doubt! He was humbuggin' of you, dearie! I'm not to talk about -it? I must! I can't die happy till I know ye're safe with a good man -as'll take care of ye, my pretty, and that's a fact. And I am sick and -tired of all these aches and pains, it's such a weary world! Now, my -dearie, when he asks ye to be his'n, and he'll do it, too--ah! I can -see he's done it a'ready--just you listen to him. Be engaged as they -call it, secret-like, for a time. Then don't go and tell him about all -that which is dead and done with--never tell living soul a word about -_that_! But let him think it's one of the whimsies beauties like you -are supposed to have. Make him wait! And then--find out what's become -of _him_! I'll help ye! I'll help ye!" - -"You--you have heard--from--of him!" gasped Joan, wildly. "Nana! When! -How?" - -"Gawd is my witness, I've never set eyes on him, the vagabond, since ye -showed him to me that day when he came with us in the fields, five year -ago, when you was at school, and your poor mar was nearin' her end," she -said, solemnly. "Letters? Not likely! You've had a letter from 'im? -No, I knew you couldn't 'ave had. Them convicts--hush? All right, then! -If you'll listen to me, I'll hush and welcome." - -When Joan rose to go a few minutes later, her thoughts were in a frantic -whirl, but there was a gleam of hope shining upon those dismal memories -which stood between her and happiness. - -Still she glanced round as she issued from the cottage, hoping that her -escort would not be in sight, and they would happen to miss each other. -She wanted time to think, to ponder over new possibilities suggested by -her old nurse's words, possibilities which seemed to her, numbed by her -long battle royal to overcome her passion for Vansittart, too -magnificent ever to become probable. And she mounted, and after a -pretence of waiting about for him as they walked their horses slowly -uphill, she said to her groom, "We had better go on, Simms," and -quickening her pace, was presently trotting homewards. - -But Vansittart was calmly awaiting them at the cross roads, and reined -round and accompanied her as a matter of course. She gave him a -desperate glance as their eyes met, and it caused him to change his -tactics. He had meditated an onslaught upon her emotions during their -homeward ride. "It will keep," he sagely told himself, and after an -uneventful canter and a little ordinary small talk he left her at her -door without even an allusion to a next meeting. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -She went to her room somewhat heavy-hearted. She was no woman of the -world, and was taken aback by his unexpected change of manner. Her maid -Julie was busy with a charming _toilette de bal_ just arrived from -Paris: a gauzy robe over satin, richly sewn with flowers and foliage -made of tiny seed pearls. - -"This will suit mademoiselle _a merveille_," exclaimed the little -Frenchwoman. "And with that pearl _garniture_----" - -"I shall not go out to-night," she said, with a disgusted glance at the -finery which seemed such hollow mockery. And as soon as she had changed -her habit for a tea-gown, she locked herself in her boudoir, and -stormily pacing the room, asked herself what this sudden chill in her -lover meant. - -"I have gone too far--I have been too cold--I have lost him!" she told -herself, wildly. "I cannot bear it! While there was the faintest of -faint hope left--that I might be with him some day--I could -bear--everything! But to see him look at me as if I were anybody, speak -as if he did not care what became of me--no, no, I should soon go mad!" - -Flinging herself prone on her sofa, she clasped her throbbing head in -both hands, and asked herself passionately what could be done. - -"I cannot, must not, lower myself by writing to him--and then, if he was -the same again, I could not take advantage of it! Was ever poor wretched -girl in such a miserable position as I am?" - -All seemed hopeless, gloomy, dark, until a sudden thought came like a -brilliant flash of light. - -"He may be there, he will be there, to-night! Of course, he is a friend -of the Duchess," she told herself. "That is what it meant! He knew we -should meet there! He was teasing me--trying me!" - -The suggestions comforted her as she rang, told Julie she had changed -her mind, and would go to the ball; and she subsequently dined with her -uncle and aunt, who seemed in exceedingly good spirits. (Sir Thomas' -pet project was that Lord Vansittart should marry Joan, and he augured -well from his appearance at this juncture, and went through the ceremony -of dressing with a certain amount of patience.) When she stood before -her long glass, with all the electric lights switched on, and saw -herself in her gleaming white and shining pearls, tall, queenly, fair, -with the glistening wreaths of golden hair crowning her small head, and -her lustrous brown eyes alive with that peculiar, unfathomable -expression which had gained her the epithet "sphinx-like" more than once -when she was discussed as the Beauty who meant to flout every Beast that -approached her, and did--she felt comforted. Only when she was shut into -the carriage, her aunt prattling platitudes, and the flickering street -lamps flashing stray gleams into the dimly-lit vehicle as they drove -along, was she seized with a sudden panic. - -"I feel as if--if he does not come--I shall break down, utterly--I shall -not be able to bear my life any more!" she told herself, despondently. -"I shall end it all--no one will care! There is only old Nana, who is -barely alive, and she would follow me at once!" - -The Duke of Arran was a man of ideas--and he lived to carry them out. -The balls and entertainments at Arran House were always unique. That -evening was no exception. As Joan alighted, and passing through the -hall accompanied Lady Thorne through the vestibule and up the wide -staircase, even she felt transient admiration. White and gold -everywhere was the rule to-night at Arran House, where the famous marble -staircase had been brought from an old Venetian palazzo. This evening's -decorations were carried out in gold-yellow; after the gardens and -houses had been denuded of gold and white flowers to the disgust of the -ducal gardeners, the London florists had been commissioned to supply the -banks and wreaths and festoons of gold and white blossoms which -everywhere met the eye, perfumed the atmosphere, and made a fitting -background for the large staff of tall, handsome powdered men-servants -in black velvet and satin liveries, which was augmented to-night into a -very regiment. - -One sickening glance round the magnificent ballroom, full of -delicately-beautiful toilettes, bright with flowers, lights, and -laughter, gay with the music of a well-known band--told her Vansittart -was not there. However, she maintained her composure--he might yet -come--and with her usual chilly indifference allowed her few privileged -friends to inscribe their initials on her tiny tablet. New partners she -declined, with the plea of fatigue. But it was weary work! She was -just telling herself, fiercely, that she could bear no more; she was -seeking Lady Thorne to implore a retreat, when she came upon Vansittart -talking pleasantly to her aunt in a cool corner. - -"I was waiting for you," he said, looking into her eyes and reading in -them that which fired his blood. "You will give me this dance?" - -"Yes," she said, and she accompanied him, meek, silent, subdued, and -allowing him to encircle her slight waist with a firm, proprietory -clasp, glided round and round to the dreamy melody of the "Bienaimee" -valse. Once before, when she had first longed for his love, and felt the -throes of this overwhelming life-passion, they had danced together to -that swaying, suggestive melody. He remembered it--remembered how to -feel her slight form almost in his embrace had urged him into a reckless -avowal of a love which was promptly rejected. He set his teeth. He was -at a white heat again--and she--? By some subtle sense he believed his -moment had come. - -"I must speak to you," he hoarsely said, as they halted, Joan white and -breathless with emotion. "May I?" - -She looked up into his eyes, and at the intensity of the appealing, -passionate abandonment to his will in that gaze, he thrilled with -triumph. - -"We will go into the Duchess's boudoir, I know we may," he said, feeling -a little giddy as he escorted her along a corridor and through the -drawing-rooms. The boudoir was empty--one or two couples only were -seated in the adjacent anteroom, he saw at a glance they were well -occupied with their own flirtations. He closed the door, drew the -embroidered satin portiere across--they were alone in the dimly-lighted -room. - -He turned to her as she stood gazing at him, pale, fascinated. He took -her hands. "Joan!" he said--then, as he felt her passion, he simply drew -her into his arms, and stooping, kissed her lips--a long, passionate -kiss. - -To feel his lips on hers was ecstacy to her--for a few moments she -forgot all--it was like heaven before its time. Then she feebly pushed -him away, and gave a low moan. - -"Oh! what have I done?" she wailed, and she glanced about like a hunted -creature. "How could you?" - -"You love me! What is to keep us asunder?" he hoarsely cried. As she -sank shuddering, gasping, into a chair, he fell at her knees, and -embraced them. "I am the happiest man on earth! For your uncle will -approve, and you--you, Joan! All that was wanted was your love to make -you my dear--wife!" - -"Wife!" She sank back and groaned. "I shall never be any man's wife!" -she said. "Why? Because I do not want to be! That is all! Because I -never shall and will be!" - -Was she crazy? He rose, slowly, and contemplated her. No! There were -anguish and suffering in the lines about her mouth and eyes--in those -lustrous, strained brown orbs--but no insanity. - -"We must talk it all over. I must--I mean, I may see you to-morrow, may -I not?" he gently said, drawing a chair near, and seating himself -between her and the door, he besought at least one interview, so that -they should "understand each other." He had but just obtained a -reluctant consent to a _tete-a-tete_ on the morrow, when the door -suddenly opened, a gay young voice cried, "surely there can't be any one -in here!" and a bright face peeped round the curtain and at once -disappeared. - -"Lady Violet!" exclaimed Joan, starting up. "She has seen us!" - -"And if she has?" asked her lover, mystified by her terror at having -been discovered alone with him by the Duke's eldest daughter. Still, -with the promise of an elucidatory interview, he obeyed her wishes, and -left her to return to the ballroom without his escort. - -She did not linger: she almost fled, scared, from the boudoir through -the drawing-rooms, into the corridor. Which way led to the ballroom? -Hesitating, glancing right and left, she saw one of the picturesque -black-clad servitors coming towards her. She would ask him. - -As he advanced, the man's face riveted her attention. Not because of -its wax mask-like regularity, and the intent, glittering stare of the -black eyes which fixed themselves boldly upon her own; but because the -countenance was singularly like one which haunted her memory--waking and -sleeping--the hideous ghost of her foolish past. - -"Heavens--how terribly like him!" she murmured to herself, -unconsciously, involuntarily shrinking back against the wall as he came -near. - -Like! As the man came up, and halted, she gave a strangled cry like the -pitiful dying wail of a poor hare. - -"I see, you recognize me," he said, in a low voice, with a bitter little -smile. "Don't be alarmed! I am not going to claim you publicly, here, -to-night. But if you do not want me to call and send in my credentials -at your uncle's house, you will meet me to-morrow at the old place, in -the evening. I shall be there at eight, and will wait till you come. -Do you understand?" - -"Yes," she whispered. As he passed on and opening a baize door, -disappeared, she stood gazing after him as if his words had been a -sword-thrust, and she was a dead woman. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -Joan stood in the corridor, white, hardly breathing, as if turned to -stone, her beautiful eyes riveted on the spot where the man who was once -her lover had disappeared. - -"Victor!" she thought, as her whole being seemed to writhe in an agony -of despair. "Victor--and in the duke's livery--am I mad?" - -She gave a wild laugh, and the sudden sound startled her into sanity. -Numbness had followed the shock of seeing the man living, in the flesh, -whom she had hoped against hope was dead. Now she seemed to come to -life again. She clenched her nails into her gloved hands so vehemently -that the fine kid was rent. She suppressed her almost ungovernable -desire to groan out her misery, and as she set her teeth and closed her -eyes to realize the situation and deal with it, she seemed to see her -soul naked within her, and it was ablaze with one dominating passion -alone--love for Vansittart. - -"I am all his," she slowly told herself. "How I have become so--I never -wished it--Nature, fate, the Creator who made us, alone, know. But I am -his, he is my lord and master, and whatever comes between me and him -must be trodden under foot!" - -Her whole being, violently shocked and almost outraged by the sudden -blow, the reappearance of the unscrupulous man who had dared to annex -her fair young girlhood and chain it to his fouled existence, rose and -asserted itself in a strong, overpowering will--to belong to Vansittart, -its rightful owner by legitimate conquest, against all and every -obstacle. The feeling was so huge, so powerful, she felt as a very -feather in its grasp: she was awed by it, but strengthened. - -"I will, I must be his, and I shall be!" she told herself, feeling as if -the words had uttered themselves prophetically, by some mysterious -agency, within her soul. And she quietly returned to the ballroom, -calmed; for she was as an almost automaton, swayed by some obsessive -spirit which had asserted itself when she was half wild with despair. - -Entering the ballroom, she saw Vansittart, pale, his eyes laden with -emotion, watching for her just within the doorway. The heat, the buzz, -the patter of feet upon the parquet--they were dancing a cotillon--the -braying of the band, took her aback in her strained, nervous state for a -moment. Then she recovered herself and went up to him. - -"Take me to auntie," she said, smiling up at him. "But first, one word! -Do I look ill? I feel so--I am subject to horrid neuralgia, and it has -just begun. I am distracted with pain! I shall be in bed all day -to-morrow, I am sure! Put off coming till the day after, won't you?" - -Was it a dream, an illusion--her confiding, tender manner--that sweet -appealing look in those adored, beautiful eyes? Vansittart felt -suddenly weak and tremulous as he drew her hand within his arm. She -loved him! He was certain of it! She loved him! She had not known it -till he dared all in that passionate kiss. He vaguely felt himself the -Pygmalion who had awakened another Galatea. - -"My darling, I am afraid it is my fault," he murmured in her ear, as he -conveyed her towards the corner where Lady Thorne sat patiently -listening to the prattle of the surrounding dowagers, and trying not to -wish the evening at an end. "How dear of you to to say 'No!' Of course -I will postpone coming. But I may call and enquire? No? Very well! -You have only to command me, my queen, my adored!" - -Could it be real, that faint pressure of his arm, as he looked fondly -down upon that lovely little golden head? Vansittart almost lost his -grip upon himself, almost forgot to act the mere amiable cavalier, as he -accompanied Joan and her inwardly relieved and delighted aunt to the -cooler regions of the ducal establishment, and after vainly pressing -them to take some refreshment, found their carriage. As he stood -bareheaded under the awning after they had driven off, he glanced up at -the sky--it had been raining and now a wreath of cloud had parted to -disclose a misty moon--and a vague but real remorse that he had not kept -up with the noble truths he had learned at his dead mother's knee in -those days which seemed a century or more ago brought the moisture to -his happy eyes. "God forgive me, I do not deserve her!" was the honest -prayer which went up from his overladen heart as he turned, somewhat -giddily, and tried to walk into the ducal mansion without the -unsteadiness which might lead some of those priggish menservants to -imagine he had dined rather too well than wisely. "But, if I only can -succeed in making her my own, her life shall be a royal one!" - -Would he have felt so triumphantly joyful if he could have seen his -beloved, after they parted? - -Arrived at home, Joan dismissed her maid as soon as she could get rid of -her without exciting any suspicion, and spent a night's vigil in facing -the situation. - -She remembered her innocent, ignorant schooldays--when, infected by the -foolish talk of frivolous elder girls--they were mostly daughters of -rich parents, Joan's godmother paid for the education which could not be -afforded by the poor clergyman and his invalid wife--she was flattered -by the admiring gaze of a handsome young man who watched her in church -each Sunday from his seat in a neighbouring pew. Schoolgirl talk of him -led to chance glances of hers in response. Then came a note artfully -dropped by him and picked up by a school friend, delighted to feel -herself one of the _dramatis personae_ in a living loveplay. This and -ensuing love-letters proved the young man a clever scribe. He -represented himself as a member of a distinguished family, banished from -home on account of his political opinions. The secret correspondence -continued; then, with the assistance of a bribed housemaid whose mental -pabulum was low class novelettes with impossible illustrations of seven -feet high countesses and their elongated curly-haired lovers, there were -brief, passionate meetings. When Joan was just recovering from her -grief at her father's recent death, the climax came. Her mother -died--her lawyers sent for her. When she returned to school, it was -with the knowledge that the rich uncle intended to take her from thence, -why and for what she did not know; that her godmother acknowledged his -right to deal with her future, and that her days in C---- were numbered. - -With what agony and humiliation she remembered that next wildly -emotional meeting with the man she fancied she loved--his passionate -pleading that she would be his--her reluctant consent--their meeting in -town a few weeks later when she had boldly fled from school to her old -nurse in the little suburban house where she let lodgings, and their -marriage before the Registrar, to attain which Victor Mercier had -falsely stated her age, and their parting immediately after! She went -to her uncle somewhat in disgrace because of her precipitate flight from -school. But her beauty and the pathos of her orphanhood, also a secret -remorse on his part for his hardheartedness to her dead parents, induced -him to consider it a girlish freak alone, and to ignore it as such. - -She had hardly become settled in her new, luxurious home when the blow -fell which at first seemed to shatter her whole life at once and for -ever. She read in a daily paper of a discovered fraud in the branch -office at C---- of a London house, and of the flight and disappearance -of the manager, Victor Mercier. - -To recall those succeeding days and weeks of secret anguish, fear, dread -and sickening horror, made her shiver even now. In her desperation she -had confided in her old nurse. "But for her, I should have gone mad!" -she told herself, with a shudder. - -"You will never see him again, my pretty; all you have to do is to -forget the brute!" was the burden of Nurse Todd's song of consolation. -"Such as him daren't ever show his face at Sir Thomas'! Your husbin'? -The law 'ud soon rid ye of a husbin' of his sort! But there won't be no -call for that! He's as dead as a doornail in this country--and, you're -not likely ever to see him again!" - -And now he had come to life, and in the Duke's livery! - -"He was one of the auxiliaries, of course!" Joan told herself. "But how -does he dare to be here? If only I had the courage to tell Uncle--all! -I believe he might forgive me. But I could never face Vansittart -again--if he knew! It would be giving up his love, and that--that I -will not do." - -No, she must endure her second martyrdom in secret, as she endured the -first. There was nothing else to be done. And, she must become that -most subtle of all actresses--the actress in real life. - -Morning came, and she declared herself too unwell with an attack of -neuralgia to rise. Her aunt came up and petted her, and she was left in -a darkened room until evening when she sat up for a little. - -"You need not stay in to-night, Julie," she told her maid, a devoted, if -somewhat frivolous girl--her uncle and aunt, satisfied she was better, -had gone out to a dinner whither she should rightly have accompanied -them. "Tell them not to disturb me unless I ring. I shall go to bed -directly and get a long sleep." Julie left her, half reluctant, half -eager, for her evening out--lying cosily on a soft sofa, the last new -novel from the library open in her hands. - -As soon as she considered that those among the servants who indulged in -surreptitious outings were clear of the premises, and the supper bell -had summoned the others to the favourite meal of the day, she rose, -dressed herself in a short cycling costume and a long cloak, tied a veil -over her smallest, plainest hat, took a latchkey she had once laughingly -stolen from her uncle, but had never yet used, and after locking her -door and pocketing the key, crept quietly downstairs, crossed the -deserted hall, and shut herself out into the warm, cloudy night. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -The big mansion of which she was the pampered, cherished darling, lay -solemn, pompous, solid, dark, behind her. Before her, the pavement, wet -after a summer shower, shone in the lamplight. Dark, waving shadows -against the driving clouds, with their fitful patches of moonlit sky, -were the trees in the enclosure, dangled by the wind. She hurried -along--turning down the first by-street she came to--and emerging at its -end into one of the principal thoroughfares, she hailed a crawling -hansom. - -"Regent's Park, Clarence Gate," she said, in a muffled voice, as she -sprang lightly in. - -To be dashing along the lighted streets to meet the absconded swindler -who had dared to take advantage of her girlish folly to make her his -wife by law, was delirious work. Cowering back in the corner of the -hansom, she gazed with sickened misery at the gay shop-windows, at the -crowded omnibuses, at the cheery passengers who carelessly stepped along -the pavement, looking as if all life were matter-of-fact, plain sailing, -"above-board." A hundred shrill voices seemed clamouring in her -ears--"turn back--turn back! Face the worst, but be honest!" She had -almost flung up her arm and, opening the trap, bid the driver return, -when the memory of Vansittart--of his love--of his kiss--came surging -upon her with redoubled force. - -"If I am a coward, I shall lose him!" cried her whole nature, fiercely. -No! She must battle through: she must circumvent her enemy--the enemy -to her love, and Vansittart's. - -But how? - -"I will dare him," was her instinct. "I will tell him to claim me if he -can!" But that was the madness of passion. Reason bade her use other -means. - -"One must fight a man with his own weapons," she told herself, as the -hansom dashed along Gloucester Place, and she knew her time was short. -It was now nearer nine than eight--she had seen that by an illuminated -clock over a shop. _He_ was to be at their trysting-place of old, when -she had lodged with her old nurse in a street in Camden Town, at eight. -"He lied to me from the first moment to the last. I must lie to him. I -will pretend I have cared for him! It will put him off his guard," she -thought, as, with a double fee to the cabman, who said "thank-ye, miss," -with odious familiarity, she scurried away in the darkness, and crossing -the wet road, turned up that which led to the Inner Circle. - -There was no chance of forgetting the spot where they two had last met! -As she neared it, a slim, dark figure stepped out from the shadow. - -"My wife," he exclaimed, in emotional tones. He would have embraced -her, but she slipped away and leant up against the paling. - -"You can call me that--after leaving me all these years--not knowing -whether you were alive or dead," she panted hoarsely. Under any -circumstances emotion was natural, so she made no effort to conceal it. - -"I? It was you who would not reply to my letters!" he exclaimed -bitterly. "I wrote again and again, under cover to your miserable old -nurse--and don't say you never had them! The last came back to me--'not -known.' But the others did not--they would have if they had not -reached!" - -"If she had them, she never gave them to me!" she said truthfully. "And -I don't wonder! I was so utterly wretched when I read of -your--your--flight--that I told her--all! I had to--I should have gone -raving mad if I had kept it to myself!" - -"Well, all that is over and done with, thank goodness!" he exclaimed, -cheerfully, after a brief pause. "I will not scold you for misjudging -me--you were but a child! But you are a woman now, of age, your own -mistress! I have been fortunate of late, or I should not be here. -Speculations of mine have turned up trumps--and not only that, but I -have friends in the City who will introduce me to your uncle, and if you -only play your cards well, our real wedding shall be followed by a sham -one, and Mrs. Victor a'Court will take a very nice place in society. My -dear, cash opens all doors, and I have it!" - -"Some one is coming," she said feebly. His speech had called forth all -her powers of endurance, and, while bracing herself to bear up as she -did, Nature determinedly asserted itself. She felt cold and giddy--her -limbs seemed as if they did not belong to her. - -"Only a Bobby," he said, with a light vulgarity which seemed the last -straw. As she turned to walk along by his side, she tottered. - -"Don't do that, or the Bobby will think you are drunk," he said, -coarsely, holding her up by the arm. His detested touch achieved what -her slackening courage had failed to do. She felt suddenly strong with -a new, fierce emotion--was it hate? - -"I cannot understand how you can be well off--or, indeed, how you can be -here at all," she softly began, as the policeman marched solemnly on -before them, the light of one of the occasional lamps gleaming on his -wet weather cape. "I thought----" - -"You mean, your old nurse thought!" he went on angrily. "You--you were -not capable of suspecting me, if that old wretch had not put it into -your head! My love, I was a victim of circumstances. The people I was -with were a rotten lot. They accused me to protect themselves. They -were bankrupt three years ago! Mercier was not my real name. My father -was Victor Mercier a'Court. It suited me to use it, that's all! -What--you don't believe me?" - -"You told me lies then--why should I believe you?" she boldly said. - -"Because you are my wife! It will not pay me to tell you untruths--nor -will it pay you to doubt me!" he savagely retorted. "I had expected a -welcome! Instead, I am treated like this! It is enough to exasperate a -saint--and I don't profess to be that! Come, let us talk business, as -you don't feel inclined for love. You are mine, and I mean to have you. -You understand? I have waited for you all these years, and precious hard -work it has been, I can tell you, for plenty of girls as good-looking as -you made a dead set at me--and girls with loads of oof, too! If I don't -get you by fair means, I will have you by foul--it is for you to select. -By Jingo, it would serve you right if I went to that wretched uncle of -yours to-morrow, and claimed you!" - -She stopped short and confronted him. The moon, breaking through the -driving clouds, shone full on her face. Beautiful, corpse-like in its -sombre, set expression, there was that in her great, shining eyes which -gave him, hardened worldling though he was, a slight shock. He felt he -had gone too far. - -"Drop the tragedy queen, do, and be my own little darling once more!" he -wheedled, and would have embraced her, but she slid away as he -approached. - -"Listen!" she began, in clear, determined tones, in which there was -neither fear nor hesitation, "unless you treat me with consideration, -decency, respect--unless you can give me time to arrange matters so that -to avow myself your--wife--will not ruin me, body and soul, I swear -before God that I will put a barrier between myself and you which will -separate us for ever." - -"Pah, pah, pah, spitfire!" he sarcastically said, swinging his umbrella -and beginning to walk onward. "I know what you mean! You have some -romantic idea of suicide. You are not the kind of girl who kills -herself, I can tell you that--so that threat won't hold water with me. -Come now, don't let us waste time quarrelling. What do you propose to -do? Before I tell you my ideas, let's hear yours. _Place aux dames_ -was always my motto." - -During her long vigil, scheme after scheme of escaping him and of -belonging irrevocably to Vansittart, one plan wilder than another, had -agitated her mind. She had at last arrived at one set -conclusion--Victor Mercier must be cajoled into giving her time. Events -would decide the rest. - -"All I ask of you is to wait," she pleaded earnestly, vehemently. "Give -me time to find some way of introducing you to friends, and through them -to uncle and aunt--then I can begin seeming to encourage you, and feel -my way----" - -He burst into a derisive laugh. - -"Rats!" he cried brutally. "That sort of thing won't do for me, my dear -wife, I can tell you! I see you are as big a baby as ever--you need -some one badly to teach you your way about! No, no! I want you at -once--who and what's to prevent me from taking possession of my lawful -property? There is only one thing for us to do: to bolt together--and to -leave them completely in the dark as to your fate. I hear that those -two old prigs who wouldn't give bite or sup to your father when he was a -dying man are dead nuts on you. We must make 'em suffer, my darling! -We must madden them till they are ready to do anything and everything if -they can only find you alive. And we must talk it over--so that your -disappearance may be a regular thunderbolt! Can you come to my lodgings -to-morrow evening? I want you to myself--it's natural, isn't it? This -road, quiet as it is, is hardly the place for husband and wife to meet, -is it? What? You can't come?" His voice hoarsened--he clutched her -arm so fiercely that she gave a faint cry. "You don't want me?" he -exclaimed, in tones which to her strained ears seemed those of deadly -menace. "If you don't--I know you, you see! I have not forgotten your -kisses, if you have mine--it means another man! And if it does, I will -have no mercy on you, do you understand? None!" - -"How dare you?" Once more she faced him, this time in an access of -desperation. "How dare you accuse me of crime? My coldness, my absolute -refusal to listen to any man is so well known that it has been common -talk in society! More than once I have felt that uncle has suspected -me--and, indeed, he has sounded me----" - -In her earnestness she was off guard, and drawing her to him, he -suddenly threw his arms about her neck and kissed her lips--a long, -violent, almost savage kiss. - -"There--go home and think of that!" he said, with a triumphant chuckle, -as she staggered away and almost fell against the fence. "And take this -address. I shall be here every evening at the same hour. And if you -don't come--well, you had better come, that's all! I am not in a very -patient humour." - -She made her way out of the Park at his side, dazed, trembling. When at -last he consented to leave her, and hailing a hansom, she clambered in, -she leant back, and for a few minutes was barely conscious. She came to -herself with a sob. - -"Will God have mercy on me?" she wailed. "I was so--so--very young!" - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -Joan made her way home--how, she hardly knew. In the confusion of -thought succeeding that terrible interview which had successfully shown -her she was in the power of a merciless tyrant, instinct guided her. -After Victor Mercier had put her into a cab, and she had alighted from -it in a thoroughfare near her uncle's house, she let herself in with the -latchkey she had playfully annexed, little dreaming how she would need -to use it--and meeting no one as she made her way up to her room, locked -herself in to face her misery alone. - -As she tossed and writhed through the long, miserable night she almost -despaired. Perhaps she would have utterly and entirely lost heart, had -not a thought flashed upon her mind--an idea she welcomed as an -inspiration. - -"There is only one way to escape the grip of that savage tiger--flight!" -she told herself. Although the sole tie between them was the hasty -ceremony in a Registrar's office he had cajoled her into years -ago--although she had met him but once afterwards before he absconded -and disappeared, and that was in the very spot where their interview a -few hours before had taken place, she believed, indeed she knew, that -for her to try to undo that knot would entail publicity--disgrace--even -shame--that if she endured the ordeal, she would emerge unfit to be -Vansittart's wife. If _he_ forgave her, even her uncle--society could -and would never overlook the smirch upon her fair girlhood. She would -bear a brand. - -"Victor gave me the idea, himself," she told herself, with a bitter -smile at the irony of the fact. "He--the man who is legally my husband -until he chooses to renounce me"--in her ignorance of the law she -fancied that Victor Mercier might divorce her quietly in some way, if he -pleased--"proposed that we should disappear together, and frighten my -uncle into a concession. What if I disappeared alone--and only allowed -one person to find me--Vansittart?" - -That Vansittart loved her passionately, with all the fervour and -intensity of a strong, virile nature, she knew. Whether the love was -mad enough to fall in with any wildly romantic proceeding, she had yet -to discover. - -"He will seek me as soon as he can!" she correctly thought. As she was -crossing the hall after breakfasting with her uncle, who--in his hopes -that his only niece and adopted daughter and heiress was thinking better -of her aloofness to mankind, and melting in regard to his favourite -among her many admirers, Lord Vansittart--had been unwontedly urbane and -affectionate, a telegram was brought to her. - -"If I may see you at twelve, noon, do not reply.--Vansittart." - -At noon her uncle would be at his club, and her aunt had, she knew, an -appointment with her dressmaker in Bond Street. She went to her room -and spent some little time in deciding upon her toilette. How did she -look best, or, rather, how should she be attired to appeal most strongly -to Vansittart's imagination and senses? - -Most women are born with subtle instincts in regard to the weakness of -manhood, especially the manhood already to a certain extent in their -power. Joan hardly knew why she felt that a certain dishabille--a -suggestion of delicacy and fragile helplessness in her appearance, would -place Vansittart more entirely at her mercy; but it was with this -conviction that she attired herself in a white, soft, silken and -lace-adorned tea-gown, with lace ruffles about her smooth, rounded -throat and wrists--a robe that fell away from a pink silk underdress -which, fitting tightly about her waist, showed the rich, yet girlish -curves of her beautiful form to the fullest advantage. - -Her hair had been wound somewhat carelessly but classically about her -small head by Julie, who was rather excited at having received an offer -of marriage. Joan had listened sympathetically--she had encouraged the -girl in her love affair, more, perhaps, because it would serve her own -interests, being one which was to remain a secret from "his parents in -France" until they had seen Julie, and therefore subject to mysterious -"evenings-out" and holidays taken, with other explanations to the -housekeeper. Altogether there was a certain softness about her whole -appearance, Joan considered, as she anxiously gazed at her reflection in -the many mirrors she passed proceeding to her boudoir, which was on the -same floor as the drawing-rooms, and opened upon a small balcony full of -flowers, with a peep of the enclosure and the Park beyond, just under -the red and white awning. - -It was eleven when she entered her room and set herself to write a whole -host of letters. She had barely finished three before a brougham dashed -up to the hall door. She started up, her heart beating, her cheeks -aflame. - -"It cannot be--why, it is hardly a quarter to twelve," she thought, -glancing at the Dresden china clock. But even as she spoke she heard -his voice--those musical, resonant, manly tones she loved--and in -another moment the groom of the chambers announced, "Lord Vansittart," -with an assurance which seemed strange to Joan, unaware of the -freemasonry below stairs which enlightened the domestic staff as to the -wishes and opinions of the master of the house. - -As he came in, tall, his fair, wavy hair flung back from his broad brow; -his large, frank eyes alight, his cheeks aglow with passion; some -suggestion of a conqueror in his mien--his very fervour and exultation -were infectious--she could have fallen into his arms and abandoned -herself to his embraces as if there were no obstacle to their mutual -love. - -As it was she merely gave one limp, chill hand into his eager clasp, and -cast down her eyes as he said: "I am early--I could not help it--Joan, -Joan, what is it? You are not glad to see me"--his voice faltered. - -"Sit down--won't you?" she said, and she sank into a low chair and -motioned him to one out in the cold--but he would not understand--he -drew a light low chair quite near to hers, and fixed her with an intent, -anxious gaze. - - -"Last night you behaved--as if--you cared a little for me," he began, -almost reproachfully. - -"Last night--I was a fool!" she bitterly said. "I let you see too -much." - -"Why too much?" he drew eagerly nearer. "Joan, my beloved--the only one -in the whole world I care for--for, indeed, you have all my love, all--I -am yours, body and soul!--what can come between us if you love me? And -you do! I know you do! I feel you don't want to--and I don't wonder, I -am not good enough, no one can be--but if you love me, I and no other -man, ought to be your husband!" - -"Understand--I beg, pray, implore you to understand," she began, slowly, -painfully--this holding her wild instincts in check was the most -terribly hard battle she had ever fought--"I have sworn to myself never -to marry. Years ago my uncle was hard, cruel to my parents: they -literally died, half-starved, because he would not help them. When he -adopted me I did not know this. I had some work to accept his kindness -after I did know. But never, never will I accept a dowry, a trousseau, -from him--yet I will not explain why--nor will I go to any man a pauper. -Now perhaps you can see why--I feel--I can only do justice to myself, -and show mercy to him--by remaining as I am!" - -"You mean to allow this folly about your uncle to come between you and -me?" he cried imperiously. His compelling grasp closed upon her wrists. -"Joan, Joan, do not throw away my life and yours by such an -absurdity--such a whim!" - -He gazed into her eyes with his so brimful of intensity of passion that -they seemed to draw her towards him. She struggled against yielding to -the appeal, the yearning in his face--and he, he watched the -struggle--and as she gave a little sob, which was virtually a cry for -mercy, he drew her to him--he took her in his arms--she was on her -knees, in his embrace, her heart beating against his, their lips -clinging to each other. - -Long--so it seemed to Joan--was she enwrapped in that delirium of bliss -she might have imagined, weakly, but had never felt in all its fierce, -oblivious ecstacy. Then she held him from her. - -"Oh, what shall I do?" she wailed--and clasping his knee she leant her -face upon her cold trembling hands. - -"You dear, innocent child! Do, indeed!" he almost merrily exclaimed, -stooping and kissing her fair wreaths of shining hair. "Why exactly as -you like! I don't care a fig for your uncle--at least, as regards what -he can give you--I have enough for you and a family of brothers and -sisters, too, if you had one. All I want is _you_, do you understand, -you! You have only to dictate terms--I surrender unconditionally!" - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -"You have only to dictate terms--I surrender unconditionally!" - -Could she have heard aright? Joan lifted her pale, miserable -face--miserable with the woe of reality after the delirious joy of being -clasped to her lover's heart--and slowly shook her head. - -"I have no terms to dictate," she slowly, dismally said. "I cannot go -through a secret engagement! It would be impossible to keep it secret, -either. Uncle will guess! Why, I have hardly been decently civil to any -man who seemed as if he had ideas of marriage--he will know at once--and -then--every one else would know--oh, I could not bear it! It would -drive me mad!" - -She spoke vehemently--and there was a wild, dangerous gleam in her eyes -which he did not like. Perhaps the mental trouble it must have been to -the sensitive orphan to accept bounty from the cold-blooded man who had -let her father, his brother, die unsuccoured, had brought about -hysteria. He had read and heard of such cases. It behoved him to come -to his darling's rescue--to cherish and care for her--ward off every -danger from one so beautiful, so helpless, so alone. As he gazed at -her, an extraordinary idea flashed upon him--like lightning it illumined -the darkness--the way he must go seemed to stand out plain before him. - -"My dearest, there is a way out of our difficulty so simple, so obvious, -that it seems to me a waste of time to discuss anything else!" he said, -tenderly, gravely. "You are of age--you are entitled to act for -yourself! Let us be married as soon as possible and start in my yacht -for a tour round the world! I can manage everything secretly: you will -only have to walk out of the house one fine morning and be married to -me, and we will take the next train to wherever the yacht will be -waiting for us, and be off and away before your absence has been -remarked and wondered at! I will leave explanations to be sent to your -uncle at the right moment, acknowledging ourselves eccentric, romantic, -blameable, perhaps, but not unforgivable--saying that we knew so long a -honeymoon would be unpalatable, so we took French leave--why do you -shiver dearest?" He bent anxiously over her. "Joan! Won't you trust -me?" - -"Trust you!" she gazed up at him with that startling expression of -mingled love and woe into his face--a look he had seen in a great -picture of souls suffering in Hades--an expression too full of agony to -be easily forgotten. "Only it seems too much to expect! It cannot -possibly happen--those good things don't, in this miserable life!" - -"You are morbid, dearest, if I may dare to say it," he tenderly said, -drawing her into the arms with which he vowed to shelter and defend her -from all and every adverse circumstance which might ever threaten her -peace and content. And he set himself to comfort, hearten, encourage -her drooping spirits, as he painted the joys of their future life in the -most glowing terms at his command, during the rest of what was to him -their glorious hour together. To a certain extent he thought he had -succeeded. At least, Joan had smiled--had even laughed--although the -tragic look in those beautiful eyes--absent, hunted, terror-stricken, -desperate--was it only one of those things, or all?--had not been -superseded by the expression of calm satisfaction it would be such -relief and joy to him to see there. - -"Something is wrong--but what?" he asked himself, after he had stayed -luncheon, and at last succeeded in tearing himself away. "Is it only -that fact--a miserable one to so tender yet passionate a nature--that -while she is loaded with luxuries by her uncle, her parents died almost -in want because he withheld the helping hand? It may be! -Well--anyhow--the best thing for her is absolute change--as soon as -possible--and that she shall have!" - - * * * * * - -Victor Mercier--it was his real name, his father, a meretricious French -adventurer, had married his mother for a small capital, which he had got -rid of some time before he ran away and left his wife and infant son to -starve--had left Joan the eventful night of their meeting after long -years--in a towering rage. - -His was a nature saturated with vanity and self-love. From childhood -upwards he had believed himself entitled to possess whatever he -coveted--the law of _meum and tuum_ was non-existent in his scheme for -getting as much out of life as it was possible to get. Naturally sharp, -and with good looks of the kind that some women admire, he had not only -made a willing slave of his mother, but when, some years after, the news -of his father's death came to her, she married again, a widower with a -charming little daughter, step-father and pseudo-sister also worshipped -at his shrine. - -Then he ingratiated himself with an employer so that he was entrusted -with the sole management of the branch business at C----. Here, he -"splurged"; spent money freely, and--when he heard that the pretty -schoolgirl he had succeeded in establishing a flirtation with was the -only surviving member of the weakly family represented by the wealthy -Sir Thomas Thorne--he grew more and more reckless in the expenditure of -his master's money and in his falsifying of the accounts. Like many -others of his kind, he overreached his mark. When he paid a flying visit -to London to marry Joan before she was adopted by her uncle--her mother -had just died--it occurred to the head of his firm to "run over" to -C---- and audit the books. The day of Mercier's secret marriage he -heard that "the game was up," and his only means of escape, instant -flight and lasting absence. - -It was quite true that his firm failed a couple of years later. But he -had then just established himself as partner in a drinking-bar in the -unsavoury neighbourhood of a gold mine in South Africa. The lady of the -establishment had fallen in love with him, and there was, in fact, money -to be made all round about by one who was not too particular in his -morals and opinions. Suddenly, the neighbourhood grew too hot for him, -and he found it convenient to remember that the rich Miss Joan Thorne -must now be twenty-one and ready to be claimed as his wife. - -So he returned with money enough to make a show, later on, of being -rich, at least for a month or two. The first thing was to find Joan: -the next to meet her. - -An acquaintance made in his comparatively innocent boyhood happened to -be now confidential valet to the Duke of Arran. He sought him out, -flattered, and--without confiding his real story to him--made him his -creature by using a certain power of fascination which had helped on his -unworthy career from its beginning. - -Paul Naz got him engagements as "extra hand" on state occasions in -noblemen's houses; he had fulfilled three of these before he attained -his end and encountered Joan at the Duke's--Paul consented to pay court -to Julie le Roux, Miss Thorne's maid, so as to keep his old playfellow -informed as to the doings of the family, who, he told him, owed his late -father a considerable sum of money, which he wished to recover privately -to save scandal. That very night Paul was taking Julie to see Mercier's -so-called half-sister act in a transpontine theatre. "Vera Anerley," as -she had stage-named herself, had been on tour with a popular piece--was -absent at the time of Victor's return--and had appealed to his vanity by -her wild emotion when they met. He was to see her on the stage, and to -have a word with Naz, who had had to probe Julie in a certain direction, -after he left his "wife" in the Regent's Park. - -When he had watched Joan's hansom speed away in the darkness, Victor -Mercier walked along, then--hailing a passing cab, was driven to the -theatre. As he went he anathematized Joan in the strongest of mining -oaths. - -"Like all the rest," he bitterly thought. "Always another man--they must -have a man hanging about them!" - -Alighting at the theatre, he met Naz, a fair, innocent-looking -Frenchman, coming out. He joined him, saying "Come and have a drink." - -"You have lost much by being late, your half-sister is adorable!" said -Naz, as they stood together at the bar of a neighbouring public-house. - -"No doubt!" said Mercier carelessly. "So is your Julie, eh? By the -way, how is Julie's mistress? Any news?" - -"As I said," returned Naz, in an undertone. "The beautiful creature is -trapped at last, by a lover who has been out of the country to try and -forget her, shooting big game! They ride--meet--he was with her when I -posted you in the corridor that night. They passed me, you must have -seen him." - -"Him--who?" muttered Mercier. There was a gleam in his eyes. - -"Lord Vansittart," replied Naz. "The Duchess has been heard to say it -was a settled thing!" - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -The Duke's valet prattled on until the second and third liqueurs had -solaced his being. Then Victor glanced darkly at the clock. - -"Let us go," he roughly said. - -The softspoken Naz only thought that the delightful fluid which warmed -and comforted his gentle self had had a reverse effect upon his old -friend, so--following him gently as Mercier stalked gloomily into the -theatre and up to the dress circle, which was well-packed with honest -citizens and their wives in their ordinary habit as they lived--he -returned to his seat by Julie, and left him to his own devices. - -The third act was over. In the fourth Mercier's so-called "sister" had -plenty to do. She was a peccant wife, revisiting home in disguise, and -seeking her husband's pardon. It was a pathetic scene, when she sought -her husband and discovered herself. Throwing off her disguise--she was -got up as an old woman--she emerged sweet, fascinating, in a white -dress, with her black hair in Magdalen-like confusion, and sinking at -his feet, alternately implored and adored with such passion and -intensity that tears rolled down the feminine auditors' cheeks, and the -house literally rose to her. - -"And all that passion is mine, to take or leave as I please," was -Victor's saturnine comment, as he leant back in his seat with folded -arms and frowned darkly at the stage. He well knew that his amorous -dalliance with his step-father's daughter, when he had had nothing more -to his taste to dally with, had succeeded in inspiring her with so -violent a devotion to him that, if he had not pitied, he might have come -to loathe her. When she was a mere pretty, stupid schoolgirl, going to -and fro to her middle-class girls' school, satchel in hand, he had had -but little patience with her absorption in him and his career. But now -that he saw her on the stage, beautiful with an undeniable beauty, full -of grace and spontaneity, and possessed of that power which passion -gives, he thrilled with mingled desire and satisfaction. - -Strange ideas rose up in his mind--ideas of a subtle revenge upon -Joan--of intense and vivid gratification to himself. - -"Joan will be my wife--my bondslave, to be dealt with how I please, and -when I please; and as long as I kiss and caress her no one dare -interfere, if I choose that she shall spend almost her life in my arms -with my lips on hers," he grimly told himself. "But--Vera loves me--and -if I am Vera's lover while I am Joan's uxorious husband, Joan's pride -will not allow her to accuse me, even if she suspects! And how her -proud, snobbish soul will hate my giving her half my love--as an Eastern -potentate gives it to his appointed spouse, while his real devotion is -his favourites'!" - -The idea gave him a peculiar and indescribable pleasure. It seemed, -indeed, to restore his equilibrium. As the curtain fell, he left the -auditorium and made his way round to the stage door, as he had promised -Vera to do. - -"I wish to see Miss Anerley--which is her dressing-room?" he asked, -when, after cautiously traversing a dark, unsavoury alley, he had pushed -open the swing door, had entered a dimly-lit corridor where a sickly gas -flame was flaring in the draught in its wire cage, and met a man coming -towards him. - -"You are her brother? Come this way, please." The good-natured -acting-manager of the touring company, an eager little man in shabby -evening dress, escorted Victor along a passage to a door on which "Miss -Vera Anerley" was pasted, and knocked. - -"It's your brother, Miss Anerley," he called out. - -"Thanks! Wait one moment, Victor, will you?" cried a pretty, girlish -voice. - -"All right." Victor paced the narrow, damp-smelling corridor, hearing -the thumps and shouts from the stage, intermingled with a murmur of -melodramatic music now and then from the orchestra--making way -occasionally for a stage carpenter in shirt-sleeves, or an actor -hurrying from his dressing room--until Vera looked out. "I am so sorry -to have kept you--come in," she said caressingly, and she pulled him -gently in and closed the door. - -"Tell me, how do you like me?" she eagerly cried, clasping his hand with -both hers. There was no reserve between these two--if, indeed, -propinquity had not established complete freedom from what Victor termed -_gene_ long ago--and she gazed up into his face with eyes transparent, -shining, darkly blue as sapphires, eyes so brilliant that in admiring -them he hardly noticed the coarse red and white grease paint which -thickly coated her delicate skin, or the bistre rings around those -beautiful orbs. "Victor! Speak! If you are not satisfied, I shall -chuck the profession--dearly as I love my work, I couldn't stand it!" - -"Silly child!" He patted her hand, and looked round for a seat. There -were two broken chairs in the large, bare, cellar-like "dressing-room," -with its high window shrouded by a torn and dirty red curtain and its -dresser-like table with looking-glasses the worse for wear under the -flaring gas jets. But he shook his head at them. "I'll sit here," he -said, perching himself on one of the big dress-baskets under the pegs -hung with feminine garments. "By George! what a room for a future Lady -Macbeth to dress in, to be sure! My dear, don't gasp! That's your -style, tragedy, melodrama, bloodcurdling! You're a damned passionate -little witch, that's what you are--and I expected as much." - -She gave him a rapturous glance as she drew a deep sigh of relief and -satisfaction, and sank in a graceful, unstudied attitude upon one of the -crippled Windsor chairs; and he dryly lighted a cigarette, and gazed -critically at her. She was very fair! Small, with an oval face under -glossy masses of dark silken hair; slight and graceful, with a child's -hands and feet, and a tiny waist; yet the shoulders rising from her blue -ball-dress with its gaudy wreaths of pink flowers were softly -rounded--and the contour of neck and bust he considered "simply -perfect." He ground his teeth and spat viciously on the blackened -boards--there were only pieces of old carpeting here and there--as he -remembered his wife--and her supposed lover, "Lord Vansittart." "What a -cursed shame!" he thought. "They wallow in wealth--and I and this -child--bah! there is something to be said for anarchy, after all!" - -"You look--well, I feel I should like to kiss you," he grimly said. - -She blushed under her paint. Since her woman's love had waxed so -strong, all the former boy-and-girl intimacy went for nothing--she was -shy of him. - -"If you did you would spoil my 'make-up' and would get a dab or two of -paint on your nose," she said, with slight embarrassment. It was just -that coy fear of him in the abandonment of her passionate love which -fired Victor Mercier when he was near her. Fierce though his mingled -desire of, and hatred for, Joan had been, and still was, she had never -thrilled him, stirred his whole nature, as this girl, the companion of -his youth, had the power to do. - -"You mean to say that is greasepaint on your shoulders?" he said, -rising. He crossed the room, and, although she laughingly expostulated, -he bent and kissed them--then lifted her chin and kissed her throat. - -"Are you angry?" he said mockingly, gazing down into her eyes with an -intent, triumphant expression. - -"You know--very well--I could not be angry--with _you_!" she murmured, -lifting them, dewy with tenderness, with fervour, to his. - -Victor started, and stepped suddenly away. The door was flung open, and -a young woman dressed in nurse's costume rushed in. - -"Vera, what are you about? You'll keep the stage waiting! I beg your -pardon, I'm sure," she exclaimed. - -Vera sprang up, and with a glance in a glass and a wild pat of her hair, -ran off. The young woman turned to him. - -"It was a near go that time; but I think she's saved it," she said, -somewhat dryly. "You're her brother-in-law, or step-brother, or whatever -it is, ain't you? She's been all on wires to-night because you were in -front! She's a good sort, is Vera! We all cottoned to her when she got -the post. But the stage-manager's got a grudge against her, and that's -why I ran off to get her on in time. He'd have fined her as soon as -look at her! You see he's taken a fancy to her, and she won't have -anything to say to him. I tell her she's a fool for her pains--he's a -young fellow with plenty of brains, and his people have loads of money. -But there! She won't hear of it! I hope you're pleased with us, Mr., -Mr.--a'Court? You are? That's a good job!" - -Victor Mercier left Vera's colleague a few minutes later with the -understanding that he would wait for his "sister" at the stage door. -When Vera came out into the dark alley he met her, drew her hand under -his arm, and marching her out into the thoroughfare hailed the first -hansom he met. - -"Get in!" he commanded. Then he gave the address to the driver. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -The hansom drove swiftly along through the muddy streets. Victor sat -silently by his companion. His nature was strung up to its fullest -tension. First had come the exasperating blow--the discovery that his -jealous surmise had been right--the wife he called wife because of those -few words spoken in a registrar's office, alone, loved another -man--perhaps was even secretly his. Then had come the surprise of -Vera's beauty--grace--talent--and the conviction of her great passion -for himself. - -"I will secure her," he grimly told himself. "I must tell -her--something! To know there is 'another woman' will make her -irrevocably my own." It was thus he correctly or incorrectly judged -womankind. - -Vera leant back in the corner of the cab, and gazed--rapt, if -anxious--at his dark, handsome profile, visible now and again in the -moonlight which flashed white radiance upon the puddles and silvered the -wet slates of the roofs. Did he love her? Could he care for her? She -was ready to follow him like a little dog through the world--if -necessary, through disgrace unto death. For, as her sex will do, while -she had worshipped him as her hero, she had acknowledged that he could -err. When he had been "wanted" by the police she knew that he was "in -trouble," if through folly rather than ill-doing; and while he had left -his broken-down mother without a hint as to his fate, owing her the -money she had borrowed that he might not starve while in hiding, it was -Vera who had kept a roof over her widowed step-mother's head--who had -toiled and slaved for the lodgers all day, and danced and "walked on" at -the theatre all night. Yes--unconsciously she avowed that her idol had -feet of clay. But as she sat at his side, the blood raced madly through -her veins--her heart beat so strongly against her chest that she could -hardly breathe--she had to clench her hands so that they should not -clasp his arm--bite her lips lest they should play her false in furtive -kisses of the shoulder so tantalizingly near hers. - -"I am a fool perhaps," she bitterly mused: "But--he is so splendid--so -delightful!" She gave an involuntary sob--it was so terribly, cruelly -convincing that her passion was unreciprocated, that while she was -trembling and palpitating with emotion he should sit gloomily gazing out -into the darkness with arms folded like Napoleon at St. Helena. - -He heard it. - -"You little darling, what is the matter?" he suddenly said--then his -arms closed about her, she was clasped to his breast, her cold lips were -warmed into life by a long, close kiss; and there she lay, in an earthly -heaven, until they crossed a bridge over the Thames, now a fairy river -like quivering, molten silver in the moonlight, flowing between mystic -palaces whose windows glowed red in the shadowy facades, and the cab -halted at the end of the street. - -On his sudden and unexpected return, he had occupied the rooms vacated -by a lodger called away to his mother's deathbed in Wales, in the house -which was really Vera's, for she paid the rent, but which his mother -literally lived by. All the rooms except a parlour and attic she let to -students of the huge hospital in the neighbouring thoroughfare. - -The windows of the little house all glittered white save one--that of -the "front parlour." - -"Mother is still up," said Vera disappointedly--to cool down and behave -as a sister after that kiss was a terrible prospect! But let into the -silent house by Victor's latch-key, they found the little parlour silent -also, and empty, although one burner of the gasalier above the little -dining table neatly laid for supper was alight. - -On the table was a slip of paper: "Excuse me, I am so tired--Mother," -was written on it. - -Vera trembled a little. "Come, Victor, you must have some supper," she -said coaxingly. - -"Presently," he said, looking her over with a proprietary glance. "Take -off that cloak! Wait, I will do it for you." - -He went to her. As he unfastened the clasp of the old evening cloak she -felt his touch upon her throat--it seemed to make her weak, almost -faint. Then he flung it aside--it fell on the floor--and seating -himself on the horsehair sofa he drew her down upon his knee. - -"You are all mine! Do you understand?" he imperiously said; and his -dark eyes had a sinister, commanding expression as they gazed into hers -which frightened her a little, in spite of her unbounded faith and -adoration. "All mine! I could take you--or leave you--as I please! -You acknowledge it?" - -She nodded. To know he cared enough to make love to her overcame any -poor scraps of pride that fluttered idly in the wild gale of her passion -for him. - -"Yes," she murmured humbly. - -"Kiss me, then--let me feel there is one woman in the world worth the -taking!" he said, with scathing irony. At that moment he told himself -scornfully that they might all be everlastingly banished to Sheol except -this one, and he would not turn a hair. He could look coolly over the -edge of space and watch their torments with less compunction than he had -felt gazing at the disembowelled horses in a Spanish bull-fight. - -She threw her arms about his neck, and gazed adoringly into his eyes, -before she fell yieldingly into his embrace and allowed him to kiss her -again and again. - -"Oh, I love you, I love you!" she murmured in her ecstasy. Unlike poor -Joan, she had no burdened conscience dragging her back from the -reciprocation of her lover's passion. - -"You do, do you?" he asked suddenly, with one of his swift changes of -mood, loosing her, and rising to his feet, taking out his cigarette -case. "Suppose I were to test you, eh? Frankly, I don't believe in one -of your sex!" He gave a sneering laugh, as he struck a match, and, -lighting a cigarette stuck it between his lips. "Little wonder, -considering that the old gentleman below sent one of his hags to work my -downfall! Surely you--a woman--guessed that a woman was at the bottom of -all--my--trouble?" - -During that silent drive in the cab he had resolved what complexion he -would put upon "that wretched business," as he termed his defalcations -and consequent flight: in other words, what lies he would tell this -trusting, devoted girl. - -"W--What?" she stammered--turning deadly white and gazing at him as if -in those words she had heard her death-sentence. - -"The old game! A woman pursuing a man," he said, with scornful irony. -Why would these women be so terribly tragic? It spoilt sport so -abominably! "Don't be jealous! I called her a hag--and she was one! I -won't tell you who she was--it wouldn't be fair. But she made a dead -set at me--and I kept her at bay until my good nature let me into one of -those beastly traps good-natured fellows fall into. I backed a bill for -a chum, and he played me false, and left me to pay up. I borrowed money -from the business, and then the governor suddenly came down upon me for -it. I had to take her money and her with it. Nothing would do but I -must marry her! Well, I did, and before I had had time to replace the -sum I had borrowed, the governor stole a march on me, and found it out! -I begged her to settle matters, but she refused! So there was nothing -to do but to bolt--and remain away--live with the old cat I would not! -What is the matter? She is less than nothing to me--more, I hate, -loathe, and despise her!" - -She had sunk back with a groan and covered her face with her hands. He -seated himself and drew her passionately to him. - -"Come, come, there is no harm done! I mean to have you, d'ye hear? And -soon! And as my wife! What else do you think? I heard to-night there is -a man in the case. I mean to be free, with a capital to make merry on -for the rest of our lives! I've only to play my cards properly, and -you've only to keep _mum_. Can you, do you think? Can you keep -everything I do and say to yourself, and help me a bit now and then? If -you can, you'll be my wife! If you can't, you won't. That's flat." - -"You know what I think of you!" she moaned, gazing piteously at him. -"You know you are the whole world to me--that I would be tortured and -killed rather than betray you!" - -"What is there to groan about, then?" he cried impatiently, springing -up. "Upon my word, you are enough to rile a man into chucking you, that -you are!" - -"What is there to groan about?" she repeated bitterly. "What a question -to ask--when you tell me--you are married--when there is a woman alive -who has the right to call--you--husband!" - -"Not for long, make your mind easy about that!" he grimly remarked. He -had made an unalterable resolve that in some way or another this girl -should atone to him for Joan's shortcomings--yet should herself benefit -to Joan's loss: and he set himself to such a lengthened course of -cajolery and fascination of his admirer then and there, that the veils -of night were shifting and lifting, furtive nightbirds crept from their -lairs and fled along the streets as if scared by the dawn--and the light -still glowed in that window of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -At first Joan had been almost fearful in her new-born hope. The -prospect of flight with her lover, the idea of marrying him secretly, -and starting for a tour round the world, about which no one would know -anything definite, seemed too splendid a prospect to be true! Then, as -the days passed, and after writing an enigmatical letter to Victor at -12, Haythorn Street, the address given her by him--a letter promising to -meet him in a week's time "with all prepared according to his -wishes"--she had no tormenting reply, she took heart. Vansittart, in -their constant, but seemingly accidental, meetings--riding, driving, at -parties, and at the opera--encouraged her by promising that in one -fortnight from the day they had "settled matters" their plan should be -carried out. All seemed to promise to her the dawn of emancipation from -the consequences of her past folly; when, awakening somewhat suddenly -from sleep one morning, a terrible idea flashed upon her--she was -unexpectedly confronted with a truth she had overlooked in her -unreasoning passion for deliverance from Victor Mercier and freedom to -belong to Vansittart. - -_Her marriage with Vansittart would be a bigamous one_. - -"Oh! Surely that was not a real marriage--that short ceremony at the -registrar's," she told herself in anguish. "At all events, my uncle -will make it worth Victor's while to undo it--never to take any steps to -assert that he has any claim upon us. Uncle will manage it. He will -have had his will--I shall be Lady Vansittart--he will be ready to do -anything, proud man that he is, to prevent a family disgrace!" - -It was a mean way of emancipating herself--to run away with Vansittart, -deceiving him as to the reason of her strange desire for what was -practically an elopement--to leave Sir Thomas Thorne recipient of her -confession that Victor Mercier was legally her husband, and must be -bribed to ignore the fact! - -"But--if I cannot extricate myself in one way, I am driven to use -whatever means remain," she sadly told herself. "I wish I had not got -to tell lies all round! But if I must, I must!" - -Every day she proposed to herself some plan of "managing" Victor -Mercier, so as to keep him quiet. She hardly liked that silence of his. -Although she had no idea that he had instituted inquiries, and was -enlightened as to her intimacy with Vansittart, she felt as if that -cessation of hostilities on his part was the calm before the storm. - -Her brief encouragement was past and gone. She spent hours of silent -anguish, pacing her room, cold drops upon her brow, her nervous hands -wringing her gossamer handkerchiefs to shreds. Julie, finding them in -wisps when she sorted the linen, wondered. - -Then came the day before the date upon which she was to meet Victor, -"with all prepared according to his wishes." There was an afternoon -fete at the riverside residence of the Marchioness of C----. Sir Thomas -was to drive her down, together with Lady Thorne and some friends. Joan -had expected that her uncle would propose that Vansittart should make -one of the party. She knew nothing of a brief but crucial interview -which had taken place between her uncle and her lover, almost -immediately after their mutual understanding. - -Lord Vansittart's honour demanded that, while respecting the confidence -of his future wife, and acceding with entire self-abandonment to her -wishes in regard to their matrimonial affairs, he should at least defer -in some way to her guardian _in loco parentis_. So he sought a -_tete-a-tete_ with his future uncle-in-law--he contrived to put himself -in his way at the club. - -It was the ordinary luncheon hour, and, after beguiling him into the -empty reading-room, he began without much preface. - -"I think you know--at least, I mean, I know you are aware, that I love -your niece," he said. "You also know she rejected me--more than once." - -"Yes, my boy--and I think you know I was deuced disappointed that she -was such a silly little idiot!" warmly returned Sir Thomas. - -"Well, I have some reason to flatter myself that if every one will only -let everything alone, and will not interfere, I have a very good chance -of making her Lady Vansittart!" He looked boldly at Joan's uncle. - -"My dear boy, no one has the slightest wish to interfere! What do you -mean?" asked Sir Thomas briskly. - -Vansittart sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "My dear Sir Thomas, -your niece is a very extraordinary girl," he slowly said. "Once -married, she will, I believe, settle down to be more like other people -in her ideas, which at present are extravagance itself! But I will tell -you this much--the man who refuses to fall in with them will never call -her wife! Now, what am I to do? Am I to appear to outrage you by not -deferring to your opinions and feelings in regard to our engagement and -consequent marriage, or am I not? Dearly, passionately as I love her, I -would rather give her up than behave dishonourably to you and Lady -Thorne!" - -"Good Lord, what nonsense!" cried Sir Thomas with a short laugh. "D'ye -think I don't know that Joan is so soaked in romantic folly that she -isn't capable of one single, reasonable, common-sense idea? Go on and -prosper, old boy! You have my blessing upon whatever method of -courtship you think best to adopt, even if it is to roll her in the mud -and kick her, or climb up to her window in the middle of the night and -carry her off down a rope-ladder! Upon my word, I am jolly glad that I -am not the fool that every one thinks me, when I stick to it that Joan -has read that Shelley and Swinburne rot until she can't tell black from -white! Make her your wife your own way, Vansittart, and it shan't make -any difference in her dowry, here's my hand on it!" - -After such trust on the part of the man who had the giving of his -beautiful niece, Vansittart continued his arrangements for the -fulfilment of Joan's wishes, feeling as if treading on air. - -The day of Lady C----'s garden party was showery at first. But at noon -out had come a brilliant June sun, and the rain had only succeeded in -freshening the rich foliage and luxuriant flowers of Wrottesley Lodge, -on the Thames--a somewhat older house than the usual run of riverside -dwellings can lay claim to be. - -The party on the top of the coach were extremely lively. But Joan sat -silent. The beauty of the day was not for her. The summer breeze -stirred the chestnut blossoms and diffused their perfume until the air -was honeyed with it--the suburban gardens were gay with their beds of -summer bloom. As they drove into the road where the gables of -Wrottesley Lodge peeped up among the sombre pines and firs which -screened the house from the vulgar gaze, the Thames came in sight, its -wavelets dancing in the sunlight. All seemed careless happiness--even a -boy with a white apron and basket on his arm stood whistling gaily as he -watched the four-in-hand tool into the drive. Only Joan's heart seemed -like a stone in her breast, and all around was to her a ghastly -mockery--with that wretched hopelessness flooding her young soul. - -Vansittart had arrived early, been welcomed, fussed with, and introduced -to specially charming girls by his amiable hostess. But their society -talk was to him like the chatter of the apes he had seen in the -jungles--he gazed at their pretty patrician features and wondered where -the beauty was which, with other things, had gone to make them successes -of the season. When he caught sight of Sir Thomas' well-known team of -roans, he muttered an excuse to the girl he was talking to, and hurried -off to help his beloved to alight. - -There was a bustle--Joan was almost the last to descend the ladder. How -exquisite was that high-bred little foot, he thought, in the white shoe -and delicate silk-lace stocking--already he was giving lavish secret -orders for a whole trousseau to be on board the yacht for her use--there -must be still more costly stockings and slippers to clad those dear, -pretty feet! How lovely she looked altogether--her slight, beautifully -curved form draped in a thin muslin robe dotted with purple heartsease, -with silken sheen showing beneath--a big black hat with feathers and -pansies crowning her proud little golden head! But when he met the -startled, awe-stricken, "lost" look of those great eyes, it was as if -some one had given him an ugly blow on the chest. - -She smiled, as he welcomed her with a passionate ecstatic gaze in his -kind, devoted eyes--but the smile was a miserable imitation--and he felt -it. - -"Come away--from the crowd--I have something important to tell you," he -whispered. She gave him a glance of horror, and turned pale. "What?" -she stammered. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -That terror-stricken gaze of Joan's chilled Vansittart with a vague new -dread--a fear impalpable, indefinite--still deadly in its effect upon -him. - -He laughed as he said, encouragingly, "I can assure you you need not -trouble yourself that I have bad news--everything is going most -swimmingly!" But as they threaded their way through the groups of -brightly dressed girls and young men in all kinds of costumes, from -whites to the severest frock-coat permissible at such _al fresco_ -gatherings, he gave a name to his misgivings in his own mind. - -"I do not believe it is her brain--she is keeping something from me--she -has a secret," he thought, as he talked gaily to her, the current small -talk of the hour, while they traversed the rich, smooth green turf to -reach the path which ran along a terrace by the river and led to the -pleasance--"Lady Betty's pleasance" it had been called since the days -when a Lady Betty walked there in hoops and pannier, a little King -Charles spaniel waddling in her rear. "I must get it out of her! -However much we may deceive our fellow creatures, we must not deceive -each other." - -"Where am I taking you?" he repeated brightly, in answer to her inquiry, -although to him it seemed as if a sudden darkness had chased all summer -brilliance from the day. "Oh, to a favourite spot of mine--a bench -overlooking the river under some tree--a hawthorn, I fancy! We can talk -there without any fear of being overheard. My darling--are you quite -well? Are you sure you are?" - -As they left the open, and were under the trees--a belt of well-grown -shrubbery divided the spreading lawns from the pleasance--he stopped, -and placing his hands lightly on her shoulders, gazed with such honest -worship into her eyes, that she flinched and glanced away. Her lips -paled and trembled. - -"May I kiss you, dearest?" he almost pathetically asked--his voice -faltered. In return she flung herself into his arms, and lifted her lips -to his. It was a great moment to him, that abandonment of passion in -his beloved--but even as their lips met, and he felt her heart beat -against his own, a horrible sensation of despair mingled with the relief -her spontaneous outburst had been to him. - -She still clung to him after the embrace--her cheek against his -shoulder--and he heard her groan. - -"My love, this won't do!" he cheerily exclaimed. "You make me feel as -if I had injured you somehow--that I must be a tyrant--a monster--if you -repent of your bargain there is time yet, you know! Although I have the -licence, and we could be married to-morrow if you chose, you can draw -back. If you repent of your promise to marry me--I do not hold you to -it! And remember, no one knows----" - -She stirred--and rose. "No one knows?" she feverishly asked. "You -managed it all--without--telling _anybody_?" - -"Except the people I was obliged to tell to procure the special -licence," he answered lightly, as he walked along at her side. "And -they--well, one would as soon suspect one's lawyer, or doctor, or -banker, of betraying one's confidence as the Doctor's Commons fellows! -It would be absurd." - -The bench he remembered was there, under the hawthorn, which was still a -mass of bloom. Below a stone balustrade the river ran, wide, flowing, -hastening seaward. They seated themselves. He took her hand, drew off -her glove, and kissed the pink, soft palm of her delightful, delicately -slender hand. - -"How soft it is, dear little hand!" he said tenderly. "Do you know what -the supposed experts say of a soft palm, or skin? That the possessor is -morbidly sensitive and sympathetic! I have thought that of you, -darling! I have wondered, sometimes, whether you are not indulging in -melancholy retrospect--thoughts of your dead parents' troubles, or -something! If so, nothing could be more foolish and useless! Can we -recall the past? No! it is dead--there is nothing in this world so -dead! Are we not taught that our great Creator Himself will not meddle -with it? Darling, you make me cruelly anxious, and that is a fact, by -your gloom! Do you think I do not know--feel--share your secret -suffering? While I cannot guess what it is, I can hardly endure your -evident unhappiness--I could bear it, if I only knew! Joan, Joan--I am -almost your husband; as we are to be married so soon, you might confide -in me! Child! My dearest--my almost wife--tell me! I can help you, I -must be able to help you, and I will! Don't you, won't you, believe -me?" - -His words--his passion--pattered harmlessly upon her preoccupied being. -She had an idea--by a subterfuge to place her awful position before him, -and hear what he would say to it. - -"Of course I believe you!" she dreamily said. "I know you would help me -if you could! But how can you? It is a foolish and stupid, rather than -a wrong, action of mine, in the past! You yourself say that God Himself -does not meddle with the past! No! He does not! We have to suffer the -consequences." - -"But--one may deal with the consequences, darling," he tenderly said. -"Tell me--all--exactly as it is! Won't you? I knew there was something -rankling in your mind. I can assure you we shall both be the happier -for trusting each other. Come, out with it!" - -"How can I put it to you without betraying--_her_?" she mournfully -began, her strained eyes fixed on a beautiful clump of lilies, which -seemed to mock her with their modest stateliness, their spotless -purity--she, in her own idea, irrevocably defiled by her tie to Victor -Mercier--her body smirched by his embrace, her poor cold lips fouled by -his detested kiss. "It was--a dear, intimate friend, at school. I -loved her so, that I believed in her feelings. I helped her in a secret -love affair--with--a young man." - -"Well, that was quite natural--there was no great harm in that, I am -sure!" he exclaimed, heartily, beginning to be half ashamed of his -secret doubts, and telling himself he ought to have remembered with what -difficulty a girl brought up in a boarding-school learns life and its -meaning, how a school-girl is handicapped when she starts real existence -in the world. - -"There was harm in it, although I did not think so at the time!" she -went on, bitterly. "For she married him secretly--and no sooner had she -done so, than he was taken up by the police for something or -another--and ran away. She never heard anything of him until the other -day, when he turned up. Oh, poor, unhappy girl! What is to be done for -her? Cannot you understand that I, who helped to her undoing, am -miserable?" - -"My dearest child, we cannot go about the world bearing the consequences -of other people's folly. It is not common sense, we have plenty of -troubles of our own!" he said, almost chidingly. He felt just a little -hurt that his love had not been strong enough to balance her vicarious -suffering. The terrible truth that she was speaking of herself never -once occurred to him. "Your friend married this man, not you! She must -suffer for it. She had better make the best of her bad bargain--and -really must not worry you! It is positively inhuman to do so!" He spoke -with slight indignation. She shuddered. - -"But surely--there must be some way to rid her of him?" she asked, -striving with all her might to still her inward anguish, and speak -collectedly. - -"Oh yes, if she does not shrink from a public scandal," he said, -somewhat dryly. "The young lady can apply for a divorce. How long since -his desertion? Four years?" He shrugged his shoulders. "She had -better employ detectives to find out his doings during those years. But -she ought to consult lawyers!--What? She would not do that? Why not?" - -"She will kill herself rather than do that--and her death will be on -my--soul!" said Joan, solemnly. She looked her lover full in the face. -Why was it that at that moment in imagination he seemed to hear a bell -tolling and to see a churchyard with a yawning grave--towards which a -funeral procession was making its way? He gave a short laugh, which was -more a sob. What a grip this girl had upon his emotions! - -"What power you have over me, you girlie!" he said, chokingly. "You -seemed to make me see all sorts of things ... Darling, if money is of -any good to your friend--I should only feel too thankful to be of any -help----What? It is of no use?" - -"It is of no use!" cried she, in a helpless tone. "None! ... And you -mean to tell me--that that few minutes in a registrar's office--can only -be undone--publicly--in the divorce court?" - -"There is only one other thing that can free her, my dear child--death!" -he said, seriously. "People seem to forget that when they rush into -matrimony. But--my darling--" he looked anxiously into her half-averted -face--"do you mean to say that this entanglement of your friend's is all -you have on your mind--all? Joan"--he grasped her hands--"trust -me--your husband--almost your husband--anything you may tell me--will be -sacred!" - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -Joan shuddered. To hear that fiat of her lover's--that only death or -the divorce court could free a girl in her position from that slight yet -deadly tie--and to hear it uttered with such seemingly heartless -barbarity--was almost too ghastly to be borne. - -She hardly understood his last impassioned appeal to her to confide in -him--all--all that was troubling her. She stared miserably out upon the -river. A steam launch went puffing up stream. Some one on deck was -singing an apparently comic song to the strumming of a banjo; for shrill -feminine laughter, mingled with ironic "bravos" was borne upon the -breeze as the verse came to an end. Then the band engaged for the -afternoon struck up a bright little march on the lawn the other side of -the shrubbery. The mockery of the careless gaiety of ordinary life -jarred her beyond endurance. - -"Let us go away from here," she exclaimed, starting up, and glancing -wildly at Vansittart. - -His heart misgave him. This meant--he felt--that she was concealing -something from him. Well! he must have patience, and bide his time. - -"Presently," he said, in tender, but authoritative tones--and he drew -her gently, but firmly, back on the seat by his side. "You must recover -yourself first, darling--telling me of this wretched affair of your -friend's has upset you! And really a girl who would be so reckless and -foolish as to damn her whole life in advance by linking it legally with -that of the first adventurer who came across her, is hardly worth your -sympathy, by the way! Come, cheer up, or people may, will think--well, -they will make a shrewd guess that there is something going on between -us, and you don't want that, do you?" - -"Just now, I don't seem to care!" she replied--and her glance was one of -slight defiance. "You are too hard upon my poor friend--she was a dupe -rather than--what was it? 'reckless, foolish'!" - -"I am afraid I must plead guilty to having scant sympathy with dupes," -he said, somewhat slightingly. Her manner had hurt him unconscionably. - -"I suppose that is why you fell in with my idea of making dupes of my -aunt and uncle!" She gave a shrill laugh, so unlike her ordinary sweet, -pleasant laugh--the laugh that had haunted him those lonely nights and -days in strange foreign lands, when he had striven to forget her--that -his temporary annoyance gave way to concern. - -"That is hardly kind!" he exclaimed, reproachfully. "Remember, it was -not I who wished for this extraordinary secrecy! However, let that pass. -One of the things I brought you here to tell you, dearest, is that I -have hinted broadly to your uncle that I mean to make a dead set at you, -and conquer all your various objections to marriage--and that I have his -entire concurrence and sympathy! Is not that comforting?" - -"It may be, to you," she said. "Honestly--dear"--she suddenly softened, -and gave him a pathetic, beseeching glance--"I am good for nothing -to-day--the past seems to have its clutch upon me, and I cannot feel -with the present, or believe in a future! You must have patience with -me----" - -"You shall believe in a future, my angel!" he said emphatically--that -look had swept away the cobwebs of doubt and vague suspicion, and he was -once again the lover alone, as he drew her towards him and seemed to -devour her with his eyes. "Listen, dearest--you have only to fix any -day after a week is at an end, for our marriage, and the yacht will be -ready. It is looking delightful--and I have already stocked it with a -lot of things I think you will like. All I want now is one of your old -frocks--to have some made by the pattern--and just one little shoe and -glove"--he spoke hurriedly, somehow he shrank from such husband-like -allusions as irreverent until she was actually and irrevocably Lady -Vansittart--"may I, can I, have them, do you think? You see, I want you -to be thoroughly, completely comfortable! And I do not mean the yacht -to touch any port until we are absolutely compelled to--and then I shall -choose some little station where one could not get ladies' dresses and -things." - -"How long shall we be able to wander without people knowing anything -about us?" she asked eagerly. He was pleased--reassured--to see how the -idea of a lengthy, secret honeymoon revivified her. She must love him! -How else should she wish to sail the oceans of the globe with him, -alone, as her companion? - -"Dearest, that will be for you to say," he fondly returned, gazing -rapturously at the exquisite profile, waxen and delicate against the -drooping black feathers of her picture hat. If only the lines under -those beautiful eyes were less sharply defined, and the droop in those -soft, sweet lips less ominous of secret sorrow! - -But, as he himself termed it, at that juncture in their _tete-a-tete_ -Joan seemed to "take a favourable turn." First, seemingly roused from -her melancholy mood by talk of their approaching flight and consequent -life on the high seas, she became steadily brighter as the afternoon -progressed. Returning to the augmented crowd of Lady C----'s -fashionable guests, they mingled with the rest, Lord Vansittart behaving -with a decorous respect, and comporting himself admirably as a rejected -suitor returned to the fray. Only when, by Sir Thomas' special -invitation, he made one of the party on the coach, and throughout the -home-going sat as close into Joan's pocket as he dared, did he permit -himself to drop the carefully-assumed manner it had cost him such pains -to maintain. - -But, later, he was rewarded. After dining with Joan and a few guests of -Sir Thomas', he spent a delightful half-hour with her on the balcony, -among the flowers under the awning. No one could see them from -below--opposite, the trees in the enclosure were dusky masses in the -starlight. The summer night seemed charged with love-murmurs--the -glittering heavens to twinkle joyously of the great emotion which -brought forth the Universe. - -"Only a few days--and you will belong to me for ever!" he said, -rapturously. Almost as alone in their sought-for seclusion as if they -were already riding the waves of the southern seas in the ship that was -to see their first matrimonial bliss, he held her in his arms, and -tenderly, reverently--with almost the passionate devotion of an -anchorite kissing cherished relics--kissed her pale cheeks, her sweet -mouth, her beautiful, thoughtful brows. "Darling--I will make you forget -all your troubles--your self-reproach--everything that can possibly -detract from your happiness! I promise you I will! Do, do say that you -believe that I am capable of doing it!" - -"If any one is, you are!" she murmured, clinging to him. "Somehow, -to-night, I feel happier than usual--as if life had something in it, -after all! And it is you who have made me cheer up--a few hours with -you has given me a certain confidence--or rather, I should say, a -hope--that perhaps the day may come when I shall be able to -forget--everything--but my life with you!" - -"God grant it!" he piously exclaimed; and for that night at least his -prayer seemed answered--for after he and the other guests had departed, -Joan retired to her room and seeking her couch, slept more tranquilly -and dreamlessly than she had done since those evil days when Victor -Mercier cajoled her into marrying him--and when almost on the morrow, -she had learnt that her husband was an absconding criminal. - -She awoke, too, with a new sense of safety--and of the very present -refuge in her trouble--Vansittart. - -"Even if he got to know--he would not turn against me, I am sure he -would not!" she told herself, as she lay and thought of him, smiling. -For once she looked at peace and happy. "I feel it! How strange it -would be if it turned out that he would have to fight my battles with -uncle? But such things do happen--in real life as well as in fiction." - -She lay and mused happily on the delightful subject--Vansittart, and the -coming days when they would be all in all to each other--until Julie -came with the hot water and the letters. - -Then--it was as if death itself laid a cold hand on her heart--for there -was one in the detested writing of Victor Mercier. He had -dared--risked--writing to her openly in her own home, under her uncle's -roof! - -What did it mean? - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -The latent sense of being arbiter of a beautiful young woman's -fate--which had been perhaps Victor Mercier's only sentiment in Joan's -regard during their separation--developed, on that evening they met in -the Regent's Park, into a certain passionate exultation in possessing -her for his own, evidently against her wish. But when he felt -convinced, from Paul Naz' innocent betrayal of society talk, that the -girl who was legally his wife had a lover, and that already their names -were coupled together, the smouldering resentment that her girlish -passion for him was dead, burst into a fierce flame of absolute hatred. - -He had enjoyed abandoning himself to the enjoyment of Vera's love with a -double zest--because it was a secret revenge upon Joan. He had gone -about after he had received Joan's letter postponing their next meeting, -making subtle and refined plans for the long-drawn-out punishment of his -"faithless wife," as he termed her. He told himself he was glad of a -week's interlude. If he had seen her then, he might have betrayed his -wrath and desire for revenge. His tactics were quite the opposite of -that. - -"First, I must compromise her," he decided. "I must have her actions -now, at the actual moment, in my power--she must have been alone with me -in such a way as to turn this noble lord who wants her against her, -should he know of it! Yes--if she had refused to see me, she might have -gone in for a divorce! But if I have her condonation for the past on my -side, she will have no case--even if she would not have entirely damned -herself with this cur of a lover!" - -This accomplished--something tangible in the present to hold over her -head--he would take her away and make constant and passionate love to -her. He told himself grimly that there would be a fantastic delight in -this uxorious enjoyment of a wife whose heart was given to another man, -which fell to the lot of few. The secret ecstasy would be the knowledge -that he had left the loving arms of a devoted girl who was ready to die -for him, and could return to them at any moment--for he well knew that -Vera's infatuation for him included wholesale acceptance of any lie he -chose to invent to account for his absence, or any detail of his life. - -"Then--I can play upon them all in turn, as upon a set of musical -instruments," he promised himself. "The uncle will do what I ask--snob -as he is, parvenu, beggar on horseback!--to hide what he will think -disgrace! The lover--well, he shall be neatly disposed of by-and-bye. -He shall see me with her in my arms, somehow, somewhere, somewhen! Upon -my word, that will be almost as much torture to them both as the -old-fashioned, out-of-date revenges. It is a poor revenge upon people -to kill them! Let them live--and thwart them, make them writhe in their -impotence to do what they want!" - -And during this week Vera must be plunged more hopelessly and abjectly -in love, so that she would become such a mere echo of himself that she -would do, or not do, whatever he suggested, without so much as a second -thought. - -So he devoted himself to her, and spent his money freely in the process. -He bought her pretty trinkets, and some ready-made costumes and becoming -hats--and almost every day took her some excursion. They had a day at -Brighton, one at Windsor, one in Richmond Park, one up river. That was -the day before the one in which the crucial interview with Joan was to -occur; and he chose to assume a portentous gravity, and to tell her that -he must go away for a time. - -"My sweetest pet, this being with you is pretty well driving me mad with -impatience to get rid of that cat of a woman who keeps us apart," he -told her, as, after they had had a little _fete champetre_ of cold -chicken and champagne, he lounged at her side in a boat drawn up under -the willows of a little creek. "So I have made up my mind to set about -it at once! What do you say?" - -"Dearest!" was all she could reply. Her beautiful blue eyes gazed at -him through a mist of emotion. How deliriously dainty she -looked--flickering shadows cast by the willow branches on her _petite_, -white-clad figure--the heat of a mid-summer noon bringing a rich rose -glow to her rounded cheeks, so much more delicately pretty without -war-paint. - -"It will necessitate my being absent for a little while, but that you -must not mind," he went on, judicially, resting his head on her shoulder -and thinking what a wonderful provision of Nature it was--this unbounded -credulity of enamoured women. Did they really believe in their men, he -wondered, a little contemptuously--or did their frantic desire for their -love to be returned swallow up everything that stood in its way? "When -one wants a good thing, one must be content to make a little sacrifice -for it, eh, darling? I don't think you are as selfish as most of your -sex, I will say that for you!" - -She glanced at him gratefully. One word of praise from his lips -recompensed her for all the drudgery, hard work, and mental suffering of -the past years--when, not knowing where he was or what had become of -him--whether he was dead or in prison, or fallen among thieves in some -unreachable country--she had slaved and toiled nearly the -four-and-twenty hours through to keep a home together in which, some -day, to welcome back the wanderer, or even the total wreck of him. - -"And now you must help me in something," he went on, sliding his arm -about her slender waist and looking up into her face with those -sinister, penetrating black eyes, which were, perhaps, the deterrent -when dogs growled and snarled at, and children fled from, him. "I am -not one of those silly men who talk about their business--who chatter, -prate, prattle, and do nothing!--I say little--but act! (The secret of -successful life, my dear!) I have not been idle since I returned with -the hope of winning you for my wife. Already I have found out much of -the woman who was my ruin for a time with her unscrupulous devilry, -which will help me immensely to free myself from that obnoxious tie. -But I have still to see a very important witness against her, and I can -only see the man at my leisure at home. Do you think that if I appoint -to-morrow night, you can persuade mother to go to the theatre with you?" - -"Don't you know? She is going to the entertainment given for the -patients at the Hospital," returned Vera, eagerly. "That will be the -very thing for you! You will have the house to yourself. Mr. Dobson is -going, of course!" (Mr. Dobson was a student lodger). - -"Everything smiles upon us, my love," he said, tenderly, grimly -congratulating himself on his good luck. And he gave himself up to -love-making for the remainder of the summer afternoon--returning earlier -than he had intended, though, to write that letter to Joan: the letter -which Julie brought among others to her bedside, and which she read with -blanched cheeks and sinking heart:-- - - -"You must not go to the old place, but come to me here, to-morrow night, -Wednesday, at nine. If you fail, I intend to call upon you without -demur, and at all risk. Take a cab to the corner of Westminster Bridge, -the other side of the river, and then inquire for Haythorn Street. - - V. a'COURT." - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -The tone of the missive seemed to half paralyse poor Joan. For a little -while she lay prone on her bed, unable to think, answering Julie -mechanically as she hovered about, pulling up the blinds, getting the -bath ready, placing the dainty garments ready to hand. - -Then, with the first returning pang of despair--for that letter told her -that she need not imagine she was in the least secure--a sword of -Damocles hung over her unhappy head--she cast about what she must do. - -Go, of course! that was certain. And make terms--or, rather, accede _in -toto_ to anything he might propose for that flight of theirs which was -never to take place. - -"I had better take money with me," she told herself. "And--to a certain -extent I must take Julie into my confidence." "Julie, I have no money -by me, do you know," she said, irrelevantly, as Julie was dressing her -golden hair, and wondering why her young mistress' beautiful face was so -pale and _triste_. Julie usually cashed her young lady's cheques drawn -to "Self" for pocket-money. - -"Shall I go for madamoiselle--after breakfast?" asked Julie, sweetly, as -she vigorously combed the glistening hairs from the jewelled hair brush, -one of Sir Thomas' frequent gifts to his niece. She had always liked -her beautiful young mistress, but since Joan had sympathized with her -love affair with Paul Naz, she had been ready and willing to fly to the -ends of the earth to do her bidding, if need be. - -"No. I am going shopping in the carriage, and you shall come with me. -I don't like your taking much money into omnibuses, Julie, so I think I -shall draw a large sum at once. It is perfectly safe locked up in this -room." - -Julie readily acquiesced--and during the morning drove with Joan to -several shops, and to the Bank, where she cashed a cheque for a hundred -and fifty pounds in rouleaux of gold, which she carried in a bag to the -carriage. As they were driving home Joan told her she wanted her to -help her in an errand of charity that very evening. - -"Mais certainement, mademoiselle!" the girl readily exclaimed. -"To-night? I can easily go out another evening." - -"I don't want you to do that," returned Joan. "What I want is this. My -uncle knows nothing of this poor person I am helping, and I do not want -him to know. I thought that I might take a sudden fancy to go--say, to -Madame Tussauds', which I have not seen for years--that we might start -together in a cab--my uncle and aunt are going out to dinner, and have -the landau--and then I will drop you at a certain spot, and meet you -there again when you are returning home." - -Julie acquiesced with acclamation--and flushed with pleasure at being -admitted to share a secret with the sweet, proud girl who would, she was -certain, very soon be a great lady. If she had her doubts about the -"poor person," and imagined, from what she knew by experience of Joan's -eccentricity--as she considered her mistress' coldness hitherto in -regard to the opposite sex--that the nocturnal escapade meant an -assignation with the charming milord who intended to make a great lady -of Miss Thorne--she kept it to herself. - -Mistress and maid carried out their plan without hindrance. Sir Thomas -teased his niece a little slily about the sudden fancy for waxworks--he -had, like Julie, some _arriere-pensee_ not unconnected with -Vansittart--but he made no objection to the expedition. Nor did Lady -Thorne, to whom, after his talk with Vansittart, he had said, after -giving her some broad hints--"my dear, understand this once and for -all--if we give Joan her head, and don't interfere in the least, she -will be the Viscountess Vansittart before we know where we are!" -Shortly after Joan had had a solitary tea-dinner in her sitting-room -upstairs--a meal she affected when she preferred not to accompany Sir -Thomas and Lady Thorne to a long, dreary, dinner-party of old -fogies--mistress and maid started off in a four-wheeled cab to which a -man-servant pompously gave the address--"Madame Tussord's." - -Julie had admired, with a French girl's admiration, her young lady's -_savoir faire_, when she had suggested that they should actually make a -tour of the exhibition and take an opportunity of slipping quietly out -when others likely to absorb the door-keeper's attention were coming in, -and had readily acquiesced in the idea. - -They alighted at the entrance, paid their money, walked leisurely in, -strolled about, apparently examining the effigies with interest then -steering unostentatiously towards the door by which they had entered; -they waited until a number of lively children were flocking -obstreperously upstairs and had to be held in check at the turnstile, -when they issued forth, and walked along the Marylebone Road. - -When they came to a church, Joan stopped. "Will you remember this -place?" she asked. "You are sure? Then I will leave you here, and meet -you again at the exact spot at eleven o'clock. If you are here first, -wait until I come. On no account are you to go home alone--without me! -Do you understand?" - -Julie's protestations that she understood were sincere and hearty. Joan -said no more, but took the bag from her--Julie had mentally commented -upon its weight, and wondered who was the lucky person to be benefited -by its contents--and with an easy "_au revoir_, then," was gone. - -She sped along the street as much in the shadow as she could, lest a -glance of recognition might by any possibility be cast upon her from any -of the carriages which drove by almost in numbers, for it was the climax -of an unusually gay London season. Then, when she began to meet -crawling cabs and hansoms, she hailed one, gave the order, "Westminster -Bridge--the Southwark end," and sank back in the corner a little spent -and exhausted by the first part of her escapade. - -"So far, so good," she told herself, drawing a long breath of mingled -anxiety and disgust. Although she had steadily pulled herself together, -willed resolutely to go through the tragic farce with Victor Mercier, as -her only alternative--her loathing of the part she had to play was so -intense that at times she felt tempted to take a leap into the black -waters of the great river instead of submitting to his endearments. As -the cab drove briskly towards Westminster, and her eyes rested miserably -on the familiar landmarks of the great city, so beautiful in its nightly -robe of the mingled light and darkness which is so typical of its very -soul--she said to herself in a wild moment--"death or -Vansittart--which?" and the memory of her beloved one's fine frank face, -glorified into absolute beauty by the strong tenderness of his deep -love--won. - -"Even Victor's touch--his kiss," she grimly told herself, "are not too -much to pay for a lifetime with _him_!" - -A clock informed her that it was considerably past nine o'clock. So -much the better! The shorter that hated _tete-a-tete_ with Mercier would -be, the more thankful she would feel. - -The air blowing freshly down stream as they crossed the bridge, revived -her. She alighted, paid the cabman, and taking her bag tightly in her -hand, passed some roughs who were shouting noisily as they came along, -by stepping into the road; then seeing the helmet and tunic of a -policeman silhouetted against the sky--still dully red after the -sunset--she went across the road to him. - -"Can you direct me to Haythorn Street?" she asked. - -"Haythorn Street? Yes, miss. Straight along that road, and first to -the left." - -Evidently the street where her bugbear at present lived was an ordinary -one, and respectable. The policeman's tone of voice suggested that! -She went along the road, which was rather dark, until she came to a -neat-looking street of small, uniformly built houses. Yes, this was -Haythorn Street--she read the name by the light of the gas lamp close -by. Now to find the number! The corner was number one, so she went on -at once, and then her heart gave a dull, leaden thud against her chest. -She saw a dark figure on a little balcony a few houses up, which -disappeared as she advanced. When she came up to number twelve, the -street door stood open--Victor came out, took her hand, and led her in. - -"Welcome, my dearest wife!" he exclaimed, embracing her. Then he closed -the door. She saw an odious, triumphant smile on his sharp, handsome -features, and in his bright dark eyes. He was carefully dressed. -Although only half a Frenchman, he had the southern taste for fantasy in -costume. A diamond stud shone in his embroidered shirt-front, a -button-hole of some white, strongly-scented blossom was in his coat. - -"You are frightened, my own!" he caressingly said, with a suggestion of -proprietorship which made her inwardly shudder. - -"Don't be! We are quite alone in the house, you and I! And I will take -precautions to keep us so," he added, returning to the door and putting -up the chain. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -Joan staggered against the wall with sudden horror as Victor walked away -and adjusted the chain which shut out possible intruders. Alone in the -house--with him--and he was legally her husband! Could she face it? "I -must, I will!" she said to herself, clenching her teeth and summoning -all the fortitude she possessed to her aid. - -As he turned, he noticed her pallor, the wild glitter in her great eyes. -"At bay," he thought. "Mad with passion for another man--hates me--what -a delicious situation!" - -"Come upstairs, dearest," he said, in the new, abhorrently caressing -tone which seemed to curdle her blood. "What? The staircase is too -narrow for us both? Then I will go first." He tripped lightly up the -steps, which were covered with oilcloth, and after turning up the gas on -the landing, stood smiling upon her as she slowly, reluctantly, -ascended. As she reached the top, he opened a door, and she saw a -well-lighted room with a book-case, good, solid chairs, and a new -Kidderminster carpet. But a curious odour floated out to meet her. - -"What an odd smell of drugs!" she exclaimed, standing on the threshold. -It seemed to take her back years, that pungent odour, to the -schoolroom--when she went into the schoolmistress' little medicine-room -to be physicked. - -"I am very sorry, but I happen to be on sufferance in these rooms--their -real tenant is a medical student, who has got leave because of a series -of catastrophes in his family. Look here! This looks like business, -doesn't it?" - -He opened a cupboard door, and she saw a skeleton hanging on a peg. -"Oh!" she cried, shrinking back. - -He laughed. "I thought you were strong minded," he said. "But somehow -I am rather glad you are not. But you are not going to stand there all -the evening, are you, because there are a few harmless bones in the -cupboard? There are worse things in creation than skeletons!" He spoke -meaningly. - -She watched him as he seated himself in a revolving chair by a writing -table. There was a certain insolence in his manner and tone, as well as -in his depreciatory stare, as he gazed slightingly at her and twisted -his small black moustache. A diamond twinkled on his little finger. - -Somehow she took courage from his shallow, careless attitude--and she -was strongly stirred by a wild idea that flashed upon her. She would -make use of her own scheme with Vansittart to cajole him into waiting -until the mine was sprung, and he had lost her for ever! - -"I am not strong-minded, more's the pity, or I should not be here -to-night," she said, firmly, and she entered and seated herself opposite -him, once more mistress of herself and her emotions. "Why not? Because -I should have been with you long ago, if I'd had the spirit some women -have!" - -"You would--have followed me?" he asked, a little taken back, puzzled. - -"I would! Because I believed in you!" she said, honestly. "I thought -you more sinned against than sinning!" - -"That is right! A woman's first duty is to believe in her husband," he -exclaimed, leering at her. - -"Her husband!" For a moment she was off guard, she spoke with scathing -contempt. "A husband, who leaves his wife month after month, year after -year, without a word!" - -"A real woman would have searched for me the world through, when she had -money to command as you have had!" he said, leaning back, folding his -arms, and contemplating her with a savage, vindictive expression. - -"Money? I have only an allowance!" she exclaimed, bitterly, and with a -real bitterness. It had sometimes maddened her since his return, when -she thought of what she might do if only her uncle had given her the -control of a small fortune, instead of doling out an income. "And that -is where our difficulty lies, Victor. I have taken a week to think hard -about it. Suppose we hire a yacht under another name, and wander about -for a time, and then I appeal to my uncle? I think he would be inclined -to forgive--everything." - -"If you remember, my dear, that was my idea, not yours," he said, -leaning back in his chair, puzzled. Was it possible that Paul Naz, and -the people who coupled Joan with that "milord" Paul had spoken of, were -mistaken, and that she cared for him still--only her pride and vanity -had kept her from showing it? "Not a yacht--bah, I detest the sea--and -to be shut up in a boat! Not even with you, my beautiful wife, could I -stand such _gene_! No, no, I have a better idea than that. Let us lose -ourselves in Paris! You know nothing, you are still a baby, if you have -not seen and enjoyed life there! But you are a baby--hein? I must -teach my child-wife what life really is." - -Slightly exhilarated by his new view of Joan, as possibly as potentially -great a victim of his fascinations as poor deluded Vera, he sprang up, -and going to her, took her in his arms. The instinct to fling, thrust -him violently from her, was cruelly strong. But she--in an agony of woe -and love--remembered Vansittart, and mentally thought "for his sake, for -his sake," as she willed passively to endure, while Victor kept his lips -long and firmly on hers. At last she could bear it no longer, and freed -herself with a sudden frantic effort. - -"You will suffocate--choke me!" she gasped, and her eyes seemed as if -starting from her head--her voice came thickly from her quivering lips. - -"Well, I will be gentler, my tender dove!" he said a little satirically. -He doubted her again. If she had had "any mind of him," would not that -kiss of his have effectually broken down all barriers of pique, and -launched her on a sea of passion? But there was charm to such a -_gourmet_ in love, as he considered himself, in appropriating what she -disliked to give. He took her hand. "Come and sit with me on our friend -the medico's sofa under the window there!" he coaxingly said. "I want -to look at my wife, to kiss her, embrace her after these years of -longing, of waiting!" - -She gave him an involuntary glance of horror and terror. "Presently," -she stammered. "First let me give you the money I have brought you--let -us settle about our journey, when it is to be." - -He stood still for a few moments, gazing steadily at her. That look had -told him much--the mention of money when he asked for love told him -still more. - -"Very well," he said, after a pause, during which she wondered whether -it would end in his killing her--in that lonely house she was at the -mercy of any sudden outburst of anger of his. Just then she felt that -death would be preferable to another kiss of the kind which still stung -her icy lips. - -"I suppose the money is in that bag?" he went on, going to the -writing-table and lifting it. "You want me to take care of it for you, -as your contribution to our honeymoon?" He spoke sneeringly. - -"Yes," she said, watching him as he seated himself before the table. -Then she went to him, took up the bag, and shook out six common leather -purses she had bought at the bazaar in a great emporium that morning, -and filled during the afternoon. Purses and gold alike were -untraceable. "There are a hundred and twenty-five sovereigns. Count -them, won't you?" - -"No! I will trust you," he said, with a sinister smile. "I may be a -fool for my pains, but I trust you." - -She sat as if spellbound, watching him take a small bunch of keys from -his pocket and open a worn old travelling desk on the table. It was his -own, that desk, she mechanically thought, as she noted the half -obliterated letters "V.M." on the flap, and wondered what was passing -within his mind to cause that dark frown, that cruel look in his black -eyes, as he slowly packed in the purses one by one. - -"It is a beggarly sum that you have brought me, do you know?" he said, -turning to her with sudden fierceness--and his lips were drawn back, his -teeth gleamed white under his moustache. "I am too good to you! I have -that here in this desk with which I could coin thousands to-morrow if I -pleased. I have only to show your letters, the certificate of marriage, -to your damnably miserly old uncle, and he would at once make terms. -And you--you would precious soon find me as much money as I wanted if I -threatened you to take the lot to your lover, Lord Vansittart!" - -If a bomb had suddenly fallen upon the table before her, Joan could -hardly have had a greater shock. She staggered back and fell limply -into a chair, staring at him. Her lips opened to speak, but no sound -came. She was livid as a corpse. - -He was frightened. If she should choose to have a prolonged faint--such -as he had known some women to have--and Vera returned before he could -get her away! - -"Don't make a scene here, d'ye hear?" he savagely cried--and he went to -the cupboard, and after a clinking of glass, he brought out a bottle -half full of brandy, and two tumblers, and poured some into each. - -"Take some of that, it'll pull you together," he said, not unkindly, as -he held the glass to her lips. But she kept them firmly closed, and -faintly shook her head. - -"No! Water!" she whispered, hoarsely. "Water!" - -"Don't be so silly! It's not poison! It wouldn't suit my book to get -rid of you, my love!" he scornfully exclaimed, reassured by her being -conscious, and speaking. Then he set down her glass on the table, and -taking up his, drank off its contents at a gulp. "There! You see it is -not! However, I'll get you some water, if you like." - -He crossed to the door, opened it, and went downstairs. She sat up, -listening to his footsteps. A new idea had flashed upon her. She -glanced first at the desk, hungrily, wildly, then at the cupboard. Then -she rose, stepped cautiously, supporting herself, for she was giddy, by -the chairs, and peered eagerly in at the half-open cupboard door, where -the skeleton hung. She had seen shelves of bottles. Scanning these, -she selected one marked "Morphia--Poison"--shook it--it was -half-full--and returned to the table. Taking out the stopper, she -poured the contents into the bottle of brandy, swift as a flash returned -the morphia-bottle to its place on the shelf, then, going back to her -chair, leant against the wall in the exhausted attitude she had been in -when he left her. - -"He drinks," she gloomily told herself. "He will take more. I must make -him fall asleep. Then I will secure those letters." - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -She closed her eyes and listened to the patter of his footsteps, running -up the oilcloth-covered stairs. He came in evidently breathless. - -"Don't say I didn't make haste," he said, pantingly, as he poured some -water from the glass jug he was carrying into his own tumbler, which was -empty. "You won't mind your husband's glass, of course." He handed it -to her. - -"No," said Joan, who felt sternly apathetic--with but one dominant -feeling--to circumvent this fiendish being, and possess the letters and -certificate with which he threatened her. And she drank the water off -at a draught, even as he had drunk the brandy. The glass must be empty -to hold the drugged spirit. - -"Great Scott!" he laughed, contemptuously, as he took the empty tumbler -and looked curiously at it. "To see any one gulp down water like that -gives me the shivers! Pah, I must positively warm my nerves after -seeing you do it!" - -She watched him, fascinated, as he poured out another half-tumbler of -the now drugged brandy, and dashed a few teaspoonfuls of water into it. - -"That is how I take my liquor--like a man!" he said, after a long drink, -setting the nearly emptied glass down on the table. "Ah! I feel better -of my temper already. You must not pay attention to what I said just -now, old girl! I didn't mean it, really I didn't! Some one said -something to me about a Lord Vansittart or somebody having boasted he -would have you, or die. You doubtless know of the fellow! But you must -be accustomed to that sort of thing by this time, eh? Your uncle has a -big fortune to leave." He smiled sardonically. - -She thrilled--a curious, cold thrill, at the insult. But she controlled -herself. "Victor--I have always remembered that I was your wife," she -solemnly said. "My uncle has teased me to marry. I have -never--encouraged--any one." - -"Then you have a sneaking liking for your 'darling,' as you used to call -me, eh!" he said, a little thickly. The brandy was already making him -feel less critical and sceptical in his mental attitude towards Joan and -mankind in general. "Come and sit on the sofa under the window. There -is hardly a breath of air in this blessed little room. How I hate tiny -rooms! I hope this is the last I shall ever be in!" - -He held out his hand. What was she to do? After a swift query to -herself, she determined to dare all--to woo him to that drugged sleep -during which she would abstract his keys, open that desk, and steal -those incriminating documents. - -She allowed him to lead her to the sofa and, seating himself in the -corner, encircle her with his arm. The evening air came in through the -window which opened upon the little balcony where, coming along the -street, she had seen him, a dark figure in the twilight, awaiting her. - -"It is pleasant here, is it not?" he said, with a sigh, telling himself -that he must have taken a bigger "dose" of that brandy than was prudent -at this juncture, for it seemed to have affected his speech. His tongue -was not so ready in its compliance as usual, and his eyes felt stiff, -his eyelids heavy. "Perhaps it was running upstairs so fast, not -knowing what she might not be up to," he thought, remembering a caution -given him by a doctor that his heart was weak--a timely warning he had -derided at the time, but which often crossed his mind when he "felt -queer." - -"Yes, it is very nice," said Joan, nerving herself to act--to conceal -her violent loathing of him. "But as you like plenty of air about you, -why not do as I suggest? Let us start in a steamer--a sailing vessel if -you please--so that all trace of us is lost for a time, and uncle and -aunt will not be able to imagine what has become of me." - -She talked away, pitching her voice in a slumberous, monotonous tone, as -she had learnt to do from a nurse, when Lady Thorne had a serious and -tedious illness after her first year with them as their adopted -daughter. The terror of the crisis, the tremendous issues depending upon -whether the brandy she had drugged would send Victor to sleep and allow -of her stealing her letters from that desk, lent her eloquence. She -painted her uncle and aunt's state of mind when they would find her -flown, in vivid colours--she held out the prospect of unlimited wealth -they two would eventually enjoy--all to gain time until the morphia -should hold him powerless. It was a big dose he had taken, she hopefully -thought, even were he one of those unhappy mortals addicted to the use -or abuse of narcotics. And as she talked on and on, she stealthily -watched his face, his eyes. - -"That is all--very fine--and large, as they say," he vulgarly -returned--and wondered in a vague, stupefied way why his voice sounded -so far off--an echo of itself. "But--but--well, -I--like--Paris--Paris--d'ye understand--Paris--you fool--what 'yer -starin'--at--? Can't ye get--me--some--no, no--water--water--" - -Something heavy was gathering in his chest. He felt breathless. He -tried to push her away, but he could not move. - -She jumped up, startled by his pallor, his sunken look--the gathering -purple round his eyes. His nose stood out sharply from his face. She -poured the drugged brandy into her untouched glass of the spirit, and -filling the empty glass with water, brought it to him. He seemed to -squint curiously at it, but allowed her to hold it to his lips. He -swallowed a little, but it trickled from his mouth. What was this -horrid feeling--this weight--powerlessness?--he asked -himself--stupidly--then he thought suddenly of Vera, and the dread of -Joan's being found with him by her brought a temporary rally from the -strange, helpless drowsiness which had him in its grip. - -"Go--go! Now! You--mustn't be found here--d'ye hear me? Go!" he -spluttered. - -"Let me stay till you are better," pleaded Joan. But he gave such a -choking oath that, remembering she could feign leaving him and return, -she pretended to obey. - -"You will write and tell me when to come again, won't you?" she said; -then, as he staggered into a sitting position and stammered out another -terrifying oath, she fled, with a backward glance of terror and misery -over her shoulder. - -Down the narrow stairs, along the hall she went. Unchaining the door, -she opened it for an instant or two, then closed it with a slight bang, -as one might do from the outside. Then she leant up against the door -silently and listened. - -There was not a sound in the house into which she was shut, alone, with -the man she had drugged. She could hear her quickened pulses as they -ebbed back into a more normal beat. From below came a steady ticking--a -kitchen clock, she thought, sounding loud in the empty, -sparsely-carpeted dwelling. Then it struck; listening, fascinated, she -counted eleven strokes. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -"Merciful Heaven--it can't be that!" mentally exclaimed the unhappy -girl. "Why--people will surely be coming in--I shall be found--and -he--like that--with the drugged brandy in the bottle--and I shall not -even have got my letters out of that desk!" - -She silently wrung her hands; then, determined to dare or lose all, she -crept slowly, cautiously back, along the hall, up the stairs, and peeped -in at the half-opened door. - -He was lying almost prone on the sofa--his head thrown back--slowly, -slowly snoring. - -She stole in and gazed fearfully at him. He looked corpse-like, but she -thought he would naturally do that after that dose of morphia. -Insensible! Peering into his face, she saw his eyes, filmy, fishy, -between the half-closed lids. She touched his breast pocket, -cautiously--her heart beating fast and strong. Nothing there but the -white handkerchief, arranged in dandified fashion. As she stooped the -scent of the flower in his buttonhole turned her deadly sick. All -seemed to surge around. - -"This won't do!" she told herself, wildly. Then, with a violent effort, -she lifted the hand that lay limply upon his knee across his trouser -pocket. It moved easily. She laid it down with a light, almost tender -touch, as she remembered she had seen him return his keys to the very -pocket where she now saw them bulging, and putting her fingers gingerly -into the pocket, she drew them out. - -"Thank God!" she murmured, almost hysterically, and, telling herself -that if only she could hold witnesses in her hands to that absurd, -so-called marriage of him with her, and could dictate terms, every -farthing she might inherit from her uncle should be his, and more--she -went to the table, found the tiny key in the bunch, and opened the desk. - -Just as she was beginning to remove the leather purses of gold she had -brought him from the well of the desk, so as to search beneath, a -prolonged, curious, hissing snore seemed to arrest her very breath. - -She stopped and went to him. The hissing sound was barely over--how -curious it was, that half-snore, half breath! He lay still still--still -as---- - -"Oh, no, no! It cannot be that! He looks asleep, and as happy as if he -were an innocent little child!" she assured herself, returning to the -table and to her task. Out she quickly took them, one by one, those -silly purses--how puerile money and all those things seemed, she told -herself, at such a moment--and then peered anxiously at the packets of -papers. - -Eureka! Her girlish handwriting! There was a package--she drew it out, -and in the middle projected a paper--she could not undo the knots--there -was no time--but she turned down a corner and saw printed letters--a -margin---- - -Seizing her little bag, she thrust them in, and rapidly restoring the -purses to their place, locked the desk. - -"Shall I put the keys back in his pocket?" she asked herself. "No! I -can leave them on the table. It is of no use trying to hide my having -taken the letters. He will discover it." - -She glanced round the room. What else must she do? She frowned and bit -her lip as the brandy bottle caught her eye. There was still remaining -a certain quantity of the drugged liquid. - -"Any more would certainly make him very ill, if it did not kill him--and -he will very likely start drinking again when he wakes up," she mused. -"Can I pour it away?" She looked uncertainly at the door. No, it was -too hazardous. Then she remembered she had seen some brown paper in -that cupboard where the skeleton hung. - -Once more she went to the cupboard and took out a crumpled sheet of -brown paper, smiling almost derisively at the grinning skull of the -hanging skeleton. - -"How true you were when you said there were worse things than -skeletons," she thought, inwardly apostrophizing the sleeper, as she -quickly wrapped the bottle in the paper. Then, mentally wishing him a -better and more generous spirit in her regard when he awoke, she ran -rapidly downstairs with bag and bottle, and in another moment was in the -street. - -Her success, her escape, filled her with a joy which made her feel -almost delirious. Still, she noticed a hansom with a lady in it drive -past, and with an almost contemptuous mental comment--"she cannot be -living at Number 12," she looked back over her shoulder, then stopped -short, and leaning against the rails, watched. - -The hansom did stop at the house she had left. More, the lady -alighted--briskly, as if she were as young as she was slim and -alert--looked up and down the street, as if, indeed, Joan thought, she, -too, had noticed herself, and wondered what she was doing in Haythorn -Street at that hour, and then, after paying the driver, ran up the steps -and let herself in with her latchkey. - -"A lodger," thought Joan. "I wonder if she knows him!" Then she turned -and almost fled along the street, for the cabman had turned and waved -his whip. To take that cab would be madness! Besides, she meant to lay -that bottle quietly in a corner at the very first opportunity. - -It came a few moments before she reached Westminster Bridge. She saw a -doorway in the shadow, and quick as lightning she had deposited her -bottle there and had gone onward. Almost a slight unconsciousness -possessed her after that. She hailed a cab, drove to the spot where she -had left Julie, and alighted. - -"I have been here since eleven, mademoiselle!" exclaimed Julie, coming -forward after she saw the cab drive off. She had been confiding in her -lover--or rather, Paul Naz, as his friend Victor Mercier's honorary -detective, had been worming matters deftly from her--and his advice had -been to her to be very, ah, most exceedingly discreet, and the young -lady would for her own sake prove their best friend in the future. "It -is nearly half-past now--shall I call a cab?" - -A crawling hansom was hailed, and before midnight a sleepy man-servant -of Sir Thomas admitted them. He was just going to bed, he said, in a -drowsy and somewhat injured tone. "I told Sir Thomas and my lady you was -in and gone to bed, m'm," he said, almost reproachfully. "They come in -half an hour back! I am sure I thought you was, or I shouldn't have -said it!" - -"It doesn't matter in the least, Robert," Joan cheerfully assured him, -and she went to her room with Julie, feeling more elated than she had -done since the awful morning four years ago when she had to accept the -fact that she was the grass-widow of a blackguard. Julie speedily -dismissed, she spent a couple of hours over her letters. - -The printed paper was her marriage certificate. The letters were six in -number, nearly worn into shreds, and black with dirt. She read them -through, she made a note of the dates on the certificate, then she burnt -them under her empty grate. - -"Once more I am free!" was her last exultant thought before she slept. -"If I keep Victor at bay for a few days, I shall be off and away with -_him_; and without those documents Victor is practically powerless! If -he gets another certificate, Joan Thorne might have been any one--some -one married under an assumed name. He has nothing to support his -assertions!" - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -When Joan awoke after a few hours' slumber, it was to a sense of racking -headache and utter exhaustion. She could only vaguely feel, rather than -remember, the crucial events of the previous night. - -"A punishment for having dared to drug poor unfortunate Victor," she -told herself, as Julie, after administering tea, left her alone in the -darkened room. She could almost pity Victor Mercier, now that she had -circumvented him by stealing those incriminating documents, and thereby, -if not entirely destroying, certainly weakening, his hold upon her. -"His headache, if he has one, as I expect he has--he looked awfully ill -lying there under morphia--can hardly be worse than mine," she mused. - -It was a long, weary day of pain. Towards evening, however, her -suffering abated. "I will get up, Julie!" she said, when her faithful -attendant came in on tiptoe for about the twentieth time. "But I will -not go down. I will have some tea up here. Yes; you may bring me a -little chicken--I think I could eat that. And--Julie--let me -see--yes--one or two of the evening papers." - -As the dull weight had lifted from her weary head, she had begun to -think again--and the dominating as well as tormenting misgiving she had -felt on the subject of her escapade of the previous evening was anent -that bottle with drugged brandy in it, which, wrapped in brown paper, -she had left in the darkened entry of a house situated in some street -the other side of Trafalgar Square. - -"I wonder who found it?" she uneasily asked herself. What would the -finder think of his or her discovery? Would he or she be sufficiently -idiotic to partake of the contents--and if he or she did? - -She shuddered. "No one would!" was her mental comment. She consoled -herself with memories of the extraordinary accounts she had read of -narcotic-consumers. Still, of course, those had been the _habitues_, -who had gradually become accustomed to the drugs. Why, oh, why had she -not thought of pouring away the wretched stuff before she threw away the -bottle? It would then have been empty and harmless. - -She was interrupted in her self-reproach by the entrance of her maid -with the tea-tray and the evening papers. - -"Mademoiselle must really eat some-ting," said Julie, coaxingly, as she -arranged the enticing tray on the table at her mistress' elbow--Joan was -lying back wearily in a big easy chair. "The chicken is delicious, I -can assure mademoiselle--I saw it cut myself--and the tea--just as -mademoiselle likes it!" - -She poured out the tea and prattled on. As Joan was just languidly -uncovering the chicken, hardly giving any attention to the girl's flow -of talk--she was speaking of the actress she had seen perform the night -Joan first met Victor in the Regent's Park--a certain word half startled -her from her reverie--the word "suicide." Then, in her strung-up, -nervous state, with that bottle on her mind, she was at once on the -alert. - -"Who? What suicide?" she sharply asked. "Not the girl you saw act, and -liked so much?" - -"No, mademoiselle, her brother," returned Julie earnestly. "Poor girl! -Such an awful thing! Robert, who always reads the _journaux_ when they -arrive--he airs them, you know, mademoiselle--told me, for he knows I -admired this Vera Anerley. It seems she had returned from the theatre -to find her brother lying on the sofa--quite dead--alone in the house!" - -Joan had clenched her hands on the chair as she listened incredulously. -What a horrible coincidence, she thought, that Julie should have such a -grotesquely parallel tale to tell her--with such a tragic conclusion, -when only last night she had seen Victor Mercier lying in that deathly -sleep on the sofa, also alone in the house. - -"Very dreadful for her, indeed," she slowly said, striving to recover -from what was almost a shock in the circumstances, and sipping her tea. -"Is the--the--story in one of those papers you have brought me?" - -"Yes, mademoiselle! I can find it--Robert read it me--" - -"Never mind! I will find it myself, presently," interrupted Joan. Then -she sent the eager girl downstairs with a message that "she could not -come down that evening; she had had no sleep, and was going to bed -immediately"--a mission invented more to get rid of her than anything -else. - -What was it which made her spring up from the door and lock it, almost -as it closed upon Julie? Why did she dart back to the table, seize the -paper her maid had taken up and laid aside again at her bidding, and -holding it in her trembling hands, scan its pages feverishly with her -strained eyes--eyes almost blinded by intense fear? - -It was more an awful sense of certainty than mere dread. As she found -the paragraph she sought, she fell limply into a chair, and staring -madly at the cruel words, told herself it was no surprise. No! She had -known something terrible had happened--all through those hours of cruel -physical pain--she had known it! - -"I knew it, I knew it!" she gasped, as for a third time she read the -fatal words, with a mad hope that she was under a delusion. - - - "MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN HAYTHORN STREET, S.W. - -"A tragic occurrence of more than ordinary public interest occurred in -Haythorn Street, S.W., last night. The young actress, Miss Vera -Anerley, whose attractive performances at the ---- Theatre we have -already recorded, returned home to find her only and favourite brother, -Victor a'Court, lying lifeless on the sofa in his room. The doctor, who -was at once secured, pronounced life extinct, and by certain -appearances, suggested suicide. At the inquest some sensational -evidence seems likely to be given." - - -"Yes," she thought, as she struggled to the window, flung it open, and -leant against the lintel, gasping, fighting for breath in her threatened -faintness--her eyes were unable to see properly, there was a surging and -roaring in her ears--he was dead--dead! And she--legally his wife--had -killed him. - -"I poisoned him!" she mentally told herself, in a species of dazed, -wondering incredulity. "I sent him to face God--all his sins on his -soul--oaths on his lips! I am lost--eternally--for ever--lost!" - -It seemed to her as if a huge, yawning gulf had arisen between her and -all clean, honest human beings. Her past life lay the other side. She -had done the worst of all deeds. She had destroyed a fellow creature. - -"And--my own soul with him!" she groaned, in her extremity of fear and -horror. The climax of her life seemed to her over, now that she -knew--realized--the fact. After the first awful minutes, a dull, dead -calm took the place of her overwhelming, hideous agony. She could see -and hear again. As she leant against the wall she noted two smart young -nurses in white, wheeling their perambulators out of the enclosure -below. She saw one of them turn and lock the gate--she heard the key -grate in the lock, and the other girl cry out sharply, "Master Dickie, -leave it alone!" as a handsome little fellow in white knickers laid hold -of the handle of the little carriage. Then a fox-terrier ran by, -barking, and a tradesman's cart rattled swiftly along. A coster sent up -his long-drawn-out cry in the distance. And--and--she was a murderess! - -She laughed aloud, and then, frightened by the irresponsibility of her -actions, she crawled slowly, miserably, across the room, gulped down a -glass of water, and bathed her face. As she did so, she -sickened--remembering how he had gasped--"water, water!" If only that -choking prayer had told her that he was in danger--why, she would have -risked discovery, disgrace, even the loss of Vansittart, to save the -life she had endangered. - -She recalled her former fancied love for the slim, handsome young -foreigner. How she had admired him as he gazed fatuously at her in -church! What a subtle, delicious excitement there had been in his -veiled wooing, their hardly-obtained, schemed-for clandestine meetings! -Her mother's death had destroyed the glamour of the pseudo love affair. -Still, he had had sufficient compelling power over her emotions to bring -her to marry him secretly. Then, of course, the thunderbolt had fallen -which had destroyed her girlish passion at a blow--the _expose_--the -discovery that he was an absconding criminal. - -"Still--nothing--nothing--can excuse me--from first to last," she -acknowledged to herself, in despair. "I am--lost! Fit only to consort -with the creatures who are for ever the enemies of God." - -Just as she told herself this, with a pitiful sob, there was a knock at -the door. "May I come in? I have something for you!" cried her uncle, -cheerily. - -One wild look round, then an almost savage instinct of self-preservation -leaped up within her, forcing her into self-possession. - -"Certainly," she said, crossing to the door and opening it. - -"Are you better, dear? You don't look up to much," said Sir Thomas, -gazing critically at her. "Vansittart has just been here, and left this -for you. I had asked him to come in and have dinner with us. But -hearing you were ill, he would not stay." - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -Sir Thomas Thorne was sincerely, honestly attached to his beautiful -young orphan niece--perhaps the sentiment was all the stronger for being -tinged with a latent remorse for his callous attitude towards her dead -parents in the still unforgotten past. - -It was almost a shock to him to see Joan look so "awfully bad," as he -termed it to himself. As he placed his paper package, a round, light -one, on the nearest table in her bright, pretty bed-chamber, and seated -himself by her, he wondered, a little anxiously, whether she was not -perhaps ill with the insidious family disease which had "made short -work" of his younger brother, her father. Ill-health would account for -most of what he considered her "vagaries." - -"I think you ought to see the doctor, Joan--really I do!" he exclaimed, -with concern, as he gazed at her. She was white as her cream cashmere -dressing-gown, and there were deep bistre circles round her more than -usually brilliant eyes. "Let me send for him----" - -"Oh, I am all right!" exclaimed Joan, easily. She wondered at this new, -unwonted self-possession. It seemed to her as if she--she--Victor's -slayer--were standing aside--apart--and watching the doings of the -better self from which her past actions had for ever divorced her. -"What have you brought me?" - -"Flowers, Vansittart said," replied her uncle, brightly. "I met him at -the club, and he seemed as if he were to have a lonely evening--it was -just one of those blank nights when one happens to have a lull in one's -engagements--so I asked him to come in to dinner. He came, and brought -this; but went away, as I said, when he heard you were out of sorts, -saying he would call round and inquire in the morning." - -He tore away the paper covering and disclosed a basket of blue and white -flowers--a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of a West-End florists. "Pretty, aren't -they?" he said, handing them to Joan, his head admiringly on one side. - -"Very," she returned mechanically, making a pretence of appreciation. -The blue flowers were forget-me-nots. To her strung-up imagination they -looked like innocent child-eyes gazing at her with reproach. Once she -and Victor had sat by a stream, and she had picked some from the bank -and fastened them in his coat--he always liked a "button-hole"--Bah! -These horrible thoughts!--What was her uncle saying? "He said he -thought you looking ill. He wondered I had not sent to the doctor -before." - -"He--who?" asked Joan, sharply. "Lord Vansittart? What has he got to -do with it?" - -"There! You are going to faint," exclaimed her uncle, alarmed and -annoyed, as she paled to lividity, sank back in her chair, and thrust -the basket into his hands. Oh, the irony of fate! She had seen the -exact counterpart among the flowers of the thick, small-petalled white -blossom in Victor Mercier's coat that terrible last night--when she -poisoned him. The perfume recalled it all--the waxen, deathly face, the -still, silent form--the little room with the open window. - -"It is the scent--it makes me feel faint when I am well, the odour of -daphne, or tuberose, or whatever it is!" she stammered, forcing herself -to speak with a gigantic effort. "And when one has a headache like mine -it is worse." - -"I will put them outside," said he, consolingly. She watched him as he -did so, clumsily trying to tread softly as he went to the door. Poor, -kind uncle! If he knew--if he knew! - -"Do you know," he began, scanning her livid features with solicitude as -he returned, and resuming his seat, pitched his voice in a low -undertone, which only succeeded in producing a hoarse croak, so unlike -his own cheery voice that in her hysterical, strained state she barely -repressed a shriek of agonized laughter. "I am almost sure, indeed, I -may say I feel convinced, that this headache of yours is a nervous -attack brought on by seeing those waxworks last night. I am sure you -went into the 'Chamber of Horrors,' and looked at the murderers. I did -when I was about your age, and it got on my nerves. My opinion is, that -that making effigies of terrible criminals who have dared to take their -fellow-creatures' lives, and exhibiting them for money, is wrong, and -ought to be forbidden. The law is right when it orders such human -monsters to be buried within the prison, and their bodies consumed with -quicklime. They ought not to be remembered! Every trace of their awful -crimes ought to be instantly obliterated--ah! I thought as much! You -shudder at the very recollection of those wicked faces! A delicate, -innocent young girl like you ought not to go to such places! What? You -did not go into the 'Chamber of Horrors?'" - -"I don't think so," stammered Joan faintly, closing her eyes, and -wondering how long this crucifixion of her soul would last. All her -life? "But--what do you mean--the bodies consumed by quicklime? In the -prison?" - -"Never mind, we won't talk of such things!" said he, cheerfully. -"Oh--poor little cold hand!" He was startled by the deathly icy touch -of the hand he had taken between his warm palms. "Ah! There is your -aunt! Come in, my dear! I was just telling Joan that I shall insist -upon her seeing the doctor----" - -"I am sure you will insist upon nothing of the kind, Thomas," said Lady -Thorne, entering in her handsome, sober black dinner-dress, redeemed -from too great plainness by the diamond pins in the black lace -head-dress crowning her iron-grey hair, and the pearl and diamond -necklet and brooches around and about her lace-encircled throat, and -seeming to bring in a matter-of-fact atmosphere from the outer world of -ordinary commonplace, which jarred upon and supported Joan at one and -the same time. "Joan has nothing the matter with her but a little -neuralgia. She wants a good long sleep, and she will be as well as ever -to-morrow morning. You leave her to me, and don't meddle with what you -men, however clever you may be, know nothing about!" And Lady Thorne, -who remembered her own girlish "attacks" during her love anxieties, and -who had no mind for visits from a doctor who might order change of air -and nip the engagement with Lord Vansittart in the bud, bustled her -husband off, and administered a tonic to her niece in the form of a -good-humoured scolding. - -"Men always want to make mountains out of mole-hills, doctors too--they -are all alike!" she ended by saying, after she had chidden her for not -forcing herself to eat and drink. "You did not sleep! Of course not! -Well, I promise you you shall to-night!" - -She rang for some clear soup and wine, coaxed Joan to consume both, -then, after herself "seeing her to bed" and administering a good dose of -chloral--a drug she had in her amateur medical studies found was in the -opinion of certain authorities antidotal where there was a consumptive -tendency--sat by her until she was asleep. - -And Joan slept--heavily. Only towards morning was her slumber visited -by dreams. The one which arrived with the grey dawn, when the birds -began to chirp in the trees below, was almost a nightmare. - -She dreamt that she was a prisoner in the dock, being tried for the -wilful murder of Victor Mercier, alias a'Court. The jury were filing -back into the box amid an awful silence in the crowded court. She saw -each one of her twelve umpires, scanned each sober, serious face, with a -horrible presage of coming doom. She heard the sentence--"Are you all -agreed upon your verdict?" and the reply--the terrible fiat, "Guilty." -She saw the wizened features of the aged judge in his scarlet panoply -assume a grim and solemn expression, as, donning the three-cornered -"black cap"--a head-covering which gave him a grotesque, masquerading -appearance--he addressed her. At first she was too dazed to understand; -then, the concluding adjuration seemed to smite her ears, and stab her -heart. - -"This man loved you, and made you his wife. A wife should be one to -stand by the man she marries 'for better, for worse'; which means that -when she takes the oath to do so, she accepts the man's sins with the -man--she becomes one with him, half of himself. There are wives who -have died for husbands as faulty, perhaps more so, than your unhappy -victim. But you! What have you done? When you had money at your -command, did you seek him out? Did you even endeavour to discover what -had become of him? No! Instead, you, as it seems by the evidence we -have heard--incontrovertible evidence of trustworthy witnesses--were -planning a bigamous marriage and secret elopement with another man; and -when, just before the consummation of your guilty plot, your lawful -husband appeared, you were tempted to get rid of the obstacle to its -accomplishment, and to kill him. How you executed the terrible deed we -have heard. You have had every chance which the goodness of your fellow -creatures, and their kindness to you has been almost unexampled, could -provide. You have had, I fear, more mercy than you deserve. For -myself, I cannot hold out any hope that your misguided and guilty life -can possibly be spared." Then Joan listened in mute agony to the -sentence which condemned her to be "hanged by the neck till she was -dead"; she heard the awful prayer, uttered with deep feeling by an aged -man to whom Death could not long remain a stranger, "and may God -Almighty have mercy on your soul!" and all became a blank. - -A blank--but not for long. She seemed to be roused by the tolling of a -bell, and looking around, found herself in the condemned cell. Some one -was strapping her with small leathern straps which hurt her, and in -reply to her miserable, pathetic appeal, "oh, please don't," the man -dryly said it would be better for her to be submit to be tightly -bound--"it will be over all the sooner." It? What? Then she saw -serious averted faces--they belonged to men who were forming into -line--she heard the words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," she -caught the gleam of a white surplice. - -She struggled--fiercely--madly--and awoke. - -Awoke--bathed in sweat from head to foot--her pulses beating -wildly--gasping, choking--but alive--free--free! - -There was her dear familiar room, grey in the early morning light; the -bell was tolling from a neighbouring monastic church--she was -alive--alive! But--but--it might--come--true--that dream-- - -"Oh God, it must not!" she exclaimed, flinging herself out of bed and -upon her knees. "It would not be just! You know, my God, I did not mean -it! You know what he was! You must not let me be hanged!" - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -Vera Anerley had never acted better than that night when Joan secretly -visited Victor. Some subtle excitement--born, perhaps, of an unusually -passionate kiss of her beloved's when she left him alone in the house to -interview the man he had spoken of--was perhaps the spur which had -produced an access of fervour. Perhaps it was the approaching -separation. Victor had announced that he would start on a journey in a -few days. She herself was leaving for the North with the travelling -company to which she was attached. - -In any case, her disappointed would-be lover, the young stage-manager, -came up to her with a smile at her final exit--a thing he had not done -since she was betrayed into pushing him roughly away when he attempted -an embrace--and condescendingly said a few words of praise, adding a -proposal to introduce "a friend of his," who had been "much pleased." - -"He is the dramatic critic of the _Parthenon_!" he pompously added, -surprised when Vera knitted her brow and shook her head. - -"You are very kind, Mr. Howard, but I must be getting home," she -pleaded. What was the critic of the Parthenon to her in comparison with -half-an-hour's _tete-a-tete_ with Victor? she asked herself, as she -escaped into her dressing-room, leaving "Mr. Howard" anathematizing her -"folly," and vindictively prophesying to himself that, in spite of her -beauty and talent, she would "never rise an inch" in her profession. -"Mother," as she called Victor's mother, her late father's second wife, -was out with the mild student, Mr. Dobbs, at the hospital entertainment. -She wanted to be home first! - -"Put away all my things for me, won't you, Polly?" she said to the -daughter of the veteran actress who took old women parts, and who -travelled with the company as wardrobe keeper. "Thanks! You are a good -sort!" and with a hasty hug of the girl she darted out of the -dressing-room, along the passage to the stage-door, and into the cool, -quiet alley. - -Then she ran--into the still glaring, thronged thoroughfare--it was a -neighbourhood whose inhabitants kept late hours, and "did their -shopping" mostly at night--hailed a loitering hansom, and was driven to -Haythorn Street. Eagerly glancing out at the house, she had noticed a -tall lady with a swinging gait coming along. She noticed her as hardly -the kind of feminine visitor frequenting Haythorn Street, and because -she seemed to swerve now and then. When she stopped and seemed to watch -her alight and pass into the house, Vera wondered if the gentleman -Victor expected--he had hinted that his visitor was one moving in higher -circles--had brought her with him, and that she was waiting for him -outside. - -"But I suppose a gentleman would hardly bring a lady here at this hour -of the night, still less leave her in the street," was her second and -more lucid thought, as she opened the hall door with her latch-key, -passed in, and closing it, listened. - -If there was any one with Victor upstairs, she knew she would hear -voices. But the stillness was that of an empty house. As she stood, -she heard the same loud, sober ticking of the kitchen clock which had -seemed so almost terrible to Joan in her awful anxiety. Then came a -plaintive "mew" from within the little front parlour--hers and her -step-mother's. "Why, Kitty! Who could have shut you in?" she exclaimed, -and she opened the door. The tortoise-shell cat--an old one troubled -with a perpetually-moulting coat, ran out as she did so and rubbed -itself against her old winsey "theatre skirt," purring loudly. "Victor -must have shut her in," she mused, as she went slowly upstairs to find -him. - -Where was he? For the door of Mr. Mackenzie's, the absent lodger's, -sitting-room stood open--and there was no sound within. Entering, for -the first moment she deemed the room empty. Then she noted the two -tumblers, one half full of dark liquid, and the glass jug of water, on -the table--and her glance travelling further, alighted on the motionless -form of her lover on the sofa. - -"Asleep?" she wondered. It seemed strange--the mercurial, ever -wide-awake Victor--so early in the evening, as he considered evenings, -too! Still, she went towards him on tiptoe. "I will wake him with a -kiss," she thought, with an incipient glow of passion as she imagined -him rousing from sleep to clasp her close and fasten those adored lips -on hers with that warm, possessive kiss of his which she felt was unlike -every other kiss which had been given and taken since Adam's fresh lips -first touched the ripe, yet innocent mouth of Eve in Paradise. - -When she reached him she gave a cry of terror. Something was wrong! He -never looked livid, sunken, his eyes half-open, like that! - -She seized his hand and gasped with relief; for it was warm and limp; -then she stooped and kissed his brow. It was damp and cold as clay -after a frost. - -"He has fainted!" she wildly thought. "I must call some one!" - -She flew downstairs, intending to ask help next door, in spite of a -disagreement with its proprietress after a too intimate acquaintance of -the moulting tortoise-shell with some fowls kept for laying purposes in -the backyard; but as she opened the hall door, her stepmother and the -thin, amiable Mr. Dobbs had just come up. - -"Why, Vera! You are home early," began Mrs. Wright, surprised. -"But--why--child! what is it?" She stopped short, for Vera's eyes -looked madly at her--the girl was deathly white. - -"Victor is ill, I am going for a doctor," she gasped, distractedly--her -efforts to be calm and self-possessed only seemed to aggravate her -uncontrollable fear and anguish. "Do go upstairs and see to him, Mr. -Dobbs, won't you? I think he has fainted. I will be back directly!" - -"Thank Heaven they came!" was her thought, as she ran swiftly up the -street and round the corner to the doctor who always attended them, the -kind, shrewd old practitioner, Doctor Thompson, and springing up the -steps of the house vigorously rang the bell. She heard it clang within -with that ominous toll some bells have, and peered through the coloured -glass at the side of the door. Were they all dead? she asked herself -impatiently, staring in at the empty entry, with its umbrella-stand and -grandfather clock. What miserable mismanagement! Once more, although -only a few moments had elapsed since the bell rang, she gave a tug to -the bell-pull. A girl in hat and jacket came in sight within, put her -fingers in her ears, and hurried to the door, looking disgusted. It was -the housemaid, who had been to the hospital entertainment. - -"I am sorry to have rung twice," exclaimed Vera, breathlessly, as she -opened the door--she knew the girl. "But--is the doctor in? No? Oh, -what shall I do?" - -"It isn't the old lady, miss?--I saw her just now in the Priscilla Ward, -a-larfin' fit to split her sides at the comic singing gentleman--what? -Your brother? The smart young gent with the black moustache? A fit? -My! Why don't you go round to young Doctor Hampton, who 'as just set up -the dispensary? He's some sort of relation of master's, and I've heard -master a-talkin' of his cleverness--round there, miss, two doors up--red -lamp--you can't miss it!" - -"She do seem put about," thought the young woman, as she looked out and -watched Vera flit across the road like a black shadow. "Fancy takin' on -like that about a brother!" - -Wildly, telling herself passionately that a moment's delay might mean -death--death was in his face--Vera tore into the still open entry of the -little house with the red lamp and gave such a violent knock and ring -that the door opened before it was over. - -A young man stared at her, astonished, as she clutched at his -coat-sleeve, despairingly adjuring him to come and save her brother's -life, he was in a fit. He felt quite shocked and concerned at being -suddenly assailed with such a pathetic flow of appealing language from -so young and beautiful a creature. - -"Yes--certainly--at once! Only let me get my hat!" he exclaimed; and -after he had seized upon the head-gear nearest at hand, which happened -to be a cricket-cap, he also set off running at her side, entered by the -open door of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street, and sprang up after this -agile girl three steps at a time. - -The room was light. He saw two figures--a woman, kneeling by the couch, -a man with his back to him, who turned as they came in. He looked pale -and scared. - -"I am afraid there is nothing to be done, Doctor," he said, in those -low, hushed tones, which even the most irreverent use in the presence of -the dead. - -The young man passed him, and going to the couch, looked down upon the -solemn face of the dead man. He laid his hand almost tenderly upon his -brow--he listened to the heart. - -"Take the old lady away, please!" he said, peremptorily, to Vera. Then, -after the girl had, with some difficulty, coaxed her step-mother out, he -turned to the scared and guiltless John Dobbs. "How did this happen?" -he sternly inquired. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -After that spontaneous, passionate prayer to Heaven for mercy, Joan -seemed to awaken to a stronger, intenser life. A new instinct burst into -a fierce clamouring within her--the primary instinct to -live--live--anywhere, anyhow, at any price--but to live! - -"I ought not to die--I did not mean to kill him!" she wailed. Her first -mad notion was to confess everything from first to last. There would be -an inquest. If she were to go to the coroner and tell him the whole -story, would he not see justice done? - -"But it would only be my bare word," she thought, as she sat on the edge -of the bed, wringing her cold hands, shuddering so that her teeth -chattered. "Any one who wanted to kill some one that stood in their way -might do it, and say it was an accident!" - -No; that Quixotic idea was untenable. Dead silence--absolute -secrecy--these must be her defensive armour. No one knew she had seen -Victor Mercier since his re-appearance in London, and only two persons -were aware of the so-called "love-affair." One was the school-girl -go-between, Jenny Marchant, who on the only occasion they had happened -to meet, at a charity bazaar, had taken her aside and implored her never -to betray her complicity in that terrible escapade--she had read of -Victor Mercier's defalcations in the papers, but had not the remotest -idea the consequence of her folly was that her chum Joan had bound -herself to the "dreadful creature" by a marriage at the registrar's. She -would never say anything! "And Nana would rather die than betray me!" -thought Joan. - -No--absolute secrecy--to act as if no such person as the dead man who -had come by his death through her daring to drug him, existed, as far as -she was concerned--that was the best, the only course open to her to -save herself. - -"But--but--I must not do anything wild," she told herself. "The plan to -marry my beloved and start in his yacht must not be carried out! That -would never do! Would not people suspect I had some very good reason -for flight--for hiding myself?" - -Then the truth suddenly flashed upon her; there was now no necessity for -concealment! The man who had bound her to him in law was dead. - -"I am a widow!" she murmured, shivering. "How -impossible--extraordinary--yet, yet--literally true! I never was his -wife--except for a quarter of an hour in the registry office--what a -mockery! And all this--horror--my misery--his wretched, sudden -death--came out of that--those few words of an ordinary man's--the -signing of our names in a book!" - -Would the registrar who married them come forward? - -At the idea she sickened. Chill sweat came upon her brow. - -"Why should he? He has enough to do without making himself more -worrying work," she told herself. "Besides, he may think I went abroad -with Victor and died there, if he thinks at all!" - -No. She must find some way of accounting for her change of ideas to -Lord Vansittart, she mused, as, hearing Julie outside, she returned to -bed, and when the girl entered, stretched her arms and yawned. - -"Oh, I am much better," she told her, as Julie made anxious inquiries; -and with a violent effort she contrived to act her part pretty -successfully--to dress and seem as usual--even to attempt to eat some -breakfast. But this latter was a hard task. The morning papers had the -"Mysterious Death" among their "sensations," and gave ominous hints as -to "Victor a'Court's" career which threatened her with a return of that -convulsive shivering. - -However, when she went downstairs, her aunt and uncle seemed so -cheerfully matter-of-fact--her aunt gave her such very pronounced hints -on the subject of Vansittart--"they would be quite to themselves, -because she was going out, but she hoped Joan would insist upon his -dining with them that evening as he disappointed them last night," -etc.--that she began to feel as if the tragedy in her young, unfortunate -life were unreal--dream-like. - -The sun shone warmly upon the brilliant bloom of the flowers in her -balcony. A canary sang joyously from its cage outside the window of the -next house. The lively rattle of carts, the smooth roll of carriages, -the shrill voices of passing children--all meant life--life! And she was -greedy, thirsty for life--she--who a few hours ago had done a -fellow-creature to death. - -"All is not--quite--lost," she mused, as she leant her tired head on her -hands--she had seated herself at her writing-table, and was pretending -to be busy with her correspondence. "I can do nothing--any more--for -poor, cruel Victor--may God be merciful to him! But he has -relatives--this actress sister--he never said a word of her to me, I may -hope he never said a word of me to her. I may be able to make her life -very different--after all this is over and forgotten--hers and any other -relatives of his--and I will! I will not spend one single day without -doing something to tend to some comfort or advantage for them!" - -She was still trying to plan her announcement of her changed wishes to -Vansittart, so as not to excite the faintest suspicion in his mind that -anything had occurred to alter her ideas between her last meeting and -this, when she heard voices outside--the groom of the chambers announced -"Lord Vansittart"--and he precipitately entered. - -He advanced, a little pale and anxious-looking, but so handsome, such a -tower of strength, such embodied manhood at its noblest, that suddenly -she felt utterly overwhelmed, submerged--she tottered gasping into his -arms, and clung to him as madly as one drowning cleaves to his rescuer. - -"Oh--it is you--" she deliriously stammered. "Don't--don't leave -me--oh--what am I saying? Are we both--alive? Is it real?" - -In her delirious collapse she would not let him kiss her lips. First -she hid her face in his coat, then she kissed it--wildly, almost -passionately. - -"My poor, sweet darling; be calm--it is all right--I will take care of -you!" he said, tenderly, brokenly. To see her thus almost unnerved -him--he was losing command of his voice--two great cold tears stood in -his eyes, then ran down and lay glistening on her golden hair. "Come, -my dearest love! Something has upset you, but never mind; I promise you -it shall not happen again--I will stand between you and trouble." - -He stopped short, horrified--for she burst into a wild peal of laughter. -She struggled to subdue it by hiding her head upon his arm. He gazed -down at her pretty golden head, speechless with mingled feelings. Once -more the ugly idea crept up unbidden within him--that Joan was "going -mad." - -"No! You are right there!" she cried her laughter subdued, glancing up -almost defiantly into his face. "What--ever--does happen again? Did -you not talk of the past being irrevocable, irrecoverable? It is! The -present is bad enough, is it not? That I should be a hysterical fool -like this--all because of a dream! At least I think my headache made me -delirious all night. I am not good enough for you, dear. You must give -up all idea of marrying me!" - -She gazed tenderly at him with those dark eyes soft with the tears -brought by that hysterical outburst. - -"Oh, yes, of course!" he ironically said. "I am to give up all chance of -happiness because you are not one of those Amazons I so cordially -detest! Come, darling--I can see that London life is utterly and -entirely disagreeing with you!" He seated himself on a sofa and drew -her gently down beside him. "That fact reconciles me to taking you -away, do you know--so it is the silver lining to the only cloud that is -troubling my horizon!" - -"You did not like that plan of mine? I am--thankful!" - -As she ejaculated this with evident truth, Vansittart stared at her. - -"Not that, darling! I am ready to do anything----" he began, alarmed -lest she had seized upon a loop-hole for escape. But she interrupted. - -"I had a dream last night," she began, slowly, striving for -self-possession--the very mention of that awful vision unnerved her. -"You know--what is on my mind--that I helped to ruin the life of a -friend by helping her to marry a bad man. Well! I dreamt--that she -came--to awful--grief! And the dream was so vivid that I take it as a -warning. I do not wish to carry out our plan, dearest. If you care to -marry me, let us be married openly, before the world!" - -"Do you really mean it?" He grasped her hands and kissed them. He -gazed at her with a face beaming, transfigured with joy. "Thank God, you -do! Oh, my darling, my darling--I would have married you anywhere, -anyhow, I would even have kept our marriage secret till the crack of -doom if you had wanted to--but I hated doing it. I hated stealing you -like a thief, instead of marrying you proudly, honourably, glorying in -it, before God and all his creatures! You have lifted such a weight -from my heart that I hardly know where I am, or what I am about!" - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -For awhile, as Joan sat, her lover's arm around her, all about them so -bright--the pretty boudoir, decked with dainty gifts of her uncle's and -aunt's, gay with flowers and sunshine--she was infected by his radiant -happiness. A faint hope stole timidly up in her crushed heart--a vague -idea of "misadventure"--"the visitation of God"--as the real cause of -Victor Mercier's death, she only the unhappy instrument. The idea -reigned--it was the melody to the accompaniment of his joyous talk. - -Then her uncle came in, and without ado Vansittart asked his blessing. - -Sir Thomas had hardly kissed and congratulated his niece, beaming upon -her in his huge satisfaction, when Lady Thorne entered, and stopping -short, placidly surveyed the trio. - -"No, I am not surprised," she answered, in a superior tone, to her -husband's inquiry, after he had announced the engagement. "Or at least, -if I am, it is because you two young people have taken so long to make -up your minds. I never saw two people so fitted for each other." - -There was an air of subdued gaiety about the four at the luncheon table. -Joan held her thoughts and emotions in check with a tremendous effort of -will. In the afternoon the lovers rode out into the country, and she -enjoyed an almost wild ride. She had an idea that bodily fatigue might -weaken her power of thought. If only she could tire herself into -physical exhaustion, she fancied she might forget. Oh! only to ignore, -to be able to ignore the past--for a few brief hours! - -Vansittart was too madly in love to take exception to any desire or even -whim of his darling's. He cantered and galloped, raced and tore at her -side, although at last his favourite horse was reeking with sweat, and -he told himself that he had not felt so "pumped out" for a long while. -The fact that Joan did not seem to feel fatigue hardly reassured him. -He determined to ask Sir Thomas to influence her to consent to an early -marriage, that he might take her on a sea voyage. After they had dined, -a pleasant _partie quarree_, and he and his future uncle-in-law were -alone, he broached the subject. - -"I hope, Sir Thomas, you will not think me impatient if I suggest that -there should not be a prolonged engagement," he began, taking the bull -by the horns almost as soon as they had lighted up and their first glass -of Mouton was still untasted before them. "But, to tell you the truth, I -am not happy about my loved one's health, and I fancy that some -yachting--say in or about Norway--might brace her a little." - -"Great wits jump, they say! My dear boy, you have almost taken the very -words out of my mouth!" replied Sir Thomas, confidentially. "Honestly, I -have been uneasy about Joan for a long time. I told you months ago -about the family tendency to phthisis! Well, I am not exactly anxious -about her lungs, the medical men say they are perfectly sound, so far. -But tubercular disease has other ways of showing itself, and there is a -feverishness, a tendency almost amounting to delirium about the dear -girl, which at times makes me uneasy. I intended to suggest a speedy -marriage, and a sea voyage, knowing of your delightful yacht. I repeat, -you have taken the words out of my mouth!" - -Joan was winding wool for Lady Thorne's work for her special _proteges_, -the "deep sea fishermen"--winding it with an almost fiery energy, as the -two conspirators entered the drawing-room. Her eyes met Vansittart's -with the old hunted, desperate look--his heart sank as he felt how -impotent and futile his efforts to balance the disturbing influence, -whatever it was, had been. - -Sir Thomas had determined to "strike the iron while it was hot." So, as -soon as coffee had been served, he broached the subject of an almost -immediate marriage. - -"My dear, it is the only thing to be done!" exclaimed his wife -emphatically. "It ought to be a function, Joan's marriage! And if it -is not as soon as I can arrange matters, it will have to be postponed -till next season, when every one will be sick and tired of the subject. -You are our only chick and child, Joan, and I will have you married -properly, with _eclat_." - -Joan made no objection. She gave her lover one tender, confiding -glance, then resumed her wool-winding, and allowed her elders to settle -her affairs for her. Perhaps, she thought, when she was left alone with -the awful facts of her life in her own room--perhaps she might learn to -live in something less akin to utter and complete despair than her -present humour, when she was alone with Vansittart, skimming the ocean -in his yacht. - -The necessary shopping and dressmaker-interviewing, too, might distract -her from the terrible, gnawing anxiety of the coming inquest. - -Each morning and evening the papers had some little paragraph about the -affair. They hinted at the identity of "Victor a'Court" being a -disputed one. But until the day fixed for the inquest there had been no -definite allusion in print. - -The night before the inquest was one of feverish anxiety for Joan. "If -only I were not so strong--if only some dreadful illness would attack -me!" she told herself, as the hours lagged and dragged. She could not -face her world while that awful inquiry which might mean a shameful -death to her was going forward; yet she dared not shut herself into her -room to await the evening papers as she best could. - -Her aunt was, fortunately for Joan, a "little out of sorts," as she -herself termed it. So, her uncle being out--and having, indeed, almost -entirely relaxed his barely-veiled supervision of her doings now that in -three weeks time she would be Lady Vansittart and freed from his -jurisdiction for always, she donned a hat and walking dress and wandered -out, unseen--for the hall was empty. - -Why she was attracted towards the scene of her "accidental crime"--that -was her name for her administration of the drugged brandy to Victor -Mercier--she could not imagine. But she was. - -She had intended to stroll about in the leafy seclusion of Kensington -Gardens, dodging her kind. But no sooner was she in the Park than she -wandered almost unconsciously nearer and nearer to the place where she -had done her former lover to death. - -Oh, for some cool, dark refuge in which to grovel and hide during the -awful hours of dreadful suspense! The light of day seemed too -garish--every cheerful sound made her shrink and wince--every voice -seemed to thrill each overstrung nerve in her aching body. - -As she was pausing, miserably, under a tree, stopping her ears that she -might not hear the glad voices and laughter of some children gaily at -play, she happened to glance skyward where the towers of the great -cathedral stood, solemn and noble, against the sky. - -"I will go in there and wait!" she told herself. She felt unable to -return home and face the evening papers in her uncle's house. She would -wait for them there. - -She almost fled along, across the road, into the cathedral, as a guilty, -hunted creature seeking sanctuary. She halted when she had closed the -door. There was a calm, a rest, in the sacred fane which was as the -presence of the Creator Himself. She slunk into a corner, and crouching -down, clung for support to the rail of the bench in front of her and -waited. - -Waited, half-dazed and stupified, hardly knowing where she was, mind and -brain confused as if too paralysed to think, to act. Hour after hour -passed. Afternoon service proceeded in the choir. Almost grovelling in -her corner, she listened. She could not pray--she was past that. - -Then, as there was a movement of the congregation to the doors, she -forced herself to rise and pass out among them. For she knew the -evening papers would be out. - -She hurried from the Abbey into the street, bought one from the first -urchin she met shouting "Special Edeetion!" fled across one street and -along another, into the Park. There she found an empty bench, and, well -hidden from passers-by by a clump of shrubs, opened her paper with -trembling fingers. Yes! There it was! - - - "INQUEST THIS DAY. STRANGE REVELATIONS." - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -The paragraphs seemed to dance before her eyes. Joan's mind at first -refused to understand. Then, as she read, she feared her brain was -playing her false. - -Victor a'Court was identified by several witnesses--one a detective, who -had failed to track him when he was "wanted" four years ago for -embezzling monies belonging to his firm--as Victor Mercier. - -His old mother was called, but was in so pitiable a state that his -identity was finally established by the evidence of her step-daughter, -Vera "Anerley." - -She was described as pale, but perfectly self-possessed. She told the -coroner's court how Victor Mercier's father died in obscurity some years -before her own father, a widower, met Madame Mercier and married her. -She and Victor, who was ten years at least her senior, had called each -other brother and sister, albeit not related. She knew nothing of the -particulars of the charge brought against him some years ago, except -that the firm were subsequently bankrupt. She knew he had "got on" -abroad, but how, or why, he had not exactly said. - -Then two medical men--one the aged practitioner who attended the family, -Dr. Thompson, the other the young doctor, his nephew--testified to the -death, and gave an account of the _post-mortem_ examination they had -made by the coroner's order. The sudden death, which at first had had -the appearance of suicide, especially as some brandy in a tumbler had -proved, on analysis, to contain a quantity of morphia--was actually due -to failure of the heart. - -Cross-examination elicited from both medical men that there was not much -actual disease. The heart was not in good condition--it could never -have acted strongly--and failure might have happened, they considered, -at any time, after undue strain, or shock, or even indiscretion. - -Was the dose found in the stomach sufficient to cause death? asked the -foreman of the jury. The reply was--and Joan read it feverishly again -and again--not, perhaps, in a healthy person who was addicted to -narcotics. Those who were accustomed to other sedatives would possibly -escape being poisoned by the amount of morphia Victor Mercier seemed -likely to have swallowed. But with a heart like his death might -certainly ensue were the person unaccustomed to narcotics and the like. - -Then the medical student, who had returned from settling his dead -mother's affairs to find his "diggings" the scene of a recent tragedy, -testified to the amount and kind of morphia he had left in a bottle -among the rest of his drugs. Probably two-thirds of the half-bottle had -been accounted for by the drugged brandy left in a tumbler, and by the -contents of the stomach. He identified the empty bottle. - -Here a juror asked if the bottle from which the brandy had been taken -were in court? - -It was not. No bottle had been found in the cupboard or anywhere in the -sitting-room, although several empty brandy bottles were in a corner of -the adjoining bedroom, where Victor Mercier was temporarily sleeping. -The student lodger vigorously disowned these, upon which the coroner -asked the aged doctor whether a man whose heart was in the condition of -Victor Mercier's would be tempted to resort to alcohol, and having -received a decided reply in the affirmative, the subject was dropped. - -Mr. Dobbs, the student who had escorted Victor Mercier's mother to the -hospital entertainment, testified to finding Victor Mercier dead, as far -as he could judge; then Vera gave an account of how she found him, and -asked to be allowed to make a statement. - -She told the Court that to her knowledge Victor Mercier had secretly -married a lady, his senior, wealthy, of good position, who had behaved -shamefully when he was under a cloud some years previously: that he had -intended and hoped to procure a divorce, and that a person was expected -to call upon him that night--the night he died--whose evidence would go -far to assist him in his desire. "I expected the person would be still -with him," she added--"and--I found him--dead!" - -The significant utterance of her statement appeared to have brought -about a perfect storm of questioning. But, giving an absolute denial to -any further knowledge of the affair, she adhered firmly to what she had -said, and nothing further could be elicited from her, except the -somewhat defiant reply to a suggestion of the foreman of the jury that -Victor Mercier might have had some motive in wishing to have a divorce -instead of claiming conjugal rights. "Yes. We--he and I--were engaged -to be married, as soon as he could get rid of her!" - -That speech, apparently, brought matters to a speedy conclusion. The -Coroner placed the "ambiguous affair" before the jury somewhat -diffidently. Their verdict was, perhaps in consequence, hardly a -decisive one. They disagreed. While the majority wished to adopt the -coroner's hint that "death by misadventure" might be a safe view to -take, and that it would be easy for investigations to be proceeded with -by other authorities, should those authorities feel inclined to -dissatisfaction, there were some dissentients who suspected possible -foul play. - -These were, however, sufficiently in the minority for a verdict of -"death by misadventure" to be returned, and when Joan understood that by -this she was still unsuspected by man of that which God alone yet knew -she had done, the sudden shock of joy was as bad to bear as her agony -when she read that Victor Mercier was dead. - -"I am not to be hanged, I am not to be shamed before the world--God is -just--He is merciful--He has heard my prayer!" she frantically told -herself, as in the folly of ecstasy she clasped and kissed the paper, -and held it to her heart. Was the world all sunshine, all joy? What -was the matter? she wondered. It was as if she had been groping through -some dark, noisome tunnel, holding by the dark walls, expecting every -moment that some horror would rush upon and destroy her miserable, -hopeless being--and--without even a warning ray of light--she had -suddenly emerged into a beautiful world--ancient, yet new--bathed in -glorious sunshine, awake and alive with joy. - -She heard, almost with wonder, that the birds were carolling, that gay -voices and laughter, mingled with the ripple of the wavelets a few yards -away, where little children were screaming as they fed the quacking -ducks. Little children! Some day she might be a mother, and in tending -innocent babes she might forget the horror of her life. - -She had no pity for the cruel man whom she saw now, first, in his true -light, as perjurer, liar, thief--who had stolen her young affections out -of mere wantonness, so it seemed to her, when he really loved this "Vera -Anerley," who was supposedly his sister. He had lied to her all -through--he was a mere nobody--he meant to climb to a position by her -wealth: he had lied about his legal tie to her, this Vera--this love of -his. What had he meant to do? How could he divorce her? - -The answer to her own question was as a blow, so sharp, so cruel. She -closed her eyes faint and sick. - -"He knew about _us_," she thought. "He said--'your lover, Lord -Vansittart.' He meant to get a divorce--because of him. He would have -sworn to lies, very likely. He would have got 'damages'--a decree--and -after he had disgraced me for ever, would have made that girl his wife! -Oh--his death has been a mercy to every one--may God grant it has been a -mercy to him!" - -As soon as she was equal to the effort of walking--for she felt unsteady -and giddy even then--she left the newspaper on the seat on which she had -sat to read her fate, and making her way out of the Park, took a cab -home, and entered without, she believed, being unduly observed. She -found that her uncle had lunched at his club, and her aunt was in her -room, so, joining Lady Thorne in her boudoir, where she was lying -comfortably tucked up on a sofa, she excused her absence very casually. -She had been detained shopping, had lunched out, had attended service in -the Abbey. Lady Thorne smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course, my -dear!" she interrupted. "But I am glad you are in. Violette has sent -home one of your _trousseau_ evening frocks. It is a poet's dream--pink -embroidered roses, and a bouquet of pink roses has come from the Duchess -with a little note--they decorate with roses to-night in your honour! I -want you to wear that frock. It would make such a nice paragraph in the -society papers, and encourage Violette to exert her utmost with the rest -of the wedding order." - -Joan went upstairs, wondering what it meant--this sudden flow of -sunshine. As she inspected the dress--an exquisite _confection_ of pale -pink and white shot tissue, embroidered with clusters of La France roses -with so cunning a hand that the blossoms looked almost real--she -wondered what she would have felt, arraying herself in that gala attire, -yesterday. - -"My dark, darkest of dark nights, seems over, thank Heaven!" she told -herself as she went down later on, radiant, to the drawing-room to -receive her lover. As she opened the door, she saw him standing as if -lost in anxious thought. He sprang towards her with a puzzled, -astounded gaze. - -"How lovely you look! But--but--oh, darling, how thankful I am to see -you look almost happy for once!" he passionately exclaimed, as he kissed -her--hands, brow, lips--with the tender reverence which made her almost -worship him in return. "But--oh, something must have happened to please -you! Tell me, Joan, do not let us have any secrets from each other!" - -"You shall know to-night--at the dance," she said. The dance was given -by the Duchess of Arran. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -If Joan had succeeded in fascinating Lord Vansittart until his passion -dominated him to the extinction of all his ordinary interests in life, -while she was mysteriously enwrapped in an unaccountable gloom--a gloom -which hid her natural charms, her bright, ready wit, her spontaneity, -her sympathetic responses to the moods of others, as a thick mist hides -a beautiful landscape--in her new gaiety and sudden joyousness she -simply intoxicated him. - -As he sat opposite her at dinner, he gazed fatuously at her in her pink -glory, her sweet face shining above the roseate robe as the morning star -above the sunrise-tinted clouds--and wondered at the magnificence of the -fate dealt out to him by fortune. When they were driving to Arran -House--Sir Thomas by his betrothed, and he squeezing in his long figure -on the opposite seat--he felt that to sit at her feet and worship her -was more happiness than he deserved. What of being her husband? Of -possessing this delightful being for his very own--half of himself? - -His mood, half deprecatory, half triumphant, but wholly joyful, seemed -reflected in the brilliant atmosphere of Arran House, as he followed Sir -Thomas, who had Joan on his arm, through the hall--where heavy -rose-garlands wreathed the pillars, casting their rich, luscious perfume -profusely upon the air--up the rose-decorated staircase to the draped -entrance to the ballroom, where the duchess stood, a picture in rose -moire and old point lace, the kindly little duke at her elbow, receiving -her guests, but detaining the newly-betrothed for a few warmly-spoken -words of congratulation. The ballroom floor was already sprinkled with -couples dancing the second valse of the programme. - -"Now we belong to each other publicly as well as in private, you must -dance all, or nearly all, your dances with me," said Vansittart, in -tones of suppressed emotion, as he gazed at her white throat, encircled -with his first gift--a necklet of topaz and pearls with _parure en -suite_; then, with a longing, searching look into her eyes. Half -fearful lest the old enigmatic horror should still be lurking there, his -heart gave a throb of delight as those sweet brown orbs gazed -innocently, fearlessly, yet with a passionate abandon into his. - -"Let us join the others--shall we?" he said. She nodded slightly--a -trick of hers--and encircling her slight waist with his arm, he made one -of the slowly gyrating throng. - -To Joan that dance was like a new, delicious dream. To feel the one she -loved as she had never imagined it was in her to love, near her, was in -itself an abiding joy. But to have lost the awful burden--her secret -link to another--to be relieved of the weight of fear lest she should -really be a criminal--that, mingled with the delight of being the -betrothed bride of her beloved, was in itself an earthly heaven. - -The valse over, they betook themselves to a couple of chairs placed -invitingly under a big palm. But Vansittart yearned to be alone with -her; or, at least, where they could talk unobserved. In spite of his -pervading joy, there was just one discordant note sounding in his mind; -there was one gleam of anxiety anent the cause of the almost miraculous -change in Joan's mood, from darkest night to sunlit noonday. - -"It was a pretty idea of the duchess, was it not, darling, to decorate -with roses in our honour?" he said caressingly, as he took her bouquet -and inhaled its delicate sweetness. "The flower of love! But--well, of -course you know the story of the rose? It seems to me that that also -may not be without its meaning in our case. It was through a bad member -of my sex, was it not, that you had so much to endure? Why, dearest, -forgive me for alluding to it. I thought you would not mind!" - -Joan had started a little--as a sensitive horse at the unexpected touch -of its rider's heel. It was only for a moment; she recovered herself -immediately. - -"What story? I don't know of any! Tell me," she replied, annoyed with -herself at being so "morbidly impressionable." Still, any allusion to -her secret stung her to the quick. It disappointed her. She had wanted -to bury her dead at once and for ever. - -"Why, I hardly like alluding to your confidences to me," he began, a -little taken aback by her sudden change of humour. "The story is about -a girl named Zillah--a Bethlehemite--whose would-be lover rejected, gave -out that she was possessed, and had her condemned to be burnt. But the -stake blossomed into roses! I take that to mean that no real trouble -can come to one who is pure and good by the machinations of any vile -man, however base----" - -"Oh, don't talk about it here!" she exclaimed, inwardly writhing. -"Besides, I don't want ever to allude to--to--that affair of my poor -friend's marriage again. It is not necessary. She has escaped from her -troubles. It is that which has made me so happy. Do you understand? I -cannot tell you how it has happened. You must trust me so far. But it -is all over. I have only one, one boon to crave of you--that you will -never, never again remind me of it. Can you do that much for your -future wife? If you do keep raking up my past troubles, we shall not be -happy. I promise you that!" - -"My dearest, I would sacrifice much rather than ever say one word to -annoy you, give you pain," he began, somewhat hurt and mystified. - -"I know," she exclaimed, and once more she beamed upon him. A brilliant -smile beautified a face which was too flushed for health; sudden pallor -at the tale of the rose was succeeded by a burning glow. "And now, -there they are, beginning another dance. I want to dance. I want to -live; to enjoy life. Can't you imagine it? For ever so long I have -been thinking myself a perfect wretch, not eligible, like other people, -for the ordinary joys of life; and now that I find out I am not, that no -innocent person has suffered for my absurd and ridiculous folly, I want -to be happy. Oh! let me be, if only for to-night." - -"Joan, that is hardly just, not to know that there is only one thing in -this world I really wish for, your happiness," he said, with deep -feeling. "However, do not let us have the faintest shadow between us, -when we are on the eve of belonging to each other for ever--pray don't! -Darling, I will be careful for the future. Do you forgive me?" - -"Don't talk nonsense," she cried, with a little laugh which sounded so -gay and careless that he led her to join the dancers somewhat reassured. -As they danced onward, round and round the duke's beautiful ballroom, -the electric light shining through the softly-tinted Bohemian glass upon -the lavish decorations of roses of all shades, from pure white to the -deepest crimson, they both almost recovered their equanimity. The deep, -yearning love in each young heart was sufficiently sun-like to dispel -all mists and shadows. - -To both the evening speedily became one of unmixed delight. Once or -twice they had temporarily parted and taken other partners "for the look -of the thing." "Hating your dancing with another fellow as I do, I -would rather that, than that the frivols among them should laugh at us," -he told her. "You know, dearest, to be in love as we are is terribly -out of date." - -So they reluctantly separated for a while, to enjoy each other's -proximity with a more subtle ecstasy afterwards. The last dance before -supper Vansittart had retained for himself. "It is more than flesh and -blood can do to give up that; besides, it is not expected of me, after -the paragraphs in the papers," he said. So, after a delightful quarter -of an hour's gyration to the charming melody of the "Erste Geliebte" -waltz, he escorted Joan to the supper room. - -It was crowded. As Vansittart led his beautiful betrothed through the -room, her pink train rustling, the jewels on her fair neck gleaming, all -eyes turned towards them as they passed. His head held proudly high, he -felt rather than saw that they were the object of general notice. -Meanwhile, every one of the small round supper tables, laid either for -two or four persons, seemed appropriated. - -Joan had been scanning the crowd about the tables, feeling an -unpleasantly reminiscent thrill as she saw the ducal servitors in their -picturesque black uniform and powder; and remembering that horrible -shock--her encountering Victor Mercier in that garb, in that sudden and -cruel way--she was somewhat startled by meeting the malevolent, -searching gaze of a small, thin man in evening dress. - -Surely it was the duke's valet--that man with the steel-blue eyes which -seemed to flash white fire as they met hers? Yes, he was approaching -them. - -"Pardon, milord, but there is a table in the conservatory, if you would -like it," he said. "It is cooler there, and I will tell some one to -attend to you." - -"Thanks, Paul," said Lord Vansittart genially, and he led Joan through -the room after their guide, following him into the conservatory, where, -among the roses, fuchsias, and orchids brought from the ducal houses, a -tiny table was laid for two persons. "You are very kind. But you are -not looking well. How is it?" - -"A mere nothing, milord," said Paul, lightly. "And now, I will see to -the supper for you and mademoiselle. But Monsieur le Duc wishes a word -with you. He sent me to say it. You would find him in the hall, I -think, waiting for you." - -"You will excuse me a minute, darling?" Vansittart, released with a -smile by Joan, left her. - -Left her--with the valet, Paul Naz! Joan wondered to see the man, with -a set, stern face she did not like at all, moving the knives, forks and -glasses about upon the table in a foolish, aimless fashion. She -marvelled still more when he stood up and faced her suddenly, an ominous -gleam in his brilliant, pale eyes. - -"A word, mademoiselle," he began solemnly, his hands clenching -themselves so they hung pendant at his sides. "I wish to speak to you -of my poor murdered friend, Victor Mercier." - -[Illustration: "'I wish to speak to you of my poor murdered friend.'" -_A Woman Martyr_. _Page 216_] - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - -If the duke's pale, wrathful valet had suddenly changed into the -grinning skeleton which had seemed to Joan to mock and gird at her that -night when she replaced the poison bottle in the cupboard after pouring -its contents into Victor Mercier's brandy, she could hardly have shrunk -back more absolutely terror-stricken. - -At first she gazed, speechless, at Paul Naz's set, ghastly face, with -those pale blue eyes flashing menace and scorn. Then that up-leaping -instinct within her to defend herself came to her rescue. - -"Are you mad, sir, to speak to me like this?" she haughtily said. -"Leave me. If you presume to insult me, I will call for help." - -For a moment her daring, her defiance, staggered Paul. Meanwhile, the -sudden pallor of her beautiful features, the agony in her dark eyes, had -strengthened his gradually formed, but confident, belief that Victor -Mercier had been merely shielding a woman when he spoke of the Thornes -owing money to his late father, and that he and Joan were either lovers, -or had been so. Men did not dress up as men-servants to meet a woman -who merely had some cash to repay. Then, he had seen other symptoms in -Victor. He believed, when he had read the account of the inquest, that -either Victor held Joan's promise of marriage, or that she was his -secret and abandoned wife. To the story Victor had told Vera he -attached but little significance. Men said such things sometimes to -girls to cover unpalatable facts they need not be told. - -Then, an interior conviction seemed to assert itself. "This is the -woman," cried his soul. He gazed steadily at Joan. - -"Mademoiselle, I am sorry to speak like this, but I know you knew my -poor murdered friend well," he began in a low tone. "God forgive me if I -misjudge you! But I feel you have been cruel to him. Time will show. -Meanwhile, I wish to say to you that I will do nothing against you if -you do not bring this noble gentleman I hear you are to marry to shame. -I leave justice to the Creator, who invented it." - -With which he made her a slight bow, turned, and stalked out of the -conservatory. She sank into a seat breathless, and stared vacantly at -the place where he had stood, for she seemed to see that white, scornful -face with the pale blue eyes which to her excited fancy had been ablaze -with lurid fire, still. - -All was over, then! The mirage of happiness was a mockery. She was -once more plunged, steeped, in the atmosphere of crime. - -"I see," she told herself, in her mental writhings under this new scorch -of pain. "He is a Frenchman; he is--was--Victor's accomplice, his spy. -He told Victor of Vansittart. He has been watching me." - -Her first insane idea was to tell the duke that his trusted servant was -the miserable spy of unscrupulous wretches. Second thoughts said -"madness! Keep it to yourself. What can the man do? He knows nothing -of your visit to Hay thorn Street. If you say, or suggest, he is a spy, -you arouse suspicions." - -Upon these second thoughts she acted. She controlled her emotions, -summoning all her force, her self-possession, to her aid. There was a -long mirror in the corner. She composed her features and rubbed her -cheeks and lips before it, regaining a semblance of composure and -ordinary appearance only just in time, for as she leant back in her -chair slowly fanning herself Vansittart came in, looking grave, -troubled, although he smiled as their eyes met. Had _he_ seen or heard -anything peculiar? - -"Is it a breach of confidence to ask what his Grace wanted you for?" she -asked, assuming a sprightly manner which shocked her even as she did so. - -"Not at all," he said, a little abruptly; "something about a wedding -present." - -Then a manservant entered with a tray of champagne and the menu card, -and until she had been revived by the food she forced herself to eat, -and the champagne Vansittart insisted upon her drinking, she asked no -more. But, in her strained state, her lover's pre-occupation was -unbearable. - -Desperate, she determined to know the worst. "Tell me," she began, -leaning her fair elbow on the table and looking pleadingly into his face -with those bewilderingly beautiful eyes. "You know you yourself -proposed we should share our secrets. And, from your manner, I know--I -am positive--the duke said something more than about a wedding present." - -"If he did, it was nothing of any consequence," he fondly returned, -gazing tenderly at the lovely face which was his whole world. "I would -tell you at once, only you are such a sweet, innocent, sensitive -darling, so utterly unsophisticated, unused to this rough planet and its -still rougher inhabitants--you would make a mountain of what is far less -than a mole-hill in one's way." - -"What is it?' I would rather, really I would, know." She gave him a -coaxing glance. - -"Well, it is this," he replied, hardly. "Very little to annoy one. Only -I am so absurdly vulnerable, that the merest breath which affects the -subject of our marriage seems to shrivel me up. It is those wretched -clubs; at least, the miserable gossip which the riffraff of the clubs -seem to batten and fatten upon, drivelling, disappointed, soured units -of humanity that they are! They seem to be prognosticating that our -wedding will not 'take place,' because I have a secret wife somewhere, -who is likely to turn up. Do you suspect me, darling?" - -Her joyous laugh, born of infinite relief, almost startled him. When he -reached his bachelor domain that night, and recalled the events of the -evening, the sweetest delight of all was to remember how his beautiful -darling took his hands, and with eyes brimming with love, drew him to -her and nestled in his arms as some faithful dove might have flown -confidently to his shoulder. That ensuing brief--all too brief--half -hour, when, by their world seemingly forgot, and certainly their world -forgetting, they interchanged tender words and still tenderer embraces, -seemed to his passion-stricken nature to have so riveted them to each -other that the very machinations of hell itself bid fair to be powerless -to part them. - -"Her absolute innocence makes her so immeasurably sweeter than all the -other women," he told himself, as he stalked about his rooms in a -hyper-ecstatic mood. "It is that which makes her so unsuspicious, so -trusting. Now, if I had told something of what the duke said to me to -an ordinary woman, she would have suspected me of goodness knows what in -the past. She might have concealed it, but I should have known that she -did. I believe it is my darling's being so 'unspotted from the world' -which influenced me to love her as I do. Oh, may I be worthy of being -her guardian; for my past is not the fair, white, unsullied page that -hers is! No man's can be." - - * * * * * - -When the young doctor she had fetched in her frantic fear the night of -Mercier's death, after finding Victor insensible upon the sofa, came to -Vera in the little sitting room where she was kneeling at her poor -trembling old stepmother's side and telling her with the assurance of -desperation that Victor must, would, soon be better--why should he not -be? He had never been subject to fits. He was so well-knit, so strong, -so athletic--she gave the intruder an imperious gesture, and, springing -up, led him out of the room, and, closing the door, leant against the -lintel, and gazed at him with such wild agony that he flinched, alarmed. -She looked uncanny, and at such a crisis it was disturbing. - -"I know. He is dead!" she resolutely said. "But, for God's sake, have -mercy on his poor old mother. He is all she has in life. There will be -an inquest? So much the better. Now go in to her, and tell her he is -very ill, and must be left to you and me." - -The young practitioner demurred. His private opinion was that people -ought to "face their fate." He was fresh from the hospitals. - -But there was something witchlike about this girl. She commanded the -wistful, shivering John Dobbs, a mild specimen indeed of the genus -medico, to remain and solace her stepmother with as many white lies as -he could generate at the moment; then, over-riding the objections of old -Doctor Thompson, who, returning home and hearing of her wild condition -from his house-maid, had proceeded to Haythorn Street at once, she -insisted on accompanying them into the room where the dead man lay with -that calm, sphinx-like smile upon his handsome lips, and remaining there -until Doctor Thompson actually took her by the shoulder and, turning her -out, locked the door. - -But, like some faithful dog, she remained outside. She watched them -seal up the room in a dead silence. After tenderly assisting her -stepmother to bed, weaving fictions the while--"Victor was in bed and -asleep, the doctors had gone, and their one direction was he should not -be disturbed; his very existence depended upon his being kept quiet," -etc.--she returned to her post, and spent the night crouched upon the -landing, her cheek against the sealed door. - -"My heart is dead; my life went with his," she told herself. "What -there remains of me is left to find the woman who murdered him, and to -bring her to justice." - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - -Old Doctor Thompson sat up in his study, smoking and listening to his -nephew's theories anent Victor Mercier's death, while Vera, sleepless in -her anguish, remained sifting her suspicions throughout that dismal -night, limply leaning up against the sealed door which so cruelly barred -her out from that silent room where her beloved lay on the sofa in the -mystic sleep of death. "I have to revenge his murder--for he has been -drugged--poisoned--I could swear it!" she told herself, over and over -again. "That woman I saw--tall, well-dressed--stalking off--and -staggering--she is the one who has killed him! It is she I must -find--God help me!" - -How impotent she felt, when all Mercier's belongings were under lock, -key, and seal! - -But she had enough to occupy her. The unhappy old mother was in a -helpless state of grief--she alone had to "do for the household," since -they kept no regular servant. Then, when she sent in her resignation, -her admirer, the stage manager, Mr. Howard, urged the proprietors of the -touring company to refuse to accept it. She had to go off and almost -beg release upon her knees. - -Then came the day of the inquest, and her statement; the grudgingly -admitted verdict, and the consequent release from endurance of the worst -of the bondage. - -The purses of gold were all that they found which pointed to any one's -visit the night of Mercier's death; and even Vera, despite her intense -anxiety to find a clue which would bring her face to face with the wife -he had told her of, the "hag," the "cat," whom he had spoken of so -vindictively as the only barrier between them, could but think that the -money might have been locked up in his desk since his return. He had -spoken of possessing ample means for the immediate present, and had -spent lavishly upon her of late. - -They searched high and low, the poor mother clinging to the relics of -the only son whose heir she was, as she had few relatives belonging to -her, and his father, her first, cruel spouse, had no kith and kin that -he had cared to acknowledge. But while they found more money--neither -in boxes, nor chests of drawers, or pockets, did they come across any -traces bearing upon the part of his life they knew nothing about. The -letters and papers in his desk and trunk related to past business -abroad, alone. - -The funeral was a plain, but good one. It was a wet, gloomy day when -the hearse bearing the brown oaken coffin decorated with wreaths bought -lavishly by Vera, and a few modest ones sent by the doctor's wife and -some sympathizing neighbours, made its way slowly through the gaping -crowd in Haythorn Street and the immediate neighbourhood, and proceeded -more briskly northwards. Vera sat back in the first of the two funeral -carriages--the two doctors were in the second--and as she vainly strove -to comfort her weeping old step-mother, she gazed sternly out upon the -familiar roads with a strange wonder at the ordinary bustle and -movement. Life was going on as usual, although Victor Mercier's strong, -buoyant spirit was quenched. They laughed and talked and screamed and -whistled, those crowds, while he lay still and white within his narrow -coffin under the flowers, his pale lips sealed for ever in that strange, -wistful, unearthly smile. - -"But they have not heard the last of him," she grimly thought. "The -last will be far, far more startling than the first!" - -Let him be laid to rest, and she would rouse like a sleeping tigress -awakened to the defence of her young, and finding that wife of his, -bring her to justice. - -The belief that that woman had secretly visited him, and that by her -means he had had his death-dose, strengthened every moment until it -became a rigid, fixed idea. All had seemed to point to it. His careful -dress to receive his visitor, the embroidered shirt, the diamond stud, -the white flower in his button-hole, a costume assumed after she had -left him in his ordinary day suit. Then his shutting the cat into the -parlour was doubtless lest she should cover his visitor with her -hairs--and the cat only affected women, and had a trick of jumping up on -feminine laps. - -"There is justice in heaven, so I shall find some clue to her," thought -she, as they passed the stone-mason's yards on the cemetery road. The -words haunted her--"Vengeance is Mine! I will repay, saith the Lord." -They should be inscribed on his tomb. - -Presently the horses slackened in their speed--they proceeded at a -funeral pace--then they stopped. They were at the cemetery gates. Vera -heard the distant tolling of the bell. It had been like this when her -own father was buried, in whose grave for two Victor was to lie. - -"I must bear up," said the aged woman who leant against her, with a -gasping sob. "Victor would not like to see me cry." And she tried to -give a broken-hearted smile. - -"No, mother," said the girl tenderly. But she was not really -touched--it was as if her heart were turned to stone. - -The funeral train went on with a jerk. A returning empty hearse -scampering home the wrong way had been the temporary obstruction. -Graves, rows of crosses and headstones--ponderous marble and granite -tombs--the world of the dead was a well-peopled one. They halted--one of -the solemn undertaker's men came and let down the steps. There was the -coffin-- - -The beautiful words fell unheeded on Vera's ears. She was intent upon a -small, pale man with fair hair, in black, who had joined them. Who was -he? Was he the intimate friend Victor had casually spoken of? - -As they stood in the narrow pews of the mortuary chapel, the first ray -of sunshine which had pierced the clouds that day fell upon the -close-cut hair of Paul Naz, who had determined not only to see the last -of the friend anent whose fate he had such gruesome, horrible -misgivings, but to offer his friendship to the charming young actress -whom he now knew to have been more to the dead man than mere -step-sister-in-law; and Vera said to herself, "It is an omen!" - -As they stepped slowly out, following the coffin, she almost staggered -as she vainly tried to support her half-fainting step-mother. Paul Naz -helped her with a "Pardon, mademoiselle! I am his friend!" and she gave -him a grateful glance. - -They were at the grave. The clergyman was reading "He cometh up, and is -cut down like a flower--" ... A thrush carolled loudly on a neighbouring -bush. The sunlight broke through and shone upon the brass handles of -the coffin as it was lowered into the grave. "My beloved, I will only -live to avenge you, and take care of mother," murmured Vera, as she left -the grave, and following her stepmother, who leant on Paul Naz's arm, -listened to his affectionate talk of the dead man. - -"I loved him, mademoiselle! And if I can help you, I beg you to send to -me!" he said, earnestly, giving her a meaning, almost appealing look -after he had helped Victor's mother into the carriage. Then he stood, -bare-headed, and gravely watched them depart. - -"He suspects!" Vera told herself, feverishly, as they drove home. -"Perhaps--oh, if it only is so! He knows something!" - -Back in the empty house, she coaxed her step-mother to bed, and was -proceeding to give orders to the charwoman about the tidying-up of the -place, when there was a vigorous pull of the bell. - -"I will see to it," she said to the woman. Proceeding to the hall-door -and opening it, she was confronted with the landlady of the next-door -lodging-house--a Mrs. Muggeridge, whose fowls had been harassed by the -tortoise-shell cat, after which there had been ructions, and each house -had cut its neighbour dead. - -"I am sure I don't wish to hurt your feelings, or to intrude, Miss -Anerley, but my mind is that troubled I must speak to you," said the old -woman, who was stout and asthmatic, and looked pale and "upset." "I -hope your poor mar is all right?" - -"Yes, thanks! Will you come this way?" said Vera, who felt somewhat as -a war-horse hearing the bugle, for she hoped to "hear something," and -she conducted her visitor into the little parlour and closed the door. - -Mrs. Muggeridge pantingly, with many interpolations, told her tale. She -had a country girl as servant, "Sar' Ann, as good a gal as ever lived." -Still, it seemed that Sar' Ann was human, and could err. The day after -the murder, "as they did call it, and as some calls it now, in spite of -that there crowner, Sar' Ann was took with hysterics, and giv' warnin'." - -"Which I took. As I says to Sar' Ann, 'I don't want any one 'ere as -ain't comfortable.' And she was right down awful, that girl was. One -night I took and made 'er tell me what it was, and I'm goin' to tell -you, now! For the very mornin' after--I suppose because I told her what -she said to me she might have to tell to a Judge and jury, she ran away. -She got the milkman to give a lift to her box, and when I got up, -expectin' to find the kettle boilin', she was off and away into -space--and there she is--like one of them Leonines as they talk of, but -we never sees, Miss Anerley! It'll take a detective to find her, if so -be as she should be called up to say what she says to me!" - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - -Mrs. Muggeridge paused, and had a fit of coughing. Vera waited with the -patience which seemed part of her dogged resolve to avenge Victor's -death. - -"Yes?" she said mildly, as Mrs. Muggeridge wiped her eyes. - -"Where was I? Oh! About Sar' Ann making tracks like that. Well, if I -tell you what she told me, and ease my conscience like, will you give me -your word, Miss Anerley, as no harm shall come to the girl? Poor, -unfortunate girl! I'm glad as it wasn't me! You promise? Well, it was -like this: My first-floor front, what corresponds with yours where your -gentleman lodges what's been away for his Ma's funeral, is occupied by a -gent in the City, what leaves a lot of vallables about as I don't harf -like having the charge of. So, when I'm goin' out, I locks up his room, -if so be as 'e ain't at 'ome, and puts the key where he knows how to -find it. Now, we was all out except Sar' Ann the night of the murd--oh, -well, the night Mr. Musser died: I was at the horspital entertainment -along with the rest. So what must my lady needs do, but get that -key--sly puss! she must have watched and found out where I put it--and -go up into Mr. Marston's room to fiddle about with his things. I -believe she spent the evenin' there. At all events, when she was -a-sitting at the window, peepin' out, she sees a tall lady come along, -and disappear into your house. She did think it queer, knowin' or -suspectin' as you was all out! So she listened, and small blame to 'er, -as I told the girl! She listens--and she swore to me she could 'ear two -voices in the next room, a man's and a woman's. She sat there listenin' -for a hour or more after dark, and they was talkin'--sometimes loud--but -she couldn't distinguish the words. And then there was quiet-like, and -she wondered what had become of 'em--so she was peerin' out of window -when out comes the tall lady, shuts the door, and makes off. Your -'ansom drove up at the same time, and she declared to me she see the -lady stop short and stare at you! There now!" - -Vera's thoughts, spurred by the excitement of such important, unexpected -evidence, worked with lightning rapidity. Even as she listened with -concentrated attention, she was warning herself to be cautious. If her -suspicions that Victor was foully murdered were shared by others, the -criminal might be forewarned, and escape her doom. - -So she gave a sad, incredulous smile, and shrugged her shoulders. "My -dear Mrs. Muggeridge, your girl ran away because she was a wretched -story-teller, and was afraid of being called to account!" she dryly -returned. "The voices, the tall lady--everything--is pure invention! -Surely I ought to know? The only fact is that I came home in a hansom. -You said she was hysterical. It is a pity her perverted ideas were on -the subject of my dear, dead brother!" - -"Brother? I read as you said at the crowner's quest that he was your -sweetheart!" exclaimed Mrs. Muggeridge, vulgarly. She had confidently -expected to become one of the chief _dramatis personae_ in the gruesome -tragedy at number Twelve, and her disappointment exasperated her. "And -as for my poor Sar' Ann bein' a story-teller, allow me to tell you as -she's never told a lie to my knowledge! Stealin' the key? Gals will be -gals! Let me giv' you a word of warnin', Miss Vera Anerley, or whatever -you call yourself. Your best plan'll be to find Sar' Ann--I can't, my -respectable house is ruined by bein' next door to a disreputable hole -where people comes to sudden deaths and their friends want it hushed -up--I've to see about movin' as soon as I've got over the shock it's -been to me to be next door to such a orful thing--but if you don't find -Sar' Ann and let 'er help to discover the lady what murdered your -sweetheart, p'raps you'll find yourself havin' the cap fitted to you, -maybe! So there! Ere's Sar' Ann's larst address, to show as I don't -bear no malice, and wish your poor old Mar well--I never had no call to -complain of _'er_--but though I knows as Sar' Ann come original from -Oxfordshire, that's all I do know." - -Mrs. Muggeridge huffily made her exit, giving a contemptuous little -shake of her skirts and a backward glance of defiance as she issued -forth, and down the steps of the offending house. - -Vera closed the door upon her and for some moments seemed riveted to the -spot, her thoughts awhirl. If she could have known that where she -stood, contemplating vengeance, fiercely if voicelessly praying for -justice, the girl who had been her lover's legal wife, the girl who had -drugged him and brought about his death, had stood unconsciously -listening for his last breaths, that she might return and steal the -documents which incriminated her! - -But no voices came from out the walls, the ticking of the clock had no -sinister meaning. She heard the charwoman singing some common -music-hall tune to herself as she swept. Swish, swish, went the -irritating broom--then an organ began to play aggressively at the end of -the street--a chorus from a comic opera she had heard one night, -nestling against Victor in the dress circle of a suburban theatre. - -She shuddered and wrung her hands. Why was life so ghastly, so full of -horror, of terror? But she must not stand there, letting the precious -moments go idly, fruitlessly by. - -"I must have help," she told herself. "Alone, I can do nothing. I will -write to Mr. Naz, and ask him to come and see me." - -Writing an ordinary little note, merely asking Paul conventionally if he -could make it convenient to name some time to visit them, it would -comfort her and Victor's poor mother to see one who had been a good -friend of their loved one's--then going out to post it at the nearest -pillar-box--restored her outward, if not her inward equanimity. She -spent the day literally setting the house in order--assembling all -Victor's belongings in the attic lumber-room, to be thoroughly searched -by her on the morrow. - -Early the following morning an empty hansom drove up, bearing a little -note from Paul. Would twelve o'clock suit her to see him? And would -she send an answer by the cab? - -She wrote a few lines in affirmative reply; then, after seeing her -step-mother comfortably established on the sitting-room sofa where she -and Victor had revelled in each other's society that night of happiness -after the performance--the night he first showed her his somewhat sudden -passion for her in all its fulness--she stole away upstairs to the attic -to put away the relics of the dead man. - -She had cleared her two best trunks; and in these she meant to store -everything he had left--clothes, books, pipes. The money had been -placed in a bank in her step-mother's name. A lawyer friend of Doctor -Thompson had acted for them, and had simplified everything. - -The little room was hot. She opened the window wide, drew down the -tattered old green blind, and set to work shaking, folding, and -arranging Victor's clothes. - -How like him it was to have shirts that a French marquis would hardly -have disdained! As she laid them away with as tender and reverent a -touch as that of a bereaved mother storing away the little garments of a -loved, lost infant, she almost broke down. But she took herself sternly -to task, repressed her melting mood, and reminded herself that a strong -man's work--the bringing a criminal to book--was hers. Any and every -womanish weakness must be sternly disallowed. - -One trunk was soon full of linen and odds and ends. This she locked, -and proceeded to fill the next. The books came first--mere remnants of -volumes, mostly French, with morsels of yellow paper cover adhering to -them. But--strongly redolent of tobacco, she put them carefully in a -layer beside the cases of pipes, and the odd-looking curios he had -collected. They seemed almost part of him, somehow, those pipes. That -they should be there, smelling of the weed he had smoked, and he should -be mouldering in his grave in that densely populated cemetery! She -shuddered. Her hand trembled: she picked up a yellow volume, _Quatre -Femmes et un Perroquet_, with eyes brimming over with tears, picked it -up carelessly; something fell out. - -Something? Two things--one, a soiled little photograph. As she seized -it her tears dried--her eyes burned. It was the photograph of three -girls. - -Evidently an amateur attempt--badly mounted. Three girls in summer -frocks and aprons, two standing, one seated on a bench--in front there -was grass--at the back, part of a brick house and some shrubs. - -Fiercely, with intense anxiety, she stared at the three faces. Two were -round and plain: these belonged to the girls--fifteen or sixteen years -of age at the utmost--who were standing. The face of the seated girl -was a beautiful one: full of sweet pathos, and yet with a tender happy -smile about the mouth. - -"Too young to be that awful woman," she mused, crouching on the floor, -and gazing. Still, one of them might have been her daughter. The woman, -by his account, had been older than Victor, possibly a widow with a -child, or children. - -She was so absorbed in contemplation that she forgot the other "thing" -which had fallen from the book, until, as she laid aside the triple -portrait and began to resume her task, she saw it and pounced upon -it--darted upon it like a serpent upon its prey--for it was a letter, -and in a feminine handwriting. - -A letter--soiled, its edges worn--it almost fell to pieces as she -touched it. Yet it was, by its date, written but a few years -previously. - -The hand-writing was unformed. But it was unmistakably a love-letter. - -"Dearest Victor," it ran. "I am longing to see you quite as much as you -are wishing to see me. You say, if I cannot answer your question to me -the other night you would rather not see me any more! It has made me -very unhappy. You see, I am so young to be married. Then, if I did -what you say, it would kill my poor mother, who is so very ill. But I -do love you, Victor! I dream of you nearly every night. Sometimes you -are Manfred, sometimes Childe Harold, and last night you were Laon and I -was your 'child Cythna!' It was so sweet--we were lying side by side on -a green hill, your eyes gazing into mine, and I seemed to hear some one -singing 'Oh, that we two were maying'! Dear Victor, I must do all you -ask: I could not bear not to see you again! It would break my heart! - -Your promised wife, - JOAN." - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - -Was the loving, foolish "Joan" the woman he had married? The woman she -had seen coming down Haythorn Street as she drove up? Or was she -"another woman" altogether? - -She gazed fiercely at the sweet face in the photograph. It seemed to -gaze blandly, calmly, back. - -"Oh, God! What shall I do?" she wailed, grovelling on the floor in her -despair. The anguish of discovery that another had reigned over his -affections, and so lovely a rival, was almost unbearable. Still, -selfish misery was soon extinguished by the greater, sterner passion -which possessed her--her grim purpose of revenge, or as she chose to -consider it, the just punishment of the one who had, she believed, -poisoned her beloved. - -It was not like Victor to take a noxious drug, nor was he suicidal in -feeling. He loved life! He was all gaiety and careless enjoyment of -the passing hour, when he was not white-hot with passion. - -But could he have lied to her about the age of his "wife"? Then, gazing -once more at the face in the photograph, she miserably told herself that -that girl could not be termed "hag" and "cat." No, there must be two -women! And yet--and yet-- - -She started. There was a knock and a ring. It could not be Mr. Naz! -She glanced interrogatively at the little silver watch she wore which -had been her own mother's. It told her that it was half-past eleven. -She ran into the front attic--her and her step-mother's bedroom--and -looked out of the window. There was a hansom at the door. A man stood -on the step below. - -She ran downstairs and opened the hall door. It was Paul--pale, -serious, faultlessly dressed in half mourning. He bowed low as he took -off his hat, and apologized for being early. He was not his own master! -He thought of "wiring to her," but his anxiety for an interview urged -him not to postpone his visit. - -"Come in," said Vera, in a low voice. "My mother is in there, and I -want to see you alone," she added, as she cautiously closed the door. -"I had better tell her you are here, though. Do you mind coming up to -the lumber room, where I am looking through Victor's things? There is -nowhere else." - -"Anywhere--where we can be alone, Miss Anerley," he gravely -said--thinking that if ever human agony had been fully seen in a woman, -it was now, in this fragile girl with the pale face drawn with anguish, -the great eyes luminous with wild desperation. - -He admired her for her self-possession, as he heard her ringing voice -telling her step-mother, who was somewhat hard of hearing, that -"Victor's kind friend, Mr. Naz, was here, and she would bring him to see -her presently--she would first take him upstairs to choose something of -dear Victor's as a keepsake." - -"She is an actress, of course," he told himself, as he ascended the -oil-cloth-covered stairs after her--how strange were these sordid -surroundings of a man who had claims upon the wealthy, luxurious Sir -Thomas Thorne and his family! "But there is only a little of the -actress--the rest is woman--passionate woman!" - -Vera mutely conducted him into the disordered lumber-room, amid the -dusty boxes and old baskets, where the two open trunks were standing. - -"I have been searching his things," she began, abruptly. - -"Yes?" he answered, tentatively. - -"Perhaps you can tell me who these are?" She dipped into a trunk and -handed Paul the photograph of the three young girls. - -At a glance he saw the subject. "My sight is not very good, I will take -it to the light," he said, moving to the window, holding back the blind, -and examining the portrait with his back to her. - -Heavens! For a moment, as he saw the lovely face of the seated girl, he -felt as if some one had given him a blow. There was only one Joan -Thorne! To mistake that face was impossible. - -Regaining his composure with a stern effort of will--for he must not -"give his friend away," especially now that he was one of the helpless -dead--he turned to Vera. - -"I don't understand! Who are these persons?" he asked, as if mystified. - -"That is what I want to find out!" she cried, passionately. "Mr. Naz--I -know, I feel, my dearest Victor was murdered! He never took that -morphia himself! It was given him--and--by a woman! I should know her -again--I should, I am sure I should! It was she I saw coming away from -the house that night. I said nothing about it at the inquest, for fear -of dishonouring my dearest; it was she the servant next door heard -talking to him, and saw coming out of the house--the landlady has just -been in to tell me about it! The girl will swear to it--when we get -her--she was so frightened about it she has run away! Mr. Naz, you were -his friend, surely, surely you will not rest till his murderess is found -and punished? I demand it of you!" - -Her great sapphire eyes gleamed--she was impressive in her intensity. -Paul's fair hair seemed to bristle on his head. Victor had always -fascinated--influenced him--his mantle seemed to have fallen on his -beloved's shoulders. - -"I don't understand," he stammered, taking refuge, for safety, in -apparent bewilderment; although even as she had clamoured her new -evidence with seeming incoherence, he saw all the damning circumstances -in their most fatal light: Joan Thorne's portrait, Victor's curious -suggestions about the Thorne family being in his power; Miss Thorne's -secret expeditions with her maid Julie, his betrothed, whose -acquaintance, although it had led to his really caring for her, had been -made by him at Victor's suggestions; the admission of Victor's that he -was married; then this new and startling evidence--and Miss Thorne's -ghastly, horror-stricken face when he, only half believing she was the -woman _liee_ with the dead man, only half-suspecting that she might have -been instrumental in his destruction, boldly taxed her with it at the -Duke of Arran's ball, when alone with her for a few moments in the -conservatory. - -"You don't understand?" She spoke bitterly. "You are no friend of his, -then! You would leave him--in his tomb--killed, murdered--his murderess -at large!" - -"What good could it be to him, now?" he said, firmly, almost -impressively. "Can we follow the spirits we have lost, and do anything -for them? Might not cruelty to others hurt them? How can we tell?" - -"Cruelty to others!" she cried, wildly. "Understand, Mr. Naz! I know -his love--his Joan! I will soon be on her track! If you will not help -me, I will go to the detectives!" - -In her almost frenzy of mingled love for the dead man, and hate of her -rival, the woman who had been with him the night he died, she hazarded a -chance shot, and even as she did so, she rejoiced. For the bullet had -found its mark. Paul's face fell--there was an expression of dismay in -the eyes which were almost fearfully watching her. - -"No, no! You must not do that!" he slowly said. "I do not know what my -poor friend may have told you, but remember a man is sometimes betrayed -into a little exaggeration----" - -"I have her letter," said she, exultant, yet calm. "I have plenty of -evidence to give the detectives. I will not trouble you, Mr. Naz!" She -glanced scornfully at him. - -What was he to do? Abandon Joan Thorne to this infuriated, outraged, -therefore unscrupulous rival, and a horde of professional detectives, -who would show little or no mercy? His whole somewhat chivalrous being -revolted against it. When he left Haythorn Street half-an-hour later he -had pledged himself by all he held sacred to assist Vera in discovering -the real story of Victor Mercier's untimely end, and acting upon it, -whatever it might prove to be. - - * * * * * - -When Joan, at the Duchess of Arran's ball, had, with the most violent -effort of will, played her dismal part, acted, feigned enjoyment of her -last dances with Vansittart, beguiled him with well-simulated smiles, -and sternly resisted the awful inward fear awakened by Paul Naz's daring -words and sinister demeanour, she almost collapsed. Then, left alone in -her room, the prattling Julie gone, her night light flickering, she sat -up in bed confronted by the new, hideous fact. - -Paul Naz suspected her! He knew of her affair with Victor Mercier! He -had identified her with the "hag" wife that girl Victor loved had spoken -of at the inquest! _What more did he know?_ - -The cold beads stood out on her brow. The innate conviction she now knew -that she had felt from the very beginning of her love for -Vansittart--the conviction that it would lead to her doom--arose within -her like some unbidden phantom. - -What doom? Public shame and the hangman? Or the utter loss of -Vansittart's love? One seemed as terrible a retribution as the other. - -"But--do I deserve such an awful punishment for what was done in -ignorance, my fancying myself in love with Victor, and being talked into -marrying him at the registrar's?" she asked herself, with sudden fierce -rebellion against fate. "Do I even deserve it for drugging him to take -possession of my letters? What had he not threatened me with? And I -never meant to kill him! I am sure I would rather have died than that!" - -Again, a passionate instinct of self-defence as well as of -self-preservation came to her rescue. As she lay there among the -shadows in the silent night, with no sound but the distant rumble of -belated vehicles, and the measured footsteps of the policeman as he went -his round upon the pavements below breaking the stillness, she -determined, once and for all, to kill the past. - -"It shall be dead!" she told herself, sternly. "I will have no more of -it! If any one or anything belonging to it crops up, I will defy, deny, -ignore, resist to the death! No one saw me--no one can really hurt me! I -have had enough of misery and wretchedness--I will--yes, I _will_--be -happy--and no one in the world shall prevent me!" - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX - - -The morning after the Duchess of Arran's ball Lord Vansittart was seated -at his breakfast, the _Times_ propped up in front of him, when a ring of -the hall-door bell was followed by a man-servant's entrance with a -telegram. - -Since his engagement to Joan, he had been singularly nervous--her -changeful moods were hardly calculated to soothe a lover! He regarded -the buff-coloured envelope askance. - -Still his tone was cheerful as he said. "No answer." The message was -from Joan; but there was nothing alarming in it. The few words were -merely "Come as early as you can." - -In a very few minutes after its delivery at his house, he had given his -brief orders to the household for the day, had carelessly said he did -not know when he should return, or if he would be home before night -except, perhaps, to dress--and without waiting for a conveyance of his -own--there would be delay if he sent down to the stables--he was out, -striding along the pavement until he met a hansom, which he chartered -with promise of an extra tip for quick driving. - -"Miss Thorne is in her boudoir, my lord," said the porter, when he -alighted at the house. Evidently the order had been given to that -effect. The groom of the chambers bowed respectfully, but was easily -waved aside. Vansittart crossed the hall and sprang up the stairs as -only one of the family might do without disregard of the _convenances_. - -Tapping eagerly at Joan's boudoir door, his attentive ear heard a -footstep, the door was opened by Joan herself. She was in the pink and -white _deshabille_ she had worn the happy day she had first admitted -that she loved him sufficiently to marry him. But now, her beauty -seemed in his fond eyes increased by the natural arrangement of the -wealth of beautiful hair which was unbound and, merely confined with a -ribbon, floated about her shoulders like a veil of golden strands. - -She drew him into the room and blushed, as she said she had not expected -him so early. - -"I had to write to my bridesmaids about their frocks," she began, -nestling to him. "I meant to have my hair done before you came----" - -For answer he seated himself and drawing her to him, kissed the shining -tresses and held them ecstatically in his hand. Their soft touch seemed -to fire his emotions. - -"Do you know you seem unreal, you are so beautiful?" he said, -passionately, lifting her chin and gazing intently at her delicate -lovely features and the rich brown eyes which to his delight looked more -calmly than usual into his. "You make me feel--as if--when I get -possession of you--you must vanish into thin air--you are an -impossibility--a mocking spirit, who will disappear with elfish -laughter." - -"Don't rave!" she fondly said, returning his kiss. "Or you will make me -rave! And to rave is not to enjoy oneself! Dear, I asked you to come -early--I want to spend every moment of my life with you--from -this--very--minute! Why should we be separated? You know what you told -me--that they were telling each other falsehoods about you at the -clubs--so our being always together will be like killing two birds with -one stone! It will make me happy, and give the lie to their wicked -calumnies! Do you mind?" - -"Do--I--mind?" He kissed her brow, lips, hair, again and again. "Am I -not yours--more yours than my own--all yours through time into -eternity?" - -"For worse as well as for better?" She had said the words before she -remembered her terrible dream--when the judge who was condemning her to -be hanged had upbraided her for not having fulfilled her wifehood; as -they escaped her lips she recollected, and shuddered. "You think me -better than I am, dearest! I am human--erring----" - -"I--know--what you are!" he passionately exclaimed. He was plunged in a -lover's fatuous ecstasy. It was half an hour before Joan could get away -to put on her habit. She meant to ride to Crouch Hill to hear her old -nurse's opinion of what had occurred. Mrs. Todd had not known Victor's -name--she would not have identified "The Southwark Mystery," as the -newspapers termed it, with herself and her wretched entanglements. She -would tell her that Victor was dead, and hear what she would say to it. - -While she was dressing, Vansittart went back to his stables, and waiting -while the grooms equipped his now staid, but once almost too mettlesome -grey horse "Firefly," returned to find Joan's pretty "Nora" waiting at -the door, held, as well as his own horse, by her groom. He had barely -dismounted when she issued from the house, a dainty Amazon from head to -foot, and tripped down the steps, smiling at him. "Why did you ride your -old grey?" she asked, as she sprang lightly into the saddle. - -"Why?" he repeated, as he arranged her habit, and thrilled as he held -her little foot for one brief moment in his hand. "Because I am so -madly in love with you to-day that I cannot trust myself on any horse -but the soberest and most steady-going in the stables! I am -particularly anxious not to bring my 'violent delights' to a 'violent -end' by breaking my neck!" - -They rode off through the sweet summer morning, he so bathed in actual -joy, as well as fired by the anticipatory delights of life with Joan for -his wife, that in his blissful mood he could have enwrapt the whole of -humanity in one vast embrace--Joan abandoning herself with all the force -of her will to the natural instincts that underlay all ordinary, -acquired emotions. - -During her long self-colloquy she had deliberately burrowed, mentally, -below her civilized being, and sought these. She had told herself that -the primary instincts of woman were wifedom and motherhood. For the -present--until she was reassured anent her safety by time and the course -of events--she would listen to no others. - -The two lovers--so near in seeming, so far asunder in reality, divided -as they were by a hideous secret--rode gleefully on, rejoicing in their -youth and love, making delicious plans for their future together, -gloating over their coming joys from different standpoints, but with -equal ardour. - -"And for to-day," said Joan, as they rode under a canopy of boughs in -one of the country lanes still undesecrated by the ruthless hands of the -suburban builder, "and not only for to-day, but most days, I want to see -how the other half of humanity lives, dearest! Before I am Lady -Vansittart, I want to see the life that commoners enjoy! I want to dine -out with you, at restaurants, and go to the theatre with you, and, in -fact, be alone with you in crowds who neither know nor care who we are, -or what we are doing!" - -Vansittart, albeit slightly puzzled, readily acquiesced. When they drew -rein at Mrs. Todd's cottage, it was settled that they were to use a box -he had taken for the first night of a new play brought out by a manager -who was an acquaintance of his, dining first at a restaurant Joan -selected as being one not affected by their circle. - -Joan entered the cottage and saw the dark old woman totter to meet her, -eagerness in her trembling limbs and brilliant, searching eyes, with a -feeling of sickly dismay. Last time she stood here Victor was alive; -since then she had killed him! Involuntarily she gave a little moan of -pain. - -"My dearie, my lamb, what is it?" The aged nurse was terribly agitated -as she caressed and tried to console the only creature she really loved -on earth, who had sunk crouching at her feet. "Is it--come, tell -Nana--you know I would die this minnit for you, lambie--tell me if that -fellow is alive and annoying you in any way, for, as I sit here, if he -is, I'll tell of him! I'll set the police upon him!" - -"Don't," said Joan, chokingly, clasping her knees. For the first time -she seemed to realize what she had done. "He is dead!" - -"Thank God for that!" cried the old woman, in an access of fervour. "He -is just, I will say that, if He's sent that blackguard to the only place -he's fit for, instead of leaving him here to worry innocent folks as 'ud -do their Maker credit if they was only let alone! And now you can be my -Lady, and go to Court with as big a crown and as long a train as the -best of the lot, duchesses and all! And you can bring little lords and -ladies into the world to be brought up proper by head nurses and then -send them to colleges, and make real gentlemen of 'em! The Lord knows -what he is about! There ain't a God for nothin'!" - -After the first thrill of something akin to horror at Mrs. Todd's -grotesque rejoicing, Joan put aside her questioning as to "how the brute -came to his end" by asking her if she would like to see Vansittart, and -he, in his rapt adoration, eager to have to do with every detail of his -beloved one's life, was only too ready to be curtsied to and -congratulated and blest. - -"She is a good old soul, darling, we must look after her," he feelingly -said, as he waved farewell presently to the tall old crone watching them -from her doorstep as they rode slowly up the road. "And now, where -shall we go?" - -After one of Joan's scampering rides they returned home, spent the -afternoon in sweet talk in her boudoir, then Joan retired to -dress--donning her plainest black evening frock and simplest -ornaments--and he paid a flying visit to his house to dress also, -returning to fetch her, as she had bidden him, in an ordinary hansom. - -"I mean to enjoy myself to-night!" she gaily said. She insisted on -feeling gay--insisted to herself. Presents were arriving in battalions, -boxes of exquisite garments were delivered with a monotonous regularity. -She had chosen the restaurant they would dine at, she was also to select -the menu. As they alighted at the door, a man, who was about to enter, -halted, and smiled as he lifted his hat. - -"Who is that?" she asked as they went in. - -"A very clever fellow, the dramatic critic of the _Parthenon_," he -returned. "I will introduce him to you." - - - - - CHAPTER XXX - - -As Joan went into the restaurant on Lord Vansittart's arm, she felt a -subtle, exquisite sensation of leaving her troubled, garish, emotional -life on the threshold, and stepping into another, new existence. - -The vast circular building, with a dome where the electric lights -already cast a warm glow upon the bright scene beneath, was dotted over -with white tables surrounded by diners. Palms stood about it--a grove -of moist, luscious water-plants of subtropical origin surrounded a -rosewater fountain, that tinkled pleasantly in the centre. - -"We had better go upstairs, I think," said Vansittart; and he led her up -a broad staircase into a wide gallery surrounding the building, and -chose a table next to the gilt balustrade, where she might watch the -crowd beneath. - -"This is delightful," she said smiling, as a band began to play a -selection from a favourite opera in a subdued yet fascinating style. -Then a waiter came up, obsequious, as with an instinct born of -experience he detected a couple above the average of their ordinary -patrons, and after a brief colloquy with him, Vansittart offered her the -menu, and seated himself opposite to await her choice. - -"It is difficult to think of eating with that music going on," she said, -feeling as if in the enchanted atmosphere coarse food was a vulgar item; -and her selection was a slight one--oysters, chicken cutlets, iced -pudding. Vansittart, possessed of an honest appetite when dinner time -came round, felt compelled to supplement it with an order on his own -account. "You do not want me to be starved, I know," he gaily said, as -the man departed on his errand. - -The music played, the fountain's tinkle mingled with the hum of many -voices, the footfalls, the clinking of glass and china. Then the -dramatic critic and another man took the table a little on one side, -near to them. Joan met an admiring glance from a pair of intelligent -eyes. The oysters were fresh, and some clear soup Vansittart had -ordered seemed to "pick her up" so much that she resolved to force -herself to eat for the future. - -"I shall fight the horrors of my life better if I do not fast," she told -herself, immediately afterwards chiding herself almost angrily for -recurring to her "dead miseries." With a certain desperation born of -the discovery that she had not cast the skin of her experiences on the -threshold, she set herself to court oblivion by plunging violently into -present sensations. She laughed and talked, ate, drank champagne, and -Vansittart, opposite, gazed at her with admiring beatitude. Joan's -lovely neck, alabaster white as it rose from her square-cut black dress, -her delicately-tinted oval face with its perfect features, now -brightened by her temporary gaiety, her great dark eyes, gleaming with -subdued, if incandescent fire, her halo of golden hair--all were items -in the general effect of radiant beauty. Vansittart hardly knew what -she was talking about; he felt that the dreamy music discoursed by the -little orchestra below was a fitting accompaniment to the melody of her -delightful speaking voice, that was all. He was plunged in a perfect -rhapsody of self-gratulation. And she? Her suspicions were as alert as -ever. She saw he was in a "brown study," and, although his eyes looked -dreamy ecstasy into hers, and a vague smile of as vague a content -hovered about his lips, she would rather he lived outside himself. She -herself was trying madly to live in externals--to stifle thought! - -"What are you thinking about?" she asked, leaning forward. - -"You!" he said passionately. "How can I think about anything else with -you there opposite me?" - -"Hush, the waiter is listening," she said. But just at that moment the -waiter was aroused by the dramatic critic and his friend rising and -pushing back their chairs, and went forward to help them assume their -light overcoats. - -"Your friend is going, and you have not introduced him to me," said -Joan. - -"I will," said he, and, abruptly joining the departing men, he brought -back the critic, in no wise reluctant. - -"Mr. Clement Hunt--Miss Thorne, very soon to be Lady Vansittart," he -said. - -"May I offer my congratulations?" Mr. Hunt's face, if not handsome, was -pleasant. His voice betrayed a past of public school and college. Joan -instinctively liked him. After a little small talk and apologies on his -part for haste--duty called him to be at his post at the raising of the -curtain upon the new drama--he departed, volunteering to pay their box a -visit between the acts. - -"He is a capital good fellow, dearest," said Vansittart, asking her -permission to smoke as the waiter brought their coffee. "But you must -know that, for I would not otherwise have introduced him to you." - -"He looks it," said Joan warmly. - -"I suppose you know who that couple are?" asked Mr. Hunt, as he rejoined -his friend. - -"Lord Vansittart, wasn't it? What a beautiful girl! But if all is true -they say, what an unfortunate creature!" - -"Why, Vansittart is one of the best fellows I know!" exclaimed Clement -Hunt; and he spent the next ten minutes in indignantly endeavouring to -convince his friend that if club gossip were not invariably entirely -false, in this case any rumour of a previous marriage on Vansittart's -part was an absolute and odious fabrication. - -Meanwhile, Vansittart had carefully cloaked his beloved in her quiet, if -costly, theatre wrap, and, after royally tipping the waiter, had -escorted her, followed by interested glances, down the stairs to the -entrance. A hansom speedily conveyed them to the theatre. They were -just settled in the box, Joan was glancing round the house through her -opera glass, when the orchestra began the overture. At first, the music -merely aroused a dormant, unpleasant, shamed sensation. Then, as it -struck up a well-known air from "Carmen," she inwardly shrank, her whole -being, heart included, indeed seemed to halt, as if paralyzed with -reminiscent horror. - -_It was the air Victor had whistled under her window at night when he -was secretly courting her, and she had not heard it since._ - -What demon was persecuting her? Not only that air sent arrows of pain -into her very soul, but the subsequent melodies drove them home to the -core. It was as if a malignant fiend had picked out and strung together -the favourite tunes the dead man had whistled and sung during the stolen -meetings of their clandestine love affair, to clamour them in her ears -when she was powerless to escape. To rush away before the curtain rose -would be to betray some extraordinary emotion; yet she had to fight the -desire to do so. It took her whole little strength to force herself to -remain seated in the box and endure the consequent performance. - -By the time the curtain rose she was the conqueror. She had held the -lorgnette to her eyes, and pretended to scan the audience while that -brief mental battle was raging, lest, removing it, her lover should -notice her agitation. Fortunately, even as the curtain gave place to a -woodland scene, the auditorium was darkened. - -As the first act proceeded, she recovered herself a little. There was -less of a dense black veil before her eyes, less surging in her ears. -She could hardly have told what the first dialogue between the second -heroine and the first heroine--a certain Lady Chumleigh--was. The girl -was sister to the heroine's husband, Sir Dyved Chumleigh, and appeared -to cause discomfiture to her sister-in-law by some innocent teasing; at -least, that was what Joan gathered from the lady's subsequent soliloquy. - -"However, it doesn't much matter whether I understand the thing or not," -she told herself. "It seems vapid and unreal in the extreme." - -The thought had hardly flashed across her mind when a sensational -episode in the play awakened the attention of the house. A slouching -tramp, ragged, dirty, abandoned-looking, suddenly appeared from behind a -tree, and addressed Lady Chumleigh as "My wife!" - -Joan sat up and stared. Was it an awful nightmare? No! As the -interview proceeded between the aristocratic lady and the miserable -ex-criminal, the husband she had hoped was dead, and with him her past -degradation and misery, Joan recognized that the stage play was not only -real, and no bad dream, but the parallel of her own miserable story. -The unfortunate heroine had met and loved and been courted by Sir Dyved -Chumleigh while trying to live down her secret past. And just when she -seemed sure of present and future happiness, the wretch who had stolen -her affection traded on it, and then having been imprisoned for fraud, -perjury, and what not, had appeared in the flesh to blast her whole -life. - -The curtain descended upon a passionate scene. The unhappy woman, after -a spurt of useless defiance, fell on her knees to adjure, bribe, appeal -to the man's baser nature, since he seemed to be in possession of no -better feeling. He listened grimly. The outcome of the encounter was -left to the next act. - -"Dearest, it is upsetting you, I am afraid," said Vansittart, as the -turned-up lights showed him Joan pale and gasping. "But don't think -that villain will have it all his own way. I read a _resume_ of the -plot, and she kills him before the curtain falls on the last act." - -"What?" said Joan, gazing at him--very strangely, he thought. He was -about to propose they should leave the theatre, when there was a knock -at the box door, and Mr. Hunt came in. - -"Well, how do you like it?" he asked pleasantly, accepting Vansittart's -chair. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI - - -When Vansittart had spoken those awful words, in a light, almost -reassuring manner, "she kills him before the curtain falls on the last -act," Joan first felt as if her whole mental and physical being were -convulsed with a strange, almost unearthly, pain; then everything surged -around her, and threatened to sink away into blackness, blankness. - -Good heavens, she was going to faint! With an effort of will she fought -against unconsciousness; gasped for breath, struggled to maintain her -senses, and was rewarded by coming slowly back out of the mists, and -seeing the plain, clever face of the dramatic critic appear opposite, -seemingly from nowhere. Then she heard that Vansittart was expressing -disapprobation of the play. - -"I only happened to glance at the plot in your article in the -_Parthenon_ just before we came," he was saying. "It was the very last -kind of play I should have chosen for Miss Thorne to see had I known the -story." - -"Indeed?" Mr. Hunt smiled, but Joan thought he gave her a suspicious, -enquiring look. It was enquiring; he was wondering whether this -beautiful girl were not the prey of some latent but awful disease--her -ghastliness, the expression of anguish on her face, was undeniably the -effect of some secret suffering. But Joan could not read his thoughts. -She was frightened into bravado. - -"I certainly prefer comedies to tragedies," she hazarded, and there was -slight defiance in her glance at the dramatic critic. As for her voice, -she wondered if it sounded as unnatural in her lover's ears as in her -own. "A tragedy is such an exception in everyday life; and when it does -occur, one would rather not hear about it." - -"You differ from the bulk of humanity, Miss Thorne," said Mr. Hunt, good -humouredly. "And I cannot agree with you that tragedy is such an -exceptional thing in ordinary existence. My own belief, and it is -shared by many others, is that the under-current of most lives has an -element of the tragic in it. There are scores of crimes, too, that -never come to light; myriads of unsuspected criminals. This I think is -shown to be the case by the interest the public have for what is called -the 'sensational.' They recognize instincts they possess themselves, -although those instincts may be undeveloped, or held in check." - -"Hunt! You suggest that we are all of us potential murderers," said -Lord Vansittart, with an amused laugh. - -Mr. Hunt shrugged his shoulders. "I suggest nothing; I assume a -Socratian attitude; I encourage others to suggest," he somewhat dryly -returned. "What do you think of this much-belauded actress, Miss -Thorne? I confess I am not infatuated, like the rest. She leaves me -utterly cold; hasn't the power to quicken my pulse by a single beat, -even in her most impassioned moments. I was wishing just now that the -part had been played by a little girl I saw for the first time the other -night--singularly enough, on the very night she became the heroine of a -tragedy in real life. You must have read about it, Vansittart. You are -not 'one who battens on offal?' I daresay not. Nor am I. I should not -have been so interested in this affair if I had not been mixed up in it, -and if a friend of mine were not destined, innocently enough, to become -one of the strands of the rope which will assuredly hang the murderer, -or, I should say, the murderess." - -"Please, Hunt, don't let us talk of such horrible things," cried Lord -Vansittart. He had seen his darling shudder. - -"Oh, pray go on!" said Joan, with a sudden mad effort to hear what there -was to hear without a shriek of agony. So--so--something more had been -discovered--was known. - -"You have probably followed the case, Miss Thorne. There was the -romantic element in it which appeals to most ladies," said Mr. Hunt, -smiling at Joan. "Ah! I see; you know all about it. Well, to put it -as briefly as I can, I was urged to go and see the performance of a -young lady, a Miss Vera Anerley, who had made quite a commotion in the -provinces. Her company, a touring one, was coming to a suburban theatre -for a couple of weeks, and already the reporter of a London evening -paper had fallen a victim to her fascination. Well, I went, and I was -so astonished at the spontaneity of the girl, at the natural art which, -imitating nature, we call genius, that I asked to be introduced. She -refused; the manager said she must have a lover waiting round the -corner. True enough, she had a lover, but not waiting for her round the -corner, as it happened, but waiting for her at home, on the sofa, dead! -He was a bad lot, it seems, that Victor Mercier. You must have read the -case, Lord Vansittart, it was 'starred' a bit because of its association -with a girl rumour says is bound to make her mark, sooner or later. But -even if he was the blackest of black sheep, justice is justice. One -doesn't care for assassinations done in cold blood in the very heart of -civilized London. I know it was brought in 'death by misadventure'; -some of those jurymen were the densest of idiots. But the ball has not -stopped rolling. As I said, a friend of mine has come into the case. I -must tell you; it is so odd; it so proves the old saying that 'truth is -stranger than fiction.' A fellow I know very well, one of your circle, -I fancy, went with me to see Vera Anerley act, but left me when I went -round to the stage door, and, finding it a fine night, elected to walk -home. As he was making his way westwards by Westminster Bridge, his -attention was attracted by a feminine figure in front, because, besides -being tall and well made, there was a _cachet_ of belonging to a smart -set about her, or he chose to think so. Then, every now and then the -girl tottered. Was she drunk? he thought. What was she doing there? He -followed her, and presently, seeing her peering here and there and -glancing furtively about, felt sure he was on the track of something -peculiar, especially when she flitted up some steps in the shadow, -stooped, and seemed to deposit something she was carrying in the corner. - -"Of course he at once jumped to the conclusion that she had abandoned an -infant, living or dead. He naturally shied off being identified with a -discovery of that sort, so he, I think, if I remember rightly, did not -walk back, but waited for the first bobby that came along, and, telling -him who he was, related what he had seen. Well, of course, when instead -of a corpse or an infant they only found a bottle with some brandy in -it, he felt rather small. But the bobby was sharper witted than he. -'There's summut rum about this, sir, or I'm very much mistaken,' he -said; and he was right. There was something 'rum.' The brandy in that -bottle was drugged with morphia; and there is a lot of interviewing of -him going on which points, I believe, although he only winks at me and -fences questions, that the detectives are on the track, and that the -brandy bottle will hang that woman, whoever she is. Dear me! the -curtain is going up. I must return to my friend below. _Entre nous_, -the very fellow I was talking about is in the house to-night. _Au -revoir_, my lord." - -Joan contrived to return his bow; she held herself together sufficiently -to wait until he was safely out of the box; then she clutched at -Vansittart as wildly as if she were drowning in deep waters and he was -the forlorn hope, the last available thing to grasp at. - -"Take me home, or I shall die," she gasped. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII - - -"Yes, certainly, we will go. Bear up, my dearest, you are safe with me. -I deserve to be shot for bringing you to see this cursed stuff," -murmured Vansittart, as he supported Joan to the box door, and, sending -the attendant for iced water, brandy, salts, anything, tended her -lovingly until he saw a faint colour creep back into her cheeks and -lips, when, thanking the damsel, who had not been unsympathetic, and -slipping a gold coin into her hand, he took his beloved carefully down -into the open air and once more drove her home in a hansom. - -She clung feebly to him as she lay almost helpless upon his breast--the -cool night air, the darkness of the silent street under the starry sky, -thrice welcome after her agony in that hot, glaring theatre--clung, -feeling as if all else in her life were shipwrecked, engulfed in an -ocean of horror, only he, her faithful lover, the one rock that -remained. And a word of confession from her, one damning incident that -betrayed her guilt, and she would lose even that grip on life and be -hopelessly submerged. - -"I am so sorry--I was so silly," she feebly began, but he interrupted -her with almost passionate determination. - -"My darling, I know, I understand!" he exclaimed. "That was your -friend's story in a stage play. Joan, I feel I must protect you from -yourself, for you have allowed an innocent, girlish freak of yours to -lay hold of you in an unconceivable manner. It would be absurd, if it -were not morbid." - -He held forth eloquently on the folly of retrospection, of exaggerating -the follies of youth, not only during the drive home, but when they were -alone together in the cool dining room, for Sir Thomas was out, and Lady -Thorne, not expecting them home so early, had retired for the night; and -when he left her in Julie's hands, unwillingly obeying her behest, her -demand, given with feverish energy, that her maid was not to be told -that she had been attacked with faintness, he felt a little more at ease -about her. - -Suspect her he did not, except of being one of the most highly strung -and sensitive creatures alive. And, being sure that this was -so--feeling safe in his unbounded love and trust--she was able to rally. - -Through all which might happen--even if Paul Naz changed his mind, and -followed up his suspicions; if the man who found the bottle of drugged -brandy happened to recognize her as the woman he had seen; if "that -actress girl" could identify her as the person she passed in the hansom; -if, indeed, any scraps of her letters or some old photograph of her had -been found among Mercier's belongings--nothing, she believed, would -altogether alienate Vansittart's love. - -She clung to the thought; it seemed her one anchor to life. But even as -she gradually recovered from the shocks of that awful hour at the -theatre, she regained a certain amount of hope. - -The very pomp and circumstance of her wedding; the accounts in the -papers; the laudation of herself, Vansittart, and their respective -families--all must surely help to avoid exciting the suspicion that she, -the heroine of the glorification, was a whited sepulchre; that she had -stolen out by night and, alone in a poor room in a lowly dwelling-house -with her lover, had poisoned him and then left him to die. - -Conscience did not soften the facts of the case. She had to face them -in all their unlovely turpitude and deal with them as best she might. - -But that night when she had to see her own story partly enacted on the -stage, and, worse still, hear it commented upon with unconscious -brutality by the dramatic critic, Mr. Hunt, seemed the climax, the -crisis. - -As the night gave place to day--and the day was full of pleasing -incidents as well as of fresh proofs of Vansittart's devotion; he -arrived early, and took "her in hand," kept her cheerful, and, with his -flow of joyous content, would not allow her a leisure moment for her -"morbidity," as he called it--she seemed to settle down a little, as one -respited for a time, who deliberately determines to make the most of the -term of peace. The days went by quickly, for with such a function as a -brilliant wedding imminent, there was a perpetual bustle, there were -continual obligatory goings to and fro. Besides, Vansittart mapped out -the days--rides, drives, receptions, dances, all formed part of his -scheme to entertain her until she would be his wife, feeling his -emotions, thinking his thoughts. Only the theatre was rigidly excluded. -He avoided even the subject of the stage, nor did he allow her to hear -much music. He considered that of all the arts music had the greatest -power to reproduce past sensations, to recall memories, especially -undesirable ones. He was rewarded for his solicitude by seeing his -beloved outwardly cheerful, and apparently at ease. - -Joan was, indeed, as the days went quietly by, encouraged by the lack of -disturbing elements, by the entire absence of any signs that the tragedy -of Victor Mercier's death had any life left in it to torment her. She -had promised herself that, if nothing happened before her marriage day, -she might consider that she was practically safe. And at last the happy -day dawned--a glorious summer morning--and, arising with gratitude in -her heart, she murmured a fervent "Thank God!" - -The house was crammed full of visitors--mostly the bridesmaids and their -chaperons. At an early hour these girls, attired in their delicate -chiffon frocks and "picture hats," were fluttering about the mansion -like belated butterflies; for the marriage was to be early, for a -fashionable one, to enable Lord and Lady Vansittart to start betimes for -their honeymoon, which was to be spent on board Vansittart's yacht, but -where, remained the young couple's secret. The bride was closeted in her -room, Julie alone was with her. "I do not wish any one to see me before -I appear in church," she had said, so decidedly, that her attendant -maidens subdued their curiosity and started for the church in a couple -of carriages--there were eight of them--without having had even a -glimpse of the bridal attire. - -Joan felt that she could not have borne the innocent chatter of those -bright, unconscious girls, so happy in their unsullied ignorance of life -and its undercurrent of horrors. Only in a silent, inward clinging to -the thought of Vansittart--so soon to be her husband, her mainstay, her -refuge, her only hope--could she endure the few hours before she would -be safe--safe--alone with him on the high seas, no one knowing where -they were or whither they were going. - -Julie? Julie was her servant, of late quite her obsequious slave, with -the prospect of being maid to "a great lady," and therefore a personage -among her compeers before her. Julie was silent when she was silent. So -no bride had ever been decked for the altar with greater show of -solemnity than was Joan on her wedding morn. - -"Am I good enough--do I look good enough--for him?" she asked herself as -she gazed at her reflection in the long mirrors arranged by Julie so -that she could see herself at all points--full face, back, profile. What -she seemed to see was a pyramid of glistening satin, a quantity of lace, -and a small pathetic face with a golden glimmer about it, under a frothy -veil. - -"A bride's dress is very unbecoming, after all," she somewhat gloomily -said, as she accepted the bouquet Julie handed her--myrtle and delicate -orchids; for she had told Vansittart, urged by the dread of being -confronted with blossoms like the one she had seen in Victor Mercier's -buttonhole as he lay dead, that if there were any strongly perfumed -flowers about she might faint; a threat which had driven Vansittart to -the florist who was to decorate the church to veto all but scentless -blossoms. "It seems strange, does it not, Julie? that weddings and -funerals should have the same kind of flowers." - -Julie gave a little shriek. "Mais, mademoiselle, to speak of death on -your wedding-day!" - -"There are worse things than death, Julie," said she, with a sigh. And -she proceeded below, Julie carefully carrying her train, while wondering -with some dismay at her young mistress's extraordinary _tristesse_, -then, met by the somewhat agitated Sir Thomas in the hall, she drove -with him to the church. - -Policemen were keeping back the crowd. She went up the flight of -crimson-carpeted steps, and, passing into the church, dimly saw a double -line of bridesmaids, with their pure white frocks and eager, blushing -faces; then the officiating clergymen and choristers in their surplices. -"They meet a bride as they meet the dead," she thought, with a delirious -instinct to burst into laughter. Then she heard the sweet, solemn -strains of the wedding hymn, and she felt rather than saw Vansittart, -his manly form erect, even commanding, standing at the altar awaiting -her, his eyes fixed gravely on her, compelling her by some mesmeric -influence to be calm. - -How dreamlike it all was! The serious, holy words; the sacred promises; -the ring placed upon her finger; the farce, to her who had lost the -power to pray real prayers, of kneeling on bended knees with downcast -eyes at her husband's side; then the fuss and fervour in the vestry, the -cheery smiles of the clergy, the excited embraces, the tiresome -congratulations. Suddenly she began to feel her carefully-accumulated -patience give way, and in a terror lest she should betray herself, she -turned to Vansittart. - -"Cannot we go now?" she almost wailed, with a pathetic, entreating -glance. - -"Of course, my dearest!" - -The registers were signed, the business of the ceremony completed, and, -somewhat abruptly, bride and bridegroom left the vestry and the little -crowd of their gaily dressed friends, and went quickly through the -church, to return to the house. - -What stares and murmurs she had passed through, running the gauntlet of -the crowded pews of sightseers! As she emerged on her husband's arm, -the cool air made her gasp with relief. - -Whispers, murmurs, policemen backing the crowd with commanding gestures. -There was the bridal carriage. She saw Vansittart's horses; they were -plunging a little. What a monster bouquet the coachman had! She was -passing down the carpeted steps, she was about to halt to step into the -landau, when someone came right in front of her, offering her some -flowers. - -Flowers! Those horribly white, thick-scented blossoms! She recoiled -for an instant, then, remembering she must appear gratified, she took -them, vaguely seeing a ghastly face, blazing blue eyes, a figure in deep -black, a figure she did not know. - -In another moment she was in the carriage; they drove off. "Horrible -things; throw them out of window," she faintly said, recognizing the -hideous fact that the posy was of the very flower Victor had worn when -he died. - -"Presently, dearest; we cannot let the girl see us do it," he gravely -said. He was examining a label attached. In sudden terror she flung -down her bouquet, snatched the posy from him, and stared wildly at the -written words-- - -"In memory of Victor. 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the -Lord.'" - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII - - -"Joan! What does it mean?" asked the bridegroom, white, stern, after -the shock, still seeming to see those awful words, "Vengeance is Mine!" -dancing before his dazed eyes in letters of blood. - -"Mean? That I am hunted down--that they are after me, cruel creatures, -for an act you yourself said was only childish folly!" She writhed, and -gave a mad, wild laugh which seemed to freeze him. But her -explanation--her allusion to that which she had told him--that wretched -affair in which she had innocently helped to ally her school friend to -an utterly worthless scamp--brought instantaneous relief from his -sudden, over mastering terror that the label hinted at some unknown -horror. - -"That was your poor friend, then, dearest, that you unwittingly helped -to injure!" He detached the label with the Scriptural quotation from -the bunch of flowers, pocketed it, and flung them out of the carriage -window. "But I thought she was quit of him? Why should she persecute -you, now? When all is over?" - -She gave him a desperate glance, and shrank away into the corner of the -carriage. White, her eyes ablaze--even in his miserable dread, his -anxiety, she reminded him of a celebrated singer he had seen at the -opera a few weeks ago in "Lucia." Why, why was her agony so intense -about a mere secondary trouble? - -"Understand!" she hoarsely said. "If you cannot take me on trust, we -had better part, we had better separate now, this very hour, and go our -different ways----" - -"How dare you!" he cried; and almost fiercely, in his anguish to hear -such a suggestion from her lips, he placed his hands on her shoulders, -ruthlessly ignoring the bridal finery, and gazed into her strained eyes. -"You are my wife! It is an insult to me, what you say! I am your -husband." - -He took her peremptorily in his arms, and kissed her with mingled -adoration and despair. The despair was involuntary--born of a huge -misgiving that something was seriously wrong with his new-made wife, and -that he had yet to learn what that something was. - -"And now, here we are at your home!" he tenderly said. "You must try -and pretend to be the happy bride I hoped you were!" - -As he helped her to alight, and acting the part of the delighted, joyous -bridegroom, led her through the little crowd of servants standing about -the hall, acknowledging their murmur of congratulation, those melancholy -words of his--so untrue in regard to her love for him--to her rejoicing -in the midst of her misery that she was his wife--touched her to the -quick. - -"My poor love!" she gasped, as soon as they were alone in the -flower-bedecked drawing-room, throwing herself upon his breast, and -gazing adoringly into his face. "I--I had not the courage to tell you -before, but I must--now! I told you my unhappy friend was free, but I -did not tell you how! Her husband was that man that died--that Victor -Mercier! Perhaps she had something to do with his death! That is what -has been eating my heart out--that I had had a hand in killing a -fellow-creature--killing--depriving some one of life--oh, it is awful! -Sometimes I feel that if that man were alive again, I would willingly -die myself--give up all our happiness--leave you for ever! Now perhaps -you can imagine what I have been suffering, and what I suffered at the -theatre listening to that Mr. Hunt talking of the woman with the -brandy-bottle, dreading lest he might be speaking of her--my poor -miserable friend!" - -"My darling!" There was a world of compunction, tenderness, sympathy in -his voice as he drew her down by him on a sofa, and lovingly clasped her -cold, trembling hands in his. "But you ought to have told me before! I -quite--see--all--now--and now I am to bear your troubles for -you--troubles indeed, absurd cobwebs--trifles light as air! Your real -trouble, my dearest, is being in possession of an over-sensitive -conscience! Come--there is the first carriage--how quickly they have -followed us up--try and look a little more as a bride ought to look. -Your being pale doesn't matter--brides seem to be given that way--but -unhappy? For my sake, darling, try to look a little less as if you had -just been condemned to death instead of to living your life with me!" - -He kissed some colour into her white cheeks and lips; and then the -wedding party began to flock in. Carriage after carriage drove up, and -the bridesmaids and young men, the older relatives and friends, crowded -the drawing-room, and there were embracings and congratulations--not -half over when luncheon was announced. It was a gay, or a seemingly gay -wedding breakfast. Joan went through it all with a curious feeling of -unreality. She heard herself and her loved husband toasted, she heard -his eloquent yet well-balanced little speech. She smiled upon those who -spoke to her with the almost reverential solicitude with which a bride -is addressed on her marriage day, and she muttered some reply, although -she did not seem to gather the meaning of their speeches. She cut the -cake, she rose and adjourned upstairs when the rest went to the -drawing-room. Happily, she had to hurry her "going away" toilette, which -was presided over by her aunt, in the seventh heaven of delight at her -only niece's splendid marriage, and by her aunt's maid--Julie having -already started with Lord Vansittart's valet and the luggage, to be on -board the yacht with everything ready when the bride and bridegroom -arrived. Happily there was not a spare moment to be wasted if they -meant to "catch the train" they had planned to start by. Before she was -quite ready, Vansittart's voice was heard outside the door, hurrying -them. They were obliged to hasten their farewells, and drive rapidly to -the station--the terminus they were starting from no one knew but Sir -Thomas, who was bound to secresy. - -But even when the express was rattling across the sunlit country -seawards, Joan feverishly told herself that she was not yet safe. Since -that posy was offered her at the church door, since she had read those -awful words written on the label, and had looked into those menacing -blue eyes, a renewed, augmented fear had seemed to half paralyze her, -body and soul; more than fear, worse than dread--a horrible conviction -of coming doom. - -It asserted itself even when she lay on her husband's breast in their -reserved compartment, listening to the passionate utterances of intense -and devoted love with which he hoped to dispel her nervous -terrors--terrors which, although he began to understand that she had -unfortunately been drawn into being one of the actors in an undesirable -life drama, he regarded as mere vapours which could be dispelled by an -equable, peaceful life shared by him and ruled by common sense. Those -clear, threatening blue eyes seemed still gazing into hers, penetrating -to the secrets hidden in her soul. All through Vansittart's endearing -words, the bright pictures he verbally drew of their coming happiness, -those words repeated themselves in her ears--"Vengeance is Mine! I will -repay, saith the Lord!" - -But when day succeeded day upon the yacht; when hour after hour she was -calmed by the tender devotion of her husband; when sunlit summer seas -under blue, tranquil skies were her surroundings by day, to give place -to a dusky mystic ocean lit by glittering trails of moonlight, and -reflecting myriads of stars at night--a certain calm, which was more -stolidity than calm, a content which was more relief from dread than -peace--came to her rescue. - -They spent some weeks on the high seas, touching only at obscure foreign -ports. At last Joan's latent fears began to reassert themselves. She -urged Vansittart to make for a seaport where they might procure English -papers. - -This led to their return from a coasting tour of the Mediterranean -Islands. The heat was intense, only tempered by sea breezes and by the -appliances on board the luxurious craft. Still, Joan would not consent -to go northward, where people would naturally expect them to be. -Vansittart put in at Marseilles, went on shore alone, saw the papers, -ascertained that there was nothing in them anent "the Mercier affair," -about which his young wife was, in his opinion, so unreasonably -conscientious, and brought them to her with secret triumph. - -He hoped that now she would be "more reasonable," and to his content, -his hope was so far realized that when he tentatively suggested a return -home, she readily acquiesced. A week later they arrived at his -favourite country seat--a pretty estate in Oxfordshire, near the most -picturesque part of the Thames. - -An old stone house which had seen the birth of generation upon -generation of Vansittart's ancestors, Pierrepoint Court stood in a wide, -undulating park. Rooks nested in the tall elms, shy deer hid among the -bracken under the preserves. An atmosphere of calm, of unworldly peace, -reigned everywhere, and seemed to affect the new mistress of the place, -even as she entered upon her duties as its _chatelaine_. - -A day or two passed so delightfully that she frequently told herself -with mute gratitude to Heaven, that trouble was over--happiness had -begun. She strolled through her dominion with her husband at her side, -all his retainers and tenants welcoming and congratulating them. Most -of all she enjoyed driving with him in a dog-cart to outlying farms, and -rusticating among the orchards, visiting the poultry-yards and dairies. -This was before they had written to announce their arrival to Sir Thomas -and Lady Thorne. The morning their letters must have reached, they were -starting for a long drive when a telegraph boy cycled up. Vansittart -read the message, which was from Sir Thomas, and crumpling it up, thrust -it deep in his pocket. "It is nothing," he said, smiling. But his heart -misgave him. The words were ominous of trouble. - -"Meet me at my solicitors' as soon after you receive this as possible. -This is urgent." - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV - - -"No answer," Vansittart said to the boy. Then he turned, his face pale, -his lips twitching, and saying, "Come in for a moment," he took Joan's -hand and led her back indoors, through the hall into the morning-room, -where they had but just been laughing over their breakfast like two -happy children. - -"I must catch the next train to town, dearest, my lawyer wants me on -important business connected with the settlements," he said. "Yes! -Really, that is all! Am I pale? I confess that the sight of a telegram -always upsets me--I am not as stolid as I seem. And now, darling, I -must be off at once, if I mean to catch the next train!" - -He embraced her fondly, adjured her to be most careful of herself, -suggested that she should keep to the grounds while he was away--he did -not like her "wandering about the country alone"--and promising to -return as soon as his legal business was over, he left her. - -She stood at the door watching the dog-cart speed away through the park -until it disappeared into the avenue of limes; then feeling as if her -heart were a huge leaden weight within her breast, she went to her -boudoir, a room Vansittart had had refurnished for her in white and pale -blue, and where they had sat together since their arrival when they were -not out of doors. It was one of those close, thundery summer days which -encourage gloom; and as she flung aside her hat and gloves and sank -hopelessly into a chair, she wondered how she would contrive to get -through those hours before his return. - -Evidently Vansittart had become not only all in all to her, but she -hardly dared face life without him. A nervous terror seized upon her. -She felt, as she looked fearfully round, as if mocking spirits were -rejoicing to find her without his protecting presence. Faint, jeering -laughter seemed in the air, or was it only a singing in her ears? - -"If I don't fight this awful feeling, he will find me mad when he comes -home!" she wildly thought. So she rang the bell, and asked for the -housekeeper, who presently came in in a brand-new, rustling silk, a -little fluttered. But she felt gratified by her mistress asking so -sweetly to be "shown everything," and the hours before the luncheon bell -rang were whiled away by an inspection of the mansion and its contents -from offices to attics and lumber-rooms. - -Then came luncheon in the big, pompous dining-room: luncheon alone, with -strange-looking ancestors painted by Vandyck, Lely, and others, gazing -grimly out upon the slim girl in the white frock sitting in solitary -grandeur at the table, obsequious men-servants in solemn, silent -attendance. After that ordeal she felt she could bear no more, and -tying on her hat fled into the grounds. - -Here the extraordinary stillness of everything under the dense canopy of -slowly massing clouds oppressed her still more. She felt more and more -eerie and distraught as she wandered, until she came to the river. Here -there was movement, something like life again. A faint breeze stirred -the wavelets as the flood rushed steadily seawards. - -"I will get out a boat and have a row. That may make me feel less -horrible!" she determined. She went to the boathouse, chose a skiff, -and was soon rowing rapidly up stream. She had learnt to row as a -child. The boat sped cleanly along, as she neatly, deftly, handled the -sculls. - -Her melancholy slightly dispelled by the exercise, she forgot how time -was going--how far she had rowed out of bounds, when suddenly an arrow -of lurid lightning went quivering down athwart the dense grey horizon, -followed by a detonating roar of thunder. - -"I am in for it, there's no doubt of that!" she told herself, almost -with a smile. Rain, storm, thunder, lightning--what items they were in -the balance against a conscience bearing a hideous load such as hers! -As she turned and began to row steadily homewards, she realized her -mental state almost with awe. - -Another flash illumined the whole landscape with a yellowish-blue glare, -then a clap of thunder followed almost instantaneously. Down came such -a deluge of rain that for a minute she was blinded; she sat still, -wondering whether the slight craft would fill and be sunk. - -Then, remembering her beloved, she urged herself to make an effort and -return home. Although the downpour beat steadily upon her, upon the boat -and the water around, although little runnels trickled coldly down her -neck, and her straw hat was already pulp, she went steadily on and on, -until at last she was at the boat-house, and had moored the skiff under -its friendly shelter. - -The rain had given place to hail, so she thought better to wait awhile -before walking home. She sat there, wringing the water from her skirts, -and wondering what Vansittart would say if he knew her plight, until the -clouds parted, watery sunbeams cast a sickly lemon tint upon the river -and its banks, and a rainbow began to glow upon the slate-coloured -clouds. - -Then she stepped from the boat and started to walk across the park. Her -clinging garments made locomotion difficult. "What a drowned rat I must -look!" she told herself. "What will be the best way of getting to my -room without being seen? I know! The side room window!" - -"The side room" was a chamber leading from the hall, and conducting by a -second door to the offices. It was used for humbler visitors, -messengers who waited answers, dressmakers and the like. In the hot -weather the window was generally open. "If they have shut it, I must go -in by the usual way," she thought. - -It was not shut. With a little spring she balanced herself on the sill, -and slipped down upon the floor, to find that the room was not empty as -she had expected. A slight person in deep mourning, who had been -seated, rose and confronted her. - -Joan stared at the white, stern, but beautiful face in sick dismay. -This was the woman who had given her the flowers--the posy with the -strange, awful threat written on the label, when she was about to enter -the bridegroom's carriage as she left the church after her wedding. - -"I see--you know me," said the girl. She spoke with icy composure. "I -have come to speak to you of your danger." - -The two looked into each other's eyes unflinchingly--Vera with a cold -condemnatory stare; Joan with the apathy of abject despair. - -"Come this way, please," she said. Her garments dripped slowly on the -polished floor; she glanced at the drops with a curious wonder, then led -the way along a passage, and held open a baize door. In another moment -the two were shut into Joan's boudoir, and Joan waved the girl that her -wretched, so-called husband had loved, towards a chair. - -She shook her head, impatiently. "I meant to wait to see you until you -were in the dock," she began. "Your whole doings are known, from the -first letter you wrote to poor Victor, to the hour I saw you in Haythorn -Street, coming out of the house after you had poisoned him and left him -to die! I had meant to tell all I knew to the detectives, but they came -after me. All is complete--you may be arrested at any moment. Then -will come your trial, your condemnation--your hanging. I expect you -have dreamt the rope was round your neck; at least, if you have any -feeling left in you. Murderess that you are, you have ruined my life, -you have killed my dearest love, who loved me, not you--and I was -gloating over the idea of your being hanged by the neck till you were -dead, when I dreamt of my Victor. I dreamt a shadow--his shadow--bent -over me, and said those very words that I thought meant your doom, 'I -will repay, saith the Lord!' I awoke, and knew that I was to come and -warn you, that you may escape." - -She stopped short, gazing curiously at Joan's drawn, ashen features, -features like those of an expressionless corpse. Her eyes, too, were -dull, wandering. - -"Escape?" she said, stupidly. Then she dropped into a chair, feeling -half dead, half paralyzed. The thunder rolled faintly in the distance. -It seemed to her that she was still seated in the boat, rowing, rowing, -and was dreaming this wretched misery. - -"Yes, escape!" the other repeated, bitterly. "You must confess -everything to your husband--mind! everything! Then, perhaps, as I, whom -you have injured for life, have had mercy on you, he may! At all -events, he may do something to save your neck. You have but a few hours' -safety--" - -She started and stopped short. The door was flung open, and Vansittart -entered, briskly, eagerly. He looked from one to the other, then went -up to Joan, and reverentially lifting her hand, kissed it. - -"Who is this lady, dearest?" he asked, gazing steadfastly at Vera. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV - - -"I am Vera Anerley," said the pale girl, speaking in clear tones of -deadly meaning. "I have come to tell your wife that the case against her -is complete; that she may be arrested at any moment for the murder of -Victor Mercier!" - -Joan gave a faint cry, and buried her wet, dishevelled head in -Vansittart's coat-sleeve. - -"Hush, darling, I am here!" he tenderly said. Then, supporting Joan's -fainting form, which was already a dead weight, he looked with cool -scorn, with stern defiance, at the slender, black-clad figure, at the -white, miserable face with those menacing eyes. - -"Case, indeed," he exclaimed with scathing contempt. "A jealous woman's -vengeance, you should say! But your miserable plot to destroy my -injured wife, woman, will succeed in injuring no one but yourself. I -have this morning learnt every detail of the trumped-up charge, and -given my instructions for the defence. If, indeed, the affair will go -any further after my deposition on oath that on the night -that--man--died--my future wife was with me until she met her maid to -return home. And now, since you have succeeded in making Lady -Vansittart ill, I must ask you to quit the house--I will have you driven -to the station, if you like--" - -Vera interrupted him with a groan. - -"I forgot!" she wailed. "I forgot--a man will perjure himself to save -the woman he loves! But your lies will fail to save her, my lord! -Husbands and wives are nothing in law, in a murder case! If you want to -save her, you must take her away!" - -With a sob she turned on her heel and went out. Vansittart gathered -Joan in his arms, and sinking into a chair tried to kiss her back to -life. "My darling, I know all! I will save you!" he repeated -passionately. What could she have been doing? She must have been -exposed to the whole fury of the storm. Had the vindictive creature -killed her? He had thought himself hopelessly crushed, body and soul, -when he arrived at his lawyers' to find the distracted Sir Thomas with -his awful tale of the charge to be brought against his niece, which Paul -Naz had in compassion forewarned him of. But the sight of his -darling--who looked dead or dying--who lay like a stone in his arms and -hardly seemed to breathe--brought back life and energy, if it augmented -his despair. - -Her garments were wringing wet--what a frightful state she was in! With -a half-frantic wonder what he had best do, he lifted her in his arms, so -strong in his anguish that she seemed a mere featherweight, and carrying -her upstairs to her room by a side staircase that was little used, laid -her on the bed, and rang for Julie. While a man was despatched in hot -haste for the doctor, the two cut and dragged off Joan's soaking -garments, and vainly endeavoured to chafe some warmth into her icy -limbs. But at last insensibility had come to the rescue of Victor -Mercier's unfortunate dupe. Joan lay inert and senseless, and when the -old doctor who had attended a couple of generations of Vansittarts in -their Oxfordshire home came in, his wonted cheeriness changed to -gravity. - -Nothing could be done but wait patiently for the return of -consciousness, and telegraph for nurses. He could make no prognosis -whatever at that stage, but that Lady Vansittart's health was in a -critical condition. - -"Do you mean that she may not recover?" asked Vansittart. They had -adjourned to Joan's boudoir, leaving Julie and the housekeeper in -temporary charge of the patient. - -Old Doctor Walters shrugged his shoulders and raised his shaggy -eyebrows. Vansittart was answered. - -"When I tell you that I hope to God my wife will die, you will -understand there is something terrible in all this!" he exclaimed--and -the tone of his voice, as much as the meaning conveyed by such a speech, -made the old man sit up in his chair aghast. - -But he was still more horrified when the unhappy man he had known and -tended since childhood told him the miserable story as he had gathered -it from Joan herself, and from the dreadful tale told to Sir Thomas in -its entirety by Paul Naz: the tale of a romantic schoolgirl secretly -wooed and married by a man who immediately afterwards absconded, as he -was "wanted" by the police on a charge of theft and fraud: her foolish -dream dispelled when she learnt that fact, hiding her secret from the -uncle and aunt who had adopted her; then, as the years went by and the -husband-in-name made no sign, hoping against hope, and giving way to her -great love for a man who adored her. Then, just as they were promised to -each other, the man's reappearance with threats of exposure, his -compelling her visits to his rooms, and her succumbing to the temptation -of mixing morphia in his brandy. The one item unknown was Joan's motive -for drugging Mercier. So the case looked terribly black to Vansittart -and his friend in need, his good old doctor. - -Good--and tenderhearted, for at once he offered to see them through -their trouble--to the end. - -"If the police appear with a warrant they cannot refuse to listen to -me," he said. "So I shall take up my abode here, and leave my patients -to my partner and our assistant." - -The honeymoon was waning in the most dismal of fashions. The house was -wrapped in gloom. Joan had recovered consciousness to suffer agonies of -pain, and fall into the delirium of fever. The prolonged chill of being -the sport of the storm, with so terrible a shock to follow, had resulted -in pneumonia. A specialist was summoned from town. He gave no hope. -When his fiat was pronounced a look of relief came upon Vansittart's -worn, lined features. The specialist went away wondering, but old -Doctor Walters understood. - -Then the stricken husband took up his position at his wife's pillow, and -banished every one. Whatever his life might contain in the future of -hideous retrospection, for those few short hours left he would watch his -erring darling yield up her soul to the great Judge who alone knew the -frail clay he had made, without any human soul witnessing his agony. - -Joan had been raving, madly, incoherently of the past and present, -tossing and writhing, now and then clamouring and groaning. But a few -minutes after Vansittart had banished the nurses and taken up his -position by her side, she seemed to grow calmer. - -Was it possible that at least she might die in peace, free from those -horrible fantasies, those cruel pains? - -He watched her anxiously hour after hour. As the delirium abated the -restlessness ceased, and she seemed to fall asleep. He had come to her -at midnight. When the grey dawn crept into the room Joan was asleep, -and as he lay and gazed wearily at her, his head drooped until it rested -on the pillow. - -After a succession of wild, tormenting dreams--a purgatory of horrible -physical sufferings--Joan slept. She was vaguely conscious of -Vansittart's nearness, vaguely sensible that relief had come. The sleep -was like heaven after hell. - -Then at last another kind of dream was added to her sense of slumber. -She felt that something greater and nobler had been added to her life, -and that it was all around and about. In the tremendous vastness and -solidity of the new influence all seemed petty, small; she knew that -she, Vansittart, Mercier, Vera, all were but dancing specks in a -gorgeous sunlight..... - -Vansittart awoke with a start, a feeling of guilt, fear, and a pain in -his arm from some heavy weight. - -Then a horrible cry startled the nurse who was keeping vigil in the next -room. She rushed in and up to the bed. - - * * * * * - -The following day three stalwart men descended from the quick train from -London and chartered a fly to drive them to Lord Vansittart's. - -"A fine place," said one, almost regretfully--he was young, with a fresh -colour, and his errand seemed ghastly to him--as they drove in at the -open gates, past a lodge which was to all appearance empty. - -"Yes," said the eldest of the trio. "Dear me," he added, looking out as -the fly passed out of the lime avenue. "What a melancholy looking -house! All the blinds down, too!" - -Arriving at the hall-door, the oldest and sternest-looking emerged and -asked to see Lord Vansittart. The porter looked impressed, but -unhesitatingly admitted him, and conducted him to the library, leaving -him with a grave "I will tell his lordship." - -"Strange; he did not ask who I was or what I wanted," murmured the man -to himself. The silence in the great mansion was almost oppressive. He -heard the servant's footsteps, distant voices, the clang of a closing -door, then a slight pattering, which grew gradually more distinct, and -seemed to keep pace with the beats of his pulse. Advancing footsteps! - -"They have heard, and they have all gone; the man is coming back with -some fine tale or another," he told himself, exasperatedly. As the door -opened he turned with ready resentment, which gave place to a startled, -uncomfortable sensation as in the ghastly man in deep black who entered -he recognised Lord Vansittart. - -"I am very sorry, my Lord, but I have a most painful duty to perform," -he began, taking the warrant from his pocket. "I am compelled to arrest -Lady Vansittart for the wilful murder of Victor Mercier on the --th of -June last." - -Lord Vansittart bowed, asked to see the warrant, and then slowly said, -"If you will come this way, I will take you to her ladyship, who has a -complete answer to the charge." - -The detective bowed, passing his hand across his lips to assure himself -that he was not smiling--he had no wish to wound the wretched husband of -a miserable murderess--and followed the proprietor of the -richly-furnished mansion across the hall, up the grand staircase, and -along the corridor. Vansittart paused at a door, opened it, and entered. - -The detective followed, half suspicious, half uneasy. The room was hung -with white--everywhere were piles, masses of red flowers. On the -white-hung bed lay more blood-red blossoms. Lord Vansittart went up to -it with bowed head, and folding back the sheet that was scattered with -the crimson blooms, showed a beautiful waxen face surrounded by -close-woven gleaming hair: waxen hands folded meekly on the breast. - -"Good God! Dead!" The detective recognized her--he had no doubt as to -the fact--but he felt it with a shock. - -"No," said Lord Vansittart, grimly, turning to him with a look which he -afterwards confided to his wife was the worst experience of his -hard-working and disillusionary existence. "Alive! Men may torture and -kill our bodies, man, but who can kill the soul?" - - - - - THE END. - - - - - Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. - - - - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - Novels by Guy Boothby. - - - SPECIAL AND ORIGINAL DESIGNS. - - Each volume attractively Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood and others. - - _Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt. Trimmed Edges, 5s._ - -MY STRANGEST CASE -FAREWELL, NIKOLA! -SHEILAH McLEOD -MY INDIAN QUEEN -LONG LIVE THE KING! -A SAILOR'S BRIDE -A PRINCE OF SWINDLERS -A MAKER OF NATIONS -THE RED RAT'S DAUGHTER -LOVE MADE MANIFEST -PHAROS, THE EGYPTIAN -ACROSS THE WORLD FOR A WIFE -THE LUST OF HATE -BUSHIGRAMS -THE FASCINATION OF THE KING -DR. NIKOLA -THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL -A BID FOR FORTUNE; or, Dr. Nikola's Vendetta -IN STRANGE COMPANY: A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas -THE MARRIAGE OF ESTHER: A Torres Straits Sketch. - - - - - WORKS BY - - E. Phillips Oppenheim. - - -_The Illustrated London News_ says:--"Humdrum is the very last word you -could apply to (a tale by) E. P. Oppenheim, which reminds you of one of -those Chinese nests of boxes, one inside the other. You have plot -within plot, wheel within wheel, mystery within mystery, till you are -almost dizzy." - -_The British Weekly_ says:--"Mr. Oppenheim has boundless imagination and -distinct skill. He paints in broad, vivid colours; yet, audacious as he -is, he never outsteps the possible. There is good thrilling mystery in -his books, and not a few excellent characters." - - -THE GREAT AWAKENING. - -Illustrated by F. H. TOWNSEND. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. - -THE SURVIVOR. - -Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. - -A MILLIONAIRE OF YESTERDAY. - -Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. - -THE MYSTERY OF MR. BERNARD BROWN. - -Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. - -THE WORLD'S GREAT SNARE. - -Illustrated by J. 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