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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 41711
   :PG.Title: A Woman Martyr
   :PG.Released: 2012-12-26
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Alice Mangold Diehl
   :MARCREL.ill: Adolf Thiede
   :DC.Title: A Woman Martyr
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1903
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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A WOMAN MARTYR
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      Cover

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      :alt: "She turned a white set face upon her self-elected escort."  A Woman Martyr.  Page 10.  

      "She turned a white set face upon her self-elected escort."  *A Woman Martyr*.  *Page 10*.  

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      A WOMAN MARTYR

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      BY
      ALICE MANGOLD DIEHL

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      AUTHOR OF "PASSION PUPPETS"
      "THE KNAVE OF HEARTS" "FIRE" ETC. ETC

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      ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADOLF THIEDE

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      LONDON
      WARD, LOCK AND CO. LIMITED
      NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE
      1903 

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      Contents

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      `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`_

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.. _`CHAPTER I`:

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   CHAPTER I

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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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER II`:

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   CHAPTER II

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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 entrées 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.





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.. _`CHAPTER III`:

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   CHAPTER III

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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 "Bienaimée" 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 portiére 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
*tête-à-tête* 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IV`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV

.. vspace:: 2

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 personæ* 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER V`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V

.. vspace:: 2

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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER VI`:

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   CHAPTER VI

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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.

.. vspace:: 2

"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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER VII`:

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   CHAPTER VII

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"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!"

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER VIII`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VIII

.. vspace:: 2

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 *gêne* 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.





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.. _`CHAPTER IX`:

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   CHAPTER IX

.. vspace:: 2

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 façades, 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.





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   CHAPTER X

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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 fête 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 *tête-à-tête* 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.





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   CHAPTER XI

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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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER XII`:

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   CHAPTER XII

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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 *tête-à-tête* 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?





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.. _`CHAPTER XIII`:

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   CHAPTER XIII

.. vspace:: 2

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 *fête champêtre* 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:--

.. vspace:: 2

"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.

.. vspace:: 1

V. a'COURT."





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.. _`CHAPTER XIV`:

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   CHAPTER XIV

.. vspace:: 2

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 *arrière-pensée*
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 *tête-à-tête* 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.





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.. _`CHAPTER XV`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XV

.. vspace:: 2

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 *gêne*!  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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVI`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVII`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII

.. vspace:: 2

"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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVIII`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII

.. vspace:: 2

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 *habitués*, 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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   "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."

.. vspace:: 2

"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 *exposé*--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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIX`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIX

.. vspace:: 2

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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XX`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XX

.. vspace:: 2

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 *tête-à-tête* 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXI`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXI

.. vspace:: 2

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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER XXII`:

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   CHAPTER XXII

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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
quarrée*, 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 *protégés*, 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 *éclat*."

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!

.. vspace:: 2

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   "INQUEST THIS DAY.  STRANGE REVELATIONS."

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.. _`CHAPTER XXIII`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII

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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.





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.. _`CHAPTER XXIV`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV

.. vspace:: 2

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."

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   "'I wish to speak to you of my poor murdered friend.'"  *A Woman Martyr*.  *Page 216*

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.. _`CHAPTER XXV`:

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   CHAPTER XXV

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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."

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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."





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.. _`CHAPTER XXVI`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI

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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!"





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.. _`CHAPTER XXVII`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII

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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 personæ* 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!

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   Your promised wife,
        JOAN."

.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXVIII`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXVIII

.. vspace:: 2

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 *liée* 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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXIX`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIX

.. vspace:: 2

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 *deshabillé* 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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXX`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXX

.. vspace:: 2

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 *resumé* 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXXI`:

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   CHAPTER XXXI

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`CHAPTER XXXII`:

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   CHAPTER XXXII

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"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.'"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXXIII`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXIII

.. vspace:: 2

"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
*châtelaine*.

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."





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.. _`CHAPTER XXXIV`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIV

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"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.





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.. _`CHAPTER XXXV`:

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   CHAPTER XXXV

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"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.

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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?"

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   THE END.

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   Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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.. class:: center large

   Novels by Guy Boothby.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   SPECIAL AND ORIGINAL DESIGNS.

.. class:: center small

   Each volume attractively Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood and others.

.. class:: center small

   *Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt.  Trimmed Edges, 5s.*

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   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.

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   WORKS BY

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   \E. Phillips Oppenheim.

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*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."

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*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."

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THE GREAT AWAKENING.

Illustrated by F. H. TOWNSEND.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.

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THE SURVIVOR.

Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.

.. vspace:: 1

A MILLIONAIRE OF YESTERDAY.

Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.

.. vspace:: 1

THE MYSTERY OF MR. BERNARD BROWN.

Illustrated.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

.. vspace:: 1

THE WORLD'S GREAT SNARE.

Illustrated by J. AMBROSE WALTON.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

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A DAUGHTER OF THE MARIONIS.

Illustrated by ADOLF THIEDE.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

.. vspace:: 1

THE MAN AND HIS KINGDOM.

Illustrated by J. AMBROSE WALTON.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

.. vspace:: 1

MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN.

Illustrated by J. AMBROSE WALTON.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

.. vspace:: 1

AS A MAN LIVES.

Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

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A MONK OF CRUTA.

Illustrated by WARNE BROWNE.  Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

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   Novels by Joseph Hocking.

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   Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt, 3/6 each.  Each volume uniform.

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GREATER LOVE.  Illustrated by GORDON BROWNE.

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LEST WE FORGET.  Illustrated by J. BARNARD DAVIS.

.. vspace:: 1

THE PURPLE ROBE.  Illustrated by J. BARNARD DAVIS.

.. vspace:: 1

THE SCARLET WOMAN.  Illustrated by SYDNEY COWELL.

.. vspace:: 1

THE BIRTHRIGHT.  Illustrated by HAROLD PIFFARD.

.. vspace:: 1

MISTRESS NANCY MOLESWORTH.  Illustrated by F. H. TOWNSEND.

.. vspace:: 1

FIELDS OF FAIR RENOWN.  With Frontispiece
and Vignette by J. BARNARD DAVIS.

.. vspace:: 1

ALL MEN ARE LIARS.  With Frontispiece and
Vignette by GORDON BROWNE.

.. vspace:: 1

ISHMAEL PENGELLY: An Outcast.  With Frontispiece
and Vignette by W. S. STACEY.

.. vspace:: 1

THE STORY OF ANDREW FAIRFAX.  With
Frontispiece and Vignette by GEO. HUTCHINSON.

.. vspace:: 1

AND SHALL TRELAWNEY DIE?  Illustrated by LANCELOT SPEED.

.. vspace:: 1

JABEZ EASTERBROOK.  With Frontispiece and
Vignette by STANLEY L. WOOD.

.. vspace:: 1

WEAPONS OF MYSTERY.  With Frontispiece and Vignette.

.. vspace:: 1

Z1LLAH.  With Frontispiece by POWELL CHASE.

.. vspace:: 1

THE MONK OF MAR-SABA.  With Frontispiece
and Vignette by W. S. STACEY.

.. vspace:: 4

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   Some Magazines are

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   MERELY MASCULINE....

.. class:: center medium

   Others are

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   FRIVOLOUSLY FEMININE.

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   ... THE ...

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   WINDSOR

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   Stands alone as
   The Illustrated Magazine
   for Men and Women.

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ITS STORIES--Serial and Short alike--are by the leading;
Novelists of the day; Its Articles, ranging over every branch
of our complex modern life, are by recognised Specialists; Its
Illustrations represent the high-water mark of current
Black-and-White Art.

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These features combine to make The Windsor's contents,
month by month, a popular theme for conversation in circles
that are weary of the trivialities of the common-place periodicals.

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In addition to its strong interest for MEN and WOMEN, the
Windsor makes a feature of publishing the Best Studies of
Child-Life that the modern cult of youth has yet produced
in fictional literature.

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*The WINDSOR'S recent and present Contributors include:--*

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   Rudyard Kipling
   Mrs. P. A. Steel
   S. R. Crockett
   Cutcliffe Hyne
   Max Pemberton
   Hall Caine
   E. Nesbit
   Guy Boothby
   Ian Maclaren
   Frankfort Moore
   Anthony Hope
   Ethel Turner
   Robert Barr
   Barry Pain
   Gilbert Parker

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   WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.

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.. pgfooter::