CHAPTER XLIV.LOST.
“Youasked me why I came here to-night,” she said, looking at her husband. “I will tell you, Gilbert: but I must tell you a long story first, almost all the story of my life.”
Her voice, resonant and musical, roused Launcelot Darrell from his gloomy abstraction. He looked up at Eleanor, and for the first time began to wonder how and why she had come there. They had met her in the garden. Why had she been there? What had she been doing there? Could it be possible that shehad played the spy upon him? No! Surely there could be no fear of that? What reason shouldshehave for suspecting or watching him?Thatterror was too cowardly, too absurd, he thought; but such foolish and unnecessary fears would be the perpetual torment of his life henceforward.
“You remember, Gilbert,” Eleanor continued, “that when I promised to be your wife, I told you my real name, and asked you to keep that name a secret from the people in this house; and from Launcelot Darrell.”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Monckton, “I remember.”
Even in the midst of the tortures which arose out of his jealousy and suspicion, and which to-night had reached their climax, and had taken entire possession of the lawyer’s mind, there was some half-doubtful feeling of wonder at Eleanor’s calm and self-assured manner.
And yet she was deceiving him. He knew that. He had long ago determined that this second hazard of his life was to result in ignominious failure, like the first. He had been deceived before; gulled, hoodwinked, fooled, jilted: and the traitress had smiled in his face, with the innocent smile of a guileless child. Eleanor was perhaps even more skilled in treachery than that first traitress; but that was all.
“I will not be deluded by her again,” he thought, as he looked gloomily at the beautiful face opposite to him: “nothingshe can say shall make me her dupe again.”
“Shall I tell you why I asked you to keep that secret for me, Gilbert?” continued Eleanor. “I did so because I had a motive for coming back to the neighbourhood of this place. A motive that was stronger than my love for you—though I did love you, Gilbert, better than I thought; if I thought at all of anything except that other motive which was the one purpose of my life.”
Mr. Monckton’s upper lip curled scornfully. Love him! That was too poor a fancy. What had he ever been but a dupe and a cat’s-paw for a false woman; fooled and cheated many years ago in his early manhood; fooled and cheated to-day in his prime of life. He smiled contemptuously at the thought of his own folly.
“Launcelot Darrell,” cried Eleanor, suddenly, in an altered voice, “shall I tellyouwhy I was so eager to come back to this neighbourhood? Shall I tell you why I wanted the secret of my name kept from you and from your kindred?”
The young man lifted his head and looked at Eleanor. Wonder and terror were both expressed in his countenance. He wondered why Gilbert Monckton’s wife addressed him with such earnestness. He was afraid, without knowing what he feared.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Monckton,” he faltered.“What could I have to do with your false name, or your coming back to this place?”
“Everything!” cried Eleanor: “it was to be near you that I came back here.”
“I thought as much,” muttered the lawyer, under his breath.
“It was to be near you that I came back,” Eleanor repeated; “it was to be near you, Launcelot Darrell, that I was so eager to come back: so eager, that I would have stooped to any stratagem, encountered any risk, if by so doing I could have hastened my return. It was for this that I took the most solemn step a woman can take, without stopping to think of its solemnity. It was to deceive you that I kept my name a secret. It was to denounce you as the wretch who cheated a helpless old man out of the money that was not his own, and thus drove him to a shameful and a sinful death, that I came here. I have watched and waited long for this moment. It has come at last. Thank Heaven, it has come at last!”
Launcelot Darrell rose suddenly from his chair. His white face was still turned towards Eleanor; his eyes were fixed in a stare of horror. At first, perhaps, he contemplated rushing out of the room, and getting away from this woman, who had recalled the sin of the past, at a moment when his brain was maddened by the crime of the present. But he stopped, fascinated by some irresistible power in the beautiful face before him. Eleanor stood between the coward and the door. He could not pass her.
“You know who I am now, Launcelot Darrell, and you know how much mercy you can expect from me,” this girl continued, in the clear, ringing voice in which she had first addressed her enemy. “You remember the eleventh of August. You remember the night upon which you met my father upon the Boulevard. I stood by his side upon that night. I was hanging upon his arm, when you and your vile associate tempted him away from me. Heaven knows how dearly I loved him; Heaven knows how happily I looked forward to a life in which I might be with him and work for him. Heaven only knows how happily that bright dream might have been realized—but for you—but for you. May an old man’s sin rest upon your head. May a daughter’s blighted hope rest upon your head. You can guess now why I am here to-night, and what I have been doing; and you can guess, perhaps, what mercy you have to expect from George Vane’s daughter.”
“George Vane’s daughter!”
Sarah and Lavinia de Crespigny lifted up their hands and eyes in mute dismay. Was this woman, this viper, who had gained access to the very heart of the citadel which they hadguarded so jealously, the very creature who of all others they would have kept remote from the dead man?
No! it was impossible. Neither of Maurice de Crespigny’s nieces had ever heard of the birth of George Vane’s youngest child. The old man had received tidings of the little girl’s advent in a letter sent by stealth, and had kept the intelligence a secret.
“It is too absurd!” Miss Lavinia exclaimed; “George Vane’s youngest daughter is Hortensia Bannister, and she must be at least five-and-thirty years of age.”
Launcelot Darrell knew better than this.Hecould recall a dismal scene that had occurred in the pale grey light of an August morning. He could remember a white-haired old man, sitting amidst the sordid splendour of a second-rate coffee-house, crying about his youngest daughter, and bewailing the loss of the money that was to have paid for his darling’s education; a wretched, broken-hearted old man, who had held his trembling hands aloft, and cursed the wretch who had cheated him.
He could see the figure now, with the shaking hands lifted high. He could see the wrinkled face, very old and worn, in that grey morning light, and tears streaming from the faded blue eyes. He had lived under the shadow of that curse ever since, and it seemed as if it was coming home to him to-night.
“I am Eleanor Vane,” Gilbert Monckton’s wife said, in answer to Miss Lavinia. “I am Hortensia Bannister’s half-sister. It was because of her foolish pride that I came to Hazlewood under a false name. It was in order to be revenged upon Launcelot Darrell that I have since kept my real name a secret.”
Eleanor Vane! Eleanor Vane! Could it be true? Of all whom Launcelot Darrell had reason to fear, this Eleanor Vane was the most to be dreaded. If he had never wronged her father, even if he had not been indirectly the cause of the old man’s death, he would still have had reason to fear Eleanor Vane. He knew what that reason was, and he dropped back into his chair, livid and trembling, as he had trembled when he stole the keys from his dead uncle’s bedside.
“Maurice de Crespigny and my father were bosom friends,” continued Eleanor. Her voice changed as she spoke of her father, and the light in her face faded as a tender shadow stole over her countenance. She could not mention her father’s name without tenderness, speak of him when or where she might. “They were bosom friends; everybody here knows that; and my poor dear father had a foolish fancy that if Mr. de Crespigny died before him, he would inherit this house and estate, and that he would be rich once more, and that we should be very happy together.Inever thought that.”
Launcelot Darrell looked up with a strange, eager glance, but said nothing. The sisters, however, could not suffer Eleanor’s words to pass without remark.
“You never thought that; oh dear no, I dare say not,” Miss Lavinia observed.
“Of course you never entered this house with any mercenary ideas upon the subject of my dear uncle’s will,” Miss Sarah exclaimed, with biting irony.
“I never built any hope upon my dear father’s fancy,” resumed Eleanor, so indifferent to the remarks of the two ladies that it seemed as if they had been unheard by her; “but I humoured it as I would have humoured any fancy of his, however foolish. But after his death I remembered that Mr. de Crespigny had been his friend, and I only waited to convince myself of that man’s guilt”—she pointed to Launcelot Darrell as she spoke—“before I denounced him to his great-uncle. I thought that my father’s old friend would listen to me, and knowing what had been done, would never let a traitor inherit his wealth. I thought that by this means I should be revenged upon the man who caused my father’s death. I heard to-day that Mr. de Crespigny had not long to live; and when I came here to-night I came with the intention of telling him the real character of the man who was perhaps to inherit his fortune.”
The maiden ladies looked at each other. It would not have been a bad thing, perhaps, after all, if Eleanor had arrived in time to see the dying man. It was a pity that Maurice de Crespigny should have died in ignorance of his nephew’s character, when there was just a chance that he might have left a will in that nephew’s favour. But on the other hand, George Vane’s daughter was even a more formidable person than Launcelot. Who could tell how she might have contrived to tamper with the old man?
“I have no doubt you wished to denounce Mr. Darrell; and to denounce us, too, for the matter of that, I dare say,” observed Miss Sarah, “in order that you yourself might profit by my uncle’s will.”
“Iprofit!” cried Eleanor; “what should I want with the poor old man’s money?”
“My wife is rich enough to be above any suspicion of that kind, Miss de Crespigny,” Gilbert Monckton said, proudly.
“I came too late,” Eleanor said; “I came too late to see my father’s friend, but not too late for what I have so long prayed for—revenge upon my father’s destroyer. Look at your sister’s son, Miss de Crespigny. Look at him, Miss Lavinia; you have good reason to be proud of him. He has been a liar and a traitor from first to last; and to-night he has advanced from treachery to crime. The law could not punish him for thecruelty that killed a helpless old man; the law can punish him for that which he has done to-night, for he has committed a crime.”
“A crime!”
“Yes. He has crept like a thief into the house in which his uncle lies dead, and has introduced some document—a will of his own fabrication, no doubt—in the place of the genuine will left in Mr. de Crespigny’s privatesecrétaire.”
“How doyouknow this, Eleanor?” cried Gilbert Monckton.
“I know it because I was outside the window of the study when he changed the papers in the cabinet, and because I have the real will in my possession.”
“It is a lie!” shouted Launcelot Darrell, starting to his feet, “a damnable lie, the real will——”
“Was burnt, as you think, Mr. Darrell; but you are mistaken, the document which your friend, Monsieur Victor Bourdon, burnt was a paper which you dropped out of thesecrétairewhile you were searching for the will.”
“And where is the genuine document, Eleanor?” Gilbert asked.
“Here,” answered his wife, triumphantly.
She put her hand into her pocket. It was empty. The will was gone.