On the mantelpiece was a marble bust of the young Cæsar as First Consul, and above it a delightful portrait of Mademoiselle Georges, by Gérard. As he briefly informed his visitor of the portrait's identity, Mr. Greville Howard felt just a little disappointed that Mrs. Winslow did not seem more interested.
During the last quarter of an hour he had recaptured what at the time of the affair had been a very definite impression as to the relations of his present visitor and the Wiltshire banker. But now, seeing Katty there before him, looking so much at her ease, so—so ladylike (Mr. Greville Howard's own word), he hesitated.
"Pray sit down," he said courteously, "and make yourself comfortable, Mrs. Winslow. It's getting rather chilly."
Her host put on another log as he spoke, and pulleda low, easy chair up close to the fire. And then he himself sat down, at right angles to his attractive guest, in a curiously-shaped winged chair which had once been part of the furniture in the Empress Joséphine's music-room at Malmaison.
IT had been a little after three o'clock when Katty Winslow entered Mr. Greville Howard's study—and now it was half-past four. The room had grown gradually darker, but the fire threw out a glimmering light on the faces of the two sitting there.
All at once Katty realised, with a sense of acute discomfiture, that as yet her host had said nothing—nothing, at least, that mattered. He had drawn out of her, with extraordinary patience, courtesy, and intelligence, all thatshecould tellhim—of what had happened before, and about the time of, Godfrey Pavely's death.
She had even told him of the two anonymous letters received by Godfrey Pavely—but with regard to them she had of course deliberately lied, stating that Godfrey had shown them to her, and that she still had no idea from whence they came.
Her listener had made very few comments, but he had shown, quite early in their conversation, a special interest in the personality of Oliver Tropenell. He had even extracted from Katty a physical description of the man she declared to be now Mrs. Pavely's lover, and probable future husband.
At first, say during the first half-hour, she had felt extraordinarily at ease with the remarkable old man who had listened to her so attentively, while the fine eyes, which were the most arresting feature of his delicate, highly intelligent countenance, were fixed onher flushed face. But now, with the shadows of evening falling, she could not see him so clearly, and there came a cold feeling about Katty Winslow's heart. There was very little concerning her own past relations with Godfrey Pavely that this stranger did not now know. She felt as if he had uncovered all the wrappings which enfolded her restless, vindictive, jealous soul. But she herself, so far, had learnt nothing from him.
She began to feel very tired, and suddenly, whilst answering one of his searching, gentle questions, her voice broke, and she burst into tears.
He leant quickly forward, and laid his thin, delicate right hand on hers. "My dear Mrs. Winslow, please forgive me! This has been a painful ordeal for you. I feel like a Grand Inquisitor! But now I am going to bring you comfort—I ought not to say joy. But before I do so I am going to make you take a cup of tea—and a little bread and butter. Then, afterwards, I will show you that I appreciate your generous confidence in telling me all that you have done."
He waited a moment, and then said impressively, "I am going to put you in the way to make it possible for you to avenge your dead friend, I think I may also saymydead friend, for Mr. Godfrey Pavely and I had some very interesting and pleasant dealings with one another, and that over many years."
She was soothed by the really kind tone of his low voice, even by the caressing quality of his light touch, and her sobs died down.
Mr. Howard took his hand away, and pressed a button close to his chair. A moment later a tray appeared with tea, cake, bread and butter, and a littlespirit lamp on which there stood what looked like a gold tea-kettle.
"You can put on the light, Denton," and there came a pleasant glow of suffused light over the room.
"Perhaps you will be so kind as to make the tea?" said Mr. Howard in his full, low voice.
Katty smiled her assent, and turned obediently towards the little table which had been placed by her elbow.
She saw that the kettle was so fixed by a clever arrangement that there was no fear of accident, though the water in it had been brought in almost boiling on the lacquer tray—a tray which was as exquisitely choice in its way as was everything else in the room.
Katty, as we know, was used to making afternoon tea. Very deftly she put three teaspoonfuls of tea into the teapot, and then poured out the boiling water from the bright yellow kettle. She was surprised at its weight.
"Yes," said Greville Howard, "it's rather heavy—gold always is. It's fifteen-carat gold. I bought that kettle years ago, in Paris. It took my fancy."
He looked at the clock. "We will give the tea three minutes to draw," he said thoughtfully.
And then he began to talk to her about the people with whom she was staying, the people who had never seen him, but who had so deep—it now seemed to her so unreasoning and unreasonable—a prejudice against him. And what he had to say about them amused, even diverted, Katty, so shrewd were his thrusts, so true his appreciation of the faults and the virtues of dear Helen and Tony Haworth. But how on earth had he learnt all that?
And then, at the end of the three minutes, she poured the tea into the transparent blue-and-white Chinese porcelain cups.
"No milk, no sugar, no cream for me," he said. "Only a slice of that lemon."
Greville Howard watched Katty take her tea, and eat the bread and butter and the cake—daintily, but with a good appetite. He watched her with the pleasant sensations that most men felt when watching Katty do anything—the feeling that she was not only very pretty, but very healthy too, and agreeable to look upon, a most satisfactory, satisfying feminine presence.
After she had finished, he again touched his invisible button, and the tray was taken swiftly and noiselessly away.
"And now," he said, "I am going to tell youmypart of this strange story, and you will see, Mrs. Winslow, that the two parts—yours and mine—fit, and that the vengeance for which I see you crave, is in your hands. I shall further show you how to arrange so that you need not appear in the matter if Sir Angus Kinross prove kind, as I feel sure he will be—to you."
Katty clasped her hands together tightly. She felt terribly moved and excited. Vengeance? What did this wonderful old man mean?
"Dealers in money," began Mr. Greville Howard thoughtfully, "have to run their own international police, and that, my dear young lady, is especially true of the kind of business which built up what I think I may truly call my fame, as well as my fortune. Duringsomething like forty years I paid a large subsidy each year to the most noted firm of private detectives in the world—a firm, I must tell you, who have their headquarters in Paris. Though I no longer pay them this subsidy, for mine was a one-man business, I still sometimes have reason to employ them. They throw out their tentacles all over the world, and their chief, a most intelligent, cultivated man, is by way of being quite a good friend of mine. I always thoroughly enjoy a chat with him when I am going through Paris on my way to my villa in the South of France. It is to this man that the credit of what I am about to tell you, the credit, that is, of certain curious discoveries connected with the mystery of Mr. Godfrey Pavely's death, is due."
Greville Howard waited a few moments, and then he spoke again.
"I must begin at the beginning by telling you that when this Fernando Apra came to see me, I formed two very distinct opinions. The one, which is now confirmed by what you have told me, was that the man was not a Portuguese; the other was that he was 'made up.' I felt certain that his hair was dyed, and the skin of his face, neck and hands tinted. He was a very clever fellow, and played his part in a capital manner. But I took him for an adventurer, a man of straw, as the French say, and I believed that Mr. Godfrey Pavely was being taken in by him. Yet there were certain things about this Apra that puzzled me—that I couldn't make out. An adventurer very rarely goes to the pains of disguising himself physically, for his object is to appear as natural as possible. There was yet another reason why the adventurer viewseemed false. All the time we were talking, all the time he was enthusing—if I may use a very ugly modern word—about the prospects of this gambling concession, I had the increasing conviction that he was not serious, that he was notout for business—that he had come to see me with some other motive than that of wishing me to take an interest in his scheme."
Greville Howard leant forward, and gazed earnestly into his visitor's face. "I felt this so strongly that the thought did actually flash across me more than once—'Is this man engaged in establishing an alibi?' When I asked him for the name and address of the French references to which Mr. Pavely had made an allusion in his letter of introduction, I saw that he was rather reluctant to give me the names. Still he did do so at last, the bankers being——"
"Messrs. Zosean & Co.," exclaimed Katty. "I have sometimes thought of going to see them."
"You would have had your journey for nothing. As I shall soon show you, they were—they still are—an unconscious link in the chain. To return to Apra, as we must still call him. So little was I impressed by this peculiar person that I expected to hear nothing more of him or of his gambling concern. But one day I received a letter from Mr. Godfrey Pavely, telling me that he himself wished to see me with reference to the same matter. I saw at once thathereally did mean business. He was very much excited about the prospects of the undertaking."
Mr. Greville Howard paused. He looked attentively at his visitor, but Katty's face told him nothing, and he continued: "I cross-examined him rather carefully about this Fernando Apra, and I discoveredthat he had only seen the fellow twice, each time rather late in the evening, and by artificial light. I then told him of my conviction that Apra was playing a part, but he scouted the idea. Our unfortunate friend was a very obstinate man, Mrs. Winslow."
"Yes," said Katty in a low voice. "That is quite true."
"And then," went on the other thoughtfully, "Pavely was also exceedingly susceptible to flattery——"
Katty nodded. This Mr. Greville Howard knew almost too much.
"Well, as you know, he came down again to see me—and the next thing I heard was that he had disappeared! At once—days before Mrs. Pavely received that very singular letter—I associated Apra with the mystery. It was, however, no business of mine to teach the police their business, though I thought it probable that there would come a moment when I should have to intervene, and reveal the little that I knew. That moment came when Mr. Pavely's body was discovered in Apra's office at Duke House."
Greville Howard straightened himself somewhat in his easy chair.
"I at once wrote, as I felt in duty bound, to Sir Angus Kinross. I had met him, under rather unfortunate circumstances, some years ago, before he became Commissioner of Police. That, doubtless, had given him a prejudice against me. Be that as it may, instead of taking advantage of my offer to tell him in confidence all I knew, he sent a most unpleasant person down to interview me. This man, a pompous, ignorant fellow, came twice—once before the inquest, once after the inquest. I naturally took a specialpleasure in misleading him, and in keeping to myself what I could have told. But though I was able to give him the impression I desired to convey, he was not able to keep anything he knew fromme; and, at the end of our second interview, he let out that the police had very little doubt that two men had been concerned in the actual murder—for murder the police by then believed it to be—of Mr. Godfrey Pavely."
Greville Howard stopped speaking for a moment.
"Two men?" repeated Katty in a bewildered tone.
And the other nodded, coolly. "Yes, that is the opinion they formed, very early in the day, at Scotland Yard. They also made up their minds that it would be one of those numerous murders of which the perpetrators are never discovered. And, but for you and me, Mrs. Winslow, the very clever perpetrators of this wonderfully well planned murder would have escaped scot-free."
He touched his invisible bell, and his man answered it.
"Make up the fire," he said, "—a good lasting fire."
When this had been done, he again turned to Katty. "We now," he said, "come to thereallyexciting part of my story. Up to now, I think I have told you nothing that you did not know."
"I had no idea," said Katty in a low, tense voice, "that the police believed there weretwopeople concerned with Godfrey's death."
She was trying, desperately, to put the puzzle together—and failing.
"I crossed to France last March," went on Greville Howard musingly, "and, inspired I must confess by a mere feeling of idle curiosity, I stopped in Paris twodays in order to see, first, Messrs. Zosean, and secondly Henri Lutin, the head of the Detective Agency with whom, as I told you just now, I have long been in such cordial relations. I called first on Henri Lutin and reminded him of the story of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, and of the subsequent finding of his body in this Fernando Apra's office. I also informed him that I would go up to a certain modest sum in pursuit of independent enquiries if he would undertake to make them. He consented, and as a preliminary, gave me some information with regard to Messrs. Zosean. Provided with a good introduction I called on these bankers, and this is what I learnt. Messrs. Zosean, with that curious incuriousness which is so very French, scarcely knew anything of what had happened, though they were vaguely aware that a man had been found killed by accident in their mysterious client's office, for Fernando Apra was their client, but only—note this, for it is important—a client of a few weeks' standing. He had paid in to their bank, some two months before Mr. Pavely's death, the very considerable sum of one million francs, forty thousand pounds, on deposit. One of the junior partners saw him—only once, late in the afternoon."
Greville Howard waited a long moment—then he added impressively: "And the man whom they to this day believe to be Fernando Apra bore no physical resemblance at all to the man who visited me here under that name. In fact, the description given by the bankers exactly tallies with that of another man—of a man whomyoudescribed to me about an hour ago."
"I don't quite understand," faltered Katty.
"Don't you? Think a little, Mrs. Winslow, and you will agree with me that the real client of Messrs. Zosean was Oliver Tropenell, the man whom you believe to be the lover and future husband of Mrs. Pavely."
Katty uttered an inarticulate exclamation—was it of surprise or of satisfaction? Her host took no notice of it, and continued his narrative:
"One day—I soon found it to have been the day following that on which the murder of Mr. Pavely was presumably committed—a man who, I feel sure, wasmyFernando Apra, turned up at Messrs. Zosean with a cheque, the fact that he was coming having been notified to the bank from London by telephone. He drew out the greater part of the money lodged in the name of Apra in Messrs. Zosean's bank—not all, mark you, for some eight thousand pounds was left in, and that eight thousand pounds, Mrs. Winslow, is still there, undisturbed. I doubt myself if it will ever be claimed!
"I then, following the plan laid down for me by Henri Lutin, asked Messrs. Zosean at what hotel Fernando Apra had stayed. I was given two addresses. These addresses I handed on to my friend the secret enquiry agent, and the rest of the story belongs to him, for it was Lutin who discovered all that I am now going to tell you."
Greville Howard stopped speaking. He looked thoughtfully at the woman who sat ensconced in the low arm-chair opposite him.
He felt rather as a man may be supposed to feel who is about to put a light to a fuse which will in due course blow up a powder magazine. There even cameover his subtle, tortuous mind a thrill of pity for the man whom he was about to sacrifice to this pretty woman's desire for vengeance and—as he could not help seeing—jealous hatred of another woman who might, for all he knew, be in every way more worthy of his interest, even of his admiration, than she who sat there looking at him with gleaming eyes and parted lips.
But Greville Howard, like all his kind, was a fatalist as well as something of a philosopher. He could not have lived the life he had led, and done the work which had built up his great fortune, had he been anything else, and Katty had come at a very fortunate psychological moment for him—as well as for herself. Greville Howard was becoming what he had rarely ever been—bored; he was longing consciously for a fresh interest and for a new companionship in his life. And so:
"Perhaps you will be disappointed at the meagreness of what I am about to tell you, but you may believe me when I say that it is information which will make the way of Sir Angus Kinross quite clear, and which may bring one, if not two, men to the gallows."
Katty gave a little involuntary gasp. But he went on:
"It did not take my friend Lutin very long to discover that a man of the name of Apra had stayed at each of the hotels indicated to me by the bankers. He also discovered that 'Apra' had with him a friend named Dickinson who put down his birthplace as New York. Do you follow me, Mrs. Winslow?"
"Yes, I think so," she replied hesitatingly.
"At the first hotel, a small, comfortable, rather expensivehouse in the Madeleine quarter, Fernando Apra was a tall, dark, good-looking man, and the other, the New Yorker, was fair and short. Though on the best of terms they lived very different lives. The American was out a great deal; he thoroughly enjoyed the gay, lively sides of Paris life. Fernando Apra on the other hand stayed indoors, reading and writing a good deal. At last the two men left the hotel, giving out that they were going to spend the winter in the South of France. But they only stayed a few days at Lyons and, doubling back to Paris, they settled in the Latin Quarter on the other side of the river.
"By that time, my dear Mrs. Winslow,they had exchanged identities. The tall, dark man was now Dickinson, and his fair friend had become Apra! It was Apra who one day told the manager he was going to a fancy dress ball and asked him to recommend him a good theatrical costumier. When Lutin ran that costumier to earth, the man at once remembered the fact that a client he took to be an Englishman had come and had had himself made up as a Mexican, purchasing also two bottles of olive-coloured skin stain. Now Apra was out all night after this extraordinary transformation in his appearance had taken place, but one of the waiters at the hotel recognised him that same evening at Mabille. When the man spoke to him, he appeared taken aback, and explained that he had made a mistake in the day of the fancy dress ball. The next morning he left the hotel, distributing lavish tips to everybody. But Dickinson stayed on for a few days, and during those days he receivedeach day a telegram from England. One of these telegrams is actually in my possession."
Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, upright piece of inlaid mahogany furniture, and unlocking a drawer, took from it an envelope. Having opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on which were printed the words: "Concession going well" and the signature "G."
Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and she flushed. Even she realised the significance of that "G."
"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write down from my dictation certain notes, and hand them,together with this telegram, to the Commissioner of Police, he may be trusted to do the rest."
FIVE quiet weeks slipped by—weeks full of outward, as well as of inward, happiness at The Chase and at Freshley.
Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and then, without even seeing Laura, had gone away again almost at once. She was still away when there took place early in December the gathering together, for the first time for many years, of a big shooting party at Knowlton Abbey.
Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely spent a week in London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, of whose very existence she was unaware, opined that she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead a year, and some of these same gossips thought it rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be going to stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood was over. But the kinder of the busybodies reminded one another that Lord St. Amant had known the mistress of The Chase from childhood, and being, as he was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had thought it would cheer up the poor lady to have a little change.
Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone up alone to London, and Oliver, after two days, followed her. But he had not waited to escort her back, as his mother expected him to do. He returned the day before Laura—in fact she was away a week, he only four days.
The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura had gone up to town to get a few new clothes, but she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not exactly conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at Knowlton Abbey.
Lord St. Amant's shooting party was a great success—a success from the point of view of the guests, and from that of the host. For the first time for many years, in fact for the first time since the death of Lady St. Amant, the house was quite full, for in addition to the neighbours whom the host specially wished to honour, there had come down certain more sophisticated folk from London. Among others asked had been Sir Angus Kinross; but Sir Angus, to his own and Lord St. Amant's regret, had had to decline. The two men had become intimate since last winter—each had a real respect, a cordial liking, for the other.
The housekeeper at the Abbey had been surprised to note his lordship's interest in every detail. He had himself seen, and at considerable length, thechefwho had come down from London for the week; he had even glanced over the bedroom list, making certain suggestions as to where his various guests should sleep. Thus it was by his desire that Mrs. Tropenell had been given the largest bed-chamber in the house, one which had never been, in the present housekeeper's reign, occupied by a visitor. It had been, in the long, long ago, the room of his mother, the room in fact where his lordship himself had been born some seventy odd years ago. By his wish, also, there had been arranged for Mrs. Tropenell's occupation the old-fashioned sitting-room into which the bedroom opened.
Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been put nearly oppositeLord St. Amant's own sleeping apartment, in that portion of the house which was known as "his lordship's wing." And Mrs. Pavely had been given, in the same part of the house, but at the further end of the corridor, the room which had been always occupied, during her infrequent sojourns at the Abbey, by the late Lady St. Amant.
And now the long, though also the all too short, week-end, which had lasted from Thursday to Tuesday, was over, and all the guests had departed, with the exception of Lord St. Amant's three intimate friends—Mrs. Tropenell, that lady's son, and Mrs. Pavely. This smaller party was staying on for two more days, and then it would break up—Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely returning in the morning to Freshley Manor and The Chase, while Mr. Tropenell stayed on to accompany his host to another big shoot in the neighbourhood.
Though all three had professed sincere regret at the departure of their fellow guests, each of them felt a certain sense of relief, and yes, of more than relief, of considerable satisfaction, when they found themselves alone together.
There is always plenty to talk about after the breakup of a country house party, and when at last the four of them found themselves together at dinner, they all did talk—even Laura, who was generally so silent, talked and laughed, and exchanged quick, rather shy jests with Oliver.
Laura and Oliver? Lord St. Amant had of course very soon discovered their innocent secret. He had taxed Mrs. Tropenell with the truth, and she had admittedit, while explaining that they desired their engagement, for obvious reasons, to remain secret for a while.
During these last few days their host had admired, with a touch of whimsical surprise, Laura's dignity, and Oliver's self-restraint. Of course they had managed to be a good deal together, aided by Lord St. Amant's unobtrusive efforts, and owing to the fact that Mrs. Tropenell's charming sitting-room upstairs was always at their disposal.
But no one in the cheerful, light-hearted company had come within miles of guessing the truth; and Oliver Tropenell had done his full share in helping Lord St. Amant in the entertainment of his guests. He had also made himself duly agreeable to the ladies—indeed, Oliver, in a sense, had been the success of the party, partly because the way of his life in Mexico enabled him to bring a larger, freer air into the discussions which had taken place after dinner and in the smoking-room, and also because of his vitality—a vitality which just now burned with a brighter glow....
Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the dining-table a very few minutes after Mrs. Tropenell and Laura had gone off into the drawing-room.
Though now on very cordial terms, the two men never had very much to say to one another. Yet Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being the manner of man he was, he could not but feel attached to Letty Tropenell's child. Still, there had been a time, now many long years ago, just after the death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous of Oliver—jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption,love, and pride, in her son. She had made it so very clear that she desired no closer tie to her old friend—and this had shrewdly hurt his self-esteem. But he had been too much of a philosopher to bearrancune, and such a friendship as theirs soon became had, after all, its compensations.
When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed by for a renewal of the old relations, and for a while the tie which had lasted for so long, and survived so many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen....
But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. Amant had given up his wanderings on the Continent, and he had come once more very near to Mrs. Tropenell, during this last year. He and Oliver were also better friends than they had ever been; this state of things dated from last winter, for, oddly enough, what had brought them in sympathy had been the death of Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together during the days which had followed the banker's mysterious disappearance, and they had worked in close union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having a dual authority from her to do what seemed best.
Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which each man felt with the other, neither had anything to say that could not be said better in the company of the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which now looked so large and empty with only two, where last night there had been twelve, women gathered together about the fireplace, the four talked on, pleasantly, cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner.
After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into the smaller drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant andMrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that the other two had left them, went on gossiping—harking back, as they now so often did, to the old stories, the old human tragedies and comedies, of the neighbourhood.
Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking side by side, and Oliver's mother looked up with a proud, fond glance.
They were a striking, well-matched couple—Laura looking more beautiful than ever to-night, perhaps because she seemed a thought more animated than usual.
"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I feel so sleepy! Oliver and I had such a glorious walk this afternoon."
She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And then, unexpectedly, she turned to Lord St. Amant, and put up her face as if she expected him also to kiss her.
Amused and touched, he bent and brushed his old lips against her soft cheek: "My dear," he exclaimed, "this is very kind of you!"
And then Oliver stepped forward into the circle of light thrown by the big wood fire.
He said a little huskily, "My turn next, Laura——" And to the infinite surprise of his mother and of his host, Laura, with an impulsive, tender gesture, reached up towards him, and he, too, brushed her soft face with his lips.
Then he took her hand, and led her to the door. And Lord St. Amant, quoting Champmélé, turned to his old love: "'Ah! Madame—quelle jolie chose qu'un baiser!'" he murmured, and ere the door had quite closed behind Oliver he, too, had put his arm witha caressing gesture round her shoulder, and drawn her to him, with the whispered words, "Letty—don't think me an old fool!" And then, "Oh, Letty! Do you remember the first time——" And though she made no answer, he knew she did remember, like himself only too well, the wild, winter afternoon, nearer forty than thirty years ago, when they two had been caught alone, far from home, in a great storm—the wild weather responding to their wild mood. They had taken shelter in a deserted, half-ruined barn, a survival of the days when England had still great granaries. And there, throwing everything aside—the insistent promptings of honour, and the less insistent promptings of prudence—St. Amant had kissed Letty....
He remembered, even now, the thrill of mingled rapture, shame, gratitude, triumph, and stinging self-rebuke, which had accompanied that first long clinging kiss.
The next day he had left the Abbey for the Continent, and when, at last, he had come back, he had himself again well in hand....
Only yesterday the shooters had gone by that old seventeenth-century barn, of which nothing now remained but thick low walls, and as he had tramped by the spot, so alone with his memories, if outwardly so companioned, there had swept over his heart, that heart which was still susceptible to every keen emotion, a feeling of agonised regret for what had—and what had not been.
"Ah, Letty," he said huskily, "you've been the best friend man ever had! Don't you think the time has come for two such old friends as you and I have beennever to part? It isn't as if I had a great deal of time left."
An hour later Lord St. Amant was sitting up in bed, reading the fourth volume of a certain delightful edition of the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint Simon. He was feeling happier than he had felt for a very long time—stirred and touched too, as he had not thought to be again.
Complacently he reminded himself of the successful, the brilliantly successful, elderly marriages he had known in his time. 'Twas odd when one came to think of it, but he couldn't remember one such which had turned out a failure!
Dear Letty—who had known how to pass imperceptibly from youth to age with such a fine, measured dignity, while retaining so much which had made her as a girl and as an older woman the most delightful and stimulating of companions. What an agreeable difference her presence would make to his existence as he went slowly down into the shadows! He shuddered a little—the thought of old age, of real old age, becoming suddenly, vividly repugnant.
Thank God, Letty was very much younger than himself. When he was eighty she would be sixty-three. He tried to put away that thought, the thought that some day he would be infirm, as well as old.
He looked up from his book.
How odd to think that Letty had never been in this room, where he had spent so much of his life from boyhood onwards! He longed to show her some of the things he had here—family miniatures, old politicalcaricatures, some of his favourite books—they would all interest her.
He was glad he had arranged that she should have, on this visit, his dear mother's room. When he had married—close on fifty years ago—his parents had been alive, and later his wife, as the new Lady St. Amant, had not cared to take over her predecessor's apartments. She had been very little here, for soon, poor woman, she had become an invalid—a most disagreeable, selfish invalid. He told himself that after all he had had a certain amount of excuse for—well, for the sort of existence he had led so long. If poor Adelaide had only died twenty years earlier, and he had married Letty—ah,then, he would indeed have become an exemplary character! Yet he had been faithful to Letty—in his fashion....
No other woman had even approached near the sanctuary where the woman of whom now, to-night, he was able to think as his future wife, had at once become so securely enthroned. It had first been a delicious, if a dangerous, relationship, and, later, a most agreeable friendship. During the last few months she had become rather to his surprise very necessary to him, and these last few days he had felt how pleasant it would be to have Letty always here, at the Abbey, either in his company, or resting, reading, or writing in the room where everything still spoke to him of the long-dead mother who had been so dear to him.
Of course they would wait till Oliver and Laura were married—say, till some time in February or March: and then, when those two rather tiresome younger people were disposed of, they, he and Letty,would slip up quietly to London, and, in the presence of perhaps two or three old friends, they would be made man and wife.
He reflected complacently that nothing in his life would be changed, save that Letty would be there, at the Abbey, as she had been the last few days, always ready to hear with eager interest anything he had to say, always with her point of view sufficiently unlike his own to give flavour, even sometimes a touch of the unexpected, to their conversation.
A knock at the door, and his valet came in, and walked close up to the bed.
"It's a telephone message, my lord. From Sir Angus Kinross—private to your lordship."
"Yes. What is the message?"
Lord St. Amant felt a slight tremor of discomfort sweep over him. What an odd time to send a trunk-call through—at close on midnight.
"Sir Angus has been trying to get on for some time, my lord; there was a fault on the line. Sir Angus would be much obliged if you would meet him at your lordship's rooms at one o'clock to-morrow. He says he's sorry to trouble your lordship to come up to London, but it's very important. He came himself to the telephone, my lord. He asked who I was. I did offer to fetch your lordship, but he said there was no occasion for that—if I would deliver the message myself."
"All right, Barrett."
"Sir Angus begs your lordship not to tell any one that your business to-morrow is with him."
"I quite understand that."
"WE have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's death!"
Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant, when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police already there.
"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to earth?"
The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He had not associated the Commissioner of Police's summons with that now half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his mind, as he had vanished out of every one else's mind in the neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence which had first made them become friends.
But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus's host.
"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in connection with the affair?"
"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall not evenbe able to connect him directly with the murder—for murder it certainly was, St. Amant."
"Murder?"
Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of Police accompanied his words.
During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed—or even put out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office.
"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was murder right enough! And we already hold a warrant, which will be executed the day after to-morrow, this next Friday——"
He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately the words: "It is a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having murdered Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January."
"I—I don't understand what you mean! Surely Oliver Tropenell was not masquerading as Fernando Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can believe a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two men were utterly unlike!"
"That is so, and there was of course a man who masqueraded, and masqueraded most successfully,both in Paris and in London, as Fernando Apra. That man, St. Amant, was——"
Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his mind, his still vigorous, intelligent, acute mind, darted this way and that. What name—whose name—was Sir Angus going to utter?
He was not long left in suspense.
"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, "was Mrs. Pavely's brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, who is, we are informed, the business partner of Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It washewho masqueraded as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually fired the pistol shot which killed Godfrey Pavely——"
When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it was as if a great light had suddenly burst in on Lord St. Amant's brain. In spite of everything he felt a sharp thrill of relief.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There's been a terrible mistake—but it's one that I can set right in a very few minutes. Believe me, you're on the wrong track altogether! If murder there was—murder, and not manslaughter, which I venture to think much more probable—then Gilbert Baynton was Godfrey Pavely's murderer. The two men hated one another. It all comes back to me—not only had they a quarrel years ago, but that same quarrel was renewed not long before Godfrey Pavely's disappearance. Nothing—nothing—would induce me to believe that Oliver Tropenell is a murderer!"
"I'm afraid you'll soon be brought round to believe it," said Sir Angus ruefully. "I am of course well aware of what you say concerning Gilbert Baynton's relations to his brother-in-law. We've already foundall that out, especially as we had a willing witness close to our hand. Unfortunately—I say unfortunately, St. Amant, for of course I know he is a thorough bad hat—we have irrefutable evidence that this man Baynton didnotcommit the murder. He was certainly in Paris at the time when Godfrey Pavely was killed in London."
Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room—then he came back to where the other man was sitting.
"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, and—and—well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning. So true is that that——" He took another turn up and down the room, and then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off—scot free! He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best intellects at the Criminal Bar—that he himself has no mean intellect he has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with the widow of the man he murdered—if she can be brought to believe in him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believeanythingof those they love, or at any rate, they can be brought toseemto believe anything!"
He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant."
"But you don't think—surely you don't think——"
"No, no——" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs. Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind you—ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave man. He did the job himself—even if he was helped by his friend."
He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to heart than he had expected.
"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story; and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I tell you now must never go beyond these four walls."
Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him—the other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one heart-beat—Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the evening of his days....
"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story—to which I shall make allusion presently—Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that question will be to put in these two anonymous letters."
Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letterswhich had caused poor Godfrey Pavely such acute discomfort just a year before.
Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in silence.
"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very much askance at anonymous letters, and especially in a trial for murder. Also these prove soverylittle—the more so that there seems to have been no talk at all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. She bears, and has always borne, a very high character. As for these letters, they were evidently written by a woman—and by an educated woman. Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could tell youthatmuch. Of course I have my own theory as to who wrote them."
Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I."
"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either side, am I? I foresee that very probably these letters will remain anonymous. A great many people who think themselves clever will put them down to some dismissed servant.
"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for Mexico so soon after the discovery of Mr. Pavely's body is a good point on his side. The judge will argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had been in love with Mrs. Pavely—if he had loved her, that is, with a guilty passion—he would not have left her just after she had become a widow. Nothing compelled him to do so. It has been suggested, but from a person who does not intend to go into the witness-box if she can help it, that Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely are now secretly engaged. My answer to that is—why shouldn't they be? Many a man has married hisbest friend's widow without any one supposing that he committed murder in order to attain that satisfaction!"
"Have you proof—irrefutable proof—pointing to the guilt of Oliver Tropenell?"
"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that Oliver Tropenell spent many weeks on the Continent in the company of the man who undoubtedly masqueraded as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion of that time the two men exchanged identities. Nothing can shake that portion of the evidence. But there is no record of the two having met, later, in London—I mean during the time when the net was certainly being drawn round Godfrey Pavely. And, as I said before, Gilbert Baynton—aliasFernando Apra—has an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on the day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There seems no doubt at all that the evidence of the London hotel manager was most artfully arranged for. The man's story was given in good faith, but the incident occurred a full week before Mr. Pavely was done to death."
"But where does Tropenell come in?"
"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, we have not been quite so fortunate in tracing them. But even so, we have evidence that during the fateful three days on one of which the murder was certainly committed, he was staying in London, having just arrived from the Continent. I personally have no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January the 5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed 'Fernando Apra,' the hapless Pavely went to Duke House to find Tropenell lying in wait for him. Thetwo men may have had words—they probablydidhave words. But whatever passed—and look at it as you may, St. Amant—it was deliberate murder."
Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to astound the Commissioner of Police.
"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, Kinross, it was deliberate murder—to me far the more terrible fact, because the murderer will soon be my stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell by special licence next week."
And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with surprise, remained silent, the other went on, speaking rather quietly and coldly, "It is only fair on my part to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have told you at once—I mean when I first gathered the purport of what you wished to say to me."
Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a great pity, as well as a great admiration, for the man—who now looked such an old man—standing there facing him.
"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps to make such a suggestion to you—but we've become friends, St. Amant. That is why I venture to advise you that before this next Friday you should get these two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely, out of the country. Take them away—hide them away—in France or in Spain! If you do that they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish and of shame. The presence of neither of them is essential to the course of justice, and if they remain in England they will certainly each be called as witnesses, in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through—well, I can only describe it ashell. It is not as if the presenceof either of them would be really beneficial to Oliver Tropenell."
"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" asked Lord St. Amant searchingly.
Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression of face.
"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if Mrs. Tropenell can bring herself to believe her son absolutely innocent, then, in the hands of a skilful counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be of great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same cannot be said of Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. Whichever way you look at it, Mrs. Pavely's presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say so, St. Amant, a singularly attractive woman, and ten out of every twelve of the men in Court would probably regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!"
There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began again:
"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. Pavely to leave England for a while, leaving only Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?"
"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, "would probably refuse to leave England. I think, I fear, that she loves Oliver Tropenell—passionately."
He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?"
Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactlywatched. We are of course aware that he has been staying with you for the past week, and that he is going back to Freshley Manor—is it to-morrow,or the day after to-morrow? I take it that he would probably prefer to be arrested in his mother's house."
A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's heart. "I—I suppose so," he muttered.
And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: "You really know this man and I don't. Do you think it advisable that he should be prepared for what is coming—thatyou, for instance, St. Amant——"
"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that I may—warn him?"
The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest that you should do. I take it that we can be quite sure that he will do nothing mad or foolish—that he will not try to get away, for instance? It would be quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it would ruin his chances—later. I think you are at liberty to tell him, as from yourself of course, that you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, St. Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, but to your secrecy and—and discretion."
The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the sort of man to run away."
"No, I don't think he is—once he knows the game is up," answered the Commissioner of Police a trifle grimly.
IT was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St. Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship's comfortable bedroom, for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, reading, or trying to read—his bed exactly in the same state as when he had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven.
It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it impossible to banish from his mind—even for a few moments—the awful thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again.
For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then, staring into the fire, his memory lingered—not over his talk with Sir Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinkingthatover—but over the incidents which had marked the evening before.
He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight. Then had followed an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully and pleasantly.
But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through his mind in a terrible sequence.
Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had caught, Oliver Tropenell's penetrating eyes fixed searchingly on his face, but he, the host, had avoided looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look at Oliver, nor even think of Oliver—with Oliver and Laura there, the one sitting opposite to him, the other next him.
Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant's left, had looked lovely last night. She was wearing a white dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness—a rather singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not get her out of his mind. To think that she, proud, reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the heroine of a frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame and disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord St. Amant had every reason to suppose she now loved, but—what was of so very much more concern to him—on that man's mother.
Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting Mona Lisa smile on her lovely face, it had seemed incredible that she should be the central figure of such a story. But how could she escape being the central figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the imagination of all those, one might almost count them by millions, rather than thousands, who in a few days or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name "Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names of—of Mrs. Bravo and Mrs. Maybrick?
Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told himself, that that three-quarters of an hour spent in his own dining-room had been the most painful time he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt as if every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his brain. And yet he had completely forgotten what the talk had been about! He supposed they had talked. Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. Yet he could not remember a single thing which had been said.
But his vision of the three who had sat at table with him remained horribly clear.
Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And then, after a while, Oliver left him, and he was haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor wife.
Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual—so much he did remember. And he wondered uneasily if he had given her any cause for thinking, from his appearance or his manner, that there was anything wrong?
The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. Tropenell on the day which was now to-morrow, became suddenly so intolerable to Lord St. Amant that he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the large, shadowed bedroom.
Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud.
It was as though a bridge had been thrown over the chasm of nearly forty years. His withered heart became vivified. Something of the passion which he had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet ardent-natured, girl whom he had loved, and whom he had saved from herself, stirred within him. Secretly, voicelessly, he had always been very proud of whathe had, done—and left undone. It was the one good, nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, selfish life.
But he could not save her now! Some little shelter and protection he would be able to afford her, but what would it avail against the frightful cloud of shame and anguish which was about to envelop her?
He told himself suddenly what he had already told himself when with Sir Angus—namely, that he and Letty must be married at once. She would certainly acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. Yes, Letty would think of nothing but her son, and, the world being what it is, Oliver would of course benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his stepfather. It would add yet another touch of the unusual and the romantic to the story....
Once more his mind swung back to last evening. He and Oliver had stayed alone together some ten minutes after the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, and there had come over Lord St. Amant a wild, unreasoning impulse to unburden his heart. But of course he had checked, battened down resolutely, that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty and Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he must, of course, tackle the terrible task. And then he tried, as he had tried so often during the last twelve hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell's place.
He recalled the younger man's easy, assured manner, and what a real help, nay, more than help, he had been when the house was full of guests. More than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, with evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How wellhe's turned out! He was thought to be such a queer chap as a boy."
A queer chap? Oliver was certainlythat.
Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer.
What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one another during Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men—as a certain kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse? He was still inclined to thinknot,—before yesterday he would certainly have said not. But one never can tell—with a woman....
And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter—no doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance."
When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the company of Oliver's mother and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two younger people. It had been such a touching look—the look of the mother who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become his beloved.
At ten o'clock tea had been brought in—an old-fashioned habit which was, perhaps, the only survivalof the late Lady St. Amant's reign at the Abbey, and, to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently.
She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have done that! You know you never can take tea and coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!"
And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting of doors, had come back, and said that she felt sleepy. They had had another glorious walk, she and Oliver....
Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself out, so quiet and pleasant, so peaceful—outwardly. It was, indeed, outwardly just the kind of evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself only yesterday should be repeated many times, after his marriage to his old friend. But now he knew that that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this life. Even if Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great wealth and shrewd intellect, escaped the legal consequences of his wicked deed, his mother would ever be haunted by the past—if indeed the fiery ordeal did not actually kill her.
The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, very tired—tired, yet excited, and not in the least sleepy. He turned and looked over at his bed, and then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into that bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before his valet came into the room at half-past seven.
It was years, years,yearssince he had last triedto make an unslept-in bed look as if it had been slept in.
He told himself fretfully that it was odd how unwilling he felt to go over in his own mind the amazing story told him by Sir Angus Kinross. He had thought of nothing else on his long journey from London, but since he had arrived at the Abbey, since he had seen Oliver, he could not bear to think over the details of the sinister story. He forced himself to glance at them, as it were obliquely, for a moment. Yes, he could quite see what Sir Angus meant! Oliver certainly had a sporting chance, backed with the power of commanding the best legal advice and the highest talent at the Bar, coupled with the kind of sympathy which is aroused, even in phlegmatic England, by what the French call acrime passionel.
Once more Lord St. Amant took up the little faded red leather-bound volume, but he had hardly pushed aside the green ribbon which marked his place in it, when there struck on his ears the metallic sound of an alarum clock—one which he judged to have been carefully muffled and deadened, yet which must be quite sufficiently audible to fulfil its purpose of awakening any sleeper in the room where it happened to be.
Now, on hearing that sound, Lord St. Amant was exceedingly surprised, for, as far as he knew, only one other room was occupied on this side of the corridor. That room was that which his late wife had chosen in preference to the one which had been his mother's, and by an odd whim he had assigned it to Laura Pavely.
He turned slightly round in his chair, and glanced at the travelling clock which was on his dressing-table.
It was half-past five.
Why should Laura, or any one else in that great house for the matter of that, wish to be awakened on a winter's morning at such an hour?
While he was thinking this over, he heard the sound of a key turning quietly in a lock, and then there came that of the slow opening of a door on to the corridor.
He stood up, uncertain what to do, and feeling his nerves taut.
Though he was now an old man, his limbs had not lost all their suppleness, and after a moment of hesitation he sprang to his door and opened it.
Yes! He could hear the firm tread of footsteps coming down the corridor towards him, to his left.
He flung his door wide open, and into the stream of light thrown by his powerful reading lamp into the corridor, there suddenly appeared Oliver Tropenell——
For a flashing moment the tall figure loomed out of the darkness, and then was engulfed again....
Lord St. Amant shut the door and hurried back to the fireplace. He cursed the impulse, bred half of genuine alarm, half of eager curiosity, which had made him the unwilling sharer in another man's—and woman's—secret.
Laura? Laura?—Laura?He was so taken aback, so surprised, so utterly astounded, and yes, so shocked, that for a moment he forgot the terrible thing which had now filled his mind without ceasing for so many hours. Then it came back, a thousand-fold more vivid and accusing.
Laura? Good God, how mistaken he had been in her! Manlike, he told himself, most unfairly, that somehow what he had now learnt made everything—anything possible.
But before he had time to sit down, the door opened again, and Oliver Tropenell walked into the room.
"I wish you to know," he began, without any preamble, "that Laura and I were married a week ago in London. She wished to wait—in fact it had been arranged that we should wait—till February or March. But to please me—only to please me, St. Amant—she put her own wishes, her own scruples aside. If there is any blame—the blame is entirely,entirelymine." He waited a moment, and then went on rapidly:
"As far as the rest of the world—the indifferent world—is concerned, it will believe that Laura and I were married when of course we should have been, after Godfrey Pavely had been dead a year. But Laura would like my mother to know. In fact she intends, I believe, to tell my mother to-morrow."
Lord St. Amant found himself debating, with a kind of terrible self-questioning, whether now was the moment to speak to Oliver.
"Of course I understand," he said shakily. "And I think Laura did quite right. But even so I suggest that nothing is said to your mother—yet. I have a very serious reason for asking you to beg Laura to keep your marriage absolutely secret."
He was looking earnestly, painfully into the face of the younger man.
Oliver Tropenell's countenance suddenly stiffened. It assumed a terrible, mask-like expression.