"No, you don't!" I remarked, cheerfully, and with the force of superior muscles I pulled him towards me. "Come, sit down here by me," I said. "I want to talk to you." And somehow it came about that we subsided on the cushioned seat together.
He had recognised me, of course, as the man he had seen in the hotel–the man, Noel Stanton, against whom I did not doubt his cablegram had warned him. He was pale as death, and I could see that this meeting, added, like the piling of Ossa upon Pelion, on top of all that he had already gone through, had robbed him of the shattered remnant of his nerve.
Still, he was ready to "bluff" and brave if out while he could. "Confound you!" he exclaimed. "What are you about? You mustbe mad to attack a stranger without the slightest provocation. Let me alone, sir, or I'll rouse the car."
"I wouldn't, you know, if I were you," I said coolly, for the more excited he grew the more did my own calmness come back to me. "You've been playing a dangerous game ever since you took your passage in the American linerSt. Paul(or, rather, since Carson Wildred took it for you), but you've never, perhaps, steered so close to the wind as to-night, when you resorted to incendiarism as a finishing stroke."
The fellow stared at me in simulated nonchalance and defiance, but my hand was on his shoulder still, and I could feel the shudder that ran through his body.
"I say you must be mad," he reiterated.
"So you observed before; but I could very easily prove to you that I'm not, if you were not already sure of it. You can call for assistance if you like, but if you do the story I've got to tell will go flashing over the wires back to 'Frisco, and on to Denver, and you will findyourself in almost as hot a place as if you had stayed at the Santa Anna Hotel, where you wanted the world to think that poor Harvey Farnham had been roasted."
Once more the fit of shivering seized him. He glanced wildly about, as though to find some means of escape, but there was none.
"I am a bigger man and a stronger man than you," I remarked, in a significant and reflective manner. "Better hear the alternative I've got to offer. I know everything, you see–that is, everything that concernsyou, and the curious game you've been playing.
"I've been just three days behind you everywhere since you left New York. I've got every link in the evidence now, and what with Bennett, of Denver, and the proprietor of the Santa Anna Hotel, and a few others, I can burst your wretched little soap bubble plot in four-and-twenty hours. There's just one way in which you can stay my hand."
"What's that?" He had spoken out impulsively, before he had stopped to think. The instant the words were uttered he saw all thatthey admitted, and bit his lip. But it was too late; he was completely trapped.
"I'll tell you," I said, keeping my hand on his shoulder, almost caressingly. "I'd listen attentively, if I were in your place. What you can do is to make a clean breast of your story from beginning to end. I'm willing to pay you more for confessing than Wildred did for plotting. Then you must go back to England with me, and stand by while the thing is made public."
As I spoke he did not once take his eyes from me. It was remarkable even yet, now that he was out of his disguise, how strong his likeness was to Farnham. He might have been a younger brother.
When I had finished he sighed and drooped his head. His own hair, which was very closely cut, was of a beautiful reddish golden colour, much the shade of Karine Cunningham's, as the light fell on it from above. I thought of her with a great wave of passionate love, and more of hope than I had dared to feel for many a long day.
Perhaps it was the recollection of her lovely face and the wonderful halo of her hair which caused me for an instant to relax my grasp. I only became conscious of having done so when the fellow twisted himself from under my hand, and springing lithely to his feet would have darted through the swing door had I not leaped after him like a tiger.
We fought together as the car swayed and bounded along its tracks. Once he dived under my arm and was almost out of my clutches, but I caught him by the collar with so fierce a grip that the linen of his shirt tore, and the garment ripped open to the waistcoat.
Something which he wore beneath snapped, as he still struggled to escape me, and a bright object flashed under my eyes as it fell, and dropped with a slight metallic noise to the floor.
Evidently it was to him an article of value. Impulsively he stooped, forgetful for a second of the object which had animated him, and thus the advantage became all mine again. I had him pinioned fast.
At our feet, I now had time to observe, lay a broken gold chain and a locket.
Twisting my hand firmly in his collar I bent over and picked up the ornaments. "Allow me," I said, smiling. And as I was about to put the locket in his hand I could not avoid seeing the portrait that it framed. It was an open-faced, old-fashioned thing, set round with a rim of pearls. The crystal had been cracked across in the fall, but the delicately painted ivory miniature within was intact, and I gave a slight exclamation as I saw that it represented Karine Cunningham.
If I had been surprised to see her picture in the "studio" at the House by the Lock, I was doubly surprised to see it in a locket worn by a young desperado on the other side of the world. Impulsively I withdrew my hand which held the ornament, with the feeling that the man had no right to it–that I could not return it to him again.
"Give it back to me!" he ejaculated, forgetting his evident fear of me for the first time, and speaking with a certain manly fiercenessthat thawed the chill of my contempt for him. "If I've got a right to nothing else on earth, I've got a right to that. It's a portrait of my sister."
"Your sister!You swear that?"
"Of course I swear it. I don't see why you shouldn't know it–though I haven't done much credit to the name of Cunningham."
I could not doubt him. Not that I had not every reason to believe that he would be willing to lie as fast as he could speak if it happened to suit his purpose, but the ring of sincerity in his voice was unmistakable.
I let go my hold upon him. Such was his astonishment at the manœuvre that he made no attempt to take advantage of his freedom, but simply stood still and stared at me.
"Here is the locket," I said. "I came from England to California to serve Miss Cunningham's interests, and I will not lay my hand upon her brother."
"I don't know what you mean," he said, sullenly.
"I'll tell you," I returned, "if you'll sitdown here and listen to me for a few minutes longer. After that, as far as I am concerned, you are free to do as you choose. You look surprised–but whatever may have been your faults and your offences, I would stake my life you love your sister."
"She is the only being on earth I do love," he replied, still half dazedly.
Then he sat down, his eyes furtively on me, and I seated myself beside him.
"She is sacrificing herself for someone," I remarked. "I think I begin dimly to understand now who that someone may be. I think, too, that circumstances have given me the right to be inquisitive, as I can still further explain to you later on. Is Miss Cunningham going to marry Carson Wildred to save you from any unpleasant consequences of the past, for instance?"
He started as though he had been struck.
"She isnotgoing to marry Carson Wildred!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, yes, she is, unless it can be prevented. I see I have even more to tell you than Ithought. Is it long, may I ask, since you have seen your sister?"
"Last November," he said drooping his head, and bringing under my eyes again the hair that was like hers.
"Ah, that explains your ignorance. The man had not shown his hand at that time. Now I am going to trust to your affection for Miss Cunningham, to your presumable wish to save her from unhappiness, and talk to you as though we had been allies instead of enemies. Perhaps I may be a fool for my pains; but something seems to say to me—"
"Something says right. Go on!" he ejaculated, gruffly.
No doubt the very most dunder-headed of lawyers or detectives would have told me that I was mad, thus deliberately to give all my good trumps away to the treacherous, hired scoundrel whom I had been hunting down with the dogged ferocity of a bloodhound. On principle, of course, Iwasall wrong, and I knew it; but still I went on.
I told him the strange story of the past fewweeks from beginning to end. I commenced with the part which concerned Farnham and Carson Wildred alone. I did not pass over that which had to do with Karine, my hopeless and unrequited love for her, my passionate anxiety to serve her at all costs; and I ended by declaring my certainty that Carson Wildred and Willis Collins were one and the same man.
"He is doubly a murderer," I said. "And yet, unless you and I together can keep him from it, he will be your sister's husband."
"I'll kill him first!" exclaimed my companion.
"I think the trick can be done without resorting to such extreme measures as that," I returned, "especially if you are willing to come over from his camp to mine."
He looked at me sharply for a moment without answering, then he said:
"You seem pretty quick, I've noticed, in what you've just been telling me at putting two and two together. Well, you say you were at the Santa Anna Hotel the night the murder was committed ten years ago. You knewthere were two men mixed up in it. You remembered one of them; would you remember the other?"
"He was a mere boy," I said, "and it's a long time ago. He must have changed almost beyond recognition."
"He's just twenty-nine at present; I've good reason to know, as I'm he."
It was my turn to be astonished, but it was not policy to show it. Therefore I merely said, "Oh, indeed!"
"You see," he went on dully, "that's where Wildred has had his pull over me since he ran across me, by a piece of devil's own luck, in Canada five years ago. As you say, I have changed; but his eyes are like gimlets, they'd pierce a stone wall. It's quite true, as you suspected, that he and Collins are one. I knew him by a queer scar on his hand, shaped like a star–perhaps you've observed it? But he didn't mind. He seemed even to find a sort of pleasure in telling me how he had been to a clever fellow in Paris, and got himself made over into another man, so that he might themore easily turn his back upon various little episodes of the past. I couldn't have proved it if I'd wanted to, he was so different, and had worked up such a new record for himself to travel on. He knew that, and he knew, too, that I was in his power."
"I don't exactly see howthatcame about," I objected.
"Don't you? You're not so quick as usual, then. I'd been accused of the murder at the Santa Anna Hotel. I hooked it, and got over to Mexico, so to Spain and France. I'd always been a black sheep, you know, but that was the first really serious trouble I'd got into. However, as I said, five years later, when Wildred and I met, I was in Canada; I'd turned actor (I'd always a little talent that way), and was doing pretty well. He pointed out to me–and I wasn't very long in seeing his point–that I was not so much changed but what I should easily be recognised by those who had known me during those wild days when I'd been under his thumb in San Francisco, and the authorities there would still be very gladto hear of me. He didn't happen to want anything of me just then, but he allowed me to understand that it was to my interest to keep sweet with him. And from that day to this he's had his eye on me."
"But it washewho was accused of that murder, not you," I said.
"What!"
The man seemed either not to believe or understand me.
I repeated the statement, and then, when he stammered his astonishment, his ignorance of all that had taken place in San Francisco after his escape (at which we had all tacitly connived at the time), I went on to explain the true circumstances of the case. Carson Wildred had deceived him into the belief that he alone had been suspected–that if he were caught he would be promptly hanged.
"He has told the same story to your sister, I would swear!" I exclaimed, hotly. "It is for this reason that she has been persuaded into promising to marry him. Believing that he knows your whereabouts, and holds it in hispower at any moment to have you punished as a murderer–believing, too, no doubt, that you did commit the murder, she has been ready to save your life by the sacrifice of all that has made hers dear."
"Curse him! I'd take my oath you're right!" he asseverated. "He's sly enough and vile enough for anything."
"Did you ever see Harvey Farnham?" I questioned.
"Yes, years ago I knew him well, and liked him immensely–as he did me, I think. It was in Tuolumne County, California, where he had a gold mine–the Miss Cunningham. It was I who named that, oddly enough it may seem to you, after my sister, of course. He wasn't aware of that, but thought it was just a whim of mine, that probably I'd admired some girl called 'Miss Cunningham,' and wanted to pay her a compliment. You see, no one knew me by my right name even then.
"It was before that hateful time when I got in with Collins, or Wildred, whichever you like to call him, and not long after I'd run awayfrom home and England under the assumed name of Hartley–it was my mother's maiden name. I was only seventeen or eighteen, but I was pretty sharp for my years, I'm afraid, for I'd been among a queer lot already, and one night I would have got into a row with some older man over cards, a row that might have ended badly if it hadn't been for Mr. Farnham, who had dropped into the place to look on, and who stood by me for all he was worth.
"It seemed he noticed me the moment he entered the room, thinking that I looked enough like him to be his own son. Afterward he took me up, making a lot of me, wanting to find out where I'd come from, and all that. He thought my resemblance to him (which everyone who saw us together invariably remarked) a wonderful joke, and used to call me his 'boy,' and 'sonny,' getting it into his head that I was a sort of 'Mascot,' who brought luck to him in whatever he undertook. That was the principal reason, of course, that he was so keen on having me name his mine forhim. I think if I had sowed all my wild oats, and been willing to settle down a bit into a respectable member of society, there was a time when he wouldn't have minded adopting me, for some old, unhappy love affair or other had kept him out of the marriage-market, eligible as he was, and he swore that he never meant to marry, even for the hope of having an heir to all his money. Yes, I might have been that heir if I hadn't been a fool, for Farnham certainly thought the world and all of me in those days. As it was, he did me many a kindness."
"And now, by way of repaying that affection and those kindnesses," I could not help exclaiming, with a returning touch of the old bitter contempt, "you've undertaken to help his murderer to get off scot free. You've been masquerading in the very clothes the poor fellow wore, you've been using his luggage, trading on the likeness to him which once won for you his regard, heightening it in every way by artificial means, so that not only shall Carson Wildred, or Willis Collins, escape suspicion, but that he may enrich himself on thedead man's millions. You even set an hotel on fire to finish the whole fiendish plot with a fine dramatic effect!"
The poor wretch, who had made such a wreck of his young life, was white as death, and shaking like an aspen. I could see the beads of sweat oozing out on his pale forehead. "For God's sake," he implored, "don't say that to me; I can't bear it! Until you told me just now I swear to you by all I hold sacred–by my sister's love, which I so little deserve–that I never dreamed of Harvey Farnham's being dead. You may believe me or not, as you like, but you'reherfriend, so I should be glad that you should believe. And, at least, you owe it to me in common justice to hear what I've got to say.
"Collins always managed to keep his eye on me, and knew my whereabouts and my doings, making me feel that at any moment he could come down on me if he chose. I daresay he had other men in his power like that, men whom he thought he might wish to make his tools at one time or other. I didn't often hearfrom him, though I knew myself shadowed, and knew also, only too well, whom I had to thank for it. You can't guess the horror of the feeling, or how it got on my nerves. I fancied it would drive me to madness or suicide one day, always knowing I was watched, that I could never, try as I would, escape that Eye, which was really Willis Collins's, spying me out across the ocean.
"Well, a cablegram came from him commanding rather than asking me to go to England, saying that it would be much to my advantage to do so, and that my fare and all expenses would at once be sent me in advance. There was just a hint that I had better not refuse, which I understood as well as if it had been a definite threat; and, anyhow, there was a certain attractiveness in the idea of going home–I hadn't seen Karine or England for so long.
"I didn't mean to let my sister know of my presence–I would have spared her that–but I fancied myself standing among the crowd in the Park, watching her drive by, or somethingof that sort. Even a glimpse of her face would have been sweet.
"But when I arrived one of the first things Wildred did was to tell me that he knew the Tressidys, with whom Karine was living, that he had heard my sister often speak of me, and that he would secretly arrange a meeting between us. I couldn't resist the temptation of having a few words with her when it was offered for the asking, and I saw her at the House by the Lock. An excuse was made to bring her and Lady Tressidy there–something about a portrait of Karine that was in a queer room called the 'studio'–and while Wildred was showing Lady Tressidy over the house I saw my sister, and had a talk with her. She felt grateful to Wildred for bringing it about, and fool that I was, I didn't suspect the deep game he meant to play with her, using me as the decoy. I thought he had merely been willing to take the trouble that he might get the more work out of me when he wanted it, though what the work was for which he had brought me to England I didn't yet know.
"After that first meeting with Karine I had given Wildred my word never to try and see her again; now I understand why. He wished to revive all the old love she had felt by the sight of me, awaken her sympathy for my troubles, when she should learn his version of them from his lips, and then keep me from her, lest I should hear that he had asked her to be his wife, threatening to betray me if she did not accept, and so, in spite of my cowardice (for I am a moral coward), setting me against him, to be his slave and tool no more.
"When I had been in England about three or four weeks, keeping out of the way of anyone who might possibly remember me, Wildred suggested the scheme of my travelling back to America, impersonating Farnham, and finally finishing the plot, as I did finish it to-night. He admitted that it was for this he had sent for me, but swore Farnham himself was in the thing as deep as he; that it meant a fortune to them both, which they were to share, and which could be had in no other way. He explained that Farnham had had bad luck in speculations,was bankrupt, hadn't the pluck to begin over again on the lowest rounds of the ladder, nor to undertake carrying out this plan himself. He would funk the fire business, Wildred said, and might, instead of escaping, actually be burned to death. The object to be gained, of course, I was made to believe, was getting the life assurance. Farnham was supposed to have several policies, each one for an enormous sum; he had left everything of which he should die possessed, life assurance and all the rest, to Wildred, who would actually go halves with Farnham when the money should be secured.
"I have nothing of my own, you know, except what I can make by my wits, for my father disinherited me, and I've had just a little too much pride ever to take anything from Karine. Wildred offered me ten thousand pounds to work this business for him; half to be paid down, half when the thing had been successfully carried through to the close.
"Of course, I had sense enough to know it was a villainous fraud, but I've never been veryscrupulous, and it was easy to persuade myself that I owed Harvey Farnham a good turn for what he did for me in the past. Besides, I wanted the money, and there was five thousand in notes (Wildred was too sly to give a cheque) on the table for me to take or leave. I didn't see that I was going to do much harm to anybody except the insurance companies, who are rich enough to lose, as Farnham hadn't a relative in the world; but before heaven, if I'd dreamed of the truth, I'd have let Wildred do his worst before I'd have gone in with him.
"As for the Santa Anna, I knew that every board of the hotel was assured–the landlord would lose nothing, and after I'd kindled the fire I knocked like mad on your door. I fancy, though you didn't know it, it must have been that which first began to rouse you. I didn't give myself much time to get out, after taking off the disguise (which I flatter myself I did pretty well), but I just managed it. I can tell you I was desperate when I walked in here and found you; but now I was never so thankful for anything in the course of my life."
"The present question is, then," I said, "whether you will go straight to England with me and tell all you know about Carson Wildred? If we stopped on this side, to prove things step by step as we went, we should labour under two disadvantages. It would mean indefinite delay, and you would get into trouble about that business at the hotel to-night. To sail at once for England, and let matters here take care of themselves for the present, is our only plan, I think. What do you say?"
"You are sure that Wildred can't swear my life away?"
"As sure as I am that we are both alive at this moment."
"Then I'm in your hands. I'll save my sister, and I'll get even with Wildred for making a tool and a dupe of me."
"By the time we have landed on the other side," I answered, "there'll still be a clear fortnight to do the first, and I think we may accomplish the latter transaction simultaneously."
We had a stormy passage, and arrived at Southampton four-and-twenty hours later than we should have done. It was Cunningham who bought a paper as we got into the train. I was too completely preoccupied to have absorbed a line of news, even had my eyes mechanically perused the printed matter. Cunningham (who was always restless, and could not bear to be left at the mercy of his own thoughts) read incessantly, however, and at the end of half an hour or so handed over his paper to me.
"Look at this," he said, with some eagerness, pointing out a paragraph. I glanced at it carelessly at first, but in an instant I was as keen as Cunningham had been.
"Another Fortune for a Millionaire," the paragraph was headed, and beneath was set forth the interesting fact that Mr. Carson Wildred,who was shortly to marry Miss Cunningham, the celebrated beauty and heiress, had just heard of a legacy of half a million pounds, left him by an American friend, Mr. Harvey Farnham, lately burned to death in a San Francisco hotel.
"So you see it wasn't only the mine, and the money he should have paid for the mine, he wanted," said Cunningham. "Oh, he's a marvellous chap, this Wildred!"
I acquiesced in this opinion, and recalled a remark made in the club by a mutual acquaintance. "Carson Wildred is always inheriting fortunes from chaps that die at the four corners of the globe," he had curiously announced. I wondered grimly, as I remembered the speech, whether all these benefactors had met their death after the manner of poor Harvey Farnham.
Time was pressing now, and our idea was to go straight to Karine, I to appear only as the supporter of her brother. A desire for the punishment of Wildred might have held a prominent place both in Cunningham's mindand mine, but our first thought was to save Karine from becoming the murderer's wife.
She must be disabused of the belief that her brother was in any way in Wildred's power. She must know that, as Cunningham expressed it, the "shoe was on the other foot." She must be shown the black depths of Carson Wildred's villainy, and be dragged back from the brink of the precipice on which she had stood.
Ours was a quick train, and went straight through to London without stopping. After arriving at Waterloo station, therefore, we were obliged to wait for nearly an hour before we could get another which would take us to Haslemere.
A curious feeling that I had passed through all this before came over me, and as we stepped out of our carriage on the platform of the Haslemere station it seemed but yesterday that I had arrived at the same place, intent on bidding Karine that farewell which never had been spoken.
The time of day gave me the only sense of difference. We had left the ship early in themorning, had made our first journey in two hours, and now it was only very little past noon.
I had wished (considering the reception I had met at Sir Walter Tressidy's on my first and last visit at his country house) to remain at an hotel in Haslemere, there to await such news as Cunningham might have to bring. For Karine's sake, I thought, it would be better for me not to appear openly in the matter, unless it proved that the influence of her brother and his narrative were not as potent in their effect as I anticipated. Should he require any attestations from me, I was only too glad to be on the spot and to be called upon to give them.
Cunningham, however, had overruled this programme of mine. No one could tell, he said, how he might be received. He might be sorely in need of me to back him up–perhaps even to prove the truth of his otherwise unsupported assertions.
The Tressidys, he alleged, were peculiar. Though his sister had not confided in him, heknew that she was unhappy with them. They had very little money of their own on which to keep up the appearance they wished to make in the eyes of their world, and Cunningham did not believe that Lady Tressidy would be above accepting a heavy bribe from Wildred for furthering his suit, by almost any means, with poor Karine.
Half against my will, therefore, yet not wholly with reluctance, I must confess, I entered the carriage which was to drive us both to the house where a few weeks ago I had been so ruthlessly repulsed.
"Thank heaven!" I said, as we rattled up the hill (perhaps in the same vehicle which had driven me before), "that the storm wasn't just a degree more severe in crossing. It was touch and go with us one day, at all events, I believe; but a fraction worse, and we shouldn't have been here now to stand between Miss Cunningham and that villain. A week or ten days more, perhaps, and even if we'd reached her we might have been too late."
There was a certain tumultuous joy in myheart, far removed from happiness, yet intoxicating as new wine. Karine might never be mine, but she was saved, and it would be I who had saved her. I could never be regarded by her quite with indifference after this day.
As we drove we made various hurried plans as to what we should do if we were refused admittance. We were determined at least to see Karine, even if we were obliged to force our way into her presence.
As we got out of the carriage and ran up the four or five broad stone steps that led to the front door, something crackled under our feet like exaggerated grains of sand. We were far enough, however, from guessing the nature of the foreign substance that was thus crushed beneath our disregarding boot-soles.
The door was opened by a smiling footman. He was not the man I had previously seen, and evidently, judging from the genial flush on his face and the twinkle in his eye, something agreeable or amusing had recently taken place. He tried to draw his countenance into the conventional lines of footman-like solemnity, but,his eyes lighting upon Cunningham, the expression changed to one of surprise. Very possibly he noted the similarity of colouring between the brother and sister, and a certain vague haunting likeness that would show itself at times.
"If Miss Cunningham is at home, tell her that her brother has come and wishes to see her immediately on a matter of importance," said my companion, valiantly taking the bull by the horns.
"Miss Cunningham is not at home, sir," replied the servant. "She–that is–in fact, sir, she has just left us for good and all. She–she was married, sir, at half-past ten o'clock this morning, and the wedding breakfast's only been over since an hour ago."
The gritty substance under our feet had been the rice thrown, as though in mockery, after Karine as she passed to her carriage on her husband's arm.
"Do you know where the–the bride and groom have gone?" questioned Cunningham, grudgingly.
"No, sir. I heard Lady Tressidy say only this morning that even she hadn't been told. Mr. Wildred had some idea of a surprise, I believe, sir."
The fact that not only had my companion claimed to be the brother of the bride, but that his facial expression and colouring answered for his truth, caused the fellow to feel apparently that we had a right to explanations.
There was no use in endeavouring to make further enquiries. Even if Lady Tressidy or Sir Walter did know the destination of the newly-wedded pair, it was more than improbable that they would be ready to share theirknowledge with us. And it was like Carson Wildred to be prepared even for the very emergency which had now arisen, by taking just such precautions as he had.
Had we not been impatient and chosen the steep road, less often travelled than the other, we should no doubt have met the carriage which drove the bridal couple to the Haslemere station. Another exemplification of the old proverb, that "the more haste, the less speed." We could now only repair our mistake, if it still admitted of reparation, by giving chase with such speed as was practicable.
I gave the order to the coachman, "Drive to the station as quick as you can," and in another moment we were off.
Fate seemed to have ordained that I should meet nothing save disappointment at this door; but to-day's experience had brought me something far deeper and more cruel than mere disappointment. I had not counted upon the chance that Wildred would be permitted to hurry on the wedding during my absence, and now I felt as though a chasm had suddenlyyawned under my feet. Karine was Carson Wildred's wife!
"What are we to do?" questioned her brother dully. "We can't leave her with him, you know."
Leave her with him! The very fact that I was obliged to answer him gave me back the power of concentrating thought. A moment before my mind had been a blank, a chaos; but now I returned, unhesitatingly–
"We'll find out where they've gone, and have him arrested and your sister taken from him before nightfall."
"But supposing they've gone abroad–which is what they very likely mean–before we can catch them?"
"Wemustcatch them. There won't be a train till later in the afternoon by which they can get away now. They'd have to go by the night boat, if it was France. Somehow or other–though everything seems against us, and we are only two, where there ought to be a dozen going in as many ways at once–we'll circumvent that devil yet."
"You have plenty of confidence in yourself," said Cunningham. "Perhaps you don't know Carson Wildred as well as I do."
I did not answer, though the words rang ominously in my ears. I was very busy with my own thoughts.
As soon as we could find out where Wildred had taken Karine (even within my own mind I would not call her his wife), we must lodge such information with the police that he could be arrested at once, either on English or foreign soil, as the case might be. A man accused of murder, as he would be, could, fortunately, be apprehended anywhere.
At Haslemere station they could only inform us that the party of which we were in search had had tickets for London, and had left about three-quarters of an hour before our arrival.
Even if we could have told our story with sufficient succinctness to have Wildred met at Waterloo by the police, there would have been no time to do so. We must simply follow as we could. Luckily there was a slow train duein a few moments, otherwise I think we (I at least) must have gone mad with the strain of waiting.
At Waterloo we heard of them. A porter had taken their luggage and put it on a cab. The gentleman and lady had driven away in a private carriage. What direction had been given to the coachman or the cabman he had not happened to hear.
I now proposed that Cunningham should proceed immediately to Scotland Yard, while I busied myself elsewhere. He was the one who could tell of the plot by which he had personated Farnham in America, by Wildred's desire, and in the hope of obtaining a substantial bribe. The authorities were already in possession of such separate information as I could give, and now that they would learn from Cunningham how Farnham had never gone to America at all, a very different and more lurid light would be shed upon the past.
Meanwhile I would drive to Charing Cross, and might yet be in time to intercept the couple if they were intending to depart for France.
At Charing Cross they had not appeared, and hastening to a telegraph office, I sent messages containing Wildred's description and Karine's to every one of the principal railway stations in London. Replies were paid, and were to be received for me at the Charing Cross Hotel. Having done so much, I drove to the piers from which the Holland boats sailed; then, having discovered nothing, back to Charing Cross again. The train which would catch the night boat at Dover was just about going out, but Wildred and Karine were not visible.
When the last moment had come and gone I betook myself to the hotel, where my telegrams were to await me. I also looked for Cunningham, who was to have met me there, after Scotland Yard, and decided upon forthcoming arrangements. Despatches were awaiting me from the head porters of various stations–Victoria, Euston, Paddington, and so on–but no Cunningham had as yet appeared.
I opened the message from Paddington last; the others had no news for me, but it seemedthat at Paddington a lady and gentleman, apparently answering the description given, had taken tickets for Maidenhead. All the blood in my body seemed to mount to my head. Unless there had been a mistake in the identity, Wildred must have carried Karine off to the House by the Lock!
It was horrible to me that she should be there. The thought of the house, and what I believed had happened to Harvey Farnham under its roof, was abhorrent. Why had he chosen to take his young bride, on the day of their marriage, to that gloomy and accursed spot? A strange thrill of apprehension, vague, yet none the less dreadful, shook my nerves.
I consulted the latest A.B.C. time-table, which lay in the reading-room of the hotel. In exactly an hour another train would leave Paddington for Maidenhead and Marlow (the nearest stations to Purley Lock), and after that there would not be another until ten o'clock.
I should not have much more than time to catch the former, if I intended to go by it–andIdidintend to go. Exactly what I was to do, how I was to get Karine away from her husband, I did not dare stop to think, but somehow I would do it. So great was my dread of Wildred as a criminal, and my respect for him as a schemer, that I even feared dimly for Karine's safety with him. It was madness to entertain such a doubt, I assured myself, for great heiress as she was, Karine was lovely enough and sweet enough to inspire genuine love even in so cold-hearted a villain as Wildred.
He might tire of her in the end, but for the present her life, at least, would be safe with him. So I repeated mentally, over and over again; but still I was pricked with a boding fear for more than her peace of mind. Why had he taken her to that grim, hateful house by the river?
I would have wished to wait for Cunningham, both because I wanted him with me, and because I was anxious to hear what he had done at Scotland Yard. However, he did not come, so I wired him to the latter place, left a short note for him also at the hotel, to be kept till called for, and started off in a cab (when I dared delay no longer) at breakneck pace for Paddington station.
I just caught the train I wanted, changed at Maidenhead, and arrived at Marlow by half-past eight o'clock. This time I had neither leisure nor inclination to walk, as upon my first visit to the place on Christmas Day, but took a fly, and offered the man an extra fare if he would make haste.
A little short of the House by the Lock I stopped him. A certain instinct seemed to bidme not be too ostentatious in the manner of announcing my arrival. I got out, and by the light of a round, red moon rising over black trees in the east I glanced at my watch. It was five-and-twenty past nine. The whole day, since my arrival at Southampton in the morning, had gone in searching for Karine, and it might be that I was as far from success now as I had been in the beginning.
A hundred yards away a small yellow light shone steadily through the moon-tinged darkness. I thought it came from the House by the Lock, though the one poor ray made but scant cheer of illumination for a bride's homecoming.
"Wait here for me," I said to the driver. "I may come within half an hour, I may be much longer; but, at all events, wait. Here is a sovereign for you, and you shall have as much again when I return."
The tone of his voice told me that he was suspicious, as well as curious, regarding the mysterious intentions of his fare; but I was sure that he would not fail me. Two poundswere not to be so easily picked up every evening.
I walked on rapidly. As I approached the House by the Lock I lost sight of the yellow gleam which for some time had guided me, but the moon glinted bleakly on the staring panes of dark, upper windows.
Desolate as the place had appeared at the hour of sunset, it had had an air of hospitable welcome at that time compared to that which it wore now. Never, it seemed to me, had I seen a habitation so grim, so silently suggestive of haunting, evil things. The face of the moon, as it rose, lost the ruddy hue which had coloured it nearer the horizon, and its paling disc was swept by black and ragged storm clouds. The wind moaned through the trees like the wail of a lost soul, and there was a stealthy, monotonous lapping of the dark waters so close at hand.
Other sound there was none, and, though I had seen the small ray from a distance, now–so far as I could ascertain–not a window in the whole gloomy pile was lighted.
I went up the path, knocked, and rang the bell, which sent back jangling echoes, such as belong in one's fancy to an uninhabited house. From a distant kennel a dog began to bay. Otherwise I was not answered, and as I rang and thundered on the knocker again, the animal's voice at length subsided into a protesting whine.
I ought by this time to have been sure that Wildred and Karine were not in the house, but, on the contrary, I was by no means certain of that fact. Mentally I argued that, if the master was absent, a caretaker or servant would certainly have been left, and unless a stone-deaf person had been selected for the post my violent alarms would have brought him to me.
If any reason existed, however, why the door should not be opened, it would be easy to understand how and why the caretaker might be suddenly afflicted with an inability to hear.
Instead of being plunged into discouragement, an ever-kindling fire of rage mounted within me. Rather than go away ignorant asto whether Karine was hidden in this hateful house or not, I would force an entrance. I sprang down the steps and went to one of the bow windows nearest the door.
Not an instant's hesitation had I in kicking in one of the panes of glass, but, as it happened, I had only my trouble for my pains. There were solidly-barred shutters inside, so heavy that even I, strong man as I was, could not break them open.
Furious now, I ran up to the door again, and drove my gloved fist through the glass in one of the curious, six-inch-wide window panes that ran the length of the door on either side. The shivered glass jingled sharply on the polished wood of the floor inside, and I thrust in my arm up to the elbow, hoping to get at the lock on the door within. As I did so footsteps came running in the distance.
"Here! Here! What's the matter with you?" cried an imperative voice.
I had heard it before, I remembered. It was that of the eminently respectable-looking servant who had so cleverly defended his master'sreputation on the occasion of my former visit to the House by the Lock.
"If you're a burglar," remarked the voice, "you'd better go away while you can. I have a revolver, and my hand is on the trigger now."
"I am no burglar," I returned. "This is not exactly the time of night to expect such gentry, is it? But you've kept me waiting long enough. I wish to see your master and mistress, whom I happen to know are here this evening, and I don't mean to go away without doing it."
The man inside chuckled.
"Nice way of announcing yourself, ain't it, sir? But as it happens you'll have to go elsewhere to see my master and the new mistress. I don't know where they are–it ain't likely I should–but Idoknow they aren't inthishouse, where there isn't a solitary soul but me. As for the time of night, that's neither here nor there, so long as I'd chosen to go to bed; and I can't dress all of a minute to please anybody that likes to come banging at thedoor. You deserve to be had up for damaging the house, that you do, whoever you may be."
There was a ring of virtuous indignation in the voice, and for a few seconds' length I hesitated. Perhaps, after all, the fellow was telling the truth. I was very certain of his capacity for lying, but it might well be that Wildred and Karine had not really come here. Still—
Far away a door slammed sharply, and just in time to decide me. The manhadlied. He had just told me that he was alone in the house, and this one sound had unmistakably proved the falsehood. It was not the sort of noise with which the wind shuts a door, even had the wind been violent enough to do so, and windows open to admit it. The latch had been lifted by a human hand.
The servant, who was entirely out of my sight, began talking hurriedly, jabbering any nonsense, as though to cover what had happened. I listened intently, and through his chattering I fancied that I could hear–subduedwith distance and intervening walls–the sound of a woman's crying.
My heart seemed to leap into my throat. I could feel the blood throbbing almost to bursting at my temples.
"You liar!" I roughly exclaimed. "Theyarehere, and I will see them, if I have to break the door down!"
"Try it, then!" the man cried, tauntingly. "Just try it–and you may try all night. Ta, ta! Good-bye, and good luck to you!"
I heard his feet tapping swiftly along the uncovered floor as he ran away. Another door was opened and closed, and he was out of earshot.
Desperately I again endeavoured to find the lock. It was no use. Thrust in my arm as far as I might I could not touch it, and though I broke the narrow pane on the other side as well, the fastenings of the door were beyond my reach.
With all my strength I flung myself against the door, but the heavy wood stood firm as though it had been a sheet of iron. There wasevidently no hope in that direction, and dizzy with my own rage and desperation, I began attempting some of the windows. But all were secured with the impregnable shutters and bars inside, and it would have seemed that the inmates of the House by the Lock were prepared to stand a siege.
Whether it was Karine whom I believed I had heard weeping or not, I could not be sure. I could not even have taken my oath that there had been such a sound at all, but I was morally certain of it.
I ran round the house, trying in vain to batter in another door, and was met everywhere by silence and darkness. At the side, however, I came at last upon the extension with the tower, whence I had seen the suspicious smoke and flame pouring on that memorable Christmas afternoon. Over the roof of the low "studio," which possessed no windows, I could see a faint yellow glow, like a luminous halo or crown, and suddenly, as I stood regarding it in some bewilderment, I recollected the skylight which I had observed from within.
If I could in some way climb to the top, break through the glass and let myself down, the problem as to how I should get into the house would be effectually solved.
It now struck me that the studio, as seen from outside, was disproportionately large compared with the room inside, as I remembered it. There had been only the one, which apparently constituted the sole purpose of the building, and yet it appeared to me that there might have been space for two of the same small size.
Low as the erection was it was too high for me to climb, and I began hastily looking about for some means of assistance in carrying out my plan.
In the coach-house, I thought, there might be a ladder, and thither I repaired without delay. But the doors were padlocked, and try them as I might I could not open them.
What was I to do? The more difficulties which encumbered my path, the more did I determine to surmount them. Returning towards the house I noticed a large rustic seatplaced under an ancient apple tree, and it occurred to me that if I could balance the article against the projection of the building I might, by standing it on end, use it as an improvised ladder. If I could only mount for a certain distance I could pull myself up by the ledge of stonework which ran along the edge of the flat roof.
The light which apparently filtered through the skylight had warned me to be cautious in my movements. Whoever was in the house must have known long ago that someone was determined upon forcing an entrance, but, judging by the laughing taunts of the servant, it would be believed that the boast had been a vain one.
If anyone was in the studio it might be as well if, for a few moments at least, I could see without being seen or heard. I therefore went about my preparations as quietly as possible.
I dragged the rustic seat across the grass and set it in an angle between the tower and the low building of the studio, giving it a certain slanting inclination, that it might not fallwhen burdened with my weight. Then I scrambled up, not venturing to pause for an instant at the top, for I could feel that the thing was slowly beginning to slide from under me.
With a leap I caught the ledge of stone that ran round the roof, and setting my knee against the wall, helped myself up. It may read simply enough when written down in black and white, but it was rather a difficult task in the accomplishment, and I felt that I had reason to congratulate myself on my own success when it was done.
Framed in a margin of dark roof eight to ten feet in width was the skylight, through which penetrated a subdued radiance.
Cautiously, noiselessly, I crawled to the round bubble of glass and looked down. A curtain of embroidered Indian silk was drawn half across, but through the open space that was left I could see something of the interior.
The jewelled lamp which I had previously observed hanging from the centre alone illumined the octagonal room. Now that I wason the roof I was able to appreciate more than ever the smallness of the studio. There was space for a wide passage running all the way round, between the inner walls and the outer walls. I suspected method in this design–a secret which Wildred had cleverly contrived to hide, and which, in conjunction with the mystery of the tower, might account for much that had been dark before.
As I looked a figure passed into my line of vision. It was Wildred walking restlessly up and down with his hands behind him. I could hear the murmur of his voice, though through the glass of the skylight the words were not distinguishable.
Suddenly there came a sharp exclamation in a woman's voice, and my heart gave a responsive bound. Wildred was talking to Karine, and it was she who had answered him with a cry.
I had not expected, when I decided upon trying to enter like a burglar through the skylight, that Karine would be in the studio. It would doubtless frighten her very much if Ishould suddenly make my appearance beside her amid a shower of broken glass, and I hesitated so to alarm her, unless the man down there was already commencing to use his power to torment her. If she would only go out and leave me to give Wildred a surprise I would have been thankful; but as I could not hope for her to do that, I determined to know what her companion was saying to her, which had caused her to exclaim in astonishment or perhaps in fear.
I took out my pocket-knife, and with great care to avoid all noise I began to loosen one of the small diamond-shaped panes from its leaden setting. As soon as it was released at one end I slipped the point of the knife underneath and so raised it that there might be no danger of its falling downward and startling those within the room.
I bent my ear over the tiny aperture. It made all the difference in the world. I could now hear every word that Wildred was saying.
"I have always, and with some reason, I think," was the first sentence that I caught, "considered myself a man of more than average mental ability. I am usually prepared for any traps which can possibly be sprung for me; but in this instance I find I have made my one mistake. I believed in a woman's devotion. Probably it serves me right to have been deceived. Since you have found it all out through her, I may as well admit to you that it is true. She did live here. Nobody suspected her presence, or even her existence. She was very useful to me in many ways. If she had proved troublesome I could have rid myself of her at any time, and she knew it. Insteadof doing what I ought to have done, I believed that she was willing to go away without betraying me, and I let her go free with a present of a thousand pounds. She could even have asked for more when that was gone, and I would not have refused her. I was a fool ever to marry her, but she was the handsomest woman I had seen at that time, and as you know I was some years younger, some degrees more impulsive than I am now. I was still more of a fool not to have put her out of the way, knowing what she did–but as I remarked, that was the mistake of a lifetime. She has told you such of my secrets as she knew, she has shown you certain things in this house which have very naturally displeased and shocked you. She timed her return very well–jealous idiot!–but she will pay for what she has done."
"How will she pay?"
I could not see Karine, but I could hear her voice, vibrant with the fear and horror that she felt.
"Better not ask; the question doesn't concernyou. She will simply become familiarised with the secrets of the House by the Lock in a manner upon which she didn't count, that's all."
"I had never pictured Satan himself so cruel, so horrible as you," cried Karine. "I thank heaven, now that I know through this wretched woman what you really are, that not I, but she is your wife!"
"Yet you must remain with me, as though you knew nothing but what I would have had you know, for your own sake and your brother's.
"Had it not been for that foolish creature, who has ruined herself in trying to ruin you and me, we might have been happy together, Karine. I admire you more than any woman on earth, for you are certainly the most beautiful, and your coldness to a man of my temperament has only added to your attractions as a girl. As a married woman it would have been different. I meant to make you love me; and even now, Karine, what has happened that need change anything between us? You arenot a conventional little fool, as are some women I could name, and the love of a man like me must create some impression on your nature. The obstacle which you think stands between us shall be removed, the marriage ceremony can again be performed over us–secretly, if you choose. No one will be the wiser, and as in any event you must stay here in my house—"
"I will not. Somehow God will help me to escape, and then, when I am free from you, I shall let such friends as I may have left deal with you as you deserve."
"It's difficult to see how you will get away. It's true I did not dream that Marion would be here to greet us or I would not have brought you to this house. But now that you are in it you will stay. No one knows that we are here–no one in your world, at least–and I intend that we shall have a protracted honeymoon. You heard how some vagabond, some tramp who wished to get in, failed just now? Well, it is just as difficult for strangers toescapefrom the House by the Lock as it is for themto effect an entrance. For instance, you and I are now cut off by means of a sliding iron door from the old portion of the house. From this there is absolutely no way out, unless I allow it, save one, and that way two or three people have already found by going through a certain little door hidden behind the hangings. I'll show it to you, if you like, or perhaps the lady who told you so much has told you that as well?"
"She has. She told me all about poor Mr. Farnham, how you made him believe you a friend to be trusted, how you induced him to smoke opium–here in this very room–this awful room–till he was dazed and unconscious, and how he only roused from his stupor just as you were going to burn him alive in your horrible crematory. She told me how the furnace went wrong at the last moment and you had to kill him in a different way from what you had planned–less easy for you, more dangerous of discovery. Oh, the horror of listening to those details, for she spared me nothing–nothing! I heard from her how Mr.Stanton came in the midst of the dreadful happenings on Christmas Day, how she saw him through the door, and afterwards, when he had spoken to the police, how you bribed her with jewels and money to pretend that she was your cook, that she had screamed with the pain of burning her foot, and how she painted her ankle to look like a red scar when she had to show some proof of her story. She would have been true to you through everything, she said–poor misguided woman–if she had not been taken ill and stopped in London instead of going to France, as she had promised, and so seen in the papers about our coming marriage. What mockery to call it that; and yet, I thank heaven that it need only be mockery–that it is not real.
"I wonder that the shock of finding that woman concealed in my room–waiting for me to come–did not drive me mad. But I am not mad, and such wit as I have I warn you I shall devote to thwarting you, Carson Wildred. Do you think I could go on living under the same roof with you, even if I were in reality yourwife? No, you can kill me if you like; it is the only way in which you can keep me here."
He did not answer for an instant, then he said slowly, "Do you remember just putting your name on a paper I asked you to sign for me with my stylographic pen in the train this afternoon? Well, you thought it was merely an order for letters to be sent on to your new address, but it was something rather more important than that. You put your name to a document which leaves all the money of which you die possessed unreservedly to me. I have already had it witnessed by my servant and another. You understand to what this points, perhaps? If you show yourself amenable to reason I shall consider you a wife to be proud of, and there is no ambition which we need cherish in vain if we are to live our lives together. But, on the other hand, unless you will go heart and soul with me, ignoring the past, you have to-day been told too much for my safety or–your own. What if you should catch a serious cold here at the House by theLock? Unfortunately, the place is rather damp, though so charming in many ways. You might have an attack of pneumonia. Only fancy how the world would sympathise with the husband of so beautiful and popular a girl as yourself if he were bereaved of you during the honeymoon?"
"Oh, you are horrible–horrible! It is like death even to listen to you!" cried Karine. "If only there was a soul on earth to help me–but there's none–none!"
His answer, if he had made one, was drowned in the crashing of glass. Better that she should be startled, even to the point of swooning, rather than endure for another second the torture that that fiend was inflicting upon her.
I broke in the skylight with the heavy stick which I had brought up to the roof between my teeth. Then, with hands cut and bleeding, despite the protection of my gloves, I swung myself down and dropped on to the floor.
There was a cry from Karine, and a sharp exclamation of dismayed astonishment fromWildred, for once outwitted. I had never been a match for him in diplomacy, but when it came to a physical encounter, I had every advantage over him, and I knew it.
He had no time to pull out the knife or revolver, for which his hand flew to his pocket, for I was on him, taking him by the throat and shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat.
I had not stopped even to look at Karine, and yet the vision of her pale face and hands clasped over her bosom had flashed, lightning-like, upon my consciousness. "Thank heaven! thank heaven!" I could hear her sob. I hoped that she did not look–that she had closed her eyes, or covered them with her hands, but Wildred did not give me time to make suggestions. He was more nimble, if he was less strong, than I.
I could feel, through all his writhings, that he was trying to force me along with him towards a certain corner of the room, and, realising it, resolved to thwart him, whatever his object might be. I had come to the knowledge exactly one second too late, however. He hadmanaged to place his foot on a bell concealed under one of the rugs on the floor, and I heard its summons go pealing shrilly out through the house.
I remembered how I had looked for a bell in this room once before; it was scarcely to be wondered at, considering its position, that I had not found it.
In another moment the servant-accomplice would come to the assistance of his master. Had it not been for Karine's presence I felt that I should not have found it difficult in my present mood to have held them both in check, but as it was I should greatly have preferred only one antagonist.
The struggle in which I was engaged with Wildred had degenerated into a species of wrestling match. I had him down on one knee at last, and bending his arms behind him while he poured forth a volley of deadly oaths–his strange, light eyes flashing into mine–I attempted to tie his hands together with my silk handkerchief, wound into a slip-knot I had learned to make at sea.
He was slippery as a serpent in my grasp, and it was taking all I knew to manage him, when a cry from Karine gave me the first warning that I was attacked from behind.
The confidential man had stolen in as noiselessly as I had crept upon the roof and to the skylight.
"Take that, then!" I heard him snarl savagely, and a low exclamation from my darling told me that in some way he had revenged himself upon her. For an instant I lost my presence of mind and my hold upon Wildred. Involuntarily I turned to go to Karine's rescue, and the movement was a fatal one. Wildred was up like a rod of steel that has been forcibly bent backward. The two threw themselves upon me together. I felt a sharp, hot pain run fiercely through my side, and knew that I had been stabbed. My one thought was for the girl. If they worked their will upon me, and killed me before her eyes, what was to become of her?
"Run, Karine–escape!" I panted. I could not see her, but I was assured that she had notobeyed by the loud screams for help which she was desperately uttering.
Again I got Wildred down, but the other man was on top of me, and for the second time I felt the burning pain, this time in my shoulder. I fought like a mad creature now, with the intent to kill, which I had not had before; but the conviction grew within me that, battle as I might, the effort would be all in vain.
Sparks danced before my eyes, and then everything grew dim. Out of chaos came a shriek from Karine. Could it be a cry of joy? What reason was there for rejoicing?
But there followed a renewed crashing of glass, the muffled thud of feet descending from a height upon the soft surface of rugs, and the sound of men's voices.
It seemed to me that Cunningham's was among them, but a strange, cold pall of darkness enveloped me, and I knew no more.
Afterwards I learned how it was that Cunningham, with two detectives from ScotlandYard, had arrived in the very "nick of time."
His statements to the police authorities had been necessarily so elaborate, and had been deemed so extraordinary, that it had taken some time to create the desired impression at headquarters.
He had been still at "The Yard" when my wire had arrived. When at last he had induced the "powers that be" to grant a warrant for Wildred's arrest on suspicion of having murdered Harvey Farnham, and to send a couple of men to the House by the Lock, where my telegram had announced that he was probably to be found, it was too late to catch anything save the ten o'clock train.
Having reached the door of the grim old mansion, Karine's cries for help, ringing out upon the night through the broken skylight, had told them in which direction to proceed, and they had used the same method of surmounting the obstacles which I had adopted and left for them.
The servant was secured, but Wildred, seeingwith his usual quickness that all hope of escape was over, had shot himself through the heart before the officers could reach him. So died a man who had accomplished the death of many another, and through his humble accomplice (who now breaks stones at Portland), and the wretched wife found prisoned in a room upstairs, the secrets of his numerous crimes and the dark House by the Lock were revealed.
It was not for many a day after that night's terrible experience that I heard all the truth. What with the two wounds I had received, and the strain of the past few weeks, which had begun to tell upon me at last, for a time I lay in rather a precarious condition. But one morning I woke to consciousness, and found that the beautiful face which had been near me in my dreams was present in reality. Karine and her brother had nursed me through more than a fortnight's illness.
Had I been quite myself I would have felt that then was not the time to speak of love to the girl who had endured so much. But thewords were uttered before my judgment would let me restrain them, as it so often had done in the first sweet, sad days of our acquaintance.
"Forgive me," I said weakly. "I'm a brute. You've been such an angel to me–and I oughtn't to have told you now."
"Oughtn't you?" she answered softly. "Do you remember my saying one evening at the Savoy Hotel that there was only one thing in the world which might even then keep me from making a marriage that was horrible to me?"
"I remember well," I returned. "I remember everything you ever said to me. Will you tell me what that one thing was?"
"I meantif you had loved me. Sometimes I–thought you did, but you would never say so. You only asked to be 'my friend.'"
"Oh, if I had but known–if I had but dared!" I exclaimed. "I was perishing of love for you from the first night I ever saw your face. Is it too late now? I don't ask to be your friend, I ask to be everything–your lover, and your husband."
"And Igiveyou everything," she said.
So it came about that the sunshine of happiness drove forth the black shadows which would fain have lingered to haunt us like ghosts from the House by the Lock.
THE END