Little sleep had Fanny Sudlow that night. In the morning she arose weary and unrefreshed, but by that time she saw her duty clearly before her. How distasteful soever it might be to her to do so, it was evident that she must acquaint Mr. Melray with what she had seen and heard overnight in the garden. This was no commonplace instance of a pair of secret lovers, of two people meeting stealthily at midnight. With the knowledge strong upon her of what had happened under that roof one fatal September night and of all that had since occurred, no other course seemed open to her. It was a necessity from which she shrank with the most heartfelt repugnance, but she was powerless to help herself. Her first impulse had been to telegraph to Phil and ask him to meet her at Merehampton station. She would have given much, very much, to be able to confide her secret to him and so shift to his broad shoulders the responsibility of deciding what ought to be done next. But she called to mind the fact that Phil was on the Continent, having been sent there, in the interests of thePharos, to work up a certain subject which was just then attracting a good deal of public attention, and that the date of his return was uncertain. It was very unfortunate, but in nowise could it be helped.
She was almost glad, when she went downstairs, to find that Mr. Melray had left home for the day on business and would not be back till a late hour. A respite, however brief, was welcome.
It was something of an ordeal for her to be compelled to meet Denia at meal times, and yet, neither by tone, nor look, nor manner, allow anything to escape her which would tend to arouse the suspicions of that sharp-witted young woman. Fortunately the day was a wet one. There was no possibility of going out, consequently no opportunity was afforded Denia for a private gossip with Miss Sudlow. The latter kept close to the school-room, and, except at table, the two saw nothing of each other. The dowager Mrs. Melray, being unaware of Richard Dyson's return, made no inquiry about him; and so the day wore itself uneventfully away. There was no slightest sign to give warning of the storm that was so soon to break.
It was close upon eleven o'clock when Robert Melray reached home. He would have been annoyed had he found anyone waiting up for him except the one man-servant who was kept at Loudwater House. His supper had been laid for him in the dining-room. "You can fasten up, Johnson, and get to bed as soon as you like," he said to the man as he took off his overcoat in the hall. "I shall not want you any more to-night."
Robert Melray had finished his supper and was glancing somewhat sleepily over theTimes, when a low knock at the door startled him into wakefulness. His surprise was not lessened when, in response to his "Come in," the door opened and he saw that his untimely visitor was none other than Miss Sudlow.
Of Fanny's apologies for her intrusion, and of the narrative she presently proceeded to unfold to her wondering listener, it is not requisite that we should speak in detail. What she had to tell is already known to the reader.
"It is an odious duty, Mr. Melray, that I have taken upon myself," she said in conclusion, with a little break in her voice, "but I felt that no other course was open to me."
"None whatever, Miss Sudlow. You have done your duty, and I honour you for it; indeed, I may add that I am infinitely obliged to you."
That he was terribly pained and distressed by what had just been told him was plainly evident. Sick at heart, Fanny left him. Just then she devoutly wished that she had never set foot across the threshold of Loudwater House.
Mention has been made of a certain Miss Annabel Glyn. Till within six months of the date at which we have now arrived the young woman in question had been a milliner's assistant in one of the Merehampton shops. Then, by the death of an uncle in Australia, she had come in for a fortune of eight thousand pounds, whereupon she had at once thrown up her situation, and, till she could decide upon her future plans, had gone to lodge with the widow of a Captain Malcolm in the most fashionable part of Merehampton. Miss Glyn being of age and both her parents being dead, she was at liberty to bestow her hand and fortune on whomsoever she pleased.
Denia's information with regard to Dyson and Miss Glyn having been seen walking out together had reached her through a very simple channel. It so fell out that Charlotte Wallis (she who had been the first to find Mr. Melray's body and give the alarm), whose duties were partly those of own maid to young Mrs. Melray, had a brother who was a member of the very limited police force of Merehampton. It was through information furnished by him to his sister and passed on by the latter to her mistress, that Denia had based the interrogatory she put to Dyson in the garden. Still, she was willing to believe that Charlotte's brother might have been mistaken, more especially after Dyson's emphatic denial that he had ever been out walking with Annabel Glyn.
It was Thursday morning, the morning of the day following that of Mr. Melray's journey to London. Denia, Freddy, and Miss Sudlow breakfasted by themselves, Mr. Melray having requested that his tea and toast might be taken upstairs to his dressing-room. Denia had just left the table and was on her way back to her own room, when she was accosted by Charlotte. "If you please, ma'am," said the girl, "I have had a note this morning from my brother. I don't know whether you would care to read it, but in case you should I have left it on your dressing-table."
Be it noted that Charlotte was the only person, or so Denia believed, who had any knowledge or suspicion of the relations between Dyson and her mistress.
Denia nodded and passed on. Shutting the door of the room behind her, she went quickly up to the table and pounced on the note. She felt quite sure that Charlotte would not have left it for her to read had there not been something in it which nearly concerned her.
Here is what she read:
Dear Lotty,--This comes to inform you that on Tuesday evening, between nine and ten o'clock, I see Mr. R. D. and Miss G. a-walking out together. They passed close under a lamp by which, I was standing, so that I could not be mistaken about either one or the other. Still, to make quite sure, I thought I would follow them. I did so, and I see them part at Mrs. Malcolm's door. He kissed her, and then she rang the bell. Then he strolled back to his lodgings in Peelgate, I strolling after him; and that is all I know.
"Your loving brother,
"Edgar Wallis."
(It was at midnight on Tuesday that Dyson had kissed Denia in the garden.)
Ten minutes later Denia received a message to the effect that Mr. Melray would feel obliged if she would step downstairs to his office. "Something about money matters, I suppose," she said wearily to herself. She went at once, presaging nothing, fearing nothing. She was as one half dazed, who, having been struck down from behind, as yet can hardly realise what has happened to him. Although she was unaware of it, the note which had been to her as a message of doom was still clutched tightly between her fingers as she entered the room. Robert Melray was at once struck by the pallor of her face, and by a certain hard, cold glitter in her eyes such as he had never noticed in them before.
"Sit down, Dania; I have something of particular moment to say to you," he began, in no unkindly tones, indicating a chair at the table opposite his own. Then, opening the door of the outer office, he said: "Mr. Cray, will you be good enough to see that I am not disturbed by anybody till I ring." Then he turned the key of the door which opened into the side lane, after which he sat down facing Denia. It was evident to that clear-sighted young woman, even through her own perturbation, that he was extremely nervous and ill at ease.
With his elbows resting on the table and his fingers interlocked, he gazed at her for a few seconds with a sort of sad, wistful earnestness. Then clearing his voice he said: "I am a poor hand at a preface, or at leading up by degrees to anything I may have to say. In short, I cannot beat about the bush." For a moment he paused, and again he cleared his voice. "Denia, it has come to my knowledge that you and Richard Dyson were together in the garden at midnight on Tuesday. It was your hand that admitted him by way of the side-door."
He ceased, as though to afford her time to recover herself. The pallor of her face gave way to a great wave of colour which surged quickly up from her bosom to her cheeks and thence to the roots of her hair. For a few moments it remained thus, at high-water mark as it were, and then began to subside.
"His arm was round you," continued Robert, "he kissed you and you did not repulse him Only one inference can be drawn--that he and you are in love with each other."
Denia's bosom rose with the slow indrawing of her breath. It was one of those supreme moments when, brought to bay, one's whole future course in life may depend on the next few sentences that fall from one's lips.
"I believed that Richard Dyson loved me, but now I know that I was mistaken," said Denia in a low voice. "I loved him (or, perhaps, I only dreamt I did), but now--I hate him!"
"You hate him!" exclaimed Robert. "And yet, less than thirty-six hours ago, you allowed him unreproved to press his lips to yours."
"A great deal may happen in thirty-six hours. I loved him then. I hate him now."
"So be it. Whatever reasons may have influenced you in this sudden change of feeling are no concern of mine. What, however, does seem to concern me (and you yourself can best infer why), and what I must ask you to afford me some explanation of, is a certain threat which you made use of to Dyson on Tuesday night. You bade him beware in that his secret was your property, that you 'held his life in the hollow of your hand.' Now, will you be good enough to tell me to what those words referred?"
Denia's hesitation was of the briefest. For a moment or two she set her teeth hard, then with a little nod of her head she said: "Yes, Mr. Melray, I will tell you--will tell you everything. From this moment there shall be no more secrets between you and me. I used those words to Richard Dyson because to his hand was due the death of my husband and your brother!"
Robert Melray sank back in his chair with a gasp. "You have known this all along, and yet you have kept it hidden from everyone in your own breast!" he contrived to say after a time.
"I have known it all along, and yet I have kept it hidden from everyone," came like an echo from Denia's lips.
Robert knew not what to say. Never had he been so utterly at a loss for words. There was a space of silence while the two sat confronting each other. Denia was the first to break it.
"You stare at me, Mr. Melray, as if I were some monster of wickedness," she said with a bitter smile. "Perhaps, before you open your lips to reproach me or to give utterance to words such as, later on, you might see reason to regret, it may be as well that you should be enlightened about certain matters as to which at present you are wholly ignorant. If you will condescend to listen to me, I will promise to be as little tedious as possible, and that, on this occasion at least, you shall hear from me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!"
"Go on," said Robert in a voice that was hardly raised above a whisper.
But Denia did not at once respond to the invitation. It was neither shyness nor hesitation that held her back; the former, indeed, was a quality of which she knew nothing; she was merely considering in what terms it behoved her to couch her version of what could no longer be kept back.
"It was my husband who, soon after our marriage introduced Richard Dyson to me," at length she began, her blue eyes fixed calmly on Robert Melray's face. Before long he began to spend three or four evenings a week in the drawing-room, and by the time I had been half a year married it was evident to me that (not to mince my words) he had either fallen in love with me or was wishful of making me believe that he had done so. He was young and handsome and had a certain fascinating way with him; he played and sang charmingly, or so it seemed to me. I liked and respected my husband--no one could help doing that--and I strove to do my duty by him as a true wife should do; but I did not love him. Love is a very different sentiment from that which I experienced for James Melray. Is it, then, greatly to be wondered at if, at times, my heart could not help fluttering a little under the ardent glances of Richard Dyson? But, for all that, when, one day, he ventured to whisper certain words in my ear such as he had no right to whisper in the ear of any married woman, I was not slow in giving him to understand what an egregious piece of folly he had been guilty of. So strongly, indeed, did I resent the liberty he had taken that he never ventured to err in the same way again. And so matters went on as before. I continued to do my duty by my husband and guarded my feelings to the best of my ability; but, having promised that this shall be a full and frank confession, let me at once admit that deep down in my heart a germ of love lay perdu, and that it was only my strong sense of wifely obligation and the remembrance of all I owed my husband, which kept it there, frozen and half torpid, like a bulb buried deep under the snow.
"Such was the state of affairs on Friday, the 18th of September. Richard had gone for his annual holiday about ten days before. Sometimes I felt sad and lonely without him, missing his bright, vivacious talk and those half-veiled glances the meaning of which could be read by me alone; at other times I wished most devoutly that I might never set eyes on him again.
"At eight o'clock that evening I saw my husband off on his way to Mr. Arbour's for his usual rubber of whist. After that I sat down with the intention of writing a long letter to my friend, Mrs. Simpson. I was alone in the little sitting-room at the back of the drawing-room. The servants were all below stairs. Your mother had gone to her own room at the further end of the long corridor, and Miss Armishaw with her. I had got about half-way through my letter when a slight noise caused me to turn my head, and there in the open door-way I beheld Richard Dyson! Next instant he came forward and fell on his knees at my feet. His dress was disordered, his face was as white as that of corpse, while his eyes were charged with horror and fear, the like of which I have never seen in those of anyone else. 'Save me! Save me!' were the first words he gave utterance to.
"I have no wish to weary you, and will relate, as succinctly as possible, the story told me by Richard on that memorable night.
"Lack of funds had brought him back from his holidays two or three days before he was due at business. He had been compelled to leave his luggage in pawn at the seaside hotel where he had been staying. Not wishing it to be known, for private reasons of his own, that he had come back before his time, he had alighted from the train at a station a couple of miles away, and was making his way through some of the back streets to his lodgings, when he came face to face with Mr. Melray. The recognition was mutual. It would seem that Richard had been guilty of something at which my husband had just cause to be offended, but of what nature the something in question was even now I have no knowledge. In any case, Mr. Melray insisted on Richard there and then accompanying him back to his office. Once there, they appear to have got to high words, one thing leading to another, till at length Mr. Melray threatened Richard with some kind of public exposure. There was a struggle for the possession of some papers, and in the result my husband unhappily came by his death. On his knees Richard swore to me by everything he held sacred that it was purely an accident. Well, I believed him. Some people might say that, instead of putting credence in what he told me, I ought there and then to have denounced him as a murderer; but to me it seemed too terrible a thing to credit that he could wilfully have been guilty of such a crime. But, be that as it may, when he appealed to me to save him I felt it impossible to reject his appeal. From Friday night till an early hour on Monday he lay hidden in the lumber-room on the top floor, which is rarely entered from one year's end to another, I supplying him with food meanwhile. On Monday morning he made his appearance at his lodgings, and, later on, at the office, no one suspecting otherwise than that he had just got back from his holidays."
Robert Melray had not interrupted her by a word. He sat for a space after she had done with drawn brows and introverted eyes which saw nothing of what was before them. At length he roused himself with a deep sigh. "That your narrative throws a wholly unexpected light on a mystery which has long perplexed both me and others cannot be denied, he said, and I am obliged to you for the frankness which has at length prompted the telling of it. Still, I altogether fail to reconcile what you have just told me with the details of certain circumstances as set down in your written statement of a fortnight ago."
A short derisive laugh broke from Denia. "My good sir," she said, "seeing that I have just told you the true history of the events of the 18th of September as far as they concern me individually, but one inference can be drawn by you with regard to my so-called statement, namely, that from beginning to end. it was a simple tissue of romance."
Mr. Melray stared at her in wide-eyed amazement. "But surely," he gasped, "you don't mean to say that all which was there stated with reference to Evan Wildash and yourself was----"
"A sheer piece of rigmarole--that and nothing more. I found it impossible to resist the temptation Miss Sudlow was good enough to put in my way. Besides, I had a suspicion, which may or may not have been baseless, that she had been brought to Loudwater House purposely to watch me and spy upon my actions, so that when she gave me a certain story to read, which undoubtedly seemed to embody in rather a startling way a number of details in connection with my husband's death, I decided to accept it as a true narrative, and it was on that assumption that I wrote out my statement. I need hardly add that my object in acting thus was to divert suspicion from the real quarter, and, if it were possible thereby to do so, to bring to an end, once and for ever, the inquiry into the causes of my husband's death."
"It is most extraordinary!" ejaculated Robert Melray. "But do you mean to imply that Evan Wildash never came back from Africa?"
"Never, to my knowledge. He was reported to have died there, and, for anything known by me to the contrary the report was true."
"Then, as regards the man who was killed in the railway accident?"
"I know no more about him than about the man in the moon."
Robert Melray sat back in his chair like a man bereft of speech.
Some minutes later Robert Melray opened the door which led to the outer office, and said to his head clerk, "Mr. Cray, will you be good enough to ask Mr. Dyson to step this way?"
When Richard Dyson entered the private office he had no prevision that he was wanted about anything more important than some ordinary business detail. Long immunity from suspicion had bred in him the belief that his dark secret was buried out of sight for ever. He glanced round as he entered. He had not the remotest suspicion that the high screen in the corner hid Denia from his view.
"Sit there," said Robert, pointing to the chair vacated by Denia a minute before. There was something in his tone which caused Dyson to glance keenly at him, something which warned him to be on his guard. The two had not met since the latter's return from his leave of absence.
"Since I saw you last to speak to," began Robert, regarding the other with a cold steady gaze, "certain facts have come to my knowledge which have shocked and surprised me far more than I could express to you in any words. In order that you need be under no misapprehension as to how much, or how little, I know of the circumstances in question, I will at once enlighten you on the point. Being in want of money for some purpose of which I know nothing, you abstracted my brother's life policy from the safe, and on the security of it obtained an advance of three hundred pounds from Mr. Noyes of Solchester. But, in order to carry out your nefarious purpose, you were compelled to forge James's signature to three several documents. Of the means by which you contrived to make Mr. Noyes believe that he was dealing with my brother in person, I will say nothing. Whether it was your intention ultimately to redeem the policy and put it back in the place whence you had taken it, or whether----"
"Certainly it was my intention to redeem the policy and replace it in the safe, without, as I hoped, anyone being the wiser," broke in Dyson a little impetuously. He was pale, but composed.
Robert's exordium had allowed time for his nerves to recover from any shock which the latter's opening words might have caused them. "The three hundred pounds was only borrowed for a term of four months, by the end of which time I had every reason to believe that I should be in ample funds. I may add that my difficulties were the result of some unfortunate operations on the Stock Exchange, but latterly I had hit on a good thing and I felt no doubt whatever about being able shortly to far more than recoup myself for all my losses."
"I will refrain from asking you how you proposed to yourself to get out of the clutches of Mr. Noyes, and to redeem the policy in case your expectations should come to nothing. But, in all likelihood, that was a contingency which you never cared to face. In any case, it is a matter of no consequence at this time of day; so, if you have no objection, we will now come to the events of the 18th of September."
Dyson started visibly and bit his under-lip hard, as he might have done had he been on the point of undergoing a surgical operation.
"For reasons best known to yourself," resumed Robert in the same quiet, passionless voice in which he had spoken before, "you arrived back from your holiday on Friday evening, although you were not due at business till the following Monday. While on your way to your lodgings you came face to face with my brother, and in consequence, doubtless, of certain representations on his part, you accompanied him back to his office--to this very room, in point of fact. A quarter of an hour later you surprised Mrs. Melray in her sitting-room. In explanation of your intrusion you gave her to understand that, through some mischance, my brother had met his death at your hands, and you appealed to her to help to save you from the consequences of your rash act. To that appeal she responded by finding you, unknown to anyone, shelter and food for three nights and two days; by which means you were enabled to appear at the office on Monday morning as if you had but just got back from your holiday. Now, Richard Dyson, I demand of you that you shall account to me for my brother! I hint no threats, but it must be plain to you on the verge of what a precipice you are standing. Let me have the truth about what happened just as it did happen. I ask for no more and I have a right to look for no less."
It would not be easy to describe with what a strange confluence of emotions Dyson had listened to the growing indictment. Wonder as whence and how Robert had gleaned his information was, perhaps, his predominant feeling just then. Could it be possible, he asked himself, that Denia had turned traitor and betrayed him? But such was his faith in the sincerity of her love for him that he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it was formed. But it was no time for indulging in futile speculations. Robert Melray was waiting with bent brows.
Dyson's face darkened as his thoughts concentred themselves on the story he had to tell. "Yes," he presently began, facing Robert with the quiet and collected air of one who has nothing to hide, "as you have stated, I unexpectedly encountered cousin James on my way from the railway station to my lodgings. Gripping me by the arm he said, 'So you are back, are you? That is well. I want particularly to speak with you. Come with me at once to my office.' Nothing more was said, but I pretty well guessed what was in the wind. As soon as we were inside the office, with the door shut and the gas alight, he turned upon me. As I surmised, he had found out about the abstraction of the policy and the advance obtained by means of it from Noyes. I at once admitted that it was an infamous return to have made for all that he had done for me. I explained to him, as I have explained to you, by what means it happened that I was temporarily 'cornered,' that not to have raised the three hundred pounds meant exposure and ruin, and that I had every expectation of being in a position to repay the amount before the bill would fall due. But by this he had worked himself into a passion and was no longer in a condition to listen to any excuses. You cannot have forgotten to what ungovernable bursts of rage he would give way on rare occasions, in one of which, when you were boys, I have been told he all but strangled you, his brother.
"He had already opened the safe and brought thence the documents to which I had forged his signature. Placing one finger on them as they lay on the table, and speaking in coldly contemptuous tones, which stung me far more than any invective on his part would have done, he said: 'Here are the proofs of your guilt. Here is the evidence that will condemn you to penal servitude. In less than an hour from now the four walls of Merehampton gaol will hold your worthless carcase.' It was a threat that maddened me. I dashed his hand aside and seized the papers. With a cry like that of some wild animal, he sprang from his chair and flung himself upon me. Although double my age, he was a much more powerful and muscular man than I, and when once he had got his fingers fixed firmly inside my necktie and was grinding his knuckles into my throat, I was almost as powerless in his hands as a child would have been. As it seems to me now, it was all the work of a few seconds. Backward and forward we swayed and struggled, I trying desperately, but vainly, with one hand to loosen his hold of me, but still gripping the papers fast with my other hand; he, his eyes glaring with a passion that was almost maniacal, and those terrible knuckles still compressing my windpipe. I was being slowly but surely choked. Vivid jets of flame began to dance and quiver before my eyes; my heart laboured almost to the point of bursting; the papers dropped from my fingers; I could feel myself being forced back against the table till my spine was bent half double. Suddenly my fingers, wildly clutching at nothing, came in contact with a heavy iron paperweight and closed over it. With a last effort I struck with all my force at my cousin's head. For aught I know, I may have struck more than once, but in the very act consciousness left me.
"When I regained my senses, a quarter of an hour later, I was lying on the floor. A little way off lay the body of my cousin--stone dead. Hardly had I time to realise the horror of the situation before I heard the voices of two men talking in the lane outside. With that, the instinct of self-preservation came back in full force. As in a flash, I seemed to see how hardly it would fare with me should I chance to be found there. After picking up the papers which had cost me so dearly, I put out the gas, and then a sudden impulse, for which I am unable to account, decided me to--to---- But you know already what befell afterwards."
"And the paper-weight--what became of that?" demanded Robert Melray after a short silence.
"I dropped it into the pocket of my coat and took it upstairs with me. Later on I hid it away in the lumber-room where I myself was in hiding at the time."
"You had better leave me now," said Robert presently. "I will see you again later in the day. I must have time to think over what you have told me and to decide upon some course of action which----"
But at this juncture there came a tap at the door, which was followed by the intrusion of Mr. Cray's spectacled head. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the chief clerk, "but Mr. Bayliss has been waiting some time, and he says that if you can't see him at once, he will call again to-morrow, or next day."
Now, Mr. Bayliss was the person with whom Robert was in negotiation for the purchase of the business of Melray Brothers.
"I will see him now--at once," was his reply.
Richard Dyson stepped quietly out without a word more, as Robert went forward into the outer office to greet his visitor. At the same moment Denia slipped out of her hiding-place, and out of the room by the other door, unseen and unheard by anyone.
Richard Dyson went out to luncheon at his usual time, but failed to return. About five o'clock Mr. Melray asked for him, but no one knew what had become of him, nor did any authentic tidings of him come to hand till the following day. It was then discovered that he and Miss Glyn had gone off together, after having been married at an early hour by special license. Neither of them was ever seen in Merehampton again. It may be that Robert Melray was not ill-pleased to have the hard problem which circumstances would otherwise have compelled him to solve taken out of his hands and done with, as far as he was concerned, for ever.
Mrs. Melray the elder was never told that it was to the hand of her nephew that James Melray owed his death-blow. To her, as to the world at large, the Loudwater Tragedy remained an unsolved mystery. Neither was she ever enlightened as to that secondary crime of forgery and fraud of which her nephew had been guilty. To have told her would have answered no good purpose, but might, indeed, have had a serious effect upon her health, already hardly tried by that which had gone before. It was a quite sufficient shock to her to learn of the elopement of Dyson and Miss Glyn. Womanlike, she laid the whole blame of the affair on the girl. Doubtless she was one of those double-faced, scheming hussies who seem sent into the world purposely to spoil the lives and ruin the careers of whatever young men may not be strong-minded enough to resist their siren-like blandishments. That poor dear Richard had been both weak and foolish she could not deny; still, he was to be pitied far more than blamed. He was not the first man by many, nor would he be the last, to fall a victim to the arts of a designing woman. As long as she lived Mrs. Melray continued to think and speak of Dyson with mingled pity and tenderness, and at her death it was found that she had bequeathed him half of all she had to leave.
Long before that event took place Robert Melray had paid over to Dyson, or rather to the solicitor who represented him, the three thousand pounds willed him by the man whose death lay at his door. Had it not been for those two legacies falling in one after another, Dyson, in all probability, would have lived several years longer than he did. But for them--his wife's fortune having been quickly dissipated--he would not have been able to continue in that course of fast living, combined with hard drinking, which gradually shattered his constitution and consigned him to a premature grave while he ought still to have been in the prime of life.
The Erinyes have many ways of avenging their misdeeds on the children of men.
Within twenty-four hours of Dyson's disappearance Denia had quitted Loudwater House, never to return. She announced her intention of taking up her abode, for a time at least, with certain friends in London whom she had known during her uncle's lifetime. About a year later, she married again, by which time she had received her share of the property left by her husband. Her second husband (a blackleg with the manners and education of a gentleman) was a very different type of man from James Melray, as, later on, Denia found to her cost.
It was about the time of Denia's marriage that the final mystery in connection with the Loudwater Tragedy found its solution.
One day a young American arrived at Merehampton in search of his brother, who had been missing for upwards of a year. After some difficulty he had succeeded in tracing him as far as the little seaport, but at that point he came, for the time being, to a deadlock. Like so many of his countrymen, the missing man had been fond of adventure and change of scene. For many months he had been touring about England, chiefly on foot, and, with a view of eking out his slender means, had been in the habit of writing sketches of English life and character for one or more American newspapers, as well as occasional short stories for sundry magazines.
It would be beyond the scope of this narrative to recount how Gavin Pryce, having succeeded in picking up the missing clue, was led onward step by step till at length a shred of doubt was no longer left him that the unidentified victim of the Eastwich accident was none other than his brother Evan.
The way in which the latter had acquired his intimate knowledge of the details of the Loudwater Tragedy, as set forth by him in the MS. which fell into the hands of Mr. Timmins, was as peculiar as it was simple.
It may be remembered that the alarm raised by the housemaid Charlotte, which followed immediately on her discovery of her master's body, was responded to by a constable and a couple of strangers who happened to be passing at the time. One of the strangers in question was the young American, Evan Pryce. He it was who helped the constable to examine the body with the view of ascertaining whether life was extinct, and, a little later, assisted in carrying it upstairs. At the inquest he was called as a witness, and, being a newspaper man, the case had an exceptional interest for him in so far as it furnished him with an ample supply of "copy" for some time to come. Having used it up as far as the newspapers were concerned, the idea would appear to have occurred to him that the main incidents of the affair, if worked up into a magazine story, would not prove ineffective. Hence, in order to supply the crime with araison d'être, his invention of a lover for the young wife, who finding on his return from abroad that she is married, picks a quarrel with the husband; at which point, as the reader may remember, the manuscript broke off abruptly. Whether the author had written no further when he came by his untimely end, or whether only a part of the manuscript was recovered from thedébrisof the accident, is a question which must remain for ever unanswered. It will not have been forgotten that it was Mr. Timmins who furnished the story with an ending after a fashion of his own.
That it was as gall and wormwood to Mrs. Sudlow to have to be beholden to a woman she disliked more than anyone, and whom she had contemned and turned her back upon as the widow of a notorious felon, for the pecuniary help which had been forthcoming from no other source, may be taken for granted. But for Mrs. Winslade the Vicar would have been a ruined man. It was bitter, very bitter, to have to acknowledge that such was the indisputable fact. And then, what likelihood was there of her husband ever being in a position to pay back the sum which had been thus generously and unconditionally advanced? None at all as far as Mrs. Sudlow could see. A few pounds might be spared now and again--mere driblets, as it were--but, in the face of family expenses which could not but help growing for several years to come, it would not be possible to do more. In those days Mrs. Sudlow was a very unhappy woman.
No one, not even her husband, ever heard her mention Mrs. Winslade's name. When, half a year later, Philip and Fanny were married, no word of opposition fell from her lips; but, on the other hand, she resolutely declined to be present at the ceremony. Neither when, later on, Philip offered to find a situation for her eldest son in the counting-house of Mr. Layland did she raise the slightest objection to his doing so. It was as though her life was burdened with the weight of an obligation from which she found it impossible to rid herself.
Finally, it may be said of the "Vicaress" that, if from the date of a certain transaction Mrs. Winslade's name found no mention at her lips, neither did that of her kinsman, the Earl of Beaumaris. One seemed to have passed out of the sphere of her mental retina as absolutely as the other.
Once and once only did Fanny and Denia see each other again after the latter's abrupt departure from Loudwater House.
Late one autumn evening about a year and a half after Fanny's marriage, as she was sitting alone in the drawing-room, she was informed that a lady was waiting in the entrance-hall who wished particularly to see her, but who refused to send in her name. The untimely visitor proved to be none other than Denia Melray, now Mrs. Ferdinand Gascoigne. The two years which had elapsed since Fanny had seen her last had wrought a great change in her appearance, but not for the better. She had fallen away both in face and figure; there were dark half-circles under her eyes; while that expression of mingled candour and ingenuousness which had been one of her greatest charms in days gone by had given place to the anxious careworn look of one whose days and nights were full of trouble.
That Fanny was surprised to see her goes without saying. She did not know then, nor does she to this day, by what means Denia had discovered her address. When greetings were over and they were together in the drawing-room, Mrs. Gascoigne said: "I am here this evening, my dear, on purpose to ask you a very great favour. But where is Mr. Winslade?"
Fanny explained that her husband had gone for a couple of days' shooting to the house of a bachelor friend in the shires.
"So much the better," observed Denia in her old quick way. "Pleased as on many accounts I should have been to see Mr. Winslade again, I am more pleased that he is not here to-night. But your eyes are asking what the favour is that I want you to grant me. It is simply this: I have left my husband, without his knowledge or consent, and I want you to give me shelter till morning."
"You have left your husband!" exclaimed Fanny. "Oh, Mrs. Gascoigne!"
"Yes, I have left him, never to go back," replied Dania with a hard cold glitter in her blue-grey eyes. Then with deft fingers she unfastened a portion of her dress, and baring her left shoulder, exposed to Fanny's shocked gaze a great livid bruise. "That is where he struck me last night with his clenched fist and felled me to the ground. It is not the first occasion by many that he has struck me. But last night was the climax. Then and there I swore an oath to leave him. He did not believe me, but when he gets home from his club at midnight he will not find me there. To-day I have been making certain arrangements which to-morrow will see completed. At ten o'clock my cousin, William Champneys--the son of my late uncle--will call here for me (you see, dear, I have taken the liberty of assuming that you won't turn me into the street), and will take me down into the country to some relatives of my mother, whom I have not seen since I was quite a child."
It is almost needless to state that Mrs. Gascoigne was accorded the shelter she craved.
At ten o'clock next morning a hired brougham drove up at the door, and Mr. William Champneys was announced. Denia had already breakfasted (her troubles seemed in no wise to have impaired her appetite), and two minutes sufficed her to put on her outdoor things. Having introduced her cousin to Fanny, she seemed in a hurry to be gone. Her last words as she touched Fanny's cheek with her lips were: "I shall be sure to write to you, dear, and let you know how I am getting on." But she never did.
Two months later Mr. Ferdinand Gascoigne fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.
Half a year later still came an Australian newspaper, addressed to Winslade, containing an announcement of the marriage of "Evan Wildash, Esq., formerly of Solchester, England, to Denia (néeLidington), widow of Ferdinand Gascoigne, Esq., of London."
When Phil read the announcement aloud he and his wife could only stare at one another in blank bewilderment.
"Evan Wildash alive!" gasped Phil.
"And married to Denia at last!" exclaimed Fanny. "Of all the strange developments brought about by the Loudwater case this last one is the strangest of all."
"By the way," remarked Phil a little later, "you never told me, or else I omitted to ask, what kind of looking man was the cousin in whose charge Mrs. Gascoigne left here."
Thereupon Fanny proceeded to describe Mr. William Champneys to the best of her ability.
"Your description tallies exactly with that of Evan Wildash, as given me at Solchester. And now that I begin to call things to mind, I am nearly sure I was told by somebody that Mr. Champneys, Denia's uncle, was a bachelor. Can it be possible that the man she introduced to you as her cousin was none other than Evan Wildash himself? It would be just like one of Denia'ssupercheriesif it were so."
It was a question to which no answer was ever forthcoming.