Chapter Twenty Nine.

Chapter Twenty Nine.Confides a Motive and a Mystery.“One Sunday evening early in September,” Chisholm continued at last, in a hoarse, strained voice, low and yet distinct, “May had retired immediately after dinner, owing to a headache, and I agreed to accompany the colonel for a turn along the Esplanade, to smoke a cigar. The night was hot and close, prophetic of a thunderstorm. As we sat together on a seat close to the St. Leonard’s Pier, chatting in the semi-darkness, he suddenly broached a subject and made a suggestion, the astounding audacity of which struck me absolutely dumb with horror. He explained to me in confidence that he knew there had arrived at the Foreign Office from Constantinople certain cipher despatches from Sir Henry Lygon, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Porte, and that he was prepared to pay almost any price for copies of these documents. He pointed how easy it would be for me, as private secretary to Lord Stockbridge, to photograph them. He tempted me, saying that for such photographs I might name my own price. Wild indignation seized me; but he only laughed and calmly lit a fresh cigar, at the same time dropping a hint that my reward for this suggested service would be his daughter’s hand. May was in ignorance of all this. She never knew that her father was a mean and despicable spy who had constant relations with a foreign Power. I refused, and we argued, he and I, until, what with his persuasions and his promise that May should be my wife, he induced me to comply with his audacious demand. He tempted me, and I fell. Next day, after the exercise of not a little ingenuity, I succeeded in obtaining possession of the despatches in question, took them to my rooms, and secured photographs of each, returning the originals to their place within half an hour. I developed the negatives in secret, made some hasty prints, and delivered them to Lennox at Hastings three days later. By aid of the powerful reading-glass which he had bought at an optician’s in Robertson Street, the cipher of the confidential despatches could be distinctly read, a result which gave him the utmost satisfaction. I was young, inexperienced, and did not then fully appreciate the gravity of my offence. It was, However, certain that those into whose hands the photographs eventually passed possessed a copy of the decipher used by the British Foreign Office, for subsequent events proved that Tewfik Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, successfully used the information in his diplomatic juggling with Russia. I never dreamed that this untimely exposure of Britain’s policy in the near East would result in such a serious crisis as eventually came to pass; for my theft was the cause of a grave misunderstanding between England, the Porte, and the Triple Alliance; so serious, indeed, that a European war was only narrowly averted by the tact of Lord Stockbridge, combined with that of Count Murieff, the Russian Foreign Minister.” Chisholm paused again, with eyes downcast.“Go on,” she said brokenly. “Tell me all, Dudley—everything.”“I had believed that by doing this scoundrel Lennox a service I had ingratiated myself with him,” the despairing man continued after a pause; “but, so far from this being the case, he told me on the following day that it would be better if I remained apart from them, as my too frequent visits might be suspected by the Foreign Office, especially after what had transpired. May was still my unsophisticated friend, and was quite unaware of the theft I had committed at her father’s bidding; but even in her I fancied I detected a change. It required only this to tear down the last barrier between myself and my conscience; the knowledge that I was a traitor to my Queen and country began to pierce me like sword. Of a sudden, a fortnight after the photographs had passed into the possession of Lennox, the spy settled his daughter as a paying guest with a family living in Christchurch Road, Tulse Hill, and then disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed him; but not before he had written me a stiff letter formally refusing his consent to my marriage with May. Then I saw how cleverly I had been entrapped by the adventurer, who knew well that I dared not expose him, for the sake of my own reputation. Soon afterwards the general election was held, and, as a reward for my services, which were believed, of course, to have been faithfully rendered, I was given a safe seat at Albury. Then May and I drifted apart, for she went to live with an aunt up at Berwick-on-Tweed, while I entered enthusiastically upon a political career. The manner in which Sir Henry Lygon’s despatches had leaked out to England’s enemies was a puzzle to the Foreign Office and to the world; but as I possessed the entire confidence of my chief I remained unsuspected, although my treachery had cost the country dearly, for by it I had betrayed my benefactor, Lord Stockbridge, and given to the wily Turk the whip hand over Europe, enabling the Sultan to defy both England and Russia. England had held the trump card in the diplomatic game, but by the premature exposure of her hand all had been lost. Searching inquiries were, of course, made by the cleverest detectives and agents of the Intelligence Department, but the result was absolutely nil.”“There was considerable comment in the papers at the time,” remarked Claudia slowly. “I recollect Dick speaking of it as a mystery, and condemning the apparent laxity of Foreign Office rules.”“Some months had gone by, and May’s letters, which had been growing perceptibly colder, at last ceased altogether,” he continued, heedless of her remark. “In order to become acquainted with my constituents I had taken up my residence in my Parliamentary Division, at Godalming to be exact, and it was my habit each afternoon to take long walks alone through the woods and over the hills of that delightful neighbourhood. The sequel to what I have already confessed to you,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “occurred one autumn day when the trees were almost bare and the woodland paths were covered with acorns and withered leaves. I had been for a long stretch over the Hog’s Back, having paid a visit to my friend Machray, at Wanborough, and was returning by way of Compton, and then across the meadows and up the hill towards the Charterhouse at Godalming. The gusty wind was chilly and the wintry twilight was fading as I passed Field Place and struck across the wide grass-lands to a corner where the path was divided by a stile from a dense belt of wood, the most lonely and secluded spot in the neighbourhood, and a popular resort of rustic couples. As I leaped over the stile into the dark pathway which led up a very steep incline through the wood, I was startled by being suddenly confronted by a man whom, in an instant, I recognised as Lennox. He had evidently been awaiting me there, for he put his hand upon my shoulder, saying that he desired a few words with me. With disgust and hatred I shook him off; but he resolutely placed himself before me, saying that he desired of me one other service, namely, that I should secure for him a copy of a certain document which had that morning reached the Foreign Office by Queen’s messenger from the British Embassy in Paris. This I flatly refused; whereupon this enemy of England, who had once held Her Majesty’s commission, threatened me with exposure and ruin if I did not at once comply with his demand. My blood rose, and, by way of retort, I gave him to understand that I would inform the police of his presence in England. High words and bitter recriminations ensued. Suddenly, without the least warning, his hand went swiftly to his hip, and I saw him draw a gleaming knife with which next moment he rushed at me. The wild look in his face was sufficient to show his evil intent, and in a second I drew from my pocket the small revolver that I always carried. In the fierce and desperate struggle we were well matched, and for some minutes we fought for life. With wild and fearful oaths he tried time after time to plunge his weapon into my heart, but only succeeded in twice gashing my wrist. I carry the scars to this very day.”He drew up his shirt-cuff and showed her where his assailant’s knife had wounded him.“Suddenly I felt my strength failing,” he went on in a low, hard tone, a wild look in his eyes. “Then, in a fury of hatred, I twisted my arm from his sinewy grasp, and fired my revolver full at him. I must, I think have emptied two, or even three, chambers. He fell forward dead—with a curse upon his lips. I—I murdered him—in order to seal his lips!”“You, Dudley!” cried the pale, bewildered woman, swaying forward as though she had received a blow. “You?—you killed him!”“Yes, Claudia,” said the guilty man, not daring to look her in the face, “I have confessed to you my double crime. The truth now stands revealed to you in all its naked hideousness. I, the man whom you have trusted and loved for all these years, am a traitor, and worse—a murderer!”She could not speak, her heart was too full of grief and suffering. She covered her white face with her hands; low sobs escaped her, the bitterest lamentations of a broken heart.“And now let me conclude my story,” he went on, his own heart almost breaking because of her agony. “How I got away I cannot tell. I remember but little, save that I rushed from the spot, tore across the fields to Farncombe station, whence I took train to Waterloo. From the accounts in the papers it appears that an hour later the body, stiff and cold, was discovered by a pair of lovers walking together, and information was given to the county constabulary. Nothing was found upon the man to lead to his identification, and although the greatest sensation was caused by the tragedy, Scotland Yard was utterly puzzled. One miserable wretch, a tramp who had been seen loitering in the neighbourhood, was arrested on suspicion, but was afterwards released. Detectives searched diligently for some clue, but found nothing to help them in regard to the identity of the murderer or to that of his victim, who was buried in a nameless grave in Godalming Cemetery at the expense of the parish. Imagine the awful remorse I suffered! For a few weeks I remained in London with this terrible guilt weighing upon me, feverishly scanning the papers, and preparing for a journey to the Far East. You will recollect that you were in Pau, when I wrote announcing my sudden departure.”“Yes,” she murmured, “I remember. Dick’s illness had then begun, and the doctors had ordered him abroad.”“I feared to remain longer in England, and desired to place as great a distance as possible between myself and the scene of my crime. I, belauded by the newspapers as a coming man, was a traitor to my country and a murderer. My conscience drove me to madness. I could not get rid of the ever-recurring recollections of my crime. And so it has been during these later years, whether I have travelled through the eternal snows of the Himalayas, explored the forbidden lands of Bhutan or Nepal, or sat on the Treasury Bench of the House. I have lived in constant dread of denunciation and exposure. While in Calcutta, as the guest of the Viceroy on my return from Chinese Turkestan, I learnt that May Lennox had married a wealthy man named Brodie, and had gone to live up at Kapurthala, in the Punjab. Since that day I have heard nothing of her. Four years have passed since my return, years of awful anxiety and mental strain that have made me old before my time; yet at last Archibald Cator, the man from whom no state secret is safe—that midnight visitor at Wroxeter—has discovered the truth. His secret agents have penetrated to the archives of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, and from them have secured those photographs, to which is attached a docket written in Turkish stating by what channel they were secured. Thus from the carefully-guarded storehouse of the Sultan’s secrets has the evidence of my crime been exposed, and my accusation is now at hand. Guilty of treason and of murder I have lost your love, Claudia—I can hope for nothing, nothing. My very name will become a reproach, and the very people who have so often applauded me will now hate my memory as that of a betrayer. My punishment is complete!” he cried wildly, in hoarse despair. “I have sinned, and this is God’s judgment!”

“One Sunday evening early in September,” Chisholm continued at last, in a hoarse, strained voice, low and yet distinct, “May had retired immediately after dinner, owing to a headache, and I agreed to accompany the colonel for a turn along the Esplanade, to smoke a cigar. The night was hot and close, prophetic of a thunderstorm. As we sat together on a seat close to the St. Leonard’s Pier, chatting in the semi-darkness, he suddenly broached a subject and made a suggestion, the astounding audacity of which struck me absolutely dumb with horror. He explained to me in confidence that he knew there had arrived at the Foreign Office from Constantinople certain cipher despatches from Sir Henry Lygon, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Porte, and that he was prepared to pay almost any price for copies of these documents. He pointed how easy it would be for me, as private secretary to Lord Stockbridge, to photograph them. He tempted me, saying that for such photographs I might name my own price. Wild indignation seized me; but he only laughed and calmly lit a fresh cigar, at the same time dropping a hint that my reward for this suggested service would be his daughter’s hand. May was in ignorance of all this. She never knew that her father was a mean and despicable spy who had constant relations with a foreign Power. I refused, and we argued, he and I, until, what with his persuasions and his promise that May should be my wife, he induced me to comply with his audacious demand. He tempted me, and I fell. Next day, after the exercise of not a little ingenuity, I succeeded in obtaining possession of the despatches in question, took them to my rooms, and secured photographs of each, returning the originals to their place within half an hour. I developed the negatives in secret, made some hasty prints, and delivered them to Lennox at Hastings three days later. By aid of the powerful reading-glass which he had bought at an optician’s in Robertson Street, the cipher of the confidential despatches could be distinctly read, a result which gave him the utmost satisfaction. I was young, inexperienced, and did not then fully appreciate the gravity of my offence. It was, However, certain that those into whose hands the photographs eventually passed possessed a copy of the decipher used by the British Foreign Office, for subsequent events proved that Tewfik Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, successfully used the information in his diplomatic juggling with Russia. I never dreamed that this untimely exposure of Britain’s policy in the near East would result in such a serious crisis as eventually came to pass; for my theft was the cause of a grave misunderstanding between England, the Porte, and the Triple Alliance; so serious, indeed, that a European war was only narrowly averted by the tact of Lord Stockbridge, combined with that of Count Murieff, the Russian Foreign Minister.” Chisholm paused again, with eyes downcast.

“Go on,” she said brokenly. “Tell me all, Dudley—everything.”

“I had believed that by doing this scoundrel Lennox a service I had ingratiated myself with him,” the despairing man continued after a pause; “but, so far from this being the case, he told me on the following day that it would be better if I remained apart from them, as my too frequent visits might be suspected by the Foreign Office, especially after what had transpired. May was still my unsophisticated friend, and was quite unaware of the theft I had committed at her father’s bidding; but even in her I fancied I detected a change. It required only this to tear down the last barrier between myself and my conscience; the knowledge that I was a traitor to my Queen and country began to pierce me like sword. Of a sudden, a fortnight after the photographs had passed into the possession of Lennox, the spy settled his daughter as a paying guest with a family living in Christchurch Road, Tulse Hill, and then disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed him; but not before he had written me a stiff letter formally refusing his consent to my marriage with May. Then I saw how cleverly I had been entrapped by the adventurer, who knew well that I dared not expose him, for the sake of my own reputation. Soon afterwards the general election was held, and, as a reward for my services, which were believed, of course, to have been faithfully rendered, I was given a safe seat at Albury. Then May and I drifted apart, for she went to live with an aunt up at Berwick-on-Tweed, while I entered enthusiastically upon a political career. The manner in which Sir Henry Lygon’s despatches had leaked out to England’s enemies was a puzzle to the Foreign Office and to the world; but as I possessed the entire confidence of my chief I remained unsuspected, although my treachery had cost the country dearly, for by it I had betrayed my benefactor, Lord Stockbridge, and given to the wily Turk the whip hand over Europe, enabling the Sultan to defy both England and Russia. England had held the trump card in the diplomatic game, but by the premature exposure of her hand all had been lost. Searching inquiries were, of course, made by the cleverest detectives and agents of the Intelligence Department, but the result was absolutely nil.”

“There was considerable comment in the papers at the time,” remarked Claudia slowly. “I recollect Dick speaking of it as a mystery, and condemning the apparent laxity of Foreign Office rules.”

“Some months had gone by, and May’s letters, which had been growing perceptibly colder, at last ceased altogether,” he continued, heedless of her remark. “In order to become acquainted with my constituents I had taken up my residence in my Parliamentary Division, at Godalming to be exact, and it was my habit each afternoon to take long walks alone through the woods and over the hills of that delightful neighbourhood. The sequel to what I have already confessed to you,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “occurred one autumn day when the trees were almost bare and the woodland paths were covered with acorns and withered leaves. I had been for a long stretch over the Hog’s Back, having paid a visit to my friend Machray, at Wanborough, and was returning by way of Compton, and then across the meadows and up the hill towards the Charterhouse at Godalming. The gusty wind was chilly and the wintry twilight was fading as I passed Field Place and struck across the wide grass-lands to a corner where the path was divided by a stile from a dense belt of wood, the most lonely and secluded spot in the neighbourhood, and a popular resort of rustic couples. As I leaped over the stile into the dark pathway which led up a very steep incline through the wood, I was startled by being suddenly confronted by a man whom, in an instant, I recognised as Lennox. He had evidently been awaiting me there, for he put his hand upon my shoulder, saying that he desired a few words with me. With disgust and hatred I shook him off; but he resolutely placed himself before me, saying that he desired of me one other service, namely, that I should secure for him a copy of a certain document which had that morning reached the Foreign Office by Queen’s messenger from the British Embassy in Paris. This I flatly refused; whereupon this enemy of England, who had once held Her Majesty’s commission, threatened me with exposure and ruin if I did not at once comply with his demand. My blood rose, and, by way of retort, I gave him to understand that I would inform the police of his presence in England. High words and bitter recriminations ensued. Suddenly, without the least warning, his hand went swiftly to his hip, and I saw him draw a gleaming knife with which next moment he rushed at me. The wild look in his face was sufficient to show his evil intent, and in a second I drew from my pocket the small revolver that I always carried. In the fierce and desperate struggle we were well matched, and for some minutes we fought for life. With wild and fearful oaths he tried time after time to plunge his weapon into my heart, but only succeeded in twice gashing my wrist. I carry the scars to this very day.”

He drew up his shirt-cuff and showed her where his assailant’s knife had wounded him.

“Suddenly I felt my strength failing,” he went on in a low, hard tone, a wild look in his eyes. “Then, in a fury of hatred, I twisted my arm from his sinewy grasp, and fired my revolver full at him. I must, I think have emptied two, or even three, chambers. He fell forward dead—with a curse upon his lips. I—I murdered him—in order to seal his lips!”

“You, Dudley!” cried the pale, bewildered woman, swaying forward as though she had received a blow. “You?—you killed him!”

“Yes, Claudia,” said the guilty man, not daring to look her in the face, “I have confessed to you my double crime. The truth now stands revealed to you in all its naked hideousness. I, the man whom you have trusted and loved for all these years, am a traitor, and worse—a murderer!”

She could not speak, her heart was too full of grief and suffering. She covered her white face with her hands; low sobs escaped her, the bitterest lamentations of a broken heart.

“And now let me conclude my story,” he went on, his own heart almost breaking because of her agony. “How I got away I cannot tell. I remember but little, save that I rushed from the spot, tore across the fields to Farncombe station, whence I took train to Waterloo. From the accounts in the papers it appears that an hour later the body, stiff and cold, was discovered by a pair of lovers walking together, and information was given to the county constabulary. Nothing was found upon the man to lead to his identification, and although the greatest sensation was caused by the tragedy, Scotland Yard was utterly puzzled. One miserable wretch, a tramp who had been seen loitering in the neighbourhood, was arrested on suspicion, but was afterwards released. Detectives searched diligently for some clue, but found nothing to help them in regard to the identity of the murderer or to that of his victim, who was buried in a nameless grave in Godalming Cemetery at the expense of the parish. Imagine the awful remorse I suffered! For a few weeks I remained in London with this terrible guilt weighing upon me, feverishly scanning the papers, and preparing for a journey to the Far East. You will recollect that you were in Pau, when I wrote announcing my sudden departure.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “I remember. Dick’s illness had then begun, and the doctors had ordered him abroad.”

“I feared to remain longer in England, and desired to place as great a distance as possible between myself and the scene of my crime. I, belauded by the newspapers as a coming man, was a traitor to my country and a murderer. My conscience drove me to madness. I could not get rid of the ever-recurring recollections of my crime. And so it has been during these later years, whether I have travelled through the eternal snows of the Himalayas, explored the forbidden lands of Bhutan or Nepal, or sat on the Treasury Bench of the House. I have lived in constant dread of denunciation and exposure. While in Calcutta, as the guest of the Viceroy on my return from Chinese Turkestan, I learnt that May Lennox had married a wealthy man named Brodie, and had gone to live up at Kapurthala, in the Punjab. Since that day I have heard nothing of her. Four years have passed since my return, years of awful anxiety and mental strain that have made me old before my time; yet at last Archibald Cator, the man from whom no state secret is safe—that midnight visitor at Wroxeter—has discovered the truth. His secret agents have penetrated to the archives of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, and from them have secured those photographs, to which is attached a docket written in Turkish stating by what channel they were secured. Thus from the carefully-guarded storehouse of the Sultan’s secrets has the evidence of my crime been exposed, and my accusation is now at hand. Guilty of treason and of murder I have lost your love, Claudia—I can hope for nothing, nothing. My very name will become a reproach, and the very people who have so often applauded me will now hate my memory as that of a betrayer. My punishment is complete!” he cried wildly, in hoarse despair. “I have sinned, and this is God’s judgment!”

Chapter Thirty.Tells a Strange Tale.“And your secret is known,” said the pale, agitated woman despairingly, her dark eyes still fixed upon the guilty man before her. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, for the wounded heart made it difficult for her to speak.He nodded in the affirmative.“To whom?” she asked.“To Cator, of the Secret Service; to many of his agents, no doubt; to one, at least, of my political opponents, and to a woman who is your friend—Muriel Mortimer!”“To Muriel?” she gasped in abject amazement.“Yes,” he answered; “the woman who, if report speaks correctly, was suggested by you to Lady Meldrum as a fitting person to become my wife.”“Ah, forgive me!” Claudia cried quickly. “I threw you into one another’s society in order to test your love for me. I was, not certain whether you really loved me, or whether this younger and prettier woman might not attract you. Believe me, I invited her to the house-party at Wroxeter for the same purpose that I allowed my name to be associated with that of the Grand-Duke and others—to test the extent of your affection. I was foolish—very foolish, I know. But forgive me, Dudley, I was jealous.”In answer to her request he related the ingenious manner in which he had been entrapped, precisely as in the foregoing pages it has already been described.“She wished to marry you in order to obtain money,” declared the angry woman, upon whom these revelations had fallen as a crushing blow. “I never suspected her; yet now I see it all. Her ingenuity has been simply marvellous. She intended that you should buy from her a freedom which it was not within her power to sell. If you had become her husband she would, no doubt, either have tempted you to commit suicide rather than face arrest—first, of course, having induced you to make a will in her favour—or else have expected you to pay heavily for release from a woman of her stamp.”“But who is she?” he demanded. “What do you know of her?”“Nothing, except what you already know, Dudley, that, although the ward of a respectable family, she is now proved to be an unscrupulous adventuress. But I myself will attempt to solve the mystery. She was abroad for about a year, she once told me, and she often goes to the Continent to visit friends there. There are many facts about her that are mysterious, and yet Lady Meldrum absolutely adores her. She cannot, however, know the truth of her association with these foreign ruffians who have attempted your life. Now that I recollect,” she added, “I found one morning, concealed behind one of the cushions in the cosy-corner of the library, a piece of crumpled paper, which, when opened, I discovered to be the commencement of a letter in a woman’s hand. It was in Italian, and began, ‘Mio adorato Tonio.’ She must have gone there to write to the man, and, being interrupted, had evidently crushed the paper in her hand and hid it, and then forgotten it.”“Yes,” he said, “I recollect finding her alone there one evening, and that my entrance seemed to confuse her somewhat. But,” he went on despondently, “had the scoundrels been successful it would perhaps have been better for me.” He was no coward, but he saw that for him all life, all happiness, all love had ended.“No, Dudley,” she answered in a sweet and tender voice, looking straight at him. “You are guilty, but both you and I have been the victims of this ingenious trickster. She first tried to rob me of your love, and then, finding herself unsuccessful, resorted to a foul and cunning strategy.”“Yes,” he said in a low voice, his chin still upon his breast. “I am guilty, and must suffer. But,” he added, raising his head slowly until his eyes met hers, “promise me one thing, Claudia—promise that after to-day you will give no further thought to me. I have deceived you, and am unworthy; put me out of your mind for ever.”“But you loved me, Dudley,” she cried with a mournful tenderness. “How can I allow your memory to pass from me when for so many years you have been my all in all?”“In the future we must be parted,” he answered huskily. “From the consequences of my crime there is no escape—none. But if I thought that you had forgotten the grave wrong I have done you, my mind would at least be easier.”She did not answer for a few moments. Then, with the passion begotten of a changeless and profound affection she rushed towards him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried out:“No, Dudley, you are mine—mine! we must not part. I love you—you know that I do! You shall not leave me—you hear!you shall not!”“But I must,” he replied gravely, a hardness appearing at the corners of his mouth as he slowly disengaged himself from her embrace. “I have given my word of honour to return to my chambers before midday.”“To whom?”“To Archibald Cator. The man who, in the exercise of his profession as chief of our Secret Service, has discovered my secret.” Chisholm, whatever might have been his follies in the past, was now a man of unflinching principle. He had given his word not to attempt to escape.“Then I will go with you,” she said with resolution. “It is half-past eleven, and my carriage is outside. We will drive down to St. James’s Street together.”But in all earnestness he begged her not to accompany him. He did not desire that she should be a witness of his degradation and arrest. He could not bear the thought. He knew that the matter would be placed before Lord Stockbridge himself, and that, in company with Cator, he would be called into the presence of the grave-eyed Chief in whose confidence and regard he had for long held so high a place.“I shall go with you,” she said decisively, now calm and composed after her agitation and flood of tears. She had braced herself up with what was, under the circumstances, a remarkable effort. By way of explanation she added, half breathlessly: “I love you, Dudley, and my place in the hour of trial is at your side.”He raised her bejewelled hand tremblingly to his lips, and thanked her in a husky voice. He, the Discrowned, dared not kiss her lips.“Patience and courage,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly, just as she had been wont to do in those early days of his career when she had so often given him advice.He shook his head sadly before answering.“Both are unavailing against the vengeance of Heaven!”She was silent. This man, whom she had loved as her own life, was a murderer. A gulf had opened between them, his arrest and denunciation were imminent. They could no longer be lovers. All was of the past.Her tender woman’s sympathy for him in his hopeless despair was too deep for tears. Her countenance, usually so sweet and smiling, had grown hard, and her eyes large and serious. The caprice of her broken heart was that this last drive to his chambers should be taken in his company. Many and many a time he had driven with her hither and thither in London, but this was the last occasion. After that, then she would be alone, friendless, unloved—the queen of the silent kingdom, as she had so often termed the stately mansion, one of the finest in London, where the servants moved in silence and the huge marble hall and corridors echoed to the slightest whisper.They drove together past Apsley House and along Piccadilly without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Dudley raised his hat mechanically to passers-by who, now that the yellow sunlight had struggled through the clouds, were enjoying a stroll in London’s gayest thoroughfare. Whenever there is any sunshine in the metropolis, it is always in Piccadilly. But the unwonted brightness of that morning jarred upon Dudley and Claudia. Few who passed the pair driving in that handsome carriage would ever have dreamed that the light of that beautiful woman’s heart was extinguished, and that the well-groomed man at her side was going deliberately to his doom.Beneath the bearskin rug their hands met—and clasped. Their hearts beat quickly, their eyes met, but no word passed between them. Both understood that all words were empty in face of the horrible truth.Archibald Cator, who had been sitting beside the fire in Chisholm’s sitting-room, rose and bowed when they entered. He recognised Claudia at once, and darted a look of inquiry at the accused man.“Captain Cator, I believe?” she exclaimed, addressing him. “To apologise is quite unnecessary. I know everything. Mr Chisholm has told me the whole terrible story. You have but done your duty in the service of your country, and as far as I am concerned your just behaviour will receive a just verdict.”The tall, thin-faced man was expressing his regrets, when Claudia, turning to him again, asked:“In this affair there is still an element of mystery which should be at once cleared up. Through my own unpardonable folly in accepting as friend a woman whom I did not know, Mr Chisholm has fallen the victim of a curious conspiracy. Do you chance to know in Italy a man named Marucci?”“Marucci?” repeated the captain; “Francesco Marruci, I presume you mean? Yes, I know him and have employed him in Rome, and elsewhere, to make confidential inquiries.”“And do you chance to be acquainted with a woman named Mortimer—a young woman, Muriel Mortimer?”“Certainly,” he replied quite frankly. “She is a fair-headed young person who poses as the ward of an English family named Meldrum. A couple of years ago, however, she married secretly an Italian named Biancheri, then a lieutenant of Artillery stationed at Florence, and she and her husband are now generally supposed to be agents employed in the secret service of Italy. This good-looking woman has been a successful spy. Her husband is a black-haired, evil-looking fellow with an ugly scar across his lower jaw.”“His description is exact. He was the man who attempted to take my life last night!” exclaimed Chisholm, astonished at this revelation. “He called himself Tonio Rocchi.”When Dudley had briefly described his adventure, Cator said:“I knew the woman Mortimer was a guest at Wroxeter, and that was the reason why I wished nobody to know of my visit there. We are acquainted, but at that moment I had no wish to meet her.”“Then this woman, her husband, and the Italian Marucci have by some means learnt my secret, and are actually in agreement as regards this scheme of attempted blackmail?”“Most certainly,” was Cator’s response. “Biancheri, or Rocchi, as he calls himself, and his wife are as smart a pair of adventurers as any on the Continent, and it is well-known to us that they have on several occasions levied huge sums in blackmail when diplomatic and family secrets have leaked out.”“But the Meldrums!” exclaimed Claudia in astonishment. “Is it possible that they, a most respectable family, can actually be aware of this woman’s fraud?”“I think not,” was the captain’s reply. “Muriel Mortimer, the daughter of a deceased station-master employed on the Great Northern Railway, is of age, and therefore, of course, her own mistress. In England she is still the ward of Sir Henry Meldrum—who had taken her out of charity—and passes as a single woman, but she secretly married Biancheri while they were wintering in Florence, and her frequent journeys abroad have not been undertaken for the purpose of visiting friends, as she pretends but, in reality, to assist her husband in his ingenious and daring schemes of espionage and blackmail. She is an adventuress of the very worst type.”“But how can she have learnt my secret?” demanded the melancholy man upon whom the all-reaching hand of justice had so heavily fallen.“Ah, that is utterly impossible to tell,” answered Cator. “All that is certain is that she, together with her husband and confederates, will quickly clear out of England now that you have so determinedly withstood their efforts and defied their threats.”Archibald Cator had turned away, and was making a pretence of examining the titles of the books in the bookcase on the opposite side of the room while Claudia and Dudley stood silently hand in hand. The captain had an appointment to see the Marquess of Stockbridge in company with the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office at one o’clock, when the serious charges were to be privately investigated. The hour was drawing near, and the white-faced, tearful woman was taking leave of the guilty man, whom she had so fondly and so truly loved.There was in her eyes an inexpressible sadness, and the quivering lips he had so often kissed with tender passion showed plainly the agony she was suffering.“Forgive me, Claudia, forgive me for the sake of the love of old!” he implored, whispering in her ear. “With your forgiveness I can face my fate unflinchingly, knowing that my punishment is just.”“Dudley,” she answered in a voice broken by emotion, as she uttered what was to her the dearest of all names, “I forgive you everything. A cruel, an inexorable fate tears us apart, but I shall never forget you—never. May God forgive you as I forgive you.”“Thank you, my heart, for those encouraging words,” he cried, snatching up her hand and imprinting upon it a lingering kiss of farewell.As their eyes met for a single instant, in hers he saw a look of blank despair and mingled sympathy more expressive than any words could possibly be.“Farewell, Dudley!” was all she said. “I shall pray to Him for you.”She turned slowly from him and walked across to the door, while Cator drew back the velvetportièreand bowed in silence.At this moment the door was thrown open by Parsons, who carried a rather bulky letter and a card upon his salver.“The gentleman who called in the night has called again, sir,” announced the old man. “I told him you were engaged, but he said he could not possibly wait, as he was sailing from London almost immediately. He regretted missing you, and left this letter.”His master glanced at the card, and saw that it bore the name “Ralph Brodie,” with the word “Boodle’s” in the corner.With nervous fingers he quickly tore open the envelope and drew from it a note, together with a smaller envelope, rather soiled, sealed with black wax, and addressed to him in a woman’s pointed hand.Claudia, who had halted, stood watching him.The note was a brief one, written by Brodie from his club, stating with regret that his wife had died of consumption a month ago. Among the papers which he found after her death was the enclosed, together with instructions that he should deliver it personally and unopened. This he did. As he had only been in London a few hours on urgent business, and was compelled to return to India by theCaledoniathat afternoon, he had written this note of explanation in case they could not meet.He broke the brittle wax of the dead woman’s letter, and drew forth a sheet of thin foreign note-paper, the ink on which was somewhat faded.Swiftly he scanned the lines of brown ink; then, while looking for May Brodie’s signature, he saw in addition to this another name at the bottom of of the document—“Muriel Mortimer.”“Impossible!” he gasped. “Surely this is not a dream! Look! Read this!” He handed the missive to Cator, who, together with the woman who had just bidden him a last farewell, read it through eagerly.“It is the truth!” cried Claudia wildly, a moment later, rushing towards him, throwing her clinging arms about his neck, kissing him passionately, and shedding tears of joy. “You are innocent, Dudley! innocent! Think, think! The truth is written there in the presence of a witness.You are innocent!”Some time elapsed before Dudley could grasp the whole of the facts. What he held in his trembling fingers was a statement written by May Lennox three years before. It began in a somewhat rambling manner, was dated from Kapurthala, and had been written after the doctors had pronounced her to be suffering from incurable consumption. The important paragraph, however, penned in an unsteady hand and rather smeared, read as follows:“And now, as I know that before very long I must die, I have resolved to confess to you the whole truth. I knew too well of my father’s relations with the Turkish and Italian Governments, and I knew how he induced you to procure for him photographs of the Anglo-Russian agreement in the East, offering myself to you as a bribe. I was helpless in his hands; he used me as his decoy in the various capitals, and often accomplished importantcoupsof espionage with my assistance. But the photographs you furnished to him proved to be those of quite unimportant despatches, and utterly valueless. The photographs of the actual despatches wanted by Tewfik were procured by a person named Peynton in the employ of the Foreign Office, who has since died. My father, however, believed that you wilfully endeavoured to mislead him and intended to expose him; hence his fierce antagonism, which caused him to lay in wait for you in that lonely path near Godalming. As I had gained knowledge of his intention to harm you, I went down there and watched his movements. I was present, hidden in the shadow behind a rail only a few paces from the spot—at the point where, you will remember, the police found the weeds down-trodden and other signs of the presence of a third person. I overheard his suggestion to you, and your refusal; I saw him draw his knife with intent to strike you. I watched your struggle, and in the course of the fracas his revolver fell unnoticed from his pocket. As you were both close to me at that moment I was enabled to reach the weapon. Then I saw that your strength was failing, and you fired at him. You missed. I believe I know the very tree in which your bullet lodged. Seeing your imminent peril, I also fired—and he fell. I saved you, but I killed the man whom I was compelled to call father, though I had good reasons to hate his memory. He killed my poor mother by sheer brutality and neglect, and made me his puppet and decoy in his nefarious schemes. When he fell, you rushed from the spot, believing that you had killed him, but if you will refer to the medical evidence you will find that he was struck by a single bullet beneath the left shoulder-blade. That shot was the one I fired, and could not possibly have been fired by you. In order to tell you the truth, and yet not commit myself, I sent you anonymously, a few weeks after the occurrence, a piece of tracing-paper with a diagram upon it, and a few words, which were purposely rather vague, hoping that the plan of the spot would show you that you were innocent, and that in case you were afterwards charged with the crime you would be able to use the plan in your defence. Confession I make calmly and of my own free will, in order that it may be signed by the woman who is my companion and my most intimate friend, and that it may be opened by your own hand when I am dead and beyond the reach of man’s justice.”There was nothing else. Only the signature, “May Beatrice Brodie,” together with that of Muriel Mortimer.“This clearly explains how the woman Mortimer, or Biancheri, obtained possession of your secret,” observed Cator in surprise, after he had read it through aloud. “My inquiries, I recollect, showed that she entered Mrs Brodie’s employ as companion and was in India for six months, but that she returned, owing to the climate, and again took up her abode with the Meldrums. The explanation given by the Meldrums to friends was that she had been out to India on a visit. Having obtained knowledge of your secret, she imparted it to Biancheri after her marriage, with the result that he and his associates made the clever attempt to blackmail you. She, no doubt, felt herself safe as long as her late employer was living, and is, of course, in ignorance of her death and the passing of this confession into your hands.”An hour later Dudley Chisholm was closeted alone with the Marquess of Stockbridge in the latter’s private room at the Foreign Office, where he related the whole story. That any man enjoying the confidence of Her Majesty’s Government in any capacity should have endeavoured to betray its secrets was a most heinous and unpardonable offence in the eyes of the stern old politician who was Her Majesty’s chief adviser. Nevertheless, on carefully weighing all the facts, his lordship came to the conclusion that the man who had been his private secretary, and who now held responsible office, had proved himself deeply penitent, and had, during the intervening years, endeavoured to make every reparation in his power. The actual documents Chisholm had photographed were quite unimportant. It was manifest that from first to last he had been the victim of a cleverly arranged conspiracy. The interview was a long one, and all that passed between them will never be recorded. But at last the Marquess rose and generously extended to Dudley his thin, bony hand in forgiveness. He summed up the case as follows:“It is true that you photographed the despatches with intent to hand them to the man Lennox, and it is true that the present complications in Europe are the outcome of the betrayal of our policy, but it is not true, Chisholm, that you are a traitor. Your career has encouraged me to prophesy (and the indiscretion of which I am to-day aware for the first time has not caused me to alter my opinion) that you are one of the men who will rise after me to safeguard your country’s interests. The question placed on the paper by the member for West Antrim must be expunged at once. I will see to that matter personally, for it is apparent that the member in question has either received information, or is himself associated with the unscrupulous persons who endeavoured to profit by their knowledge of your secret. Leave it to me. That question will never be printed in the paper nor asked in the House. Only a traitor in association with the representative of some foreign Power dare endeavour to create a political crisis at this moment by asking such a question.”“Then I am actually forgiven?” Dudley asked in a low voice, scarcely realising the truth.“Yes, Chisholm,” replied the Marquess gravely, pressing the hand of the younger man, “you are forgiven, and what is more, my confidence in you is not shaken, for you have been proved a man of sterling worth, and the unfortunate victim of as vile and ingenious a conspiracy as ever was formed against us by dastardly spies from across the Channel. You come of an ancient and honourable race, Chisholm. Recollect, therefore, that throughout the remainder of your life your first duty is always to your God, and the second to your country and your Queen.”

“And your secret is known,” said the pale, agitated woman despairingly, her dark eyes still fixed upon the guilty man before her. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, for the wounded heart made it difficult for her to speak.

He nodded in the affirmative.

“To whom?” she asked.

“To Cator, of the Secret Service; to many of his agents, no doubt; to one, at least, of my political opponents, and to a woman who is your friend—Muriel Mortimer!”

“To Muriel?” she gasped in abject amazement.

“Yes,” he answered; “the woman who, if report speaks correctly, was suggested by you to Lady Meldrum as a fitting person to become my wife.”

“Ah, forgive me!” Claudia cried quickly. “I threw you into one another’s society in order to test your love for me. I was, not certain whether you really loved me, or whether this younger and prettier woman might not attract you. Believe me, I invited her to the house-party at Wroxeter for the same purpose that I allowed my name to be associated with that of the Grand-Duke and others—to test the extent of your affection. I was foolish—very foolish, I know. But forgive me, Dudley, I was jealous.”

In answer to her request he related the ingenious manner in which he had been entrapped, precisely as in the foregoing pages it has already been described.

“She wished to marry you in order to obtain money,” declared the angry woman, upon whom these revelations had fallen as a crushing blow. “I never suspected her; yet now I see it all. Her ingenuity has been simply marvellous. She intended that you should buy from her a freedom which it was not within her power to sell. If you had become her husband she would, no doubt, either have tempted you to commit suicide rather than face arrest—first, of course, having induced you to make a will in her favour—or else have expected you to pay heavily for release from a woman of her stamp.”

“But who is she?” he demanded. “What do you know of her?”

“Nothing, except what you already know, Dudley, that, although the ward of a respectable family, she is now proved to be an unscrupulous adventuress. But I myself will attempt to solve the mystery. She was abroad for about a year, she once told me, and she often goes to the Continent to visit friends there. There are many facts about her that are mysterious, and yet Lady Meldrum absolutely adores her. She cannot, however, know the truth of her association with these foreign ruffians who have attempted your life. Now that I recollect,” she added, “I found one morning, concealed behind one of the cushions in the cosy-corner of the library, a piece of crumpled paper, which, when opened, I discovered to be the commencement of a letter in a woman’s hand. It was in Italian, and began, ‘Mio adorato Tonio.’ She must have gone there to write to the man, and, being interrupted, had evidently crushed the paper in her hand and hid it, and then forgotten it.”

“Yes,” he said, “I recollect finding her alone there one evening, and that my entrance seemed to confuse her somewhat. But,” he went on despondently, “had the scoundrels been successful it would perhaps have been better for me.” He was no coward, but he saw that for him all life, all happiness, all love had ended.

“No, Dudley,” she answered in a sweet and tender voice, looking straight at him. “You are guilty, but both you and I have been the victims of this ingenious trickster. She first tried to rob me of your love, and then, finding herself unsuccessful, resorted to a foul and cunning strategy.”

“Yes,” he said in a low voice, his chin still upon his breast. “I am guilty, and must suffer. But,” he added, raising his head slowly until his eyes met hers, “promise me one thing, Claudia—promise that after to-day you will give no further thought to me. I have deceived you, and am unworthy; put me out of your mind for ever.”

“But you loved me, Dudley,” she cried with a mournful tenderness. “How can I allow your memory to pass from me when for so many years you have been my all in all?”

“In the future we must be parted,” he answered huskily. “From the consequences of my crime there is no escape—none. But if I thought that you had forgotten the grave wrong I have done you, my mind would at least be easier.”

She did not answer for a few moments. Then, with the passion begotten of a changeless and profound affection she rushed towards him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried out:

“No, Dudley, you are mine—mine! we must not part. I love you—you know that I do! You shall not leave me—you hear!you shall not!”

“But I must,” he replied gravely, a hardness appearing at the corners of his mouth as he slowly disengaged himself from her embrace. “I have given my word of honour to return to my chambers before midday.”

“To whom?”

“To Archibald Cator. The man who, in the exercise of his profession as chief of our Secret Service, has discovered my secret.” Chisholm, whatever might have been his follies in the past, was now a man of unflinching principle. He had given his word not to attempt to escape.

“Then I will go with you,” she said with resolution. “It is half-past eleven, and my carriage is outside. We will drive down to St. James’s Street together.”

But in all earnestness he begged her not to accompany him. He did not desire that she should be a witness of his degradation and arrest. He could not bear the thought. He knew that the matter would be placed before Lord Stockbridge himself, and that, in company with Cator, he would be called into the presence of the grave-eyed Chief in whose confidence and regard he had for long held so high a place.

“I shall go with you,” she said decisively, now calm and composed after her agitation and flood of tears. She had braced herself up with what was, under the circumstances, a remarkable effort. By way of explanation she added, half breathlessly: “I love you, Dudley, and my place in the hour of trial is at your side.”

He raised her bejewelled hand tremblingly to his lips, and thanked her in a husky voice. He, the Discrowned, dared not kiss her lips.

“Patience and courage,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly, just as she had been wont to do in those early days of his career when she had so often given him advice.

He shook his head sadly before answering.

“Both are unavailing against the vengeance of Heaven!”

She was silent. This man, whom she had loved as her own life, was a murderer. A gulf had opened between them, his arrest and denunciation were imminent. They could no longer be lovers. All was of the past.

Her tender woman’s sympathy for him in his hopeless despair was too deep for tears. Her countenance, usually so sweet and smiling, had grown hard, and her eyes large and serious. The caprice of her broken heart was that this last drive to his chambers should be taken in his company. Many and many a time he had driven with her hither and thither in London, but this was the last occasion. After that, then she would be alone, friendless, unloved—the queen of the silent kingdom, as she had so often termed the stately mansion, one of the finest in London, where the servants moved in silence and the huge marble hall and corridors echoed to the slightest whisper.

They drove together past Apsley House and along Piccadilly without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Dudley raised his hat mechanically to passers-by who, now that the yellow sunlight had struggled through the clouds, were enjoying a stroll in London’s gayest thoroughfare. Whenever there is any sunshine in the metropolis, it is always in Piccadilly. But the unwonted brightness of that morning jarred upon Dudley and Claudia. Few who passed the pair driving in that handsome carriage would ever have dreamed that the light of that beautiful woman’s heart was extinguished, and that the well-groomed man at her side was going deliberately to his doom.

Beneath the bearskin rug their hands met—and clasped. Their hearts beat quickly, their eyes met, but no word passed between them. Both understood that all words were empty in face of the horrible truth.

Archibald Cator, who had been sitting beside the fire in Chisholm’s sitting-room, rose and bowed when they entered. He recognised Claudia at once, and darted a look of inquiry at the accused man.

“Captain Cator, I believe?” she exclaimed, addressing him. “To apologise is quite unnecessary. I know everything. Mr Chisholm has told me the whole terrible story. You have but done your duty in the service of your country, and as far as I am concerned your just behaviour will receive a just verdict.”

The tall, thin-faced man was expressing his regrets, when Claudia, turning to him again, asked:

“In this affair there is still an element of mystery which should be at once cleared up. Through my own unpardonable folly in accepting as friend a woman whom I did not know, Mr Chisholm has fallen the victim of a curious conspiracy. Do you chance to know in Italy a man named Marucci?”

“Marucci?” repeated the captain; “Francesco Marruci, I presume you mean? Yes, I know him and have employed him in Rome, and elsewhere, to make confidential inquiries.”

“And do you chance to be acquainted with a woman named Mortimer—a young woman, Muriel Mortimer?”

“Certainly,” he replied quite frankly. “She is a fair-headed young person who poses as the ward of an English family named Meldrum. A couple of years ago, however, she married secretly an Italian named Biancheri, then a lieutenant of Artillery stationed at Florence, and she and her husband are now generally supposed to be agents employed in the secret service of Italy. This good-looking woman has been a successful spy. Her husband is a black-haired, evil-looking fellow with an ugly scar across his lower jaw.”

“His description is exact. He was the man who attempted to take my life last night!” exclaimed Chisholm, astonished at this revelation. “He called himself Tonio Rocchi.”

When Dudley had briefly described his adventure, Cator said:

“I knew the woman Mortimer was a guest at Wroxeter, and that was the reason why I wished nobody to know of my visit there. We are acquainted, but at that moment I had no wish to meet her.”

“Then this woman, her husband, and the Italian Marucci have by some means learnt my secret, and are actually in agreement as regards this scheme of attempted blackmail?”

“Most certainly,” was Cator’s response. “Biancheri, or Rocchi, as he calls himself, and his wife are as smart a pair of adventurers as any on the Continent, and it is well-known to us that they have on several occasions levied huge sums in blackmail when diplomatic and family secrets have leaked out.”

“But the Meldrums!” exclaimed Claudia in astonishment. “Is it possible that they, a most respectable family, can actually be aware of this woman’s fraud?”

“I think not,” was the captain’s reply. “Muriel Mortimer, the daughter of a deceased station-master employed on the Great Northern Railway, is of age, and therefore, of course, her own mistress. In England she is still the ward of Sir Henry Meldrum—who had taken her out of charity—and passes as a single woman, but she secretly married Biancheri while they were wintering in Florence, and her frequent journeys abroad have not been undertaken for the purpose of visiting friends, as she pretends but, in reality, to assist her husband in his ingenious and daring schemes of espionage and blackmail. She is an adventuress of the very worst type.”

“But how can she have learnt my secret?” demanded the melancholy man upon whom the all-reaching hand of justice had so heavily fallen.

“Ah, that is utterly impossible to tell,” answered Cator. “All that is certain is that she, together with her husband and confederates, will quickly clear out of England now that you have so determinedly withstood their efforts and defied their threats.”

Archibald Cator had turned away, and was making a pretence of examining the titles of the books in the bookcase on the opposite side of the room while Claudia and Dudley stood silently hand in hand. The captain had an appointment to see the Marquess of Stockbridge in company with the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office at one o’clock, when the serious charges were to be privately investigated. The hour was drawing near, and the white-faced, tearful woman was taking leave of the guilty man, whom she had so fondly and so truly loved.

There was in her eyes an inexpressible sadness, and the quivering lips he had so often kissed with tender passion showed plainly the agony she was suffering.

“Forgive me, Claudia, forgive me for the sake of the love of old!” he implored, whispering in her ear. “With your forgiveness I can face my fate unflinchingly, knowing that my punishment is just.”

“Dudley,” she answered in a voice broken by emotion, as she uttered what was to her the dearest of all names, “I forgive you everything. A cruel, an inexorable fate tears us apart, but I shall never forget you—never. May God forgive you as I forgive you.”

“Thank you, my heart, for those encouraging words,” he cried, snatching up her hand and imprinting upon it a lingering kiss of farewell.

As their eyes met for a single instant, in hers he saw a look of blank despair and mingled sympathy more expressive than any words could possibly be.

“Farewell, Dudley!” was all she said. “I shall pray to Him for you.”

She turned slowly from him and walked across to the door, while Cator drew back the velvetportièreand bowed in silence.

At this moment the door was thrown open by Parsons, who carried a rather bulky letter and a card upon his salver.

“The gentleman who called in the night has called again, sir,” announced the old man. “I told him you were engaged, but he said he could not possibly wait, as he was sailing from London almost immediately. He regretted missing you, and left this letter.”

His master glanced at the card, and saw that it bore the name “Ralph Brodie,” with the word “Boodle’s” in the corner.

With nervous fingers he quickly tore open the envelope and drew from it a note, together with a smaller envelope, rather soiled, sealed with black wax, and addressed to him in a woman’s pointed hand.

Claudia, who had halted, stood watching him.

The note was a brief one, written by Brodie from his club, stating with regret that his wife had died of consumption a month ago. Among the papers which he found after her death was the enclosed, together with instructions that he should deliver it personally and unopened. This he did. As he had only been in London a few hours on urgent business, and was compelled to return to India by theCaledoniathat afternoon, he had written this note of explanation in case they could not meet.

He broke the brittle wax of the dead woman’s letter, and drew forth a sheet of thin foreign note-paper, the ink on which was somewhat faded.

Swiftly he scanned the lines of brown ink; then, while looking for May Brodie’s signature, he saw in addition to this another name at the bottom of of the document—“Muriel Mortimer.”

“Impossible!” he gasped. “Surely this is not a dream! Look! Read this!” He handed the missive to Cator, who, together with the woman who had just bidden him a last farewell, read it through eagerly.

“It is the truth!” cried Claudia wildly, a moment later, rushing towards him, throwing her clinging arms about his neck, kissing him passionately, and shedding tears of joy. “You are innocent, Dudley! innocent! Think, think! The truth is written there in the presence of a witness.You are innocent!”

Some time elapsed before Dudley could grasp the whole of the facts. What he held in his trembling fingers was a statement written by May Lennox three years before. It began in a somewhat rambling manner, was dated from Kapurthala, and had been written after the doctors had pronounced her to be suffering from incurable consumption. The important paragraph, however, penned in an unsteady hand and rather smeared, read as follows:

“And now, as I know that before very long I must die, I have resolved to confess to you the whole truth. I knew too well of my father’s relations with the Turkish and Italian Governments, and I knew how he induced you to procure for him photographs of the Anglo-Russian agreement in the East, offering myself to you as a bribe. I was helpless in his hands; he used me as his decoy in the various capitals, and often accomplished importantcoupsof espionage with my assistance. But the photographs you furnished to him proved to be those of quite unimportant despatches, and utterly valueless. The photographs of the actual despatches wanted by Tewfik were procured by a person named Peynton in the employ of the Foreign Office, who has since died. My father, however, believed that you wilfully endeavoured to mislead him and intended to expose him; hence his fierce antagonism, which caused him to lay in wait for you in that lonely path near Godalming. As I had gained knowledge of his intention to harm you, I went down there and watched his movements. I was present, hidden in the shadow behind a rail only a few paces from the spot—at the point where, you will remember, the police found the weeds down-trodden and other signs of the presence of a third person. I overheard his suggestion to you, and your refusal; I saw him draw his knife with intent to strike you. I watched your struggle, and in the course of the fracas his revolver fell unnoticed from his pocket. As you were both close to me at that moment I was enabled to reach the weapon. Then I saw that your strength was failing, and you fired at him. You missed. I believe I know the very tree in which your bullet lodged. Seeing your imminent peril, I also fired—and he fell. I saved you, but I killed the man whom I was compelled to call father, though I had good reasons to hate his memory. He killed my poor mother by sheer brutality and neglect, and made me his puppet and decoy in his nefarious schemes. When he fell, you rushed from the spot, believing that you had killed him, but if you will refer to the medical evidence you will find that he was struck by a single bullet beneath the left shoulder-blade. That shot was the one I fired, and could not possibly have been fired by you. In order to tell you the truth, and yet not commit myself, I sent you anonymously, a few weeks after the occurrence, a piece of tracing-paper with a diagram upon it, and a few words, which were purposely rather vague, hoping that the plan of the spot would show you that you were innocent, and that in case you were afterwards charged with the crime you would be able to use the plan in your defence. Confession I make calmly and of my own free will, in order that it may be signed by the woman who is my companion and my most intimate friend, and that it may be opened by your own hand when I am dead and beyond the reach of man’s justice.”

There was nothing else. Only the signature, “May Beatrice Brodie,” together with that of Muriel Mortimer.

“This clearly explains how the woman Mortimer, or Biancheri, obtained possession of your secret,” observed Cator in surprise, after he had read it through aloud. “My inquiries, I recollect, showed that she entered Mrs Brodie’s employ as companion and was in India for six months, but that she returned, owing to the climate, and again took up her abode with the Meldrums. The explanation given by the Meldrums to friends was that she had been out to India on a visit. Having obtained knowledge of your secret, she imparted it to Biancheri after her marriage, with the result that he and his associates made the clever attempt to blackmail you. She, no doubt, felt herself safe as long as her late employer was living, and is, of course, in ignorance of her death and the passing of this confession into your hands.”

An hour later Dudley Chisholm was closeted alone with the Marquess of Stockbridge in the latter’s private room at the Foreign Office, where he related the whole story. That any man enjoying the confidence of Her Majesty’s Government in any capacity should have endeavoured to betray its secrets was a most heinous and unpardonable offence in the eyes of the stern old politician who was Her Majesty’s chief adviser. Nevertheless, on carefully weighing all the facts, his lordship came to the conclusion that the man who had been his private secretary, and who now held responsible office, had proved himself deeply penitent, and had, during the intervening years, endeavoured to make every reparation in his power. The actual documents Chisholm had photographed were quite unimportant. It was manifest that from first to last he had been the victim of a cleverly arranged conspiracy. The interview was a long one, and all that passed between them will never be recorded. But at last the Marquess rose and generously extended to Dudley his thin, bony hand in forgiveness. He summed up the case as follows:

“It is true that you photographed the despatches with intent to hand them to the man Lennox, and it is true that the present complications in Europe are the outcome of the betrayal of our policy, but it is not true, Chisholm, that you are a traitor. Your career has encouraged me to prophesy (and the indiscretion of which I am to-day aware for the first time has not caused me to alter my opinion) that you are one of the men who will rise after me to safeguard your country’s interests. The question placed on the paper by the member for West Antrim must be expunged at once. I will see to that matter personally, for it is apparent that the member in question has either received information, or is himself associated with the unscrupulous persons who endeavoured to profit by their knowledge of your secret. Leave it to me. That question will never be printed in the paper nor asked in the House. Only a traitor in association with the representative of some foreign Power dare endeavour to create a political crisis at this moment by asking such a question.”

“Then I am actually forgiven?” Dudley asked in a low voice, scarcely realising the truth.

“Yes, Chisholm,” replied the Marquess gravely, pressing the hand of the younger man, “you are forgiven, and what is more, my confidence in you is not shaken, for you have been proved a man of sterling worth, and the unfortunate victim of as vile and ingenious a conspiracy as ever was formed against us by dastardly spies from across the Channel. You come of an ancient and honourable race, Chisholm. Recollect, therefore, that throughout the remainder of your life your first duty is always to your God, and the second to your country and your Queen.”

Chapter Thirty One.Contains the Conclusion.The greyness of the short winter’s afternoon was steadily growing darker and darker, and the lights were already beginning to appear in the shops and the vehicles in busy Knightsbridge; but within the pretty boudoir, where an old punch-bowl full of flowers poured sweetness into the air, two hearts beat in unison, full of new-found joy, full of hope, full of perfect confidence and love.Holding his queen in his strong arms, Dudley had asked her a question, to which she had made answer with all the fervour of her being:“Yes, I will gladly be your wife, Dudley,” she said, in a tender voice. “As you well know, my heart has ever been yours, and ever will be—until the end.”In the dim light, which had now become so dark that he could scarcely distinguish her face, he pressed her closely to him in a wild ecstasy of love, and as he kissed her on the lips, his heart full of gladness inexpressible, she fancied that she felt a tear-drop upon his hollow cheek.To recount facts already known to every reader of these pages would serve no purpose, but it will interest some to learn that Marucci subsequently confessed to Captain Cator that the plot against the Under-Secretary, devised by Biancheri and his wife, had long been in progress. It was certainly at the instigation of this woman that Marucci had succeeded in obtaining the incriminating documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, which he had passed on to his employer, Archibald Cator; while she at the same time sent an anonymous letter to Mr Gerald Oldfield, the Member for Antrim West, one of Dudley’s bitterest political opponents, preferring against him a charge of murder. The Grand-Duke Stanislas knew the truth, of course, from what was told him at his own Embassy. The Meldrums, a worthy pair, had always remained in ignorance of the true character of the station-master’s daughter, whom they had adopted out of charity. They were first told the truth by Claudia herself, and the blow was a terrible disillusion, for they had always treated her as their own child. To Colonel Murray-Kerr, while he was still attach in Rome, the secret of the marriage of Muriel Mortimer with Biancheri was imparted by Marucci, who explained that there was some deep and mysterious conspiracy on foot against Dudley Chisholm, that Biancheri had left the Italian army, and that he was undoubtedly a spy. For that reason the colonel had uttered his strange warning when shooting with Dudley, but he had unfortunately not taken Marucci’s statement very seriously.Quite recently Archibald Cator ascertained that the woman Biancheri, who had so cleverly plotted the grandcoup, had been deserted by her scoundrelly husband, and had died alone and in penury in a bare room on the fifth storey of a rickety house in the Montmartre quarter of Paris. Biancheri himself is at this moment languishing in prison at Grenoble, having been arrested by French gendarmes in the very act of making a plan of one of the Alpine frontier fortresses.All London is well aware how Dudley Chisholm’s marriage, so long expected, took place, not with theéclatcommon to a fashionable wedding in town, but quietly in the quaint old village church at Wroxeter, where the mellow-toned bells pealed merrily, and the school children strewed the roses of July in their path.And every one, both in society and out of it, knows that Lady Dudley Chisholm still retains her place as one of the smartest women in London; that all the scandals once whispered about her have been proved to be false inventions of her detractors; that aschâtelaineof Wroxeter she is one of the most popular among hostesses; and that her husband, whom she adores, and whose fame is of worldwide renown, will certainly have a seat in the next Cabinet.You, my reader, whom curiosity or necessity takes into Mayfair or Belgravia, must often have seen a slim, sweet-faced woman, remarkable for the most wonderful eyes, driving in her neat Victoria, her servants in dark green liveries, and with the three water-bougets of the Chisholms upon the silver harness. Beside her there not infrequently nestles a child with an exquisite face, dark hair, and great, wide-open eyes that look in wonder on the vast world of London.You are acquainted with their life-story. They are mother and daughter, the wife and child of one of the happiest of men, the Right Honourable Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.The End.

The greyness of the short winter’s afternoon was steadily growing darker and darker, and the lights were already beginning to appear in the shops and the vehicles in busy Knightsbridge; but within the pretty boudoir, where an old punch-bowl full of flowers poured sweetness into the air, two hearts beat in unison, full of new-found joy, full of hope, full of perfect confidence and love.

Holding his queen in his strong arms, Dudley had asked her a question, to which she had made answer with all the fervour of her being:

“Yes, I will gladly be your wife, Dudley,” she said, in a tender voice. “As you well know, my heart has ever been yours, and ever will be—until the end.”

In the dim light, which had now become so dark that he could scarcely distinguish her face, he pressed her closely to him in a wild ecstasy of love, and as he kissed her on the lips, his heart full of gladness inexpressible, she fancied that she felt a tear-drop upon his hollow cheek.

To recount facts already known to every reader of these pages would serve no purpose, but it will interest some to learn that Marucci subsequently confessed to Captain Cator that the plot against the Under-Secretary, devised by Biancheri and his wife, had long been in progress. It was certainly at the instigation of this woman that Marucci had succeeded in obtaining the incriminating documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, which he had passed on to his employer, Archibald Cator; while she at the same time sent an anonymous letter to Mr Gerald Oldfield, the Member for Antrim West, one of Dudley’s bitterest political opponents, preferring against him a charge of murder. The Grand-Duke Stanislas knew the truth, of course, from what was told him at his own Embassy. The Meldrums, a worthy pair, had always remained in ignorance of the true character of the station-master’s daughter, whom they had adopted out of charity. They were first told the truth by Claudia herself, and the blow was a terrible disillusion, for they had always treated her as their own child. To Colonel Murray-Kerr, while he was still attach in Rome, the secret of the marriage of Muriel Mortimer with Biancheri was imparted by Marucci, who explained that there was some deep and mysterious conspiracy on foot against Dudley Chisholm, that Biancheri had left the Italian army, and that he was undoubtedly a spy. For that reason the colonel had uttered his strange warning when shooting with Dudley, but he had unfortunately not taken Marucci’s statement very seriously.

Quite recently Archibald Cator ascertained that the woman Biancheri, who had so cleverly plotted the grandcoup, had been deserted by her scoundrelly husband, and had died alone and in penury in a bare room on the fifth storey of a rickety house in the Montmartre quarter of Paris. Biancheri himself is at this moment languishing in prison at Grenoble, having been arrested by French gendarmes in the very act of making a plan of one of the Alpine frontier fortresses.

All London is well aware how Dudley Chisholm’s marriage, so long expected, took place, not with theéclatcommon to a fashionable wedding in town, but quietly in the quaint old village church at Wroxeter, where the mellow-toned bells pealed merrily, and the school children strewed the roses of July in their path.

And every one, both in society and out of it, knows that Lady Dudley Chisholm still retains her place as one of the smartest women in London; that all the scandals once whispered about her have been proved to be false inventions of her detractors; that aschâtelaineof Wroxeter she is one of the most popular among hostesses; and that her husband, whom she adores, and whose fame is of worldwide renown, will certainly have a seat in the next Cabinet.

You, my reader, whom curiosity or necessity takes into Mayfair or Belgravia, must often have seen a slim, sweet-faced woman, remarkable for the most wonderful eyes, driving in her neat Victoria, her servants in dark green liveries, and with the three water-bougets of the Chisholms upon the silver harness. Beside her there not infrequently nestles a child with an exquisite face, dark hair, and great, wide-open eyes that look in wonder on the vast world of London.

You are acquainted with their life-story. They are mother and daughter, the wife and child of one of the happiest of men, the Right Honourable Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

The End.

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