"Listen!" Aline cried, addressing Jack, "and I will tell you. Three
years ago I was living with my father in Montgeron when I became
acquainted with a man who one night persuaded me to go with him to a
house in Paris, and there by his trickery I was initiated as a
Diabolist. It was partly because of a passing fancy for him, and partly
because of the mysteries surrounding it, that I became a member of the
infamous cult; yet soon I hated the awful rites, and the revulsion of
feeling within me caused me to embrace Christianity, so that when at
length my father died, and I escaped from this man and came to England,
I was received into the English Church. Then you know how we met, and I
loved you. My father had left me fairly well off, and as atonement for
my sin in worshipping Satan I devoted the greater part of my money to
charity in the poorer districts of London. Suddenly, however, this man,
who was one of the elders of the cult of Satan in Paris, found me in
London, and a branch having been established here, he compelled me under
threats of exposure to you of my association with this abominable sect,
to return to them and become their priestess. Thus, powerless beneath
his influence, I loved you and worshipped at your church, yet on each
Sunday night compelled to come here and assist at the Black Mass of the
Evil One. Can you imagine what my feelings have been? Can you fully
realise the awful pangs of conscience when, fearing God as I do, I have
knelt upon yonder cushion compelled to profane His name, because of my
love for you and the fear that if you knew the truth you would cast me
aside? Yes," she cried wildly, her face blanched and haggard, "I loved
you, Jack!" and staggering forward she fell upon her knees before him in
penitence.
"It is astounding!" he exclaimed. "Satan himself has sent you into my
life, for you are his priestess."
"But tell me," I cried, addressing the kneeling woman. "Explain your
object in so mystifying me, and how it was that at your touch any holy
emblems were reduced to ashes?"
"It is part of our creed," she answered. "Each Diabolist on placing
upon himself the Bond of Black takes an oath to steal crucifixes,
Bibles, prayer-books, communion-cups, sacramental wine, or anything
sacred to the worship of God, in order that they may be defiled or
destroyed in the Temple of Satan. You have already seen the holy water,
and the consecrated host, defiled, and each of the crucifixes burned in
this brazier have been stolen by those who had destroyed them as
offerings to the King of Evil."
"But mine was destroyed by fire--as was also the chalice at St
Peter's," I observed.
"No; in order to mystify those who follow Christianity the Diabolists
have established a system by which the ashes of various objects burned
in the brazier are afterwards supplied to the votaries of Satan, and
when any sacred objects are stolen the ashes are substituted. Being
carried in a bag of chamois-leather, they are warmed by the heat of the
body, and hence, increased mystery is added by the ashes, when
discovered, being warm."
"Then you stole my crucifix in order that it should be burnt here!" I
exclaimed, amazed.
"Yes. The chalice, too, was melted in that brazier, as well as objects
from the rooms of your poor friend Morgan."
"Morgan!" I cried, interrupting. "He was murdered! Tell us the
truth."
"Yes," answered the unhappy woman, hoarsely. "He was murdered."
"Who was the assassin?" I inquired quickly.
"I do not know," she answered, looking boldly at me. "I myself have
tried to discover, but cannot."
"But how do you reconcile your assertion that he died at Monte Carlo
with the fact that he was assassinated in London?" I demanded.
"I felt assured that he committed suicide there, for I saw him carried
out of the rooms dying. But, from further information which I have
since obtained from the Administration there, I have found that he lay
ill for some weeks in a hospital at Nice, and afterwards recovered
sufficiently to be able to return to London. The Administration are
always reticent upon the subject of suicides, and it was their refusal
to give me any information when I applied on the day following the
tragic affair that led me to believe that your friend had died and been
buried in a nameless grave in the suicides' cemetery at La Turbie."
"Why did you so deceive me regarding your address at Hampstead?" I
inquired. "Surely there could have been no necessity for doing that?"
"Yes, there was," she replied. "I was compelled to act as I did. In
the house of Mrs Popejoy was a valuable ring belonging to the Pope
which he had given to the Ambassador of France together with his
blessing. This ring had been traced by the cult of Satan to this lady's
possession, and it was arranged that I should enter the house as her
companion and secure it. I did so on the night when you escorted me to
that house, and the ring is now upon the hand of the chief of the
order--the man yonder who personifies the King of Evil."
"Extraordinary!" I exclaimed when I had heard her explanation. "Your
ingenuity at deception was truly marvellous."
"Yes," she answered, "but my actions were not my own voluntary ones.
They were directed by the leader of the sect in whose power I have been
held, unable to extricate myself for fear of exposure and a terrible
denunciation. But it is all at an end now," she added in despair. "You
have all of you witnessed my awful degradation, and how I have committed
the deadly sins. For me what forgiveness can there be; for what may I
hope?"
"Hope for the forgiveness of the man who loves you," I answered,
glancing at Yelverton, who remained rigid and silent, his face white as
death.
But she only burst into tears, and grasping her lover's hand pressed it
to her lips, murmuring some broken words imploring pity.
"And you, Muriel?" I asked, turning to my beloved who was standing at
my side shielded from the wrath of these angry people by my revolver.
"How is it that you have been enabled to expose this most extraordinary
state of affairs?"
"But for one thing I should never have dared to bring you here," she
answered, looking at me openly. "I was jealous of Aline, because I
thought you loved her, and was therefore content that she should suffer
all the tortures of the mind which she has suffered, being compelled to
bow before Satan and ridicule the Faith. I refused your offer of
marriage because I believed you loved her, and in pique I allowed this
man Hibbert to admire me. I--"
"Then you are a Diabolist yourself?" I gasped, dismayed.
"Yes. It was Hibbert who induced me to allow myself to become
initiated. Truth to tell, I was curious to witness the strange rites of
which he told me, but as soon as I found myself fettered by the Bond of
Black I repented, and wished to come out of the terrible cult whose
faith is in profanity and whose deeds are wickedness. Like Aline, I
have been compelled to steal prayer-books, Bibles, and sacred objects,
all of which have been defiled and consumed. I dared not tell you of my
association with these Satanists, hence my constant silence regarding
matters upon which you have desired explanation."
"But what caused you to so suddenly abandon Hibbert and return to me?"
I asked, recollecting my curious compact with Aline.
"A discovery which I made--a revelation which, by Aline's instigation,
was made to me," she answered. "I know full well how she bought your
silence by promising that I should return to you. I came, and you
believed, because of that, she was possessed of power supernatural. It
is the object of every worshipper of Satan to cause the outside world to
believe that he or she is endowed with a miraculous power by the Evil
One, hence the manner in which ashes are substituted for the holy
objects stolen. Aline, like myself, was compelled by the oath she had
taken to impose upon you, upon Roddy Morgan, upon her lover, nay, upon
every one about her, until they believed her endowed with power not
possessed by any other living being."
"Yes," Aline interrupted, "what Muriel tells you is the truth. At my
will this man Hibbert forsook her, and she returned to you because she
was no longer jealous of me. And you believed that I committed the
crime!" she said reproachfully. "You suspected that I killed the man
who had been so kind to me."
"I certainly did believe so. All the evidence seemed to point to the
fact that Roddy was killed by some secret means, and that the person who
visited him was yourself. I found the button of one of your gloves
there."
Slowly she rose to her feet, and seeing how grave was her lover's face
she turned again to me, saying, in a tremulous voice--
"Yes, I know, it is useless for me to now conceal the truth. On leaving
you that morning I went there and saw him. He opened the door himself,
and I remained about a quarter of an hour. We had not met since I had
seen him carried out of the rooms at Monte Carlo, and the reason of my
visit was to ascertain whether what you alleged, namely, that he was
still alive, was true. I fully expected to find that this man who was
passing as Roddy Morgan was an impostor, but discovered that he was no
doubt the same person with whom I had been acquainted at Monte Carlo.
My aunt, with whom I was on the Riviera, liked him very much, and I
confess that only by his attempted suicide was a match between us
prevented. In that brief space, while I remained there, he again told
me that he loved me, but I explained that I had now formed another
attachment, a statement which threw him into a fit of deep despondency.
His man was out, therefore he went himself into an adjoining room to get
me a glass of wine, and while he was absent I stole a rosary from a
casket, depositing ashes in its place. Then I drank the wine, and left
him, promising to call soon, but giving him plainly to understand that
although we might be friends, we could never again be lovers."
"And then?" I asked gravely.
"Ah! I have no knowledge of what occurred after that," she said. "I
have endeavoured to fathom the mystery, but have failed. That poor
Roddy was murdered is absolutely certain."
"You refused his love because of your affection for me, Aline!" Jack
exclaimed, in a low, broken voice, for this discovery that she
worshipped the power which he held in greatest hatred had utterly
crushed and appalled him. Truly he had spoken the truth on that night
in Duddington when he had told me that the Devil had sent her into his
life to arrest the good deeds he was endeavouring to perform.
"Yes," she answered, looking up into his dark, grave face with eyes fall
of tears. "You know, Jack, that I have ever been true to you. I have
been forced to act like this; compelled to commit a profanity which has
horrified me, and made to exercise the ingenious trickery which was born
of the fertile resources of this man beneath whose thrall I have been
held."
"It's a lie!" cried the hideous fellow who personified the Evil One.
His very appearance caused us to shudder. "You are one of us--our
priestess. Was it not you, yourself, who suggested to our brothers the
Sacrifice of the Cat?"
"Yes," cried half a dozen voices, "it was Aline who suggested it."
"At your instigation," she answered boldly. "You first broached the
subject and then induced me to suggest it. I've been your catspaw from
the very moment we first met at Montgeron, and you took me to the Temple
of Satan at Passy. From that day I have known not a moment's peace; the
spirit of Satan has entered my soul, and I've existed in an awful
torment of mind, like that prepared for the wicked."