CHAPTER I.

WYLLARD'S WEIRD

A Novel

By

M. E. BRADDON

THE AUTHOR OF

"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN,"

"ISHMAEL,"

ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

LONDON

JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL

MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET

AND

35 ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.

1885

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

I. IN A CORNISH VALLEY

II. AFTER THE INQUEST

III. JOSEPH DISTIN

IV. BOTHWELL DECLINES TO ANSWER

V. PEOPLE WILL TALK

VI. A CLERICAL WARNING

VII. A RAPID CONVERSION

VIII. A VALUABLE ALLY

IX. FEVER DREAMS

X. "TOUCH LIPS AND PART WITH TEARS"

XI. A FATAL LOVE

Volume II

Volume III

WYLLARD'S WEIRD

CHAPTER I.

IN A CORNISH VALLEY.

There are some travellers who think when they cross the Tamar, over

that fairy bridge of Brunel's, hung aloft between the blue of the river

and the blue of the sky, that they have left England behind them on

the eastern shore--that they have entered a new country, almost a new

world. This land of quiet woods and lonely valleys, and bold brown

hills, barren, solitary--these wild commons and large moorlands of

Cornwall seem to stand apart, as they did in the days gone by, when

this province was verily a kingdom, complete in itself, and owning no

sovereignty but its own.

It is a beautiful region which the traveller sees, perchance for the

first time, as the train skims athwart the quaint little waterside

village of Saltash, and pierces the rich depths of the woodland,

various, enchanting. Now the line seems strung like a thread of iron

in mid-air above a deep gorge, now winds sinuous as a snake through a

labyrinth of hills. A picturesque bit of road, this between Plymouth

and Bodmin Road, at all times; but, perhaps, loveliest in the still

evening hour, when the summer sunset steeps the land in golden light,

while the summer wind scarcely stirs the woods.

In the mellow light of a July eventide the express from Paddington

swept with slackened speed round the curve which marked the approach to

a viaduct between Saltash and Bodmin Road--a heavy wooden structure,

spanning a vale of Alpine beauty. An exquisite little bit of scenery,

upon which the stranger is apt to look with some touch of fear mingled

in the cup of his delight: but to the dweller in the district, familiar

with every yard of the journey, the transit is as nothing. He is

carried through the air serenely, as he smokes his cigar and reads his

paper, and the notion of peril never occurs to him.

One man, sitting by the window of a third-class carriage near the end

of the train, looked out at the familiar scene dreamily to-night. He

was an elderly, gray-headed man, a parish doctor, hard-worked and

poorly paid; but he had a keen eye for the beautiful in Nature, dead or

living, and familiar as this spot was to his eye, it always impressed

him. He sat with his face to the engine, puffing lazily at his black

briarwood, and gazing at the landscape, in that not unpleasant

condition of bodily and mental fatigue, when the mind seems half

asleep, and the external world is little more than a dream-picture.

The train was not a long one, a good many of the London coaches having

been left behind at Plymouth. Dr. Menheniot put out his head, and

surveyed the line of carriages as they rounded the curve. There was

a figure here and there by a window; but the train seemed sparsely

occupied. They were nearing the viaduct. That narrow thread of water

trickling over its rocky bed in the depth of the gorge was in winter

a rushing torrent. The line at this point was under repair, and the

wooden palisade had been removed in the progress of the work. The

actual danger was in nowise increased by the absence of this barrier,

which would have crumbled like matchwood before the weight of the

train, had the engine run off the rails--but there was a seeming

insecurity to the eye of the traveller as he looked into the gulf

below; and Dr. Menheniot gave an involuntary shudder. Another moment

and the engine came on the viaduct. Menheniot started up with a

half-articulate exclamation, "What, in God's name--" he began.

He opened the carriage-door, seemed as if he were going to clamber out,

to try and make his way along the footboard to a distant carriage,

outside which a girl was standing, holding on to the brass hand-rail

at the side of the door. She had that instant stepped out, or been

thrust out; Menheniot knew not which. He had seen nothing till he saw

her standing there, a slender figure in a light-coloured gown, thin

draperies fluttering in the wind--standing there, hanging between life

and death, a creature to be rescued somehow, were it at the hazard of a

man's life.

Before he could put himself in peril the chance of rescue was over. A

wild shriek rang through the wood--a fluttering form went whirling down

the ravine, flashing white athwart the sunlit greenery, and lay half

buried amidst a tangle of ferns and wild flowers at the bottom of the

gorge.

Twenty or thirty heads were thrust out of the windows. The train,

which to Dr. Menheniot's eye just now had seemed almost empty, was

now alive with people. The engine slackened speed, and stopped at

about a hundred yards from the scene of the catastrophe. A dozen men

of different ages and qualities leaped out of the train and clambered

down the embankment; among others Julian Wyllard, the Lord of the Manor

of Penmorval--a man of middle age, soberly attired, a tall stately

figure, a man of mark in this part of the country--before whom all gave

way; except little Dr. Menheniot, who hurried on ahead, intent upon

affording professional help, if such help could avail.

Julian Wyllard had been an athlete in his boyhood and youth. He

walked down the steep, rugged hillside more easily than many men

walk down Regent Street. At the bottom of the embankment every one

fell back involuntarily, as it were, and allowed Mr. Wyllard to head

the procession. They went as fast as it was possible to go over that

broken ground, trampling down the ferns and flowers, the tiny scarlet

strawberries, and crimson and orange fungi, as they went, every lip

breathless, every eye strained towards that one spot in the hollow

yonder where the doctor was hastening.

"No use, I fear," said Mr. Wyllard, as if answering the common thought.

"The poor creature must be quite dead."

"What, in mercy's name, made her do it?" speculated a burly farmer;

"was she frighted, do you think, by some ruffian in the train; or did

she want to make away with herself?"

The little cluster of passengers looked at one another curiously, as

if seeking among those rustic countenances for the face of a scoundrel

capable of assailing unprotected innocence. But if guilt were present

in that assembly, there was no outward indication of the diabolical

element. Almost every one there was known to the rest: small farmers,

a squire or two, the elderly lawyer from Camelford, the curate of

Wadebridge, a magistrate of Bodmin, a cornchandler and respectable

inhabitant of the same town. Assuredly not among these would one look

for that debased and savage humanity which is viler in its instincts

than the wild beasts of the jungle.

There might be other passengers lurking in the train, among those

loquacious women up yonder, who were all putting their heads out of

windows, straining their necks to get their share in the pity and the

terror of the tragedy down below.

Mr. Wyllard and his companions found little Dr. Menheniot on his knees

beside the piteous figure lying in a heap, like a limp rag, among ferns

and ground-ivy.

He had lifted the poor bruised head upon his arm, and he was looking

down at the dead face, the open eyes gazing in the set stare of a great

horror. Horror at the wretch who flung her down, or at that awful gulf

of death self-sought? Who could tell? Those blood-bedabbled lips were

mute for evermore, unless the dead could be conjured into speech.

"Is she quite gone?" asked Julian Wyllard, his compassionate

countenance calm amidst the agitation of the little crowd.

That spectacle of sudden violent death was no new thing to his eyes.

He had lived in Paris during the siege and the Commune, had seen the

corpses laid out in long rows in the cemeteries, and piled in bloody

heaps in the streets.

"Quite dead, and a blessed thing too," answered the doctor. "I don't

believe she has a whole bone in her body. She could only have lingered

a little while to suffer agonies. Her neck is broken. Poor little

thing! She is quite a young creature and must have been pretty."

Yes, it was a pretty little face, even in the pallor of death. A

small _retroussé_ nose; large dark eyes, with long black lashes;

pouting, childish lips; a delicately moulded figure, neatly dressed in

light-gray alpaca, a linen collar cut low in the front and showing a

good deal of the slim white throat, linen cuffs, long thread gloves,

and little stuff boots.

"She looks like a furriner," said Mr. Nicholls, the burly farmer who

had speculated as to the cause of her death.

"Hadn't somebody better examine her pockets for any papers which may

identify her?" said a voice behind Wyllard.

It was the voice of a young man who had been the last to leave the

train. He had followed the rest at a few paces' distance, and had only

just arrived to look at the dead girl over Wyllard's shoulder.

"You here, Bothwell?" exclaimed Wyllard, turning quickly.

"Yes, I have been in Plymouth all day, and thought I'd get back by your

train," answered Bothwell Grahame easily. "Don't you think they ought

to examine her pockets?"

"Certainly; but it is a question as to whether it should be done now

or later," said Wyllard. "She was evidently travelling alone, poor

creature, and she must have been in a compartment by herself, since

nobody seems to know anything about her. The chief thing to be done is

to get her carried on to Bodmin Road, where there must be an inquest."

Everybody agreed that this was the voice of wisdom. Dr. Menheniot

turned out the pocket of the neat alpaca gown. There was nothing but a

handkerchief, a little bunch of keys, and a second-class railway ticket

for Plymouth; no card-case or purse; not even an old letter to offer a

clue to the dead girl's personality. This done, the doctor arranged the

poor dislocated form decently, and two sturdy men lifted it from the

greenery, and carried it gently up the embankment to the train, where

that unconscious clay was laid on the seat of an empty second-class

compartment.

"It is the very carriage she was in," said Bothwell, pointing to a torn

strip of gray alpaca hanging on the metal handle. "Her gown must have

caught on the handle as she fell, and this shred was left behind."

Bothwell gave the bit of alpaca to Dr. Menheniot.

"You can show that to the Coroner," he said; "of course, you will be a

witness."

"About the only one necessary, I should think," said the doctor. "I saw

her fall."

"Did you?" exclaimed Wyllard. "That's lucky! And what was your

impression as to the manner of her fall--whether she deliberately threw

herself out, or whether she was thrown out by a villain?"

This was asked in a lowered voice; since the murderer, if the deed were

murder, might be within hearing.

"Upon my soul, I cannot tell," protested Menheniot, with a troubled

look. "The whole thing was so rapid. It passed like a flash. I was

smoking, tired, in a dozy condition altogether, and this horrible thing

seemed like a dream. I saw no other head at the carriage window. I saw

nothing but that girl standing on the footboard as the train came on

to the bridge; and then, all in a moment, I saw her whirling down into

the gorge, like a feather blown out of a window. If it was suicide she

certainly hesitated, for when I first saw her she was standing on the

footboard, holding the hand-rail by the side of the door. She did not

leap out of the train with one desperate deliberate spring. However

determined she may have been to kill herself, she must have faltered in

the act."

"It would be only human to do so. Poor young thing--a mere child!" said

Wyllard regretfully.

He talked apart with the guard, recommending that official to keep his

eye upon the passengers who got out at Bodmin Road, and at all stations

further down the line; to mark any man of ruffianly appearance or

agitated demeanour; to give any such person in charge if he saw but the

slightest reason for suspicion.

The passengers had resumed their seats by this time, and the train

began to move slowly onward. The whole period of delay had not been

twenty minutes, and the line between Plymouth and Penzance was

tolerably clear at this hour. The train would be able to recover lost

time before the end of the journey.

"You had better come into my carriage," said Wyllard to the young man

whom he had addressed as Bothwell.

"I have only a third-class ticket," answered the other. "I've been

smoking."

"I never knew you doing anything else," said Wyllard, with a touch of

scorn. "Go back to your third-class carriage. No doubt you want another

pipe."

"I believe after that shock it will do me good," replied the young man,

producing his tobacco pouch on the instant, and beginning to fill his

little clay pipe.

Mr. Wyllard went back to the compartment where he had been sitting at

ease all day and alone. There is a mysterious power in the presence

of such a man which, save in the stress of the tourist season, can

generally secure solitude. The tourist season had not yet begun, and

Mr. Wyllard was known to be good for half-a-crown, and never to offer

less; so his particular compartment was sacred. Even bishops and

notabilities of the land were hustled away from the door, beguiled by

the promise of something better elsewhere.

He had strewed the carriage with newspapers and magazines, and now he

began to collect all this literature and to strap it neatly together

before arriving at his journey's end. He was neat and methodical in

all small matters, yet he was in nowise a prig or a pedant. His tall,

powerful frame and strongly marked features were upon a large scale. He

had a large brain and a large manner.

Look at him now as he sits in his corner of the luxurious carriage,

against a background of light-drab cloth. A man in the prime of

manhood, five-and-forty at most; a fine head well set off; light-brown

hair, thick and silky, brushed aside from a broad square forehead,

in which there are all the indications of intellectual power. Large,

full blue eyes, whose normal expression is severe, but the expression

softens when the man smiles, brightens and sparkles when the man

laughs. He has a beautiful smile, a sonorous laugh, and a voice of

power and compass rare among English voices. The features are firmly

modelled, bold, massive; the mouth, when the lips are closely set, as

they are just now, looks as if it were cut out of stone. A man likely

to love profoundly, and not likely to hate lightly. A staunch friend,

as everybody knows in this part of the country; but perchance a deadly

foe were great provocation given; a man to keep a secret as closely as

the grave. A man to give money as freely as if it were water.

The train stopped at Bodmin Road, in a picturesque valley, deep amidst

pine-clothed hills, and adjoining a park of exceptional beauty. There

was a quiet little roadside inn, about five minutes' walk from the

station, and to this strange hostelry the dead girl was conveyed, a

shrouded form lying on a shutter, and carried by two railway-porters.

She was laid in a darkened chamber at the back of the house, to await

the advent of the Coroner, a gentleman of some importance, who lived

ten miles off.

An open carriage was waiting for Julian Wyllard, and in the carriage

sat a beautiful woman, smiling welcome upon him as he came out of the

station. The dead girl had been carried out by another way. The lady in

the carriage knew nothing of the tragedy.

"How late the train is this evening!" she said. "I was beginning to

feel uneasy."

"There has been an accident."

"An accident! O, how dreadful! But you are not hurt?" she cried

anxiously, looking at him from top to toe, suspicious of some deadly

injury which he might be heroically concealing.

"No, it was not a railway accident. There is no one hurt except a poor

girl who threw herself, or was thrown, out of the train."

"How terrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyllard. "Is it any one we know--any one

about here?"

"No, she is quite a stranger, poor child, and from her dress and

general appearance I should take her to be a Frenchwoman. But we shall

know more after the inquest."

"How very sad! A stranger alone in a strange land, and to meet such

a death! But do you really believe that any one threw her out of the

train, Julian? That seems too horrible to be true."

"My dear, I believe nothing. The poor creature's fate is shrouded in

mystery. Whether she killed herself or whether any one killed her is

an open question. I told the guard and the station-master to be on

the alert, and to stop any suspicious character. I shall call at the

police-office as we drive through the town. Here is Bothwell," added

Wyllard, as the young man came sauntering lazily along. "Did you know

that he had gone to Plymouth?"

"Not I," replied Mrs. Wyllard. "He did not appear at luncheon, but as

he is always erratic I did not even wonder about him. What took you to

Plymouth this morning, Bothwell?" she asked, as her cousin came up to

the carriage door.

They were first cousins, and it was his cousinship with Julian

Wyllard's beautiful wife which secured Bothwell Grahame free quarters

at Penmorval. They were children of twin sisters who had loved each

other with more than common love, who had seldom been parted till death

parted them untimely. Bothwell's mother was cut off in the flower

of her youth and beauty, leaving her only child an infant, and her

husband a broken-hearted man. Captain Grahame went to India with his

regiment, less than a year after his wife's death, to fight and fall in

the Punjaub, and Bothwell, the orphan, was brought up by his mother's

sister, Mrs. Tregony Dalmaine, at a fine old manor-house near the

Land's End.

He was two years younger than Theodora Dalmaine, and he was to the

child as a younger brother. They were brought up together, played

together, and shared the same schoolroom and the same governess, till

Bothwell was drafted off to Woolwich, having set his heart upon being

a soldier, and in his father's regiment. The bright, quick-witted girl

was considerably in advance of the boy in all their mutual studies. She

was industrious where he was idle, for it must be owned that even in

the beginning of things Bothwell was somewhat scampish in his mind and

habits.

He did pretty well at Woolwich--passed his examinations respectably,

if not with _éclat_. His heart was set upon soldiering, and he did

not object to work when his heart was in the labour. He was a good

soldier, and one of the most popular men in his regiment. He saw a

good deal of service in Afghanistan, as an officer of Engineers, not

without distinction: but he came to grief, in spite of his many good

qualities. He squandered every shilling of his small patrimony, got

into debt, and finally left the army, and thus dropped out of that

one career for which nature and education had especially fitted him,

turned aside from the one path which might have led him to fame and

honour. And now he was an idler, without place or station in the world,

money, or repute, an encumbrance and a burden to his family, as he told

himself every day. He had vague ideas of chalking out a career for

himself; had visions of colonial paradises, where he might do wonders;

was always devising some new plan, inclining to some new place; but his

aspirations had not yet taken any tangible form. He was continually

falling in with some new adviser, who wrenched all his ideas out of the

soil in which they had taken root, and transplanted them to another

locality.

"Spanish America!" said Smith; "don't think of it. You would be dead

in a week. Have you never heard of the _vomito negro_, the deadliest

disease known to man? Otaheite is the place for you! A superb climate,

a new area for an enterprising young Englishman! You would make your

fortune in three years."

Then came Jones, who laughed at the notion of the South Sea Islands,

and advised Bothwell to get a tract of waste land, near the mouth of

the Gironde, and grow fir-trees, and export their resin; that was the

one certain road to fortune. You had first your resin, a large annual

revenue, and then you had your timber for railway sleepers, returning

cent per cent. Bothwell did not venture to ask how you got your resin

after you had sold your timber.

Anon came Robinson, who recommended Canada and the lumber trade; and

after him Brown, who declared that the only theatre for intelligent

youth was the interior of Africa. In the multitude of counsellors there

is wisdom, says Scripture; but Bothwell found that in the multitude of

counsellors there is bewilderment akin to madness. He had an honest

desire to get his own living; but so far uncertainty as to the manner

of getting it had barred the way to fortune.

"What took me to Plymouth?" he repeated. "Upon my word, I hardly know.

It was so deadly quiet at Penmorval this morning. I wanted to hear the

voices of my fellow-men. I went third class, you know, Dora. It wasn't

a very extravagant proceeding," he murmured confidentially. "Shall I

ride on the box?"

"You had better come inside," said Wyllard; "there is plenty of room;"

whereupon Bothwell took the back seat of the barouche, opposite his

cousin and her husband.

Bodmin town was some miles from Bodmin Road, a lovely drive in the

tranquil July eventide; but both those men were haunted by the vision

of that dead face, those dislocated limbs, hanging loosely, like a dead

stag hauled along by huntsman and whip, while the hounds cluster round

their prey. An event so terrible was not to be dismissed lightly.

"I wonder who she was, and where she was going?" said Bothwell.

"Some little nursery governess, I daresay, going to her situation."

"In that case we shall hear all about her at the inquest. She will have

been expected, and her employers will come to the fore."

"What a terrible thing for her parents, if they are living; most of all

for her poor mother!" said Mrs. Wyllard.

She pronounced the last word with peculiar softness. She had an exalted

idea of the sacredness of the relationship between mother and child.

She had passionately loved her own mother; had passionately longed for

a child in the earlier years of her wedded life. But she had been a

wife seven years, and no child had lived to bless her. A son had been

born within a year of her marriage--born only to die: and now she had

left off hoping that she would ever be called upon this earth by the

dear name of mother.

They drove past familiar woods and hills, ferny dells, and limpid

brooks. They saw the great brown tors standing afar off against the

amber sky: but that one haunting thought of a horrible death spoiled

all the beauty of the scene. They had no eyes for the landscape, but

sat in serious silence.

Mr. Wyllard alighted at the Bodmin police-station, and spent about ten

minutes in conversation with the Inspector, who was at once shocked

and elated on hearing of the strange death on the railway. He was

shocked at the horror of the thing; he was elated at the idea of an

inquiry and investigation which might result in honour and profit to

himself.

Mrs. Wyllard sat in the carriage with Bothwell, while her husband and

the official conversed gravely on the threshold of the station-house.

Bothwell talked about the girl and her mysterious death. He described

the poor little white face, the look of horror in that glassy stare of

death.

"Did she look like a lady?" asked Dora, full of painful interest.

"Hardly, I think. She had that pretty, neat appearance which one sees

in French girls of a class just a little above the grisette. Her frock,

and her boots, and her cotton gloves must all have suited herself and

her station to a nicety. There was no touch of that vulgar finery which

makes a half-bred English girl odious. I daresay Wyllard is right, and

that she was a poor little governess, going out into a strange land to

earn her bread and learn a foreign language. There are thousands who go

out every year, I have no doubt; only this one has contrived to jump

into notoriety and an early grave at the same time. By Jove! here comes

the Coroner. We shall be the first to tell him that he will be wanted

to-morrow."

Mrs. Wyllard blushed faintly as she turned to look at an approaching

horseman. She had not, even to this day, left off blushing at any

sudden mention of Edward Heathcote's name; and yet it was seven years

since she had jilted him in order to marry Julian Wyllard.

A sad story, all forgiven now, if not forgotten. A deep wrong done by

a noble-hearted woman to a noble-hearted man. It was the one act of

Theodora Wyllard's life which she could not look back upon without

remorse. In all other relations of life she had been perfect--devoted

daughter, devoted wife. But in this one thing she had sinned. This man

had loved her faithfully, fondly, from the dawn of her girlish beauty,

from the beginning of her womanly grace. She had accepted his love,

and had seemed to herself to return it, measure for measure. She had

looked forward to the years when they two would be one. And then, in a

fatal hour, another face flashed across the foreground of her life--a

new voice thrilled her ear--an influence was exercised over her which

she had never felt before, a power too potent for resistance--and, in a

moment of passionate self-abandonment, she knelt at Edward Heathcote's

feet, and confessed her love for another. Julian Wyllard had broken

down all barriers, had asked her to be his wife, knowing her to be

engaged to another man. But there are those who think that a great

irresistible love outweighs all scruples of honour or conscience.

"Why do you ask me for your freedom, as if it were so great a favour?"

Heathcote said bitterly, as he lifted her up from her knees. "Do you

think I would have you--this mere beautiful clay--now that your heart

has gone from me? Do you think I, who love you a hundred times better

than I love myself, would stand between you and happiness? You are

free, Dora. I have seen this misery coming upon me ever since this

stranger came into your mother's house."

"And you will forgive me?" she pleaded, with clasped hands, looking

at him with streaming eyes, sorry for him, deeply ashamed of her

infidelity.

"Can I be angry with you, loving you as I do? God forgive you, Dora,

for all your sins, large or small, as freely as I forgive your sin

against me."

He kissed her unresisting lips for the last time, and so left her, as

nearly broken-hearted as a man can be and yet recover.

He did recover, or was, at any rate, supposed to be cured, since,

two years after Theodora Dalmaine's wedding, he married a fair young

girl, penniless, friendless, and an orphan; a wife who loved him as

he deserved to be loved, and who, after less than two years of wedded

life, died, leaving two children, twin daughters. It was three years

since the grave had closed upon her, and Edward Heathcote was still a

widower, and was believed to have no thought of marriage.

He came riding slowly along the street in the fading light, a man

of striking appearance, mounted on a fine horse, a man of about

three-and-thirty, tall, broad-shouldered. He had a dark complexion, and

dark-brown hair, deep-set gray eyes, which looked almost black under

dark heavy brows, an aquiline nose, a heavy moustache and beard.

He had begun life as a younger son, and had practised for some years

as a solicitor in the town of Plymouth--had been town clerk and a

man of public importance in that place--when his elder brother died

a bachelor, and Edward Heathcote inherited a snug little estate near

Bodmin, with a curious old country house called The Spaniards. The

place had been so named on account of the Spanish chestnuts which

flourished there in exceeding beauty. On becoming owner of The

Spaniards, and the estate that went with it, Edward Heathcote retired

from the law, and went to live at the place of his birth, where he

looked after the well-being of his baby girls and his young sister,

and let his days glide by in the quiet monotony of a country squire's

life, hunting and shooting, sitting in judgment upon poachers and small

defaulters at petty sessions, and acting as coroner for his division of

the county. He had been leading this life of rural respectability for a

year.

He rode up to the carriage and shook hands with Mrs. Wyllard. He was

her neighbour, and had visited Penmorval during the last year. There

had never been the faintest indication in his manner or his speech that

Julian Wyllard's wife was any more to him than a friend. He was pleased

to visit her, anxious that she should be interested in his motherless

children, pleased to confide his plans and his thoughts to her. Time

had sobered his enthusiasm about all things, and had softened all

bitter memories. He took life now as a gentle legato movement. He had

lived and suffered, and done his duty, and that which was left to him

was rest. He sat down among his fields and his vineyards to take his

ease just a little earlier than other men, that was all. A great sorrow

suffered in the morning of life ages a man by at least a decade.

"Why are you waiting outside the station-house?" he asked; "have you

had an alarm of burglars at Penmorval?"

"It is something much worse than that," answered Mrs. Wyllard gravely;

and then Bothwell related the catastrophe on the railway.

Julian Wyllard came back to the carriage just as the story was finished.

"This will be a job for you, Heathcote," he said.

"A very sad one. The story has a brutal sound to me, remembering past

stories of the same kind," answered Heathcote. "It shall not be my

fault if the ruffian escapes."

"You think there is a ruffian, then? You don't take it for a case of

suicide?"

"Decidedly not," replied the other promptly. "Why should a girl choose

such a death as that?"

"Why should a girl throw herself off the Monument?" asked Wyllard. "Yet

we know girls had a rage for doing that, fifty years ago. However, you

will have a good opportunity for the display of your legal acumen in a

really mysterious case. I did all I could in my small way to put the

officials on the alert along the line; and if any scoundrel had a hand

in that poor child's death, I don't believe he will get off easily.

Where are you riding?"

"Only for an evening stroll over the downs."

"You had better come home and have supper with us. It will be too late

to call it dinner."

"You are very good, but I dined at seven. Besides, I shall have to

arrange about this inquest for to-morrow. I'll talk to Morris, and then

ride on to the Vital Spark, and settle matters with the people there."

The Vital Spark was the small roadside inn where the dead girl was

lying. The Penmorval barouche drove off, while Edward Heathcote

stopped to talk to Morris, the Inspector. The jury would have to get

notice early next morning. The inquest was to be held at five in the

afternoon. This would give time for the tradesmen to get away from

their shops. The chief business of the day in Bodmin town would be over.

"It will give time for any one in this neighbourhood, who knows

anything about the girl, to come forward," added Mr. Heathcote. "If

she was going to a situation in this part of the world, as Mr. Wyllard

suggests, some one must know all about her."

"What a man he is, Mr. Heathcote!" said the Inspector admiringly. "Such

clearness, such decision; always to the point."

"Yes, he is a very superior man," answered Heathcote heartily.

He had schooled himself long ago to generous thoughts about his rival.

It pleased him to know that Dora had been lucky in her choice, that she

had not taken a scorpion into her bosom when she preferred another man

to himself. He had wondered sometimes--in a mere idle wonder, when he

saw her in her beautiful home at Penmorval--whether it would have been

possible for him to make her life happier than Julian Wyllard had made

it; whether in his uttermost adoration he could ever have been a better

husband to her than Julian Wyllard had been. He had looked searchingly

for any flaw in the perfection of that union, and he had perceived

none. He was generous-minded enough to be glad that it was so.

The carriage drove slowly up a long hill, and across a wide expanse of

heathy ground, before it entered the gate of Penmorval, which was two

miles from the town. It was a beautiful old place, standing on high

ground, yet so richly wooded as to be shut in from the outer world.

Only the Cornish giants, Roughtor and Brown Willie, showed their

dark crests above the broad belt of timber which surrounded the good

old Tudor mansion. A double avenue of elms and yews led to the old

stone porch. The long stone façade facing northward looked out upon a

level lawn divided from the park by a haw haw. The southern front was

curtained with roses and myrtle, and looked upon one of the loveliest

gardens in Cornwall--a garden which had been the pride and delight of

many generations--a garden for which the wives and dowagers of three

centuries of Cornish squires had laboured and thought. Nowhere could

be found more glorious roses, or such a treasury of out-of-the-way

flowers, from the finest to the simplest that grows. Nowhere did April

sunlight shine upon such tulips and hyacinths, nowhere did June crown

herself with fairer lilies, or autumn flaunt in greater splendour of

dahlias, hollyhocks, and chrysanthemums. The soil teemed with flowers.

There was no room left for a weed.

For a childless wife like Dora Wyllard a garden such as this is a kind

of spurious family. She has her hopes, her fears, her raptures and

anxieties about her roses and chrysanthemums, just as mothers have

about their girls and boys. She counts the blossoms on a particular

_Gloire de Dijon_. She remembers the cruel winter when that superb

John Hopper succumbed to the frost. She has her nostrums and remedies

for green-fly, as mothers have for measles. That glorious old garden

helped to fill the cup of Mrs. Wyllard's happiness, for it gave her

inexhaustible employment. Having such a garden she could never say,

with the languid yawn of the idle and the prosperous, "What can I do

with myself to-day?" But Dora was not dependent on her garden for

occupation. Exacting as the roses and lilies were, manifold as were the

cares of the hothouses and ferneries and wildernesses, Mrs. Wyllard's

husband was more exacting still. When Julian was at home she could

give but little time to her garden. He could hardly bear his wife to

be out of his sight for half an hour. She had to be interested in all

his schemes, all his letters, even to the driest business details.

She rode and drove with him, and, as he had no taste for field sports,

neither his guns nor his hunters took him away from her. He was a

studious man, a man of artistic temperament, a lover of curious books

and fine bindings, a lover of pictures and statues, and porcelain and

enamels--a worshipper of the beautiful in every form. His tastes were

such as a woman could easily and naturally share with him. This made

their union all the more complete. Other wives wondered at beholding

such domestic sympathy. There were some whose husbands could not sit

by the domestic hearth ten minutes without dismal yawnings, men who

depended upon newspapers for all their delight, men whose minds were

always in the stable. Julian Wyllard was an ideal husband, who never

yawned in a _tête-à-tête_ with his wife, who shared every joy and every

thought with the woman of his choice.

To-night, when they two sat down to the half-past, nine o'clock meal,

with Bothwell, who was not much worse than a Newfoundland dog, for

their sole companion, the wife's first question showed her familiarity

with the business that had taken her husband to London.

"Well, Julian, did you get the Raffaelle?" she asked.

"No, dear. The picture went for just three times the value I had put

upon it."

"And you did not care to give such a price?"

"Well, no. There are limits, even for a monomaniac like me. I had

allowed myself a margin. I was prepared to give a hundred or two over

the thousand which I had put down as the price of the picture; but

when it went up to fifteen hundred I retired from the contest, and

it was finally knocked down to Lamb, the dealer, for two thousand

guineas. A single figure--a half-length figure of Christ bearing the

cross, against a background of vivid blue sky. But such divinity in the

countenance, such pathetic eyes! I saw women turn away with tears after

they had looked at that picture."

"You ought to have bought it," said Dora, who knew that her husband had

a great deal more money than he could spend, and who thought that he

had a right to indulge his own caprices.

"My dearest, as I said before, there are limits," he answered, smiling

at her enthusiasm.

"Then you had your journey, and I had to endure the loss of your

society for three dreary days, all for nothing?" said Dora.

"Not quite for nothing. There was the pleasure of seeing a very

fine collection of pictures, and some magnificent Limoges enamels.

I succeeded in buying you a little Greuze. I am told by French

art-critics that it is a low thing to admire Greuze, the sign of a

vulgar mind. He is the painter of the _bourgeois_, the _épicier_. But,

for all that, you and I have agreed to like Greuze; so I bought this

little picture for your morning-room. I got it for five hundred and

fifty, and I believe it is a genuine bit in the painter's best manner."

"How good you are to me!" exclaimed Dora, getting up and going over to

her husband.

She bent down to kiss him as he sat at the table. They had dismissed

the servants from this informal meal, so Mrs. Wyllard was not afraid

of being considered eccentric, if she showed that she was grateful.

She did not mind Bothwell. Five hundred and fifty! How freely this

rich man talked of his hundreds, as it seemed to Bothwell, pinched by

the consciousness of debts which the cost of that picture would have

covered--little seedlings of debts, scattered long ago by the wayside,

and putting forth perennial flowers in the shape of unpleasant letters

from creditors, which made him hate the sight of the postman.

Neither Wyllard nor Grahame ate a hearty meal. That picture of the

dead face was too vividly present in the minds of both. Meat and drink

and pleasant talk were out of harmony with that horror which both had

looked upon three hours ago. They took more wine than usual, and hardly

ate anything.

"Will you come for a stroll in the garden, Julian?" asked Dora, as they

rose from the table.

It was half-past ten o'clock, a lovely summer night. A great golden

moon was shining low down in the purple sky, just above the bank of

foliage: not that far-off moon which belongs to all the world, but a

big yellow lamp lighting one's own garden.

"Do come," she said, "it is such a delicious night."

"I dare not indulge myself, dear; I have my letters to open before I go

to bed. I was just going to order a fire in the library."

"A fire, on such a night as this! I'm afraid you have caught cold."

"I think it not unlikely," answered her husband, as he rang the bell.

"Don't you think your letters might keep till to-morrow morning,

Julian?" pleaded Dora. "We could have a fire in the morning-room, and

sit and talk."

"That would be delightful, but I must not allow myself to be tempted. I

should not rest to-night with the idea of a pile of unopened letters."

He gave his orders to the servant. His letters and papers were all on

the library table. A fire was to be lighted there immediately.

"You will be late, I am afraid," said Dora.

"I may be a little late. Don't wait up for me on any account, dearest.

Goodnight!"

He kissed her; and she said good-night, but reserved her liberty to

sit up for him all the same. There is no use in a husband saying to a

wife of Mrs. Wyllard's temperament, "Don't sit up for me, and don't

worry yourself!" Sleep was impossible to Dora until she knew that her

husband was at rest; just as happiness was impossible to her when

parted from him. She had made herself a part of his being, had merged

her very existence in his; she had no value, hardly any individuality,

apart from him.

"Julian looks tired and anxious," she said to her cousin, who stood

smoking a cigarette just outside the window.

"You can't be surprised at that," answered Bothwell. "That business on

the railway was enough to make any man feel queer. I shall not forget

it for a long time."

"It must have been an awful shock. And men with strong features and

powerful frames are sometimes more sensitive than your fragile beings

with nervous temperaments," said Dora. "I have often been struck with

Julian's morbid feeling about things which a strong man might be

supposed to regard with indifference."

"He is a deuced good fellow," said Bothwell, who had been more

generously treated by his cousin's husband than by any of his own

clan. "Won't you come for a turn in the garden? I won't start another

cigarette, if you object."

"You know I don't mind smoke," she answered, joining him. "Why, how

your hand shakes, Bothwell! You can hardly light your cigarette."

"Didn't I say that I was upset by that business? I don't suppose I

shall sleep a wink to-night."

They walked in the rose-garden for more than an hour. Garden and night

were both alike ideal. An Italian garden, with formal terraces, and

beds of roses, and a fountain in the centre, a bold and plenteous jet

that rose from a massive marble basin. Roses, magnolia, jasmine, and

Mary-lilies filled the air with perfume. The moon had changed from gold

to silver, and was high up in heaven.

It was everybody's moon now, silvering the humble roofs of Bodmin,

shining over the church, the gaol, the lunatic asylum, and shining on

that humble village inn five or six miles away, beneath whose rustic

roof the stranger was lying, with no one to pray beside her bed.

Bothwell sauntered silently by his cousin's side. She, too, was silent,

and felt no inclination to talk or to listen. She was glad to be out

in the garden while her husband opened his letters. She knew there was

a pile of correspondence waiting for him--such letters as devour the

leisure of a country gentleman of wealth and high standing, letters

for the most part uninteresting, and very often troublesome. It would

take Julian Wyllard a long time to wade through them all. But when the

stable clock struck twelve, Dora thought she might fairly hope to find

the task finished.

"Good-night, Bothwell," she said. "I'll go and look for Julian."

The servants had all gone to bed, and the lamps had been extinguished,

except in the hall and corridors. A half-glass door opened from the

garden into the hall, and this was always left unbolted for the

accommodation of Bothwell, who was fond of late saunterings in the

grounds. The library was at the further end of the house, a superb

room, filled with a choice collection of books, the growth of the last

seven years; for Julian Wyllard was a new man in the county, and had

only owned Penmorval during that period.

There was a good fire burning in the artistic tiled grate--a modern

improvement upon the old arrangement in wrought iron. Mr. Wyllard had

opened all his letters, and had evidently burned some of them, for an

odour of calcined paper and sealing-wax pervaded the room.

He was sitting in a low chair beside the hearth, in a stooping

attitude, deeply meditative, looking down at some object in his hands.

He was so profoundly absorbed as to be unconscious of Dora's presence

till she was standing close beside him.

The object which so engrossed his attention, which had led his thoughts

backward to the faraway past, was a long tress of chestnut hair. He had

wound it round his fingers--a smooth, silken tress, which flashed with

gleams of gold in the cheery light of the fire.

"What beautiful hair!" said Dora gently, as she looked downward from

behind his shoulder. "Whose is it, Julian?"

"It _was_ my sister's," he answered.

"The sister who died so many years ago. Poor Julian! You have been

sitting here alone, giving yourself up to sad memories."

"I came upon this auburn tress among some old papers just now, while I

was looking for Martin's lease."

He rolled the hair up quickly, and flung it into the flaming coals.

"O Julian, why did you do that?" asked his wife reproachfully.

"What is the use of keeping such things, only to perpetuate sorrowful

memories? God knows we have enough of our dead. They haunt us and

plague us at every stage of life. We cannot get rid of them."

The bitterness of his tone jarred upon his wife's ear.

"My dearest, you are wearied and out of spirits," she said. "You have

worked too long. Were your letters troublesome?"

"Not more so than usual, dear. Yes, I am very tired."

"And that dreadful event on the line has troubled you. Poor Bothwell

is quite upset by it. I am so sorry for you, Julian," said his wife

soothingly, leaning upon his shoulder, smoothing back the thick hair

from the broad, full brow.

"My dear child, there is no reason to be sorry for me. Dreadful events

are happening every day, all over the world. We hear of them, and feel

how feeble a thing life is under such conditions as those on which we

all hold our existence. This evening I happened to be brought face to

face with a terrible death. That is all the difference."

CHAPTER II.

AFTER THE INQUEST.

There was great excitement in Bodmin on the afternoon of the inquest;

a delicious summer afternoon, which seemed made for quiet arcadian

joys; an afternoon to be spent in day-dreams under forest boughs,

or drifting lazily adown a placid stream; rather than for gathering

together in a stifling tavern-parlour, listening to the droning

accents of a police-constable, or the confused statements and innocent

prevarications of a railway-porter. But it may be that the inhabitants

of Bodmin had drunk their fill of the cup of pastoral joys, that they

had had more than enough of heathery moorland and foxglove-bordered

lane, dog-rose and honeysuckle, waving boughs and winding streams, and

that this satiety made them flock to the little inn beyond Bodmin Road

station, where they elbowed and hustled one another in the endeavour

to get a good view of the Coroner and the witnesses.

An inquest was not in itself such a thrilling event. There had been

inquests held in Bodmin which inspired neither curiosity nor excitement

in the mind of the town. But this inquiry of to-day interested

everybody. Who could tell what mystery--what story of falsehood and

wrong--had gone before that sad, strange death? The report had gone

about that the victim was a foreigner, and this gave a deeper note to

the mystery. Why had she come to that spot to kill herself? or who had

lured her there to murder her? These were the questions which were

discussed in Bodmin freely that fair July morning; questions which gave

birth to various wise and abstruse theories, every one of which seemed

to the inventor thereof a most plausible explanation of this dark

problem in human history.

"If anybody can throw light upon the business, Squire Heathcote is the

man to do it," said Mr. Bate, grocer, general-dealer, and churchwarden.

Edward Heathcote was one of the most popular men within ten miles

of Bodmin. He was a native of the soil, had been known to the

neighbourhood from his childhood. He came of a race that was held in

high honour, which had produced men famous with sword and gown in the

days that were gone. Honour, courage, and all generous feelings were

supposed to run in the blood of the Heathcotes. He had succeeded to a

small estate and a fine old Grange, in which his forefathers had lived

from generation to generation. In the deepest night of past ages there

had been Heathcotes in the land. Thus, albeit he was by no means a rich

man as compared with Julian Wyllard, he stood higher than the wealthy

financier in the esteem of those good old conservatives who held that

money is not everything. Mr. Wyllard was a new-comer, had bought

Penmorval just before his marriage--choosing this part of the world

for his residence because Theodora Dalmaine loved it, rather than for

any leaning of his own. He was known to have made the greater part of

his money himself--a low thing for a man to have done. Even commercial

fortunes become hallowed after they have filtered from father to son

for three or four generations. Thus, although he was altogether the

most important personage in the neighbourhood, and belonged to the

landed gentry by right of recent purchase, there were people who looked

upon Julian Wyllard as a _parvenu_, and who were somewhat disposed to

resent the weight which his wealth gave him in local affairs.

Squire Heathcote was said to be the best coroner who had filled that

office at Bodmin within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. His

legal experiences had been of a wider range than those of the average

provincial solicitor. He had served his articles to a well-known London

firm; he had travelled a good deal, and had seen men and cities. He had

been brought into close relations with his fellow-men under manifold

conditions; and he was said to be a marvellous reader of character,

an impartial and clear-headed judge. On more than one occasion he

had shown an acumen rarely met with at a rural inquest; and he had

disentangled more than one knotted skein. It was argued, therefore,

that if any one could unravel the mystery of the dead girl's fate,

Squire Heathcote was the man to do it.

Nothing could be quieter or less pretentious than his manner as he took

his seat at the head of the long table in the parlour of the Vital

Spark; but there were signs of anxiety or emotion in the sombre fire of

the deep-set gray eyes, and the nervous movement of the sun-burnt hand,

which played with his dark chestnut-beard. He sat for some minutes

looking down at his notes, and then slowly raised his eyes and surveyed

the room, which was quite full.

Julian Wyllard was sitting near the opposite end of the table, with

little Dr. Menheniot by his side. Bothwell Grahame was seated apart

from them and nearer the jury. He had a haggard look, Mr. Heathcote

thought, as of a man who had passed a troubled night.

There were three or four railway officials present, and these were

the principal witnesses. First came the guard on the down train from

Paddington, whose evidence was meagre, since it appeared that he had

only seen the dead girl standing on the footboard a moment before she

fell. She was standing on the footboard and clinging to the hand-rail,

with her face to the coach; she seemed to be talking to some one

inside. It had not seemed to him that she threw herself off the

footboard. It had seemed rather as if she had dropped off.

"Was it your impression that she was thrown off?" asked Heathcote.

"No, sir. I can't say that was my impression. But the whole thing

was too quick for me to have a very clear idea either way. My first

thought was how I could save her. I had only just stepped out upon the

footboard when she gave a shriek and fell. She was at the farther end

of the train. Before I could get to the carriage from which she had

fallen, the engine had slackened and the passengers were getting out."

"Did you find the carriage out of which she fell?"

"Yes, sir. There was an empty second-class next but one to the engine.

I believe that was the compartment. There was a little basket with

some refreshments, and a newspaper, which I believe belonged to the

deceased."

The basket was on the table. It had a foreign look; a poor little

basket, containing a few cherries in a cabbage-leaf, and a little bag

of biscuits. The newspaper was the French _Figaro_. The Coroner handed

the basket to the jury, who examined the contents curiously. There was

no scrap of writing, no card or old letter; nothing to identify the

dead girl, or to indicate the place from which she had come.

"Her clothes and the contents of her pocket have been examined," said

Mr. Heathcote, in reply to a question from one of the jury, "but no

mark or clue has been found. Nor has any luggage belonging to her

been discovered, which is curious, since it is not often that any one

travels from London to Cornwall without luggage. I have communicated

with the London police; and I have sent an advertisement to the

_Times_, and to a Parisian newspaper. Perhaps, by this means we shall

discover the girl's identity. In the mean time the question is, how did

she come by her death?"

The next witness was a porter from the Plymouth station, who had taken

notice of the girl there while the train waited. He had seen her on

the platform, alone. He was sure that he had not seen her speak to

anybody. She walked up and down the platform two or three times, and

he thought she looked puzzled and anxious, as if she expected to meet

somebody who had not come. He was too busy looking after people's

luggage to watch her closely, but he had noticed her because she looked

like a foreigner. He saw her get into a second-class compartment near

the engine just as the train was starting. She got in hurriedly, and it

seemed to him that some one inside the compartment had opened the door

for her and helped her in; but he could not be positive about this, as

he was a long way off at the time. He had seen the deceased, and he

recognised her as the young person he had observed at Plymouth.

Dr. Menheniot was the next witness. He gave technical evidence as

to the cause of the girl's death; but as to the circumstances that

preceded her fall, he could say no more than the guard. Yes, a little

more, for he had seen the carriage door opened and the girl stepping

out on the footboard. Yes, in answer to the Coroner's question, it had

seemed to him that some one thrust her out, yet he could not swear that

it was so. The door had opened suddenly; and he had seen her standing

on the footboard, clinging to the open door. If she had meant to commit

suicide, it appeared to him that she would have leapt at once from the

carriage over the embankment. The act of standing on the footboard and

clinging to the carriage would imply resistance.

"It might mean only hesitation," said Heathcote. "How long do you

suppose she remained standing on the footboard?"

"Hardly a minute---perhaps not more than thirty seconds. I heard the

guard signal for the stopping of the train, and then I heard her shriek

as she fell. It was almost instantaneous. The engine was just on the

bridge when I first saw her. It was in the middle of the bridge when

she fell. That will give you the best idea as to time."

"Not more than thirty seconds," said the Coroner, who knew every yard

of the line. "Is there any one else here who can tell us anything about

this poor girl's death?"

There was no one else; though there were twenty people in the room who

had been in the train yesterday evening, and who had gone down into the

gorge to see that poor crushed form lying amidst ferns and foxgloves,

to look curiously at the small white face, the childish lips for ever

mute in death. No one could tell any more, or indeed as much about the

details of the catastrophe as Dr. Menheniot and the guard, both of whom

had seen the fall: whereas no one else happened to have been looking

out of window on the near side of the train.

"We will adjourn the inquest for a fortnight," said Mr. Heathcote

presently, after a whispered consultation with the jury. "The matter

is much too mysterious to be dismissed without a very careful

investigation. A fortnight will give ample time for the friends of the

deceased to come forward. I have ordered photographs to be taken, with

a view to her identification. Burial cannot, of course, be delayed

beyond the usual time."

There were morbid minds among the spectators who envied the

photographer his ghastly office. The inquest was felt to have been

disappointing. Revelations had been expected, and none had come. But

Mr. Heathcote had pronounced the case deeply mysterious: and there was

comfort in the idea that he might know more than he cared to reveal yet

awhile.

Julian Wyllard had driven from Penmorval in his own particular

dog-cart, with one of the finest horses in the district. Bothwell

Grahame, who was a great walker and altogether independent in his

habits, had come across the hills, and over cornfields and meadows, as

straight as the crow flies. The master of Penmorval's smart trap and

high-stepping gray were out of sight before Bothwell left the pathway

in front of the Vital Spark, where he lingered to talk over the inquest

with some of his Bodmin acquaintance. The young Scotchman was steeped

to the eyes in true Caledonian pride of race; but he had none of the

petty pride which makes a man scornful of that portion of the human

family which earns its bread by humble avocations. He was as friendly

with a railway-porter or a village tradesman as with the proudest

landowner in the county; had not two sets of manners for high and

low, or two distinct modes of speech for gentle and simple, the very

intonation different for that inferior clay. Bothwell had never been

able to understand why some of the men he knew talked to a tradesman

or a servant just as they would have spoken to a dog, or, indeed,

much less civilly than Bothwell spoke to his dogs. He was a staunch

Conservative in most things; but in this one question of respect for

his fellow-man he was an unmitigated Radical.

And now he loitered in front of the inn door, talking to the railway

officials who had appeared at the inquest, and who knew Mr. Grahame as

a frequent traveller between Bodmin Road and Plymouth.

"There was one thing that didn't come out just now," said the

station-master, "and that was the girl's ticket. The ticket was for

Plymouth; and yet here was this poor young thing going on towards

Penzance. Why was she going beyond her first destination, eh, Mr.

Grahame? Why did she walk up and down the platform at Plymouth, as if

she expected some one to meet her there? Why did she get into the

train at the last moment, just as it was moving out of the station?

Don't it seem likely that the individual who was to have met her in the

station for which she had taken her ticket was the same individual that

helped her into the train, and that he made away with her? A husband,

perhaps, who wanted to get rid of a troublesome foreign wife. And he

tells her to meet him at Plymouth, and he is there to meet her, but

not on the platform as she expects. He is there in hiding in a railway

carriage, and he beckons her in just as the train is starting, when he

is least likely to be observed in the bustle and hurry of the start."

"You put your story together very well, Mr. Chafy," said Bothwell

somewhat indifferently, as if not deeply interested in the mystery

which so enthralled the Bodmin mind. "You ought to have been a

detective. But if this poor girl was murdered, and her murderer was in

the train, how is it that you who are so sharp could not contrive to

spot him when you took stock of the passengers? Mr. Wyllard gave you

the office, I remember."

"Murderers do not carry the brand of Cain, Mr. Grahame," said Edward

Heathcote, who had come out of the inn door in time to hear Bothwell's

speech. "The assassins of our civilised era are high-handed gentlemen,

very cunning of fence, and have no more mark upon them than you or I."

"I believe the girl's death was an accident," said Bothwell, with a

touch of impatience--"one of those profound mysteries which are as

simple as ABC. She may have been standing by the door, admiring the

landscape, and the door may have opened as she leant against it. She

might recover herself so far as to stand on the foot-board for a few

seconds, clinging to the hand-rail, and then she fell and was killed."

"Not a very plausible explanation, my dear Grahame. She was leaning

against the door, looking out at the landscape, you suggest, and the

door opened and let her out. How was it, then, that when Menheniot and

the guard saw her, she was standing on the foot-board with her face

to the carriage? Did she swing herself round on the footboard, as on

a pivot, do you suppose? Rather a difficult achievement, even for an

acrobat."

"You need not be so deuced clever," retorted Bothwell, who seemed

altogether out of sorts this afternoon. "It is not my business to find

out how the young woman came by her death."

"No," said the Coroner, "but it is mine; and I mean to do it."

"It won't be the first queer case you've got to the bottom of, Mr.

Heathcote," said the station-master, in a tone of respect that amounted

almost to reverence. "You remember poor old uncle Taylor, who was found

dead at the bottom of the Merrytree shaft over to Truro? You put a rope

round the neck of the scoundrel that killed him, you did. There's not

many men clever enough to keep a secret from you."

"Good-night, squire; good-night, Chafy," said Bothwell, moving off.

Heathcote followed him.

"If you are walking home, I'll go part of the way with you," he said.

"What, are you on foot?" asked Bothwell, surprised. "What has become of

Timour?"

"Timour is in a barn, with his shoes off, getting ready for the

cub-hunting."

"And the rest of your stud?"

"O, I have plenty of horses to ride, if that is what you mean; but I

rather prefer walking, in such weather as this. How is it you did not

drive home in your cousin's dog-cart?"

"I hate sitting beside another man to be driven," said Bothwell

shortly. "There are times, too, when a fellow likes to be alone."

If this were intended for a hint, Mr. Heathcote did not take it. He

produced his cigar-case, and offered Bothwell one of his Patagas. He

was a great smoker, and renowned for smoking good tobacco; so Bothwell

accepted the cigar and lighted it, but did not relax the sullen air

which he had assumed when Mr. Heathcote volunteered his company.

"You are not looking particularly well this afternoon, Grahame," said

Heathcote, when they had walked a little way, silently smoking their

cigars.

"O, there's nothing the matter with me," the young man answered

carelessly. "I was up late, and I had a bad night, that's all."

"You were troubled about yesterday's business," suggested the Coroner.

"The girl's dead face haunted me; but I had troubles of my own without

that."

"You must have seen a good many dead faces in India."

"Yes, I have seen plenty--black and white--but there are some things

against which a man cannot harden himself, and sudden death is one of

them."

He relapsed into silence, and Heathcote and he walked side by side

for some time without a word, the lawyer contemplating the soldier,

studying him as if he had been a difficult page in a book. Edward

Heathcote had spent a good deal of his life in studying living books

of this kind. His practice in Plymouth had been of a very special

character; he had been trusted in delicate matters, had held the

honour of noble families in his keeping, had come between father and

son, husband and wife; had been guide, philosopher, and friend, as

well as legal adviser. His reputation for fine feeling and high moral

character, the fact of his good birth and ample means, had made him the

chosen repository of many a family secret which would have been trusted

to very few solicitors. His name in Plymouth was a synonym for honour,

and his advice, shrewd lawyer though he was, always leaned to the side

of chivalrous feeling rather than to stern justice.

Such a man must have had ample occasion for the study of human nature

under strange aspects. It was, therefore, a highly-trained intellect

which was now brought to bear upon Bothwell Grahame, as he walked

silently beside the flowering hedgerows in that quiet Cornish lane,

puffing at his cigar, and looking straight before him into vacancy.

Mr. Heathcote had seen a good deal of Captain Grahame during the year

he had lived at Penmorval; but he never had seen such a look of care

as he saw in the soldier's face to-day. Trouble of some kind--and of

no light or trifling kind--was gnawing the man's breast. Of that fact

Edward Heathcote was assured; and there was a strange sinking at his

own heart as he speculated upon the nature of that secret trouble which

Bothwell was trying his best to hide under a show of somewhat sullen

indifference.

As coroner and as lawyer, Mr. Heathcote had made up his mind more than

an hour ago that the girl lying at the Vital Spark had been murdered.

She had been thrust out of the railway carriage, flung over the line

into that dreadful gulf, by some person who wanted to make away with

her. Her murderer was to be looked for in the train, had travelled in

one of those carriages, had been one among those seemingly innocent

travellers, all professing ignorance of the girl's identity. One among

those three-and-twenty people whom Chafy, the station-master, had

counted and taken stock of at Bodmin Road station, must needs be the

murderer. That one, whoever he was, had borne himself so well as to

baffle the station-master's scrutiny. He had shown no trace of remorse,

agitation, guilty fear. He had behaved himself in all points as an

innocent man.

But what if the criminal were one whom the station-master knew and

respected--a man of mark and standing in the neighbourhood, whose very

name disarmed suspicion?

Such a man would have passed out of the station unobserved; or if any

signs of agitation were noted in his manner, that emotion would be put

down to kindly feeling, the natural pity of a benevolent mind. Had

any hard-handed son of toil, a stranger in the land, reaper, miner,

seafaring man--had such an one as this exhibited signs of discomposure,

suspicion would at once have been on the alert. But who could suspect

Mrs. Wyllard's soldier-cousin, the idle open-handed gentleman, who had

made himself everybody's favourite?

It would have been a wild speculation to suppose, because Bothwell's

countenance and manner were so charged with secret trouble, that his

was the arm which thrust that poor girl to her untimely death. Yet the

Coroner found himself dwelling upon this wild fancy, painful as it was

to him to harbour any evil thought of Dora Wyllard's kinsman.

There were several points which forced themselves upon his

consideration. First, Bothwell's changed manner to-day--his avowal

of a troubled night--his evident wish to be alone--his incivility,

as of one whose mind was set on edge by painful thoughts. Then came

the fact of his journey to Plymouth yesterday--a journey undertaken

suddenly, without any explanation offered to his cousin--seemingly

purposeless, since he had given no reason for absenting himself, stated

no business in the town. He had gone and returned within a few hours,

and his journey had been a surprise to his cousin and her husband.

Thirdly, there was his clumsy attempt to explain the girl's death just

now, in front of the inn door; his unwillingness to admit the idea of

foul play. He who excuses himself accuses himself, says the proverb.

Bothwell had tried to account for the catastrophe on the line, and in

so doing had awakened the Coroner's suspicions.

After all, these links in a chain of evidence were of the slightest;

but Edward Heathcote had set himself to unravel the mystery of the

nameless dead, and he was determined not to overlook the slenderest

thread in that dark web.

"Wyllard seemed to have quite recovered from the shock of yesterday

evening," he said presently. "I never saw him looking better than he

looked this afternoon."

"Wyllard is a man made of iron," answered Bothwell carelessly. "I

sometimes think there is only one soft spot in his heart, and that is

his love for my cousin. In that he is distinctly human. I never saw a

more devoted husband. I never knew a happier couple."

Bothwell sighed, as if this mention of the happiness of others recalled

the thought of his own misery. At least, it was thus that Edward

Heathcote interpreted the sigh.

Completely absorbed in his own cares, Bothwell had forgotten for the

moment that he was talking to the man whom his cousin had jilted in

order to marry Julian Wyllard. The courtship and the marriage had

happened while Bothwell was in the East. It had never been more to him

than a tradition; and the tradition was not in his mind when he talked

of his cousin's wedded happiness.

"I am glad that it is so, very glad," said Heathcote earnestly.

He spoke in all good faith. He had loved with so unselfish a love

that the welfare of his idol had been ever of more account to him

than his own bliss. He had renounced her without a struggle, since

her happiness demanded the sacrifice. And she was happy. That was the

grand point. He had paid the price, and he had won the reward. He had

loved with all his heart and strength; he had never ceased so to love.

That wedded life, which to the outside world had seemed a life of

domestic happiness, had been on his part only a life of resignation.

He had married a friendless girl who loved him--who had betrayed the

secret of her love for him unawares, in very innocence of inexperienced

girlhood. He had taken a helpless girl to his heart and home, because

there seemed upon this earth no other available shelter for her; and he

had done his best to make her happy. He had succeeded so well that she

never knew that this thoughtful kindness which wrapt her round as with

a balmy atmosphere, this boundless benevolence which shone upon her

like the sun, was not love. She was one of the happiest of women, and

one of the proudest wives in the west country; and she died blessing

him who had made her life blessed.

And now the gossips were all full of pity for the widower's loss and

loneliness--a poor bereaved creature living in a lonely old Grange,

with a young sister, the twin daughters, just four years old, and an

ancient maiden lady who looked after the sister, the children, the

house, and the servants, and in her own person represented the genius

of thrift, propriety, prudence, wisdom, and all the domestic virtues.

People in the neighbourhood of Bodmin, and his old friends at Plymouth,

all thought and talked of Mr. Heathcote as borne down by the weight of

his bereavement, and all hoped that he would soon marry again.

The Spaniards lay in a valley between Bodmin Road station and

Penmorval. It lay on Bothwell's road to his cousin's house, and he

had thus no excuse for parting company with the Coroner, had he been

so inclined. The old wrought-iron gate between gray granite pillars,

each crowned with the escutcheon of the Heathcotes, stood wide open,

and the rose and myrtle curtained cottage by the gate had as sleepy

an air in the summer evening as if it had stood by the gate of the

Sleeping Beauty's enchanted domain. Even the old trees, the great

Spanish chestnuts, with their masses of foliage, had a look of having

outgrown all reason in a century of repose. No prodigal son had laid

the spendthrift's axe to the good old trees around the birthplace of

the Heathcotes. There was only the extent of a wide paddock and a

lawn between the hall-door and that grand old gateway, and the house,

though substantial and capacious, hardly pretended to the dignity of

a mansion. It was long and low and rambling--a house of many small

rooms, queer winding passages, innumerable doors and windows, and low

heavily-timbered ceilings; a house in which strange visitors and their

servants were given to seeing ghosts and hearing unearthly noises of

funereal significance--albeit the family had jogged on quietly enough

from generation to generation, without any interference from the spirit

world. People coming from brand-new houses in Earl's Court or Turnham

Green protested that The Spaniards _must_ be haunted; and shuddered

every time the mice scampered behind the panelling, or the wind sighed

amidst the branches of those leafy towers that girdled lawn and meadow.

Bothwell thought that Mr. Heathcote would leave him at the gate of The

Spaniards.

"Good-night," he said somewhat shortly.

"I'll go on to Penmorval with you, and hear what impression the inquest

made upon Wyllard," said the other. "It's not half-past seven yet--your

cousin will be able to spare me a few minutes before dinner."

Bothwell walked on without a word. Ten minutes brought them to the

gates of Penmorval, by far the lordlier domain, with a history that

was rich in aristocratic traditions. But that ancient race for which

Penmorval had been built, for whose sons and daughters it had grown

in grandeur and dignity as the centuries rolled along--of _these_

there remained no more than the echo of a vanished renown. They were

gone, verily like a tale that is told; and the _parvenu_ financier,

the man who had grown rich by his own intellect and his own

industry--naturally a very inferior personage--reigned in their stead.

Penmorval seemed not quite so dead asleep as Heathcote Grange, _alias_

The Spaniards. In the sweet stillness of the summer evening, Bothwell

and his companion heard voices--women's voices--familiar and pleasant

to the ears of both.

Mrs. Wyllard was strolling in the avenue, with a young lady by her

side, a girl in a white gown and a large leghorn hat; tall, slight,

graceful of form, and fair of face--a girl who gave a little cry of

pleased surprise at seeing Heathcote.

"I was just rushing home, Edward," she said, "for fear I should keep

you waiting for dinner."

"Indeed, Hilda! Then I can only say that your idea of rushing is my

idea of sauntering," her brother answered, smiling at the girlish face,

as he shook hands with Mrs. Wyllard.

"What did Mr. Wyllard think of the inquest?" he asked. "You have seen

him, I suppose?"

"Only for a minute as he drove by to the house, while Hilda and I were

walking in the avenue. Why, Bothwell, how fagged and ill you look!"

exclaimed Dora to her cousin.

"Only bored," answered Bothwell, which was not complimentary to the

companion of his long walk.

"But you look positively exhausted, poor fellow," pursued Dora

pityingly. "Why didn't you come back in the dog-cart? There was room

for you."

"I wanted to be alone."

"And I wanted company," said Heathcote, laughing, "so I inflicted my

society upon an unwilling companion. Very bad manners, no doubt."

"I'm afraid you got the worst of the bargain," muttered Bothwell, with

a sullen look, at which Hilda's blue eyes opened wide with wonder.

"Do you know, Mr. Heathcote, an idle life does not agree with my

cousin," said Dora. "I never know what it is to be weary of Penmorval

or the country round; but for the last three or four weeks Bothwell

has behaved as if he hated the place, and could find neither rest nor

amusement within twenty miles of us. He is perpetually running off to

Plymouth or to London."

"I wish women would take to reading their dictionaries, instead of

cramming their heads with other women's novels," exclaimed Bothwell

savagely, "for then perhaps they might have some idea of the meaning

of words. When you say I run up to London perpetually, Dora, I suppose

you mean that I have been there twice--on urgent business, by the

way--within the last five weeks."

"And to Plymouth at least a dozen times," protested Dora. "All I can

say is that you are my idea of perpetual motion."

"I know you are hardly ever at home, Mr. Grahame," said Hilda,

supporting her friend.

They strolled towards the house as they talked, and half-way along the

avenue they met the master of Penmorval, correctly attired in sober

evening-dress, with a light overcoat worn loosely above his faultless

black.

"How do you do, Heathcote? Do you know, Dora, that it is ten minutes

to eight? You'll stop and dine with us, of course," added Wyllard

cordially. "You refused last night; but now Hilda is here, and you

have no excuse for going home."

"I only came to afternoon tea," said Hilda.

"And you and my wife have been gossiping from five o'clock until now.

Deepest mystery of social life, what two women can find to talk about

for three mortal hours in the depths of a rural seclusion like this!"

"A mystery to a man, who cannot imagine that women either think or

read," retorted Dora, taking her husband's arm. "You men have a

fixed idea that your wives and sisters have only two subjects of

conversation, gowns and servants. Of course, you will stay and dine,

Mr. Heathcote. I am not going to dress for dinner, so please don't look

at your frock-coat as if that were an insuperable obstacle. You and

Hilda are going to stop, whether you like it or not."

"You know we always like to be here," said Hilda, in her low sweet

voice.

She stole a shy little look at Bothwell, as if wondering what he

thought of the matter; but Bothwell's countenance was inscrutable.

Hilda was pained but not surprised by his manner. He had changed to her

so strangely within the last few months--he who half a year ago had

been so kind, so attentive. She was not angry--she was not vain enough

to wonder that a man should begin by caring for her a little, and then

leave off caring all at once, and relapse into absolute indifference.

She supposed that such fickleness was a common attribute of the

superior sex.

They all went to the house, and through a glass door into the large low

drawing-room, where the butler immediately announced dinner. The two

ladies had only time to take off their hats before they went into the

dining-room. They were both in white, and there was a grace in Dora

Wyllard's simple gown, a cluster of roses half hidden by the folds

of an Indian muslin fichu, a swan-like throat rising from a haze of

delicate lace, which was more attractive than the costliest toilet ever

imported from Paris to be the wonder of a court ball. Yes, she was of

all women Edward Heathcote had ever known the most gracious, the most

beautiful. Those seven years of happy married life had ripened her

beauty, had given a shade of thoughtfulness to the matron's dark eyes,

the low wide brow, the perfect mouth, but had not robbed the noble

countenance of a single charm. The face of the wife was nobler than

the face of the girl. It was the face of a woman who lived for another

rather than for her own happiness; the face of a woman superior to all

feminine frivolity, and yet in all things most womanly.

Edward Heathcote sighed within himself as he took his place beside his

hostess in the subdued light of the old panelled room, a warm light

from lamps that hung low on the table, under rose-coloured shades,

umbrella-shaped, spreading a luminous glow over silver and glass and

flowers, and leaving the faces of the guests in rosy shadow. He sighed

as he thought how sweet life would have been for him had this woman

remained true to her first love. For she had loved him once. Eight

years ago they two had clasped hands, touched lips, as affianced

lovers. He could never forget what she had been to him, or what she

might have been. He sat at her husband's table in all loyalty of

soul, in staunch friendship. He would have cut his heart out rather

than debased himself or Dora by one guilty thought. Yet he could but

remember these things had been.

The two ladies left almost immediately after dinner, and Bothwell

sauntered out into the garden directly afterwards. Not to rejoin

them, as he would have done a few months ago, but to smoke the cigar

of solitude in a path beside a crumbling, old red wall, and a long,

narrow border of hollyhocks, tall, gigantic, yellow, crimson, white,

and pink. There were fruit-trees on the other side of the wall, which

was supported with tremendous buttresses at intervals of twenty feet or

so, and about wall and buttresses climbed clematis and passion-flower,

jasmine, yellow and white, and the great crimson trumpets of the

bignonia.

The banker and the lawyer sat silently for a few minutes, Julian

Wyllard occupied in the choice of a cigar from a case which he had

first offered to his guest; and then Edward Heathcote asked him what he

thought of the inquest.

"I thought it altogether unsatisfactory," answered Wyllard. "You did

your best to thrash out a few facts; but those fools of railway people

had nothing to tell worth hearing. Everybody knows that the poor

creature fell off the train--or was thrown off. What we want to find

out is whether there was foul play in the business."

"It is my belief that there was," said Heathcote, looking at him

fixedly in the dim roseate light, almost as unsatisfactory for such a

scrutiny as the changeful glow of the fire.

"And mine," answered Wyllard; "and so strong is my conviction upon this

point that I stopped at the post-office on my way home, and telegraphed

to my old friend Joe Distin, asking him to come down and help us to

solve the mystery."

"Do you mean the criminal lawyer?"

"Whom else should I mean? He and I were schoolfellows. I have asked him

to stop at Penmorval while he carries on his investigation."

CHAPTER III.

JOSEPH DISTIN.

Mrs. Wyllard was surprised and even horrified when, on the morning

after the inquest, her husband told her that he had invited Distin, the

criminal lawyer, to stay at Penmorval while he investigated the mystery

of the nameless girl's death. The presence of such a man beneath her

roof seemed to her like an outrage upon that happy home.

"My dear Dora, what a delightful embodiment of provincial simplicity

you show yourself in this business!" said her husband laughingly. "I

believe you confound the lawyer who practises in the criminal courts

with the police-agent you have read about in French novels. A man of

low birth and education, with nothing but his native wit to recommend

him; a man whose chief talent is for disguises, and who passes his life

in a false beard and eyebrows, in the company of thieves and murderers,

whom it is his business to make friends with and then betray. Joe

Distin is a solicitor of long standing, whose chief practice happens to

be in the Old Bailey. He is a most accomplished person, and the friend

of princes."

"He is your friend, Julian, so I ought not for a moment to have doubted

that he is a gentleman," answered Dora sweetly, with her hand resting

on her husband's shoulder. Such a lovely hand, with long tapering

fingers, and dimples where other people have knuckles, like a hand in

an early Italian picture. "Still, I wish with all my heart that he were

going to stay at the hotel. I don't want you to be involved in this

terrible business. Why should you concern yourself about it, Julian?

Nothing you can do can be of use to the poor dead girl. What is it all

to you? What have you to do with it?"

"My duty," answered Wyllard firmly. "As a magistrate I am bound to

see that a terrible crime--if crime it be--shall not go unpunished in

my district. I have no particular aptitude in unravelling mysteries.

I therefore send for my old schoolfellow, who has won his reputation

among the sinuous ways of crime."

"Ah, I remember. You and Mr. Distin were together at Marlborough," said

Dora musingly. "That is enough to make him an interesting person in my

mind."

"Yes, we were companions and rivals in the same form," answered

Julian. "There were some who thought us two the sharpest lads in the

school. In all our studies we were neck and neck: but in other points

the difference between us was a wide one. Distin was the son of a

rich London solicitor--an only son, who could draw upon an indulgent

father for means to gratify every whim, who had his clothes made by a

fashionable tailor, and could afford to hire a hunter whenever he got

the chance of riding one. I was one of many children--the fourth son of

a Warwickshire parson; so I had to reckon my cash by sixpences, and to

wear my clothes till they were threadbare. Yes, there was an impassable

gulf between Distin and me in those days."

"And now you must be a great deal richer than he, and you can receive

him in this lovely old place."

"There will be some pride in that. Yes, Dora, Fortune was at home to

me when I knocked at her door. I have been what is called a lucky man."

"And you are a happy one, I hope," murmured his wife, leaning her head

upon his shoulder, as he stood before the open window, looking dreamily

out at summer woods.

"Ineffably happy, sweet one, in having won you," he answered tenderly,

kissing the fair broad brow.

"You must have been wonderfully clever," said Dora enthusiastically,

"beginning without any capital, and within twenty years making a great

fortune and a great name in the world of finance."

"I was fortunate in my enterprises when I was a young man, and I lived

at a time when fortunes were made--and lost--rapidly. I may have had a

longer head than some of my compeers; at any rate, I was cooler-headed

than the majority of them, and I kept out of rotten schemes."

"Or got out of them before they collapsed," Mr. Wyllard might have

said, had he displayed an exhaustive candour.

But in talking of business matters to a woman a man always leaves a

margin.

So after a good deal more discursive talk between husband and wife

it was agreed that Mr. Distin's visit was not to be regarded as an

affliction. A telegram arrived while Mr. and Mrs. Wyllard were talking,

announcing the lawyer's arrival by the same train which had carried

the nameless waif to her grave in the valley, the train which was due

at Bodmin Road at a quarter before eight. The dog-cart was to meet

the guest, and dinner was to be deferred till nine o'clock for his

accommodation.

"You can send a line to Heathcote and ask him to dine with us

to-night," said Wyllard. "I know he is interested in this business, and

would like to meet Distin."

"And Hilda--you won't mind having Hilda?"

"Not in the least. Hilda is an ornament to any gentleman's

dining-table. But how fond you have become of Hilda lately!"

"I was always fond of her. Do you know there is something that puzzles

me very much?"

"Indeed!"

"A few months ago I thought Bothwell was in love with Hilda. He seemed

devoted to her, and was always asking me to have her over here. I was

rejoicing at the idea of the poor fellow getting such a sweet girl for

his wife, for I thought Hilda rather liked him, when all at once he

cooled, and appeared actually to go out of his way in order to avoid

her. Strange, was it not?"

"The fickleness of an idle mind, no doubt," answered Wyllard carelessly.

He had not his wife's keen interest in the joys and sorrows of other

people. He was said to be a kind-hearted man. He was good to the

poor in a large way, and never shut his purse against the appeal of

misfortune. But he could not be worried about the details of other

people's lives. He did not care a straw whether Bothwell was or was

not in love with Hilda. To his wife, on the contrary, the question was

vital, involving the happiness of two people whom she loved.

"If your cousin does not put his shoulder to the wheel before long he

will fall into a very bad way," said Wyllard decisively.

"He would be very glad to do it, if he only knew what wheel to

shoulder," said Bothwell's voice outside, as he sauntered to the

window, wafting aside the smoke of his cigarette.

It seemed to Dora as if her cousin spent his home life in smoking

cigarettes and sauntering in the gardens, where, on his energetic days,

he helped her in her war of extermination against the greenfly.

"There is always a wheel to be moved by the man who is not afraid of

work," said Wyllard.

"So I am told, but I have found no such wheel, as a civilian.

Seriously, Julian, I know that I am an idler and a reprobate, that I

am taking advantage of your kindness and letting life slip by me just

because I have the run of my teeth in this fine old place, and because

you and Dora are worlds too good to me. I have been taking my own

character between my teeth and giving it a good shaking within the last

few days, and I mean to turn over a new leaf. I shall go abroad--to the

South Seas."

"What are you to do for a living in the South Seas?"

"Something. Sub-edit a colonial paper, keep a grocery store, turn

parson and convert the nigger. I shall fall upon my feet, you may be

sure. I shall find something to do before I have been out there long.

Or if Otaheite won't give me a roof and a crust, I can cross to the

mainland and drive sheep. Something I must do for my bread. Into the

new world I must go. The atmosphere of the old world is stifling me. I

feel as if I was living in an orchid house."

"No, Bothwell, you are not going to the other end of the world," said

Dora affectionately. "You ought not to say such things, Julian, making

him feel as if he were an intruder, as if he were not welcome here; my

first cousin, the only companion of my youth that remains to me now my

dear mother is gone. Surely we who are rich need not grudge our kinsman

a home."

"My dearest, you ought to know that I spoke for Bothwell's sake, and

from no other motive than my care for his interest," answered Julian

gravely. "A young man without a profession is a young man on the

high-road to perdition."

"I believe you with all my soul," cried Bothwell, with feverish energy,

"and I shall sail for Otaheite in the first ship that will carry me.

Not because I do not love you, Dora, but because I want to be worthier

of your love."

He lighted a fresh cigarette, and sauntered away from the window, to

breathe latakia over the John Hoppers and Victor Verdiers on the wall.

Dora's eyes filled with tears. She was angrier with her husband than

she had ever been since her marriage.

"It is very unkind of you to drive Bothwell out of your house," she

said indignantly. "You make me regret that I have not a house of my

own. You forget how fond we have always been of each other--that he is

as dear to me as a brother."

"It is because I remember that fact that I am anxious to stimulate

Bothwell to action of some kind," answered her husband. "Do you think

it is good for any young man to lead the kind of life your cousin leads

here?"

"If he were to marry he would become more industrious, I have no

doubt," said Dora. "You might pension off old Mr. Gretton, and make

Bothwell your land-steward."

"Which in Bothwell's case would mean a genteel dependence, under the

disguise of a responsible position. Bothwell would be seen on every

racecourse in the west country--would play billiards at the George,

shoot my game, and let somebody else do my work."

"Do you mean that my cousin is a dishonourable man?" asked Dora

indignantly.

"No, dear. I mean that he is a man who has spoiled one career for

himself, and will have to work uncommonly hard in order to find

another."

This was cruel logic to Dora's ear. For the first time in her life she

thought that her husband was ungenerous; and for the first time in her

life she reckoned her own fortune as an element of power. Hitherto she

had allowed her rents to be paid into her husband's bank. She had her

own cheque-book, and drew whatever money she wanted; but she never

looked at her pass-book, and she did not even ask what income each year

brought her, or what surplus was left at the end of the year. She had

never offered to help Bothwell with money; she had felt that any such

offer would humiliate him. But now she considered for the first time

that her money must have accumulated to a considerable extent, and that

it was in her power to assist Bothwell with capital for any enterprise

which he might desire to undertake. If he had set his heart upon going

to the South Sea Islands, he should not start with an empty purse.

* * * * *

The train from Paddington came into Bodmin Road station with laudable

punctuality, and without mischance of any kind; and the dog-cart

brought Mr. Distin to Penmorval before half-past eight. Dora was in

the drawing-room when he arrived. She had dressed early in order to be

ready to welcome her husband's friend; even albeit he came to her with

a perfume of the Old Bailey.

In spite of Wyllard's praise of his old schoolfellow, Dora had expected

a foxy and unpleasant individual, with craft in every feature of his

face.

She was agreeably surprised on beholding a good-looking man, with

aquiline nose, dark eyes, hair and whiskers inclining to gray, slim,

well set up, neat without being dapper or priggish--a man who might

have been taken for an artist or an author, just as readily as for a

lawyer versed in the dark ways of crime.

"My friend Wyllard looks all the better for his rural seclusion," said

Distin, after he had been introduced to Dora. "He seems to me a younger

man by ten years than he was when I met him in Paris just ten years

ago. And that means twenty years to the good, you see."

"Is it really ten years since you have met?" exclaimed Dora.

"Exactly a decade. Our last meeting was a chance encounter in the

Palais Royal in the summer of '72, when Paris was just beginning to

recover herself after the horrors of the Commune. We ran against each

other one day at dinner-time--both making for Véfour's, where we dined

together and talked over old times. I thought that evening my friend

looked aged and haggard, nervous and worried, and I put it down to the

ruling disease of our epoch, high-pressure. I knew it could not be the

effect of late hours or dissipation of any kind, for Wyllard was always

as steady as old Time. But now I find him regenerated, glorified by

rustic pleasures. Happy fellow, who can afford to enjoy his _otium cum

dignitate_ in the very prime of life."

"You hear what he says, Dora," said Wyllard laughingly. "Now, I daresay

what he thinks is: 'How can this poor devil endure his existence

out of London--two hundred and forty miles from the clubs--from the

opera-house--from the first nights of new plays--the crowd of familiar

faces?' I know my friend Distin of old, and that he could not exist out

of London any more than a fish can live out of water."

"I like my little London," admitted Distin coyly, almost as if he were

talking of a fascinating woman. "There's so much in it, and it's such

a devilish wicked place, to those who really know it. But I think the

country a most delightful institution--from Saturday to Monday."

"The cockney stands confessed in that one remark," said Wyllard,

laughing.

"That is the worst of Devonshire and Cornwall," pursued Distin, in his

airy way. "Charming scenery, eminently picturesque; but not available

between Saturday and Monday. Now, there is one ineffable charm in

those pretty places up the river, and that rural district round

Tunbridge Wells."

"Pray what is that?"

"One is always so delighted to arrive on Saturday afternoon, and so

charmed to leave on Monday morning. The rustic aroma just lasts till

Sunday night, and the keen craving for town begins with the dawn of

Monday. But I must go and get rid of two hundred and forty miles of

dust," said Mr. Distin, slipping off as lightly as a boy.

He left the drawing-room at twenty minutes to nine, and returned at

five minutes before the hour, in full evening-dress. It was like a

conjuring trick. His costume was of the quietest, yet there was a

finish and style about everything that impressed even the ignorant.

One felt that the very latest impress of Fashion's fairy fingers had

touched that shirt, had meted out the depth of the silk collar, the

curve of the sleeve. That black pearl centre-stud might have been the

last gift of a prince or a grateful beauty. One ring, and one only,

adorned the solicitor's left hand; but that ring was a table diamond,

two hundred and forty years old, said to have been given by Anne of

Austria to the Duke of Buckingham.

Bothwell, who took some pride in his clothes, looked clumsy and

unfashionable beside the London lawyer, or at any rate fancied that he

did. Edward Heathcote was at all times a careless dresser, but his tall

figure, and a certain dash which was more soldierly than civilian, made

him an important personage in every circle. He had the free grace, the

easy movements, of a man who has spent his boyhood and youth out of

doors--hunting, shooting, fishing, mountaineering.

The dinner was lively, thanks chiefly to Joseph Distin, for Bothwell

had a dispirited air, and Hilda could not help feeling unhappy at

seeing his gloom, though she tried to conceal her sympathy. Mr. Wyllard

and Mr. Distin had the conversation to themselves during the greater

part of the meal, for Mr. Heathcote was graver and more reserved than

usual, and Dora had a subdued and thoughtful air. She would have been

quite ready to admit that Joseph Distin was a very agreeable person,

and altogether worthy of her husband's friendship; but she could not

dissociate him from the horror of the event which caused his presence

in that house. She felt that of those gathered around her table that

night, in the shaded light of the low lamps, amidst the perfume of

hothouse flowers, the greater number were brooding upon a mystery which

might mean murder.

She was very glad to escape to the drawing-room with Hilda, directly

dinner was over.

"And now, I suppose, they will talk of that poor creature's death," she

said. "Come, Hilda, sing one of Schubert's ballads, and let us try to

forget all that horror."

Hilda seated herself at the piano obediently, and began "Mignon." She

had a superb mezzo-soprano, clear as a bell, ripe and round and full.

The rich notes went pealing up to the low ceiling and floating out at

the open windows. Perhaps Bothwell heard them in the dining-room, for

he came sauntering in presently, and slipped quietly into a seat in a

shadowy corner. Hilda always sang and played from memory. There was no

irksome duty to be done in the way of turning over music.

"What made you desert the gentlemen, Bothwell?" asked Dora, when the

song was over.

"They were talking of that diabolical inquest again. Nobody in Bodmin

seems able to talk of anything else. Wherever I went to-day I heard the

same ghastly talk--every imaginable suggestion, and not one grain of

common sense. What ghouls people must be to gloat over such a subject!

No wonder that men who live in great cities despise the rustic mind."

"I do not find that the inhabitants of cities are any less ghoulish,"

retorted Dora, who felt warmly about her native soil, and would have

fought for Cornish people and Cornish institutions to the death. "See

how the London papers gloat over the details of crime."

These three spent the evening very quietly in the drawing-room, while

the three men in the dining-room were discussing the event on the

railway.

Hilda sang some of Mrs. Wyllard's favourite songs, while her hostess

sat in the lamp-light by an open window working at a group of

sunflowers on a ground of olive plush. Bothwell kept in his dark corner

all the evening, so quiet that he might have been asleep, save that

he murmured a "Thank you, Miss Heathcote, very lovely," after one of

Hilda's songs. She thought that he was only grateful for having had his

slumber soothed by a vague strain of melody.

The men in the dining-room had turned away from the lighted table,

and were sitting in a little knot in the embrasure of the wide Tudor

window, smoking their cigars, half in the ruddy glow of the lamps and

half in the mellow light of the newly-risen moon. They could hardly

see each other's faces in that uncertain light. Stodden, the butler,

had wheeled a table over to the window and arranged the claret-jugs

and glasses upon it, before he left the room. The little knot of men

smoking and drinking by the window looked a picture of comfort, with

the soft sweet air blowing in from the garden, and the great full

moon shining over the roses and the fountain in the old-fashioned

parterre. Joseph Distin's keen eye noted every detail of his friend's

surroundings; and he told himself that, for the fourth son of a village

vicar, Julian Wyllard had done remarkably well.

Between them Wyllard and the Coroner had contrived to put the London

lawyer in full possession of the facts relating to the girl's death.

Those facts were unfortunately of the scantiest. Edward Heathcote

breathed no hint of that dark suspicion about Bothwell which had

flashed into his mind after the inquest, and which he had vainly

endeavoured to shake off since that time. Bothwell's manner at dinner

this evening had not been calculated to disarm suspicion. His moody

brow, his silence and abstraction, were the unmistakable signs of

secret trouble of some kind. That trouble was coincidental in time with

the event on the railway; for Heathcote and Bothwell had met in Bodmin,

and had ridden home together on the previous day, and the young man had

been cheery enough.

"The ticket found upon the girl was from London to Plymouth, I

apprehend," said Distin, when he had heard everything.

"Yes."

"Then she started from Paddington that morning. My business will be to

find out who she was, and the motive of her journey."

"And do you think there is a possibility of tracing her in London,

without a shred of evidence--except the photograph of a dead face?"

exclaimed Wyllard. "To my mind it seems like looking in a brook for a

bubble that broke there a week ago."

"As a west countryman you should remember how otter-hounds hunt the

bead on the water," answered Distin. "With a photograph, the police

ought to be able to trace that girl--even in the wilderness of London."

"But if she were a foreigner, and only passed through London?"

suggested Wyllard.

"Even then she would leave her bead, like the otter. She could not get

a night's shelter without some one knowing of her coming and going.

Unless she slept in the lowest form of lodging-house--a place through

which the herd of strange faces are always passing--the probabilities

are in favour of her face being remembered."

"Judging by the neatness of her clothes and the refinement of her

features, she must have been the last person likely to set foot in a

common lodging-house," said Heathcote. "But there was no money found

upon her; neither purse nor papers of any kind."

"That fact is to me almost conclusive," said Distin.

"Upon what point?"

"It convinces me that she was made away with."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Wyllard, much surprised. "The thing never occurred

to me in that light."

"Naturally, my dear friend. You have not devoted twenty years of your

life to the study of the criminal mind," answered the lawyer easily.

"Don't you see that the first thought of a man who made up his mind

to throw a girl out of a train--unless he did the act in a blind fury

which gave him no time for thought of any kind--his first precaution,

I say, would be to see that there was no evidence of her identity upon

her, more especially where the victim was a stranger in the land, as

this poor thing was? The identification of the victim is often half-way

towards the identification of the murderer. But if the dead can be

buried unrecognised--a nameless unknown waif, in whose fate no private

individual is interested--why, after the funeral the murderer may take

his ease and be merry, assured that he will hear no more of the matter.

Public interest in a mysterious crime of that kind soon dies out."

"And you think that this poor girl was the victim of a crime?" asked

the Coroner, surprised to find his own idea shared by the great

authority.

"In my own mind I have no doubt she was murdered."

"But why should she not have committed suicide?"

"Why should she have travelled from London to Cornwall in order to

throw herself over that particular embankment?" demanded Distin. "An

unnecessary luxury, when there were the Holborn Viaduct and a score

of bridges at her service, to say nothing of the more natural exit by

her own bedroom window. Besides, in the statistics of self-murder you

will find that nineteen out of twenty suicides--nay, I might almost say

ninety-nine out of a hundred--leave a piteous little note explaining

the motive of the deed--an appeal to posterity, as it were. 'See how

great a sufferer I have been, and what a heroic end I have made.' No,

there is only one supposition that would admit this girl being her own

destroyer. Some ruffian in the train might have so scared her that she

flung herself out, in a frantic effort to escape from him. But against

this possibility there is the fact of the absence of any purse or

papers. She could not have been travelling that distance without, at

least, a few shillings in her possession."

"Who knows!" said Julian Wyllard. "Very narrow are the straits of

genteel poverty. If, as I suppose, she was a poor little nursery

governess going to her situation, she may have had just money enough to

pay for her railway ticket, and no more. She may have relied upon her

employers meeting her at the station with a conveyance."

"If she were a nursery governess, due at some country house on that

day, surely her employers would have communicated with the Bodmin

police before now," said Distin.

"News finds its way slowly to sleepy old houses in remote districts

off the railway," replied Wyllard. "There are people still living in

Cornwall who depend upon a weekly paper for all news of the outer

world."

"If the poor girl were going to such benighted wretches, let us hope

they will wake in a day or two, and enlighten us about her," said

Distin. "And now to be distinctly practical, and to tell you what I am

going to do. Mr. Heathcote's carriage was announced nearly an hour ago,

and I saw him looking at his watch just now."

"I was only uneasy about Mrs. Wyllard and my sister. We are keeping

them up rather late," said the Coroner apologetically.

"Dora won't mind. She loves the tranquillity of midnight," replied

Wyllard. "Go on, Distin. What is your plan?"

"Your adjourned inquest does not come on for nearly a fortnight," said

Distin. "Now, you can't expect me to waste all that time in Cornwall,

delicious as it would be to dream away existence among the roses of

your delightful garden; so the best thing I can do is to run up to

London to-morrow morning"--he spoke as if he were at Maidenhead or

Marlow--"find out all I can _there_, and return here in time for

the Coroner's next sitting. By which time," added the specialist

cheerily, "I hope we shall have got up a pretty little case for the

Public Prosecutor. Mr. Heathcote will kindly keep me informed of any

new details that crop up here. I shall have the poor little girl's

photograph in my pocket-book. You'll send a messenger to your town

early to-morrow morning, Wyllard, and tell the photographer to meet me

at the station with his photographs of the dead girl? He ought to have

them ready by that time."

"I will give the order to-night," said Wyllard; and then the three men

repaired to the drawing-room.

"I have been very happy here," said Hilda to her brother; "but I

thought you were never coming for me. Mrs. Wyllard must be dreadfully

tired."

"Never tired of your company, Hilda," interjected Dora. "Nor of

Schubert."

"And as for Mr. Grahame, he has been asleep ever since dinner."

"That is a baseless calumny, Miss Heathcote. I have not lost a note of

your songs. I am told that Schubert was rather a low person--convivial,

that is to say somewhat Bohemian; fond of taverns and tavern company.

But I will maintain there must have been a pure and beautiful soul in

the man who wrote such songs as those."

"I am so glad you like them," answered Hilda, brightening at his

praise. "I daresay you often heard them in India."

"No; the people I knew in India had not such good taste as you."

"But in a country like that, where ladies have so little to do, music

must be such a resource," persisted Hilda, who was curiously interested

in Mr. Grahame's Indian experiences.

She was always wondering what his life had been like in that strange

distant world, what kind of people he had known there. She wondered all

the more perhaps on account of Bothwell's reticence. She could never

get him to talk freely of his Indian days, and this gave the whole

thing an air of mystery.

The clock in the great gray pile of stabling was striking twelve as the

Coroner's carriage drove away.

"I cannot think what has happened to Mr. Grahame," said Hilda. "He

used to be so lively, and now he is so dull."

"The change is palpable to others, then, as well as to me," thought

Heathcote. "Whatever the cause may be, there is a change. God help him

if my fear is well grounded! If I were a criminal, I would as soon have

a sleuthhound on my track as Joseph Distin."

Mr. Distin was on his way to London before noon next day, curled up

in a corner of a _coupé_, looking out eagerly at every station for

the morning papers. He had the dead girl's photographs--full-face,

profile--in his letter-case. On making his adieux at Penmorval he

declared that he had thoroughly enjoyed his little run into the

country, his night in the fresh air.

"So delicious to wake at six--my usual hour--and smell your roses, and

hear your fountain," he said. "I look forward with delight to my return

the week after next."

* * * * *

During that interval which occurred between Mr. Distin's departure

and the adjourned inquest, Edward Heathcote gave himself up to his

usual avocations, and took no further trouble to fathom the mystery of

the stranger's untimely fate. After all, he told himself, wearied by

brooding upon a subject that troubled him greatly, it was not for him

to solve the problem. He was not the Public Prosecutor, nor was he a

detective, nor even a criminal lawyer, like Joseph Distin. His business

was to hear what other people had to say, not to hunt up evidence

against anybody. His duty began when he took his seat at an inquest,

and ended when he left it. Why, then, should he vex his mind with dark

suspicions against a man who was the near kinsman, the adopted brother,

of that woman for whose sake or for whose happiness he would have

gladly died?

This was how Edward Heathcote argued with himself; and it was in

pursuance of this conclusion that he gave himself up to a life of

idleness during the twelve days that succeeded Mr. Distin's departure.

He rode far afield in the early morning, he drove with his sister

and the twins in the afternoon. He appeared at two archery meetings

and three tennis-parties, a most unusual concession to the claims

of society, and he dawdled away the rest of his existence, reading

the last new books in English, French, and German, and discussing

them with Hilda's duenna, Theresa Meyerstein, a curious specimen of

the German Fräulein, intensely domestic, and yet deeply learned--a

woman able to turn from Schopenhauer to strawberry jam, from Plato to

plum-pudding--a woman who knew every theory that had ever been started

upon the mind and its functions, and who could tell to a hundredweight

how much coal ought to be consumed in a gentleman's household. Mr.

Heathcote had discovered this paragon of domesticity and erudition,

acting as deputy-manager at a boarding-house at Baden, during the

first year of his widowhood, and he brought her away from the white

slavery and the scanty remuneration of that institution to the luxury

of an English country house, and the certainty of a liberal recompense

for her labours. Fräulein Meyerstein rewarded her employer by a most

thorough fidelity, and adored Hilda and the twin daughters. Her soul

had languished in a chilling atmosphere, for lack of something to

love, and she lavished the garnered treasures of long years upon these

Cornish damsels who were committed to her care.

More than once during those long summer days Hilda urged the necessity

of calling at Penmorval; but her brother told her she could go alone,

or take the Fräulein, who dearly loved a drive, and a gossip over a cup

of tea, and who was always kindly received by Mrs. Wyllard, in spite of

her short petticoats, anatomical boots, and Teutonic bonnets.

"You can perform those small civilities without any assistance from

me," said Heathcote. "You women are so tremendously posted in the

details of etiquette. Now, it would never have occurred to me that

because we dined at Penmorval a few nights ago, we were strenuously

bound, to call upon Mrs. Wyllard before the end of the week. I thought

that, with friends of long standing those Draconic laws were a dead

letter."

"I don't mean to say that we need be ceremonious, Edward," answered

Hilda, "but I am sure Dora will expect to see us. She will think we are

forgetting her if we don't go."

"Then you go, dear, and let her see that you are not forgetful,

whatever I may be," said Heathcote.

He had a horror of entering that house of Penmorval just now, lest

he should see or hear something that would give him new cause for

suspecting Bothwell. He had a feeling that he could only cross that

threshold as the bringer of evil: and it would be a bitter thing for

him to carry evil into her home for whose peace he had prayed night and

morning for the last eight years.

So Hilda drove her ponies up the hill to Penmorval, and Miss Meyerstein

sat beside her in all the glory of her new bonnet, sent from Munich

by a relative, and reported as the very latest fashion in that city.

Unhappily for the success of the bonnet in Cornwall, Bodmin fashions

and Munich fashions were wide as the poles asunder. Bodmin boasted a

milliner who took in the fashion-magazines, and beguiled her clients

with the idea that everything she made for them was Parisian. The

Bodmin milliner had a heavy hand, and laid on feathers and flowers as

if with a trowel; but her bonnets and hats were light as thistledown

in comparison with the art of Bavaria.

* * * * *

It was the afternoon of the adjourned inquest, and Joseph Distin was on

the scene, ready to watch the inquiry. He had arrived at Penmorval in

time for breakfast, after travelling all night.

"Such a good way of getting rid of the night," he said, as he discussed

a salmi of trout, caught in the stream that traversed Penmorval Park.

Alone in the library with Julian Wyllard after breakfast, the London

lawyer confessed that for once in his life he had been pretty nearly

beaten. He had shown the photographs of the dead face to two of the

cleverest detectives in London--had set one to work in the east and

the other in the west, promising a liberal reward for any valuable

information; and nothing had come of their labours. One had tried every

lodging-house within a certain radius of Paddington. The other had

explored the neighbourhood of London Bridge Station, and failing there,

had come as far west as Charing Cross. The ground had been thoroughly

beaten, and no likely place had been forgotten in which a stranger of

this girl's class could find shelter.

"She might have gone to the house of friends," suggested Wyllard.

"If she had friends in London--were they ever such slight acquaintances

even--they would have been heard of before now," argued Distin. "I take

it that she was unknown to a mortal on this side of the Channel, except

the man who murdered her, and who had no doubt some very powerful

motive for wanting to get rid of her."

"What do you suppose that motive to have been?"

"My dear Wyllard, what a question for a clever man to ask!" exclaimed

the lawyer, with a shade of contempt. "To speculate upon the motive I

must have some knowledge of the man, and of this girl's murderer I know

nothing. If I could once find the man, I should soon find the motive.

Such a murder as this generally means the breaking of some legal tie

that has become onerous--some bond which death alone can loosen."

CHAPTER IV.

BOTHWELL DECLINES TO ANSWER.

The room at the Vital Spark was filled to overflowing on the occasion

of the adjourned inquiry. At the previous examination only the

inhabitants of Bodmin and its immediate neighbourhood had been present;

but on this second afternoon people had come from long distances, and

there was not standing room for the audience, which filled the passage,

and waited with strained ears to catch a stray word now and then

through the open door.

The idea of a profound mystery--of a dastardly crime--had been fostered

in the local mind by the newspapers, which had harped upon the ghastly

theme, and gloated over the particulars of the nameless girl's fate

in paragraphs and leaderettes _ad nauseam_. Articles headed "More

details concerning the Bodmin Mystery," "Further particulars about the

strange death on the railway," had served as the salt to give savour

to cut and dried reports about the harvest, the markets, and those

small offenders whose peccadilloes furnish the material for Justice to

exercise her might upon at petty sessions.

Every one had read about that strange death of a lonely girl in the

summer sunset. Every one was interested in a fate so melancholy--an

abandonment so inexplicable.

"I thought that there was hardly ever a human being so isolated as to

be owned by no one," said the curate of Wadebridge. "Yet it would seem

that this poor girl had no one to care for her in life, or to identify

her after death. If she had one friend living in England or France,

surely that person must have made some sign before now."

"People in France are very slow to hear about anything that happens in

England," replied Dr. Menheniot, to whom the curate had been talking.

"But I heard Mr. Heathcote, at the first inquiry, say that he meant to

advertise in a Parisian newspaper."

"Then be sure the advertisement appeared," answered Menheniot.

"Heathcote is one of those few men with whom meaning and doing are the

same thing."

The inquiry dragged its slow length along, and hardly one new fact

was elicited. There was a great deal of repetition, in spite of the

Coroner's attempt to keep all his witnesses to the point. Mr. Distin

sat near the Coroner, and asked a few questions of two or three of the

witnesses; and though he elicited no actually new facts, he seemed to

put things in a clearer light by his cross-examination.

Just before the close of the inquiry, he said:

"I see Mr. Grahame, of Penmorval, is here this afternoon. I should like

to ask him a question or two, if you have no objection."

The Coroner paled ever so slightly at this suggestion, but he had no

objection to offer: so Bothwell Grahame was asked to come up to the

table, and kiss the Book, which he did with a somewhat bewildered air,

as if the thing came upon him as an unpleasant surprise.

"You were in the train that evening, I believe, Mr. Grahame," said

Distin.

"I was."

"Were you alone, in a compartment, or in company with other passengers?"

"I had a third-class compartment to myself."

"And you saw this girl fall?"

"I saw her fall--but as I saw just a little less than Dr. Menheniot and

the guard saw, I don't see the good of my being questioned," answered

Bothwell, with rather a sullen air.

"I beg your pardon," returned Mr. Distin suavely, "every witness sees

an event from a different point of view. You may have noticed something

which escaped the two witnesses we have just heard."

"I noticed nothing more than you have been told by these two, and I saw

less than they saw. I did not look out of the window till I heard the

girl's shriek, and I saw her in the act of falling."

"Good. But you may have observed this solitary girl--a foreigner, and

therefore more noticeable--on the platform at Plymouth. You were on the

platform at Plymouth, you know."

"I was. But I did not see the girl at the station."

"Strange that she should have escaped your observation, although the

porter who was busy with his duties had time to notice her," said Mr.

Distin.

"Would it surprise you to hear that during the four or five minutes I

spent in the station before the train started I was standing at the

bookstall buying papers, with my back to the platform?"

"That would account for your not having seen this noticeable young

stranger. You were in Plymouth for several hours, I believe, Mr.

Grahame?"

"I was; but upon my word I don't see what hearing that fact can have

upon this inquiry."

"Perhaps not. Still, you will not object to tell us what you were doing

in Plymouth--how you disposed of your time there."

This question evidently troubled Bothwell, simple as it was, and easy

as it ought to have been to answer.

"I played a game at billiards at the Duke of Cornwall," he said.

"I am sure you are too good a player for that to occupy more than half

an hour," said Mr. Distin, with his silky air, as if he were employed

in a very pleasant business, and were bent upon being as cheery as

possible.

"I had to wait for the table."

"Come now, Mr. Grahame, you need not be mysterious about so simple a

matter," exclaimed Mr. Distin. "You don't mean to tell us that you went

to Plymouth by the 12.15 train"--he had ascertained this fact before

the inquiry began--"and spent the whole of the day there, in order to

play a game at billiards in a public billiard-room. You must have had

other business in Plymouth."

"Certainly. I had other business there."

"Will you kindly tell us what that business was?"

"As it concerned others besides myself, and as it has not the faintest

bearing upon this case, I must decline to answer that question."

"Really, now, I should advise you to be more frank. You leave Bodmin

early in the day--without giving any notice of your departure--and you

return late in the evening. A most mysterious catastrophe occurs in the

train which brings you home--a death so strange, so horrible, that it

casts a cloud over all the passengers travelling by that train--leaves

a stigma upon all, as it were, until the guilt of that deed can be

brought home to one. Surely, under such circumstances, the utmost

frankness is desirable. Every traveller in that train should be ready

to answer any question which those who are charged with the elucidation

of this mystery may ask."

"I have answered your questions as to what occurred to me in the train,

and at the station; but I decline to be catechised about my business in

Plymouth," answered Bothwell doggedly.

"That will do," said Distin; and Bothwell went to his seat next

Julian Wyllard, whose handsome presence appeared in the front rank of

spectators, amongst those of the _élite_ who were favoured with chairs,

while the commonalty stood in a mob at the back of the room.

The audience had been breathless during this examination of Bothwell

Grahame. The young man's sunburnt face was clouded with anger, his dark

strongly-marked brows were scowling over those gray-blue eyes which

once had such a pleasant expression.

"I can't think what has come to Grahame," muttered a sporting squire to

his next neighbour. "He used to be such a pleasant fellow, but to-day

he looks like a murderer."

"You don't think he threw the girl out of the train, do you?" asked the

other.

"God forbid! But by that London lawyer's questions one would think _he_

suspected Grahame of having had a hand in the business."

The jury gave their verdict presently, "Death from misadventure."

"Tell Dora not to expect me at dinner," said Bothwell to Julian

Wyllard, before they left the inn; "I shall dine in Bodmin."

"Have you any engagement?"

"No, but I can easily make one. I am not going to break bread with your

lawyer friend. So long as he is at Penmorval I shall be missing."

"My dear Bothwell, you have no right to be angry at a simple question

which you might have so easily answered," remonstrated Wyllard gravely.

"It was a question which I did not choose to answer, and which he had

no right to ask. It was an outrage to ask such a question--to press it

as he did. Fifty years ago he might have been shot for a lesser insult.

By Jove, I never felt more sorry that the good old duelling days are

over--the days when one man could not insult another with impunity."

"How savage you are, Bothwell, and against a man who was only in the

exercise of his profession!"

"He had no right to question me as if I were a murderer," retorted

Bothwell savagely. "Did he think that I spent my time in Plymouth

plotting that girl's death? If I had made up my mind to push a woman

over an embankment, I should not have wanted to spend a day in Plymouth

in order to plan the business. A murder of that kind must be touch and

go--no sooner thought of than done."

"All trouble would have been saved, my dear fellow, if you had given a

straight answer to a simple question."

"To answer would have been to acknowledge his right to question me.

No judge would have allowed counsel to have asked such a motiveless

question. Nowhere except at a petty rustic inquiry would such a thing

be permitted."

"I can only say that you are needlessly angry, Bothwell," said Wyllard.

"Here comes Distin. You had better drive home with us."

"No, thank you; I shall be home before the house shuts up; but you'll

see no more of me to-night."

"Good-night, then."

The Penmorval barouche was waiting before the porch of the Vital

Spark--a great day for that rural hostelry when such a carriage could

be seen waiting there--a great day at the bar, where all the strength

of the establishment could not serve brandies-and-sodas and pale ales

fast enough. Joseph Distin came tripping out, and took his place in the

carriage beside Julian Wyllard. He had lingered at the inn for a few

minutes' talk with the Coroner.

"Is not Mr. Grahame going back with us?" he asked, as they drove

towards the town.

"No. You wounded his dignity by those questions of yours. He is a

curious young man, and is easily offended."

"He is a very curious young man," answered the lawyer, with a

thoughtful air.

He was looking at the landscape intently as they drove along the shady

road, between deep banks and luxuriant hedges; but he would have found

it rather difficult to say afterwards what kind of timber prevailed in

the hedgerows, or what crops grew in the fields.

He was thoughtful all that evening, though he did his utmost to make

himself agreeable to Mrs. Wyllard at dinner, talking to her of art,

music, the drama, society, all the arts and graces and pleasures of

life--doing everything in his power to distract her thoughts from that

one grim theme which was the motive of his presence in that place.

When she was gone, and Distin and his host were alone together over

their claret, the lawyer dropped his society manner as if it had been a

mask, and began to talk seriously.

"For the first time for a good many years I find myself completely at

fault," he said, leaning across the table, and cracking filberts in

sheer distraction of mind. "I thought that I should be able to get

up a case while I was in London, but not a shred of evidence have I

discovered. If this girl had dropped from the moon, it could not be

more difficult to trace her."

"Well, my dear Distin, you have done your best, and we must be

satisfied," replied Wyllard quietly. "I felt it to be my duty as a

magistrate to do all in my power to fathom the mystery of that poor

girl's death. The best thing I could do was to put the case in your

hands. If you cannot help us, no one can. We must be satisfied."

"But I am not satisfied, Julian; I never shall be satisfied until I

have solved this problem," said Distin resolutely. "I am not the sort

of man who can stand being baffled in a matter of this kind. Is all my

professional training to go for nothing, do you think? And yet in your

interest it might be best that I should let this business drop out of

my mind---forget the whole story if possible."

"How do you mean, in _my_ interest?" exclaimed Wyllard, surprised.

"What bearing can the case have upon me or my interest, beyond my

desire to do my duty as a magistrate?"

"I fear that this mystery touches you nearer than you suppose. Surely,

Wyllard, you must have been struck by the manner of your wife's kinsman

under my examination."

"Great Heaven!" cried Wyllard, "you don't mean to tell me that you

suspect Bothwell Grahame of any hand in this business?"

"In perfect frankness, between man and man, I believe that young man

to be in some way--either as principal or accessory--concerned in the

murder of that girl."

"My dear Distin, you must be mad."

"Come now, my dear Wyllard, you cannot pretend that you did not notice

the strangeness of Mr. Grahame's manner this afternoon: his refusal to

answer my question about his business in Plymouth."

"He was angry at your catechising him in that manner; and I must

confess that your question appeared to the last degree irrelevant, even

to me."

"Granted. My question was irrelevant. But it was a test question. I

should never have cross-examined Mr. Grahame, if I had not seen reason

for suspecting him before the inquiry began. I was painfully impressed

by his manner the night I dined here with him; and I believe, from

certain indications dropped unconsciously by your Coroner, that he too

saw reason for suspecting Mr. Grahame. His manner to-day confirms my

suspicion. I am deeply grieved that it should be so, on your wife's

account."

"You had need be sorry for her. Why, Bothwell is like a brother to her.

It would break her heart," said Wyllard, strongly agitated.

He had risen from the table, and was walking slowly up and down the

room, between the windows opening wide upon the gray evening sky, and

the warm lamplight within. Joseph Distin could not see his face, but he

could see that he was strongly moved.

"My dear fellow, let us hope that Mrs. Wyllard will never know anything

about this suspicion of mine," said Distin soothingly. "I have--so

far--not one scrap of evidence against Mr. Grahame; except the

evidence of looks and manner, and the one fact of his refusal to say

what he was doing in Plymouth the day of the girl's death. There is

nothing in all that to bring a man to the gallows. I may have my own

ideas about this mystery, and Mr. Heathcote may have pretty much the

same notion, but there is nothing to touch your wife's cousin so far.

I shall go back to town, and try to forget the whole matter. All you

have to do is to keep your own counsel, and take care that Mrs. Wyllard

knows nothing of what has passed in strictest confidence between you

and me."

"I would not have her know it for worlds. It would break her heart;

it might kill her. Women cannot bear such shocks. And to think that a

man can be suspected of a crime on such grounds--suspected by you, a

student of crime and criminals--because of a moody manner, a refusal to

answer a question! The whole thing seems too absurd for belief."

"Say that the thing is absurd, and that for once in his life Joe Distin

has made a fool of himself. Take your wife to Aix-les-Bains--or to

Biarritz----"

Julian Wyllard started at that last word as if he had been stung.

"What the deuce is the matter with you, or with Biarritz?" asked Distin

sharply.

"Nothing. My mind was wandering, that's all. You were saying----"

"That you had better forget all that has passed between us

to-night--forget the death of that girl--make a clean slate. Take your

wife to some foreign watering-place, the brightest and gayest you can

find. And let Bothwell Grahame dree his weird as best he may. The

catastrophe on the railway will be forgotten in a week."

"I doubt it. We have not much to think about at Bodmin, and we

exaggerate all our molehills into mountains. That girl's death will be

the talk of the town for the next six months."

"And yet people go on existing in such places, and think they are

alive!" exclaimed Distin.

He left Penmorval after breakfast next morning, without having seen

Bothwell, who was out on the hills breaking in a new horse while the

family were at breakfast. He had been out since five o'clock, the

butler told Mrs. Wyllard.

"Is he riding Glencoe?" she asked, with a look of alarm.

"Yes, ma'am."

"He is a dreadful horse, I know, Julian," she said. "Manby told me

about him only yesterday. He had narrowly escaped being thrown the day

before; and he said that Glencoe was a really dangerous horse, and that

we ought to get rid of him."

"So that he may break somebody else's bones," suggested Mr. Distin.

"That is what a good coachman always advises."

"And now Bothwell has gone out on him, alone."

"You would not have him take some one to pick him up if he were

thrown," said Wyllard. "My dear Dora, there is not the slightest

occasion for alarm. The horse is young, and a little gay; but your

cousin excels as a rough-rider, and there will be no harm done."

"But why should he want to ride that horse?" said Dora; "I'm sure

Manby would advise him not."

"The very reason why he should do it," replied her husband.

"I wonder if he is trying to kill himself while I am eating my

breakfast calmly here?" speculated Joseph Distin. "He must know that I

suspect him; and he may think that the game is up."

Whatever Bothwell's intention might have been, he came back to

Penmorval before eleven o'clock, bringing home the big bay hunter

bathed in sweat, and as tame as a sheep.

"A fine, honest horse! Only wants riding," he said, as he flung the

bridle to the groom, who had been watching for him at the stable-gates,

with an air of expecting to see broken bones.

In the hall Bothwell met Dora, cool, and calm, and beautiful, in her

white muslin breakfast gown. She was bringing in a basket of flowers

from the hothouse, to be arranged by her own hands.

"Is that London lawyer gone yet?" asked Bothwell curtly.

He could not be civil even to his cousin when he spoke of Joseph Distin.

"Yes, he has gone--I hope, never to come back again," said Dora. "He is

really a very well-bred man, and he made himself most agreeable here;

but he seemed to bring with him an atmosphere of crime. I could not

help thinking of all the horrible cases he must have been concerned

in, and that he had grown rich by the crimes of mankind. He could find

out nothing about that poor girl's death, it seems, although he is so

clever."

"Which goes rather to establish my view that the girl fell out of the

train by accident," replied Bothwell.

CHAPTER V.

PEOPLE WILL TALK.

The year was a month older since Joseph Distin went back to town,

baffled and angry with himself, yet glad for his friend's sake that his

discoveries had gone no further. The heather was purpling on the hills,

where the dwarf furze flashed here and there into patches of gold. The

tourist season had set in; but the tourist for the most part avoided

the little town of Bodmin, nestling snugly inland among the hills,

and turned his face to the sea, and the wild rocks which defend that

romantic western coast, to the Lizard and the Land's End, to rugged

Tintagel and sandy Bude.

Life at Penmorval had drifted by as calmly as an infant's sleep, in

those four weeks of soft summer weather. There had been no visitors

staying in the house, for both Julian Wyllard and his wife loved a

studious repose, and there were long intervals in which they lived

almost alone. Penmorval would be full by and by, in October, when

the pheasant-shooting began; and in the mean time it was pleasant to

Dora Wyllard to be able to ride and drive with her husband--to be the

companion of his walks, to read the books he read, and to waste long

evenings in inexhaustible talk. They always had so much to say to each

other. The sympathy between them was so complete.

Hilda Heathcote was at Penmorval nearly every day. She ranked almost as

one of the family. She came to Mrs. Wyllard for counsel and instruction

upon all manner of subjects--sometimes for a gardening lesson,

sometimes for a lesson in crewel-work, in French, German, Italian.

Dora was in advance of her young friend in all these subjects; but the

pupil was so bright and quick that it was a pleasure to teach her.

Between them Mrs. Wyllard and Miss Heathcote achieved marvels in the

way of art-needlework--piano-backs which were as beautiful as pictures,

portières worthy to rank with the highest examples of Gobelin tapestry,

counterpanes that ought to have been exhibited at South Kensington.

The calm leisure of country life lent itself to such slow and elaborate

labours.

Mrs. Wyllard had a big box of foreign books once a month from Rolandi's

library, and she meted out to Hilda such volumes as were fit for a

young English lady's perusal; and then they met to talk over the books,

sometimes alone, sometimes with Bothwell as a third. Bothwell was very

scornful of all the sentimental books, laughed at the super-refined

heroines of French novels, the dreamy heroes of German romance; but

he read all the books that Hilda read, and he seemed to enjoy talking

about them at that protracted function of afternoon tea from which he

rarely absented himself.

The weather was peerless during this month of August, and Mrs.

Wyllard's afternoon tea-table was set out in an arbour of clipped yew,

at the end of the Italian garden, a point from which there was a fine

view of the moors, and the great brown hills beyond.

Bothwell's sullen gloom had passed away soon after Mr. Distin's

departure. He seemed to Hilda to have become once again the old

Bothwell--gay, and cheery, and kind, and frank. But he did not commit

himself by any of those delicate little attentions to Hilda which had

made him such an agreeable person half a year ago. That particular

phase of his character was a thing of the past.

A month had gone since the close of the inquest at the Vital Spark, but

Bodmin people had not forgotten the strange death of the nameless girl,

and had not left off talking about it. They talked about Bothwell,

too, and of his refusal to give a plain answer to a plain question;

and towards the end of that month Bothwell Grahame woke up all at once

to the consciousness that he was under a cloud. He discovered that

he was being cut by his old acquaintances, so far as they dared cut

a man of his standing and temperament. They were not uncivil; they

gave him good-day if they met him in the street; they would even deign

to discuss the state of the weather, the results of the harvest. But

Bothwell felt nevertheless that he was living under a cloud; there

was a tacit avoidance of him, a desire to get off with as slight a

greeting as civility would permit. Hands were no longer held out to

him in friendship; salutations were no longer loud and cheery. No one

asked him to stop and play billiards at the chief inn, as people had

been wont to do, waylaying him when he wanted to get home. Now he could

pursue his walk without let or hindrance. He had even seen one of his

most familiar friends stroll dreamily round a corner to avoid meeting

him.

During the whole of those four weeks he had not received a single

invitation to play lawn-tennis, he for whose presence tennis-parties

used to compete. There were two or three engagements outstanding at

the time of the inquest. He had kept these, and had played his best,

struggling against a coldness in the atmosphere. It had seemed to him

that everybody was out of sorts. There was an all-pervading dulness.

Nobody could find anything pleasant to talk about. He had been very

slow to perceive that cloud which hung over him: but by the end of the

month the fact had become too palpable, and Bothwell Grahame understood

that he had been sent to Coventry.

"What does it all mean?" he asked himself, aghast with indignant

wonder. "What can they have to say against me? Can any one have found

out----?"

Bothwell's cheek paled as he thought of that one transaction of his

life which he would least like to see recorded against him. But he told

himself, after a few minutes' reflection, that nobody in Bodmin could

possibly know anything about that particular episode in a young man's

history.

He puzzled himself sorely about this change in the manner of his

acquaintance; and on trying back he discovered that the change dated

from the day of the adjourned inquest. He recalled too the curious

manner in which everybody had avoided the subject of the inquest; how

when any mention of the dead girl had been made in his presence the

conversation had been changed instantly, as if the subject must needs

be tabooed before him.

"Upon my soul," said Bothwell, "I begin to think they suspect me of

having thrown that girl out of the carriage. Because I refused to

answer that insolent ruffian's questions, these village wiseacres have

made up their minds that I am a murderer."

He went back to Penmorval in a white heat of indignation. A week ago he

had made up his mind to start for Peru. He had found out all about the

steamer which was to carry him. He had obtained letters of introduction

to the proprietor of a newspaper, and to some of the local aristocracy.

He was ready to set forth upon his quest of fortune in the land of

gold and jewels. But now he told himself that wild horses should not

drag him away from Penmorval. He would stand his ground until he had

humiliated those fools and rascals whom he had once called his friends.

He would make them taste of the cup of their own folly.

He was much too hot-headed to keep the secret of his wrongs from that

cousin who had been to him as a sister. He went straight to Dora, and

told her of the foul suspicion that had arisen in men's minds against

him.

She had read the report of the inquest, and although she had wondered

at his refusal to answer Mr. Distin's questions, she had been able to

understand that his pride might revolt against being so catechised, and

that he might choose to persist in that refusal as a point of personal

dignity.

"Any one who can suspect you for such a reason--any one who could

suspect you for any reason--must be an idiot, Bothwell," she exclaimed.

"There is no use in being angry with such people."

"But I am angry with them. I am rabid with anger."

"Why did you not answer that question, Bothwell?" asked his cousin

thoughtfully.

"Because I did not choose."

"Yet it would have prevented all possibility of misapprehension if you

had given a straight answer. And it would have been so easy," argued

Dora.

"It would not have been easy. It was not possible to answer that

question."

"Why not?"

"Because I could not answer it without injuring some one I--esteem,"

replied Bothwell, relapsing into that curious, sullen manner which Mr.

Heathcote had observed on the day of the inquest.

"O Bothwell, you have secrets, then--a secret from me, your adopted

sister!"

"Yes, I have my secrets."

"I am so sorry. I used to hope that I should have a share in the

planning of your life; and now I begin to fear----"

"That my life is wrecked already. You are right, Dora. My life was

wrecked three years before I left India, but I did not know then what

shipwreck meant. I thought that there was land ahead, and that I should

make it; but I know now I was drifting towards a fatal rock upon which

honour, happiness, and prosperity must needs go to pieces."

"Don't talk in riddles, Bothwell. Tell me the plain truth, however bad

it may be. You know you can trust me."

"I do, dear soul, as I trust Heaven itself. But there are some things a

man must not tell. Yes, Dora, I have my secret, and it is a hard one to

carry--the secret of a man who is bound in honour to one woman while he

fondly loves another."

"Bothwell, I am so sorry for you," said his cousin softly.

She put her arms round his neck as if they had still been boy and

girl. She put her lips to his fevered forehead. She comforted him with

her love, being able to give him no other comfort.

* * * * *

Hilda Heathcote came up the avenue ten minutes later, escorting a

matchless donkey, which was of so pale a gray as to be almost white. It

was a donkey of surpassing size and dignity, and gave itself as many

airs as if it had been a white elephant. It carried a pair of panniers,

highly decorated in a Moorish fashion, and in the Moorish panniers sat

Edward Heathcote's twin daughters.

The twins were as like as the famous Corsican Brothers in person, but

they were utterly unlike in disposition, and the blue and pink sashes

which they wore for distinction were quite unnecessary; since no one

could have mistaken Minnie, the overbearing twin, for Jennie, the meek

twin. People only had to be in their company half an hour to know which

was which for ever after. Whereas Jennie was quite a baby, and could

hardly speak plain, Minnie was preternaturally old for her years, and

expressed her opinion freely upon every subject. Minnie always came to

the front, was always mistress of the situation, and where Jennie shed

tears Minnie always stamped her foot. Needless to say that Minnie was

everybody's favourite. Naughtiness at four years old, a termagant in

miniature, is always interesting. Mr. Heathcote was the only person in

Cornwall who could manage Minnie, and who properly appreciated Jennie's

yielding nature. Jennie felt that her father loved her, and used to

climb on to his knee and nestle in his waistcoat; while Minnie was

charming society by those little airs and graces which were spoken of

vaguely as "showing off."

To-day Minnie was in a delightful humour, for she was being escorted

in triumph to a long-promised festival. Since the very beginning of

the summer the twins had been promised that they should go to drink

tea with Mrs. Wyllard some day when they had been very good. Jennie

had done everything to deserve the favour; but Minnie had offended in

somewise every day. She had been cruel to the dogs--she had made an

archipelago of blots in her copybook, while her pothooks and hangers

were a worse company of cripples than Falstaff's regiment. She had

been rude to the kind Fräulein. She had been rebellious at dinner, had

protested with loud wailings against the severity of seven-o'clock

bed. Only towards the end of August had there come a brief interval of

calm, and Hilda had been quick to take advantage of these halcyon days,

knowing how soon they would be followed by storm.

The tea-table was laid in the yew-tree arbour, such a table as little

children love, and which has an attractive air even to full-grown

humanity. Such a delicious variety of cakes and jams and home-made

bread, such nectarines and grapes. Minnie shouted and clapped her hands

at sight of the feast, while Jennie blushed and hung her head, abashed

at the dazzling apparition of Mrs. Wyllard in an Indian silk gown with

a scarlet sash, and flashing diamond rings. Hilda had no such jewels on

her sunburnt fingers.

"What a nice tea!" cried Minnie, when the blue and the pink twin had

each been provided with a comfortable seat, each in a snug corner of

the arbour, banked in by the tea-table. "Why do we never have such

nice teas at home? Why don't we, Aunt Hilda?" she repeated, when her

question had been ignored for a couple of seconds.

"Because such nice things would not be wholesome every day," replied

Hilda.

"I don't believe that," said Minnie.

"O Minnie!" cried Jennie, with a shocked air. "You mustn't contradict

people. You mustn't contradict Aunt Hilda, because she is old."

"If cakes weren't wholesome _she_ wouldn't have them," said Minnie,

ignoring the blue twin's interruption, and pointing her chubby finger

at Mrs. Wyllard. "She can have what she likes, and she is grown up and

knows everything. She wouldn't give us unwholesome things. I know why

we don't have such nice teas at home."

"Why not, Minnie?" asked Dora, to encourage conversation.

"Because Fräulein is too stingy. I heard cook say so the other day. She

is always grumbling about the cream and butter. You don't grumble about

the cream and butter, do you?" she asked, in her point-blank way.

"I'm afraid I'm not so good a housekeeper as the Fräulein," answered

Dora.

"Then I like bad housekeepers best. I shall be a bad housekeeper when I

grow up, and there shall always be cakes for tea--ever so many cakes,

as there are here. I'll have some of that, please," pointing to an

amber-tinted pound-cake, "first."

By this Minnie signified that she meant to eat her way through the

varieties of the tea-table.

"And what will Jennie take?" asked Dora, smiling at the blue twin.

"Jennie's a bilious child," said Minnie authoritatively; "she ought to

have something plain."

Jennie, with her large blue eyes fixed pathetically on the pound-cake,

waited for whatever might be given to her.

"Do you think just one slice of rich cake would make you ill, Jennie?"

asked Dora.

"I am sure it would," said Minnie, ploughing her way through her own

slice. "She's always sick, if she eats rich things. She was sick

when we went to see grandma. Grandma isn't rich, you know, because

her husband was a clergyman, and they're always poor. But she gives

us beautiful teas when we go to see her, and lets us run about her

garden and pick the fruit, and trample on the beds, and do just as we

like; so we don't mind going to tea with grandma, though she's old and

deaf. Jennie had cherries and pound-cake the last time we went to see

grandma, and she was ill all night. You know you were, Jennie."

The blue twin admitted the fact, and meekly accepted a hunch of

sanitarian sponge-cake.

"You must not talk so much, Minnie; you are a perfect nuisance," said

Hilda; and then she looked round hesitatingly once or twice before she

asked, "What has become of Mr. Grahame? He generally honours us with

his company at afternoon tea."

"Bothwell has been a little worried this morning," faltered Dora. "He

is not very well."

Her heart sank within her at the thought that this girl--this girl whom

she had once thought of as Bothwell's future wife--would come in time

to know the dark suspicion which hung over him like a poisonous cloud.

She would be told by and by that people thought of him as a possible

murderer, a wretch who had assailed a defenceless girl, set upon her

as a tiger on his prey, hurled her to a dreadful death. She would learn

that there were people in the neighbourhood capable of suspecting this

very Bothwell Grahame, gentleman and soldier, of so dastardly a crime.

Dora had hardly been able to realise the awfulness of the situation

yet. In her desire to comfort her cousin she had made light of the

unspoken slander, the cruel taint which had been breathed upon his

name. But now as she sat at her tea-table ministering to her two

little guests, trying to appear interested in their prattle, her heart

was aching as it had not ached since she had been forgiven by Edward

Heathcote. From that hour until the strange girl's death her life

had been cloudless. And now a cloud had drifted across her horizon,

darkening the sunlight: a cloud that hung heavily over the head of one

whom she dearly loved.

CHAPTER VI.

A CLERICAL WARNING.

The children's tea-party lasted a long time, and the twins enjoyed

themselves prodigiously in the yew-tree arbour, albeit both their

hostess and their aunt were curiously absent-minded, and returned

vaguest answers to Minnie's continuous prattle, and to occasional

remarks propounded gravely by Jennie between two mouthfuls of cake.

Perhaps the twins enjoyed themselves all the more under this condition

of things, for they were allowed to range at will from one dainty to

another, and were not worried by those troublesome suggestions of

unwholesomeness, which are apt to harass juvenile gourmands.

Tea was over at last, and then they had a game at ball on the grass in

front of the fountain; after that they fed the gold fish, until Hilda

began to talk of getting them home. It was nearly seven o'clock by this

time, and Bothwell had not appeared.

The whole business seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable to Hilda, for

want of that familiar presence. He had been such a pleasant companion

of late--not attentive or flattering of speech, as young men are to

girls they admire. He had said none of those pretty things which call

up blushes in girlish cheeks; but he had been kind and brotherly, and

Hilda was satisfied to accept such kindness from him. She thought it

even more than her due. She was not what is called a high-spirited

girl. She did not expect men to bow down and worship her; she did not

expect that hearts were to be laid at her feet for her to trample upon

them. She had none of the insolence of conscious beauty. If ever she

were to love, it would be secretly, meekly, patiently, as Shakespeare's

Helena loved Bertram, with a gentle upward-looking affection, deeming

her lover remote and superior as a star.

There had been a time when she thought that Bothwell cared for her a

little, and then he had been to her as Bertram. Now he was kind and

brotherly, and she was grateful for his kindness.

She was somewhat heavy-hearted as she arranged her disordered

hair--rumpled in a final game of romps with the twins--and put on her

hat to go home. The donkey was waiting before the old stone porch, and

Fräulein Meyerstein had come to assist in escorting the twins.

"I thought Minnie might be troublesome after tea," she said, as if tea

had the effect of champagne upon Minnie's temperament.

They set out across the fields in the warm glow of evening sunlight, a

little procession--the children full of talk and laughter, Hilda more

silent than usual. It was harvest-time, and the corn stood in sheaves

in one wide field by which they went, a field on the slope of a hill

on the edge of the moorland. On the lower side of the field there

was a tall overgrown hedge; a hedge full of the glow of sunshine and

the colour of wild flowers, red and blue and yellow, an exuberance

of starry golden flowers, scattered everywhere amidst the tangle of

foliage.

There was a gap here and there in the hedge, where cattle or

farm-labourers had made a way for themselves from field to field, and

through one of these gaps a man scrambled, and jumped into the path

just in front of the donkey.

The animal gave a feeble shy, and the twins screamed, first with

surprise and then with pleasure. The man was Bothwell, whom the twins

adored.

"Why didn't you come to tea?" asked Minnie indignantly. "It was very

naughty of you."

"I was out of temper, Minnie; not fit company for nice people. How do

you do, Hilda?"

He had fallen into the way of calling her by her Christian name almost

from the beginning of their acquaintance; in those days when he had

been so much brighter and happier than he seemed to be now.

The donkey jogged on, carrying off the twins, Minnie holding forth all

the time, lecturing Bothwell for his rudeness. The Fräulein followed,

eager to protect her charges. They were only a few paces in advance,

but Hilda felt as if she were alone with Bothwell.

"So the children have had their long-promised tea-party," he said, "and

I was out of it. Hard lines."

"They missed you very much," said Hilda. "But did not you know it was

to be this afternoon?"

"I knew yesterday--Dora told me," answered Bothwell, hitting the wild

flowers savagely with his cane, as he walked by Hilda's side.

Unconsciously they had fallen into a much slower pace than the Fräulein

and the donkey, and they were quite alone.

"I knew all about the tea-party, and I meant to be with you; and then

something went wrong with me this morning, and I felt only fit company

for devils. If Satan had been giving a tea-party anywhere within reach,

I would have gone to _that_," concluded Bothwell vindictively.

"I am very glad Satan does not give tea-parties in Cornwall. Of course

you know that he would never trust himself in our county, for fear our

Cornish cooks should make him into a pie," answered Hilda, trying to

smile. "But I am very sorry to hear you have been worried."

"My life has been made up of worries for the last six months. I try

sometimes to be cheerful--reckless rather--and to forget; and then the

viper begins to bite again."

Hilda would have given much to be able to comfort him. It seemed almost

as if he looked to her for comfort, and yet what could she say to a man

whose troubles she knew not, who kept his own secret, and hardened his

heart against his friends?

They walked on in silence for a little way. Some of the reapers were

going homeward in the soft evening light; there was a great wain being

loaded a field or two off, and the voices of men and women sounded

clear and musical through the summer stillness.

"Would you be sorry for a man who had brought trouble on himself

from his own folly, from his own wrong-doing, Hilda?" Bothwell asked

presently.

"I should be all the more sorry for him on that account," she answered

gently.

"Yes, you would pity him. Such women as you and Dora are angels of

compassion. They never withhold their pity; but it is tempered with

scorn. They despise the sinner, even while they are merciful to him."

"You ought not to say that. I am not given to despising people. I am

too conscious of my own shortcomings."

"You are an angel," said Bothwell piteously. "O Hilda, how much I have

lost in life--how many golden opportunities I have wasted!"

"There are always other opportunities to be found," answered the girl,

trying to speak words of comfort, vaguely, hopelessly, in her utter

ignorance of his griefs or his perplexities. "There is always the

future, and the chance of beginning again."

"Yes, in Queensland, in the Fijis, in Peru. If you mean that I may some

day learn to make my own living, I grant the possibility. Queensland or

Peru may do something for me. But my chances of happiness, my chances

of renown--those are gone for ever. I lost all when I left the army. At

seven-and-twenty I am a broken man. Hard for a man to feel that this

life is all over and done with before he is thirty."

"I fancy there must be a time in every life when the clouds seem to

shut out the sun; but the darkness does not last for ever," said Hilda

softly. "I hope the cloud may pass from your sky."

"Ah, if it would, Hilda--if that cloud could pass and leave me my own

man again, as I was nine years ago, before I went to India!"

"You seemed to be very happy last winter--in the hunting season,"

said Hilda, trying to speak lightly, though her heart was beating as

furiously as if she had been climbing a mountain.

"Yes, I was happy then. I allowed myself to forget. I did not know just

then that the trouble I had taken upon my shoulders was a lifelong

trouble. Yes, it was a happy time, Hilda, last winter. How many a

glorious day we had together across country! You and I were always in

the first flight, and generally near each other. Our horses were always

such good friends, were they not? They loved to gallop neck-and-neck. O

my darling, I was indeed happy in those days--unspeakably happy."

He had forgotten all prudence, all self-restraint, in a moment. He had

taken Hilda's hand and lifted it to his lips.

"O my dear one, let me tell you how I love you," he said. "I may never

dare say more than that, perhaps, but it is true, and you shall hear

it, if only once. Yes, Hilda, I love you. I have loved you ever since

last winter, when you and I used to ride after the hounds together. O,

those happy winter days, those long waits at the corners of lanes, or

in dusky thickets, or on the bleak bare common! I shall never forget

them. Do you think I cared what became of the fox in those days, or

whether we were after the right or the wrong one? Not a jot, dear. The

veriest tailor that ever hung on to a horse could have cared no less

for the sport than I. It was your sweet face I loved, and your friendly

voice, and the light touch of your little hand. I was full of hope in

those days, Hilda; and then a cloud came over my horizon and I dared

hope no more. I never meant to tell you--I knew I had no right to tell

you this; but my feelings were too strong for me just now. Will you

forgive me, Hilda, that I, who dare not ask you to be my wife, have

dared to tell you of my love? Can you forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive," she answered gently, looking at him with

tear-dimmed eyes.

She was very pale, and her lips trembled faintly as she spoke. In her

inmost heart she was exulting at the knowledge of his love. It was

as if she had drunk a deep draught of the strong wine of life. In

the rapture of knowing herself beloved she had no room for any other

consideration. His love might be foolish, vain, unprofitable, fatal

even. For the moment she could not measure the consequences, or look

into the future. She cared only for the fact that Bothwell Grahame

loved her. That love which she had given to him in secret, in all

maiden modesty, purest, most ethereal sentiment of which woman's heart

is capable, had not been lavished upon a blind and dumb idol, upon a

god of wood and stone.

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Bothwell still holding

Hilda's hand, but saying never a word. He had said too much already,

since he dared say no more. He had told his secret, and had entreated

to be forgiven. And now he came to a dead stop. Fate had walled him

round with difficulties, had set a barrier before his steps: Fate or

his only folly, that easy yielding to temptation which a man prefers

to think of afterwards as fatality.

The thud of a horse's hoofs upon the grass on the other side of the

hedge startled Bothwell from his reverie, and Hilda from her beatitude.

They looked up, and saw Edward Heathcote cantering towards them on

his powerful black. Mr. Heathcote was renowned for his hunters. He

never counted the cost of a good horse; and he never had been known

to buy a bad one. He was a man who could pick out a horse in a field

a quarter of a mile off, ragged and rough and unshorn, altogether out

of condition, long mane and neglected tail, and could distinguish the

quality of the animal to a shade. He had made many of the hunters he

rode, and was not afraid to tackle the most difficult subject. He

loved horses, and they loved him. This was a subject upon which he and

Bothwell sympathised; and it had been a link between them hitherto.

Nothing had been more friendly than their intercourse until the last

few weeks, during which time Mr. Heathcote had carefully avoided

Penmorval and Bothwell Grahame.

He rode through a gap in the hedge, acknowledged Bothwell's presence

with a nod that was barely courteous, and then turned to his sister.

"You had better hurry home, Hilda, if you mean to be in time for

dinner," he said.

Bothwell was not slow to take the hint.

"Good-bye, Hilda," he said, offering her his hand.

He called her by her Christian name boldly in her brother's hearing.

There was even a touch of defiance in his manner as he shook hands with

her, and lingered with her hand in his, looking at her fondly, sadly,

hopelessly, before he turned and walked slowly away across the bright

newly-cut stubble, which glittered golden in the evening light.

Mr. Heathcote dismounted and walked beside his sister, with the black's

bridle over his arm, the well-broken horse following as quietly as a

dog.

"You and Grahame were in very close confabulation as I rode up, Hilda,"

said Heathcote gravely, with scrutinising eyes upon Hilda's blushing

face. "Pray what was he saying to you?"

Hilda hung her head, and hesitated before she replied.

"Please do not ask me, Edward," she said falteringly, after that

embarrassed silence. "I cannot tell you."

"You cannot tell me, your brother, and natural guardian?" said

Heathcote. "Am I to understand that there is some secret compact

between you and Bothwell Grahame which cannot be told to your brother?"

"There is no secret compact. How unkind you are, Edward!" cried Hilda,

bursting into tears. "There is nothing between us; there is nothing to

tell."

"Then what are you crying about, and why was that man bending over you,

holding your hand just now when I rode up? A man does not talk in that

fashion about nothing. He was making love to you, Hilda."

"He told me that he loved me."

"And you call that nothing!" said Heathcote severely.

"It can never come to anything. It was a secret told unawares, on the

impulse of the moment. I have no right to tell you, only you have wrung

the secret from me. Nothing can ever come of it, Edward. Pray forget

that this thing has ever been spoken of between us."

"I begin to understand," said Heathcote. "He asked you to marry him,

and you refused him. I am very glad of that."

"You have no reason to be glad," replied Hilda, with a flash of anger.

She was ready to take her lover's part at the slightest provocation.

"You have no right to make guesses about Mr. Grahame and me. It is

surely enough for you to know that I shall never be his wife."

They had left the stubble-field, and were in a lane leading to The

Spaniards, a lane sunk between high banks and wooded hedgerows, such as

abound in that western world.

"That is enough for me to know," answered Heathcote gravely, "but

nothing less than that assurance would be enough. I hope it is given in

good faith?"

There was a severity in his manner which was new to Hilda. He had been

the most indulgent of brothers hitherto.

"Why should you speak so unkindly about Mr. Grahame?" she said. "What

objection have you to make against him, except that he is not rich?"

"His want of money would make no difference to me, Hilda. If it were

for your happiness to marry a man of small means, I could easily

reconcile myself to the idea, and would do my best to make things easy

for you. I have a much graver objection against Bothwell Grahame than

the fact that he is without a profession and without income. There is a

horrible suspicion in men's minds about him which makes him a man set

apart, like Cain; and my sister must have no dealings with such a man!"

"What do you mean, Edward?" exclaimed Hilda, turning angrily upon her

brother, with indignant eyes. "What suspicion? How dare any one suspect

him?"

"Unhappily, circumstances are his worst accusers. His own lips, his

own manner, have given rise to the conviction which has taken hold of

men's minds. When the idea that Bothwell Grahame was the murderer of

that helpless girl first arose in my own mind, I struggled against the

hideous notion. I told myself that I was a madman to imagine such a

possibility. But when I found that the same facts had made exactly the

same impression upon other minds----"

"_You_ could think such a thing, Edward!" exclaimed Hilda, pale with

horror. "You, who have known Bothwell for years, who knew him when he

was a boy, you who have called yourself his friend, seen him day after

day! You, a lawyer, a man of the world! You can harbour such a thought

as this! I could not have believed it of you."

"Perhaps it is because I am a man of the world, and have seen life on

the seamy side, and know too well to what dark gulfs men can go down

when the tempter urges them. Perhaps it is because of my experience

that I suspect Bothwell Grahame."

"O, it is too horrible!" cried Hilda passionately. "I feel as if I must

be mad myself, or in company with a madman. Bothwell Grahame--Bothwell,

whom I remember when I was a child, the frank, generous-hearted lad,

who went away to India to fight for his country, and who fought so

well, and won such praise from his commanding officer----"

"Yes, Hilda," interrupted her brother, "and who, just when he seemed

on the high road to fortune, threw up his chances, and abandoned his

profession, to become an idler at home. That same Bothwell Grahame

who, when he was asked what he did with himself during a long day at

Plymouth, could give no account of his time. That same Bothwell, whose

manner, from the hour of that catastrophe on the line, became gloomy

and sullen--altered so completely that he seemed a new man. That same

Bothwell, whom everybody in the neighbourhood of Bodmin suspects of

a foul crime. That is the man whom I do not wish my sister to marry;

albeit he is of the same flesh and blood as the woman whom I respect

above all other women upon earth."

"I am glad you have remembered that--at last," said Hilda bitterly.

"I am glad you have not quite forgotten that this murderer is Dora

Wyllard's first cousin--brought up with her, taught by the same

teachers, reared in the same way of thinking."

"God grant I may see reason to alter my opinion, Hilda," replied her

brother. "Do you suppose that this suspicion of mine is not a source of

pain and grief? But while I think as I do, can you wonder that I forbid

any suggestion of a marriage, between my sister and Bothwell Grahame?"

"I have told you that I shall never be his wife," said Hilda. "Pray do

not let us ever speak his name again."

They were at the entrance to The Spaniards by this time--not the great

iron gates by the lodge, but a little wooden gate opening into the

fine old garden, second only in beauty to the Penmorval parterres and

terraces.

"Will you mind if I don't appear at dinner, Edward?" asked Hilda

presently, as they went into the house. "I have a racking headache."

"Poor little girl!" said her brother tenderly. "You are looking the

picture of misery. I am very sorry for you, my dear. I am very sorry

for us all; for I fear there is calamity ahead for some of us. If

Bothwell is wise he will go to the other end of the world, and take

himself as far as possible out of the ken of his countrymen. If he

should ask you for counsel, Hilda, that is the best advice you can give

him."

"If he should ask me, that is just the very last counsel he would ever

hear from my lips," answered Hilda indignantly. "I would entreat him to

stand his ground--to live down this vile calumny--to wait the day when

Providence will clear his name from this dark cloud. Such a day will

come, I am sure of that."

She went to her own room, and shut herself up for the rest of the

evening. The convenient excuse of a headache answered very well with

the servants. She declined all refreshment--would not have this or that

brought up on a tray to oblige Glossop, her own maid, who was deeply

concerned at her young mistress's indisposition.

"I have a very bad headache," she said, "and all I want is to be left

alone till to-morrow morning. Don't come near me, please, till you

bring me my early cup of tea."

Glossop sighed and submitted. It was not often that Miss Heathcote was

so wilful. Glossop was the coachman's daughter, had been born and

brought up at The Spaniards, in old Squire Heathcote's time. She was a

buxom young woman of five-and-thirty, and counted herself almost one of

the family.

At last Hilda was alone. She locked her door, and began to pace her

room, up and down, up and down, with her hands clasped upon her

forehead, trying to think out her perplexities.

It was a fine spacious old bedroom, lighted by old-fashioned casement

windows, looking two ways--one to the garden, one to that timber-belted

lawn which might almost take rank as a park. There was a sitting-room

adjoining, which was Hilda's own particular apartment, containing

her books and piano, and the little table on which she painted china

cups and saucers. Hilda had spent many a happy hour in these rooms,

practising, studying, painting, dreaming over high-art needlework.

But this evening she felt as if she could never again be happy, here

or anywhere. A dense cloud of trouble had spread itself around her,

enfolding her as a mantle of darkness, shutting out all the light of

life.

The sun was sinking behind the tall chestnuts, in a sea of red and

gold. Every leaflet of rose or myrtle that framed the casements showed

distinct against that clear evening sky. Such a pretty room within,

such a lovely landscape and sky without; and yet that young soul was

full of darkness.

She had defended her lover with indignant firmness just now. She had

protested his innocence--declared that this thing could not be true;

and now in solitude she looked in the face of that cruel slander, and

her faith began to waver.

What could be stranger or more suspicious than Bothwell's conduct this

evening? With one breath he had avowed his love; with the next he had

told her that he was unworthy to be her lover--that they two could

never be man and wife.

Yes, it was true that he had changed of late--that he had become

gloomy, despondent, fitful. His manner had been that of a man bowed

down by the burden of some secret trouble. But was he for this reason

to be suspected of a horrible crime? It was abominable of people to

suspect him--most of all cruel and unworthy in her brother, who had

known him from boyhood.

And then came the hideous suggestion, as if whispered in her ear by the

fiend himself, "What if my brother should be right?" Her own experience

of the world was of the slightest. Her chief knowledge of life was

derived from the novels she had read. She had read of darkest deeds,

of strange contradictions in human nature, mysterious workings of the

human heart. Hitherto she had considered these lurid lights, these

black shadows, as the figments of the romancer's fancy. Now she began

to ask herself if they might not find their counterpart in fact.

She had read of gentlemanlike murderers--assassins of good bearing and

polished manners--Eugene Aram, Count Fosco, and many more of the same

school. What if Bothwell Grahame were such as these, hiding behind his

frank and easy manner the violent passions of the criminal?

No, she would not believe it. She laughed the foul fiend to scorn. Her

woman's instinct was truer than her brother's legal acumen, she told

herself; and as for those Bodmin busybodies, she weighed their wisdom

as lighter than thistledown.

"I would marry him to-morrow, if he asked me to be his wife," she said

to herself. "I would stand beside him at the altar, before the face of

all his slanderers. I should be proud to bear his name."

She blushed crimson at her own boldness, as she stood before her

mirror, with hands clasped, in all the fervour of a vow; but from that

moment her faith in Bothwell Grahame knew no wavering.

* * * * *

In an age when infidelity and scorn of religious ceremonial is very

common among young men, Bothwell Grahame had always been steadfast to

the Church, and to the good old-fashioned habits in which he had been

brought up by his aunt. He was not a zealot, or an enthusiast; but he

attended the services of his church with a fair regularity, and had a

proper respect for the rector of his parish. Even in India, where men

are apt to be less orthodox than at home, Bothwell had always been

known as a good Churchman.

For the last year it had been his custom to receive the sacrament on

the first Sunday of the month. He had risen early, and had walked

across the dewy fields to the old parish church, and had knelt among

the people who knew him, and had felt himself all the better for that

mystic office, even when things were going far from well with him.

There was much that was blameworthy in his life; yet he had not felt

himself too base a creature to kneel among his fellow-sinners at the

altar of the Sinner's Friend.

It was a shock, therefore, to receive a letter from the Rector on the

last day of August, requesting him to absent himself from the communion

service on the following Sunday, lest his presence before that altar

should be a scandal to the other communicants.

* * * * *

"God forbid that I should condemn any man unheard," wrote the Rector;

"but you can hardly be unaware of the terrible scandal attaching to

your name. You have not come to me, as I hoped you would come, to

explain the conduct which has given rise to that scandal. You have

taken no step to set yourself right before your fellow-men. Can you

wonder that your own silence has been in somewise your condemnation?

My duty to my flock compels me to warn you that, until you have taken

some steps to free your character from the shadow that now darkens it,

you must not approach the altar of your parish church.

"If you will come to me, and open your heart to me, as the sinner

should to his priest, I may be able to counsel and to help you. If

you can clear yourself to me, I will be your advocate with your

fellow-parishioners.----Always your friend,

"JOHN MONKHOUSE."

* * * * *

"He did wisely to write," said Bothwell, crushing the letter in his

clenched fist. "If he had spoken such words as those to me, I believe I

should have knocked him down, priest though he is."

He answered the Rector's letter within an hour after receiving it.

* * * * *

"I have nothing to confess," he wrote, "and that is why I have not

gone to your confessional. The difficulties and perplexities of my

life are such as could only be understood by a man of my own age and

surroundings. They would be darker than Sanscrit to clerical gray hairs.

"Because I did not choose to answer questions which I could not

answer without betraying the confidence of a friend, my wise

fellow-parishioners have agreed to suspect me of murdering a girl whose

face I never saw till after her death.

"I shall attend to receive the sacrament at the eight-o'clock service

next Sunday, and I dare you to refuse to administer it.----I have the

honour to be, yours, &c. BOTHWELL GRAHAME."

* * * * *

He walked to Bodmin and delivered his letter at the Rectory door. He

would not run the risk of an hour's delay. On his way home he overtook

Hilda, near the gates of The Spaniards. She was very pale when they

met, and she grew still paler as they shook hands.

After a word or two of greeting, they walked on side by side in silence.

"I wonder that you can consent to be seen with me," said Bothwell

presently, after a farmer's wife had driven past them on her way from

market. "You must have heard by this time what people think about

me--your brother foremost among them, I believe, for he has given me

the cut direct more than once since the inquest."

"I am sorry that he should be so ready to believe a lie," said Hilda,

"for I know that this terrible slander is a lie."

"God bless you for those straight, strong words, Hilda!" exclaimed

Bothwell fervently. "Yes, it is a lie. I am not a good man. I have

taken one false step in my life, and the consequences of that mistake

have been very heavy upon me. But I am not capable of the kind

of wickedness which my Bodmin friends put down to me. I have not

risen to the sublimer heights of crime. I am not up to throwing a

fellow-creature out of a railway-carriage."

"Why did you not answer that man's questions at the inquest?" asked

Hilda urgently, forgetting that she had hardly the right to demand his

confidence. "That refusal of yours is the cause of all this misery. It

seems such a foolish, obstinate act on your part."

"I daresay it does. But I could not do more or less than I did. To have

answered that inquisitive cur's prying questions categorically would

have been to injure a lady. As a man of honour, I was bound to run all

risks rather than do that."

"I begin to understand," said Hilda, blushing crimson.

Why had she not guessed his secret long before this? she asked

herself. The mystery that surrounded him was the mystery of some

fatal love-affair. She was only a secondary person in his life. There

was another who had been more to him than she, Hilda, could ever

be--another to whom he was bound, for whom he was willing to sacrifice

his own character. She felt a jealous pang at the mere thought of that

unknown one.

"No, you can never understand," exclaimed Bothwell passionately. "You

can never imagine the misery of a man who has bound himself by a fatal

tie which chains him to one woman, long after his heart has gone out to

another. I gave away my liberty while I was in India, Hilda: pledged

myself to one who could give me but little in return for my faith and

devotion. I dare not tell you the circumstances of that bondage--the

fatality which led to that accursed engagement. I am desperate enough

to break the tie, now that it is too late, now that I dare not offer

myself to the girl I love, now that my name is blasted for ever. Yes,

for ever. I know these narrow-minded rustics, and that to the end of

my life I shall in their sight bear the brand of Cain. Here is a fine

example of liberal feeling, Hilda."

He handed her the Rector's letter, crumpled in his angry grasp.

She read it slowly, tears welling up to her eyes as she read. How

hardly the world was using this poor Bothwell! and the harder he was

used the more she loved him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I shall kneel before the altar of my God, as I have knelt before."

"There will at least be one communicant there who will not shrink from

you," said Hilda softly. "We will kneel side by side, if you like."

"God bless you, my darling. God help me to clear my name from this foul

stain which fools have cast upon it; and then a day may come when you

and I may kneel before that altar, side by side, and I may be thrice

blest in winning you for my wife."

There was a brief silence before Hilda murmured, "You have told me that

you are bound to another."

"Yes, and I have told you that I will break through that bondage."

"Can you do so with honour?"

"Yes. It will be more honourable to cancel my vow than to keep it;

and when I am a free man--when this shadow has been cleared from my

name--will you take me for your husband, Hilda--a man with his way to

make in the world, but needing only such an inducement as your love to

undertake the labours of a modern Hercules? Will you have me, Hilda,

when I am my own man again?"

"I will," answered Hilda softly, yet with a firm faith that thrilled

him. "I shall have to brave my brother's anger, perhaps; but I will

not wait till your name is cleared from this slander. Of what use is

fair-weather love? It is in storm and cloud that a woman's faith should

be firmest. When you have freed yourself from that old tie which has

grown a weariness to you, when you can come to me in all truth and

honour, my heart shall answer frankly and fully, Bothwell. And then you

can tell all our friends that we are engaged. It may be a very long

engagement, perhaps. I shall not be of age till two years hence, you

know; but that does not matter. People will know at least that _I_ do

not suspect you of a crime."

"My noble girl!" he cried, beside himself with joy.

Never had he thought to find any woman so frank, so generous, so brave.

He would have caught her in his arms, pressed her to his passionately

beating heart, but she drew herself away from him with a decisive

gesture.

"Not until you are free, Bothwell; not until you can tell me that the

old tie is broken. Till then we can be only friends."

"Be it so," he answered submissively. "Your friendship is worth more to

me than the love of other women. Will you walk to Penmorval with me?

Dora has been wondering at your desertion."

"Not to-day. Please tell Dora that I have not been very well. I will go

to see her to-morrow. Good-bye, Bothwell."

"Good-bye, my beloved."

They parted at the gate of The Spaniards.

CHAPTER VII.

A RAPID CONVERSION.

Three days after that compact between Bothwell and Hilda, an officious

friend went out of his way to inform Mr. Heathcote that his sister and

Mr. Grahame had been seen together several times of late, and that

their manner indicated a more than ordinary degree of intimacy. They

had been observed together at the early service on Sunday morning; they

had sat in the same pew; they had walked away from the church side by

side--indeed, Mr. Heathcote's friend believed they had actually walked

to The Spaniards together.

"It is a shame that such a man as Grahame should be allowed to be on

intimate terms with an innocent girl," said the worthy rustic, in

conclusion.

"My dear Badderly, I hope I am able to take care of my sister without

the help of all Bodmin," retorted Heathcote shortly. "Everybody is in

great haste to condemn Mr. Grahame; but you must not forget that my

sister and I have been intimate with him and his family for years. We

cannot be expected to turn our backs upon him all at once, because his

conduct happens to appear somewhat mysterious."

Notwithstanding which kindly word for Bothwell, Edward Heathcote went

straight home and questioned his sister as to her dealings with that

gentleman.

Hilda admitted that she had seen Mr. Grahame two or three times within

the last week, and that she had allowed him to walk home with her after

the early service.

"Do you think it wise or womanly to advertise your friendship with a

man who is suspected of a most abominable crime?" asked her brother

severely.

"I think it wise and womanly to be true to my friends in misfortune--in

unmerited misfortune," she answered firmly.

"You are very strong in your faith. And pray what do you expect will be

the end of all this?"

"I expect--I hope--that some day I shall be Bothwell's wife. I shall

not be impatient of your control, Edward. I am only nineteen. I hope

during the next two years you will find good reason to change your

opinion about Bothwell, and to give your consent to our marriage--"

"And if I do not?"

"If you do not, I must take advantage of my liberty, when I come of

age, and marry him without your consent."

"You have changed your tune, Hilda. A week ago you told me that you

and Bothwell would never be married. Now, you boldly announce your

betrothal to him."

"We are not betrothed--yet."

"O, there is a preliminary stage, is there? A kind of purgatory

which precedes the heaven of betrothal. Hilda, you are doing a most

ill-advised and unwomanly thing in giving encouragement to this man, in

spite of your brother's warning."

"Am I to be unjust because my brother condemns a friend unheard?

Believe me, Edward, my instinct is wiser than your experience. Why do

you not question Bothwell? He will answer you as frankly as he answered

me. He will tell you his reasons for refusing to satisfy that London

lawyer's curiosity. O Edward, how can you be so cruel as to doubt him,

to harden your heart against him and against me?"

"Not against you, my darling," her brother answered tenderly. "If I

thought your happiness were really at stake, that your heart were

really engaged, I would do much: but I can but think you are carried

away by a mistaken enthusiasm. You would never have cared for Grahame

if the world had not been against him; if he had not appeared to you as

a martyr."

"You are wrong there, Edward," she answered shyly, her fingers playing

nervously with the collar of his coat, the darkly-fringed eyelids

drooping over the lovely gray eyes. "I have liked him for a long time.

Last winter we used to hunt together a good deal, you know----"

"I did not know, or I should have taken care to prevent it," said

Heathcote.

"O, it was always accidental, of course," she apologised. "But in a

hunting country, the fast-goers generally get together, don't they?"

"In your case there was some very fast-going, evidently."

"I used to think then that Bothwell cared for me--just a little. And

then there came a change. But I know the reason of that change now; and

I know that he really loves me."

"O, you are monstrous wise, child, and monstrous self-willed for

nineteen years old," said her brother, in those deep grave tones of

his, a voice which gave weight and power to lightest words, "and you

would take your own road in life without counting the cost. Well,

Hilda, for your sake I will try to get at the root of this mystery. I

will try to fathom your lover's secret; and God grant I may discover

that it is a far less guilty secret than I have deemed."

He kissed Hilda's downcast brow and left her. She was crying; but

her tears were less bitter than they had been, for she felt that her

brother was now on her side; and Edward Heathcote's championship was a

tower of strength.

Once having pledged himself to anything, even against his own

convictions, Heathcote was the last man to go from his word; but if he

needed a stronger inducement than his sister's sorrowful pleading, that

inducement was offered.

He received a note from Dora Wyllard within a few hours of his

conversation with Hilda.

* * * * *

"Dear Mr. Heathcote,--My husband and I have both been wondering at your

desertion of us. For my own part I want much to see you, and to talk to

you upon a very painful subject. Will you call at Penmorval after your

ride to-morrow afternoon, and let me have a few words with you alone?

"Always faithfully yours,

"DOROTHEA WYLLARD."

* * * * *

He kissed the little note before he laid it carefully in a drawer

of his writing-table. It was a foolish thing to do, but the act was

quite involuntary and half unconscious. The sight of that handwriting

brought back the feeling of that old time when a letter from Dora

meant so much for him. He had trained himself to think of her as

another man's wife--to consider himself her friend, and her friend

only. He felt himself bound in honour so to think; all the more because

he was admitted to her home, because she was not afraid to call him

friend. Yet there were moments when the old feeling came over him with

irresistible force.

He did not ride that afternoon, but walked across the fields, and

presented himself at Penmorval between four and five o'clock. Mrs.

Wyllard was alone in her morning-room, a room in which everything

seemed part of herself--her favourite books, her piano, her easel--all

the signs of those pursuits which he remembered as the delight of her

girlhood.

"You paint still, I see," he said, glancing at the easel, on which

there was an unfinished picture of a beloved Blenheim spaniel; "you

have not forgotten your old taste for animals."

"I have so much leisure," she answered somewhat sadly; and then he

remembered her childless home.

She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one

who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair

to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some

moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a

massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she

had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his

face--pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life

with just that appealing look.

"It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder,"

she said, coming straight to the point. "You knew my mother. Surely

you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce

murderers."

"Who told you that I believed such a thing?"

"Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people

about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and

champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were

infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."

"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings,"

replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I

would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to

me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly

or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so

strange at that date--so difficult to account for upon any other

hypothesis."

"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange

coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that

Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind--a trouble which arose

just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date;

and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open

nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."

"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"

"Yes--there is something--some entanglement which prevented his

answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."

"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his

innocence?"

"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty--I never

could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime."

Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily.

"Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent

and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel

wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this

appeal on my own account--without Bothwell's knowledge. I come to you

as the oldest friend I have--the one friend outside my own home in whom

I can fully confide."

"You know that I would give my life in your service," he answered, with

suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. "Yes, you

have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do.

But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is

of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and

yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer

in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin's examination. He can

never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl's

death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph

Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his

command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?"

"Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been

baffled," argued Dora. "I do not think that Mr. Distin's heart was in

this case. At least that is the impression I derived from a few words

which I heard him say to my husband just before he left us."

"Indeed! Can you recall those words?"

"Very nearly. He said he had done his best in the matter, and should

not attempt to go further. And then with his cynical air he added, 'Let

sleeping dogs lie, Wyllard. That is a good old saying.'"

"Don't you think that sounds rather as if he suspected your

kinsman, and feared to bring trouble on your family by any further

investigation?"

"It never struck me in that light," exclaimed Dora, with a distressed

look. "Good heavens! is all the world so keen to suspect an innocent

man? If you only knew Bothwell as I know him, you would be the first

to laugh this cruel slander to scorn."

"For your sake I will try and believe in him as firmly as you do,"

answered Heathcote, "and as Wyllard does, no doubt."

Her countenance fell, and she was silent.

"Your husband knows of this cloud upon your cousin's name, I suppose?"

interrogated Heathcote, after a pause.

"Yes, I told him how Bothwell had been treated by his Bodmin

acquaintance."

"And he was as indignant as you were, I conclude?"

"He said very little," answered Dora, with a pained expression. "My

regard for Bothwell is the only subject upon which Julian and I have

ever differed. He has been somewhat harsh in his judgment of my cousin

ever since his return from India. He disapproved of his leaving the

army, and he has been inclined to take a gloomy view of his prospects

from the very first."

"I see. He has not a high opinion of Bothwell's moral character?"

"I would hardly say that. But he is inclined to judge my cousin's

errors harshly, and he does not understand his noble qualities as I do.

I should not have been constrained to ask for your help, if Julian had

been as heartily with me in this matter as he has been, in all other

things."

Edward Heathcote's bronzed cheek blanched ever so little at this

speech. It moved him deeply to think that in this one anxiety of her

loving heart he could be more to Dora Wyllard than her husband, that

she could turn to him in this trouble, with boundless confidence in

his friendship. What would he not do to merit such confidence, to show

himself worthy of such trust? Already he was prepared to be Bothwell's

champion; he was angry with himself for ever having suspected him.

"I had another motive for appealing to you," continued Dora shyly.

"I have reason to think that Bothwell is very fond of Hilda, and the

dearest wish of my life is to see those two united."

"A wish which is in a fair way of being gratified," answered Heathcote.

"My sister announced to me only yesterday that there is some kind of

contingent engagement between her and Mr. Grahame; and that, he being

free to wed her, she means to marry him when she comes of age, with or

without my consent."

"My noble Hilda!" exclaimed Dora; "yes, it is just like her to accept

him now when all the world is against him."

"Say that it is just like a woman," said Heathcote. "There is a leaven

of Quixotism in all your sex, from the Queen to the wife-beater's

victim in Seven Dials. Well, dear Mrs. Wyllard, for your sake and for

Hilda's, I will be Quixotic. I will make it the business of my life to

discover the mystery of that unknown girl's fate. I will pledge myself

to think of nothing else, to undertake no other work or duty until I

have exhausted all possible means of discovery."

"God bless you for the promise," she answered fervently. "I knew that I

had one friend in the world."

A sob almost choked her utterance of those last words. She was deeply

wounded by her husband's coldness in this matter of Bothwell's

position. She had expected him to be as indignant as she was, to be

ready to take up arms against all the world for her cousin; and he had

been cold, silent, and gloomy when she tried to discuss the burning

question with him. His manner had implied that he, too, suspected

Bothwell, though he would not go so far as to give utterance to his

suspicion.

And now to have won over this strong advocate, this brave, true-hearted

champion, was a relief to her mind that almost overcame her feelings;

here, where she had ever sought to preserve the calm dignity of manner

which became her as Julian Wyllard's wife.

"I thank you with all my heart," she faltered, "and I am sure that my

husband will be as rejoiced as I shall, if you can clear Bothwell's

name from this stigma."

Heathcote rose to take leave. He felt that the business of his visit

was accomplished, that he had no right to linger in Dora Wyllard's

sanctum. It was the first time he had ever been admitted to her

own particular nest, the one room in which she was secure from the

possibility of interruption.

"Tell Hilda to come and see me," she said, as they shook hands. "She

has deserted me most cruelly of late."

"Perhaps it is better for her not to be here until her engagement to

your cousin is on a more definite footing."

"Ah, _there_ is the secret in Bothwell's life--some entanglement which

he half admitted to me the other day. He said that he was bound to

one woman while he loved another. I guessed that Hilda was the one he

loved. But who can the other be? I know of no one."

"Some lady whom he met in India, no doubt. The very air of the East is

charged with complications of that kind. If your cousin is a man of

honour, and if we can unriddle the railway mystery, all may yet come

right. Pray do not be too anxious. Good-bye."

And so they parted, they two, who once were to have spent their lives

together. Edward Heathcote walked away from Penmorval loving his old

love as dearly as ever he had loved her in his passionate youth. He was

young enough to love with youthful fervour even yet, although he had

schooled himself to believe that youth was past for him. He was only

thirty-six; Julian Wyllard's junior by nearly ten years.

Half an hour later Dora was presiding at afternoon tea in the yew-tree

arbour, where her husband joined her after two hours' business talk

with his land-steward. The weather was still warm enough for drinking

tea out of doors, and this yew-tree arbour was Mrs. Wyllard's favourite

retreat.

"How pale and tired you are looking, Julian!" she said, scrutinising

her husband's face as he sank somewhat wearily into the comfortable

basket-chair she had placed ready for him; "you must want some tea very

badly."

"I always enjoy my afternoon cup; and you are the queen of tea-makers,"

answered Wyllard; "yes, I have had a tiresome talk with Gretton, who

is getting old and prosy, and repeats himself infernally when he is

describing the tenants' wants and grievances. He cannot tell me of the

smallest repair required for a barn or pig-sty without repeating every

syllable of his conversation with some garrulous old farmer, and even

explaining the nature of the barn or the sty in dumb-show, 'as it might

be this,' and 'as it might be that.' He maddens me with his 'as it

might be.'"

"I am afraid you are growing nervous, Julian," said Dora tenderly.

She laid her cool white hand upon his forehead, and looked concerned at

the touch.

"You are actually feverish. You have been irritated into a fever by

that prosy old man. Why do you not superannuate poor old Gretton,

and let Bothwell be your steward? He is much cleverer and more

business-like than you think, and at the worst he would not prose."

"I never thought Bothwell a fit person to look after my estate, and I

think him less so now," answered her husband coldly. "He is the most

unpopular man in Bodmin. Do not let us talk about it any more. By the

way, you have had a visitor this afternoon," he continued, as his wife

handed him his tea. "I saw Heathcote go past the library-window while I

was at work with Gretton. What brought him to Penmorval?"

"I asked him to come," answered Dora, very pale, but with a steadfast

look in her eyes, and about the firmly-moulded lips.

She had never had a secret from her husband in her life, and although

she had made her appeal to Heathcote without his advice or knowledge,

she had no intention of leaving him uninformed now that the thing was

done.

"You asked him to come to you--Edward Heathcote!" exclaimed Wyllard,

with a surprised look. "And may I know what important business

necessitated this interview?"

"You have a right to know all about it, Julian," she answered quietly.

"I have asked Mr. Heathcote to give me his aid in a matter in which

you have seemed unwilling to help me. You were content that my cousin

should remain under a hideous stigma--shunned by those who were once

his friends. I am not so content; and I have asked the son of my

mother's oldest and staunchest friend to help me."

And then she told him, as briefly as possible, what kind of request she

had made to Edward Heathcote, and how he had promised to help her.

Julian Wyllard was livid with anger. He set down his cup with a hand

that trembled like an aspen-leaf; he rose from his chair, and paced

the grassy space in front of the arbour, backwards and forwards half

a dozen times, before he uttered a word. And then, coming back to his

wife, he looked at her with eyes dilated with jealous frenzy.

"Why call him the son of your mother's old friend?" he exclaimed. "What

need of so awkward and ambiguous a phrase? Why not call him your old

lover? It is in that character you have thrown yourself upon him; it

is as your old lover that you try to arouse his chivalry, that you

urge him to do that which your husband's common sense revolted from.

A husband is a reasoning animal, you know. He will only attempt the

practical, the possible. But throw your glove to the lions, and your

lover will leap into the arena and fight for it! And you take advantage

of an unquenchable passion, of a despairing love, to attempt the

solution of a problem to which the answer may be a rope round your

cousin's neck."

"You have no right to insult me as you have done," said Dora, pale as

marble, but calm in her just indignation. "You know that I am your

true wife, and that my friendship for Edward Heathcote and his for

me is above suspicion. As for my cousin Bothwell, I know that he has

been most unjustly suspected of a foul crime; and I will not rest till

the true history of that crime has been discovered. Nothing but the

discovery of the real murderer can ever set Bothwell right with his

fellow-men."

"Then he will have to remain in the wrong," answered Wyllard savagely.

"The mystery which Distin's training and experience failed to fathom

will never be brought to light by your knight-errant of The Spaniards."

CHAPTER VIII.

A VALUABLE ALLY.

Edward Heathcote devoted his every thought to the task which he had

taken upon himself. His first business must be to discover the name and

history of the murdered girl. The clue in his possession was of the

slightest; but he was not without a clue.

First, there was the name and address of the baker on the biscuit-bag.

This gave him an indication of the part of Paris in which the girl must

have been living before she started for England; it also indicated that

she had left Paris within a few days of her journey westward.

But he had a second clue, and a much better one. Within a week after

the adjourned inquest, a farm-labourer had brought him a large oval

silver locket, which he had picked up in the gorge where the girl fell.

The spot lay a little way off the direct path to the man's work, and

morbid curiosity had impelled him to go and examine the place in the

early morning, before his daily labour began.

Prowling about among the ferns and crags, he had struck his foot

against a glistening object, which proved to be an old silver locket, a

good deal worn and battered; a double locket, containing a waxen Agnus

Dei, and a little lace-bordered picture of the Virgin Mary, the paper

worn thin by much handling.

The man carried the locket to the Coroner, who rewarded him with half

a sovereign, and laid the relic aside in his desk, after a minute

examination. It had been attached to a black ribbon, which was worn and

old, and had snapped with the jerk of the girl's fall.

Upon the locket itself there was not the faintest sign which could lead

to the identification of the wearer; but upon the little lace-edged

engraving there were these words neatly written in a fine French

penmanship:

"Souvenir from Sister Gudule de la Miséricorde to Léonie. Dinan,

October 1879. Child of Jesus, pray for us."

To Heathcote's mind this brief legend indicated three facts.

First, that the Christian name of the wearer of the locket was Léonie.

Secondly, that she had been educated at a convent at Dinan. Thirdly,

that she left the convent in October 1879, and that the little paper

had been placed in her locket at parting. The nuns have no valuable

gifts to offer their _protégées_. An engraving of Saint or Blessed

Virgin would be the most precious token holy-poverty could bestow.

This indication of the locket was the clue which Heathcote decided to

follow in the first instance. He made his arrangements for leaving

England without an hour's delay; but before turning his back upon The

Spaniards, he exacted Hilda's promise that she would not see Bothwell

Grahame during his absence.

"Mr. Grahame's entanglement with another woman is an all-sufficient

reason for your holding yourself aloof from him," said her brother.

"When he is free to ask you to be his wife, let him come to me and

submit his pretensions to me, as your natural guardian. Perhaps, by

that time, I may have succeeded in setting him right with those who

now look askance upon him!"

Mr. Heathcote determined to call upon Joseph Distin before he crossed

the Channel. He had thought the question out thoroughly during a

sleepless night; and it seemed to him that it would be folly to enter

upon his difficult task of investigation without having first armed

himself with such advice as the criminal lawyer was able to give.

Before acting upon his own opinion it would be well to know the opinion

of a disinterested expert.

He called at Distin's offices the morning after his arrival in London.

The offices were in Furnival's Inn, a quiet and convenient spot, not

too far from the Old Bailey, and within a ten minutes' walk of the

stuffy old law-courts, still extant in Chancery Lane. Mr. Heathcote

sent in his card; and although at least half a dozen clients were

waiting for Mr. Distin, he was admitted immediately, and received with

marked cordiality.

"My dear Mr. Heathcote, charmed to see you. How good of you to look me

up!" exclaimed Distin, as he pushed forward a morocco-covered armchair.

There was nothing æsthetic, picturesque, or newfangled in Mr. Distin's

office, where the prevailing tone was a sober, substantial comfort.

Most of the furniture looked at least fifty years old; but the Turkey

carpet was the richest that the looms of Orient can produce; the

spacious armchairs invited to repose, and to that ease of body which

favours expansion of mind and friendly candour.

"Are you in town on business or pleasure?" inquired the lawyer, in his

airy manner. "Going through to the north, perhaps; grouse-moor, eh?"

"Nothing is further from my thoughts than shooting grouse," replied

Heathcote. "I am in London on my way to the Continent. I am going to

hunt up the antecedents of that poor girl who was killed on our line;

I want to find out who she was and how she came to be in the way of

meeting her death in our locality."

The lawyer's airy manner was dropped in a moment, and he became

intensely grave.

"O, you are going into that business, are you, and so late in the day?

But why?"

"I would rather not discuss my motive, if you will kindly excuse me."

Mr. Distin bowed. "I want to avail myself of your talent and experience

to the uttermost before I begin to work on my own account."

"The most my talent can do for you in this matter is very little; to

tell you the truth, I made a dismal failure of the business," returned

Distin, with agreeable frankness. He was too successful a man to be

ashamed to confess a failure. "But really now, Mr. Heathcote, by far

the wisest counsel I can give you is to forget all about this sad

story, and to let the world go on just as if that poor girl's death had

never come within your ken. You did your duty as Coroner, you know.

Nothing more could be asked or expected of you. Why, then, should you

do more? You are very friendly with the family at Penmorval. Take my

advice. 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'"

"That is what you said to Mr. Wyllard the morning you were leaving."

"I may have used that adage. It is a very good one."

"And you recommend me to drop this investigation, for the sake of my

friends at Penmorval," said Heathcote. "I infer from that advice that

you suspect Mr. Grahame of being concerned in the French girl's death."

"I confess to you that his whole manner and conduct were to my mind

suggestive of guilt. Of course, manner and conduct are not evidence.

At this present time there is not a shred of evidence to connect

Mr. Grahame with the crime, except the one fact that he was in the

train when the girl was killed; but that point would apply equally

to everybody else in the train, or rather to any one who happened to

be alone in a carriage as Mr. Grahame was. At present Mrs. Wyllard's

cousin is safe. If his was the arm that thrust that girl off the

footboard, there is nothing to bring the crime home to him. But go

a few steps further, follow up any clue which you may happen to

possess--you would not start upon such an investigation without some

kind of clue," speculated Joseph Distin shrewdly--"pursue your trail a

few yards further, and you may come upon evidence that will put a rope

round your friend's neck, and bring lasting disgrace upon the family

at Penmorval. I advised my old friend Wyllard to let this matter drop.

I advise you to do the same."

"I cannot act upon your advice. There has been too much mischief done

already. Mr. Grahame's refusal to answer your questions about his

whereabouts on the day of the murder has condemned him in the minds of

his fellow-townsmen. His name is blackened by a terrible suspicion, and

I have sworn to clear it, if it can be cleared. If he is guilty--well,

he can hardly be worse off with a rope round his neck than he is now,

with all his old friends estranged from him. For my own part, in such a

case I should infinitely prefer the rope. It would be a short way out

of a difficulty."

"My experience of criminals is that when the crisis comes they would

rather endure the ignominy than the halter," replied Distin. "Perhaps

you have never seen a man within an hour of his being hanged?"

"Thank God I have not been obliged to do that, though I have had to

look upon one an hour after."

"Ah, then you do not know to what manhood can descend--how it can

grovel before the spectre of instant, certain death. Come now, cannot

I persuade you to think better of your idea of investigating this

mysterious business?"

"No. I have promised to do it. I must keep my promise."

"So be it."

And then Joseph Distin discussed the matter freely, with perfect

frankness. He told Heathcote what means he had used to discover the

girl's identity on this side of the Channel.

"I should have gone further and crossed the water, if I had not seen

good reason to desist," he said, when he had explained his plan of

inquiry at every likely lodging-house, and how that plan had totally

failed.

"But what would you have done on the other side of the water, without

any clue?"

"I should have gone across myself and put the case into the hands of

Félix Drubarde, one of the cleverest police-officers in Paris. He

would have been instantly on the alert to hear of any application made

to the police by the relatives and friends of the missing girl. She

could hardly disappear for any length of time without some one being

concerned by her disappearance. The application to the police might

not occur perhaps until months after her death; but it would be likely

to occur sooner or later. And, again, Félix Drubarde has his allies in

every quarter of Paris. He hears of events so quickly that it might be

supposed he had a network of speaking-tubes all over the city. With his

help I should have been almost certain to arrive at the identification

of the dead girl."

"But I sent three advertisements to each of the best known Paris

newspapers," said Heathcote. "How do you account for those

advertisements not having been seen by the girl's friends?"

"Because French people of the lower classes are sometimes very

illiterate, and live in a very narrow circle. Your papers may not have

come within the range of the girl's friends. They would be likely to

apply to the police when time passed and they received no tidings of

her. But they would not be likely to see your best known papers--the

papers of the upper classes, no doubt. And then your advertisements

appeared immediately after the girl's death; at a time when the parents

or friends had no reason for feeling alarmed as to her safety."

"That may be so," replied Heathcote thoughtfully. "I think you can help

me very much in my undertaking, Mr. Distin, if you are willing to do

so."

"In what way?"

"Give me a letter of introduction to this Parisian detective, and let

me engage his aid by and by, when I go to Paris. I shall be happy to

pay him liberally for his services."

"Drubarde is no extortioner. He will not fleece you," said Distin. "In

fact the man is a gentleman, in his own particular line. He has made

an independence, and he only works now as an amateur. Yes, I will give

you a letter of introduction to him with pleasure, since you are bent

on pursuing this business to the bitter end. I suppose you will go

straight to Paris.

"No. I want first to follow up the only valuable clue I have. I shall

go first to Dinan, in Brittany, to find the convent, where I have

reason to believe this poor girl was educated."

CHAPTER IX.

FEVER DREAMS.

Edward Heathcote left Waterloo Station for Southampton within an hour

of leaving Mr. Distin's office, dined hastily at the Dolphin Hotel, and

started for St. Malo in the South-Western steamer at seven o'clock in

the evening. It was still early on the following morning when he landed

on the long stone quay at St. Malo, and the picturesque old granite

walls were still flushed with the rosy light of a newly-risen sun. The

quaint island-citadel, with its exquisite bay and golden sands, had

been familiar to Edward Heathcote in the past. He had lingered here to

rest after a long ramble in Brittany, and he had an affection for the

steep narrow streets and quaint old houses, with their all-pervading

aspect of the seventeenth century, the days of Bourbons and Condés,

kings and warriors, princely priests and priestly politicians.

Much as he loved the old-world town, Heathcote had no intention of

loitering there on this September morning, lovely as the bay and the

rocks and the smiling colony of white-walled villas yonder at Paramé

looked in the early sunlight. He only waited to get his portmanteau

through the Custom House in order to carry it to the little office

attached to the Dinan steamer, where he ascertained the hour for the

boat's departure.

Chance and tide favoured him. The steamer was to leave at eleven

o'clock. This afforded time for a leisurely breakfast at the Franklin,

and would enable him to reach Dinan early in the afternoon. He

breakfasted briefly and temperately, as became a man whose mind was

full of anxious thought, and then went for a stroll in the old streets,

and looked in at the Cathedral.

He had reflected seriously upon his interview with the criminal lawyer.

The fact that he had found his own original opinion about Bothwell

Grahame shared by this man, so deeply versed in the ways of criminals,

in the science of circumstantial evidence, was to the last degree

startling and disconcerting. He felt that he was setting out upon a

task which he could but perform in a half-hearted manner, struggle as

he might against that first conviction of his. He had undertaken this

task for Hilda's sake, for Dora's sake. What misery must result if

Joseph Distin were right after all, and in an ill-judged attempt to

gratify these two trusting women he should bring about the discovery

of Bothwell's guilt! That guilt was at present but a dark suspicion

which men hardly dared hint to each other; but if Distin's judgment was

correct, any unlucky discovery might make the suspicion a fact.

But he had promised, and the pledge must be kept. He must follow up the

clue which he held till it led him to other links in the chain of the

victim's history; and the chances were that in the victim's history he

would find a clue to the murderer's identity.

It was a lovely autumnal noontide, and the gay little town of Dinard,

with its gardens rising stage above stage on the slope of the hill,

its queer little bays and recesses of golden sand, was smiling in

sunlight as the "Isle et Rance" steamed across the broad bay of St.

Malo to the mouth of the Rance. There are few prettier rivers than this

little Rhine of Brittany, and Edward Heathcote had loved it well in

days gone by. But to-day he sat upon the bridge smoking his cigar, and

gazing at the green hills and hanging woods, the villas and villages,

and craggy cliffs and ever-varying shore, without seeing the objects

upon which his eyes seemed to rest. The nearer he came to the task of

investigation, the more irksome became his duty. His heart failed him

as he took out the silver locket, and read the name upon the paper

inside. It was the name of the woman who was to enlighten him about the

dead girl, who was perhaps to put in his hand the clue which would lead

him straight to the murderer.

And yet who could say that he would find Sister Gudule de la

Miséricorde at Dinan? He did not even know the name of the convent in

which she lived. She might be dead. And yet the date of the inscription

was but two years old. There was every chance that the Sister still

lived: and he must be dull if he failed to find her.

He stopped at the first church to which he came after leaving the

boat--an old church in the lower part of the town. Here he asked his

way to the presbytery, and called upon the priest, who told him that

there was only one educational convent in Dinan, the Convent of St.

Elizabeth of Hungary, an Ursuline convent situated in a quiet quarter

of the town.

Mr. Heathcote left his portmanteau at one of the hotels in the

market-place, and drove at once to the convent. It was a large white

building, with plastered walls, far from beautiful in itself, and

showing every sign of poverty; but the gardens were neatly kept, the

rooms were exquisitely clean, and the clumsy old Breton furniture was

polished to the highest degree.

Mr. Heathcote was received in the convent parlour by the Reverend

Mother, a homely little tub-shaped personage, in a black serge habit

and a picturesque white cap, which concealed every vestige of hair upon

her broad intelligent forehead. She had kindly black eyes, and a frank

benevolent smile, and Heathcote felt at once at his ease with her.

She looked a little disappointed when, in answer to her preliminary

question, he told her that he had not come to offer a new pupil. The

pupils were the chief source of revenue for the convent, albeit the

_pension_ was of the smallest.

"Have you ever seen that locket before, madame?" he asked, laying the

silver medallion before the Reverend Mother.

"I have seen many such," she answered. "The Holy Father allows us to

dispose of them for the benefit of the convent."

"There is a little paper inside with some writing. Will you look at it,

please?"

She opened the locket and unfolded the paper.

"Yes, this is Sister Gudule's writing. I know it very well indeed,"

said the nun, looking at her visitor with a puzzled air, as if

wondering whether the gentleman had not gone a little astray, his real

destination being the great monastic madhouse yonder on the crest of a

wooded hill.

"Sister Gudule is still living--still with you, perhaps?"

"Yes?" interrogatively.

"And you remember Léonie, to whom that little picture was given?"

The Reverend Mother smiled her modest smile.

"Léonie is not an uncommon name," she replied. "We have had many pupils

so called from time to time. Our school numbers over a hundred and

fifty pupils, you must remember."

"Do you recall any pupil of that name who left you two years ago?"

asked Heathcote.

"We have from thirty to forty pupils leaving us every year. Will you

permit me to ask the object of your inquiry?"

"It is a very serious one, or I should be desolated to give you so

much trouble," answered Heathcote courteously, in that polite language

which he spoke almost as fluently as his native English. "The poor girl

to whom that locket belonged met her death in my neighbourhood less

than two months ago. She fell from a railway-carriage as the train was

crossing a viaduct. Whether that death was accidental or the result of

a crime remains as yet unknown. But there are those in my country to

whom it is vital that the whole truth should be known. If you can help

me to discover the truth, you will be helping the cause of justice."

"Sister Gudule will remember," said the Reverend Mother, ringing a

hell. "She is one of our lay-sisters, a great favourite with all the

children. She nurses them when they are ill, and takes care of them

when they go out for a holiday, and plays with them as if she were a

child herself."

A lay-sister, the portress, answered the bell, and went in quest of

Sister Gudule.

"She has a very unprepossessing appearance," said the Reverend Mother.

"I fear you may be a little shocked at first seeing her, but she is so

amiable that we all adore her. She has been the victim of misfortune

from her cradle. Her deformity is the consequence of a nurse's

carelessness. It turned the heart of her mother against her, and she

was a neglected and unloved child. Her family was noble, but the

husband speculated in railways, and the wife was silly and extravagant.

By the time Gudule was a young woman poverty had overtaken her father,

and he was only too glad to acquiesce in the girl's resolution to enter

a convent. She came to us penniless thirty years ago, and has worked

for her bread ever since. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that

she is the most valuable member of our community."

The door was opened softly and Sister Gudule appeared. This little

preface from the Reverend Mother had not been unnecessary to lessen

the shock of her personal appearance, which was startling in its

unqualified ugliness.

Sister Gudule de la Miséricorde was the very type of the wicked fairy

in the dear old child stories. She was short and squat, with broad

shoulders and a decided hump. She had a nose like a potato, and a

lower lip like that of the lady who moistened the spinster's yarn; she

had an undeniable moustache and beard; yet in spite of all, there was

something pleasant, conciliating, reassuring in her face. The low broad

forehead suggested intellectual power; there was a humorous twinkle in

the small gray eyes, as of one who could revel in a joke; the thick

under-lip and prominent under-jaw were the indications of a boundless

benevolence.

The Reverend Mother handed the locket and its enclosure to Sister

Gudule.

"I must tell you that the Sister has a most miraculous memory," she

said confidentially to Heathcote. "I have never known her forget the

most trivial event in the history of our lives. She is our unwritten

calendar."

"It is Léonie Lemarque's locket," said Sister Gudule. "How comes it

here? Is my little Léonie in Dinan?"

"Léonie Lemarque!"

How glibly she pronounced the name; and how strange it seemed to Edward

Heathcote to hear it! Like a name out of a tomb.

"The owner of that locket is dead," he answered gently.

"Dead! Léonie Lemarque! Dead at twenty years old! Dead! Why, there was

not a healthier child in the convent, after we had once built up her

constitution. She was in a sad way when she came to us."

"Léonie Lemarque!" repeated the Reverend Mother. "I never thought of

her when Monsieur showed me the locket. Léonie Lemarque! Yes, she left

us in 1879 to go to her old grandmother in Paris. And now she has met

with a violent death in England. Monsieur will tell you."

Monsieur repeated his story, this time with further details, for Sister

Gudule questioned him closely. She would have every particular. The

tears streamed down her cheeks, hung upon her bristly moustache. She

was deeply distressed.

"You don't know how I loved that child," she said, excusing herself to

the Superior; and then to Heathcote, "Ah, Monsieur, you could never

understand how I loved her. I saved her life. From the weakest frailest

creature, I made her a sound and healthy child. Indeed, I may say that

I did much more than this. With the help of God and the intercession of

His Saints I saved her mind."

"It is quite true," said the Reverend Mother. "The child came to us

under most peculiar circumstances. Sister Gudule took entire charge of

her for the first year."

"And she rewarded me tenfold for my trouble," added Gudule; "she gave

me love for love, measure for measure."

"Will you tell me all about her--every detail? The knowledge may help

me to avenge her death," said Heathcote eagerly. "It is my belief, and

the belief of others, that she was foully murdered."

He was intensely agitated. He felt as if he had taken into his hand

the lever which worked some formidable machine--an instrument of death

and doom, and that every movement of his hand might bring destruction.

Yet the process once begun must go on. He was no longer an individual,

working of his own free will; he was only an agent in the hands of Fate.

"Willingly, we will tell you all we can," said the Reverend Mother.

"But you must allow us to offer you a little coffee. You have

travelled, and you look white and weary."

The convent was proud of its coffee, almost the only refreshment ever

offered to visitors. The portress brought a little oval tray covered

with a snow-white napkin, a little brown crockery pot, a white cup and

saucer, all of the humblest, but spotlessly clean.

"Léonie was with us eight years," said the Reverend Mother, while

Sister Gudule dried her eyes and tried to regain her composure. "She

was just ten years old when she was brought to us by her grandmother,

a person who had been at one time a dressmaker in one of the most

fashionable quarters of Paris, but who had fallen upon evil days, and

lived in a very humble way in a small lodging on the left bank of the

Seine. Léonie was an orphan, the daughter of Madame Lemarque's only

son, who had died young, broken-hearted at the death of his young wife.

The child was brought to us by a priest, who came all the way from

Paris with his little charge. She had but just recovered from a long

illness, which was said to be brain-fever, caused by a very terrible

mental shock which she had endured two months before."

"Were you told the nature of that shock?"

"No; the priest did not offer any information upon that point, and I

did not presume to question him. He assured me that the case was one

which merited the most benevolent consideration. Madame Lemarque had no

means of educating the child herself, nor could she afford the pension

demanded by a Parisian convent. The curé thought that our fine air

would do much to restore the child to health and strength, and he knew

that our system of education was calculated to develop her mind and

character in the right direction. He guaranteed the regular payment of

the child's pension, and we never had occasion to apply for it a second

time."

"Did Madame Lemarque ever come to see her granddaughter?"

"Never. Léonie remained with us from year's end to year's end till

after her eighteenth birthday, when, at Madame Lemarque's desire, we

made arrangements for her travelling to Paris with other pupils who

were returning to the great city."

"Then you never saw Madame Lemarque?"

"Never."

"Nor ever heard from her directly?"

"O yes, we had letters--very nicely-written letters--full of gratitude

for what Madame Lemarque was pleased to call our kindness to Léonie.

The child used to write to her grandmother monthly, while she was with

us, and her letters were the best evidence that she was fairly used

and happy."

"She was a sweet child," said Gudule, "and deserved every indulgence."

"Did she ever tell you anything about the shock which caused her

illness?" asked Heathcote of the lay-sister.

"In her right senses never one syllable," answered Gudule. "I would not

have questioned her upon that subject for worlds, for I believed that

she had narrowly escaped madness. But during the six months in which I

nursed her--for her health was completely broken, and it required all

that time to build up her strength and calm her nerves--she used to

sleep in a little bed close to mine, and in her troubled dreams I used

to hear very strange things. How far the dreams were inspired by the

recollections of real events, I cannot venture to say; but there were

phrases that recurred so often--a horrible vision which so continually

repeated itself, like a scene in a play--that I can but suppose it to

have been the representation of some event which had really happened

before the child's waking eyes."

"Can you recall the nature of that vision?" inquired Heathcote

breathlessly.

It seemed to him that he was on the threshold of a new mystery--as

terrible as the old one, and even darker: a tragedy hidden in the past,

reflected only in a child's fever-dream.

"You should ask me if I can forget it, Monsieur," said Sister Gudule.

"I wish with all my heart that I could. I have prayed many a prayer

for oblivion. The poor child used to be feverish every night--a low

fever, which only came on in the evening, but some nights were worse

than others--and in her most feverish nights this dream seemed almost

inevitable. I used to lie awake expecting it, dreading it."

"She used to talk in her sleep, then?"

"To talk, yes; and to scream--a terrible shriek sometimes, which would

disturb every sleeper in the great dormitory adjoining my little room.

She would start up on her pillow, and stare straight before her with

wide-open eyes, being fast asleep all the time, you understand. 'Don't

kill her, don't kill her!' she would cry; 'don't shoot her!' And then

she would rock herself backwards and forwards, and moan in a low

voice, 'The forest--the dark, dark forest; she is there, always there,

with the blood running down her dress! Take her away, take away the

dark forest--take away the blood!' Her words varied sometimes, but

those words never: 'Take away the dark forest--take away the blood!'"

"And did she never tell you what the dream meant--you, her nurse and

comforter, with whom she must have been on such confidential terms?"

"No, dear child. She loved me and trusted me with all the strength of

her innocent heart, I believe; but she never told me the cause of that

awful dream. And I never dared to question her. I was only anxious

that she should forget the past--that if her nights were fevered and

restless, her days should be peaceful and bright. I did everything I

could to amuse and interest her, in studies, needlework, and play, and

to help her to forget the past."

"And you succeeded, Sister," said the head of the convent approvingly.

"I never saw a more wonderful cure. From a nervous hysterical child

Léonie Lemarque grew into a bright merry girl."

"Yes, with God's help she was cured; but the cure was very slow. The

shock which shattered her health, and for a time impaired her mind,

must have been an awful one. Never before had I seen gray hairs upon

the head of a child, but the thickly curling hair upon Léonie's temples

when she came to us was patched with white; and it was years before

the hair resumed its natural colour. For the first year her memory

was almost a blank. It would have been useless for any one to attempt

to teach her in class with the other children. She would have been

despised as an idiot, laughed at perhaps, and her heart broken. I

obtained the Reverend Mother's permission to keep her in my room, and

to teach her in my own way, and little by little I awakened her memory

and her mind. Both had been, as it were, benumbed, frozen, paralysed,

by that awful shock of which we know so little."

"But you would guess that she had witnessed some dreadful scene,

perhaps the death of some one she loved," speculated Heathcote. "Did

she never talk to you of her childhood in Paris, her relatives?"

"Rarely of any one except her grandmother," answered Sister Gudule,

"and of her she told me very little. Whether her illness had blotted

out the memory of her childhood, or whether she shrank from any

allusion to the past, I cannot tell. One day I asked her who had given

her a blue satin neckerchief which I found in her trunk--a costly

neckerchief, and much too fine for a child to wear. She told me that

it was a New Year's gift from her aunt, but at the mention of the name

she turned deadly pale, her eyes filled with tears, and her whole body

shook like an aspen-leaf. I changed the conversation that moment, and I

never again heard her speak of her aunt."

"You would infer from her agitation that the aunt was connected with

the tragedy of the child's life?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Was perhaps the person whom she saw assailed when she cried out,

'Don't kill her; don't shoot her!'"

"I have thought that it must have been so. That dreadful cry of hers,

'Take away the blood! take away the dark forest!' No one who did not

hear those cries of hers, no one who did not see the awful expression

of her eyes, staring, dilated, full of horror; no one who had not seen

and heard her as I did could ever understand how dreadful, how real

that vision was to me as well as to the sleeper. I used to feel as if I

had seen murder done, and had stood by without the power to prevent it."

"In a word, you felt, by pure sympathy, almost exactly what the child

felt," said Heathcote.

Already he had begun to adore Sister Gudule, just as the children

of the convent adored her. He forgot her hump, he forgave her the

potato-shaped nose, he accepted her beard as a detail that gave

piquancy to her countenance. He was subdued, subjugated by that

intensely sympathetic nature which revealed itself in every word and

look of the lay-sister.

But he had a task to perform, and it was necessary that he should

proceed with his inquiries in a business-like manner. He had already

taken certain notes in his pocket-book.

"Léonie Lemarque left you in 1879, and she had been with you eight

years," he said, with pencil in hand. "She must have come to you in

1871."

"Yes, it was in 1871, not long after the troubles in Paris. It was

early in November she was brought to us."

"And you were told that she had been ill two months in consequence of a

mental shock?"

"Yes."

"Then one may fairly conclude that the event which caused her illness

occurred early in the September of 1871."

"I think so."

"Good. I thank you most heartily, Madame," with a courteous bow to the

Reverend Mother, "for the help you and Sister Gudule have so graciously

bestowed upon me. But I would venture to ask one more favour, namely,

that you would honour me with a line by way of introduction to the

worthy priest who brought Léonie Lemarque from Paris."

"Alas, Monsieur, that is impossible! Father Sorbier died three years

ago, just a year before Léonie left us."

"That is unfortunate. He doubtless knew the mystery of the girl's

childhood, and perhaps might have helped me to unravel the secret of

her strange death."

"Do you really believe that the two events have any bearing upon each

other, Monsieur?" demanded Sister Gudule thoughtfully.

"I know not, Madame," replied Heathcote; "but it is only by working

backwards that I can hope to arrive at any clue to the mystery which

has puzzled us all in Cornwall. That poor girl must have had some

purpose in going to England, in travelling to so remote a neighbourhood

as ours. Even if her death were an accident, or an unpremeditated

crime, her presence in that place cannot have been accidental."

Mr. Heathcote asked to see the class-rooms and the chapel before

he left the convent, a request which was graciously accepted, as a

compliment to the Reverend Mother. He was paraded along wide and airy

passages, was shown an empty refectory, where plates and mugs and huge

piles of bread and butter were arranged on long deal tables, covered

with snow-white linen, in readiness for the afternoon _goûter_. He

saw the chapel with its humble decorations, its somewhat crude copy of

a well-known Guido, its altar, rich in gilded paper, home-made lace,

and cheap china vases. All here spoke of small means; but the flowers

on the altar were freshly gathered, and the neatness and cleanliness

of all things in chapel and convent charmed the stranger's eye. He

slipped a couple of sovereigns into the box by the door, praised the

airy corridors, the spacious whitewashed rooms, and left the principal

and the lay-sister alike charmed with his good French and his friendly

manners.

The clock of the monastery on the opposite hill was striking five as he

drove away from the convent, a silvery chime that could be heard all

over Dinan.

He dined at the _table d'hôte_ at the Hôtel de la Poste, and walked on

the terrace on the town walls after dinner. There is no fairer view

in Brittany than the panorama of wooded hills from that walk above

the town walls. The cool night air, the silvery moonlight, soothed

Edward Heathcote's nerves. He was able to meditate upon his afternoon's

work, to think over the story he had heard from Sister Gudule, and to

speculate upon the chances of his being able to follow up this thread

of a life-history until it led him to some point which would throw a

light upon the mystery of Léonie Lemarque's death.

Reflecting upon Sister Gudule's story, he could but conclude that the

child Léonie had been the witness of some scene of violence in which a

woman had been the victim--a murder possibly, or it might be only an

attempted murder. Blood had been spilt. Hence that awful cry, "Take

away the blood, take away the dark forest!"--a child's appeal to some

unknown power to remove an object of terror.

One and one only clue had he obtained from Sister Gudule as to the

person of the victim, and even that indication might be a false light

leading him astray.

The girl's painful emotion at the utterance of her aunt's name

suggested that the victim had been that aunt. The mere mention of the

name would conjure up all the horror of that scene which had so nearly

wrecked the child's reason.

It therefore seemed plain to Heathcote's mind that a murder, or an

attempt at murder, had been committed in a dark wood, and that the

victim had been Léonie Lemarque's aunt. So deeply interested was he in

this mystery of ten years back, so powerfully moved by this strange

story of a child's suffering, that he almost forgot that the business

which had brought him across the Channel was to find out the true story

of the French girl's death, and not to unravel the mystery of this old

and perhaps forgotten crime in the unknown wood. So interested was he

that he resolved at any cost of trouble to himself to discover the

details of the scene reproduced so often in the child's fevered dreams.

"Who knows whether that may not be the surest way of arriving at the

truth about the girl's death?" he argued with himself. "At any rate it

is the only way that offers itself at present."

He walked late upon the walls of Dinan, enjoying the quiet of the

moonlit scene, hearing the bells chime again and again, silver-clear

across the vale, from the monastery where the madmen were dreaming

their disjointed dreams, or wandering sane and healed in the

spirit-land of the past, amid the faces of friends long dead. He walked

late, thinking of a face that had looked at him with trusting eyes in

the moment of parting, lovely eyes whose every expression he knew, but

most of all that tender pathetic look which had once tried to soothe

the agony of loss.

"To serve her and work for her, surely that is enough for a man's

bliss," he thought, with a sad, half-satirical smile. "In the good old

days of chivalry her knight would have deemed it happiness to bleed and

perish for her sake far away in Palestine--glory and honour enough to

have worn her colours in his helmet. Are we a meaner race, we men of

the present, that we cannot love without hope of reward? Well, I have

pledged myself to my crusade. I have put on my lady's colours, and I

will work for her as faithfully as if my love were not hopeless. I will

prove to her that there is some chivalry still left in this degenerate

world, under the modern guise of disinterested friendship."

He started for Paris by the first train next morning, a fourteen hours'

journey, a journey of dust and weariness, though the road lay through a

fair country, with glimpses of the blue sea, and then by the widening

river, till the tall houses and the many church-towers of the great

city glimmered whitely before him, under the September moon. He put

up at his old resting-place, the Hôtel de Bade, amidst the roar and

hustle of the Boulevard; and he set out the next morning after an early

breakfast in quest of Monsieur Drubarde's apartment, which was situated

in that older and shabbier Paris of the left bank.

Monsieur Drubarde's apartment was on the Quai des Grands Augustins, _au

cinquième_, a rather alarming indication to infirm or elderly legs, but

which did not appal Edward Heathcote. He ran up the five flights of a

dark wooden staircase, and found himself upon an airy landing, lighted

and ventilated by a skylight.

The skylight was half open, and through it Heathcote saw flowers and

greenery upon the roof. He also caught the odour of a very respectable

cigar, which the soft west wind blew towards him through the same

opening.

On a door opposite the top of the steep fifth flight appeared a brass

plate, with the name, Félix Drubarde.

Heathcote rang, and his summons was answered almost instantly from an

unexpected direction.

A large, round, rubicund face peered through the skylight, and a voice

asked if Monsieur desired an interview with Félix Drubarde.

"I have come here in that hope, Monsieur," answered Heathcote, "and

I venture to infer that I have the honour of addressing Monsieur

Drubarde."

"I am that individual, Monsieur," replied the rubicund gentleman,

opening the skylight to its widest extent. "Would it be too much to ask

you to ascend to my summer _salon_ upon the leads? It is pleasanter

even for a business interview than the confinement of four walls."

There was a steep straight ladder against the wall immediately under

the skylight. Heathcote mounted this and emerged upon the roof, face to

face with Félix Drubarde.

The retired police-officer's appearance was essentially rustic. His

attire resembled the holiday costume of the _station de bains_ rather

than the normal garb of a great busy metropolis. He was clothed from

head to foot in white linen; his garments were all of the loosest,

and he wore a pair of ancient buff slippers, which had doubtless

trodden the bitter biting foam on the beach of Dieppe or the sands of

Trouville. Altogether, Monsieur Drubarde looked the very picture of

comfort and coolness on this warm September morning. He had made for

himself a garden upon an open space of flat leaded roof, which was

belted round with ancient chimney-stacks of all shapes and sizes, just

as a lawn is girdled with good old oaks and beeches. On one side of his

garden he had rigged up a light lattice-work from chimney to chimney,

and his nasturtiums and Virginia creepers had clothed the lattice with

green and gold. This he called his _allée verte_, and he declared that

it reminded him of Fontainebleau in the days of the famous Diana.

His garden was gorgeous with geraniums and roses, and perfumed with

mignonette and honeysuckle. He had his morning coffee on a little iron

table; he had a wicker-work easy-chair for himself, and another for

a friend; and a smart rug, of the usual gaudy pattern to be seen in

French lodging-houses, was spread under his slippered feet. He had his

cigars and his newspaper, and, above all, he had a large and ancient

black poodle of uncanny appearance, which looked as if he were the very

dog under whose semblance the arch-fiend visited Dr. Faustus.

Before seating himself in the basket-chair which Monsieur Drubarde

offered him, Heathcote took Joseph Distin's letter out of his

pocket-book, and handed it to the ex-police-officer, who became

convulsive with rapture when he saw the signature.

"Monsieur was welcome on his own account as a doubtless distinguished

Englishman; as the friend of Monsieur Distin he is more than welcome.

His visit is an honour, a privilege which an old member of the Paris

police cannot too highly value," said Drubarde, with enthusiasm. "Ah,

Monsieur, what a man is that Joseph Distin! what a commanding genius! I

have had the honour to assist him in cases where that mighty intellect

revealed itself with startling force, and where, I am proud to say,

he must inevitably have failed, but for my humble assistance. Yes,

Monsieur, old Drubarde has a _flair_, which even your great English

lawyer envies. What a man, all the same!" Monsieur Drubarde paused

for breath, and also to offer Mr. Heathcote a cigar, which was frankly

accepted. And then the police-officer continued his eulogy of the

English lawyer, with which he contrived to interweave a little gentle

egotism.

"Had he been a Frenchman and lived under the first Emperor, he would

have been greater than the Duke of Otranto, whom my father had the

privilege to serve, and whom I remember seeing when I was a child. My

father took me into the great chief's office one day, a little toddling

creature, chubby, and, I am told, beautiful, in my little uniform of

the Old Guard, a mother's fond fancy, Monsieur; the mothers of France

love to make gracious pictures of their children. The Duke laid his

hand upon my golden curls. 'What a lovely boy!' he exclaimed, deeply

moved by my infantine beauty; 'I prophesy a brilliant future for him.

This child will go far.' I hope, Monsieur, that my after-life has not

belied the great man's prophecy."

"Mr. Distin assures me that you have won distinction in your calling,"

replied Heathcote, wondering how long the old gentleman's recollections

of childhood were going to last. "Your narrative takes me back to a

period that is classical. It assures me also that you who so vividly

remember the events of sixty years ago--"

"More than sixty, Monsieur. I am past seventy years of age, I who speak

to you."

Mr. Heathcote put on an appropriate expression of wonder.

"With such a memory for the remote past, it will hardly trouble you

to recall the events of ten years ago," he continued, very eager to

come to the point. "Now, exactly ten years ago, in this very month of

September, there was a brutal murder, or attempted murder, of a woman,

in a wood near Paris--"

"Do you mean the murder of Marie Prévol the actress, in the forest of

Saint-Germain?" inquired the police-officer. "I was engaged in that

case. A very strange story."

"And the woman was really murdered?" asked Heathcote, pale with

agitation.

He was confounded by the ease with which the man fixed upon a notorious

crime, upon a given date. It would have surprised him less to find that

the child's vision of murder was a mere fever-dream--the repetition of

some morbid hallucination--than to hear of the reality off-hand, in the

broad light of day.

"Really murdered! yes, and her lover too, as dead as the Pharaohs.

There never was a more genuine crime, a more determined murder. The

actress and her lover had gone to Saint-Germain for a holiday jaunt.

They went by rail, dined at the Henri Quatre, hired a carriage in the

cool of the evening, drove on the terrace, and then into the forest.

They left the carriage at a point where there were cross-roads, and

pursued their ramble on foot."

"There was a child with them?" interrogated Heathcote breathlessly.

"Yes, a little girl, the actress's niece. She was the only witness of

the crime. It was from her lips that the _Juge d'Instruction_ took

down the history of the scene. They were walking quietly in the

twilight, it was nearly dark, the child said, and she was beginning to

feel frightened. The lovers were walking arm in arm, the child by her

aunt's side. Suddenly a man sprang out upon them from the darkness of

the wood, and confronted them with a pistol in his hand. He wore no

hat, and he looked wild and furious. He aimed first at the man, who

fell without a groan. The girl had just time to call out to him not to

shoot her aunt, when he fired a second time, and then a third and a

fourth, and again, quicker than the child could count. It was evidently

a six-chambered revolver. Marie Prévol was found with her breast

riddled with bullets. The driver heard the shots from his post at the

cross-roads."

"And was the murderer never found?"

"Never. In spite of his wild appearance and his bare head, he got clean

off, and all the police of Paris failed in tracing him."

"But was there no one suspected of the crime?"

"Yes. There was a former lover of Marie's, her first lover; and, as it

was said, the only man she had ever really cared for. They had been

a devoted couple--were supposed by some to be married--and until a

short time before the murder Marie's character had been considered

almost stainless. Then a younger admirer appeared on the scene. There

were violent quarrels. The actress seemed to have lost her head, to

be infatuated by this aristocratic lover, one of the handsomest men

in Paris. She had known him only a few months when they went for this

jaunt to Saint-Germain--a stolen adventure. They were supposed to have

been followed by the other man, and that the murder was an act of

jealous madness."

"And the crime was never brought home to him?"

"Never. Beyond the fact of his relations with Mademoiselle Prévol, and

of his disappearance immediately after the murder, there was nothing to

connect him with the crime."

"I thought it was difficult, indeed almost impossible, for any man to

leave France without the knowledge of the police."

"It is difficult; and at that time it was particularly difficult, as

the crimes of the Commune were still of recent date, and the police

were more than usually alert. But this man did it. All the great

railway-stations and sea-ports were closely watched for the appearance

of such a man among the departures; but he was never identified."

"And you have no doubt in your own mind that this man was the murderer?"

"Not the shadow of doubt. There was no one else who had any motive for

assailing Marie and her admirer. Except in her relations with these

two she had been propriety itself. Unless you can imagine a motiveless

maniac dashing through a wood and shooting the first comer, you can

hardly conceive any other cause than jealousy for such a crime as this."

"Do you remember the name of the man who was suspected?"

"Not at this moment; but I have the whole history of the case in my

workshop below, and if you would like to read it, there are details

that might interest you."

"I should like much to read it."

CHAPTER X.

"TOUCH LIPS AND PART WITH TEARS."

While Edward Heathcote was on the other side of the Channel trying

to find a solution for the problem of Léonie Lemarque's death, which

should also be a complete acquittal of Hilda's suitor, Bothwell himself

was bent upon solving his own particular problem, that great perplexity

of his social life, which had weighed upon him more or less heavily for

the last three years. He had been to Plymouth twice since his decisive

interview with Hilda; but on each occasion it had been impossible for

him to obtain so much as five minutes' _tête-à-tête_ with the lady he

went to see; and that which he had to say to her could not be said

in five minutes, or in five times five minutes. And now, while his

champion was faithfully toiling in his interest, and while Hilda was

giving him all her thoughts, and most of her prayers, Bothwell set

out on his familiar Plymouth journey for the third time within ten

days, and with a letter in his pocket which held out the hope of an

opportunity for confidential talk.

"You looked miserable the last time you were here," wrote the lady,

"and you looked as if you had something very serious to say to me. I am

bored to death by the General's hangers-on--he is much too kind to the

nobodies who besiege us here--and I hardly ever know what it is to be

alone. But if you will come to-morrow, I will take care to keep other

people out. I shall pretend a headache, and deny myself to everybody.

You must walk boldly in by the garden, contrive not to meet any of

the servants, and you will find me sitting in the colonnade. It will

all seem accidental. When the General comes to his afternoon tea, he

will find you there, and we shall tell him how you wandered in, and

forced the _consigne_. You are such a favourite that he will smile at a

liberty from you which he would be the first to resent in any one else."

Bothwell sat in his corner of the railway-carriage, meditating upon

this letter in his breast-pocket. How hard and cruel and false and

mean the whole tone of the lady's correspondence seemed to him, now

that the glamour of a fatal infatuation had passed from his brain and

his senses; now that he was able to estimate the enchantress at her

real value; now that his newly-awakened conscience had shown him the

true colour of his own conduct during the last three years!

Three years ago and a stroke of good fortune had happened to Bothwell

Grahame one day in the hill-country, when he and his brother-officers

had gone out after big game. It had been his chance to save the life of

one of the most distinguished men in the service, General Harborough,

a man who at that time occupied an important official position in the

Bengal Presidency. Bothwell's presence of mind, courage, and rapid use

of a revolver had saved the General from the jaws of a leopard, which

had crept upon the party while they were resting at luncheon, after a

long morning's bear-shooting. General Harborough was the last man to

forget such a service. He took Bothwell Grahame under his protection

from that hour, introduced him to his wife, Lord Carlavarock's

daughter, and one of the most elegant women in the Presidency.

Favoured by such friends, Bothwell Grahame's life in India became a

kind of triumph. He was good-looking, well-mannered, a first-rate

shot, and an exceptional horseman. He could sing a part in a glee or

duet, and he waltzed to perfection. He was supposed to have a genius

for waltzing, and to become master of every new step as if by a kind

of inspiration. "What is the last fashionable waltz in London?" people

asked him; and he showed them the very latest glide, or swoop, or

twist, as the case might be. His friends told him all about it in their

letters, he said. He always knew what was going on in the dancing world.

Such a man, not too young nor yet too old--neither a stripling nor a

fogey--chivalrous, amiable, full of verve and enjoyment of life, was

eminently adapted to the holiday existence at Simla; and it was at

Simla that Bothwell Grahame became in a manner the fashion, looked up

to by all the young men of his acquaintance, petted by all the women.

Nor did it appear strange in the eyes of society that Lady Valeria

Harborough should be particularly kind to him, and should have him

very often at her bungalow, which was the centre of all that was gay,

and elegant, and _spirituel_ in the district. All the Simla jokes

originated at the Harborough bungalow. All the latest English fashions,

the newest refinements in the service of a dinner-table or the

arrangement of afternoon tea, came from the same source. Lady Valeria

led the fashion, gave the note of taste throughout that particular

section of Indian society.

No, there was nothing exceptional in her kindness to Captain Grahame.

In the first place, he had saved her husband from being clawed and

mangled to death by a wild beast, a service for which a good wife

would be naturally grateful; and in the second place, Bothwell was

only one of a court of young men who surrounded Lady Valeria wherever

she happened to be living--but most of all up at the hills. She always

spoke of them as "boys," and frankly admitted that she liked their

admiration on account of its _naïveté_.

For some time she talked of Bothwell Grahame as a "nice boy," in

spite of his six-and-twenty years. She herself owned pensively to

seven-and-twenty. Tergiversation would have been vain, since the

_Peerage_ was open to all her friends, with its dryasdust record,

"Valeria Hermione, born 1854."

She was twenty-seven years of age, strikingly elegant and interesting,

if not actually handsome, and she had been two years married to a man

who had lately celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday. She had accepted

the General, and his splendid settlements, meekly enough. There had

been no undue persuasion, no domestic tyranny. Her suitor was a

thorough gentleman, wealthy, distinguished, and she was told that he

could give her all good things which a woman need care to possess.

She would spend two or three years with him in India, where he had an

important official appointment; and then she would return to England,

where he had two country seats--one a villa near Plymouth, the other

a castle in Scotland--and a house in Grosvenor Square. As one of four

sisters, it became her to accept the fortune that had fallen into her

lap. She was, or she seemed to be, of a temperament that could be

happy in an union with a man old enough to be her grandfather. She

seemed one of those women born to shine and to rule rather than to

love. No one who knew her intimately feared any evil consequences from

her marriage with the elderly soldier.

"Valeria will make General Harborough an admirable wife," said the

matrons and ancient maidens of the house of Carlavarock, "and she will

be a splendid mistress for that fine old place in Perthshire."

Valeria had never known what passionate feeling meant till she gave

her friendship to Bothwell Grahame. She had never thrilled at a man's

voice, or listened for a man's footstep, till she began to start at

_his_ voice and listen for _his_ tread. The fatal love came upon her

like a fever, struck her down in the strength of her proud womanhood,

made her oblivious of duty, blind to honour, mastered her like a

demoniac possession, and from a spotless wife she became all at once a

hypocrite and an intriguer.

O, those fatal days at Simla, the long idle afternoons! The music and

singing--the dances late in the night when cool winds were blowing over

the hills--the garden lit with lamps like glowworms--the billiards and

laughter, the light jests, the heavy sighs. There came a time when

Bothwell Grahame found himself bound by an iniquitous tie to the wife

of his most generous friend.

Their love was to be guiltless always--that is to say, not the kind of

love which would bring Lady Valeria Harborough within the jurisdiction

of the Divorce Court: not the kind of love which would make her name

a scandal and a hissing in the ears of all her English friends, a

theme for scorn and scoffing throughout the length and breadth of

Bengal. But, short of such guilt as this--short of stolen meetings

and base allies, the connivance of servants, the venal blindness of

hotel-keepers--short of actual dishonour--they were to be lovers. He

was to be at her beck and call--to devote all the leisure of his days

to her society--to give not one thought to any other woman--to wait

patiently, were it ten or twenty years, for the good old man's death:

and then, after her ceremonial year of widowhood, all deference to the

world's opinion having been paid, he was to claim Lady Valeria for his

wife. This was the scheme of existence to which Bothwell Grahame had

pledged himself. For all the best years of his manhood he was to be

a hypocrite and an ingrate--the slave of a woman whose ascendency he

dared not acknowledge, waiting for a good man's death. That was the

worst degradation of all to a man of warm heart and generous feeling.

All that was best and noblest in Bothwell Grahame's nature revolted

against the baseness of his position. To grasp General Harborough's

hand, and to remember how deliberately he and Valeria had calculated

the years which the good old man had yet to live, had speculated

upon the end drawing near, coming suddenly perhaps; to know that all

their hopes of happiness were based upon the husband's speedy death.

There were times, even in the first red dawn of passion, while he

was proudest of this woman's love, when he almost hated her for her

disloyalty as a wife. Could there be happiness or peace in a bond

so made? And then the woman's fascination, the absolute power of a

passionate, resolute character over a weak and yielding one, vanquished

all his scruples, stifled the voice of conscience and honour. Not

Samson at the feet of Delilah was a more abject slave than Bothwell

in that luxurious idleness of the Indian hills, when the only purpose

life held seemed to be the desire to get the maximum of frivolous

amusement out of every day. There was no pastime too childish for Lady

Valeria and her admirers, no sport too inane. Yet the lady contrived to

maintain her womanly dignity even in the most infantine amusements, and

was honoured as a queen by all her little court of worshippers, from

the bearded major, or the portly lawyer, to the callow subaltern.

Bothwell's conduct towards her, and the lady's manner to him, were

irreproachable. If there were any difference, she was a shade colder

and more reserved in her treatment of him than of her other slaves: but

there were moments, briefest opportunities--a _tête-à-tête_ of five

minutes in a moonlit verandah, a little walk down to the fountain, a

ride in which they two were ahead of the rest just for a few yards;

moments when Valeria's impassioned soul poured forth its treasures

of love at this man's feet, with the reckless unreserve of a woman

who risks all upon one cast of the die. She, who had been deemed the

coldest and proudest of women--Diana not more chaste, an iceberg not

more cold--she, Valeria Harborough, had chosen to fall madly in love

with a man who was her social inferior, and who had tried his uttermost

to escape from the net she had spread for him. Weak as he was, he had

not yielded willingly. He had fought the good fight, had tried his

hardest to be loyal and true. And then, in one moment, the spell had

been too strong for his manhood. One never-to-be-forgotten night, they

two standing beside the fountain, steeped in the golden light of the

southern stars, he had yielded himself up to the enchantment of the

hour, to the witchery of luminous violet eyes, brighter for a veil of

tears. He had drawn her suddenly to his heart, asked her passionately

why she had made him adore her, in spite of himself, against reason

and honour; and she, with tearful eyes looking up at him, had answered

softly, "Because it was my fate to love you;" and then she told him,

in short, disjointed sentences, broken by sobs, that she was not a

wicked woman, that he must not scorn or loathe her, even if he could

not give her love for love. Never, till she knew him, had she swerved

by one hair's breadth from the line of strictest duty; never had she

known a thought which she need wish to hide from her husband. And

then, in an evil hour, he had become almost domesticated in her house,

and his influence had gradually enfolded her, like a cloud spread by

a magician, and she had awakened to a new life. She had learnt the

meaning of that mystic word love.

From that night Bothwell was her slave. Touched, flattered, possessed

by this fatal love--too glad weakly to echo the woman's favourite

excuse, Fatality--he struggled no longer against this mutual madness,

which was half bliss and half pain. He belonged henceforth to Lady

Valeria--more completely enslaved than if she had been free to claim

him before the world as her affianced husband. Her lightest word, her

lightest look ruled him. He went where she told him, spent his days as

she ordered. He had been one of the hardest working officers in India

up to this time, and his branch of the service, the Engineers, was one

which offered splendid chances of promotion.

General Harborough had promised to do all that his very considerable

influence could do to push his young friend to the front; and it seemed

to the men who knew him best that Bothwell Grahame's fortune was made.

"There are men whose heads are turned by the first stroke of luck,

and who never do anything after," said a canny old Scotch major; "but

Grahame is thorough, and is not afraid of hard work. Take my word for

it, he'll get on just as young Robert Napier did forty years ago."

But, with the ball at his feet, Bothwell Grahame suddenly dropped out

of the game. He left off working altogether. He was the slave of a

woman who preferred her own pleasure in his society to his chances of

distinction: who said, "Why should you work? There will be enough for

both of us by and by."

By and by meant when the good old General should be lying in his

grave. He was an old man: it was not possible to ignore that fact,

though he was erect as a dart, active, full of dignity and intellect--a

man of men. He was nearing the scriptural limit of threescore and ten,

and the inevitable end that comes to us all must come to him before the

world was many years older.

Nothing was further from Bothwell's thoughts than the idea of being

maintained by a wife; but he let Lady Valeria tempt him away from his

books or his laboratory, and suffered himself to become indifferent to

his profession, to care for nothing but the life he led in her boudoir

or her drawing-room.

And then there came new difficulties. Lady Valeria was at heart a

gamester. The excitement of cards or betting had become a necessity to

her in her Indian life. Soon after her arrival at Calcutta she had won

a thousand pounds in the Umballa Sweep, and that one stroke of luck had

been her ruin. She became a professional gambler, played high whenever

there was a possibility of so doing, and had her book for every great

English race. She awaited the telegrams that brought her the tidings

of victory or defeat with feverish impatience. The natural result

followed: she was often in money difficulties. Generous as her husband

was, she feared to appeal to him on these occasions. She knew that, of

all types of womanhood, he most hated a gambling woman. She had her

pin-money, which was ample for all the ordinary requirements and even

extravagances of a woman of fashion. She dared not ask her husband for

more money. But she was not afraid to call upon her slave, Bothwell

Grahame; and Bothwell had to help her somehow, this wife of the future,

who, in the days to come, was to provide for him.

He helped her first by nominally lending--actually giving her--every

sixpence of his own patrimony, disposing, bit by bit, of that little

estate in Perthshire of which his ancestors had been so proud. When he

had beggared himself thus, he began to borrow of the Jews--always for

Lady Valeria--and finally found himself in such a mess, financially,

that he had to leave the army.

General Harborough heard of his difficulties, and supposed they were

all self-induced, but made the kindest excuses for the sinner. He

offered to pay Bothwell's debts, and implored him not to throw up his

career, with all its brilliant chances. The General was wounded to the

quick when his offers were steadfastly refused.

"A gentleman knows how to accept a service as well as how to render

one," he said. "You saved my life, and I have never felt burdened by

the obligation."

Bothwell stood before him, grave, pale, silent, humiliated by his

kindness.

"Forgive me, sir," he faltered at last. "Believe me, I am not

ungrateful. There was a time when I would rather have accepted a favour

from you than from any other man living. But I am tired of the army. I

feel that I shall never get on. I have sent a statement of my affairs

to my cousin's husband, who has a genius for finance. He will settle

with my creditors, and I shall begin the world again, my own man."

Bothwell sighed involuntarily after those last words. What freedom, or

manhood, or independence could there ever be for him, bound as he was

bound?

He left India soon after this interview with the General, who was to

return to England in the following year. Lady Valeria deeply resented

her lover's conduct in leaving the East, while she was obliged to

remain there. It was desertion, infidelity. He ought to have remained

at any cost, at any loss of his own self-respect. She could never

be brought to consider things from his standpoint. If he had loved

her, she argued, he would have stayed. Love never counts the cost of

anything. They parted in anger, and Bothwell went home with a sore

heart, yet with a sense of relief in the idea of recovered freedom.

Then came a period of comparative liberty for Bothwell. He received an

occasional letter from Lady Valeria, full of upbraidings and regrets.

He answered as best he might--kindly, affectionately even; but he

flattered himself that the fatal tie, the dishonourable engagement,

was a folly of the past. He was all the more anxious to believe this,

during that peaceful winter at Penmorval, on account of his growing

esteem for another woman. O, what a different feeling it was, that

winter love of his! Those happy half-hours amidst the rimy hedgerows,

with the shrill north-easter swirling across the dark brown of the

ploughed fields, the yellow light of a setting sun shining beneath a

leaden sky. How curiously different was the girl's light happy talk

in the English lane--talk which all the world might have heard--from

those impassioned whispers beside the fountain, under the stars of

Orient! At first it seemed to him that he was only soothed and cheered

by his acquaintance with Hilda Heathcote. He affected to consider her

a mere girl, hardly emerged from the nursery. He was surprised to find

how rightly she thought upon the gravest subjects. Then all at once he

awoke to the knowledge that he loved her: and while he was hesitating,

doubting whether he were free to indulge this new and purer, sweeter,

happier love, hardly daring to ask himself whether that old tie was or

was not cancelled, he received a letter from Valeria, with the Paris

postmark.

"We have just arrived here from Brindisi," she wrote. "We shall stay

here for a few days while I order some gowns, and we shall be in

London for a few weeks. After that we go to the General's place near

Plymouth, where you must come and see me every day, just as you used at

Simla. O Bothwell, I can hardly trust myself to write. I dare not tell

you half the joy I feel in the idea of our meeting. If you cared for me

you would come to London. It would be so easy to pretend business, and

you would be warmly welcomed in Grosvenor Square. You might bring your

portmanteau and stop with us. There is a barrack of empty rooms on the

third floor. Ours is one of those huge corner houses, and the piggeries

for the servants are over the offices at the back. I hope you will

contrive to come. Your last letter seemed to me so cold and distant--as

if you were beginning to forget, or as if you had not forgiven my

anger at your desertion. Ah, Bothwell, you should have pitied me and

sympathised with me in that cruel parting. You ought to have known that

my anger was despair. But you thought only of your own dignity, your

own self-respect--not of my sorrow. Men are so selfish."

Bothwell did not go to London. He excused himself upon various grounds,

and remained quietly at Penmorval. But from that hour his manner

to Hilda changed altogether. From an unavowed lover he became an

indifferent acquaintance. He set a watch upon his tongue that it should

say no words of pleasantness. He vowed that he would not again suffer

himself to be enmeshed in Lady Valeria's net: but until he had calmly

and deliberately broken with her he could not be the lover of any other

woman. He made up his mind that so soon as the General and his wife

were settled at Fox Hill there should be a rupture--temperate, gentle,

firm, and irrevocable.

Lady Valeria came to Fox Hill, and summoned her slave. He went, and

there was no rupture--only a renewal of the old bonds. The bird was in

the fowler's net again. Bothwell was often at Fox Hill. He spent long

afternoons there _tête-à-tête_ with Lady Valeria. She was less careful

than she had been in India.

"We are not surrounded with busybodies here," she said. "I feel that I

can do as I like in my own house."

He went to London to borrow money for her when she was in difficulties

about that horrible book of hers: and Lady Valeria's normal state now

was financial difficulty. Almost everybody knew that she was a gambler,

except her husband. He was so thoroughly respected and beloved that no

one had the heart to make him unhappy by breathing a word to his wife's

discredit. He thought her faultless.

She had hardened in that false wicked life of hers: but she was more

fascinating than ever, Bothwell thought, albeit he was far less

under her spell than he had been in the old days at Simla. The very

fever of her mind intensified her charm. She seemed such an ethereal

creature--all life, and light, and sparkle. She was, to other women, as

the electric light is to gas.

And now, half buried in his corner of the railway-carriage, Bothwell

smoked the pipe of meditation. He looked back upon that fatal past, and

cursed himself for the weak folly that had put such a chain round his

neck. He looked back, and recalled the old scenes, the old feelings,

and he almost wondered if he could be the same man who had so felt and

so acted.

He drove to Fox Hill as fast as a cab-horse would take him, alighted a

little way from the chief gates, and dismissed his conveyance, meaning

to walk back to Plymouth after his interview. Fox Hill was four miles

from the station, but Bothwell could walk four miles in an hour with

that free swinging stride of his. A four-mile walk and a pipe might

just serve to quiet his nerves after the ordeal he had to undergo.

The General's Devonshire home was an Italian villa, built on the

southern slope of an amphitheatre of hills, and commanding the town,

the dockyards, the Hamoaze, and the Hoe in all their extent. Distance

lent enchantment to the view. Plymouth, seen from this sunny hillside,

looked as picturesque as Naples.

The villa had been planned by an architect of taste and culture, and

built regardless of expense. The house was not large when measured by

the number of its rooms; but all the rooms were spacious, lightsome,

and lofty. The decorations were of the simplest. The glory of the

place was its conservatories, which were so arranged as to introduce

flowers and tropical foliage into every part of the dwelling. A long

marble colonnade, enclosed by plate-glass shutters in winter or bad

weather, surrounded the house, and here bloomed and flourished all that

is rarest and loveliest in modern horticulture. The central hall had

a glass roof, and was more a conservatory than a hall. The corridors

between drawing-room and dining-room, between boudoir and study, were

indoor gardens. Flowers pervaded the house, and harmonised admirably

with the elegant simplicity of the furniture, the draperies of delicate

chintz and soft India muslin.

The villa had been built sixty years ago, in the days of the Georges,

a period when Italian colonnades, Corinthian porticoes, and Pompeian

conservatories were the rage; but the house suited Lady Valeria just as

a well-chosen frame suits a picture.

On this summery September morning Lady Valeria was seated in the

colonnade, half reclining in one of those very low chairs which she

always affected, being one of the few women who can rise gracefully

from a seat about a foot from the ground. She was half hidden by

the foliage of oleanders and magnolia, and it was only by a glimmer

of white amongst the glossy green that Bothwell descried her in the

distance as he crossed the lawn. There was a fountain on the lawn here,

just as at Simla; but the fountain was a late improvement, insisted

upon by Lady Valeria.

"It will recall Simla, where we were so happy," she told her husband.

"And yet you were so impatient to leave India, towards the last," he

said, almost reproachfully.

"Yes, I was very tired of India at the last. There is an end of all

things."

Bothwell had obeyed Lady Valeria's instructions to the letter. He had

entered the grounds by a side gate, so as to escape challenge at the

lodge: and now he made his way boldly to the colonnade in front of her

boudoir. The boudoir was not a particularly sacred apartment, as it

formed one in the suite of rooms and conservatories which communicated

along the whole length of the house. Italian villas of the Georgian era

were not planned for seclusion.

Lady Valeria was sitting in her low chair, with a low table at her

side, scattered with books and newspapers. The books were mostly new

memoirs and French novels of the most advanced school. The papers were

chiefly sporting. She looked up languidly as Bothwell approached, and

gave him her hand, like an empress, without stirring from her graceful

repose amidst embroidered silken cushions. She was not beautiful. Her

charm lay in an extreme refinement of feature and figure, a delicacy of

tint which verged upon sickliness. It was the refinement of a vanishing

race, and recalled the delicacy of an over-trained racehorse.

Her complexion was almost colourless in repose, but the lips were of

the tint of pale-pink rose petals, and every emotion flushed the waxen

cheek with loveliest bloom. Her nose was long and thin, too long for

perfect beauty. Her chin was a thought too sharp, her brow too narrow.

But her eyes were exquisite. Herein lay her one grand charm, and Lady

Valeria well knew the power of those large violet eyes, fringed with

darkest lashes, accentuated by pencilled brows--eyes which seemed to

fill with tears at will--eyes which could plead more eloquently than

lips ever spoke since the days of Eve, first tempted and then tempter.

"I hope you are not really ill," said Bothwell, seating himself in the

chair opposite Lady Valeria.

"Only worried to death," she answered, with an irritated air. "I have

troubles enough to send me into an early grave."

"Money troubles?"

"Money troubles. Yes. I have other troubles, too, but the money

troubles are the most urgent. They gnaw the sharpest."

"You have been losing again?"

"Yes. I was so lucky with my Goodwood book that I grew bold--determined

upon a great _coup_ at York, put every farthing I could scrape together

upon Crofter, the second favourite for the Great Ebor. I had been

assured that it was the safest thing in the world. I might back him

with my wedding-ring, Sir George Varney said. And York has generally

been lucky to me, you know. It is my own county, and I love every inch

of it. The Knavesmire was the first racecourse I ever saw, the place

where I first learned to love horses, and to understand them. My

father used to tell me everything about the races. I was the only one

of us who was really interested in his talk."

"I thought the money from Davis, and the money you won at Goodwood,

cleared all your difficulties."

"Yes, for the moment. But this York business has made things worse than

they were before. However, you need not disturb yourself about it.

Varney has offered to lend me the money."

She said this slowly, with drooping eyelids, and a thoughtful air; but

she stole a little look at Bothwell from beneath the long dark lashes,

to see how he took her speech.

"You must not take a sixpence of his money--not a sixpence," said

Bothwell sternly.

"No? That is exactly my idea. It would be very bad form for a woman in

my position to borrow from Varney--who is--well, a man of the world.

But I must have the money somehow. The bookmakers won't wait. They only

give credit in my case because they know I dare not cheat them."

"Surely the bookmen do not know that you are their creditor?"

"They are not supposed to know. The bets are made in my brother's

name--Otho's--who has been in Australia for the last two years. But I

don't believe these men would trust Otho, even if he were in London."

"It is dreadful!" exclaimed Bothwell, deeply distressed. "You ought

not to have entangled yourself again. What makes you do this thing,

Valeria? It is worse than chloral, or any other form of feminine

madness."

"Yes, it is a kind of madness, I suppose. I should not do it if I were

happy. I shall have no need to do it when I am happy--by and by."

Again she stole a look at him, a tender pathetic look, which would have

melted him a year ago. But it left him unmoved now. He felt only anger

at her folly, her obstinate persistence in wrong-doing.

"You must not take Varney's money," he repeated, "not for worlds. To

think that you should have secret dealings with such a man--a hardened

scamp and _roué!_"

"I am not going to accept Sir George's offer--which was at least

good-natured, so you need not be uncivil about him," replied Valeria

coolly; "but I must get the money somehow. I don't want Otho's name to

be posted at Tattersall's. There are too many people who would guess

that Otho stands for Valeria in this case."

"It would be disgraceful, horrible."

"But it will happen, I'm afraid, unless I can get the money."

"I can find no more, Valeria. That last loan from Davis was most

difficult to manage. I had positively no security to offer. The money

was advanced on the strength of Wyllard's position, on the speculation

that he would not see me broke."

"I am not asking you to pay my debts," she replied with her grand air:

the air of a woman accustomed to be admired for every attribute of her

character, good or bad, and to do wrong with impunity. "But the money

must be found somehow, and perhaps you can tell me where I am to get

it."

"From your husband," he answered impetuously. "Yes, Valeria, from your

one true and loyal friend. The one man you can ask in all honour to

pay for your follies."

"You advise me to go to him!" exclaimed Valeria, livid with anger.

"You!"

"Yes, I--I, who have wronged him deeply by a most fatal engagement

which I have regretted ever since it was made. Not because you are

not lovely, fascinating, all that is fairest and most desirable in

womankind: but because I am hateful to myself on account of that

treachery. What! to be the affianced lover of a woman whose husband's

hand I grasped in seeming friendship: to smile in his face, to accept

his kindness, his friendship, his confidence, while all my life was one

long waiting for his death, while you and I were saying to each other

every day, by and by we will do this, by and by we will go here and

there, sail our yacht in the Mediterranean, build our cottage on the

Scotch moor, by and by, when that good man who trusted us both is in

his grave! O, it has been a hateful position, Valeria, base, miserable,

guilty, accursed, for both of us: and, by the God who made us, it must

come to an end."

There had been tears in his voice almost from the beginning of his

speech, and at the end he broke down altogether and sobbed aloud.

Valeria rose out of her low chair, and stood before him straight as

a dart. The movement was so quick, so instinct with an unholy grace,

that it recalled the image of a cobra he had once seen rise up straight

before him in the midst of his path through the jungle.

"You are in love with another woman!" she hissed, like the serpent.

"_That_ is the meaning of this sudden outbreak of virtue!"

He could not deny it.

"You want to break with me, in order that you may marry some one else,"

she said, whiter than death, her eyes dilating, her lips quivering.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "I could form a happier tie if you set me

free. But there is not one word which I said just now about the feeling

of my own baseness which was not just as true two years ago as it is

to-day. Such a bond as ours never could bring happiness, Valeria, to

man or to woman."

"It gave us hope," she said; "a fair dream of the future. Well, it is

all over. Whatever it is worth it is gone--like a tuft of thistledown

blown into the air. Go, Bothwell Grahame, you are your own man again;

go and marry your new love."

"It will not be a marriage of to-day or to-morrow," answered Bothwell

gravely. "My new love and I will have to wait for better times. First,

I am a pauper; and, secondly, there is a taint upon my name, inasmuch

as the good people of Bodmin and the neighbourhood have taken it into

their wise heads that I am a murderer, because I refused to answer some

very impertinent questions at the inquest. Valeria, will you forgive

me--will you believe----"

"That you were heartily tired of me ages ago, before you left India,"

she said, interrupting him with a feverish rapidity. She had sunk into

her low chair again, and was seated with her hands clasped upon the

basket-work, bedizened with trappings of Oriental embroidery, like an

Arab's horse--her eyes gazing over the wide panorama of land and sea,

the dockyards, the river, the lighthouse yonder, and the long line of

surf dashing against the breakwater.

"Yes, I know that you were weary of me long before that bitter

good-bye," she went on, breathless with passion, her sentences broken

into short gasps. "I think I knew even then that you were false, though

I pretended to myself that you were true. I don't believe you ever

loved me. You just let me love you, that was all. If you had really

cared for me--as other men have cared for other women--you would not

have been so obedient. You would have flung prudence to the winds--you

would have made scenes--you would have wanted to run away with me. No,

you never loved me."

It would have been vain now for Bothwell to protest the reality of

the old worn-out passion. It had never been of the strongest stuff

that love is made of, and it had long been growing threadbare. He had

received his release, and that was the boon he had come here to ask.

But he could not leave the woman he had once loved without one word of

peace.

"Valeria," he said gently, tenderly even, "I shall stay here till you

forgive me."

"Would you stay until you have forced me to tell a lie? There can be no

blacker lie than any word of mine that offered forgiveness to you. You

have deceived me cruelly. You were my strong rock, and I leant upon you

for comfort. O Bothwell, what is she like, this other woman for whom

you forsake me? Is she so much more beautiful--so much younger--fresher

than I?"

"She is good, and pure, and true, and has been brave and loyal when the

world spoke evil of me! That is all I can tell you about her."

"But she is handsome, I suppose? You are not going to marry a plain

woman, out of gratitude!"

"She is lovely in my eyes; and I believe she is generally considered a

pretty girl."

"Who is she?"

"A lady. I can tell you no more yet awhile. Hark! there is the

General's voice. I had better go. Stay, there is something you once

gave me. You told me to wear it till----"

"Till you were tired of me. Yes, I remember," she said impatiently.

"Till the tie was broken between us, in somewise," he answered, taking

out his watch.

There was about three inches of slender Trichinopoly chain on the

swivel of the watch, and on the chain hung an old-fashioned hoop-ring

of old Brazilian diamonds. The ring had belonged to Lord Carlavarock's

grandmother, and had been Valeria's favourite jewel.

She snatched it from Bothwell's hand the moment he had taken it off

the chain, and flung it with all her force into the nearest thicket of

shrubs.

"So much for the token of worn-out love!" she said. "If one of the

gardeners finds it, he will pawn it at Devonport, and spend the money

in drink. A worthy end for such a souvenir. Good-bye, Mr. Grahame."

Bothwell bowed and left her; left her to crawl up to her bedroom like

a wounded hind creeping to covert, and to fling herself face downwards

on the floor, and lie there tearless, despairing, ready to invoke hell

itself to help her in some kind of revenge, had she but believed in the

devil. But Lady Valeria was an agnostic. She had not even Satan as a

friend in the hour of trouble.

CHAPTER XI.

A FATAL LOVE.

Monsieur Drubarde and his visitor descended the ladder, and entered the

police-officer's apartment, which consisted of two small rooms, the

outer an office and _salon_ combined, the inner a bedchamber, which Mr.

Heathcote saw through the open door: a neat little bachelor's nest,

with a velvet-curtained bedstead, and walls lined with portraits of

every kind--engravings, lithographs, photographs.

The _salon_ was decorated with the same style of art, diversified by

engravings from newspapers, all representing notorious crimes. "The

Murder in the Rue de la Paix," "Germinie Latouche stabbed in the

kitchen of the Red Cross Restaurant by her lover, Gilles Perdie;"

"The Arrest of Victor Larennes for the great forgeries on the Bank

of France;" "The Escape of Jean Bizat, the parricide." Art had

represented all these scenes with due dramatic fervour. They were

hardly pleasing subjects in the abstract; but to Félix Drubarde they

were all delightful; for they recalled some of the most interesting and

most profitable hours of his life. He was gratified to see his guest

looking at those stories of crime, in artistic shorthand.

"Gilles Perdie would have got off, if it had not been for me," he

said, with excusable pride. "The police had been hunting for him ten

long days, when I put them on the right scent. We knew that he had not

gone far from the scene of the crime--for there had been no time for

escape, you see. The murder was found out an hour after the woman's

death. He was hunted for in every hole and corner within a radius of a

mile. No one had seen him leave the premises. No one had set eyes on

him since the murder, which occurred in the early morning in October,

when it is not light before six. 'How do you know that he ever did

leave that house?' I asked one day, meaning the Red Cross, a workman's

eating-house in the Rue Galande. He was cellarman there, cellarman

and _terreur_ combined. My comrades laughed at me. They had searched

the Red Cross from cellar to garret, they had not left an inch of the

building unexplored. 'Have you looked in the empty casks?' I asked.

Yes, they had looked in the empty casks. The cellar was very neatly

arranged, the empty casks in a row on one side, the full ones on the

other. My friends protested that they were not such fools as to have

overlooked an empty cask. 'Who knows?' I said; 'we will go there this

afternoon and overhaul those barrels.' Need I tell you the result? It

is history. There was one empty hogshead, artfully pushed in a corner,

last in the rank of unbroached hogsheads. The open end had been turned

towards the wall, and in that empty hogshead, in that rat-haunted

cellar, Gilles Perdie had contrived to exist for ten days, by the aid

of his victim's daughter, a child of seven years old, who lived in the

house, and whom he threatened to kill as he had killed her mother, if

she told any one about him, or failed to carry him food and drink twice

a day. There, amidst vermin and ordure, he had lived, coiled up in his

hogshead, and perhaps not much worse off than some among the poor of

Paris, whose only crime is poverty."

"You have a right to boast of your scent, Monsieur, after such a

triumph as that."

"A bagatelle, Monsieur, one of the feeblest of my cases: but it made

a great hit at the time. My portrait appeared in three different

newspapers, side by side with that of the murderer."

"A distinguished honour. And now, if you will be kind enough to give me

the further information which you promised as to names and details?"

"Monsieur Effcotte, you are Mr. Distin's friend, and for you I will do

what I would hardly do for my own brother. I will trust you with one of

my books."

"You are extremely obliging."

"I know, sir, that there are some people who think nothing of lending

a book; they can hand over a treasured volume to a friend--to an

indifferent acquaintance even--without a pang; they can see him turn

the leaves and violate the stiffness of the back. I, Monsieur, would

almost as soon lend my arm and hand as one of those books; but for you

I will make an exception. You shall have the volume which contains the

report of the Prévol case, to read and take notes from at your leisure."

"You are more than good."

Monsieur Drubarde's library consisted of four rows of handsomely bound

volumes, whose gilded backs shone behind a barricade of plate glass,

in a locked bookcase. They were books which he had collected at his

leisure, and which bore for the most part on his profession: the

memoirs of Vidocq, the memoirs of Canler, of Sanson the executioner,

and other biographies of equally thrilling interest. For literature of

so lofty a stamp, Félix Drubarde had deemed no binding too luxurious;

and he had clothed his favourites in all the pomp of purple, and green,

and crimson, and sumptuous gilding. He had caused them to be enriched

with the bookbinder's whole gamut of ornament--his _fleurs-de-lis_ and

roses, his foliage and acorns, and scrolls and emblems. Even the volume

of printed reports which Drubarde handed to Mr. Heathcote was gorgeous

in red morocco and gold.

"You will find the case fully reported in that volume," he said. "When

you have read it, and made your own conclusions upon it, you can come

back to me, and we will talk the matter over together."

"I will call upon you again to-morrow at the same hour, if you will

allow me," replied Heathcote, laying a ten-pound note upon the table.

"But I must ask you in the mean time to accept this trifle as an

earnest of future remuneration. I do not on any account desire to

impose on your good-nature."

Monsieur Drubarde shrugged his shoulders, declared that as a matter

of feeling he would rather work gratuitously for any friend of Mr.

Distin's, but that from a business point of view his time was valuable.

He had a little place in the country, fifteen miles out of Paris; he

had nephews and nieces dependent upon him; in a word, he had to work

for others as well as for himself.

"Before you go, perhaps you will be so good as to tell me your motive

for hunting up the history of this old murder," he said, with a keen

look. He had been intending to ask this question from the beginning.

"I am searching out the details of an old murder in order to fathom the

mystery of a new murder, or of a strange death, which I take to be a

murder. Can you read English, Monsieur Drubarde?"

"I have a niece who can--a girl who was educated at a convent in

Jersey. I am going to my country home this afternoon, and my niece can

read anything you give me."

Mr. Heathcote took from his pocket-book the report of the inquest, cut

out of the local papers, and pasted on slips of foolscap.

"If your niece will translate that report for you, I think you will

understand the motive of my investigation," he said; and then bade

Monsieur Drubarde good-morning.

He went down-stairs with the volume of reports under his arm, hailed a

fly, and drove to the Hôtel de Bade, stopping on his way to engage a

stall for that evening at the Comédie Française, the only recreation

which he cared for in his present frame of mind. He had numerous

acquaintances in Paris, but he did not care about seeing one of them

just now, nor did he linger in the bright gay streets to mark the

changes which a year had made in the aspect of that ever-varying city,

as he would have done had his mind been free from care.

He had a sitting-room and bedroom on the second floor of the hotel, two

nice little rooms opening into each other, and both overlooking the

Boulevard; an outlook which on former occasions he had preferred to the

monastic quiet of the courtyard, where there were no sounds but the

splashing of the water with which the man-of-all-work sluiced the stone

pavement at intervals of an hour or two on sultry summer afternoons,

or the scream of a chambermaid arguing with a waiter, both talking as

loud as if they had been communicating from the gate of Saint-Martin

to the gate of Saint-Denis. To-day, with the report of the Prévol case

open before him, Edward Heathcote could have found it in his heart to

curse the Boulevard, with its roar and rattle, its incessant "ya-youp!"

of coachmen on the point of running over passengers, and everlasting

clamour of the lively Gaul. He would have preferred a hermit's cave,

with never a sound but the sighing of the wind on the mountain-side.

Yes, here was the interrogation of the waiter at the Pavilion Henri

Quatre.

"Do you remember a lady and gentleman who dined in a private room on

the 6th of September?"

The waiter remembered perfectly. The lady was very pretty, the

gentleman remarkably handsome, and with a distinguished air. They

had a little girl with them. The gentleman ordered a private room

and a little dinner, _bien soigné_. He was very particular about the

champagne, and about the dessert. The grapes and peaches were to be

of the choicest. The gentleman and lady dined early, between five and

six. The lady had a somewhat agitated air, seemed out of sorts, and ate

very little. The gentleman was very attentive to her, and petted the

little girl. At half-past six they went for a drive in the forest. The

carriage was ordered directly they sat down to dinner.

"Had you any reason to suppose that this lady and gentleman had been

followed or watched, by any one when they arrived at the Henri Quatre?"

"They arrived in a fly. No; I observed no one lurking about or watching

when they arrived. I went out to give an order to the coachman while

the carriage was standing before the door, waiting to take them for

their drive in the forest; and I observed a man on the other side of

the road. I should not have noticed him, perhaps, if the collar of

his overcoat had not been turned up in a curious manner. I thought it

strange that any one should wear an overcoat on such an evening."

"Did this man appear to be watching the hotel?"

"He was standing in front of the hotel-railings when I went out. I saw

him look across at the window in which the lady and gentleman were

dining. The window was at right angles with the road, opening into a

garden. It was open, and there were two candelabra upon the table. Any

one could see into the room from the road."

"There was no blind or curtain?"

"No. The evening was particularly mild. All the windows in the

sitting-rooms were open."

"What became of this man?"

"He walked rapidly along the road, and turned the corner on to the

terrace."

"Should you recognise him if you were to see him again?"

"Impossible. It was twilight when I saw him, and he was on the other

side of the road. His coat-collar was turned up, so as to hide the

lower half of his face."

"But you must at least have observed his general appearance. Was he

tall or short? Had he the air of a gentleman?"

"He was tall. Yes, I should say he was a gentleman."

"Young or old?"

"He walked like a young man. I thought he had an agitated air. He

walked very quickly, but stopped suddenly two or three times between

the hotel and the corner of the terrace, as if he were thinking

deeply--hesitating whether to go this way or that; and then he walked

on again, faster than before."

"You saw no more of him that evening?"

"No. At half-past eight o'clock I heard that there had been a double

murder in the forest, and that the bodies were lying at the Town Hall.

I went to see the bodies, and recognised the lady and gentleman who had

dined at our hotel. I also saw the little girl, who was in the charge

of the police. She was crying bitterly. The corpses were removed to

Paris on the following evening."

The examination of the driver came next. He had very little to tell. He

had been told to wait at the cross-roads until the lady and gentleman

returned from their stroll. It was a lovely night--a night which

might have tempted any one to alight and walk in the forest glade.

The moon was rising, but it was dark amid the old trees. The man

had been waiting about a quarter of an hour, when he heard a shot a

little way off--and then another, and another, and another, in rapid

succession--and then he heard a child screaming. He tied his horse to

a tree, and he ran into the glade, guided by the screams of the child.

He found the lady and gentleman lying on the ground, side by side,

the child kneeling by the lady; and screaming with grief and terror.

The gentleman groaned two or three times, and then expired. The lady

neither stirred nor moaned. Her light-coloured gown and mantle were

covered with blood.

The driver was questioned as to whether anybody had passed him while

he waited at the crossroads. No, he had not observed any one, except

an old woman and a boy who had been gathering sticks in the forest.

The place at which he was waiting was a well-known point. The glade in

which the murder occurred was considered one of the most picturesque

spots in the forest. He always drove there with people who wanted to

see the beauties of Saint-Germain. But at that late hour there were

very few people driving. He had met no carriage after leaving the

terrace.

Then followed the examination of the child, and of Marie Prévol's

mother. They were both lengthy, for the _Juge d'Instruction_ had

applied himself with peculiar earnestness to the task of unravelling

this mystery, and it was only in the details of the dead woman's

surroundings that the clue to the secret could be found.

The child had evidently answered the magisterial questions with

extreme intelligence. However she might have broken down afterwards,

she had been perfectly rational at the time of the interrogatory. It

seemed to Heathcote, influenced, perhaps, by his knowledge of after

events, that the child's replies indicated a hyper-sensitiveness, and

an intellect intensified by feverish excitement.

"You remember going to Saint-Germain with your aunt?"

"Yes."

"Tell me all you can recall about that day. Tell me exactly when and

how you started, and what happened to you on the way. I want to hear

everything."

"It was three o'clock when we left my aunt's house. Monsieur de

Maucroix came a little before that, and asked my aunt to go to dinner

with him somewhere in the country. The weather was too lovely for

Paris, he said. She did not want to go. She said Georges would be

angry."

"Who is Georges?"

"Some one I never saw."

"Was he a friend of your aunt's?"

"Yes, I think so. She often talked of him. Monsieur de Maucroix used to

talk of him, and to be angry about him."

"Why angry?"

"I don't know. He used to say Georges will not let you do this; Georges

will not let you do that. What right has Georges that he should order

you here or there? And then my aunt used to cry."

"Were you often at your aunt's apartment?"

"Very often."

"You lived there sometimes, did you not?"

"Yes, I used to stay there for a week sometimes. It was very nice to

be with my aunt, much nicer than being with grandmother. She used to

take me out in a carriage sometimes. Her rooms were prettier than

grandmother's rooms, for there were flowers all about, and pretty

things, and she was prettier, and wore prettier clothes."

"But if you were there for a week at a time, how was it that you never

saw this Monsieur Georges, who was such a close friend of your aunt's?"

"He never came till late at night. He used to come to supper often.

I heard the servant say so. She said he was a dissipated man, a bad

subject. Grandmother said so too. 'Has that night-bird been here

again?' she asked my aunt once; and my aunt was angry, and began to

cry; and then grandmother got angry too, and said, 'Who is he, and what

is he? I want to know that.' And then my aunt said, 'He is a gentleman;

that is enough for you to know;' and then she showed my grandmother a

pretty necklace that Georges had given her the night before--a necklace

of shining white beads, like the water-drops from the fountain at the

Tuileries."

"They were diamonds, I suppose?"

"Yes, that is what grandmother called them. She wetted them with her

tongue to find out if they were real diamonds, and then she and my aunt

kissed each other, and made friends."

"You are sure you never saw this Monsieur Georges?"

"Never. My aunt used to send me to bed very early, before she went to

the theatre."

"Did she not take you with her to the theatre sometimes?"

"Never. She said that theatres were not good for little girls."

"Now tell me about your journey to Saint-Germain. How did you go?"

"First in a carriage, and then in a train."

"Had you to wait at the station?"

"A long time. I was tired of waiting so long. I thought it would have

been nicer to be at home, where I had story-books to read."

"What did your aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix do while they were

waiting?"

"They sat in a corner of a big room, with great windows through which

we could see the trains. I watched the trains through the window."

"Were there many other people in the room?"

"Very few."

"Did you take notice of any one?"

"I noticed a little girl. She was bigger than I am, but not much. I

thought I should like to play with her. She had a blue balloon, and she

let it fly out of the window and broke it."

"Did you notice nobody else?"

"Only one other person--a gentleman who wore dark spectacles."

"What made you observe him in particular?"

"His spectacles were so curious, and he looked at my aunt."

"What do you mean when you say that he looked at your aunt? Did he look

as if he knew her?"

"I don't know. He stood just inside the doorway, as if he was hiding

behind the door, looking at my aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix."

"How long did he stand there?"

"I don't know."

"For five minutes, do you think? As long as you could count a hundred?"

"Longer than that."

"Was he young or old, tall or short?"

"He was tall. I think he must have been old, because he wore dark

spectacles."

"Did your aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix observe him?"

"No. I asked my aunt when we were in the train if she had seen the

gentleman with the funny spectacles, and she said no."

"Did you see him again after he left the waiting-room?"

"No."

"Now tell me all you can about your journey to Saint-Germain."

"We went in the train, in a beautiful carriage with soft cushions. I

looked out of the window all the time. My aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix

sat by the other window talking."

"Did you hear what they said?"

"Not much. I was not listening. It was so nice to see the country, and

the trees rushing by. I heard Monsieur de Maucroix ask my aunt to go

away with him--he begged her to go--to Italy, I think he said. Is there

a place called Italy?"

"Yes. And how did your aunt answer?"

"She said she could not go. She was bound to Georges. Georges would

kill her if she left him. Monsieur de Maucroix laughed, and said that

people do not do such things nowadays. He laughed--and soon afterwards

my aunt and he were both dead. I saw the blood--streams of blood."

At this point, said the report, the girl Lemarque became hysterical,

and the rest of her evidence had to be postponed for another day. In

the mean time the grandmother, and Barbe Girot, Marie Prévol's servant,

were interrogated.

Madame Lemarque stated that her daughter was an actress at the

Porte-Saint-Martin. She was very beautiful, and was more renowned for

her grace and beauty than for her acting. She danced and sang and acted

in fairy scenes. She was only three-and-twenty years of age at the time

of her death.

Upon being asked by the judge whether her daughter led a strictly moral

life, Madame Lemarque replied that her conduct was purity itself as

compared with that of many ladies who acted in fairy pieces.

"But there was some one, perhaps," insinuated the judge, "there is

always some one. So beautiful a woman must have had many admirers. I

have her photograph here. It is an exquisite face, a beauty quite out

of the common, refined, spiritual. Surely among her many admirers there

must have been one whom she favoured above all the rest?"

"Yes, there was one, and it was that one who murdered my daughter and

Monsieur de Maucroix. No one can doubt it."

"But you have no actual knowledge of the fact? You speak upon

conjecture?"

"Who else should murder her? Whom did she ever injure, poor child? She

was amiability itself--the kindest of comrades, charitable, good to

everybody."

"What do you know of this person whom you suspect?"

"Nothing except that which I heard from my daughter."

"Did you never see him?"

"Never. If he had been the Emperor he could not have been more

mysterious in his goings to and fro. I was never allowed to see him."

"Was he often at your daughter's apartment?"

"Very often. He used to go there after the theatre. He was devoted to

her. There were some who believed that he was her husband, that he

loved her too passionately to deny her anything she might ask. When she

was not acting he took her abroad, to Italy--to Spain. If it were only

for a holiday for a fortnight, he would carry her off to some remote

village in the Italian Alps or the Pyrenees. I used to tell her that

he was ashamed of his love for her, or he would not have hidden her in

those distant places. He would have taken her to Dieppe or Arcachon,

where she would have been seen and admired."

"Did you ever find out who this person is?"

"Never."

"But you must know something about him and his circumstances. Was he a

nobleman, or did he belong to the mercantile class?"

"I know nothing except that he was rich. He showered gifts upon my

daughter. He would have taken her off the stage if she would have

allowed him. He would have given her a house and gardens at Bougival

instead of her little apartment on a third floor in the Rue Lafitte;

but she loved the theatre, and she had a proud spirit, poor child--she

had not the temper of _la femme entretenue_."

"What was the name of this person?"

"Monsieur Georges. I never heard of him by any other name."

"Did your daughter reciprocate his passion?"

"For a long time she seemed to do so. They were like lovers in a

story. That lasted for years--from the time of her first appearance

at the Porte-Saint-Martin, which was four years before her death. And

then there came a change. Monsieur de Maucroix fell in love with her,

followed her about everywhere, worshipped her. And he was young and

handsome and fascinating, with the style, and manners of a prince. He

had spent all his life in palaces; had been attached to the Emperor's

household from his boyhood; had fought bravely through the war."

"Had you reason to know that Monsieur Georges was jealous of Monsieur

de Maucroix?"

"Yes, my daughter told me that there had been scenes."

"Had the two men met?"

"I think not."

"How long had Monsieur de Maucroix been an avowed admirer of your

daughter?"

"Only a few months--since Easter, I think. My granddaughter used to see

him when she was staying with her aunt."

"Could you reconcile it to your conscience to allow your grandchild

to live in the house of an aunt who was leading--well, we will say a

doubtful life?"

"There was no harm in my daughter's life that I knew of. Monsieur

Georges may have been my daughter's husband. There is no reason that he

should not have been. At her lodgings she was known as Madame Georges.

It was under that name she travelled when she went abroad."

"But you had never heard of any marriage--at the Mairie or elsewhere?

And, again, your daughter could not be married without your consent."

"I do not say that she had been married in France. She may have been

married abroad--in England, perhaps. He took her to England soon after

they became acquainted. It was the first time she left Paris with him;

and until then I know she had been as distant to him as if she had been

the Empress. In England there are no obstacles to marriage; there is no

one's consent to be asked."

"We will admit that a marriage in a foreign country would have been

possible. But this Maxime de Maucroix, this second admirer----"

"Was only an admirer. My daughter's life was not a disreputable life. I

have nothing to reproach myself with upon that score."

"Can you help us to find this man Georges, whom you suspect as the

murderer? Do you know where he is to be found?"

"If I did, the police would have known before now. I tell you I know

nothing about him--absolutely nothing. I have seen and heard nothing of

him since the murder. He has not been to my daughter's apartment since

her death--he was not at her funeral. He who pretended to adore her

did not follow her to her grave. All Paris was there; but he who was

supposed to be her husband was not there."

"How can you tell that he was not there, since you do not know his

appearance?"

"Barbe Girot knows him. It is on her authority that I say he was not

there."

"I will trouble you with no further questions to-day, madame. I will

take Barbe Girot's evidence next."

Barbe Girot's evidence was to the effect that for nearly four years

this Monsieur Georges had been a constant visitor at her mistress's

apartment. He had come there after the theatre, and it had been

Barbe's duty to leave the supper-table laid, and the candles ready on

the chimney-piece and table, before she went to bed. Madame Georges

let herself in with a latch-key, and Barbe rarely sat up for her.

Madame did not always return to the Rue Lafitte for supper. There

were occasions when she supped on the Boulevard, or in the Bois, and

returned to her apartment at a very late hour. Barbe saw Monsieur

Georges occasionally, but not frequently. He was a handsome man, but

not in his first youth. He might have been five or six and thirty. He

was generous, and appeared to be rich. Whatever his fortune may have

been, he would have given Madame the whole of it if she had asked him.

There was never a man more passionately in love with a woman. After the

Baron de Maucroix's appearance on the scene there were storms. Barbe

had seen Monsieur Georges cry like a child. She had also seen him give

way to violent passion. There had been one night when she thought that

he would kill Madame. He had his hands upon her throat; he seemed as

if he were going to strangle her. And then he fell on his knees, and

grovelled at her feet. He implored her to forgive him. It was dreadful.

Did Barbe Girot think that Monsieur Georges was Madame's husband?

She had never presumed to form an opinion upon that subject. Her

mistress wore a wedding-ring, and was always known as Madame Georges

in the house where she lived. Madame's conduct was altogether

irreproachable. Until the Baron de Maucroix began to visit her, no

other man than Monsieur Georges had crossed her threshold. And the

visits of Monsieur de Maucroix were such visits as any gentleman in

Paris might pay to any lady, were she the highest in the land.

"Did your mistress ever go out with Monsieur de Maucroix before that

fatal visit to Saint-Germain?"

"Never. And on that occasion Madame took the little girl with her. She

refused to go alone with the Baron."

"Is it your opinion that your mistress was inclined to favour Monsieur

de Maucroix' suit?"

"Alas, yes! He was so young, so fascinating, so handsome, and he

adored her. If she had not been in love with him she would hardly have

permitted his visits, for they were the cause of such agony of mind to

Monsieur Georges."

"It is your belief, then, that she had transferred her affection from

the older to the younger lover?"

"I fear so."

"You have not seen Monsieur Georges since the murder?"

"No."

"Are you sure that he was not at the funeral?"

"Quite sure."

"But there was a great crowd at the cemetery. How can you be sure that

he was not in the crowd?"

"I cannot be sure of that; but I am sure that he paid my mistress no

honour. He was not among those who stood around her grave, or who threw

flowers upon her coffin. I stayed by the grave after all was over and

the crowd had dispersed; but Monsieur Georges never came near to cast

a look upon the spot where my poor mistress was lying. He has not been

at her apartment since her death; he never came to look upon her corpse

when it was lying there."

"And he has not written--he has given no orders as to the disposal of

your mistress's property?"

"No. Madame Lemarque has taken possession of everything. She is living

in my mistress's apartment until the furniture can be sold."

"Do you know of any photograph or portrait of Monsieur Georges among

your late mistress's possessions?"

"I never saw any such portrait."

"You would know Monsieur Georges wherever you might happen to see him?"

"Yes. I do not think I could fail to recognise him."

"Even if he had disguised himself?"

"Even then. I think I should know his voice anywhere, even if I could

not see his face."

"Will you describe him?"

"He is a tall man, broad-shouldered, powerful-looking. He has fine

features, blue eyes, light-auburn hair, thick and flowing, and worn

much longer than most people wear their hair. He is not so handsome or

so elegant as Monsieur de Maucroix, but he has a more commanding look."

"That description would apply to hundreds of men. Can you mention any

peculiarity of feature, expression, gait, manner?"

"No, I can recall nothing peculiar."

"And in moments of confidence did your mistress never tell you anything

about this Monsieur Georges, his profession, his belongings, his place

of residence?"

"Nothing."

"He did not live at your mistress's apartments, I conclude?"

"No, he did not live there."

"Did you never hear how he was occupied during the day, since you say

he was never at your mistress's apartment in the daytime?"

"Never. I was told nothing about him except that he was rich and a

gentleman. I asked no questions. My place was comfortable, my wages

were paid regularly, and Madame was kind to me."

"Where did Léonie Lemarque sleep when she stayed in the Rue Lafitte?"

"She occupied a little bed in my room, which is inside the kitchen."

"Were you long in Madame's service?"

"Nearly four years. From the beginning of her engagement at the

Porte-Saint-Martin, when she took the apartment in the Rue Lafitte. Her

salary at the theatre justified her in taking such an apartment. Before

that time she had been living with her mother on the other side of the

Seine."

"Is it your opinion that Monsieur Georges was the murderer?"

"That is my fixed opinion."

This concluded the examination of Barbe Girot. The little girl's

examination was not resumed until ten days later. She had been very ill

in the mean time, and seemed altogether weak and broken down when she

was brought before the _Juge d'Instruction_. She burst out crying in

the midst of her evidence, and the grandmother had great difficulty in

calming her.

"We had a nice dinner, and Monsieur de Maucroix was very kind, and

gave me grapes and a big peach, and he promised to buy me a doll next

day in the Passage Jouffroy. My aunt was sad, and Monsieur de Maucroix

begged her to be gay, and he talked about taking her to Italy with

him, just as he had talked in the train. And then we went out in a

carriage and drove along a terrace, where there was a beautiful view

over a river and a great green valley. My aunt seemed much gayer, and

she and Monsieur de Maucroix were talking and laughing all the time;

and afterwards, when we all got out of the carriage and walked in the

forest, they both seemed very happy, and my aunt rested her head on

Monsieur de Maucroix's shoulder as they walked along, and said it was

like being in heaven to be in that moonlit forest with him; and then,

just at that moment, a man rushed out from the darkness under the

trees, like a wild beast out of a cave, and shot, and shot, and shot,

again and again and again. And first Monsieur de Maucroix fell, and

then my aunt, and she was all over blood. I could see it streaming over

her light-blue gown, first one stream and then another. I can see it

now. I am seeing it always. It wakes me out of my sleep. O, take it

away; take away the dark forest; take away the blood!"

At this point, said the report, the child again became hysterical, and

had to be carried away. After this she had an attack of brain-fever,

and could not again be interrogated formally.

END OF VOL. I.

WYLLARD'S WEIRD

A Novel

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN,"

"ISHMAEL," ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II.

LONDON

JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL

MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET

AND

35 ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.

1885

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

I. LÉONIE'S MISSION

II. A STUDENT OF MEN AND WOMEN

III. BOTHWELL BEGINS TO SEE HIS WAY

IV. THE HOME OF THE PAST

V. A FACE FROM THE GRAVE

VI. STRUCK DOWN

VII. THE GENERAL RECEIVES A SUMMONS

VIII. WIDOWED AND FREE

IX. TWO WOMEN

X. ROSES ON A GRAVE

WYLLARD'S WEIRD

CHAPTER I.

LÉONIE'S MISSION.

The report of the interrogatory before the _Juge d'Instruction_ was

followed by a page of notes written by the police-officer Drubarde.

The child Léonie Lemarque was not again in a condition to give her

evidence. A violent attack of brain-fever succeeded her second

appearance before the _Juge d'Instruction_, and on her recovery from

the fever it was found that her mind had suffered seriously from the

shock she had undergone. Memory was a blank. The _Juge d'Instruction_

visited her in her own home when she was convalescent, and tried to

recall the impressions made upon her at the time of the murder, in

the hope of identifying the murderer; but she had forgotten the whole

circumstances of her aunt's death, and yet she suffered agonies from

a vague terror associated in her enfeebled mind with the very name of

that aunt.

As soon as she was well enough to travel she was taken to the Ursuline

convent at Dinan by a good priest who had befriended her grandmother

for many years. After this transference to the convent the police lost

sight of the child Lemarque.

Throughout the evening, even amidst the distractions of a finely acted

comedy by Augier, and in the wakeful intervals of a somewhat disturbed

night, Edward Heathcote brooded over the details of the evidence which

he had read, not once, but several times, before he closed the volume

of reports.

The detective instinct, which is a characteristic of every well-trained

lawyer's mind, had been suddenly developed into almost a passion. He

no longer limited his desire to the unravelling of the web of Léonie

Lemarque's fate; he ardently longed to discover the mystery of Marie

Prévol's murder--to succeed where one of the most accomplished Parisian

detectives had ignominiously failed. His eagerness to hear more about

Drubarde's efforts and failures in this particular case led him to the

Quai des Grands Augustins at an early hour, in time to surprise the

worthy Félix in the act of breakfasting temperately upon _café au lait_

and boiled eggs.

Monsieur Drubarde gave his new friend a cheery welcome. It was a lovely

morning, balmy as midsummer, and the little garden on the leads was

bright with gaily-coloured asters, nasturtiums, and geraniums, and

agreeably perfumed with mignonette.

"Do you perceive the exquisite odours?" asked Drubarde.

"Your mignonette is delicious."

"My mignonette!" cried the police-officer scornfully. "Why, when the

wind blows straight from the flower-market, as it does to-day, I can

sit in my garden and enjoy all the perfumes of the Riviera. I can

revel in orange-blossoms, drink my fill of tube-roses and stephanotis,

Maréchal Niel and Jacqueline roses. And look what a view! Not a touch

of the sculptor's chisel that I cannot see yonder on the old kings of

Notre Dame; not a cornice or a column in the new hospital that does not

stand clear in the morning light! And yet Paris is peopled with fools

who do not make gardens on their housetops!"

"Perhaps every landlord would not be so complaisant as yours, Monsieur

Drubarde, nor every housetop so adapted to horticulture."

"True, your Parisian landlord is a churl and a niggard, and a good

many of our housetops are no doubt impracticable. But the inventive

mind, the love of the beautiful, is more often wanting. I see you have

been good enough to bring back my volume. You have read the report, I

suppose?"

"Every line, every syllable, three times over."

"And you are interested?"

"Deeply. I was never more intensely interested in any case that has

come within my knowledge: yet as a lawyer I have become acquainted with

many strange stories. Yes, I am more interested than I can say in the

fate of that unhappy actress, in the character of her mysterious lover:

and yet I doubt if this former crime has any bearing upon the murder of

Léonie Lemarque."

"It would certainly be going somewhat far to suppose a link between the

death of a girl travelling alone in Cornwall--a death which may after

all have been accidental--and the murder of her aunt ten years before

in the forest of Saint-Germain. However, it is only by the minutest

scrutiny of Léonie's past life that you can arrive at the motive

which took her to England, and discover whether she had an enemy in

that country--that is to say, if she was lured across the Channel in

order to be made away with by that enemy. A very wild and far-fetched

supposition I think you will admit, Monsieur, and one which our

talented friend Mr. Distin would not entertain for five minutes."

"Professional acumen like Mr. Distin's is apt to run in grooves--to be

too intent upon following the practical and the possible, to shut out

the romantic element, to strangle the imagination, and to forget that

it is very often by following the apparently impossible that we arrive

at the truth."

"I see you are an enthusiast, Monsieur."

"I have never tried to subjugate my imagination. As a lawyer I found

ideality the most useful faculty of my brain. Now, I have been thinking

about Léonie Lemarque's fate from every possible point of view, from

the standpoint of imagination as well as from the standpoint of common

sense; and it has occurred to me that if the murderer of Marie Prévol

were living, he would be Léonie's natural enemy."

"Why so?"

"Because she was the only witness of his crime. She alone would have

the power to identify him as the murderer."

"You forget that it is just that power which the poor girl lost during

her illness. The fever deprived her of memory."

"That effect of the fever may not have been permanent. The agitation

which she showed at the mention of her aunt's name--when Sister Gudule

questioned her about the silk handkerchief given to her by Marie

Prévol--would indicate that memory was not a blank. And again, if she

had forgotten the person of the murderer, or even the fact of the

murder, he would not know that, and would regard her existence as a

source of danger to himself."

Félix Drubarde smiled the superior smile of experience reproving folly.

"And you think that after having allowed this one witness of his crime

to exist unmolested for ten years, the assassin all at once took it

into his head to murder her; that with this view he carried her to

your barbarous province of Cornuailles, and there flung her over an

embankment. I am tempted to paraphrase the Scripture, Monsieur, and to

exclaim, 'Are there not viaducts and embankments in this vast France of

ours, that a man should go to the remote west of your little England in

order to commit murder in that particular fashion!'"

Heathcote felt that the police-officer had the best of the argument.

"I grant that it would have been a clumsy method of getting rid of the

girl," he said, "but murder has been clumsily done before to-day, and

imagination can conceive no crime so improbable as not to be paralleled

by fact. However, it is perhaps too soon to speculate that the murderer

of Marie Prévol was also the murderer of Léonie Lemarque. What we have

to do is to find out the reason of the girl's journey to England. But

before we set about that task, I should like you to tell me what steps

you took in your endeavour to trace the murderer after the examination

before the _Juge d'Instruction_."

"I looked over the case in my note-book last night, as I was prepared

for you to ask for those details," replied Drubarde. "It was a case

that interested me profoundly, all the more so, perhaps, because I

made so little headway in my investigations. My first endeavour was to

trace the murderer's proceedings immediately after the crime. He must

have made his escape from Saint-Germain somehow, unless he had killed

himself in some obscure corner of the wood. Even then the finding of

the body would have been a question of so many days, weeks, or months.

Alive, it would have been impossible for him to remain in hiding in

the forest for a week, as the wood was searched thoroughly during the

three days immediately succeeding the murder. On the third day a hat

was found in a boggy bit of ground, ever so far from the scene of the

crime. The hat was a gentleman's hat, but it had been lying three days

and nights in a bog. It had been rained upon for two days out of the

three--there was no maker's name--no indication by which the owner of

the hat could be traced. That it had been found so far off seemed to

me to prove that the murderer had been roaming the wood in a wild and

disordered frame of mind, and walking at a tremendous pace, or he could

never have got over the distance between the time when he was seen by

the waiter at the Henri Quatre, to turn the corner of the terrace, and

the period of the murder."

"You believe, then, that the man seen by the waiter was actually the

murderer?"

"I have no doubt of it. That spasmodic walk, that hesitancy, the

looking back, and then hurrying on--all these indicated a mind engaged

upon some agitating theme. The man was seen watching the window inside

which Marie Prévol and her admirer were seated. He moved away when he

saw himself observed. He had disguised himself as much as he could by

turning up the collar of his coat; and who can doubt that this was the

same man who had been seen by Léonie in the railway-station, watching

Marie Prévol and her lover from behind the door of the waiting-room?

The dark spectacles were part of a disguise. These are all details

that point to one conclusion. The finding of the hat induced me to

visit every shop in Saint-Germain where a hat could be bought. It

was clear that the murderer could not have gone far from the forest

bare-headed, without attracting attention. He must have procured a hat

somehow; and it was not long before I ascertained that a hat had been

bought late on that very evening. At a shop in an out-of-the-way corner

of the town I was told that a boy, a _gamin_, had come in on the night

of the murder, and had asked for a cloth travelling-cap. He had chosen

one with flaps to protect the ears, a form of cap intended to give the

utmost protection from cold. He paid for his purchase with a napoleon,

and seemed in a great hurry to be gone, not even stopping to count his

change. The shopkeeper had wondered at such a little ragamuffin being

intrusted with a purchase of the kind. The man had been on the point

of closing his shop, and therefore was quite positive as to the hour.

It was his invariable habit to put up his shutters at nine o'clock,

and the clock was striking as the boy came to the door of the shop,

breathless and heated, as if he had been running for some distance."

"And you conclude that this travelling-cap was bought for the murderer?"

"Hear the sequel, and judge for yourself. I went from the hatter's

to the railway-station, and there, after having been bandied about

from pillar to post, I succeeded in finding a tolerably intelligent

official who remembered the night of the murder--now ten days past--and

who could recall most of the passengers who had left for Paris by the

half-past nine o'clock train upon that particular night. The news of

the murder had not been brought to the station before the starting of

the train: a most criminal neglect on the part of the local police. No

suspicious-looking person had been observed to enter the train; but

upon my questioning him closely, the man remembered having noticed a

traveller who wore a cloth cap with flaps over the ears--a seemingly

needless protection upon a mild September evening. 'There is one who

takes care of himself,' the railway official had thought. For the rest,

this passenger had looked like a gentleman, tall, erect, well-built,

a bigger man than the majority of Frenchmen--what the railway

official permitted himself to call _un bel homme_. Had he appeared

agitated, breathless, in a hurry? No, the official had noticed nothing

extraordinary in his manner. He wore smoke-coloured spectacles, which

concealed the expression of his eyes. He had a return-ticket for Paris.

The train was scarcely out of the station when the police came to make

inquiries. The murder had been known of at the police-station at a

quarter past eight, and it was not until after half-past nine that the

police thought of setting a watch upon the railway-station. That is how

your rustic police favour the escape of a criminal."

"Did you trace your gentleman in the cloth cap any further?"

"Not an inch. No one had observed him at Saint-Lazare, nor at any

intermediate station where the train stopped. I wearied myself during

the next six weeks in the endeavour to trace the man called Georges,

who must have had some local habitation in Paris besides Marie Prévol's

apartment. In vain. In no quarter of Paris could I hear of any

apartment occupied by a man answering to the description of this man

who called himself Georges--rich, independent, handsome, in the prime

of life. I could trace no such man among the prosperous classes of

Paris, and my machinery for tracking any individual in the wilderness

of this great city had hitherto proved almost infallible. This man

baffled me. I 'touched on him' now and again, as you English say of

your hunted fox, but I could never get upon a scent strong enough to

follow; and in the end I gave up all hope of finding him. He must have

sneaked out of France under the very noses of the police; for I had set

a watch upon every probable exit from this country."

"No doubt he was clever enough to choose the most improbable point of

departure. Did you see much of Madame Lemarque after the murder?"

"No. My interest in her ceased when I gave up the case as hopeless. I

had fresh cases--new interests; and the murder of Marie Prévol remained

in my mind only as a tradition, until you recalled the story of the

crime."

"I telegraphed yesterday to the principal of the Ursuline convent at

Dinan," said Mr. Heathcote, "and I have obtained from her the address

at which Madame Lemarque was living two years ago, when her niece was

sent back to Paris in company with other pupils. After leaving you I

shall go to that address, and try to find Madame Lemarque. I may have

the painful duty of informing her of her granddaughter's death; and yet

I can but think that were the grandmother still living she must have

heard of the girl's death, and would have communicated with the Cornish

police."

"That is to suppose her more intelligent than the average Frenchwoman,"

said Drubarde, as if he belonged to another nation. "Suppose I

accompany you in your search for Madame Lemarque? That ought to be

interesting."

"I shall be delighted to secure your aid."

Monsieur Drubarde and his guest descended the ladder. The detective put

on a gray overcoat, which concealed and subjugated the airiness of his

summer attire. He put on the hat of sober commonplace existence, and

contrived to give himself an almost patriarchal aspect before he left

his lodging.

The street in which Madame Lemarque had been living when the nuns of

Dinan last heard of her was a narrow and shabby little street between

Saint-Sulpice and the Luxembourg. The house was decently kept, and had

a respectable air, and was evidently not one of those caravanserais

where lodgers come and go with every term. It had a settled sober

appearance, and the brass plates upon the door told of permanent

residents with reputable avocations. One of these plates informed

society that Mesdames Lemarque and Beauville, _Robes et Modes_,

occupied the third floor. The staircase was clean and quiet, and the

first sound that saluted Mr. Heathcote's ears as he went up-stairs

was the screech of a parrot, which became momentarily louder as the

visitors approached the third floor.

On the door on the left of the landing appeared another brass

plate--Mesdames Lemarque et Beauville, Robes, Modes, Chapeaux.

Heathcote rang the bell. He felt curiously agitated at the thought

that in the next minute he might be face to face with the dead girl's

grandmother.

The door was opened by an elderly woman in black, very sallow, very

thin, with prominent cheekbones and hungry black eyes. She was neatly

clad, her rusty silk gown fitting her fleshless form to perfection, her

linen collar and cuffs spotlessly clean, her iron-gray hair carefully

arranged; but poverty was stamped upon every fold of her gown, and

written in every line upon her forehead.

"Madame Lemarque?" inquired Heathcote, while the _ci-devant_

police-officer looked over his shoulder.

"No, I am not Madame Lemarque, but I am her business representative.

Any orders intended for Madame Lemarque can be executed by me. I am

Mademoiselle Beauville."

"Alas, Mademoiselle, it is not a question of orders," replied

Heathcote, in his most courteous tones. "I have come on a painful

errand. I have to impart very sad news to Madame Lemarque."

Madame Beauville sighed and shrugged her thin shoulders.

"Madame Lemarque is taking her rest in a place where all the events

of this earth are alike indifferent," she said. "Take the trouble to

enter my humble apartment, gentlemen. Madame Lemarque was my partner

and my friend."

Heathcote and his companion followed the dressmaker into her little

_salon_, where a dilapidated old gray cockatoo was clambering upon a

perch, seemingly in danger of doing himself to death head downwards at

every other minute. The _salon_ was like the appearance of Mademoiselle

Beauville, scrupulously neat, painfully pinched and spare. A poor

little old-fashioned walnut table, polished to desperation, a cheap

little china vase of common flowers, a carpet which covered only a

small island in an ocean of red tiles, an old mahogany secrétaire with

materials for writing, and by way of decoration the fashion-plates of

_Le Follet_ neatly pinned against the dingy wall-paper. There was a

work-basket on the table, and Mademoiselle Beauville had apparently

been busily remaking a very old gown of her own, in order to keep her

hand in during the dead season.

Heathcote discovered later that Mademoiselle Beauville cherished one

bitter and unappeasable hatred, and that was against Messrs. Spricht,

Van Klopen, and the whole confraternity of men-milliners.

"Then Madame Lemarque is dead, I apprehend, Mademoiselle?"

"Madame Lemarque died last June."

"Suddenly?"

"No, she had been ailing for some time. But the end came more quickly

than she expected. My poor friend had but a short time in which to

arrange her affairs."

"Was her granddaughter Léonie living with her at the time of her death?"

"She was. But what do you know about Léonie?"

The ex-detective laid his hand hastily upon Heathcote's wrist before he

could answer.

"Answer nothing until we have heard what she can tell us," he whispered.

"I know very little about her, but I am anxious to know more; and

if you should be a loser by the waste of your time in answering my

inquiries, I shall be most happy to recompense you for that loss," said

Heathcote.

The spinster's hungry eyes sparkled. Decent poverty has depths unknown

to the professed pauper. Mademoiselle's larder would have exhibited

a touching spectacle to the eye of the philosopher or physiologist.

The philosopher would have wondered that woman can endure privation

with such patience: the physiologist would have been surprised that

humanity can sustain life upon so little. For weeks past Mademoiselle

Beauville's most luxurious idea of dinner had been an egg. For the last

week her daily ration had been two halfpenny rolls.

"Tell me all you can about your friend and her grandchild," asked

Heathcote eagerly. "I am particularly interested in knowing everything;

but as it is dry work talking, and as neither my friend nor I have

lunched, it might be a good idea to get a bottle of Bordeaux and a few

biscuits, if Mademoiselle will permit us to refresh ourselves in her

apartment."

His keen glance had noted the hollow cheeks and glittering eyes of

the dressmaker, and he wanted an excuse for giving life and warmth to

that impoverished form. Drubarde caught at the idea, thinking that

his client's design was to loosen the lady's tongue by the agency of

Bacchus. It was altogether an amateur's notion, crude, wanting in

subtlety; but the genial Drubarde was willing to indulge a beginner who

was feeling his way in the elements of a great art.

"I'll fetch a bottle of wine myself," he said cheerily; "I know where I

can get one close by, and of the best."

"Bring two," said Heathcote. "Mademoiselle will accept the second

bottle by way of souvenir."

"Monsieur, do you wish to make me a drunkard? I have not tasted wine

since my poor friend's death," protested Mademoiselle Beauville, but

there was a look in her face which told Heathcote that his gift would

not be unwelcome.

Drubarde ran down-stairs like a boy, and was back in five minutes,

carrying a couple of sealed bottles, labelled St. Estèphe, and a large

bag of biscuits.

Mademoiselle had set out a tray in the mean time, with her poor little

stock of glasses, three in all, and one of those cracked, and an old

china plate for the biscuits. Again her eyes glistened when she saw the

ample biscuit-bag.

"Let me look at the name on the bag," said Heathcote.

Strange, it was the very name upon that biscuit-bag which he carried at

this moment, neatly folded in his pocket-book, the bag which had been

found in the second-class compartment from which the girl fell!

"And now, Mademoiselle, tell me all you can about your deceased friend

and her granddaughter. You had known Madame Lemarque for some time, I

conclude?"

"I had lived with her for nearly ten years."

"For nearly ten years? Then you must have joined your fortunes with

hers very soon after the murder of her daughter, Marie Prévol?"

"You have heard of that terrible event, then, Monsieur?" asked the

dressmaker. "It is so long since it happened that I thought it had been

forgotten by all the world except me."

"No, Mademoiselle; a tragedy so terrible as that can never be forgotten

by those who study the physiology of crime. I am keenly interested in

tracing the murderer of Marie Prévol."

"After ten years!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Beauville, with an

incredulous smile. "Only a dreamer could think of such a thing,

Monsieur."

"Then I am such a dreamer, Mademoiselle, and I hope you will help me to

realise my dream."

"Does Monsieur know that Monsieur Mardoche, one of the most

distinguished of our _Juges d'Instruction_, took up this case with

enthusiasm; that the police were never more earnest than in their

endeavour to find poor Marie Prévol's murderer? Does Monsieur know that

it was a double murder, and that the Baron de Maucroix, a young man of

high family and large fortune, was also a victim? Does Monsieur suppose

that the Baron's friends were idle--that no inducement was offered to

the police?"

"I am aware of all this, Mademoiselle, and I know that the cleverest

police in the world----"

"Except Russia. We must always bow to the superior genius of the

north," interjected Drubarde.

"I am aware that the police failed. But you must consider,

Mademoiselle, that when the police of Paris were keenest in their

pursuit of the assassin, the assassin was most upon his guard. The

consciousness of his crime, the horror of his position, intensified

his intelligence. He had but one thought--to escape detection. Every

act, every movement, every word was planned with that purpose. But now

ten years have gone by--ten years of security. The murderer may be less

guarded, more open to detection. He will have grown careless--foolhardy

even--believing that after such an interval detection must be

impossible. If Mademoiselle will do me the honour to touch glasses, we

will discuss this question at our leisure."

He had filled the three glasses, but he had perceived that the

dressmaker had a delicacy in drinking the wine he had provided, so he

took up his glass and offered the edge of it to hers; and, emboldened

by this friendly movement, the spinster clinked her glass against the

rim of his, then against that of the patriarchal Drubarde, while the

cockatoo, wondering at this unwonted revelry, screeched his loudest.

"To your good health, gentlemen," faltered the dressmaker, before she

sipped her wine.

"To the speedy discovery of Marie Prévol's murderer," said Heathcote.

"Did you know our poor Marie, Monsieur, that you are thus interested in

her dark fate?"

"No, Mademoiselle."

"O, if you had but known her, I should understand your desire to avenge

her death. She was so lovely. To know her was to adore her. Even a

soured old maid such as I could but yield to her charm. She was as

loving as she was lovable; a clinging disposition, a poetical nature.

Her life was not blameless, perhaps--who knows? We will not scrutinise

too closely. She was as different from those harpies whom one hears of

in Paris as a wild rose in the hedge is different from a jewel that

has gone the round of every Mont-de-Piété in the city. Her heart was

pure as the heart of a child. She had no ambition but to love and to

be loved. The man who absorbed her life for a long time, whose hand

perhaps slew her, was rich, lavish. He would have loaded her with gifts

if she had let him, he would have taken her off the stage and allowed

her to play the fine lady; but to the last she preserved the same

modest ideas--generous to others, careless of herself."

"Did you ever see the man who called himself Georges?"

"Never. He was a man of curious habits. He loved the night better than

the day. Nothing delighted him more than a moonlight drive in the Bois

after midnight, a supper at the Cascade. He patronised the restaurants

that keep open half the night. Marie and he used to sup together at

the Café de Paris, sometimes with one or two chosen friends, but much

more often alone. I was not Madame Lemarque's partner at that time;

but I occupied a room in the roof of this house, and I used to work by

the day for Madame and for Marie. I have spent many days working for

her in the Rue de Lafitte. I made all her gowns, and I was proud that

she should challenge comparison with actresses who squandered their

thousands upon such impostors as Spricht and Van Klopen. Imagine,

Monsieur, a man--a stern rugged nature which can have no true feeling

for the beauty of woman's dress--a being of angles and hard lines--a

creature without grace or _flou_. No wonder that square shoulders and

pointed elbows have come into fashion since men have dictated the dress

of women!"

Mademoiselle had mounted her hobby, and was riding furiously.

"Doubtless it is a mistake in art, and one that must be discovered

before long," said Heathcote soothingly. "But tell me, Mademoiselle, in

all your visits to the Rue de Lafitte, did you never encounter Georges?"

"Never."

"Strange! And did your friend Mademoiselle Prévol talk much of this

Monsieur Georges?"

"Yes, she used to talk to me a great deal about him at one time,

poor child: I think she talked even more freely to me than to her

mother. Madame Lemarque was just a little too fond of money, too

eager for gifts from her child, and that wounded Marie's generous

nature. 'You value people only for what they can give you,' she said

once to her mother. 'If Georges were Satan, you would like him just

as well--provided you got enough of his money.' And then there was

a quarrel, as you may suppose, Monsieur. There were excuses to be

made for Madame Lemarque, poor soul. She had been rich once--an

atelier in the Rue de la Paix--a country house at Asnières--but these

man-milliners had spoiled her trade, and at this time she was very

poor, living in these rooms which you see, and working for half a dozen

shabby customers who ground her to the dust by their meanness. And then

when Marie gave her money she spent it recklessly--she ate and drank

like a princess--she took a _voiture de place_, whenever she went out:

she thought that Marie could never do too much for her or her son's

orphan child Léonie."

"Léonie lived with her grandmother, did she not?"

"Yes, Madame Lemarque had kept her since she was three years old. It

was a dull life for a child. She used to sit on a little stool in that

corner, and thread needles for her grandmother. When she was eight

years old she could work very neatly; she ran errands too. She earned

her daily bread, poor child. But her happiest days were those she spent

with her aunt in the Rue Lafitte."

"Mademoiselle Prévol was good to her?"

"Good to her? Yes, and to every one who came in her way. I tell you she

was a creature made up of sweetness and love."

"And was she devoted to this Monsieur Georges?"

"At one time, yes. It was an adoration on both sides. Marie used to

tell me of their journeys in foreign countries, under a southern sky.

Of their happy life, far away from the crowd; of his boundless love for

her, his generosity, his devotion. She had a fever in Venice, and he

nursed her, and watched beside her bed day and night--thirteen days and

thirteen nights--till she was out of danger. It was a love such as one

reads of in poetry."

"Have you any reason to think that she was his lawful wife?"

"I cannot tell. His constancy and devotion were those of the best of

husbands. She wore a wedding-ring, and she was always called by his

name when they travelled, as well as in her lodgings. It was almost at

the beginning of their attachment that he took her to England. I have

sometimes thought that they were married in England."

"Did he introduce her to his friends in Paris?"

"Only a few artists and writers whom she used to meet at supper. They

were some of the wildest young men in Paris."

"But he introduced her to no ladies--to no families of good standing?"

"I doubt if he could have had any such friends. He lived too eccentric

a life to cultivate what you call respectable acquaintance."

"Was he himself an artist?"

"I think not. He was too rich for a painter or an author."

"And you have never heard of him since Marie Prévol's death?"

"Never."

"What became of the jewels and other property which had belonged to

Mademoiselle Prévol?"

"They were sold by her mother, who lived upon the proceeds of the

sale for some years. She paid for Léonie's schooling out of the same

fund. It was only in the last years of her life that she again became

poor. But to the very last she had means of her own--a small income,

the source of which was unknown to me. She might have lived very

comfortably if she had not been extravagant; but she had no prudence,

and there were times when she was almost penniless. She took me into

partnership very soon after her daughter's death. She had sent the

little girl to a convent, and she felt lonely and nervous in these

rooms. Her spirits never recovered from the shock of that terrible

murder--the horror of the night in which Léonie was brought home to

her by the police from Saint-Germain, who told her the history of

the murder. She invited me to share her apartment, and to work for

her, taking half the profits of the business. The profits were of the

smallest, but she gave me my board and lodging, and I was too fond of

Madame Lemarque, and of Jacko," added the spinster, looking fondly at

the cockatoo.

"That is Madame Lemarque's parrot, I conclude?"

"Yes. He belonged to poor Marie. Ah, he could tell us a great deal, if

he would but talk sense instead of repeating foolish songs. She bought

him from a sailor at Marseilles, and brought him home with her after

one of her autumn holidays. She used to teach him lines from the songs

she sang at the theatre."

_"Moi, je suis le radis noir!_" shrieked the parrot.

"You were living with Madame Lemarque when her granddaughter returned

from Dinan, I suppose?" said Heathcote.

"Ah, you seem to know all about it. Yes, I was with Madame when she

went to Saint-Lazare to meet the child. Such a bright, pretty girl she

had grown--so amiable, and clever, and industrious. I never thought she

would act towards me as she has done."

"In what way has she acted badly?"

"She went to England directly after her grandmother's death--that is

more than two months ago--and she has not written to me once since

then. No doubt she has found powerful friends--rich friends--and has no

need of a poor old woman like me."

"There may be some other reason for her silence," said Heathcote

gravely.

"What other reason?"

"Some misfortune; an accident, perhaps. She had to travel by steamer

and by railway. Might not something have happened?"

"I have thought of that sometimes," said the dressmaker, with a

distressed look, "and if I had had a friend in England--one single

friend--I should have written to ask that friend to make inquiries. But

I have so few friends--hardly any one in Paris, no one outside Paris,"

she concluded dejectedly.

"But surely you knew Léonie's errand? You knew to whom she was going?

You might have written to that person."

"I know nothing. The girl's errand was a secret from me. On her

death-bed Madame Lemarque gave her granddaughter some commission. There

were letters or papers of some kind, I think, which she was to take to

somebody in England, and that person was expected to befriend her. The

grandmother was very secret about it. She would not speak to Léonie on

the subject while I was in the room, but on reëntering rather suddenly

I saw some papers on the bed. I overheard a few words---something

about a friend of Monsieur Georges, rich, powerful."

"And it was to this friend of Georges, the murderer, that Léonie was to

appeal for protection and help?"

"Remember we are not certain that Georges was the murderer. It is only

a supposition."

"But a supposition so well grounded as to be almost certainty. An

adoring lover, who disappears immediately after the murder of his

mistress--a lover who had good ground for jealousy, and is known to

have been madly jealous, mark you; a murder that could only have been

inspired by madness or by jealousy. If these facts are not strong

enough to condemn Monsieur Georges, what does circumstantial evidence

mean?"

"Don't talk to me about it," muttered Drubarde impatiently. "Georges

was the murderer. The police were at fault in their search for him, but

they were never in doubt as to his guilt."

"And it was to a friend of her daughter's murderer that Madame Lemarque

sent her granddaughter?"

"What other resources had she, do you think?" exclaimed the dressmaker.

"She was dying, penniless, friendless, leaving her grandchild to the

mercy of strangers. She knew that Monsieur Georges was a rich man,

and that any friend of Monsieur Georges was likely to be well off. I

daresay she knew no more than the name of this friend."

"Did you hear the name?"

"Never. I heard her tell Léonie that the gentleman was in London. He

was living at some hotel, the name of which I forget."

"Would you recognise it if you heard it?" asked Heathcote.

"Perhaps. I am not sure."

He went over the names of the principal hotels, without success.

Mademoiselle Beauville could not remember to have heard any one of them.

"You are sure that Mademoiselle Lemarque was to go to London," inquired

Heathcote, "and no further than London? You heard no mention of

Cornwall or Plymouth?"

He repeated the names of county and town--giving each the true Gallic

intonation--but they suggested nothing to Mademoiselle Beauville.

"She was to go to London--nowhere else. But why do you ask?"

"I will tell you that presently. Did Léonie Lemarque leave Paris

immediately after her grandmother's death?"

"She left the evening after the funeral. She did not even wait to get

a mourning-gown made. She had worn a black gown belonging to me at the

funeral, and she changed it for her gray alpaca gown before she left."

"Did she take no luggage?"

"Only a change of linen in a handbag."

"How did she travel?"

"She went from the Station du Nord at eight o'clock. I walked to the

station with her, poor child. We were both very sad, and very tired.

She was to cross from Calais to Dover in the night, and she would

arrive in London early next morning. She promised me to write on the

day of her arrival. I told her that I thought it was a dangerous thing

for a young girl to go alone to meet a stranger, a man whose face she

had never seen. She said her grandmother had told her that he was a

good and honourable man, who had befriended her in her poverty, and she

(Léonie) was to trust him. She begged me not to ask her any questions.

Her grandmother had warned her to say nothing until after she had

arrived in England, when she was to write to me and tell me of her new

home. When I pressed her to give me her confidence, she began to cry;

but I managed to find out that she was going to London with the idea of

being placed in some rich and aristocratic family, where she would be a

companion to the children and teach them her own language. She was not

accomplished enough to be a governess of a superior kind."

"How did she get the money for her journey?"

"Her grandmother gave it her on her death-bed; but as there had been

hardly any money in the house for the last week of Madame Lemarque's

illness, I concluded that this money had been sent from the person in

England in reply to an application from Madame Lemarque."

"Did you post any letter addressed to England during your friend's

illness?"

"I did not; but Léonie may have done so. She went out every day upon

some errand or other. And now, Monsieur, pray tell me how you came to

know all about Léonie, and if you have any bad news for me."

"Alas, Mademoiselle, I have the worst possible news. Your young friend

is dead."

"Dead! And there was no one to tell me. The gentleman who was to

befriend her, to whom she went as to a protector and benefactor, he did

not even take the trouble to tell me her fate."

"She may never have found him, poor child. She may have been lured

away from her destination and from London by a villain. She met

her death more than two hundred miles from London. She fell from a

railway-bridge, and was killed instantly; but whether that death was an

accident or a murder, no one yet knows, except the Great Judge of all

human actions."

"You believe it was----"

"Murder. I am here to discover the motive of that crime."

CHAPTER II.

A STUDENT OF MEN AND WOMEN.

There was a silence of some minutes, during which Mademoiselle

Beauville wept quietly. And then Heathcote and the ex-police-officer

rose to take leave.

"I thank you sincerely, Mademoiselle, for having given me all the

information in your power to give, and I must beg you to accept some

small compensation for the time I have wasted," said Mr. Heathcote,

slipping a couple of twenty-franc pieces into the dressmaker's hand.

The lonely spinster's eyes shone with a feverish light as her skinny

fingers closed upon the gold. It was like manna dropped from heaven.

Long and weary weeks had passed since her _robes et modes_ had brought

her so much money. Her chief customers of late had been the grisettes

of the quarter, who had dribbled out their payments by two or three

francs at a time, and who had exacted the maximum of labour for the

minimum of pay. Mademoiselle's hollow cheeks were flushed with the

warm red wine, her heart glowed with the thought that she could now pay

her last term to the Harpagon landlord--not much worse, perhaps, than

the rest of his species, but all landlords seem Harpagons when they

claim their due from the needy.

"Monsieur is too good, too generous," murmured the seamstress; "I

should refuse all remuneration, only work has been so slack of late----"

"Not one word, Mademoiselle. Stay, I have one more question, and that

an important one, to ask before I take my leave. Can you give me the

exact date upon which Léonie Lemarque left Paris for Dover?"

"Assuredly, Monsieur. It was on the 4th of July."

"The 4th! And it was on the evening of the 5th she met with her death.

You say she carried a small handbag containing linen."

"Yes. Her clothes were of the fewest, dear child; but everything she

had was neat and nice of its kind. She had a change of linen with her."

"Had she nothing else in the bag?"

"Nothing. I went into the room while she was packing, and I saw her

take a small sealed packet from under her pillow, and put it in her

bosom. I had seen the same packet under her grandmother's pillow before

she died. It looked like a parcel of letters or papers of some kind."

"Do you know what station Léonie was to arrive at?"

"Yes. It was the terminus of Charing."

"Charing Cross?"

"Precisely. It was a double name like that."

"Good. Adieu, Mademoiselle. My friend and I may come to you again

perhaps to make further inquiries."

"You shall be very welcome, Monsieur. And if you discover the secret of

my poor young friend's fate, you will tell me----"

"Assuredly."

"One word, Monsieur. Where is our little Léonie buried? Has she a

decent grave in your English land?"

"She lies in a rustic churchyard under a great yew-tree. There is a

stone upon her grave, with a brief record of when and how she met her

death. Her name and age shall now be added to the inscription."

"Indeed, Monsieur! But what kind friend was it who placed a stone over

the grave of a nameless stranger?"

"That was my care. It was a very small thing to do."

"Ah, Monsieur, it is in doing these small things that a great heart

shows itself."

Mr. Heathcote and his companion made their adieux, accompanied to the

landing by the spinster, who felt as if she had entertained angels

unawares; but when the sound of their footsteps had died away upon the

stairs she went back to her room, and wept over the fate of her young

friend.

"I have nothing left in this world to love but you," she said,

piteously addressing the cockatoo.

"J'ai bien des chos's au Mont-d'-Piété," replied the bird.

It was one o'clock by the time Mr. Heathcote and Monsieur Drubarde

left the dressmaker's apartment, so the Englishman suggested a light

luncheon at the Restaurant Lapérouse, within a stone's throw of

Drubarde's apartment; and the suggestion being received favourably by

the ex-policeman, they were soon afterwards seated at a little table,

in a private room with a window overlooking the river, ready to do

justice to the _plat du jour_, a _fricandeau aux épinards_, and to a

bottle of _Mouton-Rothschild_. The wine-bibbing at the dressmaker's

apartment had been merely a benevolent excuse for providing the

spinster with a little good Bordeaux.

"Now, Monsieur Drubarde, we are alone and at our ease. You have now all

the facts of Léonie Lemarque's death well within your knowledge; and it

is for you to give me your opinion."

"A very difficult case in which to come to a decided opinion," answered

Drubarde. "At present my conclusions and yours are antagonistic. My

niece wrote out a careful translation of your newspaper report. I have

her translation in my pocket-book. You can look it over if you like,

to see that it is faithfully done. I have read it three or four times,

with keenest attention, and I can so far see nothing out of the common

in Léonie Lemarque's fate. A pretty girl travelling alone, a common

ruffian, a common murder."

"And you see no link between this crime and that former murder?"

"Not a thread--not a hair. A deed done ten years ago--unpunished, the

murderer undiscovered."

"Do you forget that Léonie went to London with credentials to a friend

of this very murderer? Perhaps a friend so devoted, so bound to the

guilty man, that he might not stop at murder to get rid of the one

witness of his friend's crime."

"To imagine that is to imagine an impossible friendship. Men do not

risk their necks nowadays, whatever they may have done in the time of

Damon and Pythias."

"Then you see nothing extraordinary or mysterious in the violent death

of this girl, within twenty-four hours of her leaving Paris, carrying

with her documents which may, in some manner, have betrayed the secret

of the double murder. Perhaps a letter from the lover to his mistress,

a letter written by a man maddened by jealousy, threatening to do

the deed which was afterwards done. You see no sufficient ground for

connecting one crime with the other, for seeking the secret of the

second crime in the history of the first."

"Honestly, I do not," replied Drubarde, who had fastened his napkin

under his chin, had nibbled a radish or two, and destroyed the symmetry

of a dish of prawns, by way of preparation for the _fricandeau_. "I

only wish I could see my way to such an opinion. It would make as

pretty a complication as ever I was concerned in. However, there is

no knowing what new discoveries we may hit upon, if we go to work

patiently. My present view of the case is that Léonie Lemarque, being

young, silly, and inexperienced, and not knowing a word of English,

altogether a wrong person to attempt such a journey alone, got into bad

hands at the very beginning. I believe that, instead of meeting this

person who was to have befriended her, and who must have been a man of

standing and respectability, or the old grandmother would not have sent

her to him, she fell into the hands of a scoundrel, and was lured into

your train for Cornwall."

"You must remember that Paddington Station is some miles from Charing

Cross," said Heathcote. "The girl could not be smuggled from one train

to the other unawares. She must have traversed half London on foot, or

in a conveyance of some kind."

"Possibly. But, as likely as not, she was in the companionship of the

wrong man. Consider her ignorance, her helplessness. What an easy prey

for a villain!"

Heathcote was unconvinced.

"I cannot imagine a crime so motiveless as that which you suggest," he

said thoughtfully.

He began to lose faith in the old sleuthhound. He began to think that

Félix Drubarde was worn-out; that scent, and pace, and tongue were

things of the past. He began to think that the work of finding the link

between the two crimes must be done by himself rather than by Drubarde.

"What became of the girl's bag?" asked Drubarde, after he had eaten a

liberal portion of veal and spinach. "There is no mention of a bag in

your newspaper."

"There was no bag found. If there had been, the victim might have been

identified earlier."

"And the sealed packet?"

"There was no packet. There was nothing but a little basket containing

a few cherries and a biscuit-bag. There was no clue to identity. The

murderer had done his work well."

"The best thing you can do is to put Mr. Distin in possession of the

details you heard from Mademoiselle Beauville. He can make inquiries at

the Charing Cross Station, where it is just possible the girl may be

remembered by some of the porters. A girl travelling alone, and meeting

a gentleman on the platform. The meeting may have been observed even

there, where hundreds meet and part every hour. Railway officials are

observant and keen-witted. It is within the limits of the possible that

this poor girl may not have passed altogether unremarked."

"I will write to Distin this afternoon," said Heathcote. "And there

is another thing I can do. If your theory is correct, Léonie Lemarque

missed the person who was to have met her at the station, and fell

into bad hands. If that is so, the fact ought to be arrived at easily

by an appeal to the person whom she should have met."

He took out his pencil and pocket-book, and wrote the rough draft of an

advertisement:

"The person who was to have met Léonie Lemarque at Charing Cross

Station on the morning of July 5th last is earnestly requested to

communicate immediately with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors,

Furnival's Inn."

He translated this advertisement to Monsieur Drubarde.

"Yes, that is a wise test," said the police-officer. "I see you

have the true _flair_. If the man is innocent, he will answer that

advertisement--always supposing that it come to his knowledge."

"I will repeat it so often in the _Times_ that it will not be easy for

the appeal to escape him," answered Heathcote.

"Then if there is no sign, we shall say guilty," said Drubarde.

"And in that case we have to find the villain."

"You may add a postscript to your letter to Monsieur Distin, advising

him to inquire at the cloak-room of Charing Cross Station for an

unclaimed handbag left there on July 5th. Something must have been done

with that handbag, and, in our civilised condition, it is not easy to

get rid of even a handbag."

After having made this suggestion, Monsieur Drubarde devoted himself

entirely to the pleasures of the table. Heathcote ate very little, and

was too troubled in mind to know what he ate. He saw himself no nearer

a solution of the problem which he had pledged himself to solve. Yet

this he felt, that the sky was growing clearer round Bothwell Grahame.

The secret of the girl's death seemed to lie between the man whom

she was to have met at Charing Cross and the phenomenal villain of

Drubarde's imagination, who had lured her into the Cornish train with

darkest intent.

He left Félix Drubarde directly after luncheon, and walked back to the

Hôtel de Bade, where he devoted the afternoon to his correspondence. He

wrote at fullest length to Joseph Distin, enclosing the advertisement

for the _Times_, with a cheque, and an order for its daily appearance

until further notice. He wrote a cheery letter to Hilda, telling her to

be hopeful; and he wrote to Mrs. Wyllard, telling her that the result

of his investigations up to the present hour had gone far to dispel his

suspicion of her cousin's guilt.

"I am still groping in the dark," he concluded, "and am very far from

having achieved any tangible result; but I am working with all my mind

and all my strength, and I hope that Providence will not compel me to

abandon my task until I have fathomed the mystery of Léonie Lemarque's

death."

He wrote thus, unconsciously forgetting that Dora Wyllard did not know

even the name of the victim. The discovery of the girl's identity, made

three days ago, at Dinan, seemed, to him an old history, so exclusively

had his mind dwelt upon this one subject since his interview with the

nuns. The fact that the name must be a new thing to Dora never struck

him.

He dined alone in his private sitting-room, he who at any other time

would have enjoyed the glitter and life of the Boulevard in all

its evening brilliancy. He wanted to be free from all sound and

movement, from the sight of strange faces, so that his mind should work

undisturbed upon the problem he had set himself to solve.

And now over his solitary cutlet, with his pocket-book open before him,

he marshalled his facts, and reflected upon each detail of the story.

The murderer of Marie Prévol and Maxime de Maucroix had escaped, and

in all probability was still living. He appeared to have been rich,

independent of all ties, a Bohemian in his habits, a man who could live

in any country. Hardly possible that such a man would remain within a

narrow radius of the scene of his crime. He was not to be looked for

assuredly in Paris, or even in France. It was far more likely that he

had crossed the Atlantic, and sunk his identity in that wider, freer

society of the United States, where money and cleverness outweigh a

man's antecedents, where no one asks what a man has been, only what

he is, or is worth in the present. Or it might be that such a man as

this Georges--a night-bird, a man of fervid temperament, a lover of

pleasure rather than work, unambitious, a voluptuary--would turn

his face to Southern America, and dream away the after stages of an

exhausted life in some romantic city upon the Seaboard of the Pacific.

Not in Europe--or not in the accessible quarters of Europe--should he

be sought for.

But in the mean time, here in this city of Paris, there was something

to be done. Vain to look for the man himself, perhaps; but those who

had known the man--his chosen friends, the companions of his midnight

orgies--might still be found. From them the man's antecedents might be

learned; and possibly some glimmer of light could be obtained as to his

adventures and whereabouts after the murder.

Edward Heathcote reviewed his Parisian acquaintance in search of such

men as might be likely to have known this Monsieur Georges. It was

almost impossible for a man, spending his money lavishly, the favoured

admirer of a beautiful actress, not to be in some measure a man of

mark, and widely known in the faster section of Parisian society.

Mr. Heathcote knew his Paris well, and loved it well. After that

bitter loss which had changed the current of his life, he had found

hard work in his office his best cure, and next best to hard mental

labour he had found relief of mind in the society of the artistic and

keen-witted idlers of the Boulevard and the Bohemian clubs. He had

found a week in Paris--a week of Boulevard idleness and Boulevard

society--the best remedy for the dulness and the depression that

come from an unsatisfied heart and an overworked brain: and in

these occasional plunges into Parisian society he had made a wider

acquaintance with the artistic classes than it is often granted to a

provincial Englishman to make.

He ran over the names of the men he knew best in Paris, trying to hit

upon the likeliest person to suit his purpose. It must be a man who had

been well to the fore ten years ago, when Marie Prévol was a famous

beauty, and her lover was spending his nights and his fortune on the

Boulevard. It should not be difficult, he thought, to hit upon such a

man.

"Volney Dugarge, Bize, Pontruche, Trottier. Yes, Trottier. That is

the man; a thorough-going Bohemian, a haunter of supper-tables and

gambling-dens, a hanger-on of lorettes, steeped to the tips of his

nails in the atmosphere of the _demi-monde_, a man who had known

Gautier and Nerval and Gustave Planche, an _habitué_ of the Boulevard

theatres; poor, keen-witted, a member of the band of paragraphists,

the men who invent scandals, political, social, literary, theatrical,

according to the prevailing demand, who write smart paragraphs for the

most audacious of the newspapers, and puffs for enterprising tradesmen."

Trottier, thus humble in his pursuits, a man utterly without pride,

or, as his enemies said, without self-respect, was one of the most

agreeable men in Paris. He had been a Boulevardier for the last thirty

years, had seen the Boulevard extend its glittering length into regions

which he had known as a wilderness of gloom and poverty. He remembered

the time when the Palais Royal was the focus of Parisian gaiety, the

temple of fashion and taste.

"If this man Georges had any status in Bohemian society, Sigismond

Trottier must have known him," thought Heathcote.

The next thing was to find Trottier. He was a man who only began to

live after dinner. He might be looked for on the Boulevard between

nine o'clock and midnight. He might be found at a club much favoured

by actors and journalists, a club which had taken for itself a name

from the history of the mediæval drama, and rejoiced in the title of

_Les Enfants Sans Souci_, more briefly known as the _Sans Souci_. The

_Sans Souci_ had its nest on an _entresol_ in the Rue Vivienne, six

low-ceiled rooms opening one out of another, three of them furnished

with divans in true Oriental style. These were the smoking-rooms. Then

came a fourth and much more spacious apartment, provided with numerous

small tables, writing materials, and the newspapers. Tapestried

_portières_ on the right and left of the fireplace in this reading-room

opened into the sanctuary of the club, two medium-sized rooms,

furnished with green cloth tables for baccarat, thickly curtained,

thickly carpeted, lighted only from the courtyard of the house, which

was like a dry well.

Edward Heathcote strolled along the Boulevard, looking for his friend

as he went. It was nearly ten o'clock, a delicious night, balmy,

starlit, summer-like; a night upon which Sigismond Trottier might

naturally have been found seated amidst the idlers clustered on the

asphalte in front of a popular café. But in the groups which Heathcote

passed between the Hôtel de Bade and the corner of the Place de la

Bourse there was no sign of Trottier's ferret-face and long gray hair.

So the Englishman continued his walk to the Rue Vivienne, and entered

the lamp-lit vestibule which led to the mysteries of the _Sans Souci_.

He had been taken there more than once by Trottier, and had been amused

and interested by the people he met.

"Can you tell me if Monsieur Trottier is here this evening?" he asked

of the porter.

"Yes, Monsieur. He came half an hour ago. Monsieur Trottier generally

comes here at the same hour every evening to write his article for the

_Taon_."

The rooms were almost empty. Neither journalists nor actors mustered

strong before midnight. In a comfortable corner of the writing-room,

at a little table brilliantly lighted by a green-shaded lamp, Edward

Heathcote found the man he came to seek.

Sigismond Trottier was at least sixty years of age, tall, spare to

attenuation, with a long narrow face of almost livid pallor, and long

gray hair, falling over a greasy olive-green velvet collar, choice

ornament of a threadbare and faded olive-green frock-coat. His jaw

was narrow and projecting, his lips were thin and pinched, his nose

was long and sharp, his eyebrows were gray and shaggy. The only

features that gave life or colour to the face were the restless and

brilliant black eyes, small, keen, observant, the eyes of a creature

always on the watch. Ah, how many of the darkest mysteries of Paris

had that keen glance discovered, how many a loathsome depth had that

ruthless gaze explored, how many a social ulcer, how many a domestic

disease, how many a wound of heart and honour, how many an atrophy of

purse and reputation had those eyes pierced and scrutinised, while

all the rest of the world was still blind to the coming ruin, the

inevitable disgrace! Sigismond Trottier was a student of society. It

was his boast that he knew this Paris of the Third Republic as well

as Saint-Simon knew the Paris of the great Louis; knew it in all its

strength; and in all its weakness; knew it to the core of its rotten

heart.

Needless to say that such a man was invaluable as a paragraphist. He

had the same keen scent for a scandal that the well-trained detective

has for a crime. A whisper, a shrug was enough to put him on the right

track. He was a genius at that modern style of hint and innuendo which

just stops short of libel. He had killed more reputations than any

man in Paris: and he had never been to prison. His safety lay in the

keenness of his perception, which never allowed him to fall into such

mistakes as have ruined other society gossips. Whatever Sigismond

Trottier wrote was true. He had an extraordinary power of winnowing

the chaff from the corn in the floating scandals of the Boulevard. He

knew what to accept and what to reject. His judgment was infallible.

When Parisian society saw the hint of an elopement, the suggestion

of a marital wrong signed by Sigismond's hieroglyphic--an Egyptian

beetle--the thing was received as a fact. The pen of the unerring

recorder had proclaimed a truth. Happily he was not a physical coward,

though a professional assailant of man's honour and woman's reputation.

He had given good proof of his courage on several occasions, had

stood up before famous swordsmen, had faced marksmen of repute. That

deep dint in his lean and livid cheek was the mark of a bullet from

the Duke of Midlothian's pistol--that famous _viveur_ who expired

suddenly amidst the fading flowers and flaring tapers of a Boulevard

supper-room--the very spirit of profligate pleasure extinguished in a

breath. That long slanting scar upon the left jaw, a shade more livid

than the normal lividity of the complexion, was the result of five

minutes' sword-play between the Boulevard chronicler and the Marquis du

Bois-Chaufonds, the reminiscence of a duel which set all Paris talking

twenty years ago, when the Walewska was in the zenith of her charms.

From scalp to sole the paragraphist could have shown the scars of past

battles. He had never been known to refuse a challenge.

Trottier was so absorbed in his task when Heathcote approached his

table as to be quite unconscious of any one's presence. Heathcote

seated himself upon the other side of the table, and took up a

newspaper, to wait till the journalist came to the end of a sheet.

He had not long to wait. Before he had read more than half a dozen

paragraphs in the _Taon_, each signed with the familiar beetle,

Sigismond paused to blot a page, looked up, and recognised his English

acquaintance.

"Good-evening," he said. Then, with a mighty effort, he burst into

English, and exclaimed, "'Owderyoudo?" all as one word, having achieved

which feat he laughed long and loud, surprised at his own talent for

foreign tongues. "We begin to talk your language of horses, we others,"

he said triumphantly. "We have taken all your words for the sport, and

now we begin to take your greetings and salutations, your shake-hand,

your 'owderyoudo. And what brings you to Paris, Monsieur Effcott, at

the dead season?"

"I should rather ask what you, chosen chronicler of fashionable

society, can find to record in the dead season?"

"My dear friend, the most stupendous scandals are those that happen

in the dead season, when Paris is a desert, and a man thinks he can

murder his neighbour or run away with his neighbour's wife with equal

impunity. Ah, my friend, for the development of intrigue, for the

ripening of social mysteries, the working out of domestic tragedies,

there can be no better time than this dull blank interval of the year,

when there is no one in Paris. What stolen meetings, what little

suppers in closely-sealed cabinets, when Madame is at the seaside and

Monsieur is shooting wild boar in Auvergne! Heaven only forbid that

Monsieur and Madame should happen to take their supper in adjacent

cabinets, and that Monsieur should recognise the voice of Madame

on the other side of the lath and plaster! Yes, there is no richer

harvest-time for the chronicler than the season when there is not a

mortal in Paris."

"Cynic!" exclaimed Heathcote. "And so you still live by exposing the

faults and follies of your fellow-creatures."

"I try to reform them by proving to them that sooner or later all

social secrets are known. I am about the only preacher whose sermons

scare them nowadays."

"Then you consider your trade a strictly honourable one, no doubt."

"In French no doubt means perhaps," replied Trottier, "_vide_ Michelet.

No, I will say nothing for my calling, except that a man must live. You

may not see the necessity of my living, but the existence of the lowest

of us has its value to the man himself. The world might get on very

well without me, but I can't get on without the world."

"A man of your talent might have done well in any other line--"

"Pardon; mine is not a talent. It is a specialty. I should have

succeeded in no other line. If I had been rich and high-placed, like

Saint-Simon, I should have kept my impressions to myself while I lived,

and should have left a big book behind me when I died. But I am poor

and a nobody, so I have had to live upon my impressions."

"You put the case neatly," said Heathcote, "and you are right. We are

most of us the thing which circumstances make us. The man who will not

allow himself to be moulded by circumstance, who will strike out into

the empyrean of ideal good, is one man in a thousand."

"And the odds are that your one in a thousand, your honest man, is an

eminently disagreeable personage--like Diogenes or Thomas Carlyle,"

said Trottier.

"You have not finished your evening's work, I suppose?"

"No; I am in for another hour."

"Good," said Heathcote; "then at midnight you will be free. Will you

sup with me at the Café de Paris when your work is done? I believe it

is in your power to do me a material service merely by calling upon

your recollection of the past. Will you meet me at the Café de Paris at

twelve?"

"With pleasure; and if my poor memories of men and events can help you,

the record is at your service."

"A thousand thanks. I will go and order supper, and stroll on the

Boulevard till it is ready. _Au revoir!_"

"Until midnight!"

* * * * *

Sigismond Trottier was a man who kept his appointments. He was not neat

in his person, or punctual in his payments. He never went to church,

and he did not always wash. But if he promised a page of copy to a

newspaper, the page was delivered in due time. If he offered to frank a

friend to the theatre, in his quality as critic, he was waiting in the

vestibule at the appointed hour, ready to keep his word. If he accepted

an invitation to supper, he never kept his host waiting. Invitations to

dinner he invariably declined.

"A dinner-party is an anti-climax," he protested. "A man gets drunk too

early, and spoils his evening."

At midnight Monsieur Trottier's evening began, and he was ready for the

feast.

Mr. Heathcote received him in one of the cosiest little rooms in the

café. The Englishman's first act on entering had been to light all the

wax candles on the mantelpiece, which the waiters had left unlighted.

This established him at once as a man who knew his Paris, and his

judicious choice of wines having strengthened his position, everything

was ready when Trottier's shabby olive-green coat came meekly into the

radiance of the wax candles. Trottier was known at the Café de Paris,

and his shabby coat commanded the reverence of the waiters. Was he not

a man who, as it were, carried reputations in his pocket, who could

make a head-waiter famous by a stroke of his pen?

The supper was delicate, _recherché_, Parisian; the wine was

Johannisberger of princely quality, and a magnum of Mumms decanted in a

cut-crystal pitcher appeared with the last course. The two men talked

of general topics during supper. It was only when the waiters had

withdrawn, and when Sigismond Trottier had thrown himself back in his

chair and lighted his cigarette, that Heathcote approached the business

of the evening. It was half-past one o'clock, and the roll of wheels

upon the asphalte below the open window had been gradually diminishing.

There was no longer the roar of the Boulevard to disturb the speakers.

"If I can be of the slightest use to you, as an embodied chronicle of

Paris, command me," said Trottier. "Here I am at your service--an open

book. You have only to turn my leaves."

"Do you remember a double murder--the murder of an actress and her

lover--which happened ten years ago, in the forest of Saint-Germain?"

"Do I remember? Yes, as if the thing had happened last week; and for a

good reason. The man who was suspected--the lover, or, as some thought,

the husband, of the actress--was my familiar friend."

"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Heathcote, almost starting from his chair.

"Then my instinct was right. It told me that I should get on the track

of that man--it told me that you must have known him."

"The man was well known to me and to a chosen few, but only a few,"

replied Trottier. "He was a man of eccentric habits--a man of

considerable talent and large intellect, who could afford to live his

own life, and lived it. What he did with himself in the daytime none

of us knew: whether he slept away half his daylight life, or shut

himself in his den and smoked and dreamed and read. The latter idea

seemed likely enough, for he was a man who had read widely. He was

a delightful companion, brilliant, genial, lavish to his friends, a

splendid host. I have supped with him and Marie Prévol many a night in

this house--sometimes making the third in a cosy trio, sometimes one of

that small choice circle with which he occasionally surrounded himself."

"Then I take it that he was known in general society, either the

uppermost or the middle circles."

"Not the least in the world. He was a man who scorned society, hated

ceremonies and conventionalities. I never saw him in a dress-suit. I

doubt if he possessed one. When he went to a theatre, it was to sit

in a dark corner, where he could see without being seen. He detested

crowds. He had nothing to gain from the great world, and could afford

to outrage all its rules and regulations."

"Was he a thoroughbred Parisian?"

"Far from it. He was an American, but he had lived so long in Paris as

to be almost as Parisian as a citizen born and bred."

"Had he made his money, or inherited it?"

"Inherited it, without doubt. His habits were those of the spender,

not the worker. He was one of the lilies of the field, who toil not,

neither do they spin. I take it that his father had been one of those

daring speculators who in America begin with nothing and become

millionaires in a year or two. As for the man himself, he had no more

idea of business or finance than one of those dressed-up dolls of the

Quartier Bréda. He took not the faintest interest in the transactions

of the Bourse, and in that point alone revealed himself as no true

Parisian."

"Do you believe that he committed the murder?" asked Heathcote.

Sigismond Trottier shrugged his shoulders, and shook back his long gray

hair, as he slowly puffed his cigarette.

"Who knows?" he said. "I liked the man so well that I should hesitate

at saying I believe in his guilt. And yet the fact of his disappearance

from the hour of the murder is almost conclusive evidence; and I know

that he was savagely jealous of Maucroix."

"You judged him a man of strong passions, a man capable of a great

crime?"

"Yes, he was a man of intense feeling, strong for good or evil. A

volcano glowed under that calm outward aspect, that easy-going,

devil-may-care manner of his. I was very sorry for him. If Marie had

been but true--"

"You believe that she was his wife?"

"I do. His manner to her was in all respects the manner of one who

esteemed as well as loved her. He introduced her to his friends as his

wife. He loved her too well to have refused her that title."

"But for a man who scorned conventionalities, what reason could there

have been for concealment? Why should he not have introduced his

actress-wife to society? Why should he not have established a home?"

"The first question is easily answered. As he loathed society for

himself, he would hardly court it for his wife. The second can only be

answered by the fact that the man was an eccentric. He preferred the

freedom of an actress's lodging to the restrictions of a rich man's

house. His happiest days were spent wandering southward with the

swallows; yet so strange was the man's temper that he never stayed more

than a fortnight or three weeks away from Paris. The city seemed to

draw him back like a magnet."

"Yet he had no business here?"

"None that I ever discovered. He must have loved the city for its own

sake. He was here all through the siege and the Commune. I have heard

him say that the happiest days of his life were those on which the roar

of the Prussian guns made his only music, and when Marie and he used to

crouch and shiver over a handful of charcoal, and eat a supper of dry

bread and Carlsbad plums."

"He must have had some _pied-à-terre_ of his own, I conclude."

"He must have had his den somewhere in Paris; but none of us knew where

it was. The only address he ever gave was that of Marie Prévol, _alias_

Madame Georges, in the Rue Lafitte. He met his friends on the Boulevard

when the theatres were over. He was a man who enjoyed life to the

full--after his own fashion. He was the master-spirit of his little

circle--a daring wit, a bold politician, a trenchant critic. Paris

is the city of brilliant talkers, yet I have known few who surpassed

Georges as a conversationalist. I can see him now, with his long fair

hair falling over his flashing eyes, his sarcastic lip, and the proud

carriage of that leonine head. Not a common man by any means, and with

a laugh that was like music--a man for a woman to adore; and yet Marie

wavered in her fidelity directly a fashionable dandy made love to her."

"You have no idea what became of Georges after the murder?"

"If I had, I would not tell you. No, I have not the faintest inkling.

He vanished as a bubble that bursts upon the surface of a stream. As

a mere guess, I should say that he went back to the country of his

birth--that if he is still living, he is to be found in America under

another name."

"He was a rich man, you say. It is easier for a man to betake himself

from one country to another than to transfer his fortune. What became

of this man's French investments?"

"He may never have had any such investments. His fortune may have been

invested solely in America. He was a man who declared that he valued

liberty above all other blessings. He would scarcely have fettered

himself by investing any portion of his wealth in a country where he

was leading a life of pleasure, living as a pure Bohemian. His utter

indifference to all rumours about the Bourse would show that he had no

French investments. His wealth, I take it, came from some secure source

on the other side of the Atlantic."

"Did you ever hear him talk of an English friend, or a friend who

resided in England?"

"Never."

"And yet he must have had such a friend," said Heathcote.

He related the story of Léonie Lemarque's death, and the inducement

that had taken her to England, where she was to have met a friend

of her aunt's long-vanished lover. Sigismond Trottier listened with

keenest interest. All social mysteries, whether criminal or not, had a

charm for him.

"It is a very strange case," he said, "and I don't wonder that you

are following it up earnestly. No, I never heard Georges mention any

English friend. It was a bold stroke for the grandmother to send the

girl to a man who was the friend of the murderer of her daughter. A

drowning man will catch at a straw, says your proverb; and this poor

woman, penniless and friendless on her death-bed, may have caught at

the name of the only rich man upon whom she could advance the faintest

claim. And what was the nature of that claim? A packet of Georges'

love-letters. Compromising love-letters, perhaps, to be offered to

Georges' friend as the price of protection and aid for the orphan girl.

A strange story. And no one knows what became of those letters?"

"No one, as yet. No letters were found upon the girl. Even the handbag

she carried with her had disappeared."

"A very strange story. I wish I could help you to read the riddle.

Your interest in it I imagine to be something beyond the mere artistic

interest in a curious case."

"Yes, I am concerned in arriving at the truth, for the sake of one whom

I honour and revere. I shall be deeply grateful if you can help me."

"Then I will help you," answered the paragraphist quietly; and Edward

Heathcote felt that in this amateur detective he had a stronger ally

than in the old police-officer of the left bank.

CHAPTER III.

BOTHWELL BEGINS TO SEE HIS WAY.

Dreary days followed for Bothwell Grahame after that final interview

with Lady Valeria. He had broken his bonds, he had escaped from the

Circe whose fatal spells had held him captive so long. He was his

own man again, he could stand up before his fellow-men and fear no

reproach--nay, he could even dare to meet that kind old man whose

friendship had never been withheld from him. He could look General

Harborough in the face, and clasp his hand without feeling himself a

craven and a traitor, and that is a thing which he had not been able to

do for the last three years.

He was relieved, rejoiced at the breaking of that old tie, and yet

there was a touch of pain in such a parting. There came a bitter pang

of remorse now and again to disturb his sense of newly-recovered peace.

Such severances can never happen without pain. The man who can be

utterly indifferent to the agony of a woman he has once loved must have

a heart of stone. Bothwell was not stony-hearted. He knew that Valeria

Harborough was not a good woman--that she had been shamefully false

to the best of husbands--that she had abandoned herself recklessly to

the promptings of a fatal passion. But he had loved her once: and his

heart bled for her now in her misery and abandonment. He was haunted by

the vision of her face, as she had risen up before him, white as the

very dead, her eyes flashing, her lips quivering, her voice subdued by

passion to a serpent-like hiss, as she told him--

"You are in love with another woman!"

Yes, that was what it all came to. That was the sum-total of his

scruples, his remorse of conscience: or at least that is what it must

needs seem in the sight of the woman he abandoned. She would give him

no credit for many a remorseful pang, many a sting of conscience in the

past; yes, even in the noontide of passion, when he deemed that for him

Fate held not the possibility of another love. In her sight he was a

perjurer and a hypocrite. It was hard so to appear to the woman who

had worshipped him; hard to know that there was a heart breaking for

him yonder in the Italian villa on the hill above the sea.

"Why should I grieve about her?" he asked himself angrily. "I must be

a coxcomb to fancy that she is making herself unhappy for my sake. She

was angry with me the other day. It was rage, not wounded love, that

flashed from those brilliant eyes of hers; the rage of slighted beauty.

She is far more concerned for her losses on the turf than at the loss

of me. If my Dido mounts the funeral pyre, it will be because she has

made a bad book, and not for my sake."

But argue with himself as he might, Bothwell could not forget the agony

in the face that had once been his delight, the despair in the voice

which had bidden him farewell, the tremulous hand which had snatched

the love-token to fling it away in deepest scorn.

Perhaps Bothwell would have more easily forgotten these things if he

could have had the comfort of Hilda's society at this period of his

life. But Hilda and the twins and Fräulein Meyerstein had all gone off

to Dawlish for sea-bathing, and Mrs. Wyllard warned her cousin that he

must not attempt to follow them.

"You are on your probation, my poor Bothwell," she said, "and you must

be very careful how you act. If you were to go to Dawlish you would

only distress Hilda, who has promised not to see you till her brother

comes back from Paris."

"I am not going there. I would not distress her for worlds. I am to

wait patiently till Heathcote has made up his mind that I am not in the

habit of throwing girls over viaducts; and then I may go to my darling

and claim her promise. In the mean time I can at least write to her."

And he did write, within a few hours of his final interview with Lady

Valeria. His letter was full and straight in its significance.

* * * * *

"My dearest, I am my own man again. I am free, or as

free as a man can be who is your most abject slave. I am

told that I am not to be allowed to see you till I stand

acquitted of the crime which Bodmin has judged me quite

capable of committing. I think, little as you know of me,

you know enough to be very sure that I am innocent upon

that count.

"But there was another count upon which I confess myself

guilty, Hilda--and it was that old sin which made me hang

back months ago when I longed to tell you of my love. I

have been guilty of a foolish attachment to a married

woman, an attachment which lasted with varying fervour

for over a year, but which had quite worn itself out

before I left India. The flame burnt fiercely enough for

a little while, and then came total extinction. Only it

is not always easy for a man to shake off old fetters;

and it was not till your pure and noble love gave me

courage that I dared to stand up boldly and say, 'That

old false love is dead; let us bury it decently.' And now

the old love is buried, Hilda, and I am all your own. No

one is any the worse for that old sentimental folly. Such

flirtations are going on in India every day. Some end

in guilt and misery, no doubt; but there are more that

finish as mine has finished, like the blowing out of a

candle.

"Can you forgive me, dear one, for having once cared for

another? Remember it was before I knew you. Henceforward

I am yours, and yours only. I claim your dear promise.

I ask you to engage yourself to a man whom Bodmin looks

upon askance as a possible murderer.

"No, love, I will not exact so much. I will only tell you

that I am all your own, and that I adore you. We will

not talk about engagements till your brother comes back

from Paris, convinced of my innocence as to that one

particular charge, and until Bodmin has begun to forget

that it ever suspected me.--Your adoring BOTHWELL."

* * * * *

Having written this letter, Bothwell had nothing to do but to ride

about the hills, thinking of his sweetheart, till he received her

answer.

She wrote with unstinted tenderness, and recoiled in nowise from the

fulfilment of her promise.

"I hold myself engaged to you henceforward, dear Bothwell," she wrote,

"through good or evil fortune, good or evil report. But as I have

promised my brother not to see you while he is away, it might be well

that we did not write to each other again until after his return. I

think you know that I am steadfast, and that you can trust me."

Yes, he was very sure of her steadfastness. Was she not one woman in a

thousand to have pledged herself to him just when any ordinary woman

would have shunned him--would have recoiled from him as from some

savage monster? She had been calm, and steadfast, and unfearing, a

woman who could dare to judge for herself.

And now Bothwell Grahame felt that he had crossed the threshold of a

new life. He was no longer a solitary waif, with no one to think of

but himself. He had not only his own future to work out with patience

and courage. He had to think of the young wife, whom it might be his

blessed fate to claim before he was much older. He could no longer

afford to be vague and wavering. The problem of a gentleman-like

maintenance must be worked out by him somehow, and without loss of time.

He walked across the Cornish hills in those balmy afternoons of

September, full of thought and full of care; happy, yes, ineffably

happy in the knowledge of Hilda's love; but care went along with

happiness. He had to provide for his beloved. Long and thoughtful

self-examination brought him to one positive conclusion about himself.

Whatever he was to do in the future, if he were to do it well, must be,

in somewise, the thing that he had done in the past. He was a soldier

to the marrow of his bones, and it was in military work, or military

studies, that he must find his future living.

This was the plan which he worked out for himself during those solitary

rambles on the moor, sometimes with gun and dogs, sometimes with no

companion save his own thoughts. He would fall back upon the studious

habits of his earlier years, work at the science of soldiery as he

had worked then. He would take a house in one of the villages on the

wild coast of North Cornwall--at Trevena perhaps, in King Arthur's

country--some roomy old house with a good garden, and he would take

pupils to cram for the military examinations. He knew that he could

get on with young men. He had always been popular with the subalterns

of his regiment. He would work honestly, conscientiously, devotedly as

ever coach or crammer worked since the art of coaching and cramming

was first invented. It would be a jog-trot humble kind of life, a life

which could never lead to distinction, far from a brilliant future

to offer to such a girl as Hilda Heathcote. Yet he told himself that

it was such a life as would not be altogether distasteful to her. It

was a life in which husband and wife need be but seldom parted, in

which all their amusements and relaxations could be shared. They could

hunt, and shoot, and ride, and boat together on that wild coast. The

conventionalities would cost them very little. Fine clothes, fine

living would not be required of them: and in their rustic seclusion

they would escape the ghastly struggle to maintain showy appearances;

they could afford themselves all the comforts of a homely unpretentious

_ménage_.

Bothwell felt that it was in him to do good and honest work in such

a career as this; surely better than sheep-breeding or gold-digging

in some savage quarter of the earth, where the intellectual man must

gradually sink to the level of his companion brutes. He pictured to

himself the tranquil happiness of such a life. The long morning of

conscientious work, followed by the afternoon ride or ramble. The

summer holiday after a successful term; the adventurous excursion among

Scottish lakes or in some foreign land; the cherished home, gradually

developed and improved from its primitive homeliness into a thing of

beauty. The garden in which wife and husband and pupils worked together

towards the attainment of a lofty ideal. The union of a household which

should be as one family.

Cheered by such visions, Bothwell took up his old technical books with

an almost rabid hunger for study. He sent to London for the newest

treatises on gunnery. He flung himself with heart and mind into the one

line of study which had always interested him. Hilda had told him not

to write to her; but he could not deny himself the delight of unfolding

his newly-formed plan, which he explained to her upon five sheets of

closely-written note-paper.

"Let me have just one more letter from you, dearest," he pleaded in

conclusion, "to tell me what you think of my scheme, and where we ought

to look for a house. Shall it be Trevena or Boscastle or Padstow or

New Quay? I think we ought to be near the sea, so that our lads may

get plenty of boating and swimming. And I could teach you to row. We

would live at least half our lives in the open air, and we would study

natural history in all its branches. I fancy myself an ideal coach.

I know my pupils would adore me, while you would be to them as a

divinity. Our evenings could be devoted to music; we could get up one

of Sullivan's operas, and perform for the benefit of the school or the

church. We should be the most useful people in our parish. It would be

a humble jog-trot life, darling; but I believe it would be a happy one

for both of us. I know that for me it would be Paradise."

The answer came by return.

"Yes, dear Bothwell, your scheme is charming. Trevena

is a delicious place, and I should delight in living

there. I shall have a little money when I come of age, I

believe--more than enough to furnish our house. Shall

we be mediæval or Chippendale? I say Chippendale. And

we must get an old house, for the sake of the panelling

and the staircase; and we must pull it all to pieces on

account of the drains. And now you must not write to me

any more till Edward comes home. I have had a curious

letter from him. He is deeply absorbed in unravelling

some dreadful mystery. He has not yet found the murderer

of that poor girl, but I can see that he no longer

suspects _you_. How could he ever have harboured that

monstrous idea?"

Cheered by such a letter as this, Bothwell worked as if he had

been on the eve of some great examination--worked as if his life

depended on those long hours of toil. Yes, he would get a house

at Trevena--the sooner the better. He had felt of late as if the

atmosphere of Penmorval stifled him. He had been too long a hanger-on

upon his rich cousin. He was angry with himself for having dawdled and

procrastinated, and let life slide by him, while he waited as if for a

vision from heaven, to point out the road, in which he should walk. And

now the seraphic vision had been granted to him; but the angel wore

the shape of Hilda Heathcote. Hilda had inspired him with the desire to

stay in England, to earn his bread in his own country, and out of that

wish had arisen this scheme of his. He would lose no time in putting

his plan into execution. Of late he had read aversion in the eyes of

Julian Wyllard--or it may have been contempt for his idle life, for

his dependence. In any case there was that in Wyllard's manner which

rendered existence at Penmorval hateful for Bothwell Grahame.

"I suppose he, too, suspects me," Bothwell told himself. "He thinks it

quite possible that I flung that girl into the gorge. Society is always

ready to impute evil to an idler. There is that old doggerel of Dr.

Watts about the mischief that Satan finds for idle hands to do."

He rode across country to Trevena the day after he received Hilda's

frank and loving letter. He was not going to wait until his darling was

able to marry him before beginning his new life. He would set up his

establishment as soon as the thing could be done, take pupils at once,

get over all the roughness, the difficulty of the start, before he

asked Hilda to share his home. Nor was he going to furnish his house

with his wife's money. That was just one of the things he would not

consent to do. He had his idea as to how he should furnish his house

when he found one to his liking. Of course he was not going to decide

upon any house until Hilda had seen it and approved the choice. But in

the mean time he rode off to Trevena on a voyage of discovery.

It was a long ride, and a hilly road, but not too long for the new

hunter Glencoe, an animal with a tremendous reserve of force that had

to be taken out of him somehow, an accumulated store of kicks and

plunges which a clever rider could compound for in a good fast trot

along the road, or a swinging gallop across the moorland. Bothwell and

his horse were on excellent terms by the time they had gone three miles

together, although the brute had insisted on going through Bodmin in a

series of buck-jumps.

* * * * *

Life at Penmorval had been just a shade more sombre in its hue for

the last week. Dora Wyllard had not been able altogether to overcome

her offended feeling at that unwarrantable burst of passion upon her

husband's part, which had followed Edward Heathcote's visit. That

he should upbraid and insult her, that he should be jealous--he for

whose sake she had jilted an upright and honourable man, he to whom

she had given all the devotion of her life! It seemed to her an almost

unpardonable weakness and littleness on Julian Wyllard's part. And she

had thought his character above all pettinesses common to meaner men.

She had loved him because he was noble-hearted and large-minded.

His indifference to Bothwell's good name, his selfish coldness upon

a question which to her was vital, had wounded her to the quick. She

was not a woman to give way to sullenness, to shut herself up in the

armour of angry pride, to give ungracious answers and scant courtesy to

the husband who had offended her. Yet there was a subtle change in her

manner and bearing which was perceptible to Julian Wyllard, and which

he felt keenly.

Neither husband nor wife had recurred by so much as one word or hint to

that scene in the yew-tree arbour. Life had glided by for these last

few days in just the same manner as of old; but the shadow was there

all the same. The mild genius of domestic love had veiled his face.

Dora was sitting in the library with her husband at post-time on the

day of Bothwell's ride to Trevena. Julian Wyllard was at his desk

writing, while his wife sat in her favourite window, absorbed in a new

book, with the open box from Mudie's at her feet, when the servant

brought in the post-bag. Dora watched her husband intently as he

unlocked the bag and took out a pile of letters and papers. He looked

up as he was sorting the letters, and surprised that earnest expression

in his wife's eyes.

"You are expecting some important letter?" he said.

"Yes, I am anxious to hear from Mr. Heathcote," she answered quietly.

It was the first time that name had been spoken by either of them since

the scene in the arbour.

"There is your letter, then, in Heathcote's hand, with the Paris

post-mark."

"Thank you." She rose, and walked across to the desk to receive her

letters. "I hope he has some good news for me."

She went back to the window, and opened Heathcote's letter, standing

by the open window in the full light of the September afternoon, her

husband watching her all the while. Her face brightened as she read.

There was no need for him to ask if the news were good.

"Your letter seems satisfactory," he said, unfolding the _Times_ as he

spoke.

"It is a good letter," she answered. "It tells me that Mr. Heathcote

has begun to see how wrong he was in suspecting Bothwell. He has

evidently made some discovery about that poor girl's fate. He, at any

rate, has found out who she is."

"Indeed!" said Wyllard, deep in a leading-article. "He has found out

who she is?"

"Yes. He writes her name as if I ought to know all about her. He is

still groping in the dark, he says, but he hopes to fathom the mystery

of Léonie Lemarque's death."

There was no answer. Mr. Wyllard was absorbed by the paper.

"You were not listening, Julian."

"O, yes, I was. Léonie Lemarque--a French name. We were right, then,

in supposing that the girl was French?"

He laid aside the newspaper, and began to open his letters; but he

said not a word more about Heathcote's news. Dora felt that he might

have been more interested--more sympathetic. It was her cousin whose

reputation and happiness were at stake. Affection for her should have

made these things of greater moment to her husband.

Bothwell came home in time for the eight-o'clock dinner, and in

excellent spirits. He had seen an old cottage standing in a large

garden, with a fine old orchard adjoining, a cottage which could be

converted, by considerable additions, into a capital house for himself

and his pupils. The situation was superb. The cottage stood on a

height, near the junction of two roads, and it commanded magnificent

views of sea and coast.

"I could make the additions I want for three or four hundred pounds,"

he told Dora, when he was alone with her in the drawing-room after

dinner. "I should be my own architect and my own builder. I should only

have to pay for labour and materials. I did a goodish deal in the

building line when I was in the army, you know, Dora, supervising the

alterations of the Jungapore barracks. I know more about bricks and

mortar than you would give me credit for knowing."

He had previously confided his idea of taking pupils, and Dora had

approved, and had promised her heartiest cooperation. He was sure of

her sympathy with all his endeavours to win an honourable independence

at home. The idea of his emigrating had always been unwelcome to her.

"And now, Dora, I am going to make a very audacious proposition,"

he said, when he had finished his description of the cottage at

Trevena. "I want you to lend me seven hundred pounds, to be repaid in

half-yearly instalments of one hundred pounds during the next three

years and a half, with or without interest, as you may think fit."

"Suppose we say nothing about the repayment, Bothwell," said his

cousin, smiling at him as she looked up from her embroidery. "You shall

have the seven hundred pounds; and we will decide by and by whether it

is to be a loan or a gift."

"Dora, you are too generous--" he began.

"Nonsense, Bothwell. I always intended to furnish you with a small

capital if you made up your mind to emigrate. I had much rather give

you the money to invest at home. You are the last of my clan--my only

near relative--and I don't want to lose you. I look to you and Hilda,

and your children, to brighten the decline of my life."

"O Dora, that seems a poor substitute for those who should be nearer

and dearer," cried Bothwell. In the next instant he would gladly have

recalled his words, for he saw the tears well up to his cousin's eyes,

and he knew that her childless marriage was a grief.

"You are too good, far more generous than I deserve," he went on

hurriedly. "But let the money be at least called a loan. If fortune

favour me within the next few years, it will be such a pleasure to give

you back your money. And if Fate prove unkind, I shall know I have not

a hard creditor. But I have made up my mind to be successful. I mean to

work as men seldom work--to make everything I do a labour of love. And

with such a wife as Hilda--"

"Hilda will be a wife in a thousand. I am sure your pupils will adore

her; and you must make your house very pretty, for Hilda's sake. Seven

hundred will not be half enough."

"It will be more than enough. You don't know how economically I can

build, and how cleverly Hilda and I will contrive to furnish. We will

ride over the country to overhaul all the cottages and farmhouses in

quest of neglected old bits of Chippendale and Sheraton. We shall

get lovely old things for a mere song, and find some clever jobbing

cabinet-maker to make them as good as new--"

"And in the end you will find they will have cost you more than if you

had bought them from Nosotti," said Dora, laughing at his eagerness. "I

know how costly that kind of economy is apt to prove in the long-run.

You had better get your Sheraton or your Chippendale furniture made on

purpose for you, new and sound and convenient, and of more charming

designs than Chippendale ever imagined."

"No, Dora. I am intense as a Chippendalist. I must have the real

thing--old, and inconvenient even, if you like."

"What a boy you are still, Bothwell! And now I am going to tell you

something that will please you."

"Hilda is coming here to-morrow," speculated Bothwell eagerly.

"No. Hilda is not coming back while her brother is away. That is not my

good news, Bothwell. It is even better than that."

And then she told him the contents of Heathcote's letter.

"I am very glad," he said quietly. "That is at least one knocked off

the list of my suspicious friends."

Julian Wyllard came into the drawing-room while the cousins were

sitting together talking, their heads bending towards each other. The

family likeness between them was very strong. They looked like brother

and sister; and they looked very happy.

Dora was in the garden next day when the postman brought his bag. She

was no longer anxious about her letters, having received the expected

tidings from Paris. She was moving slowly about among her roses, armed

with a basket and a pair of garden scissors, cutting off blind buds and

shabby blooms, making war upon her insect enemies--enjoying the balmy

air and warm sunshine of early autumn.

Julian Wyllard came out of the glass door while she was thus occupied.

She looked up at the sound of the familiar footsteps, and went across

the grass to meet him.

"My dear Dora, are you inclined to go for a week's holiday with me?" he

asked, in his cheeriest tones.

"I am always ready to go anywhere with you. Is it because you have not

been feeling well of late that you want to leave Penmorval?" she asked,

looking anxiously at him, remembering his strange irritation, that

burst of jealousy, which might be after all only the indication of an

overworked brain.

"I have not been feeling over well--a little worried and irritable, and

more than a little weak and languid," he answered. "But it is not on

that account I want to go away. You remember my losing the Raffaelle

last July?"

"Perfectly."

"Well, there is a still finer Raffaelle to be sold next week in Paris,

at the Hôtel Drouot. The great Rochejaquelin collection comes to the

hammer. There are some of the finest Greuzes in Europe. There are

Meissoniers of the highest quality, and a famous Delaroche. I may not

buy any of the pictures. No doubt the prices will be enormous. But I

should like to see the collection once more, before it is scattered

to the four winds. Would you mind running over to Paris with me for a

week, or would you rather stay at home while I go?"

"I should like very much to go. I have never been in Paris with you,

except hurrying through from station to station."

"Have you not? That is strange."

"I have never even seen the house where you lived when you were making

your fortune in Paris."

"That would not be much to see. A ground floor near the Madeleine. A

capital point for a business man; within ten minutes' walk of the

Bourse, and in that central spot where the idlers and the workers alike

congregate. A most uninteresting nest, Dora; nothing historical, or

picturesque, or romantic, within half a mile."

"It will be enough for me that you lived and worked there. You must

have worked very hard in those days."

"I was not one of the butterflies, I assure you."

"Mr. Distin told me that you turned your back upon all the dissipations

and pleasures of Paris, that you were a man of one idea, working only

for one end--to make a great fortune.

"That is the only way for a poor man to grow rich. I had to make

brain-labour and concentration serve me instead of capital. I had

the good luck to enter the Parisian Bourse at a period when fortunes

might be made by hard thinking--when to win in the game of speculation

was a question of mathematics. Nature and schooling had made me a

decent mathematician, and I used all the science I had in fighting the

_coulissiers_ with their own weapons. But I am talking a language which

you can't understand, Dora. Let the past be past. You and I have only

to spend the money I earned in those days."

"You are always spending your wealth for the good of others, Julian,"

his wife answered tenderly. "Providence ought to bless the riches you

earned in your laborious youth. I cannot imagine you caring for money

for its own sake."

"I never did so care for it, Dora. Money in my mind meant power. I

began life as a poor man's son, and tasted all the bitterness of narrow

means. In my boyhood I told myself that I would be rich before I grew

old, and to that end I worked as few men work. I was able to surround

my mother with luxury during the closing years of her life. I was

able to give my sister a dowry that helped the man of her choice to

make his way in the world years before he could have done so without

that aid. She did not live very long to enjoy her happiness, poor

girl; but her last days were brightened by prosperity. No, Dora, I was

not a money-grubber, but I made speculation a science, and I turned

the age in which I lived to good account. It is not often given to

a speculator to live in such a golden age as the days of Morny and

Jecker."

"I am sure you would do nothing that was not strictly honourable," said

Dora, with her bright trusting look.

"O, I belonged to the honourable section of the Bourse," replied

Wyllard, with a somewhat cynical smile. "I had my office and my agents

in London, and was a power on the Stock Exchange; and when I had

acquired a reputation as a financier on both sides of the Channel,

I founded the firm of Wyllard & Morrison, with one of the richest

merchants in London for my partner. A man in my position could soil his

fingers with no doubtful enterprise. Well, Dora, it is agreed you will

go to Paris with me?"

"With pleasure."

She was happier than she had felt since that cloud of anger had passed

across her domestic horizon. Julian's manner was franker, fonder,

more like his old self--the man who had won her away from that other

noble-minded man to whom she had promised herself--the man for whose

sake she had been willing to break her promise.

"Can you be ready to start to-morrow morning? The sale takes place

three days hence, and I want to have a good look at the pictures before

they come to the hammer."

"Yes, I will be ready whenever you like."

"Then we'll leave by the morning train, and go straight on to Paris by

the night mail. You will be able to see Heathcote, and hear how his

investigation progresses. Where is he staying, by the way?"

"At the Hôtel de Bade."

"I'll drop him a line, and ask him to call on us at the Windsor. It

is an old-fashioned family hotel, where I think you will be more

comfortable than at one of those huge palaces, where you may be

surfeited with splendid upholstery, but rarely get your bell answered

under a quarter of an hour. You will take Priscilla, I suppose?"

Priscilla was Mrs. Wyllard's maid, Cornish to the marrow, and a severe

Primitive Methodist.

"Priscilla in Paris? No, I think not. She was so wretched in Italy. The

very smell of the incense offended her."

"She will not be overpowered by incense in Paris nowadays. She is more

likely to be offended by a new Age of Reason. However, if you think you

can do without her--"

"I'm sure I can. We shall not be visiting, I suppose?"

"Hardly, I think. It is the dullest of dull seasons in Paris just now,

and I had never a large visiting acquaintance in that city. I was too

busy a man to go into society."

"You must have been a stoic to resist the temptations of Parisian

society--the writers, the painters, singers, actors--all that is

foremost and brightest in the intellectual world."

"There are circles and circles in Paris, as well as in London. I have

been in Parisian assemblies that were eminently dull," said Wyllard.

They started from Penmorval after breakfast next morning, and were

seated in the Dover mail at eight o'clock in the evening, after dining

at the Grand Hotel. Dora was in excellent spirits. Change of scene

had a brightening effect upon her mind, and she was very happy in the

idea of Hilda and Bothwell's happiness. She had handed her cousin a

cheque for seven hundred pounds, with which he was to open an account

at the local bank. And then he had only to wait for Hilda to approve

his choice, before he set to work with bricklayers and carpenters at

improving a cottage into an Elizabethan Grange. That was his idea.

"We will have an Elizabethan Grange furnished with real Chippendale,"

he said. "Incongruous, but charming."

"Then be sure that very few of your windows are made to open," said

Dora, laughing at his ardour, "if you want to be truly Elizabethan."

"Every casement shall open to its uttermost width--every corner of the

house shall be steeped in light and air," protested Bothwell.

And now Dora Wyllard was reclining in her corner of the railway

compartment, speeding towards Dover through the gray autumn night, by

Kentish hayfields and stubble, and across the gentle undulations of a

Kentish landscape, so different from the bold hills and deep gorges of

her native Cornwall.

There was a reading-lamp hanging on Mrs. Wyllard's side of the

carriage, and she had the October Quarterlies and a heap of papers to

beguile the journey. Among the papers, was the _Times_ supplement,

which she opened for the first time to look at the births, marriages,

and deaths. Mr. Wyllard had read the other part of the paper before

they reached Paddington, but he had not looked at the supplement.

While Dora was looking down the births, marriages, and deaths in a

casual way, her eye was suddenly caught by an advertisement at the top

of the second column.

"The person who was to have met Léonie Lemarque at Charing Cross

Station on the morning of July 5th last is earnestly requested to

communicate immediately with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors,

Furnival's Inn."

"How strange!" exclaimed Dora; and then she read the advertisement to

her husband, who was sitting in an opposite corner, with closed eyes,

as if half-asleep.

He started at the sound of her voice.

"I beg your pardon, Julian. I did not see that you were asleep."

"I was only dozing. Léonie Lemarque! that was the name of the girl who

was killed, was it not? Then no doubt the advertisement is put in by

Heathcote. The reference to Distin indicates as much."

"He must have made some further discovery about that unfortunate girl,"

said Dora thoughtfully. "He must have found out the date of her arrival

in London, and that she came to meet some particular person. Do you

think it was that person who killed her, Julian?"

"My dear Dora, how can I think about a business of which I know

absolutely nothing? For anything we know, the girl's death may have

been purely accidental, and this person who was to have met her at the

station may be a figment of Heathcote's fancy, and this advertisement

only a feeler thrown out in the hope of obtaining information from some

unknown source. Why any of you should trouble yourselves to solve this

mystery is more than I can understand."

"Why, Julian, did not you yourself send for Mr. Distin? did you not say

that as a magistrate it was your duty--"

"To do all I could to further the ends of justice. Most assuredly,

Dora. But having engaged the assistance of the cleverest criminal

lawyer in England, and he having failed to fathom the mystery, I had

no more to do. I had done my duty, and I was content to let the matter

rest."

"So would I have been, if people had not suspected Bothwell. I could

have no peace while there was such a cloud upon my cousin's reputation."

"That shows how narrow a view even the cleverest and most large-minded

of women can take of this big world. Surely it can matter to no man

living what a handful of people in a little country town may choose to

think about him."

"Bothwell has to spend his life among those people."

"Well, you have had your own way in the matter, my dear Dora; and if

you will only allow me to forget all about it, I am content that you

and Heathcote should grope for ever in the labyrinth of that girl's

antecedents. A lady's-maid or a nursery-governess, I suppose, who came

to England to seek her fortune."

Dora was silent. Once again she felt that there was a want of sympathy

upon her husband's part in this matter. He ought to have remembered

that Bothwell was to her as a brother.

They were in Paris early next morning. Mr. Wyllard had telegraphed to

the proprietor of the Windsor, and had secured charming rooms on the

first floor, with a balcony overlooking the gardens of the Tuileries.

The outer shell of the palace still stood there, a memorial of the

brilliant historic past, and cabs and carriages and omnibuses and

wagons were driving across the once sacred grounds, on the new road

that had been lately cut from the Rue de Rivoli to the quay. It was

a splendid Paris upon which Dora and her husband looked out in the

clear freshness of the autumnal morning, but it was curiously changed

from that Imperial Paris which Julian Wyllard had known twenty years

before. It seemed to him this morning, looking across those ruined

palace-walls, the daylight streaming through those vacant windows, as

if he and the world had grown old and dim and feeble since those days.

Twenty years ago, and Morny was alive, and Jecker was a power on the

Parisian Bourse, and Julian Wyllard was laying the foundation-stones

of his fortune. He had started the Crédit Mauresque--that powerful

association which had dealt with the wealth of Eastern princes and

Jewish traders, had almost launched a company for the rebuilding of the

Temple at Jerusalem, had ridden gaily over the perilous ocean of public

enterprise for some time, and had made great fortunes for the four or

five gifted individuals whose second sight revealed to them the right

hour at which to withdraw their capital from the scheme.

Yes, it had been a glorious Paris in those days, a city in which a

young Englishman with a mathematical brain could court the goddess

Fortune more profitably than in his native capital. Julian Wyllard had

earned his bread upon the London Stock Exchange for some years before

he changed the scene of his labours to Paris; but it was upon the Paris

Bourse that he began to make his fortune.

Dora was tired after her journey, for she had been too full of thought

to sleep in the train, and even now her brain was too active for

the possibility of rest. So, after dressing and breakfasting, she

accompanied her husband to the great Parisian auction rooms to look at

the Rochejaquelin collection.

The inspection of the pictures lasted over two hours. Julian Wyllard

was an ardent connoisseur, and his wife sympathised with him in his

love of art. Together they criticised the gems of the collection, and

stood in silent admiration before the famous Raffaelle.

"It will fetch thousands," said Wyllard.

"Why not buy it, if you really wish to possess it?" said Dora. "Why

should we hoard our money? There is no one to come after us. Penmorval

may be a show place when you and I are gone, and your picture-gallery

will give pleasure to hundreds of tourists."

"Ah, there is the rub," sighed her husband, conscious of the latent

melancholy in his wife's speech. "'No son of mine succeeding.' When

you and I are gone there will be no one to care for Penmorval--no one

to cherish your garden, and say, 'My mother planted these roses, or

planned these walks'--no one to treasure the pictures I have collected,

for any reason except their intrinsic value."

"Will you take me to see the house in which you lived and worked?"

asked Dora, as they were leaving the auction-room.

"My dear Dora, I can show you the outside of that historic spot,"

answered her husband lightly; "but I doubt if I can introduce you to

the rooms in which I worked. The present occupant may not be inclined

to sympathise with your hero-worship.".

"O, but I should so like to see those rooms, and I am sure if the

occupier is a gentleman, he will not refuse such a natural request.

Here comes Mr. Heathcote," she exclaimed, as they turned into the

Boulevard.

"I was coming to the Hôtel Drouot in quest of you," said Heathcote, as

they shook hands. "I called at your hotel, and was told you had gone to

the auction-room. How well you are looking, Mrs. Wyllard--as if Paris

agreed with you!"

"Your letter took a weight off my mind," she said. "And now I hope you

will be kind to Bothwell and Hilda, and not insist upon too long an

engagement."

"It seems to me that Bothwell and Hilda have taken their lives into

their own hands, and don't want anybody's kindness," he answered. "I

have had a tremendous letter from Hilda, telling me her lover's plans.

They are the most independent young people I ever heard of. And pray

what brings you to Paris? Are you going on anywhere?"

"No, we have only come to look at the Rochejaquelin pictures,"

answered Wyllard. "I have two or three business calls to make in

the neighbourhood of the Bourse. Wyllard & Morrison have still some

dealings in Paris."

"And I am going to look at my husband's old apartments," said Dora. "I

have never stayed in Paris since our marriage. My only knowledge of the

city dates from the time when I spent a month at Passy with my dear

mother. What a happy time it was, and how much we contrived to see! It

was in sixty-nine, and people were beginning to talk about war with

Germany. How little did any of us think of the ruin that was coming,

when we saw the Emperor and Empress driving in the Bois!"

"Come back to the hotel and lunch with us, Heathcote," asked Wyllard.

"A thousand thanks; but I am too Parisian to eat at this hour. I

breakfasted at eleven o'clock."

"And we breakfasted less than three hours ago," said Dora. "I am sure

we neither of us want luncheon. Let us go and look at your old home,

Julian."

"It is not to be called a home, Dora," answered her husband, with a

touch of impatience. "A business man's life has only one aspect--hard

work. However, if you want to see the offices in which a money-grubber

toiled, you shall be gratified. The street is not very far off. Will

you walk there with us?" he added, turning to Heathcote.

"Gladly. I am a free man to-day."

"Indeed! Then your criminal investigation, your amateur-detective work

is at a standstill for the moment, I conclude?" said Wyllard, with an

ill-concealed sneer.

"For the moment, yes," answered the other quietly.

"And you have made some startling discoveries, no doubt, since you

crossed the Channel?"

"Yes, my discoveries have been startling; but as they relate to the

remote past, rather than to the period of that poor girl's death, they

are of no particular value at present."

"The remote past? What do you mean by that?" asked Wyllard.

"Ten years ago."

"May we ask the nature of these discoveries?"

"I'd rather tell you nothing at present. My knowledge is altogether

fragmentary. Directly I have reduced it to a definite form--directly I

have a clear and consecutive story to tell--you and Mrs. Wyllard shall

hear that story. In the mean time I had rather not talk about the case."

"You have all the professional reticence. And I see that you and Distin

are working together," said Wyllard.

"How do you mean?"

"We saw your advertisement in yesterday's _Times"_.

"How did you know that I had inserted that advertisement?"

"The girl's name was conclusive--Léonie Lemarque: that was the name of

the girl who was killed."

"Yes. But I did not think it was known to any one except Distin and

myself."

"You mentioned the name in your letter to me," said Dora.

"Did I really? Then it was unconsciously. I meant to have told nothing

till I could tell the whole story."

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOME OF THE PAST.

Mr. and Mrs. Wyllard and Heathcote walked on together to a quiet street

near the Madeleine, a street of offices and wholesale traders.

The house in which Mr. Wyllard had occupied the ground floor was one

of the best in the street, a large stone-fronted house, with a high

doorway and carved columns--not so richly decorated as those palatial

dwellings of Haussmannised Paris, built during the Second Empire, but a

handsome and somewhat florid style of house notwithstanding. It stood

at the corner of a narrow court, leading no one cared where. Doubtless

to some obscure slum in which the working classes had one of their

nooks--those hidden colonies which lurk here and there behind the

palaces of great cities.

The ground floor was no longer the home of finance and grave

transactions. The house in which Julian Wyllard had schemed and

laboured was now occupied by wholesale dealers in foreign goods of all

kinds, from china to toys, from travelling-bags to Japanese tea-trays,

chinoiseries, unbreakable glass, German lamps, English electro-plate.

The house had become one huge bazaar, which a stranger might enter

without much ceremony; albeit there is a strict etiquette in such

establishments, and no retail purchases were permissible. Only the

trade was allowed to buy anything in that dazzling chaos of small wares.

While all the upper floors had been made into warehouses, the lower

floor had been in somewise respected. The rooms in which Julian Wyllard

had worked were used as offices by Messrs. Blümenlein Brothers, while

one of the brothers had made his nest in Julian's old rooms at the back

of the offices.

"Upon my word, Dora," said Wyllard, pausing on the threshold of his old

abode, "I feel that we are going into this house on a fool's errand. I

don't know what excuse to make."

"Why make any excuse at all?" replied his wife. "Leave the whole

business to me, Julian. I want to see your old home, and I am

determined I will see it. I am not at all afraid of Messrs. Blümenlein."

"In that case I will leave you and Heathcote to manage the matter

between you," said Wyllard, with a sudden touch of impatience, of anger

even, his wife thought. "I have a business call to make near here.

Heathcote will take you back to your hotel."

He turned on his heel, and was gone before Dora could make any

objection. Again she had seen that dark look in his face which had so

startled and shocked her in the yew-tree arbour. Was it indeed jealousy

of her old lover which so changed him? Her pride revolted at the idea

of such want of faith in one to whom she had given so much.

She allowed no sign of disquietude to escape her, but went quietly into

the office of Messrs. Blümenlein, followed by Heathcote.

"Pardon me for intruding upon you, gentlemen," she said in French to

the two clerks who were seated at a desk in this outer room. "These

offices were some years ago occupied by my husband, and I should

esteem it a favour if you would allow me to see the rooms on this

floor."

A middle-aged man, who was standing near a window looking through some

papers, turned at the sound of her voice, and came over to her.

"With pleasure, Madame," he said. "Have I he honour of speaking to Mrs.

Wyllard?"

"Yes, Monsieur, I am Mrs. Wyllard. You were my husband's immediate

successor in these rooms, I conclude?"

"Yes, Madame, there was no other occupation. My brother and I bought

this house in 'seventy-one, almost immediately after the war; but Mr.

Wyllard was the occupant of this floor for some years after we were in

possession."

"Exactly two years," said a second Mr. Blümenlein, appearing from an

inner room. "Is it possible that Madame has not before seen these

rooms, in which her distinguished husband transacted so much important

business?"

"No, Monsieur, this is my first visit to Paris since my marriage. I am

much interested in seeing these rooms."

"It will be an honour and a pleasure to us to show them," said the

elder of the two brothers. "Gustav there, my younger brother, enjoys

the possession of the private apartments almost exactly as Mr. Wyllard

left them. He bought the furniture and fittings, pictures, bronzes,

everything except the books, _en bloc_, when Mr. Wyllard gave up his

Parisian establishment. Hardly anything has been altered. These offices

can have little interest for you, Madame. They are the _facsimile_ of

a thousand other Parisian offices. But the private apartments have a

certain individuality. Gustav, show Madame the rooms which were once

her husband's home."

There was a touch of German sentimentality about Mr. Blümenlein,

in spite of his Parisian training. He was full of sympathy for the

affectionate wife. He had lofty ideas about the sanctity of home.

The younger brother, Gustav, opened a padded door, and admitted the two

visitors into his bachelor nest.

The first room which they entered was the library, lined from floor to

ceiling with book-shelves, and lighted by a large skylight. It was a

room that had been built out into a yard. It was furnished with carved

oak, in the Henri Deux style, rich, antique, solid. The clock upon the

chimney-piece was a gem of mediæval metal-work. The covers of chairs

and sofas were of old tapestry, sombre, genuine, artistic.

Adjoining this was the _salon_ and dining-room in one, plainly

furnished in the modern style. The walls were decorated with etchings

of the most famous pictures of the Second Empire. It was a small room;

an almost severe simplicity was its chief characteristic. Nothing here

assuredly of the sybarite or the voluptuary, thought Edward Heathcote,

as he contemplated the home of his rival's solitary manhood.

Bedroom and bathroom completed the suite of apartments, and even to

these Mrs. Wyllard and her companion were admitted.

The bedroom was spacious, lofty, handsomely furnished in a solid and

sombre style. But it was not a cheerful room. It was situated at the

back of the house, and its windows, deeply recessed and heavily

curtained, derived their light from a narrow court. The lower part of

each window was of ground-glass; the upper sashes were violet-tinted,

and gave an artificial colour to the daylight. The curtains were of

dark-brown damask; the ponderous armchairs and sofa were upholstered in

dark-brown velvet.

By the fireplace there was the secrétaire at which Julian Wyllard had

worked, the large shaded lamp which had lighted his evening toil. Mr.

Blümenlein showed these things with pride. Nothing had been altered.

"I am a man of somewhat studious habits, like Mr. Wyllard," he said,

"and I often work late into the night. This room is a delightful room,

for none of the noises of Paris penetrate here. The court is very

little used after dark--a passing footstep, perhaps, once in half an

hour. It is an almost monastic repose."

The bed was in an alcove in a corner, entirely shrouded by brown damask

curtains like those which draped the windows.

"There is a door leading into the court, I see," said Heathcote, whose

keen eyes had scrutinised every feature of the room.

"What, you have perceived that!" exclaimed Mr. Blümenlein, with marked

surprise. "I thought it was quite hidden by the curtains."

"No, the top of the upper hinge is just visible above the curtain-rod."

"Strange! No one ever before noticed that door."

"It is not a secret door, I suppose?" said Heathcote.

"Certainly not. But it has never been used in my time, and I doubt if

Mr. Wyllard made much use of it," said Mr. Blümenlein, drawing back the

curtain. "The bed stood in his time just where it stands now, with the

head against the door."

"The bedstead is light enough to be moved easily if the door were

wanted," suggested Heathcote.

It was a small brass bedstead of English make. The voluminous curtains

made a kind of tent, independent of the bedstead.

"No doubt it could," replied Blümenlein, "but I fancy it could have

been no more wanted in Mr. Wyllard's time than it has been in mine. It

may have been made by some former inhabitant of these rooms, who wanted

free egress and ingress at any hour of the night, without exciting the

curiosity of the porter."

"You conclude, then, that the door was an after-thought," said

Heathcote, "and not in the original plan of the house."

"Decidedly. You will see how ruthlessly it has been cut through dado

and mouldings. An after-thought evidently."

Mr. Blümenlein pulled aside the bedstead and showed Mr. Heathcote the

door. It was a low narrow door, of plain oak, without panelling or

ornamentation of any kind. The fastening was a latch-lock, a Bramah,

with a small key, and a strong bolt secured the door on the inner side.

"A convenient door, no doubt," said Heathcote, "for a person of secret

habits."

Dora looked lingeringly round the room. Its gloom oppressed her. The

opaque windows, the tinted light from the upper sashes, the sombre

colouring, the heavy furniture--all contributed to that gloomy effect.

The only spot of brightness in the room was the writing-table, with

its brass fittings, its handsome brass lamp, and large green shade.

There her husband sat night after night, when the rest of Paris was

gyrating in the whirlpool of fashionable pleasure, light as autumn

leaves dancing in the wind. There he had sat brooding, calculating,

plotting, striving onward, in the race for wealth. It was for money

he had toiled, and to make a great fortune--not for science, or art,

or fame--not to be useful or great--only to be rich. It seemed a

sordid life to look back upon--a wasted life even--and Dora thought

regretfully of those long evenings spent in this gloomy room. The idea

of that monastic life had no charm for her. She would rather have heard

that her husband had been the light of an intellectual circle--the

favourite of fashion even. The picture of these studious nights spent

in brooding over the figures in a share-list, the pages of a bank-book,

chilled her soul.

And yet, in the maturity of his days, her husband had seemed to her

the most generous and high-minded of men, setting but little value upon

his wealth, caring nothing for money in the abstract.

"At the least he has known how to use his fortune nobly," she told

herself, as she turned to leave that gloomy bedchamber. "I, who

was born with good means, can hardly understand the eagerness of a

penniless young man to win fortune. It is a foolish idea of mine, after

all, that there is anything ignoble in working for riches."

"Well, Mrs. Wyllard, has your hero-worship been satisfied? Have

you seen enough of the temple which once enshrined your god?" said

Heathcote lightly.

"Yes, I have been very much gratified; and I must thank Mr. Blümenlein

for his kindness and consideration."

The merchant protested that he had rarely enjoyed so great a privilege

as that which Mrs. Wyllard had afforded him; and with exchange of

courtesies they parted, on the threshold of the outer office.

Heathcote and Dora walked to the hotel together. It was not a long

walk, and it took them only by crowded streets and busy thoroughfares,

where anything like earnest conversation was impossible. And yet Edward

Heathcote could but remember that it was the first time they two had

walked together since Dora had been his plighted wife. Ah, how cruel a

pang it gave him to recall those old days, and to remember all she had

been to him, all she might have been, had Fate used him more kindly!

He stole a look at the beautiful face as they walked slowly across the

Place Vendôme. Yes, she was no less lovely than of old; her beauty had

ripened, not changed. There was a more thoughtful look, there were

traces even of care and sorrow; but those indications only heightened

the spirituality of the face.

O, what worship, what devotion he could have given her now in the bloom

of her womanhood, in the maturity of his manhood--such whole-hearted,

thoughtful love as youth can never give! And it was not to be. They

were to be apart for ever, they two. They were to be strangers; since

this assumption of friendship, to which he had tried to reconcile

himself, was, after all, but a mockery. Chivalrous feeling might keep

his thoughts pure, his honour unspotted; but in his heart of hearts he

loved his first love as passionately as in the days of his youth.

And to-day, for the first time, he had heard her husband address her

coldly and curtly, with a touch of anger even.

He was not likely to forget that curt, impatient tone, and the frown

that had accentuated it.

"I was very glad to get your letter," she said presently. "Tell me once

more with your own lips that you have ceased to suspect my cousin."

"Ceased to suspect would, perhaps, be too strong an expression. But in

the discoveries I have made relating to that murdered girl there is

certainly nothing that in any way points to Mr. Grahame."

"I wish you would tell me all you have discovered--how near you are to

clearing up the mystery."

"I fear I am still very far from that. It is the history of a remote

crime which occupies me at the present, and I hope in that history of

the past to find the clue to poor Léonie's death. I shall know more in

a few days."

"How so?"

"You saw my advertisement in the _Times_. If that advertisement be not

answered within a week, I shall conclude that the man who was to have

met Léonie Lemarque on the morning of July 5th has some part in the

guilt of her death."

"And then--"

"And then it will be my business or Mr. Distin's business to find that

man."

They were at the door of the hotel by this time, and here Heathcote

bade Dora adieu.

"We shall meet again before you leave Paris, I daresay," he said. "If

Wyllard wants me he will know where to find me."

"You are not going home yet?"

"No; I am likely to stay here some little time."

"And poor Hilda is longing to have you back at The Spaniards. She will

not see Bothwell while you are away. She is bound by the promise you

exacted from her. Their future home--everything is in abeyance till you

return," pleaded Dora.

"The home must remain in abeyance a little longer. It is hard,

no doubt; but when I go back I may be able to give Bothwell some

substantial help in the matter of that future home."

"He will need only your sympathy and your advice. He can manage

everything else for himself."

"I understand. He has been helped already."

"Bothwell has always been to me as a brother and he can never be poor

while I am rich," answered Dora, as they shook hands.

Heathcote walked slowly back to the Boulevard, thinking over this

unexpected arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Wyllard in Paris. Why had they come?

That alleged reason of the picture-sale seemed rather more like an

excuse for a journey than a motive. True that Wyllard had been known

to go up to London on purpose to attend a sale at Christie & Manson's,

and there might, therefore, be nothing extraordinary in his going still

further on the same errand. But it was strange that the picture-sale

should coincide with Heathcote's presence in Paris. Could it be Dora's

eagerness to know the result of his researches that had brought her and

her husband to the Hotel Windsor? Was her impatience the motive of the

visit?

Hardly, he thought, for he knew the candour of her nature, and he

told himself that she would not have misrepresented the reason of her

journey. She had told him that the visit was a sudden whim of her

husband's, arising out of his passion for art.

Could it be that Julian Wyllard was so deeply interested in the

question of Bothwell's guilt or innocence as to make an excuse for

being on the scene of the investigation? He had seemed indifferent

almost to unkindness. He had wounded his wife's feelings by his

coldness upon this question. And now it seemed to Edward Heathcote

that his real motive in coming across the Channel must be to watch

the case with his own eyes. His manner to-day, when he inquired about

Heathcote's progress, had been seemingly careless: but beneath that

apparent indifference the lawyer had noted a keen expectancy, an

intent watchfulness. Yes, it was something of deeper moment than a

picture-sale which had brought Julian Wyllard to Paris, posthaste, at

a day's notice. His angry manner to his wife an hour ago had indicated

nervous irritation, a mind on the rack.

Yet, looking at the question from a worldly point of view--and

Heathcote considered Wyllard essentially a man of the world--there

seemed but little reason why he should be deeply concerned as to

whether Bothwell was or was not suspected of foul play in the matter

of the French girl's death. The evidence against the young man was of

far too slight and vague a character to endanger his life or liberty.

It was only just enough to cast a cloud upon his reputation; and that

his cousin's husband should put himself out of the way on this account

seemed to the last degree unlikely. Julian Wyllard's life, judged as

Heathcote judged it, was that of a man who had lived exclusively for

himself and his own happiness. An excellent husband to a wife whom he

adored, a good master, a liberal landlord; yet a man with whom self had

ever been paramount.

CHAPTER V.

A FACE FROM THE GRAVE.

A week passed. Julian Wyllard attended the sale at the Hôtel Drouot,

bought three of the smaller gems of the Rochejaquelin gallery, and

allowed the Raffaelle to pass into a national collection. His wife and

he had gone about Paris and its environs in the mean while; Dora very

happy in revisiting the spots she had admired in her youth.

The week had gone, and there had been no reply to Heathcote's

advertisement. But there had been a letter from Joseph Distin.

"The last few days have not been entirely barren in results," he wrote.

"Léonie Lemarque's handbag has been found at the Charing Cross Station;

it was left in the waiting-room on the morning of the 5th July,

immediately after the arrival of the mail train from Dover. The bag

is now in my office. It contains some linen, marked L. L., slippers,

brush, and comb; but not a document of any kind. Nothing to afford

the slightest clue to the girl's business in London. The police have

found a hansom-cabman who drove a tall, gentlemanlike man and a French

girl from Charing Cross to Paddington Station on the morning of the

5th of July, in time for the Penzance train. They had no luggage. The

cabman believes that he should recognise the man if he saw him again,

but can give no clear description of his appearance, except that he

was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. He talked French to the

girl, and the cabman supposes him to have been a Frenchman. He and the

girl appeared to be on very good terms. The cabman saw them go into the

Paddington Station together, about five minutes before the starting

of the train. The photograph of the dead girl has been shown to this

cabman, and he has identified it as the likeness of the little French

girl he drove in his cab."

This was all the progress that Joseph Distin's agents had made at

present. The facts looked dark against the man who had taken Léonie

Lemarque from station to station. If he had been innocent of all wrong

in relation to that helpless stranger, surely he would have replied to

the advertisement; he would have come forward to say what part he had

taken in the history of Léonie Lemarque.

Heathcote stopped the first advertisement, and inserted a second worded

thus:

"Monsieur Georges, who resided in Paris in the year '71, and for some

years previously, or any friend of Monsieur Georges now residing in

England, is earnestly requested to communicate with Messrs. Distin &

Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn."

He had not much hope of getting a reply to this advertisement, after

the failure of the previous appeal, but he thought it was well to

advertise this name of Georges. Some insignificant person, some

busybody who had known the man Georges at some period of his existence,

might reply; and any information so obtained might form a link in the

chain of that strange story of Marie Prévol and her mysterious lover.

Mysterious, Heathcote felt this man to have been, despite Trottier's

idea that he was only a rich American who lived a Bohemian life as a

matter of choice. It seemed to Heathcote as if there must have been

some stronger ground than mere whim for an existence so secluded, so

exceptional, spent in such a city as Paris, where the delight of the

rich and the idle is to spend their days and nights before the eyes

of an admiring crowd, and to have every movement and every caprice

chronicled in the newspapers.

And this man had been in the prime of his manhood, good-looking,

clever, brilliant, the lover of a beautiful actress. Hardly the kind of

person to hide his light under a bushel, unless there was some strong

motive for concealment.

What could that motive be? Heathcote wondered, as he brooded over the

imperfect story of Marie Prévol and her niece. Was this Georges a

swindler, who had come by his wealth in a criminal manner, and dared

not show himself in the light of day? Was he one of the many tricksters

and schemers of Paris, the birds of prey who live upon carrion, and who

know themselves the scorn of their fellow-men? or had he a wife from

whose jealous eye he was obliged to hide his devotion to Marie Prévol?

Heathcote believed that there must have been some guilty reason for the

life which shrank from the light of day.

He had been in Paris a fortnight, and he began to ask himself how long

this investigation to which he had pledged himself was likely to last.

At the beginning his progress had seemed rapid--triumphant almost.

Starting from utter ignorance of the name and position of the dead

girl, he had arrived in a few days at an exact knowledge of her name,

surroundings, and past history. Yet he was constrained to confess to

himself that, armed with all these facts, he was not one whit nearer

to finding the man who had murdered her. Given this history of Léonie

Lemarque's childhood and youth, it was still possible that Bothwell

Grahame had thrown her out of the railway-carriage.

The man who took her in a hansom from Charing Cross to Paddington might

have left her at the latter station. She might have gone alone upon

her way towards Penzance, to encounter a villain on the road, and that

villain might have been Bothwell Grahame. The thing was within the

limits of possibility; though in Heathcote's present mood it seemed to

him altogether unlikely. Yet firmly to establish the fact of Bothwell's

innocence, he must find the man who was guilty.

It seemed to him that the man who met Léonie Lemarque at the station,

who was known to have conducted her to another station, had in a

measure condemned himself by his silence. If he had not been guiltily

concerned in the girl's death, he would assuredly have replied to the

advertisement. He would have been apprised by that advertisement that

some evil had befallen Léonie Lemarque, and he would have been prompt

to come forward and tell all he knew of the girl who had been sent to

him for aid, a friendless orphan, a stranger in a strange land.

It seemed clear to Heathcote that Georges, the murderer, was still

living, still in dread of the gallows; and that the girl who went to

meet the friend of the murderer had fallen into a trap. The papers she

carried were doubtless of a compromising character; the girl herself

was the sole witness of the crime, the only living being who could

recognise the murderer. Papers and witness had disappeared together.

Heathcote was fond of Paris. It was not irksome to him to stay there

even in the dead season. He had the theatres for his evening amusement;

he had two or three friends who had not fled to the mountain or the

sea, and in whose drawing-rooms he was welcome. He had the National

Library in the Rue Richelieu for his club; and he had the ever-varying

life of the Boulevard for his recreation. Time therefore did not hang

heavily on his hands; and he knew that while he watched and waited in

Paris, Joseph Distin would not be idle in London. Every clue, were it

the slightest, would be patiently followed by that expert investigator.

In his saunterings in the Rue de Rivoli and on the Boulevards Mr.

Heathcote had hunted assiduously for a photograph of Marie Prévol; but

so fleeting is the fame of beauty, which leaves nothing behind it save

a tender memory, that for some time he had failed utterly in his quest.

Her name was hardly remembered by the people who sold photographs. And

yet twelve or thirteen years ago the portrait of Marie Prévol was in

every shop-window. It had been sold by thousands, had adorned every

album in Paris and Brussels, and had been hung over many a bachelor's

mantelpiece, worshipped by half the beardless boys in France and

Belgium.

At last Heathcote lighted upon an elderly shopman, who was a little

more intelligent and had a much better memory than the men he had

encountered hitherto. The man perfectly remembered Marie Prévol and her

photographs.

"We had a photograph of her by Nadar," he said--"a portrait that

was the rage. It was soon after her first appearance at the Porte

Saint-Martin, and it was the costume in which she made her _début_. She

was the Genius of Evil, in a black satin bodice and a black tulle skirt

starred with gold. The close-fitting black bodice set off her graceful

figure, and her superb shoulders, and her hair, which was positively

magnificent, fell down her back in a horse's tail. It was like a stream

of molten gold. I saw her in that character half a dozen times. All

Paris rushed to see her, though she was never much of an actress.

Her beauty made her famous all over Europe. We used to send her

photographs to St. Petersburg. But there is a fashion in these things;

and I daresay almost every one of those photographs has found its way

to the rubbish-heap. If you call to-morrow I may be able to supply you

with what you want; but I shall have to hunt over a good deal of our

old stock to get at it."

"I shall be greatly obliged if you will do so," answered Heathcote. "I

suppose Mademoiselle Prévol had the weakness of our lovely ladies in

England, and was fond of being photographed."

"In the first year or so, when she began to be celebrated for her

beauty, there were a good many different photographs of her--in this

costume and in that; and, you know, in those fairy spectacles every

handsome actress wears at least half a dozen costumes. But after that

first year there were no more of Mademoiselle Prévol's photographs

to be had for love or money. Our firm applied to her, offered her a

liberal royalty--five sous upon every photograph--if she would sit to

Nadar, in all her costumes, and give us the sole privilege of selling

her portraits. But she declined. She was never going to sit again.

She did not want herself vulgarised by having her portrait sold for

a franc to every _calicot_ in France. Our firm felt insulted by her

reply, which was given to one of our principals, through an impertinent

sempstress, who worked by the day for Mademoiselle Prévol, and who

almost shut the door in our principal's nose. Our firm took the trouble

to find out why Mademoiselle objected to the fame which photography can

alone bestow upon beauty; and we discovered that there was a lover in

the case--a mysterious lover; a man who kept himself curiously dark--"

"Stay!" exclaimed Heathcote. "I will give you a thousand francs for a

photograph of that lover."

The shopman shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"A liberal offer, Monsieur, and a very safe one. Except that the man's

name was Georges, I know nothing about him. The police would have given

me twice as much as you offer, for his photograph, if I could have

furnished them with one ten years ago, immediately after the murder of

Marie Prévol."

And then the man proceeded to relate the story of the actress's death,

and the impression which it made in Paris at the time. Heathcote

listened, and affected ignorance: for, even in these recollections,

there might be some detail to suggest a clue. There was nothing,

however. The man told the story as it had been told in the newspapers,

and as it was already known to Heathcote.

He went back to the shop on the following day, and the shopman showed

him three different photographs of Marie Prévol.

Two were of the carte de visite size, in costume. They had both grown

pale with age, and had an old-fashioned look. They were full-length

portraits, showing the perfection of an exquisite figure, as displayed

in the scanty drapery of a burlesque costume: a graceful girlish form,

delicately fashioned, a perfect face, small refined features, a head

crowned with masses of platted hair. But, in these small photographs,

the soul was wanting. Beyond the one fact, that the original was

exquisitely lovely, they revealed nothing.

The third was of cabinet size, and here the woman herself appeared.

Here, in the face of the photograph, Edward Heathcote looked back

across ten years, and saw the face of the living woman, the smile on

the lips, the light in the eyes. It was a head vignetted, the head

only, carelessly draped with a cloud of tulle, which framed the oval

of the face and veiled the rich masses of hair. It was an exquisite

face, eyes large and dark and dreamy, shadowed by long dark lashes,

an expression of pensive tenderness about the perfect lips, the nose

small and straight, the chin delicately moulded. It was not the bold

bright beauty of an actress, accustomed to challenge the admiration of

the vulgar crowd; it was a beauty instinct with tender womanly feeling,

and serious thought, an essentially feminine loveliness; and its chief

characteristic was purity. It would have been impossible to associate

such loveliness with an evil life, a dissolute mind.

The colour of this larger photograph was almost as good as if it had

been taken yesterday: the portrait had a living look, which struck

Heathcote painfully. It was sad to think that lovely face had been

lying in the dust for years--that the sweet smile in those eyes was

nothing more than a memory.

He was to dine at the Windsor that evening--a farewell dinner, since

Julian Wyllard talked of leaving Paris next morning. He wanted to

take his wife to Switzerland, perhaps to the Italian lakes. Dora was

pleased at the idea of revisiting the scenes in which her honeymoon

had been spent. They seemed far away in a dim past, those days of

early married life, when all the world was decked in the vivid hues

of hope and gladness. Her union with Julian Wyllard had been a happy

one, but there had been something wanting. That lonely old house at

Penmorval chilled her sometimes, with its silent corridors, its empty

rooms. It would have been so sweet to her to hear baby feet pattering

along those corridors--baby voices--that glad childish treble, which is

like the piping of young birds, in those spacious rooms. There were so

many rooms, there was so much vacant space in the old house which only

children could have filled. And now she told herself that the dream

was past and done with. She felt as if she were growing old, and that

somehow, she knew not how, she and her husband were further apart than

they had been. It might be that the disappointment of a childless union

was preying upon his mind--that he felt the burden of a great fortune

for which he had toiled over-much in his youth, renouncing every social

pleasure, friendship, love, all things, only to heap up wealth for

which there should be no heir.

The dinner at the Windsor was bright and pleasant, albeit Heathcote was

the only guest. Julian Wyllard was in excellent spirits, full of plans

for making the most of the bright weather in Switzerland. Dora was

pleased at his gaiety. She had been going about a good deal with him,

revisiting all the places she had seen with her mother--the churches,

the galleries, the law-courts, that brand-new Palais de Justice, so

splendid, so imposing, so uninteresting. They had been to Versailles.

"Did you go to Saint-Germain?" asked Heathcote. "There is not much

to see in the chateau where poor old James Stuart shed the light of

exiled royalty; but the old town, and the terrace, and the forest are

delightful."

"No; we did not go to Saint-Germain. We had arranged to go yesterday,

but Julian mistook the time at which the train started, and we reached

the station too late for the only train that would have suited us."

"You have never been to Saint-Germain?" asked Heathcote.

"O yes; I was there with my mother years ago," answered Dora. "We

stayed at the Henri Quatre for a week. I have ridden and rambled all

over the forest. I was charmed with the place. I should like to have

gone there again with Julian."

"There may be time when we return from Switzerland," said her husband.

"Why not delay your journey for a day, and let us all go to

Saint-Germain to-morrow?" said Heathcote. "Suppose you dine with me at

the Henri Quatre. I have a morbid interest in that hotel, and in the

forest."

"Indeed! But why?" asked Dora.

Instead of any verbal answer, Heathcote took from his pocket the

photograph of Marie Prévol, and handed it to Mrs. Wyllard. She and

her husband looked at it together. She had drawn closer to him after

dinner, as they sat at the small round table, and now they were sitting

side by side, like lovers.

There was a silence as they looked at the portrait.

"What an exquisite face!" exclaimed Dora at last. "I don't think I ever

saw lovelier eyes or a sweeter expression. Who is the original? Do you

know her?"

"She has been dead ten years. I never saw her," answered Heathcote

gravely.

"But what has this portrait to do with your morbid interest in the

forest of Saint-Germain?" asked Dora.

"It is the likeness of a woman who was cruelly murdered there just ten

years ago. She was an actress known as Marie Prévol. The murder made a

great sensation at the time. You must have heard of it, Mr. Wyllard;

for I think you were a resident in Paris in '71?"

"I was a resident in Paris till '73. Yes, I perfectly remember the

murder of Marie Prévol and her admirer. But it was one of those crimes

which do not excite any deep or lasting interest. The case was too

common, the motive too obvious. An outbreak of jealous fury on the

part of a jilted lover. Had the murderer and his victims belonged to

the working classes, society would scarcely have heard of the crime,

certainly would have taken no notice of it. But because she was an

actress and her admirer a man of fashion, there was a fuss."

"Then you do not consider such a murder interesting?" asked Heathcote.

"Assuredly not," replied Wyllard. "To be interesting a murder must be

mysterious. Here there was no mystery."

"Pardon me. I think you must have forgotten the details of the story.

There was a mystery, and a profound one; but that mystery was the

character of the man Georges, who was known to have been Marie Prévol's

devoted lover, and who was by some supposed to have been her husband."

"Ah, yes, I remember," answered Wyllard. "These things come back to

one's mind as one discusses them. Georges was the name of the supposed

murderer. He got off so cleverly as to baffle the keenest police in

Europe."

"Did you know any thing of him?"

"Nothing. He was a nobody, I believe. A man of ample means, but of no

social standing."

"His life was a social mystery; and it is in that mysterious existence

that I find an interest surpassing anything I have hitherto met with in

the history of crime."

"Really!" exclaimed Julian Wyllard, with something of a sneer in his

tone. "I perceive you have begun the business of amateur detective on

a large scale. I understood from Dora that you were coming to Paris

solely with a view to finding out anything there was to be discovered

about that poor little girl who tumbled off the viaduct, and whom, I

think, you call Louise Lemarque."

"Léonie Lemarque. That was the girl's name. Léonie Lemarque's death is

only the last link in a chain of events beginning with the murder of

Marie Prévol."

Julian Wyllard started impatiently from his chair.

"My dear Heathcote, I thought you the most sensible man I ever met,

but really this sounds like rank lunacy. What in Heaven's name can the

murder at Saint-Germain ten years ago have to do with the death of that

girl the other day?"

"Only this much. Léonie Lemarque was Marie Prévol's niece: and I have

the strongest reason for believing that she went to London to meet the

murderer of her aunt."

CHAPTER VI.

STRUCK DOWN.

As Edward Heathcote uttered those words, the conviction of their

truth flashed into his mind. In thoughtful days and wakeful nights

this question as to the identity of the person who was to meet Léonie

Lemarque at the railway-station had been a perplexity to him, the

subject of many a new theory: and now it came upon him all at once that

this assertion, which he had made on the spur of the moment, in the

heat of argument, was the true solution of the mystery.

It was to Georges himself--her daughter's generous adoring lover,

her daughter's suspected murderer--that Madame Lemarque had sent her

granddaughter, as to one who, of all other men, would be most inclined

to act generously to the orphan girl, were it only in remorse for his

crime.

He tried to realise the thoughts of the lonely old woman, dying in

penury, leaving her orphan grandchild to face the world without a

friend. She would go over the list of those whom she had known in the

past--those who were rich enough to be generous. Alas! how few there

are who remain the friends of poverty! One man she had known of,

although she had never seen him--rich, generous to lavishness. She had

at one time believed him to be the murderer of her daughter. But it

might be that she had afterwards modified her opinion, that she had

received some communication from this Georges, that he had assured

her of his innocence, that he had sent her money, had helped her to

struggle on against adverse times, had helped her for a while, and

then grown weary. And she, knowing the place of his exile, had, in her

desperation, determined upon committing her grandchild to this man's

care; rather than to the pitiless world of strange faces and careless

hearts, the outside world, to which one helpless girl the more is but

as one drop in the ocean of sorrowing humanity. She had sent Léonie

Lemarque to meet this man, and the girl had recognised the murderer of

her aunt.

And yet this could hardly be, since the cabman's evidence showed that

Léonie had been on the best possible terms with the person in whose

company she drove to Paddington Station.

After that speech of his, Edward Heathcote had no longer the power to

withhold any details of his investigation from Julian Wyllard and his

wife. He told them in fewest words all that he had discovered since he

crossed the Channel.

Dora was intensely interested in the story. The passionate love and

passionate jealousy were very human feelings that appealed to her

womanly tenderness. She could not withhold her pity from the murderer.

"Strange that, in all your Parisian experience, you never met this

Monsieur Georges," she said to her husband.

"Hardly, since I seldom went out in the evening; while this man was

evidently a thorough Bohemian, who only began to live after midnight,"

answered Wyllard.

He was sitting in a thoughtful attitude, his elbow on the table, his

chin leaning on his hand, and that photograph of Marie Prévol lying

before him. He was looking intently at it, perusing every lineament.

Presently he raised his eyes, slowly, thoughtfully, from the photograph

to the face of his wife.

"Yes," said Heathcote, "I know what you are thinking. There _is_ a

likeness. It struck me this evening when I came into this room. There

is a curious likeness between the face of the living and the dead."

That morning, on studying the countenance in the photograph, Heathcote

had been perplexed--worried, even--by a sense of familiarity in that

face of the dead. It smiled at him as a face he had known of old--a

face out of the past. Yet it was only in the evening, when he came into

the _salon_ at the Windsor, and Mrs. Wyllard turned towards him in the

lamplight, that he knew what the likeness meant. It was not an obvious

or striking likeness. The resemblance was rather in expression than in

feature, but one face recalled the other.

"Yes, there is a likeness," said Wyllard coldly, passing the

photograph back to its owner, who rose to take leave, just as the clock

on the mantelpiece struck eleven.

"I shall look in to-morrow, and see if you are inclined for an

afternoon at Saint-Germain," he said, as he shook hands with Dora.

"You are very kind," she said, "but your invitation is no longer

tempting. You have spoiled my interest in that sweet old place. I shall

always think of it as the scene of Marie Prévol's death."

"But surely that is an additional charm," said Wyllard mockingly. "If

you are gifted with Mr. Heathcote's detective temper--the genius of

the heaven-born police-officer--Saint-Germain will be all the more

interesting to you on account of a double murder--and perhaps a suicide

into the bargain; for it is not unlikely that the murderer's bones are

mouldering in some gravel-pit."

"You forget Drubarde's story of the travelling-cap," said Heathcote.

"That was a shrewd hypothesis on your ex-police-officer's part, but it

is by no means conclusive evidence," answered Wyllard.

Heathcote called at the Windsor upon the following afternoon, to

inquire if Mr. and Mrs. Wyllard had left for Switzerland. He was

shocked to hear that Mr. Wyllard had been taken seriously ill in the

night, and that there had been two medical men with him that morning.

Madame was terribly distressed, the waiter told him, but she bore up

admirably.

Heathcote sent in his name, and was at once admitted to the _salon_,

where Dora came to him after the briefest delay.

She was very pale, and there were signs of terror, and of grief in her

countenance.

"I am glad you have come," she faltered. "I should have sent for you,

only--" she hesitated, and stopped, with tears in her eyes, feeling

that in another moment she might have said too much. He was her oldest

friend, the man to whom her thoughts turned naturally in the hour of

trouble, the man whom, of all others, she most trusted; but he was her

old lover also, and she felt that never again could she dare to appeal

to his friendship as she had done for Bothwell's sake.

"Is there anything very serious?" he asked.

"Yes, it is very serious. Paralysis. Only a slight attack, the doctors

say. But there are signs of a physical decay which may end fatally--an

overworked nervous system, the English physician says. And yet his life

has been so easy, so placid, for the last seven years."

"No doubt; but his life in this city was a life of excitement and

anxiety, the fever of the race for wealth. He is suffering now, most

likely, for the high pressure of that period. Is his mind affected by

the shock?"

"Not in the least. His mind was never clearer than it has been to-day."

"When did the illness begin?"

"Early this morning, five hours after you left us. We sat up till

nearly one o'clock, talking of our trip to Switzerland and Italy.

Julian was in wonderful spirits. I have never known him more cheerful.

He planned a tour that would last all through the winter, as I told

him. It was one o'clock when I went to bed, and I left him sitting in

his dressing-room, reading. The door was half open, and I could see

him, as he sat by the table, in the bright light of the lamp. I had

slept for hours, as it seemed to me, when I was awakened by hearing my

name called in a strange voice. I sprang out of bed; frightened by that

unknown voice, and then I heard the name again, and knew all at once

that it was Julian's voice, only altered beyond recognition. I rushed

to him. He had sunk back into his armchair. I asked him what was the

matter, and he told me that he could not move. There was numbness in

all his limbs. His arms were as heavy as lead. I seized his hand and

found it deadly cold. I rang the bell with all my might, and at last

one of the women-servants came to my help. She roused the porter, and

sent him to fetch a doctor. It was not quite four o'clock when she came

to me, but it was past five o'clock before the doctor arrived. He told

me at once that my husband had had a paralytic shock, and he helped

me to get him to bed, while the porter went in search of a nurse. I

wanted to have nursed Julian myself, without the help of any stranger,

whose presence might worry him: but the doctor said that would be

impossible. I must have a skilled nurse in attendance. There would be

plenty for me to do in helping her, he said. So I submitted, and the

nurse was with us in less than an hour--a nursing-sister of the order

of St. Vincent de Paul, a very nice person."

"Is your doctor a clever man?"

"The Frenchman who came in the morning seems clever; and, at my

request, he brought Dr. Danvers, an English physician. I am told he is

the best English doctor in Paris. They are both of the same opinion as

to the nature of the attack; but Dr. Danvers is inclined to look upon

it more seriously than the French doctor. He declared that Julian's

brain must have been frightfully overworked within the last few years;

and when I told him that my husband's life had, to my knowledge, been

one of rest and tranquil monotony, I could see by his face that he did

not believe me."

"Mr. Wyllard is better, I hope, since the morning."

"Yes, he is much better. There is still a feeling of heaviness and dull

pain; but he is so patient, he will hardly confess he is in pain,

though I can see from his face that he suffers."

The tears rushed to her eyes, and she walked hastily to the window,

where she stood for a few minutes holding her handkerchief before her

face, with her back to Heathcote, who waited silently, knowing the

uselessness of all consolatory speeches at such a time.

She conquered herself, and came back to her seat presently.

"Struck down in the prime of his manhood, in all the force of his

intellect," she said. "It is a deathblow."

"Your English doctor may exaggerate the danger."

"God grant that it is so. I have telegraphed to Sir William Spencer,

entreating him to come to Paris by to-night's mail. The question of

cost is nothing; but I fear he may not be able to leave his practice so

long--or he may be away from London."

"When did you telegraph?"

"An hour ago. I am expecting the answer at any moment. I hope he will

come."

"What is it this Dr. Danvers apprehends?"

"He fears an affection of the spinal marrow, a slow and lingering

malady, full of pain. O, it is too dreadful!" cried the agonised wife,

clasping her hands in a paroxysm of despair. "What has he done to be so

afflicted? how has he deserved such suffering, he who worked so hard,

and denied himself all pleasures in his youth--he who has been so good

and generous to others? Why should he be tortured?"

"Dear Mrs. Wyllard, pray do not give way to grief. The doctor may be

mistaken. He ought not to have told you so much."

"It was right of him to tell me. I begged him to keep nothing from

me--not to treat me as a child. If there is a martyrdom to be borne, I

will bear my part of it. Yes, I will suffer with him, pang for pang,

for to see him in pain will be as sharp an agony for me as the actual

torture can be for him. He is resting now, dozing from the effect of

the morphia which they have injected under the skin."

"I trust if Sir William Spencer come that he will be able to give you a

more hopeful opinion."

"Yes, I am putting my trust in that. But I am full of fear. Dr. Danvers

has such a shrewd clever air. He does not look the kind of man to be

mistaken."

"But in these nervous disorders there is always room for error. You

must hope for the best."

"I will try to hope, for Julian's sake. Goodbye. I must go back to my

place at his bedside. I don't want him to see a strange face when he

awakes."

"Good-bye. Remember, if there is any service I can render you, the

slightest or the greatest, you have only to command me. I shall call

this evening to hear how your patient progresses, and if Spencer is

coming. But I shall not ask to see you."

He left the hotel full of trouble at the agony of one he loved. He

thought of Dora in her helplessness, her loneliness, watching the slow

decay of that vigorous frame, the gradual extinction of that powerful

mind. What martyrdom could be more terrible for a tender-hearted woman?

He called at the Windsor in the evening. The patient was much the

same. Sir William Spencer was expected at eight o'clock next morning.

Edward Heathcote was watching in front of the hotel when the physician

drove up in a fly from the station. Dr. Danvers had gone into the hotel

a few minutes before. Heathcote waited to see Sir William Spencer leave

the hotel in the same fly, accompanied to the carriage door by Dr.

Danvers. They were talking as they came out of the _porte-cochère_,

and their faces were very grave. Heathcote felt that the great English

doctor had not left hope behind him in those rooms on the first floor,

with their sunny windows facing the palace-garden. He had not the heart

to intrude upon Dora immediately after the consultation, though he was

very anxious to hear Sir William's verdict. He watched the fly drive

away, while Dr. Danvers walked briskly in the opposite direction: and

then he strolled along the Rue de Rivoli towards the Palais Royal,

hardly knowing where he went, so deeply were his thoughts occupied by

the grief of the woman he loved.

What if Julian Wyllard were to die, that successful rival of his, the

man who had stolen his plighted wife from him? The thought would come,

though Heathcote tried to shut his mind against it, though he hated

himself for harbouring so selfish an idea. The question would shape

itself in his mind, would be answered somehow or other.

If Julian Wyllard were to die, and Dora were again free to wed whom

she chose? Would the old love be rekindled in her heart? Would the old

lover seem nearer and dearer to her than any other man on earth? Would

she reward him for long years of patient devotion, for a faithfulness

that had never wavered? Alas, no, he could hope for no such reward, he

who had married within a year or two of losing her, who had, in the

world's eye, consoled himself speedily for that loss. Could he go to

her and say, "I never loved my wife; I married her out of pity; my love

was given to you, and you alone!"

That was his secret. To Dora Wyllard he must have seemed as fickle as

the common herd of men, who change their loves as easily as they change

their tailors. He could put forward no claim for past constancy. No,

were she once again free, it would be by the devotion of the future

that he must win her.

And then he recalled what the physician had said about Julian Wyllard's

malady. It would be a slow and lingering disease--a decay of years,

perhaps. He saw the dark possibility of such a martyrdom. Dora's life

would be worn and wasted in the attendance upon that decaying frame,

that sorely tried mind and temper. She would sacrifice health, spirits,

life itself, perhaps, in her devotion to her afflicted husband.

And when the end at last came--the dismal end of all her care and

tenderness--would she be a woman to be wooed and won? Would not life

for her be over, all possibility of happiness for ever gone? Only a

little respite, a little rest remaining before the grave should close

on her broken heart.

No, there was no ground for selfish rejoicing, for wicked hope, in

Julian Wyllard's malady.

Heathcote ordered a simple breakfast in one of the quietest cafés in

the Palais Royal, and lingered over the meal and the newspapers till

he was able to present himself with a better grace at the Windsor.

He had some difficulty in reading the news of the day with attention,

or even comprehension, so full were his thoughts. He recalled Julian

Wyllard's manner and bearing during the last few months, and wondered

at the vigour, the freshness of mind, the power which had been so

obvious in every look, and tone, and gesture. That such a man could

suddenly be struck down without a day's warning, without any imaginable

cause, had seemed almost incomprehensible. Had the nature of the attack

been different, the thing would have appeared less inexplicable. An

apoplectic fit striking down the strong man in his might, as if from

the blow of a Nasmyth hammer, would have seemed far more in character

with the nature of the patient, his vigorous manhood, his appearance of

physical power.

Heathcote called at the Windsor between twelve and one o'clock, and had

only a few minutes to wait in the _salon_ before he was joined by Mrs.

Wyllard.

She was very pale, but she was more composed than on the previous day.

Her countenance had a rigid look, Heathcote thought; as if she had

schooled herself to composure by a severe mental effort. The hand she

gave him was deadly cold.

"I trust you have good news for me," he said. "Is Spencer more hopeful

than your Paris physician?"

"No, there is no hope. I had a long talk with both the doctors after

their consultation. It was very difficult to wring the truth from them

both--to get them to be quite candid. They seemed to pity me so much.

They were full of kindness. As if kindness or pity would help me in

my trouble for _him!_ Nothing can help me--no one--except God. And

perhaps He will not. It seems that in this life there are a certain

number of victims, chosen haphazard, who must suffer mysterious,

purposeless agonies. And Julian is to be one of those sufferers. It is

bitter, inexplicable, cruel. My soul revolts against these fruitless

punishments."

"Tell me what Sir William said."

"The worst. Julian's symptoms indicate a disease of the spinal cord:

progressive muscular atrophy, Sir William called it, a disease

generally caused by excessive muscular activity, but in this case due

to the strain upon the mind. He will waste away inch by inch, hour

by hour, and he will suffer terribly. Yes, that is the worst. This

gradual decay will be a long martyrdom. He will be dependent on opiates

for relief. I am to take comfort in the thought that his pain can be

soothed by repeated injections of morphia; that a sleeping draught will

give him a little rest at night. He is to exist under the influence of

narcotics; he who a few months ago seemed the incarnation of health and

vigour."

"A few months ago, you say. Then you have remarked a change in him of

late?" inquired Heathcote.

"Yes, there has been a change, subtle, mysterious. I could not describe

the symptoms to Sir William Spencer. But there was a curious alteration

in his ways and manner. He was much more irritable. He had strange

intervals of silence."