"Mrs. Leslie, I want to ask you one question," said Guy Kenmore.
They two were walking in the wide, beautiful villa-garden among the
roses and lilies and beautiful crimson flowers drooping from grand white
marble vases. The sun shone on the beautiful terraced walks, on the
sparkling fountains, and the glistening green leaves and golden fruit of
the orange and lemon trees, the air perfumed with the fragrance of
countless flowers.
Mrs. Leslie was walking by her friend's side looking thoughtfully down
at the drifts of pink myrtle blossoms that blew across the path beneath
her dainty feet. She looked up with a smile, and answered:
"As many as you please, Mr. Kenmore."
"Thank you," he replied, but for a moment he was silent over the
momentous question that hovered on his lips. Looking at him curiously
she saw that he was very pale and grave, with a fathomless sadness in
the dark brown eyes usually so bright and laughing.
"It must be a very important question, you look so grave over it," she
said.
"It _is_ important," he replied, and then he went on, meditatively. "You
told me, I believe, Mrs. Leslie, that Mr. Stuart's yacht left Richmond
on the tenth of June?"
"Yes," she replied.
"The question I have to ask you is this: Did the yacht go steadily on
that day and night, or did she stop at any landing on the Bay?"
Mrs. Leslie pursed up her pretty lips, and reflected.
"Let me see," she said. "Ah, yes, I remember. We _did_ stop that night,
about nine o'clock, at a landing in the Bay. It was at a place called
Brooke's Wharf, and was noted for the fine fruit to be obtained there. I
think it was at Mr. Revington's instance we stopped, and Mr. Stuart
obtained a supply of the most luscious fruit."
Outwardly calm and composed, Guy Kenmore inwardly trembled with
excitement. Was he about to find a clew to Ronald Brooke's slayer?
"Did anyone leave the yacht and go on shore?" he inquired.
"Oh, yes, we all did," said Mrs. Leslie, readily enough. "I mean all
except the captain and crew. It was the most beautiful night I ever saw,
I think. These Italian nights are not lovelier. We went on shore, and
rambled about in the moonlight. I remember the night perfectly."
Ah! did he not, too, he groaned, silently, to himself. How vividly it
all rushed over him. His careless visit to Bertha Brooke, from which so
much had arisen. Memory recalled the lovely, willful girl, who had
carried him off to the hall perforce that night, and he thought, with a
softened tenderness, of the childish spite and self-will that had so
vexed him then. Poor little Irene! she had suffered enough from Bertha's
rage to atone for her willfulness. A feeling of pity and remorse mingled
with the love he bore his hapless child-wife.
"Poor child! I was vexed and annoyed when I first found out the truth
that we were legally married that night. It came upon me so suddenly,
and I showed my feelings too plainly, and she--she was equally averse to
having me for a husband. But, better, far better for her, if she had
taken me at my word when I offered to make the best of my sad mistake
than to have given her heart to that dandy jackanapes," he concluded,
bitterly, for he had gauged the depth of Julius Revington at first
sight, and the conspiracy he had overheard last night had filled him
with horror and contempt for the traitor.
"To think that, she--my own beautiful and beloved wife--should turn
coldly from me to lavish her precious love on a thing like that," he
thought, jealously.
Mr. Kenmore, in his indolent way, though unconsciously to himself, had
possessed some little complacent conceit of himself. His mirror had told
him he was noble-looking and handsome, and women's eyes had repeated it.
His progress through society had been a complete ovation to his pride
and his vanity. Men had honored him for his manliness as much as for his
great wealth, and women had angled for him as a most unexceptionable
_parti_. But the complacent conceit that the world had fostered in him
for years, had received a terrible blow from Irene's indifference and
her palpable preference for the weakly-handsome, guitar-playing and
tenor-singing Julius Revington.
"A compound of the dandy and the villain--a man who can plan behind her
back to rob her of the knowledge of her honorable name, who cares
nothing for the grief and shame of her wronged mother! To think that she
should love _him_! And most probably she hates me for having re-appeared
when she believed me dead. I have a most disagreeable task before me,
for I must prove to her the unworthiness of the villain on whom she has
set her heart," he mused, gravely.
"Are you through with your questioning?" inquired Mrs. Leslie, noting
his pre-occupied silence.
"Yes," he replied, adding, with a slight smile: "Perhaps you would like
to ask me some questions now."
"Yes, I would," she smiled, with engaging frankness.
"I am ready to reply to you," he answered, cordially.
"Perhaps I shall startle you," she said; "I am going to ask you a
leading question, as a lawyer would say. You must remember that I give
you _carte blanche_ not to answer it unless you wish."
"Thank you for the permission," he said. "Let me hear it."
She looked at him with an odd gleam in her bright, kindly eyes.
"It is this," she said. "I believe that you and Irene Berlin, my
_protege_, have met before last night. Am I right?"
He looked at her with a curious, intent gaze.
"Mrs. Leslie," he said, "I can better answer that question if you will
tell me whether I may count on your silence and friendship in the
strange dilemma in which I find myself placed."
She put out her hand to him impulsively.
"No one can say that Laura Leslie ever failed them in the hour of
trouble," she said, gravely. "You may count on my silence and my truest
friendship if it can avail you."
He pressed her hand, gratefully. "It will be an incalculable benefit to
me," he said. "Perhaps you can help me and advise me."
"I will do both if I can," replied the charming widow.
"Then I shall tell you my secret," he replied. "Mrs. Leslie, it was not
mere chance as I pretended that brought me here last night. I have
followed Clarence Stuart across the ocean on a self-appointed mission to
right the wrongs of the innocent and bring the guilty to justice."
Looking at his grave, agitated face, she started and uttered a cry of
comprehension.
"You come from Elaine Brooke---- she lives!" she cried.
He started in his turn.
"What do you know?" he cried.
"No matter---- I must hear your story first," she said. "And you have
not answered my leading question yet."
"I will tell you my story, and then you may be able to answer it for
yourself," he said.
They sought a beautiful, secluded spot where they were not likely to be
interrupted or overheard, and Guy Kenmore confided to her sympathizing
ears the story of that fatal tenth of June, when old Ronald Brooke had
met his death and Irene Brooke had become his wife.
The lady listened with eager, breathless interest, with parted lips and
shining eyes, and color that varied from white to red and red to white.
When he had finished he looked at her with something like a smile in his
dark-brown eyes.
"Mrs. Leslie, I have given you my confidence now. Perhaps you can answer
your own question."
She laughed, merrily.
"I can put two and two together as cleverly as any woman, I think," she
replied. "And you have made this case quite clear. My pretty Irene is
your wife."
"Yes," he replied. "And she is the daughter of Clarence Stuart."
"That is quite true," she answered. "I have suspected it before, now I
am assured of the fact. No one will rejoice more over it than will
Clarence Stuart, himself."
"I do not understand you," he replied, in a puzzled tone.
Mrs. Leslie found that she had a confidence to make too. She told him
Mr. Stuart's sorrowful story, and he in turn related the conversation he
had heard the night before. Many things were made clear to both by the
confidence thus reposed in each other.
"It is as I supposed," Guy Kenmore said. "Clarence Stuart and his wife
were foully deceived and separated by the machinations of old Mr.
Stuart."
"And the whole secret of it lies in the possession of Julius Revington,
and the proud usurper of Elaine Brooke's name and rights," added Mrs.
Leslie.
"More than that," said he, with a shudder, "the death of old Ronald
Brooke lies between those two."
She was silent a few moments, gravely reviewing the case. It was a
baffling one, she confessed to herself, with a sigh.
"What shall we do?" she asked him, at last. "Shall we take Mr. Stuart
and Irene into our confidence?"
"Not yet," he replied, thoughtfully. "Let us deal with Julius Revington
first. We must study out a plan to bring that villain to confession."