Was the loving, foolish "Joan" the woman he had married? The woman she
had seen coming down Haythorn Street as she drove up? Or was she
"another woman" altogether?
She gazed fiercely at the sweet face in the photograph. It seemed to
gaze blandly, calmly, back.
"Oh, God! What shall I do?" she wailed, grovelling on the floor in her
despair. The anguish of discovery that another had reigned over his
affections, and so lovely a rival, was almost unbearable. Still,
selfish misery was soon extinguished by the greater, sterner passion
which possessed her--her grim purpose of revenge, or as she chose to
consider it, the just punishment of the one who had, she believed,
poisoned her beloved.
It was not like Victor to take a noxious drug, nor was he suicidal in
feeling. He loved life! He was all gaiety and careless enjoyment of
the passing hour, when he was not white-hot with passion.
But could he have lied to her about the age of his "wife"? Then, gazing
once more at the face in the photograph, she miserably told herself that
that girl could not be termed "hag" and "cat." No, there must be two
women! And yet--and yet--
She started. There was a knock and a ring. It could not be Mr. Naz!
She glanced interrogatively at the little silver watch she wore which
had been her own mother's. It told her that it was half-past eleven.
She ran into the front attic--her and her step-mother's bedroom--and
looked out of the window. There was a hansom at the door. A man stood
on the step below.
She ran downstairs and opened the hall door. It was Paul--pale,
serious, faultlessly dressed in half mourning. He bowed low as he took
off his hat, and apologized for being early. He was not his own master!
He thought of "wiring to her," but his anxiety for an interview urged
him not to postpone his visit.
"Come in," said Vera, in a low voice. "My mother is in there, and I
want to see you alone," she added, as she cautiously closed the door.
"I had better tell her you are here, though. Do you mind coming up to
the lumber room, where I am looking through Victor's things? There is
nowhere else."
"Anywhere--where we can be alone, Miss Anerley," he gravely
said--thinking that if ever human agony had been fully seen in a woman,
it was now, in this fragile girl with the pale face drawn with anguish,
the great eyes luminous with wild desperation.
He admired her for her self-possession, as he heard her ringing voice
telling her step-mother, who was somewhat hard of hearing, that
"Victor's kind friend, Mr. Naz, was here, and she would bring him to see
her presently--she would first take him upstairs to choose something of
dear Victor's as a keepsake."
"She is an actress, of course," he told himself, as he ascended the
oil-cloth-covered stairs after her--how strange were these sordid
surroundings of a man who had claims upon the wealthy, luxurious Sir
Thomas Thorne and his family! "But there is only a little of the
actress--the rest is woman--passionate woman!"
Vera mutely conducted him into the disordered lumber-room, amid the
dusty boxes and old baskets, where the two open trunks were standing.
"I have been searching his things," she began, abruptly.
"Yes?" he answered, tentatively.
"Perhaps you can tell me who these are?" She dipped into a trunk and
handed Paul the photograph of the three young girls.
At a glance he saw the subject. "My sight is not very good, I will take
it to the light," he said, moving to the window, holding back the blind,
and examining the portrait with his back to her.
Heavens! For a moment, as he saw the lovely face of the seated girl, he
felt as if some one had given him a blow. There was only one Joan
Thorne! To mistake that face was impossible.
Regaining his composure with a stern effort of will--for he must not
"give his friend away," especially now that he was one of the helpless
dead--he turned to Vera.
"I don't understand! Who are these persons?" he asked, as if mystified.
"That is what I want to find out!" she cried, passionately. "Mr. Naz--I
know, I feel, my dearest Victor was murdered! He never took that
morphia himself! It was given him--and--by a woman! I should know her
again--I should, I am sure I should! It was she I saw coming away from
the house that night. I said nothing about it at the inquest, for fear
of dishonouring my dearest; it was she the servant next door heard
talking to him, and saw coming out of the house--the landlady has just
been in to tell me about it! The girl will swear to it--when we get
her--she was so frightened about it she has run away! Mr. Naz, you were
his friend, surely, surely you will not rest till his murderess is found
and punished? I demand it of you!"
Her great sapphire eyes gleamed--she was impressive in her intensity.
Paul's fair hair seemed to bristle on his head. Victor had always
fascinated--influenced him--his mantle seemed to have fallen on his
beloved's shoulders.
"I don't understand," he stammered, taking refuge, for safety, in
apparent bewilderment; although even as she had clamoured her new
evidence with seeming incoherence, he saw all the damning circumstances
in their most fatal light: Joan Thorne's portrait, Victor's curious
suggestions about the Thorne family being in his power; Miss Thorne's
secret expeditions with her maid Julie, his betrothed, whose
acquaintance, although it had led to his really caring for her, had been
made by him at Victor's suggestions; the admission of Victor's that he
was married; then this new and startling evidence--and Miss Thorne's
ghastly, horror-stricken face when he, only half believing she was the
woman _liee_ with the dead man, only half-suspecting that she might have
been instrumental in his destruction, boldly taxed her with it at the
Duke of Arran's ball, when alone with her for a few moments in the
conservatory.
"You don't understand?" She spoke bitterly. "You are no friend of his,
then! You would leave him--in his tomb--killed, murdered--his murderess
at large!"
"What good could it be to him, now?" he said, firmly, almost
impressively. "Can we follow the spirits we have lost, and do anything
for them? Might not cruelty to others hurt them? How can we tell?"
"Cruelty to others!" she cried, wildly. "Understand, Mr. Naz! I know
his love--his Joan! I will soon be on her track! If you will not help
me, I will go to the detectives!"
In her almost frenzy of mingled love for the dead man, and hate of her
rival, the woman who had been with him the night he died, she hazarded a
chance shot, and even as she did so, she rejoiced. For the bullet had
found its mark. Paul's face fell--there was an expression of dismay in
the eyes which were almost fearfully watching her.
"No, no! You must not do that!" he slowly said. "I do not know what my
poor friend may have told you, but remember a man is sometimes betrayed
into a little exaggeration----"
"I have her letter," said she, exultant, yet calm. "I have plenty of
evidence to give the detectives. I will not trouble you, Mr. Naz!" She
glanced scornfully at him.
What was he to do? Abandon Joan Thorne to this infuriated, outraged,
therefore unscrupulous rival, and a horde of professional detectives,
who would show little or no mercy? His whole somewhat chivalrous being
revolted against it. When he left Haythorn Street half-an-hour later he
had pledged himself by all he held sacred to assist Vera in discovering
the real story of Victor Mercier's untimely end, and acting upon it,
whatever it might prove to be.
* * * * *
When Joan, at the Duchess of Arran's ball, had, with the most violent
effort of will, played her dismal part, acted, feigned enjoyment of her
last dances with Vansittart, beguiled him with well-simulated smiles,
and sternly resisted the awful inward fear awakened by Paul Naz's daring
words and sinister demeanour, she almost collapsed. Then, left alone in
her room, the prattling Julie gone, her night light flickering, she sat
up in bed confronted by the new, hideous fact.
Paul Naz suspected her! He knew of her affair with Victor Mercier! He
had identified her with the "hag" wife that girl Victor loved had spoken
of at the inquest! _What more did he know?_
The cold beads stood out on her brow. The innate conviction she now knew
that she had felt from the very beginning of her love for
Vansittart--the conviction that it would lead to her doom--arose within
her like some unbidden phantom.
What doom? Public shame and the hangman? Or the utter loss of
Vansittart's love? One seemed as terrible a retribution as the other.
"But--do I deserve such an awful punishment for what was done in
ignorance, my fancying myself in love with Victor, and being talked into
marrying him at the registrar's?" she asked herself, with sudden fierce
rebellion against fate. "Do I even deserve it for drugging him to take
possession of my letters? What had he not threatened me with? And I
never meant to kill him! I am sure I would rather have died than that!"
Again, a passionate instinct of self-defence as well as of
self-preservation came to her rescue. As she lay there among the
shadows in the silent night, with no sound but the distant rumble of
belated vehicles, and the measured footsteps of the policeman as he went
his round upon the pavements below breaking the stillness, she
determined, once and for all, to kill the past.
"It shall be dead!" she told herself, sternly. "I will have no more of
it! If any one or anything belonging to it crops up, I will defy, deny,
ignore, resist to the death! No one saw me--no one can really hurt me! I
have had enough of misery and wretchedness--I will--yes, I _will_--be
happy--and no one in the world shall prevent me!"