She found no comfort in his face, and presently lowered her eyes. He
remained motionless. The girl went to the farther end of the apartment, and
then, her form straightening on a sudden, turned and came back toward him.
"I think God has some grudge against you," Dorothy said, without any
emotion, "and--hardens your heart, as of old He hardened Pharaoh's heart,
to your own destruction. I have done my utmost to save you. My woman's
modesty I have put aside, and death and worse than death I have dared to
encounter to-night,--ah, my Lord, I have walked through hell this night for
your sake and another's. And in the end 'tis yourself who rob me of what I
had so nearly gained. Beyond doubt God has some grudge against you. Take
your fate, then."
"_Integer vitæ_--" said the Duke of Ormskirk; and with more acerbity, "Go
on!" For momentarily she had paused.
"The man who lies dead below was loved by many women. God pity them! But
women are not sensible like men, you know. And always the footlights made a
halo about him; and when you saw him as Castalio or Romeo, all beauty and
love and vigor and nobility, how was a woman to understand his splendor was
a sham, taken off with his wig, removed with his pinchbeck jewelry, and as
false? No, they thought it native, poor wretches. Yet one of them at least,
my Lord--a young girl--found out her error before it was too late. The man
was a villain through and through. God grant he sups in hell to-night!"
"Go on," said Ormskirk. But by this time he knew all that she had to tell.
"Afterward he demanded money of her. He had letters, you understand--mad,
foolish letters,--and these he offered to sell back to her at his own
price. And their publicity meant ruin. And, my Lord, we had so nearly saved
the money--pinching day by day, a little by a little, for his price was
very high, and it was necessary the sum be got in secrecy,--and that in the
end they should be read by you--" Her voice broke.
"Go on," said Ormskirk.
But her composure was shattered. "I would have given my life to save her,"
the girl babbled. "Ah, you know that I have tried to save her. I was not
very much afraid. And it seemed the only way. So I came hither, my Lord, as
you see me, to get back the letters before you, too, had come."
"There is but one woman in the world," the Duke said, quietly, "for whom
you would have done this thing. You and Marian were reared together. Always
you have been inseparable, always you have been to each other as sisters.
Is this not what you are about to tell me?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Well, you may spare yourself the pains of such unprofitable lying. That
Marian Heleigh should have been guilty of a vulgar _liaison_ with, an actor
is to me, who know her, unthinkable. No, madam! It was fear, not love,
which drove you hither to-night, and now a baser terror urges you to screen
yourself by vilifying her. The woman of whom you speak is yourself. The
letters were written by you."
She raised one arm as though a physical blow impended. "No, no!" she cried.
"Madam," the Duke said, "let us have done with these dexterities. I
have the vanity to believe I am not unreasonably obtuse--nor, I submit,
unreasonably self-righteous. Love is a monstrous force, as irrational, I
sometimes think, as the force of the thunderbolt; it appears neither to
select nor to eschew, but merely to strike; and it is not my duty to
asperse or to commend its victims. You have loved unworthily. From the
bottom of my heart I pity you, and I would that you had trusted me--had
trusted me enough--" His voice was not quite steady. "Ah, my dear," said
Ormskirk, "you should have confided all to me this afternoon. It hurts me
that you did not, for I am no Pharisee and--God knows!--my own past is not
immaculate. I would have understood, I think. Yet as it is, take back your
letters, child,--nay, in Heaven's name, take them in pledge of an old man's
love for Dorothy Allonby."
The girl obeyed, turning them in her hands, the while that her eyes were
riveted to Ormskirk's face. And in Aprilian fashion she began to smile
through her tears. "You are superb, my Lord Duke. You comprehend that
Marian wrote these letters, and that if you read them--and I knew of
it,--your pride would force you to break off the match, because your
notions as to what is befitting in a Duchess of Ormskirk are precise. But
you want Marian, you want her even more than I had feared. Therefore, you
give me all these letters, because you know that I will destroy them, and
thus an inconvenient knowledge will be spared you. Oh, beyond doubt, you
are superb."
"I give them to you," Ormskirk answered, "because I have seen through your
cowardly and clumsy lie, and have only pity for a thing so base as you. I
give them to you because to read one syllable of their contents would be to
admit I had some faith in your preposterous fabrication."
But she shook her head. "Words, words, my Lord Duke! I understand you to
the marrow. And, in part, I think that I admire you."
He was angry now. "Eh! for the love of God," cried the Duke of Ormskirk,
"let us burn the accursed things and have no more verbiage!" He seized the
papers and flung them into the fire.
Then these two watched the papers consume to ashes, and stood a while
in silence, the gaze of neither lifting higher than the andirons; and
presently there was a tapping at the door.
"That will be Benyon," the Duke said, with careful modulations. "Enter,
man! What news is there of this Vanringham?"
"He will recover, your Grace, though he has lost much blood. Mr. Vanringham
has regained consciousness and took occasion to whisper me your Grace would
find the needful papers in his escritoire, in the brown despatch-box."
"That is well," the Duke retorted, "You may go, Benyon." And when the
door had closed, he began, incuriously: "Then you are not a murderess at
least, Miss Allonby. At least--" He made a queer noise as he gazed, at the
despatch-box in his hand. "The brown box!" It fell to the floor. Ormskirk
drew near to her, staring, moving stiffly like a hinged toy, "I must have
the truth," he said, without a trace of any human passion. This was the
Ormskirk men had known in Scotland.
"Yes," she answered, "they were the Jacobite papers. You burned them."
"I!" said the Duke.
Presently he said: "Do you not understand what this farce has cost? Thanks
to you, I have no iota of proof against these men. I cannot touch these
rebels. O madam, I pray Heaven that you have not by this night's trickery
destroyed England!"
"I did it to save the man I love," she proudly said.
"I had promised you his life."
"But would you have kept that promise?"
"No," he answered, simply.
"Then are we quits, my Lord. You lied to me, and I to you. Oh, I know
that were I a man you would kill me within the moment. But you respect my
womanhood. Ah, goodness!" the girl cried, shrilly, "what very edifying
respect for womanhood have you, who burned those papers because you
believed my dearest Marian had stooped to a painted mountebank!"
"I burned them--yes, in the belief that I was saving you."