Chisholm with uneven steps walked back to the big writing-table, turned
up the reading-lamp and, seating himself, began to put the many official
papers quickly in order, signing some, destroying others, and now and
then making marginal notes on those to be returned to the Foreign
Office. Many of the more unimportant documents he consigned to the
waste-paper basket, but the others he arranged carefully, sorted them,
and placed them in several of the large official envelopes upon which
the address was printed, together with the bold words "On Her Majesty's
Service."
The light of hope had died from his well-cut features. His countenance
was changed, grey, anxious, with dark haggard eyes and trembling lips.
When, at last, he had finished, he rose again with a strange smile of
bitterness. He crossed to the portion of the book-lined wall that was
merely imitation, opened it, and with the key upon his chain took from
the small safe concealed there the envelope secured by the black seal,
and the small piece of folded paper which contained the lock of fair
hair--his most cherished possession.
He opened the paper and stood with the golden curl in the palm of his
hand, gazing upon it long and earnestly.
"Her's!" he moaned in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a sob. "If
she were here I wonder what would be her advice? I might long ago have
confided in her, told her all, and asked her help. She would have given
it. Yes, she was my friend, and would have sacrificed her very life to
save me. But it is all over. I am alone--utterly alone."
Tears stood in his eyes as he raised the love-token slowly and
reverently to his lips. Then he spoke again:
"For me there only remains the punishment of Heaven. And yet in those
days how childishly happy we were--how perfect was our love! Is it an
actual reality that I'm standing here to-night for the last time, or is
it a dream? No," he added, his teeth clenched in firmness, "it's no
dream. The end has come!"
The stillness of the night remained unbroken for a long time, for he
continued to stand beside the table with the fair curl in his nervous
hand. Many times he had been sorely tempted to destroy it, and put an
end to all the thoughts of the past that it conjured up. And yet he had
grown to regard it as a talisman, and actually dare not cast it from
him.
"Little lock of hair," he said at last in a choking voice, his eyes
fixed upon it, "throughout these years you have formed the single link
that has connected me with those blissful days of fervent love. You are
the only souvenir I possess of her, and you, emblem of her, fragile,
exquisite, tender, were my faithful companion through those long
journeys in far-off lands. In days of peril you have rested near my
heart; you have been my talisman; you have, sweet and silent friend,
cheered me often, telling me that even though long absent I was not
forgotten. Yes--yes!" he exclaimed wildly; "you are part of her--
actually part of her!" and again he kissed the lock of hair in a burst
of uncontrollable feeling.
Suddenly he drew himself up. His manner instantly changed, as the stern
reality again forced itself upon him.
"Ah!" he sighed, "those days are long spent, and to me happiness can
never return--never. My sin has risen against me; my one false step
debars me from the pleasures of the world." His chin was sunk upon his
breast, and he stood staring at the little curl, deep in reverie. At
last, without another word, he raised it again to his hot, parched lips,
and then folded it carefully in its wrapping.
The envelope he broke open, took out the small piece of transparent
paper, and spread it upon a piece of white foolscap in order to read it
with greater ease. Slowly he pondered over every one of the almost
microscopic words written there. As he read, his heavy brows were knit,
as though some of the words puzzled him.
He took a pencil from the inkstand and with it traced a kind of
geometrical diagram of several straight lines upon the blotting-pad.
These lines were similar to those he had traced with his stick in the
dust when standing at the stile on that steep path in the lonely coppice
near Godalming.
Now and then he referred to the small document in the crabbed
handwriting, and afterwards examined his diagram, as though to make
certain of its correct proportions. Then, resting his chin upon his
hands, he sat staring at the paper as it lay upon the blotting-pad
within the zone of mellow lamplight.
"It seems quite feasible," he said at last, speaking aloud. "Would that
the suggestion were only true! But unfortunately it is merely a vague
and ridiculous idea--a fantastic chimera of the imagination, after all.
No," he added resolutely, "the hope is utterly false and misleading. It
will not bear a second thought."
With sad reluctance he refolded the piece of transparent paper, replaced
it in the envelope, and put it back in the safe without resealing it.
But from the same unlocked drawer he took a formidable-looking blue
envelope, together with a tiny paper folded oblong, and sealed securely
with white wax. The paper contained a powdered substance.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary carried them both back to his
writing-table, and laid them before him. Upon the envelope was written
in a bold legal hand, doubly underlined: "The Last Will and Testament of
Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, Esquire (Copy)."
He smiled bitterly as he glanced at the superscription, then drew out
the document and spread it before him, reading through clause after
clause quite calmly.
There were four pages of foolscap, engrossed with the usual legal margin
and bound together with green silk. By it the Castle of Wroxeter and
his extensive property in Shropshire were disposed of in a dozen words.
The document was only lengthy by reason of the various bequests to old
servants of the family and annuities to certain needy cousins. With the
exception of the Castle and certain lands, the bulk of the great estate
was, by that will, bequeathed to a well-known London hospital.
Some words escaped him when, after completing its examination, during
which he found nothing he wished to be altered, he refolded it. He then
sealed it in another envelope and wrote in a big, bold hand: "My Will--
Dudley Chisholm."
As the names of his solicitors, Messrs. Tarrant and Drew, of Lincoln's
Inn Fields, were appended to the document, there was no necessity for
him to superscribe them.
"All is entirely in order," he murmured hoarsely. "And now I have to
decide whether to await my doom, or take time by the forelock." As he
spoke thus, his nervous hand toyed with the little paper packet before
him.
The room was in semi-darkness, for the logs had burned down and their
red glow threw no light. At that moment the turret-clock struck a deep
note, which echoed far away across the silent Severn.
A strange look was in his eyes. The fire of insanity was burning there.
As he glanced around in a strained and peculiar manner, he noticed upon
a side table the whiskey, some soda-water, and a glass, all of which
Riggs, according to custom, had placed there ready to his hand.
Without hesitation he crossed to it, resolved on the last desperate
step. He drew from the syphon until the glass was half-full. Then he
added some whiskey, returned with it to his seat, and placed it upon the
table.
With care he opened the little packet that had been hoarded since the
days of his journey in Central Asia, disclosing a small quantity of some
yellowish powder, which he emptied into the glass, stirring it with the
ivory paper-knife until all became dissolved. Then he sank into his
chair with the tumbler set before him.
He held it up to the light, examining it critically, with a sad smile
playing about his thin white lips. Presently he put it down, and with
both hands pushed the hair wearily from his fevered forehead.
"Shall I write to Claudia?" he asked himself in a hoarse voice, scarcely
louder than a whisper. "Shall I leave her a letter confessing all and
asking forgiveness?"
For a long time he pondered over the suggestion that had thus come to
him.
"No," he said at last, "it would be useless, and my sin would only cause
my memory to be more hateful. Ah, no!" he murmured; "to leave the world
in silence is far the best. The coroner's jury will return a verdict to
the effect that I was of unsound mind. Juries don't return verdicts of
_felo-de-se_ nowadays. The time of stakes and cross-roads has passed."
And he laughed harshly again, for now that he had placed all his affairs
in order a strange carelessness in regard to existence had come upon
him.
"To-morrow, when I am found, the papers--those same papers that have
boomed me, as they term it--will discover in my end a startling
sensation. All sorts of ridiculous rumours will be afloat. Parliament
will gossip when it meets; but in a week my very name will be forgotten.
One memorial alone will remain of me, my name engraved upon the tablet
in the house of the Royal Geographical Society as its gold-medallist.
And nothing else--absolutely nothing."
Again he paused. After a few minutes had passed he stretched out his
trembling hand and took the glass.
"What will the world say of me, I wonder?" he exclaimed in a hoarse
tone. "Will they declare that I was a coward?"
"Yes," came an answering voice, low, but quite distinct within the old
brown room, "the world will surely say that Dudley Chisholm was a
coward--_a coward_!"
He sprang to his feet in alarm, dashing the glass down on the table,
and, turning quickly to the spot whence the answer had come, found
himself face to face with an intruder who had evidently been concealed
behind the heavy curtains of dark red velvet before the window, and who
had heard everything and witnessed all his agony.
The figure was lithe and of middle stature--the figure of a woman in a
plain dark dress standing back in the deep shadow.
At the first moment he could not distinguish the features; but when he
had rushed forward a few paces, fierce resentment in his heart because
his actions had been overlooked, he suddenly became aware of the women's
identity.
It was Muriel Mortimer.
Since he had locked the door behind him as soon as he had entered the
room, she must have been concealed behind the heavy curtains which were
drawn across the deep recess of the old diamond-paned window.
"You!" he gasped, white-faced and haggard. "You! Miss Mortimer! To
what cause, pray, do I owe this nocturnal visit to my study?" he
demanded in a stern and angry voice.
"The reason of my presence here was the wish to find a novel to read in
bed, Mr. Chisholm," she answered with extraordinary firmness. "Its
result has been to save you from an ignominious death."
Erect, almost defiant, she stood before him. Her face in the heavy
shadow was as pale as his own, for she perceived his desperate mood and
recognised the improbability of being able to grapple with the
situation. He intended to end his life, while she, on her part, was
just as determined that he should live.
"You have been in this room the whole time?" he demanded, speaking quite
unceremoniously.
"Yes."
"You have heard my words, and witnessed all my actions?"
"I have."
"You know, then, that I intend to drink the contents of that glass and
end my life?" he said, looking straight at her.
"That was your intention, but it is my duty towards you, and towards
humanity, to prevent such a catastrophe."
"Then you really intend to prevent me?"
"That certainly is my intention," she answered. Her clear eyes were
upon him, and beneath her steady gaze he shrank and trembled.
"And if I live you will remain as witness of my agony, and of my
degradation?" he said. "If I live you will gossip, and tell them of all
that has escaped my lips, of my despair--of my contemplated suicide!"
"I have seen all, and I have heard all," the girl answered. "But no
word of it will pass my lips. With me your secret is sacred."
"But how came you here at this hour?" he demanded in a fiercer tone.
"As I've already told you, I came to get a book before retiring, and the
moment I had entered you came in. Because I feared to be discovered I
hid behind the curtains."
"You came here to spy upon me?" he cried angrily. "Come, confess the
truth!"
The curious thought had crossed his mind that she had been sent there by
Claudia.
"I chanced to be present here entirely by accident," she answered. "But
by good fortune I have been able to rescue you from death."
He bowed to her with stiff politeness, for he suspected her of
eavesdropping. He felt that he disliked her, and in no half-hearted
fashion. Besides, he recollected the prophetic warning of the colonel.
It was more than strange that he should discover her there, in that room
where his valuable papers were lodged. He scented mystery in her
action, and fiercely resented this unwarrantable intrusion upon his
privacy.
"My own behaviour is my own affair, Miss Mortimer," he said in a
determined voice.
"Yes, all but suicide," she assented. "That is an affair which concerns
your friends."
"Of whom you are scarcely one," he observed meaningly.
"No," she replied, stretching forth her hand until it rested upon his
arm. "You entirely misunderstand me, Mr. Chisholm. As in this affair
you have already involuntarily confided in me, I beg of you to rely upon
my discretion and secrecy, and to allow me to become your friend."