The greyness of the short winter's afternoon was steadily growing darker
and darker, and the lights were already beginning to appear in the shops
and the vehicles in busy Knightsbridge; but within the pretty boudoir,
where an old punch-bowl full of flowers poured sweetness into the air,
two hearts beat in unison, full of new-found joy, full of hope, full of
perfect confidence and love.
Holding his queen in his strong arms, Dudley had asked her a question,
to which she had made answer with all the fervour of her being:
"Yes, I will gladly be your wife, Dudley," she said, in a tender voice.
"As you well know, my heart has ever been yours, and ever will be--until
the end."
In the dim light, which had now become so dark that he could scarcely
distinguish her face, he pressed her closely to him in a wild ecstasy of
love, and as he kissed her on the lips, his heart full of gladness
inexpressible, she fancied that she felt a tear-drop upon his hollow
cheek.
To recount facts already known to every reader of these pages would
serve no purpose, but it will interest some to learn that Marucci
subsequently confessed to Captain Cator that the plot against the
Under-Secretary, devised by Biancheri and his wife, had long been in
progress. It was certainly at the instigation of this woman that
Marucci had succeeded in obtaining the incriminating documents from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, which he had passed on to
his employer, Archibald Cator; while she at the same time sent an
anonymous letter to Mr. Gerald Oldfield, the Member for Antrim West, one
of Dudley's bitterest political opponents, preferring against him a
charge of murder. The Grand-Duke Stanislas knew the truth, of course,
from what was told him at his own Embassy. The Meldrums, a worthy pair,
had always remained in ignorance of the true character of the
station-master's daughter, whom they had adopted out of charity. They
were first told the truth by Claudia herself, and the blow was a
terrible disillusion, for they had always treated her as their own
child. To Colonel Murray-Kerr, while he was still attach in Rome, the
secret of the marriage of Muriel Mortimer with Biancheri was imparted by
Marucci, who explained that there was some deep and mysterious
conspiracy on foot against Dudley Chisholm, that Biancheri had left the
Italian army, and that he was undoubtedly a spy. For that reason the
colonel had uttered his strange warning when shooting with Dudley, but
he had unfortunately not taken Marucci's statement very seriously.
Quite recently Archibald Cator ascertained that the woman Biancheri, who
had so cleverly plotted the grand _coup_, had been deserted by her
scoundrelly husband, and had died alone and in penury in a bare room on
the fifth storey of a rickety house in the Montmartre quarter of Paris.
Biancheri himself is at this moment languishing in prison at Grenoble,
having been arrested by French gendarmes in the very act of making a
plan of one of the Alpine frontier fortresses.
All London is well aware how Dudley Chisholm's marriage, so long
expected, took place, not with the _eclat_ common to a fashionable
wedding in town, but quietly in the quaint old village church at
Wroxeter, where the mellow-toned bells pealed merrily, and the school
children strewed the roses of July in their path.
And every one, both in society and out of it, knows that Lady Dudley
Chisholm still retains her place as one of the smartest women in London;
that all the scandals once whispered about her have been proved to be
false inventions of her detractors; that as _chatelaine_ of Wroxeter she
is one of the most popular among hostesses; and that her husband, whom
she adores, and whose fame is of worldwide renown, will certainly have a
seat in the next Cabinet.
You, my reader, whom curiosity or necessity takes into Mayfair or
Belgravia, must often have seen a slim, sweet-faced woman, remarkable
for the most wonderful eyes, driving in her neat Victoria, her servants
in dark green liveries, and with the three water-bougets of the
Chisholms upon the silver harness. Beside her there not infrequently
nestles a child with an exquisite face, dark hair, and great, wide-open
eyes that look in wonder on the vast world of London.
You are acquainted with their life-story. They are mother and daughter,
the wife and child of one of the happiest of men, the Right Honourable
Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs.
The End.