Knowing my darling's innocence, I felt the insult shown her in my heart
of hearts, and might in the heat of the moment have been betrayed into
an unwise utterance of my indignation, if at that moment I had not
encountered the eye of Mr. Armstrong fixed on me from the rear hall. In
the mingled surprise and distress he displayed, I saw that it was not
from any indiscretion of his that this feeling against her had started.
He had not betrayed the trust I had placed in him, yet the murmur had
gone about which virtually ostracised her, and instead of confronting
the eager looks of friends, she found herself met by averted glances and
coldly turned backs, and soon by an almost empty hall.
She flushed as she realised the effect of her presence, and cast me an
agonised look which, without her expectation, perhaps, roused every
instinct of chivalry within me. Advancing, I met her at the foot of the
stairs, and with one quick word seemed to restore her to herself.
"Be patient!" I whispered. "To-morrow they will all be around you again.
Perhaps sooner. Go into the conservatory and wait."
She gave me a grateful pressure of the hand, while I bounded upstairs,
determined that nothing should stop me from finding Gilbertine, and
giving her the letter with which Sinclair had entrusted me.
But this was more easily planned than accomplished. When I had reached
the third floor (an unaccustomed and strange spot for me to find myself
in) I at first found no one who could tell me to which room Miss Murray
had retired. Then, when I did come across a stray housemaid, and she,
with an extraordinary stare, had pointed out the door, I found it quite
impossible to gain any response from within, though I could hear a quick
step moving restlessly to and fro, and now and then catch the sound of a
smothered sob or low cry. The wretched girl would not heed me, though I
told her who I was, and that I had a letter from Mr. Sinclair in my
hand. Indeed, she presently became perfectly quiet, and let me knock
again and again, till the situation became ridiculous, and I felt
obliged to draw off.
Not that I thought of yielding. No, I would stay there till her own
fancy drove her to open the door, or till Mr. Armstrong should come up
and force it. A woman upon whom so many interests depended would not be
allowed to remain shut up the whole morning. Her position as a possible
bride forbade it. Guilty or innocent, she must show herself before long.
As if in answer to my expectation, a figure appeared at this very moment
at the other end of the hall. It was Dutton, the butler, and in his hand
he held a telegram. He seemed astonished to see me there, but passed me
with a simple bow, and stopped before the door I had so unavailingly
assailed a few minutes before.
"A telegram, miss," he shouted, as no answer was made to his knock.
"Mr. Armstrong asked me to bring it to you. It is from the Bishop, and
calls for an immediate reply."
There was a stir within, but the door did not open. Meanwhile, I had
sealed and thrust forth the letter I had held concealed in my breast
pocket.
"Give her this, too," I signified, and pointed to the crack under the
door.
He took the letter, laid the telegram on it, and pushed them both in.
Then he stood up, and eyed the unresponsive panels with the set look of
a man who does not easily yield his purpose.
"I will wait for the answer!" he shouted through the keyhole, and,
falling back, he took up his stand against the opposite wall.
I could not keep him company there. Withdrawing into a big dormer
window, I waited with beating heart to see if her door would open.
Apparently not; yet as I still lingered I heard the lock turn, followed
by the sound of a measured but hurried step. Dashing from my retreat, I
reached the main hall in time to see Miss Murray disappear toward the
staircase. This was well, and I was about to follow, when, to my
astonishment, I perceived Dutton standing in the doorway she had just
left, staring down at the floor with a puzzled look.
"She didn't pick up the letters!" he cried in amazement. "She just
walked over them. What shall I do now? It's the strangest thing I ever
saw!"
"Take them to the little boudoir over the porch," I suggested. "Mr.
Sinclair is there, and if she is not on her way to join him now, she
certainly will be soon."
Without a word Dutton caught up the letters and made for the stairs.
Left to await the result, I found myself so worked upon that I wondered
how much longer I should be able to endure these shifts of feeling and
constantly recurring moments of extreme suspense. To escape the torture
of my own thoughts, or, possibly, to get some idea of how Dorothy was
sustaining an ordeal which was fast destroying my own self-possession, I
prepared to go downstairs. What was my astonishment, in passing the
little boudoir on the second floor, to find its door ajar and the place
empty. Either the interview between Sinclair and Gilbertine had been
very much curtailed, or it had not yet taken place. With a heart heavy
with forebodings I no longer sought to analyse, I made my way down, and
reached the lower step of the great staircase just as a half-dozen
girls, rushing from different quarters of the hall, surrounded the heavy
form of Mr. Armstrong coming from his own little room.
Their questions made a small hubbub. With a good-natured gesture he put
them all back, and, raising his voice, said to the assembled crowd:
"It has been decided by Miss Murray that, under the circumstances, it
will be wiser for her to postpone the celebration of her marriage to
some time and place less fraught with mournful suggestions. A telegram
has just been sent to the Bishop to that effect, and while we all suffer
from this disappointment, I am sure there is no one here who will not
see the propriety of her decision."
As he finished, Gilbertine appeared behind him. At the same moment I
caught, or thought I did, the flash of Sinclair's eye from the recesses
of the room beyond; but I could not stop to make sure of this, for
Gilbertine's look and manner were such as to draw my full attention, and
it was with a mixture of almost inexplicable emotions that I saw her
thread her way among her friends, in a state of high feeling which made
her blind to their outstretched hands and deaf to the murmur of interest
and sympathy which instinctively followed her. She was making for the
stairs, and whatever her thoughts, whatever the state of her mind, she
moved superbly, in her pale, yet seemingly radiant abstraction. I
watched her, fascinated, yet when she left the last group and began to
cross the small square of carpet which alone separated us, I stepped
down and aside, feeling that to meet her eye just then without knowing
what had passed between her and Sinclair would be cruel to her and
well-nigh unbearable to myself.
She saw the movement and seemed to hesitate an instant, then she turned
for one brief instant in my direction, and I saw her smile. Great God!
it was the smile of innocence. Fleeting as it was, the pride that was in
it, the sweet assertion and the joy were unmistakable. I felt like
springing to Sinclair's side in the gladness of my relief, but there was
no time; another door had opened down the hall, another person had
stepped upon the scene, and Miss Murray, as well as myself, recognised
by the hush which at once fell upon every one present that something of
still more startling import awaited us.
"Mr. Armstrong and ladies!" said this stranger--I knew he was a stranger
by the studied formality of the former's bow--"I have made a few
inquiries since I came here a short time ago, and I find that there is
one young lady in the house who ought to be able to tell me better than
any one else under what circumstances Mrs. Lansing breathed her last. I
allude to her niece, who slept in the adjoining room. Is that young lady
here? Her name, if I remember rightly, is Camerden--Miss Dorothy
Camerden."
A movement as of denial passed from group to group down the hall, and,
while no one glanced toward the library and some did glance upstairs, I
felt the dart of sudden fear--or was it hope--that Dorothy, hearing her
name called, would leave the conservatory and proudly confront the
speaker in face of this whole suspicious throng. But no Dorothy
appeared. On the contrary, it was Gilbertine who turned, and, with an
air of authority for which no one was prepared, asked in tones vibrating
with feeling:
"Has this gentleman the official right to question who was and who was
not with my aunt when she died?"
Mr. Armstrong, who showed his surprise as ingenuously as he did every
other emotion, glanced up at the light figure hovering over them from
the staircase, and made out to answer:
"This gentleman has every right, Miss Murray. He is the coroner of the
town, accustomed to inquire into all cases of sudden death."
"Then," she vehemently rejoined, her pale cheeks breaking out into a
scarlet flush, above which her eyes shone with an almost unearthly
brilliancy, "do not summon Dorothy Camerden. She is not the witness you
want. I am. I am the one who uttered that scream; I am the one who saw
our aunt die. Dorothy cannot tell you what took place in her room and at
her bedside, for Dorothy was not there; but _I_ can."
Amazed, not as others were, at the assertion itself, but at the manner
and publicity of the utterance, I contemplated this surprising girl in
ever-increasing wonder. Always beautiful, always spirited and proud, she
looked at that moment as if nothing in the shape of fear, or even
contumely, could touch her. She faced the astonishment of her best
friends with absolute fearlessness, and before the general murmur could
break into words, added:
"I feel it my duty to speak thus publicly, because, by keeping silent so
long, I have allowed a false impression to go about. Stunned with
terror, I found it impossible to speak during that first shock. Besides,
I was in a measure to blame for the catastrophe itself, and lacked
courage to own it. It was I who took the little crystal flask into my
aunt's room. I had been fascinated by it from the first, fascinated
enough to long to see it closer, and to hold it in my hand. But I was
ashamed of this fascination--ashamed, I mean, to have any one know that
I could be moved by such a childish impulse; so, instead of taking the
box itself, which might easily be missed, I simply abstracted the tiny
vial, and, satisfied with its possession, carried it about till I got to
my room. Then, when the house was quiet and my room-mate asleep, I took
it out and looked at it, and feeling an irresistible desire to share my
amusement with my cousin, I stole to her room by means of the connecting
balcony, just as I had done many times before when our aunt was in bed
and asleep. But unlike any previous occasion, I found the room empty.
Dorothy was not there; but as the light was burning high, I knew she
would soon be back, and so ventured to step in.
"Instantly, I heard my aunt's voice. She was awake, and wanted
something. She had evidently called before, for her voice was sharp with
impatience, and she used some very harsh words. When she heard me in
Dorothy's room, she shouted again, and, as I have always been accustomed
to obey her commands, I hastened to her side, with the little vial
concealed in my hand. As she expected to see Dorothy and not me, she
rose up in unreasoning anger, asking where my cousin was, and why I was
not in bed. I attempted to answer her, but she would not listen to me,
and bade me turn up the gas, which I did.
"Then, with her eyes fixed on mine as though she knew I was trying to
conceal something from her, she commanded me to rearrange her hair and
make her more comfortable. This I could not do with the tiny flask still
in my hand, so with a quick movement, which I hoped would pass
unobserved, I slid it behind some bottles standing on a table by the
bedside, and bent to do what she required. But to attempt to escape her
eyes was useless. She had seen my action, and at once began to feel
about for what I had attempted to hide from her. Coming in contact with
the tiny flask, she seized it, and, with a smile I shall never forget,
held it up between us.
"'What's this?' she cried, showing such astonishment at its minuteness
and perfection of shape that it was immediately apparent she had heard
nothing of the amethyst box displayed by Mr. Sinclair in the library. 'I
never saw a bottle as small as this before. What is in it, and why were
you so afraid of my seeing it?'
"As she spoke she attempted to wrench out the stopper. It stuck, so I
was in hopes she would fail in the effort, but she was a woman of
uncommon strength, and presently it yielded, and I saw the vial open in
her hand.
"Aghast with terror, I caught at the table beside me, fearing to drop
before her eyes. Instantly her look of curiosity changed to one of
suspicion, and repeating, 'What's in it? What's in it?' she raised the
flask to her nostrils, and when she found she could make out nothing
from the smell, lowered it to her lips, with the intention, I suppose,
of determining its contents by tasting them. As I caught sight of this
fatal action, and beheld the one drop, which Mr. Sinclair had said was
enough to kill a man, slip from its hiding-place of centuries into her
open throat, I felt as if the poison had entered my own veins; I could
neither speak nor move. But when, an instant later, I met the look which
spread suddenly over her face--a look of horror and hatred, accusing
horror and unspeakable hatred mingled with what I dimly felt must mean
death--an agonised cry burst from my lips, after which, panic-stricken,
I flew, as if for life, back by the way I had come, to my own room. This
was a great mistake. I should have remained with my aunt and boldly met
the results of the tragedy which my folly had brought about. But terror
knows no law, and having once yielded to the instinct of concealment, I
knew no other course than to continue to maintain an apparent ignorance
of what had just occurred. With chattering teeth and an awful numbness
at my heart, I tore off my wrapper and slid into bed. Miss Lane had not
wakened, but every one else had, and the hall was full of people. This
terrified me still more, and for the moment I felt that I could never
own the truth and bring down upon myself all this wonder and curiosity.
So I allowed a wrong impression of the event to go about, for which act
of cowardice I now ask the pardon of every one here, as I have already
asked that of Mr. Sinclair and of our kind friend Mr. Armstrong."
She paused, and stood for a moment confronting us all with proud eyes
and flaming cheeks, then amid a hubbub which did not seem to affect her
in the least, she stepped down, and approaching the man who, she had
been told, had a right to her full confidence, she said, loud enough for
all who wished to hear her:
"I am ready to give you whatever further information you may require.
Shall I step into the drawing-room with you?"
He bowed, and as they disappeared from the great hall the hubbub of
voices became tumultuous.
Naturally I should have joined in the universal expressions of surprise
and the gossip incident to such an unexpected revelation. But I found
myself averse to any kind of talk. Till I could meet Sinclair's eye and
discern in it the happy clearing-up of all his doubts, I should not feel
free to be my own ordinary and sociable self again. But Sinclair showed
every evidence of wishing to keep in the background; and while this was
natural enough, so far as people in general were concerned, I thought it
odd and very unlike him not to give me an opportunity to express my
congratulations at the turn affairs had taken and the frank attitude
assumed by Gilbertine. I own I felt much disturbed by this neglect, and
as the minutes passed and he failed to appear, I found my satisfaction
in her explanations dwindle under the consciousness that they had
failed, in some respects, to account for the situation; and before I
knew it I was the prey of fresh doubts, which I did my best to smother,
not only for the sake of Sinclair, but because I was still too much
under the influence of Gilbertine's imposing personality to wish to
believe aught but what her burning words conveyed.
She must have spoken the truth, but was it the entire truth? I hated
myself for asking the question; hated myself for being more critical
with her than I had been with Dorothy, who certainly had not made her
own part in this tragedy as clear as one who loved her could wish. Ah,
Dorothy! it was time some one told her that Gilbertine had openly
vindicated her, and that she could now come forth and face her friends
without hesitation and without dread. Was she still in the conservatory?
Doubtless. But it would be better, perhaps, for me to make sure.
Approaching the place by the small door connecting it with the hallway
in which I stood, I took a hurried look within, and, seeing no one,
stepped boldly down between the palms to the little nook where lovers of
this quiet spot were accustomed to sit. It was empty, and so was the
library beyond. Coming back, I accosted Dutton, whom I found
superintending the removal of the potted plants which encumbered the
passages, and asked him if he knew where Miss Camerden was? He answered
without hesitation that she had stood in the rear hall a little while
before, listening to Miss Murray; that she had then gone upstairs by the
spiral staircase, leaving word with him that if anybody wanted her she
would be found in the small boudoir over the porch.
I thanked him, and was on my way to join her when Mr. Armstrong called
me. He must have kept me a half-hour in his room discussing every aspect
of the affair and apologising for the necessity which he now felt of
bidding farewell to most of his guests, among whom, he was careful to
state, he did not include me. Then, when I thought this topic exhausted,
he began to talk about his wife, and what this dreadful occurrence was
to her, and how he despaired of ever reconciling her to the fact that it
had been considered necessary to call in a coroner. Then he spoke of
Sinclair, but with some constraint and a more careful choice of words,
at which, realising that I was to reap nothing from this interview, only
suffer strong and continued irritation at a delay which was costing me
the inestimable privilege of being the first to tell Dorothy of her
re-establishment in every one's good opinion, I exerted myself for
release, and to such good purpose that I presently found myself again in
the hall, where the first person I ran against was Sinclair.
He started, and so did I, at this unexpected encounter. Then we stood
still, and I stared at him in amazement, for everything about the man
was changed, and--inexplicable fact!--in nothing was this change more
marked than in his attitude toward myself. Yet he tried to be friendly
and meet me on the old footing, and observed as soon as we found
ourselves beyond the hearing of others:
"You heard what Gilbertine said. There is no reason for doubting her
words. _I_ do not doubt them, and you will show yourself my friend by
not doubting them either." Then, with some impetuosity and a gleam in
his eye quite foreign to its natural expression, he pursued, with a
pitiful effort to speak dispassionately: "Our wedding is
postponed--indefinitely. There are reasons why this seemed best to Miss
Murray. To you I will say that postponed nuptials seldom culminate in
marriage. In fact, I have just released Miss Murray from all obligations
to myself."
The stare of utter astonishment I gave him provoked the first and only
sneer I have ever seen on his face. What was I to say--what could I say,
in response to such a declaration, following so immediately upon his
warm assertion of her innocence? Nothing. With that indefinable chill
between us, which had come I know not how, I felt tongue-tied.
He saw my embarrassment, possibly my emotion, for he smiled somewhat
bitterly, and put a step or so between us before he remarked:
"Miss Murray has my good wishes. Out of respect to her position, I shall
show her a friend's attention while we remain in this house. That is all
I have to say, Walter. You and I have held our last conversation on this
subject."
He was gone before I had sufficiently recovered to realise that in this
conversation I had had no part, neither had it contained any explanation
of the very facts which had once formed our greatest grounds for
doubt--namely, Beaton's dream; the smothered cry uttered behind
Sinclair's shoulder when he first made known the deadly qualities of
the little vial; and, lastly, the strange desire acknowledged to by both
these young ladies, to touch and hold an object calculated rather to
repel than to attract the normal feminine heart.
At every previous stage of this ever-shifting drama my instinct had been
to set my wits against the facts, and, if I could, puzzle out the
mystery. But I felt no such temptation now. My one desire was to act,
and that immediately. Dorothy, for all Gilbertine's intimation to the
contrary, held in her own breast the key to the enigma. Otherwise she
would not have ventured upon the surprising and necessarily unpalatable
advice to Sinclair--an advice he seemed to have followed--not to marry
Gilbertine Murray at the time proposed. Nothing short of a secret
acquaintanceship with facts unknown as yet to the rest of us could have
nerved her to such an act.
My one hope, then, of understanding the matter lay with her. To seek her
at once in the place where I had been told she awaited me seemed the
only course to take. If any real gratitude underlay the look of trust
which she had given me at the termination of our last interview, she
would reward my confidence by unbosoming herself to me.
I was at the door of the boudoir immediately upon forming this
resolution. Finding it ajar, I pushed it softly open, and as softly
entered. To my astonishment the place was very dark. Not only had the
shades been drawn down, but the shutters had been closed, so that it
was with difficulty I detected the slight, black-robed figure which lay
face down among the cushions of a lounge. She had evidently not heard my
entrance, for she did not move; and, struck by her pathetic attitude, I
advanced in a whirl of feeling, which made me forget all
conventionalities, and everything else, in fact, but that I loved her,
and had the utmost confidence in her power to make me happy. Laying my
hand softly on her head, I tenderly whispered:
"Look up, dear. Whatever barrier may have intervened between us has
fallen. Look up and hear how I love you."
She thrilled as a woman only thrills when her secret soul is moved, and,
rising with a certain grand movement, turned her face upon me, glorious
with a feeling that not even the dimness of the room could hide.
Why, then, did my brain whirl and my heart collapse?
It was Gilbertine and not Dorothy who stood before me.