As everyone expected, the Coroner's jury, after hearing Zertho's
evidence at the adjourned inquest, returned the usual verdict of "Wilful
murder against some person or persons unknown." It was the only
conclusion possible in such a case, the mystery being left for the
police to solve. Later that afternoon Inspector Swayne was closeted
with George and Mr Harrison at Stratfield Court, and after an hour's
consultation regarding the curious letter found in Nelly's pocket, the
detective left for London.
While that conversation was taking place Liane and her father, having
returned from the inquest, were sitting together in the little
dining-room. Brooker had cast off his shiny frock-coat with a sigh of
genuine relief, assumed his old well-cut tweed jacket, easy and
reminiscent of the past, while his daughter, having removed her gloves
and veil, sat in the armchair by the fireplace still in her large black
hat that gave a picturesque setting to her face. The windows were open,
the blinds down, and the room, cool in the half-light, was filled with
the sweet perfume of the wealth of old-world flowers outside.
"Our ill-luck seems to follow us, even now, my dear," he observed,
thrusting his hands deep into his empty pockets and lazily stretching
out his legs. "That inquisitive old chap, the Coroner, was within an
ace of raking up all the past. I was afraid they intended to adjourn
again."
"Why afraid?" asked Liane in surprise. "You surely do not fear
anything?"
"Well, no, not exactly," her father answered, with a quick glance at
her. "But some facts might have been then elicited which are best kept
secret."
Liane looked at the Captain, long and steadily, with eyes full of
sadness, then said, earnestly,--
"What caused you to suspect Zertho, father?"
"Suspect him. I never suspected him!"
"Do not deny the truth," she answered, in a tone of mild reproach. "I
know that before you went to London you sent him a message which, had he
been guilty, would have allowed him time to escape."
"But he was entirely unaware of the tragedy," her father answered,
rolling a cigarette with infinite care. "Zertho could have had no
object in murdering Nelly. Besides, it had already been proved by the
station-master that he had left by the train he saw him enter."
"Then why did you take the trouble to go to London?" she inquired.
"My motive was a secret one," he replied.
"One that even I must not know?" she inquired, in genuine surprise.
"Yes, even you must not know, Liane," he answered. "Women are apt to
grow confidential towards their lovers, and if the secret were once out,
then my plans would be thwarted."
"You suspect someone?" she asked, in a low, harsh voice.
"Well," he answered, regarding his unlit cigarette intently, "I will not
say that I actually suspect someone, but I have a theory, strange though
it may be, which I believe will turn out to be the correct one."
Liane started. Father and daughter again exchanged quick glances. She
fancied she saw suspicion in his eyes.
"May I not assist you?" she asked. "You know that in the past I've many
times brought you luck at the tables."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "In this I must act entirely alone.
George Stratfield no doubt occupies all your thoughts." She thought she
detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone.
The girl blushed deeply, but did not answer. Her father, inveterate
smoker that he was, lit his cigarette and sat silent and self-absorbed
for a long time. He was thinking of the bright happy girl who, cold and
dead in her tiny room upstairs, was the victim of a foul, terrible, and
mysterious crime.
"How long have you known this man?" the Captain inquired at last.
"Three months."
"And has he proposed to you?"
"He has," she faltered, blushing more deeply.
He drew a long breath, rose slowly, and pulling aside the white blind,
looked out as if in search of something. In truth, he was hesitating
whether he should speak to her at once, or wait for some other
opportunity. Turning to her at last, however, he said briefly, in a
low, pained tone,--
"You must break off the engagement, Liane. You cannot marry him."
"Cannot!" she gasped, her face turning pale. "Why?"
"Listen," he continued huskily, coming closer to her, laying his big
hand upon her shoulder, and looking down upon her tenderly. "Through
all these years of prosperity and adversity you alone have been the one
bright joy of my life. Your existence has kept me from going to the bad
altogether; your influence has prevented me from sinking lower in
degradation than I have already sunk. For me the facile pleasures of a
stray man have ceased, because, for your sake, Liane, I gave up the old
life and returned here to settle and become respectable. I admit that
our life in England is a trifle tame after what we've been used to, but
it will not, perhaps, be always so. At present my luck's against me and
we must wait in patience; therefore do not accept the first man's offer
of marriage. Life's merely a game of _rouge-et-noir_. Sometimes you
may win by waiting. Reflect well upon all the chances before you stake
the maximum."
"But George loves me, dad, and his family are wealthy," she protested,
meeting her father's earnest gaze with her large grey eyes, in which
stood unshed tears.
"I don't doubt it, my girl," he answered huskily. "I was young once.
I, too, thought I loved a woman--your mother. I foolishly believed that
she loved me better than anyone on earth. Ah! You wring from me my
confession, because--because it should serve you as a lesson." And he
paused with bent head, while Liane held his strong but trembling hand.
"It is a wretched story," he went on in a low, harsh voice, "yet you
should know it, you who would bind yourself to this man irrevocably. At
the time this woman came into my life I was on leave down in the South
of France, with wealth, happiness and bright prospects. I loved her and
made her my wife. Then I went with my regiment to India, but already my
future was blasted, for within a year of my marriage the glamour fell
from my eyes and I knew that I had been duped. A fault committed by her
threw such opprobrium upon me that I was compelled to throw up my
commission, leave her and go back to England. I could not return to my
friends in London, because she would discover and annoy me; therefore I
have drifted hither and thither, falling lower and lower in the social
scale, until, ruined and without means, I became a common blackleg and
swindler. But it belongs to the past. It is dead, gone--gone for ever.
Those years have gone and my youth has gone. I've lived like other men
since then. Heaven knows it has not been a life to boast of, Liane.
There have been days and years in it when I dared not trust myself to
remember what had been--days of madness and folly, and months of useless
apathy. Ah!" he sighed, "I was straight enough before my marriage, but
my life was wrecked solely by that woman."
His daughter listened intently, and when he had finished she echoed his
deep sigh. Her father had never before told her the tragic story. She
had always believed that her mother died of fever in India a year after
marriage.
"Then my mother is not dead?" she observed reflectively.
"I do not know. To me she has been dead these eighteen years," he
answered, with a stern look upon his hard-set features. A lump rose in
his throat, and in his eye there was a suspicion of a tear.
"Was she like me?" Liane asked softly, still holding her father's hand
and looking up at him.
"Yes, darling," he replied. "Sometimes when you look at me I shrink
from you because your eyes are so like hers. She was just your age when
I married her."
There was a long and painful silence. The hearts of father and daughter
were too full for words. They were indeed an incongruous pair. He was
a reckless gamester, a cunning adventurer, whose career had more than
once brought him within an ace of arrest, while she, although
prematurely versed in the evil ways of a polyglot world, where the laws
of rectitude and morality were lax, was nevertheless pure, honest and
good.
"But, dear old dad, why may I not marry George?" she asked when, after
thinking deeply over the truth regarding her parentage, her mind
reverted to thoughts of the man she loved.
"I cannot sufficiently explain the reason now," he answered vaguely.
"Some day, when I am aware of all the facts, you shall know."
"But I can love no other man," she exclaimed decisively, with eyes
downcast.
"You know my wish, Liane," her father answered rather coldly. "I feel
sure you will endeavour to respect it."
"I cannot, father! I really cannot!" she cried starting up. "Besides,
you give me no reason why I should not marry."
"I am unable to explain facts of which I am as yet unaware," he said,
withdrawing his hand.
"We love each other, therefore I cannot see why you should object."
"I do not doubt that there is affection between you, but my objection is
well based, I assure you, as some day you will be convinced."
"Have you any antipathy against George personally?"
"None whatever; I rather like him," he said. "I only tell you in plain,
straightforward terms that your marriage with him is impossible,
therefore the sooner you part the better;" and opening the door, he
slowly left the room.
Deep in thought, Liane stood leaning against the table, in the same
position as Zertho had stood when he had asked the captain for her hand.
Evidently her father entertained some deep-rooted prejudice against the
Stratfields; nevertheless, after calm reflection, she felt confident
that sooner or later she could over-rule his objection, and persuade him
to adopt her view, as she had done on previous occasions without number.
On the following afternoon a double funeral attracted hundreds of
persons to the churchyard of Stratfield Mortimer, where Nelly Bridson
was laid to rest in a plain grave, beneath a drooping willow, and the
body of Sir John Stratfield, fourteenth baronet, was placed in the
family vault, among his ancestors. When the interments were over,
George met Liane and managed to whisper a few words to her. It was an
appointment, and in accordance with his request, she went at sundown
along the chestnut avenue to the Court, and was at once shown to the
library, where her lover awaited her.
Her mourning became her well. His quick eyes detected that her black
dress, though not new, bore the unmistakable cut of the fashionable
dressmaker. Her figure, perfect in symmetry, was shown to advantage by
her short, French corset, and the narrow band of black satin that begirt
her slim waist.
"I have to offer my apologies to you, dearest," he said, when the
servant had closed the door. "At the inquest I was bound to openly
confess that we had met clandestinely."
"What apology is needed?" she asked, smiling. "We love each other, and
care nothing for what the world may think."
"That is true," he answered, deep in thought. "But I--I have an
announcement to make to you, which I fear must cause you pain."
"An announcement! What?"
"I must leave you."
She stood before him, looked quickly into his face, and turned pale.
"Leave me!" she gasped.
"Yes. I find, alas, I am compelled to go."
"And only the day before yesterday you asked me to become your wife!"
she cried, reproachfully. "What have I done that you should treat me
thus?"
"Nothing. You have done nothing, Liane, only to fascinate me and hold
me irrevocably to you," he answered, looking earnestly into her clear,
beautiful eyes. He paused. His soul was too full for utterance. Then
at length he said, "I have asked you here this evening to tell you
everything, for when I leave here, I fear it will be never to return."
"Why?" she asked, looking him full in the face, with a puzzled
expression.
"Because I am not wealthy, as is generally believed," he replied,
colouring deeply as he met her searching gaze. "It is useless to
deceive you, therefore I must tell you the hideous truth. My father has
thought fit to leave his whole fortune to my brother, and allow me to go
penniless. I am therefore unable to marry."
Liane's lips had grown white with fear and astonishment. "And that is
the reason you now intend to forsake me!" she gasped.
He bowed his head.
She passed her hand over her eyes. Her soul was in a tumult. She, too,
fondly wished to believe that he actually loved her, to trust the
evidence of what she saw. His words were a trifle ambiguous, and that
was sufficient to fill her with uncertainty. Jealous of that delicacy
which is the parent of love, and its best preserver, she checked the
overflowings of her heart, and while her face streamed with tears,
placed her hand protestingly upon his arm.
"Forgive me!" he cried with increased earnestness. "I know I have
wronged you. Forgive me, in justice to your own virtues, Liane. In
what has passed between us I feel I ought to have only expressed thanks
for your goodness to me; but if my words or manner have obeyed the more
fervid impulse of my soul, and declared aloud what should have been kept
secret, blame my nature, not my presumption. I am ruined, and I dare
not look steadily on any aim higher than your esteem."
"Ah! do not speak to me so coldly," the girl burst forth passionately.
"I cannot bear it. You said you loved me," and she sobbed bitterly.
"I have loved you, dear one, ever since we first met," he answered
quickly. "I love you now, even better than my life. But alas! a
mysterious fate seems to govern both of us, and we are compelled to
part."
"To part!" she wailed. "Why?"
"Ere long my brother will come to take possession of this place, for it
is no longer my home," he answered, in a low, pained tone. "I shall go
away to London and try to eke out a living at the Bar. For a young man
without means the legal profession is but a poor one at best," he
sighed; "therefore marriage being out of the question, I am compelled to
tell you the plain honest truth, and release you."
"Release me!" she echoed wildly. "I do not desire release. I love you,
George."
"But you do not love me sufficiently to wait through the long, dark days
that are at hand?" he cried, surprised at her passionate declaration!
"Remember, I am penniless, without hope, without prospects, without
anything save my great affection for you!"
The slanting rays of the sunset streaming through the stained glass fell
upon her, gilded her hair, and illumined her anxious face with a halo of
light. She looked lovely, with her dark eyelashes trembling, her soft
eyes full of love, and the colour of clear sunrise mounting on her
cheeks and brow.
"Wealthy or poor," she answered, in a low, sweet tone, "it matters not,
because I love you, George."
"And although we must part; although I must go to London and exchange
this free, open, happy life with you daily beside me for the dusty
dinginess of chambers wherein the sun never penetrates, yet you will
still remain mine?" he cried half doubtingly. "Do you really mean it,
Liane?"
"I do," she answered, in a voice trembling with emotion, and with a look
all tenderness and benignity. "It is no fault of yours that you are
poor, therefore be of stout heart, and when you return to London
remember that one woman alone thinks ever of you, because--because she
loves you."
With the large tears in her beautiful eyes--tears which seemed to him to
rise partly from her desire to love him with the power of his love--she
put her pure, bright lips, half-smiling, half-prone to reply to tears,
against his brow, lined with doubt and eager longing.
"Dearest darling, love of my life," he whispered through her clouds of
soft, silky hair. "I know I, an Englishman, with my blunt manners, must
grate upon you sometimes, with your delicate, high-strung feelings. We
are as different as the day is from the night. But, Liane, if truth and
honesty, and a will so to use my life as to become one of the real
workers and helpers in the world--a wish to be manly and upright, strong
of heart, and clean of conscience before God and man--if these can atone
for lack of culture and refinement, then I hope you will not find me
wanting. When I am absent there will be plenty besides me to love you,
but I will not believe that any can love you better than I do, or few as
truly."
She hesitated for a single instant as he spoke. She lifted her face
from her hands and looked up at him. He was not much taller than she;
it was not far. But as she looked another face came between them--a
pale, refined face: a face with more poetry, more romance, more passion.
Its sight was to her as a spectre of the past. It held her dumb in
terror and dismay.
George saw her hesitation, and the strange horrified look in her eyes.
Puzzled, he uttered not a word, but watched her breathlessly.
Liane opened her pale lips, but they closed and tightened upon each
other; from beneath her narrowed brows her eyes sent short flashes out
upon his, and her breath came and went long and deep, without sound.
"Why are you silent?" he whispered at last.
Her lips relaxed, her form drooped, she lifted her face to reply, but
her mouth twitched; she could not speak.
"If you truly love me and are prepared to wait, I will do my best," he
declared passionately, surprised at her change of manner, but little
dreaming of its cause.
Suddenly, however, as quickly as the heavy, preoccupied expression had
settled upon her countenance it was succeeded by a smile. She was a
strange, unique, incomparable girl, for the next second she laughed at
him in sweetest manner with a come and go of glances, saying in a tone
of low, deep tenderness,--
"Yes, George, you are the only man I love. If it is necessary that you
should go to follow your profession, then go, and take with you the
blessing of the woman who has promised to become your wife."
An instant later George held her slight graceful form in fond embrace,
while she hid her forehead and wet eyelashes on his shoulder,
murmuring,--
"I shall be yours always."
His burning kisses fell upon her hair, but neither of them spoke for a
while. The sunlight faded, and the old brown room with its shelves of
dusty tomes became dark and gloomy. Each felt the other's heart beat;
and the unlucky son of the Stratfields drank that ecstasy of silent,
delicious bliss which comes to great hearts only once in a life.
Later that night, after he had walked with her to her father's door, she
went to her room and sat alone for a long time in silence. A noise
aroused her. It was her father retiring to rest. She listened
intently, until, hearing his door closed, she paced her room with
fevered steps. Her face was ashen pale, and from time to time low,
strange words escaped her, as, lifting her hands, she pushed back her
hair, which seemed to press too heavily upon her hot brow.
"I love him!" she gasped in a low, strained whisper. "Yet, if he only
knew--if he only knew!"
And she shuddered.
Thrice she moved slowly backwards and forwards across her room.
Suddenly pulling aside the dimity curtains, she gazed out into the
brilliant night. The moon was shining full upon her windows, revealing
the trees and stretch of undulating meadows beyond.
For an instant she hesitated. Her clenched hands trembled; she held her
breath, listening. Reassured, she crossed noiselessly to her little
dressing-table, opened one of the drawers, and took therefrom a small
jewel-case. Only a few cheap trinkets were revealed when she unlocked
it, but from it she drew forth a small oblong box of white cardboard.
Then cautiously she crept from her room downstairs, and out into the
small orchard behind the house. Crossing it, still in the deep shadow
of the apple trees, she searched for some moments until she found a
spade, and making her way to a bed that had been newly dug, she deftly
removed several shovelfuls of earth, panting the while.
Taking the small box hastily from her pocket, she glanced round to
assure herself she was unobserved, then bent, and placing it carefully
in the hole she had made, an instant later proceeded to fill it in and
rearrange the surface, so that no trace should remain of it having been
removed.
Then replacing the spade where she had found it, she crept noiselessly
back to her room, locked the door and stood rigid, her hand pressed upon
her wildly-beating heart.