Without loss of a moment we entered the hansom and drove along Bishop's
Road and Westbourne Terrace, and thence across Sussex Gardens to
Gloucester Square.
Beside me my companion sat pale, erect, and rigid, responding only in
monosyllables to my questions, and refusing to tell me anything beyond
what she had already said--that her cousin was dying. Her manner was
strange, as though she were in deadly fear.
I had taken her hand to assist her into the cab, and found it was cold
as ice. Her face was the face of a woman haunted by some imminent
terror, a white countenance with eyes dark and deep sunken. How changed
she was from the bright, pleasant woman who had consulted me under such
curious circumstances, when I had first taken Bob's place at Rowan Road.
Could this change in her be in any way due, I thought, to the tragedy
at Whitton? I recollected the singular fact that Mrs Chetwode had
omitted the name and that of Beryl from the list furnished to the
police. Again I glanced at her ashen face as we rounded the corner into
Gloucester Square; it was that of a woman absolutely desperate. She was
trembling with fear, yet at the same time striving to preserve an
outward calm. My suspicion of her was increased.
The hall door having been thrown open by a servant, my companion led me
through into a pretty boudoir on the left, where, lying fully dressed
upon a divan of yellow silk, I saw my love. Her wonderful hair had
become disengaged from its fastenings and fell dishevelled about her
white face, and her corsage was open at the throat as though some one
had felt her heart.
In an instant I was at her side, and, while her cousin held the shaded
lamp, I examined her. Her great fathomless eyes were closed, her cheeks
cold, her heart motionless. Every symptom was that of death.
"Is she still alive?" asked the terror-stricken woman at my elbow.
"I cannot decide," I answered, rising and obtaining a small mirror to
test whether respiration had ceased.
Hers was no ordinary faintness, that I at once saw. The limbs were
stiff and rigid as in death, the hands icy cold, the lips drawn and
hard-set, the whole body so paralysed that the resemblance to death was
exact.
All the startling events of my fateful wedding day came back to me.
From that white throat that lay there exposed I had taken the tiny gold
charm, which now hung round my own neck, reminding me ever of her. That
sweet face, with the halo of gold-brown hair, was the same that I had
seen lying dead upon the pillow in that house of mystery in Queen's-gate
Gardens, the same that I had bent and kissed.
I took her hand again; there were rings upon it, but all were set with
gems. The bond of matrimony that I had placed there was absent.
For a moment I stood gazing at her, utterly confounded. But I saw that
to save her life no time must be lost, therefore, rousing myself, I
obtained her ladyship's assistance to unloose my loved one's corset, and
then made a further examination.
"This is a serious matter," I said at last. "I shall be glad if you
will send a servant in a cab to Bloomsbury with a message."
"To Bloomsbury? Why?" she asked. "Cannot you treat her yourself?"
"Not without consultation," I responded; and taking a card from my
pocket, I wrote upon it an urgent message to accompany the bearer at
once.
She gave me an envelope, and, enclosing the card, I wrote the
superscription, "Doctor Carl Hoefer, 63, Museum Mansions, Bloomsbury."
Her ladyship at once sent the servant on the message, and then without
delay returned to my side.
"Well, Doctor," she asked in a low, strained voice, "what is your
opinion? Will she recover?"
"I cannot say," I responded mechanically, my eyes still fixed upon my
patient's face, watching for any change that might occur there.
At my request her ladyship brought the brandy decanter from the
dining-room, and I managed, after some difficulty, to force a few drops
between her cousin's lips.
"Now tell me," I said firmly, turning to the agitated woman at my side,
"how did this occur?"
"I don't know."
"But if her life is to be saved we must know the truth," I said, my eyes
fixed upon her. "In this manner to prevaricate is useless. Tell me how
it is that I find her in this condition of fatal collapse."
"I cannot tell you things of which I myself am ignorant," she answered,
with a well-feigned air of innocence.
"You wish to save your cousin's life?" I inquired.
"Certainly. She must not die," she cried anxiously.
"Then answer my questions plainly, and leave the rest entirely in my
hands," I replied. "From your manner I know that you have some secret
which you are striving to conceal. Knowledge of this secret will, no
doubt, place me in a position to combat this extraordinary attack. If
because you maintain silence she dies, then an inquest will be held, and
the truth must come out--and a scandalous truth it will be."
"Scandalous!" she exclaimed with some hauteur. "I don't understand."
"An attempt has been made upon her life," I said as calmly as I could.
"Those who are responsible for this must, if she dies, be discovered."
"An attempt upon her life? How do you know?" she gasped.