Sir Arthur Byrne took his adopted daughter back to Belgium on the
following day, since, although she would have to return to England to
give evidence against Mark in due course, some time must elapse before
his trial came on, and he judged it best to remove her as far as possible
from a place whose associations must always be painful.
Then ensued a series of weary long weeks for Juliet, in which she had no
trouble in convincing herself that David had forgotten her. She heard
nothing from him directly, though indirectly news of him filtered through
in letters they received from Lady Ruth and Gimblet. He had not, it
appeared, taken his cousin's guilt as proved so readily as Mark had
affected to do in his own case, refusing absolutely to hear a word of the
evidence against him, and maintaining that the whole thing was a mistake
as colossal as it was ghastly.
Only when he was persuaded unwillingly, but finally, that it was Juliet's
word which he must doubt if he were to continue to believe in Mark's
innocence, did he give in, and sorrowfully acknowledged himself
convinced.
All this Lady Ruth wrote to the girl, together with the fact that Sir
David was still in attendance on his mother, now happily recovering from
the nervous shock she had sustained.
From Gimblet, and from Messrs. Findlay & Ince, they heard that by the
will which the detective had found all Lord Ashiel's money and estate
were left to the adopted daughter of Sir Arthur Byrne, known hitherto as
Juliet Byrne, with a suggestion that she should provide for his nephews
to the extent she should think fit.
The will, though not technically worded, was perfectly good and legal,
and Juliet could have all the money she was likely to want for the
present by accepting the offer of an advance which the lawyers begged to
be allowed to make.
Gimblet wrote, further, that the list of names of members of the Nihilist
society entitled the "Friends of Man" which he had discovered at the same
time as the will and, contrary to Lord Ashiel's wishes, sent off by
registered post to Scotland Yard, had been communicated to the heads of
the police in Russia and the other European countries in which many of
those designated were now scattered, with the result that a large number
of arrests had been quietly made, and the society practically wiped out.
The foreign guest of the Crianan Hotel was still at large. The name of
Count Pretovsky was not on the list and nothing could be proved against
him. He had moved on to another hotel farther west, where he was lying
very low and continuing to practise the gentle art of the fisherman. A
member of the Russian secret police was on his way to Scotland, however,
and it was likely that Count Pretovsky would be recognized as one of the
persons on Lord Ashiel's list who were as yet unaccounted for.
Gimblet told them, besides, that he had succeeded in finding the widow of
the respectable plumber named Harsden, whom Julia had mentioned as being
her father. Mrs. Harsden corroborated the story, and said that it was
certainly the Countess Romaninov to whom Mrs. Meredith had consigned the
little girl they had given her.
Widely distributed advertisements also brought to light the nurses of the
two children; both the nurse who had taken Julia out to Russia and the
woman who had been with Mrs. Meredith when she took over the charge of
the McConachan baby, quickly claiming the reward that was offered for
their discovery. There was no longer any room for doubt that Juliet Byrne
was the same person as Juliana McConachan, or that Julia Romaninov had
begun life as little Judy Harsden.
All this scarcely sufficed to rouse Juliet from the apathy into which she
had fallen. To her it seemed incredible to think with what excitement and
delight such news would have filled her a few months earlier.
Now, since David plainly no longer cared for her, nothing mattered any
longer. Her depression was put down to the shock she had suffered, and
efforts were made to feed her up and coddle her, which she
ungratefully resented.
She had nothing in life to look forward to now, so she told herself,
except the horrible ordeal of the trial which she would be obliged
to attend.
It was in the dejection now becoming habitual to her, that she sat idly
one fine October morning in her little sitting-room at the consulate. She
had refused to play tennis with her stepsisters, not because she had
anything else to do, but because nothing was worth doing any more, and
because it was less trouble to sit and gaze mournfully through the open
window at the yellow leaves of the poplar in the garden, as from time to
time one of them fluttered down through the still air.
How unspeakably sad it was, she thought to herself, this slow falling of
the leaves, like the gradual but persistent loss of our hopes and
illusions, which eventually make each human dweller in this world of
change feel as bare and forlorn as the leafless winter trees.
On a branch a few feet away, a robin perched, and after looking at her
critically for a few moments lifted up its voice in cheerful song.
But she took no heed of it, and continued to brood over her sorrows.
All men were faithless. With them, it was out of sight, out of mind, and
she would assuredly never, never believe in one again. The best thing
she could do, she decided, was to put away all thought of such things,
and forget the man whom she had once been so vain as to imagine really
cared for her.
And just as she told herself for the hundredth time that she had given up
all hope and had resigned herself to the rôle of broken-hearted maiden,
the door opened, and David was shown in.
By good luck, she was alone. Lady Byrne was not yet down, and her
stepsisters were out; so there was no one to see her blushes and add to
her embarrassment.
In the surprise of seeing him, all her presence of mind vanished, leaving
her speechless and trembling with agitation.
For his part, David approached her with a confusion as obvious as her
own.
"Juliet," he stammered as soon as they were left alone together, "I know
I oughtn't to have come, but I simply couldn't keep away."
"Why oughtn't you to have come?" was all she could ask foolishly.
"Because I know you can't want to see me," said the absurd young man,
"though I do think you liked me pretty well before, didn't you? when
Maisie Tarver tied my tongue; or ought to have, I'm afraid I should say.
But she had enough sense to drop me when I was arrested. She couldn't
stand a man arrested for murder any more than you or anyone else could?"
He said the last words with an air of shamefaced interrogation.
"Why," said Juliet, who was being carried off her feet on the top of a
rapturous flood, "what nonsense! You were as innocent as I was. What
would it matter if you were arrested twenty times!"
"Well, I shouldn't care to be, myself," said David, without apparently
deriving much satisfaction from such a suggestion. "Once is enough for
me. And anyway," he added inconsequently, "you can't very well marry a
fellow who is first cousin to a man who's as good as hanged already!"
"Oh, David, David," cried Juliet; "as if that mattered! But who do
you suppose I am--don't you know that he's my first cousin just as he
is yours?"
"By Jingo," said David, "I never thought of that, somehow. Then
we're both in the same boat!" And he stepped forward and caught her
by the hands.
"Yes, David," she said, as he drew her to him tenderly, "both in the same
boat. And what can be nicer than that?"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Ashiel Mystery, by Mrs. Charles Bryce