A LAST APPEAL.
"Michael Fahey! Michael Fahey!" cried Mrs. Davenport, slowly. "Am I
awake and sane?"
"Both," answered he, gently. "You are awake and sane, and I am Fahey,
and alive. Nothing can be more incredible; but it is as I say, Mrs.
Davenport. You will not betray me? You will not be unmerciful to me?
Remember, I never meant to do you harm."
She shrank back from him. Did this man, whose hands were reddened with
her husband's blood, dare to plead to her for mercy. "Betray you! What
do you mean? Do you call it betraying you to give you into the hands
of justice? You will gain nothing by threats. I am not afraid of you;
and I am not defenceless, even though I am alone." She moved further
off, and pressed the revolver in her hand.
He seemed dejected rather than alarmed. "What good can it do you? When
I disappeared years ago, it was for the good of your husband----" He
held out his hands appealingly to her.
Her tone and attitude were firm, as she interrupted him. "You
disappeared years ago for the good of my husband, and reappear for his
death--for his murder! I can have no more words with you. I shall
certainly not shield you from the consequences of your crime."
"If you only knew me as well as you might--if you could only
understand how I felt that day I was hunted like a beast, you could
not believe I would willingly do anything to annoy, much less to harm
you.... Mrs. Davenport," he burst out, vehemently, "I would have died
then for you: I will die now if you bid me--die for that second rose."
She looked at him with a glance of loathing, and gathered herself
together as though she felt contaminated by contact with the air he
breathed.
"Go away at once. Your audacity is loathsome. Has it come to this with
me, that I must bandy words with such a monster?"
"Mrs. Davenport," said he, in a tone of expostulation, "I am very far
from saying I am blameless. I have committed crimes for which the
punishment would be great, but I was not alone in my crimes. I did not
invent them."
"And who invented the atrocious crime of last February? Who was in our
house in Dulwich that night?"
"I read the case, and saw that Mr. Thomas Blake was at your house on
that night."
"And where were you?"
"In Brussels. Good heavens!--you cannot imagine I had anything to do
with that awful night! The idea is too monstrous to resent--to think
of for a moment. I swear to you I was in Brussels at the time, and
that I never did, or thought of doing, any injury to your husband. I
loved him well; but I loved some one else better---better than all the
world besides."
He did not look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the sea.
She moved as if to go.
He heard the motion, and went to her and stood between her and the
house.
"I will not say another word about myself; but hear me out. If I have
nothing to hope for, let me go away in the belief I am not unjustly
suspected by you of hurting your husband. I never cared much for my
life. Let me feel that when I die I shall not be worse in your eyes
than I deserve to be. Mrs. Davenport, hear me."
He entreated her with his voice, with his eyes, with his bent body,
with his outstretched hands.
Without speaking, she gave him to understand he might go on.
"I knew Mr. Davenport years before I saw you. I had business
connections with him which would not bear the light. You must have
heard or guessed something of what we have been busy about?"
She made no sign--said nothing.
"I was a steel engraver. Now and then he wanted plates done. I did the
plates for him."
"What kind of plates?"
She betrayed no emotion of any kind. Her voice was as calm as though
she was asking an ordinary question.
"You had better not know. It would do you no good to know. But do you
believe me that I was hundreds of miles away from London that awful
night?"
"And what brought you back to this place now?"
"I came back--because you are free!"
She made a gesture of impatience and dissent.
"You do not mean to say you will continue your suspicion in the face
of my denial, in the face of my horror at the mere thought?"
"But why should I take your unsupported word? If you are innocent, why
were you so horrified at the mere thought of inquiry?"
"But, good heavens! Mrs. Davenport, you did not for a moment imagine I
was afraid of inquiry into anything which occurred in February? I
thought the inquiry to which you referred had reference to some old
transactions between me and Mr. Davenport?"
"What were these transactions?"
"I beg of you not to ask. What good can it do to go into matters so
far back? You would find my answers of no advantage to you."
"Were they of a business character?"
"Purely of a business character, I assure you."
"And they would not bear the light?"
"Not with advantage to me."
"Or to my husband?"
"Or with advantage to your late husband."
"And to you, and to you alone the secret of these transactions is now
known?"
"To me, and to me alone."
She paused in thought. She held up her hand to bespeak his silence.
After a few moments' pause, she said:
"In the course of these transactions injury was done to some one? Was
that not so?"
"You are asking too much. Neither your happiness nor your fortune
could be served by my answering your questions. I refuse to answer."
With a gesture, she declined to be satisfied with this treatment.
"I have no fortune and no happiness. Once you told me you would do
anything I requested of you if I gave you a rose. There are no roses
now. In all likelihood there will be no more roses while I live----"
"While you live!"
"Let me go on. I have not much to say. You could not prize a rose for
its intrinsic value?"
"No; but for two other considerations--for the fact that it had once
been yours, and for what the gift of it from you to me might signify."
"If I gave you a rose now it could signify nothing--mind, absolutely
nothing. But if the mere fact that it belonged to me would make
anything valuable in your eyes, I will give you my glove, or my
bracelet, or this for your secret;" and she drew from her pocket the
revolver and pointed it at him.
He started towards her at the sight of the weapon, crying angrily:
"What do you mean by carrying that? Great heavens, it cannot be that
you came out here with the intention of committing suicide!"
He looked at her in horror.
"No," she answered quietly--"but with the intention of defending
myself against you. I thought if I should meet you, and you had
murdered my husband, and knew from me I had guessed it, that I might
need _this_. But I have no evidence you did murder him, and I see no
sign of guilt in you. Will you take it, or the bracelet, or the glove,
or all three, and tell me about those transactions in which my husband
was engaged with you?"
"It is not enough for my secret," he said.
"What more do you want? My purse?"
She put those questions in a placid tone, and showed no impatience or
scorn.
"No," he said, shaking with conflicting passions, "I do not want your
purse. If I wanted money, I could have had as much as any man could
care for out of your husband's purse. I have enough for myself. You
cured me of the love of money, and put another love in its place. Give
me your hand, or fire."
She raised her hand quickly, and flung the revolver from her over the
cliff. It fell on the Black Rock beneath. The fall was followed by a
long silence on both sides.
"I make one last appeal to you," she cried in soft, supplicating
tones--"one last appeal. I do not purpose keeping a penny of the
money--not one farthing. Some papers which fell accidentally into my
hands after my husband's death convinced me he came by his money
dishonestly. He himself told me you had been of great service to him,
and that your actions would not bear the light. Give me, for pity's
sake, a chance of restoring this money to those who ought to have it.
I did think of dying and shielding his memory, for if I died no one
could be surprised at my leaving the wretched money to charities. But
it would be better still to give what remains of the money to the
rightful owners. Will you tell me who they are?"
She caught his hand in hers and drew it towards her.
He seized hers eagerly, and held it.
"I will for this," he whispered. "We can give all his money back if
you will."
She snatched her hand away.
"That is impossible, sir. I have told you so finally."
She essayed to pass by him once more.
"Only a minute. I cannot live openly in this country; I must go
abroad. I have been concealed close to this place in the hope of
meeting you. I may never see you again. Do not go for a minute. Your
husband was always good and loyal to me, and I was always loyal to
him. He dealt honourably with me in money matters. It was necessary
for us to have a hiding-place near this, and I found it. Just before I
disappeared he made up his mind to abandon business of all kinds. He
had enough of money, and so had I--though of course he was a rich man
compared with me. Well, as you know, I disappeared. I went, no matter
where. I disappeared because I had no longer any business here, and
because of another reason to which I will not again refer. That is all
I have to say, except that I left documents which would be
intelligible to your husband--they contained the clue to our
hiding-place should I die or your husband want it--in Mr. John
O'Hanlon's hands for Mr. Davenport and you. Nothing, I suppose, ever
reached you about them?"
"No."
"That, then, is all I have to say."
"You will tell me no more? Give me no key?"
"Mr. Davenport left you his money. Why should I help you to get rid of
it? Good-bye."
He turned eastward, went along the cliff, and she moved off slowly in
the direction of Kilcash House.