BY F. ANSTEY.
“WHOM THE GODS HATE DIE HARD.”
It seemed that the doctor was right after all; Frank Onslow was feeling
better, distinctly, undeniably better, as he lay on the chintz couch in
the little sitting room of the rose-hung cottage at Guernsey. The pain
about the region of the heart had entirely disappeared under skilled
medical treatment; not for many a day had he felt more vigorous and
hopeful, reclining there with his eyes fixed upon the door in momentary
expectation that it would open and admit the slight girlish form of
the wife from whom he had been so long and cruelly separated. Yes,
Fenella was on her way to him, he would see her, hold her in his arms!
There might be years of happiness yet in store for them--in which to
atone, to forget. Surely the boat must have arrived by this time! What
was that sound? He had not deceived himself; there _was_ a light step
on the gravel outside. She had come, she was here, in another instant
she would be at his side! The door was gently opened, he rose to his
feet with a smothered cry of joy, rose--and the next instant sat down
again heavily, with a groan of irrepressible disappointment. For the
woman who stood there, dazzling yet in her faded southern beauty, was
not Fenella; it was Lucille de Vigny, whom, as he fondly imagined, he
had last beheld drowning in the blue-green waves, clasped in the fierce
embrace of her injured and revengeful husband, the blade of whose
dagger was deeply embedded in her bosom.
The shock of the surprise was considerable; it was some time before he
could recover sufficiently to express himself in appropriate terms.
“Witch, demoness, arch-fiend that you are!” he groaned, “how came you
here? Has the sea given you up once more?”
“Ah, Frank!” she said, with a soft musical accent of reproach, “I did
not expect that question (to say nothing of the form in which it was
put) from you of _all_ men. Who should know how I escaped what seemed a
well-nigh inevitable doom, if not the man who preserved my life?”
“I--_I_ preserve your life?” gasped Onslow, in a bewilderment which,
under the circumstances, was not unnatural.
“You forgot soon, sooner than I. I can see the whole scene yet; my
horrible husband holding me closer, closer still; the steely glitter of
the blade as it touched my breast; you on the rock thirty feet above,
gazing with eyes that are fixed--oh, but fixed! [she closed her own as
she spoke, with a flicker like the instantaneous shutter of a camera]
and next, without warning, with a sudden bound you leapt the distance
between us, hurled, with a strength that in your shattered state seemed
almost supernatural, my would-be executioner into the sea with one
hand, while you supported my half-fainting form with the other, and
then strode away up the cliff like one in a dream. Surely you remember?”
Frank shook his head; he had no recollection whatever of the incident.
That this should be so will not surprise the reader, who is already
aware that he was subject, under certain mental conditions, to
hypnotic trances. In one of them he had, as we know, destroyed a life;
in another he had preserved one--with an equal lack of volition of
consciousness in either case. Even now he could not bring himself to
credit her account, any more than he could affect a decent degree of
satisfaction at so untimely a resuscitation.
Still, there she stood, alive--whoever had rescued her; and it occurred
to him presently that he might at least profit by the fact to obtain
some light upon a point which had cost him several anxious thoughts
of late. Had she, or had she not, written that mysterious letter from
Pearson’s Row? If she had, could she indeed prove that Fenella was
guiltless of Count de Mürger’s blood?
Despite his intrinsic loyalty to his wife, he could not help preferring
that her fair little hand should be unstained even by a justifiable
homicide. It was weakness, no doubt, but man is built up of prejudices
which can neither be defended nor overcome.
“Lucille,” he said brokenly, “you have not treated me altogether well;
you have done your best to keep my wife and me apart; you have wantonly
abducted my only son, my little Ronny; you have had me shut up in a
lunatic asylum; I strongly suspect that you know more than you should
about the fire which occasioned the total loss of the _Danic_, and all
but a small percentage of her crew and passengers--and yet--and yet,
Lucille, I cannot but think that you still retain a lingering spark of
true womanliness somewhere, in spite of all! By that spark, I adjure
you solemnly, to tell me, as you hope for mercy, whether you did or did
not write that letter signed ‘One who knows the truth’?”
“I did,” she answered, “I _do_ know it. I have come here with the full
intention of telling it.”
“And you can clear Fenella?” asked Frank. “Then I forgive you freely
all the wrong you have done--only speak, Lucille, tell me all at once,
keep me no longer in suspense!”
“Wait,” she said calmly and almost soothingly, “are you quite sure that
you can bear to know the truth?”
“Sure?” he exclaimed, “if only Fenella did not stab the count, what
care I what other hand dealt the fatal blow?”
Lucille de Vigny smiled, a dark and mystic smile, as she said slowly,
“Not even if the hand should prove to be _your own_?”
Frank Onslow fell back with blue and writhing lips. “It is a lie,” he
said hoarsely, “a cruel lie!”
“It is the truth, my poor Frank; I can prove it.”
Now, as has been already stated, this was mere conjecture on her part.
In spite of the assertion in her letter, she had _not_ been in the
corridor of the Prospect Hotel when the tragic occurrence had taken
place. On the contrary, she had been, perhaps, the most perplexed by
Frank’s disappearance the next morning. It was only subsequently that
her feminine intuition had supplied a partial solution of the mystery.
However, her shot told with terrible effect.
“Prove it!” he repeated incredulously. “Why, after I had seen the count
enter Fenella’s room, I went straight to my own; I sat up in a stupor
till daylight, I did indeed, Lucille!”
“And at daylight you fled,” said Mme. de Vigny softly.
“Only as far as Paris,” he rejoined, “and I did not fly. I traveled in
my ordinary manner.”
“At least you left your wife to go through the inquest and trial
alone.”
“I did not know of either until weeks afterward, when Castleton showed
me the reports.”
“Not know of a sensation that was convulsing all England? Paris is
scarcely Kamschatka, my dear Frank. English papers are procurable at
the hotels.”
“I--I was ill,” he said feebly, “or else I was yachting for weeks in
the Bay of Biscay. Or both--_I_ don’t know!” Even to his sick and
bewildered brain his story began to seem rather a lame and unprofitable
one. “But my wife,” urged the wretched Frank, with a pitiful return
of hopefulness, “expressly admitted, when she was examined and
cross-examined on her trial, that she had done the deed herself in
defense of her life. I have never yet known Fenella, with all her
faults, stoop to a direct falsehood. How do you get over _that_,
Lucille?”
“I am a foreigner,” was the chilling response, “and, as such,
imperfectly acquainted with your criminal procedure. Still, I have
always understood that persons indicted for such offenses are not
entitled to give evidence in their own defense. I may be wrong.”
It should be explained here that Mme. de Vigny _was_ wrong--or partly
so. There certainly is some such rule, but it would be strange, indeed,
if an advocate of Clitheroe Jacynth’s position and influence could not
succeed in getting it set aside in favor of his fair client, when, as
his legal acumen had divined, the effect of such an admission would
inevitably insure the prisoner’s triumphant release, even on a trial
for manslaughter. And the result, as has been stated, amply justified
his calculations.
But the diabolical plausibility of Lucille’s rejoinder destroyed the
last vestige of hope for Frank, who was less familiar with the laws of
his country than every well-educated Briton should be.
“You are right,” he groaned, “I did it--I _must_ have done it.
And--what on earth shall I do _now_, Lucille?”
Her face, past its first youth as it was, became rapt and transfigured
with tenderness as she bent over him and laid one slight burning hand
on each of his shoulders.
“I will tell you,” she said, in her low, cooing accents; “if you stay
here, you are lost! For after your rash visit to Inspector Brown at
Scotland Yard, nay, before that, the detectives have been upon your
track. It cannot be many years, or months, perhaps, before they hunt
you down, even in such a remote island as Guernsey. And if you are
arrested and brought to trial, Fenella will be powerless to screen you
any longer. As your wife she will be unable to give her testimony in
your behalf, as you are doubtless aware. I alone know your guilt, but
do you think that I would betray you? Why, I love you, Frank; I think
I have always loved you, even when I seemed to hate you most. And now
that you have saved me from a hideous death, oh! my dear, my dear, how
can I give you up? No, fly with me at once. We will go to South Africa,
where society is freer and healthier than here, and conventional
prejudices do not exist. Come, Frank, come ere it is too late.”
The miserable man wavered on the couch; he did not love this woman,
not at least with any passion deserving the name, but he was in her
power. And how, how could he face his lovely innocent Fenella with the
consciousness that he was a murderer?
As he still hesitated, there came a resounding knock at the trellised
door which made them both start. “The detectives!” whispered Lucille
de Vigny, “_already_; quick, Frank, the back door.” But Frank Onslow
had not lost all his manliness; he drew himself to his full height with
a proud dignity. “Back doors are not exactly in my way, Lucille,” he
said, “let them take me. I am ready to atone with the last remnant of
my miserable, ill-spent life.” And the door flew open as he spoke--but
it was no detective that entered.
Fenella came in in her pretty light frock, her small cheeks flushed
with a now unaccustomed rose tint, and something of the old, merry,
mischievous sparkle in her tan-colored hazel eyes, for she had been
laughing and talking on the way up with Jacynth, and telling him
how she had fascinated the steward of the steamer, until, with her
customary light-heartedness, she had almost forgotten the gravity of
the errand on which she came. Jacynth’s dark, clean-shaven face, with
the imperturbable expression and the firmly molded jaw, was visible
over her slim shoulder.
But, at the sight of Mme. de Vigny, her old enemy and rival, all the
merriment and infantile innocence in Fenella’s lovely audacious face
faded suddenly; her tawny eyes flashed with the tigerish gleam Frank
remembered so well, her soft red mouth grew hard and set. “I perceive,”
she said icily, “that I am _de trop_. I was not aware that you were
well enough to receive a _visitor_, Lord Francis. Mr. Jacynth, will you
please take me away?”
“Fenella!” cried Frank in an agony. “Let me explain! This, this
she-fiend, this mocking devil has come to try and persuade me that it
was I--_I_ who stabbed Count de Mürger with my own hand! Tell me, for
pity’s sake, that you at least do not believe it!”
“For once in her life,” said Fenella, with a touch of her old airy
impertinence, “Mme. de Vigny has spoken the truth. My dear Frank, I
would willingly oblige you if possible, but I cannot. I _saw_ you do it
with my own eyes!”
The unhappy Frank staggered at these terrible words. “My own wife!
_She_ says she saw me do this thing! How you must _loathe_ me,
Fenella! _How_ you must loathe me!”
“But I _don’t_, Frank,” she assured him earnestly. “I don’t loathe you
in the least, you poor unhappy boy! Because--oh, listen, Frank--when
you killed him, I knew from your expression that you were in a hypnotic
trance, and, therefore, neither morally nor legally responsible for
your actions!”
Frank wiped his brow; an immense load was lifted from his soul. “That
accounts for it,” he said slowly, “I felt sure I could not have
committed such an act in an ordinary state without retaining _some_
recollection of the circumstance. And yet,” he added moodily, “if I am
accused, who can prove that I did it in this unconscious state? Not
you, Fenella; according to Mme. de Vigny, at least.”
“Just so,” said Lucille, speaking for the first time. “You are his
wife, Lady Francis, and the law will not accept you as a witness. There
is no one who can prove it, and therefore, the deduction I leave to
you.”
“Pardon me,” said Jacynth, stepping calmly forward. “There _is_
somebody--Lord Castleton. He has lately told me so. It appears, my dear
Onslow, that he saw you subsequently, when you were suffering from a
precisely similar attack. You stabbed madly, blindly, without being in
the least aware of your actions.”
“_Another_ murder?” cried the horrified Frank. “Oh, the horror, the
black, hopeless horror of it! To be doomed to these deeds of blood, and
never to suspect it till too late. Jacynth, I think I shall go mad.”
“There is no necessity, my dear boy,” said the barrister kindly.
“Fortunately, on this particular occasion you were armed with no more
formidable weapon than a roll of paper, or else, had there been a
victim at hand, which providentially there was not, the consequences
might indeed have been disastrous.”
Frank’s countenance cleared once more; he could embrace his wife now
with a clear conscience, and accordingly he turned with extended arms.
“Fenella,” he cried, “_Mrs. Right!_”
“_Doggie, my own Doggie!_” was the ringing response, and the pair were
folded in one another’s arms. Jacynth had turned away. Pardon him,
reader, if at that supreme moment of reconciliation his own heart was
too sore and bitter to bear the sight of the happiness which had been
mainly his own work. Devoted friend, self-contained, distinguished
barrister as he was, he was still many removes from an angel. But the
sound of the old pet names, the names she remembered on the envelope
returned to Chiddingford from the Dead Letter Office, seemed to
exasperate Lucille de Vigny to a fury that would not have disgraced a
fiend. It must be remembered, in justice to her, that she had loved
this man with all the ardor of a passionate, undisciplined nature, she
had lost him, had been on the verge of recapturing him, and now he had
escaped her once more, and something told her that this time it was
forever!
“Very pretty, my faith!” she said, with a bitter laugh of mingled rage
and despair. “_Quelle innocence, mon Dieu!_ You have defenders--is it
not?--who combine military duties with a naval footing? How do you call
them, _hein_? I forget.”
“Possibly, madame,” suggested Jacynth gravely, “you refer to the
Marines?”
“The Marines--it is that, yes. Well, tell this fine story to them--to
your Marines. Or, better still, for I hear them, they are here at
last, to your detectives, and see what they will say to you!” Her fine
instinct had not deceived her this time; almost before she had finished
speaking a couple of men in plain clothes came into the room. They
had the sharp, roving eye of the trained sleuthhound, and one of them
carried a pair of steel handcuffs.
“There is the man you seek,” cried Lucille, pointing to Frank, who
stood quietly awaiting his captors in the center of the room. “Ah, my
poor Doggie, you have had your day!”
“Begging your pardon, madame,” said one of the men, not uncivilly,
slipping the handcuffs over Lucille’s slender wrists, “but _you’re_
the party we’re after. You have given us the slip often enough, but I
think we’ve got you safe this time.”
Mme. de Vigny’s face changed; for an instant she seemed to contemplate
resistance, and then she submitted to the inevitable, and followed her
captors to the door. On the threshold she paused and looked back with
a gaze of concentrated hate upon the party. “Bah!” she ejaculated, and
then, with an indescribable gesture of defiant contempt, she walked out
of the room, and out of the lives her baleful influence had done so
much to perturb.
As soon as she was gone, Frank, with a sudden recollection, inquired,
“And the boy, our Ronny, Fenella? He is not ill--not _again_? Tell me
the worst. I--I can bear it!”
“Ronny,” said Fenella, with one of her little spasms of silent mirth,
“Ronny is quite well; only he insisted in driving up to the door in a
goat chaise. What is the matter, Frank--you are not unwell?”
“No,” said Frank faintly, “no, only the dread of some new disaster. We
have gone through so many!”
“They are all over now,” she said, sweetly and confidently, “all over.
Ronny will be here soon, and then we three will live here happily
together, and poor Mr. Jacynth, whose time I am afraid I have really
monopolized quite shamefully, can go back to his chambers and his
clients again.”
“Yes,” said Jacynth dully. “I can go back. I--I have neglected them too
long.”
It was the end, he realized; she needed him no longer. He should see
her no more--he would go. But before he could carry out his intention,
he was startled by a sudden change in Onslow’s expression and, shocked
beyond words, he saw him throw his arms above his head, turn sharply
round three times, and totter heavily against a wire flower stand, full
of hyacinths in bloom, which he brought down with him in his fall.
It was all over! The long-standing heart trouble, combined with the
excitement of the varied events of the past months, and especially of
the last hour, had brought poor Frank Onslow’s checkered career to a
sudden and tragic close, and the form that lay there among the bared
bulbs, crushed bells, scattered earth, and broken pots of the hyacinths
was already itself nothing but lifeless clay.
Fenella felt too much for tears; she stood there in a kind of stupor,
wondering what had happened to her, and how it would affect her when
she was able to think of it. It was Jacynth who, with his never-failing
tact and consideration, came to her relief.
“This is no place for you now,” he said, in his grave, gentle tones.
“Let me lead you away, Fenella.”
Fenella allowed herself to be guided by him; she had got so much into
the habit of depending entirely upon him lately that somehow it seemed
the natural thing to do. Only when they reached the fresh air and
sunshine outside she looked up at him with childlike, appealing eyes.
“Where are we going?” she inquired dreamily.
“We are going,” he said, “to meet Ronny and the goat chaise.”
It was strange, perhaps, but this simple remark gave Fenella a vague
comfort. It would be some time--weeks, or even months--she knew, before
happiness returned to her, and she was her own wayward, light-hearted
self again; but that happiness was in store for her, that some day,
sooner or later, she would forget all that seemed so painful and
unpleasant just now, she knew as surely as that she was walking down
the road, and leaning upon Clitheroe Jacynth’s strong right arm.
And so these two went down to meet the goat chaise.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
The original book did not contain a Table of Contents; one has been
added to this eBook.