"I DARE NOT!"
"What do you think of Ella's statement?" Beck asked, as we were
crossing Staines Bridge on our way to Mrs Laing's.
"I can't understand it," I replied.
"Neither can I," he said. "Girls of her excitable temperament are apt
to make statements of that character utterly without foundation. No
doubt Dudley was her intimate friend, and finding him dead, her romantic
mind at once conjured up visions of murder."
"Yes. There is a good deal in your argument," I admitted, with a touch
of sorrow at the remembrance that Ogle had aspired to her hand.
"I never spoke to you on the subject, for fear of making mischief, but I
have many times been amazed at your blindness when Dudley and Ella used
to flirt openly before your very eyes," he observed, glancing at me.
"Ah! you are right," I cried angrily. "I foolishly trusted him,
believing implicitly in his honour and in Ella's purity."
"Of the latter you surely have no cause for suspicion," he exclaimed
quickly.
"I am not so certain," I replied with bitterness. "The more deeply I
attempt to probe this mystery, the more sorrow I heap upon myself. I
was happy in the belief that she loved no other man except me, yet
apparently she is as tactful as an adventuress, and delights in toying
with a man's affections."
"Every woman is fickle," my friend remarked sympathetically. "If she is
thrown into the society of one man frequently, and passes idle hours
alone with him, she either ends in loving him or hating him. There is
little purely platonic friendship between men and women nowadays."
"Yes, alas!" I echoed, as we entered the carriage drive and passed the
well-remembered spot where I had discovered the body. "There is very
little indeed."
A quarter of an hour later I stood alone before the window of the bright
morning-room which commanded a beautiful view of the brilliant, sunlit
Thames, and the row of tall, swaying poplars and drooping, wind-whitened
willows on the opposite shore. I was awaiting Ella, who had, her maid
told me, gone to her room.
Presently, pale-faced and trembling, she entered, and, closing the door,
moved slowly towards me, stretching forth her hand in silence, her
tearful eyes downcast. I grasped the slim, white fingers, and found
them cold as marble.
"Geoffrey," she exclaimed, low and huskily. "Geoffrey, forgive me!"
"Forgive! For what reason?" I inquired sternly, looking at her in
admiration, yet determined to be firm. This was, I resolved, to be our
last interview.
"Because I--I was foolish and weak, and--" She paused, sighing deeply.
"Well?" I said cynically. "What other excuse?"
"Yes, yes," she cried brokenly. "I know they are mean, paltry excuses.
I know I am trying to make you believe it was not my own fault, yet--"
and pausing again, she raised her clear blue eyes to mine with
passionate glance, "and yet, Geoffrey, I love you in a manner I have
loved no other man before."
"You have a strange way of exhibiting this so-called affection," I
observed coldly. "You actually encouraged the advances of the man in
whom I reposed foolish and ill-placed confidence."
"For a purpose. I never loved him--never," she protested, trembling.
"You had a reason? A strange one, I should think," I exclaimed angrily.
"Indeed, at this very moment you are mourning the loss of this man."
"Dudley Ogle was not your enemy, Geoffrey. He was your friend," she
answered, with a tremor in her voice. "Some day I will prove this to
you. I cannot now. It is impossible."
"Why?"
"I dare not!"
"Dare not! What do you fear?" I demanded in surprise, instantly
releasing her hand.
"The consequences would be fatal to our love," she gasped. Then, after
a pause, she clutched my arm, and, burying her beautiful face upon my
shoulder, sobbed bitterly.
"Our love!" I echoed contemptuously. Notwithstanding the fierceness of
my anger, I smoothed her dark gold hair, and presently, when she grew a
trifle calmer, endeavoured to discover the meaning of her strange,
enigmatical words.
"You cannot know--you will never know--how dearly I have loved you,
Geoffrey," she cried, in answer to my eager questions. "Neither will
you ever know how much I have suffered, how hard I have striven for your
sake."
"For my sake! Yet you admit having allowed Dudley Ogle to utter words
that I alone had a right to utter!"
"Yes, I admit all," she said, with a tragic touch of sorrow in her
strained voice. "I deny nothing."
"And you come to me asking forgiveness, believing that I can again trust
you without hearing any explanation of your recent strange conduct with
Beck, as well as with Dudley! I think you must regard me, Ella, as a
weak, impressionable fool," I added, with bitter sarcasm.
"No, I do not," she cried quickly. "I appeal to your generosity towards
a woman. I have been compelled to act against my own inclinations,
compelled, in order to outwit my enemies, to act a part despicable and
revolting. I can now only ask forgiveness," and, throwing herself
suddenly upon her knees before me, she cried, "See! Geoffrey, I crave
one grain of pity from you, my old friend, the only man I have loved!"
"No, Ella," I answered, quickly withdrawing my hand that she was
pressing to her hot, fevered lips. "I may pity you, but forgive you
never."
"Never!" she gasped, clasping her breast with her hands as if to stay
the wild beating of her heart, and struggling unevenly to her feet.
"Why never?"
"Because you have deceived me."
"Yes, yes!" she wailed. "I admit it, I admit it all, but I swear my
actions were imperative. Ah! alas that you cannot know everything, or
you would kiss me as fondly as you used to do. You, Geoffrey, would
love me with a love even more tender and passionate than before, if only
you were aware of what I have suffered for your sake."
I turned from her in disgust. Her tragic attitude filled me with
loathing and contempt, for I knew she was lying.
"Can you never again trust me?" she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Will you never forgive?"
"I can have no further confidence in a woman who has practised such
artful deception as you have," I answered, turning again towards her,
and noticing the look of unutterable sadness in her tearful eyes.
"Deception!" she cried, starting. "What do you mean? What have I
done?"
"You acknowledge having deceived me wilfully with all the deep cunning
of an adventuress, yet you refuse me one word of explanation, either in
regard to Beck or Dudley?"
"There is nothing to explain, as far as Mr Beck is concerned," she
answered demurely. "He is an old friend, and your suspicions that there
was any love between us are absolutely absurd."
"Why, then, did you confess in your letter that you were unworthy of my
love!" I demanded with warmth, walking towards her.
She hung her head. There was a deep silence, broken only by the low
ticking of the clock. In a few moments her hand stole in search of
mine, and, engrossed in my own sad thoughts, I let it linger there.
"Geoffrey," she said at length, timidly.
I gazed out upon the sunlit river, watching a boatful of happy holiday
folk pass by, and remained stolidly unconscious.
"Geoffrey," she repeated, "I tried ever so long to refrain from that
confession, yet was unable. But I did not allude to Mr Beck. It was my
conduct with Dudley that caused me to become a conscience-stricken
wretch. I feared from day to day that you might discover our many long
excursions and the idle afternoons we spent up the backwaters; he lazy
and indolent, I using all my woman's wiles to fascinate him and bring
him to my feet."
"And you succeeded," I interrupted huskily.
"Yes, I succeeded," she went on, speaking slowly, almost mechanically.
"I had set my mind upon victory, and I achieved it after weeks and weeks
of striving, dreading always that you might discover the truth, and
fearing lest my conduct should appear in your eyes too serious for
forgiveness. The blow that I dreaded has now fallen," she cried, with a
choking sob. "Dudley is dead, and I, compelled to speak the truth, have
publicly acknowledged myself unworthy of your love."
"Is it not best that I should know the truth?" I asked seriously. "You
render your behaviour the more unpardonable by the absurd falsehoods you
wish me to believe."
"I do not wish you to believe any falsehoods," she cried resentfully,
her bright eyes flashing as she glanced at me. "What I have now told
you is the truth. I swear it before Heaven!"
"You deliberately flirted with Dudley, with an object in view. Oh, no!"
I laughed with contempt, "that is too lame a tale."
"It is the truth," she said, looking me straight in the face, her
nervous hands toying with her rings. "Even though you may believe ill
of me, I have lost neither honour nor self-respect. I acted under
compulsion, to achieve one object."
"And I hope you have gained the mysterious end you had in view," I said,
with bitter sarcasm.
"Yes, I have," she replied, with an intenseness in her voice that
surprised me. "I have gained my object even at risk of being discarded
by you, Geoffrey, and being branded as a base adventuress."
"Even at the cost of the life of the man you deceived?" I hazarded.
She started at my words. Her pale lips trembled, and in her eyes was a
strange look, as if haunted by some spectral fear. The effect of this
remark was extraordinary, and I at once added,--
"Remember, you suspect that Dudley's death was not due to natural
causes."
"Suspect?" she cried. "I know he was foully murdered."
"By whom?" I inquired, with breathless eagerness.
"I have yet to discover that," she answered, in a low voice. "But I
will make the elucidation of the mystery the one object of my life. It
is I alone who will avenge his murder."
"Your very words betray your love for him," I exclaimed, disgusted.
"I tell you it is not because I loved him," she protested, with
indignation.
"Then why do you seek revenge?" I demanded ruthlessly.
"For reasons known to myself--reasons I refuse for the present to
disclose," she replied, regarding me with unwavering glance.
"And you expect me to again repose confidence in you, notwithstanding
your steady refusal to explain anything?" I observed, with a laugh.
"All I have told you now, Geoffrey, is the truth," she replied, looking
earnestly into my eyes. "Once I deceived you, but I will never do so in
future. I promise some day before long to explain all the facts to you;
when I do so they will astound you. For the success of my plans I am
compelled at present to preserve my secret, even from you."
"What are your plans?"
"Be patient, and you shall see."
"You intend to avenge Dudley's death?"
"I do; and something further," she said. "Only by the most careful
investigation and the strictest secrecy can my plans be successfully
carried out. Trust in me, Geoffrey. Tell me that you will reconsider
your decision not to forgive me," she whispered, leaning upon my
shoulder with one arm entwined affectionately about my neck, as was her
habit. "And I will yet prove to you that I am an honest woman who has
acted only in your interests."
"In my interests? How?" I asked, amazed.
"You shall know all later, when I have ascertained the truth."
"Tell me one thing, Ella," I exclaimed, after a pause. "Have you any
idea whether Dudley had any occupation?"
"Occupation? I always understood he had enough money to be
independent."
Then taking from my vest pocket the object I had picked up from among
the contents of the dead man's pockets displayed on the table in the
Coroners's Court, I held it up to her, saying seriously,--
"Now, tell me truthfully, Ella, have you ever seen this in Dudley's
possession?"
She glanced at it for an instant, holding her breath, as across her
blanched countenance there passed an expression of bewildered amazement.
The object I held beneath her gaze was insignificant in itself, merely a
small brass seal, but it bore the Warnham arms in exact imitation of the
cut amethyst worn by the Earl. It was the seal which had been used to
manufacture the duplicate of the envelope containing England's secret
alliance with Germany.
The suddenness with which I had produced it startled and nonplussed her.
As I transfixed her blue eyes with my keen, suspicious gaze, her white
lips moved, but no sound fell from them. Embarrassment held her dumb.