On the following night we took leave of the strong, big-handed monk on
the railway platform in Lucca, and entered the train on the first stage
of our journey back to England. He was to return at once to his hermit
cell above the swirling Serchio, and remain, as before, the silent
guardian of that great secret which, had it been revealed, would have
astounded the world.
Anxiety consumed us, knowing not how Mabel had fared. Yet with the
knowledge that the baneful influence of the adventurer Dawson had been
now removed, we returned home somewhat easier in mind. I was wealthy,
it was true, rich beyond my wildest dreams, yet the hope of the
possession of Mabel as my wife, that had been the mainspring of my life,
had been snapped, and in those pensive hours as the sleeping-car express
tore northward across the plains of Lombardy and through Switzerland and
France, my despairing thoughts were all of her and of her future.
A cab took us direct from Charing Cross to Great Russell Street, where I
found a note from her dated from Grosvenor Square, asking me to call
there on the instant of our return. This I did after a hasty wash, and
Carter showed me unceremoniously and at once up to that big
white-and-gold drawing-room so familiar to me.
In a few moments she entered, looking sweet and charming in her
mourning, a smile upon her lips, her hand extended to me in glad
welcome. Her face, I thought, betrayed a keen anxiety, and the pallor
of her cheeks showed how sorely her heart was torn by grief and terror.
"Yes, Mabel, I am back again," I said, holding her hand and gazing into
her eyes. "I have discovered your father's secret!"
"What?" she cried in eager surprise, "you have? Tell me what it is--do
tell me," she urged breathlessly.
I first obtained from her a promise of secrecy, and then, standing with
her, I described our visit to the lonely hermit's cell, our reception by
the monk Antonio, and our subsequent discoveries.
She listened in blank amazement at my story of the hidden treasure of
the Vatican, until I described the attack made upon me by Dawson, and
its tragic sequel, whereupon she cried--
"Then if that man is dead--actually dead--I am free!"
"How? Explain!" I demanded.
"Well, now that circumstances have combined to thus liberate me, I will
confess to you," she responded after a brief pause. Her face had
suddenly flushed and glancing across at the door, she first reassured
herself that it was closed. Then in a deep, intense voice she said,
looking straight into my face with those wonderful eyes of hers, "I have
been the victim of a foul, base plot which I will explain, so that,
knowing the whole truth, you may be able to judge how I have suffered,
and whether I have not acted from a sense of right and duty. For
devilish cunning and ingenuity the conspiracy against me surely has no
equal, as you will see. I have only now succeeded in discovering the
real truth and the deep hidden motive behind it all. My first meeting
with Herbert Hales was apparently accidental, in Widemarsh Street,
Hereford. I was only a girl just finishing my schooldays, and as full
of romantic ideas concerning men as all girls are. I saw him often, and
although I knew that he picked up a precarious living on race-courses, I
allowed him to court me. At first I confess that I fell deeply in love
with him, a fact which he did not fail to detect, and during that summer
at Mayvill I met him secretly on many evenings in the park. After we
had thus been acquainted about three months, he one night suggested that
we should marry, but by that time, having detected that his love for me
was only feigned, I refused. Evening after evening we met, but I
steadfastly declined to marry him, until one night he showed himself in
his true colours, for to my abject amazement he told me that he was well
acquainted with my father's life-story, and further he alleged that
there was one dark incident connected with it--namely that my father, in
order to possess himself of the secret by which he had gained his
wealth, had murdered the Italian seaman, Pensi, on board the _Annie
Curtis_ off the Spanish coast. I refused to hear such a terrible
allegation, but to my surprise he caused me to meet my father's friend,
the man Dawson, by appointment, and the last-named declared that he was
the actual witness of my father's crime. When we were alone that same
night as we walked by a bypath across the park he put his intentions to
me plainly--namely, that I should be compelled to accept him as my
husband, and marry him in secret against my father's knowledge.
Otherwise he would give information to the police regarding the
allegation against my father."
"The blackguard!" I cried.
Continuing, she said, "He pointed out how Dawson, my father's closest
friend, was the actual witness, and so completely did I find myself and
my father's reputation in his unscrupulous hands, that I was compelled,
after a week of vain resistance, to accept his condition of secrecy and
consent to the odious marriage. From that moment, although I returned
home the instant we were made man and wife, I was completely in his
power, and had to pay blackmail to him at every demand. After he had
secured me as his victim, his true passionate instincts--those of a man
who lived by his wits and to whom a woman's heart was of no account--
were almost instantly revealed, and from that moment until the present,
although believed to be a single girl, and chaperoned to all sorts of
functions in the brightest set in London, yet I lived in mortal terror
of the man who was by law my husband."
She paused to gain breath, and I saw that her lips were white, and that
she was trembling.
"Fortunately," she went on at last, "you were able to rescue me,
otherwise the plot would have been successful in every particular.
Until yesterday, I was entirely unaware of the real motive of forcing me
into that marriage, but now it is revealed I can see the deep cunning of
the master mind that planned it. Herbert Hales, it seems, first sought
me out because of a chance remark of old Mr. Hales regarding my father's
great and mysterious fortune. An adventurer, he saw that he might
contract marriage with myself, as heiress to my father's possessions.
When we had been acquainted about a month, Dawson chanced to be over
from Italy, staying with us at Mayvill for a few days, and one evening
while out shooting wood pigeons he discovered us walking together at the
edge of the wood skirting the park. The instant he saw us he formed a
devilish design, and next day, set about making inquiries regarding
Hales, and, ascertaining the character of the man, met him and made a
curious compact with him to the effect that if he, Dawson, so arranged
matters that a secret marriage was contracted between myself and Hales,
the latter was, in the case of my father's death, to receive the sum of
two thousand a year in lieu of any claim against the estate on his
wife's behalf. He pointed out to Hales that by a secret marriage with
me he would obtain a source of continual revenue, as I dare not refuse
his demands for money, because if I, on my part, exposed the secret of
our union, he could at once take up his correct position as the husband
of the millionaire's daughter. This having been arranged, he told Hales
many true facts concerning my father's life at sea in order to mislead
me, but added an allegation which, being corroborated by himself, I
unfortunately believed to be true, that my father had committed murder
in order to obtain that little pack of cards with the cipher upon them.
Dawson, who had quickly judged the character of Hales, secretly aided
him to get me completely in his power, although, of course, I was
entirely unaware of it. His motive in securing my marriage in such
compulsory circumstances was a far-seeing one, for he recognised that
had I married the man I loved, my husband would, on my father's death,
see that my rights as heiress were properly established, while if, on
the other hand, I were Hales' wife, afraid to acknowledge my matrimonial
_mesalliance_, and Hales was by the compact entirely in his power, he
would in the end obtain complete possession of my father's money. He
knew, of course, that his position as one of the holders of the secret
of the Vatican treasure, as it now turns out to be, made it imperative
for my father to leave the management of my affairs in his hands, and
therefore he took every precaution to secure complete possession upon my
poor father's death. The ingenious manner in which he secretly placed
Herbert Hales in possession of certain facts which, I believed, were
only known to my father and myself, the subtle manner in which he
corroborated his own untruth, alleging that my father was guilty of a
crime, and the secrecy with which he aided Hales to marry me under sheer
compulsion were, I can now see, marvels of clever conspiracy. I feared,
nay, I felt convinced all along, that the terrible secret of my father
as known to Hales was the awful truth, and it is only yesterday that,
with the aid of old Mr. Hales, I succeeded in discovering in a back
street in Grimsby a man named Palmer, who was seaman on board the _Annie
Curtis_ and present at the Italian's death. He tells me that the
allegation against my father is absolutely false, and that on the
contrary he was the man's best and kindest friend, and in acknowledgment
of this, the Italian gave him the little chamois leather bag containing
the cards. My fears as to the secret having been obtained by foul play
are therefore entirely set at rest; and the stain removed from my poor
father's memory."
"But the mode of your father's death?" I said, amazed at this
remarkable revelation of craft and deception.
"Ah!" she sighed, "my opinion has altered. He died from natural causes
just at a moment when a secret attempt was to be made to assassinate
him. By that same train up to Manchester, Herbert Hales--who was, of
course, unknown to my father--and the man Dawson travelled in company,
and I have no doubt that it was their intention if opportunity was
afforded, to strike a blow with the same fatal knife with which the
attempt was later made upon you. Death, however, cheated them of their
victim."
"But this villainous scoundrel who is your husband? What of him?"
"The judgment of Heaven has already fallen upon him," was her low,
almost mechanical answer. "What!" I gasped eagerly. "Is he dead?"
"He quarrelled here with Dawson on the night you left London, and again
the one-eyed man exhibited that remarkable craft he possessed, for, in
order to rid himself of Hales and the ugly facts of which he was in
possession, he appears to have given confidential information to the
police of a certain robbery committed about a year ago after Kempton
Park races, in which the man from whom a large sum of money was stolen
was so severely injured that he died. Two detectives went to Hales'
lodgings in Lower Seymour Street about two o'clock in the morning. They
demanded admittance to his room, but he, realising that Dawson had
carried out his threat and that the truth was out, barricaded himself
in. When they at last forced the door, they found him stretched dead
upon the floor with a revolver lying beside him."
"Then you are free, Mabel--free to marry me!" I cried, almost beside
myself with joy.
She hung her head, and answered in a tone so low that I could hardly
catch the words--
"No, I am unworthy, Gilbert. I deceived you."
"The past is past, and all forgotten," I exclaimed, snatching up her
hand, and bending until my hot, passionate lips touched hers. "You are
mine, Mabel--mine alone!" I cried. "That is, of course, if you dare to
trust your future in my hands."
"Dare!" she echoed, smiling through the tears which filled her eyes.
"Have I not trusted you these past five years? Have you not indeed been
always my best friend, from that night when we first met until this
moment?"
"But have you sufficient regard for me, dearest?" I asked, deeply
touched by her words. "I mean, do you love me?"
"I do, Gilbert," she faltered, with eyes downcast in modesty. "I have
loved no man except yourself."
Then I clasped her to me, and in those moments of my new-born ecstasy I
repeated to my love the oft-told tale--the tale that every man the world
over tells the woman before whom he bows in adoration.
And what more need I say? A delicious sense of possession thrilled my
heart. She was mine! mine for ever! I was convinced that in those
terrible sufferings through which she had passed, she had been always
loyal and true to me. She had, poor girl, like her father, been the
innocent victim of the ingenious adventurer, Dawson, and the
unscrupulous young blackguard who was his tool, and who had inveigled
her into marriage in order to subsequently possess themselves of the
whole of Blair's gigantic fortune.
The wheel of fortune, however, ran back upon them, and instead of
success their own avarice and ingenuity resulted in their defeat, and at
the same time placed me in the position they had intended to occupy.