"Speak, why do you pause?" I asked, impatiently I am afraid.
"I paused, Stuart, because I am doubtful as to how you will take what I
am about to say."
"As you mean it, be assured," I answered.
"Then listen, and I will tell you." Again she hesitated, pressing her
hand upon her eyes, the while her soft bust heaved with a troublous
emotion. Presently, in the same low, faltering voice as before, she
said: "You will remember, Stuart, that I fled from you in Luchon with a
cold formal note of farewell. On that day, blindly, willingly I took
upon myself the burthen of another's sin. Blindly I resigned myself to
a fate worse than that of the doomed. Although I loved you fondly, I
was forced to bow my head calmly and submit to be branded with a very
leprosy of guilt. Because I loved you and permitted your attentions I
was to be a painted puppet, to move about with a curse riveted around my
life, to move about and even feel that curse fretting and gnawing at my
soul, and yet without the power to win a moment's peace save in the
grave. There, only there, might I find rest."
"This is terrible," I cried. "Surely you deceive yourself. There is no
power on earth that could have held you thus."
"Ah! yes. The chain was there--there, clasped around my heart, crushing
out every gleam of hope. I was lighthearted and heedless; I could not
see the life of torture to which I was yielding myself, so innocently I
fell into the trap my enemies had cunningly baited, that ere I realised
the truth the bonds were irrevocably welded around my life. At first
they sat lightly upon me, and I scarcely felt them; but slowly I became
conscious that there hung a deep shadow upon my every step; slowly I
became conscious that my every act and word must be in unison with the
thraldom under which I moved. At last I knew that I had passed beyond
your ken; I knew that I must renounce all thought of you, and I became
cold and, I sometimes think, callous. But I prayed, I begged of Heaven
that I might lose the feelings of a woman since I had lost her
privileges."
She spoke in a hot, dry feverish tone--a tone that I would not have
recognised as that of the low, musical voice of my love. Dora, rising
from her seat, stood near her, gazing in wonder at her friend from whose
agony these revelations were wrung.
"When I met you, Stuart, I was giddy and thoughtless," she went on,
feverishly. "Towards you my whole soul yearned. Heart, soul and life
were all yours; for I loved, I loved! But, alas! our supreme happiness
was not for long. In fear of my liberty, I was compelled to fly from
you and allow you to believe I had forgotten. Thus in the first moment
almost, when a sweet vision of joy flashed upon me, the door of my
dungeon was closed, the chains were clasped tightly around my soul, and
I was wrenched back from happiness."
Low tremulous sobs interrupted each word, and every moment it seemed as
if she were about to lose control over herself.
"Those who needed me knew well when they might best use me to their
advantage. They had seen me waver in my allegiance under the influence
of that mad love for you, and they dreaded lest some accident should
make me betray their trust. I had entered the closet of their secret,
and once in, they were resolved that there should be no loophole for my
escape. But I must begin at the beginning, and tell you who and what I
am. First, the name I gave you was not assumed, as you must have
believed. I am Sybil Henniker, a French subject, born in Paris of a
French father and an English mother. My father, a wealthy Deputy, was
killed while hunting, and my mother shortly afterwards married an
Englishman, but she, too, died within a year, leaving the whole of her
fortune to my sister Ethel, who was a year my senior. Another
Englishman, a crafty, sycophantic lickspittle of my stepfather, married
her, having made a secret compact, by which the two men shared the
estate. At that time we were living in Paris, and there came to our
house Gilbert Sternroyd, a rich young Englishman of Socialistic
tendencies. He had become imbued with Anarchist ideas, and soon
developed into an ardent disciple of Ravachol. His theories he
expounded to me almost daily, until at length I joined their brotherhood
and furnished small sums of money when required. Ah! you will condemn
me, I know. It was, I admit, foolish, but remember I did not dream that
they would use my money in their attempts to take the lives of innocent
persons by means of bombs. It was represented to me that money was
required to diffuse Anarchist literature. With secret murder I had no
sympathy, I swear. I was in Luchon with my stepfather when he was
suddenly recalled to Paris; then I met you and we spent some happy days
together, until--until a telegram in cipher reached me one night and the
blow that I feared fell--a warrant was out for my arrest. There had
been on the previous afternoon a terrible Anarchist outrage at the
Chamber of Deputies, and the police, in make some domiciliary visits to
suspected Anarchists, had discovered one of my letters which was
undoubtedly incriminating. I scribbled you a hasty line of farewell,
packed my trunk and left by the first train in the morning, travelling
first to Bayonne, then to Madrid and Seville, whence some weeks later I
went to London. I thought to escape by getting to England, and intended
to at once write to you, but in London I found my brother-in-law and
stepfather awaiting me. Then, for the first time, I realised the truth.
I had been caught in the net they had so cunningly prepared!"
Again there was silence, broken only by her sobs. I saw only Sybil
before me, with all the old love warm upon her pale tear-stained face.
I saw her struggle with the secret that held her aloof from me. I
witnessed the struggle and knew its meaning. I knew that she was
suffering even as I suffered.
There was another pang thrust into my heart in knowing of her torture.
"My stepfather and his unctuous confederate, cowards that they were,
claimed my help, claimed it in the name of all that had been done for me
in effecting my escape, and--and I could not deny them." As she spoke
she clung tremblingly to Dora, as if fearful of her own words. There
was a bewildered expression in her eyes as her gaze was fixed beyond me,
staring blankly through the open window.
"Well," I questioned softly, "why did you not follow the true impulse of
your heart?"
She started, her eyes glistening, her whole frame convulsed, as she
answered wildly:
"I was hunted by the Paris police as a dangerous Anarchist, and they
would have sent me to New Caledonia to work among criminals for the
remainder of my life. The two knaves under whose thrall I had fallen
knew this, but they had a deeper game to play. It was part of their
scheme to entrap me thus, and then coerce me into assisting them. They
took me to that dismal, neglected house in Gloucester Square that had
belonged to my mother, and there unfolded plans that for perfidious
ingenuity were assuredly unequalled. First, they impressed upon me the
impossibility of eluding the police for any length of time, and I was
compelled to admit that I feared arrest. Then they explained their
infamous scheme, well-knowing that my offence made it imperative for me
to obediently assist them in their shameful fraud and preserve a silence
begotten of fear. My sister Ethel, who was almost the image of myself,
was mortally ill, dying slowly, poor girl! of consumption, and knew
little of what was transpiring. The miscreant pair, however, knew that
when she died the revenue from the vast estates in Savoy would pass back
to some relatives of my mother in France; therefore they resolved at all
hazards to continue to divide the money, and had formed an ingenious
plan to that end. Briefly, they had told me that I must die instead of
Ethel."
"Die?" I ejaculated.
"To the world," she went on quickly. "My stepfather told me that on
Ethel's death I must pose as the wife of his friend, that I must
preserve their secret at all costs, at least for a year or eighteen
months, until they could devise some other plan to preserve the fortune
to themselves. On their part they promised, on their oaths, to free me
and allow me to again seek you. At first I refused with indignation to
be party to such an imposition, but they convinced me that the police
were already at my heels, and in return for rendering them this service
promised to secure me immunity from arrest. My stepfather was powerful,
with many influential friends in Paris, and I believed he could do this
if he chose. They did not tell me the means they intended to employ to
secure this end, but urged me to consent. For a long time I held out,
but they pictured to me on the one hand arrest and transportation to a
Pacific island, with common murderesses and the scum of Paris; on the
other, my return to you after eighteen months, marriage and happiness.
So at last--at last I agreed to the compact--I allowed them to fasten
the bonds upon me and draw me under their terrible thraldom," and she
bent forward sobbing bitterly, while Dora, kneeling quickly at her side,
threw her arms around her, endeavouring to console her.