"Although Lady Lolita looked upon me as her enemy from the first, I was,
in reality, her friend. I allied myself with Mr Logan and the two
Italians in order to discover their intrigue and to save her ladyship."
"And you have done so," Lolita declared. "I can never sufficiently
thank either you or Mr Logan. You have, moreover, saved me from the
sin of self-destruction," she faltered, and then she burst into tears.
"And you?" cried the Earl, in anger and loathing, turning upon his
statuesque wife who stood there, erect, immovable, as though turned to
stone. "And you, woman!--What have you to reply to all this?"
Her white lips moved, but no sound escaped them. She tried to speak--to
deny the truth, perhaps, but words failed her. She raised her hand,
moved slightly, then, staggering, fell forward heavily without a hand to
save her.
So painful, so terrible, so dramatic was that scene between husband and
wife that we all of us withdrew and have ever since been trying to
efface it from our recollections.
Thus was the awful truth revealed that the woman whom half London envied
had committed a second murder in order to conceal the first, and that
she had actually gone out to Milan with the distinct and premeditated
object of taking the Frenchwoman's life.
Never till my dying day shall I forget those terrible moments when
before our eyes the love of the Earl of Stanchester turned to hatred,
and when he spurned her senseless body with his foot as he turned from
her in disgust and left the Hall. I will not attempt to describe it--it
was far too painful, too terrible, too awful to be placed upon record.
Would that it could for ever be wiped from the tablets of my memory.
And what occurred afterwards? Patience, and I will tell you.