NO EXPLANATION.
Not many hours passed after that dramatic scene in the court-room, in
which the Italian, Mattalini, played so conspicuous a part, before ample
confirmation of his statement came over the ocean telegraph,
establishing beyond all question of doubt the arrest of the real Adèle
Lamien, and the innocence of Patricia Hildreth.
As John Mainwaring had said, his theory once confirmed, all shred of
suspicion must, as a matter of course, fall from her, and she would
re-enter society's world stainless in character and reputation. At the
end of the second day's examination, however, she returned voluntarily
to Ludlow Street Jail, refusing with decision the conditional liberty
bestowed upon her.
"I had much rather wait," she said to John Mainwaring. "Please, Mr.
Mainwaring, do not urge me to go against my conscience. You can surely
understand my feeling in this matter. I will not leave what has been my
prison, until my innocence is unqualifiedly established, and until those
who forced me into this position are convinced of its falsity. After a
week's experience of the delights of Ludlow Street, what can a few
additional hours matter?"
She finished with one of her rare smiles, which made John Mainwaring
again realise the utter futility of his eloquence, when pitted against
the charm of her loveliness.
So Patricia returned to her house of detention, and John Mainwaring left
her at the entrance thereto, with a more cheerful look upon his dark
countenance than had visited it for many a day.
It was still early in the afternoon when the inquiry terminated, and the
sunshine lay upon all things external with so lavish a touch and so
tropical a force, that the dark corridors and dim halls of the gloomy
building appeared most grateful to Miss Hildreth's tired brain and eyes.
She entered her room, the scene of so many conflicts between her love
and pride, and sank wearily down upon the chair before the table, on
which the yellow roses in their tall glass vase made a single spot of
golden colour. Resting her elbows on the open portfolio, she buried her
face in her hands and remained motionless, wrapt in a long desultory
retrospect of the week's events.
She was too weary even to remove her bonnet, or the light scarf of lace
about her shoulders.
Now that the long strain was ended, the tension slackened, she felt her
strength lapse from her, and an overpowering weakness take its place.
It was true she stood cleared in the eyes of the public, who now
regarded her in the light of a heroine, concerning whose courage and
chivalry they could not say enough. But was she cleared in her own eyes?
It was well for her that the secret of her disguise had not been dragged
ruthlessly out of its hiding-place. Had that been the case, would not
this same public be gloating over it now; mouthing it and discussing it,
with even greater avidity than they had displayed in the discussion of
her late situation? She was spared such an humiliation; but was she
spared the humiliation of her own thoughts, the scorn of her own
accusing conscience? Must not the knowledge of her motives, in thus
playing with the misery of another woman's crime, separate her for ever
from the very one for whose sake she had entered on the path of
deception? Could good ever come out of evil? Did the end ever justify
the means?
All the suffering and anguish of those last seven days would seem as
nothing, she told herself, could she but face Philip Tremain with
unfaltering integrity; could she but look into his eyes and not feel her
own fall beneath the honesty of his. Woman-like, she forgot his doubt of
her, his half belief in her criminality, a criminality which, if proved,
would have swept away all lesser indiscretions in its magnitude.
No; she gave no thought to the part he had borne. A woman is never so
happy as when she forgives, with all her heart, some wrong-doing on the
part of the man she loves. But with Patricia this active magnanimity was
not called into requisition, for the simple reason that Philip's
attitude during the past week was clean forgotten by her--swept away as
were all lesser matters in the contemplation of her own moral obliquity.
How long she sat thus absorbed and motionless she could not have told;
but it was long enough for the light in the room to wane, and for the
dying rays of the sun to gleam aslant through the narrow window, casting
long tremulous bars of tinted light upon the bare unlovely walls.
Presently a slight noise aroused her, and, the chain of reflection thus
broken, she raised her head and saw, standing some little way from her,
with the tinted sun-rays resting on his stern face, the man of whom she
thought.
For a moment she gazed at him without realising the actuality of his
presence; and then, as her sad beautiful eyes sought his they faltered,
while a rush of sudden colour dyed the pallor of her face.
"Philip!" she exclaimed, drawing in her breath with a half sob,
"Philip!"
Her voice broke the spell, and, while its trembling cadences still
lingered on the air, Mr. Tremain came nearer and stood beside her,
looking down upon the troubled face and anxious eyes that dared not meet
his own.
"Patricia," he said, "I have come to you now, because I must know the
truth. Because, notwithstanding the speciousness of John Mainwaring's
pleading, there still remains a little matter between you and me that
needs some explanation. I have come, Patricia, to hear that explanation
from your own lips."
His voice was harsh despite the tender supplication of his eyes; and
Miss Hildreth, looking down, missed this contradictory tenderness, and
realised only the commanding ring of his tones.
Her face hardened, and the old look of mocking defiance settled down
upon it. She gave a little laugh; the artificiality of its ring jarred
on Philip's sensibilities, and caused the tenderness in his eyes to give
place to quick anger.
"Ah!" said Miss Hildreth, "how could I forget that you, Philip, would
require even stronger proof than any afforded by Mr. Mainwaring's
eloquence, to convince you of my inability to commit a murder? I failed,
you see, to take into account the incredulity of a legal mind."
If her words were insolent, the smile and laugh accompanying them were
more so, but Mr. Tremain would not let his hasty temper get the better
of his discretion. He had come to her with the unformed theory, evoked
by John Mainwaring's ambiguous words, still at work within him, and he
determined, if it lay in his power, to force confirmation of it from
her.
"You know that is not what I mean," he said gently; "no one can ever
again entertain so vile a suspicion against you."
"Yet _you_ doubted me, Philip," she interrupted; "you doubted me
throughout."
"Yes," he answered, "if you like to classify a feeling, that scarce had
formation in my mind, under so grave an emotion as doubt--why, then--I
did doubt you, Patricia."
She made no reply to this, and after a short pause he began again:
"That, as you know, is not the subject to which I referred just now. You
may put me by with subterfuge and raillery, Patricia, but I shall
always come back to my point, again and again. Patty, what was your
reason for personating that most miserable woman, Adèle Lamien? What was
your inducement for imposing upon all at the Folly? What was your motive
in wishing to deceive me?"
Still she made him no answer. She had turned her head away as he spoke,
and taken one of the yellow roses from the vase. She raised this now,
and drew it once or twice across her lips. She felt his eyes upon her,
but she would not meet them. She knew this to be the crucial moment; and
she must meet and overcome it as best she might.
"Patricia," he said again, and his voice grew sterner, "you force me to
impute to you motives that are unworthy of you, unworthy of any woman.
But how can I think otherwise, if you will not help me to do so? How can
I put any other construction upon your conduct, save that of wilful and
wanton cruelty, when I remember, that twice as Miss Hildreth, you
refused me, scorning my love; and then, that only a few short hours
afterwards, as Adèle Lamien you accepted me, and all I had to
offer--accepted me, with a lie upon your lips, and deceit in your smile.
Have you no explanation to give me, Patricia? Oh, my dear, I will accept
any pretext you may offer; only make some little excuse, no matter how
trivial, for the duplicity of your conduct."
His voice grew pleading as he finished. Looking at her, as she sat
there, so near to him, and yet so far; a beautiful, lovely woman, whose
very beauty had brought suspicion and distrust upon her, and remembering
how first he had loved her in the full tide of her girlish fairness and
innocence, and how through all these years he had cherished her memory,
and could not put her from out his heart, all the old tenderness and
longing surged up within him, and he knew he could forgive her
everything, if only she would give him one little opportunity for such
forgiveness.
Had Miss Hildreth but looked up at that moment, while the light of love
still lingered in his eyes, and trembled on his lips, surely her foolish
pride would have broken down, and all the misery of those last few weeks
slipped from her, in the peace of a confession made with his arms about
her, her head upon his breast.
But Miss Hildreth, like many a woman before her, let slip the golden
chance, and passed by the propitious moment. She still played with the
yellow rose and avoided his eyes as she replied, slowly:
"I can explain nothing, Philip; I have no excuse to offer. You must form
your own opinion, and I must be judged and sentenced according to it."
"But, Patricia," urged Mr. Tremain, "I ask for so little. Will you not
at least assure me, that it was no more wanton motive than love of
conquest and power of coquetry, that led you to deceive me, and draw
from me that mad proposal, which you, as Adèle Lamien, were pleased to
triumph in against your own proper self? My dear, give me but one such
assurance, I will be content, I will ask for nothing more."
"No," she replied in a dull, quiet voice, "I cannot. I have nothing to
add to my former words. You had better leave me, Philip, and--forget
me."
"That I can never do," he said, "I have never for one moment forgotten
you in all the ten years of our separation. I am not likely to do so
now, when I have again looked so often and so longingly, upon your
beauty."
Her lips trembled a little at his words, but she made no response.
"Good-bye," he said sadly, and turned from her.
She listened to his firm footsteps as they traversed the floor; then
came the click of the lock in the catch, the sound of the opening and
shutting door, and then again the echo of his footsteps down the long
stone passage.
Then all was still. The tinted sun-rays paled and faded, then vanished
altogether; and Miss Hildreth, bowing her head upon her clasped hands,
burst into a passionate storm of tears.