FACE TO FACE
It was after midnight.
Daisy had just entered her room on the third floor of what is known as
the "Opera quarter" of the colossal Grand Hotel. I had followed her
back, and had seen Drayton take leave of her at the entrance.
The leave-taking was not exactly cordial, while she seemed depressed
and full of anxiety. Her last words to him were an appeal, but of what
nature I was in ignorance.
Hardly had she closed the door of her room when, with my mind made up,
I walked swiftly along and tapped loudly. When, a moment later, she
opened it and found herself face to face with me, she drew back with a
startled cry, and her countenance went pale as death.
"You, Victor! I--I did not know you were in Paris!"
"I've not been here long," was my reply. "But I'm staying in this
hotel, and seeing you enter a moment ago I could not resist the
temptation, Daisy, of coming to talk to you."
"At this hour!" she exclaimed in a strangely cold voice. "Why not
to-morrow?"
She had not invited me in, therefore I suggested we should go
downstairs to one of the public rooms.
"No," I urged; "to-night, dearest. Do you not still recollect our
parting--and your hard words to me?"
"Well," she said, "we cannot discuss our private affairs here in the
corridor. You had better come inside, at risk of a breach of _les
convenances_," and she smiled in her old sweet way.
"Now, look here, Daisy!" I said, when she had closed the door behind
me, and I stood with her near the big dressing-table set in the window.
"I've come to know what you meant by your strange words when we met in
Kensington Gardens--I mean about Julian Little going to Servia in my
interests?"
She stood before me the same dainty little figure, the same sweet-faced
girl with the well-dressed chestnut hair and great dark eyes that had
fascinated all London, and that had been in secret my own trustful
well-beloved.
"Why should we discuss that any further, Victor?" she queried, standing
with her hand upon the back of a chair. She had removed her hat before
I entered, and she looked strikingly beautiful in the black dinner-gown
with a bunch of pink carnations in the corsage. She was fond of pink
in combination with black, and had adopted it in several of her
stage-dresses. "You have been abroad quite a long time," she went on.
"Dad told me of your success in Constantinople, and how you had been
sent on to Russia."
"So you sometimes think of me, Daisy, even though you have treated
me--well, let us say, without consideration--eh?"
She hesitated, her dark eyes fixed upon me. She seemed at a loss what
to reply to my indictment.
"Why could you not have waited until the morning?" she asked. "It is so
late, and your presence here is scarcely judicious, is it?"
"I care nothing for what people may say, dearest," I cried, taking her
hand, and holding it firmly in mine as I looked into those wonderful
eyes of hers. "Surely you know that my whole future, my whole life,
depends upon you? That without your love I am as one lost? Ah! dearest
heart, you cannot know how much I have suffered ever since that moment
when you left me in London, how every hour I have thought of you, how
every day I have longed to return to you and ask you for the plain,
straight-forward truth."
"But, Victor----" she exclaimed, trying to withdraw her hand. I could
see that she was terrified and unnerved by the quarrel of those two men
which she had witnessed that night, and now my sudden reappearance had
completed her anxiety. She was concealing something. What had she to
conceal? What was this strange secret of her heart?
"There are no buts, dearest," I interrupted. "I am here because I love
you--because I have never for one moment wavered in my affection for
you," and before she was aware of it I had raised her hand to my hot,
passionate lips. "An enemy has come between us and has poisoned your
mind against me. I am full well aware of that. But why, I beg of you,
do you allow a stranger to break the bond of love which binds your own
dear heart to mine? Is it wise, Daisy? Is it just, either to you or to
me? We were happy--ah! so happy--in each other's peaceful affection
until of a sudden you changed--you doubted me!"
Her eyes were fixed immovably upon mine. Never before had I noticed
such a strange look upon her countenance--a look that told of the
fierce struggle taking place within her heart. That fellow Drayton held
her fascinated. I knew she had forsaken me on that account. But how
could I tell her so without revealing what I knew?
"Victor!" she said at last, her voice trembling with emotion. "Will you
not have pity on me?"
"Pity?" I echoed. "If you are in distress, tell me. Let me assist you,
my darling! You are still mine--or at least I still regard you as
such--even though you somehow appear to have forsaken me in favour of
somebody else."
To this last remark of mine she raised no protest.
"You cannot, alas! assist me, Victor," she said simply, her eyes
downcast, her hand trembling slightly in mine.
"But something is troubling you, my darling," I said. "Tell me what it
is--do!"
She only shook her head. I could see that her emotion prevented her
from replying. That violent quarrel between Drayton and the mysterious
Monsieur Smith had utterly upset her. Her countenance was still pale
and drawn. Hers was the face of a woman upon whose conscience rested
some great and terrible secret. Was it possible that over her young
life hung the shadow of that dastardly crime at Barnes?
From the very first she had in some mysterious way been associated with
the mystery. Little, the man at first suspected by Whitlock, had openly
declared himself as her enemy.
What she was doing at that moment in Paris I did not seek to inquire. I
did not wish to complicate matters further, being myself aware of all
her movements that night.
Failing to get a word from her in reply to my question, I asked the
reason of her sudden change towards me, adding--
"You know, Daisy, how all this has driven me to distraction, loving
you as devotedly as I do, and in ignorance of the real reason why you
rose from that seat in Kensington Gardens and left me in that manner.
I can only surmise that there must be some burden of suspicion upon
your mind. Why not reveal it to me, and allow me a chance to make my
defence? Surely," I said, "it is not fair to condemn a man unheard?"
"No," was her reply, for she had suddenly grown quite calm. "I have not
condemned you, Victor. I--well, I don't know how to put it to you. I'm
puzzled. I have been told something which I cannot really believe. Yet
I have had proof in a certain way that what has been said is the actual
truth."
"About myself?"
"Yes, about you," she said, looking me in the face unflinchingly.
"And will you not tell me what this charge is against me?"
"I have given a promise not to speak to you upon the matter."
"To whom?"
"To a friend."
"But I put it to you, dearest, is this justice? Ought not I to be given
an opportunity of refuting this allegation, and of proving my innocence
of this mysterious charge against me?"
"You undoubtedly ought," was her reply. "But I, unfortunately, cannot
break my promise."
"Not when your own future happiness is at stake?"
"Future happiness!" she echoed wildly. "There is none for me now
that----"
But she broke off short in the middle of her sentence, and her cheeks
flushed slightly as she realised how nearly she had been to betraying
herself.
Was it of Drayton's desertion that she had been about to speak when she
suddenly arrested her words? I became convinced that it was, and that
her emotion was more upon his account than in consequence of our sudden
meeting.
She loved that good-looking fellow, who would, ere long, be again in
the dock. For one thing, however, I entertained an admiration for
him--namely, that he had that night had the courage to denounce the
mysterious Englishman of the Rue Pierre Charron, and reveal to Daisy
how she had been made the cat's-paw of unscrupulous persons.
I had expected that this latter fact would, in itself, cause her to
return to me. But I was mistaken. Those allegations against myself,
whatever they were, had so impressed themselves upon her that she was
unable to repose further trust in me. I knew, of course, what they
were--that I was implicated in the assassination of Louise Lorimer.
"Daisy!" I said, very quietly, placing my hand upon her shoulder as I
stood before her and looking straight into those dear eyes, "there is
still happiness for you, the happiness of life and of love, if you will
continue to trust me. Surely you must see that my heart is entirely
yours? In the past our love was perfect, our confidence mutual, and
our hearts were as one. You have hundreds of admirers. You, with your
beauty and grace, cannot avoid it. In your profession your success in
a measure depends in your captivating those of my sex who are patrons
of the variety stage. They believe you to be gay and giddy like most
of the others, and you do not undeceive them. Only I myself know your
true character, that of a sweet, refined, and honest woman, who casts
off her stage manners with her dresses, and who would make a good
wife to the man who honestly loved her. I love you--with all my soul.
Dear heart, forgive me if I have in any way offended you. Kiss me
forgiveness, and let us be as we were before--lovers in secret."
I bent slowly to kiss her soft red lips, but with a frightened
cry--almost of repulsion--she put me away from her, saying--
"No! No! I cannot! Leave me, Victor. Leave me! I beg of you never to
approach me like this again."
"But why, dearest? Surely by right of long friendship, I, on finding
you alone in Paris, may come and pay my respects to you? I don't
understand."
"No; that's just it. You don't understand."
"Then, tell me--tell me, darling, I beg of you. Do you doubt my great
love for you?"
"No. Certainly not. I know you love me--better than any other man could
ever love me," she faltered, her eyes fixed upon the carpet.
My hand was again upon her shoulder, but I felt a shudder run through
her as I touched her.
"Then why discard my love?" I urged. "Why not accept it?"
For a full minute no response came from her lips, but when it did it
held me appalled.
"Why not?" she echoed, in a hoarse, agonised whisper, covering her face
with her hands and bursting into tears. "Because--ah! you do not know
all, Victor!--because--ah! yes, I--I confess--I must confess to you,"
she sobbed--"because--cannot you guess?--I--I am unworthy of your love!"