 CHAPTER 35 The Hush That Succeeds the Tempest Robert Audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after Sir Michael had spoken those few quiet words, which sounded the death knell of his hope and love. Heaven knows how much the young man had feared the coming of this day. It had come. And though there had been no great outburst of despair, no whirlwind of stormy grief, no loud tempest of anguish and tears, Robert took no comforting thought from the unnatural stillness. He knew enough to know that Sir Michael Audley went away with the barbed arrow which his nephew's hand had sent home to its aim, rankling in his tortured heart. He knew that this strange and icy calm was the first numbness of a heart stricken by grief, so unexpected, as for a time to be rendered almost incomprehensible by a blank stupor of astonishment. He knew that when this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little, and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's sorrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him, the storm would burst in fatal fury, and tempests of tears and cruel thunderclaps of agony would rend that generous heart. Robert had heard of cases in which men of his uncle's age had borne some great grief, as Sir Michael had borne this, with a strange quiet, and had gone away from those who would have comforted them, and whose anxieties had been relieved by this patient stillness, to fall down upon the ground and die under the blow at which had first had only stunned him. He remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy had stricken men as strong as his uncle in the first hour of the horrible affliction, and he lingered in the lamplit vestibule, wondering whether it was not his duty to be with Sir Michael, to be near him, in case of any emergency, and to accompany him wherever he went. Yet would it be wise to force himself upon that grey-headed sufferer in this cruel hour, in which he had been awakened from the one delusion of a blameless life, to discover that he had been the dupe of a false face, and the fool of a nature which was too coldly mercenary, too cruelly heartless, to be sensible of its own infamy? No, thought Robert Oddly, I will not intrude upon the anguish of this wounded heart. There is humiliation mingled with this bitter grief. It is better he should fight the battle alone. I have done what I believe to have been my solemn duty, yet I should scarcely wonder if I had rendered myself forever hateful to him. It is better he should fight the battle alone. I can do nothing to make the strife less terrible. Better that it should be fought alone. While the young man stood with his hand upon the library door, still half doubtful whether he should follow his uncle, or re-enter the room in which he had left that more wretched creature whom it had been his business to unmask, Alicia Oddly opened the dining-room door, and revealed to him the old-fashioned oak-panel department, the long-table covered with a showy damask, and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass and silver. Is Papa coming to dinner? asked Miss Oddly. I'm so hungry, and poor Tomlence has sent up three times to say the fish will be spoiled. It must be reduced to a species of ice and glass soup by this time, I should think," added the young lady, as she came out into the vestibule with the Times newspaper in her hand. She had been sitting by the fire reading the paper, and waiting for her seniors to join her at the dinner-table. Oh, it's you, Mr. Robert Oddly! she remarked indifferently. You dine with us, of course. Pray go and find Papa. It must be nearly eight o'clock, and we are supposed to dine at six. Mr. Oddly answered his cousin rather sternly. Her frivolous manner jarred upon him, and he forgot in his irrational displeasure that Miss Oddly had known nothing of the terrible drama which had been so long anactic under her very nose. You are Papa has just endured a very great grief, Alicia," young man said gravely. The girl's arch- laughing face changed in a moment to a tenderly earnest look of sorrow and anxiety. Alicia Oddly loved her father very dearly. "'A grief,' she exclaimed. Papa grieved. Oh, Robert! What has happened?' "'I can tell you nothing yet, Alicia,' Robert answered in a low voice. He took his cousin by the wrist, and drew her into the dining-room as he spoke. He closed the door carefully behind him before he continued. "'Alicia, can I trust you?' he asked earnestly. "'Trust me to do what?' "'To be a comfort and a friend to your poor father under a very heavy affliction.' "'Yes,' cried Alicia passionately. "'How can you ask me such a question? Do you think there is anything I would not do to lighten any sorrow of my father's? Do you think there is anything I would not suffer if my suffering could lighten his?' The rushing tears rose to Miss Oddly's bright grey eyes as she spoke. "'Oh, Robert! Robert! Could you think so badly of me as to think I would not try to be a comfort to my father in his grief?' She said reproachfully. "'No, no, my dear,' answered the young man quietly. "'I never doubted your affliction. I only doubted your discretion. May I rely upon that?' "'You may, Robert,' said Alicia, resolutely. "'Very well, then, my dear girl, I will trust you. Your father is going to leave the court—for a time, at least. The grief which he has just endured—a sudden and unlooked-for sorrow, remember—has no doubt made this place hateful to him. He is going away. But he must not go alone. Must he, Alicia?' "'Alone?' "'No—no. But I suppose my lady—' Lady Oddly will not go with him,' said Robert gravely. He is about to separate himself from her.' "'For a time?' "'No—forever.' "'Separate himself from her forever,' exclaimed Alicia. Then this grief is connected with Lady Oddly. Lady Oddly is the cause of your father's sorrow.' Alicia's face, which had been pale before, flushed crimson—sorrow of which my lady was the cause—a sorrow which was to separate Sir Michael Forever from his wife. There had been no quarrel between them. There had never been anything but harmony and sunshine between Lady Oddly and her generous husband. This sorrow must surely then have arisen from some sudden discovery. It was, no doubt, a sorrow associated with disgrace. Robert Oddly understood the meaning of that vivid blush. "'You will offer to accompany your father wherever he may choose to go, Alicia,' he said. "'You are his natural comforter at such a time as this. But you will best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all intrusion upon his grief. Your very ignorance of the particulars of that grief will be a security for your discretion. Say nothing to your father that you might not have said to him two years ago, before he married a second wife. Try and be to him what you were before the woman in yonder room came between you and your father's love.' "'I will,' murmured Alicia. "'I will.' "'You will naturally avoid all mention of Lady Oddly's name. If your father is often silent, be patient. If it sometimes seems to you that the shadow of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life, be patient still. And remember that there can be no better hope of a cure of his grief and the hope that his daughter's devotion may lead him to remember there is one woman upon this earth who will love him truly and purely until the last.' "'Yes, yes, Robert, dear cousin, I will remember.' Mr. Oddly, for the first time since he had been a schoolboy, took his cousin in his arms and kissed her broad forehead. "'My dear Alicia,' he said, "'do this, and you will make me happy. I have been in some measure the means of bringing this sorrow upon your father. Let me hope that it is not an enduring one. I and restore my uncle to happiness, Alicia. And I will love you more dearly than brother ever loved a noble-hearted sister, and a brotherly affection may be worth having, perhaps, after all, my dear, though it is very different to poor Sir Harry's enthusiastic worship.' Alicia's head was bent and her face hidden from her cousin while he spoke, but she lifted her head when he had finished, and looked him full in the face with a smile that was only the brighter for her eyes being filled with tears. "'You are a good fellow, Bob,' she said, and I've been very foolish and wicked to feel angry with you because—' The young lady stopped suddenly. "'Because what, my dear?' asked Mr. Oddly. "'Because I'm silly, cousin Robert,' Alicia said quickly. "'Never mind that, Bob, I'll do all you wish, and it shall not be my fault if my dearest father doesn't forget his troubles before long. I'd go to the end of the world with him, poor darling, if I thought there was any comfort to be found for him in the journey. "'I'll go and get ready directly. Do you think Papa will go to-night?' "'Yes, my dear. I don't think Sir Michael will rest another night under this roof yet a while.' "'The mail goes at twenty minutes past nine,' said Alicia. "'We must leave the house in an hour if we are to travel by it. I shall see you again before we go, Robert.' "'Yes, dear.' Miss Oddly ran off to her room to summon her maid, and to make all necessary preparations for the sudden journey of whose ultimate destination she was as yet quite ignorant. She went heart and soul into the carrying out of the duty which Robert had dictated to her. She assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus, and hopelessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into her bonnet boxes and sat in shoes into her dressing-case. She roamed about her rooms, gathering together drawing materials, music-books, needle-work, hair-brushes, jewelry, and perfume-bottles. Very much as she might have done had she been about to sail for some savage country, devoid of all civilized resources. She was thinking all the time of her father's unknown grief, and perhaps a little of the serious face and earnest voice which she had that night revealed her cousin Robert to her in a new character. Mr. Oddly went upstairs after his cousin, and found his way to Sir Michael's dressing-room. He knocked at the door and listened. Heaven knows how anxiously, for the expected answer. There was a moment's pause, during which the young man's heart beat loud and fast, and then the door was opened by the Baron at himself. Robert saw that his uncle's valet was already hard at work preparing for his master's hurried journey. Sir Michael came out into the corridor. "'Have you anything more to say to me, Robert?' he asked quietly. "'I only came to ascertain if I could assist in any of your arrangements. You go to London by the mail.' "'Yes.' "'Have you any idea of where you will stay?' "'Yes. I shall stop at the Clarendon. I am known there. Is that all you have to say?' "'Yes, except that Alicia will accompany you.' "'Alicia?' "'She could not very well stay here, you know, just now. It would be best for her to leave the court until—' "'Yes, yes, I understand,' interrupted the Baronet. But is there nowhere else that she could go? Must she be with me?' "'She could go nowhere else so immediately, and she would not be happy anywhere else.' "'Let her come, then,' said Sir Michael. "'Let her come.' He spoke in a strange, subdued voice, and with an apparent effort, as if it were painful to him to have to speak at all, as if all this ordinary business of life were a cruel torture to him, and jarred so much upon his grief, as to be almost worse to bear than that grief itself. "'Very well, my dear uncle, then it is all arranged. Alicia will be ready to start at nine o'clock.' "'Very good, very good,' muttered the Baronet. "'Let her come, if she pleases, poor child. Let her come.' He sighed heavily as he spoke in that half-pitying tone of his daughter. He was thinking how comparatively indifferent he had been toward that only child for the sake of the woman now shut in the fire that room below. "'I shall see you again before you go, sir,' said Robert. "'I will leave you till then.' "'Stay,' said Sir Michael suddenly. "'Have you told Alicia?' "'I have told her nothing, except that you are about to leave the court for some time.' "'You are very good, my boy. You are very good. The Baronet murmured in a broken voice. He stretched out his hand. His nephew took it in both his own, and pressed it to his lips. "'Oh, sir, how can I ever forgive myself?' he said. "'How can I ever cease to hate myself for having brought this grief upon you?' "'No. No, Robert, you did right. I wish that God had been so merciful to me as to take my miserable life before this night. But you did right.' Sir Michael re-entered his dressing-room, and Robert slowly returned to the vestibule. He paused upon the threshold of that chamber in which he had left Lucy—Lady Audley, otherwise Helen Tallboys, the wife of his lost friend. She was lying upon the floor, upon the very spot in which she had crouched at her husband's feet telling her guilty story. Whether she was in a swoon, or whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her misery, Robert scarcely cared to know. He went out into the vestibule, and sent one of the servants to look for her maid, the smart to be ribbed damsel who was loud in wonder and consternation at the side of her mistress. "'Lady Audley is very ill,' he said. "'Take her to her room, and see that she does not leave it to-night. You will be good enough to remain near her, but do not either talk to her or suffer her to excite herself by talking.' My lady had not fainted. She allowed the girl to assist her, and rose from the ground upon which she had groveled. Her golden hair fell in loose, dishevelled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders, and her face and lips were colourless, her eyes terrible, and their unnatural light. "'Take me away,' she said, and let me sleep. Let me sleep, for my brain is on fire.' As she was leaving the room with her maid, she turned and looked at Robert. "'Is Sir Michael gone?' she asked. "'He will leave in half an hour.' "'There were no lives lost in the fire at Mount Standing.' "'None.' "'I am glad of that.' The landlord of the house, Marx, was very terribly burned, and lies in a precarious state at his mother's cottage. But he may recover.' "'I am glad of that. I am glad no life was lost. Good night, Mr. Oddly.' "'I shall ask to see you for a half an hour's conversation in the course of to-morrow, my lady.' "'Whenever you please. Good night.' "'Good night.' She went away quietly leaning upon her maid's shoulder, and leaving Robert with a sense of strange bewilderment that was very painful to him. He sat down by the broad hearth upon which the red embers were fading, and wondered at the change in that old house, which, until the day of his friend's disappearance, had been so pleasant a home for all who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof. He sat brooding over the desolate hearth, and trying to decide upon what must be done in this sudden crisis. He sat helpless and powerless to determine upon any course of action, lost in a dull reverie, from which she was aroused by the sound of carriage-wheels driving up to the little turret entrance. The clock and the vestibule struck nine as Robert opened the library door. Alicia had just ascended the stairs with her maid, a rosy-faced country girl. "'Good-bye, Robert,' said Miss Oddly, holding out her hand to her cousin. "'Good-bye, and God bless you. You may trust me to take care of Papa.' "'I am sure I may. God bless you, my dear.' For the second time that night Robert Oddly pressed his lips to his cousin's candid forehead, and for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or paternal character, rather than the rapturous proceeding which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers been the privileged performer. It was five minutes past nine when Sir Michael came downstairs, followed by his valet, grave and gray-haired like himself. The baronet was pale, but calm and self-possessed. The hand which he gave to his nephew was as cold as ice, but it was with a steady voice that he bade the young man good-bye. "'I'll leave all on your hands, Robert,' he said, as he turned to leave the house in which he had lived so long. I may not have heard the end, but I have heard enough. Heaven knows I have no need to hear more. I'll leave all to you, but you will not be cruel. You will remember how much I have loved.' His voice broke huskily before he could finish the sentence. "'I will remember you in everything, Sir,' the young man answered. "'I will do everything for the best.'" A treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut out his uncle's face, and in another minute the carriage had driven away, and Robert Oddly sat alone in the dark library, where only one red spark glowed among the pale gray ashes. He sat alone, trying to think what he ought to do, and with the awful responsibility of a wicked woman's fate upon his shoulders. "'Good Heaven!' he thought. "'Surely this must be God's judgment upon the purposeless, oscillating life I led up to the seventh day of last September. Surely this awful responsibility has been forced upon me, in order that I may humble myself to an offended providence, and confess that a man cannot choose his own life. He cannot say, I will take existence lightly, and keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, energetic creatures who fight so heartily in the great battle. He cannot say, I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle. He cannot do this. He can only do humbly and fearfully, that which the maker who created him is appointed for him to do. If he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully. But woe betides him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty muster-roll. Woe betides him if he hides in the tents when the toxin summons him to the scene of war." One of the servants brought candles into the library and relighted the fire. But Robert Oddly did not stir from his seat by the hearth. He sat as he had often sat in his chambers at Figtree Court, with his elbows resting upon the arms of his chair and his chin upon his hand. But he lifted his head as his servant was about to leave the room. "'Can I send a message from here to London?' he asked. "'It can be sent from Brentwood, sir, not from here.' Mr. Oddly looked at his watch thoughtfully. One of the men can ride over to Brentwood, sir, if you wish any message to be sent. "'I do wish to send a message. Will you manage it for me, Richards?' "'Certainly, sir.' "'You can wait, then, while I write the message.' "'Yes, sir.' The man brought writing materials from one of the side-tables, and placed them before Mr. Oddly. Robert dipped a pen in the ink, and stared thoughtfully at one of the candles for a few moments before he began to write. The message ran thus." From Robert Oddly, of Oddly Court, Essex, to Francis Wilmington, of Paper-Building's Temple. "'Dear Wilmington, if you know any physician experienced in cases of mania, and to be trusted with a secret, be so good as to send me his address by telegraph.' Mr. Oddly sealed this document in a stout envelope, and handed it to the man with a sovereign. "'You will see that this is given to a trustworthy person, Richards,' he said, and let the man wait at the station for the return message. He ought to get it in an hour and a half.' Mr. Richards, who had known Robert Oddly in jackets and turned down collars, departed to execute his commission. And forbid that we should follow him into the comfortable servant's hall at the court, where the household sat round the blazing fire, discussing in utter bewilderment the events of the day. Nothing could be wider from the truth than the speculations of these worthy people. What clue had they to the mystery of that fire-lit room, in which a guilty woman had knelt at their master's feet to tell the story of her sinful life? The only knew that which Sir Michael's Vallet had told them of his sudden journey. How his master was as pale as a sheet, and spoke in a strange voice that didn't sound like his own somehow, and how you might have knocked him, Mr. Parsons, the Vallet, down with a feather, if you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of so feeble a weapon. The wise heads of the servant's hall decided that Sir Michael had received sudden intelligence through Mr. Robert. They were wise enough to connect the young man with a catastrophe, either of the death of some near and dear relation. The elder servants decimated the Oddly family in their endeavors to find a likely relation, or of some alarming fall in the funds, or of the failure of some speculation, or bank in which the greater part of the baronet's money was invested. The general leaning was toward the failure of a bank, and every member of the assembly seemed to take a dismal and raven-like delight in the fancy, though such a supposition involved their own ruin in the general destruction of that liberal household. Robert sat by the dreary hearth, which seemed dreary even now in the blaze of a great wood fire roared in the wide chimney, and listened to the low wail of the March wind moaning round the house, and lifting the shivering ivy from the walls at sheltered. He was tired and worn out, for remember that he had been awakened from his sleep at two o'clock that morning but the hot breath of blazing timber and the sharp crackling of burning woodwork. But for his presence of mind and cool decision, Mr. Luke Marks would have died a dreadful death. He still bore the traces of the night's peril, for the dark hair had been singed upon one side of his forehead, and his left hand was red and inflamed, from the effect of the scorching atmosphere out of which he had dragged the landlord of the castle in. He was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and he fell into a heavy sleep in his easy-share before the bright fire, from which he was only awakened by the entrance of Mr. Richards with the return message. This return message was very brief. "'Dear Audley, always glad to oblige, Alwyn Mollsgrave, M.D., twelve Savile Row, safe.' "'This, with names and addresses, was all that it contained.' "'I shall want another message taken to Brentwood to-morrow morning, Richards,' said Mr. Audley, as he folded the telegram. "'I shall be glad if the man would ride over with it before breakfast. He shall have half a sauron for his trouble.'" Mr. Richards bowed. "'Thank you, sir. Not necessary, sir. But as you please, of course, sir,' he murmured. "'At what hour might you wish the man to go?' "'Mr. Audley might wish the man to go as early as he could. So it was decided that he should go at six.' "'My room is ready, I suppose, Richards,' said Robert. "'Yes, sir, your old room.' "'Very good. I shall go to bed at once. Bring me a glass of brandy and water as hot as you can make it, and wait for the telegram.'" This second message was only a very earnest request to Dr. Mollsgrave to pay an immediate visit to Audley Court on a matter of serious moment. Having written this message, Mr. Audley felt that he had done all that he could do. He drank his brandy and water. He had actual need of the diluted alcohol, for he had been shilled to the bone by his adventures during the fire. He slowly sipped the pale golden liquid, and thought of Clara Tallboys, of that earnest girl whose brother's memory was now avenged, whose brother's destroyer was humiliated in the dust. Had she heard of the fire at the castle in, how could she have done otherwise than hear of it in such a place as Mount Stunning? But had she heard that he had been in danger, and that he had distinguished himself by the rescue of a drunken boar? I fear that, even sitting by that desolate hearth, and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own house, Robert Audley was weak enough to think of these things, weak enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal fir trees under the cold March sky, and the dark brown eyes that were so like the eyes of his lost friend. End of CHAPTER XXXVI My lady slept. Through that long winter night she slept soundly. Criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth, and have been found in the grey morning slumbering peacefully by the jailer who came to wake them. The game had been played and lost. I do not think that my lady had thrown away a card, or missed the making of a trick which she might by any possibility have made, but her opponent's hand had been too powerful for her, and he had won. She looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner, who would have to be taken good care of. A second iron mask, who must be provided for in some comfortable place of confinement, she abandoned herself to a dull indifference. She had lived a hundred lives within the space of the last few days of her existence, and she had worn out her capacity for suffering, for a time at least. She ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and emerged with perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely careless of morning toilets, from her luxurious dressing-room. She looked at herself in the chivalr-glass before she left the room. A long night's rest had brought back the delicate rose-tents of her complexion, and the natural luster of her blue eyes. That unnatural light which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone, and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated the reflection of her beauty. The days were gone in which her enemies could have branded her with white-hot irons, and burned away the loveliness which had done such mischief. Whatever they did to her they must leave her her beauty, she thought. At the worst they were powerless to rob her of that. The March Day was bright and sunny, with a cheerless sunshine, certainly. My lady wrapped herself in an Indian shawl, a shawl that had cost Sir Michael a hundred guineas. I think she had an idea that it would be well to wear this costly garment, so that if hustled suddenly away she might carry at least one of her possessions with her. Remember how much she had perilled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and horses, jewels and laces, and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity to gods and yugos in the hour of her despair. If she had been Judas, she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver to the last moment of her shameful life. Mr. Robert O. Lee breakfasted in the library. He sat long over his solitary cup of tea, smoking his Mirchand pipe, and meditating darkly upon the task that lay before him. I will appeal to the experience of this Dr. Mosgrave, he thought. Physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth century. Surely he will be able to help me. The first fast train from London arrived at Audley at half-past ten o'clock, and at five minutes before eleven, Richards, the grave servant, announced Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave. The physician from Savile Row was a tall man of about fifty years of age. He was thin and sallow, with lantern jaws, and eyes of a pale, feeble gray that seemed as if they had once been blue, and had faded by the progress of time to their present neutral shade. However powerful the science of medicine as wielded by Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave, it had not been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones, or brightness into his face. He had a strangely expressionless, and yet strangely attentive, countenance. He had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in listening to other people, and who had parted with his own individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career. He bowed to Robert Audley, took the opposite seat indicated by him, and addressed his attentive face to the young barrister. Robert saw that the physician's glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention, and became earnest and searching. He is wondering whether I am the patient, thought Mr. Audley, and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face. Dr. Mosgrave spoke as if an answer to this thought. "'Is it not about your own health that you wish to consult me?' he said interrogatively. "'Oh, no!' Dr. Mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty-ginny Benson-made chronometer, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket, as carelessly as if it had been a potato. "'I need not remind you that my time is precious,' he said. "'Your telegram informed me that my services were required in a case of—'Danger!' as I apprehend, or I should not be here this morning.' Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire, wondering how he should begin the conversation, and had needed this reminder of the physician's presence. "'You are very good, Dr. Mosgrave,' he said, rousing himself by an effort. And I thank you very much for having responded to my summons. I am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me than words can describe. I am about to implore your advice in a most difficult case, and I trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue me, and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and complicated position.' The business-like attention in Dr. Mosgrave's face grew into a look of interest as he listened to Robert Audley. "'The revelation made by the patient to the physician is, I believe, as sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest,' Robert asked gravely. "'Quite as sacred.' A solemn confidence to be violated under no circumstances. Most certainly.' Robert Audley looked at the fire again. How much should he tell, or how little, of the dark history of his uncle's second wife? "'I have been given to understand, Dr. Mosgrave, that you have devoted much of your attention to the treatment of insanity. Yes, my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental diseases. Such being the case, I think I may venture to conclude that you sometimes receive strange and even terrible revelations.' Dr. Mosgrave bowed. He looked like a man who could have carried safely locked in his passionless breast the secrets of a nation, and who would have suffered no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden. "'The story which I am about to tell you is not my own story,' said Robert, after a pause. "'You will forgive me, therefore, if I once more remind you that I can only reveal it upon the understanding, that under no circumstances, or upon no apparent justification, is that confidence to be betrayed.'" Dr. Mosgrave bowed again—a little sternly, perhaps, this time. "'I am all attention, Mr. Audley,' he said coldly. Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician, and in a low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that same chamber upon the previous night. Dr. Mosgrave's listening face turned always toward the speaker, made no surprise at that strange revelation. He smiled once—a grave, quiet smile—when Mr. Audley came to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy at Ventner. But he was not surprised. Robert Audley ended his story at the point at which Sir Michael Audley had interrupted my lady's confession. He told nothing of the disappearance of George Talboys, nor of the horrible suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance. He told nothing of the fire at the castle in. Dr. Mosgrave shook his head gravely when Mr. Audley came to the end of his story. "'You have nothing further to tell me,' he said. "'No, I do not think there is anything more that need be told,' Robert answered rather evasively. "'You would wish to prove that this lady is mad, and therefore irresponsible for her actions, Mr. Audley,' said the physician. Robert Audley stared, wondering at the mad doctor, by what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young man's secret desire? "'Yes. I would rather, if possible, think her mad. I should be glad to find that excuse for her.'" "'And to save the esclander of a chancery suit, I suppose, Mr. Audley,' said Dr. Mosgrave. Robert shuttered as he bowed an ascent to this remark. It was something worse than a chancery suit that he dreaded with a horrible fear. It was a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams. How often had he awoke, in an agony of shame, from a vision of a crowded courthouse, and his uncle's wife in a criminal dock, hemmed in on every side by a sea of eager faces? "'I fear that I shall not be of any use to you,' the physician said quietly. I will see the lady, if you please, but I do not believe that she is mad.' "'Why not?' "'Because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done. She ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she left in the hope of finding a better. There is no madness in that. She committed the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune and position. There is no madness there. When she found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate. She employed intelligent means, and she carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution. There is no madness in that.' But the traits of hereditary insanity made sand to the third generation, and appear in the lady's children if she have any. Madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter. I should be glad to help you, if I could, Mr. Oddly, but I do not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me. I do not think any jury in England would accept the plea of insanity in such a case as this. The best thing you can do with this lady is to send her back to her first husband, if he will have her.' Robert started at the sudden mention of his friend. Her first husband is dead, he answered. At least he has been missing for some time, and I have reason to believe that he is dead. Dr. Mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard the embarrassment in Robert Oddly's voice as he spoke of George Tallboy's. The lady's first husband is missing, he said, with a strange emphasis on the word. You think that he is dead? He paused for a few moments and looked at the fire as Robert had looked before. Mr. Oddly, he said presently, there must be no half confidences between us. You have not told me all. Robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in his face his surprise he felt at these words. I should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies of my professional experience, said Dr. Mosgrave, if I could not perceive where confidence ends and reservation begins. You have only told me half this lady's story, Mr. Oddly. You must tell me more before I can offer you any advice. What has become of the first husband? He asked this question in a decisive tone as if he knew it to be the keystone of an arch. I have already told you, Dr. Mosgrave, that I do not know. Yes, answered the physician, but your face has told me what you have withheld from me. It has told me that you suspect. Robert Oddly was silent. If I am to be of any use to you, you must trust me, Mr. Oddly, said the physician. The first husband disappeared. How and when? I want to know the history of his disappearance. Robert paused for some time before he replied to the speech, but by and by he lifted his head, which had been bent in an attitude of earnest thought, and addressed the physician. I will trust you, Dr. Mosgrave, he said. I will confide entirely in your honor and goodness. I do not ask you to do any wrong to society, but I ask you to save our stainless name from degradation and shame, if you can do so conscientiously. He told the story of George's disappearance, and of his own doubts and fears. Heaven knows how reluctantly. Dr. Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before. Robert concluded with an earnest appeal to the physician's best feelings. He implored him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a wicked woman had brought such misery upon his declining years. It was impossible to draw any conclusion, either favorable or otherwise, from Dr. Mosgrave's attentive face. He rose when Robert had finished speaking, and looked at his watch once more. I can only spare you twenty minutes, he said. I will see the lady, if you please. You say her mother died in a madhouse. She did. Will you see Lady Audley alone? Yes, alone, if you please. Robert rung for my lady's maid, and under convoy of that smart young damsel, the physician bound his way to the octacon anti-chamber, and the ferry-boudoir with which it communicated. Ten minutes afterward he returned to the library, in which Robert sat waiting for him. I have talked to the lady, he said quietly, and we understand each other very well. There is latent insanity. Insanity which might never appear, or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime. It would be a dementia in its worst phase, perhaps. It may not be a acute mania, but its duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure. The lady is not mad. But she has the hereditary taint in her blood. She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence. I will tell you what she is, Mr. Audley. She is dangerous." Dr. Monsgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke again. I will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses you, Mr. Audley, he said presently. But I will tell you this much. I do not advise any esclandra. This Mr. George Tallboys has disappeared, but you have no evidence of his death. If you could produce evidence of his death, you could produce no evidence against this lady, beyond the one fact that she had a powerful motive for getting rid of him. No jury in the United Kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that." Robert Audley interrupted Dr. Monsgrave hastily. I assure you, my dear sir," he said, that my greatest fear is the necessity of any exposure, any disgrace. Certainly, Mr. Audley," answered the physician coolly, but you cannot expect me to assist you to condone one of the worst offenses against society. If I saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been committed by this woman, I should refuse to assist you in smuggling her away out of the reach of justice, although the honour of a hundred noble families might be saved by my doing so. But I do not see adequate reason for your suspicions, and I will do my best to help you. Robert Audley grasped the physician's hands in both his own. I will thank you when I am better able to do so," he said with emotion. I will thank you in my uncle's name as well as in my own. I have only five minutes more, and I have a letter to write," said Dr. Monsgrave, smiling at the young man's energy. He seated himself at the writing-table in the window, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes. He had filled three sides of a sheet of note-paper, when he threw down his pen and folded his letter. He put this letter into an envelope, and delivered it, unsealed to Robert Audley. The address which bore was M. Val, Ville-Bremus, Belgium. Mr. Audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor, who was putting on his gloves as deliberately as if his life had never known a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them. That letter, he said, in answer to Robert Audley's inquiring look, is written to my friend M. Val, the proprietor and medical superintendent of a very excellent Maison de Santé in the town of Ville-Bremus. We have known each other for many years, and he will no doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life. It will not be a very eventful one. Robert Audley would have spoken. He would have once more expressed his gratitude for the help which had been given to him, but Dr. Maw's grave checked him with an authoritative gesture. From the moment in which Lady Audley enters that house, he said, her life, so far as life is made up of action and variety, will be finished. Whatever secret she may have will be secrets for ever. Whatever crime she may have committed she will be able to commit no more. If you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it, you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations. But as a physiologist, and as an honest man, I believe you could do no better service to society than by doing this, for physiology is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at large. If she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little hands, as I sat talking to her just now, she would have done it. She suspected your purpose, then. She knew it. You think I am mad like my mother, and you have come to question me, she said. You are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint in my blood. Good-day to you, Mr. Audley. The physician added hardly. My time was up ten minutes ago. It is as much as I shall do to catch the train. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Robert Audley sat alone in the library with the physician's letter upon the table before him, thinking of the work which was still to be done. The young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer of this wretched woman. He had been her judge, and now he was her jailer. Not until he had delivered the letter which lay before him to its proper address, not until he had given up his charge into the safekeeping of the foreign madhouse doctor, not until then would the dreadful burden be removed from him and his duty done. He wrote a few lines to my lady, telling her that he was going to carry her away from Audley Court, to a place from which she was not likely to return, and requesting her to lose no time in preparing for the journey. He wished to start that evening, if possible, he told her. Miss Susan Martin, the lady's maid, thought it a very hard thing to have to pack her mistress's trunks in such a hurry, but my lady assisted in the task. She toiled resolutely in directing and assisting her servant, who sent in bankruptcy and ruin in all this packing up and hurrying away, and was therefore rather languid and indifferent in the discharge of her duties, and at six o'clock in the evening she sent her attendant to tell Mr. Audley that she was ready to depart as soon as he pleased. Martin had consulted a volume of Bradshaw, and had discovered that Ville-Bremuse lay out of the track of all railway traffic, and was only approachable by diligence from Brussels. The mail for Dover left London Bridge at nine o'clock, and could be easily caught by Robert and his charge, as the seven o'clock up-train from Audley reached Shoreditch at a quarter-past eight. Travelling by the Dover and Calais route, they would reach Ville-Bremuse by the following afternoon or evening. It was late in the afternoon of the next day, when the diligence bumped and rattled over the uneven paving of the principal street in Ville-Bremuse. Robert Audley and my lady had had the coupé of the diligence to themselves for the whole of the journey, for there were not many travellers between Brussels and Ville-Bremuse, and the public conveyance was supported by the force of tradition rather than any great profit attaching to it as a speculation. My lady had not spoken during the journey, except to decline some refreshments which Robert had offered her at a halting place upon the road. Her heart sunk when they left Brussels behind, for she had hoped that city might have been the end of her journey, and she had turned with the feeling of sickness and despair from the dull Belgian landscape. She looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a great stony quadrangle, which had been the approach to a monastery once, but which was now the courtyard of a dismal hotel, and whose cellars legions of rats skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine was bright in the chambers above. Lady Audley shuddered as she alighted from the diligence, and found herself in that dreary courtyard. Robert was surrounded by chattering porters, who clamored for his bugage, and disputed among themselves as to the hotel at which he was to rest. One of these men ran away to fetch a hackney-coach at Mr. Audley's behest, and reappeared presently, urging on a pair of horses, which were so small as to suggest the idea that they had been made out of one ordinary-sized animal, with wild shrieks and whoops that had demonic sound in the darkness. Mr. Audley left my lady in a dreary coffee-room in the care of a cozy attendant, while he drove away to some distant part of the quiet city. There was official business to be gone through before Sir Michael's wife could be quietly put away in the place suggested by Dr. Mosgrave. Robert had to see all manner of important personages, and to take numerous oaths, and to exhibit the English physician's letter, and to go through much ceremony of signing and countersigning before he could take his lost friend's cruel wife to the home which was to be her last upon earth. Upward of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged, and the young man was free to return to the hotel, where he found his charge staring absently at a pair of wax candles, with a cup of untasted coffee standing cold and stagnant before her. Robert handed my lady into the hired vehicle, and took his seat opposite to her once more. �Where are you going to take me?� she asked at last. �I am tired of being treated like some naughty child, who is put into a dark cellar as a punishment for its offenses. Where are you taking me? �To a place in which you will have ample leisure to repent the past, Mrs. Tallboys�, Robert answered gravely. They had left the paved streets behind them, and had emerged out of a great gond square, in which there appeared to be about half a dozen cathedrals, into a small boulevard, a broad lamplit road, on which the shadows of the leafless branches went and came tremblingly, like the shadows of a paralytic skeleton. There were houses here and there upon this boulevard, stately houses, and with plaster vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways. The rumbling hackney carriage drove upward of three-quarters of a mile along the smooth roadway, before it drew up against a gateway, older and more ponderous than any of those they had passed. My lady gave a little scream as she looked out of the coach window. The gaunt gateway was lighted by an enormous lamp, a great structure of iron and glass, in which one poor little shivering flame struggled with the march wind. The coachman rang the bell, and a little wooden door at the side of the gate was opened by a gray-haired man, who looked out at the carriage and then retired. He reappeared three minutes afterward behind the folding iron gates, which he unlocked and threw back to their full extent, revealing a dreary desert of stone-paved courtyard. The coachman led his wretched horses into the courtyard, and piloted the vehicle to the principal doorway of the house, a great mansion of gray stone, with several long ranges of windows, many of which were dimly lighted, and looked out like the pale eyes of weary watchers upon the darkness of the night. My lady, watchful and quiet as the cold stars in the wintry sky, looked up at these casements with an earnest and scrutinizing gaze. One of the windows was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red, and upon this curtain there went and came a dark shadow, the shadow of a woman with a fantastic headdress, the shadow of a restless creature, who paced perpetually backward and forward before the window. Mr. Michael Audley's wicked wife laid her hand suddenly upon Robert's arm, and pointed with the other hand to this curtain window. "'I know where you have brought me,' she said. "'This is a madhouse!' Mr. Audley did not answer her. He had been standing at the door of the coach when she addressed him, and he quietly assisted her to a light, and led her up a couple of shallow stone steps and into the entrance hall of the mansion. He handed Dr. Mosgrave's letter to a neatly dressed, cheerful-looking, middle-aged woman, who came tripping out of a little chamber, which opened out of the hall, and was very much like the bureau of a hotel. This person smilingly welcomed Robert and his charge, and after dispatching a servant with the letter, invited them into her pleasant little apartment, which was gaily furnished with bright amber curtains, and heated by a tiny stove. "'Madame finds herself very much fatigued,' the French woman said interrogatively, with a look of intense sympathy, as she placed an armchair for my lady. Madam," shrugged her shoulders, wearily, and looked round the little chamber with a sharp glance of scrutiny that betokened no very great favour. "'What is this place, Robert Audley?' she cried fiercely. "'Do you think I am a baby, that you may juggle with and deceive me? What is it?' "'It is what I said just now, is it not?' "'It is amaison de santé, my lady,' the young man answered gravely. "'I have no wish to juggle with or to deceive you.'" My lady paused for a few moments, looking reflectively at Robert. "'Amaison de santé?' she repeated. "'Yes. They manage these things better in France. In England we should call it a madhouse. This is a house for mad people. This is it not, madame?' she said in French, turning upon the woman and tapping the polished floor with her foot. "'Ah, but no, madame,' the woman answered with a shrill scream of protest, "'it is an establishment of the most agreeable, where one amuses oneself.'" She was interrupted by the entrance of the principle of this agreeable establishment, who came beaming into the room with a radiant smile illuminating his countenance, and with Dr. Mosgrave's letter open in his hand. It was impossible to say how enchanted he was to make the acquaintance of monsieur. There was nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for monsieur at his own person, and nothing under heaven which he would not strive to accomplish for him, as the friend of his acquaintance so very much distinguished the English doctor. Dr. Mosgrave's letter had given him a brief synopsis of the case, he informed Robert, in an undertone, and he was quite prepared to undertake the care of the charming and very interesting, "'Madame, madame,' he rubbed his hands politely, and looked at Robert. Mr. Oddly remembered, for the first time, that he had been recommended to introduce his wretched charge under a feigned name. He effected not to hear the proprietor's question. It might seem a very easy matter to have hit upon a heap of names, any one of which would have answered his purpose, but Mr. Oddly appeared suddenly to have forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal appellation except that of himself and of his lost friend. Perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood his embarrassment. He at any rate relieved it by turning to the woman who had received them, and muttering something about No. 14 Beese. The woman took a key from a long range of others, that hung over the mantelpiece, and a wax candle from a bracket in the corner of the room, and having lighted the candle, led the way across the stone-paved hall, and up a broad, slippery staircase of polished wood. The English physician had informed his Belgian colleague that money would be of minor consequence in any arrangements made for the comfort of the English lady who was to be committed to his care. Acting upon this hint, Mr. Val opened the outer door of a stately suite of apartments, which included a lobby paved with alternate diamonds of black and white marble, but of a dismal and cellar-like darkness. A saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and with a certain funereal splendor which is not peculiarly conducive to the elevation of the spirits, and a bed-chamber, containing a bed so wondrously made as to appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings, unless the counter-pane had been split asunder with a pen-knife. My ladies stared dismally round at the range of rooms, which looked dreary enough in the wan light of a single wax candle. This solitary flame, pale and ghost-like in itself, was multiplied by paler phantoms of its ghostliness, which glimmered everywhere about the rooms, in the shadowy depths of the polished floors and wainscote, or the window-panes, and the looking-glasses, or in those great expanses of glimmering something which adorned the rooms, and which my lady mistook for costly mirrors, but which were in reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin. Amid all the faded splendor of shabby velvet, and tarnished gilding and polished wood, the woman dropped into an arm-chair, and covered her face with her hands, the whiteness of them, and the starry light of diamonds trembling about them, glittered in the dimly-lighted chamber. She sat silent, motionless, despairing, sullen and angry, while Robert and the French doctor retired to an outer chamber, and talked together in undertones. Mr. Audley had very little to say that had not already been said for him, with a far better grace than he himself could have expressed it, by the English physician. He had, after great trouble of mind, hid upon the name of Taylor, as a safe and simple substitute for that other name, to which alone my lady had a right. He told the Frenchman that this Mrs. Taylor was distantly related to him, that she had inherited the seeds of madness from her mother, as indeed Dr. Mosgrave had informed Mr. Val, and that she had shown some fearful tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her mind, but that she was not to be called mad. He begged that she might be treated with all tenderness and compassion, that she might receive all reasonable indulgences, but he impressed upon Mr. Val that under no circumstances was she to be permitted to leave the house and grounds without the protection of some reliable person, who should be answerable for her safekeeping. He had only one other point to urge, and that was, that Mr. Val, who, as he had understood, was himself a Protestant—the Dr. Boud—would make arrangements with some kind and benevolent Protestant clergyman, through whom spiritual advice and consolation might be secured for the invalid lady, who had a special need, Robert had, gravely, of such advantages. This, with all necessary arrangements as to pecuniary matters, which were to be settled from time to time between Mr. Audley and the doctor, unassisted by any agents, whatever, was the extent of the conversation between the two men, and occupied about a quarter of an hour. My lady sat in the same attitude when they re-entered the bed-chamber in which they had left her, with her ringed hand still clasped over her face. Robert bent over to whisper in her ear. "'Your name is Madame Taylor here,' he said. "'I do not think you would wish to be known by your real name.' She only shook her head in answer to him, and did not even remove her hands from over her face. "'Madame will have an attendant entirely devoted to her service,' said Mr. Val. "'Madame will have all her wishes obeyed, her reasonable wishes, but that goes without saying,' Mr. adds, with a quaint shrug. "'Every effort will be made to render Madame Sojournette Vilbemuse agreeable. The inmates dine together when it is wished. I dine with the inmates sometimes. My Sojournette is a clever and worthy man always. I reside with my wife and children, a little pavilion in the grounds. My Sojournette resides in the establishment. Madame may reply upon our utmost efforts, being exerted to ensure her comfort." Monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same effect, rubbing his hands and beaming radiantly upon Robert and his charge, when Madame rises suddenly, erect and furious, and dropping her jeweled fingers from before her face, tells him to hold his tongue. "'Leave me alone with the man who has brought me here,' she cried between her set teeth. Leave me!' She points to the door with a sharp, imperious gesture, so rapid that the silken drapery about her arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her hand. The sibilant French syllables hiss through her teeth as she utters them, and seem better fitted to her mood and to herself than the familiar English she has spoken her to. The French doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes out into the lobby, and mutters something about a beautiful devils, and a gesture worthy of the mals. My lady walked with a rapid footstep to the door between the bedchamber and the saloon, closed it, and with the handle of the door still in her hand, turned and looked at Robert oddly. "'You have brought me to my grave, Mr. Oddly,' she cried, "'you have used your power basely and cruelly, and have brought me to a living grave. I have done that which I thought just to others and merciful to you,' Robert answered quietly. "'I should have been a traitor to society had I suffered you to remain at liberty after the disappearance of George Talboys and the fire at Castle Inn. I have brought you to a place in which you will be kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of your story, no power to taunt or to reproach you. You will lead a quiet and peaceful life, my lady. Such a life as many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself, and happily endures until the end. The solitude of your existence in this place will be no greater than that of a king's daughter, who, flying from the evil of the time, was glad to take shelter in a house as tranquil as this. Surely it is a small atonement which I ask you to render for your sins, a light penance which I call upon you to perform. Live here, and repent. Nobody will assail you. Nobody will torment you. I only say to you, repent." I cannot," cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Oddley. I cannot. Has my beauty brought me to this? Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself and laid awake in the long deadly nights, trembling to think of my dangers for this? I had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when George Tallboy's first came back to England. She plucked at the feathery golden curls, as if she would have torn them from her head. It had served her so little, after all, that gloriously glittering hair, that beautiful nimbus of yellow light, that had contrasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her eyes. She hated herself, and her beauty. I would laugh at you, and defy you if I dared," she cried. I would kill myself and defy you if I dared. But I am a poor, pitiful coward, and have been so from the first, afraid of my mother's horrible inheritance, afraid of poverty, afraid of George Tallboy's, afraid of you. She was silent for a little while, but she held her place by the door as if determined to detain Robert as long as it was her pleasure to do so. Do you know what I am thinking of? She said presently. Do you know what I am thinking of as I look at you in the dim light of this room? I am thinking of the day upon which George Tallboy's disappeared. Robert started, as she mentioned the name of his lost friend. His face turned pale in dusky light, and his breathing grew quicker and louder. He was standing opposite me, as you are standing now, continued my lady. You said that you would raise the old house to the ground, that you would root up every tree in the gardens to find your dead friend. You would have had no need to do so much. The body of George Tallboy's lies at the bottom of the old well, in the shrubbery beyond the Lime-walk. Robert oddly flung his hands and clasped them above his head, with one loud cry of horror. "'Oh, my God!' he said, after a dreadful pause. "'Have all the ghastly things that I have thought prepared me so little for the ghastly truth, that it should come upon me like this at last?' He came to me in the Lime-walk, resumed my lady, in the same hard, dogged tone as that in which she had confessed the wicked story of her life. I knew that he would come, and I had prepared myself as well as I could to meet him. I was determined to bribe him, to cajole him, to defy him, to do anything sooner than abandon the wealth and the position I had won, and go back to my old life. He came, and he reproached me for the conspiracy adventurer. He declared that so long as he lived he would never forgive me for the lie that had broken his heart. He told me that I had plucked his heart out of his breast and trampled upon it, and that he had now no heart in which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me. That he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth, but that one deliberate and passionless wrong that I had done him. He said this, and a great deal more, that he told me that no power on earth should turn him from his purpose, which was to take me to the man I had deceived, and make me tell my wicked story. He did not know the hidden taint that I had sucked in with my mother's milk. He did not know that it was possible to drive me mad. He goaded me as you have goaded me. He was merciless as you have been merciless. We were in the shrubbery at the end of the lime-walk. I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well. George Tallboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position. I arose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as I had determined to defy him at the worst. I told him that if he denounced me to Sir Michael, I would declare him to be a madman, or a liar, and I defied him to convince the man who loved me, blindly, as I told him, that he had any claim to me. I was going to leave him after having told him this, when he caught me by the wrist, and detained me by force. You saw the bruises that his fingers made upon my wrist, and noticed them, and did not believe the account I gave of them. I could see that, Mr. Robert Audley, and I saw that you were a person I should have to fear. She paused, as if she had expected Robert to speak, but he stood silent and motionless, waiting for the end. George Talboy's treated me as you treated me. She said petulantly, he swore that if there was but one witness of my identity, and that witness was removed from Audley Court by the width of the whole earth, he would bring him there to swear to my identity, and to denounce me. It was then that I was mad. It was then that I drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood, and saw my first husband sink with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well. There is a legend of its enormous depth. I do not know how deep it is. It is dry, I suppose, for I heard no splash, only a dull thud. I looked down, and I saw nothing but black emptiness. I knelt down and listened, but the cry was not repeated, though I waited for nearly a quarter of an hour. God knows how long it seemed to me, by the mouth of the well. Robert Audley uttered a word of horror when the story was finished. He moved a little nearer toward the door against which Helen Talboy stood. Had there been any other means of exit from the room, he would gladly have availed himself of it. He shrank from even a momentary contact with this creature. "'Let me pass you, if you please,' he said in an icy voice. "'You see, I do not fear to make my confession to you,' said Helen Talboy's, for two reasons. The first is, that you dare not use it against me, because you know it would kill your uncle to see me in a criminal dock. The second is, that the law could pronounce no worse sentence than this, a lifelong imprisonment in a madhouse. You see, I do not thank you for your mercy, Mr. Robert Audley, for I know exactly what it is worth.' She moved away from the door, and Robert passed her without a word, without a look. Half an hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at Ville-Bremuse, sitting at a neatly ordered supper table, with no power to eat, with no power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from the image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the thicket at Audley Court.