Part 64 (1/2)

”Of course! Of course! Stella helped me with the telephone one day this week in the library there. I told her that I was new to the _Harpoon_.”

He suddenly beat upon the table with his fist. ”But why should she write the letter at all? Why should she want her death here, under these strange conditions, announced to the world? A little cruel I call it--yes, Millie, a little cruel.”

”Stella wasn't cruel,” said Lady Splay.

”She wasn't,” Hillyard agreed. ”I know why she wrote that. She wrote it to strengthen her hand and will at the last moment. The message was sent, the announcement of her death would be published in the morning, was already in print. Just that knowledge would serve as the final compulsion to do what she wished to do. She wrote lest her courage and nerve should at the last moment fail her, as to my knowledge they had failed her before.”

”Before!” cried Millie. ”She had tried before! Oh, poor woman!”

”Yes,” said Hillyard, and he told them all of the vague but very real fear which had once driven him into Surrey in chase of her; of her bedroom with the bed unslept in and the lights still burning in the blaze of a summer morning; of herself sitting all night at her writing-table, making dashes and figures upon the notepaper and unable to steel herself to the last dreadful act.

Martin Hillyard gave no reason for her misery upon that occasion, nor did any one think to inquire. He just told the story from his heart, and therefore with a great simplicity of words. There was not one of those who heard him, but was moved.

”Yet there were perhaps a couple of hours in her life more grim and horrible than any in that long night,” he went on, ”the hours between ten o'clock and midnight yesterday.”

”Ah, but we don't know how they were spent,” began Sir Chichester.

”We know something,” returned Martin gravely. ”I told you that that letter was corroborated before the paragraph it contained was inserted in the paper.”

”Yes,” said Lady Splay.

”Whilst they were waiting for the news from France, which did not come, they rang you up from the _Harpoon_ office. Yes: they rang up Rackham Park.”

Harry Luttrell s.n.a.t.c.hed up the letter once more from the table. Yes, there across the left-hand corner was printed Sir Chichester's telephone number and the district exchange.

”They were answered by a woman. Of that there's no doubt. And the woman a.s.sured them that Stella Croyle was dead. This was at a quarter-past twelve.”

There was a movement of horror about the table, and then, with dry lips, Millie Splay whispered:

”Stella!”

”Yes. It must have been,” answered Hillyard. ”Oh, she had thought out her plan to its last detail. She knew the letter might not be enough.

So, whilst we were all dancing at Harrel, she sat alone from ten to midnight in that library, waiting for the telephone to ring, hoping perhaps--for all we know--at the bottom of her heart that it would not ring. But it did, and she answered.”

The picture rose vividly before them all. Harrel, with its lighted ball-room and joyous dancers on the one side; the silent library on the other, with Stella herself in all her finery, sitting with her haggard eyes fixed upon the telephone, whilst the slow minutes pa.s.sed.

”That's terrible,” said Millie Splay in a low voice; and such a wave of pity swept over the four people that for a long while no further word was said. Joan upstairs in her room was forgotten. Any thought of resentment in that Stella had used Sir Chichester's name was overlooked by the revelation of the long travail of her soul.

”I remember that she once said to me, 'Women do get the worst of it when they kick over the traces,'” Hillyard resumed. ”And undoubtedly they do.

On the other hand you have McKerrel's hard-headed verdict, 'If these poor neurotic bodies had any work to do they wouldn't have so much time to worry about their troubles.' Who shall choose between them? And what does it matter now? Stella's gone. She will strain her poor little unhappy heart no more against the bars.”

CHAPTER x.x.xI

JENNY AND MILLIE SPLAY

After a time their thoughts reverted to the living.

”There's Joan,” said Millie Splay. ”Jenny Prask hates her. She means to drag her into some scandal.”