Part 47 (2/2)
He found the entire household up, the tragic news having circulated with the rapidity peculiar to such catastrophic tidings; and preceded by Major Carstairs, who met him in the hall, he hurried upstairs to the room where Tochatti lay in her last sleep.
It was quite true, as Major Carstairs had said, that she was dead. She had only too evidently been aware of the dagger's hiding-place, probably through familiarity with Chloe's movements in normal times; and had seized a moment when the housekeeper, thinking her asleep, had left her to procure a fresh stock of candles for the night's vigil, to slip into Chloe's room in search of the weapon.
Once in possession of the dagger the rest was easy; and whatever might be the nature of the emotions which drove her to the deed, whether remorse, dread of punishment, or some half-crazed fear of what the future might hold, the result was certain--and fatal.
She had made no mistake this time. The dagger had been plunged squarely in her breast; and when the housekeeper stole in again, expecting to find her charge still asleep, her horrified eyes were met by the sight of Tochatti's life-blood ebbing over the white sheets, her ears a.s.sailed by the choking gurgle with which the misguided woman yielded up her life....
”Yes, she is quite dead, poor thing.” Anstice replaced the bedclothes and stood looking down on the dead woman with a steady gaze. ”Perhaps, knowing her former brain weakness, I ought to have expected this. But in any case, Mrs. Carstairs”--he turned to Chloe, who stood, white and rigid, by his side--”the decision has been taken out of your--of our hands now. The matter is bound to come to light, after all.”
”You mean there must be an inquest--an inquiry into this affair?” It was Major Carstairs who spoke.
”I'm afraid so--you see a thing like this can't very well be hushed up,”
said Anstice rather reluctantly. ”And though I can't help feeling thankful that Mrs. Carstairs will have justice done to her at last, I'm sure we all feel we would have borne a good deal sooner than let this dreadful thing happen.”
”Dr. Anstice”--Chloe turned to him almost appealingly--”are we really to blame? If we hadn't plotted, set a trap to catch my poor Tochatti, this would not have come to pa.s.s; and I shall always feel that by leaving the dagger in my dressing-case I was the means of bringing this dreadful tragedy about.”
”Come, Mrs. Carstairs, you mustn't talk nonsense of that kind!” His tone was bracing. ”You were not in the least to blame. If anyone was, I should be the person, seeing I did not warn you of this possibility. But you know the poor soul was a very determined woman; and if she had set her mind on self-destruction she would have carried out her intention somehow.”
”Well, at least there will be no object in keeping the authors.h.i.+p of those confounded letters a secret now,” said Major Carstairs, putting his hand kindly on his wife's arm. ”After all poor Tochatti has done us a service by her death which will go far towards wiping out the injury of her life. And now it is one o'clock, and we none of us had much sleep last night----”
”You're right,” said Anstice quickly, ”and Mrs. Carstairs looks worn out. Can't you persuade her to go to bed, Major Carstairs? There is really no need for her to stay here harrowing her feelings another moment.”
”I'll go,” she said at once. ”Good-night again, Dr. Anstice. It will comfort me to know that you don't think me entirely to blame--for this.”
”I think you are as innocent in this matter as in that other one we discussed to-night,” he said quietly. ”And this poor woman here, if, as we may surely believe, she has regained by now the sanity she may have temporarily lost, would be the last to think any but kindly thoughts of you in the light of her fuller humanity.”
”Thank you,” she said again, as she had said it earlier in the evening; and once more they exchanged the firm and cordial handshake by which those who are truly friends seal their parting.
When he had closed the door behind her he came back to the bedside where Major Carstairs still stood, looking down on the dead woman with an unfathomable expression in his eyes.
”Anstice, from the bottom of my heart I regret the manner of this poor soul's pa.s.sing,” he said, and his voice was genuinely moved. ”But even so I can't altogether regret that she took this way of cutting the knot.
For now my wife and I may at least hope for the ordinary happiness which other human beings know. We have been in the shadow a long time, Chloe and I”--he spoke half to himself--”but now we may surely pray for suns.h.i.+ne for the rest of our earthly pilgrimage together.”
”Amen to that,” said Anstice solemnly; and as the two men shook hands silently each rejoiced, in his individual fas.h.i.+on, that Chloe Carstairs had come into her own at last.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
Anstice stood on the deck of the P. and O. boat _Moldavia_, looking out over the blue seas to where Port Said lay white and s.h.i.+ning in the rays of the March sun.
He had seen the port before, on his way to and from India, but he had never landed there, and looked forward with some keenness of antic.i.p.ation to setting foot in the place which enjoys, rightly or wrongly, one of the most unsavoury reputations in the world.
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