Part 32 (1/2)
”A letter would not have found me,” she answered. ”When I pa.s.s from sight of my friends I pa.s.s beyond reach of their messages.”
I drew forth a footstool for her, and noting how wild and strange was her manner, seated myself near her. The thought that she was insane came upon me, but I set aside such an idea as ridiculous. She was as sane as myself. There was nevertheless in her appearance an indescribable mysteriousness. She bore no resemblance to any other woman, so frail were her limbs, so thin and fine her features, so graceful all her movements. No illness could have imparted to her face that curious Sphinx-like look which it a.s.sumed when her countenance was not relaxed in conversing with me.
And her eyes. They were not the eyes of a person suffering from insanity. They possessed a bewitching fascination which was not human.
Nay, it was Satanic.
I shuddered, as I always did when she were present. The touch of that slim hand covered by its neat, black glove was fatal. This visitor of mine was the Daughter of Evil; the woman of whom Muriel's lover had said, that the people of London would, if they knew the mysterious truth, rend her limb from limb!
She put up her flimsy veil and raised a tiny lace handkerchief to her face. From it was diffused a perfume of lilies--those flowers the odour of which is so essentially the scent of the death-chamber.
”Well?” she asked at last, in that curious, far-distant voice, which sounded so musical, yet so unusual. ”And your love? Did you discover her, as I had said?”
”I did,” I answered in sorrow. ”But it is useless. Another has s.n.a.t.c.hed her from me.”
She knit her brows, regarding me with quick, genuine astonishment.
”Has she forgotten you?”
”Yes,” I answered in despair. ”My dream of felicity is over. She has cast me aside in favour of one who cannot love her as I have done.”
”But she loves you!” my monitress exclaimed.
”All that is of the past,” I replied. ”She is now infatuated with this man who has recently come into her life. In this world of London she, calm, patient, trusting in the religious truth taught at her mother's knee, was as my beacon, guiding me upon the upward path which, alas! is so very hard to keep aright. But all is over, and,” I added with a sigh, ”the sun of my happiness has gone down ere I have reached the meridian of life.”
”But what have you done to cause her to doubt you?” she asked in a voice more kindly than ever before.
”Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” I declared. ”We have been friends through years, and knowing how pure, how honest, how upright she is, I am ready at this moment to make her my wife.”
”Remember,” she said, warningly, ”you have position, while she is a mere shop-a.s.sistant, to whom your friends would probably take exception.”
”It matters not,” I exclaimed vehemently. ”I love her. Is not that quite sufficient?”
”Quite!” she said. Then a silence fell between us.
Suddenly she looked up and inquired whether I knew this man who was now her lover.
”Only by sight,” I answered. ”I have no faith in him.”
”Why?” she inquired eagerly.
”Because his face shows him to be cold and crafty, designing and relentless,” I answered, recollecting how this woman now before me had once walked with him in the Park, and the curious influence he had apparently held over her.
She smiled bitterly, and her eyes for a moment flashed. I saw in them a glance of hatred.
”And you still love Muriel?” she inquired quite calmly, repressing in an instant the secret thoughts which were within her, whatever they might have been.
”I still love her,” I admitted. ”She is my life, my soul.”
She hesitated, undecided whether to proceed. She was wavering. At length, with sudden resolve, she asked--
”And you still have confidence in me?”