Part 43 (1/2)
”But what caused you to so suddenly abandon Hibbert and return to me?”
I asked, recollecting my curious compact with Aline.
”A discovery which I made--a revelation which, by Aline's instigation, was made to me,” she answered. ”I know full well how she bought your silence by promising that I should return to you. I came, and you believed, because of that, she was possessed of power supernatural. It is the object of every wors.h.i.+pper of Satan to cause the outside world to believe that he or she is endowed with a miraculous power by the Evil One, hence the manner in which ashes are subst.i.tuted for the holy objects stolen. Aline, like myself, was compelled by the oath she had taken to impose upon you, upon Roddy Morgan, upon her lover, nay, upon every one about her, until they believed her endowed with power not possessed by any other living being.”
”Yes,” Aline interrupted, ”what Muriel tells you is the truth. At my will this man Hibbert forsook her, and she returned to you because she was no longer jealous of me. And you believed that I committed the crime!” she said reproachfully. ”You suspected that I killed the man who had been so kind to me.”
”I certainly did believe so. All the evidence seemed to point to the fact that Roddy was killed by some secret means, and that the person who visited him was yourself. I found the b.u.t.ton of one of your gloves there.”
Slowly she rose to her feet, and seeing how grave was her lover's face she turned again to me, saying, in a tremulous voice--
”Yes, I know, it is useless for me to now conceal the truth. On leaving you that morning I went there and saw him. He opened the door himself, and I remained about a quarter of an hour. We had not met since I had seen him carried out of the rooms at Monte Carlo, and the reason of my visit was to ascertain whether what you alleged, namely, that he was still alive, was true. I fully expected to find that this man who was pa.s.sing as Roddy Morgan was an impostor, but discovered that he was no doubt the same person with whom I had been acquainted at Monte Carlo.
My aunt, with whom I was on the Riviera, liked him very much, and I confess that only by his attempted suicide was a match between us prevented. In that brief s.p.a.ce, while I remained there, he again told me that he loved me, but I explained that I had now formed another attachment, a statement which threw him into a fit of deep despondency.
His man was out, therefore he went himself into an adjoining room to get me a gla.s.s of wine, and while he was absent I stole a rosary from a casket, depositing ashes in its place. Then I drank the wine, and left him, promising to call soon, but giving him plainly to understand that although we might be friends, we could never again be lovers.”
”And then?” I asked gravely.
”Ah! I have no knowledge of what occurred after that,” she said. ”I have endeavoured to fathom the mystery, but have failed. That poor Roddy was murdered is absolutely certain.”
”You refused his love because of your affection for me, Aline!” Jack exclaimed, in a low, broken voice, for this discovery that she wors.h.i.+pped the power which he held in greatest hatred had utterly crushed and appalled him. Truly he had spoken the truth on that night in Duddington when he had told me that the Devil had sent her into his life to arrest the good deeds he was endeavouring to perform.
”Yes,” she answered, looking up into his dark, grave face with eyes fall of tears. ”You know, Jack, that I have ever been true to you. I have been forced to act like this; compelled to commit a profanity which has horrified me, and made to exercise the ingenious trickery which was born of the fertile resources of this man beneath whose thrall I have been held.”
”It's a lie!” cried the hideous fellow who personified the Evil One.
His very appearance caused us to shudder. ”You are one of us--our priestess. Was it not you, yourself, who suggested to our brothers the Sacrifice of the Cat?”
”Yes,” cried half a dozen voices, ”it was Aline who suggested it.”
”At your instigation,” she answered boldly. ”You first broached the subject and then induced me to suggest it. I've been your catspaw from the very moment we first met at Montgeron, and you took me to the Temple of Satan at Pa.s.sy. From that day I have known not a moment's peace; the spirit of Satan has entered my soul, and I've existed in an awful torment of mind, like that prepared for the wicked.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
CONCLUSION.
The faces of that excited group seemed as demoniacal as the power they had wors.h.i.+pped, and about me I heard ominous words--words which caused me to grip my weapon resolutely. My arm was still around Muriel's waist, for I saw that another attempt would probably be made upon her, so incensed were they that she should have betrayed them. The cult of Satan wors.h.i.+ps in secret, hiding their infamous rites in underground temples--as well they may--and the votaries of the Evil One are under oath not to divulge the whereabouts of the Devil's dwelling-place or the character of their blasphemies and outrages, on penalty of death. Truly this religion of darkness, springing as it has done from the drawing-rooms of debased Paris, is a terrible and awful spectacle in our present enlightened age.
I glanced around. The doors were closed, and there were only two of us armed, while the daggers used for the piercing of the sacred element were gleaming in several hands. They now numbered nearly a dozen to each of us, and I knew that if we had to defend the two women we loved we should be compelled to fight desperately.
”Forgive me!” implored Aline, looking into her lover's face. ”I swear that I have always loved you, and that I have been what you believed me to be, an honest woman. Tell me,” she cried, falling again upon her knees before him. ”Tell me, Jack, that you will forgive me, now that you know all.”
”I do not know all,” he answered, in a hard voice. ”You confess to having visited Morgan immediately before his death.”
”But I did not commit the crime!” she said wildly. ”I am innocent-- innocent!”
Some jeering laughter greeted this terribly earnest protest. Those around, mostly better-cla.s.s people, judging from their dress and speech, now took a keen delight in her disgrace and grief.
”He was her lover, and she killed him when she knew that he had not died at Monte Carlo!” somebody exclaimed. ”She wanted to marry the parson.”
”It's untrue. I swear it is!” she cried. ”We had flirted at Monte Carlo, but I had no thought beyond his friends.h.i.+p. When I left him on that fatal morning we parted the best of friends. Not until next day did I know of his strange death, then reported in the papers.”
At the moment Muriel, who had remained silent and motionless, as if listening intently, suddenly disengaged herself from my embrace, and walking boldly forward, exclaimed in a loud, firm voice--