Devil's Dice Part 39

She smiled and sadly shook her head, replying:

"No, you did not place it there."

"What!" I cried amazed. "Are you not my wife? Is not that your wedding-ring?"

"No, Stuart," she answered very gravely. "This is my wedding-ring, it's true, but you are not my husband."

"Then you have--you've married someone else!" I gasped, starting up.

But she gripped my wrist, forcing me firmly back into my chair, saying:

"Did you not, a moment ago, promise you would hear me without question?

Have patience, and you shall know everything--everything."

Then, sighing heavily, she pushed the tendrils of fair hair from her white, open brow, while I sank back among the cushions impatient and perplexed.

"Only to-day, a few hours ago, the chains of the thraldom under which I have lived were drawn so tightly around me, galling me to the quick,"

she said, in a low, hurried voice, after sitting a few moments silent and agitated. "Only this morning I saw how hopeless was the effort to elude that thraldom in the smallest degree that my whole being ached in torture, and I hated the world and wished to escape from it; yet the two events for which I have longed through all these dreary, wearying days have now occurred. I am free to speak, and you have come to me with forgiveness on your lips."

I waited expecting her to continue, but she remained silent.

"Speak, why do you pause?" I asked, impatiently I am afraid.

"I paused, Stuart, because I am doubtful as to how you will take what I am about to say."

"As you mean it, be a.s.sured," I answered.

"Then listen, and I will tell you." Again she hesitated, pressing her hand upon her eyes, the while her soft bust heaved with a troublous emotion. Presently, in the same low, faltering voice as before, she said: "You will remember, Stuart, that I fled from you in Luchon with a cold formal note of farewell. On that day, blindly, willingly I took upon myself the burthen of another's sin. Blindly I resigned myself to a fate worse than that of the doomed. Although I loved you fondly, I was forced to bow my head calmly and submit to be branded with a very leprosy of guilt. Because I loved you and permitted your attentions I was to be a painted puppet, to move about with a curse riveted around my life, to move about and even feel that curse fretting and gnawing at my soul, and yet without the power to win a moment's peace save in the grave. There, only there, might I find rest."

"This is terrible," I cried. "Surely you deceive yourself. There is no power on earth that could have held you thus."

"Ah! yes. The chain was there--there, clasped around my heart, crushing out every gleam of hope. I was lighthearted and heedless; I could not see the life of torture to which I was yielding myself, so innocently I fell into the trap my enemies had cunningly baited, that ere I realised the truth the bonds were irrevocably welded around my life. At first they sat lightly upon me, and I scarcely felt them; but slowly I became conscious that there hung a deep shadow upon my every step; slowly I became conscious that my every act and word must be in unison with the thraldom under which I moved. At last I knew that I had pa.s.sed beyond your ken; I knew that I must renounce all thought of you, and I became cold and, I sometimes think, callous. But I prayed, I begged of Heaven that I might lose the feelings of a woman since I had lost her privileges."

She spoke in a hot, dry feverish tone--a tone that I would not have recognised as that of the low, musical voice of my love. Dora, rising from her seat, stood near her, gazing in wonder at her friend from whose agony these revelations were wrung.

"When I met you, Stuart, I was giddy and thoughtless," she went on, feverishly. "Towards you my whole soul yearned. Heart, soul and life were all yours; for I loved, I loved! But, alas! our supreme happiness was not for long. In fear of my liberty, I was compelled to fly from you and allow you to believe I had forgotten. Thus in the first moment almost, when a sweet vision of joy flashed upon me, the door of my dungeon was closed, the chains were clasped tightly around my soul, and I was wrenched back from happiness."

Low tremulous sobs interrupted each word, and every moment it seemed as if she were about to lose control over herself.

"Those who needed me knew well when they might best use me to their advantage. They had seen me waver in my allegiance under the influence of that mad love for you, and they dreaded lest some accident should make me betray their trust. I had entered the closet of their secret, and once in, they were resolved that there should be no loophole for my escape. But I must begin at the beginning, and tell you who and what I am. First, the name I gave you was not a.s.sumed, as you must have believed. I am Sybil Henniker, a French subject, born in Paris of a French father and an English mother. My father, a wealthy Deputy, was killed while hunting, and my mother shortly afterwards married an Englishman, but she, too, died within a year, leaving the whole of her fortune to my sister Ethel, who was a year my senior. Another Englishman, a crafty, sycophantic lickspittle of my stepfather, married her, having made a secret compact, by which the two men shared the estate. At that time we were living in Paris, and there came to our house Gilbert Sternroyd, a rich young Englishman of Socialistic tendencies. He had become imbued with Anarchist ideas, and soon developed into an ardent disciple of Ravachol. His theories he expounded to me almost daily, until at length I joined their brotherhood and furnished small sums of money when required. Ah! you will condemn me, I know. It was, I admit, foolish, but remember I did not dream that they would use my money in their attempts to take the lives of innocent persons by means of bombs. It was represented to me that money was required to diffuse Anarchist literature. With secret murder I had no sympathy, I swear. I was in Luchon with my stepfather when he was suddenly recalled to Paris; then I met you and we spent some happy days together, until--until a telegram in cipher reached me one night and the blow that I feared fell--a warrant was out for my arrest. There had been on the previous afternoon a terrible Anarchist outrage at the Chamber of Deputies, and the police, in make some domiciliary visits to suspected Anarchists, had discovered one of my letters which was undoubtedly incriminating. I scribbled you a hasty line of farewell, packed my trunk and left by the first train in the morning, travelling first to Bayonne, then to Madrid and Seville, whence some weeks later I went to London. I thought to escape by getting to England, and intended to at once write to you, but in London I found my brother-in-law and stepfather awaiting me. Then, for the first time, I realised the truth.

I had been caught in the net they had so cunningly prepared!"

Again there was silence, broken only by her sobs. I saw only Sybil before me, with all the old love warm upon her pale tear-stained face.

I saw her struggle with the secret that held her aloof from me. I witnessed the struggle and knew its meaning. I knew that she was suffering even as I suffered.

There was another pang thrust into my heart in knowing of her torture.

"My stepfather and his unctuous confederate, cowards that they were, claimed my help, claimed it in the name of all that had been done for me in effecting my escape, and--and I could not deny them." As she spoke she clung tremblingly to Dora, as if fearful of her own words. There was a bewildered expression in her eyes as her gaze was fixed beyond me, staring blankly through the open window.

"Well," I questioned softly, "why did you not follow the true impulse of your heart?"

She started, her eyes glistening, her whole frame convulsed, as she answered wildly:

"I was hunted by the Paris police as a dangerous Anarchist, and they would have sent me to New Caledonia to work among criminals for the remainder of my life. The two knaves under whose thrall I had fallen knew this, but they had a deeper game to play. It was part of their scheme to entrap me thus, and then coerce me into a.s.sisting them. They took me to that dismal, neglected house in Gloucester Square that had belonged to my mother, and there unfolded plans that for perfidious ingenuity were a.s.suredly unequalled. First, they impressed upon me the impossibility of eluding the police for any length of time, and I was compelled to admit that I feared arrest. Then they explained their infamous scheme, well-knowing that my offence made it imperative for me to obediently a.s.sist them in their shameful fraud and preserve a silence begotten of fear. My sister Ethel, who was almost the image of myself, was mortally ill, dying slowly, poor girl! of consumption, and knew little of what was transpiring. The miscreant pair, however, knew that when she died the revenue from the vast estates in Savoy would pa.s.s back to some relatives of my mother in France; therefore they resolved at all hazards to continue to divide the money, and had formed an ingenious plan to that end. Briefly, they had told me that I must die instead of Ethel."

"Die?" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"To the world," she went on quickly. "My stepfather told me that on Ethel's death I must pose as the wife of his friend, that I must preserve their secret at all costs, at least for a year or eighteen months, until they could devise some other plan to preserve the fortune to themselves. On their part they promised, on their oaths, to free me and allow me to again seek you. At first I refused with indignation to be party to such an imposition, but they convinced me that the police were already at my heels, and in return for rendering them this service promised to secure me immunity from arrest. My stepfather was powerful, with many influential friends in Paris, and I believed he could do this if he chose. They did not tell me the means they intended to employ to secure this end, but urged me to consent. For a long time I held out, but they pictured to me on the one hand arrest and transportation to a Pacific island, with common murderesses and the sc.u.m of Paris; on the other, my return to you after eighteen months, marriage and happiness.

So at last--at last I agreed to the compact--I allowed them to fasten the bonds upon me and draw me under their terrible thraldom," and she bent forward sobbing bitterly, while Dora, kneeling quickly at her side, threw her arms around her, endeavouring to console her.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE SECRET.

Presently she resumed in a sad voice full of emotion, lifting her face to mine, saying: "I did not dream, Stuart, of the trickery to which they resorted in order to change my personality and secure me from falling into the dragnet of the police, but my lips were already sealed when I afterwards learnt how my stepfather exerted his influence, and obtained a special licence from the Archbishop to allow your marriage to take place in that weird old house in Gloucester Square, how you were conducted there, and how you and the police were imposed upon by the body of my unfortunate sister being pa.s.sed off as that of myself. It was not until weeks after that eventful night, when by bribery and influence the pair had buried my ident.i.ty, that I learned the truth.

Then, unable to come to you, fearing even to make my existence known, I could only watch and wait."

"But why did they marry me in that manner?" I asked, amazed at her remarkable story.

"There were reasons," she answered. "The police had tracked me, and it was imperative for the success of their scheme that I should remain free. Again, although Ethel was dying it was uncertain what time would elapse ere the spark of life would flicker and die out. They therefore resolved, in order that failure should be rendered impossible, upon effecting a master-stroke by marrying Ethel in my name, because by marriage with you I should change my nationality, and as a British subject it would be impossible to arrest me for a political offence committed in France. This they did, with the result you are already aware, but further, my poor sister expired during the ceremony; thus the police, in bursting in, were doubly baffled. Afterwards, they caused her to be buried as your wife, and upon the grave actually placed a wreath bearing your card, with an inscription purporting to have been written by you. Upon the back of that card I also wrote a message, urging you to prosecute inquiries, hoping that it would fall into your hands."

"It did," I said. "I found it, and your words have ever since been uppermost in my mind."

"It was part of the compact that, posing as the wife of my dead sister's husband, I should remain here and not visit London. As this man's wife I was compelled to revive some of my late mother's relatives, whom I had never before seen. These were the rightful owners of her wealth now that Ethel was no more, but to them I was forced to keep up the wretched deception that I was Ethel, and they, never having seen her since a child, returned to France with any suspicions they had entertained entirely allayed. I remained here alone with my maid Ashcombe as sole companion, and with the cold mask of honesty and indifference upon my face, thinking always of you. If they would only have let me tell you that I was innocent of that cruel deception, only let me show you that I was not the base adventuress you must have imagined, I think--I think I could have borne the rest. When I could not bear it any longer I prayed to them to let me see you, I prayed for one little grain of pity.

Circ.u.mstances, however, seemed to conspire to thwart their plans, for a person whom they feared threatened to denounce them. Therefore they became desperate and would show me no mercy. At this time, too, I made the astounding discovery that my stepfather had married again unknown to me, two years before, a vain haughty girl young enough to be his daughter. He had kept this fact from me because he knew I had been acquainted with her in my girlhood days, and feared I might reveal his villainy. When I heard of this I wrote to Captain Bethune, who had been a mutual friend, and from him learned facts about yourself and her. I heard of your anxiety, of your futile search after the truth, and of your continual inquiry to fathom the mystery of my life. But our enemies had taken every precaution to prevent your discovering anything, and by threatening to give me up to the police they kept me still enthralled and silent. They, however, saw that the one man who had, by some unknown means, discovered their chicanery, might sooner or later expose the fraud; therefore, they grew reckless, and on one occasion my stepfather threatened my life if I gave you a single sign of my existence. It was after that, that I discovered the crime."

"The crime!" I cried. "What crime?"

"I had but one friend, Captain Bethune," she said in the same low, faltering tones, "and after this threat I went to his chambers late one night to seek his counsel and aid. I wanted to give you a sign that I still lived, but I was held powerless by fear of the terrible vengeance they threatened. I--I found him at home with two other men in his company--one was my stepfather, the other Gilbert Sternroyd. There was no quarrel, no word of anger, but I was witness to the terrible crime.

Gilbert, happy and unsuspecting, was shot dead by a coward's hand--he--"

"You actually saw the shot fired?" I cried, starting up quickly. "Then you also saw the murderer? Speak! name him! Let me know the truth."

"The man who shot Gilbert Sternroyd," she said in a hard, firm voice, "the man who drew a revolver secretly from his pocket and fired full upon him as he stepped from the room, was my stepfather! I gripped his arm, but too late. Gilbert fell, and the coward fled."

"His name?" I demanded.

"He is known to you," she replied, slowly twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, and with a manner of subdued, fierce vengefulness she laughed a little hard laugh; but it was more significant of inward agony than any words could have been. "He is known to you, to the world, as the Earl of Fyneshade!"

"Fyneshade!" I gasped dumbfounded. "And he is your stepfather?"

"Yes," she answered. "Seek him, and give him into the hands of the police, for he is the a.s.sa.s.sin."

"But the motive?" I cried. "What was it?"

"Twofold. Sternroyd had obtained knowledge of the fraud perpetrated by subst.i.tuting my personality for Ethel's, and came to me declaring his intention of exposing it. Besides this he was an ardent admirer of Mabel, my stepfather's young wife, and although she gave him no encouragement he was infatuated, and had made a will leaving his immense wealth to her. Fyneshade knew this, and saw that by getting rid of him he would preserve his guilty secret, and at the same time enrich his wife and consequently himself. He suggested this to my pseudo-husband, Francis Markwick, who--"

"Markwick!" I gasped. "Was it that scoundrel who a.s.sisted in the fraud and posed as your husband?"