The Master Mummer Part 9

She shook her head.

"I do not remember being taken there at all," she answered. "I think that I was not more than four or five years old."

"And all the time no one else has been to see you or written to you?" I asked.

"No one!"

She smothered a little sob as she answered me. It was as though my questions and Mabane's, although I had asked them gently enough, had suddenly brought home to her a fuller sense of her complete loneliness.

Her eyes were full of tears. She held herself proudly, and she fought hard for her self-control. Arthur glanced indignantly at both of us. He had the wit, however, to remain silent.

"There are just one or two more questions, Isobel," I said, "which I must ask you some time or other."

"Now, please, then," she begged.

"Did Major Delahaye ever mention his wife to you?"

"Never."

"You did not even know, then, when you arrived in London where he was taking you?"

"I knew nothing," she admitted. "He behaved very strangely, and I was miserable every moment of the time I was with him. I understood that I was to have a companion and live in London."

I felt my blood run cold for a moment. I did not dare to look at Mabane.

"I do not think," I said, "that you need fear anything more from Major Delahaye, even if he should recover."

"You mean--?" she cried breathlessly.

"We should never give you up to him," I declared firmly.

"Thank G.o.d!" she murmured. "Mr. Arnold," she added, looking at me eagerly, "I can paint and sing and play the piano. Can't people earn money sometimes by doing these things? I would work--oh, I am not afraid to work. Couldn't I stay here for a little while?"

"Of course you can," I a.s.sured her. "And there is no need at all for you to think about earning money yet. It is not that which troubles us at all. It is the fact that we have no legal claim upon you, and people may come forward at any moment who have."

Arthur glanced towards her triumphantly.

"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed.

She looked timidly across at Mabane.

"The other gentleman won't mind?" she asked timidly.

Mabane smiled at her, and his smile was a revelation even to us who knew him so well.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you will be more than welcome. I have just been telling Arnold that your coming will make the world a different place for us."

The girl's smile was illumining. It seemed to include us all. She held out both her hands. Mabane seized one and bent over it with the air of a courtier. The other was offered to me. Arthur was content to beam upon us all from the background. At that precise moment came a tap at the door. Mrs. Burdett brought in a telegram.

I tore it open, and hastily reading it, pa.s.sed it on to Mabane. He hesitated for a moment, and then turned gravely to Isobel.

"Major Delahaye will not trouble you any more," he said. "He died in the hospital an hour ago."

CHAPTER VIII

"A shade more to the right, please. There, just as you are now! Don't move! In five minutes I shall have finished for the day."

Isobel smiled.

"I think that your five minutes," she said, "last sometimes for a very long time. But I am not tired--no, not at all. I can stay like this if you wish until the light goes."

"You are splendid," Mabane murmured. "The best sitter--oh, hang it, who's that?"

"There is certainly some one at the door," Isobel remarked.

Mabane paused in his work to shout fiercely, "Come in!" I too looked up from my writing. A woman was ushered into the room--a woman dressed in fashionable mourning, of medium height, and with a wealth of fair, fluffy hair, which seemed to mock the restraining black bands. Mrs.

Burdett, visibly impressed, lingered in the background.

The woman paused and looked around. She looked at me, and the pen slipped from my nerveless fingers. I rose to my feet.

"Eil--Lady Delahaye!" I exclaimed.

She inclined her head. Her demeanour was cold, almost belligerent.

"I am glad to find you here, Arnold Greatson," she said. "You are a friend, I believe, of the man who murdered my husband?"

"You have been misinformed, Lady Delahaye," I answered quietly. "I was not even an acquaintance of his. We met that day for the first time."

By the faintest possible curl of the lips she expressed her contemptuous disbelief.

"Ah!" she said. "I remember your story at the inquest. You will forgive me if, in company, I believe, with the majority who heard it, I find it a trifle improbable."

I looked at her gravely. This was the woman with whom I had once believed myself in love, the woman who had jilted me to marry a man of whom even his friends found it hard to speak well.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "my story may have sounded strangely, but it was true. I presume that you did not come here solely with the purpose of expressing your amiable opinion of my veracity?"

"You are quite right," she admitted drily. "I did not."

She was silent for a few moments. Her eyes were fixed upon Isobel, and I did not like their expression.

"May I offer you a chair, Lady Delahaye?" I asked.

"Thank you, I prefer to stand--here," she answered. "This, I believe, is the young person who was with my husband?"

She extended a sombrely gloved forefinger towards Isobel, who met her gaze unflinchingly.