I turned at last, and said:
"Have you money?"
"None, monsieur."
I felt my lip curl. It was, then, poverty which had inspired her abject self-surrender--and perhaps, too, fear. No doubt she relied upon my aid to escape Sir Charles Venner"s vengeance.
She read my thought, and murmured very low: "As G.o.d hears me, you are unjust, monsieur!"
"We shall see!" I sneered. "Stop the phaeton!" We had come upon a cab-stand. Beudant transferred me into a fourwheeler, and Marion thereupon commanded him to return to Staines. When he had departed, I gave her my Bruton Street address, and thither, in perfect silence, we proceeded. My gaolers had disdained to rob me, but my pockets contained less than four pounds, and it was necessary to provide immediately against the illness I antic.i.p.ated.
When we had arrived, I explained to her the situation of my room, and bade her bring me down my cash-box, in which reposed my cheque-book and all my bank receipts. The box I knew was locked, but, in order to ensure its privacy, I obliged her to detach my latch-key from the others and give me back the bunch. She obeyed me with a sigh, and in five minutes she placed the cash-box in my hands.
"Where to now, monsieur?" she asked humbly, with downcast eyes.
"To the Colonnade Hotel."
She spoke to the driver and resumed her seat. Upon arriving at our destination, two porters carried me within, and I engaged two adjoining rooms on the third floor, to the larger of which I was carefully transported. To all seeming, I was a wounded man in charge of a nurse, for Marion wore her uniform, and I explained to the clerk that our luggage would presently follow us from the station, where we had left it. We were thus able to circ.u.mvent Mother Grundy"s spirit of conventionality without the necessity of answering a single question.
With Marion"s a.s.sistance I got to bed, where I lay for some time convulsed with agony. As soon as I could, however, I wrote a cheque for 100, which I gave to her for our joint use. My last recollection is of enjoining upon her a course of conduct designed to secure us from the persecution of our enemies, and directing her to purchase certain trunks and clothes so that our want of luggage might not be evilly construed. Before I had finished, however, I had to spur my wits with brandy, and within an hour I was tossing in a high fever, to all intents and purposes a helpless raving lunatic.
IX
"THE ANGLO-AMERICAN HOTELS LIMITED"
I was dying, so they said: two physicians and my nurse--Marion Le Mar.
They informed me, very gravely and gently, and the explicit motive of their confidence was that I might have time to make my peace with heaven, and settle my affairs with men. It was easy to believe them. I was so feeble. When the men of medicine had gone, Marion surprised me by throwing herself down upon her knees beside my bed and bursting into the most pa.s.sionate fit of weeping I have ever witnessed. As I could not calm her, I occupied the time of her abandonment in considering how I might provide best for her future. I thought of a will, but dismissed the idea, because of its publicity. Marion could not afford to advertise her whereabouts to our enemies. I decided at last to withdraw all my money and the jewels from the bank and give them to her while I lived. When, therefore, she grew tranquil, I made her write a letter and a cheque, both of which, with exhausting effort, I contrived to sign. But she resolutely declined to leave me for a moment, so I was compelled to send a waiter on the errand. He was, by good chance, an honest man, and an hour later my bed was strewn with bank-notes and with flashing gems.
But Marion would not take them. She implored me, for my soul"s sake and her satisfaction, to make full restoration to the man I had blackmailed, and so vehemently and persistently did she entreat me that, in very weakness, I at length gave way, only stipulating that she should retain sufficient money to pay the debts my illness had incurred, and to keep her for a little while till she should find employment. While she was packing up the jewels to send to Sir Charles Venner, I fell asleep, and when I awoke I was once more a pauper.
It was very curious. From that instant I grew better, and hour by hour my strength increased. On the evening of the fourth day, thereafter, I arrived, after much reflection, at the conclusion that Marion had prevailed upon the physicians to pretend that I was dying in order to rob me of the jewels. I also believed her story that she had restored them to Sir Charles to be a falsehood, and I entertained no doubt whatever but that she would presently desert and leave me to my fate.
Naturally, I kept these opinions to myself. It was useless to discuss them, and I told myself that such a course would only hasten her departure. I thought her something like a fiend in human form, but she was very beautiful, and I loved her so madly that all I wished for in the world was to retain her by my side as long as possible. With that end in view, I played the hypocrite, and let her think me every simple kind of fool she wished. I derived a bitter-sweet satisfaction from the game, for on her part she pretended to be ardently attached to me. We spent the hours building castles in the air, weaving pretty fancies of love in a cottage, and a long life shared together. She said she had a friend, an old kind-hearted gentleman, whom she could depend upon to find me some employment, as soon as I was perfectly restored to health.
I was then to turn over a new leaf, and live an honest, hard-working life, and she would be my wife, my comforter, my devoted helpmate, to the end. It was a very pretty dream, but the strange and bitter feature of it was that I sighed for it to come true. I was tired of my rascality. My long illness had made a changed man of me, and if I could have believed in Marion"s avowals, I would have been as happy as a king to mend my ways for her sweet sake, and never do a shady thing again.
Once or twice I tried my best to induce her to explain to me the mysteries connected with Sir Charles Venner"s secret society of consumptives which I had been unable to fathom. On that subject, however, she maintained an adamantine reticence, and when I ventured to press her in love"s name, she entreated me in tears to forbear, saying that she was bound by an oath which she could not break. Her art was perfect, for she used to add: "How, dear Agar, could you trust me, if you proved me capable of breaking a solemn oath, sworn to G.o.d?"
I could only have effectually answered her by voicing my convictions of her baseness, and that would have driven her away. On the contrary, I praised her constancy, and received my reward from the exquisitely a.s.sumed love-light in her glorious brown eyes. The drama took another week to play out. By that time I was quite out of danger, and, although still painfully feeble, my physician a.s.sured me that I should soon be able to leave my bed. Marion"s joy at that knew no bounds. She covered me with kisses, and insisted that she should write forthwith to her old friend, to inform him of her whereabouts, and the hopes she reposed in him for our happiness and welfare.
"What is his name, sweetheart?" I asked. I had not troubled to inquire before.
She gave me a bright smile. "I"ll tell you on our wedding-day," she replied. "It is a little surprise that I am keeping for you, dear."
My thought was: "She is, after all, a poor hand at invention!" I felt convinced that she was simply paving the way with her letter for her escape, and when she went out to post it, I cried aloud in my bitterness of spirit--"To-morrow morning there will come a telegram, and she will leave me!"
So it happened! She was seated by my bed, reading me the morning journals, when, of a sudden, a knock sounded on the door, and a waiter entered with a wire upon a salver. "For Nurse Hampton!" he announced.
Such was the name she had a.s.sumed when first we came to the hotel.
Marion started up with a little cry of delight that echoed itself in anguish in my heart. I knew what that envelope contained as well as she. Holding my breath, I watched her with critical intentness. But I had no fault to find. To the very last she maintained her part, playing it like the unimaginably perfect actress that she was. Tearing it open, she read its contents with an expression of happy expectation, which quickly changed before my eyes to fear and pa.s.sionate concern.
"Mon Dieu!" she gasped, and crushing up the paper in her hand, she turned to me. "Agar!" she cried, "he is very ill, dying they say, and he needs me. I must go to him at once!"
I had expected it, expected it for days, and yet, none the less, the blow was stunning when it fell. Indeed, in my experience, it is always the long-prevised calamity which causes most dismay. For a while I could not speak, and turning my head I weakly closed my eyes in an effort to conceal the tears which sprang unbidden there.
But when she stooped and tried to kiss me, her falseness roused a sudden madness in my breast. Flinging her aside, I started upright in the bed, and all my pent-up scorn found vent. Pa.s.sion lent me strength to strip her baseness bare, and no whit did I spare her. "Go, you Jade!" I muttered at the last, for I was failing. "Go! and take with you my curse! It is years since I have breathed a prayer--but now I pray to G.o.d that never may I see your traitoress face again!"
She stood before me, pale as death, her great eyes blazing in her head.
But not one word did she reply, and when I fell exhausted on the pillows, she turned with one long glance, and slowly glided from the room.
Five minutes later, she returned, gowned for the street, but I merely glanced at her, then closed my eyes in icy scorn. In perfect silence she approached the bed and placed some parcel lightly on the cover-lid.
I heard her steps retreat, and presently the door was very softly closed.
Sure that she was gone, I started up in order to investigate her latest act. The parcel contained an account sheet covered with her writing, which showed me that my debts to date approached one hundred pounds.
Within the cover were banknotes for two hundred.
It seemed that my vituperations had stung to life in her some lingering spark of shame. Drearily I congratulated myself, and tried to find comfort in the thought that, at all events, I should not be obliged to recommence my battle with the world entirely penniless. But I was sick at heart, sick and absolutely hopeless.
The next week pa.s.sed and left me more p.r.o.nouncedly improved in health, but desperate in mind; so desperate that I was fit for any villainy.
For still another week I nursed myself, hating to see my little stock of money dwindle, but not daring to begin the struggle without a stock-in-trade of strength.
With that at length acquired, I quitted the hotel and went to Bruton Street, where I resolved to take up my abode until, by dint of luck or craft, I might repair my scattered fortunes.
My first act was to disguise myself as a professional and somewhat portly gentleman. For a model I took the physician who had recently attended me, and as I had closely and frequently remarked his ways, I was able to reproduce him with nice enough fidelity. Having armed myself with a revolver, I employed a cab and drove straightway to Sir Charles Venner"s residence in Harley Street, fiercely determined to settle my account with him at once, for good and all. To my astonishment, however, I found the place in the hands of another surgeon, who curtly informed me that Sir Charles Venner, several weeks ago, had sold his practice, and gone abroad to parts unknown. I drove thence to Dr. Fulton"s house, and a similar story was related there.
Thoroughly enraged, I went to my old master"s place in Curzon Street.
The lackey, who opened the door, seemed much astonished at my question.
"Why, sir," said he, "Lady Farmborough lives here now. Sir William Dagmar sold his lease to her before he went abroad, more than a month ago!"
I turned away in growing despair, beginning at last to perceive that the whole of the secret society must have fled from England as soon as they had heard of my escape from Venner"s hands. But I determined to leave no point of hope untried, and my next visit was to the Kingsmere Hospital for Consumptives. It was shut up, and the walls were plastered over with placards--"To Let." I then successively attacked the houses of the remaining members still unaccounted for, and ere the day was done, I discovered that Mr. Humphreys had set out upon a tour of Asia, and that Mr. Nevil Pardoe had died suddenly upon the morning after my escape from Staines.
My occupation was gone--reft from my hand! As a blackmailer, I might as well incontinently close my shutters, for there was not a soul left in Great Britain upon whom I could levy for either money or revenge, and I had no funds to pursue them on a wild-goose chase abroad.
I felt that the world was going very badly with me when I reached the end of my discoveries, but my cup was not yet full. While waiting for my dinner, at a restaurant in Jermyn Street, I picked up, by chance, the _Daily Chronicle_, to while away the time and rid my mind of its unwelcome thoughts. It was neatly folded in a small square compa.s.s, and as I smoothed it out to turn the page, a poignantly familiar name that was planted in the marriage column caught my eye. A second later, trembling with pa.s.sion, I read the following announcement:--
"Dagmar--Le Mar. On the -- instant, at the bridegroom"s residence, Cairo, by the Rev. Francois Long, S.J., William Dagmar, of Flag Hill Park, Newhaven, fourth baronet, to Marion, only daughter of the late Colonel Comte Hypolite Le Mar, Huitieme Regiment, Cha.s.seurs d"Afrique."
I tore the paper into shreds, and in the act I fatuously thought that I had torn the image of that false fair woman from my heart. At all events, I contrived to eat a very hearty dinner, and before I came to coffee, I had already formed a plan to make myself a millionaire.
I should explain that at the time of which I now write, the historical American financial invasion of Great Britain was in full blast. The billionaire Yankee magnate, J. Stelfox Steele, at the head of his omnivorous trust, had already succeeded in enfolding within his octopus-like tentacles an alarming number of England"s richest commercial industries. Not content with having secured our railways, tramways and shipping, his latest achievement had been to form a "combine" of hotel and brewery proprietaries, with the result that two-thirds of the breweries, and almost every important and fashionable hotel within the confines of the kingdom were conducted under his direction, while the entire liquor traffic was absolutely in his grip.
This prodigious organization Mr. Stelfox Steele had named--"The Anglo-American Hotels Limited," probably in a spirit of derision, for although all the property was English, the major portion of the profits were designed to travel into Yankee pockets. It had scarcely been registered a company before the British public began to regard it with both fear and loathing, for its first and immediate work of consequence had been slightly to raise the price of beer, and at the same time largely to increase the cost of living in hotels. In palace, public-house and thoroughfares, it const.i.tuted the topic of the hour.
The fact is, it affected everyone, the highest and the lowest in the land alike, and very seldom could two men foregather for longer than five minutes without the exciting subject being introduced. As the "combine" had, to some extent, victimised me during my residence at the Colonnade Hotel, I shared in the popular indignation, and during my convalescence I had taken pains to make myself thoroughly acquainted with its construction, policy and aims, and I had carefully digested everything that had been published concerning its promoters. Mr.
Stelfox Steele"s sudden and brilliant appearance in the financial firmament, and his consequent magnificent and uninterruptedly successful career, had, moreover, completely captivated my romantic fancy, and I was quite anxious to hear as much about him as I could.
For that reason I became speedily interested in the conversation of two gentlemen who sat at the adjoining table while I dined.
They were of interesting appearance, certainly; portly, conventional, bald-headed souls, both; typical men of business, in a large way--perhaps stockbrokers; but the matter of their talk was decidedly exciting and suggestive to a person like myself.