"Why should I fear your play-acting? You will not touch me, for so long as I live you hope to get money from me, and if I were dead you would starve."
"Miserable hound! Do you not think that hate is stronger even than love of gold?"
"Not your hate. Throw that useless toy away. Love of gold and love of self make us both perfectly safe."
"Listen to my terms."
"No; they are refused before you ask them. The law is in motion--nothing shall prevent me from getting my divorce."
"That you may marry this woman!" she blazed forth, jumping from her seat, with Lettice"s book in her hand. It had been lying before her, and the name had caught her eye. "You shall never marry her--I swear it by my father"s grave. You shall never divorce me!"
She flung the book in his face.
"Let me pa.s.s!" he said, moving quietly to the door.
"Never!"
She seized the dagger, and stood before him, swaying with her violent emotion.
"Let me pa.s.s," he said again, still pressing forward.
She raised the weapon in her hand. Not a moment too soon he grasped her wrist, and tried to take it from her with his other hand.
There was a struggle--a loud scream--a heavy fall--and silence.
A minute later Mrs. Gorman, attracted by the noise, burst into the room.
Cora was lying on the floor, and Alan, with white face and b.l.o.o.d.y hand, was drawing the fatal weapon from her breast.
Mrs. Gorman"s first act was to rush to the open window, and call for the police. Then she knelt by Cora"s body, and tried to staunch the flowing blood.
A lodger from the floor beneath, who had come in behind the landlady, was looking at the prostrate body. He was a medical student, and perhaps thought it necessary to give his opinion in a case of this sort.
"She cannot live ten minutes," he said; but that did not prevent him from a.s.sisting Mrs. Gorman in her work.
Alan had staggered back against the wall, still holding the dagger in his hand. He scarcely knew what had happened, but the words of the last speaker forced themselves upon him with terrible distinctness.
"My G.o.d," he cried, "am I a murderer?"
And he fell upon the chair, and buried his face in his hands.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOPELESS.
"If she dies," Graham said to his wife, in answer to Clara"s anxious questioning, on the morning after Alan Walcott"s arrest, "it will be a case of murder or manslaughter. If she gets over it he will be charged with an attempt to murder, or to do grievous bodily harm, and as there would be her evidence to be considered in that case the jury would be sure to take the worst view of it. That might mean five or ten years, perhaps more. The best thing that could happen for him would be her death, then they might incline to believe his statement, and a clever counsel might get him off with a few months" imprisonment."
"Poor man," said Clara, "how very shocking it is!" She was thinking not of Alan alone, but of Alan"s friends. "Is there no hope of his being acquitted altogether?"
"How could there be? The evidence is only too clear. The landlady heard them quarrelling and struggling together, then there was a loud scream, and just as she entered the room the poor wretch was falling to the ground. Walcott had his hand on the dagger, which was still in his wife"s breast. Then the other lodger came in, and he declares that he heard Walcott say he was a murderer. It seems as plain as it could possibly be."
"But think of the two, as we know them to have been, and the relations which have existed between them for years past. Surely that must tell in his favor?"
"We are not the jury, remember. And, as for that, it would only go to show a motive for the crime, and make a conviction all the more certain.
No doubt it might induce them to call it manslaughter instead of murder, and the judge might pa.s.s a lighter sentence."
"I do hope she will not die. It would be terrible to have her death on his conscience."
"Well, of course, death is an ugly word, and no one has a right to wish that another might die. At the same time, I should say it would be a happy release for such a creature, who can have nothing but misery before her. But it will make little difference to him. He is entirely ruined, so far as his reputation is concerned. He could never hold his ground in England again, though he might have a second chance at the other side of the world. What Britain can"t forget, Australia forgives.
Heaven created the Antipodes to restore the moral balance of Europe."
"That is a poor satisfaction," said Clara, "to a man who does not want to live out of his own country."
"Unfortunately, my dear, we cannot always choose our lot, especially when we have had the misfortune to kill or maim somebody in a fit of pa.s.sion."
"I cannot believe that it is even so bad as that. It must have been an accident."
"I wish I could think so; but if it is, no doubt the man may have the courage of his conscience, and then there will be nothing to prevent him from trying to live it down in London. I should not care for that sort of thing myself. I confess I depend too much on other people"s opinions."
"It would be a terrible fight to live it down in London--terrible, both for him and his friends."
"Ah," said Graham, quickly, "it is a good thing that he has n.o.body in particular depending on him, no specially intimate friends that we are aware of."
Clara looked steadily at the wall for two or three minutes, whilst her husband finished his breakfast.
"I wrote to Lettice last night," she said at last, "but, of course, I knew nothing of this business then."
"I am very glad you did not. What on earth put Lettice into your head?
She has no conceivable interest in this miserable affair."
"I think it is rather too much to say that she has no interest at all.
We know that she was interested in him."
"We know that he is a married man."
Graham"s tone was growing a little savage, as it did sometimes, especially with his wife, whom he very sincerely loved. But Clara did not heed the warning note.
"Facts are facts, and we should not ignore them. I am sure they like each other, and his misfortune will be a great grief to her."
"It was just what was wanted, then, to bring her to her senses. She may recognize now that Walcott is a man of ungovernable pa.s.sions. In all probability he will be a convicted felon before she comes back to England, and she will see that it is impossible to know any more of him."
"Oh, James, how hard you are! She will never think of him as a felon. No more shall I!"
"He will be one, whatever you may think. As you said yourself, facts are facts, and they will have their proper influence upon you sooner or later."