"I thought I should find you here," Cora went on, "waiting at the prison for your lover! But I am waiting for him, too. I am his wife still. I have the right to wait for him, and you have not. And if you are there when he comes out, I shall stay my hand no longer. I warn you; so be prepared. But perhaps"--and she lifted the bottle, while her eyes flamed with dangerous light, and her voice sank to a sharp whisper--"perhaps it would be better to settle the question now!"
"The question," said Lettice, with almost unnatural calm of manner, "is settled for us. Alan has left his prison. Your husband is dead."
The woman gazed at her in stupefaction. Her hand fell to her side, and the light died out of her bold black eyes.
"Alan dead!" What is it you say? How do you know?"
"He had a fever in the jail to which you sent him. He has been at death"s door for many weeks. Not an hour ago a warder came here and said that he was dead. Are you satisfied with your work?"
"My work?" said Cora, drawing back. "I have not killed him!"
"Yes," said Lettice, a surge of bitter anger rising in her heart, "yes, you have killed him, as surely as you tried to kill him with your pistol at Aix-les-Bains, and with his own dagger in Surrey Street. You are a murderess, and you know it well. But for you, Alan Walcott would still be living an honorable, happy life. You have stabbed him to the heart, and he is dead. That is the message I have to give you--to tell you that you have killed him, and that he is gone to a land where your unnatural hate can no longer follow him!"
Lettice stood over the cowering woman, strong and unpitying in her stern indignation, lifted out of all thought of herself by the intensity of her woe. Cora shrank away from her, slipping the bottle into her pocket, and even covertly making the sign of the cross as Lettice"s last words fell upon her ear--words that sounded to her untutored imagination like a curse. But she could not be subdued for long. She stood silent for a few moments when Lettice ceased to speak, but finally a forced laugh issued from the lips that had grown pale beneath her paint.
"Tiens!" she said. "You will do the mourning for us both, it seems.
Well, as I never loved him, you cannot expect me to cry at his death.
And I shall get his money, I suppose; the money that he grudged me in his lifetime: it will be mine now, and I can spend it as I choose. I thank you for your information, mademoiselle, and I pardon you the insults which you have heaped upon my head to-night. If I have my regrets, I do not exhibit them in your fashion. Good-night, mademoiselle: il me faut absolument de l"eau de vie--I can wait for it no longer. Bon soir!"
She turned and left the house as rapidly as she had come. Lettice sank down upon a couch, and hid her face in the cushion. She could not shed a tear, but she was trembling from head to foot, and felt sick and faint.
As Cora sauntered along the pavement, turning her head restlessly from side to side, her attention was caught by a young woman carrying a child, who went in at Lettice"s door. Mrs. Walcott stopped short, and put her finger to her forehead with a bewildered air. "Now where have I seen that face?" she muttered to herself.
After a moment"s reflection, she burst into a short, harsh laugh, and snapped her fingers at the blind of Lettice"s room. "I know now," she said. "Oh yes, I know where I have seen that face before. This will justify me in the eyes of the world as nothing else has done. Bon soir, Madame Lettice. Oh, I have a new weapon against you now."
And then she went upon her way, leaving behind her the echo of her wicked laugh upon the still night air.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
A BRAVE PURPOSE.
If Lettice had not seen Cora when she did, she would probably have gone to the prison that evening, to ask whether she could not arrange for Alan"s funeral, as she could not arrange for his release. Her spirit was crushed by the blow which had fallen on her, but she could not give way so long as his body was there to receive the last token of her love.
When the Frenchwoman left her it was too late to see Captain Haynes, even if she had been physically able to make the attempt.
It never occurred to her to think that any mistake could have been made in the information she had received from her landlady. The struggle which had been going on in her mind, the consciousness that she had broken with all her old friends, the exaltation which had possessed her since she resolved to give to Alan all that was possible for her to give, or seemed to be worth her giving, the death of his aunt and the thought of his loneliness, had combined to make her nervously apprehensive. As soon as she had settled down under the shadow of the prison walls, the idea took hold of her with unaccountable force that the life of Alan was hanging by a thread, and the news of his death came to her only as the full confirmation of her fears.
But, as it happened, there was another man in the prison named Walters, who had been convicted of an a.s.sault upon his wife some time previously, and had been ill for many months of an internal complaint which was certain, sooner or later, to end fatally.
A sleepless night brought Lettice no ray of hope, and it was with a heavy and despairing heart that she went to the governor"s residence next morning, and sent up to him the note which she had written before leaving her room.
Captain Haynes remembered her former visit, and being disengaged at the moment, he came down at once.
"My dear lady," he said, bustling into the room, "what is the meaning of this letter? What makes you talk of burying your friend? He has been in this tomb of stone long enough to purge him of all his offenses, and I am sure you don"t want to bury him alive again!"
Lettice started to her feet, gazed at the speaker with straining eyes, and pressed her hands upon her tumultuous heart.
"Is--he--alive?" she gasped, in scarcely audible words.
"Of course he is alive! I told you when you were here before that he was out of danger. All he wants now is careful nursing and cheerful company; and I must say that you don"t quite look as if you could give him either."
"Alive--alive! Thank G.o.d!"
A great wave of tenderness swept through her heart, and gushed from her eyes in tears that were eloquent of happiness.
"I was told that he was dead!" She looked at the governor with a smile which disarmed his bluff tongue.
"I am on the borderland of a romance," he thought, "and a romance of which the ending will be pleasanter than the beginning, unless I am much mistaken. This is not the wife; it is the woman he was writing his verses to before he took the fever. The doctor says she has written the best novel of the year. Novels and poetry--umph! not much in my line."
Then aloud, "you are under a mistake. A man named Walters died yesterday; perhaps that is how you have been misled. Some rumor of his death must have got abroad. Mr. Walcott is getting over his illness very nicely; but he will need a good rest, good food, and as much cheerfulness as you can give him. I told him, just now, that you had arranged to meet him to-morrow, and I fancy it roused him more than anything Dr. Savill has done for him. I must wish you good-morning, madam!--but let me impress upon you again, before you go, that he is to be kept perfectly quiet, free from anxiety, and as cheerful as you can manage to make him."
Captain Haynes was rather ashamed of the laxity into which Miss Campion had drawn him. He was not accustomed to display so much sympathy with his prisoners, whatever he may have felt in his own mind. But, to be sure, the case was quite exceptional. He did not have prisoners like Alan or visitors like Lettice every day. So he had no difficulty in finding excuses for himself.
Lettice walked on air as she came out of the precincts of the jail, which had now lost all its terrors. In less than twenty-four hours she was to come again, and transport her hero--whom the dense and cruel world had branded as a criminal--from slavery to freedom, from misery to peace and joy. The world had cast him out; well, then, let the world stand aside, that she might give this man what was his due.
What would she say to him? Ah, she dare not think of that beforehand!
What would she do for him? For one thing, she would give him back his self-respect. He had been the object of scorn and the victim of lying scandals. He should find that the woman he loved intended from henceforth to take those paltry burdens on herself, and to know no other praise or merit than that which came to her from him.
He had borne troubles and suffered injuries which before now had driven men to suicide, or madness, or self-abandonment. In order to save him from any of these things she meant to give herself into his hands, without terms or conditions, in order that the wrong-doing of the world might be righted by her act, were it ever so little.
Who could call that a sacrifice which made her heart so light, her step so elastic, her eyes so bright with hope and satisfaction? It was no sacrifice, but a triumph and reward of the highest kind that she was preparing for herself. How should she not be happy?
There was no time to be lost if she was to provide all that was necessary for the well-being and comfort of her patient before to-morrow morning. Everything had to be done at the last moment. She had been so long in coming to a definite and final resolution to treat this friendless discharged prisoner as a hero and a king, that it was almost too late to make arrangements. Why had she not done yesterday something of what she had left to be done to-day? She scarcely realized to herself that her mind was only just made up. That facile belief in the report of Alan"s death was only the outcome of her distress and perplexity--of the failure of her courage on the threshold of decision and action.
With a cold shudder she thought of the dust which she had unwittingly thrown in Cora"s eyes. She had told her that her husband was dead, and the tale had been readily believed, for the very opposite reason to that which had prevailed with herself. She had been convinced by her fears--Cora by her hopes and greed. And now she could not undeceive the woman, for she did not know where to find her. Would she if she could?
Perhaps it was the the best thing which could have happened; for it would be terrible if Alan were to step out of his prison back into the h.e.l.l on earth which that woman had created for him.
Well, now, at any rate, she must devote herself to the task which she had undertaken. She felt as a sister might feel who had been suddenly commissioned to provide a home within twenty-four hours for an invalided traveler; and she set about the work with enthusiasm.
She began by taking Milly in some measure into her confidence, and giving her a number of directions as to what she was to do in the course of the day. Then she hired a cab, and went to a house-agent whose name she remembered. That seemed the quickest way of getting what she wanted--a small furnished house, cheerful and yet retired, which she could take at any rate for a month, and for longer if she needed it. The agent by good chance had the very thing she asked for. He turned over the leaves of his register, and presently came upon a desirable bijou residence, plainly but adequately furnished, containing three reception rooms and five bedrooms, conservatory, with large and well-stocked garden, lawn and shrubbery, coach-house and stable. Vacant for three months; very moderate terms to a suitable tenant. That sounded well.
The "very moderate terms" came to something more than Lettice wanted to give; but she had a hundred pounds in her pocket, and a spirit which disdained to grudge in such a service.
So, having journeyed to Chiswick, and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month"s rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, who had expected this demand, and was prepared for it, gave the name of James Graham. She ought not to have made use of him without asking him beforehand. She might have referred to the owner of Maple Cottage, where she had lived when last in London, or even to her publisher. But she wanted to go and see her old friend Clara; and, woman-like, did a more important thing to serve as a pretext for a less important.
Clara Graham was delighted to see her again, and the two women had a long and confidential talk.
"I, at any rate," said Clara, "have never doubted his innocence, and I was sure that you would not."
"Yet you never told me what troubles had fallen upon him!"
"My dear, I thought you must have heard about it all. But the fact was that James asked me not to mention the trial. Remember, you were not well at the time; and it was a difficult case. I could not quite a.s.sume that your interest would be strong enough to justify me in risking the loss of your health--perhaps of your life. Really, it is a hard question to deal with--like one of those cases of conscience (didn"t they call them?) which men used to argue for the sake of having something to do. I stood up for poor Mr. Walcott with my husband; but you know it is useless to argue against him."
"He believes with the rest of them?"