The pa.s.sionate voice, the flaming eyes of the woman suddenly seen in the doorway, struck him like a double blow aimed at a drowning man. "Liane!"
he cried, before he could regain the self-mastery which meant all the difference between life and death.
"Yes," she flung at him in French, "I _am_ Liane--Liane Devereux. Come, every one, and hear what I have to say. This man is a traitor--traitorous friend and treacherous lover!" She stopped for an instant, and threw a glance round the saloon. Loria and Virginia Beverly were no longer alone there. George Trent, Sir Roger Broom, Kate Gardiner, and two men who were strangers had suddenly appeared as if by a conjuring trick. The woman stood with her head held high, like some magnificent wild creature of the forest at bay, fearing nothing save loss of vengeance. She was glad that all these people had come. The more there were to hear the tale she meant to tell, the more sure the stroke of her revenge. Yes, she was glad, glad! And though she died for it, under the knife of the guillotine, she would ruin the man who had deceived her.
"He pretended to love me," she went on. "But now I know that he never did, for when he vowed love and devotion his voice did not once sound as I have heard it now, speaking to that white-faced girl when he did not dream I was near.
"I am Liane Devereux, not a Portuguese woman, not the Countess de Mattos, therefore Maxime Dalahaide is not a murderer, since I live. It was the Marchese Loria who arranged everything--even my name, and credentials, and proofs of my ident.i.ty as Manuela de Mattos, in case they were ever needed. Oh, there was nothing neglected. But now I know that it was not for my sake, as I thought, but to serve his own ends, and I am willing to die to hold him back from success.
"I will tell you the whole story from the beginning. Five years ago I was an actress in Paris. I made two or three failures. A powerful dramatic critic had vowed to drive me off the stage. He had begun his work; and at this perilous time in my career, just as I had quarrelled with my manager, Maxime Dalahaide fell in love with me. I thought he was rich.
It occurred to me that if I became his wife I could leave the stage in a blaze of glory. Besides, he was brilliant and handsome. I was flattered by his admiration, and felt that it would be easy to love him. I did all I could to win an offer of marriage from him. When it came I accepted.
But soon after our engagement his father lost a great deal of money. I realized that Maxime would not be as good a match as I had counted upon making. Still, I did not throw him over; for by that time I cared for his handsome face, and I was of far too jealous a nature to risk throwing him into the arms of another woman. If we parted, I thought I knew to what woman he would turn. There was an English girl singing at the Opera Comique, whose name at one time had been coupled with Maxime Dalahaide"s.
She had a good voice and a pretty enough face, but she would not have succeeded in Paris, people whispered, if Maxime had not helped her. I had spoken to him of this girl, and he had denied caring for her. She was a very ordinary, uninteresting creature, apart from her beauty, he said; but she had been friendless and in hard luck, and as he was half English himself, he had done what he could to aid a lonely and deserving young countrywoman, that was all. Still, I was never sure that he was not deceiving me. Altogether, in those days, I was unhappy. The Marchese Loria, Maxime"s best friend--as I thought--was very sympathetic. He came often to see me, both with Maxime and alone. One day they quarrelled in my house. It was Loria who began it. He accused Maxime of prejudicing his sister Madeleine against him, and Maxime admitted that, though he loved Loria, he did not think he would made a good husband, and did not wish him to marry Madeleine. With a look of jealous hatred in his eyes, which I have never forgotten, Loria cried out that Maxime had always taken away from him everything he wanted most--love of friends and women, popularity, all that a man values in life. Then, almost before Maxime could answer to vow that never, consciously, had he been Loria"s rival or injured him in any way, Loria begged forgiveness, said he had spoken in anger--that in his heart he did not mean a word. So the quarrel--if quarrel you could call it--was made up. But I guessed then that Loria had never really loved Maxime.
"It was only a few days after this that I found myself in great trouble with my creditors. Maxime had had too many losses to help me much, though he lent me two or three thousand francs. I asked him to p.a.w.n my jewels, which were worth a good deal, and to do it in his own name. It was Loria who put this idea into my head. He said that by this means I should prevent the p.a.w.n-tickets from being seized by other creditors. Late that very afternoon, when, against his will, Maxime had taken my jewels, the English girl, Olive Sinclair, came to my flat, saying that she must talk to me of an affair of great importance to us both. I was curious, and my jealousy was up in arms. She was admitted by my maid, who was just going out for the whole evening, by my permission.
"Olive Sinclair came in. We were alone together in the flat. She began by saying that she was going to England by the late boat that night, and that Maxime Dalahaide was going with her. As soon as possible, the girl went on, they would be married at a registrar"s office, and the marriage kept secret from his family until she came of age the next year, when she would inherit a fortune, which she should be only too glad to share with her beloved Maxime. She had heard, she said, that I went about boasting everywhere of my engagement to Maxime Dalahaide, and that she could bear it no longer, so she had come to tell me the real truth, and humble my pride. Perhaps I would not have believed her if I had not known that Maxime _did_ intend to go to England that night. He had told me that he wanted to see an uncle there on business. At once his story seemed improbable. I believed that the girl was telling me the truth. I have always had a hot temper, which often escapes beyond control. A wave of rage rushed up to my head, and made a red flame leap before my eyes. As the girl talked on, smiling insolently, I struck her in my pa.s.sion. She staggered, and fell on the floor, her head pressed up against the fender in a curious way. Dear heaven, I can see her now, lying there, her eyes staring wide open, seeming to look at me, her lips apart! She did not cry out or move; and as I stood watching her, frightened at what I had done, a few drops of blood began to ooze from her mouth.
"I went down on my knees, and shook her by the shoulder, calling her name; but her head fell on one side, as if she had been a horrid dummy made of rags; and still her eyes were staring and her blood-stained lips smiling that foolish, awful smile. It was at this moment that I heard a knocking at the door.
"At first I kept quite still, dazed, not knowing what I should do. But then I thought it might be Maxime, who had changed his mind about selling the jewels, and come back soon to tell me. I was in the mood to see him at whatever cost. I called through the door to know who was there.
Loria"s voice answered. I let him in, explained confusedly what had happened, and begged him to bring the girl back to consciousness. Five minutes later he told me that she was dead. In falling, and striking against the fender, she had broken her neck.
""What is to become of me?" I asked. "I did not mean to kill her, and yet--I am a murderess. Will they send me to the guillotine for this?"
""No, because I will save you," Loria answered. Then, quickly, he made me understand the scheme that had come into his mind. So cunning, so wonderfully thought out it was, that I asked myself if he had somehow planned all that had happened; if he had sent the girl to me, and told her to say what she had said, counting on my hot blood for some such sequel as really followed. But I could not see any motive for such plotting, and in a moment I forgot my strange suspicions, in grat.i.tude for his offer to save me. Sometimes I had fancied that, in spite of his wish to marry Madeleine Dalahaide, he loved me; now he swore to me the truth of this, and I was scarcely surprised. He would give everything he had in the world to save me, he said. What a fool I was to believe him!
All I had to do in return was to promise that I would obey implicitly.
Gladly I promised, and I did not falter even when the full horror of his plan was revealed. It was that or a disgraceful, terrible death for me.
Oh, I would have done anything then to escape the guillotine!
"First of all he made me write a letter to Maxime, telling him that I hated him and never wished to see him again; that I loved another man better. I did this gladly. That was nothing. And Loria let me go out and send the letter, while he began the awful work which had to come next. I thanked him for that. I had not nerve enough left to help much after what I had gone through.
"When I came back to the flat after sending off the letter, Loria unlocked the door for me. Already the worst was over.
"His idea was for me to escape and let it seem that _I_ had been murdered. This could be done, because Olive Sinclair would not be missed.
She had given up her rooms to leave for England that night. In a bag hanging from her belt were her tickets for train and boat. We were of much the same figure. Loria, in speaking to me of her before, had mentioned this slight resemblance. Her hair was brown, while mine was red-gold. Hers would have to be bleached, now that she lay dead. But there was no great difficulty in that, for I had the stuff in the house, as I used it in very small quant.i.ties to give extra brightness to mine.
"While I had been gone Loria had fired shot after shot into the poor dead face, from a revolver, which he did not show me. Afterward, when I was far away, I heard that the weapon was Maxime"s; but, honestly, I did not think at the time that Maxime would be implicated in this affair. I was half mad. I thought only of myself, and of Loria"s self-sacrifice.
Already I could have worshipped him for what he was doing to save me.
"He shot the hands, too, that they might be shattered, for Olive Sinclair"s hands were not like mine; but before he did that, he had slipped two or three of my rings, which he had found on my dressing-table, upon the dead fingers.
"All this was finished when I dragged myself home. But together we bleached the dark hair till it was the colour of mine, and together we dressed the body in my clothes, Loria having removed the gown before he used the revolver. Oh, the horror of that scene! It is part of my punishment that I live it over often at night. At last we arranged the shattered hands to look as if the girl had flung them up to protect her face from the murderer.
"I put on her travelling dress, and her hat, with a thick veil of my own.
Meanwhile, a knock had come at the door. I feared that the shots had been heard, and that we would be arrested. But Loria quieted me. He said the revolver was small, and had made scarcely any sound; that, as no one lived in the flat above or just underneath, it was quite safe. We did not answer the knock, though it came again and again. But afterward, in the letter-box on the door, there was a packet containing the money which Maxime had got from the p.a.w.nbroker for my jewels. That I took with me, and Loria gave me more. Whether Maxime himself brought the money, or sent it by messenger, I did not know; but, afterward, the _concierge_ bore witness that he had pa.s.sed into the house before the murder must have taken place, and gone out long afterward. And dimly I remembered, in thinking of Loria as he had looked in that dreadful hour, that he had worn a coat and hat like Maxime"s. How can I tell what were the details of his scheme? But when Maxime was accused of the murder, and Loria made no effort to exonerate him, it took all my faith in the Marchese as a lover to believe that he was sacrificing his friend wholly for my sake.
As for me--why should I give myself up to the guillotine for a man who would have betrayed me for an Olive Sinclair--especially when he was not condemned to death, but only to imprisonment?
"I went to England in Olive Sinclair"s place. Fortunately for me, she had no relatives. No one asked questions, no one cared what had become of her. She was not a celebrity, in spite of the way in which Maxime Dalahaide had worked to help her. After a while I left England for Portugal. Meanwhile I had dyed my hair, and stained my complexion with a wonderful clear olive stain which does not hurt the skin, and shows the colour through. Here are the things I use, in this bag. I keep it always locked and ready to my hand.
"Loria bought me a little land and an old ruined house near Lisbon, belonging to an ancient family, of whom the last member had died. The t.i.tle went with the land. It was supposed that I was a distant cousin, with money, and a sentiment of love for the old place. But really I hated it. It was dull--deadly dull. I travelled as much as possible, and Loria had promised that at the end of the five years he would marry me, saying always that he loved me well; that if he had sinned it was for love of me, and to save me. When the world had forgotten the affair of Maxime Dalahaide we would be married, and live in countries where no one had heard the story, and nothing would remind us of the past. I forced myself to believe him, for he was my all--all that was left to me in exile. But now I know him for what he is. I would swear that he planned everything from the beginning to ruin Maxime Dalahaide. He here to help his old enemy! No, it is he who must have set the bloodhounds on his track. I fight under Loria"s banner no longer. He loves Virginia Beverly.
Now that she knows him as he is, and what he has done for hatred, let her put her hand in his if she will."
The woman"s voice fell from a shrill height into silence. Her olive-stained face was ash-gray with exhaustion. No one had interrupted, or tried to check the fierce flood of the confession, not even Loria. All had stood listening, breathless; and Virginia had known that, behind the door of his locked cabin, Maxime Dalahaide must hear every clear-cadenced word of fine, Parisian French.
Loria had stood listening with the rest, a sneer on his lips, though his eyes burned with a deep fire. If he had taken a step, hands would have been thrust out to stop him. But he did not move except, in the midst of Liane Devereux"s story, to play nervously with an old-fashioned ring of twisted, jewel-headed serpents on the third finger of his left hand.
Suddenly, as the woman finished, he raised the hand to his lips and seemed to bite the finger with the ring. Then he dropped his hand and looked at his accomplice with a strained smile. But the smile froze; the lips quivered into a slight grimace. His eyes, glittering with agony, turned to Virginia.
"I loved you," he said, and fell forward on his face.
"He has taken poison!" exclaimed Chandler, the United States Consul. "It must have been in that queer ring."
He and Roger Broom and George Trent and the German doctor pressed round the prostrate figure, but the woman who had denounced him was before them all. With a cry she rushed to the fallen man, and, flinging herself down, caught up the hand with the ring. They saw what she meant to do, and would have s.n.a.t.c.hed her away, but already her lips had touched the spot where his had been, and found the same death.
The whole situation was changed by the unexpected developments on board the _Bella Cuba_. Dr. Sauber had relinquished, indeed, almost forgotten, the clever plan by which the yacht was to be detained. The French Consul, Loria"s host, was hurriedly brought on board, to be dumbfounded by a recital of what had happened. With Loria dead, and guilty, the fugitive concealed on the _Bella Cuba_ innocent, De Letz"s personal motive for detaining the prisoner disappeared. His chivalry was fired by Virginia"s beauty and the brave part she had played. In the end, instead of making difficulties for the party, he consented to take charge of his friend"s body and that of Liane Devereux, which latter duty was his by right, as consul to the country from which she came. The dead man and dead woman would be carried ash.o.r.e in the boat which had brought the four men out to the yacht; and De Letz would, acting on the statement of those who had heard the confession, make such representations to France as would eventually obtain for Maxime Dalahaide a free pardon with permission to return to his own land. Meanwhile he (De Letz) reiterated that it was as much his duty as before to bring about the arrest of the escaped convict, who had no more right to break his prison bonds if innocent than if he were guilty. To bring it about if possible! But--_was_ it possible? And the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, half smiling at Virginia. Mr.
Chandler advised him that, in the present circ.u.mstances, it would be unwise to make the attempt. De Letz was inclined to agree, and, as Dr.
Sauber had apparently found a clean bill of health, the _Bella Cuba_ must take her own sweet way, rebel though she was.
So when the yacht had finished coaling she steamed out of the harbour of Samoa with Convict 1280 still on board.
Virginia"s desire was to make for America, and to send for Madeleine, who had been living all this time with her aunt in an old Surrey manor-house belonging to Roger Broom. The brother and sister should stay at her house in Virginia until Maxime was free to return to France, and he would grow strong and well, and everybody concerned would be happy. It would be madness, she urged, for Maxime to put himself in the power of French law until such time as his innocence was officially acknowledged.
But Maxime thought otherwise. His innocence had been declared, and would sooner or later be acknowledged. The manly and honourable thing to do was to trust to the generosity of his adopted land. To France he would go, and boldly throw himself upon her mercy.
"He is right, Virginia," said Roger, fearing the while that secret jealousy influenced his decision.
"He is right," echoed George Trent, with no hidden thoughts at all.
Virginia held her peace, though her heart was full; and the ultimate destination of the _Bella Cuba_ was France.
France did not disappoint Maxime"s trust, but months pa.s.sed before he was a free man. Meantime hope had given him new life. His sister was near him. Virginia Beverly was in Paris with an elderly relative of Roger Broom"s as her chaperon-companion, instead of Kate Gardiner. Though he was virtually a prisoner, since the eye of the law was upon him, and the voice of the law p.r.o.nounced that he should go so far and no farther, still he was happy, so happy that he often awoke from prison dreams, not daring to believe the present reality.
Then at last the day came when he was free. Madeleine was staying with Virginia. He would see them together. There was heaven in the thought.
George Trent was there, but not Roger Broom. Roger had been called to England on business, but he was returning that evening.
Never had there been such a dinner as that which celebrated Maxime"s release from the old bonds. Virginia had taken a beautiful house which had been to let furnished, near the Bois de Boulogne.
After the dinner the two girls with their brothers went out into the garden, the old aunt, exhausted with over-much joy, remaining indoors.
Virginia knew what would come next, and drew Madeleine away from the two young men that George might have the chance of asking Maxime for his sister. Five minutes later Maxime was squeezing Madeleine"s hand, and telling her that no news could have made him so happy. Then, somehow, the lovers disappeared, and Virginia Beverly and Maxime Dalahaide were alone together.
"Everything good comes to us from you," he said, his voice unsteady.
"What can I do to show you how I--how we worship you for all you have done, all you have been?"