"It was given to me before his flight," was my response. "I fulfilled a confidential mission with which he entrusted me. And--and I met her. She knows you--isn"t that so?"
I stood with my eyes full upon the white face of the woman I loved, surveying her coldly and critically, so full of black suspicion. Was my heart at that moment wholly hers? In imagination, place yourself, my reader, in a similar position. Put before yourself the problem with which, at that second, I found myself face to face.
I loved Phrida, and yet had I not obtained proof positive of her clandestine visit to my friend on that fateful night? Were her finger-prints not upon the little gla.s.s-topped specimen-table in his room?
And yet so clever, so ingenious had she been, so subtle was her woman"s wit, that she had never admitted to me any knowledge of him further than a formal introduction I had once made long ago.
I had trusted her--aye, trusted her with all the open sincerity of an honourable man--for I loved her better than anything else on earth. And with what result?
With my own senses of smell and of hearing I had detected her presence on the stairs--waiting, it seemed, to visit my friend in secret after I had left.
No doubt she had been unaware of my ident.i.ty as his visitor, or she would never dared to have lurked there.
As I stood with my hand tenderly upon her arm, the gaze of my well-beloved was directed to the ground. Guilt seemed written upon her white brow, for she dared not raise her eyes to mine.
"Phrida, you know that woman--you can"t deny knowledge of her--can you?"
She stood like a statue, with her hands clenched, her mouth half open, her jaws fixed.
"I--I--I don"t know what you mean," she faltered at last, in a hard voice quite unusual to her.
"I mean that I have a suspicion, Phrida--a horrible suspicion--that you have deceived me," I said.
"How?" she asked, with her harsh, forced laugh.
I paused. How should I tell her? How should I begin?
"You have suppressed from me certain knowledge of which you know I ought to have been in possession for my friend Digby"s sake, and----"
"Ah! Digby Kemsley again!" she cried impatiently. "You"ve not been the same to me since that man disappeared."
"Because you know more concerning him than you have ever admitted to me, Phrida," I said in a firm, earnest voice, grasping her by the arm and whispering into her ear. "Now, be open and frank with me--tell me the truth."
"Of what?" she faltered, raising her eyes to mine with a frightened look.
"Of what Mrs. Petre has told me."
"That woman! What has she said against me?" my love demanded with quick resentment.
"She is not your friend, in any case," I said slowly.
"My friend!" she echoed. "I should think not. She----"
And my love"s little hands clenched themselves and she burst again into tears without concluding her sentence.
"I know, dearest," I said, striving to calm her, and stroking her hair from her white brow. "I tell you at once that I do not give credence to any of her foul allegations, only--well, in order to satisfy myself, I have come direct to you to hear your explanation."
"My--my explanation!" she gasped, placing her hand to her brow and bowing her head. "Ah! what explanation can I make of allegations I have never heard?" she demanded. "Surely, Teddy, you are asking too much."
I grasped her hand, and holding it in mine gazed again upon her. We were standing together near the centre of the room where the glowing fire shed a genial warmth and lit up the otherwise gloomy and solemn apartment.
Ah! how sweet she seemed to me, how dainty, how charming, how very pure.
And yet? Ah! the recollection of that woman"s insinuations on the previous night ate like a canker-worm into my heart. And yet how I loved the pale, agitated girl before me! Was she not all the world to me?
A long and painful silence had fallen between us, a silence only broken by the whirl of a taxi pa.s.sing outside and the chiming of the long, old-fashioned clock on the stairs.
At last I summoned courage to say in a calm, low voice;
"I am not asking too much, Phrida. I am only pressing you to act with your usual honesty, and tell me the truth. Surely you can have nothing to conceal?"
"How absurd you are, Teddy!" she said in her usual voice. "What can I possibly have to conceal from you?"
"Pardon me," I said; "but you have already concealed from me certain very important facts concerning my friend Digby."
"Who has told you that? The woman Petre, I suppose," she cried in anger.
"Very well, believe her, if you wish."
"But I don"t believe her," I protested.
"Then why ask me for an explanation?"
"Because one is, I consider, due from you in the circ.u.mstances."
"Then you have set yourself up to be my judge, have you?" she asked, drawing herself up proudly, all traces of her tears having vanished. I saw that the att.i.tude she had now a.s.sumed was one of defiance; therefore I knew that if I were to obtain the information I desired I must act with greatest discretion.
"No, Phrida," I answered. "I do not mistrust or misjudge you. All I ask of you is the truth. What do you know of my friend Digby Kemsley?"
"Know of him--why, nothing--except that you introduced us."
For a second I remained silent. Then with severity I remarked:
"Pardon me, but I think you rather misunderstood my question. I meant to ask whether you have ever been to his flat in Harrington Gardens?"
"Ah! I see," she cried instantly. "That woman Petre has endeavoured to set you against me, Teddy, because I love you. She has invented some cruel lie or other, just as she did in another case within my knowledge.
Come," she added, "tell me out plainly what she has alleged against me?"
She was very firm and resolute now, and I saw in her face a hard, defiant expression--an expression of bitter hatred against the woman who had betrayed her.
"Well," I said; "loving you as intensely as I do, I can hardly bring myself to repeat her insinuations."
"But I demand to know them," she protested, standing erect and facing me.
"I am attacked; therefore, I am within my right to know what charges the woman has brought against me."
"She has brought no direct charges," was my slow reply. "But she has suggested certain things--certain scandalous things."
"What are they?" she gasped, suddenly pale as death.
"First tell me the truth, Phrida," I cried, holding her in my arms and looking straight into those splendid eyes I admired so much. "Admit it--you knew Digby. He--he was a friend of yours?"