A Duel Part 55

"And you lied to us when you pretended that you suspected us of robbing you! You knew all along that the only robbery you yourself had committed--you impudent swindler!"

He only received the same reply--

"Yes; I did".

Dr. Twelves wagged his finger at her, gruesomely.

"You shall hang for it, Isabel Burney--you shall hang by the neck until you're dead!"

Mr. McTavish cried--

"At any rate, you shall be sent to penal servitude for the fraud you have committed on us!"

She showed no signs of resentment, as only a very short time before she undoubtedly would have done, when her resentment would probably have taken a sufficiently active turn. From her demeanour it was difficult to determine if she comprehended what was being said to her. She gazed stolidly about the room. Near a window stood Nannie Foreshaw, leaning on a stick, holding with one hand the curtain from behind which she had just emerged. At sight of her she shrank backwards, as if she would withdraw herself as far as she could. Before the door, as if he would bar her retreat, was Harry Talfourd. When she saw him she seemed to be moved more than she had been by any of the others; she turned aside, with a low cry, and covered her face. Possibly, in some tangled fas.h.i.+on, she remembered how, so recently, she had played to him the _role_ of the great lady, the benefactress; how willing she had been to be something more to him than that; and she was vaguely conscious of what a contrast she was exhibiting to him now.

Margaret had been seated at a table writing. Now, rising, she turned to the woman who was still on her knees upon the floor.

"I have set down upon this sheet of paper a short confession of your guilt. If you will sign it you shall not hang; you shall not be sent to prison. You shall receive your only punishment from your own conscience. I think that is to condemn you to the greater punishment. I will read to you what I have written."

She read aloud from the paper which she took in her hand:--

"'I confess that Cuthbert Grahame instructed me to draw up a will in which he left all that he had in the world to Margaret Wallace; that, without his knowledge, I subst.i.tuted for it another form of will, according to which he left his property to me, and that I induced him to sign this fraudulent form by means of a trick. I also confess that I murdered Cuthbert Grahame in order to avoid an exposure of the trick by means of which I had induced him to sign the subst.i.tuted fraudulent form of will.' If you will attach your name to this confession you shall receive no punishment beyond that which you award yourself--that will be a sufficient one. Come here and sign."

As if automatically, Mrs. Lamb rose to her feet, moved towards the table, seated herself on the chair which Margaret had occupied, accepted the pen which the girl offered, and wrote her name in full on the sheet of paper which was set before her.

When she had signed, leaning back, she looked from one to the other. They waited for her to speak, expecting perhaps some burst of tardy anger. Then, on a sudden, without a word or a movement, she slid from the chair on to the floor. When they gathered round her she lay still.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

PLEASANT DREAMS!

The duel had been fought to a finish, and Margaret had won.

When Mrs. Gregory Lamb was brought back out of that fit by which she had been overtaken she was lying on Cuthbert Grahame's bed, on which he had lived for so long, and died at her hand; the bed whose image had been borne in upon her phantom-haunted brain with such horrible persistency. Dr. Twelves was bending over her, standing where he had stood many a time to bend over the man she slew. She was little better than a babbling idiot. She is not much more than that now. She is a certified lunatic, under kindly, yet watchful, guardians.h.i.+p, the expense of which is paid by the girl whom she so cruelly wronged.

The physical and mental strain which had been placed upon her during that period of increasing financial pressure had been great; her attempts to relieve it by a resort to ether had made it ten times greater. How much of the spirit she drank has not been exactly ascertained. She must have consumed large quant.i.ties. Probably only the natural strength of her const.i.tution enabled her to resist its effects so long as she did. Undoubtedly the habit of ether drinking had increased in her to such an extent that in any case it would ultimately have produced insanity. Her reason was already tottering when she was brought face to face with Margaret Wallace on the night of her reception, and was put to such dire confusion. It is believed that she touched no solid food afterwards, subsisting solely upon ether. Isaac Luker a.s.serted that she carried a large bottle of it in her bag when they journeyed together from London, and was sipping its contents throughout the day.

It was not strange that when the moment came she was ripe to fall a ready victim to Margaret's carefully laid lures. The girl fought her with weapons to which she was incapable of offering resistance.

Cuthbert Grahame's money, which had been searched for so long in vain, was found deposited in the hiding-place the secret of which she had revealed to Mrs. Lamb, intending, by working on her guilty conscience and so extorting from her a confession, which it was certain could never be obtained from her by any other means, to destroy her when she went to seek it. Margaret is now Mrs. Henry Talfourd. She is married to one who loved and loves her, and for the love of whom she was willing to sacrifice all. She is a rich woman. Bearing in mind the singularity of the circ.u.mstances under which it has come into her possession, she was desirous of having nothing to do with the dead man's money.

But it was pointed out that, excepting herself, there was no possible claimant. She regards herself as an almoner, as a steward of Cuthbert Grahame's great possessions rather than their owner, and employs by far the larger portion of the income they produce in works of benefaction. She still produces pictures in black and white and in colour; there are few women artists who have achieved a more substantial success.

Her husband has not realised his dreams. "The Gordian Knot" has never been produced. He burnt the play with his own hands, and has never written another. He alone knows why, though his wife may have a shrewd suspicion. So far he has been content to act as his wife's right-hand man, an occupation which hitherto has kept him fully employed.

Dr. Twelves lives and flourishes. He has been heard to declare that never again will he proffer a.s.sistance to any strange woman whom he finds by the wayside. Nannie Foreshaw is dead. Messrs.

McTavish & Brown have, if anything, improved their standing as family solicitors of undoubted integrity; Mrs. Talfourd is one of their most valued clients.

Mrs. Talfourd presented Mr. Gregory Lamb with a pa.s.sage to South Africa, and with a sum of money when he landed. As he has never asked for any more money, and nothing has been heard of him since, the presumption is that he has perished in that grave of many reputations. His wife's solicitor continues to exist, and is still a very well-known gentleman in certain extremely crooked walks of life.

Cuthbert Grahame's home has been turned into a sanatorium and holiday home for children. It could hardly be employed for a better purpose. Boys and girls scamper among the trees; their voices and their laughter ring through the house. They people it with fresh a.s.sociations; the old ghosts are gone. They find health and happiness in the place where once was neither. And when, at night, they lay their tired heads upon their pillows, they dream only pleasant dreams. When they wake in the morning, whether actually the skies be fair or clouded, to them it is always as if the sun was s.h.i.+ning.

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