A Terrible Secret Part 57

"I feel like a stone. I can't cry. I think I have no heart, no soul, no feeling, no conscience--that I am scarcely a human being. I am a hardened, callous wretch, for whom any fate is too good. Don't pity me, dear Lady Helena; don't waste one tear on me. I am not worth it."

She touched her lips to the wet cheek, and went slowly on her way. No heart--no soul! if she had, both felt benumbed, dead. She seemed to herself a century old, as she toiled on to her familiar rooms. They met no more that day--each kept to her own apartments.

The afternoon set in wet and wild; the rain fell ceaselessly and dismally; an evening to depress the happiest closed down.

It was long after dark when there came a ring at the bell, and the footman, opening the door, saw the figure of a man m.u.f.fled and disguised in slouch hat and great-coat. He held an umbrella over his head, and a scarf was twisted about the lower part of his face. In a husky voice, stifled in his scarf, he asked for Lady Helena.

"Her ladys.h.i.+p's at home," the footman answered, rather superciliously, "but she don't see strangers at this hour."

"Give her this," the stranger said; "she will see _me_."

In spite of hat, scarf, and umbrella, there was something familiar in the air of the visitor, something familiar in his tone. The man took the note suspiciously and pa.s.sed it to another, who pa.s.sed it to her ladys.h.i.+p's maid. The maid pa.s.sed it to her ladys.h.i.+p, and her ladys.h.i.+p read it with a suppressed cry.

"Show him into the library at once. I will go down."

The m.u.f.fled man was shown in, still wearing hat and scarf. The library was but dimly lit. He stood like a dark shadow amid the other shadows.

An instant later the door opened and Lady Helena, pale and wild, appeared on the threshold.

"It is," she faltered. "It is--you!"

She approached slowly, her terrified eyes riveted on the hidden face.

"It is I. Lock the door."

She obeyed, she came nearer. He drew away the scarf, lifted the hat, and showed her the face of Sir Victor Catheron.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SECOND ENDING OF THE TRAGEDY.

The morning dawned over Powyss Place--dawned in wild wind and driving rain still--dawned upon Edith, deserted more strangely than surely bride was ever deserted before.

She had darkened her chamber; she had forced herself resolutely to sleep. But the small hours had come before she had succeeded, and it was close upon ten when the dark eyes opened from dreamland to life.

Strange mockery! it was ever of Charley and the days that were forever gone she dreamed now.

For hours and hours she had paced her room the evening and night before, all the desolation, all the emptiness and loss of her life spread out before her. She had sold herself deliberately and with her eyes open, and this was her reward. Deserted in the hour of her triumph--humiliated as never bride was humiliated before--the talk, the ridicule of the country, an object of contemptuous pity to the whole world. And Charley and Trixy, what would _they_ say when they heard of her downfall? She was very proud--no young princess had ever haughtier blood coursing through her royal veins than this portionless American girl. For wealth and rank she had bartered life and love, and verily she had her reward.

She suffered horribly. As she paced up and down, her whole face was distorted with the torture within. She flung herself into a seat and tried to still the ceaseless, gnawing, maddening pain. In vain! She could neither sit still, nor think, nor deaden her torment. And when at last she threw herself face downward on her bed it was only to sleep the spent sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was "pluck" to the backbone. Next day, when she had bathed and made her toilet, and descended to the breakfast-room, the closest observer could have read nothing of last night in the fixed calm of her face. The worst that could ever happen had happened; she was ready now to live and die game.

Lady Helena, very pale, very tremulous, very frightened and helpless-looking, awaited her. A large, red fire burned on the hearth.

Her ladys.h.i.+p was wrapped in a fluffy white shawl, but she s.h.i.+vered in spite of both. The lips that touched Edith's cheek were almost as cold as that cold cheek itself. Tears started to her eyes as she spoke to her.

"My child," she said, "how white you are; how cold and ill you look.

I am afraid you did not sleep at all."

"Yes, I slept," answered Edith; "for a few hours, at least. The weather has something to do with it, perhaps; I always fall a prey to horrors in wet and windy weather."

Then they sat down to the fragrant and tempting breakfast, and ate with what appet.i.te they might. For Edith, she hardly made a pretence of eating--she drank a large cup of strong coffee, and arose.

"Lady Helena," she began abruptly, "as I came out of my room, two of the servants were whispering in the corridor. I merely caught a word or two in pa.s.sing. They stopped immediately upon seeing me. But from that word or two, I infer this--Sir Victor Catheron was here to see you last night."

Lady Helena was trifling nervously with her spoon--it fell with a clash now into her cup, and her terrified eyes looked piteously at her companion.

"If you desire to keep this a secret too," Edith said, her lips curling scornfully, "of course you are at liberty to do so--of course I presume to ask no questions. But if not, I would like to know--it may in some measure influence my own movements."

"What do you intend to do?" her ladys.h.i.+p brokenly asked.

"That you shall hear presently. Just now the question is: Was your nephew here last night or not?"

"He was."

She said it with a sort of sob, hiding her face in her hands. "May Heaven help me," she cried; "it is growing more than I can bear. O my child, what can I say to you? how can I comfort you in this great trouble that has come upon you?"

"You are very good, but I would rather not be comforted. I have been utterly base and mercenary from first to last--a wretch who has richly earned her fate. Whatever has befallen me I deserve. I married your nephew without one spark of affection for him; he was no more to me than any laborer on his estate--I doubt whether he ever could have been. I meant to try--who knows how it would have ended? I married Sir Victor Catheron for his rank and riches, his t.i.tle and rent-roll--I married the baronet, not the man. And it has ended thus. I am widowed on my wedding-day, cast off, forsaken. Have I not earned my fate?"

She laughed drearily--a short, mirthless, bitter laugh.

"I don't venture to ask too many questions--I don't battle with my fate; I throw up my arms and yield at once. But this I would like to know. Madness is hereditary in his family. Unworthy of all love as I am, I think--I think Sir Victor loved me, and, unless he be mad, I can't understand _why_ he deserted me. Lady Helena, answer me this, as you will one day answer to your Maker--Is Sir Victor Catheron sane or mad?"

There was a pause as she asked the dreadful question--a pause in which the beating of the autumnal rain upon the gla.s.s, the soughing of the autumnal gale sounded preternaturally loud. Then, brokenly, in trembling tones, and not looking up, came Lady Helena's answer:

"G.o.d pity him and you--he is not mad."

Then there was silence again. The elder woman, her face buried in her hands and resting on the table, was crying silently and miserably. At the window, the tall, slim figure of the girl stood motionless, her hands clasped loosely before her, her deep bright eyes looking out at the slanting rain, the low-lying, lead colored sky, the black trees blown aslant in the high October gale.

"Not mad?" she repeated, after that long pause; "you are quite certain of this, my lady? Not mad--and he has left me?"

"He has left you. O my child! if I dared only tell you all--if I dared only tell you how it is _because_ of his great and pa.s.sionate love for you, he leaves you. If ever there was a martyr on this earth, it is my poor boy. If you had seen him as I saw him last night--worn to a shadow in one day, suffering for the loss of you until death would be a relief--even _you_ would have pitied him."

"Would I? Well, perhaps so, though my heart is rather a hard one. Of course I don't understand a word of all this--of course, as he said in his letter, some secret of guilt and shame lies behind it all. And yet, perhaps, I could come nearer to the 'Secret' than either you or he think."

Lady Helena looked suddenly up, that terrified, hunted look in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"This," the firm, cold voice of Edith said, as Edith's bright, dark eyes fixed themselves pitilessly upon her, "this, Lady Helena Powyss: That the secret which takes him from me is the secret of his mother's murder--the secret which he learned at his father's deathbed. Shall I tell you who committed that murder?"

Her ladys.h.i.+p's lips moved, but no sound came; she sat spellbound, watching that pale, fixed face before her.

"Not Inez Catheron, who was imprisoned for it; not Juan Catheron, who was suspected of it. I am a Yankee, Lady Helena, and consequently clever at guessing. I believe that Sir Victor Catheron, in cold blood, murdered his own wife!"

There was a sobbing cry--whether at the shock of the terrible words, or at their truth, who was to tell?

"I believe the late Sir Victor Catheron to have been a deliberate and cowardly murderer," Edith went on; "so cowardly that his weak brain turned when he saw what he had done and thought of the consequences; and that he paid the penalty of his crime in a life of insanity. The motive I don't pretend to fathom--jealousy of Juan Catheron perhaps; and on his dying bed he confessed all to his son."