Stolen Souls Part 8

The colour was not dry, therefore I was enabled to remove the greater portion of it with a silk handkerchief, but I saw with regret that the tints of the forehead had been irretrievably ruined, rendering the picture valueless.

The days went by. The limit for sending in to the Academy was approaching; but d.i.c.k did not write, and I could only wonder vaguely where he was wandering. It was a great pity, I thought, that such a fine work should not be exhibited. Yet the wilful obliteration had utterly spoiled it.

While sitting in his studio musing one day, it suddenly occurred to me that if the flaw upon the forehead could be hidden, it might, after all, be sent for the inspection of the hanging committee.

Taking it up, I examined it minutely in the light. The idea of placing a half-mask upon the face suggested itself, and without delay I proceeded to carry it into effect. The little skill with the brush that I possess enabled me to paint in the half-lights upon the black silk, and the laughing eyes being fortunately intact, I allowed them to peer through the apertures.

The effect produced was startling, and none could have been more astonished at the result of my daubing than myself. The mask seemed to increase the reckless _diablerie_ of its wearer, and enhance the fairness of the complexion, while it added an air of mystery not at all unpleasing to the eye.

A few days later, I dispatched it to the Academy, and waited patiently for the opening day, when I experienced the mingled surprise and satisfaction of seeing it hung "upon the line."

The "Masked Circe" was p.r.o.nounced one of the pictures of the year.

Thousands admired it. The papers were full of laudatory notices; but the man who painted it, unaware of the fame he had suddenly achieved, was hiding his sorrow somewhere in the Vosges. A stray copy of an English newspaper containing a notice of his work, which d.i.c.k picked up in a hotel, however, caused him to return.

He burst into my room unceremoniously one morning, still attired in his travelling ulster. I saw that he was haggard-eyed and wild-looking.

From his conversation, I knew that time had not healed the wound in his heart.

"I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently, old chap, for touching up my daub. It seems that the public admire _her_ as much as I have done. I--I shall find her some day; then she will return to me."

"Still thinking of her?" I observed reproachfully.

"Yes; always, always," he replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I--I cannot forget."

d.i.c.k's popularity steadily increased; lucrative commissions poured in upon him, and he settled down to such hard, methodical work, that I began to think he had forgotten the woman who had enmeshed him.

With beaming face he came to me one summer's morning and announced that, although the committee of the Chantrey Bequest had offered to purchase the "Masked Circe," he had just received a letter from the Count di Sestri, the well-known Anglo-Italian millionaire and art patron, saying that he desired to buy it, and asking him to go down to Oxted Park, his seat in Surrey, to arrange the price.

"I am going to-day," he said. "You masked her, and it is only fair that you should have a word in the bargain. You must come too."

At first I hesitated, but at length acquiesced.

That evening the Count received us in the library of his country mansion, and congratulated d.i.c.k warmly upon his masterpiece. It was evident that he meant to secure it at any cost, therefore the price was soon arranged; and before we had been there half an hour, my companion had a cheque for four figures in his pocket.

We were about to make our adieux, but the Count would not hear of it.

"Dinner will be ready almost immediately," he said. "You must stay. We are quite _en famille_, you know. Only my wife and I."

A few moments later the door opened, and there was the rustle of a silken train.

"Ah, here's the Countess!" exclaimed the millionaire, stepping forward to introduce us.

We turned, and saw a pale, beautiful woman, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.

"Ethel! You?" we both cried in amazement.

"d.i.c.k!" she gasped. "You--you have found me!"

She reeled backwards, and before we could save her, fell senseless to the floor.

A few words of excuse and explanation, and we left the Count, who, kneeling beside his wife and endeavouring to resuscitate her, was completely mystified at the strange recognition. d.i.c.k, almost beside himself with grief at discovering his idol already married, returned at once to London, while I remained at an inn at Oxted in order to glean some further information.

Inquiries showed that the Count had met her while travelling in America, and had married her. Since that time they had apparently lived happily, and not a breath of scandal had besmirched her fair name. The reason she always refused us her address was now clear; and it was evident that, while in residence at her London house in Park Lane, she had been in the habit of paying us visits unknown to her husband, a.s.suming the character of an unmarried and flighty _Bohemienne_.

On the following day I called at the Park to inquire after the Countess's health.

The footman looked pale and grave when I asked after her ladys.h.i.+p.

"I much regret to inform you, sir, that my mistress is dead," he said.

"Dead?" I cried. "Impossible!"

"Yes, sir. Her maid discovered her in her boudoir late last night, and found that she had taken an overdose of morphia. We sent for the doctor, but before his arrival life was extinct. The Count is insane with grief, more especially because the maid discovered that her ladys.h.i.+p had left a letter to some man she calls d.i.c.k, telling him that she loved him, and could live no longer."

d.i.c.k rarely smiles, and is invariably gloomy and sad, poor fellow. The Count, ignorant of the truth, has hung his latest purchase in the private gallery of his great palace in Rome, little dreaming that the "Masked Circe" is actually the picture of his dead wife.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE MAN WITH THE FATAL FINGER.

Three years ago, while I was writing a novel which deals with Nihilism, and which brought the heavy hand of the Press Bureau at Petersburg upon me, I contrived, in order to sketch my characters from life, to obtain an introduction to the little colony of Russian revolutionists which exists in secret in a northwestern suburb of London. I eventually won their confidence, and ingratiated myself with them by advocating Russian freedom in a series of articles in a certain London journal, which had the effect of enlisting public sympathy with the exiles in such a manner, that the editor received a number of donations, which he handed to me, while I in turn conveyed the money to my friend, Paul Grigorovitch, the head of the branch of the Narodnoe Pravo.

I was sitting at home, reading and smoking, in a very lazy mood, one winter's evening, when the servant girl entered and handed me a soiled, crumpled letter, which, she said, had been left by a strange-looking foreign woman. This did not surprise me, for I sometimes received mysterious unsigned notes from my friends the refugees when they desired to see me. The exiles are continually under the observation of the "Okhrannoe Otdelenie," or Secret Police attached to the Russian Emba.s.sy, hence the cautiousness of their movements.

I tore the envelope open and read its contents.

The words, written in a fine educated hand,--evidently a woman's,--were: "Come to Springfield Lodge, St. Margaret's Road, Regent's Park, to-night at nine. Important."

I confess the communication puzzled me, for I knew no one living at the address, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I resolved to obey the summons.

With some little difficulty I found the house. It stood back from the road, concealed behind a high wall. The thoroughfare was very quiet and eminently respectable. Each house stood in its own grounds, and had an air of wealth and prosperity about it, while the bare black branches of the great trees on either side of the road met overhead, forming a long avenue.

I gave the summons used at Grigorovitch's, namely, four distinct tugs at the bell; and presently the heavy door was opened by a Russian maid-servant.

"Who are you?" she demanded in broken English.

I told her my name, and showed her the note I had received.

"_Harosho_! Step this way, sir, if you please," she exclaimed, when she had examined the letter by the feeble light shed by a neighbouring street lamp. Then she closed the door and walked before me through a well-kept garden up to the house. Entering, she conducted me to a small and rather well-furnished apartment, the French windows of which opened out upon a s.p.a.cious tennis-lawn. Around the walls were hung several choice paintings, and I noticed that upon the table lay a number of pamphlets similar to those which the organisation were secretly circulating throughout the Empire of the Tzar.

In a few moments the door opened, and a very pretty young Russian lady of about twenty-three years of age came forward to meet me.

"Good-evening," she said, smiling. "My father will be here in a few minutes. You will not object to wait, will you?"

I a.s.sured her I was in no hurry, whereupon she begged me to be seated, at the same time producing a large box of cigarettes, offering me one, and, in accordance with Russian etiquette, taking one herself.

She struck a vesta and lit hers quite naturally. Then, as she seated herself upon a low chair, I recognised that she was very handsome, and that every lineament and feature was perfect. Her countenance had an expression of charming ingenuousness and blus.h.i.+ng candour, while her dark brilliant eyes had an intense and bewitching glance. In her brown hair was a handsome crescent of diamonds, and her evening dress of soft black net disclosed her white chest and arms.