he is our family physician. He and I live close by. May I offer you my card? I and my family will, I am sure, feel delighted to be of any service to you," said Paulton, raising his hat.
"Stay," she said. "Will you both come in? I am terrified. I do not know what has happened. I hope you are not too late."
Her words were measured and her tone calm. Although the trees overhead were leafless, where she stood was dark, and neither of the men could see her clearly.
Without further words she led the way back to the house. The two men followed in silence. When they entered the hall she turned round in the full light of the lamp, and, stretching out her right arm towards the first door on the left, said:
"In that room. I shall wait for you. There is no other light. Take this lamp."
Paulton now saw her fully. She was dark, almost swarthy. There was no colour in her cheek. Her forehead was small and compact. Her eyebrows and hair jet, glossy. Her eyes were dark, large, a little sunken, brilliant, and full of suppressed fire. The nose was slightly aquiline. The only relief to the dark hue of the face and the black of the eyebrows, hair, and eyes, was afforded by the full, red, ripe lips. And all the features, the forehead, the nose, the chin, the mouth, the cheeks, were finely modelled. The face was commanding, imperial, triumphant. It was as set and firm as marble. It was the face of an empress born to lead her legions to victory-of a woman in whom courage was a matter of course, who regarded obedience to her wish as a spontaneous offering. She had the immortality of indestructible will in her face, the weight of irresistible determination.
With the face ended the heroic aspect of the woman.
At her throat blazed the diamonds of a brooch large as the palm of her hand. On her fingers glittered a dozen diamond rings. The belt round her waist was fastened with a diamond clasp. The diamonds at her throat held an orange-coloured silk scarf. The rest of her dress was dead black, close-fitting to the figure, and full of folds below the waist. The arms were bare half-way from the elbow to the wrist. The figure, the arms, the hands were subduingly soft and feminine. The arms and wrists were round, the hands exquisitely delicate, with fine taper fingers, the bust a miracle of rich symmetry.
It was the head of Boadicea on the figure of Rosamond.
Dr. Santley took up the lamp from the hall table and entered the room she had indicated. Paulton paused for a moment in doubt as to whether he should go or stay. The hall lay now in comparative darkness; there was no light except what came through the open door of the front room.
"Follow him."
It was her voice.
Paulton obeyed. As he got inside the doorposts he turned round and looked back into the hall. He could make out nothing but the glitter of the diamonds at her throat, in her girdle, on her fingers. They were stars against the darkness of her dress, as the stars abroad in heaven against the sightless robe of night.
The room in which Dr. Santley and Paulton found themselves was in the greatest disorder. In one corner lay the carpet rolled up, in another the hearth-rug, fender, fire-irons, and coal-scuttle. All along the right side stood a row of chairs, one inverted on another. Pictures rested on the floor with their faces against the wall; the gaselier sprawled close by the window; the leaves of the dining-table were set against the folding-doors at the back. The drawers and pillars of the sideboard were hard by, the top and back of it stretched upward into the gloom of a deep recess; several boxes and canvas packages littered the floor. Two knights in plate-armour reclined one at each corner of the chimney-piece; easy-chairs were wedged in among amorphous bundles wrapped in Indian matting; rods and poles protruded from under legs of chairs, under bales heaped upon one another. A small table, face down upon another, held its slender legs up in air. Some fire still smouldered in the grate; the fire must have been large not long ago, for the room was still warm.
In the centre of the room stood the dining-table, reduced to its smallest dimensions. On this were spread the remains of a simple supper. Close by the table stood a couch, and on the couch appeared the figure of a man.
The figure was sitting up in the arm of the couch, the legs rested on the couch, the head drooped forward; the chin and lower part of the face were buried in the thick, long, grizzled beard that flowed down over the chest.
Dr. Santley stepped up to the couch on which the figure lay, and having placed the lamp upon the table close at hand, began his examination. It did not take long. After a few minutes he turned to Paulton, and, pointing to the figure, shook his head.
"Well?" asked the young man below his breath.
The doctor went up to him and whispered in his ear:
"Dead some time."
Paulton looked round apprehensively at the door, and whispered back:
"How will she take it?"
The doctor shook his head.
Both men stood staring at one another.
Suddenly both started; they heard a footfall behind them. Some one had entered the room.
CHAPTER II
FOUL PLAY?
The two men turned quickly round. The light of the lamp fell on the black dress of the woman and sparkled on her diamonds. Her arms hung down by her side. Both hands were clenched. She advanced with a steady, slow step, her eyes firmly fixed on Dr. Santley's face. She did not glance at Paulton. She did not glance at the couch.
"You were long," she said, in a slow, constrained voice, "and I came in to know."
She rested the tips of the fingers of one hand on the table and kept her eyes fixed on the doctor.
"I think," said Santley, placing himself between her and the couch, "that it would be better if we went into some other room."
"We cannot; this must serve. All the other rooms are locked up, except my bed room, and my husband has the keys."
Her voice did not falter.
"Has Mr. – , your husband, been long ill?"
"My husband's name is Louis Davenport. He has been ill a long time-years. He has been suffering from spasmodic asthma. I can gather from your manner that there is no hope."
Her voice was firm and clear. No feature moved but the beautiful, flexible mouth, of which the lips were as full of colour as ever.
"May I beg of you to be seated?" Dr. Santley left the position he had occupied and handed her a chair. She sank on it without speaking. She rested one of her arms on the table. He went on: "Mrs. Davenport, I am afraid the worst must be faced."
"The worst!" she cried, rising and looking wildly at him, her voice now coming in a terrified whisper from between her lips, which at the moment lost their colour. "The worst! What do you mean by the worst? What do you know of the worst?"
Her face showed intense eagerness, mingled with intense fear.
"I am very sorry to be obliged to give you bad news."
"And it is?" with still greater eagerness and fear.
"That Mr. Davenport will not recover."
"That he is dead?" leaning forward on the back of her chair towards him.
"Unhappily, yes."
"Of his old disease?"
She still kept her eyes on Santley's face.
"Perhaps. Did he complain to-night?"
"Yes; he said he was too ill to think of lying down."
"He used, no doubt, to inhale chloroform when the spasms were bad?"
"Always."
"Yes, I got the smell of chloroform. Well, one of these spasms may have been too severe; and now you know the worst, Mrs. Davenport."
She sat down on her chair and seemed about to faint. There was wine on the table. Santley poured some into a glass and made her drink it. After a while she became composed, and the look of eagerness and dread disappeared wholly from her face, and the red returned to her lips.
She was the first to speak. Her voice