"Consider yourself highly favored, sir," she said, pausing with her hand upon one of the furthest doors. "You are the only male being, except my father, who has ever been admitted here."

She led him into a daintily furnished morning room, full of all those trifling indications of a woman's constant presence which possesses for the man who loves her a peculiar and almost reverent interest. There was her fancy work lying where she had put it down on the little wicker table, a book with a paper knife in it, one of his own; by its side an open piano, with a little pile of songs on the stool, and a sleek dachshund blinking up at them from the hearthrug. The appointments of the room were simple enough, and yet everything seemed to speak of a culture, a refinement, and withal a dainty feminine charm which appealed to him both as an artist and a lover. She drew an easy chair to the fire, and when he was seated, came and stood over him.

"I expect you to like my room, sir," she said softly. "Do you?"

"It is like you," he answered; "it is perfect."

They were together for half an hour, and then the dressing bell sounded.

She jumped up at once from her little low chair by his side.

"I must go and give orders about your room," she said. "Of course you will stop with us. I have made up my mind where to put you. Roberts shall come and take you to your room in a few moments."

"Dressing will be a farce for me," he remarked. "I have no clothes."

"Oh, we'll forgive you," she laughed. "Of course you were too anxious to get here to think about clothes. That was quite as it should be.

Good-by! Don't be dull."

He was alone only for a few minutes. Then a servant knocked at the door and took him to his room. He looked around him, and saw more evidences of her care for him. In the sitting room, which opened on one side, was a great bowl of freshly cut flowers, a pile of new books, and a photograph of herself. The rooms were the finest in the house. The oak paneled walls were hung with tapestry, and every piece of furniture was an antique curiosity. It was a bedchamber for a prince, and indeed a royal prince had once slept in the quaint high four-poster with its carved oak pillars and ancient hangings.

To Bernard Maddison, as he strolled round and examined his surroundings, it all seemed like a dream--so delightful, that awakening was a thing to be dreaded indeed. The loud ringing of the second bell, however, soon brought him back to the immediate present. He hastily made such alterations in his toilet as were possible, and descended. In the hall he met Helen, who had changed her dress for a soft cream-colored dinner gown, and was waiting for him.

"Do you like your room?" she asked.

"Like it? It is perfect," he answered quietly. "I had no idea that Thurwell was so old. I like you, too," he added, glancing approvingly at her and taking her hand.

"No time for compliments, sir," she said, laughing. "We must go into the drawing-room; Sir Allan is there alone."

He followed her across the hall, and entered the room with her. Sir Allan, with his back to them, was seated at the piano, softly playing an air of Chopin's to himself. At the sound of the opening door, he turned round.

"Sir Allan, you see we have found another visitor to take pity on us,"

Helen said. "You know Mr. Maddison, don't you?"

The music, which Sir Allan had been continuing with his right hand, came to a sudden end, and for the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds he remained perfectly motionless. Then he rose and bowed slightly.

"I have that pleasure," he said quietly. "Mr. Maddison is a neighbor of yours, is he not? I met him, you know, on a certain very melancholy occasion."

"Will you go on playing?" she asked, sinking down on a low settee; "we should like to listen."

He sat down again, and with half-closed eyes recommenced the air. Helen and Bernard Maddison, sitting side by side, spoke every now and then to one another in a low tone. There was no general conversation until Mr.

Thurwell entered, and then dinner was announced almost immediately.

There was no lack of conversation then. At first it had lain chiefly between Mr. Thurwell and Sir Allan Beaumerville, but catching a somewhat anxious glance from Helen, her lover suddenly threw off his silence.

"When Maddison talks," one of his admirers had once said, "everyone else listens"; and if that was not quite so in the present case, it was simply because he had the art of drawing whoever he chose into the conversation, and making them appear far greater sharers in it than they really were. What was in truth a monologue seemed to be a brilliantly sustained conversation, in which Maddison himself was at once the promoter and the background. On his part there was not a single faulty phrase or unmusical expression. Every idea he sprang upon them was clothed in picturesque garb, and artistically conceived. It was the outpouring of a richly stored, cultured mind--the perfect expression of perfect matter.

The talk had drifted toward Italy, and the art of the Renaissance. Mr.

Thurwell had made some remark upon the picturesque beauties of some of the lesser-known towns in the north, and Bernard Maddison had taken up the theme with a new enthusiasm.

"I am but just come back from such a one," he said. "I wonder if I could describe it."

And he did describe it. He told them of the crumbling palaces, beautiful in their perfect Venetian architecture, but still more beautiful now in their slow, grand decay, in which was all the majesty of deep repose teeming with suggestions of past glories. He spoke of the still, clear air, the delicate tints of the softened landscape, the dark cool green of the olive trees, the green vineyards, and the dim blue hills. He tried to make them understand the sweet silence, the pastoral simplicity of the surrounding country, delicate and airy when the faint sunlight of early morning lay across its valleys and sloping vineyards, rich and drowsy and languorous when the full glow of midday or the scented darkness of the starlit night succeeded. Then he pa.s.sed on to speak of that garden--the fairest wilderness it was possible to conceive--where the violets grew like weeds upon the moss-grown paths, and brilliant patches of wild geraniums mingled their perfume with the creamy clematis run wild, and the cl.u.s.tering j.a.ponica.

"She who lives there," he went on more slowly, turning from Helen toward Sir Allan, "is in perfect accord with everything that is sweet and stately and picturesque in her surroundings. I see her now as she met me in the garden, and stretched out her hands to greet me. It is the face, the form of a martyr and an angel. She is tall, and her garb is one of stately simplicity. Her hair is white as snow, and the lines of her face are wasted with sorrow and physical decay. Yet there is sweetness and softness and light in her worn features--aye, and more almost than a human being's share of that exquisite spirituality which is the reward only of those who have triumphed over pain and suffering and sin. Guido would have given the world for such a face. Little does an artist think at what cost such an expression is won. Through the fires of shame and bitter wrong, of humiliation and heart-shattering agony, the human cross has fallen away, and the gold of her nature shines pure and refined. G.o.d grant to those who have wronged her, those at whose door her sin lies, as happy a deathbed as hers will be. Sir Allan, I am boring you, I fear.

We will change the subject."

"Not at all. I have been--very interested," Sir Allan answered in a low tone, pouring himself out a gla.s.s of wine, and raising it to lips as white as the camellia in his b.u.t.tonhole.

"We are all interested," Helen said softly. "Did you stay with her?"

"For three days," he answered. "Then, because I could not bring myself to tell her the news which I had gone all that way to impart, I came away."

There was a moment's silence. A servant who had just entered the room whispered in Mr. Thurwell's ear.

"Two gentlemen wish to speak to you, Mr. Maddison," he said, repeating the message. "Where have you shown them, Roberts?--in the library?"

"I wished to do so, sir," the man replied, "but----"

He glanced over his shoulder. Every one looked toward the door. Just outside were two dark figures. To three people at the table the truth came like a flash.

Sir Allan sat quite still, with his eyes fixed upon Bernard Maddison, who had risen to his feet, pale as death, with rigidly compressed lips, and nervously grasping his napkin. Helen, too, had risen, with a look of horror in her white face, and her eyes fastened upon her lover. Mr.

Thurwell looked from one to the other, not comprehending the situation.

The whole scene, the glittering table laden with flowers and wine, the wondering servant, the att.i.tude and faces of the four people, and the dark figures outside, would have made a marvelous tableau.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a low agonized cry. Helen had thrown her arms with a sudden impulsive gesture around her lover's neck.

"My love, my love!" she cried, "it is I who have done this thing. They shall not take you from me--they shall not!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

ARRESTED

As is often the case, the person most concerned in the culmination of this scene was apparently the least agitated, and the first to recover his self-possession. Gently loosening Helen's arms from around him, Bernard Maddison walked steadily toward the door, and confronted his visitors. One was his fellow-pa.s.senger from London, the other a tall, wiry-looking man, who was standing with his hat under his arm, and his hands in the pocket of a long traveling coat.

"I am Bernard Maddison," he said quietly. "What is your business with me?"

"I am sorry, sir, that it is rather unpleasant," the man answered, lowering his voice. "It is my duty to arrest you under this warrant, charging you with the murder of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston on the 12th of August last year. Please do not make any answer to the charge, as anything that is now said by you or anyone present, in connection with it, can be used in evidence against you."

"I am ready to go with you at once," he answered. "The sooner we get away the better. I have no luggage here, so I do not need to make any preparations."

He felt a hand on his arm, and turned round. Mr. Thurwell had recovered from his first stupefaction, and had come to his side. Close behind him, Sir Allan Beaumerville was standing, pale as death, and with a curious glitter in his eyes.

"Maddison, what is this?" Mr. Thurwell asked gravely.

"I am arrested on a charge of murdering Sir Geoffrey Kynaston at your shooting party last year," Bernard Maddison answered quietly. "I make no reply to the charge, save that I am not guilty. I am sorry that this should have occurred at your house. Had I received any intimation of it, I would not have come here. As it is, I can only express my regret."