My very name will become a reproach, and the very people who have so often applauded me will now hate my memory as that of a betrayer. My punishment is complete!" he cried wildly, in hoa.r.s.e despair. "I have sinned, and this is G.o.d's judgment!"

CHAPTER THIRTY.

TELLS A STRANGE TALE.

"And your secret is known," said the pale, agitated woman despairingly, her dark eyes still fixed upon the guilty man before her. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, for the wounded heart made it difficult for her to speak.

He nodded in the affirmative.

"To whom?" she asked.

"To Cator, of the Secret Service; to many of his agents, no doubt; to one, at least, of my political opponents, and to a woman who is your friend--Muriel Mortimer!"

"To Muriel?" she gasped in abject amazement.

"Yes," he answered; "the woman who, if report speaks correctly, was suggested by you to Lady Meldrum as a fitting person to become my wife."

"Ah, forgive me!" Claudia cried quickly. "I threw you into one another's society in order to test your love for me. I was, not certain whether you really loved me, or whether this younger and prettier woman might not attract you. Believe me, I invited her to the house-party at Wroxeter for the same purpose that I allowed my name to be a.s.sociated with that of the Grand-Duke and others--to test the extent of your affection. I was foolish--very foolish, I know. But forgive me, Dudley, I was jealous."

In answer to her request he related the ingenious manner in which he had been entrapped, precisely as in the foregoing pages it has already been described.

"She wished to marry you in order to obtain money," declared the angry woman, upon whom these revelations had fallen as a crushing blow. "I never suspected her; yet now I see it all. Her ingenuity has been simply marvellous. She intended that you should buy from her a freedom which it was not within her power to sell. If you had become her husband she would, no doubt, either have tempted you to commit suicide rather than face arrest--first, of course, having induced you to make a will in her favour--or else have expected you to pay heavily for release from a woman of her stamp."

"But who is she?" he demanded. "What do you know of her?"

"Nothing, except what you already know, Dudley, that, although the ward of a respectable family, she is now proved to be an unscrupulous adventuress. But I myself will attempt to solve the mystery. She was abroad for about a year, she once told me, and she often goes to the Continent to visit friends there. There are many facts about her that are mysterious, and yet Lady Meldrum absolutely adores her. She cannot, however, know the truth of her a.s.sociation with these foreign ruffians who have attempted your life. Now that I recollect," she added, "I found one morning, concealed behind one of the cushions in the cosy-corner of the library, a piece of crumpled paper, which, when opened, I discovered to be the commencement of a letter in a woman's hand. It was in Italian, and began, `Mio adorato Tonio.' She must have gone there to write to the man, and, being interrupted, had evidently crushed the paper in her hand and hid it, and then forgotten it."

"Yes," he said, "I recollect finding her alone there one evening, and that my entrance seemed to confuse her somewhat. But," he went on despondently, "had the scoundrels been successful it would perhaps have been better for me." He was no coward, but he saw that for him all life, all happiness, all love had ended.

"No, Dudley," she answered in a sweet and tender voice, looking straight at him. "You are guilty, but both you and I have been the victims of this ingenious trickster. She first tried to rob me of your love, and then, finding herself unsuccessful, resorted to a foul and cunning strategy."

"Yes," he said in a low voice, his chin still upon his breast. "I am guilty, and must suffer. But," he added, raising his head slowly until his eyes met hers, "promise me one thing, Claudia--promise that after to-day you will give no further thought to me. I have deceived you, and am unworthy; put me out of your mind for ever."

"But you loved me, Dudley," she cried with a mournful tenderness. "How can I allow your memory to pa.s.s from me when for so many years you have been my all in all?"

"In the future we must be parted," he answered huskily. "From the consequences of my crime there is no escape--none. But if I thought that you had forgotten the grave wrong I have done you, my mind would at least be easier."

She did not answer for a few moments. Then, with the pa.s.sion begotten of a changeless and profound affection she rushed towards him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried out:

"No, Dudley, you are mine--mine! we must not part. I love you--you know that I do! You shall not leave me--you hear! _you shall not_!"

"But I must," he replied gravely, a hardness appearing at the corners of his mouth as he slowly disengaged himself from her embrace. "I have given my word of honour to return to my chambers before midday."

"To whom?"

"To Archibald Cator. The man who, in the exercise of his profession as chief of our Secret Service, has discovered my secret." Chisholm, whatever might have been his follies in the past, was now a man of unflinching principle. He had given his word not to attempt to escape.

"Then I will go with you," she said with resolution. "It is half-past eleven, and my carriage is outside. We will drive down to St. James's Street together."

But in all earnestness he begged her not to accompany him. He did not desire that she should be a witness of his degradation and arrest. He could not bear the thought. He knew that the matter would be placed before Lord Stockbridge himself, and that, in company with Cator, he would be called into the presence of the grave-eyed Chief in whose confidence and regard he had for long held so high a place.

"I shall go with you," she said decisively, now calm and composed after her agitation and flood of tears. She had braced herself up with what was, under the circ.u.mstances, a remarkable effort. By way of explanation she added, half breathlessly: "I love you, Dudley, and my place in the hour of trial is at your side."

He raised her bejewelled hand tremblingly to his lips, and thanked her in a husky voice. He, the Discrowned, dared not kiss her lips.

"Patience and courage," she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly, just as she had been wont to do in those early days of his career when she had so often given him advice.

He shook his head sadly before answering.

"Both are unavailing against the vengeance of Heaven!"

She was silent. This man, whom she had loved as her own life, was a murderer. A gulf had opened between them, his arrest and denunciation were imminent. They could no longer be lovers. All was of the past.

Her tender woman's sympathy for him in his hopeless despair was too deep for tears. Her countenance, usually so sweet and smiling, had grown hard, and her eyes large and serious. The caprice of her broken heart was that this last drive to his chambers should be taken in his company.

Many and many a time he had driven with her hither and thither in London, but this was the last occasion. After that, then she would be alone, friendless, unloved--the queen of the silent kingdom, as she had so often termed the stately mansion, one of the finest in London, where the servants moved in silence and the huge marble hall and corridors echoed to the slightest whisper.

They drove together past Apsley House and along Piccadilly without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Dudley raised his hat mechanically to pa.s.sers-by who, now that the yellow sunlight had struggled through the clouds, were enjoying a stroll in London's gayest thoroughfare. Whenever there is any sunshine in the metropolis, it is always in Piccadilly. But the unwonted brightness of that morning jarred upon Dudley and Claudia. Few who pa.s.sed the pair driving in that handsome carriage would ever have dreamed that the light of that beautiful woman's heart was extinguished, and that the well-groomed man at her side was going deliberately to his doom.

Beneath the bear-skin rug their hands met--and clasped. Their hearts beat quickly, their eyes met, but no word pa.s.sed between them. Both understood that all words were empty in face of the horrible truth.

Archibald Cator, who had been sitting beside the fire in Chisholm's sitting-room, rose and bowed when they entered. He recognised Claudia at once, and darted a look of inquiry at the accused man.

"Captain Cator, I believe?" she exclaimed, addressing him. "To apologise is quite unnecessary. I know everything. Mr. Chisholm has told me the whole terrible story. You have but done your duty in the service of your country, and as far as I am concerned your just behaviour will receive a just verdict."

The tall, thin-faced man was expressing his regrets, when Claudia, turning to him again, asked:

"In this affair there is still an element of mystery which should be at once cleared up. Through my own unpardonable folly in accepting as friend a woman whom I did not know, Mr. Chisholm has fallen the victim of a curious conspiracy. Do you chance to know in Italy a man named Marucci?"

"Marucci?" repeated the captain; "Francesco Marruci, I presume you mean?

Yes, I know him and have employed him in Rome, and elsewhere, to make confidential inquiries."

"And do you chance to be acquainted with a woman named Mortimer--a young woman, Muriel Mortimer?"

"Certainly," he replied quite frankly. "She is a fair-headed young person who poses as the ward of an English family named Meldrum. A couple of years ago, however, she married secretly an Italian named Biancheri, then a lieutenant of Artillery stationed at Florence, and she and her husband are now generally supposed to be agents employed in the secret service of Italy. This good-looking woman has been a successful spy. Her husband is a black-haired, evil-looking fellow with an ugly scar across his lower jaw."

"His description is exact. He was the man who attempted to take my life last night!" exclaimed Chisholm, astonished at this revelation. "He called himself Tonio Rocchi."

When Dudley had briefly described his adventure, Cator said:

"I knew the woman Mortimer was a guest at Wroxeter, and that was the reason why I wished n.o.body to know of my visit there. We are acquainted, but at that moment I had no wish to meet her."

"Then this woman, her husband, and the Italian Marucci have by some means learnt my secret, and are actually in agreement as regards this scheme of attempted blackmail?"

"Most certainly," was Cator's response. "Biancheri, or Rocchi, as he calls himself, and his wife are as smart a pair of adventurers as any on the Continent, and it is well known to us that they have on several occasions levied huge sums in blackmail when diplomatic and family secrets have leaked out."

"But the Meldrums!" exclaimed Claudia in astonishment. "Is it possible that they, a most respectable family, can actually be aware of this woman's fraud?"

"I think not," was the captain's reply. "Muriel Mortimer, the daughter of a deceased station-master employed on the Great Northern Railway, is of age, and therefore, of course, her own mistress. In England she is still the ward of Sir Henry Meldrum--who had taken her out of charity-- and pa.s.ses as a single woman, but she secretly married Biancheri while they were wintering in Florence, and her frequent journeys abroad have not been undertaken for the purpose of visiting friends, as she pretends but, in reality, to a.s.sist her husband in his ingenious and daring schemes of espionage and blackmail. She is an adventuress of the very worst type."