Her Majesty's Minister Part 11

"I did not express that opinion," he hastened to protest. "Before we discuss the matter further it will be best for me to see her. Death may have been due to natural causes, for aught we know."

I stood motionless. His suggestion that my sweetheart of the old days had committed suicide because I had forsaken her was a startling one.

Surely that could not be so?

"Come," my friend said, "let us lose no time. Which is the room?"

I led him along the corridor, and opened the door of the chamber in which she was lying so cold and still. The light of the afterglow fell full upon her, tipping her auburn hair with crimson and illuminating her face with a warm radiance that gave her back the appearance of life.

But it was only for a few moments. The slanting ray was lost, and the pallor of that beautiful countenance became marked against the gold of her wondrous hair.

In silence I stood at the foot of the bed watching my friend, who was now busy with his examination. He opened her eyes and closed them again, felt her heart, raised her arms, and examined her mouth, uttering no word. His serious face wore a look as though he were infinitely puzzled.

One after the other he examined the palms of her hands long and carefully, then, bending until his eyes were close to her face, he examined her lips, brow, and the whole surface of her cheeks. Upon her neck, below the left ear, was a mark to which he returned time after time, as though not satisfied as to its cause. Upon her lower lip, too, was a slight yellow discoloration, which he examined several times, comparing it with the mark upon the neck. He was unable to account for either.

"Curious!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Very curious indeed!"

"What is curious?" I inquired eagerly.

"Those marks," he answered, indicating them with his finger. "They are very puzzling. I've never seen such marks before."

"Do they point to foul play?" I inquired, feeling suspicious that she had by some mysterious means fallen the victim of an a.s.sa.s.sin.

"Well, no," he responded, after some hesitation; "that is not my opinion."

"Then what is your opinion?"

"At present I have none. I can have none until I make a thorough examination. There are certainly no outward marks of violence."

"We need not inform the police, I suppose?"

"Not at present," he replied, his eyes still fixed upon the blanched face of the woman who had once been all the world to me.

I raised her dead hand, and upon it imprinted a last fervent kiss. It was cold and clammy to my lips. In that hour all my old love for her had returned, and my heart had become filled with an intense bitterness and desolation. I had thought that all my love for her was dead, and that Edith Austin, the calm, sweet woman far away in an English county, who wrote to me daily from her quiet home deep in the woodlands, had taken her place. But our meeting and its tragic sequel had, I admit, aroused within me a deep sympathy, which had, within an hour, developed into that great and tender love of old. With men this return to the old love is of no infrequent occurrence, but with women it seldom happens.

Perhaps this is because man is more fickle and more easily influenced by woman's voice, woman's glances, and woman's tears.

The reader will probably accuse me of injustice and of fickleness of heart. Well, I cannot deny it; indeed, I seek to deny nothing in this narrative of strange facts and diplomatic wiles, but would only ask of those who read to withhold their verdict until they have ascertained the truth yet to be revealed, and have read to the conclusion, this strange chapter of the secret history of a nation.

My friend the doctor was holding one hand, while I imprinted a last kiss upon the other. A lump was in my throat, my eyes were filled with tears, my thoughts were all of the past, my anguish of heart unspeakable. That small chill hand with the cold, glittering ring--one that I had given her in Brussels long ago--seemed to be the only reality in all that hideous phantasmagoria of events.

"Do not despair," murmured the kind voice of my old friend, standing opposite me on the other side of the bed. "You loved her once, but it is all over--surely it is!"

"No, d.i.c.k!" I answered brokenly. "I thought I did not love her. I have held her from me these three years--until now."

"Ah!" he sighed, "I understand. Man always longs for the unattainable."

"Yes, always," I responded.

In that moment the memory of the day when we had parted arose gaunt and ghost-like. I had wronged her; I felt confident that I had. All came back to me now--that cruel, scandalous denunciation I had uttered in the heat of my mad jealousy--the false tale which had struck her dumb by its circ.u.mstantial accuracy. Ah! how bitter it all was, now that punishment was upon me! I remembered how, in the hour of my worldly triumph and of her highest hope--at the very moment when she had spoken words of greater affection to me than she had ever used before--I had made the charge against her, and she had fallen back with her young heart crushed within her. My ring was there, still glittering mockingly upon her dead hand. By the unfounded charge I had made against her I had sinned. My sin at that moment arose from its grave, and barred the way for ever to all hope--to all happiness.

The summer twilight was stealing on apace, and in the silence of the room there sounded the roar of life from the boulevard below. Men were crying _Le Soir_ with strident voices, and all Paris was on its way to dine, and afterwards to enjoy itself in idleness upon the terraces of the cafes or at those al-fresco variety performances in the Avenue des Champs Elysees, where the entrance fee includes a consommation.

Deane still held my old love's hand, bending in the dim light until his eyes were close to it, watching intently. But I took no notice, for my eyes were fixed upon that face that had held me in such fascination, and had been so admired at those brilliant receptions given by King Leopold and the Countess of Flanders. The doctor stretched forth his hand, and of a sudden switched on the electric light. The next instant I was startled by his loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise.

"Thank G.o.d!" he cried. "She's not dead, after all!"

"Not dead!" I gasped, unable fully to realise his meaning.

"No," he answered breathlessly. "But we must not lose a single instant." And I saw that with a lancet he had made an incision in her delicate wrist, and there was blood there. "She is in a state of catalepsy, and we must do all in our power to bring her round."

"But do you think you can?" I cried.

"I hope so."

"Do your best, d.i.c.k," I implored. "Save her, for my sake."

"Rely upon me," he answered calmly, adding: "Run along to Number 18 in the boulevard--the corner house on the right--and bring Doctor Trepard at once. He lives au troisieme. Tell him that I sent you, and that the matter is one of life or death." He scribbled some words on a card, and, giving it me, added: "Tell him to bring this. Meanwhile, I will commence artificial respiration. Go!"

"But do you think she will really recover?" I demanded.

"I can't tell. We have already lost so much time. I had no idea of the truth. It has surprised me just as it has surprised you. This moment is not one for words, but for actions. Don't lose an instant."

Thus urged, I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my hat and tore along the boulevard like a madman. Without difficulty I found Trepard's appartement, and on being admitted found him a grave-faced, rather stout old Frenchman, who, on the instant I mentioned d.i.c.k's name and gave him the card with the words upon it, naming some drugs he required, went into an adjoining room, and fetched a phial of tiny red pillules, which he held up to the light.

Then he put on his hat, and descended with me to the street. A fiacre was pa.s.sing, which we took, and five minutes later we were standing together in the room where Yolande was lying.

"This is a most curious case, my dear Trepard," began d.i.c.k, speaking in French--"a case of coma, which I have mistaken for death;" and, continuing, he briefly explained how the patient had been found in a state so closely resembling death that he himself had been deceived.

The old Frenchman placed his hand upon her heart, and, withdrawing it, said:

"She's breathing now."

"Breathing!" I echoed. "Then she is recovering!"

"Yes, old fellow," d.i.c.k replied, "she is recovering--at least we hope we shall save her." Then, turning to his colleague, he raised her hand and pointed to the finger-nails, asking: "Do you notice anything there?"

The other, adjusting his pince-nez, bent and examined, them one by one.

"Yes," he answered at last. "A slight purple discoloration at the base of the nails."

"And upon the lower lip does anything strike you as peculiar?"

"A yellow mark," he answered, after carefully inspecting the spot indicated.

"And there?" Deane asked, touching the mark upon the neck.

"Very strange!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the elder man. "It is a most unusual case."

"Yes. Have you brought the hydrated peroxide of iron?"

For answer the Frenchman produced the tiny tube, saying: