The Temptress Part 58

The remainder of the letter was a confused and disjointed declaration of love, combined with a penitent entreaty for forgiveness, without any attempt at palliation.

Blotting the tears that had fallen and blurred the words as she wrote, she placed it in an envelope and addressed it with a nervous, shaky hand "To Hugh."

"Ah, well," she murmured, sighing heavily.

Again she opened the davenport, and from under some papers took a little morocco case. Rigid and determined, she rose, more calm than before.

Her lips were thin and white, her teeth tightly clenched, and in her eyes was a fixed, stony look. Walking with firm steps to the door, she locked it, afterwards flinging herself upon a chair beside the small bamboo table in the centre of the room.

Overwhelmed by despair, she had no longer any desire for life.

Insanity, begotten of despondency and fear, prompted with headlong wilfulness, an ardent longing for death.

Opening the case, she extracted from its blue velvet interior a tiny silver hypodermic syringe and a small gla.s.s phial. Examining the latter in the dim light, she saw it was labelled "Chloral." This was not the drug she desired. She was in the habit of injecting this for the purpose of soothing her nerves, and knew that it was too weak to produce fatal effect.

Her breath came and went in short uneven gasps, while her half-uncovered breast heaved and fell with the excitement of her temporary madness.

Staggering to her feet, she returned swiftly to the davenport, from which, after a few moments' search, she abstracted a small dark-blue bottle containing morphia, afterwards reseating herself, and, uncorking it, placed it upon the table.

Taking up the syringe, she tried its needle-point with her finger. It p.r.i.c.ked her, and she cast it from her with an exclamation of repugnance.

"_Dieu_!" she gasped hoa.r.s.ely. "I have no courage. Bah! I am still a coward!"

Yet, as it lay upon the table she fixed her strained eyes upon it, for as an instrument of death it possessed a fatal fascination for her.

Slowly she stretched forth her hand, and again took it between her cold fingers. Then, with a sudden resolve, she filled it to its utmost capacity with the drug from the bottle.

"A certain remedy for mental ailments," she remarked to herself, smiling bitterly as she held it up contemplatively. "Who will regret my death or shed a tear? No one. I have no adieux to make--none. As a friendless, sinful wretch, I adopt the preferable mode of speedy death rather than undergo the ordeal of a criminal trial, with its inevitable result. I would live and atone for the past if I could, but that is impossible. Ah! too late, alas! Pierre has forsaken me, and I am alone. Forgiveness! Bah! A mere mockery to set the conscience at rest. What use? I--I can never be forgiven--never!"

While speaking she had, with a feeble, trembling hand, applied the sharp point of the syringe to her bare white arm. Unflinchingly she ran the needle deep into the flesh, and thrice slowly emptied the liquid into the puncture.

She watched the bead of dark blood oozing from the wound when she withdrew the instrument, and quickly covered it with her thumb in order that the injection should be fully absorbed in her veins.

"Ah!" she gasped, in sudden terror a moment later, as the syringe dropped from her nerveless grasp, "I--I feel so giddy! I can't breathe!

I'm choking! The poison's killing me. Ha, ha, I'm dying!" she laughed hysterically. "They thought to triumph over me, the vultures! but, after all, I've cheated them. They'll find that Valerie Duvauchel was neither coward nor fool when run to earth!"

Springing to her feet she clutched convulsively at her throat, tearing the flesh with her nails in a horrible paroxysm of pain.

The injection had swiftly accomplished its work.

"Pierre! Pierre!" she articulated with difficulty, in a fierce, hoa.r.s.e whisper, "where are you? Ah! I see! You--you've returned. Why did you leave me in their merciless clutches when you knew that--that I always--loved you? Kiss me--_mon cher_! Kiss me--darling,--kiss me, Pierre--"

The words choked her.

Blindly she staggered forward a few steps, vainly endeavouring to steady herself.

With a short, shrill scream she wheeled slowly round, as if on a pivot, then tottered, and fell backwards, inert, and lifeless!

A dead, unbroken silence followed. The spirit of Valerie Duvauchel had departed, leaving the body as that of a dishevelled fallen angel.

In a few moments the strains of another plaintive waltz penetrated into the chamber of death, forming a strange incongruous dirge.

When, a few hours later, the yellow winter's dawn crept in through the window, the dull, uncertain light fell upon the calm, upturned countenance.

It was beautiful--very beautiful. Before the last breath had departed, the drawn, haggard features had relaxed and resumed their enchanting smile.

Yet there was something in the expression of the blanched face which cast a chill upon the admiration of its loveliness--the brand of guilt was there.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

CONCLUSION.

When the door of the boudoir was forced open, old Jacob was the first to enter and find his mistress rigid in death. While Nanette and two of the domestics were endeavouring to raise her, his quick eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to his master which lay upon the blotting-pad, and unnoticed he slipped it into his pocket.

By this a scandal was avoided, for a coroner's jury at the inquest subsequently held returned a verdict of "Accidental death, due to an overdose of morphia." There was not the least suspicion of suicide in the minds of the twelve respectable tradesmen, for, prior to the room being visited by the bucolic constable, Jacob had picked up the remains of the diamond ornaments, and carefully obliterated other traces of her pa.s.sion. The jury expressed an opinion that the sudden appearance of Mrs. Trethowen's husband, who was believed to be dead, had caused a violent shock to the nervous system, and that, being in the habit of injecting narcotics, she had accidentally administered to herself an overdose.

Hugh, in order to further allay any conjecture that she had taken her own life, put on deep mourning and attended the funeral. He endured the mournful ceremony, the nasal mumbling of the clergyman, and the torture of the service, with feelings of disgust at his own hypocrisy. He affected inconsolable grief, and his friends, ignorant of the truth, sympathised with him. Yet his generous nature a.s.serted itself. The letter she had addressed to him had softened his heart towards her, and as he stood watching the coffin being consigned to the grave in the churchyard at Bude, tears welled in his eyes.

He had forgiven her, endeavouring to believe that she had been more sinned against than sinning.

Contrary to the expectations of his friends, he did not leave Coombe after the funeral, but took what appealed to many to be a sad, bitter pleasure in remaining amid surroundings that reminded him of his late wife. Scarcely uttering a word to any one save his faithful servant Jacob, he grew cynical and morose, while his face wore a fixed expression of gloom.

People thought that Valerie's death had been a terrible blow to him, and that he cherished everything which brought her to his memory. In truth, however, it was quite the opposite. He was gradually removing every trace of her occupancy. Her photographs, several of which stood about in the rooms, he destroyed with his own hands. Cus.h.i.+on-covers that she had embroidered, and a mantel fringe she had made, he ruthlessly tore off and threw into the fire.

When he had destroyed all the small articles, the sight of which was repugnant, he called in a furniture dealer from Bude, and for a mere trifle sold the whole of the contents of the boudoir which she had furnished so extravagantly. The rooms were dismantled to the curtains and blinds, and after it had been repainted and redecorated, he gave orders to a London firm to refurnish it as a boudoir in a style even more costly than before.

The servants marvelled greatly at what they considered their master's folly, and even the discreet Jacob was puzzled at his irony and resolution.

Bright spring days succeeded the boisterous, gloomy ones of winter on the wild Cornish coast, still Hugh Trethowen continued to live in semi-seclusion. The greater part of each day he spent in the library with his books, and for recreation took long, lonely walks along the seash.o.r.e, or over the moorlands, swept by the invigorating Atlantic breeze.

Suddenly his habitual sullenness left him, and one day in July he announced to Jacob that he expected visitors. Thenceforward there was a complete change in his demeanour. Resuming his normal lightheartedness, he greeted his friends with that thoroughness and _bonhomie_ that were characteristic of him in the old days, and personally looked after their comfort.

His guests, a pleasant, merry party, consisting of Jack Egerton, Dolly Vivian, and Gabrielle Debriege, had no reason to complain of the cordiality of their host's welcome, or of the efforts he made to entertain them with the various pleasurable pursuits which the neighbourhood afforded.

The close of a hot summer's day.

A charming little hollow, fringed with hazels and ferns, on a green hillside overlooking the s.h.i.+ning sea. A long stretch of bay lies in the mellow light, curved like a crescent moon, while behind rise hills that are somewhat low but steep, scalloped by dells clad in silver birches, hazels, graceful ferns, and golden gorse. Nearly at the centre of this picturesque amphitheatre of green slopes and rocky b.u.t.tresses snugly nestles a quaint old-world village, a community of pretty cottages cl.u.s.tered around the ancient church, and deeply set in the verdure of the hillside like a handful of snow-white sh.e.l.ls in a green dell of the sea.

Not only the crimson-tinted ocean, but the land also, is strangely transfigured in the glow of twilight. The long stretches of cliff, with the precipitous Raven's Crag towering high above the rocks on either side, which, in the fierce glare of noonday, stood out like bastions, centres of strength and power, and now rounded by the softening shadows of the gloaming hour. The mantling gra.s.s with which they are crowned has lost its emerald colour, and a.s.sumes a subdued preternatural tint, while the softened sea in its violet light comes up to the deep shadows of the overhanging crags, l.u.s.trous, pure, serene.

Hugh had driven with his visitors from Coombe, and they had left the carriage at the village inn, and set out on foot to explore the beauties of the district. Dolly and he had wandered away from Egerton and Gabrielle, and walked upon the top of the cliffs towards the great perpendicular Crag.

While they had been strolling along, she had been telling him of the vile plot to keep them apart while Valerie exerted her irresistible charms upon him. She showed him the dark red scar upon her throat, now concealed by a narrow band of black velvet, and explained how she had made the discovery while imprisoned in the strange house near Twickenham, her escape, her visit to the church on the morning of his marriage, and her denunciation of Holt. To all this he listened with incredulous amazement.

When, on their return, they arrived at the stile at the entrance of the wooded hollow through which they had to pa.s.s to reach the village, they both paused. Hugh stood leaning with his back against the rails, thoughtfully puffing his cigarette. The manner in which Dolly had told the story puzzled him. True, they were still friends, and since her arrival at Coombe had often spoken confidentially; nevertheless, he did not forget that on the last occasion they strolled together alone on the Cornish cliffs, he ridiculed her warning, and openly professed his preference for Valerie.

He glanced at her handsome face. Her head was turned seaward; her soft brown eyes wore a thoughtful, serious look, and a ray of fading sunlight tinted her hair. The cool, flimsy blue dress fitted her lithesome figure with scarcely a wrinkle, and the wide-brimmed hat set off to advantage the fair countenance beneath.

"Dolly," he said earnestly, after a short silence, taking her gloved hand in his at the same time, "all this you have just told me adds increased horror to Valerie's terrible crimes. I now understand the reason you wrote that warning--it was because you entertained some sort of affection for me. Ah, had I fully understood you before I allied myself with that woman--had I seen her in her true light as an adventuress, and summoned sufficient strength to cast her off--I should not have been instrumental in bringing such a calamity upon you. I alone am to blame for all the misery that has fallen upon you, and must ask your forgiveness."