The Sign of the Stranger Part 30

"What, has that fellow been talking--surely not?" he exclaimed quickly.

"I only speak from my own knowledge--not from hearsay."

He took a long draw at his cigar, looking me calmly in the face, as though undecided how to act. At last, after full deliberation, he said, in a much more conciliatory tone--

"Really, Mr Woodhouse, I don't know, after all, whether either of us will gain anything by being antagonists. We both have our own ends to serve. You love Lady Lolita, and wish to--well--to save her; while I, too, have an object in view--a distinct object. Why cannot we unite in a friendly manner?"

"Against whom?"

"Against those who seek to bring ruin and disgrace upon the woman you love."

"But you are her enemy," I said. "How can I join you in this affair?"

"Ah, there you are quite mistaken. She, too, is mistaken. True, I was once her enemy, but circ.u.mstances have changed, and I am now her friend."

"Is your friends.h.i.+p so p.r.o.ne then to being influenced by every adverse wind that blows?" I asked, by no means convinced of the genuineness of his proposals.

"Of course you hesitate," he remarked. "And perhaps that is only natural. Let us, however, call Lady Lolita into consultation."

This suggestion of his I readily acted upon, and ringing for a servant told him to find her ladys.h.i.+p at once, and ask her whether she could make it convenient to see me for a moment in the red room on business connected with next day's shooting luncheon.

Then we put down our cues and together walked through the long corridors to the old wing of the great mansion, to the red room, a small boudoir to which visitors never went, and where I knew that we might exchange confidences in secret.

I switched on the electric light, and standing together in the small old-fas.h.i.+oned apartment, furnished in crimson silk damask of a century ago, and red silk upon the walls, we anxiously awaited her coming.

At last we heard her light footstep in the corridor, but she halted upon the threshold, utterly taken aback at sight of my companion. She had avoided him studiously all the evening, and was of course, unaware of our present intention.

"I regret very much to call your ladys.h.i.+p here," Keene commenced. "But it seems to have become imperative that Mr Woodhouse and I should, in your presence, arrive at some understanding."

Though radiant in dress, her beautiful face was pale to the lips, and her thin hands trembled nervously.

She advanced slowly without a word, like a woman in a dream, and stepping up behind her I closed the door and locked it.

"I must explain, Lady Lolita," said Keene, "that had I known you were returning here I should have left before your arrival, for I have no desire to thrust upon you my presence, which I know must, having regard to the past, be most unwelcome. However, we have met, and I am a guest here in your home. Further circ.u.mstances compel me to remain here for some time longer, therefore I am anxious that we should thoroughly understand one another."

"I received the letter handed me by Warr, the innkeeper. It was sufficiently explanatory," she remarked in a hard unnatural voice, standing with her hand upon the chair back, and looking straight into his calm countenance.

"We may, for the present, disregard that letter," he said. "You will recollect what I said to you confidentially in the hall an hour ago.

You admitted that you reciprocate Mr Woodhouse's affection, and you declared that he was your friend."

"And so I am," I maintained.

"Exactly. Indeed, as far as I can ascertain, it seems that he is a most devoted friend. It is for that very reason that I have asked you to come here and listen to what I have to say."

"I am all attention," she responded blankly, with that inertness born of despair. "My enemies have combined to crush me--that I know."

"Well, first let me tell you, Lady Lolita, that although I have shown myself antagonistic in the past, my convictions have now become changed, and I regret all that I may have done to cause you pain and injury. If you can really I forgive, will hold out my hand in friends.h.i.+p," and he stretched forth his hand to her as pledge of his sincerity.

At first she hesitated, unable to believe that the man whom she had regarded as her bitterest enemy should have become so completely, and so suddenly her friend. Like myself, she could not at first bring herself to put perfect faith in him. Yet, in a few moments, seeing his evident earnestness, she took his hand, and allowed him to wring hers in genuine friends.h.i.+p.

"Very well," he said in a gratified tone. "That is the first step. The second is to admit to you that while I am ready to render you a.s.sistance instead of hounding you down to destruction, as I had intended, I have also a motive--one that must remain my own secret. Mr Woodhouse, here, no doubt regards my return, my actions, and my arrival as guest in this house as suspicious. I admit that all the circ.u.mstances are exceedingly remarkable, and require an explanation--which perhaps you will give him later. But what is so immediately important is the course of action which we shall pursue, now that I am united to a.s.sist you."

"But do you really mean to act on my behalf, Mr Keene?" asked my love eagerly, as though a new future were opened out to her by the man's suggestion.

"I have given my hand as pledge," was his reply. "There is an allegation against you--a fact of which I presume Mr Woodhouse is aware. And your bitterest enemy--one who, by a word, could free you--is a woman."

"Willoughby--I mean Mr Woodhouse--has told me. It is Marigold."

"Yes. And she refuses to speak. Our efforts must be made towards compelling her," he said.

But in that moment I recollected how the Countess had defied him, and threatened him with a terrible exposure. Of what?

"And Marie Lejeune? Where is she?" inquired Lolita.

"She has disappeared, it seems. At least I don't know where she is at this moment. For the present we need not be concerned about her. We have to deal with a shrewd and clever woman, whose future depends upon your future. If you live she must die,--if you die, she will live."

He spoke the words with slow distinctness, his eyes fixed upon her, watching the effect of his utterances.

"How can I live?" she asked, in a low hoa.r.s.e voice. "You know everything--you know my peril."

"True. I know everything," was the man's reply. "I know, too, how you have suffered I know how Mr Woodhouse, loving you as he does, must also suffer. Believe me, Lady Lolita, although I am but a rough man unused nowadays to the ways of good society, I am not altogether devoid of sympathy for a woman, and that sympathy will cause me to guard the secret of your affection. I wish you to consider that, in me, instead of an enemy, you have a sincere friend. I am fully aware of the exposure which Mr Woodhouse might make to George, but it would not only be against my interests, but against yours."

"Yet it would bring Marigold to her knees to beg forgiveness," my love remarked.

"Yes. But surely you know that woman well enough to be aware that her vengeance would fall heavily upon you--that you would be hurled to ruin and disgrace before she herself would give way and fall."

"I believed her to be my friend," was Lolita's remark.

"You only believed as others believe. There are many persons to whom she acts the false friend--her husband not excepted. You have only to sit in the smoking-rooms of certain London clubs in order to hear the expression of public opinion regarding her. The clubs always know more facts about a man's wife than her own husband."

"Well," I exclaimed, "what is your advice? How shall we act?"

Even now I was not altogether convinced of Keene's good-will. The horror and fear in which Lolita had formerly held him somehow clung to me, and I could not help suspecting that this man who had struck up an acquaintance with George in the wilds of the Zambesi, and had come so boldly among those whom it was his intention to unmask, was now playing us false.

Yet in word and manner he was perfectly open and straightforward.

"Have patience, Lady Lolita," he urged. "Mr Woodhouse will a.s.sist me in this very difficult piece of diplomacy that we are about to undertake. Had it not been for the fact that our friend here unfortunately gave Marie Lejeune warning that night in Chelsea, when the police were waiting to trap her, we should have had no necessity for this present scheming. The truth would then have been revealed and the guilty would have gone to their just punishment."

"I know! I know!" I cried. "It was foolish on my part. But I believed I was acting in Lady Lolita's interests. I see, however, that I made a mistake--a fatal mistake."

"We must rectify it," he said. "Her ladys.h.i.+p has been frank with me concerning your mutual affection, and I will not stand by and see her hurled to her grave by the dastardly schemes of her enemies. You admitted to me that you discovered upon the body of Hugh Wingfield a certain paper in cipher. Will you not allow me sight of it?"

"A paper in cipher!" gasped my love, glancing at me. "Was that found upon him?"

"Yes," was my reply. "I discovered a paper in a woman's hand, and written in the chequer-board cipher."

"And the keyword was what?" she inquired in breathless eagerness, turning her great blue eyes to mine.