Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗
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asked himself whether she was guilty or innocent. He remembered that
every evening after dinner he had, in Continental fashion, taken a
single glass of liqueur; and this he had received from Paulina’s own
hand. It had pleased him to take the tiny, fragile glass from those
taper fingers. The delicate liqueur had seemed sweeter to him because
it was given by Paulina.
He now felt convinced that it was in this glass of liqueur the poison
had been administered to him.
On more than one occasion he had at first declined taking it; but
Paulina had always persuaded him, with some pretty speech, some half
coquettish, half caressing action.
He found her waiting him as usual: her toilet perfection itself; her
beauty enhanced by the care with which she always strove to render
herself charming in his eyes. She said playfully that it was a tribute
which she offered to her benefactor.
They dined together, with Miss Brewer for their sole companion. She
seemed self-contained and emotionless as ever; but if Douglas had not
been so entirely absorbed by his thoughts of Paulina, he might have
perceived that she looked at him ever and anon with furtive, but
searching glances.
There was little conversation, little gaiety at that dinner. Douglas
was absent-minded and gloomy. He scarcely ate anything; but the
constant thirst from which he suffered obliged him to drink long
draughts of water.
After dinner, Miss Brewer brought the glasses and the liqueur to Madame
Durski, after her customary manner.
Paulina filled the ruby-stemmed glass with cura�oa, and handed it to
her lover.
“No, Paulina, I shall take no liqueur to-night.”
“Why not, Douglas?”
“I am not well,” he replied, “and I am growing rather tired of
cura�oa.”
“As you please,” said Paulina, as she replaced the delicate glass in
the stand from which she had just taken it.
Miss Brewer had left the room, and the lovers were alone together. They
were seated face to face at the prettily decorated table—one with
utter despair in his heart.
“Shall I tell you why I would not take that glass from your hands just
now, Paulina Durski?” asked Douglas, after a brief pause, rising to
leave the table as he spoke. “Or will you spare me the anguish of
speaking words that must cover you with shame?”
“I do not understand you,” murmured Paulina, looking at her lover with
a gaze of mingled terror and bewilderment.
“Oh, Paulina!” cried Douglas; “why still endeavour to sustain a
deception which I have unmasked? I know all.”
“All what?” gasped the bewildered woman.
“All your guilt—all your baseness. Oh, Paulina, confess the treachery
which would have robbed me of life; and which, failing that, has for
ever destroyed my peace. If you are human, let some word of remorse,
some tardy expression of regret, attest your womanhood.”
“I can only think that he is mad,” murmured Paulina to herself, as she
gazed on her accuser with wondering eyes.
“Paulina, at least do not pretend to misunderstand me.”
“Your words,” replied Madame Durski, “seem to me the utterances of a
madman. For pity’s sake, calm yourself, and speak plainly.”
“I think that I have spoken, very plainly.”
“I can discover no meaning in your words. What is it you would have me
regret? Of what crime do you accuse me?”
“The worst and darkest of all crimes,” replied Douglas; “the crime of
murder.”
“Murder?”
“Yes; the crime of the secret poisoner!”
“Douglas!” cried Paulina, with a stifled shriek of terror; and then,
recoiling from him suddenly, she fell half fainting into a chair. “Oh,
why do I try to reason with him?” she murmured, piteously; “he is mad—
he is mad! My poor Douglas!” continued Paulina, sobbing hysterically,
“you are mad yourself, and you will drive me mad. Do not speak to me.
Leave me to myself. You have terrified me by your wild denunciations.
Leave me, Douglas: for pity’s sake, leave me.”
“I will leave you, Paulina,” answered her lover, in a grave, sad voice;
“and our parting will be for ever. You cannot deny your guilt, and you
can no longer deceive me.”
“Do as you please,” replied Madame Durski, her passionate indignation
changing suddenly to an icy calmness. “You have wronged me so deeply,
you have insulted me so shamefully, that it matters little what further
wrong or insult I suffer at your hands. In my own justification, I will
say but this—I am as incapable of the guilt you talk of as I am of
understanding how such a wild and groundless accusation can come from
you, Douglas Dale, my affianced husband—the man I have loved and
trusted, the man whom I have believed the very model of honour and
generosity. But this must be madness, and I am not bound to endure the
ravings of a lunatic. You have said our farewell was to be spoken to-night. Let it be so. I could not endure a repetition of the scene with
which you have just favoured me. I regret most deeply that your
generosity has burthened me with, pecuniary obligations which I may
never be able to repay, and has, in some measure, deprived me of
independence. But even at the hazard of being considered ungrateful, I
must tell you that I trust we may meet no more.”
No one can tell the anguish which Paulina Durski endured as she uttered
these words in cold, measured accents. It was the supreme effort of a
proud, but generous-minded woman, and there was a kind of heroism in
that subjugation of a stricken and loving heart.
“Let it be so, Paulina,” answered Douglas, with emotion. “I have no
wish to see your fair, false face again. My heart has been broken by
your treachery; and my best hope lies in the chance that your hand may
have already done its wicked work, and that my life may be forfeited to
my confidence in your affection. Let no thought of my gifts trouble
you. The fortune which was to have been shared with you is henceforth
powerless to purchase one blessing for me. And of the law which you
have outraged you need have no few; your secret will never be revealed
to mortal ears by me. No investigation will drag to light the details
of your crime.”
“You may seek no investigation, Douglas Dale,” cried Paulina, with
sudden passion; “but I shall do so, and without delay. You have accused
me of a foul and treacherous crime—on what proof I know not. It is for
me to prove myself innocent of that black iniquity; and if human
ingenuity can fathom the mystery, it shall be fathomed. I will bring
you to my feet—yes, to my feet; and you shall beseech my pardon for
the wicked wrong you have done me. But even then this breach of your
own making shall for ever separate us. I may learn to forgive you,
Douglas, but I can never trust you again. And now go.”
She pointed to the door with an imperious gesture. There was a quiet
dignity in her manner and her bearing which impressed her accuser in
spite of himself.
He bowed, and without another word left the presence of the woman who
for so long had been the idol of his heart.
He went from her presence bowed to the very dust by a sorrow which was
too deep for tears.
“She is an accomplished actress,” he said to himself; “and to the very
last her policy has been defiance. And now my dream is ended, and I
awake to a blank, joyless life. A strange fatality seems to have
attended Sir Oswald Eversleigh and the inheritors of his wealth. He
died broken-hearted by a woman’s falsehood; my brother Lionel bestowed
his best affections on the mercenary, fashionable coquette, Lydia
Graham, who was ready to accept another lover within a few weeks of her
pretended devotion to him; and lastly comes my misery at the hands of a
wicked adventuress.”
Douglas Dale resolved to leave London early next day. He returned to
his Temple chambers, intending to start for the Continent the next
morning.
But when the next day came he did not carry out his intention. He found
himself disinclined to seek change of scene, which he felt could bring
him no relief of mind. Go where he would, he could not separate himself
from the bitter memories of the past few months.
He determined to remain in London; for, to the man who wishes to avoid
the companionship of his fellow-men, there is no hermitage more secure
than a lodging in the heart of busy, selfish London. He determined to
remain, for in London he could obtain information as to the conduct of
Paulina.
What would she do now that the stage-play was ended, and deception
could no longer avail? Would she once more resume her old habits—open
her saloons to the patrician gamblers of West-end London, and steep her
weary, guilt-burdened soul in the mad intoxication of the gaming-table?
Would Sir Reginald Eversleigh again assume his old position in her
household?—again become her friend and flatterer? She had affected to
despise him; but that might have been only a part of the great
deception of which Douglas had been the victim.
These were the questions the lonely, heartbroken man asked himself that
night, as he sat brooding by his solitary hearth, no longer able to
find pleasure in the nightly studies which had once been so delightful
to him.
Ah! how deeply he must have loved that woman, when the memory of her
guilt poisoned his existence! How madly he still clung to the thought
of her!—how intensely he desired to penetrate the secrets of her life!
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
“THY DAY IS COME!”
“What is it, Jane?” asked Lady Eversleigh, rather impatiently, of her
maid, when her knock at the door of her sitting-room in Percy Street
interrupted the conversation between herself and the detective officer,
a conversation intensely and painfully interesting.
“A person, ma’am, who wants to see Mr. Andrews, and will take no
denial.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Larkspur; “that’s very odd: I know of nothing up at
present for which they should send any one to me here. However,” and he
rose as he spoke, “I suppose I had better see this person. Where is
he?”
“In the hall,” replied Jane.
But Lady Eversleigh interposed to prevent Mr. Larkspur’s departure.
“Pray do not go,” she said, “unless it concerns this business, unless
it is news of my child. This may be something to rob me of your time
and attention; and remember I alone have a right to your services.”
“Lor’ bless you, my lady,” said Mr. Larkspur, “I haven’t forgot that;
and that’s just what puzzles me. There’s only one man who knows the lay
I’m on, and the name I go by, and he knows I would not take anything
else till I have reckoned up this; and it would be no good sending
anybody after me, unless it were something in some way concerning this
business.”
In an instant Lady Eversleigh was as anxious that Mr. Larkspur should
see the unknown man as she had been unwilling he should do so. “Pray go
to him at once,” she urged; “don’t lose a moment.”
Mr. Larkspur left the room, and Lady Eversleigh dismissed Jane Payland,
and awaited his return in an agony of impatience. After the lapse of
half an hour, Mr. Larkspur appeared. There were actually some slight
traces of emotion in his face, and the colour had lessened
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