Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

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 curaçoa, 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 curaçoa."

"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 considerably in his vulture-like beak. He was followed by a tall, stalwart, fine- looking man, with the unmistakeable gait and air of a sailor. As Lady Eversleigh looked at him in astonishment, Mr. Larkspur said:--

"I ain't much of a believer in Fate in general, but there's surely a Fate in this. My lady, this is Captain George Jernam!"

* * * * *


The time had passed slowly and wearily for Rosamond Jernam, and all the efforts conscientiously made by her husband's aunt, who liked the girl better the more she saw of her, and entirely acquitted her of blame in the mysterious estrangement of the young couple,