Lord of the Far Island, Victoria Holt [world of reading TXT] 📗

more bewildered than ever with a tragic look in her eyes. And Rollo grown cold and stern; his eyes like ice; they looked searchingly at me, making me shiver.

There could only be one verdict. Suicide. I wanted to cry out my protest.

Not Philip! He never could. Anyone who knew him must be aware of that. But that was the court's verdict.

There followed the funeral. I begged not to go. I just lay on my bed, weak from my emotions, lack of food and sleep.

"Mother thinks you should go to the country," Esmeralda said. "I'm to go with you. The press keep calling. She says it's better to go away for a while."

So we went and what a comfort Esmeralda was! I think in her mind was the belief that I had saved her from this ordeal and that she might so easily have been in my position if Philip had asked her to marry him as everyone had expected him to.

I felt a little better in the country, but I still could not sleep well. When I dozed I dreamed of Philip, the pistol in his hand and the blood on his bed. I dreamed too that other dream. I was in the room with the red carpet and the painting and Philip was with me.

He said to me: "You always felt the doom, didn't you, Ellen? Well, now here it is. I'm dead... I killed myself. I had to because I could not marry you."

I woke up calling out to him.

They were nightmare days.

I was in the country for two weeks and then Rollo came to Trentham Towers.

He walked over to see me. Esmeralda came to tell me he was there, and I went down into the small sitting room, and as he stood before me and bowed stiffly I thought how he had changed, as I must have done.

He insisted that we be alone that we might talk. He came straight to the point: "I want you to tell me why Philip killed himself," he said.

"If only I knew."

"Don't you know?" he asked harshly.

"How could I? If I had known what he was going to do I would have found some way of stopping him."

"There must have been something. . . ."

"I knew of nothing."

"Who else would?"

"It must have been something he kept to himself."

"He was not that sort of person." Rollo kept his eyes on me. "There was simply no obvious reason. He had no anxieties. It must have been something in his private life, for he was never deeply involved in our business affairs. Are you absolutely sure that there were no differences between you? Because there appears to be no other reason why he could have taken his life."

His eyes were cold and I believed he hated me because he actually suspected that I was somehow involved in Philip's death. It was more than I could bear.

I cried out: "It was a greater shock to me than to you. I was to be his wife."

He came close to me, his lips tight, and I noticed that he clenched his hands tightly together as though he were suppressing an impulse to do me an injury, so much did he blame me for his brother's death.

"I think you know something," he said.

"I have told you I have no idea how he could possibly have done such a thing."

"It must have been something to do with you. Perhaps you had deceived him and he had discovered this. You betrayed him and this shattered him. He was very inexperienced of the world and he killed himself rather than face the consequences of what you had done."

"You can't believe such nonsense. It's lies. . . wicked cruel lies."

"Who was the man I found with you in the house in Finlay Square?"

"How should I know who he is? He said he was a connection of yours."

"You know that's untrue."

"Then who was he?"

"He was a friend of yours presumably."

"I tell you, I don't know who he is. He was at the recital at your home . . . and then he came to the house to look at it. That's all I know of him."

Rollo looked skeptical. "How did he get into the house?"

"He told you. He got the key from the house agent."

"I know too much, Ellen. I have made it my business to find out. He met you there by appointment and I came in and surprised you."

"That's monstrous."

"I can only draw the obvious conclusions. You had one key, Philip had the other, which I used. There was no third key. I spoke to the agent and asked him why he had given that man a key and he said he had given a key to no one but ourselves. There was only one way that man could have got into the house. You let him in. Don't lie to me any more, but don't be surprised if when you refuse to tell me the truth I draw my own conclusions."

"This is nonsense," I cried. "I did not let him into the house. I was as surprised to see him as you were. He did have a key and the agent is lying."

Rollo rose. "I would have respected you more had you confessed the truth. You were obviously very friendly with this man. I believe that this is at the root of the mystery and you know the answer. Philip died because of something you had done to him and you are responsible for his death."

"How can you! How dare you! It's such lies. . . ."

"So many lies have been told, I can see. But Philip is dead now. I wish to God he had never seen you."

Then he went and I think that was the most unhappy time I had ever lived through.

I was desolate. I had lost Philip and with him everything. I could have borne this better if it were not for the fact that Rollo despised me and suspected me so cruelly and unfairly of