Part 4

“A little one; only a little one. William, do you intend showing that necklace to a dealer to-morrow?”

“Yes, to ascertain its value.”

“You had better not.”

“Why?”

“Because he would laugh in your face. William, the gems are false——false; there is not a diamond amongst them; only glass, worthless glass!”

He stared at her incredulously; he tore the jewels from his pocket and held them up to the light. Their flash and brilliance seemed to reassure him.

“You are making sport of me, madam. See how they sparkle and throw back the light. Only diamonds shine like that. You do not wish me to take them away from you. Perhaps you fear you may lose them permanently.”

“I tell you they are false,” she insisted. “I had the exchange made in Paris. I received a hundred thousand francs and these imitations for the necklace. Had not the man who manufactured them been an expert, do you suppose I should have dared the experiment of wearing them as I have done, for a whole year now, at every large assemblage I have attended?”

“Millicent! Millicent, is this true?” He looked more than angry, more than dismayed. She herself seemed astonished at the intensity of the emotions she had aroused.

“Yes,” she returned, “it is true.” And her glance took in the face of her son standing abashed and troubled beside his bride. “This I was doing for you,” she declared. “While you were seeking inspiration and delight from the smile of Philippa Irwin, I was meeting the eyes of the world with a circle of false gems about my throat, and in my heart the dread of such a scene as this, with its worse to-morrow.”

“Mother——”

“No words now. I have done with you, Lawrence Sutton; let me see if I am to lose a husband as well as a son.”

But Mr. Winchester was in no mood for sentiment. He had flung the glittering bauble from him, and was standing with clenched hands and working brow near the threshold of the door. As she spoke he flung the door open, and when she ceased he gave her one look, and passing out into the hall, disappeared from view.

She stood still and made no effort to follow him.

“It is the deception,” I heard her murmur. “He could not care for a few thousands so much as this.” And then her haughty lip trembled, her imperious air gave way, and tottering toward the door, she held her two hands out in seeming forgetfulness of everything but her love for her husband. “William!” she cried, “William!”

But her son was already between her and the door.

“Mother!” he exclaimed, “you shall hear me. Indifferent as you consider me to have been, this debt I have owed you has weighed heavily upon me. Of course I knew nothing of the sacrifice you had made in giving me the large sum you did. I supposed it came, as you led me to suppose, from your husband; but, even so, it has troubled me and caused me many an anxious thought as to how I was to repay you. I did not find a way. But to prove to you that my remorse did not expend itself entirely in thought, I will now reveal to you the secret of my absence night after night. I am working, mother, working like a slave, for a position which, if once obtained, will give me support for my wife, and a pretty sum over every year for my mother. There is a likelihood that I shall get it, and if, in that event, I allow myself one luxury or Philippa one gewgaw till those you parted with for my sake are paid for, then say you are done with Lawrence Sutton, but not now, not while there is any hope of his proving himself your son, indeed.”

But the barrier he had raised between them by his marriage was too formidable to be overthrown in an instant; and with some parting words of scorn she left him, and I heard her go up to her own room.

I hoped they would follow her, and so allow me to escape, but they had too much to say to each other, too many explanations to make. I had to be present at another confidential interview. Philippa, who, the moment they were left alone, had assumed a totally different bearing from that which seemed natural to her in Mrs. Winchester’s presence, waited for her husband’s first emotion of grief to subside, then turned to him, and taking his two hands in hers, drew him down beside her on the sofa.

“Lawrence,” said she, with a womanly sweetness inexpressibly winning after the scene of stormy passions which had just passed, “do you think you can ever forgive me?”

“Forgive _you_, my heart’s idol! What have I to forgive you for? The consolation that you give me for my past, the hope that you bring me for my future?”

“No, no,” she murmured; “for having married you; for having——”

“Philippa!” he cried, lifting her face with the tenderest touch, and gazing long and earnestly into her eyes, “you are my wife. The holy words that made us one have hardly ceased to echo. Do not let us mar the moment, which can never come again, by any expression of doubt as regards the wisdom or the happiness of what we have done. Let us enjoy the delight of being all in all to each other, leaving to future hours, perhaps, the grief of knowing that, in seeking our own welfare, we have had to inflict disappointment upon others.”

“But——but——” she faltered, “you do not understand. I allude to my marrying you to-night, in this haste, contrary to all my declarations and every resolution I had formed.”

“And do you think I blame you for that? That my heart gave anything but a leap of joy when you stopped me in the hall and whispered in my ear, ‘I am ready, Lawrence, ready to do what you so often have urged me to do. I will marry you to-night if you say so’?”

“Oh!” she cried, and a flush of shame crept over her face, growing lovelier with every moment that passed till I wondered I had not seen at first glance that she was beautiful; “you reproach me with every word; you make me feel that there is no one less deserving of such faith and devotion than Philippa Irwin.”

“Philippa Sutton, darling; there is a difference,” he smiled.

The words seemed to strike her. She looked at him very earnestly for a moment.

“Yes,” she assented. “What were wisdom in Philippa Irwin may not be wisdom in Philippa Sutton. But truth is always wisdom, and I cannot enter upon our married life with the shadow of a falsehood on my heart. At the risk of losing your love, of seeing you turn away from me never to come back, I must be frank with you and open to the very heart’s core. Lawrence, I would not have married you to-night if——if it had not been for the disappearance of those diamonds.”

“Philippa!”

“I know, I know I should have trusted you. That I should have seen and felt that you were incapable of doing so mean and wicked a thing as——as my suspicions suggested to me, but, coming up-stairs while your mother was below, I had seen you pass into her room on tiptoe, stay but a moment, and then come creeping out again, thrusting something that glittered into your breast. I had seen this; and though I thought nothing of it at the moment I——I did fear and tremble when from the back room, into which I had stepped, I beheld her come back, walk over to the mantel-piece where she stood for a moment gazing at her jewel-case, and then, rushing to the window and throwing it open, run out again into the hall crying that her diamonds were gone and that a thief must have crawled in from the street and taken them while she was below. For——it is my only excuse, Lawrence——I could not dream she had taken advantage of that moment’s pause before the mantel to snatch the jewels from their case and hide them in her own bosom. That would imply a knowledge of facts and motives to which I was necessarily a stranger. I could only think she was influenced in her action by a conviction that one she loved had done this act, and this apparent conviction of hers awakened mine; for she was a woman and a mother, and knew, as I believed, her own son well, while I was but a simple girl who loved. Yet see, yet see, she was the one who did the wrong, if wrong were done, while you——” Philippa’s head sank on her breast and the tears came.

He let her weep for a moment; then with a slow and mechanical motion he thrust his hand into his breast and took out a simple bracelet made of silver coils and held it towards her.

“This is what I went for,” said he, “and this is what I brought out. I had seen it lying on the sofa, Philippa, when I went in before dinner, and my heart coveted it and my lips burned to kiss it, and——”

“O Lawrence!” was her cry, “my bracelet!” and then there was silence, during which he sat with his eyes on her face in a mute reproach, evidently worse to her than death. At last she could bear it no longer, and lifting her head she gave him one look.

It seemed to recall him to himself. Grasping her hand, he uttered one short sentence, but that was full of meaning. It was this: “And yet you married me!”

The pallor of her cheek disappeared in a flush that made her absolutely dazzling.

“I loved you,” she murmured, “and I knew, that is, I had heard, that a wife could not be called upon to testify against her husband.”

He gave a sudden cry, and his arms closed passionately round her. He did not tell her that that was an old and antiquated law, no longer in force at this day; he only whispered words of love and consolation, and when, ten minutes from that time, they left the room and I at last succeeded in escaping from my hiding-place and from the house, it was with the conviction that I had left two noble hearts behind me, whose happiness, if not their worldly prosperity, was assured.

* * * * *

Early the next morning I sent a line to Mr. Randall effectually relieving him from all the doubts I had left in his mind as to Mr. Sutton’s integrity and genuine change of character. This duty done I thought the story ended, as far as outsiders were concerned. But it was not so. Scarcely three days had elapsed when New York society was startled and her business men confounded by the announcement that Mr. Winchester had disappeared from town, leaving debts of an enormous nature behind him and no assets wherewith to pay those debts. Then and not till then did I understand his passionate anxiety about the diamonds. To a man on the verge of ruin twenty-five thousand dollars may hold out the promise of salvation. At all events it is a convenient sum with which to facilitate flight, and its loss must have been a heavy blow to him.

His wife, whose pride was perhaps phenomenal in its way, never recovered from the shock thus given her. When the last load was driven away from the house she was obliged to abandon, her indomitable spirit broke, and it was a depressed and humiliated woman that at last consented to take up her abode with the son she had cast off and the woman she once looked upon with contempt.

ONE HOUR MORE.

I was walking along the Rue des Martins. I was thoughtful, for I had just been witness to a sight that greatly moved me. My duties as a reporter for one of the large Paris dailies had taken me to Havre just as the ship came in which brought the Communists home from exile, and, hardened as I confess myself to be to the more frequent aspects of human suffering, the sight of those men crowding forward to catch the first glimpse of the friends who had come to meet them, touched me with a feeling that was not unlike compassion. I was thinking of them and wondering what sort of fate awaited the older men I saw there, when a sudden cry from over my head startled me from my musings, and looking up, I saw a woman peering out of the top window of a wretched apartment.

She showed such signs of distress in her countenance that I at once knew something terrible had occurred within, and foreseeing matter for my next article, I immediately entered the house.

I found myself confronted by frightened faces everywhere. All the inmates knew that something was wrong on the top floor, but no one knew just what. They followed me when they saw me determined to find out. The consequence was that a small crowd pressed behind me as I mounted the last stair; a crowd that seemed to awe if not alarm the trembling woman who awaited me at the top, for she started back as she saw it, muttering to herself:

“_Mon Dieu!_ Elise never had so many visitors before!”

A door swinging on its hinges at the right of this woman at once attracted my attention. Advancing with small ceremony, I threw it open. I found my expectations more than realized. On the bed before me lay the outstretched form of a woman, the pallor and fixedness of whose face bespoke death. Not a natural death either, for she was dressed as if she had just come in from the street, with the exception of her bonnet, which lay on the floor beside her, where it had evidently been flung by a careless hand. Otherwise the room was in perfect order, I may even say in holiday order. From the work neatly folded on the shelf to the small bunch of fresh flowers that adorned a table set out with an untouched meal——a meal which even in the hurried glance I gave it I saw was arranged for two——all bespoke one of those rare days of rest and relaxation which now and then enter a French working-woman’s life.

But the dead face on the pillow——what did it betoken? Had murder crept into this humble dwelling or was it a suicide I beheld? Involuntarily drawing nearer the bed, I looked at the face before me more closely. It was that of a young and pretty woman, and while touchingly meagre and sad was touchingly delicate also. It was almost a lady’s face, and had it not been for the evidence of toil displayed by the hands I should certainly have taken it for such. As it was I could not doubt that a real working-woman lay there, though from the marks of refinement observable in her dress and the presence of certain choice books on the shelf over her head, she was evidently a woman of taste and education.

“It is a suicide!” I declared, seeing a bottle of well-known poison protruding from under the pillow.

“Of course it is,” murmured a voice over my shoulder. “Don’t you see what she has written on that paper near you?”

I glanced down at the table by which I was standing and saw a sheet of common note paper, inscribed with these words:

“My husband was a Communist and was exiled. He was all I had in the world, and since his departure I have only lived to see him again. But I have had no news, no letter. I have been patient, however, for I have waited for this day. But it has come, and it has not brought him. I went to the ship myself and looked at every man who left it. He was not amongst them. So now I know he is dead. That being so, there is no more reason why I should live.

“ELISE PICARD.”

Involuntarily I had read these words aloud. A murmur of almost ferocious sympathy greeted them from the crowd that had gathered at my back. The sound disturbed me, for my thoughts had flown at once to the ship and that throng of pale and eager men I had myself seen in the morning. I felt a strange inclination to be alone, and shouldering my way out past the humble table set so touchingly with a meal never destined to be eaten, I made my way into the hall.

But before I could reach the stairs a woman advanced and laid her hand on my arm. It was the same who had given the first alarm.

“Would you mind stepping into my room a minute?” she asked. “There is something I would like to show you.”

Naturally curious, I followed at once.

“What is it?” I inquired, when we were shut in an apartment of even scantier proportions than the one we had just left.

“Only some letters which Elise put into my hands a little while ago——before——before she showed herself so tired of life. You see we had been neighbors here, and Elise, though she was far above me——she was born a lady, Monsieur——was kind to me, and told me many of her griefs. I could not appreciate them all, for I never was educated; but I do know what it is to love, for I had a good husband myself once, and so when she spoke of him I could understand. And there was not a day she did not speak of him. It was as if he always stood at her side. Her very eyes had a far-away look, as if she was seeing something more than the rest of us did. I used to have an awe of her, especially when she smiled to herself.”

“It is very sad,” said I. “And did she never hear from him after he was taken away?”

“No. She never doubted that he lived, though, and would come back. ‘I feel it here,’ she used to say, laying her hand on her heart. ‘Why else do I live?’ she would add. Only yesterday her face was like the sunlight. ‘I am sure he will come home with the rest,’ she cried, ‘and then I shall know why he did not write.’ Did you see how she had his dinner ready? I went with her to market, and it was touching to hear her say, ‘I must get this,’ or ‘I must get that; he used to like it so well.’”

“Did you go with her to the wharf?” I asked, willing to learn all I could.

“No, Monsieur. She didn’t seem to want me to. But I shall never forget the look she gave me as she went out of the door. There wasn’t any doubt in it. To my foolish mind it seemed to say, ‘I shall never be lonely in this room any more.’ _Mon Dieu!_ when I think how that look must have brightened when she saw the poor wanderers crowding forward out of the ship, and then have faded away to what it was when she came back alone, my heart is ready to break.”

“You saw her, then, after her return?”

“A moment. She came to my door with the letters you have there. As soon as I saw her I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth. You see, I had been as sure as she that he would be there with the rest.”

“Didn’t you say anything then?”

“Not a word; she didn’t give me a chance. ‘My husband is dead,’ was her greeting as she opened the door. ‘I looked in the face of every one of the exiles as they left the ship, and he was not there. I want to leave these letters with you; they were meant for him.’ And without looking me in the face she laid the package down with a slow stiff movement, as if she were already half dead herself, then went out and closed the door. There was something in her look which told me not to follow her.”

“But weren’t you afraid of what she would do? Didn’t you fear she might commit suicide?”

“No, sir. Yet if I had I don’t think I should have followed her.” Then as I looked up surprised the good woman hastened to say:

“It is a sadder story than you think. If you care to hear——”

I did not wait for her to finish.

“Tell me all you know about her,” said I.

The woman eagerly complied. The facts which she gave me, together with a few others afterwards gleaned by me from a different source, form the basis of the following history, a history which I am sure you will pardon me for giving in my own words rather than in those of my informants:

Elise Lepage was not a beauty, yet in her earlier youth, at least, she possessed a charm which always insured her the admiration and very often the love of those with whom she came in contact. Her father, who was a musician of somewhat mediocre talent, recognized this charm, and in his simple way calculated upon its winning her a suitable husband, notwithstanding his small means and her consequent lack of a dowry. To him she was a paragon, and when, at the close of a long day of unremitting labor at the piano, he saw her approaching him in a dainty fresh robe ready for their usual walk on the boulevard, his face would light up with such pride and joy that the loving girl who watched him felt the tear gush to her eye at the same moment the smile rose to her lip.

They lived in a plain but sufficiently comfortable apartment, and had for neighbors two young men by the name of Picard,——brothers. These two young men occupied the apartment above them; and one of them, the youngest, having some taste for music, a natural acquaintance had sprung up between him and M. Lepage, which presently involved the older brother and Mlle. Lepage. The consequence was that Jean, the elder brother, fell in love with the fresh, charming young girl, and, being himself a man of no conventional prejudices——the future Communist in fact——he offered to marry her without any other fortune than that of her youth and many virtues. The old father was delighted. First, because he felt himself failing in health and was anxious to see his darling’s future secured; and secondly, because he liked this man better than any one else in the world save and excepting always his dear and much admired daughter. Why he felt this extraordinary affection for a man of whom he was forced to acknowledge to himself he knew but little, he could not have told had he tried. Certainly it was not because he understood him, for he did not; neither was it because the other possessed attractions of a peculiar or marked nature. Jean Picard was not handsome, nor was he even gifted in manner or conversation, yet old Mr. Lepage loved him and hailed the prospect of his being his son-in-law with as much fervor as if he were the owner of millions instead of being the physician of one of the poorest and worst paying quarters in the whole city. He trusted him, and that fact, perhaps, illustrates the character of the two men. For Jean Picard was to be trusted in all matters of the heart and conscience; it was only his head that was at fault, or, perhaps, I should say his temperament. He had inherited traditions of the First Revolution, and believed absolutely in the might of the people. But of this he had nothing to say in those days, his head and his heart being joined in the one wish, the one hope, the one purpose, to make Elise his wife.

The evening which he had chosen to speak to M. Lepage——he had never breathed a word of his desires to Elise herself——was, as he afterwards remembered, an especially beautiful one. The moon was shining, and as, filled with the joy of a successful suit, he stepped from the apartment of M. Lepage, something in the quiet beauty of this round and serene orb touched the poetry that exists with all true love in the heart, and drew him, in spite of his usually active ways, to a window opening from the corridor on to a small garden belonging to the _concierge_. He was looking from this window and dreaming of Elise, when his glance, which had been mechanically fixed upon a leafy retreat beneath him, became earnest, deep, and inquiring, and with a startled gesture of surprise, he bent forward and listened as if his life depended upon his hearing what went on in the garden below him. Had he seen anything which threatened his happiness, and if so, what?

His firm and controlled countenance tells little, but his wandering look and the unsteady step with which he leaves the window and betakes himself to his own room bespeak strong agitation. If we follow him and watch him as a half hour later he slowly rouses from the deep and troubled brooding into which he had sunk immediately upon his entrance, and turning towards the door, waits with a look not to be mistaken for the advance of the step just becoming audible upon the stairs, we shall undoubtedly learn from his own lips what it is that has disturbed him so deeply at a moment he esteemed himself so profoundly blessed.