CHAPTER VII.

Yesterday, Reine would have defied Vane, and taken her own way, recklessly. To-day, filled with the yearning wish to win her husband's heart, she obeys with gentle dignity, and retires into the house.

"I have read somewhere that love wins love," she says to herself. "If that be true, surely my patience, my gentleness, my devoted love will sometime win a return from him."

* * * * *

They hold an inquest over Mr. Clyde's body that day. No facts are elicited that throw any light on the manner of his death.

He was a stranger in the neighborhood, boarding at a quiet farm-house for his health, he said. He had few friends and fewer enemies. The people who lodged him deposed that they had not seen him since their early seven o'clock supper, the evening previous. He had been in very gay and brilliant spirits then; had dressed himself elegantly and gone out before dark. No one had seen him until he was found dead in the woods this morning, shot through the heart. The physicians examine the corpse, and decide that he has been dead since nine o'clock last night, and suddenly a baleful whisper runs from lip to lip.

There are a hundred people, guests of the grand wedding at Langton villa last night, who remember Maud Langton's abrupt entrance a little after nine o'clock, and her frank confession that she had gone away to marry Mr. Clyde, but had repented, and left him in spite of his threats.

These facts are communicated to the coroner. He looks exceedingly grave.

"It will be quite necessary to examine Miss Langton on the subject," he declares.

Someone is found who remembers to have heard that Miss Langton is at the hotel in the village, near by.

An officer is dispatched to bring her in to the inquest.

So they wait in the odorous sweetness of the green wood, the officers of justice, the silent corpse, the curious crowd; the wild birds sing on as gayly as if no dead man lay there on the sweet, green grass, with his handsome white face upturned to Heaven as if pleading for vengeance on his slayer.

He has not been murdered for purposes of robbery. His gold watch, his diamond ring, his purse, containing a hundred dollars in bills, are all secure upon his person. It is not known that he had an enemy in the world. A strange mystery centers around his death.

A few notice that old Mr. Langton goes away quietly before the officer's return with Maud. And Vane Charteris stays. Standing apart beneath the shade of a towering maple, he waits, with a strange, incensed look in his dark blue eyes, and on his handsome face that is almost as white as that of the dead. Many eyes regard him curiously; but the cold, white, inscrutable face tells nothing to their wondering gaze.

At last, after what seems a long and wearisome interval of waiting, the rumble of the carriage wheels is heard. They pause in the road near by, they catch the impatient neigh of horses, and the officer appears leading a lady through the trees and grass toward them.

She comes toward them, trembling so that, but for the support of the officer's arm, she must certainly fall to the ground. At the coroner's request she lifts her veil and looks at him with frightened, blue eyes, and a wild, white face--whiter than the lilies to which Vane Charteris likened her that morning.

She is duly sworn, and they re-cover the dead, white face, with its staring eyes they cannot close, and mute, cold lips.

"Do you recognize this man?" they ask her, and after one shuddering, quickly-withdrawn glance, she averts her face, and answers with white, pain-drawn lips:

"It is Mr. Clyde."

She is asked next:

"When and where did you see him last?"

A quiver passes over the pale, beautiful face.

"Last night, at or near nine o'clock, near this spot," she falters, yet standing suddenly erect, with stately, lily-like grace, and a proudly-poised head.

"Was he living or dead?"

"Living, of course," haughtily.

"Mr. Clyde was your lover?" the coroner interrogated.

"I have not said so," she says, flashing him a haughty look.

"The fact is well known," he answers. "You went away to marry him last night?"

The deep color flows into her cheeks, then recedes again, leaving her pale as marble.

"I cannot deny it," she murmurs, in a crushed voice.

"Then you changed your mind, as it is a lady's privilege to do, and left him. He was very angry, and used threats toward you," the coroner pursues, politely.

"Yes," Miss Langton answers, in the same low, sad voice.

"Of what nature were those threats?" they ask her.

"He threatened to destroy himself if I did not become his wife, but, oh, I did not believe it, really--I thought he was only trying to frighten me into compliance with his wish," she cries, while a look of regret and sorrow transforms this fair, beautiful face. A hum of surprise goes through the eager throng of listeners.

"Do you believe that he really killed himself?"

"Yes; how else should he have met his death?" she inquired, fixing a look of grave wonder upon him.

A slight whisper goes through the crowd again--some shrug their shoulders.

The coroner pursues without answering her question:

"Was Mr. Clyde in the habit of making such suicidal threats?"

"He had done so on several occasions."

"In the presence of witnesses?" the question is asked with strange gravity.

Maud looks at him with a grave wonder on her fair, proud face.

"No, of course not," she answers, a little annoyance in her clear tone.

"Then you cannot prove that the deceased made those threats against his own life?" the coroner asked in a troubled tone. It is very plain to him that she cannot see the cloud of distress and suspicion gathering around her.

"Cannot prove it!" she says, indignantly. "You have _my_ word under oath."

"Other evidence would make it all the stronger," he replies, evasively.

The officer who has brought her goes forward and whispers something in the coroner's ear. He starts and looks at the girl fixedly a moment from head to foot, then proceeds with the examination.

"When you left your uncle's house last night, did you return to your trysting-place with your discarded lover?"

She stares at him with strangely dilated eyes, and parted lips.

"Why should I?" she says. "I had dismissed him, and parted from him. I supposed he had gone away."

"Please answer, yes or no, to the question," he urges.

"What question?" a little shortly.

"The one I asked you just now. Did you return to your discarded lover at this place when you left Langton Villa the second time? Yes, or no."

"No, then," with a slight touch of defiance.

A minute of dead silence. The coroner resumes, almost irrelevantly, it would seem:

"Is the dress you wear now the same one you had on last night, Miss Langton?"

"Yes, the same. I have not slept all night, she replies, wearily.

"Please observe that on the front breadth of your dress there are some dark, reddish-looking splashes and stains that resemble blood. Can you account for them?"

A cry of mingled horror and fear comes from her lips. All eyes turn on the stylish, dark-gray silk that clings so gracefully to the tall, finely molded figure. True enough, there are some dark red stains on the middle breadth between the lower frills and the upper drapery.

"Can you account for them?" the coroner repeats.

But after one swift glance at the tell-tale marks, Maud crimsons, and the tears start into her eyes.

"You must pardon me; I spoke falsely to you just now," she says, with desperate calmness. "I can tell you how those stains came there. They are Vernon Clyde's blood."

Again an ominous whisper runs through the circle of listeners. Maud glances around her fearfully. She meets strange, averted glances from faces that have been wont to smile upon her before. A strange light comes into her eyes.

"Oh, what do they mean?" she cries. "They do not think, do they, that I killed Mr. Clyde? I tell you he killed himself. He told me he would do so if I refused to marry him."

"Tell us how those blood-stains came upon your dress," the coroner answers, briefly and gravely.

She clasps her hands and shivers through all her imperially perfect form.

"I _did_ come back here last night," she says, in a fearful whisper. "My uncle had discarded me. Mr. Charteris had married another, and I had no one to turn to but the lover I had discarded a little while before. So I hurried back, thinking I would be Clyde's wife after all, but when I came, he," with a gasp, "he lay dead before me. I had thought it but a mere idle threat to frighten me, but he had kept his word faithfully. He had shot himself through the heart. I knelt down beside him, and laid my hand on his breast, but it was cold and still. Oh, you must not think I killed him! I loved him, and I would have gone away with him, but I was afraid of losing my uncle's money," she ends, with a choking sob.

"Why did you not raise an alarm when you found him dead?"

"I was afraid they would charge me with his murder, so I hurried away, not knowing of those tell-tale stains on my dress where I had been down on my knees beside him. I did not kill him, no, no, but my fatal weakness drove him to take his own life."

There is a moment's perfect silence, then the voice of the coroner is heard, with a troubled cadence in its sternness:

"I regret my painful duty, Miss Langton, more than I can say. The high position you have always held in this county would forbid the thought of your criminality, but the evidence against you is of such a nature that we shall be compelled to commit you to prison until further developments."

Her cry of terror and indignation echoes to the blue sky above her golden head. The sweet song-birds fly affrighted from its shrill, eerie sound.

"You believe me guilty," she exclaimed. "Yet I have told you again and again that Vernon Clyde died by his own hand."

"If you could prove it to us," he says, "if you could even prove by a competent witness his threat of self murder, you should go free this hour."

She looks at him dumbly and strangely. Suddenly a light of dazzling joy breaks over her face. She slips her gloved hand into the folds of her dress, withdrawing it with a gasp of disappointment.

"Let me tell you," she says, hurriedly and eagerly. "Yesterday Mr. Clyde sent me a note relative to my promise to meet him last night. In it he says, distinctly and clearly: 'If you do not marry me, I swear I will shoot myself through the heart.' I remember that the note is in the pocket of the blue dress I wore yesterday. Tell me, for Heaven's sake, would that be proof sufficient?"

"If the writing could be proved as Mr. Clyde's, it would entirely clear you from suspicion."

"Then let them take me to Langton Villa," she cries, anxiously. "I can lay my hand upon the note in one moment."

All eyes are turned upon her glad, triumphant face. No one remembers Vane Charteris where he stands in the shade of the tall maples. Yet a strange look has come upon the fair, handsome face. The lips curl nervously beneath the golden-brown mustache, the blue eyes gleam with a strange, mocking triumph.