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The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice

by Wilkie Collins · English · Gutenberg #170 · 370,562 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice

Author: Wilkie Collins


        
Release date: October 1, 1994 [eBook #170]
                Most recently updated: June 21, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/170


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAUNTED HOTEL: A MYSTERY OF MODERN VENICE ***
THE HAUNTED HOTEL


A Mystery of Modern Venice


by Wilkie Collins (1824–1889)

(after the edition of Chatto & Windus, London, 1879)




CONTENTS

THE FIRST PART
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND PART
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII

THE THIRD PART
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV

THE FOURTH PART
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
POSTSCRIPT




THE FIRST PART




CHAPTER I


In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician
reached its highest point. It was reported on good authority that he
was in receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from the practice
of medicine in modern times.

One afternoon, towards the close of the London season, the Doctor had
just taken his luncheon after a specially hard morning’s work in his
consulting-room, and with a formidable list of visits to patients at
their own houses to fill up the rest of his day—when the servant
announced that a lady wished to speak to him.

“Who is she?” the Doctor asked. “A stranger?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see no strangers out of consulting-hours. Tell her what the hours
are, and send her away.”

“I have told her, sir.”

“Well?”

“And she won’t go.”

“Won’t go?” The Doctor smiled as he repeated the words. He was a
humourist in his way; and there was an absurd side to the situation
which rather amused him. “Has this obstinate lady given you her name?”
he inquired.

“No, sir. She refused to give any name—she said she wouldn’t keep you
five minutes, and the matter was too important to wait till to-morrow.
There she is in the consulting-room; and how to get her out again is
more than I know.”

Doctor Wybrow considered for a moment. His knowledge of women
(professionally speaking) rested on the ripe experience of more than
thirty years; he had met with them in all their varieties—especially
the variety which knows nothing of the value of time, and never
hesitates at sheltering itself behind the privileges of its sex. A
glance at his watch informed him that he must soon begin his rounds
among the patients who were waiting for him at their own houses. He
decided forthwith on taking the only wise course that was open under
the circumstances. In other words, he decided on taking to flight.

“Is the carriage at the door?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Open the house-door for me without making any noise, and
leave the lady in undisturbed possession of the consulting-room. When
she gets tired of waiting, you know what to tell her. If she asks when
I am expected to return, say that I dine at my club, and spend the
evening at the theatre. Now then, softly, Thomas! If your shoes creak,
I am a lost man.”

He noiselessly led the way into the hall, followed by the servant on
tip-toe.

Did the lady in the consulting-room suspect him? or did Thomas’s shoes
creak, and was her sense of hearing unusually keen? Whatever the
explanation may be, the event that actually happened was beyond all
doubt. Exactly as Doctor Wybrow passed his consulting-room, the door
opened—the lady appeared on the threshold—and laid her hand on his arm.

“I entreat you, sir, not to go away without letting me speak to you
first.”

The accent was foreign; the tone was low and firm. Her fingers closed
gently, and yet resolutely, on the Doctor’s arm.

Neither her language nor her action had the slightest effect in
inclining him to grant her request. The influence that instantly
stopped him, on the way to his carriage, was the silent influence of
her face. The startling contrast between the corpse-like pallor of her
complexion and the overpowering life and light, the glittering metallic
brightness in her large black eyes, held him literally spell-bound. She
was dressed in dark colours, with perfect taste; she was of middle
height, and (apparently) of middle age—say a year or two over thirty.
Her lower features—the nose, mouth, and chin—possessed the fineness and
delicacy of form which is oftener seen among women of foreign races
than among women of English birth. She was unquestionably a handsome
person—with the one serious drawback of her ghastly complexion, and
with the less noticeable defect of a total want of tenderness in the
expression of her eyes. Apart from his first emotion of surprise, the
feeling she produced in the Doctor may be described as an overpowering
feeling of professional curiosity. The case might prove to be something
entirely new in his professional experience. “It looks like it,” he
thought; “and it’s worth waiting for.”

She perceived that she had produced a strong impression of some kind
upon him, and dropped her hold on his arm.

“You have comforted many miserable women in your time,” she said.
“Comfort one more, to-day.”

Without waiting to be answered, she led the way back into the room.

The Doctor followed her, and closed the door. He placed her in the
patients’ chair, opposite the windows. Even in London the sun, on that
summer afternoon, was dazzlingly bright. The radiant light flowed in on
her. Her eyes met it unflinchingly, with the steely steadiness of the
eyes of an eagle. The smooth pallor of her unwrinkled skin looked more
fearfully white than ever. For the first time, for many a long year
past, the Doctor felt his pulse quicken its beat in the presence of a
patient.

Having possessed herself of his attention, she appeared, strangely
enough, to have nothing to say to him. A curious apathy seemed to have
taken possession of this resolute woman. Forced to speak first, the
Doctor merely inquired, in the conventional phrase, what he could do
for her.

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse her. Still looking straight at
the light, she said abruptly: “I have a painful question to ask.”

“What is it?”

Her eyes travelled slowly from the window to the Doctor’s face. Without
the slightest outward appearance of agitation, she put the “painful
question” in these extraordinary words:

“I want to know, if you please, whether I am in danger of going mad?”

Some men might have been amused, and some might have been alarmed.
Doctor Wybrow was only conscious of a sense of disappointment. Was this
the rare case that he had anticipated, judging rashly by appearances?
Was the new patient only a hypochondriacal woman, whose malady was a
disordered stomach and whose misfortune was a weak brain? “Why do you
come to _me?_” he asked sharply. “Why don’t you consult a doctor whose
special employment is the treatment of the insane?”

She had her answer ready on the instant.

“I don’t go to a doctor of that sort,” she said, “for the very reason
that he _is_ a specialist: he has the fatal habit of judging everybody
by lines and rules of his own laying down. I come to _you_, because my
case is outside of all lines and rules, and because you are famous in
your profession for the discovery of mysteries in disease. Are you
satisfied?”

He was more than satisfied—his first idea had been the right idea,
after all. Besides, she was correctly informed as to his professional
position. The capacity which had raised him to fame and fortune was his
capacity (unrivalled among his brethren) for the discovery of remote
disease.

“I am at your disposal,” he answered. “Let me try if I can find out
what is the matter with you.”

He put his medical questions. They were promptly and plainly answered;
and they led to no other conclusion than that the strange lady was,
mentally and physically, in excellent health. Not satisfied with
questions, he carefully examined the great organs of life. Neither his
hand nor his stethoscope could discover anything that was amiss. With
the admirable patience and devotion to his art which had distinguished
him from the time when he was a student, he still subjected her to one
test after another. The result was always the same. Not only was there
no tendency to brain disease—there was not even a perceptible
derangement of the nervous system. “I can find nothing the matter with
you,” he said. “I can’t even account for the extraordinary pallor of
your complexion. You completely puzzle me.”

“The pallor of my complexion is nothing,” she answered a little
impatiently. “In my early life I had a narrow escape from death by
poisoning. I have never had a complexion since—and my skin is so
delicate, I cannot paint without producing a hideous rash. But that is
of no importance. I wanted your opinion given positively. I believed in
you, and you have disappointed me.” Her head dropped on her breast.
“And so it ends!” she said to herself bitterly.

The Doctor’s sympathies were touched. Perhaps it might be more correct
to say that his professional pride was a little hurt. “It may end in
the right way yet,” he remarked, “if you choose to help me.”

She looked up again with flashing eyes, “Speak plainly,” she said. “How
can I help you?”

“Plainly, madam, you come to me as an enigma, and you leave me to make
the right guess by the unaided efforts of my art. My art will do much,
but not all. For example, something must have occurred—something quite
unconnected with the state of your bodily health—to frighten you about
yourself, or you would never have come here to consult me. Is that
true?”

She clasped her hands in her lap. “That is true!” she said eagerly. “I
begin to believe in you again.”

“Very well. You can’t expect me to find out the moral cause which has
alarmed you. I can positively discover that there is no physical cause
of alarm; and (unless you admit me to your confidence) I can do no
more.”

She rose, and took a turn in the room. “Suppose I tell you?” she said.
“But, mind, I shall mention no names!”

“There is no need to mention names. The facts are all I want.”

“The facts are nothing,” she rejoined. “I have only my own impressions
to confess—and you will very likely think me a fanciful fool when you
hear what they are. No matter. I will do my best to content you—I will
begin with the facts that you want. Take my word for it, _they_ won’t
do much to help you.”

She sat down again. In the plainest possible words, she began the
strangest and wildest confession that had ever reached the Doctor’s
ears.




CHAPTER II


“It is one fact, sir, that I am a widow,” she said. “It is another
fact, that I am going to be married again.”

There she paused, and smiled at some thought that occurred to her.
Doctor Wybrow was not favourably impressed by her smile—there was
something at once sad and cruel in it. It came slowly, and it went away
suddenly. He began to doubt whether he had been wise in acting on his
first impression. His mind reverted to the commonplace patients and the
discoverable maladies that were waiting for him, with a certain tender
regret.

The lady went on.

“My approaching marriage,” she said, “has one embarrassing circumstance
connected with it. The gentleman whose wife I am to be, was engaged to
another lady when he happened to meet with me, abroad: that lady, mind,
being of his own blood and family, related to him as his cousin. I have
innocently robbed her of her lover, and destroyed her prospects in
life. Innocently, I say—because he told me nothing of his engagement
until after I had accepted him. When we next met in England—and when
there was danger, no doubt, of the affair coming to my knowledge—he
told me the truth. I was naturally indignant. He had his excuse ready;
he showed me a letter from the lady herself, releasing him from his
engagement. A more noble, a more high-minded letter, I never read in my
life. I cried over it—I who have no tears in me for sorrows of my own!
If the letter had left him any hope of being forgiven, I would have
positively refused to marry him. But the firmness of it—without anger,
without a word of reproach, with heartfelt wishes even for his
happiness—the firmness of it, I say, left him no hope. He appealed to
my compassion; he appealed to his love for me. You know what women are.
I too was soft-hearted—I said, Very well: yes! In a week more (I
tremble as I think of it) we are to be married.”

She did really tremble—she was obliged to pause and compose herself,
before she could go on. The Doctor, waiting for more facts, began to
fear that he stood committed to a long story. “Forgive me for reminding
you that I have suffering persons waiting to see me,” he said. “The
sooner you can come to the point, the better for my patients and for
me.”

The strange smile—at once so sad and so cruel—showed itself again on
the lady’s lips. “Every word I have said is to the point,” she
answered. “You will see it yourself in a moment more.”

She resumed her narrative.

“Yesterday—you need fear no long story, sir; only yesterday—I was among
the visitors at one of your English luncheon parties. A lady, a perfect
stranger to me, came in late—after we had left the table, and had
retired to the drawing-room. She happened to take a chair near me; and
we were presented to each other. I knew her by name, as she knew me. It
was the woman whom I had robbed of her lover, the woman who had written
the noble letter. Now listen! You were impatient with me for not
interesting you in what I said just now. I said it to satisfy your mind
that I had no enmity of feeling towards the lady, on my side. I admired
her, I felt for her—I had no cause to reproach myself. This is very
important, as you will presently see. On her side, I have reason to be
assured that the circumstances had been truly explained to her, and
that she understood I was in no way to blame. Now, knowing all these
necessary things as you do, explain to me, if you can, why, when I rose
and met that woman’s eyes looking at me, I turned cold from head to
foot, and shuddered, and shivered, and knew what a deadly panic of fear
was, for the first time in my life.”

The Doctor began to feel interested at last.

“Was there anything remarkable in the lady’s personal appearance?” he
asked.

“Nothing whatever!” was the vehement reply. “Here is the true
description of her:—The ordinary English lady; the clear cold blue
eyes, the fine rosy complexion, the inanimately polite manner, the
large good-humoured mouth, the too plump cheeks and chin: these, and
nothing more.”

“Was there anything in her expression, when you first looked at her,
that took you by surprise?”

“There was natural curiosity to see the woman who had been preferred to
her; and perhaps some astonishment also, not to see a more engaging and
more beautiful person; both those feelings restrained within the limits
of good breeding, and both not lasting for more than a few moments—so
far as I could see. I say, ‘so far,’ because the horrible agitation
that she communicated to me disturbed my judgment. If I could have got
to the door, I would have run out of the room, she frightened me so! I
was not even able to stand up—I sank back in my chair; I stared
horror-struck at the calm blue eyes that were only looking at me with a
gentle surprise. To say they affected me like the eyes of a serpent is
to say nothing. I felt her soul in them, looking into mine—looking, if
such a thing can be, unconsciously to her own mortal self. I tell you
my impression, in all its horror and in all its folly! That woman is
destined (without knowing it herself) to be the evil genius of my life.
Her innocent eyes saw hidden capabilities of wickedness in me that I
was not aware of myself, until I felt them stirring under her look. If
I commit faults in my life to come—if I am even guilty of crimes—she
will bring the retribution, without (as I firmly believe) any conscious
exercise of her own will. In one indescribable moment I felt all
this—and I suppose my face showed it. The good artless creature was
inspired by a sort of gentle alarm for me. ‘I am afraid the heat of the
room is too much for you; will you try my smelling bottle?’ I heard her
say those kind words; and I remember nothing else—I fainted. When I
recovered my senses, the company had all gone; only the lady of the
house was with me. For the moment I could say nothing to her; the
dreadful impression that I have tried to describe to you came back to
me with the coming back of my life. As soon I could speak, I implored
her to tell me the whole truth about the woman whom I had supplanted.
You see, I had a faint hope that her good character might not really be
deserved, that her noble letter was a skilful piece of hypocrisy—in
short, that she secretly hated me, and was cunning enough to hide it.
No! the lady had been her friend from her girlhood, was as familiar
with her as if they had been sisters—knew her positively to be as good,
as innocent, as incapable of hating anybody, as the greatest saint that
ever lived. My one last hope, that I had only felt an ordinary
forewarning of danger in the presence of an ordinary enemy, was a hope
destroyed for ever. There was one more effort I could make, and I made
it. I went next to the man whom I am to marry. I implored him to
release me from my promise. He refused. I declared I would break my
engagement. He showed me letters from his sisters, letters from his
brothers, and his dear friends—all entreating him to think again before
he made me his wife; all repeating reports of me in Paris, Vienna, and
London, which are so many vile lies. ‘If you refuse to marry me,’ he
said, ‘you admit that these reports are true—you admit that you are
afraid to face society in the character of my wife.’ What could I
answer? There was no contradicting him—he was plainly right: if I
persisted in my refusal, the utter destruction of my reputation would
be the result. I consented to let the wedding take place as we had
arranged it—and left him. The night has passed. I am here, with my
fixed conviction—that innocent woman is ordained to have a fatal
influence over my life. I am here with my one question to put, to the
one man who can answer it. For the last time, sir, what am I—a demon
who has seen the avenging angel? or only a poor mad woman, misled by
the delusion of a deranged mind?”

Doctor Wybrow rose from his chair, determined to close the interview.

He was strongly and painfully impressed by what he had heard. The
longer he had listened to her, the more irresistibly the conviction of
the woman’s wickedness had forced itself on him. He tried vainly to
think of her as a person to be pitied—a person with a morbidly
sensitive imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie
dormant in us all, and striving earnestly to open her heart to the
counter-influence of her own better nature; the effort was beyond him.
A perverse instinct in him said, as if in words, Beware how you believe
in her!

“I have already given you my opinion,” he said. “There is no sign of
your intellect being deranged, or being likely to be deranged, that
medical science can discover—as _I_ understand it. As for the
impressions you have confided to me, I can only say that yours is a
case (as I venture to think) for spiritual rather than for medical
advice. Of one thing be assured: what you have said to me in this room
shall not pass out of it. Your confession is safe in my keeping.”

She heard him, with a certain dogged resignation, to the end.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“That is all,” he answered.

She put a little paper packet of money on the table. “Thank you, sir.
There is your fee.”

With those words she rose. Her wild black eyes looked upward, with an
expression of despair so defiant and so horrible in its silent agony
that the Doctor turned away his head, unable to endure the sight of it.
The bare idea of taking anything from her—not money only, but anything
even that she had touched—suddenly revolted him. Still without looking
at her, he said, “Take it back; I don’t want my fee.”

She neither heeded nor heard him. Still looking upward, she said slowly
to herself, “Let the end come. I have done with the struggle: I
submit.”

She drew her veil over her face, bowed to the Doctor, and left the
room.

He rang the bell, and followed her into the hall. As the servant closed
the door on her, a sudden impulse of curiosity—utterly unworthy of him,
and at the same time utterly irresistible—sprang up in the Doctor’s
mind. Blushing like a boy, he said to the servant, “Follow her home,
and find out her name.” For one moment the man looked at his master,
doubting if his own ears had not deceived him. Doctor Wybrow looked
back at him in silence. The submissive servant knew what that silence
meant—he took his hat and hurried into the street.

The Doctor went back to the consulting-room. A sudden revulsion of
feeling swept over his mind. Had the woman left an infection of
wickedness in the house, and had he caught it? What devil had possessed
him to degrade himself in the eyes of his own servant? He had behaved
infamously—he had asked an honest man, a man who had served him
faithfully for years, to turn spy! Stung by the bare thought of it, he
ran out into the hall again, and opened the door. The servant had
disappeared; it was too late to call him back. But one refuge from his
contempt for himself was now open to him—the refuge of work. He got
into his carriage and went his rounds among his patients.

If the famous physician could have shaken his own reputation, he would
have done it that afternoon. Never before had he made himself so little
welcome at the bedside. Never before had he put off until to-morrow the
prescription which ought to have been written, the opinion which ought
to have been given, to-day. He went home earlier than usual—unutterably
dissatisfied with himself.

The servant had returned. Dr. Wybrow was ashamed to question him. The
man reported the result of his errand, without waiting to be asked.

“The lady’s name is the Countess Narona. She lives at—”

Without waiting to hear where she lived, the Doctor acknowledged the
all-important discovery of her name by a silent bend of the head, and
entered his consulting-room. The fee that he had vainly refused still
lay in its little white paper covering on the table. He sealed it up in
an envelope; addressed it to the “Poor-box” of the nearest
police-court; and, calling the servant in, directed him to take it to
the magistrate the next morning. Faithful to his duties, the servant
waited to ask the customary question, “Do you dine at home to-day,
sir?”

After a moment’s hesitation he said, “No: I shall dine at the club.”

The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality
called “conscience.” In one state of a man’s mind, his conscience is
the severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he
and his conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in
the comfortable capacity of accomplices. When Doctor Wybrow left his
house for the second time, he did not even attempt to conceal from
himself that his sole object, in dining at the club, was to hear what
the world said of the Countess Narona.




CHAPTER III


There was a time when a man in search of the pleasures of gossip sought
the society of ladies. The man knows better now. He goes to the
smoking-room of his club.

Doctor Wybrow lit his cigar, and looked round him at his brethren in
social conclave assembled. The room was well filled; but the flow of
talk was still languid. The Doctor innocently applied the stimulant
that was wanted. When he inquired if anybody knew the Countess Narona,
he was answered by something like a shout of astonishment. Never (the
conclave agreed) had such an absurd question been asked before! Every
human creature, with the slightest claim to a place in society, knew
the Countess Narona. An adventuress with a European reputation of the
blackest possible colour—such was the general description of the woman
with the deathlike complexion and the glittering eyes.

Descending to particulars, each member of the club contributed his own
little stock of scandal to the memoirs of the Countess. It was doubtful
whether she was really, what she called herself, a Dalmatian lady. It
was doubtful whether she had ever been married to the Count whose widow
she assumed to be. It was doubtful whether the man who accompanied her
in her travels (under the name of Baron Rivar, and in the character of
her brother) was her brother at all. Report pointed to the Baron as a
gambler at every “table” on the Continent. Report whispered that his
so-called sister had narrowly escaped being implicated in a famous
trial for poisoning at Vienna—that she had been known at Milan as a spy
in the interests of Austria—that her “apartment” in Paris had been
denounced to the police as nothing less than a private
gambling-house—and that her present appearance in England was the
natural result of the discovery. Only one member of the assembly in the
smoking-room took the part of this much-abused woman, and declared that
her character had been most cruelly and most unjustly assailed. But as
the man was a lawyer, his interference went for nothing: it was
naturally attributed to the spirit of contradiction inherent in his
profession. He was asked derisively what he thought of the
circumstances under which the Countess had become engaged to be
married; and he made the characteristic answer, that he thought the
circumstances highly creditable to both parties, and that he looked on
the lady’s future husband as a most enviable man.

Hearing this, the Doctor raised another shout of astonishment by
inquiring the name of the gentleman whom the Countess was about to
marry.

His friends in the smoking-room decided unanimously that the celebrated
physician must be a second “Rip-van-Winkle,” and that he had just
awakened from a supernatural sleep of twenty years. It was all very
well to say that he was devoted to his profession, and that he had
neither time nor inclination to pick up fragments of gossip at
dinner-parties and balls. A man who did not know that the Countess
Narona had borrowed money at Homburg of no less a person than Lord
Montbarry, and had then deluded him into making her a proposal of
marriage, was a man who had probably never heard of Lord Montbarry
himself. The younger members of the club, humouring the joke, sent a
waiter for the “Peerage”; and read aloud the memoir of the nobleman in
question, for the Doctor’s benefit—with illustrative morsels of
information interpolated by themselves.

“Herbert John Westwick. First Baron Montbarry, of Montbarry, King’s
County, Ireland. Created a Peer for distinguished military services in
India. Born, 1812. Forty-eight years old, Doctor, at the present time.
Not married. Will be married next week, Doctor, to the delightful
creature we have been talking about. Heir presumptive, his lordship’s
next brother, Stephen Robert, married to Ella, youngest daughter of the
Reverend Silas Marden, Rector of Runnigate, and has issue, three
daughters. Younger brothers of his lordship, Francis and Henry,
unmarried. Sisters of his lordship, Lady Barville, married to Sir
Theodore Barville, Bart.; and Anne, widow of the late Peter Norbury,
Esq., of Norbury Cross. Bear his lordship’s relations well in mind,
Doctor. Three brothers Westwick, Stephen, Francis, and Henry; and two
sisters, Lady Barville and Mrs. Norbury. Not one of the five will be
present at the marriage; and not one of the five will leave a stone
unturned to stop it, if the Countess will only give them a chance. Add
to these hostile members of the family another offended relative not
mentioned in the “Peerage,” a young lady—”

A sudden outburst of protest in more than one part of the room stopped
the coming disclosure, and released the Doctor from further
persecution.

“Don’t mention the poor girl’s name; it’s too bad to make a joke of
that part of the business; she has behaved nobly under shameful
provocation; there is but one excuse for Montbarry—he is either a
madman or a fool.” In these terms the protest expressed itself on all
sides. Speaking confidentially to his next neighbour, the Doctor
discovered that the lady referred to was already known to him (through
the Countess’s confession) as the lady deserted by Lord Montbarry. Her
name was Agnes Lockwood. She was described as being the superior of the
Countess in personal attraction, and as being also by some years the
younger woman of the two. Making all allowance for the follies that men
committed every day in their relations with women, Montbarry’s delusion
was still the most monstrous delusion on record. In this expression of
opinion every man present agreed—the lawyer even included. Not one of
them could call to mind the innumerable instances in which the sexual
influence has proved irresistible in the persons of women without even
the pretension to beauty. The very members of the club whom the
Countess (in spite of her personal disadvantages) could have most
easily fascinated, if she had thought it worth her while, were the
members who wondered most loudly at Montbarry’s choice of a wife.

While the topic of the Countess’s marriage was still the one topic of
conversation, a member of the club entered the smoking-room whose
appearance instantly produced a dead silence. Doctor Wybrow’s next
neighbour whispered to him, “Montbarry’s brother—Henry Westwick!”

The new-comer looked round him slowly, with a bitter smile.

“You are all talking of my brother,” he said. “Don’t mind me. Not one
of you can despise him more heartily than I do. Go on, gentlemen—go
on!”

But one man present took the speaker at his word. That man was the
lawyer who had already undertaken the defence of the Countess.

“I stand alone in my opinion,” he said, “and I am not ashamed of
repeating it in anybody’s hearing. I consider the Countess Narona to be
a cruelly-treated woman. Why shouldn’t she be Lord Montbarry’s wife?
Who can say she has a mercenary motive in marrying him?”

Montbarry’s brother turned sharply on the speaker. “_I_ say it!” he
answered.

The reply might have shaken some men. The lawyer stood on his ground as
firmly as ever.

“I believe I am right,” he rejoined, “in stating that his lordship’s
income is not more than sufficient to support his station in life; also
that it is an income derived almost entirely from landed property in
Ireland, every acre of which is entailed.”

Montbarry’s brother made a sign, admitting that he had no objection to
offer so far.

“If his lordship dies first,” the lawyer proceeded, “I have been
informed that the only provision he can make for his widow consists in
a rent-charge on the property of no more than four hundred a year. His
retiring pension and allowances, it is well known, die with him. Four
hundred a year is therefore all that he can leave to the Countess, if
he leaves her a widow.”

“Four hundred a year is _not_ all,” was the reply to this. “My brother
has insured his life for ten thousand pounds; and he has settled the
whole of it on the Countess, in the event of his death.”

This announcement produced a strong sensation. Men looked at each
other, and repeated the three startling words, “Ten thousand pounds!”
Driven fairly to the wall, the lawyer made a last effort to defend his
position.

“May I ask who made that settlement a condition of the marriage?” he
said. “Surely it was not the Countess herself?.”

Henry Westwick answered, “It was the Countess’s brother”; and added,
“which comes to the same thing.”

After that, there was no more to be said—so long, at least, as
Montbarry’s brother was present. The talk flowed into other channels;
and the Doctor went home.

But his morbid curiosity about the Countess was not set at rest yet. In
his leisure moments he found himself wondering whether Lord Montbarry’s
family would succeed in stopping the marriage after all. And more than
this, he was conscious of a growing desire to see the infatuated man
himself. Every day during the brief interval before the wedding, he
looked in at the club, on the chance of hearing some news. Nothing had
happened, so far as the club knew. The Countess’s position was secure;
Montbarry’s resolution to be her husband was unshaken. They were both
Roman Catholics, and they were to be married at the —el in Spanish
Place. So much the Doctor discovered about them—and no more.

On the day of the wedding, after a feeble struggle with himself, he
actually sacrificed his patients and their guineas, and slipped away
secretly to see the marriage. To the end of his life, he was angry with
anybody who reminded him of what he had done on that day!

The wedding was strictly private. A close carriage stood at the church
door; a few people, mostly of the lower class, and mostly old women,
were scattered about the interior of the building. Here and there
Doctor Wybrow detected the faces of some of his brethren of the club,
attracted by curiosity, like himself. Four persons only stood before
the altar—the bride and bridegroom and their two witnesses. One of
these last was an elderly woman, who might have been the Countess’s
companion or maid; the other was undoubtedly her brother, Baron Rivar.
The bridal party (the bride herself included) wore their ordinary
morning costume. Lord Montbarry, personally viewed, was a middle-aged
military man of the ordinary type: nothing in the least remarkable
distinguished him either in face or figure. Baron Rivar, again, in his
way was another conventional representative of another well-known type.
One sees his finely-pointed moustache, his bold eyes, his
crisply-curling hair, and his dashing carriage of the head, repeated
hundreds of times over on the Boulevards of Paris. The only noteworthy
point about him was of the negative sort—he was not in the least like
his sister. Even the officiating priest was only a harmless,
humble-looking old man, who went through his duties resignedly, and
felt visible rheumatic difficulties every time he bent his knees. The
one remarkable person, the Countess herself, only raised her veil at
the beginning of the ceremony, and presented nothing in her plain dress
that was worth a second look. Never, on the face of it, was there a
less interesting and less romantic marriage than this. From time to
time the Doctor glanced round at the door or up at the galleries,
vaguely anticipating the appearance of some protesting stranger, in
possession of some terrible secret, commissioned to forbid the progress
of the service. Nothing in the shape of an event occurred—nothing
extraordinary, nothing dramatic. Bound fast together as man and wife,
the two disappeared, followed by their witnesses, to sign the
registers; and still Doctor Wybrow waited, and still he cherished the
obstinate hope that something worth seeing must certainly happen yet.

The interval passed, and the married couple, returning to the church,
walked together down the nave to the door. Doctor Wybrow drew back as
they approached. To his confusion and surprise, the Countess discovered
him. He heard her say to her husband, “One moment; I see a friend.”
Lord Montbarry bowed and waited. She stepped up to the Doctor, took his
hand, and wrung it hard. He felt her overpowering black eyes looking at
him through her veil. “One step more, you see, on the way to the end!”
She whispered those strange words, and returned to her husband. Before
the Doctor could recover himself and follow her, Lord and Lady
Montbarry had stepped into their carriage, and had driven away.

Outside the church door stood the three or four members of the club
who, like Doctor Wybrow, had watched the ceremony out of curiosity.
Near them was the bride’s brother, waiting alone. He was evidently bent
on seeing the man whom his sister had spoken to, in broad daylight. His
bold eyes rested on the Doctor’s face, with a momentary flash of
suspicion in them. The cloud suddenly cleared away; the Baron smiled
with charming courtesy, lifted his hat to his sister’s friend, and
walked off.

The members constituted themselves into a club conclave on the church
steps. They began with the Baron. “Damned ill-looking rascal!” They
went on with Montbarry. “Is he going to take that horrid woman with him
to Ireland?” “Not he! he can’t face the tenantry; they know about Agnes
Lockwood.” “Well, but where _is_ he going?” “To Scotland.” “Does _she_
like that?” “It’s only for a fortnight; they come back to London, and
go abroad.” “And they will never return to England, eh?” “Who can tell?
Did you see how she looked at Montbarry, when she had to lift her veil
at the beginning of the service? In his place, I should have bolted.
Did _you_ see her, Doctor?” By this time, Doctor Wybrow had remembered
his patients, and had heard enough of the club gossip. He followed the
example of Baron Rivar, and walked off.

“One step more, you see, on the way to the end,” he repeated to
himself, on his way home. “What end?”




CHAPTER IV


On the day of the marriage Agnes Lockwood sat alone in the little
drawing-room of her London lodgings, burning the letters which had been
written to her by Montbarry in the bygone time.

The Countess’s maliciously smart description of her, addressed to
Doctor Wybrow, had not even hinted at the charm that most distinguished
Agnes—the artless expression of goodness and purity which instantly
attracted everyone who approached her. She looked by many years younger
than she really was. With her fair complexion and her shy manner, it
seemed only natural to speak of her as “a girl,” although she was now
really advancing towards thirty years of age. She lived alone with an
old nurse devoted to her, on a modest little income which was just
enough to support the two. There were none of the ordinary signs of
grief in her face, as she slowly tore the letters of her false lover in
two, and threw the pieces into the small fire which had been lit to
consume them. Unhappily for herself, she was one of those women who
feel too deeply to find relief in tears. Pale and quiet, with cold
trembling fingers, she destroyed the letters one by one without daring
to read them again. She had torn the last of the series, and was still
shrinking from throwing it after the rest into the swiftly destroying
flame, when the old nurse came in, and asked if she would see “Master
Henry,”—meaning that youngest member of the Westwick family, who had
publicly declared his contempt for his brother in the smoking-room of
the club.

Agnes hesitated. A faint tinge of colour stole over her face.

There had been a long past time when Henry Westwick had owned that he
loved her. She had made her confession to him, acknowledging that her
heart was given to his eldest brother. He had submitted to his
disappointment; and they had met thenceforth as cousins and friends.
Never before had she associated the idea of him with embarrassing
recollections. But now, on the very day when his brother’s marriage to
another woman had consummated his brother’s treason towards her, there
was something vaguely repellent in the prospect of seeing him. The old
nurse (who remembered them both in their cradles) observed her
hesitation; and sympathising of course with the man, put in a timely
word for Henry. “He says, he’s going away, my dear; and he only wants
to shake hands, and say good-bye.” This plain statement of the case had
its effect. Agnes decided on receiving her cousin.

He entered the room so rapidly that he surprised her in the act of
throwing the fragments of Montbarry’s last letter into the fire. She
hurriedly spoke first.

“You are leaving London very suddenly, Henry. Is it business? or
pleasure?”

Instead of answering her, he pointed to the flaming letter, and to some
black ashes of burnt paper lying lightly in the lower part of the
fireplace.

“Are you burning letters?”

“Yes.”

“_His_ letters?”

“Yes.”

He took her hand gently. “I had no idea I was intruding on you, at a
time when you must wish to be alone. Forgive me, Agnes—I shall see you
when I return.”

She signed to him, with a faint smile, to take a chair.

“We have known one another since we were children,” she said. “Why
should I feel a foolish pride about myself in your presence? why should
I have any secrets from you? I sent back all your brother’s gifts to me
some time ago. I have been advised to do more, to keep nothing that can
remind me of him—in short, to burn his letters. I have taken the
advice; but I own I shrank a little from destroying the last of the
letters. No—not because it was the last, but because it had this in
it.” She opened her hand, and showed him a lock of Montbarry’s hair,
tied with a morsel of golden cord. “Well! well! let it go with the
rest.”

She dropped it into the flame. For a while, she stood with her back to
Henry, leaning on the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire. He took
the chair to which she had pointed, with a strange contradiction of
expression in his face: the tears were in his eyes, while the brows
above were knit close in an angry frown. He muttered to himself, “Damn
him!”

She rallied her courage, and looked at him again when she spoke. “Well,
Henry, and why are you going away?”

“I am out of spirits, Agnes, and I want a change.”

She paused before she spoke again. His face told her plainly that he
was thinking of _her_ when he made that reply. She was grateful to him,
but her mind was not with him: her mind was still with the man who had
deserted her. She turned round again to the fire.

“Is it true,” she asked, after a long silence, “that they have been
married to-day?”

He answered ungraciously in the one necessary word:—“Yes.”

“Did you go to the church?”

He resented the question with an expression of indignant surprise. “Go
to the church?” he repeated. “I would as soon go to—” He checked
himself there. “How can you ask?” he added in lower tones. “I have
never spoken to Montbarry, I have not even seen him, since he treated
you like the scoundrel and the fool that he is.”

She looked at him suddenly, without saying a word. He understood her,
and begged her pardon. But he was still angry. “The reckoning comes to
some men,” he said, “even in this world. He will live to rue the day
when he married that woman!”

Agnes took a chair by his side, and looked at him with a gentle
surprise.

“Is it quite reasonable to be so angry with her, because your brother
preferred her to me?” she asked.

Henry turned on her sharply. “Do _you_ defend the Countess, of all the
people in the world?”

“Why not?” Agnes answered. “I know nothing against her. On the only
occasion when we met, she appeared to be a singularly timid, nervous
person, looking dreadfully ill; and _being_ indeed so ill that she
fainted under the heat of my room. Why should we not do her justice? We
know that she was innocent of any intention to wrong me; we know that
she was not aware of my engagement—”

Henry lifted his hand impatiently, and stopped her. “There is such a
thing as being _too_ just and _too_ forgiving!” he interposed. “I can’t
bear to hear you talk in that patient way, after the scandalously cruel
manner in which you have been treated. Try to forget them both, Agnes.
I wish to God I could help you to do it!”

Agnes laid her hand on his arm. “You are very good to me, Henry; but
you don’t quite understand me. I was thinking of myself and my trouble
in quite a different way, when you came in. I was wondering whether
anything which has so entirely filled my heart, and so absorbed all
that is best and truest in me, as my feeling for your brother, can
really pass away as if it had never existed. I have destroyed the last
visible things that remind me of him. In this world I shall see him no
more. But is the tie that once bound us, completely broken? Am I as
entirely parted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we had
never met and never loved? What do _you_ think, Henry? I can hardly
believe it.”

“If you could bring the retribution on him that he has deserved,” Henry
Westwick answered sternly, “I might be inclined to agree with you.”

As that reply passed his lips, the old nurse appeared again at the
door, announcing another visitor.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, my dear. But here is little Mrs. Ferrari
wanting to know when she may say a few words to you.”

Agnes turned to Henry, before she replied. “You remember Emily Bidwell,
my favourite pupil years ago at the village school, and afterwards my
maid? She left me, to marry an Italian courier, named Ferrari—and I am
afraid it has not turned out very well. Do you mind my having her in
here for a minute or two?”

Henry rose to take his leave. “I should be glad to see Emily again at
any other time,” he said. “But it is best that I should go now. My mind
is disturbed, Agnes; I might say things to you, if I stayed here any
longer, which—which are better not said now. I shall cross the Channel
by the mail to-night, and see how a few weeks’ change will help me.” He
took her hand. “Is there anything in the world that I can do for you?”
he asked very earnestly. She thanked him, and tried to release her
hand. He held it with a tremulous lingering grasp. “God bless you,
Agnes!” he said in faltering tones, with his eyes on the ground. Her
face flushed again, and the next instant turned paler than ever; she
knew his heart as well as he knew it himself—she was too distressed to
speak. He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it fervently, and,
without looking at her again, left the room. The nurse hobbled after
him to the head of the stairs: she had not forgotten the time when the
younger brother had been the unsuccessful rival of the elder for the
hand of Agnes. “Don’t be down-hearted, Master Henry,” whispered the old
woman, with the unscrupulous common sense of persons in the lower rank
of life. “Try her again, when you come back!”

Left alone for a few moments, Agnes took a turn in the room, trying to
compose herself. She paused before a little water-colour drawing on the
wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was her own portrait when
she was a child. “How much happier we should be,” she thought to
herself sadly, “if we never grew up!”

The courier’s wife was shown in—a little meek melancholy woman, with
white eyelashes, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentially and was
troubled with a small chronic cough. Agnes shook hands with her kindly.
“Well, Emily, what can I do for you?”

The courier’s wife made rather a strange answer: “I’m afraid to tell
you, Miss.”

“Is it such a very difficult favour to grant? Sit down, and let me hear
how you are going on. Perhaps the petition will slip out while we are
talking. How does your husband behave to you?”

Emily’s light grey eyes looked more watery than ever. She shook her
head and sighed resignedly. “I have no positive complaint to make
against him, Miss. But I’m afraid he doesn’t care about me; and he
seems to take no interest in his home—I may almost say he’s tired of
his home. It might be better for both of us, Miss, if he went
travelling for a while—not to mention the money, which is beginning to
be wanted sadly.” She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and sighed
again more resignedly than ever.

“I don’t quite understand,” said Agnes. “I thought your husband had an
engagement to take some ladies to Switzerland and Italy?”

“That was his ill-luck, Miss. One of the ladies fell ill—and the others
wouldn’t go without her. They paid him a month’s salary as
compensation. But they had engaged him for the autumn and winter—and
the loss is serious.”

“I am sorry to hear it, Emily. Let us hope he will soon have another
chance.”

“It’s not his turn, Miss, to be recommended when the next applications
come to the couriers’ office. You see, there are so many of them out of
employment just now. If he could be privately recommended—” She
stopped, and left the unfinished sentence to speak for itself.

Agnes understood her directly. “You want my recommendation,” she
rejoined. “Why couldn’t you say so at once?”

Emily blushed. “It would be such a chance for my husband,” she answered
confusedly. “A letter, inquiring for a good courier (a six months’
engagement, Miss!) came to the office this morning. It’s another man’s
turn to be chosen—and the secretary will recommend him. If my husband
could only send his testimonials by the same post—with just a word in
your name, Miss—it might turn the scale, as they say. A private
recommendation between gentlefolks goes so far.” She stopped again, and
sighed again, and looked down at the carpet, as if she had some private
reason for feeling a little ashamed of herself.

Agnes began to be rather weary of the persistent tone of mystery in
which her visitor spoke. “If you want my interest with any friend of
mine,” she said, “why can’t you tell me the name?”

The courier’s wife began to cry. “I’m ashamed to tell you, Miss.”

For the first time, Agnes spoke sharply. “Nonsense, Emily! Tell me the
name directly—or drop the subject—whichever you like best.”

Emily made a last desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchief hard in
her lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loaded
gun:—“Lord Montbarry!”

Agnes rose and looked at her.

“You have disappointed me,” she said very quietly, but with a look
which the courier’s wife had never seen in her face before. “Knowing
what you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossible for me to
communicate with Lord Montbarry. I always supposed you had some
delicacy of feeling. I am sorry to find that I have been mistaken.”

Weak as she was, Emily had spirit enough to feel the reproof. She
walked in her meek noiseless way to the door. “I beg your pardon, Miss.
I am not quite so bad as you think me. But I beg your pardon, all the
same.”

She opened the door. Agnes called her back. There was something in the
woman’s apology that appealed irresistibly to her just and generous
nature. “Come,” she said; “we must not part in this way. Let me not
misunderstand you. What is it that you expected me to do?”

Emily was wise enough to answer this time without any reserve. “My
husband will send his testimonials, Miss, to Lord Montbarry in
Scotland. I only wanted you to let him say in his letter that his wife
has been known to you since she was a child, and that you feel some
little interest in his welfare on that account. I don’t ask it now,
Miss. You have made me understand that I was wrong.”

Had she really been wrong? Past remembrances, as well as present
troubles, pleaded powerfully with Agnes for the courier’s wife. “It
seems only a small favour to ask,” she said, speaking under the impulse
of kindness which was the strongest impulse in her nature. “But I am
not sure that I ought to allow my name to be mentioned in your
husband’s letter. Let me hear again exactly what he wishes to say.”
Emily repeated the words—and then offered one of those suggestions,
which have a special value of their own to persons unaccustomed to the
use of their pens. “Suppose you try, Miss, how it looks in writing?”
Childish as the idea was, Agnes tried the experiment. “If I let you
mention me,” she said, “we must at least decide what you are to say.”
She wrote the words in the briefest and plainest form:—“I venture to
state that my wife has been known from her childhood to Miss Agnes
Lockwood, who feels some little interest in my welfare on that
account.” Reduced to this one sentence, there was surely nothing in the
reference to her name which implied that Agnes had permitted it, or
that she was even aware of it. After a last struggle with herself, she
handed the written paper to Emily. “Your husband must copy it exactly,
without altering anything,” she stipulated. “On that condition, I grant
your request.” Emily was not only thankful—she was really touched.
Agnes hurried the little woman out of the room. “Don’t give me time to
repent and take it back again,” she said. Emily vanished.

“Is the tie that once bound us completely broken? Am I as entirely
parted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we had never
met and never loved?” Agnes looked at the clock on the mantel-piece.
Not ten minutes since, those serious questions had been on her lips. It
almost shocked her to think of the common-place manner in which they
had already met with their reply. The mail of that night would appeal
once more to Montbarry’s remembrance of her—in the choice of a servant.

Two days later, the post brought a few grateful lines from Emily. Her
husband had got the place. Ferrari was engaged, for six months certain,
as Lord Montbarry’s courier.




THE SECOND PART




CHAPTER V


After only one week of travelling in Scotland, my lord and my lady
returned unexpectedly to London. Introduced to the mountains and lakes
of the Highlands, her ladyship positively declined to improve her
acquaintance with them. When she was asked for her reason, she answered
with a Roman brevity, “I have seen Switzerland.”

For a week more, the newly-married couple remained in London, in the
strictest retirement. On one day in that week the nurse returned in a
state of most uncustomary excitement from an errand on which Agnes had
sent her. Passing the door of a fashionable dentist, she had met Lord
Montbarry himself just leaving the house. The good woman’s report
described him, with malicious pleasure, as looking wretchedly ill. “His
cheeks are getting hollow, my dear, and his beard is turning grey. I
hope the dentist hurt him!”

Knowing how heartily her faithful old servant hated the man who had
deserted her, Agnes made due allowance for a large infusion of
exaggeration in the picture presented to her. The main impression
produced on her mind was an impression of nervous uneasiness. If she
trusted herself in the streets by daylight while Lord Montbarry
remained in London, how could she be sure that his next chance-meeting
might not be a meeting with herself? She waited at home, privately
ashamed of her own undignified conduct, for the next two days. On the
third day the fashionable intelligence of the newspapers announced the
departure of Lord and Lady Montbarry for Paris, on their way to Italy.

Mrs. Ferrari, calling the same evening, informed Agnes that her husband
had left her with all reasonable expression of conjugal kindness; his
temper being improved by the prospect of going abroad. But one other
servant accompanied the travellers—Lady Montbarry’s maid, rather a
silent, unsociable woman, so far as Emily had heard. Her ladyship’s
brother, Baron Rivar, was already on the Continent. It had been
arranged that he was to meet his sister and her husband at Rome.

One by one the dull weeks succeeded each other in the life of Agnes.
She faced her position with admirable courage, seeing her friends,
keeping herself occupied in her leisure hours with reading and drawing,
leaving no means untried of diverting her mind from the melancholy
remembrance of the past. But she had loved too faithfully, she had been
wounded too deeply, to feel in any adequate degree the influence of the
moral remedies which she employed. Persons who met with her in the
ordinary relations of life, deceived by her outward serenity of manner,
agreed that “Miss Lockwood seemed to be getting over her
disappointment.” But an old friend and school companion who happened to
see her during a brief visit to London, was inexpressibly distressed by
the change that she detected in Agnes. This lady was Mrs. Westwick, the
wife of that brother of Lord Montbarry who came next to him in age, and
who was described in the “Peerage” as presumptive heir to the title. He
was then away, looking after his interests in some mining property
which he possessed in America. Mrs. Westwick insisted on taking Agnes
back with her to her home in Ireland. “Come and keep me company while
my husband is away. My three little girls will make you their
playfellow, and the only stranger you will meet is the governess, whom
I answer for your liking beforehand. Pack up your things, and I will
call for you to-morrow on my way to the train.” In those hearty terms
the invitation was given. Agnes thankfully accepted it. For three happy
months she lived under the roof of her friend. The girls hung round her
in tears at her departure; the youngest of them wanted to go back with
Agnes to London. Half in jest, half in earnest, she said to her old
friend at parting, “If your governess leaves you, keep the place open
for me.” Mrs. Westwick laughed. The wiser children took it seriously,
and promised to let Agnes know.

On the very day when Miss Lockwood returned to London, she was recalled
to those associations with the past which she was most anxious to
forget. After the first kissings and greetings were over, the old nurse
(who had been left in charge at the lodgings) had some startling
information to communicate, derived from the courier’s wife.

“Here has been little Mrs. Ferrari, my dear, in a dreadful state of
mind, inquiring when you would be back. Her husband has left Lord
Montbarry, without a word of warning—and nobody knows what has become
of him.”

Agnes looked at her in astonishment. “Are you sure of what you are
saying?” she asked.

The nurse was quite sure. “Why, Lord bless you! the news comes from the
couriers’ office in Golden Square—from the secretary, Miss Agnes, the
secretary himself!” Hearing this, Agnes began to feel alarmed as well
as surprised. It was still early in the evening. She at once sent a
message to Mrs. Ferrari, to say that she had returned.

In an hour more the courier’s wife appeared, in a state of agitation
which it was not easy to control. Her narrative, when she was at last
able to speak connectedly, entirely confirmed the nurse’s report of it.

After hearing from her husband with tolerable regularity from Paris,
Rome, and Venice, Emily had twice written to him afterwards—and had
received no reply. Feeling uneasy, she had gone to the office in Golden
Square, to inquire if he had been heard of there. The post of the
morning had brought a letter to the secretary from a courier then at
Venice. It contained startling news of Ferrari. His wife had been
allowed to take a copy of it, which she now handed to Agnes to read.

The writer stated that he had recently arrived in Venice. He had
previously heard that Ferrari was with Lord and Lady Montbarry, at one
of the old Venetian palaces which they had hired for a term. Being a
friend of Ferrari, he had gone to pay him a visit. Ringing at the door
that opened on the canal, and failing to make anyone hear him, he had
gone round to a side entrance opening on one of the narrow lanes of
Venice. Here, standing at the door (as if she was waiting for him to
try that way next), he found a pale woman with magnificent dark eyes,
who proved to be no other than Lady Montbarry herself.

She asked, in Italian, what he wanted. He answered that he wanted to
see the courier Ferrari, if it was quite convenient. She at once
informed him that Ferrari had left the palace, without assigning any
reason, and without even leaving an address at which his monthly salary
(then due to him) could be paid. Amazed at this reply, the courier
inquired if any person had offended Ferrari, or quarrelled with him.
The lady answered, “To my knowledge, certainly not. I am Lady
Montbarry; and I can positively assure you that Ferrari was treated
with the greatest kindness in this house. We are as much astonished as
you are at his extraordinary disappearance. If you should hear of him,
pray let us know, so that we may at least pay him the money which is
due.”

After one or two more questions (quite readily answered) relating to
the date and the time of day at which Ferrari had left the palace, the
courier took his leave.

He at once entered on the necessary investigations—without the
slightest result so far as Ferrari was concerned. Nobody had seen him.
Nobody appeared to have been taken into his confidence. Nobody knew
anything (that is to say, anything of the slightest importance) even
about persons so distinguished as Lord and Lady Montbarry. It was
reported that her ladyship’s English maid had left her, before the
disappearance of Ferrari, to return to her relatives in her own
country, and that Lady Montbarry had taken no steps to supply her
place. His lordship was described as being in delicate health. He lived
in the strictest retirement—nobody was admitted to him, not even his
own countrymen. A stupid old woman was discovered who did the housework
at the palace, arriving in the morning and going away again at night.
She had never seen the lost courier—she had never even seen Lord
Montbarry, who was then confined to his room. Her ladyship, “a most
gracious and adorable mistress,” was in constant attendance on her
noble husband. There was no other servant then in the house (so far as
the old woman knew) but herself. The meals were sent in from a
restaurant. My lord, it was said, disliked strangers. My lord’s
brother-in-law, the Baron, was generally shut up in a remote part of
the palace, occupied (the gracious mistress said) with experiments in
chemistry. The experiments sometimes made a nasty smell. A doctor had
latterly been called in to his lordship—an Italian doctor, long
resident in Venice. Inquiries being addressed to this gentleman (a
physician of undoubted capacity and respectability), it turned out that
he also had never seen Ferrari, having been summoned to the palace (as
his memorandum book showed) at a date subsequent to the courier’s
disappearance. The doctor described Lord Montbarry’s malady as
bronchitis. So far, there was no reason to feel any anxiety, though the
attack was a sharp one. If alarming symptoms should appear, he had
arranged with her ladyship to call in another physician. For the rest,
it was impossible to speak too highly of my lady; night and day, she
was at her lord’s bedside.

With these particulars began and ended the discoveries made by
Ferrari’s courier-friend. The police were on the look-out for the lost
man—and that was the only hope which could be held forth for the
present, to Ferrari’s wife.

“What do you think of it, Miss?” the poor woman asked eagerly. “What
would you advise me to do?”

Agnes was at a loss how to answer her; it was an effort even to listen
to what Emily was saying. The references in the courier’s letter to
Montbarry—the report of his illness, the melancholy picture of his
secluded life—had reopened the old wound. She was not even thinking of
the lost Ferrari; her mind was at Venice, by the sick man’s bedside.

“I hardly know what to say,” she answered. “I have had no experience in
serious matters of this kind.”

“Do you think it would help you, Miss, if you read my husband’s letters
to me? There are only three of them—they won’t take long to read.”

Agnes compassionately read the letters.

They were not written in a very tender tone. “Dear Emily,” and “Yours
affectionately”—these conventional phrases, were the only phrases of
endearment which they contained. In the first letter, Lord Montbarry
was not very favourably spoken of:—“We leave Paris to-morrow. I don’t
much like my lord. He is proud and cold, and, between ourselves, stingy
in money matters. I have had to dispute such trifles as a few centimes
in the hotel bill; and twice already, some sharp remarks have passed
between the newly-married couple, in consequence of her ladyship’s
freedom in purchasing pretty tempting things at the shops in Paris. ‘I
can’t afford it; you must keep to your allowance.’ She has had to hear
those words already. For my part, I like her. She has the nice, easy
foreign manners—_she_ talks to me as if I was a human being like
herself.”

The second letter was dated from Rome.

“My lord’s caprices” (Ferrari wrote) “have kept us perpetually on the
move. He is becoming incurably restless. I suspect he is uneasy in his
mind. Painful recollections, I should say—I find him constantly reading
old letters, when her ladyship is not present. We were to have stopped
at Genoa, but he hurried us on. The same thing at Florence. Here, at
Rome, my lady insists on resting. Her brother has met us at this place.
There has been a quarrel already (the lady’s maid tells me) between my
lord and the Baron. The latter wanted to borrow money of the former.
His lordship refused in language which offended Baron Rivar. My lady
pacified them, and made them shake hands.”

The third, and last letter, was from Venice.

“More of my lord’s economy! Instead of staying at the hotel, we have
hired a damp, mouldy, rambling old palace. My lady insists on having
the best suites of rooms wherever we go—and the palace comes cheaper
for a two months’ term. My lord tried to get it for longer; he says the
quiet of Venice is good for his nerves. But a foreign speculator has
secured the palace, and is going to turn it into an hotel. The Baron is
still with us, and there have been more disagreements about money
matters. I don’t like the Baron—and I don’t find the attractions of my
lady grow on me. She was much nicer before the Baron joined us. My lord
is a punctual paymaster; it’s a matter of honour with him; he hates
parting with his money, but he does it because he has given his word. I
receive my salary regularly at the end of each month—not a franc extra,
though I have done many things which are not part of a courier’s proper
work. Fancy the Baron trying to borrow money of _me!_ He is an
inveterate gambler. I didn’t believe it when my lady’s maid first told
me so—but I have seen enough since to satisfy me that she was right. I
have seen other things besides, which—well! which don’t increase my
respect for my lady and the Baron. The maid says she means to give
warning to leave. She is a respectable British female, and doesn’t take
things quite so easily as I do. It is a dull life here. No going into
company—no company at home—not a creature sees my lord—not even the
consul, or the banker. When he goes out, he goes alone, and generally
towards nightfall. Indoors, he shuts himself up in his own room with
his books, and sees as little of his wife and the Baron as possible. I
fancy things are coming to a crisis here. If my lord’s suspicions are
once awakened, the consequences will be terrible. Under certain
provocations, the noble Montbarry is a man who would stick at nothing.
However, the pay is good—and I can’t afford to talk of leaving the
place, like my lady’s maid.”

Agnes handed back the letters—so suggestive of the penalty paid already
for his own infatuation by the man who had deserted her!—with feelings
of shame and distress, which made her no fit counsellor for the
helpless woman who depended on her advice.

“The one thing I can suggest,” she said, after first speaking some kind
words of comfort and hope, “is that we should consult a person of
greater experience than ours. Suppose I write and ask my lawyer (who is
also my friend and trustee) to come and advise us to-morrow after his
business hours?”

Emily eagerly and gratefully accepted the suggestion. An hour was
arranged for the meeting on the next day; the correspondence was left
under the care of Agnes; and the courier’s wife took her leave.

Weary and heartsick, Agnes lay down on the sofa, to rest and compose
herself. The careful nurse brought in a reviving cup of tea. Her quaint
gossip about herself and her occupations while Agnes had been away,
acted as a relief to her mistress’s overburdened mind. They were still
talking quietly, when they were startled by a loud knock at the house
door. Hurried footsteps ascended the stairs. The door of the
sitting-room was thrown open violently; the courier’s wife rushed in
like a mad woman. “He’s dead! They’ve murdered him!” Those wild words
were all she could say. She dropped on her knees at the foot of the
sofa—held out her hand with something clasped in it—and fell back in a
swoon.

The nurse, signing to Agnes to open the window, took the necessary
measures to restore the fainting woman. “What’s this?” she exclaimed.
“Here’s a letter in her hand. See what it is, Miss.”

The open envelope was addressed (evidently in a feigned hand-writing)
to “Mrs. Ferrari.” The post-mark was “Venice.” The contents of the
envelope were a sheet of foreign note-paper, and a folded enclosure.

On the note-paper, one line only was written. It was again in a feigned
handwriting, and it contained these words:

“_To console you for the loss of your husband._”

Agnes opened the enclosure next.

It was a Bank of England note for a thousand pounds.




CHAPTER VI


The next day, the friend and legal adviser of Agnes Lockwood, Mr. Troy,
called on her by appointment in the evening.

Mrs. Ferrari—still persisting in the conviction of her husband’s
death—had sufficiently recovered to be present at the consultation.
Assisted by Agnes, she told the lawyer the little that was known
relating to Ferrari’s disappearance, and then produced the
correspondence connected with that event. Mr. Troy read (first) the
three letters addressed by Ferrari to his wife; (secondly) the letter
written by Ferrari’s courier-friend, describing his visit to the palace
and his interview with Lady Montbarry; and (thirdly) the one line of
anonymous writing which had accompanied the extraordinary gift of a
thousand pounds to Ferrari’s wife.

Well known, at a later period, as the lawyer who acted for Lady
Lydiard, in the case of theft, generally described as the case of “My
Lady’s Money,” Mr. Troy was not only a man of learning and experience
in his profession—he was also a man who had seen something of society
at home and abroad. He possessed a keen eye for character, a quaint
humour, and a kindly nature which had not been deteriorated even by a
lawyer’s professional experience of mankind. With all these personal
advantages, it is a question, nevertheless, whether he was the fittest
adviser whom Agnes could have chosen under the circumstances. Little
Mrs. Ferrari, with many domestic merits, was an essentially commonplace
woman. Mr. Troy was the last person living who was likely to attract
her sympathies—he was the exact opposite of a commonplace man.

“She looks very ill, poor thing!” In these words the lawyer opened the
business of the evening, referring to Mrs. Ferrari as unceremoniously
as if she had been out of the room.

“She has suffered a terrible shock,” Agnes answered.

Mr. Troy turned to Mrs. Ferrari, and looked at her again, with the
interest due to the victim of a shock. He drummed absently with his
fingers on the table. At last he spoke to her.

“My good lady, you don’t really believe that your husband is dead?”

Mrs. Ferrari put her handkerchief to her eyes. The word “dead” was
ineffectual to express her feelings. “Murdered!” she said sternly,
behind her handkerchief.

“Why? And by whom?” Mr. Troy asked.

Mrs. Ferrari seemed to have some difficulty in answering. “You have
read my husband’s letters, sir,” she began. “I believe he discovered—”
She got as far as that, and there she stopped.

“What did he discover?”

There are limits to human patience—even the patience of a bereaved
wife. This cool question irritated Mrs. Ferrari into expressing herself
plainly at last.

“He discovered Lady Montbarry and the Baron!” she answered, with a
burst of hysterical vehemence. “The Baron is no more that vile woman’s
brother than I am. The wickedness of those two wretches came to my poor
dear husband’s knowledge. The lady’s maid left her place on account of
it. If Ferrari had gone away too, he would have been alive at this
moment. They have killed him. I say they have killed him, to prevent it
from getting to Lord Montbarry’s ears.” So, in short sharp sentences,
and in louder and louder accents, Mrs. Ferrari stated _her_ opinion of
the case.

Still keeping his own view in reserve, Mr. Troy listened with an
expression of satirical approval.

“Very strongly stated, Mrs. Ferrari,” he said. “You build up your
sentences well; you clinch your conclusions in a workmanlike manner. If
you had been a man, you would have made a good lawyer—you would have
taken juries by the scruff of their necks. Complete the case, my good
lady—complete the case. Tell us next who sent you this letter,
enclosing the bank-note. The ‘two wretches’ who murdered Mr. Ferrari
would hardly put their hands in their pockets and send you a thousand
pounds. Who is it—eh? I see the post-mark on the letter is ‘Venice.’
Have you any friend in that interesting city, with a large heart, and a
purse to correspond, who has been let into the secret and who wishes to
console you anonymously?”

It was not easy to reply to this. Mrs. Ferrari began to feel the first
inward approaches of something like hatred towards Mr. Troy. “I don’t
understand you, sir,” she answered. “I don’t think this is a joking
matter.”

Agnes interfered, for the first time. She drew her chair a little
nearer to her legal counsellor and friend.

“What is the most probable explanation, in your opinion?” she asked.

“I shall offend Mrs. Ferrari if I tell you,” Mr. Troy answered.

“No, sir, you won’t!” cried Mrs. Ferrari, hating Mr. Troy undisguisedly
by this time.

The lawyer leaned back in his chair. “Very well,” he said, in his most
good-humoured manner. “Let’s have it out. Observe, madam, I don’t
dispute your view of the position of affairs at the palace in Venice.
You have your husband’s letters to justify you; and you have also the
significant fact that Lady Montbarry’s maid did really leave the house.
We will say, then, that Lord Montbarry has presumably been made the
victim of a foul wrong—that Mr. Ferrari was the first to find it
out—and that the guilty persons had reason to fear, not only that he
would acquaint Lord Montbarry with his discovery, but that he would be
a principal witness against them if the scandal was made public in a
court of law. Now mark! Admitting all this, I draw a totally different
conclusion from the conclusion at which you have arrived. Here is your
husband left in this miserable household of three, under very awkward
circumstances for _him_. What does he do? But for the bank-note and the
written message sent to you with it, I should say that he had wisely
withdrawn himself from association with a disgraceful discovery and
exposure, by taking secretly to flight. The money modifies this
view—unfavourably so far as Mr. Ferrari is concerned. I still believe
he is keeping out of the way. But I now say he is _paid_ for keeping
out of the way—and that bank-note there on the table is the price of
his absence, sent by the guilty persons to his wife.”

Mrs. Ferrari’s watery grey eyes brightened suddenly; Mrs. Ferrari’s
dull drab-coloured complexion became enlivened by a glow of brilliant
red.

“It’s false!” she cried. “It’s a burning shame to speak of my husband
in that way!”

“I told you I should offend you!” said Mr. Troy.

Agnes interposed once more—in the interests of peace. She took the
offended wife’s hand; she appealed to the lawyer to reconsider that
side of his theory which reflected harshly on Ferrari. While she was
still speaking, the servant interrupted her by entering the room with a
visiting-card. It was the card of Henry Westwick; and there was an
ominous request written on it in pencil. “I bring bad news. Let me see
you for a minute downstairs.” Agnes immediately left the room.

Alone with Mrs. Ferrari, Mr. Troy permitted his natural kindness of
heart to show itself on the surface at last. He tried to make his peace
with the courier’s wife.

“You have every claim, my good soul, to resent a reflection cast upon
your husband,” he began. “I may even say that I respect you for
speaking so warmly in his defence. At the same time, remember, that I
am bound, in such a serious matter as this, to tell you what is really
in my mind. I can have no intention of offending you, seeing that I am
a total stranger to you and to Mr. Ferrari. A thousand pounds is a
large sum of money; and a poor man may excusably be tempted by it to do
nothing worse than to keep out of the way for a while. My only
interest, acting on your behalf, is to get at the truth. If you will
give me time, I see no reason to despair of finding your husband yet.”

Ferrari’s wife listened, without being convinced: her narrow little
mind, filled to its extreme capacity by her unfavourable opinion of Mr.
Troy, had no room left for the process of correcting its first
impression. “I am much obliged to you, sir,” was all she said. Her eyes
were more communicative—her eyes added, in _their_ language, “You may
say what you please; I will never forgive you to my dying day.”

Mr. Troy gave it up. He composedly wheeled his chair around, put his
hands in his pockets, and looked out of window.

After an interval of silence, the drawing-room door was opened.

Mr. Troy wheeled round again briskly to the table, expecting to see
Agnes. To his surprise there appeared, in her place, a perfect stranger
to him—a gentleman, in the prime of life, with a marked expression of
pain and embarrassment on his handsome face. He looked at Mr. Troy, and
bowed gravely.

“I am so unfortunate as to have brought news to Miss Agnes Lockwood
which has greatly distressed her,” he said. “She has retired to her
room. I am requested to make her excuses, and to speak to you in her
place.”

Having introduced himself in those terms, he noticed Mrs. Ferrari, and
held out his hand to her kindly. “It is some years since we last met,
Emily,” he said. “I am afraid you have almost forgotten the ‘Master
Henry’ of old times.” Emily, in some little confusion, made her
acknowledgments, and begged to know if she could be of any use to Miss
Lockwood. “The old nurse is with her,” Henry answered; “they will be
better left together.” He turned once more to Mr. Troy. “I ought to
tell you,” he said, “that my name is Henry Westwick. I am the younger
brother of the late Lord Montbarry.”

“The _late_ Lord Montbarry!” Mr. Troy exclaimed.

“My brother died at Venice yesterday evening. There is the telegram.”
With that startling answer, he handed the paper to Mr. Troy.

The message was in these words:

“Lady Montbarry, Venice. To Stephen Robert Westwick, Newbury’s Hotel,
London. It is useless to take the journey. Lord Montbarry died of
bronchitis, at 8.40 this evening. All needful details by post.”

“Was this expected, sir?” the lawyer asked.

“I cannot say that it has taken us entirely by surprise,” Henry
answered. “My brother Stephen (who is now the head of the family)
received a telegram three days since, informing him that alarming
symptoms had declared themselves, and that a second physician had been
called in. He telegraphed back to say that he had left Ireland for
London, on his way to Venice, and to direct that any further message
might be sent to his hotel. The reply came in a second telegram. It
announced that Lord Montbarry was in a state of insensibility, and
that, in his brief intervals of consciousness, he recognised nobody. My
brother was advised to wait in London for later information. The third
telegram is now in your hands. That is all I know, up to the present
time.”

Happening to look at the courier’s wife, Mr. Troy was struck by the
expression of blank fear which showed itself in the woman’s face.

“Mrs. Ferrari,” he said, “have you heard what Mr. Westwick has just
told me?”

“Every word of it, sir.”

“Have you any questions to ask?”

“No, sir.”

“You seem to be alarmed,” the lawyer persisted. “Is it still about your
husband?”

“I shall never see my husband again, sir. I have thought so all along,
as you know. I feel sure of it now.”

“Sure of it, after what you have just heard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“No, sir. It’s a feeling I have. I can’t tell why.”

“Oh, a feeling?” Mr. Troy repeated, in a tone of compassionate
contempt. “When it comes to feelings, my good soul—!” He left the
sentence unfinished, and rose to take his leave of Mr. Westwick. The
truth is, he began to feel puzzled himself, and he did not choose to
let Mrs. Ferrari see it. “Accept the expression of my sympathy, sir,”
he said to Mr. Westwick politely. “I wish you good evening.”

Henry turned to Mrs. Ferrari as the lawyer closed the door. “I have
heard of your trouble, Emily, from Miss Lockwood. Is there anything I
can do to help you?”

“Nothing, sir, thank you. Perhaps, I had better go home after what has
happened? I will call to-morrow, and see if I can be of any use to Miss
Agnes. I am very sorry for her.” She stole away, with her formal
curtsey, her noiseless step, and her obstinate resolution to take the
gloomiest view of her husband’s case.

Henry Westwick looked round him in the solitude of the little
drawing-room. There was nothing to keep him in the house, and yet he
lingered in it. It was something to be even near Agnes—to see the
things belonging to her that were scattered about the room. There, in
the corner, was her chair, with her embroidery on the work-table by its
side. On the little easel near the window was her last drawing, not
quite finished yet. The book she had been reading lay on the sofa, with
her tiny pencil-case in it to mark the place at which she had left off.
One after another, he looked at the objects that reminded him of the
woman whom he loved—took them up tenderly—and laid them down again with
a sigh. Ah, how far, how unattainably far from him, she was still! “She
will never forget Montbarry,” he thought to himself as he took up his
hat to go. “Not one of us feels his death as she feels it. Miserable,
miserable wretch—how she loved him!”

In the street, as Henry closed the house-door, he was stopped by a
passing acquaintance—a wearisome inquisitive man—doubly unwelcome to
him, at that moment. “Sad news, Westwick, this about your brother.
Rather an unexpected death, wasn’t it? We never heard at the club that
Montbarry’s lungs were weak. What will the insurance offices do?”

Henry started; he had never thought of his brother’s life insurance.
What could the offices do but pay? A death by bronchitis, certified by
two physicians, was surely the least disputable of all deaths. “I wish
you hadn’t put that question into my head!” he broke out irritably.
“Ah!” said his friend, “you think the widow will get the money? So do
I! so do I!”




CHAPTER VII


Some days later, the insurance offices (two in number) received the
formal announcement of Lord Montbarry’s death, from her ladyship’s
London solicitors. The sum insured in each office was five thousand
pounds—on which one year’s premium only had been paid. In the face of
such a pecuniary emergency as this, the Directors thought it desirable
to consider their position. The medical advisers of the two offices,
who had recommended the insurance of Lord Montbarry’s life, were called
into council over their own reports. The result excited some interest
among persons connected with the business of life insurance. Without
absolutely declining to pay the money, the two offices (acting in
concert) decided on sending a commission of inquiry to Venice, “for the
purpose of obtaining further information.”

Mr. Troy received the earliest intelligence of what was going on. He
wrote at once to communicate his news to Agnes; adding, what he
considered to be a valuable hint, in these words:

“You are intimately acquainted, I know, with Lady Barville, the late
Lord Montbarry’s eldest sister. The solicitors employed by her husband
are also the solicitors to one of the two insurance offices. There may
possibly be something in the report of the commission of inquiry
touching on Ferrari’s disappearance. Ordinary persons would not be
permitted, of course, to see such a document. But a sister of the late
lord is so near a relative as to be an exception to general rules. If
Sir Theodore Barville puts it on that footing, the lawyers, even if
they do not allow his wife to look at the report, will at least answer
any discreet questions she may ask referring to it. Let me hear what
you think of this suggestion, at your earliest convenience.”

The reply was received by return of post. Agnes declined to avail
herself of Mr. Troy’s proposal.

“My interference, innocent as it was,” she wrote, “has already been
productive of such deplorable results, that I cannot and dare not stir
any further in the case of Ferrari. If I had not consented to let that
unfortunate man refer to me by name, the late Lord Montbarry would
never have engaged him, and his wife would have been spared the misery
and suspense from which she is suffering now. I would not even look at
the report to which you allude if it was placed in my hands—I have
heard more than enough already of that hideous life in the palace at
Venice. If Mrs. Ferrari chooses to address herself to Lady Barville
(with your assistance), that is of course quite another thing. But,
even in this case, I must make it a positive condition that my name
shall not be mentioned. Forgive me, dear Mr. Troy! I am very unhappy,
and very unreasonable—but I am only a woman, and you must not expect
too much from me.”

Foiled in this direction, the lawyer next advised making the attempt to
discover the present address of Lady Montbarry’s English maid. This
excellent suggestion had one drawback: it could only be carried out by
spending money—and there was no money to spend. Mrs. Ferrari shrank
from the bare idea of making any use of the thousand-pound note. It had
been deposited in the safe keeping of a bank. If it was even mentioned
in her hearing, she shuddered and referred to it, with melodramatic
fervour, as “my husband’s blood-money!”

So, under stress of circumstances, the attempt to solve the mystery of
Ferrari’s disappearance was suspended for a while.

It was the last month of the year 1860. The commission of inquiry was
already at work; having begun its investigations on December 6. On the
10th, the term for which the late Lord Montbarry had hired the Venetian
palace, expired. News by telegram reached the insurance offices that
Lady Montbarry had been advised by her lawyers to leave for London with
as little delay as possible. Baron Rivar, it was believed, would
accompany her to England, but would not remain in that country, unless
his services were absolutely required by her ladyship. The Baron, “well
known as an enthusiastic student of chemistry,” had heard of certain
recent discoveries in connection with that science in the United
States, and was anxious to investigate them personally.

These items of news, collected by Mr. Troy, were duly communicated to
Mrs. Ferrari, whose anxiety about her husband made her a frequent, a
too frequent, visitor at the lawyer’s office. She attempted to relate
what she had heard to her good friend and protectress. Agnes steadily
refused to listen, and positively forbade any further conversation
relating to Lord Montbarry’s wife, now that Lord Montbarry was no more.
“You have Mr. Troy to advise you,” she said; “and you are welcome to
what little money I can spare, if money is wanted. All I ask in return
is that you will not distress me. I am trying to separate myself from
remembrances—” her voice faltered; she paused to control herself—“from
remembrances,” she resumed, “which are sadder than ever since I have
heard of Lord Montbarry’s death. Help me by your silence to recover my
spirits, if I can. Let me hear nothing more, until I can rejoice with
you that your husband is found.”

Time advanced to the 13th of the month; and more information of the
interesting sort reached Mr. Troy. The labours of the insurance
commission had come to an end—the report had been received from Venice
on that day.




CHAPTER VIII


On the 14th the Directors and their legal advisers met for the reading
of the report, with closed doors. These were the terms in which the
Commissioners related the results of their inquiry:

“_Private and confidential_.


“We have the honour to inform our Directors that we arrived in Venice
on December 6, 1860. On the same day we proceeded to the palace
inhabited by Lord Montbarry at the time of his last illness and death.

“We were received with all possible courtesy by Lady Montbarry’s
brother, Baron Rivar. ‘My sister was her husband’s only attendant
throughout his illness,’ the Baron informed us. ‘She is overwhelmed by
grief and fatigue—or she would have been here to receive you
personally. What are your wishes, gentlemen? and what can I do for you
in her ladyship’s place?’

“In accordance with our instructions, we answered that the death and
burial of Lord Montbarry abroad made it desirable to obtain more
complete information relating to his illness, and to the circumstances
which had attended it, than could be conveyed in writing. We explained
that the law provided for the lapse of a certain interval of time
before the payment of the sum assured, and we expressed our wish to
conduct the inquiry with the most respectful consideration for her
ladyship’s feelings, and for the convenience of any other members of
the family inhabiting the house.

“To this the Baron replied, ‘I am the only member of the family living
here, and I and the palace are entirely at your disposal.’ From first
to last we found this gentleman perfectly straightforward, and most
amiably willing to assist us.

“With the one exception of her ladyship’s room, we went over the whole
of the palace the same day. It is an immense place only partially
furnished. The first floor and part of the second floor were the
portions of it that had been inhabited by Lord Montbarry and the
members of the household. We saw the bedchamber, at one extremity of
the palace, in which his lordship died, and the small room
communicating with it, which he used as a study. Next to this was a
large apartment or hall, the doors of which he habitually kept locked,
his object being (as we were informed) to pursue his studies
uninterruptedly in perfect solitude. On the other side of the large
hall were the bedchamber occupied by her ladyship, and the
dressing-room in which the maid slept previous to her departure for
England. Beyond these were the dining and reception rooms, opening into
an antechamber, which gave access to the grand staircase of the palace.

“The only inhabited rooms on the second floor were the sitting-room and
bedroom occupied by Baron Rivar, and another room at some distance from
it, which had been the bedroom of the courier Ferrari.

“The rooms on the third floor and on the basement were completely
unfurnished, and in a condition of great neglect. We inquired if there
was anything to be seen below the basement—and we were at once informed
that there were vaults beneath, which we were at perfect liberty to
visit.

“We went down, so as to leave no part of the palace unexplored. The
vaults were, it was believed, used as dungeons in the old times—say,
some centuries since. Air and light were only partially admitted to
these dismal places by two long shafts of winding construction, which
communicated with the back yard of the palace, and the openings of
which, high above the ground, were protected by iron gratings. The
stone stairs leading down into the vaults could be closed at will by a
heavy trap-door in the back hall, which we found open. The Baron
himself led the way down the stairs. We remarked that it might be
awkward if that trap-door fell down and closed the opening behind us.
The Baron smiled at the idea. ‘Don’t be alarmed, gentlemen,’ he said;
‘the door is safe. I had an interest in seeing to it myself, when we
first inhabited the palace. My favourite study is the study of
experimental chemistry—and my workshop, since we have been in Venice,
is down here.’

“These last words explained a curious smell in the vaults, which we
noticed the moment we entered them. We can only describe the smell by
saying that it was of a twofold sort—faintly aromatic, as it were, in
its first effect, but with some after-odour very sickening in our
nostrils. The Baron’s furnaces and retorts, and other things, were all
there to speak for themselves, together with some packages of
chemicals, having the name and address of the person who had supplied
them plainly visible on their labels. ‘Not a pleasant place for study,’
Baron Rivar observed, ‘but my sister is timid. She has a horror of
chemical smells and explosions—and she has banished me to these lower
regions, so that my experiments may neither be smelt nor heard.’ He
held out his hands, on which we had noticed that he wore gloves in the
house. ‘Accidents will happen sometimes,’ he said, ‘no matter how
careful a man may be. I burnt my hands severely in trying a new
combination the other day, and they are only recovering now.’

“We mention these otherwise unimportant incidents, in order to show
that our exploration of the palace was not impeded by any attempt at
concealment. We were even admitted to her ladyship’s own room—on a
subsequent occasion, when she went out to take the air. Our
instructions recommended us to examine his lordship’s residence,
because the extreme privacy of his life at Venice, and the remarkable
departure of the only two servants in the house, might have some
suspicious connection with the nature of his death. We found nothing to
justify suspicion.

“As to his lordship’s retired way of life, we have conversed on the
subject with the consul and the banker—the only two strangers who held
any communication with him. He called once at the bank to obtain money
on his letter of credit, and excused himself from accepting an
invitation to visit the banker at his private residence, on the ground
of delicate health. His lordship wrote to the same effect on sending
his card to the consul, to excuse himself from personally returning
that gentleman’s visit to the palace. We have seen the letter, and we
beg to offer the following copy of it. ‘Many years passed in India have
injured my constitution. I have ceased to go into society; the one
occupation of my life now is the study of Oriental literature. The air
of Italy is better for me than the air of England, or I should never
have left home. Pray accept the apologies of a student and an invalid.
The active part of my life is at an end.’ The self-seclusion of his
lordship seems to us to be explained in these brief lines. We have not,
however, on that account spared our inquiries in other directions.
Nothing to excite a suspicion of anything wrong has come to our
knowledge.

“As to the departure of the lady’s maid, we have seen the woman’s
receipt for her wages, in which it is expressly stated that she left
Lady Montbarry’s service because she disliked the Continent, and wished
to get back to her own country. This is not an uncommon result of
taking English servants to foreign parts. Lady Montbarry has informed
us that she abstained from engaging another maid in consequence of the
extreme dislike which his lordship expressed to having strangers in the
house, in the state of his health at that time.

“The disappearance of the courier Ferrari is, in itself, unquestionably
a suspicious circumstance. Neither her ladyship nor the Baron can
explain it; and no investigation that we could make has thrown the
smallest light on this event, or has justified us in associating it,
directly or indirectly, with the object of our inquiry. We have even
gone the length of examining the portmanteau which Ferrari left behind
him. It contains nothing but clothes and linen—no money, and not even a
scrap of paper in the pockets of the clothes. The portmanteau remains
in charge of the police.

“We have also found opportunities of speaking privately to the old
woman who attends to the rooms occupied by her ladyship and the Baron.
She was recommended to fill this situation by the keeper of the
restaurant who has supplied the meals to the family throughout the
period of their residence at the palace. Her character is most
favourably spoken of. Unfortunately, her limited intelligence makes her
of no value as a witness. We were patient and careful in questioning
her, and we found her perfectly willing to answer us; but we could
elicit nothing which is worth including in the present report.

“On the second day of our inquiries, we had the honour of an interview
with Lady Montbarry. Her ladyship looked miserably worn and ill, and
seemed to be quite at a loss to understand what we wanted with her.
Baron Rivar, who introduced us, explained the nature of our errand in
Venice, and took pains to assure her that it was a purely formal duty
on which we were engaged. Having satisfied her ladyship on this point,
he discreetly left the room.

“The questions which we addressed to Lady Montbarry related mainly, of
course, to his lordship’s illness. The answers, given with great
nervousness of manner, but without the slightest appearance of reserve,
informed us of the facts that follow:

“Lord Montbarry had been out of order for some time past—nervous and
irritable. He first complained of having taken cold on November 13
last; he passed a wakeful and feverish night, and remained in bed the
next day. Her ladyship proposed sending for medical advice. He refused
to allow her to do this, saying that he could quite easily be his own
doctor in such a trifling matter as a cold. Some hot lemonade was made
at his request, with a view to producing perspiration. Lady Montbarry’s
maid having left her at that time, the courier Ferrari (then the only
servant in the house) went out to buy the lemons. Her ladyship made the
drink with her own hands. It was successful in producing
perspiration—and Lord Montbarry had some hours of sleep afterwards.
Later in the day, having need of Ferrari’s services, Lady Montbarry
rang for him. The bell was not answered. Baron Rivar searched for the
man, in the palace and out of it, in vain. From that time forth not a
trace of Ferrari could be discovered. This happened on November 14.

“On the night of the 14th, the feverish symptoms accompanying his
lordship’s cold returned. They were in part perhaps attributable to the
annoyance and alarm caused by Ferrari’s mysterious disappearance. It
had been impossible to conceal the circumstance, as his lordship rang
repeatedly for the courier; insisting that the man should relieve Lady
Montbarry and the Baron by taking their places during the night at his
bedside.

“On the 15th (the day on which the old woman first came to do the
housework), his lordship complained of sore throat, and of a feeling of
oppression on the chest. On this day, and again on the 16th, her
ladyship and the Baron entreated him to see a doctor. He still refused.
‘I don’t want strange faces about me; my cold will run its course, in
spite of the doctor,’—that was his answer. On the 17th he was so much
worse that it was decided to send for medical help whether he liked it
or not. Baron Rivar, after inquiry at the consul’s, secured the
services of Doctor Bruno, well known as an eminent physician in Venice;
with the additional recommendation of having resided in England, and
having made himself acquainted with English forms of medical practice.

“Thus far our account of his lordship’s illness has been derived from
statements made by Lady Montbarry. The narrative will now be most fitly
continued in the language of the doctor’s own report, herewith
subjoined.

“‘My medical diary informs me that I first saw the English Lord
Montbarry, on November 17. He was suffering from a sharp attack of
bronchitis. Some precious time had been lost, through his obstinate
objection to the presence of a medical man at his bedside. Generally
speaking, he appeared to be in a delicate state of health. His nervous
system was out of order—he was at once timid and contradictory. When I
spoke to him in English, he answered in Italian; and when I tried him
in Italian, he went back to English. It mattered little—the malady had
already made such progress that he could only speak a few words at a
time, and those in a whisper.

“‘I at once applied the necessary remedies. Copies of my prescriptions
(with translation into English) accompany the present statement, and
are left to speak for themselves.

“‘For the next three days I was in constant attendance on my patient.
He answered to the remedies employed—improving slowly, but decidedly. I
could conscientiously assure Lady Montbarry that no danger was to be
apprehended thus far. She was indeed a most devoted wife. I vainly
endeavoured to induce her to accept the services of a competent nurse;
she would allow nobody to attend on her husband but herself. Night and
day this estimable woman was at his bedside. In her brief intervals of
repose, her brother watched the sick man in her place. This brother
was, I must say, very good company, in the intervals when we had time
for a little talk. He dabbled in chemistry, down in the horrid
under-water vaults of the palace; and he wanted to show me some of his
experiments. I have enough of chemistry in writing prescriptions—and I
declined. He took it quite good-humouredly.

“‘I am straying away from my subject. Let me return to the sick lord.

“‘Up to the 20th, then, things went well enough. I was quite unprepared
for the disastrous change that showed itself, when I paid Lord
Montbarry my morning visit on the 21st. He had relapsed, and seriously
relapsed. Examining him to discover the cause, I found symptoms of
pneumonia—that is to say, in unmedical language, inflammation of the
substance of the lungs. He breathed with difficulty, and was only
partially able to relieve himself by coughing. I made the strictest
inquiries, and was assured that his medicine had been administered as
carefully as usual, and that he had not been exposed to any changes of
temperature. It was with great reluctance that I added to Lady
Montbarry’s distress; but I felt bound, when she suggested a
consultation with another physician, to own that I too thought there
was really need for it.

“‘Her ladyship instructed me to spare no expense, and to get the best
medical opinion in Italy. The best opinion was happily within our
reach. The first and foremost of Italian physicians is Torello of
Padua. I sent a special messenger for the great man. He arrived on the
evening of the 21st, and confirmed my opinion that pneumonia had set
in, and that our patient’s life was in danger. I told him what my
treatment of the case had been, and he approved of it in every
particular. He made some valuable suggestions, and (at Lady Montbarry’s
express request) he consented to defer his return to Padua until the
following morning.

“‘We both saw the patient at intervals in the course of the night. The
disease, steadily advancing, set our utmost resistance at defiance. In
the morning Doctor Torello took his leave. “I can be of no further
use,” he said to me. “The man is past all help—and he ought to know
it.”

“‘Later in the day I warned my lord, as gently as I could, that his
time had come. I am informed that there are serious reasons for my
stating what passed between us on this occasion, in detail, and without
any reserve. I comply with the request.

“‘Lord Montbarry received the intelligence of his approaching death
with becoming composure, but with a certain doubt. He signed to me to
put my ear to his mouth. He whispered faintly, “Are you sure?” It was
no time to deceive him; I said, “Positively sure.” He waited a little,
gasping for breath, and then he whispered again, “Feel under my
pillow.” I found under his pillow a letter, sealed and stamped, ready
for the post. His next words were just audible and no more—“Post it
yourself.” I answered, of course, that I would do so—and I did post the
letter with my own hand. I looked at the address. It was directed to a
lady in London. The street I cannot remember. The name I can perfectly
recall: it was an Italian name—“Mrs. Ferrari.”

“‘That night my lord nearly died of asphyxia. I got him through it for
the time; and his eyes showed that he understood me when I told him,
the next morning, that I had posted the letter. This was his last
effort of consciousness. When I saw him again he was sunk in apathy. He
lingered in a state of insensibility, supported by stimulants, until
the 25th, and died (unconscious to the last) on the evening of that
day.

“‘As to the cause of his death, it seems (if I may be excused for
saying so) simply absurd to ask the question. Bronchitis, terminating
in pneumonia—there is no more doubt that this, and this only, was the
malady of which he expired, than that two and two make four. Doctor
Torello’s own note of the case is added here to a duplicate of my
certificate, in order (as I am informed) to satisfy some English
offices in which his lordship’s life was insured. The English offices
must have been founded by that celebrated saint and doubter, mentioned
in the New Testament, whose name was Thomas!’

“Doctor Bruno’s evidence ends here.

“Reverting for a moment to our inquiries addressed to Lady Montbarry,
we have to report that she can give us no information on the subject of
the letter which the doctor posted at Lord Montbarry’s request. When
his lordship wrote it? what it contained? why he kept it a secret from
Lady Montbarry (and from the Baron also); and why he should write at
all to the wife of his courier? these are questions to which we find it
simply impossible to obtain any replies. It seems even useless to say
that the matter is open to suspicion. Suspicion implies conjecture of
some kind—and the letter under my lord’s pillow baffles all conjecture.
Application to Mrs. Ferrari may perhaps clear up the mystery. Her
residence in London will be easily discovered at the Italian Couriers’
Office, Golden Square.

“Having arrived at the close of the present report, we have now to draw
your attention to the conclusion which is justified by the results of
our investigation.

“The plain question before our Directors and ourselves appears to be
this: Has the inquiry revealed any extraordinary circumstances which
render the death of Lord Montbarry open to suspicion? The inquiry has
revealed extraordinary circumstances beyond all doubt—such as the
disappearance of Ferrari, the remarkable absence of the customary
establishment of servants in the house, and the mysterious letter which
his lordship asked the doctor to post. But where is the proof that any
one of these circumstances is associated—suspiciously and directly
associated—with the only event which concerns us, the event of Lord
Montbarry’s death? In the absence of any such proof, and in the face of
the evidence of two eminent physicians, it is impossible to dispute the
statement on the certificate that his lordship died a natural death. We
are bound, therefore, to report, that there are no valid grounds for
refusing the payment of the sum for which the late Lord Montbarry’s
life was assured.

“We shall send these lines to you by the post of to-morrow, December
10; leaving time to receive your further instructions (if any), in
reply to our telegram of this evening announcing the conclusion of the
inquiry.”




CHAPTER IX


“Now, my good creature, whatever you have to say to me, out with it at
once! I don’t want to hurry you needlessly; but these are business
hours, and I have other people’s affairs to attend to besides yours.”

Addressing Ferrari’s wife, with his usual blunt good-humour, in these
terms, Mr. Troy registered the lapse of time by a glance at the watch
on his desk, and then waited to hear what his client had to say to him.

“It’s something more, sir, about the letter with the thousand-pound
note,” Mrs. Ferrari began. “I have found out who sent it to me.”

Mr. Troy started. “This is news indeed!” he said. “Who sent you the
letter?”

“Lord Montbarry sent it, sir.”

It was not easy to take Mr. Troy by surprise. But Mrs. Ferrari threw
him completely off his balance. For a while he could only look at her
in silent surprise. “Nonsense!” he said, as soon as he had recovered
himself. “There is some mistake—it can’t be!”

“There is no mistake,” Mrs. Ferrari rejoined, in her most positive
manner. “Two gentlemen from the insurance offices called on me this
morning, to see the letter. They were completely puzzled—especially
when they heard of the bank-note inside. But they know who sent the
letter. His lordship’s doctor in Venice posted it at his lordship’s
request. Go to the gentlemen yourself, sir, if you don’t believe me.
They were polite enough to ask if I could account for Lord Montbarry’s
writing to me and sending me the money. I gave them my opinion
directly—I said it was like his lordship’s kindness.”

“Like his lordship’s kindness?” Mr. Troy repeated, in blank amazement.

“Yes, sir! Lord Montbarry knew me, like all the other members of his
family, when I was at school on the estate in Ireland. If he could have
done it, he would have protected my poor dear husband. But he was
helpless himself in the hands of my lady and the Baron—and the only
kind thing he could do was to provide for me in my widowhood, like the
true nobleman he was!”

“A very pretty explanation!” said Mr. Troy. “What did your visitors
from the insurance offices think of it?”

“They asked if I had any proof of my husband’s death.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, ‘I give you better than proof, gentlemen; I give you my
positive opinion.’”

“That satisfied them, of course?”

“They didn’t say so in words, sir. They looked at each other—and wished
me good-morning.”

“Well, Mrs. Ferrari, unless you have some more extraordinary news for
me, I think I shall wish you good-morning too. I can take a note of
your information (very startling information, I own); and, in the
absence of proof, I can do no more.”

“I can provide you with proof, sir—if that is all you want,” said Mrs.
Ferrari, with great dignity. “I only wish to know, first, whether the
law justifies me in doing it. You may have seen in the fashionable
intelligence of the newspapers, that Lady Montbarry has arrived in
London, at Newbury’s Hotel. I propose to go and see her.”

“The deuce you do! May I ask for what purpose?”

Mrs. Ferrari answered in a mysterious whisper. “For the purpose of
catching her in a trap! I shan’t send in my name—I shall announce
myself as a person on business, and the first words I say to her will
be these: ‘I come, my lady, to acknowledge the receipt of the money
sent to Ferrari’s widow.’ Ah! you may well start, Mr. Troy! It almost
takes _you_ off your guard, doesn’t it? Make your mind easy, sir; I
shall find the proof that everybody asks me for in her guilty face. Let
her only change colour by the shadow of a shade—let her eyes only drop
for half an instant—I shall discover her! The one thing I want to know
is, does the law permit it?”

“The law permits it,” Mr. Troy answered gravely; “but whether her
ladyship will permit it, is quite another question. Have you really
courage enough, Mrs. Ferrari, to carry out this notable scheme of
yours? You have been described to me, by Miss Lockwood, as rather a
nervous, timid sort of person—and, if I may trust my own observation, I
should say you justify the description.”

“If you had lived in the country, sir, instead of living in London,”
Mrs. Ferrari replied, “you would sometimes have seen even a sheep turn
on a dog. I am far from saying that I am a bold woman—quite the
reverse. But when I stand in that wretch’s presence, and think of my
murdered husband, the one of us two who is likely to be frightened is
not _me_. I am going there now, sir. You shall hear how it ends. I wish
you good-morning.”

With those brave words the courier’s wife gathered her mantle about
her, and walked out of the room.

Mr. Troy smiled—not satirically, but compassionately. “The little
simpleton!” he thought to himself. “If half of what they say of Lady
Montbarry is true, Mrs. Ferrari and her trap have but a poor prospect
before them. I wonder how it will end?”

All Mr. Troy’s experience failed to forewarn him of how it _did_ end.




CHAPTER X


In the mean time, Mrs. Ferrari held to her resolution. She went
straight from Mr. Troy’s office to Newbury’s Hotel.

Lady Montbarry was at home, and alone. But the authorities of the hotel
hesitated to disturb her when they found that the visitor declined to
mention her name. Her ladyship’s new maid happened to cross the hall
while the matter was still in debate. She was a Frenchwoman, and, on
being appealed to, she settled the question in the swift, easy,
rational French way. “Madame’s appearance was perfectly respectable.
Madame might have reasons for not mentioning her name which Miladi
might approve. In any case, there being no orders forbidding the
introduction of a strange lady, the matter clearly rested between
Madame and Miladi. Would Madame, therefore, be good enough to follow
Miladi’s maid up the stairs?”

In spite of her resolution, Mrs. Ferrari’s heart beat as if it would
burst out of her bosom, when her conductress led her into an ante-room,
and knocked at a door opening into a room beyond. But it is remarkable
that persons of sensitively-nervous organisation are the very persons
who are capable of forcing themselves (apparently by the exercise of a
spasmodic effort of will) into the performance of acts of the most
audacious courage. A low, grave voice from the inner room said, “Come
in.” The maid, opening the door, announced, “A person to see you,
Miladi, on business,” and immediately retired. In the one instant while
these events passed, timid little Mrs. Ferrari mastered her own
throbbing heart; stepped over the threshold, conscious of her clammy
hands, dry lips, and burning head; and stood in the presence of Lord
Montbarry’s widow, to all outward appearance as supremely
self-possessed as her ladyship herself.

It was still early in the afternoon, but the light in the room was dim.
The blinds were drawn down. Lady Montbarry sat with her back to the
windows, as if even the subdued daylight were disagreeable to her. She
had altered sadly for the worse in her personal appearance, since the
memorable day when Doctor Wybrow had seen her in his consulting-room.
Her beauty was gone—her face had fallen away to mere skin and bone; the
contrast between her ghastly complexion and her steely glittering black
eyes was more startling than ever. Robed in dismal black, relieved only
by the brilliant whiteness of her widow’s cap—reclining in a
panther-like suppleness of attitude on a little green sofa—she looked
at the stranger who had intruded on her, with a moment’s languid
curiosity, then dropped her eyes again to the hand-screen which she
held between her face and the fire. “I don’t know you,” she said. “What
do you want with me?”

Mrs. Ferrari tried to answer. Her first burst of courage had already
worn itself out. The bold words that she had determined to speak were
living words still in her mind, but they died on her lips.

There was a moment of silence. Lady Montbarry looked round again at the
speechless stranger. “Are you deaf?” she asked. There was another
pause. Lady Montbarry quietly looked back again at the screen, and put
another question. “Do you want money?”

“Money!” That one word roused the sinking spirit of the courier’s wife.
She recovered her courage; she found her voice. “Look at me, my lady,
if you please,” she said, with a sudden outbreak of audacity.

Lady Montbarry looked round for the third time. The fatal words passed
Mrs. Ferrari’s lips.

“I come, my lady, to acknowledge the receipt of the money sent to
Ferrari’s widow.”

Lady Montbarry’s glittering black eyes rested with steady attention on
the woman who had addressed her in those terms. Not the faintest
expression of confusion or alarm, not even a momentary flutter of
interest stirred the deadly stillness of her face. She reposed as
quietly, she held the screen as composedly, as ever. The test had been
tried, and had utterly failed.

There was another silence. Lady Montbarry considered with herself. The
smile that came slowly and went away suddenly—the smile at once so sad
and so cruel—showed itself on her thin lips. She lifted her screen, and
pointed with it to a seat at the farther end of the room. “Be so good
as to take that chair,” she said.

Helpless under her first bewildering sense of failure—not knowing what
to say or what to do next—Mrs. Ferrari mechanically obeyed. Lady
Montbarry, rising on the sofa for the first time, watched her with
undisguised scrutiny as she crossed the room—then sank back into a
reclining position once more. “No,” she said to herself, “the woman
walks steadily; she is not intoxicated—the only other possibility is
that she may be mad.”

She had spoken loud enough to be heard. Stung by the insult, Mrs.
Ferrari instantly answered her: “I am no more drunk or mad than you
are!”

“No?” said Lady Montbarry. “Then you are only insolent? The ignorant
English mind (I have observed) is apt to be insolent in the exercise of
unrestrained English liberty. This is very noticeable to us foreigners
among you people in the streets. Of course I can’t be insolent to you,
in return. I hardly know what to say to you. My maid was imprudent in
admitting you so easily to my room. I suppose your respectable
appearance misled her. I wonder who you are? You mentioned the name of
a courier who left us very strangely. Was he married by any chance? Are
you his wife? And do you know where he is?”

Mrs. Ferrari’s indignation burst its way through all restraints. She
advanced to the sofa; she feared nothing, in the fervour and rage of
her reply.

“I am his widow—and you know it, you wicked woman! Ah! it was an evil
hour when Miss Lockwood recommended my husband to be his lordship’s
courier—!”

Before she could add another word, Lady Montbarry sprang from the sofa
with the stealthy suddenness of a cat—seized her by both shoulders—and
shook her with the strength and frenzy of a madwoman. “You lie! you
lie! you lie!” She dropped her hold at the third repetition of the
accusation, and threw up her hands wildly with a gesture of despair.
“Oh, Jesu Maria! is it possible?” she cried. “_Can_ the courier have
come to me through that woman?” She turned like lightning on Mrs.
Ferrari, and stopped her as she was escaping from the room. “Stay here,
you fool—stay here, and answer me! If you cry out, as sure as the
heavens are above you, I’ll strangle you with my own hands. Sit down
again—and fear nothing. Wretch! It is I who am frightened—frightened
out of my senses. Confess that you lied, when you used Miss Lockwood’s
name just now! No! I don’t believe you on your oath; I will believe
nobody but Miss Lockwood herself. Where does she live? Tell me that,
you noxious stinging little insect—and you may go.” Terrified as she
was, Mrs. Ferrari hesitated. Lady Montbarry lifted her hands
threateningly, with the long, lean, yellow-white fingers outspread and
crooked at the tips. Mrs. Ferrari shrank at the sight of them, and gave
the address. Lady Montbarry pointed contemptuously to the door—then
changed her mind. “No! not yet! you will tell Miss Lockwood what has
happened, and she may refuse to see me. I will go there at once, and
you shall go with me. As far as the house—not inside of it. Sit down
again. I am going to ring for my maid. Turn your back to the door—your
cowardly face is not fit to be seen!”

She rang the bell. The maid appeared.

“My cloak and bonnet—instantly!”

The maid produced the cloak and bonnet from the bedroom.

“A cab at the door—before I can count ten!”

The maid vanished. Lady Montbarry surveyed herself in the glass, and
wheeled round again, with her cat-like suddenness, to Mrs. Ferrari.

“I look more than half dead already, don’t I?” she said with a grim
outburst of irony. “Give me your arm.”

She took Mrs. Ferrari’s arm, and left the room. “You have nothing to
fear, so long as you obey,” she whispered, on the way downstairs. “You
leave me at Miss Lockwood’s door, and never see me again.”

In the hall they were met by the landlady of the hotel. Lady Montbarry
graciously presented her companion. “My good friend Mrs. Ferrari; I am
so glad to have seen her.” The landlady accompanied them to the door.
The cab was waiting. “Get in first, good Mrs. Ferrari,” said her
ladyship; “and tell the man where to go.”

They were driven away. Lady Montbarry’s variable humour changed again.
With a low groan of misery, she threw herself back in the cab. Lost in
her own dark thoughts, as careless of the woman whom she had bent to
her iron will as if no such person sat by her side, she preserved a
sinister silence, until they reached the house where Miss Lockwood
lodged. In an instant, she roused herself to action. She opened the
door of the cab, and closed it again on Mrs. Ferrari, before the driver
could get off his box.

“Take that lady a mile farther on her way home!” she said, as she paid
the man his fare. The next moment she had knocked at the house-door.
“Is Miss Lockwood at home?” “Yes, ma’am.” She stepped over the
threshold—the door closed on her.

“Which way, ma’am?” asked the driver of the cab.

Mrs. Ferrari put her hand to her head, and tried to collect her
thoughts. Could she leave her friend and benefactress helpless at Lady
Montbarry’s mercy? She was still vainly endeavouring to decide on the
course that she ought to follow—when a gentleman, stopping at Miss
Lockwood’s door, happened to look towards the cab-window, and saw her.

“Are you going to call on Miss Agnes too?” he asked.

It was Henry Westwick. Mrs. Ferrari clasped her hands in gratitude as
she recognised him.

“Go in, sir!” she cried. “Go in, directly. That dreadful woman is with
Miss Agnes. Go and protect her!”

“What woman?” Henry asked.

The answer literally struck him speechless. With amazement and
indignation in his face, he looked at Mrs. Ferrari as she pronounced
the hated name of “Lady Montbarry.” “I’ll see to it,” was all he said.
He knocked at the house-door; and he too, in his turn, was let in.




CHAPTER XI


“Lady Montbarry, Miss.”

Agnes was writing a letter, when the servant astonished her by
announcing the visitor’s name. Her first impulse was to refuse to see
the woman who had intruded on her. But Lady Montbarry had taken care to
follow close on the servant’s heels. Before Agnes could speak, she had
entered the room.

“I beg to apologise for my intrusion, Miss Lockwood. I have a question
to ask you, in which I am very much interested. No one can answer me
but yourself.” In low hesitating tones, with her glittering black eyes
bent modestly on the ground, Lady Montbarry opened the interview in
those words.

Without answering, Agnes pointed to a chair. She could do this, and,
for the time, she could do no more. All that she had read of the hidden
and sinister life in the palace at Venice; all that she had heard of
Montbarry’s melancholy death and burial in a foreign land; all that she
knew of the mystery of Ferrari’s disappearance, rushed into her mind,
when the black-robed figure confronted her, standing just inside the
door. The strange conduct of Lady Montbarry added a new perplexity to
the doubts and misgivings that troubled her. There stood the
adventuress whose character had left its mark on society all over
Europe—the Fury who had terrified Mrs. Ferrari at the
hotel—inconceivably transformed into a timid, shrinking woman! Lady
Montbarry had not once ventured to look at Agnes, since she had made
her way into the room. Advancing to take the chair that had been
pointed out to her, she hesitated, put her hand on the rail to support
herself, and still remained standing. “Please give me a moment to
compose myself,” she said faintly. Her head sank on her bosom: she
stood before Agnes like a conscious culprit before a merciless judge.

The silence that followed was, literally, the silence of fear on both
sides. In the midst of it, the door was opened once more—and Henry
Westwick appeared.

He looked at Lady Montbarry with a moment’s steady attention—bowed to
her with formal politeness—and passed on in silence. At the sight of
her husband’s brother, the sinking spirit of the woman sprang to life
again. Her drooping figure became erect. Her eyes met Westwick’s look,
brightly defiant. She returned his bow with an icy smile of contempt.

Henry crossed the room to Agnes.

“Is Lady Montbarry here by your invitation?” he asked quietly.

“No.”

“Do you wish to see her?”

“It is very painful to me to see her.”

He turned and looked at his sister-in-law. “Do you hear that?” he asked
coldly.

“I hear it,” she answered, more coldly still.

“Your visit is, to say the least of it, ill-timed.”

“Your interference is, to say the least of it, out of place.”

With that retort, Lady Montbarry approached Agnes. The presence of
Henry Westwick seemed at once to relieve and embolden her. “Permit me
to ask my question, Miss Lockwood,” she said, with graceful courtesy.
“It is nothing to embarrass you. When the courier Ferrari applied to my
late husband for employment, did you—” Her resolution failed her,
before she could say more. She sank trembling into the nearest chair,
and, after a moment’s struggle, composed herself again. “Did you permit
Ferrari,” she resumed, “to make sure of being chosen for our courier by
using your name?”

Agnes did not reply with her customary directness. Trifling as it was,
the reference to Montbarry, proceeding from _that_ woman of all others,
confused and agitated her.

“I have known Ferrari’s wife for many years,” she began. “And I take an
interest—”

Lady Montbarry abruptly lifted her hands with a gesture of entreaty.
“Ah, Miss Lockwood, don’t waste time by talking of his wife! Answer my
plain question, plainly!”

“Let me answer her,” Henry whispered. “I will undertake to speak
plainly enough.”

Agnes refused by a gesture. Lady Montbarry’s interruption had roused
her sense of what was due to herself. She resumed her reply in plainer
terms.

“When Ferrari wrote to the late Lord Montbarry,” she said, “he did
certainly mention my name.”

Even now, she had innocently failed to see the object which her visitor
had in view. Lady Montbarry’s impatience became ungovernable. She
started to her feet, and advanced to Agnes.

“Was it with your knowledge and permission that Ferrari used your
name?” she asked. “The whole soul of my question is in _that_. For
God’s sake answer me—Yes, or No!”

“Yes.”

That one word struck Lady Montbarry as a blow might have struck her.
The fierce life that had animated her face the instant before, faded
out of it suddenly, and left her like a woman turned to stone. She
stood, mechanically confronting Agnes, with a stillness so wrapt and
perfect that not even the breath she drew was perceptible to the two
persons who were looking at her.

Henry spoke to her roughly. “Rouse yourself,” he said. “You have
received your answer.”

She looked round at him. “I have received my Sentence,” she
rejoined—and turned slowly to leave the room.

To Henry’s astonishment, Agnes stopped her. “Wait a moment, Lady
Montbarry. I have something to ask on my side. You have spoken of
Ferrari. I wish to speak of him too.”

Lady Montbarry bent her head in silence. Her hand trembled as she took
out her handkerchief, and passed it over her forehead. Agnes detected
the trembling, and shrank back a step. “Is the subject painful to you?”
she asked timidly.

Still silent, Lady Montbarry invited her by a wave of the hand to go
on. Henry approached, attentively watching his sister-in-law. Agnes
went on.

“No trace of Ferrari has been discovered in England,” she said. “Have
you any news of him? And will you tell me (if you have heard anything),
in mercy to his wife?”

Lady Montbarry’s thin lips suddenly relaxed into their sad and cruel
smile.

“Why do you ask _me_ about the lost courier?” she said. “You will know
what has become of him, Miss Lockwood, when the time is ripe for it.”

Agnes started. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “How shall I know?
Will some one tell me?”

“Some one will tell you.”

Henry could keep silence no longer. “Perhaps, your ladyship may be the
person?” he interrupted with ironical politeness.

She answered him with contemptuous ease. “You may be right, Mr.
Westwick. One day or another, I may be the person who tells Miss
Lockwood what has become of Ferrari, if—” She stopped; with her eyes
fixed on Agnes.

“If what?” Henry asked.

“If Miss Lockwood forces me to it.”

Agnes listened in astonishment. “Force you to it?” she repeated. “How
can I do that? Do you mean to say my will is stronger than yours?”

“Do _you_ mean to say that the candle doesn’t burn the moth, when the
moth flies into it?” Lady Montbarry rejoined. “Have you ever heard of
such a thing as the fascination of terror? I am drawn to you by a
fascination of terror. I have no right to visit you, I have no wish to
visit you: you are my enemy. For the first time in my life, against my
own will, I submit to my enemy. See! I am waiting because you told me
to wait—and the fear of you (I swear it!) creeps through me while I
stand here. Oh, don’t let me excite your curiosity or your pity! Follow
the example of Mr. Westwick. Be hard and brutal and unforgiving, like
him. Grant me my release. Tell me to go.”

The frank and simple nature of Agnes could discover but one
intelligible meaning in this strange outbreak.

“You are mistaken in thinking me your enemy,” she said. “The wrong you
did me when you gave your hand to Lord Montbarry was not intentionally
done. I forgave you my sufferings in his lifetime. I forgive you even
more freely now that he has gone.”

Henry heard her with mingled emotions of admiration and distress. “Say
no more!” he exclaimed. “You are too good to her; she is not worthy of
it.”

The interruption passed unheeded by Lady Montbarry. The simple words in
which Agnes had replied seemed to have absorbed the whole attention of
this strangely-changeable woman. As she listened, her face settled
slowly into an expression of hard and tearless sorrow. There was a
marked change in her voice when she spoke next. It expressed that last
worst resignation which has done with hope.

“You good innocent creature,” she said, “what does your amiable
forgiveness matter? What are your poor little wrongs, in the reckoning
for greater wrongs which is demanded of me? I am not trying to frighten
you, I am only miserable about myself. Do you know what it is to have a
firm presentiment of calamity that is coming to you—and yet to hope
that your own positive conviction will not prove true? When I first met
you, before my marriage, and first felt your influence over me, I had
that hope. It was a starveling sort of hope that lived a lingering life
in me until to-day. _You_ struck it dead, when you answered my question
about Ferrari.”

“How have I destroyed your hopes?” Agnes asked. “What connection is
there between my permitting Ferrari to use my name to Lord Montbarry,
and the strange and dreadful things you are saying to me now?”

“The time is near, Miss Lockwood, when you will discover that for
yourself. In the mean while, you shall know what my fear of you is, in
the plainest words I can find. On the day when I took your hero from
you and blighted your life—I am firmly persuaded of it!—you were made
the instrument of the retribution that my sins of many years had
deserved. Oh, such things have happened before to-day! One person has,
before now, been the means of innocently ripening the growth of evil in
another. You have done that already—and you have more to do yet. You
have still to bring me to the day of discovery, and to the punishment
that is my doom. We shall meet again—here in England, or there in
Venice where my husband died—and meet for the last time.”

In spite of her better sense, in spite of her natural superiority to
superstitions of all kinds, Agnes was impressed by the terrible
earnestness with which those words were spoken. She turned pale as she
looked at Henry. “Do _you_ understand her?” she asked.

“Nothing is easier than to understand her,” he replied contemptuously.
“She knows what has become of Ferrari; and she is confusing you in a
cloud of nonsense, because she daren’t own the truth. Let her go!”

If a dog had been under one of the chairs, and had barked, Lady
Montbarry could not have proceeded more impenetrably with the last
words she had to say to Agnes.

“Advise your interesting Mrs. Ferrari to wait a little longer,” she
said. “_You_ will know what has become of her husband, and you will
tell her. There will be nothing to alarm you. Some trifling event will
bring us together the next time—as trifling, I dare say, as the
engagement of Ferrari. Sad nonsense, Mr. Westwick, is it not? But you
make allowances for women; we all talk nonsense. Good morning, Miss
Lockwood.”

She opened the door—suddenly, as if she was afraid of being called back
for the second time—and left them.




CHAPTER XII


“Do you think she is mad?” Agnes asked.

“I think she is simply wicked. False, superstitious, inveterately
cruel—but not mad. I believe her main motive in coming here was to
enjoy the luxury of frightening you.”

“She _has_ frightened me. I am ashamed to own it—but so it is.”

Henry looked at her, hesitated for a moment, and seated himself on the
sofa by her side.

“I am very anxious about you, Agnes,” he said. “But for the fortunate
chance which led me to call here to-day—who knows what that vile woman
might not have said or done, if she had found you alone? My dear, you
are leading a sadly unprotected solitary life. I don’t like to think of
it; I want to see it changed—especially after what has happened to-day.
No! no! it is useless to tell me that you have your old nurse. She is
too old; she is not in your rank of life—there is no sufficient
protection in the companionship of such a person for a lady in your
position. Don’t mistake me, Agnes! what I say, I say in the sincerity
of my devotion to you.” He paused, and took her hand. She made a feeble
effort to withdraw it—and yielded. “Will the day never come,” he
pleaded, “when the privilege of protecting you may be mine? when you
will be the pride and joy of my life, as long as my life lasts?” He
pressed her hand gently. She made no reply. The colour came and went on
her face; her eyes were turned away from him. “Have I been so unhappy
as to offend you?” he asked.

She answered that—she said, almost in a whisper, “No.”

“Have I distressed you?”

“You have made me think of the sad days that are gone.” She said no
more; she only tried to withdraw her hand from his for the second time.
He still held it; he lifted it to his lips.

“Can I never make you think of other days than those—of the happier
days to come? Or, if you must think of the time that is passed, can you
not look back to the time when I first loved you?”

She sighed as he put the question. “Spare me, Henry,” she answered
sadly. “Say no more!”

The colour again rose in her cheeks; her hand trembled in his. She
looked lovely, with her eyes cast down and her bosom heaving gently. At
that moment he would have given everything he had in the world to take
her in his arms and kiss her. Some mysterious sympathy, passing from
his hand to hers, seemed to tell her what was in his mind. She snatched
her hand away, and suddenly looked up at him. The tears were in her
eyes. She said nothing; she let her eyes speak for her. They warned
him—without anger, without unkindness—but still they warned him to
press her no further that day.

“Only tell me that I am forgiven,” he said, as he rose from the sofa.

“Yes,” she answered quietly, “you are forgiven.”

“I have not lowered myself in your estimation, Agnes?”

“Oh, no!”

“Do you wish me to leave you?”

She rose, in her turn, from the sofa, and walked to her writing-table
before she replied. The unfinished letter which she had been writing
when Lady Montbarry interrupted her, lay open on the blotting-book. As
she looked at the letter, and then looked at Henry, the smile that
charmed everybody showed itself in her face.

“You must not go just yet,” she said: “I have something to tell you. I
hardly know how to express it. The shortest way perhaps will be to let
you find it out for yourself. You have been speaking of my lonely
unprotected life here. It is not a very happy life, Henry—I own that.”
She paused, observing the growing anxiety of his expression as he
looked at her, with a shy satisfaction that perplexed him. “Do you know
that I have anticipated your idea?” she went on. “I am going to make a
great change in my life—if your brother Stephen and his wife will only
consent to it.” She opened the desk of the writing-table while she
spoke, took a letter out, and handed it to Henry.

He received it from her mechanically. Vague doubts, which he hardly
understood himself, kept him silent. It was impossible that the “change
in her life” of which she had spoken could mean that she was about to
be married—and yet he was conscious of a perfectly unreasonable
reluctance to open the letter. Their eyes met; she smiled again. “Look
at the address,” she said. “You ought to know the handwriting—but I
dare say you don’t.”

He looked at the address. It was in the large, irregular, uncertain
writing of a child. He opened the letter instantly.

“Dear Aunt Agnes,—Our governess is going away. She has had money left
to her, and a house of her own. We have had cake and wine to drink her
health. You promised to be our governess if we wanted another. We want
you. Mamma knows nothing about this. Please come before Mamma can get
another governess. Your loving Lucy, who writes this. Clara and Blanche
have tried to write too. But they are too young to do it. They blot the
paper.”

“Your eldest niece,” Agnes explained, as Henry looked at her in
amazement. “The children used to call me aunt when I was staying with
their mother in Ireland, in the autumn. The three girls were my
inseparable companions—they are the most charming children I know. It
is quite true that I offered to be their governess, if they ever wanted
one, on the day when I left them to return to London. I was writing to
propose it to their mother, just before you came.”

“Not seriously!” Henry exclaimed.

Agnes placed her unfinished letter in his hand. Enough of it had been
written to show that she did seriously propose to enter the household
of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Westwick as governess to their children!
Henry’s bewilderment was not to be expressed in words.

“They won’t believe you are in earnest,” he said.

“Why not?” Agnes asked quietly.

“You are my brother Stephen’s cousin; you are his wife’s old friend.”

“All the more reason, Henry, for trusting me with the charge of their
children.”

“But you are their equal; you are not obliged to get your living by
teaching. There is something absurd in your entering their service as a
governess!”

“What is there absurd in it? The children love me; the mother loves me;
the father has shown me innumerable instances of his true friendship
and regard. I am the very woman for the place—and, as to my education,
I must have completely forgotten it indeed, if I am not fit to teach
three children the eldest of whom is only eleven years old. You say I
am their equal. Are there no other women who serve as governesses, and
who are the equals of the persons whom they serve? Besides, I don’t
know that I _am_ their equal. Have I not heard that your brother
Stephen was the next heir to the title? Will he not be the new lord?
Never mind answering me! We won’t dispute whether I am right or wrong
in turning governess—we will wait the event. I am weary of my lonely
useless existence here, and eager to make my life more happy and more
useful, in the household of all others in which I should like most to
have a place. If you will look again, you will see that I have these
personal considerations still to urge before I finish my letter. You
don’t know your brother and his wife as well as I do, if you doubt
their answer. I believe they have courage enough and heart enough to
say Yes.”

Henry submitted without being convinced.

He was a man who disliked all eccentric departures from custom and
routine; and he felt especially suspicious of the change proposed in
the life of Agnes. With new interests to occupy her mind, she might be
less favourably disposed to listen to him, on the next occasion when he
urged his suit. The influence of the “lonely useless existence” of
which she complained, was distinctly an influence in his favour. While
her heart was empty, her heart was accessible. But with his nieces in
full possession of it, the clouds of doubt overshadowed his prospects.
He knew the sex well enough to keep these purely selfish perplexities
to himself. The waiting policy was especially the policy to pursue with
a woman as sensitive as Agnes. If he once offended her delicacy he was
lost. For the moment he wisely controlled himself and changed the
subject.

“My little niece’s letter has had an effect,” he said, “which the child
never contemplated in writing it. She has just reminded me of one of
the objects that I had in calling on you to-day.”

Agnes looked at the child’s letter. “How does Lucy do that?” she asked.

“Lucy’s governess is not the only lucky person who has had money left
her,” Henry answered. “Is your old nurse in the house?”

“You don’t mean to say that nurse has got a legacy?”

“She has got a hundred pounds. Send for her, Agnes, while I show you
the letter.”

He took a handful of letters from his pocket, and looked through them,
while Agnes rang the bell. Returning to him, she noticed a printed
letter among the rest, which lay open on the table. It was a
“prospectus,” and the title of it was “Palace Hotel Company of Venice
(Limited).” The two words, “Palace” and “Venice,” instantly recalled
her mind to the unwelcome visit of Lady Montbarry. “What is that?” she
asked, pointing to the title.

Henry suspended his search, and glanced at the prospectus. “A really
promising speculation,” he said. “Large hotels always pay well, if they
are well managed. I know the man who is appointed to be manager of this
hotel when it is opened to the public; and I have such entire
confidence in him that I have become one of the shareholders of the
Company.”

The reply did not appear to satisfy Agnes. “Why is the hotel called the
‘Palace Hotel’?” she inquired.

Henry looked at her, and at once penetrated her motive for asking the
question. “Yes,” he said, “it _is_ the palace that Montbarry hired at
Venice; and it has been purchased by the Company to be changed into an
hotel.”

Agnes turned away in silence, and took a chair at the farther end of
the room. Henry had disappointed her. His income as a younger son stood
in need, as she well knew, of all the additions that he could make to
it by successful speculation. But she was unreasonable enough,
nevertheless, to disapprove of his attempting to make money already out
of the house in which his brother had died. Incapable of understanding
this purely sentimental view of a plain matter of business, Henry
returned to his papers, in some perplexity at the sudden change in the
manner of Agnes towards him. Just as he found the letter of which he
was in search, the nurse made her appearance. He glanced at Agnes,
expecting that she would speak first. She never even looked up when the
nurse came in. It was left to Henry to tell the old woman why the bell
had summoned her to the drawing-room.

“Well, nurse,” he said, “you have had a windfall of luck. You have had
a legacy left you of a hundred pounds.”

The nurse showed no outward signs of exultation. She waited a little to
get the announcement of the legacy well settled in her mind—and then
she said quietly, “Master Henry, who gives me that money, if you
please?”

“My late brother, Lord Montbarry, gives it to you.” (Agnes instantly
looked up, interested in the matter for the first time. Henry went on.)
“His will leaves legacies to the surviving old servants of the family.
There is a letter from his lawyers, authorising you to apply to them
for the money.”

In every class of society, gratitude is the rarest of all human
virtues. In the nurse’s class it is extremely rare. Her opinion of the
man who had deceived and deserted her mistress remained the same
opinion still, perfectly undisturbed by the passing circumstance of the
legacy.

“I wonder who reminded my lord of the old servants?” she said. “He
would never have heart enough to remember them himself!”

Agnes suddenly interposed. Nature, always abhorring monotony,
institutes reserves of temper as elements in the composition of the
gentlest women living. Even Agnes could, on rare occasions, be angry.
The nurse’s view of Montbarry’s character seemed to have provoked her
beyond endurance.

“If you have any sense of shame in you,” she broke out, “you ought to
be ashamed of what you have just said! Your ingratitude disgusts me. I
leave you to speak with her, Henry—_you_ won’t mind it!” With this
significant intimation that he too had dropped out of his customary
place in her good opinion, she left the room.

The nurse received the smart reproof administered to her with every
appearance of feeling rather amused by it than not. When the door had
closed, this female philosopher winked at Henry.

“There’s a power of obstinacy in young women,” she remarked. “Miss
Agnes wouldn’t give my lord up as a bad one, even when he jilted her.
And now she’s sweet on him after he’s dead. Say a word against him, and
she fires up as you see. All obstinacy! It will wear out with time.
Stick to her, Master Henry—stick to her!”

“She doesn’t seem to have offended you,” said Henry.

“_She?_” the nurse repeated in amazement—“she offend me? I like her in
her tantrums; it reminds me of her when she was a baby. Lord bless you!
when I go to bid her good-night, she’ll give me a big kiss, poor
dear—and say, Nurse, I didn’t mean it! About this money, Master Henry?
If I was younger I should spend it in dress and jewellery. But I’m too
old for that. What shall I do with my legacy when I have got it?”

“Put it out at interest,” Henry suggested. “Get so much a year for it,
you know.” “How much shall I get?” the nurse asked.

“If you put your hundred pounds into the Funds, you will get between
three and four pounds a year.”

The nurse shook her head. “Three or four pounds a year? That won’t do!
I want more than that. Look here, Master Henry. I don’t care about this
bit of money—I never did like the man who has left it to me, though he
_was_ your brother. If I lost it all to-morrow, I shouldn’t break my
heart; I’m well enough off, as it is, for the rest of my days. They say
you’re a speculator. Put me in for a good thing, there’s a dear!
Neck-or-nothing—and _that_ for the Funds!” She snapped her fingers to
express her contempt for security of investment at three per cent.

Henry produced the prospectus of the Venetian Hotel Company. “You’re a
funny old woman,” he said. “There, you dashing speculator—there is
neck-or-nothing for you! You must keep it a secret from Miss Agnes,
mind. I’m not at all sure that she would approve of my helping you to
this investment.”

The nurse took out her spectacles. “Six per cent., guaranteed,” she
read; “and the Directors have every reason to believe that ten per
cent., or more, will be ultimately realised to the shareholders by the
hotel.” “Put me into that, Master Henry! And, wherever you go, for
Heaven’s sake recommend the hotel to your friends!”

So the nurse, following Henry’s mercenary example, had _her_ pecuniary
interest, too, in the house in which Lord Montbarry had died.

Three days passed before Henry was able to visit Agnes again. In that
time, the little cloud between them had entirely passed away. Agnes
received him with even more than her customary kindness. She was in
better spirits than usual. Her letter to Mrs. Stephen Westwick had been
answered by return of post; and her proposal had been joyfully
accepted, with one modification. She was to visit the Westwicks for a
month—and, if she really liked teaching the children, she was then to
be governess, aunt, and cousin, all in one—and was only to go away in
an event which her friends in Ireland persisted in contemplating, the
event of her marriage.

“You see I was right,” she said to Henry.

He was still incredulous. “Are you really going?” he asked.

“I am going next week.”

“When shall I see you again?”

“You know you are always welcome at your brother’s house. You can see
me when you like.” She held out her hand. “Pardon me for leaving you—I
am beginning to pack up already.”

Henry tried to kiss her at parting. She drew back directly.

“Why not? I am your cousin,” he said.

“I don’t like it,” she answered.

Henry looked at her, and submitted. Her refusal to grant him his
privilege as a cousin was a good sign—it was indirectly an act of
encouragement to him in the character of her lover.

On the first day in the new week, Agnes left London on her way to
Ireland. As the event proved, this was not destined to be the end of
her journey. The way to Ireland was only the first stage on a
roundabout road—the road that led to the palace at Venice.




THE THIRD PART




CHAPTER XIII


In the spring of the year 1861, Agnes was established at the
country-seat of her two friends—now promoted (on the death of the first
lord, without offspring) to be the new Lord and Lady Montbarry. The old
nurse was not separated from her mistress. A place, suited to her time
of life, had been found for her in the pleasant Irish household. She
was perfectly happy in her new sphere; and she spent her first
half-year’s dividend from the Venice Hotel Company, with characteristic
prodigality, in presents for the children.

Early in the year, also, the Directors of the life insurance offices
submitted to circumstances, and paid the ten thousand pounds.
Immediately afterwards, the widow of the first Lord Montbarry
(otherwise, the dowager Lady Montbarry) left England, with Baron Rivar,
for the United States. The Baron’s object was announced, in the
scientific columns of the newspapers, to be investigation into the
present state of experimental chemistry in the great American republic.
His sister informed inquiring friends that she accompanied him, in the
hope of finding consolation in change of scene after the bereavement
that had fallen on her. Hearing this news from Henry Westwick (then
paying a visit at his brother’s house), Agnes was conscious of a
certain sense of relief. “With the Atlantic between us,” she said,
“surely I have done with that terrible woman now!”

Barely a week passed after those words had been spoken, before an event
happened which reminded Agnes of “the terrible woman” once more.

On that day, Henry’s engagements had obliged him to return to London.
He had ventured, on the morning of his departure, to press his suit
once more on Agnes; and the children, as he had anticipated, proved to
be innocent obstacles in the way of his success. On the other hand, he
had privately secured a firm ally in his sister-in-law. “Have a little
patience,” the new Lady Montbarry had said, “and leave me to turn the
influence of the children in the right direction. If they can persuade
her to listen to you—they shall!”

The two ladies had accompanied Henry, and some other guests who went
away at the same time, to the railway station, and had just driven back
to the house, when the servant announced that “a person of the name of
Rolland was waiting to see her ladyship.”

“Is it a woman?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Young Lady Montbarry turned to Agnes.

“This is the very person,” she said, “whom your lawyer thought likely
to help him, when he was trying to trace the lost courier.”

“You don’t mean the English maid who was with Lady Montbarry at
Venice?”

“My dear! don’t speak of Montbarry’s horrid widow by the name which is
_my_ name now. Stephen and I have arranged to call her by her foreign
title, before she was married. I am ‘Lady Montbarry,’ and she is ‘the
Countess.’ In that way there will be no confusion.—Yes, Mrs. Rolland
was in my service before she became the Countess’s maid. She was a
perfectly trustworthy person, with one defect that obliged me to send
her away—a sullen temper which led to perpetual complaints of her in
the servants’ hall. Would you like to see her?”

Agnes accepted the proposal, in the faint hope of getting some
information for the courier’s wife. The complete defeat of every
attempt to trace the lost man had been accepted as final by Mrs.
Ferrari. She had deliberately arrayed herself in widow’s mourning; and
was earning her livelihood in an employment which the unwearied
kindness of Agnes had procured for her in London. The last chance of
penetrating the mystery of Ferrari’s disappearance seemed to rest now
on what Ferrari’s former fellow-servant might be able to tell. With
highly-wrought expectations, Agnes followed her friend into the room in
which Mrs. Rolland was waiting.

A tall bony woman, in the autumn of life, with sunken eyes and
iron-grey hair, rose stiffly from her chair, and saluted the ladies
with stern submission as they opened the door. A person of unblemished
character, evidently—but not without visible drawbacks. Big bushy
eyebrows, an awfully deep and solemn voice, a harsh unbending manner, a
complete absence in her figure of the undulating lines characteristic
of the sex, presented Virtue in this excellent person under its least
alluring aspect. Strangers, on a first introduction to her, were
accustomed to wonder why she was not a man.

“Are you pretty well, Mrs. Rolland?”

“I am as well as I can expect to be, my lady, at my time of life.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Your ladyship can do me a great favour, if you will please speak to my
character while I was in your service. I am offered a place, to wait on
an invalid lady who has lately come to live in this neighbourhood.”

“Ah, yes—I have heard of her. A Mrs. Carbury, with a very pretty niece
I am told. But, Mrs. Rolland, you left my service some time ago. Mrs.
Carbury will surely expect you to refer to the last mistress by whom
you were employed.”

A flash of virtuous indignation irradiated Mrs. Rolland’s sunken eyes.
She coughed before she answered, as if her “last mistress” stuck in her
throat.

“I have explained to Mrs. Carbury, my lady, that the person I last
served—I really cannot give her her title in your ladyship’s
presence!—has left England for America. Mrs. Carbury knows that I
quitted the person of my own free will, and knows why, and approves of
my conduct so far. A word from your ladyship will be amply sufficient
to get me the situation.”

“Very well, Mrs. Rolland, I have no objection to be your reference,
under the circumstances. Mrs. Carbury will find me at home to-morrow
until two o’clock.”

“Mrs. Carbury is not well enough to leave the house, my lady. Her
niece, Miss Haldane, will call and make the inquiries, if your ladyship
has no objection.”

“I have not the least objection. The pretty niece carries her own
welcome with her. Wait a minute, Mrs. Rolland. This lady is Miss
Lockwood—my husband’s cousin, and my friend. She is anxious to speak to
you about the courier who was in the late Lord Montbarry’s service at
Venice.”

Mrs. Rolland’s bushy eyebrows frowned in stern disapproval of the new
topic of conversation. “I regret to hear it, my lady,” was all she
said.

“Perhaps you have not been informed of what happened after you left
Venice?” Agnes ventured to add. “Ferrari left the palace secretly; and
he has never been heard of since.”

Mrs. Rolland mysteriously closed her eyes—as if to exclude some vision
of the lost courier which was of a nature to disturb a respectable
woman. “Nothing that Mr. Ferrari could do would surprise me,” she
replied in her deepest bass tones.

“You speak rather harshly of him,” said Agnes.

Mrs. Rolland suddenly opened her eyes again. “I speak harshly of nobody
without reason,” she said. “Mr. Ferrari behaved to me, Miss Lockwood,
as no man living has ever behaved—before or since.”

“What did he do?”

Mrs. Rolland answered, with a stony stare of horror:— “He took
liberties with me.”

Young Lady Montbarry suddenly turned aside, and put her handkerchief
over her mouth in convulsions of suppressed laughter.

Mrs. Rolland went on, with a grim enjoyment of the bewilderment which
her reply had produced in Agnes: “And when I insisted on an apology,
Miss, he had the audacity to say that the life at the palace was dull,
and he didn’t know how else to amuse himself!”

“I am afraid I have hardly made myself understood,” said Agnes. “I am
not speaking to you out of any interest in Ferrari. Are you aware that
he is married?”

“I pity his wife,” said Mrs. Rolland.

“She is naturally in great grief about him,” Agnes proceeded.

“She ought to thank God she is rid of him,” Mrs. Rolland interposed.

Agnes still persisted. “I have known Mrs. Ferrari from her childhood,
and I am sincerely anxious to help her in this matter. Did you notice
anything, while you were at Venice, that would account for her
husband’s extraordinary disappearance? On what sort of terms, for
instance, did he live with his master and mistress?”

“On terms of familiarity with his mistress,” said Mrs. Rolland, “which
were simply sickening to a respectable English servant. She used to
encourage him to talk to her about all his affairs—how he got on with
his wife, and how pressed he was for money, and such like—just as if
they were equals. Contemptible—that’s what I call it.”

“And his master?” Agnes continued. “How did Ferrari get on with Lord
Montbarry?”

“My lord used to live shut up with his studies and his sorrows,” Mrs.
Rolland answered, with a hard solemnity expressive of respect for his
lordship’s memory. “Mr. Ferrari got his money when it was due; and he
cared for nothing else. ‘If I could afford it, I would leave the place
too; but I can’t afford it.’ Those were the last words he said to me,
on the morning when I left the palace. I made no reply. After what had
happened (on that other occasion) I was naturally not on speaking terms
with Mr. Ferrari.”

“Can you really tell me nothing which will throw any light on this
matter?”

“Nothing,” said Mrs. Rolland, with an undisguised relish of the
disappointment that she was inflicting.

“There was another member of the family at Venice,” Agnes resumed,
determined to sift the question to the bottom while she had the chance.
“There was Baron Rivar.”

Mrs. Rolland lifted her large hands, covered with rusty black gloves,
in mute protest against the introduction of Baron Rivar as a subject of
inquiry. “Are you aware, Miss,” she began, “that I left my place in
consequence of what I observed—?”

Agnes stopped her there. “I only wanted to ask,” she explained, “if
anything was said or done by Baron Rivar which might account for
Ferrari’s strange conduct.”

“Nothing that I know of,” said Mrs. Rolland. “The Baron and Mr. Ferrari
(if I may use such an expression) were ‘birds of a feather,’ so far as
I could see—I mean, one was as unprincipled as the other. I am a just
woman; and I will give you an example. Only the day before I left, I
heard the Baron say (through the open door of his room while I was
passing along the corridor), ‘Ferrari, I want a thousand pounds. What
would you do for a thousand pounds?’ And I heard Mr. Ferrari answer,
‘Anything, sir, as long as I was not found out.’ And then they both
burst out laughing. I heard no more than that. Judge for yourself,
Miss.”

Agnes reflected for a moment. A thousand pounds was the sum that had
been sent to Mrs. Ferrari in the anonymous letter. Was that enclosure
in any way connected, as a result, with the conversation between the
Baron and Ferrari? It was useless to press any more inquiries on Mrs.
Rolland. She could give no further information which was of the
slightest importance to the object in view. There was no alternative
but to grant her dismissal. One more effort had been made to find a
trace of the lost man, and once again the effort had failed.

They were a family party at the dinner-table that day. The only guest
left in the house was a nephew of the new Lord Montbarry—the eldest son
of his sister, Lady Barville. Lady Montbarry could not resist telling
the story of the first (and last) attack made on the virtue of Mrs.
Rolland, with a comically-exact imitation of Mrs. Rolland’s deep and
dismal voice. Being asked by her husband what was the object which had
brought that formidable person to the house, she naturally mentioned
the expected visit of Miss Haldane. Arthur Barville, unusually silent
and pre-occupied so far, suddenly struck into the conversation with a
burst of enthusiasm. “Miss Haldane is the most charming girl in all
Ireland!” he said. “I caught sight of her yesterday, over the wall of
her garden, as I was riding by. What time is she coming to-morrow?
Before two? I’ll look into the drawing-room by accident—I am dying to
be introduced to her!”

Agnes was amused by his enthusiasm. “Are you in love with Miss Haldane
already?” she asked.

Arthur answered gravely, “It’s no joking matter. I have been all day at
the garden wall, waiting to see her again! It depends on Miss Haldane
to make me the happiest or the wretchedest man living.”

“You foolish boy! How can you talk such nonsense?”

He was talking nonsense undoubtedly. But, if Agnes had only known it,
he was doing something more than that. He was innocently leading her
another stage nearer on the way to Venice.




CHAPTER XIV


As the summer months advanced, the transformation of the Venetian
palace into the modern hotel proceeded rapidly towards completion.

The outside of the building, with its fine Palladian front looking on
the canal, was wisely left unaltered. Inside, as a matter of necessity,
the rooms were almost rebuilt—so far at least as the size and the
arrangement of them were concerned. The vast saloons were partitioned
off into “apartments” containing three or four rooms each. The broad
corridors in the upper regions afforded spare space enough for rows of
little bedchambers, devoted to servants and to travellers with limited
means. Nothing was spared but the solid floors and the finely-carved
ceilings. These last, in excellent preservation as to workmanship,
merely required cleaning, and regilding here and there, to add greatly
to the beauty and importance of the best rooms in the hotel. The only
exception to the complete re-organization of the interior was at one
extremity of the edifice, on the first and second floors. Here there
happened, in each case, to be rooms of such comparatively moderate
size, and so attractively decorated, that the architect suggested
leaving them as they were. It was afterwards discovered that these were
no other than the apartments formerly occupied by Lord Montbarry (on
the first floor), and by Baron Rivar (on the second). The room in which
Montbarry had died was still fitted up as a bedroom, and was now
distinguished as Number Fourteen. The room above it, in which the Baron
had slept, took its place on the hotel-register as Number Thirty-Eight.
With the ornaments on the walls and ceilings cleaned and brightened up,
and with the heavy old-fashioned beds, chairs, and tables replaced by
bright, pretty, and luxurious modern furniture, these two promised to
be at once the most attractive and the most comfortable bedchambers in
the hotel. As for the once-desolate and disused ground floor of the
building, it was now transformed, by means of splendid dining-rooms,
reception-rooms, billiard-rooms, and smoking-rooms, into a palace by
itself. Even the dungeon-like vaults beneath, now lighted and
ventilated on the most approved modern plan, had been turned as if by
magic into kitchens, servants’ offices, ice-rooms, and wine cellars,
worthy of the splendour of the grandest hotel in Italy, in the now
bygone period of seventeen years since.

Passing from the lapse of the summer months at Venice, to the lapse of
the summer months in Ireland, it is next to be recorded that Mrs.
Rolland obtained the situation of attendant on the invalid Mrs.
Carbury; and that the fair Miss Haldane, like a female Caesar, came,
saw, and conquered, on her first day’s visit to the new Lord
Montbarry’s house.

The ladies were as loud in her praises as Arthur Barville himself. Lord
Montbarry declared that she was the only perfectly pretty woman he had
ever seen, who was really unconscious of her own attractions. The old
nurse said she looked as if she had just stepped out of a picture, and
wanted nothing but a gilt frame round her to make her complete. Miss
Haldane, on her side, returned from her first visit to the Montbarrys
charmed with her new acquaintances. Later on the same day, Arthur
called with an offering of fruit and flowers for Mrs. Carbury, and with
instructions to ask if she was well enough to receive Lord and Lady
Montbarry and Miss Lockwood on the morrow. In a week’s time, the two
households were on the friendliest terms. Mrs. Carbury, confined to the
sofa by a spinal malady, had been hitherto dependent on her niece for
one of the few pleasures she could enjoy, the pleasure of having the
best new novels read to her as they came out. Discovering this, Arthur
volunteered to relieve Miss Haldane, at intervals, in the office of
reader. He was clever at mechanical contrivances of all sorts, and he
introduced improvements in Mrs. Carbury’s couch, and in the means of
conveying her from the bedchamber to the drawing-room, which alleviated
the poor lady’s sufferings and brightened her gloomy life. With these
claims on the gratitude of the aunt, aided by the personal advantages
which he unquestionably possessed, Arthur advanced rapidly in the
favour of the charming niece. She was, it is needless to say, perfectly
well aware that he was in love with her, while he was himself modestly
reticent on the subject—so far as words went. But she was not equally
quick in penetrating the nature of her own feelings towards Arthur.
Watching the two young people with keen powers of observation,
necessarily concentrated on them by the complete seclusion of her life,
the invalid lady discovered signs of roused sensibility in Miss
Haldane, when Arthur was present, which had never yet shown themselves
in her social relations with other admirers eager to pay their
addresses to her. Having drawn her own conclusions in private, Mrs.
Carbury took the first favourable opportunity (in Arthur’s interests)
of putting them to the test.

“I don’t know what I shall do,” she said one day, “when Arthur goes
away.”

Miss Haldane looked up quickly from her work. “Surely he is not going
to leave us!” she exclaimed.

“My dear! he has already stayed at his uncle’s house a month longer
than he intended. His father and mother naturally expect to see him at
home again.”

Miss Haldane met this difficulty with a suggestion, which could only
have proceeded from a judgment already disturbed by the ravages of the
tender passion. “Why can’t his father and mother go and see him at Lord
Montbarry’s?” she asked. “Sir Theodore’s place is only thirty miles
away, and Lady Barville is Lord Montbarry’s sister. They needn’t stand
on ceremony.”

“They may have other engagements,” Mrs. Carbury remarked.

“My dear aunt, we don’t know that! Suppose you ask Arthur?”

“Suppose you ask him?”

Miss Haldane bent her head again over her work. Suddenly as it was
done, her aunt had seen her face—and her face betrayed her.

When Arthur came the next day, Mrs. Carbury said a word to him in
private, while her niece was in the garden. The last new novel lay
neglected on the table. Arthur followed Miss Haldane into the garden.
The next day he wrote home, enclosing in his letter a photograph of
Miss Haldane. Before the end of the week, Sir Theodore and Lady
Barville arrived at Lord Montbarry’s, and formed their own judgment of
the fidelity of the portrait. They had themselves married early in
life—and, strange to say, they did not object on principle to the early
marriages of other people. The question of age being thus disposed of,
the course of true love had no other obstacles to encounter. Miss
Haldane was an only child, and was possessed of an ample fortune.
Arthur’s career at the university had been creditable, but certainly
not brilliant enough to present his withdrawal in the light of a
disaster. As Sir Theodore’s eldest son, his position was already made
for him. He was two-and-twenty years of age; and the young lady was
eighteen. There was really no producible reason for keeping the lovers
waiting, and no excuse for deferring the wedding-day beyond the first
week in September. In the interval, while the bride and bridegroom
would be necessarily absent on the inevitable tour abroad, a sister of
Mrs. Carbury volunteered to stay with her during the temporary
separation from her niece. On the conclusion of the honeymoon, the
young couple were to return to Ireland, and were to establish
themselves in Mrs. Carbury’s spacious and comfortable house.

These arrangements were decided upon early in the month of August.
About the same date, the last alterations in the old palace at Venice
were completed. The rooms were dried by steam; the cellars were
stocked; the manager collected round him his army of skilled servants;
and the new hotel was advertised all over Europe to open in October.




CHAPTER XV


(MISS AGNES LOCKWOOD TO MRS. FERRARI)


“I promised to give you some account, dear Emily, of the marriage of
Mr. Arthur Barville and Miss Haldane. It took place ten days since. But
I have had so many things to look after in the absence of the master
and mistress of this house, that I am only able to write to you to-day.

“The invitations to the wedding were limited to members of the families
on either side, in consideration of the ill health of Miss Haldane’s
aunt. On the side of the Montbarry family, there were present, besides
Lord and Lady Montbarry, Sir Theodore and Lady Barville; Mrs. Norbury
(whom you may remember as his lordship’s second sister); and Mr.
Francis Westwick, and Mr. Henry Westwick. The three children and I
attended the ceremony as bridesmaids. We were joined by two young
ladies, cousins of the bride and very agreeable girls. Our dresses were
white, trimmed with green in honour of Ireland; and we each had a
handsome gold bracelet given to us as a present from the bridegroom. If
you add to the persons whom I have already mentioned, the elder members
of Mrs. Carbury’s family, and the old servants in both
houses—privileged to drink the healths of the married pair at the lower
end of the room—you will have the list of the company at the
wedding-breakfast complete.

“The weather was perfect, and the ceremony (with music) was beautifully
performed. As for the bride, no words can describe how lovely she
looked, or how well she went through it all. We were very merry at the
breakfast, and the speeches went off on the whole quite well enough.
The last speech, before the party broke up, was made by Mr. Henry
Westwick, and was the best of all. He offered a happy suggestion, at
the end, which has produced a very unexpected change in my life here.

“As well as I remember, he concluded in these words:—‘On one point, we
are all agreed—we are sorry that the parting hour is near, and we
should be glad to meet again. Why should we not meet again? This is the
autumn time of the year; we are most of us leaving home for the
holidays. What do you say (if you have no engagements that will prevent
it) to joining our young married friends before the close of their
tour, and renewing the social success of this delightful breakfast by
another festival in honour of the honeymoon? The bride and bridegroom
are going to Germany and the Tyrol, on their way to Italy. I propose
that we allow them a month to themselves, and that we arrange to meet
them afterwards in the North of Italy—say at Venice.’

“This proposal was received with great applause, which was changed into
shouts of laughter by no less a person than my dear old nurse. The
moment Mr. Westwick pronounced the word ‘Venice,’ she started up among
the servants at the lower end of the room, and called out at the top of
her voice, ‘Go to our hotel, ladies and gentlemen! We get six per cent.
on our money already; and if you will only crowd the place and call for
the best of everything, it will be ten per cent. in our pockets in no
time. Ask Master Henry!’

“Appealed to in this irresistible manner, Mr. Westwick had no choice
but to explain that he was concerned as a shareholder in a new Hotel
Company at Venice, and that he had invested a small sum of money for
the nurse (not very considerately, as I think) in the speculation.
Hearing this, the company, by way of humouring the joke, drank a new
toast:—Success to the nurse’s hotel, and a speedy rise in the dividend!

“When the conversation returned in due time to the more serious
question of the proposed meeting at Venice, difficulties began to
present themselves, caused of course by invitations for the autumn
which many of the guests had already accepted. Only two members of Mrs.
Carbury’s family were at liberty to keep the proposed appointment. On
our side we were more at leisure to do as we pleased. Mr. Henry
Westwick decided to go to Venice in advance of the rest, to test the
accommodation of the new hotel on the opening day. Mrs. Norbury and Mr.
Francis Westwick volunteered to follow him; and, after some persuasion,
Lord and Lady Montbarry consented to a species of compromise. His
lordship could not conveniently spare time enough for the journey to
Venice, but he and Lady Montbarry arranged to accompany Mrs. Norbury
and Mr. Francis Westwick as far on their way to Italy as Paris. Five
days since, they took their departure to meet their travelling
companions in London; leaving me here in charge of the three dear
children. They begged hard, of course, to be taken with papa and mamma.
But it was thought better not to interrupt the progress of their
education, and not to expose them (especially the two younger girls) to
the fatigues of travelling.

“I have had a charming letter from the bride, this morning, dated
Cologne. You cannot think how artlessly and prettily she assures me of
her happiness. Some people, as they say in Ireland, are born to good
luck—and I think Arthur Barville is one of them.

“When you next write, I hope to hear that you are in better health and
spirits, and that you continue to like your employment. Believe me,
sincerely your friend,—A. L.”

Agnes had just closed and directed her letter, when the eldest of her
three pupils entered the room with the startling announcement that Lord
Montbarry’s travelling-servant had arrived from Paris! Alarmed by the
idea that some misfortune had happened, she ran out to meet the man in
the hall. Her face told him how seriously he had frightened her, before
she could speak. “There’s nothing wrong, Miss,” he hastened to say. “My
lord and my lady are enjoying themselves at Paris. They only want you
and the young ladies to be with them.” Saying these amazing words, he
handed to Agnes a letter from Lady Montbarry.

“Dearest Agnes,” (she read), “I am so charmed with the delightful
change in my life—it is six years, remember, since I last travelled on
the Continent—that I have exerted all my fascinations to persuade Lord
Montbarry to go on to Venice. And, what is more to the purpose, I have
actually succeeded! He has just gone to his room to write the necessary
letters of excuse in time for the post to England. May you have as good
a husband, my dear, when your time comes! In the mean while, the one
thing wanting now to make my happiness complete, is to have you and the
darling children with us. Montbarry is just as miserable without them
as I am—though he doesn’t confess it so freely. You will have no
difficulties to trouble you. Louis will deliver these hurried lines,
and will take care of you on the journey to Paris. Kiss the children
for me a thousand times—and never mind their education for the present!
Pack up instantly, my dear, and I will be fonder of you than ever. Your
affectionate friend, Adela Montbarry.”

Agnes folded up the letter; and, feeling the need of composing herself,
took refuge for a few minutes in her own room.

Her first natural sensations of surprise and excitement at the prospect
of going to Venice were succeeded by impressions of a less agreeable
kind. With the recovery of her customary composure came the unwelcome
remembrance of the parting words spoken to her by Montbarry’s
widow:—“We shall meet again—here in England, or there in Venice where
my husband died—and meet for the last time.”

It was an odd coincidence, to say the least of it, that the march of
events should be unexpectedly taking Agnes to Venice, after those words
had been spoken! Was the woman of the mysterious warnings and the wild
black eyes still thousands of miles away in America? Or was the march
of events taking her unexpectedly, too, on the journey to Venice? Agnes
started out of her chair, ashamed of even the momentary concession to
superstition which was implied by the mere presence of such questions
as these in her mind.

She rang the bell, and sent for her little pupils, and announced their
approaching departure to the household. The noisy delight of the
children, the inspiriting effort of packing up in a hurry, roused all
her energies. She dismissed her own absurd misgivings from
consideration, with the contempt that they deserved. She worked as only
women can work, when their hearts are in what they do. The travellers
reached Dublin that day, in time for the boat to England. Two days
later, they were with Lord and Lady Montbarry at Paris.




THE FOURTH PART




CHAPTER XVI


It was only the twentieth of September, when Agnes and the children
reached Paris. Mrs. Norbury and her brother Francis had then already
started on their journey to Italy—at least three weeks before the date
at which the new hotel was to open for the reception of travellers.

The person answerable for this premature departure was Francis
Westwick.

Like his younger brother Henry, he had increased his pecuniary
resources by his own enterprise and ingenuity; with this difference,
that his speculations were connected with the Arts. He had made money,
in the first instance, by a weekly newspaper; and he had then invested
his profits in a London theatre. This latter enterprise, admirably
conducted, had been rewarded by the public with steady and liberal
encouragement. Pondering over a new form of theatrical attraction for
the coming winter season, Francis had determined to revive the languid
public taste for the ballet by means of an entertainment of his own
invention, combining dramatic interest with dancing. He was now,
accordingly, in search of the best dancer (possessed of the
indispensable personal attractions) who was to be found in the theatres
of the Continent. Hearing from his foreign correspondents of two women
who had made successful first appearances, one at Milan and one at
Florence, he had arranged to visit those cities, and to judge of the
merits of the dancers for himself, before he joined the bride and
bridegroom. His widowed sister, having friends at Florence whom she was
anxious to see, readily accompanied him. The Montbarrys remained at
Paris, until it was time to present themselves at the family meeting in
Venice. Henry found them still in the French capital, when he arrived
from London on his way to the opening of the new hotel.

Against Lady Montbarry’s advice, he took the opportunity of renewing
his addresses to Agnes. He could hardly have chosen a more unpropitious
time for pleading his cause with her. The gaieties of Paris (quite
incomprehensibly to herself as well as to everyone about her) had a
depressing effect on her spirits. She had no illness to complain of;
she shared willingly in the ever-varying succession of amusements
offered to strangers by the ingenuity of the liveliest people in the
world—but nothing roused her: she remained persistently dull and weary
through it all. In this frame of mind and body, she was in no humour to
receive Henry’s ill-timed addresses with favour, or even with patience:
she plainly and positively refused to listen to him. “Why do you remind
me of what I have suffered?” she asked petulantly. “Don’t you see that
it has left its mark on me for life?”

“I thought I knew something of women by this time,” Henry said,
appealing privately to Lady Montbarry for consolation. “But Agnes
completely puzzles me. It is a year since Montbarry’s death; and she
remains as devoted to his memory as if he had died faithful to her—she
still feels the loss of him, as none of us feel it!”

“She is the truest woman that ever breathed the breath of life,” Lady
Montbarry answered. “Remember that, and you will understand her. Can
such a woman as Agnes give her love or refuse it, according to
circumstances? Because the man was unworthy of her, was he less the man
of her choice? The truest and best friend to him (little as he deserved
it) in his lifetime, she naturally remains the truest and best friend
to his memory now. If you really love her, wait; and trust to your two
best friends—to time and to me. There is my advice; let your own
experience decide whether it is not the best advice that I can offer.
Resume your journey to Venice to-morrow; and when you take leave of
Agnes, speak to her as cordially as if nothing had happened.”

Henry wisely followed this advice. Thoroughly understanding him, Agnes
made the leave-taking friendly and pleasant on her side. When he
stopped at the door for a last look at her, she hurriedly turned her
head so that her face was hidden from him. Was that a good sign? Lady
Montbarry, accompanying Henry down the stairs, said, “Yes, decidedly!
Write when you get to Venice. We shall wait here to receive letters
from Arthur and his wife, and we shall time our departure for Italy
accordingly.”

A week passed, and no letter came from Henry. Some days later, a
telegram was received from him. It was despatched from Milan, instead
of from Venice; and it brought this strange message:—“I have left the
hotel. Will return on the arrival of Arthur and his wife. Address,
meanwhile, Albergo Reale, Milan.”

Preferring Venice before all other cities of Europe, and having
arranged to remain there until the family meeting took place, what
unexpected event had led Henry to alter his plans? and why did he state
the bare fact, without adding a word of explanation? Let the narrative
follow him—and find the answer to those questions at Venice.




CHAPTER XVII


The Palace Hotel, appealing for encouragement mainly to English and
American travellers, celebrated the opening of its doors, as a matter
of course, by the giving of a grand banquet, and the delivery of a long
succession of speeches.

Delayed on his journey, Henry Westwick only reached Venice in time to
join the guests over their coffee and cigars. Observing the splendour
of the reception rooms, and taking note especially of the artful
mixture of comfort and luxury in the bedchambers, he began to share the
old nurse’s view of the future, and to contemplate seriously the coming
dividend of ten per cent. The hotel was beginning well, at all events.
So much interest in the enterprise had been aroused, at home and
abroad, by profuse advertising, that the whole accommodation of the
building had been secured by travellers of all nations for the opening
night. Henry only obtained one of the small rooms on the upper floor,
by a lucky accident—the absence of the gentleman who had written to
engage it. He was quite satisfied, and was on his way to bed, when
another accident altered his prospects for the night, and moved him
into another and a better room.

Ascending on his way to the higher regions as far as the first floor of
the hotel, Henry’s attention was attracted by an angry voice
protesting, in a strong New England accent, against one of the greatest
hardships that can be inflicted on a citizen of the United States—the
hardship of sending him to bed without gas in his room.

The Americans are not only the most hospitable people to be found on
the face of the earth—they are (under certain conditions) the most
patient and good-tempered people as well. But they are human; and the
limit of American endurance is found in the obsolete institution of a
bedroom candle. The American traveller, in the present case, declined
to believe that his bedroom was in a complete finished state without a
gas-burner. The manager pointed to the fine antique decorations
(renewed and regilt) on the walls and the ceiling, and explained that
the emanations of burning gas-light would certainly spoil them in the
course of a few months. To this the traveller replied that it was
possible, but that he did not understand decorations. A bedroom with
gas in it was what he was used to, was what he wanted, and was what he
was determined to have. The compliant manager volunteered to ask some
other gentleman, housed on the inferior upper storey (which was lit
throughout with gas), to change rooms. Hearing this, and being quite
willing to exchange a small bedchamber for a large one, Henry
volunteered to be the other gentleman. The excellent American shook
hands with him on the spot. “You are a cultured person, sir,” he said;
“and you will no doubt understand the decorations.”

Henry looked at the number of the room on the door as he opened it. The
number was Fourteen.

Tired and sleepy, he naturally anticipated a good night’s rest. In the
thoroughly healthy state of his nervous system, he slept as well in a
bed abroad as in a bed at home. Without the slightest assignable
reason, however, his just expectations were disappointed. The luxurious
bed, the well-ventilated room, the delicious tranquillity of Venice by
night, all were in favour of his sleeping well. He never slept at all.
An indescribable sense of depression and discomfort kept him waking
through darkness and daylight alike. He went down to the coffee-room as
soon as the hotel was astir, and ordered some breakfast. Another
unaccountable change in himself appeared with the appearance of the
meal. He was absolutely without appetite. An excellent omelette, and
cutlets cooked to perfection, he sent away untasted—he, whose appetite
never failed him, whose digestion was still equal to any demands on it!

The day was bright and fine. He sent for a gondola, and was rowed to
the Lido.

Out on the airy Lagoon, he felt like a new man. He had not left the
hotel ten minutes before he was fast asleep in the gondola. Waking, on
reaching the landing-place, he crossed the Lido, and enjoyed a
morning’s swim in the Adriatic. There was only a poor restaurant on the
island, in those days; but his appetite was now ready for anything; he
ate whatever was offered to him, like a famished man. He could hardly
believe, when he reflected on it, that he had sent away untasted his
excellent breakfast at the hotel.

Returning to Venice, he spent the rest of the day in the
picture-galleries and the churches. Towards six o’clock his gondola
took him back, with another fine appetite, to meet some travelling
acquaintances with whom he had engaged to dine at the table d’hote.

The dinner was deservedly rewarded with the highest approval by every
guest in the hotel but one. To Henry’s astonishment, the appetite with
which he had entered the house mysteriously and completely left him
when he sat down to table. He could drink some wine, but he could
literally eat nothing. “What in the world is the matter with you?” his
travelling acquaintances asked. He could honestly answer, “I know no
more than you do.”

When night came, he gave his comfortable and beautiful bedroom another
trial. The result of the second experiment was a repetition of the
result of the first. Again he felt the all-pervading sense of
depression and discomfort. Again he passed a sleepless night. And once
more, when he tried to eat his breakfast, his appetite completely
failed him!

This personal experience of the new hotel was too extraordinary to be
passed over in silence. Henry mentioned it to his friends in the public
room, in the hearing of the manager. The manager, naturally zealous in
defence of the hotel, was a little hurt at the implied reflection cast
on Number Fourteen. He invited the travellers present to judge for
themselves whether Mr. Westwick’s bedroom was to blame for Mr.
Westwick’s sleepless nights; and he especially appealed to a
grey-headed gentleman, a guest at the breakfast-table of an English
traveller, to take the lead in the investigation. “This is Doctor
Bruno, our first physician in Venice,” he explained. “I appeal to him
to say if there are any unhealthy influences in Mr. Westwick’s room.”

Introduced to Number Fourteen, the doctor looked round him with a
certain appearance of interest which was noticed by everyone present.
“The last time I was in this room,” he said, “was on a melancholy
occasion. It was before the palace was changed into an hotel. I was in
professional attendance on an English nobleman who died here.” One of
the persons present inquired the name of the nobleman. Doctor Bruno
answered (without the slightest suspicion that he was speaking before a
brother of the dead man), “Lord Montbarry.”

Henry quietly left the room, without saying a word to anybody.

He was not, in any sense of the term, a superstitious man. But he felt,
nevertheless, an insurmountable reluctance to remaining in the hotel.
He decided on leaving Venice. To ask for another room would be, as he
could plainly see, an offence in the eyes of the manager. To remove to
another hotel, would be to openly abandon an establishment in the
success of which he had a pecuniary interest. Leaving a note for Arthur
Barville, on his arrival in Venice, in which he merely mentioned that
he had gone to look at the Italian lakes, and that a line addressed to
his hotel at Milan would bring him back again, he took the afternoon
train to Padua—and dined with his usual appetite, and slept as well as
ever that night.

The next day, a gentleman and his wife (perfect strangers to the
Montbarry family), returning to England by way of Venice, arrived at
the hotel and occupied Number Fourteen.

Still mindful of the slur that had been cast on one of his best
bedchambers, the manager took occasion to ask the travellers the next
morning how they liked their room. They left him to judge for himself
how well they were satisfied, by remaining a day longer in Venice than
they had originally planned to do, solely for the purpose of enjoying
the excellent accommodation offered to them by the new hotel. “We have
met with nothing like it in Italy,” they said; “you may rely on our
recommending you to all our friends.”

On the day when Number Fourteen was again vacant, an English lady
travelling alone with her maid arrived at the hotel, saw the room, and
at once engaged it.

The lady was Mrs. Norbury. She had left Francis Westwick at Milan,
occupied in negotiating for the appearance at his theatre of the new
dancer at the Scala. Not having heard to the contrary, Mrs. Norbury
supposed that Arthur Barville and his wife had already arrived at
Venice. She was more interested in meeting the young married couple
than in awaiting the result of the hard bargaining which delayed the
engagement of the new dancer; and she volunteered to make her brother’s
apologies, if his theatrical business caused him to be late in keeping
his appointment at the honeymoon festival.

Mrs. Norbury’s experience of Number Fourteen differed entirely from her
brother Henry’s experience of the room.

Falling asleep as readily as usual, her repose was disturbed by a
succession of frightful dreams; the central figure in every one of them
being the figure of her dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. She saw
him starving in a loathsome prison; she saw him pursued by assassins,
and dying under their knives; she saw him drowning in immeasurable
depths of dark water; she saw him in a bed on fire, burning to death in
the flames; she saw him tempted by a shadowy creature to drink, and
dying of the poisonous draught. The reiterated horror of these dreams
had such an effect on her that she rose with the dawn of day, afraid to
trust herself again in bed. In the old times, she had been noted in the
family as the one member of it who lived on affectionate terms with
Montbarry. His other sister and his brothers were constantly
quarrelling with him. Even his mother owned that her eldest son was of
all her children the child whom she least liked. Sensible and resolute
woman as she was, Mrs. Norbury shuddered with terror as she sat at the
window of her room, watching the sunrise, and thinking of her dreams.

She made the first excuse that occurred to her, when her maid came in
at the usual hour, and noticed how ill she looked. The woman was of so
superstitious a temperament that it would have been in the last degree
indiscreet to trust her with the truth. Mrs. Norbury merely remarked
that she had not found the bed quite to her liking, on account of the
large size of it. She was accustomed at home, as her maid knew, to
sleep in a small bed. Informed of this objection later in the day, the
manager regretted that he could only offer to the lady the choice of
one other bedchamber, numbered Thirty-eight, and situated immediately
over the bedchamber which she desired to leave. Mrs. Norbury accepted
the proposed change of quarters. She was now about to pass her second
night in the room occupied in the old days of the palace by Baron
Rivar.

Once more, she fell asleep as usual. And, once more, the frightful
dreams of the first night terrified her, following each other in the
same succession. This time her nerves, already shaken, were not equal
to the renewed torture of terror inflicted on them. She threw on her
dressing-gown, and rushed out of her room in the middle of the night.
The porter, alarmed by the banging of the door, met her hurrying
headlong down the stairs, in search of the first human being she could
find to keep her company. Considerably surprised at this last new
manifestation of the famous “English eccentricity,” the man looked at
the hotel register, and led the lady upstairs again to the room
occupied by her maid. The maid was not asleep, and, more wonderful
still, was not even undressed. She received her mistress quietly. When
they were alone, and when Mrs. Norbury had, as a matter of necessity,
taken her attendant into her confidence, the woman made a very strange
reply.

“I have been asking about the hotel, at the servants’ supper to-night,”
she said. “The valet of one of the gentlemen staying here has heard
that the late Lord Montbarry was the last person who lived in the
palace, before it was made into an hotel. The room he died in, ma’am,
was the room you slept in last night. Your room tonight is the room
just above it. I said nothing for fear of frightening you. For my own
part, I have passed the night as you see, keeping my light on, and
reading my Bible. In my opinion, no member of your family can hope to
be happy or comfortable in this house.”

“What do you mean?”

“Please to let me explain myself, ma’am. When Mr. Henry Westwick was
here (I have this from the valet, too) he occupied the room his brother
died in (without knowing it), like you. For two nights he never closed
his eyes. Without any reason for it (the valet heard him tell the
gentlemen in the coffee-room) he could not sleep; he felt so low and so
wretched in himself. And what is more, when daytime came, he couldn’t
even eat while he was under this roof. You may laugh at me, ma’am—but
even a servant may draw her own conclusions. It’s my conclusion that
something happened to my lord, which we none of us know about, when he
died in this house. His ghost walks in torment until he can tell it—and
the living persons related to him are the persons who feel he is near
them. Those persons may yet see him in the time to come. Don’t, pray
don’t stay any longer in this dreadful place! I wouldn’t stay another
night here myself—no, not for anything that could be offered me!”

Mrs. Norbury at once set her servant’s mind at ease on this last point.

“I don’t think about it as you do,” she said gravely. “But I should
like to speak to my brother of what has happened. We will go back to
Milan.”

Some hours necessarily elapsed before they could leave the hotel, by
the first train in the forenoon.

In that interval, Mrs. Norbury’s maid found an opportunity of
confidentially informing the valet of what had passed between her
mistress and herself. The valet had other friends to whom he related
the circumstances in his turn. In due course of time, the narrative,
passing from mouth to mouth, reached the ears of the manager. He
instantly saw that the credit of the hotel was in danger, unless
something was done to retrieve the character of the room numbered
Fourteen. English travellers, well acquainted with the peerage of their
native country, informed him that Henry Westwick and Mrs. Norbury were
by no means the only members of the Montbarry family. Curiosity might
bring more of them to the hotel, after hearing what had happened. The
manager’s ingenuity easily hit on the obvious means of misleading them,
in this case. The numbers of all the rooms were enamelled in blue, on
white china plates, screwed to the doors. He ordered a new plate to be
prepared, bearing the number, “13 A”; and he kept the room empty, after
its tenant for the time being had gone away, until the plate was ready.
He then re-numbered the room; placing the removed Number Fourteen on
the door of his own room (on the second floor), which, not being to
let, had not previously been numbered at all. By this device, Number
Fourteen disappeared at once and for ever from the books of the hotel,
as the number of a bedroom to let.

Having warned the servants to beware of gossiping with travellers, on
the subject of the changed numbers, under penalty of being dismissed,
the manager composed his mind with the reflection that he had done his
duty to his employers. “Now,” he thought to himself, with an excusable
sense of triumph, “let the whole family come here if they like! The
hotel is a match for them.”




CHAPTER XVIII


Before the end of the week, the manager found himself in relations with
“the family” once more. A telegram from Milan announced that Mr.
Francis Westwick would arrive in Venice on the next day; and would be
obliged if Number Fourteen, on the first floor, could be reserved for
him, in the event of its being vacant at the time.

The manager paused to consider, before he issued his directions.

The re-numbered room had been last let to a French gentleman. It would
be occupied on the day of Mr. Francis Westwick’s arrival, but it would
be empty again on the day after. Would it be well to reserve the room
for the special occupation of Mr. Francis? and when he had passed the
night unsuspiciously and comfortably in “No. 13 A,” to ask him in the
presence of witnesses how he liked his bedchamber? In this case, if the
reputation of the room happened to be called in question again, the
answer would vindicate it, on the evidence of a member of the very
family which had first given Number Fourteen a bad name. After a little
reflection, the manager decided on trying the experiment, and directed
that “13 A” should be reserved accordingly.

On the next day, Francis Westwick arrived in excellent spirits.

He had signed agreements with the most 

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