The room was light. He saw two figures--a woman, kneeling by the couch, a man with his back to him, who turned as they came in. He looked pale and scared.

"I am afraid there is nothing to be done, Doctor," he said, in those low, hushed tones, which even the most irreverent use in the presence of the dead.

The young man pa.s.sed him, and going to the couch, looked down upon the solemn face of the dead man. He laid his hand almost tenderly upon his brow--he listened to the heart.

"Take the old lady away, please!" he said, peremptorily, to Vera. Then, after the girl had, with some difficulty, coaxed her step-mother out, he turned to the scared and guiltless John Dobbs. "How did this happen?"

he sternly inquired.

CHAPTER XXI

After that spontaneous, pa.s.sionate prayer to Heaven for mercy, Joan seemed to awaken to a stronger, intenser life. A new instinct burst into a fierce clamouring within her--the primary instinct to live--live--anywhere, anyhow, at any price--but to live!

"I ought not to die--I did not mean to kill him!" she wailed. Her first mad notion was to confess everything from first to last. There would be an inquest. If she were to go to the coroner and tell him the whole story, would he not see justice done?

"But it would only be my bare word," she thought, as she sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her cold hands, shuddering so that her teeth chattered. "Any one who wanted to kill some one that stood in their way might do it, and say it was an accident!"

No; that Quixotic idea was untenable. Dead silence--absolute secrecy--these must be her defensive armour. No one knew she had seen Victor Mercier since his re-appearance in London, and only two persons were aware of the so-called "love-affair." One was the school-girl go-between, Jenny Marchant, who on the only occasion they had happened to meet, at a charity bazaar, had taken her aside and implored her never to betray her complicity in that terrible escapade--she had read of Victor Mercier's defalcations in the papers, but had not the remotest idea the consequence of her folly was that her chum Joan had bound herself to the "dreadful creature" by a marriage at the registrar's. She would never say anything! "And Nana would rather die than betray me!"

thought Joan.

No--absolute secrecy--to act as if no such person as the dead man who had come by his death through her daring to drug him, existed, as far as she was concerned--that was the best, the only course open to her to save herself.

"But--but--I must not do anything wild," she told herself. "The plan to marry my beloved and start in his yacht must not be carried out! That would never do! Would not people suspect I had some very good reason for flight--for hiding myself?"

Then the truth suddenly flashed upon her; there was now no necessity for concealment! The man who had bound her to him in law was dead.

"I am a widow!" she murmured, shivering. "How impossible--extraordinary--yet, yet--literally true! I never was his wife--except for a quarter of an hour in the registry office--what a mockery! And all this--horror--my misery--his wretched, sudden death--came out of that--those few words of an ordinary man's--the signing of our names in a book!"

Would the registrar who married them come forward?

At the idea she sickened. Chill sweat came upon her brow.

"Why should he? He has enough to do without making himself more worrying work," she told herself. "Besides, he may think I went abroad with Victor and died there, if he thinks at all!"

No. She must find some way of accounting for her change of ideas to Lord Vansittart, she mused, as, hearing Julie outside, she returned to bed, and when the girl entered, stretched her arms and yawned.

"Oh, I am much better," she told her, as Julie made anxious inquiries; and with a violent effort she contrived to act her part pretty successfully--to dress and seem as usual--even to attempt to eat some breakfast. But this latter was a hard task. The morning papers had the "Mysterious Death" among their "sensations," and gave ominous hints as to "Victor a'Court's" career which threatened her with a return of that convulsive shivering.

However, when she went downstairs, her aunt and uncle seemed so cheerfully matter-of-fact--her aunt gave her such very p.r.o.nounced hints on the subject of Vansittart--"they would be quite to themselves, because she was going out, but she hoped Joan would insist upon his dining with them that evening as he disappointed them last night,"

etc.--that she began to feel as if the tragedy in her young, unfortunate life were unreal--dream-like.

The sun shone warmly upon the brilliant bloom of the flowers in her balcony. A canary sang joyously from its cage outside the window of the next house. The lively rattle of carts, the smooth roll of carriages, the shrill voices of pa.s.sing children--all meant life--life! And she was greedy, thirsty for life--she--who a few hours ago had done a fellow-creature to death.

"All is not--quite--lost," she mused, as she leant her tired head on her hands--she had seated herself at her writing-table, and was pretending to be busy with her correspondence. "I can do nothing--any more--for poor, cruel Victor--may G.o.d be merciful to him! But he has relatives--this actress sister--he never said a word of her to me, I may hope he never said a word of me to her. I may be able to make her life very different--after all this is over and forgotten--hers and any other relatives of his--and I will! I will not spend one single day without doing something to tend to some comfort or advantage for them!"

She was still trying to plan her announcement of her changed wishes to Vansittart, so as not to excite the faintest suspicion in his mind that anything had occurred to alter her ideas between her last meeting and this, when she heard voices outside--the groom of the chambers announced "Lord Vansittart"--and he precipitately entered.

He advanced, a little pale and anxious-looking, but so handsome, such a tower of strength, such embodied manhood at its n.o.blest, that suddenly she felt utterly overwhelmed, submerged--she tottered gasping into his arms, and clung to him as madly as one drowning cleaves to his rescuer.

"Oh--it is you--" she deliriously stammered. "Don't--don't leave me--oh--what am I saying? Are we both--alive? Is it real?"

In her delirious collapse she would not let him kiss her lips. First she hid her face in his coat, then she kissed it--wildly, almost pa.s.sionately.

"My poor, sweet darling; be calm--it is all right--I will take care of you!" he said, tenderly, brokenly. To see her thus almost unnerved him--he was losing command of his voice--two great cold tears stood in his eyes, then ran down and lay glistening on her golden hair. "Come, my dearest love! Something has upset you, but never mind; I promise you it shall not happen again--I will stand between you and trouble."

He stopped short, horrified--for she burst into a wild peal of laughter.

She struggled to subdue it by hiding her head upon his arm. He gazed down at her pretty golden head, speechless with mingled feelings. Once more the ugly idea crept up unbidden within him--that Joan was "going mad."

"No! You are right there!" she cried her laughter subdued, glancing up almost defiantly into his face. "What--ever--does happen again? Did you not talk of the past being irrevocable, irrecoverable? It is! The present is bad enough, is it not? That I should be a hysterical fool like this--all because of a dream! At least I think my headache made me delirious all night. I am not good enough for you, dear. You must give up all idea of marrying me!"

She gazed tenderly at him with those dark eyes soft with the tears brought by that hysterical outburst.

"Oh, yes, of course!" he ironically said. "I am to give up all chance of happiness because you are not one of those Amazons I so cordially detest! Come, darling--I can see that London life is utterly and entirely disagreeing with you!" He seated himself on a sofa and drew her gently down beside him. "That fact reconciles me to taking you away, do you know--so it is the silver lining to the only cloud that is troubling my horizon!"

"You did not like that plan of mine? I am--thankful!"

As she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed this with evident truth, Vansittart stared at her.

"Not that, darling! I am ready to do anything----" he began, alarmed lest she had seized upon a loop-hole for escape. But she interrupted.

"I had a dream last night," she began, slowly, striving for self-possession--the very mention of that awful vision unnerved her.

"You know--what is on my mind--that I helped to ruin the life of a friend by helping her to marry a bad man. Well! I dreamt--that she came--to awful--grief! And the dream was so vivid that I take it as a warning. I do not wish to carry out our plan, dearest. If you care to marry me, let us be married openly, before the world!"

"Do you really mean it?" He grasped her hands and kissed them. He gazed at her with a face beaming, transfigured with joy. "Thank G.o.d, you do! Oh, my darling, my darling--I would have married you anywhere, anyhow, I would even have kept our marriage secret till the crack of doom if you had wanted to--but I hated doing it. I hated stealing you like a thief, instead of marrying you proudly, honourably, glorying in it, before G.o.d and all his creatures! You have lifted such a weight from my heart that I hardly know where I am, or what I am about!"

CHAPTER XXII

For awhile, as Joan sat, her lover's arm around her, all about them so bright--the pretty boudoir, decked with dainty gifts of her uncle's and aunt's, gay with flowers and sunshine--she was infected by his radiant happiness. A faint hope stole timidly up in her crushed heart--a vague idea of "misadventure"--"the visitation of G.o.d"--as the real cause of Victor Mercier's death, she only the unhappy instrument. The idea reigned--it was the melody to the accompaniment of his joyous talk.

Then her uncle came in, and without ado Vansittart asked his blessing.

Sir Thomas had hardly kissed and congratulated his niece, beaming upon her in his huge satisfaction, when Lady Thorne entered, and stopping short, placidly surveyed the trio.

"No, I am not surprised," she answered, in a superior tone, to her husband's inquiry, after he had announced the engagement. "Or at least, if I am, it is because you two young people have taken so long to make up your minds. I never saw two people so fitted for each other."

There was an air of subdued gaiety about the four at the luncheon table.

Joan held her thoughts and emotions in check with a tremendous effort of will. In the afternoon the lovers rode out into the country, and she enjoyed an almost wild ride. She had an idea that bodily fatigue might weaken her power of thought. If only she could tire herself into physical exhaustion, she fancied she might forget. Oh! only to ignore, to be able to ignore the past--for a few brief hours!

Vansittart was too madly in love to take exception to any desire or even whim of his darling's. He cantered and galloped, raced and tore at her side, although at last his favourite horse was reeking with sweat, and he told himself that he had not felt so "pumped out" for a long while.

The fact that Joan did not seem to feel fatigue hardly rea.s.sured him.

He determined to ask Sir Thomas to influence her to consent to an early marriage, that he might take her on a sea voyage. After they had dined, a pleasant _partie quarree_, and he and his future uncle-in-law were alone, he broached the subject.