"I did not see your lordship at the opera to-night," he said presently.

"No, I was at a less agreeable entertainment. I was at the House of Lords. Was the Opera House full?"

"A galaxy of fashion and beauty; but I think that lady whom I may call my mistress still bears the palm. There was not a woman among them to outshine Mr. Topsparkle's wife."

"He has reason to be proud of such a wife," said Lavendale lightly.

"Fill your gla.s.s, I beg, Mr. Fetis, or I shall doubt your liking for that wine. She is not his first wife, by the way--nor his first beautiful wife. My Italian friend told me that Topsparkle carried off one of the handsomest women in Venice when he left that city. What became of the lady?"

"She died young."

"In Italy?"

"No, my lord. Mr. Topsparkle brought the young lady to London, and she died of colic--or in all likelihood of the plague--at his house in Soho Square."

"Was she his wife?"

"That question, my lord, rests with Mr. Topsparkle's conscience. If he was married to the young lady I was not admitted to his confidence. I was not present at the marriage; but she was always spoken of in the household as Mrs. Topsparkle; and I, as a servant, had no right to question her claim to that t.i.tle."

"I have heard that there was something mysterious about her death; something that aroused suspicion in the neighbourhood."

"O, my lord, all sudden deaths are accounted suspicious nowadays. There has not been a prince of the blood royal, or a n.o.bleman that has died in France during the last thirty years, but there has been talk of poison, although the disease has been as obvious in its characteristics as disease can ever be. Smallpox, ague, putrid fever, have one and all been put down to the late Regent and his accomplices; whereas that poor good-natured prince would scarce have trodden willingly upon a worm.

Never was a kinder creature, yet his heart was wrung many a time by the vilest accusations circulated with an insolent openness. As for Mrs.

Topsparkle's death, I could give you all the medical details, were you curious enough to listen to them."

His manner was serenity itself; and it was difficult to suppose that guilt could lurk under so placid an aspect, so easy a bearing. Yet last night the first allusion to his life in Venice had blanched his cheek and made his hand tremulous. The difference was that he had then been unprepared, while to-night he was fortified against every shock, and had schooled himself to answer every question.

"The suspicion was doubtless unfounded," said Lavendale, "but I have heard that the slander banished Mr. Topsparkle from this country."

"My master was over sensitive regarding the lampoons and libels which are rife at all elections, and which were directed against him with peculiar venom on account of his wealth, his youth, and his accomplishments," answered Fetis. "He left England in a fit of disgust after the Brentford Election; and as a Continental life had always suited his humour, he lived abroad for thirty years, with but occasional visits to his native country."

"You stand by him with a truly loyal spirit, which is worthy of all admiration," said Durnford.

"'Twere hard if there were no fidelity between master and servant after forty years' service. I know Mr. Topsparkle's failings, and can compa.s.sionate him where he is weak and erring. He is a man of a jealous temper, and did not live altogether happily with the Italian lady of whom you were talking. It was known in the household that they had quarrelled--that there had been tears, scenes, recrimination on his side, distress on hers. This knowledge was the only ground for suspicion among the busy-bodies of the neighbourhood when the young lady died after an illness of two days. The fools did not take the trouble to know or to consider that she had never properly recovered her health after the birth of her infant."

"What became of that infant, Mr. Fetis?"

"She was educated abroad, and turned out badly. I can tell you nothing about her," replied Fetis, with an impatient shrug. "I had nothing to do with her bringing up, nor do I know her fate. I have never tried to pry into my master's secrets."

"But surely you, who were so much more than a servant, almost a brother, must have known everything," urged Lavendale; and then with a lighter air he added, "but 'tis inhospitable to plague you about the history of the past when we are met here to enjoy the present. What say you to a shake of the dice-box to raise our spirits?"

Fetis a.s.sented eagerly, with all a gamester's gusto, and he and Lord Lavendale spent nearly an hour at hazard, until the Frenchman had a pile of guineas lying in front of him, and in the pleasure of winning had drank deep of that fine old Burgundy which he had praised at supper. He played with a feverish excitement which Lavendale had remarked in his manner on the previous evening; but to-night the fiery energies of the man were intensified. He was like a man possessed by devils.

When Lavendale grew weary of losing, and would have left off, the Frenchman urged him to go on a little longer.

"I am generally an unlucky wretch: you will have your revenge presently," he said eagerly, and after a few more turns Fetis began to lose.

Lavendale swept up the dice and flung them into a drawer.

"It would have been unmannerly to leave off while you were winning, Monsieur Fetis," he said; "but now the luck is turned against you, I will own I have had enough. What can be this pa.s.sion of cards which possesses some of us to grovel for a long night over the board of green cloth? I have never known the gambler's fiercest fever, though I have played deep enough in my time; and now my soul soon sickens of the stale diversion."

The Frenchman pocketed his pile of gold with a mechanical air, and looked about him like a man awakened suddenly from a feverish dream. His hands trembled a little as he adjusted his wig, which had been pushed awry in his excitement. His eyes had a gla.s.sy brightness, and it was obvious that he was the worse for liquor.

"Good-night, my lord; Mr. Durnford, your servant. I fear I have kept your lordship up very late. If we have trenched somewhat on the dead of night--"

"Monsieur Fetis, the pleasure of your society has been an ample recompense for the loss of slumber," said Lavendale. "My chairmen shall take you home. They have been told to wait for you."

"Indeed, your lordship is too considerate."

"The rest of my people have gone to bed, I believe; Durnford, will you light Monsieur Fetis to the hall?"

Herrick took a candle from a side table and led the way through the empty rooms, cold and dark and unspeakably dismal after the light and warmth of that cosy parlour in which the three men had supped. The atmosphere struck a chill to the soul of Fetis as he entered the first of those disused reception-rooms. Herrick's one candle shed but a faint gleam of light, which served only to accentuate the gloom. Gigantic shadows, strange forms of vague blackness, like the monstrous inhabitants of some mysterious underworld, seemed to emerge out of the corners and creep towards Fetis--dragon-like monsters, with spreading pinions and eagle claws. They were but the shadow-forms of incipient delirium tremens; but to him who beheld them they were unspeakably horrible.

Yet these were as nothing to that which came afterwards.

He crept with a curious cat-like gait across the room, shrinking from side to side to avoid the clutch of those shadowy claws, to avoid being caught up and enfolded for ever beneath those dark pinions, but on the threshold of the next room he gave a wild yell of agony, and fell on his knees, grovelling, the powdered wig pushed from his bald head by those nerveless hands of his, and drops of cold sweat breaking out upon his wrinkled forehead.

At the further end of the room, luminous in the faint rays of a lamp, he saw a shadow in a long white garment, a pale face, and dark eyes gazing upon him with a solemn stillness, a pale immovable countenance, like that of the dead.

"Spare me! spare me!" he cried. "O, pale, sad victim, have I not atoned?

Haunt me no more, poor murdered wretch, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed at every turn! Thy cup of sorrow was full, but O, forgive thy much more wretched murderer! Pity, and pardon!"

The words came in short gasps--uttered in a shrill treble that was almost a scream. They had a sound like the cry of a tortured animal--seemed hardly human to those who heard them. He held his hands before his eyes, clasped convulsively over the eyeb.a.l.l.s to shut out the vision that appalled him; and then gradually he collapsed altogether, and sank fainting on the threshold.

When consciousness returned he was seated in front of an open window, the cool night air blowing in upon him, sharp with the breath of late autumn.

"Where am I?" he faltered.

"You are with those who have judged and condemned you," answered Lavendale solemnly. "Murderer!"

"Who dares call me by that name?"

"I, Lavendale. My friend here, Durnford, is witness with me of your guilty terror. You have seen the ghost of her whom you murdered, or helped to murder. You have seen the ghost of your innocent victim, Margharita Vincenti."

"It was Topsparkle's crime. I was but the a.s.sistant and tool. The guilt was his. I was only a faithful servant."

"I doubt you were the inspirer of most of his iniquities at that time,"

said Lavendale. "It was your knowledge of poisons which put him in the way of accommodating his sated love and gratifying his revenge at one stroke. It is only the dead who do not come back."

That last gust of October wind did its work. Fetis rose to his feet with his nerves restored, and faced his accuser with an easy insolence.

"Your lordship's wine has been too strong for my poor brain," he said lightly, "and I fear I have troubled you with one of my raving fits. My good little wife will tell you that I am subject to a kind of brain fever after anything in the way of a debauch. Your lordship should not have tempted me to so far exceed my usual two bottles. Pray, Mr.

Durnford, be so good as to show me to the hall. I shall not trouble your lordship's chairmen. The walk home will steady my poor head. Your lordship's most humble and deeply obliged servant."

He gave a low bow, a succession of bows rather, with which he bent and wriggled himself out of Lord Lavendale's presence, in a series of serpentine curves.

Lavendale made as if he would have sprung at him, longing to clutch at that wizened throat and pin the secret murderer to the floor, to imprison him for the rest of the night, and deliver him over to the officers of justice in the morning; but Durnford laid a warning hand upon his shoulder.

"Let him go," he whispered. "There is no evidence against him yet."