he said. "Was she the Hand that her mistress used? Was she on her way to give the first dose of poison when she pa.s.sed me in this corridor? Did Mrs. Beauly spend the night in Edinburgh--so as to have her defense ready, if suspicion fell upon her?"

My shadowy doubt of him became substantial doubt when I heard that. Had I absolved him a little too readily? Was he really trying to renew my suspicions of Mrs. Beauly, as Mr. Playmore had foretold? This time I was obliged to answer him. In doing so, I unconsciously employed one of the phrases which the lawyer had used to me during my first interview with him.

"That sounds rather far-fetched, Mr. Dexter," I said.

To my relief, he made no attempt to defend the new view that he had advanced.

"It is far-fetched," he admitted. "When I said it was just possible--though I didn't claim much for my idea--I said more for it perhaps than it deserved. Dismiss my view as ridiculous; what are you to do next? If Mrs. Beauly is not the poisoner (either by herself or by her maid), who is? She is innocent, and Eustace is innocent. Where is the other person whom you can suspect? Have _I_ poisoned her?" he cried, with his eyes flashing, and his voice rising to its highest notes. "Do you, does anybody, suspect Me? I loved her; I adored her; I have never been the same man since her death. Hush! I will trust you with a secret. (Don't tell your husband; it might be the destruction of our friendship.) I would have married her, before she met with Eustace, if she would have taken me. When the doctors told me she had died poisoned--ask Doctor Jerome what I suffered; _he_ can tell you! All through that horrible night I was awake; watching my opportunity until I found my way to her. I got into the room, and took my last leave of the cold remains of the angel whom I loved. I cried over her. I kissed her.

for the first and last time. I stole one little lock of her hair. I have worn it ever since; I have kissed it night and day. Oh, G.o.d! the room comes back to me! the dead face comes back to me! Look! look!"

He tore from its place of concealment in his bosom a little locket, fastened by a ribbon around his neck. He threw it to me where I sat, and burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.

A man in my place might have known what to do. Being only a woman, I yielded to the compa.s.sionate impulse of the moment.

I got up and crossed the room to him. I gave him back his locket, and put my hand, without knowing what I was about, on the poor wretch's shoulder. "I am incapable of suspecting you, Mr. Dexter," I said, gently. "No such idea ever entered my head. I pity you from the bottom of my heart."

He caught my hand in his, and devoured it with kisses. His lips burned me like fire. He twisted himself suddenly in the chair, and wound his arm around my waist. In the terror and indignation of the moment, vainly struggling with him, I cried out for help.

The door opened, and Benjamin appeared on the threshold.

Dexter let go his hold of me.

I ran to Benjamin, and prevented him from advancing into the room. In all my long experience of my fatherly old friend I had never seen him really angry yet. I saw him more than angry now. He was pale--the patient, gentle old man was pale with rage! I held him at the door with all my strength.

"You can't lay your hand on a cripple," I said. Send for the man outside to take him a way.

I drew Benjamin out of the room, and closed and locked the library door. The housekeeper was in the dining-room. I sent her out to call the driver of the pony-chaise into the house.

The man came in--the rough man whom I had noticed when we were approaching the garden gate. Benjamin opened the library door in stern silence. It was perhaps unworthy of me, but I could _not_ resist the temptation to look in.

Miserrimus Dexter had sunk down in the chair. The rough man lifted his master with a gentleness that surprised me. "Hide my face," I heard Dexter say to him, in broken tones. He opened his coa.r.s.e pilot-jacket, and hid his master's head under it, and so went silently out--with the deformed creature held to his bosom, like a woman sheltering her child.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. ARIEL.

I Pa.s.sED a sleepless night.

The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough in itself.

But consequences were a.s.sociated with it which might affect me more seriously still. In so far as the attainment of the one object of my life might yet depend on my personal a.s.sociation with Miserrimus Dexter, an insurmountable obstacle appeared to be now placed in my way. Even in my husband's interests, ought I to permit a man who had grossly insulted me to approach me again? Although I was no prude, I recoiled from the thought of it.

I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon energy enough to write to Mr. Playmore--and trying in vain.

Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a little while) the housekeeper announced the arrival of another strange visitor at the gate of the villa.

"It's a woman this time, ma'am--or something like one," said this worthy person, confidentially. "A great, stout, awkward, stupid creature, with a man's hat on and a man's stick in her hand. She says she has got a note for you, and she won't give it to anybody _but_ you. I'd better not let her in--had I?"

Recognizing the original of the picture, I astonished the housekeeper by consenting to receive the messenger immediately.

Ariel entered the room--in stolid silence, as usual. But I noticed a change in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes were red and bloodshot.

Traces of tears (as I fancied) were visible on her fat, shapeless cheeks. She crossed the room, on her way to my chair, with a less determined tread than was customary with her. Could Ariel (I asked myself) be woman enough to cry? Was it within the limits of possibility that Ariel should approach me in sorrow and in fear?

"I hear you have brought something for me?" I said. "Won't you sit down?"

She handed me a letter--without answering and without taking a chair. I opened the envelope. The letter inside was written by Miserrimus Dexter.

It contained these lines:

"Try to pity me, if you have any pity left for a miserable man; I have bitterly expiated the madness of a moment. If you could see me--even you would own that my punishment has been heavy enough. For G.o.d's sake, don't abandon me! I was beside myself when I let the feeling that you have awakened in me get the better of my control. It shall never show itself again; it shall be a secret that dies with me. Can I expect you to believe this? No. I won't ask you to believe me; I won't ask you to trust me in the future. If you ever consent to see me again, let it be in the presence of any third person whom you may appoint to protect you.

I deserve that--I will submit to it; I will wait till time has composed your angry feeling against me. All I ask now is leave to hope. Say to Ariel, 'I forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again.'

She will remember it, for love of me. If you send her back without a message, you send me to the mad-house. Ask her, if you don't believe me.

"MISERRIMUS DEXTER."

I finished the strange letter, and looked at Ariel.

She stood with her eyes on the floor, and held out to me the thick walking-stick which she carried in her hand.

"Take the stick" were the first words she said to me.

"Why am I to take it?" I asked.

She struggled a little with her sluggishly working mind, and slowly put her thoughts into words.

"You're angry with the Master," she said. "Take it out on Me. Here's the stick. Beat me."

"Beat you!" I exclaimed.

"My back's broad," said the poor creature. "I won't make a row. I'll bear it. Drat you, take the stick! Don't vex _him._ Whack it out on my back. Beat _me._"

She roughly forced the stick into my hand; she turned her poor shapeless shoulders to me; waiting for the blow. It was at once dreadful and touching to see her. The tears rose in my eyes. I tried, gently and patiently, to reason with her. Quite useless! The idea of taking the Master's punishment on herself was the one idea in her mind. "Don't vex _him,_" she repeated. "Beat _me._"

"What do you mean by 'vexing him'?" I asked.

She tried to explain, and failed to find the words. She showed me by imitation, as a savage might have shown me, what she meant. Striding to the fire-place, she crouched on the rug, and looked into the fire with a horrible vacant stare. Then she clasped her hands over her forehead, and rocked slowly to and fro, still staring into the fire. "There's how he sits!" she said, with a sudden burst of speech. "Hours on hours, there's how he sits! Notices n.o.body. Cries about _you._"

The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Report of Dexter's health, and the doctor's plain warning of peril waiting for him in the future.

Even if I could have resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to the vague dread of consequences which now shook me in secret.

"Don't do that!" I cried. She was still rocking herself in imitation of the "Master," and still staring into the fire with her hands to her head. "Get up, pray! I am not angry with him now. I forgive him."

She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up intently into my face. In that att.i.tude--more like a dog than a human being--she repeated her customary pet.i.tion when she wanted to fix words that interested her in her mind.

"Say it again!"

I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied.

"Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as the Master said it to Me."