"Yes," answered Lucie. "I have been to Half Moon Street myself and made inquiries. Mr Gordon-Wright, it appears, returned home late last night after supper at the Savoy. He must have met some friends afterwards, for the hall-porter says he did not return till nearly two o'clock, and then seemed dazed and incoherent in his speech. He frequently saw gentlemen like that, and therefore pretended to take no notice. At eight o'clock this morning, when his valet took him his early tea, he found him half-dressed doubled up on the bed quite dead. Death from poisoning, the doctor has declared. To us the truth is quite plain. He is another victim of Himes' terrible revenge!"

"And you, my darling, are free--actually free!" I cried, again kissing my dear heart's face and beside myself with an unexpected joy.

Himes was evidently keeping his vow to exterminate all Miller's friends--for what reason, however, was still an enigma.

The situation now became utterly bewildering. In an instant I recognised the exact position. My well-beloved was not so enthusiastic as myself. She seemed terrified at the man's terribly sudden end, and at the same time she held herself aloof from me. She held a secret, one which, as she had frankly told me, she would never divulge--not even to me. How could there be perfect love without perfect confidence? Again another difficulty was presented.

"I saw the report upon the posters in the streets, bought a paper, and learnt the truth," explained Lucie. "I then took a cab at once to Porchester Terrace in search of Ella, and brought her straight here to you."

"The fellow has got his deserts," I said, in triumph. "He richly deserved such an ignominious end."

"He supped with my father and myself at the Savoy last night, and drove home with us," Ella said. "He left us about one o'clock, and promised to call and take me shopping in Bond Street at ten this morning, but never came."

"And he will never trouble you more, darling," I exclaimed, amazed that Himes should have acted with such daring so quickly after his terrible revenge upon Miller. It showed how unscrupulous and determined he was to carry out the threat that had escaped his lips. "You are mine at last--mine! _mine_!" I cried, pressing her again to me and covering her lips with kisses.

But she did not return my caresses. She only pushed me forcibly from her, saying huskily:--

"It is true that man is dead, G.o.dfrey--that I have no further fear of him--that my secret is safe. But you must give me time to think, G.o.dfrey."

"Yes," urged her friend. "You must allow her time. The news of the fellow's sudden end has upset her. The release has been so sudden that she cannot yet realise it. Release has also come to me," she added.

"Ah! you do not know the truth, Mr Leaf--it is surely stranger than any fiction ever written."

"And may I not know it?" I asked quickly. "Remember that you have taken me into your confidence up to a certain point. Is Ella aware of the truth?"

"I think not," she faltered, with a hard expression on her face. "It is a disgraceful truth. Since my poor father's death I have made certain startling discoveries that place matters in an entirely new light. I have been examining his private papers, and they have revealed to me facts which, so infamous, cause me to hide my face from you in shame.

I--I am not fit to be your a.s.sociate or friend of Ella," she added, in a hoa.r.s.e painful whisper. "I confess to you both, because you have been my friends. I confess everything, even the fact that I learnt only three days ago."

"What's that?" I inquired.

"That I am, after all, what the world calls an adventuress--the daughter of an international thief!" was her low answer, her chin sunk upon her breast in an att.i.tude of shame. "My poor father, whom I adored, was only a thief!" and she burst into tears.

For some moments I was silent. The door opened behind us, and Sammy, who had returned, stood upon the threshold, surprised that I had visitors.

I motioned to him to enter and close the door. Then I said:--

"Mr Sampson is my friend; we can speak before him, Miss Miller. Were you entirely unaware of your father's real profession?"

"I swear that I was. I had no idea of it until three days ago, when I discovered proof positive that he was in a.s.sociation with certain men who were expert thieves."

"Then your a.s.sociation with the fugitive Nardini was in no way connected with your father's dishonesty?" I asked. "You have just said that Gordon-Wright's death has set you at liberty. Will you not now tell us the truth, so that all may be open and straightforward?"

She hesitated, and I saw that she naturally felt disinclined to condemn the man of whom she had all her life been so fond, and in whom she had so implicitly trusted. Many fathers act mysteriously in the eyes of their children. Mr Miller had ever been a mystery, and yet with filial affection she had never once suspected him of leading a double life.

"Yes," urged Ella, "tell us all. Half an hour ago you told me that you are at last free--that the man who held me so entirely in his power also held you in his unscrupulous hands."

Sammy said nothing. He had already condemned Lucie, and in his eyes she was but a mere adventuress.

"If I confess, Mr Leaf, I wonder if you and Ella will forgive me?" she exclaimed at last, in a hard, strained voice. "I a.s.sure you that I, like yourselves, have been merely a victim of circ.u.mstances."

"Explain the truth," I said, in a voice of sympathy, for I saw by the shame upon her countenance that she had been an innocent victim.

"Well," she said, "it happened like this. We had been living at Enghien, outside Paris. The man I loved, Manuel Carrera, a young Chilian, had committed suicide because thieves had stolen a large sum of money of which he had accepted the responsibility, and I was broken-hearted and grief-stricken. We had left Paris and were in Brussels when the news reached me; therefore, when my father proposed that we should go on to Salsomaggiore, I welcomed the change. I never wished to place foot in Paris again. We had kept on the little apartment we had in Rome, where we usually spent the winter, but before going there we decided to take the cure. About a week after our arrival at the hotel at Salsomaggiore there came one of Italy's best known statesmen, the Onorevole Giovanni Nardini, Minister of Justice, accompanied by his private secretary, a doctor named Gavazzi. My father--whom I have since discovered had obtained private information of Nardini's shady financial transactions--at once cultivated his acquaintance, as well as that of Gavazzi, and while we were taking the cure we became quite intimate friends.

"On our return to Rome His Excellency often invited us to his fine house in the Via Vittorio Emanuele, and several times we went out to luncheon at the Villa Verde at Tivoli. Two years went by and each winter we saw a great deal of His Excellency. Last January a pretty fair-haired English girl named Alice Woodforde, niece of Gavazzi--she being daughter of Gavazzi's sister who married a civil engineer in London named Woodforde--came out to Rome for the winter, and as Gavazzi was a bachelor we offered her the hospitality of our house. She was a delightful girl, about nine years older than myself, and we soon became inseparable.

"Before very long I discovered the true situation. Nardini had met and fallen violently in love with his secretary's niece, while Gavazzi himself was contemplating that, by such a marriage, he himself would reap considerable benefit. Though much older than Alice, Nardini was a pleasant companion, and occupying as he did one of the highest positions in the kingdom, it was but natural that she should be flattered by his attentions. I, however, who had watched closely and heard certain facts from my father, knew well that the pleasant exterior only concealed a character that was cruel, dishonest, and utterly unscrupulous. The motive of my father's friendship with Nardini was, I regret to admit it, no doubt a dishonest one, while he, on his part, with clever cunning intended eventually to make use of my father in certain blackmailing operations which he contemplated. There was no limit to Nardini's ingenuity or power. Rich and poor alike knew him to be cruel and heartless. He somehow learnt the truth regarding my father, and desired to get me also into his power. There was no charge he could make against me, therefore he resorted to a fiendish conspiracy which was characteristic of the man.

"Late one afternoon last April I was crossing the Piazza di Spagna in Rome when I was stopped by two police agents who asked me to accompany them to the Questura, where, to my speechless amazement, a cruel and wicked charge was made against me. I was accused of robbing a commercial traveller of Milan of a portfolio containing eighteen thousand francs! At first I laughed in the Commissary's face, but when, an hour later, the Italian, a man whom I had never before seen in my life, was brought and identified me, I was stupefied. The charge was infamous. It was against my honour! The man, a loudly dressed person of Hebrew type, stated that on the previous evening he was in the Cafe Colonna and spoke to me. He afterwards invited me to dinner at Bordoni's, in the Via n.a.z.ionale, and after we parted he found that his portfolio had been stolen. A waiter at Bordoni's also identified me, and an agent of police also declared that I was known to them. The whole charge was false, and I stood speechless when I heard their disgraceful accusations. I had never been in either the Colonna or in Bordoni's in all my life. Yet there was still something more extraordinary to follow. The detectives went to our apartments, and, having searched, found the empty portfolio concealed at the bottom of a drawer in my room. I saw at once that it was the work of some secret enemy. Yet who had done it was, to me, a complete enigma.

"I at once wrote a line of appeal to His Excellency explaining that the police had made a terrible mistake. At first he regretted that he could not a.s.sist me, but after a second appeal he sent a line to the Questore, or chief of police, giving me my liberty until my trial, which is to take place at the a.s.sizes next November. I at once went to Nardini and asked him to speak the truth--namely, that on the evening in question I was at the Villa Verde at Tivoli, where I had gone on a message to him from my father and had found him there alone. But he refused to make this statement, ostensibly because he did not wish the fact known that he had received a lady visitor alone, but in reality because he himself had trumped up the whole of the infamous charge against me.

"To my chagrin, also, I found that Lieutenant Shacklock--as Gordon-Wright was known in Rome--knew of the charge. He was an intimate friend of my father's, but a man utterly without principle. I had to beg him not to tell my father. For Nardini, who had so many creatures in his pay, such an allegation was so very easy. As I afterwards established, the portfolio was placed in my drawer by a man who entered on pretence of examining the electric light. Nardini's object was to hold me in his power, to compel me to do his bidding, and a.s.sist in certain schemes he was contemplating before his fall. Surely it was the gravest charge that could have been made against a woman. It touched my honour, and that is the reason why when he fled I followed post-haste here to beg of him to say the word which must put an end to the proceedings pending against me. But, although I was successful in tracing him here, alas! I was too late. He died without clearing my honour, and on the third of November the charge against me will be heard by the Tribunal. How, now, can I hope to escape an unjust condemnation?"

"Why didn't you make this explanation before?" I asked. "I might have a.s.sisted you to clear yourself."

"How could I while Gordon-Wright lived? He was present in our apartment when the police found the portfolio, and even though Nardini might have caused the accusation to have been withdrawn he would have still been a witness against me."

"But you knew who and what he was?"

"Not at that time. I only knew that he was a great friend of my father's and lived at the Grand Hotel. But in looking through my father's private letters I have learned the ghastly truth--that he and Himes who were such constant visitors to our flat, both in Rome, Leghorn, or in fact anywhere where we took up our abode, were expert thieves working under my father's directions. True, I held both of them in dislike, but I never dreamed that living apart, Shacklock at the Grand and Himes at the Quirinale, they were in such active accord."

"Then this charge against you will be made in Rome in November?" Sammy said, addressing her for the first time.

"Yes," she sighed despairingly. "I shall be condemned in my absence, for how can I now hope to prove that I am innocent--that I was not even in Rome on that evening?"

"Nardini was a blackguard!" Sammy cried. "If I had known that I'd have rung the truth out of him before he died--by Jove, I would! A man who plots against a woman's honour like that is the worst cad conceivable."

"Ah, yes!" cried the unhappy girl. "It is that--it is my honour that is at stake. The man alleges that he found me alone in a common cafe-- and--and--"

She burst into tears.

I had listened to Lucie's extraordinary statement like a man in a dream.

Ella tried to comfort her, but with very little avail. She had utterly broken down.

"I am surely the most unhappy of girls!" she sobbed. "They have killed my poor father, and now they will take from me my honour as a woman!"

Then, after a pause, she added:--

"You remember what I told you regarding the woman Hardwick? Nardini knew of that scandal long ago in Pisa, when you accidentally met Ina's married sister travelling, and were forced into the Divorce Court by her husband to give evidence against her. As Minister of Justice, he knew well all the secrets of hushed-up scandals, and often turned them to his own profit."

"Miss Miller," Sammy exclaimed, in a soft tone now full of sympathy for the poor suffering girl, "you mentioned just now the unfortunate death of my friend Manuel Carrera, in Paris. You recollect that I--"

"Manuel Carrera!" cried Ella, suddenly releasing Lucie and facing Sammy.

"Was he your friend? Then let me also tell you the truth! Hear my confession, G.o.dfrey, and then you shall judge me!"

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

UNITES TWO HEARTS.