"Helen!" she cried, "they told me of this; but if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it."

Helen rose to her feet, pale, but with a kindling light in her eyes, and a haughty poise of her fair shapely head.

"You speak in riddles, Rachel," she said quietly. "I do not understand you."

A very storm of hysterical pa.s.sion seemed to shake the woman, who had approached a little further into the room.

"Not understand me! Listen, and I will make it plain. You were engaged to marry my brother. I come here, almost from his funeral, and I find you thus--with his murderer! Girl, I wonder that you do not die of shame!"

His murderer! For a moment the color fled from cheeks and lips, and the room seemed whirling around her. But one glance at him brought back her drooping courage. He was standing close to her side, erect and firm as a statue, with his head thrown back, and his eyes fixed upon Rachel Kynaston. Blanched and colorless as his face was, there was no flinching in it.

"It is false!" she said proudly. "Ask him yourself."

"Ask him!" She turned upon him like a tigress, her eyes blazing with fury. "Let him hear what I have to say, and deny it. Is it not you who followed him from city to city all over the world, seeking always his life? Is it not you who kept him for many years from his native land for fear of blood-shed--yours or his? Is it not you who have fought with him and been worsted, and sworn to carry your enmity with you through life, and bury it only in his grave? Look at me, man, if you dare, look me in the face and tell me whether you did not seek his life in Vienna, and whether you did not fight with him on the sands at Boulogne. Oh, I know you! It is you! It is you! And then you come down here and live alone, waiting your chance. He is found foully murdered, and you are the only man who could have done it. Ask you whether you be guilty? There is no need, no need. Can anyone in their senses, knowing the story of your past hate, doubt it for one moment? And yet, answer me if you can. Look me in the face, and let me hear you lie, if you dare. Tell me that you know nothing of my brother's death!"

He had stood like marble, with never a change in his face, while she had poured out her pa.s.sionate accusation. But when silence came, and she waited for him to speak, he could not. A seal seemed set upon his lips.

He could not open them. He was silent.

A fearful glare of triumph blazed up in her eyes. She staggered back a little, and leaned upon the table, with her hand clasped to her side.

"See, Helen," she cried, "is that innocence? O G.o.d! give me strength to go on. I will see Mr. Thurwell. I will tell him everything. He shall sign a warrant. Ah!"

A terrible scream rang through the room, and echoed through the house.

Mr. Thurwell and several of the servants came hurrying in. In the middle of the floor Rachel Kynaston lay prostrate, her fingers grasping convulsively at the empty air, and an awful look in her face. Helen was on her knees by her side, and Mr. Brown stood in the background, irresolute whether to stay or leave.

They crowded round her, but she waved them off, and grasping Helen's wrist, dragged her down till their heads nearly touched.

"Helen," she moaned, "I am dying. Swear to me that you will avenge Geoffrey's murder. That man did it. His name--his name----"

Suddenly her grasp relaxed, and Helen reeled back fainting into her father's arms.

"It is a fit," some one murmured.

But it was death.

CHAPTER XI

LEVY & SON, PRIVATE AGENTS

"Anything in the letters, guv'nor?"

"Nothing so far, Ben, my boy," answered a little old gentleman, who was methodically opening a pile of envelopes, and carefully scrutinizing the contents of each before arranging them in separate heaps. "Nothing much yet. A letter from a despairing mother, entreating us to find her lost son. Description given, payment--tick! Won't do. Here's a note from Mr.

Wallis about his wife's being at the theater the other night, and a line from Jack Simpson about that woman down St. John's Wood way. Seems he's found her, so that's off."

"Humph! business is slack," remarked a younger edition of the old gentleman, who was standing on the hearth rug, with his silk hat on the back of his head, in an att.i.tude of unstudied grace.

"Say, guv'nor, you couldn't let me have a fiver, could you? Must keep up the credit of the firm, don't you know, and I'm awfully hard up. 'Pon my word, I am."

"I couldn't do anything of the sort!" exclaimed the old gentleman testily. "Certainly not. The way you spend money is grievous to me, Benjamin, positively grievous!"

He turned round in his chair, and with his spectacles on the top of his head surveyed his son and heir with a sorrowful interest.

"Oh, hang it all, some one must spend the money if we're to keep the business at all!" retorted Mr. Benjamin testily. "I can't live as I do without it, you know; and how are we to get the information we want?

Look at the company I keep, too."

The old gentleman seemed mollified.

"There's something in that, Ben," he remarked, slowly wagging his head.

"There's something in that, of course. Bless me, your mother was telling me you was with a lord the other day!"

Mr. Benjamin expanded a little with the recollection, and smiled gently.

"That was quite true, dad," he remarked with a grandiloquent air. "I was just going into the Cri--let me see, on Tuesday night it was--when whom should I run up against but little Tommy Soampton with a pal, and we all had drinks together. He was a quiet-looking chap, not dressed half so well as--er----"

"As you, Ben," interposed his father proudly.

"Well, I wasn't thinking of myself particularly," Mr. Benjamin continued, twirling an incipient mustache, and looking pleased. "But when Tommy introduced him as Lord Mossford, I was that surprised I nearly dropped my gla.s.s."

"What did you say to him, Ben?" asked the little old gentleman in an awed tone.

Ben drew himself up and smiled.

"I asked him how his lordship was, and whether his lordship'd take anything."

"And did he, Ben?" asked his father eagerly.

"Rather! He was just as affable as you like. I got on with him no end."

The little old gentleman turned away to his letters again to hide a gratified smile.

"Well, well, Ben, I suppose you must have it," he said leniently. "Young men will be young men. Only remember this, my boy--wherever you are, always keep an eye open for business. Never forget that."

Benjamin, junior, slapped his trousers pocket and grinned.

"No fear, dad. I don't forget the biz."

"Well, well; just wait till I've gone through the letters, and we'll see what we can do. We'll see. Ha! this reads well. I like this. Ben, we're in luck this morning. In luck, my boy!"

Mr. Benjamin abandoned his negligent att.i.tude, and, drawing close to his father, peered over his shoulder. The letter which lay upon the desk was not a long one, but it was to the point.

"THURWELL COURT, "_Thursday_.

"DEAR SIRS,

"I am recommended to consult your firm on a matter which requires the services of a skilled detective and the utmost secrecy. I am coming to London to-morrow, and will call at your office at about half-past ten. Please arrange to be in at that time.