"You are mad, raving mad!" she cried, but her voice seemed strangled as she made the bold denial.

"Not mad, Mrs Spencer, but very sane, as I will show you in a few seconds. As I told you, I recognised you that night at the Southleigh dinner-party, in spite of the pains you had taken to camouflage yourself. But I waited for corroborative evidence. The detective who arrested your so-called brother, George Burton, has seen you and is prepared to swear to your ident.i.ty as Norah Burton."

Then suddenly she gave way, fell on her knees before him, and stretched out appealing hands.

"Oh, you are very clever; I see you have found it all out. But you will be merciful, you will not drive an unhappy woman to despair, just when she has got into safe harbour. Will you be kind enough to listen to my miserable history?"

"I will listen to anything you have got to say."

"My childhood and girlhood were most wretched and unhappy. At a time when most girls are tasting the sweets and joys of life, I had to live by my wits. I fell under the influence of a good-natured, but very wicked man."

"In other words, George Burton?" queried Hugh.

"In other words, George Burton," she repeated in the low, strangled voice that did not move Hugh very much. "I was starving when he met me and took me up. He was genuinely sorry for me. Mind you, I knew nothing of his nefarious schemes. He hid those very carefully away from me."

"But you were his decoy, if not his confederate, in the gambling-saloon in Paris?"

"His decoy, perhaps, unconsciously, but never his confederate."

"And when did Tommie Esmond appear on the scene?" queried Hugh.

"Oh, much later. George got into low water and had not enough for himself. I then hunted up my uncle, who received me with open arms."

Hugh was developing the instincts of a cross-examiner. "And Tommie Esmond, I suppose, introduced you to the card-sharping crew at the Elsinore flat, and you were launched as the cousin of Mrs L'Estrange, who presided over this delectable establishment?"

"I was a distant cousin of Mrs L'Estrange on my dear mother's side,"

was the answer.

She was lying terribly, he felt a.s.sured. But he had a card or two up his sleeve yet. Still, it was wise to see how far she would go.

"And when did you part with the so-called brother, George Burton?"

"Oh, very shortly after he came out of prison. I had one interview with him; I could not do less after his kindness to me. And in the meantime I had hunted up poor old Tommie Esmond."

"And what did you do after that night at Blankfield? I think you cleared out the next day. I heard you had paid everything up."

"Thank Heaven, yes. There was just a little money left. My life after that was a nightmare. Amongst other humiliations, I was a waitress in a tea-shop." A smile of vanity broke over the charming face. "The wages were very small, but I got a lot of tips." Perhaps in this particular instance she was not lying, if it was true that she had been in a tea-shop at all.

There was a little pause, and then Murchison spoke in his stern, inflexible voice:

"And how long is it since you saw George Burton?"

She had answered the question before, but he was hoping to entrap her into some unguarded admission. He could see that she was considerably thrown off her balance, clever and ready as she was, by the extent of his knowledge.

"I told you just now, soon after he came out of prison."

And then Hugh rose in his wrath. And then she, seeing in his face that he had another and a stronger card to play, got up from her kneeling position and watched him with an agonised countenance.

"I am sorry to use such harsh words to a woman, even such a woman as you are, Mrs Spencer. But when you say that you are lying miserably, and you know it as well as I do." Her face went livid. She a.s.sumed a tone of indignation, but her voice died away in a sob. "How dare you say that?"

"I am not the sort of man to make a statement unless I can prove it up to the hilt. Your so-called cousin, George Dutton, keeps a bucket-shop in the City; from certain evidence in my possession, I should say it was not a very paying business."

Stella did not attempt to reply to this last shot, but she recognised that he had gone about the business very thoroughly.

"George Dutton, the bucket-shop keeper, is George Burton, the forger, come to life again, still, I take it, on the same criminal tack, perhaps in a lesser degree. Do you admit," he cried vehemently, "that George Burton and George Dutton are one and the same?"

"Yes, since you seem to have proof, I admit it," was the somewhat sullen answer.

"That is as well; it clears the ground, up to a certain point. You say you parted from Burton soon after his release from prison, and have not seen him since. When was that--how long ago? You met him frequently as George Dutton at Elsinore Gardens."

The courage of despair seemed to come to her, and she ceased to tremble.

"I will answer no more questions. Tell me what you allege and I will admit or deny. Of course, you have employed a detective; you have had me watched."

"Of course. I should not presume to cope single-handed with a clever woman like yourself. You have met George Dutton, alias George Burton, four times within the last fortnight at obscure restaurants in the City, and there is a strong presumption that you were handing to him envelopes containing money." She seemed now to recognise that the game was up.

Her self-possession returned to her. She sat down, and motioned to him to seat himself.

"You are much too clever for me, Major Murchison. You have handled the matter very well, so well that you have turned your vague suspicions into absolute certainty. Well, what action are you going to take? As a matter of course, you intend to turn me out of my husband's house?"

"If not at the moment, very speedily. You will admit, I think, with your clever brain, that you should not remain under the roof of such an honourable English, gentleman as he is a day longer than necessary."

"I will admit it, from your point of view, if you like. Oh, believe me, I can see your side," replied this remarkable young woman. "But you will forgive me, Major Murchison, if I say that, from my point of view, I would have preferred that you had never been born. Guy is very happy; he believes in me and trusts me. It will be a great blow to him as to me."

"I know. I wish it were in my power to spare him this misery. But, in common honesty, I cannot."

"And have you thought of what is to become of me when I am turned out of my husband's house?" she inquired in a composed voice. Her adroit mind had evidently adapted itself to the altered circ.u.mstances, and was now busied in turning them, as far as possible, to her own advantage.

"You have George Dutton to fall back upon, also Tommie Esmond," was Murchison's retort.

She snapped her fingers in a fashion that was almost vulgar, and she was so free from vulgar actions.

"George is thankful that I can, from time to time, fling him a ten-pound note; his luck has deserted him. Tommie Esmond, I believe, saved a bit out of the wreck, but he has not more than enough to keep body and soul together."

"Guy is not a man to behave ungenerously, however deeply he has been wronged," said Hugh, after he had reflected a few moments. He added more hesitatingly, "And if Guy should take an obdurate att.i.tude, it is possible I might come to your a.s.sistance. I have hunted you down, but I do not want to drive you into the gutter."

"But a man must support his wife, even if her past has not been quite so respectable as it might have been," she cried defiantly.

Hugh directed upon her a searching look. "Mrs Spencer, it is in my mind that you may not be Guy's wife after all. If I probed a little deeper, I might get at your real relations with this George Dutton, or rather Burton."

"Oh, this time you are really pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp, I a.s.sure you.

George has never been anything to me but brother or cousin, as the occasion demanded."

She paused a second, and there was a terrified look in her eyes as she added, "But even if your suspicions were correct, which they are not, you would not go back from your own promise. If Guy proved obdurate, you would not drive me to the gutter. You promised me that."

"I shall keep my promise, Mrs Spencer, and I will give it you in writing, if you wish."

"It would be as well. And you will want something from me in writing also, I expect," she concluded shrewdly.

"Certainly I shall," said Hugh steadily. "I shall draw up a full confession for you to sign, to prevent you from ever troubling your husband again--if, as I suggested just now, he is your husband."