Whoso Findeth a Wife. Le Queux William

be firm. This was, I resolved, to be our last interview.

      “Because I – I was foolish and weak, and – ” She paused, sighing deeply.

      “Well?” I said cynically. “What other excuse?”

      “Yes, yes,” she cried brokenly. “I know they are mean, paltry excuses. I know I am trying to make you believe it was not my own fault, yet – ” and pausing again, she raised her clear blue eyes to mine with passionate glance, “and yet, Geoffrey, I love you in a manner I have loved no other man before.”

      “You have a strange way of exhibiting this so-called affection,” I observed coldly. “You actually encouraged the advances of the man in whom I reposed foolish and ill-placed confidence.”

      “For a purpose. I never loved him – never,” she protested, trembling.

      “You had a reason? A strange one, I should think,” I exclaimed angrily. “Indeed, at this very moment you are mourning the loss of this man.”

      “Dudley Ogle was not your enemy, Geoffrey. He was your friend,” she answered, with a tremor in her voice. “Some day I will prove this to you. I cannot now. It is impossible.”

      “Why?”

      “I dare not!”

      “Dare not! What do you fear?” I demanded in surprise, instantly releasing her hand.

      “The consequences would be fatal to our love,” she gasped. Then, after a pause, she clutched my arm, and, burying her beautiful face upon my shoulder, sobbed bitterly.

      “Our love!” I echoed contemptuously. Notwithstanding the fierceness of my anger, I smoothed her dark gold hair, and presently, when she grew a trifle calmer, endeavoured to discover the meaning of her strange, enigmatical words.

      “You cannot know – you will never know – how dearly I have loved you, Geoffrey,” she cried, in answer to my eager questions. “Neither will you ever know how much I have suffered, how hard I have striven for your sake.”

      “For my sake! Yet you admit having allowed Dudley Ogle to utter words that I alone had a right to utter!”

      “Yes, I admit all,” she said, with a tragic touch of sorrow in her strained voice. “I deny nothing.”

      “And you come to me asking forgiveness, believing that I can again trust you without hearing any explanation of your recent strange conduct with Beck, as well as with Dudley! I think you must regard me, Ella, as a weak, impressionable fool,” I added, with bitter sarcasm.

      “No, I do not,” she cried quickly. “I appeal to your generosity towards a woman. I have been compelled to act against my own inclinations, compelled, in order to outwit my enemies, to act a part despicable and revolting. I can now only ask forgiveness,” and, throwing herself suddenly upon her knees before me, she cried, “See! Geoffrey, I crave one grain of pity from you, my old friend, the only man I have loved!”

      “No, Ella,” I answered, quickly withdrawing my hand that she was pressing to her hot, fevered lips. “I may pity you, but forgive you never.”

      “Never!” she gasped, clasping her breast with her hands as if to stay the wild beating of her heart, and struggling unevenly to her feet. “Why never?”

      “Because you have deceived me.”

      “Yes, yes!” she wailed. “I admit it, I admit it all, but I swear my actions were imperative. Ah! alas that you cannot know everything, or you would kiss me as fondly as you used to do. You, Geoffrey, would love me with a love even more tender and passionate than before, if only you were aware of what I have suffered for your sake.”

      I turned from her in disgust. Her tragic attitude filled me with loathing and contempt, for I knew she was lying.

      “Can you never again trust me?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice. “Will you never forgive?”

      “I can have no further confidence in a woman who has practised such artful deception as you have,” I answered, turning again towards her, and noticing the look of unutterable sadness in her tearful eyes.

      “Deception!” she cried, starting. “What do you mean? What have I done?”

      “You acknowledge having deceived me wilfully with all the deep cunning of an adventuress, yet you refuse me one word of explanation, either in regard to Beck or Dudley?”

      “There is nothing to explain, as far as Mr Beck is concerned,” she answered demurely. “He is an old friend, and your suspicions that there was any love between us are absolutely absurd.”

      “Why, then, did you confess in your letter that you were unworthy of my love!” I demanded with warmth, walking towards her.

      She hung her head. There was a deep silence, broken only by the low ticking of the clock. In a few moments her hand stole in search of mine, and, engrossed in my own sad thoughts, I let it linger there.

      “Geoffrey,” she said at length, timidly.

      I gazed out upon the sunlit river, watching a boatful of happy holiday folk pass by, and remained stolidly unconscious.

      “Geoffrey,” she repeated, “I tried ever so long to refrain from that confession, yet was unable. But I did not allude to Mr Beck. It was my conduct with Dudley that caused me to become a conscience-stricken wretch. I feared from day to day that you might discover our many long excursions and the idle afternoons we spent up the backwaters; he lazy and indolent, I using all my woman’s wiles to fascinate him and bring him to my feet.”

      “And you succeeded,” I interrupted huskily.

      “Yes, I succeeded,” she went on, speaking slowly, almost mechanically. “I had set my mind upon victory, and I achieved it after weeks and weeks of striving, dreading always that you might discover the truth, and fearing lest my conduct should appear in your eyes too serious for forgiveness. The blow that I dreaded has now fallen,” she cried, with a choking sob. “Dudley is dead, and I, compelled to speak the truth, have publicly acknowledged myself unworthy of your love.”

      “Is it not best that I should know the truth?” I asked seriously. “You render your behaviour the more unpardonable by the absurd falsehoods you wish me to believe.”

      “I do not wish you to believe any falsehoods,” she cried resentfully, her bright eyes flashing as she glanced at me. “What I have now told you is the truth. I swear it before Heaven!”

      “You deliberately flirted with Dudley, with an object in view. Oh, no!” I laughed with contempt, “that is too lame a tale.”

      “It is the truth,” she said, looking me straight in the face, her nervous hands toying with her rings. “Even though you may believe ill of me, I have lost neither honour nor self-respect. I acted under compulsion, to achieve one object.”

      “And I hope you have gained the mysterious end you had in view,” I said, with bitter sarcasm.

      “Yes, I have,” she replied, with an intenseness in her voice that surprised me. “I have gained my object even at risk of being discarded by you, Geoffrey, and being branded as a base adventuress.”

      “Even at the cost of the life of the man you deceived?” I hazarded.

      She started at my words. Her pale lips trembled, and in her eyes was a strange look, as if haunted by some spectral fear. The effect of this remark was extraordinary, and I at once added, —

      “Remember, you suspect that Dudley’s death was not due to natural causes.”

      “Suspect?” she cried. “I know he was foully murdered.”

      “By whom?” I inquired, with breathless eagerness.

      “I have yet to discover that,” she answered, in a low voice. “But I will make the elucidation of the mystery the one object of my life. It is I alone who will avenge his murder.”

      “Your very words betray your love for him,” I exclaimed, disgusted.

      “I tell you it is not because