Chapter Twenty One. Two Hearts.

The truth was plain. Bob Raymond, the man whom I had believed to be my friend, had endeavoured to dissuade me from following up the clue I had obtained, fearing lest I should discover the whole of the strange conspiracy.

I pressed him for an explanation of how he had been able to recognise her, but with marvellous tact he answered—

“Oh, I recognised her from your descriptions, you know.”

Frankly I did not believe it. Whether he had a personal acquaintance with her or not, it was nevertheless manifest that she was actually in London at a time when she was believed to be at Atworth; and further, that not knowing of my change of address, had been in search of me.

Why had she not rung the bell and inquired? There seemed but a single answer to that question; because she feared to meet Bob!

I scented suspicion. In our conversation that followed I detected, on his part, a strenuous determination to evade any explanation. That he was actually acquainted with Beryl was apparent. Perhaps, even, he knew the truth regarding my strange marriage, and, from motives of his own, refused to tell me.

Anger arose within me, but I preserved a diplomatic calm, striving to worm his secret from him. Either he would not or could not tell me anything. In that hour of affluence, after all the penury of past years, I was perhaps a trifle egotistical, as men who suddenly receive an unexpected legacy are apt to be. Money has a greater influence upon our temperament or disposition than even love. A few paltry pounds can transform this earth of ours from a hell into a paradise.

I drained my glass, flung my cigarette end into the empty grate, and left my friend with a rather abrupt farewell.

“You’ll let me know if you elicit anything further?” he urged.

“Of course,” I answered, although such was not my intention. Then I went forth walking out to the Hammersmith Road.

The noon was stifling—one of those hot, close, oven-cast days of the London summer—when I was shown into the drawing-room of Gloucester Square, and, after the lapse of a few minutes, my love came forward gladly to meet me.

“It’s awfully kind of you to call, Doctor,” she exclaimed, offering her thin little hand—that hand that on the previous night had been so stiff and cold. “Nora is out, but I expect her in again every moment. She’s gone to the Stores to order things to be sent up to Atworth.”

“And how do you feel?” I inquired, as she seated herself upon a low silken lounge-chair and stretched out her tiny foot, neat in its patent leather slipper with large steel buckle.

She looked cool and fresh in a gown of white muslin relieved with a dash of Nile-green silk at the throat and waist.

“Oh, I am so much better,” she declared. “Except for a slight headache, I feel no ill effects of last night’s extraordinary attack.”

I asked permission to feel her pulse, and found it beating with the regularity of a person in normal health.

As I held her white wrist, her deep clear eyes met mine. In her pure white clinging drapery, with her gold-brown hair making the half-darkened room bright, with her red lips parted in a tender and solemn smile, with something like a halo about her of youth and ardour, she was a vision so entrancing that, as I gazed at her, my heart grew heavy with an aching consciousness of her perfection. And yet she was actually my wife!

I stammered satisfaction that she had recovered so entirely from the strange seizure, and her eyes opened widely, as though in wonder at my inarticulate words.

“Yes,” she said, “the affair was most extraordinary. I cannot imagine what horrid mystery is concealed within that room.”

“Nor I,” I responded. “Has Doctor Hoefer been here yet?”

“Oh yes,” she laughed; “he came at nine o’clock, opened the room, entered, and was seized again, but only slightly. He used the same drug as last night, and quickly recovered. For about an hour he remained, and then left. He’s such a queer old fellow,” she added, with a laugh; “I don’t think he uttered a dozen words during the whole time.”

“No,” I said; “his habit is to give vent to those expressive grunts. When interested his mind seems always so actively centred upon the matter under investigation that to speak is an effort. But tell me,” I urged, glancing into those pure, honest eyes, “have you ever experienced before such a seizure as that last night?”

She turned rather pale, I thought: this direct question seemed not easy to answer.

“I was ill once,” she responded, with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness. “One day, some little time ago, I suddenly fell unconscious, and seemed to dream all sorts of absurd and grotesque things.”

Did she refer to the fateful day of our marriage?

“Were you quite unconscious on that occasion?” I asked quickly, “or were you aware, in a hazy manner, of what was going on around you, as you were last night?”

A wild hope sprang up in my heart. Was it possible that she would reveal to me her secret?

“I think,” she answered, “that my condition then was very similar to that of last night; I recollect quite well being unable to move my limbs or to lift a finger. Every muscle seemed paralysed, while, at the same time, I went as cold as ice, just as though I were frozen to death. Indeed, a horrible dread took possession of me lest my friends should allow me to be buried alive.”

“You were in a kind of cataleptic state,” I remarked. “Who were these friends?”

Her great eyes were lifted. They were full of depths unfathomable even to my intense love.

“I was practically unconscious, therefore I do not know who was present; I only heard voices.”

“Of whom?”

“Of men talking.”

“Could you not recognise them?”

“No,” she answered, in a low tone; “they were dream-voices, strange and weird—sounding afar off.”

“What did they say?”

“I cannot tell, only I recollect that I thought I was in church; I had a curious dream.”

Again she hesitated. Her voice had suddenly fallen so that I could scarcely make out the sound of the last word.

“What did you dream? The vagaries of the brain sometimes give us a clue to the nature of such seizures.”

“I dreamed that I was wedded,” she responded, in a low, unnatural voice.

The next instant she seemed to realise what she had said. With a start of terror she drew herself away from me.

“Wedded? To whom?”

“I do not know,” she replied, with a queer laugh. “Of course, it was a mere dream; I saw no one.”

“But you heard voices?”

“They were so distorted as to be indistinguishable,” she replied readily.

“Are you absolutely certain that the marriage was only a dream?” I asked, looking her straight in the face.

A flash of indignant surprise passed across her features, now pale as marble; her lips were slightly parted, her large full eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, and her fingers pressed themselves into the palms of her hands.

“I don’t understand you, Doctor!” she said at length, after a pause of the most awkward duration. “Of course I am not married?”

“I regret if you take my words as an insinuation,” I said hastily.

“It was a kind of dream,” she declared. “Indeed, I think that I was in a sort of delirium and imagined it all, for when I recovered completely I found myself here, in my own room, with Nora at my side.”

“And where were you when you were taken ill?”

“In the house of a friend.”

“May I not know the name?” I inquired.

“It is a name with which you are not acquainted,” she assured me. “The house at which I was visiting was in Queen’s-gate Gardens.”

Queen’s-gate Gardens! Then she was telling the truth!

“And you have no knowledge of how you came to be back here in your cousin’s house?”

“None whatever. I tell you that I was entirely unconscious.”

“And you are certain that the symptoms on that day were the same as those which we all experienced last night? You felt frozen to death?”

“Yes,” she responded, lying back in her chair, sighing rather wearily and passing her hand across her aching brow.

There was a deep silence. We could hear the throbbing of each other’s heart. At last she looked up tremblingly, with an expression of undissembled pain, saying—

“The truth is, Doctor, it was an absolute mystery, just as were the events of last night—a mystery which is driving me to desperation.”

“It’s not the mystery that troubles you,” I said, in a low earnest voice, “but the recollection of that dream-marriage, is it not?”

“Exactly,” she faltered.

“You do not recollect the name announced by the clergyman, as that of your husband?” I inquired, eagerly.

“I heard it but once, and it was strange and unusual; the droning voice stumbled over it indistinctly, therefore I could not catch it.”

She was in ignorance that she was my bride. Her heart was beating rapidly, the lace on her bosom trembled as she slowly lifted her eyes to mine. Could she ever love me?

A thought of young Chetwode stung me to the quick. He was my rival, yet I was already her husband.

“I have been foolish to tell you all this,” she said presently, with a nervous laugh. “It was only a dream—a dream so vivid that I have sometimes thought it was actual truth.”

Her speech was the softest murmur, and the beautiful face, nearer to mine than it had been before, was looking at me with beseeching tenderness. Then her eyes dropped, a martyr pain passed over her face, her small hands sought each other as though they must hold something, the fingers clasped themselves, and her head drooped.

“I am glad you have told me,” I said. “The incident is certainly curious, judged in connexion with the unusual phenomena of last night.”

“Yes, but I ought not to have told you,” she said slowly. “Nora will be very angry.”

“Why?”

“Because she made me promise to tell absolutely no one,” she answered, with a faint sharpness in her voice. There were loss and woe in those words of hers.

“What motive had she in preserving your secret?” I asked, surprised. “Surely she is—”

My love interrupted me.

“No, do not let us discuss her motives or her actions; she is my friend. Let us not talk of the affair any more, I beg of you.”

She was pale as death, and it seemed as though a tremor ran through all her limbs.

“But am I not also your friend, Miss Wynd?” I asked in deep seriousness.

“I—I hope you are.”

Her voice was timid, troubled; but her sincere eyes again lifted themselves to mine.

“I assure you that I am,” I declared. “If you will but give me your permission I will continue, with Hoefer, to seek a solution of this puzzling problem.”

“It is so uncanny,” she said. “To me it surpasses belief.”

“I admit that. At present, to leave that room is to invite death. We must, therefore, make active researches to ascertain the truth. We must find your strange visitor in black.”

“Find her?” she gasped. “You could never do that.”

“Why not? She is not supernatural; she lives and is in hiding somewhere, that’s evident.”

“And you would find her, and seek from her the truth?”

“Certainly.”

She shut her lips tight and sat motionless, looking at me. Then at last she said, shuddering—

“No. Not that.”

“Then you know this woman—or at least you guess her identity,” I said in a low voice.

She gazed at me with parted lips.

“I have already told you that I do not know her,” was her firm response.

“Then what do you fear?” I demanded.

Again she was silent. Whatever potential complicity had lurked in her heart, my words brought her only immeasurable dismay.

“I dread such an action for your own sake,” she faltered.

“Then I will remain till your cousin comes, and ask her what it is.”

“Ask her?”