Chapter Twelve. “You! Of All Men!”

“No,” I admitted, “I was not aware who Aline Cloud was, nor did I know that you were acquainted with her.”

She started. She had unwittingly betrayed herself.

“I—acquainted with her!” she cried in a voice of indignation. “You are mistaken.”

“But you know her by repute,” I said. “Tell me the truth about her.”

She laughed, a light, nervous laugh, her eyes still fixed upon the water.

“You love her!” she exclaimed. “It is useless for me to say anything.”

“No, no, Muriel,” I cried. “I do not love her. How could I love her when I know nothing whatsoever of her? Why, I only saw her twice.”

“But you were with her a sufficient length of time to declare your love.”

How could she know? I wondered. Aline herself must have told her. She uttered a falsehood when she declared that she did not know the mysterious fair-faced woman whose power was so mysterious and unnatural.

I was puzzled.

“Well,” I said at length, “I admit it. I admit that in a moment of mad ecstasy I made a foolish declaration of affection—an avowal which I have ever since regretted.”

She gave me a pitying, scornful look, a glance which proved to me how fierce was her hatred of Aline.

“If you had told me of your fascination I might have been able to have explained the truth concerning her. But as you have thought fit to preserve your secret, no end can now be gained by the exposure of anything I know,” she said, quite calmly.

“What do you know about her, Muriel?” I inquired, laying my hand upon her arm in all seriousness. “Tell me.”

But she shook her head, rather sadly perhaps. The bright expression of happiness which had illuminated her countenance until that moment had died away and been replaced by a look of dull despair. The sun shone down upon her brightly, the birds were singing in the trees and all around was gladness, but she seemed troubled and oppressed as one heartbroken.

“No!” she answered in a low tone, her breast slowly heaving and falling. “If you have really escaped the enthralment it is enough. You may congratulate yourself.”

“Why?”

“Merely because you have avoided the pitfall set in your path,” she answered. “She was beautiful. It was because of her loveliness that you became entranced, was it not?”

“There is no necessity to conceal anything,” I said.

“You speak the truth.”

“And you had some illustrations of the evil influence which lay within her?” Muriel asked.

I recollected how my crucifix had been mysteriously reduced to ashes, and nodded in the affirmative, wondering whether I should ever succeed in obtaining knowledge of the truth which she evidently possessed.

“Yet you had the audacity to love her!” she laughed. “You thought that she—this woman whom all the world would hound down if they knew the true facts—could love you in return! It is amazing how a pretty face can lead the strongest-willed man to ruin.”

I rather resented her attitude in thus interfering in my private affairs. That I admired her was true; yet I was not her lover, and she had no right to object to any of my actions.

“I cannot see that I have been so near ruin as you would make out,” I exclaimed, philosophically. “An unrequited love is an incident in most men’s lives.”

“Ah! she spared you!” she cried. “If she had smitten you, you would have perished as swiftly as objects dissolve into ashes when she is present. At least she pitied you. And you were doubly fortunate.”

“Yes,” I said, reflecting upon her words, at the same time recollecting her mysterious connection with poor Roddy Morgan. “She was without doubt endowed with a power that was inexplicable.”

“Inexplicable!” she echoed. “It was supernatural. Things withered at her touch.”

“If I, your friend, am fortunate in my escape, would it not be but an act of friendship to explain to me all you know concerning her?”

Her dark, luminous eyes met mine in a long, earnest glance.

“No!” she answered, after a moment’s reflection. “I have already explained. You have escaped; the incident is ended.” And she added with a laugh, “Your neglect of me was, of course, fully justified in such circumstances.”

“Now, that’s unfair, Muriel,” I exclaimed. “I had no intention of neglecting you, neither had I the slightest suspicion that you desired me to say farewell to you. Have you not told me that you have an admirer whom you could love? Surely that is sufficient. Love him, and we may always remain friends, as we now are.”

“No!” she responded, with a dark look of foreboding. “We cannot remain friends longer. Our mutual confidence is shattered. We may be acquaintances, but nothing more.”

I had not mentioned poor Roddy’s death, for it was a subject so painful that I discussed it as little as possible. Was it not, however, likely that if I explained all the circumstances and told her my suspicions, her hatred might lead her to disclose some clue whereby I might trace Aline Cloud?

Her words had caused me considerable misgiving, for it was now entirely plain that, contrary to what I had confidently believed, namely, that she loved me, she in reality held me in contempt as weak and fickle, influenced by every pretty face or wayward glance.

I looked at her again. Yes, my eyes were not love-blinded now. She was absolutely bewitching in her beauty. For the first time I became aware that there was but one woman I really loved, and that it was Muriel.

“I regret that you should not consider me to be still worthy your confidence,” I said, bending towards her seriously. “I have admitted everything, and have expressed regret. What more can I do?”

“Forget her!” she answered, with a quick petulance. “It is best to forget.”

“Ah!” I sighed. “That is unfortunately impossible.”

“Then you love her still!” she cried, turning upon me. “You love her!”

“No,” I answered. “I do not love her, because—”

“Because she treated you shabbily, and left without giving you her address, eh? You see, I know all the circumstances.”

“You are mistaken,” I protested. “I do not love her because I entertain a well-founded if perhaps absurd suspicion.”

“Suspicion! What do you suspect?” she asked quickly.

Then, linking my arm in hers, I walked on, and commencing at the beginning told her of that fateful day when I discovered the tragic death of poor Roddy, and the circumstances which, combined with Aline’s own confession, seemed to point to her being his visitor, immediately prior to his death.

As she listened her face grew ashen, and she perceptibly trembled. A violent emotion shook her slight frame, and as I continued to relate my dismal story and piece together the evidence which I felt certain must some day connect Aline with the tragedy, I was dumbfounded to discern that which, in a single instant, changed the whole aspect of the situation.

Muriel was speechless. She was trembling with fear.

“And you really suspect that your friend was murdered?” she exclaimed at last in the voice of one preoccupied. “If that had been really so, wouldn’t the doctors have known?”

“Medical evidence is not always reliable,” I answered. “From what I have already explained it is proved conclusively that some one visited him in his valet’s absence.”

“Who called there, do you think?”

“Ah! I don’t know,” I answered. “That is what I am endeavouring to discover.”

She gave a slight, almost imperceptible sigh. It was a sigh of relief!

Could it be true that my little friend held locked within her breast the secret of Roddy’s tragic end? I glanced again at her face as she strolled by my side. Yes, her countenance was now pale and agitated, its aspect entirely changed from what it had been half an hour before.

“Why cannot you tell me something of Aline?” I asked quietly, after a long silence.

“Because I am as entirely ignorant of her as you are,” she answered without hesitation. “All I know is that she is a strange person—a woman possessed of powers so marvellous as to appear almost supernatural. Indeed, she seems the very incarnation of the Evil One himself. It was because of that I was angry when I knew that her beauty had entranced you.”

“But you are acquainted with her,” I declared. “Your words prove that.”

“No, I have had no dealings with her,” she answered. “I should fear to have, lest I should fall beneath her evil influence.”

“Then how did you know of my acquaintance with her?” I asked, noting how charming she was, and wondering within myself why during all the years that I had known her I had not discovered the true estimate of her beauty until that afternoon.

“The information was conveyed to me,” she responded vaguely.

“And you believed that I had forgotten you, Muriel?” I said tenderly, in a voice of reproach.

“It is certain that you were held powerless under that spell which she can cast over men at will. You reposed in contentment beneath her fascination, and called it love.”

“But it was not love,” I hastened to assure her. “I admired her, it is true, but surely you do not think that I could love a woman who is thus under suspicion?”

“Had your friend ever spoken of her?” she inquired after a brief silence.

“No,” I said. “Aline, however, admitted that she knew him, but strangely enough declared that he had committed suicide at Monte Carlo months before.”

“Then what she said could not be correct,” Muriel observed thoughtfully.

“I really don’t know what to believe,” I answered, bewildered. “Her words were so strange and her influence so subtle and extraordinary that sometimes I feel inclined to think that she was some supernatural and eminently beautiful being who, having wrought in the world the evil which was allotted as her work, has vanished, leaving no more trace than a ray of light in space.”

“Others who have known her have held similar opinions,” my pretty companion said. “Yet she was apparently of flesh and blood like all of us. At any rate, she ate and drank and slept and spoke like every other human being, and certainly her loves and her hatreds were just as intense as those of any one of us.”

“But her touch was deadly,” I said. “As a magician is able to change things, so at her will certain objects dissolved in air, leaving only a handful of ashes behind. In her soft, white hand was a power for the working of evil which was irresistible, an influence which was nothing short of demoniacal.”

Muriel held her breath, her eyes cast upon the ground. There was a mysteriousness in her manner, such as I had never before noticed.

“You are right—quite right,” she answered. “She was a woman of mystery.”

“Cannot you, now that I have made explanation and told you the reason of my apparent neglect, tell me what you know of her?” I asked earnestly.

“I have no further knowledge,” she assured me. “I know nothing of her personally.”

But her words did not convince me when I remembered how, on explaining my suspicions regarding Aline’s complicity in the crime, she had betrayed an abject fear.

“No,” I said dubiously. “You are concealing something from me, Muriel.”

“Concealing something!” she echoed, with a strange, hollow laugh. “I’m certain I’m not.”

“Well,” I exclaimed, rather impatiently, “to-day you have treated me, your oldest friend, very unfairly. You tell me that I merely consider you a convenient companion to be patronised when I have no other more congenial acquaintance at hand. That I deny. I may have neglected you,” I went on in deep earnestness, as we halted for a moment beneath the great old trees, “but this neglect of late has been owing to the tragedy which has so filled my mind. I have set myself to trace out its author, and nothing shall deter me in my investigations.”

She was blanched to the lips. I noticed how the returning colour died from her face again at my words, but continuing, said—

“We have been friends. Those who know of our friendship would refuse to believe the truth if it were told to them, so eager is the world to ridicule the idea of a purely platonic friendship between man and woman. Yet ours has, until now, been a firm friendship, without a thought of love, without a single affectionate word.”

“That is the reason why I regret that it must now end,” she answered, faltering, her voice half-choked with emotion.

“End! What do you mean?” I cried, dismayed.

“Ah, no!” she exclaimed, putting up both her hands, as if to shut me out from her gaze. “Don’t let us discuss it further. It is sufficient that we can exchange no further confidences. It is best now that this friendship of ours should cease.”

“You are annoyed that I should have preferred the society of that strange, mysterious woman to yours,” I said. “Well, I regret—I shall always regret that we met—for she has only brought me grief, anxiety, and despair. Cannot you forgive me?”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she answered blankly. “To have admired this woman was surely no offence against me?”

“But it was,” I declared, grasping her hand against her will.

“Why?”

I held my breath and looked straight into her dark, luminous eyes. Then, in as firm a voice as I could summon, I said—

“Because—because, Muriel, I love you?”

“Love me!” she gasped, with a look of bewilderment. “No! No!”

“Yes,” I went on, in mad impetuousness, “for years I have loved you, but feared to tell you, because you might regard my declaration as a mere foolish fancy on account of our positions, and impossible of realisation because of the probable opposition of my family. But I have now told you the truth, Muriel. I love you!”

And with my hands holding hers, I bent for the first time to kiss her lips. But in an instant she avoided me, and twisted her gloved fingers from my grasp.

“You must be mad!” she cried, with a glint of indignation in her eyes. “You must be mad to think that I could love you—of all men!”