I looked her in the eyes. "That's not true. Mrs. Brandreth," I flung at her, brutally. "In spite of what I've said, you're afraid of me. I give you my most sacred word that you shall be protected if you will help, as you alone can, to save Ralston Murray. It is only if you refuse your help that you may suffer. In that case, my husband and I will fight for our friend. We won't consider you at all. Now that we have a strong clue to this seeming mystery, and it is already close to our hands, everything that you have done or have not done will soon come out."
The beautiful woman broke down and began to cry. "What I did I had a right to do!" she sobbed. "There was no harm! It was as much for the sake of my husband's future happiness as my own, but if he finds out he'll never love or trust me again. Men are so cruel!"
"Tell me who went to England in your place, when you pretended to sail, and he sha'n't find out. Only ourselves and Ralston Murray need ever know," I urged.
"It was—my twin sister," she gasped, "my sister Mary-Rose Hillier, who sailed on the Aquitania as Mrs. Guy Brandreth. It was the only way I could think of, so that I could be near my husband and watch him without his having the slightest suspicion of what was going on. Mary-Rose owed me a lot of money which I couldn't really afford to do without. It was when she was still in England, before she came to America, that I let her have it. My mother was dreadfully ill, and Mary-Rose adored her. She wanted to call in great specialists, and begged me to help her. At first I thought I couldn't. Guy and I are not rich! But he was flirting with a woman—a cat of a woman: you saw her last night. I was nearly desperate. Suddenly an idea came to me. I sold a rope of pearls I had, first getting it copied, and making my sister promise she would do whatever I asked if I sent her the thousand pounds she wanted. You look shocked—I suppose because I bargained over my mother's health. But my husband was more to me than my mother or any one else. Besides, Mother hadn't wished me to marry Guy. She didn't want me to jilt Ralston Murray. I couldn't forgive her for the way she behaved, and I never saw her after my runaway wedding."
"So it was you, and not your sister, who was engaged to Ralston Murray eight years ago!" I couldn't resist.
"Yes. It happened abroad—as you know, perhaps. Mary-Rose was away at a boarding school, and they never met. The whole affair was so short, so quickly over, I doubt if I ever even told Ralston that my sister and I were twins. But he gave me a lot of lovely presents, and refused to take them back—wrote that he'd burn them, pearls and all, if I sent them to him. Yes, the pearls I sold were a gift from him when we were engaged. And there were photographs of Ralston that Mary-Rose wouldn't let me destroy. She kept them herself. She was sorry for Ralston—hearing the story, and seeing some of his letters. She was a romantic girl, and thought him the ideal man. She was half in love, without having seen him in the flesh."
"That is why she couldn't resist, on the Aquitania," I murmured. "When Ralston asked her to marry him, she fell in love with the reality, I suppose. Poor girl, what she must have gone through, unable to tell him the truth, because she'd pledged herself to keep your secret, whatever happened! I begin to see the whole thing now! When your mother died in spite of the specialists, you made the girl come over to this side, without your husband or any one knowing. You hid her in New York. You planned your trip to Europe. You left Washington. Your cabin was taken on the Aquitania, and Mary-Rose Hillier sailed as Rosemary Brandreth, wearing clothes of yours, and even using the same perfume."
"You've guessed it," she confessed. "We'd arranged what to do, in case Guy went to the ship with me. But he and I were rather on official terms because of things I'd said about Mrs. Dupont, and he let me travel to New York alone. I learned from a famous theatrical wig-maker how to disguise myself, and I lived in lodgings not half a mile from our house for three months, watching what he did every day. At first I didn't find out much, but later I began to see that I'd done him an injustice. He didn't care seriously for the Dupont woman. It was only a flirtation. So I was in a hurry to get Mary-Rose over here again, and reappear myself."
"Why did you have to insist on her coming back to America?" I asked, trying not to show how disgusted I was with the selfishness of the creature—selfishness which had begun long ago, in throwing Ralston over, and now without a thought had wrecked her sister's life.
"Oh, to have her book her passage in my name and sail for home was the only safe way! All had gone so well, I wouldn't spoil it at the end."