It was not like Victor to take a noxious drug, nor was he suicidal in feeling. He loved life! He was all gaiety and careless enjoyment of the passing hour, when he was not white-hot with passion.
But could he have lied to her about the age of his "wife"? Then, gazing once more at the face in the photograph, she miserably told herself that that girl could not be termed "hag" and "cat." No, there must be two women! And yet--and yet--
She started. There was a knock and a ring. It could not be Mr. Naz! She glanced interrogatively at the little silver watch she wore which had been her own mother's. It told her that it was half-past eleven. She ran into the front attic--her and her step-mother's bedroom--and looked out of the window. There was a hansom at the door. A man stood on the step below.
She ran downstairs and opened the hall door. It was Paul--pale, serious, faultlessly dressed in half mourning. He bowed low as he took off his hat, and apologized for being early. He was not his own master! He thought of "wiring to her," but his anxiety for an interview urged him not to postpone his visit.
"Come in," said Vera, in a low voice. "My mother is in there, and I want to see you alone," she added, as she cautiously closed the door. "I had better tell her you are here, though. Do you mind coming up to the lumber room, where I am looking through Victor's things? There is nowhere else."
"Anywhere--where we can be alone, Miss Anerley," he gravely said--thinking that if ever human agony had been fully seen in a woman, it was now, in this fragile girl with the pale face drawn with anguish, the great eyes luminous with wild desperation.
He admired her for her self-possession, as he heard her ringing voice telling her step-mother, who was somewhat hard of hearing, that "Victor's kind friend, Mr. Naz, was here, and she would bring him to see her presently--she would first take him upstairs to choose something of dear Victor's as a keepsake."
"She is an actress, of course," he told himself, as he ascended the oil-cloth-covered stairs after her--how strange were these sordid surroundings of a man who had claims upon the wealthy, luxurious Sir Thomas Thorne and his family! "But there is only a little of the actress--the rest is woman--passionate woman!"
Vera mutely conducted him into the disordered lumber-room, amid the dusty boxes and old baskets, where the two open trunks were standing.
"I have been searching his things," she began, abruptly.