“It is no use talking to me in this way. I know all,” answered Lady Gwendolyn gloomily. “Mr. Belmont confessed the truth with almost his last breath.”
“What truth? I wish you would not be so enigmatical, Gwen. When I can’t understand people directly they always bore me.”
“Very well, since you will have it, he said he had been poisoned.”
“Poisoned!” echoed Lady Teignmouth, in a tone of incredulity that was unmistakably genuine. “I don’t believe it! He was with me for nearly an hour, and though he threatened all sorts of foolish things—as men do under those circumstances—I am sure he never dreamed of carrying them out.”
“Pauline!” cried her sister-in-law, “will you swear that you had no hand in Mr. Belmont’s death?”
“I? Why, really, Gwen, you must be mad!” And Lady Teignmouth looked at her anxiously. “How could I possibly have had anything to do with it?”
“He was in your way,” said Lady Gwendolyn, so much impressed by the other’s manner, that she actually began to believe in her innocence.
“Not at all. I never allow any one to be in my way. If he and I had both lived to be a hundred years old, I should not have spoken to him again.”
“But he might have spoken to you.”
“I don’t think he would, for, with all his faults, he was a gentleman. You may depend upon it,” she added argumentatively, “that he died of heart-disease. Those strong-looking men often have some secret malady that carries them off suddenly.”