“It was my fault,” she muttered. “His blood is on my head!”
“That is a morbid thought,” pronounced Valeria firmly, “and one you must not allow to stay in your mind. The fate of every man is bound about his neck. Frederick Huffe was fated to die by his own hand, and no action of yours could have prevented it.”
But Loree shook her head, and tears streamed down her face.
“How little I dreamed that it had anything to do with me when I read it in the papers next day!—and how heartlessly I passed it over. All that moved me was thankfulness that no journalist had mentioned anything about my diamonds. I thought at the time that it was accident, but now I suppose that too can be traced back to Heseltine Quelch’s power?”
“Yes. He has power in this place. I think there can be no doubt that he used it to prevent the journalists from saying anything about the chain you were wearing.”
“And what about Mrs Solano? How did he account to her for giving me the jewels? Oh! what can she think of me?”
“You need not worry about that. Mrs Solano is under many obligations to Heseltine Quelch, I believe, but he did not follow that line. He told her the whole story and threw himself on her mercy. She is a strange woman and in some ways a very fine one. She understood both Quelch’s passion for you, and your passion for the gems, and she consented to sell the chain to him and to keep her lips sealed forever. He at once wrote her out a cheque for 50,000 pounds—double what she had asked. They can do big things these Jews, as well as small ones.”
“But she makes another who knows!”
“I tell you Rachel Solano is a great woman, for all her sins. You need never fear her.”
“I fear him,” cried the desolate, shivering girl. “I shall never be able to escape him. Every one in this hotel is his tool.”