“There, darling, all your responsibility is over,” he said. “I will keep it for you now. I will just open it and show you what it is, but do not come too close or try to snatch it. There! Names of happy couples one below the other, and in the space next the name the date of their marriage. Half-way down the page you see the names we are looking for, Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord Stanier and the date, March the first, 1893.”
He turned to Nino and spoke in Italian.
“And you, Nino,” he said, “you saw me take this paper out of the drawer of the signora’s looking-glass. And now you see me—give me a big envelope from the table—you see me put it in this envelope and close it—it is as if I did a conjuring trick—and I sit down and write on the envelope for the signora to read. I say that in your presence and in mine the enclosed was taken from the secret drawer in the looking-glass where it had been placed for safe custody by Violet Stanier, Countess of Yardley, and given into the care of her husband, Colin Stanier, Earl of Yardley. Sign it, Nino, and observe that I sign. I date it also. That’s all, Nino; you may go.”
Colin laid his hand on Violet’s neck.
“It has been trying for you, dear,” he said. “Rest a little. But your mind may be at ease now; the anxiety of having that in your possession is removed, and it will be in safe keeping. I will give it at once to my lawyer, with instructions that it is to be delivered to no one except to me in person, and that at my death it is to be destroyed unopened. It entirely depends on yourself as to whether it ever sees the light again.... And then, when you are rested, shall we go for one of our delicious rambles in the park. What’s that line of Wordsworth? ‘This one day we’ll give to idleness.’ Thank you, darling, for your lovely birthday present.”
Never on Walpurgis Night nor at Black Mass had there ever been so fervent an adorer to his god as Colin, so satanic a rite as that which he had performed on this birthday morning. No need was there for him to make any vow of lip-service, or by any acceptation of the parchment that was set in the frame of the Holbein, to confirm his allegiance. The spirit was more than the letter, and in no wanton ecstasy of evil could he have made a more sacramental dedication of himself. It was not enough for him to have forged, ever so cunningly, the evidence which, while Raymond lived, proved his illegitimacy, nor, more cunningly yet, to have got rid of that evidence when Raymond’s death cleared for him the steps to the throne. He must in the very flower and felicity of wickedness preserve that evidence in order to produce it as the handiwork of his wife. The edifice would have been incomplete otherwise; it would have lacked that soaring spire of infamy. But now all was done, and on his birthday came the consecration of the abominable temple of himself to the spirit he adored.
He came to her room that night and sat as he so often did on the edge of her bed.
“You have been perfect to me to-day, darling,” he said. “You have given me the happiest birthday. You have been so quiet and serene and controlled. And have you been happy?”
“Yes, Colin,” said she.
He pulled off his tie and flapped her fingers with the end of it.