Susan started, and looked uneasily around her. She could not mask her terror now. Could Catherine King, indeed, know that black secret, which she had fondly imagined her own soul alone possessed? She said to herself it was impossible. How could Catherine have found that out? So she tried to smile, and determined to brazen it out.
Catherine, who was scrutinizing her face, read the expression of it. So she came close to her and whispered into her ear for nearly a minute.
Susan caught every damning word of the story of her ancient crime, and her livid face and twitching lips confessed to her guilt.
Her accuser stepped back a few paces and smiled as she read the effects of the communication on the cowardly features, then she spoke again, this time aloud:
"Now, remember this, Susan Riley. If you ever again approach Mary Duncan—if you write letters to her, or annoy her in the slightest or most indirect manner—Scotland Yard shall know your little secret. Dr. Duncan shall know it to-morrow. He will use it to defend his wife, if you ever dare to renew your malicious cowardly attacks. You understand me, don't you?"
"I am not a fool," answered Susan in a voice choking with vain spite.
"And I have something more to say, you must leave London within four days. You must never return to it, nor come within a hundred miles of it. You will be closely watched. Remember that there is a mightier Society than the one you were initiated into; a Society of which you know nothing, though ours was in reality but a branch of it. It is a Society that has a myriad eyes, and a myriad secret weapons which it can use well against traitors. Remember that you have committed one of the greatest crimes that a member of a Secret Society can commit. You prostituted the methods of political execution to private malice, when you murdered the barrister Hudson. This has been marked down against you. You will have now to obey my orders; and take care that you do not slip again. Wherever you are, your every action will be watched, you cannot escape. Why, fool! you little guessed that we have known all your doings for the last many years; your secret thoughts were hardly hidden from us. Now you have received your orders; will you obey them?"
Susan did not reply for some time; she hung down her head as she pondered over it all. She did not wish Catherine to see her face on which she felt that the anguish of defeat was too plainly written. All her brazen effrontery had vanished now. She knew that she could not fight longer against the heavy odds that were opposed to her. At last having succeeded in smothering her feelings to some extent, she replied to Catherine's question in a dogged voice,
"I must yield to the force of circumstances; I will go away from London."
"Very good!" said Catherine, "I will now leave you. We will never meet again. I cannot wish you a farewell—it would be a vain wish, for you will never know happiness again. I almost pity you sometimes—poor wretch! With that unfortunate temperament of yours, what a Hell you will make to yourself, and carry about with you in your mind wherever you go, now that you are getting old and ugly, now that those transitory joys which were your only joys have forsaken you! Your bitterest enemy could not wish you a more terrible retribution for your many sins. I almost think it would be a mercy to put you out of your agony at once, to hand you over to the police now."