“Act three. Anna comes to London. She is poor, and she will take nothing from my husband, the man she had deceived for my sake, and he, on his part, gravely disapproves of her as ‘Alcide.’ She tries every way of earning a living and fails. Then she goes to a dramatic agent. Curiously enough nothing will persuade him that she is not ‘Alcide.’ He believes that she denies it simply because owing to my marriage with Sir John, whom they call the ‘Puritan Knight,’ she wants to keep her identity secret. He forces an engagement upon her. She never calls herself ‘Alcide.’ It is the Press who find her out. She is the image of what I was like, and she has a better voice. Then enter Mr. Hill again—alive. He meets Anna, and claims her as his wife. It is Anna again who stands between me and ruin.”
“I cannot let you go on,” Ennison interrupted. “I believe that I can give you great news. Tell me where the fellow Hill took you for this marriage ceremony.”
“It was behind the Place de Vendome, on the other side from the Ritz.”
“I knew it,” Ennison exclaimed. “Cheer up, Annabel. You were never married at all. That place was closed by the police last month. It was a bogus affair altogether, kept by some blackguard or other of an Englishman. Everything was done in the most legal and imposing way, but the whole thing was a fraud.”
“Then I was never married to him at all?” Annabel said.
“Never—but, by Jove, you had a narrow escape,” Ennison exclaimed. “Annabel, I begin to see why you are here. Think! Had you not better hurry back before Sir John discovers? You are his wife right enough. You can tell me the rest another time.”
She smiled faintly.
“The rest,” she said, holding tightly to his hands, “is the most important of all. You came to me, you wished me to speak to Anna. I went to her rooms to-night. There was no one at home, and I was coming away when I saw that the door was open. I decided to go in and wait. In her sitting-room I found Montague Hill. He had gained admission somehow, and he too was waiting for Anna. But—he was cleverer than any of you. He knew me, Nigel. ‘At last,’ he cried, ‘I have found you!’ He would listen to nothing. He swore that I was his wife, and—I shot him, Nigel, as his arms were closing around me. Shot him, do you hear?”
“Good God!” he exclaimed, looking at her curiously. “Is this true, Annabel? Is he dead?”
She nodded.