"I would have sworn to that as Lord Littimer's own," she gasped.
"It is his own," Bell replied. "Stolen from him and a copy placed by some arch-enemy in my portmanteau, it was certain to be found on the frontier. Don't you see that there were two Rembrandts? When the one from my portmanteau was restored to Littimer his own was kept by the thief. Subsequently it would be exposed as a new find, with some story as to its discovery, only, unfortunately for the scoundrel, it came into my possession."
"And where did you find it?" Enid asked. "I found it," Bell said, slowly, "in a house called 218, Brunswick Square, Brighton."
A strange cry came from Enid's lips. She stood swaying before her lover, white as the paper upon which her eyes were eagerly fixed. Margaret Henson was pacing up and down the room, her lips muttering, and raising a cloud of pallid dust behind her.
"I—I am sorry," Enid said, falteringly. "And all these years I have deemed you guilty. But then the proof was so plain; I could not deny the evidence of my own senses. And Von Gulden came to me saying how deeply distressed he was, and that he would have prevented the catastrophe if he could. Well?"
A servant stood waiting in the doorway with wondering eyes at the sight of a stranger.
"I'm sorry, miss," she said, "but Miss Christiana is worse; indeed, she quite frightens me. I've taken the liberty of telephoning to Dr. Walker."
The words seemed to bring consciousness to Margaret Henson.
"Christiana worse," she said. "Another of them going; it will be a happy release from a house of sorrow like this. I will come up, Martin."
She swept out of the room after the servant. Enid appeared hardly to have heard. Bell looked at her inquiringly and with some little displeasure.