Myra turned to her, caught her cousin to her breast, and kissed her rapidly twice. Then, thrusting her away, she whispered faintly:
“Go now—go, dear. I can bear no more;” and when, a few moments later, Edie looked back from the door she was about to close, Myra was in the act of sinking upon her knees by the bedside, where she buried her face in her hands.
But hardly had the door closed when she sprang to her feet, and hurried across to shoot the bolt, and then stand with her hands to her head, and starting eyes, picturing in imagination the scene of the past night. The darkness and James Barron—her husband—the man who had haunted her night and day in connection with the hour when he would come back and claim her, not at the end of seven years, but earlier, released before his time—that man—while she sat below in her room at the piano—yes, she recalled vividly every minute of the previous night—she sat playing the melodies of old ballads, favourites of her father, with Percy Guest talking to Edie, and at that time this man was fighting to escape—this man, her horror. And had he succeeded he would have come there.
She shuddered as, from the brief description of the struggle, she saw him trying to descend the rocky face of the cliff, stumble when shots were fired, and fall headlong upon the cruel stones.
It was horrible—too horrible to bear; and yet she felt obliged to dwell upon it all, and go over it again and again, shuddering at the pictures her active brain evoked till the agony was maddening.
Then, to make her horror culminate, doubt stepped in to ask her, as if in an insidious whisper, whether she could believe it to be all true, and not some reporter’s error.
She felt as if she were withering beneath some cold mental blast, and in spite of the horror, her hopes and dreams, which would have place, shrank back again. For it might be a mistake. Some other wretched man had striven to escape, and in the hurry and darkness had been mistaken for her husband.
But hope came again directly, and while shuddering at the thoughts, she recalled how explicit it had all been. There could be no mistake. She was wife no longer—tied no more by those hated bonds to a wretched adventurer—a forger—whose sole aim had been to get her father’s money—she was free, and Malcolm Stratton had told her—
She shuddered again at the horror of dwelling upon such thoughts at a moment when her ears were stunned by the news of death; but the thoughts were imperious. She had never loved this man, and the ceremony had only been performed under misapprehension. Once more she was free—free to follow the bent of her affections—free to give herself to the man she knew she loved.
What had Malcolm Stratton said—what had he said?