"And the result?"
"Can you not guess? He returned to his lodgings to find that his daughter was dead, whereupon he wrote me a note, thanking me for the assistance I had rendered him, and blew his brains out at the back of the Kursaal."
On hearing this I recoiled a step from the picture. While it flattered my vanity to hear that the wretched man who had lost fame, fortune, and everything else should still have retained my work, I could not repress a feeling of horror at the thought that in so doing he had, unconsciously, it is true, been bringing me into connection with the very man who I had not the least doubt had brought about his ruin. As may be supposed, however, I said nothing to Pharos on this score. For the time being we were flying a flag of truce, and having had one exhibition of his powers, I had no desire to experience a second. Whether he read what was passing in my mind or not I can not say. At any rate, he changed the subject abruptly and led me away from my own work to another at the farther end of the hall. From this we passed into an anteroom, which, like the hall, was hung with pictures. It was a magnificent apartment in every way, but, as I soon discovered, was eclipsed by the larger room into which it opened. The latter could not have been less than eighty feet long by forty wide. The walls were decorated with exquisite pictures, and, if such a thing were possible, with still more exquisite china. All the appointments were in keeping. At the farther end was a grand piano, and seated near this, slowly fanning herself with a large ostrich-feather fan, was the woman I had seen first at the Academy, then at Medenham House, and earlier that very day in the Piazza S. Ferdinando. Upon our entrance she rose, and once more I thought I discovered a frightened look in her face. In a second, however, it had passed and she had once more recovered her equanimity.
"Valerie," said Monsieur Pharos, "I have been fortunate enough to meet Mr. Forrester, who arrived in Naples last night, and to induce him to dine with us this evening."
While he was speaking I had been watching the face of the beautiful woman whose affecting story Lady Medenham had told me, and had noticed how white it had suddenly become. The reason of this I have since discovered, but I know that at the time it puzzled me more than a little.
"I bid you welcome, sir," she said, in excellent English, but with no great degree of cordiality.
I made some suitable reply, and then Pharos departed from the room, leaving us together. My companion once more seated herself, and, making an effort, began a conversation that was doubtless of a very polite, but to me entirely unsatisfactory, nature. Presently she rose from her chair and went to the window, where she stood for some moments looking out into the fast-darkening street. Then she turned to me, as she did so making a little gesture with her hands that was more expressive than any words.
"Mr. Forrester," she said, speaking rapidly in a low voice, but with great earnestness, "have you taken leave of your senses that you come here? Are you tired of your life that you thrust your head into the lion's den in this foolish fashion?"
Her words were so startling and her agitation so genuine that I could make neither head nor tail of it. I accordingly hastened to ask for an explanation.
"I can tell you nothing," she said, "except that this place is fatal to you. Oh, if I could only make you understand how fatal!"