Yes, he has forsaken her, got away scot-free himself, but left her to wait for and look for him in vain. Victoire Hester has parted with her jewellery and tawdry finery for a mere song, the five-pound note which Mr. Trackem gave her is expended, and she has not a farthing left in the world. To-morrow she must find three shillings for the rent of her miserable, unhealthy room, and she has not got it, nor has a morsel of food touched her lips this day. She is broken-hearted. Worse than that, she is jealous, angry, bitter. It maddens her to think of Gloria at the pinnacle of success, and she who sought to assist in her ruin, at the bottom of the abyss of abject misery.
What is left to her in the world? Nothing. Her character is gone. She cannot find work, and if she could, she would not undertake it. She has no heart to do anything, for in her coarse, hard way, she loved Trackem, loved him only to lose him.
“Whose fault but hers?” she mutters angrily as the cannon boom once more. “Why should she be happy, while I die here like a dog? Not that I want to live, I mean to die; but she sha’n’t live to be happy, that she sha’n’t! I’ll send her first, and then I’ll go myself. Ha, ha!”
Surely insanity rings in that voice. Poor Victoire! You do not know how lovingly Gloria would forgive you, if she only knew the state you were in, how eagerly she would seek to raise you from that fallen state, and set you on the straight path once more. But all this you do not know.
She goes over to a tumble-down-looking chest of drawers that has seen better days, and pulls open one of the drawers. Out of this she takes a six-chambered bull-dog revolver, examines it carefully, and slips it into her pocket. It used to belong to Mr. Trackem, and she had brought it away with her when she left the house in Verdegrease Crescent, a few hours after the departure of Inspectors Truffle and Bush. She has kept it by her,—it is about the only thing she has not parted with,—vaguely feeling that it may be useful, if Mr. Trackem does not answer her piteous appeals in the agony columns of the Times; for Victoire Hester has determined to put an end to herself now that he has forsaken her. The rich and well clothed may condemn her, but who could, who diving into the arid desert of that lonely, hopeless heart, beheld the mortal wound inflicted by despair?
The revolver safe, she next unearths an old woollen shawl, which she flings over her head and pins under her chin. Then she is ready, and she gropes her way down the dark staircase into the street.
She is hungry, weary, and weak, but she walks briskly along, looking straight ahead of her. People are hurrying across Westminster Bridge eager to get a good place in the line along which Gloria de Lara will pass on her way from the Hall of Liberty to Montragee House. Victoire Hester is intent on securing a good place too.
And she is successful. She takes her stand in Whitehall, not a stone’s throw from the Duke of Ravensdale’s mansion. She will have a long time to wait, but she steels herself to endure it.
Denser and denser grows the throng, but Victoire Hester, though pushed and hustled about, nevertheless maintains her position in the front rank. She feels she must hold that at any cost; it is necessary for her purpose. There is a tremor in the crowd, as if an electric current had passed through it. Now the boom of cannon resounds once more. These warning notes tell the people that the ceremony is over in the Hall of Liberty, and that Gloria de Lara is leaving it for Montragee House.
A hum runs along the serried walls of human forms; the electric current is apparently again at work. From afar strains of martial music come floating to the people’s ears, arousing them to the pitch of expectancy and excitement. There is a dull continuous roar too; it never seems to cease, as it rises and falls like the waves of a turbulent sea, breaking upon the wild shores of a rock-bound coast. Yet as it comes nearer, the roar assumes a human sound; it is that of thousands and tens of thousands of voices cheering lustily. Victoire Hester’s trembling hand gropes in her pocket for the revolver. She knows now that Gloria de Lara is approaching, and that the moment which will close her own life is at hand. Yes, surely insanity is writ in those eyes as they stare hungrily forward. How terribly they gleam!