Passionately he kissed her hand in silence, and went.
She was no sooner alone than she walked up to her room, dressed herself in clothes suited for an out-of-door mission, and went out, heedless and dumb when a wondering fellow-servant protested. She called a cab—for Marlborough Street; and now she was as calm and strong as had been her brother when he gave himself up to Clarke.
Her cab crossed Oxford Circus about ten minutes ahead of the vehicle which carried Furneaux and Osborne; and as she turned south to enter Marlborough Street, she saw Winter, who had lately visited her, standing at a corner awaiting the arrival of Furneaux.
"Stop!" Pauline cried to her driver: and she alighted.
"Well, you are better, I see," said Winter, who did not wish to be bothered by her at that moment.
"Sir," said Pauline solemnly in her stilted English, "I regret having been so unjust as to tell you that it was either Mr. Furneaux or Mr. Osborne who committed that murder, since it was I myself who did it."
"What!" roared Winter, stepping backward, and startled most effectually out of his official phlegm.
"Sir," said Pauline again, gravely, calmly, "it was not a murder, it was an assassination, done for political reasons. As I have no mercy to expect, so I have no pardon to ask, and no act to blush at. It was political. I give myself into your custody."
Winter stood aghast. His brain seemed suddenly to have curdled; everything in the world was topsy-turvy.
"So that was why you left the Exhibition—to kill that poor woman, Pauline Dessaulx?" he contrived to say.