"My lover!"
"Your lover—the man with whom you were to have left Paris to-night. Your lover—the man you have met in this convenient rendezvous, day after day for the last two months. Your lover—the man you loved before you did me the honour to accept the use of my fortune, and whom you have loved ever since."
"Yes," cried Clarissa, with a wild hysterical laugh, "my lover! You are right. I am the most miserable woman upon earth, for I love him."
"I am glad you do not deny it. Stand out of the way, if you please, and let me see if I have killed him."
There were a pair of half-burned wax candles on the mantelpiece. Mr. Granger lighted one of them, and then knelt down beside the prostrate figure with the candle in his hand. George Fairfax had given no sign of life as yet. There had not been so much as a groan.
He opened his enemy's waistcoat, and laid his hand above the region of the heart. Yes, there was life still—a dull beating. The wretch was not dead.
While he knelt thus, with his hand upon George Fairfax's heart, a massive chain, loosened from its moorings, fell across his wrist. Attached to the chain there was a locket—a large gold locket with a diamond cross—one of the ornaments that Daniel Granger had given to his wife.
He remembered it well. It was a very trifle among the gifts he had showered upon her; but he remembered it well. If this had been the one solitary gem he had given to his wife, he could not have been quicker to recognise it, or more certain of its identity.
He took it in the palm of his hand and touched the spring, holding the candle still in the other hand. The locket flew open, and he saw the ring of silky brown hair and the inscription, "From Clarissa."
He looked up at his wife with a smile—such a smile! "You might have afforded your lover something better than a secondhand souvenir," he said.