Eve glanced with a careless contempt at the faded sun-picture—a bad photograph, which time had made worse—the blurred image of a face which, as her widening gaze fastened upon it, flashed back all the picture of her childhood upon the mirror of her memory.
“Oh, God!” she cried. “My brother Harold!”
The door opened as she spoke, and looking up she saw her husband standing on the threshold.
She appealed to him hopelessly in her bewilderment.
“Did you know?” she asked. “Was it for my sake you were kind to her? Was that the link between you?”
“No, Fatima,” he answered sternly. “My Blue Chamber holds a ghastlier secret than that. I was kind to her because I killed her lover. Are you satisfied now? You wanted to know the worst. You would not be content. We were united, happy, adoring each other; the happiest husband and wife in all London, perhaps; but you would not be satisfied. I entreated you to trust me. I assured you, with every asseveration a man could make, that I was true to you. But you would not believe. You were like your first namesake; you lent your ear to the hiss of the snake. You were jealous by a woman’s instinct, and you let Sefton feed your jealousy. Well, you are content now, perhaps. You have his picture in your hand—the picture of the man I killed.”
“You killed him? You?”
“It sounds like madness, doesn’t it, but it’s true all the same. A vulgar incident enough—nothing romantic about the story. The man whose likeness you hold, and whom you recognize as your brother—that man and I met as strangers in a Venetian caffè, in Carnival time. This young woman here and her aunt were with me—the chance acquaintance of the afternoon. We had known each other only a few hours, had we, Fiordelisa? You did not even know my name.”
“Only a few hours,” nodded Lisa.
“He had been on a journey, and had been drinking. He came on us unawares; and he chose to take offence because Lisa and her aunt and I were sitting at the same table. He was easily jealous—as you are. It runs in the family, perhaps. He assaulted me brutally, and I fought him almost as brutally. It would have all ended harmlessly enough with a rough mauling of each other—perhaps a black eye, or a broken nose—but as Fate would have it I had a dagger ready to my hand—and exasperated at a little extra brutality on his part I stabbed him. Luck was against us both. That casual thrust of a dagger might have resulted in a slight flesh wound. It killed him.”