"The bedstead is light enough to be moved easily if the door were wanted," suggested Heathcote.
It was a small brass bedstead of English make. The voluminous curtains made a kind of tent, independent of the bedstead.
"No doubt it could," replied Blümenlein, "but I fancy it could have been no more wanted in Mr. Wyllard's time than it has been in mine. It may have been made by some former inhabitant of these rooms, who wanted free egress and ingress at any hour of the night, without exciting the curiosity of the porter."
"You conclude, then, that the door was an after-thought," said Heathcote, "and not in the original plan of the house."
"Decidedly. You will see how ruthlessly it has been cut through dado and mouldings. An after-thought evidently."
Mr. Blümenlein pulled aside the bedstead and showed Mr. Heathcote the door. It was a low narrow door, of plain oak, without panelling or ornamentation of any kind. The fastening was a latch-lock, a Bramah, with a small key, and a strong bolt secured the door on the inner side.
"A convenient door, no doubt," said Heathcote, "for a person of secret habits."
Dora looked lingeringly round the room. Its gloom oppressed her. The opaque windows, the tinted light from the upper sashes, the sombre colouring, the heavy furniture—all contributed to that gloomy effect. The only spot of brightness in the room was the writing-table, with its brass fittings, its handsome brass lamp, and large green shade. There her husband sat night after night, when the rest of Paris was gyrating in the whirlpool of fashionable pleasure, light as autumn leaves dancing in the wind. There he had sat brooding, calculating, plotting, striving onward, in the race for wealth. It was for money he had toiled, and to make a great fortune—not for science, or art, or fame—not to be useful or great—only to be rich. It seemed a sordid life to look back upon—a wasted life even—and Dora thought regretfully of those long evenings spent in this gloomy room. The idea of that monastic life had no charm for her. She would rather have heard that her husband had been the light of an intellectual circle—the favourite of fashion even. The picture of these studious nights spent in brooding over the figures in a share-list, the pages of a bank-book, chilled her soul.
And yet, in the maturity of his days, her husband had seemed to her the most generous and high-minded of men, setting but little value upon his wealth, caring nothing for money in the abstract.
"At the least he has known how to use his fortune nobly," she told herself, as she turned to leave that gloomy bedchamber. "I, who was born with good means, can hardly understand the eagerness of a penniless young man to win fortune. It is a foolish idea of mine, after all, that there is anything ignoble in working for riches."