The poodle advanced slowly across the Persian carpet to meet the visitor, and made a deliberate inspection. The result was satisfactory, for he gave three or four solemn swings of his leonine tail, and then composed himself in a dignified position in front of the fire.
The Baroness, who was seated in a deep and spacious armchair, acknowledged Heathcote's entrance only by a dignified bend of her head. She was a woman of remarkable appearance even in the sixty-seventh year of her age. She possessed that classic beauty of feature which time cannot take away. No matter that the pale pure skin was faded from its youthful bloom, that the lines of care and thought were drawn deeply upon the broad brow and about the melancholy mouth: the outline of the face was such as a sculptor would have chosen for a Hecuba or a Dido.
She was above the average height of women, and sat erect in her high-backed chair with a majestic air which impressed Edward Heathcote. Her plainly fashioned black silk gown and India muslin fichu recalled Delaroche's famous picture of Marie Antoinette, and her cast of countenance in some wise resembled that of the martyred queen; but the features were more perfect in their harmony, the outline was more statuesque. In a word, the Baroness had been lovelier than the Queen.
She motioned Heathcote to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth.
"You are interested in tracing the murderer of my son," she said. "That is strange—after ten years—and you an Englishman! What concern can you have in the fate of that man?"
There was the faintest quiver in her voice as she spoke of her son, otherwise her tones were clear and self-possessed; her large dark eyes contemplated the stranger with calmest scrutiny.
"That is in some wise my secret, Madame," replied Heathcote. "I will be as frank with you as I can; but there are motives which I must keep to myself until this investigation of mine has come to an end—until I can tell you that I have found the murderer of Marie Prévol, that I have proof positive of his guilt."
"And then, Monsieur—what then?" asked the Baroness.
"Madame, it is perhaps you who should be the arbiter of the murderer's fate; in the event of such evidence as may be conclusive to you and me being also strong enough to insure his conviction by a French jury. French jurymen are so merciful, Madame, and your judges so full of sentiment. They would perhaps regard the death of those two young people—slain in the flower of their youth—as an outbreak of jealous feeling for which the murderer was to be pitied rather than punished. The law is always kind to the shedders of blood. It is the child who steals a loaf, or the journalist who by some carelessly edited paragraph wounds the fine feelings of our aristocracy—it is for such as these there is no mercy. But in the event of my being able to find the assassin, and to furnish conclusive evidence of his guilt, what would be your line of conduct, Madame?"
The Dowager was slow to reply. She waited with fixed brows, meditative, absorbed, for some moments.