So, it seemed, in a few hours, Countess Alexia was rudely made aware of the fact that she was a marked woman. All kinds of wild tales began to be circulated as to the motive for the deed; there was a strong touch of romance about it that caught the popular fancy; the affair was lifted by its surroundings from the normal sordid groove of crime; yet the fact, the terrible fact, remained that this girl was pointed at as a murderess.
Merely on suspicion, it is true, but suspicion, the very vaguest, left to roam unchecked, gathers size and weight till it assumes the proportions of certainty.
When the odious innuendo first came to Count Prosper’s notice he went to his sister in a terrible state of mind. He was, for a diplomatist, a frank, straightforward young fellow, devoted to his profession, and jealous of his family honour. Alexia assured him that the suspicion was, if not quite groundless, absolutely untrue.
“Then we must give it the lie at once,” he cried, with the vehemence of his native blood.
“Would it not be wiser to treat it with contempt?” she argued. “There is nothing tangible yet to answer, and there is the unfortunate fact to face that I was in the room with Captain Martindale, and I did lose, there or somewhere else, my sword hair-pin.”
He stared at her blankly for some seconds before he could reply. There was a terrible suspicion in his mind.
“Alix,” he exclaimed hoarsely, “you—you didn’t kill him?”
She laughed. “No, my dear Prosper,” she answered, meeting his look frankly; “I give you my word of honour I am as innocent of that as yourself. Although the man did behave somewhat objectionably.”
Count Prosper gave a great sigh of relief. “Thank Heaven!” he exclaimed. “I thought for a moment it might have been true.”
“My dear brother,” she protested, “I admit your right to ask the question, but really you might credit me with a less drastic but hardly less effective method of giving aggressive admirers their quietus. Poor Captain Martindale! He was very confident in his powers of fascination, but his vanity scarcely deserved that punishment.”