"My father the murderer of Von Rosenberg, and I--I the cause of it!" she murmured in horror-stricken accents. For a little while she sat like a woman stunned, stupefied, her eyes staring into vacancy, her mind a whirling chaos in which thoughts and fancies the most bizarre and incongruous came and went, mixing and mingling with each other in a sort of mad Brocken dance, all the elements of which were lurid, vague, and elusive.
How long she sat thus she never knew; but she was roused by the entrance of the landlady, who had come to reclaim the newspaper, there being three or four people in the taproom who were anxious to obtain a glimpse of it. Fortunately, the good woman was somewhat short-sighted, and perceived nothing out of the ordinary in her guest's appearance or demeanour. But her entrance broke the spell and served to recall Stephanie to the realities of her position.
For a little while all thought of her husband had vanished from her mind. This second blow had smitten her so much more sharply than the first that the pain caused by the former seemed deadened thereby. But now that her waking trance was broken, the double nature of her calamity forced itself on her mind. "My father and my husband shut up in one prison!" she said to herself; and it was all she could do to refrain from bursting into laughter. For are there not some kinds of laughter the sources of which lie deeper than the deepest fountains of tears?
Suddenly she started to her feet and pressed both hands to her forehead. "But why--why should my father have gone to Von Rosenberg to demand from him tidings of me, when I wrote to him from London telling him all that had happened to me and where I was? Can it be possible that my letter never reached him? Had he received it, there would have been no need for him to seek Von Rosenberg. Even after so long a time I could almost repeat my letter word for word. In it I told my father how I had left home with Von Rosenberg, but only after he had given me his solemn promise to make me his wife the moment we set foot in England. I told how, within an hour after our arrival in London, I had claimed the fulfilment of his promise, and how he had laughed me to scorn, thinking that he had now got me completely in his power. I told how I flung all Von Rosenberg's presents at his feet and left him there and then, and going out into the rainy streets of the great city, fled as for my life. I told how I hid for weeks in a garret, living on little more than bread and milk; and how at last, when my money was all gone, I found my way to the nearest cirque, and there obtained an engagement. All this I told my father in my letter, and then I prayed him to forgive me, and told him how I longed to go back to him and my mother. Weeks and months I waited with an aching heart for the answer which never came. Then I said to myself: 'My father will not forgive me. I shall never see him or my mother again.' But the letter never reached him. Had it done so he would not be where he is to-day." Tearless sobs shook her from head to foot.
At this juncture in burst the landlady with an air of much importance. "As you have read the paper, I thought that maybe you would like to hear the news that one of the warders just off duty has brought us from the jail. Such times as we live in, to be sure!"
"News--what news? asked Stephanie faintly.
"John Myles has brought word--and he ought to know, if anybody does--that one of the prisoners--Crifton or Crofton by name--managed to break out of his cell in the night, and has got clear away. But that's not all by any means. The foreigner--him as accused himself in open court of the murder--was found dead this morning, poisoned by his own hand. The news will be all over England before nightfall--Gracious me, ma'am, whatever is the matter!--Mary, Eliza--quick, quick!"
[CHAPTER XIX.]
CONCLUSION.
Six weeks had elapsed since the events recorded in the last chapter. It was the evening of the return of Gerald Brooke and his wife to the home which they left under such tragic circumstances nearly a year before. Gerald's wound had proved a troublesome one; and after his release from custody, which was merely a matter of a couple of days, he had hurried up to London for the sake of obtaining the best medical advice, and there he had since remained; a few friends had met to welcome the home-comers; there was to be a grand reception by the tenants and others on the morrow.