“Those who needed me knew well when they might best use me to their advantage. They had seen me waver in my allegiance under the influence of that mad love for you, and they dreaded lest some accident should make me betray their trust. I had entered the closet of their secret, and once in, they were resolved that there should be no loophole for my escape. But I must begin at the beginning, and tell you who and what I am. First, the name I gave you was not assumed, as you must have believed. I am Sybil Henniker, a French subject, born in Paris of a French father and an English mother. My father, a wealthy Deputy, was killed while hunting, and my mother shortly afterwards married an Englishman, but she, too, died within a year, leaving the whole of her fortune to my sister Ethel, who was a year my senior. Another Englishman, a crafty, sycophantic lickspittle of my stepfather, married her, having made a secret compact, by which the two men shared the estate. At that time we were living in Paris, and there came to our house Gilbert Sternroyd, a rich young Englishman of Socialistic tendencies. He had become imbued with Anarchist ideas, and soon developed into an ardent disciple of Ravachol. His theories he expounded to me almost daily, until at length I joined their brotherhood and furnished small sums of money when required. Ah! you will condemn me, I know. It was, I admit, foolish, but remember I did not dream that they would use my money in their attempts to take the lives of innocent persons by means of bombs. It was represented to me that money was required to diffuse Anarchist literature. With secret murder I had no sympathy, I swear. I was in Luchon with my stepfather when he was suddenly recalled to Paris; then I met you and we spent some happy days together, until—until a telegram in cipher reached me one night and the blow that I feared fell—a warrant was out for my arrest. There had been on the previous afternoon a terrible Anarchist outrage at the Chamber of Deputies, and the police, in make some domiciliary visits to suspected Anarchists, had discovered one of my letters which was undoubtedly incriminating. I scribbled you a hasty line of farewell, packed my trunk and left by the first train in the morning, travelling first to Bayonne, then to Madrid and Seville, whence some weeks later I went to London. I thought to escape by getting to England, and intended to at once write to you, but in London I found my brother-in-law and stepfather awaiting me. Then, for the first time, I realised the truth. I had been caught in the net they had so cunningly prepared!”
Again there was silence, broken only by her sobs. I saw only Sybil before me, with all the old love warm upon her pale tear-stained face. I saw her struggle with the secret that held her aloof from me. I witnessed the struggle and knew its meaning. I knew that she was suffering even as I suffered.
There was another pang thrust into my heart in knowing of her torture.
“My stepfather and his unctuous confederate, cowards that they were, claimed my help, claimed it in the name of all that had been done for me in effecting my escape, and—and I could not deny them.” As she spoke she clung tremblingly to Dora, as if fearful of her own words. There was a bewildered expression in her eyes as her gaze was fixed beyond me, staring blankly through the open window.
“Well,” I questioned softly, “why did you not follow the true impulse of your heart?”
She started, her eyes glistening, her whole frame convulsed, as she answered wildly:
“I was hunted by the Paris police as a dangerous Anarchist, and they would have sent me to New Caledonia to work among criminals for the remainder of my life. The two knaves under whose thrall I had fallen knew this, but they had a deeper game to play. It was part of their scheme to entrap me thus, and then coerce me into assisting them. They took me to that dismal, neglected house in Gloucester Square that had belonged to my mother, and there unfolded plans that for perfidious ingenuity were assuredly unequalled. First, they impressed upon me the impossibility of eluding the police for any length of time, and I was compelled to admit that I feared arrest. Then they explained their infamous scheme, well-knowing that my offence made it imperative for me to obediently assist them in their shameful fraud and preserve a silence begotten of fear. My sister Ethel, who was almost the image of myself, was mortally ill, dying slowly, poor girl! of consumption, and knew little of what was transpiring. The miscreant pair, however, knew that when she died the revenue from the vast estates in Savoy would pass back to some relatives of my mother in France; therefore they resolved at all hazards to continue to divide the money, and had formed an ingenious plan to that end. Briefly, they had told me that I must die instead of Ethel.”
“Die?” I ejaculated.
“To the world,” she went on quickly. “My stepfather told me that on Ethel’s death I must pose as the wife of his friend, that I must preserve their secret at all costs, at least for a year or eighteen months, until they could devise some other plan to preserve the fortune to themselves. On their part they promised, on their oaths, to free me and allow me to again seek you. At first I refused with indignation to be party to such an imposition, but they convinced me that the police were already at my heels, and in return for rendering them this service promised to secure me immunity from arrest. My stepfather was powerful, with many influential friends in Paris, and I believed he could do this if he chose. They did not tell me the means they intended to employ to secure this end, but urged me to consent. For a long time I held out, but they pictured to me on the one hand arrest and transportation to a Pacific island, with common murderesses and the scum of Paris; on the other, my return to you after eighteen months, marriage and happiness. So at last—at last I agreed to the compact—I allowed them to fasten the bonds upon me and draw me under their terrible thraldom,” and she bent forward sobbing bitterly, while Dora, kneeling quickly at her side, threw her arms around her, endeavouring to console her.