His blanched features were rigid as he stood staring straight before him. His enemy had betrayed him. His defiance had, alas! cost him his life.
He recollected Shuttleworth’s slowly uttered words on the night before, and his finger-nails clenched themselves into his palms. Then he passed across the square, old-fashioned hall to the study, dim-lit, save for the zone of light around the green-shaded reading-lamp; the sombre room where the old grandfather clock ticked so solemnly in the corner.
Sonia had returned to the drawing-room as he let his visitor out. He could hear her playing, and singing in her sweet contralto a tuneful French love-song, ignorant of the hideous crisis that had fallen, ignorant of the awful disaster which had overwhelmed him.
Three-quarters of an hour had passed when, stealthily on tiptoe, the girl crept into the room, and there found her father seated by the fireplace, staring in blank silence.
The long old brass-faced clock in the shadow struck three times upon its strident bell. Only fifteen minutes more, and then the police would enter and charge him with that foul crime. Then the solution of a remarkable mystery which had puzzled the whole world would be complete.
He started, and, glancing around, realized that Sonia, with her soft hand in his, was again at his side.
“Why, dad,” cried the girl in alarm, “how pale you are! Whatever ails you? What can I get you?”
“Nothing, child, nothing,” was the desperate man’s hoarse response. “I’m—I’m quite well—only a little upset at some bad news I’ve had, that’s all. But come. Let me kiss you, dear. It’s time you were in bed.”
And he drew her down until he could print a last fond caress upon her white open brow.
“But, dad,” exclaimed the girl anxiously, “I really can’t leave you. You’re not well. You’re not yourself to-night.”