“But what caused you to so suddenly abandon Hibbert and return to me?” I asked, recollecting my curious compact with Aline.
“A discovery which I made—a revelation which, by Aline’s instigation, was made to me,” she answered. “I know full well how she bought your silence by promising that I should return to you. I came, and you believed, because of that, she was possessed of power supernatural. It is the object of every worshipper of Satan to cause the outside world to believe that he or she is endowed with a miraculous power by the Evil One, hence the manner in which ashes are substituted for the holy objects stolen. Aline, like myself, was compelled by the oath she had taken to impose upon you, upon Roddy Morgan, upon her lover, nay, upon every one about her, until they believed her endowed with power not possessed by any other living being.”
“Yes,” Aline interrupted, “what Muriel tells you is the truth. At my will this man Hibbert forsook her, and she returned to you because she was no longer jealous of me. And you believed that I committed the crime!” she said reproachfully. “You suspected that I killed the man who had been so kind to me.”
“I certainly did believe so. All the evidence seemed to point to the fact that Roddy was killed by some secret means, and that the person who visited him was yourself. I found the button of one of your gloves there.”
Slowly she rose to her feet, and seeing how grave was her lover’s face she turned again to me, saying, in a tremulous voice—
“Yes, I know, it is useless for me to now conceal the truth. On leaving you that morning I went there and saw him. He opened the door himself, and I remained about a quarter of an hour. We had not met since I had seen him carried out of the rooms at Monte Carlo, and the reason of my visit was to ascertain whether what you alleged, namely, that he was still alive, was true. I fully expected to find that this man who was passing as Roddy Morgan was an impostor, but discovered that he was no doubt the same person with whom I had been acquainted at Monte Carlo. My aunt, with whom I was on the Riviera, liked him very much, and I confess that only by his attempted suicide was a match between us prevented. In that brief space, while I remained there, he again told me that he loved me, but I explained that I had now formed another attachment, a statement which threw him into a fit of deep despondency. His man was out, therefore he went himself into an adjoining room to get me a glass of wine, and while he was absent I stole a rosary from a casket, depositing ashes in its place. Then I drank the wine, and left him, promising to call soon, but giving him plainly to understand that although we might be friends, we could never again be lovers.”
“And then?” I asked gravely.
“Ah! I have no knowledge of what occurred after that,” she said. “I have endeavoured to fathom the mystery, but have failed. That poor Roddy was murdered is absolutely certain.”
“You refused his love because of your affection for me, Aline!” Jack exclaimed, in a low, broken voice, for this discovery that she worshipped the power which he held in greatest hatred had utterly crushed and appalled him. Truly he had spoken the truth on that night in Duddington when he had told me that the Devil had sent her into his life to arrest the good deeds he was endeavouring to perform.
“Yes,” she answered, looking up into his dark, grave face with eyes fall of tears. “You know, Jack, that I have ever been true to you. I have been forced to act like this; compelled to commit a profanity which has horrified me, and made to exercise the ingenious trickery which was born of the fertile resources of this man beneath whose thrall I have been held.”