“Yes,” she went on hoarsely. “You may as well know at first as at last that I became implicated in the terrible secret of that house. At Selby’s suggestion I invited there to luncheon a friend of his, young Leslie Hargreaves, a wealthy man who had met and, I believed, admired me. He went to Harpur Street to meet me and have luncheon on the very day you detected me at the window; but half an hour after his return to his chambers in Shaftesbury Avenue his valet found him dead, and notes to the value of nearly five hundred pounds known to have been in his pockets were missing! I suspected the intention of those men, and yet I actually allowed the sacrifice of his life! I shall never forgive myself for that—never?”
“But you were in ignorance of their real intention?” I said, excusing her. “Hargreaves was Selby’s friend, you say. If so, you surely had no idea of treachery, inasmuch as you were friendly with these men, and they never sought to harm you.”
“But I ought to have been wary,” she wailed. “I ought to have saved his life. My offence is unpardonable before God—as before man!” And she covered her blanched face with her hand, sobbing in bitter remorse.
I bent towards her, and there, before her father and Wyman, strove to comfort her. What passionate, consoling words I uttered I know not. All I was conscious of was that she had at last utterly broken down. And then, when I assured her that I forgave everything, and that in the circumstances she was not culpable in the unfortunate death of young Hargreaves, she raised her head, smiled at me happily through her tears as I told her of my love, and there, before Wyman and her father, declared that she reciprocated the passion that was consuming me.
Then I knew she was mine—my own sweet love. Her eyes had filled with tears, and for a moment she rested her head upon my shoulder, weeping silently. She was thinking of that long and terrible past, and of how she and her father had at last avenged her mother’s death and defeated the villainies of that dangerous pair of assassins. I knew it well. I held her hands in mine without uttering a word, for my heart was too full.
Chapter Forty.
By which the Book Remains open.
But passons.