“Did I? Well, what of that?”
“You are acquainted with incidents of her past. What is it you know? Tell me.”
She hesitated. Her face was white and agitated, but she had shed no tears. Her heart was stricken with grief, yet she strove to conceal her intense love for the man who was reported dead.
“Why,” she answered slowly, “I know that she—but—indeed, I know nothing,” she added hysterically.
“That’s not the truth,” he said reproachfully.
“Perhaps not. Nevertheless, what I know I shall keep secret. The time may come when I shall have my revenge upon the woman who has robbed me of the man I love—the vile, heartless woman who has killed him.”
“You cannot prove that he met with his death by foul means,” he said reflectively. “The report says he died suddenly—nothing more. Read for yourself,” and he handed her the paper, at the same time pointing to the paragraph.
“Then she has obtained all his money?” Dolly observed mechanically, after she had glanced at it. “Is not that sufficient motive for his death?”
The artist admitted that it was. The unutterable sadness of ten minutes before had given place to a strange apprehensive dread. It was clear that Dolly was in possession of some facts connected with the hidden pages of the Frenchwoman’s history. In that case, he told himself, it was more than probable she would ultimately discover his own secret—the secret which fettered him to this clever, handsome adventuress, even if she were not acquainted with it already. His heart sank within him as he recognised that alienation and loathing would be the inevitable result Dolly would shrink from his touch as from some unclean thing. She would regard him as a debased criminal.
He tried to fix upon some means by which to ascertain the extent of her information. The thought suggested itself that he should tell her something of Valérie’s history, and lead her on to divulge what she knew. Such a course, however, did not commend itself to him. He was bound to preserve the secret, for full well he knew that Valérie’s threats were never idle—that she would show him no mercy if he divulged.