He raised her bejewelled hand tremblingly to his lips, and thanked her in a husky voice. He, the Discrowned, dared not kiss her lips.
“Patience and courage,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly, just as she had been wont to do in those early days of his career when she had so often given him advice.
He shook his head sadly before answering.
“Both are unavailing against the vengeance of Heaven!”
She was silent. This man, whom she had loved as her own life, was a murderer. A gulf had opened between them, his arrest and denunciation were imminent. They could no longer be lovers. All was of the past.
Her tender woman’s sympathy for him in his hopeless despair was too deep for tears. Her countenance, usually so sweet and smiling, had grown hard, and her eyes large and serious. The caprice of her broken heart was that this last drive to his chambers should be taken in his company. Many and many a time he had driven with her hither and thither in London, but this was the last occasion. After that, then she would be alone, friendless, unloved—the queen of the silent kingdom, as she had so often termed the stately mansion, one of the finest in London, where the servants moved in silence and the huge marble hall and corridors echoed to the slightest whisper.
They drove together past Apsley House and along Piccadilly without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Dudley raised his hat mechanically to passers-by who, now that the yellow sunlight had struggled through the clouds, were enjoying a stroll in London’s gayest thoroughfare. Whenever there is any sunshine in the metropolis, it is always in Piccadilly. But the unwonted brightness of that morning jarred upon Dudley and Claudia. Few who passed the pair driving in that handsome carriage would ever have dreamed that the light of that beautiful woman’s heart was extinguished, and that the well-groomed man at her side was going deliberately to his doom.
Beneath the bearskin rug their hands met—and clasped. Their hearts beat quickly, their eyes met, but no word passed between them. Both understood that all words were empty in face of the horrible truth.
Archibald Cator, who had been sitting beside the fire in Chisholm’s sitting-room, rose and bowed when they entered. He recognised Claudia at once, and darted a look of inquiry at the accused man.
“Captain Cator, I believe?” she exclaimed, addressing him. “To apologise is quite unnecessary. I know everything. Mr Chisholm has told me the whole terrible story. You have but done your duty in the service of your country, and as far as I am concerned your just behaviour will receive a just verdict.”