She paused, startled at the sound of her own voice, so nervous had she now become.
She glanced at the mirror, and started at sight of her own white, drawn countenance.
She placed both hands upon her eyes, as though striving to recall something, and in that position she remained, bent and pensive, for some moments.
Her lips moved at last.
“I wonder,” she exclaimed, very faintly, speaking to herself, “I wonder whether Ralph will ever know that I met Dick? Ah! yes,” she sighed; “I was foolish—mad—to dare to go to Mundesley that afternoon. If only I could have foreseen the consequence of our secret meeting—ah! if only I had known what I know now!”
Again she was silent, her face pale, with a fixed, intense look, when at last she rose, unlocked one of the small top drawers of the chest, and, taking the drawer entirely out, extracted something that had been concealed beneath it.
She held it in her hand. There were two halves of one of Dick Harborne’s visiting-cards—signed and torn across in a similar manner to those pieces which had been handed for the coroner’s inspection. Each half bore a number on its back, while on the front, as she placed them together, was Harborne’s name, both printed and written.
For a long time she had her eyes fixed upon it. Her brows narrowed, and in her eyes showed a distinct expression of terror.
“Yes,” she whispered; “I was a fool—a great fool to have dared so much—to have listened, and to have consented to go across to Bremen. But no one knows, except Dick—and he, alas!—he’s dead! Therefore who can possibly know?—no one.”
She held the halves of the torn card between her fingers for some moments, looking at them. Then, sighing deeply, she rose with sudden impulse and, crossing the room, took up a box of matches. Striking one, she applied it to the corners of the half cards and held the latter until the blue flame crept upwards and consumed them.