The voice was steady, but he thought he noticed an increased restlessness in the movements of the hands. And the admission that she was a member of the respectable middle-class struck him as conveying a false note intentionally. If what she alleged was true, that her father had been an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers, she was a grade higher than the respectable middle-class. Clever as she was, she had made a false step there.
"You want to hear the history of that tragedy, of the terrible circumstances which cut short the life of my poor young friend. Well, it is hardly necessary to say that a woman was the cause. Women, I suppose, have been at the bottom of most of the tragedies that have happened to men ever since the days of Eve."
"I know that is the general opinion, but I have always been very doubtful as to whether it is a true one."
She spoke lightly, but it seemed to him her tone was not quite so assured as it had been a moment ago. Anyway, she was evidently intensely interested in the forthcoming narrative.
"At Blankfield I happened to make the acquaintance of a very charming young woman, who was not received in the Society of the place, for the reason that nothing was known about her. The acquaintance was made in the most unconventional fashion. She asked me to call upon her and her brother. I told all this to Pomfret, who knew the girl by sight, and he asked me to take him along with me. He had met her very often in the High Street, and was immensely attracted by her appearance."
"And were you attracted, too, by this formidable young lady, Major Murchison?" interrupted Stella.
"In a way. But, honestly, more curious than attracted. Well, to cut my story as short as I can, Pomfret soon arrived at an understanding with the young woman, to a great extent without my knowledge. They were married secretly; there were family reasons why he could not marry her openly."
"But this—but this"—was she speaking a little nervously, or was it only his fancy?—"was quite romantic and charming. No doubt they were deeply in love with each other. Surely there was no tragedy to follow such a delightful wooing?"
"But there was. This innocent-faced, charming girl was an adventuress of the first water. She was the accomplice of her criminal brother, if brother he was. A day or two after the wedding, Pomfret and I went to dine with this wretched pair. Before we sat down to dinner, two detectives entered the room and arrested the so-called brother on a charge of forgery."
Mrs. Spencer shuddered. "How horrible, how appalling! And what happened to the girl? was she arrested, too?"