Eleanore had told me so.
Eleanore herself—and it was the keenest pang I had to endure—believed me guilty.
She had her reasons.
She knew first, from the directed envelope she had found lying underneath my uncle’s dead body on the library table, that he had been engaged at the moment of death in summoning his lawyer to make that change in his will which would transfer my claims to her; secondly, that notwithstanding my denial of the same, I had been down to his room the night before, for she had heard my door open and my dress rustle as I passed out.
But that was not all; the key that every one felt to be a positive proof of guilt wherever found, had been picked up by her from the floor of my room; the letter written by Mr. Clavering to my uncle was found in my fire; and the handkerchief which she had seen me take from the basket of clean clothes, was produced at the inquest stained with pistol grease.
I could not account for these things.
A web seemed tangled about my feet. I could not stir without encountering some new toil.
I knew I was innocent; but if I failed to satisfy my cousin of this, how could I hope to convince the general public, if once called upon to do so.
Worse still, if Eleanore, with every apparent motive for desiring long life to our uncle, was held in such suspicion because of a few circumstantial evidences against her, what would I not have to fear if these evidences were turned against me, the heiress!
The tone and manner of the juryman at the inquest that asked who would be most benefited by my uncle’s will showed but too plainly.
When, therefore, Eleanore, true to her heart’s generous instincts, closed her lips and refused to speak when speech would have been my ruin, I let her do it, justifying myself with the thought that she had deemed me capable of crime, and so must bear the consequences.
Nor, when I saw how dreadful these were likely to prove, did I relent.
Fear of the ignominy, suspense, and danger which confession would entail sealed my lips.
Only once did I hesitate.
That was when, in the last conversation we had, I saw that, notwithstanding appearances, you believed in Eleanore’s innocence, and the thought crossed me you might be induced to believe in mine if I threw myself upon your mercy.
But just then Mr. Clavering came; and as in a flash I seemed to realize what my future life would be, stained by suspicion, and, instead of yielding to my impulse, went so far in the other direction as to threaten Mr. Clavering with a denial of our marriage if he approached me again till all danger was over.
“Yes, he will tell you that was my welcome to him when, with heart and brain racked by long suspense, he came to my door for one word of assurance that the peril I was in was not of my own making.
That was the greeting I gave him after a year of silence every moment of which was torture to him.
But he forgives me; I see it in his eyes; I hear it in his accents; and you—oh, if in the long years to come you can forget what I have made Eleanore suffer by my selfish fears; if with the shadow of her wrong before you, you can by the grace of some sweet hope think a little less hardly of me, do.
As for this man—torture could not be worse to me than this standing with him in the same room—let him come forward and declare if I by look or word have given him reason to believe I understood his passion, much less returned it.”
“Why ask!” he gasped. “Don’t you see it was your indifference which drove me mad?
To stand before you, to agonize after you, to follow you with thoughts in every move you made; to know my soul was welded to yours with bands of steel no fire could melt, no force destroy, no strain dissever; to sleep under the same roof, sit at the same table, and yet meet not so much as one look to show me you understood!
It was that which made my life a hell.
I was determined you should understand.
If I had to leap into a pit of flame, you should know what I was, and what my passion for you was. And you do.
You comprehend it all now.
Shrink as you will from my presence, cower as you may to the weak man you call husband, you can never forget the love of Trueman Harwell; never forget that love, love, love, was the force which led me down into your uncle’s room that night, and lent me will to pull the trigger which poured all the wealth you hold this day into your lap.
Yes,” he went on, towering in his preternatural despair till even the noble form of Henry Clavering looked dwarfed beside him, “every dollar that chinks from your purse shall talk of me. Every gew-gaw which flashes on that haughty head, too haughty to bend to me, shall shriek my name into your ears.
Fashion, pomp, luxury,—you will have them all; but till gold loses its glitter and ease its attraction you will never forget the hand that gave them to you!”
With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand into the arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would have been led from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of emotions that was seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:
“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your comfort.
Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture.
I cannot accept the torture, so must release the wealth.
From this day, Mary Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has so long and so basely wronged.”
And raising her hands to her ears, she tore out the diamonds which hung there, and flung them at the feet of the unfortunate man.
It was the final wrench of the rack.
With a yell such as I never thought to listen to from the lips of a man, he flung up his arms, while all the lurid light of madness glared on his face.
“And I have given my soul to hell for a shadow!” he moaned, “for a shadow!”
“Well, that is the best day’s work I ever did!
Your congratulations, Mr. Raymond, upon the success of the most daring game ever played in a detective’s office.”
I looked at the triumphant countenance of Mr. Gryce in amazement.
“What do you mean?” I cried; “did you plan all this?” “Did I plan it?” he repeated.
“Could I stand here, seeing how things have turned out, if I had not?
Mr. Raymond, let us be comfortable.
You are a gentleman, but we can well shake hands over this.
I have never known such a satisfactory conclusion to a bad piece of business in all my professional career.”
We did shake hands, long and fervently, and then I asked him to explain himself.
“Well,” said he, “there has always been one thing that plagued me, even in the very moment of my strongest suspicion against this woman, and that was, the pistol-cleaning business.
I could not reconcile it with what I knew of womankind.
I could not make it seem the act of a woman.