Chapter XXXIV: Face to Face

It was after midnight.

Daisy had just entered her room on the third floor of what is known as the "Opera quarter" of the colossal Grand Hotel. I had followed her back, and had seen Drayton take leave of her at the entrance.

The leave-taking was not exactly cordial, while she seemed depressed and full of anxiety. Her last words to him were an appeal, but of what nature I was in ignorance.

Hardly had she closed the door of her room when, with my mind made up, I walked swiftly along and tapped loudly. When, a moment later, she opened it and found herself face to face with me, she drew back with a startled cry, and her countenance went pale as death.

"You, Victor! I--I did not know you were in Paris!"

"I've not been here long," was my reply. "But I'm staying in this hotel, and seeing you enter a moment ago I could not resist the temptation, Daisy, of coming to talk to you."

"At this hour!" she exclaimed in a strangely cold voice. "Why not to-morrow?"

She had not invited me in, therefore I suggested we should go downstairs to one of the public rooms.

"No," I urged; "to-night, dearest. Do you not still recollect our parting--and your hard words to me?"

"Well," she said, "we cannot discuss our private affairs here in the corridor. You had better come inside, at risk of a breach of _les convenances_," and she smiled in her old sweet way.

"Now, look here, Daisy!" I said, when she had closed the door behind me, and I stood with her near the big dressing-table set in the window. "I've come to know what you meant by your strange words when we met in Kensington Gardens--I mean about Julian Little going to Servia in my interests?"

She stood before me the same dainty little figure, the same sweet-faced girl with the well-dressed chestnut hair and great dark eyes that had fascinated all London, and that had been in secret my own trustful well-beloved.

"Why should we discuss that any further, Victor?" she queried, standing with her hand upon the back of a chair. She had removed her hat before I entered, and she looked strikingly beautiful in the black dinner-gown with a bunch of pink carnations in the corsage. She was fond of pink in combination with black, and had adopted it in several of her stage-dresses. "You have been abroad quite a long time," she went on. "Dad told me of your success in Constantinople, and how you had been sent on to Russia."

"So you sometimes think of me, Daisy, even though you have treated me--well, let us say, without consideration--eh?"

She hesitated, her dark eyes fixed upon me. She seemed at a loss what to reply to my indictment.

"Why could you not have waited until the morning?" she asked. "It is so late, and your presence here is scarcely judicious, is it?"

"I care nothing for what people may say, dearest," I cried, taking her hand, and holding it firmly in mine as I looked into those wonderful eyes of hers. "Surely you know that my whole future, my whole life, depends upon you? That without your love I am as one lost? Ah! dearest heart, you cannot know how much I have suffered ever since that moment when you left me in London, how every hour I have thought of you, how every day I have longed to return to you and ask you for the plain, straight-forward truth."

"But, Victor----" she exclaimed, trying to withdraw her hand. I could see that she was terrified and unnerved by the quarrel of those two men which she had witnessed that night, and now my sudden reappearance had completed her anxiety. She was concealing something. What had she to conceal? What was this strange secret of her heart?

"There are no buts, dearest," I interrupted. "I am here because I love you--because I have never for one moment wavered in my affection for you," and before she was aware of it I had raised her hand to my hot, passionate lips. "An enemy has come between us and has poisoned your mind against me. I am full well aware of that. But why, I beg of you, do you allow a stranger to break the bond of love which binds your own dear heart to mine? Is it wise, Daisy? Is it just, either to you or to me? We were happy--ah! so happy--in each other's peaceful affection until of a sudden you changed--you doubted me!"

Her eyes were fixed immovably upon mine. Never before had I noticed such a strange look upon her countenance--a look that told of the fierce struggle taking place within her heart. That fellow Drayton held her fascinated. I knew she had forsaken me on that account. But how could I tell her so without revealing what I knew?

"Victor!" she said at last, her voice trembling with emotion. "Will you not have pity on me?"

"Pity?" I echoed. "If you are in distress, tell me. Let me assist you, my darling! You are still mine--or at least I still regard you as such--even though you somehow appear to have forsaken me in favour of somebody else."

To this last remark of mine she raised no protest.

"You cannot, alas! assist me, Victor," she said simply, her eyes downcast, her hand trembling slightly in mine.

"But something is troubling you, my darling," I said. "Tell me what it is--do!"

She only shook her head. I could see that her emotion prevented her from replying. That violent quarrel between Drayton and the mysterious Monsieur Smith had utterly upset her. Her countenance was still pale and drawn. Hers was the face of a woman upon whose conscience rested some great and terrible secret. Was it possible that over her young life hung the shadow of that dastardly crime at Barnes?

From the very first she had in some mysterious way been associated with the mystery. Little, the man at first suspected by Whitlock, had openly declared himself as her enemy.

What she was doing at that moment in Paris I did not seek to inquire. I did not wish to complicate matters further, being myself aware of all her movements that night.

Failing to get a word from her in reply to my question, I asked the reason of her sudden change towards me, adding--

"You know, Daisy, how all this has driven me to distraction, loving you as devotedly as I do, and in ignorance of the real reason why you rose from that seat in Kensington Gardens and left me in that manner. I can only surmise that there must be some burden of suspicion upon your mind. Why not reveal it to me, and allow me a chance to make my defence? Surely," I said, "it is not fair to condemn a man unheard?"

"No," was her reply, for she had suddenly grown quite calm. "I have not condemned you, Victor. I--well, I don't know how to put it to you. I'm puzzled. I have been told something which I cannot really believe. Yet I have had proof in a certain way that what has been said is the actual truth."

"About myself?"

"Yes, about you," she said, looking me in the face unflinchingly.

"And will you not tell me what this charge is against me?"

"I have given a promise not to speak to you upon the matter."

"To whom?"

"To a friend."

"But I put it to you, dearest, is this justice? Ought not I to be given an opportunity of refuting this allegation, and of proving my innocence of this mysterious charge against me?"

"You undoubtedly ought," was her reply. "But I, unfortunately, cannot break my promise."

"Not when your own future happiness is at stake?"

"Future happiness!" she echoed wildly. "There is none for me now that----"

But she broke off short in the middle of her sentence, and her cheeks flushed slightly as she realised how nearly she had been to betraying herself.

Was it of Drayton's desertion that she had been about to speak when she suddenly arrested her words? I became convinced that it was, and that her emotion was more upon his account than in consequence of our sudden meeting.

She loved that good-looking fellow, who would, ere long, be again in the dock. For one thing, however, I entertained an admiration for him--namely, that he had that night had the courage to denounce the mysterious Englishman of the Rue Pierre Charron, and reveal to Daisy how she had been made the cat's-paw of unscrupulous persons.

I had expected that this latter fact would, in itself, cause her to return to me. But I was mistaken. Those allegations against myself, whatever they were, had so impressed themselves upon her that she was unable to repose further trust in me. I knew, of course, what they were--that I was implicated in the assassination of Louise Lorimer.

"Daisy!" I said, very quietly, placing my hand upon her shoulder as I stood before her and looking straight into those dear eyes, "there is still happiness for you, the happiness of life and of love, if you will continue to trust me. Surely you must see that my heart is entirely yours? In the past our love was perfect, our confidence mutual, and our hearts were as one. You have hundreds of admirers. You, with your beauty and grace, cannot avoid it. In your profession your success in a measure depends in your captivating those of my sex who are patrons of the variety stage. They believe you to be gay and giddy like most of the others, and you do not undeceive them. Only I myself know your true character, that of a sweet, refined, and honest woman, who casts off her stage manners with her dresses, and who would make a good wife to the man who honestly loved her. I love you--with all my soul. Dear heart, forgive me if I have in any way offended you. Kiss me forgiveness, and let us be as we were before--lovers in secret."

I bent slowly to kiss her soft red lips, but with a frightened cry--almost of repulsion--she put me away from her, saying--

"No! No! I cannot! Leave me, Victor. Leave me! I beg of you never to approach me like this again."

"But why, dearest? Surely by right of long friendship, I, on finding you alone in Paris, may come and pay my respects to you? I don't understand."

"No; that's just it. You don't understand."

"Then, tell me--tell me, darling, I beg of you. Do you doubt my great love for you?"

"No. Certainly not. I know you love me--better than any other man could ever love me," she faltered, her eyes fixed upon the carpet.

My hand was again upon her shoulder, but I felt a shudder run through her as I touched her.

"Then why discard my love?" I urged. "Why not accept it?"

For a full minute no response came from her lips, but when it did it held me appalled.

"Why not?" she echoed, in a hoarse, agonised whisper, covering her face with her hands and bursting into tears. "Because--ah! you do not know all, Victor!--because--ah! yes, I--I confess--I must confess to you," she sobbed--"because--cannot you guess?--I--I am unworthy of your love!"