When Mrs. Davenport reached the "Tourists' Hotel," she asked to be shown into a private sitting-room. She had slept in the boat, and was in no need of repose. In reply to the servant, she desired breakfast to be brought, and asked for writing materials. She wrote out a telegram to Blake: "I am staying at the 'Tourists', and shall await you here." She wrote a couple of notes of no consequence, and then breakfasted. At the very earliest Blake could not reach Dublin until that evening. In the meantime she would go and see her late husband's solicitor, Mr. Vincent Lonergan.

The old attorney received Mrs. Davenport with the most elaborate courtesy. He was tall, round-shouldered, white-haired, white-bearded, fresh-coloured, slow, oracular. He congratulated himself on meeting her for the first time, and fished up phrases of sympathy and condolence out of his inner consciousness, as though he was the first man in the world who had ever to refer to such matters. Then he paused, partly that his elaborate commonplaces might have time to sink into her mind, and partly that she might have time to collect her thoughts and bring her mind to the business of her visit.

"May I ask you," she said, "how long you acted as solicitor to my late husband?"

"About twelve years, I think. I can tell you exactly if you desire it."

"I will not trouble you for the exact date. During those twelve years you were well acquainted with all Mr. Davenport's affairs, I dare say?"

"With the legal aspect of his affairs, yes. With the business aspect of his affairs, no."

"You know that he made large sums of money by speculating in foreign stocks and shares?"

"I do not know it. I have heard it."

"From whom have you heard it?"

"From several people-himself among the number."

She paused a moment, and then said: "Your words seem to imply a doubt. You will, I am certain, give me all the information you can?"

"Assuredly, my dear lady."

"Then do you not know that he made his money out of foreign speculations?"

"Permit me to explain: I did not intend to imply any doubt as to the way in which the late Mr. Davenport made his money. We solicitors get into a legal way of talking when we are at business; and, legally speaking, I have no knowledge of my own of how the late Mr. Davenport made his money, because the making of the money did not come directly under my observation. I do know he told me he made it in foreign speculations, and I think you will be quite safe in taking it that he did make it abroad. We are now, as I take it, speaking of the time before your marriage with Mr. Davenport?"

"Yes, of the time before my marriage."

"Since then, you would naturally know more of his business affairs than I."

"He spoke little to me of business, and I know hardly anything of his affairs."

"As you know, you are largely benefited under the will. Roughly speaking, all his property goes to you, in addition to what you are entitled to under the marriage settlement."

She made a slight gesture, as though putting these subjects aside.

He made an elaborate gesture, indicating that he understood her, and that he was her obedient, humble servant. After another pause she asked:

"Do you know anything of a man named Fahey-a man who was in some way or other connected with Mr. Davenport, and who was drowned or committed suicide many years ago, shortly after Mr. Davenport's marriage?"

"Fahey-Fahey-Fahey? Yes, I do. I remember that he drowned himself near Kilcash House because the police were on his track for uttering forged bank-notes."

"Do you know in what relation he stood to Mr. Davenport?"

"I am under the impression he was some kind of humble hanger-on; but I am not sure."

"You know nothing of him?"

"Certainly not."

"Never saw him?"

"Not to my knowledge."

Another pause.

"You were good enough to tell me a moment ago that you are acquainted with the legal business of my late husband. Suppose I did not wish to take any money or property under my late husband's will, how would the matter be?"

"Not take your husband's money or property under the will! You are not, my dear Mrs. Davenport, thinking of anything so monstrous?" cried the old man, fairly surprised out of his measured tone and oracular manner.

"Suppose I am. Have I, or shall I soon have, absolute control over what has been left to me?"

"Certainly. There are no conditions. All will be yours absolutely."

"Thank you. I am very much obliged. You will add further to my obligations to you if you will kindly hurry forward all matters in connection with the will. I am most anxious to have the money in my own hands."

"Permit me to explain once more: I take it for granted you have not had leisure to read the copy of the will I forwarded to you?"

She bowed.

"In wills there are often very stupid conditions and provisions which govern the disposal of the property. In this case there are no conditions or provisions, so that you enter into possession quite untrammelled. You understand me when I say quite untrammelled?"

"I understand."

"So that if at any time it seemed well to you to-" He stopped. She had begun to rise, and he did not know whether it would be wise to complete the sentence or not.

She stood before him holding out her hand as she finished what he had begun-"To marry again I should run no risk of forfeiting the money."

"Precisely."

She smiled.

"Thank you. I am a little tired, and am not able to express my sense of your goodness to me during this interview. But I am, I assure you, grateful. I am not thinking of marriage. You will, I hope, be able to get everything into order soon. I must go now. Good-bye."

He saw her into the cab waiting for her at the door, and then walked back to his private office.

"A remarkable woman," he mused, "a remarkable and very fine woman. But I suppose she's mad. There's a screw loose in the heads of the Davenport family, and 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.' Perhaps she took the taint from him. There was no screw loose in his business head. He was as sharp as razors, and as close as wax. I think she's mad, or perhaps she's only a rogue. I suspect his money was not over clean, but that's no affair of mine. She married Davenport, every one said, for his money. She lived with him all these years for his money, every one said-although, for the life of me, I can't see what good it did him or her; and now he's gone, and the money is all hers, and she talks of doing away with it. Oh, she must be mad, for I don't see where the roguery could come in, unless-unless- Ah, that may be it. By Jove, I'm sure that's it! Byron says, 'Believe a woman or an epitaph?' But he didn't mean it. Byron hardly ever meant what he said, and never what he wrote. It's a pity he never turned his attention to law. He never, as far as my reading has gone, did anything with law except to break all of it he could lay his hands on-civil and divine-especially divine, for that's cheap, and he was poor. She's a very fine woman, though. But what is this I was saying? Oh, yes. The only explanation of her conduct is that Blake, the blackguard Blake, has asked her, or is going to ask her, to marry him, and that she wants to test him by saying she is about to give away all her money to charitable institutions. That's the root of the mystery. And then, when she marries him, she'll throw all the money into his lap, and he'll spend it for her, and gamble it away and beat her. Anyway, he can't make quite a pauper of her, for even she herself can't destroy her marriage settlement, and the trustees won't stand any nonsense. Always 'believe a woman and an epitaph.' I wonder what kind of an epitaph will she put up to Davenport? Something about his name always reminding her of him-that she couldn't stand it, and so had to change it."

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE WIDOW'S THEORY OF THE CASE

When Mrs. Davenport got back to the hotel, she inquired if any telegram had come for her, and was told not. She seemed displeased, disappointed. She asked questions, and discovered that it would be next to impossible that her telegram could reach London before the departure of the morning mail. This put things right, for she felt certain that if Blake got her message he would have replied. He was on his way, and would be in Dublin that evening. In Dublin, yes; but how should he know where to seek her? She spoke to the manager, to whom she explained her difficulty.

If the lady telegraphed to the mail-boat at Holyhead, the gentleman would be sure to get the message.

She thanked the manager, and adopted his suggestion. The day was unpleasant under foot and overhead. There were no friends upon whom she wished to call. The ten years of secluded life at Kilcash House had severed all connection with old acquaintances, and she had made no new ones.

She remained by herself in the sitting-room. She did not even try to read. She sat in the window, and kept her eyes turned towards the busy street. It could not be said she watched the crowds and vehicles, or was even conscious of their existence. She kept her eyes in their direction-that was all.

Luncheon was brought in. She sat at the table for a quarter of an hour, ate something, and then went back to the old place at the window. It was dark before dinner appeared, but she did not ring for lights. When dinner was over, it was close to the time for the arrival of the mail. She put on her bonnet, and went to Westland Row terminus. The weather was still unpleasant, but she did not care, did not heed it. She had not long to wait in that dismal, squalid cavern at the foot of the stone steps leading down from the platform. The train rumbled in, and the passengers began to descend and pass between the double row of people. Suddenly she stepped forward and touched a man on the arm. He turned quickly, and looked at her, exclaiming:

"You here, Marion! I got your telegram on the boat."

"I was afraid it might miss you, so I thought it safer to come myself."

"What extraordinary story is this? I can scarcely believe you were serious when you wired me yesterday from Rugby."

"I was in no humour for jesting," she said. "This is no place to talk in. Wait until we get to the hotel."

When they were seated in Mrs. Davenport's sitting-room, he waited for her to speak. She was in the arm of the couch-he by the table, with his elbow resting on it. They were facing one another. She clasped her hands in her lap and rested against the back of the couch. She was deadly pale, and when she spoke her voice was low, firm, and full of thought.

"I want you to tell me all you know about this man Fahey. Mind, you are to tell me all. There is no use in concealing anything now. I will not take a penny of that money. Speak plainly."

"Not take the money, Marion! Are you mad?" he exclaimed, starting forward on his chair.

"Not yet. The future of my reason will depend a good deal on the plainness of your speech. Go on."

"But I have told you all that is worth telling."

"Tell it to me all over again, and this time add everything, great or little, you can think of, you can recollect. Let me judge what is worth listening to, and what is not. I am waiting."

"I know next to nothing of Fahey, and never saw the man in all my life. You are allowing this absurd story of his ghost to prey on you. You will make yourself ill."

"Nothing is so bad as uncertainty. I am racked by uncertainty. Go on if you wish to do me a service."

"Service! I'd die for your sake, Marion."

"Then speak for my sake." She did not move or show any interest one way or the other in his words, although they had been spoken pleadingly, passionately.

"At Florence, when he was seized by that delusion, he raved now and then, and in his ravings he said continually that there was a plot to rob and murder him. He did not include me in the conspiracy, but all others were leagued against him. At times he would become furious, and defy his imaginary foes, swearing that all of them together were powerless against him, as Fahey was loyal, and would be loyal to the death."

"Loyal in what?"

"I don't know. He did not say in either his sane or frantic moments."

"What did he say?"

"That Fahey knew, but that no power on earth would drag the secret out of Fahey."

"What secret?"

"How should I know?"

"Do you know?"

"Upon my soul, Marion, I do not."

"Well, and after that what would happen?"

"He would laugh and snap his fingers at imaginary conspirators, and dare them to do their worst, and then he would break out into a laugh of triumph. And, as I hope to live, Marion, that's all."

"Every word?"

"Every syllable, I swear to you. Marion, I could not tell you a lie. Marion, I never loved you until now. If you bid me, I will die for you. If you tell me, I will go away and never see you again. Try me. Bid me go or bid me die. Tell me to do anything, if you will only believe I love you as I never loved you before-as I never loved any other woman in the world. Since you will not forgive me, since you will not give me your love for mine, since you will not let me be near you or see you, set me something to do by which I can show you I am sincere-madly in earnest."

He bent towards her, and held out his hands, but did not leave his chair. His voice, his whole frame shook with excitement.

She raised her hand and lowered it gently, as a signal that he was to be still and silent.

He drew his arms and his body quickly back, and sat mutely regarding her.

"I am sorry," she said, slowly, gently, "that you spoke in that strain now. This is not the time for such matters-"

"Then a time may come, Marion-a time may come soon or late? I do not care when-"

"No," she answered, quietly, resolutely.

"That time came and went long ago. Be silent on that subject. I want to speak of long ago."

He groaned, and struck his forehead with his clenched fist.

"It was scarcely fair of me to ask you to come. Will you answer my questions?"

"Ask me what you please. I'll do it. The only hope now left to me is that you will allow me to serve you."

"My next question may be, must be painful to you."

He laughed bitterly.

"That does not matter. Nothing can matter now, except feeling I can be of no use to you."

"What means of influence had you over my husband beyond what I knew of?"

"I am not in the least pained by that question. I was a poor idiotic fool to give you up, but I could not support you if I married you on my own means then. I had no means. But still less could I, vile as I was, marry you on money got from him."

"What influence had you?"

"I had only one spell to conjure with."

"And that was?"

"The name of Fahey."

"How did you employ that name?"

"I said to him once, 'Is Fahey still loyal?' I said it half in jest. We were alone. He begged of me never to mention that name again, as it recalled his awful condition in Florence. He said if I would do him the favour of never referring to that circumstance or name, he would be my life-long debtor-adding: 'And I mean what I say, and that it shall have practical results.'"

"He meant money."

"Yes."

"Was that before or after he gave you the thousand pounds?"

"Before-some months before. But now-poor Davenport is no more, and cannot be hurt by any one. And Fahey is dead, and can hurt no one, though foolish old women frighten themselves with the thought that they have seen his ghost. Did you know this Fahey?"

She shuddered. This was the first sign of feeling she showed. What it sprang from he could not guess.

"I did," she answered, unsteadily.

"And you believe this story about the ghost?"

"No."

"What then?"

"That" – with another shudder-"he is alive."

"Alive, Marion-alive! You are overexcited. You are talking nonsense. Go and lie down. You are worn out."

"I am. I feel my head whirling round. Leave me."

He rose obediently to go.

"My mind is giving way, Tom."

That name spoken by her lips again rooted him to the spot.

"They suspected you, Tom, of that awful deed, and they say he did it himself. I am going mad. Surely this is madness."

"What-what! Marion!"

"And now I suspect-him!"

"Whom, in the name of heaven?"

"Fahey. He was jealous of you both. Why did you put out the lights-"

She tottered!

CHAPTER XXXVIII
"WHERE'ER I CAME I BROUGHT CALAMITY."

Tom Blake was thunderstruck. They were both standing facing one another a few feet apart. Blake was not a man to be disturbed by a trifle. He had been a good deal about in the world, and had had experience of various kinds of men and women. Many years ago he had met this woman frequently, and in the end he made love to her. Although she accepted that love and returned it, she had never taken him fully into her confidence.

In Marion Butler, as he knew her eleven or twelve years ago, there had always been a certain undefined reserve. She would not refuse to answer any question put to her, nor was there a doubt she answered truly and fully. But she always created the impression that there were questions which he could not devise or discover, and the answer to which he was in no way prepared for. He had no idea or hint of what these questions might be. He was in no way uneasy about them. He was convinced there were portions of her nature which would always be concealed from him; but he was not jealous or suspicious. He was not then even slightly disquieted by this blankness, this reticence. It had no more meaning for him than would her native tongue, had she been born a Hindoo and laid that language aside for English. She had told him she had never loved any one but him, and he believed her without the possibility of doubt. She promised to be his wife, and he believed she would have stood at the altar with him though death were his rival for the first kiss.

But now he was amazed, confounded. He had never seen the man Fahey, but he had heard and read in the papers a little about him, and from all he had gathered he fancied Fahey was a kind of upper servant or hanger-on of some kind. Davenport had spoken to him of Fahey, but the talk had been very general and vague, except with regard to the conspiracy, and the former man always showed the greatest possible disinclination to hear anything, or be asked any questions relating to the latter. Blake had never run the risk of riding a free horse to death. He got money in large sums from Mr. Davenport, but he had been judicious. There was nothing so low or coarse as blackmail hinted at by Mr. Davenport. That gentleman and he were excellent friends, and he had had bad luck, or was in want of money for some other cause, and when men became alarmed about money matters, although they were quite innocent, they often did foolish things. Look at that idiot Fahey. So Mr. Davenport, because he was a gentleman and a friend of Blake's, gave him money out of mere courtesy and good nature, and not fear, as one gives to a strange fellow-pedestrian on the footway when the stranger carries a load. There was no more hint of threat or dread of fear in the case of Mr. Davenport's offering the money, or of Blake taking it, than in the case of the meeting of two unacquainted wayfarers.

He had thought nothing the widow could tell him would take him by surprise, and here he now was fairly breathless and amazed. There was no doubt in his mind this Fahey had not been the social equal of Marion Butler, and Blake was of opinion the man's origin had been much lower than Mr. Davenport's, though whence the dead man had sprung he did not exactly know. Kilcash House had not always been the dead man's property. He had bought it only a little while before his marriage. Davenport seemed to be a man accustomed to meet men only. He was not by any means at his ease in an ordinary mixed company, and he had explained this to Blake by saying that until comparatively late in life he had been almost wholly a business man and unaccustomed to the society of ladies.

But now what ghastly light shone on the dire tragedy of the Crescent House in Dulwich! What a wonderful revelation was this! Fahey, the humble follower of the dead man, had been an admirer of the dead man's wife; and he who had been declared dead a decade of years ago was by her believed to be living, and to have been connected directly with her husband's death! No wonder he was giddy. No wonder he could find no words to speak to her. No wonder he could only stand and gaze at her in stupid fear, revolving in a dim light the ghostly pageant of the past.

It was she who broke the silence.

"I wish I were dead!"

Her voice recalled him to her presence and the immediate hour. He took her by the hand, led her to a seat, and began pacing up and down the room without speaking.

"Advise me," she went on, after a pause. "Advise me, out of mercy. If I were dead, there would be no lips to tell, no soul to suspect the horrors by which I am haunted. Advise me. You know more of me than any other living being. Shall I die?"

Still he could not speak. Her question came to his ears as though it were something apart from her personality and his consideration-as though it were a tedious impertinence rising from an indifferent source. Although he knew he was in that room with the widow of Louis Davenport, and that she had just said she believed Fahey was alive, and had killed her husband from jealousy, he could not give the situation substantial form. There were confounding murmurs in his ears, and indeterminable shadows floating before his eyes. His mind was clamorous for quiet, and the clamour stunned and confounded him.

"Speak to me," she pleaded. "I am not deserted, yet I am alone. I have always been alone since I can first remember. Only I myself have broken the solitude in which I lived. Once, long ago, I thought you were coming towards me from a distance, to share my solitude, but you-you-went by. I felt like a castaway on a desolate island, who sees a sail bear down upon him in the twilight, only to find the morning sea a barren desert of water. Should I die? That is not a hard question for you to answer, is it?"

"No; not a hard question, Marion. You must live."

"For what?"

If she had asked this question an hour ago, before she told him her horrible suspicions, he would readily have answered, "For me." As it was, such an answer would have seemed flippant, profane. But an answer of some kind must be made. He could find no answer, and said merely, "Give me time."

She sat upright on her chair. One hand and arm rested on the table, the white hand lying open upon the leaf, the thumb holding on by the edge. Her head and face were thrust forward, her chin projecting, the forehead reclining. Her eyes, wide open, followed him closely, intently, but not eagerly. She seemed curious, more than anxious. It was as though she took but a reflected interest in the question, although the reply might govern her action. She waited for him patiently. He was a long time before he spoke.

"Marion," he said at length, "if I am to be of any use to you-if even my advice is to be of service to you-I must know all-all, without reserve of any kind. On the face of it, your question is absurd. Supposing you had no code-no religious feeling in the matter; suppose you had no fear or hope of the other world, what earthly good could come of your doing violence to yourself? – of your throwing away your life suddenly?"

While he was saying this, he continued to walk up and down the room, with his eyes bent on the floor.

Her eyes had continued to follow him in the same close, intent way. Still they lacked eagerness. She was a pupil anxious to know-not an enthusiast impatient to act.

"It would," she answered, with no trace of emotion, "close up his grave for ever, and give peace to his name."

"Your husband's-your husband's grave and name! Come, Marion, let us be frank."

"In what am I uncandid?"

"You did not-you swore at the inquest you did not-love your husband, and now you are talking of killing yourself for his sake. Marion, you cannot hold such words candid."

He paused in his walk, and stood before her. He looked at her a moment, and then averted his gaze. Her eyes, although they rested intelligently on him, did not appear to identify him. They were the eyes of one occupied with the solution of a mental problem, aided by formula of which he was merely the source.

"Thomas Blake," she said, "I once thought you might grow to understand me, and then I came to the conclusion you never could. You are now further off than ever. Louis Davenport was my husband, and I belonged to him. I belong to him still. I swore-as they were good enough to remind me at the inquest-to love, honour, and obey him. I did not come to love him as women love their husbands, but my feeling towards him was whole and loyal. I was his, and I am his; and if my death, now that he is dead, can benefit him or comfort his name with quiet, I am willing to die. Do not be alarmed. I shall make no unpleasantness here. Do you think I am in the way of his rest?"

"Marion, you are talking pure nonsense. Why, your feelings as a Christian alone-"

"Who told you I was a Christian? I tell you I am a Pagan. Leave me at least the Pagan virtues of courage and fearlessness." She did not move.

He looked at her. There could be no doubt she was sincere. Mad as her words sounded, they must be taken at the full value of their ordinary meaning.

"I will not seek to break down your resolution or turn your purpose aside. But before I can be of any real use to you in the way of advice, you must trust me wholly. How am I to judge of your duty unless I know the entire case? Tell me all you know. Tell me all that passed between you and this Fahey, and all you know of the relations between him and your husband."

"I will tell you all you need know."

"Do you think you are a good judge of where your confidence in a matter of this importance should end?"

"I think I am. At all events, I shall be reticent if I consider it better not to speak."

"Well, then, go on, Marion, and tell me all you may. Mind, the more I know the more likely I am able to be of use to you."

She passed the hand not resting on the table across her forehead.

"Sit down," she said. "I can speak with greater ease while you are sitting."

He took a chair directly opposite her, and she began:

"All that I said at the inquest is true, and I told the whole truth in answer to any questions I was asked; but I did not say all that was in my mind. I have had bitter trials in my life. I will not refer again to what was once between you and me; and, remember, in anything I may say I shall have no thought of that. I put that away from my mind altogether, and it will be ungenerous of you if you draw any deduction towards our relations in the past from anything I may say. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly, Marion. I know you too well to fancy for a moment you could be guilty of the mean cowardice of talking at any one. Go on."

"Thank you. I am glad you think I am no coward." She still kept her hand before her face, as though to concentrate her attention upon her mental vision. "As I said at that awful inquest, there was never anything ever so slightly like a quarrel between Mr. Davenport and me. Except that we lived almost exclusively at Kilcash House, which was dull, I had little or nothing to complain of; and the great quiet and isolation of that place did not affect me much, for I had small or no desire to go out into the world, and after a few years it would have given me more pain than pleasure to have to mingle in society. Very shortly after my marriage I met Michael Fahey for the first time-"

"What was he like?" asked Blake, interrupting her.

"He was tall and slender. His hair was brown, his eyes light in colour-blue, I think. He wore a moustache of lighter colour than his hair, and small whiskers of the same colour. He was good-looking in a way-"

"What kind of way?"

"Well, a soft and gentle way. At first he struck me as being a man who was weak, mentally and physically. Later I had reason to think him a man of average, if not more than average, physical strength."

"About how old was he then?"

"I could not say exactly. Under thirty, I should think. He also struck me as a man of not quite good social position. His manners were uneasy, apprehensive, and his English uncertain. He was restless and ill at ease, and for my own peace of mind I was glad when I parted from him; for it struck me he would be much more comfortable if he and my husband were left alone together.

"My husband spoke to me in the highest terms of Fahey, and said that although he wished nothing to be said about it just then, or until he gave me leave to mention it, Fahey had done him useful service in his time. That was all Mr. Davenport volunteered, and I asked no question. I was sure of one thing more-namely, that the less I was with Michael Fahey the better my husband would be satisfied.

"I smiled when this conviction came first upon me. Up to the moment I felt it I had in my mind treated this Fahey as a kind of upper servant, who was to be soothed into unconsciousness that he was not an equal. For a short time I felt inclined to expostulate with Mr. Davenport on the absurdity of fancying Fahey could think of me save as the wife of his patron; but I kept silence, partly out of pride and partly out of ignorance of the relations which really existed between this man and my husband. You may, or may not, have heard of a circumstance which occurred shortly after my marriage?"

"I remember nothing noteworthy. Tell me what it was."

"At that time it was Mr. Davenport's habit to keep large sums of money in the house. Once upon his having to go away for a few days, he left me the keys of the safe in which the money was locked up. While he was away, an attempt was made to rob the house. A door was forced from outside, and two men were absolutely in my room, where I kept the key of the safe, when Fahey, who was staying in the village of Kilcash at the time, rushed in and faced the thieves. I was aroused and saw the struggle. Fortunately the men were unarmed. The light was dim-only my low night lamp.

"The first blow Fahey struck he knocked one of the men through a window. Then he and the other man struggled a long time, and at last the thief broke loose and escaped by the way he had come in. Fahey had overheard the two thieves plan the robbery in the village, and had followed them that night to our house. My husband wished the matter to be kept quiet, and so it was hushed up.