Her Majesty's Minister

“I called here this afternoon, and spent half an hour or so with her,” I said. “Then I left and returned straight to the Embassy – ”

“You left her here?” he inquired, interrupting. “Yes, in this very room. But it seems that a quarter of an hour later one of the servants entered and discovered her lying upon the door, dead.”

“Curious!” he ejaculated. “Has a medical man seen her?”

“No. The Countess sent for me as being one of her daughter’s most intimate friends, and I, in turn, sent for you.”

“Where is the poor young lady?”

“In her room at the end of the corridor,” I answered hoarsely.

“Is there any suspicion of murder?”

“Apparently none whatever. She had no visitor after I left.”

“And no suspicion of suicide?” he asked, with a sharp look. “Did you part friends?”

“Perfectly so,” I responded. “As to suicide, she had no reason, as far as anyone knows, to make an attempt upon her life.”

He gave vent to an expression which sounded to me much like a grunt of dissatisfaction.

“Now, be perfectly frank with me, Gerald,” he said, suddenly turning to me and placing his hand upon my shoulder. “You loved her very dearly once – was that not so?”

I nodded.

“I well remember it,” he went on. “I quite recollect how, on one occasion, you came over to London, and while dining together at Jimmy’s you told me of your infatuation, and showed me her photograph. Do you remember the night when you told me of your engagement to her?”

“Perfectly.”

“And as time went on you suddenly dropped her – for what reason I know not. We are pals, but I have never attempted to pry into your affairs. If she really loved you, it must have been a hard blow for her when she heard that you had forsaken her for Edith Austin.”

“You reproach me,” I said. “But you do not know the whole truth, my dear fellow. I discovered that Yolande possessed a second lover.”

He nodded slowly, with pursed lips.

“And that was the reason of your parting?”

“Yes.”

“The sole reason?”

“The sole reason.”

“And you have no suspicion that she may have committed suicide because of her love for you? Such things are not uncommon, remember, with girls of a certain temperament.”

“If she has committed suicide, it is not on my account,” I responded in a hard voice.

“I did not express that opinion,” he hastened to protest. “Before we discuss the matter further it will be best for me to see her. Death may have been due to natural causes, for aught we know.”

I stood motionless. His suggestion that my sweetheart of the old days had committed suicide because I had forsaken her was a startling one. Surely that could not be so?

“Come,” my friend said, “let us lose no time. Which is the room?”

I led him along the corridor, and opened the door of the chamber in which she was lying so cold and still. The light of the afterglow fell full upon her, tipping her auburn hair with crimson and illuminating her face with a warm radiance that gave her back the appearance of life. But it was only for a few moments. The slanting ray was lost, and the pallor of that beautiful countenance became marked against the gold of her wondrous hair.

In silence I stood at the foot of the bed watching my friend, who was now busy with his examination. He opened her eyes and closed them again, felt her heart, raised her arms, and examined her mouth, uttering no word. His serious face wore a look as though he were infinitely puzzled.

One after the other he examined the palms of her hands long and carefully, then, bending until his eyes were close to her face, he examined her lips, brow, and the whole surface of her cheeks. Upon her neck, below the left ear, was a mark to which he returned time after time, as though not satisfied as to its cause. Upon her lower lip, too, was a slight yellow discoloration, which he examined several times, comparing it with the mark upon the neck. He was unable to account for either.

“Curious!” he ejaculated. “Very curious indeed!”

“What is curious?” I inquired eagerly.

“Those marks,” he answered, indicating them with his finger. “They are very puzzling. I’ve never seen such marks before.”

“Do they point to foul play?” I inquired, feeling suspicious that she had by some mysterious means fallen the victim of an assassin.

“Well, no,” he responded, after some hesitation; “that is not my opinion.”

“Then what is your opinion?”

“At present I have none. I can have none until I make a thorough examination. There are certainly no outward marks of violence.”

“We need not inform the police, I suppose?”

“Not at present,” he replied, his eyes still fixed upon the blanched face of the woman who had once been all the world to me.

I raised her dead hand, and upon it imprinted a last fervent kiss. It was cold and clammy to my lips. In that hour all my old love for her had returned, and my heart had become filled with an intense bitterness and desolation. I had thought that all my love for her was dead, and that Edith Austin, the calm, sweet woman far away in an English county, who wrote to me daily from her quiet home deep in the woodlands, had taken her place. But our meeting and its tragic sequel had, I admit, aroused within me a deep sympathy, which had, within an hour, developed into that great and tender love of old. With men this return to the old love is of no infrequent occurrence, but with women it seldom happens. Perhaps this is because man is more fickle and more easily influenced by woman’s voice, woman’s glances, and woman’s tears.

The reader will probably accuse me of injustice and of fickleness of heart. Well, I cannot deny it; indeed, I seek to deny nothing in this narrative of strange facts and diplomatic wiles, but would only ask of those who read to withhold their verdict until they have ascertained the truth yet to be revealed, and have read to the conclusion, this strange chapter of the secret history of a nation.

My friend the doctor was holding one hand, while I imprinted a last kiss upon the other. A lump was in my throat, my eyes were filled with tears, my thoughts were all of the past, my anguish of heart unspeakable. That small chill hand with the cold, glittering ring – one that I had given her in Brussels long ago – seemed to be the only reality in all that hideous phantasmagoria of events.

“Do not despair,” murmured the kind voice of my old friend, standing opposite me on the other side of the bed. “You loved her once, but it is all over – surely it is!”

“No, Dick!” I answered brokenly. “I thought I did not love her. I have held her from me these three years – until now.”

“Ah!” he sighed, “I understand. Man always longs for the unattainable.”

“Yes, always,” I responded.

In that moment the memory of the day when we had parted arose gaunt and ghost-like. I had wronged her; I felt confident that I had. All came back to me now – that cruel, scandalous denunciation I had uttered in the heat of my mad jealousy – the false tale which had struck her dumb by its circumstantial accuracy. Ah! how bitter it all was, now that punishment was upon me! I remembered how, in the hour of my worldly triumph and of her highest hope – at the very moment when she had spoken words of greater affection to me than she had ever used before – I had made the charge against her, and she had fallen back with her young heart crushed within her. My ring was there, still glittering mockingly upon her dead hand. By the unfounded charge I had made against her I had sinned. My sin at that moment arose from its grave, and barred the way for ever to all hope – to all happiness.

The summer twilight was stealing on apace, and in the silence of the room there sounded the roar of life from the boulevard below. Men were crying Le Soir with strident voices, and all Paris was on its way to dine, and afterwards to enjoy itself in idleness upon the terraces of the cafés or at those al-fresco variety performances in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, where the entrance fee includes a consommation.

Deane still held my old love’s hand, bending in the dim light until his eyes were close to it, watching intently. But I took no notice, for my eyes were fixed upon that face that had held me in such fascination, and had been so admired at those brilliant receptions given by King Leopold and the Countess of Flanders. The doctor stretched forth his hand, and of a sudden switched on the electric light. The next instant I was startled by his loud ejaculation of surprise.

“Thank God!” he cried. “She’s not dead, after all!”