In White Raiment

“May I not know the name?” I inquired.

“It is a name with which you are not acquainted,” she assured me. “The house at which I was visiting was in Queen’s-gate Gardens.”

Queen’s-gate Gardens! Then she was telling the truth!

“And you have no knowledge of how you came to be back here in your cousin’s house?”

“None whatever. I tell you that I was entirely unconscious.”

“And you are certain that the symptoms on that day were the same as those which we all experienced last night? You felt frozen to death?”

“Yes,” she responded, lying back in her chair, sighing rather wearily and passing her hand across her aching brow.

There was a deep silence. We could hear the throbbing of each other’s heart. At last she looked up tremblingly, with an expression of undissembled pain, saying —

“The truth is, Doctor, it was an absolute mystery, just as were the events of last night – a mystery which is driving me to desperation.”

“It’s not the mystery that troubles you,” I said, in a low earnest voice, “but the recollection of that dream-marriage, is it not?”

“Exactly,” she faltered.

“You do not recollect the name announced by the clergyman, as that of your husband?” I inquired, eagerly.

“I heard it but once, and it was strange and unusual; the droning voice stumbled over it indistinctly, therefore I could not catch it.”

She was in ignorance that she was my bride. Her heart was beating rapidly, the lace on her bosom trembled as she slowly lifted her eyes to mine. Could she ever love me?

A thought of young Chetwode stung me to the quick. He was my rival, yet I was already her husband.

“I have been foolish to tell you all this,” she said presently, with a nervous laugh. “It was only a dream – a dream so vivid that I have sometimes thought it was actual truth.”

Her speech was the softest murmur, and the beautiful face, nearer to mine than it had been before, was looking at me with beseeching tenderness. Then her eyes dropped, a martyr pain passed over her face, her small hands sought each other as though they must hold something, the fingers clasped themselves, and her head drooped.

“I am glad you have told me,” I said. “The incident is certainly curious, judged in connexion with the unusual phenomena of last night.”

“Yes, but I ought not to have told you,” she said slowly. “Nora will be very angry.”

“Why?”

“Because she made me promise to tell absolutely no one,” she answered, with a faint sharpness in her voice. There were loss and woe in those words of hers.

“What motive had she in preserving your secret?” I asked, surprised. “Surely she is – ”

My love interrupted me.

“No, do not let us discuss her motives or her actions; she is my friend. Let us not talk of the affair any more, I beg of you.”

She was pale as death, and it seemed as though a tremor ran through all her limbs.

“But am I not also your friend, Miss Wynd?” I asked in deep seriousness.

“I – I hope you are.”

Her voice was timid, troubled; but her sincere eyes again lifted themselves to mine.

“I assure you that I am,” I declared. “If you will but give me your permission I will continue, with Hoefer, to seek a solution of this puzzling problem.”

“It is so uncanny,” she said. “To me it surpasses belief.”

“I admit that. At present, to leave that room is to invite death. We must, therefore, make active researches to ascertain the truth. We must find your strange visitor in black.”

“Find her?” she gasped. “You could never do that.”

“Why not? She is not supernatural; she lives and is in hiding somewhere, that’s evident.”

“And you would find her, and seek from her the truth?”

“Certainly.”

She shut her lips tight and sat motionless, looking at me. Then at last she said, shuddering —

“No. Not that.”

“Then you know this woman – or at least you guess her identity,” I said in a low voice.

She gazed at me with parted lips.

“I have already told you that I do not know her,” was her firm response.

“Then what do you fear?” I demanded.

Again she was silent. Whatever potential complicity had lurked in her heart, my words brought her only immeasurable dismay.

“I dread such an action for your own sake,” she faltered.

“Then I will remain till your cousin comes, and ask her what it is.”

“Ask her?”

Chapter Twenty Two

A Savant at Home

“Why should I not ask your cousin?” I inquired earnestly. “I see by your manner that you are in sore need of a friend, and yet you will not allow me to act as such.”

“Not allow you!” she echoed. “You are my friend. Were it not for you I should have died last night.”

“Your recovery was due to Hoefer, not to myself,” I declared.