Florence Warden

“ A cry of horror broke from her lips when, turning her eyes at once towards a big divan which stood under the window, she saw lying at full length upon it the body of the woman in the white dress.
Her white hat was crushed and bent under her poor lifeless head; one hand, still in its long wrinkled white kid glove, was outstretched as if in a last convulsion; one white kid, high-heeled walking shoe lay on the floor. The white ostrich feather boa which had floated round her shoulders when Audrey saw her alive was twisted round her thin throat. ”

“ I will not stay at my ease with the relatives who have snubbed and neglected her, and left her to the kindness and care of people who are not connected with her or with me by any ties but those of friendship!’ Surely, surely, Madame——Audrey, you would never cling so tenderly to a husband who could let you go and keep safe and snug himself in the house of a man who had no respect and regard for his true wife! ”

“ Why should they take it for granted that she was worthless, just because they took it for granted that her husband, having been convicted, must be a criminal? Why were they so blind as to suppose that she, who denounced the cheating that had gone on at “The Briars,” was in league with the cheats?
She could not understand it. She could not realise how subtilly Mr. Candover had been at work, representing her as a miracle of artful prudence, whose airs of innocence hid the most careful and cautious system of self-preservation. ”

“ Candover had brought a cab, had covered the dead woman with a long cloak belonging to Mademoiselle Laure, led her out between them as if she had been still alive, and carried her, under cover of the darkness, a gruesome companion, out to Willesden, where, in an empty house in a half-built street, where building was at a standstill for lack of funds, they had buried the body of the wretched woman under the flooring. ”

“ Audrey stopped, but she did not hold out her hand. In truth she was at war with all the world. With the judge who had sentenced Gerard, the jury who had tried him, the counsel who had led the case against him, the counsel who had failed to defend him successfully; more than all with the relations who had written her letters full of horror at her husband’s supposed misdeeds, accompanied by subdued reminders that, when she left the calm of a Lancashire town for the riot and wickedness of a London life with a London husband, she had only done what she might have expected to lead to misery. ”

“ If there had been even a little kindliness, a little unbending, in his tone and manner, Audrey might perhaps have been tempted to tell him the whole truth as to her identity, and even to plead with him on behalf of that nephew whom she was sure he cruelly misjudged.
But Lord Clanfield, though he was perplexed, was not outwardly softened. If anything, indeed, he was inclined to be indignant that the keeper of a gaming-house, as he believed her to be, should be so amply endowed by nature, so well-bred in manner, as to increase the danger of her acquaintance for susceptible young men. ”

“ Seeing his opportunity in a certain softening of her features, a relaxing of her attitude, he was drawing stealthily nearer when, suddenly realising her danger, her weakness, she raised her head, and went on with her exculpation of Gerard.
“He cannot choose, he is in the hands of others,” she said. “For not only is he so ill that there’s a doubt whether we can save him, but his uncle has undertaken to sift the evidence against him, the false evidence that got his conviction. So that on Lord Clanfield may be said to depend not only his life, but his honour.” ”

“ She broke down suddenly into a sort of hysterical sobbing without tears, and Audrey watched her with mingled sympathy and dismay.
Suddenly as she had broken out, she recovered, and, still with the same wild, intent look in her eyes, stared round the room until her gaze had taken in every object within her view. Then she turned abruptly to Audrey, who was getting alarmed by her behaviour.
Taking a great stride towards her, the woman in black put her face close to that of the younger woman, and said in a dictatorial tone:—
“You are very beautiful, too beautiful to be good! Who are you?” ”

“ Gerard’s face fell again. Mr. Candover filled up the glass again; but Audrey, rising quickly from her seat, shook her head and gently checked her husband’s hand.
“No,” said she. “No more, Gerard. You’ve had nothing to eat and you want your best brains. Mr. Candover,” and she turned to him, with a new dignity and peremptoriness surprising in such a young woman, “you’ve disappointed me. I thought you would have something better to suggest than—brandy.” ”

“ Candover; and turning quickly with little cries, they were amazed to find themselves face to face, not with the smiling, indulgent father, the chivalrous and kind friend, but with a man whose face was dark with passion, and in whose black eyes there was a look of anger and alarm which struck them dumb, and filled Audrey at least with sudden and strange misgiving. ”

“ After a brief struggle, Audrey regained enough composure to answer, not in a firm, even tone, but in short, broken sentences:—
“They disapprove—Lord Clanfield disapproves strongly, utterly, of what I have done, what I am doing. He dislikes the notion of my being in business, on the one hand, of my receiving guests who gamble on the other. I feel he is justified.”
“Well, but surely Gerard doesn’t disapprove! Knowing you were left insufficiently provided for, surely he applauds your spirit in striking out a line for yourself! He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t!” ”

“ Audrey, indeed, spoke French well. But excitement either confused her utterance or affected her voice, for it was a long time before the Frenchwoman gathered the gist of her words.
Then Mademoiselle laughed at her.
“You dream, Madame,” she answered in her rapid French. “Such things do not happen. The busy day has got on your nerves, and you have imagined horrors which have no existence! Bah! A dead woman—all in white—lying upstairs! No, no. You want your dinner. ”

“ Candover, let me go.”
They were within the conservatory doors, which he had contrived to close without releasing her. Still holding her fast, he looked with passionate eyes into her face and whispered:—
“Let you go? Let you go? No, Audrey, no. I’ve loved you, waited for a kind word from you, patiently, humbly. But one can’t be humble and patient for ever. Audrey, you’ve never been loved before, you don’t know what it is to hold a man’s heart in your hand, as you hold mine!” ”

“ Candover met her, and she at once, having ordered coffee and a roll as an excuse for her presence in the shop, told him the whole story of the events of the previous evening.
He thrust aside as absurd the suggestion of the Frenchwoman and the doctor that Audrey had been misled by her imagination.
“You saw a woman, a stranger, undoubtedly,” said he. “People don’t imagine such things. And no doubt you saw her dragged away, and saw her lying in the fitting-room. The only thing I doubt is that she can have been dead.” ”