MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
“Is there any room in which I can talk to you
alone?” Robert Audley asked, as he looked dubiously
round the hall.
My lady only bowed her head in answer. She pushed
open the door of the library, which had been left
ajar. Sir Michael had gone to his dressing-room
to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment,
perfectly legitimate for an invalid. The apartment
was quite empty, only lighted by the blaze of the
fire, as it had been upon the previous evening.
Lady Audley entered the room, followed by Robert,
who closed the door behind him. The wretched,
shivering woman went to the fireplace and knelt down
before the blaze, as if any natural warmth, could have
power to check that unnatural chill. The young
man followed her, and stood beside her upon the hearth,
with his arm resting upon the chimney-piece.
“Lady Audley,” he said, in a voice whose
icy sternness held out no hope of any tenderness or
compassion, “I spoke to you last-night very
plainly, but you refused to listen to me. To-night
I must speak to you still more plainly, and you must
no longer refuse to listen to me.”
My lady, crouching before the fire with her face hidden
in her hands, uttered a low, sobbing sound which was
almost a moan, but made no other answer.
“There was a fire last night at Mount Stanning,
Lady Audley,” the pitiless voice proceeded;
“the Castle Inn, the house in which I slept,
was burned to the ground. Do you know how I escaped
perishing in that destruction?”
“No.”
“I escaped by a most providential circumstance
which seems a very simple one. I did not sleep
in the room which had been prepared for me. The
place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney
smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting
a fire, and I persuaded the servant to make me up
a bed on the sofa in the small ground-floor sitting-room
which I had occupied during the evening.”
He paused for a moment, watching the crouching figure.
The only change in my lady’s attitude was that
her head had fallen a little lower.
“Shall I tell you by whose agency the destruction
of the Castle Inn was brought about, my lady?”
There was no answer.
“Shall I tell you?”
Still the same obstinate silence.
“My Lady Audley,” cried Robert, suddenly,
“you are the incendiary. It was
you whose murderous hand kindled those flames.
It was you who thought by that thrice-horrible deed
to rid yourself of me, your enemy and denouncer.
What was it to you that other lives might be sacrificed?
If by a second massacre of Saint Bartholomew you could
have ridded yourself of me you would have sacrificed
an army of victims. The day is past for tenderness
and mercy. For you I can no longer know pity or
compunction. So far as by sparing your shame I
can spare others who must suffer by your shame, I
will be merciful, but no further. If there were
any secret tribunal before which you might be made
to answer for your crimes, I would have little scruple
in being your accuser, but I would spare that generous
and high-born gentleman upon whose noble name your
infamy would be reflected.”
