CHAPTER XVII.
"WOULD YOU DARE BE FALSE TO ME, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?"
With her exquisite robe trailing unheeded after her, Anna Goddardswept swiftly down the hall and rapped imperatively upon the door ofher husband's room.
There was no answer from within.
She tried the handle. The door would not yield--it was locked on theinside.
"Gerald, are you in bed?" his wife inquired, putting her lips to thecrack and speaking low.
"What do you wish, Anna?" the man questioned.
"I wish to see you--I must speak with you, even if you have retired,"she returned, imperatively.
There was a slight movement within the room, then the door was thrownopen, and Gerald Goddard stood before her.
But she shrank back almost immediately, a low exclamation of surpriseescaping her as she saw his face, so white, so pain-drawn, andhaggard.
"Gerald! what is the matter?" she demanded, forgetting, for themoment, her own anger and even her errand there, in the anxiety whichshe experienced for him.
"I am feeling quite well, Anna," he responded, in a mechanical tone."What is it you wish to say to me?"
Sweeping into the room, she closed the door after her, then confrontedhim with accusing mien.
"What do I wish to say to you?" she repeated, her voice quivering withpassion, her eyes blazing with a fierce expression. "I want that paperwhich you have stolen from me."
"I--I do not understand you, Anna," the man began, in a pre-occupiedmanner. "What paper--what--"
"I will bear no trifling," she passionately cried, interrupting him."You know very well what paper I refer to--I never had but onedocument in my possession in which you had any interest; the one youhave so beset me about during the last few weeks."
"That?" exclaimed the man, at last aroused from the apathy which hadhitherto seemed to possess him.
"That!" retorted his companion, mockingly imitating his tone, "as ifyou did not very well know it was 'that,' and no other. GeraldGoddard, I have come to demand it of you," she went on shrilly. "Youhave no right to enter my rooms, like a thief, and steal my treasures!I--"
"Anna, be still!" commanded her husband, sternly. "You are losingcontrol of yourself, and some of our guests may overhear you. I knownothing of the document."
"You lie!" hissed the woman, almost beside herself with mingled rageand fear. "Who, but you, could have any interest in the thing? who,save you, even knew of its existence, or that it had ever been in mypossession? Give it back to me! I will have it! It's my onlysafeguard. You knew it, and you have stolen it, to make yourselfindependent of me."
"Anna, you shall not demean either yourself or me by giving expressionto such unjust suspicions," Gerald Goddard returned with cold dignity."I swear to you that I do not know anything about the paper. I havenot even once laid my eyes upon it since you stole it from me. If ithas been taken from the place where you have kept it concealed," hewent on, "then other hands than mine have been guilty of the theft."
There was the ring of truth in his words, and she was forced tobelieve him; yet there was a mystery about the affair which was beyondher fathoming.
"Then who could have taken it," she gasped, growing ghastly white atthe thought of there being a third party to their secret--"who onearth has done this thing?"
Gerald Goddard was silent. He had his suspicions, suspicions that madehim quake inwardly, as he thought of what might be the outcome of themif they should prove to be true.
"Gerald, why do you not answer me?" his companion impatientlydemanded. "Can you think of any one who would be likely to rob us inthis way?"
"Have you no suspicion, Anna?" the man asked, and looking gravely intoher eyes. "Was there no one among your guests to-night, who--"
"Who--what--!" she cried, as he faltered and stopped.
"Was there no one present who made you think of--of some one whomyou--have known in the--the past?"
"Ha! do you refer to Mrs. Stewart?" said madam. "Did you also noticethe--resemblance?"
"Could any one help it?--could any one ever mistake those eyes?Anna--she was Isabel herself!"
"No--no!" she panted wildly, "she may be some relative. Are you losingyour mind? Isabel is--dead."
"She lives!"
"I tell you no! I--saw her dead."
"You? How could that be possible?" exclaimed Mr. Goddard, inastonishment. "We were both in Florence at the time of that tragedy."
"Nevertheless, I saw her dead and in her coffin," persisted hiscompanion, with positive emphasis.
"Now you talk as if you were losing your mind," he answered, withwhite lips.
"I am not. Do you not remember I told you one morning, I was going tospend a couple of days with a friend at Fiesole?"
"Yes."
"Well, I had read of that tragedy that very day, and then hid thepaper, but I did not go to Fiesole at all. I took the first train forRome."
"Anna!"
"I wanted to be sure," she cried, excitedly. "I was jealous of her,I--hated her; and I knew that if the report was true I should be atrest. I went to the place where they had taken her. Some one had caredfor her very tenderly--she lay as if asleep, and looked like abeautiful piece of sculpture in her white robe; one could hardlybelieve that she was--dead. But they told me they were going to--tobury her that afternoon unless some one came to claim her. They askedme if I had known her--if she was a friend of mine. I told themno--she was nothing to me; I had simply come out of curiosity, havingseen the story of her tragic end in a paper. Then I took the nexttrain back to Florence."
"Why have you never told me this before, Anna?" Gerald Goddardinquired, with lips that were perfectly colorless, while he laid hishand upon the back of a chair for support.
"Why?" she flashed out jealously at him. "Why should I talk of her toyou? She was dead--she could never come between us, and I wished toput her entirely out of my mind, since I had satisfied myself of thefact."
"Did--did you hear anything of--of--"
"Of the child? No; all I ever knew was what you yourself read in thepaper--that both mother and child had disappeared from their home andboth were supposed to have suffered the same fate, although the bodyof the child was not found."
"Oh!" groaned Gerald Goddard, wiping the clammy moisture from hisbrow. "I never realized the horror of it as I do at this moment, and Inever have forgiven myself for not going to Rome to institute a searchfor myself; but--"
"But I wouldn't let you, I suppose you were about to add," said madam,bitterly. "What was the use?" she went on, angrily. "Everything wasall over before you knew anything about it--"
"I could at least have erected a tablet to mark her resting-place,"the man interposed.
"Ha! ha! it strikes me it was rather late then to manifest muchsentiment; that would have become you better before you broke herheart and killed her by your neglect and desertion," sneered madam,who was driven to the verge of despair by this late exhibition ofregard for a woman whom she had hated.
"Don't, Anna!" he cried, sharply. Then suddenly straightening himself,he said, as if just awaking from some horrible nightmare: "But she didnot die. I have not that on my conscience, after all."
"She did--I tell you she did!" hoarsely retorted the excited woman.
"But I have seen and talked with her to-night, and she told me thatshe was--Isabel!" he persisted.
Anna Goddard struck her palms together with a gesture bordering upondespair.
"I do not believe it--I will not believe it!" she panted.
"He began to pity her, for he also was beginning to realize that, ifIsabel Stewart were really the woman whom he had wronged more thantwenty years previous, her situation was indeed deplorable.
"Anna," he said, gravely, and speaking with more calmness andgentleness than at any time during the interview, "this is a sternfact, and--we must look it in the face."
His tone and manner carried conviction to her heart.
She sank crouching at his feet, bowing her face up
on her hands.
"Gerald! Gerald! it must not be so!" she wailed. "It is only somecunning story invented to cheat us and avenge her. That woman shallnever separate us--I will never yield to her. Oh, Heaven! why did Inot destroy that paper when I had it? Gerald, give it to me now, ifyou have it; it is not too late to burn it even now, and no one canprove the truth--we can defy her to the last."
The man stooped to raise her from her humiliating position.
"Get up, Anna," he said, kindly. "Come, sit in this chair and let ustalk the matter over calmly. It is a stern fact that Isabel is aliveand well, and it is useless either to ignore it or deplore it."
With shivering sobs bursting from her with every breath, the wretchedwoman allowed herself to be helped to the chair, into which she sankwith an air of abject despair.
Anna Goddard's was not a nature likely to readily yield to humiliationor defeat, and after a few moments of silent battle with herself, sheraised her head and turned her proud face and searching eyes upon hercompanion.
"You say that it is a 'stern fact' that Isabel lives," she remarked,with compressed lips.
"I am sure--there can be no mistake," the man replied. Then he toldher of the interview which had occurred in the hall, where he hadfound the woman standing before the picture which he had painted inRome so many years ago.
"She recognized it at once," he said; "she located the very spot fromwhich I had painted the scene."
"Oh, I cannot make it seem possible, for I tell you I saw her lyingdead in her casket," moaned madam, who, even in the face of allproofs, could not bring herself to believe that her old rival wasliving and had it in her power to ruin her life.
"She must have been in a trance--she must have been resuscitated bythose people who found her. As sure as you and I both live, she isliving also," Mr. Goddard solemnly responded.
"Oh, how could such a thing be?"
"I do not know--she did not tell me; she was very cold and proud."
"What was she doing here? How dared she enter this house?" criedmadam, her anger blazing up again.
"I cannot tell you. It was a question I was asking myself just as youcame to the door," said Mr. Goddard, with a sigh. "I have no doubt shehad some deep-laid purpose, however."
"Do you imagine her purpose was to get possession of that document?"questioned madam.
"I had thought of that--I have felt almost sure of it since you toldme it had disappeared."
"But how could she have known that such a paper was in our possession?You did not receive it until long after--"
"Yes, I know," interposed Mr. Goddard, with a shiver; "nevertheless Iam impressed that it is now in her possession, even though I did notsuppose that any one, save you and I and Will Forsyth, ever knew ofits existence."
There ensued an interval of silence, during which both appeared to beabsorbed in deep thought.
"If she has it, what will she do with it?" madam suddenly questioned,lifting her heavy eyes to her companion.
"I am sure I cannot tell, Anna," he coldly returned.
His tone was like a match applied to powder.
"Well, then, what will you do, Gerald Goddard, in view of the fact, asyou believe, that she is alive and has learned the truth?" sheimperiously demanded.
"I--I do not think it will be wise for us to discuss that point justat present," he faltered.
"Coward! Is that your answer to me after twenty years of adoration anddevotion?" cried the enraged woman, springing excitedly to her feet,the look of a slumbering demon in her dusky eyes.
"After twenty years of jealousy, bickering, and turmoil, you shouldhave said, Anna," was the bitter response.
"Beware! Beware, Gerald! I have hot blood in my veins, as you verywell know," was the menacing retort.
"I have long had a proof of that," he returned, with quiet irony.
"Oh!" she cried, putting up her hand as if to ward off a blow, "youare cruel to me." Then, with sudden passion, she added: "Perhaps,after all, that document is in your possession--or at least that youknow something about it."
"I only wish your surmise were correct, Anna; for, in that case, Ishould have no cause to fear her," said Mr. Goddard, gravely.
"Ha! Even you do 'fear' her?" cried madam, eagerly. "In what way?"
"Can you not see? If she has gained possession of the paper, she hasit in her power to do both of us irreparable harm," the gentlemanexplained.
Anna Goddard shivered.
"Yes, yes," she moaned, "she could make society ring with ournames--she could ruin us, socially; but"--shooting a stealthy glanceat her companion, who sat with bowed head and clouded brow--"I couldbetter bear that than that she should assert a claim upon you--thatshe should use her power to--to separate us. She shall not, Gerald!"she went on, passionately; "there are other countries where you and Ican go and be happy, utterly indifferent to what she may do here."
The man made no reply to these words--he was apparently absorbed inhis own thoughts.
"Gerald! have you nothing to say to me?" madam sharply cried, afterwatching him for a full minute.
"What can I say, Anna? There is nothing that either of us can do butawait further developments," the man returned, but careful to keep tohimself the fact that he had an appointment with the woman whom she sofeared and hated.
"Would you dare to be false to me, after all these years?" hiscompanion demanded, in repressed tones, and leaning toward him withflaming eyes.
"Pshaw, Anna! what a senseless question," he replied, with a forcedlaugh.
"But you admire--you think her very beautiful?" she questioned,eagerly.
"Why, that is a self-evident fact--every one must admit that she is afine-looking woman," was the somewhat evasive response.
Anna Goddard sprang to her feet, her face scarlet.
"You will be very careful what you do, Gerald," she hissed. "I havenever had overmuch confidence in you, in spite of my love for you; butthere is one thing that I will not bear, at this late day, and thatis, that you should turn traitor to me; so be warned in time."
She did not wait to see what effect her words would have upon him,but, turning abruptly, swept from the room, leaving him to his ownreflections.