Lady Audley’s Secret by M. E. Braddon (top ebook reader TXT) 📕

should still hold her as the most detestable and despicable of her sex⁠—the most pitiless and calculating of human creatures. That cruel lie was a base and cowardly blow in the dark; it was the treacherous dagger-thrust of an infamous assassin.”

“But how do you know that the announcement was a false one?” asked my lady. “You told us that you had been to Ventnor with Mr. Talboys to see his wife’s grave. Who was it who died at Ventnor if it was not Mrs. Talboys?”

“Ah, Lady Audley,” said Robert, “that is a question which only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy’s death. Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication⁠—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled? Do you think I shall fail to discover those missing links? No, Lady Audley, I shall not fail, for I know where to look for them! There is a fair-haired woman at Southampton⁠—a woman called Plowson, who has some share in the secrets of the father of my friend’s wife. I have an idea that she can help me to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard, and I will spare no trouble in making that discovery, unless⁠—”

“Unless what?” asked my lady, eagerly.

“Unless the woman I wish to save from degradation and punishment accepts the mercy I offer her, and takes warning while there is still time.”

My lady shrugged her graceful shoulders, and flashed bright defiance out of her blue eyes.

“She would be a very foolish woman if she suffered herself to be influenced by any such absurdity,” she said. “You are hypochondriacal, Mr. Audley, and you must take camphor, or red lavender, or sal volatile. What can be more ridiculous than this idea which you have taken into your head? You lose your friend George Talboys in rather a mysterious manner⁠—that is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave England without giving you due notice. What of that? You confess that he became an altered man after his wife’s death. He grew eccentric and misanthropical; he affected an utter indifference as to what became of him. What more likely, then, than that he grew tired of the monotony of civilized life, and ran away to those savage goldfields to find a distraction for his grief? It is rather a romantic story, but by no means an uncommon one. But you are not satisfied with this simple interpretation of your friend’s disappearance, and you build up some absurd theory of a conspiracy which has no existence except in your own overheated brain. Helen Talboys is dead. The Times newspaper declares she is dead. Her own father tells you that she is dead. The headstone of the grave in Ventnor churchyard bears record of her death. By what right,” cried my lady, her voice rising to that shrill and piercing tone peculiar to her when affected by any intense agitation⁠—“by what right, Mr. Audley, do you come to me, and torment me about George Talboys⁠—by what right do you dare to say that his wife is still alive?”

“By the right of circumstantial evidence, Lady Audley,” answered Robert⁠—“by the right of that circumstantial evidence which will sometimes fix the guilt of a man’s murder upon that person who, on the first hearing of the case, seems of all other men the most unlikely to be guilty.”

“What circumstantial evidence?”

“The evidence of time and place. The evidence of handwriting. When Helen Talboys left her father’s at Wildernsea, she left a letter behind her⁠—a letter in which she declared that she was weary of her old life, and that she wished to seek a new home and a new fortune. That letter is in my possession.”

“Indeed.”

“Shall I tell you whose handwriting resembles that of Helen Talboys so closely, that the most dexterous expert could perceive no distinction between the two?”

“A resemblance between the handwriting of two women is no very uncommon circumstance nowadays,” replied my lady carelessly. “I could show you the caligraphies of half-a-dozen female correspondents, and defy you to discover any great difference in them.”

“But what if the handwriting is a very uncommon one, presenting marked peculiarities by which it may be recognized among a hundred?”

“Why, in that case the coincidence is rather curious,” answered my lady; “but it is nothing more than a coincidence. You cannot deny the fact of Helen Talboys death on the ground that her handwriting resembles that of some surviving person.”

“But if a series of such coincidences lead up to the same point,” said Robert. “Helen Talboys left her father’s house, according to the declaration in her own handwriting, because she was weary of her old life, and wished to begin a new one. Do you know what I infer from this?”

My lady shrugged her shoulders.

“I have not the least idea,” she said; “and as you have detained me in this gloomy place nearly half-an-hour, I must beg that you will release me, and let me go and dress for dinner.”

“No, Lady Audley,” answered Robert, with a cold sternness that was so strange to him as to transform him into another creature⁠—a pitiless embodiment of justice, a cruel instrument of retribution⁠—“no, Lady Audley,” he repeated, “I have told you that womanly prevarication will not help you; I tell you now that defiance will not serve you. I have dealt fairly with you, and have given you fair warning. I gave you indirect notice of your danger two months ago.”

“What do you mean?” asked my lady, suddenly.

“You did not choose to take that warning, Lady Audley,” pursued Robert, “and the time has come in which I must speak very plainly to you. Do you