第138章

Then came the announcement of his engagement to Lady Sylvia Grey;and a week later, the very day after I had finally returned to London from Oxford, I received a summons from Delia to come and see her.Curiosity, and the haunting fear about Jack, which still hung round me, induced me to consent to what otherwise would have been intolerably repellent to me, and I went.I found her in a mad passion of fury.Jack had refused to see her or to answer her letters, and she had sent for me, that I might give him her message,--tell him that he belonged to her and her only, and that he never should marry another woman.Angry at my interference, Jack disdained even to repudiate her claims, only sending back a threat of appealing to the police if she ventured upon any further annoyance.I wrote as she told me, and she emphasized my silence on the subject by writing back to me a more definite and explicit assertion of her rights.Beyond that for some weeks she made no sign.I have no doubt that she had means of keeping watch upon both his movements and mine; and during that time, as she relinquished gradually all hopes of inducing him to abandon his purpose, she was being driven to her last despairing resolve.

"Later, when all was over, Jack told me the story of that spring and summer.He told me how, when he found me immovable on the subject, he had resolved to stop the marriage somehow through Delia herself.He had made her acquaintance, and sought her society frequently.She had taken a fancy to him, and he admitted that he had availed himself of this fact to increase his intimacy with her, and, as he hoped ultimately, his power over her.But he was not conscious of ever having varied in his manner towards her of contemptuous indifference.This contradictory behavior,--his being constantly near her, yet always beyond her reach,--was probably the very thing which excited her fancy into passion, the one strong passion of the poor woman's life.Then came his deliberate demand that she should by her own act unmask herself in my sight.The unfortunate woman tried to bargain for some proof of affection in return, and on this occasion had first openly declared her feelings towards him.He did not believe her; he refused her terms; but when as her payment she asked for the ring which was so especially associated with himself, he agreed to give it to her.Otherwise hoping, no doubt against hope, dreading above all things a quarrel and final separation, she submitted unconditionally.And from the time of that evening, when Legard and I had overheard her parting words, Jack never saw her again until the last and final catastrophe.

"It was in July.My parents had returned to England, but had come straight on here.Jack and I were dining together with Lady Sylvia at her father's house--her brother, young Grey, making the fourth at dinner.I had arranged to go to a party with your mother, and Itold the servants that a lady would call for me early in the evening.The house stood in Park Lane, and after dinner we all went out on to the broad balcony which opened from the drawing-room.There was a strong wind blowing that night, and I remember well the vague, disquieted feeling of unreality that possessed me,--sweeping through me, as it were, with each gust of wind.Then, suddenly, a servant stood behind me, saying that the lady had come for me, and was in the drawing-room.Shocked that my aunt should have troubled herself to come so far, I turned quickly, stepped back into the room, and found myself face to face with Delia.She was fully dressed for the evening, with a long silk opera-cloak over her shoulders, her face as white as her gown, her splendid eyes strangely wide open and shining.I don't know what I said or did; I tried to get her away, but it was too late.The others had heard us, and appeared at the open window.Jack came forward at once, speaking rapidly, fiercely; telling her to leave the house at once; promising desperately that he would see her in his own rooms on the morrow.Well I remember how her answer rang out,--"'Neither to-morrow nor another day: I will never leave you again while I live.'

"At the same instant she drew something swiftly from under her cloak, there was the sound of a pistol shot and she lay dead at our feet, her blood splashing upon Jack's shirt and hands as she fell."Alan paused in his recital.He was trembling from head to foot;but he kept his eyes turned steadily downwards, and both face and voice were cold--almost expressionless.

"Of course there was an inquest," he resumed, "which, as usual, exercised its very ill-defined powers in inquiring into all possible motives for the suicide.Young Grey, who had stepped into the room just before the shot had been fired, swore to the last words Delia had uttered; Legard to those he had overheard the night of that dreadful supper: there were scores of men to bear witness to the intimate relations which had existed between her and Jack during the whole of the previous spring.I had to give evidence.

A skillful lawyer had been retained by one of her sisters, and had been instructed by her on points which no doubt she had originally learnt from Delia herself.In his hands, I had not only to corroborate Grey and Legard, and to give full details of that last interview, but also to swear to the peculiar value which Jack attached to the talisman ring which he had given Delia; to the language she had held when I saw her after my return from Oxford;to her subsequent letter, and Jack's fatal silence on the occasion.

The story by which Jack and I strove to account for the facts was laughed at as a clumsy invention, and my undisguised reluctance in giving evidence added greatly to its weight against my brother's character.

"The jury returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, the result of desertion by her lover.You may imagine how that verdict was commented upon by every Radical newspaper in the kingdom, and for once society more than corroborated the opinions of the press.