"Lady Clarinda has destroyed your confidence in me!" he began, wildly.
"Lady Clarinda has done nothing of the sort," I replied. "She has not attempted to influence my opinion. I was really obliged to leave London, as I told you."He sighed, and closed his eyes contentedly, as if I had relieved him of a heavy weight of anxiety.
"Be merciful to me," he said, "and tell me something more. I have been so miserable in your absence." He suddenly opened his eyes again, and looked at me with an appearance of the greatest interest. "Are you very much fatigued by traveling?" he proceeded. "I am hungry for news of what happened at the Major's dinner party. Is it cruel of me to tell you so, when you have not rested after your journey? Only one question to-night, and I will leave the rest till to-morrow. What did Lady Clarinda say about Mrs. Beauly? All that you wanted to hear?""All, and more," I answered.
"What? what? what?" he cried wild with impatience in a moment.
Mr. Playmore's last prophetic words were vividly present to my mind. He had declared, in the most positive manner, that Dexter would persist in misleading me, and would show no signs of astonishment when I repeated what Lady Clarinda had told me of Mrs. Beauly. I resolved to put the lawyer's prophecy--so far as the question of astonishment was concerned--to the sharpest attainable test. I said not a word to Miserrimus Dexter in the way of preface or preparation: I burst on him with my news as abruptly as possible.
"The person you saw in the corridor was not Mrs. Beauly," I said.
"It was the maid, dressed in her mistress's cloak and hat. Mrs.
Beauly herself was not in the house at all. Mrs. Beauly herself was dancing at a masked ball in Edinburgh. There is what the maid told Lady Clarinda; and there is what Lady Clarinda told _me._"In the absorbing interest of the moment, I poured out those words one after another as fast as they would pass my lips. Miserrimus Dexter completely falsified the lawyer's prediction. He shuddered under the shock. His eyes opened wide with amazement. "Say it again!" he cried. "I can't take it all in at once. You stun me."I was more than contented with this result--I triumphed in my victory. For once, I had really some reason to feel satisfied with myself. I had taken the Christian and merciful side in my discussion with Mr. Playmore; and I had won my reward. I could sit in the same room with Miserrimus Dexter, and feel the blessed conviction that I was not breathing the same air with a poisoner.
Was it not worth the visit to Edinburgh to have made sure of that?
In repeating, at his own desire, what I had already said to him, I took care to add the details which made Lady Clarinda's narrative coherent and credible. He listened throughout with breathless attention--here and there repeating the words after me, to impress them the more surely and the more deeply on his mind.
"What is to be said? what is to be done?" he asked, with a look of blank despair. "I can't disbelieve it. From first to last, strange as it is, it sounds true."(How would Mr. Playmore have felt if he had heard those words? Idid him the justice to believe that he would have felt heartily ashamed of himself.)"There is nothing to be said," I rejoined, "except that Mrs.
Beauly is innocent, and that you and I have done her a grievous wrong. Don't you agree with me?""I entirely agree with you," he answered, without an instant's hesitation. "Mrs. Beauly is an innocent woman. The defense at the Trial was the right defense after all."He folded his arms complacently; he looked perfectly satisfied to leave the matter there.
I was not of his mind. To my own amazement, I now found myself the least reasonable person of the two!
Miserrimus Dexter (to use the popular phrase) had given me more than I had bargained for. He had not only done all that I had anticipated in the way of falsifying Mr. Playmore's prediction--he had actually advanced beyond my limits. I could go the length of recognizing Mrs. Beauly's innocence; but at that point I stopped. If the Defense at the Trial were the right defense, farewell to all hope of asserting my husband's innocence. I held to that hope as I held to my love and my life.
"Speak for yourself," I said. "My opinion of the Defense remains unchanged."He started, and knit his brows as if I had disappointed and displeased him.
"Does that mean that you are determined to go on?""It does."
He was downright angry with me. He cast his customary politeness to the winds.
"Absurd! impossible!" he cried, contemptuously. "You have yourself declared that we wronged an innocent woman when we suspected Mrs. Beauly. Is there any one else whom we can suspect?
It is ridiculous to ask the question. There is no alternative left but to accept the facts as they are, and to stir no further in the matter of the poisoning at Gleninch. It is childish to dispute plain conclusions. You must give up.""You may be angry with me if you will, Mr. Dexter. Neither your anger nor your arguments will make me give up."He controlled himself by an effort--he was quiet and polite again when he next spoke to me.
"Very well. Pardon me for a moment if I absorb myself in my own thoughts. I want to do something which I have not done yet.""What may that be, Mr. Dexter?"