The Tiger Lily

Meanwhile Valentina had walked straight to the studio.

The street-door was ajar, for Keren-Happuch had just gone into the next street to post a letter at the pillar, so the closely veiled woman passed in unseen, and went upstairs, stood for a few moments listening, and then softly entered.

She uttered a low sigh of relief, glad to have entered the place which, for the moment, felt to her like a sanctuary.

It was many hours since she had been surprised there by her husband and Lady Grayson; but to her then it seemed only a few minutes before, and she looked round the great dim room quickly, with a smile upon her lips.

But the smile froze there, and a horrible sensation of fear came over her. She had waited too long. There must have been a challenge from her husband, and Armstrong had responded. The street-door open; the studio unfastened; and this dim light! Then she was too late: he had gone. But where? Belgium? France? The thought was horrible – almost more than she could bear.

“No, no,” she murmured. “It cannot be.”

She advanced into the great dim place excitedly, with the many grim-looking plaster figures and busts seeming to watch her furtively out of the gloom; and as she looked quickly from side to side, she fancied that the faces were menacing and full of reproach, as if telling her that she had sent her lover to his death.

She had nearly crossed the room when she started and shrank back in horror, for one of the rugs had been kicked slightly aside, and there was a wet dark mark upon the boards which she knew at a glance to be blood – his blood, for it was here he had fallen when her husband struck him down.

With the faintest of hopes amid her despair that she might still be in time, she went on to the inner door, seized the handle, and was pressing it, but it was twisted from her fingers, the door opened, and she was about to fling herself into Armstrong’s arms, but only shrank back with a look of jealous rage and despair.

For Cornel stood framed in the opening and closed the door, then looked her firmly and defiantly in the face.

Neither spoke for a full minute, and as Valentina gazed in the blanched countenance before her, she read here so stony and despairing a look, that she shrank away in horror, certain that either there was some terrible revelation awaiting her beyond the door which had been so carefully closed, or else that Cornel’s eyes were confirming her worst dread, and that Armstrong had gone forth to meet his death.

It was some moments before the Contessa could command herself sufficiently to speak aloud. She wished to get from Cornel’s lips the truth, and to show her how, possessed as she was of Armstrong’s love, she could treat her with calm, contemptuous tolerance, as one almost beneath her notice. But the stern disdain in those large flashing eyes mastered her and kept her silent. There was a magnetism in their glance, and she felt that if she spoke it would be in a broken feeble manner, which would lower her in her rival’s eyes.

She fought against it, struggled for a long time vainly, and moment by moment felt how strong in her innocence and truth her rival stood before her. It was not until she had lashed herself into a state of fury that she could force herself to speak.

“Mr Dale – where is he?” she cried at last imperiously.

“How dare you come and ask?” said Cornel fiercely, her whole manner changed.

“Because I have a right,” cried Valentina, who, stung now by her rival’s words, began to recover herself. Her eyes too dilated as she went on, and something of her old hauteur and contempt flashed out.

“You! – a right?”

“Yes; the right of the woman he loves – who has given up everything for his sake.”

“Loves! The woman he loves!” cried Cornel contemptuously.

“Yes, and who loves him as such a woman as I can love. Do you think that you, in your girlish coldness, could ever have won him as I have? Tell me where he is.”

“That you may join him?” cried Cornel. “You would give him over to your husband – to that horror – and his death.”

“Ah!” cried Valentina excitedly; “then he has not gone yet. He is safe.” And, in spite of herself, she gave way to a hysterical burst of tears.

“What is it to you?” said Cornel coldly. “He has escaped from your hands. You have no right here, woman. Go.”

“I am right, then,” cried the Contessa, mastering her weakness once more. “You are trying to keep us apart. He is mine, I tell you, mine for ever. He is there, then; I am not too late – there in that room. Armstrong!” she cried loudly, “come to me. I am here.”

She made for the door again, but Cornel seized her, and strove with all her might to keep the furious woman back, but she was like a child in her hands, and was rudely flung aside. Valentina thrust open the door, entered the study, and passed through it to the chamber beyond, to utter a wild cry, and fall upon her knees beside the bed on which Armstrong lay cold and still.

Then, starting up, she bent over him, laid her hand upon his brow, her cheek against his lips, and staggered back.

“Dead!” she cried, “dead!”

For his eyes were closed, and the bandaged cut upon his brow gave him a ghastly look, seen as he was by the shaded light of a lamp upon the table by the bed’s head.

She rushed back through the little room to the studio, where Cornel stood, wild-eyed, and white as the figure upon the bed.

“Wretch! you have killed him in your insane jealousy. It could not have been that blow. Tell me! confess!” she cried, seizing her by the arms.

“Better so than that he should have fallen back into your power,” said Cornel bitterly.

“Ah! You own it, then? Oh, it is too horrible!”

Her face convulsed with agony, the Contessa seized Cornel by the arm, threw down the bag, which flew open, so that the jewels scattered on the floor, and tried to drag her toward the studio door, calling hoarsely for help. But her voice rose to the ceiling, and not a sound was heard below.

But Cornel resisted now with all her might, and in the struggle which ensued wrested herself away, ran across the studio, darted through the door of the little room, dashed it to, and had time to slip the bolt before her rival flung herself against it, and then beat heavily against the panel with her hand.

Pale as ashes, and panting with excitement, Cornel stood with her left shoulder pressed against the panel, feeling the blows struck upon it through the wood, as, with her eyes fixed and strained, she felt about for the key, her hand trembling so that she could hardly turn it in the lock.

“No, no!” she muttered. “I’ll die sooner than she shall touch him again.”

Then she held her breath, listening, for she fancied she heard a sound in the studio above the beating on the panel, which suddenly culminated in one strangely given blow, accompanied by a wild shriek of agony, followed by a heavy fall and a piteous groan.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Husband and Wife

Startled beyond bearing by the sounds of mortal suffering, Cornel unfastened the door, drew it toward her, and then stopped, utterly paralysed by the scene in the studio.

There, not a yard away from the door, lay the beautiful woman, her face drawn in agony and horror, with the blood welling from a wound in her throat: her bonnet was back on her shoulders, and her hair torn down, as if a hand had suddenly been savagely laid upon her brow, her head dragged back, and a blow struck at her from behind; while standing upon the other side, with his compressed lips drawn away from his set teeth, eyes nearly closed, and brow contracted, was the Conte, looking down at his work.

For a few moments Cornel could not stir. The studio, with its many casts, seemed to perform a ghastly dance round her, and she felt as if this were some horrible nightmare. Then the deathly sickness passed off, and she cried wildly to the Conte, who did not even seem aware of her presence —

“O Heaven! What have you done?”

Her piteous appeal made him start back into consciousness, and with a hasty motion he hurled something across the studio, where it fell with a tinkling, metallic sound.

“I – I struck her,” he gasped, in a harsh cracked voice. “I loved her – ah! how I loved her; and she was false. Look: she had even robbed me, and fled with all her jewels – to him. See where they lie, scattered upon his floor. Ah, signora,” he cried passionately, and growing more and more Italian in his excitement, “I poured out wealth at her feet. There was nothing I would not have done to gratify her. For I loved her – I loved her. Dio mio, how I loved!”

“Hush!” cried Cornel, recovering herself somewhat in the presence of suffering and danger, her medical education asserting itself. “Go quickly and call help. Send for a surgeon.”

“No, no!” he cried excitedly, as his face blanched with dread. “If I call, it means the police, and – oh! horror – they will say I have murdered her.”

“Man!” cried Cornel, in disgust at his sudden display of selfishness, “have you no feeling? – Is this your love? Quick! – your handkerchief. Mine too; take it from my pocket. God help me, and give me strength,” she whispered, as her busy fingers staunched the wound by closing the cut. Then, as the Conte stood looking on, trembling like a leaf, she bade him fetch a large wide lotah from where it stood upon a bracket, pour water into it from the carafe, and place it upon the floor beside the Contessa’s head.

And as she knelt there all hatred and horror of the beautiful woman passed away. It was an erring sister and sufferer for sin, bleeding to death; and, knowing how precious minutes were at such a time, she tore up the handkerchiefs and portions of the Contessa’s attire, as, with skilled hands, she checked the bleeding, and securely bandaged the wound.

She was so intent upon her work, that, after he had obeyed her orders, she was hardly conscious of the Conte’s presence, while he, after watching her acts for some minutes, suddenly looked round, startled by some sound which penetrated to where they were. Then, trembling visibly, he began to examine the front of his clothes, passing his hands over them, and examining his palms for traces of the deed, but finding none.