CHAPTER

NORA DRING TOOK A DEEP BREATH that was almost a sigh. Her long, graceful arm was lying on the coverlet, and she opened and shut her fist nervously.

      "I wonder if there is a hell?" she said, slowly. "If so—" she stopped abruptly, and fell silent. "Well, I have deserved everything, I suppose. A girl who has acted as I have towards society, towards her best friend, can expect no other reward."

      Jimmie Silverdale leaned forward impulsively.

      "You—" he began.

      The doctor shook his head warningly, and Garfield held up an admonitory forefinger.

      "You have known Eston for a matter of months?" he asked.

      "Longer than that. I knew him years ago, but he had been away from England, and we only resumed our acquaintanceship recently. I loved him. He is a soulless, implacable, relentless brute, yet I loved him! When I met him first, we were acquaintances. This time he sought me out, and I fell under his influence. He is a masterful man, and I loved him—"

      "He did not know you were a married woman?" interposed the inspector quietly.

      The girl stared at him with defiant, startled eyes.

      "No. You know, then, that I am—that I am—"

      "Lady Saxon. Yes, I know that. Don't exhaust yourself, please. There is nothing uncanny in my knowledge. It is my business to know. Let me give you some more details, and correct me if I am wrong. You went to America, some time back, in the hope of making more money than you could here? You called on several editors and publishers in an attempt to secure magazine and book illustrations?"

      "That is true. I could not find a market here at that time. I had to live by my own efforts."

      "My information is that you did not find much of a market there," said Garfield dryly." There is no magic in all this. I had your career traced out step by step by sheer hard work and pertinacious inquiry for the whole period during which you were over there. There is, however, one thing that puzzled me. Why should you have used the name of Hilary Sloane instead of your own?"

      She thought for a moment.

      "It was a mad freak," she admitted at last—"a mere mad, dishonest freak. I had some color sketches of Hilary's in my portfolio, and the first editor I called upon picked upon two of them for use as magazine covers. I had not the courage to own that the signature they bore was not mine. He had not caught my name, and addressed me as 'Miss Sloane.' I never realized that it could do any harm to Hilary."

      "So you stuck to your friend's name all through the piece? Now I begin to understand something that had baffled me. Well, things didn't go so well as you anticipated? You found yourself very hard up, and you ultimately met Saxon and married him—still as Hilary Sloane?

      "Yes."

      "You lived with him less than a month; then there was a violent quarrel, and you separated?"

      She lifted a thin hand in dissent, and shook her head wearily.

      "We did not separate. He threw me out. I was left, penniless and hopeless, in a strange land." Her voice took on a new vehement note. "Is it any wonder that I swore the time should come when I would repay—repay in full, with interest pressed down and running over? I have done what I swore to do! So far as Harold Saxon is concerned, I have no regrets!"

      "But Eston knew nothing of this?"

      "No, he knew nothing—nothing, that is, of my marriage to Saxon. But he knew that I hated the man—that I would go to any lengths to achieve a fitting punishment. He had asked me what I knew of Saxon on one occasion, and though I said little, I said enough. Thereafter, he played on my lust for vengeance."

      "Ahl" Garfield glanced significantly at Silverdale and hurriedly added some notes to a pad he was holding in his hand. "He offered to help you to—organize a method by which you could achieve your ends—and yet escape justice?"

      "I don't know how you know that, but that is exactly what happened. It all came suddenly at last. I 'phoned him one day, and was warned to go to Saxon's flat in St. Ronan's Place at a certain time. I was to find the door open, and to walk right iia. There was no one there when I entered—only Saxon-tied to a chair and unconscious. I used a hatpin—the only weapon I had—and killed him!"

      Silverdale shuddered.

      "I was in a kind of dream," went on the girl. "I was not in the place five minutes, and have no recollection what happened afterwards, till I found myself walking in Hyde Park. Then it all came back. I realized that I was a murderess—that the police would be upon my trail, and that, despite Eston's assurances, I might find myself in the dock. The hangman's noose haunted me. I lost my nerve. I went home. There I found Hilary. Without giving her any hint as to my reason, I insisted that I must leave London secretly. I was distraught with panic. She was the loyal friend she has always been. She asked questions, but when I refused to answer them, she accepted my refusal, and promised to do what she could to help me. You know what has happened since."

      "Thank you," said Garfield. "I will not worry you anymore now. In half an hour you will be shown a written statement embodying what you have told us. You will sign it?"

      She studied him curiously for a moment.

      "What of Mr. Eston?" she asked. "Will it hurt him? What has happened to him?"

      "You will be told all that when you are better," said Garfield soothingly. "You will sign the statement?"

      "No," she said resolutely, and sank back on the pillow.

      The doctor was bending over her.

      "I think you had better leave her, gentlemen," he said. "She has drawn too much on her vitality. She has fainted."

      "The ways of women are past finding out!" commented Garfield, as he and Silverdale left the room.