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Her eyes rested for a moment upon Helen, full of an inexpressible yearning, and there had been a faint, sad wistfulness in her tone. But when she had finished, she drew her cloak around her, and turned toward the door. Helen let her take a few steps, scarcely conscious of her intention. Then she sprang up, and laid her hand upon Lady Beaumerville's shoulder. "You are his mother," she said softly.
Sir Allan Beaumerville's lips were closed for ever in this world. An hour or two before the dénouement of Sir Allan Beaumerville's supper party, his brougham had driven up to Mr. Thurwell's town house, and had set down a lady there. She had rung the bell and inquired for Miss Thurwell. The footman who answered the door looked dubious.
She moved impulsively forward, and stretched out her hands in mute invitation, but there was no response. If anything, indeed, her visitor seemed to shrink a little away from her. "You ask me who I am," she said softly. "I am Sir Allan Beaumerville's wife; I am Bernard Maddison's mother." Helen sank back upon her chair, perfectly helpless. This thing was too much for her to grasp.
"Beaumerville's getting quite the old man," remarked Lord Lathon, as he helped himself to an ortolan. "Looks jolly white about the gills to-night, doesn't he?" His neighbor, a barrister and wearer of the silk, adjusted his eyeglass and looked down the table. "Gad, he does!" he answered. "Looks as though he's had a shock." "Not at all in his usual form, at any rate," put in Mr.
The great artist who had just taken Sir Allan Beaumerville's place by her side was not one of these. "I am so glad that you are here to-day, Miss Thurwell," he said, holding her grey-gloved hand in his for a moment. "I have been looking for you everywhere." "That is very nice of you," she answered, smiling up at him. "Ah! but I didn't mean only for my own sake.
"Who was it? then, who killed Oh, my God, I see it all now. It was " She ceased, and looked at her visitor with blanched cheeks. A low, tremulous cry of horror broke from Lady Beaumerville's white lips. Her calmness seemed gone. She was trembling from head to foot. "God help him! it was my husband who killed Sir Geoffrey Kynaston," she cried; "and the sin is on my head."
She looked up at the woman who had spoken these marvelous words, half frightened, altogether bewildered. "You are Sir Allan Beaumerville's wife," she repeated slowly. "I do not understand; I never knew that he was married. And Bernard Maddison his son!" Helen sat quite still for a moment. Then light began to stream in upon her darkened understanding. Suddenly she sprang to her feet.
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