With her exquisite robe trailing unheeded after her, Anna Goddard swept swiftly down the hall and rapped imperatively upon the door of her husband's room.
There was no answer from within.
She tried the handle. The door would not yield—it was locked on the inside.
"Gerald, are you in bed?" his wife inquired, putting her lips to the crack and speaking low.
"What do you wish, Anna?" the man questioned.
"I wish to see you—I must speak with you, even if you have retired," she returned, imperatively.
There was a slight movement within the room, then the door was thrown open, and Gerald Goddard stood before her.
But she shrank back almost immediately, a low exclamation of surprise escaping her as she saw his face, so white, so pain-drawn, and haggard.
"Gerald! what is the matter?" she demanded, forgetting, for the moment, her own anger and even her errand there, in the anxiety which she experienced for him.[112]
"I am feeling quite well, Anna," he responded, in a mechanical tone. "What is it you wish to say to me?"
Sweeping into the room, she closed the door after her, then confronted him with accusing mien.
"What do I wish to say to you?" she repeated, her voice quivering with passion, her eyes blazing with a fierce expression. "I want that paper which you have stolen from me."
"I—I do not understand you, Anna," the man began, in a pre-occupied manner. "What paper—what—"
"I will bear no trifling," she passionately cried, interrupting him. "You know very well what paper I refer to—I never had but one document in my possession in which you had any interest; the one you have so beset me about during the last few weeks."
"That?" exclaimed the man, at last aroused from the apathy which had hitherto seemed to possess him.
"That!" retorted his companion, mockingly imitating his tone, "as if you did not very well know it was 'that,' and no other. Gerald Goddard, I have come to demand it of you," she went on shrilly. "You have no right to enter my rooms, like a thief, and steal my treasures! I—"
"Anna, be still!" commanded her husband, sternly. "You are losing control of yourself, and some of our guests may overhear you. I know nothing of the document."
"You lie!" hissed the woman, almost beside herself with mingled rage and fear. "Who, but you, could have any interest in the thing? who, save you, even knew of its existence, or that it had ever been in my possession? Give it back to me! I will have it! It's my only safeguard. You knew it, and you have stolen it, to make yourself independent of me."
"Anna, you shall not demean either yourself or me by giving expression to such unjust suspicions," Gerald Goddard returned with cold dignity. "I swear to you that I do not know anything about the paper. I have not even once laid my eyes upon it since you stole it from me. If it has been taken from the place[113] where you have kept it concealed," he went on, "then other hands than mine have been guilty of the theft."
There was the ring of truth in his words, and she was forced to believe him; yet there was a mystery about the affair which was beyond her fathoming.
"Then who could have taken it," she gasped, growing ghastly white at the thought of there being a third party to their secret—"who on earth has done this thing?"
Gerald Goddard was silent. He had his suspicions, suspicions that made him quake inwardly, as he thought of what might be the outcome of them if they should prove to be true.
"Gerald, why do you not answer me?" his companion impatiently demanded. "Can you think of any one who would be likely to rob us in this way?"
"Have you no suspicion, Anna?" the man asked, and looking gravely into her eyes. "Was there no one among your guests to-night, who—"
"Who—what—!" she cried, as he faltered and stopped.
"Was there no one present who made you think of—of some one whom you—have known in the—the past?"
"Ha! do you refer to Mrs. Stewart?" said madam. "Did you also notice the—resemblance?"
"Could any one help it?—could any one ever mistake those eyes? Anna—she was Isabel herself!"
"No—no!" she panted wildly, "she may be some relative. Are you losing your mind? Isabel is—dead."
"She lives!"
"I tell you no! I—saw her dead."
"You? How could that be possible?" exclaimed Mr. Goddard, in astonishment. "We were both in Florence at the time of that tragedy."
"Nevertheless, I saw her dead and in her coffin," persisted his companion, with positive emphasis.
"Now you talk as if you were losing your mind," he answered, with white lips.
"I am not. Do you not remember I told you one[114] morning, I was going to spend a couple of days with a friend at Fiesole?"
"Yes."
"Well, I had read of that tragedy that very day, and then hid the paper, but I did not go to Fiesole at all. I took the first train for Rome."
"Anna!"
"I wanted to be sure," she cried, excitedly. "I was jealous of her, I—hated her; and I knew that if the report was true I should be at rest. I went to the place where they had taken her. Some one had cared for her very tenderly—she lay as if asleep, and looked like a beautiful piece of sculpture in her white robe; one could hardly believe that she was—dead. But they told me they were going to—to bury her that afternoon unless some one came to claim her. They asked me if I had known her—if she was a friend of mine. I told them no—she was nothing to me; I had simply come out of curiosity, having seen the story of her tragic end in a paper. Then I took the next train back to Florence."
"Why have you never told me this before, Anna?" Gerald Goddard inquired, with lips that were perfectly colorless, while he laid his hand upon the back of a chair for support.
"Why?" she flashed out jealously at him. "Why should I talk of her to you? She was dead—she could never come between us, and I wished to put her entirely out of my mind, since I had satisfied myself of the fact."
"Did—did you hear anything of—of—"
"Of the child? No; all I ever knew was what you yourself read in the paper—that both mother and child had disappeared from their home and both were supposed to have suffered the same fate, although the body of the child was not found."
"Oh!" groaned Gerald Goddard, wiping the clammy moisture from his brow. "I never realized the horror of it as I do at this moment, and I never have forgiven myself for not going to Rome to institute a search for myself; but—"[115]
"But I wouldn't let you, I suppose you were about to add," said madam, bitterly. "What was the use?" she went on, angrily. "Everything was all over before you knew anything about it—"
"I could at least have erected a tablet to mark her resting-place," the man interposed.
"Ha! ha! it strikes me it was rather late then to manifest much sentiment; that would have become you better before you broke her heart and killed her by your neglect and desertion," sneered madam, who was driven to the verge of despair by this late exhibition of regard for a woman whom she had hated.
"Don't, Anna!" he cried, sharply. Then suddenly straightening himself, he said, as if just awaking from some horrible nightmare: "But she did not die. I have not that on my conscience, after all."
"She did—I tell you she did!" hoarsely retorted the excited woman.
"But I have seen and talked with her to-night, and she told me that she was—Isabel!" he persisted.
Anna Goddard struck her palms together with a gesture bordering upon despair.
"I do not believe it—I will not believe it!" she panted.
"He began to pity her, for he also was beginning to realize that, if Isabel Stewart were really the woman whom he had wronged more than twenty years previous, her situation was indeed deplorable.
"Anna," he said, gravely, and speaking with more calmness and gentleness than at any time during the interview, "this is a stern fact, and—we must look it in the face."
His tone and manner carried conviction to her heart.
She sank crouching at his feet, bowing her face upon her hands.
"Gerald! Gerald! it must not be so!" she wailed. "It is only some cunning story invented to cheat us and avenge her. That woman shall never separate us—I will never yield to her. Oh, Heaven! why did I not destroy that paper when I had it? Gerald, give it to me now, if you have it; it is not too late to burn it even[116] now, and no one can prove the truth—we can defy her to the last."
The man stooped to raise her from her humiliating position.
"Get up, Anna," he said, kindly. "Come, sit in this chair and let us talk the matter over calmly. It is a stern fact that Isabel is alive and well, and it is useless either to ignore it or deplore it."
With shivering sobs bursting from her with every breath, the wretched woman allowed herself to be helped to the chair, into which she sank with an air of abject despair.
Anna Goddard's was not a nature likely to readily yield to humiliation or defeat, and after a few moments of silent battle with herself, she raised her head and turned her proud face and searching eyes upon her companion.
"You say that it is a 'stern fact' that Isabel lives," she remarked, with compressed lips.
"I am sure—there can be no mistake," the man replied. Then he told her of the interview which had occurred in the hall, where he had found the woman standing before the picture which he had painted in Rome so many years ago.
"She recognized it at once," he said; "she located the very spot from which I had painted the scene."
"Oh, I cannot make it seem possible, for I tell you I saw her lying dead in her casket," moaned madam, who, even in the face of all proofs, could not bring herself to believe that her old rival was living and had it in her power to ruin her life.
"She must have been in a trance—she must have been resuscitated by those people who found her. As sure as you and I both live, she is living also," Mr. Goddard solemnly responded.
"Oh, how could such a thing be?"
"I do not know—she did not tell me; she was very cold and proud."
"What was she doing here? How dared she enter this house?" cried madam, her anger blazing up again.
"I cannot tell you. It was a question I was asking[117] myself just as you came to the door," said Mr. Goddard, with a sigh. "I have no doubt she had some deep-laid purpose, however."
"Do you imagine her purpose was to get possession of that document?" questioned madam.
"I had thought of that—I have felt almost sure of it since you told me it had disappeared."
"But how could she have known that such a paper was in our possession? You did not receive it until long after—"
"Yes, I know," interposed Mr. Goddard, with a shiver; "nevertheless I am impressed that it is now in her possession, even though I did not suppose that any one, save you and I and Will Forsyth, ever knew of its existence."
There ensued an interval of silence, during which both appeared to be absorbed in deep thought.
"If she has it, what will she do with it?" madam suddenly questioned, lifting her heavy eyes to her companion.
"I am sure I cannot tell, Anna," he coldly returned.
His tone was like a match applied to powder.
"Well, then, what will you do, Gerald Goddard, in view of the fact, as you believe, that she is alive and has learned the truth?" she imperiously demanded.
"I—I do not think it will be wise for us to discuss that point just at present," he faltered.
"Coward! Is that your answer to me after twenty years of adoration and devotion?" cried the enraged woman, springing excitedly to her feet, the look of a slumbering demon in her dusky eyes.
"After twenty years of jealousy, bickering, and turmoil, you should have said, Anna," was the bitter response.
"Beware! Beware, Gerald! I have hot blood in my veins, as you very well know," was the menacing retort.
"I have long had a proof of that," he returned, with quiet irony.
"Oh!" she cried, putting up her hand as if to ward off a blow, "you are cruel to me." Then, with sudden passion, she added: "Perhaps, after all, that docu[118]ment is in your possession—or at least that you know something about it."
"I only wish your surmise were correct, Anna; for, in that case, I should have no cause to fear her," said Mr. Goddard, gravely.
"Ha! Even you do 'fear' her?" cried madam, eagerly. "In what way?"
"Can you not see? If she has gained possession of the paper, she has it in her power to do both of us irreparable harm," the gentleman explained.
Anna Goddard shivered.
"Yes, yes," she moaned, "she could make society ring with our names—she could ruin us, socially; but"—shooting a stealthy glance at her companion, who sat with bowed head and clouded brow—"I could better bear that than that she should assert a claim upon you—that she should use her power to—to separate us. She shall not, Gerald!" she went on, passionately; "there are other countries where you and I can go and be happy, utterly indifferent to what she may do here."
The man made no reply to these words—he was apparently absorbed in his own thoughts.
"Gerald! have you nothing to say to me?" madam sharply cried, after watching him for a full minute.
"What can I say, Anna? There is nothing that either of us can do but await further developments," the man returned, but careful to keep to himself the fact that he had an appointment with the woman whom she so feared and hated.
"Would you dare to be false to me, after all these years?" his companion demanded, in repressed tones, and leaning toward him with flaming eyes.
"Pshaw, Anna! what a senseless question," he replied, with a forced laugh.
"But you admire—you think her very beautiful?" she questioned, eagerly.
"Why, that is a self-evident fact—every one must admit that she is a fine-looking woman," was the somewhat evasive response.
Anna Goddard sprang to her feet, her face scarlet.
"You will be very careful what you do, Gerald," she[119] hissed. "I have never had overmuch confidence in you, in spite of my love for you; but there is one thing that I will not bear, at this late day, and that is, that you should turn traitor to me; so be warned in time."
She did not wait to see what effect her words would have upon him, but, turning abruptly, swept from the room, leaving him to his own reflections.