“And yet there is something magnificent in a vengeance like his,” Ravenspur said, thoughtfully. “Now that everything is cleared up, how simple it seems. There is only one thing that puzzles me, and that is your connection with my unfortunate friend Louis Delahay. It seems a remarkable thing that both you sisters should have known Delahay. How did it come about?”
“That I have just been explaining at some length,” the Countess said. “But for your benefit I will go over the ground again.”
Ravenspur listened with the greatest interest to the story which the Countess had to tell. She told him vividly enough of the eventful night when she had made up her mind to leave her husband’s roof, and how her life had been saved at a critical moment by a total stranger, who turned out to be Louis Delahay—the same Delahay who, years afterwards, met Maria Descarti and made her his wife. She told the story of the jewels, and how the time had come when she needed them, to turn into money to aid her in her search for Vera. Then she went on to speak of her meeting with Delahay.
“One moment,” Ravenspur said. “When Louis married you, Mrs. Delahay, did he not notice your extraordinary likeness to the Countess, whom he had befriended so many years ago?”
“He couldn’t,” the Countess exclaimed. “Not only was our interview in the dark, but I was wearing a veil. Oh, you may say it was an extraordinary thing to trust my valuables to a perfect stranger, but more amazing things happen every day, and I was beside myself with grief and terror and despair at the time. At any rate, I did it, and I got my jewels back again. I can tell you, if you like, the story of that strange interview. I can describe how I went down to the studio with Mr. Delahay, and how we saw you there. But we are wasting time and it is getting late. There is only one thing to regret now, and that is the death of my sister’s husband; but it has always been useless for a Descarti to expect anything like happiness in this world. Never was one of our family yet, who was not born to misery and despair. Still, one can now look forward to a more pleasant time. I am quite sure, after what has happened, that you will not try to stand between Vera and myself any longer, Lord Ravenspur. I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done.”
“Vera has been very dear to me,” Lord Ravenspur said, with some emotion. “I daresay we shall be able to explain matters satisfactorily, so that people will not be in a position to talk. And now, as it is getting so very late—”
XLVII
The Passing of the Vengeance
It was well into the following afternoon when the trained nurse came quietly down the stairs, and announced to Lord Ravenspur that her task was finished. Silva had died in his sleep. The troubled spirit was at rest, the tardy confession had been made, and Lord Ravenspur had no longer any occasion to fear the vengeance that had followed him so long. There would have to be an inquest, of course—as there was. But there was nothing much here to arouse public curiosity. A servant at the house on the common had been severely mauled by a savage dog prowling about, and he had succumbed to the shock. The newspapers had a few paragraphs, but in a day or two the incident was forgotten, nor was there any occasion to worry the owner of the house, seeing that the place had been taken by Silva in the proper name of his mistress. The servants had seen nothing either, so that scandal was entirely checked. It would, perhaps, be a difficult matter later on to explain the unexpected reappearance of Vera’s mother, but it seemed to Ravenspur that he could see a way to solve that problem. And after the lapse of eighteen years, nobody would identify the Countess Flavio with the Italian scandal that had been a sensation in Europe back in the ’eighties. Ravenspur and the Countess were good enough friends now, and Mrs. Delahay was beginning to recover her health and strength again. Already the Fitzjohn Square murder had ceased to occupy public attention now that the tragedy had been solved, and there was no chance of the culprit being brought before an earthly tribunal. As to Cooney, he got off quite as lightly as he deserved. And there are always new sensations to follow the old.
“I think, on the whole, you had better remain here for the present,” Ravenspur suggested. “You have the house on your hands for two months, and, really, it is a very pleasant place. Everybody is out of town for the present, and very few of my friends will be back in London again before the autumn. This will give us time to invent some plausible story to account for your reappearance. I don’t like that kind of thing as a rule, but is is quite essential in this case.”
“What are you going to do yourself?” the Countess asked.
“I am going to have a couple of quiet months on the continent. As you can imagine,
