She took his hand. “Dearest, another would say that what you went from here to do was noble. I do not. It was You.”
Passably perplexed, Welden stared. In the stare the perplexity was reflected.
The girl smiled. Her hand still in his, she led him to the S in upholstery, in one of the curves of which she seated herself while he, guided by her, seated himself in the other.
“Dearest, will you promise me something?”
Welden nodded.
“Will you promise not to be annoyed?”
Welden nodded again.
“I must tell you, then, that I have read your letter.”
Vexation lifted Welden visibly like a lash. He dropped the hand he held, sprang from the seat and went to the window. On reaching it he turned. Maud was looking at him.
“Your promise!”
Welden ran his long, thin fingers through his bright thick hair.
“Your promise!”
“But, Maud, I am not annoyed. Annoyance is not the term. If anything, I am alarmed.”
At that the girl also left her seat. Advancing to where he stood she said in his face: “It is the first time then in all your life.”
Welden, moving uneasily, turned away.
“Dearest, can you not trust me? Even if I had not read the letter, sooner or later I would have known.”
With the goaded action of a bull before the matador, Welden tossed his head.
“No, never, unless—” He stopped, looked at her, weighed her. “Unless matters had gone the other way. It was only in provision of the contingency that I wrote you and when I did, I expressly instructed William that you were not to read the letter until you heard from me again.”
“Yes, so he told me—after I had read it. I am not sorry, nor should you be. No earthly thing could have brought us nearer. Dearest, do you not see that between us now it is for always?”
“You mean that?”
“Mean it! If you wish, I will go with you tonight. The world will say that I am your mistress, but I would rather be that than empress to an emperor.”
“Doña Sol!” Welden, with assumed lightness, threw out.
“Doña Sol, yes, if you like, and Héloïse also, for both said it. With them, though, it was heroics; with me it is the truth.”
Welden took her hands in his. “Supposing I put you to the test?”
“Give me only time to get a cloak, and for William to call a cab.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean a greater test.”
“Is there any?”
Welden nodded. “Will you marry me?”
Maud laughed in his face. “Do you call that a test? Do you?”
Welden, a bit relieved, laughed also.
“Well, you see,” he said, “heretofore it has rather seemed one. I give you my word I had no idea but that you would refuse me.”
Maud turned, surveying the room. Then, assured that they were quite alone, she disengaged her hands, put them on his shoulders and raising herself, whispered:
“What girl would refuse a man who loved her enough to kill another woman for her? Dearest, I adore you.”
Welden drew her to him. Presently, as he held her in his arms, he said: “I hope you destroyed that agreeable information?”
With a smile the girl freed herself.
“Completely,” she answered.
Then taking him again by the hand she led him back to where they had been seated.
There, after a moment, she added: “Dearest, tell me about it. Did Sally know beforehand?”
“Now, Maud,” he protested, “don’t be morbid.”
But naively this girl in whom there was so little naivete persisted.
“Dearest, tell me this; was it because of the letter you killed her?”
“I killed her for what she killed in me, for her assassination of my belief in you. That was more to me than life, and for it I took hers.”
Maud thought it over. But still the episode of the letter rankled.
“What did she do when she found you had my note?”
“What did she do?” Welden repeated, “Personally she did nothing. But the most curious of all physical phenomena manifested itself in her. The red phantom of the human conscience appeared in her face. She flushed with a flame that came to her from hell.”
Maud contemplated the picture. It seemed to her over coloured. With a question she toned it.
“Don’t you suppose that she was merely angry at herself for having kept the note? I cannot conceive what folly prompted her to do so.”
“A folly that is common enough,” Welden answered. “Almost all criminals leave or preserve some evidence of their guilt. There is an uncontrollable impulse which compels them.”
Maud smiled. “Thank fortune, that impulse did not actuate my criminal. Did it, dearest?”
“Oh, but it did though. You read about the jewels, the famous jewels, the rings that cost ninety thousand and which an imbecile out there discovered, or thought he discovered, in Perkins’ possession?”
“Yes, but it appeared that they were imitation and her own. The papers said she had a receipt from a Paris manufacturer, made out to her in her name.”
“Precisely. Sally’s stones cost more, but nothing like what I represented. I know it was not very nice of me to have exaggerated their value as I did, but I had to supply the police with a motive. Ça n’a pas fait un pli. They swallowed it whole.”
Maud laughed. “That was very clever of you. Where were they at the time?”
“The rings? In my pocket.”
Maud laughed again. “Where are they now?”
“Where I put them, neatly done up, in the coffin.”
“You put them there! But why?”
“Partly from that uncontrollable impulse, but chiefly in provision of just such a thing as nearly happened, in order that if another were convicted, I could prove that I was the man.”
“And if Perkins had been convicted you would have done so?”
“Naturally. It would have been the merest duty.”
“Dearest, do you wonder that I love you? No. I was right from the first. There is none but you. Tell me—”
But whatever the girl’s question may have been, it was not asked or at least not then.
