I could see the drift of his story plainly enough. His object, under the thin disguise of the Italian romance, was to meet my unanswerable objection to suspecting Mrs. Beauly's maid--the objection that the woman had no motive for committing herself to an act of murder. If he could practically contradict this, by discovering a motive which I should be obliged to admit, his end would be gained. Those inquiries which I had pledged myself to pursue--those inquiries which might, at any moment, take a turn that directly concerned him--would, in that case, be successfully diverted from the right to the wrong person. The innocent maid would set my strictest scrutiny at defiance; and Dexter would be safely shielded behind her.
I determined to give him time. Not a word passed my lips.
The minutes followed each other. I waited in the deepest anxiety.
It was a trying and a critical moment. If he succeeded in inventing a probable motive, and in shaping it neatly to suit the purpose of his story, he would prove, by that act alone, that there were reserves of mental power still left in him which the practiced eye of the Scotch doctor had failed to see. But the question was--would he do it?
He did it! Not in a new way; not in a convincing way; not without a painfully evident effort. Still, well done or ill done, he found a motive for the maid.
"Cunegonda," he resumed, "takes from its place of concealment in her bosom a written paper, and unfolds it. 'Look at this,' she says. Damoride looks at the paper, and sinks again at her mistress's feet in a paroxy** of horror and despair. Cunegonda is in possession of a shameful secret in the maid's past life.
Cunegonda can say to her, 'Choose your alternative. Either submit to an exposure which disgraces you and--disgraces your parents forever--or make up your mind to obey Me.' Damoride might submit to the disgrace if it only affected herself. But her parents are honest people; she cannot disgrace her parents. She is driven to her last refuge--there is no hope of melting the hard heart of Cunegonda. Her only resource is to raise difficulties; she tries to show that there are obstacles between her and the crime.
'Madam! madam!' she cries; 'how can I do it, when the nurse is there to see me?' Cunegonda answers, 'Sometimes the nurse sleeps;sometimes the nurse is away.' Damoride still persists. 'Madam! madam! the door is kept locked, and the nurse has got the key.'"The key! I instantly thought of the missing key at Gleninch. Had he thought of it too? He certainly checked himself as the word escaped him. I resolved to make the signal. I rested my elbow on the arm of my chair, and played with my earring. Benjamin took out his pencil and arranged his note-book so that Ariel could not see what he was about if she happened to look his way.
We waited until it pleased Miserrimus Dexter to proceed. The interval was a long one. His hand went up again to his forehead.
A duller and duller look was palpably stealing over his eyes.
When he did speak, it was not to go on with the narrative, but to put a question.
"Where did I leave off?" he asked.
My hopes sank again as rapidly as they had risen. I managed to answer him, however, without showing any change in my,manner.
"You left off," I said, "where Damoride was speaking to Cunegonda--""Yes, yes!" he interposed. "And what did she say?""She said, 'The door is kept locked, and the nurse has got the key.'"He instantly leaned forward in his chair.
"No!" he answered, vehemently. "You're wrong. 'Key?' Nonsense! Inever said 'Key.'"
"I thought you did, Mr. Dexter."
"I never did! I said something else, and you have forgotten it."I refrained from disputing with him, in fear of what might follow. We waited again. Benjamin, sullenly submitting to my caprices, had taken down the questions and answers that had passed between Dexter and myself. He still mechanically kept his page open, and still held his pencil in readiness to go on.
Ariel, quietly submitting to the drowsy influence of the wine while Dexter's voice was in her ears, felt uneasily the change to silence. She glanced round her restlessly; she lifted her eyes to "the Master."There he sat, silent, with his hand to his head, still struggling to marshal his wandering thoughts, still trying to see light through the darkness that was closing round him.
"Master!" cried Ariel, piteously. "What's become of the story?"He started as if she had awakened him out of a sleep; he shook his head impatiently, as though he wanted to throw off some oppression that weighed upon it.
"Patience, patience," he said. "The story is going on again."He dashed at it desperately; he picked up the first lost thread that fell in his way, reckless whether it were the right thread or the wrong one:
"Damoride fell on her knees. She burst into tears. She said--"He stopped, and looked about him with vacant eyes.
"What name did I give the other woman?" he asked, not putting the question to me, or to either of my companions: asking it of himself, or asking it of the empty air.
"You called the other woman Cunegonda," I said.
At the sound of my voice his eyes turned slowly--turned on me, and yet failed to look at me. Dull and absent, still and changeless, they were eyes that seemed to be fixed on something far away. Even his voice was altered when he spoke next. It had dropped to a quiet, vacant, monotonous tone. I had heard something like it while I was watching by my husband's bedside, at the time of his delirium--when Eustace's mind appeared to be too weary to follow his speech. Was the end so near as this?
"I called her Cunegonda," he repeated. "And I called the other--"He stopped once more.
"And you called the other Damoride," I said.
Ariel looked up at him with a broad stare of bewilderment. She pulled impatiently at the sleeve of his jacket to attract his notice.
"Is this the story, Master?" she asked.
He answered without looking at her, his changeless eyes still fixed, as it seemed, on something far away.