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Page 21
Her beauty conquers all his resolutions.
"Oh, Florence," he whispers in an impassioned tone, "if I only dare to
tell you what--"
She starts and lays a finger on her lips, as though to enforce silence.
"Hush!" she says, in trembling accents. "You forget! The hour, the
surroundings, have momentarily led you astray. I ought not to have spoken
with you. Go! There is nothing you dare to tell me--there is nothing I
would wish to hear. Remember your duty to another--and--good-night."
"Stay, I implore you, for one moment," he cries; but she is firm, and
presently the curtains are drawn close and he is alone.
Slowly he walks back toward the smoking-room, her last words ringing in
his ears--"Remember your duty to another." What other? He is puzzled,
but, reaching the window of the room, he dismisses these thoughts from
his mind, and determines to get rid of his guests without delay, so as
to be able to enjoy a little quiet and calm for reflection.
They are all noisily discussing a suicide that had recently taken place
in a neighboring county, and which had, from its peculiar circumstances,
caused more than usual interest.
One of the guests to-night is an army-surgeon, and he is giving them an
explanation as to how the fatal wound had been inflicted. It appeared at
the inquest that the unfortunate man had shot himself in such a peculiar
manner as to cause considerable doubt as to whether he had been murdered
or had died by his own hand. Evidence, however, of a most convincing
nature had confirmed the latter theory.
Captain Ringwood, with a revolver in his hand, is endeavoring to show
that the man could not have shot himself, just as Adrian re-enters.
"Be careful with that revolver," he exclaims hastily; "it is loaded!"
"All right, old fellow, I know it," returns Ringwood. "Look here,
doctor, if he held it so, how could he make a wound here?"
"Why not? Sir Adrian, take the revolver for a moment, will you?" says
the surgeon, anxious to demonstrate his theory beyond the possibility of
doubt. "I want to convince Ringwood. Now stand so, and hold the weapon
so"--placing it with the muzzle presented in a rather awkward position
almost over his heart.
"I thought fellows always put the muzzles of their revolvers in their
mouths and blew their brains out when they committed suicide," Ringwood
remarks lightly.
"This fellow evidently did not," says the surgeon calmly. "Now, Sir
Adrian, you see, by holding it thus, you could quite easily blow
yourself to--"
Before he can finish the sentence, there is a sudden confusion of
bodies, a jostling as it were, for Arthur Dynecourt, who had been
looking on attentively with one foot on a footstool close to Sir
Adrian's elbow, had slipped from the stool at this inopportune moment,
and had fallen heavily against his cousin.
There is a shout from somebody, and then a silence. The revolver in the
scuffle had gone off! Through the house the sharp crack of a bullet
rings loudly, rousing many from their slumbers.
Lights can be seen in the passages; terrified faces peep out from
half-opened doors. Dora Talbot, coming into the corridor in a pale pink
cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan's-down, in which she looks the
very personification of innocence and youth, screams loudly, and demands
hysterically to be informed as to the cause of the unusual noise.
The servants have rushed from their quarters in alarm. Ethel Villiers,
with a pale scared face, runs to Florence Delmaine's room, and throws
her arms round that young lady as she comes out, pale but composed, to
ask in a clear tone what has happened.
As nobody knows, and as Florence in her heart is more frightened than
she cares to confess, being aware through Adrian that some of the men
are still up in the smoking-room, and fearing that a quarrel had arisen
among them, she proposes that they should go to the smoking-room in a
body and make inquiries.
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