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Page 47
Suddenly even in my bemuddled brain a remembrance came of those
words of his when he had said that the taste of blood would turn
the cat into a fiend. My blood had done it, but he was to pay the
price.
"Get away!" he screamed. "Get away, you devil! Baldwin!
Baldwin! Oh, my God!"
And then I heard him fall, and rise, and fall again, with a
sound like the ripping of sacking. His screams grew fainter until
they were lost in the worrying snarl. And then, after I thought
that he was dead, I saw, as in a nightmare, a blinded, tattered,
blood-soaked figure running wildly round the room--and
that was the last glimpse which I had of him before I fainted once
again.
I was many months in my recovery--in fact, I cannot say that I
have ever recovered, for to the end of my days I shall carry a
stick as a sign of my night with the Brazilian cat. Baldwin, the
groom, and the other servants could not tell what had occurred,
when, drawn by the death-cries of their master, they found me
behind the bars, and his remains--or what they afterwards
discovered to be his remains--in the clutch of the creature which
he had reared. They stalled him off with hot irons, and afterwards
shot him through the loophole of the door before they could finally
extricate me. I was carried to my bedroom, and there, under the
roof of my would-be murderer, I remained between life and death for
several weeks. They had sent for a surgeon from Clipton and a
nurse from London, and in a month I was able to be carried to the
station, and so conveyed back once more to Grosvenor Mansions.
I have one remembrance of that illness, which might have been
part of the ever-changing panorama conjured up by a delirious brain
were it not so definitely fixed in my memory. One night, when the
nurse was absent, the door of my chamber opened, and a tall woman
in blackest mourning slipped into the room. She came across to me,
and as she bent her sallow face I saw by the faint gleam of the
night-light that it was the Brazilian woman whom my cousin had
married. She stared intently into my face, and her expression was
more kindly than I had ever seen it.
"Are you conscious?" she asked.
I feebly nodded--for I was still very weak.
"Well; then, I only wished to say to you that you have yourself
to blame. Did I not do all I could for you? From the beginning I
tried to drive you from the house. By every means, short of
betraying my husband, I tried to save you from him. I knew that he
had a reason for bringing you here. I knew that he would never let
you get away again. No one knew him as I knew him, who had
suffered from him so often. I did not dare to tell you all this.
He would have killed me. But I did my best for you. As
things have turned out, you have been the best friend that I
have ever had. You have set me free, and I fancied that nothing
but death would do that. I am sorry if you are hurt, but I cannot
reproach myself. I told you that you were a fool--and a fool you
have been." She crept out of the room, the bitter, singular woman,
and I was never destined to see her again. With what remained from
her husband's property she went back to her native land, and I have
heard that she afterwards took the veil at Pernambuco.
It was not until I had been back in London for some time that
the doctors pronounced me to be well enough to do business. It was
not a very welcome permission to me, for I feared that it would be
the signal for an inrush of creditors; but it was Summers, my
lawyer, who first took advantage of it.
"I am very glad to see that your lordship is so much better,"
said he. "I have been waiting a long time to offer my
congratulations."
"What do you mean, Summers? This is no time for joking."
"I mean what I say," he answered. "You have been Lord
Southerton for the last six weeks, but we feared that it would
retard your recovery if you were to learn it."
Lord Southerton! One of the richest peers in England! I could
not believe my ears. And then suddenly I thought of the time which
had elapsed, and how it coincided with my injuries.
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