Part 43 (1/2)

”You talk strangely, Anna,” he said ”Go on!”

”People talked to you in Paris about us,” she continued, ”about Anna the virtuous and Annabel the rake You were accused of having been seen with the latter You denied it, re that I had called myself Anna You went even to our rooms and saw my sister Anna lied to you, I lied to you I was Annabel the rake, 'Alcide' of the music halls My name is Annabel, not Anna Do you understand?”

”I do not,” he answered ”How could I, when your sister sings now at the 'Unusual' every night and the name 'Alcide' flaunts from every placard in London?”

”The likeness between us,” she said, ”before I began to disfigure e and ill-dressed hair, was reone, and she was forced to earn her own living She cas without any success”

”But why----”

Sir John stopped short With a moment of inward shame he remembered his deportment towards Anna It was scarcely likely that she would have accepted his aid So He reht of his severe attitude towards the girl as rightly and with conte his roaned This was his humiliation as well as hers

”Anna of course would not accept any , and last of all she tried the stage She went to a draent, and he turned out to be the one who had heardin Paris He refused to believe that Anna was not 'Alcide' He thought she wished to conceal her identity because of the connexion with you, and he offered her an engagement at once She was never announced as 'Alcide,' but directly she walked on she simply became 'Alcide' to every one She had a better voice than I, and the rest I suppose is only a trick The real 'Alcide',” she wound up with a faint smile across the table at him, ”is here”

He sat like a our of the man seemed to have subsided He seemed to have shrunken in his seat His eyes were fixed upon her face, but he opened his lips twice before he spoke

”When you married me----”

Her little hand flashed out across the table

”John,” she said, ”I can spare you that question I had been about as foolish and selfish as a girl could be I had done the s, and behaved in the most ridiculous way But fro deep sigh He sat up in his chair again, the colour came back to his cheeks

”John, don't!” she cried ”You think that this is all You are going to be generous and forgive It isn't all There is worse to coedy to cohly ”Don't you know, child, that this is torture for me? What in God's name more can you have to tell e She spoke with a certain odd deliberation carefully chosen words which fell like drops of ice upon the

”Before Iupon friendly terms a man named Hill, who passed himself off as Meysey Hill the railway lishet how many millions upon me, and I think that I was dazzled I ith him to what I supposed to be the British Eh a ceree one used there Afterwards we started for a motor ride to a place outside Paris for _dejeuner_, and I suppose the man's nerve failed him I questioned him too closely about his possessions, and remarked upon the fact that he was a reat reputation as a motorist

Anyhow he confessed that he was a fraud I struck him across the face, jumped out and went back by train to Paris He lost control of the machine, was upset and nearly killed”

”Did you say,” Sir John asked, ”that the man's name was Hill?”

”Yes,” she answered

”The man as found dead in your sister's room was named Hill?”

”It is the man,” she answered ”I killed him”

Sir John clutched at the table with both hands A slow horror was dawning in his fixed eyes This was not the sort of confession which he had been expecting Annabel had spoken calh and steadily, but his brain refused at first to accept the fullof her words It seemed to him that a sort ofwas blurred Only her face was clear, frail and delicate, al his

Annabel a murderess! It was not possible

”Child!” he cried ”You do not knohat you say This is part of a dream--some evil fancy Think! You could not have done it”

She shook her head deliberately, hopelessly