I could only gaze at her in stupid silence, and after a moment she rambled on about her uncle being Madame de B----’s lawyer, and his having charge of her affairs over here, as she would not live here--would not settle anywhere in fact--just wandered from place to place, etc.
As last I broke in, with a gasp: “Murderess! She a murderess? But why--how?”
“Oh!” cried my informant: “She was innocent, of course, or I should not know her (I had not thought of that). But she had a narrow escape, and owed it to a man she had always hated; to the dead man’s valet.”
Again, and more impatiently, I broke in: “But why--how--who?”
She caught the last word, “who,” and went on: “Who was killed? Why, Count de Varney! He was a wicked, old wretch! Had a palsied arm, and was broken in health when Miriam first met him! Well, for years she bore his name, and she was the active mistress of his great, lonely home, and a most devoted nurse to him, but she was terribly alone! The servants, who disliked her because she was a foreigner, she ignored all save one, the Count’s valet--him she loathed! She tried to have him sent away and failed, and he knew she had failed. Not a pleasant situation, was it? I must tell you, that in the left wing of the great building there was a room whose windows chanced to overlook those of the private apartments of the Count and Countess, in the main building. This peculiarity was well known, too, and highly valued by the spying servants, and from that room came the evidence that so nearly ruined their hated mistress. The Count had been improving, but as his strength increased his temper roughened, and one day, through one of his bursts of rage, she learned that she had been cruelly, deliberately betrayed--tricked!--by the merest mockery of a marriage; one that, in France at least, was utterly worthless! Surprise--anguish--shame--all at last were lost in fury! A fury so wild--so filled with threats--that the Count fairly quailed before it--begged to be spared a scandal--swore he would yet marry her--nay, he would now, this moment, draw up his will and make her his heiress! Give all to her in her maiden name--so that she should be protected, should aught happen to him before he could marry her! This will he proceeded to have drawn up at once, for you see, during those past years, Miriam had learned much of his outrageous past--knew more of his secret ill-doings than he quite realized--knew, indeed, that he had placed himself within the reach of law! And now, in her otherwise helpless anger, she determined to at least punish him with a great fright. So she secretly prepared and sent an unsigned letter, of seeming friendly warning, to the Count, telling him of the very worst of his past acts. That he had been discovered at last, and that by the evening of that day the officers would arrive at the _château_ to arrest him! The letter came--Count de Varney read it! Miriam had thought to frighten him, and she succeeded so perfectly that the old man--white-lipped--rose from the table, and took his trembling way to his own room, where he hurriedly and clumsily hung himself.”