'Alice your husband's sister?' cried Martin Gurwood in amazement. 'And you were not aware of that fact until animated by false suspicions you had laid yourself out for revenge upon her?'
'Not until I had gained your confidence,' said Pauline, 'or at least taken the first steps towards gaining it. Not until that night at Hendon, when I was left alone with her, and when, while she was under the influence of the narcotic, I looked through her papers--you see I am speaking frankly now, and am desirous of hiding nothing, however much to my own disadvantage it may be--and discovered her relationship to my dead husband.'
'Who was your husband?' said Martin Gurwood in a softened voice.
'It is not likely that you ever heard of him,' replied Pauline. 'His name was Durham. In his last days he had some connection with the house of Calverley and Co., being sent out as an agent to represent them in Ceylon.'
'Durham!' cried Martin Gurwood. 'Surely I have some recollection of that name. Yes; I remember it all now. He was the man who mysteriously disappeared from on board one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's ships, and who was supposed to have fallen overboard and been drowned on his passage out.'
'The same,' said Pauline; 'he was my husband.'
'Durham!' cried Statham. 'What was his Christian name?'
'Thomas. All his friends knew him as Tom Durham.
'Tom Durham; I knew him well--at one time intimately; but I had no idea that he was married, much less that you were his wife. I recollect now reading the paragraph about his supposed drowning the last time I left London on my holiday.'
'You knew Tom Durham well?' cried Pauline, clasping her hands. '_Mon Dieu_, I see it all! You are the H. S., whose letter I have here!'
As she spoke she took a pocket-book from the bosom of her dress, and from it extracted a paper, which she handed to Statham.
'That is my handwriting, surely,' said Humphrey, running his eyes over the document. 'In it I acknowledge the receipt of a packet which I promised to take care of, and declare I will not give it up save to Tom himself, or to some person duly accredited by him. The packet is in that iron safe, where it has remained ever since.'
'What do you imagine it contains?' asked Martin.