CHAPTER XLV.

FACE TO FACE.

If Solomon himself, half starved and imbecile with despair, had suddenly presented himself from his living tomb, Richard could not have been more astonished than at the appearance of his present visitor.  He had left her but three days ago for Midlandshire.  How was it possible she had tracked him hither?  With what purpose she had done so he did not ask himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless eyes.

“Have I come too late?” moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.

“For breakfast?—­yes, madam,” returned Richard, coldly; “but that can easily be remedied;” and he feigned to touch the bell.  His heart was steel again; this woman’s fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and for him alone.  It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.

“Where is my husband?” she gasped out.  “Is he still alive?”

“I am not your husband’s keeper, madam.”

“But you are his murderer!” She held out her arm, and pointed at him with a terrible significance.  There was something clasped in her trembling fingers which he could not discern.

“You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat grim.”

“I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?”

“I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well.  What makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?”

“This”—­she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon his own—­“this was found among your things after you left my house!”

It was a ticket-of-leave—­the one that had been given to Balfour on his discharge from Lingmoor.  It seemed impossible that Richard’s colorless face could have become still whiter, but it did so.

“Yes, that is mine,” said he.  “It was an imprudence in me to leave such a token among curious people.  You took an interest in my effects, it seems.”

“It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me.”  Her voice was calm, and even cold; but the phrase “poor Mrs. Basil” alarmed him.

“The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?”

“She is dead.”

“Dead!” Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his forehead.  The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were built had, then, departed from it!  “When did she die?” inquired he in a hollow voice, “and how?”

“On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease which one like you will scarcely credit—­of a broken heart.”

Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit; the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother’s death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly.  If his mother had died of a broken heart, it was this woman’s falsehood that had broken it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss which had left him utterly forlorn!  He forgot all his late remorse; and in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.