Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/575

. 15, 1862.] Tuesday, the twenty-seventh of October, eighteen hundred and fifty-four.”

She did not faint or scream, but yielded herself a prisoner, as one who has no longer any hope of life or fear of death.

first day of Norah Malone’s imprisonment was passed by her in a kind of torpor, out of which she was aroused by a visit from the Herr Polizeibeamte.

He was a heavy, plethoric man with glassy bead-like eyes that had no expression in them but sharpness of perception; these eyes he fixed upon her throughout the whole interview. He might not have acknowledged it to himself, but he was impressed, amazed by the wild daring beauty of the woman.

Beauty of a rare and most irresistible kind—intellect, keener than that of many men—generous, brave candour of soul—were such gifts ever more ill-used than these of Norah Malone’s?

“Have you any wish to make a statement?” asked the Herr.

“None whatever.”

“Perhaps when I have informed you of some facts that have occurred since your arrest, you will feel inclined to alter your decision. These facts have given a most unexpected and extraordinary turn to the whole affair. Answer me, have you any acquaintance with a person calling himself Pierre Talobre, lately employed as professor of French at Herr Popp’s?”

“Yes.”

The glassy eyes scintillated like fire.

“You have? Have you any reason to suppose that this M. Talobre has been in frequent intercourse with your late pupil Alexandrina Jansiewich? Will it surprise you to hear that both are missing?”

Such a scream as the unhappy woman uttered then, had never before greeted the ears of Herr Polizeibeamte. He turned pale, and drew back nervously in his chair when she touched his arm.

Falling on her knees she begged to be heard.

“Let me speak, let me confess,” she cried with terrible fervour. “I loved him once, but now hate him, and in defending myself, can make his guilt plain. Oh! hear me, hear me!”

The substance of Norah Malone’s statement ran as follows:

“My real name is Norah Martyn, née Malone. Pierre Henri Martyn (son of a French lady married to an Englishman) is my husband, and we were married at Paris in July, 1849. Of our former life, I will only say that he was engaged in a kind of speculative swindling, to which I was accessory, and on account of its discovery we fled to America. There we separated, after living very unhappily together, and we did not meet or have any communication whatever till on the fourth of last month. No one knew of our connection, and I only had one interview with him, viz., on the twenty-seventh. We met secretly, because I had no wish to give up my respectable and harmless life, and he had reasons of his own. On this occasion he declared that he loved me still—that he would henceforth be faithful to me—that he would give up gaming and vice, and live honestly—if I started him with money. In England, he said, he would procure some appointment or other, and then all my troubles would be over. But we must have something to begin with, and he had debts of honour already, which kept him tied hand and foot in Cannstatt. In fact, the money must be had, and the way of getting it lay clearly before him. Do women who love bad men lose all the whiteness and honesty of their souls? I think so, for I consented. Yet the crime seemed to me as black as it could do to any innocent young girl. But I listened to him. Throughout that interview the name of Paul Jansiewich was only once mentioned by him. He said, ‘I know for a certainty that the old man keeps his money in a box, which you could easily get at, as he trusts you implicitly. You have only to send him to sleep.’

“Our plot was arranged thus: On the following day I was to steal the money from the old man’s room when he was taking his noonday sleep. To ensure his sounder sleep and my safety, I put a few drops of laudanum in his coffee, and before it was time for Sasha and myself to take our afternoon walk, I had abstracted the key from his pocket, taken out the money, and replaced the key. Before this, however, Pierre Talobre had sent by post a note of invitation, purporting to be from an English lady I knew in Stuttgart, inviting me to a coffee-drinking at her house that night, and at dinner, M. Jansiewich had consented that I should go. I do not think he would have consented, had not Sasha declined her invitation of going out to spend the evening with her musical-governess. We therefore walked out together for an hour, and parted at the door of her friend’s house. I took a drosky to Stuttgart, where my husband met me in the narrow street adjoining the post-hof. He appeared to be very much excited, and proceeded to ask me immediately for the money.

‘The fact of my taking possession of it at once,’ he said, ‘will be the only means of ensuring your safety, and through yours of mine. Suspicion cannot rest upon you, when there is no money found in your keeping, when no one can prove your having changed or used it. I shall join you at Frankfort or Berlin, in a few days, as soon as I safely can. Change your name, address, and identity as often as you find it possible.’

“He then informed me that an express train was on the point of starting for Mannheim; that it would be safest for me to take it, to diverge from the general route at that place, and proceed by country roads and eilwagens to Frankfort. He should write to me next day, and name the time and place of meeting. Assuring me again of his unalterable reformation, and kissing me on the forehead with renewed expressions of love, he left me.

“I spent three days at Frankfort in the cruelest suspense and apprehension, during which time I received two letters from him, both purporting that I had better go to Paris in the case of his non-appearance shortly. I cannot remember the postmark of the last letter. The first bore that of Thun. I did not wonder at his first delay, for