Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/324

 "Sure?" he exclaimed, "if only Fenella did not stab the count, what care I what other hand dealt the fatal blow?"

Lucille de Vigny smiled, a dark and mystic smile, as she said slowly, "Not even if the hand should prove to be your own?"

Frank Onslow fell back with blue and writhing lips. "It is a lie," he said hoarsely, "a cruel lie!"

"It is the truth, my poor Frank; I can prove it."

Now, as has been already stated, this was mere conjecture on her part. In spite of the assertion in her letter, she had not been in the corridor of the Prospect Hotel when the tragic occurrence had taken place. On the contrary, she had been, perhaps, the most perplexed by Frank's disappearance the next morning. It was only subsequently that her feminine intuition had supplied a partial solution of the mystery. However, her shot told with terrible effect.

"Prove it!" he repeated incredulously. "Why, after I had seen the count enter Fenella's room, I went straight to my own; I sat up in a stupor till daylight, I did indeed, Lucille!"

"And at daylight you fled," said Mme. de Vigny softly.

"Only as far as Paris," he rejoined, "and I did not fly. I traveled in my ordinary manner."

"At least you left your wife to go through the inquest and trial alone."