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"_Diable_! You?" cried Delbet, starting up in alarm.
"Ah, my husband!" gasped Valerie, covering her blanched face with her hands.
"_Sacre_! You shall die!" I shouted.
The tolling bell throbbed once again, and then--a short, sharp, loud report and a flash together. A little puff of blue-grey smoke floated ceilingward, a man's frightened cry pierced the night, and upon the harmonious colours of the flower-strewn carpet Valerie lay dead.
Rus.h.i.+ng to my wife's boudoir, I broke open her escritoire, bent upon ascertaining the nature of any letters she might have concealed there.
There were many. Ah, _Dieu_! When I think of the pa.s.sionate love-missives penned by the man whom I had implicitly trusted, and admitted to my home as a friend, my brain is lashed to frenzy.
One discovery I made was startling. Several of the letters bore the stamp of twenty-five centimes, and their envelopes were addressed to "Mademoiselle Halima Fathma, care of Hadj Ha.s.san, Douera Algerie."
Searching further, I discovered a full-length cabinet photograph, taken in Algiers. It was of Valerie dressed as the Sheikh's daughter, with the exception that the _adjar_, which had hidden the Arab girl's face, had been removed.
In my surprise I almost forgot the terrible tragedy.
Continuing the investigation of the odds and ends in her private drawer, I found an Arab head ornament and several bracelets. The pattern of the crescent-shaped sequins I recognised as the same as those worn by the mysterious Halima.
These discoveries, combined with the contents of the letters which I hastily scanned, left no doubt that Halima and Valerie were the same person; and, further, that Ha.s.san, the wealthy Sheikh of the Ahamellen, who had a house at Douera, was really her father; and that Monsieur de Noirville had brought her up, and educated her to the ways of civilised society.
When I had left for Algeria, it had been her caprice to follow me, and rejoin her people.
She had saved my life, yet I had killed her.
But though so fair, she was false--_false_!
Bah! How infernally bitter this cognac is!
One more gulp, and my body and soul will have parted. I shall be at rest.
Ah, well! Here's health to the cursed scoundrel who has wrecked my life. The gla.s.s is drained. The sediment was like gall.
How it burns!
I--I go. I trouble no one longer. _Au revoir. Adieu_!
