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CHAPTER III

LATE, very late that same night Mrs. Mildmay and her daughter sat out on the veranda of the villa Beau Séjour side by side. In the large bedroom within the sick girl slept heavily. She had been ordered a sleeping draught by Dr. Fenton, which ensured her some hours of repose during the earlier part of the night

Kate Mildmay's face was very white, and the moonlight which flooded everything made it look still whiter. Mrs. Mildmay had backed away from her daughter with an expression of horror.

"You cannot mean it, Kate," she said. "You were always daring--the most daring, adventurous creature I ever came across; but you cannot mean this. Why, if it fails--"

"It it fails it might mean penal servitude or worse," was the reply. "But it won't fail, mother; it cannot fail. It has all the elements of success in it. It but needs a brave spirit and a daring wit to carry it through."

"And you mean to pass as Miss Bouverie in the future?"

"I do. If Kitty must die I may as well take her place. It will do her no harm. I love her; I would not hurt a hair of her head. But the case is hopeless. It will do just as well to have my name over the girl's grave."

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"Oh, Kate, it does sound such an awful, awful sin; and I don't believe you will be able to manage it."

"Yes, I will; I have thought the whole thing out. Nothing pleases Kate so much as to talk about her past life. When she is well enough to talk I encourage her. She has just written, to my dictation, a letter to her uncle, Mr. Hume, and a letter to her lover, Ralph Henley. Neither of these letters, as a matter of fact, will be posted. I shall write to them in her name after her death. I shall acquaint myself with every fact of her past life. She was the sort of girl to keep a diary. I shall read that diary. All her letters are in a trunk in her room. I shall study them night after night when she is asleep and when you are nursing her. In less than a week I shall be primed with regard to every particular of her past. And I am like her, mother; you see yourself the likeness."

"It is extraordinary," said Mrs. Mildmay. "When I saw her first I positively started; for once when you had a had fever you looked as she looks. I thought I was coming back into the room to you. I felt inclined to run up to you and kiss you. And then I looked round, and you were standing by my side in perfect health, and she, poor little dear, was there on the sofa dying. But oh, Kate, I wish you would give it up. I would rather keep the debts. I would rather keep the misery I now go through--the life of a slave. I'd rather go on toiling; I am frightened at this."

"You won't be frightened long, mother. Kitty must die. Dr. Fenton said so. When she dies it cannot do her any harm to bear my name on her | | 18 tombstone. The dead do not suffer; the dead do not come back."

"Oh, you cannot say; perhaps they do," said Mrs. Mildmay in a frightened voice. "I know I shall never have a happy moment again. And, then, what is to be done with me?"

"You stay here in Mentone as the mother of the dead girl, Kate Mildmay."

"Oh, Kate, you break my heart."

"You stay here, the owner of a large fashionable pension; and I go to England as the heiress, and I marry the handsome young man with a face like a god, and I come in for all the riches and all the wealth. It is a splendid scheme. You will be set on your feet your cares will be over. Mother, don't you see for yourself that I might do worse?"

"I am terribly frightened about it," said Mrs. Mildmay; "I have not got your courage. I could not be fearfully wicked like you. I often do small things that I am ashamed of. But a big thing like this! And, then, suppose it is ever found out?"

"It won't be, unless you give me away. All I want you to promise me now is to aid and abet me."

"I don't know that I can make the promise. That child has queer eyes; I could not look her in the face. I could not nurse her if I thought I was going to lend a hand to an awful deception of this kind."

"Then, mother, you had better not nurse her. You can do the cooking, you know, and stay away from the room. All I want is to dismiss Fanchon and Henriette. They must not be here. Those who knew the sick girl as Kate Bouverie must go away. Henriette wants to go back to her home at San Remo, and | | 19 will never hear of poor little Kate any more; and Fanchon returns to Switzerland in a week. She told me yesterday that she could not live away from her mountains any longer; that they drew her. She has got the mal du pays so badly. She will go to Switzerland, and Henriette to San Remo. And you and I will nurse the sick girl between us. We won't get in any strangers, and we need not have a doctor, until just at the very end. Yes, mother, I can plan it all. And she shall want for nothing. There, now you know. I am going to lie down. I shall get up early in the morning to begin the reading of the papers. Oh, no; I don't feel unhappy. And my conscience does not prick me; perhaps I do not possess a conscience. You must help me, little mother. Now, good-night."

The girl glided away and the woman was left alone. She approached a step or two nearer the closed window of the room where the sick girl was sleeping, then she sank down on a low bench and clasped her hands, and presently her head fell forward on her hands and she uttered a bitter groan.

"I don't believe I'll be able to go through with it," she sobbed. "Kate was always terribly masterful; but this--this is the last straw. I never meant to be downright wicked; and my husband was a good man. I can't think how I came by a girl like Kate; she never seemed to have any sense of honour. She always was desperate; she was determined to have her own way in everything. I have seen her tell a distinct lie just for the sake of getting her own way. But this--this is awful! If it were not for Henry Merriman I believe I should be firm. I should tell her that I would have no part nor lot in | | 20 the matter. An easy conscience is a blessed possession. But, then, have I an easy conscience? And Merriman knows--he knows that I stole that money from Madame Argaut, and he has held it over me as a threat ever since. I have to pay him to keep him quiet. Now, if Kate succeeds in her scheme she will have plenty of money, and I can go boldly to Madame Argaut and pay her back twice what I took. She will be pleased to be friends with me when I am rich, and then I can snap my fingers at Henry Merriman. Ah, yes, I am in a trap myself, and it seems a way out. All the same, I do not know how I am to go through with it."

There came a little moan from the sick-room. Mrs. Mildmay softly opened the window and stepped inside. The girl on the bed was moving restlessly from side to side.

"I am so hot," she cried. "Give me water, will you? No, I don't want lemonade; I like pure, cold water best."

Mrs. Mildmay supplied it, raising the girl's head, which was wet with perspiration, on her arm as she did so.

"You must have another pillow, dear," she said. "Let me wipe away all this perspiration."

"Yes, and I should like a fresh night-dress, too," said the girl. "How kind you are! What a clever nurse you must be!"

"I made nursing my profession at one time," was the quiet reply. "Now lie very still. I have made you more comfortable, have I not?"

"Much more comfortable."

"If you lie just at that angle you are not likely to cough so badly. Go to sleep, and I will sit by you."

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"But I wish you wouldn't; it seems so selfish. And I don't suppose I am as bad as that."

"We will try and get you better; we will do all we can." The woman's voice was low and muffled. The pain at her heart was so fierce that she could scarcely bear it. The girl's face on the pillow looked very white, the dark eyes were closed, and the eyelashes lay heavy on the cheeks.

Presently, by the soft breathing, Mrs. Mildmay knew that she slept. Half-an-hour later the room door was very softly opened, and the other Kate came in. She stole on tiptoe up to the bed.

"Does she sleep?" she asked.

The mother nodded. "Don't wake her," she said in the lowest of tones.

"I don't mean to. Has she been perspiring much to-night?"

"A great deal."

"It takes her strength out of her," said the other Kate. "She won't last very long. Mother, I want you to help me to move that trunk out of the room."

"I dare not; it will awaken her."

"But you must help me, and you must be quick. I must have all my information at my fingers' ends, and the time is short."

Mrs. Mildmay rose without a word. She helped her daughter to move the trunk. They carried it into the sitting-room.

"It must be moved back again before she misses it in the morning," said Kate Mildmay. Now don't disturb me, mother. I have got her keys; I took them when I was bidding her good-night. The keys and the trunk must be back before daylight. I have got two or three hours. Go and sit with her. All will succeed."