Seeing Martin Gurwood's attitude of despair, and the horror-stricken expression on Humphrey Statham's face, Pauline started back in amazement.  
'Is it possible,' she cried, 'that some one has been beforehand with me, that you already know the news which I come to bring? But no, that could not be.'
 
She addressed herself to Martin, but, after a brief glance at her, he had resumed his former attitude, and it was Statham who replied. 'You find us talking over a matter which has caused great surprise and pain to both of us, but it is not one,' he added quickly, seeing her start, 'in which, Madame Du Tertre, you could be interested, or of which, indeed, you could have any knowledge. From what you say you would appear to have some communication to make to us--does it concern Mrs. Claxton?'
 
'It does, indeed,' cried Pauline, with a deep sigh, and more than ever disconcerted at a glimpse of Martin Gurwood's tear-blurred face, which he lifted up as he heard her words; 'it does, indeed.'
 
Martin did not say a word, but kept his eyes upon her with a hard stony gaze. But Humphrey Statham cried out:
 
'For God's sake, woman, speak, and do not keep us longer in suspense! Is Alice ill--has anything happened to her?'
 
'What has happened to her you will be able to guess, when you read this slip of paper which, on my return from a false errand on which I had been lured, I found in an envelope addressed to me.'
 
She handed him a note as she spoke. Humphrey Statham took it, and read the following words in Alice's handwriting:
 
'I have found you and your accomplices out! I know my exact position now, and can guess why I was prevented from seeing John after his death!'
 
'Good heavens, what can this mean?' cried Martin Gurwood, after Statham had read aloud the words of the note.
 
'Mean!' said Statham. 'There is one portion of it, at all events, which is sufficiently intelligible. "I know my exact position now;" she has learned what we have been so long endeavouring to hide from her! She knows the exact relation in which she stood with Mr. Calverley.'
 
'Merciful powers, do you think so?' cried Martin.
 
'What other meaning could that phrase convey?' said Humphrey Statham. 'I myself have no doubt of it, and I think Madame Du Tertre is of my opinion; are you not, madame?'
 
'I am, indeed,' said Pauline.
 
'But where can Alice have learned the secret?' said Martin; 'who can have told it to her?'
 
'I have no doubt on that point either,' said Pauline; 'it must have been told to her by Mr. Wetter.'
 
'Wetter!' cried Martin and Humphrey both at the same time.
 
'Mr. Henrich Wetter,' repeated Pauline. 'It was he who beguiled me into the City upon a false pretence, and on my return home I learned from the servant that he had been at the house during my absence, and had a long interview with her mistress. Then I recognised at once that I had been gotten out of the way for this very purpose.'
 
'Your suspicions of this man seem to have been just,' said Martin, turning to Humphrey Statham, and speaking slowly, 'though they did not point in that direction.'
 
'Yes, as I told you before, I knew him to be a bad fellow, and a particularly undesirable acquaintance for Mrs. Claxton,' said Statham. 'But I confess, Madame Du Tertre, that I do not yet see why you should fix upon Mr. Wetter as the guilty person in the present instance, independently, that is to say, of the fact that he was with Mrs. Claxton in the interval between your leaving home and your return, during which she seems to have acquired this information. I should not have thought that Wetter could have known anything about the Calverley and Claxton mystery.'
 
'He knows everything that he wants to know,' cried Pauline with energy; 'He is a fiend, a clever merciless fiend. If it were his interest--and it was, as I happen to know--to make himself acquainted with Alice's history, he would learn it at whatever cost of money, patience, and trouble! It is he that has done this and no one else, be sure of that.'
 
'We must allow then, I suppose,' said Humphrey Statham, referring to the paper which he still held in his hand, 'that the discovery which Mrs. Claxton claims to have made is that of her relations with Mr. Calverley, and it seems likely that she gained the information from Mr. Wetter, who gave it her for his own purpose. I take only a subordinate part in the matter, Martin, as your friend, but it strikes me that it is for you, as Alice's guardian, to ask Madame Du Tertre, who has evidently a bad opinion--worse than mine almost--of Mr. Wetter, why, having that opinion, she introduced this man to Alice, and suffered him to become intimate at Pollington-terrace.'
 
'Why did you do this?' cried Martin, turning almost fiercely upon her. 'You say yourself that this is a bad man, and that nothing will stop him when his mind is once made up to the commission no matter of what crime, and yet you bring him to the house and present him to this girl, whom it was so necessary to shield and protect.'
 
He spoke so wrathfully that Statham looked up in surprise at his friend, and then glancing with pity at the shrinking figure of Pauline, said, in mitigation:
 
'You must recollect that Mr. Wetter discovered Madame Du Tertre's address by accident, and that he was her cousin!'
 
'He is not my cousin,' said Pauline, in a low subdued voice, gazing at Martin with tearful eyes, 'I deceived you in that statement, as in many others about Mr. Wetter, and about myself.'
 
'Not your cousin!' said Martin; 'why, then, did you represent him to be so?'
 
'Because he insisted on it,' said Pauline, gesticulating freely; 'because he had a certain hold over me which I could not shake off, and which he would have exercised to my detriment if I had not implicitly obeyed him.'
 
'But how could he have done anything to your detriment so far as we were concerned?' asked Martin.
 
'Very easily,' replied Pauline. 'It was my earnest desire for--for several reasons to live in the house with Alice as her companion. And Mr. Wetter would have prevented that.'
 
'How could he have done so?'
 
'By exercising the influence which he possessed, and which lay in his acquaintance with a portion of my early life. He would have told you what he knew of me, and you would not have suffered me to remain with Alice.'
 
'You mean to say--' cried Martin, with a certain shrinking.
 
'O, don't mistake me,' she interrupted; 'I was never wicked, as you seem to imagine; only the manner of my bringing-up, and the associations of my youth were such that, if you had known them, you might not have thought me a desirable companion for your friend.'
 
'Let me ask you one question, Madame Du Tertre,' said Humphrey Statham. 'Up to this crisis you have undoubtedly discharged your duties with fidelity, and proved yourself to be Alice Claxton's warm and excellent friend. But what first induced you to seek for that post of companion--what made you desire to ally yourself so closely with this young woman?'
 
'What first influenced me to seek her out?' said Pauline; 'not love for her, you may be assured of that. When first I saw this girl who has played such a part in my life, her head was resting on the shoulder of a man who, in bidding her adieu, bent down to kiss her upturned face, down which the tears were rolling. And that man was my husband.'
 
'Your husband!' cried Martin.
 
'My husband. I knew not who the girl was; I had never seen her before; I had never heard of the existence of any one between whom and my husband there could properly exist such familiarity, and I at once jumped to the conclusion that he was her lover, and I hated her accordingly.'
 
'But you have satisfied yourself that that was not the case,' asked Humphrey Statham hurriedly.
 
'O, yes,' said Pauline; 'but not until a long time after I first saw them together, not until, so far as one of them was concerned, any feeling of mine was useless. I determined that if ever I saw this woman again I would be revenged upon her! Fortune stood my friend; I did see her; I became acquainted with the mystery of her story, and thus supplied myself with a weapon which could at any time be made fatal to her; I won your confidence,' turning to Martin, 'and made myself necessary to you all, and then, and not till then, did I discover how ill-founded and unjust had been my suspicions; not till then did I learn, by the merest accident, that Alice, instead of having been the mistress of my husband, who was dead by that time, was his sister.'
 
'Alice your husband's sister?' cried Martin Gurwood in amazement. 'And you were not aware of that fact until animated by false suspicions you had laid yourself out for revenge upon her?'
 
'Not until I had gained your confidence,' said Pauline, 'or at least taken the first steps towards gaining it. Not until that night at Hendon, when I was left alone with her, and when, while she was under the influence of the narcotic, I looked through her papers--you see I am speaking frankly now, and am desirous of hiding nothing, however much to my own disadvantage it may be--and discovered her relationship to my dead husband.'
 
'Who was your husband?' said Martin Gurwood in a softened voice.
 
'It is not likely that you ever heard of him,' replied Pauline. 'His name was Durham. In his last days he had some connection with the house of Calverley and Co., being sent out as an agent to represent them in Ceylon.'
 
'Durham!' cried Martin Gurwood. 'Surely I have some recollection of that name. Yes; I remember it all now. He was the man who mysteriously disappeared from on board one of the Peninsular and Orie............