"But--but you are my mother!" gasped6 the girl, still struck by the marvellous resemblance to the supposed dead.
"I am not your mother," replied the other, coldly, and evading7 the outstretched arms of her visitor. "But since you have seen my face, I had better confess the truth. I am your aunt, Flora8."
"Oh!" Audrey recollected9 what her father had said about the two sisters of Bleakleigh. "Flora Arkwright?"
"Yes. I see your mother told you about me."
"No, she did not."
Madame Coralie raised her hand imperatively10. "This alcove11 is too public a place in which to discuss family matters. We must go upstairs. Indeed, I fancy your exclamation12 of 'Mother!' must have aroused Badoura's suspicions."
Apparently13 this was true, for when Madame Coralie drew her visitor through the pink silk curtains into the deserted14 shop, Badoura was standing15 before them with an astonished look on her face. Her employer at once sent her off on a false scent16.
"Miss Branwin has called to see me about her mother's death," said Madame Coralie, quietly. "She is slightly hysterical17, and you have, no doubt, heard what she cried out. I trust"--the speaker looked anxiously round the shop--"that no one else heard?"
"I am alone here," replied Badoura, evidently accepting this explanation as a reasonable one. "Can I get Miss Branwin a glass of water?"
"No, my dear," said the owner of the shop, who had replaced her yashmak. "I am taking up Miss Branwin to the still-room for a little quiet conversation. See that we are not disturbed."
"Peri Banou, Zobeide and Parizade are there, Madame."
"I shall send them down. Give them something to do here. Come, Miss Branwin, if you don't mind climbing the stairs."
Although Audrey felt considerably18 annoyed at being described as hysterical, she nevertheless saw the necessity of some such explanation to satisfy the curiosity of the forewoman. Therefore she wisely said nothing, and followed Madame into the narrow back passage and up the stairs. On arriving in the still-room, the elder woman dismissed her assistants, and having looked behind the curtain to see that no one was hidden there likely to overhear the conversation, she closed the door. Audrey watched her as she sat down with her back to the window, and tried to steady her nerves, which naturally had sustained a shock.
"Now, Miss Branwin," said Madame Coralie, in a quiet voice, "we can talk. But first, so that you may be certain of my identity, I shall lay this aside," and she flung the long veil of the yashmak over her shoulder.
The girl examined that face carefully. Madame Coralie was certainly extremely like Lady Branwin. She had the same muddy complexion19 and large black eyes, and the same stout20, shapeless figure. But the aggressive birthmark made all the difference, and after a single glimpse of it, much less this cautious and lengthy21 survey, there could be no question that the woman before her was not Lady Branwin.
"But my mistake was natural," said Audrey, with a sigh.
"Very natural," answered Madame Coralie, who had evidently followed her train of thought--no very difficult thing to do--"especially as you first saw my side face. The mark does not show when I look thus." She adapted her position to her words, and the resemblance became even more apparent. "Dora and I were twins," ended Madame, with a nod.
"My father did not tell me that."
"Oh! so your father told you about me, my dear. I thought he had long ago forgotten the existence of poor Flora Arkwright."
"Far from forgetting you," Audrey assured her aunt, "he said that he wished he had married you instead of mother."
The information did not seem to please Madame Coralie, for her thin lips tightened22, and she gave vent23 to a short laugh. Then Audrey noted24, as a further difference between the sisters, that the woman before her spoke25 in a hoarse26 and loud, domineering voice. Lady Branwin, on the other hand, had always talked softly, and possessed27 a musical utterance28, which was one of the few poor charms she owned.
"So Joseph remembers me in that way, does he, my dear?" said Madame Coralie, clasping her hands. "Ha! if I hadn't been a fool I should have married him."
"Why didn't you?" asked Audrey, bluntly.
"I have stated the reason," said Madame Coralie, drily. "I was a fool. But I am bound to say in my own defence that I never believed Joseph would become so wealthy. He never struck me as particularly clever."
"Yet he must be, to have so much money."
"There I disagree with you, my dear--I can call you my dear in private, as you are my niece--but Joseph was always hard and grasping, and ever had an eye to the main chance. Well, he is rich, and has now got rid of his wife, so he can marry into the Peerage if he likes. I expect Dora is glad she is dead, now that she is on the other side of the grave. Joseph killed her."
"Killed her?" Audrey, with a sudden fear, turned deadly white.
"Oh, I don't mean to say that he strangled her," said Madame Coralie, hastily, "for he is too careful of his skin to risk hanging; but his neglect killed her. She was always a good and faithful wife to him, and he broke her heart."
"Papa was rather unkind," said Audrey, nervously29, but relieved by this explanation.
Madame again laughed shortly. "Unkind--rather unkind!" she repeated. "Why, he treated her like a brute30. She told me all about it. Fancy the poor soul coming to me to be made young again, in the hope that she could regain31 Joseph's affections. I told her that she was a fool; but she would waste her money. And perhaps she wanted to help me also," added Madame Coralie, in a softer tone. "Dora was always fond of me."
"She knew that you kept this shop?"
"Yes. In fact, she helped me to set up the shop some years ago. I made her promise that she would never tell Joseph of my existence, and she kept her word. Yet Joseph remembered me. Strange."
"Papa said that you had the brains."
Madame Coralie looked round the room disdainfully. "And to what have my brains brought me? I am simply a renovator
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