"Anything that I can do to serve you – I need hardly say," he murmured, and paused, fascinated by this picture of lovely grief.
"I was prompted to come to you," she replied, "by your kindness of last evening, for I knew you had seen and understood, and were still my friend, and also my national representative in a foreign land, to ask your aid for a poor country-woman who is in danger of being deprived of her freedom, if not of her reason."
"But surely you are not speaking of yourself!"
"Yes, of myself."
The young diplomat said nothing for a moment or two, he was arranging his ideas – adjusting them to this new and interesting phase of his experience with Madame Darcy.
As a Secretary of Legation is generally the father confessor of his compatriots – he had ceased to be surprised at anything. People may deceive their physician, their lawyer, or the partner of their joys and sorrows; but to their country's representative in a strange land they unburden their hearts.
"Tell me," he said finally, breaking the silence, "just what your trouble is."
"I need sympathy and help."
"The first you have already," he replied with a special reserve in his manner, for he felt somehow that it was hardly fair that she should bring herself to his notice again, when he had almost made up his mind to marry a lady of whom all his friends disapproved. Indeed, in the last few minutes the force of Kingsland's remarks had made themselves felt very strongly, and he especially exerted himself to be brusque, feeling in an odd kind of way that he owed it to Miss Fitzgerald. So putting on his most official tone he added, "to help you, Madame Darcy, I must understand your case clearly."
"Don't call me by that name – give me my own – as you once did. My husband's a brute."
"Quite so, undoubtedly; but unfortunately that does not change your name."
"Would you mind shutting the door?" she replied somewhat irrelevantly. They were, as has been said, in the Secretary's private office, a dreary room, its furniture, three chairs, a desk and a bookcase full of forbidding legal volumes, its walls littered with maps, and its one window looking out on the unloveliness of a London business street.
As he returned to his seat, after executing her request, she began abruptly: —
"You're not a South American."
"No, my father was a Northerner, but, as you know, he owned large sugar plantations in your country, and if training and sympathy can make me a South American, I am one."
"You're a Protestant."
"Yes, so are you."
"It is my mother's faith, and though I was brought up in a convent at New Orleans, I've not forsaken it. I feel easier in speaking to you on that account."
"You may rest assured, my dear, that what you say to me will go no farther. 'Tis my business to keep secrets."
"Two years ago," she began abruptly, plunging into her story, "after our – after you left home, an Englishman, a soldier returning from the East incapacitated by a fever, and travelling for his health, craved a night's rest at my father's house. As you know, in a country like ours, where decent inns are few and far between, travellers are always welcome. It was the hot season, we pressed him to stay for a day or two, he accepted, and a return of the fever made him our guest for months. He needed constant nursing – I – I was the only white woman on the plantation."
"I see," said Stanley. "You nursed him, he recovered, was grateful, paid you homage."
"Remember I was brought up in a convent. I was so alone and so unhappy. He told me you had married. I believed him – trusted him.
"Quite so. His name was Darcy. He is a liar."
"He is – my husband."
"A gentleman – I suppose?"
"The world accords him that title," she replied coldly.
"I understand – He's a man of means?"
"He has nothing but his pay."
"And you – but that question is unnecessary. Señor De Costa's name and estates are well known – and you are his only child."
"Yes, you're right," she burst out. "It's my money, my cursed money! Why do men call it a blessing! Oh, if I could trust him, I'd give him every penny of it. But I cannot, it's the one hold I have on him, and because I will not beggar myself to supply means for his extravagances he dares – "
"Not personal violence, surely?"
"To put me away somewhere – in a retreat, he calls it. That means a madhouse."
"My dear Madame Darcy!"
"Call me Inez De Costa, I will not have that name of Darcy, I hate it."
"My dear Inez, then; your fears are groundless; they can't put sane people in madhouses any longer in England, except in cheap fiction – it's against the law."
"It's very easy for you to sit there and talk of law. You, who are protected by your office, but for me, for a poor woman whose liberty is threatened!"
"I assure you that you're in no such danger as you apprehend."
"But if I were put away, you would help me?"
"You shall suffer no injustice that we can prevent. You may return home and rest easy on that score."
"I shall never return to that man."
"Why not return to your father?"
"Would that I could!" she exclaimed, her eyes brimming with tears. "But how can I, with no money and no friends?"
"I thought you said – " began the Secretary, but his interruption was lost in the flow of her eloquence.
"I've not a penny. I can cash no cheque that's not made to his order, and to come to you I must degrade myself by borrowing a sovereign from my maid. I've travelled third-class!"
The Secretary smiled at the ante-climax, saying:
"Many people of large means travel third-class habitually."
"But not a De Costa," she broke in, and then continued her narration with renewed ardour.
"I've no roof to shelter me to-night. No where to go. No clothes except what I wear. No money but those few shillings; but I would rather starve and die in the streets than go back to him. I'm rich. I've powerful friends. You can't have the heart to turn away from me. Have you forgotten the old friendship? You must do something – something to save me – " and in the passion, of her southern nature she threw herself at his feet, and burst into an agony of tears.
Stanley assisted her to rise, got her a glass of water, and had cause, for the second time in that interview, to thank his stars that love had already shot another shaft, because if it were not for Belle, his official position, and the fact that the Señora had one husband already – well – it was a relief to be forced to tell her that legations were not charitable institutions, and that much as he might desire to aid her, neither he nor his colleagues could interfere in her private affairs.
"Then you refuse to assist me – you leave me to my fate!" she cried, starting up, a red flush of anger mantling her cheek.
"Not at all," he hastened to say. "On the contrary, I'm going to help you all I know how. I can't interfere myself, but I can refer you to a friend of mine, whom you can thoroughly trust, and who's in a position to aid you in the matter."
"And his name?"
"His name is Peter Sanks, the lawyer of the Legation, a gentleman, truly as well as technically. A countryman of yours who has practised both here and at home, and who always feels a keen interest in the affairs of his compatriots. He has chambers in the Middle Temple. I'll give you his address on my card."
"You're most kind – I'll throw myself without delay on the clemency of this Señor – "
"Sanks."
"Madre de Dios! What a name!"
"I dare say he was Don