on my return to london, whither i went by mail direct, leaving the yacht to follow after me, i drove straight to the lathams' from waterloo station. mrs. latham was out, the servant said, but miss irene was in the drawing-room.
irene was sitting at the window by herself, working quietly at a piece of crewel work. she rose to meet me with her sweet simple little english smile. i took her hand and pressed it like a brother.
"i got your telegram," she said simply. "harry, i know she is dead; but i know something terrible besides has happened. tell me all. don't be afraid to speak of it before me. i am not afraid, for my part, to listen."
i sat down on the sofa beside her, and told her all, without one word of excuse or concealment, from our last parting to the day of césarine's death in haiti: and she held my hand and listened all the while with breathless wonderment to my strange story.
at the end i said, "irene, it has all come and gone between us like a hideous nightmare. i cannot imagine even now how that terrible woman, with all her power, could ever for one moment have bewitched me away from you, my beloved, my queen, my own heart's darling."
irene did not try to hush me or to stop me in any way. she merely sat and looked at me steadily, and said nothing.[pg 32]
"it was fascination," i cried. "infatuation, madness, delirium, enchantment."
"it was worse than that, harry," irene answered, rising quietly. "it was poison; it was witchcraft; it was sheer african devilry."
in a flash of thought, i remembered the cup of coffee at seymour crescent, the curious sherry at port-au-prince, the cigarette with the manchineal she had given me on the mountains, and i saw forthwith that irene with her woman's quickness had divined rightly. it was more than infatuation; it was intoxication with african charms and west indian poisons.
"what a man does in such a woman's hands is not his own doing," irene said slowly. "he has no more control of himself in such circumstances than if she had drugged him with chloroform or opium."
"then you forgive me, irene?"
"i have nothing to forgive, harry. i am grieved for you. i am frightened." then bursting into tears, "my darling, my darling; i love you, i love you!"
