HELEN VARDON’S CONFESSION BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN AUTHOR OF “THE EYE OF OSIRIS,” “THE RED THUMB MARK,” ETC. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON Contents PROLOGUE BOOK I. TRAGEDY I. THE CRACK OF DOOM II. ATRA CURA III. THE COVENANT IV. THE ELEVENTH HOUR V. ON THE BRINK VI. A MEETING AND A PARTING VII. THE TERMS OF RELEASE VIII. “WHOM GOD HATH JOINED----” IX. TESTIMONY AND COUNSEL X. THE TURNING OF THE PAGE BOOK II. ROMANCE XI. A HARBOUR OF REFUGE XII. THE HIDDEN HAND XIII. A CRYSTAL-GAZER AND OTHER MATTERS XIV. JASPER DAVENANT XV. THE MAGIC PENDULUM XVI. THE SWEATED ARTIST XVII. THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE TITMOUSE XVIII. AMONG THE BREAKERS XIX. ILLUSIONS AND DISILLUSIONS XX. CLOUD AND SUNSHINE XXI. A DREADFUL INHERITANCE XXII. THE CATASTROPHE BOOK III. CRIME XXIII. THE DEAD HAND XXIV. THE GATHERING CLOUDS XXV. SUSPENSE: AND A DISCOVERY XXVI. THE ADJOURNED INQUIRY XXVII. THE INDICTMENT XXVIII. THE VERDICT EPILOGUE Prologue To every woman there comes a day (and that all too soon) when she receives the first hint that Time, the harvester, has not passed her by unnoticed. The waning of actual youth may have passed with but the faintest regret, if any; regret for the lost bud being merged in the triumph at the glory of the opening blossom. But the waning of womanhood is another matter. Old age has no compensations to offer for those delights that it steals away. At least, that is what I understand from those who know, for I must still speak on the subject from hearsay, having received from Father Time but the very faintest and most delicate hint on the subject. I was sitting at my dressing-table brushing out my hair, which is of a docile habit, though a thought bulky, when amidst the black tress--blacker than it used to be when I was a girl--I noticed a single white hair. It was the first that I had seen, and I looked at it dubiously, picking it out from its fellows to see if it were all white, and noticing how like it was to a thread of glass. Should I pluck it out and pretend that it was never there? Or should I, more thriftily--for a hair is a hair after all, and enough of them will make a wig--should I dye it and hush up its treason? I smiled at the foolish thought. What a to-do about a single white hair! I have seen girls in their twenties with snow-white hair and looking as sweet as lavender. As to this one, I would think of it as a souvenir from the troubled past rather than a harbinger of approaching age; and with this I swept my brush over it and buried it even as I had buried those sorrows and those dreadful experiences which might have left me white-headed years before.