The White Countess By Florence Warden London John Long Norris Street, Haymarket _All Rights Reserved_ _First Published in_ 1907 CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI THE WHITE COUNTESS CHAPTER I “Oh, Gerard, what a long face! What’s the matter? Have you had your pocket picked?” It was Gerard Angmering’s beautiful young wife who put these laughing questions to him, on the threshold of the modest little flat in West Kensington where, like most young couples of moderate means nowadays, they had set up their tent and expected to find peace and joy and all the comforts of home in a jerry-built “mansion” where they paid a hundred a year for the privilege of hearing the conversation of their underneath neighbour up the chimney, and being overheard in like manner by their neighbours overhead and on each side. Gerard, whose face had instinctively softened at the very first word from his wife, said “Sh--sh,” pushed her inside their little drawing-room, and shut the door. “There’s trouble at the bank,” said he. “I didn’t want to have to tell you. But since you’ve found me out, why, I suppose I must.” “Oh, Gerard, what do you mean? What trouble?” “There, there, don’t look so frightened, child. It will be all right, all right. At least--I suppose it will, I hope it will. You’ve heard me speak of Sir Richmond Hornthwaite, the old gentleman who gives us so much trouble--always sending imperative messages for us to go and see him, because he’s forgotten something he had to say, or because he wants to have something done for him in a hurry?” “Yes, oh, yes, the old man who lives at Chislehurst.” “Yes. Well, he’s just discovered--or thinks he’s discovered, that three cheques have been paid against his account which he never signed, which are, in fact, forgeries.” “Oh, dear! And the bank people are very much upset about it, of course!” Gerard, who was very pale, nodded. There was a long silence, and Audrey, who was still clinging to her husband, perceived, with a sickening sense of distress and terror, that she had not yet heard the worst. “Well,” she said, quite querulously, “and what else?” Gerard Angmering turned upon her suddenly eyes in which agony revealed itself unmistakably, appallingly. He tried to speak, but could not. Audrey clung more closely to his arm, put her right hand round his neck, held him close to her, comforting, encouraging, knowing with a loving woman’s instinctive knowledge that the worst would be tragically awful to hear.