A Royal Gentleman by Albion W. Tourgee

Author:Albion W. Tourgee [Tourgee, Albion W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411450318
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXVII

THE EXECUTRIX

BETTY CERTAIN sat down upon a fragment of rock in front of her victim, and held the torch close to the woman's terror-stricken face. There was a strange leer upon her own, as she said:

"You will be perfectly safe here, and folks outside will be safe, too."

"What are you going to do?" asked the woman.

"Do? Nothing. Only when I go out from here I shall push over that rock which you saw before the entrance."

"And bury me alive?" the woman said with a shudder.

There was no reply.

"I cannot blame you, Betty Certain," she continued, "but it is a terrible revenge you are taking. I have done you great wrong, it is true, and would have done more. I don't ask for any mercy, but if you would grant me one request—just one—you may do what you like with me then. It is not for me so much as for another—for Toinette."

"Toinette!" said Betty. "Toinette! You tried to kill her once. Do you wish me to do it for you?"

"Do not mock me, Betty Certain," said the captive woman. "What I wish you to do is to take a package, which hangs round my neck by a gold chain, and forward it to Toinette. It contains papers of the utmost importance to her."

Betty Certain seemed incredulous.

"How do you come to have papers of importance to Toinette? Who are you? How can I believe you? Did you not try to murder her? What interest have you in her?"

"I am her mother," said the woman.

"You her mother?" said Betty Certain, peering suspiciously at her in the dull murkiness of the cavern. "Why, then, did you seek to kill her?"

"To save her from a worse fate," answered the woman calmly. "Had she been your child, would you have rather seen her dead or polluted?"

"True, too true," said Betty. "I had never thought of that. You, then, are Manuel Hunter's cook—old Mabel?" she inquired, eyeing her keenly.

"I am Arthur Lovett's freedwoman, Belle Lovett," answered the woman sharply.

"What? What did you say? Belle Lovett? Did you say your name was Belle Lovett?" said Betty Certain in a confused, uncertain manner, which showed how completely she was overwhelmed with astonishment. Somehow she did not think of doubting the woman's declaration. There was something so consistent with all that was known of the tragedy of Lovett Lodge and explained so much that had been mysterious in it, that she could but recognize its truth.

"That is my name," said the woman.

"And yet you killed him—killed Arthur Lovett—killed the man who loved you better than his own soul. Why, why, did you do it?"

"Because he was about to marry you. Because he bartered off my children, and myself, when I had been more than wife to him, for gold to satisfy his sisters—cruel, heartless women—and to buy gay frocks for a poor white woman who had coaxed him to agree to marry her. Why did I kill him? Because he was blacker than hell with lies which he had told me!" answered the woman fiercely.

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