CHAPTER XIX.

When Karl von Steinberg rushed from the séance room, it was with the intention of seeking the open air. He felt as if he should be stifled in the atmosphere of his wife’s boudoir--as if he could not breathe in that dark and airless chamber, so fraught with treachery, deceit, and crime.

He wanted to get out under God’s pure Heaven, to walk miles and miles into the open country, and never go back to Portland Place again. But when he reached the hall door, he encountered a long line of carriages, drawn up in waiting for the aristocratic sitters, and he feared lest the traces of what he was undergoing might be visible on his features, and that he should betray himself before their servants. So he turned back and sought his private sitting-room instead, and sat down there, with his head buried in his hands, and tried to think.

What was this horrible thing that he had listened to?--could it possibly be true? or had he been made the sport of some devil, who had assumed the shape and features of his dear old friend?

But this idea, worthy only of such as have no knowledge of Spiritualism, was soon routed from his mind by reason. He _knew_ that it was Ricardo himself, who had spoken to him--Ricardo, with his delicate aquiline features--his piercing eyes, overshadowed by bushy brows--his sensitive mouth, and pointed beard and moustaches.

If a devil could assume his every attribute in the séance chamber, then Von Steinberg might well doubt if the next acquaintance he met in the street were truly himself, or a devil in his guise.

This apparition of his best friend had come again and again (as he had heard on the testimony of strangers), and called his name, that he might confide to him the awful story which was stirring his being to its depths. He had told it to him--not for his own sake, the wrong was over, for him--but lest Von Steinberg should fall into the same net in which he had been caught. But could it--could it--_could it be true?_

Von Steinberg glanced round at the evidences of luxury which surrounded him--the soft Persian carpet--the carved furniture--the valuable paintings--the Venetian glass--and wondered what _more_ he could have bestowed upon this woman, whom he first thought of befriending for Ricardo’s sake--Ricardo, who she had sent into Eternity!

It was not so much the horror of his friend’s death that oppressed him--those who are convinced that the dead still live, come to look very calmly on the separation, which more ignorant mortals regard with fear--but the contemplated horror of living on with the woman who had betrayed him! _That_ he felt to be impossible!

He could never again take Hannah in his arms and call her “wife”, whilst the spirit of Ricardo stood between them and hurled another name at her. What should he do? What was to be his next step? How were matters to be arranged for the future? He wished at that moment that he were a medium himself, and had the power to call back the spirit of Ricardo, and ask his advice about it all.

After he had brooded over the terrible affair for some time, Von Steinberg began to question whether, after all, he might not be mistaken, or that Ricardo might have been so! He knew that spirits on their first appearance after death, were often confused and but half conscious--could not remember names or dates--nor recognise those to whom they had been dear! But yet he had never heard of anyone making a mistake on so important a subject as this.

Then, for his own doubts concerning it. He threw his thoughts back to that time, just before Ricardo’s death, when Hannah had begun to coquet with him, and he had been foolish and dishonourable enough to meet her advances half-way--to the quarrels she had with her husband--to Ricardo’s assurance to him that she made his life a hell, and he could stand it no longer--to his hints about taking his life--to his (Von Steinberg’s) cautions to Hannah on the same subject--and then, to his friend’s sudden demise, to that awful night when he was called to the Cottage and found the Professor, dead--by his own hand as he then fully thought--and the subsequent decision he had arrived at, partly because he believed it to be a duty on his part.

But now, in a moment, the truth seemed to flash upon him, and he wondered that he had been so blind as not to see it from the beginning. Hannah had been discontented and repining from the time he had come into his uncle’s property--she had coveted it--his own folly had encouraged her to think she could gain it--Ricardo was the obstacle, and so----Von Steinberg groaned within himself as he thought these things, and that his dearest friend had paid the forfeit of his own good fortune.

But it must be put an end to at once--his suspicions must be allayed, or turned into certainties--he would not sleep one night under the same roof as Ricardo’s murderess--there must be a separation between them, now and for ever.

The house was again quiet, the guests had all departed, and Von Steinberg took his way up to his wife’s room. He thought that Hannah knew nothing of what had occurred, so he resolved not to be too violent, but to extract the truth from her by degrees. He found her standing by the side of her sumptuous bed, with its hangings of rich brocade, looking rather white and weary, but with a sparkle of determination in her eye, as if she guessed what was coming and had her weapons ready. Von Steinberg for his part appeared completely crushed--the revelation of the last hour had knocked all his manhood out of him.

“Well!” began Hannah, abruptly, “and what may you want here?”

“I have come expressly to see you, Hannah! I wish to speak to you! Why did you not tell me that you were giving these séances?”

“Because I do not acknowledge that it is any business of yours,” she answered carelessly, “they are my own concern altogether!”

“Perhaps! but as I have asked you frequently to give me a sitting, and you have systematically refused, it is strange that you should leave me to hear that you are constantly holding these meetings, from a stranger at my club.”

“Yes?” said Hannah, nonchalantly.

“Yes! and I know the reason of your reticence now, into the bargain,” replied the Baron angrily. “Are you aware _who_ came back through you this afternoon, and held converse with me?--_who_ told the story of his death and why he had left this world so suddenly--_who_ has asked for me again and again, in order to tell me the truth, but whom you have kept away because you were afraid of what revelations he might make?”

“Not in the least,” said Hannah, insolently, though her face had become very fixed during her husband’s questions.

“You are lying to me--you _do!_” exclaimed the Baron, “I should have gone on for the rest of my life, poor fool that I am! fancying that you had come to regard the practice of Spiritualism as wrong and harmful, and refraining from asking you to act contrary to your principles, had it not been for the idle tongues of two men in the club this afternoon, who were discussing these séances of yours without knowing that I was within hearing. Though I could hardly believe my ears, I returned home to find they were correct in what they had said--and when I joined your circle, Ricardo came back to me--Ricardo, your late husband and my dearest friend--Ricardo, whom you----”

“Be careful what you say,” interposed his wife, “if you make accusations against me, which you have no means of proving, I will have satisfaction from you in a court of law. Professor Ricardo died from the effects of poison, administered by his own hand--that was the certificate of death I believe, written by yourself. What will people say, if you deny it now?”

The Baron was staggered by her coolness and perspicuity! It was true; he had no proofs to bring forward of his assertion.

“I would believe the word of my dead friend before the evidence of my own senses,” he replied, less vehemently. “Ricardo was too good to you during his lifetime to bring a false and unnecessary accusation against you now! I may never be able to prove it, but I am as convinced of the truth as if I had seen it done, and I will never live with you again--so help me God!”

Still Hannah was perfectly unmoved.

“That is of little consequence to me,” she answered; “so long as you make me a suitable allowance. But you will be forced to do that! I will not consent to a separation, unless it is legally settled by law!”

Karl von Steinberg gazed at her in silent amazement. Was she bewitched?

“What has come to you in the last few months?” he said, “you are not the same woman that you used to be!”

“How do you know what sort of woman I used to be?” she asked him, quickly.

“I mean, when we first met you--poor Ricardo and I--at Mrs. Battleby’s. You were modest and humble then--shy and retiring--you were an amiable, good-humoured girl, only anxious to please and oblige! Now--my God! what a difference!--I should never have known you for Hannah Stubbs!”

“Who is Hannah Stubbs?” demanded the Marchesa.

“Enough of this folly,” exclaimed Von Steinberg, angrily, “don’t pretend to misunderstand me! You have altered in every respect! I have raised you to a position above that to which you were born, and your head has been unable to stand the elevation. You have become vain, haughty, arrogant, and insolent! Yet I could have borne all that and only cursed my own folly for it, but this crime--no! no! I can never live under the same roof with you again. We part to-night!”

“That is as you please!” cried the Marchesa, shrilly, “it will leave me freer and more independent! I shall have more opportunities of seeing Signor Gueglielmo, and my other friends!”

“No! by my faith you won’t!” exclaimed the Baron. “If the man ever enters this house after I am gone, I will drag you and him into the Divorce Court, and let my misery end there!”

“That is to be seen,” remarked the Marchesa.

“You defy me!” cried Von Steinberg, “_you_--who murdered my best friend! Yes! we need not mince words here, Madame la Marchesa, the time is past for that! Ricardo told me all--how you purchased the arsenic (which I was fool enough to believe the poor fellow had procured himself)--at the Hampstead chemist’s, under the pretence you wanted it for vermin--and how you mixed it with the whiskey and water which you persuaded him to drink because you said _I_ had ordered it! You think you are so secure that you can defy and insult me! What if I looked up that chemist and examined his books, and proved the date you bought the poison from him to be that of your husband’s death? What then, Madame la Marchesa?”

He had sprung forward as he spoke, and approached her so nearly that the woman felt alarmed, but still her native insolence upheld her.

“What then?” she echoed. “Why! I would force you to declare that you gained your information through Spiritualism, and make you the laughing-stock of London. How would Spiritualistic detectives accord with the English law, Baron von Steinberg, eh?”

“But you would leave the Court with an indelible stain upon your character, and where would your friends be then?”

“I should go to Signor Gueglielmo, and in his beautiful Italy I should soon forget that I had ever inhabited such a cold, gloomy, unsociable country as this!”

“Signor Gueglielmo! You acknowledge he is your lover then?”

“_One_ of them!” she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

“Good Heavens! That I should have lived to hear you accuse yourself of such baseness! Are you a woman, or a devil? Are you yourself, Hannah, or does some evil spirit possess you, and obscure the humble virtues you once had?”

“Do you think women are all fools?” she retorted, turning on him fiercely, “are you men to take your pleasures as you will, and we to be debarred from any? Why should I not have lovers. I am young and beautiful.”

In saying these words, the Marchesa assumed such a coquettish air, that solemn though the occasion was, Von Steinberg almost laughed.

“And the men admire me! Is all my youth to be wasted in prudery and pretending I do not enjoy that which is the breath of my life--the admiration of the other sex? O! you needn’t glare at me like that! You need not attempt to strike me! I am well provided against your assaults! And you are not the only one who has suffered through my being _femme galante!_ Sorrento writhed under the knowledge more than you do, and he tried to avenge himself on me, but you see it was useless! He believed me to be a model of all the virtues, to the day of his death--perhaps even now he does the same. But you men are all alike. Fools where you should be wise, and blind where you ought to see! Sorrento smiled when he should have been weeping, and struck when there was no cause. Do you remember the story of Centi?”

“The man for whose sake Leonora deceived poor Ricardo! Yes! I see now, he was right! You women are all alike! Born to lie and to deceive those who trust in you! He did well to send her out of a world which she disgraced.”

At this assertion, Hannah laughed jeeringly.

“O! she was none the worse for it, you may depend! When earthly lives are cut shorter than the Creator intended, either by our own hands, or those of others, they are not ended, though mortals may think so! We all live on this earth just as long as was originally meant for us--neither more nor less--in the flesh or out of it--but still here,--sometimes for our own punishment, sometimes for that of others, but still here,--_here_--where you and I stand to-day. Don’t waste your pity on Leonora, for she does not need it!”

“You defend her action--doubtless you sympathise with her crime,” said the Baron, sarcastically. “Perhaps you would wish to copy her example, that is, if you have not already done so!”

“You are right,” replied the Marchesa, “I sympathise with her deeply. She was young and beautiful and admired, and she loved life, and she hadn’t fair play. You think with me, surely, that Sorrento did her a grievous and irreparable wrong, in sending her so abruptly and cruelly from a world she loved!”

“I do not! I think that she was rightly served for her infidelity, and that she paid too little for her crimes. Her husband only took his just revenge. Such women are better out of the world than in it!”

“So that is your opinion,” said the Marchesa, looking him straight in the eyes, “what then of the way he met his own death? Was _that_ not a just revenge also? a righteous retribution for the way he treated Leonora? Was I not justified (who met my death at his hands) in sending him also into another world, when it suited my convenience, and he interfered with my plans?”

“You--_you?_” stammered the Baron, falling back a pace or two. A light broke in upon him--a light which seemed to make both the Past and Present clear--which absolved the innocent and condemned the guilty.

“You are _not_ Hannah Stubbs!” he exclaimed vehemently, as he sprang towards her, “I see it all now! You are a devil in human form, who has been traducing by your actions, one of the most simple and humble of God’s creatures! You are not _Hannah Stubbs_--it is but her carcase that you inhabit! You are Leonora d’Asissi! the false wife of the Marchese di Sorrento!”

The face of the Marchesa seemed to change to that of a fiend as he thus accused her--she drew herself up to her full height--her eyes blazed fury--her arm was raised as if to strike. But she braved the accusation out, returning it in full force upon herself.

“Go on! go on!” she cried, “you cannot say too much, nor yet enough to harm me! I am all you say, Leonora d’Asissi, the false wife of your dear friend--false to him, not with Centi only, but with everyone who caught my wandering fancy. He believed every word I chose to tell him, poor craven fool! who had the courage to avenge his wrongs, but not to rest satisfied with his victory.

“Yes! I am Leonora d’Asissi, in the ugly, uncouth form of Hannah Stubbs, but I have made her mine, and I will use her to the end--until it pleases me to give her up of my own free will! You may claim this rough body if you choose, but you must take my spirit with it. I will possess it and animate it with my words and graces, and make it copy my faults, and hate as I hated and love as I loved, until it ceases to exist. Have I not shown my power over it already? Who but _I_ prompted her to poison Sorrento? to coquette with Gueglielmo? to defy you? to trick? to lie? to deceive? Who but I--I--I? and I will continue to make her follow my will, until she ceases to breathe!”

“You shall not! I defy you in my turn,” exclaimed Von Steinberg, “this country girl, uncouth and plain as she may be, is worth a thousand such as you, with all your wit and beauty, and devilish fascinations. She is my wife--I have promised to defend and protect her, and I will drive your hateful spirit from her body, if I have to set hers free, in order to accomplish it? By what right do you cling to a creature, who is so much your superior? In the name of the Holy Trinity, I command you to depart!”

Leonora laughed scornfully.

“And who gave me possession but yourself--you, and your dear friend Ricardo? How could I have obtained such powerful hold of her if you had not used this girl as an instrument to satisfy your curiosity concerning the mysteries of Spiritualism?--if you had not made her sit, night after night, to minister to your pleasure, until her brain and body were both so wearied, that it was an easy matter for me, or any other who had chosen, to oust her spirit and take its place. I obtained first possession and have kept it ever since.”

“But to what end? What pleasure could it give you, wretched woman, to add to your list of crimes, all of which you will have to expiate, when you might have been advancing in grace and penitence? What object had you in controlling this unfortunate child, who had never done you a wrong, and making her odious by the execution of your unholy wishes?”

“Because I am no longer able to commit crimes for myself--because the execution gives me a reflected satisfaction--because, above all, my thirst for revenge was ungratified, and I longed to make Sorrento feel the same misery he had inflicted upon me! That is why I returned, not to earth, for I have never left it, but to a human body, and if you wish to know who helped me to it, it was _yourself_. Now! do you understand?”

“Yes! but, by God, you shall persecute my poor wife no longer!” exclaimed Von Steinberg. “She is stupid and ignorant, but she shall not suffer for your crimes. I suspected her of murdering Ricardo--he thinks so even himself--but I will clear her from the imputation. You shall inhabit her body no more, from this time henceforward! It is uncouth, as you said, but it is too pure for such as you. Depart at once, I command you, and come here no more!”

“Command away!” cried Leonora, “it would take more than you to turn me out of my lodging-house! I have got too firm a hold upon your pure and unsophisticated wife! She didn’t seem so very pure, whilst she was holding her secret assignations, unknown to you, with Gueglielmo, did she? nor so unsophisticated when she gave séances to attract the aristocracy to her house, and bound them to secrecy because _you_ so highly disapproved of such doings. She is a lovely tool, but I wish myself that she were a little more refined. It is so difficult to train her large, flat tongue to lisp the soft Italian syllables, or to play the coquette with those enormous hands of hers and those splay-feet. I have almost made myself a laughing stock sometimes, by forgetting they were not my own, and putting them forth for public admiration.

“But still she is useful, poor Hannah--very useful at times--and I have not the least intention of parting with her--not, at all events, my friend, until you desert her for another woman! Are you not surprised to hear me talk English so well? I learned most of that from you, when you used to come to the Cottage at Hampstead to give me lessons in etiquette, and sometimes in something else, eh, Baron? I don’t think your very dear friend Ricardo would have trusted you alone with his adored Leonora, had he known what a dangerous man you were!”

Karl von Steinberg was almost frothing at the mouth with rage that he knew no fit means of expressing. He felt like those unfortunates of whom we have read, who were tied hand and foot, whilst those they loved best were tortured before their eyes, and they had no power to redress their wrongs. He longed to shake Leonora out of Hannah’s body, but what force could he use against air? He covered his face with his hands and gave vent to a groan, which seemed to rend his heart-strings. The vicious Spirit reviled his discomfiture with a mocking laugh of confidence.

“That’s right! Groan away! That’s what all you mortals do, when you have committed the error and there is no remedy for it! Why didn’t you think of the consequences, when you made Hannah sit for you and the Professor, till she lost her spirits and her strength and her power to resist? And now you have had enough of me, and would like to send me flying! But you won’t! I’m in the body of your lawful wife, and if you don’t choose to live with me, you must make me a suitable allowance. I shan’t weep, I assure you. I shall much prefer it to your company! Bad taste in me, is it not? but the truth all the same!”

“Allowance! I would give my whole fortune to ensure this poor child being set free from your evil influence. My God! the injury I have done her! How can I know the extent of it, or if it will ever cease? Poor ignorant Hannah! Heaven forgive us for bringing you within the toils of such a devil as this!”

Leonora flaunted by him, and essayed to pass through the open door. But Von Steinberg prevented her. “No! by Heaven!” he cried, “if you will not quit her body, I can at least prevent your dishonouring it! If you _will_ stay, you must, but you will remain a prisoner in one room, and no eye shall witness your infamy and my disgrace.”

He put forth his hand to detain her, but she rushed past him, to the landing.