Date: 1855-12-31T22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Crime Stories; Mystery Stories; Murder Mystery; Victorian Fiction
Description: Presented here, eleven tales of jealousy, obsession, and madness; of dark designs and evil deeds; of murder and retribution. Edwards’ beautifully descriptive prose establishes locales and mood, and draws the reader in with deliberate and suspenseful development of the character’s predicament. * * * * These stories are taken from “Miss Carew” (1865) and “Monsieur Maurice and Other Tales” (1873).
Publisher: MobileRead
Rights: Text is in the public domain worldwide, because the author died more than 100 years ago, and the works were published prior to 1923.

The Shadows of Evil

TALES OF
CRIME
AND MYSTERY

Amelia  B.  Edwards

CONTENTS:

Love and Money
My Diamond Studs
The Grey Domino
The Professor’s Story
The Patagonian Brothers
Vendetta
A Railway Panic
The Guard-Ship at the Aire
Cain
The Tragedy in the Palazzo Bardello
All-Saints’ Eve

…About This eBook

Love and Money

(1865)

Ems is a charming place. It lies about twelve miles to the south-east of Coblentz, in the valley of the Lahn,—that miniature Rhine, all bordered with orchards and vineyards, and steep wooded hills. The town consists of one irregular line of hotels and lodging-houses, with the mountains at the back, the river in front, and long double rows of acacias and lindens planted at each side of the carriage-way. Swarms of donkeys with gay saddles, attended by drivers in blue blouses and scarlet-trimmed caps, loiter beneath the trees, soliciting hire. The Duke of Nassau’s band plays alternate selections from German, Italian, and French music in the public garden. Fashionable invalids are promenading. Gaming is going forward busily in the Conversation-Haus alike daily and nightly. Ladies are reading novels and eating ices within hearing of the band; or go by, with coloured-glass tumblers in their hands, towards the Kurhaus, where the hot-springs came bubbling up from their nauseous sources down in the low vaulted galleries filled with bazaar-like shops, loungers, touters, and health-seekers. All is pleasure, indolence, and flirtation.

To Ems, therefore, came the Herr Graff von Steinberg—or, as we should say, the Count von Steinberg—to drink the waters, and while away a few weeks of the summer season. He was a tall, fair, handsome young man; an excellent specimen of the German dragoon. You would never have supposed, to look at him, that illness could have brought him to Ems; and yet he suffered from two very serious maladies, both of which, it was to be feared, were incurable by any springs, medicinal or otherwise. In a word he was hopelessly in love, and desperately poor. The case was this: His grandfather had left a large property, which his father, an irreclaimable gamester, had spent to the uttermost farthing. The youth had been placed in the army, through the interest of a friend. His father was now dead; the inheritance forever gone; and he had absolutely nothing beyond his pay as a captain of dragoons, and the distant prospect of one day retiring with the title and half-pay of major. A sorry future for one who was disinterestedly and deeply in love with one of the richest heiresses in Germany!

“Who marries my daughter will receive with her a dowry of 200,000 florins, and I shall expect her husband to possess, at the least, an equal fortune.”

So said the Baron von Hohendorf, in cold reply to the lover’s timid declaration; and with these words still sounding in his ears, weighing on his spirits, and lying by day and night heavily upon his heart, came the Count von Steinberg to seek forgetfulness, or, at least, temporary amusement, at the Brunnen of Ems. But in vain. Pale and silent, he roamed restlessly to and fro upon the public promenades, or wandered away to hide his wretchedness in the forests and valleys round about. Sometimes he would mingle with the gay crowd in the Kurhaus, and taste the bitter waters; sometimes linger mournfully round the tables of the gaming company, gazing enviously, yet with a kind of virtuous horror, at the glittering heaps of gold, and the packets of crisp yellow notes which there changed hands so swiftly and in such profusion. But Albert von Steinberg was no gambler. He had seen and experienced the evil of that terrible vice too keenly already in his own father, to fall a prey to it himself. Years ago, he had vowed never to play; and kept his oath. Even now, when he found himself, as it might happen now and then, looking on with some little interest at the gains and losses of others, he would shudder, turn suddenly away, and not return again for days. Nothing could be more regular than his mode of life. In the morning he took the waters; at noon he walked, or read, or wrote; in the evening he strolled out again and heard the band, and by the time that all the society of the place was assembled in the ballroom or at the tables, he had returned to is quiet lodgings, and, perhaps, already gone to bed, in order that he might rise early the next morning to study some scientific work, or take a pedestrian excursion to the ruins of some old castle within the limits of a long walk.

It was a dull life for a young man—especially with that sweet, sad recollection of Emma von Hohendorf pervading every thought of the day. And all because he was poor! Was poverty a crime, he asked himself, that he should be punished for it thus? He had a great mind to throw himself off the rock where he was standing—or to precipitate himself into the river, if it were deep enough—or to go to the baron’s own castle-gate, and shoot himself—or—or, in short, to do anything desperate, if it were only sufficiently romantic; for his hot young German head, full of sentiment and Schiller, would be content with nothing less than an imposing tragedy.

He thought all this, sitting in a little fantastic summer-house perched high up on a ledge of steep rock just in front of the gardens and public buildings. He looked down at the gay company far beneath, and he heard the faint music of the royal band. The sun was just setting—the landscape was lovely—life was still sweet, and he thought that he would not commit suicide that evening, at all events. So he went moodily down the winding pathway, across the bridge, and, quite by chance, wandered once more into the Conversation Haus. The gaming was going on, the glittering gold pieces were changing hands, the earnest players sitting round as usual. The sight only made him more unhappy.

“Two hundred thousand florins!” he thought to himself. “Two hundred thousand florins would make me the happiest man on earth, and I cannot get them. These men win and lose two hundred thousand florins ten times over in a week, and think nothing of the good, the happiness, the wealth that sum would be to numbers of their fellow-creatures. What a miserable dog I am!”

And he pulled his hat on fiercely, folded his arms, and strode out of the rooms, taking the road to his own lodging with so dismal an air that the people in the streets turned and looked after him, saying, “He has lost money—we saw him come out of the gaming-rooms.”

“Lost money!” muttered he to himself, as he went into his garret and locked the door.“Lost money, indeed! I wish I had any to lose.”

And poor Albert von Steinberg fell asleep, lamenting that the age of fairies and gnomes had passed away.

His sleep was long, sound, dreamless—for young men, in spite of love and poverty, sleep pleasantly. He woke somewhat later than he had intended, rubbed his eyes, yawned, looked hazily at his watch, lay down again, once more opened his eyes, and at last sprang valiantly out of bed.

Is he still dreaming? Is it an hallucination? Can he be mad? No, it is real, true, wonderful! There upon the table lies a brilliant heap of golden pieces—hard, ringing, real golden pieces, and he turns them over, weighs them in his hands, lets them drop through his fingers to test the evidence of his senses.

How did they come there? That is the important question. He rings the bell violently, once—twice—thrice. The servant runs up, thinking some dreadful accident has occurred.

“Some one has been here to call upon me this morning?”

“No, Monsieur.”

“Indeed! Somebody, then, has been upstairs since I have been asleep.”

“No, Monsieur.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. Monsieur.”

“Now speak the truth, Bertha; some one has been here. You are paid to deny it. Only tell me who it was, and I will give you double for your information.”

The servant looked both alarmed and astonished.

“Indeed there has not been a soul. Does monsieur miss anything from his apartment? Shall I send for the gendarmes?”

The count looked searchingly in the girl’s face. She seemed wholly sincere and truthful. He tried every means yet left—adroit questions, insinuations, bribes, sudden accusations; but in vain. She had seen no one—heard no one. The door of the house was closed, and had not been left open. No one—absolutely no one—had been there.

Puzzled, troubled, bewildered, our young friend dismissed her, believing, in spite of his surprise, the truth of what she stated. He then locked the door and counted the money.

Ten thousand florins! not a groschen more or less!

Well, it was there; but whence it came remained a mystery.

“All mysteries clear themselves up in time,” said he, as he locked the money up in his bureau. “I dare say T shall find it all out by-and-by. In the meantime I will not touch a single florin of it.”

He tried not to think of it, but it was so strange a thing that he could not prevent it running in his head. It even kept him awake at night, and took away his appetite by day. At last he began to forget it; at all events, he became used to it, and at the end of a week it had ceased to trouble him.

About eight days from the date of this occurrence he woke, as before, thinking of Emma, and not at all of the money, when, onlooking round, lo! there it was again. The table was once more covered with glittering gold!

His first impulse was to run to the bureau in which the first ten thousand florins were stored away. Surely he must have taken them out the night before, and forgotten to replace them. No, there they lay in the drawer

There he had hidden them, and there upon the table was a second supply, larger, if anything, than the first!

Pale and trembling, he turned them over. This time there were some notes—Prussian and French—mingled with the gold. In all, twelve thousand florins.

He had locked his door—could it be opened from without by a skeleton key? He had a bolt fixed within, that very day. Honest Albert von Steinberg! he took as much pains against fortune as others do against robbery!

Two days later, however, his invisible benefactor came again; and this time he found himself fourteen thousand florins the richer. It was an inexplicable prodigy! No one could have entered by the bolted door, or from the window; for he lived in a garret on the fourth story—or by the chimney, for the room was heated by a stove, the funnel of which was no thicker than his arm? Was it a plot to ruin him? or was he tempted by the powers of evil? He had a great mind to apply to the police, or to a priest (for he was a good Catholic),—still he thought he would wait a little longer. After all, there might be more unpleasant visitations!

He went out, greatly agitated, and walked about the entire day, pondering this strange problem. Then he resolved, if ever it recurred, to state his case to the chef de police, and to set a watch upon the house by night.

Full of this determination, he came home and went to bed. In the morning, when he woke, he found that Fortune had again visited him. The first wonder of the thing had now worn off; so he rose, dressed himself, and sat down leisurely to count the money over, before lodging his declaration at the bureau de police. While he was engaged in making up little rouleaux of gold, twenty in each rouleau, there came a sudden knocking at his door.

He had no friends in Ems. He started like a guilty man, and threw an overcoat hastily upon the table, so as to conceal the gold. Could it be that this summons had anything to do with the money? Was he suspected of something that—. The knock was repeated, this time more imperatively. He opened the door. It was the Baron von Hohendorf!

“‘How! The Baron von Hohendorf in Ems! I am rejoiced—this honour—I—pray be seated.”

The poor young dragoon’s heart beat so fast, and he trembled so with pleasure, hope, and astonishment, that he could scarcely speak.

The baron looked at him steadily, but sternly; thrust back the proffered chair; and took no notice of the extended hand.

“Yes, Herr Count,” he said drily. “I arrived yesterday in this place. You did not expect to see me.”

“Indeed, no. It is a pleasure—a—delight—a…”

He was so agitated that he forgot his visitor was standing, and sat down; but rose again directly.

“And yet I saw you, Herr Count, yesterday evening, as you came out of the Conversation-rooms.”

“Me? Indeed, sir, I never visited the Conversation-rooms at all yesterday; but I am very sorry that I was not there, since I should have had the honour of meeting you.”

“Pardon me, Herr Count, I saw you. It is useless to argue the point with me, for I stood close behind your chair for the greater part of an hour. Do you know why I am here this morning in your apartment?”

The young man blushed, faltered, turned pale. He knew but one reason that could have brought a visit from the baron. Had he relented? Could it be his generous design to make two lovers’ hearts happy by granting that consent which he formerly refused? There were things more impossible. The baron was capable of such goodness! Something to this effect he stammered in broken sentences, his eyes fixed upon the ground, and his hands playing nervously with a pen.

The baron drew himself to his full height. If he had looked stern before, he looked furious now. For a few moments he could hardly speak for rage. At last his wrath broke forth.

“Impertinence such as this, Herr Count, I did not expect! I came here, sir, to give some words of advice to your father’s son—to warn—to interpose, if possible, between you and your destruction. I did not come to be insulted!”

“Insulted, baron?” repeated the young man, somewhat haughtily. “I have said nothing to call for such a phrase at your lips, unless, indeed, my poverty insults you. The richest man in this land could do no more than love your daughter, and were she a queen, the homage of the poorest would not disgrace her.”

“Permit me to ask you one question. What brings you to Ems?”

The young man hesitated, and the baron smiled ironically.

“I came, sir,” he said at length, “in search of—I will confess it—in search of peace, of forgetfulness, of consolation.”

His voice broke: he looked down, and remained silent.

The baron laughed aloud—a harsh mocking laugh that caused Albert to raise his head with a movement of sudden indignation.

“I have not deserved this treatment at your hands, Baron Hohendorf,” he said, turning towards the window.

“A gambler deserves only the contempt of honourable men,” replied the baron.

“A gambler!” repeated Albert. “Good heavens, sir! I have never touched a card in my life.”

“What effrontery! You forget, then, that it is in my power to confront you with the proof of your vice; nay, at this instant to confound and convict you. What gold is this?”

And the old gentleman, whose eyes had already detected the glimmer of the coin beneath the coat, lifted the garment away upon the end of his walking-stick. The lover turned pale, and could not speak.

“Der Teufel! For a poor man you have, it seems, a well-filled travelling purse! Ah! you never play!”

“Never, sir.”

“Indeed! Pray, then, if your gold be not the fruit of the gaming-table, whence comes it?”

“I know not. You will not believe me, I am aware; but I swear that I speak the truth. This gold comes here, I know not how. This is the fourth time I have found it upon my table. I know not why it is here, who brings it, or how it is brought. By my honour as a gentleman and a soldier—by all my hopes of happiness in this life or the next, I am utterly ignorant of everything about it!”

“This is too much!” cried the baron, furiously. “Do you take me for an idiot or a dotard? Good morning to you, sir, and I hope I may never see your face again!”

He slammed the door violently behind him, and went away down the stairs, leaving poor Yon Steinberg utterly overwhelmed and broken-hearted.

“Cursed gold!” he exclaimed, dashing it upon the floor in his anger, “what brought thee here, and why dost thou torment me!”

Then the poor fellow thought of Emma, and of how his last chance was wrecked; and he was so miserable, that he threw himself upon his bed, and wept bitterly. All at once he remembered that the baron had a sister at Langenschwalbach; she, perhaps, would believe him, would intercede for him! He started up, resolved to go thither at once; hastily gathered together the scattered pieces of money; locked them up in the drawer with the rest; ran down to a neighbouring carriage-stand; hired a vehicle to convey him to the railway-station, and in less than half an hour was on his way. In about three hours he arrived. He passed nearly the whole day in trying to discover the lady’s address, and, when he had found it, was told that she had been for the last two months at Vienna. It was a foolish journey, with disappointment at the end of it! He came back quite late in the evening to Ems, and entered his own room, utterly broken down by anxiety and fatigue.

In the meantime the baron, crimson with rage, had returned to his hotel, and told all the circumstances to his daughter. She would not believe in the guilt of her lover.

“He a gambler!” she exclaimed. “It is impossible!”

“But I saw the gold upon his table!”

“He says he knows nothing of it, and he never told an untruth in his life. It will all be explained by-and-by.”

“But I saw him playing at the tables!”

“It was some other who resembled him.”

“Will you believe it, if you see him yourself?”

“I will, my father, and I will renounce him for ever. But not till then.”

“Then you shall be convinced this evening.”

The evening came, and the rooms were more than usually crowded. There was a ball in the salon de danse; supper in the ante-room; gaming, as usual, in the third apartment. The Baron von Hohendorf was there with his daughter and some friends. They made their way to the tables, but he whom they sought was not there. Eager faces enough were there around the board—faces of old women, cunning and avaricious; faces of pale dissipated boys, scarce old enough, one would have thought, to care for any games save those of the school-ground; faces of hardened, cool, determined gamblers; faces of girls young and beautiful, and of men old and feeble. Strange table, around which youth and beauty, age, deformity, and vice, meet on equal ground!

Suddenly there was a movement at the farther end of the room; a whisper went round; the spectators made way, and the players drew aside for one who now approached and took his place amongst them. This deference is shown only to those who play high and play frequently. Who is this noted gambler? Albert von Steinberg.

A cry of agony breaks from the pale lips of a young girl at the other end of the room. Alas! it is too surely he! He neither hears nor heeds anything around him. He does not even look towards her. He seats himself very quietly, as a matter of course; takes some rouleaux of gold and a packet of notes from his pocket; stakes a large sum; and begins to play with all the cool audacity of one whose faith in his own luck is unshakeable, and who is perfect master of the game. Besides this, he carried his self-command to that point which is only attained by years of practice. It was splendid to see him so impassive. His features were fixed and inexpressive as those of a statue; the steady earnestness of his gaze had something terrible in it; his very movements were scarcely those of a man liable to human frailties and human emotions; and the right hand with which he staked and swept up the gold, was stiff and passionless as that of the commandant in Don Giovanni.

The baron could contain his indignation no longer. Leaving his daughter with her friends, he made his way round the tables, and approached the young man’s chair. He extended his hand to seize the player’s arm, when his own was forcibly caught and held back. He turned, and saw a celebrated Prussian physician standing beside him.

“Stop, for heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed. “Do not speak to him. You know not the injury you might do him!”

“That is exactly my object. I’ll spoil his game for him, the unprincipled hypocrite!”

“You will kill him,”

“Absurd!”

“I am perfectly serious. Look at him. He sleeps! A sudden shock might be his death. You cannot see this, but I can. I have studied this thing narrowly, and I never beheld a more remarkable case of somnambulism.”

The physician continued for some time conversing with the baron in an undertone. Presently the bank gave the signal; the players rose; the tables closed for that evening; and the Count von Steinberg, gathering up his enormous winnings, pushed back his chair and left the rooms, passing close before the baron without seeing him.

They followed him down the street to his own door. He entered by means of his latch-key, and closed it behind him without a sound. There was no light in his window—no one stirring in the house. None but those two had seen him enter.

The next morning, when he awoke, he found a larger pile of gold than ever on his table. He counted it with a shudder, and told over 44,000 florins.

Again there came a knock at his chamber-door. This time he did not even attempt to conceal the money; and when the baron and physician entered, he was too unhappy even to feel surprise at the sight of a stranger.

“You have again come to tell me that I am a gambler!” he exclaimed, despairingly, as he pointed to the gold, and leaned his head listlessly upon his hands.

“I say it, Count, because I saw it,” replied the baron; “but at the same time I come to entreat your pardon for what passed at our last interview. You have gambled; but you are no gambler.”

“Yes,” interrupted the physician; “for somnambulists often perform the very actions which they would most abhor, if in a waking condition. But you are not a confirmed somnambulist. Yours is a mere functional derangement, and I can easily cure you. But, perhaps,” he added, smiling, “you do not wish to lose so profitable a malady. You may become a millionnaire.”

“Nay, doctor!” cried the count, “I place myself in your hands. Cure me, I entreat you!”

“Well, well, there is time enough for that,” said the baron. “First of all, let us shake hands, and be friends.”

“I have so great a horror of play,” replied the involuntary gambler, “that I shall instantly restore this money to the bank. See, here are, altogether, 130,000 florins!”

“Take my advice, Albert,” said the baron, “and do no such thing. Suppose that in your sleep you had lost 130,000 florins, do you think the bank would have restored it to you? No, no; entertain no such scruples. Your father lost more than thrice that sum at those very tables—it is but a restitution in part. Keep your florins, and return with me to my hotel, where Emma is waiting to receive you. You have 130,000 there. I will excuse the other 70,000 upon which I formerly insisted, and you can make it up in love. Are you content; or must you restore the money to the bank?”

•    •    •    •

History has not recorded the lover’s reply; at all events, he quitted Ems that same day in company with the Baron von Hohendorf and his pretty daughter. The prescriptions of the learned physician have, it is said, already affected a cure, and the Frankfort Journal announces the approaching marriage of Fraulein von Hohendorf with Albert, Count Steinberg.

My Diamond Studs

(1865)

“Diamonds of a most praised water.”
—Pericles.

“Sir,” said the stranger, “those studs are mine.”

We were alone together, face to face. The train was flying on at the rate of thirty miles an hour. It was already verging towards evening, and we were about halfway between Liege and Brussels.

I shrank back into the farthest corner of my little compartment, and stared at him. His hair was dark, and hung in long loose locks; his eyes were wild and brilliant; and he wore an ample cloak with a high fur-collar. I thought the man must be mad, and I turned cold all over.

“Did you speak, sir?” I found courage to say.

“I spoke; sir. You wear a set of studs—diamonds set in coloured gold—very graceful design—stones of an excellent water; but—they are not yours.”

“Not mine, sir?”

The stranger nodded.

I had purchased them only a week before. They captivated me from the window of a jeweller’s shop in Berlin; and they cost me—no, I dare not say what they cost me, for fear my wife should chance to see this statement.

I took out my pocketbook, and handed the bill to the stranger.

“Sir,” I said, “be pleased to read this little paper, and convince yourself that the studs are mine, and mine only.”

He just glanced it over, and returned it to me.

“I see,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “that they appear to be yours by right of purchase; but nevertheless they belong to me by right of inheritance. I can make this clear to you very easily, if you choose to hear my story; and no doubt we shall presently contrive some plan by which to settle the question of ownership.”

My heart sank within me at the cool certainty of his voice and countenance.

“Shall I go on?” he asked, lighting a cigar.

“Oh, by all means,” I replied. “I shall be delighted.”

He smiled ominously to himself; then sighed and shook his head; passed his fingers twice or thrice through his long locks; crossed his feet deliberately on the opposite cushions; and fixing his eyes full upon me, thus began:

Though a native of Russia, and born in St. Petersburg, I am of Hindoo descent. My grandfather belonged to the province of Hyderabad; but, travelling thence while yet a young man, established himself at Balaghaut, and became a worker in the great diamond-mines commonly known as the mines of Golconda. A grave, silent, unsociable man was my grandfather, and little beloved by his fellow-miners. The superintendent, however, placed great confidence in him; and by-and-by, being promoted to the situation of overseer, he married. The only offspring of this union was Adjai Ghosal, my father. The Hindoos, as you must be aware, place a high value upon learning; and even the poorest evince such a respect for education as would do honour to the working-classes of a more enlightened community. Of this feeling no man in his position partook more largely than my grandfather. Uninstructed himself, he was ardently desirous that his son should benefit by advantages which, generally speaking, were accessible only to the wealthy; and in pursuance of this ambition, sent Adjai Ghosal, at the age of eleven years, to a large native academy at Benares. People wondered at first, and asked each other what the thing meant, and where the overseer found means to do it. “Have you found a lac of rupees lately?” inquired one. “Do you intend to make a diamond-merchant of the little Adjai?” asked another. But my grandfather only held his peace; and after a time the marvel died away, and was forgotten. And thus eleven more years passed on; and my father, at the age of twenty-two, was summoned home to Balaghaut to receive the last benediction of his expiring parent. He found the old man stretched upon a mat, and almost speechless.

“Adjai,” he murmured, “Adjai, my son, thou art arrived in time—in good time; for I could not have borne to die without seeing thee.”

My father pressed his hand in silence, and turned his face aside.

“Adjai,” said my grandfather, “I have a terrible secret to confide to thee; one which my soul refuses to carry to the grave. Canst thou endure to hear it?”

My father urged him to speak.

“It is to my own shame to reveal it to thee, Adjai; but I bow my head to the punishment. My son, I have sinned.”

My father became more curious than ever.

“Thou wilt not despise my memory, Adjai?”

“By Brahma, no!” said my father, raising his hand to his head.

“Then hearken!”

The old miner lifted himself upon his elbow, and collected all his strength. My father knelt down and listened.

“It happened,” said my grandfather, “just three-and-twenty years ago, and I was then but a working-miner. I chanced one day upon a vein of extraordinary richness. My son, I was tempted. The evil one took possession of my soul—I secreted five diamonds. One was incalculably valuable—larger than a walnut, and, as far as I could judge, of admirable water. The other four were about the size of peas. Alas, Adjai! from that hour I was a miserable man. Many and many a time, I was on the point of confessing the theft; and was as frequently deterred by shame, fear, avarice, or ambition. I married; and a year after my marriage thou wert born. Then I resolved to dedicate this wealth to thee, and thee alone; to educate thee; to enrich thee; to make thee prosperous and learned; and never, never to profit in my own person by my sin.”

“Generous parent!” exclaimed my father, enthusiastically.

“When I took thee to Benares, Adjai,” continued my grandfather, “I sold one of the four smaller diamonds; and with this I have defrayed the expenses of thy education. I never spent one fraction of the sum upon myself; and some few golden mohurs of it are yet remaining.”

“Indeed!” said my father, who was listening with the greatest attention. “And thereat of the gems?”

“The rest of the gems, Adjai, thou canst restore when I am gone.”

“Restore!” echoed my father.

“Yes, my child. Thou hast education. It will make thee far happier than the possession of ill-gotten riches; and I shall die in peace, knowing that reparation will be made. As for the few remaining mohurs, I think, if thou art not over-scrupulous in the matter, thou mightest almost be justified in keeping them. They will help thee to begin the world.”

“Indeed!” said my father, with a curious sort of smile flitting about the corners of his mouth.

At this moment the old man changed colour, and a shudder passed over him.

“I—I have told thee just in time, Adjai,” he said falteringly. “I feel that—that I have not many moments to live. Come hither, that I may give thee my blessing.”

“My dear father,” said Adjai Ghosal, “you have forgotten to tell me where the diamonds are hidden.”

“True,” gasped the dying man. “Thou wilt find them, my son—thou wilt find them… but thou wilt be sure to restore them as soon as I am dead?”

“How can I restore them,” said my father impatiently, “unless you tell me where to find them?”

“True—very true, my Adjai. Look, then, in the roll of matting which I use for a pillow, and there thou wilt find the three smaller gems and the large one. See—see the superintendent—Adjai—my—my …”

A rapid convulsion, a moan, a heavy falling back of the outstretched hands, and my grandfather was dead.

The stranger broke off abruptly in his story, and laid his hand upon my sleeve.

“And now, sir,” said he, “what do you suppose my father did?”

“Went into mourning, perhaps,” said I, deeply interested.

“Nonsense, sir. He went to the roll of matting.”

“And found the diamonds?”

“Not only found them, sir,” said the stranger, laying his finger on his nose,—“not only found them; but—can’t you guess?”

“Well, really,” said I hesitating, “I—that is—if I should not be offending you by the supposition, I should guess—that he kept them.”

“Kept them, sir! that’s it,” said the stranger, rubbing his hands triumphantly; “and, in my opinion, he was quite right too. Well, sir, to continue.”

As soon as my venerable ancestor had been consigned to the grave, my father left Balaghaut for Calcutta; and embarking there on board a Russian vessel, sailed for St. Petersburg. Arrived at that city, he consigned the gems to a skilful artist, by whom they were cut and polished. Sir, when cut and polished, it was found that the larger stone weighed no less than one hundred and ninety-three carats! My father knew that his fortune was made, and applied for an audience of the Empress Catherine II. The audience was granted, and the diamond shown; but the empress was unwilling to accede to my father’s terms. He, believing that in time he should obtain his price, suffered the matter to drop; took a beautiful mansion overlooking the Neva; naturalised himself as a Russian subject, under the name of Peter Petroffski; and patiently bided his time. Thus nearly a twelvemonth passed; and my father, who had long since parted with the last of his golden mohurs, began to feel nervous. The event proved, however, that he had done wisely; for he one morning received a summons to the palace of Count Orloff, and sold his diamond to that nobleman for the sum of one hundred and four thousand one hundred and sixty-six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence. Count Orloff was then Catherine’s favourite; and to her, on her birthday, he presented this royal gift, some few days after he had made the purchase.

“Is it possible,” I exclaimed, almost breathless with astonishment,—“is it possible that these are all facts?”

“Facts!” echoed the stranger indignantly.“Turn to the article on diamonds in any Encyclopaedia, and convince yourself. Facts, indeed! Why, sir, that inestimable gem now adorns the sceptre of Russia!”

“I beg your pardon,” I said humbly; “pray go on, sir,”

He seemed vexed, and remained silent; so I spoke again.

“In what year did this happen?”

“In the year 1772,” he replied, falling back insensibly into his narrative.

My father now found himself in a position to command immense commercial influence; so he embarked a portion of his wealth in the fur trade, and became in process of time one of the foremost among the merchant-princes of Russia. During many years, he devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of riches; for gold, I must confess, was my father’s weak point. At last, when he had obtained the reputation of being at the same time a millionaire and an irreclaimable old bachelor, he married—married at sixty years of age, just thirty-eight years from the time when he left Balaghaut. The object of his choice was a rich widow, in every way suitable as regarded money and station; an excellent woman, and the best of mothers! I respect her memory.

Here the stranger paused, and wiped his eyes with a very fine cambric handkerchief, which filled the carriage with an overpowering perfume of patchouli. Presently, conquering his emotion, he resumed:

But for my birth, which took place within two years from the date of my father’s wedding, the newly-created family of Petroffski must have become extinct. As it was, therefore, my appearance was hailed with extravagant rejoicings. I was christened after my father, Peter Petroffski. My schoolfellows called me Peter the Second. I remember little of my boyhood, excepting that I always had plenty of roubles in my pocket; a pony; a mounted servant to attend me to and from school; and plenty of indulgence from all my teachers. No boy in the academy played so many pranks, or was so readily forgiven as myself; but money covers a multitude of sins, especially at St. Petersburg.

He paused for a moment, and a question which had long suggested itself to my mind, now rose to my lips.

“You have not yet told me,” said I, “What your father did with the three smaller diamonds.”

“Sir,” replied the stranger, “I am coming to that presently.”

So I bowed and waited in silence.

From school I went to college; and, as my father’s position excluded me from the college of nobles, I travelled into Germany, and studied for five years at the University of Heidelberg.

“Peter,” said my father, as we parted, “remember what a priceless life is yours. Above all things, my darling son, be careful not to injure your health by over-application.”

Never was good advice more scrupulously followed. My studies at Heidelberg were pleasant rather than profound, and consisted chiefly of rowing, drinking, and fighting. By dint of strict attention to these duties, I earned for myself the rank of a “mossy head;” and, indeed, I may say that I graduated in Bavarian beer, and took out my degree in sabre-cuts. At length I reached the age of twenty-one, and returned to St. Petersburg just in time for my birthday. On this occasion my father threw his house open for a succession of dinner-parties, balls, and suppers. On the morning of the great day, he called me into his study, signifying that he had something to say, and something to give to me. A small morocco case of triangular form was lying on his desk. From the moment I entered the room I felt convinced that this was intended for me; and my attention, I fear, wandered sadly away from the wise and affectionate discourse which my father (leaning back complacently in his great armchair) was pleased to bestow upon me. He said a great deal about the extent of his trade, and the satisfaction it was to him to have brought up a son who should succeed him in it; informed me that from this day I was to fill the position of junior partner, with a munificent share in the yearly profits; and finally, taking up the morocco case, bade me accept that as an earnest of his parental love. I opened it, and beheld a superb set of diamond studs. Each stone was a brilliant of the purest water, and about the size of an ordinary pea. Their value, I felt convinced, could not be less than three hundred guineas of your English money. For some moments I was speechless with delight and astonishment, and could scarcely stammer forth a word of thanks. Then my father smiled, and told me the history which I have just related to you. I had never heard anything of this before. I knew only the common story current in the city, that my father had been a great Eastern merchant before he settled in Russia, and that he had sold a wonderful diamond to the Empress Catherine many years ago. If, therefore, I had been amazed before, I was now still more so, and listened to the narrative like a man in a dream.

“And now, my dear boy,” said my father in conclusion, “these diamonds, as I daresay you have already guessed, are the three remaining stones which I took from your grandfather’s pillow of matting just sixty years ago.”

From this time I led an enviable life. I owned the handsomest droschky, the finest horses, and the smallest tiger in St. Petersburg. My pleasure-yacht was the completest that lay alongside the quays of the Neva. My stall at the opera was next to that of young Count Skampsikoff, the great leader of fashion and folly, and close under the box of Prince Ruffantuff, who was at that time one of our most influential nobles, and Generalissimo of the Russian army. It was not long before Skampsikoff and I became the firmest friends in the world; and before six months were over, I was known far and near as the fastest, the richest, and the most reckless scapegrace about town.

It was at this period, sir, that I first beheld the peerless Katrina.

The stranger paused, as if he expected me to be surprised; but finding that I only continued to listen with a countenance indicative of polite attention, he looked at his watch, ran his fingers through his hair, hemmed twice or thrice, and then went on with his story.

You will ask me, perhaps,—who was the peerless Katrina? Sir, she was a violet blooming upon a rock; a rainbow born out of the bosom of a thunder-cloud. She was the dream, the poetry, the passion of my life! Katrina, sir, was the only child of Prince Ruffantuff, whose name I have already mentioned. Strange that the fairest, the most ethereal of beings, should come of so stern a parentage! As Katrina was the gentlest of women, and the most loving, so was Ivan Ruffantuff the fiercest of soldiers and the severest of fathers. He carried the discipline of the camp into the privacy of his home, and made himself dreaded as much by his household as by his troops. I never saw so forbidding a countenance, or one more expressive of pride and defiance. Gazing upon the delicate creature seated beside him in his box, one wondered how nature could have played so strange a turn, and sought in vain for the faintest trace of apparent consanguinity between them. Prince Ivan was a giant in stature; Katrina was almost childlike in the graceful slightness of her proportions. Prince Ivan was swarthy of complexion, and his features were moulded after the flat unintellectual type of the Tartar tribes; Katrina’s features were regular, classical, and Greek. Prince Ivan was proud and cruel; Katrina was loving, innocent—born for all purposes of tenderness and womanly compassion.

What marvel, then, that I loved her? Loved her, sir, as only few can love—loved her with all the force, and self-abandonment, and passion, of which man’s nature is capable. I had never been in earnest before, but I was in earnest now—hopelessly in earnest, as I well knew; but despair itself fed my love with fresh energy, and obstacles only served to make me more determined. For a long time I loved her with my eyes and heart alone, as a devotee worships a saint upon an altar. I could but gaze upon her from afar. I had never even listened to the sound of her dear voice, though I would have died only to hear her pronounce my name. Night after night, during the whole opera-season, I sat and watched her from my stall. I heard no more of the music than if I had been in Siberia; I grew thin, and pale, and abstracted; I fell into a listless dreaming mood, and replied at random when spoken to; above all, I wandered like a ghost in and out of the salons and gaming-rooms, where I had of late been so eager in the pursuit of pleasure. At last Skampsikoff came to my rooms one morning, and remonstrated with me upon my unaccountable despondency.

“You don’t do justice to me, my dear fellow,” he said, twirling his moustachios. “I have introduced you, set you going, made you, in point of fact, the fashion; and I take it rather unkindly that you should reflect so glaring a discredit upon my judgment. You might as well be at La Trappe, as far as your conversational powers go at present; and as for your looks, why, hang it, you know the least a man can do for society is to look pleasant. Are you in debt, or does the dear papa draw his purse-strings too closely?”

I shook my head. I had no debts but such as I could readily liquidate, and my father was as liberal to me as I could reasonably desire. It was not that.

“Not that!” exclaimed Skampsikoff, “well then, you must be in love. Why, man, you blush! The thing’s as clear as the sunlight; and Peter, the magnificent Peter, is in love! Now, by all the saints, this is too ridiculous! Who’s the girl?”

“The Princess Katrina,” I answered with a groan.

Skampsikoff started, and whistled dismally.

“The Princess Katrina!” he repeated.

I laid my head down upon the table, and burst into tears.

“I know that I am a fool,” I said, sobbing. “I know that I have no chance—no hope—no resource but exile or death; and yet I love her, oh, I love her, and I am dying—dying—dying, day by day!”

My friend was moved.

“Cheer up, Petroffski,” he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder. “Cheer up; for I think I know of a plan by which to gain you an interview with her; and that once done, why, you must accomplish the rest for yourself. You will throw yourself at her feet. You will propose an elopement, or a secret marriage. She will not have the heart to refuse you. We will set relays of horses for you on the road to the nearest seaport; you will embark on board a schooner, ready hired for the purpose; and, once off and away, who is to follow? Come, come, I see nothing but success for you; and if you will but look a trifle more lively, I’ll set out at once to see about the ways and means.”

I felt as if night had turned to day on hearing these words.

“Skampsikoff,” I said, “you have saved my life!”

That evening, to my surprise, I saw him enter Prince Ruffantuff’s box in company with a nobleman of his acquaintance, and be presented in due form both to Ivan and his daughter. He did not remain there very long, but contrived to enter into conversation with Katrina. Just before he left the box, he nodded to me and waved his hand. She instantly raised her glass. They exchanged a few sentences. She looked again; and I felt as if the whole theatre were turning round. In a few moments he had made his bow, taken his leave, and returned to his stall by my side.

“The ball is rolling,” he said, rubbing his hands gaily; “the ball is rolling, and the game’s begun. She saw me recognise you, and naturally asked me who you were. ‘A fellow,’ said I, ‘with the best heart and the handsomest studs in St. Petersburg.’ ‘Of horses?’ asked the fair Katrina. ‘No,’ said I; ‘of diamonds.’ Whereupon she looked again. ‘Not but that he has horses, too,’ I added, ‘and plenty of them. He’s a noble fellow, and my most intimate friend; but he is far from happy.’ She surveyed you with more interest than ever. There’s nothing like telling a woman that a man’s unhappy. She’s sure to be half in love with him directly. ‘He looks pale,’ said the fair Katrina. ‘What is the cause of his sorrow?’ I smiled and shook my head. ‘Princess Katrina,’ I said meaningly, ‘you are the very last person in the world to whom I could confide that secret.’ With this I took my leave; and I think you ought to be very much obliged to me.”

And I was very much obliged to him, especially when I saw that Katrina’s attention wandered continually that evening from the stage to myself. Once or twice our eyes met. The first time she started; the second time, she blushed; and I thought myself the happiest fellow in the world.

Henceforth, life assumed for me a new and beautiful aspect. Somehow or another (whether through the hints dropped by my friend, or her own attentive study of my eloquent glances, I know not) the fair Katrina became aware of my passion, and was not so cruel as to discourage it. Sometimes, when they stood near me in the crush-room, she would drop her handkerchief or her fan, that I might have the opportunity of handing it to her. Sometimes she left a flower from her bouquet lying upon the front of her box, that I might go round and take it when she and her father were gone. At last she accorded me an interview.

The stranger buried his face in his hands, and sighed heavily.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, in a broken voice. “My—my emotions on recalling this portion of my history are so overwhelming, that (with your permission) I must smoke a cigar.”

I have, be it known, a particular aversion to the odour of tobacco. To speak plainly, it disagrees with me. However, in this instance I waved my objections; the stranger lit his Havanna; and presently the story of my diamond studs went on.

Those only who have loved (said the stranger), can picture the condition of my mind during the hours that preceded that eventful interview. I could think of nothing, speak of nothing, hut Katrina. To me the universe was all Katrina, and there was only nothingness beyond. Dusk came at last—the dusk of a winter’s evening, when the tinkling bells of the droschky-horses, and the guttural “Yukh, yukh!” of the drivers, rose from the streets and public squares, where the snow lay thick. Then dusk turned rapidly to night; the frosty stars came out; and I wrapped myself in my cloak of furs, and went forth alone on foot.

Swiftly and silently I traversed the few thoroughfares that separated our dwellings; and, gliding along by the wall at the back of Prince Ivan’s gardens, stationed myself in a deep angle of shadow, and waited patiently. Presently a small side-door opened, and an old woman, closely muffled, looked out.

“What art thou doing there?” she asked in a shrill tremulous tone.

“Waiting for the sun to shine,” I replied in the words of the signal which we had previously agreed upon.

The woman extended her hand to me, led me in, closed the door, and so guided me in utter darkness through a long passage. Presently I saw a thread of brilliant light; then a door was thrown suddenly open, and I found myself in a brilliantly lighted apartment. Here my conductress desired me to wait, and hobbled out of the room. A quarter of an hour elapsed thus. I counted the seconds by a timepiece on a console-table; but every minute seemed to be the length of an hour. At last the door opened. I turned—I fell at her feet—it was Katrina!

For some moments neither of us spoke. I do not now recollect which first broke the delicious silence; but I believe it was myself. The remembrance of what was said has altogether passed away from me. It seems to me now like a dream, or the dream of a dream, so bright, so far a way, so unsubstantial!

There was a fauteuil close at band. I placed her in it; I knelt down before her; my head upon her knees, and covered her little hands with kisses. And so we told each other the story of our love,—a broken, faltering story, interrupted by exclamations and questions, tears and kisses; but the sweetest that is told by human lips.

Suddenly,—while I was yet kneeling at her feet, while my arm clasped her waist, and one of her dear hands rested on my head,—we heard voices close at hand.

“Her Highness,” said one, “is in her boudoir overlooking the terrace.”

“Good,” replied another, at which we both shuddered. “You need not announce me.”

“Alas!” cried Katrina, in an agony oft error, “it is my father!”

The heavy steps came nearer; I sprang to my feet; I encircled her with my arm, for she was about to fall; and before I could draw another breath the door flew open, and he entered.

For one brief instant, surprise seemed to usurp every other feeling in Prince Ivan’s breast. Then his stern features flushed crimson, and a terrible expression glared in his cruel eye. He was in full uniform, and (never stirring a foot from the threshold, where he had paused upon opening the door) plucked a pistol from his belt. Without a word, without a pause, he pointed the weapon at my head.

There was an explosion, a piercing shriek, and—

And Katrina—Katrina, my beloved, my adored, had flung herself between us, and received the deadly charge!

I caught her as she fell, senseless and bleeding; I uttered wild words of hatred, of love, of despair, of cursing; I threw myself upon the ground beside her, and strove to stay the purple stream that gushed from her bosom. Alas, it was in vain I Before the smoke had cleared away, before Ivan himself well knew the deed he had committed, all was over, and the beautiful Katrina had passed away to that heaven for—for which—

The stranger’s voice faltered, and, letting down the window next to him, he leaned out for a few minutes in the evening air. When he drew in his head again, I offered him my pocket-flask of brandy. He emptied it at a draught, returned it to me with a long-drawn sigh, threw away the end of his cigar, and resumed:

You will forgive me, sir, if I hasten over this portion of my narrative. It is of a nature so agonising to my feelings, that I must content myself with merely stating a few leading facts, and passing on to subsequent events. Prince Ivan, struck with remorse and horror, solicited the emperor’s leave to retire from the army, and entered a monastery near Moscow. I received an intimation from the Government that I should do well to travel for the next eight or ten years. It was a polite form of exile, to which I was compelled to accede, greatly to the sorrow of my parents. For my own part, I was utterly heartbroken, and cared little what became of me. I went direct to Paris, and plunged into a course of reckless dissipation. Billiards, race-horses, dinner-parties, betting, and follies of every description, soon brought upon me the expostulations of my family. But I was careless of everything—of health, fortune, reputation,—all. When my father refused any longer to supply my wilful extravagances, I incurred innumerable debts, and, giving no heed to the consequence, spent and drank, and gambled still. At length, by some unaccountable chance, a rumour got about that my father had disinherited me. From this moment I could find no more credit. My friends dropped off one by one; and, except by a few blacklegs, and two or three good-natured chums, I found myself deserted by all my former companions. And still, such was my infatuation, instead of reforming—instead of meriting my father’s aid and forgiveness—I only sank lower and lower, and continued to tread the downward path of vice.

An event, however, occurred which altogether changed the course of my career. I had been dining with some wild fellows at the Maison Dorée. After dinner, when we were all very nearly intoxicated, we called as usual for cards and dice. I soon lost the contents of my purse; then I staked my cabriolet, and lost it; my favourite horse, and lost him; my watch, chain, and seals, and lost them. On this, somewhat startled, I paused.

“I’ll play no more to-night,” I said doggedly.

“Pshaw!” cried my antagonist. “Throw again; next time you’ll be sure to win.”

But I shook my head and rose from the table.

“I’m a beggar already,” said I, with a forced laugh.

De Lancy shrugged his shoulders.

“As you please,” he replied somewhat contemptuously. “I only wanted you to have your revenge.”

I turned back irresolutely.

“Will you play for my house and furniture?” I asked.

“Willingly.”

So I sat down again, and in a few throws more found myself homeless. This time I was reckless. I poured out a bumper of wine, and tossed it off at a draught.

“If I had a wife,” I cried madly, “I would stake her next; but I have nothing left now, gentlemen—nothing but wine, and liberty, and myself. As this is no slave-country, you won’t play, I suppose, for the latter!”

“Not I,” said De Lancy, sweeping his gains into his hat. “I suppose you have no objection to make out that little statement of the house, cabriolet, and so forth, in writing, have you?”

There was an easy, satisfied, sarcastic triumph in his tone that irritated me more than the loss of all the rest. I made no reply; but, tearing a leaf from my pocketbook, wrote hastily, and half threw the paper at him.

“Take it, sir,” I said bitterly; “and I wish you joy of your property.”

He surveyed the acknowledgment coolly, put it in his purse, and said with a sneering smile:

“Does it not seem a pity now that you should have absolutely nothing left whereby to retrieve these things? Another throw, another billet of a hundred francs, and perhaps they would all be yours again. By the way, you forgot your diamond studs all this time. Will you try once more?”

And he threw the dice as he spoke. They turned up sixes.

“You might have thrown that, Petroffski,” he said, pointing to them.

I was sorely tempted; but I resisted.

“No, no,” I said, “not my diamond studs. They are an heirloom; and—and I will write to my father to-morrow.”

“Like a penitent good little boy,” said De Lancy, with an impatient gesture. “Nonsense, man; throw for the studs. I feel convinced you’ll win.”

“Say, rather, you feel convinced that you’ll win, De Lancy. Have you not stripped me of enough already?”

“Insolent!” he cried, “Do you think I value the paltry winnings?”

“I think you grasp all you can get.”

“Liar!”

The word had scarcely passed his lips, when I flung a glass of wine in his face. In another moment all was confusion. Blows were exchanged, the table was overturned, the lights extinguished. I received a severe wound upon the temple from falling against the open door, and fainted.

When I came to myself, I was stretched upon a sofa in an adjoining room, with a surgeon bending over me. The morning sun was streaming in at the windows. My companions were all gone, no one knew whither,

“What is the matter,” I asked, faintly. “Am I dying?”

The surgeon shook his head.

“You are severely hurt,” he said, “but with care and quiet you will recover. Had I not better communicate with your friends?”

“Write to my father,” I murmured. “You will find his—his address in my pocketbook.”

The surgeon took up pen and paper, and wrote immediately, partly from my dictation, and partly from his opinion of my condition. He then said that I must not be moved, and must, above all things, avoid excitement. As he uttered these words, and rose to take his leave, a sudden idea, or, rather, a sudden presentiment, struck me.

I put up my hand to my bosom. My diamond studs were gone!

After this, I remember no more. The shock produced upon me that very effect which the surgeon had been so anxious to avoid. I lost consciousness again; and on being restored to life, passed into a state of delirious fever. For many weeks I lay upon the threshold of the grave; and when I at length recovered, it was to find my dear father and mother at my side. They had hastened over with succour and forgiveness, and to their tender cares I owed a second existence. As soon as my health was tolerably established, my father went back for a few weeks to Russia, disposed of his business, realized his fortune in money, and returned to France an independent man. This excellent parent did not long survive the change. Within two years from the period of his establishment in Paris he died; and my mother survived him only a few months. They left me to the enjoyment of a princely fortune, which former experience has taught me to use worthily. I neither drink nor gamble. I pass my life chiefly in travelling. I have never married, and I do not think it likely that I ever shall marry; for Katrina is ever present in my heart, and when I lost her, I lost the power of loving. Since that period, fifteen years have elapsed. I have wandered through many lands: trodden the ruins of Thebes, and waked the echoes of Pompeii; shot the buffalo on the Western prairies, and pursued the wild-boar amid the forests of Westphalia. I am now on my way to Denmark, but purpose remaining a few days in Brussels, where probably I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again.

The stranger bowed as he said this, and I bowed in return.

“And now, sir,” he continued, “from the night that I lost them in a scuffle at the Maison Dorée, till this evening, when I behold them upon your shirt-front, T never saw those diamond studs again. I have sought for them, advertised them, offered rewards innumerable for them, during the space of fifteen years—but up to the present moment all has been in vain. Not for their intrinsic worth—for I could purchase plenty like them—but for the associations connected with them, do I place so high a value upon those stones. They are the same which my grandfather concealed in his pillow of matting; which my father gave to me upon my birthday; which first drew upon me the eyes of my lost Katrina. Surely, sir, you will acknowledge that this is a pardonable weakness, and also that the studs are really mine?”

“Your tale, sir,” said I, politely, but firmly, “is indeed very surprising, and I may say very conclusive; but the case is so singular, the studs belong with so much apparent right to both of us, that I really think we must refer all decision on the point of ownership to the law. You cannot expect me to relinquish them without first ascertaining whether I really am compelled legally to do so.”

“My dear sir,” replied the stranger, “I had no idea of asking you to relinquish the studs without due compensation. If you will do me the favour once more to show me that little bill (the amount of which I have forgotten), I shall be delighted to give you a cheque for the same sum.”

But I had no wish to part with my studs.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, somewhat uneasily, “but you have not yet proved to me that these stones are those of which you were robbed in the Maison Dorée. Make it evident to me that this is not a case of accidental resemblance, and …”

“Sir,” interrupted the stranger, “when my father gave me those studs on my birthday, he caused my initials to be engraved in minute characters upon one of the facets at the back. To do this was a great expense. When done, it deteriorated, perhaps, from the market-value of the gems; but it made them infinitely more precious to me. If, sir, you will have the goodness to take them out of your shirt, I will show you the initials P. P. upon the underside.”

By this time the train had reached the suburbs of Brussels, and in a few moments more we should arrive, I well knew, at the station.

“I think, sir,” said I, “we had better defer this examination till to-morrow. We have almost gained our destination; and by the feeble light of this roof-lamp I—”

The stranger brought out a small silver box filled with wax-matches.

“By the light of one of these convenient little articles, sir,” he said, “I will engage that you shall see the letters. I am most anxious to convince you of the identity of the stones. Pray, oblige me by taking them out.”

I could no longer find any pretence for refusal. The studs were attached each to each by a slender chain, and to examine one I was forced to take out all. As I was doing this, the speed of the train slackened.

The stranger lit one of his matches, and I examined the stones in tremulous impatience.

“Upon my honour, sir,” I said, very earnestly, “I can perceive nothing upon them.”

“Had you not better put on your glasses?” asked the stranger.

“Bruxelles!” shouted the guard. “Changement de convoie pour Gaud, Bruges, et Ostend!”

Hang the glasses! they were so misty I could not see an inch before me.

“Allow me to hold the studs for you while you rub them up,” said the stranger, politely.

I thanked him, polished the glasses upon my sleeve, held them up to the light, put them on.

“Now, sir,” I said, “you may light another match, and give me the diamonds.”

The stranger made no reply.

“I will not trouble you, sir, to hold them any longer,” I said.

I turned; I uttered a shriek of dismay; I stumbled over my own portmanteau, which stood between me and the doorway.

“Monsieur veut descendre?” said the guard, with a grin.

“Where is the stranger?” I cried, leaping out, and dancing frantically about the platform. “Where is the stranger?—where is Peter Petroffski?—where are my diamond studs?”

“Has monsieur lost anything?” asked the railway interpreter, touching his hat.

“He had my studs in his hand! I turned my back for a moment, and he was off! Did any one see him?”

“Will monsieur have the goodness to describe the person of this thief?”

“He was tall, thin, very dark, with black eyes and an aquiline nose.”

“And long hair hanging down upon his shoulders?” asked the interpreter.

“Yes, yes.”

“And he wore a large cloak with a high fur-collar?”

“The same—the very same.”

The porters and bystanders smiled, and glanced meaningly at one another. The interpreter shrugged his shoulders.

“Every effort shall be made,” he said, shaking his head; “but I regret to say that we have little prospect of success. This man’s name is Vaudon. He is an experienced swindler, and evades capture with surprising dexterity. It is not three weeks since he committed a similar robbery on this very line, and the police have been in pursuit of him ever since without effect.”

“Then his name is not Peter Petroffski?”

“Certainly not, monsieur.”

“And he is no Russian?”

“No more than I am.”

“And—and his grandfather, who was a Hindoo—and the Empress Catherine—and the beautiful princess who was shot—and—and …”

“And monsieur may be assured,” said the interpreter with a smile, “that whatever story was related to him by Pierre Vaudon was from beginning to end—a fiction!”

Quite chapfallen, I groaned aloud, and took my melancholy way to the Hôtel de Ville. There I stated my case, and was assured that no pains would be spared on the part of the police to apprehend the offender.

No pains were spared, and no money either; but ail was in vain. From that day to this I never set eyes upon my diamond studs.

The Grey Domino

(1865)

I have seen the day that I have worn a visor.
Romeo and Juliet.

Maurice Duhamel was my best friend and constant companion in those days of which I am about to tell you. He lives now at Marseilles, and I in London; but distance makes no difference to a friendship like ours. We write to each other once in every month; and were we to meet again face to face and hand to hand to-morrow, it would be with us as though we had parted but yesterday.

I made his friendship in Paris. Napoleon was then First Consul, and the English thronged over the Channel by hundreds to his civic court—I amongst the rest. I was young—tolerably rich—fond of fun, variety, and adventure. I aspired moreover to the honours of authorship. That is to say, I had written a tragedy which was hissed, and a novel that fell still-born from the press. I had not been in Paris many days before I waited on Maurice Duhamel with a letter of introduction. He gave me a cordial welcome. Our liking was mutual, and ripened speedily to friendship. He took me everywhere; initiated me into all those phases of Paris life known only to the native resident; and, in fact, gave me an insight into men and manners which, as a stranger, I could not otherwise have acquired.

It was, I think, about the middle of the month of October when I arrived in Paris. By the time that the Carnival season approached, I was familiar with all parts of the capital, and intimate with Duhamel. I had long been anticipating the advent of that giddy festival; and my friend promised to take me to many places of entertainment, of which the uninstructed traveller finds no mention in the pages of Galignani.

We bought our tickets for the first grand Bal Masqué at the Opera full three weeks beforehand; and I devoted myself, with boyish vanity, to the invention of a gorgeous and fantastic domino, which I flattered myself should attract universal attention wherever I made my appearance. Even the costumier under whose direction it was to be made up, confessed that my design was altogether original.

I had for some time observed that Maurice was less cheerful than when I first knew him. He no longer shared my joyous anticipations of fun and frolic to come. He grew daily more pale and dejected, and sighed when I spoke of the Bal de l’Opera. At length there came an evening when his melancholy was so obvious that I felt I might venture to observe it. It was the evening of the day preceding the Carnival, and we were taking coffee in my apartments.

“Maurice,” I said, “you are not happy. You have some secret trouble.”

He shook his head.

“Pshaw,” he said, “it is nothing—the effect of study—of late hours—of ennui!”

But I was not thus to be put off.

“I know there is something more than this,” I said, earnestly. “Surely, Maurice, I have some claim to your confidence?”

“Eh bien!” he said, as a faint flush passed over his face. “I am in—in love, then. In love—unhappy—plunged in doubt—worried by suspense and—and now you know all!”

I did not know all, nor half; but I could elicit nothing farther from him; and shortly afterwards he hurried away, promising to call for me the next evening at eight o’clock, that we might go together to the Opera.

The next day came at last, and the Carnival began. My elegant domino, the cherished offspring of my invention, was to have been sent home long since, and had not yet arrived. I had scarcely any appetite for breakfast, and could not keep my attention fixed for five minutes together on the columns of the Journal des Debats. My windows looked out upon the Boulevard des Capucines. There was an unusual gaiety and bustle pervading that gayest of thoroughfares, but as yet I had seen no masks, and this somewhat consoled me for the delay of my domino. One o’clock came; a few masks were now thinly scattered among the foot passengers, and several had made their appearance in the open carriages. Three o’clock—still no domino! I wrote an urgent letter, and sent it by one of the public messengers. M. Giroux returned a polite reply, stating that the extreme pressure of business had unavoidably retarded the completion of Mr. Hamilton’s costume, but Mr. Hamilton might rely upon its arrival in time for the Bal Masqué in the evening.

Here was a provoking circumstance! I had ordered an open carriage for that afternoon, in which to display my domino along the Boulevards, and now—to be compelled to wait till evening…. it was too bad! I paced up and down the apartment in a fury of disappointment.

The carriage came—I sent it away again; and at five o’clock strolled into a neighbouring restaurant to while away the hours that yet intervened. At seven I returned. The domino had not yet arrived.

Eight o’clock came and passed away, and neither my friend nor my domino made their appearance. Nine—half-past—a quarter to ten.

I was in despair. Could Maurice be ill?—must I go alone to the Ball, and without my domino? I was lying on the sofa, counting the weary minutes, when a heavy step came slowly up the stairs; the door opened; and a man with a small box put his head into the room.

“Monsieur Hamilton, from M. Giroux.”

I snatched it from his hands with undisguised delight, and precipitated myself into my dressing-room. With hasty fingers I strove to undo the cord, but I only drew it into a hard knot. I looked for my penknife, and could not find it. In short, several minutes had elapsed before I succeeded in opening the box and in drawing forth—oh heavens! not my beautiful, my unique, my elegant domino, but a horrible, ill-favoured garment, made of coarse grey serge, and trimmed with black ribbon.

I flew to the door, and down the stairs; but the man was already out of sight. What I said or did I cannot tell, but I remember finding myself on the point of tearing the domino to pieces, and being suddenly checked by the reflection that if I did so I should have nothing else to take its place! A bill lay folded at the bottom of the box. It ran thus:

M. l’Avocat Du Bois, à H. Giroux,
1 Costume de Bal … 25 francs.

“M. l’Avocat Du Bois!” I said aloud. “Certainly I have heard the name! Yes—I remember: he lives in the Rue de Richelieu; has a large practice, and the reputation of a miser! Well, he might give a better price for his domino! The deuce! perhaps he has mine, and will be flourishing to-night in borrowed plumes at some of the soirées…. Ah, if I only meet him at the Opera!”

The theatre was crowded; and the whole scene was one blaze of lights and revelry.

Here were Albanians, Cossacks, Pierrots, Spanish noblemen, Italian flower-girls, Greeks, Sultanas, Crusaders, Postilions, Demons, Turks, and Debardeurs without number. Here was all the wealth, the wit, the fashion of Paris; and here was poor Frederick Hamilton in that detestable grey serge domino!

I saw no one so meanly dressed as myself—I was pursued with jeers and impertinent questions. One complimented me upon my taste in fancy costume; another asked the address of my costumier; a third saluted me as “The millionaire in the serge domino.”

In the midst of my distress, I suddenly felt a light touch upon my shoulder, and an arm slipped through mine.

I turned, and saw a lady in the dress of a Carmelite nun, with a mask upon her face, and the hood of her robe drawn closely over her head.

“How late you are!” she said hurriedly, “I have been expecting you for the last two hours.”

“Ma foi, madame,” I replied, in the best French I could muster. “I feel particularly flattered by your anxiety.”

“Alas, monsieur,” said the lady impatiently,“why this levity? Surely the moment is too serious for jesting!”

“Madame,” I said laughing, “your penetration is surprising. I really have yet to discover the solemnity of a masked ball.”

“Pray cease this acting,” said the lady, angrily, “and give me the reply for which I have dared to come here alone this evening. The moment is arrived when you must decide—nay, this very night you may be called upon to act. A delay, if only of a few hours—a refusal at the last extremity, when it would be too late to secure another agent—would be sufficient to ensure the success of our cause! Say, monsieur, is it Yes or No?”

I was silent with amazement. The lady continued:

“If it be money that you want, you shall have it. We will double the sum the Marquis and his advisers pay you. If it be position, you know that my husband has sufficient influence to advance you. Speak, monsieur, speak—may we rely upon you to-night, if to-night you should be called upon?”

“I fear, Madame,” said I, “that you are addressing me under a wrong impression. I have not the honour of knowing you, and I do not comprehend one word of what you say.”

“Are you, then, so unfeeling?” exclaimed my companion. “Can you really treat thus lightly so painful a subject? If you assume this tone, this ignorance, this foreign accent, merely to turn my entreaties into jest, and to steel your heart the more effectually against the appeals of helpless sorrow, it is ill-timed, monsieur—ill-timed and ungenerous. Say at once that you will not assist us—that you are without pity; but, for mercy’s sake, cease this cruel mockery!”

“Indeed, madame,” I began, “you are mistaken in me….”

“On the contrary, monsieur,” she replied bitterly, withdrawing her hand from my arm, to which she had been clinging in the eagerness of her appeal—“on the contrary, I but find you what I had expected—cold, heartless, unprincipled. For shame, monsieur, thus to suffer the persecution of an innocent girl!”

“Madame, I assure you, if you will but—”

“Enough, monsieur—you refuse. Alas! our trust, now, must be in Heaven alone!”

With these words she turned hastily away, and in an instant I lost sight of her amid the throng. I was greatly surprised by what I had heard.

“Bravo!” I said to myself. “Here is a capital incident on which to weave a story! I shall get ‘ideas’ out of this Carnival!”

So I pushed my way on through the crowd of masks, in search of new adventures.

All at once a man dressed as a friar darted from behind a column, and grasped me roughly by the arm.

“It is well, monsieur,” he said, in a hoarse voice. “I have been looking for you. I have just met Madame la Baronne, and I know all. You refuse—you are inflexible! Very well—but I will have satisfaction, monsieur: satisfaction à outrance! You shall hear from me!”

And before I could utter a syllable he had plunged into the crowd and was gone. Singular and unaccountable! It seemed to me that I had recognised the voice and costume of Maurice Duhamel!

Appealed to by an unknown lady, challenged by my friend! The plot thickened. The affair promised to furnish me with a comedy at the very least! I resolved that, if accosted again, I would no longer strive to undeceive those who might address me, but merge my identity in that of the absent unknown, and follow the adventure to an end. One thing was evident, that M. l’Avocat Du Bois was directly or indirectly concerned in the business, and that for all this perplexity I was indebted to the grey serge domino. Being prepared by this train of reasoning, and the resolution I had taken, I was not so much surprised when, somewhat later in the evening, I found myself an object of especial attention to two men in plain black dominoes. They passed and re-passed me once or twice, and I heard one of them say, in a low voice,

“Are you sure that is he?”

“Certain,” replied the other; “do you not see the white cross on his shoulder?”

Involuntarily I turned my head, and there, sure enough, was a small white cross, let into the right shoulder of the domino. I had not observed this before.

The two men immediately advanced, and the last speaker, bending his head towards me, and whispering in a quick, cautious voice, said:

“We are here seeking you, monsieur. The moment is at hand, and there is no time to be lost. He cannot last many hours longer, and you must accompany us directly. Are you ready?”

This time I was determined not to discover myself; so I bowed silently, and motioned to them to lead the way. Whether they feared that even at the last I might be disposed to give them the slip I know not, but they passed their arms through mine, one at each side, and so pressed through the crowd and on towards the door. A carriage waited at the corner of the street, into which they bade me mount. They then seated themselves opposite; the servant slammed the door; and we drove away almost at a gallop.

Surely I had seen the figure of a friar glide after us through the vestibule of the opera-house, and surely I heard the sound of other wheels behind!

The night was very dark, and all the shops were closed; but I recognised several of the leading thoroughfares—the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, the Barrière du Roule, the Avenue of Neuilly! Were we, then, bound for the country? I will not deny that I began to feel somewhat uneasy on finding myself alone with these men, so still, masked, and silent. Despite all my anxiety for adventure, I wished myself back again in the Salle de l’Opéra.

On we went. The Avenue was deserted, and scarcely a chariot passed us on the way.

We stopped at last before a small side door that opened upon the road from the midst of along high wall. One of my conductors leaped out. The door yielded to his touch, and I followed him into what appeared by that dim light to be a spacious garden surrounding a stately mansion. The carriage drove away; the door was closed behind me; and we passed into the house.

I found myself in a large hall floored with polished marble, and richly decorated. A broad staircase led to the upper apartments, at the foot of which a servant in livery was waiting.

“What news?” asked one of the dominoes, removing his visor, and disclosing a pale, careworn face, lit by a pair of eager black eyes.

The servant shook his head.

“M. le Marquis is now speechless,” he said,“and M. le Medecin says that he can scarcely live an hour.”

“Mon Dieu!” cried the domino, striking his hands impatiently together, “how sudden! He seemed as if he would last at least till to-morrow! Quick, quick! Now, monsieur, follow me. Thanks be to the blessed Virgin, the deed is already drawn up!”

He strode rapidly up before me. In doing so, the hood of his domino fell back, and I saw the shaven tonsure of a Roman Catholic priest.

We traversed a suite of reception-rooms by the light of a small lamp which he carried in his hand. Seen by that dim light, they appeared as if furnished with unwonted magnificence. Our feet sank deep at every step into the soft carpets of Turkey, and gave forth no sound. A heavy atmosphere, as of death, hung around us. The place was all hushed, dark, melancholy.

We reached a doorway curtained with silken hangings. The priest paused, and turned towards me.

“Ten thousand francs if we succeed, monsieur,” he whispered between his teeth. “Was not that our agreement?”

I nodded. The second domino removed his mask. He likewise was a priest.

They whispered together, and the first speaker once more addressed me:

“Do not remove your mask, monsieur,” he said. “The doctor is still there, and it were better that he should not recognise your features.”

“This doctor must be dismissed,” muttered the other, as we entered the sick-chamber.

It was a long and lofty room, with a fireplace at one end, and a large carved bedstead hung with tapestry at the other. Three persons were present besides the patient—a priest, a physician, and a young girl. The latter riveted my attention. A face more deathly pale, and more perfect in its pallor, I never saw in life—seldom even in sculpture. She seemed scarcely conscious. Her eyes were fixed and tearless, and her hands fell listlessly at her side.

I remembered the words of the Carmelite in the ballroom, and shuddered. Foul play, it was evident, was here at work. “A refusal at the last extremity, when it would be too late to secure another agent, would be sufficient!” Yet those were her very words. Courage!—let us see what is to be done. If word or act of mine can do right here, it shall not be wanting!

“Have you found the deed?” said one of the priests, in an urgent whisper.

I shook my head, turned over the papers that lay thick upon the table, and, finding a parchment covered with close writing, held it towards him.

“Pshaw! not that. Why, that is the old will, to sign which would ruin all!”

At this moment he drew a second paper from beneath the rest, and thrusting it into my hand, “This is it,” he said. “Read it once through, quickly—quickly! See that there is no flaw or quibble to be turned against us. Make all safe, for he is going fast.”

I glanced towards the bed, and saw the wreck of what had once been a man of vast proportions and noble features. His eyes were closed; he breathed with difficulty; and save an occasional movement of the head, he seemed unconscious of all around him. The three priests surrounded the bed; and one of them, bending low, spoke in a voice inaudible to the rest. The patient moved his hand feebly, as if in reply.

“M. le Marquis desires to make the final arrangements for his daughter, and to receive the extreme unction in private,” said the priest, turning to the physician, who yet retained his place beside the patient. “Monsieur will oblige us by retiring. His services, alas! can be of no further avail.”

The physician rose. He looked from one to another, and glanced suspiciously at the documents on the table.

“M. l’Avocat will retire with me?” he asked

“M. l’Avocat has but just arrived,” said the priest, opening the door with an air of polite authority, “and his presence is indispensable.”

The physician somewhat lingeringly and reluctantly withdrew. The young girl still sat pale and motionless as ever; the priests gathered round the bed; and I began hastily glancing over the contents of the deed.

Its purport was to the effect that “M. le Marquis de Saint Roch, feeling the near approach of death, and being humbly and devoutly sensible of the importance of heavenly things, the sanctity and purity of the Roman Catholic Church, the immense benefit conferred by its religious institutions upon the people of all Roman Catholic nations, and the necessity of arming the teachers of the true faith against the encroachments and enmity of heretics and controversialists, had, after mature and deliberate consideration, resolved upon bequeathing the whole of his temporal possessions, including his personal property, houses, plate, carriages, jewels, and estates, to the holy and enlightened Society of the Order of Jesus; reserving only the sum of 50,000 francs for the dowry of Mademoiselle Gabrielle, his daughter, whom he entrusted to the guardianship of the Reverend Fathers Eustache and Ambroise, directing that she should be placed by them in the convent of Les Dames Carmelites, Rue Vaugirard, Paris, and there take the veil.”

What should I do? The priests were exhorting the dying man, and the young girl never moved.

“Is all ready?” asked the Jesuit.

I made an affirmative sign.

“My son,” said he, “thou must suffer thyself to be raised for a moment. The holy document needs thy signature. Courage! the Blessed Virgin herself looks down upon thy work, and a heavenly reward awaits thee!”

He opened his eyes for the first time since I had entered the room, and an expression of religious enthusiasm lighted his pale countenance. The priests lifted him in their arms, and placed the pen in his trembling fingers.

The young girl rose suddenly, and fell on her knees beside the bed.

“Oh! no, father! no—have pity!” she cried, with clasped, imploring hands—“not the convent, father! not the convent—anything but that!”

“Silence, daughter!” said the Jesuit, sternly. “Thy father is dying! Disturb not his soul with the prayers of thy selfish humanity.”

The flush passed away from the brow of the patient, and was succeeded by a pallor more ghastly than before.

“I will speak!” sobbed Gabrielle—“I will be heard! Father! father! spare me, for my mother’s sake!”

There was a noise in the next room, a sudden battering upon the oaken door, and a man’s voice crying loudly, “Let me in! It is I—it is Maurice. Oh! Gabrielle, let me in!”

She seized her father’s hand, and covered it with tears.

“Listen, father, listen!” she cried. “It is he—I love him! I love him!”

The dying man raised his head; the cold dews stood upon his forehead; he moved his lips convulsively, but he could articulate no sound. He flung the pen from him.

The Jesuit forced it back into his hand.

“My son,” said he, “remember your vow. You have gone too far to defraud the Church of her dues! Will you die a sinner, a rebel, a heretic? Must I refuse you the last consolations of religion? Shall no masses be said for your repose—no saints intercede for your forgiveness? Must I excommunicate your very memory after death?”

The wretched man quailed before these awful words.

“Back, daughter,” said the priest, grasping Gabrielle by the arm, and thrusting her forcibly on one side; “speak to him no more!”

The noise in the outer chamber had ceased. The marquis was seized with a convulsive trembling.

“Quick! the paper!” cried the Jesuit.

I crossed rapidly to the bed, and held the document for him to sign. The stiffening fingers almost refused their office, and he had scarce scrawled his name, when the hand fell heavily, and the last terrible struggle began.

The priests fell upon their knees, and chanted the prayers for the dying; while Gabrielle, terrified and weeping, threw herself before a crucifix that hung beside the bed.

It was soon over. They drew the sheet across his face, and one of them opened the door. There were two persons outside—a lady and a young man. The lady wore the robe of a Carmelite over her rich evening dress, and carried a black visor in her hand. In the young man I recognized Maurice Duhamel. He no longer wore the disguise of a friar. He was deathly pale, and the traces of tears were upon his cheek. They flew to Gabrielle. The lady took her in her arms, and Maurice bent sadly over her.

“My poor child,” said the former, “we have heard all. But be comforted; everything may not yet be lost. I will appeal to the law—to the First Consul himself; and if our earthly judges be against us, there is yet a Higher Tribunal, by which all virtue is recompensed, and all crime punished!”

Maurice turned to me in a sudden access of fury.

“And you, sir—you!” he cried, “you, who might have averted this calamity, what have you to say to this poor girl? Do you not rejoice in the sight of the misery you have aided to inflict upon us?”

“Silence!” said the priest, with an air of commanding dignity; “this is no place for such expressions. Let the room be cleared, and leave us to pray for the soul of the departed. Young man, respect the presence of the dead.”

He turned towards the lady.

“Madame la Baronne,” he said, “your brother has died in the fulfilment of a sacred duty. I beseech you retire to your apartments, and make it your task to soothe the anguish of your niece, till we, her guardians, can relieve you of that office, by placing her under the protecting care of Les Dames Carmelites.”

I thought it now time to interfere. I removed my mask. An exclamation of surprise burst from the lips of all present. The Jesuits turned pale, and drew back.

“Stop,” I said, eagerly, “let us not be too hasty. Perhaps, after all, there may be no occasion for Mademoiselle de Saint Roch to enter the society of Les Dames Carmelites!” And I pointed to the deed which lay beside me on the table.

The Jesuit sprang forward, uttered a hoarse cry, and dropped into a chair.

I had substituted the old will for the deed of gift—the old will, by which Gabrielle was left sole heiress to her father’s wealth; free to live, to marry, to be happy! She threw herself on her knees before me; while Maurice, dumb, flushed, and trembling, supported himself against the mantelpiece.

“Dread the vengeance of the Church for this, Monsieur!” said the Jesuit, rising and moving towards the door.

1 smiled, and shook my head.

“I am an Englishman,” I said. “You dare not touch me. I might, if I chose, tell something of the bribe of ten thousand francs offered for aid in extorting money from a dying man!”

“You are our saviour!” murmured Gabrielle, as I raised and led her to a seat.

Maurice came to me with extended hands.

“And is it to you, mon ami, that we are indebted for this deliverance?” he cried passionately. “Is it to you?”

“By no means,” I replied, pointing to my dress, and to the visor, lying on the floor—“you have to thank the Grey Domino!”

The Professor’s Story

(1865)

Between eight and ten years ago, I embarked in a long vacation campaign among the Alps of Savoy. I was alone. My object was not amusement, but study. I occupy a Professor’s Chair, and I was engaged in the collection of materials for a work on the Flora of the higher Alps; and, to this end, travelled chiefly on foot. My route lay far from the beaten paths and passes. I often journeyed for days through regions where there were neither inns nor villages. I often wandered from dawn till dusk among sterile steeps unknown even to the herdsmen of the upper pasturages, and untrodden save by the chamois and the hunter. I thought myself fortunate at those times if, towards evening, I succeeded in steering my way down to the nearest châlet, where, in company with a half-savage mountaineer and a herd of milch goats, I might find the shelter of a raftered roof, and a supper of black bread and whey.

On one particular evening I had gone farther than usual, in pursuit of the Senecio Unifloris: a rare plant, which I had hitherto believed indigenous to the southern valleys of Monte Rosa, but of which I here succeeded in finding one or two indifferent specimens. It was a wild and barren district, difficult to distinguish with any degree of precision on the map; but lying among the upper defiles of the Val de Bagnes, between the Mont Pleureur and the Grand Combin. On the waste of rock-strewn moss to which I had climbed, there was no sign of human habitation. Above me lay the great ice-fields of Corbassière, surmounted by the silver summits of the Graffenière and Combin. To my left, the sun was going down rapidly behind a forest of smaller peaks, the highest of which, as well as I could judge from Osterwald’s map, was the Mont Blanc de Cheîlon. In ten minutes more those peaks would be crimson; in one short half hour, it would be night.

To be benighted on an Alpine plateau towards the latter end of September is not a desirable position. I knew it by recent experience, and had no wish to repeat the experiment. I therefore began retracing my route as rapidly as I could, descending in a north-westerly direction, and keeping a sharp look-out for any châlet that might offer a shelter for the night. Pushing forward thus, I found myself presently at the head of a little verdant ravine, channelled, as it were, in the face of the plateau. I hesitated. It seemed, through the gathering darkness, as if I could discern vague traces of a path trampled here and there in the deep grass. It also seemed as if the ravine trended down towards the upper pastures which were my destination. By following it I could scarcely go wrong. Where there is grass, there are generally cattle and a châlet; and I might possibly find a nearer resting-place than I had anticipated. At all events, I resolved to try it.

The ravine proved shorter than I had expected, and, instead of leading immediately downward, opened upon a second plateau, through which a well-worn footway struck off abruptly to the left. Pursuing this footway with what speed I might, I came, in the course of a few more minutes, to a sudden slope, at the bottom of which, in a basin almost surrounded by gigantic limestone cliffs, lay a small dark lake, a few fields, and a châlet. The rose-tints had by this time come and gone, and the snow had put on that ghostly grey which precedes the dark. Before I could descend the slope, skirt the lake, and mount the little eminence on which the house stood, sheltered by its background of rocks, it was already night, and the stars were in the sky.

I went up to the door and knocked; no one answered. I opened the door; all was dark. I paused—held my breath—listened—fancied I could distinguish a low sound, as of some one breathing. I knocked again. My second knock was followed by a quick noise, like the pushing back of a chair, and a man’s voice said, hoarsely:

“Who is there?”

“A traveller,” I replied, “seeking shelter for the night.”

A heavy footstep crossed the floor, a sharp flash shot through the darkness, and I saw, by the flickering tinder, a man’s face bending over a lantern. Having lighted it, he said, with scarce a glance towards the door, “Enter, traveller,” and went back to his stool beside the empty hearth.

I entered. The châlet was of a better sort than those usually found at so great an altitude, consisting of a dairy and houseplace, with a loft overhead. A table and three or four wooden stools occupied the centre of the room. The rafters were hung with bunches of dried herbs, and long strings of Indian corn. A clock ticked in a corner; a kind of rude pallet upon trestles stood in a recess beside the fireplace; and through a lattice at the further end, I could hear the cows feeding in the outhouse beyond.

Somewhat perplexed by the manner of my reception, I unstrapped my knapsack and specimen-box, took possession of the nearest stool, and asked if I could have supper?

My host looked up, with the air of a man intent on other things. I repeated the inquiry.

“Yes,” he said, wearily; “you can eat, traveller.”

With this, he crossed to the other side of the hearth, stooped over a dark object, which until now I had not observed, crouched in the corner, and muttered a word or two of unintelligible patois. The object moaned; lifted up a white bewildered woman’s face; and rose slowly from the floor. The herdsman pointed to the table, and went back to his stool and his former attitude. The woman, after pausing helplessly, as if in the effort to remember something, went out into the dairy, came back with a brown loaf and a pan of milk, and set them before me on the table.

As long as I live I shall never forget the expression of that woman’s face. She was young and very pretty; but her beauty seemed turned to stone. Every feature bore the seal of an unspeakable terror. Every gesture was mechanical. In the lines that furrowed her brow there was a haggardness more terrible than the haggardness of age. In the locking of her lips there was an anguish beyond the utterance of words. Though she served me, I do not think she saw me. There was no recognition in her eyes; no apparent consciousness of any object or circumstance external to the secret of her own despair. All this I noticed during the few brief moments in which she brought me my supper. That done, she crept away, abjectly, into the same dark corner, and sank down again, a mere huddled heap of clothing.

As for her husband, there was something unnatural in the singular immobility of his attitude. There he sat, his body bent forward, his chin resting on his palms, his eyes staring fixedly at the blackened hearth, and not even the involuntary quiver of a nerve to show that he lived and breathed. I could not determine his age, analyse and observe his features as I might. He looked old enough to be fifty, and young enough to be forty; and was a fine muscular mountaineer, with that grave cast of countenance which is peculiar to the Valaisan peasant.

I could not eat. The keenness of my mountain appetite was gone. I sat, as if fascinated, in the presence of this strange pair; observing both, and, apparently, by both as much forgotten as if I had never crossed their threshold. We remained thus, by the dim light of the lantern, and the monotonous ticking of the clock, for some forty minutes or more: all profoundly silent. Sometimes the woman stirred, as if in pain; sometimes the cows struck their horns against the manger in the outhouse. The herdsman alone sat motionless, like a man cast in bronze. At length the clock struck nine. I had by this time become so nervous that I almost dreaded to hear my own voice interrupt the silence. However, I pushed my plate noisily aside, and said, with as much show of ease as I could muster:

“Have you any place, friend, in which I can sleep to-night?”

He shifted his position uneasily, and, without looking round, replied in the same form of words as before:

“Yes; you can sleep, traveller.”

“Where? In the loft above?”

He nodded affirmatively, took the lantern from the table, and turned towards the dairy. As we passed, the light streamed for a moment over the crouching figure in the corner.

“Is your wife ill?” I asked, pausing and looking back.

His eyes met mine for the first time, and a shudder passed over his body.

“Yes,” he said, with an effort. “She is ill.”

I was about to ask what ailed her, but something in his face arrested the question on my lips. I know not, to this hour, what that something was. I could not define it then; I cannot describe it now; but I hope I may never see it in a living face again.

I followed him to the foot of a ladder at the further end of the dairy.

“Up there,” he said; placed the lantern in my hand; and strode heavily back into the darkness.

I went up, and found myself in a long low granary, stored with corn-sacks, hay, onions, rock-salt, cheeses, and farming implements. In one corner were the unusual luxuries of a mattress, a rug, and a three-legged stool. My first care was to make a systematic inspection of the loft and all that it contained; my next, to open a little unglazed lattice with a sliding shutter, just opposite my bed. The night was brilliant, and a stream of fresh air and moonlight poured in. Oppressed by a strange undefined sense of trouble, I extinguished the lantern, and stood looking out upon the solemn peaks and glaciers. Their solitude seemed to me more than usually awful; their silence more than usually profound. I could not help associating them, in some vague way, with the mystery in the house. I perplexed myself with all kinds of wild conjectures as to what the nature of that mystery might be. The woman’s face haunted me like an evil dream. Again and again, I went from the lattice to the ladder, and from the ladder back to the lattice, vainly listening for any sound in the rooms below. A long time went by thus, until at length, overpowered by the fatigues of the day, I stretched myself on the mattress, took my knapsack for a pillow, and fell fast asleep.

I can guess neither how long my sleep lasted, nor from what cause I awoke. I only know that my sleep was dreamless and profound; and that I started from it suddenly, unaccountably, trembling in every nerve, and possessed by an overwhelming sense of danger.

Danger! Danger of what kind? From whom? From whence? I looked round—I was alone, and the quiet moon was shining in as serenely as when I fell asleep. I listened—all was as still as when I fell asleep. I got up, walked to and fro, reasoned with myself; but all in vain. I could not stay the beatings of my heart. I could not master the horror that oppressed my brain. I felt that I dared not lie down again; that I must get out of the house somehow, and at once; that to stay would be death; that the instinct by which I was governed must at all costs be obeyed.

I could not bear it. Resolved to escape, or, at all events, to sell life dearly, I strapped on my knapsack, armed myself with my iron-headed Alpenstock, took my large clasp knife between my teeth, and began, cautiously and noiselessly, to descend the ladder. When I was about halfway down, the Alpenstock, which I had been keeping studiously clear of the ladder, encountered some dairy vessel, and sent it, clattering, to the ground. Caution, after this, was useless. I sprang forward, reached the outer room at a bound, and found it, to my amazement, deserted, with the door wide open and the moonlight streaming in. Suspecting a trap, my first impulse was to stand still, with my back against the wall, prepared for a desperate defence. All was silent. I could only hear the ticking of the clock, and the heavy beating of my own heart. The pallet was empty. The bread and milk were still standing where I had left them on the table. The herdsman’s stool occupied the same spot by the desolate hearth. But he and his wife were gone—gone in the dead of night—leaving me, a stranger, in the sole occupation of their home!

While I was yet irresolute whether to go or stay, and while I was yet wondering at the strangeness of my position, I heard, or fancied I heard, something—something that might have been the wind, save that there was no air stirring—something that might have been the wailing of a human voice. I held my breath—heard it again—followed it as it died away…. I had not far to go. A line of light gleaming under the door of a shed at the back of the châlet, and a cry bitterer and more piercing than any I had yet heard, guided me direct to the spot.

I looked in—recoiled, giddy with horror—went back, as if fascinated; and so stood for some moments, unable to move, to think, to do anything but stare helplessly upon the scene before me. To this day, I cannot recall it without something of the same sickening sensation.

Inside that hut, by the light of a pine-torch thrust into an iron sconce against the wall, I saw the herdsman kneeling by the body of his wife; grieving over her like another Othello; kissing her white lips, wiping bloodstains from her yellow hair, raving out inarticulate cries of passionate remorse, and calling down all the curses of Heaven upon his own head, and the head of some other man who had brought this crime upon him! I understood it all now—all the mystery, all the terror, all the despair. She had sinned against him, and he had slain her. She was quite dead. The very knife, with its hideous testimony fresh upon the blade, lay near the door.

I turned and fled—blindly, wildly, like a man with bloodhounds on his track; now stumbling over stones; now torn by briars; now pausing a moment to take breath; now rushing forward faster than before; now battling uphill with straining lungs and trembling limbs; now staggering across a level space; now making for the higher ground again, and casting never a glance behind! At length I reached a bare plateau above the line of vegetation, where I dropped exhausted. Here I lay for a long time, beaten and stupefied, until the intense cold of approaching dawn forced upon me the necessity of action. I rose, and looked round on a scene no feature of which was familiar to me. The very snow-peaks, though I knew they must be the same, looked unlike the peaks of yesterday. The very glaciers, seen from a different point of view, assumed new forms, as if on purpose to baffle me. Thus perplexed, I had no resource but to climb the nearest height from which it was probable that a general view might be obtained. I did so, just as the last belt of purple mist turned golden in the east, and the sun rose.

A superb panorama lay stretched before me, peak beyond peak, glacier beyond glacier, valley and pine forest and pasture slope, all flushed and palpitating in the crimson vapours of the dawn. Here and there I could trace the foam of a waterfall, or the silver thread of a torrent; here and there the canopy of faint blue smoke that wavered upward from some hamlet among the hills. Suddenly my eyes fell upon a little lake—a sullen pool—lying in the shade of an amphitheatre of rocks some eight hundred feet below. Until that moment the night and its terrors appeared to have passed away like a wicked vision; but now the very sky seemed darkened above me. Yes—there it all lay at my feet. Yonder was the path by which I had descended from the plateau, and, lower still, the accursed châlet, with its background of rugged cliff and overhanging precipice. Well might they lie in shadow! Well might the sunlight refuse to touch the ripples of that lake with gold, and to light up the windows of that house with an illumination direct from heaven!

Thus standing, thus looking down, I became aware of a strange sound—a sound singularly distinct, but far away—a sound sharper and hollower than the fall of an avalanche, and unlike anything that I remembered to have heard. While I was yet asking myself what it could be, or whence it came, I saw a considerable fragment of rock detach itself from one of the heights overhanging the lake, bound rapidly from ledge to ledge, and fall, with a heavy plash, into the water below. It was followed by a cloud of dust, and a prolonged reverberation, like the rolling of distant thunder. Next moment, a dark fissure sprang into sight all down the face of the precipice—the fissure became a chasm—the whole cliff wavered before my eyes—wavered, parted, sent up a cataract of earth and stones—and slid slowly down—down—down into the valley.

Deafened by the crash, and blinded by the dust, I covered my face with my hands, and anticipated instant destruction. The echoes, however, died away, and were succeeded by a solemn silence. The plateau on which I stood remained firm and unshaken. I looked up. The sun was shining as serenely, the landscape sleeping as peacefully as before. Nothing was changed, save that a wide white scar now defaced all one side of the great limestone basin below, and a ghastly mound of ruin filled the valley at its foot. Beneath that mound lay buried all record of the crime to which I had been an unwilling witness. The very mountains had come down and covered it—nature had obliterated it from the face of the Alpine solitude. Lake and châlet, victim and executioner, had disappeared for ever, and the place thereof knew them no more.

The Patagonian Brothers

(1865)

We are not related. His name is John Griffiths, and I am William Waldur; and we called ourselves the Patagonian Brothers, because it looked well in the bills and pleased the public. We met by chance, about six years since, on the race-course at Doncaster, and so took a sort of mutual liking, and went partners in a tour through the midland counties. We had never seen or heard of each other up to that time; and though we became good friends, were never greatly intimate. I knew nothing of his past life, nor he of mine; and I never asked him a question on the subject. I am particular to have this all clear from the beginning; for I am a plain man telling a plain story, and I want no one to misunderstand a word of what I am about to relate.

We made a little money by our tour. It was not much; but it was more than either of us had been able to earn before; so we agreed to stay together, and try our fortune in London. This time we got an engagement at Astley’s for the winter, and, when the summer came, joined a travelling circus, and roamed about as before.

The circus was a capital thing—a republic, so to say, in which all were equals. We had a manager to whom we paid a fixed salary, and the rest went shares in the profits. There were times when we did not even clear our expenses; there were towns where we made ten and fifteen pounds a night; but the bad luck went along with the good, and, on the whole, we prospered.

We stayed with the company two years and a half in all, and played at every town between York and London. During that time we had found leisure to improve. We knew each other’s weight and strength now to a hair, and grew bolder with experience; so that there was scarcely a new feat brought out anywhere which we did not learn, even to the “perche” business, and the trick of walking, head downwards, on a marble ceiling. The fact is, that we were admirably matched, which, in our profession, is the most important point of all. Our height was the same, to the sixteenth of an inch, and we were not unlike in figure. If Griffiths possessed a little more muscular strength, I was the more active, and even that difference was in our favour. I believe that, in other respects, we suited each other equally well, and I know that, for the three years and a half which we had spent together (counting from our first meeting at Doncaster down to the time when we dissolved partnership with the circus folks) we had never had an angry word. Griffiths was a steady, saving, silent fellow enough, with little grey eyes and heavy black brows. I remember thinking, once or twice, that he was not quite the sort of person I would like for an enemy; but that was in reference to no act of his, and only a fancy of my own. For myself, I can live with any one who is disposed to live with me, and love peace and good-will better than anything in the world.

We had now grown so expert, that we resolved to better ourselves and return to London, which we did somewhere about the end of February, or the beginning of March, eighteen hundred and fifty-five. We put up at a little inn in the Borough; and, before a week was over, found ourselves engaged by Mr. James Rice of the “Belvidere Tavern,” at a salary of seven pounds a week. Now, this was a great advance upon all our previous gains; and the Tavern was by no means a bad place for the founding of a theatrical reputation.

Situated halfway between the West-end and the City, surrounded by a densely populated neighbourhood, and lying in the very path of the omnibuses, this establishment was one of the most prosperous of its class. There was a theatre, and a concert-room, and a garden, where dancing, and smoking, and rifle-shooting, and supper-eating were going on from eight till twelve o’clock every night all through the summer, which made the place a special favourite with the working-classes.

Here, then, we were engaged, Griffiths and I, with a promise that our salary should be raised if we proved attractive; and raised it soon was, for we drew enormously. We brought out the perche and the ceiling business; came down, in the midst of fireworks, from a platform higher than the roof of the theatre; and, in short, did everything that ever yet was done in our line—ay, and did it well, too, though perhaps it is not my place to say so. At all events, the great coloured posters were pasted up all over the town; and our salary was increased to fifteen pounds a week; and the gentleman who writes about the plays in the Sunday Snub, was pleased to observe that there was no performance in London half so wonderful as that of the Patagonian Brothers; for which I take this opportunity to thank him kindly.

We lodged (of course together) in a quiet street on a hill near Islington. The house was kept by Mrs. Morrison, a respectable, industrious woman, whose husband had been a gas-fitter at one of the theatres, and who was now left a widow with one only daughter just nineteen years of age. She was very good and very pretty. She was christened Alice, but her mother called her Ally, and we soon fell into the same habit; for they were very simple, friendly people, and we were soon as good friends as if we had all been living together in the same house for years.

I am not a good hand at telling a story, as, I dare say, you have found out by this time—and, indeed, I never did sit down to write one out before—so I may as well come to the point at once, and confess that I loved her. I also fancied, before many weeks were over, that she did not altogether dislike me; for a man’s wits are twice as sharp when he is in love, and there is not a blush, or a glance, or a word, that he does not contrive to build some hope upon. So one day, when Griffiths was out, I went downstairs to the parlour, where she was sitting by the window, sewing, and took a chair beside her.

“Ally, my dear,” said I, stopping her right hand from working, and taking it up in both of mine; “Ally, my dear, I want to speak to you.”

She blushed, and turned pale, and blushed again, and I felt the pulses in her little soft hand throbbing like the heart of a frightened bird, but she never answered a syllable.

“Ally, my dear,” said I, “I am a plain man. I am thirty-two years of age. I don’t know how to flatter like some folks, and I have had but very little book-learning to speak of. But, my dear, I love you; and though I don’t pretend that you are the first girl I ever fancied, I can truly say that you are the first I ever cared to make my wife. So, if you’ll take me, such as I am, I’ll be a true husband to you as long as I live.”

What answer she made, or whether she spoke at all, is more than I can undertake to tell, for my ideas were all confused; but I only remember that I kissed her, and felt very happy, and that, when Mrs. Morrison came into the room, she found me with my arm clasped round my darling’s waist.

I scarcely know when it was that I first noticed the change in John Griffiths; but that it was somewhere about this time, I am tolerably certain. It is hard to put looks into words, and to make account of trifles that, after all, are matters of feeling more than matters of fact; but others saw the change as well as myself, and no one could help observing that he grew to be more silent and unsociable than ever. He kept away from home as much as possible. He spent all his Sundays out, starting away the first thing after breakfast, and not coming back again till close upon midnight. He even put an end to our old friendly custom of walking home together after our night’s work was over, and joined a sort of tap-room club that was kept by a dozen or so of idle fellows belonging to the theatre. Worse than this, he scarcely exchanged a word with me from morning till night, even when we were at meals. He watched me about the room as if I had been a thief. And sometimes, though I am sure I never wronged him willingly in my life, I caught him looking at me from under those black brows of his, as if he hated me.

More than once I laid my hand upon his sleeve as he was hurrying away on Sundays, or turning off towards the club room at night, and said, “Griffiths, have you got anything against me?”—or, “Griffiths, won’t you come home to a friendly glass with me to-night?” But he either shook me off without a word, or muttered some sulky denial that sounded more like a curse than a civil answer; so I got tired of peace-making at last, and let him go his own way, and choose his own company.

The summer was already far advanced, and our engagement at the Belvidere had well-nigh ended, when I began to buy the furniture, and Ally to prepare her wedding things. Matters continued the same with John Griffiths; but, when the day was fixed, I made up my mind to try him once again, and invite him to the church and the dinner. The circumstances of that invitation are as clear in my memory as if the whole affair had taken place this morning.

It was on the twenty-ninth of July (I am particular about dates), and there had been a general call to rehearsal at one o’clock that day. The weather was warm and hazy, and I started early that I might not go in late or tired; for I knew that, what with the rehearsal, and the new piece, and the Terrific Descent, I should have enough to do before my day’s work was over. The consequence was that I arrived about twenty minutes too soon. The gardens had a dreary look by daylight; but they were pleasanter, anyhow, than the theatre; so I loitered up and down among the smoky trees, and watched the waiters polishing the stains off the tables in the summer-houses, and thought how shabby the fountains looked when they were not playing, and what miserable gim-crack concerns were the Stalactite Caves and the Cosmoramic Grottoes, and all the other attractions which looked so fine by the light of coloured lamps and fireworks.

Well, just as I was sauntering on, turning these things over in my mind, whom should I see in one of the summerhouses but John Griffiths! He was lying forward upon the table, with his face resting upon his clasped hands, sound asleep. An empty ale-bottle and glass stood close beside him, and his stick had fallen near his chair. I could not be mistaken in him, though his face was hidden; so I went up and touched him smartly on the shoulder.

“A fine morning, John?” says I. “I thought I was here early; but it seems that you were before me, after all.”

He sprang to his feet at the sound of my voice, as if he had been struck, and then turned impatiently away.

“What did you wake me for?” he said, sullenly.

“Because I have news to tell you. You know that the sixth of August will be our last night here…. Well, mate, on the seventh, please God, Tm going to be married, and….”

“Curse you!” he interrupted, turning a livid face upon me, and an eye that glared like a tiger’s. “Curse you! How dare you come to me with that tale, you smooth-faced hound?—to me, of all men living?”

I was so little prepared for this burst of passion, that I had nothing to say; and so he went on:

“Why can’t you let me alone? What do you tempt me for? I’ve kept my hands off of you till now….”

He paused and bit his lip, and I saw that he was trembling from head to foot. I am no coward—it’s not likely that I should be a Patagonian Brother if I was. But the sight of his hatred seemed to turn me, for the moment, quite sick and giddy.

“My God!” said I, leaning up against the table, “what do you mean? Are you mad?”

He made no answer; but looked straight at me, and then walked away. I don’t know how it was; but from that moment I knew all. It was written, somehow, in his face.

“Oh! Ally, dear!” I said to myself with a kind of groan, and sat down on the nearest bench; I believe that, at that moment, I scarcely knew where I was, or what I was doing.

I did not see him again till we met on the stage, about an hour afterwards, to go through our scene in the rehearsal. It was a grand piece, with a great deal of firing, and real water, and a live camel in the last act; and Griffiths and I were Mozambique slaves, performing before the Rajah in the Hall of Candelabras. Excepting that it cost a great deal of money, that is all I ever knew about the plot; and, upon my word, I don’t believe that anybody else knew much more. By this time I had, of course, recovered my usual composure; but I could see that Griffiths had been drinking, for his face was flushed and his balance unsteady. When the rehearsal was over, Mr. Rice called us into his private room and brought out a decanter of sherry, with which, I must say, he was always as liberal as any gentleman could be.

“Patagonians,” says he, for he had a wonderfully merry way with him, and always called us by that name, “I suppose you would make no objection to a little matter of extra work and extra pay on the sixth—just to end the season with something stunning—hey?”

“No, no, sir, not we,” replied Griffiths, in a sort of hearty manner that wasn’t natural to him. “We’re ready for anything. Is it the flying business you spoke about the other day?”

“Better than that,” said the manager, filling up the glasses. “It’s a new French feat that has never yet been done in this country, and they call it the trapeze. Patagonians, your health!”

So we drank his in return, and Mr. Rice explained all about it. It was to be an exhibition of posturing and a balloon ascent both in one. At some distance below the car was to be secured a triangular wooden framework, which framework was called the trapeze. From the lower pole, or base of this triangle, one of us was to be suspended, with a ligature of strong leather attached to his ankle, in case of accidents. Just as the balloon was rising and this man ascending head-downwards, the other was to catch him by the hands and go up also, having, if he preferred it, some band or other to bind him to his companion. In this position we were then to go through our customary performances, continuing them so long as the balloon remained in sight.

“All this,” said Mr. Rice, “sounds much more dangerous than it really is. The motion of a balloon through the air is so steady and imperceptible, that, but for the knowledge of being up above the housetops, you will perform almost as comfortably as in the gardens. Besides, I am speaking to brave men who know their business, and are not to be dashed by a trifle—hey, Patagonians?”

Griffiths brought his hand down heavily upon the table, and made the glasses ring again.

“I’m ready, sir,” said he, with an oath. “I’m ready to do it alone, if any man here is afraid to go with me!”

He looked at me as he said this, with a sort of mocking laugh that brought the blood up into my face.

“If you mean that for me, John,” said I, quickly, “I’m no more afraid than yourself; and, if that’s all about it, I’ll go up to-night!”

If I was to try from now till this day next year, I never could describe the expression that came over his face as I spoke those words. It seemed to turn all the currents of my blood. I could not understand it then—but I understood it well enough afterwards.

Well, Mr. Rice was mightily pleased to find us so willing, and a very few more words ended the matter. Mr. Staines and his famous Würtemberg balloon were to be engaged; fifteen hundred additional coloured lamps were to be hired, and Griffiths and I were to receive twelve pounds apiece for the evening, over and above our general salary.

Poor Ally! In the midst of the excitement I had forgotten her, and it was not till I was out of the theatre and walking slowly homewards that I remembered she must be told. For my own part, I did not believe there was the slightest danger; but I knew how her fears would magnify everything, and the nearer I came towards Islington the more uncomfortable I felt. After all, T was such a coward—for I always am a coward where women are concerned—that I could not tell her that day, nor even the next; and it was only on Sunday, when we were sitting together after dinner, that I found courage to speak of it. I had expected something of a scene; but I had no idea that she would have taken on as she did, and I declare that, even then, if the posters had not been already out and myself bound in honour to act up to my engagement, I would have gone straight to Mr. Rice and declined the business altogether. Poor little, soft-hearted darling! it was a sore trial to her and to me also, and I was an inconsiderate idiot not to have thought of her feelings in the first instance. But there was no help for it now; so I gave her the only consolation in my power, by solemnly promising that I would be the first man tied to the trapeze. It was, of course, the safest position, and when I had assured her of this, she grew calmer. On all other points I kept my own counsel, as you may be certain; and as to John Griffiths, I saw less of him than ever. He even took his meals in the city now, and, during the seven days that elapsed between the twenty-ninth and the sixth, never once came face to face with me, except upon the stage.

I had a hard matter to get away from home when the afternoon of the sixth came round. My darling clung about me as if her heart would break, and although I did my best to cheer her, I don’t mind confessing now that I went out and cried a tear or two in the passage.

“Keep up your spirits, Ally dear,” says I, smiling and kissing her the last thing before I left the house. “And don’t be spoiling your pretty eyes in that way. Remember that I want you to look well, and that we are to be married to-morrow.”

The multitude in the Belvidere Gardens was something wonderful. There they were, men, women, and children, thronging the balconies, the orchestra stairs, and every available inch of ground; and there, in the midst of them, rolled and swayed the huge Würtemberg balloon, like a sleepy, lolling giant. The ascent was fixed for six o’clock, that we might come down again by daylight; so I made haste to dress, and then went to the green-room to see after Mr. Rice, and hear something of what was going forward.

Mr. Rice was there, and three gentlemen with him, namely. Colonel Steward, Captain Crawford, and Sydney Baird, Esquire. They were fine handsome-looking gentlemen, all three—especially Sydney Baird, Esquire, who was, as I have since been told, a play-writer, and one of the cleverest men of the day. I was going to draw back when I saw them sitting there with their wine and cigars; but they would have me in to take a glass of port, and shook hands with me all round as polite as possible, and treated me as handsome as any gentlemen could.

“Here’s health and success to you, my brave fellow,” says Colonel Steward, “and a pleasant trip to us all!” and then I found that they were going up in the car with Mr. Staines.

And now, what with their light cheerful ways and pleasant talking, and what with the glass of wine that I had taken, and the excitement, and the hum of voices from the crowd outside, I was in first-rate spirits, and as impatient to be off as a racer at the starting-point. Presently one of the gentlemen looked at his watch.

“What are we waiting for?” said he. “It is ten minutes past six already.”

And so it was. Ten minutes past the hour, and Griffiths had not yet been seen or heard of. Well, Mr. Rice grew very uneasy, and the crowd very noisy, and so twenty minutes more went by. Then we made up our minds to go without him, and Mr. Rice made a little speech and explained it to the people; and then there was a cheer, and a great bustle; and the gentlemen took their seats in the car; and a hamper full of champagne and cold chicken was put in with them; and I was made fast by one leg to the base of the trapeze; and Mr. Staines was just about to get in himself, and give the signal to cut loose, when whom should we see forcing his way through the crowd but Griffiths.

Of course there was another cheer at this, and a delay of eight or ten minutes more while he was dressing. At last he came, and it was now just a quarter to seven o’clock. He looked very sullen when he found that he was to be the undermost; but there was no time to change anything now, even if I had been willing; so his left wrist and my right were bound together by a leathern strap, the signal was given, the band struck up, the crowd applauded like mad, and the balloon rose straight and steady above the heads of the people.

Down sank the trees and the fountains, and the pavement of upturned faces. Down sank the roof of the theatre, and fainter grew the sound of the hurrahing and the music. The sensation was so strange, that for the first moment I was forced to close my eyes, and felt as if I must fall, and be dashed to pieces. But that soon passed away, and by the time we had risen to about three hundred feet I was as comfortable as if I had been born and bred in the air with my head downwards.

Presently we began our performances. Griffiths was as cool as possible—I never saw him cooler—and we went through every conceivable attitude; now swinging by our hands, now by our feet, now throwing somersaults one over the other. And during the whole of this time the streets and squares seemed to sink away to the right, and the noises from the living world died on the air—and, as I turned and slung, changing my position with every minute, I caught strange flitting glimpses of the sunset and the city, the sky and the river, the gentlemen leaning over the car and the tiny passengers swarming down below like ants on an anthill.

Then the gentlemen grew tired of leaning over, and began to talk and laugh, and busy themselves over their hamper. Then the Surrey hills drew nearer, and the city sank away to the right, farther and farther. Then there were nothing but green fields with lines of railways crossing them here and there; and presently it grew quite damp and misty, and we ceased to see anything, except through breaks and openings in the clouds.

“Come, John,” says I, “our share of this business is done. Don’t you think we might as well be getting into the car?”

He was hanging below just then, holding on by my two hands, and had been hanging so quite quiet for some minutes. He didn’t seem to hear me; and no wonder, for the clouds were gathering about us so thickly, that even the voices of the gentlemen up above grew muffled, and I could hardly see for a yard before me in any direction. So I called to him again, and repeated the question.

He made no answer, but shifted his grasp from my hand to my wrist, and then up to the middle of my arm, so raising himself by degrees, till our faces came nearly on a level. There he paused, and I felt his hot breath on my cheek.

“William Waldur,” said he hoarsely, “wasn’t to-morrow to have been your wedding-day?”

Something in the tone of his voice, in the question, in the dusk and dreadful solitude, struck me with horror. I tried to shake off his hands, but he held too fast for that.

“Well, what if it was?” said I after a moment. “You needn’t grip so hard. Catch hold of the pole, will you? and let go of my arms.”

He gave a short hard laugh, but never stirred.

“I suppose we’re about two thousand feet high,” says he, and it seemed to me that he had something between his teeth. “If either of us was to fall, he’d be a dead man before he touched the ground.”

I would have given the world at that moment to be able to see his face; but that with my own head being downwards, and all his weight hanging to my arms, T had no more power than an infant.

“John!” I exclaimed, “what do you mean? Catch hold of the pole, and let me do the same. My head’s on fire!”

“Do you see this?” said he, catching my arms a couple of inches higher up, and looking right into my face. “Do you see this?”

It was a large, open clasp-knife, and he was holding it with his teeth. His breath seemed to hiss over the cold blade.

“I bought it this evening—I hid it in my belt—I waited till the clouds came round and there was no soul to see. Presently I shall cut you away from the balloon. I took an oath that you should never have her, and I mean to keep it.”

A dimness came over my eyes, and everything grew red. I felt that in another minute I should be insensible. He thought I was so already, and, letting my arms free, made a spring at the pole overhead.

That spring saved me. Our wrists were bound together, and as he rose he drew me along with him; for I was so faint and giddy that I could make no effort for myself.

I saw him hold by the pole with his left hand; I saw him take the knife in his right; I felt the cold steel pass between his wrist and mine, and then….

And then, the horror of the moment gave me back my strength, and I clung to the framework just as the thong gave way.

We were separated now, and I was still secured to the trapeze by one ankle. He had only his arms to trust to—and the knife.

Oh, the deadly, deadly strife that followed! it sickens me to think of it. His only hope now lay in the cursed weapon; and so clinging to the woodwork with one hand, he strove to stab me with the other.

It was life or death now, and I grew desperate. To feel his murderous clutch upon my throat, and, in the silence of the hideous struggle, to hear the report of a champagne cork, followed by a peal of careless laughter, overhead…. Oh, it was worse than death, a hundred times over!

I cannot tell how long we clung thus, each with a hand upon the other’s throat. It may have been only a few seconds; but it seemed like hours to me. The question was simply which should be stranded first.

Presently his grip relaxed, his lips became dead-white, and a shudder ran through every fibre of his body. He had turned giddy!

Then a cry burst from him—a cry like nothing human. He made a false clutch at the trapeze, and reeled over. I caught him, just in time, by the belt round his waist.

“It’s all over with me,” be groaned between his set teeth. “It’s all—over—with me! Take your revenge!”

Then his head fell heavily back, and he hung, a dead weight, on my arm.

I did take my revenge; but it was hard work, and I was already half exhausted. How I contrived to hold him up, to unbind my foot, and to crawl, so laden, up the ropes, is more than I can tell; but my presence of mind never failed me for an instant, and I suppose the excitement gave me a sort of false strength while it lasted. At all events, I did it, though I now only remember climbing over the basket-work, and seeing the faces of the gentlemen all turned upon me as I sank to the bottom of the car, scarcely more alive than the burthen in my arms.

He is a penitent man now, an Australian settler, and, as I am told, well to do in those parts.

This is my story, and I have no more to tell.

Vendetta

(1874)

I

Yes—I have seen some strange sights and come across some strange characters in my time. A man can scarcely lead such a wandering life as I have led for these last fifteen years, without acquiring a more extended view of human nature than if he had all the time been sitting by his own fireside and cultivating his paternal acres. The ups and downs of fortune, the ins and outs of character, are brought more forcibly before him. He sees life in extremes. Its dark side shows more darkly, its bright side more brightly, than to those who survey it from the dead-level of every-day experience. He is brought face to face with want, with crime, with temptation. He learns how hard it is to be honest. He becomes familiar with many kinds of peril. He sees his fellow-men, in short, as the pedestrian sees the country through which he travels—from the ruggedest path, but the most picturesque point of view.

I come of a respectable West of England family, and my name is Matthew Skey. At the time of which I am about to tell you, I was holding a somewhat anomalous employment in the service of one Charles Davila, the proprietor of a well-known travelling circus and menagerie. I can scarcely say what office I filled in the Davila establishment, or rather what office I did not fill, for my duties were as various as the resources of the company. I organized the travelling arrangements; drew up the programmes; attended to the advertising department; designed the costumes; wrote comic interludes for the circus; was equally ready to take a part in the performance or a violin in the orchestra; and could even do a little scene-painting upon occasion. For what profession I was originally destined, and what were the circumstances of my connection with Davila’s company, are matters altogether apart from the present narrative. I am not about to discuss the faults and follies of my youth; but to relate, as nearly as I can remember them, certain events which took place towards the close of my engagement, just eleven years ago.

Charles Davila—or, as he called himself in the bills. Signor Carlo Davila—was of foreign extraction. I believe that Davila was his real name. His parents, at all events, were Corsican; but he was born at Dover, and was as thoroughly English in speech, habits, and bringing up as any one of his troupe. At the time of which I speak, he was about fifty-four or five years of age—a short, powerfully-built, sallow, dark-haired, dark-eyed man, surly and domineering towards all over whom his authority extended, and, though a liberal paymaster, by no means popular among the members of his company. A solvent exchequer, however, covers a multitude of offences, and Davila’s insolence was, fortunately for us, the insolence of prosperity. He possessed what has been happily defined as the genius of success; and, to support it, that rarest of all qualifications in a strolling manager—some few thousands of capital. These he had obtained with his second wife, a poor, meek, frightened creature, whom he ruled like a despot, and who trembled at the sound of his footfall. The one only thing that he loved was his child by the first marriage. To her, even when in his roughest moods, he could deny nothing. To her, he never spoke an angry word. All that she said, all that she wished, was right. And she loved him back again as well as she could love anything, but in a heavy, passive way; for her mind was clouded, and at eight years of age, she spoke and acted with less intelligence than a child of four.

The Davila company, in my time, was the largest company upon the road. We travelled with seven van-loads of beasts, twenty trained horses, a performing elephant, a portable stage and circus, and a train of riders, athletes, musicians, and supernumeraries, numbering, to the best of my recollection, over forty persons. Sometimes, as for instance at country fairs, we broke up into three divisions, and by presenting three separate entertainments, a circus, a theatre, and a wild beast show, swept off all the business of the place. But we frequented large towns for the most part, where we occasionally settled down for a month at a time. On coming to any fresh place, we made our entry in grand procession, mounted and costumed, the vans dressed with streamers, the elephant caparisoned, the band playing before us. On these occasions, the Davila family used to appear in Greek dresses, as Mars, Venus, and Cupid, grouped in a fancy chariot drawn by four cream-coloured horses. This always produced a great effect.

Davila acted as our circus-master. He had been a famous rider in his younger days, but having broken his leg by falling through a stage-trap, had now for several years been obliged to give up all but the quietest riding. A better trainer, however, never lived, nor a better manager. He worked hard, too,—harder in his way, perhaps, than any of us. He kept the keys of the stables, of the wardrobe, of the vans. He saw the horses fed three times a day. He had them led out before him, one by one, every morning before breakfast. He went round the stables, looked to the menagerie, and examined the padlocks on the cages, once, if not twice, in the course of each night. He fed the wild beasts with his own hands.

He kept the accounts. He paid the salaries. He superintended the rehearsals. In short, he was a man of indomitable industry; successful, because he neglected none of the conditions of success, and thoroughly upright in all his dealings.

I had been connected with the company close upon two years when we received what was called in the bills “an important accession of strength,” in the person of Herr Jungla, the Lion King, with his five magnificent beasts. We were staying, I remember, at Chichester, and preparing to move on to Brighton. We had seen Jungla’s posters everywhere along the road for weeks past. He had preceded us at Southampton, at Gosport, and at Portsmouth. We had overtaken him at Chichester, and he, like ourselves, was bound for Brighton. Our own strength was such that, in the ordinary way, a coincidence of this kind would have made no impression upon us. But the Lion King was really an attraction, and by the time we overtook him in Chichester we had begun to find that he was rivalling us in a way that already told upon the treasury.

But Davila was, as I have already said, a first-rate man of business. He knew when to be cautious, and he also knew when to be bold. This time it was his policy to be bold. Without hinting at his intention, he went straight to Herr Jungla’s quarters, and offered him a starring engagement for six months. Whatever were the terms—and they must have been considerable—the Lion King accepted them, and both he and his beasts appeared next day in our programme.

He was a superb man—nearly six feet two in height, muscular as a pugilist, lithe as a tiger, bronzed as a Zouave, and so strong that he could bend a horseshoe by the pressure of his thumb and forefinger. As for his eyes, I never saw any so black, so bright, so penetrating. They seemed to strike fire when he frowned.

In these eyes lay the secret of his power. With one intense, unwavering glance, he held the fiercest beasts in check. They obeyed it. They trembled at it. They crouched before it. Trusting to this power alone, and armed only with a tiny dog-whip, he would venture into a cage full of lions; lie down in the midst of them; caress them; rebuke them; grasp their mighty jaws with both hands, and show their teeth to the audience; take her pups from the lioness, and carry them about the theatre in his arms—do everything, in short, that Van Amburgh himself had done, except put his head into the lion’s mouth. Upon that feat he would never venture. When tired of life, he said, in his reckless way, he should prefer to blow his brains out rather than serve them up as sauce to be eaten with his own head. “Besides,” he would add, “a lion has no delicate discrimination in these matters. Any fool’s brains would seem to him to have as fine a flavour—why, then, should I throw mine away upon a fellow who would not even do justice to the dish?”

Who he was, whence he came, what was his real name, were questions that he would not have answered had any amongst us been bold enough to ask him. That he was a gentleman we never doubted for an instant. He spoke five European languages with the facility of a native, and was familiar with Arabic and Hindostanee. He could toss a half-crown in the air and pierce it with a pistol-bullet as it came down. He would ride at anything we pleased to put before him, and took the leaping-bar at a higher level than Davila himself. From the way in which he sat his horse, swung himself in and out of the saddle, handled a sabre, and drilled our riders on one occasion in a cavalry charge, we made certain that he had, at some time or other, seen military service. But this was conjecture only, for of his early life he never spoke; and those who at first were rash enough to seek to know more than he chose to tell, took good care never to repeat the liberty.

As for travelling, he seemed to have been everywhere and seen everything. All kinds of sport were familiar to him. He had shot bears in Russia, lions at the Cape, gorillas on the Gaboon, tigers in Bengal, wolves in Canada, buffaloes in the far West, jaguars on the Amazon, tapirs in Brazil, and kangaroos in Australia. The lions which he exhibited were of his own capture and training. He had taken them as pups, and sometimes, when it was his humour to talk, would tell of the difficulties and dangers he had to encounter before he could secure and keep alive as many as were necessary for the carrying out of his project. He had now five full-grown beasts, two lionesses and three lions, besides a couple of pups about three months old; and he ruled them absolutely. They both loved and feared him. With a word he could bring them fawning to his feet, or send them cowering to the farthest corner of the cage. I well remember the first time I saw him go in amongst them—the light step with which he entered; the snap of the spring when the door closed behind him; the resolute look in his face; the careless confidence with which he called them about him, giving each brute his name, passing his hand caressingly over their heads, dealing a smart lash to one that presumed to growl because the master waked him, and then lying down in the midst of them, with his head on the shoulder of one, and his arm round the huge neck of another.

It was a grand sight; and though I saw it daily after that, and sometimes twice a day, I never learned to look upon it with indifference.

Haughty and exclusive as he was, holding himself as much aloof from the manager as from the rest of the troupe, there were still two persons for whom the lion king came by-and-by to lay aside somewhat of his reserve, and those two were Davila’s little girl and myself. I was not particularly flattered by the preference, for I did not believe that he liked me any better than he liked Davila, or St. Aubyn, or Montanari, or any others of the men. He simply found that I was better educated, and was glad to have some one at hand with whom he could now and then converse on equal terms. Of poor little Lotta (the child’s name was Carlotta, but every one called her Lotta) he became, however, curiously fond. He took a strange, compassionate interest in the working of that torpid brain. He would talk down to her level, try to rouse her curiosity, watch the slow changes of expression in her pale little face, and listen to her imperfect utterances with a gentleness that seemed quite touching in a man of his impatient temper. He used to take her into the fields and teach her the names of trees and flowers; and into the menagerie, where he amused her with stories of bears, wolves, and monkeys. These walks and stories were in fact, lessons—the only lessons her mind was capable of receiving, and by-and-by the child began to brighten.

Men like Jungla are apt to deny the softer side of their better selves, and to be ashamed of their humanity; so when the child was named, he used to speak of her as of a curious psychological problem, and put his interest in her to the account of scientific curiosity. But this was mere sham. He was a lonely reckless man, without, apparently, a single near or natural tie in the wide world, and his heart warmed to the poor little, half-dumb, melancholy child. The truth was he loved her dearly—the more dearly the more she owed to him—and was ashamed of his weakness.

In the meanwhile the Lion King was an immense success. As I have already said, we were a prosperous company; but he more than doubled our prosperity. At Brighton, at Ramsgate, at Margate, we drew overwhelming audiences. We turned away money night after night; we raised the prices of our stalls from three shillings to five, and had them filled with all the best people of each place at which we stayed. It was, in short, the Golden Age come back.

At length, when Jungla’s engagement had run to about half its term, Davila called a meeting of five or six of the leading members of the company, and announced that he had made arrangements for a provincial tour on an extended scale, in the course of which we were to put up only at important places, such as Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, and so forth. We were staying at Rochester at the time, and the meeting was held at the manager’s lodgings.

“It is my intention,” he said, standing with his back to the empty fireplace, and speaking in his short, decisive way, “to place this company on a higher footing. The menagerie will in future form a separate exhibition, and be shown only by day, whilst our evening performances, will assume a more dramatic character than any we have yet been in the habit of attempting. Mr. Skey will write us a new romantic, equestrian drama, which shall include all our principal attractions. Upon the getting up of this piece I mean to spare no expense. I have already seen a design for a new portable stage and proscenium on a large scale, and I am negotiating for the services of a professed scene-painter. A liberal stock of new dresses and appointments of every description will also be provided. I intend to raise the price of admission throughout the house, keeping the stalls at five shillings; and if our success equals my expectations I shall raise the salaries of the entire establishment. I hope, gentlemen, you like my programme?”

“It sounds well enough,” said Jungla, sitting carelessly on the corner of the table, and twisting a paper cigarette; “but what about the new and original romantic drama? Do you propose to bring in your obedient servant and the lions?”

“Of course. Mr. Skey will construct his piece expressly for your performance. That is understood, Mr. Skey?”

I nodded gloomily.

“And my feats on the bare-backed Arab?” said St. Aubyn, who was our principal rider. “It’s of no use to give me a mere stage-part: my strong point’s the circus. If I haven’t some acts of horsemanship, I’d rather be left out of the piece altogether.”

“Confound it, Sir! you needn’t begin to make difficulties,” replied Davila, sharply. “Mr. Skey understands that our scenes of the circus must form a prominent feature in the piece.”

“Mine, of course, will be comic business,” said Montanari, the Grimaldi of the company. “I have only one stipulation to make, and that is that I shall sing ‘Hot Codlins.’”

“Good heavens, Mr. Montanari I” I exclaimed, “do you suppose I am going to write a pantomime? Who ever heard of ‘Hot Codlins’ in a romantic drama?”

“Pantomime or no pantomime, it brings me a double encore every time I sing it,” said Montanari, sullenly; “and you know the value of that as well as I do.”

“Mr. Montanari is right,” interposed Davila. “We could not spare the double encore. You must put it in somehow, Mr. Skey.”

“And then there’s the elephant, you know,” suggested De Clifford, another member of the company.

“Oh, the elephant appears of course. You will be sure to bring in the elephant, Mr. Skey^

I snatched up my hat in desperation.

“You must give me an hour or two to think it over,” I said. “I will take a turn in the fields, and meet you by-and-by at rehearsal.”

With this I ran downstairs, along the principal street, over the bridge, and into the meadows on the opposite side of the river. This field-path, with the hop-grounds on one hand, and the river and town on the other, had been my favourite walk ever since our coining to Rochester, and here I now strolled backwards and forwards, considering the difficulties of my task. The more T thought of them, however, the more hopeless they seemed.

I was required to construct a new, original, and romantic drama. That meant the orthodox thing—hero, heroine, heavy father, unscrupulous rival, terrific single combat, and triumph of virtue, according to immemorial precedent. But (and here my troubles began) into this drama I must contrive to bring Herr Jungla and his cageful of lions. They must even be necessary to the plot—actively instrumental in the defeat of the unscrupulous rival, and the ultimate triumph of virtue. And I must provide equestrian feats for the riders; and comic business (to say nothing of those objectionable “Hot Codlins “) for the clown; and employment for the elephant. Was ever task so hopeless?

I sat down on a stile, buried my face in my hands, and tried to think. I called up all the stories I had read of lions, lion-hunts, and elephants. I conjured up distressed princesses and oriental despots by the score. Crusades and tournaments, Hannibal with his elephants crossing the Alps, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Saladin and Coeur de Lion, Androcles, Charlemagne, Tamerlane, The Cid, and a host of equally incongruous persons and events flitted before my mind’s eye; but in vain. Puzzle over it as I might, I could hit on nothing practicable.

While I was yet brooding over nay difficulties, a child and a dog came running towards me from the farther end of the meadow, followed by a man in a slouched hat who was sauntering along with a cigar in his mouth and his hands in his pockets. This trio proved to be Herr Jungla, his dog Schnapps, and the manager’s little daughter Lotta.

“Eccolo!” he said, laughing. “I guessed we should find you here. What! still incubating heroics? Take a cigar: the Muses love tobacco.”

“The Muses be hanged!” I replied, savagely. “I have been racking my brains here for the last hour, and cannot pump up an idea.”

“Why not dip into your neighbour’s well? There are the perennial springs of the Hippodrome and the Porte Saint Martin, to say nothing of the Cirque.”

“No good. Where should I find anything into which I could foist lions, horses, ‘Hot Codlins,’ and an elephant? The thing is hopeless.”

He laughed again; flung himself at full length on the grass; and, taking his cigar from his lips, said:

“Look here, Skey. What would you say if I had an idea at your service?”

“You?”

“A magnificent idea, classical, scenical, historical, moral, instructive.”

“I will immortalize you in my epic—when I write it!”

“Listen, then. And you, little Lotta, sit by me and listen too. Down, Schnapps! Down, old boy!”

The child slipped her little hand in his, and sat by with large, listening eyes; the dog lay with his nose upon his paws; and Jungla, leaning on his elbow, began:

“Suppose then, Skey, that we lay our scene in Rome, Anno something or another, reign of Septimius Severus. Principal characters, Septimius and his wife, the Empress Julia; the Emperor’s two sons by the first wife, Caracalla and Geta; and his infant daughter by the second marriage. Whether he had an infant daughter or not is of no consequence. We invent her, and call her Livia. Also a celebrated Roman general, with a high-sounding name and a lovely daughter. We will call the lovely daughter, Irene. Lastly, we have the Prince of Cyprus, who is a Christian captive and our hero. I shall play the Prince of Cyprus; so please to give me plenty of noble sentiments to bring down the gallery.”

“But the plot—”

“Patience. Now for the plot. Open with Roman Forum—discontented citizens clamouring for panem et circenses—enter herald, proclaiming victory in Cyprus—exit citizens, rejoicing tumultuously. Scene second, Campus Martins. Emperor and Empress seated on lofty throne—Caracalla, Geta, and infant Lydia grouped around them—the lovely Irene standing at the foot of dais—background of admiring citizens—distant flourish of trumpets—victorious general approaching in triumph—lovely Irene apostrophises the gods—enter advanced guard on horseback—banners, band, Roman eagles—Christian captives, two and two—elephant laden with spoils—Prince of Cyprus, in chains—more guards—victorious general in car of triumph drawn by four cream-coloured horses—speech of Emperor—reply of general—lovely Irene presents father with wreath of oak~leaves—burst of parental affection—Tableau. Gates of circus are now thrown open. General descends from chariot, and occupies chair of state—lovely Irene sits at his feet. And now, you observe, we bring in all our circus-work in honour of the general; and St. Aubyn has his barebacked Arab, and Miss De Robinson her hoop and ribbon acts, and all the rest of it.”

“Superb! The very thing I wanted!”

“Meanwhile, our Christian prince and lovely Irene fall in love at first sight—expressive pantomime—rage and mortification of Caracalla, who is himself desperately smitten with Irene—Emperor, at close of games, announces show of beasts and gladiators in amphitheatre for following day—Caracalla, kneeling, requests that Prince of Cyprus may be given to the lions in celebration of victory and honour of the Gods—Emperor grants request—acclamations of multitude—Prince of Cyprus makes heroic speech in blank verse—lovely Irene carried out in swoon—Tableau—end of Act first. Now comes Act second. Mamertine prison—Prince of Cyprus in chains—soliloquy in blank verse—door of cell opens—enter Irene—implores him to save his life by sacrificing to the gods—agonising scene—Love—Duty—Temptation—Religion and Honour triumphant—Irene converted—enter more Christian captives—grand chorus—end of Scene first. Scene second—the Amphitheatre. Emperor, Empress, Caracalla, Geta, infant Livia, victorious General, lovely Irene, and admiring populace, as before. Combats of gladiators, feats of skill and strength by the athletes of the company and so forth. Flourish of trumpets—scene opens at back and discloses cage of lions—Prince of Cyprus brought in chains—is offered his life if he will sacrifice to gods—refuses in blank verse—Emperor gives signal—-guards advance—quick as thought. Prince of Cyprus breaks away—springs over barrier and up steps of throne—snatches infant Livia from her mother’s arms, leaps with her into the arena, and stands with her at the door of lion’s cage. “Advance but a step,” he cries, “and I fling the princess to the lions!” Universal consternation—agony of Empress Julia—Tableau.”

“Glorious! it will bring the house down.”

“Ay, but the best is to come. What say you to his then and there suspending a cross round the neck of the royal infant; calling upon all present to witness the power of the holy symbol; walking straight into the cage with her in his arms, and standing unharmed in the midst of the lions?”

“The infant Livia being represented by a doll, I suppose?”

“Nothing of the kind! The infant Livia being played by my little Lotta here, who is not a bit afraid of the lions, and will be as safe in my arms as in her own little bed.”

The child looked up and smiled. She was ready to go with him at that very moment, if he so pleased. I wondered what Davila would say to this proposal, and a faint shadow of apprehension passed over me like a breath of cold wind.

Jungla went on.

“The rest is soon sketched. Prince of Cyprus restores child, and goes through lion programme amid acclamations of multitude—Emperor grants his pardon and bids him ask a boon—demands hand of lovely Irene—Caracalla interposes—challenges him to single combat—grand sword fight—Prince of Cyprus victorious—spares Caracalla’s life when down, and gives him back his sword—Prince of Cyprus then flings himself at feet of lovely Irene—General joins their hands—flourish of trumpets—Tableau—curtain falls amid tempest of applause. Now, what of my plot? Will it do?”

“Do? It is invaluable! How am I ever to thank you enough?”

“By making a success with it, and writing me a capital part. By the way, we’ve not provided for ‘Hot Codlins.’”

“We cannot: it would ruin the play.”

“No, no. Montanari must have his double encore. The Emperor’s jester can sing it, and we’ll put a footnote to the bills, stating that the song is of Thracian origin, and was introduced into Rome with the Dionysiac festival. This will give it an air of classic respectability. And now Lotta and I will continue our walk. Hie on, old Schnapps! Fare thee well, son of the Muses!”

And with this, the Lion King sprang to his feet, lit a fresh cigar, and left me to jot down the heads of that highly-successful new and original romantic equestrian drama, which shortly afterwards came out under the imposing title of “Ariobarzanes, Prince of Cyprus, and the fair Irene; or the Last Days of the Empire of the West, and the Royal Lion Tamer of the Flavian Amphitheatre.”

II

The new piece took immensely. We brought it out first of all at Reading, where we ran it for thirty nights without change of programme; and thence carried it through all the principal towns of the Western and Midland counties. Crowded audiences and a well-stocked exchequer accompanied each step of our progress. Jungla’s engagement was renewed for another six months. The salaries of the entire establishment were raised, according to the manager’s promise; whilst I, as author of the piece, received a gratification over and above my increase of weekly pay, in the shape of a cheque for ten guineas. In short, we were enjoying a run of unexampled success, and Davila was at the height of his prosperity.

Yet, strangely enough, he seemed none the happier for it. His temper on the contrary became gloomier as his prospects brightened. Month after month went by; the tide of success flowed on unchecked; and still he who profited most grew daily more solitary and morose. He looked like a man weighed down with secret care. The lines about his mouth grew fixed and rigid, his eyes restless, his gait slouching. He had never been a sociable man, but till now he had never been a misanthrope. That he should turn back in the streets-at sight of an acquaintance—answer at random when spoken to—now suffer the merest trifle to provoke him to storms of rage, now permit acts of the grossest negligence to pass unrebuked, were traits of character which showed themselves for the first time.

Knowing him to be a sullen-tempered man, we scarcely observed the change till it had become habitual. Once awake, however, to the fact, we talked of nothing else.

What was it? Why was it? Had he lost money in private speculations? Had he done anything in which he feared to be discovered? Was his mind giving way, and were these the first symptoms of insanity? We might well he anxious—we might well discuss the subject; for on Davila’s sagacity and energy the fortunes of the whole company depended.

I have already said that my duties were of the most heterogeneous kind, and included all those which are understood to devolve upon an acting manager. As acting manager, therefore, I was brought into almost daily contact with Davila and his family. Let him shun others as he would, he was obliged to see me. Had he not done so, we must ere long have come to a stand-still, for I could do nothing without his sanction. If, therefore, he avoided the theatre, unwelcome as I knew myself to be, I was forced to seek him at his lodgings.

At these times he would sit with his face turned from me, scarcely listening to what I had to say; replying in monosyllables; often not replying at all; and sometimes, for no apparent cause, breaking into sudden fits of savage impatience. His wife seemed more afraid of him than ever. Even the child’s presence irritated him. There were times when he seemed as if he could not bear the sight of her; when a stranger might almost have believed that he hated her. Knowing how the man used to idolize his little Lotta, this change struck me as the most ominous of all.

“It would be a satisfaction to know what is the matter with Davila,” said Jungla, meeting me one morning on my way to the manager’s lodgings. “He looks at me as if he would like to grind my bones to make his bread.”

“He looks at every one in the same way,” I replied.

“I think not. I believe he honours me with a special and peculiar aversion. You should have seen the expression of his face last Saturday, when I went up to the treasury.”

“General ill-will, believe me. I am going to him now with yesterday’s accounts, and he will treat me as if I were his worst enemy. There is little Lotta—you would fancy he abhorred her.”

The Lion King pulled vaguely at his moustache, and looked thoughtful.

“If anything goes wrong with Davila,” he said, presently—” I mean, if he goes mad, or more likely still, commits suicide, what will become of that child? Mrs. Davila’s not her mother, and, so far as I can see, cares little enough about her.”

“He has money,” I suggested.

“Who knows? It may be all muddled away in some limited or unlimited swindle. Then there is the wife to provide for; and the money, after all, was hers. By Jove I—I think I should have to take little Lotta myself.”

Then seeing me repress a smile, he added, quickly:

“Not but what that would be an intolerable bore, you know. Altogether out of my line. More in my way to adopt lions than children.”

With this he nodded, and left me. In another moment I was at the door of Davila’s lodgings. We were staying at Leeds at the time, and the manager was in occupation of a first and second floor over a shop in the market-place. I ran up-stairs and found him at the window, with his back towards the door by which I entered.

“Well,” he said, without looking round, “what is it?”

“Yesterday’s accounts, Mr. Davila,” I replied, “if you have leisure to go through them.”

He muttered something inaudible, but neither turned nor stirred.

“Mr. Flack of Nottingham has written,” I said, arranging my papers on the table. “He wants to know when we are likely to be in that neighbourhood. Their great annual cattle-fair comes off in about six weeks, and he thinks, if you could arrange to be there about that time….”

“I won’t pledge myself,” interrupted Davila, impatiently.

“Shall I say that we will write again in a week or two?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”

“By the way, Herr Jungla’s engagement will expire in a little more than a fortnight.”

He made a sudden movement, but said nothing. Having paused a moment for his reply, I went on.

“Do you wish me to say anything about it?”

“About what?”

“About the renewal of his engagement.”

He turned at last, his face ablaze with anger.

“No/’ he said, savagely; “not a word.”

“Oh, very well,” I replied; “I had far rather you did it yourself. I was only afraid you did not know how time was going.”

“I am not going to do it myself,” he said, with an oath. “I don’t choose to renew the engagement. Herr Jungla may go.

“Herr Jungla may go?” I repeated. “Impossible!”

“Why impossible?”

“Because he is our greatest attraction;—because we could not carry on the piece without him. Why, it’s not many weeks since you entirely renewed all the dresses and decorations.”

“For all that,” he said, dropping into a chair and drumming angrily upon the table with his knuckles, “Herr Jungla may go, and you may tell him so.”

“I should be sorry to give that message,” I said, “till you have thought it over.”

He laughed discordantly.

Just at that moment I heard the child’s voice on the stairs, not prattling joyously as happy children prattle, but timidly, as fearing rebuke or question. Then, as she came nearer, it sank to a whisper and the little feet went stealing softly across the landing. I glanced from the door to the manager’s face. I could not have told why I looked at him. The impulse was involuntary. But what a face it was! The angry flush was gone, and a dead, dull pallor had come there in its place. His eyes were fixed upon the carpet; his lips pressed hard together; his brows knitted. He said nothing. He listened; and as the child crept by, I saw one large vein rise and throb upon his temple like an angry pulse. There was no passion in the face to make it terrible; nothing but an ominous, intense suppression of emotion. What was the nature of that emotion? A dim half-intelligible suspicion flashed upon me. I remembered what Jungla had been saying as we came through the town. I could not have helped speaking, had it been to save my life.

“Your little girl has improved very much of late,” I said. “I was quite surprised yesterday to find her reading one of the stories in ‘Sandford and Merton.’ She scarcely knew her letters six months ago.

He looked up confusedly, as hearing, but not taking in the sense of my words.

“Were it only on her account,” I continued, “you would scarcely wish, I should think, to lose Herr Jungla. It would break her little heart to be parted from him.”

He sprang to his feet like a madman; broke into a storm of incoherent curses; swore that Jungla should go, though it were to ruin him ten times over; then, exhausted by the force of his own fury, dropped back into his chair, laid his head down upon the table, and sobbed like a child.

“I’d give all I have,” he cried, “never to have seen his face! We were happy enough once. I didn’t want her to be clever; she was clever enough for me. I only wanted her to love me. And she did love me—I was all the world to her!”

I was deeply affected. I saw it all BOW, and I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. The man’s whole being was rooted in the child, and he was enduring torments of jealousy. I tried to comfort him; but he would not be comforted.

“No, no!” he said; “it is of no use. I know better. He has robbed me of my child. Oh, curse him! I hate him!—I hate him!”

I went from the house that morning more troubled than I would have cared to confess. What should I say to Jungla? That Davila did actually hate him I could no longer doubt. I felt that it was no mere figure of speech. He hated him with a Corsican’s hatred—with a hatred that was eating away his own heart—that might end in madness—that must lead to ruin. I made no further effort to get Jungla’s engagement renewed. I had an instinctive feeling that the sooner all business relations were over between them, the better for both. I knew, of course, that we could ill afford to lose the Lion King and his lions, or to withdraw “The Prince of Cyprus” from our bills. But I also knew that the present state of things could not long go on except at the cost of absolute destruction, and that to bring Davila back to his former self was, at this moment, the one object of paramount importance. Acting, therefore, upon this unwelcome conviction, I gave Jungla to understand that he would be free at the expiration of his term to make whatever arrangements or engagements he pleased. To say that he was not taken by surprise would be untrue. He knew his own value, and could pretty well estimate what Davila’s loss would be on “The Prince of Cyprus” alone. He smiled, however, shrugged his shoulders, and took it coolly enough.

“As Mr. Davila pleases,” he said. “I told you that he honoured me with a special aversion, and here is proof positive of the same. Well, chacun à son gout. I rejoice to find that our friend can afford to indulge his little prejudices after so expensive a fashion.”

This was all the comment he made. He expressed no regret, betrayed no annoyance, said not one word of little Lotta. But I observed after this that he seemed as if he could scarcely let her out of his sight for ten minutes together.

At length, some three or four days having gone by, he announced his intention of running over to Glasgow to make arrangements for the hire of the theatre in Dunlop Street, where he purposed giving a series of performances on his own responsibility. Now the journey from Leeds to Glasgow occupies rather more than eight hours each way, and we were playing the “Prince of Cyprus” every night, except on Saturdays, when we gave a morning performance instead. Moreover, as all who have sojourned in North Britain know but too well, there is no midday travelling on Scottish lines on Sundays. So Jungla’s only course was to start from Leeds immediately after the morning performance on Saturday, arriving in Glasgow between eleven and twelve at night; spending his Sunday in Glasgow; leaving again for Leeds at about a quarter to eleven on Monday morning, and just getting back in time to fling himself into a fly, drive at once to the theatre, and dress for the rising of the curtain at half-past seven.

“Look here, Skey,” he said, half whimsically, half pathetically, “you’ll have an eye to my young family now and then, while I’m away?”

“What—to the lions?”

“Yes, to the lions. Pratt is, of course, a thoroughly careful and trustworthy fellow; but I am a tender parent, you see, and it goes to my heart to leave the pretty dears to the care of a keeper.”

I professed my readiness to do what I could, but reminded him that my acquaintance with the manners and customs of lions was of the most limited description.

“Tell me what you wish done,” I said, “and I will do it. Am I to see them fed?”

“Oh no. Pratt knows all about that. Five o’clock is their hour, and he knows just what they ought to have. You might, perhaps, see that he is punctual. I like them to be fed punctually—it spoils their tempers to be kept waiting over time. He will be punctual to-day, for it is just four now, and he is not likely to forget them an hour hence; however, I really don’t want you to do anything in particular, my dear fellow. All I ask is that you will just let Pratt feel that somebody is looking after him. If you would kindly saunter in, you know, once or twice in the course of each day, and say something, if it’s only about the weather—you understand what I mean.”

“Perfectly. I will do my best, depend on it.”

“A thousand thanks. I wouldn’t trouble you, only that it’s a long time to be away—over fifty hours, you see. I never have left them for quite so long before. Good-bye—so much obliged—will do the same for you another day.”

This conversation took place on the Saturday afternoon, at the door of Jungla’s dressing-room, as he was preparing to be gone by the 4.15 express, immediately after the performance. The stage was not yet cleared. The lights were not yet all extinguished. The last fiddler was still putting up his music in the orchestra.

“Good-bye,” I said, as he snatched up his bag and ran towards the door. “Bon voyage.”

At that moment a wail of childish sorrow rang through the house, and little Lotta, still in her stage finery, darted after him, calling piteously upon his name.

“Oh, take me with you!” she cried. “Don’t—don’t—don’t go away! Oh, please take me with you!”

“My pet, don’t cry,” said Jungla. He had turned back at the first sound of her voice, and had now taken her in his arms, and was kissing her tenderly. “Don’t cry, my little maiden. I am coming back the day after to-morrow.”

“No—no—no! You are never coming back! They told me you were never coming back! Oh, why do you go away? What shall I do? Why don’t you take me too?”

“My darling—my little pet,” said Jungla. “I am coming back—ask Mr. Skey. Say something to comfort her, Skey, when I’m gone. God bless you, my pretty one. I wish I could take you—I wish it with all my heart.”

Saying this, he kissed her again, put her gently down, and ran away at full speed.

I tried to say something. I told her he was certainly coming back on Monday, and would play with her as usual in “The Prince of Cyprus” on Monday night; for Lotta did perform the infant Livia, and was carried into the lions’ den by Jungla every evening to thunders of applause.

“Is it quite certain?” she asked, looking up doubtfully.

I assured her it was quite certain.

“And then will he never go away any more?”

At this question I hesitated.

“Do you love him so dearly that you would like him to stay with you always?” I asked, evasively.

The child’s face glowed through her tears.

“I love him better than all the world beside,” she replied, eagerly.

What was it that I heard as she said this? It sounded like a groan. Was it one of the scene-shifters at work in the flies?

“Lotta! Lotta!” cried Mrs. Davila from her dressing-room at the other side of the stage. “Aren’t you coming to be undressed to-night?”

I took the child’s hand and led her back whence she had come. As I did so, I saw a man leaning up against the wall in a dark corner close behind where we had been standing. His face was buried in his hands; but I recognised him at a glance. It was Davila.

The next morning before I had breakfasted, I went round, as I had promised, to see the lions. There were three cages of them—the lioness and cubs in one, and a lion and lioness in each of the others. They were kept in the same enclosure with Davila’s menagerie, but divided from the other beasts by a slight partition. I found Jungla’s keeper, Mr. Pratt, smoking his matutinal pipe outside in the sun, and the lions lying and walking about, as usual, in their cages. Having looked in, there was -nothing for me to do but to exchange a civil word with Mr. Pratt and retire; which I did. It was Sunday. I had my day before me; no rehearsal to superintend, no accounts to make up, no managerial interview to go through. I went home to breakfast; after breakfast I went to church; after church put some biscuits in my pocket, and went for a long walk into the country. When I came back it was just four o’clock, and I dropped in again at the menagerie on my way home. This time I found Mr. Pratt asleep on a bench close against the door. He sat up at the sound of my footsteps, and was wide awake directly.

“Lions all right, Pratt?” said I, peeping in and seeing them walking about as before.

“Yes, Sir; of course they’re all right, Sir,” he replied, somewhat sulkily.

“Getting hungry, I suppose, Pratt. Near dinner-time, isn’t it? You feed them at five, don’t you?”

Mr. Pratt, evidently displeased by my interference, nodded, and stared up at the ceiling. At that moment one of the lions set up a tremendous roar and I retreated precipitately, feeling that I had done my duty by Jungla’s little family for that day.

The next morning, not without some misgivings as to my reception, I went round again. Mr. Pratt, cleaning a row of Jungla’s boots in the passage outside, looked more hostile than ever. I wished him good morning as I passed, but the beasts inside were roaring so furiously that I could not hear my own voice. I went in. The lioness and cubs were comfortably asleep; but the others were lashing their tails, pacing to and fro in their cages, rearing themselves up on their hind legs, tearing at the bars with their tremendous paws as if they would wrench them down, and breaking out every two or three moments into such prolonged and deafening roars that the floor vibrated again beneath my feet. Nor was this all. The beasts in Davila’s menagerie, divided off by only a slight partition, seemed as if lashed to frenzy by the noise their neighbours were making. The monkeys were chattering, the bears growling, the cockatoos shrieking, the hyenas yelling. The hubbub, in short, was so appalling that I remained scarcely a moment inside the doors, but, beckoning to Mr. Pratt to follow me, went out into the little yard beyond.

I should observe, by the way, that we were in occupation of a temporary building which had been erected a few months before for the accommodation of botanic fêtes, agricultural shows, and so forth; and which, enclosing as it did a spacious area, platform, and out-buildings, had been easily converted into a first-rate theatre and circus. The menagerie, which now formed a separate exhibition, occupied one of the out-buildings at the back, and was approached by a separate entrance. This out-building, however, communicated with the circus by means of a covered passage, along which Jungla’s cages were wheeled every night into the arena.

“One would think the beasts were mad!” I exclaimed. “Do they often make such a terrific row, Pratt?”

The keeper shook his head.

“I can’t think what’s come to them,” he said, “unless it is that they miss the master. I never knew ’em so noisy before.”

“If they go on like this to-night,” said I, “the audience won’t hear a word of the play.”

Mr. Pratt scratched his ear, but made no reply.

It’s enough to make the horses quite unmanageable,” I added, with a glance towards the stables. “Well, good morning, Pratt. I’ll look in again, by-and-by.”

“Beg pardon, Sir,” said the keeper, surlily; “but there’s one thing I should wish to say before you go. I don’t like the way I’m being treated, Sir. Mr. Jungla knows me. He knows whether he can trust me. He knows whether I’m used to beasts, or whether I’m not used to beasts. I don’t like being overlooked. Sir. I don’t like seeing my work taken out of my hands. I should be glad to know whether Mr. Jungla holds me responsible for these beasts, or not?”

“If you mean that my dropping in now and then has annoyed you, my good fellow,” I replied, “I can only say that, to my certain knowledge, Mr. Jungla places the highest confidence …”

“No, Sir,” he interrupted, “I don’t mean you. I mean Mr. Davila.”

“Mr. Davila?” I repeated.

“Yes, Sir. What call has he, or any one, to interfere with my duties? If Mr. Jungla couldn’t trust the feeding of his beasts, or the keeping of the keys to me, I think he might have told me so before he left.”

“The feeding of the beasts, and the keeping of the keys!” I echoed again. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Davila….”

“Mr. Davila came to feed and see after his own beasts, Sir, on Saturday afternoon, and again yesterday afternoon, after you had been round for the second time; and he claimed the keys of my cages. He said he was answerable for the safety of those lions while Mr. Jungla was away, and that nobody should feed them but himself. He as good as ordered me out of the place. You may be sure I didn’t wait to be ordered a second time.”

“You left him here? You gave up the keys?”

“Mr. Davila said he was master here, Sir, and that I could not deny. He said he was my master’s master, and I couldn’t deny that either. Same time, begging your pardon again. Sir, it’s treatment I’ve not been used to; and I wished to say that the next time Mr. Davila, or any one else, comes here interfering with my duties, I shall walk out of that door and go home. If Mr. Jungla wants me back again, he can fetch me.”

I knew not what to say. I could hardly tell what I feared; but I had a sort of vague suspicion that the manager might be capable of doing Jungla an ill turn if the opportunity came in his way. What if he were to poison the lions? Acting upon this thought, I went back and had another look at them. They were roaring and pacing about as before.

“There’s nothing the matter with them, I suppose, Pratt?” I said anxiously. “They wouldn’t be so lively if—if they were not well?”

“Well? Bless yon. Sir, they’re well enough. They’d be drooping and neglecting their food, if they were ill. I don’t know what quantity they got either Saturday or yesterday; but they had eaten it every bit when I came back—except a dry bone or two. They’re only excited by the howling of the hyenas. There’s nothing the matter with them.”

Satisfied that Pratt was right, but utterly puzzled by this sudden outbreak of activity on the part of the manager, T then went round to the theatrical department to attend to the thousand and one daily duties of my office. Here, to my surprise, I found Davila bustling to and fro, as prompt, as authoritative, as business-like as of old. He had just called a rehearsal of the riders—had ordered the stalls and orchestra to be swept out—was presently about to inspect the wardrobe—and when I first went in, was reprimanding the carpenters about the state of a practicable bridge in one of the set scenes. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my ears and eyes. He had suddenly thrown off all that apathy which was so alarming in him of late. There was even a feverish activity about him which made the contrast still more striking. His senses seemed over-alert, as it were. His eyes glittered with excitement. He talked fast and loudly. He went everywhere. He saw everything. He was never still or silent for a moment. It was like a resurrection from the dead.

At two o’clock, the morning’s work being done, we dispersed, actors, musicians, scene-shifters, ostlers, dressers, supernumeraries of all kinds, and went our several ways. I, for one, went home to dinner, thinking over the incidents of the morning. That Davila’s conduct was very strange, not only in the matter of the lions, but in the manner of his return to business, was undeniable. I could not keep from pondering over it, more or less, all that afternoon. Look upon it from what side I might, there was still something odd, and not altogether pleasant, about it.

Towards six I went round, as usual, to his lodgings. I always went to him about an hour before the doors opened, to know whether he had any special instructions respecting the evening’s performance. This afternoon, for almost the first time in my remembrance, he was not at home. As I came back, however, about halfway between the market-place and the theatre, I came upon him, face to face. He looked flushed, and I saw at a glance that he had been drinking.

“You are looking for me, Mr. Skey,” he said hurriedly. “I have nothing fresh to say to you. I am going home. I don’t feel well; the day’s work has been too much for me. Programme, of course, remains unaltered: the scenes of the circus first; then Herr Jungla’s performance with the lions; then the comic ballet to end Part First. For Part Second, ‘ The Prince of Cyprus,’ as usual. There is no fear, I suppose, of his missing the train?”

“None whatever, I should think,” I replied. “He told me he should leave Glasgow by the 10.30 train, which reaches Leeds at 6.15. It is a tolerably punctual train, too, I believe; generally in to time, and never later than the half-hour.”

But before I had finished speaking, the manager had nodded and passed on.

I hurried to the theatre, expecting to find Jungla there before me. He had not yet arrived. I looked at my watch. It wanted only twenty minutes to seven. The train was surely in by now; but he was probably walking from the station, and the station was a good three-quarters of a mile distant. I then went round the house to see that all was in order, the check-taker at his post, the musicians in their places, the horses and riders ready for their entry. When I came back to the green-room the clock was just on the stroke of seven, and Herr Jungla had not yet come.

I became seriously uneasy. I delayed the opening of the doors till nearly five minutes past seven. We were then obliged to admit the audience. Ten minutes past seven—a quarter past^—twenty minutes past—and still he did not come. At half-past we were bound to begin. I could now no longer doubt that he bad missed the train. I sent for a Bradshaw, and found there was no other train in from Glasgow before ten minutes past eleven.

I asked myself despairingly what was to be done? In an emergency of this kind everything devolved upon me; but how to meet the present difficulty I knew not. For the first part of the programme it was not of so much importance: we could substitute some circus-business for Jungla’s first appearance. He simply entered the cage, called the beasts up one by one, according to their names; held their jaws open; lay down amongst them, and so forth. It lasted but five minutes at any time, and, to my thinking, somewhat impaired the effect of the lion scene in “The Prince of Cyprus.”

But what could I substitute for the second part of the programme? No one could play Ariobarzanes—no one could deal with the lions—save Jungla himself. In the midst of my distress, just as the overture was winding up to the last crash and the riders were ranging themselves for their grand entry, a telegram was put into my hand, containing the following words:

“Railway bridge fallen in between Bradford and Apperley. Trains all obliged to stop at Bradford. Thirteen miles by fly. Will be with you in time for drama.”

This message put an end to my anxieties. I went before the curtain with the telegram in my hand, explained the case to the audience, begged permission to substitute Signor Montanari’s unrivalled feats of strength for Herr Jungla’s first performance, and retired with two rounds of applause.

All went off well. The Lion King arrived at the stage-door just as the curtain fell at the close of Part the First, and was dressed and chatting with me at the wings long before it was time for him to go on as chief captive in the Triumph.

“Had a successful journey?” I asked.

“Thoroughly successful. I have taken the Glasgow house for a fortnight certain, with liberty to hold it for a month on the same terms; and I have made arrangements with a really good troupe of Christy’s Minstrels to eke out the entertainment. My lions and I, you see, are hardly enough by ourselves. How is my little family, by the way? All right?”

“All right, and distressingly lively when I saw them last—roaring like volcanoes.”

“Pretty dears! and that best of men, Pratt?”

“The best of men is by no means in the best of tempers,” I replied, laughing. “But stay—you are called. I will tell you more about it by-and-by.”

From this moment, however, Jungla was incessantly before the audience, and I had no opportunity of speaking to him again. During the five minutes, or less than five minutes’ interval between the acts, he ran down to see the cage wheeled up from the menagerie, and was only back in time for the prison scene at the rising of the drop. Coming off from this scene, however, he passed me at the wings.

“Look here, Skey,” he said, hurriedly, “I wish you get me a glass of wine. I’m confoundedly tired, and—and, somehow, I don’t altogether like the look of the lions.”

“Not like the look of the lions!” I exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

“I scarcely know myself. I can’t think what the devil is the matter with them. I miss the recognition in their eyes, and—and, after all, I don’t believe, with beasts of that sort, that the personal influence should be relaxed for even a single day.”

“But so tame as yours are….” I began.

He interrupted me impatiently.

“No wild beast is ever really tamed,” he said. “But for Heaven’s sake let us waste no words. Get me a glass of wine—or, better still, a glass of brandy.”

I ran round myself to the refreshment room and brought him a quarter of a pint of brandy in a tumbler. The amphitheatre scene was already on when I came back; the gladiators were combating in the arena; Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary, as the Emperor and Empress, were seated on a throne to the right of the stage, while little Lotta, dressed in pink and silver as the infant Livia, was standing at the Empress’s knee. Jungla was just about to go on when I put the tumbler into his hand. He emptied it to the last drop. At that moment the trumpets were sounded; the back of the scene was thrown open; the cage, propelled from behind, was pushed into the middle of the stage; and Jungla, as the Prince of Cyprus, was led to the foot of the throne.

At sight of the lions, the house broke into three rounds of vociferous applause.

I expected to hear the beasts return the compliment with one of their terrific choruses; but they contented themselves with a long, low, continuous growl, which sounded, somehow, still more deadly, and came in with extraordinary effect.

And now began the great scene of the play. It would scarcely become me to praise the dialogue; but I think no one who had seen the piece as we performed it that season, and had heard the interruptions of applause which were certain to break out each night at particular points of the speeches, could have pronounced it other than a thoroughly legitimate success.

The captive prince being led in, the Emperor rose and bade him choose his fate. He must either sacrifice to the Gods, or be given to the lions. Ariobarzanes, in sixteen lines of rhymed verse, rejects the alternative with scorn and declares himself ready to die for the true faith.

The Emperor expostulates; but in vain. He then gives the fatal signal, addressing the prince in these lines:

“Die, then, rash scion of a royal line!

I mourn thy choice. ’Tis thy decree—not mine.

The guards then advance—Ariobarzanes springs upon the steps of the throne, seizes the imperial infant in his arms, leaps into the arena, and stands at the door of the lion’s cage, with his hand upon the bolt. The nobles in waiting draw their swords; the Empress swoons; the guards are about to rush to the rescue.

“Hold!” cries Jungla, in a voice of thunder:

“Hurl but one jav’lin, let one arrow fly,

And by the God I worship, she shall die.”

Then taking from his own neck a large cross suspended to a chain, he passes it over the child’s head, and adds:

“Yet stay, idolaters! see where I place

This sacred symbol of eternal grace.

Thus arm’d, thus safe, thus shielded, now behold

I draw the bolt….”

He was interrupted by an awful cry—a cry of such intense, quivering agony as perhaps no ear in all that theatre had ever heard before—a cry like nothing human! At the same instant a man rushed past me where I was standing at the wings, and fell as he reached the stage.

“Stop!” he shrieked. “For God’s sake, stop! My child—the lions! the lions—”

To place little Lotta in the arms of a bystander—to seize the fallen man by the collar and drag him up by main force, like a dog—was for Jungla the work of a moment.

“What of the lions?” he shouted. “What of the lions?”

“Is she safe?” cried Davila, wildly. “Oh, mercy! is she safe? They’ve not been fed for three days!”

A deadly look came into Jungla’s face. He took his enemy by the throat, lifted him fairly off his feet, and made as if he would have hurled him over into the circus below. For one moment, he held him so—for one moment I thought we should have seen murder done before our eyes. Then the dangerous light went out of his face. He smiled bitterly; dropped the manager, a dead weight, at his feet; and spurning him contemptuously with his foot, said:

“So, my friend, you calculated that I should have walked into that cage alone, an hour ago! I give you credit for your ingenuity. ’Sdeath! I half suspected foul play of some sort.”

•    •    •    •

My story, in so far as it may be called a story, is told. If you object that it points no particular moral, and comes to no particular end, I am bound to admit that it does neither; but then you will please to remember that I have been drawing upon my experience instead of upon my imagination, and that facts do not often round themselves off so neatly and conclusively as fictions. Poetic justice probably requires that Davila’s infernal plot should either have recoiled upon his own head, or have been followed by some signal retribution; but when last I heard of the man he was conducting a monster circus through the American States, and, if report spoke truly, prospering beyond all precedent. These incidents, however, which I have just related, were indirectly the cause of the breaking up of the old Davila company. Herr Jungla, it is true, forbore to prosecute; but the story was all over the country in less than a week, and articles headed, “Murderous Attempt on the part of a Provincial Manager,” “A Modern Corsican Vendetta,” and the like, figured conspicuously in every local newspaper throughout the kingdom. As for the company, it fell apart like an unbound sheaf. Montanari and St. Aubyn gave notice to quit in the course of the following week. The O’Learys left in about a fortnight. All who could obtain engagements elsewhere shook the dust of Davila’s circus from their feet, and made haste to be gone. For myself, I stood not upon the order of going, but gave in my accounts the very next day, and went immediately. Even in this there may, however, have been some flavour of retribution; for Davila held his head high, and valued reputation. It must have been bitter work for him to find himself shunned as if he were plague-stricken.

From Leeds I went with Herr Jungla to Glasgow, and thence, after a few weeks, accompanied him to Edinburgh. I liked the man, and, having no engagement, found it pleasant to travel with him. In Edinburgh we parted, and from that day to this I have never seen him or his lions again. I would give much to know who he was, whence he came, and what has become of him. Vague rumours that he had been seen with Garibaldi in Sicily, and in Secessia with Stonewall Jackson, have now and then reached my ears; but they came in such a questionable form that I have not ventured to place much reliance upon them. I have a presentiment, however, that we shall some day meet again.

A Railway Panic

(1856)

If this were played upon a stage, now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
Twelfth Night.

“Do you think I look like a madman?”

I was falling into a train of pleasant thought when these words, uttered in a clear, steady voice by my opposite neighbour, fell upon my ear. I started and looked him in the face. He was a small, sallow, intelligent-looking man, muffled from head to foot in a superb Spanish cloak lined with sables. His tone of voice was perfectly composed and matter-of-fact.

“Indeed, sir,” I replied, with some surprise, “no such idea occurred to me.”

“But I am mad, though!” he retorted, in the same quiet, confidential way.

I was in no humour for levity just then, and, as this was evidently an attempt at practical joking, I made a brief reply to that effect, and looked out of the window. It was an express train, going at the rate of fifty miles an hour; every moment bore me farther from one who was inexpressibly dear to me; and I felt that I never wished for silence and solitude more than at that moment. The worst of it was that, if this man had made up his mind to talk, I could not help hearing him; and there was no one else for him to address, since we were alone together in the carriage.

“Yes,” he continued, “I really am mad. I have just escaped; just escaped—not an hour ago. Shall I tell you how I did it?”

I continued to look out at the landscape flying past, and feigned not to hear him.

“I was not always mad. Oh, dear, no! I do not exactly remember now what it was that drove me to it, but I think it was something connected with Lord Palmerston and the ace of clubs. No—yes—oh, yes; the ace of clubs had certainly something to do with it. However, that is of no consequence now. I had a fine house, and gardens, and horses, and servants, and a wife—aha! such a pretty, gentle, loving little wife! And I loved her, too—nobody knows how I loved her—only I wanted to murder her. I loved her so that I wanted to murder her! Wasn’t that a rare joke, eh?”

I began by this time to feel seriously uncomfortable. It was getting slowly dusk, and my companion’s face, composed as it was, wore an odd expression that I did not quite like.

“Pray, sir,” I said, with affected carelessness, “let us change the subject. If you insist on conversing with me, we may as well choose a more agreeable theme.”

“Agreeable! Could anything be more agreeable? Well, I will continue. It was a long time before they found it out; I hid it so well. But I knew it well enough; for I used to see faces everywhere, in the furniture—up in the trees—in the bushes; and I knew they could not really be there, and that I was mad at last. For I had always expected it. Ay, ever since I was a boy at school! Somehow they did find it out, though, in spite of all my caution—and I was so cautious—so cautious! They found it out; and, one day, two men came and seized me in my garden—my own garden! and took me to the mad-house! Oh! it was a dreary place that mad-house! They shut me up by myself in a bare, cold room, with never a fire to warm me, though it was bitter winter. The windows were barred across with iron, through which the daylight shone as if through the ribs of a skeleton; and every night—would you believe it?—every night there came a fearful shape and sat there, mocking and mowing at me in the moonbeams. That was a hell, indeed! One night, when I could bear it no longer, I rushed upon the shape and fought and struggled with it, and dashed it up against the hard walls—and then the keepers came and tore me from it, and bound me down with cords upon my bed. I heard them say to one another that I had tried to destroy myself; but I knew better. It was the shape I struggled with—it was the shape I tried to kill! Only they could not see it. Yet there it still sat, mocking, mocking, mocking, all the long night through; and they watching in my room, and yet so blind that they could not perceive it! I do not know how long this fury of mine lasted; but I think it must have been a weary time. At length, I woke one night from a troubled sleep, and lo! the shape was gone! Ah, then I wept for joy that I was free from it; and I was proud, very proud, for it was gone, and I had conquered it at last! Well, time went on, and I resolved I would escape. How do you suppose I went to work? Why, I pretended to be cured of my madness. Everyday the doctor came to see me. But not me alone; I could hear him going to every room all along the corridor; so I knew when he was coming, long before he got to my door. I must deceive him, I knew, as well as everybody else. Oh, it was a hard task; but I did it! The worst of my madness was that I could not help thinking of the oddest things; and when I talked, my tongue would utter them. However, I schooled myself to talk to him. I practised speaking in a calm, low voice—I studied what I should say—I accustomed myself to rise and bow, as if he were entering the room. I did not speak much, but what I said was reasonable—I knew it was reasonable. I used to say that I felt better; that I was tired of the confinement; that I hoped shortly to be permitted to return home; and sometimes (that was a clever thought!) I asked anxiously after my wife. One day she came to see me. You cannot think what an effort her visit cost me. She looked so pale, and timid, and pretty that day—and I forced myself to sit down by her; to say to her all the things I had learnt to say to the doctor; to take her hand in mine; and oh, I longed to kill her so the whole time! But I did not. Ah, no! I even kissed her cheek at parting, though I could have yelled aloud for rage as I bent over her. I don’t know whether they still suspected me; but I was not released, for all my pains. So I determined to be ill. I knew the doctor would find me out if I only pretended; therefore, I starved myself. Ha! ha! wasn’t that fine? This is how I did it. Every day, instead of eating the food they brought me, I put half of it under a loose board in the floor, and half I left, saying that I felt ill and could eat no more. Each day I left more and more, so that it should seem as if my appetite grew constantly worse. And then I got ill—only I did eat just a morsel now and then to keep me from dying. I suffered fearfully, but still I played my part out, and met the doctor’s eye with one as quiet as his own. At last he said that I must be removed to another part of the house, and that I required air, or I should never recover. And then did I not laugh, even though I was so ill, to think how I had outwitted him! My new room was pleasant, and looked over a garden. At the end of the garden was a railway. By this railway, I made up my mind to escape. Aha! what joy to be flying along behind that engine—flying away, away, and never stopping! I knew well that I must have money to do this. Money! Where, and how could I get money? You will see presently! I did not mean to die, you know, so I ate more now, and got better. It is not every one, let me tell you, that is brave enough to endure starvation as I did. Madmen are no cowards! Well, they used to let me walk in the garden after awhile, but with the keeper always beside me. By-and-by, the doctor began to speak of my release as of a thing that might be in time—and then—then, although the end for which I had been working was almost within my grasp, I felt an irresistible impulse compelling me to escape, and not to wait for their tame deliverance. Day and night, I waited and watched to do it.

“The opportunity came soon. One morning when I was walking with the keeper in the garden, who should come out but the doctor, and what should he do—the senseless fool!—but order the keeper to go in, saying that he would walk with me this time!

“Oh, how my heart leaped and danced within me when he said it I But I kept very still—very still and calm—listening to the man’s footsteps on the gravel walk till he was quite gone. I have told you that the railway crossed the bottom of the garden. Well, towards this spot I went (carelessly, as if by accident, you know), and he with me.

“‘This beautiful day will do us all good, Mr. B——,’ he said to me, in his smooth, deceitful voice.

“He was walking with his hands in his pockets, chinking the gold coins as he went—that gold that I so needed!

“‘I hope that you may soon enjoy the summer on your own estates,’ he continued.

“He looked so sleek and self-confident and smiling as he spoke then, that I hated him more than ever.

“I did not dare to trust my voice in answer, or suffer my eyes to dwell on him. Could he but have seen them for an instant, he would have read my purpose. Just then we reached the extremity of the garden, and stood looking down from the high bank upon the level tramlines below. There was nothing but a low hedge between us and the road. In an instant I turned upon him.

“‘Die!’ I shrieked. ‘Die! I am mad—I am mad—and I have sworn to do it!’

“I had the strength of ten in my arms. I closed with him, and dashed his skull against the tree-trunk by which we were standing. Oh, it was a glorious vengeance! I beat the smooth smile out of his face till his own children would not have known him, and then I stamped and danced upon him, and laughed aloud! Suddenly I heard the distant whistle of the train at the village station. There was not a moment to be lost! I tore the watch from his pocket, and I took the purse with the gold! and then, ha! ha! ha I I flung the body over upon the lines, and the train came swiftly on and on, and crushed him as he lay! Was not that a revenge, and would any but a madman have thought of it? Tell me that! Tell me that!”

I was so frozen with horror that I sat as if petrified, and could not utter a word.

“Now you want to know how I came here,” continued the maniac more quietly, after a momentary pause. “Well, he had this cloak on before the struggle. I wrapped it round me, and went straight through the gardens, and out of the gate, past his very lodge-keeper; and, thanks to the high collar, none of them knew me—for we were much of a height, the doctor and I. Once out of sight of the house—the dreary, cruel house!—I seemed as if I had wings upon my feet, I fled away so fast. The people in the streets of the town stared at me; but what did that matter? I did not care for their staring. I mingled with the crowd at the station and paid my fare like the rest, with—ha! ha!—with the doctor’s money! But there was blood on the gold. I tried to rub it off, but I could not. It came again as fast as I removed it, and I thought they would see it when I put the money down. They did not, though; and here I am free—free! Now, answer me, do you believe that I’m a madman?”

He put his face quite close to mine as he said this, and his voice passed from its former level tone to a quick, harsh, exulting calibre that thrilled me with dismay. It was now almost dark, too, and his eves shone with a cold, unnatural lustre like the phosphorescent light which is thrown off from fish in a state of putrefaction. It was clear that I must make some reply. Even while I hesitated, he repeated the question, and this time more impatiently.

“Well, yes,” I said at last, with quivering lips; “I—I think you must be mad.”

“I’ll prove it to you,” he whispered, bending still closer to me. “How do you think I’ll prove it now?”

I shook my head.

“I cannot tell,” I said, faintly.

“By murdering you, as I murdered him! What I did you think I would let you live, after having told you all about it? Live to betray me, and take me back to the … No, no! madmen are brave—madmen are cunning—madmen are strong!”

I saw that force could avail me nothing here. In great emergencies I always retain my presence of mind. This time it did not fail me, and I was cool in an instant.

“Stop,” I said calmly, fixing my eyes full upon him. “You have not yet told me all. If you are determined to have my life, it is only fair that you should finish your story first.”

“That’s true,” said the madman, with some appearance of curiosity. “What have I left out?”

“You have not explained to me about Lord Palmerston and the ace of clubs.”

“I didn’t think you’d care to hear that,” said he, doubtfully.

“I’d rather hear that than all the rest.”

The lamp now cast a sickly glare through the carriage; and it was so dark that nothing of the country was visible beyond the windows. I knew we must be within a short distance of the London terminus. If I could only divert his attention for a little while longer, I was saved! I determined to keep him in conversation if possible.

“Lord Palmerston began it, you must know,” he continued, “and the ace of clubs finished it.”

“Did you know Lord Palmerston?” I asked.

He looked at me vacantly, as if he did not comprehend my question. I repeated it.

“Know him? I bred and trained him!”

“Oh! indeed?” I said. “Pray proceed.”

“I bred and trained him on my own estates. I was as fond of him as I could have been of a child—ay, and fonder too; for if I had had a child, I must have wrung its neck—I feel I must!”

Here he fixed his eyes on me again, and his fingers worked nervously together, as if longing to be at my throat.

“But about Lord Palmerston?” said I.

His face resumed the old expression, and a gloomy shade seemed to pass over it.

“Ah!” said he, moodily, “that was a dreadful disappointment, wasn’t it?”

“You have not told me yet,” I said. “Did his lordship treat you ill?”

“He lost! he lost! I had backed him with half my fortune, and he lost! But, hark you!” and he clutched me by the arm as he said it, “he was drugged—I know he was drugged the night before!”

“Then Lord Palmerston was a horse!” I exclaimed.

“Of course he was. I told you so at first. You don’t pay attention—you’re not interested.”

“Indeed, I am—deeply,” I replied, eagerly. “Pray go on.”

We must be in now before five minutes were past—this I was assured of. Five minutes!—long enough to die!

“That is all,” replied he, with a suspicious stare. “He lost, and I lost. That’s the end of it.”

“But what has this to do with the ace of clubs?”

“The ace of clubs!” said he, fiercely. “What’s that to you?”

“You promised to tell me, you know; and I should like to hear it,” I replied, in a conciliating tone. “You have not told me half yet. Do tell me about the ace of clubs.”

“I was desperate, you see,” said the maniac. “I was desperate after Palmerston knocked up. I had always avoided play till then, but somehow I fell into it when I saw the men at the club playing night after night, winning and losing—winning and losing! I often saw as much gold change hands on a single card as would have covered all my losses on the turf; and then I could not resist it.”

“So you played too?”

“So I played too. For a whole week I won incessantly. Aha! the red gold and the rustling notes that I took home every night for that week! I won more, three times more, than I had lost by the race! And then came the turn of the luck.”

“You lost?”

“All that I had gained, in one night! But I was not satisfied: I went on again the next day, and lost, and lost, and lost, till everything I had on earth was gone. Nay, all I had on earth was not enough to pay it! But I know how it was. That old man I played with was the Fiend. I knew he was the Fiend. I saw it in his eyes.”

He paused.

The whistle of the guard rang shrilly through the air, and the pace of the train slackened. He listened—he knew that we were coming in—he turned suddenly towards me.

“But what about the ace of clubs?” I urged, hurriedly. “Did the old man turn it up?”

“Will you betray me if I tell you?”

“Never,” I said, earnestly.

“Listen, then. I hid it in my sleeve; for I was desperate. I staked thousands on the chance of cutting it. They all stood round, betting how it would turn up; the old man—curse him!—smiled, and let me do it. But he had seen me—he had seen me! And when I cut the ace of clubs, he stood up and called me ‘Thief!’”

A bright flash of light streamed in at the windows—the train stopped. Thank God! we were arrived! The madman shrunk back at the sight of the lamps, and the crowd of faces beyond. I leaned over the door, and with fingers that refused to do their work, felt eagerly for the handle.

“What is the matter? What is this?” he said, timidly.

“Help!” I shrieked, springing out upon the platform among the tide of passengers. “Help! this man is mad!”

There were two men standing by the barrier anxiously scrutinizing each face as it passed by. They both turned as I spoke, and one came to me.

“Where is he, sir?” said he, respectfully. “We’re waiting for him. It’s been telegraphed along the line that he’s murdered some one down at H——, and he’s awful dangerous.”

He had ventured out by this time, and was standing irresolutely beside the carriage door, not knowing where to turn.

As for me, I could only point to him, for the power of speech was gone; and just as they had captured him, I fell senseless to the ground.

The Guard-Ship at the Aire

(1865)

“At Christmas time,” said the stranger in the chimney-corner, “folks seem to think themselves privileged to ask other folks to tell stories; but then it is not every man’s vocation to tell stories. It comes especially hard on a plain man, who makes no pretence of knowing more than his neighbours. I am a plain man, and it comes hard upon me. I never wrote a page in a magazine, or a paragraph in a newspaper, in my life. How, then, can I be expected to tell a story?”

Having said which, the stranger relapsed into silence, and stared moodily at the fire.

On this particular evening, being Christmas Eve, and rather stormy, with a strong wind and mist blowing up from the sea, our gathering at the “Tintagel Arms” was somewhat smaller than usual. The stranger had dropped in about two hours before, stabled his horse, engaged his bed, and installed himself in the chimney-corner as comfortably as if he had been an old inhabitant of the place, and one of ourselves. Up to this moment, however, he had scarcely opened his lips, or taken his eyes from off the logs that blazed upon the hearth. We looked at each other, and no one seemed prepared with a reply.

“Besides,” added the stranger, as if it were an afterthought, and wholly unanswerable, “the days of ‘Arabian Nights’ are over. We want facts in these times—facts, gentlemen—facts.”

“And surely there are facts in the life of every individual,” observed the schoolmaster, “ which, if truthfully related, could not fail, to impart both instruction and amusement. We prefer facts, sir; when we can get them. Indeed, I dare affirm that within the four walls of this parlour, many a poor seaman has, with his rude narrative of travel and peril, given us more genuine pleasure than could the best author of the best fiction that ever was written.”

(The schoolmaster, I should observe, is the orator of our little society. He has seen better days, is a classical scholar, and has, at times, quite a parliamentary style. We are proud of him up at the “Tintagel Arms;” and he knows it.)

“Then do you mean to tell me,” said the stranger, testily, “that you impose this tax on every traveller who happens to put up at the house?”

“By no means, sir,” replied the schoolmaster. “We only desire that every traveller who joins the society in this parlour should conform to the rules by which this society is governed. There is the coffee-room for whoever may prefer it.”

“And those rules?”

“And those rules are that each person present shall tell a story, sing a song, or read aloud for the amusement of the rest.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the landlord, “the gentleman would prefer to sing a song?”

“I can’t sing,” growled the traveller.

“Some visitors prefer to read a scene from Shakespeare,” hinted the parish clerk.

“Might as well ask me to dance on the tightrope,” retorted the traveller, fiercely.

A dead silence ensued, in the midst of which the landlady brought in our customary bowl of punch, and the schoolmaster filled the glasses. The stranger tasted his punch, gave a nod of approval, drank the rest at a draught, and coughed uneasily.

“I can’t sing,” said he, after several minutes, during which no one had spoken; “and I can’t read plays; and I can’t tell stories. But if plain facts will do, I don’t mind telling the company about an—an adventure, I suppose I may call it, that happened to myself one Christmas Eve, some two-and-thirty years ago.”

“Sir,” said the schoolmaster, “we shall be delighted.”

“That’s more than I was,” retorted the traveller; “for it was just the most disagreeable affair that I ever went through in my life.”

With this, he sent up his glass to be refilled; and, continuing to stare steadily into the fire, as if he was reading every word of his narrative from the pictures in the embers, thus began:

I am a commercial traveller, and have been on the road these last five-and-thirty years; that is to say, ever since I was twenty years of age. Mine is the Manchester line of business, and I have travelled in most parts of England and Wales, as well as in some parts of France and Germany, in my time. At the period of which I am about to speak, I was in the employment of Warren, Gray, and Company (then a famous Manchester firm of half a century’s standing), and my beat lay through the north of France, all about those parts which lie between Calais, Paris, and Cherbourg—a wide district, in the form of a great irregular angle, as you may see by the map.

Well, as I have said, it was two-and-thirty years ago; or, if you like it better, Anno Domini 1830. William IV. had just become King of England, and Louis Philippe had just become King of the French. It was an exciting time. The Continent was all over in a restless, revolutionary state; and France, divided between Orleanists and Bourbons, Napoleonists and Republicans, was in a worse condition of fever and ferment than any of her neighbours.

I hate politics, gentlemen. I am no politician now, and I was no politician then; but being a young fellow at that time, and better acquainted with the Continent than most Englishmen of my age and station (for people didn’t travel abroad then as they do now), I gave myself great airs of superiority, and fancied I knew a vast deal about everything. When I was at home, I bragged about foreign life and manners; gave myself out as a wonderful judge of French wines; and loudly despised our homely English cookery. When I was abroad, on the contrary, I became violently national, boasted of British liberties, British arms, and British commerce, and never failed to avail myself, if possible, of a chance allusion to Wellington, or Nelson, or Waterloo. In short, as I said before, I loved to assume airs of superiority, and that disposition by no means helped to make me popular. I was a fool for my pains, of course; and I suffered for it afterwards … but I must not run in advance of my story.

Having been in Paris (which, you will remember, was the farthest point inland of my district) all July and August, I began travelling northwards again in September, according to the commands of my employers. There was no Northern of France Railway at that time, and the traveller who was unprovided with his own vehicle had no choice between the lumbering diligence and the scarcely less lumbering calèche. I, however, had my own gig, which I had brought over from England, and a capital brown horse bought at Compiègne; and I well remember how I used to dash past the diligences, clatter into the towns, and endeavour to eclipse all the commis voyageurs whom I encountered on the road.

Having left Paris in September, I calculated on getting through the whole work of my northern district in about ten weeks, and hoped to arrive in England in time for Christmas-day. The change of government, however, had given an unusual impetus to international trade, and I found business accumulating on my hands day by day, to such an extent, that I soon gave up all hope of reaching home before the latter end of January. As Christmas approached, and I continued travelling slowly in a north and north-westerly direction, I began to wonder where my Christmas-day would be spent after all. At one time I thought it would be at Lisieux; at another at Caen; and at last I made sure it would be at Bayeux. I was mistaken, however, in all my conjectures, as you will hear presently.

On the night of the 23rd of December, I slept at a populous little market town called Crépigny, which lies about eighteen miles inland, and about midway between Caen and Bayeux. On the morning of the 24th I rose unusually early, and started soon after daybreak; for I had a long day’s journey before me, and hoped to reach Bayeux that night. I could not, however, take the direct road, being bound first for St. Angely, a small coast-town lying near the mouth of the Aire, just opposite Portsmouth on the map. My only chance, therefore, was to make a long day, and, if possible, leave St. Angely early enough to allow of my pushing on to Bayeux that afternoon. My route from Crépigny to St. Angely lay across a bleak open country thinly planted with orchards, and scattered over here and there with villages, farms, and desolate, half-ruined country-houses. A thick white frost lay like snow upon the Landscape. A grey mist brooded over the horizon. A bitter windswept every now and then across the plain, and shook the bare poplars that bordered the road on either side. Sometimes I passed a cart loaded with firewood, or a stout country wench in a warm cloak and sabots; but I had all the road to myself, for the most part; and a very dreary road it was. It grew drearier, too, with every mile. Habitations became fewer and farther between. Every blast of wind brought with it a cloud of fine white dust; and now and then, as I reached the summit of a little eminence, or turned the shoulder of a sand slope, I caught distant glimpses of the sea.

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning when I neared the end of my first stage, and came in sight of St. Angely-sur-Aire; a melancholy riverside town, consisting of a singular irregular street about a mile in length, bordered by houses on one side and quays on the other.

Having dashed along the quays, and pulled up, with my customary flourish, at the door of the principal inn, I alighted, ordered lunch, sent my horse to the stable, and went out into the town. I soon found, however, that there was no business to be done there. The place was too remote and too primitive; being peopled chiefly by small ship-owners, boat-builders, colliers, fishermen, and sailors. The inhabitants, besides, were not so friendly as in the more frequented towns. I could not help feeling that I was looked upon with disfavour as I walked along: the streets. The children hooted after me. The shopkeepers were scarcely civil. It was evident that an Englishman was both an unusual and unwelcome visitor in the lonely little town of St. Angely-sur-Aire.

Going back, in no pleasant frame of mind, to the Cheval Blanc, I found my lunch prepared in a corner of the public-room, beside a window overlooking the river. A large wood-fire blazed upon the hearth; a coloured print of Napoleon at Marengo hung over the chimney-piece; and at a long oak table in the centre of the sanded floor sat some five or six Frenchmen, drinking sour wine, smoking bad cigars, and playing dominoes.

They looked up sullenly as I came in, and muttered among themselves. I could not distinguish what the words were; but I felt sure they related in some uncomplimentary manner to myself; and this, as you may well believe, did not help to make me more amiable. In short, being but a hot-tempered, conceited young fellow at the best of times, and being, moreover, on this occasion particularly annoyed by the reception I had met with in the town, I gave myself more airs than ever, found fault with the cutlets, abused the wine, worried the waiter, and made myself, I have no doubt, eminently disagreeable.

“Call this Bordeaux, indeed!” said I, superciliously. “In England we would not buy it for vinegar. Have you nothing better?”

“Nothing, monsieur,” replied the waiter humbly. “We keep only two qualities, and monsieur ordered the best.”

“In England!” ejaculated one of the domino players—a shabby fellow in a faded uniform, who looked like a custom-house officer—“Bah! What do they know about wine in England? They grow no grapes. They are thankful over there for the washings of our vats.”

Stupid as the insult was, the blood rushed to my face, and tingled in my fingers. I longed to contradict the man; but it was of no use getting into a broil, if a little prudence would avert it. So I held my tongue, and affected not to hear. His companions laughed, and presently he spoke again.

“What can you expect,” pursued he, “in a country where the land is all swamp, and the air all fog, and every man keeps a shop? Monsieur there, you see, doesn’t know wine from vinegar. How should he? The English drink nothing but beer and tea!”

I could bear it no longer.

“Stop there, friend,” said I, boiling over with rage, but endeavouring to speak calmly. “It’s a pity you should allow yourself to express opinions upon a subject of which you know nothing.”

“Did monsieur speak?”

“I did speak. I said you expressed opinions on a subject of which you know nothing.”

“It appears to me, monsieur, that I have a right to express what opinions I please.”

“Not when they are offensive to others.”

“Pardon, monsieur—how could I tell that my opinions would offend? If I said that England was all swamp and fog, what then? Monsieur did not make the climate of his native country. If I said …”

“You know nothing about either our customs or our climate,” I interrupted, angrily.

“And if I said that the English were a nation of shopkeepers,” pursued he, “have I not the authority of the great Napoleon for that statement? Is not monsieur himself a commercial traveller?”

The cool impertinence of the fellow, and the undisguised amusement of his friends, enraged me beyond all the bounds of prudence.

“Shopkeepers or not,” I retorted, “we have beaten the French too often to care for a nickname! Were they shopkeepers who routed you at Trafalgar? Were they shopkeepers before whom your Old Guard turned and fled at Waterloo? Were they—”

My words were drowned in a torrent of imprecations. Furious and gesticulating, every Frenchman was instantly on his feet; whilst I, expecting nothing less than an immediate attack, snatched up a chair, and prepared for a desperate defence. At this moment, however, the landlord, alarmed by the noise, rushed in and placed himself between us.

“Peace! peace, I say, gentlemen!” cried he. “I allow no quarrelling here. What! six against one? I am ashamed of you!”

“Death of my life! shall we be insulted by a beggarly Englishman?” stormed one.

“Or suffer the honour of France to be called in question?” shouted another.

“Or the memory of our grande armée to be reviled?” added a third.

“Nonsense—nonsense!” expostulated the landlord. “I’ll bet a louis d’or that monsieur meant nothing of the kind. He is an Englishman; you are Frenchmen. You don’t understand each other—voilà tout! Remember the duties of hospitality, gentlemen, and recollect that monsieur is a stranger. I’ll be sworn that monsieur was not the first to begin.”

“Parbleu! I was the first to begin—I confess it,” said the customs officer, good-temperedly. “I put monsieur out by abusing his country.”

“And I confess that I lost my temper too easily,” replied I; “and said much that I should be ashamed to repeat.”

“Suppose, messieurs, you make your peace over another bottle of wine,” suggested the landlord, rubbing his hands.

“With all my heart,” said I, “if these gentlemen will allow me to call for one!”

The Frenchmen laughed, stroked their moustachios, shook hands, and forgot their anger as readily as if nothing had happened—all except one: a bronzed, grey-bearded man in a blue blouse and gaiters, who pulled his cap angrily over his eyes, muttered something about maudit Anglais, and strode out of the room.

“Peste! that old François is as savage as a bear,” said one of my late opponents.

“He is an old soldier,” observed another, apologetically. “He served under Napoleon, and he hates the English.”

“I am really sorry if I have hurt the feelings of a brave man,” said I. “Can we not induce him to come back and chink glasses with us?”

“No—no; let him alone. He is a savage-tempered fellow, and best left to himself. Your health, monsieur, and a pleasant journey!”

And with this, the good-natured garçons drew round the fire, pulled out their cigars, smacked their lips over their wine, and chatted away as pleasantly as if we had made each other’s acquaintance under the most agreeable auspices in the world. When the first bottle was emptied, I called for another, and by the time we had done justice to the second, it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, and fully time for me to begin my journey.

“If monsieur is going to Crépigny,” said a young farmer, whom his companions called Adolphe, “I will gladly take a seat in his chaise as far as the cross-roads.”

“Unfortunately, I came from Crépigny this morning, and am now bound for Bayeux,” I replied.

“For Bayeux? Peste! then monsieur has a good long road before him.”

“How far do you call it? I did not think it was more than three leagues.”

“Three leagues?—nearer five.”

Five French leagues, and only another hour of daylight before me! That was more than I had bargained for.

“Monsieur had better let his horse go back to the stable, and stay with us to-night at the Cheval Blanc,” suggested the landlord, obsequiously.

I shook my head.

“No, no,” I said. “That will never do. I want to spend my Christmas-day at Bayeux to-morrow. Five leagues, you say?”

“Full five by the road,” answered the custom-house officer. “But there is a shorter way, if monsieur can only find it.”

“You would not send monsieur by the river?” interposed the landlord.

“Why not? It will save him a good league.”

“Mon Dieu, it is not safe for a stranger—especially after dusk!”

“Safe, Maître Pierre! Why it’s as safe as the high road when the tide is out,” replied the other, contemptuously. “Listen, monsieur. About five kilometres from St. Angely, the Aire empties itself into the sea. It is but a narrow river, as you see it here—narrow and deep; but out there it gets wide and shallow; wider than the Seine at Paris. Eh, bien, monsieur, about four kilometres from hence, and about one before you reach the mouth of the Aire, you come to a place called L’Eau Perdu. It is just an arm of the river—a reach in fact, which at high water feeds a small stream, over which you would have to cross by the bridge at Creuilly if you went round by the high road; but which, if you take the way by the coast, you can drive across as easily as possible when it is low tide. There is no danger in the world, monsieur may take my word for it; and it saves a detour of at least a league.”

“Monsieur had much better not attempt it,” said mine host of the Cheval Blanc.

“Nay, I am not afraid of attempting it, if I can but find my way,” replied I. “My horse is no longer fresh, and a league is a league.”

“Monsieur cannot fail to go rightly,” said the custom-house officer. “You drive straight forward, and take the first road to the left past the church. Follow that road till you come to a lane leading to a little inn called the Bon Christophe, and then ask any one to show you the best place to drive over. The house stands just on the brink of L’Eau Perdu, and in sight of the mouth of the Aire. If it is dusk, there is always a light burning at the revenue station on the opposite side.”

“A thousand thanks,” said I, jumping into my chaise, and gathering up the reins. “You are quite sure the tide will be out?”

“The tide is out now,” replied the custom-house officer, taking out his watch, “and will not turn till ten minutes past four o’clock. If it had turned already, monsieur would still be in good time, for the reach does not fill till nearly high tide. Monsieur will have to drive over a quarter of a mile of muddy bottom. He will get his wheels dirty—voilà tout!”

“I’m not afraid of that misfortune,” said I laughing. “Adieu, gentlemen. May we soon meet again to pledge our goodwill in another bottle of Maître Pierre’s Bordeaux!”

With this and a profusion of bows, adieux, and good wishes, we parted; I driving off at a rapid pace that brought the inhabitants of St. Angely-sur-Aire to their windows as I rattled past, and my friends of the Cheval Blanc crowding round the threshold of that decent little hostelry, to do honour to my departure.

I found my way easily enough past the church, and down the road to the left, along which I had been directed. It was not by any means a pleasant drive. The afternoon was dull and raw; the road was rough; the grey sea-mist thickened in the distance; and the wind was piercingly cold. The distance, too, proved greater than I had expected, and I was obliged, by the bad condition of the road, to drive very slowly. In the meantime the mist continued to thicken and the light to fade, so that by the time I reached the lane it was almost dusk. Such a lane as it was, too!—rough as a ploughed field and wet as a pond, with stones over which the horse stumbled, and ruts into which the wheels sank at every yard. Bad as the road had been, it was nothing to this. However, it was too late to turn back, so I dismounted, led my horse, and endeavoured to make the best of my position. The lane terminated presently in a broad space of waste ground, in the midst of which I saw the dark outline of a house and the glimmer of a lighted casement. Concluding that this must be the auberge of the Bon Christophe, I at once turned my horse’s head in that direction, and led him, as well as I could, over the uneven ground that lay between. As I drew near the house I heard voices; but it was not till I came within a yard or two of the gate on which they were leaning that I could distinguish the forms of the two men who were speaking.

“Holà!” said I, “is this the auberge of the Bon Christophe?”

“That it is, monsieur, and I am the landlord, at monsieur’s service,” replied the shorter of the two, stepping forward and holding the gate open. “Monsieur will please to enter? We have excellent beds—a good stable—every accommodation for travellers!”

“Thanks; but I only want to be directed to the best place for driving over the reach here. The tide is out, I believe?”

“Yes, monsieur, the tide is out—that is to say, it is just about to turn,” replied the landlord in a tone of disappointment.

“And I can cross with safety?”

The landlord hesitated.

“Because, if not,” I added, suspecting that he would keep me if he could, “I shall drive back at once to St. Angely-sur-Aire, and sleep at the Cheval Blanc.”

“The reach is quite passable,” said the taller man, abruptly.

“Oh, yes—it is passable,” admitted the landlord. “Monsieur has but to drive straight for the light at the revenue-station. He cannot go wrong.”

“Will you be so obliging, then, as to send some one just to put me in the right way?”

“Certainly, monsieur; I will call …”

“No need to call any one,” interposed the other. “I am going by the beach. Follow me. Good night, friend Collet.”

“Good night, François,” replied the landlord, somewhat sulkily. “Be sure you explain to monsieur the difference between the two lights.”

“Bah! do you take me for a fool?”

Saying which, my guide pushed hastily forward, and I followed. It was too dark to see his features distinctly; but something in his height, in his gait, in the tone of his voice, struck me as not wholly unfamiliar. Then his name—the landlord called him François. Was not François the name of the old soldier whom I saw three hours since in the public room of the Cheval Blanc? It was quite possible that he might be the same man. Nay, the more I thought of it, the more I felt sure of his identity. And what it he were the same? Was it worth while to allude to the fracas of the afternoon? Surely not. He did not seem to have recognized me, and it might only lead to further disagreement. I deemed it better, on the whole, to say nothing. These thoughts flashed through my mind in less time than it takes to relate them. Just as I came to my decision, I found we were descending a sandy slope, beyond which lay what seemed to be a wide tract of mud and shingle. Far away across this waste, showing dimly through the mist, and distant, apparently, about half a mile from each other, gleamed two lights, one red and one white. My guide halted suddenly.

“Voilà,” said he. “There are the two beacons—one on board the guard-ship at the mouth of the Aire; the other at the revenue-station across the reach. Do you see both?”

“Yes, I see both plainly.”

“Then drive straight for the red one.”

“Thanks. Is the bottom tolerably level? Need I lead the horse?”

“No; it is all smooth. Nothing but mud and sand.”

“Thanks again, mon ami. Good night.”

He made no answer, but turned and strode away, heavily and rapidly, into the darkness.

I jumped into the chaise, wrapped a rug about my knees, lit a cigar, fixed my eyes steadily on the red light, and drove forward. In another moment, the wheels went off the shingly slope, and we were going smoothly and noiselessly along the bed of the reach. It was not by any means bad driving. The bottom, though somewhat yielding on the surface, was firm enough an inch below it; and the little pools through which we splashed now and then, or the shells, which grated occasionally under the wheels, offered no obstacle to our progress.

The air, too, was fresh and salt, with a pleasant perfume of the sea; and there was something exciting, after all, in driving out towards that red light, and remembering that in a few hours more it would be deep water in the channel between.

All at once my horse neighed, and stood still. I spoke to him, stroked him gently with the whip, and succeeded in urging him forward some few yards farther, when he stopped again, more suddenly than before. It happened that we were at that moment in the midst of a pool deeper and more extensive than any through which I had yet driven; but for this I accounted by calculating that I had already traversed close upon half the distance, and that towards the mid-channel the deposit of water would naturally be somewhat greater. It was this, probably, that alarmed the horse. Whatever it was, however, I could not sit there for his pleasure; and so, finding persuasion useless, I administered three or four sharp cuts of the whip, which had the effect of making him start on again, though with evident reluctance.

It was strange; but, driving forward thus and steering ever for the red light ahead, I observed that the isolated pools had within the last few minutes become merged into one shallow sheet of water, extending under the wheels in every direction. In spite of myself, I grew nervous. Knowing that my best course must be to get out of the mid-channel as quickly as possible, I whipped the horse forward all the faster. Still the bottom seemed to decline lower and lower, and the water to rise higher at every yard. I looked eagerly round. The spot whence I had started was no longer distinguishable; but the red light, now larger and nearer than ever, glowed encouragingly through the mist. It was too late to turn back. Cost what it might, I must go forward!

At this moment my horse flung himself back upon his haunches, planted his forelegs firmly in the sand, and refused to stir a step farther. Was this fear, or instinct? I dared not ask myself the question. I dared not avow the terrible suspicion that had been gaining upon me during the last few minutes. I gathered up the reins, rose in my seat, and lashed him as I had never lashed him yet since the day I bought him. He resisted, snorted, then dashed on desperately, though the pool by this time rose within an inch of his knees.

And now, quite suddenly, I became aware that there was a ripple on the surface of the water. From that moment I gave myself up for lost. From that moment I knew that the tide was upon me!

I am amazed to this hour when I remember how calmly I took it. Every nerve, every thought, every feeling, seemed bound up in the one aim of self-preservation. My only hope lay in the red light; now, apparently, some four hundred yards distant. And still the water rose higher, and the ripple grew stronger, till I felt the chaise undulate, and knew that my poor brute could not keep his legs two minutes longer. My course was taken upon the instant. I knew that both he and I must now swim for our lives; so I took out my pocket-knife, deliberately pulled off my boots, coat, and waistcoat, jumped into the water, cut the horse free, and struck out in the direction of the beacon.

I was but a poor swimmer at that time, and the current was setting dead against me. Still I kept my head to the red light, made what progress I could, and, though I felt the tide growing stronger every moment, made my mind up to fight it out doggedly to the last. A long time seemed to go by thus; I could not tell how long, for my thoughts, somehow, became confused. Then the water roared about my ears, and the red light came and went before my eyes, and I felt, with a despair beyond all words, that my strength was going! Then came a terrible moment when the beacon disappeared, as if swallowed up suddenly in the darkness—then something huge, black, shapeless, loomed up all at once before me, like a rock, and, fainting as I was, I knew it was a ship, and felt that in another moment I should be sucked under her bows! I shall never forget the horror of the next three or four seconds. I shall never forget how I tried to shout for help—how my hands glided over the wet hull—how, summoning all my strength for a last effort, I uttered one despairing shriek, felt the waves close over my head, and knew that I was going to the bottom!

When I recovered consciousness, I found myself lying before a stove in a warm cabin, with a bottle of brandy to my lips, and a crowd of kind faces round me. I soon learnt that I was on board the guard-ship at the mouth of the Aire, a good two miles from land on any side. The sailor on watch had heard my drowning cry, jumped overboard as easily as a Newfoundland dog, and saved me as I rose the second time. I was very ill and exhausted, as you may suppose, and thankful to lie quietly in a hammock all that night, and a greater part of the Christmas-day that followed; and I can tell you that I shared those poor sailors’ onion soup and salt beef with more thankfulness than I ever felt at the finest Christmas dinner to which it was my lot to be invited.

“And what about the soldier, sir?” asked the schoolmaster, after the first excitement had subsided, and the stranger had relapsed into silence.

“Ay—what about that black villain François?” echoed the parish clerk.

“I don’t know,” replied the stranger, abruptly. “I never cared to ask. Either he knew that he was sending me to my death, or he mistook the lights. God forbid that I should accuse an innocent man of wilful murder. Error or no error, however, he cost me a good chaise and a valuable horse, neither of which did I ever see or hear of again. And now, gentlemen, I’ll thank you for another glass of punch.”

Cain

(1865)

I had already made some way in my profession, when I went over to France about sixteen years ago, to study under Paul Delaroche. The great master was absent from Paris at the time of my arrival, and for some weeks I wandered from church to church, from gallery to gallery, dreaming, hoping, worshipping. I spent long days in the Louvre. To me the place was sacred; and I well remember how I often stood gazing into the golden glooms of a Rembrandt, or the airy distances of a Claude, till tears of boyish enthusiasm shut away the pictures from my sight.

While I was yet revelling in this delicious liberty, I visited the Luxembourg gallery for the first time. It was on a superb morning in June. There had been a shower, and the raindrops were yet glittering on the acacias. The clouds had cleared off; white statues gleamed here and there among the trees; and the great glass dome of the Observatoire looked all glad and golden in the sunshine.

I turned away reluctantly from the brilliant gardens, and passed through the little side-door leading to the upper rooms of the palace. I was devoted, at this time, to the elder schools of art, and felt but little interest in the works of my contemporaries; so I strolled on listlessly from room to room, pausing now and then before a Flandrin or a Paul Delaroche, but caring little for the collection as a whole.

At last, in the obscurest corner of a small, ill-lighted room, I came upon a picture that riveted my attention the moment I beheld it. The subject was “Cain after the murder of Abel:” the artist’s name, Camille Prévost.

Never, while I live, shall I forget the thrill with which I first beheld that fearful painting; never that ghastly landscape, and that still more ghastly face! The murderer stood on a bleak precipice, his head half turned, as if looking over his shoulder towards the spectator. The red sun was setting behind a gloomy forest on the far horizon. The sky and stagnant ocean were bathed in a copper-coloured glow. A snake glided through a foreground of loathsome weeds; and a distant vulture hovered in the air, as if scenting the first drops of human blood.

Powerful as it was, however, the design had less to do with the effect of this strange picture than the marvellous poetry of the execution. There was a dramatic unity about it which I find it impossible to describe—an atmosphere of death and horror that seemed to foul the very air around it. The face of Cain was instinct with unearthly meaning. The cold sweat stood in visible beads upon his brow, and his eyes were fixed as if upon some fearful vision. The very sea beyond looked thick and lifeless. The very trees were like funereal plumes.

When I went out, the sunshine of the summer afternoon offended my eyes. I chose a shady avenue, and there paced to and fro, thinking of the picture. Evening came, and it still haunted me. I strove to shake off the weird influence. I stepped into one of the theatres—but the laughter, the music, the lights were alike insupportable to me. Then I went home to my books, but could not read—to bed, but sleep forsook my pillow.

Thus the night wore past, and morning found me again at the Luxembourg. I had come too early; and I rambled about with feverish impatience till the gallery was opened. I spent the whole of that clay before the painting. I resolved to copy it. The next day I had taken up my position en permanence, and begun my task.

From this moment the picture began to exercise a strange, mysterious influence upon my whole being. I dreaded it, yet could not tear myself from it. My health suffered; my nerves were painfully overwrought; my sleep and appetite failed. I started at the merest sound; I trembled as I crossed the public streets. Unless when in the very act of painting, my hand lost its steadiness and my eye its certainty. I could not endure the light of an unshaded candle—nor pour out a glass of water without spilling it.

This was but the first stage of my disease. The second was still more distressing.

A morbid fascination now seemed to bind me to the picture, and the picture to me. I felt as if I could not live away from it. Cain became for me as a living man, or something more than man, having possession of my will, and transfixing me with the bright horror of his eyes. At night, when the gallery was closed, I used to linger in the neighbourhood for hours, unable to break the spell that chained me to my task; and when at last, worn out with fatigue, I went home and flung myself upon my bed, I lay awake half the night, or slept to dream of that which haunted me when waking.

Let it not be supposed that I yielded myself a willing victim to this monomania. Far from it, I wrestled with my torment—I reasoned, struggled, combated—but all in vain. It was too strong for me; and I had no one to help me in the fight. I felt at last that I might die or go mad, and there would be none to weep for me. I asked myself over and over again whither I was tending? What I should do? To whom appeal for aid and sympathy? Should I write to my friends in England? Should I leave Paris? Alas! my volition was gone. I was the slave of the picture, and though at the price of life or reason, I felt I must remain.

Matters were at this crisis (and I believe my senses were fast abandoning me) when a young man, somewhat older than myself, took up his position in the same room, and began copying a picture distant only a few yards from that on which I was employed. His presence irritated me. I felt that I was no longer alone, and I dreaded interruption.

He was a very quiet fellow, however, and so fully respected my taciturnity, that I soon ceased to remember I was no longer alone. His name, I should observe, was Achille Désiré Leroy.

It were both useless and painful to enter upon a more minute analysis of my mental condition. It became each day less and less endurable; as I became each day less capable of resistance. The whole thing wears now, in my memory, the aspect of a dream—long, vivid, terrible; but still a dream.

At last the time came when body and mind could bear their bondage no longer. The afternoon was dark and oppressive, as if a tempest were brewing. Not a breath of air found its way to the gloomy corner in which I sat at work. The bright, cruel eyes of Cain seemed to pierce my very brain. I felt as if I were being suffocated. My head swam—my heart throbbed—my brush fell from my fingers. All at once I fell back in my chair, uttered a despairing cry, and covered my face with my hands.

“You are ill,” said a voice close by.

I turned, and found Achille Leroy standing beside me.

“It is nothing,” I faltered.

He shook his head.

“I have been observing you,” he said, “for some days past. You are ill; and need not only change of air and scene, but change of occupation. This picture of Prévost’s is not good for you.”

“I must finish it,” I replied with a shudder.

“We will discuss that question presently,” said M. Leroy. “In the meanwhile, a breath of fresh air will do you more service than advice. Lean upon my arm, and come out with me for half an hour into the gardens.”

I was passive as a child, and obeyed him without a word. He led me out among the trees, and sought a bench in a retired spot, where we sat down. For some time we were both silent. When at length my companion spoke, it was to urge upon me the abandonment of my undertaking.

“You are wrong,” he said, “to set yourself so frightful a task. Let me recommend you to give it up from this moment.”

“Alas!” I said, “I cannot.”

“Why not? If the copy be a commission, it is already admirable, and needs not another touch.”

“It is not that,” I replied gloomily. “I have copied the picture for my own satisfaction—or rather for my own torment—and it has taken a hold upon me that I cannot shake off.”

He looked at me with compassionate incredulity.

“If—if you will promise not to regard me as a madman,” I added, “I will explain my words.”

He promised, and I told him all that I have here recorded. When I had brought my narrative to an end, he rose, walked thoughtfully to and fro under the trees, and then, returning to his seat beside me, said:

“As a stranger, I have no right to offer you counsel; but, as a brother artist and fellow-student, I feel as if it were my duty to make one more effort. If you will entrust me with the sale of your copy, I will undertake to find you a purchaser. But I implore you never again to look upon original or copy while you live. In urging this course upon you, I am actuated by no ordinary motive.1 know the picture to be a fatal picture. I know its history, and the history of him who painted it. If you are strong enough to listen to me for a quarter of an hour, I will relate the circumstances to you as briefly as I can.”

I expressed my eagerness to hear them; and M. Leroy thus began:

Camille Prévost was the younger of two brothers. I knew them both intimately. Their father was a negociant of moderate fortune, residing a few miles north of Paris. He died about ten years since, leaving the bulk of his property to Hippolyte Prévost, his elder son. Camille was a painter; Hippolyte a negociant, like his father. The brothers were both unamiable men. Hippolyte was prudent, cold, and crafty; Camille was sullen, vindictive, and reserved. I seldom visited Hippolyte after the death of his father; and had I not met Camille daily at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, I have little doubt that our acquaintance would have ceased altogether.

Camille Prévost was an unloveable man; but, like many unloveable men, he could love, and love passionately. As lovers, these reserved men are exacting; as husbands, jealous; as fathers, harsh; as friends, suspicious. But their attachments, however unpromising, are profound, and, like their enmities, lifelong. Camille loved his cousin, Mademoiselle Dumesnil. She was young, rich, and tolerably handsome, and resided in the Faubourg St. Germain. Camille Prévost was a proud man, and could not endure to owe his social position to any woman, however beloved; so, having made his declaration, and obtained the consent of the lady and her family, he went for three years to Italy, to study the works of the Italian masters, and achieve some fame, if not some fortune. By the help of great natural talent, an iron will, and a dauntless ambition, he rose rapidly in his profession. In the course of the first two years he carried off several prizes at the Academies of St. Luca in Rome and the Belle Arti of Venice; and towards the close of the third sent home a painting of such remarkable merit that it obtained him the rank of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

On receiving intelligence of this great success, he returned to France, radiant with gratified ambition, and elate with hope. But these three years, which had been so fortunate in one way, had proved fatal in another.

Mademoiselle Dumesnil was married to his brother.

Wholly unprepared for the blow that awaited him, he had hastened to her hotel immediately upon his arrival. He asked for Mademoiselle Dumesnil, and was told that Madame Prévost was at home. He found her at breakfast, and his brother, in his dressing-gown and slippers, sipping his coffee at the opposite corner of the table. Hippolyte had played his cards well; and while Camille was toiling fourteen hours a day in his Roman atelier, the unscrupulous elder brother had stepped in, and borne away the bride with her twenty thousand livres of dowry.

The lady received her former lover as coolly and calmly as if they had never been betrothed. Hippolyte affected cordiality, and pressed his brother to make the Hôtel Prévost his home whenever he might be in Paris. Camille disguised his fury under a mask of stern politeness. He neither wept nor stormed. Outwardly cold and cynical as ever, he betrayed by neither look nor word the passions that raged at his heart. When he took his leave. Monsieur and Madame Prévost flattered themselves that the wanderer had forgotten all about his early love.

“Three years in Italy, ma chère,” said the husband, as he drew on his gloves, and prepared to take his daily ride in the Bois, “make wonderful havoc in a lover’s memory. Depend on it, he is as glad to have regained his liberty as I am to have relinquished mine.”

About a week after this, the body of M. Hippolyte Prévost was found in one of the contre allées of the Bois de Boulogne, with a bullet in his brain, and his horse feeding quietly beside him.

There was a long and tedious investigation, the details of which have long since escaped my recollection. Several persons were in turn suspected; but the murder could be brought home to none, and the event was in time forgotten. Camille, having inherited the greater part of his brother’s fortune, continued to follow his profession with unabated industry. It was rumoured at first that he would marry his brother’s widow; but, on the contrary, he avoided her by every means in his power; and at last those who had prophesied of his marriage were heard to whisper that he had taken a solemn oath never to see, or speak with her again.

About this time he began his last and best painting—“Cain after the Murder of Abel.” I need say nothing to you of the merits of this extraordinary work. You have studied it more closely than I, and know it only too well.

Always misanthropic, Camille Prévost had sunk, ever since his return from Rome, into a dark and sullen melancholy. He shut himself up in his rooms; saw no one; and worked without intermission upon this fatal picture. Day by day, and week by week, he wasted away, beneath the burthen of a fascination which, like yourself, he could neither resist nor control. As the painting progressed, his sufferings became more acute, and his strength diminished. A profound despondency was succeeded by paroxysms of nervous terror. There were times when he would shriek aloud, as if unable to endure the sight of his own handiwork; and once or twice he was found insensible at the foot of his easel. On one of these occasions his servants called in the nearest medical man, who in vain strove to persuade his patient to lay the picture aside, and try change of air and scene. Camille refused to listen to him, and the doctor’s visit was never repeated.

At last the painting was finished, exhibited, and purchased by the Government.

As one of our modern masterpieces, it occupies its present position on the walls of the Luxembourg. Doubtless a day will come when, to use the language of the catalogue, “it will receive a last and honourable asylum in the galleries of the Louvre, where it will take a place beside its illustrious predecessors, and continue the history of French Art.”

“But the artist?” I exclaimed, when Leroy had brought his story to an end. “What became of Camille Prévost?”

We had risen from our quiet seat under the acacias some minutes back, and were now strolling down the shady side of an old-fashioned street adjoining the gardens. As I spoke, we arrived in front of a large private mansion approached by a pair of ponderous wooden gates thickly studded with bosses of iron. To my surprise, Monsieur Leroy, instead of replying to my question, rang the bell, nodded to the concierge, and requested me to follow him.

We passed through a spacious courtyard, up a flight of steps, and into a large hall paved with alternate squares of black and white marble. Here we were met by an elderly man of mild and benevolent aspect, who shook hands with my companion, and pointed to the staircase.

“You know your way, Monsieur Leroy,” he said. “You will find François in the corridor.”

To which my fellow-student replied by a word of acknowledgment, and preceded me up the stairs. At the first landing, we were met by an attendant in a sombre livery of grey and black, who saluted us in silence, and led the way through a long corridor in which were some ten or twelve doors, thickly clamped with iron. Before the last of these he paused, took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and stood aside to let us pass.

I found myself in a small sitting-room, neatly but plainly furnished. Close under the window stood an easel, and on the easel an incoherent fantastic daub in oil, more like a paint-smeared palette than a picture. The window, like the door, was closely barred, and looked out into a dreary yard surrounded by high walls. I shuddered. There was a heavy, unnatural silence about the house, a kind of palpable gloom, that chilled me like an evil presence.

“What place is this?” I said. “Why have you brought me here?”

Monsieur Leroy pointed to a door at the farther end of the room, which the attendant proceeded to unlock like the first.

At this moment a frightful scream rang through the rooms—a scream so shrill, so agonized, so dissonant, that I involuntarily covered my face with my hands, as if some awful sight must follow it.

“There is the painter,” said Leroy. “There is Camille Prévost.”

I looked in. One glance was enough—one glance at a wild, pale, savage face, from which all light of human reason had faded. In Camille Prévost I saw a raging madman, strapped down upon a wooden pallet, laughing, screaming, blaspheming, and crying aloud that he was Cain—Cain, the slayer of Abel!

“And is he really the murderer of his brother?” I asked, as I turned away, cold and horror-stricken.

“God only knows,” replied my fellow-student. “This is one of his violent days, and he always accuses himself when the paroxysm is upon him. At all events, you now know why I have brought you hither. That fatal picture has driven one painter mad, and I was determined it should not do the same by another.”

The Tragedy in the Palazzo Bardello

(1874)

[The scene of this story is laid in the Rome of fifteen years ago, when the old Pontifical régime was yet in full force, and Victor Emanuel was still King of Sardinia.]

I

The sun had been up for the best part of an hour; the golden haze in the East was slowly melting away; the sluggish tide of bullock trucks had fairly set in along the Via Sacra; and a faint, universal stir of awakening life was to be felt rather than heard in the pleasant morning air, when a certain Englishman, Hugh Girdlestone by name, rose from his lounging attitude against the parapet of the Tower of the Capitol, and prepared to be gone. He had been standing there in the same spot, in the same attitude, since the first grey of the dawn. He had seen the last star fade from the sky. He had seen the shadowy Sabine peaks uplift themselves one by one, and the Campagna emerge, like a troubled sea, from the mystery of the twilight.

Rome with its multitudinous domes and bell-towers, its history, its poetry, its fable, lay at his feet—yonder the Coliseum, brown, vast, indistinct against the light, with the blue day piercing its topmost arches; to the left the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the Caesars; to the right, faintly visible above the mist, the pyramid of Caius Cestius, beside which, amid a wilderness of sweet wild violets, lie the ashes of John Keats; nearer still, the sullen Tiber eddying over the fast vanishing piers of the Pons Emilius; nearest of all, the Forum, with its excavations, its columns, its triumphal arches, its scanty turf, its stunted acacias, its indescribable air of repose and desolation; and beyond and around all, the brown and broken Campagna, bounded on the one hand by long chains of snow-streaked Apennines, and on the other by a shining zone of sea. A marvellous panorama! Perhaps, taking it for all in all, the most marvellous panorama that Europe has to show. Hugh Girdlestone knew every feature of it by heart. He was familiar with every crumbling tower and modern campanile, with every space of open piazza, with every green enclosure, with the site of every famous ruin and the outline of every famous hill. It was his favourite haunt—the one pageant of which his eyes and his imagination were never weary. He had seen the sun rise and set upon that scene many and many a time, both now and in years past. He might, in all probability, stand in the same spot and witness the same gorgeous spectacle to-morrow; and yet he lingered there as fondly as if this visit were his first, and left as reluctantly as if it were destined to be his last.

Slowly and thoughtfully he went his way, out through the spacious courtyard, past the bronze horse and his imperial rider, down the great steps, and along the Via Ara Coeli. Passing the church of the Jesuits, he paused for a moment to listen to the chanting. As he did so, a Campagna drover in a rough sheepskin jacket stopped his truck to kneel for a moment on the lowest step and then trudge on again; and presently an Albano woman lifted the ponderous leather curtain and came out, bringing with her a momentary rush of rolling harmonies. The Englishman listened and lingered, made as if he would go in, and then, with something of a smile upon his lip, turned hastily away. Going straight on, with his head a little thrown forward and his hat pulled somewhat low upon his brow, he then pushed on at a swift, swinging stride, proceeding direct to the post-office, and passing the Pantheon without so much as a glance.

Manly, well-born, well-educated, gifted with a more than ordinary amount of brains, and, perhaps, with a more than ordinary share of insular stubbornness, Hugh Girdlestone was just one of those men whom it does one good to meet in the streets of a continental city. He was an Englishman through and through; and he was precisely that type of Englishman who commands the respect, though seldom the liking, of foreigners. He expressed and held to his opinions with a decision that they disliked intensely. His voice had a ring of authority that grated upon their ears. His very walk had in it something characteristic and resolute that offended their prejudices. For his appearance, it was as insular as his gait or his accent. He was tall, strongly made, somewhat gaunt and swift-looking about the limbs, with a slight stoop in the shoulders, and a trick of swinging his gloves in his right hand as he went along. In complexion and feature he was not unlike the earlier portraits of Charles II. The lines of his face were less harsh, and his skin was less swarthy; but there was the same sarcastic play of lip, and now and then a flash of the same restless fire in the eye.

Nor did the resemblance end here. It came out strongest of all in a mere passing shadow of expression—that expression of saturnine foreboding which Walpole aptly defined as the “fatality of air” common to the line of the Stuarts. The look was one which came to his face but rarely—so rarely that many of his intimate acquaintances had never seen it there; but it started to the surface sometimes, like a hidden writing, and sometimes settled like a darkness on his brow.

The main facts of his story up to the morning of this day—this 13th day of February, 1857—may be told in a few lines.

He was the son of a wealthy Derbyshire squire, had taken honours at Cambridge, and had been called to the bar some four or five years back. As yet he could scarcely be said to have entered actively upon his professional life. He had written an able treatise on the law of International Copyright, and edited an important digest of Chancery practice. He had also been for years in the habit of contributing to the best periodical literature of the day. Within the last four months, after a prolonged opposition on the part of her nearest relatives, he had happily married a young lady of ancient Roman Catholic family and moderate fortune, to whom he had been attached from boyhood. They were spending a long honeymoon in Rome, and were perfectly happy as a pair of lovers in a fairy tale. When it is added that she was just twenty-two and he thirty-four years of age, the outline of their little history is made out with sufficient clearness for all the purposes of this narrative.

Pushing on, then, at his eager pace, Hugh Girdlestone came presently to the post-office and inquired for his letters. There was but one—a square, blue-looking, ill-favoured sort of document, sealed with a big office seal and addressed in a trim business hand. He had to show his passport before the clerk would trust it beyond the bars of the little cage in which he sat, and then it was overweight, and he was called upon to pay forty-six bajocchi for extra postage. This done—and it seemed to him that the clerk was wilfully and maliciously slow about it—Hugh Girdlestone crushed the letter into an inner breast-pocket, and turned away. At the door he hesitated, looked at his watch, crossed over, withdrew into the shade of a neighbouring porte-cochère, took his letter out again, and tore it open.

It contained two enclosures; the one a note from his publishers, the other a letter of credit upon a great Roman banking-house. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction. He had been expecting this remittance for several days past, not altogether with anxiety, for he was in no immediate need of money, but with some degree of impatience; for the fate of more than one project was involved in the sum which this letter of credit might chance to represent. The extension of their tour as far as Naples, the purchase of certain bronzes and cameos, and the date of their return to England, were all dependent upon it. It was no wonder, then, that Hugh Girdlestone’s brow cleared at sight of the amount for which he found himself entitled to draw upon the princely establishment in the Piazza Venezia. It exceeded his expectations by nearly one-half, and made him a rich man for the next three months.

Having read the letter and folded the enclosure carefully away in his pocket-book, he then struck off in a north-easterly direction towards some of those narrow thoroughfares that lie between the Tiber, the Corso, and the Piazza di Spagna.

The streets were now beginning to be alive with passengers. The shop-keepers were busy arranging their windows; the vetturini were ranging themselves in their accustomed ranks; the beggars were lazily setting about their professional avocations for the day; and the French regiments were turning out, as usual, for morning parade on the Pincio. Here and there a long-haired student might be seen with his colour-box under his arm, trudging away to his work of reproduction in some neighbouring gallery; or a Guarda Nobile, cigarette en bouche, riding leisurely towards the Vatican. Here and there, too, on the steps of the churches and at the corners of the streets, were gathered little knots of priests and mendicant friars, deep in pious gossip, and redolent less of sanctity than of garlic.

But to Hugh Girdlestone these sights and sounds were all too familiar to claim even passing attention. He went on his way, preoccupied and unobservant, with a face of happy thoughtfulness and a head full of joyous hopes and projects. Life had, perhaps, never seemed so bright for him as at that moment. The happy present was his own, and the future with all its possible rewards and blessings lay, as it were, unfolded before him. It was not often that he was visited by a holiday mood such as this; and, English as he was, he could scarcely forbear smiling to himself as he went along. Coming presently, however, into a long picturesque street lined with shops on both sides from end to end, he slackened his pace, shook off his reverie, and began loitering before the windows with the air of a purchaser.

Pausing now at a cameo-cutters, now at a mosaicist’s, now at a jeweller’s, hesitating between the bronze medals in this window and the antique gems in that, he came presently to one of those shops for the sale of devotional articles, one or more of which are to be found in almost every street of Rome. Here were exquisitely carved rosaries in cedar and coral and precious stones, votive offerings in silver and wax, consecrated palms, coloured prints of saints and martyrs in emblematic frames, missals, crosses, holy water vessels, and wreaths of immortelles. Here also, occupying the centre of the window and relieved against a stand of crimson cloth, stood an ivory crucifixion designed after the famous Vandyck at Antwerp, and measuring about ten inches in height. It was a little gem in its way—a tiny masterpiece of rare and delicate workmanship.

Hugh Girdlestone had seen and admired it many a time before, but never till now with any thought of purchase. To-day, however, the aspect of affairs was changed. His letter of credit troubled his peace of mind and oppressed him with an uneasy sense of wealth. He longed to buy something for his little bride at home, and he knew that he could find nothing in all Rome which she would prefer to this. She would appreciate it as a piece of art, and prize it as a most precious adjunct to her devotions. She would love it, too, for his dear sake, and her eyes would rest upon it when she prayed for him in her orisons. Dear, pious, tender little heart! it should be hers, cost what it might. He would take it home to her this very morning. What pleasure to see the glad wonder in her eyes! What pleasure to give her back smile for smile, and kiss for kiss, when she should fly into his arms to thank him for the gift!

So Hugh Girdlestone went in and bought it, reckless of the breach it made in his purse, and caring for nothing but the delight of gratifying what he so dearly loved.

That he, an ultra-liberal thinker in all matters religious and political, should select such a gift for his wife, was just one of those characteristic traits that essentially marked the man. Setting but slight value on all forms of creeds, and ranking that of the Romanist at a lower level than most, he could yet feel a sort of indulgent admiration for the graceful side of Roman Catholic worship. The flowers, the music, the sculpture, the paintings, the perfumes, the gorgeous costumes, gratified his sense of beauty; and, regarding these things from a purely aesthetic point of view, he was willing to admit that it was a pretty, poetical sort of religion enough—for a woman.

Carrying the ivory carving carefully packed in a little oblong box under his arm, Hugh Girdlestone then hastened homewards with his purchase. It was now ten o’clock, and all Rome was as full of stir and life as at mid-day. His way lay through the Piazza di Spagna, up the great steps, and on through the Via Sistina, to a certain by-street near the Quattro Fontane, where he and his little wife occupied an upper floor in a small palazzo situated upon one of the loftiest and healthiest points of the Quirinal Hill. As he neared the spot, a sense of pleasurable excitement came upon him. He smiled, unconsciously to himself, and, scarcely knowing that he did so, quickened his pace at every step. To the accustomed beggar at the corner he flung a double dole in the joyousness of his heart; to a lean dog prowling round the cortile, a biscuit that chanced to be in his pocket. Happiness disposes some people to benevolence, and Hugh Girdlestone was one of that number.

Up he went—up the broad stone staircase which served as a general thoroughfare to the dwellers in the Palazzo Bardello; past the first landing, with its English footman, insolently discontent, lolling against the half-opened door; past the second landing, fragrant with flowers, the temporary home of a wealthy American family; past the third, where, in an atmosphere of stormy solfeggi, lived an Italian tenor and his wife; and on, two steps at a time, to the fourth, where all that he loved best in life awaited his coming! There he paused. His own visiting card was nailed upon the door, and under his name, in a delicate female hand, was written that of his wife. Happy Hugh Girdlestone! There was not a lighter heart in Rome at that moment when, having delayed an instant to take breath before going in, he pulled out his latch-key, opened the gates of his paradise, and passed into the shady little vestibule beyond.

At the door of the salon he was met by Margherita, their Roman servant—a glorious creature who looked as if she might have been the mother of the Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an honest water-carrier down by the Ripetta, and was thankful to go out to service for some months every year.

“Hush!” she whispered, with her finger on her lip. “She sleeps still.”

The breakfast lay on the table, untouched and ready; the morning sunshine flamed in at the windows; the flowers on the balcony filled the air of the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day of days—a day when to be still in bed seemed almost like a sacrilege—a day when, above all others, one should be up, and doing, and revelling in the spring-time of the glad new year.

Hugh Girdlestone could scarcely believe that Margherita was in earnest.

“Sleeps!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Signora has not yet rung her bell.”

“But is she still in bed?”

“Still in bed, Signore, and sleeping soundly. I stole in about half-an-hour ago, and she never heard me. I would not wake her. Sleep is a blessed thing—the good God sends it.”

The Englishman laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“One may have too much, even of a blessing, my good Margherita,” he said. “I shall wake her, at all events, and she will thank me for doing so. See—I have something here worth the opening of one’s eyes to look upon!”

Margherita clasped her hands in an ecstasy of devotional admiration.

“Cielo!” she exclaimed. “How beautiful!”

He placed the carving on a stand of red cloth, and then, going over to the balcony, gathered a handful of orange blossoms and crimson azaleas.

“We must decorate our altar with flowers, Margherita,” he said, smiling. “Fetch me those two white vases from the chimney-piece in the anteroom.”

The vases were brought, and he arranged his bouquets as tenderly and gracefully as a woman might have arranged them. This done, he stole to the bedroom door, opened it noiselessly, and peeped in.

All within was wrapt in a delicious, dreamy dusk. The jalousies were closed and the inner blinds drawn down; but one window stood a few inches open, admitting a soft breath of morning air, and now and then a faint echo from the world beyond. He advanced very cautiously. He held his breath—he stole on a step at a time—he would not have roused her for the world till all was ready. At the dressing-table he paused and looked round. He could just see the dim outline of her form in the bed. He could just see how one little hand rested on the coverlet, and how her hair lay like a lustrous cloud upon the pillow. Very carefully he then removed her dressing-case and desk from a tiny table close by, carried it to the side of the bed, and placed it where her eyes must first meet it on waking. He next crept back to the salon for the ivory carving; then for the flowers; and then arranged them on the table like the decorations of a miniature shrine.

And all this time she neither woke nor stirred.

At last, his pretty little preparations being all complete, the young husband, careful even now not to startle her too rudely, gently unclosed the jalousies, drew aside the blinds, and filled the room with sunshine.

“Ethel,” he said. “Ethel, do you know how late it is?”

But Ethel still slept on.

He moved a step nearer. Her face was turned to the pillow; but he could see the rounded outline of her cheek, and it struck him that she looked strangely pale. His heart gave a great throb; his breath came short; a nameless terror—a terror of he knew not what—fell suddenly upon him.

“Ethel!” he repeated. “My darling—my darling!”

He sprang to the bedside—he hung over her—he touched her hand, her cheek, her neck—then uttered one wild, despairing cry, and staggered back against the wall.

She was dead.

Not fainting. No; not even in the first horror of that moment did he deceive himself with so vain a hope. She was dead, and he knew that she was dead. He knew it with as full and fixed a sense of conviction as if he had been prepared for it by months of anxiety. He did not ask himself why it was so. He did not ask himself by what swift and cruel disease—by what mysterious accident, this dread thing had come to pass. He only knew that she was dead; and that all the joy, the hope, the glory of life was gone from him for ever.

A long time, or what seemed like a long time, went by thus; he leaning up against the wall, voiceless, tearless, paralysed, unable to think, or move, or do anything but stare in a blank, lost way at the bed on which lay the wreck of his happiness.

By-and-by—it might have been half an hour or an hour later—he became dimly conscious of a sound of lamentation; of the presence of many persons in the room; of being led away like a child, and placed in a chair beside an open window; and of Margherita kneeling at his feet and covering his hands with tears. Then, as one who has been stunned by some murderous blow, he recovered by degrees from his stupor.

“Salimbeni,” he said, hoarsely.

It was the first word he had spoken.

“We have sent for him, Signore,” sobbed Margherita. “But—but—”

He lifted his hand, and turned his face aside.

“Hush!” he replied. “I know it.”

Signor Salimbeni was a famous Florentine surgeon who lived close by in the Piazza Barberini, and with whom Hugh Girdlestone had been on terms of intimacy for the last four or five months. Almost as his name was being uttered, he arrived;—a tall, dark, bright-eyed man of about forty years of age, with something of a military bearing. His first step was to clear the place of intruders—of the English family from the first floor, of the Americans from the second, of the Italian tenor and his wife, and of the servants who had crowded up en masse from every part of the house. He expelled them all, civilly but firmly; locked the door behind the last; and went alone into the chamber of death. Hugh Girdlestone followed him, dull-eyed, tongue-tied, bewildered, like a man half roused from sleep.

The surgeon bent silently over the corpse; turned the poor white face to the light; held a mirror to the lips; touched the passive hand; lifted first one eyelid, then the other; and felt for the last lingering spark of vital heat on the crown of the head. Then he shook his head.

“It is quite hopeless, my friend,” he said gently. “Life has been extinct for some two hours or more.”

“But the cause?”

Signor Salimbeni slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“Impossible to tell,” he replied, “without a proper examination.”

The widower buried his face in his hands and groaned aloud.

“Whether the seat of this mischief be in the brain,” continued Signor Salimbeni, “or whether, as I am more inclined to suspect, it should be sought in the heart…”

He broke off abruptly—so abruptly, and with such a change of voice, that Hugh Girdlestone was startled from his apathy. He looked up, and saw the surgeon staring down with a face of ashy horror at the corpse upon the bed.

“Dio!” he faltered. “What is this?”

He had laid back the collar of the nightdress and bared the beautiful white bosom beneath; and there, just above the region of the heart, like a mere speck upon a surface of pure marble, was visible a tiny puncture—a spot so small, so insignificant, that but for a pale violet discolouration spreading round it like a halo, it would perhaps have escaped observation altogether.

“What is this?” he repeated. “What does it mean?”

Hugh Girdlestone answered never a word, but stood in stony silence with his eyes fixed on the fatal spot. Then he stooped, looked into it more narrowly, shuddered, rose once again to his full height, and less with his breath than by the motion of his lips, shaped out the one word:

“Murdered.”

II

It was the most mysterious crime that had been committed in Rome since the famous murder in the Coliseum about seven years before. The whole city rang with it. Even the wretched little local newspapers, the Giornale di Roma, the Diario Romano, and the Vero Amico del Popolo, made space, amid the more pressing claims of Church festivals, provincial miracles, and the reporting of homilies, to detail some few scanty particulars of the “tragedia deplorabile” in the Palazzo Bardello. Each, too, hinted its own solution to the enigma. The Diario inclined to the suicidal point of view; the Giornale, more politically wise than its contemporaries, pointed a significant finger towards Sardinia; the Vero Amico, under cover of a cloud of fine phrases, insinuated a suspicion of Hugh Girdlestone himself. At every table-d’hôte and every artist’s club, at the public reading rooms, in the studios, in the cafés, and at every evening party throughout Rome, it was the universal topic.

In the meanwhile such feeble efforts as it is in the nature of a Pontifical Government to make were put forward for the discovery of the murderer. A post-mortem examination was appointed; official consultations were held; official depositions were drawn up; pompous gendarmes clanked perpetually up and down the staircase and courtyard of the Palazzo Bardello; and every one about the place who could possibly be supposed to have anything to say upon the subject was summoned to give evidence. But in vain. Days went by, weeks went by, and the mystery remained impenetrable as ever. Passing shadows of suspicion fell here and there—on Margherita, on a Corsican courier in the service of the American family, on Hugh Girdlestone; but they rested scarcely at all, and vanished away as a breath from a surface of polished steel.

In the meanwhile, Ethel Girdlestone was laid to rest in a quiet little Roman Catholic cemetery beyond the walls—a lonely, picturesque spot, overlooking the valley of the Tiber and the mountains about Fidenae. A plain marble cross and a wreath of immortelles marked the place of her grave. For a week or two the freshly-turned mould looked drear and desolate under the Spring sunshine; but the grass soon sprang up again, and the wild crocuses struck root and blossomed over it; and by that time Rome had found some fresh subject for gossip, and the fate of Ethel Girdlestone was well nigh forgotten.

There was one, however, who forgot nothing—who, the first torpor of despair once past, lived only to remember and avenge. He offered an enormous reward for the apprehension of the unknown murderer. He papered Rome with placards. He gave himself up, body and brain, to the task of discovery, and felt that for this, and this only, he could continue to bear the burden of life. As the chances of success seemed to grow daily more and more uncertain, his purpose but became the more assured. He would have justice; meaning by justice, blood for blood, a life for a life. And this at all costs, at all risks, at all sacrifices. He took a solemn oath to devote, if need be, all the best years of his life, all the vigour of his mind, all the strength of his manhood, to this one desperate end. For it he was ready to endure any privation, or to incur any personal danger. For it, could his purpose have been thereby assured, he would have gladly died at any hour of the day or night. As it was, he trained himself to the work with a patience that was never wearied.

He studied to acquire the dialects, and to familiarise himself with the habits, of the lowest quarters of Rome. He frequented the small wine-shops of the Trastevere and the Rione St. Angelo. He mastered the intricacies of the Ghetto. He haunted the street fountains, the puppet-shows, and the quays of Ripa Grande. Wherever, in short, the Roman people were to be found in fra di loro, whether gossiping, gaming, quarrelling, or holiday-making, there Hugh Girdlestone made his way, mingled with them, listened, observed, and waited like a trapper for his prey. It was a task of untold peril and difficulty, made all the more perilous and difficult by the fact of his being a foreigner. Fluent Italian as he was, it was still not possible that he should perfectly master all the slang of the Rione, play at morra and zecchinetta as one to the manner born, or be at all times equal to the part which he had undertaken. He was liable at any moment to betray himself, and to be poniarded for a spy. He knew each time he ventured into certain quarters of the city that his body might be floating down towards Ostia before daybreak, or that he might quite probably disappear from that moment, and never be seen or heard of more. Yet, strong in his purpose and reckless of his life, he went, and came, and went again, penetrating into haunts where the police dared not set foot, and assuming in these excursions the dress and dialect of a Roman “rough” of the lowest order.

Thus disguised, and armed with a deadly patience that knew neither weariness nor discouragement, Hugh Girdlestone pursued his quest. How, despite every precaution, he contrived to escape detection was matter for daily wonder, even to himself. He owed his safety, however, in great measure to a sullen manner and a silent tongue—perhaps in some degree to his southern complexion; to his black beard and swarthy skin, and the lowering fire in his eyes.

Thus the Spring passed away, the Summer heats came on, and the wealthier quarters of Rome were, as usual, emptied of their inhabitants. The foreign visitors went first; then the Italian nobility; and then all those among the professional and commercial classes who could afford the healthful luxury of villeggiatura. Meanwhile, Hugh Girdlestone was the only remaining lodger in the Palazzo Bardello. Day by day he lingered on in the deserted city, wandering through the burning streets and piazzas, and down by the river-side, where the very air was heavy with malaria.

Night after night he perilled life and limb in the wine-shops of the Trastevere; and still in vain. Still the murderer remained undiscovered and the murdered unavenged; still no clue, nor vestige of a clue, turned up. The police, having grown more and more languid in the work of investigation, ceased, at last, from further efforts. The placards became defaced, or were pasted over with fresh ones. By-and-by the whole story faded from people’s memories; and save by one who, sleeping or waking, knew no other thought, the famous “tragedia deplorabile” was quite forgotten.

Thus the glowing Summer and sultry Autumn dragged slowly by. The popular festivals on Monte Testaccio were celebrated and over; the harvest was gathered in; the virulence of the malaria abated; the artists flocked back to their studios, the middle-class Romans to their homes, the nobles to their palaces. Then the Pope returned from Castel Gondolfo, and the annual tide of English and American visitors set in. By the first Sunday in Advent, Rome was already tolerably well filled; and on the evening of that same Sunday an event took place which threw the whole city into confusion, and caused a clamour of dismay even louder than that which followed the murder of Ethel Girdlestone ten months before.

III

A knot of loungers stood, talking eagerly, round the stove in Piale’s reading-room. It was on the Monday morning following the first Sunday in Advent, and still quite early. None were reading, or attempting to read. The newspapers lay unopened on the tables. Even the last Times contained nothing so exciting as the topic then under discussion.

“It is to be hoped and expected that the Government will bestir itself in earnest this time,” said a bald-headed Englishman, standing with his back to the stove.

“Hope is one thing, my dear sir, and expectation is another,” replied his nearest neighbour. “When you have lived in Rome as long as myself, you will cease to expect anything but indifference from the bureaucracy of the Papal States.”

“But a crime of this enormity…”

“Is more easily hushed up than investigated, especially when the sufferers are in a humble station of life, and cannot offer a large reward to the police.”

“Mr. Somerville puts the question quite fairly,” observed another gentleman. “There is nothing like public spirit to be found throughout the length and breadth of His Holiness’s dominions.”

“Nor justice either, it would seem, unless one can pay for it handsomely,” added another.

“Nay, your long purse is not always your short cut to justice, even in Rome,” said Mr. Somerville. “There was that case of the young bride who was murdered last Winter in the Palazzo Bardello. Her husband offered an immense reward—a thousand guineas English, I believe—and yet the mystery was never cleared up.”

“Ay, that Palazzo Bardello murder was a tragic affair,” said the bald-headed Englishman; “more tragic, on the whole, than …”

A sudden change of expression swept over his face, and he broke off in the midst of his sentence.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I feel as if I were on the brink of a discovery.”

“Plunge away, then, my dear fellow,” laughed Somerville. “What is it?”

“Well, then—what if both these murders had been committed by the same hand?”

“Most unlikely, I should think,” said one.

“Altogether improbable,” added another.

“Do you opine that Othello smothered the princes in the Tower?” asked a third.

“Listen to my premises before you laugh at my conclusions,” said he of the bald head, obviously nettled by the general incredulity. “Look at the details: they are almost identical. In each case the victim is stabbed to the heart; in each case the wound is almost imperceptibly small. There is no effusion of blood; no robbery is committed; and no trace of the assassin remains. I’d stake my head upon it that these are not purely accidental coincidences!”

“I beg your pardon,” said a gentleman, who till now had been standing by a window at the further end of the room with his back to the speakers; “but will you have the goodness to inform me in what part of Rome this—this murder has been committed?”

“Down, I believe, in one of the narrow lanes near the theatre of Marcellus.”

“And the victim is a Roman subject?”

“The child of Roman parents.”

“A child!”

“A child, sir; a little fellow of only eleven years of age, and the son of a baker named Tommaseo.”

The stranger took out his note-book.

“Near the theatre of Marcellus,” he said, scribbling a rapid entry.

“Just so—a most shocking and mysterious affair!”

“And the name, Tommaseo. Many thanks. Good morning.”

With this he lifted his hat, strode from the room, and vanished without another word.

“Humph! an abrupt sort of fellow,” said the first speaker. “I wonder who he is?”

“He looks horribly ill,” said another.

“I’ve met him before,” mused Somerville. “I remember the face quite well, but the name has altogether escaped my memory. Good heavens! it is Mr. Girdlestone—the husband of that very lady who was murdered in the Palazzo Bardello!”

•    •    •    •

In the meanwhile Hugh Girdlestone was swinging along at his tremendous pace towards that quarter where the murder had been perpetrated. He found the house without difficulty, at the end of a narrow Vicolo about half-way between the Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus. There was a crowd before the door, and a dismounted dragoon pacing up and down with his sabre under his arm. Over the shop window was suspended a board, on which were inscribed, in faded red letters, the words “ANTICO FORNO;” and at this window, where still lay unsold some three or four stale rolls of Saturday’s baking, an old woman every now and then made her appearance, and addressed wild lamentations to the bystanders.

“Alas! alas!” she cried, tossing her arms aloft like a withered Cassandra. “He was the light of our eyes! He was our darling, our sunshine, our pride! He was as good as an angel. He never told a lie in his life. Everybody loved him! At this hour yesterday his laugh made music in the house, and our hearts leaped for joy to hear it. We shall never hear that voice again—never, never more, till we hear it in heaven! He is dead! He is dead, and the blessed Virgin has him in her care. But his murderer lives. Oh Dio, hear it! Hear it, O blessed mother of God! Hear it, thou blessed Saint Stefano! Overtake him with your vengeance! Let his tongue wither, and his eyes melt away in blood! Let his hands and feet rot upon his body! Let his flesh drop piece-meal from his bones! Let him die unconfessed and unabsolved, and give him over to the everlasting fire!”

“No stranger is allowed to pass, Signore,” said the dragoon, interposing his person between the Englishman and the door.

But Hugh Girdlestone had only to open his pocket-book and show a certain slip of paper signed by the chief of the police. It was a magical document, and admitted him to all kinds of forbidden places.

He went in. In the outer room, or shop, he found some eight or ten persons assembled, apparently relatives and friends of the family; in a darkened room beyond, the body of a young child was laid out upon a narrow pallet strewn with immortelles and set round with lighted candles. The father, a sickly-looking man, with eyes red and swollen from weeping, was sitting upon a low stool, in a farther corner of the room, his elbows resting on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, smoking drearily. The mother lay crouched on the floor beside the bed, in a stupor of misery.

Hugh Girdlestone apologised for his intrusion with a word or two of explanation and sympathy. The woman never stirred. The man took his pipe from his mouth, rose respectfully, and replied to such questions as his visitor thought fit to put to him.

The child’s name, he said, was Stefano—Stefanino, they used to call him. He was their only child, and would have been eleven years of age in the course of a few more days. He was a particularly good boy, and as clever as he was good. He was a great favourite with the Padre Lorenzo—the famous Padre Lorenzo of whom the Signore had doubtless heard. This Padre Lorenzo had taken an especial affection for the little Stefanino, and had himself prepared the boy for his first communion. And he took it only yesterday morning—took it at the church of Il Gesù, from the hands of Monsignore di Montalto. It was a long ceremony. There were six hundred children present, and their Stefanino was among the last who went up. When it was over they came home and dined, and after dinner they went for a walk on the Monte Pincio. Coming back they hired a vettura, for the child was very tired; and as soon as they reached home his mother gave him a cup of soup and a piece of bread, and put him to bed. This was about half-past six o’clock.

A little later in the evening—perhaps about a quarter past seven—he and his wife and his wife’s mother went over to see a neighbour in the Via Fiumara close by. They left the child asleep. They had often left him so before, especially on Sunday evenings, and no harm had come of it. The wife of the shoemaker who occupied the first floor had promised to listen if he should wake or call for anything; and she was a good soul, and had children of her own. Ebbene, they stayed out somewhat late—later than usual, for the neighbour in the Via Fiumara had her married daughter spending the evening with her, and they stayed gossiping till past ten o’clock. Then they came home. The shoemaker and his family were gone to bed; but the house-door was left, as usual, on the latch, and the matches and candle were in their accustomed corner in the passage. So they lit the candle, and fastened the door, and stole in very softly; for little Stefanino was a light sleeper, and apt to lie awake for hours if accidentally roused.

However, this time, although the grandmother stumbled over the scaldino on first going into the room, he never turned or stirred. He slept in a little crib beside their own bed, and after a few minutes they went to look at him. He was very pale; but then he had gone through a day of great fatigue and excitement, and was unusually tired. They never dreamed, at first sight, that all was not well with him. It was his mother who discovered it. She first saw that no breath parted his dear lips—she first touched his cheek, and found it cold!

When he reached this point in his narrative, the poor baker fairly broke down, and covered his face with his hands.

“Eccolo, Signore,” he sobbed. “He was our only little one!”

“He is with God,” said Hugh Girdlestone.

He could think of nothing else to say. He was not a religious man. He was, on the contrary, a worldly, a careless, perhaps even a somewhat hard man; and he had no words of ready comfort and sympathy at command. But he was moved, and his emotion showed itself in his voice.

“Alas! God did not want him so much as we wanted him,” was the naïve reply.

The mother, who till now had lain huddled on the floor, apparently unconscious of all that was going forward, here suddenly lifted up her head.

“The good God and our Blessed Lady had him always,” she said, hoarsely. “He was in their hands from the hour when I brought him into the world, and he is not more theirs in heaven than he was theirs on earth. But they did not call him from us. It is not God but man who has bereaved us, and left us desolate. Behold!”

And with this she rose to her feet, turned down the sheet, and uncovered the wound—just such a tiny puncture, with just such a ghastly halo spreading round it, as Hugh Girdlestone had awful cause to remember.

He could not bear to look upon it. He shuddered and turned his face aside.

“Is there—is there anyone whom you suspect?” he faltered.

“No one.”

“Have you an enemy?”

The baker shook his head.

“I think not,” he replied. “I am at peace with all my neighbours.”

“Was no one seen to enter the house in your absence?”

“No one, Signore.”

“Did the shoemaker’s wife hear no sound?”

“None whatever.”

“And you have been robbed of nothing?”

“Not to the value of a quattrino.”

The Englishman’s heart sank within him. He felt profoundly discouraged. The double mystery seemed doubly impenetrable, and his double task doubly hopeless. He turned again to the little bed, and took one long, last look at the waxen figure with its folded hands and funeral chaplets.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing to a white silk scarf fringed with gold which lay folded across the feet of the corpse.

The mother snatched it up, and covered it with passionate kisses.

“It is the scarf he wore yesterday when he went up to take his first communion,” she replied. “The Padre Lorenzo gave it to him. Alas! alas! how beautiful he looked, dressed in all his best, with new buckles in his shoes and this scarf tied over one shoulder! The little angels painted over the altar did not look more beautiful!”

“The Padre Lorenzo!” repeated Hugh Girdlestone. “He taught the child, you say, and loved him. Does he know this?”

“Yes, he knows it.”

It was the man who replied. The woman had sunk down again upon the floor, and hidden her face.

“Has he been to see you since?”

“He sent a priest this morning to pray for the repose of our little one’s soul.”

“Humph!”

Tommaseo’s quick Italian ear detected the shade of disapproval in his visitor’s voice.

“The Padre Lorenzo is a saint,” he said, eagerly. “All Rome flocks to hear him preach.”

“Where is he to be found, amico?”

“At the convent of the Gesuiti close by.”

“So!—a Jesuit?”

“A Jesuit, Signore; so eloquent, so learned, so holy, and yet so young—so young! A holier man does not live. Though his body still walks upon earth, his soul already lives in heaven.”

“I should like to see him,” mused the Englishman. “He might suggest something—these Jesuits are keen and far-sighted; at all events, it is worth the effort. I will go round to the Gesuiti, amico, to hear if your good padre can help us.”

“Our blessed Lady and all the saints reward you, dear Signore!” exclaimed the poor father, humbly attempting to kiss the hand which Hugh Girdlestone extended to him at parting.

But the Englishman snatched it hastily away.

“Nay, nay,” he said, roughly. “I have my own motive—my own wrong. No thanks—no thanks!”

And with a quick gesture, half deprecation, half farewell, he was gone.

IV

Vast, sombre, dimly lighted, splendid with precious marbles and rich in famous altar-pieces, the church of Il Gesù wore that day an aspect of even gloomier grandeur than usual. Before the chapel of Saint Ignazio, a considerable crowd was assembled. All were listening devoutly. The dropping of a pin might have been heard among them. There had been no service. There was no music. No perfume of incense lingered on the air. It was simply a week-day discourse that was in process of delivery, and the preacher was Padre Lorenzo.

As Hugh Girdlestone went up the steps and lifted the heavy leathern portière, he suddenly remembered how, on that other fatal morning of the thirteenth of February last, he had paused upon those very steps, listening to the chanting and half-disposed to enter. Why had he not followed that impulse? He could not tell. Why need the coincidence startle him now? He could not tell that, either. It was but a coincidence, commonplace and natural enough—and yet it troubled him.

He went in.

The chapel was small and held but few seats, and the crowd spread far out into the body of the church, so that the new comer had to take up his position on the outskirts of the congregation. From this place he could hear, but not see the preacher. Finding it impossible, however, to work his way nearer without disturbing others, he contented himself with listening.

The voice of the preacher was low and clear, and sounded like the voice of a young man; but it rose every now and then to a higher key, and that higher key jarred somewhat harshly upon the ear. The subject of his discourse was death. He held it up to his hearers from every point of view—as a terror; as a reward; as a punishment; as a hope beside which all other hopes were but as the shadows of shadows. He compared the last moments of the just man with those of the sinner. He showed under what circumstances death was robbed of its sting and the grave of its victory. To the soldier falling on the field, to the martyr consuming at the stake, death was glory; to the sick and the heartbroken it was peace; to the philosopher, infinite knowledge; to the poor, infinite wealth; to all faithful Christians, joy everlasting. Happy, he said, were those who died young, for they had not lived to accumulate the full burden of human sin; happier still those who died penitent, since for them was reserved the special mercy of Heaven.

“But what,” he said—and here his voice rose to a strange pitch of tremulous exaltation—“but what shall we say to this event which is to-day on every man’s tongue? What shall we say to the death of this little child—this little child who but yesterday partook of his first communion in this very church, and whose fate is even now moving all hearts to indignation and pity? Was ever pity so mistaken? Was ever death so happily timed? In the first bloom of his innocence, in the very moment of his solemn reception into the bosom of our holy Church, sinless, consecrated, absolved, he passed, pure as an angel, into the presence of his Maker. Had he lived but one day longer, he had been less pure. Had he lived to his full term of years, who shall say with what crimes his soul might not have been blackened? He might have lived to become a heretic, an atheist, a blasphemer. He might have died with all his sins upon his head, an outcast upon earth, and an outcast from heaven! Who then shall dare to pity him? Which among us shall not envy him? Has he not gone from earth to heaven, clothed in a wedding garment, like a guest to the banquet of the saints? Has he not gone with the chaplet on his brow, the ring upon his finger, the perfume of the incense yet clinging to his hair, the wine of Christ yet fresh upon his lips? Silence, then, Oh ye of little faith! Why grieve that another voice is given to the heavenly choir? Why lament that another martyr is added to the noble army of the Lord? Let us rejoice rather than weep. Let our requiems be changed for songs of praise and thanksgiving. Shall we pity him that he is beyond the reach of sorrow? Shall we shudder at the fate that has given him to Paradise? Shall we even dare to curse the hand that sent him thither? May not that very hand have been consecrated to the task?—have been guided by the finger of God?—have been inspired by a strength … a wisdom … no murderer; but a priest … a priest of the tabernacle … it was the voice of God … a voice from Heaven … saying……”

He faltered—became inarticulate—stopped.

A sudden confusion fell upon the congregation; a sudden murmur rose and filled the church. In an instant all were moving, speaking, gesticulating; in an instant Hugh Girdlestone was pushing his way towards the chapel.

And the preacher? Tall, slender, wild-eyed, looking utterly helpless and bewildered, he stood before his hearers, unable, as it seemed, to speak or think. He looked quite young—about twenty-eight, or it might be thirty years, of age—but worn and haggard, as one that had prayed and fasted overmuch. Seeing Hugh Girdlestone push through the crowd and stand suddenly before him, he shrank back like a hunted creature, and began trembling violently.

“At last! at last!” gasped the Englishman. “Confess it, murderer; confess it, before I strike you dead with my own hands!”

The priest put his hand to his head. His lips moved, but no utterance came.

“Do you know who I am?” continued Hugh, in a deep, hoarse voice that trembled with hatred. “Do you know who I am? I am the husband of Ethel Girdlestone—that Ethel Girdlestone who used to come to this very church to confess to you—to you, who slew her in her bed as you yesterday slew a little child that loved you. Devil! I remember you now. Why did I not suspect you sooner?”

“Hush!” said a grave voice in his ear. “Does the Signore forget in Whose house we are?”

It was another priest of the order, who had just come upon the scene.

“I forget nothing,” replied the Englishman. “Bear witness, all present, that I charge this man with murder!”

The new comer turned to the congregation.

“And bear witness, all present,” he added solemnly, with uplifted hand, “that the Padre Lorenzo is responsible for neither his words nor his deeds. He is mad.”

•    •    •    •

And so it was. Young, eloquent, learned, an impassioned orator, and one of the most brilliant ornaments of his order, the Padre Lorenzo had for more than two years betrayed symptoms of insanity. He had committed some few extravagancies from time to time, and had broken down once or twice in a discourse; but it had never been supposed that his eccentricity had danger in it. Of the murder of Ethel Girdlestone no one had ever for one moment dreamed that he was guilty. With the instinctive cunning of madness he had kept his first secret well. But he could not keep the second. Having ventured on the perilous subject, he betrayed himself.

From that hour he became a raving maniac, and disappeared for ever from the world. By what motive his distempered brain had been moved to the commission of these crimes, and where he had obtained the long slender dagger, scarcely thicker than a needle, with which they were perpetrated, were secrets never discovered; but it was thought by some of those who knew him best that he had slain the child to save his soul from possible sin and send him straight to Heaven. As for Ethel Girdlestone, it was probable that he had murdered her from some similar motive—most likely to preserve her against the danger of perversion by a heretic husband.

Hugh Girdlestone lives, famous and prosperous, learned in the law, and not unlikely, it is said, to attain the woolsack by-and-by. But he lives a solitary life, and the gloom that fell upon his youth overshadows all his prosperity. He will never marry again.

All-Saints’ Eve

A STORY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

(1874)

[This story, written some seventeen or eighteen years ago, was founded, to the best of my recollection, on the particulars of a French trial that I read in some old volume of Causes Celèbres, or Causes Judiciaires, the title of which I have now forgotten. I no longer remember how much of it is fact, or how much fiction; or even whether the names and dates are retained unaltered.]

I
THE MOUNTAINEERS

It was a sultry day in the month of August, A.D. 1710. The place was wild and solitary enough—a narrow ledge of rock jutting out from a precipitous mountain-side in the department of the Haute Auvergne. The mountain was volcanic—bare and blackened towards the west; grassy to the east and south; clothed with thick chestnut-woods about the base. A sea of dusky peaks stretched all around. The deep blue sky burned overhead. All was repose; all was silence—silence in the grass, in the air, on the mountain-side.

Upon this shelf of rock lay three men, sound asleep; with their heads in the shade, their feet in the sun, and the remains of a brown loaf and a big cheese lying beside them on the grass.

The air up here was as still to-day, and as languid, as down in the green valleys below. Towards the south, a faint white mist dulled the distance; but in the direction of Clermont, on the north, every summit rose clear and keen against the sky. Most conspicuous amongst these was the long-toothed ridge of the Mont Dor; and loftiest of all, though apparently farthest, the solitary summit of the Puy de Dome. Here and there a few scattered sheep or cows might be seen as mere moving specks on some green slope of high level pasture. Now and then, the faint bleating of a stray lamb, or the bark of a herdsman’s dog, or the piping of some distant shepherd boy “piping as though he should never grow old,” just stirred the silence. But for these vague sounds and the low humming of insects in the grass, all was so profoundly still that it seemed as if Nature herself were holding her breath, and as if the very perfumes were asleep in the hearts of the wild flowers.

Suddenly, in the midst of this charmed silence, the prolonged blast of a huntsman’s horn, and the deep baying of many hounds, came sweeping up the ravine below. The sleepers sprang to their feet, rubbed their eyes, and peered over the brink of the precipice.

“’Tis Madame la Comtesse out with the hounds!” said the elder of the three—a big, burly, sun-browned mountaineer of some fifty-five or sixty years of age.

“Peste! It is my luck never to be in the way when she rides!” exclaimed one of the two younger herdsmen. “Here is the third time our new mistress has hunted of late, and I have never yet seen her.”

The horns rang out again, but this time farther away and more faintly. Once more, and it was but a breath upon the breeze. Then all was silent as before.

“They have gone round by the Gorge des Loups,” said the elder of the trio.

Then, looking round the horizon, he added:

“There is a storm brewing somewhere—and the shadows are lengthening. ’Tis time we went down to the Buron, lads, and saw to the milking.”

Now these three constituted the usual triumvirate of the Haute Auvergne—the vacher, or cowkeeper, (sometimes called the buronnier) who makes the cheeses which form the principal revenue of the landowners in this part of France; the boutilier who makes the butter; and the pâtre, or herdsman, who looks after the cows, and keeps the Buron and dairy in order. The distinctions of rank among these three are strictly observed.

The varher is a person of authority, “a wise fellow, and, what is more, an officer” the boutilier comes next in dignity; and the pâtre is under both. The Buron, or little wooden hut, in which they live during the six Summer months, in Switzerland would be called a châlet. It is generally built of wood, and divided into three chambers, the first of which is for living and cooking in, and is provided with a rude fire-place and chimney; the second is for the cheese-making, and contains milk-pails, churns, and other implements; the third serves for a cheese-room, store-room, and sleeping-room. A small kitchen-garden, a stable, a pigsty, and an enclosure in which the cattle take refuge in rough weather, completes the establishment.

The Buron to which the three herdsmen now took their way stood on a green slope surrounded by oaks, about six hundred feet below the spot on which they had been sleeping. As they went along, the cows came to their call and followed them, knowing that milking-time was come. Every cow—and there were fifty in all—was branded on the flank with a coronet and an initial P, thus showing them to be the property of the Countess de Peyrelade, a young and wealthy widow whose estates extended for many miles to the eastward of the Plomb de Cantal. Other herds, other Burons, other dependents, she had scattered about the neighbouring hillsides, all portioned off in the same way—namely, fifty cows and three men to each district.

“Tell us, Père Jacques,” said the boutilier when, the milking being done, the men sat outside the Buron door, smoking and chatting, “tell us what our new lady is like.”

“Like!” repeated the cowkeeper. “Eh, mon garçon, it would take a more skilful tongue than mine to describe her! She is more beautiful than the Madonna in the Cathedral of St. Flour.”

“When did you see her, Père Jacques, and where?” asked the pâtre.

“Mon enfant, I have seen her from near by and from afar off. I have seen her as a child, a demoiselle, a bride, a widow. I have carried her in my arms, and danced her on my knee, many and many a time. Ah! that surprises you; but the snow has fallen for many a Winter on the summit of Mount Cantal since that time.”

“Then it was a great many years ago, Father Jacques. How old is Madame la Comtesse?”

“Twenty-five years at the most, come September,” replied Jacques. “And she’s so fresh and beautiful that she does not yet look above eighteen. We always used to call her the little Queen Marguerite; and sure, if a young girl were to be made a queen for her beauty, Marguerite would have been crowned ten years ago. Ah, when she married the old Comte de Peyrelade and went away to the King’s court, there was not a soul in the province but missed her. It was a blessing even to look upon her; she was so fair, so smiling, so gracious! From everybody you heard, ‘Well, have you been told the news? The little Queen Marguerite is gone!’ And all the men sighed, and the women cried; and it was a sad day for the poor folks. Well, nine years have gone by since then. She has at last come back to us; the old Count is dead; and our little Queen will live with us once more, till the end of her days!”

“Perhaps,” said the boutilier, who had hitherto been silent.

“Why perhaps?” said Père Jacques, knitting his grey brows, “why perhaps?”

“Is not Madame young and beautiful?” asked the boutilier. “Is she not rich? Why, then, should she bury herself for life in an old château? What will you bet that she does not go back to court before twelve months are over, and there marry some rich and handsome lord?”

“Hush! Pierre,” replied Jacques, in a moody voice; “I tell you she will neither marry nor leave us. She has made a vow to that effect.”

“Do ladies keep those vows?” asked the incredulous Pierre.

“She will. Listen, and I will tell you all that passed nine years ago in the Château de Pradines, the home of our little Queen Marguerite before her marriage.”

The two lads drew nearer, and the cowkeeper thus began:

“The handsomest and noblest among all Marguerite’s lovers was M. le Chevalier de Fontane. She preferred him; and though he was but a younger son, with a lieutenant’s commission, the old Baron de Pradines consented to the marriage for love of his daughter. The wedding day was fixed. Then news came that Monsieur George, the brother of Mademoiselle Marguerite, was to have leave of absence from his regiment; and M. le Baron deferred the marriage till his arrival—and sorely he repented of it afterwards! Monsieur George was as much disliked as his father and sister were beloved in the province; and the day when he had first left it was a day of rejoicing amongst us. It was late one evening when he arrived at the château, bringing with him an old gentleman. This gentleman was the Count de Peyrelade. As soon as supper was over, Monsieur George went to his father’s chamber, and there remained with him for a long time in conversation. No one ever knew what passed between them; but the night was far spent when he came out, and the next day M. le Baron, who had been full of life and health before the arrival of his son, was confined to his bed in the extremity of illness. A priest was sent for, and the last sacraments were administered; and then the poor old gentleman summoned all the household to take his farewell.

“‘Marguerite,’ said he to his daughter, who was crying bitterly—‘Marguerite, I have but a few moments to live, and before I leave thee I have a prayer to address to thee.’ And as Mademoiselle kissed his hands without being able to speak a word, he added, ‘My daughter, promise me to marry M. de Peyrelade!’

“At these words the poor young lady gave a great cry, and fell on her knees at the foot of her father’s bed. Then the Baron turned to the late Count:

“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘I know my daughter; she will obey my commands. Promise me to make her happy.’

“The Count, greatly moved, promised to devote his life to her; and the poor dear master fell back quite dead!

“It was exactly twenty-four hours after his son’s arrival that M. le Baron breathed his last. What a terrible night it was, boys! The rain and snow had never ceased falling since that fatal return. M. le Chevalier de Fontane, who knew nothing of what had passed, came riding into the courtyard about an hour after the Baron had died. I ran out to him, for I was a stableman in the château, and I told him all that had happened. As he listened to me, he became as pale as a corpse, and I saw him reel in his saddle. Then he plunged his spurs into his horse’s flanks, and fled away like a madman into the storm. From that time he was never seen or heard of again; but, as he took the road to the mountains, it was supposed that he fell, with his horse, into some chasm, and was buried in the snow. Every year, on the anniversary of that day, his family have a mass said for the repose of his soul.”

Here the cowkeeper crossed himself devoutly, and his companions followed his example.

After a few minutes’ silence, “Well, Pierre,” he said, “now do you understand why Madame la Comtesse de Peyrelade has retired at the age of twenty-five to live in a ruinous old Château of Auvergne, and why she should never marry a second time?”

The boutilier was so concerned that he had not the heart to say a word; but the herdsman, who was excessively curious, returned to the charge.

“You have not told us, Père Jacques,” said he, “why the Baron desired his daughter to marry the late Count instead of the Chevalier de Fontane.”

“I can only tell you the reports,” replied Jacques; “for nobody knows the truth of it. They said that M. George owed more money to the Count de Peyrelade than his father could pay, and that he had sold the hand of his sister to defray the debt. Every one knows that the Count was very much in love with her, and that she had refused him several times already.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Pierre, “I don’t wonder at the poor lady’s determination. It is not her old husband that she grieves for, but her father and her lover; is it not, Père Jacques?”

“Ay,” replied the cowkeeper, “and it is not only past troubles that the gentle soul has to bear, but present troubles also! ’Tis not much peace, I fear, that she will find in Auvergne.”

“Why so, friend?” said a deep voice behind the speakers, and a man of about thirty-eight or forty years of age, with a pale face, a stooping figure, and a melancholy expression of countenance came suddenly into the midst of them. The mountaineer and the ecclesiastic were oddly combined in his attire; for with the cassock and band he wore leathern gaiters, a powder-pouch and a cartridge-box; while across his shoulders was slung a double-barrelled musket. A couteau de chasse was thrust in his leathern belt, and a magnificent mountain-dog walked leisurely at his side.

“Good day, Monsieur le Curé,” said the cowkeeper, respectfully. “Welcome to the Buron. Have you had good sport?”

“Not very, my good friend, not very,” replied the priest.

“You are tired, Monsieur le Curé; come and rest awhile in the Buron. We can give you fresh milk and bread, and new cheese. Ah dame! you will not find such refreshments here as at the château, but they are heartily at your service.”

“I will sit here with you, friends, and willingly accept a draught of milk,” said the priest, as he took his place beside them on the grass; “but upon one condition; namely, that you will continue the subject of your conversation as freely as if I were not amongst you.”

Père Jacques was abashed and confounded. He looked uneasily to the right, and then to the left; and at last, having no other resource, “Eh bien!” he exclaimed, “I will e’en speak the truth, Monsieur le Curé, because it is wicked to tell a lie, and because you are a holy man and will not be offended with me. We were talking of Madame and M. George, the present Baron de Pradines. He is actually living here in the château, and here he is going to remain—M. George, the spendthrift brother of Madame, to whom, through your intercession, Monsieur le Curé, she is lately reconciled.”

“Hush! Jacques,” said the priest, gravely. “M. de Pradines was wild in his youth; but he has repented. It was he who made the first advances towards a reconciliation with Madame.”

“I know that, M. le Curé,” said the mountaineer, “I know that; but the Baron is poor, and knows how to look after his own interests. He is here for no good, and no good will come of his return. It is certain that the old well in the courtyard of the château, which was dry for years, has refilled these last few days; and you know thatto be a sure sign of some misfortune to the family.”

“It is true,” said the Curé superstitiously, “it is true, Jacques.”

And he grew thoughtful.

The mountaineers were silent; suddenly the priest’s dog started and pricked up his ears. At the same moment the report of a gun echoed through the glen, and a white partridge, such as is sometimes to be seen in the mountains after a severe Winter, fell fluttering at the feet of the Curé. Then followed a crashing of underwood and a sound of rapid footsteps, and in another moment a gentleman appeared, parting the bushes and escorting a young lady who held the train of her hunting-habit thrown across her arm. The gentleman was laughing loudly, but the lady looked pale and distressed, and running towards the group under the chestnut-trees, took up the wounded bird and kissed it tenderly, exclaiming:

“Ah, M. le Curé, you would not have killed the pretty creature if I had begged its life, would you?”

The priest coloured crimson.

“Madame,” said he, falteringly, “this partridge is wounded in the wing, but is not dead. Who shot it?”

The young lady looked reproachfully at the gentleman; the gentleman shrugged his shoulders and laughed again, but less heartily than before.

“Oh, mea culpa!” he said, lightly. “I am the culprit, Monsieur l’Abbé.”

II
THE STORM

The Baron de Pradines, late of the Royal Musketeers and now captain in the Auvergne Dragoons, was small and fair, like his sister, and about thirty-five years of age. He looked, however, some years older, pale, ennuyé, and languid—as might be expected in a man who had spent a dissipated youth in the gayest court of Europe.

Madame de Peyrelade, on the contrary, was scarcely changed since Jacques had last seen her. She was then sixteen; she was now five-and-twenty; and, save in a more melancholy expression, a sadder smile, and a bearing more dignified and self-possessed, the good herdsman told himself that nine years had left no trace of their flight over the head of “la belle Marguerite.” The Countess, being still in mourning, wore a riding-dress of grey cloth ornamented with black velvet, with a hat and plume of the same colours. Thus attired, she so strongly resembled the portraits of her namesake, the beautiful Marguerite de Navarre, that one might almost have fancied she had just stepped out of the canvas upon that wild precipice amidst a group of still wilder mountaineers, such as Salvator loved to paint.

There were some minutes of uneasy silence. The wondering herdsmen had retreated into a little knot; the captain bit his glove, and glanced at his sister under his eyelashes; the Countess tapped her little foot impatiently upon the ground; and the Curé of St. Saturnin, with an awkward assumption of indifference, bent his sallow face over the wounded partridge, which was nestled within the folds of his black serge cassock.

“Mordieu! sister,” exclaimed the Baron, with his unpleasant laugh, “are we all struck dumb at this woeful catastrophe—this woodland tragedy? Being the culprit, I am, however, ready to throw myself at your feet. You prayed to me for mercy just now, for a white partridge, and I denied it. I now entreat it for myself, having offended you.”

The Countess, smiling somewhat sadly, held out her hand, which the dragoon kissed with an air of profound respect.

“George,” she said, “I am foolishly superstitious about these white partridges. A person who was very dear to me gave me once upon a time a white partridge. One day it escaped. Was it an evil omen? I know not; but I never saw that person again.”

The young man frowned impatiently, and, changing the conversation, exclaimed, with a disdainful movement of the head:

“We have the honour, Madame, to be the object of your herdsmen’s curiosity all this time. The fellows, I should imagine, would be more fitly occupied among their cows. Or is it the custom on your estates, my amiable sister, that these people should pass their time in idleness. A word to the steward would not, methinks, be altogether out of place on this subject.”

The herdsmen shrank back at these words, which, though uttered in the purest French of Versailles, were sufficiently intelligible to their ears; but the Countess, with a kindly smile, and a quick glance towards the priest, undertook their defence.

It was holiday, she said, doubtless in consequence of his own arrival in Auvergne; and besides, did he not see that M. the good Curé has been delivering to them some pious exhortation, as was his wont?

The priest blushed and bowed, and made an inward resolution of penance that same night, for participation in that innocent falsehood. It was his first sin against truth.

At this moment the lady, looking towards the little group of men, recognized Père Jacques.

“If I do not mistake,” she exclaimed, making use of the mountain patois, “I see one of my oldest friends yonder—a herdsman who used to be in my father’s service! Père Jacques, is it really you?”

The herdsman stepped forward eagerly.

“Ah, Mam’selle Marguerite,” he stammered, “is it possible that—that you remember me?”

And he scarcely dared to touch with his lips the gloved hand that his mistress gave him to kiss.

“George,” said the Countess, “do you not remember Père Jacques?”

“Ah!—yes,” replied the Baron, carelessly; adding, half aloud, “my dear sister, do not let us stay here talking with these boors.”

“Nay, brother, this place is not Versailles, Dieu merci! Let me talk a little with my old friend—he reminds me of the days when I was so happy.”

“And so poor,” muttered the dragoon between his teeth, as he turned away and began talking chasse with the Curé of St. Saturnin.

“And now tell me, Père Jacques,” said the young Countess, seating herself at the foot of a chestnut-tree, “why have you left the château de Pradines?”

“You were there no longer, Madame,” said the mountaineer, standing before her in a respectful attitude.

“But I was not here either.”

“True; but Madame might, some day, grow weary of the court; and I knew that sooner or later she would come to Auvergne. Besides, here I worked on Madame’s property, and ate of her bread.”

“Poor Père Jacques! you also think sometimes of the old days at Pradines?”

“Sometimes!—it seems as if it were but yesterday, Mam’selle, that I carried you in my arms, and ran beside you when you rode Fifine, the black pony, and heard your laugh in the courtyard and your foot in the garden! Ah, Madame, those were the happy times, when the hunt came round, and Monsieur your father, and yourself, and Monsieur the Chevalier de Fon——. Oh, pardon, Madame! pardon!—what have I said!”

And the herdsmen stopped, terrified and remorseful; for at that name the lady had turned deathly white.

“Hush, my good friend,” she said, falteringly. “It is nothing.” Then, after at brief pause and a rapid glance towards her brother and the priest, “Come nearer, Jacques,” she said, in a subdued tone. “One word—Was the body ever discovered?”

“No, Madame.”

She shaded her face with her hand, and so remained for some moments without speaking. She then resumed in a low voice:

“A terrible death, Jacques! He must have fallen down some precipice.”

“Alas! Madame, it may have been so.”

“Do you remember the last day that we all hunted together at Pradines? The anniversary of that day comes round again to-morrow. Poor Eugène!… Take my purse, Père Jacques, and share its contents with your companions—but reserve a louis to purchase some masses for the repose of his soul. Say that they are for your friend and benefactor—for he was always good to you. He has often spoken of you to me. Will you promise me this, Père Jacques?”

The herdsman was yet assuring her of his obedience, when the priest and her brother came forward and interrupted them.

“My dear sister,” said M. de Pradines, “the sun is fast going down, and we have but another hour of daylight. Our friend here, M. le Curé, apprehends a storm. It were best we rejoined our huntsmen, and began to return.”

“A storm, mon frère,” said Madame de Peyrelade with surprise. “Impossible! The sky is perfectly clear. Besides, it is so delightful under these old trees—I should like to remain a short time longer.”

“It might be imprudent, Madame la Comtesse,” said the Curé timidly, as he cast a hurried glance along the horizon. “Do you not see those light vapours about the summit of Mont Cantal, and that low bank of clouds behind the forest? I greatly mistake if we have not a heavy storm before an hour, and I should counsel you to take the road for the château without delay.”

“Come hither, Père Jacques,” said the lady, smiling, “you used to be my oracle at Pradines. Will there be a storm to-night?”

The old mountaineer raised his head, and snuffed the breeze like a stag-hound.

“M. le Curé is right,” he said. “The night-wind is rising, and there is a tempest close at hand. See the cows, how they are coming up the valley for shelter in the stalls! They know what this wind says.”

“To horse! to horse!” cried the dragoon, as he raised his silver horn and blew a prolonged blast. “We have no time to lose; the roads are long and difficult.”

A clear blast from the valley instantly echoed to his summons, and the next moment a group of men and dogs were seen hurrying up the slope.

“Farewell, my friends,” said the Countess; “farewell, Père Jacques! M. le Curé, you will return and dine with us?”

“Madame, I thank you; but—but this is a fast-day with me.”

“Well, to-morrow. You will come to-morrow? I will sing you some of those old songs you are so fond of! Say yes, M. le Curé.”

“Madame la Comtesse will graciously excuse me. I must catechise the children of the district to-morrow.”

“But my brother returns to-morrow to his regiment—you will come to bid him farewell?”

“Monsieur de Pradines has already accepted my good wishes and compliments.”

“The day after to-morrow, then, M. le Curé?”

“Madame, I will endeavour.”

“But you promise nothing. Ah, monsieur, for some time past you have been very sparing of your visits. Have I offended you that you will no longer honour me with your company?”

“Offended me!—oh Madame!”

These words were uttered with an accent and an expression so peculiar that the young lady looked up in surprise, and saw that the priest’s eyes were full of tears.

For at moment she was silent; then, affecting an air of gaiety, “Adieu, M. le Curé,” she cried as she turned away; “be more neighbourly in future.”

Then, seeing that he still held the wounded partridge, “Alas! that poor bird,” she exclaimed; “it is trembling still!”

“Ah, Madame la Comtesse,” said Père Jacques. “I’ll engage that, if M. le Curé opened his hand, that cunning partridge would be a mile away in half a minute!”

“Do you think it will live? Well, Père Jacques, take care of it for my sake. Feed it for two or three days, and then give the poor bird its liberty.”

“Sister!” said the dragoon, in a tone of impatience, “the storm is coming on.”

“Adieu all!” were the last words of the Countess, as she took her brother’s arm, and went down the rough pathway leading to the valley.

In a few minutes more they had mounted their horses and set off at a quick gallop towards the turreted château that peeped above the trees three miles away. The priest and the herdsmen stood watching them in silence till they disappeared round an angle of rock, and listened till the faint echo of the horns died away in the distance.

“Dear little Queen Marguerite!” exclaimed Père Jacques, when all was silent. “Dear little Queen Marguerite, how good and kind she is!”

“And how beautiful!” murmured the priest.

Then taking a little leathern purse from his breast, he slipped an écu into the mountaineer’s hand.

“Good Jacques,” said he, “I will take care of the partridge; but say nothing to the Countess when you see her again. Good evening, friends, and thanks for your hospitality!”

And the Curé threw his gun across his shoulder, whistled to his dog, and turned towards the pathway.

At the same moment a gathering peal of thunder rolled over the distant mountains; and the summit of Mont Cantal, visible a few moments since, was covered with thick black clouds.

“Monsieur le Curé!” cried the herdsmen, with one voice, “come back! the storm is beginning. Come back, and take shelter in the Buron!”

“The storm!” replied the priest, raising his eyes to the heavens. “Thanks, my friends, thanks! God sends the storm. Pray to Him!”

While he spoke, there came a flash of lightning that seemed to rend open the heavens. The herdsmen crossed themselves devoutly. But the Curé of St. Saturnin had disappeared already down the pathway.

The storm came on more swiftly than they had expected. All that evening the mountains, which here extend for more than three leagues in one unbroken chain, echoed back the thunder. Sturdy oaks and mountain pines that had weathered every storm for fifty years, were torn up from their firm rootage. Huge fragments of rock, white and tempest-scarred from long exposure on bleak mountain-heights, were shivered by the lightning, and fell like fierce avalanches into the depths below.

All was darkness. The rain came down in pitiless floods; the thunder never seemed to cease, for before the doubling echoes had half died away, fresh peals renewed and mocked them. Every flash of lightning revealed for an instant the desolate landscape, the rocking trees, the swollen torrents rushing in floods to the valley. It was scarcely like lightning, but seemed as if the whole sky opened and blinded the world with fire.

Meanwhile the Countess and her brother arrived safely at the Château de Peyrelade; and, having changed their wet garments, were sitting before a blazing log-fire, in the big salon overlooking the valley. Both were silent. Their reconciliation had not been, as yet, of long duration. Marguerite could not forget her wrongs, and the Baron felt embarrassed in her presence. It is true that he endeavoured to conceal his embarrassment under an excess of courteous respect; but his smiles looked false, and his attentions always appeared, to his sister at least, to wear an air of mockery. And so they sat in the great salon and listened to the storm.

It was a gloomy place at all times, but gloomier now than ever, with the winds howling round it and the rain dashing blindly against the windows. Great oaken panellings and frowning ancestral portraits adorned the walls, with here and there a stand of arms, a rusty helmet and sword, or a tattered flag that shivered when the storm swept by. Old cabinets inlaid with tortoiseshell and tarnished ormolu were placed between the heavy crimson draperies that hung before the windows; a long oaken table stood in the centre of the room; and above the fire-place the ghastly skull and antlers of a royal deer seemed to nod spectrally in the flickering light of the wood-fire.

At length the Baron broke silence:

“What are you thinking about so intently, Madame?” said he.

“I am wondering,” replied the lady, “if any hapless travellers are out in this heavy storm. If so, heaven have mercy on them!”

“Ah, truly,” replied the brother, carelessly. “By the way, that poor devil of a Curé, who would not come to dinner, I wonder if he got safely back to his den at Saturnin. Do you know, Marguerite, ’tis my belief that the holy man is smitten with your beautiful eyes!”

“Monsieur mon frère!” exclaimed the lady indignantly, “if you forget your own position and mine, I must beg you at least to remember the profession of the holy man whom you calumniate. He is ill repaid for his goodness towards you by language such as this! But for his intercessions you would not now be my guest at Peyrelade.”

“I beg a thousand pardons, my dear sister,” said the Baron lightly. “Pray do not attach such importance to a mere jest. Ce cher Curé! he has not at better friend in the world than myself. By-the-by, has he happened to mention to you the dilapidated state of the chapel at Pradines? It should be put into proper repair, and would cost a mere trifle—three hundred louis—which sum, however, I really cannot at present command. Now, my dear sister, you are so kind….”

“George,” said the Countess, gravely, “M. le Curé has not spoken to me of anything of the kind. I will not, however, refuse this sum to you; but do not deceive me. Shall you really put the money to this use? Have you quite given up play?”

“Au diable la morale!” muttered the dragoon between his teeth. Then he added, aloud, “If I ask it for any other use, I wish I may be—”

“No more, M. le Baron,” interrupted the lady. “To-morrow morning you shall have the three hundred louis.”

As she spoke these last words, a loud knocking was heard at the outer gates of the château.

“Bravo!” cried the Baron, delighted at this interruption to the conversation. “Here is a visitor. Yet, no; for what visitor in his senses would come out on such a night? It must be a message from the king.”

It was neither, for in a few moments a servant entered, saying that an accident had occurred to a traveller a short distance from the château. His horse, taking fright at the fall of a large fragment of rock, had become unmanageable, and had flung himself and his rider over a steep bank. Happily, some bushes had served to break the force of their fall, or they must inevitably have been much injured. As it was, however, the gentleman was a good deal hurt, and his servant entreated shelter within the walls of the château.

The Countess desired that the traveller should be brought into the salon, and a horseman be despatched to the nearest town for a surgeon.

“Ah, brother,” said she, “I had a presentiment of evil this night! Alas, the unfortunate gentleman! Throw on more logs, I beseech you, and draw this couch nearer to the fire, that we may lay him upon it.”

The door was again opened, and the stranger’s groom, assisted by the people of the château, brought in the wounded traveller, whom they laid upon the couch beside the fire. He was a young man of twenty-eight or thirty, slightly made, and dressed in a foreign military uniform.

The Countess, who had advanced to render some assistance, suddenly retreated and became very pale.

“What is the matter, Marguerite? What ails you?” cried her brother.

She made no reply, but leaned heavily upon his arm. At this moment the traveller, who began to recover when placed near the warmth, raised his head feebly, and looked around him. All at once his vague and wandering glance rested on Marguerite. Instantly a look of recognition flashed into his eyes. Then he raised himself by a convulsive effort, and fell back again, insensible as before.

The Baron de Pradines, who had attentively observed this scene, turned to the stranger’s groom, and asked him in a low voice the name of his master.

He could not repress a start when the man replied—“My master, Monsieur, is called the Chevalier de Fontane.”

“Ah!” said the ex-captain of Royal Musketeers, as he rent one of his lace ruffles into tiny shreds that fell upon the floor, “I will not leave to-morrow!”

III
THE PARSONAGE

André Bernard, Curé of the parish of St. Saturnin, was sitting in the little parlour which served him for breakfast-room, dining-room, and study. He had just said mass in the tiny chapel adjoining his garden; and now the peasants were dispersing towards their various homes, or clustering in little knots beneath the roadside trees, discussing the weather, the harvest, or the arrival of their lady the Countess in her château at Auvergne.

The pastor had hastened back to his cottage, and was already seated in his great leathern armchair, busily cleaning his gun, which was laid across his knees; but at the same time, in order that mind and body should be equally employed, he was devoutly reading an office from the breviary which lay open on a stool beside him. His dog lay at his feet, sleeping. His modest array of books filled a couple of shelves behind his chair; the open window looked upon the mountain-country beyond, and admitted a sweet breath from the clustering Provence roses that hung like a frame-work round the casement. The floor was sanded. A few coloured prints of the Virgin and various saints upon the walls; a small black crucifix above the fire-place; a clock, and an old oak press behind the door, make up the list of furniture in the Curé’s salon de compagnie.

Opposite to her master, seated in a second high-backed leathern chair, the very brother to his own, an old woman who played the important part of housekeeper in the parsonage, sat silently spinning flax and superintending the progress of a meagre potage that was “simmering” on the fire. Not a sound was heard in the chamber save the monotonous rattle of the spindle, and the heavy breathing of the dog; save now and then when the priest turned a leaf of his breviary. The old woman cast frequent glances at her master through her large tortoiseshell spectacles, and seemed several times about to address him, but as often checked herself in respect to his holy employment.

At last she could keep silence no longer.

“Monsieur le Curé,” she exclaimed, in that shrill tone which age and long familiarity appears to authorise in old servants, “Monsieur le Curé, will you never have finished reading your breviary?”

The Abbé, who did not seem to hear her in the least, went on mechanically rubbing his gun, and murmuring words of the Latin office.

The old lady repeated her question—this time with more effect; for André Bernard slowly raised his head, fixed his eyes vacantly upon her, and resting the butt-end of his musket on the floor, made the sign of the cross, and reverently closed the book.

“Jeannette,” said he, gravely, “here is a screw in the gun-barrel that will not hold any longer; fetch me the box of nails and screws, that I may fit it with a fresh one.”

Having said these words, he opened the breviary in a fresh place, and resumed his orisons.

“Here, Monsieur le Curé,” said the good housekeeper, somewhat testily, bringing out a little box of gunsmith’s tools from a corner cupboard, “here is what you asked for; but I think there must be some spell on your musket if it wants mending with the little use you make of it! There is no danger of your ever wanting a new one, I’m certain. Then your powder—it never diminishes! I have not filled your pouch for the last three weeks. Truly we should starve but for the eggs and vegetables; and the saints know that our larder has been empty for a long time!”

“What is the matter, my poor Jeannette?” said the priest, kindly, as he again looked up from his breviary. “I do not know how it is, but the game has fled from me lately.”

“Say rather, Monsieur le Curé, that it is you who fly from the game! The other day M. Gaspard, the schoolmaster, told me that he met you on the mountains, and that a great hare ran past you at a yard’s distance, and you only looked at it as if it had been a Christian!”

“The schoolmaster must have mistaken, Jeannette.”

“Oh, no, Monsieur le Curé; Gaspard’s eyes are excellent! Then your breviary—it is frightful to see you reading from morning till night, from night till morning, instead of being out in the fresh air, and bringing back a good store of game for ourselves and our neighbours. How shall we live? If you will not kill, you must buy—and your money all goes in charity. Ah, Monsieur, you must indeed be more industrious with your gun!”

“Well, Jeannette, I promise to reform,” said the priest, smiling; “I will go out this afternoon, and try to be more successful.”

“Indeed I should advise it, Monsieur le Curé; and above all do not come back, as you did yesterday, wet to the skin, and bringing what, forsooth?—nothing but a miserable partridge!”

“Ah! but I do not mean to make a supper of that partridge, my good Jeannette: I mean to keep it.”

“To keep it—holy Virgin! Keep a partridge! A live partridge! Why, Monsieur, it would devour our corn, and cost as much as twenty canaries. If you do these things, Monsieur, instead of giving alms you will have to beg.”

“Be calm, Jeannette, my good Jeannette; we shall never be ruined by a partridge. Besides, it is a rare bird. Bring it here to me.”

“Rare, Monsieur le Curé! I have seen them over and over again after a severe winter.”

“Well, Jeannette, for my sake take care of this poor little bird, for I value it greatly. Bring it here; I wish to feed it myself.”

The good housekeeper looked uneasily at her master through her great spectacles, and began glancing from right to left in evident tribulation. She did not offer, however, to rise from her seat.

“Are you dreaming, Jeannette?” said the priest, with much surprise; “did you hear me?”

“Oh, yes, Monsieur le Curé. The—the partridge….”

“Well?”

“Well—that is, Monsieur le Curé, you will be a little vexed, I fear—perhaps—but the partridge—”

“Will you speak, Jeannette?”

“There—Monsieur le Curé—there was nothing in the house for supper, Monsieur le Curé—and—and so I—”

“Wretch! have you killed it?”

And the priest sprang from his seat, pale with anger, and advanced towards the terrified housekeeper, who fell upon her knees, and clasped her hands in a speechless appeal for mercy.

Even the dog ran trembling under the table, and uttered a low deprecatory howl.

Recalled to himself by the panic of his household, André Bernard threw himself back into his chair, and covered his face with his hands. Could one have removed those fingers, they would have seen large tears upon his sunken cheeks.

At this moment the door was opened quickly, and a man entered the room. The priest rose precipitately from his chair, for in the intruder he saw no less a person than the Baron de Pradines.

“Excuse my intrusion, Monsieur le Curé,” said the gentleman, whose features wore an expression of peculiar anxiety. “I wish to speak with you in private.” And he glanced towards the still-kneeling Jeannette. “You see I have not yet returned to my regiment. I have, for the present, changed my plans. Pray who is this woman?”

“She is my housekeeper, Monsieur le Baron: she—she was in prayer when you entered,” said André Bernard, telling another falsehood to account for the strange position of Jeannette.

Poor Abbé! he blushed and faltered, and mentally vowed another penance for his sin.

“Jeannette,” he said, “you may go, I will hear the rest of your confession in the evening.”

The Baron smiled furtively as the old lady rose and left the room—he had, unfortunately heard the latter part of the pretended confession.

“Now, Monsieur le Curé,” said he, “I have come to consult you on a very grave and important subject. You are renowned in all this district for your piety and learning; tell me, do you consider vows to be sacred and indissoluble?”

The priest was surprised to hear these words from the lips of a gentleman whose reputation for light morals and free views was so extensively known; but after a few moments’ consideration—

“There are several kinds of vows, Monsieur le Baron,” he replied; “there are vows by which we bind ourselves to the service of God, and those never must be broken. Then there are vows rashly uttered in times of mental excitement, by which people engage themselves to perform acts of sacrifice or penance.”

“Ah, it is of such that I would speak!” said the captain. “What of those? Think well, M. le Curé, before you answer me.”

“It is doubtless a great sin,” replied the priest, “not to fulfil such vows; but still I do not think that the good God in His mercy would desire to chastise eternally an erring creature who had thus offended him; especially if the vow were made under the strong influence of human passion.”

The dragoon bit his lips angrily.

“I am no churchman, Monsieur le Curé,” said he roughly, “but I cannot agree with you there. Do you forget that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac his son?”

“Yes, but I also remember that He sent an angel to arrest the father’s hand.”

“Possibly,” said the Baron, with a bitter laugh; “but I do not believe anything of the kind myself!”

André Bernard raised his eyes to the ceiling, in pious horror.

After a moment, George de Pradines drew his chair beside the priest, and continued:

“And yet, Monsieur le Curé, I have something to tell you that I think will change your opinion in the matter of vows.”

“Proceed,” murmured the priest, who was already troubled with a presentiment of evil.

“Since we parted last night, strange things have happened at the château. A wounded traveller has arrived—a traveller whom we believed long since dead. He lives. Eh bien, Monsieur le Curé, can you guess who he is?”

“Monsieur le Baron—I—I know not,” murmured the priest; and for the third time André Bernard uttered an untruth.

“I am really surprised, Monsieur le Curé at your want of penetration. Well, it is the Chevalier de Fontane.”

At this name the priest turned pale and trembled. He looked silently upon the ground.

“Listen, Monsieur le Curé,” cried the young man determinedly; “dissimulation avails nothing. My sister is a rich widow, and I shall be ruined if she breaks her solemn vow never to marry a second time. I have already procured large sums of money upon the reversion of her estate, when she either dies or adopts a conventual life. I am not a man who could pass his days agreeably at the galleys. My future depends solely on her vow, and she must notmarry a second time.”

“But, Monsieur le Baron, it seems to me that you leap at too hasty a conclusion. Your fears may be without foundation. Madame may not wish to be absolved from her vow—Monsieur le Chevalier may no longer be desirous….”

“Bah!” interrupted the Baron, savagely, “what else is he here for? His servant has told me all. He has been for eight or nine years serving in the Prussian army; during all that time he kept a strict watch upon France. At length he heard of the death of the late Count de Peyrelade: he obtained leave of absence when a decent time had elapsed. Loving and hoping more ardently than ever, he set off for Auvergne; he met with this accident at the very gates of the château, (would that it had killed him!); and there he is!”

The priest was silent.

“You see, Monsieur le Curé, there is but one way to prevent this marriage. My sister is pious, and rests every faith in your sanctity. She will sigh—perhaps she will weep; but is it for a priest, a minister of the church, to be swayed by trifles of this kind? No! it is for the sake of religion and heaven, Monsieur le Curé, that you will be firm and faithful to your trust. It is nothing to you if my fortunes fail or prosper—if a young woman weeps or smiles—you must fulfil the disinterested duties of your sacred calling—you must maintain the sanctity of vows—you must rescue my sister from the abyss of crime into which she is falling!”

“It is quite true,” said the poor Abbé, tremulously.

“Then you will render your utmost assistance?” said the Baron eagerly.

“Yes,” murmured the priest.

“Monsieur le Curé, you are a holy man, and you have my esteem.”

The Abbé blushed and accepted the proffered hand of the dragoon. At that moment some one knocked at the door.

“Who is there?” said the Abbé, starting like a guilty man.

“It is I,” replied old Jeannette. “A servant from the château presents the compliments of Madame la Comtesse, and requests M. le Curé to pay her a visit directly on urgent business.”

“You see,” said the Baron, “my sister has her scruples already. Go quickly, my dear Abbé, and do not forget that the interests of the church are in your hands. It is a holy mission!”

“A holy mission!” repeated the priest, as he turned to leave the room. “A holy mission! O mon Dieu, mon Dieu! do not forsake thy servant!”

IV
THE VOW

André Bernard arrived at the Château de Peyrelade like a man walking in his sleep. He found that he had been ushered into the Countess’s boudoir, and that he was sitting there awaiting her arrival, without having the faintest remembrance of the forest through which he must have come, the gates through which he must have passed, or the staircase which he must have ascended. Truly the Abbé Bernard had been asleep, and his sleep had lasted for two months. Now he was slowly awaking, and it was the stern reality of his position that so bewildered him.

The charm which spread itself round the young and beautiful Countess had not been unfelt by this lonely priest, whose calm and passionless existence had hitherto been passed in the society of an aged housekeeper, or of a simple and untaught peasantry. Seeing nothing for long years beyond the narrow limits of his own little world—his parsonage, his chapel, or his parishioners; familiar only with the savage grandeur of the mountains, or the cool stillnesses of the valleys, is it to be wondered at that the presence of an accomplished and graceful woman should blind the reason of a simple Curé?

Even at this moment, the perfumed atmosphere of the boudoir intoxicated him. Exotics of exquisite shape and colour, with long drooping leaves and heavy white and purple blossoms, were piled against the windows; a Persian carpet, gorgeous with eastern dyes—

“Orange and azure deep’ning into gold,”

was spread beneath his feet. Yonder was her lute; here were some of her favourite books; all around, draperies of pink silk fell from the ceiling, and curtained round the boudoir like a tent.

The Abbé laid his head upon his hand, and groaned aloud.

When he again looked up, the Countess was standing beside him, with an unwonted trouble in her face—a trouble that might have been pity, or anxiety, or shame, or a mingling of all three.

She began to speak; she hesitated; her voice trembled, and her words were indistinct.

André Bernard was suddenly aroused from his dream. The lover, not the priest, was awakened.

He rose abruptly.

“Madame la Comtesse,” he said, sternly, “spare yourself useless and sinful words. I know why you have sent for me to-day, and I tell you that the All-Powerful who has received your vow, commands you by my lips to observe its sanctity.”

The young woman cast a terrified glance at the gloomy countenance of the priest, and hid her face in her hands.

“Then, Monsieur le Curé, the All-Powerful bids me die!”

“No, you will not die,” replied the Abbé, in the same profound and steady voice—“you will not die. Heaven, which gave you strength to bear the first separation, will enable you to sustain the second.”

“Alas! alas!” cried the Countess, in a piercing tone, “I had thought to be so happy!”

The priest dug his nails into the palms of his clenched hands. A convulsive tremor shook him from head to foot, and he gasped for breath. Before he had seen her, he had prepared a host of holy consolations for the wounded heart; but now that he had it before him, trembling and bleeding like the stricken bird which had nestled in his breast the night before, he had not a word of comfort or pity to soothe her anguish. Every tear that forced its way between her slender fingers, fell like a burning coal upon the conscience of the good Curé. In this cruel perplexity he murmured a brief prayer for strength and guidance.

“Alas, Madame,” he faltered, “do you then love him so deeply?”

“I have loved him all my life!” she cried despairingly.

The priest was silent. He threw open the window, and suffered the evening breeze to cool his brow and lift his long black hair.

Then he returned.

“Marguerite,” he said, in a broken voice, “be it as you will. In the name of the living God, I release you from your vow; and if in this a wrong should be committed, henceforth I take that sin upon my soul.”

Powerfully moved, glowing with excitement, elevated for the moment by a rapture of generosity—feeling, perhaps, as the martyrs of old, when they went triumphant to their deaths, and sealed their faith with blood—so André Bernard stood in the glory of the setting sun, rapt, illumined, glorified. And Marguerite de Peyrelade, dimly conscious of the dark struggle that had passed through his soul and the divine victory which he had achieved, fell on her knees as to a deity, calling upon him as her saviour, her benefactor!

“Not unto me, Marguerite, but unto Him,” said André, releasing his hand gently from her lips, and pointing upwards. “It is not I who give you happiness. C’est Dieu qui l’envoie. Priez Dieu!” And he pointed to a crucifix against the wall.

The young woman bowed before the sacred emblem in speechless gratitude, and when she rose from her knees the priest was gone.

In an hour from this time, two persons were sitting together on the terrace, upon which opened the Countess’s boudoir. One was a young man, pale, but with a light of joy in his countenance that replaced the bloom of health. He was seated in an easy chair, and wrapped in a large military cloak. The other was a woman, young and beautiful, who sat on a low stool at his feet, with her cheek resting on his hand. They spoke at intervals in low caressing tones, and seemed calmly, speechlessly happy.

Far around them extended range beyond range of purple mountains, quiet valleys, and long, dark masses of foliage tinted with all the hues of autumn and golden in the sun. No traces of the late storm were visible, save that here and there a tree lay prostrate, and one or two brawling streams that but yesterday were tiny rivulets, dashed foaming through the valleys.

Presently the red disc of the sun disappeared slowly behind the tree-tops; the gathered clouds faded into grey; the mountain summits grew darker, and their outline more minutely distinct; a mist came over the valley; and a star gleamed out above.

The lady wrapped his cloak more closely round her lover, to protect him from the evening air, and then resumed her lowly seat. And so they sat, looking at the stars and into one another’s eyes, listening to the distant sheep-bell, or the lowing of the herds as they were driven home to their stalls.

“Methinks, sweet one,” said the gentleman, as he looked down at the dear head laid against his hand—“methinks, that in an hour such as this, with thee beside me, I should love to die!”

But the lady kissed his hand, and then his brow, and looked at him with eyes that were filled only with life and love.

That night the Baron de Pradines set off to join his regiment.

V
THE SUPPER
OF ALL-SAINTS’ EVE

Two months quickly passed away in the Château de Peyrelade, during which the Chevalier de Fontane had recovered from his accident, and the Countess from her melancholy. Preparations had been making for the last three weeks for the celebration of their marriage. Workmen from Paris had been decorating the rooms; a dignitary of the church was invited to perform the ceremony; and all the nobility for miles around were invited to the fête. Even the Baron de Pradines, mortally offended as he was by the whole business, had at last consented to be friends, and had accepted an invitation to the wedding. In a word, the contract was to be signed on the evening of All-Saints’ Day, and the marriage was to take place the following morning.

At length All-Saints’ Day arrived, a grey, cold, snowing morning. Autumn is wintry enough, sometimes, in the Haute Auvergne. The earth looks bare and hard, the chestnut-trees are all stripped of their thick foliage, and the snow has encroached half-way down the sides of the mountains. The raw north-east wind rushes howling through the passes and along the valley, carrying with it at sunrise and sunset drifting sleet and fine snow, Soon it will come down thick and fast, and bury all the bushes in its white mantle. Now the herdsmen’s huts are empty, and the cows are transferred to the warm stabling of the château.

Marguerite de Peyrelade, sitting in her salon, surrounded by a gay and noble company, is ill at ease, thinking of the dark night, of the falling snow, of the howling wolves, and of the Chevalier de Fontane, who has been out since morning and is momentarily expected at the château. He has been to the notary’s in the neighbouring town respecting the marriage-settlements, and has promised to return in time for the great supper of All-Saints’ Eve. The Baron de Pradines is also to arrive to-night to be present at the signing of the contract; and the young Countess, whose heart is overflowing with love and charity, is even a little concerned for the safety of her ungracious brother.

Parisian workmen have effected wondrous changes in the great dark salon of the Château de Peyrelade. Who would recognize, in the brilliantly lighted reception-room blazing with chandeliers and mirrors, furnished with exquisite taste, garlanded with evergreens, and crowded with all the rank and pride of Auvergne, the gloomy, cavernous hall with the rusty armour and ghostly antlers of two months since?

Uniforms and glittering orders were abundant. There was the Marquis de Florac, gorgeous with the ribbon and decoration of St. John of Jerusalem; the Count de Saint Flour, in his uniform as Colonel of the St. Flour cavalry; the Commander de Fontane, cousin of the bridegroom, in a rich court dress redolent of Versailles; the Lieutenant of Police; the Seigneur de Rochevert, who owned the adjoining estate; several officers, a cabinet minister, some diplomatic gentlemen, and one or two younger sons from the colleges and the Polytechnique. The gentlemen were gathered in little knots, playing at ombre and piquet: the ladies were assembled round la belle reine Marguerite.

But the queen of the fête was anxious and abstracted, and her thoughts wandered away to the Chevalier de Fontane and his lonely journey. The time-piece in the ante-chamber struck nine. No one heard it but Marguerite. Neither laughter, nor music, nor the sound of many voices could drown that silvery reverberation, however, for her listening ears. Her impatience became intolerable, for the Chevalier should have returned full three hours before. At last she rose and slipped quietly out of the room, through the ante-chamber, along the corridor, and so into her little quiet boudoir, far away from the jarring merriment of her guests. There she wrapped herself in a great cloak lined with sables, opened the window, and stepped out on the terrace.

It was a gloomy night. The moon shone fitfully through masses of black cloud. There was snow upon the terrace; snow in the garden beneath; snow in the valley; snow on the distant mountains. The silence was profound; not a sound was audible from the noisy salon; not a sound from the distant forest. All around lay deep shadow and spectral moonlight; and upon all the scene a stillness as of death. Suddenly, in the midst of the silence, Marguerite de Peyrelade heard the sharp, clear report of a distant musket shot. She listened, trembling and terrified. It was instantly followed by another.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” murmured the young woman, leaning for support against the window-frame; “what Christian hunts at such an hour as this? Heaven protect Eugène!”

And now another sound almost as deadly—a prolonged howling of wolves startled in their lair—came up from the valley. Then the moon became obscured by heavy clouds, and snow began to fall.

The Countess re-entered her boudoir, closed the windows hastily, and was glad once more to find herself in the noisy salon.

“Our hostess looks very pale,” whispered the Marquis de Morac to his partner at ombre. “She is anxious, I suppose, for the arrival of M. de Fontane.”

“Very likely,” said his companion—“I play the king.”

“Is Madame unwell?” asked a young Colonel of Hussars, going up to her with a profound salutation. “Madame appears much agitated.”

“I have heard something very strange,” stammered the Countess, as she sank into a chair: “the report of a gun!”

“Indeed, Madame!” said the Lieutenant of Police. “That is somewhat strange at this hour of the evening!”

“And it was followed by—by a second,” said the Countess.

“Stranger still!” muttered the Lieutenant.

“Pooh! nothing but the fall of some fragment of rock up in the mountains yonder,” said the Commander de Fontane, with a gay laugh. “The days of banditti are past. Do not be alarmed, chère petite cousine; Eugène is safe enough, and knows how to take care of himself.”

“He should have been here some hours ago, Monsieur,” replied the lady.

At this moment the door of the salon was thrown open, and the Majordomo announced that supper was served.

“But the two principal guests are not yet here,” cried the Marquis de Florac. “Monsieur le Chevalier de Fontane, and Monsieur le Baron de Pradines!”

“Three are wanting, M. le Marquis,” said the Countess, forcing a smile. “Our good Abbé Bernard, the Curé of St. Saturnin, has not yet arrived; and how could we take our places at table without his presence on All-Saints’ Eve? We must wait awhile for the three missing guests. I am surprised at the absence of M. le Curé, for he has the shortest road to travel; not more than a quarter of a league.”

“A quarter of a league, did you say?” exclaimed the Commander: “is that all? Why, with a good horse it would not take more than five minutes to go and return. If you command it, Madame, I will fly to M. le Curé, and bring him to your feet dead or alive!”

“Monsieur, I thank you,” said the Countess, smiling; “but here is our worthy Abbé!”

At the same instant the Curé of St. Saturnin was ushered into the salon. He looked strangely white and wan; his teeth chattered; his hands were damp and cold.

“At last, Monsieur le Curé!” said the Countess, as she advanced to meet him.

“At last, Monsieur le Curé!” repeated several voices.

“Five minutes later, Monsieur le Curé, and I protest that Madame’s chef de cuisine would have committed suicide for grief at the ruin of the ragoûts, and you would have had murder on your conscience!” exclaimed the Commander.

“Murder!” echoed André Bernard in a hollow voice, staring round him upon the company—“who speaks here of murder?”

“For shame, Monsieur le Commandeur! you alarm our good Abbé,” said Madame de Peyrelade. “Come to the fire, Monsieur le Curé; you are trembling from cold.”

“The supper is served,” said the Majordomo for the second time, with an appealing look towards his mistress.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait no longer for Monsieur de Fontane or my brother,” said the Countess, rising. “The former will doubtless be here before supper is over; and the Baron de Pradines is possibly detained at court, and may not arrive till to-morrow. We will defer supper no longer. Your arm, Monsieur de Florac.”

The supper was laid out in the great hall of the château. Wine and jests went round. Even the Countess recovered her spirits, and joined in the gaiety of her guests.

“Remove those two covers,” said she. “We will tell these gentlemen, if they arrive, that they shall have no supper by way of penance.”

“No, no,” exclaimed the Commander; “I protest against the sentence! They will be here soon, and deserve pity rather than reproof. Who knows? Perhaps my cousin and the Baron have agreed to surprise us at the supper-table, and will both be in the midst of us in a few minutes.”

“Both!” ejaculated the priest, casting a terrified glance at the vacant chairs.

“And why not, Monsieur le Curé? I remember, when I was some twelve years younger, being invited to sup with a party of friends at ten leagues’ distance. It was a pouring night, but there was a pretty girl in question, and so I rode through the rain, and arrived just at the right time, but wet to the skin. These gentlemen would either of them undertake a similar expedition, and I will answer for it they will both be here before supper is over. Come, I bet a hundred crowns! Who will take it? Will you, Monsieur le Curé?”

“I? Heaven forbid!” cried the priest.

“Well, you will not refuse to drink their healths?” said the Commander, as he filled the priest’s glass and his own. “The health of Messieurs le Baron de Pradines and le Chevalier de Fontane!”

“Thanks cousin, for the honour!” cried a voice from the farther end of the hall. “When I am a little thawed, I shall be happy to return the compliment!”

And the Chevalier de Fontane, flushed from riding, and radiant with happiness, came hastening up to kiss the hand of his betrothed.

“Mon dieu, Monsieur de Fontane, what has happened?” cried the lady beside whom he took his seat; “your neckcloth and ruffles are covered with blood!”

“A mere trifle, Madame de Rochevert,” laughed the young officer, holding up his hand, round which a handkerchief was bound; “a tussle with a wolf, who would fain have supped off of your humble servant, instead of suffering him to occupy this chair by your side—voilà tout!”

“How horrible!” exclaimed several ladies.

Madame de Peyrelade turned pale, and murmured a prayer of thanks to Heaven.

Healths went round again. Everyone drank to the Chevalier, and congratulated him upon his victory. Then the conversation turned upon the Baron de Pradines.

“It is now too late to hope for his arrival,” said Marguerite. “I trust he has met with no wolves on the road.”

“Let us drink to him,” said the Commander, “and perhaps, like my cousin Eugène, he may come upon us at the very moment. The health of M. le Baron de Pradines!”

“The health of M. le Baron de Pradines!” cried all the voices.

“I denounce M. l’Abbé of high treason,” exclaimed a lady. “He never opened his lips, and put down his glass untasted!”

The Curé was dumb with consternation.

“For shame, M. le Curé!” cried the merry-makers. “We can have no abstinence to-night. Do penance and drink the health alone.”

“To the health of M. le Baron de Pradines!” said the priest in a hollow voice, and emptied his glass at a draught.

“Bravo! bravo, M. le Curé!” cried the gentlemen, rattling their glasses, by way of applause. “Nothing like the amende honorable!”

At this moment, a succession of thundering blows upon the outer gate startled the revellers into a momentary silence.

“The Baron de Pradines, for a hundred crowns!” cried the Marquis de Florac.

André Bernard turned paler than before.

“Who comes?” asked the Countess. “Go, Pierre,” she said to a servant behind her chair, “go and see if it be M. de Pradines.”

In a moment the valet returned, pale and speechless. A confused murmur was heard without.

“Who is there?” asked the Countess.

“Doubtless,” said the Curé, in a hoarse wandering voice, “doubtless it is one of the guests who has arrived in time for the dessert.”

At these words everyone rose from table, struck by a fatal presentiment.

The door opened, and Père Jacques appeared, followed by his two assistants. They carried the body of a man wrapped in a military cloak. The Countess recognising the body of her brother, uttered a piercing cry and hid her face in her hands. Silent and terror-stricken, the company stood looking at each other. The Curé clasped his hands as if in prayer; the Lieutenant of Police went over and examined the body.

“This is not the work of a robber,” said he, “for the jewels and purse of the Baron are untouched. He has been shot in the temple. Does any person here present know anything of this murder?”

No one spoke.

“Where was the body found?”

“We discovered it near the foot of Mont Cantal, with M. le Baron’s horse standing beside it, M. le Lieutenant,” replied Père Jacques.

“Does any person know of any enemy whom M. le Baron may have had in this neighbourhood?” pursued the officer of police.

“Alas, Monsieur,” replied the cowkeeper, bluntly, “the Baron de Pradines had very few friends in these parts, but no enemy, I think, who would serve him a turn like this.”

“Does any person know if M. le Baron had any difference or quarrel lately with any person?”

There was a profound silence; but more than one glance was directed towards the Chevalier de Fontane.

The Lieutenant of Police repeated the inquiry. “I—I know of only one person, Monsieur,” stammered the boutillier, “and—and——”

He was silent: a stern look from Père Jacques arrested the words upon his lips, and he said no more.

“And that person?”

“Pardon, M. le Lieutenant, but—but I will not say.”

“Answer, I command you,” said the officer, “in the name of the King.”

“It is—M. le Chevalier de Fontanel!” gasped the terrified peasant.

“You hear this, Monsieur,” said the Lieutenant. “What answer do you make? Have you had a quarrel with the late Baron?”

“I acknowledge—that is—I——” faltered the young man in evident confusion and dismay.

“Enough, Monsieur. Appearances, I regret to say, are against you. You arrive late; your dress is disordered; your apparel is blood-stained, and your hand is wounded. I am grieved beyond measure; but I am compelled to arrest you on the charge of murder.”

VI
THE LIEUTENANT OF POLICE

When misfortune falls upon a house in the midst of feasting and revelry, the guests, of late so friendly and familiar, shun the presence of their entertainers as if there were contagion in the very air. It is as if the plague had broken out within the walls, and as if the black flag were alone needed to complete the resemblance.

So it was in the Château de Peyrelade after the arrival of the body of the Baron de Pradines. Some few of the guests who lived in the immediate neighbourhood, mounted their horses and hastened home that very night. Others, not caring for the night-journey through a mountain-country in fast-falling snow, waited courageously for the dawn. All, however, rose so early next morning and contrived so well that, by the time the sun poured his full radiance into the disordered apartments, not a soul remained in the château beyond its usual inhabitants. The kitchens that had been so busy with cooks and servants, the salon that had been thronged with visitors, the supper-room that had of late been the scene of festivity and mirth—all were deserted; and on the supper-table lay the body of the murdered man, covered with a sheet.

We have said that all the guests were gone; but this was not strictly true, for two remained at the château—the Commandeur de Fontane, cousin to the prisoner, and the Lieutenant of Police. The former had stayed to stand by his kinsman; the latter, in the prosecution of his duties. Determined to investigate the matter to the utmost, he had already despatched two of his servants to the town of St. Flour, to command the instant attendance of a detachment of gendarmerie. Father Jacques, and the unfortunate boutillier, who had (through sheer terror and excitement) betrayed the hostility existing between the Baron and the Chevalier, were placed with loaded muskets before the door of the wretched bridegroom’s chamber. The public crier was sent round the parish of St. Saturnin to proclaim rewards for information tending to throw light upon the murder of the high and puissant George, Baron de Pradines, and, during life, Captain of the Auvergne Light Dragoons.

In short, Monsieur the Lieutenant of Police was an active and intelligent officer, and before noon on the day following the event, had done all that was in the power of man towards discovering the particulars of the dreadful deed, and securing the person of the supposed offender.

Having discharged these duties, the worthy Lieutenant found himself altogether unemployed. Nothing more could be done till the arrival of the gendarmerie from St. Flour; so he resolved to go into the supper-room and examine the body of the Baron de Pradines.

The Countess de Peyrelade, veiled and in deep mourning, was kneeling at the foot of the table, absorbed in prayer. He signified by a gesture that he had no intention of disturbing her orisons; and as she once more resumed her attitude of devotion, he turned down the sheet, and attentively contemplated the body. M. le Lieutenant was a man eminently skilful in his profession, and he was not ignorant of the importance of slight indications. He knew how frequently the weightiest discoveries lie concealed beneath a veil of the commonest circumstances.

George de Pradines was yet dressed in the clothes which he had worn at the moment of his fall. His features, even in death, preserved their habitually proud and sarcastic expression; nay, it even seemed as if the haughty lip were curved more mockingly than ever. The bullet-hole on his temple proved that he was face to face with the murderer when attacked. This circumstance precluded, at least, all suspicion of a cowardly ambush. What if he could be shown to have fallen in a duel!

The Lieutenant of Police took up the musket lying beside the body. It was loaded. He then examined the pistols which were in the belt around the dead man’s waist. They were loaded likewise. Strange! Had he not even defended himself, though facing his murderer’s weapon? And then had not Madame de Peyrelade, returning to the salon pale and terrified, told the assembled company in evident terror that she had distinctly heard two reports of a gun in the direction of the mountains?

Presently Madame de Peyrelade rose from her knees, and burst into tears.

“He is not guilty, Monsieur le Lieutenant!” she cried, sobbing. “Eugène is not guilty! Why have you accused him of this fearful crime? Why have you brought this misery upon us? Was it not enough,” she said, pointing to the body, “was it not enough that my brother should be assassinated, but that you—the guest under my roof—should seek to fix the guilt upon my betrothed husband?”

“Madame la Comtesse,” replied the Lieutenant, with severe courtesy, “you forget that I am but fulfilling my duty to the state. It is not I who act, but the law in my person. I do not say that Monsieur de Fontane is guilty. It is for the Judge to decide that point. Appearances are strongly against him: public opinion accused him before I did: the suspicions of your friends and dependents were directed to him at once. Madame, be just.”

Marguerite’s gentle heart was touched.

“Monsieur le Lieutenant,” she said, “I was in the wrong. Forgive me.”

“Madame,” replied the gentleman, kindly, as he held the door for her to pass, “retire now to your chamber, and take some rest. I fear that it will be our painful duty, ere night, to remove the body of the Baron de Pradines to St. Flour. Should such commands arrive from the judicial authorities, I regret to say that it will be imperative upon me to include yourself, some of your people, and the Chevalier de Fontane among our party. Fear nothing, Madame, and hope for the best. Perseverance alone can aid us now; and the stricter are our investigations, the more completely shall we, I hope, prove the innocence of Monsieur de Fontane.”

The lady retired, and the Lieutenant of Police returned to his contemplation of the corpse.

He was not wrong. Before night a party of soldiers arrived, bringing with them a paper of instructions from the authorities both military and civil. Before daybreak on the following morning the gloomy procession—including the Countess, two of her women-servants, the Chevalier de Fontane, Father Jacques, and his assistants—set off for St. Flour. The body of the murdered officer, in a plain black coffin borne upon the shoulders of six gendarmes, brought up the rear.

From the moment of his arrest the Chevalier had scarcely spoken, except to utter broken ejaculations of grief and horror. The mountaineers who guarded the door of his chamber had heard him restlessly pacing to and fro all that dreadful night.

Food had been twice or thrice brought to him, but there it still lay untouched, untasted. Being summoned to the carriage that was to convey him to St. Flour, he went quite silently and submissively, between a couple of guards.

In the hall they passed the coffin. For a moment the young man paused. He turned very pale, took off his hat, crossed himself devoutly, and passed on.

Only once he was seen to give way to emotion. It was when the Lieutenant of Police stepped into the carriage and took his seat opposite to him.

“Monsieur,” he exclaimed, passionately, “one word, for mercy’s sake! Does she believe that I am guilty?”

“Monsieur de Fontane,” replied the Lieutenant, briefly but kindly, “Madame la Comtesse entertains no doubt of your innocence.”

The prisoner’s whole countenance brightened. He bent his head gratefully, and spoke no more during the rest of the journey.

VII
THE TRIAL

The court-house was crowded in every part. The judge in gloomy state, the robed lawyers, the busy avocats, the imperious ushers—all were there. It was a dark, wintry day. The great chandeliers were lighted in the hall. The windows were closed; but a little patch of daylight streamed in at the oeil-de-boeuf overhead, and made the murky atmosphere still darker by contrast.

All Madame de Peyrelade’s dear friends, who had fled so precipitately the evening of the murder, might have been seen in various parts of the court-house, chattering to each other with the most lively interest, and now and then affecting a tone of profound compassion for “ce pauvre Baron,” or “cette charmante Madame la Comtesse.” They, however, agreed unanimously in condemning the unfortunate Chevalier. All had discovered that his countenance wore a very cruel and sinister expression. One had never liked him from a boy: another had mistrusted him from the first: a third said it was rumoured that he had been much disliked in Prussia, and even dismissed the service: a fourth would not be in the least surprised to hear that this assassination was not the first of which he had been guilty.

The object of these charitable remarks sat, however, pale and composed, in the space railed off for the prisoner. Not the soldiers who stood behind his chair were more completely unmoved. He looked worn and sorrowful, but neither desponding nor abashed. He was dressed in a suit of complete mourning. His lawyer sat at a table near him, with far the more troubled countenance of the two. In a room set apart for the witnesses at the farther end of the Justice Hall might have been observed the three herdsmen who discovered the body, the Chevalier’s servant, some gendarmes, and several strangers.

Near the bench, on a raised platform, sat a veiled lady in deep mourning, surrounded by a party of her friends. This was Madame de Peyrelade. Near her stood the Commandeur de Fontane, the Lieutenant of Police, and some other gentlemen of the Province.

A dense crowd of townspeople, Auvergne peasants, and country gentry filled the court-house to the very passages and ante-rooms.

The proceedings opened with a short address from the Advocate-General, of which not one syllable was to be heard above the incessant hum of voices. Then he sat down, and Père Jacques was placed in the witness-box.

The noise instantly subsided; the interest of the assembled multitude was excited; and the business of the day began in earnest.

The honest cowkeeper gave his testimony in a straightforward, unhesitating voice. He had been to high mass at the chapel of St. Saturnin with his two companions—Pierre, the boutillier, and Henri, the herdsman. They were returning from thence to the Château de Peyrelade, where Madame had invited all her dependents to supper in the servant’s hall, while she gave a grand entertainment in the state-rooms to all the gentry of the province. He (Jacques) and his friends were walking leisurely along, laughing and talking, and thinking of nothing but the wedding which was to take place on the morrow. When they had turned the foot of the Rocher Rouge, which lies between the chapel and the Château, and were coming down into the valley, Henri, who was a little in advance, gave a great cry, and shouted “Murder!” And sure enough, when he (Jacques) came up, there was a man lying upon his face under a tree, with his horse standing beside him, trembling all over and covered with foam. They lifted the body, and found that it was the Baron de Pradines. Then they wrapped it in his cloak, and picked up the musket, which had fallen beside him on the grass. There was no one in sight, and there were no signs of any struggle. He (Jacques) felt the body: the Baron was quite dead, but not yet cold. He had no more to say.

M. le Lieutenant de Police.   “At what hour of the evening did this occur?”

Jacques.   “As near as I can guess, M. le Lieutenant, about nine, or a quarter past.”

Lieut.   “Was it dark at the time?”

Jacques.   “It was neither dark nor light, Monsieur. The moon kept going in and out, and the snow began to come down just after we had found the body.”

Lieut.   “Did you hear any shots fired?”

Jacques.   “No, M. le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   “But if the body was not cold, the shots could not have been fired very long before you discovered it?”

Jacques.   “That might be, too, M. le Lieutenant; for the wind set the other way, towards the Château, and would have carried the noise away from us.”

Lieut.   “At what time did the mass begin?”

Jacques.   “At seven o’clock, Monsieur le Lieutenant.”

Pierre and Henri were next examined.

These witnesses corroborated the testimony of Father Jacques. The first in a nervous and confused manner, the second in a bold and steady voice. Pierre looked several times in a contrite and supplicating manner towards the Chevalier de Fontane and Madame de Peyrelade; but neither observed him.

He was very penitent and unhappy. He felt that it was through his indiscretion that the betrothed lover of his mistress was placed in this position of peril; and he would have given the world to be far enough away in the desolate Buron.

Henri stated that, after finding the body, he climbed the high tree beneath which it lay, for the purpose of reconnoitring; but no person was in sight.

The Lieutenant of Police next examined the boutillier Pierre.

Lieut.   “Repeat what you said of the quarrel between Monsieur le Chevalier and the Baron de Pradines.”

Pierre.   [in great confusion]: “I know nothing, Monsieur, beyond what the poor people say about the village.”

Lieut.   “Well, and what do the poor people say about the village?”

Pierre.   “Indeed, Monsieur, I know nothing.”

Lieut.   “You must speak. You must not trifle with the law.”

Pierre.   “Mon Dieu! they only said that Monsieur le Baron wanted Madame’s money and estates himself, and that he hated Monsieur le Chevalier, because Monsieur le Chevalier loved Madame and Madame loved him.”

Lieut.   “And from whom did you hear these reports?”

Pierre.   “From Père Jacques, Monsieur le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   [cross-examining Jacques the cowkeeper] “What did you know, witness, of the difference between these gentlemen?”

Jacques.   “Nothing, M. le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   “Did you ever hear of any such quarrel?”

Jacques.   “I don’t deny to have heard it talked about, Monsieur.”

Lieut.   “Whom did you hear talk about it?”

Jacques.   “I have heard Gustave, Monsieur le Chevalier’s valet, say so many times.”

Lieut.   [examining Gustave] “Relate all you know or have heard respecting the differences that are said to have arisen between your master and the late Baron de Pradines.”

Gustave.   “I came with my master, the Chevalier de Fontane, from Prussia, about ten weeks ago. As soon as we got near the Château de Peyrelade, my master met with an accident. We got him into the house, where he stayed some weeks, till he had quite recovered. The Countess and my master were old lovers, and very glad to meet each other again. They made up the match between themselves the very next day, and Madame sent for a priest, who absolved her of a vow that she had made, never to marry again. After the priest was gone, M. le Baron, who had been out since the morning, came home, and Madame informed him that she was betrothed to the Chevalier, and that the marriage would take place in a few weeks. M. le Baron was furious. He swore at Madame, and at M. de Fontane, and even at the priest. He asked Madame if she had no respect for her vow or her soul, and he called M. le Chevalier a villain and a coward to his face. M. le Chevalier was too ill and weak to pay any attention to him; but Madame was very indignant, and told her brother that it was himself who was the coward, so to insult a woman and a sick man. In a word, Madame said that, if he could not conduct himself more like a gentleman, he had better leave the house. And so M. le Baron did leave the house that very night, and set off for his regiment. But it did not end here. M. le Baron had been gone only a very few days when he sent abusive and violent letters to Madame, and to Monsieur le Chevalier; and I heard that he had also the audacity to send one to the holy priest; but this I cannot be sure of. Madame had no sooner read hers than she burnt it; but Monsieur le Chevalier only laughed, and threw his into his writing-case. He said that the writer deserved a good thrashing, but did not seem at all angry. In a few days there came another letter to M. le Chevalier, and this time the Baron threatened to bring the matter before Holy Church on account of Madame’s broken vow, as he called it; for he would not hear of the absolution granted by M. le Curé. This letter vexed M. le Chevalier a good deal, for he could not bear the idea of Madame’s name being brought into a court of ecclesiastical law; and so he wrote back a very sharp answer to M. le Baron, representing the odium which it would bring both upon himself and the family, and telling him how perfectly useless such a step would be, since Madame was altogether absolved from her rash engagement. Well, the Baron never wrote any reply to this letter; but about a week before All Saints’ Day, Madame sent a very kind and loving letter to her brother (at least so I overheard her telling Monsieur le Chevalier), and invited him to the wedding. Whether it was that M. le Baron thought it would be no use holding out; or whether he really was sorry for having been so unkind; or whether he only intended to spoil the festivities by being disagreeable to everybody, I cannot tell; but at all events he wrote back, accepting Madame’s invitation, and saying he hoped she would be happy, and that she and Monsieur would forget the past, and receive him as a brother. You may be sure that Madame was delighted; and Monsieur le Chevalier declared that for his part he was quite ready to shake hands with him. No more letters passed, and I never saw M. de Pradines again till he was brought in dead on the evening of All Saints’ Day.”

Here the judge desired that the writing-case of M. de Fontane should be brought into court; and a small black folio was accordingly laid upon the table by one of the attendants. It was found to contain, among various unimportant papers, two letters from the deceased addressed to M. le Chevalier. Both were corroborative of the depositions of the last witness, and were couched in violent and abusive language.

The Lieutenant of Police, cross-examining the servant of M. de Fontane, then continued:

“Where was M. de Fontane on All-Saints’ Day?”

Gustave.   “My master left the Château early in the morning for Murat, where the notary resided to whom he had confided the drawing up of the contract and settlements. Monsieur was to have returned by six o’clock, bringing the papers with him; but he did not arrive till between nine and ten o’clock.”

Lieut.   “Let the notary be called.”

M. François, notary and avocat of Murat, was then called to the witness-box.

Lieut.   “At what hour did the Chevalier de Fontane leave your offices at Murat?”

M. François.   “At about six o’clock: the papers were not ready, and he waited for them.”

Lieut.   “How long would it take a man to ride from Murat to the Château?”

M. François.   “About two hours.”

Lieut.   “He should then have reached Peyrelade about eight?”

M. François.   “I suppose so, Monsieur.”

Lieut.   “Did the Chevalier appear at all excited or out of humour?”

M. François.   “He appeared excited, and in the highest spirits; but not in the least out of humour.”

Marguerite de Peyrelade, née Pradines, was then summoned by the crier. She rose from her chair with difficulty, leaning on the arm of the Commandeur, and was about to proceed to the witness-box, but the judge begged her to remain seated.

A sympathetic murmur ran through the court. She raised her veil and looked steadily at the Lieutenant, never once glancing towards the prisoner, who, pale and trembling, was observing her every movement.

“Madame de Peyrelade,” said the Lieutenant, “do you remember to have heard M. de Fontane utter any hostile expressions on receipt of either of the letters lately examined?”

Madame had nothing to say beyond what had been stated by Gustave, Monsieur de Fontane’s servant.

“Did Madame think that Monsieur de Fontane thoroughly pardoned the imprudent language of M. de Pradines?”

The lady said that she believed it from her heart.

“Did not Madame, on the night of her fête, leave the salon and go out a little after nine o’clock on the terrace at the west side of the Château?”

She answered in the affirmative.

“Did not Madame aver that she then heard two shots fired, at a considerable distance from the Château?”

She did, and was greatly terrified.

“Could Madame have been mistaken as to the second report? Is Madame certain that she distinguished more than one?”

The Countess said that she undoubtedly heard a second.

“Still, might not Madame have been deceived—by an echo, for instance?”

The lady was convinced of the accuracy of her statement.

Here there was a pause of some minutes, during which the lawyers whispered together, and the Lieutenant of Police conferred with the Judge.

He then went on with the examination.

“How long an interval elapsed, Madame, between the two reports?”

“Scarcely a minute, I should think,” replied the Countess.

There was another pause. Then the Lieutenant of Police thanked her for her information, and intimated that, for the present, she would not be troubled farther.

Some gendarmes were then summoned, and gave their evidence as follows:

Paul Dubourg, gendarme in the Baillage of St. Flour. “I have examined the body and firearms of the late Baron, in the presence of M. le Lieutenant of Police. A musket was found lying beside the body, and a brace of pistols were in his riding-belt. None of these had been discharged. All the pieces were loaded.”

Lieut.   “Should you suppose that the Baron had made any defence?”

P. Dubourg.   “Evidently none, Monsieur.”

Michel Perrin, gendarme in the Baillage of St. Flour, corroborated the testimony of Paul Dubourg.

Monsieur Berthet, Surgeon, was then called for. He testified that the Baron de Pradines had died of a fracture of the skull caused by a wound in the temple. The wound was given by a musket-ball, which had struck him three-quarters of an inch above the eyebrow, and entered the brain, He (M. Berthet) had extracted the ball, which he now laid before the Court. From the wound being inflicted in the front of the head, witness concluded that he must have been face to face with the assassin. At the same time, the fact of none of his own weapons being used countenanced the probability of a surprise. Could not conceive how it was possible that two shots should have been fired without the Baron’s offering any resistance. Had the first taken effect, there was then no need of a second: whereas, if the first failed, the Baron would surely have defended himself against a second. Had no more to say, and left the witness-box.

Louis Masson, groom to Madame de Peyrelade, was next examined.

Lieut. of Police.   “You were in the stables when Monsieur de Fontane returned on the evening of All Saints’ Day?”

L. Masson.   “I was, Monsieur le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   “In what condition was his horse when he arrived?”

L. Masson.   “The horse was covered with sweat, and appeared to have been ridden fast. It trembled a good deal likewise, as if it had been frightened, and there were some spots of blood on the chest and knees. The saddle was also spotted with blood.”

Lieut.   “How did M. de Fontane seem when he rode in?”

L. Masson.   “He seemed very much excited, M. le Lieutenant. His neckcloth and waistcoat were stained with blood, and his hand was tied in a handkerchief.”

Lieut.   “Did he make any remarks to you about it?”

L. Masson.   “Yes, Monsieur, he laughed a good deal, in a wild sort of way, and said he had been settling a wolf among the mountains.”

There was a movement of horror throughout the Court.

Lieut.   “A wolf? Did you believe him?”

L. Masson.   “Why, yes, Monsieur; none of us doubted him, for he’s a brave young gentleman, and has killed many a noted wolf in the woods about Pradines, in the old Baron’s time. To be sure, when M. le Baron was brought in, soon after, we could not help recollecting the disagreement which they had lately had, and we did think that M. le Chevalier had indeed settled a wolf; but one of another sort. However, I said nothing till Pierre the boutillier spoke out to your worship in the hall.”

Lieut.   “Bring into court the clothes worn by the Chevalier de Fontane and the firearms that he carried about his person on the evening in question.”

A servant here laid some clothes, a musket, and a pair of holsters on the table. The clothes were then carefully examined, The waistcoat, cravat, and shirt-front were spotted in several places with blood. The lawyers shook their heads, and the prisoner’s advocate, who had not yet spoken, looked grave and uneasy.

The Lieutenant took up the musket.

“This weapon has been discharged,” he said, as he passed it to the Judge for inspection.

He then drew the pistols from the holsters, and examined the priming of both.

“Neither of these pistols has been used,” he said, as he passed them on. “Both are loaded.”

No second shot, therefore, had been fired.

The Countess clasped her hands, and uttered an exclamation of thankfulness.

“Nay, Madame,” whispered the Lieutenant kindly, “we must not begin to hope too soon. This one ambiguous circumstance will not alone be sufficient to clear our friend. We must have patience and fortitude.”

The Prosecutor for the Crown then rose, and summed up the evidence. The substance of his speech was this:“That the body of George, Baron de Pradines, had been discovered by three servants of the Countess de Peyrelade, lying dead in the valley known as the Val du Rocher Rouge, on the evening of All Saints’ Day. It was known that M. de Fontane had had some misunderstanding with the deceased, and had received from him letters of a threatening nature. M. de Fontane had been out all day at Murat, and in returning thence must pass through that valley. Monsieur de Fontane left Murat at six o’clock, and did not reach the Château de Peyrelade till between nine and ten. The journey need not occupy longer than two hours. What had the Chevalier done with the surplus time? He arrives at the Château in an excited state, with his clothes blood-stained, and his horse trembling as if from terror and hard riding. His voice is wild, and he says he has killed ‘a wolf.’ When the body is brought to the Château and he is interrogated by M. le Lieutenant, he betrays manifest confusion and alarm. Even the grooms and herdsmen attach suspicion to him; and, as if to cherish the lingering rancour which he entertained against M. de Pradines, both the letters sent to him by that gentleman are found preserved in his writing-case. Madame la Comtesse affirms that she heard two shots fired on the night of the murder, and only one of M. de Fontane’s weapons has been discharged. He felt bound to say that this circumstance tended to the advantage of the prisoner; but, at the same time, everyone knew that, to a lady in the naturally anxious state of mind of Madame de Peyrelade, every sight and sound becomes magnified. What more likely than that the second shot should be a mere trick of the distempered imagination? The examination of the weapons proved that one shot only could have been fired. Out of four pistols and two muskets—six firearms in all—one only had been discharged; and that was the musket of M. de Fontane. He believed that nothing farther could be said on the subject.”

The Judge then asked the prisoner if he had anything to reply.

M. de Fontane rose, pale and self-possessed. He bowed to the Judge, to the Procureur du Roi, and to the Lieutenant of Police.

“My Lord,” he said calmly, “I have little to urge in my defence, except to assever my innocence. I left Murat at six, and set off briskly for the Château de Peyrelade. Before half-an-hour had elapsed, the evening became quite dark. Much snow had already fallen, and by the time I entered upon the road across the mountains, the way was not only dark, but slippery for my horse. I dismounted, and led him up the first steep ascent. I thus lost considerable time. When I came down at the opposite side and arrived at the open space whence five different ways branch off in five different directions, I found myself altogether at fault. I had not travelled this country for many years—the snow had changed the general features of the place, and it was just then quite dark. I thought it best to leave all to the sagacity of the horse, and, remounting, dropped the reins upon his neck, and let him choose his way. He was as much perplexed as myself. Twice he turned towards the road on our left; then, after a momentary pause, chose a road straight before us. So we went on. The farther we went, however, the more I became convinced that the horse had taken a wrong direction. At last I found that we were entering a thick wood, and as I knew there should be nothing of the kind on the way to the Château, I turned the horse’s head, and began to retrace our steps. Scarcely had I proceeded a dozen yards on the way back, when I heard a distant howl. The horse stopped instinctively, and we both listened. Again that sound, and nearer! I needed no spur to urge my steed on his flight—that ominous cry was enough. Away he started with me, as if we had not gone a mile that day! It was of little use; for the wolf gained on us, and at last I descried him about a quarter of a mile behind, coming with savage speed along the snow. I now saw that there was nothing for it but a mortal combat with the brute. So I alighted quietly, and waited for him, a clasp-knife open and ready in my belt, and my gun on the cock. I did not tie the horse to a tree, for I thought if the wolf conquered, the poor animal might at least have the chance of escape. The beast was up in less time too than I take to tell it. When within a couple of yards, he stopped, seeing me prepared to receive him. His eyes were red and bright as coals—his sides gaunt—his tongue lolling from his mouth. His hot breath smoked in the frosty air. So we stood for a second or two, face to face—the wolf and I. Then he gave a low howl, and as he sprang towards me, I fired! I hit him—lamed one of his fore-legs; but that only made him more furious, for he was on me again directly, like a tiger! I tried in vain to beat him off with my gun, but he was too strong for me; so I threw it down, got my knife from my belt, and held it between my teeth. As I did so, he snapped at my hand and nearly tore my fingers off. Then I threw my arms round the brute, and fell upon him. It was my last resource—he was under, and if I could only keep him there, and strangle him, or cut his throat, I was safe. It was a frightful moment. My head swam—my breath failed—then I gathered up all my remaining strength, and plunged the knife in his throat! He moaned, his head fell back—the struggle was over—he was dead! I then mounted my horse, who had never once offered to leave me, though he stood trembling all over with terror. I cheered him on—I shouted—I laughed—I sang! I rode like a madman at full speed, and when I reached the Château I had not yet recovered from the excitement of the contest. I came out of a death-fight to a brilliant company—from a wolf to a bride, and I was just about to relate my adventure—when—when, my Lord, the corpse of the Baron de Pradines was brought into the room, and I heard myself accused of being his murderer! I have no more to say. I have stated the whole truth. I lost my way, and almost my life. I am innocent, and God will judge me rightly, however my fellow-men may decide against me.”

The young man sat down, flushed with the relation of his combat, and confident in the justice of his cause.

A loud murmur of sympathy and satisfaction ran through the Court, and the prisoner was rewarded for all his sufferings by one glad and loving glance from Marguerite de Peyrelade. Her mind was now relieved of every doubt; and, indeed, with the exception of the lawyers, there was not a soul in the hall who doubted his innocence.

When the murmur had subsided, more witnesses were called.

Antoine Guinot and Elie Blainval, two gendarmes, next gave evidence.

Lieut. of Police.   “Antoine Guinot—you went by my orders to inspect the roads among the mountains.”

A. Guinot.   “Yes, M. le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   “Did you there discover the body of a dead wolf, or any signs of blood on the snow?”

A. Guinot.   “No, M. le Lieutenant.”

Lieut.   “Did you thoroughly search the Val du Rocher Rouge?”

A. Guinot.   “Yes, Monsieur. There was no dead wolf to be seen in any part. Snow had been falling for two days and nights before we got there, so there would have been nothing but the carcase of the beast to guide us; but there was no such carcase anywhere about.”

Elie Blainval was next examined. Went with the last witness. Saw no carcase. Snow was deep on the ground, and of course no stains or other marks could be distinguished. Would swear there was no dead wolf anywhere on the mountain roads. Corroborated the statement of his companion in every particular.

On this the Prosecutor for the Crown again addressed the Court, but very briefly. The jury, he said, had heard the statements of the last witnesses. M. the Lieutenant of Police had despatched them on the day following the murder, as soon as they arrived from St. Flour, in order that the prisoner’s statement might be thoroughly investigated. No carcase of any description had been found. It was not his (the Prosecutor’s) desire to prejudice his hearers against the prisoner; but he felt it his duty to remind them that his defence was unsupported by any kind of proof. They had before them a strong case of circumstantial evidence on the one side, and on the other the bare assertion of a man whose only chance for life depended on the plausibility of his defence and the credulity of his auditors. He begged now to leave the matter in the hands of the Jury.

After an address from the judge, in which he summed up the evidence in a very similar manner to the Prosecutor for the Crown, and in which he exhorted them to lay any doubts which they might entertain to the side of mercy, the jury retired.

Then the chorus of laughter and loud talking, so long hushed, broke forth again. By this time night had come on, and the patch of daylight seen through the oeil-de-boeuf had long since disappeared. The young men made bets with each other on the verdict. All the ladies took the part of the prisoner; and, to do them justice, most of the gentlemen likewise. The peasants pulled out lumps of brown bread and country cheese, and began to eat.

Time went on. Two hours passed away without the return of the jury. Then another hour. Ten o’clock struck by the great clock over the entrance, and the audience grew silent and weary. Still the twelve came not. The judge nodded on the bench. Madame de Peyrelade sat, statue-like, in the same spot. The Chevalier de Fontane paced the dock in an agony of suspense.

Then eleven struck; and ere the last stroke had died away, the jury returned and took their places.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said his lordship, waking up, “are you all agreed?”

“Yes, my Lord,” said the foreman slowly and distinctly.

The silence was intense throughout the court. Every breath was held; every eye turned towards him.

“Do you find the prisoner guilty, or not guilty?”

“Guilty.”

A loud murmur broke from all parts of the hall. The prisoner—a shade paler than before—folded his arms across his breast, and looked calmly round him. The Countess de Peyrelade was carried fainting from the court.

The judge then pronounced sentence of death. Not a word was audible; but his lips were seen to move, and he shed tears.

The Chevalier was then conducted from the dock; the judge and jury retired; and the great mass of spectators, undulating and noisy, gradually dispersed; thankful to exchange the thick, steaming atmosphere of the densely-crowded Justice Hall, for the cold night-air, with the keen stars overhead.

The trial had lasted fourteen hours. They had begun at nine a.m., and it now wanted less than an hour to midnight. All was over—the hope, the fear, the suspense. The Chevalier de Fontane was condemned to die within twenty-four hours.

VIII
THE SCAFFOLD
AND THE CONFESSION

It is night. The air is cold and biting; the stars are bright in the clear sky; and the moon is slowly sinking behind the Cathedral of St. Flour. Snow lies on the ground and on the house-tops, and everything looks pale in the blue moonlight. A gloomy platform hung with black cloth and surrounded by horse-soldiers, each with a torch in his left hand and a drawn sword in his right, stands in the midst of the public square. A vast multitude is assembled outside the barriers that surround the scaffold. The houses blaze with lights, and all the windows are crowded with curious spectators. Huge and sombre, the prison rises on one side of the square, and the church upon the other. A low unquiet sound comes from the indistinct mass all around, as it heaves and sways from side to side in ever-restless undulation.

Now the great Cathedral clock strikes the first stroke of ten. Scarcely has it begun when the iron tongues of all the churches in the town reply. They clash—they mingle—they are still. Then the gates of the gaol swing apart, and a procession comes slowly forth. First, soldiers; then the sheriff and the governor of the gaol; then more soldiers; then the bishop of the diocese; then the prisoner; then more soldiers to bring up the rear.

They pass slowly through a double file of horse-soldiery till they reach the scaffold. They ascend; and the sheriff, with his black wand in one hand, advances with a parchment roll in the other, and reads aloud the dreadful formula:

“He whom we have brought hither is Eugène Fontane, formerly called Chevalier de Fontane, and ex-Captain of Hussars in the military service of His Majesty the King of Prussia. The said Eugène de Fontane is brought hither to suffer death, being condemned thereto by the criminal court of this town. He will now be broken on the wheel, being charged and convicted of the crime of homicide on the person of the very noble, puissant, and excellent Seigneur George, Baron de Pradines, and, during life, Captain of the Auvergne Light Dragoons. Pray to God for the repose of their souls!”

Eugène is pale, but resigned. He has not long since taken leave of Marguerite, and, despite the agony of that parting, he is comforted, for she believes him innocent. His step is firm, his head erect, his eye bright and fearless. His right hand is hidden in the breast of his coat, closely pressed against his heart. It holds a lock of her hair.

Now the bishop addresses to him the last words which a prisoner hears on earth.

“Eugène de Fontane,” he says, solemnly, “if you will speak the truth and declare yourself guilty of the crime for which you are condemned, I am here, in the name of God, to give you absolution; and when you are stretched upon the wheel the executioner will give you the coup de grace, in order to spare you the sufferings which you would otherwise endure. Reflect, for the sake of both body and soul. Do you yet persist in saying that you are innocent?”

The young man cast a glance of horror at the hideous apparatus. His lip quivered, and for a moment his resolution seemed to fail. Then he fell upon his knees and prayed silently.

When he rose, he was calm and stedfast as before.

“Let the executioner do his office,” he said, firmly. “I will not die with a lie upon my tongue. I am innocent, and Heaven knows it.”

The Chevalier then draws at ring from his finger and gives it to the executioner, in token of pardon. And now he takes off his coat and waistcoat and holds out his arms to be bound; and now, suddenly, a cry is heard on the outskirts of the crowd—a shrill, piercing, despairing cry.

“Stop! stop! let me pass! I am the murderer!—he is innocent! I am the murderer of the Baron de Pradines!”

And a mounted man, pale, breathless, disordered, is seen pressing wildly through the crowd. He gains the foot of the scaffold—he rushes eagerly up the steps—falls fainting at the feet of the condemned!

It is the priest—it is André Bernard.

•    •    •    •

Once again the Justice Hall is thronged. Once again we see the former crowd; the same faces; the same peasants; the same lawyers; the same mass of spectators, noble and plebeian; the same judge; the same jury.

Yet there is one great and material difference; there is not the same prisoner. André Bernard is in the dock, and the Chevalier de Fontane is nowhere present.

Madame de Peyrelade and servants are also absent. Otherwise the Court House looks as it did a week since, when an innocent man was there condemned to die.

“Prisoner,” says the Judge, “the Court is prepared to listen to your confession.”

The Abbé rose. A profound silence reigned throughout the hall. In a voice broken with emotion, he began as follows:

“About three months since, I was visited by the Baron de Pradines in my parsonage at St. Saturnin. He had not been on good terms with his sister, Madame de Peyrelade, for some years, and he now desired a reconciliation. He was a man of violent temper and dissolute habits; but he professed repentance for his former courses, and ardently entreated my intercession with Madame. I believed him, and became the bearer of his penitent messages. Owing to my representations, the lady believed him also, and he was received into the Château. A fortnight had scarcely elapsed, when M. de Fontane arrived at the Château; and on a due consideration of—of all the previous events” (here the prisoner’s voice faltered), “I absolved Madame from a rash vow which she had too hastily contracted. Now M. de Pradines had hoped to inherit the estates and fortune of his sister; he was therefore much enraged on finding that the said vow was made null and void. He departed at once to join his regiment, and in the course of a few days I received from him an abusive letter. Of this I took no notice, and I may say that it caused me no anger. I destroyed and forgot it. In about two months’ time from the date of his departure, the marriage of his sister with M. de Fontane was appointed to take place. The Baron, seeing the uselessness of further hostilities, then yielded to the entreaties of Madame and accepted her invitation, appointing the Fête of All-Saints as the day of his arrival, that he might be present at the ceremony of betrothal. On that day I said mass in the morning at my chapel, and high mass at seven o’clock in the afternoon. I was invited to the Château that evening, and nine was the hour appointed. Mass would not be over till half-past eight—I had therefore half an hour only to reach the Château; and, as soon as I had pronounced the benediction, I hastened from the chapel by the side-door, and was some distance on the road before my congregation dispersed. The moon shone out at times, and at times was overcast. I had my gun with me; for after night-fall at this season, the wolves are savage, and often come down from the heights, I had not gone far when I heard a horse coming along at full speed behind me. I drew on one side to let the rider pass. The moon just then shone out, and I recognised the Baron de Pradines. He knew me also; and though he had been galloping before, he now reigned up his horse and stood quite still.

“‘Good evening, most reverend Abbé,’ said he in a mocking voice. ‘Will you favour me with a piece of godly information; for I am but a poor sinner, and need enlightening. Pray how much have you been paid by M. le Chevalier for patching up this marriage?’

“I felt my blood boil and my cheeks burn at this insult, but I affected to treat it as a jest.”

“‘You are facetious, Monsieur le Baron,’ I replied.

“‘Not at all,’ he said, with a bitter laugh. ‘Gentlemen in your profession, M. le Curé, have their prices for everything; from the absolution for a vow to the absolution for a murder.’

“‘Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘your expressions exceed the limits of pleasantry.’

“‘Not at all, Monsieur le Curé,’ he repeated again, ‘not at all. And, withal, you are a very noble, and meek, and self-sacrificing gentleman, M. le Curé. You love my sister, most holy sir; and yet you sell the absolution which enables her to marry another. It is really difficult to tell, M. le Curé, which of your admirable qualities predominates—your Avarice, or your Love. Both, at least, are equally respectable in a priest who is vowed to poverty and celibacy.’

“‘And peace, M. le Baron,’ I added. ‘You are aware, Monsieur, that my profession forbids me to chastise you as you deserve, and therefore you insult me. Pass on, and interfere with me no more.’

“‘Indeed I shall not pass on, M. le Curé,’ he continued, ‘I must stay and compliment you as you deserve. It is a pity, is it not, M. le Curé, that your vows prevent you from marrying my sister yourself?’

“‘If you will not pass me, M. le Baron,’ I said, for I was trembling with suppressed rage, ‘I must pass you, for I will bear this no longer.’

“The passage was narrow, and he intentionally barred the way. I seized his horse’s reins and turned his head, when—my lord—the Baron raised his whip and struck me on the face! My fowling-piece was in my hand—I was mad—I was furious. I know not to this moment how it was done, but I fired—fired both barrels of my gun, and the next moment—Oh, mon Dieu!—he was lying at my feet dead and bleeding—I was a murderer!”

The priest paused in his narrative, and hid his face in his hands. A murmur ran through the court. After a few moments, however, he raised his head and continued:

“I saw him but for an instant, and then turned and fled. I cannot remember where I went, or what I did in that terrible interval; but at last I found myself before the gates of the Château de Peyrelade. A dreadful terror possessed me—I feared the night, and the woods, and the mountains, and the pale moonlight. I thought to find refuge in the crowd of human beings—refuge from that terrible thought—refuge from that hideous sight. But it pursued me! They brought him in, ghastly and blood-stained, wrapt in the cloak in which he lay upon the grass; and on his pale forehead was the mark of my—of my … That night I was mad. I remember nothing—neither how I got home—nor how I left the Château—nor when I entered my own door. For days I walked and lived in a dream of horror. Then I heard of the trial and condemnation of an innocent man. I mounted my horse—I flew—I feared that I should be too late; but I had resolved to kill myself on the scaffold if he was already dead! I was in time, thank God! and now I am ready to take his place. This is my confession, and, before Heaven, I declare it full and true. I entreat all here present to pray for me.”

When the agitation that followed this confession had somewhat subsided, and the jury had conferred for a moment in their places, the foreman pronounced the prisoner guilty, but recommended him to mercy. Then the judge, in a speech interrupted more than once by emotion, passed sentence of death; but concluded by an intimation that the case should be reported to the King as one deserving his royal clemency.

The Royal Pardon, thus solicited, followed as a matter of course, and in less than a week André Bernard was free. The Chevalier de Fontane himself brought the precious parchment from Versailles, and fetched a carriage to convey the priest from prison.

“Come back to us, dear friend,” he said. “Come back to your chapel and your flock. Forget the past, and resume the useful life in which you used to find your greatest happiness.”

But the priest shook his head.

“I cannot,” he said. “The King has pardoned me, but I have yet to earn the pardon of Heaven. I go hence to la Trappe, there to pass the remainder of my days in prayer and penance. Hush!—to remonstrate is useless. I deserve a far heavier punishment. I have more sins than one upon my soul. God sees my heart, and He knows all my guilt. I must go—far, far away. I shall pray for your happiness—and hers. Heaven bless you, and have mercy on me! Farewell.”

About this eBook

THE SHADOWS OF EVIL

TALES OF
CRIME AND MYSTERY

AMELIA  B.  EDWARDS
(1831–1892)

Presented here, eleven tales of jealousy, obsession, and madness; of dark designs and evil deeds; of murder and retribution. Edwards’ beautifully descriptive prose establishes locales and mood, and draws the reader in with deliberate and suspenseful development of the character’s predicament.

These stories are taken from Miss Carew (1865) and Monsieur Maurice and Other Tales (1873).

* * * *

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (7 June 1831 – 15 April 1892) was an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist. She began to write at a young age, publishing her first poem at age 7 and her first story at 12. Her first novel, My Brother’s Wife, appeared in 1855, but it was Barbara’s History (1864), a novel about bigamy, that made her famous. She also wrote crime and ghost stories, including the much-anthologized "The Phantom Coach". Following the publication of her last novel, Lord Brackenbury (1880), which was a run-away success, she abandoned her other literary work to concentrate solely on Egyptology. Her travelogue, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877), is possibly her best-known work.

This compilation was created by ECM for MobileRead.com, October 2018, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

The contents of this book were first published 1856 ~ 1873. Text is in the public domain worldwide, because the author died more than 100 years ago, and the works were published prior to 1923.

Click here for editing notes.

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EDITING NOTES

>>TOC     >>ABOUT

This is my own compilation. Texts were obtained from Project Gutenberg, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive; proofed against pdf scans of first editions. Obvious textual errors were silently corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted. Typography follows the conventions of the British first editions: double-quotation marks; Mr. Mrs. Dr. St. with full-stops; to-day, to-night, to-morrow hyphenated. Exception: colon-emdash combinations were converted to simple colon.

Story titles are cross-linked to table of contents.

Embedded font “Fontin” by Jos Buivenga used for titling.

Validation by Pagina Epub Checker.