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diff --git a/old/68667-0.txt b/old/68667-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8330a96..0000000 --- a/old/68667-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10824 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A rogue’s tragedy, by Bernard Edward -Joseph Capes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: A rogue’s tragedy - -Author: Bernard Edward Joseph Capes - -Release Date: August 2, 2022 [eBook #68667] - -Language: English - -Produced by: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROGUE’S TRAGEDY *** - - - - - - A ROGUE’S TRAGEDY - - BY - BERNARD CAPES - - METHUEN & CO. - 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. - LONDON - - - - - [COPYRIGHT] - - _First Published in 1906_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - Part I - Prologue - Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV - Chapter V - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Part II - Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV - Chapter V - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Chapter VIII - Chapter IX - Chapter X - Chapter XI - Chapter XII - Chapter XIII - Part III - Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV - Chapter V - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Chapter VIII - Chapter IX - Chapter X - Chapter XI - Chapter XII - Afterward - - - - - A ROGUE’S TRAGEDY. - PART I - - A LOVERS’ PROLOGUE - -Matter is but the eternal dressing of the imagination; the world the -unconscious self-delusion of a Spirit. Everything springs from Love, -and Love is the dreaming God. - -Two figments of that endless sweet obsession stood alone--high on a -slope of Alp this time. Born of a dream to flesh, they thought they -owed themselves to flesh--a sacred debt. Truth seemed as plain to them -as pebbles in a brook, which lie round and firm for all their apparent -shaking under ripples. There, actual to their eyes, were the white -mountains, the hoary glaciers, the pine woods and foamy freshets of -eighteenth century Le Prieuré. Here, actual in the ears of each, was -the whisper of the deathless confidence which for ever and ever helps -on love’s succession. They loved, and therefore they lived. - -Man has been for ten thousand ages at the pains to prove love a -delusion, and still he greets a baby, and a kitten, and the nesting -song of birds, and a hawthorn bush in flower, as freshly as if each, -in its latest expression, were the newest product of his wisdom. But -love is no delusion, save in the shadows which it builds itself for -habitation. “Of dust thou art,” said the older God, “and unto dust -returnest.” Yet man does not inherit from the earth, but from the -imagination of that which created the earth and its life--the brain of -the dreaming Love. Nor has he once, in all his æons of sequence, -touched or borrowed from the earth. The seed which is himself was his -mother’s seed, herself the seed of another who contained his seed -within his mother’s seed within herself--a “nest” _ad infinitum_. Womb -within womb, myriadfold, he proceeds from Love, his flight a heavenly -meteor’s, his origin the origin of the star which has never been of -earth until it falls extinguished on it. He draws from the eye of the -dawn. He is the top section in a telescope of countless sections, each -extending from the other, and all from all, and the last from the -first. Close it, and it is he. Open it, and it is he. He helps to -Love’s view of the dream of which he is a part. He is Love’s heir in -dreams. - -Or call him a bubble which rises in deep waters, and floats a moment -on the surface and breaks. Whence came he? Whither vanishes? He is a -breath; the expiration of a dream. The spirit of him looks out upon -its phantom journey, as a traveller gazes from a coach window on the -landscape. He is within it, but not of it. His destination is death, -which is Love’s sleep. He is reclaimed to Love, of whom he was always -a thought. As a thought he can never be launched again. He has played -his part and is at rest in Love. - -But his part, while he played it, was Love’s part. It was when he -realised this most that the palpable world became a shadow, the solid -ground a cloud, the sun and moon and hills but figments of a rapture -of Love’s dream. It was then that he stepped exalted, knowing his fair -succession--knowing of whom he was born and for what reason. He had -been accredited Love’s representative. - -So the man felt it here, walking on air. The mountains were more real -to him than the rock he stood on. He dealt in dreams’ paradoxes. “I -have never lived till now,” he said. - -There was a little wind abroad which fluted in the pines, making sharp -notes of their fragrance. One’s ears and nose were always at a -conflict in the matter, whether to claim music for perfume or perfume -for music. It was the same as to the battle between sun and snow, -which fought to a compromise on the terms of chilly warmth or glowing -coldness. Yet the name was of no importance in the bracing sweetness -of the atmosphere they contrived together. One could not breathe there -and think of breathing as a condition of life. The temperature was the -temperature of a neutral ground between earth and heaven--of a present -unreality and a real distance. - -The two had just issued in company from a hillside chapel, a little -lonely ark stranded on a shelf of rock hung up in a pine thicket, with -rills of water tinkling all about it like the last streaks of a -receded flood. They had sent forth their unreturning dove, and had -followed it to find their phantasm of a new world budding in green -islands from a lake of mist. Their feet seemed to sink in eternity. -Only the bright heavens above them were actual. - -A butterfly, like a flake of stained glass blown from the robe of the -Christ in the little painted window within, came wafted after them as -they emerged. From a loophole in the presbytery above, the face of the -old sacristan leered out secretly, and, marking their going, grinned -and apostrophised it in a fit of silent laughter. “You sha’n’t have -him; you sha’n’t have him!” thought he, like the very sacristan of St -Anne’s Chapel under the Hinne Mountain, of whom children read. Then -they vanished in the mist, going upwards, and he sat down to chuckle. - -As they ascended, the vapour sank beneath their feet, or was rolled -away like bales to topple over the precipices. It had all been clear -enough, bright palpable fact, before they entered the chapel. The -swift change was nothing surprising in these resting-places of the -clouds. Yet it seemed to them as if, returning to their world, they -found it transformed beyond all precedent. But then, was not their -rapture beyond all precedent? None had ever before loved as they -loved--and that was true, because there is no such thing as a -stereotype in Nature. - -The whistle of a marmot straight ahead on a boulder startled them -suddenly as into a self-consciousness of guilt. They saw an atom of -mist cleave and close to the red flick of him as he vanished, and then -the phantoms of mountains looking in upon them above the place where -he had sat. It was like a priestly summons to love’s shrift. They -stopped, as by one consent, and stood in scarlet confusion to falter -out their confessions. - -First love, I think, must reveal itself to fervent Catholics, as these -two were, in a more poignant form than to most others. The wonder of -it, as a divine absolution for shamefaced thoughts, as a divine -authorisation of those thoughts’ indulgence to a natural end, must -thrill their most sacred traditions of virginity to the marrow. Then -they must first realise, on its human merits, the sacrifice of the -Christ who died that men might live. They have worshipped the -transubstantiation apart; now they are bidden to an intimate share in -it. - -That, perhaps, was why this man and woman were justified in feeling -their state an ecstasy unparalleled. Love to them was a -transubstantiation, such as no heterodox soul could ever know. They, -to whom flesh had been a shame, were authorised, in a moment, of -nakedness; they were surrendered, for their faith, to the paradise of -mortal raptures. Henceforth, dear incarnations of a dream, they -believed they owed themselves to flesh--while they trod on air. - -Young god and goddess certainly they looked, poised on their misty -Ida. The man was cream-pink of face, sunny of hair, blue and a thought -prominent of eye. A fervour of soul perpetually flurried his cheek, -flushing or paling it in flying moods. He had the air and appearance -of an eager evangelist who had a little outgrown his spiritual -strength. He would sometimes overbalance on self-exaltation, and pitch -into an abyss of depression. He was tall and well-moulded as a whole; -but his hips were unduly feminine. His colour, too, erred on the -feminine side of prettiness. But he looked, all in all, a fit bright -mate for the happy figure beside him. - -She, as like a Dresden china shape in melting demureness, as sunnily -contrived in pink and blue and gold, was only the other’s better -partner by reason of eyes slightly bluer than his, of hair a shade -more golden, of lips of a rosier dye on the soft pallour of her face. -By the same token she stood as much nearer to womanhood as he stood -from manhood--a step either way. It swelled in her, though she was but -fifteen, as the milk-kernels swell in nuts. I think she was at the -perfect poise, largeness in promise waiting on performance, shapely as -Psyche when first stolen by love--a covetable bud, whom no mortal man -could be above the desire to open with a kiss. - -As this man, this good man, in a fury of love sanctified, desired -suddenly and uncontrollably. She stood before him, her face a little -raised, her lips a little parted--the prettiest figure between tears -and rapture. Her hat hung on her shoulders by a blue ribbon looped -about her neck, leaving her hair loose-coiled to snare the sun. Her -dress was a fine smock, having half-sleeves tied at the elbows with -ribbons, and a low bodice of rich blue velvet, open and laced in -front, to clasp it about the middle. From her hips fell, in a fluting -of Greek folds, a white skirt just long enough to show her ankles and -silver shoe-buckles, and there were blue velvet ribbons fastened with -diamond studs on her wrists. - -So she stood gazing up at him, tremulous and fearful, unknowing but -half guessing what she had brought upon herself, what outrage on her -meek decorum. The shrine she had most cherished, held most sacred, was -threatened somehow; and God, it seemed, was on the side of the enemy. -For had not this man’s piety, sincere beyond question, been his -passport, a divine one, to her heart? How could she have allowed his -advances else? They were friends of but a few weeks; had met first in -the chapel hard by, bent upon a common worship. Some accident, of -stress in storm, had been his pretext for a self-introduction; and -she?--she had loved the pretext because in this figure she had come to -picture her ideal of virtuous manhood. And then words had wakened -knowledge, and knowledge admiration, and admiration rapture--the -desire of the moth for the star. - -He had not spoken of love till this moment; he did not even speak of -it now. But all in an instant he leapt to the appeal of her lips, and -was fighting for their surrender to him. She struggled a little, -uttering no sound. And presently he conquered. Then speech came, -breathless and imploring,-- - -“Forgive me. What have I done? I have done wrong! My God! I couldn’t -help it!” - -He was the one to break away. She stood motionless, white as a figure -of wax. - -“Yolande!” he cried, “don’t look at me like that! Say you forgive me!” - -She did not stir, but her lips moved. - -“Did you do wrong? O! and I thought you knew!” - -“I knew?” - -He caught at his storming pulses and took a new step towards her. But -at that she backed from him. - -“No,” she said, “if you have done wrong, if for one moment you think -you have done wrong, you must not stay here, not with me, any longer.” - -Understanding came to him. - -“No, I do not think it,” he said. “Why should I, unless to dream of my -being worthy of you was a presumption? But that is too late an apology -now. Yolande, will you marry me?” - -She gave a sigh of heavenly rapture, and came and put her sweet hand -trustingly into his. - -“O, yes, Louis, if God will let me!” - -He cried “Amen!” and caught her to him again in an ecstasy. - -“Why should He not, my bird, my love, my dear, dear angel?” - -“He must speak through my father first.” - -He laughed in triumphant confidence. - -“Your father? Ah, yes! But I do not come empty-handed--not altogether. -It is little enough, dear sweet, to pay this debt; but in the worldly -view such bargains are relative, and the world--forgive me--has not -treated _your_ father according to his deserts.” - -She conned his face with trouble in her eyes. - -“No,” she whispered. “He is poor, but he thinks so much of me. What if -he and you were to disagree as to my value?” - -“Impossible. I will admit at once that you are priceless.” - -He saw her distress, and tightened his hold. - -“Little rogue,” he said playfully, “what _is_ your value in your own -eyes? What do you put it at?” - -“The money in your pocket,” she said, smiling faintly. - -“I believe that is no more than a couple of soldi.” - -“I am yours for a penny, then. Give it me. Do you think I hold myself -very dear? With that in my purse, yes. If the King wooed me with half -his kingdom I should say, ‘Not even with the whole. I have a greater -fortune in Louis’s penny.’” Her lip quivered. “But, alas!” she sighed, -“it is not kings I dread!” - -Moved beyond expression, he could only strain her to his heart, -murmuring and adoring. - -“Look,” he said presently, “you are trembling. Come and rest with me -on this stone, and set your feet with mine at its base and say to me, -as I shall say to you, ‘Here on a rock I plant my love, never to be -displaced.’” - -He helped her to the seat, then threw himself down beside her, and, -raising his arm, was beginning in perfect gravity, “Here on a rock I -plant--” when, without the least warning, there came a snap, and he -went backwards heels-over-head into the grass, and lay there kicking -like a delirious acrobat. Some demon of perversity, working with a -wedge of frost, had once split a section of the stone near through, -and he had sat upon that section. - -The girl shrieked and ran to his help. - -“O, Louis!” she cried, “art thou hurt?” - -He did not answer with the poet, “I have got a hurt o’ the inside of a -deadlier sort!” It is to be feared that both he and his lady were -entirely lacking in the sense of humour. He arose crestfallen, but -more mortified in his faith than his vanity. The two looked at one -another tragically. Then Yolande suddenly burst into tears. - -“O!” she sobbed, “what were we, to liken our love to God’s Church! He -has answered our arrogance with a thunderbolt. Louis, you are all -dusty and covered with prickles! Something in my heart tells me that -I can never, never marry you!” - -“Hush!” he said desperately. “We will go back to the chapel and pray -for pardon. I ought to have looked to the stone first.” - -But she only sighed miserably. “That would have made no difference. Do -you think you are more foreseeing than He?” - -He put his hand in his pocket. - -“I have lost my soldi!” he said faintly. - -That was the culmination. For an hour these two ninnies of a dream -sought vainly in the grass for the missing coins. Then, together but -apart, they went like lost souls down the mountain. - -Verily, the laws canonical, like the lawyers of Westminster, “thrive -on fools.” - - - - - CHAPTER I - -On the day when Augias, Conte di Rocco, was raised to the Marquisate -and made a member of the Government of Victor-Amadeus III., titular -King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy and Piedmont, an express was -despatched from Turin by that newly-aggrandised nobleman to the -Chevalier de France in his Hôtel Beausite at Le Prieuré, demanding -in marriage the hand of the Chevalier’s only child and daughter, -Yolande of the white hands. - -No more than a day later the brass-new Marchese in person came -treading on the heels of his amorous cartel (for, indeed, that seems -the word for it), and had his formal interview with the solitary -parent--for Yolande was long motherless. This happened in the year -1783, when a certain democratic simplicity was beginning to temper the -extravagances of fashion. Monsignore di Rocco, therefore, had that -much excuse for his rusty buckles, his cheap wisp of a cravat (in -which a costly diamond burned), his hired equipage and single equerry, -or _valet d’écurie_, who was literally his stable-boy. Otherwise, as -the great man of the neighbourhood and a suitor to boot, he might have -been accused of that sorriest form of ostentation, which is for rank -to parade its independence of recognised convention. - -On the other hand, M. de France’s “Hôtel” was just a decent abode at -the southern end of the village, rich in nothing but the magnificence -of the view from its windows. - -The Marchese was already expected, and certainly with no delusions as -to the manner of his appearance. M. de France gave no thought to -anything but his visitor’s expression as he advanced to meet him in -the little “_salle d’audience_” into which di Rocco had been ushered. -Of the two, even, the bearing of the Chevalier, though he was no more -than a simple gentleman of Savoy, was the more _over_bearing in its -self-conscious vanity. - -He gave the other stiff welcome and congratulations on his exaltation. -One would never have guessed that he knew himself very plainly for the -mouse, sweating and desperate, in the claws of the great cunning cat -which he took and pressed. - -But the Marchese, with a high little laugh, broke through the -proffered formality. - -“Here, here, to my breast, father-in-law!” he cried, and seizing, -strenuously kissed the Chevalier on both cheeks, verily like a cat in -a sort of blood-lust. - -The thin white face of M. de France pinked as he stepped back. His -hollow eyes glared, his stern lips trembled, every fold of his -threadbare dressing-gown seemed to flatten, as if the wind had been -taken out of it. But an habitual self-discipline came to his aid with -an acid smile. - -“Pardon me,” he said. “You take me by surprise. The term is premature. -You young men are so impulsive.” - -The enormous sarcasm was in itself a confession of surrender. He would -never have essayed it, save in the knowledge of the price he had at -hand for acquitting himself of any and all such debts. For di Rocco -was, as a matter of fact, old as times went, a scarred and puffed -ex-libertine of sixty--a monster of unloveliness, moreover. - -He was hideous as Dagon, in truth, half man, half fish, with strained -cod eyes, a great wobbling jaw, and lips which had shaken themselves -pendulous on naughtiness and laughter. Sordid, slovenly, unclean in -mind and body, inordinate as a drayman in bulk and physical strength, -a voluptuary, miser, and a fecund _raconteur_, his rank and wits had, -through a well-filled life, been procurers to his inclinations at a -nominal cost to himself. His parsimony, not his vices, had alone -debarred him from taking that position in the State to which his -wealth and social talents had else easily exalted him. At the same -time it had always made of him a slumbering force, full of interest -and potentialities. - -The real power of wealth lies, indeed, not in expenditure but in -possession. There is a sacredness about the crowded granary which -affects even the starving. There is no fool so despised of the -democracy as the spendthrift fool; and, when its time comes, it is the -plutocrat it bleeds with an apology. - -The Conte di Rocco possessed the tastes of a sybarite with the soul of -a usurer. He lit his debauches with candle-ends, and could singe the -paws of his tame cats with a most engaging humour whenever he desired -chestnuts for nothing. The army of pimps, followers, led-captains and -parasites which had always attended his ignoble career, cursed him -eternally through jaws as lank as those of Falstaff’s ragged company. -But it served him, nevertheless--on the security, it would appear, of -phantom post-obits. Everyone hoped some day to have his picking from -the carrion of that great carcase--even, it may be supposed, his -physician Bonito, whose face in the meanwhile was like a -cheese-paring. - -And it was this paragon, _grandissimo_ for all his imperfections, who -had nominated himself to be the husband of Yolande, the loveliest -young lily of Savoy. - -How it came about was thus. - -Sated, or merely whimsical, or, perhaps, as some said, in a sudden -mood to withdraw himself timely from the world in order to “patch up -his old body for heaven,” the Count had, about the end of 1782, -retired upon his estate and grand Château di Rocco on the Flegère, -with the intent, it seemed, to make it thenceforth his permanent -abode. Here, having cashiered, or temporised or compromised with, or -anything but paid off, the bulk of his disreputable _valetaille_, he -resolved upon the simple life--of candle-ends. And here he made the -acquaintance of M. de France and his lovely child, with the former of -whom he was able, moreover, in some fits of moral reactionism, to play -the effective usurer. - -The Chevalier was a creature of enormous pride, though of fortunes -fallen to the lowest ebb. But he could never forget that his ancestors -had lost Chambéry to the Dukes of Savoy, nor his present despicable -position in a State whose highest attentions to him might hardly have -compensated for the dignities of which it had deprived his family. He -had served with credit, under the reigning King’s predecessor, in the -wars of the Austrian succession, yet not with such compelling -brilliancy as to enforce recognition from Victor-Amadeus, when that -prince came to succeed his father. Neglected, impoverished, De France -had withdrawn from a Court whose master was always more concerned with -problems of ceremonial than of statecraft, and had retired into -necessitous oblivion. Debts, contracted in the days of promise, came -winging paper billets after him, and his situation was soon fairly -desperate. His wife died, and he gave her grand-ducal obsequies. His -child must always go attired in the right trappings of her rank. He -called his villa an hôtel, and his parlour an audience-room. Through -everything he was gnawed with an eternal hunger for the recognition -which would not come his way. He loved his daughter as vain men love -their rank, holding it supreme above emotion, humanity, a thing -untarnishable but by contact with the base. The possibility of a -consort for her in Le Prieuré was a thing not to be thought of. The -fact that she was only fifteen and dowerless was inessential. She was -Yolande de France. - -And then one day old di Rocco asked for her hand. - -M. de France was not so surprised as sarcastic. He knew all about the -Count and his supposed reformation. - -“You would do a final act of atonement, monsignore,” said he, “and -dower a penniless girl?” - -“I would do more,” answered the Count. “I would burn those bits of -paper of yours.” - -The Chevalier’s eyes glittered, but his face remained like hard ivory. - -“Pardon me,” he said, “there is a difference in your ages.” - -“Ah! monsieur, it would be obliterated when the rivulet mingled with -the river.” - -“You have lived fast.” - -“The sooner to reach my redemption.” - -“You are out of favour with the Court.” - -“Pouf! Call it what you mean--black disgrace--and yet I tell you that -I hold its favour in the hollow of my hand.” - -The Chevalier’s eyes glistened more. - -“I do not doubt your powers of propitiation; else, with grateful -thanks for the proffered honour--” - -“Exactly--you must decline so sinful a connection. Make it a condition -if you will: reconciliation with the Government, and Yolande; or -failure, and no Yolande. I am confident. I know myself and others. I -will be Marchese in a week, and M. de France will have won his first -step towards the position from which he has been too long excluded.” - -“H’m!” - -“Moreover, he will have acquired a devoted and generous son-in-law” -(the Chevalier smiled), “whose first act will be to settle the -reversion of his entire property on his own widow.” - -“You are serious? And if I decline?” - -“I shall leave everything--including bills, acceptances, securities, -all the little pigeons waiting in my _casier_ to be plucked--to M. -Gaston Trix.” - -“Who is he?” - -“I am very fond of him. They call him also Cartouche. What does it -matter? The hawk is not named hawk in every country of the world. Here -he is this--there that. Trix was Cartouche in Chambéry, Scaramuccio -in Turin, anything elsewhere. His mother was English; he was born in -London; his father forgot to leave his address. Yes, I am very fond of -him.” - -“Count, you have never yet honoured one of the sex with your hand?” - -“Alas! it has lacked cleanness.” - -He held it out. It was obvious he spoke the truth. - -“I have been a sad rogue,” he said. “It would be useless for me to -deny it.” - -The Chevalier put the confession by rather hastily. It would appear -that his conscience may have resented its intrusion. It is such an -advantage, after having realised a personal ambition, to be able to -say, “I knew nothing of any moral objection until too late.” But that -is just what some queer providence or fatality will never give one the -opportunity of asserting. He flushed a little and said, with a stiff -air of demand,-- - -“Monsignore, what attracts you in my daughter?” - -The powerful old _roué’s_ face became a mere leering slop of roguery. -There was the picture, for anyone who cared to consider it, of -concupiscence in its dotage. He had come, in the very exhaustion of -his faculties, upon an unheard-of stimulant of loveliness; but sacred, -and the more appetising for being so. Any sacrifice was worth to gain -this ante-room to heaven. He felt once more the poignant ecstasies of -hunger and thirst, he whose sense of surfeit had seemed confirmed to -everlastingness. There is no need to enlarge upon his state. - -“Ah, monsieur!” he said, “can you, who live in daily contemplation of -such perfection, ask? Believe me, the question alone is the riddle; -the answer possesses a thousand tongues of rapture and adoration. -Would I could speak in them all, that I might ease my breast of this -load of undelivered homage which stifles it. I swear, on my honour, -there is no interpreter between earth and paradise but Yolande. You -will bestow her on me--conditionally?” - -M. de France didn’t see, or wouldn’t see, that he was being bribed. -There is a point of magnificence, perhaps, above which corruption is -elevated to sublimity. What earthly sacrifices can approach the gifts -with which the gods reward them? He actually smiled, wintrily but -condescendingly, on the other’s enthusiasm. - -“Well, well, monsignore,” he protested; “what would your ardour say to -a compromise?” - -“There is none possible.” - -“A betrothal, for instance, on the conditions you were good enough to -suggest? I am flattered--it goes without saying--by your proposal. I -admit myself distinguished, actually and potentially, in the -connection. But the child is but fifteen.” - -“I can never consent to it. It puts ten thousand obstacles of accident -and caprice between me and my attainment of beatitude. Mademoiselle -to-day is an angel, but every feather of her wings, so tied, would -invite the cupidity of worldlings--those robbers of the heavenly -roost. I know them well. I must, indeed, have the first and last right -to protect her.” - -“_Must_, Count? Is she yours or mine? I have said enough, and you, I -think, more than enough.” - -His brows and his mouth closed down. His vanity could be a very -obstinate devil. Di Rocco felt that he had touched his limits. - -“Ah! my friend,” he pleaded, “love’s best proof of itself is in -outrunning discretion. I went, in truth, too far. Let me hark back to -reason. I pledge you my credit that within a month my father-in-law -shall be War Minister. Di Broglio wearies of his office, and waits but -for an efficient successor. Give me, I entreat you, that warrant to -enlarge upon your claims.” - -“No, no, the poor child--scarce arrived at woman’s estate.” - -“Then let her come to it, for me, unabashed. Make her mine -ceremonially, and I swear on my honour to postpone the consummation -for a year.” - -“Ah! And if you fail?” - -“I ask no pledge until my success is assured.” - -The Chevalier gnawed his lip, looking on the suitor. He saw an old, -fat, unlovely man, scarred by the claws of depravity (one of his eyes -was bulging askew, as if actually half torn out by them). But the -indelible stamp of rank and wealth redeemed the worst that could be in -him. He told himself that it would be a high mission for his Yolande -to make of herself the instrument for this monster’s salvation. It had -come to be her only chance--and his. Besides, she was a de France, and -surely eager for the restoration of her family’s rights. - -He stopped there, by a strong effort of will, and pronounced--on his -word of honour from which there could be no receding--his inexorable -fiat. - -“Accomplish what you promise, signore, and she is yours on the -condition you propose.” - -Nevertheless, he felt something as nearly approaching meanness as it -was possible for his pride to feel when the Count returned triumphant -with the glad tidings of his success. - -“Bid mademoiselle attend me here,” he said coldly to the servant who -waited on his summons. - -Di Rocco rubbed his dry palms together, tingling through every nerve -of his dishonoured old body. - -And in the doorway, like Dorothea the martyr, stood the white lily of -Savoy, wondering with wide eyes on her judges. - - - - - CHAPTER II - -The Château di Rocco stood well back, among pine woods, from the -little village of Les Chables on the Argentière Road. Above it sloped -the stony steeps of the Flegère; below were huddled neglected -terraces, like dams to check the further descent of the house into the -valley. It might, in its relation to the huge quarry which contained -it, have been part of the mountain itself, a vast boulder torn away -from its parent rock, and retaining in relief the form of the socket -from which it had parted. Towers, pinnacles and walls, heaped up like -an enormous ice-mould, seemed to have shaped themselves to the uproar -of avalanches, and falling torrents, and the thunder of the wind which -uproots whole hill-sides. Yet it was so old itself as to have -withstood a legion of assaults and survived unshaken. It had been the -stronghold of the di Roccos from the days when the passes of the Alps -were a very active trust in the keeping of the border lords, and was -still a formidable veteran of its stones. - -Within, a world of sombre and tarnished magnificence witnessed to the -hands of great mechanics of the past generations. Only the spirit -which could minister to such traditions was debased beyond recall. -What strain was responsible for its existing lord’s, who could say? -The miser, like the comet, is a recurrent phenomenon, eccentric in his -orbit. - -The Château, all in all, was a savage, stone-locked, cold-harbour of -a place, the teeth of whose very ghosts chattered as they walked its -vaulted corridors. It was haunted throughout by sounds and whispers of -cold--the boom of subterranean waters; the high rustle of snow; the -growl of ice splitting in the great glaciers opposite. The wind -whistled in its halls, lifting the skirts of the tapestry in a sort of -stately dance, as if the phantom figures thereon were at a minuet to -warm themselves. There was not a closet in all its recesses which -might have been called cosy, nor a rat behind its wainscoting which -had grown sleek on plenty. - -Dr Bonito, private physician to the Count, was himself as waxy a -spectre as any which inhabited there. His face was like a -topographical map, with all its features in low relief--wrinkles for -rivers, dull eyes for lakes, a nose like a rudimentary volcano. There -was no expression whatever on it but what seemed to derive from -drought and starvation, and no colour but a bilious glaze, which -pimpled here and there into red. A death-mask of him might very well -have stood for a chart of the dead moon. - -The doctor was said to be a Rosicrucian, a member of that queer sect -(then somewhat out of date) which mixed up alchemy with ethics, and -thought to coin a millennium out of the alloy. Or it had thought to -once. Rosicrucianism was not founded, professedly, to interfere with -the polity or religions of States, but simply to pursue the True -Philosophy--to “follow the Gleam.” Yet no secret society, I suppose, -has ever failed, when success has brought it self-conscious of its -power, to abuse its mission; and certainly Dr Bonito, as a latter-day -Frater Roseæ-Crucis, distilled other and less perfumed waters than -utilitarianism from his alembics. He was an empiric, in fact, and -lived on the gross superstition of his employer--barely, it is true, -but resignedly, since Di Rocco had promised him a legacy proportionate -with his services in keeping him alive, and a very bonanza should he -conduct him well over the Biblical span. For which reason Bonito -scarcely resented his present treatment, because he counted every -penny now withheld from him as a penny invested against his future. - -Plumpness, under the circumstances, was hardly to be expected of him; -but the doctor was so very thin that, when he hugged himself, his -elbows seemed to meet in his waist. Mr Trix (as he liked to be -called), sitting opposite at a little table, with a solitary candle -burning between, laughed to see him so caress himself. - -“You have no bowels,” he said, “consequently no hunger. What is the -matter with you then, old Bonito?” - -The physician, who, in order that he might cherish his numb fingers, -had put down on the table an instrument which he had been engaged in -correcting--an astrolabe so antique in construction that it might have -dated from Hipparchus--answered, with a peevish wince of his breath,-- - -“Hunger, child? What dost thou know of the hunger of the soul?” - -“Something,” said Trix. - -“Something!” echoed the other. “Ay, the baffled appetites of one whose -sensorium is but a mirror to reflect back into his brain the visible -lusts of the flesh.” - -Mr Trix laughed again, pulling at his long pipe. He had a reckless -young dark face, jet-eyebrowed, winsome out of wickedness, and -handsome enough to be a perpetual passport to his desires. His form, -properly slim and elastic for the “blade” that he was, was “sheathed,” -quite elegantly for di Rocco, in cloth of a fine black, and with a -ruff of Valenciennes lace at its breast. A glass and a bottle of old -wine stood at his elbow. - -“True,” he said, “I deplore the loss of our late good company. And so -do you, my Bonito, if for a different reason. I miss its penny-wisdom, -and you its penny-fees. But however our respective souls may feel the -present pinch, they would do well, it seems to me, to prepare for, -even to provide against, a worse. I think Di Rocco looks very bloated -and shaky of late, don’t you?” - -“Ah! you wish him to die first!” - -Bonito rose to his feet and went pacing vehemently up and down. Trix, -watching him, said quietly,-- - -“You are very wrong. I wish the padrone no harm whatever--least of all -the harm of this ludicrous misalliance.” - -The physician stopped suddenly. - -“It is quite true,” he said. “I know the conditions. We should both be -disinherited--taken by the scruff and kicked out. The notary has -already been advised.” - -“What then? The stars are always common land.” - -“Do you think so, my friend? There are no pastures so exclusive, nor -so costly in the grazing. Why else have I served parsimony these long -years, as Galeotti served Louis Gripes, if not for promise of the late -means to their attainment. Let us be frank; why have you?” - -“For fun,” said the young man, “or my duty to an older scapegrace. I -don’t see the possibility of either in a _regimen_ of Mademoiselle de -France.” - -Bonito, sitting down again and leaning his elbows on the table, -searched hungrily the brown eyes which canvassed his imperturbably. -Suddenly he dealt out a question,-- - -“M. Louis-Marie Saint-Péray?” - -“Well?” - -“Have you come across such a gentleman here?” - -Trix nodded. - -“Eh! you have?” said the other. “Well, what do you know of him?” - -“That he is a young gentleman of France, of slender means, which he -expends largely on impracticable enthusiasms.” - -“Anything more?” - -“That he is in Le Prieuré for the second time, to attempt the assault -of Mont Blanc.” - -“Ay, and what else?” - -“Incidentally, that he will never conquer anything.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because he is a creature of fervid aspirations and lame conclusions.” - -“Has he taken you into his confidence?” - -“More; into his arms.” - -“How was that?” - -“He would cross the Glacier of the Winds without a guide; he fell into -a crevasse which, luckily for him, his alpenstock bridged. But he -could not get out until I pulled him. There’s the thing in the corner. -Do you see it? I gave him my hunting-knife for it, the one with the -jade handle and little rat’s head in-gold. Nothing would satisfy him -but that we exchanged blood tokens.” - -“I don’t doubt it. A fair exchange, and M. Cartouche all over.” - -“Why, thou unconscionable hunks! didn’t he give me, for his part, what -he had reason to value most in the world? ‘Use it for my sake,’ says -he, ‘so that I may dream always of my two best friends going hand in -hand.’ There were tears in his eyes. Do you think he will ever ascend -Mont Blanc?” - -“Maybe not. But his aspirations mount higher.” - -“You mean to the de France. Ha, ha, old fox! you have not had me, you -see.” - -“He has confessed to you?” - -“No, I swear. But the sacristan of Le Marais is an exuberant toss-pot, -and apt to overflow in his cups. My information is from him.” - -“What information?” - -“Why, that miss and my friend have very much the air of being lovers -secretly pledged to one another.” - -“It is a fact. But how does he know it?” - -“His chapel is their pious rendezvous, sweet souls. There they met -first, and there they meet still.” - -“It is well they take their loves to church--a good sign. He will want -to make an honest woman of her.” - -Cartouche grew suddenly and fastidiously articulate. - -“I will beg you to bear in mind, Dr Bonito,” he said, “that M. -Saint-Péray has made his honour my own.” - -“That is admirable indeed,” answered the physician. “But has he -introduced you to the lady?” - -“No,” said Cartouche, irresistibly tickled for the moment. “There are -limits even to _his_ friendship.” - -“You do not know her?” - -“Not even by sight.” - -“She is very pretty, Mr Trix.” - -Cartouche, staring at the speaker a moment, took his pipe from his -lips, which as always, when his mood grew ugly, seemed to thin down -against his teeth. - -“What are you hinting at?” he demanded low. “A pox on your innuendo! -Out with it!” - -The physician grinned unconcerned. - -“Only,” said he, “that I hope, when you do see her, it will not make -you wish to take your blood-brother’s place in the spoiling of di -Rocco’s romance.” - -Cartouche leaped to his feet. - -“Beast!” he hissed. “If thou hadst as much nose as a barber could lay -hold on, I would take thee by it and shave thy cursed throat!” - -The other did not move. - -“As to my nose,” he said, “it serves its purpose.” - -“I don’t doubt it,” cried Cartouche. “The smallest vent is enough for -slander. When have you ever known me wrong a friend in his love?” - -“Never, indeed--where the wrong’s been expected of you. Perversity’s -your crowning devil. You’ve suffered some losses for the pleasure of -confuting your oracles, I know. Well, you’ve only to confute them -here, to earn _my_ gratitude, at least.” - -“A dog to suggest such a villainy!” - -“What! to you? Ho, ho! Have you ever heard of carrying owls to Athens? -But let it pass. It’s all one if we are in accord as to the -impossibility of this alliance between Mademoiselle and our patron, -and the timeliness of our young mountaineer’s intrusion. You choose to -believe that you will serve monsignore best by helping M. Saint-Péray -to the lady. Well, believe it, and save us our reversions by an act of -virtue.” - -Cartouche, yielding to humour with a sudden laugh, yawned and -stretched himself. - -“After all,” he said indolently, “there’s no such sporting science as -casuistry. Di Rocco is certainly an old bottle for this heady young -wine; a villainous scarecrow to be asking for a patch of this bright -new cloth. The pattern is out of suits with his raggedness, and calls -for a seemly pair of breeches. We’ll save him his character in spite -of himself.” - -“It would be a veritable act of grace,” said Bonito. - -“If we could only do him that good by stealth,” said Cartouche, -relighting his pipe. - -“La-la-la!” cried the physician, softly. “Why need we appear in the -matter at all?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“It is only a question of terms with Le Marais--of sufficiently -gilding the countenance it will give to a stolen union. They have no -particular tenderness there for di Rocco, whose ugly countenance, for -his part, is the only thing he has ever given them. The rest lies -between you and your blood-brother.” - -“I can bring a horse to the water--” - -“Bah! he will drink. It is a Pierian spring. You will know when you -see.” - -“Shall I? And how about the lady?” - -Bonito chuckled. - -“For choice she has di Rocco!” - -A voice at the door, little, and gloating, and jubilant, took up the -word,-- - -“Di Rocco, di Rocco, di Rocco! What about him, you rogues? What about -the knave of hearts, the gallant, the irresistible, the latter-day -saint of love, who is going to be so blessed that he will need no -physician, nor no runagate scamp to remind him of his days of -unregeneracy?” - -Bonito, risen, shot one significant glance at Cartouche, and then -lowered his eyes as his patron entered. - -“Monsignore’s suit has sped?” he murmured. - -“Drawn by doves,” crowed the Marquess; “flown straight as a bee into -the bosom of love, where it stops to hive.” - -He crossed to the table, took up the bottle, cried, “Ha, you -inordinate dog!” to Cartouche; slapped him on the back with, “A thief -of a cellarer, go hang!” and blew out the candle. - -“Who can’t drink by moonlight,” he cried, “is no chaste Diana’s -servant. I’ll have to immure thee, dangerous rogue, among thy -bottles.” - -The moonlight, as he spoke, striking from a white window-sill, threw -up all his features grossly. He looked like some infernal sort of -negro, flat-nosed, monstrous-lipped. - -“It was my candle, padrone,” said Cartouche, placidly sucking at his -pipe. “I think I will light it again, and this time at both ends.” - -But di Rocco, paying no attention to him, was flicking at the -astrolabe on the table. - -“This folly, Bonito,” he said. “I am at an end of it all. What did it -ever foretell me but lies?” - -The physician rescued his instrument gravely. - -“Nay, monsignore,” he said. “It cannot lie, so its parts remain true. -Yet I confess it strained my credulity to the extent this night that I -was fain to bring it in and examine it.” - -“And what had been its message?” sneered the Marquess, uneasy while he -scowled. - -“That monsignore’s death must follow close upon his marriage,” said -the Rosicrucian, calmly. - -Di Rocco tore the instrument from his hand and dashed it upon the -floor. - -“Liar!” he screamed. “I know thy tricks and motives. Did it foretell -this end to them? Begone, thou ass inside a lion’s skin, lest I spit -and trample on thee! Begone, nor look upon my face again!” - -Without a word Bonito stooped and gathered up the wreck of brass, -then, clutching it, walked softly from the room. - -Cartouche pulled calmly on at his pipe. - - - - - CHAPTER III - -M. Louis-Marie Saint-Peray lodged in the house of a M. Paccard, Le -Prieuré’s respectable doctor, and an enthusiast in matters of -geology. Everyone loved Louis-Marie, even, in a sweet, impartial way, -the doctor’s only daughter, Martha, who, however, had other geese to -pluck in the matrimonial market. The young man was so good and so -good-looking, so pious, so enthusiastic and so sensible. Anticipating -the boy-angel of “Excelsior,” he came storming the frozen heights, -which, nevertheless, he was not to attain. But his failures made the -true romance of his endeavours--in the eyes of women, at least, who do -not admire the cocksureness which comes of success. As to the men, the -rugged mountaineers, who were experienced in the natural limitations -to their craft, they mingled, perhaps, a little contempt with their -liking. It would be all very well to put their knowledge to school by -showing it the way up Mont Blanc; but, in the meanwhile, aspirations -were not deeds. They all, for the matter of that, aspired to conquer -the great white peak, but their women did not applaud them for the -wish. True, they had not, not one of them, M. Saint-Péray’s serene -white face, and kindling blue eyes, and hair of curling sunbeams. Yet -Le Prieuré was not deficient in manly beauty, however little it might -derive from an exclusive ancestry of angels. - -Le Prieuré, in Louis-Marie’s time, was a rude enough valley, and -almost forbidden ground to the ease-loving traveller. That was one -reason, perhaps, why the women so favoured this gentle stranger, who -came to them on his own initiative out of the despised world of -luxury. If he brought with him the traditions of tender breeding, he -brought also its fearless spirit. It was something god-like in him to -defy, in his frail person, that unconquerable keep of the mountains. - -That was good in itself; but a closer appeal was to reach them on the -occasion of his second visit. For it was then that he and Yolande met -for the first time, and provided in their meeting the basis for a more -poignant romance than any which had yet glorified him. Within a week, -every wife in Le Prieuré thrilled in the knowledge of a secret -fathomed only by herself. - -One wet July morning Louis-Marie left the doctor’s door and turned his -face for Le Marais, which was a little dedicatory chapel standing -under pine woods on the lower slopes of the Montverd. It was there he -had first come upon Yolande, the saintly loveliness, craving some boon -of the sacred heart; and what better rendezvous could the two -afterwards appoint than the little holy shrine which had brought them -mutually acquainted with the sweetest of all boons? - -As Louis-Marie walked up the village street his heart sang like a bird -with joy. It was full of thankfulness to the God of orthodoxy, who was -nevertheless the God of nature and of love. How easy and how -profitable it was to earn approval in those great eyes! One had only -to keep the faith of a little child, to ask no questions, to court no -vexing heresies, and be happy. And so to be rewarded for one’s -happiness, as witness himself twice blessed. He had done nothing but -be good according to his orthodox lights, and for that virtue, which -was instinct, here was he glorified in the affection of the loveliest -lily of womanhood which had ever blossomed in a by-way of the world. -He turned and breathed a laugh in the direction of the unsurmountable -peak, hidden now within league-deep folds of mist. What was there to -gain which seemed other than trivial in the light of his higher -achievement? The mountain was shrunk to a mole-hill under that star, -that altitude. - -There was no wind; the wet dropped softly, caressingly; the fields -were full of flowers. Louis-Marie could interpret the talk between -them and the earnest rain. The patches of standing rye were stippled -with poppies. He recognised why the supreme artist had touched them in -here and there and nowhere else. Sacred love was the understanding -love after all; he felt that he had been given the gift of tongues. - -He took no sense of depression from the drowning mist. The gloom made -the lamp of his heart shine the more friendly, smiling on all things -in its consciousness of the ecstatic wings which were waiting up there -to flutter to it in a little. He had no doubt of himself, or of his -right to hold that lure to them. Perhaps he had no reason to have. He -came, for all worldly considerations, of an old and stately family, -and he had his orphan’s patrimony--nothing great, but enough to bring -him within the bounds of eligibility in the eyes of a poor Chevalier. -If he had consented hitherto to make a secret of his suit, it was -because he could not find it in his heart to materialise the first -virgin rapture of that idyll--to submit it to flesh-and-blood -conditions. There was no other reason; or, if one was to be suspected -in M. de France’s pride and aloofness, as gossip painted them, he -would not admit to himself that he had been influenced by it. But, in -any case, propriety, always to him the little thing more than love, -without which love itself must lack perfection, demanded its -vindication the moment he realised that it was in question; and he was -now actually on his way, in fact, to entreat his love’s consent to an -appeal to the paternal sanctions. - -Half-way down the village street he encountered a young fellow, a -friend of his, and one intimately associated with some past ambitions. -This was Jacques Balmat, already the most experienced of mountaineers -at twenty-two. His dark eager face and bold eyes showed in significant -contrast with the girlish pink and blue of the other’s. He held out a -handful of pebbles. - -Louis-Marie was in no hurry. “For Dr Paccard, Jacques?” he asked, with -a smile. The young man nodded his head. - -“Some of them are rare enough, monsieur. I risk my life in getting -them. But who would win the daughter must court the father.” - -There was significance as well as sympathy in his tone. To him, also, -there was a peak higher than Mont Blanc’s to attain. - -“Very true, Jacques,” said Saint-Péray. “I hope we may both find -favour.” - -The young mountaineer nodded again. - -“And in the meanwhile, monsieur, there is no favour imperilled by -showing what resolute fellows we are. I was even now on my way to -monsieur. This mist presages a sunny morrow. Monsieur, the mountain -still waits to be scaled.” - -“It must wait, Jacques, for me. There are rarer heights to gain. For -the moment I hold my life like the frailest vessel, which it is my -duty to protect from so much as a breath of danger.” - -“Well, monsieur, that sounds funny to me. But then, manliness is my -only recommendation. To win a great name out of venture--there is my -chance, and now more than ever.” - -“Why now, Jacques?” - -“Monsieur has not heard? Dr Paccard has been appointed physician to -the Château. Dr Paccard will be a big man presently--too big to -countenance a son-in-law chosen from the people.” - -“Since when has he been appointed, Jacques?” - -“Since last night, monsieur, by the talk. It tells of how the -monsignore’s erst familiar, the seer Bonito, came down into the -village raging over his dismissal. And there are other whispers--of a -libertine reformed; of changes projected at the Château. I know -little of their import, I--only this, that Jacques Balmat will lose -nothing by conquering the mountain. Shall we not join hands, monsieur, -in essaying once more a triumph which would make all men our -debtors--monsieur, to win or perish?” - -But Saint-Péray shook his head. - -“Another time, Jacques,” he said. “My claim to conquest must rest on -lower deserts. _Bonne chance, camarade!_” And he went on his way, to -meet the fate of the irresolute; while young Balmat went on his, to -climb to his Martha by-and-by. - -Louis-Marie was grown thoughtful as he walked on. Nature somehow -seemed a little further from his knowledge than before; the talk -between the flowers and the rain was like a whispered conspiracy; the -dank air chilled him. As he turned out of the village into the wet -meadows, which sloped gently upwards towards Le Marais, he started to -see a figure standing by a little freshet as if awaiting him. - -“Gaston!” he cried, with an irresistible thrill of guiltiness in his -note. - -Mr Trix wore, making a grace of necessity, a thick dove-grey -redingote. His buckish little “tops,” which came but half-way up his -calves, appeared scarcely soiled by the rain and mud. The smallest of -black cocked hats was placed jauntily on his black curls, of which -one, and one only, was privileged to accent the whiteness of his fine -forehead. Over his head he carried a small Spanish silk umbrella, an -innovation of such effeminacy that his daring it at all in the teeth -of fashion testified to something in his character which was at least -as noteworthy as his foppishness. Like the dandy wasp, with his waist -and elegance and sting, there was that suggestion in Mr Trix of an -ever-ready retort upon the rashness of his critics. Some men there are -who carry swords in their eyes, and no one laughed at Cartouche the -macaroni unless behind his back. - -He came up to Louis-Marie, and took his arm with an assured frankness. -His smile showed an enviable regularity of teeth. - -“Yes, I purposed to meet you,” he said. “Are you in a hurry?” - -His self-sufficiency somehow mended Louis-Marie’s. - -“My business can wait,” he answered, “for a friend.” - -Nevertheless he paused meaningly, as if that business were exclusive. - -Cartouche laughed. - -“Louis-Marie,” said he, “you have never yet asked me for my -credentials.” - -“You saved my life,” said Saint-Péray, simply. - -“That is true,” said Cartouche. “But supposing it was for my own ends? -I am the very hawk of opportunism.” - -“You must have quick eyes indeed, dear Gaston,” said Saint-Péray, -with a smile, “if you saw your way to turn me to account during those -few moments of my peril.” - -“Eyes of the hawk, Louis-Marie. Well, I saved your life, you say. It -is certainly the only thing I ever saved, and therefore perhaps, like -a spendthrift, I put a particular value on it.” - -“And I too, Gaston, I assure you. There was never a time when I held -my life so dear as now.” - -“That is as I supposed, and the very reason why I am here to warn -you.” - -“What! is my life in danger?” - -“That is as it may hit. If someone came to me and said, ‘Gaston, there -is one who has it in his power to administer to you the potion of -virtue, so that you shall wish to marry and live respectable,’ I -should say that my life was in peril. But one man’s food is another -man’s poison, and it is possible that you might welcome such a -physicking.” - -“Indeed I think I should.” - -“Very well. Then there is a priest at Le Marais, I believe--a -professional dealer in such potions. There is also, if I am not in -error, the necessary other party to such a transaction awaiting you -there. I would seize the opportunity, if I were you, to be made -respectable for ever.” - -“What do you mean?” - -Saint-Péray’s face was grown suddenly a little white and stern. - -“We are blood-brothers,” answered Cartouche, quietly; “comrades of a -very recent sentiment. I honour the tie, despite--I say _despite_--an -older and, to me, more natural one. I mean no reflection upon anything -but the blindness of two simplicities, living, privately as they -suppose, in a little-high paradise of their own. Will you not be -satisfied with a hint? Will you not believe in its sincerity, though I -tell you that I should profit personally by its acceptance by you? You -have chosen to take me on trust. I choose to vindicate that confidence -by assuring you that my patron di Rocco has spoiled more idylls in his -time than I can tell. He is in the way to ruin yet another, this time -by the Church’s sanction; and his arguments, from the worldly point of -view, are overwhelming.” - -Saint-Péray was like a ghost now. - -“Speak plain, brother,” he whispered; “or rather, answer only. Is the -Marquess a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle de France? Is that what -you mean?” - -Cartouche stepped back and nodded. - -“He is an accepted suitor, Louis-Marie.” - -The young man dropped his head with a shudder, as if he had been -stabbed. But in a moment he looked up again, pale and trembling. - -“So vile!” he said hoarsely. “She’s soiled in his mere thought! -Gaston! My God! it must not be; it--” - -He checked himself suddenly, gazed a troubled moment into the other’s -face, then turned and went quickly up the hill. As soon as the mist -had hidden him, Cartouche followed easily in his steps. - -“I must see this folly out,” he thought. “Perhaps they will want a -witness.” - -The chapel of Le Marais hung in the clouds. Its stone walls streamed -with rain. The sop and suck of it were the only sounds which broke the -silence of the hillside. Cartouche stepped softly to the door and -looked in. - -It was just a dovecot, of a size for these two pious pigeons. They -knelt side by side before the little gimcrack altar. The girl had been -waiting there for the other to join her. A picture of the sacred heart -transfixed hung on the wall above her head. It was thence she had -sought to gather strength for the cruel thing she had to say. - -Cartouche, standing without, looked through the crack of the door. He -could not see Yolande’s face, for it was hidden in her hands. But -presently, with a quivering sigh, she raised it, and, seeing her lover -still bowed down in prayer, turned towards the entrance as if seeking -light. So the young virgin of Nazareth might have turned, in great -doubt and loveliness, following with her eyes the dimming messenger of -heaven. And then she herself went to prayer again. - -We have likened Yolande once before to Dorothea the Martyr, she who, -when condemned to death for loving Christ, promised that she would -send to Theophilus, the young advocate who had bantered her, a posy -from the garden of her desires. Now, like that Theophilus, when a -child-angel stood before him offering to his hand a spray of unearthly -roses, Cartouche felt his heart suddenly constrict and, rallying, -choke his veins with fire. Stepping softly back, he tiptoed round the -end of the chapel, and gained the tiny presbytery which stood in a -clearing above. The little house was deserted, it seemed, both of -father and sacristan. No one answered to his low tapping. As he stood -undecided, the voices of the lovers approaching from the chapel -reached him. The door of the presbytery was on the latch. He opened -it, entered, and stood hidden just within. He had no wish to -eavesdrop; his heart was in a strange panic, that was all. He felt as -Actaeon must have felt as he backed into the thickets. - -The two came close up to his hiding-place; and then they stopped, and -uttered for his shameful ears the tragedy of their lives. In the first -of their meeting, amazed as yet, and unrealising the abyss which was -fast gaping between them, they spoke in the soft romance, the old -love-language of Savoy; but soon a woefuller cry wrung itself from the -torture of their hearts. - -“Garden of my soul! as the rose clings to the wall, so art thou mine.” - -“I have clung to thee, Louis.” - -“The sun hath welded us into one. Thy perfume is in me, as my strength -upholds thy beauty. We cannot be torn apart but we perish.” - -“I have climbed heavenwards resting on thy heart. My cheek hath glowed -to thee by day, and at night, when thou sleptst, I have put my lips to -the moon kisses on thy face.” - -“Who is this thief that comes into my garden to steal my rose? A beast -whom they liken to Gilles de Rais; a thing so foul that I would rather -my rose were scentless than that he should boast to have shared in the -tiniest largesse of her perfume.” - -“Hush! he is the husband whom my father has chosen for me.” - -At that Louis-Marie threw poetry to the winds, and seized Yolande’s -hands, and looked with madness into her eyes. - -“He may choose, but let me gather no submission from your tone. -Yolande, we will go down together, and claim our older pledge and win -his heart by tears. I had meant this very morning to urge you to that -course. Why didn’t I before! O, why didn’t I before! I curse my own -delay! I--” - -“Louis!” - -“Yes, I was wrong. ’Tis love’s, it seems, to damn. Come down, Yolande, -before it is too late.” - -“Listen, dear love; it is too late. It was a conditional promise, and -the condition has been observed. What should my father know of you? -His word is his bond, and he will hold to it.” - -“He cannot know the reputation of this man. His breath’s a blight upon -the earth. Why, even now--” - -He broke off with a cry, and clasped his arms convulsively about her. - -She was like a ghost, holding up her white hands to him piteously. -Cartouche saw what perfect things they were, frail and slender, yet of -a beauty to cradle all love. Her face, in its milky pallour, grey-eyed -and scarlet-lipped, was like the face of some spirit tragedy flowering -from the mists. - -“Ask me nothing,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do.” - -“_I_ tell you?” he said, releasing and stepping back from her. He -forced his trembling lips to resolution. “What does your heart say, -Yolande? your stainless womanhood? your duty to yourself?” - -“My duty to my father, Louis.” - -“Now, God help me! Is that a note of wavering in your voice? This -man’s rich and powerful, and I’m neither.” - -“Louis, I’ll not upbraid you.” - -“For duty’s sake to tie yourself to a leper! What abuse of authority -will not women plead to justify their treacheries!” - -“Will you break my heart? If I married him from duty, I should kill -myself from love.” - -“Hush, dearest! hush, my lily! I was a brute and coward. Forgive me. -Yolande, Yolande! have I offended you beyond recall?” - -“I forgive you, indeed. But, Louis, were it not better just now to -think than kiss?” - -“Yes, to think, Yolande. I would carry you by force if driven to it.” - -“Would you? O, I am helpless!” - -“But not unless all else failed. To prevent one outrage by another! -God would not love us any longer, Yolande. We must try all juster -means first.” - -Cartouche, wincing, ground his heel softly into the boards where he -stood. The girl was weeping very hopelessly. - -“You wring my heart,” said Saint-Péray, sobbing himself. “What am I -to do? What think? I would pray for light before I act--pray for -fortitude and reason. Precipitancy makes self-martyrs, Yolande. Our -cause is better won by moderation.” - -She turned from him. “Yolande!” he cried in agony. “You love me best?” - -Cartouche uttered a very wicked oath under his breath. But the white -lily was in her lover’s arms. - -“Yes, yes,” she said. “You are always right, dear Louis. Only tell me -what I am to do.” - -“Supposing you went now to your father, Yolande, and confessed the -whole truth to him?” - -“Alone, Louis?” - -“Only for a little, dearest. I will follow when I have prayed for -guidance. Would he know my name even?” - -“I have done very wrong.” - -“Hush! the blame is mine. But we will mend it--start afresh. He must -be broken to my idea--learn my deserts before he sees me. I’ll trust -to you to speak them, sweetheart, better than myself. We must not -descend upon him with flags flying, daring his enmity.” - -“You’ll not be long?” - -“Yolande! do you doubt me?” - -“I only doubt myself, Louis. If he appeals to me by all I owe to him!” - -“You owe God your soul, Yolande.” - -“Yes, yes. Pray to Him for me, Louis. I am so weak alone. Good-bye, -Louis.” - -“_Au revoir_, Yolande.” - -She did not mend her term, however, and they parted. Cartouche turned -his face away. When he looked again they were both gone--Yolande down -the hill, Louis-Marie to the chapel. - -“I have seen an angel,” thought the watcher. “Henceforth I am in love -with chastity.” - -He lingered long in his eyrie, waiting for Saint-Péray to go. At -length, restless beyond endurance, he decided to take the lead in the -descent. As he went down the hillside, the mist was already retreating -before the onset of the sun. It was the dawn of mid-day. Cartouche -looked over his shoulder towards Le Marais. - -“Will that bring him out?” he thought, “or will he always put off -making his hay until to-morrow?” - -Coming out into the road below, he ran suddenly upon Bonito. The -physician sprang back and stood breathing at him, grinning horribly. - -“Ha!” he cried. “Well met, fellow-disinherited!” - -He champed like a rabid dog. He was woefully unclean and disordered. -Cartouche fell severely calm. - -“What is the matter?” he asked. - -“The matter!” cried Bonito. “Enough and to spare for us. Go and hear -it in the village. Thou hast sped, if thou hast sped, to great purpose -indeed. Le Marais was already bespoke, it seems. They are man and wife -this hour.” - -Cartouche did not move. - -“Who are man and wife?” he said. - -The other raved. - -“Who but the dog that hath disowned us, and the--woman that hath -replaced!” - -“The woman! she of the white hands? Why, she was up yonder not twice -as long ago!” - -“I cannot help that. You should have kept her there. If you let her -go, you were the fool.” - -“I had nothing to do with it. She went down to plead for her lover.” - -“A pretty pleading! I don’t doubt she’s like them all--caught by a -title. Anyhow springed she was and is, and held at this moment as fast -as Church can bind her.” - -Cartouche laughed recklessly. - -“Well,” said he, “man proposes, but woman disposes. Our best-laid -plans are nothing without the collusion of the party planned against. -We must carry our wits to a fresh market.” - -Bonito, with a fearful blasphemy, hit out into the air. - -“I know my market!” he screamed, “I know my market!” and ran raging up -the road. Cartouche turned his face to the hill once more. - -A little way up he met Saint-Péray, pale and exalted, descending at -last. He stood in his path. - -“Louis-Marie,” said he, “you have delayed too long. It does not do to -give the devil tether while you pray. Mademoiselle de France is at -this moment the Marchesa di Rocco.” - -He owed the young man no mercy, he thought. His own heart, for all his -cynic exterior, was burning between contempt and anger. But he was -hardly prepared for the blighting effect of his own words. Louis-Marie -fell at his feet as if a thunderbolt had struck him. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - -Yolande de France walked straight down the hill to her doom. She had -no Spanish silk umbrella, like Cartouche’s, to shield her head from -the tempest, nor any strength, like his, to dare orthodoxy. She wore -only a simple cloak and hood, like “Red-riding-hood the darling, the -flower of fairy lore;” and that was quite insufficient to protect her -from the wolf. - -At the door of the “Hôtel” her father met her, distraught and -nervous. He led her, his lips quivering, into the little side study -which he called an ante-room. He was obviously, pitifully, agitated. - -“Where have you been?” he said. “But no matter, since you are here. -Yolande, the moment has come when you must decide.” - -“Decide, father?” She trembled. - -“Whether,” he answered, “you will bow to my earnest wishes, or commit -me to dishonour and the grave.” - -She felt suddenly faint, and sat down in a chair. - -“Father!” she whispered; “I don’t understand you.” - -“I am only too easily understood,” he said. “The Marquess di Rocco, -who holds my very existence in the hollow of his hand, renews his suit -at this moment, and peremptorily.” - -“I cannot marry him.” - -“Wait, before you condemn me, me, your father, to worse than death. I -must be plain with you, Yolande, in this terrible crisis. I do not -plead my word to him, although you as a de France should appreciate -its inviolability. It is associated with other pledges which, in -default of your consent, would mean my instant ruin. I owe him money, -Yolande, which it is impossible for me to repay--money borrowed -chiefly to enable you, my daughter, to maintain the condition which is -your due. You alone have it in your power to liquidate that debt.” - -She did not speak. She could not, indeed. But he gathered a little -confidence from her silence. - -“And after all,” he said, with a sickly smile, “one can conceive a -less attractive way out of an _impasse_. Riches, position, a princely -jointure, an alliance with the most powerful house in Savoy, whereby -our own would be enabled to recover its lost influence--are these -small considerations to be discarded for a personal sentiment, which -a month of such devotion would cure?” - -She shuddered, repeating, “I cannot marry him.” - -“On the other side,” he hurried on, ignoring her words desperately, -“utter material ruin and, what is worse to me, my word, my honour -foresworn. Listen, Yolande. In that very hour when you become, if you -will become, his wife, he settles his entire property upon you by -will. You will be the most influential woman in the duchy, a force for -the good which is so dear to your heart. Is to put this in your power -the act of a libertine, or of one rather who yearns to find his -redemption at the hands of a virtue which he holds so inestimably -dear?” - -She cried out at last, rising from her seat and staggering as if she -were blind. - -“Father! father! give me time at least!” - -Even in her despair she knew that it were useless to plead how her -heart, her soul were engaged elsewhere. The shock, at this pass, would -have driven him to a very frenzy of cruelty. As it was, he leapt to -the little concession implied in her appeal, and sought to improve -upon it instantly. - -“Impossible. He is on the very eve of a journey. He demands the -ceremony at once--this moment.” - -“The ceremony? O, mother of God!” - -“A formal one only, conditionally, for a year. Not till that time has -elapsed may he claim you for his wife in fact. It was my provision, -made in consideration of your youth and inexperience.” - -She stared at him as if mad. - -“You are my father,” she began. He interrupted, to better her,-- - -“Your dead mother’s trustee for your welfare, Yolande. As I hold that -charge sacred from abuse, believe at least in the sincerity of my -desire to urge, impartially, upon you the wisdom of a step which I am -sure she would have approved.” - -The girl gave a little rending laugh--horrible--in a note quite -foreign to her. - -“Is he--M. di Rocco--in the house?” she asked. - -“He is in the next room awaiting us. The Maire, the notary, and the -good Father of Le Marais are also there, attending on your decision.” - -“Only my mother is wanting,” said Yolande. “Call her to this -conspiracy against her child, and see what she answers to the -impartial head of it.” - -He had turned his fine eyes from her, even as, it is said, the royal -despot of beasts will cower under the fearless human gaze; but at this -the goaded fire flashed into them. - -“She would answer,” he cried, “cursing the graceless offspring of our -house, who could so misread a father’s tender love.” - -“No, father, she is in heaven. The secrets of our hearts are bared to -her.” - -He cringed before her for a moment, defeated and exposed. Looking in -her noble eyes, he knew that his moral tenure of her heart, her duty, -hung upon a thread--knew that nothing but the last poignant threat of -self-destruction could restore them to him. His stately cowardice had -even foreseen this contingency. - -“You leave me no alternative,” he said, his face as grey as ashes. “I -cannot survive dishonour and my broken word. Thus, Yolande, do I take -your message to her!” and with the word he fetched a pistol from his -pocket and put its muzzle to his temple. - -She uttered a fearful scream, and flew to him--wrenched down his arm, -cried, and fondled him with inarticulate moans. He stood quite -passive. - -“Give me time!” she could only sob at last. - -“I can give you nothing, Yolande,” he answered. “Yours is all the -gift. I am a bankrupt but for you.” - -He made a movement as if to break from her. She held him madly. In -that minute the whole joy of life drained from her veins and left them -barren. At length she released him, and stepped back. - -“Father,” she said, “in all your life never mention my mother’s name -to me again. When I die, bury me away from her in another grave. I am -only worthy to be your daughter. Deal with me as you will.” - -A double rose of colour had come to his cheeks. He made an eager step -towards her, but she retreated before him. - -“It is enough for me that you have vindicated your name,” he said. “It -is enough that I am not mistaken in you.” - -“Spare me that comment on my shame,” she said. “Why will you keep me -in this torture?” - -But he must still hunger to justify his self-degradation by enlarging -on it. - -“Hush!” he said. “It is a sacrifice, I know; but perhaps, Yolande, -only a provisional sacrifice. Dare I whisper my own expectations? You -will be free for a year--a wife in nothing but the material endowments -of wifehood; a--a prospective dowager, Yolande. The Marquess is much -shaken--a prematurely old man--a--” - -She turned from him, feeling sick to death. - -“I am waiting,” she said icily. - - * * * * * * * * - -That was how the Marchese di Rocco gained his wife. For the rest, the -priest, the Maire and notary were creatures of his own, and among them -soon accomplished the ceremony and settlements. At the end, monsignore -offered to kiss his newly-made bride; but she backed from him. - -“Is this in the bond?” she asked coldly of her father. He was very -righteous and peremptory at once. - -“It is a breach of it,” he said. “I must ask you, monsignore, to -observe our compact to the letter.” - -The old libertine grinned. - -“A pledge only, to be redeemed in a year,” he said. “But it will keep, -sweet as roses in a cabinet. In the interval, I hope the Marchesa will -honour my poor abode, during the absence of its master.” - -“No, pardon me,” said de France. “She will continue in her father’s -house.” - -“I shall do neither,” said the lily. - -“How!” cried the Chevalier. - -“I am my own mistress,” she said. “From this moment please do not -forget that--” and she swept from the room. - -He stared after her, dumbfoundered; but di Rocco burst into a great -laugh. - -“By God, I like her spirit!” he said. “She is a prize worth the -winning.” - - - - - CHAPTER V - -There was a little _auberge_ on the Montverd, kept open during the -summer months for the benefit of those (not many in 1783) who came to -enjoy the view. There, in a green oasis, planted amongst the -stupendous buttresses of the mountains, lived Nicholas Target and his -daughter Margot, the latter a good sensible girl and the responsible -_aubergiste_. The father was a drunken scamp, a guide by profession, -but long discredited as such in the eyes of all but his daughter, -whose faithful heart continued to make its compromise with the -self-evident. The fellow spent his days, of slouching and soaking, -mostly at the foot of the steep path which descended from the inn to -the moraine of the Winds, where, in a tiny shed, he kept a store of -woollen socks for the feet of those who desired to cross the glacier. -This at least left the _auberge_ free of his presence, and Margot to -the peaceful entertainment of her guests. - -Amongst these, on a certain tragic day, came to be included Yolande, -new Marchesa di Rocco. Only the wonderful visitor came to stay, it -seemed, and not merely to gather Dutch courage for the passage of the -glacier. She took a bed at the inn, and cold command, as by right of -her husband, its rent-lord, of its general conduct. She had always had -an affection for Margot, the good girl, and this was her way of -showing her confidence in her discretion. - -“I want to be alone,” she had said; “and hither none comes but the -stranger who cannot know me or my concerns. I look to you to secure me -utter privacy--from man, from woman, from child, from the whole world. -Only if my father comes must I see him, for I am his daughter. For all -else be my true and faithful watchdog, Margot.” - -Margot had of course heard of the tragic ending to that idyll on Le -Marais. In common with her fellow-women she had deplored the finish to -a pretty romance; but then, when one’s feudal lord stepped in at the -door, love must fly out at the window. It was pitiful, it was sad, but -it was inevitable. She promised with all her heart to contribute what -gentle salve was hers to that open wound. - -She said it with fervour, but in a panic. It was difficult for her to -reconstruct, from this figure of bloodless hauteur, the sweet and -kindly patroness of yesterday, who had never held herself other than -such a simple girl as she was herself. Could shock so turn to stone? -It was a catalepsy of the soul. - -And Yolande made her home there in the _auberge_. With all Le Prieuré -at her feet, she elected for this chill small refuge of the hills. She -felt she could breathe there--was nearer God and her mother. She felt -she could pray a little even, and with more chance of being heard in -that austere silence. There was no sound of waterfalls in all the vast -valley to strike between her and her isolation, rushing down into the -hateful plains where men dwelt, dragging her thoughts on their -torrents. What voices reached her came from above--the whisper of -avalanches, the echoing crack of ice-falls in those enormous attics of -the world. She was alone with her desolation among desolations. - -Once, and once only, her father visited her there. He was very humble -and deprecating. He had come to remonstrate, and he remained to weep. -She saw his tears without emotion, and bid him kindly to the descent, -lest the mists should rise presently and give him cold. He went -without a word. - -Did she ever think of Louis and that dead idyll? A will of -self-reticence had so been born in her that perhaps she was able to -hold his figure from her mind. If she had not, the memory of the -cruelty of her part to him must have driven her mad. Not to think at -all was her hold on reason--not to think what he was thinking, -suffering, designing. That he could come to claim her yet, in defiance -of law, orthodoxy and every right but the right of human nature, she -could not believe, nor wish to believe. He was not so to be dethroned -from her worship of him past. It would be another Louis than the Louis -of her knowledge who could so dare. Yet was she not another Yolande? -An awful rapture, should outrage have conceived a wicked will in him -like hers! But Louis would not come. He was a purer soul than she, and -prayed, always prayed, before he committed himself to action. - -The far unconquered heights above her were her reassurance, she told -herself, that he was of those who accept repulse unquestioning. His -faith was always first in heaven, and its high reasons for baffling -high achievement. Christ’s creed, and he a Christian. He could not -love her so much, “loved he not honour more.” She bowed to that higher -rival, and believed that the thing remotest from her wishes was to see -her ousted. And her brain reeled to the sound of every footstep which -came up the mountain. - -Among them all she never dreamed of listening for her husband’s. That -di Rocco had kept his word and left Le Prieuré on the morrow of the -tragedy she never doubted. It was not he, but the interval which was -to separate her from him which filled her thoughts. Nebulous, -unformed, the idea was still never less than a fixed one in her mind -that any consummation to that tyranny but Death’s was unspeakable. -Whether his or hers it mattered nothing. The knot must be cut before -it was double-tied; and in her heart she rejoiced to think of his -succession to an empty bed. She did not suppose she could possibly -survive the year--twelve long months of suspension between torture -past and the prospect of the living “question” to come. She had only -to be herself and die. “Duty” could not traverse that decision. Her -heart was cold already. - -Rare and alien the footsteps came up. One day it would be a traveller, -one day a goatherd. The world went by her thinly, and vanished into -the mists. She remained alone, and fell, after each interruption, into -her old communing with Death. He was the only understanding friend -left to her. - -One day, as she was in talk with him, high on the hill where no one -usually came, a stranger suddenly stood before her. Either the -watchdog had been slack or the interloper cunning. He doffed his hat -to her with the most sympathetic grace imaginable. - -“You seek the _auberge_, monsieur?” she said haughtily. “It lies -below. You are off the road.” - -“And mademoiselle also?” he asked. “But supposing we each undertake to -put the other on it?” - -She had been seated on a stone. She rose hurriedly. - -“The road lies down, monsieur.” - -“As I would convince mademoiselle,” he said. “I have just come up it -from a stricken friend.” - -Her intuition touched some meaning in his words. She looked -breathlessly at him. - -“If you know me, monsieur, as your manner seems to imply, you will -know that I am out of love with subterfuge.” - -“I know you, mademoiselle, by sight and reputation.” - -“Scarcely, monsieur, if you so address me.” - -“Ah!” he said. “I do not hold by orthodoxy. And yet there was a time -when I was tender of it. You would be madame on a surer title had I -had my way.” - -“Tell me who you are?” she demanded icily. - -“It can hardly interest you. They call me Cartouche.” - -Her face fell frowning. - -“I have heard of you. I would not be ungracious, sir,” she said. “You -saved a life that was once dear to me.” - -“I wish I could say I saved it _because_ it was dear to you. I had not -seen you then.” - -“You can dispense with your compliments, sir. Your reputation is -sufficiently well known to me without.” - -“Then doubtless mademoiselle is aware that disloyalty to friends is -not a part of it. Moreover, it is a human eccentricity to love what we -have saved.” - -“It is easy to love some people.” - -“It is easy, though our natures may be the remotest from theirs. -Verjuice loves oil in this queer salad of life. But where I have come -to love through saving, I would save again and yet again.” - -“You speak a good deal of yourself, monsieur. Forgive me if I cannot -quite share your interest in the subject. No doubt your friend -appreciated your assistance in saving him a second time from -destruction. It is fataller, I am sure, in such eyes as yours, to fall -in love than into an abyss.” - -“You misunderstand me--I hope not wilfully. I did not mean to speak of -saving my friend _from_ you, but _for_ you. I do not mean it now. I am -here to offer you my services.” - -She drew herself up magnificently. - -“I thank you, monsieur. I was to be excused perhaps, for wishing to -read on the better side of an insolence. You had done well, according -to your lights, I am sure, to strive to keep us apart--well to your -worthy patron; well for your worthy self. I could have respected you -at least for that consistency. But to offer to mend what you have -helped to mar! I am at a loss to understand how I have invited this -insult.” - -A dark flush rose on Trix’s cheek. What was this new-born perversity -in him which made him not only bare his heart to this sting of words, -but, like a very anchorite of love, take pleasure in his chastising? -Her frost fired him. - -“You are bitter, mademoiselle,” he said. “I could answer, very truly, -in self-defence that I was so far from choosing to have a hand in this -business, as it has sped, that I foresaw from the first what has -actually happened--that your exaltation would spell my ruin. I would -answer that, I say, but that I own to no man’s power to ruin me.” - -She was quite unmoved. - -“Those who serve evil must bide evil,” she said. “If, as you would -seem to imply, monsieur, your employer has made you the scapegoat of -his reformation, I can only regret, very sincerely, my involuntary -part in your dismissal. Believe me, I would give all my _exaltation_ -to reinstate you.” - -“I used the term unthinkingly,” said Cartouche. “It was the formal -phrase of a worldling. Will you persist in thinking me too bad to be -moved by the distresses of virtue hard beset?” - -“And how would you propose to help that poor virtue, sir? For what are -your services offered? I will not even sully myself by -understanding--unless to suppose that you design to make me an -instrument of your revenge on one who has wronged you.” - -The flush on his face deepened. - -“You are an angel, madame,” he said grimly. “You claim your full -prerogatives. I can never please you better, I see, than by avowing my -knowledge of the gulf which separates us. I, too, will be myself, -flagrantly and without compromise. My affections are all earthly. Very -well, I love the man I have saved, because I saved him. I see him -stricken down--helpless--his very reason threatened under a calamity -worse than death.” - -Her face had gone bloodless; she answered, faltering,-- - -“As to that, monsieur, assure yourself, assure him if you please, that -nothing but a convention separates us now, nor ever will.” - -He looked wonderingly at her. Did she mean to kill herself? He could -quite believe it, as the more pardonable of two self-offences Then he -breathed and laughed. - -“A convention!” he cried. “I am nearer you by that admission. There is -no moral bondage in conventions. Let me bring my friend to you and -save him.” - -She reared herself like a very snake. - -“I would you had never saved him,” she said deeply; “I would you had -never laid that claim on his regard. My only regret in dismissing you -is that I re-condemn him to this corruption. Go, sir, and insult and -trouble me no longer!” - -He had lost, and turned to leave her. But for a moment he paused, in -anger and confusion, to fire his final charge,-- - -“Very well, madame! Only be quite sure of the strength of that -convention--as sure as your husband may be of its weakness. I do not -think he will wait a year for the test. Farewell!” and he went. - -And no sooner was he out of sight and hearing, than Yolande bent -herself face downwards on the rock, and delivered her soul in a cry of -agony,-- - -“Louis! my Louis! so ill, so broken! and I may not help thee, nor -think of thee!” - - - - - CHAPTER VI - -If all the rest of feminine Le Prieuré was agreed in accepting -Louis-Marie’s discomfiture with regretful resignation, Martha Paccard -was certainly not going to number herself of that complacent -sisterhood. She was hot with pity and indignation, and, because vexed, -illogical of course. - -“What did the man seek?” she asked sharply of Jacques Balmat, -referring to the Chevalier de France. “Honour, renown, riches, through -this connection with a _débauché_? Our monsieur had provided them -all, and with a better savour, if only you had spurred him timely to -achieve the ambition of his life. But how was the poor boy to -accomplish that ascent, with you and your wisdom for ever at his elbow -persuading him from it? You men are all alike--great promises, and -little reasons for not performing them.” - -“No later than the day of the marriage, Martha, I urged him to come -and try once more.” - -“Then you did very wrong. What title had you to demand that risk of -him, when all his happiness was at stake in Le Prieuré?” - -“To increase the odds in his favour, to be sure.” - -“Favour and odds! Has he not his patrimony, enough to frank a presence -less angelic than his?” - -“I do not see how to ascend the mountain could have added to it, -certainly.” - -“Don’t you? But there is money in fame, let me tell you, even if it is -achieved ultimately through a book. As for you, you may ascend Mont -Blanc, and nobody will believe it, because they will have to take your -word, which is nothing.” - -“They will take my word, nevertheless.” - -“They will be more credulous, then, than I. I have long lost faith in -it. And if I still doubted, there is that poor sick boy at home to -confirm me. By this time, if you had done as you promised, not fifty -di Roccos could have equalled him in reputation.” - -“Is he very ill, Martha?” - -“He wrings my heart. Why are you so strong, Jacques, and so honest and -so resolute? I cannot conceive my father parting _us_ at a blow. And -yet I am a dutiful daughter too. I think we love weak men like -mothers. I am glad you are not weak, Jacques.” - -“So am I. So shall your father be some day.” - -“You must learn modesty, Jacques. Poor M. Saint-Péray is a model of -it.” - -“And he has been jilted.” - -“So he has; that is the truth. He still sits as if stunned. I don’t -know what will happen when he recovers himself. Jacques, for pity’s -sake watch him when that happens--for pity’s sake, Jacques.” - -“I will be his shadow, Martha.” - -“But not for him to know. I dread the time terribly. I think there is -often no such fiend as a good man wronged through his goodness. And -there has been an evil one whispering in his ear, I am sure.” - -“An evil one?” - -“M. Gaston, the old lord’s black whelp. He brought him home that -day--straight from hearing the disastrous news. He has been with him -once or twice since. Jacques, I should not be surprised--I should not -be surprised, I say, if that devil were urging him to dare all and -abduct--her up there.” - -“Would you not? I think I wish I could believe it.” - -“O, hush! are you all fiends? This Cartouche, they say, is ruined in -the marriage. _He_ may have his reasons--but _you_!” - -“Well, good-bye, Martha. I will watch him.” - -“That is right; to save him from himself--such a self, my God, as he -may come to be! Good-bye, Jacques.” - -She went on her way home. It was a chill, oppressive day for the -season, with threat of cold storm in the air. Few people were abroad. -As she neared her door, she noticed that a man was keeping pace with -her. He reached the house as she did, and accosted her as she was -lifting the latch. She recognised him for the Dr Bonito whom her -father had supplanted at the Château, and her heart gave a little -heave. - -“Whom do you seek, monsieur?” she said, standing with her back to the -door as if to bar his passage. She had not in her heart approved her -father’s promotion to that distinction; but to any outer criticism of -it she was ready to ruffle like a mother hen at a cat. - -The doctor, it appeared, however, was to disarm her with a show of the -most ingenuous urbanity. - -“M. Saint-Péray lodges here?” he said, with a smile like a spasm of -stomach-ache. “I should like to have a word with him.” - -She looked at him with her honest eyes. It was at least a relief to -find that his visit was not connected with his replacement by her -father. - -“He is not at all himself, monsieur,” she said. “Will not a message -suffice?” - -“Doubtless,” he answered. “Only I must deliver it myself.” - -“A message?” - -She questioned his face searchingly. Whose possible delegate could he -be? Certainly he and M. Louis were at one in the question of their -discomfiture by di Rocco. There was that much of sympathy between -them. Besides, it was known that this man dealt in the occult--could -cast nativities and foretell deaths. His message might be one of -comfort and reassurance. Things were already at such a pass that no -conceivable evil could congest them further. A certain awe awoke in -her eyes. The neighbourhood of mountains engenders superstition. - -“Is your--your message, monsieur,” she said, with a little choke, -“from someone--somewhere that only such as you can understand?” - -He chafed his bony hands together, leering at her wintrily. - -“Yes,” he said. “I think it may interest him.” - -“Wait, then,” she answered, deciding in a moment, “while I ask him if -he is willing to receive it.” - -She had intended to leave him on the doorstep while she went, but he -followed her in closely, lingering only at the foot of the stairs -while she ascended. - -Louis-Marie sat in a little room which overlooked the hills. His -ambitions and their unfulfilment were eternally symbolised before his -vision. He was not much changed outwardly; only his eyes appeared -physically to have shallowed. A cloud had come between them and the -sun, and the transparency of their blue was grown chalky, as if a -blind had been pulled down over his soul. And as yet no lights were -lit behind, to show the shadows of what moved there. He was as quiet -and courteous as ever in seeming; but women are as sensitive as deer -to atmosphere, and Martha never saw him now but she quaked in -anticipation of a storm to come. - -He was reading, or feigning to. He looked over to her kindly. - -“What is it, Martha?” he asked. - -“There is one come to see you, monsieur, with a message from the -stars.” - -She trembled a little. He laughed. - -“That is kind of him, whoever he is. Is it a fallen star, Martha? It -can have no message for me otherwise.” - -“It is fallen, monsieur, and therefore, maybe, in sympathy with its -kind. It is Dr Bonito, the mage and soothsayer.” - -“What! is he too the victim of a reformation? Heaven is very -impartial, Martha. It condescends to no degrees in its chastisement. -As well, after all, to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.” - -“Quite as well, if it is necessary to be hanged at all,” said Bonito -at the door, to which he had mounted softly. - -Martha exclaimed angrily, but Saint-Péray did not even stir. - -“Pray make yourself at home, fellow-asteroid,” said he. “I must not -complain if like attracts like. You can leave us, Martha.” - -She obeyed reluctantly. Having followed impulse, she retired on -mortification, which is the common way. - -“What is your message?” said Louis-Marie, impassively, the moment his -visitor was left alone to him. “You can sit or not as you like,” he -added. “I am master of nothing.” - -Bonito, as apparently phlegmatic for his part, remained standing where -he was. - -“You may think you know enough of my reputation to insult me,” he -said. “It is no concern of mine what you or anyone thinks. The surest -sign of worth is to be worth men’s slander, as its surest reward is -ingratitude.” - -“Pardon me,” said Saint-Péray. “I have never thought of you at all -until this moment. But I agree with you so far--that to be vile and -unscrupulous is, in this world, to be successful. If you are -fortunate, we will admit, by antithesis, that you are virtuous.” - -“They call me a Rosicrucian,” said Bonito. “I am at least so far in -sympathy with the sect as to believe in the universal regeneration and -the cosmopolitanism of the intellect. They call me also an alchemist. -Certainly I would transmute the dross of life into gold. It is the -world’s way to gild the calf and worship it. _We_ see below the vile -enamel. No idols of wealth or patriotism for us; no states or churches -as jealous entities. Base metal is under the skin of all. Into the -furnace with the vast accumulation, and there anneal it, with the salt -of godliness, into that one and universal benevolence which shall be -shoreless, landless, eternal--a single harmonious republic of the -entire human race!” - -He took breath. Saint-Péray sat as apathetic as a deaf mute. The -other never thought to attribute his unconcern to his own uninvited -self-exposition. Any propagandist, even of disinterestedness, is -always absorbed in the first place in himself. In a moment he gave -tongue again,-- - -“No need to question of the force which is to compel this -transmutation. It has been growing consistently with the mind of man. -The shame of the dominion of the brute in a world which intellect has -shaped for itself; the shame of liberal knowledge lying at the mercy -of illiberal ignorance; the shame of the animal coercing the angel, -the fool cackling discredit on the sage--these things must cease off -the earth at last. For when learning learns to combine, it shall be to -ignorance as is the little bag of gun-powder, rammed home, to the -material bulk which it is capable of annihilating. This is as certain -as it is that the moment of the intellectual renaissance, age -foreseen, is at last approaching. Because I, too, hunger and thirst -with the fool, am I, Bonito, no better than a fool? The ‘fool’ can -make it appear so, because in his numbers he commands the markets. Or -has commanded--we shall see. The hour of his disillusionment perhaps -is imminent. In the meantime we, who prepare the stage, do not cease -of our efforts to divert the paths of evil, to over-reach iniquity, to -gather each his quota of dirt and filth ready for the burning.” - -He ended on a loud note, and wrung his lips between his thin fingers, -leering at the other. If he had been tempted into an over long -exordium, the more plausibly, he thought, would its moral “thunder in -the index.” His craftiness was not to stultify itself by -over-precipitancy. - -Saint-Péray discussed his twitching face quite unmoved. - -“I am obliged for your interesting message, sir,” he said. “You are -reported to be a Rosicrucian? That concerns someone, no doubt; only I -was under the impression that that sect eschewed politics. Thank you -for putting me right. Good morning.” - -Bonito did not stir. - -“I aim,” he answered coolly, “in common with kindred spirits, many and -potent, at the universal purification. Our politics are no more than -that. Latency, cabala--all the rest of the terms which are held by the -ignorant to condemn us, are only so many proofs of the divine sympathy -with our mission. We can read the stars because we have, so to speak, -friends at court there. Woe on him that scoffs at our message! Woe on -di Rocco, I say, who heard and would not believe!” - -He had shot his bolt, and as instantly saw that he had hit the mark. -Louis-Marie gave a mortal start, and sat rigid. The curtain of his -eyes was rent; there seemed things visible moving behind it. But not -a word came from him. - -“My message now is to you,” said the physician, low and distinct, “as -to the one most intimately concerned in the scotching or expediting of -a half-acted iniquity. I propose no plan; I point out no way. Bear -that in mind very clearly. _My_ task was accomplished when I warned di -Rocco that his horoscope revealed Mars at the conjunction of the -seventh and eighth houses, presaging quick death for him to follow on -his marriage consummated. I have said that he disbelieved me. -Disregarded would be the truer word. Passion in him was desperate -enough to dare the test.” - -“But not for a year.” - -It was Saint-Péray who spoke, though his voice was scarcely audible. -Bonito laughed little and low. - -“Do you believe it? I know him very well indeed. There is no monster -in all the world so self-convinced of his own irresistibility. You -think he has left Le Prieuré. As a fact he does not start for Turin -until to-morrow morning, when urgency compels him. But he will not -fail to storm the coy fortress first--to-night he will do it--either -to persuade or enforce!” - -He paused, listening for an answer, but none followed. - -“You may question how I know this,” he went on. “Be satisfied; we who -read the stars command our instruments. He is to go secretly after -dark, to-night, I say, crossing the glacier of the Winds from the -further side towards the Montverd. Nicholas Target will be there to -conduct him; Nicholas Target will have been instructed first to -dismiss his daughter from the _auberge_ on some errand which will -delay her. Monsignore will find the Marchesa quite alone and -defenceless--nothing to complain of for a wife. He will presently -leave her to return, as secretly, by the way he came. What then? There -are pitfalls on the glacier, and Target will likely be drunk. Perhaps -Fate will choose to verify its prediction during that passage. I -cannot tell. For me, I have done my part. If this act is necessary for -his destruction, a young widow will be ensured in Le Prieuré before -long. That is my message to you; I speak it, with absolute conviction -of its truth, for your consolation. If the marriage is consummated, -the man must die. On the other hand, if one would save a threatened -honour, balk by a timely abduction the hand of Fate, one would -certainly procure a renewed lease of life for a villain, and a -villain, one might be sure, who would not accept his despoliation with -meekness. It is a nice point in ethics, upon which I will not presume -to give an opinion. It had occurred to me once, I admit, that a -revelation of the plot to the father would be the proper course. -Reflection, however, convinced me that he would be only too glad to -sanction, indirectly, the most treacherous of means for breaking down -the barrier which his daughter had raised between himself and a -potential greatness. In the end, monsieur” (he prepared to leave), “I -resolved to confide the issue to the hands the most strong, in faith -and godliness, to direct it--to your hands, in fact. You have my -sympathy and good wishes. I have the honour to bid you good morning.” - -He might have been speaking to an apparition for any response he could -extort. Only Saint-Péray’s eyes were fixed upon him with a greed more -horribly eloquent than words. He felt them following him as he left -the room--clinging, it seemed, like the discs of tentacles to his back -as he descended the stairs--pursuing him, silently, deadlily, through -all the convolutions of his way, however he might twist and turn to -elude them. He was not a fanciful man for all his mysticism; but the -impression of this unwinking pursuit haunted his soul into the very -dominion of sleep. The eyes followed him upstairs, in the little inn -where he was sojourning for the moment, and lay down with him on his -pillow. - - * * * * * * * * - -On that same day Mr Trix received his final _congé_ from his patron -with the most serene good temper. - -“Rogue, rogue,” said the old devil--“though I have loved a rogue, we -must part. There is no place in this reformation for a Cartouche.” - -“You have taken good care of that,” said the young man, pleasantly. -“It is very natural you should not wish to be haunted by your past. -Besides, I can foresee all sorts of complications if we remained -penitents together.” - -“Don’t tell me that you also are a penitent--no, no,” said the -Marquess, with a nervous chuckle. - -He was fumbling at a cabinet against the wall. - -“See here,” he said; “I wouldn’t do the graceless thing by your -mother’s graceless son. If this hadn’t happened--had redemption been -denied me, I won’t say but that it might have been my intention to -make you my heir--an evil inheritance. That’s past, that’s all over. -Better to lose the world than your soul, eh? But I should blame myself -to deprive you of the means to honesty. Take my advice, rascal, and -live cleanly for the future. We’ve sown our wild oats, you and I. We -must both be out of the house by to-morrow, and leave it clear to the -sweepers and garnishers. In the meantime, here’s to commute your -expectations. Money I can’t command, without abuse of the marriage -settlements, but its equivalent lies here--take it.” - -He held out a handful of jewels, of ancient setting and indiscriminate -value. Cartouche received the heap passively. - -“It would be false modesty in me to refuse my wages,” he said. - -“Yes, yes,” said the other, returning, still agitated, to the cabinet. -“There may be another trifle or so. There--” - -He paused, holding a ring in his hand. - -“This is your mother’s hair,” he said, suddenly and sharply. “You can -have it also, if you wish.” - -Cartouche received the ring from his hand. - -“Thank you, father,” he said quietly. - -“No such thing!” began di Rocco, loudly; but his voice broke on the -word. Cartouche stepped forward, and kissed him on the cheek. - -“Goodbye!” he said. “I wish you had made a good man of me.” - -Di Rocco turned to the wall. When he looked round again, Cartouche was -gone. Then the old libertine sat down and wept. But tears in such are -nothing but the provocation to fresh evil emotions. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - -There was a night of hurried storm long remembered in Le Prieuré. -All during it the wind drove up in squalls, like the thunder of -passing artillery, unlimbered over the mountains, crackled into brief -tempest, and swept on. Billows of black smoke marked its passage, each -in its retreat leaving a vacuum of dense silence, until the next, -rushing in to occupy it, awoke the echoes with new uproar. The roofs -smoked under the cannonade of hail; the glaciers foamed like torrents -with the dancing pellets; the brows of the hills seemed to melt and -flow down. Everything would be sudden, stunning, overwhelming for a -space; and then--exhaustion, and the drip of wounded trees alone -breaking the quiet. - -Le Prieuré, weather-hardened, inhabiting under the sky-light of -Savoy, thought nothing of all this, sleeping with its face to the -clouds. What made this night of many nights notable to it was the -period it marked in the course of a human tragedy, which had certainly -seemed to cry to heaven for some such solution of its riddle. For, so -it appeared, out of all the dogs of storm unleashed to hunt the hills, -one had found the quarry sought by many; and had dragged him down, and -torn and devoured him, so that not a bone remained to mark the spot of -his undoing--di Rocco’s. - -The morning succeeding opened chill and austere--a brave day for a -journey. Monsignore’s equipage, ordered overnight, was ready betimes -to convey him to Turin, whither urgencies State had called him. The -lean horses champed their rusty bits; the lean postillions whoa’d, and -cursed their cattle sympathetically for their ill-lined stomachs. When -mid-day came and with it no di Rocco, they dared the devil for the -sake of a toothful of oats and polenta, and drove back grumbling to -the stables. - -Monsignore did not come, then or thereafter. Monsignore was never to -be seen in life again. At first the story of his disappearance was -received with utter incredulity. One could not conceive a figure so -potent, so absorbing, the sport of any such casualty as might overtake -a little soul in its little pride of doing. He must be keeping out of -the way intentionally--watching, from some cunning eyrie, to pounce -upon the first self-committing wretch who should venture to presume -upon his supposed removal from the board. - -A hope, in that case, predoomed to unfulfilment. For, even when -curiosity woke on surprise, and gossip on curiosity, and emphasis on -gossip, his name was never bandied about but with decency. Le -Prieuré, rough as its rocks, was too manly to flog a dead lion, or -even a dead boar. There were no unworthy comments on the snatching of -that terrific presence from its midst--not in the first surmise, nor -in the last moral certainty. For so at length it came to be. - -How the whisper grew, the shadow thickened, one might scarcely tell. -It took form, no doubt, in the winks and becks and exaggerated -secrecies of a sot, too brain-sodden himself at first to grasp the -full significance of his innuendoes. But as a word or two, caught from -the blabbings of sleep, may linger suggestively in ears that listen, -so Nicholas Target’s tavern maunderings came presently to be suspected -of embodying in their text a very momentous cypher. - -The fellow, bewildered between apprehension and vanity, was unable, -nevertheless, to forego that hint of his marketable values, nor his -intention to negotiate them when his way became clear to him. It -became clear, brilliantly clear, all in a moment, when he felt himself -nipped by the scruff, and, twisting about, saw that the law had got -hold of him. With whine and collapse, then, he let full daylight into -so much of the mystery as it was in his power to resolve. - -On that night of rapid storm, ran his confession, he had been engaged -by Monsignore to bring him secretly into the presence of the Marchesa, -where she had sought refuge in his little _auberge_ on the Montverd. -The lady was to be taken by surprise; for which reason his daughter -Margot had been despatched into Le Prieuré on the pretext of some -business which would detain her. For the same reason of privacy, -Monsignore had elected to avoid the popular route up the hill. He, -Target, was to meet him at the place called the _mauvais pas_ -opposite, and conduct him thence across the glacier to his own side. -He had known nothing of any engagement on Monsignore’s part to hold -himself aloof from the Marchesa; or, if he had, it was none of his -business to cross the caprices of his over-lord; nor could there be -any real sin in procuring a wife for her husband. His conscience was -as clear on that matter as on the question of his sobriety, which at -the time was absolute. - -So he had met Monsignore--with difficulty, for, as it turned out, the -night was terrible: he had met him, and was already proceeding with -him down the moraine, when he, Target, had slipped and fallen. -Monsignore was very furious at that, and had cursed him for a drunken -sot, which was quite untrue. They had proceeded, however, and were -actually on the glacier, when by great ill-fortune he had fallen a -second time. On each occasion the lantern he carried had been -extinguished, and had had to be relighted. Monsignore, on the -repetition of his mishap, had flown into an ungovernable rage, -snatched the light from him, and, driving him from his presence with -blows and curses, had bade him seek his own way to the rocks, for that -he would trust himself to his guidance no longer. The man was a demon -in fact, and he had fled from him. Instinct had guided him to his -cabin by the moraine, where he had crouched, waiting for Monsignore to -follow. While he dwelt there, there had broken over the glacier one of -those furious storms of hail and wind, which for a time had made -thought impossible. Its cessation was not followed by the arrival of -Monsignore: in fact Monsignore never followed at all. Knowing the -resolute cruelty of his passions, he, Target, had not been long in -guessing at the reason. He must have foundered in that terrific -blast--have wandered astray, with quenched light, and pitched into -some crevasse. - -Long he had waited for him; and, at last, in an interval of calm, had -sought back, so far as he might dare, across the glacier. He had -peered, he had shouted. He had left at last no boulder or familiar -crack unsearched when the first weak wash of dawn had come to his aid. -It was all unavailing. The glacier, it was as morally certain as -anything circumstantial could be, had bolted Monsignore; and there was -an end of him. - -So Le Prieuré agreed, awake at last to the full significance of the -shadow which had been stealing in step by step to overwhelm it. Its -verdict was untraversable, as plain as reason: Monsignore had -perished. - -There was no need to question the essential truth of the drunkard’s -story. Target could have had no possible interest in committing or -leading his patron to destruction. A just retribution had overtaken an -illustrious sinner against his word. Di Rocco, the monster, the miser, -was a thing of the past. Heaven, in its own stupendous way, had -decreed the manner of his death and burial. - -Moral certainties are, however, by no means legal. A man is not dead -in law without proof of witness, even though his carcase lies on the -table before it. Much remained to challenge, to certify, to cite and -answer by default, before the widow could come into her own. In the -meanwhile the Chevalier de France was not backward in righteous and -indignant denunciation of his dead son-in-law’s abuse of faith. At the -same time he was even extravagantly exacting in the question of the -acknowledgments due to himself in his position of natural guardian to -the Marquess’s august “relict.” - -The village, perhaps, did not at the outset take him quite so -seriously as he expected. It was more curious to learn how M. -Saint-Péray accepted this provisional change in his fortunes. But -there Martha Paccard proved herself a very Cerberus in guarding the -approaches to her charge. She was agitated, but quite resolute about -it all. Only between her and young Balmat was there ever an -interchange of meaning glances, and once or twice, in moments of -emotion, some fearful comment. She cried, too, in private a good deal, -however brave a face she might turn to the world. For, as a fact, none -but these two knew how Louis-Marie had slipped out alone on the night -of the tragedy, and had returned home as secretly by-and-by, death -white and drenched to the skin. - -Then the next thing Le Prieuré heard about him was that he had left -the village and gone none knew whither. - -At that, for the first time, men and women united in putting him on -one side as an irreclaimable faint-heart. - -But, for all the rest, _Vogue la galère!_ Di Rocco was dead, dead, -dead! - - * * * * * * * * - -One summer afternoon a young man stood on a projecting rock which -overlooked the Glacier of the Winds at a point, on the north-east -side, at no great distance below that whence his patron had, a few -nights earlier, descended to his death. Right in front of him the vast -river of ice, creeping to its fall over a precipice, was rent and -splintered into a throng of monstrous pinnacles, one or other of which -would ever and again lean, topple, and go spinning down the shallower -bed below in a thundering shatter of fragments. This happened more -than once while he lingered, and on each occasion he winced, and -stepped back, and then expanded his chest, and watched for the next -ruinous downfall. But at length, with a sigh, he prepared to go. - -“So breaks away the past,” he thought. “What will the future reveal? -Well, I am still Cartouche.” - -He turned, turned again, and showed a wicked face to the glacier. - -“He was good to me,” he murmured. “If Bonito did it, bad for Bonito. I -shall know some day. Goodbye, evil father of a worthless child!” - -He went down sombrely into the valley. - - END OF PART I. - - - - - PART II - - CHAPTER I - -Turin, wedged into a corner between the Po and Dora, with all its -ranks of lines and squares criss-crossing the angle like the meshes of -a snow-shoe, was a depressing city to be abroad in on a rainy night. -It was characteristic of it, of its unenterprise and unoriginality, -that it had never deviated from the pattern set by its Roman founders. -It suggested, when the rain poured persistently, a vast congeries of -waterworks, with reservoirs and pumping-stations all drawing from the -rivers. Its barrack-like uniformity of buildings; its shyness of -imposing façade; its system of parcelled-out dwelling-blocks, called -appropriately “Islands,” which were ruled, scrupulously rectangular, -along the wide channels of its streets; its eternal monotonous brick -and heavy porticoes, all combined to produce an effect of unlovely -utilitarianism. Artistry, struggling here and there to emancipate -itself, and soar above the level roofs on wings of brass and timber, -had always halted, in the end, on a blank expression of futility, and -retired within doors, there to fulfil its soul of the splendour which -it had shrunk from daring without. For some reason, of taste or -policy, architectural display was not favoured in Turin. Its fanes and -palaces were all so many uncut diamonds--dull surfaces to hearts of -fire. - -There was something in all this, no doubt, significant of the -character of its government; for, as art flowers at its richest under -despotisms, so, oppositely, its growth is most stunted in the -temperate climate of democracies. Turin, it is true, was not of those -latter; yet it was as true that its lords had never learned to rule -independently of their people. Even as kings, though when sovereign by -a generation or two, they had not come to take themselves very -seriously. They seemed to reign, self-consciously, by virtue of a -plebiscite; they avoided superficial ostentation; they kept all their -grandeurs for privacy. - -There had been those among them who had planned, fitfully, to face all -this heavy monotony with light and lightness, to overlay it with skin -of marble, stone, or even, as a last lame resort, with stucco. Their -ambitions had declined upon a policy of _laisser faire_; in many -buildings the very holes for their scaffolding remained -unfilled--ineptitude yawning from a hundred mouths. Turin, under the -rule of Victor-Amadeus III., was still Rome before Augustus, lacking -its splendid autocrat. At the same time there was this much to its -credit: it had never bred, or allowed to self-breed within its walls, -a race of tyrants. - -The Savoy princes were the militant monks of history, always keeping -a reserve of cloister for contingencies. They were recluses by -conviction, freebooters by constitution. The first duke of them all -had died a hermit. The grandfather of the present King, the -“Piedmontese Lear,” had abdicated (prematurely) on a religious -sentiment. It had been his pious intent to efface the feudal system, -age-dishonoured. It was the policy of his grandson to attempt its -restoration. He made a mistake, being a vain, weak man. It is not the -wisdom of the proletariat, but the folly of its rulers which opens the -ways to revolt. Worse than the grudging of wise concessions is their -rescinding when they have become establishments. Victor-Amadeus made -much of his army, which was a warlike father’s perfected bequest to -him. He also made much of his nobility, with the result that, -according to the popular waggery, there was, in his reign, a general -to every private. So he consistently favoured birth, ignored intrinsic -merit apart from it, alienated the sympathies of his people, and -opened his passes thereby to the hordes of the French Revolution. It -was always a figure of speech to say that he strode the Alps. He had -lost his French stirrup long before he knew it, and was jogging -lop-sided to his fall. - -In the meantime, lacking the soul of Augustus, he left Turin much as -he found it, and, in place of bread and circuses, fed up discontent on -the public lottery. His kingdom was rotten when it tumbled. - -Montaigne in his time found Turin a small town, situated in a watery -plain, not very well built nor very agreeable. Some two hundred years -later the ineffable Count Cassanova passed a verdict on it not much -handsomer. It was densely populated and full of spies, he said. It -boasted, as a fact, at the latter date, a population of some ninety -thousand souls. But it was not crowded nevertheless, except to one who -_saw eyes_ at every turn. A city’s numbers are not to be calculated by -one who moves exclusively in its markets. Turin’s population, if -regularly distributed over its area, would have shown most of its -quarters relatively empty. - -It looked its best on a moonlight night, when along its canal-like -streets the cobble-stones glinted and sparkled like very ripples on -water, and the great hulks aligned on either side became shadowy -leviathans anchored at rest. Its worst was kept for twilight -drenchings, when the mists trooped down from the distant Alps and, -blotting out the intervening slopes--the Superga, the hill of the -Capucins, and others, a green high-stretching swarm--made one -shoreless swamp of all the level town. - -On such an evening, a man, going, with humped shoulders and dripping -hat, down the Via del Po, which was one of Turin’s principal -thoroughfares, cursed the city’s original settlers with all his soul -of venom. He was, nevertheless, so bent on a particular errand, that -nothing less than a flood would have diverted him from it. Presently -he ran to a stop before a dimly-lighted shop window, and peered -eagerly up at certain labels and vouchers which were pasted to the -glass within. There were other inquisitors at the same business, quite -a throng of them, and one and all, including the newcomer, like rude -and ravenous poultry. - -The shop itself might have been, in its dinginess and gloom, a mere -money-changer’s office; which at the same time it was in a measure, -only on a national scale. There were pious frescoes daubed on its -walls, as if in irresistible association of hucksters with the temple. -On either side of its door was hung a slim red board, the one headed -“Torino,” the other “Genova.” Each board was ruled into five sections, -and each section contained a number. These numbers represented, more -or less, the victims of what the wags called the torture of the wheel. -The office was, in fact, one of the many bureaux of the never-ending -State lottery. - -The stranger having examined, to his hunger or satisfaction, the -numbers on the boards and the hieroglyphics in the window, stepped -back into the rain with a click of his strong teeth together. - -“Weeding, weeding!” he thought, exultant and rageful in one. “Next -week will reach the grand climacteric--for me. My God! and what then?” - -As he reflected, or muttered, chafing like a fettered beast, the form -of a man, advancing up the street, came between himself and the light. -Instantly he started, uttered a violent exclamation, and quickly -pursuing the figure, accosted and halted it. - -“M. Saint-Péray!” he cried. “So, after all, you have come into -retreat in our capital!” - -Louis-Marie regarded the speaker ghastlily. The young man’s face, in -the shaking lamp-shine, seemed to twitch like the face of an -epileptic. It was white and haggard, and indeed scarcely recognisable -for the face which had kindled to the mountains of Le Prieuré a month -earlier. He made no answer. - -“_A la bonne heure!_” cried the other, very careful all the time not -to let his capture escape him. “I had wanted much to come across you, -and never so much as at this moment. Conceive my ridiculous position, -monsieur! Realise me, here on this spot, debarred the heavenly -mansions for lack of the necessary trifle of gate-money!” - -“You are--Dr Bonito?” began Saint-Péray, clearing his throat to the -effort. - -“And flattered in your memory of me, monsieur,” interrupted the -doctor, with a little bow which seemed to creak at the joints. “As you -will recollect, I read nativities, I foretell events, however a -capricious destiny may alter her tactics to procure them. For -instance, you will remember, I prophesied the consequences of a -certain achievement, which prediction was none the less verified -because, as it happened paradoxically, the consequences anticipated -the achievement. What then? It is the end which justifies the seer. -The lady, you will scarcely deny, is a widow at this moment.” - -Saint-Péray put his hand to his pocket. - -“You want money,” he said hoarsely. The other stopped him with -dignity. - -“A loan is the word, monsieur--a little oil for the lamp; a little -grease for the wheel; _une épingle par jour_; a sprat to catch a -whale. You observe where you passed me just now?” (He pointed to the -bureau.) “My star culminates there, monsieur, in a week. So surely as -the heavens cannot lie, the numbers revealed at the next drawing will -spell my apotheosis. In the meanwhile one, even a seer, must buy one’s -promotion. The gods are very human. I have only approached this climax -at the cost of all my little savings. If you will condescend to drink -a glass of vermouth with me, I will explain. There is a _café_ hard -by, and the night is cold.” - -Louis-Marie seemed drained of will or resolution--a flaccid, half-dead -creature. He followed whither he was told, and drank his vermouth and -élixir de China--one glass, then another and another. A spark woke at -last in his ash-blue eyes. Bonito, watching it, kindled reassured. - -“The Fates, after all, have been kind to you, monsieur,” he said, -gently touching the other’s arm with a long thin finger, as a spider -experiments with a fly before he rolls it up. “There lives a spotless -widow in Le Prieuré, and wealthy beyond words. You could not yourself -have managed it better, if you had been a villain.” - -Saint-Péray started, half-rose from his seat and sank down again. - -“If it is villainous to have lost belief in God,” he muttered, “I am -a villain, and no longer worthy to utter her name--nor even to resent -its utterance by you.” - -“As you please,” said the doctor, coolly. “I served virtue in serving -M. Saint-Péray, and so would serve again without asking thanks. But -to become an apostate and be damned at the instance of her whose name -you are unworthy to utter--that seems to me like meaning heterodox and -acting paradox.” - -The spark had spread to Louis-Marie’s cheek. - -“I desire, monsieur,” he said loudly, but quaveringly, “that you will -state what you wish of me without further comment on my affairs.” - -Bonito was not ruffled, though immensely dry and articulate. - -“Very well, Monsieur,” he said; “though you will forgive my proposing -to amend your resolution by inserting the word _present_ between the -words _further_ and _comment_. The time will come, perhaps, when you -will see _my_ disinterestedness and your own _interests_ more closely. -In the meanwhile I go wanting my gate-money.” - -“Well? for your apotheosis, sir?” - -“Exactly; by way of the lottery. The last of my scrap-metal, like the -sculptor Cellini’s in the crisis of his fortunes, has gone into the -mould. It needs but a finishing contribution, a final sacrifice, and -the Perseus of my destiny will rise on winged feet. Other men have -their systems, worldly and fallible. Mine derives from the stars and -is _in_fallible.” - -Saint-Péray laughed shakily, starting to scoff, but compromising with -discretion. His soul was always malleable by another’s strong -conviction. - -“What, then, is this lottery?” he asked. - -Bonito threw up his hands in mock-incredulity. - -“You have been in Turin this month, and have not discovered its -distraction of distractions! Alas! what a comment on your own! The -lottery? I can explain it in a word--the very grandeur of simplicity; -the art which conceals all art. Imagine, Monsieur, a wheel which -contains numbers up to ninety and a single zero within its hollow -circumference. Of these numbers, five are withdrawn weekly (in Turin -or Genoa, turn-about), recorded and replaced. Well, you or I select -five numbers--any, after our fancy--register them at a bureau, and -receive a counter-check in exchange. Now, supposing two out of those -our numbers shall occur in any one drawing, we score an _ambo_, and -receive two hundred and seventy times the amount of our stake: if -three, or a _tern_, we receive it multiplied five thousand five -hundred times: if four, or a _quatern_, sixty-thousand times. On the -other hand, if no such combination occurs, we forfeit our stake, to -renew it, if we please, week by week, month by month, year by year. -There is no end and no limit. _Enfin_, the zero occurring in any -drawing forfeits all stakes of that week to the Government. There are -complications, such as distributing one’s chances over the five -numbers; but the principle is what I say. I throw for a quatern, and I -shall gain it. Its sum will be, relatively, the sum which you shall be -good enough to advance me. Join with me, if you will, and foreclose on -Fortune. You will be rich, presently, beyond the dreams of parsimony. -Wealth attracts wealth. You will lose nothing thereby, if I may say -it, as a suitor.” - -Wise men are often ready to listen to empirics who cite the occult -with an air of finality. Louis-Marie was not very wise, and was -thereby the nearer superstition. His faith had told him to discredit -soothsayers: but for the time he had lost his faith. Like all good men -thrown from their self-respect, he greatly exaggerated his own -potentialities for wickedness. This man, he thought, had rightly -foretold a misfortune. Might he not with equal certainty predict a -fortune? There was some material balm in that. If he was to lose his -soul, would not to gain the world better compensate the interval than -a life of inglorious brooding? As well be hanged for a sheep as a -lamb: he called the words to memory with a new sense of daring. What a -folly was piety--a hair-shirt on a heathen preordained to damnation. -It was no God, no Father, who could set snares for the feet of his -children. There _was_ no God, unless a Prince of evil. Let him serve -the chance. Live the world and the lottery! - -The spirit he had drunk revelled in his starved unaccustomed brain. He -thrust his hand into his pocket, and drawing out all it contained, -offered the sum to Bonito, with a half-maudlin laugh. - -“Half for myself and half for you, then,” he said. “I make you my -broker with Fate.” - -The sum was large enough to awaken a glitter in the Rosicrucian’s cold -eyes. Something, the nearest approach to warmth which his heart was -capable of feeling, tickled in his breast. He showed, for the moment, -quite genial, quite impulsive. - -“Always understand, Monsieur,” he said, “that I am actuated by the -most earnest desire to serve you. We have a point of sympathy in our -common wronging by one who shall be nameless. Let me here suggest, -with only the lightest touch on a sensitive place, that women -generally are not attracted by extreme ethical correctness, nor won by -diffidence so much as overbearance. Believe my sincerity when I assure -you that nothing would gratify me more than to see the ultimate -accomplishment of a union, to which no bar but that of sentiment can -ever--” - -Something, some shadow of reawakening terror in the face opposite him, -warned him that it would be present wisdom to pursue the subject no -further. He “doubled” instantly. - -“But I will say no more there,” he interrupted himself. “It is enough -for the moment that I undertake to prove myself” (he touched the -pocket of his coat) “your efficient friend and steward.” - -An uproar of approaching voices broke upon his word. The _café_ -hitherto had been but thinly peopled, mostly by weather-stressed -citizens, who had been conversing apart, low and rapid, on the subject -of the eternal lottery, while they sipped their liqueurs or -bacchierino, and flourished their cigarettes back and forth to their -lips. Now, “Cartouche!” exclaimed someone, and the sombre quietude -seemed instantly to splinter into light. The mirrors cleared to -reflect it; the sensuous figures in the pictures woke to a -Bacchanalian dance. Louis-Marie stared, speechless, at his companion, -who, for his part, appeared as dumbfoundered. - -“Sentite!” he muttered. “Scaramucchio! Si, ê vero!” - -The tumult, as he spoke, had broken in, running with the feet and -voices of half a score young men, a contingent, truculent and -vivacious, of the bellimbusti, or “bloods” of Turin. And in the midst -appeared Cartouche, commanding, insolent, policing a captive, a youth -of the same guild, but, unlike the rest, in a state of moral and -physical collapse. He, the latter, struggled, sobbing hysterically, in -the determined grasp of his gaoler, while the others hovered, cackling -and circling, about their neighbourhood. - -“Listen, my Severo,” said Cartouche; “thou shalt drink first, and -destroy thyself afterwards, if thou wilt.” - -“He has lost his whole fortune in the lottery,” whispered one onlooker -to another. - -The wretched boy fought to escape. - -“I will drink the river,” he gasped; “no dog shall prevent me.” - -Cartouche’s hold tightened. - -“Call me not a dog, little Severo,” he said, “or perchance I may show -my teeth. Be wise, while there is time. There are beer and grassini -still in Turin, and trollops enough at a penny. Beggary will yet buy -thee all that Fortune is worth but the silly gilding. Nay” (he -darkened), “if thou wilt be stubborn for death, insult me--I am more -certain than the river--and save, at least, thy immortal soul.” - -The boy, writhing round and sputtering with his lips, managed to -strike his captor lamely on the cheek. The next moment he was free, -and cowering into himself, the wind all clapped out of his heroics. -The whole company stood silent and aghast. - -Cartouche unbuttoned and slipped off his surtout, hung it over a -chair, adjusted the ruffs at his neck and wrists, smoothed a crease -from his slim black undercoat, and shifted the bright steel hilt of -his sword an inch or two forward--all quite quietly and deliberately. -Then he spoke with a very soft courtesy. - -“That was the pious course, little Severo. Now shalt thou compromise -with thy Maker for no more than a spell of purgatory. It will not be -much, I doubt, with one so excusable for his youth.” - -His blade came out with a silk-like swish. Death, in the venomous -sound, hissed into the youngster’s ears. He looked up, his face as -white as paper. - -“I seek the river, not thy sword, M. Trix,” he quavered. - -“That is unfortunate; because I seek thy life, little Severo.” - -The boy looked round fearfully: his companions, set and terrible, -hedged him from the door. He gave all up in a pitiful cry,-- - -“I was wrong: I don’t want to die! Cartouche, I don’t really want to -die!” - -“That is sad indeed,” said Cartouche. “You will have to summon all -your resolution.” - -His face changed suddenly. - -“Will you draw, sir,” he said sternly: “or am I to cut your throat -like a sheep’s?” - -“It is murder,” cried the boy. “I call all to witness it is murder!” - -Some exclamations of contempt alone answered him. Rallying, under the -shame, to a last agony of resolution, he drew his sword and advanced. -His under lip was shaking and dribbling; the bosom of his linen was -torn; he looked like a death-sick girl. - -The blades crossed. Cartouche held his motionless a moment while the -other’s vibrated on it like a castanet. An answering small laugh went -up. Then he engaged deftly, in a wicked little prelude of cat’s-play; -and then-- - -It was at least as great a shock to him as to any other to hear a -sudden leap and rush, and see his sword torn from his hand and flung -to the ground. For the moment, a fury of hell flew to his eyes and -blinded them; the next, he saw Louis-Marie standing before him, white, -and terrible, and denunciatory. - -“Save thou thine own soul!” shrieked Saint-Péray, “nor lose it, -saving this child’s. O, my brother! drive me not to this last despair -of cursing all I have loved. Give me the boy’s life.” - -A stun of utter stupefaction had fallen on the company. For the -instant everything stood stricken--a strange and pregnant tableau. But -in the still hearts of all was a terror of the inevitable crash which -must rend in an instant the appalling hush. - -To their confusion, scarcely less astounded, the crash did not follow; -but, instead--miracle of things!--the disarmed one drew a deep breath, -and smiled. - -“It is a trifle; take it, my brother!” he said. - -Even with the word he saw Saint-Péray sway where he stood. He darted -forward and put a strenuous arm about him. - -“What is it, Louis?” he whispered. - -Saint-Péray’s fluttering hands went feebly about his neck. - -“I have saved a life? O, God, dear Gaston, tell me that I have saved -a life!” he whispered in wild emotion. - -Cartouche, glaring around, caught sudden sight of Bonito standing -slack-jawed in the gloom. The doctor, seeing himself discovered, came -forward. - -“Hist!” he muttered. “Our friend is in a poor way, Mr Trix, and needs -looking after. Get him to come outside with us.” - -“You have certainly saved a life, brother,” murmured -Cartouche--“though, I am afraid, not a very worthy one.” Then he said -aloud: “To pass, by your favour, gentlemen! But deal gently with my -character, I beg you. I am still in evidence to answer for it.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - -“Under the Porticoes,” in the thronged fashionable heart of Turin, -two men met by appointment before the city was well awake. Their -encounter was sharp, to the point, and made nothing of superfluous -courtesies. - -“By your favour, Mr Trix,” opened one, “we will eschew idle discussion -of coincidences. All roads lead to Rome. I am here; you are here; he -is here; and we have gravitated naturally into each other’s company. -What have you done with him?” - -“Why do you want to know, friend Bonito?” - -“Is not that rather amusing? I encounter him; we renew an intimacy; in -the middle of it you appear, and appropriate him to your exclusive -possession.” - -“I undertook at the same time to answer to you for my claim. I named -the place and hour: I am here to vindicate myself: everything is -convenient for a settlement.” - -“Bah! will you never learn my indifference to such gasconade? If you -had struck me in the face, I would not fight you.” - -“No; you would have procured an assassin to murder me, I expect.” - -“Certainly I should. My life and reputation are of infinitely more -importance than yours. Men of sense have to consider these things. -Only fools argue with swords. What a miserable self-confession! You -had better call yourself a fool at once.” - -“Well, I’m not sure but you are right.” - -“Then, if you see it, you are no fool. No more am I. If you admit -that, you admit also that you are only withholding from me information -which I can, with a little trouble, procure elsewhere. You really may -as well tell me what you have done with M. Saint-Péray.” - -“Perhaps I will tell you, then; but I should just as really like to be -convinced of your reason for wishing to know.” - -“For one thing, I am his agent to the lottery, and answerable to him -for an investment which, in less than a week, is to bring us both -certain fortune.” - -“Holy Mother! You are there, are you? I thought, from the look of his -face, that you had been painting it with moonshine.” - -“You are very welcome to a share of the gilding. If you wish, for old -friendship’s sake I will place you too in possession of the winning -numbers.” - -“No, I think not, thank you. You have put me a little out of conceit -with the stars.” - -“How! What have I done?” - -“Why, I think sometimes they get to depend too much on the human -agencies which interpret them--act up to arbitrary prophecies; or -anyhow are made to seem to.” - -“O?” - -“Besides, apart from myself, I fail to see your interest in making M. -Saint-Péray’s fortune for him.” - -“Things have altered with you, certainly. Did we not once discuss his -eligibility as a suitor?” - -“Well?” - -“What was enough for Mademoiselle de France is less than worth the -consideration of the Marchesa di Rocco.” - -“What! You propose proportionately to restore to him his eligibility.” - -“That’s it exactly.” - -“What advantage would success bring _you_?” - -“I don’t know if I mentioned that I was his agent.” - -“O! I see, I see. I beg your pardon--his matrimonial agent, of course. -That reassures me. I confess at first I was sceptical of such -altruism. But here’s my Bonito. Well, we are one there, if from -different sentiments. And does he know of your intentions towards -him?” - -“The Fates forbid!” - -“I understand you. It is quite plain that he wants nursing, -reassuring, coaxing back into a measure of self-confidence. He is a -desponding spirit, that’s the truth, and determined to read his scrap -of purgatory into utter damnation.” - -“Well, I have answered you. Will you tell me where he is?” - -“Certainly I will, your sentiments being what they are. I have -persuaded him to place himself under the healing care of the virtuous -Signorina Brambello.” - -“Your--!” - -Bonito exclaimed and grinned. - -“You are certainly very silly or very deep,” he said. “How do you -propose to speed his recovery that way?” - -“She is a very good and sensible girl.” - -“No doubt. And a very pretty.” - -“I must use my instruments. They do not comprise many Madonnas.” - -“But why--?” - -“A woman’s arguments are everything in these matters. She will -convince his diffidence, if any can.” - -“Of what?” - -“That Fortune has been very obliging to him.” - -“How? In giving him such a confessor?” - -“Well; if you were worth my steel!” - -“I am not, I assure you. I wish her the last success, naturally. If -she encourages him to the venture, and, better, if he prospers in it, -there will be none better pleased than I. Fate, certainly, has already -interfered very opportunely in his behalf. It would be criminal to -forego that advantage. Believe me, I shall do nothing, for my part, to -balk the Signorina.” - -“What goodness! But it is not always necessary to give Fate the credit -for opportuneness. In this case, for example, one might suggest more -than one explanation of a mystery.” - -“Of di Rocco’s death, you mean? It is quite true. We should consider -the evidence of motives first, perhaps. There is none more powerful -than revenge.” - -“Or, with an astrologer, the wish to verify the reading of his -astrolabes. He had certainly done you a great unkindness, my friend.” - -“And you no less, my friend.” - -“What! do you suggest that _I_ killed him?” - -“With a reason quite as plausible as yours in accusing me.” - -“I have not accused you.” - -“Nor I you.” - -“No more you have. There was no need. He died plainly of an -accident--of the treachery of the elements. I shall hope to call the -elements to account for it some day. Well, if we have no quarrel, seer -Bonito--_addio!_” - -He went off, singing lightly. Bonito stood a moment, looking after -him, wintry and caustic. - -“He thinks I did it,” he muttered. “The fool, not to know me better! -Let him beware, if he once goads me to reprisals!” - - - - - CHAPTER III - -There was a jumble of old streets and buildings in Turin, -flourishing out of sight behind the Palazzo Reale--like a scrap of -wild thicket overlooked in the reclamation of a waste--which, to the -many enamoured of orderliness and respectability, was a scandal, and -to the few, having an eye for haphazard picturesqueness, the solitary -oasis in a desert of uniformity. This irregular quarter, called -“L’Anonimo,” possessed the qualities of its heterodoxy, and was -consistent in nothing but its moral unconformableness. It was not so -much a rookery as a hive, whence gold-ringed _donnaccias_ flew to -gather their honey, and, having collected, came back to store it, -against a winter’s day, in their unconventual little cells. It was -always very vivid and very busy--a never-ending fair, full of life and -frivolity. Its stalls displayed a characteristic opulence of cheap -Parisian hosiery and Genoese jewellery. White ankles twinkled for ever -in its doorways. Its stones were dinted with the clatter of little -gilded heels. It had its own _cafés_, and its lottery-office, of -course, and its Government shops for the sale of salt and tobacco; for -even nonconformity had to subscribe to the relentless _gabelle_. -Finally, it had its drones; but they for the most part loafed at home. - -It was not so very bad, this quarter, even at its heart, and rippled -into less and less expression of itself the further one got from it, -like the concentric rings extending from a splash in water. At quite a -little distance it began to merge into a compromise with order--became -a sort of sedate St John’s Wood--until, down by the Dora, it lapped -itself away in an unimpeachable colony of washerwomen. - -In the meanwhile, flowing down by many outlets, it threaded none -prettier than that which was called the Lane of Chestnuts. And of all -the whitewashed _maisonnettes_ in that same fragrant alley, the -Signorina Brambello’s was assuredly the whitest and most sweet. - -It, this little house, was called the Capanna Sermollino (which means -Wild-thyme Cottage), and it looked and smelt up to its name. Its walls -were the shrine to a candid heart; its jalousies were of the green of -Nature; and its mistress, whose beauty and perfume had come straight -out of an English village, was Molly Bramble Bona roba--nothing worse -and nothing better. - -Poor Molly! once a rustic toast, queen of a single May, and then, -alas! stolen--to what? She stood no further from honour now than by -the thickness of a screen of convention. Loyalty, faith, -honesty--these were all hers unimpaired; you could not look in her -eyes and doubt it. Her shame was one man’s possession--near enough to -the virtue of wifehood to be forgotten by her, except, perhaps, in the -presence of children. Cartouche was to answer for it all. - -She was lovely, of course. Her face, like a human face sketched by -some amorous Puck, was a little out of drawing--a dear imperfection of -prettiness. But the artist had rubbed its cheeks with real conserve of -roses, and painted in its eyes with blue succory petals, and scented -its rich brown hair with fragrance from the oakwoods. L’Anonimo, even -in its purlieus, could hardly have justified a claim to Molly Bramble. - -“I never hear your name spoken, Molly _mia_,” said Cartouche, “but it -seems to bring a whiff of blackberries across the footlights.” - -She was dressed in a clean lilac-sprigged muslin, with a fichu, soft -as “milkmaids,” half-sheathing the white budding of her womanhood. A -mob cap sat at grace on her pretty curls. A pity that her atmosphere -was all of Spring, which perishes so soon. Molly had no arts to reap -love’s winter. - -Cartouche spoke, took a pride in speaking, English like a native. -Molly’s “Frenchings” were as sweet an imperfection as her lips. - -She laughed, busy at the table preparing his breakfast, coffee and -chocolate mixed in a little glass and garnished with a number of tiny -rolls like pipe-stems. - -“And I never hear yours,” she said, “without thinking of a silly -fellow.” - -She took a chair by him while he ate and drank. He did it all -daintily; but she would have watched him with as much delight if he -had guzzled like a hog. It is all one to a woman whether her baby is -nice or gluttonous. But I have known a man turn disgusted from a -ravenous infant. - -Cartouche sat preoccupied a long time, nibbling his rusks. Suddenly he -looked up, dark and troubled. - -“Why have you such a sweet face, _ma mie_?” he said. “I wish I had -never brought a blush to it.” - -She started up, and went to the table again, affecting business there. -Then she turned, and her lashes were winking. - -“Let that flea stick in the wall,” she said. “I’d rather you had its -blushes than its frowns.” - -Her under lip was trembling a little, as she came again and knelt at -his feet. - -“What is it, Cherry?” she said, looking wistfully into his face. -“There’s something, I know--something different, since you--since -you--. Is it anything to do with that fellow you brought here last -night?” - -“No--yes--” he answered. “Perhaps--I can’t say.” - -“Well, I mustn’t ask, I suppose,” she said. “You’ve taught me not to, -though its made me cry my eyes out sometimes. If you’re bad, dear, I -don’t want you anything else--it’s like a man. He--he doesn’t want to -take you from me, does he?” - -She nestled her face, willy-nilly, between his unresisting hands. - -“To take you?” he said distressfully. “His code isn’t mine, Molly. I -daresay he’d like to. Like a man, quotha! It’s like a blockish boy, -rather, to make a toy of love--a doll out of a goddess. He wouldn’t -have done it.” - -She uttered a faint cry. - -“Then he does want to separate us!” - -“How can he, little fool? He doesn’t know you, even.” - -“O, you frightened me so! Love your Molly, Cherry!” - -He had taught her early to call him “_Chéri_,” which, on her sweet -fruitful lips, had become Cherry; and so her love had christened him. -Kent was her county. - -“I have shown my reverence for love,” he said sadly, “by desecrating -its Host. I have broken open its tabernacle and eaten the sacred bread -because it was forbidden. A greedy, blockish boy, Molly.” - -She wrung her hands to him. - -“What is it? Everything seems wrong. I saw it in your face last night, -the moment you and he came in--and me near crazed with joy to hear you -at the door again--O, Cherry! after all these months!” - -He smoothed the hair from her temples. - -“That’s it, dear heart,” he whispered, “after all these months. Well, -rest satisfied; I’d not been in Turin twelve hours before I came to -you.” - -She pouted; gave a little tearful laugh. - -“O, a fine coming! to charge me with a tipsy gentleman.” - -“Poor Louis-Marie!” - -“Is that his name?” - -“Saint-Péray to you, Madam, if you please. I’ll tell you of him in a -moment. He’d lost his head, but not his legs.” - -“La, now! he won’t bless its finding, I’m thinking. I warrant it aches -this morning.” - -“You shall ask him. He’ll be down anon to greet his landlady.” - -“Let him lie on, for me. It’s only you I want; and a tongue to say ten -thousand things at once. Where have you come from?” - -“Le Prieuré.” - -“That takes--let me see--how long?” - -“It took me a month.” - -“A month!” - -“I came on foot; I loitered by the road; I had ten thousand things, -not to say, but ponder.” - -“Cherry!” - -She looked at him amazed. A shadow of some sick foreboding would not -leave her heart. She had never yet known him, her “gentleman,” her -fond heart’s tyrant, in this strangely sober mood. - -“Go on,” she whispered. “Won’t you tell me?” - -“What?” he said. “Of my adventures by the way? I had one or two. Once -a thunderstorm overtook me near a village. Some children, hurrying for -the church, bade me come and help them ring the bells to keep the -lightning off. I smiled the poor rogues away--cried, ‘I should attract -it rather,’ and went on. The bells were already clapping behind me, -when there came a flash and crash. The tower had been struck and every -mother’s infant of them killed. The devil fends his own; or perhaps he -is as blind as justice. Well, I stayed to see them put in the ground, -and--I cried a little, Molly.” - -“Cry now with me, darling. O, Cherry! the poor dears!” - -“Another time I passed some peasants preparing to fill in an old well. -A little whimper came out of its depths while I watched. ‘Only a cur, -Monsieur, that has fallen in,’ they said. They were going to shovel -the earth atop of him without a care. I asked them to lower me, and -they did, and presently up we came together. He set his teeth in my -hand, the little weasel; and I called him Belette for it. See the mark -here. It was only because his leg was broken, and I hurt it. There was -a bone-setter in the village, an old toothless Hecuba--a lady you’ve -not heard of. She could mend bone, if she couldn’t graft it on her -withered gums. Belette was made whole by her, and I waited out his -cure. When he was done with, the rascal came along with me, eager to -show that he had adopted me for ever. He’s thy rival for my love, -Mollinda.” - -“And I’ll kiss him for it, if that’s all.” - -He did not answer immediately. - -“Is it not all?” she urged; and, staring at him, sank away, sitting on -her heels. - -“No, it’s not all,” she whispered, gulping. “There’s more you’ve got -to say. Don’t I understand. It’s the old lord has got a match for you, -and I’m to go. Speak out, and be a man. Is he here? Did he come with -you?” - -“He’s dead.” - -Cartouche rose, and went hurriedly up and down, a dozen times in -silence, before he stopped and spoke to her again where she crouched -upon the floor. - -“He’s dead, and so my wages end.” - -She put out groping hands to find his feet. He heard her sobbing and -whispering:-- - -“I’ll work for you.” - -Then he knelt, and touched her, and spoke to her very tenderly. - -“Not so bad as that. You shall work for me, indeed; but not with these -soft hands. Listen, while I tell you how he died; and why God killed -him; and what is the moral of it all to me.” - -She turned her ear to him, one arm, like the rustic Griselda she was, -bent across her weeping face. But his first words seemed to catch her -breath back, and fill out her bosom, holding her dumb from speech and -tears alike. - -“There was a lady in Le Prieuré called the lily, because she was so -sweet and pure of heart. She was of an ancient family, but poor--the -child of a proud, cold man. She had pledged her love, unknown to her -father, to a stranger of modest means, a soul as good and pious as -she. But the man was weak of purpose, and delayed to confess himself -to the parent. Then came di Rocco, doating, and asked her hand of her -father; and she was given to him on condition that he settled -everything he possessed on her, and that the marriage was to be one in -form only for the space of a year. And the poor child was forced in a -moment into complying, and she became di Rocco’s wife, and a -broken-hearted woman. She sought refuge, defying her father, now that -it was done, in a little _auberge_ on the hills; and thither her -husband, scorning his vow, followed her secretly one stormy night in -order to force her to his will. But Heaven intervened before he could -accomplish his vile purpose, and he went astray on the ice, and fell -into a crevasse and was killed.” - -He paused. The girl did not speak for a minute. Her mind was still -loitering on the road to that tragic conclusion. Di Rocco’s death was -only of relative interest to her. Her first word showed it. - -“Is she--prettier--than I am?” - -Cartouche smiled. - -“She is only an angel, _ma mie_; but eligible--eligible! Have you -forgotten her lover?” - -She clasped her hands, looking for the first time breathlessly into -his face. - -“I know now. It’s him there--upstairs.” - -“Yes,” he said: “It’s _him_.” - -“Why doesn’t he go and claim her, then? She’s better worth the winning -than she was.” - -“Soberly, my girl! It’s early yet to rake over the weeds. Besides, -there are broken faiths to mend. He took his jilting hardly. An angel -himself, she’d been his goddess. He’s down in the mud at present. -These sanctities are always for extremes. There’s no middle course for -them. The devil’s the gentleman for moderation; that’s why he’s so -convincing. We must nurse up this friend of mine between us--restore -him to reason. She’s better worth his winning, says you. No doubt: -but, by the token, miles further removed from a poor suitor.” - -“That’s nothing, if they love.” - -She spoke it impulsively; and stopped. - -“Poor!” she whispered suddenly. “What’s his ruin to that she’s brought -upon my sweetheart! So the old man’s gone and left you nothing.” - -“No fault of hers, child. Don’t breathe or think it. Yes, he had to -put his house in order; settle old scores before he asked new grace. -He parted with me the day before his death. He’d already sent Bonito -packing--you know him, the old hungry dog. He got his master’s curse -for wages: I, at least, got a handful of jewels. Why should I love his -memory? Yet, though he died justly, it was not good that anyone should -kill my father.” - -Even then, she hardly seemed to listen. But she saw her lover moved -beyond her knowledge of him, and put her arms about his neck, and -entreated him passionately:-- - -“Don’t throw me over, Cherry--not altogether. Give me enough to live -on, and keep good--for her sake--there, I’ll say it--if she’s shown -you what a woman ought to be.” - -He sat on the floor beside her, and took her in his arms, pressing her -wet cheek against his own. - -“You shall understand,” he said, much moved. “This lady’s for my -friend--we’ll bring him round to see it by-and-by, we two. But the -lesson of her whiteness is for all. Am I Cartouche to own it? I only -know she’s taught me to respect something I never respected before. To -pay to keep you good, my darling? With a fortune, if I had it. That’s -it. Shall we be good together, sweetest--never, never, never sin -again? You’ve loved me one way: will you love me better this--own the -wrong and renounce it? show--” - -“Not her. I’ve been wicked. I’ll pray to God to forgive me. He’s a -man.” - -His face twinkled. - -“Hush!” he said. “Our act of grace shall be to mend this tragedy with -love. That’s why I brought him here. You shall teach him the way. -Don’t you see, Molly--can’t you see all that that means?” - -She clung to him with a burst of tears. - -“O, I’ll be good, Cherry! And perhaps--perhaps, some day, you’ll want -to learn from me.” - -He heard a sound overhead, and, rising, lifted her to her feet. - -“Dry your eyes,” he whispered; “he’s coming. He mustn’t find a -wet-blanketing hostess.” - -“No,” she said. “I’ll get his coffee. Let me go--O, let me go! I shall -be right in a minute”--and she went hurriedly from the room. - -A minute later Louis-Marie came down, his haggard face bright-eyed out -of fever. But there was an expression on it such as one might imagine -in the face of a convicted felon summoned to hear his reprieve. - -“Such dreams, Gaston,” he said, crossing the room eagerly: “but the -dream of all was the dream that went to bed and woke with me. I -thought I had saved a life, Gaston.” - -“That was no dream, my friend.” - -Louis-Marie came and fondled him, smiling all the while. His actions -were marked by a curious haste and agitation, as if in everything he -were restless to hurry conclusions, to spurn the passing moment, to -urge on the hands of time. - -“Wasn’t it?” he said. “What a meeting, dear Gaston, my brother! Who -would have dreamt of _that_! And the occasion! We are always saving -lives between us, it seems--you more than I, I expect. Isn’t it -strange? I know so little about you, and you my blood-brother. Do you -always lodge here when you come to Turin?” - -“Generally.” - -“Your life, your habits, your story are all a shadow to me. I--” - -Cartouche interrupted him. - -“My story is told in a word, Louis-Marie. Would you like to hear it?” - -“Indeed I should.” - -“Very well. It won’t edify you, I’m afraid; but it’s quite right you -should know the truth about me. Innocent souls like you are apt to -take too much on trust--to judge all men by their pure self-standards. -It’s time, perhaps, you grew up, Louis-Marie.” - -“Nay, Gaston,” muttered his friend. “If to be grown up is to be -wicked, I’m a giant already. Prove yourself what you like--the worse, -the nearer to me.” - -Trix laughed. - -“Listen to this, then,” he said. “I was born in Mayfair, in -London--during the absence of my mother. That was why she would never -acknowledge me. My father always believed that I was her son by him; -but, as he was not her husband, she had no difficulty in proving an -_alibi_. He may have been mistaken, _for he had many irons in the -fire_; but the upshot of it for me was that, as no one would claim me, -I was pronounced a changeling and put out to nurse. From that state di -Rocco rescued me--for reasons of his own. I was very like him, for -one--an extraordinary coincidence. He brought me up, and treated me as -if I were his son. Paternity always came easy to him. I grew up under -his tutelage. The result is what you see; but, in case its expression -lacks eloquence, I may tell you that I am a very accomplished -person--a scholar, a wit, a capital swordsman, a rakehell and a -star-gazer. There is no folly of which I am incapable but love; no -hypocrisy but self-sacrifice. I owe the world nothing but myself: and -that is a debt I pay back, with interest, on each occasion of its -demand. _Enfin_, I am your very faithful servant, M. Louis.” - -He rose and bowed, with a grace of mockery. His feeling towards this -blood-brother of his was always mixed of devotion and contempt. He -could resist one no more than the other. But he loved the poor fool: -that sentiment predominated. - -Saint-Péray looked down and away from him, his jaw a little fallen. -At that moment his hostess entered, carrying his bread and coffee. He -raised his head and saw her, uttered an exclamation, and then, like a -lost child who recognises a friend in a crowd, suddenly burst into -tears. - -No, it was certain that Louis-Marie would never ascend Mont Blanc. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - -And Yolande of the white hands! How was it faring with her, the lily -gathered to perfume a Saturnalia, the victim of as heartless a -casuistry as ever committed a clean virgin to outrage? - -When she first heard of di Rocco’s fate, and of the unspeakable -treachery on which it had foreclosed, she came for the moment as near -a fall from “grace” as Louis-Marie himself. That duty to a father must -be held the paramount duty, his will the household law, his judgment -the ruling wisdom, nature and religion in her had once held for the -first principle of conduct. Honour, self-respect, sworn faith--these, -pious recommendations in themselves, were, if pledged without a -father’s sanction, vain credentials. His curse could blight them -all--convert their virtues into sins. From God, the primal Word, had -come, in straight succession, his power to bless or ban. She had -believed in this his right so truly as to cede her whole heart to him -for immolation on the altar he had raised, letting it break rather -than incur his malediction. - -But when, having sacrificed these virtues to duty, she saw her moral -debasement argued from the act, saw herself claimed, by very virtue of -it, to the vile company of the un-self-respecting, held its legitimate -sport, her soul stood up, revolting from its creed. She felt like one -who, self-destroyed to save her honour, wakes up in hell. - -She shook; she shuddered; she went white as death. She felt her feet -in snares of celestial sophistry. Heaven had laughed to lure her to a -church, which, when she entered it, had proved a _bagnio_. Following -God’s lead, she had foundered in a swamp, and cleared her eyes to find -herself the scoff of uncleanness, to know herself valued at the common -currency of the common road. That this dead beast could have conceived -a hope of her argued how, in his eyes, in the world’s eyes, her soul’s -dread sacrifice to duty had cheapened, not exalted, her. He would not -have dared the thought in the days before she had bared her white -bosom to the knife. Her soul for the first time rushed to pity of -Isaac on his altar. The father’s tragedy was all in all for history. -What of the harmless child--the hideous revelation to him of what love -could sacrifice to faith? No after-kindness could blot out that -memory. - -She hated herself at last, not because she had hitherto been -self-absorbed, worshipping her own whiteness; but because she had not -considered herself at all until this moment. She hated her body, a -shrine on which her mind had never dwelt, until it woke to see it -foul, a thing defiled in thought, a prey of beastly dreams. A shadow -had dethroned her maidenhood. Henceforth she was Yolande of the soiled -hands. - -No man, perhaps, could gauge her sense of shame, or understand it. She -had suffered no wrong in act. A miss, in his blunt logic, is always as -good as a mile. But that in the eyes of woman it is not. She, whose -innocence has just shaved a scandal, feels a like grievance against -fate with her who has solicited and been rebuffed. In each case it is -the outrage upon the woman’s self-respect which barbs the sting. - -Unworthy of her lover! But how unworthy she had never dreamt, until -she saw herself this lure to low desire. She had not even been coveted -for anything she had cherished in herself of moral sweetness. The -moral of all sweetness was carnality. - -She had walked with uplifted eyes praising God, and had trodden on an -adder. For the future she would look down to guard her feet. - -It was all a chimera, that figure of a beneficent Father meting out -justice and mercy, protection and reward. The lamb in the fold was -cherished to make good mutton, and the shepherd’s love watched and -warded him to that end. No picture of Christ carrying home the strayed -weanling could cover that flaw in its divine symbolism. So with the -pious aphorisms which were thrown in the eyes of men by interested -priestcrafts to blind them from the truth. God helped those who helped -themselves? Yes; who helped themselves unscrupulously to the best and -least they desired. A bold thief was always popular in heaven. The -Lord was a lord of bandits. - -She had but to run upon this blasphemy at last, to recoil, gasping and -half-stunned, from the dead wall of it. Whither had her madness led -her? into what dreadful wanderings from the fold? She had sped blindly -in the mist, and struck her forehead against hell’s gate. O, Father, -rescue Thy lost lamb, so bleating to the wolves of her betrayal! Didst -Thou not make a pit-fall for the dog-wolf himself, so that her fleece -might escape his soilure and her flesh his ravening? And her gratitude -was this--to cry out upon Thee because Thou hadst let a beast’s -thought expose her to herself for beast. Yet what else, indeed, were -she or any other, save for the measure of Thy purifying spirit in her? -I have disowned Him, she thought, and by that act alone become the -beast His spirit once redeemed in me. - -She believed, then, that she had committed the unpardonable sin, the -sin against the Holy Ghost. For days she lay prostrated, tended only -by the little _aubergiste_, poor Margot, who had meanwhile her own -difficulties to contend with--gossips to face and baffle; little -lungings of innuendo to counterfoil; a drunken parent to answer for. -The world was restless about that refuge on the hills: great issues -were at stake there: the Law, the Church, the Home were all deeply -interested in the potentialities of those white hands. This unattached -star of maidenhood had become, at a stroke of heaven, the centre of a -system. The lesser bodies, enormously attracted to it, spun and -circled round incessantly. But for the present it was obstinate in -veiling itself in clouds from their worship. - -How long was her “retreat” to last? for how long would it be -countenanced by those most concerned in terminating it? No convention -of seemly mourning could apply to such a widow--widowed of a love -before a husband. Le Prieuré did not expect that hypocrisy of her. -But it wanted its Marchesa. - -During all these days her father politicly kept aloof, awaiting the -first signal of her surrender to him. He had learnt his lesson, and -recognised how any approaches from him would but aggravate the malady -of her despair. Target kept him, at very little cost, informed of -madama’s state; and in the meanwhile he made a judicious ostentation -of his poverty, implying, “See me here, the natural trustee of -thousands, condemned, by a child’s undutifulness, to go in mended -boots!” His patience under suffering made an impression. - -But presently, quicker than his soles, it wore out. He would not climb -the hill himself, but he commissioned a deputy, in the person of Dr -Paccard, shrewd and kindly, to put a case for him. The old man gained -access to the patient by a ruse (M. Saint-Péray’s landlord begged a -word with her, was the message he sent in), and found her lying like -a sweet thing thrown up by the sea, white and just breathing. She saw -directly that the mad hope on which her heart had leaped was but -another shadow of the shadows which were haunting her. Her eyes -absorbed his soul. - -He uttered some commonplaces of his craft. She stopped him. - -“Why did you send in that message?” - -He blushed and stammered: then rushed, characteristically, for the -truth. - -“I feared you would refuse to see me else. I lodged M. Saint-Péray, -it is true, and loved and respected him. We are homely people, I and -my daughter Martha. It was that simple quality which most endeared us -to him. What he chiefly valued in my girl was the domestic probity -which attached her, first of all sentiments, to the sentiment of -filial duty.” - -“Old man, I will not go home to my father.” - -“O, madama! let me speak. One, even a Marchesa--” - -“I am not a Marchesa--” - -“One, I say, even a high lady, may profit by the example of -simplicity. Do I not know, I--yes, very well--that Martha’s heart is -engaged outside her duty? What then? She’s loyal to duty.” - -“It is young Balmat, is it not? Wed her elsewhere; sell her clean body -for a price--then come and tell me what she pays to duty. I was as -good as Martha.” - -He ignored her bitter words, urging his point across the interruption. - -“Even a great thing for her, I’ll say, where duty is so tedious--just -a little daily routine, the house, the kitchen, the conduct of small -affairs. There might be compensation else in such a state--great -compensation, even, where the life, the happiness, the salvation of -many souls depended on one woman’s trust and example.” - -She held him with her tragic eyes. - -“There’s no salvation possible by way of me. Tell the Chevalier, -Monsieur, if you speak for him, as I assume is your commission, to -charge himself with all that duty--the lives, the title, the estates, -the administration of them all--and leave me to give him thanks and -die in peace. He’ll find full compensation for duty, I’m sure, in what -duty has bequeathed him. Please will you go now, and take him that -message?” - -“Never--I say never, madama. This is a bad revolt--I am old, and I -will say it. Is it, do you imagine in your perversity, to show honour -to an honoured memory? If you think so, I will dare to say that I knew -a noble heart better than you yourself, and I speak in its name when I -mourn your refusal to take up your cross like a Christian, thanking -God for having spared you the weight of an irreparable injury to its -burden!” - -She sat up, with glittering eyes. “You insult me,” she began, and -burst into heart-rending tears. - -He let the fit run out, before he spoke again gently. - -“My old heart bleeds for your young tragedy. But, believe my word, by -so much as I am nearer the grey shore which seems to you now so far, -it is not measureless. If these thoughts were possible to your heart, -the All-seeing was doubtless wise to forewarn it with a chastisement, -which even yet was not the worst. Lower your head; come down from this -false humility which only mocks at heaven. If your feet--for flesh is -proud: who can know it better than I?--falter from the whole descent -at once, make your first halt half-way with Martha and myself--live -with us a little. I say at least for my own advantage; because, -indeed, people would be sure to point at me for a self-interested -politician, and that would hurt my honest fame. But come, I say--come -down from these heights where your heart is locked in ice, and where -the ghost of a dead wickedness holds it frozen with his frozen eyes, -looking up through the dark window of his grave.” - -She was staring at him, quite bloodless. But her lips whispered -mechanically: “I cannot--I cannot come to you.” - -“How can you pray or think aright,” he said, “or keep your health or -reason, with that horror hidden, perhaps, but a stone’s-throw below -you there? Its spirit rises, like an evil emanation; its--” - -She stopped him, staggering to her feet. What fearful picture was he -conjuring? In all her stunned misery, her mind had never once turned -to the appalling thought of her close neighbourhood to that baffled -evil. It had dwelt and dwelt, in mad iteration, on an earlier figure, -on the tragedy of a fruitless sacrifice, on death, as it might find -her in the hills. - -But now!--to find her, perhaps--trip her on the thought, and entomb -her! Was there, in all that vast cemetery of ice, a corner remote -enough from _him_ to keep their souls divorced? Horrors thronged into -her brain once breached. What if her clinging to this spot were -construed into devotion to his memory? What if he were not dead, after -all, but were slowly toiling upwards to the light from some pit into -which he had fallen? She had heard of things as strange. What--wilder -terror! if he had never even suffered such a catastrophe, but were -hiding somewhere out of knowledge, to descend presently upon his -traducers and blight them with his mockery? It had always seemed -inconsistent with his character, as resourceful as it was wicked, to -let itself astray in the little confusion of a storm, instead of -crouching while that passed. - -She thought no more--tried to shut out all thought, shuddering with -her hands against her eyes. The doctor saw his advantage. - -“We have an empty room,” he said, “endeared to us by a memory. Come -down, madama, and take possession of that memory. _He_ would have -wished it.” - -She went with him. That marked the first step in her surrender. - -The next was inevitable, fruit of a royal commission. It was not to be -supposed that a wealthy and powerful noble of the State, new -reconciled with its Government, too, could be allowed to disappear -thus mysteriously and no inquiry held. Turin sent its _juges -d’instruction_ and officers of probate and verification to look into -the affair. They examined innumerable witnesses, and into as many as -possible motives. Cartouche they would have liked to question; but he -was gone, none knew whither. So also was Louis-Marie; so also was -Bonito. The thing might have taken an ugly turn, so far as any of the -three was concerned, had not Nicholas Target been opportunely -“pinched” at the psychologic moment. He focussed the mystery for them, -brought it into form and coherence. It appeared, after all, to be one -to be hushed up rather than ventilated. The matter ended for the widow -with official sympathy and congratulations. - -And she? how had she stood the long ordeal? They said her bearing was -the very majesty of pathos--like Dorothea before her judges again. One -can keep one’s countenance under torture, as the statistics of -martyrdom prove. But every allusion to her assumed acquiescence in her -own tragedy had been a white-hot rake to her side. They imagined her -stately fortitude was a pose, a compromise between decency and the -exaltation her heart could not but feel over the thought of what she -had escaped and the prospect before her. That she must not undeceive -them, must suffer the onus of coveting a position which her whole soul -loathed and rejected, was not the least part of her anguish. Even if -she had ventured to assert herself, to call them to witness to her -renunciation of all which they held so covetable, her father was there -to stultify her protests. She saw him daily--spoke to him, even. But -there was a gulf between them. The atmosphere it exhaled was felt by -the commissioners, and felt to be inexplicable. Some commiseration was -shown for the victim of so unnatural a misunderstanding. His noble -candour in giving evidence, his dignified endurance of that implied -slander on his disinterestedness, excited a measure of sympathy--even -of sympathetic indignation. Yet, for all his public vindication as a -father, the triumph of his child’s cause seemed only to deepen the -abyss which separated him from her. - -Well, a thing grown past bearing is a thing ended. The torture -consummated itself at last in anti-climax--in the official citation of -Augias, Marchese di Rocco, to the Court of Inquiry, there to answer -and show cause why Yolande di Rocco, _née_ de France, should not -enter into possession of his estates as his widow and sole inheritrix. -Which summons the appellee having failed to answer, the Will was -declared proved, the lawyers returned to Turin, and the lady to the -privacy of her lodgings at Dr Paccard’s. And so the matter ended. - -At least, so it seemed to. It was a unique situation: on the one side -great houses, great wealth, great stakes in the country, and a -fluttering crew of prospectors waiting to negotiate their values for -the benefit of a mistress who disregarded them all; on the other the -mistress herself living in humble lodgings on a few centesimi a day. -And this state of things held for quite a month after the inquiry. - -“It makes you an important person,” said Jacques Balmat to Martha. -“You are approached and courted like a queen’s confidante. I hope your -silly little head will not be turned by it all.” - -“Jacques, she is dying of love, and what right have you or I to say -that she ought to live?” - -“The right, my girl, of dutiful children to uphold the natural law. -She, too, is not so independent but she must owe her father a life. It -makes no difference that he crossed her plans for herself. Besides, -are we so certain that one we will not name has made himself unworthy -of her? It rests on our conjecture, and that is the devil’s word for -scandal. They whisper that the old man is dying.” - -“My God! what is that you say?” - -“I only repeat what I have heard. It is that madama’s obstinacy is -slowly killing him. It is certainly aggravating, when one is starving, -to see a fine feast spread just out of one’s reach.” - -Martha went with her information straight to Yolande. That Marchioness -of shadows was a good deal altered during the last month. Grief, where -a flawless constitution defies its corrosion, retaliates by turning -all into stone. She was white and unimpressionable as a statue. Martha -dared an ultimatum. - -“You would blame yourself, I am sure, my lady, if death were suddenly -to end the misunderstanding between you and your father.” - -The blue unearthly eyes were turned swift upon her with a look of -horror. - -“Death!” she whispered. - -“O!” said Martha, weeping, “chagrin will kill a cat. What is it, do -you think, to lie starving and abandoned outside the walls of the -paradise you have staked your soul to win?” - -“Abandoned!” repeated the other. “It is all his--he knows it--to do -what he likes with.” - -She had assumed, indeed, that all this time her father was established -at the Château. Martha threw up her hands, protesting. - -“Do you pretend to believe that he, so proud and stern, has accepted -a trust bestowed on him like that? But believe it if you like. He will -not be long in unconvincing you.” - -“Give me my cloak. Do you hear? My God, how slow you are!” - - * * * * * * * * - -Thus was negotiated Yolande’s third and final step to self-surrender. -She hurried through the familiar streets, a reincarnate ghost, shocked -from her grave by a cry as superhuman as the one which stirred the -dead in old Jerusalem--a cry of mortal desolation. God spare her the -revelation which might have come to them--the knowledge that she had -out-died her welcome! - -The place seemed strange. There was an air of dust and neglect about -the “hôtel.” The face of the woman who answered her summons was -unfamiliar--a smug, frowzy, “laying-out” face in suggestion. The girl -could hardly articulate the words which strove for utterance on her -lips. But, commanding herself, she asked at last, and was a little -reassured. - -Yes, the Chevalier was in bed, in a poor enough way; but curable, no -doubt, by one who knew the secret of his disorder. - -She hurried upstairs to him, entered his room with a choking heart. He -was lying back, propped on pillows. His face was stern and wintry, -with a rime of unshorn hair on its jaws. His eyes, cold and -unscrutinising, were like globes of frog-spawn, each with a black -staring speck of life for pupil. - -A withered crone, ostentatiously unclean, was dishing up for the -patient a thin broth of herbs. Reason might have questioned of the -meaning of her presence, or of the soup’s poor quality. De France was -under no necessity for retrenchment just because he had been -disappointed of a handsome legacy in trust. But remorse has no reason. -Yolande saw nothing here but the tragic figure of an ambition her -perversity had doomed. A dignified presence may command so much more -than its due of sympathy for the common crucifyings of circumstance. -Majesty covers a multitude of meannesses. She fell on her knees by the -bed. - -“Father, I have come to make my peace with you!” - -The pupils of the Chevalier’s eyes, turned darkly on the suppliant, -dilated imperceptibly. - -“Who is this who enters to disturb my resignation? I have made _my_ -peace with Heaven.” - -“No, no, father! No, no! I am Yolande, thy daughter, thy one poor -child. Know me and forgive me. I have done wrong. O, my father, I have -been wicked and undutiful, but God has cleared my eyes!” - -His own were brightening wonderfully; the specks were grown to -tadpoles. He snapped at the wheezy beldame with a sudden viciousness -that almost made her drop the dish. - -“Begone, thou old prying gossip! What dost thou here, pricking thy -mouldy ears?” - -She scuttled. He held out a waxen hand. Yolande imprisoned and -devoured it. - -“Art thou my child?” he said. “I had thought she had abandoned me -indeed.” - -She wept, bowing her head, and mumbling:-- - -“Not abandoned--only to that I thought your soul desired; the place, -the riches, the--the honour. I had never supposed but you possessed -them all--managed--administered them--” - -“For you, my daughter? Even _my_ love must reject a trust so offered. -What honour could survive that imputation of self-interest? I would -have consented to be your steward else--faithful on a crust, if love -and confidence had sweetened it. But it does not matter now. Nothing -matters any longer, since my child is here a penitent to reconcile me -with the thought of our separation.” - -“Father! O, my God! I have not deserved it. Look, I will nurse you -back to health and peace of mind. I will be so humble and so loving. -Father, do not die!” - -He questioned her face searchingly. He saw her heart was his so -surely, that any further fencing before he pierced it would serve but -to prolong his luxury of triumph. Yet he fenced. - -“To nurse me?” he said, smiling weak and saintly. “A simple task, -Yolande. Even the remnant of fortune left me, after my debts are paid, -might crown my few last days with feasting, if I wished it. But my -wants are soon supplied.” - -“Only live, dear father, and your fortune--” - -She stopped, shuddering, and buried her face in the bedclothes. He -scanned the back of her head curiously. - -“My fortune!” he echoed. “Ah! I had once dreamed my fortune might have -lain in helping to turn great evil into a blessing. I had seen, in my -fond imagination, churches enriched, charities endowed, all that -wealth and power had used to evil ends converted to measureless good. -But it was a fantastic dream. We exalt ourselves, no doubt, in -planning for the human emancipation. God has rebuked my vanity.” - -She lifted her flowing eyes to him. - -“Had you had such dreams? O, father! be my almoner, then, and let _me_ -live on the crust.” - -He stroked her hair rapturously. Murder would out at last. - -“You put new life into me,” he murmured. “You shall live on what you -like. Only, for appearance’s sake, my child, make yourself the nominal -minister of that atonement.” - -And on these terms he carried her off to the Château. - - - - - CHAPTER V - -The Royal Palace of Turin, situated off the Piazza Castello, in the -east, or distinguished quarter of the city, epitomised in itself the -policy of the Savoyard rule. Externally it was as unpretentious a pile -as any brick-built factory--or, shall we say, for the sake of apt -analogy, as our own original South Kensington Museum. For, in like -manner with that illustrious emporium, did the utilitarian face which -it turned to the street afford no clue whatever to its inner meaning. -It was just a countenance dressed for the demos--a sop of -unostentation offered to that triple-headed sleuth-hound. - -It was certainly unelating as an architectural composition; but then -we know, by the story, that the plain pear is often the most luscious. -Beauty, saith the sage (a plain fellow himself, no doubt), is but -skin-deep. That is an aphorism as untrue as many another. But, take it -for what it is worth, and ugliness, by the like measure, is also -skin-deep. - -The Palazzo Reale, at least, was, like its later South Kensington -parallel, a very museum of treasures contained within a mean casket. -They were of all sorts, from a Benvenuto salver, or a suit of mail -worn by an enormous armiger at the battle of Pavia, to the individual -“kit” of M. Dupré, who had been “_le Dieu de la danse_” in the -supreme days of Turin’s gaiety. Those, perhaps, were fled for ever, as -a characteristic and prerogative of “privilege”; but their reactionary -spirit lingered on, awaiting revitalisation in the dumb strings of the -great dancer’s fiddle. - -I am not sure but that the present representative of the house did not -hold this instrument among the first of his treasures. It symbolised -for him his beautiful ideal of humanity frolicking in an Arcadian -estate. Watteau, Gillot, and the _fête galante_ were always figured -in the dim backgrounds of his policy. He yearned to educate democracy -with a harpsichord, and pelt it into silence with roses. He was not -altogether a bad little fellow, for his fifty-seven years, only his -ideals were expensive, and of course supremely unpractical. While -seeing very clearly that Arcadia was only to be reached through -education (he endowed and encouraged learning quite handsomely), he -stultified all the effects of his liberality by conceding to -hereditary prejudice the whole conduct of his government. He did not -walk with the world, in fact, and so it walked into him. - -The Palace, in the meanwhile, was as sumptuous within as it was bare -without. Mr Trix, entering towards it, one fine September morning, by -the gates opening from the Piazzo Castello, tasted, in some curious -anticipation, the possible flavour of the fruit hidden behind that -uncompromising rind. He was “waiting,” by private “command,” on his -sovereign, and the occasion (the first of its kind to him) found him -by no means so possessed by its importance as that his -_self_-possession was moved thereby to yield an iota of its serenity. -He was received, with consideration, at a private door to which he was -directed, and, after the slightest delay, ushered straight into the -presence of Victor-Amadeus. - -The monarch was seated at a secretaire, heavily gilt and with painted -panels, talking or dictating to a little fat, bedizened aide-de-camp, -who wrote apart at a littered table, and who was so buried in bullion -that he might have been taken for the First Lord of the Treasury just -emerged from a dip into one of its coffers. The royal toilet itself -was a _négligé_--dressing-gown, embroidered slippers, and bare -close-cropped head--all very gimp and finical. Shrewd, wizened, -narrow, Victor-Amadeus’s face--a dough-white, flexuous-nosed, -long-chinned, under-jawed little affair--perked up from its collar of -white ermine like a beedy-eyed condor’s. Thought was engraved on it in -a number of thready wrinkles, like cracks in parchment. The deepest -owed themselves to profound self-searchings on such questions as the -conduct of Court precedents, of royal hunts, of ceremonial and -pageantry. The slightest might record some difficult moments accorded -to the size of a button, or the claims of the subversive shoe-tie over -the constitutional buckle, To find the royal countenance simply vacant -was to know the royal mind concentrated on affairs of State. - -Those might include the potentialities of the Lottery, the friendship -of Cousin Louis of France, a new uniform for the army. It is certain -that they never excluded the necessity of some new drain upon the -exchequer. Victor-Amadeus recognised very clearly that the true -evolution of man is in his clothes. And he was right in a way. It -seems impossible to advocate even so much, or so little, as a return -to Nature without wanting to dress up to the part. He was a -_petit-mâitre_, in short, of the first rank and the most fastidious -taste, who had spent his reigning life in offering himself a leading -example of refinement to his subjects. He was something better than a -benevolent Caligula. - -He went on dictating now, while Mr Trix, standing just within the -doorway by which he had entered, awaited passively his royal pleasure. - -“Write, my dear Polisson,” said the King, “that, as regards the Pont -Beauvoisin over the Guier, we cannot consent to the abolition of the -double toll. To leave Savoy may be a necessity; to enter France may be -necessity; but two necessities do not make one privilege. On the other -hand, two privileges make a certain necessity--that of paying for -both.” - -The gilded scribe raised his head and little screw-eyes. M. Polisson -was terribly short-sighted, but was forbidden the use of spectacles -because of their ugliness. - -“I must recall to your Majesty,” he said: “that the petition dates -from Dauphiny.” - -“_Chou pour chou_,” said the King. “Would it rob me the less, because -it would also rob King Louis of his half of the perquisites? To -concede it would be to concede the first principle of the _octroi_. -The keystone is a small part of the arch; but remove it, and what -then! Tell me that, M. Polisson.” - -The secretary still ventured a deferential protest. - -“Your Majesty’s duchy of Savoy is ultramontane. It is perhaps infected -a little through its contiguity with revolutionary doctrines. Its -predilections, as your Majesty knows, have always been for French -arms, French arts, French sentiments. It may happen to have imbibed -some of the worthless with the sound. A little concession to unrest -would not make unrest more unrestful.” - -The King took snuff from a jewelled box. - -“That was a clumsy iteration, my charming Polisson,” said he. “But all -concessions are an admission of weakness. If we slacken the curb, we -shall presently be run away with. Be careful of that pouncet-box, or -you will spill it on the carpet and make an unpleasant dust. Besides, -it was given me by a very pretty child, and I love children.” - -“But, sire--” - -“Say no more, M. Polisson. Is the document prepared?” - -All the while he was talking, the corner of his eye was given to Mr -Trix. Now he turned a little, and said quite suddenly, “That is a very -pretty idea of the earrings, Monsieur.” - -So he would pass, butterfly-like on unsteady wings, from blossom to -blossom of a flowery mind. There was some purpose, no doubt, ahead of -his irrelative flittings, but it seemed for ever the prey to -distractions by the way. - -His allusion was to a certain novelty in dandyism, it appeared--to a -couple of little diamonds which were let into the gold earrings worn -by his visitor. For the rest, that visitor, it was obvious, attracted -his most flattering regard. He observed, with admiration, his coat and -breeches of fine buff cloth and fastidiously elegant cut; his tambour -vest of white satin sprigged with silver, and his white silk -stockings; his mushroom-coloured stock, and solitaire of broad black -silk which was tied in a bow at the back of his natural black hair, -and brought over his shoulders to hold a miniature framed in diamonds -and turquoises; his silver-headed Malacca cane looped to the right -wrist, and the tiny Nivernois hat held under his left arm; the slim -steel-hilted sword at his hip (for continental “bloods” still held to -a fashion which was grown out-of-date in England); his neat black -pantoufles fastened with little gold-tagged laces--and only as to -these last did his countenance express any doubt or qualification. - -Still admiring, he arose from his chair. At the same moment M. -Polisson skipped to his feet and fell over a stool. The King glanced -at him vexedly. - -“You are always the one, little Polisson,” he said, “to cough in the -exquisite moment of the opera.” - -Then he advanced to the visitor, very winningly. - -“It is all a triumph of taste, Monsieur,” he said. “Accept the -congratulations of a sympathetic spirit.” - -Cartouche bowed profoundly. - -“I have the good fortune of seeing M. Trix?” said the King; “the -_protégé_ of our late lamented Marquis? It is a pleasure of which I -have often dreamed, and now realise to my instruction. You were very -attached to your patron, Monsieur?” - -“I returned his regard for me, Sire, with duty and affection.” - -“He is a great loss to us. We had looked upon him as a bulwark against -the licentious encroachments of the age. He would have found for your -modern Rousseaus poor quarters at Chambéry--or at Le Prieuré, for -that matter. No question of subversive petitions, had he remained -alive. It was a pity he was so appallingly ugly. I am not sure about -the laces, monsieur. They are a little democratic.” - -“They have gold tags, Sire,” was all that Trix could find to answer. - -“True,” said the King, “and that perhaps redeems them, like the jewel -in the toad’s head. I understand, Monsieur, that the widow is as great -a beauty as she is a fortune.” - -Cartouche sniggered to himself, dogging these apparently inconsequent -“doublings” of the royal mind. - -“She is priceless in every way, Sire.” - -The King looked at him rather keenly. - -“It would want a courageous man,” he said, “to aspire to the -priceless.” - -Cartouche smiled, in a state of inner astonishment. To what end, of -favour or correction, was all this irrelevance of the royal -flibbertigibbet addressed? Knowing his own reputation in Turin, he -could hardly flatter himself with a thought of promotion. And the next -remark of the monarch only deepened his perplexity. - -“Have you ever heard, Monsieur,” said Victor-Amadeus, “of a secret -society calling itself the Illuminati?” - -“Surely, Sire,” answered the visitor, profoundly bewildered. “It is, -by general report, a fellowship of star-gazers, who, consulting the -heavenly systems, flounder among the earthly.” - -“Ay,” said the King: “and they meet at night, as astrologers -should--here and there, on dark hill-sides, on remote roads, on lonely -wastes. But doubtless you know that?” - -“I know nothing whatever about their habits, Sire.” - -“So?--I think, Monsieur, but I am not sure, that these ruffles might -be doubled. Perhaps, however, it would vulgarise, in the tiniest -degree, the exquisite simplicity of your conception. My faith! what -Goths we have to educate, artists like you and me! Hopeless to expect -their appreciation of these delicate _nuances_ of taste and selection. -The many-flounced flower is always foremost in their approval. -Sometimes, in despair, I feel that I must yield the eternal -conflict--go mad in pea-green stockings and a scarlet wig. But then I -think how Nature, in her inaccessible eyries, continues to produce, -without a didactic thought, her tastefullest forms; and I am -comforted, because I recognise that the final appeal of elegance is to -the gods. Has it ever occurred to you, Monsieur, that your patron was -murdered by these Illuminati?” - -The sudden swerve and swoop brought a gasp from Cartouche, verily as -if his Majesty had whipped a hand from behind his back and struck him -in the wind. He was, momentarily, quite staggered. - -“No, never,” he could only ejaculate. - -Victor-Amadeus conned him curiously. - -“Admit, Monsieur, for the sake of argument, that it were so,” he said. -“How, then, would you regard this Brotherhood?” - -“Sire, as your Majesty regarded the Jesuits.” - -“What! as a canker to be cut from us, lest it should come to corrupt -the whole body of our estate?” The King scraped his chin thoughtfully. -“I have heard said,” he murmured, “that of all compelling -personalities, that of the fire-eater _dilettante_, the truculent wit, -the _gaillard_ with his tongue in his scabbard and venom at its point, -is the most to be admired for its penetration, since it will pierce -through both steel and brain. (I shall certainly adopt this -inspiration of the earrings, Monsieur.) We are fortunate, at least, in -recognising in M. Trix--with whose exploits in Turin report has made -us familiar--the qualities of his reputation. Courageous, brilliant -men, men of resource and daring, men even remorseless _vengeurs_ at -discretion, are not to be gathered like edelweiss at the expense of a -little risk and trouble. And so La Prieuré has its Illuminati, -Monsieur?” - -“I learn it, for the first time, of your Majesty.” - -“A convenient observatory, M. Trix, for the studying of systems--wild, -remote, high-lifted--a place for storing thunderbolts, and launching -them. It would need a man, to circumvent and storm it, almost as -courageous as he who should aspire to the priceless. Well, di -Rocco--though terribly ugly--was that man, on both counts, and he is -dead. But Nemesis, if we are not mistaken, bore a child to him. Will -you be our Prefect of Faissigny, M. Trix?” - -“My God, Sire!” - -The offer was so sudden, so unexpected, that he could utter no more on -the instant. The King--a disciple, perhaps, of Walpole in the baser -part of his policy--hastened to clinch an appointment he had set his -heart on. Munificence happened to be the price he could bid for it, -and without his being a penny the poorer thereby. He spoke on eagerly, -eschewing hyperbole. - -“We are not unacquainted, Monsieur, with the minutest circumstances of -that tragedy, or of some local meetings of the Brotherhood which, in -our opinion, were responsible for it. The Marquess was, of all men, -calculated to be abhorrent to these would-be subverters of the -constitution, whose aims are by no means so astral or so harmless as -you would appear to believe. That they, and their pernicious -doctrines, are not unrepresented in Faissigny I can well tell you. -From the Col-de-Balme to Bonneville they have their secret -rallying-points. The place is blotched with corruption. It needs a -strong man, a man of local knowledge, whether inspired by vengeance, -or by duty, or by both, to put his knife to those tainted parts. I had -thought of M. de France in my difficulty. Bah! he is an old pompous -vanity. I will quiet him with a little portfolio. In the meanwhile--” - -“But, Sire!” - -“In the meanwhile, I say, we can conceive of no better man than -yourself to instruct vulgarity of the fallacy of ugliness. We do not -expect M. Trix, the exquisite, the man of the sword, to condemn -himself, unrewarded, to a virtual exile from life, as he regards it. -We have had a little bird to whisper in our ears; and, as a -consequence, we propose to endow our Prefect of Faissigny with a fine -local estate, and a fine fortune, encumbered only with the condition -of a wife. In short, Monsieur, we offer to bestow upon our faithful -lieutenant the hand of the widowed lady di Rocco.” - -Cartouche dropped his hat, picked it up, straightened himself, laughed -a little laugh, and answered. His face was white and his lips were -trembling. - -“Pardon me, Sire; but that is impossible.” - -Victor-Amadeus stared a little; then spoke drily. - -“You may misconceive our prerogatives, Monsieur. Or, perhaps, you are -married already?” - -“No, Sire.” - -“It is well, then. We have commanded the lady and her father to -Court--a little prematurely, maybe; but, what would you!” (he shrugged -his shoulders). “A loveless marriage makes a short mourning. In the -meantime--” - -“I will be your Prefect, Sire--if not for vengeance’ sake, for duty -alone.” - -“You do not believe he was murdered?” - -“The suggestion shall at least stimulate me.” - -“And nothing else? But we will see. A stake in that country would -afford you a strong personal interest in its cleansing. We will see, -we will see.” He turned to his secretary. “Make out M. Trix’s patent -as Prefect of Faissigny, my dear Polisson,” he said; “and, for -heaven’s sake, straighten your stock.” - - - - - CHAPTER VI - -Within a stone’s throw of the royal Palace, under its usurious eye, -as it were, stood the Palazzo di Citta, the headquarters of the Banco -del Regio Lotto. There, every alternate Saturday at noon, the drawing -of the numbers took place, and the impoverishment of a few thousand -King’s subjects, guilty of nothing but fatuity, was decided by lot. - -It was a recurrently mad time, whose agitation was transmitted to -remotest parishes all over the country--only with this distinction: -the Piémontais, watching the central game, was held hostage to its -excitement; the poor Savoyard, ruined out of sight, cursed himself for -a blockhead victim to fraud, and, with the common inconsistency, vowed -hatred against a Government which could thus rob him of his mite. - -That was inevitable. Gambling in cold blood can only breed usurers -where it succeeds, and desperadoes where it fails. The Turinois -possessed the glitter of the table. It was not he who was to fail the -Monarchy in the dark days to come. - -He was as fevered, as voluble, as gesticulatory, as seething in his -numbers on this particular occasion of the drawing, as he had been any -time since M. D’Aubonne first brought his damnable invention of the -lottery-wheel from France some fifty years earlier. His cheek was as -glowing, his heart as fluttering with a sense of novelty, as if he had -never before seen a hundred or two of butterflies broken on the wheel. -Even Dr Bonito, standing amidst the pack with a young friend, felt the -infection of the occasion, and bit his blue lips with that sort of -agonised transport which makes men under the lash set their teeth in -whatsoever they encounter. - -He had had that vanity of his qualities, the old grey rat, to hold by -an independence even to the last capacity of the gutter for yielding -him one. The stars, the cards (a greasy pack), the astrolabe and -divining rod, had procured him thence, latterly, an obscene living. In -taking it, he had had at least the justification of his own -superstition. If he sold immortal truths at a halfpenny apiece, it was -only because necessity obliged him. They had all the value of -genuineness in his eyes, and to “fake” antiques would only discredit -him with the gods, upon whom was his ultimate reliance. What he had -borrowed from Louis-Marie had been a loan to conviction--a last ounce -of metal needed to insure his winged feet to the Perseus of his -destiny. That he fully believed. Beyond it--it was a fact--he had not -asked, nor accepted, a farthing from the young man. - -But superstition, as a one-devil possession, prevails only through its -plausibility. Let its dupe once be disillusioned, and all the moral -obliquities, out of which it had shaped its pretence, confess -themselves the owners of the mansion. The maggots which devour a dead -faith were bred in it living. Superstition, cast down, becomes the -prey of what it had entertained. Dr Bonito, a Rosicrucian by -conviction, had never perhaps been really dangerous until the stars -came to prove themselves impostors. And then he delivered himself -wholly to corruption. - -In the meanwhile, bond-slave to his faith, foreseeing nothing so -little as the imminent disruption of that faith’s particles, or -articles, he cherished for the moment no particular thought of -rascality towards anyone. He may even have felt a little cold thaw of -emotion towards the human souls about him, as towards beings -predestined to witness in him alone, conversant with the hieroglyphics -of fate, that apotheosis which they all desired vainly for themselves. -Smugly self-conscious of his frowsy coat and broken shoes, he likened -himself to Elijah, on the banks of the Jordan, awaiting, an -unconsidered prophet, the descent of the fiery chariot. His eyes -travelled incessantly, feverishly, from his companion--poor -Louis-Marie, the dull, apathetic soul--to the steps of the Town-hall, -on which was displayed--under guard, but for all to see--the wheel of -Fortune. - -Suddenly a sound went over the vast throng, like a sweep of wind over -a bed of rushes, bowing all heads in a single direction. It wailed, -and passed, and died, and was succeeded by an intense hush. The wheel -was seen to turn--and stop. Bonito clutched his voucher, holding it -under his nose for identification. - -The number, large and white, cynosure of a thousand eyes, went up on -a black board--61. - -A thin wheeze, such as strains itself from lungs winded by a blow, -came from him. Then he gasped, and, twitching in all his features, -nudged his companion, and set his finger on the card--61, sure enough. -The sigh, the wail, rose again over the throng, and died down--11. -Bonito, for all his faith, was shaking as if palsied as his finger -travelled to the number. Even Louis-Marie, standing staring in his -place, felt in his veins a sluggish thrill of excitement. Again the -wheel turned, and again the card duplicated its record--81; and then -once more it revolved and disgorged a single number--9, and the -quatern was accomplished. - -Bonito looked up. His forehead was wet; his lips were dribbling and -smiling in one. - -“_Quantum fati parva tabella vehit_,” he said crookedly. “And there -are those who mock at astrology!” - -A roar, instant, overwhelming, heart-shaking, broke upon his words. It -greeted the appearance on the board of the fifth and final figure--a -zero! - -The gods had laughed. _All stakes were cancelled, and forfeit to the -Government_. - -Dr Bonito stood quite still. The sweat dried from his forehead. Slowly -his face seemed to turn into grinning stone. The surge of the crowd -roared round him, like fierce water about a pile. He heeded nothing of -it. He only grinned and grinned, until his grin became a blasphemy, a -horror. Then he recognised that he must stir, speak, do something -human, to cheat the hell to which his looks were claiming him. He was -conscious of a rigor enchaining his flesh; his feet seemed locked in -the jaws of a quicksand; a little, and he would be under. - -At the crisis, the card in his hand caught his attention. Very -stiffly, moving his arms mechanically, he tore it into halves, folded, -quartered, requartered, and, at a wrench, divided and sent those -fluttering piecemeal. The act spoke an inhuman grip. It had hardly -been possible to him a minute earlier. But its madness rent the veil. - -He twisted awry, and glared up at his companion. Louis-Marie -remembered that night in the _café_. He recognised well enough what -had happened. The calamity might have stirred him little on his own -account, had it not been for this look in the ruined face turned to -him. He shivered slightly. - -“So much for the Taroc Mysteries!” whispered the doctor, “chaff of the -gods! But I forgot that nought stood for the Fool.” - -His tongue rustled on his palate like a dry scale. - -“He hunts butterflies,” he said. “Why, you cursed owl, what are you -staring at? Have you never seen him, with his net, on the cards? -Nought is the Fool, I say, and I am nought--the butt of the gods. I’ll -pay them!” - -He took a frantic step or two, returned, seized his companion’s arm, -and urged him from the press. - -“Come,” he said hoarsely; “you lent me the means to it--I owe this to -you--I’ll not let you go now.” - -All his tolerance, it seemed, was turned to hatred. He regarded the -young man as the instrument, however contemptible, of his undoing. The -worse for the poor tool of Fortune! He would have to act whipping-boy -to her ladyship. And serve the weak creature right for his flaccidity. -He sneered horribly at him. - -“Faith’s dead in me,” he snarled. “You’ll have to serve her turn.” - -Quite stunned and helpless, Saint-Péray let him lead him whither he -would. As they crossed into the Via Seminario, a royal carriage, -making for the Palace, was brought to a stand against a gabbling -stream of pedestrians, and stopped across their very path. They faced -direct into a window of it; _and there inside was Yolande_. - -Pale, agitated, her Dresden-shepherdess eyes glanced to and fro, and, -all in an instant, caught that vision of other two, other four, fixed -upon them. - -We’ve heard of faces stricken into stone before some Gorgon -apparition. Love’s severed head converts to softer stuff. His art is -the plastic art, and answers to his dead hauntings in features -stiffening into wax. - -So seemed Yolande’s features in that moment. Her breath hung suspended -on her lips, the colour in her cheeks. She had procured Love’s death, -and thus was Love revenged upon her. Like a thing of wax she -confronted the sweet cruelty of his eyes. - -There sat a thin grey gentleman by her side, of a very refined and -arrogant mien. The Chevalier de France had never encountered Louis, -nor Louis him. Suddenly the former projected his head from the window, -and demanded in haughty tones the reason of the delay. - -“Monsignore,” said a postillion, “it is the Lottery.” - -The Chevalier _sacre’d_. - -“Does that concern a minister of State, puppy? Drive through the -rabble.” - -The carriage jerked forward, and rolled on its way. Saint-Péray stood -motionless, following it with his eyes. A touch on his arm aroused -him. Acrid, vicious, fearfully expressive, the face of Dr Bonito -peered up into his. - -“Monsieur,” whispered the Rosicrucian: “there goes Madame -Saint-Péray.” - -Louis-Marie gave a mortal start, and put his hand to his forehead. - -“There is something weaving in my brain,” he muttered. “Look, -look--shake it out! My God, it is an enormous spider!” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - -The Prefect of Faissigny, commanded, for the second time within a -week, and with a flattering grace of intimacy, into the King’s -presence, discovered an exquisite butterfly where he had left a -chrysalis. The royal head--erst as round and blue as a Turk’s--was -adorned with a bob-wig in buckle, from whose toupee a couple of pearl -pins stuck out like clubbed antennæ; the royal limbs and body were -glossy with embroidered silks; on the royal coat of maroon-coloured -velvet sparkled a diamond star. Twin satellites of this sun, moreover, -twinkled, like new-discovered planets, in the royal ears--a sincerest -flattery, which his Majesty did not grudge to pay to so unique a pink -of the elegances as M. Trix. - -As he advanced to greet his visitor, he held a wisp of point -d’Alençon a little raised between the finger and thumb of his right -hand, while his left poised a gleaming snuff-box at a like angle. His -manner was as charmingly playful as his “style” was unexceptionable. -As a monarch he had no rival to challenge his pre-eminence in the -Kingdom of puffs and patches. - -“Welcome, my dear Prefect,” he said. “You come as irresistible as -Apollo in Arcadia. I vow I am jealous of you, since seeing our -adorable Daphne. Alas! that Fate hath imposed upon me the _rôle_ of -Father Ladon. But it is some compensation to have a god for suitor.” - -“Your Majesty flatters and confounds me in one.” - -Cartouche’s eyes were bright and nervous. He had not a full command of -his lips. - -The King smiled. - -“Confounds you, Monsieur? How is that?” - -“Daphne, Sire, if I am not mistaken, took refuge in a laurel tree, -rather than suffer the god’s pursuit.” - -“Bah!” The King shrugged his shoulders. “And she bewailed, I’ll swear, -her foolish precipitancy for ever after. But the laurels in this case, -Monsieur, are for your brow.” - -“I do not feel like a conqueror, indeed.” - -“Fie, fie, Monsieur! Is it necessary to remind M. Trix of his -Cervantes? Faint hearts and fair ladies, forsooth. O, you have a -character to maintain, I assure you! But certainly such beauty cuts -the sinews of self-confidence. Well, it is no matter. You have only, -as it happens, to receive the keys of the capitulated citadel.” - -“I do not understand your Majesty, I declare.” - -“Our Majesty, Monsieur, has already thrown the handkerchief for you, -and one without a crown in its corner. That was a self-denying -ordinance, for which we will not altogether insist on your gratitude. -But, in plain language, sir, we desire this union, and have made no -secret of our desire.” - -“Sire!” - -“Hush, Monsieur, or she may hear! You would not damn your reputation -with a show of diffidence? Hush!” - -Cartouche looked at him aghast. - -“She is present? She--Sire, Sire!” He made a hurried step forward. - -The King, smiling, motioned him aside, and tiptoed to a door. The two -were quite private and alone. The royal closet was destined, for the -moment, for Love’s confessional-box--ordered with a view to the -stimulating of emotional disclosures and throbbing confidences. It was -evening, and the tapers, shrouded in their silver sconces, diffused a -soft motionless glow over a piled luxuriance of stuffs and cushions; -over a carpet tufted thick as turf; over hangings of purple velvet. -They woke slumberous gleams in furniture; flushed the drowsy faces of -satyrs on polished bureaux; creamed the bare legs and breasts of -nymphs; touched the cheeks of grapes, piled in a gold salver on a -table, with little kisses of light; slipped into the warm depths of -decantered wine, and hung tiny crimson jack-o’-lanterns there to lure -the already half-drunken senses to red ruin. No drugging pastille ever -vulgarised the air of that enchanted chamber; but a sweet and swooning -perfume was contrived to steal all over it, as if a bed of lilies of -the valley lay beneath the floor. - -And, in a moment, she was there, before Cartouche’s eyes--the -loveliest, most lovable shape to be conceived in such a setting. - -For an instant desperate and defiant, he feigned to himself to claim -her appropriately to it--its sensuousness and artificiality. Her lily -complexion was toilet cream; her lips, too startlingly scarlet, were -painted; the flowers in her cheeks were well assumed, since they owed -to the rubbing of geranium petals. All these, with that gleaming gold -for crown, that spun starlight of her hair, were but so many modistic -arts, to which her simple dress of black supplied the clue. Out of -that dusk sheath her shoulders budded with a double emphasis of -whiteness--a cunning scheme of contrasts. - -And so he lusted to slander her to his own heart; and would have cut -that same heart out only to lay it at her slender feet and feel them -trample it. - -And she could be so stately, though a child. Giving the King her hand, -she held him vassal to its whiteness, and smiled a gracious smile when -he raised and kissed it reverently. She had become woman at her tender -years--but through the hate and not the love of man. She had borne -sorrow and was a virgin still. Passion fell dumb before that poignant -motherhood: desire slunk ashamed before her eyes. - -The King handed her forward, with a sort of conscious _chassé_. He -was at pains to practise every punctilious elegance in his reception -of this untutored girl. He looked even nervous and a little inferior. -But custom gave him command. - -“There are occasions, Madam,” he said, “on which even the King is _de -trop_. I leave it to a lovelier monarch to reconcile the parties in -this suit, sure that my affection for both, their sense of duty to the -State, their own passions and interests, will move them to a -compromise. Respect that Judge, my children, for whom I dethrone -myself; and accept his ruling on a cause which I have very much at -heart.” - -With that, he released the Marchesa’s hand, and bowed profoundly, and -withdrew. She made no gesture to retain him. The two remained standing -as he had left them, silent and far apart. - -A storm of emotions swept through the chambers of Cartouche’s brain. -He shook in its thunder. What was the power in this child, this -white-and-pink wax doll, to humble mighty worldlings in her presence, -bring them to her feet--not to sue, but to deprecate all suit of her -as guilt--not to pray; only to adore, and own themselves unworthy? - -She had beauty; and it was not a snare. She had virtue, and it was not -a pose. ’Twas her inaccessibility made her covetable, O thou fond -Ulysses! - -But he did not desire her for himself, he thought. And yet, after all, -why should he not? She was unattached; fair quarry to the free-lance; -no other man’s preserve. He had the right of chase with the whole -world--no bond to honour, even, since she had let another cross the -claim of his friend. _He_ would never have suffered that for himself. -_She_ would never have dared that sin against Cartouche. He gloried -suddenly in his name. If he could only have met her first--a man worth -a woman’s modelling, not a saint invertebrately blessed--a passion, -not a sentiment! Was it too late even now? To gain the whole world in -her and lose his soul! She could make an immortal lust of -damnation--cancel eternity to a moment. He thirsted for that moment -almost beyond endurance. - -What was her power? He had accepted this interview, when thrust upon -him, with a cynic mock for its pretence, a tolerant anticipation of -the moral drubbing it was to procure him. He knew that, in her regard, -not all his brilliant worldly gifts and qualities weighed as one grain -in the balance of good things. A word from Louis’s lips, a look from -Louis’s eyes, would have sent him and all his vanities kicking the -beam. He could not get behind that essential righteousness. It was -impervious to all cleverness, all intellect, all reason even. She was -a fool; but a beautiful unattainable fool is as transporting a -siderite as any other. Wisdom loved a fool--not for the first time in -man’s history: he loved her, because her folly was inaccessible by -him. - -Some say that sex is accident--a chance development; that we are all -bi-sexual within. Woman, prescriptively, is the one to covet most the -unattainable, to pursue the most where most scorned, to love most the -partner who most abuses her love. But what, if you please, does man? -It all turns, in fact, upon the ineradicable human lust for adventure, -the weariness of the rut, the reach at something out of reach. -Yolande, as virtue, was forbidden fruit to this vice. Therefore he -desired her, madly, fiercely; but, at the last, with a saving grace of -humour. - -He found himself, out of that, presently, and moved towards her, very -formal and demure, though his heart was on fire. At a pace or two -distant he stopped. - -“Madam,” he said, “the King wishes you to marry me.” - -He could see a shadow flutter in her white throat. - -“I ask myself, Monsieur,” she said softly, “how I have offended the -King?” - -“Madam,” he rejoined quietly, “I told him that you would not marry -me.” - -“I ask myself,” she went on, seeming to ignore him, “what I have ever -done to justify these shameless solicitations by the shameless.” Her -frigid self-possession, as a quality of sixteen, was a quite pitiful -abnormity. “You are by all accounts, Monsieur,” she said, “a student -of the world. What is it in a woman that seems to mark her down your -legitimate sport? Have I these unconscious attributes? Tell me, only -in your own excuse.” - -“I have said once before, Madam, that you are an angel.” - -“Then do angels beck, like wantons, at the street corners? I am no -angel, Monsieur, and your assurance proves you know it--claims me, -through my own act, to be the butt of your scorn and mockery.” - -“If you could see into my heart--” - -“It professed to speak once of loyalty to a friend. Hold by your -plausible surface, Monsieur. I would not stir those depths, if I were -you.” - -“Then, Madam, would you leave truth to perish in the mud. My heart is -foul, maybe, but there is that to redeem it at the bottom.” - -She stirred a little, turning on him. - -“Truth, sir! Has it lain buried there since that time when for once it -rose to foretell an outrage, which--O, Monsieur! I have not forgotten -your words--your last, when you parted from me on--O, indeed, it is -possible to accommodate a prophecy--to verify through a confederate a -villainy which one has foreshadowed--my God! if _that_ is Truth!” - -He went as white as stone; he looked as petrified. - -“What! Madam,” he said, in a quick, whispering voice; “do you pretend -to deem me capable of that baseness?” - -He gripped her hand suddenly, so as to make her wince; then flung it -from him. - -“I scorn you not for your act,” he cried, “but for your cowardice in -striving to make me its scapegoat.” - -He stepped back in great emotion; and she herself was agitated only a -little less. Her young breast rose and fell in hard pantings: the -force of her self-control revealed itself in this sudden struggle for -breath: and in the end her passion mastered her. She turned a face of -lovely fury on him. - -“You, Monsieur! the scapegoat?--so wronged and misunderstood?--the -poor innocent bearer of other people’s sins? Tell me, are you not that -man who came and offered his services--O, God! the slander of that -word!--to a soul most wounded in her faith, and therefore, as he -thought, most susceptible to the sweet druggings of dishonour? Are you -not that man who would have had me break my vows, stultify all that -tragedy of renunciation, on the strength of a wicked sophistry? A -noble friend to Honour--that man, who, baffled in his devil’s purpose, -must revenge himself by instigating another to desecrate the shrine he -could not force himself! A friend--” - -He put out his hand, and touched her once more--quite gently this -time. But there was some quality in the touch the very antithesis of -that which had impelled his former violence. The girl faltered under -it, and her speech shivered into silence. - -“You are mistaken, Madam.” He measured out his words with a soft and -painful accuracy. “If I proposed to commit you to what convention -styles dishonour (forgive me for using the word once more) it was in -order to save from worse defilement that very shrine at which I -worshipped.” - -She started, and flushed. - -“Monsieur!” - -“Nay, hear me out,” he said, in the same quiet tones. “Even the first -of Tabernacles is not soiled in the poor sinner’s worship. My heart -has always held your image, Madam, the loveliest of its -possessions--and not the less because it cherishes a hopeless dream. I -would have served that dream loyally for love’s sake: I would have -given my life and soul to keep it pure. If I thought to persuade it to -fly to its natural sanctuary, there was a priority in vows to -vindicate my daring. Have you ever considered, Madam, how you broke -one oath to love to swear another to dishonour?” - -She uttered a little cry--moved a step forward--clasped her hands to -her bosom. - -“Understand clearly, Madam,” he said: “I loved you, and would have -yielded you to my friend. I had no alternative, indeed; but that is -not to justify your slander of a renunciation, which was at least as -holy, according to its lights, as yours. I did not urge your husband -to that wickedness. If I hinted to you of its possibility, it was to -open your eyes to the truth--to save my dream from a last -contamination--to confide it to the shrine the most meet, and the most -entitled, to hold it perfect for my adoration. There was no -selfishness in that sacrifice. Though it closed the gates of Paradise -upon me I was content, so long as the vile thing was shut out with me. -I could have heard the singing of your loves within, without a bitter -thought. But that you cannot understand. No virtue, in your narrow -standard, can exist in worldliness. It must be all one or all the -other--vice or sanctity.” - -She was pale and trembling. She made a little involuntary gesture of -her hands, half pleading half deprecating, towards him. He was cold as -steel. - -“As to this royal crochet of our union,” he said quietly--“it turns -upon some fancied policy of State, to which I am no partner. I am as -innocent of its instigation as of its methods or mistakes. It hinted, -a moment ago, that you might be kind to me. I was as incredulous then, -as I am convinced now that no tolerance towards sin is possible to -your nature. I have worshipped at an exclusive altar, and my faith is -construed into a sacrilege. You are insensible, Madam, to the -exaltations of a great passion. I do not plead to you: I reject you. -Even the weakness of my friend--for he is weak--raises him in my eyes -above your cold, methodic virtue. I do not think you are worthy of -him.” - -She bowed her head, weeping. - -“I know it,” she whispered. - -And at that he was disarmed. He stood in great agitation a moment; -then burst out suddenly:-- - -“Madam, Madam, if it is any consolation to you to know, such passion -brings a self-redemption. I am not, cannot be the man I was--never -again. Spare me that gentle association with yourself--your -memory--I’ll persuade the King--Madam, it shall all come right--it--” - -His voice broke; he hesitated a minute, struggling with his emotions, -then hurriedly left the room. - -And Yolande of the white hands hid her face in them, and for long -remained shaken with sobs. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - -Louis-Marie was really ill, though his complaint, it seemed, baffled -diagnosis. He was sunk in an extreme debility, which from a moral had -become a physical one. There appeared nothing wrong with him -constitutionally; but he dreamt, and saw vampires, and the substance -of his eternal illusions figured in “blood-boltered” forms. Nightly -they sucked him, and daily his increasing wanness testified to their -inhuman appetites. He faded to a frail image of himself, very pitiful -in its suggestion of a sick prince of porcelain. Any sudden noise, -like the opening of a door, was enough now to make him start and shake -with terror. A footstep outside the window vibrated in his nerves for -minutes after it had passed. His heart was become a very seismograph -to record alarms. But the unexpected entrance of anyone into the room -most perturbed him. A furtive aghast look, an artificial rally and -instant physical collapse, were the almost certain consequences of -such an intrusion. Once, at a chance mention of Bonito’s name, he sunk -back in his chair as if under a stroke. Cartouche, who was present and -distressfully concerned, attributed his state to a sort of hysterical -resentment against that minister of ill-luck, and struggled to overlay -some conscious contempt of it with a real anxious commiseration. - -“Have you soothed him, reassured him?” he asked of Molly Bramble, when -that frail sweet of Nature came down to him to report upon the -invalid. - -“I have left him asleep,” she said. - -He tramped to and fro in the little room, pondering a psychologic -problem. - -“He fainted when I told him of another loss--a real poignant one that -time. Here’s a mere slip of Fortune--a few ducats rolled into the -gutter. He’s already recovered more than their equivalent in -abstinence. Are these good people so utterly wanting in a sense of -proportion?” - -“Think what it meant to him, Cherry!” - -“And what did it mean, Mollinda?” - -“Why, to go a-courting, to be sure, with that in his hand to recommend -him.” - -“Does he think she needs that form of persuasion? I would not -condescend to break _my_ heart on such a mistress. He’s no worse off -than he was.” - -“Well, he mayn’t be. _But how about her?_” - -Cartouche stopped, and took the girl’s soft chin in his hand. - -“Talk about what you understand, you little village wench,” he said. -“You was bred in a cottage, and think in pence. A guinea is your -standard of corruption. Noble natures are not bought with gold.” - -She did not move: but her eyes, unwinking, filled with tears. - -“Thank you for reminding me,” she whispered. - -Remorse smote him; but still an angrier, or a worthier, feeling made -him stubborn. - -“Pish, Mollinda!” he said; “we’ve agreed to compromise there on a -better sentiment. That proves you noble too, my girl.” - -She looked him fearlessly in the eyes, though her own were like wet -forget-me-nots. - -“Do you know she’s here--in Turin?” she said. - -“No.” - -“Well, she is. You needn’t start and let me go. She’s nothing to you.” - -“Why should she be? Who told you?” - -“He did.” - -She gulped, but did not stir. - -“Tell me honest,” she said. “Is it for my sake, or for hers, that -you’re so anxious all of a sudden to be good?” - -He delayed to answer. She gripped him, quickly and fiercely. - -“If I knew for certain what I’ve feared,” she cried low, “I’d kiss and -cling until you gave me back what I’ve lost--I would, for all it -damned us both together.” - -She broke from him, and went hurriedly out of the room. Reaching the -invalid’s door above, she paused to the sound of a little cry within, -hesitated, and entered. - -Louis-Marie was sitting up on his bed. His eyes were wide with fever. -He greeted her appearance with something like a sob. - -“Who is it?” he whispered. “Has he come? My God, don’t keep me in this -suspense!” - -She hastened to comfort him--the more emotionally; perhaps, because -her own heart was very full. - -“There’s nobody--indeed there isn’t.” - -“I heard voices.” - -“It was only ours--Mr Trix’s and mine.” - -He sank back, with the sigh of a reprieved soul; but was up again -almost immediately, stroking and fondling the girl’s hand. His eyes -had grown flushed and maudlin out of relief. The sensuous fever of him -was uppermost. - -“Dear little nurse!” he murmured; “dear kind little Molly! You never -fail to frighten the dreams away. I think you could cure me altogether -if you would.” - -She sat on the bed, suffering his caresses, because, as she wilfully -told herself, they were lavished on her as another’s proxy. Would she -could act so indeed, in the manner of those Eastern enchantments of -which she had read, and secure that other’s compromise without hurt to -herself! He was emboldened by her passiveness. - -“Molly,” he whispered: “if you would only put your face--here, down by -mine, on the pillow.” - -She did not stir. He stole an arm about her. - -“We could make it all right afterwards,” he said, with a thick little -laugh. “If I once had that reason, as I have the power, to mend -something I’d done, I think I could face the world like a giant. It’s -only shadows that upset me. Perfection, I’ve come to see, was never -meant for men. It’s better to sin a little, if one does penance for -it--better than being a saint. We know that on good authority, Molly, -don’t we? I’ll promise amendment--I will, on my honour--and--and--are -you fond of jewels, Molly?” - -She slipped from him, and to her feet. - -“Are you dreaming still?” she said. “Do you take me for _her_? We -don’t do these things in our class.” - -She had had her little revenge, and flushed triumphantly to it. It -were supererogation to confess--what he did not know--that she was -engaged in these matters to another. But, after all, the creature was -a man, and his offence therefore nothing very terrible. Of course, if -it had signified treachery to his blood-brother, that were another -pair of shoes. But, inasmuch as only the betrayal of his fine -lady-love was implied by it--why, the Marchioness di Rocco might very -well profit by learning that her supposed pre-eminence in men’s hearts -was at least open to challenge. A light sentence--as she considered -it--was enough to meet this case. - -She stood away, panting--a very ruffled little _amourette_, and thrice -desirable in those plumes. - -“I wouldn’t promise on my honour, if I was you, my good gentleman,” -says she. “’Tisn’t much to trust on, when you can speak to me like -that, and you sworn to another. I wonder what she’d think of it all. -You’d best go to sleep, and get the better of yourself.” - -He caught at her, the poor devil, as she was going, all his gauche -libertinism snubbed out of him at a breath. The loss of his -self-respect was nothing to this sudden realisation of his -contemptible immaturity in vice, and of her recognition of it. There -is no such crestfallen dog in all the world as your seducer held up to -ridicule by his intended victim. He appealed to her abjectly:-- - -“Don’t go--don’t! I am so ill. I didn’t mean what--what you suppose. -My brain is all on fire. He wouldn’t allow for that!” - -“He? Who?” she demanded, withdrawing from him. He still pursued her -with his hands, distraught, half frenzied:-- - -“You’re going to tell him, I know; and he so believes in me. It would -be cruel, wicked, to shatter his faith. You ought to think of the -demoralising effect on him--and--and I’m not myself, you know that -perfectly well. I say and do things I had never thought of once.” - -“Do you mean Mr Trix?” she said. - -“You know I do,” he cried. “It would be wicked to tell him!” - -She stood conning him gravely a little. There had been no thought of -tale-bearing a minute ago in her liberal heart. But now, for the first -time, it began to consider that policy, in the light of a possible -retaliation on a suspected rival. The “demoralising effect” on _him_, -her Cherry, quotha! What, indeed, if she were to try that effect, with -the result that it evoked jealousy there, anger, indignation, a -declaration of his exclusive and never-foregone property in her, his -Molly’s, person? It might serve for the very means to dissipate this -sad veil of continence which had come to fall between them, and which, -only out of the inherent purity of her love, she had agreed to -respect. For spiritual relationships, it must be admitted, were -water-gruel to this poor Mollinda, and tinctured with wormwood at -that, when, as in the present case, they carried suspicions of the -disinterestedness of the party suggesting them. - -Should she go and tell him in truth? No, it wasn’t fair to this other -fellow, for all the exhibition he had made of himself. But her -conscious prettiness was something to blame, no doubt, in that matter; -and, after all, he had been guilty of no disloyalty to his friend. Her -ethics of the heart were Nature’s ethics, founded on a frank -recognition of the logic of feminine lures, and the reasonableness of -wanting to pluck inviting fruit when one was thirsty. A parched man -could not be expected to drink water when wine was going. - -Nevertheless, he deserved a measure of punishment, less for his fault -than for his mean attempt to escape its consequences. A little -suspense, she decided, just a moderate spell on the rack, would do him -no harm--might even prove salutary. - -“I’ll promise naught,” she said. “It would just amount to my allowing -a secret between us; and you aren’t the man for my confidence--no, nor -for any part of me. Besides, if you didn’t mean nothing, why should -you be afraid? I’ll do as I think fit, and speak or hold as it suits -me.” - -She whisked away, leaving the adorable fragrance of a dream -unfulfilled to clinch the poor creature’s damnation. She did not know, -could not know, how thorough that was at this last. She would have -been horrified, kind heart, to realise how her balmy breath had blown -a smouldering fire into devouring flame; how it had sentenced this -victim of “little-ease” to be transferred to the pillory. For indeed -in that sorry yoke did she leave Louis-Marie exposed to himself, and, -as he thought, to all the world. - -There is a form of morbid self-consciousness which is characterised by -a perpetual turning inward of the patient’s moral eye. The man subject -to it sees--especially during the wakeful hours of the night--his own -past deeds and words imbued with a meaning of which they had appeared -quite innocent when acted or spoken. He writhes in the memory of -mistakes of self-commission or omission, which no one other than -himself, probably, is troubling to recall, or is even capable of -recalling. What an ass somebody must have thought him under such and -such circumstances, is the reflection most distressingly constant to -his mind. Nevertheless, while eternally holding himself the -irreclaimable fool of untactfulness, he remains to his own -appreciation a thing of price, which he himself is for ever giving -away for nothing Modesty is no part of his equipment though he is so -sensitively conscious of his own failings. He cannot detach himself -from himself, in fact, or, even once in a way, realise comfortably his -own insignificance in the serene philosophy of the Cosmos. - -So far for his tortured memory of solecisms, real or imaginary, -committed by himself. When it comes to the question with him of a -genuine conscience-stricken introspection, his reason is in the last -danger of overthrow. - -Now, Louis-Marie’s was a temperament a little of this order. It was -the temperament of a man at once thin-skinned and bigoted, righteous -and passionate. It had all the conceit and the sensitiveness of -conscious virtue. The fellow could never forget himself, in the -abstract sense--believe that people were not incessantly thinking and -talking of him. A morbid diathesis is the inevitable result of such -self-centralisation. Acutely sentient, it will learn to inflame to the -least thrust of criticism, and to brood eternally over the -pointlessness of its own _ripostes_. Then, at last, when it comes to -sin, as it is bound some time to do, it will take its lapses with a -self-same seriousness as it took its merits. It is always, in its own -vanity, a responsible example; people are always regarding it. Its -attitude, as a consequence, will become a pose; but by now it is a -fair rind hiding a rotting kernel. The devastating grub has entered, -and it dare not reveal itself by expelling it. It hugs its disease in -secrecy, hoping against hope for some interior process of healing. How -can self-centredom heal itself? There comes a day when the last film -cracks, and its emptiness stands exposed to the world. - -Louis-Marie, abandoned to his reflections, thought that that day had -arrived for him. His hollow pretence was on the point of being laid -bare; he was to be made the subject of a universal contempt and -execration. A moment’s temptation had revealed him to himself for the -sham thing he was--would reveal him to Gaston--would reveal him, in -the certain course of scandal, to Yolande. For ever more now he must -be an outcast from social respectability. His life, for all that it -was worth, was virtually at an end. - -Practically, too, it seemed almost. He fell back on his bed in a -death-sickness, and lay there without movement, without conscious -thought, for hours. - -Cartouche, returning, very quiet and sombre, from his interview with a -great lady in the Palace, heard him moaning to himself, as he passed -his door, and went softly in. The room was in darkness; only a faint -light from the lamps outside fell spectrally across the figure -stretched on the bed. He crossed hurriedly to it and bent over. - -“What is it, brother? Are you so ill?” - -Saint-Péray uttered a little weak cry between terror and rapture. - -“Gaston! is it you? I believe I am dying.” - -“No, no.” - -“I have so waited for you, sinking and struggling to keep above. This -load! I can endure it no longer. You are so strong--I seem always to -have clung to you--my brother--and you will take some of the burden? -Yet how can I ask you! O, my God, my God! to what can I appeal!” - -“Why not to my love, Louis?” - -“Ah! your love!--there were older claims to it. You don’t know--you -know nothing of it all--of what I am and have been--of what I am -capable, even, when tempted. Or do you? are your eyes opened a little -since--but what does it matter! I will confess everything; I--O, my -Yolande! my Yolande!” - -“Now hush! and listen--do you attend? I am but this moment come from -her.” - -“You--O, Gaston! fetch me a priest--I am going!” - -“She loves you still--I say, she loves you still. Is not that the best -priest--and doctor, too? I will go and fetch _her_.” - -The sick man clutched at him frantically. - -“And confirm my sentence? You shall not. Though it parts us for ever, -I must speak. I could live, I think, if once this load were thrown. -Gaston!--” - -“I am listening.” - -“It was I murdered di Rocco!” - - - - - CHAPTER IX - -The burden cast, the released soul ran out and on, babbling, -half-delirious, growing in noise and volume, until, flowing to waste, -it sunk into the silence of exhaustion. - -“I knew--as you all know now--what he intended, and where he was -going. I had been informed secretly, and I set out to waylay him. -Coming to the point from which he was to cross the glacier, I hid -among the stones; and presently I saw him approach. There were great -clouds, but a little starlight between--enough to make him sure. On -the slope of the moraine a drunken scoundrel, who carried a lantern, -veiled till then, rose to greet him. He was the other’s guide and -pander--and for whose undoing? O, my God! O, my God, Gaston! Think -what it meant--to me! to heaven! and heaven was the coward at the -last. It was all for me to do alone--prevent this horror, if I could -not persuade it. God sleeps, I think, when the riddles of mortal -wickedness get too much for Him: and then He wakes, and chastises weak -Nature for its false solutions. It is so easy to say This must not be, -and ignore the circumstances which will make _this_, and no other, -inevitable. - -“I saw them meet, I say; and even then I could scarcely believe that -upon me, and me alone was thrust God’s responsibility to the maze He -had permitted. Yet I had no thought at the first, I swear, but to -prevail through gentleness. As I followed them down upon the ice, a -prayer was in my heart that, seeing itself discovered and exposed, -this sin would come to own itself--would at least deprecate my worst -suspicions of it, and, if for policy alone, go the practical way to -allay them. I did not know the man--no spark of decency or honour left -to leaven his vileness--a liar without shame. How I came upon him is -all a dream in my mind. I had pursued the light, now here, now gone, -but always rekindling somewhere in front; until in a moment it -stopped, and I had overtaken it. He was alone; had just, it seemed, -re-lighted the lantern, and was taking breath from the exertion, while -it rested near him on the snow. The other had disappeared, and we two -stood face to face and alone in the heart of that desolation. I don’t -know what I said to him, or he to me--things, on his part, monstrous -beyond speaking. His tongue lashed me like a flame--drove me to -madness. God should have torn it out; but God was sleeping. He would -scourge me, he said, before he crucified. For he meant to kill me for -my daring, and cast my body into a crevasse he pointed out hard by, -and whistle up my ghost to follow and witness to his filthy triumph. -He was a great man, a great power, a giant of strength and wickedness. -But, as he came at me, he slipped, as even a giant may, and I put my -knife into his heart.” - -The voice, in the dark room, shrilled into a febrile transport; the -weak hand was re-playing its ecstatic deed. And the watcher sat -without a word or sign, and listened--listened. - -“I heard his soul go from him like a hiss of fire--and then the storm -burst upon me. It flogged me in a moment into reason; I saw the -crevasse stretching at my feet; and I heaved him towards it, and heard -him go down. Knife and all he went; and after them I cast the lantern, -and then there was nothing more--only my love, my love’s safety, the -guerdon of my red hands. - -“It was that one thought which saved me, while I cowered and let the -storm roll over. Then I returned by the way I had come. I don’t know -what guided my footsteps: I knew nothing more until I awoke in my bed -to light, and the blast of that mad memory.” - -He paused a moment, while his soul seemed to fume on his lips: then -burst out once more:-- - -“A curse upon those who forced the deed upon me--who would have made -a wanton of my idol! They are to blame--they are to blame, not I! I -struck to keep God’s law immaculate--I was all alone, while He slept; -and I struck to vindicate His law. And He awoke, and damned me for my -deed--no palm of martyrdom; but torture, the endless torture of a -haunted wickedness--agues of sickness and terror--threats, menaces--a -guilty conscience. Am I guilty? O, Gaston! where is heaven? ... I lost -her that I might save her: her shrine was my heart, and I bloodied it. -What she had been to me, not you nor anyone can realise--saint, -sweetheart, loveliness--too divine for passion, and too passionate for -heaven--God’s earnest to me of immortal raptures. Why, I lived in -her--worshipped her. O, my God, my God, Gaston! If she was more to me -than heaven, was that a just rebuke to _me_ to make _her_ foul? ... -You all know now, I say, what I knew then. Put yourself in my -place--that man--filthy iniquity--no grace of truth or honour--a -ruttish beast. O! he was your friend, I know--forgive me--what a -friend! I had been stone till then--till it was whispered to me what -he designed--stone, with a heart of fire. Perhaps I had built a little -on the thought of that year’s respite--a year in which to hold him at -bay while we prayed and prayed for God to intervene. O, a cry to -stone!--no hope, no response. When I killed him, I plucked the dagger -from my own heart to plunge it into his. Was not that good, even -then--to send him to his account, saving his soul those last two -mortal sins? Tell me, Gaston, was it not good?” - -“It was good and just, Louis--to lose her for ever that you might save -her for ever.” - -The wild shape on the bed ceased its convulsive transports, while it -seemed to meditate the answer. Presently it spoke again, but feebly, -as if in a gathering exhaustion:-- - -“Yes, I have lost her for ever--you mean it, indeed, Gaston?” - -“He was her husband, Louis. Will you confess to her? Could she marry -you if you did? Could you marry her if you did not? You did right, I -say. I take the burden of your conscience as a light one, and commit -you to rest.” - -“Gaston!” - -The poor wretch struggled to express his gratitude and relief. In the -midst, his voice trailed into incoherence, and ceased. Cartouche, -looking at him, saw that he had topped the crisis and was asleep. - - * * * * * * * * - -Self-composed, an exquisite _sans reproche_, carrying, sword-like, a -sort of sombre blitheness in his speech and mien, the Prefect of -Faissigny descended to his duties on the morning succeeding that -poignant interview. These were prefigured for him in the shape of a -waiting chaise and postillions, bespoken overnight, and attending now -in the street outside his windows; and, more intimately, in an early -bird of domesticity, who was busying herself with the preparation of -some worm-like sticks of bread, and the fastidiously-exacted -proportions of a cup of chocolate and coffee. He greeted her with a -half-remorseful, half-irritable allusion to her swollen eyes. - -“My faith, girl! You look as if you had been fighting in your dreams, -and got the worst of it.” - -She faced on him bravely. - -“And so I have, and so I have--been fighting with my thoughts, and got -my punishment. Won’t you kiss them well, Cherry?” - -“Put a blister to a blain, child! That would never do.” - -She held up her sweet soft lips to him. - -“Put it there, then, and show you’ve forgiven me.” - -“Forgiven!” he cried cheerfully, and moved away. “I’ve nothing to -forgive but a rogue to our compact. Come, bustle, girl, bustle! I must -be off.” - -She flushed, as if she had been stung; but she obeyed, entreating no -more. - -“You must go, then?” she said presently--“for real and true, Cherry?” - -He shrugged impatiently. - -“Haven’t I told you that I’m to receive his keys of office to-morrow -from the old Prefect at Le Prieuré, and the _congés_ of his staff? -_Morituri me salutant_. Shall I be Cæsar and subject to an -apron-string? There are rogues waiting to be hung, and conscripts to -be plucked and dressed. Be quick, child, be quick, or di Rocco’s -murderer may escape me!” - -“Cherry!” she cried out aghast--“was he murdered?” - -He gave a curious violent laugh. - -“The King says so: and the King can speak no lie. Come, I must go.” - -She busied herself about his needs and comforts. Once she paused. - -“When will you be back?” - -“How can I tell!” he answered hurriedly. “What a drag on a restless -wheel! There! don’t cry. I shall come again, never fear. I shall--” - -He was suddenly ready, and standing fixedly before her, his hat on his -head, a heavy cloak over his arm. His voice, his manner, had all at -once taken on a tone significant, forceful, imperious. - -“I have a thing to say before I go--one last thing. Attend to it well. -M. Saint-Péray is asleep this morning. I think he is better now, and -will recover. But from this moment the treatment is to be changed--no -mending of an idyll any longer; no leading of him that way to hope and -sanity. What I set you to do I set you now to undo. The end we once -designed has become impossible. Do you understand? _They cannot ever -marry now_.” - -“Why not?” Her voice was like a death-cry far away. - -“She’s not for him, I say. Let that suffice. If he is weak--he may -be--be strong for him. He’ll thank you some day. For the rest, bear -what I say in mind--they must be kept apart at any price.” - -He gazed at her earnestly a minute, pressed her hand, and was gone. -She did not follow him to the door. She stood as he had left her, -quite silent and motionless. A bee, a whiff of apples were blown in -together at the open window. The sing-song of a bell, high up and -distant somewhere, rippled in soft throbbings through her brain. A -crow cawed in the trees opposite. There was a chair near her, a plain -Windsor cottage chair, which Cartouche had bought at a sale to please -some whim of hers. She threw herself down at its feet, and prostrate, -as if praying, over the hard wood, fell into a convulsion of crying. - -“O, mammy! Come and take your bad girl home to England!” - - - - - CHAPTER X - -Dr Bonito sat isolated at a little table in the self-same _Café_ -where he and Louis-Marie had once before consorted. The table stood -well in the middle of the room, and under an uncompromising glare of -candles. Thus, and in public, your wise plotter will station himself -for security. It is a mistake to suppose that, because his plans are -obscure, he will seek obscure corners for developing them. Panels have -ears; and even a tree, however solitary on a plain, may be hollow. Dr -Bonito sat, for all his stale and fusty exterior was worth, in the -light. - -Judged by it, he seemed, indeed, too spare a vessel to contain much -worth discussion. He was like one of those little sticks of grassini, -all crust. Each of the tiny sips he took from a tiny glass of vermouth -at his side suggested the threading of a needle. There was no question -of breadth or openness in him anywhere. Shrewd, wintry, caustic, he -was just as cold, as sharp and as bowelless as a needle--a thing all -point and eye. - -The latter, visionless as it appeared, never lost account of the -minutes ticking themselves away on a dingy clock on the wall. They -were Destiny’s forerunners to the doctor, few or many; but he had too -much wit to question the delays of Destiny. She had to travel by -roundabout roads very often. - -And she was pretty punctual on the present occasion, arriving in the -person of a small, child-faced gentleman, so pacific in expression, -that the cloak and brigand’s “slouch” he wore were nothing less than -an outrage on credulity. He came up to the isolated table, and claimed -its tenant in a voice so little and soft that at a yard distant it -might have passed for a purr:-- - -“Greeting to thee, Spartacus, Provincial of Allobrox!” - -Bonito’s acknowledgment was in like tone, but surly and between his -teeth--half purr, half spit:-- - -“Greeting, Maître-d’Hôtel-in-Ordinary to King Priam--or, greeting, -Caius Sempronius Gracchus, illuminatus minor!--whichever you like best -to be called by.” - -“Can you doubt, master?” - -“I give myself no concern about it. Sit down, schoolboy.” - -The little man obeyed, meek and deferential. Bonito cast a -supercilious look at him. - -“You grow sleek on plenty, Maître d’Hôtel. Beware! Do you not see -the walls of Cosmopolis rising inch by inch to the clouds? We shall -put on the roof in a little, and hang our flag from it. How about your -office then? There will be no fat sinecures there for such as you.” - -“Master, I desire no greater privilege, now or ever, than that of -following your footsteps.” - -“A pampered pug; a greasy, royal lick-platter. Look at me--Spartacus, -Provincial of Allobrox--to thee, as Jupiter to a call-boy! My -footsteps, quotha! Art thou not Apicious, pug?” - -“No, indeed. My gluttony is all for knowledge.” - -“Wouldst be content to dine with me day by day on the liberal air?” - -“Ay, assuredly, if I could come by it to thy greatness of vision.” - -“Wise Sempronius! How, then, am I great to him?” - -“How but in all that he lacks--wisdom, precognition--great in -everything.” - -“Save in my midriff--as I were a King, great in all possessions but -that of a Kingdom.” - -“The universe is your scroll: the water is your mirror: the wind is -your subject.” - -“Yes, I am full of that subject.” - -“Your mind can traverse empty space.” - -“And does every day, I assure you, thinking on my stomach.” - -“To me--little catechumen of our order--you figure for Omnipotence.” - -“Alack! and I cannot command a meal. Set all this wisdom against one -smoking dish, the scrolls of heaven against a bill of fare, and -observe my choice. Beef and ale are the Fates we gods are subject to. -You fly too high for us. Why, look you, little man, I am so empty -sometimes I could think of insulting a swashbuckler, only that he -might force me to swallow my own words.” - -“Master, if I might--why will you never let me--?” - -“What! Omnipotence stoop to be treated by its scullion!” - -“The Pope takes Peter’s pence.” - -“The Pope?--swine of Epicurus! No more, Sempronius. At least I’ve -learned to walk on air--by so much nearer godhead--go great distances -on it too--from Epopt to Regent, from Regent to Magus, from Magus to -Areopagite. Nay--let me whisper it--in moments of thrilling venture, -even into the heart of the Greater Mysteries, where, supreme and -invisible, I take my throne as lord.” - -“What! of us all--General of the Illuminati?” - -The little man whispered it awestruck, then twittered into ecstasy. - -“And why not, great Spartacus, mage and mastermind? What should keep -you from even that stupendous goal?” - -“Why, indeed, child, I know of no worse obstacle than my poverty. Nor -is that to question the pure altruism of our Creed. But promotion to -great offices must necessarily depend on one’s material capacity to -support them. Reforms, whether to practical republics or moral -communisms, require financing; and the long purse will naturally -grudge the first credit for that to the short one. To be supreme lord -of self-sacrifice, one must be able to exhibit supremely one’s title -to the distinction. If that were to be gained by no more than making -nobly free with other people’s money, I should have ten thousand -rivals to dispute my right to the pre-eminence. And justly. It’s -reason, I say, and I don’t complain. Still, the time may come--” - -“It must, master; it shall.” - -Bonito pondered, with some indulgent condescension, the other’s mild, -fanatic face. The creature was but a “minerval”--an Illuminatus, that -is to say, having his foot on the lowest rung of that ladder on which -he himself stood relatively exalted. But it is pleasant to be -apotheosised, even by an insignificant groundling; and the pleasure, -though to a philosopher, may lose nothing from the fact of that -groundling’s social superiority. For, indeed, if Caius Sempronius -Gracchus was not the rose, he could say, with Benjamin Constant, he -lived near it. He was a house-steward in the royal palace, in fact, -and, as such, a useful humble auxiliary to these forces of -anti-monarchical transcendentalism, whose policy it was to titillate -the ears of their neophytes with a jargon of classical pseudonyms, -and, by endowing mediocrity with resounding titles, to stimulate it to -a fervid emulation of its prototypes. Caius Sempronius Gracchus, an -enthusiastic, well-meaning little rantipole, could conceive for -himself no more flattering destiny than to be some time Tribune under -this omniscient Praetor in the coming Cosmopolis. He lived for ever, -for all his little albuminous brain was worth, in that cloudy castle. -And Bonito found him useful. - -This strange man, indeed--who let himself be supposed of the -Rosicrucians, a discredited sect, merely to cover his connection with -the later and much more formidable Society of the Illuminati--desired -wealth only as a means to his personal advancement in his own -mysterious Order. All his plans were directed to that end and to none -other. Money, for its own sake, he despised; but money alone could -direct his line of curvature towards the heart, the holy of holies, of -that great centrifugal force, which, under the name of Illuminati, or -the Enlightened, was destined--in its own conception, at least--to -revolutionise the political systems of the world. - -And what was that heart? And why did its attainment figure so -covetable to this close-locked, thin-blooded misanthrope? It -represented to him, one must suppose, an ideal of power to which no -existing autocracy could afford a parallel--a power to be likened only -to the sun of one of those starry systems which his brain had warped -itself in considering--a power, the focus of countless satellites -humming harmonious worship about it in revolving belts of light--a -power, in short, which was vested, solely and indivisibly, so far as -mundane affairs were concerned, in the person of the General of all -the Illuminati. - -Well, as to this General, this veiled prophet, “old nominis umbra,” -mystic, unapproachable. A plain word in season, as to him and his -system, must suffice for an irreverent generation. He was a stupendous -mystery to his creatures; and was designed to be. Like an unspeakable -spider, he commanded, from their middle point of contact, the -radiations, with all their concentric rings, of a vast web of -political intrigue, every touch on which was communicated to, and -answered by, him automatically. He was elected, in the first instance, -from amongst themselves, by a council of twelve, called the -Areopagites. These were the virtually absolute, analogous to the Roman -Decemviri. Thence, in successive gradation, extended the inferior -orders: the national directors, each, also, entitled to his council of -twelve; the provincials, or magistrates of provinces, having their -courts of regents; and the deans of the Academies of priests, or -epopts, who were seers and star-gazers to a man. Beyond these, the -Mysteries diffused themselves by way of the Chevalier ecossais, or -first initiate, to the noviciates of illuminatus dirigens, illuminatus -major and illuminatus minor, until they touched limit in the simple -proselyte or freshman, of whom is a boundless credulity in the forces -of secrecy. - -That was exacted of him, as were also an unquestioning obedience and -inviolable devotion to the mandates of his order--blind faith, in -fact. He took an absurd name, foreswore his will, and mastered the -calendar of the brotherhood--if he was wise enough. Great folly, to be -sure, but folly is wisdom’s catspaw. The gods know the value of -gilding a fool’s eyes. These Asphandars and Pharavardins, these -pseudonyms and Allobroxes (which last, by the way, meant the Province -of Faissigny), were only so much harlequin tinsel irradiating the body -of a stern purpose. Behind all the glittering foppery was existent a -very resolute and far-reaching design--one no less than the universal -decentralisation of governments, and the qualification of the -world-citizen. It was no small ambition, perhaps, that of aspiring to -the generalship of the Illuminati. - -And, if Fortune had fooled Dr Bonito by a quibble, money still -remained to him the sovereign test of truth. The stars had read him -his destiny, for all that that earthly goddess, being earthy, had -delighted to falsify their calculations. It was her way. It was his to -trust a higher ruling, and to have faith in its verification by the -way the stars had pointed. Money, money! by whatever means he must -obtain it. His present interview was only a step in that direction. - -“Well, well,” he said, “the future’s in the womb of Destiny. Enough, -Sempronius--say no more; but deliver your report. We treat of Paris -and of Helen in the Court of Priam.” - -The other looked cautiously about him before he answered,-- - -“She’ll not have Paris, master: she has refused him.” - -“What!” - -“Yes, yes--the King despite; and out of favour, by the token--she and -her father--and retired to her own villa in the Via della Zecca, while -Paris has taken his outraged heart to Allobrox, there to vent its -dudgeon in our suppression.” - -“We’ll see to that. A fine Prefect! Worthy of such a Priam! But, for -the other--she has not refused him, I say.” - -“She has, indeed.” - -“Yet he proposed for her?” - -“That’s certain.” - -“And enough for me. Acute Sempronius, thou little wise and worming -man! We’ll have thee on the Council some day. Now, go; I have my cue. -Refused him, has she? Well, he’ll be gone indefinitely--and time to -act. _Vale_, Sempronius!” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - -Molly Bramble was, and had always been, within the pale of her -social limitations, a perfectly good girl, sweet, modest and -wholesome. Child of a class rather prone, in its maternal admonitions, -to awaken a precocious curiosity as to the signs and indications which -distinguish the bad male fruit from the good, to put its virgins on -their guard against suggestion by suggesting, she was even a little -remarkable for her artless pudency. As maid and milkmaid she had -invited no offence, guarded her bosom from so little as a sun-ray’s -wanton kissing, cherished her sweet honour, jealously but simply, -within the bounds her state prescribed. - -But she had had no arts to negotiate it beyond these, and, when the -ordeal came, and she heard it called a lovely superstition by lips -adorable in seduction, her innocence must yield it, for the archaism -it was pronounced, to that bright masterful intelligence. - -It had all dated, alas! from a village wedding--or alas or not -alas--she had never thought to give _it_ a sigh till now. Zephyr the -god, coming over the hill, had taken Chloris unawares amongst her -flowers; and the way of a god was not woman’s guilt, but joy. Shame -could not come to blossom from that divine condescension. For its -sake, she had even stiffened to something of a precisian in questions -of maidenly decorum. - -And now? The sigh, wafted from that distant scene, had overtaken her -at last. Those weddings, those weddings! Chaste procurers to the -unchaste. How men took advantage--of their feasts and dancings, of -beating pulses and warm proximities, of the sense of neighbouring -consummations--to plead the dispensations of the hour! Recalling that -plea, her god seemed all at once to reveal himself a mortal thing, and -subject to the mortal laws of change. She felt no longer secure in him -through her own unchanging faith. Her faith was shaken. - -The glory of the morning fields; blown blue skies and the squirt of -milk into pails; the cosy sweetness of ricks; pigeons, and the click -of pattens on dewy tiles; a voice singing, far away in the sunny -window of a dairy, - - “All the tears Saint Swithin can cry, - Saint Bartlemey’s mantle shall wipe ’em dry”-- - -such memories had but figured hitherto for the dim background, sweet -and a little pathetic, to a more poignant pastoral. Now, all of a -sudden, they were the commanding poignancy, infinitely haunting, -infinitely remote, and for ever and ever, as realities, irrecoverable. -Was all St Bartlemey’s mantle equal to drying the well of tears which -she felt gathering in her soul? The darkness of a great apprehension -was on her--a spectre, formless but menacing, in the thrall of whose -shadow she saw herself separated by a lifeless dumb abyss from her -living past. How had she crossed it unknowing, that deadly gulf? There -had seemed to her no break in the continuity of past and present; -until, lo! in an instant her eyes had been opened, and she knew -herself for a derelict in a desert, crying to a fading mirage. - -What had happened, so to blind her eyes, obliterate space, cancel all -time? A consciousness of guilt, the very first, stole in to answer. -Love, whom she had scorned, had betrayed her--had led her on, -revenging that slight, to the very threshold of a brothel, and there -abandoned her. - -And his _protégé_, for whom he had done this thing? A chawbacon -gallant, the very antipodes of the other--but then Love was born in -Arcady, and favours a rustic wooer. Poor Reuben’s homely image rose -before her--heroic hobnails, sentiment in a smock, but honest and -clear-seeing within the limits of his vision. Reuben had _seen_, and -dared to expostulate--and been smartly caned by Cartouche for his -presumption. And Reuben had blubbered--that was fatal. A crying man is -always contemptible. Yet in what other way, their relative ranks -considered, could he have answered to those flips of Fate? Privilege, -in these days, kept the stocks and gallows up its sleeve for the -correcting of any such ebullitions on the part of a mutinous -commonalty. The odds were disproportionate, and Reuben could only -express his sense of that in tears. - -Poor Reuben! what had become of him? Cured his harrowed heart, belike, -with dressing of Joan or Betty. She wished she knew--could reclaim -herself to the past with even that much of certain knowledge, and -comfort. How he must hate her memory! She felt very deserted and -forlorn. - -And all about what? Ask love, when in its nerves it feels the first -faint false harmonic jar within a perfect song; forehears the strife -of notes which that one cracked seed of discord must come to -germinate. Sure ear; sure prophecy; sure sorrow. The sound of M. -Saint-Péray’s first footfall on her threshold had been that fatal -dissonance to Molly. Somehow, by some sad and mystic intuition, she -had felt her hymn of happy days a broken sequence from that moment. - -Now, left alone with him, the unconscious ruiner of her peace, she -felt she could have endured better to nurse a declared enemy than this -nerveless, ballastless ally and patient, whose very infirmity of -purpose was her bane. Realising the poor emotional thing he was, how -weak in self-control, she could have loathed her task enough without -this sudden embargo laid on her prescribed methods. No longer to -reassure his indecision--rather to confirm it? Why, that very task of -comforting his faint spirit, bidding it on to hope, had been her own -one reassurance in a world of doubts! And now--? - -O, heart! O, heart! What did this change of policy portend? What had -happened to make it so imperative all at once? She could think of no -answer but one; and that way madness lay. - -Ah! her lord, her gentleman! She knew him well enough to know she knew -him not at all. His passions were--had been--for her: his confidences -were always for himself alone. Blind obedience was what he had exacted -of her, and with blinded eyes she had let him lead her, even across -that abyss. She would never learn from him. He loved in parables. - -O! Why had this stranger ever come between them, with his sighs and -moans and irresolution? It was that same irresolution which was the -crux of all. What woman could tolerate a diffident lover--and in the -face of a masterful one! She, for her part, would grant how alluring -by contrast must appear this puissant rival, Cartouche, her own pretty -gentleman--if rival he were. Her whole soul rose aghast to combat the -thought; yet, if he were not so indeed, what was his interest in -ousting this other from the lists? - -“_The end we designed has become impossible. They cannot ever marry -now._ She’s not for him. _They must be kept apart at any price._” - -These positive admonitions scorched her brain: day and night, sleeping -and waking they beat fiercely through it. What had M. Saint-Péray -done to forfeit his right? Was _she_ to serve as catspaw to those -others’ loves, and lay a troublesome rival? A treachery beyond -conceiving. “_If he’s weak, be strong for him. He’ll thank you some -day._” Thank her? _her_ the reward, perhaps, to irresolution for a -claim foregone! Had Gaston heard of that scene between them, and -chosen, for his own ends, to construe it into infidelity to himself? -She could not believe him so credulous or so base, nor fortune so -inhuman. - -But her poor mad mind dwelt upon the monstrous thought--wrought itself -into a frenzy over it--piled fuel on its fuel, in and out of reason. -What if it were justified? No disobedience could be too great to -counter such a crime! She had been good, good, good--good, and -faithful, and self-obliterating--how utterly she herself had never -realised, until these visions of her past had risen to renounce her. -What had she not sacrificed for him--home--honour--that dear -untroubled land of innocence! had made herself an outcast for his -sake. And so to be dealt the fate of the heartless, self-qualified -wanton! “O, mammy! mammy!” she wept again, rocking and moaning. - -But a fiercer thought rose to dry her tears. This other--this -woman--this white witch who had come between her love and her! She had -not forgotten a word of his description--no, nor the unspoken words, -that eloquence of silence which fills the gaps of speech. Eyes will -betray what tongue conceals. She’d seen his look beyond her at some -vision; she-- - -O, how she hated her, hated her! A lily? Well, there were lilies and -lilies. The scent of some grew rank at close quarters. Sweet and pure -of heart? Sweet candour, indeed, to own oneself an apostate from the -faith one’s heart had sworn to--and for a fortune’s sake! Scruples, -forsooth? They were the opportunity of the unscrupulous. She’d -betrayed her love once: why not a second time? - -Love’s an elemental passion in poor Mollindas--no _finesse_, no pose, -no self-consciousness about it. They come from near the soil, and -follow Nature’s instincts. A mate’s a mate to them; their season is a -lifetime. There’s no cuckold in Nature, nor any room for one. Once -pledged, the dear doe animal but knows her lord, and holds herself -meekly at his pleasure. He may be polygamous; she is never -polyandrous: to conceive his condoning, even encouraging, such an -offence in her would be monstrous. - -Cartouche was no Joseph to his poor Thais. She did not expect him to -be. She expected only his recognition of her eternal bond to him. The -thought, justified or not, that he was seeking to repudiate his sole -title to her, smote her like a madness. The thing was abnormal, -horrible, beyond reason. Yet it struck and bit into her brain. Out of -it, its torture and its haunting, this meek and pretty song-bird -threatened to grow a harpy. - -Louis-Marie, lying exhausted on his bed, like one lately released from -some rending possession by devils--accepting with shamefaced gratitude -the gentle ministrations of his nurse--never guessed how mechanic had -grown the touch which soothed his pillows; what bitter scorn of him -was expressed in the averted glances of those Saxon blue eyes. For -indeed Molly could hardly look at him with safety to her patient -reason. _This_ the thing destined to her love’s succession! She felt -like one, fairy-struck, who has gone to sleep under a hay-cock, and -wakes to find herself in a strange place, the sport of goblin company. -Where had her lines fallen! she thought amazed, the sleep, as it were, -yet in her eyes--among what poor counterfeits of manhood? Her lines? -She had no lines. There was the woeful thing--the lack of the -talisman, wilfully foregone, which would have rendered these wiles -innocuous. - -Reuben had howled when whipped, like a too-forward hound lashed to -heel--a natural cry of pain. But his boldness it was that had brought -him his chastisement. He would have been at the throat of his -mistress’s enemy; and his grief had been that his mistress disowned -him. Had she once given his stubborn constancy (a pathetic quality she -was now for the first time appreciating at its value) the right to -protect her, she believed fully he would have answered, hard and ugly, -in confidence of the law, the outrage to _his_ honour. His tears? -Tears shed by an honest lad, helpless and writhing under the heel of -tyranny triumphant. What pure water they had been compared with the -hysteric weepings of this saintly milksop--of these amateur -heroics--of this tragedy, to her protestant mind, of a deposed -churchwarden! - -And so her thoughts recoiled as if from a sudden adder. What was -Reuben to her, any more than was this other--a dull, thick-witted -clown? To resent his just whipping? Strike back? Hurt her dear lord? -“O, Cherry, Cherry! I never meant it! _Him_ to presume and dare! You -were merciful not to kill him.” - -Ah! her own love--her dark young tyrant. “Come back to me, Cherry! -Give up the bad white witch! My heart is bursting in its wild great -longing!” - -Yet, while she hated to look on Louis-Marie, one aspect of him could -not but hold her curious observation. “He’s better: I think he will -recover.” Those had been her master’s words. Recover? from this -death-blow to his hopes? Take on new lease of life from the withdrawal -of what had served for that life’s one frail support? Yet, it -appeared, Cartouche had judged aright. The invalid grew better from -that day--more calm, more self-possessed; had ceased to chafe and -writhe. What did it mean, if not again that she was offered, the -potential salve to a damaged conscience? - -A hectic convalescence only, could she but have known it. The wound -was there, and angry; only the festering fragment, which had made its -intolerable fret, had been withdrawn. Ease had come with confession, -and hope from the strong scornful self-assurance of the confessor. It -was the interval marking the sevenfold rally of the exorcised demon; -but, while it obtained, Louis-Marie knew almost the exaltation of a -saint uplifted by a consciousness of heroic self-sacrifice. - -Yet pallid throes would take him in the night. Gaston was fearless, -Gaston was bold-seeing; but was Gaston quite the man to resolve nice -ethical problems? Would Yolande (lost to him: he told himself so, -lingering on guilty dreams of her) accept the ruling of such a -spiritual director? - -The thought was father of many--a week-knee’d generation. He would -never dare to put her to that test--not for his own sake; not for -hers. For her sake, indeed, to keep sacred her mind’s peace, he would -be content for ever to bear his burden solitary. An idle resolve, -since she was lost to him. Lost, of course--but what if God should -hold that self-conscious burden atonement enough? Superfluous -macerations were not holy, but distasteful to heaven. Was it not his -duty, rather, to give himself to restore her faith in heaven’s -dispensations? Likely enough she had come to think herself unworthy of -him--of him, Louis, who had stood for her belief in Providence. Did he -not owe it to her, to God, at the cost of whatever self-renunciation, -to reassure her in the ways of faith? Her faith might decline on -heterodoxy otherwise. - -He had so relieved his own conscience, with the shifting of its burden -into that stronger grasp, as almost to have lured himself into the -belief that not he, but Gaston, was the one responsible to its past. -It needed however but the rematerialising of a certain spectre, grown -hazy for a little in that charmed atmosphere of casuistry, to bring -about in him a sharp and instant relapse. - -One day he was sitting in his room, listening, with shut eyes and -drowsy relish, to the voice of one of the two little _cameristas_ who -comprised the signorina’s _ménage_, and who would delight to come and -read to him when invited. These were quite excellent little abigails, -decorous as Molly could wish; with a taste for the lives of the Saints -(male, if possible), and a devotion, of course, for Louis-Marie. He -was always a lovely sentiment to such, with his angelic colouring, his -piety, his gentle courtesy of manner towards the least of his -inferiors. Each of these (pinks of morality within the recognised -Italian conventions) adored him, and was never so happy as when bidden -up to amuse her paragon with passages from his favourite anecdotes of -the Saints. - -And thus read Fiorentina, in her shrewd small chaunt:-- - -“St Pol de Leon took a fancy to travel, and walked over the sea one -fine morning to the Isle of Batz. The governor of which, one de -Guythure, greatly coveting a silver Mass bell belonging to the King of -England, St Pol commandeth a fish of the sea to swallow and bring it -thence to him. Which the fish hasting to accomplish, the bell itself -on its arrival is found gifted with a miraculous power to heal, even -in some cases more potent than the Saint’s own. Whereby St Pol is -shown to be of less account than a little silver bell. And thereat he -boweth himself to God’s rebuke, witnessing how that sanctity, no less -than worldliness, shall be caused by Him to over-reach itself in any -unjust employment of its privileges.” - -She stopped--the book dropped into her lap--“Monsignore!” she -whispered, appalled. - -The invalid was leaning forward, his face livid, his hands grasping -the arms of his chair. In the silence which ensued, a voice, a step in -the room below, made themselves distinctly audible. - -“Bonito!” he gasped; and fell back as if dying. - -She flew to him, raised his head, petted and consoled him, feeling the -ecstasy of her opportunity. - -“There, weep with me, sweet saint!” she said; and indeed, in a little, -his tears were mingling themselves with hers. Even this homely heart -could compel his soft response. She thought the story was to blame. - -“There, there!” she said, as if to a child; “if it has made a mistake -in anything, God will forgive it.” - -But he could hear nothing else than the voice beneath his feet. -Inarticulate as it reached him, its tones, slow whispering on his -brain, seemed measuring out its madness tap by tap. - - _Bon--ito!--It--was--Bon--ito--come--at--last!_ - -It was Bonito, true enough; yet, for all the purposes of intrigue, not -quite the crude diplomatist a guilty conscience pictured him. He had -come, in fact, to condole the English signorina on her threatened -estate--come, it seemed, like a suitor, with an offer in his hand, and -a flower in his rusty buttonhole. His shoes were tied; his looks -commiserating and sympathetic as he could transform them. He was to -play a deep part, this old ape of mystics; and Molly was his destined -catspaw. Descending from that scene above, we find him already well -launched upon his course. - -He sits, watchful and guarded. She stands before him, one hand to her -storming breast, the other leaned for support upon a chair-back. - -“Say it again,” she whispered. “Perhaps I didn’t hear aright.” - -Bonito licked his lips. - -“He’s a suitor for her hand.” - -She started, as if stung. - -“But not an accepted one?” - -He rubbed his gritty chin thoughtfully. - -“They say he was rebuffed. What then? You women will claim that -privilege--once or twice. Persistence, by report, will always carry -ye. Perhaps you know. He’s a forceful suitor. You’d do well, by my -advice, to forestall the inevitable--drop the old shadow for the new -substance.” - -She did not answer. He affected to draw encouragement from her -silence. - -“Think what it may mean to you, if you refuse. A second lease of -protection is not like the first. Disillusioned faith’s a half-hearted -mistress. Your term will be short--and again will be shorter--until--” - -“You damned old dog!” - -She made as if to strike him. He sat quite unmoved. - -“A prophet in one’s own country,” he said coolly: “I daresay you’ve -heard the adage. You’d reject the unpalatable--keep respectable in -spite of me. Try it, that’s all--cast upon the mercies of Turin, good -Lord! And what do I offer you in place? To be my confederate in -divination--chaste Sybilline--sacred through your calling--we’d make a -fortune between us in a year.” - -She hardly seemed to hear, muttering:-- - -“Can it be true she’s so heartless--so forgetful--and him sickening to -the death for her!” - -He pricked alert. - -“Him? Who?” he asked low, as if responding to a confidence. - -“Who?” she repeated, staring before her--“why, him -upstairs--Saint-Péray.” - -He rose to his feet suddenly; seized her wrist. Her eyes fastened on -him; but he knew his mastery. - -“You fool!” he said. “Why don’t you go and tell her so--tell her that -he lies here, in the house of Cartouche’s mistress, dying for love of -her? Why, if I’d known--the man who lent me money in a crisis--I’d die -to serve him. And that other--a dog to treat you so! I’ve no love for -him--I own it--and here’s a score paid off. Go at once--while the old -glamour lasts--before he’s time to return and urge his suit. You’ll -find her in her house in the Zecca--Di Rocco’s. I’ll--” - -She threw him off violently. He pretended a furious anger--snatched up -his hat--made for the door. - -“Rot in your folly!” he roared. “I’ve said my last to you!” and so -raged away--confident of the fruit the seed he’d sown should come to -bear. - -The dusk was falling. In the shadowy room the girl lay flung, face -downwards on a chair. To her, palpitating, sobbing, wringing her plump -hands, entered Fiorentina. - -“O, mistress! What have happened? What have he done to ye? And him -upstairs, ever since he heard his voice, crying on ‘Yolande! Yolande!’ -to come and save him from a great spider that have got him in its -web.” - -The other came to her feet, gasping, driving back the tumbled hair -from her temples. - -“Tell him,” she said, “that if she’s human, he shall have her. Tell -him that I’m going this moment to fetch her to him.” - -She broke off, catching her breath into a whisper:-- - -“No, tell him nothing. I’ll bring my own message.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII - -If the Chevalier de France was destined a second time to suffer -humiliation through his daughter’s perversity, that daughter herself -was spared the social ostracism which would surely have overtaken one -less admired in the shadow of the King’s displeasure. The -out-of-favour minister, despoiled of his official nimbus, had to -borrow what satisfaction he could from the collateral distinction -conferred upon him through his relationship with so exquisite and -_precious_ a creature. That was a very bitter mortification to so -arrogant a man; though, to be sure, his exaltation in the first -instance had hardly owed itself to his personal merits--a fact which -he had no excuse but an impenetrable vanity for overlooking. For the -bestowal of the portfolio, it had been plainly intimated to him, was -conditional on his leaving his majesty a perfectly free hand to -dispose of that of the Marchesa; nor had he been ignorant, even at the -first, of the name and reputation of the royal nominee. - -But his pride was the haughtiest of casuists in all matters touching -itself. The end it sought--that is to say the re-investiture of de -France, the ancient house, in its former power and possessions--must -be held not only to justify, but to glorify, the meanest means to it. -Any step, if in that direction, was a step sanctified of its purpose -to him, though to take it, he must tread on the mouth of human nature. -“Evil, be thou my good!” might have stood for his motto. - -And now, to owe what respect it remained to him to command to the -affluent graces of the child whose mutinous conduct had deposed him -from the leading position! It was intolerable--it was monstrous. His -sense of personal wrong stung him to a protest, which, if he could but -have comprehended, was the very worst he could have made in his own -interests. But vanity is blind. - -And that same rebellious child--child, indeed, in her young body’s -immaturity, in her tragic innocence, in the sweet flower of her face, -whose blossoming conveyed such dreams of fruitage--woman, only, in the -independence which her heart had wrung from sorrow--what had been her -sin? Why, that she had persisted in holding honour something higher -than its vestments. - -And so de France was tolerated, his fall condoned, for Yolande’s sake. -She was the hallowed toast of Turin in these days--its -nymph-angel--passe-rose--its Dorothea, symbolising paradise in her -cheeks. Who would not be a recusant advocate to win one flower from -that nosegay of pinks? The story was about. She had refused to -sacrifice to the heathen gods, and the King had decreed therefore her -social racking. The King! A King of powder and patches. Perish his -decrees! Perish also our dear Cartouche, to a babble of lampoons and -pasquinades! The pretty mongrel had done sensibly to put his tail -between his legs and run away. - -Then were withers wrung, heads broken, duels fought about Golden Danae -in these weeks of her brief reign. She knew nothing of it all, thanks -to her sad self-absorption as much as to her innocence. Torn by -women’s tongues, wounded by gallants’ swords, her reputation gave her -no concern save for the wounds herself had caused it. She had no -faith, could never have, but one. And she had abused it. Her state, -her wealth, her very fairness, poor trappings of her shame--she wore -them all as a sinner wears the outward garb of penitence. Sheet and -candle they were to her, for token of her public penance. To her the -whispering inquisition of the crowds she moved amidst were articulate -in nothing but rebuke. Its notes of admiration and of compliment were -addressed to deaf ears. She looked kind looks from inward-dreaming -eyes; spoke gentle mechanic words of kindness out of a constant -instinct; but her sweet body was always like a lonely haunted -tenement, shut to the world. Its spirit dwelt for ever away, in a -place of solemn crags and shadows. - -Waiting, waiting--and for what? That was the tragedy of it all--the -hopeless hungering for the fruition of a thing unfructified. When she -died, surely this poor ghost of her would become a tradition of the -Montverd--a shadow on a rock, a darkness that no sun could dissipate, -listening, listening always for the footfall that never came. - -“How beautiful are the feet of the peace-givers!” O, Louis, Louis! if -thou couldst only be heard coming up the hill to comfort this torn -heart with a word of forgiveness! His face rose for ever before her, -holy, righteous, denunciatory. Too pure and pious a thing he to -presume on God’s prerogatives, or not to hold himself from contact -with this sin by whom his faith had been contaminated. A dreadful -thought--of all wild thoughts the most despairing; that maybe she had -darkened this same faith in him; driven him to take the name of God in -vain. If only he would deign one word to reassure her as to that! She -could be content thereafter, she thought, to go down into loveless -oblivion. Unworthy of him; thrice unworthy in that her mutinous heart -had once conceived a dream of him grown masterful out of wrong. That -would not have been her Louis, whose ways were always strong in -meekness. So waiting--always fruitlessly waiting in spirit on the -Montverd, her eyes would seek the unconquered peaks, her ears address -themselves to the eternal silence of the valleys--listening for the -footstep. It could never, never sound--and yet she listened. That was -to be her punishment--endless listening; until, perhaps, she faded -into the ghost of dead love’s echo. - -Yet moments of passion, when the human nature in her rebelled against -the intolerable cruelty of it all, were not unknown to her. Then she -would dare to think of him as something other than a saint--her -chosen, her dear heart’s lord, whom wicked sophistries had cast from -his right part of fulfilling the woman in her. Then she would cry to -herself that she was virgin still--in all but her desecration by a -foul convention; was even a thing could be held worshipful by scruples -less exacting. It was in these moods, by some moral process (obliquity -she thought it, when they had passed), that the figure of Cartouche -would rise before her as she had encountered it on the hillside. - -Why should it intrude itself upon that thought of a less exacting -worship? Answer, her heart’s alarum, answering to a look, a breath, -the first shadow of a truth. Or answer, truth itself. She knew she had -conquered where she loathed to conquer. - -Such things must be, and be endured, because they cannot be cured, -even in the tiny wound of self-consciousness they inflict, and which -will continue to irritate, occasionally, when analogies are in the -air. Thus, during these moods, the thought would come--and be hated, -duly, for its persecution--that there might even be certain qualities -in wickedness worth virtue’s acquiring--independence, resolution, -force of character, to wit. Not that, for that, she held herself the -less insulted in a base regard. But the thought would recur. - -And then there came the day when, pale, suffering, reproachful as she -fancied it, the face of her love stood out between her and a -tumultuous crowd; and in that sorrowful vision all other visions were -instantly absorbed and lost. - -The shock of it, patent in her stunned manner, had affected anyone -less self-centred than the Chevalier. He thought she was frightened by -the surge of things, and lent his high arrogance to reassure her. She -hardly heard or saw him. _He_ was in Turin. - -From that moment the desire for the footsteps grew intense. She had -hoped, or had told herself she hoped, that he had forgotten her; and, -lo! in every line printed on that lonely face she recognised the -indelible scoring of her sin. He loved her still, and by every token -of his love, stood forth a conscious shame. - -She was in deep waters then, and cried to heaven to save her. - -It answered with the offer of Cartouche’s hand. - -We know how that suit sped. But it bore some fruit of tenderness -towards a hopeless passion--as how could Yolande be woman and not feel -it? And it brought more--a recrudescence in her of those thoughts -which touched on the comparative qualities of good and evil. This -man--he must have the seed of virtue in him, so to have promised -self-redemption by way of a bitter loss. That was strength. Perhaps he -had had his excuses, after all. She prayed for him--prayed heaven, -moreover, to accredit her with her share in his reformation. He was -her Louis’s friend--had spoken probably in ignorance of his friend’s -presence in the city. And he had promised her-- - -What had he promised? O, love! thou crown and symbol to all time of -specious egotism! He had promised, on the virtue of that very -suffering she had caused in him, that it should all come right. His -strength was in the phrase--the strength of ungodliness; and--she -built upon it. While she abhorred his character--had not scrupled to -insult and misread it to the vilest conclusions--she built upon its -characteristic qualities. Built? What? No consciousness of any -building in her, she would have declared. But--“_It will all come -right!_” Nay, had it not been, “It _shall_ all come right”? O! how she -sighed over her own impotence to stem the masterfulness of these -sinful wills! Was she for ever to be their helpless shuttlecock? No -hope for her but the cloister. - -So, she and Louis-Marie, saintly casuists turning to face one another -across a tragic interval, pictured Cartouche, the friend, the lover, -for the scapegoat of their love’s reparations. Some men _would_ make -burnt-offerings of themselves. It was not for them, ingenuous in the -ways of worldliness, to question the methods of their atonement. - -One night she, this dear casuist, had driven home (ah! the bitter -irony of the word!) to the Via della Zecca with her father. Great -clouds sagged from the sky, bellied over the house-roofs, swelling to -their delivery of fire. Moans of their enormous labour shook the air, -jarring on one’s teeth like glass--a night of heavy omen. Its spirit -drove with them, menacing and oppressive. The Chevalier himself was a -thunder-cloud, swollen with sense of injury. He scowled silent in his -corner. - -They had been at the Italian Comedy (to see _The Representation of a -Damned_ [_female_] _Soul_, and the audience pull off their hats, -literally, to St John for his handsome conduct of her case), and -thence had driven to a Conversazione at the house of the British envoy -to the Court of Turin--whence these tears. - -The Casa di Rocco reached, the Chevalier alighted, as was his custom, -first; but, seeming to remember himself, bowed apart while the -mistress of the house descended, and entered the portal. She flushed, -but made no comment; and he followed in her footsteps, furious now to -vent his chagrin on the least menial slight to his importance. He was -very handsomely dressed, and appeared to assume, by every pomp of -circumstance, the right of the mastership of the household. - -The two were ushered into the _salon_, a room ablaze with tapers, and -there left to their august disputations. The tempest threatened very -near--vibrated in the windows like the pedal-stops of a vast organ. - -There was wine on a table. The Chevalier, offering to pour himself out -a glass with a white, not very steady hand, refrained, and looked -towards his daughter. - -“Have I your permission, madam?” he said. “My natural fatigue must not -let me forget that I am a pensioner on your bounty.” - -She fanned herself quietly. There was a light in her patient eyes, but -he was blind to the warning sign. - -“What have I done to deserve this?” she asked softly. - -His self-control was a bubble. He dashed the decanter down on the -table, and advanced a little towards her, quivering with mortified -anger. - -“You ask me that?” he said. “Whence have we come this moment? From -what circumstances of slight and humiliation to the parent, whose -devotion to his child has procured him a return which should make her -blush for her ingratitude.” - -She was still very quiet. I think she was at length awakening to the -irreclaimable selfishness of the man before her; but her -disillusionment fought against the last bitter concession to itself. -For pity and poor heart’s sake she must struggle still to -temporise--not to let go her final hold on duty. She forced a little -painful smile; but her honesty would allow nothing to subterfuge. - -“If you allude,” she said, “to his Excellency the envoy’s attentions -to myself, I beg you to bear in mind, father, that I was taught a -little English by my _gouvernante_, and that doubtless the poor man -courted the sound of his native language, though on such imperfect -lips.” - -He smote fist into palm. - -“Am I a child to be quieted with equivoque? I speak not of his -attentions to you, but of the contempt for myself which they were -designed to emphasise.” - -“O, no, father! Indeed I am sure you are mistaken.” - -Then the storm broke. Its pressure within him had rushed to relief by -any outlet, even a pin-prick. - -“And which you tacitly condoned,” he screamed. “Have I carried my -honour, sensitive to a breath, a hint, a thing high and exclusive, -untarnished through all these cursed years of adversity, and not to -know when it is impugned? But you will be blind because you desire -it--because your personal scruples--sha! are against a paltry -sacrifice which would help to reinstate your father in the position -which is his by right, and from which he could rise to recover -something at least of the ancient influence of his house. No daughter -of that or of mine--I say it before God. I am in the mood, I think, to -curse you.” - -She had risen to her feet, ghastly white, but with something born, and -in a flash, into her expression which had never been there before. - -“I think, if you did,” she said, “the curse would be let recoil on a -shameful head.” - -He uttered a terrible exclamation; but she silenced him. - -“You talk of your honour. What is man’s honour to a maid’s? Yet, for -your honour’s sake, you could sell mine--a father sell his child’s! -Once you did it, and I was obedient, though it broke my heart.” - -“I will not listen,” he raged. - -“You shall listen,” she answered. “I could have borne to suffer and be -silent--that first irremediable wrong. I believed your honour pledged, -and I gave myself to redeem it--you know under what persuasion. But -now--having once sold me--me, your child--to dishonour for your -honour’s sake--to think to trade upon my forfeited self-respect, as if -myself, not you, were answerable for it!--to build yourself a name on -mine so fallen!--O, shame, shame, my father!” - -She quite overawed him. He had evoked the spirit of his house in her -to startling effect. He had no answer but oaths and hysteria. - -“Woman!” he shrieked. - -“I am sixteen,” she said. “You call me as you have made me--is it to -my reproach or to yours? But, if I am woman, in her sad name I claim -her saddest rights--freedom through martyrdom. I will be independent; -I will be mistress of my soul; I will not hold myself a convicted -wanton at your honour’s bidding. This man you offer me--this man whom -you would bid to cast down my body for a stepping-stone to your own -ambition--do you know what he is, has been--his life, his reputation?” - -He was silent, but only because his rage grew inarticulate. - -“I am not so hardened,” she went on, “but that I can shrink and -shudder in the shadow of such a name. _He_ to be worthy of -me--_me!_--O, father!” (She wavered for one instant.) “Have I not been -willing, eager, that you should take everything of mine--everything, -everything--only not this one poor possession that I cannot part with, -and remain your worthy daughter?” - -Her eyes were moist, she held out piteous hands to him. But his -passion by now was swelled to a monstrous thing, deaf, blind, -suicidal. - -“Stand off!” he shrieked, backing from her as if he loathed her -contact. “You are worthy of nothing but a father’s curse.” - -She shuddered, and stood rigid. In that moment they fell apart, never -to be reconciled again. - -“I warn you not to speak it,” she said--“not till you know the thing -you’ve done, the lives you’ve ruined, the broken faiths for which you -made yourself answerable to God when you threatened me with that -coward’s act. Before you pledged me I was already pledged--my heart, -my soul. You did not know it--I have accepted this heavy punishment -for heaven’s retribution on me for that sin of silence. I accept it no -longer. Love’s honour and love’s vows would, I know, have counted for -nothing with my father. But they still hold me to the past for all my -faith is worth. We had met by accident--we had no thought, O! no -thought to deceive you--only we delayed, forgetting in our happiness. -He was a Monsieur Saint-Péray--a name as noble as the man -himself--too good and true for such as we to honour. And I broke my -faith to him, and you were the cause.” - -He raised his hand, gasping. She went on, before he could speak:-- - -“I tell you now there is no man, shall never be to me in all the world -a man with claims like his. If he would have me, the stained and -humbled thing I am, I would give myself, in tears and gratitude, to -redeem his broken past. But I am unworthy of him; and you have made me -so.” - -Then he spoke--a babble of raging words. But his lips forbore the -curse--perhaps from real apprehension, perhaps from policy. He was not -one to burn his boats, even in a fit of madness. In the end, he fell, -quite suddenly, upon self-control, and stood like a shaking spectre of -himself. - -“Very well,” he said--“it is very well. You are your own mistress. You -will wed this man, this saintly paramour of yours, _if_ he will -consent to make an honest woman of you. I have no more to say.” - -“No,” she answered: “you have said the last.” - -He stood a moment uncertain, turned, and left the room. - -She remained motionless as he had left her--a minute, two minutes: -then suddenly was looking about her with a curious quick action of the -head. - -Hunted! alone! quite desolate! Where could she turn for help, support? -O, God! the wickedness--the wickedness! Save her someone!--she could -hear the hideous panting of the chase--quite close! she--! - -The entrance of a servant restored her to some self-command. The man, -after one inquisitive furtive look, dropped his eyes and abased -himself. - -He deprecated Madonna’s resentment; he had hesitated before intruding -himself; but these young women! they were so persistent, so full of -self-assurance, so convinced that their missions were imperative. He -had done his best to get rid of her, but in vain. - -“Of her? of whom?” demands Madonna, quieting her lips with her -handkerchief. - -He shrugs his shoulders and his eyebrows. The young woman would give -no name. She had been waiting for hours. But now, vouchsafed the -assurance of Madonna’s refusal, he will go and dismiss her at once and -finally. - -“Show her in to me here,” says the Marchesa, and the man bows and -withdraws. - -The little interval, the necessity of self-control in it, brought her -to herself. When the visitor was ushered in, she was seated--to all -appearance a lovely waxen image of serenity. She lifted her eyes and -saw a fair young girl, cloaked and hooded, standing before her. The -servant closed the door and shut them in together. - -“Well, my child,” she said, affectedly incurious: and indeed it was a -child, like herself, whom she addressed. “What do you want with me?” - -The glow and splendour of her surroundings must have their foremost -influence on Molly, petted loveling as she was. Her senses must gape a -little, before the woe and despair in her could find their way to -utterance. Then, all in a moment, the shock of an unforeseen -difficulty had overwhelmed her on the threshold of her mission. She -uttered an exclamation--“Alack-a-day! she can’t speak English!” and -fell a little away, in consternation. - -“English!” Yolande frowned. The word was curiously ill-timed. She -looked intently at her visitor. “English?” she repeated: “Are you an -English girl? So? Well, you see I understand you. What is it you want -of me?” - -“My man.” - -It came in an irresistible cry, fierce, emotional, from the girl’s -heart. She gasped after it, actually as if a spasm had rent it forth. -Then she bent, and looked, with tumultuous irony, into the other’s -face. - -“Ay,” she said, “it’s beautiful enough--like a wax doll’s--as smooth -and as hard, I warrant.” But neither the wit nor the passion in her -could keep that mood. She stood up again. “I want my man,” she cried. -“Give him back to me! I was the first with him!” - -Yolande, pale and indignant, rose to her feet. - -“What is the meaning of this?” she said. “I know nothing of you, nor -of whom you are speaking.” - -“I’m speaking,” cried the girl, “of him they call Cartouche. Ay, you -may start. It’s a name should make you blush for love forsworn!” - -Yolande made a swift movement, as if to summon aid. The girl -intercepted her, fell at her feet, clung to her skirts. - -“No, no. Don’t call. Let me speak. I’ll be good and quiet, I will, if -you’ll only listen. I didn’t mean no impudence--not to such as you. O, -lady!--for dear pity’s sake--hear me out!” - -“Who are you?” - -“I’ll tell you, though he kills me for it. I’m his woman--his kept -woman. There, you’ll not think the worse of him for that. We count for -little with the quality, when they come to marry--like a man’s brooch, -or the buckles in his shoes. We were right enough as a fashion for -yesterday; but to-day, when our turn’s over, ’tis bad taste even to -speak of us. But there’s something different here, there is. O, my -lady! you did ought to consider it before you rob me of him.” - -Some terrible emotion, between loathing and pity, was struggling in -Yolande’s heart as she looked down on the imploring figure. An -instinctive horror in her fought against its own understanding--would -not believe--temporised with the truth, speaking in a voice of -shuddering pity,-- - -“A woman!--_you_, poor child!” - -The other misconstrued her. - -“Why not? We can’t pick and choose in our class. But we’re no more -blind and deaf than you to what’s the best. Only, if _we_ want it, we -must pay. I was just a village girl, and him a gentleman. Don’t you -blame him for it. I gave myself to him, and with my eyes open. We know -the odds we take. They must marry some day. But to throw me over for -you--you whose true love I’ve took and cared for at his bidding, and -tried to nurse back into faith and hope of you that jilted him, while -all the time you’ve been undermining me with my own! O, lady! haven’t -you a heart? To hear him, that other, calling on your name! to know -him dying there, and all for love of you, while you dally with this -that’s mine!” - -She broke down, and buried her face in her hands, weeping. And her -listener! Through all that distorted outcry some passion of the truth -must penetrate her. Cartouche! At first, only a sense of utter outrage -in that name predominated. A libertine! unredeemed and irredeemable! a -practising _intriguant_, even in the moment of his suit to her! That -at least was clear. She hated herself for that one impulsive thrill of -kindness towards him. This ruined life at his door! And he had dared -to approach her with such a lie in his heart--to affect -repentance--to--Ah! what was that--this thing which was worse than -all? - -She withdrew her skirts a little. Her hand was ice. Her words fell -like snow-flakes, soft and cold. - -“You are mistaken, girl. There is nothing--never has been, never could -be, between myself and--and the gentleman you named.” - -Molly looked up, amazement and incredulity in her eyes. - -“Doesn’t he love you?” she said. - -The little Marchesa swept her skirts away. - -“Don’t touch me!” she whispered terribly. “I am soiled in seeing you, -hearing you. The word is fouled upon your lips. O, my God! these -vermin in Thine image! Am I like them? Have they the right to claim me -to themselves?” - -She stamped in fury. - -“Leave me! Go to your own! Don’t dare to link my name with his again.” - -The girl had risen to her feet. Quite cowed as she was for the moment, -a joy was in her heart to hear herself so repudiated in that company. -Her worst fears were laid: her venom was turned to honey. She -whimpered a little, in a panic half feigned, half felt,-- - -“There, I don’t want to. I’m going, for sure.” Then a spit of courage -came to her--“and I’ll tell the other he may just die for all you -care”--and she turned. - -But, before she could reach the door, a swift step followed, and a -soft white hand, ringed and scented, was placed upon her shoulder. She -hesitated an instant, faced round, and the next moment the two, high -saint and lowly sinner, were clasped together weeping. - -Poor Molly knew her place. She sunk at the other’s feet again, till -Yolande knelt beside her, and put her arms about the shameful head. - -“Poor child! poor sinful woman,” she said, to a flurry of sighs and -sobs. “O, what was I to hold you so apart! But you don’t -understand--you can’t, God pity you. The worse for him that killed -your innocence.” - -“He--” - -“I’ll not hear his name.” - -“He was my only one; and--and, for your sake, he’s been wanting to -make me good.” - -“Has he? There’s a way.” - -“Maybe. But not the way you mean. That’s closed to such as us.” - -“Alas! What way, then?” - -“Make yourself impossible to him.” - -“I? Sweet saints, give me patience with this poor ignorance! How can -I make her comprehend that I could never be more impossible to him -than I am.” - -“O, yes! you could.” - -“There, there, child! How?” - -“O, mistress! don’t you know?” - -“Know what? Why am I letting you talk to me like this? I’m all groping -in a maze. O! haven’t you a father?” - -“Yes, for sure.” - -“Give up your sin. Go back to him and ask his pardon.” - -“You don’t know him. His pride’s above his station. He’d ne’er suffer -me again to come anigh him.” - -“Wouldn’t he? What a thing’s this pride in men!--a vengeance, not a -judge! Fatherless, then! O, O! that’s to be lost and helpless--crying -to a void--sinking, sinking; and not a straw to hold by!” - -“Ah, hush ye, pretty one--hush ye!” - -The Magdalen, with winking wondering eyes, was become the comforter. -She clasped the cold hands within her own warm palms, and mumbled -them, and loved their softness. Yolande, her head bowed, sat grieving -still a little. - -“To look all round, and not to know where to turn--no guide, no help -out of this maze!” - -She snuffled, and mopped her eyes; then struggled to regain her -estate. “There, child! my heart bleeds for you! What is your name? O! -I forgot; you haven’t one”--for, indeed, to this sweet orthodoxy, an -unchurched passion was a nameless thing--a maiden title forfeited to -anonymity. - -“I’m Molly Bramble, please my lady.” - -She hung her head. The other pursed her lips a moment. - -“Well, well, child--we’ll call you as we call our dog or parrot--terms -for distinguishment.” - -Then the moth plunged for the light, about which she had been -desperately fluttering this nervous while. - -“You mentioned of your nursing someone? or perhaps I confused your -meaning?” - -“Ay, did I. You know him. Saint-Péray.” - -The other put her away and got hurriedly to her feet. - -“_You’re_ nursing him! _You_?” - -“He brought him to me--told me to; told me to help him back to be a -man, and win you yet.” - -“Who brought him? Who told you?” - -“There: I wasn’t to speak his name.” - -“Nursing him? Where?” - -“Why, in the little villa that he keeps for me.” - -“That he keeps? O, my love, my Louis!” - -“Ah, ah! you love him still. You make my heart sing, you do!” - -“O, Louis! _O, mon bien aimé! que les artifices des méchants t’ont -environné!_ You must not be left: you must not stay there: you do not -know. The villain! the false friend!” - -“O, O, my lady!” - -“Is he not? He dared to ask my hand.” - -“O! it’s true then!” - -“Two nights ago.” - -“Ah, me! that explains it.” - -“What?” - -“Why, what he told me before he left next morning. ‘I’ve changed my -mind,’ says he. ‘She’s not for him no more. What you’ve said you’ve to -unsay. They must be kept apart at any price.’ They were his last words -before he went.” - -“Were they?--those?” - -“His very words.” - -“Yesterday?” - -“Yesterday morning.” - -“O, my child! give up this wicked man, to save your soul!” - -“No, I’ll stick to him.” - -“Poor prodigal, enamoured of the husks.” - -“He said he would be good for your sake. You owe him that.” - -“For my sake?” - -“Ay, even for true love’s sake, maybe--though it wounds my heart to -speak it. There’s a way you could show him.” - -“A way? I? to what?” - -“To mend a wrong. O, dear good lady, I’ve seen your eyes -confess!--never deny it. One marriage brings another--it might, it -might even lead to that--O, mistress, mistress!” - -“You are mad. You don’t know what you say--you know nothing.” - -“I know your love is dying there for love of you.” - -“Dying? No, no!” - -“Come to him, and see.” - -“I cannot.” - -“He must die then. He’ll not last till morning else. ’Twas for that I -dared this all.” - -“O, what am I to do?” - -“No one need know: a great lady like you.” - -“You say he’d marry you?” - -“I say one marriage brings another.” - -“O! Sweet saints, direct me! Lead my distracted mind! I cannot come -with you, I say!--Wait while I fetch my cloak!” - - * * * * * * * * - -Fiorentina, bidden to hold her tongue to Louis-Marie, told him -everything--under promise of secrecy: how that one was coming in a -little to break his brain’s web and kill the wicked spider--a -physician, maybe: maybe a wise woman; for indeed physicians were not -“her,” and the signorina had stated distinctly, in answer to his -cries, that she was going that moment to fetch _her_ to cure him. - -Fortunately or not, he heard her without comprehending. He was lying -apathetic by then, quit of the “fellow in the cellarage.” That -thundering whisper silenced, all commoner voices served him but as -opiates. By-and-by he fell into a doze; and the little _camerista_ -drew his curtains, and lit his candles, and went below to gossip with -her house-mate. - -The storm laboured up and over, mingling with the sick man’s dreams. -The rush of tempest smote on ice. He was alone in a surging darkness. -It cracked, with a roar of thunder, and spilled a dead body at his -feet. Madly he strove to spurn the thing--into monstrous-seeming -abysses--for all their blackness they were shallow troughs. Or else -the glacier rolled like water, and threw it up. He trampled it in -fury--it writhed away, reshaping. Then it took to laughing; and the -laugh was echoed from hard by--and there was Bonito hiding in a drift. -He woke with a scream. - -But he was sleeping again, when the little _camerista_ hurried up, and -looked into his pale exhausted face, and touched some pillows into -comfort before leaving him. - -Sweet dreams this time, but still of weeping rains. Only they fell -softly on a Chapel roof. She was not there beside him, and he wondered -why she lingered. Till, glancing at the coloured statue of the virgin, -he saw it stir and smile, and stretch out wistful arms to him, and -heard it breathe his name--“Louis, Louis!” And it was she herself, -descending and coming to him; but, before they could reach and touch, -she had vanished. - -“Louis, Louis!” Her voice wept far remote, an infinite yearning, faint -and always fainter; till suddenly, with a crash, the roof was rent, -and a flood of fire rushed in, revealing her--quite close to him--a -breathing apparition--all love and sorrow paining her sweet eyes. - -He lay and did not stir. “Yolande!” he whispered. - -She sighed, and clasped her hands; she answered with the plaint, if -not in the words, of love-lorn Madeline:-- - - “O, leave me not in this eternal woe, - For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.” - -She moved, and was kneeling by him, pleading with hurrying sighs,-- - -“The sin was mine--the sin was mine! And, O! a fruitless sacrifice! So -pale, so worn--O, thing without a heart, to have caused this cruel -sickness in my love!” - -“Yolande!” A wilder thrill gave out the word. - -“Louis; if thou couldst still find that in me worth living for! Ah, do -not die! I would be so loving and so penitent. Not forward--no. The -shame in me’s an ecstasy. I cry to have you humble me.” - -“Lily of Savoy--the white lily--and mine!” - -A gloating transport whispered in his voice. - -“Thine still, dear love; and, for all her shame--inviolate.” - -She hid her face to speak it. This was no swooning vision, but -reality. No matter whence she had come, or at what instigation--the -death-warrant was cancelled. Life at her words flowed back to him, -lapped in a sensuous dream. Doubts, fears, proscriptions were all -forgotten. His pulses beat to madness: a delirious hunger of her -swelled his veins. This sweet fruit of his desire! It were as if the -heavy-bosomed grapes, made animate by Love, had drooped of their own -pity to the lips of Tantalus. Should he not crush them in his mouth? -unquestioning, praising the heavenly mercy, not abusing it with one -self-scruple as to his deserts? It was characteristic of him, at -least, so to surrender his will to circumstance. He flushed as if -intoxicated. He leaned impassioned towards her: “My wife!” he -whispered, and drew her to his heart. - -She raised her streaming eyes,-- - -“What you have suffered for my sake--and not the least to find you -here.” - -“Here, Yolande? the best that could have happened to me.” - -“O, my love! you must not say it. It is a wicked house.” - -“Yolande!” - -“O, God! my saint is innocent! Louis! this man, your friend, and the -poor girl--!” - -“What of them?” - -“They live in sin together--O, my lamb among the wolves!” - -Old tremors, old lost scruples seized him at the words. He clung to -her. - -“Take me away, Yolande. I am so sick and helpless.” - -“Yes, yes, my love, my husband! Come with me.” - -“No, I am too ill. To-morrow. Don’t leave me, now you’ve come.” - -“O, I must! Louis!” - -“Then I shall die. ’Tis only you can save me--make me a man again.” - -“O, love! you kill my heart!” - -“To save me, Yolande! To save yourself that new self-reproach if I -died without.” - -“And if you were to die in spite?” - -“O, love! that cried to me to humble it! We will be man and wife -to-morrow. I shall live for that--I must. The thought will lay the -spectres that would kill me else. Yolande! you will not let me die?” - -“O, Louis! let me rather.” - -“Come to me, my dear, my love, my wife--there, sweet, my _wife_, this -seal upon your lips!” - - * * * * * * * * - -In the grey of the dawn, cold and austere after tempest, the signorina -Brambello hurried forth to procure an accommodating priest. He was -easily found, easily bribed, easily persuaded into quick conclusions. -The two were joined before the altar of San Maddalena, a dingy chapel -in an obscure neighbourhood, and Molly and Fiorentina were the -witnesses. - -At the end, in the sombre porch, the pale bride turned upon the -English girl. - -“God, in His mercy, so give thy sin to mend itself--my sister!” - -She hesitated an instant, then threw her arms about the other’s neck, -kissed her on the mouth, and hanging her sweet head, went with her -husband down the steps into the silent street. And his face also was -bowed, as he walked feebly beside her. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - -Cartouche, released, at the end of a week, from his inaugural -business in the Le Prieuré Prefecture, returned forthwith to -Turin--and to the re-encountering a problem, whose difficulties, one -had thought, he might have studied more profitably at a distance. But -a characteristic precipitancy, in deed and word--as much acquired as -born of self-reliance in him--compelled him from hesitating on the -brink of things. When angels and devils were at contest in his -interests, he was not going to miss the excitement, nor the chance of -applauding, or perhaps damning, the victors. - -But he had had a more wearing time of it than he would have cared to -admit, even to himself. He was not apt at moral conundrums; and one -had come to consume his peace confoundedly. He felt it always -smouldering in his breast, ready to break out into flame at any -moment. - -And he had really laid out its premises very impartially for his own -consideration. He was an eclectic by nature; as, alas! is the case -with a number of naughty people. It is unfortunate, indeed, that -righteousness so often lacks the sense of humour, which is the faculty -for seeing both sides of a question. The want seems to give obliquity -such a superiority--though it is a specious one, of course. - -He could admit, then, the inevitableness of a deed, which had -preserved an honour most dear and sacred to himself. He could not -admit a claim to that honour personified, as the price of blood. -Louis, the slayer of a woman’s husband, could not take that husband’s -place. Were she, knowingly, to let him, her honour would be forfeit: -were he to take advantage of her ignorance, he would be doing a vile -thing. She was not for Louis: could never be, in any scheme of moral -purifications. - -For whom, then? Why, scarcely less vile were he, Cartouche, to seek to -take advantage of his friend’s hard fortune (It will be observed that -he somehow inferred for that problematic vileness its problematic -opportunity--the ineradicable instinct, perhaps, of an _amoroso_, -experienced in the ways of audacity, to whom a rebuff had always -stood, and likely been always justified in standing, for an incitement -to fresh aggression). - -As to another question, that of his own relationship to the dead man, -he utterly declined to recognise it as one involving his personal -interdiction. The marriage had been a mere conditional contract, of -the essence of a betrothal, and the conditions had not been observed. -No moral prohibition, such as touched upon the forbidden degrees, was -implied by it, he told himself: and told himself so, he insisted, -merely to emphasise the singleness of his renunciation. He would have -the full credit for his self-sacrifice. His responsibility was not to -a sentimental scruple, but to his ideal of an immaculate honour in the -woman he worshipped. - -Remained the question of his attitude towards the murderer of his -father, and of his royal commission to hunt down that unknown -assassin. Well, he had both discovered and exonerated him; but the -offence was still officially _un crime qualifié_. To condone it were -to make himself an accessory. - -He would condone it, however, since by so doing he testified to his -loyalty to his ideal. Yolande’s eternal fame should owe him that -sacrifice of his duty to his nobler conscience. By so little, at -least, he would justify himself in the thankless wardenship of her -honour; by so little he would make himself the right to claim her into -an association with himself. - -So far and so good for his solution of the problem. This dear prize -was not for Louis; it was not for him. What, then, was to be its -destiny? - -There was his ideal. Eternal maid, by virtue of her deathless bondage -to the past, she was to exist the unattainable goddess of all desire. -He might not reach to her; but he might enforce his own precedence in -her worship. He would be the high-priest of that altar, winning to his -place by heart’s-devotion. He pictured her, a virgin for ever -unfulfilled, the flying figure on the vase, and himself, the -passionate shepherd, stricken to an endless rapture of pursuit. What -sweeter, more idealistic heaven? - - “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss; - For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair.” - -A pretty, pretty romance! But was it practical? - -His soul, at least, flamed out to it. It gave him a mad wild joy to -think that circumstance, and by no contrivance of his own, had removed -the one mortal bar to its attainment. - -Whence, now, and wherefore, his return to Turin--to make himself -secure of his transfigured idol--to confirm Louis-Marie, if necessary, -in his renunciation of an untenable claim. For knowing the man, he -could not but have his doubts of his resolution. So much of him was -based on emotion--a treacherous foundation. - -And, for the rest--his own title, by way of redemption, to that -priesthood? Why, Molly, of course, was to be included in the -transcendent scheme. She was to share his atonement, and be appointed -a vestal to the altar of his love. He would pension her off for that -purpose; he would-- - -O, “a mad world, my masters,” where love could not legalise itself -without making a scapegoat of somebody! - -And there was even another flaw--his promise to Yolande. But he had -been obliged to forget all about that. - -As he walked, in a sort of sombre self-complacency (as of a martyr -about to testify) through the streets, his mind was busy over those -first practical solutions of his problem which he was about to face. -It would be necessary, he had decided, to inform his friend--restored, -he hoped, by now to reason--of the impossible situation which his -appointment had brought about, and to urge him to resolve its -insuperable difficulties by instant flight. That must be the first -step. And, afterwards--? - -Alert, perspicacious by instinct, his eyes had become aware, as he -moved on, of something oddly inquisitorial, something droll and -furtive, in the glances of friends and acquaintances whom he met, -whether directed at himself, or slyly interchanged. He affected to -pass all by unconcerned, nodding brightly here and there without stop -or comment; but he made mental notes, abstractedly stroking his -sword-hilt, as if it were a pet terrier’s head. He felt, quietly, a -little wicked. His theory of self-reforms, it would appear, halted yet -something short of meekness and the second cheek to the smiter. At the -corner of a street he ran plump upon Dr Bonito. - -The adverb is figurative. The Doctor was always as shrewd an encounter -as an edge of north wind. He cut into one’s meditations like a -draught. On the present occasion, it seemed, he cut to get home into -an adversary unprepared. His lean face kindled to the unexpectedness -and opportuneness of the meeting. - -“Hail, hail, M. le Préfet!” he croaked, in hoarse glee. “Here’s a -magnetic conjunction! What man so much in my mind!--and, lo! I look -up; and the man himself! Have you despatched both rogues and measures -in your new Province? But doubtless you are returned betimes to assay -the truthfulness of the great report. Well, be satisfied; it is true.” - -Cartouche balanced on his heel, imperturbably conning the face of his -old familiar. He saw enough there to detain him a reflective moment. -The two had not met since their parting “Under the Porticoes.” - -“Father Bonito,” said he; “I do not want to possess your mind. You can -stick up a bill for a new tenant. I have grown a little particular in -my tastes. In the meanwhile, I am only this hour returned to Turin, -and greatly pressed for time. What, in a word, is this report, of -which you speak and I know nothing?” - -The doctor sprawled up his hands in feigned astonishment. - -“Gods! I believe he really hasn’t heard it! and the very stones of the -town babbling with it these days past. Not to have heard it--the one -most interested, with myself--he hasn’t! I’m my own first suitor to -his gratitude for this.” - -“Well; the devil give you brevity!” - -“No, no--one moment--stop! The Marchioness di Rocco, Mr Trix--ah!” - -He withdrew a detaining hand, grinned, took off his hat, and mopped -his forehead with a ropey clout, eying his halted prey the while. - -“A long throw that, Monsieur,” he said; “yet it hooked you. But, to be -sure, she’s a killing bait.” - -Cartouche, just lifting his eyebrows, vouchsafed him no other answer. -He knew his man--was steeling himself quietly against some blow which -he felt was preparing, and which he saw would be designed to take him -off his guard. Let Bonito, in that case, extract what satisfaction he -could out of his manner. - -In fact, when the stroke actually fell, his reception of it was so -apparently unconcerned as even to deceive the doctor into a doubt of -the effectiveness of his own home-thrust, and to aggravate his malice -proportionately. - -“Yes, a killing bait--a--killing--bait,” he said; and threw his -handkerchief into his hat, and covered himself--all deliberately. -“Well,” he said, “congratulate me, Mr Trix. He was shy; but--he’s -taken her at last.” - -Cartouche yawned. - -“In the name of patience--who’s taken whom?” said he. - -“Who? Why M. Saint-Péray has taken his Marchesa, that’s all.” - -“Well, those are news, to be sure.” - -“Are they not--eh? He-he! You are looking worn, Mr Trix. I’m afraid -you take your new duties too seriously. You shouldn’t forget that all -social office is a compromise--a figure representing the balance -between good and evil, to lower one of which unduly is to exalt the -other unduly. Yes, we’ve married our couple.” - -“Have we, indeed? And who are ‘we,’ my Bonito?” - -“There! these low levels tell on one coming from the heights. You must -be careful of your throat. I notice a huskiness in it already. Why, -indeed, save for a natural diffidence, I might say, Monsieur, that -‘we’ stands for ‘I’; seeing that, as a fact, the initiative was mine. -In any case, what we were one in desiring is, at this moment, an -accomplished thing. The two are married--not, as you may suppose, a -union regarded with favour in certain quarters.” - -“No; I suppose not. And how did you bring it about?” - -“Ah--ha! there’s the marrow! Why, how you flush and pale! I doubt the -prudence of exciting you, Mr Trix, in this present turbulent state of -your blood.” - -“Exciting me? What do you mean? Why should I be excited? Have I been -hanging rogues so few as to start at the mention of a noose? Tell me -how you managed it, my dear excellent old devil.” - -“Well, I will. There are points you mayn’t approve; but the end must -justify the means. Listen, then. I could not make our friend eligible -in the way I proposed. But still I was his matrimonial agent--you -remember the term, it was your own? As such my duty to him, my duty to -myself, demanded renewed enterprise on my part. You, who have -expressed an eagerness no less than mine to secure this match, will, I -hope, condone, even approve, the advantage I took of a report -concerning yourself to realise our common wish.” - -“A report? What was that?” - -“Why, that you yourself was a suitor for the hand of the lady.” - -“Yes? and the advantage you took of that same veracious legend?” - -“It may have been a legend: it was certainly an opportunity. What did -I do? Why--forgive me, sir--I simply went and repeated it, for what it -was worth, to the Signorina Brambello, and left the leaven to ferment. -The result was quite astonishing. She ran straight off, it appears, in -a pet of jealousy to the lady; induced her to return with her to the -bedside of her stricken gallant (by which, or thereabouts, it seems -our Madam spent the night), and married the two incontinent the next -morning at a neighbouring Chapel (called, somewhat appropriately, la -Maddalena), giving herself and another for witness. Now, am I to be -congratulated or not? A word in season hath accomplished what all your -theories of pretty heartenings and reassurances had failed to. You -appealed to the signorina’s sympathies; I to a baser but more -practical sentiment. Acknowledge who was the better sophist.” - -Cartouche clapped him on the shoulder. - -“You, you, my Bonito. The credit is all yours, and the triumph. I will -not forget it. I will not overlook your part in this happy -consummation.” - -Bonito grinned. - -“Nor your _innamorata’s_, eh, Mr Trix? Egad! she’s a name in Turin -to-day. She might command--but, there! these reports are not for my -lips.” - -“Her price, you mean? Well, she shall have it. Now I must go. I have -business which can wait no longer.” - -He went off, humming a little song. As once before, the doctor stood -conning his receding figure, until it had vanished round a corner. -Then he gave a short sudden laugh, and turned to his own way. - -“Well acted,” he thought; “and well out of the reckoning, he; and well -saved, my own skin--for the present--I’m a little afraid at the -expense of the dear signorina’s. But, bah! if the wind were to hold -its breath for fear a leaf or two might fall, there’d be no clearing -the air in this world of scruples.” - - * * * * * * * * - -Cartouche walked straight to the little villa in the Lane of -Chestnuts. It was a glowing, lustful day. The white curtains in the -windows bosomed out to him like love’s own welcome; lizards basked on -the walls; the flowers in the garden hung sweet drowsy heads. He was -singing still when he reached the door: singing when he greeted -Fiorentina with a chin-chuck: he walked, with a song on his lips, into -the parlour. She was there, sure enough--a flushed palpitating beauty, -with a brave front of greeting, and a quaking heart behind it. He had -no idea of making many words about the thing. He stopped in the middle -of the room, smiling at her. - -“What!” said he: “no kiss for me?” - -She had never realised until this moment the fulness of her daring, -nor its madness. She gulped sickly, as she crept up to him without a -word, and put her lips to his cheek. - -He had a purse of gold ready, and held it out to her. - -“There are your wages, Judas.” - -As if her legs had been knocked from under her, she went down at his -feet. - -“No, no! He was dying, Cherry!” - -“Better he had died.” - -“O, don’t condemn me unheard!” - -“Did you disobey me?” - -“Yes; but--” - -“That is enough.” - -“O, my God! Am I to go?” - -“Yes.” - -“Think what it means to me?” - -“I am thinking.” - -“And you can do it?” - -“And I can do it--a hundred times. And worse than that, if you tempt -me. Take your price, and go--back to England, if you are wise. Do you -see this in my hand? It’s my last mercy.” - -He drew away from her, where she lay, cast upon her face and moaning. - -“I am going,” he said. “But I shall return in the afternoon at three -o’clock. If then I find you still here--understand what I say--your -chance to save yourself is past. I’ll kill you on our bed--I mean it.” - -A wild desolate scream broke from her throat. He threw the purse down -beside her on the floor, and left the house without another word. - -At three o’clock to the minute he returned. Not till he had searched -into every corner of the villa, would he question the red-eyed -_cameristas_, huddled awaiting him in their kitchen. Then he learned -that she had gone indeed. They would have besieged his heart with -tearful clamour, telling of the scene--its rending piteousness; but he -stopped them peremptorily, paid them their wages, double and treble, -and dismissed them. - -He had already seen that the purse of gold lay untouched where he had -thrown it down upon the floor. For all his gripping will, that gave -his heart a wrench. He stooped and took it in his -hand--hesitated--then, with a curse at his own weakness, thrust it -into his breast. He went from room to room, bolting the windows. In -one upstairs he paused--so long that ghosts began to stir and whisper -in the empty house. Something, he thought, was moving the curtains of -the bed to which his back was turned. Little slippers stole from -underneath a chair and walked without sound upon the floor. He heard a -sigh--it was himself sighing. With a mad oath, he turned and tramped -downstairs, resolutely, making all the noise he could. The next moment -he had clapped to the door behind him, and was in the open air. - -That night, pacing the streets, he passed a hospital for Magdalens. A -box, beseeching charity, was in the wall. He stopped, and taking the -purse from his breast, dropped the coins from it, one by one, into the -slit. - -Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness. - - - - - PART III - - CHAPTER I - -We mortals discuss the world as a subject of our common -understanding, and no two of us see it with the same eyes. To -Victor-Amadeus the third’s, for example, it was a stage for _fêtes -galantes_; to the Chevalier de France’s a ball fettered to the ankle -of an heir-at-law, infamously kept from his inheritance; to those of a -certain “little corporal,” as yet unaccredited, it was a potential -family estate; to Yolande’s and Louis-Marie’s a reformatory for -original sin; to Bonito’s it was a footstool to the stars, to -Cartouche’s an absurd necessity, to Jacques Balmat’s a glorious field -for adventure. - -In 1786 Jacques was the most famous man in Le Prieuré, and for long -distances beyond it. In notability he had outstripped all these other -claimants to our attention. For he had won his mountain and his wife, -and basked in the lustre and the reward of a great enterprise greatly -accomplished. Yet he took his reputation modestly, as became one who -had looked on Death too often and too close to boast himself superior -to that God. He’d propitiated, not defied him. There was something -very solemn, very sobering in having gained that awful shadow for -one’s friend. So he accepted his part without arrogance, but without -hypocrisy. - -“Ah! monsieur,” he said to Saint-Péray, lord-consort to his lady of -the Manor: “you should have held on; you should not have lost heart; -you should have been with me. There are no heights so inaccessible but -that the good God will surrender them to our trust in Him as the first -guide of us all. There is no corner of His world of which He hath -said, ‘Faith shall not enter here.’” - -Madame Saint-Péray (she had dropped--flung away, rather--her title) -looked up from her needle-work, with a little frown, like an acute -accent, nicked between her eyes. She was conscious, on this occasion -as she had been on others, of that half protective half accusatory -note in the young mountaineer’s respectful addressings of her husband, -which somehow touched a corresponding chord in herself. It vibrated on -a thought of weakness; it was the tremor in the heart of dying dreams; -its first movement in her had been co-instantaneous with the fall of -her saint from transcendent to merely human heights. Something of -discharm spoke in it; a sense as of an idol convicted of petitioning -his worshipper; a sense as of an unwilling accessory to another’s -secret sin; a sense as of a responsibility incurred where help had -been expected. These several emotions she found suggested somehow in -young Balmat’s tone. Were they common to all sympathetic spirits -brought into whatsoever relations with her husband? She feared so. She -feared, more, that Louis-Marie liked it to be so. His caressing -confidence in all others than himself constituted at once his strength -and his weakness. He ruled by sweet dependence, and was satisfied to -rule. - -There were hints of a certain change in her in these days--signs of an -enforced self-emancipation, which, in its process, had a little -chilled the texture of her faith. It was, in its moral, like that -hardening of the grain which only a close observer can detect in the -“fixing” of a pastel. The bloom was a thought less virgin; the eyes -less liquid-clear; the lips had tightened to a scarce perceptible -primness. Her love was as single, as great, as self-sacrificing as -ever. Only it had altered its habit to a sterner garb. It ruled where -it had served; it had made a subject of him who had been its lord; it -justified itself by every concession to the loved one but that of -self-abandonment. And in such implied reproaches as those of honest -Balmat’s it felt its attitude vindicated. “You should have been with -me,” he had said. He should. If he had, if it had been in his nature -to be, this twin history of theirs, she believed, had never come to -find its tragedy and redemption. Louis at this moment had been her -king--her tyrant, even; their parts had never of necessity been -reversed. - -Of course, in all this, she only skimmed the truth. There was more to -be inferred, even than she supposed, from the young mountaineer’s -tone. It implied, in fact, a troubled conscience, seeking to allay its -own suspicions on the strength of a serenity in their object which -must surely, it told itself, be incompatible with guilt. - -For, indeed, a certain serenity had come to succeed in Louis-Marie the -storms and anguish of a former state. His wife’s tender ministrations; -a year of utter peace, of utter immunity from disturbance in their -retreat, had restored him to a measure of self-confidence--even to a -point of view something broader than that in which Cartouche had -confirmed him. Now he was inclined to think that his deed had been not -only righteous, but heroic; that his bearing of its burden in silence -was a saintly discipline; that, in any case, his confiding of his -awful secret, like King Midas’s barber, to the reeds, had acquitted -him of the first responsibility to it. And the last was, after all, -his most characteristic comfort. He grew well on it, as a worried -schoolboy, quit of his imposition to a merciful parent, forgets his -troubles in a moment. - -There remained only, to disturb his conscience, the question of his -conditional absolution, as decreed by Cartouche. Well, as to that, he -had assured and reassured himself, his friend was scarcely -matriculated in moral philosophy. But, even were he called upon by him -to answer for his act, he had still this to plead--that he had not -married Yolande, but Yolande him. - -For the rest, slow growing sense of security had come to mend his -sickness of another shadow. A year had passed, and it had not yet -pursued him to his fastness in the Château di Rocco. He hoped now it -never would. He hoped he read, in the social exile which their own -mutinous act had decreed upon himself and Yolande, an abandonment of -any interest in their further fortunes. God grant they might be -permitted to make out their days in peace, justifying--as they for -ever strove, and intended for ever to strive to do--in their devotion -to their church, in a wide and noble beneficence, their inheritance of -a wicked man’s possessions. For to this end only had they decided to -take up the burden of an estate otherwise hateful to them. - -It was a mellow September noon. The three sat under the front of the -grim old Château in the quiet sunlight. Far off across the valley, on -a level with their eyes, great flakes of silver-white, spangling a -golden haze, were the huddled masses of the Alps, no less. Soft and -unsubstantial in appearance as the floating iridescences one sees in -water, they were still the native home and most austere dominion of -primordial rock and ice. It seemed impossible to realise it. The very -shadows on their slopes were traced so soft, they were no more shadows -than the blue veins in marble, than the blue inter-webbings of running -surf. Surely that mist of peaks must be descended cloud, and the -changing colours of it the bloom of angelic wings beating within! - -Below the sitters’ feet terrace declined upon terrace, until, halted -against a buttress wall, the cultivated land gave place beyond to -stony pastures, which descended to the lower verge of the estate and -the great wrought-iron gates of the entrance. - -And between, poised high in the mid-ether of the valley, a watching -kestrel floated like a leaf. - -Madame Saint-Péray, looking up, answered for her husband. Her -recognition that neither high achievement nor great failure was ever -for this dear weanling of her passion was not to find her loyalty to -him at fault--rather to confirm her jealousy for his reputation. - -“That is a very right sentiment for a guide, M. Jacques,” she said; -“but there may be nobler conquests for duty even than those of -mountains. Monsieur owed his life to _me_; and he sacrificed his -ambitions to that debt.” - -That was the thorn. Then she offered the rose. - -“For you, you owed that conquest to your love; and bravely you strove -and gained. I hope the dear father recovers himself of your -naughtiness?” - -Jacques laughed; then essayed his little gallantry. No Frenchman, -however primitive, lacks that essential grace,-- - -“I said, Monsieur should not have lost his heart for the enterprise. I -was a dog, an imbecile. What summit could equal that to which his -heart attained! I thought myself near heaven as I stood up there -alone--the first to get so near. Alas, Madame! Monsieur staying on the -ground had already gained it.” - -Monsieur, lying comfortably back in his chair, smiled kindly. - -“That is very true, Jacques; and I wish I could take credit for the -best deserts. But you have not answered Madama’s question.” - -“Of Dr Paccard, Monsieur? The old man is almost himself again. He can -see his son-in-law at last.” - -“It was cruel of you to force him to the summit,” said Madame. - -“Why, what would you?” answered the mountaineer. “He would never have -believed else; and upon his belief depended my reward.” - -“But, by all accounts, he could not see, even then.” - -“That is true; but others could. My faith, he was bad! But it was his -bargain, not mine, that he should accompany me to witness. He would -have given up before we slept the first night on la Côte. There had -been enough and to spare already to terrify him. With dusk had come an -oppression of the air. Our axes sang like flutes. Suddenly, as I -climbed, holding my staff by the middle, it had a knob of light for -head--a thing like a luminous bladder, that palpitated, and swelled, -and shrunk and swelled again; till, in a moment, it detached itself -and floated away, far, far into the shadows, where it burst with a -clap like thunder. Then came the lightning, above, everywhere. One -blaze struck the ground, right in front of us. It was as if a bucket -of fire had been emptied from some window of the rocks. It splashed up -and was gone, leaving a stench--_Mon Dieu!_ the fish they had been -gutting up there were not very fresh.” - -“O, horrible, horrible!” - -“Better than that our heads had received it. But I am fatiguing -Madame?” - -“No, no. Go on. I have wanted so much to hear it from your lips.” - -“He slept exhausted, for all his fright, wrapped in my blanket, and -moaning for the good roast chicken, which he had ordered at home -against his soon return. When he awoke, it was bright calm sunlight, -and he had gathered new heart of rest. We went on and up; but his -courage soon ebbed, running out at his heels, until, _Mon Dieu!_ he -was crawling on his belly like a mole. That was laughable enough; but -even so, my merriment could urge him no further than the Dôme du -Goûter, where he sat down and refused to move a step further. I gave -him my glass, and told him to look how the villagers watched us from -below, and at Martha herself, the brave child, waving to us with her -handkerchief. It was all of no use. I had to leave him and go on -alone. The thin air suffocated me. The wind shaved my cheeks, drawing -blood from them like a clumsy barber. Every sweep of its razor was a -gash. But by then I was mad to conquer or perish. Though it strip me -to the bone, I thought, my skeleton shall stand on the summit. And -presently, all in an instant, I was there. - -“O, Madama! It is something, that, to have seen the stars by daylight. -They were all about my head, crowning me. Perhaps their glory -intoxicated my brain. In any case, I was fierce now to go and fetch my -comrade, and force him to come up and believe. And I went down to him -again, and roused him from his stupor, and drove him before me up the -heights. He was quite dumb and silly, like a drunken man; but my will -was great, and I got him there. He could see nothing; the -snow-blindness was in his eyes; he would hear nothing. ‘Take your -Martha,’ he said, ‘and let me sleep.’ That was all. How I got him down -and home is known to none but God; it is not known to me.” - -Louis-Marie, listening in a glow, had caught something of the -speaker’s transport. He turned, with kindled eyes, to Yolande. “See,” -his looks confessed, “what I have foregone for your sake!” She gave a -sudden cry “Ah!” and pointed down. The hawk had swooped into a tree, -and re-emerged with a little fluttering life in its claws. - -“That is very pitiful,” she said. “I had heard the poor thing singing -to his mate but a moment ago.” - -Balmat took up his hat. - -“He sang of himself, by the token, Madama,” he said--“of what a fine -fellow he was. It is the way with cock-birds. That was a good lesson -to me. Be sure, it said, before you start to blow your own trumpet, -that an enemy is not within hearing.” - -As, having made his respectful adieux, he went down the hill at a -swing, the lodge gate clanked at the foot of the drive far below. They -saw his diminishing figure halt against another which was approaching. -The two appeared to exchange greetings and a few words. At the end, -Balmat resumed his way down, and the stranger turned again to the -ascent. As he came on, the cuttings of the hill path swallowed him, -and he disappeared from view. In the same instant, Yolande, bent over -her work, heard her husband get hurriedly to his feet, and glanced up -at him. Silks and needles went to the ground. She was by him in a -moment. - -“What is it--Louis! Louis!” - -He was deadly pale; he was holding his hand to his forehead in a lost -way. - -“Take me in, take me in!” he muttered. “I--I think the sun--ah!--it -was perhaps too strong for me.” - -He was wild over her momentary hesitation. - -“I would not stop to question if you were sick,” he said. She put her -arm about him at once, and guided him into the house. Entered into its -refuge, a little reassurance, as of a sanctuary gained, seemed to -brace him. He moved of his own accord, and towards the stairs, making -for the upper rooms. She never released him, until he was lying back -on his own pillows. Then he seized her hands and kissed them as she -knelt beside him. - -“Dear wife,” he said, in great emotion. “I think, perhaps, the -sun--and the excitement--of listening. There; I shall be well in a -little--only rest--utter rest--I can see no one--no one: Yolande--it -would be very bad for me--it--” - -She soothed him. - -“Why needst thou, most sweet, with me to stand between? If visitor -there be, sleep here in confidence; thou shalt not be disturbed.” - -A servant’s voice at the door announced that a stranger craved a word -with Madame. Madame answered that she would be down in a minute. The -invalid uttered a little tremulous cry. - -“No, no, at once, in a second,” he urged in extremest agitation. -“Think if he were to anticipate you by mounting to this room! My God! -I have known him do it!” - -“Him!” she exclaimed astonished. “Whom?” - -“I have known people do it,” he responded in tremulous -irritation--“ill-mannered people. Why do you delay? Do you want to -drive me mad? If he comes in here, I will not answer for myself.” - -Seeing him so wrought up, she felt it the wise policy to obey. With a -last word or two of assurance, she went quickly from the room and down -the stairs. - -The old corridors, the old house, the old chinks piping-in the -draughts which swayed the old tapestries, the old dust which seemed to -crawl upon the floors, as if the swarming of their slow decay were for -ever being disturbed by ghostly footfalls--in all, this dark old -habitation, with its stony echoes, had never before seemed to her so -instinct with the spirit of a watchful secrecy. Wickedness hung -somewhere brooding in its vaulted silences. The air was thick with -omen. - -She had to pause a moment to recover herself, before opening the door -of the room into which the visitor had been shown. But at last she -turned the handle, and entered--and there was Dr Bonito facing her. - - - - - CHAPTER II - -She had seen something of this man before; had heard--to -loathe--more of him than she had seen. He was not one to be forgotten, -once encountered--least of all by gentle souls. Only her memory of him -could not somehow reconcile his past and present habits. A threadbare -pedant, dull-eyed and malefic; a godless truckler to the vicious, -prostituting his learning for a dog’s wages, abject while -starving--that was how knowledge and report had painted him to her. -Here, indeed, was the frame, but how reinvested! Snuff as of old, -seamed the wrinkles of the jaw; but now that wagged upon a lace -cravat. The hands were as skeleton and unclean; but rings sparkled on -their frowsy knuckles. The brown mouldy duds had given place to a -gold-laced coat and breeches of black velvet. There was something -evilly potential, something suggestive of chartered mischievousness in -the change, she thought: so instinctively do we estimate all human -authority by the quality of its cloth. - -She curtsied, and stood up frigidly to await his explanation. This -sinister vision did nothing to allay the tumult of emotions which had -accompanied her from the bedroom. Her heart was foreboding she knew -not what; the chill of her manner hid a nameless fear. She could not -analyse its nature, nor trace it to its source in herself. She did not -know how, during all these months, it had really existed in her as a -germ, which had shrunk from its own quickening to some unspeakable -disclosure. Whispers, perhaps, half heard and put away; shadows in -conscience-troubled eyes, cast down on half-betrayals of their -secrets--to the faint record of such faint percussions on her soul, -maybe, was due that vague sense of uneasiness. And here, all in a -moment, the seed in her was stirring--swelling--touched into life by -what? and to what monstrous birth? Was this ominous presence -accountable for the change--this dark spirit, associated solely in her -mind with a dead and gone abomination? What spectre could he be, risen -from that grave to curse her later peace? What power in his hand, to -have struck her love with terror through that far recognition? For to -that recognition, she could not doubt, was due her husband’s state. - -He did not keep her long in suspense. The old dreary wolf in him was -quick to sharp conclusions. His tooth was his special pleader, and he -showed it at the outset, without a thought of compromise. - -He just essayed to make a responsive leg to her; but, even in the -clumsy act, grinned in derision of his own mockery, and flung his -hands behind his back, humping his shoulders bullyingly. - -“You know me?” he snapped. - -“I have seen you, Monsieur,” she answered. - -“I was physician,” he said loudly, “to your late husband. That is -something to you. You owe me your present one. That is more to you.” - -She held on to herself, bravely, a little longer. - -“You asked to see me, Monsieur,” she said quietly. “I desire you will -state your business.” - -“You or your husband,” he answered. “It is all one to me. Thank my -gallantry alone for this precedence. If you scorn it, send for _him_.” - -She trembled, in spite of herself. - -“Did he see me coming?” he continued. “I have reason to think so. He -is shy of greeting me, no doubt; though, to be sure, we are quite old -friends and confidants. It is not possible that you are his -confederate?” - -He saw her, poor helpless quarry, look towards the door; and he -laughed out. - -“Yes, summon assistance, if you want the truth blazoned. Many or -one--it will not change my purpose.” - -Then, in her fear, she became the serpent. Her eyes glittered; her -lips parted in a conciliatory smile. - -“Ah, monsieur!” she pleaded; “you rebuke me rightly for my cavalier -reception of a guest. But there are memories--associations--cannot you -understand it? that one would fain forget. Yet, if you were my -husband’s friend--?” - -“And yours, and yours, mistress,” he broke in violently. “Don’t -overlook that. You owe one another to me--why should I conceal it? If -I had not blown into flame a little spirit of jealousy in the bosom of -a certain _chère amie_ of--but you know his name--our admirable dear -Prefect down yonder--” - -She stopped him, flushing intolerably. - -“Spare me that mention, at least, Monsieur. It is my humiliation ever -to have been associated, even indirectly, with that infamous man.” - -He sniggered hatefully. - -“Why, it is true, by all reports,” he croaked, “that he has not taken -salvation of his disappointment. Knowing him of old, as I do, that -miracle, if it had happened, had converted even me, I think.” - -“Monsieur!” she entreated, half weeping--“I beg you--” - -She checked herself; disciplined her anguish anew; held out fawning -hands to him. - -“If you want thanks--recognition of that service--O, Monsieur! I am -prepared to give them, to make it, to the utmost of your desire.” - -“Are you?” he said. “We shall see. Perhaps your gratitude may take -something less than full account of my claims on it. We shall see. For -there is a deadlier claim yet to come.” - -Her tears, her innocence, her beauty, moved him no more than a poor -calf’s sobbings might move a butcher. Baiting made meat tender, in the -opinion of his day. - -She drew back a little. - -“A deadlier claim!” she said faintly. - -He looked about him a moment, then approached her closely. His evil -eyes, his acrid tongue took instant command of her. - -“Di Rocco was murdered,” he said. - -She uttered a weak cry; caught at a chair to steady herself; stood -with closed eyes, and her head fallen back a little. - -“Murdered,” he repeated--“only I, and one other, know by whom.” - -“What other?” - -She did not speak it; but the horror of the question took shape on her -lips. - -“Your husband,” he said. - -She never stirred nor cried out. In the crash of that agony her first -instinct was not to betray her love. - -He let the thrust sink home, watching, with some diabolical curiosity, -the settling of the flesh, as it were, about that cruel wound. -Suddenly she moved, and came erect, hating him, his inhumanity. - -“Base and wicked! you say it to torture me, because to torture is the -lust of devils. I will not listen to you. I will not even understand -what you imply. Go, before I have you scourged out of my house!” - -He never moved an inch. - -“Your house!” he sneered. “Well bought at the price; only you left me -out of your calculations--you and your confederate.” - -She came at him then, this piety, with set teeth and clinched hands. -She was like a tigress in that instant. But he waved his arm -disdainfully, and she stopped. - -“Are you not?” he said. “Then the other’s my sole quarry. I’ll make my -terms with him.” - -“No, no!” - -The cry broke from her instinctively; and, having uttered it, she knew -her own surrender. Pale and broken, poor lily, she drooped before him. - -“Very well,” he said; “then with you. I care nothing for the deed; the -terms are my concern. I’ll not be diffident about them. I’ll justify -them, on your invitation, to the utmost of my desire. Your husband, -mistress, killed di Rocco.” - -“O, my God!” - -“Why, he had his provocation. The man meant lewdly, and he knew -it--knew of his intent, its method and occasion. Ask him, if you doubt -me. Ask him what he was doing that night, crouched hidden by the -glacier where the other was to cross. Ask him why he followed in di -Rocco’s tracks, down upon the ice and further. Ask him why he returned -alone, later, and slunk home in the storm and darkness, the brand of -that on his forehead which he’ll never rub out to the end of time. O, -believe me, I have a hundred eyes for things that touch my interests. -This did, and closely. He murdered di Rocco. Ask him, I say, if you -doubt me.” - -Her ashy lips moved, but no sound came from them. - -“Or ask him nothing,” the beast went on. “He did it for you; and maybe -you’ll think you owe him that silence. Let him live on in his fools’ -paradise, taking beatitude of grace, winning his redemption, as he -views it. I’ll not interfere to damn him, so you gild my tongue from -speaking.” - -“He did not do it.” - -“Ask him.” - -“What do you want of me?” - -“Money. Do you understand? Money. Why, as it is, I’ve arrears to make -up. You’d have seen me before, if circumstances hadn’t interfered.” - -“If I give you what you want, will you--will you take it in discharge -of--of this fantastic--of this debt you say I owe you--now and for -ever?” - -He leered derisory, crooking his jaw to rub it back and forth with -deliberate fingers on which a dozen gems sparkled. - -“Will I? This fantastic debt?” he said. “Do you think there is any end -to that, while _he_ lives? No, no, mistress. I commute no pension paid -to my silence. Why, I’ll be frank with you. I’m no common blackmailer -for a personal gain. My vileness, as you deem it, aims at a world’s -redemption. This Augean stable--filth of rotten governments--there’s -no way to cleanse it but by flood. Pour socialism through the stench. -But funds are needed to divert a river. You shall contribute--be great -by deputy. I’ll not be hard. I’ll spare you what I can, so you’ll be -amenable when I can’t.” - -“You’ll come again?” - -“Why, I understand you. Better risk all, you think, than face that -prospect. No need to. Send when I ask, what I ask, and forestall my -visitations. Money’s what I want--not lives. I’ll not kill my goose -with the golden eggs unless I’m driven. You can keep me away.” - -“Tell me, now, how much you want,” she said, like one half lifeless. - - * * * * * * * * - -It was dusk when, lamp in hand, she stole up the stairs to their -bedroom. He was lying asleep, sunk in the reaction from emotion. But -the light on his face awoke him. He opened his eyes, drowsily, without -speculation at first; but in a moment wide apprehension sprung to -them. He half started up. - -“Yolande!” - -“Hush!” she said. “It was nothing--somebody who had come on business, -and is gone. Think no more about it. Husband--dear husband, have you -prayed to-night?” - -He whispered a negative. She threw her arms about his neck. - -“O, Louis, we have been happy during this year, have we not?” - -He returned her caresses. But his hands were damp; his throat was -stiff; he could not answer. She released him feverishly. - -“Get up and pray now,” she said. “We have forgotten God in our deep -content--forgotten, in our bodies’ loves, the blows and anguish which -His flesh suffered to redeem them.” - -He rose, unquestioning, and knelt by the bedside. He prayed that she -might not know, that his suspicions might be unfounded, that the -burden of that knowledge might never be hers--not that he might find -strength to ask her if it were. He prayed and prayed, until the -chillness of the night air seized his frail body with a very ague of -shivering. Then she, kneeling beside him, was smitten with remorse, -and blamed her thoughtlessness, and got him into bed again with all -speed, and watched beside him till he was once more warm and restful. -Then, his comfort was so great, her beauty so pitiful, he held out -rapturous arms to her, and wooed her to his heart. Shrinking, -reluctant, she surrendered passively. Had he not wounded his soul to -save hers? How could she deny him the fruits of that wild sacrifice. -She was a murderer’s wife. - -There was even a thrill of ecstasy in the delirium of that thought--a -spark of new life struck out of a dead delusion. He could answer to a -provocation, after all--for _her_! - -But later, when he had fallen into a deep sleep, she rose softly from -beside him, and crept to her oratory, and, kneeling on the icy stones -before the statue of the Holy Virgin, broke into prayer, and a passion -of tears,-- - -“O, Mother! show me how to love, and yet be clean!” - - - - - CHAPTER III - -On a flat open width of the Argentière road, a mile or so to the -north-east of Le Prieuré, a little company of astronomers was -gathered to gaze at the moon. They carried glasses and instruments; -there was not the least air of privacy about their proceedings; the -spot selected was open to all. There was an extension in the long tear -of the valley in this place, the increased interval between the -mountains being occupied by a humpish land strewn with boulders. - -About eight o’clock of a September evening, this group of -enthusiasts--drinking in lunar obfuscation; its telescopes, like so -many glasses brimming with moonshine, tilted to its eyes--was joined -by a single individual, whose approach from Le Prieuré, it seemed, -had occurred unnoticed by it in its preoccupation. Nor did his arrival -affect it now, further than to its tacit acceptance of his company as -of that of a recognised kindred spirit. - -The newcomer, taking a short tube from his pocket, applied the smaller -lens to his eye, and joined in the general scrutiny of that placid -orb, which floated over the mountain tops in a liquid mist. Gradually, -and scarce perceptibly as he gazed, the others edged about him, until -all were within a common focus of hearing. Then one, who appeared to -have some precedence of authority, opened his lips, but without -removing his instrument from his eye. - -“The oracle, great Spartacus--hath it worked?” - -“It is working, Ajax.” - -“And Paris shall be deposed?” - -“In time, in time. We move swifter to that end.” - -“Swifter, swifter? But while we gather speed, he strikes like the -lightning.” - -“Defy him. Art thou not Ajax?” - -“Ajax defied the gods. He had a quicker way with mortals.” - -“What words, what example are these from a Regent? Is not the dagger -alien to our policy? Hast qualified in the tables of our law to no -better end than this?” - -“Forgive me, Spartacus. I spoke in heat. But this man, he harasses us; -drives us from point to point; forestalls our meetings with his -devil’s wit, and rides the country like a scourge.” - -“A faithful Prefect.” - -“An Alva sunk in vice.” - -“He shall be deposed. I say it: Cassandra hath prophesied it: Priam -inclines our way. We’ll find a substitute anon more to our tastes. In -the meanwhile, the sinews, the sinews, Ajax--they gather in -strength--they--” - -With the word he was gone--had dropped, slunk like a shadow behind a -roadside boulder. The others, inured to all quick evasions and -surprises, stood like voiceless statues, conning the moon. The next -moment, a little company of horsemen, the hoofs of their beasts -muffled, came picking their way out upon them from the black glooms of -the stone-strewn hillocks. They drew up in the road, their leader -foremost. - -“A fine moon-raking night, gentlemen,” he said. “By my faith, a very -constellation of enthusiasts! What! is that you, M. Léotade? and -armed with nothing more defensive than a telescope? Why, my friend, -you can hardly realise the danger of these valleys. I’ll see you home, -with your permission.” - -Laughing, urging, persuading, deaf to their explanations and protests, -he got them apart, and invited each to take the road to his separate -destination, while he made M. Léotade his own especial care. In a -minute or two the place was deserted. Only Bonito crouched, -undiscovered, behind his rock. - -“Too good a servant to your master,” he muttered. “But the rod is -already in pickle for you, Mr Trix.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV - -That rod, nevertheless, was not to come out of pickle for some six -years yet. And, in the meanwhile, Cartouche remained Prefect of -Faissigny. For one thing, King’s favourites are not easily deposed; -for another, the light seat in the saddle is the sure one. Cartouche -rode his duties springily, and appeared to take them with only a shade -more seriousness than he took himself. - -During all this time he ruled his Province with agile, nervous young -hands, asking no favour and giving none. An easy subject for -defamation, the malignity of his enemies missed no opportunity of -distorting in the public view the most harmless motives of his -actions. He might, he thought, have cared, under impossibly different -circumstances. It mattered nothing to him now. He admired his own -character too little, was too little impressed with the -disinterestedness of most others, to resent aspersions on it. It would -give a certain lady great satisfaction, he was sure, to have her -opinion of him so confirmed. That was the only way left to him to -prove his regard for her. Truly, life for the future was to be an -upside-down affair--a test of wit, not principles. - -He had no principles, he told himself; but only a commission--to -administer the law, in the first place; to root out disaffection, in -the second. He had a whimsical idea of confounding equity with -justice, and making an elegant Sancho Panza of himself. As to the -other task--that of combating the spirit of an age bent on immense -social displacements, on the reconstitution of States, on the -launching of democracy’s huge engine “down the ringing grooves of -change”--he accepted it as airily as if it were one involving just a -disputed question of etiquette. - -It suggested a gallant picture--that of this slim rake (with death at -his heart all the time) facing the rising tide of revolution with not -so much as a Mrs Partington’s mop in his hand, but only a ribbon of -steel there, and a song of gay contempt on his lips. He had little -doubt but that the red waters were destined to submerge all Savoy in -the end, and beat their crests against the Alps. Well, though he were -but a coloured pebble in their path, he would delay them by that -microscopic measure. He owed it as much to his own constitution as to -the State’s. - -In the meanwhile slander, nursed by deep policy, convicted him of the -seven deadly sins and more. Advoutry, barratry, crapulence, -debauchery--one might run down the alphabet of infamies, and leave the -tale incomplete. There is no need to. It would be unedifying, and, as -a fable, unnecessary. - -Alas! that as such, it could even be held plausible in the district; -but experience in Savoy put no limit to the infinite rascalities of -Prefects appointed to represent a despotic government. As tyranny’s -proxies, district autocrats, they were potential as Roman Tetrarchs -for good or evil. They might honour their offices, and sometimes did; -but more often they abused them. The enforcement of conscription, of -the imposts, of the many heart-crushing taxes was all in their hands. -They controlled the _gendarmerie_, and could substitute a military for -a civil jurisdiction on slight provocation. They could hang, fine, -imprison, whip, brand, bleed, and grow rich on extortion if they -chose. - -In Cartouche’s time, the Prefect of Faissigny, it was to be observed, -did not grow rich. He expended his shameful gains in riotous living, -said scandal. Such gangs of chained convicts, again it remarked, had -never yet been encountered on the public roads, wending their way to -Chambéry and the state prisons. Such a healthy moral condition, it -might have added, had never yet obtained in the Province. The majority -nevertheless thought him a strong Prefect, if privately a bad man. The -evidences for the former were unquestionable, and rather admirable; -for the latter, not even circumstantial--but they were admitted. It is -the human way to require convincing proof of a man’s virtues; but to -accept his wickedness on hearsay. There was a vile story--of the -Colonel Kirke order--which related of a father’s life sold to a child -at the price of her honour, and the contract repudiated after receipt. -The facts lay in the unconditional offer of herself to the young -autocrat by a bold-eyed jade, who had been smitten in Court by the -_beaux yeux_ of her parent’s judge, and of his answering by impounding -her for a time, while he despatched the old miscreant to his deserved -ending on the gallows. - -The truth is that this fable, with others as odious, was no more than -a political expedient for procuring the Prefect’s downfall and -removal. Mr Trix had proved himself an annoyingly sharp thorn in the -side of Illuminatism, and that body was for ever wriggling and -twisting to get rid of him. It was, as a matter of fact, in a -particularly sensitive state during the first years of the young man’s -ascendency, owing to an unhappy determination on the part of the -Elector of Bavaria to put his heel on its head, which lay in his -dominions; the result being that that same head--Weishaupt, by name, -general and brain of the Society--had flicked itself away, none -exactly knew whither; leaving to the corporate rest of it the solution -of the problem as to how a body was to continue to answer, as a -compact international entity, to an unlocalisable brain. - -That bitter stroke was, indeed, the beginning of the finish with -Illuminatism. The Society survived for some years longer; but more as -a local than a universal power. It retained for a time a certain -mystic influence on events, until in the end that influence, with many -another as inherently socialistic, was absorbed into the elemental -energy of the revolution. - -A significant revelation, on the seizure of its papers in 1786, was -its _rôle_ of names. They included “princes, nobles, magistrates, -bishops, priests and professors”--men of a condition weighty enough to -carry them and their occult propaganda into the very heart of society; -to bring their suggestions to bear, even, upon some heads that wore -crowns. - -There was one of those, pretty vain and silly, which did not fail, you -may be sure, to make itself a subject for their practices. It had -looked out of the windows of Piedmont on the tide rising down there in -Savoy, and, with all the first tentative assurance, and none of the -after humility of Canute, had commanded the waters peevishly to -retire. They had not: on the contrary they had come determinedly on, -until they threatened to find a way through the passes into Piedmont. -The King was disgustedly amazed. He heard of peasants refusing to pay -their lawful taxes; he heard of bread riots; he heard of a -dissemination of pernicious doctrines, such as those which spoke of -commonwealths, and the right of the many to exist other than by -sufferance of the few. Was this the way to realise his ideal of a -piping Arcadia? What were his provincial viceroys doing, so to let -corruption over-run his duchy? - -Innuendo whispered to him of one of them, at least. His Prefect of -Faissigny, it murmured into his ear, was as responsible as any for the -subversive creed that justice, to be effective, must be impartial. -That gave him thought. He had made rather a pet of this man; although, -it was true, his plans for his aggrandisement had fallen something -short of their intention. Was he, this Cartouche, making his -disappointment the text for a popular dissertation on the fallibility -of Kings? He began to wonder if he had misplaced his confidence. - -And the gay Prefect himself--the bright siderite of all this -conspiracy? Something conscious of the forces at work against him, -indifferent to results and for himself, he continued to administer his -office in the way most characteristic of him. He had no ideals nor -delusions. Equality to him, in a world nine-tenths asses, was a -vicious chimera. He was a magistrate of the crown, and he simply -sought to make that respectable in the popular view. The rights of -man, in his, were solely to be governed justly. Roguery, in whatever -form, must be suppressed. No man should be privileged to tyrannise. He -gave practical effect to the loose tenets of reformers, who, obsessed -with a personal vanity, could see nothing in them thus presented but a -hide-bound reactionism. Many people, it is certain, think less of -their own ideals than of the credit they may gain in pursuing them. -They are quite blind to them when achieved by others. - -Mr Trix’s Prefecture in Le Prieuré was a very Court of Barataria. It -was flanked by a lofty stone tower, known as the Belfry, which had -once formed part of a long-vanished monastery of Benedictines, and was -now used as a lock-up, for those condemned to walk the long road to -Chambéry. The committed to it seldom had reason to question the -justice of their convictions, or to complain of consideration of -extenuating circumstances having been withheld. Cartouche, proclaimed -a libertine and martinet, had nevertheless a happy wit for justice. He -could tell a rascal under a silk frock. - -So much for his public life. What surcease of private pain he sought -in its incessant action, in that airy yet vigorous administration of -his office, might not appear. He was always reckless for himself, for -his reputation. He walked like one gaily damned, conscious of his own -bond to the devil. What did it matter what _she_ thought of him now? -What did anything matter in a world where man was held responsible for -the resolving of irresolvable ethical problems. He supposed, and -rightly, that she felt his mere presence in her neighbourhood to be an -insult to herself. What if she were to be told the truth? It could -never cleanse her of an indelible stain: it could never restore her to -him for what she had been. Sometimes he told himself now that he hated -her--that the proof of it was in his indifference to such reports of -himself as might reach her ears. Was that a proof? He took pleasure, -on her behoof, in refraining from forcing his slanderers to disgorge -their lies. Did not she want him wicked? Every nail knocked into his -character was a fresh vindication to her of her self-sacrificial love -for another. - -And there was a worse true story of him, after all, than any his -enemies could invent. It was part of the irresolvable problem; but he -believed she would answer it, if she knew, with a more utter -condemnation of him than any he had yet suffered at her hands. That he -had cast the girl away, because her disobedience to him had wrought an -irremediable wrong to another, herself--would that appeal to her, even -if in the hot blaze of the truth, for righteousness? She would answer, -he knew, that he himself was the one solely responsible for the -situation which his double-dealing with the woman most entitled to his -candour had created. What justification had she herself ever given him -for submitting her to the chance assaults of jealousy? If he had been -honest with the wretched child, this climax had never reached its -period. And, instead, he had made her the scapegoat of his own deceit. - -He had. And yet, if he had not, if he had confessed the passion of his -soul to her the victim of the passion of his body, how would that have -bettered things for the victim? Would she, made vestal to that altar -of his idol, have thought herself well compensated for her jilting? He -mocked now at the absurdity of his old conception--Cartouche’s was it? -or some sick neurotic monk’s? High-priest, he? What a figure of -elegance, in urim and thummim and with a thing like a flower-pot on -his head! He laughed tears of blood, recalling the ecstatic vision. -Better to be accursed than ridiculous. Better Louis-Marie should have -her, than she be made the sport of such a mummery. He did not blame -his friend, week-knee’d robber as he was. He rather admired him, for -his unexpected part. Would not he himself have dared all hell to win -the passion of those lips--O, God! the passion! Would he not? had he -not? He had at least bargained with the devil for her, and had -prevailed just so far as that it was made his privilege at last to -serve for deep contrastive shadow to that idyll of their loves. - -For shadow: and for shadow within shadow? For all this time he knew he -was a haunted man. That spirit of lost love betrayed--poor Molly! The -blackest gloom in him was due to it. Not the way, he thought -defiantly, to light him back to love. He wearied of its eternal -presence; yet he could not shake it off. It leaned out to him from the -dusk of mountain passes; it flitted before him through the sorrow of -infinite woods; it cried to him for help from the hearts of squalid -tenements, where villainous deeds were enacting. He had done that -thing. It was past remedy--not past clinching his damnation. Why not -then rest on that assurance, and cease to agitate both herself and -him? Yet, step warily as he might, he could never escape her--that -desolate phantom. Crossing beds of gentian, he would tread upon her -eyes; the little freshets which he spurned from their wreathings about -his feet, were her white arms; the low wind in the pines became her -low English voice. Always faithful, weeping, appealing--never -rebuking. God! was not this insatiable hunger in him enough anguish, -without the eternal memory of that fruit, which he had plucked in his -wanton appetite, and thrown away, just tasted, for the shadow of a -sweeter! Not enough, not enough? Then to her hands be it after death -to heap the coals upon his breast! He owned their right; would submit -to them, and face the eternal ordeal. Only let them refrain now! Was -he so prosperous, so happy, as to invite their vengeance prematurely? -Torture too exquisite, it was said, became a transport. Did they want -to qualify him for that balm in hell? - -He execrated the shadow in his thoughts--its endless, voiceless -weeping. He told it that he hated it. Let it take solace of his hate, -as he of another’s. He meant it. Yolande hated him, and that she did -was a wrung rapture to him at this last. By so much he had a place in -her passions, where any other was impossible. He would never imperil -it by controverting his slanderers. Let her think of him as wickedness -incarnate, if only she would think of him. - -Thus was the last state of this love’s agony; while he laughed, -bleeding inwardly, and met his traducers on a hundred points of wit. - -He had thought, now and then in his prostrate moments, that if he -could only once trace home the shadow, he might find it to be, after -all, no better than a black-mailing ghost. Supposing good fortune had -attended her dismissal? It might; and he have saddled his conscience -with a self-invoked incubus. Why not set himself to discover? - -He dared not--that was the truth. He was a coward there; he feared the -answer. Better even the shadow, than the revelations possible of the -thing that cast it. He dared not. - -For this reason, and others, he avoided Turin in these days. He was in -the city only at rare intervals of time, when officialdom compelled -him. Once or twice on these occasions he happened across the Chevalier -de France; heard him rail to others of the ingratitude of children. -The man had never forgiven his daughter her _mésalliance_; but, -nevertheless, in repudiating her, in refusing to visit her, he was -only, had the truth been known, making a virtue of necessity. Madame’s -self-emancipation had taken strict account of his share in the events -which had made it peremptory. He had to answer for it, to a daughter -strangely converted to new conceptions of duty; strangely altered in -many ways. She made him a princely allowance--which he spent _en -prince_; she would accept him at di Rocco only on her own terms, and -to those he refused to subscribe. He would not submit to the part of a -mere honoured dependant on her bounty, franked by her husband’s grace. -She denied him any closer rights. Therefore he kept away--it was best -for both of them--and maintained his individual state in the Via della -Zecca, sneering to intimates of the niggardliness which any promotion -to affluence was sure to find out in women, posing as an injured -father, enjoying his independence arrogantly in his dull selfish way. - -Cartouche longed to insult him--could, indeed, have found plentiful -opportunity to do so, had not the fact of his being _her_ father -withheld him. The Chevalier, on the few occasions when they met, -always scowled at him askance, as if to imply how he knew very well -that to this bastard, this _faux enfant_, this royal favourite -disappointed of his daughter, was to be attributed his own disfavour -with the King. But he was let live, for the sake of her whom he -traduced. - - * * * * * * * * - -And so the gay Prefect, with that death always at his heart, and the -tongue in his mouth a sword to wound, stood up against the rising -tide, fearless before its roar and babble. He was well served by his -police--admiring thralls to his courage, his quick wit, his retentive -memory. In these days there was not much of secret information, -touching the moral health of his Province, which did not reach his -ears. Thus, he early learned of Bonito’s visit to the Château, and to -draw some odd conclusions from its sequel. Their fruit will appear in -the course of things. In the meanwhile, it was observed by him that -some curious retrenchments reported up at the great house dated from -that visit, and were seemingly coincident with a look, as it were also -of retrenchment, in Madame Saint-Péray’s beautiful face. It had to -happen occasionally that he encountered the Lady of the Manor in the -exercise of his duties; and, inasmuch as she always disdained at such -times to acknowledge, or even to see him, he had ample opportunity for -studying her expression. That was beginning to shape itself, he could -not but think, on the lines of some gripping inward reserve. It were -too much to say that it betrayed any confirmation of the Chevalier’s -coward accusation; but certainly it looked pinched and drawn, as if -the sweet sap in it were somehow souring from its freshness. He -wondered. - -He wondered still when whispers reached him how Maire and priests, -confident almoners of her bounty, were softly complaining of an -inexplicable parsimony in a hand once lavish to munificence in -charity. His wonder increased to hear the charge substantiated by her -husband. - -He had never avoided Louis-Marie; nor had ever put himself in his way. -He had held his deed justified, and had told him so. For the rest, he -was no precisian in matters of conscience; and if Saint-Péray could -reconcile his marriage with his (as, by his growing air of -resignation, not to say, of self-complacency, he appeared to be able -to do), he had no mind to deny him his lovely provocation. He had -never referred to the subject on their meetings--which were rare, -because Louis was a dutiful husband. But once, to his surprise, his -friend opened upon it voluntarily. - -They had chanced upon one another on the road, when each was -unattended. Something of an ancient warmth spoke in Louis’s greeting. - -“Gaston,” he said: “we see so little of one another now. Is it because -you blame me?” - -“_Si on est bien, qu’on s’y tienne_,” said the other chauntingly. “Why -allude to it?” - -“Because I cannot bear to think I have lost your respect. Gaston, I -must always hold that of more worth than--than some others do.” - -Cartouche smiled. - -“You are looking very well under the infliction, Louis. That is the -moral of your loss.” - -The young man broke out eagerly,-- - -“She was losing her faith in God: only I could restore it. I have -always so longed to tell you. You know it was not the money! The first -condition of our union was that it should be given all away--that -curse turned to a blessing. I have never touched a penny of it--have -never claimed the right to; only as her almoner. And now! O, if that -dead man’s hand should still be on it, buying her soul to his in -vengeance!” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I think I must always have someone to hold to, Gaston. You were so -strong. I don’t know what I mean. Only now, when I ask her, for my own -charities--often--Gaston, she says she has none to spare--no -money--she!” - -“She is a better business-man than you, that’s all. It doesn’t -surprise me.” - -“Perhaps. God bless you, Gaston!” - -“Certainly, if He will. But I haven’t many dealings with Him. _Bonne -chance_, old friend!” - -Cartouche set his private agents to work; but the information he -sought was long in coming to him. And in the meanwhile the tide rose -up and up, under an ever more lowering sky, and the snarl of coming -tempest shook the black waters. But, slow as the years drawled on for -those up at the Château, to Cartouche they racketed past like a Dance -of Death. - - - - - CHAPTER V - -At the lower end of the Via del Po, where it debouched upon the -river, stood, nicked out of the north side of the street, a little -Square of houses known as the Court of Doctors. The buildings in this -Square--for the most part unoccupied--were very high, very narrow, -very crazy, and so few in number that no more than two or three of -them counted to any one of its three sides, the fourth lying open to -the stream of fashionable traffic which flowed by it all day. - -Quidnuncs had always been a power in Turin; whence this one-time -appropriation of a niche to their worship. The Court of Doctors, in -its present aspect, was said to date from the Regency of Madame -Reale--daughter to the fourth Henry of France, and wife to the first -Victor-Amadeus of Savoy--to whose politic superstition it had been -indebted for a sort of unofficial charter. For what destinies -foreshadowed, for what poisons brewed, for what villainies set -bubbling in crucible and alembic within its precincts its past history -was responsible, only its own dark heart might know. To this day the -atmosphere of that sunless well of brick seemed brassy with chemicals; -its doorways emitted a faint stale scent of drugs; an air of stagnant -mystery overhung its pavements. But it was mystery grown unnegotiable. -The moon of its prosperity had set; black decay hung brooding on its -roofs; the ministers to its former notoriety were flown. Not that -empirics were fewer than of yore in Turin, nor less potent in their -persuasions. But traps for credulity, like traps for mice, miss of -their efficacy after a few score, or a few hundred captures; and the -bait must be laid down in some other place and form. - -There was one building in the Square, however, which of late years had -been infinitely successful in reclaiming to itself a full measure of -its own past fame, or infamy. This house stood, on the north-east -side, one of three compact whose rears were to the river, from whose -swift waters only a rotting wharf, sinking in sludge and slime, -divided them. In front, panels of starry devices--suns and golden -orbs, reeling in strange elliptics on an azure field--betokened the -particular business of the house’s master, while they gave the -building itself a meretricious distinction over its frowsy neighbours. - -This was, in fact, the mystic abode of Spartacus, the famous seer--to -whose _séances_ all Turin was thrall in these days--and of his lovely -Sibyl Cassandra. They did a roaring business between them there--if -any such term may be applied to methods quite cavernous in their -secrecy. - -Thus, anyone seeking converse with the soothsayer, must commit his -destinies to darkness from the outset. He approached the black -Egyptian door, and, after a pause to rally his sinking heart, knocked -thereon. No sound of footstep answered him from within; but all in a -moment the door itself gaped an inky mouth, engulfed him, and closed -again noiseless on his entombment. He strained his eyes through -pitch--in vain. Not one tiniest theft from darkness could they -compass. Suddenly a label sprang to light on a wall--“_Ascend_.” He -saw a stairfoot; stumbled upwards between bat-wing hangings; the light -shut behind him. At the turn of the stair another glowed out -suddenly--“_Ascend_”--directed him on and vanished. A third time this -occurred, committing him to a short passage, along which he slunk, -until, lo! “_Greeting!_” flashed out an instant before his eyes, was -as instantly extinguished, and, halted with strained breath and -prickling skin in a close vault of night, he realised that he had -gained to the inner Arcanum--the unholy of unholies. - -That was a lofty attic room, panelled all round its walls (to confess -its properties) with tall mirrors hidden behind black curtains; but -those were so controlled, that all or any one of them, answering to a -noiseless drop and pulley worked from without, could be made to gather -softly away, revealing, unrecognised by the fearful visitor, the -lustreless glass behind. One curtain, however, concealed a mid-wall -alcove, a cimmerian cavity in which stood a tripod of cunning -construction. For under its chafing-dish burned perpetually a -concealed lamp, which kept the metal above it at a heat sufficient, at -need, to ignite spirit cast upon it, or even gums and aromatic resins, -the effect being as of a very immaculate conception of fire. But the -dim blue flame thus evoked was of a luminosity just enough to reveal -to the terrified observer the pale shadows of misbegotten horrors -about him--his own reflection, if he had but known it, in such -uncurtained mirrors as were not exposed to the direct rays of the -burning naptha; but, so it seemed to him, a film had been withdrawn, -in the silent rising of the draperies, from his own mental vision. - -Crystal globes there were, moreover; strings of phosphorescent balls, -which could be made to travel hither and thither on invisible wires; -webs of luminous thread; entanglements of all sorts at command, the -wizard himself, like a livid spider, poised in their midst. But, even -so, great Spartacus despite, his skill and compelling magic, it is -doubtful if, with all, the abode of mystery had won for itself any -exceptional notoriety, had it not been for its loveliest mystery of -all--that Hebe, who called herself Cassandra, and dropped flowers of -prophecy from sweet lips, offering, it might be, asps in roses. She it -was that, like a caged nymph butterfly, brought the males to beat -their wings upon her crystal prison, scattering about it an incense of -golden meal. - -One dark evening, in the Spring of 1790, two gentlemen, coming rapidly -down the Via del Po, turned into the Court of Doctors and stopped -before the Wizard’s door. They wore masks and dominoes. They were both -small men, one lean and the other plump. The plump man was by many -years the junior of the lean one. He was also by several social -degrees his inferior, being no more, indeed, than our friend Caius -Sempronius Gracchus (_alias_ the Vicomte di Mirobole) house-steward to -his Majesty; while the other was his Majesty himself, no less. - -“Is this the place, then?” muttered Victor-Amadeus, drawing a step -back. He looked pinched and harried, like some little _petit-maître_ -of a Frankenstein pursued by a monster of his own creating. “My heart -beats, Mirobole,” he said. “I think I fear the test.” - -M. Mirobole clasped his fat hands and opened remonstrant eyes. - -“Ah, sire!” he said. “Condescend to deem one truth better than a -multitude of conjectures. These hundred shadows on your heart! What if -he show you how one tree may cast them all--branches of a single hate, -which, if severed at its root, the sunshine shall be yours again -without a fleck!” - -“You have certainly a reassuring confidence in your Magician, -Viscount,” said the King with a smile. Then he sighed. “Well, I have -only to reveal myself if he presumes too far. Lead on, my friend.” - -M. Mirobole knocked instantly, and softly, on the tomb-like door. It -answered with a startling unaccustomed promptitude to his summons; but -his Majesty, never having visited here before, was without suspicion -of any collusion implied in that show of eagerness to secure him. -Forcing himself to resolution and treading on the heels of his -companion, he stepped within the black jaws, which snapped immediately -on their prey. - -Almost simultaneously the tablet on the wall shone out. Craving his -royal charge’s close attendance, the Viscount led the way upstairs. He -was familiar with the mysteries of the place; though, to be sure, -there was no mystery in it all to be compared with that of his own -blind faith in the charlatan its master. Presently the two were -committed, scarce breathing, to the dark “operating” room. - -“I do not like it,” whispered the King suddenly. - -There was certainly nothing very likeable in that profound gloom. It -was so dense, so gross, as to appear palpable to him; sooty cobwebs -seemed to stroke his face; he swept his hand over it disgustedly. - -“Understand,” he muttered, in angry agitation, “that you are my -mouthpiece; that I will not be betrayed; that--Ah!”--he gave a little -jerk and shriek--“something touched me!” - -On the instant, light glowed out in the room--or rather diluted -darkness than light--and in the same moment an apparition showed -itself. - -Bonito, in black skull-cap and black skin-tights, his unearthly face -and long white hands showing in the gloom like detached members, made -a sufficiently ghastly spectacle. Even the little Vicomte, accustomed -initiate, could never surmount a certain terror of him under such -circumstances. And the present ones found him exceptionally nervous. - -“Hail, Spartacus!” he whispered, his voice fluttering like a leaf. -“Thou seest before thee a petitioner.” - -“For what?” - -The soothsayer’s face seemed to hang, a livid intent blot, in the -darkness, its lips alone alive. - -“For the truth.” - -“Canst thou not, then, conceive it save out of Magic? The truth walks -in the sun.” - -“Nay, but if the sun’s eclipsed? We come to thee to light a candle to -the truth obscured.” - -“_We_, sayst thou?” - -“I speak for him beside me here.” - -“What is his name?” - -“Why, were not to withhold it to honour best your skill? Shall -Spartacus show no better than the Egyptian’s guile, fitting his -prescience to his subject once identified. Name him, quotha! What -need? Wiser is Spartacus.” - -“Yet not so wise, it seems, as M. Mirobole.” - -The King started violently. - -“Knowest thou me, too, Magician?” he muttered. - -“Ay, Monarch,” answered the pale lips; “and thy purpose in seeking -me.” - -“Sancta Maria! Tell me, then, what is that.” - -“For light on an ancient prophecy.” - -“It is true. God in heaven! What prophecy?” - -“It occurs in the Almanac for 1700 by Duret de Montbrison; wherein it -is stated that in the year 1792 the Monarchy of Sardinia shall suffer -an eclipse.” - -The King was trembling violently. He regarded the soothsayer by now -with a fearful reverence. - -“Tell me, Magician,” he said. “The courses of the heavens are, I know, -inexorable. Yet may not the results of their forecastings, where -directed upon perishable things, be nullified, if those objects be -withdrawn? The shadow of its ages ceases from the felled tree. May it -not be so?” - -“It may be, King.” - -“Fatality creeps on me. The land is thick with threatening voices. I -am like one in the dark, hearing whispers all about me--not knowing -where to strike and where to withhold. If I could but tell the -shadow--where it lies--and uproot the tree! Whence threatens this -eclipse? Show me the place, if thou lovest rich reward.” - -The Wizard, looking upward, raised both his white hands. There floated -into the dark above him luminous twin spheres attached, like a -two-fold bubble. - -“Seest thou those?” he said. “The one is Piedmont, the other is Savoy. -So are the hemispheres of the human brain--of which one is dedicate to -the fiend, and one to God. Between them is that eternal strife for -precedence which we call man’s dual personality. But in the -encroachments of either upon either, who is to distinguish between the -sources of good and evil. This tree may stand in Piedmont or Savoy. -Answer for which, Cassandra!” - -With the word, she was there before them. The curtain over the alcove -had silently risen and revealed her. The flame in the tripod, going up -like a blue draught, shot her tawny drapery with streaks of emerald. -A broad cincture, heavy with large green stones, was looped about her -hips. Her bare arms and bosom rounded into soft violet shadows. Amid -the chestnut loopings of her hair a coil of little jewelled serpents -shone entangled. She was lovely in her face--life blooming out of -death--her lips incarnadined with lust of sorrow--large eyes of tragic -blue. The King looked on her, fascinated. - -“Priestess,” said the Wizard, in a hollow voice: “answer, if of thine -inspiration thou mayest, whence threatens the shadow of this Kingdom’s -foretold eclipse?” - -As he spoke, there came out of the darkness a string of little stars, -of softest radiance and many colours, which took noiseless flight -about the Sibyl’s head, and circled there in wondrous convolutions, -faster and faster, until they seemed to whirl like lashing snakes. -Then, in a moment, one of a red tint poised itself above her brow, and -the rest fled away and were extinguished. - -His Majesty, flaccid with awe, was by now in a condition to believe -anything. And the priestess answered--in that old soft English voice. -Poor Molly’s broken “Frenchings” had by now mended themselves -wonderfully; but no call to shriller accents could spoil the quality -of the throat which uttered them. - -“I see a figure down in Faissigny,” she cried--“the figure of a man. -It standeth in the sun like other men, and like other men doth cast -its shadow. But, lo! the shadow of this man swells outward from his -feet, onward and ever onward, until it engulfs the whole Province, -laying it under tribute to his darkness.” - -“The Prefect!” muttered the King. He saw his confirmation here of some -black suspicions. - -“Ask her,” he said, trembling, to the Wizard; “is the figure that of -mine own Prefect of Faissigny?” - -“Thou hearest, Cassandra?” said Bonito. - -“Ay,” she answered; “it is the man!” - -The King uttered an ejaculation, and lifted deploring hands. - -“What motive in this monstrous thing?” - -“The motive,” said the Sibyl, “of resentment, for a reward once -promised and withheld; the motive of man’s ambition, which is -ruthless; the motive of one whose nature it is to betray all trusts -confided in him.” - -She really believed, poor girl, on the misrepresentations of _her_ -employer, that Cartouche was conspiring to overthrow _his_. - -The King smote his thigh. - -“He shall die,” he cried. - -Bonito saw, though he did not, how Cassandra started at the word. - -“Nay,” he said hurriedly; “the Fates are not to be propitiated with -blood. Uproot the tree--not fell it.” - -“But the shadow, Magician,” said the King peevishly--“how it hath -spread already, sowing the ground with insurrection!” - -“That crop would but grow lusty with his blood. Nay, I know not but -that only to uproot him might not precipitate the eclipse.” - -“My God! You falsify the parable.” - -“The parable was thine own, King.” - -“What am I to do?” - -He was jerking and mowing in a fever of petulance. - -The Wizard turned to his priestess. - -“Shall nothing, then, arrest this darkness, stunt its growth, and -nullify the prophecy?” - -“One thing--one man alone,” she answered impassive. Indeed she was -only repeating a lesson. - -“What thing?” he said. - -“To plant another instant in his place, while yet the ground gapes -wide from his uprooting.” - -“What other?” - -She held her hands palm downwards over the chafing-dish. Instantly a -lurid smoke rose from it, and in the midst appeared upright letters of -fire, which spelt the name Léotade. She raised her hands, and the -letters sunk and disappeared (in one piece). - -The King muttered the name, evidently at a loss. But the Pythoness, -with tranced eyes fixed upon some imaginary figure before her, -pointed, her shoulder level with her chin, and spoke its -qualifications,-- - -“I read a healing sweetness there, as of a pine tree taken from some -harsh plantation, and put to root within its native soil. The man is -of that Province, strong and honoured--no stranger from beyond its -bourne, like him that hath planted its pastures with dark hate and -shadow, looking to reap the storm. O, name! in thy bright influence I -see the clouds dispersing, the darkness leave the land, the eclipse -become no more. Pass on in silence!” - -The final words seemed as if addressed to some ghostly scene-shifter. -She had vanished in their utterance, and the chamber was recommitted -to its shadowy glooms. - -Shaking with agitation, the King turned upon the Magician. - -“Let this Léotade, this sound health-giving tree, supplant the other. -I say it, and will see it done. I know him not--what matter! Truth -shall be vindicated.” - -Bonito laughed grimly. - -“Not so easily, O, King! are the powers of darkness despoiled. This -Prefect will not budge at thy command.” - -“He will not?” - -“Why, of what texture, think you, is this same shadow that spreads -from before his feet--this shadow of thine eclipse? Is it not woven of -black sedition, which ever answers slavishly to him its master, -obedient to his least gesture? He’d have a fine dark following, did he -once turn him to the sun of monarchy, and march to overwhelm it. Why -should he budge? And yet maybe I could induce him.” - -“How? Your words fall on me like a pitchy rain, heralding that -Egyptian darkness. Before God, how?” - -“I’d put a spell on him, a loathing of his office. I care not. Go -thine own ways, for me.” - -“Nay, good Spartacus, wise Spartacus--thou must help me here indeed.” - -“I care not, I say. I say, strike at him openly, if you will, and see -him bristle through all his hulking shadow like a boar.” - -“I will not. I will have it your way.” - -“Well, if you like, give me the warrant to dismiss him, and appoint -this Léotade in his place--him or another; what concern is it to me? -Only I could so take him with mine art, he’d greet this chance as of a -release from bondage--construe it into his resignation offered and -accepted--abandon his following, leaving it to die of an atrophy, like -a body whose brain is withered.” - -“If you could do this thing, and earn my lasting gratitude!--dispel -that darkness, and be like Moses honoured with burnt-offerings. I’ll -send thee on the warrant. In the meanwhile, take this in earnest of my -debt to thee.” - -He threw a purse upon the floor--it struck weightily--and turned and -left the room with Mirobole. A minute later the door below had shut -upon them. - -Bonito, with a loud snigger, touched a spring in the wall which acted -on the curtain of the alcove, folding it up and away; and, striding to -the tripod, took some hidden powder from beneath it, which he cast -into the pan. A glowing flame shot up immediately, lighting the whole -place, and he called out in ecstasy: “Cassandra, ma belle prêtresse, -ma petite!” - -She came out from a little room hidden behind the further curtain, and -stood up motionless between their inky folds. - -“We have won!” he cried boisterously: “we are partners in this -triumph! Ministers of Fate, what a triumph! Mine own nominee elected; -the other deposed and disgraced. Savoy is ours: we will cross the Alps -ere long. Rejoice with me, child! Thine enemy lies low--thou art -avenged.” - -“Yes, I am avenged,” she answered dully. - -He looked at her shrewdly. - -“Art thou not satisfied?” - -“You will not hurt him else, Bonito?” - -“Why should I? He stood in my way; he will stand no longer. That is -enough for me.” - -“But you will not hurt him?” - -“Hurt him, hurt him? Thou art tenderer of him than of his doxy. Look -how you smile on while I bleed her--no pity there. And she’ll have to -bleed the more for this--we take new life of it--no bottom to our need -for funds. She’ll have to bleed again, I say, and make you fresh -sport. No tenderness there.” - -“You will not hurt him?” - -“Plague on the parrot! Why should I hurt him?” - -“Swear it.” - -“Why, I will. Let him go free, for me, to beggary. I swear it, there.” - -“Remember that.” - -She dropped the curtain, and was gone. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - -He had done this thing for her--had stained his hands with blood to -keep hers clean--had darkened his own soul that her soul might shine -the purer for that shadow. What was her debt to him for this great -self-sacrifice? How could she pay it, and not condone his sin? - -So we pass to Yolande and her mortal problem. - -Poor child so straight in candour as she was, no compromise with facts -seemed possible to her nature. She must tell him all or nothing. - -And if she told him all--revealed her knowledge of his crime--made -herself its accessory thereby? He’d answer, would he not, “That leaves -me no alternative. Sweet love, for sweet love’s sake, I must acquit -you of this shadow of complicity--give myself up, and vindicate your -spotless fame before the world”? - -Would he not? She told herself he would; deafened her ears to her own -heart’s whispered treason; would admit no justification for it in the -evidences of a slandered character. Could one so un-self-reliant, so -irresolute, so much the whimpering prey to circumstance as -circumstance had seemed to paint her Louis, have braced himself to do -that deed? The deed was there to answer her--to answer, triumphantly -too, that by very reason of itself that saintly soul was convict of a -heroism of which its meek patience had once seemed incapable, and -which, in its revelation, had found the woman in her secretly exultant -over the angel. Was that so indeed? Had his fall from grace made him -dearer to her than ever his perfection could? - -A dreadful thought, for which she paid to herself and God with -anguishes of penance. But she could not control it, nor lay its -unrighteous shadow. How could she, when father to it was the wish that -what it implied of manly strength in him would answer to her -confession of that dark knowledge, were she to make it, by an instant -surrender to the law? - -She could not tell him, then; and, so, what other course? No mid-way -steering for this whole-hearted heroine--no hints, no tell-tale sighs, -no tearful looks askance to haunt him with half-truths; no lagging -partner snivelling unspoken resentment of her burden. She’d bear it -all and bravely, the weight, the heat and pressure of the day, and -cheer him, smiling, on to self-redemption. That be her mission--by -ways of healing grace to guide him to that summit he would never -attain alone. Man’s responsibility might be to the civil laws; but -woman’s was to love. For love he’d saved her; love should save him. -The rest was for his confessor. - -Conceive this poor soul, then, with her monstrous self-imposed -burden--never to be put down--facing the steeps of life! If her feet -would sometimes falter, her eyes grow strained with agony beneath it, -her heart never admitted by one false beat a sense of disproportion in -their loads. To fend him from the truth, while hiding from him that -she knew it; to pay his debts to vile extortion, and suffer the stigma -of a parsimony which appeared to grudge him the means to realise their -compact of a boundless charity; worse, to suspect sometimes that he -guessed her knowledge of the truth, and was content to build upon her -loving hypocrisy his house of later peace, was content to let her live -the lie while he enjoyed its fruits--these things were the hardest of -her task. - -Another grief she suffered; but that, she told herself, was in -heaven’s withholding of a greater. She was thankful for it--thankful -as a martyr, whom great pain has numbed from further feeling--thankful -that in all these years no child was born to them to bear the heritage -of its father’s sin. And while she praised heaven for its mercy, the -starved woman in her hungered for the milk of motherhood, and, fading -on that deprivation, made her task of youth a burden. Yet she must -bear that too, or pay the penalty to love estranged, since only the -gifts of motherhood could compensate for youth and beauty bartered -against them. - -So she must be young and sweet in spite of ageing conscience; must -sing about her duties; must smile away those shadows in her husband’s -eyes which she sickened to think were the reflections of her own -enforced avarice, her waning beauty, her barrenness. - -A sordid destiny for this child of lovely purity; this Yolande of the -white hands; this lily light of truth. - -And to work out in what unnatural atmosphere--transplanted into what -lifeless soil? - -She was the mistress of a Golgotha, an old dark windy necropolis, -whose massive gates her husband’s hands had closed for ever, shutting -her in to consort with its ghosts. In di Rocco had perished the last -of his name; in him, the old blotched trunk, his house’s life, slow -withering to its roots, had sunk for ever. The branches long were -leafless. To her, a stranger, had befallen the heritage of death. - -She could have administered it, have justified heaven’s severe choice -of her as receiver in that estate such ages bankrupt in charity, have -wrung a sombre joy even from dispersing its evil accumulations, had -not Fate thus imposed upon her this awful seclusion, paralysing her -hands. As antique graveyards are sometimes made the sporting-grounds -for little feet, so had she once pictured to herself the joy of -budding life at play in these stony corridors and empty gardens, -redeeming them from the melancholy of great wrong. It was not to be; -and for the withholding of that lovely mercy she could only give -heaven praise--give it with weeping eyes in solitude, and, elsewhere, -with a bright countenance turned to her husband. - -Did he find that inscrutable, nevertheless? Was he so far from sharing -her thankfulness for that grace denied as that he could visit upon -her--in those shades of altered intimacy, those reserves in -confidence, those nuances of alienation which only love can -detect--his secret disappointment? She prayed that it was not so; -prayed, also, that, in the enforced restraints she must put upon his -charities, his sweet and reasonable nature would look for no baser -motive than necessity. She was always frank with him as to the extent -of what she could command (exclusive of Bonito’s periodic drains upon -her, and those of her father, a creature scarcely less abominable), -and held all within those limits at his pleasure. Rather she should be -whispered for parsimony than that his generosity should suffer in its -name. He was so good, so bounteous, so utterly improvident for -himself. Though he would not claim one penny that was hers, there was -no question of his acting as her almoner. Indeed the money was no more -hers than his, but in trust to both of them for God’s good business. -She was, by heaven’s grace, but the acting paymaster; and so long as -she might bear the whole burden of that duty, she was content that he -should enjoy its credit. The question was one between her and love -alone; its very exclusiveness made its bliss. - -Yet sometimes in her moods of desolation, when, for all her prayers -and self-reassurances, that sense of their estrangement would glow a -more definite gloom, and the problem of her double life smite sickly -on her heart, a dread doubt would arise in her as to the sureness of -her guidance of this afflicted soul. The physically blind are apt to -become the morally blind, intent only on their self-interests, some -people say, because of the consideration with which pity hedges -them--of the licence which it allows them for their infirmity. What, -then, if love in pity had so rallied this stricken life as to lead it -to regard itself as a persecuted thing--a thing privileged, through -its own helplessness, to presume on the self-sacrifices of others for -its sake? Louis’s apparent obtuseness to the meaning of the atonements -her sweet example exacted of him, his apparent ignorance of any -provocation to them caused by himself, filled her, when in these -moods, with amazement. Had he lost all sense of responsibility to his -own deed, in her voluntary acceptance of its consequences? That were -to assume that he guessed her part, and could justify it to himself on -the score of his own infirmity--an obliquity which surely could not be -held to vindicate her self-sacrifice before heaven. Yet sometimes the -assumption would arise, to hurt her cruelly--even to sting _her_ to a -momentary revolt. He _could_ not be really ignorant of her -burden--_must_ have surmised some coincidence between Bonito’s visit -and the instant restrictions she had been forced to put upon their -expenditure. His terror of the man’s presence on that day; his slow -and shaken convalescence from the date of it--these were evidences of -his knowledge hard to be discredited. And that, in the face of it, he -could expect of her a pledge of their full confidence; could imply a -reproach of her for her barrenness!--O, that were an addition to her -load beyond her human endurance. The mere shadow of its oppression -killed her heart--drove her in her agony to blow cold upon the little -chill which already spoke their differences. And then the reaction -would come. - -He had done this thing for her; and she had accepted the burden of its -consequences. She had prayed, prayed that even as he had saved her out -of silence, so might she save him. And this was her heroism--to -deprecate his blindness as a wilful vileness. - -Then, poor child, she would call herself a wicked traitor to her lord, -blame her own foul suspicions, and seek by loving demonstrations to -atone. Her wistful guiles to win his favour, her rehearsals for his -sake of that old forgotten part of tranquil innocence, her gratitude -for only half-thawed acknowledgments, were moving things to witness. -How could she dream her Louis guilty of this monstrous meanness--the -man who had dipped his hand in blood to keep hers white? His first -terror of that apparition had been real; he had afterwards accepted -her word for its being an illusion. He always trusted others’ -assurances: that very weakness it was which made him so lovable. So -lovable, so lovable; and she had let her wicked heart condemn him! -Could he have recovered from the shock of that visitation so utterly -as he had, if he had seen in her the ever-present hostage for his -immunity from deadlier hauntings? Her whole protecting knowledge of -him was to answer; and it answered piercingly remorseful. No dear -soul, it said, had ever less power than Louis-Marie for affecting to -ignore the influences of a present depression. Yet Louis-Marie, the -terror once laid, had rallied--had even come to recover something of -the serenity of his earlier innocence. Why should he not, indeed? She -thought, with heart-felt joy, it spoke his peace made with God; and, -so justified of her burden, was more frenziedly determined than ever -to hide her bearing of it from him, while she smiled and smiled under -its load, impersonating out of torture her own untroubled youth. Alas! -blind Love--who yet perhaps deserves scant pity! For did he not put -out his own eyes! - -Now she saw, and was rejoiced to see, as the months drew into years, -his soul relax upon an ancient sweet security; the spectre of his fear -grew less and less; his natural goodness mature into the full fruitage -of its blossoms’ promise. So peaceful did he grow, so seemingly -unvexed by apprehensions, so confident in his demands upon her charity -for others’ sake, she was sometimes moved to wonder if, after all, she -were not being made the victim of a hellish conspiracy--if he had -really committed the crime with which villainy had charged him. But as -often she recalled Bonito’s words--“Ask him, if you doubt me”--and -that she dared not do. The answer might destroy at a blow the whole -structure of his soul’s redemption, which her self-obliterating love -had patiently built up for him year by year. Fruitless all her -devotion then; useless that cementing of its bricks with her own -heart’s blood. He had come to be nearer heaven now than she, raised on -the altar of her sacrifice. She had lied to save him. Should she risk -his soul at the last to save her own? - -Divinely steadfast to her purpose, she kept her way. Her sweet eyes -shone inspired to it. Though she were lost by holding to it, _he_ -should win to harbour. What greater love could woman show? If God -would forgive her for that--concede her the mercy to creep into -heaven, lost in her dear saint’s shadow! For he was her saint -again--twice beatified through his fault. He had been guilty of his -one worldly lapse for her--had done outrage to his nature that hers -might suffer none. Was not such sin the prerogative of consecration? - -So, with an unfading resolution, through days of exaltation and -depression, through drear heart-burnings and the agonies of -misunderstandings not to be explained, through poignant ecstasies and -thorns of non-fulfilment, she strove unfaltering--until, lo! there -came a time when all her struggles seemed in vain; when, bursting from -the thicket, her bleeding feet stood halted in an instant, not before -the dear meadows they had hoped, but at the base of a monstrous -God-veiling cliff. - -That year, the heavens themselves had seemed to speak the omens of -disaster. From its opening they had poured down incessantly from sooty -reservoirs a torrent like the deluge. The season was an abnormally -mild one, if any such term could be applied to tempests of wind and -water, overwhelming, inexplicable. The ice in the mountains, cracking -and answering under the assault, boomed an unceasing cannonade; the -land slid down in continents; trees were tossed in flood-water, like -sprouts boiling in a saucepan. And to all this descending hubbub the -rising of a human tide seemed to leap sympathetic. The waters of -unrest were gathering force and volume; the dark hour of Savoy was -drawing near; the Prefect had hard ado to keep his feet. - -Then at last came a period of respite, when the powers of darkness -seemed to sleep exhausted; and the sun came out, and the waters -sounded peaceably on the hills, and Spring opened its drowned eyes and -preened its draggled plumes. - -One day, when all the land was glowing in a noontide rest, a servant -came to inform Madame Saint-Péray that his excellency the Prefect of -Faissigny craved the honour of a word with her alone. She opened her -eyes in amazement. - -The Prefect! Impossible! The man could not have heard aright. - -But the man was not mistaken. M. le Préfet, it would appear, had -foreseen this reluctance on Madama’s part to grant him that honour, -inasmuch as he had impressed very earnestly upon the messenger the -importance of an occasion which could thus excuse his presumption in -calling upon one with whom he was unacquainted. - -Madama’s cheek flamed as she rose; her lips set tightly; she looked an -inch taller than her wont. - -“Thank you, Benoît,” she said. “I will go down to him.” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - -He bowed to her gravely as she entered. She responded with the -iciest salutation. Throughout their interview they both remained -standing. - -He noticed, with dark ruth, how wan her face had grown, how sharpened -from its blunt youthful curves, how prematurely aged even--like a -late-blown lily, shrunk, in its first lovely opening, to a freezing -wind. The nearer thereby, the more pathetic, to his own barren -passion. He could claim his pallid kinship with this sorrow, as never -he might have done with insolent felicity. He was so changed by love, -he could have prized dead beauty in this woman above all the living -graces of her happier sisters. Had she waned like the moon, his arms -had lusted for the last shred of her. - -His heart beat thickly. For whatever reason, he was to have speech -with her once more--was to reclaim her to some interest in his own. So -that that might be, he cared little how she wounded him. - -“You asked to see me, Monsieur,” she said frigidly. “I am here. To -what importunate circumstance, may I ask, do I owe this--yes, this -insult, Monsieur, of your visit?” - -She had hardly intended to be so explicit; but her indignation took -her, irresistibly and on the instant, off her feet. Cartouche slightly -shrugged his shoulders. - -“Importunate, Madame?” he said. “You shall judge. I come as Prefect. -The insult is official.” - -His eyes, fastened on her, feeding gluttonously after their long -abstinence, saw how she started slightly at his words--how she looked -at him in sudden fear. To whatever offensive motive she had thought to -attribute his visit, the possibility of its impersonal character had -evidently not occurred to her. He was become master by that -disillusionment; and would have been less than human not to have -recognised it--not to have held her frightened heart fluttering for -one moment in his hand. It was fierce ecstasy to feel it beat--to have -it own him lord of itself through terror--if only he might reassure it -in the end, and release it to fly away on wings of poignant gratitude! - -She struggled for the self-composure to answer him after his kind. - -“I have no right, then, Monsieur, to resent it. The law exacts its -privileges, however represented. You come, I am to understand, on -business. Business, Monsieur, demands the fewest words to be -effective.” - -“That is perfectly true, Madame,” he said quietly. “This of mine, -though its processes have extended over years, is summed up in a -sentence. You are in the habit of sending, periodically, large sums of -money to one who is well known by me to be conspiring against the -Government.” - -She stood as rigid as stone. Every atom of colour had fled from her -face. He longed to cry out on its moveless agony, “O, woman! on the -merit of my hopeless passion, believe in me, trust in me! I am here to -save, not ruin!” But he must strike deeper, before he could seek to -heal. - -“This fact, Madame,” he said, “has been made known to me through the -ordinary secret channels of my office. It is indisputable. I do not -ask you to dispute it. I ask you simply, I give you the opportunity of -answering privately, a single question. Does M. Saint-Péray, who is -my friend, identify himself also with this movement? Is he, in short, -in your confidence in this matter of your supplying it with funds?” - -She tottered towards him, holding out frenzied hands. - -“O, no, Monsieur! O, no, no!” - -He knew it all now; he had her at his mercy; for one moment this soft -cruel thing should yield herself to his will, its abject slave. He -lingered out the rapture, as one condemned to death might hang on the -lips of his soul’s love. His dark cheek flushed; he backed before her -approach, unresponsive. - -“You reassure me, Madame,” he said coldly. “I had been concerned for -him, I own. It is enough that friendship has helped to exculpate, -where a closer relationship, it seems, had found its better interest -in deceiving. For the rest, you are doubtless prepared, for yourself, -with a sufficient answer to the law.” - -“The law!” - -She whispered it, aghast. - -“As its representative, Madame,” he said, “I have no choice but to -demand one of you. You can refuse to give it, referring your defence -to a public occasion.” (He would not see how her anguish entreated -him.) “In that event, I make my bow, my apologies, and I withdraw. The -issue then is very simple. You will be called to account for your -subsidising of a dangerous conspirator against the State, and will -probably be put on your trial with him. As Prefect of this Province, I -can guarantee the case at least an impartial hearing. My presence, -Madame, does not insult the law, however offensive it may be to the -criminal.” - -She hurried nearer to him--broke out, and down, in an instant. - -“Before God, Monsieur! You must believe me--you must. I know nothing -of this man’s use of what he wrings from me; I am not his confederate, -but--” - -He interrupted her, sharp and sudden,-- - -“But his victim.” - -She cried: “O, Monsieur, Monsieur! O, my God!” and buried her face in -her hands. - -Now at that his gluttonous moment passed. Henceforth his heart was -hers to sport with. It had only played the tyrant hitherto to nurse to -ecstasy its own compunction. He spoke in a strangely softened tone,-- - -“He is black-mailing you?” - -“No!” she cried, looking up in quick miserable panic. “I have not said -it.” - -He smiled slightly. - -“No need to. Well, I suspected as much.” - -She seemed to strive to speak; but nothing came from her. - -“I say,” he repeated, “I suspected it. Do I not know this man of old, -his craft, his villainy--how he will go long ways about to reach an -end--traverse the world to stab an enemy in the back? Most to be -feared when most he feigns benevolence--Bonito--that old dreary -misanthrope to play the Benthamite! Why, I never doubted but that he -had his deep reasons for scheming to marry you to--I never doubted it, -I say, Madame; and here’s the proof. He was playing for hush-money.” - -She stared at him, as if her very soul were paralysed. - -“How he discovered the truth?” he continued--“by cunning or -coercion?--” He paused, questioning her at a venture with his eyes. -She made no answer; and he went on, shrugging his shoulders: “Like -enough ’twas he himself who laid the train--who first supplied the -insidious damning information to my friend, and--but it matters -little; he discovered it.” - -He questioned her face again. Still she was silent. - -“If I had guessed in time,” he said, in a deep passionate voice, “this -should never have been. It shall be no longer. Madame, I have twice -before offered you my services, and twice been rejected with scorn. -Once again I lay them at your feet. It was for this, in truth, I -sought you. I entreat you, do not refuse me.” - -It was not in her nature to do justice to this man. So far as his -devotion touched her, it was to nothing but a sense of humiliation. -The thought uppermost in her mind was of his cognisance, not his -chivalry. - -“You know?” she whispered. Her white lips could hardly frame the -words. - -“I know,” he answered. “He had confessed to me before you married -him.” - -An irrepressible moan came from her, pitiful, heart-rending. He broke -upon it passionately,-- - -“I told him, what I tell you now--that, on my soul, he had done right; -but that, having done what he had done, the prospect of his union with -you had become impossible. To me, though what I am, the thought was -horrible. Believe me, Madame--before God, believe that I had no -thought of myself in so urging him.” - -She drew a little away. Her eyes were already freezing to him. But his -emotion made him blind. - -“I am not to blame for what followed,” he hurried on. “The -villain--that same dog Bonito over-reached me. He took advantage of my -absence to practise on one--there I will not pain you with the record. -You know who came to you. She had been warned by me against abetting -him she nursed in any designs upon your ignorance. I do not blame -_him_. If you can do me any justice in your woman’s heart, you will -guess why. He staked his soul against a chance for which I would have -sacrificed a thousand heavens. But, with her--it was different. She -paid for her temerity with my curse.” - -He ended, greatly agitated. His eyes were lowered before her. He did -not see the new abhorrence of him spring and flame in hers. He did not -see how the majesty of her womanhood rose to answer and reject him. - -“You cursed her for my sake, Monsieur?” she said quietly. - -“If you will have it so,” he answered low. - -“And this, her suborner, her confederate;--you say he shall trouble me -no longer?” - -“Not while I have hands to strike, and teeth to hold.” - -She sprang away from him. - -“That I have fallen to this!” she cried--“To be asked to approve -myself the instrument of that poor creature’s ruin! to applaud the -wicked deed and crown the doer of it with my gratitude! Would you -murder also for my sake--smear the feet you profess to worship with a -fellow-creature’s blood? O, go from me, go from me, Monsieur! you are -horrible in my sight. We take the burden of our sin--will atone for it -as heaven wills. Better a hundred cruel witnesses than one advocate -like you. She thought to save your soul, poor child, by winning it to -justice done to hers. ‘One marriage brings another’--those were her -pretty words--and so for your requital of her love. Love! O, I am -fouled in having heard you--humbled myself before you. Go--say--do -what you will, Monsieur. We refuse your help! Why will you for ever -impose your hateful favours on me?” - -He listened to her, standing quite still and ghastly pale. Then he -bowed slightly, and walked to the door. Turning at it, he spoke,-- - -“I have made it my mission in life, Madame, to protect the shrine of -my devotion from sacrilegious hands. No scorn, no misconstruction, no -wounding hate will deter me from that purpose while I live. The idol -of it shall owe me, at least, that debt of fidelity. If she hungers -for the opportunity to retaliate, as debtors will, there is the -precedent of Lazarus in heaven to reassure her. I will be sure to call -to you for that drop of water, Madame.” - -He opened the door, and was gone. - -She stood quite motionless for minutes after he had left her; then -suddenly flung herself, exhausted, into a chair. No grace, no pity -towards him was in her heart. If they had been possible to its pure -narrow code, his parting words, in which she read a scoff at religion, -would have alienated them finally. - -For hours she lay in wretched thought, half-hypnotised by misery. No -tender sprig of hope could ever again be hers. Her uttermost fears -were confirmed. He had confessed his guilt. The road stretched dark -and endless now before her. - -The house was deadly quiet. She was quite alone, and very desolate. -Louis-Marie had gone into France, on business concerning his -patrimony, and would not be back for some days. She had not even God -to help her. - -With dusk, as she still lay unstirring, came a quick step, which she -recognised, in the hall outside. She caught herself up, making some -effort towards composure, as it hurried towards the room in which she -sat; and the next instant young Balmat entered. - -He shut the door upon the servant who had announced him. He was so -agitated, so breathless, that he could scarce stammer an apology for -his freedom. He came towards her, hat in hand, at an eager run. His -eyes were shining, his chest heaving in the prospect of some wonderful -announcement. - -“_Mon Dieu!_ Madama, Madama,” he whispered excitedly: “What news! -Christ in heaven, what news!” - -She rose, trembling. Her heart, she felt, could not bear much more. - -“What is it, Jacques?” she said faintly. - -Balmat, iron-nerved, made but a sorry Mercury. - -“It is only,” he said, “that the Marquess your husband was -murdered--that is little--there was more than one of us had suspected -it--but by whom? God be praised for enlightening us--for vindicating -the innocent--it has all come out; and who do you think is the guilty -one? No other than M. le Préfet himself, who is lying at this moment -under arrest. Ah, ah! what have I blundered, great oaf! Madama, -Madama!” - - * * * * * * * * - -That same night an express was despatched by Madame Saint-Péray to -her husband in France, bidding him, for reasons of her own, not to -return until he heard further from her. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - -That sunny forenoon on which Dr Bonito (carrying the King’s -Commission in his pocket, and M. Léotade, whom he had taken up by the -way, on the seat of the chaise beside him) came posting down the -valley into Le Prieuré, found the whole village in a flutter of -excitement, which the apparent opportuneness of his arrival was -presently to inflame into a fervour. - -Alighting at the doors of the Prefecture, and conning, acidly -sardonic, the perturbed faces which, gathered about him, sought to -reconcile this frowzy magnifico with an earlier familiar figure, he -was conscious of a moral agitation in the atmosphere, which at first -he was inclined to attribute to some shadow of the truth having run -before him. But in that he was wrong. The announcement of his mission, -when it was made, took the populace like a clap of wind at a street -corner. The village staggered in it; then rallied hurriedly to -appraise its significance. For the moment the fact was important only -in its relation to another more instant and insistent. The two -combined ran up the public temperature to fever-heat. - -M. le Préfet, it appeared, was absent at the time--opportunely for M. -le Préfet, in the light of a certain amazing discovery. There were -those, indeed--a boon friend, a sympathising official or two--who -would have liked to urge, by secret message, upon M. le Préfet, -wherever he might be found, the wisdom of confirming his own absence, -practically and for ever. But no one knew where he was. For the -rest--M. Léotade being long identified with the popular movement, and -personally a local favourite--the change, _per se_, was accepted with -an easy resignation. Events, to be sure, had made such a change -problematically inevitable. The wonder was that it had come to occur -at the intensely psychologic moment. For how could a Prefect, shown -guilty, though on circumstantial evidence, of a startling crime, be -made to bring about his own arrest? The advent of the newcomers had -resolved that difficulty. Mr Trix was M. le Préfet no longer. - -The story, as poured by agitated officialdom into the ears of Dr -Bonito and his _protégé_, was soon related. That very morning, it -appeared, a goatherd, emerging from the woods over against the -ice-fall of the Glacier of the Winds, had been halted petrified before -a sight, the like of which had surely never before astounded human -vision. For there, embedded in one of the toppling glassy pinnacles, -hung poised, before the very eyes of the man, a human body. - -Dumbfoundered, he had presently taken out his spyglass, to inquire -more closely into this wonder--only to recoil aghast before the -revelation it brought him. The obscene thing, huddled in -semi-transparency, appeared squatting like a great toad. There was -something horribly unseemly in its attitude--an extravagant pose of -limb, which in a mass of its bulk was sickeningly abnormal. It might -have been an arm flung over its head, until one saw that it ended in a -boot. Its face, twisting from under anywhere, came very close to the -surface of the ice. It looked as if flattened against a window, -grinning out on the observer. As he, that observer, had brought its -features into focus, he had uttered a startled cry, and leapt back. -_The face was the face of Augias, Marquess di Rocco_. - -There was no mistaking it, by anyone who had once been familiar with -its loathed enormity. The man had stood staring and trembling before -it, in a deadly fascination. Possibly it was due to the phenomenal -weather that the glacier had thus early yielded up its secret. At any -rate it had yielded it--the murder was out. - -Yes, and literally murder, it appeared. The dead, slowly travelling -down through these years, had claimed at last to be his own damning -witness. Even while the onlooker gazed spell-bound, the great -ice-turret had tilted over, sunk, torn away, and, still holding to its -secret in the main, had gone shattering and waltzing down the slope -until it had brought upon against a heap of brash. Whereupon, seeing -it settled for the time, the peasant had girded up his terrified wits, -and pounded down into the village, half-demented with his news. - -He had been heard with incredulity; his urgency had compelled his -listeners; in a little, half the village was trooping up the moraine. -One of the party, the place being pointed out to him, had descended -hurriedly upon the glacier to investigate. The venture was not without -peril; death was for ever thundering down in the wash of that icy -weir. But he had succeeded in reaching the spot in safety; and the -next moment a strange cry was carried from him to the watchers on the -moraine. Then they had seen him running furiously back to them. - -Young Balmat it was. His face was death-ashy; there was an exultant -fury in his eyes; his breath hissed from his lungs. - -“It is true,” he had gasped: “and he was murdered! The knife is still -sticking in him. _I know that knife well--it was M. le Préfet’s_.” - -It was this news which had run down into Le Prieuré, carried by those -who were despatched thither for ropes. Within the next hour or two, -the block containing the body, like a hideous mass of spawn, had been -salvaged and drawn to the edge of the moraine. Then all, who had the -stomach to look, might satisfy themselves. - -Even as the tale was ended into the ears of Dr Bonito and the other, -there came down the village street a hushed and solemn company bearing -its awful burden. Silence sowed itself before them, even as if Death -walked there, scattering his grain. They carried it to the Church, and -laid it on the stone floor of the vestry. There it rested alone, like -an infected thing shut away into quarantine. Not a soul would approach -it, when once it was delivered to the law. - -And how did the law accept its trust? Sourly, as represented by Dr -Bonito. This ugly visitation, indeed, was the least agreeable to his -schemes. He saw on the instant how, were Cartouche to stand convicted -of the crime, his own hold on Madame Saint-Péray would be loosened -for ever. If, on the other hand, he were to reveal a certain secret, -of which likely only he and the deposed Prefect were cognisant, the -indictment of the actual murderer would end, only the more certainly, -his chances of extortion--perhaps, even, would be used to claim him as -an after accessory to the deed. He was in a villainous quandary, that -was the truth. This accursed accident had confounded all his plans. - -And to increase his perplexity, the new Prefect--who once secure in -his promotion, was already showing an aggravating tendency towards -self-importance and independence--betrayed what he thought was an -unwarrantable officiousness in taking the matter promptly and -masterfully into his own hands. He had Jacques Balmat brought before -him at once. - -“You have no doubt,” he demanded, “that this body, so astonishingly -brought to light, is the body of the late Marquess di Rocco?” - -“No doubt whatever, Monsieur.” - -“Nor that Monsignore met his death by foul means?” - -“Not even he, Monsieur, could resist the full length of that blade. It -lies buried in him to the hilt.” - -“And it is by that hilt that you identify it?” - -“Precisely so, Monsieur.” - -“How?” - -“It was familiar to me of old, as to many others, in the hand of M. -Trix, Monsignore’s _protégé_. The haft was of jade, surmounted by a -golden rat’s head. It was Monsieur’s hunting-knife, well-known.” - -“Granted that the knife was Monsieur’s, there remains the question of -a motive.” - -“It is not for me to suggest one. Monsieur, at least, it is to be -believed, foresaw no advantage to himself in the event of his -_padrone’s_ marriage. It was whispered, indeed, that he had every -interest in preventing it. The two came to words, it was reported, on -the subject of a settlement--compensation--what you will. That was -just before Monsignore’s disappearance. M. Trix also had -disappeared--it would seem opportunely. I know nothing more than that. -I repeat only to Monsieur the common gossip.” - -Gossip, to be sure; but quite reasonably damning. That evening, -Monsieur the ex-Prefect, returning unconcerned to the village, was -arrested in the street, and conveyed to the prison of the Belfry. He -had still friends; there had been voices timely to warn him; he had -laughed them away unheeding. Here, perhaps, was to end his part in -that pantomime of necessarianism which men played to the gods. He -hoped, in the transformation, that he would be found worthy to be made -a harlequin. But he was not sure, judged by his present fooling at -Fate’s hands, that he was not destined for pantaloon. He took his -deposition and the rest with an imperturbable coolness and good -humour. - -And apart in the dark church lay the body of his father--a hideous -thing. Yet there was one, as inhuman though living, who, moved by a -sardonic curiosity, could be found to dare the terrors of that -mortuary. In the dead of the night Bonito, candle in hand, stood to -look upon the corpse. What he saw is not to be described. The ice had -preserved it as whole as when, seven years before, it had plunged into -the crevasse--as whole, but--It had enclosed as it had caught it--a -thing writhed and racked obscenely--a horrible thing like a -Guy-Fawkes. They had chipped its glassy prison away from the dead -form. In the warmer air, the frosty glaze remaining had already -melted, and the body lay in a pool. It looked as if it were struggling -to relax its contortions; to settle into the lines of an ancient -repose. Sometimes it actually moved. The terror of the suggestion woke -no responsive thrill in the watcher’s nerves. He was as stoic, as -callous as a Mongol--not unlike one, indeed, in feature and -temperament. He bent down, searching with his candle flame. Yes, there -was the rat’s head fastened into the shattered breast--gleaming on it, -like Death’s own order. There was even a stain of red about its teeth. - -He stood up, frowning, grating his chin. - -“The same,” he thought--“No doubt about it. What am I to do?” - -The lines on his harsh face deepened. - -“If I were to see her--bid her a last price, a great price, a fine -sufficing price against my keeping silence at the trial? Would she -agree--close--see him condemned unwinking--damn herself to _this_? Is -the venture worth? How now, di Rocco?” - -The dead man seemed to nod up his head. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - -“They had exchanged tokens. He had parted with this knife to your -husband. It is the damning link, to which I’ll swear. The Court is my -Court, and my testimony will be final. I hang your Louis, -Madame--twist a saintly neck to save a rake’s. Well, let it be. Women -have these _penchants_.” - -His vile innuendoes passed her by. White, withered in the scorching -blast, the exaltation of her purpose kept her still erect, and -steadfast to the end on which she’d staked her soul. Herself, in that -foredoom, counted no longer for anything. She would save her love, her -saint, though all the dogs of hell combined to pull him down. - -Dusk was trooping up from the valleys. The sun-lit distant peaks -budded from it like flower-spires in a fading paradise. As point by -point they misted into vapour, so eternal darkness seemed to claim her -to itself. In a little she would be quite alone. A child’s laugh, -coming up faintly from the road below, smote on her heart like a -death-cry. She started involuntarily; then stood stone-still. It was -fearful to see tears running down a stone face. But each syllable of -her voice, when she spoke, was as if carved and rounded. - -“A worthless life; but innocent of this. He will not speak, you -think--reveal the truth?” - -“Not unless _you_ bid him.” - -“Ah!” - -Even her loathing of that emphasis--of all that it implied--could -wring no more from her. He conned her pitilessly. - -“But say that he did--a palpable subterfuge to escape the halter. I’ll -swear I saw the knife on him that very day.” - -She hardly seemed to hear him. - -“Worthless,” she continued lifelessly; “but I would not have him -suffer--not for--you say he may be saved, once sentenced--given the -means to escape?” - -“I say I can procure one an order to visit him--no more. Appearances -must be kept. The Government still counts, though in Savoy. What then! -ropes are cheap; nights dark; the window of his prison is unbarred. -They reckon on a precipice to hold--safe enough, not counting helpful -friends--and lovers. Once over the border and in France, he’s -safe--may snap his fingers at us, so long as he stays there. Give me -what I ask, and you shall have the order.” - -“O, not for me!” - -“For whom, then, mistress? No, no--none else. I wash my hands of all -collusion. You entreat me for a friend--or better; my kind heart -yields. The permit shall be an open one--made out to bearer. I’ll -promise that much. Confederate with whom you will. I’m not to ask nor -know. Those are my terms. Take or leave.” - -“My ruin.” - -“Well, it’s a large sum, I confess--worth a saint’s ransom. If you -think not, you needn’t sign the covenant. It’s true your estate’s of a -constitution to heal itself of even such a wound; and there’s no heir -for you to nurse, or nurse it for. But please yourself.” - -“Give me the paper.” - -With a hand stone-steady she put her name to it. - -“And here’s in acknowledgment for need--signed Léotade, and -countersigned,” said he, and held the order out to her. - -She made no movement to take it; he threw it at her feet, and, without -any sign of triumph or emotion, left the house. - -She heard the door clang on him. The sound seemed to snap some fibre -in her brain. Suddenly she was hurrying up and down, laughing, -weeping, imploring,-- - -“No, no, it was a jest--I have let myself be frightened by dreams--the -sky is all full of laughter at me. They don’t do these things--not to -the very young. O! little baby! Why didn’t you come?--my little unborn -child--I was too young to bear even a little child--too easily -deceived--it would have killed me, and I should have gone to heaven. -Such a jest!--heaven for me?--Children, children, don’t laugh! I heard -you down in the road--Look, though I’m not a mother, I can bear -secrets--monstrous, horrible things. Don’t come near me--I should cry -and cry to see your terror. I said, Don’t come near me--don’t--My God! -they are not children at all! Louis, Louis, save me! I did it all for -you!--Louis!--” - -She struck blindly against the wall, and sank down moaning at its -foot. - - - - - CHAPTER X - -The trial of Mr Trix, ex-Prefect of Faissigny, for the murder of his -patron, made a tremendous stir, not only locally, but throughout the -Cisalpine Kingdom of Victor-Amadeus. It was really a trial of strength -between the forces of revolt and those of reactionism--a tug of war -between Piedmont and Savoy, with the Alps for toe-line. But from the -first there was no doubt as to the issue. Wind, muscle, new blood, -self-confidence, were all in favour of the Savoyard champions, while -the acclamations of a whole nation, their neighbours and backers, -thundered in their ears. Opposed were the degenerates of an effete -_régime_; themselves not without a spitfire courage, but in physique -no match for this new vigorous young Demos--for this bristling force -suddenly sprung into life from seed of dead dragons’ teeth. To Savoy -this opportunity to assert its virtual independence came at the ripe -moment with the means to point the right moral. Cartouche offered -himself providentially for the rope with which to test the relative -haulage values of Progress and Conservatism. That was his obliging use -at the moment. - -He was not personally unpopular, save with the Illuminati, and other -such fanatic extremists; and he was arraigned on a popular -charge--that of having destroyed an enemy of the people. But he stood -convicted of privilege--was an autocrat’s nominee--and the question at -issue was not one of popularity but of principle. The severe justice -of the people--now first coming into evidence--had to be vindicated; -prejudice and partiality and other dynastic prerogatives had to be -suppressed. Wherefore the matter was held to turn not so much on the -guilt or innocence of the prisoner, as on the necessity of making an -example of a King’s favourite. Liberty, Justice and Equality, as -representing in the bulk the new heresy of humanity, were unanimous in -demanding the sacrifice of this scapegoat to the sins of his class. He -was offered up, in the public esteem, long before he was sentenced. - -And the worst of it for reactionism lay in the absence of an effective -retort. It could not move for the pardon of the prisoner, if -convicted, without appearing to hold him justified of the worst -offence against itself. On the other hand, to surrender him to -judgment by default, would be to admit the right of popular -jurisdiction. So it endeavoured to temporise, weakly, by citing the -parties in the case to appear before the Criminal Court of Turin; -whereupon le Prieuré answered by bringing the prisoner to immediate -trial, and sentencing him to be hanged incontinent in its own -market-square before the church. - -So much for the political aspects of this _cause célèbre_. The -private and personal only ceased to be subordinate to them with the -certainty of the democratic victory. Then at last general interest -began to concentrate itself on the scapegoat. - -He proved himself, in one way, to be a disappointing scapegoat--lent -himself to be done to death with scarcely a show of resistance. It -appeared as if he recognised his doom for a foregone conclusion, and -was determined to accept the clamour for his aristocratic blood as a -sign of an improving taste on the part of Jacques Bonhomme. He -signified his disgust of any rudeness directed at himself; but was -always ready to applaud, and retort on, the least essay of wit. During -the brief course of the trial, he always seemed more concerned for his -coat than his character, for his pose than his peril. Sometimes his -dark eyes would take eager stock of the gloating audience, as if they -sought among it the evidences of some sign or hope beyond their -expectations; but as often he would seem to rebuke their credulity -with a little laugh and shrug, and would recompose himself, with a -weary insouciance, to the fatigue of the business. - -The little Court of the Prefecture was crammed on the fatal day. In -addition to clerks, advocates, public representatives of the -Government and private reporters for the King, so many idle visitors, -attracted by interest or curiosity, had latterly flocked into Le -Prieuré, that the accommodations of Justice were hard set to find -standing room for all. The place, indeed, was an inferno; but, luckily -for its unclean spirits, quick evidence against, and short shrift for, -the prisoner were timely in releasing them. - -The leading interest, before the appearance of the accused, centred in -the _pièce de conviction_, which lay on a green baize-covered table -before the President. It had been necessary, for obvious reasons, to -withdraw the blade, seven years hidden, from the body of its victim. -That lay in the churchyard under consecrated ground; while a second -grave was already morally digging, in the unhallowed acre, for its -murderer. If the fact might be held, in any degree, to justify the -indifferent attitude of the defence, it was as certain that it -vindicated in all its impartiality the “severe justice of the people.” -Six foot of earth was as much the right of an aristocratic as of a -vulgar assassin. - -In the meanwhile there was the gold rat to show his teeth, and the red -rust on the blade to suggest a horrible intimacy with the inner -processes of the crime. They must suffice for curiosity until the -appearance of the prisoner. - -Monsieur the ex-Prefect, dished up at last to a ravenous company, -surveyed the Court as he had always been wont to survey it, with a -manner as from the chair rather than from the dock. He was perfectly -cool and self-collected--dressed as for a gala--white-handed and -sweet-scented--a fastidious macaroni--self-consciously _caviarre_ to -the general. - -“Proceed, M. le Président,” he said. “I will venture to suggest to -you the values of a dramatic brevity. I am entirely at your -service--and the hangman’s.” - -Dr Bonito, sitting slunk out of observation below the presidential -chair, watched, across the room, the effect of this entry and -rodomontade on a veiled female figure, which, standing among the -spectators, had from the first caught his attention. Dull-sighted to -all the world of beauty and sentiment, he was keen-eyed enough where -his own appetites were concerned. He had early marked down this figure -for his consideration, as a carrion-crow ogles a nesting rook. Its -presence in this place did not surprise him. He might have wondered -more if a case, so far-reaching in its sensational attractions, had -failed to produce this apparition among many less interested. His -curiosity was chiefly exercised as to its object in attending--whether -from lust of triumph over, or from an inalienable infatuation for, a -ruined betrayer. But he could gather nothing from its immovable -attitude. - -The Court took Monsieur the ex-Prefect at his word. Its processes were -sharp, brief, and dramatic. By four o’clock in the afternoon it had -sentenced the excellent _petit-maître_ to his last dressing at the -hands of the executioner. - -Balmat had testified staunchly to the ownership of the knife; and the -prisoner had applauded his evidence. - -“Well spoken, Jacques. Thou art as upright a witness as a guide, Yes, -the knife was mine.” - -He had been advised by the President, M. Léotade, to sheathe his -tongue. - -“It is a weapon thou hast sharp reason to fear, Prefect,” he had -answered. - -There was some recapitulation of former evidence, which it is -unnecessary to detail. Among others, the drunken rogue Target had been -called, and Margot, his daughter. To all, it may be supposed, the -drift of the inquiry was morally evident. They were summoned to -condemn the prisoner--not to acquit him. It was very curious. Bonito, -when it came to his turn, sniggered over the manner in which Fate had -accommodated itself to his scheme of a persuasive magic. He recalled -how he had engaged himself to put a spell on this man, so that he -should volunteer a loathing of his office. He had not aimed at the -moment at more than his deposition, which, so enforced, might have -entailed troublesome consequences. Now, whatever ensued, Cartouche -counted politically no longer. Whether he were hanged, or allowed to -escape, he had ceased from the running. The gods had played into their -oracle’s hands. - -It was with a sense of this triumph upon him that he had risen to -clinch the prisoner’s condemnation. His evidence was necessarily the -most damning of all, turning as it did upon the question of motive. -Every thin measured word that drew from him pulled the knot tighter -about the foredoomed neck. He told of the prisoner’s anger over the -projected union; of his fruitless plans to betray his patron; of his -disinheritance and dismissal despite; of his suggestive words to -himself, when they had met later in Turin. Finally, he also swore to -the knife. - -Cartouche, smiling, shook a finger at him rebukingly. - -“I will meet thee on that issue some day, old comrade.” - -He would speak nothing in his own defence. - -He was proud to have deserved a thousand hangings at their hands, he -said. He was indifferent on what indictment that truth was brought -home to the world. For himself, he only regretted that he had left -unhung among his enemies so much intelligence as was able to formulate -a plausible reason for destroying him. They were not altogether such -fools as they had appeared. A little wisdom made revolution a -dangerous thing. He had foolishly hoped that he had eliminated the -last of it, since it had hidden itself so successfully from him. Now -he must congratulate that little on its taking him effectively, -unawares, behind his back. But he warned it to seek a cleverer -substitute for himself than M. Léotade. - -M. Léotade in consequence had much pleasure in committing him -viciously to the gallows. - -Bonito, when the sentence was pronounced, stood up to watch its effect -upon the veiled woman. She was nowhere to be seen. An hour later, the -ferment and excitement having locally subsided, and the precincts of -the Court been redelivered to quietude, he put the knife--which he had -begged and secured--into his pocket, parted amicably with his -colleagues, and set out on foot and alone for his lodgings. These, to -suit his secretiveness and his parsimony, no less than his democratic -unpretence--were in a little smithy on the Argentière road. He had -put up there on the occasion of his former visit. There were -conveniences about the establishment of Jean Loustalot, “Forgeron et -Vétérinaire.” For one thing, loafers were not tolerated in its -neighbourhood, for the reason that Jean--a suspicious saturnine man, -of few words and lowering aspect--could not endure that idleness -should borrow a lounging zest from his labours, as if he were a cursed -puppet-man. For another, he was a soaker, of the solitary unsocial -type, and, given the means, could always be persuaded--whenever his -room was to be preferred to his company--to withdraw into the little -dwelling-house at the rear of the smithy, and there drink himself -swiftly and silently into insensibility. - -Anticipating, in the present instance, an occasion of the kind, Dr -Bonito provided himself, on his way out of the village, with a flask -of spirits, which he deposited with the knife in his pocket. He then -walked slowly on, with an air as of one who was loitering in the -expectancy of being joined by a comrade. It was, in fact, no -engagement with him, but a premonition having all the force of one. -And the event came to justify it; though later than he had looked for. -The encounter only happened when he was hard upon his destination. -Then instantly he was conscious that a figure was waiting for him in -the dusk of the road-side. - -He paused a moment. Darkness like a precipitate was beginning to -settle down into the valley. From the distant village came an excited -bee-like murmur. Ahead of him, some fifty feet, a welter of shapeless -light, the ring and clang of an anvil, marked where the smithy stood -within a clump of trees. High up on the hill opposite twinkled the -lights of the Château di Rocco. He took it all in; squeezed his lips -between finger and thumb; and jerked himself suddenly forward. As he -passed the expectant figure, he addressed it,-- - -“Wait, while I get rid of Jack Smith. I will call to you in a little.” - -He went on, and entered the forge; took the flask from his pocket; -held it up before the eyes of the panting Cyclops. - -“I have a visitor, Jean. I want to be alone.” - -The man, who had been softly manipulating the bellows, ceased of his -hold on the instant. The handle, the fire, his brow, all went down -together. With no more than a hoggish grunt, he seized the flask, and -disappeared. Bonito went to the door, and called softly. - -The fire had fallen so low when she entered, that they were only -phantom darknesses to one another; but he kept a shrewd eye, for his -part, on the undulations of the gloom which was addressed to him. He -was the first to speak. - -“So, you decided to follow, Priestess, and to satisfy yourself of the -reality of your vengeance. I had half looked for you, I confess. Your -presence in the Court did not surprise me.” - -Her silence, something in the atmosphere of her regard, warned him to -be vigilant and watchful. - -“It was strange,” he went on, “how circumstances rushed to complicate -my simpler purpose. Call it coincidence, if you will--’tis but another -term for Providence. I’ll show you why--show you good reason to be -grateful for the course that things have taken.” - -“Do you know what I have in my hand?” - -Her whisper came like a snake’s hiss through the darkness. It was his -turn to be silent. - -“I have my finger on the trigger,” she said. “I give you a moment to -answer. Have you forgotten what you swore?” - -“No.” - -“Not to hurt him--and you have taken his life?” - -“No, I say.” - -“--As I am going to take yours.” - -If soulless courage be a virtue, he could boast that one. He never -flinched before the crawling horror of that unseen death. His voice, -as he spoke, had not altered by a note, a tremor, from its accustomed -harshness. Yet, all the while, he was desperately enough calculating -his chances. - -“That’s as you will,” he said. “Only I’d advise you hear me speak -first. All considered, I’ve done my best for you.” - -She gave a little wrenching laugh. - -“Well,” he said: “Will you listen?” - -“I’ll listen,” she answered. “I can aim better, being silent.” - -“Make sure of me then. His life stands behind mine. Ah! does that -shake you? Now, be reasonable, if you can. Was the glacier my -creature, and coincidence in my pay? I might never have opened my -lips, and they would have convicted your Cartouche a dozen times -without. The people cried for him.” - -“You knew the truth.” - -“What if I did! Do you bear in mind how for years we have made a -fortune out of its suppression?” - -“I know how you have, dog.” - -“I have kept you in comforts, Priestess--at least, I think, in -comforts. No more of those, if our parts were once confessed; but -straw and chains and rods, and a stone bed in Penitenza. The oracle -would fall with the priest. What will you do when you have killed me?” - -“Go to her up there, and tear the truth out of her throat, or end her -too. He sha’n’t die unavenged--my God! do you hear me?” - -“Melodrama, melodrama! Well, if you prefer it to the prose of -commonsense! But for that, he might be saved yet.” - -He heard how her breath caught at the word; and his own found relief -in a little silent snigger. - -“The truth?” he said. “She’d not yield it, to save a sinner at her -saint’s expense, though you dragged out her tongue with pincers--I -know the stubborn fool. But, grant she were to--what benefit to you, -when they hanged you for my murder?” - -“My neck for his.” - -“Melodrama, I say. I say there’s a better way for you. Why, look you, -I might have warned him, let him forestall his enemies, escape to -France; and so, a condemned outcast, he had been lost to you for ever. -Now you can save him--go with him, if you will, and win back his old -passion out of his new gratitude.” - -“_I_ can--_I_? O, God! if I might!” - -“I say you may. There, throw down your silly weapon. Our principles -confirmed, your fool’s life counts with us for little. I’ll give you -proof. I’ve already put it into the hands of her up there to deal with -it as she will.” - -“_Her_? His life?” - -“His life.” - -“_You_ put it?” - -“I.” - -“She hates him.” - -“Maybe. But she keeps a conscience.” - -“What have--?” - -“Why, can’t you understand that, the man convicted of the crime and -hanged for it, my draughts on her would be dishonoured--she were a -bank stopped payment. Fine reason, to be sure, for my seeking his -destruction. I calculated better--I calculated on her conscience, I -say--a perverse organ in a woman; but it stuck at his death, just -that. It served me to commute my pension, so to speak--to exchange her -the means to save him, once condemned, against a little bond--a -promissory note--it’s here.” - -He tapped his breast significantly. - -“To save him!” she repeated stupidly. - -“Why,” he said, “I told her ropes were cheap, nights dark--that there -were no bars to his window; and I gave her an order made to bearer for -a private interview with him.” - -“She’s got it now?” - -“Unless she’s used it already.” - -“If she has! You’ve ruined her, I suppose--thank God for that!” - -“I did my best. But the soil’s fruitful. The forest will rise again -from its burning. If you’d be beforehand with her--claim his first -gratitude--!” - -He stopped; a little swift rustle had passed him, and he was alone. - -He listened a moment; uttered a small dry chuckle; and then bestirred -himself to get a light. He knew where the lamp hung on the wall, and -in a little had kindled it. Looking, well-satisfied, round and about -him, his eye caught the glint of a pistol lying on the forge. He took -up the weapon, and examined it curiously. It was primed and loaded. -She _had_ meant it, then? He had been a little sceptical; but now he -congratulated himself on his escape. He put the thing into his breast -pocket. It was better out of the way, in case of accidents. She might -return upon him, with God knew what fresh aberration in her brain. - -The night air came in, chill and searching, at the open hatch of the -door. He blew the smouldering ashes on the forge into a glow, and -fetched a stool and sat down, leaning against the brickwork, to think -things pleasantly over. He had no fear of being disturbed from -without. Neighbourliness was the last thing encouraged by M. -Loustalot. The smithy was no rendezvous for gossips--least of all -after dark, when its remoteness and its master’s reputation made it a -spot anathema. - -His thoughts pursued his visitor. He wondered if, her mission -accomplished, she would in truth succeed in winning back that errant -passion to herself. On the whole, he rather hoped she would. It would -serve to kill two birds for him with a single stone. She would keep -Cartouche away, and Cartouche her. Neither, once escaped, could afford -to return. That would be as it should be. He himself was in need of -her no longer--had wanted, in fact, only a convenient pretext for -dissolving their partnership. Here--his usual luck--that had offered -itself opportunely. The sum, for which he held the Saint-Péray’s -bond, was so large, that its investment would justify him in an -immediate retirement from business. He had no desire, at the same -time, to hamper it with the burden of a Sibylline pensioner. And -so--yes, he hoped the two would escape together, never to reappear in -Savoy. He had every confidence in their being permitted to. Even in a -democracy it was no good precedent to hang a Prefect; any more than it -was its good policy to alienate, at the outset of its campaign, by the -vindictive sacrifice of its first prisoner taken, the sympathies of -the temperate among reformers. He believed that Le Prieuré, in the -person of its new Prefect--though intentionally uninspired by -himself--saw this clearly, and would be satisfied with its moral -triumph, since, whatever the real facts, the execution would be given -a political complexion. He believed that, though the girl should carry -into the prison a rope ladder bound about her waist, its visible -presence on her would be winked at. - -Winked at, forsooth! The thought tickled him. What a deal of winking -there had been here from first to last. The association of ideas -brought the knife to his mind, and he fetched it from his pocket and -examined it curiously. There had been nothing but a morbid sentiment -in his desire to secure it for himself. It gave him a gloating -pleasure now to finger the long blade, and to think how the smears of -its rust were the very dried essence of di Rocco’s heart. What secrets -it might speak, through its seven years’ intimacy with that corrupt -organ! “Wouldst thou not rejoice to utter them into mine--hard -in--fast in?” he croaked, grinning, and apostrophising the rat’s head, -as he held it out before him. “But there’s none to wield thee at the -last. Bonito--poor old scorned and wronged Bonito--stands the victor -and immortal!” - -He had no taste for bed, in the present tingling poise of things; but -presently, lost in ineffable altitudes of star-dreaming, he dropped -into a doze where he sat, his head fallen back upon the forge. - - * * * * * * * * - -“Give me the order. You’ve not used it? Say you have, and I think I -shall kill you.” - -“I’ve not used it--not yet.” - -“Not yet? You beast without a heart! You kissed me once--on my -lips--I’d tear them weren’t they his! So you’d have let him die but -for me!” - -In the melancholy half-light of the room the two women stood facing -one another. Here was tragedy in white and red--blood and spirit in -gripping combat. It was veritably, in its aspect, in its significance, -a struggle between life and death. The issue hung upon a word. - -“O, my sister! I love too!” - -It was death that spoke, flinging herself with a heartworn cry at the -other’s feet. - -A poignant pause ensued; the body of hatred strained and trembled; a -cry issued from it; and, lo! out of the husk of the Pythoness, a -cracked and scaly mask, came the soul of Molly Bramble. And the next -instant the two poor creatures, as once before, were weeping and -rocking in one another’s arms. They mingled their tears and speech -incoherently. - -“Poor soul! O, what a life! I deserve to be whipped, and more, for -having helped it to its misery. But, there! we each struck for our -own.” - -“Did you help to it? Why not? he cursed you for my sake!--and I would -have let him die. No, no--I didn’t mean to; but to go to him--myself!” - -“There,--I understand. You’ve always held by Providence, poor fond -simple thing!” - -“Haven’t you? You’ve not changed in all these years--only to grow more -beautiful. O, sister! tell me you’ve been good!” - -“I’ve never shamed my love--a bitter struggle not to. I’ll say no -more.” - -“Take the order--quick. You may save him yet--his soul most of all. -When he hears--My God! You’ll betray my Louis!” - -“Not us! What’s a sin or two charged falsely against my Cherry! He’s -known a’ many such; and laughed at them. I must get a rope.” - -“It’s here--it’s waiting for you.” - -“O, you dear woman!” - -“--A thing of Spanish silk--as light as gossamer and as strong as a -cable--a hundred feet of it.” - -“What it must have cost!” - -“It will go round your waist, under your petticoats. Come, while I -fasten it. O, be quick! We mustn’t lose a minute. Leave it with him, -and come back to me. Tell him there’ll be a horse waiting ready -saddled for him in the road beyond the gate. You can join him later.” - -“I’ll come back--never fear. I’ve that to tell you. That beast -Bonito--” - -“You know him? O, my sick head--of course.” - -“We’ll be even with him yet. There I’m all twittering to be gone.” - -“Go, then, in God’s name. Let them, for pity’s sake, have no suspicion -of you. O, I doubt you can play a part!” - -“Do you? Sweet innocent! There, I’ll not ask you for a kiss.” - -“O, come to me, woman--woman! Love me; forgive me! We are one in our -despair.” - -“Despair you--I won’t. It shall all come right.” - -“Don’t leave me! Why don’t you go? Every second’s precious. There, -cover up your face--your sweet strong face. I shall be dead before you -return. Don’t speak when you do until I bid you. I shall know by your -looks how you have sped. There, it’s fastened. Make him turn his -back.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - -So, the end was near at last! And here, high up among the flying -winds and shadows, like old Stylites on his pillar, he stood poised to -take his flight. Not self-glorified like that grim evangel; but none -the less a martyr to his faith. A martyr, he! He could join in the mad -laughter evoked by that image--the laughter of damned spirits down in -the basement. It came reeling and echoing up the stairs to him--the -old Belfry stairs. To what would he descend those next? - -There was a frightful humour in the prison nomenclature of his time -and country. Speranza, Purgatorio, Costanza, Pazienza, Penitenza--such -were the mocking names they gave their noisome cells, like eating -cubicles in a devil’s cook-house. They spelt a devouring cruelty. The -moral of them all was shattered nerves. They substituted filth and -misery for the old “first question,” and were scarcely, by design, -less demoralising. He who entered one of them had always this much -more than his trial to face--the weapons of his brain blunted against -self-defence. They were careful to dull and befoul the wits committed -to them. - -Cartouche’s cell, by comparison with custom, was an angel’s loft--a -fitting hutch for pigeons, he told himself--wherefore, perhaps, it was -called Il Paradiso. There is always, at least, an advantage in having -the upper berth. It had once been actually the belfry of the tower, -though the holes where the great beams had entered into the walls were -now plugged with bricks. The old lights, too, across which the -luffer-boards had stretched, were all filled in save one. That gaped -unglazed and unbarred. He might escape by it if he would. The wall -below went down clean and precipitous seventy or more feet to the -pavement. - -Yet--after his doom was pronounced--he was tempted more than once to -take the plunge--to jump and cheat the gallows. There was something, -perhaps, even a little characteristically attractive to him in the -thought. To trick his enemies out of their triumph--to despoil them of -their vulgar profits won of a gentleman, an ex-Prefect, a Court -favourite! There was a gambler’s whimsey in the reflection--always not -a little of the _chevalier d’industrie’s_ calculating recklessness in -his attitude towards his fellows. Towards all save one. She was his -saving faith. To her strict soul self-destruction was a deadly sin, -hopelessly damning. To leap would be to leap for ever out of her -thoughts, her prayers. He could not do it then. He’d wait and hang, to -win a place in her remorse. That was his only hold on her at last. It -even gave him an exquisite joy to believe he was secure of it--secure -in his utter abandonment by her to the fate from which she might have -saved him only at the uttermost cost to herself. He would not have it -otherwise--not be cheated of that place by any barren compromise of -hers. None could suffice him in this pass--only his life for her and -hers. He’d give it without a murmur. - -For the rest, he told himself he did not much care. Life was a farce -without this Yolande--impossible with her. It was strange how his -thoughts clung about that one figure. It was only of a woman, bigoted -and foolish--not even now with beauty supreme in her to redeem the -lack of liberal qualities. And she could let him die upon a -falsehood--her piety was not proof against the last temptation. So -much the madder, truer lover she! He worshipped not her, perhaps, but -love in her. He worshipped her, at least--would die to save her. - -What was his life worth! Sometimes, leaning looking from his window, -old dreams would come to him--a far back retrospect, like that which -opens out its vista to the drowning. He could see a little figure at -the end, leaping in green sunlight. It came dancing along, and jumped -into his breast. He wept, nursing it--nursing the little image of -himself. “If she could see me now!” he thought. And yet he was no -traitor to his father’s memory. The old dog had been kind to him. -“Sanctity and self-indulgence!” he sighed. “I could never tell the -decent way between. Only she might have taught me.” - -His view commanded the market-square. He wondered when they were going -to begin. The people went their busy way below, seemingly unconcerned. -They looked squat things--ridiculously foreshortened--Lilliputians to -the giant he felt himself to be by contrast. Why should he let such -absurdities hang him? No matter, so he died for her. - -Always she. The other’s claims he hated. She vexed him in the night -with her eternal weeping. Weeping, weeping, for an irremediable -sorrow? What use in this invertebrate lament? Let her come and save -him, if she wished to prove herself the nobler soul. Not that he would -concede her that triumph. But he loved deeds, not tears--would rather -that love defied than petitioned him. And so one night she came. - -It was pitch dark without. He had been dozing on his pallet; but some -cessation in the sentries’ monotonous tramp across the landing, to and -fro, brought him wide awake. The door opened, and shut again. -Something was in the room. He listened curious. - -“Cherry!” whispered a voice. - -He was on his feet on the instant. The shock had half unnerved him. He -stood straining his eyes, his elbows crooked, his heart hammering. - -“Who are you?” he muttered. - -He heard her panting softly--weeping. Then he knew it was she. He made -a mad effort to compose himself--to stand up in the breach this sudden -ghost had torn in his defences. The voice sighed on,-- - -“O, love! don’t you know me? Cherry, I have come to save you.” - -“Not you?” - -He could not help his tone--would not, if he could. - -She gave a little very bitter cry. - -“Hush! speak low! She sent me.” - -“Yolande?” - -“Yes. O, my God!” - -He felt for her, touched her in the darkness. His heart was on a -sudden kind and pitiful. - -“Poor child! poor child! How did you hear--come--find the means? These -long years--I’ve no right to ask you of them.” - -“No need to, neither. They find me what I always was--your woman. -Well, I’ve got a rope about me. Will you take it?” - -“Not I.” - -“O, O! Why not?” - -“Owe my life to her whose life I’ve ruined.” - -“_She_ found the rope, I say; and the pass to let me bring it to you -private--paid for it, too.” - -“Paid? Whom?” - -“Bonito. There!” - -“Paid Bonito?” - -“With a bond that just spells her ruin. He’s got it on him now.” - -“I understand. Where is he?” - -“At Loustalot the blacksmith’s. I left him there not two hours since. -I went to kill him, Cherry, for what he’d done to you; and, to save -his life, he sent me on to her. She’d only lain close a bit for lack -of such a messenger. And I’m to say there shall be a horse waiting for -you in the road by the gate.” - -“Give me the rope.” - -“Let me have your hand--only that. There, it’s on the floor. Put it -away somewhere till I’m gone.” - -He obeyed, and groped his way back to her--felt for her poor face, and -took it in his hands. She stood quite passive. - -“Molly, I’m not worth a thought.” - -Only her low heart-rending sobs answered him. - -“Thank God,” he said, “we cannot see one another’s faces--never shall -again.” - -“Cherry!” - -“Yes, call me that.” - -“Cherry, mayn’t I hope? I’ve been good.” - -“_I_ may not, Molly.” - -“She told me to--to save your soul. Perhaps when you’re gone away, and -safe? I could wait until you changed to me.” - -Her words wrung his heart. This child, so true and faithful to him to -the last! and his own immeasurable baseness to her--in thought and -deed alike! What could it matter now? Let love be still a casuist for -love’s sake. - -He put his arms about her; set his lips upon her face, with some new -rehearsal of an ancient passion. - -“Before God, Molly, if I live, I will marry you.” - - * * * * * * * * - -An hour later he stood at the window, waiting to descend. The rope was -in place; he had fastened it to a beam; deep mid-night slept upon the -village. - -“She has done this thing for me,” he thought--“given the bond--risked -all to right her fault. What else or greater could she do? God make -her happy!” - - - - - CHAPTER XII - -Bonito, startled out of dreams of immortality, returned to earth -with a shock. _Something--somebody had spoken to him!_ - -Even so--taken by surprise, his wits momentarily confounded--habitual -wariness kept him stone-still where he lay, his head dropped back upon -the forge, while he strove desperately to excogitate his right answer -to the situation. For the instant of his waking had been one with his -recognition of the voice--and of a flaw, moreover, in his own policy. -The consequences were facing him at once, and tremendously. He knew -that his life at this moment hung upon a word. - -“Where is the bond, I say? Will you wait for me to cut it out of you?” - -Still he made no answer. The sooty beams in the roof seemed to -undulate above his half-closed lids as the light pulsated in the -lantern. He thought he saw the pin-point eyes of innumerable spiders -watching him from their secret places. They affected him curiously; he -could not concentrate his thoughts while they held him so intently. -There were some means he possessed--he was certain of it--for retort -or self-defence, could he only recall them. But those eyes held him -from the effort. While he was still in a mortal struggle to escape -them, the voice spoke again, quick and damning. - -“What use in this pretence? I know thee--never so wide awake. Thou -dog! O, thou ineffable dog! to wring it from her ruin! That once for -last was once too many. Down you go!” - -Still he lay as silent as death, though a pulse of life--it was plain -enough--went shadowing up and down on his strained chest. - -“Not?” said Cartouche horribly. “Do you know what’s here, Bonito?--the -pretty little jade and golden toy? What Providence dropped it at your -feet! It wakes strange thoughts in me to hold it in my hand again--the -throats it split, blood lapped--all honest sport so long as it was -mine. Will you not give me up the bond, lest her pure name put to it -be soiled? Well, then--no ‘law’ for you--not to be thought of where -she’s concerned. I’d come to kill you, beast--just my hands against -yours--and behold! you’ve given me a weapon!” - -With a leap, like whalebone released, the figure was on its feet and -screaming: “Help! help! _à moi_, Loustalot! The prisoner--he’s -escaped--Help!” - -A cry as useless as desperate. He himself had paralysed the drunkard’s -hand--had closed his ears. Even as he uttered it, he was -down--doomed--saw the blade whisked up--last in whose heart! A mortal -shudder seized him--and then all of a sudden he remembered. He tore -something from his breast. Even as the knife descended, a shock and -spatter of fire leapt from his hand, and Cartouche reeled and fell. - -Not too late, perhaps, yet! Dropping the reeking pistol, he tried to -pluck the rat’s tooth from his throat. It held like a vice. Fumbling -with it feebly, and ever more feebly, his fingers relaxed, half rose -again to grip the agony, and so, poised mid-way, crooked and stiffened -slowly. - -For a minute silence reigned on the fallen echoes of that tragedy. -Then the ex-Prefect stirred. He was bleeding horribly. The wound in -him was numb; only his every limb seemed faint with sickness. He -crawled to the dead thing, and with shaking hands searched it, and -quickly came upon what he sought. Rising, by a superhuman effort, and -supporting himself against the forge, he found her name and put his -stiff lips to it. They left a crimson wafer--his sign manual--“this is -my act and deed.” Some ashes yet smouldered on the hearth. He blew -them into a glow--the blood pumping from him, regularly, to each beat -of the bellows--and thrust the paper in, and saw it go in flame. Then, -tottering for the open door, he sunk down upon its threshold. - -The lights of Di Rocco twinkled on the hill-side. They found him, sunk -against the lintel, with his dead eyes fixed upon them. - - - - - AFTERWARD - -These shadows pass; yet to what possible redemption through that -blood? Had it not been said that “whoso sheddeth man’s, by man’s shall -his be shed.” It was not for that poor sinner to usurp the divine -prerogative. Those for whom he suffered must still expiate as they had -wrought. - -Far on I see them moving--the devoted woman still shadowing the weak -man. The old order has passed away, and they with it. The Kingdom of -retaliation has risen on the Kingdom of despotism. Savoy is bound with -a red ribbon to the republic; its people shout for France; its rulers -are betrayed to her. One day these two go to the scaffold. - -It is a last mercy that they are permitted to go together. So her -life’s purpose shall find its consummation. What sorrows, what -disenchantments have been hers in these years of her fading beauty, of -her hopelessness for herself, only God may know. They have never -affected her steadfast resolve. She has given herself to save her -saint for heaven. - -Up to the very last her patient lips are shut to him on all that she -has done and suffered for his sake. His passage shall be bright and -confident. She kisses him and sends him to die before her. - -Only then for the first time she seemed to realise what she had done. -He had passed in, and the gates were shut between them for ever. They -say that she dropped where she stood, and had to be carried under the -knife. - - [The End] - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. - -Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ foresworn/forsworn, -Goodbye/Good-bye, etc.) have been preserved. - -Alterations to the text: - -Add TOC. - -Assorted punctuation corrections. - -[Part I/Chapter V] - -Change “to mend what you have helped to _marr_!” to _mar_. - -[Part II/Chapter V] - -“these delicate _nouances_ of taste and selection” to _nuances_. - -[Part II/Chapter XII] - -(“O, Louis! O, mon bien aimé! que les artifices...”) italicize French -text. - -[Part III /Chapter IV] - -“stood up against the rising _ride_, fearless before its roar” to -_tide_. - -[Part III/Chapter V] - -“Cassandra, ma belle _prêtesse_, ma petite!” to _prêtresse_ (French -for “priestess”). - -[Part III/Chapter VI] - -“those _nouances_ of alienation which only love” to _nuances_. - -[End of Text] - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROGUE’S TRAGEDY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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