He got up better, and found that the pain whose ravages he had been dreading had left him. He sighed as he rose. An inner consciousness told him it was only for a time. Through that day the effects of the potion of the night followed him. Even Laura, child as she was, remarked the change. There was about her friend a certain languor, an absence of vital energy. He could scarcely rouse himself, even to take the steps needful for the accomplishment of the object that had brought them so far.
Toward the next evening, however, the effects of his dosebegan to lessen. He regained something of his physical energy, and in the gathering twilight started, without the child, for the address of the agent who held the information they required.
Laura had been restless and uneasy during the whole day, startled with the slightest noise, watching curiously all who came in and went out; for now that the time, as she believed, was very near for her meeting with this unknown father, she began to feel vaguely afraid.
"You are going to find him," she said as her companion came booted and cloaked into the room where she was sitting.
He looked at her earnestly: "And to give up my treasure."
She clung to him: "He won't take me away, mon père. We shall all go home to mamma together."
Her friend smiled, but he shook his head, and Laura's heart sank and the tears filled her eyes. She was too young for all this conflict of feeling. L'Estrange felt it with a sudden sense of compunction. He tried to comfort her as he would have comforted any ordinary child under the circumstances: "No doubt it shall be all as my little girl wishes."
But Laura looked up into his face with those mournful, searching eyes, and then turned away from him. In her simplicity she had read the hollowness of his efforts at consolation, and she was hurt that he should tell her anything but the truth. Her friend stooped down to her and took both her hands in his:
"You are a little witch, Laura. What am I to say to you, then?"
"I don't want you to say what I like," she answered in a low, tearful voice; "I want you to say what isreallytrue." And then she began to cry: "I love you, and I love mamma—oh, so much!—and I think I shall love my papa when I see him.Whycan't we all be happy together?"
"Why, little wise one?" He settled his hat upon his brows and turned away, leaving her unconsoled. "Ask the stars," he said from the door, and Laura was left alone to think and wonder, for young as she was the shadow that rests evermore on things human was closing her in its dark embrace. Thewhy, the dark mystery of human fate, had already begun in her young soul its restless questioning.
Her friend felt this, and his heart ached for her, but the mischief was wrought—he could do nothing. Action was the only cure for their common sadness, therefore he would delay no longer. Hiring a droshki, he drove through the modern Moscow, while ever before him rose that mighty circlet of walls and battlements, enclosing, its forest of towers, steeples and cupolas, gorgeous as an Eastern tale, fantastic as the dream of a diseased imagination, that city within a city—the Kremlin.
He was gathering together the forces of his mind, and this helped him in his task, for L'Estrange had ever been specially alive to the influence of externals. Beauty of form and coloring had always been able to sway his moods. This mighty monument, by strength formed and endowed, seemed to brace his spirit as he looked out upon it and thrilled to the memories it enshrined. The great impregnable, before whom Napoleon and his legions melted, the strong abode of the Muscovite giants—Ivan the Terrible and his court—the treasure-house of the Czars, the representative of the history of a nation destined to great things,—as he gazed upon it he felt the softness leave his heart. He was trying to be great, and this monument of human greatness helped him. He could not meet his enemy, although his words were to be, in a certain sense, peace, with the tender voice of a child ringing its sweet sadness into his ears, with the languor of sorrow and pain stealing away his strength.
And gradually as he drove through the shadowy streets, by the walled gardens and stone buildings, with the Kremlin rising ever before him in the distance, his mind took a stronger tone. Not as the wrong-doer, but as the representative of the wronged, he would stand before the man he sought, arraigning his enemy for the crime to which, as he well knew, his own conduct had lent a colorable pretext. L'Estrange could scarcely believe that it was anything but a pretext. Margaret's fault, if fault there had been, was so venial, her manner of life after the separation—and L'Estrange was too much given to intrigue himself to be able to understand how Maurice Grey could know nothing whatever of that—hadbeen so pure, so single in its aims, that the harshness of her husband's judgment became great and vindictive in comparison.
L'Estrange found it by no means difficult to work himself up into a state of suitable indignation, and as he reached the door of the house indicated as that of the agent who held the knowledge of Maurice Grey's hiding-place, he was once more the dark, stern man, strong and self-contained.
His newly-formed resolutions were not yet destined to be fulfilled. Time and distance still separated him from Maurice Grey.
He had gathered from the conversation overheard in the Champs Elysées an approximation to the truth, though some diplomacy was necessary before anything could be wormed out of the crafty Russian.
The golden key opened his lips at last, and L'Estrange applied it liberally, but with a certain amount of caution, for he wished to be sure his information was accurate.
At last, however, the man was conquered, and perhaps gold was not the only or even the most potent agent. After many twistings and turnings and sundry circumlocutions, which their common tongue, the French language, so supple and delicate, could ably render, the wily Russian told his visitor all he wanted to know. The English milord—so he styled Maurice, probably because his pockets were well lined—had been in Moscow, but had only remained there two days. He had put up at his house, for he and the Englishman had met before, and their relations one with the other were of the most friendly character; also, Mr. Grey disliked hotels: for some reason he had seemed to desire the incognito. Monsieur had unfolded to his friend his intention of wandering, and under these circumstances had appeared to be in some perplexity about his letters, which he wished sent to another address than his own. He (M. Petrovski) had come to the help of monsieur (his readiness to help travellers, more especially, perhaps, the English, had always been very great), proposing that all communication with England should be carried on through himself.
He did not say that as he was a kind of property-agent this was altogether in his line of business, and that for everythinghe did he was amply paid. Probably the Russian thought it well to leave something to the imagination. And in this he was wise. L'Estrange's imagination was all-embracing, in his species more especially. He understood the position at once, and added so largely to the profit on the transaction—demonstrated so clearly how in the whole matter he would be a gainer—that the Russian's tongue, as by a species of intoxication, wagged more freely than ever.
His small black eyes glittering above his hawk-like nose and long, dark beard—he was a Russian Jew—he proceeded to assure his guest that nothing but his full assurance of the fact that only friendliness was intended to his dear friend Monsieur Grey would have persuaded him to open his lips on the subject.
And L'Estrange entering into his motives and approving heartily of his reticence, he showed his sincerity by leading him to a little side-window which commanded the ante-room, and bidding him look out carefully without allowing himself to be seen.
L'Estrange obeyed. He looked out, and treasured up what he saw for further use.
It was a large, bare room, containing only a table and two or three chairs. On one of these, in full relief, for the light from a small oil-lamp shone on his face, sat a young man. He was evidently English, and very young, almost a boy, for his face was clean shaven and his short fair hair curled over a broad, open brow, upon which time had as yet written no wrinkles. But what L'Estrange chiefly remarked in those few moments of intense study was this: the earnestness of his face, the purpose that shone out of his eyes, the manliness of his bearing and attitude.
He turned from the window to find out how it was that this young Englishman had been shown to him so mysteriously, and the Russian, who had been observing him narrowly, took him by the arm: "The young man has come by appointment on the same errand as yourself: apparently he is very anxious—for some time since he has pestered me with letters. Mark my confidence. I askyouhow I am to treat him?"
For a moment L'Estrange was perplexed, then suddenly came back to his mind the remembrance of the lawyer's letter.This was Margaret's messenger. He looked out again. Perhaps the manliness of the young face pleased him; perhaps he saw in this strange search an access to his strength—an instrument that he might use to confirm the absolute truthfulness of what he was about to tell the mistaken husband; perhaps he had a certain compunction at the idea of sending on a fruitless search this young, disinterested champion of the woman who seemed to win all hearts. Whatever might be the cause, the effect of his second look was this. He turned from the window with a half smile: "Tell him what you have told me, my good friend, but keep him about here for some days."
The Russian bowed his assent, and after a few more courteous words preceded his visitor to the door. How had L'Estrange obtained this power over a nature so mercenary? Not by money alone, for others could hold out the same inducement—Arthur had been ready to pour out gold at his feet—nor indeed altogether by his superior diplomacy, though that no doubt had contributed to bring about the result.
That there are certain men who have an extraordinary power over their fellows is indisputable. Strength of purpose and character may be an element in the formation of this power, but it is not altogether alone. Such knowledge of the workings of the human mind as L'Estrange had gained by means of keen observation and long study of his fellows is perhaps the strongest element of all. For L'Estrange knew how to take men, what chord to strike in their natures, often strange and complex, to make them answer to his hand—how to render them actually desirous of doing his will.
To look upon the fair face of a childFeels like a resurrection of the heart.Children are vast in blessings; kings and queensAccording to the dynasties of love.
Arthur, then, had found his way to Moscow. After days of wandering, after vain efforts to entrap the wily Russian into sending him by letter the information he desired, after keen and hungry searching in the English quarter of every city through which he had passed, he had gained the dim metropolis of the North, but only to be forestalled, to have a watch set upon his movements, to play into the hands of the man for whom, in his youthful enthusiasm, he cherished the bitterest contempt, the most undying enmity.
Perhaps under any circumstances it would have been impossible for the impulsive, straightforward young Englishman, headlong in his pursuits, whether good or evil, to understand the complex, two-sided nature of such a man as L'Estrange. Knowing what he did of him, it is scarcely a matter of surprise that he felt his strong young arm tingle at times to fell him to the earth, and if he should never rise again, so much the better—there would be one villain the less in the world. All he desired was to meet him face to face.
But Margaret had laid her commands upon him. His enemy, her enemy, was to be respected. The remembrance of her words made Arthur tremble, for in the holy indignation of his youth he felt that if they should meet it would be difficult to restrain himself from dealing the well-merited blow.
He consoled himself with the reflection that words have power to slay. And words were ready on his lips for the disturber of Margaret's peace, the maker of her misery, which in his inexperience he believed must go to the heart of the worst villain that ever lived.
Arthur did not confine his search to Maurice. Wherever he went strict inquiry had been instituted for the darkforeigner and fair-haired English child. At Paris, as has been already seen, his agent was upon the traces of the pair. There they had been lost altogether, for L'Estrange's ruse had succeeded, and never again had Arthur or the agent he employed been able to recover them.
The only consolation that could be derived from the chance encounter in the Champs Elysées was in the relation that appeared to exist between the child and this man. He was evidently kind to her, for the agent, who reported their conversation accurately, told of her indignation when he so foolishly began to abuse her friend, and also of her little cry of delight when she saw him reappear.
In the long letter which Arthur was writing to Middlethorpe that evening he related this incident, scarcely knowing whether or no it would be a comfort to the bereaved mother—whether she would fear the strange influence which this man seemed to have acquired over her child, or be thankful that at least he was treating her kindly. In any case, of one blessed fact she might rest assured—for the child's companion had been seen, and dark as the night was the agent had recognized the original of Margaret's miniature—her husband was innocent of this last, this bitterest wrong and humiliation.Hehad not removed his child from her care. The letter was addressed to Adèle, but it was written for Margaret. It told of that evening's interview, of his wanderings up to that moment and of his further hopes.
He had ascertained Maurice Grey's hiding-place—that is to say, the address was promised—but days of travelling would probably be necessary before he could reach it. Arthur, however, was full of courage and hope. He looked upon the success of his enterprise as only delayed, not put from him altogether. And his young, strong spirit of devotion shone out in every line of the letter which was to find the two lonely women watching and hoping—their trust in him. To know this was enough to brace the young man's mind, to drain him of self-love, to make and keep him strong and pure.
He was in the heat of composition that evening (it must be confessed, in spite of Arthur's literary dreams, the pen was not his strong point), laboring to express enough, and not toomuch, of the hope his partial success had generated in his mind—to give his friends new courage without buoying them up with false hope; striving to give his devotion to Margaret the delicate expression that might mean what it really was, and yet not offend or alarm her; trying to consider duly the feelings of his cousin and future wife—to prevent her from being in any way hurt by his absorption in that which concerned another; and through it all making his travels and adventures appear in the most interesting and favorable light.
The combination was anything but easy, and once or twice Arthur threw down his pen in despair. To frame a letter satisfactory in every way seemed a hopeless task. On one of these occasions, as he was casting his eyes round the room for inspiration, he was startled by the sound of the door being softly opened. He looked round. A little girl, dressed for travelling, was standing on the threshold and looking at him earnestly. When she saw his face a cloud came over hers, and she looked very much inclined to cry.
Arthur got up and went to the door, the kindliness of his nature aroused by the sight of the child's distress. She threw off her hood then, and shaking back her golden curls showed him one of the loveliest child-faces he had ever seen; but it was not its loveliness that made him start back with a sudden exclamation; it was a memory which that face recalled.
In a moment he gathered his ideas together—where had he seen her before?—and then, with the rapidity of thought, that last evening in England, Margaret, the miniature, the child's likeness, came before his mind. Fate had been kind to him. Margaret's treasure was within his grasp.
Unfortunately, the idea agitated him so much that he could scarcely act with the necessary coolness.
Laura had come into his room by mistake. She had lost her way in the great house, and was looking for her friend, whose room, though in another wing of the building, resembled in position that which Arthur occupied.
Already the child was alarmed by his sudden exclamation. She retreated hastily to the door, but Arthur caught her by the arm and tried forcibly to detain her.
Then Laura really cried, and the young man, between hisearnest desire to secure her and his distress at her tears, scarcely knew how to act. He tried gentleness, coaxing her by all kinds of bribes to remain with him, only for a few minutes; but the child grew the more frightened; crying bitterly, she tried with all her small strength to loosen his grasp on her arm. It was in vain, and Laura in her despair called aloud for help: "Mon père! mon père!"
Arthur began to think they had all been mistaken, that her father had actually taken her away, but he had scarcely time to come to any conclusion, for as he was still struggling with the child, drawing her into the room with gentle entreaty, there came a dark figure into the gloomy, unlit passage. Arthur was too much absorbed to see him; Laura did, and with a sudden wrench she tore herself free from the young man's grasp. The strong right arm of her friend received her, while before the young man could recover from his surprise (he was at the moment stooping forward to catch the small retreating form) the left hand thrust him back with such violence that he fell, and lay at full length on the floor of his room. Before he could leap to his feet he had the mortification of hearing the key turned in the lock, and of knowing that as his room was in a remote part of the house, Laura and her protector, whoever that protector might be, would have time during his forced inaction to put at least some of the tortuous streets of old Moscow between themselves and his pursuit.
Arthur's position was ignominious in the extreme, and very difficult of explanation. Rubbing his bruised shins, he thought over it woefully. But thinking would not mend matters. He rang the bell violently.
No one came. Probably his violence defeated its own object. A long hour passed, in which, his letter forgotten, he paced the floor of his room, stamping and fuming like an imprisoned lion.
At last a waiter came. He was a Russian, naturally rather timorous, to whom even French was an unknown tongue; and Arthur, from the other side of the locked door, had great difficulty in making him understand in what consisted the obstruction to its opening.
To tell the truth, his stamping and fuming and stormy gesturesof impatience had alarmed the poor man considerably. He had always possessed a strong opinion about the violence of the English character, and it was only with many an inward tremor that, seeing the thing was inevitable, he slowly turned the key in the lock and released the young man from his prison.
His alarm was almost justified by Arthur's subsequent behavior. The delay, the ignominious failure, the blow from the hand of the man he so keenly despised, had nearly maddened the unfortunate young Englishman. Thrusting the waiter to one side with such violence that he staggered back against the wall of the passage, Arthur rushed down the wide staircase, three steps at a time, and demanded an interview with the proprietor of the hotel.
The head man waited upon him, respectful in attitude, fluent in speech, but chuckling inwardly at the Englishman's discomfiture.
L'Estrange had given his explanation of the little scene, and it had been by the order of the head-waiter himself that the young man had been detained so long in his prison.
The flood of bad French in which Arthur poured out his indignation was listened to with quiet deprecation, and answered by a multitude of well-turned apologies; but when the young man moderated his tone, and began to think prudence would be advisable if he wished to get anything from the people of the house about the movements of those who had escaped him, he could scarcely be surprised that diplomacy, bribery and a harrowing tale of wrong proved alike unavailing. He was obliged to give up the effort in despair. Through all the polite assurances, the smooth phrases, the courteous attention of the head-waiter he could read incredulity and indifference.
Arthur spent that night in haunting the railway-stations to extract information from the officials, and in knocking up the drivers of droshkies, trying to make them understand that he wished to find out whom they had driven that evening. It was hopeless. They were very civil; Arthur made it worth their while to be communicative. They were ready with highly-colored accounts of their passengers of the evening, but amongst them all he could find none answering to thedescription of those he sought. He returned to the hotel baffled and worn-out, longing to leave Moscow at once (the hotel and the smooth-faced head-waiter had become so utterly distasteful to him), but detained by an interview for the following day. M. Petrovski had promised him some further details about the residence of his client. He professed to expect letters which would let him know the Englishman's final resting-place.
That letter whose commencement had caused Arthur such pleasant tremors of anxiety was abruptly concluded. He could not make up his mind to relate to his friends in all its ignominious details the incident of that evening, although he longed to let Margaret know that he had actually seen and held her child. Several times he even tried to frame an account of this his first meeting with the little one, but always in vain. He sent off the letter as it was, and curses not loud but deep followed the swiftly-retreating enemy who had foiled him.
L'Estrange did not altogether deserve them. He had purposely treated the young man gently. He might have dealt him a far severer blow, but that glimpse of his face had taught the man of the world something about his character and purposes, had made him respect the boy, and so long as he did not interfere with himself he was ready to spare him. Laura, however, and her share in the task of restoring the wanderer to his home and wife, L'Estrange reserved to himself. He would bring her forward at his own time, and in the mean while he would show this young man, brave with the temerity of youth, that his guardianship, if tenacious, was strong.
Laura had acted instinctively in the occurrence of the evening, but when it was over, when she and her protector were once more in the train, travelling rapidly southward, she was agitated at the remembrance of what had passed.
"Mon père," she said, clinging to him fearfully, "why do they all try to take me away from you?"
He looked down at her earnestly: "Because they know not how much I love thee."
The child clasped her hands: "I hope, oh I hope, papa will know."
"Why, Laura?"
"Because then he won't wish to take me away."
"But you, ma belle enfant—you will wish to go back with your father. Is it not so?"
"Back to mamma?" said the child. "Oh yes, mon père, but you must go too."
He looked down upon her with a sudden pain in his eyes: "Kiss me, fillette, put your arms round my neck. There, so—it is easier now. Little wise one, what shall I do without thee?"
Laura did not answer, only with her gentle womanly ways she soothed her friend, while in her small heart rose a certain determination. It was this. Not even for her father would she leave her friend. He should go back with them to her mother, for her mother could do him good. It was the determination of a woman, for a woman's tenderness and depth of feeling were becoming prematurely developed in the young girl, who would never perhaps in all her life be a thoughtless child again. Had she gained or lost by the exchange? It was for the future to say.
But my readers will be impatient; and truly it seems that in looking back on this strange story, which the past has evolved out of its mists, an undue prominence has been given to this part. It has been altogether unconsciously done, and only because of the enchaining nature of the subject.
There was something so touching in the confidence and affection of this innocent child's heart, that with the instincts of truth itself found beauty where others might have only been able to find its opposite; there was something so beautiful in the surrender of the strong man's soul to the guiding influence of the poor child, in whose tenderness the heavenly side of him had read a possibility of salvation for his whole nature; and in all the sweet mystery there was so evidently present the working of an unseen Power, preparing this man, who had missed his right aim in the world, for the reception of a pure ideal, for the vision of undying truth. Time presses. We must linger no more over the tender scenes that marked the intercourse between Laura and her strange protector, but pass on our way, leaving them together.
On the following day, while Laura and L'Estrange wereputting vast tracts of country between themselves and the ancient city of Moscow, Arthur Forrest, jaded and worn-out by a sleepless night, and considerably discouraged at the total failure of this his first effort to restore Margaret to her own, prepared himself for another interview with Petrovski.
He wished to be calm and cool, for what, he said to himself, if he were to be sent on a fool's errand?—what if the man who had dealt him that mysterious blow could have been really Laura's father? He found it difficult on such a supposition to assign a motive for his conduct, unless indeed he could have heard of his search, and have believed he was simply an agent sent by his wife to entice the child back to her. On the other hand, what could have led L'Estrange, if it should be he, to Moscow?
Arthur was very much perplexed. He determined to call the calmest, clearest judgment to his aid in sifting the information which the agent was ready to proffer. Alas! when did an old head sit upon young shoulders? If ever they have been united, the combination has not produced such a pleasing whole as Arthur Forrest, who, in spite of the knowledge of this world on which he prided himself, was above all things young and confiding.
Petrovski might have deceived him, might have sent him to the antipodes, if he had seen fit, but his master in the art of dissimulation had advised him to be truthful. Arthur, therefore, after some days' delay, was told the simple truth—that Maurice Grey, disgusted with his life in St. Petersburg, had made up his mind to turn his back on society altogether. With this view he had sought the mountains, and had established himself, one servant his only companion, in a chalet hastily fitted up with a few necessaries in one of the higher Swiss valleys.
The agent professed to have just received letters from this remote point. In them Mr. Grey had directed that his money and business-letters from England should be sent to the hotel nearest to his temporary home, and this was the address which was given to Arthur, which had previously been given to L'Estrange.
By the following night's mail Arthur left Moscow. As may well be supposed, he lost no time on the way.
Of this strange flight through almost the entire breadth of Europe he never thought afterward save in the light of a feverish dream. It seemed like a vision. Sleeping and waking he was flying still, with all manner of various impressions, multitudes of scenes and strange faces, flitting before him like a kind of phantasmagoria. Glimpses of grand cities, appearing but to vanish, vast solitudes, uncultivated and barren wastes, mountain-country and soft pastoral scenes passed before him in an ever-varying succession. At last the train had to be left behind; he had gained the mountains, and with them a mode of travelling that seemed painfully slow and wearisome to his brain, in a whirl with swift movement and tumultuous thought.
Arthur was haunted through those long days, and, strange to say, it was not Margaret's face that haunted him, nor even that of his gentle cousin who was pining in distant England for his return. The lovely child's face followed him day after day and night after night. It reminded him of failure, brought back in vivid colors the memory of what he looked upon as a species of ignominy, and yet, do what he would, he could not banish it. The bright golden hair, the dark mournful eyes, the fair contour, the childish grace returned again and again.
At times it was like a nightmare. He would see the child, even touch her, and as he touched her she would vanish. Once or twice during those long nights of travelling Arthur seriously interfered with the comfort of his fellow-voyagers by his strange proceedings. Reaching forward at one time, he would seize upon the hand or knee of the person who sat in front of him, laying himself open, if the individual were of the feminine order, to serious misconception—if of the masculine, to a rude rebuff and rough awakening; at another he would passionately grasp the window-blind, giving rise to an irresistible titter among those of his companions who did not find sleeping in a train such easy work as he did. But whenever Laura's face came before his mind, in sleeping or waking moments, Arthur looked at it with a strange reverence. To him it was scarcely a child's face. It seemed almost as if behind the fairness and beauty there was a meaning.
Arthur could not analyze character. He did not sufficientlyunderstand human nature's diversity to be able to explain to himself why this child was so different from other children, but he felt it; and stronger almost than his longing to restore Maurice Grey to faith in his wife's perfections became his desire to rescue that child from him who had taken her, he firmly believed, with some bad motive, and to lead her back to her mother.
The strange thing was that she loved this man (for Petrovski had so impressed Arthur with a belief in his veracity that once more he had settled with himself the identity of Laura's companion). Could it be, then, that there was some good even in him? But Arthur would not follow out this line of reasoning. He was more than ever confirmed in his hatred of L'Estrange.
"There is something in the Bible," he said to himself, "about Satan putting on the form of an angel of light. This man has only followed the example of his forerunner in all evil. He is deceiving the innocent darling, and she thinks him good."
He was driving in an open sledge—for the season was late and snow had begun to fall on the mountains—when these thoughts crowded in upon his brain.
It was tolerably cold in these high latitudes, but the young man was wrapped up in a fur-lined travelling cloak, the thick leather apron of the sledge covered his knees, and a cigar emitting fragrant blue clouds, whose ascent into the pure air he watched curiously, was between his lips.
Arthur Forrest had not been bred in Belgravia altogether in vain. He understood very thoroughly how to make himself comfortable.
In this thing he considered himself fortunate. The crowd of Britons that yearly fill the Swiss solitudes with their all-engrossing presence had fled at the first breath of winter, "like doves to their windows."
Two or three hardy Swiss returning to their mountains, an adventurous German desirous of studying the aspect of Switzerland in winter, a Pole who wished to put the mountains, soon to be an almost impassable barrier, between himself and his enemies, the vigilant and all-powerful Russian police,—these, with a conductor and driver, formed the whole of thesmall cavalcade that crossed the St. Gothard on this bleak autumnal day.
In spite of the glorious scenes through which they had been passing, the beauty of Italy rising into the grand desolation of the country that belongs to the snow-kingdom, and that again descending into the awful grandeur of rugged precipices, hissing torrents and shaggy pines, the little party was gloomy. The Pole shivered, and folding his fur-cloak around him cursed the ancestral enemies of his race; the Swiss rubbed their hands, stamped their feet and looked defiantly at a threatening storm-cloud that was rising up behind them; the German tried to get up a shadow of enthusiasm. He stared, with what was meant to be earnestness, through his spectacles, emitted a series of "wunderschöns and wunderhübschs," and strove dutifully to think that this was seeing life and entering sympathetically into Nature's most secret joys—the joy of the torrent, the delight of the snow-whirl. Perhaps it was scarcely matter for surprise that his enthusiasm left rather a dreary effect upon the minds of his companions.
Arthur was the only one who really enjoyed, for this was novelty to him, and in his fashionable life he had long been craving for something out of the common. Then, too, there was about this kind of travelling a certain necessity for endurance which braced his nerves. He was doing this for Margaret, and as each keen blast of wind, sweeping with biting force from the ice-fields, touched his young face, he felt the blood tingle in his veins. He was full of satisfaction, strong to endure.
With an Englishman's insight into possibilities he had forgotten nothing that could possibly conduce to an approximation to comfort in such a situation as that in which he found himself. This being so, he was able to enter more thoroughly into Nature's strange caprices, as exhibited in this land of wonders, than the sentimental German, who shivered in a threadbare coat. For—there can be no doubt about it—physical comfort frees the mind: when the body is irritated by discomfort, the mind, sympathetic, is occupied by itself.
In the intervals of meditation on his plans and further attempts for Margaret, and efforts to take in and write upon his brain some at least of the wonderful combinations of formand coloring through which they were passing, Arthur looked with a dreamy philosophy at his fellow-travellers.
The young man was inclined, from the depths of his magnificent cloak, to wonder lazily why Providence had bestowed the world's allowance of common sense upon our nation. The experience of foreigners which he had been gaining during those weeks of travelling had only confirmed Arthur in his preconceived idea. One and all they were absurd. The absurdities might differ in kind and degree—this the young man would not attempt to deny—and no doubt there were clever people among them; still, as a rule, were they to be compared to Englishmen?
He looked at the sturdy, commonplace Swiss, the shivering Pole (only half a man he pronounced him), the sentimental German, trying so conscientiously to enjoy, and with a feeling of self-gratulation that actually helped to send a warm glow through his frame answered the question by a decided negative. No wonder they pronounced the young Englishman supercilious; he had intended to be very condescending. From the heights of his superior nationality it was so easy to look with a calm pity upon those who had been less highly favored by Nature. It need scarcely be considered matter for surprise that they regarded his condescension in another light, and were inclined to repel his spasmodic efforts to be very pleasant and friendly.
All the travellers were glad when the foot of the mountain was reached. Even the indefatigable Arthur, when he found himself so near his destination, thought it well to take a night's rest at Amsteg, where he broke off from the St. Gothard route for Meyringen and Grindelwald. It was somewhere between these two places that the chalet occupied by Maurice Grey was supposed to be situated.
Once in the neighborhood, the young man felt that it would not be difficult to find it. The very fact of a stranger having made for himself a lonely habitation in the mountains would be sufficient to render his home a celebrated place.
Arthur's only difficulty now was what it had been at York before his interview with Margaret—the framing of some reason which might account for his seeming intrusiveness. He formed a thousand plans. He would wander in the directionof the chalet, he would put himself in the position of a benighted traveller thrown on the hospitality of the hermit; finally, he determined to torment himself no longer—Fate would perhaps befriend him as before. That evening Arthur sent another letter to Margaret and his cousin. There was not much in it of the impressions which the grand scenes among which he was sojourning had written on his mind, but it held a courage and hope that might inspire the lonely wife and bereaved mother with a kindred sentiment.
Arthur was an inexperienced traveller, and the plan of his route had been principally traced in obedience to the suggestions of the few English people he had met. It is more than possible, therefore, that the route chosen was not the most direct; for although it had not been possible for L'Estrange in any way to emulate his swiftness in travelling (he was obliged to suit himself to Laura's capabilities), yet on that night when, from the small village in the valleys, Arthur sent his second letter to Margaret, the child and her protector were already at the address given by Petrovski, in the close vicinity of the child's father, of her friend's most bitter and unrelenting enemy. She was utterly unconscious of the strange position, though a change had come over her in those last days of travelling. There was about her even more of the sedateness of the thoughtful woman, still less of the child's merry unconcern. For the shadows that had threatened this young life's joy were gathering thickly around her. She was in the centre of emotions too strong, of a life too earnest, for her tender youth, and her friend saw with concern how the color faded from her face, how her brow grew transparent, how the quiet gestures of a woman became more and more habitant.
But he could do nothing; the mischief had been wrought in that hour when his passion had overpowered his judgment, when he had consummated the rash deed of taking a tender little one from the mother's fostering care. He had done what he could to obviate the evil, and in the interval the child had grown dear to him as his own soul. This it was that added a tenfold poignancy to the pain with which L'Estrange sometimes looked at her.
Once or twice in the course of this later journey L'Estrangehad further accesses of the pain he dreaded, and more than once he had been forced to resort to his kindly enemy, entrancing opium, to stay his fierce pangs for a time. It produced its true effect upon him. Moments he had of joys too great for earth—moments when his imagination played freely, when his heart expanded, when all the dark places of his past life's journey were irradiated with a golden light, and when the growing uneasiness of the present strangeness and the certain future pain passed into calm security and pleasant rosy dreams. But the false potion brought other moments in its train—moments when his whole being seemed weak and nerveless, when deep depression possessed his soul, when even the higher life and nobler possibilities of existence which he had been learning in the child's pure presence became to his languid soul unattainable as the dreams of a weak visionary.
At such times he would sit with folded arms and knit brows looking out and away to the far stretches of horizon that were fleeing evermore before them. Only the child had power to arouse him from one of these gloomy fits of abstraction, though sometimes his mood was so dark that even she scarcely ventured to break in upon it. But she never really feared him; there was a strange sympathy between the two that made her understand him in some wonderful way.
As they neared the end of their journey and rest became a possibility, L'Estrange once more tried to refrain from his death-winged potion. He felt that languor and weakness were possessing themselves of his being, and strength of mind would be more needful than strength of body for the work he had to do.
Only those who have known what this refraining means can understand his sufferings. Racked with pain, that reckless gnawing pain which seems to be verily eating into life, he lay for two nights and days on a bed in the hotel at Grindelwald, where he had decided to remain for a few days. And still during the long hours the patient child, his ministering angel in very truth, sat by his bedside helping her friend to bear, and waiting for him to be better.
And soon we feel the want of one kind heartTo love what's well, and to forgive what's illIn us.
Maurice Grey had at last been successful in his weary seeking after loneliness. Whether he had gained happiness thereby is scarcely so easy to say; certainly his surroundings could not possibly have been more beautiful or peace-inspiring.
On an Alpine meadow green with a vivid brightness, spangled in the spring and early summer with many-colored fragrant flowers, bounded on one side by a wood, the home of ferns and moss and lovely things of every shape and hue, overtopped on the other by a ridge of mountains that, rising sheer from the soft greenness, towered into white ice-fields and shoulders and pinnacles of virgin snow, he had found in the summer of that year a tumble-down chalet. It was large and tolerably commodious, evidently intended to be something superior to the ordinary dwelling of the Swiss herdsman.
Maurice Grey was tired of hotel-life when he came upon this treasure trove. Life in the mountains, with the constant companionship of ignorant tourists, would-be enthusiasts andblaséfashionables (for Maurice, though touched and charmed by Nature's beauty, had not arrived at the higher point of seeing beauty in humanity), was scarcely the life of solitude he had been seeking.
In the inane vapidity of travellers' talk all the impressions which Nature's loveliness had been writing on his soul seemed to pass into cynicism and irritability. He would get away from the charmed circle—he would break loose once and for ever from the galling fetters with which his kind would chain him. This chalet was the very thing to suit him. He had come upon it in the course of a long, solitary ramble which was taking him into ground untrodden apparently by the ordinary tourist. It led to no point of special interest, there was nothing remarkable to distinguish it from thousands ofAlpine meadows in the vicinity, it was intersected by no well-frequented path.
Maurice Grey set inquiries on foot. He found that the neglected chalet had been intended for a small pension; that the proprietor, who was a farmer, had sustained an unexpected loss in cattle, and had thus been unable to complete and furnish it; that he would be only too delighted to let it on very moderate terms to any one who would take the trouble of making it habitable.
On the very next day Maurice found out the farmer, and an arrangement was entered into highly to the satisfaction of both. It took a very short time to fit up the small abode, or two rooms on the ground floor, with the few articles an Englishman would find necessary—a wooden bed and a large bath, a table and chair, one leather-backed arm-chair, rough shelves with a selection of books that he had ordered in one of the German towns through which he had passed, writing-materials and his beloved pipe, sole companion of his solitude.
These were all, save the kitchen utensils, which his new servant, a German who could do everything, had procured for him, and with these Maurice Grey settled down to a hermit's life. It was scarcely the life to suit him. There was too much vigor and manhood in his frame, too many cravings in the heart he had thought dead, for the death-in-life of one cut off from the society of his fellows to be bearable for any length of time. During the long hours of the day, when even his servant was absent seeking at the nearest village for the daily necessaries of their life, Maurice Grey, the sociable, lively Englishman, would sit like a patriarch at the door of his tent and look out—not on his children and children's children playing on the green sward, but on the savage grandeur of the mountains, on shaggy pines rising head above head like a great army on the hillside, on the flash of torrents, their fall scarcely heard in the far distance, scattering their white foam into the sunshine, on radiant ice-rivers sweeping down between dark gray rocks. And the wonder entered into his soul. But the illusion faded, for, all grand and glorious as it was, there was yet in it nothing to lay hold upon the heart or satisfy its wants.
Sometimes the stillness would grow so oppressive that even the tinkling of the cattle-bells, notifying the approach of the sleepy, quiet animal, would be a relief to the man's brain And then he would rush into the wood. There was sound enough there—the rustling of leaves, the chirping of grasshoppers, the movement and ceaseless murmur of life various and multiform.
At times Maurice Grey would enjoy it, but not always, for in the midst of this rich profusion of Nature his was a life apart. More than once he was mortified, even in those first days, when solitude had a certain novelty, to discover how instinctively his step would quicken and his heart grow lighter when in the evening, his hour for dinner drawing near, he could look forward to seeing at the door of his chalet the familiar face of his servant and only companion. He was too proud, however, to betray himself even to Karl, and in spite of everything was determined to persevere. He would give the new life a fair trial. Happily, Maurice had a resource in his pen. In his youth he had cherished ambitious dreams of distinguishing himself in the world of letters. In these hours of solitude the desire returned—not, indeed, with a like force, for the cry of the miserable, thecui bono?of a sick soul, was at the heart of it.
If the grandeur of Nature could inspire him with high thoughts—if as a poet he could breathe out any one of these, sending it forth a living image of beauty into the world—why and for whom should he do it? For men and women? Fortheirenjoyment,theirfalse praise? Maurice Grey, as it will be seen, had not lost his cynicism in his solitude. But he wrote as he had never written before. He transcribed his strange, wild dreams that were formed in the ice-caverns, and clothed the woods and hills with legends, dismal, gloomy, awe-inspiring, that had drunk from the bitter waters of his own dark soul.
As days and weeks passed on that soul grew darker. Even the faithful Karl, who was strongly attached to his English master, began to fear his strange moods and wonder vaguely at his caprices, recalling the weird märchen that had fed his boyhood in his Black Forest home—of men haunted with the spirit of evil, condemned to wander for ever, seeking rest andfinding none; of ghosts that had taken to themselves a fleshly home, and living with human beings had been considered human themselves, till the dark fear of betraying their origin in some unwary moment had driven them to the wilds, there to batten on horrors till the startled flesh should forsake, once and for ever, the naked, shivering ghost.
Karl grew afraid of his own shadow. Indeed, only his visits (and he took care they should be of daily recurrence) to inhabited places kept him sane and capable. So absolute is the truth, old as humanity itself, that "it is not well for man to dwell alone."
For Maurice Grey where was the helpmate to be found? Not upon earth, if perfection such as he sought in his lofty idealism was to be its necessary accompaniment. He had broken his idol for a flaw in its fair whiteness, and what wonder that he found it difficult—nay, impossible—to replace it?
Not that Maurice, to do him justice, had ever sought to replace his idol by any creature outside of him in the world of men and women. It may be, however, that his dream was wilder and more vain. For he looked within instead of without—looked to the poor trembling self for that satisfaction and peace which life with one who was (though he had not known it) verily his other self, by reason of her tenderness and warm womanly sympathy, might have brought him.
Maurice and Margaret had been alike wrong in this, that they had sought in the transitory and fleeting what is impalpable and enduring. Happiness springs not from the dust, and happiness abiding is only to be found outside of ourselves, outside of humanity, outside even of the world.
This they were learning, the husband and wife, each in the secret place of a stricken heart—learning it with stormy seas and vast plains and snow-clad mountains between them. Sometimes it would dawn upon Maurice, in the midst of a dream of impossible bliss, that he had been seeking the good in a wrong channel—that perhaps it might be found when and where he least thought to meet it. And the idea would make him tremble as with a sudden inspiration his eyes would seek the blue vault above, so restful in its calm transcendent purity.
And so the long summer months, laden with beauty, passed by him. Days he had of musing, when his soul, entering inupon itself, would strive painfully for the secret of Nature's abiding joy—days of inspiration, when after a restless night dreams and imaginings would shape themselves into burning words which he would trace with a poet's tremulous joy—days of moody abstraction, when even the blue heavens irritated him by their calm beauty, when the white snow-peaks glared and dazzled and robed themselves in dark palls: days too he had when a better spirit seemed to be taking possession of him, when the spirit of good brooded over his soul, when from the everlasting pæan of hill and vale, of rustling leaves, rushing torrents and tuneful birds the shadow of a peace that might yet be his descended on his soul. And still Karl came and went, leaving the hermit in the morning, returning with early evening, ministering to his necessities and preventing him from feeling the hardships that might have been his lot in the strange life he had chosen.
If the truth must be told, the imaginative German half expected at times, as he entered the dark gorges which led to his master's dwelling, to find that in his absence companion-ghosts had spirited him away. But such an occurrence never happened, and the man began to take heart and breathe more freely.
Unhappily, the summer-time could not last for ever. Autumn came, and on this particular occasion an early autumn fell upon the valley. Bleak winds began to moan and sigh among the hills, the mountains robed themselves in gray, impenetrable mist, the leaves shuddered and fell by myriads.
Maurice Grey was an Englishman. He had always prided himself on his independence of externals, but hitherto he had been well occupied, mentally or physically, in such a season. This coming on of autumn was very different from any former experience. To be absolutely alone, or shut up with a servant who only at intervals shows a scared face; a blanket, damp, white, clinging, about the house, and entering in by every nook and cranny; nothing visible but walls of chilly vapor rising in billowy folds about dark, formless giants, that are known to be snow-mountains only because they have been visible before,—is sufficiently depressing; but add to all this a mental life unhealthily alive and sensitive, an absence of present joys, with the memory of past happiness rising attimes to mock the heart by its fairness, the sting of a remorseful conscience, physical powers fast decaying under the unspeakable horrors of a lonely, unloved life, and I think it will be allowed that Maurice Grey would have been more than human if even his intellect had not begun to fail him.
It was such a morning as that I have been describing; he sat before his desk; his pipe was on the table before him, books were scattered on every side, a manuscript was open, the pen was in the ink; but he was doing literally nothing, not even attempting to beguile his dreariness with that friend of the forlorn—a pipe. His folded arms rested listlessly on the table; he was looking out into the thick mists with a dreary hopelessness that in a man seemed miserable beyond compare. He was not even thinking. It was as though a gloomy abstraction had seized upon his soul.
The door grated on its hinge—it was not particularly well hung—but Maurice did not hear the sound. He was like a man who was under the influence of some strong narcotic, plunged in visions that shut out the external world. Karl was the intruder. He peeped cautiously into the room, took a back-view of his master's position, then steered noiselessly round to the front (Maurice was painfully irritable in these moods) and gained a side-view of his face. It resulted in an ominous shake of the head and a bold move. Creeping still nearer, Karl touched his master on the arm, then sprang back, for the angry frown gathered on his brow.
Karl had been observing him, and Maurice had a vague fear that in his moody fit he had been ridiculous. An Englishman hates to be absurd, even to a valet, and Maurice Grey, as he glanced at the repentant German brimful of apologies that were only waiting a suitable outlet, felt his choler rising. "How many times have I ordered you," he said angrily, "not to come in here without knocking?"
"Meinherr did not hear," replied the submissive youth.
"Then you should have knocked again or gone away. By Heaven! do you think me incapable of taking care of myself? Speak, idiot! what is the meaning of this intrusion?"
The frightened German extended his arms apologetically: "Meinherr must condescend to hear that, as this weather has lasted some days, we are nearly out of provision."
"Go to Grindelwald to-day."
"Impossible. Meinherr will please to take the trouble of observing how thick are these mists."
"Then why, in the name of all that's sensible, do you annoy me? Can I make provisions?"
"No, but meinherr might wish to know why his table shall be so poorly provided this day, and—" The man hemmed.
"And—what? Go on, can't you?"
"Meinherr should also know that weather like this at present never lasts very long about here."
"So much the better. Is that all you wished to tell me?"
"Meinherr would for the few days be so much better at the hotel. If he should please we might go there to-morrow and rest till the weather shall be a little more clear. There are not a great many people travelling just now. Meinherr would have a good apartment and would be very little annoyed."
The poor man's voice trembled with fear and anxiety. It was one word for his master and several for himself. Karl was beginning to feel that he could scarcely bear another week of such horrors as those to which he had lately been exposed. His master himself, by his dark moodiness and mysterious surroundings, peculiarly awe-inspiring, his only companion; the dark gorges and mountain-caverns yawning round him like so many graves; no creature to whom he could unfold the tale of the fears that beset him,—nothing less than such a combination could have emboldened the submissive Karl to make the proposition which he had advanced in so timorous a manner.
After the murder was out he stood silent, aghast at his own audacity, waiting for the torrent of angry words with which the Englishman would answer him.
To his surprise no such answer came. Maurice rose from his seat and burst into a loud laugh. The diversion had been salutary: "You would make a first-rate special pleader, Karl. A word for me and a dozen for yourself, eh? Well, what are we to do? Some one must be left in charge here. Since you are so anxious about my welfare, I had better go to Grindelwald and leave you behind me."
Karl smiled pleasantly. Matters were taking a favorable turn.
"Meinherr is pleased to joke. He would most certainly require the services of a valet in Grindelwald as well as here, and no one else would understand his ways so well. I spoke—it is perhaps a few days since—to an old woman who is well known in the village. She would be very glad for a small sum to look after the chalet. Meinherr will excuse this liberty. I feared for him the severity of the winter season."
"All right, Karl. Poor fellow!" he added, gently, "I fear you lead a hard kind of life here, and you are a faithful servant. Well, let it be so. You shall have a little change."
By these sudden flashes of kindliness, these glimpses of a better nature, Maurice had endeared himself to his servant. To be harshly treated was too common to the German to be in any way food for complaint, but for a master to consider him, to take a kindly interest in his feelings, was something quite new. His heart warmed to this proud Englishman who was considerate enough to give him his due meed of thanks and praise.
At Maurice's last remark he pressed eagerly forward, his eyes glistening: "Not for worlds if at all inconvenient to meinherr. What is good enough for him should, it is quite certain, be good enough for his servant."
Maurice smiled: "I begin to think you are right, my good Karl; a change will do me good, as well as you. I left a portmanteau at the hotel, so we shall not require to take anything with us. If by to-morrow the mist has at all cleared we shall start for Grindelwald."
The next day rose bright and clear. Maurice and his servant left the chalet early in the morning, locking the door carefully, as Maurice had a deep regard for his books and manuscripts, and taking with them the key, which was to be given to the old Swiss woman, destined heiress to the horrors of the lonely place.
Happily, Marie was endowed neither with an overflow of imagination nor highly-strung nerves. With her small grandchild to wait upon her, and plenty of coffee, sausage and black bread, she could be happy anywhere.
Sometimes we feel the wish across the mindRush like a rocket tearing up the sky,That we should join with God and give the worldThe slip; but while we wish the world turns round,And peeps us in the face—the wanton world!We feel it gently pressing down our arm.
Maurice and his servant reached the hotel in safety. Its situation was fine, though not to be compared with that of the Englishman's chosen dwelling. It was perhaps too much shut in with the great giants that enclosed the valley in their apparently indissoluble embrace, too much under their shadow for their true grandeur to be felt. In the summer and early autumn it was a busy place, for it was a favorite resting-point and suitable centre for many excursions. But at this time, as Karl had wisely predicted, it was nearly empty. The flock of guides who during the summer months had been accustomed to haunt its approach had gone home to their families and their winter-life among the herds of cattle and goats; thedépendanceswere entirely closed, and many of the windows of the hotel itself showed white blinds and a general appearance of being shut up for the time.
Nevertheless, in the village of Grindelwald a slight commotion seemed to be on foot, of which the hotel was apparently the centre. Curious men in white ties were discussing volubly with the few rough outsiders who, in the vague hope of further spoil, were haunting the outskirts of the hotel with bare-backed mules and alpenstocks; from the little shop where carvings and views were temptingly exhibited the ancient proprietor was looking curiously across at the hotel; and the village people were gathered together in small knots, evidently discussing some object of common interest. Into the midst of this excitement Maurice Grey and his servant walked quietly about noon on this bright autumnal day.
Karl pricked up his ears. "Something has happened,meinherr," he ventured with the familiarity of a favorite attendant; then, perceiving no sign of disapproval, "Travellers lost in yesterday's mist. Ach! wie schrecklich!" he continued, lapsing into German as exciting scraps of one of the many conversations reached his ears. "Meinherr has without doubt heard. 'II ne peut pas se consoler.' An Englishman, it may well be, who has lost his son, perhaps even two. Will meinherr permit that I make inquiry?"
Maurice could not help laughing at the man's overweening curiosity. "Ask about my room and luggage first," he said, "then you may do as you like."
But by this time the landlord had seen the Englishman, and had advanced, hat in hand, to ask his pleasure. The rarity of new arrivals in this season made an extra coating of politeness desirable.
"Is anything wrong?" asked Maurice when the trivial matter of accommodation had been settled.
The landlord answered in French; he had never been able to acquire English: "Ah, monsieur, a sad event indeed; but come within and you shall hear of it. We are idle now, and my people have nothing better to do than to talk about these things. Better not—better not," and he shook his head seriously.
"But why?" asked Maurice, his curiosity aroused. "Is there anything particularly mysterious about this event, which seems to have excited you all so much?"
"Mysterious! Monsieur has truly chosen a right word to describe this occurrence."
And he proceeded to pour into Maurice's ear some account of the sensational event which had that day formed the one topic of conversation in the little village.
It will be as well, perhaps, to take the story out of his hands and to give in a few words arésuméof what, with interruptions and circumlocutions manifold, the landlord made comprehensible at last to his new guest.
It seemed that a few days before the Englishman's arrival several travellers had put up at the hotel, apparently with the intention of staying there some time.
The first party consisted of only two, an elderly gentleman who appeared to be in a bad state of health, and a childstrikingly lovely if the impassioned description of the landlord was at all worthy of belief.
They took three roomsen suite, and the little lady was to be constantly attended by one of the chambermaids.
Later in the same day the second party arrived. It consisted of two gentlemen and a lady, all of whom gave Austria as their country. The lady, a peculiarly proud and beautiful woman, seemed to be the wife of one of the gentlemen, but they both treated her with a tolerable amount of carelessness.
For two days these different families had remained in the hotel without meeting or having any intercourse one with the other, for the elderly gentleman had been suffering so acutely that he never left his room, and the child would not leave his side.
On the third or fourth day he appeared at thetable d'hôte,accompanied by the little girl, and seats were placed for them exactly opposite to those occupied by the Austrians. The lady and one of the gentlemen were already seated when they entered.
One of the waiters, it appeared, was a particularly observant character, though, indeed, there are always observant characters at hand when such are found convenient, and a waiter's life at some large hotel is specially favorable to the cultivation of this habit of mind. Many a waiter might frame exciting romances, the materials drawn simply from the sphere of his own observations. The waiter in question was German, a man of an inquiring turn of mind, and specially given to the study of character. Some peculiarity of countenance, as he afterward declared, led him to look rather attentively at the dark, handsome face of the Austrian lady. Lost in his favorite study, he forgot to notice, by the necessary bustle, the drawing out of chairs and readjustment of knives and forks, the entry of the elderly Frenchman and his fair-haired child. He could not, therefore, have been mistaken in his assertion that as the lady lifted her eyes from her plate and caught a glimpse of the new arrival, her face became suddenly convulsed. She started violently, first flushed crimson, then turned as pale as death.
This circumstance made the intelligent waiter think. He turned his attention instantly from the strangely-affected lady to the apparent cause of her agitation, but here he was partially baffled. There seemed to have been a kind of flash of recognition in the face of the gentleman with the iron-gray hair as he seated himself opposite to her; even this, however, was so slight that possibly he might only have imagined it, for the Frenchman's conduct during the time allotted to dinner was absolutely natural. Once or twice he even looked across at his companions with that quiet species of scrutiny which is allowable between perfect strangers meeting in this way, and several times he addressed himself in French to one or other of the gentlemen who faced him. The lady made no further sign, only to the far-seeing German she seemed to be making a violent effort to control herself. On the evening of that day something—he did not explain what—led this particular waiter to the part of the house in which the suite of rooms taken by the gentleman (who will have been recognized as M. L'Estrange) was situated. He stated afterward that he had been chained to the spot—the spot being the outside of the door of the Frenchman's apartment—by strange and unusual sounds. He heard a woman's voice, interrupted often with tears and sobs; she was speaking in tones of entreaty or expostulation, raising her voice violently from time to time as her excitement grew with her theme. What that was the waiter could not precisely say. He was an exact man, who never liked to go beyond his authority. In fact, as he was eminently practical and had never cultivated his imaginative faculties, perhaps he chose the easiest course.
Stern, low tones answered from time to time the woman's impassioned appeals, and at last, very suddenly as it seemed, the door was thrown violently open, and cloaked and hooded, her face covered by a thick black veil, there walked out the proud Austrian lady. He recognized her by her exceptional height and her stately carriage.
The door was closed softly from the inside, and the lady walked rapidly through the passage to her own rooms, which were situated in another part of the house.
This happened two days before the arrival of Maurice. In the night the lady had disappeared. A French waiter wentat the same time, whether as her attendant or not no one could discover. One thing alone was certain—the deed had been cleverly done. During the whole of those days the lady had been sought, but sought in vain.
"We thought her husband careless," said the landlord in conclusion, "but ever since he has been like a madman. We dare not tell him what monsieur knows about the conversation that has been overheard: the life of the French gentleman, who seems still very ill, would scarcely be safe; and, after all, who can say? He seems to have acted well. A woman's caprice, an old attachment. Monsieur will doubtless be of my advice. It would be useless to arouse ill feeling without just cause."
And so saying, the landlord shrugged his shoulders. Why should he affect himself at all with the miseries of forsaken husbands or runaway wives? It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the landlord, to speak truly, was not discontented with the kind of notoriety which this romantic tale, told and retold as it might very probably be—especially if thedénouementshould turn out to be tragic—would bring upon his house.
Maurice Grey read something of this in the man's eyes, and in his turn he shrugged his shoulders, a sign with him of bitter contempt.
Not "What fools," but "What knaves these mortals be!" was the constant cry of his sick soul. It was meeting him again as he emerged from his solitude.
When the landlord left him to answer some summons, Maurice Grey looked out upon the mountains, and laughed a laugh that was sad to hear, for under the mirth lay a weary weight of misery and bitterness. Women inconstant, man faithless—everywhere self-interest the great ruling motive of life, and in all the green earth no spot where he could lay his head, feeling "Here I may rest with a perfect confidence." The man's heart contracted painfully; from such a standpoint as his the outlook on humanity is gloomy indeed. He felt for a moment that he would fain be out of it all. The frank, round face of Karl aroused him to a sense of his position, and to the recollection that while such simple souls ashis were left all honesty had not passed away from the earth. It was certainly a relief.