He said very little during breakfast-time, only watched her with a certain curiosity. He was grateful to this child who had opened a door of light in his soul, though he was not near enough to her in purity and beauty to know how great was the service she had rendered him.
Breakfast was something of a pretence to both of them. The longing for her mother, and the brave determination to choke it down in her heart till she had done what was required of her—found this unknown father and brought him back—made the child too excited for eating to be any pleasure to her; and L'Estrange at the best of times could not eat so early.
When it was over the child got up. "Please," she said hesitatingly. She was in a great perplexity about what she should call her new protector.
He read her thought: "Come here, Laura."
She went quietly to his side, and he drew her on to his knees. "I knew another Laura once," he said quietly, stroking back her hair; "she was the sister of your mother; but she is dead now, pauvre enfant!" And then he continued, as if talking to himself: "Comme elle était gentille, la chère petite!"
"That must be my aunt Laura," said the child; "mamma has a picture of her, and I kiss it sometimes."
"Yes, she would be your aunt, ma fillette; you are like her. Ah! I remember now—it is of her that your eyes make me think. Turn round to the light."
"But why do you talk about Aunt Laura?" said the child impatiently. "Please, I want a sheet of paper. I can only write big letters, but I think mamma would understand."
"Patience, ma mie.Ihave written a letter to your mother. See, it is here, all ready to be sent, and if you like some of your big letters can go inside. You shall put it in the postbox yourself, that you may trust your old friend as the other Laura did. I told you about her because of what she used to call me. I should like you to do the same. It wasmon père. Can you say that?"
"Mon père," said Laura, in her small childish voice. Then she thought a few moments: "That means my father, doesn't it? But you are not my papa."
"I must be your father till you find your own, Laura," he said gravely. "Shall it be so?"
"Yes, mon père," said the child, smiling up into his face.
And from that moment she never doubted her protector. He on his part became more determined than ever in the pursuitof his new object. Little by little the child was doing childhood's Heaven-given work, drawing away selfishness and bringing pure love in its place. It was this that brought him to try his experiment. He watched the child as she sat down before a large sheet of paper with a pencil, writing painfully her letter to her mother. L'Estrange had all the innate delicacy of a refined mind; he would not attempt to see what the words were that the child was tracing.
She brought the paper to him when the letter was done, and stood beside him as he folded it up; but before it was finally put away he hesitated: "Which would you rather, Laura—for this letter to go to your mother, or to go back yourself?"
For a moment the child's face looked bright and joyous, but only for a moment. The flush faded, she clasped her small hands together: "We must find papa first; but, oh, I hope it will be soon!"
The strong man turned away; he had difficulty in keeping himself from weeping like a child. When he spoke again his voice was calm: "We must lose no time then, Laura." He rang the bell, and the waiter appeared. "Send the chambermaid here."
When after a few moments the soft-hearted Jane came in, he gave her money, ordering, in those imperative tones which always gained a hearing with his inferiors, that the little lady should be supplied without delay with every necessary for a long journey. He did not deign to explain, nor did Jane venture to remonstrate. She went to an outfitter's, procured all that was necessary, and in half an hour from that time they were ready for another start.
There followed a long and wearisome day, for the heat and dust were excessive, and before it was over, L'Estrange for the hundredth time repented as he looked on the patient little flushed face that would yet show no sign of weariness.
Arthur had been right in his conjecture. They were remarkable travellers, and many were the comments of those who journeyed with them—the man, with his dark face and foreign appearance and imperious conduct, and the fair English child, at the very sight of whom his face seemed to melt into tenderness and his manners to take the softness of thoseof a woman. And no woman could have watched over her child more lovingly or tended it with greater care than he watched over and tended his little charge. Food and drink he brought her with his own hands when it was possible to obtain them; whenever her position grew wearisome she rested in his arms, the imperious voice sinking to lulling murmurs as he told her long nursery-tales which he made out of everything they passed. A house, a stream, the cows in a meadow would be sufficient material for his fertile brain. Once even, when the black grimy dust had literally overpowered the fastidious little lady, and her timidity prevented her from appealing to the attendant in a waiting-room, he took her himself to a kind of pump, and dipping his cambric handkerchief into the cool water washed her hands and face so effectually that she laughed for pleasure. It was her first laugh since the moment when she had discovered that she was going away from her mother, and it caused L'Estrange as sincere a throb of gladness as he had ever known in all his life, for this child was gradually becoming to him something more than a child—something more even than the offspring of the woman who through all his lovings and longings had most entirely held his heart. He began to look upon her, in his strange fatalistic way, as a mysterious thing, sent to him at the very darkest hour of all his dark career to touch his blackness with fingers of light and bring good near to his soul.
And perhaps it was partly the truth. There is, for those who can understand the mystery, something divine in childhood; certainly, if not nearer to God than we, children have the power of drawing out the divine that is in us. L'Estrange felt this in a very peculiar way; he treated the child with a loving reverence, watching jealously her every word and movement as one who looks for an inspiration.
And so the long hours of the day wore away. When they reached London it was already late in the afternoon. Laura was tired, but she would not hear of remaining there for the night, she was too anxious to press on.
They were met at the Great Northern Station by a gentleman who appeared to have been expecting them. This man gave them a boisterous welcome, shook hands warmly withL'Estrange, who did not seem to reciprocate his cordiality, and, chucking Laura under the chin in a familiar way, asked her where she was going. The child's lady-like instincts were offended. She answered quietly that she did not know, and clung to her protector's hand.
The stranger laughed in a peculiar way, and turned to L'Estrange: "I didn't know you had a daughter, mossou."
"Monsieur," replied he, emphasizing the French word, "was mistaken, as he very often is."
"Well! well!" answered the other rapidly—he was our friend Mr. Robinson—"I can't stand here wasting my time. I gather from the telegram, which duly arrived this morning, that you sent for me about a certain subject. Imayhave information for you—Imaynot."
"It shall be worth Monsieur Robeenson's while to give me his information," replied L'Estrange quietly, but with a kind of sarcastic courtesy.
The courtesy struck Mr. Robinson's mind, the sarcasm glanced over him harmlessly. "Of course, of course!" he protested volubly. "You foreigners put things strangely, mossou; ignorance of English ways, no doubt. Allow me to explain myself. In expectation of this (you gave me reason a little while ago to believe it might possibly be wanted) I have kept myself acquainted with the movements of the party discussed between us. You will doubtless remember the occasion. Naturally the firm is slightly out of pocket. These investigations, you must understand, are costly, but everything shall be done in due form between us. In the mean time, if I can be of any service—"
"Oblige me," said L'Estrange with the same manner, that might be either courtesy or its semblance, "by taking this as an instalment." He handed him a paper packet. "The firm I can settle with when your lawyer's bill comes in.Yourservices, monsieur, are for the moment personal."
Mr. Robinson bowed. His fingers itched to get to the inside of the packet, but it would have been unprofessional to show anxiety, so it rested quietly in his palm. L'Estrange looked at Laura to see how much of all this she had understood. The little girl was still holding his hand, but her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, and he addressed himselfagain to the lawyer: "Tell me, in as few words as can be, where was he heard of last?"
"The last remittances were sent to Moscow. A few weeks ago he was certainly there—probably is so still."
"Moscow!" L'Estrange repeated the word in a dismayed tone, looking down as he did so at the child whose hand he held.
Mr. Robinson guessed his thought, and broke in volubly: "You surely don't think of going there yourself, and with that child too! Why, it would be preposterous, and not the smallest necessity. Give us time and we can gain further information. If necessary, I could go there myself, though of course it would be an expensive business. In any case, leave your little girl. My wife would be delighted to look for a nice school—conducted, you know, on Christian principles—where every care would be taken, both in the way of physical and mental training."
Mr. Robinson would have his say out. He affected to consider that duty required him to give salutary advice in season and out of season; and as duty, in his sense of the term, was always closely connected with business, he had already in his own mind fixed upon a temporary residence for the child. A lady who owed him a long outstanding bill was anxious to take in pupils. This new client was evidently a liberal payer; through the profits made out of the child a part, at least, of that just debt might be paid off.
But his client did not look at matters in the same light. He tried to stop his voluble utterances, for the little hand he held was trembling. Laura, hearing herself discussed, had taken a sudden interest in the proceedings. She looked up at her protector and saw that his brows were knit angrily. This alarmed her. She burst into tears. "Oh! please don't leave me with him," she sobbed; "take me with you or let me go back to mamma."
How his face changed as he heard the child's cry! It became suddenly soft as that of a woman. He stooped down to her and wiped away her tears, whispering all kinds of gentle assurances. Then he turned again to the lawyer with that ominous frown: "You see what you have done. Be so good, monsieur, as in the future to preserve business relations in ournecessary intercourse, nor presume to advise me at all on matters that do not concern you."
Another man would have been struck dumb or else have retired offended, but the lawyer was of the tough sort. This was too valuable a client to be sacrificed to feelings. "No offence meant, I assure you, sir," he hastened to say—"only interest; but" (seeing the frown gather) "to return to business. I have a few more details that may be useful—the address of an agent in Moscow, the—"
"Write them out for me, and send them to the usual address in Paris by to-morrow morning's mail. At the present, monsieur, we have no more time for delay. It is necessary to dine before taking the train again to Southampton."
"You leave, then, this evening? Can I be of any further—"
"No, thank you, Mr. Robeenson." He bowed in his stately manner and turned away to the refreshment-rooms with Laura, leaving the lawyer on the platform, still grinning his contentment.
As they distanced him the child gave a sigh: "I'm so glad he's gone!"
"Why, then, did you not like him, ma mie?"
"No, mon père, not at all; he doesn't look good."
"I think the bébé is right," he said in a low tone; "mais que faut il faire?—Little wise one," he continued aloud, "we must take the people as we find them, some good and some bad, making our own use of them all. Is that too hard a philosophy for the little brain?"
Apparently it was, for the child made no answer.
In the mean time L'Estrange had seated her at one of the marble-topped tables, and before thinking about his own dinner was trying to find out what would best suit her appetite. The well-feed waiter was flying about to supply all her wants; dainty after dainty, which she scarcely touched, was put upon her plate. It was such a new scene to Laura that her appetite fled with the excitement.
Many looked at her curiously in the crowded room, for Laura was a peculiarly beautiful child. Her golden curls and her dark, lustrous eyes, with the transparent delicacy of complexion she had inherited from her mother, and the childishgrace which is the gift of God to her age of helplessness, made her very attractive. She was rather embarrassed at the attention she excited, noticing which her protector stood up and folding his arms looked right and left so haughtily that the most compassionate and least curious of the many beholders felt as if their admiration of the fair child had been an indiscretion.
After dinner the wearied little one fell asleep in his arms, and only awoke to find herself in the train, which was far on its way to Southampton. She was getting accustomed to her new friend and to these sudden wakings; so this time, to his great relief, she did not cry out for her mamma, but clung to him still more closely. They stopped at Southampton. It was a lovely night, the sea still as glass and the dark blue sky alight with moonshine and studded with stars.
Laura and her protector stood together on the steamer's deck. "Will ma fillette go to bed?" he asked.
The child shook her head. "Oh!pleaselet me stay out here," she pleaded. "I promise not to be a trouble, and the stars are so nice."
Without another word he wrapped her up in his own fur-lined overcoat and made a bed for her on one of the seats, himself watching beside her.
But this time Laura could not sleep, the position was too strange. "What is that noise?" she asked nervously as the plash of the water against the great paddle-wheels came to her ears.
"The water and the wheels," he answered. "The wheels are rolling along through the waves, taking us over the sea."
The child raised herself on her elbow and looked round: "Where are we going? There's only sky and clouds out there. But, oh!" clasping her hands in delight, "look at the moon on the water. I see it like that at home sometimes. Once, when I could not go to sleep, mamma took me to the window, and a little bit of the sea was all white as it is to-night. She said it was the moon, and now we're going to catch the moon in the water. Oh!whydidn't mamma come?"
For this was the ever-recurring trouble of the child. Herlove for her mother was stronger and more enduring than it generally is among those of her age. A mother gives; but very often years pass before she receives any return to her devotion. Laura's love was strong, because, in the first place, there was nothing to divide it: her young life had never held another affection. Then her love and childish sympathy had for some time been partially checked, and, it may be, had therefore grown stronger in their secret place. Only during the last weeks had her young affection had its free course in the light of her mother's comprehending love.
Her plaint made her companion wince, but he would not answer it. After a few moments he looked at her again and saw that tears were in her eyes. They were reflecting, in their moistness, the white shimmering moonlight; in its pure unearthly shining the little face seemed almost transfigured.
L'Estrange had been superstitious from his youth up. He was the very creature of those dreams and inspirations to which the glowing South gives birth. Perhaps they had weakened his strong intellect. At any rate they had kept it in the shadowy twilight, giving little chance for living truth to make its entrance into his soul.
The look on the child's face startled him. "Doesshe belong to this earth?" he asked himself.
"Laura," he whispered, "look away from the stars. Doubtless they are thy sisters and brothers, little one, but look for one moment from them to me, and say what thoughts are in the busy little brain at this moment?"
The child smiled: "I was thinking about the moon and about mamma, mon père. I was wondering if she is looking at the moon now, and if she got my letter, and if she misses me very much."
Her simple reflections did not satisfy her friend. I think at the moment he would scarcely have been surprised if the child had developed budding wings and floated away into the sympathetic moonshine; his superstition, it may be, specially as displayed by one whose sex might have been supposed to lift him above such weakness, will seem strange and improbable to the majority of readers. Aman allowhimself to think seriously of such follies? Yes—aman, and not the first nor the last, by a great many. The inhabitants of our islandare not alone on the face of the earth. In the glow of the sunny South, where generations have lapped their souls in sunshine and indolently lived on the abundant gifts of lavish Nature, where life can be sustained by a little, and the struggle for existence is less painful and bitter, there has been time for dreaming; and perhaps this has enervated the moral sense and loosened the sinews of mind, till pleasure has become a god and the mind receptive of strange things.
In the early days of civilization, before these things had wrought fully on the character, pure reason, law and its cold abstractions, divine art and severe philosophy made the South their centre, for when we think of these first Athens and then Rome come before the mind. And at that age in the gray formless North the legend flourished, with many a wild superstition. But all that has changed. A light dawned upon the mighty tribes; their superstitions fell, and they girded themselves with strength, while evermore in the sunny lands dreams gained ground, and weakness followed in their train, till at last what is it that we see? In the city where Pericles ruled, where Socrates taught, where Plato reasoned, they dream and do not; in imperial Rome a shadow, an old mediæval fiction, has kept the people from freedom as they gloried in the past and dreamed about the future, and in the mean time we of the gray North are rapidly casting from us almost everything but what we can see, taste, hold and understand.
Be practical! is the watchword of the age, and sentiment is repudiated, and imagination cried down or relegated to extreme youth and the weakest of weak womanhood. Are there many, I wonder, who find the medium—whose strong souls are strong enough to allow that there is something which passes their ken—who think it no shame to be at certain moments swayed by sentiment, governed by a dream of ideal loveliness, and yet who work on in their daily calling unsickened and undismayed?
There are some such souls, and to no climate are they peculiar. L'Estrange might have been one of them. There was in his imaginative faculty, in his receptivity to beauty and sentiment, in his sympathetic tenderness, a something that marked him out as one born to a higher life than that of self-gratification. His success among women was chiefly owingto this. For it is the good, not the bad in a character, that draws and enchains the loving worship of womanhood.
Where a man reads weakness a woman's keen eye beholds what underlies that weakness, and ifitbe lovable she is ready to adore.
What L'Estrange wanted was this: A soul to understand the beauty and glory of truth—truth on the lips and truth in the life. To indulge his love of beauty he had wrapped himself in the rose-colored mists of dreams; to preserve himself and others from pain he had never hesitated to resort to falsehood. He might have been very different. Some of the misery of that "might have been" was in his soul that evening as he turned from the child and paced up and down the steamer's deck, for a dark hour had come and he could not bear to face his good genius. With arms folded and brows knit, his dark face looking forward into the moonlight, he thought until thinking was pain. But the influence of the child had begun to work. He would not, as he usually did, cast aside the painful thinking because of the pain that was in it; rather he looked it in the face, trying to touch its centre, and so, it might be, find a cure.
Oh, it was a hard task! For his was the misery of a wasted life, and a life that had brought desolation. True his innate refinement, the self-respect of a high intellect, had kept him tolerably free from what is gross and degrading, but that midnight retrospect was bitter notwithstanding. Pleasure sought and taken at the expense of truth; blighted lives, to which he had brought the warm beauty of love, leaving them when the mood had changed to find it where they could; good that he might have done and did not; wasted talents, used-up powers,—these came before his conscience in an accusing throng. And there was no help for it. He had one life only, and the best of that life had gone. L'Estrange, though he professed to believe in a futurity to the soul, was that saddest of all beings, a practical infidel. In the misery of self-communion his thoughts turned suddenly to the memory of his boyhood's faith, to the days when heaven had been a reality and the saints robed in white, the pure queen of the skies, the fair infant in her breast, had formed part of his hopes and dreams for the future. They had vanished likemyths born of the early vapor. They had been too shadowy to bear the inroad of hot, lurid noon. Tried, they had been found wanting, and what had he left in the hour when his heart and spirit craved for something unearthly as their rest? Nothing. All he found within, as he ventured shudderingly to lift the curtain that hides the unseen from the seen, was a "certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation," which no man, if ten times over an infidel, can escape when the hour comes.
His dark face darkened. If all were hopeless, then why should he pause? Why had the good that was in him made him hesitate at last? He would crush it down and gain his own ends, even through suffering itself. He stopped in his rapid walk and looked over the vessel's side. It was a real blackness, for clouds had covered the face of the moon, and had gathered here and there in heavy masses on the horizon.
A moaning wind swept across the sea, ruffling the waters till the vessel rocked to and fro. Then the dark face relaxed. The desolation of the watery waste had been responsive to his mood. "So be it, then," he muttered, looking out into the darkness. He was for the moment like the grand creation of Milton, that ideal Lucifer, when his last struggles after goodness have culminated in the fatal cry, "Evil, be thou my good!"
But L'Estrange was not yet absolutely God-forsaken. As he spoke something touched his knees. He looked down impatiently. But suddenly his impatience changed. He drew himself away with a murmured exclamation and a strange contraction of heart. Was it a miracle? For this was what he saw. The kneeling figure of a child, the hands clasped and the eyes lifted up to his. On the face was a bright shining that made the golden hair like a saint's halo, and brought out the picture in every small detail—the tremulous lips, the fair soft brow, the lustrous eyes under their silken fringe. The face was Laura's. In her companion's mood it seemed transfigured, like that of an angel lamenting over his sins and follies. Involuntarily he bowed his head. The strong man trembled like a child at the evidence of all he had imagined, and yet the phenomenon was very commonplace. This was what had caused it. The faithful child hadread his trouble, and as she had already allowed him to find his way to her heart, it made that little heart sad. In her mother's sadness Laura had sometimes proved a comforter, and the thought came into her head that she might comfort her friend. So when he had stopped by the vessel's side the little child had risen noiselessly, and kneeling by his side had clasped her small hands about his knees. Then came the partial darkness, which with her friend's seeming indifference frightened her so much that she loosened her hold and looked up pleadingly. A sailor who was walking about with a lantern looking after the rigging had been watching this little episode. In his curiosity he caused its light to shine full upon the child's face, so that when L'Estrange turned round he saw it irradiated, while, as the sailor stood behind him, the source of the sudden radiance was hidden.
The illumination did not last longer than a few minutes. The man turned away to his business, his heart softer for this glimpse of innocent beauty; Laura and her protector were left in the darkness. But until the day of his death L'Estrange believed that the light which irradiated the child came down from heaven.
He was recalled to his belief in Laura's mortality by a little wailing cry. She put out her hands to feel for her friend, as the darkness and silence alarmed her. Then he stooped down reverently and lifted her up in his arms. The sorrowing angel was his own little Laura, fair and pure in her habitation of flesh and blood, for, clasping her small arms about his neck, she burst into a passion of tears. The darkness, the sense of loneliness, the over-excitement had wrought upon the child's nerves, and L'Estrange forgot all his wild thoughts in the effort to comfort her. Instead of seeking evil as a good, he became tender as the tenderest of fathers while he strove to make her forget her fears.
He succeeded at last. She lay on his knees, quiet, only for a sob or two at intervals, her golden head against his breast, one hand round his neck, the other lost in his large grasp—she was afraid of losing her friend again—and he soothed her by murmuring low, crooning melodies that he thought he had forgotten long ago. Then when the morning came and they were near their destination, he took her to the stewardess forall needful combing and dressing. But from that time L'Estrange treated the mortal child with a strange reverence.
Later in that day, when they were wandering through the quaint streets and corners of old Rouen, and the child had almost forgotten her sorrows in wonder and delight, he brought his trouble to his young oracle. "Have you ever been naughty, Laura?" he asked, looking down upon her with a smile that was almost one of incredulity.
The child smiled: "Oh yes, mon père—a number of times."
"And what did you do, ma fillette?—when you were naughty, I mean."
"I told mamma about it," said the child simply, "and she always said something to make me good again."
"But, Laura, when people are grown up and have no mamma to tell, what must they do then?"
For a moment the child looked troubled and thoughtful; then, as a light seemed to dawn upon her, she smiled. "I should think they might tell God," she said.
The wayworn man bowed his head, and that evening in the solitude he told God. For the child was making him believe in the actual goodness (for only the Good could have made anything so good and pure) and in the possibility of goodness for himself, as he was still able to love and reverence it.
Slowly the light dawned upon his benighted soul, and only after many struggles with the darkness that was in him: this telling God was the beginning.
Could we but deem the stars had hearts, and loved,They would seem happier, holier, to us even than now;And ah! why not?—they are so beautiful.
The strange travellers continued their wanderings. News reached them at Paris about the object of their journey, but news so indefinite that L'Estrange thought it well to proceedwith caution. In any of the places through which they passed it was possible Maurice Grey might be found. He did not seem to be in Moscow, although for the time all communications were to be addressed to an agent there.
He told as much as was possible of his plans and ideas to the child, and her impatience was stayed while they wandered through the English quarter of Paris and appeared in the galleries and public places—her friend, who knew the city well, making every inquiry about the stranger's residence there.
And in the mean time L'Estrange enjoyed his peculiar position and the kind of mystery that the beautiful, fair-haired child excited among the few of his friends whom he could not avoid meeting. Mystery had always been one of his chief tools. He delighted in wrapping himself up in this misty obscurity. It challenged curiosity and excited interest. He was given to appearing and disappearing without rendering to any one an account of his motives, and the rumors current about him were many. Even his nationality was a matter of doubt to some of his nearest associates. The general idea was that he travelled here and there as a secret emissary from one of the societies which work under ground in Europe, or else that he was an agent from some one of its governments. L'Estrange enjoyed this curiosity. It suited his purposes, and he never, or very seldom, lifted the veil. To say the truth, the aims of his journey were as varied and complex as himself. This was not the first that had been undertaken with a good object, though never before, perhaps, had self been so entirely set aside.
Maurice Grey was his enemy. He had taken his treasure. He had possessed himself—for the fact was slowly dawning on his mind through the child's innocent prattle—not only of the person, but of the heart and affections, of the one woman in all the world for whom he had ever cherished a perfect sympathy. For although L'Estrange had felt many times a certain power in womanhood, although his senses had been enchained and his self-love flattered, yet it was true that this time only had his whole being been surrendered, this once only had love become one with his life—entered into him as a thing from which nothing but death could free him.
Sometimes, as withhischild beside him he wandered through the gay city, it came over him like a flood what it would be to come upon this man, to look into his face, to behold in it the workings of that soul which for an apparent weakness could have cast off Margaret; and then to do what? To take his revenge by proclaiming in words that could not be denied the purity of his forsaken wife—by giving up into his keeping the child whose young love he had despised. And if, after all, he should be unworthy of this happiness? L'Estrange was walking through the Champs Elysées with Laura late in the afternoon of a sultry day when this thought dawned upon him.
He stopped, and sitting down on one of the chairs drew the child to his knees. There was a fierce determination in his face that half frightened her.
"Mon père!" she said gently.
He turned his face from her and hid it with his hand. L'Estrange was vowing a great vow with himself.
"By Heaven!" he muttered, but so low that she could not hear, "I will watch him, and if I read this weakness in his face he shall never know."
Then he looked forward down the avenue.
A tall, well-shaped and well-dressed man, English evidently, from his carriage and general appearance, was sauntering leisurely in the direction of the Place de la Concorde with a young French girl, who seemed to be chattering volubly and making good use of her eyes, hanging on his arm. There was a carelessness in his manner to her that seemed to mark her out as not precisely of his own position in the social scale, and this, as well as a certain resemblance, tempted L'Estrange to follow the pair.
"Stay where you are till I come back," he whispered to the child. In the gathering twilight he followed till he was close on the heels of the young Englishman.
His companion was at that moment looking up coaxingly into his face.
"But how close you Englishmen are!" she was saying in a wheedling tone. "I am dying of curiosity, mon ami. Tell me, then, about this immaculate, this runaway husband, this milord Anglais, who finds nothing better to do than pineaway, perhaps die, for the wife he has left behind. Mon Dieu! what a nation! You are great, vous autres, in love as in war; but why does he hide? One might find a method of consoling him; pas vrai?"
L'Estrange, who had crept under the shadow of the trees, and was now walking parallel with the pair, could see by the light of one of the scattered lamps that the young man's brow darkened.
"He doesn't want such consolation as yours, Laurette. But why do you persist in questioning me? I have told you a dozen times that Maurice Grey will never be game for us—forus," he continued with a strange emphasis. "If I had takenhisadvice—"
She smiled—a smile that looked rather dangerous: "Your associates would not have been the same. Continue then, mon ami. Are we not friends?"
"Of course, of course," he said hastily. "Ma chère, what a little goose you are, taking up a fellow in this serious kind of style! You see, it's all your own fault—you put me out of temper by talking about that prig. I believe he has buried himself in the wilds. I saw him last in St. Petersburg; then he said he was going to the mountains. But, good gracious! how should this interest you? I shall be jealous presently, Laurette, and think you in love with my saintly cousin."
Laurette laughed—a clear, ringing laugh, but to the watchful listener it sounded hollow.
"There is sadness under that mirth," he said to himself; "she has tried her wiles on the Englishman, and tried them in vain; so much the better for him."
After a few more light words, Laurette and her companion turned into a brilliantly-lit and decoratedcafé. L'Estrange walked slowly back to the seat where he had left Laura. His face was very pale and his fine mouth was quivering. A fear had been partially laid to rest, but it might be that even in the fear a hope, the shadow of self-love, had rested.
As he drew near to the seat where Laura had been left his steps quickened, for the murmur of her sweet voice reached his ears. Some one was speaking to her, and his unquiet conscience filled him with fear. Perhaps they were trying to steal away his treasure.
His fears were realized. A man was leaning over the child's chair and speaking to her earnestly. Laura looked troubled and irresolute, but all her hesitation fled when she saw her friend. She rose suddenly, eluding with the agility of a child the grasping hand that sought to detain her, and took refuge in his arms.
The darkness and his knowledge of Paris favored L'Estrange. He caught her up and disappeared among the shadows with the rapidity of lightning, leaving the man, who was Golding's agent and had been triumphing in his discovery, altogether baffled. He had certainly shown very little judgment, for he had not even mentioned that he had come from her mother. The first thing he had done was to bewilder the child by cross-examination, to test the truth of his discovery. Then he had told her, in the directest way possible, that the man with whom she was travelling was a bad man, and that it was her duty to leave him at once. This, Laura, who had given her faith to her companion, entirely disbelieved. She rather feared the stranger who had come in the darkness to steal her away from her friend.
But all these contradictions puzzled her brain; she felt alarmed, and in her bewilderment the sight of her friend was reassuring. It was rest for the weary child to be gathered up into his strong arms, and his sudden flight through the cool night-air was rather satisfactory than the contrary. The dry manner of this man of business was so different from the tender reverence, the deep emotion, of the man she called her father!—what wonder then that the little girl, woman-like in her instincts, trusted the one and was glad to flee from the other?
With long strides L'Estrange passed on through the darkness, for, though the child was in his arms, he did not grow weary. His love prevented him from feeling her a burden.
"I shall only give thee up to one, my treasure," he whispered; and Laura was quite content.
If she was becoming unspeakably dear to her friend, he was also becoming dear to her. In his tenderness and devotion he seemed to clasp her round like a providence. The little one began to think that he must be her father, whatever he might say to the contrary.
And while she was thinking they went on together more slowly, as the darkness deepened and the danger of pursuit became less, into the very heart of Paris, among its network of streets and lanes. L'Estrange knew every inch of the way as well by night as by day. This was not his first midnight flight.
They stopped at last before a small house in a little side street. L'Estrange rang the bell, and there came a respectable middle-aged woman to the door. She smiled her recognition, then put out her hand and drew them in.
"C'est toi, donc, mon ami? et, mon Dieu! un bébé! Comment! Mais entre toujours."
She took the candle from the concierge, and preceded them up stairs to a little room furnished partly as a bedroom and partly as a sitting-room. Then, when they had seated themselves and she had removed Laura's hat and jacket, she began bustling about, helpful as a Frenchwoman generally is, to prepare everything for their further stay. L'Estrange stopped her:
"A thousand thanks, ma bonne Marie: we go on to-night."
She shrugged her shoulders, a significant gesture. Marie was a very old friend, and L'Estrange had been her benefactor. She knew his weakness. "As you will, mon ami," she answered, "but this bébé wants rest," she continued in English, approaching the child and stroking her fair hair caressingly.
The bébé had been sitting in a large arm-chair, looking curiously about her. She was perfectly happy and comfortable, for her friend was with her, and Marie's benevolent face and pleasant cheerful voice had inspired her with confidence.
"I'm not at all tired, thank you," she said; "mon père carried me a long way."
The woman turned round abruptly: "This is not yours, Adolphe?"
"Pour le moment," he answered; and she did not dare to question him further, for this man, when he liked, could be repellant even to his friends. But the shadow passed. He chatted gayly with Marie upon a variety of subjects, sent a messenger to their hotel to settle their account and bring their portmanteau, and partook with Laura of coffee ofMarie's making, and of such few substantials as she could get together in a hurry.
The Frenchwoman was commissioned, sorely to Laura's perplexity, to take her to the station from which they were to start for Vienna according to L'Estrange's plans. But she had full confidence in her friend, and made no demur. He went in a separate conveyance, meeting them in the waiting-room. Before he joined them he looked round searchingly. The train was on the point of starting, and the first-class passengers, penned up in expectation of the signal to take their places, were not many. L'Estrange seemed to breathe more freely as at last he sat down by Laura, and there was a light of triumph and hope in his face, which the keen-eyed Frenchwoman remarked. She kept her own counsels, but her eyes were moist as she bade them heartily farewell. Laura and her companion sped onward for another weary journey. Travelling was life to him, it had become his second nature, and the child was so tenderly cared for, so constantly amused, that she scarcely knew how long the time was.
A night and a day and another night, with only a few hours' interval—for she cared no more for rest than her companion—and at last Vienna was reached. There L'Estrange determined to rest for a few days, because he feared that in spite of all his efforts the child's health might suffer from the constant movement; besides, he had given orders that letters should be addressed to a hotel in that city. Some of these might possibly contain information which would greatly affect their further movements.
L'Estrange was beginning to be cautious, for he saw he was watched—that an effort was being made to follow him. This puzzled him considerably. He could not imagine how the search had arisen. He had thought that his letter would have explained everything to Margaret, and that with the hope before her of the child being instrumental in bringing back the father she would have acquiesced in his certainly rather wild proceedings. She knew him well enough to be aware that, heavy as his sins had been, from this sin he was free. He had never hurt a weak thing. She had known and seen how in the past his tenderness had carried him even too far sometimes,and she could not believe him so utterly changed. He had imagined that when she knew of his sudden repentance she would have been ready even to trust her treasure in his hands, in full faith that he meant well by her and by her child. And so far L'Estrange was right. If Margaret had received that strange letter, penned, as it were, with his heart's life blood, she would have been woman enough to have read its reality—she would have waited patiently, trustfully for the issue. The misfortune was that she didnotreceive it.
He had written to her again from Paris, but this time he had been still more bewildered about the address. Laura could not assist. Like her friend, she could have found her way to her mother's cottage even in the night, but she had never thought much about the name of the place where she lived, and its spelling was quite beyond her. Fate was inexorable. His second letter went astray like the first, and Laura, who was hoping for an answer to her big letters, and L'Estrange, who was looking passionately for one line to tell him that he was forgiven and understood, were both destined to disappointment. There was a letter, however, an English letter, which partially explained the mystery of the attempt to recapture Laura on the Champs Elysées.
Mr. Robinson, that most respectable of solicitors, had been highly satisfied with the contents of the mysterious little packet which his foreign client had put into his hands at the Great Northern Station. It confirmed him in his opinion that the Frenchman was likely to be valuable. He determined at once to make himself useful. And no one understood better how to make himself useful without needlessly disturbing his conscience or compromising his character for rectitude. He had scented a mystery in the fair-haired English child, and Margaret's story, related to him on the day following his meeting with L'Estrange, made him imagine that he saw through it. Hence his lukewarmness in the pursuit entrusted to him. But the young Arthur's vigorous championship alarmed him for his client. He saw that everything would be done for the recovery of the child, whom it was his firm conviction the Frenchman had stolen, from some motive utterly unguessed at by himself.
After Arthur had left him the lawyer cogitated for a while.It would not do for him, in his capacity of family lawyer to Mrs. Grey, and more especially still in his character for even ultra-scrupulousness, to appear to connive at such a deed as this of his client's, but he might, by warning him of the search which was being set on foot, buy his gratitude, and, what was better still, bind him to himself.
After much planning he resolved to give the little episode of Arthur's visit and the search that was being inaugurated for the lost child as a piece of gossip which might be interesting to his client on account of his supposed connection with Laura's father. The letter was a grand piece of lawyer's art, and Mr. Robinson chuckled over it with delight.
L'Estrange saw through the artifice, and as he read the letter his dark face looked grim. Opposition was like food to his determined soul. He set his teeth together, vowing inwardly that he would carry out his project in spite of them all.
They were detained at Vienna. It was as he had feared: the constant movement, the over-excitement, the strange, new life, had been too much for Laura. She had a slight feverish attack, but her friend, who knew a little of everything, had studied medicine in his early years, not with a view of entering the profession, for as a profession he despised it, but simply to increase and intensify his power over his fellows. He knew how to treat the child, and was not even alarmed at her sudden weakness. Rest and quietness were the best remedies, and these he gave her, with some simple medicine whose efficacy he had often tested. The child was inclined to be sorely fretted at the delay. On the sixth day of their stay in Vienna (she was lying on a sofa in a splendidly-furnished room that looked out upon the broad, grand Danube flowing majestically through the city, and her friend for the first time had left her a few minutes alone) this impatience grew almost too great to be borne. She buried her head in the sofa-pillows, and the wailing plaint for mamma came now and then, with heavy sobs, from her child's heart. This continued for some little time. When she looked up again, trying with the vain endeavor of a troubled child to stay her weeping and think no more of her sorrow, L'Estrange was standing at the head of the sofa looking down on her. His arms were folded, hestood perfectly still, and there was on his face a look of such fixed and hopeless sadness that, child as she was, she recognized it suddenly. Her own tears ceased to flow, and for a moment she looked back into his face as if, with the angelic intuition of her age (I wonder if angels do whisper these secrets to the little ones?), she would find out and understand what was the great woe that oppressed him. Then, as if she had come to a partial understanding, she raised herself on the sofa and tried with all her small strength to draw down his dark, weary-looking face to the level of hers. He yielded to the sweet compulsion; kneeling beside her, he suffered her to lay his head on the sofa-pillow and draw his cheek to hers.
It was a very simple mode of consolation. She only whispered again and again the name he had taught her to call him, and pressed her childish lips to his forehead, and stroked back his hair with her small, hot fingers; but it was very effectual. The dark look left her friend's face. It was as though "a spirit from the face of the Lord" had visited him.
He lifted the little one into his arms and held her there for a few minutes, then, with a softness of tone and manner which none but the pure child could awake in him, he told her a part, at least, of his trouble. It was in the form of a parable. "Laura," he murmured—the darkness was gathering, and two or three stars had begun to shine out in the sky—"look up: what do you see?"
"The sky, mon père; and now, ah, see! the stars are beginning to shine—one, two, three. I can see them in the water too."
"Do you know what it is that makes them so bright, fillette?"
The child shook her head.
"No, ma mie, nor do I very well, except that it is a transparent, beautiful something we in this world call light: what this something is I know not; I can only tell that the light is very good. Now, shall I tell you a story that came into my head a little minute ago, about the stars out there and the light?"
"Yes, yes!" Laura clasped her hands with delight.
In the joy of one of her friend's own stories even the trouble about her mother was for the time forgotten.
He stopped as if to think. How often in the long after-time, when L'Estrange was to the child only the memory of a strange dream, when the knowledge that womanhood brought threw its light on this part of her life, did Laura remember his look that evening. Even then, in her childhood's ignorance, it touched and charmed her, till all unconsciously she clung to him more closely and trusted him more fully. He was looking up. The fitful twilight was playing on his broad, massive brow, and on that brow was rest. But in the deep-set, passionate eyes, in the quivering lips, the struggle could still be read. A longing seemed to look out from his face—a longing that held and enchained him till it could be satisfied.
They sat by the window, L'Estrange in a deep arm-chair, the child in her favorite position on his knee. And after a pause, during which they were both looking up, watching how one star after another lit its small lamp in the sky, he began in a dreamy tone, rather as if he were speaking to himself than to any listener: "They are all alive; yes, must it not be so? for every body has a soul. Those bright ones that walk in light amid the ceaseless music of the spheres are instinct with the mystery that we of this world call Life. And why should this not be? for life consists in the power of movement and volition. Surely they move. Science proves that they revolve evermore in their grand orbits, and surely theywillto shine, for it is only when we need their light that the light appears. Yes, it is true—these bright things live. They suffer pain, they know delight as well as we."
Then, as the clasping arms of the little one recalled him to the remembrance of her presence, he smiled: "I promised a story, and ma fillette will scarcely understand such philosophy yet. It was a prelude to the tale. Listen, then, ma mie. Those bright things up there are alive. Each one has its spirit, a being more beautiful than we of earth can conceive. I must describe them, must I? Hélas, bébé! I fear it is beyond me. I must tell, then, of things that have not for me the beauty they once had—the golden dawn, and the silver twilight, and the freshness of early youth, and the mildness of sunset skies. Put all these together and thou hast a partonly of the fairness of these beings, who were placed by God thousands of ages since in the bright stars up there. The spirits were given a work to do. They were to shine when the sun, who was made to be king over them all, had gone away to rest behind the sky. The stars were glad when they were told to shine, for they were all good, and this shining, which is for the good of our dark world down here, made them happy. Little children who look, as ma fillette is doing now, at those stars up there, feel glad when they see the light, but they do not know that the stars are glad too—that when they shine out in the night they are singing aloud for joy."
Laura looked delighted, and put out her hand to stop her friend for a moment: "They must be singing now. Oh listen! Perhaps we shall hear them."
But he shook his head and smiled: "No, petite: long ago, when there were very few people, this music was heard. Now there are too many noises; but if any one could hear it would be such as thee."
Then he stopped again, and there came a sad look into his eyes. "There are more stars up there than we can see," he went on, "for some are not allowed to shine. They lie in the night like dead things, but still they are alive, for sadness is in their hearts, and this sadness is greatest now when all the others are shining and singing out for joy."
Laura's eyes looked sorrowful. "Why do they sing so loud?" she asked; "they might be sorry for the poor little dead stars."
"Some of them are so far away that it would take them thousands of years even to know that the light of the poor dead stars had gone out, and so they cannot tell that their singing makes the dead stars sad; but those who are near are sad, and sometimes even try to help. My story is about one of the dead stars. He was meant to be a beautiful star, for his spirit was great and strong, with mighty wings and eyes piercing like those of an eagle. Every day he knelt before God's white throne, which is quite in the middle of those stars, and every night he shone out into the darkness with a fair and glorious shining, and sang more loudly and sweetly than any. But there came a time when the star-spirit grew tired of this happy life: his light shone less brightly than ithad done, his voice was sometimes missed from the night-chorus. A change had come over him, and this was what had caused it. There had come to him at a time when he was resting idly on his wings in that dark azure above—it was too early for his light to be shining, and he had left the crystal throne—a being until then unknown to him. It was dark and mournful, with black plumes covering it from head to foot, and nothing of light about it but a last remnant that shone from its eyes. This was the spirit of darkness, whose dominions had been invaded and conquered by light. The spirit of the night let her black plumes fall, and the star saw she was beautiful—with a beauty that did not belong to the light, it is true, but that still possessed a wild charm of its own. It was fascinating to him, perhaps, because unlike anything he had ever seen before."
L'Estrange was getting past Laura, but he had almost forgotten the child, and she listened, not understanding much, but entranced as she might have been by some bewitching melody. Her friend paused for a moment; when he continued his voice was low, and its tones were more sad than they had been:
"The star-spirit and the spirit of the night met many times, and at each time of their meeting the light of the star waned fainter. At last, when the fascination with which she surrounded him had reached its full force, he forgot, or omitted purposely, to light his lamp and shine with his companion-spheres in the midnight heavens. Terrible things happened that night, for our star, which was very bright and large, had been well known upon the earth.
"Sailors had given it a name of their own, and often, when the sea was all round them and they could not tell where they were, looking up they had seen this star, and its light had guided them. On this night the sea was running high, and as usual the sailors had looked up for their star, that they might know no rocks were near. Think of their despair when they found it not! Ah! there was one great ship full of women and little children. The sailors had lost their way. They looked up for the star which had guided them so often: hélas! its bright shining was swallowed up by the darkness. They took a wrong path in the waters, the big ship struckupon a rock, the women and little children were drowned. The star-spirit did not know this. He felt no sadness that night, for the spirit of darkness was with him; yet the next night, when he would have shone out in his place, he found that the power of shining had gone from him—that his star was a dead star in the sky. Ah, mon Dieu! to tell of his sadness! He would have no more to say to the night-spirit who had tempted him; he shut himself up in his dark star; he waited, waited, night after night, thinking that the power and gladness of shining might come back. It did not come; even, it seemed, his star grew blacker as the ages passed, as if the dark spirit were wrapping it round in her heavy plumes. So sad a change! No little children looking up to him, no weary traveller blessing him for his help, no pleasant music sounding from him in the evening; nothing but darkness, sorrow, misery. The stars went singing about him, and he lay there still, all his gladness gone out of him—a dead star in heaven. At last there came a night when the singing was louder and more joyous, and the spirit of the dead star, who had been hiding his head for shame at his darkness, looked out to see what it meant. A baby-star had been born into the sky, and all its sisters and brothers were rejoicing over its birth. The spirit of the dead star saw that its light was very near where his had been. It was feeble, but clear as dawn. The sight of the tiny light recalled to him the time when he too had shone out, a new joy and gladness, into the sky, and folding his wings he wept, as only spirits can weep, for a time that we on earth should call years. Perhaps his weeping made him better. It is impossible to say; but suddenly in the midst of it he heard a sound. It was clear, like the dripping of water from a fountain; it was silvery, like the ringing of bells in the distance. The spirit lifted his head from his folded wings, and there—even in his habitation, in the dead star whose light he had been—stood a beautiful child-spirit, her head drooping, her snowy wings folded over her breast, a small lamp in her hand. When the spirit of the dead star looked at the child she trembled, as if with fear at her own boldness; so the spirit could not be angry, although he knew this was the baby-light that had caused his weeping through those long dark years. Indeed, as he looked up hebegan to feel love stirring in his heart; the child-spirit was so beautiful and good, and her voice was like music. For she spoke when she saw she needed not to fear. 'I have come to stay with thee,' she whispered, 'for thy darkness and silence made my heart ache, and I have been praying to come for all these years. At last I have been allowed. Must I go away into the darkness?'
"He was moved with the child-spirit's humility and love. He rose, and towering above her in his grandeur gathered her up into his breast. 'Thou shalt stay with me for ever,' he answered. It was the night-time. Even as the spirit spoke he became conscious of a certain gladness unknown to him for the ages of darkness that had passed, and the everlasting song and music grew suddenly louder and more joyous. The child had broken the spell of night's spirit, she had brought him of her light, and he was born again, feebly but truly, into the sky."
L'Estrange stopped and looked down with a half smile, then his brow contracted. Laura had been listening breathlessly. She could not understand his tale, but its strangeness charmed her. "Is that all?" she said with a long-drawn sigh.
"Not quite all," he answered; then, as if to himself, "the end has yet to come. They were very happy together," he continued after a few moments' silence, "the spirit of the star that had been dead, but was gradually being restored to life and gladness, and the child whose presence had wrought the wonder. Once more the spirit of the star bowed down by day before the great white throne, and the child went with him; her angelic purity made her welcome there. But one day when they returned there was sadness at the heart of the spirit of the star, for he had learned that the child who had restored him was not to be left with him for ever; she had another work to do. He looked at her.Shecould not be sad, for, unlike the other spirit, she had never sinned, and perhaps this made his sadness the greater. Then it had been sweet to shine and sing with his companion-spheres, and he hardly knew how he would be able to shine and sing alone. But he would not keep her back. Another one, sad, it might be, in his darkness, wanted her, and with the life and gladnesshis child-messenger had brought him love. So"—L'Estrange's voice sank—"he let her go, his beautiful, his God-given—he let her go."
He said no more. For a few moments there was deep silence between them. Something of his sadness and a knowledge of its cause had penetrated the child's soul through his parable. Her eyes filled with tears. She looked up at the starry multitude, shining out now in their full glory above her, with a new love. At last she spoke, laying her head against his breast: "But, mon père, the spirit of the star shone out still?"
He answered sadly: "Mon enfant, I know no more."
Mind's command o'er mind,Spirit o'er spirit's, is the close effectAnd natural action of an inward giftGiven of God.
Laura was much better the next day; indeed, the improvement was so great that her protector considered himself justified in pressing on for another stage of their journey. She was not so joyful as might have been expected. Perhaps his parable had calmed the little girl, making her impatience less by the hint of possible separation. Laura cared very much for her friend. She had become so united to him in thought and affection that she could scarcely imagine a future without him. We must remember that with little ones, especially when their natures are impressionable like Laura's, it does not take long for these attachments to be formed. With them habit passes quickly into a necessity. It was thus with Laura. She had become so accustomed to her friend's protecting tenderness that she could not bear to think of being separated from him. But Laura was not untrue to her mother. She thought as much as ever of her return to the little cottage by the sea. Only in thus far her dreams andideas were changed. She could not and would not think of that return, of those pleasant days when mamma would be happy and papa at home, without including in them all this kind guide who was planning their happiness.
Her friend's look at the end of his tale had been so sad that she dared not ask for an explanation, and indeed her own little heart had been almost too full of sympathy with the bereaved star-spirit for her to think of much else at the moment. But to this one thing in her after reflections Laura made up her mind: her friend should go back with her to her mother, he should not look so sad, they would make him as happy as they would be. In fact, the child mapped out the future, as many of her elders will do, in those long days of travelling that succeeded their stay in Vienna.
They were very long and very wearisome, unbroken by incident of any kind; the very passengers became few, and the towns scattered as they advanced. It was not difficult to get a carriage to themselves, but certainly some comforts were necessary to make the long journeys tolerable. Laura, however, had no relapse. At every possible resting-place her companion watched narrowly to see if fatigue were taking any effect upon her. He was reassured. The child slept, ate and made herself happy.
L'Estrange was not so fortunate. Anxiety, suspense, and a certain vague uneasiness of conscience concerning even this late delight—which seemed to have aroused the latent good that was in him—kept him wakeful, and by the time Moscow was nearly reached the faithful child noticed that he looked pale and ill. She told him so with a sweet womanly concern that sat strangely on her child's face. But he only smiled, and said rest would set him right. Evening had fallen on the earth when at last Moscow the long-desired dawned on the sight of the wanderers. It was from the midst of a desolate country, bleak and half cultivated, that it rose suddenly, almost, as it were, by magic, its glittering cupolas and myriad towers visible long before the city itself came in sight.
L'Estrange, who knew all about this strange appearance (he had travelled through Russia before), pointed it out to the child. Very little could have surprised Laura much at this time; she had been living ever since she had left quietMiddlethorpe in an atmosphere of wonders; but amongst them all this arrival had been looked to as something pre-eminent. For Moscow was the city where this wonderful father was hiding. Laura was fully convinced that he would be the first person they should meet in the streets, and it did not seem unnatural that Moscow itself should be strange as any of the wonders in the Arabian tales. Perhaps, Laura reasoned with herself, it was because it was so beautiful and wonderful that her father had remained there. She had heard of people who had gone to heaven, not wishing to come back, and vaguely she blent the two ideas together till the feeling in her mind was something like this: Moscow was like heaven, so beautiful and delightful that those who went there never wanted to go home again.
The first sight of the ancient city was enough to justify her dreams. It was to the child like a glimpse of Fairyland. Once at the window, watching the gradual approach, out of the pale evening light, of those dim, ghostly giants that lifted their stately heads from the surrounding dimness, nothing would persuade her to leave it.
They drew nearer and the darkness gathered, so that Laura, though straining her eyes into it, could see nothing. When they arrived finally, and drove into the enchanted city, its wonders were hidden by the dim, gray night of the North. From the magic and dazzle that through the twilight had shone many-colored on the background of sky, they passed to a hotel exceedingly like the others at which they had put up.
It was a death to the child's first illusion. Her companion watched her curiously. He noted how the dazzle of expectation and wonder died out of her eyes, and how the real, growing weariness began to assert itself after the excitement which had veiled it for the time. They were together in the handsome, stately saloon—alone, for travellers at this season were few; the short, bright summer of the North was nearly over, the evenings were becoming gray, the nights black and dreary. There was a large square black monument in the room they occupied that emitted a close heat, and the process of shutting out carefully all external air had begun.
L'Estrange seated himself on one of the massive couchesand drew the child to his side. "What is it, petite?" he asked as he noted her disappointment.
"Where is papa?" she questioned sadly.
"We shall look for him to-morrow."
He threw off his hat as he spoke, and the child saw that his face was very weary-looking and sad. Fatigue, anxiety and want of sleep were gradually taking their effect on his strong frame, while the close air of the room in his weak condition almost overpowered him.
"Mon père," she said, clinging to him, "how pale you look!"
He tried to rouse himself: "I am tired, fillette."
But suddenly the pallor spread till his very lips were blanched. He sank back on the couch with a faint moan, yet even then the soul of the man was strong enough to conquer partially the physical weakness. He thought of her through the pain that was striving to master him; he saw her face of despair, though a film seemed to be gathering over his sight, and with a strenuous effort he half raised himself, his pale lips parted in a reassuring smile: "I shall be better soon—water."
She brought it to him in a moment, all the woman in her risen to meet the emergency, and then she placed a pillow under his head and chafed his cold hands. By the time the waiter arrived to lay the cloth for dinner L'Estrange was better. It was a kind of spasm that had robbed him of his power for the moment. He had experienced something of this kind before, and it alarmed him; understanding a little about the science of medicine himself, he knew the danger of mysterious pains, and he felt that it would not answer for him to be laid up until his work was done.
When dinner was over they went out into the night together, and the cool air revived him; but afterward, when real solitude had fallen over everything, and the child had been committed to the care of one of the women of the house, the fear of what might come quite mastered him.
L'Estrange was no coward, to shrink from physical pain. Whenever it was possible he would escape suffering (though perhaps his real horror was rather of mental than physical pain); when it was impossible he met it like a man. But this time he felt his frame was weakening. The mental rest hehad craved so passionately would never come till his work was over, and in the mean time another such paroxysm as the one through which he had passed might lay him prostrate. In this case what would become of Laura? How would he prove to his wronged Margaret that his intentions with regard to her were good and true?
Even as he thought he felt the pain approaching with stealthy creeping, like a thief come to rob him of his power. He rose with difficulty from the couch on which he had been lying, and opening one of his packages drew from it the small medicine-chest he always carried. His hand shook as he turned the key, for he knew what he was doing, and had it not been for his strange position would have dreaded it far more than the physical pain, which he felt it could not cure, only put away for a time. For L'Estrange had once been in the habit of putting into him this enemy to steal away his soul. He had felt then that his intellect was being weakened—that his bodily and mental powers were being destroyed; he had fought with the weakness and had conquered it.
But as he took out the little well-known phial, with its dark liquid, once so precious, he felt that another victory would be still more dearly bought, and he trembled. Necessity, however, is strong and knows no law. While he hesitated the pain gained ground.
Hastily he poured out a strong dose, drank it, and slept a heavy, uneasy sleep, broken by dreams and distorted images of reality, while through them all the keen finger of pain found its way, touching his heart and chilling its warm life. But even this semblance of sleep was better than the dismal wakefulness.