Other cars emptied and were filled again with fresh travelers; other compartments changed their occupants from seat to seat, but the trio sat still in this, and whiled away the time silently.
Then the train entered upon an hour's stretch of country, which it must traverse without pausing.
The man in the fur coat, weary of steadying his drowsy head against the corner of his seat, sat upright and drew a newspaper from his pocket. Falling asleep over that, he produced a silver snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a generous pinch; then he looked meditatively at the old steward nodding comfortlessly before him, and proffered him the snuff-box; but looking into it, he discovered that it was about empty.
This appeared to afford him peculiar gratification, for he smiled to himself as he drew a paper parcel from his pocket, and proceeded to fill the snuff-box with its fragrant contents.
Idly Margaret watched him thrusting the diminished parcel back into the breast-pocket, and waking Purcell up by a vigorous poke, in order to offer him the replenished snuff-box.
The old man's eyes brightened, he uttered a heartfelt "I thank you kindly, sir," and inhaled a huge pinch, handing back the box with a courtly bow.
Then, sneezing with much fervor and wiping his eyes, Purcell vowed that he couldn't remember the day when snuff had smelt so queer; at which the man in the fur coat roared with laughter and boasted that his was the best; and presently Purcell's head sank down on his breast, and he took no further notice of hisvis-a-vis.
Margaret drew out her handkerchief and covered her face with it, for a faint, sickening, drowsy odor was exhaling from Purcell's nostrils, and stealing her breath away.
She next tried her smelling-salts, and requested Purcell to open the window on his side: but he, taking no heed, she shook his arm, and, at last, gazed into his face.
It was chalk-white, a deadly perspiration bathed lip and brow; the half-closed eyelids showed the eyeballs glazed and sightless, and his breast heaved painfully, as if a ton-weight lay upon it.
Margaret Walsingham came to herself in an instant—she grew cool and calm.
She knew now that the man who sat opposite to her had been hired by Mortlake to murder her.
No more tremors of fear, no more hurried plans for escape, no more hoping for some fortunate circumstance to save her. She felt that her time had come; and she knew that she must succumb to her fate. She saw how well her destruction was planned; she traced out the tragedy with terrific distinctness, she saw herself seized by these great, cruel hands in the first tunnel whose resounding roar could drown her death-shriek, and the pistol fired off at her ear, or the silent knife plunged into her bosom; and she knew how easy it would be for her murderer to leave the car at the next station and escape forever.
Before she raised herself from her speechless examination of her drugged servant, she had foreseen her death, and accepted it with a stony despair.
She mechanically turned to pull down the window at her own side, but the rough hand of the murderer met hers and arrested the act; his steel-blue eyes gleamed into hers, and drove her back to her corner, where she sat gazing like a dumb animal into the man's face, with her arms folded over her breast, a frail shield which he laughed at.
Some minutes passed, the servant partially recovered consciousness, and was plied with a handkerchief saturated with chloroform and pressed to his nostrils; and, when he was swaying to and fro in his seat like a dead man, with every lurch of the car, the ruffian turned to the unhappy woman beside him with a mischievous, fatal look in his coarse face.
One by one Margaret's faculties deserted her; her power of speech first of all, then her power of motion, her power of resistance, even her power of fear. All save the seeing sense left poor Margaret, and she watched with distended eyeballs and a dull, ghastly feeling of interest the movements of the man who was to murder her.
What had he done to her that had thrown her into this helpless lethargy?
A faint, sweet odor pervaded the car.
It was the insidious chloroform stealing her consciousness from her and deadening every nerve. She saw him take a tiny vial from his pocket, fit a perforated top upon it, and direct a spurt of deadly perfume, fine as a hair, into her face.
She tried to move, but could not. The breath was cut off from her nostrils by that fatal jet; she could only gaze with a sad, anguished look into those flaming eyes opposite her.
Something in the harrowing intensity of that silent look troubled the man.
He missed his aim, and the death-giving essence streamed harmlessly upon the bosom of her dress.
Again and again he adjusted the cunning little tube so as to force her to breathe its fatal contents; but his hand trembled, his face waxed white—he quailed before the ghostly appeal of those fixed orbs.
Minutes passed. Why did not the man finish his victim.
Was ever yet a woman more completely in a murderer's power?
Her attendant drugged into a senseless clod beside her, her faculties all benumbed, no eye to watch the tragedy, no hand to seize the villain—why did he not act out his instructions?
She held him by that mesmeric gaze, where the soul stood plainly forth pleading for mercy. She was so young, so gentle, so sorrowful.
Oh! he cowered away from his fell purpose; he dallied with his chance, and that chance slipped by.
The tram glided into a station shed; the red lights glowed in at the window, palling the flickering tin lamp hanging from the roof. Strangers rushed pell-mell across the platform; and at last the door of this car was opened, and a young man looked in.
Margaret vehemently sought to cry out to him, to stretch out her hands, to moan, even, but in vain. She seemed petrified.
The young man's eyes passed aimlessly over the white-faced woman in black and her sleeping escort, and fastened doubtfully upon the disconcerted ruffian.
"Is Richard O'Grady in this car?" shouted he.
"I am the chap you want," returned the man in the fur coat.
The other handed him a telegram and vanished instantly, and the car moved on.
She saw him hold out a slip of paper to the dim flame and master its message, and the sickly pallor crept out of his cheeks and the coarse red came back.
He looked hard in her face with a sinister light on his visage, and smiled at her with a certain kind of grim admiration.
"You've overcrowded him, have you, my clever wench?" mattered he. "You must be a sharp 'un to dohim. Curse your haunting eyes! you've all but overcrowdedme, in spite of my leather hide. Confound you! I'll never get rid of them great eyes."
He broke out into a volley of fearful maledictions upon her, himself, and the "beast" who had given him the job, tearing up the telegram into inch pieces and tossing them insolently into Margaret's lap.
It was evident that he considered her blind and deaf, as well as paralyzed, else he never would have exposed his principal as he did in these violent imprecations.
So the train glided on upon its midnight journey, and the man turned his back to his intended victim. But she was adoring God in her heart of hearts for her dear life's preservation.
Her cold stoicism melted, the bitter fortitude with which she had looked for death fled. Howcouldshe have cast that reproachful thought at Heaven and believed herself forsaken?
Her heart swelled with gratitude and remorse now that she saw her mistake; and, although she could not move an eye-lash, her emotion surged higher and higher until it burst through the barriers of the spell which bound her, and great tears gushed from her eyes.
At the first station they came to, the man rose to leave the car. He glanced sharply at Margaret's wet face, and jerked down the window that she might have some air, then, with an oath, stumbled over Purcell's feet and got out.
Then the long night crept by, and gradually the lady and her servant recovered, and spoke to each other.
"Purcell, do you know me?"
She was chafing the old man's temples, and applying her smelling-salts to his nose.
"Eh? ha? My conscience! Is that you, miss?" mumbled the steward, with a thick tongue and a vacant look at her.
"Are you better?"
"Humph! not much. Tush! What's in my mouth? Fever?"
"No, no, Purcell. You've been asleep—that's all."
"I've been dead, I think—dead for years and years. I think I was in another world. Dear bless me! My legs are as heavy as lead. I say, Miss Margaret, what took me—a fit?" whispered the steward, in a fright.
"No. You were put to sleep with chloroform by that man who sat opposite. He stupefied you with poisoned snuff, and then used chloroform. You need not feel alarmed, though—you have recovered."
"Faith, miss, you look but poorly yourself," said Purcell, struck by her extreme pallor. "Was—was he a thief, miss, and did he rob us?"
"He was a murderer, Purcell, and intended to kill me," said Margaret, with tears in her eyes. "But God would not permit him to succeed."
She related the circumstances to the old man, who rose from terror into fury when he realized how completely he had been taken in through his favorite refreshment, snuff, and laid out like a corpse beside his helpless young mistress.
She soothed his wounded feelings, and directed him to use caution during the rest of his fateful journey.
At daybreak they came to Cirencester, and rested there for some hours, and at nine o'clock took a coach for Llandaff.
They had not traveled a dozen miles, when a horseman galloped past the great, lumbering coach, flashing a keen glance in at Margaret Walsingham, and then disappeared upon the winding road ahead.
She gasped and grew white.
He wore a horseman's cloak and a slouched hat. But she was not deceived in the brutal gleam of those steel-blue eyes. He was the ruffian who was hired to kill her.
Almost fainting, she communicated her fears to her servant, who grew very purple, and swore to be even with the varlet before long, and stopped the coach to tell the driver that the chap who had just passed was a villain, who ought to be arrested for attempted murder in a railway car; and the driver grew hot and excited, and leagued with three gentlemen on the outside to knock the fellow down and secure him the first minute they set eyes on him.
So Margaret and her attendant continued their journey with some sense of security; and, having the inside of the coach to themselves, could encourage each other to meet future dangers, when anything cheerful occurred to them to say.
But all through that afternoon they traveled safely, unmolested by even a glimpse of Mortlake's accomplice; and at noon they rattled into Llandaff, and stopped before Caerlyon's Hotel.
The groom was leading a smoking black horse round to the stables. Margaret whispered to Purcell, and pointed the animal out to him.
"Hishorse," she said. "Now, Purcell, see that you have him arrested. Fly! There's no time to lose. You must get a constable to go with you, I suppose."
Purcell disappeared in the bar to make inquiries, and Margaret at once took refuge in her room, and sent for the proprietor himself.
The Welsh landlord bustled in, full of politeness and good humor.
"Has Dr. Gay, from Regis, Surrey, been here, yesterday or to-day?" demanded the lady.
"No, matam, he has not."
"Is there no letter lying here for Miss Walsingham, of Regis, Surrey?"
"No, inteet, matam, nothing of te sort."
She turned suddenly, with a groan, from him, and her dark face grew darker.
"Tricked—drawn into a trap! I might have known it—oh, I might have known it!" she murmured, bitterly.
"Anyting I can to for you, my tear laty?" asked Mr. Caerlyon, attentively.
"Yes; you can send a servant to keep watch at my door until my man returns. And there is a person whom I want arrested upon the charge of attempted murder—the man whose horse your hostler was attending to when the coach arrived. Where is he?"
"My Got!murterer!" screamed the landlord. "You ton't say that, matam? Oh, the peast! He must pe caught, of course. Put he took fery coot care not to come tome, tear laty. He went somewhere into the town, and sent his nak here to pait. I'll keep a coot lookout for him, I promise him, the sneaking scoundrel!"
Muttering vituperations, he backed out of the room, and sent a woman to attend the lady, and a great, hulking pot-boy to guard her door.
"Now, what am I to think?" mused Margaret, who had thrown herself upon a sofa, and was feverishly watching the Welshwoman setting the table for her dinner. "How am I to follow out the intricacies of that wretch's plot? It is clear that he has amply provided against my escaping from him. True enough, he is too clever to leave any door open for his victim. I fondly thought that I had taken him by surprise when I escaped the castle and threw myself on Emersham's protection; but he meets me on the flight, and turns my purpose into another channel. I leave him foiled at the castle; I fly to the executors; he has foreseen the move, and meets me with the news of their disappearance. I turn to Mr. Emersham for help. He has foreseen that, also, and meets me with a forged letter, which turns my wishes all toward taking this journey. For a moment he is taken back when he receives my letter, showing him the precautions I have taken to expose him, and allows me to go on the journey which he has already provided for, only because he has not time to prevent me. But he telegraphs to his accomplice that I must not be murdered yet, and his accomplice spares me. Instead of finishing his work, he gets out at the next station, and probably telegraphs something to his principal, and waits for a new order. That he received it, is evident from his continuing his pursuit and haunting my steps as he has done. Now why was I not murdered, according to their agreement? For what was I reserved? And what was that fresh command which the accomplice received per telegraph from Mortlake?"
Mr. Caerlyon tapped at her door, and called out that there was a letter for her, and the waiting woman brought it to Margaret, who received it eagerly, hoping that it was from Dr. Gay, after all.
But she perceived in a moment that it was not, and saw, with disgust, the large, sprawling characters on the back of the note, and the dirty wafer which closed it, in lieu of an envelope.
With shrinking fingers she opened it, and read these words:
"Ma'am:—You knows doosed well who's a talkin' te yer by this here. If you be's the brick I takes yer for, yer won't be sulky, and throw away yer only chance, for mean spite. Come, now, jest give me yer note of hand that yer'll return that 'ere stole pocket-book to its owner whenever yer sees Regis agin, and yer'll see more of yer admirin' friend; but act ugly, and wake the devil in the col., and—ware-hawk! yer'll be awhile on the road back—that's all."Yours to command,"Pocket Pistol."
"Ma'am:—You knows doosed well who's a talkin' te yer by this here. If you be's the brick I takes yer for, yer won't be sulky, and throw away yer only chance, for mean spite. Come, now, jest give me yer note of hand that yer'll return that 'ere stole pocket-book to its owner whenever yer sees Regis agin, and yer'll see more of yer admirin' friend; but act ugly, and wake the devil in the col., and—ware-hawk! yer'll be awhile on the road back—that's all.
"Yours to command,
"Pocket Pistol."
"No, you wretch," said Margaret, "I shall not give up the pocket-book which condemns Mortlake. I simply defy your threats, and shall be well guarded in future. My doubts are answered. I know what Mortlake's new order was; there it is," she cried, tossing the villainous-looking scrawl upon the table, "and I defy it! He offers me my life in exchange for my proofs, and I scorn his offer, I would rather bring such a fiend to justice than live a happy life, knowing that I had suffered him to elude his just punishment."
She called Mr. Caerlyon in.
"Who brought that letter?" asked she.
"A ferry rakket poy, matam," returned he.
"Is he waiting for an answer?"
"Yes, inteet, matam, ant playing with a crown-piece he says the gentleman gave him to holt his tongue."
"Tell him that there is no answer, and send for a constable to follow the boy, and to seize the man who sent him."
"I'll to that, my laty," cried the landlord, with spirit, and disappeared with great alacrity.
In half an hour Mr. Caerlyon and Mr. Purcell came to announce to her that both their pursuits had been fruitless; the villain had disappeared as completely as the mirage which is lifted in air, and Purcell's warrant and police force came too late.
The fire flashed from the indomitable woman's eyes; she crested her head.
"We shall prepare for him, then," said she, with calm courage, "and meet him suitably when he intrudes upon us. In an hour we shall start upon our journey back to Regis, Purcell, so you must go and refresh yourself. Mr. Caerlyon, you shall do me the favor of calling upon the chief of police and handing him a note from me."
The steward retired to obey her command, and Caerlyon cheerfully promised to do anything for such a brave lady, and waited for her to write her letter.
It was a letter of instructions; she wished the chief of police to send two of his sharpest detectives on the road to Cirencester a half hour before she and her servant started, that they might thereafter travel in company without rousing the suspicion of O'Grady by leaving Llandaff together. She explained the case, and suggested the need of the detectives, disguising themselves, that they might protect her throughout the journey, without frightening away the ruffian, who would doubtless attempt her life once more before she reached Regis. As soon as she had finished, Caerlyon carried off the letter with all due secrecy.
In an hour the return coach from Cirencester jolted up to the hotel, and Margaret and her escort took their places inside, alone. There were some men, as before, on the top, but O'Grady discreetly kept out of sight, and since his black horse still munched his oats in Caerlyon's stable, everybody thought that the travelers were leaving their enemy behind them.
At the first inn two farmers stopped the coach and climbed in beside Margaret. A respectful bow to her and Purcell revealed them as her protectors, the detectives.
The liveliest imagination could never have discovered in these heavy-faced, slow-spoken, and comfortably muffled farmers two lynx-eyed emissaries of the law, on the track of a felon. Their disguise was admirable.
When more passengers crowded in, the two farmers grunted out agricultural jokes to each other, or read the county paper, or apprised the intrinsic value of each snow-capped barn, and white-ridged field, and huge wheat-stack they passed with a zest and eagerness positively infectious, until every one inside was drawn into the argument, and a few shrewd questions had been asked and innocently answered, which disclosed the fact that a man in a fur coat had galloped up the road three-quarters of an hour ago upon a gray horse.
"Thought Caerlyon's mare was missing when I went to his stables," muttered one detective to the other; "he has got off before we left the town. All right; we'll catch up."
But they did not catch up that night; and although the two officers slept in a room across the passage from Miss Walsingham's, in the hotel at Cirencester, they saw no one attempt either to communicate with her or to molest her.
So it remained all during the next day's cold and weary journey, the masked detectives carefully kept close by the threatened young lady, and furtively watched each passenger who entered or left the car; but the ruffian was not to be traced, his menace to Margaret was but an empty vaunt; her precautions seemed to have effectually routed him.
At seven o'clock that Thursday evening the train glided into the Regis station-house, the red lights glimmered on the platform, the crowd jostled, surged, and receded; and when the way seemed clear, one of the detectives got out to fetch a cab for Margaret before she should leave the car.
While he was gone a close carriage rolled into the shed, and the driver, touching his hat to Margaret, whom he could see at the car window, offered his services and his cab.
"This will do," said she to Purcell. "When Adams brings the other cab, our friends will need it to go to their hotel. Time is passing, and I must keep my engagement with Mr. Emersham."
The remaining detective got out and stood a yard or so in advance of the cab-driver, who was opening his coach-door; and Purcell assisted his mistress out of the car to the platform, and then turned round and stooped to pick up her traveling-bag from the planks where he had thrown it.
In a moment the long-expected crisis came, so long delayed, so startling now when they thought it was too late to fear it longer.
A man darted out of the shadow of the station-house, and sprang like a panther on his victim. He threw the stooping Purcell violently upon the ground, seized Margaret, and hurried her with a giant's strength to the door of the cab, into which he tried to force her.
"Get in with you, or I'll blow your brains out!" hissed his desperate voice in her ear.
Her shriek of terror had scarcely escaped when the detective, coolly stepping forward from his watch, dealt the ruffian a blow on the back of the head with his horny fist, which felled him like an ox, and the leveled pistol fell from his relaxing hand and snapped off with the concussion, lodging its bullet in the bottom panel of the nearest railway car and startling the cabman's horses so violently that they plunged off the platform with the cabman clinging to the reins.
A railway porter ran up to the scene of the assault, and held the half-stunned O'Grady while the detective secured him, and Purcell, having gathered himself up, with aching bones, led the agitated Margaret into the station-house.
By this time the mob had assembled, and were crushing each other unceremoniously to gain a glimpse of the prisoner, who lay cursing and blaspheming on the wooden floor, with his conquerer grimly standing over him, until Adams rattled up in the cab he had been in search of and shared the onerous duty of jailer.
Margaret, glancing shudderingly out of the station-house window, saw the wretched man pass on his way to the police station, his captors on either side urging him to hasten. His hands were tied behind him, his florid face was yellow with despair, his steel-blue eyes glared with fear; a more abject picture of crime and ruin could scarce be conceived.
And when this wretched vision had vanished, another took its place. A writhing, white face flitted, specter-like, from out of dim shadows, and peered with staring eyeballs after the arrested man, and a scowl of fury, terror, and despair descended on that devilish brow.
The next instant he, too, had melted into shadow, and was lost amid the throng.
"Roland Mortlake," whispered Margaret, who was shivering as if she had seen a phantom. "He has learned the truth. Great Heaven! he will escape."
She stepped to the door and called the steward, who had gone to open the cab-door.
"Go instantly in search of Mortlake," she cried; "he has just passed the window; you must not permit him to escape. I will drive to Emersham's law-office myself."
Away ran Purcell after two constables; and Margaret hurried into the cab, and, undeterred by one heart-beat of compunction, she set herself to compass her enemy's utter ruin.
For pitiful, kind, and great-hearted as she was, she could never suffer a murderer to escape. No, not even to buy her own safety.
Margaret Walsingham alighted from the carriage at the door of Mr. Emersham's law-office, and stepped into the room with the mien of a Semiramis, flashing-eyed, carmine cheeked, and inexorable.
One glance around the room showed her the nimble young lawyer, and the trembling old clergyman gazing white lipped into each other's faces, the folded paper on the table between them, the locked pocket-book, and the will; and the hand of the clock on the mantle-piece pointed to the fifteenth minute after seven.
"Thank God! she is here," murmured Mr. Challoner, solemnly.
"I have come back," said Margaret, "to break these seals and to expose a felon. Hasten, or the felon will escape."
Mrs. Chetwode, sitting in her room at Castle Brand at half-past seven of the night, heard a dreadful racket of horse's hoofs on the frozen court below; and, looking down from her window, she saw the colonel throwing himself from the saddle, and striding up the front steps in red-hot haste.
A thundering knock at the door announced the humor of the gentleman, and the meek old lady hurried into the upper hall to see him when he entered the lower, murmuring to herself with mild astonishment:
"What's sent the man back in such a temper, I wonder? My! he's always ranting about one thing or another; no wonder my poor miss hates him."
The man who opened to the colonel recoiled in astonishment from his fell scowl, as he brushed past him and sprang up stairs, three at a time.
In the absence of the mistress of Castle Brand, the unwelcome guest had appropriated to himself a suite of apartments in the castle, announcing his intention of waiting there for the return of the fugitive, and had lived a short but merry season in luxury and splendor; what wonder that he loathed the brutal fates which were conspiring to thrust him out of his paradise into outer darkness.
The maid who was replenishing the colonel's fire, against his return from his ride, heard a savage oath behind her, and, favored by the darkness, slipped behind the door in a fright and stared with all her eyes at the colonel lighting his lamp, and banging down his desk upon the table.
He cursed everything he touched with the most blasphemous imprecations all the time he was removing papers and letters to his private pocket-book—all the time he was cramming his purse with gold and bank notes—all the time he was tossing his rich wardrobe into a valise.
Then he strode to the door, and turning on the threshold, sent a terrible scowl over the magnificent chamber, glittering with the flash of rich ornaments and the sheen of satin curtains. The veins swelled out on his forehead, and his pale lips twitched convulsively.
"All lost—all lost!" groaned the man in a despairing voice, and closed the door with a bang that shook the walls, and echoed through the vast halls like the report of a cannon.
Then he went into the drawing-room where the housekeeper had taken refuge. When she saw him coming along the passage, and with a diabolical sneer of his face, he went to the marble-topped tables, mantel slabs, chiffoniers, and tiny tea-poys all laden with articles ofbijouterie, and swept off the most costly of the ornaments into his rapacious valise; packing in paperweights of solid amethyst, vases of cut cornelian, ruby-spar, and frosted silver; pitching above them priceless gems of art in miniature, statuettes cut from topaz and chrysolites, (each cost a little fortune,) and then locking up his valise and making off with it "for all the world as if he was a traveling packman or a thief," as Mrs. Chetwode gasped out to Sally the cook, when she could seek the safety of the kitchen, for fright.
Then this eccentric colonel strode down stairs and took his ample Spanish riding-cloak off the pin and wrapping himself in it, with the startled John's help, he stepped to the dining-room door and drew a lowering glance around the majestic chamber.
There was a fine portrait of St. Udo Brand in his best days, painted upon the panel over the fire-place, and the ruddy light of the great astral lamp shone richly over the bold eyes and frank brow of the true heir of Castle Brand.
The skulking, demonized face in the doorway glared with frantic fury at the proud, high countenance on the wall, and a malediction burst from the writhing lips in a hissing whisper.
"Fool! you deserved your fate," said that strange whisper—"You had everything and I had nothing—I, the elder, the first born. Yet you threw your luck away with infernal pride, and beguiled me on to my ruin! Devil! even in your grave you put out your hand to give me the fatal push."
He turned on his heel after that and fled from the Castle as if the Avenger of Blood was at his back, and ordering out the best blood-horse in the stables, he mounted and galloped down the drive.
Between the castle and the lodge he looked behind and spied his blood-hound Argus, tearing from the kennel after him.
The old lodge-keeper, who had hobbled out to open the gate, seeing that the colonel was in such a hurry, was amazed to hear his hoarse tones raised like a madman's, while he ordered the dog home again, and threatened him in shocking language.
The dog crouched among the withered leaves until his master was riding on again, and then he slunk after him as before.
For the second time the colonel looked round at him, and catching him creeping after, he threw himself from the saddle, and seizing the hound by the collar, beat him with his weighted whip until the poor animal yelled with pain, and then he rode on again.
Still the dog dragged his bleeding limbs after his brutal master, and sought to keep him company, for he was his only friend, and had he not followed him many a weary mile?
For the third time the colonel looked behind, and caught the faithful brute following him. He drew a pistol from his breast, and leveled it full at the cowering hound, which nevertheless crawled close up to him, and whined, and licked his master's foot; he shot him through the head and rode on.
So his last friend fell dead by his merciless hand, his faithful serving had not availed to save him, his obedience had not helped him; when he was no longer of use to Roland Mortlake, and might be in his way, he crushed the creature that had loved him, and fled without him.
At the lodge-gate he turned for the last time in his saddle, and looked at the grand old castle standing in the midst of its rich domain, and looking like a Druid rock out of the chill moonlight.
A gleam of wicked envy broke from his basilisk eyes; he shook his clenched hand frantically at the stately pile, and the howl of a hungry tiger burst hoarsely from his throat.
"It's mine by rights!" he cried in a frenzy, "and yet I've lost it forever! I might have been made for life, and now there's nothing left me but the chains or the gallows."
He finished with a vehement volley of oaths, his wolfish face grew black with passion, his tall frame bowed upon his horse's mane in an access of abject fear, and plunging his spurs in his startled steed's flanks, he bounded away like the wind, but not on the road to Regis.
Mrs. Chetwode was ringing her hands over the despoiled drawing-room, and maids were crying and whispering that the colonel had gone mad, and the men were winking shrewdly to each other in token of their belief that the colonel wasn't just what he should be, when a posse of the queen's officers appeared on the scene, demanding the person of Roland Mortlake,aliasSt. Udo Brand.
Too much disgusted with the colonel's low conduct that evening to care what scrape he had got into, the housekeeper went down to the constables, and described his proceedings with a plaintive regard to truth which met with but small favor from those functionaries.
No sooner had they wrung from her a description of the clothes he departed in and from the lodge-keeper, the road he had taken, then they galloped off in chase, leaving Mrs. Chetwode in the very middle of her succinct account of the caskets and ornaments "costing no end of money, which the rogue had took off with him."
Further disgusted with the unmannerly conduct of "them low-lived police," the prim housekeeper received Mr. Purcell and his news that Miss Margaret was safe home again, with elation, that she could fairly cry with joy to hear that the dear young miss was coming back, for she had feared many a time since she has gone away, that the colonel meant that she should never come back.
In truth her life had not been very genial those two days, with the colonel tramping his rooms like a caged hyena, and pouncing out upon her whenever a strange rap came to the door, as if he was looking every minute for some dreadful message from Regis.
"Pretending to want my blessed miss back so bad," cried Mrs. Chetwode, with a snort of disbelief. "Him as always snarled like a sick dog if ever her name was spoke by the servants. Where was he all that night after she went off, I'd like to hear? Out he goes, sir, ten minutes after you left this house to join Miss Margaret, and he never came back till daylight; and he wasn't at his own hotel, for his own man came here and said so. He was after mischief, I tell you, Mr. Purcell," concluded the worthy lady.
"That he was, the rascal," assented Purcell, wrathfully. "He was telegraphing his orders to his low accomplice, whom he had sent off to keep Miss Margaret in fear of her life all the way. Well, well, his day's done, Mrs. Chetwode, and I pray to goodness that he may be caught before the morning. You are to go down to the town and stay with Miss Margaret at the office till she sets the case in Mr. Emersham's hands. She's afraid to come to the castle till the colonel is safely locked up."
Margaret was sitting by Mr. Emersham's smoking fire, pale and exhausted, but with eyes that shone with undiminished animation.
The venerable vicar sat beside her, softly pressing her hand between his own two; and the dashing young lawyer was just finishing the reading of the case he had made out of the contents of Margaret's toilfully written document.
Mrs. Chetwode came to the travel-weary girl, and burst into a fond gush of tears.
"La sakes! Miss Margaret, I can't help it," sobbed the old lady, "to see you so white and worried is enough to break one's heart."
"The would-be-colonel, where is he?" clipped in the ready lawyer.
"Gone, sir, without e'er a good-by!"
"Oh, Mrs. Chetwode, have you let him escape?" cried Margaret, springing up wildly.
"I couldn't stop him, Miss Margaret, dear. He ramped through the castle like a madman, and then went off at full speed on Roanoke."
"Oh, me—he has escaped! Oh, Mrs. Chetwode!" moaned Margaret, sinking back in her chair and bursting into a violent fit of weeping.
Incessant anxiety, apprehension, and suspense had begun to tell upon her, she could not bear up a moment longer; and this disappointment was too much for her; so she fell into a passion of tears, and sobbed, and cried out hysterically that St. Udo's enemy had got away, and that St. Udo would never be avenged now!—until the compassionate vicar supported her to her carriage and got her driven to the castle.
So Mrs. Chetwode put her to bed, and nursed her, and wept over her, and got her to sleep at last; and she did not awake for at least twelve hours.
Next day Mr. Emersham sent up his card to Miss Walsingham, desiring an interview.
Willingly she hastened down stairs to see him, burning with impatience to hear his errand.
"Is the man found?" was her first eager question.
The bustling young lawyer subsided instantly.
"Haw, no, not quite caught yet," he admitted, "but he's almost as good as ours now, my dear madam. I visited O'Grady this morning, and caused him to turn queen's evidence against his accomplice in this business, and—aw, I may say the prisoner, I mean the culprit—is done for."
He did not explain that O'Grady had been bribed by the magnificent promises of the quick-witted Emersham to leak out a little of the truth, just enough to give the detectives a fresh clue to his probable hiding-place; and that poor O'Grady was just then imprecating the dashing young lawyer from earth to a hotter place as a cheat, a liar, and a traitor, when he found out that he had used him as a tool.
Mr. Emersham also showed his client a telegram which the detectives had sent him, stating that they had got on the criminal's track, and expected to come up with him very soon now.
On the whole his visit did much to heighten Margaret's feverish impatience, and filled her with some of his own sanguine hopes.
When the young gentleman had gone, Margaret wandered through the wide, echoing rooms with a sense of freedom which she had never experienced before; a feeling of affection for these familiar chambers, for the sake of her who had owned them, and of him who should have now possessed them.
How she had loved the tender-hearted and freakish Madam Brand, no soul save herself and that dead woman had known; and loving her as she did, could she do else than lay a like sentiment at the feet of her only kinsman, the hapless St. Udo.
Pacing through these lofty rooms the lonely girl thought over her checkered past; she breathed a sigh over the pathetic memory of her fond and foolish patroness; she gave a smile of scorn to the man who had come like a curse in the noble St. Udo's stead; the hateful impostor, whose last abject depredation had been but the type of his crawling, insatiable nature, which, sleuth-hound like, held on to the prey to the very last, and made off with a miserable mouthful of it rather than nothing.
But when she came to the portrait of St. Udo Brand, in the long crimson dining-room, the fierce flicker softened in her yearning eyes, and a sacred, tender smile dawned on her lips.
She studied the grand, passionate-speaking countenance, whose features were cast in a mold fitted to express the noblest emotions, till the soulful eyes seemed to seek hers with a living beam of gratitude; till the fine lips seemed to thrill with a gentle smile, and the souls of St. Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham appeared to have met face to face for the first time, and to hold sweet communion together.
Great tears slowly dropped from Margaret's passionate eyes and washed her cheeks, her tender lip quivered with the thoughts that were swaying her heart; for a quick wild pang of grief smote her to think that he was in his grave.
He had scorned her, he had trampled her under foot, and she forgave him all, and wept that he was dead.
For oh, the heart of such a woman is capable of a love, which, to love of softer women, is as glowing wine to water, as the towering, scorching flame of the red volcano to the chill pale ray of the winter morn.
In the afternoon of the same day, Mrs. Chetwode came into Margaret's room with the news that Mr. Davenport was below, inquiring for an immediate interview.
"He do look raised, Miss Margaret," said Mrs. Chetwode; "he snaps round like an angry watch-dog."
He came up to Miss Walsingham's parlor and burst in, hot, red, loud, and angry.
"Ha! you have seen fit to return to your post, sir," cried Margaret, woman-like anticipating the fray.
"Return, madam!" fired the lawyer. "Am I here too soon for you, madam—how long did you want me to stay?"
"I did not want you to go, sir," said Margaret.
"Hear her, oh, hear her!" screamed the lawyer, appealing to the cornice, "if that is not upright and downright insanity, show me a maniac in Bedlam. Madam," with grim pleasantry, "shall you banish me to the top of Mont Blanc in your next letter about a mythological Colonel Brand?"
She maintained a dignified silence.
"Madam, since your little scheme to get both your guardians out of the way has succeeded so well, will you do me the favor of confessing what you have done with the colonel?"
"I have unmasked him, Mr. Davenport, and shown the world a murderer."
"What the duse do you mean, young lady?"
"He is proved an impostor, Mr. Davenport, believe me for once."
"Pig-headed as ever, I see," groaned the lawyer. "Come tell me why you sent me to Bala?" in a wheedling tone. "Be calm and give your reasons frankly."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I did not send you to Bala."
"Confound the woman!" shouted Davenport, "she denies everything. She is mad! she'll deny the work of her own hand next, I do believe. Why did you write me this letter, Miss Margaret Walsingham?" (snatching it from his pocket and waving it like a banner of victory before her eyes.) "Your own handwriting—your own signature, madam. Please do not shock me by denying it."
She looked at the letter—her own familiar chirography started her out of countenance.
Truly, Roland Mortlake's was an accommodating genius.
Thus it ran:
"Dear Mr. Davenport:—I have just receive an extraordinary telegram from some Dr. Lythwaite in Bala, Merioneth. I inclose it to you. Does it not convince you that my suspicions have a just foundation? If you can withstand the evidence of this stranger, who has never heard of my suspicions, you are willfully shutting your eyes to a plain fact."St. Udo Brand lies ill at Bala—send Davenport to receive his instructions to Gelert's Hotel, Coventry street.'"That is what the telegram says; now I request that for once you will obey my wish, and fly thither by the first train."Tell no one, not even Gay, for he is in the confidence of this wretch here. Heaven knows whether you are not the same."Yours, anxiously,"Margaret Walsingham."
"Dear Mr. Davenport:—I have just receive an extraordinary telegram from some Dr. Lythwaite in Bala, Merioneth. I inclose it to you. Does it not convince you that my suspicions have a just foundation? If you can withstand the evidence of this stranger, who has never heard of my suspicions, you are willfully shutting your eyes to a plain fact.
"St. Udo Brand lies ill at Bala—send Davenport to receive his instructions to Gelert's Hotel, Coventry street.'
"That is what the telegram says; now I request that for once you will obey my wish, and fly thither by the first train.
"Tell no one, not even Gay, for he is in the confidence of this wretch here. Heaven knows whether you are not the same.
"Yours, anxiously,
"Margaret Walsingham."
In the envelope was the bogus telegram; no wonder that the lawyer, suspicious though he was, had been completely deceived this time.
"I can show you as strange an epistle, which I received," cried Margaret, going to her desk for Dr. Gay's purported letter, and handing it to Mr. Davenport.
He read it and turned it over in blank surprise.
"Extraordinary!" muttered the lawyer. "Could Gay have got another telegram! Then you didn't send the doctor off, did you?"
"No, indeed, Mr. Davenport, nor you, either. Your untimely absence almost cost me my life, as you would have heard had you made any inquiries as to the state of affairs at Emersham's law office, before you came over here. We have all been infamously duped, sir, by a wretch unworthy of the name of man—but he shall soon expiate his crimes on the scaffold. All these communications have been cleverly forged by no other than Roland Mortlake, who is now flying for his life from the officers of justice."
"Extraordinary! most extraordinary!" aspirated Mr. Davenport.
He was getting very quiet, his purple face was fading into a frightened gray, his rousing tones were sinking into a soft dejection; he began to scent a mistake from afar, and to shoulder the humiliation.
And at this auspicious moment, Mrs. Chetwode opened the door and announced Dr. Gay, just arrived, to demand his explanation.
The lawyer stepped to the door to warn Dr. Gay of his error, and shook hands with the solemnity of a sexton greeting the chief mourner at a funeral.
"There's been a terrible blunder here," said he, spiritlessly; "we've both allowed ourselves to be made confounded fools of by a rascal. Have you heard anything in the town?"
"Not I," returned the little doctor, who looked as if he had not slept for a week. "I've just come home, and rushed over here as fast as a horse's legs could carry me. How are you now, Miss Margaret?"
"Well, thank you, and overjoyed to see you back again. I feel safe now," murmured Margaret, looking up in her counselor's face with a gentle glance. "There will be an end to all misunderstanding now, and we shall be friends as we used to be."
Mr. Davenport was wiping his forehead with his enormous bandanna, and looking very foolish; and Dr. Gay stared from one to the other, and got more mystified every minute.
"Have you made anything of this queer business?" asked he.
"Gad! sir, I think we have," returned the lawyer; "and more than we bargained for. We've caught a rascal in it!"
"Rascal enough!" sighed the little doctor, wearily. "He led me a fine dance of it. I suppose you want to hear what induced me to fly off at a tangent to the other side of England, don't you? A Welsh gentleman, calling himself Mr. Grayly, a tall, red-faced blue-eyed chap in a fur coat, called on me at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, with the strange tidings that he had come from New Radnor in Wales—fancy that—and got me to believe it, too, the rogue—where the true Colonel Brand was lying sick at the country house of a brother officer in the Guards. I was struck dumb, and didn't know what to think, till a dispatch came per telegraph from the colonel himself, begging me to come and see him, and assuring me that Grayly would tell me all about him. So Grayly hustled me off on the half-past nine train, before I had time to think of anything. At —— in Berks my friend the Welshman got out, saying that he had an hour's business to transact there, but that I could go on, and he would overtake me in Cirencester; so off I went alone, thinking no evil. But I've never seen him since, the dog."
"Miss Margaret received this letter, posted in the same village," interposed Mr. Davenport, exhibiting it grimly.
Dr. Gay read it with stupefied wonder.
"St. George and the Dragon!" muttered he, "this is a cruel hoax. Who could have written that so like me. Grayly did it, I suppose, though."
"Grayly,aliasO'Grady, posted it," said Margaret; "but he was employed to do so. Another than he wrote it, a cleverer forger. Well, how did your adventure end?"
"Oh, as might have been expected. I posted on, mad with excitement, to New Radnor in search of the sick man, and Grayly's instructions brought me to the door of a ladies' private boarding-school, where I was well stared at, and no doubt laughed at for my stupidity. So, finding that I had been cheated by a rogue who probably wanted to play off a practical joke upon my credulity—(I suppose everybody is laughing at Miss Margaret's suspicions of the colonel here, she must have mentioned them somewhere)—I came back quicker than I went, determined to sift the matter well."
"I need prepare your minds no better for the disclosures you must now hear," said Margaret, "for you will not discredit my story, after the mortifying experiences which you have had. I will not reproach you for your past injustice to me, for your desertion of my cause to the side of my enemy, or for your unfounded suspicion of my sanity. I only regret that your past inactivity has forced me to put this desperate case in the hands of a stranger who could not feel the interest in it which you should have felt. But no more of this. I shall explain all to you."
She faithfully narrated all that had happened since the night on which she had obtained possession of Roland Mortlake's pocket-book.
The two executors heard the recital; Dr. Gay with groans of horror, Mr. Davenport in meek and abject silence.
It was almost pathetic to observe the humility with which the overbearing lawyer received the intelligence of his egregious credulity and wanton obstinacy, but he did not say a word until the narration was completed, and then he dejectedly begged Miss Margaret to give him something to do for her.
They took counsel together, and at last parted with mutual good will and cordiality; Dr. Gay going back to his wife in such a maze of stupid preoccupation as submerged him in conjugal hot water for many a day; while Mr. Davenport pugnaciously burst into young Emersham's office and electrified him like a torpedo, on the subject of O'Grady's proper handling.
The days passed by—Andrew Davenport and Seamore Emersham, counsels for the plaintiff, announced their case complete; the chain of evidence which was to strangle Roland Mortlake, wanted not a link of the judicial measure required; his own confessions were there, his accomplice O'Grady was there with his secret disclosures; the witnesses were on the ground—all was complete, and nothing wanting except the criminal.
It was to no purpose, the doubling and twisting of secret detectives, many a day might pass away before they could overtake the game on that road, for he was perfect in such a part, his life had been one long race through tortuous paths, with the sword of justice pursuing him.
The hue and cry of outraged law rang wrathfully through the land; the public papers teemed with accounts of the great Castle Brand plot; the public mind execrated Roland Mortlake as a revolting rogue to murder so much better a man than himself, that he might steal his station; but the hero of the universal tongue kept discreet obscurity, and ventured not within the radius of his evil popularity.
Still O'Grady kept whispering his strange disclosures, and, under the upper stratum of wordy clamor, the sly detectives, led by Davenport, dug away at the secret lead, with hopes of coming treasure.
The dark-faced mistress of Castle Brand wore her soul out in pining for the end; and day by day she saw the wintry sun go down with a cry against the slow moving arm of justice; mingled with a piteous self-reproach when she noted the fierce spirit which had been born in her.
Her thin cheek seldom lost its feverish carmine, nor her eyes their lance-like gleam; her magnificent figure was uplifted with perpetual imperiousness; a Fulvia, a Semiramis, a black browed Nemesis, was Margaret Walsingham in those bitter days of her suspense.
Yet she could weep soft, tender tears before St. Udo's portrait, and hug the phantom chains of her supernal love to as love-some a heart as ever man won.
But passion and patience will not work in double harness, they wear the life out in their unceasing strife; and though she had lived through terrible scenes, she felt that she could not live through this.
But it is a long lane which has no turning; Margaret's turned very suddenly, and ushered her into a fairy land, whose ghost lights dazzled her eyes; whose strange, wild, awful beauty filled her soul with eternal sunshine.
Thus it fell out.
On a sunny day in January, a traveling coach crunched up the drive to Castle Brand, and produced a visitor for Miss Walsingham.
The Waaste, so broad and rolling, looked well in its garb of snow, in which the late New Year had wed it; and along the drive the phinny firs and silver holly-bushes were piled with molded purity, while every creamy nymph in stone or stucco wore a crown of brightness.
The turrets even of the hoary castle were fringed with diamond stalactites, from which dropped liquid pearls upon the deep green ivy; and the griffins at the door each upheld a cone of dazzling snow upon his old stone forehead.
The visitor glanced about with many a smirk of approbation, and some wise shrugs of the shoulder; but said nothing aloud, preserving his breath for more important speech.
Margaret was sitting listlessly over her needle-work when the footman brought her a card, upon which was discernible, amid flourishes of the wildest fantasy, "Ludovic, Chevalier de Calembours."
She started up with a wild flush mantling her cheek, and a smothered cry of wrath.
The elegant little gentleman clad in the Hungarian velvet costume, beribboned, bejeweled, flaunting with many a badge of mystic significance, got upon his crooked little legs, and held out his white hands dramatically to the flashing, palpitating, queen-like creature who swept through the great drawing-room to greet him for the first time.
"Chevalier de Calembours! accomplice of Roland Mortlake, I have heard of you before!" she panted, not deigning to touch him.
"Mademoiselle Walsingham, champion of Colonel Brand, all the world has heard of you before!" rasped the bland-faced Hun.
"Why have you come here, heartless man!" cried Margaret.
"To see the dear mademoiselle whose actions so wise, so unselfish, soheroique, have won my heart?"
"Am I to accept praise from the enemy of St. Udo Brand? Never! You murdered him among you!"
"Softly, my heroine! The chevalier was not on the field when the admirable colonel was stabbed!Ma foi!he was lying bleeding on his litter amid his Southern friends, who had captured him for the second time. The first, the dear mademoiselle knows, the chance of fortune wooed me to the South; but the second,mon Dieu!no one asked me my will, but they hacked and hewed over my shackled body, and then the South won me from my captors."
"Sir, I desire to hear nothing of your history. You were paid by the murderer to dog the steps of St. Udo Brand; you were both leagued against him. Had he ever harmed you, chevalier? Was he not too brave to fall by treachery?"
Quite undaunted by her reproaches, M. le Chevalier listened to her passionate praise of his quondam comrade with sparkling eyes, and threw up his hands in ecstatic assent.
"Brave, did mademoiselle say?" he echoed; "mon Dieu!he was gallant, gay, free-hearted,helas!that the ladies should love such an Apollo."
"And you betrayed him, knowing him to be all this?" she cried, bitterly.
"Par la messe!mademoiselle is not just!" complained the chevalier, with tears in his eyes. "I lovemoncolonel, admire, believe in him; I spit upon Monsieur Mortlake—laugh at, revile him! Mademoiselle must have found out that I obeyed him—never; that I stuck to my colonel only because I love him; and that I left him not until fortune beckoned me away. If he had given me his dear company when I fled to Richmond, he would not have been to-day where he is; but would he? not though I prayed to him with tears in the eyes, with grief in the heart. No, no, he was doomed; he would stay with the Yankees, and—Thoms!"
"Did you not suspect who Thoms was, especially as Mortlake sent him to you?"
"Oh! I was blind. I was bewitched; the wretch was too cunning, mademoiselle. But pray, what has all the cunning ended in? Bah! simplicity, honesty for me; I still live, and walk abroad, a free man. But I am a Chevalier of honor. I scorn a crooked policy. When for the second time the South won Calembours, I found that perfidious fortune had changed her mood; from filling my pockets with gold as commissary general, she descended to thrusting me into that unwholesome residence in Richmond, Castle Thunder. All because some head of wood suggested that the Chevalier de Calembours was selling the North to the South, andvice versa. But the chevalier is a Knight of Industry as well as of Honor—he ever makes the honey where other bees would but starved carcasses. I make the situation palatable even in Castle Thunder, for there is a blue-coated soldier with me there. He is wounded, I nurse him; he is hungry, I feed him from my wretched pittance; we mingle our tears over the moldy crust and the muddy water—we console each other.
"When he is able to crawl, I file off his chains; together we dig our tunnel through the dungeon floor. We have no tools but we use a broken plate and a rusty key, and—patience. Night and day, mademoiselle, night and day that invalid soldier and I gnaw through the baked earth; the nails are torn from the fingers; see,ma chère!the clothes are worn from the bodies;mon cameradefaints often, almost dies; but one day we see the sunny earth come crumbling into our rat-hole.Mon Dieu!we have penetrated beneath the wall—we are free.
"I drag him out that night—I drag him into the woods; he says he will die joyfully a free man—he cannot die a captive. But we do not let him die; we aid him day by day through the dismal swamps, cold, wet, famished, but he lives to reach Washington, and he is received in a hospital; while I,morbleu, they give me the cold shoulder, they point the finger, they cry, 'Renegade!' My friend whom I have aided, grows worse of his wound, and cannot speak for me; McClellan, Banks, Pope, Stanton, are all down on poor Calembours for past injuries they dream that he has done them with the South. So, mademoiselle must hear that the republican rabble hoot me from their midst with vile names, and hard usage, and ugly threats, just as the graycoats had done in Richmond, because I believe in universal suffrage, and am a madcosmopolite, and see no difference between the greedy North and the hungry South. In vain I confide my need to these dogs, in vain I remind the War Department of past deeds of mine while serving under McClellan. They call my laurels tarnished with treachery, they call my past services canceled by succeeding bribery, they refuse me my little price, and order me to leave their barbaric soil.
"So I turn the back upon the dogs who snarl so loudly over their uninviting bone, and, although the tears gush from the eyes at parting from the dear friend whom I aided, I am forced to leave him behind.
"What though I have thrown behind me an illustrious life, titles, honors, pleasures, for to give these dogs my nameless services?
"Where Colonel Brand, the lion of chivalry raged, was not I, Colonel Calembours, ever at his side, the unwearied partner of the perilous speculation?
"But when I fall under the blind displeasure of the stupid bureau at Washington, justice, nay, honesty, is forgotten—they mulct me of my laurels.
"I go to New York, and turn into a dealer for horseflesh for the army. In a few weeks I fill my wrinkled purse, and get rid of the last of my consignment; and, before the wretched brutes have time to betray their many infirmities, New York in turn loses Calembours. But ere I leave I have the satisfaction of again greeting my invalid friend, who has been sent North to a better hospital, and who is gradually convalescing. He urges me to stay with him, that we may begin the world together; but I have a sacred duty to perform, a slight to remember, an insult to avenge. I am free, I have money, I have health, and I come here, to this Castle Brand, to see mademoiselle, and (for revenge) to sell to her—a secret."
The chevalier paused withempressement, and remained peering into his listener's face with a gay, encouraging smile for two or three minutes.
Whiter Margaret could not be, nor colder.
"Proceed, monsieur," she breathed at last; "do not mock my anxiety."
"Mademoiselle understands that what follows is for sale?" quoth the chevalier slyly.
"Yes, yes, you shall be satisfied. Proceed."
"Mille mercies, dear mademoiselle.Eh, bien!I will do myself the honor to keep you au courant with my history. History pleases mademoiselle; she is a good listener—ma foi!a very good listener.
"Voila!I begin at the end of the volume. I begin, as do the Hebrews, at the last page, and read from right to left, to meet this end of the little tale which you have just heard.
"Some months ago—perhaps eighteen—I, the illustrious Chevalier de Calembours, arrived at Canterbury, on business of mine.
"In time I meet a very great man there; we playrouge-et-noir;mon Dieu!he cheats me atrouge-et-noir. Mademoiselle,rouge-et-noiris my own great weapon,ma foi!I must have learned it in my cradle when an infant; with it I have beat the world, with it I have cheated the world—and this greatest of men cheats me!
"I stop the game, I contemplate him with exalted emotions, with admiration, with awe; tears start to the eyes, I offer him the hand.
"Monsieur," I cry, with much enthusiasm, "tell me your name. You shall be my great model in this noble game; I shall be your pupil."
"The great man glares at me through those cavernous eyes; his lips, so thin and evil, smile sourly, and his long fingers make me the gambler's sign. Ah! he is the gambler by profession, then—the sly sharper, the hanger-on upon the young of the military. I marvel no more at his proficiency in the art in which, beside him, I am but an amateur.
"'My name is Roland Mortlake,' he says, unwillingly; 'you are welcome to any hints you think I can give you; but I was admiring your play all the time. I've never seen it equalled.'
"Mademoiselle, this man had played in Germany, in Italy, in France, and he had never seen my play equalled.
"I listen to the delicious praise; the heart swells with generous pride; I rise, I embrace him as a brother.
"'You do me too much honor, Monsieur Mortlake,' I cry; 'you do the Count of Santo Spirito, Turin, too much honor.'
"We became acquaintances, friends, inseparable brothers—we became necessary to each other.
"We combine our forces, we cheat the world, and we reap a golden harvest.
"The world issogulliblechère amie. Why not glean the benefit then?
"'I must go to London,' says my friend, in March; 'better come along. We can always pigeon the subs, and they are always to be found there.'
"My friend was a great player, but he spoke ill, even coarsely at times.
"So be it,camerade!' I cry and we go.
"At first we do well; we enter humble circles, and we mount to higher every day; the purse is very full, the heart is very merry, when,ouais!hush! Monsieur Mortlake becomes mysterious, close, unjust—says:
"'Better keep out of sight for a while, Calembours; I can't be seen with a notorious harpy like you just now; the circle I'm getting into won't care for a dirty little Frenchman. They're exclusive.'
"'Merci, Monsieur Mortlake,' I return, 'Napoleon the brave thought Calembours worthy of the Legion of Honor; but perhaps your circle are right, and are exclusive of the nobility.'
"We part good friends, though, for are we not necessary to each other? He goes his way and I go mine, but I set myself to know the reason why.
"I discover my Mortlake hovering about a great flame in the military world—a Captain St. Udo Brand, of the Coldstream Guards, who has great expectation of a wealthy grandmother dying and leaving him the sole heir.
"My Mortlake wheels nearer and nearer this mighty captain, learns all he can about his history and habits, and becomes an acquaintance of his. What he intends to do with him I cannot tell; for he cannot pigeonhimas he pigeons weaker men. My faith, he dares not.
"Captain Brand treats the gambling Mortlake with that lofty insolence which great men show to little men; he is indifferent to him, he forgets his presence, he turns the back upon him at the mess-table when any of the softer officers bring him there.
"My Mortlake does not like it; he grows very black when the captain is not by, and he swears a great deal against him.
"I look on and laugh; it is a gaycomediefor me. I clasp the hands and cryencore!
"Presently the great captain's grandmama's malady grows worse; messages continue to arrive, and he must go to Surrey.
"Monsieur Mortlake comes to me with his curious green eyes gleaming.
"'Come Calembours,' he says; 'we may as well take a run down to Surrey to see this wonderful castle.'
"'So be it!' I cry once more, and we go.
"We are living at a hotel in Regis when the sullen captain arrives; he is accosted to his surprise by Monsieur Mortlake, who is of course quite astonished to meet him there.
"Captain Brand swears a good deal at the idea of going down to that 'infernal dull hole,' his grandmother's handsome castle, which he assures Mr. Mortlake is inhabited by old women and servants.
"'A note will do for to-night, by Jove!' vows Captain Brand, 'and I'll send it over.'
"Monsieur Mortlake protests that he has heard so much of the antiquity of Castle Brand that he would think it a boon if the captain would permit him to carry that note, if it is only for the chance of seeing such a castle.
"'By all means you shall, if that will please you,' says the captain.
"Mademoiselle, as these men stand together in the lobby, I looking down from the staircase upon them—for has not monsieur ordered me not to disgrace him by intruding upon the captain?—a very strange idea occurs to me; it strikes me very forcibly. I watch the men with amazement, with fear. As we ride away together in the moonlight, I say to my friend:
"'Monsieur le Capitaine is a most handsome man.'
"He only curses Monsieur le Capitaine.
"I say again:
"'Mon ami, do not execrate your own image.'
"He turns in his saddle with a savage oath—he glares like the hungry wolf.
"'What's that, you jabbering idiot!' he roars, in his brutal way.
"'Captain Brand and Monsieur Mortlake seem like as twin dogs,' I reply; 'you might change names with our haughty captain, and no one be the wiser, save that he has thebel airwhich you want—the polish, the courtesy, which those of the mob can never learn.'
"'Curse him! I have as good blood in my veins as he has any day!' hisses the furious voice of my envious Mortlake.
"Then he turns sour and silent, and is very poor company. I singchansonettesto the moon; I whistle operas; I talk to my horse; he takes no notice; I rally him upon his temper, and he swears madly at me.
"So I light my cigar and smoke for company until we reach the great Castle Brand, which towers like a vast cathedral under the moon.
"Mademoiselle, a magnificent statue waits him at the door. Mademoiselle remembers the interview. Enough! My tripping tongue need not rehearse the scene.
"Back comes Monsieur Mortlake, devil-possessed, and overwhelms me with a terrible curse.
"I laugh at his slow-stepping wit.
"I have seen a pretty possibility for monsieur, even while mademoiselle is speaking.
"'Stupid Englishman!' I cry, as we ride across the Waaste, 'don't you see that you might get this fine English castle and estate to yourself some day, if you could personate brave Captain Brand?'
"My romantic fancy is captivated by this little scheme. I go on amusing myself by describing how it might be done. I give you my word, mademoiselle, that it is all in jest—a freak of imagination nothing more.
"My sour comrade listens with a serpent's guile; his clever brain is twisting a rope out of my threads of fiction; he catches my bagatelle, and transforms it into a plot—the plot which would have proved successful but for Marguerite, the heroic.
"Eh bien, to continue:
"We ride away to the hotel at Regis that night, and monsieur had a little interview with Captain Brand, and tells him the message which Mademoiselle Walsingham has sent to him. Then is the captain furious, and impatient, and self-reproachful for his cold-blooded neglect of the poor fond grandmama, and he gallops off to the old castle on the wings of the wind, and is too late, and remains moping at the castle, seeing nobody but red-eyed Chetwode, for the magnificent Mademoiselle Walsingham has locked herself within her room and will not see him.
"My careful Mortlake gathers all this from the footmen and servants from the castle, and makes envious remarks upon the dog that has, and wants it not, and the dog that wants, and has it not.
"In the evening of that day on which Madame Brand is interred, Monsieur le Capitaine comes back to Regis choking with rage. Monsieur Mortlake offers congratulations, and hears the whole of the will from our angry captain, who utters a scornful fanfaronade against the brave Mademoiselle Walsingham. Cries royally:
"'I won't interfere with the companion—she's free for me; I'll get out of England as fast as I can, and try my luck abroad.'
"'Try the United States,' insinuates M. Mortlake.