"How sweet are looks that ladies bendOn whom their favors fall;For them I battle to the endTo save from shame and thrall."
"How sweet are looks that ladies bendOn whom their favors fall;For them I battle to the endTo save from shame and thrall."
Van Zandt had gone but a few squares, with his eyes cast down and his mind very busy, before he stumbled up against a man coming from an opposite direction. Both being tall and strong, they recoiled with some force from the shock, each muttering confused apologies.
But the next moment there was an exclamation:
"Van Zandt, upon my word!" cried the musical voice of Pierre Carmontelle. "Why, man, what the deuce ails you, to go butting up against a fellow in that striking fashion?"
"Carmontelle!"
"Yes—or, at least, what is left of him after your villainous assault. Where were your eyes,mon ami, that you run up against a fellow so recklessly? And where have you been, anyway—to madame's?"
Eliot Van Zandt laughed at his friend's droll raillery.
"Yes, I have just come from Madame Lorraine's," he said. "And I came away in a brown study, which accounts for my not seeing you. And you—you were on your way there?"
"Yes."
The word was spoken in a strange voice, and an odd little laugh followed it. Then the big, handsome Louisianian suddenly took hold of Van Zandt's arm, and said:
"Come, I have a great mind to make a confidant of you. Let us go and sit down yonder in the square, and smoke."
When they were seated, and puffing away at their cigars, he began:
"The fact is, I was in a brown study, too, Van Zandt, or I should not have run against you. I was going to Madame Lorraine's, and I found myself thinking soberly, seriously about the beautiful madame's wretched little slave and foot-ball, the Little Nobody you saw there last night."
"Yes," Van Zandt answered, with a quick start.
"By Heaven! it is a shame that the poor, pretty little vixen has no friends to rescue her from her tormentor!" exclaimed Carmontelle, vehemently. "For years this cruelty has been going on, and the girl, with her immortal soul, has been made a puppet by that charming, heartless woman. Would you believe it, the girl has never been given even the rudiments of an education? She is ignorant as a little savage, with not even a name. Yet I have seen this go on for years, in my careless fashion, without an effort to help the child. I can not understand what has roused me from my apathy, what has made me think of her at last—ah,mon Dieu!"
This exclamation was called forth by some sudden inward light. He went on, with a half-shamed laugh:
"What a speech I have made you, although I do notusually preach. Van Zandt, am I getting good, do you think, or—have I fallen in love with that Little Nobody?"
There was a minute's pause, and Eliot Van Zandt took the cigar from between his lips, and answered, quietly:
"In love, decidedly."
"Parbleu!"
After that hurried exclamation there was a moment's silence. Carmontelle broke it with an uneasy laugh.
"I am forty years old, but I suppose a man is never too old to make a fool of himself," he said. "I believe you are right,mon ami. I could not get the child out of my head last night. I never noticed how pretty she was before; and those lashes on her sweet, white shoulders. I longed to kiss them, as children say, to make them well."
"Poor child!" said Van Zandt; and then, without preamble, he blurted out the story of what had just happened.
Carmontelle listened with clinched hands and flashing eyes, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords.
"The fiend!" he muttered. "Peste! he was always a sneak, always a villain at heart. More than once we have wished him well out of the club. Now he shall be lashed from the door, the double-dyed scoundrel! And she, the deceitful madame, she could plan this horrid deed! She is less than woman. She shall suffer, mark you, for her sin."
"But the little ma'amselle, Carmontelle? What shall we do to deliver her from her peril? Every passing moment brings her doom nearer, yet I can think of nothing. My brain seems dull and dazed."
"Do? Why, we shall take a carriage and bring her away 'over the garden wall,'" replied Carmontelle, lightly but emphatically.
"Very well; but—next?"
Carmontelle stared and repeated, in some bewilderment:
"Next?"
Eliot Van Zandt explained:
"I mean, what shall we do when we have brought her away? Where shall we find her a refuge and hiding-place from her treacherous enemies?" anxiously.
"You cold-blooded, long-headed Yankee! I never thought of that. I should have brought her away without thinking of the future. But you are right. It is a question that should be decided first. What, indeed, shall we do with the girl?"
And for a moment they looked at each other, in the starlight, almost helplessly.
Then Van Zandt said, questioningly:
"Perhaps you have relatives or friends with whom you could place her? I am not rich, but I could spare enough to educate this wronged child."
"I have not a relative in the world—not a friend I could trust; nothing but oceans of money, so you may keep yours. I'll spend some of mine in turning this little savage into a Christian."
"You will take her to school, then, right away?" Van Zandt went on, in his quiet, pertinacious way.
"Yes; and, by Jove, when she comes out, finished, I'll marry her, Van Zandt! I will, upon my word!"
"If she will have you," laconically.
"Peste! what a fellow you are, to throw cold water upon one. Perhaps you have designs upon her yourself?"
"Not in the face of your munificent intentions," carelessly.
"Very well; I shall consider her won, then, since you are too generous to enter the lists against me. What a magnificent beauty she will make when she has learned her three R's!" laughingly. "But, come; shall we not go at once to deliver our little friend from Castle Dangerous?"
They rose.
"I am glad I ran against you, Carmontelle. You have straightened out the snarl that tangled my mind. Now for our little stratagem. You will bring the carriage to the end of the square, while I go back to the garden and steal the bird away."
"Excellent!" said Carmontelle. "Oh, how they will rage when they find the bird has flown! To-morrow the club shall settle with Remond; for madame, she shall be ostracised. We shall desert her in a body. Who would have believed she would be so base?"
Van Zandt made no comment. He only said, as if struck by a sudden thought:
"The poor child will have no clothes fit to wear away. Can you find time, while getting a carriage, to buy a gray dress, a long ulster, and a hat and veil?"
"Of course. What a fellow you are to think of things! I should not have thought of such a thing; yet what school would have received her in that white slip—picturesque, but not much better than a ballet-dancer's skirts!" exclaimed the lively Southerner. "You are a trump, Van Zandt. Can you think of anything else as sensible?"
"Some fruit and bonbons to soothe her at school—that is all," lightly, as they parted, one to return to Mme. Lorraine's, the other to perfect the arrangements for checkmating Remond's nefarious design.
Carmontelle was full of enthusiasm over the romantic idea that had occurred so suddenly to his mind. A smile curled his lips, as he walked away, thinking of dark-eyed Little Nobody, and running over in his mind a score of feminine cognomens, with one of which he meant to endow the nameless girl.
"Constance, Marie, Helene, Angela, Therese, Maude, Norine, Eugenie, etc.," ran his thoughts; but Eliot Van Zandt's took a graver turn as he went back to the starlit garden and the girl who believed him her Heaven-sent deliverer from peril and danger.
"There is but little I can do; Carmontelle takes it all out of my hands," he mused. "Perhaps it is better so; he is rich, free."
A sigh that surprised himself, and he walked on a little faster until he reached the gate by which he had left the garden. Here he stopped, tapped softly, and waited.
But there was no reply to his knock, although he rapped again. Evidently she had gone into the house.
"I shall have to go in," he thought, shrinking from the encounter with the wicked madame and her partner in villainy, M. Remond.
Madame was at the piano, Remond turning the leaves of her music while she rendered a brilliantmorceau. His hasty glance around the room did not find the little ma'amselle.
"She will be here presently," he decided, as he returned with what grace he could Mme. Lorraine's effusive greeting.
She was looking even lovelier than last night, in a costume of silvery silk that looked like the shimmer of moonlight on a lake. Her white throat rose from a mist of lace clasped by a diamond star. In her rich puffs of dark hair nestled white Niphetos roses shedding their delicate perfume about her as she moved with languid grace. The costume had been chosen for him. She had a fancy that it would appeal to his sense of beauty and purity more than her glowing robes of last night.
She was right. He started with surprise and pleasure at the dazzling sight, but the admiration was quickly succeeded by disgust.
"So beautiful, yet so wicked!" he said, to himself.
"You were singing. Pray go on," he said, forcing her back to the piano.
It would be easier to sit and listen than to take part in the conversation with his mind on thequi vivefor the entranceof her he had come to save. He listened mechanically to the sentimental Italianchansonmadame chose, but kept his eyes on the door, expecting every minute to see apetitewhite form enter the silken portals.
Remond saw the watchfulness, and scowled with quick malignity.
"Other eyes than mine watch for her coming," he thought.
The song went on. The minutes waned. Van Zandt furtively consulted his watch.
"Past ten. What if that wicked woman has already forced her to retire?" he thought, in alarm, and the minutes dragged like leaden weights.
"Oh, if I could but slip into the garden. Perhaps she is there still, fallen asleep like a child on the garden-seat."
Mme. Lorraine's high, sweet voice broke suddenly in upon his thoughts.
"Monsieur, you sing, I am sure. With those eyes it were useless to deny it. You will favor us?"
He was about to refuse brusquely, when a thought came to him. She would hear his voice, she would hasten to him, and the message of hope must be whispered quickly ere it was too late.
He saw Remond watching him with sarcastic eyes, and said, indifferently:
"I can sing a little from a habit of helping my sisters at home. And I belong to a glee club. If these scant recommendations please you, I will make an effort to alarm New Orleans with my voice."
"You need not decry your talents. I am sure you will charm us," she said; and Van Zandt dropped indolently upon the music-stool. His long, white fingers moved softly among the keys, evoking a tender accompaniment to one of Tennyson's sweetest love songs:
"'Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,Come hither, the dances are done.In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,Queen lily and rose in one;Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,To the flowers, and be their sun."'There has fallen a splendid tearFrom the passion-flower at the gate.She is coming, my dove, my dear;She is coming, my life, my fate;The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near,"And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear,"And the lily whispers, "I wait."'"
"'Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,Come hither, the dances are done.In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,Queen lily and rose in one;Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,To the flowers, and be their sun.
"'There has fallen a splendid tearFrom the passion-flower at the gate.She is coming, my dove, my dear;She is coming, my life, my fate;The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near,"And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear,"And the lily whispers, "I wait."'"
The man and the woman looked at each other behind his back. Remond wore a significant scowl; madame a jealous sneer. It faded into a smile as he whirled around on the music-stool and faced her with a look of feigned adoration.
"Last night was so heavenly in the garden—let us go out again," he said, almost consumed by impatience.
Time was going fast, and it lacked little more than an hour to midnight. He chafed at the thought that Carmontelle was waiting with the carriage, impatient, and wondering at the strange delay.
"We will go into the garden," assented Mme. Lorraine. "Ah, you cold-looking Yankee, you can be as sentimental as a Southerner. Monsieur Remond, will you accompany us?"
"Pardon; I will go home. I have no fancy for love among the roses," with a covert sneer. "Madame, monsieur,bon soir."
He bowed and was gone. Van Zandt drew a long breath of dismay.
What if he should stumble upon Carmontelle and the carriage waiting at the end of the square under cover of the night?
It was impossible to follow. Mme. Lorraine's white hand clasping his arm, drew him out into the garden, with its sweet odors, its silence, and dew.
His heart leaped with expectancy.
"I shall find her here asleep among the flowers, forgetful of the dangers that encompass her young life."
He declared to Mme. Lorraine that he did not want to miss a single beauty of the romantic old garden, and dragged her remorselessly all over its length and breadth. Perhaps she guessed his intent, but she made no sign. She was bright, amiable, animated, all that a woman can be who hopes to charm a man.
He scarcely heeded her, so frantically was he looking everywhere for a crouching white form that he could not find. There came to him suddenly a horrified remembrance of her pathetic words:
"There is still the river!"
A bell somewhere in the distance chimed the half hour in silvery tones. Only thirty minutes more to midnight!
With some incoherent excuse he tore himself away from her, and dashing wildly out into the street, ran against Pierre Carmontelle for the second time that night.
"I have waited for hours, and was just coming to seek you. What does this mean?" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
A whispered explanation forced a smothered oath from his lips.
"Be calm. There is but one way left us. We will conceal ourselves near the door and wrest her from them when they bring her out," said Eliot Van Zandt.
But no place of concealment presented itself. The broad pavement showed a long, unbroken space of moonlit stone, save where one tall tree reared its stately heightoutside the curb-stone, and flung long, weird shadows across the front of madame's house.
Carmontelle looked up and down the street, and shook his head.
"I can see no hiding-place but the tree," he said.
"We need none better, unless you are too stout to scale it," Van Zandt answered, coolly, turning a questioning glance upon the rather corpulent form of his good-looking companion.
"You will see," laughed the Southerner, softly.
He glanced up and down the street, and seeing no one in sight, made a bound toward the tree, flung out his arms, and scaled it with admirable agility, finding a very comfortable seat among its low-growing branches. Van Zandt followed his example with boyish ease, and they were soon seated close to each other on the boughs of the big tree, almost as comfortable as if they had been lounging on the satin couches of madame'srecherchésalon. It was delightful up there among the cool green leaves, with the fresh wind blowing the perfume of madame's flowers into their faces.
"I feel like a boy again," said the journalist, gayly.
"Softly; we are opposite the windows of madame's chamber, I think," cautioned Carmontelle.
"She will not come up yet; she will wait in the salon for Remond. It is but a few minutes to midnight."
A step approached, and they held their breath in excessive caution.
It passed on—only a guardian of the peace pacing his beat serenely, his brass buttons shining in the moonlight.
Van Zandt whispered:
"I am not sure but we should have invoked the aid of the law in our trouble."
But Pierre Carmontelle shook his head.
"The law is too slow sometimes," he said. "We will place the little girl in some safe refuge first, then, ifMadame Lorraine attempts to make trouble, we will resort to legal measures. I am not apprehensive of trouble on that score, however, for madame really has no legal right to the girl. Has she not declared scores of times that her maid died, and left the child upon her hands, and that, only for pity's sake, she would have sent her off to an orphan asylum?"
Steps and voices came along the pavement—two roystering lads, fresh from some festal scene, their steps unsteady with wine. They passed out of sight noisily recounting their triumph to each other. Then the echo of wheels in the distance, "low on the sand, loud on the stone."
"Are you armed?" whispered the Louisianian, nervously.
"No."
The cold steel of a pistol pressed his hand.
"Take that; I brought two," whispered Carmontelle. "We may need them. One of us must stand at bay, while the other seizes and bears away the girl."
"It shall be I. I will cover your flight," Van Zandt said, quietly.
Under his calm exterior was seething a tempest of wrath and indignation that made him clutch the weapon in a resolute grasp. He had pure and fair young sisters at home. The thought of them made him feel more strongly for madame's forlorn victim.
Their hearts leaped into their throats as Remond's close carriage dashed into sight, whirled up to madame's door, and stopped.
The door swung open, and Remond, muffled up to the ears, sprung out and went up to the house.
Its portals opened as if by magic, with a swish of silken robes in the hall. Madame herself had silently admitted her co-conspirator.
Most fortunately the back of the carriage was towardthe tree, and the driver's attention was concentrated upon his restive horses.
Silently as shadows the two men slid down from their novel hiding-place, tiptoed across the pavement, and took up their grim station on either side the closed door.
Not a moment too soon!
At that very instant the door unclosed, and Remond appeared upon the threshold bearing in his arms a slight, inert figure wrapped in a long, dark cloak. Madame, still in her diamonds, roses, and silvery drapery, appeared behind him just in time to see a powerful form swoop down upon Remond, wrest his prize from him, and make off with wonderful celerity, considering the weight of the girlish form in his arms.
She fell back with a cry of dismay.
"Diable!Spies!"
Remond had recoiled on the instant with a fierce oath hissed in his beard—only an instant; then he dashed forward in mad pursuit, only to be tripped by an outstretched foot that flung him face downward on the hard pavement.
Scrambling up in hot haste, with the blood gushing from his nostrils, he found his way barred by Eliot Van Zandt.
"Back, villain! Your prey has escaped you!" the young man cried, sternly.
A black and bitter oath escaped Remond, and his trembling hand sought his belt.
He hissed savagely:
"Accursed spy! Your life shall answer for this!"
Then the long keen blade of a deadly knife flashed in the moonlight. Simultaneously there was the flash and report of a pistol. Both men fell at once to the ground, and at the same moment there was a swish and rustle of silvery silk, as beautiful Mme. Lorraine retreated from her threshold, slamming and locking her door upon the sight of the bloodshed of which she had been the cause.
"Let them kill each other, the fools, if they have no more sense," she muttered, scornfully, heartlessly, as she retired to her salon.
Remond's horses had been so frightened by the pistol-shot that they had run off with their alarmed driver, who had dropped the reins in the first moment of terror. There now remained only two of the six souls present a moment ago, Van Zandt and Remond lying silent where they had fallen under the cold, white light of the moonlight.
But presently the Frenchman struggled slowly up to his feet, and put his hand to his shoulder with a stifled curse.
"The dog has put a bullet through my shoulder. Never mind, we are quits, for I ran my knife through his heart," he muttered, hastening away from the scene of bloodshed.
But Eliot Van Zandt lay still where he had fallen, with his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and the red blood pouring in a torrent from the gaping wound in his breast.
Carmontelle made his way with what speed he could, hampered as he was by the heavy, unconscious form of the girl, to the carriage which he had in waiting at the end of the square. His speed was not great enough, however, to hinder him from hearing the sharp report of the pistol as it went off in Van Zandt's hand, and a slight tremor ran along his firm nerves.
"Somebody killed or wounded—and I pray it may be Remond, the dastardly villain," he thought. "I should not like for any harm to come to that noble young Van Zandt."
Then he paused while the driver sprung down from the box and opened the door for him. He laid his burdendown upon a seat, sprung in, and then the door was closed.
"To the Convent of Le Bon Berger," he said.
"Oui, monsieur."
The man whipped up his horses, and they were off at a spanking pace.
A happy thought had occurred to Carmontelle. He had a friend who was the Mother Superior of the Convent of the Good Shepherd. To her pious care he would confide the poor, helpless lamb just rescued from the jaws of the hungry wolf.
When the carriage had started off, he drew the thick wrappings from the head of the unconscious girl and looked at her face. It was deathly white, and the long, thick fringe of her dark lashes lay heavily against her cheeks. Her young bosom heaved with slow, faint respiration, but he tried in vain to arouse her from the heavy stupor that held her in its chains.
Mme. Lorraine had been more clever than any one suspected. She had given the drug to her victim in a cup of tea, before she went out to the garden. Consequently the narcotic was already working in her veins when she flung herself at Van Zandt's feet, imploring his aid, and in a very few minutes after he had left her she fell into a heavy sleep upon the garden-seat, her last coherent thought being of him who had promised to save her from the perils that threatened her young life.
Carmontelle gazed with deep pity and strong emotion on the piquant and exquisitely lovely face, realizing that that beauty had well-nigh proved a fatal dower to the forlorn girl.
Deep, strong emotion stirred the man's heart as he gazed, and he vowed to himself that however friendless, nameless, and lowly born was the girl, she should never want a friend and protector again.
"I am rich and well-born, and she shall share all Ihave. When she leaves the Convent of Le Bon Berger, it shall be as Madame Carmontelle, my loved and honored wife, not the Little Nobody of to-night," he mused. "I will teach her to love me in the years while she remains a pupil at the convent."
In such thoughts as these the time passed quickly, although the convent was several miles from Esplanade Street, and in the suburbs of the city. At length the carriage paused before the dark conventual walls and towers, the driver sprung down from his seat and came to the door with the announcement:
"Le Bon Berger."
"Très bien. Wait."
He drew a memorandum-book from an inner pocket, and hastily penciled some lines upon a sheet of paper.
"Madame la Superieure,—Pardon this late intrusion, and for God's dear sake admit me to a brief interview. I have brought a poor, little helpless lamb to the Good Shepherd.Pierre Carmontelle."
"Madame la Superieure,—Pardon this late intrusion, and for God's dear sake admit me to a brief interview. I have brought a poor, little helpless lamb to the Good Shepherd.
Pierre Carmontelle."
"Take that," he said, hastily folding it across. "Ring the bell, and present it to the janitor. Tell him Madame la Superieure must have it at once. Say I am waiting in distress and impatience."
The man crossed the wide pave and rang the gate bell. There was some little delay, then a stone slide slipped from its place in the high gate, and the janitor's cross, sleepy face appeared in the aperture. He was decidedly averse to receiving Carmontelle's orders. It was against the rules admitting visitors at this hour. The superior had retired.
Carmontelle sprung hastily from the carriage and approached him with a potent argument—perhaps a golden one—for he took the note and disappeared, while the Louisianian went back to his carriage to wait what seemedan inconceivably long space of time, restless and uneasy in the doubts that began to assail his mind.
"If she refuses," he thought, in terror, and his senses quailed at the thought. In all the wide city he could think of no home that would receive his charge if the convent turned her from its doors.
"Mon Dieu!" he began to mutter to himself, in fierce disquietude, when suddenly he heard the grating of a heavy key in a huge lock, the falling of bolts and bars, and the immense gate opened gingerly, affording a glimpse of the janitor's face and form against the background of a garden in riotous bloom, while beyond towered the massive convent walls.
"Entrez," the man said, civilly; and Carmontelle seized his still unconscious burden joyfully, and made haste to obey.
The janitor uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw that strange burden, then he led the way, Carmontelle eagerly following, until they reached the convent door. It opened as if by an unseen power, and they went along a cold, dimly lighted hall to a little reception-room where two gentle, pale-faced nuns were waiting with the mother superior to receive the midnight visitor. She was a tall, graceful, sweet-faced woman as she stood between the two, her slender white hands moving restlessly along the beads of her rosary.
"My son," she uttered, in surprise, as he advanced and laid the still form of Little Nobody down upon a low sofa, drawing back the heavy cloak and showing what it hid—the fair young girl in the loose, white slip, and the wealth of ruddy, golden curls.
He looked up at her with a face strangely broken up from its usual calm.
"Madame, holy mother, I have brought you a pupil," he said, "and I have to confide a strange story to your keeping." He glanced at the sweet-faced, quiet nuns."Perhaps it were better to speak to you alone?" he said, questioningly.
"No, you need not fear the presence of these gentle sisters of the Good Shepherd. No secrets ever pass beyond these walls," the mother superior answered, with grave, calm dignity.
Carmontelle saw the three nuns looking apprehensively at the pale, still face of his charge, and said, reassuringly:
"Do not be alarmed. It is not death, although it looks so much like it. The girl is only in a drugged sleep."
"But, monsieur—" began the mother superior, indignantly, when she was interrupted by his equally indignant disclaimer:
"It is none of my work. Wait until I tell you my story."
And he immediately related it without reserve. All three listened with eager interest.
"Now you know all," he said, at last, "and I will be perfectly frank with you regarding my intentions. I am rich, and have none to oppose my will. I wish to educate this unfortunate girl and make her my wife."
The superioress was gracious enough to say that it was a most laudable intention.
"You will aid me, then? You will receive her as a pupil, train and educate her in a manner befitting the position she will fill as my wife?" eagerly.
"Oui, monsieur," she replied, instantly; and he nearly overwhelmed her with thanks.
"I leave her in your care, then," he said, finally, as he pressed a check for a large amount into her hand. "Now I will not intrude upon you longer at this unseemly hour,but to-morrow I will call to see how she fares, and to make arrangements."
He paused a minute to anxiously scan the pale, sweet, sleeping face, and then hurried away, eager to learn how Van Zandt had fared in his valiant effort at holding his pursuer at bay. Springing into the carriage again, he gave the order:
"Back to Esplanade Street."
The mettlesome horses trotted off at a lively pace through the quiet, almost deserted streets, and in a short space of time they drew up in front of Mme. Lorraine's residence.
All was still and silent there. The front windows were closed and dark, and the clear moonlight shone upon the bare pavement—bare, where but a little while ago had lain the forms of the two vanquished contestants.
Carmontelle looked at the dark, silent front of the house for a moment in doubt and indecision. He felt intuitively that behind its dark portals was the knowledge he desired, that Mme. Lorraine could tell him how the contest had fared after his departure.
Anxiety conquered his reluctance to arouse the household at that late hour. He again left the carriage, and in crossing the pavement to the door, slipped and fell in a pool of blood yet wet and warm.
Horrified, he held up his hands with the dark fluid dripping from them.
"So, then, blood has been shed!" he exclaimed, and rang a furious peal on madame's door-bell.
"Whew! that was loud enough to wake the dead!" ejaculated the attentive driver from his box; but apparently Mme. Lorraine was a very sound sleeper indeed, for repeated ringings of the bell elicited no response.
In despair, Carmontelle was forced to go away, although quite satisfied in his own mind that Mme. Lorraine had heard, but refused to respond through malice prepense.
He drove next to Eliot Van Zandt's hotel, and met the startling information that the young man had not been in that night.
"Mon Dieu! what has become of the brave lad?" he ejaculated, in alarm; then, fiercely: "I will seek out Remond, and force the truth from him at the point of my sword!"
Fortunately for the now wearied horses, Remond's hotel was but a few squares further; but here he met the puzzling information that Remond had left an hour before, having given up his rooms, and declared his intention of not returning.
In the dim, strange light of the waning moon, Carmontelle grew strangely pale.
"There is some mystery at the bottom of all this!" he asserted.
But, baffled on every side in his efforts after information, he concluded to give up the quest until day; so was driven to his own lodgings in the pale glimmer of the dawn-light that now began to break over the quaint old city.
Weary and dispirited, with a vague presentiment of evil, he flung himself on his bed, and a heavy stupor stole over him, binding his faculties in a lethargic slumber from which he did not arouse until the new day began to wax toward its meridian.
He had given his valet no instructions to arouse him; therefore the man let him sleep on uninterruptedly, thinking that his master had been "making a night of it," in the slang phrase that prevails among gay fellows. So, when he awakened and rang his bell, the midday sunshine followed François into the quiet chamber and elicited an exclamation of dismay.
"Diable! François, why did you not call me?"
"Monsieur gave me no instructions," smoothly.
"True; but you should have aroused me anyhow, you rascal!" irascibly. "Now, hurry up, and get me out of this as quick as possible!"
His toilet completed, he swallowed a cup of coffee, munched a few morsels of a roll, and was off—appetite failing in his eagerness to get at Van Zandt. On his way to the hotel he dropped in at the club. No information was found there. Neither Van Zandt nor Remond had been in the rooms since yesterday.
He hastened on to the journalist's modest hotel, only to be confronted with the news that Eliot had not yet returned. Since he had dined, at eight o'clock last evening, he had not been seen by any one in the house. His room had remained unoccupied since yesterday.
Carmontelle sickened and shuddered at thought of the blood before madame's door last night.
"It is plain that Van Zandt was the one who was wounded, since Remond was seen at his hotel last night after the accident. Great heavens! what mystery is here? Is he dead, the brave lad? and have they hidden his body to conceal the crime? I must find out the truth and avenge his death, poor boy!"
He flung himself again into his carriage and was driven to that beautiful fiend's—to the home of the woman who had so heartlessly plotted the ruin of the helpless, innocent girl.
She was at home, looking cool, fair, and graceful in arecherchémorning-robe garnished with yards on yards of creamy laces and lavender ribbons. She was twirling some cards in her jeweled fingers.
"Ah, monsieur, I have cards to the reception at Trevor's next week. Are you going? Perhaps you have come to say that you will attend me there?"
The coquettish smile faded at the scowl he turned upon her face.
"Madame, where is Van Zandt?" he blurted out, brusquely.
It was no wonder she had been such a star upon the dramatic stage. Her puzzled air, the wondering glance of her bright, dark eyes, were perfect.
"Monsieur—Van Zandt!" she repeated, in gentle wonder. "How should I know? I assure you he has not been here since last night."
"Yes, I know," impatiently. "But what happened to him last night? Did Remond kill him here, at your door, where I found the pool of blood when I came back to look for him?"
Her eyes flashed.
"Ah, then it was you, monsieur, that carried off poor Remond's bride?" with a low laugh of amusement.
"Answer my question, if you please, Madame Lorraine," sternly. "Tell me—did Remond kill our young Yankee friend last night?"
Madame threw back her handsome head, and laughed heartlessly.
"Ma foi, how can I tell? When I saw the two fools were fighting desperately, I ran in, locked my door, and went to bed.Mon Dieu, I did not want to be a witness in a murder trial!"
"And you did not peep out of the window?" cynically.
"Ma foi, no! I was too frightened. I did not want to see or hear! I put my head under the bed-clothes, and went to sleep."
"Heartless woman! After you had caused all the mischief!" indignantly.
"I deny it!" cried Mme. Lorraine, artlessly, fixing her big, reproachful eyes on his face. "I can not understand what all this fuss is about. I did but arrange a marriage for my pretty ward, French-fashion, with Remond, rich, inlove with her, and a splendidparti. But the little rebel pouted, flirted, and held him at bay till he was wild with love and jealousy. She was romantic. I proposed that he run off with her and win her heart by acoup d'état. The priest was ready. All would have gone well but for the cursed intermeddling of that sneaking Yankee. I hate him! What did he have to do with her that he should break off the match? Do you say Remond has killed him?"
She had poured it all out in voluble French, protestingly, and with an air of the completest innocence, but she met only a furious frown.
"Madame, your airs of innocence are quite thrown away," he replied. "Your treachery is known. You would have sold that poor girl to a life that was worse than death. Your bargain in the garden was overheard," sternly. "Do you know what you have brought upon your head, traitress? Social ostracism and complete disgrace! The Jockey Club that has upheld you by its notice so many years, will desert you in a body. We can not horsewhip you as we shall Remond, but we shall hold you up to the scorn of the world."
"Mercy, monsieur!" she gasped, faintly, dropped her face in her hands, and dissolved in tears.
He had expected that she would scorn him, defy him, but this softer mood confounded him. He could not bear a woman's tears.
He sat and watched her in silence a few minutes, fidgeting restlessly, then said, curtly:
"Come, come, it is too late for tears unless they are tears of repentance for your sin."
Madame flung up her hands with a tragic gesture.
"Mon Dieu, how cruelly I have been misunderstood! I do not deny the plot in the garden, but the listener surely did not hear all. Remond was to marry the girl, I swear it! Poor little motherless lamb! do you think I wouldhave allowed any one to harm a hair of her head? Oh, you wrong me bitterly! You have been deceived, misled."
She flung herself with sudden, inimitable grace on her knees at his feet.
"Carmontelle, you should know me better than this!" she cried. "I swear to you it was only a harmless plot to make her Remond's wife. It would have been better for her to have a home and protector, I—I am so poor," weeping, "I have lost so heavily at play that there is a mortgage on my home, and I could not keep the girl much longer; I must retrench my expenses. Yet only for this I am to be ostracised, disgraced, held up to the scorn of my friends. Ah, you are cruel, unjust to me. Oh, spare me, spare me! Say nothing until you can prove these charges true."
What a consummate actress! what a clever liar she was! Doubt began to invade his mind. Had Van Zandt misunderstood her words?
"Madame Lorraine," he said, sternly, "get up from the floor and listen to me. I will give you the benefit of a doubt. I will try to believe that your infamous plot went no further than the trying to force that helpless child into a hated union. Even that was infamy enough. Talk not to me of your French marriages. I despise them. But I will say nothing to the world—yet. I will not wrong you until I make sure."
"Bless you, noble Carmontelle!" she cried, seizing his hand and pressing passionate kisses upon it. He drew it coldly away, and said, dryly:
"If you really feel grateful for my clemency, tell me what you know about Van Zandt and Remond. I can not find either one, and I fear that something terrible has happened to the noble young Bostonian."
She swore by all the saints that she knew nothing, had heard nothing since the pistol-shot last night.
"I was so frightened I did not wait to see who was shot.I just ran in and went to bed. I did not want to be a witness of anything so terrible!" she shuddered.
"You swear you are not deceiving me, madame?" sternly.
"I swear by all the saints," fervently.
"Then I must search farther for my missing friend," he said, sadly, as he turned to go.
She caught his arm eagerly.
"Now tell me what you have done with the little baggage who has caused all this trouble? By Heaven, Carmontelle, if harm come to my little daughter through you, I will hold you to account!"
"Daughter!" he echoed, bewilderly, and she answered, dauntlessly:
"Yes, my daughter. The secret is out at last, the secret of my shame! She was born before I met Lorraine. Her father was—well, no matter who, since he was a villain. Well, I put the child out to nurse, and made an honest marriage. Then the woman followed me with the child, and I had to invent a story to account for her to Lorraine. Now I am free to claim her, and you see that the law will support me in demanding her restoration to my care!"
They stood looking at each other silently a moment, then Carmontelle answered, angrily:
"Madame, I do not believe you. This is only one of a dozen different stories you have told to account for the possession of that child. Your last claim is made in order to support a claim for her return to you. The pretext will not avail you. The little ma'amselle is in safe hands, where she shall remain until she is trained and educated up to the standard necessary for my wife."
"Your wife?" she gasped, white with jealous fury.
"I have said it," he answered, coldly, and strode abruptly from the house.
Mme. Lorraine fell down for a moment on the sofa infurious hysterics. Carmontelle, her princely adorer, had scorned, defied her; Van Zandt knew her guilt and despised her; worst of all, the little scapegoat of her tempers, her beautiful slave, the hated Little Nobody, had escaped her clutches. Furies!
But suddenly she sprung up like a wild creature, tore open the door that Carmontelle had slammed together, and rushed after him. He was just entering his carriage when her frantic hand arrested him and drew him forcibly back.
"Come into the house; I must speak with you further. Do not shake your head," wildly. "It is a matter of life and death!"
He suffered her to drag him back into the salon. She turned her shining eyes upon his face with a half-maniacal gleam in them.
"The girl—had she awakened when you saw her last?" hoarsely.
"No," he replied.
She smote her forehead fiercely with one ringed white hand.
"My soul! I do not want to have murder on my hands. You must find Remond. I gave him the little vial with the antidote."
"The antidote?" he stammered, almost stupidly.
"Yes, the antidote. She is under the influence of a strange drug. I bought the two vials long ago from an old hag in the East as a curiosity, you see. One drug was to bring sleep, the other to wake at will. Without—" she paused, and her voice broke.
"Without—" he echoed, hoarsely; and in a frightened, guilty voice, she muttered:
"The one, without the other means—death!"
"Fiend!" he hissed, fiercely.
"No, no; do not blame me. I meant no ill. I gave Remond the antidote, to be used when they reached theend of their journey. How could I know you would take the girl from him and hide her? How could I know he would disappear? Find Remond quickly, or her death will lie at your door."
"You speak the truth?" he cried, wildly.
"Before God and the angels, monsieur!"
With a smothered oath he thrust her from him and rushed out again, leaped into the carriage, and gave his orders:
"Like the wind, to the detective agency."
It was two miles distant, and the panting horses were covered with foam when they set him down at his destination. Fortunately the familiar face of the most skillful detective in New Orleans looked at him in surprise from the pavement. He beckoned him into the vehicle.
In words as brief and comprehensive as possible he explained what he wanted done. He must find Remond at once—find him and bring him to the Convent of Le Bon Berger.
"A life hangs on his hands," he said, feverishly. "Tell him not to fail to bring with him the antidote he received last night."
"I will find him if he is in the city," the detective promised, ardently; and full of zeal, inspired not only by love for his profession, but genuine anxiety and grief over the startling case just confided to him, he sprung from the carriage to set about his task.
And Carmontelle, with his mind full of Little Nobody, gave the order again:
"To the convent!"
He was possessed by the most torturing anxiety over his little charge, and doubt over madame's startling assertion.
"Horrible! horrible! What possessed her to use a drug so deadly?" he thought, wildly. "Oh, it can not be true! I shall find her awake and waiting for me, the poor lamb! Madame Lorraine only invented that story to torture me."
He spoke feverishly to the driver:
"Faster, faster!"
The man replied, in a conciliatory tone:
"Monsieur, I dare not. I should be arrested for fast driving, and your speed would be hindered, not helped, by such a course."
He knew that it was true, and with a groan sunk back in his seat and resigned himself with what patience he could to the moderate pace of the horses. It seemed hours, although it was but thirty minutes, before they drew up again before the dark, grim building where he had left his charge the night before.
The janitor admitted him without any parley this time; but Carmontelle was so eager that he did not notice the solemn, sympathetic look with which the man regarded him. He rushed without delay to the presence of the mother superior.
When she saw him, her countenance expressed the greatest dismay. She crossed herself piously and ejaculated, sorrowfully:
"Oh, monsieur, monsieur, you have come at last!"
"Madame, holy mother!" he cried, agitatedly, and paused, unable to proceed further. Something in her face and voice filled him with dread.
"Oh, my son!" she uttered, sorrowfully, and speech, too, seemed to fail her. She regarded him in a pathetic silence mixed with deep pity.
He made a great effort to speak, to overcome the horror that bound him hand and foot. A terrible fear was upon him. What if she had not wakened yet?
With that awful thought, he gasped and spoke:
"Where is she?"
"Oh,mon Dieu! oh, holy Mother of Jesus, comfort him!" cried the good nun, piously. She advanced and touched him compassionately. "God help you, my poor son. She—she—has not awakened—yet."
He turned his pale, frightened face toward her.
"She sleeps?" he questioned, eagerly; and with a holy compassion in her trembling voice, she replied:
"Yes, my son, she sleeps—in Jesus."
"Dead?" he almost shrieked, and she answered, solemnly:
"Yes."
She thought he was about to faint, his face grew so pale and his form reeled so unsteadily; but he threw out one hand and caught the back of a chair to sustain himself, while a hollow groan came from his lips:
"Too late!"
With tears in her eyes, the good nun continued:
"The little girl never awakened from the deep sleep in which you brought her here. We made every effort to arouse her, but all in vain. She sunk deeper and deeper into lethargy, her breathing growing fainter and fainter, and at last it ceased altogether."
"When?" he questioned, huskily.
"Three hours ago," she replied.
If it had not been for her sacred presence, Carmontelle would have broken into passionate execrations of the wicked woman who had caused the death of that sweet young girl. As it was, he stood before her dazed and silent, almost stunned by the calamities that had befallen him since last night.
Van Zandt had mysteriously disappeared, and Little Nobody was dead. The one, he feared and dreaded, had been murdered by Remond in his fury; the other lay dead, the victim of Mme. Lorraine's cruel vengeance.
"Come," said the nun, breaking in on his bitter thoughts; "she lies in the chapel. You will like to look at her, monsieur."
He followed her silently, and the low, monotonous sound of the chant for the dead came to his ears like a knell as they went on along the narrow hall to the darkened chapel,where the weeping nuns lay prostrate before the altar, mumbling over the prayers for the dead, and an old, white-haired priest in flowing robes bent over his book. Carmontelle saw none of these. He had eyes for nothing but that black-draped coffin before the altar, with wax-candles burning at head and foot, shedding a pale, sepulchral light on that fair young face and form that such a little while ago had been full of life, and health, and vigor.
He stood like one turned to stone—speechless, breathless—gazing at that exquisitely lovely face, so faultlessly molded, and so beautiful even in the strange pallor of death, with the dark lashes lying so heavily against the cheeks and the lips closed in such a strange, sweet calm.
His heart swelled with love, and grief, and pity. Poor child! she had had such a strange, desolate life, and she had died without a name and without a friend, save for him who stood beside her now, his face pale and moved, as he looked upon her lying like a broken lily in her coffin, with the strange, weird light sifting through the stained-glass windows on her calm face, and the monotonous chants and prayers making a solemn murmur through the vaulted chapel.
"Is it death or heavy sleep?" he asked himself, with a sudden throb of hope; and he touched reverently the little hands that were crossed over a white lily the nuns had lovingly placed there. Alas! they were icy cold! His hope fled. "Too late! too late! If they find Remond, it will be all in vain," he muttered, and the mother superior looked at him inquiringly.
Impulsively he told her all, and the nuns, at their prayers, murmured aves and paters more softly, that they might listen; the old priest, with his head bent over his book, lost not a word. It was a romance from that wicked outer world from which the convent walls shut them in, a breath of life and passion from the "bewildering masquerade" of existence, where