Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Vogue La Galère!Yes, yes, this is the very spot! Here the great tragedy of my life was enacted. Twenty-four weary years of my existence have passed, and until this moment I have never summoned sufficient courage to visit it. Ah, Dieu! how all has changed! Paris is herself again.You may perhaps know the place. Near the Porte de la Muette, a little way down the Boulevard Suchet, in the direction of Passy, the fortifications of the city recommence after the open space which gives access to the Bois. The ponderous walls are the same, though the breaches made by the German shells have been repaired, and the stones on which I tread bear no traces of the men’s blood that once made them so slippery. One hundred paces from the corner of the Boulevard there is a steep little path running up the grass-grown mound, beside a railing. Ascend it, and you will find yourself on the top of the great wall, below which, deep down in the fosse, on the outside towards the Bois, there is a well-kept market garden. The only noises on this sunny afternoon are the twittering of birds and the rustling of leaves—different sounds and a different outlook indeed to that which is indelibly impressed upon my memory. All are gone, gone! and I alone remain—aged, infirm, forsaken, and forgotten!What matters, though I still wear my faded scrap of yellow and green ribbon upon the lapel of my shabby coat—what matters if I am an exile, an outlaw; that here, in Paris, after all these years, I dare not inscribe my proper name in the register? To both friends and enemies I am dead!As I stand looking away over the market garden, towards the shady wood, a film gathers in my eyes, and I am carried back into the terrible past, to those black, fateful days when France lay helpless under the iron heel of the invader, who had encamped around St. Cloud and Suresnes. Paris—fettered, existing upon black bread and horse-flesh—shivered under an icy mantle. The black branches of the leafless trees over in the Bois stood out distinctly against the grey, stormy sky, and upon the ground snow was lying thickly. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we had held those walls, regardless of the hail of shell poured upon us from beyond the trees, and replying with monotonous, unceasing regularity. Hundreds of our gallant comrades were, alas! lying dead; hundreds were in the temporary hospitals established in the neighbouring churches; but we, the survivors—half-starved, with the biting wind chilling our bones, and so weak that our greatcoats felt as heavy as millstones,—resolved, every one of us, to face death and do our duty. We knew well that to hold out much longer would be impossible. In those dark December days the city was starving. Our country had been overrun by the Prussian legions, and sooner or later we must succumb to the inevitable.The night was dark and moonless, as to and fro I paced on sentry duty. My post was a lonely one, under the strongest portion of the wall, at the point I have already indicated. Away in the direction of Courbevoie there was a lurid glare in the sky, showing that the enemy had committed another act of incendiarism; and now and then the booming of artillery echoed like distant thunder. In our quarter the guns of the enemy had ceased their fire—a silence that we felt was ominous. Under my feet the snow crunched as I marched slowly up and down; and with rifle loaded, and ready for any emergency, I waited patiently for relief, which would come at dawn. As I tramped on, I thought of my home away in the centre of the inert, trembling city; of my young wife, blue-eyed, fair-haired, from whom I had been torn away ere our honeymoon was scarcely over. How, I wondered, was she faring? As an advocate I had been distinctly successful, having been entrusted with quite a number ofcauses célèbres; but on the outbreak of war my chances of fortune had been suddenly wrecked, and I had been called upon to serve with the 106th Regiment of Infantry, first under General Chanzy on the Loire, and afterwards taking part in the defence of Paris.Though now so near the woman I loved, I saw very little of her; indeed, I had not been able to snatch an hour to run home for the past fortnight. Yet, while I trudged on, I knew that one of the truest and best women on earth was awaiting meau troisièmein the great old house in the Rue St. Sauveur.I think that for some time I must have been oblivious to my surroundings, for on turning sharply, my eyes suddenly detected some indistinct object, moving cautiously in the shadow. Something prompted me to refrain from challenging, and, with rifle ready, I quickly hurried to the spot. With a cry of surprise, a man in a workman’s blouse sprang forward right up to the muzzle of my gun.I challenged, and presented my rifle.“Hold!” he gasped in French, in a low, hoarse tone. “Louis Henault, don’t you know me? Have you so soon forgotten your fellow-student, Paul Olbrich?”The voice and the name caused me to start.“You!” I cried, peering into his face, and in the semi-darkness discovering the scar upon his cheek that he had received in the fencing school at Königswinter. “You, Paul, my best friend! Alas that you are a Prussian, and we meet here as enemies!”“As enemies?” he repeated, in a strange, harsh tone. “Yes, Louis, you are right,” he added bitterly,—“as enemies.”“Why are you here?” I inquired breathlessly. “Why are you disguised as a French workman? It is my duty to arrest you—to—”“But you will not. Remember, we were friends beside the Rhine, and we can only be enemies to the outside world. Surely you, of all men, will not betray me!”“When last I heard of you, two years ago,” I said, “you were a lieutenant of dragoons. To-night you are here, inside Paris, disguised.”“To tell the truth,” he replied quickly, “it is a love escapade. Let me get away quickly beyond the walls, and no one will know that you have detected me. See, over there,” and he pointed to a portion of the wall deep in the shadow. “There is myfiancée. I have dared to pass through your lines to rescue her before the final onslaught.”I peered in the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a figure, hidden by a cloak, and closely veiled.“Quick,” he continued; “there is no time for reflection. If you raise an alarm, my fate is sealed; if you allow us to proceed, two lives will be made happy. Do you consent?” Grasping my hand, he pressed it hard, adding, “Do, Louis, forhersake!”Muffled footsteps and the clank of arms broke the quiet. Three officers were approaching.“Go. May God protect you!” I replied; and, turning sharply, tramped onward in the opposite direction, while my old friend, and the woman he had rescued from starvation, were a second later lost in the darkness in the direction of the Prussian camp.Scarcely had I taken a dozen paces when there were shouts, followed by shots rapidly exchanged.“Spies!” I heard one of our men exclaim; “and,sacré! they’ve escaped!”At that moment the officers who had approached ordered me to halt, and proceeded to question me as to whom I had been speaking with. I admitted that the man was a stranger, and that I had allowed him to pass out of the city. Thus all was discovered, and I was at once arrested as a traitor—as one who had rendered assistance to a Prussian spy!The penalty was death. The stern, grey-haired general before whom I was taken half an hour later pronounced sentence; and, without ceremony, I was hurried off to execution. Bah! Fate has always been unkind to me. It would have been better had I fallen with four of my comrades’ bullets in my breast, than that I should have continued to drag out an existence till to-day. But the bombardment had recommenced vigorously; and as I was being led along, a shell fell close to my escort, and, bursting, killed two of the poor fellows, and demoralised the rest.I saw my chance, and darted away. A moment later, I was lost among the trees.Three hours later.Breathlessly I mounted the long flights of stairs that led to my home, and opened the door with my key. Entering our little salon, I looked around. In the cold, grey light of dawn, the place looked unutterably cheerless, and the thunder of the guns was causing the windows to rattle. Passing quickly into the bedroom, I found the ceiling open to the sky, and a huge gap in the wall. A shell had fallen, and completely wrecked it.“Rose!” I cried. “Rose, I have returned.”There was no response. Another roar like the roll of thunder, and the whole place vibrated, as though an earthquake had occurred.Where was Rose? I dashed back into the salon, and there, upon a table, I found a letter addressed to me in her familiar hand. Tearing it open, I read eagerly the three brief lines it contained, then staggered back, as if I had received a blow. A second later, I felt conscious of the presence of some one at my elbow; and, turning, found Mariette, our maid-of-all-work.“My wife—where is my wife?” I gasped.“Madame has gone, m’sieur,” the girl replied in her Gascon accent. “Last night a man called for her, and she went out, leaving a note for you.”“A man?” I cried. “Describe him. What was he like?”“I only caught one glimpse of him, m’sieur. He was fair, and had a long red scar across his cheek.”“A scar?” I shrieked in dismay, as the terrible truth dawned suddenly upon me. Rose, whom I had first met in Cologne, when a student on the Rhine-bank, had told me that I was not her first love; and now I remembered that she had long ago been acquainted with my fellow-student, Paul Olbrich.It was my own wife whom I had assisted to elope with my enemy!Ah! time has not effaced her memory. My sorrow is still as bitter to-day as it was in that cold December dawn, with the horrors of war around me. My life has become soured, and my hair grey. Since that eventful night, I have wandered in strange lands, endeavouring to stifle my grief; for, still under sentence of death as a spy, I have been an exile and an outlaw until to-day.What, you ask, has become ofher?Far away, in a secluded valley in the Harz, under the shadow of the mystic Brocken, there is a plain white cross in the village burying-ground, bearing the words, “Rose Henault, 1872.”My enemy, Paul Olbrich, a year after the war had ended, succeeded to the family title and estates; and to-day he is one of the most prominent men in Europe, and acts as the diplomatic representative of Germany at a certain Court that must be nameless.Truly, Fate has been unkind to me. To-day, for the first time, I have taken my skeleton from its cupboard. Would that I could bury it forever!

Yes, yes, this is the very spot! Here the great tragedy of my life was enacted. Twenty-four weary years of my existence have passed, and until this moment I have never summoned sufficient courage to visit it. Ah, Dieu! how all has changed! Paris is herself again.

You may perhaps know the place. Near the Porte de la Muette, a little way down the Boulevard Suchet, in the direction of Passy, the fortifications of the city recommence after the open space which gives access to the Bois. The ponderous walls are the same, though the breaches made by the German shells have been repaired, and the stones on which I tread bear no traces of the men’s blood that once made them so slippery. One hundred paces from the corner of the Boulevard there is a steep little path running up the grass-grown mound, beside a railing. Ascend it, and you will find yourself on the top of the great wall, below which, deep down in the fosse, on the outside towards the Bois, there is a well-kept market garden. The only noises on this sunny afternoon are the twittering of birds and the rustling of leaves—different sounds and a different outlook indeed to that which is indelibly impressed upon my memory. All are gone, gone! and I alone remain—aged, infirm, forsaken, and forgotten!

What matters, though I still wear my faded scrap of yellow and green ribbon upon the lapel of my shabby coat—what matters if I am an exile, an outlaw; that here, in Paris, after all these years, I dare not inscribe my proper name in the register? To both friends and enemies I am dead!

As I stand looking away over the market garden, towards the shady wood, a film gathers in my eyes, and I am carried back into the terrible past, to those black, fateful days when France lay helpless under the iron heel of the invader, who had encamped around St. Cloud and Suresnes. Paris—fettered, existing upon black bread and horse-flesh—shivered under an icy mantle. The black branches of the leafless trees over in the Bois stood out distinctly against the grey, stormy sky, and upon the ground snow was lying thickly. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we had held those walls, regardless of the hail of shell poured upon us from beyond the trees, and replying with monotonous, unceasing regularity. Hundreds of our gallant comrades were, alas! lying dead; hundreds were in the temporary hospitals established in the neighbouring churches; but we, the survivors—half-starved, with the biting wind chilling our bones, and so weak that our greatcoats felt as heavy as millstones,—resolved, every one of us, to face death and do our duty. We knew well that to hold out much longer would be impossible. In those dark December days the city was starving. Our country had been overrun by the Prussian legions, and sooner or later we must succumb to the inevitable.

The night was dark and moonless, as to and fro I paced on sentry duty. My post was a lonely one, under the strongest portion of the wall, at the point I have already indicated. Away in the direction of Courbevoie there was a lurid glare in the sky, showing that the enemy had committed another act of incendiarism; and now and then the booming of artillery echoed like distant thunder. In our quarter the guns of the enemy had ceased their fire—a silence that we felt was ominous. Under my feet the snow crunched as I marched slowly up and down; and with rifle loaded, and ready for any emergency, I waited patiently for relief, which would come at dawn. As I tramped on, I thought of my home away in the centre of the inert, trembling city; of my young wife, blue-eyed, fair-haired, from whom I had been torn away ere our honeymoon was scarcely over. How, I wondered, was she faring? As an advocate I had been distinctly successful, having been entrusted with quite a number ofcauses célèbres; but on the outbreak of war my chances of fortune had been suddenly wrecked, and I had been called upon to serve with the 106th Regiment of Infantry, first under General Chanzy on the Loire, and afterwards taking part in the defence of Paris.

Though now so near the woman I loved, I saw very little of her; indeed, I had not been able to snatch an hour to run home for the past fortnight. Yet, while I trudged on, I knew that one of the truest and best women on earth was awaiting meau troisièmein the great old house in the Rue St. Sauveur.

I think that for some time I must have been oblivious to my surroundings, for on turning sharply, my eyes suddenly detected some indistinct object, moving cautiously in the shadow. Something prompted me to refrain from challenging, and, with rifle ready, I quickly hurried to the spot. With a cry of surprise, a man in a workman’s blouse sprang forward right up to the muzzle of my gun.

I challenged, and presented my rifle.

“Hold!” he gasped in French, in a low, hoarse tone. “Louis Henault, don’t you know me? Have you so soon forgotten your fellow-student, Paul Olbrich?”

The voice and the name caused me to start.

“You!” I cried, peering into his face, and in the semi-darkness discovering the scar upon his cheek that he had received in the fencing school at Königswinter. “You, Paul, my best friend! Alas that you are a Prussian, and we meet here as enemies!”

“As enemies?” he repeated, in a strange, harsh tone. “Yes, Louis, you are right,” he added bitterly,—“as enemies.”

“Why are you here?” I inquired breathlessly. “Why are you disguised as a French workman? It is my duty to arrest you—to—”

“But you will not. Remember, we were friends beside the Rhine, and we can only be enemies to the outside world. Surely you, of all men, will not betray me!”

“When last I heard of you, two years ago,” I said, “you were a lieutenant of dragoons. To-night you are here, inside Paris, disguised.”

“To tell the truth,” he replied quickly, “it is a love escapade. Let me get away quickly beyond the walls, and no one will know that you have detected me. See, over there,” and he pointed to a portion of the wall deep in the shadow. “There is myfiancée. I have dared to pass through your lines to rescue her before the final onslaught.”

I peered in the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a figure, hidden by a cloak, and closely veiled.

“Quick,” he continued; “there is no time for reflection. If you raise an alarm, my fate is sealed; if you allow us to proceed, two lives will be made happy. Do you consent?” Grasping my hand, he pressed it hard, adding, “Do, Louis, forhersake!”

Muffled footsteps and the clank of arms broke the quiet. Three officers were approaching.

“Go. May God protect you!” I replied; and, turning sharply, tramped onward in the opposite direction, while my old friend, and the woman he had rescued from starvation, were a second later lost in the darkness in the direction of the Prussian camp.

Scarcely had I taken a dozen paces when there were shouts, followed by shots rapidly exchanged.

“Spies!” I heard one of our men exclaim; “and,sacré! they’ve escaped!”

At that moment the officers who had approached ordered me to halt, and proceeded to question me as to whom I had been speaking with. I admitted that the man was a stranger, and that I had allowed him to pass out of the city. Thus all was discovered, and I was at once arrested as a traitor—as one who had rendered assistance to a Prussian spy!

The penalty was death. The stern, grey-haired general before whom I was taken half an hour later pronounced sentence; and, without ceremony, I was hurried off to execution. Bah! Fate has always been unkind to me. It would have been better had I fallen with four of my comrades’ bullets in my breast, than that I should have continued to drag out an existence till to-day. But the bombardment had recommenced vigorously; and as I was being led along, a shell fell close to my escort, and, bursting, killed two of the poor fellows, and demoralised the rest.

I saw my chance, and darted away. A moment later, I was lost among the trees.

Three hours later.

Breathlessly I mounted the long flights of stairs that led to my home, and opened the door with my key. Entering our little salon, I looked around. In the cold, grey light of dawn, the place looked unutterably cheerless, and the thunder of the guns was causing the windows to rattle. Passing quickly into the bedroom, I found the ceiling open to the sky, and a huge gap in the wall. A shell had fallen, and completely wrecked it.

“Rose!” I cried. “Rose, I have returned.”

There was no response. Another roar like the roll of thunder, and the whole place vibrated, as though an earthquake had occurred.

Where was Rose? I dashed back into the salon, and there, upon a table, I found a letter addressed to me in her familiar hand. Tearing it open, I read eagerly the three brief lines it contained, then staggered back, as if I had received a blow. A second later, I felt conscious of the presence of some one at my elbow; and, turning, found Mariette, our maid-of-all-work.

“My wife—where is my wife?” I gasped.

“Madame has gone, m’sieur,” the girl replied in her Gascon accent. “Last night a man called for her, and she went out, leaving a note for you.”

“A man?” I cried. “Describe him. What was he like?”

“I only caught one glimpse of him, m’sieur. He was fair, and had a long red scar across his cheek.”

“A scar?” I shrieked in dismay, as the terrible truth dawned suddenly upon me. Rose, whom I had first met in Cologne, when a student on the Rhine-bank, had told me that I was not her first love; and now I remembered that she had long ago been acquainted with my fellow-student, Paul Olbrich.

It was my own wife whom I had assisted to elope with my enemy!

Ah! time has not effaced her memory. My sorrow is still as bitter to-day as it was in that cold December dawn, with the horrors of war around me. My life has become soured, and my hair grey. Since that eventful night, I have wandered in strange lands, endeavouring to stifle my grief; for, still under sentence of death as a spy, I have been an exile and an outlaw until to-day.

What, you ask, has become ofher?

Far away, in a secluded valley in the Harz, under the shadow of the mystic Brocken, there is a plain white cross in the village burying-ground, bearing the words, “Rose Henault, 1872.”

My enemy, Paul Olbrich, a year after the war had ended, succeeded to the family title and estates; and to-day he is one of the most prominent men in Europe, and acts as the diplomatic representative of Germany at a certain Court that must be nameless.

Truly, Fate has been unkind to me. To-day, for the first time, I have taken my skeleton from its cupboard. Would that I could bury it forever!

Chapter Ten.Fortune’s Fool.I am no longer myself. I vanished involuntarily. Truth to tell, I was befooled by Fortune.As confidential messenger in the service of the Bank of France, it was my duty to convey notes and bullion to various European capitals, and so constantly did I travel between London and Paris, and to Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, that my long journeys became terribly irksome, and I longed for rest and quiet. There is much excitement and anxiety in such a life, when one is entrusted with large sums of money which are impossible to hide in one’s pocket.In the year 1883, England, as is frequently the case, was remitting a quantity of gold coin to France, and consequently, during the month of June, I was making two, and sometimes three, journeys between Paris and London weekly. Incessant travelling, such as this, soon wearies even those inured to long railway journeys, especially if one very often has to arrive in London in the morning only to leave again the same night. A long trip, say to the Austrian or Turkish capitals, was much more to my taste than the wearying monotony of the Dover-Calais route, and the inevitable turmoil between Paris and the English metropolis.One warm night—although excessively tired, having arrived in London at an early hour that morning—I was compelled to return, and left Charing Cross by the mail train at half-past eight. I had with me a box from the Bank of England containing a large quantity of bullion. As far as Dover I was alone, smoking and dozing over a newspaper, but when I alighted on the pier, the weather had changed. It rained in torrents, and a violent wind was blowing in a manner that was indicative of a “dirty” night.My expectations in this respect proved correct, and I was glad to arrive at Calais, where I selected an empty first-class compartment, bade the porter deposit my weighty box on the seat, and, wrapping myself comfortably in my travelling rug, settled myself for the remainder of the journey. While such a quantity of gold was in my possession, I dared not sleep, yet, fatigued as I was, I experienced great difficulty in keeping awake. It was always possible that while coin was in my custody I might be watched and followed by thieves, therefore a loaded revolver constantly reposed in my pocket ready for an emergency.Few persons were travelling that night, and I was fortunate in having the compartment to myself as far as Abbeville. Then there entered two well-dressed Frenchmen, who, after scrutinising me rather closely, sank into opposite corners of the carriage. Seldom I felt uneasy regarding fellow-travellers; nevertheless, I confess that as I looked at them, I felt a strange, vague shadow of distrust. Instinctively I felt for my revolver, assuring myself that it was ready if required. Somehow I had a suspicion that the men had been on board the Channel boat, and were following me for some evil purpose. But they sat opposite one another smoking, occasionally indulging in conversation, though always keeping their faces concealed as much as possible from the pale, flickering rays of the lamp overhead.As we sped south, I became more fully convinced that they meant mischief. Looking at my watch, I found that in twenty minutes we should be at Amiens, and determined to change into another carriage there. Patiently I sat, gazing out of the window watching the grey streak of dawn break over the low, distant hills, when suddenly I felt a terrible crushing blow on the top of my skull.At the same moment I drew forth my revolver and pulled the trigger. Then a darkness fell upon me, and I remember nothing more.The sensation was horrible; the pain excruciating. It seemed as though a thousand red-hot needles were being thrust into my brain.Slowly the terrible throbbing in my head abated, and I found myself seated in an armchair in a well-furnished, though unfamiliar, drawing-room. It was lit by tiny electric lamps, shaded with canary silk; and, as I gazed round in abject astonishment, I noticed a pretty fernery beyond, which looked like a mermaid’s grotto in the depths of the sea, so dense was the mass of dimly-illuminated greenery.My first thoughts were of my charge, and I felt for my pouch, in which I had carried a bundle of bank-notes.It was not there! Placing my hand upon my chin, I was startled to find that I had a beard, while on the previous night I had been clean shaven! And the box of bullion—where was that?I started to my feet, and as I did so, my figure was reflected in a long mirror. I staggered back in dismay, for, although last night I was a sprightly and spruce young man of thirty, my hair was now turning grey, and my face so aged and wrinkled that I could scarcely recognise myself!Where was I? What could it all mean?I saw a bell, and rang it hastily.My summons was quickly answered by a sharp-featured man, who was evidently not a servant.“Tell me, who brought me here? Whose house is this?” I demanded.He gazed at me, open-mouthed, in astonishment.“I—er—You’re not well, sir, I think. This is your own house.”“Mine?” I cried incredulously. “Nonsense. Who are you, pray?”“I’m your secretary,” he replied, adding, “I—I’ll return in a moment;” and then, in evident alarm, he disappeared.I had no time to reflect upon the mystery of the situation before there entered a tall, beautiful woman, of what might be termed the Junoesque type, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.“Why, my dear, whatever have you been saying to Norton? You’ve quite frightened him,” she exclaimed, laughing. “How is it that you’re not dressed? You remember we promised to dine with the Websters to-night.”“I—I confess I don’t understand you, madam,” I gasped, for my brain was in a whirl, and everything seemed in maddening confusion. The pain in my head was intense.“What’s the matter? What has happened?” she cried in alarm. “Don’t you recognise me—Lena, your wife?”“My wife?” I gasped, astounded. “No, I’ve never seen you before. It’s some trick. Where is the box—the box that was with me in the train?”Her look of distress deepened, as she said, “Calm yourself, my dear. You are not well, and must have advice.”“I want none,” I replied hotly. “I desire nothing beyond the box. These are not my clothes,” I said, glancing in puzzled confusion at the coat I wore. “Where are mine?”“I don’t comprehend your meaning,” said the handsome woman who called herself my wife. “Your mind must be wandering, Harry.”“That’s not my name. I am Charles Deane.”“No, no, dear,” she cried. “You are under some strange delusion. What can have happened to you? You are Henry Medhurst, and I am Lena Medhurst, your wife.”“Where and when did you marry me, pray?”“In Cape Town, five years ago.”“In Cape Town? And where are we now?”“This is your house, situate, I think, to be exact, two and a half miles from Johannesburg. Is there anything else you desire to know?” she added, with a smile, half inclined to believe that I was joking.The crowd of thoughts and feelings that burst upon my mind was indescribable. Was I still myself, or was it all a delusion?No. It was a stern reality; a deep, inexplicable mystery.“I married you five years ago, you say. Then what year of grace is this?”“Come,” replied my wife, “such fooling is out of place, dear. You know as well as I that it is 1893.”“What!” I cried, feeling myself grow rigid in amazement. “Yesterday was ten years ago!”I was undoubtedly wide awake and sensible, but that I was really myself I began to doubt. I struggled to comprehend the situation, but failed. How I came to be in South Africa, the possessor of such a mansion, the husband of such a wife, was a problem beyond solution. I felt light-headed, for the horrible suspense was goading me into a frenzy of madness.“There must be some—some serious mistake,” I said calmly. “I’ve never had the pleasure of setting eyes upon you before this evening, and am utterly at a loss to understand who or what I am.”She regarded me with a terrified expression; her face suddenly blanched, and she would have fallen, had I not caught her and placed her upon the settee.Ringing the bell again, a maid-servant answered my summons.“Your mistress has fainted. Call some one to her assistance,” I said; and then I proceeded to explore the house. It was a splendid modern mansion, and by the bright moonlight I discerned that it was surrounded by a well-kept lawn and clumps of fine old trees.I was utterly unable to realise that the journey to Paris had been made ten years before; nevertheless, my aged appearance, my beard, the fact of my marriage, and my apparent opulence, all combined to confirm her statement. In vain I tried to recollect the incidents of that memorable night; but, beyond the knowledge that I received a terrible blow, I could remember nothing.Pacing in distraction the broad terrace that ran before the house, I suddenly heard footsteps behind me. Turning, I confronted the man who called himself my secretary.“Griffiths, the manager of Pike’s Reef, has just arrived from Pretoria, and wishes to see you on important business, sir.”“To see me? What for?”“He desires instructions regarding the Reef. They’ve struck the lead at last, and the crushings show it to be one of the richest veins in the Randt. Shall I bring him to you?”“No,” I replied savagely; “I want to be alone. I haven’t the slightest notion of what you’re talking about.”“Surely you know Griffiths, sir? He used to manage your old mine, the Bellefontaine, and is now in charge at Pike’s Reef.”“I don’t know him, and have no desire to make his acquaintance. Send him away,” I said abruptly.The man, who seemed puzzled, hesitated for a moment, and, after muttering some words in an undertone, re-entered the house.For nearly half an hour I had remained alone, until the maid appeared, saying, “Mistress would like to see you in the drawing-room, sir.”I obeyed the summons, and on entering the room, found the woman who called me husband seated on a low chair, while near her stood a short, stout old gentleman, in a frock-coat of rather ancient cut, and wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez.“Ah, my dear Medhurst!” exclaimed the man, greeting me effusively. “How are you this evening?”“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, sir,” I said indifferently.“You don’t know Dr Beale? Come, come, this won’t do at all,” he said, smiling.I assured him that I had never set eyes upon him before, and went on to explain how I had been travelling to Paris and suddenly struck insensible, only to regain consciousness and find myself in Africa—rich, married, and ten years older.The doctor listened with grave attention, and subsequently we entered upon a long and rather heated discussion. All I wanted to discover was how I came to be there.“Monomania, evidently,” observed the doctor in a low voice, when we had been talking for some time. “It develops frequently into the most violent form of madness. He will have to be kept in seclusion and watched.”Again I resented the imputation that I was going insane, to which the medical luminary replied, “Very well, my dear fellow, very well. We will believe what you say. Calm yourself; for your wife is nervous and weak, remember.”I turned away disgusted. All my efforts to explain the remarkable facts had only been met with incredulity by the idiotic, soft-spoken old doctor, who undoubtedly imagined I was mad.In desperation I strode out of the house, and spent the night in wandering about the grounds, and walking aimlessly through unfamiliar roads, subsequently sitting down upon the fallen trunk of a tree, where I fell asleep.When I retraced my footsteps, the bright morning sun was glinting through the foliage of the dense wood that seemed to almost surround the house.From a servant I learnt that mysoi-disantwife was too unwell to leave her room; and as I wandered through the place, I entered one apartment which was evidently a study—my own, possibly. Glancing round at the books, the two great iron safes, and the telephone instruments, I seated myself at the littered writing-table. Turning over the papers before me, I saw they related to mining enterprises involving large sums. Many of them were evidently in my handwriting, but the signatures were “Henry Medhurst,” and the note-paper bore the heading, “Great Bellefontaine Gold Mines, Offices, 127 Commissioner Street, Johannesburg.”Upwards of an hour I sat plunged in thought, bewildered by the events of the past few hours. I felt I must make some strenuous effort to solve the enigma, and account for the intervening ten years that I had lost. I could not have been asleep in the manner of the legendary Rip Van Winkle, but must have been existing during the period. Yet where did I live? And how?It seemed clear from the doctor’s words that if I remained, I should be placed under restraint as an imbecile. Therefore the thought suggested itself that I should return to Europe, and endeavour to find out what befell me on that midnight journey. Recollecting that I should require funds, I searched the drawers of the writing-table, and found a cash-box, in which was nearly four hundred pounds in gold and notes. This was sufficient for the journey; and, with a feeling of joy, I transferred it to my pockets, and prepared for departure.A few hasty lines I wrote to my self-styled wife, informing her of my intention, and stating that I should return as soon as I had gained the information necessary to restore my peace of mind. Afterwards I went to my room, crammed a few necessaries into a travelling-bag, and, without uttering a word of farewell, left the City of Golden routefor England.Arrived in London, I set about tracing my career; but from the outset I found it a task fraught by many difficulties. I must have altered considerably in personal appearance during my absence, for none of my friends recognised me. There was but one agency that seemed likely to render me assistance, namely, the Press. The files of theTimesandTelegraphfor 1883 I searched diligently, but gleaned nothing from them. Indeed, I spent several weeks in looking through various daily and weekly papers, published about the time of my fatal journey, without result, until one day it occurred to me that the French Press might aid me. Accordingly, I went to Paris, and on the following day called at the office of theGaulois, where I obtained the file for the year I required. Turning to the paper for the day following my sudden oblivion, my eye fell upon the headline, “Terrible Accident on the Northern Railway.” Eagerly I read and reread every word, for here was what seemed a clue to the mystery.It appeared that the train in which I had travelled, when approaching Longpré, ran into some trucks, and was completely wrecked, seven persons being killed and about twenty injured. In a first-class compartment two passengers were discovered, one of whom had among his luggage a box containing a large sum in English gold and notes. Neither men had been injured by the accident; but one, presumably, in order to obtain possession of the money, had shot his fellow-traveller dead, and was making off with his booty when he was apprehended, and brought to Paris.In the papers of following days I found a report of the examination before the Juge d’instruction, and the subsequent trial before the Assize Court of the Seine. According to the newspaper accounts, the man charged with wilful murder was young and well-dressed, but seemed enveloped in mystery, inasmuch as he conducted himself strangely, refusing to give his name or any account of himself, and preserving an immutable silence throughout the many days the case lasted. Judging from the prominence given to the report, the trial must have been a celebrated one, and considerable excitement was created in the French capital, owing to the fact that several prominent members of the medical profession, who had examined the accused, agreed that he was suffering from some strange mental affection, the precise nature of which they were unable to discover. It was owing to this that the culprit escaped the guillotine, being sentenced to hard labour for life, and transportation to the penal colony of New Caledonia.Which was I, the murderer or the murdered?I felt confident I was one or the other. Therefore, I resolved to find out whether this mysterious convict was still alive; and if so, to seek an explanation from him. The thought occurred to me that an official in the Prisons Department, whom I had known, might be able to furnish me with the information. After some difficulty I discovered him, but he had long ago retired into private life. So entirely had my personal appearance changed, that he did not recognise me. Therefore, by representing that I was an English solicitor, anxious to discover a next-of-kin, and offering to pay handsomely for the investigation, I prevailed upon him to seek an interview with the chief of the department, and ascertain whether the convict was still living.When I called a few days later, he placed in my hands a memorandum signed by the chief, certifying that after two years at La Nouvelle—as the French prison island is termed,—prisoner Number 8469, committed for life for murder, had effected his escape by means of an open boat in company with Jean Montbazon, who had been convicted of forging Spanish bonds. Both were known to have landed on the Queensland coast after a perilous voyage; but they had disappeared before the Australian police were communicated with, and all efforts to trace them had been futile. Having, however, been employed in the Government mines near Noumea, it was expected that they had obtained work in one of the remote mining districts, where they could effectively hide until the search was over.To find this man Montbazon was no easy task, but if I chanced to be successful, he might, I thought, tell me something of his whilom comrade in adversity.I was puzzled how to proceed, but at length resorted to advertising as the only expedient. In the chief French and Colonial newspapers I caused to be inserted a brief paragraph addressed to “Jean Montbazon, late of Noumea,” stating that his companion upon the voyage from New Caledonia to Australia wished particularly to meet him, and giving my address at the Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, whither I proceeded. Patiently I awaited a reply, but although I had spent a large sum upon the advertisement, it apparently failed to reach the man whose acquaintance I desired to make.For many weeks I remained at the hotel, feeling no desire to return to Johannesburg until I had cleared up the mystery and accounted for my lost identity. Times without number I was tempted to relinquish the effort to trace my past, yet with sheer, dogged perversity, I remained and hoped.At last my patience was rewarded, for one evening, while I was sitting on the balcony of the hotel, enjoying a cigar in the starlight, the waiter brought me a visitor.Judge my dismay when I recognised the face of my secretary.“Well, old fellow,” he exclaimed familiarly, “and what means all this confounded mystery?”I sat speechless in amazement.“I saw the advertisement in theCape Times, and, concluding that something was wrong, came down here. What is it?” he continued, sinking lazily into a chair by my side.“The advertisement?” I gasped. “I—I don’t understand you.”“Your advertisement was addressed to Jean Montbazon, your humble and obedient servant, who shared your lot at La Nouvelle, and who escaped with you.”“What?” I cried. “Is that true?”“I think,mon cher ami, you must have taken leave of your senses, as madame declares you have. Come, now, what’s the matter?”“Are—are you really Jean Montbazon?”“That’s my baptismal cognomen, though Fred Norton suits me better just now.”“Look here,” I said earnestly: “I admit I’m not quite myself; indeed, I have forgotten everything. Tell me how we escaped, and why I am so rich, while you are my secretary.”The man looked at me incredulously, remarking, “Ma foi! I thought you were a bit vacant before you left Johannesburg so mysteriously, but you now seem stark mad. It would take a long time to recount all our adventures, and some would be rather unpleasant reminiscences. You were sent to penal servitude for life for murder, and I for forgery. We were pals in the same labour-gang, and one day, finding an open boat upon the beach, we resolved to escape, and embarked. In the boat was a keg of water and a barrel of biscuits, which sufficed to keep body and soul together until, after a terrible voyage lasting many days, we ran ashore near Port Curtis, in Queensland. Having regained our freedom, we tramped to the gold diggings, and worked together for about a year. You had extraordinary luck, and soon became rich, while I was often obliged to exist upon your charity. In a year, however, an unfortunate incident occurred at our camp at Gum Tree Gulch. A man who was known to have a quantity of dust in his belt was found dead, with an ugly wound upon his head; and, in consequence of this, Australia became too warm for you and I. Therefore we left the camp hurriedly one night, without wishing adieu to our comrades, and came here, to South Africa, to try our luck. As usual, your good fortune did not desert you. Already rich, you bought some big claims in the Randt, and worked them with almost incredible results. Then the boom came.”“And how did that affect me?”“You had previously married a wealthy woman before the gold fever set in. When the boom came, you sold both her property and yours at such prices that within three weeks you were almost a millionaire.”“What am I now?” I asked, amazed at this remarkable story.“You are owner of two of the richest gold workings in the Transvaal, and I—always a Lazarus—am your confidential secretary. Most confidential, I assure you,” he added, smiling. “The master a murderer; the servant a forger!”Having thus filled up the long blank in my memory, I did not rest until I had satisfactorily accounted for the events of that fateful night. Subsequently I discovered that the violent blow on my head, received in the accident, had produced such an effect on my brain as to render oblivious all the events of my past. From that moment I commenced a second life. One of my fellow-passengers, noticing my injury, was endeavouring to steal the box of bullion, when I shot him dead with my revolver. Afterwards, when I had recovered consciousness, I opened the box, and, secreting part of the money in my pockets, tried to get away unobserved. But I was arrested, tried for murder, and transported. The rest is known.At my trial I refused to give any account of myself, for the simple reason that I remembered nothing. My mind was an absolute blank. I had lived an entirely different life for ten years, until I accidentally struck my head a violent blow against the corner of a mantelshelf in my drawing-room, causing the memory of my earlier life to return as suddenly as it had fled, and thus leaving a gap of ten years for me to fill.Mine was an extraordinary case; but, as I afterwards discovered, my duality of brain was by no means unprecedented. Such vagaries of the mind, although rare, are known to medical science.When, a week afterwards, I returned to Johannesburg—that dusty, noisy City of Mammon—Lena welcomed me warmly. The same evening, after I had explained to her the cause of my sudden disappearance and apparent insanity, she went to her room, and on her return handed me a faded blue envelope, secured by the official seal of the Bank of England.“This,” she said, “you asked me to keep for you, on the day we were married.”I glanced at the superscription, and recognised the handwriting. It contained the lost bank-notes!Placing them in the fire, I watched the flames consume them, and from that night I commenced life afresh.Jean is my secretary no longer. I effected a compromise with him, and at the present moment, owing to his shrewd business tact, combined with successful speculation, he is one of the most prosperous promoters of the South African mining companies in the City of London.

I am no longer myself. I vanished involuntarily. Truth to tell, I was befooled by Fortune.

As confidential messenger in the service of the Bank of France, it was my duty to convey notes and bullion to various European capitals, and so constantly did I travel between London and Paris, and to Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, that my long journeys became terribly irksome, and I longed for rest and quiet. There is much excitement and anxiety in such a life, when one is entrusted with large sums of money which are impossible to hide in one’s pocket.

In the year 1883, England, as is frequently the case, was remitting a quantity of gold coin to France, and consequently, during the month of June, I was making two, and sometimes three, journeys between Paris and London weekly. Incessant travelling, such as this, soon wearies even those inured to long railway journeys, especially if one very often has to arrive in London in the morning only to leave again the same night. A long trip, say to the Austrian or Turkish capitals, was much more to my taste than the wearying monotony of the Dover-Calais route, and the inevitable turmoil between Paris and the English metropolis.

One warm night—although excessively tired, having arrived in London at an early hour that morning—I was compelled to return, and left Charing Cross by the mail train at half-past eight. I had with me a box from the Bank of England containing a large quantity of bullion. As far as Dover I was alone, smoking and dozing over a newspaper, but when I alighted on the pier, the weather had changed. It rained in torrents, and a violent wind was blowing in a manner that was indicative of a “dirty” night.

My expectations in this respect proved correct, and I was glad to arrive at Calais, where I selected an empty first-class compartment, bade the porter deposit my weighty box on the seat, and, wrapping myself comfortably in my travelling rug, settled myself for the remainder of the journey. While such a quantity of gold was in my possession, I dared not sleep, yet, fatigued as I was, I experienced great difficulty in keeping awake. It was always possible that while coin was in my custody I might be watched and followed by thieves, therefore a loaded revolver constantly reposed in my pocket ready for an emergency.

Few persons were travelling that night, and I was fortunate in having the compartment to myself as far as Abbeville. Then there entered two well-dressed Frenchmen, who, after scrutinising me rather closely, sank into opposite corners of the carriage. Seldom I felt uneasy regarding fellow-travellers; nevertheless, I confess that as I looked at them, I felt a strange, vague shadow of distrust. Instinctively I felt for my revolver, assuring myself that it was ready if required. Somehow I had a suspicion that the men had been on board the Channel boat, and were following me for some evil purpose. But they sat opposite one another smoking, occasionally indulging in conversation, though always keeping their faces concealed as much as possible from the pale, flickering rays of the lamp overhead.

As we sped south, I became more fully convinced that they meant mischief. Looking at my watch, I found that in twenty minutes we should be at Amiens, and determined to change into another carriage there. Patiently I sat, gazing out of the window watching the grey streak of dawn break over the low, distant hills, when suddenly I felt a terrible crushing blow on the top of my skull.

At the same moment I drew forth my revolver and pulled the trigger. Then a darkness fell upon me, and I remember nothing more.

The sensation was horrible; the pain excruciating. It seemed as though a thousand red-hot needles were being thrust into my brain.

Slowly the terrible throbbing in my head abated, and I found myself seated in an armchair in a well-furnished, though unfamiliar, drawing-room. It was lit by tiny electric lamps, shaded with canary silk; and, as I gazed round in abject astonishment, I noticed a pretty fernery beyond, which looked like a mermaid’s grotto in the depths of the sea, so dense was the mass of dimly-illuminated greenery.

My first thoughts were of my charge, and I felt for my pouch, in which I had carried a bundle of bank-notes.

It was not there! Placing my hand upon my chin, I was startled to find that I had a beard, while on the previous night I had been clean shaven! And the box of bullion—where was that?

I started to my feet, and as I did so, my figure was reflected in a long mirror. I staggered back in dismay, for, although last night I was a sprightly and spruce young man of thirty, my hair was now turning grey, and my face so aged and wrinkled that I could scarcely recognise myself!

Where was I? What could it all mean?

I saw a bell, and rang it hastily.

My summons was quickly answered by a sharp-featured man, who was evidently not a servant.

“Tell me, who brought me here? Whose house is this?” I demanded.

He gazed at me, open-mouthed, in astonishment.

“I—er—You’re not well, sir, I think. This is your own house.”

“Mine?” I cried incredulously. “Nonsense. Who are you, pray?”

“I’m your secretary,” he replied, adding, “I—I’ll return in a moment;” and then, in evident alarm, he disappeared.

I had no time to reflect upon the mystery of the situation before there entered a tall, beautiful woman, of what might be termed the Junoesque type, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.

“Why, my dear, whatever have you been saying to Norton? You’ve quite frightened him,” she exclaimed, laughing. “How is it that you’re not dressed? You remember we promised to dine with the Websters to-night.”

“I—I confess I don’t understand you, madam,” I gasped, for my brain was in a whirl, and everything seemed in maddening confusion. The pain in my head was intense.

“What’s the matter? What has happened?” she cried in alarm. “Don’t you recognise me—Lena, your wife?”

“My wife?” I gasped, astounded. “No, I’ve never seen you before. It’s some trick. Where is the box—the box that was with me in the train?”

Her look of distress deepened, as she said, “Calm yourself, my dear. You are not well, and must have advice.”

“I want none,” I replied hotly. “I desire nothing beyond the box. These are not my clothes,” I said, glancing in puzzled confusion at the coat I wore. “Where are mine?”

“I don’t comprehend your meaning,” said the handsome woman who called herself my wife. “Your mind must be wandering, Harry.”

“That’s not my name. I am Charles Deane.”

“No, no, dear,” she cried. “You are under some strange delusion. What can have happened to you? You are Henry Medhurst, and I am Lena Medhurst, your wife.”

“Where and when did you marry me, pray?”

“In Cape Town, five years ago.”

“In Cape Town? And where are we now?”

“This is your house, situate, I think, to be exact, two and a half miles from Johannesburg. Is there anything else you desire to know?” she added, with a smile, half inclined to believe that I was joking.

The crowd of thoughts and feelings that burst upon my mind was indescribable. Was I still myself, or was it all a delusion?

No. It was a stern reality; a deep, inexplicable mystery.

“I married you five years ago, you say. Then what year of grace is this?”

“Come,” replied my wife, “such fooling is out of place, dear. You know as well as I that it is 1893.”

“What!” I cried, feeling myself grow rigid in amazement. “Yesterday was ten years ago!”

I was undoubtedly wide awake and sensible, but that I was really myself I began to doubt. I struggled to comprehend the situation, but failed. How I came to be in South Africa, the possessor of such a mansion, the husband of such a wife, was a problem beyond solution. I felt light-headed, for the horrible suspense was goading me into a frenzy of madness.

“There must be some—some serious mistake,” I said calmly. “I’ve never had the pleasure of setting eyes upon you before this evening, and am utterly at a loss to understand who or what I am.”

She regarded me with a terrified expression; her face suddenly blanched, and she would have fallen, had I not caught her and placed her upon the settee.

Ringing the bell again, a maid-servant answered my summons.

“Your mistress has fainted. Call some one to her assistance,” I said; and then I proceeded to explore the house. It was a splendid modern mansion, and by the bright moonlight I discerned that it was surrounded by a well-kept lawn and clumps of fine old trees.

I was utterly unable to realise that the journey to Paris had been made ten years before; nevertheless, my aged appearance, my beard, the fact of my marriage, and my apparent opulence, all combined to confirm her statement. In vain I tried to recollect the incidents of that memorable night; but, beyond the knowledge that I received a terrible blow, I could remember nothing.

Pacing in distraction the broad terrace that ran before the house, I suddenly heard footsteps behind me. Turning, I confronted the man who called himself my secretary.

“Griffiths, the manager of Pike’s Reef, has just arrived from Pretoria, and wishes to see you on important business, sir.”

“To see me? What for?”

“He desires instructions regarding the Reef. They’ve struck the lead at last, and the crushings show it to be one of the richest veins in the Randt. Shall I bring him to you?”

“No,” I replied savagely; “I want to be alone. I haven’t the slightest notion of what you’re talking about.”

“Surely you know Griffiths, sir? He used to manage your old mine, the Bellefontaine, and is now in charge at Pike’s Reef.”

“I don’t know him, and have no desire to make his acquaintance. Send him away,” I said abruptly.

The man, who seemed puzzled, hesitated for a moment, and, after muttering some words in an undertone, re-entered the house.

For nearly half an hour I had remained alone, until the maid appeared, saying, “Mistress would like to see you in the drawing-room, sir.”

I obeyed the summons, and on entering the room, found the woman who called me husband seated on a low chair, while near her stood a short, stout old gentleman, in a frock-coat of rather ancient cut, and wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez.

“Ah, my dear Medhurst!” exclaimed the man, greeting me effusively. “How are you this evening?”

“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, sir,” I said indifferently.

“You don’t know Dr Beale? Come, come, this won’t do at all,” he said, smiling.

I assured him that I had never set eyes upon him before, and went on to explain how I had been travelling to Paris and suddenly struck insensible, only to regain consciousness and find myself in Africa—rich, married, and ten years older.

The doctor listened with grave attention, and subsequently we entered upon a long and rather heated discussion. All I wanted to discover was how I came to be there.

“Monomania, evidently,” observed the doctor in a low voice, when we had been talking for some time. “It develops frequently into the most violent form of madness. He will have to be kept in seclusion and watched.”

Again I resented the imputation that I was going insane, to which the medical luminary replied, “Very well, my dear fellow, very well. We will believe what you say. Calm yourself; for your wife is nervous and weak, remember.”

I turned away disgusted. All my efforts to explain the remarkable facts had only been met with incredulity by the idiotic, soft-spoken old doctor, who undoubtedly imagined I was mad.

In desperation I strode out of the house, and spent the night in wandering about the grounds, and walking aimlessly through unfamiliar roads, subsequently sitting down upon the fallen trunk of a tree, where I fell asleep.

When I retraced my footsteps, the bright morning sun was glinting through the foliage of the dense wood that seemed to almost surround the house.

From a servant I learnt that mysoi-disantwife was too unwell to leave her room; and as I wandered through the place, I entered one apartment which was evidently a study—my own, possibly. Glancing round at the books, the two great iron safes, and the telephone instruments, I seated myself at the littered writing-table. Turning over the papers before me, I saw they related to mining enterprises involving large sums. Many of them were evidently in my handwriting, but the signatures were “Henry Medhurst,” and the note-paper bore the heading, “Great Bellefontaine Gold Mines, Offices, 127 Commissioner Street, Johannesburg.”

Upwards of an hour I sat plunged in thought, bewildered by the events of the past few hours. I felt I must make some strenuous effort to solve the enigma, and account for the intervening ten years that I had lost. I could not have been asleep in the manner of the legendary Rip Van Winkle, but must have been existing during the period. Yet where did I live? And how?

It seemed clear from the doctor’s words that if I remained, I should be placed under restraint as an imbecile. Therefore the thought suggested itself that I should return to Europe, and endeavour to find out what befell me on that midnight journey. Recollecting that I should require funds, I searched the drawers of the writing-table, and found a cash-box, in which was nearly four hundred pounds in gold and notes. This was sufficient for the journey; and, with a feeling of joy, I transferred it to my pockets, and prepared for departure.

A few hasty lines I wrote to my self-styled wife, informing her of my intention, and stating that I should return as soon as I had gained the information necessary to restore my peace of mind. Afterwards I went to my room, crammed a few necessaries into a travelling-bag, and, without uttering a word of farewell, left the City of Golden routefor England.

Arrived in London, I set about tracing my career; but from the outset I found it a task fraught by many difficulties. I must have altered considerably in personal appearance during my absence, for none of my friends recognised me. There was but one agency that seemed likely to render me assistance, namely, the Press. The files of theTimesandTelegraphfor 1883 I searched diligently, but gleaned nothing from them. Indeed, I spent several weeks in looking through various daily and weekly papers, published about the time of my fatal journey, without result, until one day it occurred to me that the French Press might aid me. Accordingly, I went to Paris, and on the following day called at the office of theGaulois, where I obtained the file for the year I required. Turning to the paper for the day following my sudden oblivion, my eye fell upon the headline, “Terrible Accident on the Northern Railway.” Eagerly I read and reread every word, for here was what seemed a clue to the mystery.

It appeared that the train in which I had travelled, when approaching Longpré, ran into some trucks, and was completely wrecked, seven persons being killed and about twenty injured. In a first-class compartment two passengers were discovered, one of whom had among his luggage a box containing a large sum in English gold and notes. Neither men had been injured by the accident; but one, presumably, in order to obtain possession of the money, had shot his fellow-traveller dead, and was making off with his booty when he was apprehended, and brought to Paris.

In the papers of following days I found a report of the examination before the Juge d’instruction, and the subsequent trial before the Assize Court of the Seine. According to the newspaper accounts, the man charged with wilful murder was young and well-dressed, but seemed enveloped in mystery, inasmuch as he conducted himself strangely, refusing to give his name or any account of himself, and preserving an immutable silence throughout the many days the case lasted. Judging from the prominence given to the report, the trial must have been a celebrated one, and considerable excitement was created in the French capital, owing to the fact that several prominent members of the medical profession, who had examined the accused, agreed that he was suffering from some strange mental affection, the precise nature of which they were unable to discover. It was owing to this that the culprit escaped the guillotine, being sentenced to hard labour for life, and transportation to the penal colony of New Caledonia.

Which was I, the murderer or the murdered?

I felt confident I was one or the other. Therefore, I resolved to find out whether this mysterious convict was still alive; and if so, to seek an explanation from him. The thought occurred to me that an official in the Prisons Department, whom I had known, might be able to furnish me with the information. After some difficulty I discovered him, but he had long ago retired into private life. So entirely had my personal appearance changed, that he did not recognise me. Therefore, by representing that I was an English solicitor, anxious to discover a next-of-kin, and offering to pay handsomely for the investigation, I prevailed upon him to seek an interview with the chief of the department, and ascertain whether the convict was still living.

When I called a few days later, he placed in my hands a memorandum signed by the chief, certifying that after two years at La Nouvelle—as the French prison island is termed,—prisoner Number 8469, committed for life for murder, had effected his escape by means of an open boat in company with Jean Montbazon, who had been convicted of forging Spanish bonds. Both were known to have landed on the Queensland coast after a perilous voyage; but they had disappeared before the Australian police were communicated with, and all efforts to trace them had been futile. Having, however, been employed in the Government mines near Noumea, it was expected that they had obtained work in one of the remote mining districts, where they could effectively hide until the search was over.

To find this man Montbazon was no easy task, but if I chanced to be successful, he might, I thought, tell me something of his whilom comrade in adversity.

I was puzzled how to proceed, but at length resorted to advertising as the only expedient. In the chief French and Colonial newspapers I caused to be inserted a brief paragraph addressed to “Jean Montbazon, late of Noumea,” stating that his companion upon the voyage from New Caledonia to Australia wished particularly to meet him, and giving my address at the Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, whither I proceeded. Patiently I awaited a reply, but although I had spent a large sum upon the advertisement, it apparently failed to reach the man whose acquaintance I desired to make.

For many weeks I remained at the hotel, feeling no desire to return to Johannesburg until I had cleared up the mystery and accounted for my lost identity. Times without number I was tempted to relinquish the effort to trace my past, yet with sheer, dogged perversity, I remained and hoped.

At last my patience was rewarded, for one evening, while I was sitting on the balcony of the hotel, enjoying a cigar in the starlight, the waiter brought me a visitor.

Judge my dismay when I recognised the face of my secretary.

“Well, old fellow,” he exclaimed familiarly, “and what means all this confounded mystery?”

I sat speechless in amazement.

“I saw the advertisement in theCape Times, and, concluding that something was wrong, came down here. What is it?” he continued, sinking lazily into a chair by my side.

“The advertisement?” I gasped. “I—I don’t understand you.”

“Your advertisement was addressed to Jean Montbazon, your humble and obedient servant, who shared your lot at La Nouvelle, and who escaped with you.”

“What?” I cried. “Is that true?”

“I think,mon cher ami, you must have taken leave of your senses, as madame declares you have. Come, now, what’s the matter?”

“Are—are you really Jean Montbazon?”

“That’s my baptismal cognomen, though Fred Norton suits me better just now.”

“Look here,” I said earnestly: “I admit I’m not quite myself; indeed, I have forgotten everything. Tell me how we escaped, and why I am so rich, while you are my secretary.”

The man looked at me incredulously, remarking, “Ma foi! I thought you were a bit vacant before you left Johannesburg so mysteriously, but you now seem stark mad. It would take a long time to recount all our adventures, and some would be rather unpleasant reminiscences. You were sent to penal servitude for life for murder, and I for forgery. We were pals in the same labour-gang, and one day, finding an open boat upon the beach, we resolved to escape, and embarked. In the boat was a keg of water and a barrel of biscuits, which sufficed to keep body and soul together until, after a terrible voyage lasting many days, we ran ashore near Port Curtis, in Queensland. Having regained our freedom, we tramped to the gold diggings, and worked together for about a year. You had extraordinary luck, and soon became rich, while I was often obliged to exist upon your charity. In a year, however, an unfortunate incident occurred at our camp at Gum Tree Gulch. A man who was known to have a quantity of dust in his belt was found dead, with an ugly wound upon his head; and, in consequence of this, Australia became too warm for you and I. Therefore we left the camp hurriedly one night, without wishing adieu to our comrades, and came here, to South Africa, to try our luck. As usual, your good fortune did not desert you. Already rich, you bought some big claims in the Randt, and worked them with almost incredible results. Then the boom came.”

“And how did that affect me?”

“You had previously married a wealthy woman before the gold fever set in. When the boom came, you sold both her property and yours at such prices that within three weeks you were almost a millionaire.”

“What am I now?” I asked, amazed at this remarkable story.

“You are owner of two of the richest gold workings in the Transvaal, and I—always a Lazarus—am your confidential secretary. Most confidential, I assure you,” he added, smiling. “The master a murderer; the servant a forger!”

Having thus filled up the long blank in my memory, I did not rest until I had satisfactorily accounted for the events of that fateful night. Subsequently I discovered that the violent blow on my head, received in the accident, had produced such an effect on my brain as to render oblivious all the events of my past. From that moment I commenced a second life. One of my fellow-passengers, noticing my injury, was endeavouring to steal the box of bullion, when I shot him dead with my revolver. Afterwards, when I had recovered consciousness, I opened the box, and, secreting part of the money in my pockets, tried to get away unobserved. But I was arrested, tried for murder, and transported. The rest is known.

At my trial I refused to give any account of myself, for the simple reason that I remembered nothing. My mind was an absolute blank. I had lived an entirely different life for ten years, until I accidentally struck my head a violent blow against the corner of a mantelshelf in my drawing-room, causing the memory of my earlier life to return as suddenly as it had fled, and thus leaving a gap of ten years for me to fill.

Mine was an extraordinary case; but, as I afterwards discovered, my duality of brain was by no means unprecedented. Such vagaries of the mind, although rare, are known to medical science.

When, a week afterwards, I returned to Johannesburg—that dusty, noisy City of Mammon—Lena welcomed me warmly. The same evening, after I had explained to her the cause of my sudden disappearance and apparent insanity, she went to her room, and on her return handed me a faded blue envelope, secured by the official seal of the Bank of England.

“This,” she said, “you asked me to keep for you, on the day we were married.”

I glanced at the superscription, and recognised the handwriting. It contained the lost bank-notes!

Placing them in the fire, I watched the flames consume them, and from that night I commenced life afresh.

Jean is my secretary no longer. I effected a compromise with him, and at the present moment, owing to his shrewd business tact, combined with successful speculation, he is one of the most prosperous promoters of the South African mining companies in the City of London.

Chapter Eleven.Death-Kisses.The scene was composed of a bit of everything. An October evening, a dull sky, a fierce cold wind, and a woman. Yet the dreamy experience, where everything went at will, bears but little resemblance to reality.The woman was sweet and tender; the interview passionate, yet innocent; and the words exchangednaïveas the questions of a child.The recollection of it leaves no poison of deception; only indelible remorse.It was a chill, windy afternoon. In the morning a great thirst for fresh air had taken possession of me, and I joyfully left Brussels, counting on stopping at a little station I knew.I think my journey terminated about four o’clock. Cutting across the fields, I entered a narrow path, paying but little attention to the way, and strolling aimlessly. I seemed to be in an incredibly careless and absent mood that day. I am not even certain that I got out at the right station, so drunk was I with the frenzy to communicate with nature.Picture to yourself a rolling plain under a cheerless sky; with empty roads, cut in the brown earth, here and there made green with tender shoots; a few solitary and distant houses, and occasional stumps of leafless trees, red and melancholy-looking.A flight of crows sailed slowly overhead, talking among themselves with little continuous croakings, flying always towards the setting sun. The day was grey, with deeper shades towards the horizon, stamping everything with a uniform tint. Children’s voices sounded in the field. Suddenly three appeared, a boy and two girls, returning from school. They grew silent when they saw me, eyed me cautiously and crossed the path with quickened step. Soon I reached an isolated cross-road. A step further, and I encountered a strolling mountebank, with his wheeled home beside him. At my request he furnished me with a slight repast. Then, without saying a dozen words, I set off again, leaving the astonished man gaping at the money in his hand.You say that I was mad.Perhaps. At any rate, I was quite calm, but something evidently dominated and guided me. For of the three roads that spread out before me, why should I have chosen that one?I assure you I have no spiritualistic tendencies, but there are times when I believe in a distinct influence.The night had fallen, or rather, a sort of twilight, singularly lasting. A fine, cold rain, driven by a brisk wind, beat noisily upon my umbrella. I wandered slowly on. Holding it against the wind, I walked without effort. I think I must have slept, as I have only a vague recollection of that dreary promenade.When I became aware of things around me, I was in front of a good fire. There was a dim consciousness of realising that the storm had redoubled its fury, that I had seen a light and knocked at a cottage door. As I recovered from the stupor, it seemed as if I had entered with some trivial formula of politeness; that I had seated myself in front of the genial flame as if I were in my own home.A young woman, pale, but very beautiful, was sitting beside me. I glanced slowly around the room. We were alone. Little by little I remembered. It was she who had opened the door to me. Behold! even the card I gave her still in her hand. Were it not for her light breathing and the movement of her eyelids, I should say she was of wax.She was older than myself, two or three years perhaps; tall and slight, with a gentle and melancholy grace. Her mouth, clear and tender, was near enough to the delicate nose to give her a slight appearance of a scolded child; the eyes were not large, but soft and pleading, and the oval of her face stretched the length of her blanched cheeks. Though sad, the face pleased me.“How charming!” I exclaimed involuntarily, under my breath.She must have heard the words, for she turned towards me and smiled.“You are just as complimentary as of old—always the same Théophile.”In that voice I found an air of recognition. Instantly I remembered a half-forgotten period, like a pleasant dream; a name was upon my lips, but I could not utter it; I stammered a question.“Well, well,” she said. “They tell me I have altered, yet—why, don’t you know Mariette?”Mariette!Mariette! only this thought, and I fell on my knees beside her; our hands touched, and I kissed her dainty white fingers. Why was I certain in all my life never to know a like moment?Ah! never shall I experience the same mad joy; the delight of holding in mine the thin hands of my childhood’s friend. It was that childhood I embraced; that other time, so free and pure, with its pretty welcoming air.“Do you remember when last we met?” I asked earnestly.She heaved a slight sigh, so like those of other days that tears rose to my eyes.“Yes,” she murmured. “But—there, don’t speak of it. Such memories must be painful to both of us.”“If to you, none the less to me, Mariette,” I replied, looking in her sad, sweet face.Her lips quivered, and a tear stole down her cheek.During a whole hour it was nothing but expressions of surprise and vain regrets. To the depths of our being we felt the force of these recollections, causing us to live over an almost forgotten period.I found in looking at her, in listening to her, my great soul and little body of that sweet other time.Once more I felt the immensity of the fields and of the sky; the fine smell of the leaves enthralled my senses, and the least sound was melody. Once more I lived the old free life over again. It was before I went to stay at Brussels, when I resided under the paternal roof on the edge of the dense Soignes forest, that Mariette and I were playmates and afterwards lovers.How well I recollect one halcyon day, the memory of which now comes before me in all its vividness. It was autumn. We were walking alone in the wood. The leaves floated down noiselessly upon the chill November air, leaving the naked branches like black lace against a grey, snow-laden sky. That day she admitted that she loved me, that she would be my wife.And all around us there was infinite space, coloured by the joyful imaginings of happy youth.We were speaking of it, when suddenly she withdrew her hand from mine, and a red flush mounted to her forehead.“But you soon forgot me when you went away,” she said reproachfully. “I waited months, but you never wrote; then I heard how an actress had infatuated you. Yet—you are rich now, and the world looks leniently upon what it calls a wealthy man’s folly.”I could not prevent myself from frowning.“You mean Clémentine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,” I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.“And I—I am mad,” she whispered.I rose and looked at her. She was still seated, her eyes riveted upon the fire, her cheek resting upon her hand, appearing to have forgotten my presence. For a moment I remained in that position, then I reseated myself. There was nothing awkward in our silence. We felt too deeply for idle words. As we contemplated our past, the wind whistled without, the rain fell furiously, and from time to time I added a log to the fire and stirred the embers.“Théophile,” she exclaimed suddenly, looking me straight in the face, “it is your fault that I am married.”“Married?” I gasped in amazement. “I—I thought this cottage was your aunt’s; that you kept house for her?”There was a silence. The voice made me tremble, gay, careless idler that I was. She spoke slowly, without moving, as though giving utterance to the thought that possessed her. “When a woman is forsaken by the man she loves, who can blame her for a hasty, loveless marriage?” she asked. “You wrecked my life, Théophile, but I forgive you freely. After you had left, I was stricken down with grief, madness followed, and I accepted the first man who proposed to me. I did not love him; I—I shall never love him. And how could I? He is a dissolute ne’er-do-well, who spends his days in theestaminet, drinking cognac. It is I who am compelled to toil and earn money for him to spend in drink. Ah, Théophile, you little know how dull and utterly hopeless is my life!”“But your husband, does he not try and make you happy?” I asked.“Happy?” she cried, jumping to her feet and impetuously tearing open the bodice of her dress. “See! See, here; the marks of his violence, where he tried to murder me!” And she disclosed to my view her delicate breast disfigured by an ugly knife-wound, only partially healed.“Horrible!” I exclaimed, with an involuntary shudder.“That is not all,” she continued, turning up her sleeves and revealing cruel bruises and lacerations upon her alabaster-like arms. “He wants to rid himself of me, to be free again; and when the brandy takes effect, he threatens to kill me.”“Why stay and be brutally ill-used in this manner?” I asked.Shrugging her shoulders, she smiled sadly, replying, “If I were dead, it would end my misery. Should he ever know that you have been here, his jealousy would be so aroused that I believe he would carry his threat into effect.”“Come, come, Mariette, you must not talk like that,” I exclaimed. “It grieves me to know of your unhappiness, to think that I am to blame.”“Remember, I forgive you.”“Yes, but try to bear up against it; do your duty to your husband, and thus compel him to treat you kindly.”“I have tried to do so, Heaven knows,” she replied hoarsely, bursting into tears; “But everything is useless. Only death can release me.”“Don’t talk so gloomily,” I urged, taking one of her cold hands in mine. “Although we can be naught to one another save friends, let me be yours. I am ready to do anything you command me.”“You are kind, Théophile, very kind,” she replied bitterly, shaking her head; “but friendship is poor reparation for love.”I thought of the years we had passed together at the time when years are so long and beautiful.Finally I said to her—“Tell me, what can I do for you?”She made no answer, only her face appeared to grow a shade paler. With her eyes on the clock, she seemed to listen. “Nothing,” she replied at last. “You—you must go.”“So soon?”“Yes,” she said, with a choking sob. “You ought not to have come here, and—and you must forgive me, Théophile, we women are so weak when memories are painful.”She wished to aid me in my preparations for departure, handed me my hat and buttoned my coat. We said nothing, but she lingered over the buttoning as though it were something very difficult.Suddenly, with a bitter burst of tears, she flung her head down against my arm. She seemed such a frail little creature as I held her tightly and stroked away the tendril curls that strayed across her face.I longed to console her, but could not give utterance to my thoughts.“Mariette. Poor little Mariette,” was all I could say.“Good-bye, Théophile, good-bye,” she whispered brokenly. “A great gulf separates us; you have gaiety and happiness, I only misery and despair. My husband—”Just as suddenly as they commenced, her tears ceased. Clasping her hands, she lifted her agitated face to mine.“Promise me—promise you will never return here again!”I did not reply.Bending over, her lips met mine in one fierce passionate caress.Next second we were startled by a strange noise, sounding suspiciously like a footstep upon the gravel. We listened, but the sound was not repeated.“Hark!” she whispered anxiously. “If my husband should find you here, would it not compromise me?”With a force I should never have suspected, she led me to the door, and, after giving me a gentle push, locked it behind me.“Adieu!” I murmured, as tenderly as I could.There was no answer.Through the keyhole I could see Mariette kneeling before a crucifix on the opposite wall.Then I turned and went forth into the darkness.The morning was grey and dispiriting; the chill wind whirled the dead leaves in my path, and moaned through the bare branches as I walked up to the door of the cottage. My mind was perturbed by thoughts of what happiness might have resulted had I been true to the woman who loved me. I had spent a restless night at a roadside inn. Her misery tortured me, and, despite her entreaty, I was now on my way to again proffer assistance.With trepidation I approached the door of the humble abode and knocked.No one stirred. Everything seemed strangely silent.About to repeat the summons, I noticed the door was ajar. Pushing it slowly open, I entered, at the same time uttering her name.As I stepped into the neat, well-kept room, I at first saw nothing, but on glancing round the opposite side of the table, my eyes encountered a terrible sight.Stretched upon the floor, Mariette was lying partly dressed, the pale light falling upon her upturned features. The cheeks and lips were bloodless; the eyes, wide-open, were staring wildly into space with a look of indescribable horror.Falling upon my knees, I touched her face with my hand.It was cold as marble.She was dead!In her white breast a knife was buried up to the hilt, and from the cruel wound the blood had oozed.She had been murdered!The recollection of the events immediately following this ghastly discovery is but faint. I have a hazy belief that my mind became temporarily unhinged, that I left the place without informing any one of the tragedy; then, walking many miles through the forest, I reached a railway station, whence I returned to Brussels.The one thing most in my mind was the terrible look of blank despair in the glazed eyes. I have never forgotten it. I shall carry its remembrance with me to the grave.That awful look of reproach has ever since been uppermost in my memory. Try how I will, I cannot rid myself of its hideous presence.A bright, crisp morning in December.Hurrying down the Montagne de la Cour, where I chanced to have business, I came face to face with Clémentine Sucaret, who, warmly clad in furs, was enjoying that harmless pastime so dear to the feminine heart—inspecting shop windows.We had bid each other farewell three years before. She then left Brussels to fulfil engagements as a dancer in London and Paris, and since I heard nothing of her.Greeting me with the same winsome smile and merry manner as of old, she inquired whither I was going. When I explained that my business was important, and did not admit of delay, she requested that she might accompany me, at the same time inviting me todéjeûnerwith her afterwards, an arrangement to which I consented without reluctance.As we walked together, she commenced describing her adventures and successes, declaring that, after all, it was pleasant to return among old friends and cherished recollections. I was well aware at what she hinted when she said this, for I was one of her oldest friends, and had known her when she was only afiguranteat the Théâtre de la Monnaie, and lived with her decrepit and bibulous old father, aconcierge, in the Rue du Trône. It was then that her cheerful, good-natured disposition and handsome face had fascinated me, causing me to forsake Mariette.The thought inflicted a sharp twinge of remorse, for the tragedy in the little cottage was still fresh in my memory.Having left her for a moment while I made a call, I rejoined her. Laughing and chattering, she chaffingly alluded to our former attachment, and pouted in feigned displeasure at what she termed my inconstancy.Down the Rue de la Régence we had sauntered slowly, and were passing the imposing façade of the Palais de Justice, when suddenly she stopped, and, uttering an exclamation of surprise at the proportions of the vast building which had been completed in her absence, requested me to take her to see the interior.Mounting the broad flight of granite steps, we passed into the magnificent marble hall.Strange how Fate is constantly our mistress and rules our every action.We had crossed under the gilded dome and were about to enter one of the court-rooms, when my eye caught a large printed notice fixed to the wall.I halted and read.It was an imposing poster, headed in great black capitals, “Court of Assize,” and was the public announcement that Henri Pirlot had been sentenced to death by that tribunal for the wilful murder of his wife, Mariette, at a cottage near Spoel. It further stated that the condemned man had confessed that the cause of the crime was jealousy. He was intoxicated, and having discovered his wife kissing a strange man who had visited her in his absence, he went in and deliberately stabbed her to the heart!“What a pair of idiots!” exclaimed Clémentine, with a light laugh, as she read the notice. “The idea of killing a woman because she kissed her lover! Again, what a simpleton the woman was not to have been more wary! But—why—what’s the matter, Théophile? You stand there gazing and looking as scared as if you’d seen a ghost. Any one would thinkyouknew the rustic beauty, and were the strange lover!”I started. A sickening sensation crept over me. The actress had little idea it was the terrible truth she uttered. I pleaded that I was not feeling well, and we left the building.

The scene was composed of a bit of everything. An October evening, a dull sky, a fierce cold wind, and a woman. Yet the dreamy experience, where everything went at will, bears but little resemblance to reality.

The woman was sweet and tender; the interview passionate, yet innocent; and the words exchangednaïveas the questions of a child.

The recollection of it leaves no poison of deception; only indelible remorse.

It was a chill, windy afternoon. In the morning a great thirst for fresh air had taken possession of me, and I joyfully left Brussels, counting on stopping at a little station I knew.

I think my journey terminated about four o’clock. Cutting across the fields, I entered a narrow path, paying but little attention to the way, and strolling aimlessly. I seemed to be in an incredibly careless and absent mood that day. I am not even certain that I got out at the right station, so drunk was I with the frenzy to communicate with nature.

Picture to yourself a rolling plain under a cheerless sky; with empty roads, cut in the brown earth, here and there made green with tender shoots; a few solitary and distant houses, and occasional stumps of leafless trees, red and melancholy-looking.

A flight of crows sailed slowly overhead, talking among themselves with little continuous croakings, flying always towards the setting sun. The day was grey, with deeper shades towards the horizon, stamping everything with a uniform tint. Children’s voices sounded in the field. Suddenly three appeared, a boy and two girls, returning from school. They grew silent when they saw me, eyed me cautiously and crossed the path with quickened step. Soon I reached an isolated cross-road. A step further, and I encountered a strolling mountebank, with his wheeled home beside him. At my request he furnished me with a slight repast. Then, without saying a dozen words, I set off again, leaving the astonished man gaping at the money in his hand.

You say that I was mad.

Perhaps. At any rate, I was quite calm, but something evidently dominated and guided me. For of the three roads that spread out before me, why should I have chosen that one?

I assure you I have no spiritualistic tendencies, but there are times when I believe in a distinct influence.

The night had fallen, or rather, a sort of twilight, singularly lasting. A fine, cold rain, driven by a brisk wind, beat noisily upon my umbrella. I wandered slowly on. Holding it against the wind, I walked without effort. I think I must have slept, as I have only a vague recollection of that dreary promenade.

When I became aware of things around me, I was in front of a good fire. There was a dim consciousness of realising that the storm had redoubled its fury, that I had seen a light and knocked at a cottage door. As I recovered from the stupor, it seemed as if I had entered with some trivial formula of politeness; that I had seated myself in front of the genial flame as if I were in my own home.

A young woman, pale, but very beautiful, was sitting beside me. I glanced slowly around the room. We were alone. Little by little I remembered. It was she who had opened the door to me. Behold! even the card I gave her still in her hand. Were it not for her light breathing and the movement of her eyelids, I should say she was of wax.

She was older than myself, two or three years perhaps; tall and slight, with a gentle and melancholy grace. Her mouth, clear and tender, was near enough to the delicate nose to give her a slight appearance of a scolded child; the eyes were not large, but soft and pleading, and the oval of her face stretched the length of her blanched cheeks. Though sad, the face pleased me.

“How charming!” I exclaimed involuntarily, under my breath.

She must have heard the words, for she turned towards me and smiled.

“You are just as complimentary as of old—always the same Théophile.”

In that voice I found an air of recognition. Instantly I remembered a half-forgotten period, like a pleasant dream; a name was upon my lips, but I could not utter it; I stammered a question.

“Well, well,” she said. “They tell me I have altered, yet—why, don’t you know Mariette?”

Mariette!

Mariette! only this thought, and I fell on my knees beside her; our hands touched, and I kissed her dainty white fingers. Why was I certain in all my life never to know a like moment?

Ah! never shall I experience the same mad joy; the delight of holding in mine the thin hands of my childhood’s friend. It was that childhood I embraced; that other time, so free and pure, with its pretty welcoming air.

“Do you remember when last we met?” I asked earnestly.

She heaved a slight sigh, so like those of other days that tears rose to my eyes.

“Yes,” she murmured. “But—there, don’t speak of it. Such memories must be painful to both of us.”

“If to you, none the less to me, Mariette,” I replied, looking in her sad, sweet face.

Her lips quivered, and a tear stole down her cheek.

During a whole hour it was nothing but expressions of surprise and vain regrets. To the depths of our being we felt the force of these recollections, causing us to live over an almost forgotten period.

I found in looking at her, in listening to her, my great soul and little body of that sweet other time.

Once more I felt the immensity of the fields and of the sky; the fine smell of the leaves enthralled my senses, and the least sound was melody. Once more I lived the old free life over again. It was before I went to stay at Brussels, when I resided under the paternal roof on the edge of the dense Soignes forest, that Mariette and I were playmates and afterwards lovers.

How well I recollect one halcyon day, the memory of which now comes before me in all its vividness. It was autumn. We were walking alone in the wood. The leaves floated down noiselessly upon the chill November air, leaving the naked branches like black lace against a grey, snow-laden sky. That day she admitted that she loved me, that she would be my wife.

And all around us there was infinite space, coloured by the joyful imaginings of happy youth.

We were speaking of it, when suddenly she withdrew her hand from mine, and a red flush mounted to her forehead.

“But you soon forgot me when you went away,” she said reproachfully. “I waited months, but you never wrote; then I heard how an actress had infatuated you. Yet—you are rich now, and the world looks leniently upon what it calls a wealthy man’s folly.”

I could not prevent myself from frowning.

“You mean Clémentine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,” I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.

“And I—I am mad,” she whispered.

I rose and looked at her. She was still seated, her eyes riveted upon the fire, her cheek resting upon her hand, appearing to have forgotten my presence. For a moment I remained in that position, then I reseated myself. There was nothing awkward in our silence. We felt too deeply for idle words. As we contemplated our past, the wind whistled without, the rain fell furiously, and from time to time I added a log to the fire and stirred the embers.

“Théophile,” she exclaimed suddenly, looking me straight in the face, “it is your fault that I am married.”

“Married?” I gasped in amazement. “I—I thought this cottage was your aunt’s; that you kept house for her?”

There was a silence. The voice made me tremble, gay, careless idler that I was. She spoke slowly, without moving, as though giving utterance to the thought that possessed her. “When a woman is forsaken by the man she loves, who can blame her for a hasty, loveless marriage?” she asked. “You wrecked my life, Théophile, but I forgive you freely. After you had left, I was stricken down with grief, madness followed, and I accepted the first man who proposed to me. I did not love him; I—I shall never love him. And how could I? He is a dissolute ne’er-do-well, who spends his days in theestaminet, drinking cognac. It is I who am compelled to toil and earn money for him to spend in drink. Ah, Théophile, you little know how dull and utterly hopeless is my life!”

“But your husband, does he not try and make you happy?” I asked.

“Happy?” she cried, jumping to her feet and impetuously tearing open the bodice of her dress. “See! See, here; the marks of his violence, where he tried to murder me!” And she disclosed to my view her delicate breast disfigured by an ugly knife-wound, only partially healed.

“Horrible!” I exclaimed, with an involuntary shudder.

“That is not all,” she continued, turning up her sleeves and revealing cruel bruises and lacerations upon her alabaster-like arms. “He wants to rid himself of me, to be free again; and when the brandy takes effect, he threatens to kill me.”

“Why stay and be brutally ill-used in this manner?” I asked.

Shrugging her shoulders, she smiled sadly, replying, “If I were dead, it would end my misery. Should he ever know that you have been here, his jealousy would be so aroused that I believe he would carry his threat into effect.”

“Come, come, Mariette, you must not talk like that,” I exclaimed. “It grieves me to know of your unhappiness, to think that I am to blame.”

“Remember, I forgive you.”

“Yes, but try to bear up against it; do your duty to your husband, and thus compel him to treat you kindly.”

“I have tried to do so, Heaven knows,” she replied hoarsely, bursting into tears; “But everything is useless. Only death can release me.”

“Don’t talk so gloomily,” I urged, taking one of her cold hands in mine. “Although we can be naught to one another save friends, let me be yours. I am ready to do anything you command me.”

“You are kind, Théophile, very kind,” she replied bitterly, shaking her head; “but friendship is poor reparation for love.”

I thought of the years we had passed together at the time when years are so long and beautiful.

Finally I said to her—

“Tell me, what can I do for you?”

She made no answer, only her face appeared to grow a shade paler. With her eyes on the clock, she seemed to listen. “Nothing,” she replied at last. “You—you must go.”

“So soon?”

“Yes,” she said, with a choking sob. “You ought not to have come here, and—and you must forgive me, Théophile, we women are so weak when memories are painful.”

She wished to aid me in my preparations for departure, handed me my hat and buttoned my coat. We said nothing, but she lingered over the buttoning as though it were something very difficult.

Suddenly, with a bitter burst of tears, she flung her head down against my arm. She seemed such a frail little creature as I held her tightly and stroked away the tendril curls that strayed across her face.

I longed to console her, but could not give utterance to my thoughts.

“Mariette. Poor little Mariette,” was all I could say.

“Good-bye, Théophile, good-bye,” she whispered brokenly. “A great gulf separates us; you have gaiety and happiness, I only misery and despair. My husband—”

Just as suddenly as they commenced, her tears ceased. Clasping her hands, she lifted her agitated face to mine.

“Promise me—promise you will never return here again!”

I did not reply.

Bending over, her lips met mine in one fierce passionate caress.

Next second we were startled by a strange noise, sounding suspiciously like a footstep upon the gravel. We listened, but the sound was not repeated.

“Hark!” she whispered anxiously. “If my husband should find you here, would it not compromise me?”

With a force I should never have suspected, she led me to the door, and, after giving me a gentle push, locked it behind me.

“Adieu!” I murmured, as tenderly as I could.

There was no answer.

Through the keyhole I could see Mariette kneeling before a crucifix on the opposite wall.

Then I turned and went forth into the darkness.

The morning was grey and dispiriting; the chill wind whirled the dead leaves in my path, and moaned through the bare branches as I walked up to the door of the cottage. My mind was perturbed by thoughts of what happiness might have resulted had I been true to the woman who loved me. I had spent a restless night at a roadside inn. Her misery tortured me, and, despite her entreaty, I was now on my way to again proffer assistance.

With trepidation I approached the door of the humble abode and knocked.

No one stirred. Everything seemed strangely silent.

About to repeat the summons, I noticed the door was ajar. Pushing it slowly open, I entered, at the same time uttering her name.

As I stepped into the neat, well-kept room, I at first saw nothing, but on glancing round the opposite side of the table, my eyes encountered a terrible sight.

Stretched upon the floor, Mariette was lying partly dressed, the pale light falling upon her upturned features. The cheeks and lips were bloodless; the eyes, wide-open, were staring wildly into space with a look of indescribable horror.

Falling upon my knees, I touched her face with my hand.

It was cold as marble.She was dead!

In her white breast a knife was buried up to the hilt, and from the cruel wound the blood had oozed.

She had been murdered!

The recollection of the events immediately following this ghastly discovery is but faint. I have a hazy belief that my mind became temporarily unhinged, that I left the place without informing any one of the tragedy; then, walking many miles through the forest, I reached a railway station, whence I returned to Brussels.

The one thing most in my mind was the terrible look of blank despair in the glazed eyes. I have never forgotten it. I shall carry its remembrance with me to the grave.

That awful look of reproach has ever since been uppermost in my memory. Try how I will, I cannot rid myself of its hideous presence.

A bright, crisp morning in December.

Hurrying down the Montagne de la Cour, where I chanced to have business, I came face to face with Clémentine Sucaret, who, warmly clad in furs, was enjoying that harmless pastime so dear to the feminine heart—inspecting shop windows.

We had bid each other farewell three years before. She then left Brussels to fulfil engagements as a dancer in London and Paris, and since I heard nothing of her.

Greeting me with the same winsome smile and merry manner as of old, she inquired whither I was going. When I explained that my business was important, and did not admit of delay, she requested that she might accompany me, at the same time inviting me todéjeûnerwith her afterwards, an arrangement to which I consented without reluctance.

As we walked together, she commenced describing her adventures and successes, declaring that, after all, it was pleasant to return among old friends and cherished recollections. I was well aware at what she hinted when she said this, for I was one of her oldest friends, and had known her when she was only afiguranteat the Théâtre de la Monnaie, and lived with her decrepit and bibulous old father, aconcierge, in the Rue du Trône. It was then that her cheerful, good-natured disposition and handsome face had fascinated me, causing me to forsake Mariette.

The thought inflicted a sharp twinge of remorse, for the tragedy in the little cottage was still fresh in my memory.

Having left her for a moment while I made a call, I rejoined her. Laughing and chattering, she chaffingly alluded to our former attachment, and pouted in feigned displeasure at what she termed my inconstancy.

Down the Rue de la Régence we had sauntered slowly, and were passing the imposing façade of the Palais de Justice, when suddenly she stopped, and, uttering an exclamation of surprise at the proportions of the vast building which had been completed in her absence, requested me to take her to see the interior.

Mounting the broad flight of granite steps, we passed into the magnificent marble hall.

Strange how Fate is constantly our mistress and rules our every action.

We had crossed under the gilded dome and were about to enter one of the court-rooms, when my eye caught a large printed notice fixed to the wall.

I halted and read.

It was an imposing poster, headed in great black capitals, “Court of Assize,” and was the public announcement that Henri Pirlot had been sentenced to death by that tribunal for the wilful murder of his wife, Mariette, at a cottage near Spoel. It further stated that the condemned man had confessed that the cause of the crime was jealousy. He was intoxicated, and having discovered his wife kissing a strange man who had visited her in his absence, he went in and deliberately stabbed her to the heart!

“What a pair of idiots!” exclaimed Clémentine, with a light laugh, as she read the notice. “The idea of killing a woman because she kissed her lover! Again, what a simpleton the woman was not to have been more wary! But—why—what’s the matter, Théophile? You stand there gazing and looking as scared as if you’d seen a ghost. Any one would thinkyouknew the rustic beauty, and were the strange lover!”

I started. A sickening sensation crept over me. The actress had little idea it was the terrible truth she uttered. I pleaded that I was not feeling well, and we left the building.

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