One detail of this mischancy episode occasioned me considerable perplexity. Conjecture as I might, I could hit upon no cause or explanation of it that seemed in any degree feasible. The astonishment of Otto Krax I attributed, and as I afterwards discovered rightly attributed, to the appearance of Lady Tracy so pat upon the discussion of her picture, and to my expressed desire to present her to the Countess within a few minutes of strenuously denying her acquaintance; and I deemed it not extravagant. That he recognised her as the object of his master's capricious fancy at Bristol, I considered most improbable. For I remembered how successfully the intrigue had been concealed; so that even Julian himself came over-late to the knowledge of it. His second exclamation on the stairs I set down to the probability that he had perceived Lady Tracy was on the point of swooning.
It was indeed the fact of the lady's swoon which troubled me. Her natural repugnance to meeting the Countess was not motive enough. Nor did I believe her sufficiently sensible to shame for that feeling to work on her to such purpose. It seemed of a piece with the terror which she had subsequently shown on her recovery. The miniature, I conjectured, had something, if not everything to do with it. Resolving wisely that I had best ascertain the top and bottom of the matter, I called upon Marston at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, close to the new college of Franciscans, and asked where his sister stayed, on the plea that I would fain pay my respects to her, and assure myself of her convalescence.
"I can satisfy you on the latter point," he returned cordially, "but at the cost of denying you the pleasure of a visit. For my sister left London on the next day, and has gone down into the country."
"So soon?" I asked in some surprise. For Lady Tracy hardly impressed me as likely to find much enjoyment in the felicities of a rural life.
"Her illness left her weak, and she thought the country air would give her health."
For a moment I was in two minds whether to inquire more precisely of her whereabouts and follow her; but I reflected that I might encounter some difficulty in compassing an interview, for it was evident that she had fled from London in order to avoid further trouble and concern in the matter. And even if I succeeded so far, I saw no means of eliciting the explanation I needed, without revealing to her the unscrupulous use which her brother had made of her miniature; and that I had not the heart to do. The business seemed of insufficient importance to warrant it. There was besides a final and convincing argument which decided me to remain in London. If I journeyed into the West, I should leave an open field for my rival, and no ally with the Countess to guard against his insinuations; and I reflected further that there were few possible insinuations from which he would refrain.
On this point of his conduct, however, I was minded to teach him a lesson, which would make him more discreet in the future, and at the same time effect the purpose I had in view when Lady Tracy inopportunely swooned. For when I came to think over the events of that morning, I recollected that after all Lady Tracy had not spoken as I asked her, and though the last words Ilga had said to me as I left the house seemed to show me that she no longer believed the calumny, I was none the less anxious to compel Marston to disavow it.
Now it was the fashion at the time of which I write for the fine ladies and gentlemen of the town to take the air of a morning in the Piazza, of Covent Garden; and choosing an occasion when Marston was lounging there in the company of the Countess and her attendant, Mdlle. Durette, I inquired of him pointedly concerning his sister's health, meaning to lead him from that starting-point to an admission that Lady Tracy was until that chance meeting a complete stranger to me.
But or ever he could reply, Ilga broke in with an air of flurry, and calling to Lord Culverton, who was approaching, engaged him in a rapid conversation. She was afraid, I supposed, that I meant to break the promise which I had given her upon the stairs, and tax Marston with his treachery; and I was confirmed in the supposition when I repeated the question. For she shot at me a look of reproach, and said quickly:
"I was telling your friend when you joined us," she said, "of my home in the Tyrol." She laid some stress upon the word "friend." "'Twere hard, I think, at any season to find a spot more beautiful."
"'Twere impossible," rejoined Culverton, with his most elegant bow. "For no spot can be more beautiful than that which owns Beauty for its queen."
"The compliment," replied Ilga, with a bow, "is worthy of the playhouse."
"Nay, nay," smirked my lord, mightily gratified; "the truth, madame, the truth extorted from me, let me die! And yet it hath some wit. I cannot help it, wit will out, the more certainly when it is truth as well."
"Lady Tracy, then----" I began to Marston.
"But at this time of the year," interrupted the Countess immediately, "Lukstein has no rival. Cornfields redden below it, beeches are marshalled green up the hillside behind it, gentian picks out a mosaic on the grass, and night and day waterfalls tumble their music through the air. Yet even in winter, when the ice binds it and gags its voices, it has a quiet charm of silence whereof the memory makes one homesick."
As she proceeded the anxiety died out of her face, and she grew absorbed in the picture which her memories painted.
"Madame," said Marston, "I should appreciate the description better if it spoke less of a longing to return."
"It is my kingdom, you see," she replied. "Barbarous no doubt, with a turbulent populace, but still it is my kingdom, and very loyal to me."
Culverton paid her the obvious flattery, but she took no heed of it.
"The tiniest, compactest kingdom," she went on in a musing tone, "sequestered in a nook of the world." She seated herself on a chair which stood at the edge of the Piazza. "Indeed, I shall return there, and that, I fancy, soon."
"Countess!" replied Culverton. "That were too heartless. 'Twould decimate London, let me perish! For never a gallant but would drink himself to death. Oh, fie!"
Marston joined eagerly in the other's protestations. For my part, however, I remained silent, well content with what she had said. For I recollected the evening when I first had talk with her, and the construction which I had placed upon her words; how she would never return to Lukstein until she was eased of the pain which her husband's disaster had caused her. The notion that her memories had lost their sting thrilled me to the heart, and woke my vanity to conjecture of a cause.
"Then," said the Countess, "would my friends be proved heartless. For it is their turn to visit me, and I would not be baulked of requiting them for their kindness to me here. 'Tis not so tedious a journey after all."
"I can warrant the truth of that," said Culverton. "For I have been as far as Innspruck myself."
"Indeed?" said the Countess. She looked hard at him for a second, and then laughed to herself. "When was that?" she asked.
"Some six years ago. I was on the grand tour with a tutor--a most obnoxious person, who was ever poring over statues and cold marble figures, but as for a fine woman, rabbit me if he ever knew one when he saw her. He dragged me with him from Italy to Innspruck to view some figures in the Cathedral."
"Then you must needs have passed beneath Lukstein," said the Countess, "for it hangs just above the high-road from Italy."
Culverton would not admit the statement. Some instinct, some angelic warning, he declared, would surely have bidden him stop and climb to the Castle as to a holy shrine. The Countess laughingly assured him that nevertheless he had passed her home, and with a fond minuteness she described to him its aspect and position.
Then the strangest thing occurred. She leaned forward in her chair, and with the tip of the stick she carried, drew a line on the gravel at the edge of the pavement.
"That represents the road from Meran," she explained. "The stone yonder is the Lukstein rock, on which the Castle stands." She briefly described the character of the village, and marked out the windings of the road from the gates at the back of the Castle down the hillside, until she had well-nigh completed a diagram in all essentials similar to that which Julian had sketched for me in my Horace.
"From the village," she said, "the road runs in a zigzag to join the highway."
She traced two long, distinct lines, but stopped of a sudden at the apex of the second angle, where the coppice runs to a point, with her face puckered up in a great perplexity. Culverton asked her what troubled her.
"I was forgetting," she said. "I was forgetting how often the road twisted," and very slowly she drew the final line to join with that which she had marked to represent the highway in the bed of the valley.
It struck me as peculiar for the moment, that with her great affection for Lukstein, she should forget so simple and prominent a detail as the number of angles which the road made in its descent. But I gave little thought to the matter, being rather engrossed in the strange coincidence of the diagram. It brought home to me with greater poignancy than ever before the deceit which I was practising upon my mistress. For I compared the use to which I had put my plan of the Castle with the motive which had led her unconsciously to reproduce it, I mean her desire that her friends should appreciate the home in which she took such manifest delight.
But while I was thus uneasily reproaching myself I perceived Marston separate from the group, and being obstinately determined that he should admit before Ilga the tenuity of my acquaintance with his sister, I called him back and asked him at what period Lady Tracy might be expected again in town.
This time the Countess made no effort to divert me. Indeed, she seemed barely to notice that I had put the question, but sat with her chin propped on the palms of her hands gazing with a thoughtful frown at the outline which she had drawn; and I believed her to be engrossed in the picture which it evoked in her imagination.
"It appears that you feel great interest in my sister, Mr. Buckler," said Marston curiously. Doubtless my question was a clumsy one, for I was never an adept at finesse; but this was the last answer which I desired to hear. "Nay, nay," I said hurriedly, and stopped at a loss, idly adding with my cane a line here and there to Countess Lukstein's diagram.
To my surprise, however, Ilga herself came to my rescue, and in a careless tone brought the matter to an issue.
"Perhaps Mr. Buckler," she remarked, "is an old friend of Lady Tracy's."
I raised my eyes from the Countess, fixing them upon Marston to note how he took the thrust, and with a quick sweep of her stick she smoothed the gravel, obliterating the lines. That I expected to see Marston disconcerted and in a pother to evade the question, I need not say, and 'twas with an amazement which fell little short of stupefaction that I heard him answer forthwith in a brusque, curt tone.
"That can hardly be. For my sister has been abroad all this year, and Mr. Buckler in the same case until this year."
I turned to Ilga. But she seemed more interested in Lady Tracy than in the fact of the admission.
"Ah! Lady Tracy was abroad," she said. "When did she leave England?"
"In September."
"The very month that I returned," I exclaimed triumphantly.
The Countess turned quickly towards me. "I fancied you only returned this spring."
"I was in England for a short while in September," said I, regretting the haste with which I had spoken.
"September of last year?"
"Of last year."
"Anno Domini 1685," laughed Culverton. "There seems to be some doubt about the date."
"September, 1685," repeated the Countess with a curious insistency.
"There is no doubt," returned Marston hotly. "I could wish for Betty's sake we had not such cause to remember it. She was betrothed to one of Monmouth's rebels, curse him! and Betty was so distressed by his capture that her health gave way."
I was upon tenterhooks lest Ilga should inquire the name of the rebel. But she merely remarked in an absent way, as though she attached no significance to his words:
"'Tis a sad story."
"In truth it is, and the only consolation we got from it was that the rebel swung for his treachery. Betty was ordered forthwith abroad, and she left England on the fourteenth of September. I remember the day particularly since it was her birthday."
"September the fourteenth!" said the Countess; and I, thinking to make out my case beyond dispute, cried triumphantly:
"The very day whereon I bade good-bye to Leyden."
The words were barely off my lips when Ilga rose to her feet. She stood for a moment with her eyes very wide and her bosom heaving.
"I am convinced," she whispered to me with an odd smile. "I ought not to have needed the proof. I am convinced."
With that she turned a little on one side, and Marston resumed:
"That proves how little Mr. Buckler is acquainted with Lady Tracy."
He spoke as though I had been endeavouring to persuade the company that I was intimate with his sister; he almost challenged me to contradict him. I could not but admire the effrontery of the man in carrying off the exposure of his falsity with so high a head, and I surmised that he had some new contrivance in his mind whereby he might subsequently set himself right with Ilga. One thing, however, was apparent to me: that he had no suspicion of his sister's acquaintance with Count Lukstein.
"It was on the fourteenth that Betty set out for France," he once more declared, and so walked away.
"Where she married most happily three months later," sniggered Culverton. "As you say, madame, it is a very sad story."
The Countess laughed.
"She was not over-constant to her rebel."
"In the matter of the affections," replied Culverton, "Lady Tracy was ever my Lady Bountiful."
It seemed to me that the Countess turned a shade paler, but any inference which I might have drawn adverse to myself from that was prevented by a proposal which she presently mooted. For some other of our friends joining us about this time, she proposed for a frolic that the party should take chairs and immediately invade my lodgings. Needless to say, I most heartily seconded the proposition, apologising at the same time for the poor hospitality which the suddenness of the invitation compelled me to offer.
Since by chance I had the key in my pocket, we entered from the Park by the little door in the wall of the garden. I mention this because I was waked up about the middle of the night by the sound of this door banging to and fro against the jambs, and I believed that I must have failed to lock it after I had let my friends into the garden, the door having neither latch nor bolt, but was secured only by the lock. For awhile I lay in bed striving to shut my ears to the sound. But the wind was high, and, moreover, blew straight into the room through the open window, so that I could not but listen, and in the end grew very wakeful. The sounds were irregularly spaced according to the lulls of the wind. Now the door would flap to three or four times in quick succession, short and sharp as the crack of a pistol; now it would stand noiseless for a time while I waited and waited for it to slam. At last I could endure the worry of it no longer, and hastily donning some clothes, I clattered downstairs.
The moon was shining fitfully through a scurrying rack of clouds, but as I always placed the key of the door upon the mantel-shelf of the larger parlour, and thus knew exactly where to lay my hand on it, I did not trouble to strike a light, to which omission I owed my life, and, indeed, more than my life. I stumbled past the furniture, crossed the garden, locked the door, and got me back to bed.
In a few moments I fell asleep, but by a chance association of ideas--for I think that the banging of the postern must have set my thoughts that way--I began, for the first time since I came to London, to dream once more of the door in Lukstein Castle, and to see it open, and open noiselessly across the world. For the first time in the history of my nightmare fancies, that door swung back against the wall. It swung heavily, and the sound of the collision shook me to the centre. I woke trembling in every limb. It was early morning, the sun being risen, and, to my amazement, through the open window I heard the postern bang against the jamb.
Outside the boughs tossed blithely in the golden air; the wind piped among the leaves, and the birds called cheerily. But for me the morning was empty of comfort. For the recurrence of this dream filled me with an uncontrollable terror; I felt like one who gets him to bed of a night in the pride of strength, and wakes in the morning to see the stains of an old disease upon his skin. I looked back upon those first months of agony in Italy; I remembered how I had dreaded the coming of night and the quiet shadows of evening; how each day, from the moment I rose from bed, appeared to me as no more than night's forerunner. Into such desperate straits did I fall that I was seized with a wild foreboding that this period of torture was destined to return upon me again and again in some inevitable cycle of fate.
There seemed indeed but one chance for me: to secure the pardon of Ilga! It was only on her account that I felt remorse. I had realised that from the beginning. And I determined to seek her out that very day, unbosom myself of my passion, and confess the injury which I had done her.
It may be remembered that I was on the brink of the confession when Marston ascended the stairs at the apartment of the Countess, and interrupted me. Since then, though I had enjoyed opportunities enough, I had kept silence; for it was always my habit, due, I fancy, to a certain retiring timidity which I had not as yet thoroughly mastered, to wait somewhat slavishly upon circumstances, rather than to direct my wits to disposing the circumstances in the conjunction best suited to my end. Before I spoke or acted, I needed ever "the confederate season," as Shakespeare has it. Now, however, I determined to take the matter into my own hands, and tarry no longer for the opportune accident. So, leaving orders with my servants that they should procure a locksmith and have the lock of the garden door repaired, I set out and walked to Pall Mall.
To my grief, I discovered that I had tarried too long. Countess Lukstein, the servant told me--he was not Otto--had left London early that morning on a visit into the country. A letter, however, had been written to me. It was handed to me at the door, since the messenger had not yet started to deliver it. With the handwriting I was unfamiliar, and I turned at once to the signature. It was only natural, I assured myself, that Mademoiselle Durette should write; Ilga would no doubt be busy over the arrangements for her departure. But none the less I experienced a lively disappointment that she had not spared a moment to pen the missive herself. Mademoiselle Durette informed me that news had arrived from Lukstein which compelled them to return shortly to the Tyrol, and that consequently they had journeyed that morning into the country, in order to pay a visit which they had already put off too long. The Countess would be absent for the space of a fortnight, but would return to London without fail to take fitting leave of her friends.
The first three days of her absence lagged by with a most tedious monotony. It seems to me now that I spent them entirely in marching backwards and forwards on the pavement of Pall Mall. Only one thing, indeed, afforded me any interest--the door in my garden wall. For there was nothing whatever amiss with the lock, and on no subsequent night did it fly open. I closely examined my servants to ascertain whether any one of them had made use of it for egress, but they all strenuously denied that they had left the house that night, and I was driven to the conclusion that I had turned the key before closing the door, so that the lock had missed its socket in the post.
On the fourth day, however, an incident occurred which made the next week fly like a single hour, and brought me to long most ardently, not merely that the Countess might lengthen her visit, but that she would depart from England without so much as passing through London on her way. For as I waked that morning at a somewhat late hour, I perceived Marston sitting patiently on the edge of my bed. He was in riding-dress, with his boots and breeches much stained with mud, and he carried a switch in his hand. For a while I lay staring at him in silent surprise. He did not notice that I was awake, and sat absorbed in a moody reverie. At last I stirred, and he turned towards me. I noticed that his face was dirty and leaden, his eyes heavy and tired.
"You sleep very well," said he.
"Have you waited long?"
"An hour. I was anxious to speak to you, so I came up to your room."
"We can talk the matter over at breakfast," said I cheerfully, though, to tell the truth, I felt exceedingly uneasy at the strangeness of his manner. And I made a movement as though I would rise; but he budged not so much as an inch.
"I don't fancy we shall breakfast together," said he, with a slow smile, and after a pause: "you sleep very well," he repeated, "considering that you have a crime upon your conscience."
I started up in my bed.
"Lie down!" he snarled, with a sudden fierceness, and with a queer sense of helplessness I obeyed him.
"That's right," he continued, with a patronising smile. "Keep quiet and listen!"
For the moment, however, there was nothing for me to listen to, since Marston sat silent, watching with evident enjoyment the concern which I betrayed. He had chosen the easiest way with me. The least hint of condescension in another's voice always made me conscious in the extreme of my own shortcomings, and I felt that I lay helpless in some new toils of his weaving.
At last he spoke.
"You killed Count Lukstein."
I was prepared for the accusation by his previous words.
"Well?" I asked, in as natural a tone as I could command.
"Well," he returned, "I would not be too hard with you. What if you returned to Cumberland to-day, and stayed there? Your estates, I am sure, will thrive all the better for their master's supervision."
"My estates," I replied, "have a steward to supervise them. Their master will return to them at no man's bidding."
"It is a pity, a very great pity," said he thoughtfully, flicking his switch in the air. "For not only are you unwise in your own interests, but you drive me to a proceeding which I assure you is very repugnant and distasteful to my nature. Really, Mr. Buckler, you should have more consideration for others."
The smooth irony of his voice began to make my anger rise.
"And what is this proceeding?" I inquired.
"It would be my duty," he began, and I interrupted him.
"I can quite understand, then, that it is repugnant to your nature."
He smiled indulgently.
"It is a common fault of the very young to indulge in dialectics at inappropriate seasons. It would be my duty, unless you retired obediently to Cumberland, to share my knowledge with the lady you have widowed."
"I shall save you that trouble," said I, much relieved, "for I am in the mind to inform the Countess of the fact myself. Indeed, I called at her lodging the other day with that very object."
"But the Countess had left, and you didn't." He turned on me sharply; the words were more a question than a statement. I remained silent, and he smiled again. "As it is, I shall inform her. That will make all the difference."
I needed no arguments to convince me of the truth of what he said. The confession must come from me, else was I utterly undone. I sat up and looked at him defiantly.
"So be it, then! It is a race between us which shall reach her first."
"Pardon me," he explained, in the same unruffled, condescending tone; "there will be no race, for I happen to know where the Countess is a-visiting, and you, I fancy, do not. I have the advantage of you in that respect."
I glanced at him doubtfully. Did he seek to bluff me into yielding, I wondered? But he sat on the bedside, carelessly swinging a leg, with so easy a composure that I could not hesitate to credit his words. However, I feigned not to believe him, and telling him as much, fell back upon my pillow with a show of indifference, and turned my face from him to the wall, as though I would go to sleep.
"You do believe me," he insisted suavely. "You do indeed. Besides, I can give you proof of my knowledge. I am so certain that I know the lady's whereabouts, and that you do not, that I will grant you four days' grace to think the matter over. As I say, I have no desire to press you hard, and to be frank with you, I am not quite satisfied as to how my information would be received." I turned back towards him, and noticing the movement, he continued: "Oh, make no mistake, Mr. Buckler! The disclosure will ruin your chance most surely. But will it benefit me? That is the point. However, I must take the risk, and will, if you persist in your unwisdom."
I lay without answering him, turning over in my mind the only plan I could think of, which offered me a chance of outwitting him.
"You might send word to me, four days from now, which alternative you prefer. To-day is Monday. On Thursday I shall expect to hear from you."
He uncrossed his legs as he spoke, and the scabbard of his sword rattled against the frame of the bed. The sound, chiming appositely to my thoughts, urged me to embrace my plan, and I did embrace it, though reluctantly. After all, I thought, 'twas a dishonourable wooing that Marston was about. So I said, with a sneer:
"Men have been called snivelling curs for better conduct than yours."
"By pedantic schoolboys," he replied calmly. "But then the schoolboys have been whipped for their impertinence."
With that he drew the bed-clothes from my chest, and raised his whip in the air. I clenched my fists, and did not stir a muscle. I could have asked for nothing that was more like to serve me. I made a mistake, however, in not feigning some slight resistance, and he suddenly flung back the clothes upon me.
"The ruse was ingenious," he said, with a smile, "but I cannot gratify you to the extent you wish. In a week's time I shall have the greatest pleasure in crossing swords with you. But until then we must be patient."
My patience was exhausted already, and raising myself upon my elbow, I loaded him with every vile epithet I could lay my tongue to. He listened with extraordinary composure and indifference, stripping off his gloves the while, until I stopped from sheer lack of breath.
"It's all very true," he remarked quietly. "I have nothing to urge against the matter of your speech. Your voice is, I think, unnecessarily loud, but that is a small defect, and easily reformed."
The utter failure of my endeavour to provoke him to an encounter, combined with the contemptuous insolence of his manner, lifted me to the highest pitch of fury.
"You own your cowardice, then!" I cried, fairly beside myself with rage. "You have plotted against me from the outset like a common, rascally intriguer. No device was too mean for you to adopt. Why, the mere lie about the miniature----"
I stopped abruptly, seeing that he turned on me a sudden questioning look.
"Miniature?" he exclaimed. "What miniature?"
I remembered the pledge which I had given to Ilga, and continued hurriedly, seeking to cover up my slip:
"I could not have believed there was such underhand treachery in the world."
"Then now," said he, "you are better informed," and on the instant his composure gave way. It seemed as though he could no longer endure the strain which his repression threw on him. Passion leaped into his face, and burned there like a flame; his voice vibrated and broke with the extremity of feeling; his very limbs trembled.
"'Tis all old talk to me--ages old and hackneyed. You are only repeating my thoughts, the thoughts I have lived with through this damned night. But I have killed them. Understand that!" His voice shrilled to a wild laugh. "I have killed them. Do you think I don't know it's cowardly? But there's a prize to be won, and I tell you"--he raised his hands above his head, and spoke with a sort of devilish exaltation--"I tell you, were my mother alive, and did she stand between Ilga and me, I would trample her as surely as I mean to trample you."
"Damn you!" I cried, wrought to a very hysteria by his manner. "Don't call her by that name!"
"And you!" he said, and with an effort he recovered his self-control. "And you, are your hands quite clean, my little parson? You kill the husband secretly, and then woo the wife with all the innocence and timidity in the world. Is there no treachery in that?"
I was completely staggered by his words and the contempt with which they were spoken. That any one should conceive my lack of assurance in paying my addresses to be a deliberate piece of deceit, had never so much as entered my head. I had always been too busy upbraiding myself upon that very score. Yet I could not but realise now how plausible the notion appeared. 'Twas plain that Marston believed I had been carefully playing a part; and I wondered: Would Ilga imagine that, too, when I told her my story? Would she believe that my deference and hesitation had been assumed to beguile her? I gazed at Marston, horror-stricken by the conjecture.
"Ay!" said he, nodding an answer to my look, "we have found each other out. Come, let us be frank! We are just a couple of dishonest scoundrels, and preaching befits neither of us."
He moved away from the bedside, and picked up his whip which he had dropped on to the floor. It lay close to the window, and as he raised himself again, he looked out across the garden.
"You overlook the Park," he said in an altered tone. "It is very strange."
At the time I was so overwhelmed by the construction which he had placed upon my behaviour, that I did not carefully consider what he meant. Thinking over the remark subsequently, however, I inferred from it, what indeed I had always suspected, that Marston had no knowledge his interviews and promenades with the Countess had taken place within sight of my windows.
He took up his hat, and opened the door.
"I told you fortune would give me my revenge," he said.
"You are leaving your gloves," said I, awakened to the necessity of action by his leave-taking.
The gloves were lying on the edge of the bed. Thanking me politely, he returned, and stooped forward to take them. I gathered them in my hand and tossed them into his face. His head went back as though I had struck him a blow; he flushed to a dark crimson, and I saw his fingers tighten about his whip. The next moment, however, he gave a little amused laugh.
"There is much of the child lingering in you, Mr. Buckler," he said. "'Tis a very amiable quality, and I wonder not that it gets you friends. Indeed, I should have rejoiced to have been reckoned among them myself, had such a consummation been possible."
He spoke the last sentence with something of sincerity; but it only served to increase my rage.
"You cannot disregard the insult," I cried.
"Why not? There are no witnesses."
"There shall be witnesses and to spare on the next occasion," I replied, baffled by his coolness. He shrugged his shoulders.
"You have four days to bring about that occasion. Afterwards I shall seek it myself."
I had four days wherein to discover the whereabouts of Countess Lukstein, or to compel Marston to an encounter. The one alternative seemed impossible; the other, as I had evidence enough, little short of impossible. Four days! The words beat into my brain like dull strokes of a hammer. I could not think for their pressing repetition. I was, moreover, bitterly sensible that I had myself placed the weapon for my destruction into Marston's hand.
For there was no doubting that he had obtained his knowledge from his sister. I had plumed myself somewhat upon my diplomacy in revealing my secret to her, and in using it as a means to force her to deny my acquaintance. Now, when it was all too late, I saw what a mistake my cleverness had been. For not only through Lady Tracy's swoon had I missed my particular aim, but I had presented to my antagonist a veritable Excalibur, and kept not so much as a poniard for my own defence. Even then, however, I did not realise the entirety of the mistake, and had no inkling of the price I was to pay for it.
The first step which I took that morning was to make inquiries at the lodging of Countess Lukstein. The servants, however, whom she had left behind, knew--or rather pretended to know--nothing of their mistress' journey, beyond what they had previously told me.
Since, then, it was impossible to search the length and breadth of England within four days, I was thrown back upon my last resource. It was discreditable enough even to my fevered mind; but I could see no other way out of the difficulty, and at all costs I was resolved that Marston should not relate his story to the Countess until I had related mine. For even if he was minded to speak the truth, it would make all the difference, as he justly said, which of us twain spoke the first. I felt certain, moreover, that he would not speak the truth. For, to begin with, he would ascribe my timidity to a carefully-laid plan, since that was his genuine conviction; and again, remembering the story which I believed him to have invented concerning the miniature, I had no doubt that he would so embroider his actual knowledge that I should figure on the pattern as a common assassin. How much of the real history of Count Lukstein's death he knew, of course I was not aware, nor did I trouble myself to consider.
My conclusion, accordingly, was to fix upon him within the next four days an affront so public and precise that he must needs put the business without delay to the arbitrament of swords; in which case, I was determined, one or the other of us should find his account.
To this end I spent the day amidst the favourite resorts of the town, passing from the Piazza to the Exchange in search of him; thence back to St. Paul's Church, thence to Hyde Park, from the Park across the water to the Spring Garden at Lambeth, and thence again to Barn Elms. By this time the afternoon was far advanced, and bethinking me that he might by chance be dining abroad, I sought out the taverns which he most frequented: Pontac's in Abchurch Lane, Locket's, and the "Rummer." But this pursuit was as fruitless as the former, and without waiting to bite a morsel myself, I hurried to make the round of the chocolate-houses. Marston, however, was not to be discovered in any of them, nor had word been heard of him that day. At the "Spread Eagle," in Covent Garden, however, I fell across Lord Culverton, and framing an excuse persuaded him to bear me company; which he did with great good-nature, for he was engaged at ombre, a game to which he was much addicted. At the "Cocoa Tree" in Pall Mall, I secured Elmscott by a like pretext, and asked him if he knew of another who was minded for a frolic, and would make the fourth. He presented me immediately to a Mr. Aglionby, a country gentleman of the neighbouring county to my own, but newly come to town, and very boisterous and talkative. I thought him the very man for my purpose, since he would be like to spread the report of the quarrel, and joining him to my company I summoned a hackney coach, and we drove to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. A hundred yards from Marston's house I dismissed the coach and sent Elmscott and the rest of the party forward, myself following a little way behind. I had previously instructed Elmscott in the part which I desired him to play. Briefly, he was to inquire whether Marston was within; and if, as I suspected, that was the case, to seek admittance on the plea that he wished to introduce a friend from the country, in the person of Mr. Aglionby. Whereupon I was to join myself quietly to the party, and so secure an entrance into the house in company with sufficient witnesses to render a duel inevitable upon any insult.
Marston, however, was prepared against all contingencies, for four servants appeared in answer to my cousin's knocking; and as they opened the door no further than would allow one person to enter at a time, it was impossible even to carry the entrance by a rush. My friends, however, had no thought of doing that, since one of the servants came forward into the street and gravely informed them that his master had fallen suddenly sick of an infectious fever, and lay abed in a frenzy of delirium. Even as the fellow spoke, a noise of shouts and wild laughter came through the open door. My companions shuddered at the sounds, and with a few hasty expressions of regret, hurried away from the neighbourhood. I ran after them, shouting out that it was all a lie; that Marston had not one-tenth of the fever which possessed me, and that his illness was a coward's dissimulation to avoid a just chastisement. However, I had better have spared my breath; for my words had no effect but to alienate their good-will, and they presently parted from me with every appearance of relief.
I walked home falling from depth to depth of despondency. The summer evening, pleasant with delicate colours, came down upon the town; the air was charged and lucent with a cool dew; the sweet odours of the country--nowhere, I think, so haunting, so bewitching to the senses as when one catches them astray in the heart of a city--were fragrant in the nostrils, so that the passers-by walked with a new alertness in their limbs, and a renewed youth in their faces; and as I stood at the door of my lodging, a great home-sickness swept in upon my soul, a longing for the dark fields in the starshine and the silent hills about them. I was seized with a masterful impulse to saddle my horse and ride out northwards through the night, while the lights grew blurred and misty behind me, and the fresh wind blew out of the heavens on my face. I doubt not, however, that the desire would have passed ere I had got far, and that I should have felt much the same desolate home-sickness for the cobbles and dust of London as I felt now for Cumberland.
However, I did not test the strength of my impulse; for while I stood upon the steps debating whether I should go or stay, I perceived one of Marston's servants coming towards me down the street. With a grave deference, under which, rightly or wrongly, I seemed to detect a certain irony, he gave me his master's compliments, and handed me a little stick of wood. There was a single notch cut deep into the stick. I understood it to signify that one day out of the four had passed, and--so strangely is a man constituted--this gibing menace determined me to stay. It turned my rage, with its fitful alternatives of passion and despair, into a steady hate, just as one may stir together the scattered, spurting embers of a fire into one glowing flame.
Late that evening came Lord Elmscott to see me, and asked me with a concern which I little expected, after his curt desertion of a few hours agone, what dispute had arisen between Marston and myself. I told him as much as I could without revealing the ground of our quarrel; that Marston had certain knowledge concerning myself which he was minded to impart to Countess Lukstein; that I was fully sensible the Countess ought to be informed of the matter, but that I wished to carry the information myself; that I doubted Marston would not speak the truth, but would distort the story to suit his own ends. The rest of the events I related to him in the order in which they had occurred.
"But it may be," he objected, "that Marston has really fallen sick."
For reply, I handed him the stick of wood, and told him how it had been delivered.
"The fellow's cunning," he observed, "for not only is he out of your reach, but he locks your mouth. You cannot urge that a man refuses to meet you when he lies abed with a fever, and you cannot prove that the sickness is feigned."
For awhile he sat silent, drumming with his fingers on the table. Then he asked:
"How comes it that Marston knows of this secret?"
"His sister must have told him," I replied.
"His sister!" he repeated. "Why, you never met her before this month."
"I told her on the first occasion that I met her. She was in some measure concerned in it."
He looked at me shrewdly.
"She was engaged to Sir Julian Harnwood," said he.
I nodded assent.
He brought his fist down on the table with a bang.
"The trouble springs from that cursed journey of yours to Bristol. I warned you harm would come of it. Had Lady Tracy any reason to fear you?"
"None," I replied promptly.
"Or any reason to fear Countess Lukstein?"
"None," I replied again; but after a moment's thought I added: "But she did fear her. I am sure of it."
He sprang to his feet.
"Three days!" he cried. "Three days! We may yet outwit him."
"How?" I asked, with the greatest eagerness.
"I'll not tell you now. 'Tis no more than a fancy. Wait you here your three days. Keep a strict watch on Marston's house. 'Tis unlikely that he will move before the time, since he would rather you spared him the telling of the story; but there's no trusting him. On Thursday I will come to you here before midnight; so wait for me, unless, of course, Marston leaves before then. In that case, follow him, but send word here of your direction. You must be wary; the fellow's cunning, and may get free from his house in some disguise."
With that he clapped his hat on his head, and rushed out into the street. For the next three days I saw no more of him. About Marston's house I kept strict watch as he enjoined. There were but two entrances: one in the façade of the building towards the Square, and the second in a little side-street which ran along a wall of the house. Few, however, either came in or out of these entrances, for the rumour of his sickness was spread abroad in the town, and even his tradesmen dreaded to catch the infection. I was, moreover, certain that he had not escaped, since each evening his servant came to my lodging and left a stick notched according to the number of days.
On the morning of the Thursday, being the fourth day and my last of grace, I doubled the sentinels about the house, hiring for the purpose some fellows of whom my people had cognizance. At the entrances, however, I planted my own men, and bidding them mark carefully the faces of such as passed out, in whatever dress they might be clothed, I retired to a coign of vantage at some distance whence I could keep an eye upon the house, and yet not obtrude myself upon the notice of those within it. In a little alley hard by I had stationed a groom with the swiftest horse that I possessed, so that I might be prepared to set off in pursuit of my antagonist the moment word of his departure was brought to me.
Thus, then, I waited, my heart throbbing faster and faster as the day wore on, and every nerve in my body a jerking pulse. At last my excitement mastered me; a clock in a neighbouring belfry chimed the hour of four, and I crept out of my corner and mingled with the gipsies and mountebanks who were encamped with their booths in the centre of the Square. Amongst this motley crowd I thought myself safe from detection, and moved, though still observing some caution, towards the front of Marston's house. It wore almost an air of desertion; over many of the windows the curtains were drawn, and never a face showed through the panes of the rest. I could see that my men were still stationed at their posts, and I began to think that we must needs prolong our vigil into the night. Shortly after six, however, the hall-door was opened, and the same servant who brought me the sticks of an evening came out on to the steps. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, but without a moment's hesitation stepped across the road, and threading the tents and booths, came directly towards me. It was evident that I had been remarked from some quarter of the house, and so I made no effort at further concealment, but rather went forward to meet him. With the same grave politeness which had always characterised him, he offered me a letter.
"My master," said he, "bade me deliver this into your hand two hours after he had left."
"Two hours after he had left!" I gasped, well-nigh stunned by his words.
"Two hours," he replied. "But I have been a trifle remiss, I fear me, and for that I would crave your pardon. It is now two hours and a half since my master departed."
He made a low bow and went back to the house, leaving me stupidly staring at the letter.