In accordance, then, with the suggestion of Ilga, I despatched Udal to Venice, bearing a letter wherein I requested Jack to bide there until such time as I arrived. To supply my servant's place Father Spaur offered me one, Michael Groder, whose assistance at the first sight I was strongly in a mind to decline; for he was more than common uncouth even for those parts, and with his scarred knees, tangled black hair, and gaunt, weather-roughened face, seemed more fitted for hewing wood upon the hillside than for the neater functions of a valet. The priest, however, pressed his services upon me with so importunate a courtesy that I thought it ungracious to persist in a refusal. Indeed, Michael Groder, though of a slight and wiry build, was the unhandiest man with his fingers that ever I had met with. There was not a servant in the Castle who could not have done the work better; and I came speedily to the conclusion that Father Spaur had selected him particularly out of some motive very different from a desire to oblige me; I mean, in order that he might keep a watch upon my actions, and see that I gained no secret advantage with the Countess.
However, had I entertained any such design, the hunting expedition would have effectually prevented its fulfilment. It lasted the greater part of the week, and we did not return to Lukstein until the eve of my departure. By this time my anxiety as to the answer which Ilga would make to my suit when she knew all that I had to tell her, had well-nigh worked me into a fever. I was for ever rehearsing and picturing the scene, inventing all sorts of womanly objections for her to urge, and disproving them succinctly to her satisfaction by Barbara, Celarent and all the rules of logic.
Under these speculations, bolster them up as I might, there lurked none the less a heavy and disheartening fear. 'Twas all vain labour to reckon up, as I did again and again, the few good qualities which I possessed, and to add to them those others which my friends attributed to me. I could not shut my eyes to the disparity between us; I could not believe but that she must be sensible of it herself. Such a woman, I conceived, should wed a warrior and hero; though, indeed, 'twas doubtful whether you could find even amongst them one whose deserts made him a fit mate for her. As for me, 'twas as though a clown should run a-wooing after a princess.
'Twill be readily understood that I had in consequence no great inclination for the hearty fellowship of the neighbours who joined in the hunt; and since my anxiety grew with every hour, by the time we came back to Lukstein--for many of them returned thither instead of to their own homes, meaning to stay over until the following night--'twas as much as I could do to answer with attention any civil question that was addressed to me.
The Countess, I found, was in an agitation no whit inferior to my own. I observed her that afternoon at dinner. At times she talked with a feverish excitement, at times she relapsed into long silences; but even during these pauses I noticed that her fingers were never still, but continually twitched and plucked at the cloth. I inferred from her manner that she had not yet decided on the course she would take, the more particularly because she sedulously avoided speech with me. If I spoke to her she replied politely enough, but at once drew those about her into the conversation, and herself withdrew from it; and if by accident our eyes met, she hastily turned her head away. I knew not what to make of these signs, and as soon as the company was risen from table I slipped away out of the Castle that I might con them over quietly and weigh whether they boded me good or ill.
The Castle, as I have said, stood upon a headland at the mouth of the Senner Thal, and turning a corner of this bluff, I wandered by a rough track some way along the side of the ravine, and flung myself down on my back on the turf. The sun had already sunk below the crest of the mountains, and the glow was fast fading out of the sky. The pines on the hillside opposite grew black in the deepening twilight; a star peeped over the shoulder of the Wildthurm; and here and there a grey scarf of cloud lay trailed along the slopes. From a hut high above came clear and sweet the voice of a woman singing a Tyrolese melody, and so softly did the evening droop upon the mountains, shutting as it were the very peace of the heavens into the valleys, that the brooks seemed to laugh louder and louder as they raced among the stones. The air itself never stirred, save when some bat came flapping blindly about my face. I became the more curious, therefore, concerning a bush some twenty yards below me, which now and again shivered and bent as though with a gust of wind. I had been lying on the grass some ten minutes before I noticed this movement. The dwarf oaks and beeches which studded the slopes about me were as still and noiseless as though their leaves had been carved from metal; only this one bush rustled and shook. In a direct line with it, and within reach of my foot, a small boulder hung insecurely on the turf. I stretched out my foot and pushed it; the stone rocked a little on its base. I pushed again and harder; the stone tilted forwards and stuck. I brought my other foot to help, set them both flat against the stone, slid down on my back until my legs were doubled, and then kicked with all my strength. The boulder flew from the soles of my feet, rolled over and over, bounded into the air, dropped on to the slope about ten yards from the bush, and then sprang at it like a dog at the throat. I heard a startled cry; I saw the figure of a man leap up from the centre of the bush. The stone took him full in the pit of the stomach, and toppled him backwards like a ninepin. He fell on the far side of the shrub, and I heard the boulder go crash-crashing down the whole length of the incline. Who the man was I had not the time to perceive, and I made no effort to discover. The Countess had retired a few moments before I slipped away from the Hall, and I judged that he was no more than a spy sent by Father Spaur to ascertain whether I had some tryst with her. So deeming that he had got no more than his deserts, I left him lying where he fell and loitered back to the Castle.
The company I found gathered about a huge fire of logs at the end of the Great Hall. Beyond the glow of the flames the Hall was lost in shadow, and now and again from some corner would come a soft scuffling sound, as a dog moved lazily across the flags. Thereupon with one movement the heads would huddle closer together, and for a moment the voices would sink to a whisper. They were speaking, as men will who are girt with more of God's handiwork than of man's, concerning the spirits that haunted the countryside, and told many stories of the warnings they had vouchsafed to unheeding ears. In particular, they dwelt much upon a bell, which they declared rang out from the Wildthurm when good or ill-fortune approached the House of Lukstein, tolling as the presage of disaster, pealing joyously in the forefront of prosperity. One, indeed--with frequent glances across his shoulder into the gloom--averred that he had heard it tolling on the eve of Count Lukstein's marriage, and from that beginning the talk slid to the manner of his death. 'Twas altogether an eerie experience, and one that I would not willingly repeat, to listen to them debating that question in hushed whispers, with the darkness closing in around us, and the firelight playing upon mature, weather-hardened faces grown timorous with the awe of children. For this I remarked with some wonder, that no one made mention either of the things which I had left behind me, or of the track which I had flogged in the snow about the rim of the precipice. 'Twas evident that these details of the story had been kept carefully secret, though with what object I could not understand.
That evening I had no Michael Groder to assist me in my toilet, and so got me to bed with the saving of half an hour. I cannot say, however, that I gained half an hour's sleep thereby, for the thought of the morrow, and all that hung upon it, kept me tossing from side to side in a turmoil of unrest. It must have been near upon two hours that I lay thus uneasily cushioned upon disquiet, before a faint sound came to my ears, and made me start up in the darkness with my heart racing.
'Twas the sound that a man can never forget or mistake when once he has heard it--the sound of a woman sobbing. It rose from the little sitting-room immediately beneath me. The staircase door was close to my bedside, and I reached out my hand and, turning the handle cautiously, opened it. The sound was louder now, but still muffled, and I knew that the door at the bottom of the staircase was closed. For a little I remained propped on my elbow, and straining my ears to listen. The mourner must be either Clemence Durette or Ilga, and I could not doubt which of them it was. Why she wept, I did not consider. 'Twas the noise of her weeping, made yet more lonesome and sad by the black dead of night, that occupied my senses and filled me with an unbearable pain.
I got quietly out of my bed, and slipping on some clothes crept down the staircase in my stockings. 'Twas pitch dark in this passage, and I felt before me with my hands as I descended, fearing lest I might unawares stumble against the door. At the last step I paused and listened again. Then very gently I groped for the handle. I had good reason to know how noiselessly it turned, and I opened the door for the space of an inch. A feeble light flickered on the wall of the room at my side. I waited with my fingers on the handle, but there was no check in the sobbing. I pushed the door wider open; the light upon the wall wavered and shook, as though a draught took the flame of a candle. But that was all. So I stepped silently forward and looked into the room.
The sight made my heart bleed. Ilga lay face downwards and prone upon the floor, her arms outstretched, her hair unbound and rippling about her shoulders. From head to foot she was robed in black. It broke upon me suddenly that I had never seen her so clad before, and I remembered a remark that Elmscott had passed in London upon that very score.
The window was open, and from the garden a light wind brought the soughing of trees into the room. A single candle guttered on the mantelshelf and heightened its general aspect of neglect. Thus Ilga lay, abandoned to--what? Grief for her husband, or remorse at forgetting him? That black dress might well be the fitting symbol of either sentiment. 'Twas for neither of these reasons that she wept, as I learned long afterwards, but for another of which I had no suspicion then.
I closed the door softly and sat me down in the darkness on the stairs, hearkening to that desolate sound of tears and praying for the morning to come and for the day to pass into night, that I might say my say and either bring her such rest and happiness as a man's love can bring to a woman, or slip out of her life and so trouble her no more.
'Twas a long while before she ceased from her distress, and to me it seemed far longer than it was. As soon as I heard her move I got me back to my room. The dawn was just breaking when, from a corner of my window, I saw her walk out across the lawn, and the dew was white upon the grass like a hoar-frost. With a weary, dragging step, and a head adroop like a broken flower, she walked to the parapet of the terrace, and hung on it for a little, gazing down upon the roofs of her sleeping village. Then she turned and fixed her eyes upon my window. I was hidden in the curtains so that she could not see me. For some minutes she gazed at it, her face very tired and sad. 'Twas her bridal chamber, or rather, would have been but for me, and I wondered much whether she was thinking of the husband or the guest. She turned away again, looked out across the valley paved with a grey floor of mist, and so walked back to the main wing of the Castle.
The light broadened out; starlings began to twitter in the trees, and far away a white peak blushed rosy at the kiss of the sun. The one day of my life had come. By this time to-morrow, I thought, the world would have changed its colours for me, one way or another; and tired out with my vigil, I tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly until Michael Groder roused me.
I asked him why he had failed me the night before.
"I was unwell," he replied.
"True!" said I, with great friendliness. "You got a heavier load upon your stomach than it would stand."
The which was as unwise a remark as I could have made; for Groder's ill-will towards me needed no stimulus to provoke it.
The marriage, with its odd customs of the Ehrengang and Ehrentanz, might at another time have afforded me the entertainment which Father Spaur promised; but, to speak the truth, the whole ceremony wearied me beyond expression. My thoughts were set in a tide towards the evening, and I watched the sun loiter idly down the length of the valley in a burning fever of impatience.
'Twas about seven of the clock when the villagers flocked up to the Castle and began their antic dances in the Hall and in the ball-room which fronted the terrace. They aimed at a display of agility rather than of elegance, leaping into the air and falling crack upon their knees, slapping their thighs and the soles of their feet, with many other barbaric gambols; and all the while they kept up such a noise of shouting, whistling, and singing, as fairly deafened one.
Ilga, I observed with some heart-sinking, had once more robed herself in black, and very simply; but the colour so set off the brightness of her hair, which was coiled in a coronal upon her head, and the white beauty of her arms, that for all my fears I could not but think she had never looked so exquisitely fair. However, I had thought the same upon so many different occasions that I would not now assert it as an indisputable fact.
As you may be certain, I had not copied Ilga's simplicity, but had rather dressed in the opposite extreme. 'Twas no part of my policy to show her the disrespect of plain apparel. I had so little to offer that I must needs trick that little out to the best of advantage; indeed, even at this distance of time, I fairly laugh when I recall the extraordinary pains I spent that evening upon my adornment. My Lord Culverton could never have bettered them. A coat of white brocaded velvet, ruffles that reached to the tips of my fingers, a cravat of the finest Mechlin, pink breeches, silk stockings rolled above the knees, with gold clocks and garters, white Spanish leather shoes with red heels and Elmscott's buckles, a new heavy black peruke; so I attired myself for this momentous interview.
Father Spaur greeted me with a sour smile and a sneering compliment; but 'twas not his favour that I sought, and I cared little that he showed so plainly his resentment.
"A carriage," he added, "will be in waiting for you at eleven, if you are still minded to leave us."
I thanked him shortly, and passed on to Ilga, but for some while I could get no private speech with her. For though she took no part in the dancing, even when a quieter measure made a break in the boisterous revelry, she moved continually from one to the other of her villagers with a kindly smile and affable word for each in a spirit of so sweet a condescension, that I had no doubt that she had vaunted their loyalty most truthfully. 'Twould have been strange, indeed, if they had not greatly worshipped her.
In the midst of the clatter, however, and near upon the hour of nine, a man burst wildly into the room, faltering out that the "Wildthurm" bell was even now ringing its message to Lukstein.
On the instant the music was stopped; a great awe fell upon the noisy throng; women clung in fear to men, and men crossed themselves with a muttering of tremulous prayers; and then Ilga led the way through the Hall into the courtyard of the Castle.
The ice-fields of the mountain glittered like silver in the moonlight, and we gazed upwards towards them with our ears strained to catch the sound. Many, I know, will scoff at and question what I relate. Many have already done so, attributing it to a delusion of the senses, a heated imagination, or any other of the causes which are held to absolve the spirits of the air from participation in men's affairs.
Against such unholy disbelief it is not for me to argue or dispute, nor is this the fitting place and opportunity. But this I do attest, and to it I do solemnly put my name. 'Twas not I alone who heard the bell; every man and woman who danced that night at Lukstein Castle heard it. The sound was faint, but wonderfully pure and clear, the strokes of the hammer coming briskly one upon the other as though the bell was tossed from side to side by willing hands.
"It speaks of happiness for Lukstein," said Father Spaur with an evil glance towards me.
For my part I just looked at Ilga.
"Come!" she said.
And we walked back through the empty echoing Hall, and across the lawn to the terrace.
A light wind was blowing from the south, but there were no clouds in the sky, and the valley lay beneath us with all its landmarks merged by the grey, tender light, so that it seemed to have widened to double its breadth.
The terrace, however, was for the most part in shadow, since the moon, hanging behind a cluster of trees at the east corner of the wall, only sprinkled its radiance through a tracery of boughs, and drew a dancing pattern about our feet. As I leaned upon the parapet there came before my eyes, raised by I know not what chance suggestion, a vivid picture of my little far-away hamlet in the country of the English lakes.
"You are thoughtful, Mr. Buckler!" said Ilga.
"I was thinking of the valley of Wastdale," I replied, "and of a carrier's cart stuck in a snowdrift on Hard Knot."
"Of your home? 'Twas of your home that you were thinking?" she asked curiously, and yet with something more than curiosity in her voice, with something of regret, something almost of pity.
"Not so much of my home," I replied, "but rather from what distant points our two lives have drawn together." I was emboldened to the words by the tone in which she had spoken. "A few weeks ago you were here at Lukstein in the Tyrol, I was at the Hall in Cumberland, and we had never spoken to one another. How strange it all seems!"
"Nay," she answered simply; "it was certain you and I should meet. Is not God in His heaven?"
My heart gave a great leap. We had come now to the pavilion, which leaned against the Castle wall, and Ilga opened the door and entered it. I followed her, and closed the latch behind me.
In the side of the room there was a square window with shutters, but no glass. The shutters were open, and through a gap of the trees the moonlight poured into the pavilion.
We stood facing one another silently. The time had come for me to speak.
"Well," said she, and her voice was very calm, "what is it, Mr. Buckler?"
All my fine arguments and protestations flew out of my head like birds startled from a nest. I forgot even the confession I had to make to her, and
"I love you!" I said humbly, looking down on the floor.
She gave me no answer. My heart fainted within me; I feared that it would stop. But in a little I dared to raise my eyes to her face. She stood in the pillar of moonlight, her eyes glistening, but with no expression on her face which could give me a clue to her thoughts, and she softly opened and shut her fan, which hung on a girdle about her waist.
"How I do love you!" I cried, and I made a step towards her. "But you know that."
She nodded her head.
"I took good care you should," she said.
I did not stop to consider the strangeness of the speech. My desire construed it without seeking help from the dictionary of thought.
"Then you wished it," I cried joyfully, and I threw myself down on my knee at her feet, and buried my face in my hands. "Ilga! Ilga!"
She made no movement, but replied in a low voice:
"With all my heart I wished it. How else could I have brought you to the Tyrol?"
I felt the tears gathering into my eyes and my throat choking. I lifted my face to hers, and, taking courage from her words, clipped my arms about her waist.
She gave a little trembling cry, and plucked at my fingers. I but tightened my clasp.
"Ilga!" I murmured. 'Twas the only word which came to my lips, but it summed the whole world for me then--ay, and has done ever since. "Ilga!"
Again she plucked at my fingers, and for all the calmness which she had shown, I could feel her hands burning through her gloves. Then a shadow darkened for an instant across the window, the moonlight faded, and her face was lost to me. 'Twas for no longer than an instant. I looked towards the window, but Ilga bent her head down between it and me.
"Tis only the branches swinging in the wind," she said softly.
I rose to my feet and drew her towards me. She set her palms against my chest as if to repulse me, but she said no word, and I saw the necklace about her throat flashing and sparkling with the heave of her bosom.
It seemed to me that a light step sounded without the pavilion, and I turned my head aside to listen.
"Tis only the leaves blowing along the terrace," she whispered, and I looked again at her and drew her closer.
For a time she resisted; then I heard her sigh, and her hand stole across my shoulder. Her head drooped forward until her hair touched my lips. I could feel her heart beating on my breast. Gently I turned her face upwards, and then with a loud clap the shutters were flung to and the room was plunged in darkness.
Ilga started away from me, drawing a deep breath as for some release. I groped my way to the window. The shutters opened outwards, and I pushed against them. They were held close and fast.
A wooden settle stood against the wall just beneath the window, and I knelt on it and drove at the shutters with my shoulder. They gave a little at first, and I heard a whispered call for help. The pressure from without was redoubled; I was forced back; a bar fell across them outside and was fitted into a socket. Thrust as I might I could not break it; the window was securely barricadoed.
Meanwhile Ilga had not spoken. "Ilga!" I called.
She did not answer me, nor in the blackness of the pavilion could I discover where she stood.
"Ilga!"
The same empty silence. I could not even hear her breathing, and yet she was in the pavilion, within a few feet of me. There was something horrible in her quietude, and a great fear of I knew not what caught at my heart and turned my blood cold.
"This is the priest's doing," I cried, and I drew my sword and made towards the door.
A startled cry burst from the gloom behind me.
"Stop! If you open it, you will be killed."
I stopped as she bade me, body and brain numbed in a common inaction. I could hear her breathing now plainly enough.
"This is not the priest's doing," she said, at length. "It is the wife's." Her voice steadied and became even as she spoke. "From the hour I found Count Lukstein dead I have lived only for this night."
I let my sword slip from my grasp, and it clattered and rang on the floor.
'Twas not surprise that I felt; ever since the shutters had been slammed I seemed to have known that she would speak those words. And 'twas no longer fear. Nor did I as yet wonder how she came by her knowledge. Indeed, I had but one thought, one thought of overwhelming sadness, and I voiced it in utter despondency.
"So all this time--in London, here, a minute ago, you were tricking me! Tricking me into loving you; then tricking my love for you!"
"A minute ago!" she caught me up, and there was a quiver in her voice of some deep feeling. Then she broke off, and said, in a hard, clear tone: "I was a woman, and alone. I used a woman's weapons."
Again she paused, but I made no answer. I had none to make. She resumed, with a flash of anger, as though my silence accused her:
"And was there no trickery on your side, too?"
They were almost the same words as those which Marston had levelled at me, and I imagined that they conveyed the same charge. However, it seemed of little use or profit to defend myself at length, and I answered:
"I have played no part. It might have fared better with me if I had. What deceit I have practised may be set down to love's account. 'Twas my fear of losing you that locked my lips. Had I not loved you, what need to tell you my secret? 'Twas no crime that I committed. But since I loved you, I was bound in very truth to speak. I have known that from the first, and I pledged myself to speak at the moment that I told you of my love. I dared not disclose the matter before. There was so little chance that I should win your favour, even had every circumstance seconded my suit. But this very night I should have told you the truth."
"No doubt! no doubt!" she answered, with the bitterest irony, and I understood what a fatal mistake I had made in pleading my passion before disclosing the story of the duel. I should have begun from the other end. "And no doubt you meant also to tell me, with the same open frankness, of the woman for whose sake you killed my--my husband?"
"I fought for no woman, but for my friend."
She laughed; surely the hardest, most biting laugh that ever man heard.
"Tell me your fine story now."
I sank down on the settle, feeling strangely helpless in the face of her contempt.
"This is the priest's doing," I repeated, more to myself than to her.
"It is my doing," she said again; "my doing from first to last"
"Then what was it?" I asked, with a dull, involuntary curiosity. "What was it you had neither the weakness to yield to nor the strength to resist?"
She did not answer me, but it seemed as though she suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall.
"Tell me your story," she said briefly; and sitting there in the darkness, unable to see my mistress, I began the history of that November night.
"It is true that I killed Count Lukstein; but I killed him in open encounter. I fought him fairly and honourably."
"At midnight!" she interrupted. "Without witnesses, upon his wedding-day."
"There was blood upon Count Lukstein's sword," I went on doggedly, "and that blood was mine. I fought him fairly and honourably. I own I compelled him to fight me."
"You and your--companion."
She stressed the word with an extraordinary contempt.
"My companion!" I repeated in surprise. "What know you of my companion? My companion watched our horses in the valley."
"You dare to tell me that?" she cried, ceasing from her contempt, and suddenly lifting her voice in an inexplicable passion.
"It is the truth."
"The truth! The truth!" she exclaimed, and then, with a stamp of her foot, and in a ringing tone of decision, "Otto!"
The door was flung open. Otto Krax and Michael Groder blocked the opening, and behind them stood Father Spaur, holding a lighted torch above his head. The Tyrolese servants carried hangers in their hands. I can see their blades flashing in the red light now!
Silently they filed into the pavilion. Father Spaur lifted his torch into a bracket, latched the door, and leaned his back against the panels. All three looked at the Countess, waiting her orders. 'Twas plain, from the priest's demeanour, that Ilga had spoken no more than truth. In this matter she was the mistress and the priest the servitor.
I turned and gazed at her. She stood erect against the wall opposite to me, meeting my gaze, her face stern and set, as though carven out of white marble, her eyes dark and glittering with menace.
For my part, I rose from the settle and stood with folded arms. I did not even stoop to pick up my rapier; it seemed to me not worth while.
"The proper attitude of heroical endurance," sneered Father Spaur. "Perhaps a little more humility might become 'a true son of the Church.' Was not that the phrase?"
The Countess nodded to Otto. He took Groder's sword and stood it with his own, by a low stool in the corner near the door.
"'Tis your own fault," she said sternly. "Even now I would have spared you had you told me the truth. But you presume too much upon my folly."
The next moment the two men sprang at me. The manner of their attack took me by surprise, and in a twinkling they had me down upon the bench. Then, however, a savage fury flamed up within me. 'Twas one thing to be run through at the command of Ilga, and so perish decently by the sword; 'twas quite another to be handled by her servants, and I fought against the indignity with all my strength. But the struggle was too unequal. I should have proved no match for Otto had he stood alone, and I before him, fairly planted on my legs. With the pair of them to master me I was well-nigh as powerless as a child. Moreover, they had already forced me down by the shoulders, so that the edge of the settle cut across my back just below the shoulder-blades, and I could get no more purchase or support than the soles of my feet on the rough flooring gave me.
My single chance lay in regaining possession of my rapier. It lay just within my reach, and struggling violently with my left arm, in order to the better conceal my design, I stretched out the other cautiously towards it.
My fingers were actually on the pommel, I was working it nearer to me so that I might grasp the blade short, before Groder perceived my intention. With an oath he kicked it behind him. Otto set a huge knee calmly upon my chest, and pressed his weight upon it until I thought my spine would snap. Then he seized my arms, jerked them upwards, and held them outstretched above my head, keeping his knee the while jammed down upon my ribs. Groder drew a cord from his pocket, and turning back my sleeves with an ironic deliberation, bound my wrists tightly together.
"'Twas not for nothing Groder went a-valeting," laughed Father Spaur; and then, seeing that I was assisted in my struggle by the pressure which I got from the floor, "Twere wise to repeat the ceremony with his ankles."
"You, Groder!" said Otto.
"I have no more cord," growled Michael, as he tied the knots viciously about my wrists.
Something rattled lightly on the ground. 'Twas the girdle of the Countess, with the fan attached to the end of it.
Groder plucked the fan off, struck my heels from under me, and bound the girdle round and round my ankles until they jarred together and I felt the bones cracking.
Otto took his knee from my chest, and the two men went back to their former stations by the door.
Father Spaur came over to where I lay, rubbing his hands gently together.
"Really, really!" said he in a silky voice, "so the cockatoo has been caged after all."
The words, recalling that morning in London when first I allowed myself to take heart in my hopes, so stung me that, tied as I was, I struggled on to my feet, and so stood tottering. Father Spaur drew back a pace and glanced quickly about him.
"Michael!" he called. But the next instant I fell heavily forward upon his breast. He burst into a loud laugh of relief, and flung me back upon the settle.
I looked towards Ilga.
"What have you not told him?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she said coldly. "I, at all events, had nothing to conceal."
She motioned Father Spaur to fall back. Otto and Groder picked up their swords. Father Spaur unlatched the door, rubbed out the torch upon the boards, and one after another they stepped from the pavilion. Ilga followed last, but she did not turn her head as she went out. Through the open doorway I could see the shadows dancing on the terrace, I could hear the music pouring from the Castle in a lilting measure. The door closed, the pavilion became black once more, and I heard their footsteps recede across the pavement and grow silent upon the grass.
Of the horror which the next two hours brought to me, I find it difficult to speak, even at this distance of time. 'Twas not the fear of what might be in store for me that oppressed my mind, though God knows I do not say this to make a boast of it; for doubtless some fear upon that score would have argued me a better man; but in truth I barely sent a thought that way. The savour of life had become brine upon my lips, and I cared little what became of me, so that the ending was quick.
For the moment the door closed I was filled with an appalling sense of loneliness and isolation. Heart and brain it seized and possessed me. 'Twas the closing of a door upon all the hopes which had chattered and laughed and nestled at my heart for so long; and into such a vacancy of mind did I fall, that I did not trouble to speculate upon the nature of the story which Countess Lukstein believed to be true. That she had been led by I knew not what suspicions into some strange error that she had got but a misshapen account of the duel between her husband and myself, was, of course, plain to me. But since her former kindliness and courtesy had been part of a deliberate and ordained plan for securing me within her power, since, in a word, she had cherished no favourable thoughts of me at any time, I deemed it idle to consider of the matter.
Moreover, the remoteness of these parts made my helplessness yet more bitter and overpowering; though, indeed, I was not like to forget my helplessness in any case, for the cords about my ankles and wrists bit into my flesh like coils of hot wire. "A sequestered nook of the world," so I remembered, had Ilga called this corner of the Tyrol, and for a second time that night my thoughts went back to my own distant valley. I saw it pleasant with the domestic serenity which a man discovers nowhere but in his native landscape.
And to crown, as it were, my loneliness, now and again a few stray notes of music or a noise of laughter would drift through the chinks into the pitch-dark hut, and tell of the lighted Hall and of Ilga, now, maybe, dancing among her guests.
'Twas a little short of eleven when she returned to the pavilion. I am able to fix the time from an incident which occurred shortly afterwards. At first, the steps falling light as they approached, I bethought me my visitor was either Otto or Groder coming stealthily upon his toes to complete his work with me; for I never expected to look upon her face again.
She carried no light with her, and paused on the sill of the door, her slight figure outlined against the twilight. She bent her head forward, peering into the gloom of the room, but she said no word; neither did I address her. So she stood for a little, and then, stepping again outside, she unbarred and opened the shutters of the window. Returning, she latched the door, locked it from within, and, fetching the stool from the corner, sat her down quietly before me.
The moon, which had previously shone into the room almost in a level bar, now slanted its beams, so that the Countess was bathed in them from head to foot, while I, being nearer to the window, lay half in shadow, half on the edge of the light.
She sat with her chin propped upon her hands, and her eyes steadily fixed upon mine, but she betrayed no resentment in her looks nor, indeed, feeling of any kind. Then, in a low, absent voice, she began to croon over to herself that odd, wailing elegy which I had once heard her sing in London. The tune had often haunted me since that day from its native melancholy, but now, as Ilga sang it in the moonlight, her eyes very big and dark, and fastened quietly upon mine, it gained a weird and eerie quality from her manner, and I felt my flesh begin to creep.
I stirred uneasily upon the settle, and Ilga stopped. I must think she mistook the reason of my restlessness, for a slow smile came upon her face, and, reaching out a hand, she tried the knots wherewith I was bound.
"It may well be," she suggested, "that you are better inclined to speak the truth, since now you know to what falsehood has brought you."
"Madame," I replied wearily, "I know not what you believe nor what you would have me say. It matters little to me, nor can I see, since you have reached the end for which you worked, that it need greatly concern you. This only I know, that I have already told you the truth."
"And the miniature you left behind you?" she asked, with an ironic smile. "Am I to understand it has no bearing on the duel?"
"Nay, madame," said I; "'tis the key to the cause of our encounter."
"Ah!" she interrupted, with a satisfaction which I did not comprehend. "You have drawn some profit from the reflection of these last hours."
"For," I continued, "it contained the likeness of my friend, Sir Julian Harnwood, as, indeed, Otto must needs have told you. 'Twas in his cause that I came to Lukstein."
"'Twas the likeness of a woman," she replied patiently.
I stared at her in amazement.
"Of a woman!" I exclaimed.
She laughed with a quiet scorn.
"Of a woman," she repeated. "I showed it you in my apartments at London."
"The portrait of Lady Tracy? It is impossible!" I cried, starting up. "Why, Marston gave it you. You told me so."
"Oh, is there no end to it?" She burst out into sudden passion, beating her hands together as though to enforce her words. "Is there no end to it? I never told you so. 'Twas you who pretended that. You pretended you believed it, and like a weak fool, I let your cunning deceive me. I was not sure then that you had killed the Count, and I believed you had never seen the likeness till that day. But now I know. You own you left the miniature behind you."
"But the case was locked," I said, "and I had not the key."
"I know not that."
I could have informed her who had possessed the key, but refrained, bethinking me that the knowledge might only add to her distress and yet do no real service to me.
"And so," I observed instead, "all your anxiety that I should not tax Marston with the giving of it was on your own account, and not at all on mine."
She was taken aback by the unexpected rejoinder. But to me 'twas no more than a corollary of my original thought that the Countess had been playing me like a silly fish during the entire period of our acquaintance.
"I showed you the portrait as a test," she said hurriedly. "I believed you guiltless, and I knew Mr. Marston and yourself had little liking for each other. Any pretext would have served you for a quarrel. Besides--besides----"
"Besides," I took her up, "you allowed me to believe that Marston had given you the miniature, and had I spoken of the matter to him I should have discovered you were playing me false."
"But you knew," she cried, whipping herself to anger, as it seemed to me, to make up for having given ground. "You knew how the miniature came into my hands. All the while you knew it, and you talk of my playing you false!"
Suddenly she resumed her seat, and continued in a quieter voice:
"But the brother found out the shameful secret. You could overreach me, but not the brother; and fresh from accounting to him for your conduct, you must needs stumble into my presence with Lady Tracy's name upon your lips, and doubtless some new explanation ready."
"Madame, that is not so. I came that evening to tell you what I have told you to-night, but you would not hear me. You bade me come to Lukstein. I know now why, and 'twas doubtless for the same reason that you locked the door when I had swooned."
She started as I mentioned that incident.
"'Twas not on Lady Tracy's account, or because of any conduct of mine towards her, that I fought Marston. Against his will I compelled him to fight, as Lord Elmscott will bear out. He had learned by whose hand Count Lukstein died, and rode after you to Bristol that he might be the first to tell you; and I was minded to tell you the story myself."
"Or, at all events, to prevent him telling it," she added, with a sneer. "But how came Mr. Marston to learn this fact?"
I was silent. I could not but understand that the Countess presumed her husband, Lady Tracy, and myself to be bound together by some vulgar intrigue, and I saw how my answer must needs strengthen her suspicions.
"How did he find out?" she repeated. "Tell me that!"
"Lady Tracy informed him," I answered, in despair.
"Then you admit that Lady Tracy knew?"
"I told her of the duel myself, on the very morning that I first met her--on the morning that I introduced her into your house."
"And why did she carry the news to her brother?"
Again I was silent, and again she pressed the question.
"She was afraid of you, and she sought her brother's protection," Every word I uttered seemed to plead against me. "I understand now why she was afraid. I did not know her miniature was in that case, but doubtless she did, and she was afraid you should connect her with Count Lukstein's death."
"Whereas," replied the Countess, "she had nothing to do with it?"
I had made up my mind what answer I should make to this question when it was put. Since I had plainly lost Ilga beyond all hope, I was resolved to spare her the knowledge of her husband's treachery. 'Twould not better my case--for in truth I cared little what became of me--to relate that disgraceful episode to her, and 'twould only add to her unhappiness. So I answered boldly:
"She had nothing to do with it."
The Countess sat looking at me without a word, and I was bethinking me of some excuse by which I might explain how it came about that Lady Tracy's portrait and not Julian's was in the box, when she bent forward, with her face quite close to mine, so that she might note every change in my expression.
"And the footsteps in the snow; how do you account for them? The woman's footsteps that kept side by side with yours from the parapet to the window, and back again from the window to the parapet?"
I uttered a cry, and setting my feet to the ground, raised myself up in the settle.
"The footsteps in the snow? They were your own."
The Countess stared at me vacantly, and then I saw the horror growing in her eyes, and I knew that at last she believed me.
"They were your own," I went on. "I knew nothing of Count Lukstein's marriage. I had never set eyes on him at all. I knew not 'twas your wedding-day. I came hither hot-foot from Bristol to serve my friend Sir Julian Harnwood. He had quarrelled with the Count, and since he lay condemned to death as one of Monmouth's rebels, he charged me to take the quarrel up. In furtherance of that charge, I forced Count Lukstein to fight me. In the midst of the encounter you came down the little staircase into the room. I saw you across the Count's shoulder. The curtain by the window hangs now half-torn from the vallance. I tore it clutching its folds in my horror. We started asunder, and you passed between us. You walked out across the garden and to the Castle wall. Madame, as God is my witness, when once I had seen you, I wished for nothing so much as to leave the Count in peace. But--but----"
"Well?" she asked breathlessly.
"'Twas Count Lukstein's turn to compel me," I went on, recovering from a momentary hesitation. I had indeed nearly blurted out the truth about his final thrust. "And when you came back into the room, you passed within a foot of the dead body of your husband, and of myself, who was kneeling----"
She flung herself back, interrupting me with a shuddering cry. She covered her face with her hands, and swayed to and fro upon the stool, as though she would fall.
"Madame!" I exclaimed. "For God's sake! For if you swoon, alas! I cannot help you."
She recovered herself in a moment, and taking her hands from before her face, looked at me with a strangely softened expression. She rose from her seat, and took a step or two thoughtfully towards the door. Then she stopped and turned to me.
"Lady Tracy, you say, had nothing to do with this quarrel, and yet her likeness was in the miniature case."
I had no doubt in my own mind as to how it came there. 'Twas the case which Lady Tracy had given to Count Lukstein, and doubtless she had substituted her portrait for that of Julian. But this I could not tell to the Countess.
"'Twas a mistake of my friend," said I. "He gave me the case as a warrant and proof, which I might show to Count Lukstein, that I came on his part, telling me his portrait was within it. But 'twas on the night before he was executed, and his thoughts may well have gone astray."
"But since the case was locked, and you had not the key, who was to open it?"
"Count Lukstein," I replied, being thrown for a moment off my guard.
"Count Lukstein?" she asked, coming back to me. "Then he possessed the key. You fought for your friend, Sir Julian Harnwood. Lady Tracy was betrothed to Sir Julian. The case was given to you as a warrant of the cause in which you came. It contained Lady Tracy's likeness, and Count Lukstein held the key."
She spoke with great slowness and deliberation, adding sentence to sentence as links in a chain of testimony. I heard her with a great fear, perceiving how near she was to the truth. There was, however, one link missing to make the chain complete. She did not know that Lady Tracy had owned the case and had given it to Count Lukstein, and of that fact I was determined she should still remain ignorant.
"My husband loved me," she said quickly, with a curious challenge in her voice.
"I believe most sincerely that he did," I answered with vehemence. I was able to say so honestly, for I remembered how his face and tone had softened when he made mention of his wife.
"Then tell me the cause of this quarrel that induced you to break into this house at midnight, and, on a friend's behalf, force a stranger to fight you without even a witness?"
There was a return of suspicion in her tone, and she came back into the moonlight. The temptation to speak out grew upon me as I watched her. I longed to assure her that I was bound to no other woman, but pledged heart and soul to her, and the fear that if I kept silent she would once more set this duel down to some rivalry in intrigue, urged me well-nigh out of all restraint. Why should I be so careful of the reputation of Count Lukstein? 'Twas an unworthy thought, and one that promised to mislead me; for after all, 'twas not his good or ill repute that I had to consider, but rather whether Ilga held his memory in such esteem and respect that my disclosures would inflict great misery upon her and a lasting distress. This postulate I could hardly bring myself to question. Had I not, indeed, ample surety in the care and perseverance wherewith she had sought to avenge his death? However, being hard pressed by my inclinations, I determined to test that point conclusively if by any means I might.
"Madame," I said, "last night, as I lay in my bed, bethinking me of the morrow, and wondering what it held in store for me, I heard the sound of a woman weeping. It rose from the little room beneath me; from the room wherein I fought Count Lukstein. 'Twas the most desolate sound that ever my ears have hearkened to--a woman weeping alone in the black of the night. I stole down the staircase and opened the door. I saw that the woman who wept was yourself."
"'Twas for my husband," she interposed, very sharp and quick, and my heart sank.
Yet her words seemed to quicken my desire to reveal the truth. They woke in me a strange and morbid jealousy of the man. I longed to cry out: "He was a coward; false to you, false to his friend, false to me."
"And in London?" I asked, temporising again. "The morning I came to you unannounced. You were at the spinnet."
"'Twas for my husband," she repeated, with a certain stubbornness. "But we will keep to the question we have in hand, if you please--the cause of your dispute with Count Lukstein."
"I will not tell you it."
I spoke with no great firmness, and on that account most like I helped to confirm her reawakened suspicions.
"Will not?" says she, her voice cold and sneering. "They are brave words though unbravely spoken. You forget I have the advantage and can compel you."
"Madame," I replied, "you overrate your powers. Your servants can bind me hand and foot, but they cannot compel me to speak what I will not."
"Have you no lie ready? What? Does your invention fail?" and she suddenly rose from the stool in a whirlwind of passion. "God forgive me!" she cried. "For even now I believed you."
She ceased abruptly and pushed her head forward, listening. The creak of wheels came faintly to our ears.
"You hear that? It is Mr. Buckler's carriage, and Mr. Buckler rides within it. Do you understand? The carriage takes you to Meran; you will not be the first traveller who has disappeared on the borders of Italy. I am afraid your friend at Venice will wait for you in vain."
The carriage rumbled down the hill, and we both listened until the sound died away.
"For the future you shall labour as my peasant on the hillside among the woods, with my peasants for companionship, until your thoughts grow coarse with your body, and your soul dwindles to the soul of a peasant. So shall you live, and so shall you die, for the wrong which you have done to me." She towered above me in her outburst, her eyes flashing with anger. "And you dared to charge me with trickery! Why, what else has your life been? From the night you went clothed as a woman to Bristol Bridewell, what else has your life been? A woman! The part fitted you well; you have all the cunning. You need but the addition of a petticoat."
The bitterness of her speech stung me into a fury, and, forgetful of the continence I owed to her:
"Madame!" I said, "I proved the contrary to your husband."
"Silence!" she cried, and with her open hand she struck me on the face. And then a strange thing happened. It seemed as though we changed places. For all my helplessness, I seemed to have won the mastery over her. A feeling of power and domination, such as I had never experienced before, grew stronger and stronger within me, and ran tingling through every vein. I forgot my bonds; I forgot the contempt which she had poured on me; I forgot the very diffidence with which she had always inspired me. I felt somehow that I was her master, and exulted in the feeling. Whatever happened to me in the future, whether or no I was to labour as her bondslave for all my days, for that one moment I was her master. She could never hold me in lower esteem, in greater scorn than she did at this hour, and yet I was her master. Something told me indeed that she would never hold me in contempt at all again. She stood before me, her face dark with shame, her attitude one of shrinking humiliation. Twice she strove to raise her eyes to mine; twice she let them fall to the ground. She began a sentence, and broke off at the second word. She pulled fretfully at the laces of her gloves. Then she turned and walked to the door. She walked slowly at first, constraining herself; she quickened her pace, fumbled with the key in her hurry to unlock the door, and once out of the pavilion, without pausing to latch or lock it, fled like one pursued towards the house. And from the bottom of my heart I pitied her.
In a little while Father Spaur, with the two Tyrolese, returned, and they carried me quickly through the little parlour and up the staircase to my bedroom. There they flung me on the bed and locked the door and left me. Through the open window the dance-melodies rose to my ears. It seemed to me that I could distinguish particular tunes which I had heard when I crouched in the snow upon that November night.