Christian Almer stood at the door, gazing at the retreating figure of the Advocate. It passed through the clear light of the lamps, became blurred, was merged in the darkness. The corridor was long, and before the Advocate reached the end he was a shadow among shadows.
In Almer's excited mood the slightest impressions became the medium for distorted reflection. The dim form of the Advocate was pregnant with meaning, and when it was finally lost to sight, Almer's eyes followed an invisible figure moving, not through space, but through events in which he and his friend and Adelaide were the principal actors. A wild whirl of images crowded to his mind, presenting in the midst of their confusion defined and distinct pictures, the leading features of which were the consequences arising from the double betrayal of love and friendship. Violent struggles, deadly embraces--in houses, in forests, on the brinks of precipices, in the torrents of furious rivers. The proportions of these images were vast, titanic. The forests were interminable, the trees rose to an immense height, the rivers resembled raging seas, the presentments of animated life were of unnatural magnitude. Even when he and Adelaide were flying through a trackless wood, and were overtaken by the Advocate, this impression of gigantic growth prevailed, as though there were room in the world for naught but themselves and the passions by which they were swayed.
He was recalled to himself by a soft tapping at the door of the inner room. He instantly unlocked it, and released Adelaide, who raised her eyes, beaming with animation, to his.
He was overcome with astonishment. He thought to see her pale, frightened, trembling. Never had he beheld her more radiant.
"He is gone," she said in a gay tone.
"Hush!" whispered Almer, "he may return."
"He will not," she said. "You will see him no more to-night."
"Thank Heaven the danger is averted! I feel as if I had been guilty of some horrible crime."
"Whereas you have simply indulged poor innocent me in a harmless fancy. Christian, I heard every word."
"I thought you would have fallen asleep. How could you have been so imprudent, so reckless, as to laugh?"
"How can I help being a woman of impulse? Were you very much frightened? I was not--I rather enjoyed it. Christian, there is not a single thing my immaculate husband does which does not convince me he has no heart. Just think what might have happened if he had come to the right door and thrown it open and seen me! There! You look so horrified that I feel I have said something wrong again. Christian, what did you mean by saying to him, 'My thoughts are not under my control while you have your hand on that letter'? What letter was it?"
"Your note, which Dionetta left in the room. He was sitting by the desk upon which I had laid it, and his hand was upon it."
"And it made you nervous? To think that he had but to open that innocent bit of paper! What a scene there would have been! I should have gloried in the situation--yes, indeed. There is no pleasure in life like the excitement of danger. Those who say women are weak know nothing of us. We are braver than men, a thousand, thousand times braver. I tried to peep through the door, but there wasn't a single friendly crevice. What a shock it would have given him if I had suddenly called out as he held the letter: 'Open it, my love, open it and read it!'"
"That is what you call being prudent?" said Almer in despair.
"Tyrant! I cannot promise you not to think. I have a good mind to be angry with you. You are positively ungrateful. You shut me up in a room all by myself, where I quietly remain, the very soul of discretion--you did not so much as hear me breathe--only forgetting myself once when my feelings overcame me, and you don't give me one word of praise. Tell me instantly, sir, that I am a brave little woman."
"You are the personification of rashness."
"How ungrateful! Did you think of me, Christian, while I was locked up there?"
"My thoughts did not wander from you for a moment."
"If you had only given me a handful of these roseleaves so that I might have buried my face in them and imagined I was not tied to a man who loves another woman than his wife! You seem amazed. Do you forget already what has passed between you? If it had happened that I loved him, after his confession to-night I should hate him. But it is indifferent to me upon whom he has set his affections--with all my heart I pity the unfortunate creature he loves. She need not fear me; I shall not harm her. You got at the heart of his secret when you asked him if a woman was involved in it; and you compelled him to confess that his honour--and of course hers; mine does not matter--was at stake in his miserable love-affair. He loves a woman who is not his wife; with all his evasions he could not help admitting it. And this is the man who holds his head so high above all other men--the man who was never known to commit an indiscretion! Of course he must keep his secret close--of course he could not speak of it to his friend, whom he tries to hoodwink with professions and twisted words! He married me, I suppose, to satisfy his vanity; he wanted the world to see that old as he was, grave as he was, no woman could resist him. And I allowed myself to be persuaded by worldly friends! Is it not a proof of my never having loved him, that, instead of hating him when in my hearing he confesses he loves another, I simply laugh at him and despise him? I should not shed a tear over him if he died to-night. He has insulted me--and what woman ever forgets or forgives an insult? But he has done me a good service, too, and I thank him. How sleepy I am! Good-night. My minute is up, and I cannot stay longer; I must think of my complexion. Goodnight, Christian; that is all I came to say."
The Advocate did not immediately return to his study. Darkness was more congenial to his mood, and he spent a few minutes in the gardens of the villa. Although he had stated to Christian Almer that the conversation which had passed between them had been of benefit to him, he felt, now that he was alone, that there was much in it to give rise to disturbing thought and conjecture. He had not foreseen the difficulty, in social intercourse, of avoiding the subject uppermost in his mind. A morbid self-consciousness, at present in its germ, and from which he had hitherto been entirely free, seemed to unlock all roads in its direction. It was, as it were, the converging-point of all matters, even the most trivial, affecting himself. Having put the seal upon his resolution with respect to Gautran's confession, he became painfully aware that he had committed himself to a line of action from which he could not now recede without laying himself open to such suspicion, from friend and foe alike, as might fatally injure his reputation. He was a lawyer, and he knew what powerful use he could make of such a weapon against any man, high or low. If it could be turned against another it could be turned against himself. He must not, therefore, waver in his resolution. Only his conscience could call him to account. Well, he would reckon with that. It was a passive, not an active accuser. Gautran would seek some new locality, in which he would be lost to sight. As a matter of common prudence, it was more than likely he would change his name. The suspicion which attached itself to him, and the horror with which he was regarded in the neighbourhood in which he had lived, would compel him to fly to other pastures. In this, and in the silence of time, lay the Advocate's safety, for every day that passed would weaken the fever of excitement created by the trial. After a few weeks, if it even happened that Gautran were insanely to make a public declaration of his guilt, and to add to this confession a statement that the Advocate was aware of it during the trial, by whom would he be believed? Certainly not by the majority of the better classes of the people; and in the event of such a contingency, he could quote with effect the poet's words: "Be thou chaste as ice, and pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny."
So much, then, for himself: but he was more than ever anxious and ill at ease regarding Christian Almer. The secret which his friend dared not divulge to him was evidently of the gravest import--probably as terrible in its way as that which lay heavily on the Advocate's soul; and the profound mystery in which it was wrapt invested it with a significance so unusual, even in the Advocate's varied experience of human nature, that he could not keep from brooding upon it. Was it a secret in which honour was involved? He could not bring himself to believe that Almer could be guilty of a dishonourable act--but a man might be dragged into a difficulty against his will, and might have a burden of shame unexpectedly thrust upon him which he could not openly fling off without disgrace. And yet--and yet--that he should be so careful in concealing it from the knowledge of the truest of friends--it was inexplicable. Ponder as long as he might, the Advocate could arrive at no explanation of it, nor could his logical mind obtain the slightest clue to the mystery.
The cool air in the gardens refreshed him, and he walked about, always within view of the lights in his study windows, with his head uncovered. It was during the first five minutes of his solitude that an impression stole upon him that he was not alone. He searched the avenues, he listened, he asked aloud:
"Is any person near, and does he wish to speak to me?"
No voice answered him. The gardens, with the exception of the soft rustling of leaf and branch, were as silent as the grave. Towards the end of his solitary rambling, and as he was contemplating leaving the grounds, this impression again stole upon him. Was it the actual sound of muffled footsteps, or the spiritual influence of an unseen presence, which disturbed him? He could not decide. Again he searched the avenues, again he listened, again he asked a question aloud. All was silent.
This was the third time during the night that he had allowed himself to be beguiled. Once in Christian Almer's room, when he thought he had heard a laugh, and now twice in the solitude of the grounds. He set it down as an unreasoning fancy springing from the agitation into which he had been thrown by his interview with Gautran, and he breathed a wish that the next fortnight were passed, when his mind would almost certainly have recovered its equilibrium. The moment the wish was born, he smiled in contempt of his own weakness. It opened another vein in the psychological examination to which he was subjecting himself.
He entered his study, and did not perceive Gautran, who was asleep in the darkest corner of the room. But his quick observant eye immediately fell upon the glass out of which Gautran had drunk the wine. The glass was on his writing-table; it was not there when he left his study. He glanced at the wine-bottles on the sideboard; they had been disturbed.
"Some person has been here in my absence," he thought. "Who--and for what purpose?"
He hastily examined his manuscripts and, missing none, raised the wine-glass and held it mouth downwards. As a couple of drops of red liquor fell to the ground, he heard behind him the sound of heavy breathing.
An ordinary man would have let the glass fall from his hand in sudden alarm, for the breathing was so deep, and strong, and hoarse, that it might have proceeded from the throat of a wild beast who was preparing to spring upon him. But the Advocate was not easily alarmed. He carefully replaced the glass, and wheeled in the direction of the breathing. He saw the outlines of a form stretched upon the ground in a distant corner; he stepped towards it, and stooping, recognised Gautran. He was not startled. It seemed to be in keeping with what had previously transpired, that Gautran should be lying there slumbering at his feet.
He stood quite still, regarding the sleeping figure of the murderer in silence. He had risen to his full height; one hand rested upon the back of a massive oak chair: his face was grave and pale; his head was downwards bent. So he stood for many minutes almost motionless. Not the slightest agitation was observable in him; he was calmly engaged in reflecting upon the position of affairs, as though they related not to himself, but to a client in whose case he was interested, and he was evolving from them, by perfectly natural reasoning, the most extraordinary complications and results. In all his experience he had never been engaged in a case presenting so many rare possibilities, and he was in a certain sense fascinated by the powerful use he could make of the threads of the web in which he had become so strangely and unexpectedly entangled.
Gautran's features were not clearly visible to him; they were too much in shadow. He took from his writing-table a lamp with a soft strong light, and set it near to the sleeping man. It brought the ruffian into full view. His unshaven face, his coarse, matted hair, his brutal sensual mouth, his bushy eyebrows, his large ears, his bared neck, his soiled and torn clothes, the perspiration in which he was bathed, presented a spectacle of human degradation as revolting as any the Advocate had ever gazed upon.
"By what means," he thought, "did this villain obtain information of my movements and residence, and what is his motive in coming here? When he accosted me tonight he did not know where I lived--of that I am convinced, for he had no wish to meet me, and believed he was threatening another man than myself on the high road. That was a chance meeting. Is this, also, a chance encounter? No; there is premeditation in it. Had he entered another house he would have laid his hands on something valuable and decamped, his purpose being served. He would not dare to rob me, but he dares to thrust his company upon me. Of all men, I am the man he should be most anxious to avoid, for only I know him to be guilty. Have I created a monster who is destined to be the terror and torture of my life? Is he shrewd enough, clever enough, cunning enough, to use his power as I should use it were I in his place, and he in mine? That is not to be borne, but what is the alternative? I could put life into the grotesque oaken features upon which my hand is resting, and they might suggest a remedy. The branches of the tree within which these faces grew in some old forest waved doubtless over many a mystery, but this in which I am at present engaged matches the deepest of them. Some demon seems to be whispering at my elbow. Speak, then; what would you urge me to do?"
The Unseen: "Gautran entered unobserved."
The Advocate: "That is apparent, or he would not be lying here with the hand of Fate above him."
The Unseen: "No person saw him--no person is aware that he is in your study, at your mercy."
The Advocate: "At my mercy! You could have found a better word to express your meaning."
The Unseen: "You know him to be a murderer."
The Advocate: "True."
The Unseen: "He deserves death! You have already heard the whisperings of the voice which urged you to fulfil the divine law, Blood for blood!"
The Advocate: "Speak not of what is Divine. Tempter, have you not the courage to come straight to the point?"
The Unseen: "Kill him where he lies! He will not be missed. It is night--black night. Every living being in the house, with the exception of yourself, is asleep. You have twisted justice from its rightful course. The wrong you did you can repair. Kill him where he lies!"
The Advocate: "And have the crime of murder upon my soul?"
The Unseen: "It is not murder. Standing as you are standing now, knowing what you know, you are justified."
The Advocate: "I will have no juggling. If I kill him it is not in the cause of justice. Speak plainly. Why should he die at my hands?"
The Unseen: "His death is necessary for your safety."
The Advocate: "Ah, that is better. No talk of justice now. We come to the coarse selfishness of things, which will justify the deadliest crimes. His death is necessary for my safety! How am I endangered? Say that his presence here is a threat. Am I not strong enough to avoid the peril? How vile am I that I should allow such thoughts to suggest themselves! Christian, my friend, whatever is the terror which has taken possession of you, and from which you vainly strive to fly, your secret is pure in comparison with mine. If it were possible that the secret which oppresses you concerned your dearest friend, concerned me, whom perchance it has in some hidden way wronged, how could I withhold from you pity and forgiveness, knowing how sorely my own actions need pity and forgiveness? For the first time in my life I am brought face to face with my soul, and I see how base it is. Has my life, then, been surrounded by dreams, and do I now awake to find how low and abominable are the inner workings of my nature? I must arouse this monster. He shall hide nothing from me."
He spurned Gautran with his foot. It was with no gentle touch, and Gautran sprang to his feet, and would have thrown himself upon the Advocate had he not suddenly recognised him.
"How long have I been asleep?" muttered Gautran, shaking himself and rubbing his eyes. "It seems but a minute." The clock on the mantel struck the hour of two. "I counted twelve when I was in the grounds; I have been here two hours. You might have let me sleep longer. It is the first I have enjoyed for weeks--a sleep without a dream. As I used to sleep before----" He shuddered, and did not complete the sentence. "Give me something to drink, master."
"You have been helping yourself to my wine," said the Advocate.
"You know everything, master. Yes, it was wine I drank, as mild as milk. It went down like water. Good for gentlemen, perhaps, but not for us. I must have something stronger." He looked anxiously round the room, and sighed and smiled; no appalling vision greeted his sight. "Ah," he said, "I am safe here. Give me some brandy."
"You will have none, Gautran," said the Advocate sternly.
"Ah, master," implored Gautran, "think better of it, I must have brandy--I must!"
"Must!" echoed the Advocate, with a frown.
"Yes, master, must; I shall not be able to talk else. My throat is parched--you can hear for yourself that it is as dry as a raven's. I must have drink, and it mustn't be milk-wine. I am not quite a fool, master. If that horrible shadow were never to appear to me again, I would show those who have been hard on me a trick or two that would astonish them. If you've a spark of compassion in you, master, give a poor wretch a glass of brandy."
The Advocate considered a moment, and then unlocked a small cupboard, from which he took a bottle of brandy. He filled a glass, and gave it to Gautran.
"Here's confusion to our enemies," said Gautran. "Ah, this is fine! I have never tasted such before. It puts life into a man."
"What makes you drink toourenemies, Gautran?" asked the Advocate.
"Why, master, are not my enemies yours, and yours mine? We row in the same boat. If they found us out, it would be as bad for you as it would be for me. Worse, master, worse, for you have much to lose; I have nothing. You see, master, I have been thinking over things since we met in the lane yonder."
"You are bold and impudent. What if I were to summon my servants and have you marched off to gaol?"
"What would you accuse me of? I have not stolen anything; you may search me if you like. No, no, master, I will take nothing from you. What you give I shall be grateful for; but rob you? No--you are mistaken in me. I owe you too much already. I am bound to you for life."
"You do not seem afraid of the gaol, Gautran."
"Not when you threaten me with it, master, for you are jesting with me. It is not worth your while; I am a poor creature to make sport of."
"Yet I am dangerously near handing you over to justice."
"For what, master, for what? For coming into your room, and not finding you there, throwing myself in a corner like a dog?"
"It is sufficient--and you have stolen my wine. These are crimes which the law is ready to punish, especially in men with evil reputations."
"You are right, I've no doubt; you know more about the law than I do. I don't intend to dispute with you, master. But when they got hold of me they would question me, and my tongue would be loosened against my will. I say again, you are jesting with me. How warm and comfortable it is in this grand room, and how miserable outside! Ah, why wasn't I born rich? It was a most unfortunate accident."
"Your tongue would be loosened against your will! What could you say?"
"What everybody suspects, but could not prove, master, thanks to you. They owe me a grudge in the prison yonder--lawyers and judges and gaolers--and nothing would please them better than to hear what I could tell them--that I killed the girl, and that you knew I killed her. You don't look pleased, master. You drove me to say it."
"You slanderous villain!"
"I don't mind what you call me, master. I can bear anything from you. I am your slave, and there is nothing you could set me to do that I am not ready to perform. I mean it, master. Try me--only try me! Think of something fearful, something it would take a bold, desperate man to do, and see if I shrink from it. The gaoler was right when he said I was a lucky dog to get such an Advocate as you to defend me. You knew the truth--you knew I did the deed--you knew no one else could save me--and you wanted to show them how clever you were, and what a fool any lawyer was to think he could stand against you. And you did it, master, you did it. How mad they must be with you! I wonder how much they would give to cry Quits! And you've done even more than that, master. The spirit which has been with me night and day, in prison and out of prison, lying by me in bed, standing by my side in the court--you saw it there, master--dogging me through the streets and lanes, hiding behind trees and gliding upon me when I thought I had escaped it--it is gone, master, it is gone! It will not come where you are. It is afraid of you. I don't care whether it is a holy or an unholy power you possess, I am your slave, and you can do with me as you will. But you must not send me to prison again--no, you must not do that! Why, master, simple as I am, and ignorant of the law, I feel that you are joking with me, when you threaten to summon your servants to march me off to gaol for coming into your house. I should say to them, 'You are a pack of fools. Don't you see he is jesting with you? Here have we been talking together for half an hour, and he has given me his best brandy as a mark of friendship. There is the bottle--feel the rim of it, and you will find it wet. Look at the glass, if you don't believe me. Smell it--smell my breath.' Why, then they would ask you again if you were in earnest, and you would have to send them away. Master, I was never taught to read or write, and there is very little I know--but I know well that there is a time to do a thing and a time not to do it, and that unless a thing is done at the proper time, there is no use afterwards attempting it. I will tell you something, though I dare say I might save myself the trouble, for you can read what is in me. If Madeline, when she ran from me along the river's bank, had escaped me, it is likely she would be alive at this moment, for the fiend that spurred me on to kill her might never again have been so strong within me, might never again have had such power over me as he had that night. But he was too strong for me, and that was the time to do the deed, and she had to die. Do you think I don't pity her? I do, when she is not tormenting me. But when she follows me, as she has done to-night, when she stands looking at me with eyes in which there is fire, but no light, I feel that I could kill her over again if I dared, and if I could get a good grip of her. Are all spirits silent? Have they no voice to speak? It is terrible, terrible! I must buy masses for her soul, and then, perhaps, she will rest in peace. Master, give me another glass of that rare brandy of yours. Talking is dry work."
"You'll get no more till you leave me."
"I am to leave you, then?"
"When I have done with you--when our conversation is at an end."
"I must obey you, master. You could crush me if you liked."
"I could kill you if I liked," said the Advocate, in a voice so cold and determined that Gautran shuddered.
"You could, master--I know it well enough. Not with your hands; I am your match there. Few men can equal me in strength. But you would not trust to that; you are too wise. You would scorch and wither me with a lightning touch. I should be a fool to doubt it. If you will not give me brandy, give me a biscuit or some bread and meat. Since noon I have had nothing to eat but a few apples, to which I helped myself. The gaolers robbed me of my dinner in the middle of the day, and put before me only a slice of dry bread. I would cut off two of my fingers to be even with them."
In the cupboard which contained the brandy and other liquors was a silver basket containing biscuits, which the Advocate brought forward and placed before Gautran, who ate them greedily and filled his pockets with them. During the silence the Advocate's mind was busy with Gautran's words. Ignorant as the man was, and confessed himself to be, there was an undisputable logic in the position he assumed. Shrink from it as he might, the Advocate could not avoid confessing that between this man, who was little better than an animal, and himself, who had risen so high above his fellows--that in these extremes of intellectual degradation and superiority--existed a strange and, in its suggestiveness, an awful, equality. And what afforded him food for serious reflection, from an abstract point of view, was that, though they travelled upon roads so widely apart, they both arrived at the same goal. This was proved by Gautran's reasoning upon the Advocate's threat to put him in prison for breaking into the House of White Shadows. "Sound logic," thought the Advocate, "learnt in a school in which the common laws of nature are the teachers. A decided kinship exists between this murderer and myself. Am I, then, as low as he, and do the best of us, in our pride of winning the crown, indulge in self-delusions at which a child might feel ashamed? Or is it that, strive as he may, the most earnest man cannot lift himself above the grovelling motives which set in motion every action of a human life?"
"Now, master," said Gautran, having finished munching.
"Now, Gautran," said the Advocate, "why do you come to me?"
"I belong to you," replied Gautran. "You gave me my life and my liberty. You had some meaning in it. I don't ask you what it is, for you will tell me only what you choose to tell me. I am yours, master, body and soul."
"And soul?" questioned the Advocate ironically.
"So long," said Gautran, crossing himself, "as you do not ask me to do anything to imperil my salvation."
"Is it not already imperilled? Murderer!"
"I have done nothing that I cannot buy off with masses. Ask the priests. If I could not get money any other way, to save myself I would rob a church."
"Admirable!" exclaimed the Advocate. "You interest me, Gautran. How did you obtain admission into the grounds?"
"Over the wall at the back. It is a mercy I did not break my bones."
"And into this room--how did you enter?"
"Through the window."
"Knowing it was my room?"
"Yes, master."
"How did you gain that knowledge?"
"I was told--and told, as well, that you lived in this house."
"By whom were you told?"
"As I ran from Madeline--she has left me forever, I hope--I came upon a man who, for some purpose of his own, was lingering on a hill a little distance from here. I sought company, and was glad of his. I made up my mind to pass my night near something human, and did not intend to leave him. But when he said that yonder was the house in which the great Advocate lived, and when he pointed out your study window, I gave him the slip, knowing I could do better than remain with him. That is the truth, master."
"Are you acquainted with this man?"
"No, I never saw him before; I saw but little of him as it was, the night was so dark; but I know voices when I hear them. His voice was strange to me."
"How happened it, then, that you conversed about me?"
"I can't remember exactly how it came about. He gave me some brandy out of a flask--not such liquor as yours, master, but I was thankful for it--and I asked him if he had ever been followed by the spirit of a dead woman. He questioned me about this woman, asking if she was fair and beautiful, whether she had met her death in the Rhone, whether her name was Madeline. Yes, he called her up before me and I was spellbound. When I came to my proper senses he was talking to himself about a great Advocate in the house he was staring at, and I said there was only one great Advocate--you who set me free--and I asked him if you lived in the house. He said yes, and that the lights I saw were the lights in your study windows. Upon that I left him, suddenly and secretly, and made my way here."
"Was the man watching this house?"
"It had the look of it. He is no friend of yours, that I can tell you. When he spoke of you it was with the voice of a man who could make you wince if he pleased. You have served him some trick, and he wants to be revenged, I suppose. But you can take care of yourself, master."
"That will do. Leave me and leave this house, and as you value your life, enter it no more."
"Then, you will see me elsewhere. Where, master, and when?"
"I will see you in no place and at no time. I understand the meaning of looks, Gautran, and there is a threat in your eyes. Beware! I have means to punish you. You have escaped the penalty of your crime, but there is no safety for you here. You do not wish to die; the guilt of blood is on your soul, and you are afraid of death. Well may you be afraid of it. Such terrors await you in the life beyond as you cannot dream of. Live, then, and repent; or die, and be eternally lost! Dare to intrude yourself upon me, and death will be your portion, and you will go straight to your punishment. Here, and at this moment only, you have the choice of either fate. Choose, and swiftly."
The cold, stern, impressive voice, the commanding figure, had their effect upon Gautran. He shook with fear; he was thoroughly subdued.
"If I am not safe here, master, where shall I find safety?"
"In a distant part of the country where you are not known."
"How am I to get there? I have no money."
"I will give you sufficient for flight and subsistence. Here are five gold pieces. Now, go, and let me never see your murderous face again."
"Master," said Gautran humbly, as he turned the money over in his hand and counted it. "I must have more--not for myself, but to pay for masses for the repose of Madeline's soul. Then I may hope for forgiveness--then she will leave me in peace!"
The Advocate emptied his purse into Gautran's open palm, saying, "Let no man see you. Depart as secretly as you came."
But Gautran lingered still. "You promised me some more brandy, master."
The Advocate filled the glass, and Gautran, with fierce eagerness, drank the brandy.
"You will not give me another glass, master?"
"No, murderer. I have spoken my last word to you."
Gautran spoke no more, but with head sunk upon his breast, left the room and the house.
"A vulgar expedient," mused the Advocate, when he was alone, "but the only one likely to prove effective with such a monster. It is perhaps best that it has happened. This man watching upon the hill is none other than John Vanbrugh. I had almost forgotten him. He does not come in friendship. Let him watch and wait. I will not see him."
The following day Pierre Lamont did not leave his bed, and was visited in his room by the Advocate and Christian Almer. To the Advocate he said:
"I trust I shall not incommode you, for I am compelled to throw myself upon your hospitality."
"Get well, then," said the Advocate, "and enjoy it--which you cannot do, thus confined."
"I do not know--I do not know," said the old lawyer, gazing at the Advocate, and wondering how it was possible that this profound thinker and observer could be blind to the drama which was being acted at his very door, "one can still follow the world. Have you read the papers this morning?"
"No--I have not troubled myself to look at them."
"Here is one that will interest you. What is called the freedom of the press is growing into a scandal. Editors and critics abuse their charter, and need some wholesome check. But you are not likely to be moved by what they say."
He handed a newspaper to the Advocate, who walked to the window and read the editorial comments upon the trial and the part he had played in it.
"The trial of Gautran is over, and the monster whom all believe to be guilty of a foul murder is set free. The victim, unavenged, is in her grave, and a heavy responsibility lies not only upon the city, but upon the nation. Neither for good nor ill can the words we write affect the future of Gautran. Released, by the law, he is universally condemned. Justice is not satisfied. In all Switzerland there is but one man who in his soul believes the degraded wretch to be innocent, and that this man should be right and all others wrong we refuse to believe. Never in a cause so weighty have we felt it our duty to raise our voice against a verdict reluctantly wrung from the citizens whose lot it was to judge a human being accused--and we insist, righteously accused--of a horrible crime. The verdict cannot be disturbed. Gautran is free! There is a frightful significance in these words--Gautran is free!
"Removed from the feverish excitement of the court in which the trial took place, the report of the proceedings reads more like a stage drama than an episode of real life. All the elements which led to the shameful result are eminently dramatic, and were, without doubt, planned by the great Advocate who defended the accused with an eye to dramatic effect. It would scarcely surprise us were the climax now reached to be followed by an anti-climax in which Gautran's champion of yesterday would become his accuser of to-day. Our courts of justice are becoming accustomed to this kind of theatrical display. Consider the profound sensation which would be produced by the great lawyer coming forward and saying, 'Yesterday, after a long and exciting struggle, I proved to you that Gautran was innocent, and by my efforts he was let loose upon society. To-day I propose to prove to you that he is guilty, and I ask you to mete out to him his just punishment.' A dangerous temptation, indeed, to one who studies effect. But there is a safeguard against such a course. It would so blacken the fame of any man who adopted it, however high that man might stand in the estimation of his peers and the people, that he could never hope to rise from the depths of shame into which his own act had plunged him.
"Many persons who believe that way will doubtless argue that there is something providential in the history of this ruthless murder of an unfortunate innocent being. She is slain. Not a soul comes forward to claim kinship with her. None the less is she a child of God. Human reason leads to the arrest and imprisonment of Gautran. Providence brings upon the scene a great lawyer, who, unsolicited, undertakes the defence of a monster, association with whom is defilement. The wretch is set free, and Justice stands appalled at what has been done in the name of the law. But this is not the end. Providence may have something yet in store which will bring punishment to the guilty and unravel this tangled skein. What, then, will the great Advocate have to say who deliberately and voluntarily brought about a miscarriage of justice so flagrant as to cause every honest heart to thrill with indignation?"
The Advocate did not read any further, but laid the paper aside and said:
"Men who take part in public matters are open to attacks of this kind. There is nothing to complain of."
"And yet," thought Pierre Lamont, when the Advocate left him, "there was in his face, as he read the article, an expression denoting that he was moved. Well,--well--men are but human, even the greatest."
Later in the day he was visited by Christian Almer, to whom he repeated his apologies.
"I have one of my bad attacks on me. They frequently last for days. At such times it is dangerous for me to be moved about."
"Then do not be moved about," said Almer, with a smile.
But despite this smile. Almer was inwardly disquieted. He had not been aware on the previous night that Pierre Lamont occupied the next room to his. After the departure of the Advocate, Adelaide had not been careful; her voice had been frequently raised, and Almer was anxious to ascertain whether it had reached the old lawyer's ears.
"You slept well, I hope," he said.
"Yes, until the early morning, a little after sunrise. I am a very deep sleeper for four or five hours. The moment I close my eyes sleep claims me, and holds me so securely that, were the house on fire, it would be difficult to arouse me. But the moment the sunshine peeps into my room, my rest is at an end. When I had the use of my limbs I was an early riser."
Almer's mind was relieved. "Sleeping in a strange bed is often not conducive to repose."
"I have slept in so many strange beds." And Pierre Lamont thought as he spoke: "But never in a stranger bed than this."
"You can still find occupation," said Almer, pointing to the books on table and bed.
"Ah, books, books, books!" said Pierre Lamont. "What would the world do without them? How did it ever do without them? But I am old, and I am talking to a young man."
"My father was a bookworm and a student," said Almer. "Were he alive, he would be disappointed that I do not tread in his footsteps."
"Perhaps not. He was a wise man, with a comprehensive mind. It would not do for us all to be monks."
Half-a-dozen times in the course of the day Pierre Lamont had sent in search of Fritz the Fool, and it was not till the afternoon that Fritz made his appearance.
"You should have come earlier, fool," said Pierre Lamont with a frown.
"I was better engaged," said Fritz coolly. "You fired me with those love-verses last night, and I have been studying what to say to my peach."
"The pretty Dionetta! Rehearse, then; I am dull."
"Ah, I have much to tell you. I am thinking of saying to the peach, 'Dionetta, place your hand in mine, and we will both serve Pierre Lamont. He will give us a home; he will pay us liberally; and when he dies he will not leave us unprovided for.'"
"And if the peach should laugh in your face?"
"I would reason with it. I would say, 'Look you now; you cannot be always ripe, you cannot be always mellow and luscious. Do not waste the precious sunshine of life, but give yourself to a clever fool, who cares quite as much for your fair face and beautiful skin as he does for the diamond baubles in your ears.'"
"Diamond earrings, Fritz! Are you dreaming?"
"Not at this moment--though I had a dream last night after I left you which I may tell you if I don't repent of it before I disclose it. Yes, Master Lamont, diamond earrings--as I'm a living fool, diamonds of value. See, Master Lamont, I don't want this peach to be gathered yet. It is well placed, it is in favour; it is making itself in some way useful, not to finer, but to richer fruit. Heaven only knows what may be rained upon it when the very first summer shower brings a diamond finger-ring, and the second a pair of diamond earrings. A diamond brooch, perhaps; money for certain, if it will take a fool's advice. And of course it will do that if, seeing that the fool is a proper fool, the peach says kindly, 'I am yours.' That is the way of it, is it not, Master Lamont?"
"I am waiting to hear more, Fritz," said Pierre Lamont, with a full enjoyment of Fritz's loquacity.
"Behind the summer-house, Master Lamont, lies a lovely lake, clear as crystal in parts where it is not covered with fairy lilies. I am as good as a pair of eyes to you to tell you of these beauties. The water is white and shining and at one part there is a mass of willows bending over; then there is a break, clear of the shadow of branch and leaf; then there is another mass of willows. From a distance you would think that there was no break in the foliage; you have to go close to it to make the discovery, and once you are there you are completely hidden from sight. Not more than two hours ago I was passing this spot at the back of the willows, when I heard a voice--a girl's voice, Master Lamont--saying quite softly, 'Oh, how lovely! how beautiful--how beautiful!' It was Dionetta's voice; I should know it among a thousand. Through the willows I crept with the foot of a cat till I came to the break, and there was Dionetta herself, bending over the water, and sighing, 'Oh, how lovely! how beautiful!' She could not see me, for her back was towards me, and I took care she did not hear me. She was shaking her pretty head over the water, and I shouldn't deserve to be called a fool if I had not felt curious to see what it was in the lake that was so lovely and beautiful. Perhaps it was her own face she was admiring. Well, she had a perfect right, and I was ready to join in the chorus. I crept up to her as still as a mouse, and looked over her shoulder. She gave a great scream when she saw my face in the lake, and I caught hold of her to prevent her from falling in. Then I saw what almost took away my breath. In her ears there flashed a pair of diamond earrings, the like of which I never in my life beheld in our village. Her face got as red as a sunset as I gazed at her. 'How you frightened me, Fritz!' she said. I set the earrings swinging with my fingers and said, 'Where did you get these wonderful things from?' She answered me pat. 'My lady gave them to me.' 'They are yours, then?' I asked. 'Yes, Fritz,' she said, 'they are mine, and I came here to see how I look in them. They are so grand that I am ashamed to put them on unless I am alone. Don't tell anybody, will you, Fritz? If grandmother knew I had them, she would take them from me. She would never, never let me wear them. Don't tell anybody.' Why, of course I said I would not, and then I asked why my lady gave them to her, and she said it was because my lady loved her. So, so! thought I, as I left my peach--I would like to have given her just one kiss, but I did not dare to try--so, so! my lady gives her maid a pair of diamond earrings that are as suitable to her as a crown of gold to an ass's head. There is something more than common between lady and maid. What is it, Master Lamont, what is it?"
"A secret, fool, which, if you get your peach to tell, will be worth much to you. And as you and I are going to keep our own counsel, learn from me that this secret has but one of two kernels. Love or jealousy. Set your wits at work, Fritz, set your wits at work, and keep your eyes open. I may help you to your peach, fool. And now about that dream of yours. Were you asleep or awake at the time?"
Fritz stepped cautiously to the door, opened it, looked along the passage, closed the door, and came close to the bedside.
"Master Lamont," he said, "what I dreamt is something so strange that it will take a great deal of thinking over. Do you know why I tell you things?"
"I might guess wrong, Fritz. Save me the trouble."
"You have never been but one way with me; you have never given me a hard word; you have never given me a blow. When I was a boy--twenty years ago and more, Master Lamont--you were the only man who spoke kind words to me, who used to pat my head and pity me. For, if you remember, Master Lamont, I was nothing but a castaway, living on charity, and everybody but you made me feel it. Cuffed by this one and that one, kicked, and laughed at--but never by you. Even a fool can bear these things in mind."
"Well, well, Fritz, go on with your dream. You are making me hungry."
"It came nearly two hours after midnight. At that time I was in the grounds. All was dark. There was nobody about but me, until the Advocate came. Then I slipped aside and watched him. He walked up and down, like a machine. It was not as if a man was walking, but a figure of steel. It was enough to drive me crazy, it was so like clockwork. Twice he almost discovered me. He looked about him, he searched the grounds, still with the same measured step, he called aloud, and asked if anybody was near. Then he went into the house and into the study. I knew he was there by the shifting of the lights in the room. Being alone with the shadows, your love-verses came into my mind, and you may believe me, Master Lament, I made my way to the window of the room in which Dionetta sleeps, and stood there looking up at it. I should have been right down ashamed of myself if I hadn't been dreaming. Is it the way of lovers, Master Lamont? 'Faster than bees to flowers they wing their way;' that is how the line runs, is it not? Well, there stood I, a bee, dreaming in the dark night, before the window of my flower. An invisible flower, unfortunately. But thoughts are free; you can't put chains on them. So there stood I, for how many minutes I cannot say, imagining my flower. Now, if I had known that her pretty head was lying on the pillow, with great diamond earrings in her ears--for that is a certainty--I might not perhaps have been able to tear myself away. Luckily for my dream, that knowledge had still to come to me, so I wandered off, and found myself once more staring at the lights in the Advocate's study windows. Now, what made me step quite close to them, and put my eye to a pane which the curtains did not quite cover? I could see clear into the room. Imagine my surprise, Master Lamont, when I discovered that the Advocate was not alone! Master Lamont, you know every man in the village, but I would give you a thousand guesses, and you would not hit upon the name of the Advocate's friend. From where I stood I could not hear a word that was said, but I saw everything. I saw the Advocate go to a cupboard, and give this man liquor; he poured it out for him himself. Then they talked--then the Advocate brought forward a silver basket of biscuits, and the man ate some, and stuffed some into his pockets. They were on the very best of terms with each other. The Advocate gave his friend some money--pieces of gold, Master Lamont; I saw them glitter. The man counted them, and by his action, asked for more; and more was given; the Advocate emptied his purse into the man's hand. Then, after further conversation, the man turned to leave the room. It was time for me to scuttle from my peep-hole. Presently the man was in the grounds stepping almost as softly as I stepped after him. For I was not going to lose him, Master Lamont; my curiosity was whetted to that degree that it would have taken a great deal to prevent me from following this friend of the Advocate's. 'How will he get out?' thought I; 'the gates are locked; he will hardly venture to scale them.' Two or three times he stopped, and looked behind him; he did not see me. He arrived at the wall which stretches at the back; he climbed the wall; so did I, in another and an easier part; he dropped down with a thud and a groan; I let myself to the ground without disturbing a leaf. Presently he picked himself up and walked off, with more haste than before. I followed him. He stopped; I stopped; he walked on again, and so did I. Again he stopped and cried aloud: 'I hear you follow me! Is not one killing enough for you?' And then he gave a scream so awful that the hair rose on my head. 'She is here!' he screamed; 'she is here, and is driving me to madness!' With that he took to his heels and tore through field and forest really like a madman. I could not keep up with him, and after an hour's running I completely lost sight of him. There was nothing for me to do but to get back to the villa. I returned the way I came--I had plenty to think about on the road--and I was once more before the windows of the Advocate's study. The lights were still there. The Advocate, I believe, can live without sleep. I peeped through the window, and there he was, sitting at his table reading, with an expression of power in his face which might well make any man tremble who dared to oppose him. That is the end of my dream, Master Lamont."
"But the man, Fritz, the man!" exclaimed Pierre, Lamont. "I am still in ignorance as to who this strange, nocturnal visitor can be."
"There lies the pith of my dream. If I were to tell you that this man who makes his way secretly into the grounds in the darkness of the night--who is closeted with the Advocate for an hour at least--who is treated to wine and cake--who is presented with money, and grumblingly asks for more, and gets it--if I were to tell you that this man is Gautran, who was tried for the murder of Madeline, the flower-girl, and who was set free by the Advocate--what would you say, Master Lamont?"
"I should say," replied Pierre Lamont with some difficulty controlling his excitement, "that you were mad, fool Fritz."
"Nevertheless," said Fritz with great composure, "it is so. I have related my dream as it occurred. The man was Gautran and no other. Can you explain that to me in one word?"
"No," said Pierre Lamont, gazing sharply at Fritz. "You are not fooling me, Fritz?"
"If it were my last word it would make no difference. I have told you the truth."
"You know Gautran's face well?"
"I was in the court every day of the trial, and there is no chance of my being mistaken. See here, Master Lamont. I can do many things that would surprise people. I can draw faces. Give me a pencil and some paper."
With a few rapid strokes he produced the very image of Pierre Lamont, sitting up in bed, with thin, cadaverous face, with high forehead and large nose; even the glitter of the old lawyer's eyes was depicted. Pierre Lamont examined the portrait with admiration.
"I am proud of you, Fritz," he said; "you have the true artist's touch."
Fritz was busy with the pencil again. "Who may this be?" he asked, holding another sketch before Pierre Lamont.
"The Advocate. To the life, Fritz, to the life."
"This is also to the life," said Fritz, producing a third portrait. "This is Gautran. It is all I can draw, Master Lamont--human faces; I could do it when I was a boy. There is murder in Gautran's face; there was murder in the words I heard him speak as I followed him: 'Is not one killing enough for you?' There is only one meaning to such words. I leave you to puzzle it all out, Master Lamont. You have a wise head; I am a fool. Mother Denise may be right, after all, when she said--not knowing I was within hearing--that it was an evil day when my lady, the Advocate's wife, set foot in the grounds of the House of White Shadows. But it is no business of mine; only I must look after my peach, or it may suddenly be spirited away on a broomstick. Unholy work, Master Lamont, unholy work! What do you say to letting Father Capel into the mystery?"
"Not for worlds!" cried Pierre Lamont. "Priests in such matters are the rarest bunglers. No--the secret is ours, yours and mine; you shall be well paid for your share in it. Without my permission you will not speak of it--do you hear me, Fritz?"
"I hear you, and will obey you."
"Good lad! Ah, what would I give if I had the use of my limbs! But you shall be my limbs and my eyes--my second self. Help me to dress, Fritz--quick, quick!"
"Master Lamont," said Fritz with a sly laugh, "be careful of your precious self. You are ill, you know, very, very ill! You must keep your bed. I cannot run the risk of losing so good a master."
"I have a dozen years of life in me yet, fool. This dried-up old skin, these withered limbs, this lack of fat, are my protection. If I were a stout, fine man I might go off at any moment. As it is, I may live to a hundred--old enough to see your grandchildren, Fritz. But yes, yes, yes--I am indeed very ill and weak! Let everybody know it--so weak and ill that it is not possible for me to leave this hospitable house for many, many days. The medicine I require is the fresh air of the gardens. With my own eyes I must see what I can of the comedy that is being played under our very noses. I, also, had dreams last night, Fritz, rare dreams! Ah--what a comedy, what a comedy! But there are tragic veins in it, fool, which make it all the more human."