NOTHINGhad meanwhile changed in the other part of the house. But the old wizard had seen Balsamo enter his study and carry away the remains of Lorenza, which had recalled him to life.
Shrieks of “Fire!” from the old man reached Balsamo, when, rid of his dread visitors, he had carried Lorenza back to the sofa where only two hours previously she had been reposing before the old sage broke in.
Suddenly he appeared to Althota’ eyes.
“At last,” said the latter, drunk with joy; “I knew you would have fear! see how I can revenge myself! It was well you came, for I was going to set fire to the place.”
His pupil looked at him contemptuously without deigning a word.
“I am thirsty. Give me some water out of that bottle,” he said wildly.
His features were breaking up fast; no steady fire was in his eyes, only frightful gleams, sinister and infernal; under his skin was no more blood. His long arms in which he had carried Lorenza as though she were a child, now dangled like cuttlefish’s suckers. In anger had been consumed the strength momentarily restored him by desperation.
“You won’t give me to drink? You want to kill me with thirst. You covet my books and manuscripts and lore, my treasures! Ah, you think you will enjoy them—wait a bit. Wait, wait!”
Making a supreme effort, he drew from under the cushion on which he was huddled up a bottle which he uncorked. At the contact of air, a flame spouted up from the glass and Althotas, like a magic creature, shook this flame around him.
Instantly, the writings piled up around the old man, the scattered books, the rolls of papyrus extracted with so many hardships from the pyramids of Egypt and the libraries of Herculaneum, caught fire with the quickness of gunpowder. The marble flour was turned into a sheet of fire, and seemed to Balsamo one of those fiery rings described by Dante.
No doubt the old man thought that his disciple would rush among the flames to save him, but he was wrong. He merely drew himself away calmly out of the scope of the fire.
It enveloped the incendiary himself; but instead of frightening him it seemed as if he were in his element. The flame caressed him as if he were a salamander, instead of scorching him.
Though as he sat, it devoured the lower part of his frame, he did not seem to feel it.
On the contrary, the contact appeared salutary, for the dying one’s muscles relaxed, and a new serenity covered his features like a mask. Isolated at this ultimate hour, the spirit forgot the matter, and the old prophet, on his fiery car, seemed about to ascend to heaven.
Calm and resigned, analysing his sensations, listening to his own pangs as the last voices of earth, the old Magus let his farewell sullenly escape to life, hope and power.
“I die with no regret,” he said; “I have enjoyed all earthly boons; I have known everything; I have held all given to the creature to possess—and I am going into immortality.”
Balsamo sent forth a gloomy laugh which attracted the old man’s attention.
Althotas darted on him a look through the veiling flames, which was impressed with ferocious majesty.
“Yea, you are right: I had not foreseen one Thing—God!”
As if this mighty word had snatched the soul out of him, he dwindled up in the chair: his last breath had gone up to the Giver whom he had thought to deprive of it.
Balsamo heaved a sigh, and without trying to save a thing from the pyre of this modern Zoroaster dying, he went down to Lorenza, having set the trap so that it closed in all the fire as in an immense kiln.
All through the night the volcano blazed over Balsamo with the roaring of a whirlwind, but he neither sought to extinguish it or to flee. After having burnt up all that was combustible, and left the study bare to the sky, the fire went out, and Balsamo heard its last roar die away like Althota’ in a sigh.
ANDREAwas in her room, giving a final touch to her rebellious curls when she heard the step of her father, who appeared as she crossed the sill of the antechamber with a book under her arm.
“Good morning, Andrea,” said the baron; “going out, I see.”
“I am going to the Dauphiness who expects me.”
“Alone?”
“Since Nicole ran away, I have no attendant.”
“But you cannot dress yourself alone; no lady ever does it: I advised you quite another course.”
“Excuse me, but the Dauphiness awaits—— ”
“My child, you will get yourself ridiculed if you go on like this and ridicule is fatal at court.”
“I will attend to it, father: but at present the Dauphiness will overlook the want of an elaborate attire for the haste I show to join her.”
“Be back soon for I have something serious to say. But you are never going out without a touch of red on the cheeks. They look quite hollow and your eyes are circled with large rings. You will frighten people thus.”
“I have no time to do anything more, father.”
“This is odious, upon my word,” said Taverney, shrugging his shoulders: “there is only one woman in the world who does not think anything of herself and I am cursed with her for my daughter. What atrociously bad luck! Andrea!”
But she was already at the foot of the stairs. She turned.
“At least, say you are not well,” he suggested. “That will make you interesting at all events.”
“There will be no telling lies there, father, for I feel really very ill at present.”
“That is the last straw,” grumbled the baron. “A sick girl on my hands, with the favor of the King lost and Richelieu cutting me dead! Plague take the nun!” he mumbled.
He entered his daughter’s room to ferret about for some confirmation of his suspicions.
During this time Andrea had been fighting with an unknown indisposition as she made her way through the shrubbery to the Little Trianon. Standing on the threshold, Lady Noailles made her understand that she was late and that she was looking out for her.
The titular reader to the Dauphiness, an abbe, was reciting the news, above all desonating on the rumor that a riot had been caused by the scarcity of corn and that five of the ringleaders had been arrested and sent to jail.
Andrea entered. The Dauphiness was in one of her wayward periods and this time preferred the gossip to the book; she regarded Andrea as a spoilsport. So she remarked that she ought not to have missed her time and that things good in themselves were not always good out of season.
Abashed by the reproach and particularly its injustice, the vice-reader replied nothing, though she might have said her father detained her and that her not feeling well had retardedher walk. Oppressed and dazed, she hung her head, and closing her eyes as if about to die, she would have fallen only for the Duchess of Noailles catching her.
“Oh, dear, she is white as her handkerchief,” said the Archduchess; “it is my fault for scolding her. Poor girl, take a seat! Do you think you could go on with your reading?”
“Certainly; I hope so, at least.”
But hardly had she cast her eyes on the page before black specks began to swarm and float before her sight and they made the print indecipherable.
She turned pale anew; cold perspiration beaded her brow; and the dark ring round her eyes with which Taverney had blamed his daughter enlarged so that the princesses exclaimed, as Andrea’s faltering made her raise her head.
“Again? look, duchess, the poor child must be ill, for she is losing her senses.”
“The young lady must get home as soon as possible,” said the Mistress of the Household drily. “Thus commences the small pox.”
The priest rose and stole away on tiptoe, not wanting to risk his beauty.
“Yes,” said the Dauphiness, in whose arms the girl came to, “you had better retire, but do not go indoors at once. A stroll in the garden may do you good. Oh, send me back my abbe, who is yonder among the tulips.”
Andrea was glad to be out doors, but she felt little improved. To reach the priest she had to make a circuit. She walked with lowered head, heavy with the weight of the strange dulness with which she had suffered since rising. She paid no attention to the birds hunting each other among the blooming hedges or to the bees humming amid the thyme and lilacs. She did not remark, only a few paces off, Dr. Jussieu giving a lesson in gardening to Gilbert. Since the pupil perceived the promenader, he made but a poor auditor.
“Oh, heavens!” interrupted he, suddenly extending his arms.
“What is the matter?” asked the lecturer.
“She has fainted!”
“Who? are you mad?”
“A lady,” answered Gilbert, quickly.
His pallor and his alarm would have betrayed him as badly as his cry of “She” but Jussieu had looked off in the other direction.
He saw Andrea fallen on a garden seat, ready to give up the last sensible breath.
It was the time when the King had the habit of paying the Dauphin a visit and came through this way. He suddenly appeared, holding a hothouse peach, with a true selfish king’s wonder, thinking whether it would not be better for the welfare of France that he should enjoy it rather than the princess.
“What is the matter?” he cried as he saw the two men racing towards the swooning girl whom he vaguely distinguished but did not recognize, thanks to his weak sight.
“The King!” exclaimed Jussieu, holding Andrea in his arms.
“The King!” murmured she, swooning away in earnest this time.
Approaching, the King knew her at last and exclaimed with a shudder:
“Again? this is an unheard-of thing! when people have such maladies, they ought to shut themselves up! it is not proper to go dying all over the house and grounds at all hours of the day and night.”
And on he went, grumbling all sorts of disagreeable things against poor Andrea. Jussieu did not understand the allusion, but seeing Gilbert in fear and anxiety, he said:
“Come along, Gilbert; you are stronger; carry Mdlle. de Taverney to her lodgings.”
“I?” protested Gilbert, quivering; “She would never forgive me for touching her. No, never!”
And off he ran, calling for help.
When the gardeners and some servants came up, they transported the girl to her rooms where they left her in the hands of her father.
But from another point arrived the Dauphiness, who had heard of the disaster from the King, and who not only came but brought her physician.
Dr. Louis was a young man, but he was intelligent.
“Your highness,” he reported to his patroness, “the younglady’s malady is quite natural and not usually dangerous.”
“And do you not prescribe anything?”
“There is absolutely nothing to be done.”
“Very well; she is luckier than I, for I shall die unless you send me the sleeping pills you promised.”
“I will prepare them myself when I get home.”
When he was gone the princess remained by her reader.
“Cheer up, my dear Andrea,” she said with a kindly smile. “There is nothing serious in your case for the doctor will not prescribe anything whatever.”
“I am glad to hear it, but he is a little wrong, for I do not feel at all well, I declare to you.”
“Still the ail cannot be severe at which a doctor laughs. Have a good sleep, my child; I will send somebody to attend you for I notice that you are quite alone. Will you accompany me, my Lord of Taverney?”
FORa month Gilbert wandered round the sick girl’s lodgings, inventing work in the gardens in their neighborhood so that he could keep his eye constantly on the windows.
In this time he had grown paler; on his face youth was no more to be viewed than in the strange fire in his eyes and the dead-white and even complexion; his mouth curled by dissimulation, his sidelong glance, and the sensitive quivering of his muscles belonged already to later years.
Looking up, billhook in hand as a horseman struck sparks from the ride by the walk, he recognized Philip Taverney.
He moved towards the hedgerow. But the cavalier urged his horse towards him, calling out:
“Hey, Gilbert!”
The young man’s first impulse was for flight, for panic seized him and he felt like racing over the garden and the ponds themselves.
“Do you not know me, Gilbert?” shouted the captain in a gentle tone which was understood by the incorrigible youth.
Comprehending his folly, Gilbert stopped. He retraced his steps but slowly and with distrust.
“Not at first, my lord,” he said trembling: “I took you for one of the guards, and as I was idling, I feared to be brought to task and booked for punishment.”
Content with this explanation, Philip dismounted, put the bridle round his arm and leaning the other hand on Gilbert’s shoulder which visibly made him shudder, he went on:
“What is the matter, boy? Oh, I can guess; my father has been treating you with harshness and injustice. But I have always liked you.”
“So you have.”
“Then forget the evil others do you. My sister has also been always good to you.”
“Hardly,” replied Gilbert: with an expression no one could have understood for it embodied an accusation to Andrea, and an excuse for himself, bursting like pride while groaning like remorse.
“I understood,” said Philip: “she is a little high-handed at times, but she is good-hearted. Do you know where our good Andrea is at the present?”
“In her rooms, I suppose, sir,” gasped Gilbert, struck to the heart. “How am I to know—— ”
“Alone, as usual, and pining?”
“In all probability, alone, since Nicole has run away.”
“Nicole run away?”
“With her sweetheart—at least it is presumed so,” said Gilbert, seeing that he had gone too far.
“I do not understand you, Gilbert. One has to wrench every word out of you. Try to be a little more amiable. You have sense, and learning, so do not mar your acquirements with an affected roughness unbecoming to your station in life, and not likely to lift you to a higher.”
“But I do not know anything about what you ask of me; I am a gardener and am ignorant of what goes on in the palace.”
“But, Gilbert, I believed you had eyes and owed some return in watchfulness to the house of Taverney, however slight may have been its hospitality.”
“Master Philip,” returned the other in a high hoarse voice, for Philip’s kindness and another unspoken feeling had mollified him: “I do like you; and that is why I tell you that your sister is very ill.”
“Very ill?” ejaculated the gentleman: “why did you not tell me so at the start?” “What is it?” he asked, walking so quickly.
“Nobody knows. She fainted three times in the grounds yesterday and the Dauphiness’s doctor has been to see her, as well as my lord the baron.”
Philip was not listening any farther for his presentiments were realized and his fortitude came to him in face of danger. He left his horse in Gilbert’s charge, and ran to the chapel.
Gilbert put the horse up in the stable and ran into the woods like one of those wild or obscene birds which cannot bear the eye of man.
On entering the ante-chamber Philip missed the flowers of which his sister used to be fond but which irritated her since her indisposition.
As he entered she was musing on a little sofa before mentioned. Her lovely brow surcharged with clouds drooped lowly, and her fine eyes vacillated in their orbits. Her hands were hanging and though the position ought to have filled them with blood they were white as a waxen statue’s.
Philip caught the strange expression and, alarmed as he was, he thought that his sister’s ailment had mental affliction in it.
The sight caused so much trembling in his heart that he could not restrain a start in flight.
Andrea lifted her eyes and rose like a galvanised corpse, with a loud scream; breathlessly she clung to her brother’s neck.
“Yes, Philip, you!” she panted, and force quitted her before she could speak more.
“Yes, I who return to find you ill,” he said, embracing andsustaining her for he felt her yield. “Poor sister, what has happened you?”
Andrea laughed with a nervous tone which hurt him instead of encouraging as she intended.
“Nothing: the doctor whom the Dauphiness kindly sent me, says it is nothing he can remedy. I am quite well save for some fainting fits which came over me.”
“But you are so pale?”
“Did I ever have much color?”
“No, but you were alive at that time, while now—— ”
“It is nothing: the pleasant shock of seeing you again—— ”
“Dear Andrea!”
But as he pressed her to his heart, her strength fled once more and she fell on the sofa, whiter than the muslin curtains on which her face was outlined.
She gradually recovered and looked handsomer than ever.
“Your emotion at my return is very sweet and flattering, but I should like to know about your illness—to what you attribute it?”
“I do not know, dear: the spring, the coming of the flowers: you know I have always been nervous. Yesterday the perfume of the Persian lilacs nearly suffocated me—I believe it was then I was taken bad. Strange to say, I who used to be so fond of the flowers hold them in execration now. For over two weeks not so much as a daffodil has entered my rooms. But let us leave them. It is the headache I have, which caused a swoon and made Mdlle. de Taverney a happy girl, because it has drawn the notice of the Dauphiness upon her. She has come here to see me. Oh, Philip, what a delicate friend and charming patroness she is! But since her doctor says there is nothing to be alarmed at, tell me why you have been alarmed?”
“It was that little numbskull Gilbert, of course!”
“Gilbert,” repeated the lady testily. “Did you believe that little idiot who is only able in doing or saying ill? But how is it I see you without any notice?”
“Answer me why you ceased to write?”
“Only for a few days.”
“For a full fortnight, you negligent girl! Ah, I was utterlyforgotten there even by my sister. They were in a dreadful hurry to pack me off, yet when I got there I never heard a word about the fabulous regiment of which I was to take command as promised by the King per the Duke of Richelieu to our father himself.”
“Oh, do not be astonished at that,” said the girl, “the duke and father are quite upset about it. They are like two bodies with one soul; but father sometimes cries out against him, saying he is betrayed. Who betrays him? I do not know and between us I little want to know. Father lives like a soul in purgatory, fretting about something which never comes.”
“But the King, he is not well disposed to us?”
“Speak low. The King,” replied Andrea, looking timidly round. “I am afraid the King is very fickle. The interest which he professed for our house, for each of us, cooled off, without my being able to understand it. He does not look at me and yesterday he turned back on me—which was when I fainted in the garden.”
“Then little Gilbert was right.”
“To tell everybody that I fainted? what does it matter to the miserable little rogue? I know, my dear Philip,” added Andrea laughing, “that it is not the proper thing to faint in a royal residence but it is not one of those things that one does for the fun of it.”
“Poor dear, I can well believe that it is not your fault: but go on.”
“That is all; and Master Gilbert might have withheld his remarks about it.”
“There you are abusing the poor boy again.”
“And you taking his defense.”
“For mercy’s sake, do not be so rude to him, so hard, for I have heard how you treat him. But, goodness, what is the matter now?”
This time she fainted so that it took a long time for her senses to return.
“Undoubtedly you suffer,” said Philip, “so as to alarm persons more bold than I am when you are concerned. Say what you like, this is a case that wants attending to. I will see your doctor myself,” he concluded tranquilly.
THEday was closing and Dr. Louis, who was trying to read a medical tract as he came along in the twilight to the chapel, was vexed at the interposition of an opaque body to intercept the scanty light.
Raising his head and seeing a man before him, he asked:
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me but is not this Dr. Louis?” asked Philip de Taverney.
“Yes, sir,” replied the doctor shutting his book.
“I should like a word with you—— ”
“Pardon me, but I am in attendance on her Royal Highness the Dauphiness and—— ”
“But the lady I wish to ask you about is in her household—— ”
“Do you mean Mdlle. de Taverney?”
“Precisely.”
“Aha,” said the doctor quickly, examining the young captain.
“I am afraid she is very bad, for she went off into a swoon more than once while I was speaking to her this afternoon.”
“Oh, you seem to take this to heart?”
“I love Mdlle. de Taverney more than my life.”
He spoke the words with such exalted brotherly affection that the doctor was deceived.
“Oh, so it is you who is the lover?” he exclaimed.
Philip fell two steps back, carrying his hand to his brow and becoming pale as death.
“Mind, sir, you insult my sister!”
“Oh, your sister? excuse me, captain, but your air of mystery, the hour of your addressing me and the place, all led me into error which I deplore.”
“Stay, sir; you think that Mdlle. de Taverney has a lover—— ”
“Captain Taverney, I have not said a word of the sort to the Dauphiness, to your father, or to you—press me no more.”
“On the contrary, we must speak of this. And yet it is impossible. I should have to give up all the religion of my life: it is accusing an angel—it is defying heaven! Doctor, let me require you to approve this. Science may err.”
“Seldom.”
“But, doctor, promise me that you will come and see her when you return from the Dauphiness? it is the boon the victim would not be refused by the executioner. You will see her again?”
“It is useless; but I should like to be mistaken. Captain, I will come and see your sister to-night.”
Dr. Louis was one of those grave and honorable men for whom science is a holy thing and who study religiously. In a materialistic age he studied mental maladies: under the husk of the practitioner he had a heart and that was why he told Philip that he hoped he had erred.
That was why, too, he came to make a more full examination and was true to his appointment.
Whether by accident or from emotion due to the doctor’s call, Andrea was seized with one of those fainting fits which had so alarmed her brother, and she was staggering, with her handkerchief carried to her mouth in pain.
The doctor assisted her to the sofa and sat down on it beside her. She was astonished at the second visit of one who had declared the case insignificant that same morning and still more that he should take her hand, not like a doctor to feel her pulse, but like a friend. She was almost going to snatch it away.
“Do you desire to see me, or is it merely the desire of your brother?” he asked.
“My brother did announce his intention of seeing you; but after your having said the matter was of no moment I should not have disturbed you myself.”
“Your brother seems to be excitable, jealous of his honor, and intractable on some points. I suppose this is why you have not unbosomed yourself to him?”
Andrea looked at him with supreme haughtiness.
“Allow me to finish. It is natural that seeing the pain of the young gentleman and foreseeing his anger, you should obstinately keep secret before him: but towards me, the physician of the soul as well as of the body, one who sees and knows, you will be spared half the painful road of revelation and I have the right to expect you will be more frank.”
“Doctor,” replied Andrea, “if I did not see my brother darkened with true grief and yourself with a reputation of gravity I might believe you were in a plot to play some comedy with me and to frighten me into taking some disagreeable medicine.”
“I entreat you, young lady,” said the doctor frowning, “to stop in this course of dissimulation.”
“Dissimulation?”
“Would you rather I said hypocrisy?”
“Sir, you offend me.”
“You mean that I read you clearly. Will you spare me the pain of making you blush?”
“I do not understand you,” said the girl, three times, looking at the doctor with eyes shining with interrogation and defiance, and almost with menace.
“But I understand you. You doubt science, and you hope to hide your condition from the world. But, undeceive yourself—with one word I pull down your pride: you areenceinte!”
Andrea uttered a frightful shriek and fell back on the sofa.
This cry was followed by the crash of the door flying open and Philip bounded into the room, drawing his sword and crying:
“You lie!”
Without letting go the pulse of the fainted woman, the doctor turned round to the captain.
“I have said what it was my duty to say,” he replied: “and it is not your sword, in or out of the sheath, which will belie me. I deeply sorrow for you, young gentleman, for you have inspired as much sympathy as this girl has aversion by her perseverance in falsehood.”
Andrea made not a movement but Philip started.
“I am father of a family,” went on the doctor, “and I understand what you must suffer. I promise you my services as I do my discretion. My word is sacred, and everybody will tell you that I hold it dearer than my life.”
“This is impossible!”
“It is true. Adieu, Captain.”
When he was gone, Philip shut all the doors and windows, and coming back to his sister who watched with stupor these ominous preparations, he said, folding his arms:
“You have cowardly and stupidly deceived me. Cowardly, because I loved you above all else, and esteemed you, and my trust ought to have induced your own though you had no affection. Stupidly, because a third person holds the infamous secret which defames us; because spite of your cunning, it must have appeared to all eyes; lastly, because if you had confessed the state to me, I might have saved you from my affection for you. Your honor, so long as you were not wedded, belongs to all of us—that is, you have shamed us all.
“Now, I am no longer your brother since you have blotted out the title: only a man interested in extorting from you by all possible means the whole secret in order that I may obtain some reparation. I come to you full of anger and resolution, and I say that you shall be punished as cowards deserve for having been such a coward as to shelter yourself behind a lie. Confess your crime, or—— ”
“Threats, to me?” cried the proud Andrea, “to a woman?” And she rose pale and menacing likewise.
“Not to a woman but to a faithless, dishonored creature.”
“Threats,” continued Andrea, more and more exasperated, “to one who knows nothing, can understand nothing of this except that you are looked upon by me as sanguinary madmen leagued to kill me with grief if not with shame.”
“Aye, you shall be killed if you do not confess,” said Philip. “Die on the instant, for heaven hath doomed you and I strike at its bidding.”
The convulsively young man convulsively picked up his sword, and applied the point like lightning to his sister’s breast.
“Yes, kill me!” she screamed, without shrinking at the smart of the wound.
She was even springing forward, full of sorrow and dementia,and her leap was so quick that the sword would have run through her bosom but for the sudden terror of Philip and the sight of a few drops of red on her muslin at the neck making him draw back.
At the end of his strength and his anger, he dropped the blade and fell on his knees at her feet. He wound his arms round her.
“No, Andrea,” he cried, “it is I who shall die. You love me no more and I care for nothing in the world. Oh, you love another to such a degree that you prefer death to a confession poured out on my bosom. Oh, Andrea, it is time that I was dead.”
She seized him as he would have dashed away, and wildly embraced him and covered him with tears and kisses.
“No, Philip, you are right. I ought to die since I am called guilty. But you are so good, pure and noble, that nobody will ever defame you and you should live to sorrow for me, not curse me.”
“Well, sister,” replied the young man, “in heaven’s name, for the sake of our old time’s love, fear nothing for yourself or him you love. I require no more of you, not even his name. Enough that the man pleased you, and so he is dear to me.
“Let us quit France. I hear that the King gave you some jewels—let us sell them and get away together. We will send half to our father and hide with the other. I will be all to you and you all to me. I love no one, so that I can be devoted to you. Andrea, you see what I do for you; you see you may rely on my love. Come, do you still refuse me your trust? will you not call me your brother?”
In silence, Andrea had listened to all the desperate young man had said: only the throbbing of her heart indicated life; only her looks showed reason.
“Philip,” she said after a long pause, “you have thought that I loved you no longer, poor brother! and loved another man? now I forgive you all but the belief that I am impious enough to take a false oath. Well, I swear by high heaven which hears me, by our mother’s soul—it seems that she has not long enough defended me, alas! that a thought of lovehas never distracted my reason. Now, God hath my soul in His holy keeping, and my body is at your disposal.”
“Then there is witchcraft here,” cried Philip; “I have heard of philters and potions. Someone has laid a hellish snare for you. Awake, none could have won this prize—sleeping, they have despoiled you. But we are together now and you are strong with me. You confide your honor in me and I shall revenge you.”
“Yes, revenge, for it would be for a crime!” said the girl, with a sombre glow in her eyes.
“Well let us search out the criminal together,” continued the Knight of Redcastle. “Have you noticed any one spying you and following you about—have you had letters—has a man said he loved you or led you to suppose so—for women have a remarkable instinct in such matters?”
“No one, nothing.”
“Have you never walked out alone?”
“I always had Nicole with me.”
“Nicole? a girl of dubious morals. Have I known all about her escapade?”
“Only that she is supposed to have run away with her sweetheart.”
“How did you part?”
“Naturally enough; she attended to her duties up to nine o’clock when she arranged my things, set out my drink for the night and went away.”
“Your drink? may she not have mixed something with it?”
“No; for I remember that I felt that strange thrill as I was putting the glass to my lips.”
“What strange thrill?”
“The same I felt down at our place when that foreign lord Baron Balsamo came to our home. Something like vertigo, a dazing, a loss of all the faculties. I was at my piano when I felt all spin and swim around me. Looking before me I saw the baron reflected in a mirror. I remember no more except that I found myself waking in the same spot without ability to reckon how long I had been unconscious.”
“Is this the only time you experienced this feeling?”
“Again on the night of the accident with the fireworks. I was dragged along with the crowd when suddenly, on the point of being mangled, a cloud came over my eyes and my rigid arms were extended: through the cloud I just had time to catch a glimpse of that man. I fell off into a sleep or swoon then. You know that Baron Balsamo carried me away and brought me home.”
“Yes; and did you see him again on the night when Nicole fled?”
“No; but I felt all the symptoms which betoken his presence. I went into sleep; when I woke, I was not on the bed but on the floor, alone, cold as in death. I called for Nicole but she had disappeared.”
“Twice then you saw this Baron Joseph Balsamo in connection with this strange sleep: and the third time—— ”
“I divined that he was near,” said Andrea, who began to understand his inference.
“It is well,” said Philip. “Now you may rest tranquil and abate not your pride, Andrea: I know the secret. Thank you, dear sister, we are saved!”
He took her in his arms, pressed her affectionately to his heart, and, borne away by the fire of his determination, dashed out of the rooms without awaiting or listening for anything.
He ran to the stables, saddled and bridled his steed with his own hands, and rode off at the top of speed to Paris.
PHILIPwas ignorant of Balsamo’s address but he remembered that of the lady who he said had harbored Andrea. The Marchioness of Savigny’s maid supplied him with the directions, and it was not without profound emotion that he stood before the house in St. Claude Street, where he conjectured Andrea’s repose and honor were entombed.
He knocked at the door with a sure enough hand, and, as was the habit, the door was opened.
Leading his horse, he entered the yard. But he had not taken four steps before he was faced by Fritz.
“I wish to speak to the master of the house, Count Fenix,” said Philip, vexed at this simple obstacle and frowning as though the German were not fulfilling his duty.
He fastened his horse to a hitching-ring in the wall and proceeded up to the house.
“My lord is not at home,” answered Fritz.
“I am a soldier and so understand the value of orders,” said the captain: “your master cannot have foreseen my call which is exceptional.”
“The prohibition is for everybody,” replied Fritz, blunderingly.
“Oh, then, your master is in!”
“Well, suppose he is?” challenged Fritz, who was beginning to lose patience.
“Then I shall wait till I see him.”
“My lord is not at home,” repeated the valet: “we have had a fire here and the place is not fit to live in.”
“But you are living here!”
“I am the care-taker. And any way,” he continued, getting warm, “whether the count is or is not in, people do not force their way in; if you try to break the rule, why—I will put you out,” he added tranquilly.
“You?” sneered the dragoon of the Dauphiness’s Regiment, with kindling eye.
“I am the man,” rejoined Fritz, with his national peculiarity of being the more cool while the more roused up.
The gentleman had his sword out in a minute. But Fritz, without any emotion at the sight of the steel, or calling—perhaps he was alone in the house—plucked a short pike off a trophy of arms and attacking Philip like a single-stick player rather than a fencer, shivered the court sword.
The captain yelled with rage, and sprang to the panoply to get a weapon for himself. But at this, a secret door opened, and the count appeared enframed in the dark doorway.
“What is this noise, Fritz?” he asked.
“Nothing, my lord,” replied the German, but placing himself with the pike on guard so as to defend his master, who, standing on the stairs, was half above him.
“Count Fenix,” said Philip, “is it the habit in your country for visitors to be received by the pikepoints of your varlets or only a peculiar custom of your noble house?”
At a sign Fritz lowered his weapon and stood it up in a corner.
“Who are you?” queried the count, seeing badly by the corridor lamplight.
“I am Philip of Taverney,” replied the officer, thinking the name would be ample for the count’s conscience.
“Taverney? my lord, I was handsomely entertained by your father—be welcome here,” said the count.
“This is better,” uttered Philip.
“Be good enough to follow me.”
Balsamo closed the secret door and walked before his guest to the parlor where he had outfaced the five masters of the Invisibles. It was lighted up as though visitors were expected, but that was only one of the habits of this luxurious establishment.
“Good evening, Captain Taverney,” said Fenix in a voice so mild and low that it made him look at him.
He started back. He was but the shadow of himself: a smile of mortal sorrow flitted on the pallid lips.
“I must offer excuses for my servant,” he said; “he was only obeying orders and you must own that you were wrong to overbear them.”
“My lord, you must know that there are cases when circumstances overrule,” returned Philip, “and this is one of them. To speak to you, I was bound to brave death.”
“Speak quickly,” said Balsamo, “for I warn you that I listen out of kindness and that I am soon tired.”
“I shall speak as I ought to do, and at what length I see fit, and whether you please or not, I shall commence with a question.”
At this, a flash of lightning was disengaged from Balsamo’s terrible frowning brows.
“Sir,” said he, with a tone which he forced to be calmwhile haughty, “since I have had the honor to see you, I have met misfortune; my house has been partly burnt, and many valuable objects destroyed, very valuable, understand; the result is that I am grieved and a little estranged by this grief. I beg you to be clear, therefore, or I must immediately take leave of you.”
“Oh, no,” replied Philip, “you are not going to leave as easily as you say. You may have had misfortunes, but one has befallen me, far greater than any of yours, I am sure.”
Balsamo smiled hopelessly as before.
“The honor of my family is lost my lord, and you can restore it.”
“Indeed? you must be mad,” and he put out his hand to ring a bell, and yet with so dull and feelingless a gesture that Philip did not stay it.
“I am mad,” said he in a broken voice. “But do you not understand that the question is of my sister, whom you held senseless in your arms on the 31st of May, last, and whom you took to a house no doubt of ill fame—my sister, of whom I demand the honor, sword in hand.”
“What a lot of beating the bush to come to a plain fact. You say I insulted—Who says I insulted your sister?”
“She herself, my lord—— ”
“Verily, you give me a very sad idea of yourself and your sister. You ought to know that it is the vilest of speculations that some women make with their fame. As you come to me, bursting in at my door, with your sword flourished like the bully in the Italian comedies who quarrels for his sister, it proves that she has great need of a husband or you of money—for you hear that I make gold. You are mistaken on both points, sir: You will get no money, and your sister will remain unwed.”
“Then I will have all the blood in your veins,” roared Philip.
“No, I want it, to shed it on a more serious occasion. So take yourself off, or if you do not and make a noise, I shall call Fritz, who at a sign from me, will snap you in twain like a reed. Begone!”
As Philip tried to stop him ringing the bell, he opened an ebony box on a gilt console and took out a pair of pistols which he cocked.
“Well, I would rather this—kill me,” said the young man, “because you have dishonored me.”
He spoke the words with so much truth, that Balsamo said as he bent mild eyes upon him:
“Is it possible that you are acting in earnest? and that Mdlle. de Taverney alone conceived the idea and urged you forward? I am willing to admit that I owe you satisfaction. I swear on my honor that my conduct towards your sister on that memorable night was irreproachable. Do you believe me? You must read in my eyes that I do not fear a duel? Do not be deceived by my apparent weakness. It is a fact that I have scant blood in my face; but my muscles have lost none of their strength. See!”
With one hand and no apparent effort, he raised off its pedestal a massive bronze vase.
“Well, my lord, I grant that for the 31st of May; but you use a subterfuge: you have seen my sister since.”
Balsamo wavered but he said:
“True: I have seen her.” And his brow clouded with terrible memories.
“But, granting that I have seen her, what does that prove against me?”
“You did it to plunge her into that inexplicable sleep which she has felt three times at your approach and which you took advantage of to commit a crime.”
“Again, who says this?”
“My sister!”
“How could she know, being asleep?”
“Ah, you confess that she was put to sleep?”
“More than that, I put her to sleep.”
“In what end—to dishonor her?”
“In what end, alas!” said the mesmerist, letting his head fall on his breast. “To have her reveal a secret more precious than life. And during that night—— ”
“My sister is a mother!”
“True,” exclaimed Balsamo, “I remember I omitted toawaken her. And some villain profited by her sleep on that dreadful night—dreadful for all of us.”
“You are mocking at me?”
“No, I will convince you. Take me to your sister. I have committed an oversight, but I am pure of crime. I left the girl in a magnetic slumber. In compensation of this fault, which it is just to pardon me, I will give up to you the malefactor’s name.”
“Tell it, tell it!”
“I know it not, but your sister does.”
“But she has refused to name him.”
“Refused you, but not me. Will you believe her if she accuses someone?”
“Yes; for she is an angel of purity.”
Balsamo called his man and ordered the horses to be harnessed to his carriage.
“You will tell me the guilty man’s name,” said Philip.
“My friend,” said the count, “your sword was broken in my house; let me replace it with another.” He took off the wall a magnificent rapier with a chiselled hilt which he placed in the officer’s sheath.
“And you?”
“I have no need of a weapon,” he continued, “my defense is at Trianon and my defender will be yourself when your sister shall have spoken.”
DRIVENby Fritz, the count’s excellent team covered the ground swiftly.
Philip was silent if not patient during the ride, for he felt that he was not the superior power which could persuade or domineer over this wonderful man.
When they had passed the palace gates and were near the chapel, he stopped.
“A last word, my lord,” he said; “I do not know what question you were to put to my sister; at least, spare her the incidents of the horrible scene passing during her unconsciousness. Spare the purity of the soul since the reverse befell the virginity of the body.”
“Captain,” replied Balsamo, “mark this well. I never came into these gardens farther than the hedges you see yonder fronting the line of buildings where your sister is lodged. As for the scene which you fear the effect of on her mind, the effect will be for yourself alone, and on a sleeping person; for I will at the present send your sister into the mesmeric sleep.”
He made a halt folding his arms and turning towards the house where Andrea dwelt, he stood quiet for a space, frowning, with an expression of will strong on his face.
“It is done—she is asleep,” he said. “You doubt? To prove that I can command her at a distance, I order her to come and meet you at the foot of the stairs where took place our last interview.”
“When I see that, I shall believe,” said the officer.
They went and stood in the grove and Balsamo held out his hand towards the chapel. A sound made them start in the next cluster of trees.
“Look out, there is a man!” said Balsamo.
“I see—it is Gilbert, one of the gardeners here, but he used to be a retainer of ours,” said Philip.
“Have you anything to fear from him?”
“No, I should think not: but never mind, stay. If he is up already to work, others may be about.”
During this time, Gilbert fled frightened, for seeing Philip with Balsamo, he instinctively comprehended that he was lost.
“My lord,” said Philip, yielding to the charm the magnetiser exercised on everybody, “if really your power is great enough to bring my sister hither, manifest it by some sign, without having her out to a place so public as this where any passer may see and hear.”
“You spoke in time,” was the other’s answer, grasping his arm and pointing to Andrea’s white figure, appearing at the corridor window as she was obeying the supernatural mandate.
He held his palm open towards her and she stopped short.
Then, like a statue revolved on the pedestal, she wheeled round, and returned into her room.
Some instants afterwards the two gentlemen were in the same place.
But rapid as had been their movement, time was given for a third person to glide into the house and hide in Nicole’s room, for he understood that his life depended on this interview.
It was Gilbert.
Philip had taken his sister in his arms and placed her in a chair while the count shut the door. Then he took up a candle and passed it to and fro before her eyes, without the flame causing her lids to blink.
“Are you convinced that she sleeps?”
“That is plain but, good God! how strange is this sleep,” said Philip.
“I will question her; or since you fear I may put some inapt question to her, do so yourself.”
“But though I have spoken to her and touched her just now, she did not appear to hear me or heed me.”
“You were not in continuity with her: I will place you in contact.”
He joined the hands of brother and sister, and at once Andrea smiled and murmured:
“It is you, brother.”
“She knows you and will answer: question.”
“But if she did not remember awake, how can she when sleeping?”
“A mystery of science.”
Sighing, he sat in an armchair in the corner.
Philip was motionless, thinking how to begin, when as if responding to his reflections, Andrea, with her face clouding like his own, said:
“You are right, brother, it is a sad affliction to the family.”
Philip had not expected that she could translate his very mind and he shuddered.
“Make her speak, sir,” suggested Balsamo.
“How?”
“By willing that she shall do so.”
Philip looked at his sister while mentally formulating an inquiry and she blushed.
“Oh, Philip, how unkind of you to believe that Andrea would deceive you.”
“Then you love nobody?”
“Not one.”
“But there was an accomplice, the guilty person who must be punished.”
“I do not understand you, brother.”
“You must press her,” said Balsamo: “question her bluntly, without heed of her modesty, for when awakened she will recall nothing of this.”
“But can she answer such questions?”
“Mark,” said Balsamo: “Do you see?”
She started at the sound of his voice and turned towards him.
“Not so clearly as if you were speaking,” she replied: “but still I do see.”
“Then tell me what you see on the night of your fainting.”
“Why do you not commence by the night of the 31st of May, sir? Your suspicions start at that point, methinks? this is the time for all to be made clear.”
“No, my lord,” rejoined Philip: “it is useless: I now believe in your word of honor. He who disposes of so wondrous a power would not act in an ignoble way. Sister,” repeated he, “relate to me what happened on the night when you swooned.”
“I do not remember.”
“I suppose as she was asleep—— ”
“Her spirit was awake,” said Balsamo, and holding out his hand to the obstinate medium with a frown indicating a doubling of will and action, he said:
“Remember—I will it!”
“I see myself,” said Andrea. “I hold in hand the glass prepared by Nicole. Oh, goodness! the wretch! she has put some drug in the water and if I drink, I am lost. I am going to drink it at the moment the count calls—— ”
“What count?”
“There,” and Andrea pointed to Balsamo. “I set down theglass and I fall into the sleep. I go forth to meet him under my window in the linden grove.”
“The count never was in the same room with you, sister?”
“Never.”
“You see, sir?” said Balsamo.
“You say you went to meet the count?”
“Oh, I obey him when he calls.”
“What did he want?”
Andrea turned towards the third person, questioningly.
“Tell it, for I am not listening,” said Balsamo, burying his face in his hands to prevent the voice coming to him.
“He wanted news,” said Andrea in a diminishing voice, not to torture the count’s heart, “of a person who fled from his house and who is—now—dead.”
“Faintly as she breathed the last word, Balsamo heard it, or guessed it was spoken, for he uttered a gloomy sob.
“Proceed,” said he as a long silence fell: “your brother wants to know all and he must know it. After the man obtained the information he sought, what did he do?”
“He went away, leaving me in the garden, where I fell as he departed as though the sustaining force had vanished with him. I was still in the sleep, a leaden one. A man came out of the bushes, took me in his arms and carried me up into my rooms where he placed me on the sofa. Oh,” she said with scorn and disgust, “it is that little Gilbert again.”
“Gilbert?”
“He stands to listen—he goes into the other room but returns frightened. He enters Nicole’s closet—Horror!”
“What?”
“Another man comes in, and I cannot defend myself—not even scream, for I am locked in sleep.”
“Who is this man?”
“Brother,” she answered in the deepest distress, “it is the King!”
Philip shuddered.
“Just as I thought,” muttered Balsamo.
“He approaches me,” continued the medium, “he speaks, he takes me in his arms, he kisses me. Oh, brother!”
Tears rolled down the young captain’s cheeks while hegrasped the sword handle which Balsamo had given him.
“Go on,” said the count in a more imperative tone than before.
“What a blessing! he is perplexed, he stops, he looks at me in terror—he flees—Andrea is saved!”
“Saved,” repeated Philip, who was breathlessly listening to her every word.
“Stay! I had forgotten the other, who lurks in the closet, with the bared knife in his hand—pale as death.”
“Gilbert?”
“Gilbert follows the King,” continued Andrea: “he shuts the door behind him, he puts his foot on the candle dropped on the carpet; he advances towards me—Oh!”
Rising on her brother’s arm, her muscles stiffened as though about to snap.
“The villain!” she got out at last, and fell without strength. “It was he!” Then rising so as to reach her brother’s ear, she hissed into it while her eyes glittered: “You will kill him, Philip?”
“Oh, yes,” said the young man.
As he leaped up he overturned a stand of china and the porcelain was shivered to pieces.
The crash was blended with the bang of a door, over which rang Andrea’s shriek.
“We were overheard,” said Philip.
“It is he,” said Andrea.
“Gilbert everywhere? Yes, I will kill him,” and he darted into the anteroom while Andrea fell on the sofa.
But Balsamo ran after him and caught him by the arm.
“Take care, sir,” he said: “the secret will become public; it will come out and the echo in royal residences is noisy.”
“To think it is Gilbert and that he was close to us, listening,” said Philip: “I might have killed the wretch—woe to him!”
“Yes: but silence: you will find him yet. But you must think of your sister. You see how fatigued she is with all this emotion.”
“Yes: I understand what she must suffer by my own feelings;the misfortune is so great and so difficult to repair. I shall die of the shame.”
“No, you will live for her sake. She has need of you, love her, pity her and preserve her! But you have no more want of me?” he asked after a pause.
“No: overlook my suspicions and my insults: although the evil happened through you.”
“I do not excuse myself: but remember what your sister said: that she would have drunk the sleeping draft but for my calling her away. In that case the guilt would have fallen on the King. Would you have considered the fate worse?”
“No, the same crime: I see that we were doomed. Awaken my poor sister, my lord.”
“Not for her to see me and perhaps guess what occurred. Better to do it when at a distance, as I sent her to sleep.”
“One word still, count, as you are a man of honor—— ”
“You need not recommend secrecy to me, being what you say: and because having no farther points of community with mankind, I shall forget it and its secrets; but rely on me, knight, if I can in any way be useful. But no, I can be of use to nobody for I am worth nothing on this earth. Farewell, sir, farewell!”
Bowing, he glanced at Andrea, whose head dropped forward with all the tokens of pain and lassitude.
“O Science,” he sighed, “how many victims for a valueless result!”
As he disappeared, Andrea reanimated: she raised her heavy head as though it were made of lead and looking with astounded eyes at her brother, she muttered:
“Oh, Philip, what has passed?”
“Nothing,” he answered, repressing a sob.
“Nothing? and yet I dreamed—I thought that Dr. Louis said—— ”
“Nothing: you are pure as the daylight: but all accuses you and looks black against you. A terrible secret is imposed on us both. I am going to see Dr. Louis who will tell the Dauphiness that you are home-sick, and we must get you down to Taverney to save you. Father will not go with us, and I will prepare him. Courage—heaven is the goal for all. Makeout that you ought never to have left home—that is what made you ill. Be strong, for our honor—the honor of both of us—depends on this.”
He embraced his sister, picked up the sword which had fallen, sheathed it with a trembling hand and darted down the stairs.