Silas Lebrun, captain and part-owner of the brigAgnes and Maryof Jersey, was an early riser. Moreover, the old gentleman entertained peculiar views as to the homage due to Morpheus. He made no elaborate toilet before entering the presence of that most lovable god. Indeed he always slept in his boots, and the cabin-boy had on several occasions invited the forecastle hands to believe that he neither removed the ancient sealskin cap from his head nor the wooden pipe from his lips when slumber soothed his senses; but this statement was always set aside as unauthenticated.
In person the ancient sailor was almost square, with short legs and a body worthy of promotion to something higher. His face was wrinkled and brown, like the exterior of that incomprehensible fruit the medlar, which is never ripe till it is bad, and then it is to be avoided. A yellow-grey beard clustered closely round a short chin, and when perchance the sealskin cap was absent yellow-grey hair of a similar hue completed the circle, standing up as high from his brow as fell the beard downward from his chin. A pair of intensely blue eyes, liquid always with the milk of human kindness, rendered the hirsute medlar a pleasant thing to look at.
TheAgnes and Marywas ready for sea, her cargo of potatoes, with a little light weight in the way of French beans and eggs, comfortably stowed, and as Captain Lebrun emerged from what he was pleased to call his “state-room” with the first breath of a clear morning he performed his matinal toilet with a certain sense of satisfaction. This operation was simple, consisting merely in the passage of four very brown fingers through the yellow-grey hair, and a hurried dispersal of the tobacco ash secreted in his beard.
The first object that met the mariner's astonished gaze was the long black form of a man stretched comfortably upon the cabin locker. The green mud adhering to the sleeper's thin shoes showed that he had climbed on board at low tide when the harbour was dry.
Captain Lebrun gazed meditatively at the intruder for some moments. Then he produced a powerfully-scented pipe of venerable appearance, which had been, at various stages of its existence, bound in a seaman-like manner with pieces of tarred yarn. He slowly filled this object, and proceeded to inform it in a husky voice that he was “blowed.” The pipe was, apparently, in a similar condition, as it refused absolutely to answer to the powerful suction applied to it.
He then seated himself with some difficulty upon the corner of the low table, and examined the sleeper critically.
“Poor devil,” he again said, addressing himself to his pipe. “He's one of them priest fellows.—Hi, mister!” he observed, raising his voice.
Christian Vellacott woke up at once, and took in the situation without delay. He was not of those who must go through terrible contortions before regaining their senses after sleep.
“Good morning, Captain!” he observed pleasantly.
“Oh—yourn't a parlee voo, then!”
“No, I'm an Englishman.”
“Indeed. Then you'll excuse me, but what in the name of glory are you doing here?”
Christian sat up and looked at his muddy shoes with some interest.
“Well, the truth is that I am bolting. I want to get across to England. I saw where you hailed from by your rig, and clambered on board last night. It seemed to me that when an Englishman is in a hole he cannot do better than go to a fellow-countryman for help.”
Captain Lebrun made a mighty effort to force a passage through his pipe, and was rewarded by a very high-pitched squeak.
“Ay!” he said doubtfully. “But what sort of hole is it? Nothing dirty, I'm hopin'. Who are yer? Why are ye runnin' away, and who are ye runnin' from?”
Though a trifle blunt the sailor's manner was not unfriendly, and Christian laughed before replying.
“Well,” he said, “to tell you the whole story would take a long time. You remember perhaps there was a row, about two months ago, respecting some English rifles found in Paris?”
“Of course I remember that; we had a lot o' trouble with the Customs just then. The thing was ferreted out by a young newspaper fellow!”
Christian rubbed his hands slowly together. He was terribly anxious to hear the sequel.
“I am that newspaper fellow,” he said, with a quick smile.
Captain Lebrun slowly stood up. He contemplated his pipe thoughtfully, then laying it upon the table he turned solemnly towards Christian, and held out a broad brown hand which was covered with scales in lieu of skin.
“Shake hands, mister?” he said.
Christian obliged him.
“And now,” he said quickly, “I want to know what has happened since—since I left England. Has there been a great row? Has ... has anybody wondered where I was?”
The old sailor may have had his suspicions. He may have guessed that Christian Vellacott had not left England at the dictates of his own free will, for he looked at him very kindly with his liquid blue eyes, and replied slowly:—
“I couldn't say thatnobodyhasn't been wonderin' where ye was, but—but there's been nothing in the papers!”
“That is all right! And now will you give me a passage, Captain?”
“Course I will! We sail about eleven this morning. I'm loaded and cleared out. But I should like you to have a change o' clothes. Can't bear to see ye in them black things. It makes me feel as if I was talkin' to a priest.”
“I should like nothing better,” replied Christian, as he rose and contemplated his own person reflectively.
“Come into my state-room then. I've got a few things of my own, and a bit of a slop-chest: jerseys and things as I sell to the men.”
The Captain's wardrobe was of a marine character and somewhat rough in texture. He had, however, a coat and waistcoat of thick blue pilot-cloth which fitted Christian remarkably well, but the continuations thereof were so absurdly out of keeping with the young fellow's long limbs as to precipitate the skipper on to the verge of apoplexy. When he recovered, and his pipe was re-lighted, he left the cabin and went forward to borrow a pair of the required articles from Tom Slake, an ordinary seaman of tall and slim proportions. In a short time Christian Vellacott bore the outward semblance of a very fair specimen of the British tar, except that his cheeks were bleached and sunken, which discrepancy was promptly commented upon by the blunt old sailor.
Secrecy was absolutely necessary, so Tom, of the long legs, was the only person to whom Christian's presence was made known; and he it was who (in view of a possible berth as steward later on) was entrusted with the simple culinary duties of the vessel.
Breakfast, as served up by Tom, was of a noble simplicity. A long shiny loaf of yesterday's bread, some butter in a saucer—which vessel was deemed entirely superfluous in connection with cups—brown sugar in an old mustard-tin, with portions of yellow paper adhering to it, and solid slices of bacon brought from the galley in their native frying-pan. Such slight drawbacks, however, as there might have been in the matter of table-ware disappeared before the sense of kindly hospitality with which Captain Lebrun poured the tea into a cracked cup and a borrowed pannikin, dropping in the sugar with careful judgment from his brown fingers. Such defects as there might have lurked in the culinary art as carried on in the galley vanished before the friendly solicitude with which Tom tilted the frying-pan to pour into Christian's plate a bright flow of bacon-fat cunningly mingled with cinders.
When the meal had been duly despatched Captain Lebrun produced his pipe and proceeded to fill it, after having extracted from its inward parts the usual high-toned squeak.
Christian leant back against the bulkhead with his hands buried deeply in Tom's borrowed pockets. He felt much more at home in pilot cloth than in cashmere.
“There is one more thing I should like to borrow,” he said.
“Ay?” repeated the captain interrogatively, as he searched in his waistcoat-pocket for a match.
“Ay, what is it?”
“A pipe. I have not had a smoke for two months.”
The Captain struck a light upon his leg.
“I've got one somewhere,” he replied reassuringly; “carried it for many years now, just in case this one fell overboard or got broke.”
Tom, who happened to be present, smiled audibly behind a hand which was hardly a recommendation for the coveted berth of steward, but Christian looked at the battered pipe with sympathetic gravity.
At ten o'clock theAgnes and Marywarped out of harbour and dropped lazily down the Rance, setting sail as she went. Christian had spent most of the morning in the little cabin smoking Captain Lebrun's reserve pipe, and seeking to establish order among the accounts of the ship. The accounts were thebête noireof the old sailor's existence. Upon his own confession he “wasn't no arithmetician,” and Christian found, upon inspecting his accounts, no cause to contradict this ambiguous statement.
When theAgnes and Marywas clear of the harbour he went on deck, where activity and maritime language reigned supreme. The channel was narrow and the wind light, consequently the little brig drifted more or less at her own sweet will. This would have been well enough had the waterway been clear of other vessels, but the Jersey steamer was coming in, with her yellow funnel gleaming in the sunlight, her mail-flag fluttering at her foremast, and her captain swearing on the bridge, with the whistle-pull in his hand.
Seeing that theAgnes and Maryhad no steerage way, the captain stopped his engines for a few minutes, and then went ahead again at half-speed. This brought the vessels close together, and, as is the invariable custom in such circumstances, the two crews stared stonily at each other. On the deck were one or two passengers enjoying the morning air after a cramped and uncomfortable night. Among these was an old man with a singularly benign expression; he was standing near the after-wheel, gazing with senile placidity towards St. Mâlo. As the vessels neared each other, however, he walked towards the rail, and stood there with a pleasant smile upon his face, as if ready to exchange a greeting with any kindred soul upon theAgnes and Mary.
Christian Vellacott, seated upon the rail of the after-deck, saw the old man and watched him with some interest—not, however, altering his position or changing countenance. The vessels moved slowly on, and, in due course, the two men were opposite to each other, each at the extreme stern of his ship.
Then the young journalist removed Captain Lebrun's spare pipe from his lips, and leaning sideways over the water, called out:
“Good morning, Signor Bruno!”
The effect of this friendly greeting upon the benevolent old gentleman was peculiar. He grasped the rail before him with both hands, and stared at the young Englishman. Then he stamped upon the deck with a sudden access of fury.
“Ah!” he exclaimed fiercely, while a tiger-like gleam shone out from beneath his smooth white brows. “Ah! it is you!”
Christian swung his legs idly, and smiled with some amusement across the little strip of water.
Suddenly the old man plunged his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat. He appeared to be tugging wildly at some article which was caught in the lining of his clothes, when a remarkable change came over his face. A dull red colour flew to his cheeks, and his eyes gleamed ruddily, as if shot with blood. Then without a word he fell forward with his breast against the painted rail, remained there a second, and as the two ships passed away from each other, rolled over upon his back on the clean deck, grasping a pistol in his right hand.
Christian Vellacott sat still upon the rail, swinging one leg, and smiling reflectively. He saw the old man fall and the other passengers crowd round him, but theAgnes and Maryhad now caught the breeze and was moving rapidly out to sea, where the sunlight danced upon the water in little golden bars.
“Apperlexy!” said a voice in the journalist's ear. He turned and found Captain Lebrun standing at his side looking after the steamer. “Apperlexy!”
“Do you think so?” asked Christian.
“I do,” was the reply, given with some conviction. “I seen a man fall just like that; he was a broad-built man wi' a thick neck, and in a moment of excitement he fell just like that, and died a'most at once. Apperlexy they said it was.”
“It seemed to come over him very suddenly, did it not?” said Christian absently.
“Ay, it did,” said the captain. “Ye seemed to know him!”
Christian turned and looked his companion full in the face. “I have met him twice,” he said quietly. “He was in England for some years, I believe; a political refugee, he called himself.”
By sea and land Captain Lebrun had learnt to devote an exclusive attention to his own affairs, allowing other men to manage theirs, well or ill, according to their fancy. He knew that Christian Vellacott wished to tell him no more, and he was content that it should be so, but he had noticed a circumstance which, from the young journalist's position, was probably invisible. He turned to give an order to the man at the wheel, and then walked slowly and with some difficulty (for Captain Lebrun suffered, in a quiet way, agonies from rheumatism) back towards his passenger.
“Seemed to me,” he said reflectively, as he looked upwards to see if the foretopsail was shivering, “as if he had something in his hand when a' fell.”
Christian followed the Captain's gaze. The sails were now filling well, and there was an exhilarating sound of straining cordage in the air while the vessel glided on. The young journalist was not an impressionable man, but he felt all these things. The sense of open freedom, the gentle rise and fall of the vessel, the whirring breeze, and the distant line of high land up the Rance towards Dinant—all these were surely worth hearing, feeling, and seeing; assuredly, they added to the joy of living.
“Something in his hand,” he repeated gravely; “what was it?”
Captain Lebrun turned sideways towards the steersman, and made a little gesture with his left hand. A wrinkle had appeared in one corner of the foretopsail. Then he looked round the horizon with a sailor's far-seeing gaze, before replying.
“Seemed to me,” he mumbled, without taking his pipe from his lips, “that it was a revolver.”
Then the two men smoked in silence for some time. The little vessel moved steadily out towards the blue water, passing a lighthouse built upon a solitary rock, and later a lightship, with its clean red hull gleaming in the sunlight as it rose and fell lazily. So close were they to the latter that the man watching on deck waved his hand in salutation.
Still Vellacott had vouchsafed no reply to Captain Lebrun's strange statement. He sat on the low rail, swinging one leg monotonously, while the square little sailor stood at his side with that patient maritime reflectiveness which is being slowly killed by the quicker ways of steam.
“My calling brings me into contact with a rum lot of people,” said the young fellow at last, “and I suppose all of us make enemies without knowing it.”
With this vague elucidation the little skipper was forced to content himself. He gave a grunt of acquiescence, and walked forward to superintend the catheading of the anchor.
One would almost have said that the good citizen Jacquetot was restless and disturbed. It was not that the little tobacco shop left aught to be desired in the way of order, neither had the tobacconist quitted his seat at the window-end of the counter. But he was not smoking, and at short intervals he drew aside the little red curtain and looked out into the quiet Rue St. Gingolphe with a certain eagerness.
The tobacconist was not in the habit of going to meet things. He usually waited for them to come to him. But on this particular evening of September in a year which it is not expedient to name, he seemed to be looking out into the street in order that he might not be taken by surprise in the event of an arrival. Moreover he mopped his vast forehead at unnecessarily frequent intervals, just as one may note a snuff-taker have recourse to that solace more frequently when he is agitated than when a warm calm reigns within his breast.
“So quiet—so quiet,” he muttered, “in our little street—and in the others—who knows? It would appear that they have their shutters lowered there.”
He listened intently, but there was no sound except the clatter of an occasional cart or the distant whistle of a Seine steamer.
Then the tobacconist returned to the perusal of thePetit Journal. Before he had skimmed over many lines, he looked up sharply and drew aside the red curtain. Yes! It was some one at last. The footsteps were hurried and yet hesitating—the gait of a person not knowing his whereabouts. And yet the man who entered the shop a moment later was evidently the same who had come to the citizen Jacquetot when last we met him.
“Ah!” exclaimed the tobacconist. “It is you!”
“No,” replied the other. “It is not. I am not the citizen...Morot—I think you call it.”
“But, yes!” exclaimed the fat man in amazement. “You are that citizen, and you are also the Vicomte d'Audierne.”
The new-comer was looking round him curiously; he stepped towards the curtained door, and turned the handle.
“I am,” he said, “his brother. We are twins. There is a resemblance. Is this the room? Yes!”
“Yes, monsieur. It is! But never was there such a resemblance.”
The tobacconist mopped his head breathlessly.
“Go,” said the other, “and get a mattress. Bring it and lay it on this table. My brother is wounded. He has been hit.”
Jacquetot rose laboriously from his seat. He knew now that this was not the Vicomte d'Audierne. This man's method was quite different. He spoke with a quiet air of command, not doubting that his orders would be obeyed. He was obviously not in the habit of dealing with the People. The Vicomte d'Audierne had a different manner of speaking to different people—this man, who resembled him so strangely, gave his orders without heeding the reception of them.
The tobacconist was essentially a man of peace. He passed out of a small door in the corner of the shop, obeying without a murmur, and leaving the new-comer alone.
A moment later the sound of wheels awoke the peaceful stillness of the Rue St. Gingolphe. The vehicle stopped, and at the same instant the man passed through the little curtained doorway into the room at the back of the shop, closing the door after him.
The gas was turned very low, and in the semi-darkness he stood quite still, waiting. He had not long to wait; he had scarcely closed the door when it was opened again, and some one entered rapidly, closing it behind him. Then the first comer raised his arm and turned up the gas.
Across the little table, in the sudden flood of light, two men stood looking at each other curiously. They were so startlingly alike, in height and carriage and every feature, that there was something weird and unpleasant in their action—in their silence.
“Ah!” said the last comer. “It is thou. I almost fired!”
And he threw down on the table a small revolver.
“Why have you done this?” continued the Vicomte d'Audierne. “I thought we agreed sixteen years ago that the world was big enough to contain us both without meeting, if we exercised a little care.”
“She is dead,” replied the brother. “She died two years ago—the wife of Prangius—what does it matter now?”
“I know that—but why did you come?”
“I was ordered to Paris by the General. I was near you at the barricade, and I heard the bullet hit you. Where is it?”
The Vicomte looked down at his hand, which was pressed to his breast; the light of the gas flickered, and gleamed on his spectacles as he did so.
“In my chest,” he replied. “I am simply dripping with blood. It has trickled down my legs into my boots. Very hot at first—and then very cold.”
The other looked at him curiously, and across his velvety eyes there passed that strange contraction which has been noted in the glance of the Vicomte d'Audierne.
“I have sent for a mattress,” he said. “That bullet must come out. A doctor is following me; he will be here on the instant.”
“One of your Jesuits?”
“Yes—one of my Jesuits.”
The Vicomte d'Audierne smiled and winced. He staggered a little, and clutched at the back of a chair. The other watched him without emotion.
“Why do you not sit down?” he suggested coldly. “There are none of your—People—here to be impressed.”
Again the Vicomte smiled.
“Yes,” he said smoothly, “we work on different lines, do we not? I wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. Which of the two—the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. Ha? And she married a third—a dolt. Thus are they made—these women!”
“And yet,” said the Jesuit, “you have not forgotten.”
The Vicomte looked up slowly. It seemed that his eyelids were heavy, requiring an effort to lift them.
“I do not like to hear the rooks call—that is all,” he said.
The other turned away his soft, slow glance, the glance that had failed to overcome Christian Vellacott's quiet defiance—
“Nor I,” he said. “It makes one remember.”
There was a short silence, and then the Jesuit spoke—sharply and suddenly.
“Sit down, you fool!” he said. “You are fainting.”
The Vicomte obeyed, and at the same moment the door opened and the tobacconist appeared, pushing before him a mattress.
The Jesuit laid aside his hat, revealing the tonsure gleaming whitely amidst his jetty hair, and helped to lay the mattress upon the table. Then the two men, the Provincial and the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe, lifted the wounded aristocrat gently and placed him upon the improvised bed. True to his blood, the Vicomte d'Audierne uttered no sound of agony, but as his brother began to unbutton the butcher's blouse in which he was disguised he fainted quietly. Presently the doctor arrived. He was quite a young man, with shifting grey eyes, and he saluted the Provincial with a nervous obsequity which was unpleasant to look upon. The deftness with which he completed the task of laying bare the wound was notable. His fingers were too clever to be quite honest. When, however, he was face to face with the little blue-rimmed orifice that disfigured the Vicomte's muscular chest, the expression of his face—indeed his whole manner—changed. His eyes lost their shiftiness—he seemed to forget the presence of the great man standing at the other side of the table.
While he was selecting a probe from his case of instruments the Vicomte d'Audierne opened his eyes.
“Ah!” said the doctor, noting this at once. “You got this on the Boulevard?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get here?” He was feeling the wounded man's pulse now.
“Cab.”
“All the way?”
“Of course.”
“Who carried you into this room?” asked the doctor, returning to his case of instruments.
“No one! I walked.” The doctor's manner, quick and nonchalant, evidently aggravated his patient.
“Why did you do that?”
He was making his preparations while he spoke, and never looked at the Vicomte.
“In order to avoid attracting attention.”
This brought the doctor's glance to his face, and the result was instantaneous. The young man started, and into his eyes there came again the shifty expression, as he looked from the face of the patient to that of the Provincial standing motionless at the other side of the table. He said nothing, however, and returned with a peculiar restraint to his preparations. It is probable that his silence was brought about by the persistent gaze of two pairs of deep velvety eyes which never left his face.
“Will Monsieur take chloroform,” he asked, unfolding a clean pocket-handkerchief, and taking from his waistcoat pocket a small phial.
“No!”
“But—I beg of you———”
“It is not necessary,” persisted the Vicomte calmly.
The doctor looked across to the Provincial and made a hopeless little movement of the shoulders, accompanied by an almost imperceptible elevation of the eyebrows.
The Jesuit replied by looking meaningly at the small glass-stoppered bottle.
Then the doctor muttered:
“As you will!”
He had laid his instruments out upon the mattress—the gas was turned up as high as it would go. Everything was ready. Then he turned his back a moment and took off his coat, which he laid upon a chair, returning towards the bed with one hand behind his back.
Quick as thought, he suddenly darted forward and pressed the clean handkerchief over the wounded man's mouth and nose. The Vicomte d'Audierne gave a little smothered exclamation of rage, and raised his arms; but the Jesuit was too quick for him, and pinned him down upon the mattress.
After a moment the doctor removed the handkerchief, and the Vicomte lay unconscious and motionless, his delicate lips drawn back in anger, so that the short white teeth gleamed dangerously.
“It is possible,” said the surgeon, feeling his pulse again, “that Monsieur has killed himself by walking into this room.”
Like a cat over its prey, the young doctor leant across the mattress. Without looking round he took up the instruments he wanted, knowing the order in which they lay. He had been excellently taught. The noiseless movements of his white fingers were marvellously dexterous—neat, rapid, and finished. The evil-looking instruments gleamed and flashed beneath the gaslight. He had a peculiar little habit of wiping each one on his shirt-sleeve before and after use, leaving a series of thin red stripes there.
After the lapse of a minute he raised his head, wiped something which he held in his fingers, and passed it across to the Provincial.
“That is the bullet, my father,” he said, without ceasing his occupation, and without raising his eyes from the wounded man.
“Will he live?” asked the Jesuit casually, while he examined the bullet.
“If he tries, my father,” was the meaning reply.
The young doctor was bandaging now, skilfully and rapidly.
“This would be the death of a dog,” said the Provincial, as if musing aloud; for the surgeon was busy at his trade, and the tobacconist had withdrawn some time before.
“Better than the life of a dog,” replied the Vicomte, in his smoothly mocking way, without opening his eyes.
It was very easy to blame one woman, and to cast reflections upon the entire sex. If these brothers had not quarrelled about that woman, they would have fallen out over something else. Some men are so: they are like a strong spirit—light and yet potent—that floats upon the top of all other liquids and will mingle with none.
It would seem that these two could not be in the same room without quarrelling. It was only with care that (as the Jesuit had coldly observed) they could exist in the same world without clashing. Never was the Vicomte d'Audierne so cynical, so sceptical, as in the presence of his brother. Never was Raoul d'Audierne so cold, so heartless, so Jesuitical, as when meeting his brother's scepticism.
Sixteen years of their life had made no difference. They were as far apart now as on one grey morning sixteen years ago, when the Vicomte d'Audierne had hurried away from the deserted shore of the Côte du Nord, leaving his brother lying upon the sand with an ugly slit in his neck. That slit had healed now, but the scar was always at his throat, and in both their hearts.
True to his training, the Provincial had not spoken the truth when he said that he had been ordered to Paris. There was only one man in the world who could order him to do anything, and that man was too wise to test his authority. Raoul d'Audierne had come to Paris for the purpose of seeing his brother—senior by an hour. There were many things of which he wished to speak, some belonging to the distant past, some to a more recent date. He wished to speak of Christian Vellacott—one of the few men who had succeeded in outwitting him—of Signor Bruno, or Max Talma, who had died within pistol range of that same Englishman, a sudden, voiceless death, the result of a terrible access of passion at the sight of his face.
But this man was a Jesuit and a d'Audierne, which latter statement is full of import to those who, having studied heredity, know that wonderfulinnerhistory of France which is the most romantic story of human kind. And so Raoul d'Audierne—the man whose power in the world is like that of the fires burning within the crust of the earth, unseen, immeasurable—and so he took his hat, and left the little room behind the tobacconist's shop in the Rue St. Gingolphe—beaten, frustrated.
“Money,” Captain Lebrun was saying emphatically, as theAgnes and Marydrifted slowly past Gravesend pier on the rising tide. “Hang money! Now, I should think that you make as much of it in a month as I do in a year. You're a young man, and as far as I know ye, ye're a successful one. Life spreads out before you like a clean chart. I'm an old 'un—my time is nearly up. I've lived what landsmen call a hard life, and now I'm slowly goin' home. Ay, Mr. Vellacott, goin' home! And you think that with all your manifold advantages you're a happier man than me. Not a bit of it! And why? 'Cause you belong to a generation that looks so far ahead that it's afraid of bein' happy, just for fear there's sorrow a comin'. Money, and lookin' ahead, that's what spoils yer lives nowadays.”
The skipper emphasised these weighty observations by expectorating decisively into the water, and walked away, leaving Christian Vellacott with a vaguely amused smile upon his face. It is just possible that Silas Lebrun, master and owner of theAgnes and Mary, was nearer the mark than he thought.
An hour later, Vellacott was walking along the deserted embankment above Westminster, on the Chelsea side of the river. It was nine o'clock, for which fact Big Ben solemnly gave his word, far up in the fog. The morning was very dark, and the street lamps were still alight, while every window sent forth a gleam suggestive of early autumnal fires.
Turning up his own street he increased his pace, realising suddenly that he had not been within his own doors for more than four months. Much might have happened in that time—to change his life, perhaps. As he approached the house he saw a strange servant, an elderly woman, on her knees at the steps, and somehow the sight conveyed to his mind the thought that there was something waiting for him within that peaceful little house. He almost ran those last few yards, and sprang up the steps past the astonished woman without a word of explanation.
The gas in the narrow entrance-hall was lighted, and as he threw aside his cap he perceived a warm gleam of firelight through the half-open door of the dining-room. He crossed the carpeted hall, and pushed open that door.
Near the little breakfast-table, just under the gas, stood Hilda Carew. Inhisroom, standing amonghismultifarious possessions, in the act of pouring fromhiscoffee-pot. She was dressed in black—he noticed that. Instead of being arranged high upon her head, her marvellous hair hung in one massive plait down her back. She looked like a tall and beautiful school-girl. He had not seen her hair like that since the old days when he had been as one of the Carews.
As he pushed open the door, she looked up; and for a moment they stood thus. She set down the coffee-pot, carefully and symmetrically, in the centre of the china stand provided for its reception—and the colour slowly left her face.
“You have come back at last!” she said quite monotonously. It sounded like a remark made for the purpose of filling up an awkward silence.
Then he entered the room, and mechanically closed the door behind him. She noticed the action, but did not move. He passed round the table, behind Aunt Judy's chair, and they shook hands conventionally.
“Yes,” he said almost breathlessly; “I am back; you do not seem elated by the fact.”
Suddenly she smiled—the smile that suggested, in some subtle way, a kitten.
“Of course—I am glad ... to see you.”
In a peculiar dreamy way she began to add milk to the coffee. It seemed as if this were mere play-acting, and not real life at all.
“How is it that you are here?” he asked, with a broken, disjointed laugh. “You cannot imagine how strange an effect it was ... for me ... to come in and see you ... here—of all people.”
She looked at him gravely, and moved a step towards him.
“Aunt Judy is dead!” she explained; “and Aunt Hester is very ill. Mother is upstairs with them—her—now. I have just come from the room, where I have been since midnight.”
She stopped, raised her hand to her hair as if recollecting something, and stood looking sideways out of the window.
“There is something about you this morning,” he said, with a concentrated deliberation, “that brings back the old Prague days. I suppose it is that I have not seen your hair as you have it to-day—since then.”
She turned quite away from his hungry gaze, looking out of the window.
After a pause she broke the silence—with infinite tact—not speaking too hurriedly.
“It has been a terrible week,” she said. “Mother heard from Mr. Bodery that they were very ill; so we came. I never dreamt that it was so bad when you spoke of them. Five years it has been going on?”
“Yes; five years. Thank you for coming, but I am sorry you should have seen it.”
“Why?”
“Every one should keep guard over his own skeleton.”
She was looking at him now.
“You look very ill,” she said curtly. “Where have you been?”
“I was kidnapped,” he said, with a short laugh, “and then I got typhoid. The monks nursed me.”
“You were in a monastery?”
“Yes; in Brittany.”
She was idly arranging the cups and saucers with her left hand, which she seemed desirous of bringing under his notice; but he could look at nothing but her face.
“Then,” she said, “it would have been impossible to find you?”
“Quite,” he replied, and after a pause he added, in a singularly easy manner, “Tell me what happened after I disappeared.”
She did not seem to like the task.
“Well—we searched—oh! Christian, it was horrid!”
“I wondered,” he said, in a deep, soft voice, “whether you would find it so.”
“Yes, of course, wealldid.”
This did not appear to satisfy him.
“But you,” he persisted, “you, yourself—what did you think?”
“I do not know,” she answered, with painful hesitation. “I don't think I thought at all.”
“Then what did you do, Hilda?”
“I—oh, we searched. We telegraphed for Mr. Bodery, who came down at once. Then Fred rode over, and placed himself at Mr. Bodery's disposal. First he went to Paris, then to Brest. He did everything that could be done, but of course it was of no avail. By Mr. Bodery's advice everything was kept secret. There was nothing in the newspapers.”
She stopped suddenly, and there was a silence in the room. He was looking at her curiously, still ignoring that little left hand. Only one word of her speech seemed to have attached itself to his understanding.
“Fred?” he said. “Fred Farrar?”
“Yes—my husband!”
He turned away—walked towards the door, and then returned to the hearthrug, where he stood quite still.
“I suppose it was a quiet wedding,” he said in a hard voice, “on my account; eh?”
“Yes,” she whispered. He waited, but she added nothing.
Then suddenly he laughed.
“I have made a most extraordinary mistake!” he said, and again laughed.
“Oh, don't” she exclaimed.
“Don't what?”
“Laugh.”
He came nearer to her—quite near, until his sleeve almost touched her bowed head.
“I thought—at St. Mary Western—that you lovedme.”
She seemed to shrink away from him.
“What made me think so, Hilda?”
She raised her head, and her eyes flashed one momentary appeal for mercy—like the eyes of a whipped dog.
“Tell me,” he said sternly.
“It was,” she whispered, “becauseIthought so myself.”
“And when I was gone you found out that you had made a mistake?”
“Yes; he was so kind, sobrave, Christian—because he knew of my mistake.”
Christian Vellacott turned away, and looked thoughtfully out of the window.
“Well,” he said, after a pause, “so long as you do not suffer by it—”
“Oh—h,” she gasped, as if he were whipping her. She did not quite know what he meant. She does not know now.
At last he spoke again, slowly, deliberately, and without emotion.
“Some day,” he said, “when you are older, when you have more experience of the world, you will probably fall into the habit of thanking God, in your prayers, that I am what I am. It is not because I am good ... perhaps it is because I am ambitious—my father, you may remember, was considered heartless; it may bethat. But if I were different—if I were passionate instead of being what the world calls cold and calculating—you would be ... your life would be—” he stopped, and turning away he sat down wearily in Aunt Judy's armchair. “You will know some day!” he said.
It is probable that she does know now. She knows, in all likelihood, that her husband would have been powerless to save her from Christian Vellacott—from herself—from that Love wherein there are no roses but only thorns.
And in the room above them Aunt Hester was dying. So wags the world. There is no attention paid to the laws of dramatic effect upon the stage of life. The scenes are produced without sequence, without apparent rhyme or reason; and Chance, the scene-shifter, is very careless, for comedies are enacted amid scenic effects calculated to show off to perfection the deepest tragedy, while tragedies are spoilt by their surroundings.
The doctor and Mrs. Carew stood at the bedside, and listened to the old woman's broken murmurings. Into her mind there had perhaps strayed a gleam of that Light which is not on the earth, for she was not abusing her great-nephew.
“Ah, Christian,” she was murmuring, “I wish you would come. I want to thank you for your kindness, more especially to Aunt Judy. She is old, and we must make allowances. I know she is aggravating. It happened long ago, when your father was a little boy—but it altered her whole life. I think women are like that. There is something that only comes to them once. I am feeling far from well, nephew Vellacott. I think I should like to see a doctor. What does Aunt Judy think? Is she asleep?”
She turned her head to where she expected to find her sister, and in the act of turning her eyes closed. She slumbered peacefully. The two sisters had slept together for seventy years—seventy long, monotonous years, in which there had been no incident, no great joy, no deep sorrow—years lost. Except for the natural growth and slow decay of their frames, they had remained stationary, while around them children had grown into men and women and had passed away.
Presently Aunt Hester opened her eyes, and they rested on the vacant pillow at her side. After a pause she slowly turned her head, and fixed her gaze upon the doctor's face. He thought that the power of speech had left her, but suddenly she spoke, quite clearly.
“Where is my sister Judith?” she asked.
There are times when the truth must be spoken, though it kill.
“Your sister died yesterday,” replied the doctor.
Aunt Hester lay quite still, staring at the ceiling. Her shrivelled fingers were picking at the counter-pane. Then a gleam of intelligence passed across her face.
“And now,” she said, “I shall have a bed to myself. I have waited long enough.”
Aunt Hester was very human, although the shadow of an angel's wing lay across her bed.
It was many years later that Christian Vellacott found himself in the presence of the Angel of Death again. A telegram from Havre was one day handed to him in the room at the back of the tall house in the Strand, and the result was that he crossed from Southampton to Havre that same night.
As the sun rose over the sea the next morning, its earliest rays glanced gaily through the open port-hole of a cabin in a large ocean steamer, still panting from her struggle through tepid Eastern seas.
In this little cabin lay the Jesuit missionary, René Drucquer, watching the moving reflections of the water, which played ceaselessly on the painted ceiling overhead. He had been sent home from India by a kind-hearted army surgeon; a doomed man, stricken by a climatic disease in which there was neither hope nor hurry. When the steamer arrived in the Seine it was found expedient to let the young missionary die where he lay. The local agent of the Society of Jesus was a kind-hearted man, and therefore a faithless servant. He acceded to René Drucquer's prayer to telegraph for Christian Vellacott.
And now Vellacott was actually coming down the cabin stairs. He entered the cabin and stood by the sick man's bed.
“Ah, you have come,” said the Frenchman, with that peculiar tone of pathetic humour which can only be rendered in the language that he spoke.
“But how old! Do I look as old as that, I wonder? And hard—yes, hard as steel.”
“Oh no,” replied Vellacott. “It may be that the hardness that was once there shows now upon my face—that is all.”
The Frenchman looked lovingly at him, with eyes like the eyes of a woman.
“And now you are a great man, they tell me.”
Vellacott shrugged his shoulders.
“In my way,” he admitted. “And you?”
“I—I have taught.”
“Ah! and has it been a success?”
“In teaching I have learnt.”
Vellacott merely nodded his head.
“Do you know why I sent for you?” continued the missionary.
“No.”
“I sent for you in order to tell you that I burnt that letter at Audierne.”
“I came to that conclusion, for it never arrived.”
“I want you to forgive me.”
Vellacott laughed.
“I never thought of it again,” he replied heartily.
The priest was looking keenly at him.
“I did not say 'thou,' but 'you,'” he persisted gently.
Vellacott's glance wavered; he raised his head, and looked out of the open port-hole across the glassy waters of the river.
“What do you mean?” he inquired.
“I thought,” said René Drucquer, “there might be some one else—some woman—who was waiting for news.”
After a little pause the journalist replied.
“My dear Abbé,” he said, “there is no woman in the whole world who wants news of me. And the result is, as you kindly say, I am a great man now—in my way.”
But he knew that he might have been a greater.