"A stormy night to seek you out," said John Vanbrugh, "and to renew an old friendship----"
"Stop there," interrupted the Advocate. "I admit no idea of a renewal of friendship between us."
"You reject my friendship?" asked Vanbrugh, wiping the blood and dirt from his face.
"Distinctly."
"So be it. Our interview shall be conducted without a thought of friendship, though some reference to the old days cannot be avoided. I make no apology for presenting myself in this condition. Man can no more rule the storm than he can the circumstances of his life. I have run some distance through the rain, and I have been attacked and almost killed. You perceive that I am exhausted, yet you do not offer me wine. You have it, I know, in that snug cupboard there. May I help myself? Thank you. Ah, there's a smack of youth in this liquor. It is life to one who has passed through such dangers as have encompassed me. You received my letter asking for an interview? I gave it myself into your hands on the last evening of the trial."
"I received it."
"Yet you were unwilling to accord me an interview."
"I had no desire to meet you again."
"It was ungrateful of you, for it is upon your own business--yours and no other man's--that I wished to speak with you. It was cold work out on the hill yonder, watching the lights in your study window, watching for the simple waving of a handkerchief, which would mean infinitely more to you than to me, as you will presently confess. Dreary cold work, not likely to put a man like myself in an amiable mood. I am not on good terms with the world, as you may plainly perceive. I have had rough times since the days you deemed it no disgrace to shake hands with me. I have sunk very low by easy descents; you have risen to a giddy height. I wonder whether you have ever feared the fall. Men as great as you have met with such a misfortune. Things do not last for ever, Edward--pardon me. it was a slip of the tongue."
"Do you come to beg?"
"No--for a reason. If I came on such an errand, I might spare myself the trouble."
"Likely enough," said the Advocate, who was too well acquainted with human nature not to be convinced, from Vanbrugh's manner, that his was no idle visit.
"You were never renowned for your charities. And on the other hand I am poor, but I am not a beggar. I am frank enough to tell you I would prefer to steal. It is more independent, and not half so disgraceful. It may happen that the world would take an interest in a thief, but never in a beggar."
"Is it to favour me with your philosophies that you pay me this visit?"
"I should be the veriest dolt. No, I will air my opinions when I am rich."
"You intend, poor as you confess yourself, to become rich?"
"With your help, old friend."
"Not with my help. You will receive none from me."
"You are mistaken. Forgive me for the contradiction, but I speak on sure ground. Ah, how I have heard you spoken of! With what admiration and esteem! Almost with awe by some. Your talents, of themselves, could not have won this universal eulogy; it is your spotless character that has set the seal upon your fame. There is not a stain upon it; you have no weaknesses, no blemishes; you are absolutely pure. Other men have something to conceal--some family difficulty, some domestic disgrace, some slip in the path of virtue, which, were it known, would turn the current against them. But against you there is not a breath; scandal has never soiled you. In this lies the strength of your position--in this lies its danger. Let shame, with cause, point its finger at you--old friend, the result is unpleasant to contemplate. For when a man such as you falls, he does not fall gradually. He topples over suddenly, and to-day he is as low in the gutter as yesterday he was high in the clouds."
"You have said enough. I do not care to listen to you further. The tone you assume is offensive to me--such as I would brook from no man. You can go the way you came."
And with a scornful gesture the Advocate pointed to the window.
"When I inform you which way I came," said Vanbrugh, with easy insolence, "you will not be so ready to tell me to leave you before you learn the errand which brought me."
"Which way, then, did you come?" asked the Advocate, in a tone of contempt.
"The way Gautran came--somewhat earlier than this, it is true, but not earlier than midnight."
The Advocate grasped the back of a chair; it was a slight action, but sufficient to show that he was taken off his guard.
"You know that?" he said.
"Aye, I know that, and also that you feasted him, and gave him money."
"Are you accomplices, you two knaves?"
"If so, I have at present the best of the bargain. But your surmise is not made with shrewdness. I never set eyes on Gautran until after he was pronounced innocent of the murder of Madeline. On that night I--shall we say providentially?--made his acquaintance."
"You have met him since then?"
"Yes--this very night; our interview was one never to be forgotten. Come, I have been frank with you; I have used no disguises. I say to you honestly, the world has gone hard with me; I have known want and privation, and I am in a state of destitution. That is a condition of affairs sufficient not only to depress a man's spirits, but to make him disgusted with the world and mankind. I have, however, still some capacity for enjoyment left in me, and I would give the world another trial, not as a penniless rogue, but as a gentleman."
"Hard to accomplish," observed the Advocate, with a cynical smile.
"Not with a full purse. No music like the jingling of gold, and the world will dance to the tune. Well, I present myself to you, and ask you, who are rich and can spare what will be the making of me, to hand me from your full store as much as will convert a poor devil into a respectable member of society."
"I appreciate your confidence. I leave you to supply the answer."
"You will give me nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Mind--I do not ask it of your charity; I ask it of your prudence. It will be worth your while."
"That has to be proved."
"Good. We have made a commencement. Your reputation is worth much--in sober truth as much as it has brought you. But I am not greedy. It lies at my mercy, and I shall be content with a share."
"That is generous of you," said the Advocate, who by this time had regained his composure; "but I warn you--my patience is beginning to be exhausted."
"Only beginning? That is well. I advise you to keep a tight rein over it, and to ask yourself whether it is likely--considering the difference of our positions--that I should be here talking in this bold tone unless I held a power over you? I put it to you as a lawyer of eminence."
"There is reason in what you say."
"Let me see. What have I to sell? The security of your reputation? The power to prevent your name being uttered with horror? Your fame--your honour? Yes, I have quite that to dispose of, and as a man of business, which I never was until now, I recognise the importance of being precise. First--I have to sell my knowledge that, after midnight, you received Gautran in your study, that you treated him as a friend, and filled his pockets with gold. How much is that worth?"
"Nothing. My word against his, against yours, against a hundred such as you and he."
"You would deny it?"
"Assuredly--to protect myself." As he made this answer, it seemed to the Advocate as if the principle of honour by which his actions had been guided until within the last few days were slipping from him, and as if the vilest wretch that breathed had a right to call him his equal.
"We will pass that by," said Vanbrugh, helping himself to wine. "Really, your wine is exquisite. In some respects you are a man to be envied. It is worth much to a man not only to possess the best of everything the world can give, but to know that he has the means and the power to purchase it. With that consciousness within him, he walks with his head in the air. You used to be fond of discussing these niceties; I had no taste for them. I left the deeper subtleties of life to those of thinner blood than mine. Pleasure was more in my way--and will be again."
"You are wandering from the point," said the Advocate.
"There is a meaning in everything I say; I will clip my wings. Your word against a hundred men such as I and Gautran? I am afraid you are right. We are vagabonds--you are a gentleman. So, then, my knowledge of the fact that you treated Gautran as a friend after you had procured his acquittal is worth nothing. Admitted. But put that knowledge and that fact in connection with another and a sterner knowledge and fact--that you knew Gautran to be guilty of the murder. How then? Does it begin to assume a value? Your silence gives me hopes that my visit will not be fruitless. Between men who once were equals and friends, and who, after a lapse of years, come together as we have come together now, candour is a useful attribute. Let us exercise it. I am not here on your account, nor do I hold you in such regard that I would trouble myself to move a finger to save your reputation. The master I am working for is Self; the end I am working for is an easy life, a life of pleasure. This accomplished by your aid, I have nothing more to do with you or your affairs. The business is an unpleasant one, and I shall be glad to forget it. Refuse what I ask, and you will sink lower than I have ever sunk. There are actions which the world will forgive in the ignorant, but not in men of ripe intellect."
He paused and gazed negligently at the Advocate, who during the latter part of Vanbrugh's speech, was considering the dangers of his position. The secret of Gautran's guilt belonged not alone to himself and Gautran; this man Vanbrugh had been admitted into it, and he was an enemy more to be dreaded than Gautran. He saw his peril, and that he unconsciously acknowledged it to be imminent was proved by the thought which intruded itself--against his will, as it seemed--whether it would be wise to buy Vanbrugh off, to purchase his silence.
"It is easy," he said, "to invent tales. You and a dozen men, in conjunction with the monster Gautran----"
"As you say," interrupted Vanbrugh, gently nodding his head, "the monster Gautran. But why should you call him so unless you knew him to be guilty? Were you assured of his innocence, you would speak of him pityingly, as one undeservedly oppressed and persecuted. 'The monster Gautran!' Thank you. It is an admission."
"----May invent," continued the Advocate, not heeding the interruption, but impressed by its logic, "may invent any horrible tale you please of any man you please. The difficulty will be to get the world to believe it."
"Exactly. But in this case there is no difficulty, although the murderer be dead."
"Gautran! Dead!" exclaimed the Advocate, surprised out of himself. Gautran was dead! Encompassed as he was by danger and treachery, the news was a relief to him.
"Yes, dead," replied Vanbrugh, purposely assuming a careless tone. "Did I not tell you before? Singular that it should have escaped me. But I have so much to say, and in my brightest hours I was always losing the sequence of things."
"And you," said the Advocate, "meeting this man by chance----"
"Pardon me. I asked you whether I should consider our meeting providential."
"It matters not. You, meeting this man, come to me after his death, for the purpose of extracting money from me. You will fail."
"I shall succeed."
"You killed Gautran, and want money to escape."
"No. He was killed by a higher agency, and I want no money to escape. You will hear to-morrow how he met his death, for all the towns and villages will be ringing with it. I continue. Say that Gautran at the point of death made a dying confession, on oath, not only of his guilt, but of your knowledge of it when you defended him;--say that this confession exists in writing, duly signed. Would that paper, in conjunction with what I have already offered for sale, be worth your purchase? Take time to consider. You are dealing with a man in desperate circumstances, one who, if you drive him to it, will pull you down, high as you are. You will help me, old friend."
"It may be. Have you possession of the paper you speak of?"
"I have. Would you like to hear it?"
"Yes."
Vanbrugh moved, so that a table was between him and the Advocate, and taking Gautran's confession from his pocket read in a clear voice:
"I, Gautran the woodman, lately tried for the murder of Madeline the flower-girl, being now at the point of death, and conscious that I have only a few minutes to live, and being also in the full possession of my reason, hereby make oath and swear:
"That being thrown into prison, awaiting my trial, I believed there was no escape from the doom I justly merited, for the reason that I was guilty of the murder.
"That some days before my trial was to take place, the Advocate who defended me voluntarily undertook to prove to my judges that I was innocent of the crime I committed.
"That with this full knowledge, he conducted my case with such ability that I was set free and pronounced innocent.
"That on the night of my acquittal, after midnight had struck, and when every person but himself in the House of White Shadows was asleep, I secretly visited him in his study, and remained with him for some time.
"That he gave me food and money, and bade me go my way.
"That I am ignorant of the motives which induced him, to whom I was a perfect stranger, to deliberately defeat the ends of justice.
"That the proof that he knew me to be guilty lies in the fact that I made a full confession to him.
"To which I solemnly swear, being about to appear before a just God to answer for my crime. I pray for forgiveness and mercy.
"Signed, Gautran."
Without comment, John Vanbrugh folded the paper, and replaced it carefully in his pocket.
"The confession may be forged," said the Advocate.
"Gautran's signature," said Vanbrugh, "will refute such a charge. He could write only his name, and documents can certainly be found bearing his signature, which can be compared with this."
"With that document in your possession," said the Advocate, speaking very slowly, "are you not afraid to be here with me--alone--knowing, if it state the truth, how much I have at stake?"
"Excellent!" exclaimed Vanbrugh. "What likenesses there are in human nature, and how thin the line that divides the base from the noble! Afraid? No--for if you lay a hand upon me, for whom you are no more than a match, I will rouse the house and denounce you. Restrain yourself and hear me out. I have that to say which will prove to you the necessity, if you have the slightest regard for your honour, of dealing handsomely with me. It relates to the girl whose murderer you set free--to Madeline the flower-girl and to yourself."
Without requesting permission, John Vanbrugh filled his glass with wine, which he drank leisurely with his eyes fixed on the Advocate's pale face the while. When he spoke, it did not escape the Advocate that he seemed to fling aside the flippancy of manner which had hitherto characterised him, and that his voice was unusually earnest.
"I do not ask you to excuse me," he said, "for recalling the memory of a time when you did not despise my companionship. It is necessary for my purpose. We were, indeed, more than companions--we were friends. What it was that made you consort with me is just now a mystery to me. The contrast in our characters may have tempted you. I, a careless, light-hearted fellow who loved to enjoy the hours; you, a serious, cold-hearted student, dreaming perhaps of the position you have attained. It may be that you deliberately made a study of me to see what use you could make of my weakness. However it was, I lived in the present, you in the future. The case is now reversed, and it is I who live in the future.
"I have said you were cold-hearted, and I do not suppose you will trouble yourself to deny it. Such as you are formed to rise, while we impulsive, reckless devils are pretty sure to tumble in the mud. But I never had such a fall as you are threatened with, and scapegrace, vagabond as I am, I am thankful not to have on my conscience what you have on yours.
"Now for certain facts.
"I contemplated--no, I mistake, I never contemplated--I settled to go on a tour for a few weeks, and scramble through bits of France, Switzerland, and Italy. You will remember my mentioning it to you. Yes, I see in your face that you are following me, and I shall feel obliged by your correcting me if in my statement of facts I should happen to trip. The story I am telling needs no effort of the imagination to embellish it. It is in its bare aspect sufficiently ghastly and cruel.
"When I was about to start on my tour, you, of your own accord, offered to accompany me. You had been studying too hard, and a wise doctor recommended you to rest a while, if you did not care to have brain-fever, and also recommended you to seek new scenes in the company of a cheerful friend whose light spirits would be a good medicine for an overworked brain. You took the doctor's advice, and you did me the honour to choose me for a companion. So we started on our little tour of pleasure.
"To shorten what I have to say I will not dwell upon the details of our jaunt, but I fix myself, with you, at Zermatt, where we stayed for three weeks. The attraction--what was it? The green valleys--the grandeur of the scenery? No. A woman. More correctly speaking, two women. Young, lovely, inexperienced, innocent. Daughters of a peasant, whose cottage door was always open to us, and who was by no means unwilling to receive small presents of money from liberal gentlemen like ourselves. Again I slip details--the story becomes trite. We captivated the hearts of the simple peasant maidens, and amused ourselves with them. In me that was natural; it was my way. But in you this circumstance was something to be astonished at. For just as long as you remained at Zermatt you were a transformed being. I don't think, until that time, I had ever heard you laugh heartily. Well, suddenly you disappeared; getting up one morning, I found that my friend had deserted me.
"It was shabby behaviour, at the best. However, it did not seriously trouble me; every man is his own master, and I think we were beginning to tire a little of each other. It was awkward, though, to be asked by one of our pretty peasant friends where my handsome friend had gone, and when he would return, and not be able to give a sensible answer.
"This girl, who had been in your presence always bright and joyous and happy, grew sad and quiet and anxious-looking in your absence, and appeared to have a secret on her mind that was making her wretched. I stayed on at Zermatt for another month, and then I bade good-bye to my sweetheart, promising to come again in a year. I kept my promise, but when I asked for her in Zermatt I heard that she was dead, and that her sister and father had left the village, and had gone no one knew whither.
"It will be as well for me here to remind you that during our stay in Zermatt we gave no home address, and that no one knew where we came from or where we lived. So prudent were we that we acted as if we were ashamed of our names.
"Three years afterwards in another part of Switzerland I met the woman to whom you had made love; she had lost her father, but was not without a companion. She had a little daughter--your child!"
"A lie!" said the Advocate, with difficulty controlling himself; "a monstrous fabrication!"
"A solemn truth," replied Vanbrugh, "verified by the mother's oath, and the certificate of birth. To dispute it will be a waste of breath and time. Hear me to the end. The mother had but one anxiety--to forget you and your treachery, and to be able to live so that her shame should be concealed. To accomplish this it was necessary that she should live among strangers, and it was for this reason she had left her native village. She asked me about you, and I--well, I played your game. I told her you had gone to a distant part of the world, and that I knew nothing of you. We were still friends, you and I, although our friendship was cooling. When I next saw you I had it in my mind to relate the circumstance to you; but you will remember that just at that time you took it into your head to put an end to our intimacy. We had a few words, I think, and you were pleased to tell me that you disapproved of my habits of life, and that you intended we should henceforth be strangers. I was not in an amiable mood when I left you, and I resolved, on the first opportunity, to seek the woman you had brought to shame, and advise her to take such steps against you as would bring disgrace to your door. It would be paying you in your own coin, I thought. However, good fortune stood your friend at that time. My own difficulties or pleasures, or both combined, claimed my attention, and occupied me for many months, and when next I went to the village in which I had last seen your peasant sweetheart and your child, they were not to be found. I made inquiries, but could learn nothing of them, so I gave it up as a bad job, and forgot all about the matter. Since then very many years have passed, and I sank and sank, and you rose and rose. We did not meet again; but I confess, when I used to read accounts of your triumphs and your rising fame, that I would not have neglected an opportunity to have done you an ill turn had it been in my power. I was at the lowest ebb, everything was against me, and I was wondering how I should manage to extricate myself from the desperate position into which bad luck had driven me, when, not many weeks since, I met in the streets of Geneva two women. They were hawking nosegays, and the moment I set eyes upon the elder of these women I recognised in her your old sweetheart from Zermatt. You appear to be faint. Shall I pause a while before I continue?"
"No," said the Advocate, and he drank with feverish eagerness two glasses of wine; "go on to the end."
"It was your sweetheart from Zermatt, and no other. And the younger of these women, one of the loveliest creatures I ever beheld, was known as Madeline the flower-girl."
The Advocate, with a sudden movement, turned his chair, so that his face was hidden from Vanbrugh.
"They were poor--and I was poor. If what I suspected, when I gazed at Madeline, was correct, I saw not only an opportunity for revenge upon you, but a certainty of being able to obtain money from you. The secret to such a man as you, married to a young and beautiful woman, was worth a fair sum, which I resolved should be divided between Pauline--that was the name adopted by the mother of your child--and myself. You cannot accuse me of a want of frankness. I discovered where they lived--I had secret speech with Pauline. My suspicion was no longer a suspicion--it was a fact. Madeline the flower-girl was your daughter."
He paused, but the Advocate made no movement, and did not speak.
"How," continued Vanbrugh, "to turn that fact to advantage? How, and in what way, to make it worth a sum sufficiently large to satisfy me? That was what now occupied my thoughts. Madeline and her mother were even poorer than I supposed, and from Pauline's lips did I hear how anxious she was to remove her daughter from the temptations by which she was surrounded. In dealing with you, I knew it was necessary to be well prepared. You are a powerful antagonist to cope with, and one must have sure cards in his hand to have even a chance of winning any game he is playing with such a man as yourself. Pauline and I spoke frequently together, and gradually I unfolded to her the plan I had resolved upon. Without disclosing your name I told her sufficiently to convince her that, by my aid, she might obtain a sum of money from the man who had wronged her which would enable her to place herself and her daughter in a safer position--a position in which a girl as beautiful as Madeline would almost certainly meet with a lover of good social position whom she would marry and with whom she would lead a happy life. Thus would she escape the snare into which she herself fell when she met you. This was the mother's dream. Satisfied that I could guide her to this end, Pauline signed an agreement, which is in my possession, by which she bound herself to pay me half the money she obtained from you in compensation for your wrong. Only one thing was to remain untouched by her and me--a sum which I resolved to obtain from you as a marriage portion for your daughter. Probably, under other circumstances, you would not have given me credit for so much consideration, but viewed in the light of the position in which you are placed, you may believe me. If you doubt it, I can show you the clause in black and white. This being settled between Pauline and me, I told her who you were--how rich you were, how famous you had grown, and how that you had lately married a young and beautiful woman. The affairs of a man as eminent as yourself are public property, and the newspapers delight in recording every particular, be it ever so trivial, connected with the lives of men of your rank. It was then necessary to ascertain what proof we held that you were the father of Madeline. Our visit to Zermatt could be proved--her oath and mine, in connection with dates, would suffice. Then there would, in all likelihood, be living in Zermatt men and women whose testimony would be valuable. The great point was the birth of the child and the date, and to my discomfiture I learnt that Pauline had lost the certificate of her daughter's birth. But the record existed elsewhere, and it was to obtain a copy of this record, and to collect other evidence, that Pauline left her daughter. Her mission was a secret one, necessarily, and thus no person, not even Madeline, had any knowledge of its purport. What, now, remains to be told? Nothing that you do not know--except that when Pauline left her daughter for a few weeks, it was arranged that she and I should meet in Geneva on a certain date, to commence our plan of operations, and that I, having business elsewhere, was a couple of hundred miles away when Gautran murdered your hapless child. I arrived in Geneva on the last day of Gautran's trial; and on that evening, as you came out of the court-house, I placed in your hands the letter asking you to give me an interview. I will say nothing of my feelings when I heard that you had successfully defended, and had set free, the murderer of your child. What I had to look after was myself and my own interest. And now you, who at the beginning of this interview rejected a renewal of the old friendship which existed between us, may probably inwardly acknowledge that had you accepted the hand I offered you, it is not I who would have been the gainer."
Again he paused, and again, neither by word or movement, did the Advocate break the silence.
"It will be as well," presently said Vanbrugh, "to recapitulate what I have to sell. First, the fact that you, a man of spotless character--so believed--deliberately betrayed a simple innocent girl, and then deserted her. Inconceivable, the world would say, in such a man, unless the proofs were incontestable. The proofs are incontestable. Next, the birth of your child, and your brutal--pardon me, there is no other word to express it, and it is one which would be freely used--negligence to ascertain whether your conduct had brought open shame and ruin upon the girl you betrayed. Next, the knowledge of the life of poverty and suffering led by the mother and the child, while you were in the possession of great wealth. Next, the murder of your child by a man whose name is uttered with execration. Next, your voluntary espousal of his cause, and your successful defence of a monster whom all men knew to be guilty of the foul crime. Next, your knowledge, at the time you defended him, that he was guilty of the murder of your own child. Next, in corroboration of this knowledge, the dying declaration of Gautran, solemnly sworn to and signed by him. A strong hand. No stronger has ever been held by any man's enemy, and until you come to my terms, I am your enemy. If you refuse to purchase of me what I have to sell--the documents in my possession, and my sacred silence to the last day of my life upon the matters which affect you--and for such a sum as will make my future an easy one, I give you my word I will use my power against you, and will drag you down from the height upon which you stand. I cannot speak in more distinct terms. You can rescue me from poverty, I can rescue you from ignominy."
The Advocate turned his face to Vanbrugh, who saw that, in the few minutes during which it had been hidden from his sight, it had assumed a hue of deadly whiteness. All the sternness had departed from it, and the cold, piercing eyes wavered as they looked first at Vanbrugh, then at the objects in the study. It was as though the Advocate were gazing, for the first time, upon the familiar things by which he was surrounded. Strange to say, this change in him seemed to make him more human--seemed to declare, "Stern and cold-hearted as I have appeared to the world, I am susceptible to tenderness." The mask had fallen from his face, and he stood now revealed--a man with human passions and human weaknesses, to whom a fatal sin in his younger days had brought a retribution as awful as it was ever the lot of a human being to suffer. There was something pitiable in this new presentment of a strong, earnest, self-confident nature, and even Vanbrugh was touched by it.
During the last half-hour the full force of the storm had burst over the House of White Shadows. The rain poured down with terrific power, and the thunder shook the building to its foundations. The Advocate listened with a singular and curious intentness to the terrible sounds, and when Vanbrugh remarked, "A fearful night," he smiled in reply. But it was the smile of a man whose heart was tortured to the extreme limits of human endurance.
Once again he filled a glass with wine, and raised it to his mouth, but as the liquor touched his lips, he shuddered, and holding the glass upright in his hand, he turned it slowly over and poured it on the ground; then, with much gentleness, he replaced the glass upon the table.
"What has become of the woman you speak of as Pauline?" he asked. His very voice was changed. It was such as would proceed from one who had been prostrated by long and almost mortal sickness.
"I do not know," replied Vanbrugh. "I have neither seen nor heard from her since the day before she left her daughter."
"Say that I was disposed," said the Advocate, speaking very slowly, and pausing occasionally, as though he was apprehensive that he would lose control of speech, "to purchase your silence, do you think I should be safe in the event of her appearing on the scene? Would not her despair urge her to seek revenge upon the man who betrayed and deserted her, and who set her daughter's murderer free?"
"It might be so--but at all events she would be ignorant of your knowledge of Gautran's guilt. This danger at least would be averted. The secret is ours at present, and ours only."
"True. You believe that I knew Gautran to be guilty when I defended him?"
"I am forced to believe it. Explain, otherwise, why you permitted him to visit you secretly in the dead of night, and why you filled his pockets with gold."
"It cannot be explained. Yet what motive could I have had in setting him free?"
"It is not for me to say. What I know, I know. I pretend to nothing further."
"Do you suppose I care for money?" As the Advocate asked the question, he opened a drawer in the escritoire, and produced a roll of notes. "Take them; they are yours. But I do not purchase your silence with them. I give the money to you as a gift."
"And I thank you for it. But I must have more."
"Wait--wait. This story of yours has yet to be concluded."
"Is it my fancy," said Vanbrugh, "or is it a real sound I hear? The ringing of a bell--and now, a beating at the gates without, and a man's voice calling loudly?"
Without hesitation, the Advocate went from his study into the grounds. The fury of the storm made it difficult for him to keep his feet, but he succeeded in reaching the gate and opening it. A hand grasped his, and a man clung to him for support. The Advocate could not see the face of his visitor, nor, although he heard a voice speaking to him, did the words of the answer fall upon his ears. Staggering blindly through the grounds, they arrived at the door of the villa, and stumbled into the passage. There, by the aid of the rose lamp which hung in the hall, he distinguished the features of his visitor. It was Father Capel.
"Have you come to see me?" asked the Advocate, "or are you seeking shelter from the storm?"
"I have come to see you," replied Father Capel. "I hardly hoped to find you up, but perceived lights in your study windows, and they gave me confidence to make the attempt to speak with you. I have been beating at the gates for fully half an hour."
He spoke in his usual gentle tones, and gazed at the Advocate's white face with a look of kindly and pitying penetration.
"You are wet to the skin," said the Advocate. "I must find a change of clothing for you."
"No, my son," said the priest; "I need none. It is not the storm without I dread--it is the storm within." As though desirous this remark should sink into the Advocate's heart, he paused a few moments before he spoke again. "I fear this storm of Nature will do much harm. Trees are being uprooted and buildings thrown down. There is danger of a flood which may devastate the village, and bring misery to the poor. But there is a gracious God above us"--he looked up reverently--"and if a man's conscience is clear, all is well."
"There is a significance in the words you utter," said the Advocate, conducting the priest to his study, "which impresses me. Your mission is an important one."
"Most important; it concerns the soul, not the body."
"A friend of mine," said the Advocate, pointing to Vanbrugh, who was standing when they entered, "who has visited me to-night for the first time for many years, on a mission as grave as yours. It was he who heard your voice at the gates."
Father Capel inclined his head to Vanbrugh, who returned the courtesy.
"I wish to confer with you privately," said the priest. "It will be best that we should be alone."
"Nay," said the Advocate, "you may speak freely in his presence. I have but one secret from him and all men. I beg you to proceed."
"I have no choice but to obey you," said Father Capel, "for time presses, and a life is hanging in the balance. I should have been here before had it not been that my duty called me most awfully and suddenly to a man who has been smitten to death by the hand of God. The man you defended--Gautran, charged with the murder of an innocent girl--is dead. Of him I may not speak at present. Death-bed confessions are sacred, and apart from that, not even in the presence of your dearest friend can I say one further word concerning the sinner whose soul is now before its Creator. I came to you from a dying woman, who is known by the name of Pauline."
Both Vanbrugh and the Advocate started at the mention of the name.
"Fate is merciful," said the Advocate in a low tone; "its blows are sharp and swift."
"Before I left her I promised to bring you to her tomorrow," continued the priest, "but Providence, which directed me to Gautran in his dying moments, impels me to break that promise. She may die before to-morrow, and she has that to say which vitally concerns you, and which you must hear, if she has strength enough to speak. I ask you to come with me to her without a moment's delay, through this storm, which has been sent as a visitation for human crime."
"I am ready to accompany you," said the Advocate.
"And I," said Vanbrugh.
"No," said the priest, "only he and I. Who you are I do not seek to know, but you cannot accompany us."
"Remain here," said the Advocate to Vanbrugh; "when I return I will hide nothing from you. Now, Father Capel."
It was not possible for them to engage in conversation. The roaring of the wind prevented a word from being heard. For mutual safety they clasped hands and proceeded on their way. They encountered many dangers, but escaped them. Torrents of water poured down from the ranges--great branches snapped from the trees and fell across their path--the valleys were in places knee-deep in water--and occasionally they fancied they heard cries of human distress in the distance. If the priest had not been perfectly familiar with the locality, they would not have arrived at their destination, but he guided his companion through the storm, and they stood at length before the cottage in which Pauline lay.
Father Capel lifted the latch, and pulled the Advocate after him into the room.
There were but two apartments in the cottage. Pauline lay in the room at the back. In a corner of the room in which they found themselves a man lay asleep; his wife was sitting in a chair, watching and waiting. She rose wearily as the priest and the Advocate entered.
"I am glad you have come, father," she said, "she has been very restless, and once she gave a shriek, like a death-shriek, which curdled my blood. She woke and frightened my child."
She pointed to a baby-girl, scarcely eighteen months old, who was lying by her father with her eyes wide open. The child, startled by the entrance of strangers, ran to her mother, who took her on her lap, saying petulantly, "There, there--be quiet. The gentlemen won't hurt you."
"Is Pauline awake now?" asked Father Capel.
The woman went to the inner room and returned. "She is sleeping," she said, "and is very quiet."
Father Capel beckoned to the Advocate, who followed him to the bedside of the dying woman. She lay so still that the priest lowered his head to hers to ascertain whether she was breathing.
"Life appears to be ebbing away," he whispered to the Advocate; "she may die in her sleep."
Quiet as she was, there was no peace in her face; an expression of exquisite suffering rested on it. The sign of suffering, denoting how sorely her heart had been wrung, caused the Advocate's lips to quiver.
"It is I who have brought her to this," he thought. "But for me she would not be lying in a dying state before me."
He was tortured not only by remorse, but by a terror of himself.
Notwithstanding that so many years had passed since he last gazed upon her, she was not so much changed that he did not recognise in her the blooming peasant girl of Zermatt. Since then he had won honour and renown and the admiration and esteem of men; the best that life could offer was his, or had been his until the fatal day upon which he resolved to undertake the defence of Gautran. And now--how stood the account? He was the accomplice of the murderer of his own child--the mother of his child was dying in suffering--his wife was false to him--his one friend had betrayed him. The monument of greatness he had raised had crumbled away, and in a very little while the world would know him for what he was. His bitterest enemy could not have held him in deeper despisal than he held himself.
"You recognise her?" said the priest.
"Yes."
"And her child, Madeline, was yours?"
"I am fain to believe it," said the Advocate; "but the proof is not too clear."
"The proof is there," said the priest, pointing to Pauline; "she has sworn it. Do you think--knowing that death's door is open for her to enter--knowing that her child, the only being she loved on earth, is waiting for her in the eternal land--that she would, by swearing falsely, and with no end in view that could possibly benefit herself, imperil the salvation of her soul? It is opposed to human reason."
"It is. I am forced to believe what I would give my life to know was false."
"Unhappy man! Unhappy man!" said the priest, sinking--on his knees. "I will pray for you, and for the woman whose life you blighted."
The Advocate did not join the priest in prayer. His stern sense of justice restrained him. The punishment he had brought upon himself he would bear as best he might, and he would not inflict upon himself the shameful humiliation of striving to believe that, by prayers and tears, he could suddenly atone for a crime as terrible as that of which he was guilty.
"Father Capel," he said, when the priest rose from his knees, "from what you have said, I gather that the man Gautran made confession to you before he died. I do not seek to know what that confession was, but with absolute certainty I can divine its nature. The man you saw in my study brought to me Gautran's dying declaration, signed by Gautran himself, which charges me with a crime so horrible that, were I guilty of it, laden as I am with the consequences of a sin which I do not repudiate, I should deserve the worst punishment. Are you aware of the existence of this document?"
"I hear of its existence now for the first time," replied the priest. "When I left the bedside of this unhappy woman, and while I was wending my way home through the storm, I heard cries and screams for help on a hill near the House of White Shadows, as though two men were engaged in a deadly struggle. I proceeded in the direction of the conflict, and discovered only Gautran, who had been crushed to the earth by the falling of a tree which had been split by the storm. He admitted that he and another man were fighting, and that the design was murder. I made search, both then and afterwards, for the other man, but did not succeed in finding him. I left Gautran for the purpose of obtaining assistance to extricate him, for the tree had fallen across his body, and he could not move. When I returned he was dead, and some gold which he had asked me to take from his pocket was gone; an indication that, during my absence, human hands had been busy about him. If Gautran's dying declaration be authentic, it must have been obtained while I was away to seek for assistance."
"I can piece the circumstances," said the Advocate. "The man you saw in my study was the man who was engaged in the struggle with Gautran. It was he who obtained the confession, and he who stole the gold. In that confession I am charged with undertaking the defence of Gautran with the knowledge that he was guilty. It is not true. When I defended him I believed him to be innocent; and if he made a similar declaration to you, he has gone to his account with a black lie upon his soul. That will not clear me, I know, and I do not mention it to you for the purpose of exciting your pity for me. It is simply because it is just that you should hear my denial of the charge; and it is also just that you should hear something more. Up to the hour of Gautran's acquittal I believed him, degraded and vile as he was, to be innocent of the murder; but that night, as I was walking to the House of White Shadows, I met Gautran, who, in the darkness, supposing me to be a stranger, would have robbed me, and probably taken my life. I made myself known to him, and he, overcome with terror at the imaginary shadow of his victim which his remorse and ignorance had conjured up, voluntarily confessed to me that he was guilty. My error--call it by what strange name you will--dated from that moment. Knowing that the public voice was against me, I had not the honesty to take the right course. But if I," he added, with a gloomy recollection of his wife and friend, "had not by my own act rendered valueless the fruits of a life of earnest endeavour, it would have been done for me by those in whom I placed a sacred trust."
For several hours Father Capel and the Advocate remained by the bedside of Pauline, who lay unconscious, as if indeed, as the priest had said, life was ebbing away in her sleep. The storm continued and increased in intensity, and had it not been that the little hut which sheltered them was protected by the position in which it stood, it would have been swept away by the wind. From time to time the peasant gave them particulars of the devastation created by the floods, which were rushing in torrents from every hill, but their duty chained them to the bedside of Pauline. An hour before noon she opened her eyes, and they rested upon the face of the Advocate.
"You have come," she sighed.
He knelt by the bed, and addressed her, but it was with difficulty he caught the words she spoke. Death was very near.
"Was Madeline my daughter?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Pauline, "as I am about to appear before my God!"
The effort exhausted her, and she lay still for many minutes. Then her hand feebly sought her pillow, and the Advocate, perceiving that she wished to obtain something from under it, searched and found a small packet. He knew immediately, when she motioned that she desired him to retain it, that it contained the certificate of his daughter's birth. The priest prayed audibly for the departing soul. Pauline's lips moved; the Advocate placed his ear close. She breathed the words:
"We shall meet again soon! Pray for forgiveness!"
Then death claimed her, and her earthly sorrows were ended.