BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
A TRIP SOUTHWARD.
When the first overflow of emotion had subsided, Sir Simon drew a chair close to the sofa and wanted to hear every detail about Raymond’s illness—what the doctor had done, and, if possible, everything he had said about it at each visit. When Franceline had told the little there was to tell beyond the one terrible central fact, it was Sir Simon’s turn to be catechised. He submitted willingly to the inquisition. He went over the story of Clide de Winton’s letter, and all the happy consequences it had entailed—the hard-hearted Jew sent to the right-about, the rest of the duns quieted, all Sir Simon’s difficulties happily settled. Clide’s name was openly mentioned in the course of the narrative, and coupled with epithets of enthusiastic admiration and gratitude—he was a noble-hearted fellow, true as steel, generous as the sun, delicate as a woman; it was impossible which to admire most, his generous conduct or the delicacy with which he had done this immense service to his father’s old friend. Franceline said nothing while this panegyric was being sung, but she could not hide from herself the fact that it was sounding in her ears like the sweetest music. She had found out long since why Clide’s name had become a dead-letter with Sir Simon, why he never even alluded to his existence in her presence; since he now broke through this reticence, was it not a proof that the motive of it had been removed, and that he was free to speak of Clide, and she to listen, and that consequently no barrier existed any longer between their lives? The truth was that Sir Simon had come to the conclusion that the barrier was of no great importance to either of them by this time. He was not given much to diving into the depths of human hearts, analyzing their motives and impulses; and he did not give other people credit for spending their lives in such unprofitable work as brooding over sentimental grievances and pining after the impossible. It was evident that if Franceline had been in love with Clide, she must have either died of it by this time or got over it. She had not died, ergo she had got over it. There was no harm, therefore, in singing that fine young fellow’s praises in her hearing, and it was a great satisfaction to the baronet to be able to pour out his grateful eulogies to a sympathizing audience. So they went on playing at cross purposes, each perfectly unconscious of what was uppermost in the other’s thoughts; Sir Simon settling it in his own mind that Ponsonby Anwyll would carry the day, now that everything else had adjusted itself so satisfactorily, while Franceline dreamed her own little dream, and fancied it must be the reflection of it in her father’s thoughts that filled his eyes with those gentle sunbeams as his glance met hers.
Sir Simon, having emptied his budget of news, proceeded to unfold his programme, and was agreeably surprised to find that he was to be spared the trouble of defending it. Franceline was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing a new country, and Raymond acquiesced in everything as placid and innocently happy as an infant. So it was agreed that they would start for the south without the loss of a day, if possible. Angélique was called into council and ordered to begin to pack up at once. To-morrow morning Dr. Blink should decide what climate was best suited to Raymond, who was now the person to be chiefly considered. Meantime, Sir Simon took rather an unfair advantage of the medical man by biassing the inclinations of both patients towards a certain sun-girt villa on the Mediterranean, where myrtle and olive groves were said to crown every hillside, where the vine and the orange and the pomegranate grew like wild flowers elsewhere, mirrored in the sea that is “deeply, darkly, beautifully blue.”
“When did you come home—to England, I mean?” said M. de la Bourbonais when the baronet paused in his glowing description of a Mediterranean sunset.
“This morning. I came straight on here from Dover. The lawyer wanted that deed that led to my finding the snuff-box. I must go back with it by the early train to-morrow; it is absolutely necessary that it should be forthcoming to prove the validity of Lady Rebecca’s marriage settlement.”
“Marriage settlement!” exclaimed Raymond and Franceline together. “Do you mean that she is going to be married?”
“Good gracious, no! Poor soul, she’s gone—gone to her great account,” said Sir Simon, shaking his head with becoming solemnity. “She died three days ago. It was a happy release, a most merciful release! She really had nothing to regret, poor, dear soul.” And her step-son heaved a dutiful sigh, and drew his hand across his forehead with a gesture expressive of resigned sorrow.
Raymond was in no mood to laugh, even if the subject had been less solemn; but he could not but remember—and Sir Simon knew he must remember—how often this mournful event had been devoutly invoked by both of them in days not so long gone by. It was probably the recollection of this that prompted his next question.
“How did she leave her property?”
“Oh! admirably; nothing could be kinder or juster,” replied the baronet, heaving the tribute of another sigh. “She left her £50,000 to me unconditionally, chargeable merely with a life legacy for three old servants; the jointure, you know, reverts to the estate. So you see the duns would not have had so long to wait even if De Winton had not come to the rescue. She was an excellent woman. Of course one feels the blow, but it really would be selfish to regret her; she was a great sufferer, and it was a happy release.”
“Then you did not stop in London to ask if there were any letters at your bankers’?”
“No; were there any?”
“There was one from me—or at least written at my request.”
“Ha!”
Sir Simon looked up, full of curiosity. Franceline feared she was in the way of some explanation, so made an excuse to leave the room about some tisane it was time for her father to take.
“You must be more puzzled than ever now to know why I refused to let my pockets be examined that night,” said M. de la Bourbonais, resorting to his old trick of fixing his spectacles to hide his shyness.
“Why was it?” said Sir Simon, pulling out his cigar-case, and carefully selecting one of the choice Havanas, as if he had the remotest intention of lighting it; it was only an excuse not to have to look at Raymond.
“You may remember that there were little pâtés de foie gras at dinner; they looked like petits pains?”
“I remember it perfectly; and excellent they were. I had just got the recipe from the Frères Provençeaux; it was the first time Dorel had ever made them. Well?”
“Franceline was, you know, very ill just then; she could eat nothing. I fancied these might tempt her, so I slipped a couple of them into my pockets with some bonbons. This was why I would not turn them out. I was ashamed to exhibit my poverty to all those men, especially to that stranger who had been taunting me with it; I would not let him see what a poor devil I was, and to what straits poverty drove me to get food for my sick child.”
“My poor Raymond!” was all Sir Simon could say, and he grasped his hand.
“Then you remember I came back? I was rushing home when it occurred to me that I had done a mad thing; so I threw away the pâtés and the bonbons, and went back and made a fool of myself, as you know. I think I must have been mad. I know I had been taking a great deal of wine to keep me up; anyhow, I did not reflect, until I saw the effect of my presence, what a preposterous act it was, and that you should have been all fools to see any proof of my innocence in it.”
“You might have trusted me,” said Sir Simon reproachfully. “I would have believed you—I did believe you in spite of my senses. I came to the conclusion you were, as you say, either mad or drunk, and had taken it unawares. Why didn’t you write to me?”
“I did. I wrote you a full account of it all; but, as ill-luck had it, your letter telling me to send back the ring arrived before mine left. I was so incensed at your suspecting me that I tore up the letter. I was a fool, of course; but you know of old that pride is my weak point. It was not until I was struck down by illness, and brought face to face with death, and with the thought that I was going to leave my child friendless in the world with a dishonored name, that I resolved to sacrifice it, and for her sake to write to you and ask you to take charge of her and do what you could to clear my memory from the stain that my own vanity and folly had fixed upon it. Father Henwick wrote to you to this effect in my name on Tuesday. The letter is lying at your bankers’.”
“I was as much to blame as you. I ought to have known you better than to mistrust you; I ought to have known there must be some mistake in it,” said Sir Simon, rising and going to the window. “I ought to have written to you to ask you for an explanation, and so I was always intending to do; but what with the excitement of Clide’s finding his—of his finding out my difficulties and so on,” he continued, checking himself in time before the murder was out, “and then poor, dear Lady Rebecca’s telegraphing for me, I nearly lost my head, and kept putting off writing from day to day, in hopes that you would write.”
“Is monsieur going to stay to tea? Because, if so, it is time I began the omelette,” said Angélique, following Franceline into the room, carrying a tray with something on it for M. de la Bourbonais.
But Sir Simon said he must be going that very minute. How the time had flown, and he had so many things to see to at the Court! Raymond was rather exhausted when his friend left, but he slept sounder that night than he had done for a long time.
* * * * *
The warm southern spring had burst its green bonds and flown suddenly into the arms of summer; it lay disporting itself in the splendor of new-clad flowers along the shores of the Mediterranean, laughing up at the dazzling sky like a babe smiling into its mother’s face. Everything was fresh, lustrous, and dewy. The sun was not too hot to be enjoyable, the birds were not too tired to sing, a light breeze came fluttering from the sea to cool the vines, and died away in sighs and whispers amidst the ilex-grove that made a background to the white-washed villa where a group of three persons were sitting out on the terrace under the shade of a broad veranda. I dare say you have recognized the young lady in the fleecy muslin dress. The pink tint in her ivory complexion is a decided improvement; but it has not so changed her that you could forget her. She looks stronger now; there is an energetic grace in her movements that tells of improved health; so, too, does the warmer glow of the dark gold hair and the more animated glance of the eyes. You see she has brought her doves with her, and seems to have many interesting things to say to them as they perch on her head and her finger, and utter that, to her, melodious chant of theirs, but which Sir Simon Harness has the bad taste to find wearisome and lugubrious.
“Could you persuade those doves of yours to cease that dismal noise just for ten minutes, Franceline? It’s working under difficulties, trying to correct proof-sheets while they keep up that dirge.”
Franceline, deeply offended, carries off her darlings to the other side of the house, without deigning any further comment than a toss of her pretty head at the speaker and a look of mild reproach at her father, who yields a tacit consent to the insult by his silence. Moreover, when Franceline and “those doves of hers” are out of sight, he breathes an audible sigh of relief and proceeds to read the contested sentence aloud again. There was a good deal of arguing and bickering over it; Sir Simon insisting that the epithet was too strong and should be modified, while M. de la Bourbonais maintained that whether he applied the term “patriot cast in the rough antique mould” to Mirabeau or not signified very little, since the facts as he stated and construed them applied it far more forcibly. They were squabbling over it still when, half an hour later, Franceline came back, apparently in a forgiving mood, and expressed her wonder how people could go on quarrelling when everything around was so full of peace, in a world where all created things were steeped in beauty and in bliss; where life was not a struggle, but a joy; where nothing was needed but the will to vibrate to the pulse of love with which the great mother’s breast was heaving, to respond to the sun’s wooing and the wind’s wafting, to the music of flowers and birds, to be a voice in the choir and a grain of incense on the altar, to live, to love, and to be happy. What were proof-sheets worth if they could not swell the glad concert and sound their chime in the joy-bells of life? They were sounding their little chime, though, in spite of the frequent clash of arms they gave rise to between the author and his pig-headed Tory critic. The crisp little rolls of paper were an immense superadded interest to Raymond—and consequently to Franceline—in their new life of golden sunshine. They would come to an end soon now; a few more bundles of proofs, then a pause of solemn expectation, and the great work would appear immortalized between the boards.
FOUND AT LAST!
While the three inmates of the white-washed villa were watching the days go by, and wondering if to-morrow could possibly be as happy as yesterday and to-day, Clide de Winton was living a very different life in his lodgings near the asylum. He had not yet been permitted to see the lady whom he believed to be his wife. She had fallen ill with an attack on the lungs which had very nearly proved fatal, and during the six weeks that it lasted it was impossible to let any one approach her except the familiar faces of the doctor and her attendant. She had rallied from this illness only to return to her old delusion with a fonder intensity than ever. Day after day she decked herself in her faded flowers and ribbons, and stood or knelt at her window, stretching out her arms to the mid-day sun, calling to him with the tenderest words of endearment, and telling him her passionate love-tale over and over again; then turning from this to paroxysms of despair more violent than formerly, and which threatened at each crisis to shatter the fragile vase and send the feeble spark flying upwards.
“And now she courted love; now, raving, called on hate.”
Clide had repeatedly asked to see Mr. Percival, but the desire for an interview was evidently not mutual; for, although no refusal was ever sent, the promises held out by the medical man were continually broken; the visit of Mr. Percival was always “unexpectedly prevented” by one cause or another. Stanton arrived at the conclusion that he did not wish to meet Clide, and that, moreover, he was constantly at the asylum unknown to them, and that the only way to see him would be to lie in wait and collar him, and make him speak out by main force, since he would not do it otherwise. Mr. de Winton saw difficulties in the way of this summary method of proceeding, but his valet entreated him to leave it in his hands and not trouble himself about that. Clide had small confidence in the diplomatic skill of his man, but he could trust him not to do anything dangerously rash; so he asked no questions, but let him follow his own devices for catching Mr. Percival. That gentleman, however, proved himself a match for Stanton. He was not to be taken either by stratagem or force; and though Stanton dodged about the park gates, and recruited a small police force, amongst little boys on the lookout for a penny, to skulk about late and early to watch the comers and goers from the asylum, and give him timely warning, it led to nothing but vain hopes and frequent disappointments.
Clide was growing sick to death of the miserable business. He had been more than two months now stationed at his post. Isabel’s illness had made two-thirds of that time utterly useless to him; but it was now a full week since the doctor had declared her convalescent, and he seemed no nearer the solution of her identity than when he first descried her through the panel of the door. He determined at last one morning to go in and speak out his mind to the medical man. He told him that he insisted on an interview with Mr. Percival, or else he would take steps in the matter which might be disagreeable to all parties. It was quite inexplicable, he said, that they should not have been able to find an opportune moment or letting him approach the patient all this time, and the persistent obstacles that were thrown in the way of an interview with the man who called himself her guardian led him to infer that both Mr. Percival and the doctor were in league to prevent her identity being tested and established.
The effect of this broadside was startling. But although it took the doctor entirely by surprise, it did not throw him off his guard or disturb his presence of mind. He looked at the speaker for a moment in silence, and then said in a perfectly cool and collected manner:
“I see there is no use in playing at this game any longer. I have humored you up to this, and borne with your mania, because I knew it was a mania. It has been plain to me from the third time I saw you, Mr. de Winton, that you were yourself the victim of a delusion and an eligible candidate for a lunatic asylum. I have prevented Mr. Percival from taking steps to have you confined—the law empowers us to do so when a madman threatens the security and honor of another—because I hoped the monomania would wear itself out with patience. I find I have been mistaken. I shall interfere no farther with Mr. Percival in his legitimate desire to protect the lady who is under my care from your persistent persecution. She is no more your wife than she is mine. Your story about her is as groundless as the ravings of a man in fever.”
While the doctor delivered himself of this attack Clide stared at him in stupefaction. He saw the medical man’s glance fixed on him with the expression of one who was versed in the art of reading the mind through that lucid and faithful interpreter—the eye. But though he was both shocked and indignant, he was not a whit frightened; he bore the scrutiny without flinching, without dropping his lid once.
“You are a clever tactician, I see,” he said coolly. “Carrying the war into the enemy’s country is one of the desperate strategies of a daring general, but it is sometimes more fatal to the invader than to the invaded. You have now thrown off the mask and shown me exactly what manner of man I have to deal with, and I shall resort to other means than those I have hitherto employed for seeing the patient whom I am now absolutely and fully convinced is no other than my unhappy wife.”
He rose, and was leaving without further parley when the doctor cried out:
“You can see her this moment, if you choose—that is, if you choose to be guilty of homicide. I am prepared to state before the first men in the faculty, and to stake my character on the assertion, that—if she be your wife—the sight of you, supposing that it brings recognition, will be fatal to her life by causing the rupture of a vessel on the brain. Come back with any qualified witnesses you think fit, and I will repeat this in their presence, and then, on your responsibility, I will conduct you to the patient.”
Clide made no answer, but left the house, and was soon on his way to Piccadilly in a cab. The admiral had come to town the night before; it was partly the desire to be able to give his uncle some definite information concerning the inmate of the mad-house that had driven him to burn his ships and have it out with the doctor.
The cab stopped, and as Clide alighted he was accosted by a friendly voice and the grip of a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Hallo, De Winton! How are you? Where have you turned up from?”
It was Ponsonby Anwyll’s voice; he looked in the highest state of elation, blonder and burlier than ever, the very picture of good temper, good digestion, and general prosperity.
The sight of him jarred on Clide; he had naturally a vindictive feeling toward poor Ponsonby since that random shot of Sir Simon’s about his making Franceline a good husband by and by. He did not believe a word of it; but it made him feel savagely to the young squire, nevertheless. How dare he behave so as to get his name coupled with hers at all?
“I have been hanging about town for some time,” returned Clide as stiffly as he could without being uncivil. “I suppose you’re on leave? Or perhaps quartered somewhere hereabouts?”
“Quartered! No such luck! We’re vegetating in Devonshire still, I’m sorry to say; but there’ll soon be an end of it for me. I mean to sell out and settle down one of these days. I’ve come up to try and get a month’s leave. I think I’ll succeed, too, the colonel is such an awfully good fellow; and what do you think I’m going to do with it? Where do you think I’m going to spend it?”
“How should I know?”
“At Nice! Sir Simon Harness has asked me over to stay at his villa there; the De la Bourbonais are there, you know. You’ll be glad to hear that Franceline has made a splendid recovery of it, and the count has picked up wonderfully too.… Oh! I beg a thousand pardons. Pray allow me!…” This was to an old lady whose umbrella he had whisked into the middle of the street with a touch of his stick, that he kept swinging round while he held forth to Clide. When he had picked it up and dusted it, and apologized three times over, he went on to say: “Why shouldn’t you run over and see them all too, eh? You used to be very friendly with the count, eh? And Sir Simon would be enchanted to see you. There’s nothing he likes so much as being come down on by a friend unawares, you know.”
“I never gratify my friends in that respect,” said Clide freezingly; “I always wait to be invited. Are you to be a large party at the villa?”
“I don’t fancy so; but I really don’t know. The only invitations I know of are myself and Roxham. He’s a capital fellow, Roxham; I’m glad we are going together. I wish you’d come too, though, eh? Perhaps you’ll think it over and pop down on us one of these days when we least expect it? Have you any message for Sir Simon or any of them?”
“My best respects to M. de la Bourbonais and his daughter. Good-afternoon. A pleasant journey to you!”
“Wish me good-luck about the leave first!” said the good-natured, obtuse dragoon as he strode on, laughing.
“The lumbering idiot! How I should like to kick him! The impudence of the lout calling her Franceline!” This was Mr. de Winton’s soliloquy as he stood looking after Ponsonby, giving at the same time a pull to the bell as if the house were on fire.
The admiral was out. Cromer, his old valet, who had first sounded the signal about Isabel, happened to be at his master’s for the day, and said he believed he had gone to see Master Clide. Clide jumped back into his cab and told the man to go like the wind, as he wanted to overtake some one. His reflections on the way were none of the pleasantest. What was bringing Ponsonby Anwyll to spend a month at Sir Simon’s while M. de la Bourbonais and his daughter were there? What but to marry Franceline? Had she, then, so completely forgotten Clide? Why not? If his love for her had a tithe of the unselfishness it boasted, he ought to be the first to rejoice at it; to be glad that she was happy and was about to become the wife of a good and honorable and warm-hearted man whom she loved. Did she love him? could she love him?—a lump of red and white clay with as much soul as a prize bull! She that was such an ethereal, lily creature—how could it be possible? What could any girl see in him to love? If this was an irrational and unfair estimate of Ponsonby’s outward and inward man, it was natural enough on Clide’s part. No man, be he ever so reasonable, is expected to do justice to the claims of any other man to be preferred by the woman he loves. But Clide was more savage with Sir Simon even than with Anwyll. What business had he to go meddling at making a match for Franceline? Why could he not have let her alone, and let destiny take its course—or, to put it in a more concrete shape, let Clide de Winton take his chance? Clide did not consider that his chance virtually had no existence whatever in Sir Simon’s calculations. He believed that Isabel’s identity was established beyond a doubt, and that this fact, much as he might regret it, excluded Clide for ever from having any part in Franceline’s destiny. He believed, moreover, or he wished to believe—which with the sanguine Sir Simon meant one and the same thing—that Clide had quite got over his passion malheureuse for Franceline, but, whether he had or not, it could not be helped; he could not marry her, and it was preposterous to expect that she was to remain unmarried out of consideration for his feelings. Here was an admirable settlement in life that presented itself, and it was Sir Simon’s duty, as her self-elected guardian and her father’s oldest friend, to do all in his power to secure it to her.
Oh! but if Franceline would but wait a little longer—it might be such a very little while—until Clide was free! “What a pitiful thing a woman’s love is compared to a man’s! If I had been in her position, and she in mine,” he thought, “I would have waited a lifetime for her!”
You see Clide was assuming, in spite of his oft-sighed hopes to the contrary, that Franceline did love him. He argued the point bitterly in his mind, accusing her and acquitting her and cursing his own fate all in the same breath, as he rattled over the stony street. But the cursing brought no relief. Help was nowhere at hand. In the old story-books, when a man found himself at bay with difficulties, he called the devil to the rescue, and the devil came. These delightful legends generally represent him in spectacles and a bottle-green coat; they may sometimes differ as to the precise color of the coat, but they all agree that he was the most accommodating practitioner, often volunteering his services without waiting to be asked. When it came to striking a bargain, no one was more liberal than he. The man in difficulties made his own terms: unlimited wealth, a long life with the lady of his choice, the sweet triumphs of revenge—one or all of these the devil would concede with the utmost generosity; all the client had to do in return was to scratch his name to a bit of paper, signing his soul away—a sort of post-obit bill to be presented at some period that was not always even of necessity specified.
If this obliging old legendary personage had appeared at this juncture to Clide de Winton, I suspect he would have had little difficulty in striking a bargain with him. To be free; to burst at once this odious, insufferable chain that must soon be dissolved by death; to be able to seize the prize that was about to be snatched from him at the very moment he felt sure that a little delay would have secured it to him for ever—to obtain this Clide would have signed away his life, ay, and his soul’s life too, for the asking. No evil one, it is true, presented himself in a bottle-green coat or any other visible attire, but one, nevertheless, got close enough to the distracted lover’s ear to whisper a proposal audibly. An invisible devil jumped into the cab with him, and sat close to him all the way from Piccadilly home, and never ceased urging, pleading; no tongue of flesh ever spoke more distinctly:
“You have the game in your own hands. The doctor is out now. You know your way to her room. No one will stop you. Go straight up, and walk in, and address your wife; you are her husband, and have a right to do it. The shock will kill her; but what of that? What is life to her that any merciful man should wish to prolong it? Death will be the cessation of mental and bodily anguish to her, poor raving maniac, and it will set you free—free to marry Franceline. You know Franceline loves you. The mercy will then be for her too; if she marries Ponsonby Anwyll, it will be only to please her father. She will be miserable; it will break her heart. Go and save both her and yourself.”
When the tempter comes armed with such weapons as these, and finds us in the mood in which Clide was as he drove home through the noisy streets into the quiet suburb, the issue of the struggle, if struggle there be, is hardly doubtful. There was a struggle in this case. You could see it in the feverish movements of the tempted man; he could not sit still, but kept shifting his limbs as we are apt to do when there is no other escape from the steady contemplation of our thoughts. One moment he leaned back with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and stared out of the window; the next he started forward and bent down on his knees, as if examining closely something at his feet. He took off his hat, smoothed it with his coat-sleeve, pushed back his hair, and put his hat on again. This physical agitation seemed to bring him no relief. He drew out his pocket-book and read over attentively the memoranda of the day before—appointments at the club, with his tailor, books that he had dotted down for reading; but while he perused these commonplace items the voice of the tempter kept on whispering, louder and louder, sweeter and sweeter. The dusty cab was the temple of a vision. Franceline stood before him, with her arms outstretched; she drew nearer, she called him by his name; he felt her breath upon his cheek, the soft touch of her hand in his. Could sin come to him in such guise as this? His features for a moment were convulsed, swayed by the terrible conflict. Gradually the combat ceased, and an expression, not of calm, but of rigid determination, settled on them; the dark brows drew together, making that black line across the forehead which gave to Clide’s face its peculiar, strong individuality. He had not accepted the tempter’s arguments, but he had accepted the issue they pointed at, twisting reasons to his own purpose, and adopting the sophistry of passion: “I will go and accost her. Ten to one—what do I say? a hundred to one, she is not my wife. The absence of the silver tooth ought to have convinced me of that long ago. It ought to have settled the non-identity from the first; for Percival says he never heard of such a thing. As to its killing her, supposing she be my wife, it’s all nonsense; the fellow is in Percival’s pay, and that’s why he has fought out so against my seeing her. I’ll defy him once for all, and make an end of it one way or another.”
Clide did not, or would not, see the palpable paradox that there was in this train of reasoning; but deafen himself as he might by sophistry and inclination, he could not drown the voice of conscience, that clamored so as to make itself heard above every other.
“Has the admiral been here?” was his first question as he sprang out of the cab and rushed up-stairs.
“Yes, sir; him and Mr. Simpson.”
“Ah! Simpson. Are they long gone?”
“Not above a good quarter of an hour. They’re not gone very far; they’re over yonder,” said Stanton, with a knowing jerk of his head in the direction of the asylum.
Clide started.
“What do you mean? What are they gone to do there?”
“They’re just gone to have it out with the doctor, sir. Mr. Simpson says it’s all gammon about your not being let see her. He’s gone over to insist on seeing her himself—him and the admiral; and if the doctor refuses to let them up, Mr. Simpson’ll set the law on him.”
“Good God! they will kill her. They have done it already perhaps! I am too late to stop them!” said Clide, white to the lips, and taking a stride towards the door. The room reeled round him. Was he going to be an accomplice in the murder of his wife? He would at that moment have renounced Franceline for ever to prevent the act that a few minutes ago he was bent on committing.
Stanton was frightened.
“Stay you here, Master Clide,” he said, taking him by both arms and forcing him into a chair. “Don’t you take on like that. I’ll run across and stop ‘em. There an’t no ‘arm done; the doctor’s never in the ‘ouse at this hour, and they never ‘ud let them hup without him. You stay quiet while I run after them. I’ll be back in no time.”
Clide made no resistance; he let himself drop into the chair in a kind of stupor. The sudden reaction, coming close upon the fierce mental conflict he had gone through, acted like a blow on a drunken man; it stunned and felled him.
“Go, then, and be quick, for God’s sake!” he muttered.
* * * * *
Ten minutes went by, and then fifteen, and Clide began to wonder what was keeping Stanton.
He could bear the suspense no longer, but took up his hat and went to see what caused the delay.
Stanton, meantime, had not been amusing himself. In answer to his inquiries the porter informed him that the two gentlemen he was looking for had called at the house and asked to see the doctor, and, on hearing that he was out and not expected home for half an hour, had declined to come in, but were walking about the place waiting for him. Stanton hesitated a moment whether he should run home at once with this reassuring news to his master, or fetch the admiral and Mr. Simpson, and bring them back with him; he decided for the latter and set off to look for them. The grounds were spacious and thickly planted enough to admit of two persons easily getting out of sight for a few minutes; but when Stanton had looked all round, walking hastily from avenue to alley, and could see no trace of the two gentlemen, he began to think they must have changed their minds and gone away. He went on, however, a good way behind the house until he came on a low brick wall that he fancied must mark the limits of the premises. He was about to turn back when he heard a loud, shrill scream proceeding from the other side of the wall. He ran along by it till he saw a door that was ajar, and then, without pausing to consider where he was going or what he was doing, rushed in and ran on in the direction of the scream. Presently he heard voices raised in angry strife. A few more steps brought him in presence of Admiral de Winton, Mr. Simpson, and a third gentleman. They were disputing violently. The admiral was supporting a woman who had apparently fainted; the stranger was expostulating and trying to take her from him; Mr. Simpson was standing between them, speaking in loud and authoritative tones:
“Very well, very good; we shall see if it is as you say. But we must see for ourselves; we must find out if there was nothing in her crying out ‘Clide! Clide!’ the moment she saw this gentleman and heard his voice. Stand back! Don’t lay a finger on him or on her! I do know what I am doing—I know better than you do. Stand off, I tell you!”
The stranger was, however, determined to make a fight for it, and was answering in a bullying, insolent manner when Stanton came up.
“I know that voice! Where have I heard it?” was the valet’s first thought as the loud, harsh tones fell on his ear.
There was a garden seat close at hand. The admiral was carrying the fainting woman towards it. Stanton ran forward to help.
“Go to the house and call for proper assistance,” said Mr. Simpson shortly to the stranger. “You know where to find it, I suppose; you know the house.”
“I know I sha’n’t move from this while my child is at the mercy of two escaped lunatics! That’s what I know,” retorted the other savagely.
The words were not out of his mouth when Stanton was at his throat, collaring him with both hands.
“You scoundrel! I’ve caught you at last,” he said. “You villain of villains! I’ll do for you! He’s the fellow that called himself Prendergast, and that’s master Clide’s wife!”
All this took much less time to enact than to relate. The scream which had brought Stanton to the spot had been heard by an attendant; there was always one on the watch in the neighborhood of the patients’ garden, and she came hurrying up in an instant.
“Who are you all, and what are you doing here?” she cried, casting an alarmed look at the three men and at the lifeless figure stretched on the wooden seat.
“A couple of escaped lunatics!” shouted Mr. Percival, struggling furiously. Stanton was holding him by the collar, while Mr. Simpson pinioned him from behind, the admiral standing meantime, bent in eager scrutiny, over the strange figure, decked out in faded flowers and ribbons, that lay insensible before him.
“Come here!” he said, beckoning to the attendant; “come and attend to this poor creature, and leave those gentlemen to settle their business alone.”
The woman evidently felt that this was what it most concerned her to do; she allowed the admiral to lift the patient in his arms, while she guided him into the house. They had just entered by a back door when Clide de Winton walked by in search of Stanton. The porter had directed him to “somewhere about the grounds,” and, after looking in vain up and down the avenues, he was going to give it up in despair when he saw the door in the garden wall, now wide open, and heard a voice which he recognized as Stanton’s, “Come on! You may as well give in and come quietly; bad language and kicks will only make it worse for you, you rascal!”
Clide was quickly on the spot, and beheld Stanton and Mr. Simpson wrestling desperately with a man whose fury seemed a match for their united strength.
“I’ve caught him, Master Clide! We have him tight—that rascal Prendergast! You an’t he? You be choked for a —— liar!”
Clide stood for a moment confounded. There was not a trait of resemblance, as far as he could see, between the stout, full-bodied man with jet black hair, and the gray-haired, thin, miserable-looking mortal whom he remembered as Mr. Prendergast. His first idea was that Stanton had made another outrageous mistake, as in the case of Miss Eliza Jane Honey.
“Who are you? You are not the Mr. Prendergast I knew, are you?” he said, addressing the stranger.
“Of course I am not! I never saw you or this madman in my life! My name is Mathew Percival; my daughter is unfortunately a patient in this asylum, and this fellow will have it that she is his wife!”
“My master’s wife, you scoundrel! Don’t think to come over us with making believe not to understand! She’s Mr. Clide de Winton’s wife!” said Stanton, taking a tighter grip, as if he feared the prize might make a sudden dart and escape from him.
“You are the man who called himself Prendergast, and whose niece, as you then called her, I married!” said Clide. The voice and the broad Scotch accent were unmistakable, though the speaker had made an effort to disguise them. “You say she is your daughter now. Speak the truth at once. The patient in yonder house is the Isabel Cameron whom I married. Let him go, Simpson! Stanton, let go your hold on him! Speak out now.”
Mr. Prendergast, or Percival, looked down sullenly for a moment, as if making up his mind how to meet this challenge; then he looked up with the dogged, defiant air of a man at bay who is resolved to die game. He was going to speak, when a woman, the same attendant who had just left them, came running up in breathless haste.
“Stanton! Which of you is Stanton?” she cried.
“It’s me!”
“Then go as fast as you can and fetch your master! His wife is calling for him; run quickly, or it will be too late. She is dying!”
“I am his master! I am her husband! Take me with you!” said Clide, turning so white that Stanton thought he was going to faint and made a movement to give him his arm; but Clide waved him away and walked on with a steady step.
Something between a cry and an oath escaped from Percival; he made no attempt to follow them, but muttered more to himself than to his companions:
“The murder is out! There is nothing more to tell. She is his wife, and I am the Prendergast he knew.”
Stanton’s fury had subsided in an instant, quenched by the chill which those words of the attendant had thrown upon the group: “She is dying!” What had human passion or earthly vengeance to do now with Isabel or Mr. Prendergast? In the presence of the Great Avenger all other vengeance was silenced. The three men walked on toward the house without exchanging a word. The porter let them in. The doctor, he said, had not yet returned. It did not matter; they would wait, not for him now, but for Death.
When Clide entered the room, he beheld Admiral de Winton seated beside the dying woman’s bed; her face was lifted toward his with a mute expression, half of yearning, half of fear, while she listened to the soothing words he tried to speak to her. The moment Clide appeared her eyes turned toward him. There was no mistaking the identity now; those eyes, so faded and dim, were the same that had first fired his foolish heart with their dark young radiance. The cheeks, once round, were wan and hollow, the glossy, ebon hair was specked with gray, but the face was that of his long-lost wife, the Isabel of his boyish love.
“You have come!… You have come to say that you forgive me!” she said in faint, low tones, fastening a wistful, trembling glance on him; for Clide did not advance at once, but stood on the threshold, arrested by the mournful spectacle.
“Isabel!” he exclaimed, approaching softly, and he knelt down and leaned over her.
She looked at him so long without speaking that he began to fear she did not know him after all. He raised the little hand to his lips, and then stroked it caressingly; the action, the touch, seemed to strike some chord long sleeping.
“Clide, Clide!” she murmured, and the tears rose and rolled in large drops down her cheeks. His heart was wrung with pity; there was no room for any other feeling. If she had wronged him as deeply as he had ever feared, he forgave it all. He remembered nothing but that they had once loved each other, that she had suffered cruelly, and that she was dying.
“My poor Isabel! I forgive you with all my heart, as I hope to be forgiven; so help me God!”
He let his head fall on the pillow beside her and wept silently.
Admiral de Winton made a sign to the attendant that they had better withdraw and leave them alone; she hesitated a moment, and then followed him and closed the door softly behind her. And so they were once more together—those two who had been joined and parted, and reunited now for a moment only before the final parting. No one disturbed them, no eye looked behind the curtain while that last sacred interview lasted. For three hours Clide knelt by the side of his dying wife, her hand in his, her head resting on his breast. He whispered words of tenderness and mercy to the wearied spirit; he told her of a Love greater than his, and of a pardon mightier and more availing, of which his was but the pledge and the forerunner.
At sunset she died.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.