"Yvette," I said, "you know as well as I do that you have committed a serious crime. Tell me all about Deschamps' jealousy of your mistress; make a full confession, and I will see what can be done for you."
She put her thin lips together.
"No," she replied in a sharp staccato. "I have done what I have done, and I will answer only the juge d'instruction."
"Better think twice."
"Never. It is a trick you wish to play on me."
"Very well." I went to the door, and opened it wide. "You are free to go."
"To go?"
"It is your mistress's wish."
"She will not send me to prison?"
"She scorns to do anything whatever."
For a moment the girl looked puzzled, and then:
"Ah! it is a bad pleasantry; the gendarmes are on the stairs."
I shrugged my shoulders, and at length she tripped quietly out of the room. I heard her run down-stairs. Then, to my astonishment, the footfalls approached again, and Yvette re-entered the room and closed the door.
"I see it is not a bad pleasantry," she began, with her back to the door. "Mademoiselle is a great lady, and I have always known that; she is an artist; she has soul—so have I. What you could not force from me, neither you nor any man, I will tell you of my own free will. You want to hear of Deschamps?"
I nodded, half-admiring her—perhaps more than half.
"She is a woman to fear. I have told you I used to be her maid before I came to mademoiselle, and even I was always afraid of her. But I liked her. We understood each other, Deschamps and I. Mademoiselle imagines that Deschamps became jealous of her because of a certain affair that happened at the Opéra Comique several years ago—a mere quarrel of artists, of which I have seen many. That was partly the cause, but there was something else. Deschamps used to think that Lord Clarenceux was in love with her—with her! As a fact, he was not; but she used to think so, and when Lord Clarenceux first began to pay attention to mademoiselle, then it was that the jealousy of Deschamps really sprang up. Ah! I have heard Deschamps swear to—But that is nothing. She never forgave mademoiselle for being betrothed to Lord Clarenceux. When he died, she laughed; but her hatred of mademoiselle was unchanged. It smouldered, only it was very hot underneath. And I can understand—Lord Clarenceux was so handsome and so rich, the most fine stern man I ever saw. He used to give me hundred-franc notes."
"Never mind the notes. Why has Deschamps' jealousy revived so suddenly just recently?"
"Why? Because mademoiselle would come back to the Opéra Comique. Deschamps could not suffer that. And when she heard it was to be so, she wrote to me—to me!—and asked if it was true that mademoiselle was to appear as Carmen. Then she came to see me—me—and I was obliged to tell her it was true, and she was frightfully angry, and then she began to cry—oh, her despair! She said she knew a way to stop mademoiselle from singing, and she begged me to help her, and I said I would."
"You were willing to betray your mistress?"
"Deschamps swore it would do no real harm. Do I not tell you that Deschamps and I always liked each other? We were old friends. I sympathized with her; she is growing old."
"How much did she promise to pay you?"
"Not a sou—not a centime. I swear it." The girl stamped her foot and threw up her head, reddening with the earnestness of her disclaimer. "What I did, I did from love; and I thought it would not harm mademoiselle, really."
"Nevertheless you might have killed your mistress."
"Alas!"
"Answer me this: Now that your attempt has failed, what will Deschamps do? Will she stop, or will she try something else?"
Yvette shook her head slowly.
"I do not know. She is dangerous. Sometimes she is like a mad woman. You must take care. For myself, I will never see her again."
"You give your word on that?"
"I have said it. There is nothing more to tell you. So, adieu. Say to mademoiselle that I have repented."
She opened the door, and as she did so her eye seemed by chance to catch a small picture which hung by the side of the hearth. My back was to the fireplace, and I did not trouble to follow her glance.
"Ah," she murmured reflectively, "he was the most fine stern man ... and he gave me hundred-franc notes."
Then she was gone. We never saw nor heard of Yvette again.
Out of curiosity, I turned to look at the picture which must have caught her eye. It was a little photograph, framed in black, and hung by itself on the wall; in the ordinary way one would scarcely have noticed it. I went close up to it. My heart gave a jump, and I seemed to perspire. The photograph was a portrait of the man who, since my acquaintance with Rosa, had haunted my footsteps—the mysterious and implacable person whom I had seen first opposite the Devonshire Mansion, then in the cathedral at Bruges during my vigil by the corpse of Alresca, then in the train which was wrecked, and finally in the Channel steamer which came near to sinking. Across the lower part of it ran the signature, in large, stiff characters, "Clarenceux."
So Lord Clarenceux was not dead, though everyone thought him so. Here was a mystery more disturbing than anything which had gone before.
It seemed to be my duty to tell Rosa, of course with all possible circumspection, that, despite a general impression to the contrary, Lord Clarenceux was still alive. His lordship's reasons for effacing himself, and so completely deceiving his friends and the world, I naturally could not divine; but I knew that such things had happened before, and also I gathered that he was a man who would hesitate at no caprice, however extravagant, once it had suggested itself to him as expedient for the satisfaction of his singular nature.
A light broke in upon me: Alresca must have been aware that Lord Clarenceux was alive. That must have been part of Alresca's secret, but only part. I felt somehow that I was on the verge of some tragical discovery which might vitally affect not only my own existence, but that of others.
I saw Rosa on the morning after my interview with Yvette. She was in perfect health and moderately good spirits, and she invited me to dine with her that evening. "I will tell her after dinner," I said to myself. The project of telling her seemed more difficult as it approached. She said that she had arranged by telephone for another rehearsal at the Opéra Comique at three o'clock, but she did not invite me to accompany her. I spent the afternoon at the Sorbonne, where I had some acquaintances, and after calling at my hotel, the little Hôtel de Portugal in the Rue Croix des Petits Champs, to dress, I drove in a fiacre to the Rue de Rivoli. I had carefully considered how best in conversation I might lead Rosa to the subject of Lord Clarenceux, and had arranged a little plan. Decidedly I did not anticipate the interview with unmixed pleasure; but, as I have said, I felt bound to inform her that her former lover's death was a fiction. My suit might be doomed thereby to failure,—I had no right to expect otherwise,—but if it should succeed and I had kept silence on this point, I should have played the part of a—well, of a man "of three letters."
"Mademoiselle is not at home," said the servant.
"Not at home! But I am dining with her, my friend."
"Mademoiselle has been called away suddenly, and she has left a note for monsieur. Will monsieur give himself the trouble to come into the salon?"
The note ran thus:
"Dear Friend:—A thousand excuses! But the enclosed will explain. I felt that I must go—and go instantly. She might die before I arrived. Will you call early to-morrow?
"Your grateful
"Rosa"
And this was the enclosure, written in French:
"Villa des Hortensias,
"Rue Thiers, Pantin, Paris.
"Mademoiselle:—I am dying. I have wronged you deeply, and I dare not die without your forgiveness. Prove to me that you have a great heart by coming to my bedside and telling me that you accept my repentance. The bearer will conduct you.
"Carlotta Deschamps."
"What time did mademoiselle leave?" I inquired.
"Less than a quarter of an hour ago," was the reply.
"Who brought the note to her?"
"A man, monsieur. Mademoiselle accompanied him in a cab."
With a velocity which must have startled the grave and leisurely servant, I precipitated myself out of the house and back into the fiacre, which happily had not gone away. I told the cabman to drive to my hotel at his best speed.
To me Deschamps' letter was in the highest degree suspicious. Rosa, of course, with the simplicity of a heart incapable of any baseness, had accepted it in perfect faith. But I remembered the words of Yvette, uttered in all solemnity: "She is dangerous; you must take care." Further, I observed that the handwriting of this strange and dramatic missive was remarkably firm and regular for a dying woman, and that the composition showed a certain calculated effectiveness. I feared a lure. Instinctively I knew Deschamps to be one of those women who, driven by the goad of passionate feeling, will proceed to any length, content to postpone reflection till afterwards—when the irremediable has happened.
By chance I was slightly acquainted with the remote and sinister suburb where lay the Villa des Hortensias. I knew that at night it possessed a peculiar reputation, and my surmise was that Rosa had been decoyed thither with some evil intent.
Arrived at my hotel, I unearthed my revolver and put it in my pocket. Nothing might occur; on the other hand, everything might occur, and it was only prudent to be prepared. Dwelling on this thought, I also took the little jewelled dagger which Rosa had given to Sir Cyril Smart at the historic reception of my Cousin Sullivan's.
In the hall of the hotel I looked at the plan of Paris. Certainly Pantin seemed to be a very long way off. The route to it from the centre of the city—that is to say, the Place de l'Opéra—followed the Rue Lafayette, which is the longest straight thoroughfare in Paris, and then the Rue d'Allemagne, which is a continuation, in the same direct line, of the Rue Lafayette. The suburb lay without the fortifications. The Rue Thiers—every Parisian suburb has its Rue Thiers—was about half a mile past the barrier, on the right.
I asked the aged woman who fulfils the functions of hall-porter at the Hôtel de Portugal whether a cab would take me to Pantin.
"Pantin," she repeated, as she might have said "Timbuctoo." And she called the proprietor. The proprietor also said "Pantin" as he might have said "Timbuctoo," and advised me to take the steam-tram which starts from behind the Opéra, to let that carry me as far as it would, and then, arrived in those distant regions, either to find a cab or to walk the remainder of the distance.
So, armed, I issued forth, and drove to the tram, and placed myself on the top of the tram. And the tram, after much tooting of horns, set out.
Through kilometre after kilometre of gaslit clattering monotony that immense and deafening conveyance took me. There were cafés everywhere, thickly strewn on both sides of the way—at first large and lofty and richly decorated, with vast glazed façades, and manned by waiters in black and white, then gradually growing smaller and less busy. The black and white waiters gave place to men in blouses, and men in blouses gave place to women and girls—short, fat women and girls who gossiped among themselves and to customers. Once we passed a café quite deserted save for the waiter and the waitress, who sat, head on arms, side by side, over a table asleep.
Then the tram stopped finally, having covered about three miles. There was no sign of a cab. I proceeded on foot. The shops got smaller and dingier; they were filled, apparently, by the families of the proprietors. At length I crossed over a canal—the dreadful quarter of La Villette—and here the street widened out to an immense width, and it was silent and forlorn under the gas-lamps. I hurried under railway bridges, and I saw in the distance great shunting-yards looking grim in their blue hazes of electric light. Then came the city barrier and the octroi, and still the street stretched in front of me, darker now, more mischievous, more obscure. I was in Pantin.
At last I descried the white and blue sign of the Rue Thiers. I stood alone in the shadow of high, forbidding houses. All seemed strange and fearsome. Certainly this might still be called Paris, but it was not the Paris known to Englishmen; it was the Paris of Zola, and Zola in a Balzacian mood.
I turned into the Rue Thiers, and at once the high, forbidding houses ceased, and small detached villas—such as are to be found in thousands round the shabby skirts of Paris—took their place. The Villa des Hortensias, clearly labelled, was nearly at the far end of the funereal street. It was rather larger than its fellows, and comprised three stories, with a small garden in front and a vast grille with a big bell, such as Parisians love when they have passed the confines of the city, and have dispensed with the security of a concierge. The grille was ajar. I entered the garden, having made sure that the bell would not sound. The façade of the house showed no light whatever. A double stone stairway of four steps led to the front door. I went up the steps, and was about to knock, when the idea flashed across my mind: "Suppose that Deschamps is really dying, how am I to explain my presence here? I am not the guardian of Rosa, and she may resent being tracked across Paris by a young man with no claim to watch her actions."
Nevertheless, in an expedition of this nature one must accept risks, and therefore I knocked gently. There was no reply to the summons, and I was cogitating upon my next move when, happening to press against the door with my hand, I discovered that it was not latched. Without weighing consequences, I quietly opened it, and with infinite caution stepped into the hall, and pushed the door to. I did not latch it, lest I might need to make a sudden exit—unfamiliar knobs and springs are apt to be troublesome when one is in a hurry.
I was now fairly in the house, but the darkness was blacker than the pit, and I did not care to strike a match. I felt my way along by the wall till I came to a door on the left; it was locked. A little further was another door, also locked. I listened intently, for I fancied I could hear a faint murmur of voices, but I was not sure. Then I startled myself by stepping on nothing—I was at the head of a flight of stone steps; down below I could distinguish an almost imperceptible glimmer of light.
"I'm in for it. Here goes!" I reflected, and I crept down the steps one by one, and in due course reached the bottom. To the left was a doorway, through which came the glimmer of light. Passing through the doorway, I came into a room with a stone floor. The light, which was no stronger than the very earliest intimation of a winter's dawn, seemed to issue in a most unusual way from the far corner of this apartment near the ceiling. I directed my course towards it, and in the transit made violent contact with some metallic object, which proved to be an upright iron shaft, perhaps three inches in diameter, running from floor to ceiling.
"Surely," I thought, "this is the queerest room I was ever in."
Circumnavigating the pillar, I reached the desired corner, and stood under the feeble source of light. I could see now that in this corner the ceiling was higher than elsewhere, and that the light shone dimly from a perpendicular pane of glass which joined the two levels of the ceiling. I also saw that there was a ledge about two feet from the floor, upon which a man would stand in order to look through the pane.
I climbed on to the ledge, and I looked. To my astonishment, I had a full view of a large apartment, my head being even with the floor of that apartment. Lying on a couch was a woman—the woman who had accosted me on Dover Pier—Carlotta Deschamps, in fact. By her side, facing her in a chair, was Rosetta Rosa. I could hear nothing, but by the movement of their lips I knew that these two were talking. Rosa's face was full of pity; as for Deschamps, her coarse features were inscrutable. She had a certain pallor, but it was impossible to judge whether she was ill or well.
I had scarcely begun to observe the two women when I caught the sound of footsteps on the stone stair. The footsteps approached; they entered the room where I was. I made no sound. Without any hesitation the footsteps arrived at my corner, and a pair of hands touched my legs. Then I knew it was time to act. Jumping down from the ledge, I clasped the intruder by the head, and we rolled over together, struggling. But he was a short man, apparently stiff in the limbs, and in ten seconds or thereabouts I had him flat on his back, and my hand at his throat.
"Don't move," I advised him.
In that faint light I could not see him, so I struck a match, and held it over the man's face. We gazed at each other, breathing heavily.
"Good God!" the man exclaimed.
It was Sir Cyril Smart.
That was one of those supremely trying moments which occur, I suppose, once or twice in the lives of most men, when events demand to be fully explained while time will on no account permit of the explanation. I felt that I must know at once the reason and purpose of Sir Cyril's presence with me in the underground chamber, and that I could do nothing further until I had such knowledge. And yet I also felt that explanations must inevitably wait until the scene enacting above us was over. I stood for a second silent, irresolute. The match went out.
"Are you here to protect her?" whispered Sir Cyril.
"Yes, if she is in danger. I will tell you afterwards about things. And you?"
"I was passing through Paris, and I heard that Deschamps was threatening Rosa. Everyone is talking of it, and I heard of the scene at the rehearsal, and I began to guess.... I know Deschamps well. I was afraid for Rosa. Then this morning I met Yvette, Rosa's maid—she's an old acquaintance of mine—and she told me everything. I have many friends in Paris, and I learnt to-night that Deschamps had sent for Rosa. So I have come up to interfere. They are up-stairs, are they not? Let us watch."
"You know the house, then?"
"I have been here before, to one of Deschamps' celebrated suppers. She showed me all over it then. It is one of the strangest houses round about Paris—and that's saying something. The inside was rebuilt by a Russian count who wanted to do the Louis Quinze revelry business over again. He died, and Deschamps bought the place. She often stays here quite alone."
I was putting all the questions. Sir Cyril seemed not to be very curious concerning the origin of my presence.
"What is Rosa to you?" I queried with emphasis.
"What is she to you?" he returned quickly.
"To me she is everything," I said.
"And to me, my young friend!"
I could not, of course, see Sir Cyril's face, but the tone of his reply impressed and silenced me. I was mystified—and yet I felt glad that he was there. Both of us forgot to be surprised at the peculiarity of the scene. It appeared quite natural that he should have supervened so dramatically at precisely the correct moment, and I asked him for no more information. He evidently did know the place, for he crept immediately to the ledge, and looked into the room above. I followed, and stood by his side. The two women were still talking.
"Can't we get into the room, or do something?" I murmured.
"Not yet. How do we know that Deschamps means harm? Let us wait. Have you a weapon?"
Sir Cyril spoke as one in command, and I accepted the assumption of authority.
"Yes," I said; "I've got a revolver, and a little dagger."
"Who knows what may happen? Give me one of them—give me the dagger, if you like."
I passed it to him in the darkness. Astounding as it may seem, I am prepared solemnly to assert that at that moment I had forgotten the history of the dagger, and Sir Cyril's connection with it.
I was just going to ask of what use weapons could be, situated as we were, when I saw Deschamps with a sudden movement jump up from her bed, her eyes blazing. With an involuntary cry in my throat I hammered the glass in front of us with the butt of my revolver, but it was at least an inch thick, and did not even splinter. Sir Cyril sprang from the ledge instantly. Meanwhile Rosa, the change of whose features showed that she divined the shameful trick played upon her, stood up, half-indignant, half-terrified. Deschamps was no more dying than I was; her eyes burned with the lust of homicide, and with uplifted twitching hands she advanced like a tiger, and Rosa retreated before her to the middle of the room.
Then there was the click of a spring, and a square of the centre of the floor, with Rosa standing upon it, swiftly descended into the room where we were. The thing was as startling as a stage illusion; yes, a thousand-fold more startling than any trick I ever saw. I may state here, what I learnt afterwards, that the room above was originally a dining-room, and the arrangement of the trap had been designed to cause a table to disappear and reappear as tables were wont to do at the notorious banquets of King Louis in the Petit Trianon. The glass observatory enabled the kitchen attendants to watch the progress of the meals. Sir Cyril knew of the contrivance, and, rushing to the upright pillar, had worked it most opportunely.
The kitchen, as I may now call it, was illuminated with light from the room above. I hastened to Rosa, who on seeing Sir Cyril and myself gave a little cry, and fell forward fainting. She was a brave girl, but one may have too many astonishments. I caught her, and laid her gently on the floor. Meanwhile Deschamps (the dying Deschamps!) stood on the edge of the upper floor, stamping and shouting in a high fever of foiled revenge. She was mad. When I say that she was mad, I mean that she was merely and simply insane. I could perceive it instantly, and I foresaw that we should have trouble with her.
Without the slightest warning, she jumped down into the midst of us. The distance was a good ten feet, but with a lunatic's luck she did not hurt herself. She faced Sir Cyril, shaking in every limb with passion, and he, calm, determined, unhurried, raised his dagger to defend himself against this terrible lioness should the need arise.
But as he lifted the weapon his eye fell on it; he saw what it was; he had not observed it before, since we had been in darkness. And as he looked his composure seemed to desert him. He paled, and his hand trembled and hung loosely. The mad woman, seizing her chance, snatched the dagger from him, and like a flash of lightning drove it into his left breast. Sir Cyril sank down, the dagger sticking out from his light overcoat.
The deed was over before I could move. I sprang forward. Deschamps laughed, and turned to me. I closed with her. She scratched and bit, and she was by no means a weak woman. At first I feared that in her fury she would overpower me. At length, however, I managed to master her; but her strength was far from exhausted, and she would not yield. She was mad; time was passing. I could not afford to be nice in my methods, so I contrived to stun her, and proceeded to tie her hands with my handkerchief. Then, panting, I stood up to survey the floor.
I may be forgiven, perhaps, if at that frightful crisis I was not perfectly cool, and could not decide on the instant upon the wisest course of action to pursue. Sir Cyril was insensible, and a little circle of blood was forming round the dagger; Deschamps was insensible, with a dark bruise on her forehead, inflicted during our struggle; Rosa was insensible—I presumed from excess of emotion at the sudden fright.
I gazed at the three prone forms, pondering over my handiwork and that of Chance. What should be the next step? Save for my own breathing, there was a deathlike silence. The light from the empty room above rained down upon us through the trap, illuminating the still faces with its yellow glare. Was any other person in the house? From what Sir Cyril had said, and from my own surmises, I thought not. Whatever people Deschamps might have employed to carry messages, she had doubtless dismissed them. She and Rosa had been alone in the building. I can understand now that there was something peculiarly attractive to the diseased imagination of Deschamps in the prospect of inviting her victim to the snare, and working vengeance upon a rival unaided, unseen, solitary in that echoing and deserted mansion. I was horribly perplexed. It struck me that I ought to be gloomily sorrowful, but I was not. At the bottom of my soul I felt happy, for Rosa was saved.
It was Rosa who first recovered consciousness, and her movement in sitting up recalled me to my duty. I ran to Sir Cyril, and, kneeling down so as to screen his body from her sight, I drew the dagger from its sheath, and began hastily, with such implements as I could contrive on the spur of the moment, to attend to his wound.
"What has happened?" Rosa inquired feebly.
I considered my reply, and then, without turning towards her, I spoke in a slow, matter-of-fact voice.
"Listen carefully to what I say. There has been a plot to—to do you injury. But you are not hurt. You are, in fact, quite well—don't imagine anything else. Sir Cyril Smart is here; he's hurt; Deschamps has wounded him. Deschamps is harmless for the moment, but she may recover and break out again. So I can't leave to get help. You must go. You have fainted, but I am sure you can walk quite well. Go up the stairs here, and walk along the hall till you come to the front door; it is not fastened. Go out into the street, and bring back two gendarmes—two, mind—and a cab, if you can. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but how—"
"Now, please go at once!" I insisted grimly and coldly. "We can talk afterwards. Just do as you're told."
Cowed by the roughness of my tone, she rose and went. I heard her light, hesitating step pass through the hall, and so out of the house.
In a few minutes I had done all that could be done for Sir Cyril, as he lay there. The wound was deep, having regard to the small size of the dagger, and I could only partially stop the extravasation of blood, which was profuse. I doubted if he would recover. It was not long, however, before he regained his senses. He spoke, and I remember vividly now how pathetic to me was the wagging of his short gray beard as his jaw moved.
"Foster," he said—"your name is Foster, isn't it? Where did you find that dagger?"
"You must keep quiet," I said. "I have sent for assistance."
"Don't be a fool, man. You know I'm done for. Tell me how you got the dagger."
So I told him.
"Ah!" he murmured. "It's my luck!" he sighed. Then in little detached sentences, with many pauses, he began to relate a history of what happened after Rosa and I had left him on the night of Sullivan's reception. Much of it was incomprehensible to me; sometimes I could not make out the words. But it seemed that he had followed us in his carriage, had somehow met Rosa again, and then, in a sudden frenzy of remorse, had attempted to kill himself with the dagger in the street. His reason for this I did not gather. His coachman and footman had taken him home, and the affair had been kept quiet.
Remorse for what? I burned to ask a hundred questions, but, fearing to excite him, I shut my lips.
"You are in love with her?" he asked.
I nodded. It was a reply as abrupt as his demand. At that moment Deschamps laughed quietly behind me. I turned round quickly, but she lay still; though she had come to, the fire in her eyes was quenched, and I anticipated no immediate difficulty with her.
"I knew that night that you were in love with her," Sir Cyril continued. "Has she told you about—about me?"
"No," I said.
"I have done her a wrong, Foster—her and another. But she will tell you. I can't talk now. I'm going—going. Tell her that I died in trying to protect her; say that—Foster—say—" He relapsed into unconsciousness.
I heard firm, rapid steps in the hall, and in another instant the representatives of French law had taken charge of the house. Rosa followed them in. She looked wistfully at Sir Cyril, and then, flinging herself down by his side, burst into wild tears.
On the following night I sat once more in the salon of Rosa's flat. She had had Sir Cyril removed thither. He was dying; I had done my best, but his case was quite hopeless, and at Rosa's urgent entreaty I had at last left her alone by his bedside.
I need not recount all the rush of incidents that had happened since the tragedy at the Villa des Hortensias on the previous evening. Most people will remember the tremendous sensation caused by the judicial inquiry—an inquiry which ended in the tragical Deschamps being incarcerated in the Charenton Asylum. For aught I know, the poor woman, once one of the foremost figures in the gaudy world of theatrical Paris, is still there consuming her heart with a futile hate.
Rosa would never refer in any way to the interview between Deschamps and herself; it was as if she had hidden the memory of it in some secret chamber of her soul, which nothing could induce her to open again. But there can be no doubt that Deschamps had intended to murder her, and, indeed, would have murdered her had it not been for the marvellously opportune arrival of Sir Cyril. With the door of the room locked as it was, I should assuredly have been condemned, lacking Sir Cyril's special knowledge of the house, to the anguish of witnessing a frightful crime without being able to succor the victim. To this day I can scarcely think of that possibility and remain calm.
As for Sir Cyril's dramatic appearance in the villa, when I had learnt all the facts, that was perhaps less extraordinary than it had seemed to me from our hasty dialogue in the underground kitchen of Deschamps' house. Although neither Rosa nor I was aware of it, operatic circles had been full of gossip concerning Deschamps' anger and jealousy, of which she made no secret. One or two artists of the Opéra Comique had decided to interfere, or at any rate seriously to warn Rosa, when Sir Cyril arrived, on his way to London from the German watering-place where he had been staying. All Paris knew Sir Cyril, and Sir Cyril knew all Paris; he was made acquainted with the facts directly, and the matter was left to him. A man of singular resolution, originality, and courage, he had gone straight to the Rue Thiers, having caught a rumor, doubtless started by the indiscreet Deschamps herself, that Rosa would be decoyed there. The rest was mere good fortune.
In regard to the mysterious connection between Sir Cyril and Rosa, I had at present no clue to it; nor had there been much opportunity for conversation between Rosa and myself. We had not even spoken to each other alone, and, moreover, I was uncertain whether she would care to enlighten me on that particular matter; assuredly I had no right to ask her to do so. Further, I was far more interested in another, and to me vastly more important, question, the question of Lord Clarenceux and his supposed death.
I was gloomily meditating upon the tangle of events, when the door of the salon opened, and Rosa entered. She walked stiffly to a chair, and, sitting down opposite to me, looked into my face with hard, glittering eyes. For a few moments she did not speak, and I could not break the silence. Then I saw the tears slowly welling up, and I was glad for that. She was intensely moved, and less agonizing experiences than she had gone through might easily have led to brain fever in a woman of her highly emotional temperament.
"Why don't you leave me, Mr. Foster?" she cried passionately, and there were sobs in her voice. "Why don't you leave me, and never see me again?"
"Leave you?" I said softly. "Why?"
"Because I am cursed. Throughout my life I have been cursed; and the curse clings, and it falls on those who come near me."
She gave way to hysterical tears; her head bent till it was almost on her knees. I went to her, and gently raised it, and put a cushion at the back of the chair. She grew calmer.
"If you are cursed, I will be cursed," I said, gazing straight at her, and then I sat down again.
The sobbing gradually ceased. She dried her eyes.
"He is dead," she said shortly.
I made no response; I had none to make.
"You do not say anything," she murmured.
"I am sorry. Sir Cyril was the right sort."
"He was my father," she said.
"Your father!" I repeated. No revelation could have more profoundly astonished me.
"Yes," she firmly repeated.
We both paused.
"I thought you had lost both parents," I said at length, rather lamely.
"Till lately I thought so too. Listen. I will tell you the tale of all my life. Not until to-night have I been able to put it together, and fill in the blanks."
And this is what she told me:
"My father was travelling through Europe. He had money, and of course he met with adventures. One of his adventures was my mother. She lived among the vines near Avignon, in Southern France; her uncle was a small grape-grower. She belonged absolutely to the people, but she was extremely beautiful. I'm not exaggerating; she was. She was one of those women that believe everything, and my father fell in love with her. He married her properly at Avignon. They travelled together through France and Italy, and then to Belgium. Then, in something less than a year, I was born. She gave herself up to me entirely. She was not clever; she had no social talents and no ambitions. No, she certainly had not much brain; but to balance that she had a heart—so large that it completely enveloped my father and me.
"After three years he had had enough of my mother. He got restive. He was ambitious. He wanted to shine in London, where he was known, and where his family had made traditions in the theatrical world. But he felt that my mother wouldn't—wouldn't be suitable for London. Fancy the absurdity of a man trying to make a name in London when hampered by a wife who was practically of the peasant class! He simply left her. Oh, it was no common case of desertion. He used his influence over my mother to make her consent. She did consent. It broke her heart, but hers was the sort of love that suffers, so she let him go. He arranged to allow her a reasonable income.
"I can just remember a man who must have been my father. I was three years old when he left us. Till then we had lived in a large house in an old city. Can't you guess what house that was? Of course you can. Yes, it was the house at Bruges where Alresca died. We gave up that house, my mother and I, and went to live in Italy. Then my father sold the house to Alresca. I only knew that to-day. You may guess my childish recollections of Bruges aren't very distinct. It was part of the understanding that my mother should change her name, and at Pisa she was known as Madame Montigny. That was the only surname of hers that I ever knew.
"As I grew older, my mother told me fairy-tales to account for the absence of my father. She died when I was sixteen, and before she died she told me the truth. She begged me to promise to go to him, and said that I should be happy with him. But I would not promise. I was sixteen then, and very proud. What my mother had told me made me hate and despise my father. I left my dead mother's side hating him; I had a loathing for him which words couldn't express. She had omitted to tell me his real name; I never asked her, and I was glad not to know it. In speaking of him, of course she always said 'your father', 'your father', and she died before she got quite to the end of her story. I buried my mother, and then I was determined to disappear. My father might search, but he should never find me. The thought that he would search and search, and be unhappy for the rest of his life because he couldn't find me, gave me a kind of joy. So I left Pisa, and I took with me nothing but the few hundred lire which my mother had by her, and the toy dagger—my father's gift—which she had always worn in her hair.
"I knew that I had a voice. Everyone said that, and my mother had had it trained up to a certain point. I knew that I could make a reputation. I adopted the name of Rosetta Rosa, and I set to work. Others have suffered worse things than I suffered. I made my way. Sir Cyril Smart, the great English impresario, heard me at Genoa, and offered me an engagement in London. Then my fortune was made. You know that story—everyone knows it.
"Why did I not guess at once that he was my father? I cannot tell. And not having guessed it at once, why should I ever have guessed it? I cannot tell. The suspicion stole over me gradually. Let me say that I always was conscious of a peculiar feeling towards Sir Cyril Smart, partly antagonistic, yet not wholly so—a feeling I could never understand. Then suddenly I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that Sir Cyril was my father, and in the same moment he knew that I was his daughter. You were there; you saw us in the portico of the reception-rooms at that London hotel. I caught him staring at the dagger in my hair just as if he was staring at a snake—I had not worn it for some time—and the knowledge of his identity swept over me like a—like a big wave. I hated him more than ever.
"That night, it seems, he followed us in his carriage to Alresca's flat. When I came out of the flat he was waiting. He spoke. I won't tell you what he said, and I won't tell you what I said. But I was very curt and very cruel." Her voice trembled. "I got into my carriage. My God! how cruel I was! To-night he—my father—has told me that he tried to kill himself with my mother's dagger, there on the pavement. I had driven him to suicide."
She stopped. "Do you blame me?" she murmured.
"I do not blame you," I said. "But he is dead, and death ends all things."
"You are right," she said. "And he loved me at the last. I know that. And he saved my life—you and he. He has atoned—atoned for his conduct to my poor mother. He died with my kiss on his lips."
And now the tears came into my eyes.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, and the pathos of her ringing tones was intolerable to me. "You may well weep for me." Then with abrupt change she laughed. "Don't you agree that I am cursed? Am I not cursed? Say it! say it!"
"I will not say it," I answered. "Why should you be cursed? What do you mean?"
"I do not know what I mean, but I know what I feel. Look back at my life. My mother died, deserted. My father has died, killed by a mad woman. My dear friend Alresca died—who knows how? Clarenceux—he too died."
"Stay!" I almost shouted, springing up, and the suddenness of my excitement intimidated her. "How do you know that Lord Clarenceux is dead?"
I stood before her, trembling with apprehension for the effect of the disclosure I was about to make. She was puzzled and alarmed by the violent change in me, but she controlled herself.
"How do I know?" she repeated with strange mildness.
"Yes, how do you know? Did you see him die?"
I had a wild desire to glance over my shoulder at the portrait.
"No, my friend. But I saw him after he was dead. He died suddenly in Vienna. Don't let us talk about that."
"Aha!" I laughed incredulously, and then, swiftly driven forward by an overpowering impulse, I dropped on my knees and seized her hands with a convulsive grasp. "Rosa! Rosa!"—my voice nearly broke—"you must know that I love you. Say that you love me—that you would love me whether Clarenceux were dead or alive."
An infinite tenderness shone in her face. She put out her hand, and to calm me stroked my hair.
"Carl!" she whispered.
It was enough. I got up. I did not kiss her.
A servant entered, and said that some one from the theatre had called to see mademoiselle on urgent business. Excusing herself, Rosa went out. I held open the door for her, and closed it slowly with a sigh of incredible relief. Then I turned back into the room. I was content to be alone for a little while.
Great God! The chair which Rosa had but that instant left was not empty. Occupying it was a figure—the figure of the man whose portrait hung on the wall—the figure of the man who had haunted me ever since I met Rosa—the figure of Lord Clarenceux, whom Rosa had seen dead.
At last, oh, powers of hell, I knew you! The inmost mystery stood clear. In one blinding flash of comprehension I felt the fullness of my calamity. This man that I had seen was not a man, but a malign and jealous spirit—using his spectral influences to crush the mortals bold enough to love the woman whom he had loved on earth. The death of Alresca, the unaccountable appearances in the cathedral, in the train, on the steamer—everything was explained. And before that coldly sneering, triumphant face, which bore the look of life, and which I yet knew to be impalpable, I shook with the terrified ague of a culprit.
A minute or a thousand years might have passed. Then Rosa returned. In an instant the apparition had vanished. But by her pallid, drawn face and her gray lips I knew that she had seen it. Truly she was cursed, and I with her!
From the moment of my avowal to Rosa it seemed that the evil spirit of the dead Lord Clarenceux had assumed an ineffable dominion over me. I cannot properly describe it; I cannot describe it all. I may only say that I felt I had suddenly become the subject of a tyrant who would punish me if I persisted in any course of conduct to which he objected. I knew what fear was—the most terrible of all fears—the fear of that which we cannot understand. The inmost and central throne of my soul was commanded by this implacable ghost, this ghost which did not speak, but which conveyed its ideas by means of a single glance, a single sneer.
It was strange that I should be aware at once what was required of me, and the reasons for these requirements. Till that night I had never guessed the nature of the thing which for so many weeks had been warning me; I had not even guessed that I was being warned; I had taken for a man that which was not a man. Yet now, in an instant of time, all was clear down to the smallest details. From the primal hour when a liking for Rosa had arisen in my breast, the ghost of Lord Clarenceux, always hovering uneasily near to its former love, had showed itself to me.
The figure opposite the Devonshire Mansion—that was the first warning. With regard to the second appearance, in the cathedral of Bruges, I surmised that that only indirectly affected myself. Primarily it was the celebration of a fiendish triumph over one who had preceded me in daring to love Rosetta Rosa, but doubtless also it was meant in a subsidiary degree as a second warning to the youth who followed in Alresca's footsteps. Then there were the two appearances during my journey from London to Paris with Rosa's jewels—in the train and on the steamer. Matters by that time had become more serious. I was genuinely in love, and the ghost's anger was quickened. The train was wrecked and the steamer might have been sunk, and I could not help thinking that the ghost, in some ineffectual way, had been instrumental in both these disasters. The engine-driver, who said he was "dazed," and the steersman, who attributed his mistake at the wheel to the interference of some unknown outsider—were not these things an indication that my dreadful suspicion was well grounded? And if so, to what frightful malignity did they not point! Here was a spirit, which in order to appease the pangs of a supernatural jealousy, was ready to use its immaterial powers to destroy scores of people against whom it could not possibly have any grudge. The most fanatical anarchism is not worse than this.
Those attempts had failed. But now the aspect of affairs was changed. The ghost of Lord Clarenceux had more power over me now—I felt that acutely; and I explained it by the fact that I was in the near neighborhood of Rosa. It was only when she was near that the jealous hate of this spectre exercised its full efficacy.
In such wise did I reason the matter out to myself. But reasoning was quite unnecessary. I knew by a sure instinct. All the dark thoughts of the ghost had passed into my brain, and if they had been transcribed in words of fire and burnt upon my retina, I could not have been more certain of their exact import.
As I sat in my room at the hotel that night I speculated morosely upon my plight and upon the future. Had a man ever been so situated before? Well, probably so. We go about in a world where secret influences are continually at work for us or against us, and we do not suspect their existence, because we have no imagination. For it needs imagination to perceive the truth—that is why the greatest poets are always the greatest teachers.
As for you who are disposed to smile at the idea of a live man crushed (figuratively) under the heel of a ghost, I beg you to look back upon your own experience, and count up the happenings which have struck you as mysterious. You will be astonished at their number. But nothing is so mysterious that it is incapable of explanation, did we but know enough. I, by a singular mischance, was put in the way of the nameless knowledge which explains all. At any rate, I was made acquainted with some trifle of it. I had strayed on the seashore of the unknown, and picked up a pebble. I had a glimpse of that other world which permeates and exists side by side with and permeates our own.
Just now I used the phrase "under the heel of a ghost," and I used it advisedly. It indicates pretty well my mental condition. I was cowed, mastered. The ghost of Clarenceux, driven to extremities by the brief scene of tenderness which had passed in Rosa's drawing-room, had determined by his own fell method to end the relations between Rosa and myself. And his method was to assume a complete sway over me, the object of his hatred.
How did he exercise that sway? Can I answer? I cannot. How does one man influence another? Not by electric wires or chemical apparatus, but by those secret channels through which intelligence meets intelligence. All I know is that I felt his sinister authority. During life Clarenceux, according to every account, had been masterful, imperious, commanding; and he carried these attributes with him beyond the grave. His was a stronger personality than mine, and I could not hide from myself the assurance that in the struggle of will against will I should not be the conqueror.
Not that anything had occurred, even the smallest thing! Upon perceiving Rosa the apparition, as I have said, vanished. We did not say much to each other, Rosa and I; we could not—we were afraid. I went to my hotel; I sat in my room alone; I saw no ghost. But I was aware, I was aware of the doom which impended over me. And already, indeed, I experienced the curious sensation of the ebbing of volitional power; I thought even that I was losing my interest in life. My sensations were dulled. It began to appear to me unimportant whether I lived or died. Only I knew that in either case I should love Rosa. My love was independent of my will, and therefore the ghost of Clarenceux, do what it might, could not tear it from me. I might die, I might suffer mental tortures inconceivable, but I should continue to love. In this idea lay my only consolation.
I remained motionless in my chair for hours, and then—it was soon after the clocks struck four—I sprang up, and searched among my papers for Alresca's letter, the seal of which, according to his desire, was still intact. The letter had been in my mind for a long time. I knew well that the moment for opening it had come, that the circumstances to which Alresca had referred in his covering letter had veritably happened. But somehow, till that instant, I had not been able to find courage to read the communication. As I opened it I glanced out of the window. The first sign of dawn was in the sky. I felt a little easier.
Here is what I read:
"My dear Carl Foster:—When you read this the words I am about to write will have acquired the sanction which belongs to the utterances of those who have passed away. Give them, therefore, the most serious consideration.
"If you are not already in love with Rosetta Rosa you soon will be. I, too, as you know, have loved her. Let me tell you some of the things which happened to me.
"From the moment when that love first sprang up in my heart I began to be haunted by—I will not say what; you know without being told, for whoever loves Rosa will be haunted as I was, as I am. Rosa has been loved once for all, and with a passion so intense that it has survived the grave. For months I disregarded the visitations, relying on the strength of my own soul. I misjudged myself, or, rather, I underestimated my adversary—the great man who in life had loved Rosa. I proposed to Rosa, and she refused me. But that did not quench my love. My love grew; I encouraged it; and it was against the mere fact of my love that the warnings were directed.
"You remember the accident on the stage which led to our meeting. That accident was caused by sheer terror—the terror of an apparition more awful than any that had gone before.
"Still I persisted—I persisted in my hopeless love. Then followed that unnamed malady which in vain you are seeking to cure, a malady which was accompanied by innumerable and terrifying phenomena. The malady was one of the mind; it robbed me of the desire to live. More than that, it made life intolerable. At last I surrendered. I believe I am a brave man, but it is the privilege of the brave man to surrender without losing honor to an adversary who has proved his superiority. Yes, I surrendered. I cast out love in order that I might live for my art.
"But I was too late. I had pushed too far the enmity of this spectral and unrelenting foe, and it would not accept my surrender. I have dashed the image of Rosa from my heart, and I have done it to no purpose. I am dying. And so I write this for you, lest you should go unwarned to the same doom.
"The love of Rosa is worth dying for, if you can win it. (I could not even win it.) You will have to choose between Love and Life. I do not counsel you either way. But I urge you to choose. I urge you either to defy your foe utterly and to the death, or to submit before submission is useless.
"Alresca."
I sat staring at the paper long after I had finished reading it, thinking about poor Alresca. There was a date to it, and this date showed that it was written a few days before his mysterious disease took a turn for the better.
The communication accordingly needs some explanation. It seems to me that Alresca was mistaken. His foe was not so implacable as Alresca imagined. Alresca having surrendered in the struggle between them, the ghost of Lord Clarenceux hesitated, and then ultimately withdrew its hateful influence, and Alresca recovered. Then Rosa came again into his existence that evening at Bruges. Alresca, scornful of consequences, let his passion burst once more into flame, and the ghost instantly, in a flash of anger, worked its retribution.
Day came, and during the whole of that day I pondered upon a phrase in Alresca's letter, "You will have to choose between love and life." But I could not choose. Love is the greatest thing in life; one may, however, question whether it should be counted greater than life itself. I tried to argue the question calmly, dispassionately. As if such questions may be argued! I could not give up my love; I could not give up my life; that was how all my calm, dispassionate arguments ended. At one moment I was repeating, "The love of Rosa is worth dying for;" at the next I was busy with the high and dear ambitions of which I had so often dreamed. Were these to be sacrificed? Moreover, what use would Rosa's love be to me when I was dead? And what use would my life be to me without my love for her?
A hundred times I tried to laugh, and said to myself that I was the victim of fancy, that I should see nothing further of this prodigious apparition; that, in short, my brain had been overtaxed by recent events, and I had suffered from delusions. Vain and conventional self-deceptions! At the bottom of my soul lay always the secret and profound conviction that I was doomed, cursed, caught in the toils of a relentless foe who was armed with all the strange terrors of the unknown; a foe whose onslaughts it was absolutely impossible for me to parry.
As the hours passed a yearning to see Rosa, to be near her, came upon me. I fought against it, fearing I know not what as the immediate consequence. I wished to temporize, or, at any rate, to decide upon a definite course of conduct before I saw her again. But towards evening I felt that I should yield to the impulse to behold her. I said to myself, as though I needed some excuse, that she would have a great deal of trouble with the arrangements for Sir Cyril's funeral, and that I ought to offer my assistance; that, indeed, I ought to have offered my assistance early in the day.
I presented myself after dinner. She was dressed in black, and her manner was nervous, flurried, ill at ease. We shook hands very formally, and then could find nothing to say to each other. Had she, with a woman's instinct, guessed, from that instant's view of the thing in the chair last night, all that was involved for me in our love? If not all, she had guessed most of it. She had guessed that the powerful spirit of Lord Clarenceux was inimical, fatally inimical, to me. None knew better than herself the terrible strength of his jealousy. I wondered what were her thoughts, her secret desires.
At length she began to speak of commonplace matters.
"Guess who has called," she said, with a little smile.
"I give it up," I said, with a smile as artificial as her own.
"Mrs. Sullivan Smith. She and Sullivan Smith are on their way home from Bayreuth; they are at the Hôtel du Rhin. She wanted to know all about what happened in the Rue Thiers, and to save trouble I told her. She stayed a long time. There have been a lot of callers. I am very tired. I—I expected you earlier. But you are not listening."
I was not. I was debating whether or not to show her Alresca's letter. I decided to do so, and I handed it to her there and then.
"Read that," I murmured.
She read it in silence, and then looked at me. Her tender eyes were filled with tears. I cast away all my resolutions of prudence, of wariness, before that gaze. Seizing her in my arms, I kissed her again and again.
"I have always suspected—what—what Alresca says," she murmured.
"But you love me?" I cried passionately.
"Do you need to be told, my poor Carl?" she replied, with the most exquisite melancholy.
"Then I'll defy hell itself!" I said.
She hung passive in my embrace.
When I got back to my little sitting-room at the Hôtel de Portugal, I experienced a certain timid hesitation in opening the door. For several seconds I stood before it, the key in the lock, afraid to enter. I wanted to rush out again, to walk the streets all night; it was raining, but I thought that anything would be preferable to the inside of my sitting-room. Then I felt that, whatever the cost, I must go in; and, twisting the key, I pushed heavily at the door, and entered, touching as I did so the electric switch. In the chair which stood before the writing-table in the middle of the room sat the figure of Lord Clarenceux.
Yes, my tormentor was indeed waiting. I had defied him, and we were about to try a fall. As for me, I may say that my heart sank, sick with an ineffable fear. The figure did not move as I went in; its back was towards me. At the other end of the room was the doorway which led to the small bedroom, little more than an alcove, and the gaze of the apparition was fixed on this doorway.
I closed the outer door behind me, and locked it, and then I stood still. In the looking-glass over the mantelpiece I saw a drawn, pale, agitated face in which all the trouble of the world seemed to reside; it was my own face. I was alone in the room with the ghost—the ghost which, jealous of my love for the woman it had loved, meant to revenge itself by my death.
A ghost, did I say? To look at it, no one would have taken it for an apparition. No wonder that till the previous evening I had never suspected it to be other than a man. It was dressed in black; it had the very aspect of life. I could follow the creases in the frock coat, the direction of the nap of the silk hat which it wore in my room. How well by this time I knew that faultless black coat and that impeccable hat! Yet it seemed that I could not examine them too closely. I pierced them with the intensity of my fascinated glance. Yes, I pierced them, for showing faintly through the coat I could discern the outline of the table which should have been hidden by the man's figure, and through the hat I could see the handle of the French window.
As I stood motionless there, solitary under the glow of the electric light with this fearful visitor, I began to wish that it would move. I wanted to face it—to meet its gaze with my gaze, eye to eye, and will against will. The battle between us must start at once, I thought, if I was to have any chance of victory, for moment by moment I could feel my resolution, my manliness, my mere physical courage, slipping away.
But the apparition did not stir. Impassive, remorseless, sinister, it was content to wait, well aware that all suspense was in its favor. Then I said to myself that I would cross the room, and so attain my object. I made a step—and drew back, frightened by the sound of a creaking board. Absurd! But it was quite a minute before I dared to make another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other door, passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did not do so; I kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe and my eye never leaving the figure in the chair. I did this in spite of myself, and the manner of my action was the first hint of an ultimate defeat.
At length I stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom. I could feel the perspiration on my forehead and at the back of my neck. I fronted the inscrutable white face of the thing which had once been Lord Clarenceux, the lover of Rosetta Rosa; I met its awful eyes, dark, invidious, fateful. Ah, those eyes! Even in my terror I could read in them all the history, all the characteristics, of Lord Clarenceux. They were the eyes of one capable at once of the highest and of the lowest. Mingled with their hardness was a melting softness, with their cruelty a large benevolence, with their hate a pitying tenderness, with their spirituality a hellish turpitude. They were the eyes of two opposite men, and as I gazed into them they reconciled for me the conflicting accounts of Lord Clarenceux which I had heard from different people.
But as far as I was concerned that night the eyes held nothing but cruelty and disaster; though I could detect in them the other qualities, those qualities were not for me. We faced each other, the apparition and I, and the struggle, silent and bitter as the grave, began. Neither of us moved. My arms were folded easily, but my nails pressed in the palms of my clenched hands. My teeth were set, my lips tight together, my glance unswerving. By sheer strength of endeavor I cast aside all my forebodings of defeat, and in my heart I said with the profoundest conviction that I would love Rosa though the seven seas and all the continents gave up their dead to frighten me.
So we remained, for how long I do not know. It may have been hours; it may have been only minutes; I cannot tell. Then gradually there came over me a feeling that the ghost in the chair was growing larger. The ghastly inhuman sneer on his thin widening lips assaulted me like a giant's malediction. And the light in the room seemed to become more brilliant, till it was almost blinding with the dazzle of its whiteness. This went on for a time, and once more I pulled myself together, collected my scattering senses, and seized again the courage and determination which had nearly slipped from me.
But I knew that I must get away, out of sight of this moveless and diabolic figure, which did not speak, but which made known its commands by means of its eyes alone. "Resign her!" the eyes said. "Tear your love for her out of your heart! Swear that you will never see her again—or I will ruin you utterly, not only now, but forever more!"
And though I trembled, my eyes answered "No."
For some reason which I cannot at all explain, I suddenly took off my overcoat, and, drawing aside the screen which ran across the corner of the room at my right hand, forming a primitive sort of wardrobe, I hung it on one of the hooks. I had to feel with my fingers for the hook, because I kept my gaze on the figure.
"I will go into the bedroom," I said.
And I half-turned to pass through the doorway. Then I stopped. If I did so, the eyes of the ghost would be upon my back, and I felt that I could only withstand that glance by meeting it. To have it on my back!... Doubtless I was going mad. However, I went backwards through the doorway, and then rapidly stepped out of sight of the apparition, and sat down upon the bed.
Useless! I must return. The mere idea of the empty sitting-room—empty with the ghost in it—filled me with a new and stranger fear. Horrible happenings might occur in that room, and I must be there to see them! Moreover, the ghost's gaze must not fall on nothing; that would be too appalling (without doubt I was mad); its gaze must meet something, otherwise it would travel out into space further and further till it had left all the stars and waggled aimless in the ether: the notion of such a calamity was unbearable. Besides, I was hungry for that gaze; my eyes desired those eyes; if that glance did not press against them, they would burst from my head and roll on the floor, and I should be compelled to go down on my hands and knees and grope in search for them. No, no, I must return to the sitting-room. And I returned.
The gaze met me in the doorway. And now there was something novel in it—an added terror, a more intolerable menace, a silent imprecation so frightful that no human being could suffer it. I sank to the ground, and as I did so I shrieked, but it was an unheard shriek, sounding only within the brain. And in reply to that unheard shriek I heard the unheard voice of the ghost crying, "Yield!"
I would not yield. Crushed, maddened, tortured by a worse than any physical torture, I would not yield. But I wanted to die. I felt that death would be sweet and utterly desirable. And so thinking, I faded into a kind of coma, or rather a state which was just short of coma. I had not lost consciousness, but I was conscious of nothing but the gaze.
"Good-by, Rosa," I whispered. "I'm beaten, but my love has not been conquered."
The next thing I remembered was the paleness of the dawn at the window. The apparition had vanished for that night, and I was alive. But I knew that I had touched the skirts of death; I knew that after another such night I should die.
The morning chocolate arrived, and by force of habit I consumed it. I felt no interest in any earthly thing; my sole sensation was a dread of the coming night, which all too soon would be upon me. For several hours I sat, pale and nerveless, in my room, despising myself for a weakness and a fear which I could not possibly avoid. I was no longer my own master; I was the slave, the shrinking chattel of a ghost, and the thought of my condition was a degradation unspeakable.
During the afternoon a ray of hope flashed upon me. Mrs. Sullivan Smith was at the Hôtel du Rhin, so Rosa had said; I would call on her. I remembered her strange demeanor to me on the occasion of our first meeting, and afterwards at the reception. It seemed clear to me now that she must have known something. Perhaps she might help me.
I found her in a garish apartment too full of Louis Philippe furniture, robed in a crimson tea-gown, and apparently doing nothing whatever. She had the calm quiescence of a Spanish woman. Yet when she saw me her eyes burned with a sudden dark excitement.
"Carl," she said, with the most staggering abruptness, "you are dying."
"How do you know?" I said morosely. "Do I look it?"
"Yet the crystal warned you!" she returned, with apparent but not real inconsequence.
"I want you to tell me," I said eagerly, and with no further pretence. "You must have known something then, when you made me look in the crystal. What did you know—and how?"
She sat a moment in thought, stately, half-languid, mysterious.