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Hiotographic

Sciences
Corporation

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F^O: A ROMANCE

F£0 : A Romance
by Max Pemberton
Author of ' Kronstadt; * The
(xarden of Swords,' etc.

^y%

X*:-

Toronto: The Copp Clark

Company, Limited . igoo

.C3 7

?^(c^?iFe

1912

Kiitered according to Act of the Parliament of Oftnada, in the year
one thousand nine hundred, by Thm Copp, Clau Ck>MP/.:f7;
LiMlTiD, Toronto, Ontario, in the OflSce of the M<ni:t:;.- of
Agriculture.

H :

♦ Women, like princes, find few real friends.'

Lord Lyttelton : AJviu to a Lady.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE SINGER .

rAos
I

n. A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

• • •

HI. THE INTRIGUE

• . . ,

IV. THE MAIL TO PARIS

V. THE HOUSE TN THE AVENUE MARCEAU . 36

VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE DOUBT

VII. WESTWARD TO THE BOIS

' • • •

VIII. THE LIE

IX. UNMASKED

f6o

CHAP.

X. A WOMAN'S WAY .

t • ■

FAOB

. . 75

XI. THK VIOLON.

XII. WHILE PARIS SLEPl' 98

XIII. IN THE RUE AUBER

107

XIV. THE COUNTER-MARCH

• • • •

119

XV. A STRANGE FAREWELL . , . . I32

f!.'

XVL AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX ..,140

XVII. THE EMPTY CARRIAGE . • • .150

XVIII. THE TELEGRAM . . , . • . 158

XIX. PERIL

166

XX. THE ROAD TO NEUFCHAtEL . . . 181

XXI. FOR FREEDOM ...... 189

CON TENTS vii

CMAr. rAom

XXII. THE RING OF HOOFS 197

XXIII. THE INSULT 2o8

XXIV. SUNSHINE 3,5

XXV. THE SECRET 227

XXVI. THE SHADOW 23/

XXVII. THE VISION . . . . . .245

XXVIII. IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE . . 253

XXIX. THE COUNT Of TRAVNA . . . . 270

XXX. THE QUESTION 277

XXXI. RESOLUTION 289

XXXII. THE BREAKING DAWN .... 295

XXXIU. THE END OF THE PLAV ... 299

CHAPTER I

THE SINGER

There were bells and caps for a sunny day of
May ringing and nodding in the world of Vanity
Fair ; but a shower falling late in the afternoon
sent the players hurrying to their homes again.
Feo, leaning upon the window-sill of her gloomy
flat in Oxford Street, looked down at the press
of carriages rolling westward, and a little joy of
envy came to her because of the spiteful drops
which thus could rout so gay an army. How
the dressmakers would rejoice to-morrow! she
thought. How the maids would catch it when
some of these great ladies were at home again !
It was pitiful to see the victorias held there
at the corner by the forbidding hand of the
grammarless law, while the shower ruined divine
chiffons and muslins, over which Worth might
have shed tears. And the dowagers — tlie hard,
set look upon their faces, their deep, sepulchral
voices as they asked again and again, ' Why are
w^ waiting here ? * Odd that a little sprinkle of

FlfcO

the summer rain, fresh as the kiss of dew upon
the grass, should betray to all the world that
other self hidden ever while the sun shone and
there was blue in the sky which May had given !
F^o laughed aloud at the duchess's distress, and
laughing, awoke her father, who remembered that
it was time for tea.
' Is that you, Fdo ? '

* Who else should it be, father ? '

* Why do you keep the window open when it
is raining ? '

F^o shrugged her shoulders, and shut the
window with a slam.

' I thought you would like a little fresh air,'
she said ; * it *s suffocating here.'

Old Georges de Berthier, her father, took up
his snuff-box irritably, and began to fidget in
his chair.

' Why is the tea not ready ? That woman
grows worse every day. How many times must
I tell her that five o'clock is my hour '

' It is five minutes to five now, father, and I
hear Mary on the stairs.'

The maid came in with the tea, and set it
down with a crash upon the rickety mahogany
table, which was one of the chief ornaments of
that shabby room. Outside, upon the landing of
the mansions, a poor clerk, very wet and tired

THE SINGER

as he mounted the many steps to his garret far
above, paused a moment to peep into the room
and to behold for the first time the face of her
whose voice he had heard so often in his hours
of loneliness. He saw her as she stood wearily
by the piano, and he thought that her beauty
surpassed even the portrait of her which sleep
had painted for him.

F^o poured out the tea quickly, as though
impatient of her task. She was grown old in
knowledge of her father's whims, of his selfish-
ness which was linked to fitful generosity, of his
platitudes concerning her art, of his unfailing and
oft-discovered maladies. The stuffy little flat
suffocated her. Ambition, she knew not of what
if it were not of memory, carried her mind per-
petually to distant scenes — scenes of hill and
valley and mountain-land, to quiet cities, to the
woods whose very flowers she had forgotten.
The jargon of the theatre dinned in her ears as
a dirge unendurable. London was a prison to
her. She would never escape from this bondage
of poverty, of shallowness, of success withheld
and hope unrealised. Sometimes she told herself,
laughingly, that a tragedy of life would be the
best gift she could ask of Destiny. She rebelled
ever against monotony — and, rebelling, was the
greater slave.

f6o

Old Georges de Berthier drank his tea sup by
sup with his spoon, and when he had pushed the
cup from him, he lighted a Russian cigarette and
began to talk about the evening to come. Seated
there, deep in a low arm-chair, with the redden-
ing sunlight striking upon his long grey hair,
and his spectacles set high upon his little, up-
turned nose, he looked for all the world like some
lilliputian ogre come to play the rdle of beast to
the graceful girl, who stood at the piano listening
to his theories, as she had listened a thousand
times before that day, and must listen again until
the finger of her Fate should point some better
way or terminate the audience for ever.

'I'm glad they're playing The HuguenotSy
F^o. We 're Huguenots ourselves, you know.
Some day, when you begin to understand how
to use that voice of yours, we'll go to Mornay
and see the old castle where the Count lived.
That won't be long, if you play your cards well.
Never forget that one of your great-grandfathers
was Eugene of Mornay. I could call myself Count
to-morrow if I chose. People here would laugh.
They always do at broken-down gentlemen.'

A shadow of pity passed over the girl's face.

' They do not laugh at the broken-down gentle-
man until he asks them to, father. I shouldn't
care to go to Mornay. It would be like opening a

THE SINGER

purse which once held the money you have spent.
After all, we can get on very well as we are.
People wouldn't think more of you if you were
a Count. There are too many about nowadays.'

'There are too many of all sorts, my child.
Look at the opera. A voice like yours would
have spelt a fortune twenty years ago. To-day
it means a ten-line part and five pounds a week.
Unless you can make yourself famous by bawling
Wagner so loud that people cannot hear the
trumpets, you may as well go and sew dresses!
For myself, I bate the name of Wagner. A poor,
pitiful, resourceless, spiteful, brass-headed adven-
turer! The world has gone mad. Some day it
will wake up and remember the others — Mozart,
Bellini, Donizetti — Bizet. Ah, my poor Bizet,
that they should forget you ! '

F6o was accustomed to the outburst. She
ignored it, and began to turn over the pages of
The Huguenots. Anon, she sang in a rich, low
voice which flooded the room and the house with
a sweet chord of music, harmonious lingering,
divine to one who listened as the poor clerk in
his garret above. Never had such a voice been
heard in that house. All the romantic tempera-
ment, cloaked by the veil of poverty, all the
craving for the scenes and faces of her dreams,
seemed to be spoken in her song. The music

.'f ■

transformed her. She lived in another world, a
world of courts and palaces and mighty rooms,
a world of princes and of nobles. When she
ceased, she sat for some moments with flushed
cheeks and sparkling eyes and bosom heaving.
She did not see the shabby room, the gathering
twilight, the little eyes of the selfish old man. A
voice spoke to her, though no other heard the
voice. It was the voice of the man she had loved ;
and he had forgotten her, she said.

Old Georges de Berthier nodded his head to
the music, and then took up his evening paper.
* That is melody,' he said decisively ; ' what we
get in our theatres is a part for the trombone.
Continue to sing like that, and your five pounds
a week will become two hundred. There are no
voices nowadays. This man Wagner has ruined
them all. When Donizetti wrote, people who
could not sing were ashamed to show their faces
over the footlights. They brazen it out to-day,
and if they are louder than the trumpets, the
world says l>zs. You have the old qualities. I
wish I could come and hear you to-night, but it
is raining, and you know that I never go out when
it is raining. Perhaps you had better take a cab.
We cannot afford it, but it is necessary that I
should make sacrifices until the good day comes.
I will dine at eight o'clock.'

THE SINGER

T6o scarcely heard him. His strange econo-
mies, cheelc by jowl with his reckless generosity
to those who had no claim upon him, were so
much a part of her daily life that she had ceased
to think about them. Nor would she remember
that the five pounds a week, which must suffice
for his luxuries and her necessity, were her own
earnings, the reward of days and nights of cease-
less toil, of wanderings in many lands, of privation
often, of hope deferred until the heart wearied
and the spirit failed. All his fine promises fell
upon ears which the monotony of talent unrecog-
nised had closed to the whispers of ambition.
She did not believe that the future could be other
than the past had been. She could not con-
template a gift even of her womanhood. The
romance of her life was done with. She had left
it in Vienna, in the gardens of the Prater there ;
it remained a sweet memory of stolen hours
when her lover had gone with her to the wooded
hills of the Danube and together they had lived
the love dream which never might be aught but
a dream. For the rest, she must work and be
silent in this gloomy city. It might have been
different — but the ' might have been * she refused
to deceive herself with.

Half-past seven o'clock was striking when the
maid brought a cab to the door, and F^o put on

f6o

her cloak to go to the opera. Her father was
still reading his paper, and when she stooped to
kiss him, he had an item of news for her, which
he told with relish, as one who had guessed
her story.

*You remember that fellow Jerome — the
Prince of Maros — who used to come every day
when we were in the Steinstrasse at Vienna !
Well, he's in Paris, they say. I shouldn't
wonder if he comes to London. But, of course,
he won't call on us. These people never do
unless it suits them, and you took care that it
shouldn't suit. There — I don't complain. No
good could have come of it. You were quite
right, though some would say you were wrong.*

He tossed the paper to her, and she took it up
with trembling fingers. There was so little light
in the room that he could not see the flush upon
her cheek nor the tears gathering in her eyes.
And, unconscious of all that the name meant to
her, he continued brutally —

' A clever woman would have married him. It
would not have been recognised, — but what does
recognition matter if you have r. fine house to
live in and good clothes for your back ? There
are twenty princes morgan atically married in
Europe to-day. You might have added one to
the number — if you had wished. I do not com-

THE SINGER

plain of your decision. 1 never complain. I am
always ready to make sacrifices for my child.
She knows that, and will remember it'

F^o put the paper down and drew her hood
about her face. The old man's words seemed so
many insults cast in her face. She scarce knew
what she was doing. Jerome coming to Paris,
perhaps to London ! If he should remember !
If he should still speak to her as he had spoken
on those sunny days when the waters of the
Danube lapped at their feet and the woods were
ripe and green with the first glory of summer!
She dared not think of it. She hurried from the
house, lest her father should add to the burden
she must bear. The sweet breeze following upon
the rain filled her as with an ecstasy of her
youth. They said in the theatre that she had
never sung as she sang that night.

The poor clerk, tossing on his bed in the garret
long after the bells of the city had chimed the
hour of midnight, beheld a figure of his dreams
there, and heard music in the May breeze.

* It is F6o — F^o the singer,' he said.

CHAPTER II

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

Old Georges de Berthier dined alone, lingering
over his bottle of red wine and complaining of
the lot which gave him but two dishes. He had
made many sacrifices for his daughter, he thought,
and she had been a disappointment to him. It
was not that she shirked her work or spared
herself pains in the pursuit of her art ; there was
none more diligent, few more capable. That
which troubled him was her want of interest, the
sombre key of her life, her mechanical obedience.
She would not make friends even in London.
He recalled the names of the many who wished
for friendship with her ; above all, the name of
young Leslie Drummond, who dogged her steps
daily and would have given half his fortune for
a single word of encouragement, which never yet
was spoken. There was no woman in London
who would not be honoured by such a preference ;
but F^o ignored the boy, scarce noticed him,

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD ii

considered his kindness an annoyance. What
could one hope, the old man asked, from such a
view of life as that? He remembered the day
wlien her girlish naivete had promised success
beyond the measure of his hopes. The life, the
spirit, the charm of her singing and acting, had
been the inducement for him to leave Vienna
and to tempt fate in the greater world of London.
It was an irony past endurance that his child
should lose these powers of her youth so soon as
she had quitted Austria. No longer could he
pose as the tutor of one who added the merits of
a superb spirit to a voice which compelled re-
cognition. She had become a woman. A month
had aged her beyond belief. Impresarios shook
their heads and said, 'She is clever, but she is
not gay, my friend ; she must learn how to act'
He remembered the days in Vienna, and the very
remembrance enraged him.

He dined alone, sipping his wine with satisfac-
tion and pondering upon the problem which was
now his daily trouble. After all, live pounds a
week were not to be despised. F^o would do
better by and by, and they would go to Paris.
He remembered that the clever poor man may
dine almost as well as the ignorant rich in that
city of gastronomic cunning. To the happiness
of his daughter he gave no thought. Women

'■:%

M! I

¥tO

were incomprehensible creatures. Ask them to
laugh, and they will cry for the mere pleasure of
disappointing you. F^o was sulking now — throw-
ing herself away, committing artistic suicide. He
would say nothing about it. He would flatter,
cajole her. She would weary of the rd/e, and the
old days would come back again.

Thus he argued, sitting in his great chair with
the evening papers in his lap and the red wine at
his elbow. He had few friends in London, nor
did he seek friends. Men about the house were
a danger he would not invite at this stage.
Success must first be won ; the subtler combat
would come later. F^o, after all, was a woman.
It would be a disaster if she should discover her
womanhood now when she was but an obscurity
— a maid-of-all-work, so to speak, at Covent
Garden. Such a disaster might send him,
Georges de Berthier, begging for his very bread.
He shut his snuff-box with a snap, when he
t'^ought of such a possibility. Life was very
cruel to old men, he thought.

There was little news in the paper, and such
as it was it had no interest for him. He cared
nothing for politics ; he had failed in his own art
as a pianist, and to read of other men's success
enraged him. Somehow, he knew not why, he
found himself turning again and again to that

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

page of social gossip wherein the movements of
Prince Jerome of Maros were told in a brief
paragraph concerning Vienna and the Austrian
Court. F60 had met the Prince at the opera-
house in Vienna in the winter of the previous
year. He was then a young man of twenty-two,
the second son of the Archduke Frederick,
accounted by the women the handsomest man
in Vienna, a soldier of strangely romantic and
ardent temperament, an ♦ ker of the Cuirassiers
of the Guard, and a great favourite with the old
Emperor. Music had ever been a passion with
him, and music took him often to the opera and
to Richter's house. There he had first seen F^o,
and almost from the moment of his presentation
he had taken no pains to conceal his infatuation.
So quickly did the attachment ripen that many
shook their heads and feared a scandal. The
more malicious tongues openly proclaimed the
evil they desired. It was said in the purlieus of
the Court that the Prince was young and reckless
enough to stake even his inheritance and his
future for the sake of a woman's face. News of
the affair came at last even to the Archduke,
who dealt with the matter summarily, and would
hear neither argument nor protest. Prince
Jerome was sent upon a mission to Croatia.
The directors of the opera were advised that it

! ■

•iiit;

mi
! $

1'i

F^.O

was impolitic any longer to avail themselves
of Mademoiselle F^o's services. Georges de
Berthier received a strong hint that his daughter
would do better in Paris. He accepted the
inevitable, and quitted Vienna. Yet he had
never ceased to regret that step. ' She might
have married him if she had been a clever
woman,' he argued. Deep down in his heart he
may have contemplated other possibilities. The
borderland between selfishness and crime is often
but ill defined. He remembered that Jerome
was a cousin of the Hapsburgs — royal sins are
v/ritten often in invisible ink ; the world does
not ask that kings and princes shall read the
commandments au pied de la lettre. His daughter
would have been very rich, at least. She would
have brought content to his own life.

He brooded upon these things as he puffed at
an old briar pipe and read the paragraph from
the first line again. When Mary came in at ten
o'clock to announce a visitor, he did not hear her,
and she repeated her message twice before he put
the paper down. Few came to see one whom
the world had long forgotten. He anticipated
some message from the theatre. F^o was ill —
in just such a cruelty as that would his destiny
delight.

*Whf> is it — who wants me? Where has the

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

iselves
jes de
ughter
;d the
e had
might
clever
;art he
. The
is often
Jerome
ins are
d does
:ad the
^ughter
would

iffed at
h from
at ten
2ar her,
he put
whom
cipated
as ill —
destiny-
has the

person come from ? You know that I see nobody
— at this time.'

The girl began to stammer her explanations ;
but she had made nothing of them when the
stranger, whoever he was, stood suddenly in the
doorway, and bowed with great deference to the
astonished Berthier.

* You are Mr. Georges de Berthier,' he said in
English which betrayed but a charm of accent ;
* I am Captain Otto Lamberg, and I have come
from Vienna to see you.'

Berthier, amazed beyond expression, put on
his glasses with maladroit fingers and stared
awkwardly at his guest. He beheld a man
whose dress was perfect, whose age apparently
could not be less than thirty -five nor more
than forty years, whose forehead was slightly
bald, who wore an eyeglass, and carried a cane
with a gold and amber head. A soldier self-
confessed, this man, he said, was accustomed to
be at his ease wherever and with whomsoever
he r/iight find himself. And he came from
Vienna! A hundred hopes of his visit sent
the blood tingling through the old man's veins.

'Captain Lamberg,' he stammered nervously,
' will you please to take a chair ? Mj- daughter is
at the opera. We are quite alone. I must apologise
for this poor room. Art has strange homes.'

I' I

FltO

' ii

The Austrian pooh-poohed him with an airy
gesture.

'Your name, sir, is honoured wherever men
worthy to honour it are found. I shall not soon
forget this visit to your house.'

He set his hat upon the floor and drew a chair
to the table. Berthier, suspicious already because
of the compliment, did not fail to notice that his
guest wore the ribbon of an Austrian order in
his buttonhole, and that an opal pin of great
beauty was half concealed by his black silk scarf.
The man, in his turn, was telling himself that the
compliment was a mistake, and that he must go
to work another way.

' It is my privilege to be here,' he went on very
affably ; * but you do not wish to waste your time
in listening to compliments which may be well
spoken or may be the vanities of a stranger.
I trust that we shall be good friends. You, at
least, will not easily imagine the reason of
my visit?'

Berthier, who continued to stand by the fire-
place, answered a little curtly —

' I am entirely unable to imagine it, Captain
Lamberg.'

' As, naturally, you would be, since I come from
one whose name you must have forgotten, and
whose object in sending me you would never guess.'

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

tain

* You speak, then, of a stranger ? '
' I speak of Prince Jerome.'

He did not look at the old man when he uttered
the name, but cast his eyes down upon the paper
and fidgeted with the yellow gloves in his hand.
Berthier, in his turn, betrayed no surprise what-
ever. The thousand hopes and chances which
such a name could suggest to his imagination did
not move him even to a gesture of the hand.

* I , nember Prince Jerome well. He did me
the honour to recognise my daughter's talent
while we were in Vienna. His kindness drove us
from the city. I cannot imagine what message
he can wish to send us.'

The answer was immediate and frank.

' The message which I bring to you is not diffi-
cult to understand, Mr. Berthier. You have read
the evening papers, I see, and I cannot suppose
that you have overlooked that which concerns
us most nearly — the Prince's intended visit to
Paris.'

Berthier took up the Gazette^ and pointed to
the paragraph.

'The paper says that he is in Paris now —
you say that he intends to go there; what am
I to believe ? *

The Austrian bit his lip. He had not reckoned
upon such an encounter.

•lill!

(•t

•^^

FlfeO

* Let us understand each other better/ he said
quickly ; ' I am of the household of the Arch-
duke Frederick. Admit, at least, that my infor-
mation is better than that of a society gossip in
London ?

He waited shrewdly for his answer, while
Berthier, breathing heavily, regarded him closely
through his glasses.

* You come, then, from the Archduke Frede-
rick. It was the Archduke who compelled the
directors of the opera to terminate my daughter's
engagement. It was the Archduke who shut the
doors of many houses to us, and sent us, paupers,
to London again. I am curious to know what
message he can send to me.'

* He sends none. He does not know why I
am in London.*

* And the reason, Captain — the reason of his
ignorance ? '

' My friendship for his son.*

' Which prompts you to forget the debt you
owe lo the father.'

' Certainly, if there were a debt ; but there is
none. I am the aide-de-camp to the Archduke,
it is true ; but the position is an illustration of
the excellent advantages of a vicious education.
My father lost his fortune in an attempt to im-
prove the breed of Hungarian horses by the

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD

»9

importation of English thoroughbreds into Aus-
tria. The Archduke Frederick, unable to profit
by his example, is now engaged upon a similar
enterprise. As one who knows all that is to
be known abcat the rascality of our racecourse, I
am invaluable to him. But that does not make
me less the friend of his son, who is a brother
officer, and one of the truest gentlemen in
Vienna — as you will presently discover.'

He spoke as one who desired to tell the whole
of his story without fear or concealment. Berthier
heard him to the end, and when he had stood a
little while debating it, his manner changed and
became one almost of servility.

' Come,' he said, * we shall understand each
other very well by and by. Captain. And I am
very rude and inhospitable. Pray let me offer
you a cigar and a glass of wine.'

He found the cigar, a very dry and old one, in
the bottom of the china pot upon the mantelshelf.
The stranger smoked it with the air of fine enjoy-
ment, though inwardly he cursed the occasion
and the giver.

' Tobacco is one of my vices,' he said affably ;
* I am what Bismarck called a ring-smoker.
When you are at my house in Paris, I will give
you one of the cigars that the Emperor always
smokes.'

!l!

,1 ;

FtO

n j|

* A safe promise, since I am as likely to go to
your house in Paris as to Japan.*

* As you shall please when you have heard me.
Possibly the decision will rest with your daughter.
She is, after all, the one to say. The Prince
would advance no word that might persuade
her against her will.'

Berthier set down the decanter quickly.

'Let us come to the point. Captain,* he ex-
claimed ; ' what is the proposition you wish to
make to me ? *

Captain Lamberg took the cigar from his
mouth, and answered quietly —

' The simplest proposition in the world — that
you and Miss de Berthier come to my house in
the Avenue Marceau at Paris as my guests during
the month that the Prince of Maros is in the city.*

Berthier's heart beat fast, but some moments
passed before he spoke again.

* The Prince desires, then, to meet my daughter
again ? *

' It is his daily desire.'

' He knows that I can only receive him as a
man of honour?'

* He 's perfectly aware of it.'

; ;,f; are conditions attached to your

i; \?--y i*

J. r%v

ost trifling.*

mgj^tg^

A CUIRASSIER OF THE GUARD ai

*Ha! I thought there would be conditions.
Be good enough to name them, Captain.' .

'That you permit no one, not even your most
intimate friend, to know of this visit'

' Are you ashamed of my daughter's acquaint-

ance

* I am not ashamed, I am prudent. A whisper
of this in Vienna — and, must we imagine the
consequences ? '

' There is no need. Captain. When do you
wish us to leave England ? '

'By the mail to-morrow night — if your
daughter's engagements permit.'

* They shall permit. I will make it my business
to see the director in the morning. Meanwhile, I
remember that we are strangers. You may be
the person you pretend to be ; you may be an
adventurer. As one who has seen much of the
world, I make no apology in asking for your
credentials. You have letters, papers — som.e-
thing to substantiate this story.'

Captain Lamberg took a case from his pocket
and began to twist the rubber band of it. A
curious smile hovered upon his face.

* Do you generally ask for papers from those
whose houses you are about to visit, Mr. Berthier?*

' I visit no houses under circumstances such
as these.'

'I ft

• .i

FfiO

I I

ibi'

ii
it!

' Then I must make the experience a pleasant
one. Here is a letter from Prince Jerome — there
is my passport ; add it to my commission in the
Cuirassiers of the Guard, and my permission that
you go to-morrow to the Austrian Embassy and
ask what they know of me, and that is all I can
do for you.'

He tossed the papers on the table, and watched
the old man's trembling fingers as they held the
documents to the light. When five minutes had
passed, Berthier put the papers down and held
out his hand.

* I will go to Paris with you,' he said

CHAPTER III

THE INTRIGUE

Captain Lamberg quitted the house as the
clocks were striking a quarter to twelve. He
lit a new cigar at the foot of the stairs, and the
lif^ht of his match betrayed a face which spoke
of much satisfaction. He knew that he had
played for a great stake, and he was sure that he
had won.

'A very, very simple affair,' was his thought
as he stood irresolute l moment upon the pave-
ment before the mansions. * These old men are
always the best to deal with. They think they
are clever, and you know exactly what questions
they will ask. To-morrow we shall hear what
the daughter has to say.'

The reflection pleased him, and he was about
to Wcilk on, when a cab stopped at the kerb, and
Fee, with the exciting strains of Meyerbeer still
in her ears, jumped lightly to the pavement and
began to search for her purse. A lamp marked
the place, and the merry wind played with her

■|"i

■XT'

FtO

white cloak and with her pretty hair, and showed
the graceful outline of her figure. She was not
aware that a man watched her as she stood, and
she passed into the house unconscious of his
presence ; but he, amazed at the apparition,
continued to gaze after her for many minutes,
forgetful of time and place, and the success he
had so lately won.

* Good God ! ' he exclaimed, in a burst of very
real astonishment, * that can't be the woman ! '

The doubt perplexed him. For a moment he
entertained the idea of returning to Berthier's
apartment and finding some excuse as he went ;
but the hazard of the proceeding was not to be
hidden from him ; and when he had reflected a
little while, he abandoned the project, and turned
instead to the cabstand on the opposite side of
the way.

' The Savoy Hotel — a shilling more if you go
fast.'

It was half-past twelve when he entered the
hotel, the hour of the exodus from the restaurant ;
but he nodded only to such amongst the chatter-
ing throngs as he knew, and went straight
to his private apartments on the second floor.
Thither he summoned a waiter, and having ordered
whisky and some cigars, he asked for one who
had awaited his return with impatience.

' 1

THE INTRIGUE

«S

'Is Count Horowitz in the hotel?'

' I will sec, sir.'

'Let him know that I have returned. If he
wishes it, I will come to his room.'

Count Horowitz was a white-haired diplomatist
of sixty in the service of the Austrian Embassy
in London. He came at once when the message
was delivered, and the greeting between the two
betrayed their mutual interests. They spoke
rapidly and in low tones. A rare burst of
laughter implied that the affair they discussed
could sometimes amuse them.

'I had no idea that things would go so well,*
said the Count, as he lighted a cigar and settled
himself in an arm-chair. 'Any other would
have made a mess of it. The father is the enemy.
If he had remained in London while the boy
was here, it is impossible to say what would
have happened.'

' That is a large compliment to an adventuress,
is it not ? '

' If you like. I am not concerned with her.
The main point is that they are going. You
know the Prince as well as I do. He has
forgotten the woman's name by this time. He
would remember it again — take seven new
devils into his house, so to speak — if lie i^txw
her here in London. And, of course, he

■-)

■ * 'r-

t !

FI^.O

• 'ii

I i

would see her. The royal box is at his dis-
posal. He would see her two or three times
a week.'

He uttered the words as though they implied
the greatest misfortune which could overtake
him. An old servant of the Emperor, a noble
in a country where nobility remains what it was
two centuries ago, this madness of Prince Jerome's,
the Emperor's cousin, was a subject he could
not discuss with patience. Captain Lamberg, on
the other hand, did not permit the emotions to
trouble him at all. He had come to London to
serve the interests of one who would know how
to pay him for the service. To him personally it
did not matter a straw if the Archduke's son
married all the singers in the city.

'You take it very earnestly, Count,* he said,
helping himself from the decanter and passing it ;
' for myself I regard the matter as already settled.
These people will go to Paris to-morrow. I shall
put them off with excuses until the Prince has
returned to Vienna. The old man will iilli nately
accept the Archduke's offer, and that uili be the
end of it. There is only one point. The story
which keeps them to Paris must be well told
and plausible. If they go out into the streets,
they will read the papers, and reading the
papers will spell the first train back to Calais.

THE INTRICUE

•7

That would be a disaster ! I do not think it will
come about.'

' You will take every precaution possible to see
that it does not. There are our people at the
Embassy. If you need special help, the police
will assist you. Any measures are to be justified
in dealing with a woman of this kind. Be certain
of one thing — we shall not call you to account if
the measures are severe. The gratitude of the
family will be in proportion to your success. If
you want money, it is here for you to any
reasonable amount. As far as I can gather, the
girl has no friends in London except a young
man who has just left the University of Cam-
bridge, and who is not likely to make many
inquiries after her. His name is Leslie Drum-
mond. Remember it if there be the occasion.
I shall expect a letter every day while the
Prince is here.*

'Your wishes are my orders. I have had
experience in the work, as I need not tell you.
This is not quite the same thing, if I am to judge
by the woman's face. She passed into the house
as I came out. I should have said she was a
lady. Certainly, she is a very pretty woman.'

'She must be that. Those who knew her in
Vienna speak of her flatteringly. That she is
an adventuress of an uncommon kind I readily

FltO

w >

admit. You will need all your talent. I shall
be very glad to hear that you have left London.'

*You will hear it to-morrow night at eight
o'clock.'

His manner showed that he had no doubt of it.
When, by and by, the Count left him, he turned
to his bed as though the day's work had been no
more adventurous than a day in his quarters at
Vienna. After all, these secret missions, involving
as they did the closest confidence, were in them-
selves a compliment. He, Otto Lamberg, had
been sent upon many of them during his strange
career. One more need provoke neither scruple
nor hesitation. He was about to save a reck-
less young man from an adventuress. If ever
duplicity were to be justified, it was in such a
case. Moreover, he was not the man who cared
a snap of the finger for justification.

And so he slept upon it, while F^o in her room
dreamed of the blue waters of the Danube, and
of the days of sunshine which once had taught
her the joy of life and the meaning of her youth.

r shall
ndon.'
; eight

)t of it.
turned
leen no
ters at
/olving
I them-
•g, had
strange
scruple
1 reck-
Ef ever
such a
> cared

r room
be, and

taught
y^outh.

CHAPTER IV

THE MAIL TO PARIS

They were ringing the warning bell for the
Paris mail at five minutes to eight on the evening
following upon Otto Lamberg's visit to Berthier's
flat, when a young man, whose height caused
remark even in such a place, shouldered his way
to the barrier of the main- line platform at Char-
ing Cross, and asked the ticket-inspector to
admit him.

' I want to say good-bye to some one,' he
exclaimed bluntly ; 'can't you do it for me?'

The inspector smiled.

' If it's a lady, I don't doubt I could do it, sir ;
but it's against the rules.'

' The rules be hanged ! — here *s five shillings
for you. Perjure your immortal soul and let
me through.'

The inspector pocketed the money, sternly
rebuked a poor old woman who desired to see
her son into the train, and resumed his normal
occupation of clipping tickets. The young man,
meanwhile, marched quickly up the platform and

! I

■ U

ill

;

k') i

I »

1 ! yi

?!>

! I

fto

began to peer into the carriages — particularly the
second-class carriages — in search of one whose
departure from London had mystified him beyond
hope of understanding.

'She couldn't go first — I don't believe they
have the cash. The old boy must have taken
some ixiad idea into his head. She 'd never go
without wishing me good-bye — and she didn't
say a word about it yesterday. I wonder what
the deuce is up.'

Such an argument he repeated while the search
carried him almost to the engine of the train, and
discovery seemed as far off as ever. When he
came at last upon a reserved first-class compart-
ment and saw Ft^o herself standing at the
window, it was difficult to say who was the more
surprised : the girl at such an encounter, or the
man at finding her about to travel under such
circumstances.

'Well,' he said laconically, for mere compli-
ments or set phrases were always beyond him,
'so I've run you to earth. It was a near thing,
though— the man at the gate wouldn't let me
through.'

She gave him her hand, and he held it in an
iron grip. She was alone in the carriage, and the
light striking down upon her pale face added to
its beauties.

THE MAIL TO PARTS

*We are going to Paris for a little while,
my father and I. He is over there at the book-
stall. He will be very surprised to see you,
Mr. Drummond.'

*0h, but I didn't come to see him, F^o — I
came to see you. You know that well enough.
And you were going off without saying good-bye
to me.'

'There was no time. Our visit was only
arranged to-day. I don't quite know now why
we are going. I 'm sure I don't know when we
are coming back.'

Leslie Drummond pulled his moustache
viciously.

'It's a d d mystery altogether, then — I

beg your pardon, Feo — you must know what I
think about it. Look here ! where are you going
to stop ? '

She reflected a moment, and then spoke rapidly
as though wishing to anticipate the return of the
others.

* We are stopping with a friend of my father's,
Captain Otto Lamberg, in the Avenue Marceau ;
I fear it is a silly visit altogether. Perhaps, if
you are in Paris, you will come and see me. I
might be glad of friends there.*

She laid a little emphasis upon her words, and
slight as it was he detected a certain apprehension

s«

FfiO

MIJ

prompting her confession. When he looked up
quickly, her eyes were regarding him a little
pitifully, he thought.

' You don't mean to say you 're going against
your will ? '

* I have not been consulted in the matter.
My father must think that the business is im-
portant, for he has wished me to break my
engagement at the opera. Captain Lamberg is
an Austrian. He comes from Vienna. I have
only seen him for five minutes, but I do not like
him. A woman's first judgment upon a man is
rarely wrong.'

A cloud passed over the boy's face. He knev/
F^o's story. *We will be comrades, we never
can be anything else,' she had once said to
him. From that moment everything that came
out of Austria was hateful to him. <

* It 's that fellow over in Vienna again, F^o.
You'll never forget him, though he'll forget you
quick enough when it suits him. I shall cross to
Paris on Monday and look you up. These foreign
beggars aren't to be trusted anyway. I wonder
what you can see in him.'

* We must not speak of that,' she said, ' and —
here is my father, Mr. Drummond.'

Old Georges de Berthier, with the Austrian at
his side, came up to the carriage at the moment

THE MAIL TO PARIS

The captain had an armful of books in his hand,
but no newspapers. Berthier himself carried a
copy of the Figaro and of a magazine. Both
men gave anything but a cordial welcome to the
companion whom F6o had found.

* Ah, is that you, Mr. Drummond ? They told
you we were going, then ? '

' I heard from Mary, your servant. She
said she was not to tell any one, but of course
I don't count. Rather sudden, isn't it, Mr.
Berthier?'

Captain Lamberg hastened to intervene.

* Present me to your friend,' he said.
Berthier introduced them curtly.

'Captain Lamberg — Mr. Leslie Drummond.
An athlete, Captain ; he has rowed in the boat
races here at the University of Cambridge.'

The Austrian, whose eyes were noting every
feature of the lad's face, bowed with great
ceremony.

* I was once a rower myself,' he exclaimed ;
'if you come to Paris, do not forget to visit
my house, Mr. Drummond. You are fond of
horses ; all Englishmen are. I have some very
good ones.'

Leslie laughed frankly.

' Be careful. Captain — I am often in Paris, and
may take you at your word.'

ii.

f6o

Is'' i

ill:' i 'I

!'!•

' Then I shall be quite reckless, Mr. Drummond.
It shall only be auf wiedersehen. I think they are
wishing us to go aboard, as the Americans say.'

Until this time a certain nonchalance charac-
terised his utterances ; but, without any percep-
tible reason, his manner changed suddenly, and he
began to move restlessly, urging his companion
to enter the train and chatting at hazard with
Feo. Leslie, unaware altogether of the import-
ance of his news, remarked upon t'^p arrival of the
mail from Paris, which was just drawing up at the
other platform.

' It 's late to-night — you '11 have a bad passage,
F^o. Well, au revoir. I won't forget.'

The guard waved his lantern ; the engine
whistled a shrill, dolorous note ; the train began
to move slowly. For an instant. Captain Lam-
berg was wondering what was the meaning of
the words — * I won't forget.' But as he thought
upon em he chanced to look at Feo, and
the pallor of her face startled him.

* Miss Berthier,' he exclaimed, ' you are not ill ? *

She looked him straight in the face.

' I thought that I saw the Prince of Marcs in
that other train. I could not make a mistake ? '

The two men exchanged a quick glance, but
the Austrian answered her.

' You were mistaken,' he said. * The Prince was

1 '

THE MAIL TO PARIS

not in that train. He is now on his way to Paris
where we are going to meet him.'

From the other platform at the same moment,
Prince Jerome of Maros stepped into a carriage
which was to take him to Buckingham Palace.
He had arrived in London a week before his
friends at the Austrian Embassy expected him.

if:

l| m'

iv!

CHAPTER V

THE HOUSE IN THE AVENUE MARCEAU

Ffio had left London on the last Friday in May,
and Drummond awaited a letter from her with
some impatience. Boyishly, he was sure that she
would write to him, though she had never written
before, and he did not even know what her hand-
writing was like. Six months before that day
he had seen her for the first time, when she was
touring with the Carl Rosa Company, and visited
the Royal Theatre at Cambridge. He had been
an undergraduate in his fifth year at Jesus College
then — permitted so long a residence because, as
the dean said, he really owed it to the college to
take some sort of degree. He heard F^o sing in
several of the older operas, and once even in Tann-
hduscr^ when he envied the lucky tenor who
played the leading role^ and could make a passion-
ate appeal to so pretty a Venus. A little strata-
gem, and he obtained an introduction to Georges
de Berthier; and by the surreptitious aid of many
an expensive supper-party, purchased a temporary

HOUSE IN THE AVENUE MARCEAU 37

place in the old man's affections. But the cun-
ning of the old musician, and the strange reluc-
tance of F60 to accept his friendship, forbade any
satisfactory progress. He was not romantic in
the common sense. An orphan of age, with a
capital in English railway stock representing an
income of over three thousand a year, he had not
been accustomed to wait for anything that he
wished. His impetuosity flattered him with the
idea of calling a cab and driving F^o to the near-
est registrar. When old Berthier shook his head,
and muttered hints about youth, time, patience,
and other ridiculous platitudes. Master Leslie
swore to himself in honest Anglo-Saxon. He
could have understood the poetry of a flight to
some Eldorado with F^o in the carriage beside
him, but that romance which would put another
man in his place was not to be comprehended.
' A woolly-headed foreigner, too ! ' he once ex-
claimed to an intimate friend ; * she might as well
have told me that it was a black man.'

F^o went away from Cambridge, and her father
took advantage of the occasion to flatter himself
upon the number of suppers and dinners he had
eaten at Leslie's expense. 'These students are
all in debt,' he argued wisely ; * the more money
they have, the sooner the tailors will put them into
prison. This young man says that he has three

»i

V-

V:-

■ \

u ,

f6o

;! i#

f! fll

I ;:

thousand pounds a year. He gives three supper-
parties a week, and each supper-party costs ten
pounds. At that rate the tailors will have him
in five years' time. Besides, he is too big and
strong. We shall not marry a man who can row
a boat. The water does not agree with us ! '

His argument was lost upon F^o, who had lived
one romance and would not contemplate another.
The youth and laughter at Cambridge amused
her, reminded her, perchance, of the virginal joy
of her own life, as youth and laughter ever must.
Leslie Drummond was a good-natured boy. When
he followed her from town to town during the
Christmas vacation, she told him so ; promising
him her friendship, and narrating for him the
story which to her .^ras the only story. Never
before had she spoken of that secret of hers ; yet,
she knew not why, she could tell it to this sympa-
thetic English boy, and find a strange pleasure of
memory in the recital. ' If you wish to be my
friend, never speak of this again,* she had said.
Leslie held his tongue, but pursued her neverthe-
less — aimlessly, doggedly, ever unresignedly. In
angry moments he beheld himself doing heroic
deeds, thrashing the man who had robbed him of
F^o, insulting him, calling him out to leave his
dead body on the ground. At saner intervals, he
argued that she would forget and that he could

HOUSE IN THE AVENUE MARCEAU 39

wait. Her sweet persuasiveness sent him back to
Cambridge during that very month of May — and
he obtained his degree, to the great astonishment
of the dean, who collapsed on receiving the news,
and to the anger of his private coach, with whom
he had wagered the term's fee that he would pass.
F^o left London with her father and Captain
Otto on the Friday. On the following Monday,
as no letter came from her, Leslie decided to go
to Paris and to ask her why she had not written
to him. He crossed the Channel by the morning
mail, and went straight to the H6tel Chatam.
When he had dined by himself, he asked the
head waiter if he knew the Avenue Marceau, and
how far off it was. The man raised his eyes to
heaven in mute protest. If he knew the Avenue
Marceau ! It was one of the graftd thoroughfares.
Every one knew the Avenue Marceau. It was a
turning out of the Champs Elys^es. Monsieur
was evidently a stranger. He had better take a
cab, or he would lose himself. Leslie listened
unconcernedly, and disregarding the polite offers
of the hotel interpreter, called a cab and gave his
directions in execrable French. He liked to think
that the money his father had spent on French
masters was not wasted. The cabman, in his turn,
was all politeness. When his fare had shut the
door, he bent down and asked the interpreter

X: ■

(

■ i

r '

FtO

iuJ

.1; til

'L ill'

' Where to ? ' The men exchanged a mutual * Oh
yes/ to express contempt for the foreigner and
his ways, and the cab drove off.

It is comparatively easy to direct a Paris cab-
man. It is more difficult to argue with him.
When, in the Avenue Marceau, Leslie's coachman
stopped suddenly and asked him the number of
the house to which he wished to go, the man
might as well have started a discussion upon the
Talmud. The flourishes of his whip, his astound-
ing gesticulations, his abandon to despair, quickly
drew a little crowd to the scene.

' I shall be charged with assault and battery if
this goes on,' was Leslie's argument as he listened
to the frenzied appeals. 'Why the deuce can't
the man speak plain English ? '

He searched for a five-franc piece, and offered
it humbly in appeasement of the terrible wrath
of one who merely sought to know the number
of a house. In the crowd there was an old
gentleman who spoke ' leetle English,' and he
generously attempted to put the matter straight.

* The number of the mansion, monsieur — what
is your number?'

'That's just what I want to know,' said the lad
desperately. ' He 's an Austrian chap. Captain
von Something, and I 'm jiggered if I haven't
forgotten his name.'

HOUSE IN THE AVENUE MARCEAU 4^

The Frenchman shook his head and passed on.

'They are all mad, these English,' he said.

Leslie, who wore a light dust-coat, and had not
chanf'^d his blue serge after the journey, began
to th that the old Frenchman was right. It
was just like F^o, he argued, to bring him to Paris
on this fool's errand. Why did she not write down
the number of the house? He remembered that
the Austrian had been ready enough with his
invitations, but had quite forgotten to supplement
them with those directions which were necessary
to bring a guest to his doors. The Avenue Mar-
ceau was, certainly, the devil of a street. He
looked head to see a bewildering maze of lights
twink; away to a horizon so distant that the
possibility even of exploring it drove him to
despair. And all the houses were so shamelessly
alike. By here and there, it is true, he espied
some building standing ap^rt in a little garden of
trees, as though resenting the intrusion of neigh-
bouring windows, and desiring a seclusion which
a later generation of builders had den ied to it. But
such houses did not help him. Impossible to ring
at all the bells of those countless doors and to
ask, 'Does Count von Something live here? —
an Austrian, you know.' He must wait until he
could find some one who would help him without
the danger of an apoplectic fit of the argument.

,it'-

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F^O

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To-morrow he would go to the Austrian Embassy.
Meanwhile, there was the Moulin Rouge. He did
not care a snap of the fingers about the Moulin
Rouge, but he knew that you must go there
when you visit Paris. People at home v^ould feel
offended if he had not been^ He was too young
yet to have lost the gregarious instincts of the
untravelled Englishman.

He went to the Moulin Rouge, and next day
was at the Austrian Embassy. They told him
that there were many Austrians in the Avenue
Marceau, and that his information was somewhat
vague. 'The name of the captain, mein Herr —
bring us that and we will point out his house to
you.* He nodded his head and replied that the
name had a ' von * to it, but he feared this strik-
ing method of identification would not help them.
Three hours spent vainly in the Avenue Marceau
that morning convinced him that he had better
go back to London and ascertain if F^o had not
written after all. He determined to do so, and
made up his mind to leave by the evening mail.
When the hour for departure came, he remem-
bered that F^o was in Paris. Her presence gave
a stimulus to his life there, which was irresistible.
He did not heed his loneliness, his lack of friends,
his difficulty in passing away the time. F6o was
in the city. He was near her. A chance piece

HOUSE IN THE AVENUE MARCEAU 43

of luck would permit him to hear her voice
again.

The luck for which he hoped seemed to come
to him when he had been in Paris for ten days.
He had spent his morning as usual in the
Avenue Marceau, and was returning gloomily to
dejeuner at a little caf^ in the Faubourg St.
Honor^, when whom should he see on the pave-
ment before him but the very Austrian whose
house he had searched for so vainly ! There was
no mistaking that military gait, that eye-glass,
that curious yellow hair tinged almost with a
vein of auburn as the sunlight fell upon it.
Leslie said that he could have picked the fellow
from a thousand. He began to congratulate
himself upon his resolution to remain in Paris.
He would see F^o after all. Excitement of the
hope sent him hurrying after the Austrian. The
man was then not fifty yards ahead of his
pursuer; he was about to enter an old house,
one of those doleful-looking mansions of the
Paris of the Empire, which stand back from the
world in an enceinte of wall and old-world gardens,
and are ashamed of the newness all about them.
Evidently this was his own house, for he opened
the garden gate with a key and passed out of
sight before the other could come up with him.
When Leslie arrived at the gate, he found it

F^O

shut — an old gate that should not have been
opened for two generations.

He was out of breath, and he knew that his
cheeks were flaming, so he stood a moment upon
the pavement, and looked up at the windows of
the house above the high wall of the garden.
Such rooms as he saw were garrets, he imagined,
and unused. The house itself seemed strangely
silent. Not a sound came from the garden. The
old garden wall was rotting and decayed. When
he tugged at the great bell-pull, no answering ring
rewarded him. In vain he beat upon the door
and pulled at the handle of the bell until the
rusty knob came away in his hand. No one
appeared at the gate. He heard no footsteps,
no voices, not so much as the baying of a
watchdog.

An hour passed before he quitted the Avenue
Marceau to return to his hotel. He was very
preoccupied as he went, and he laughed once
at himself for his foolish fancies. Yet, rightly
or wrongly, the idea had come to him that F^o
was in that house and that she was in danger
there. And he made up his mind that he would
not leave Paris before he knew the truth, and
had heard from her own lips that all was well
with her.

CHAPTER VI

THE BEGINNING OF THE DOUBT

Georges de Berthier sat in the conservatory
of Captain Lamberg's house in the Avenue
Marceau and sipped his liqueur and smoked his
cigar with the air of one justly rewarded for a
long life of idleness. He had been in Paris for
nearly twenty days, and he said to himself that
if such luxuries continued to wait upon his
pleasure, he would cheerfully consent to any
extension of hospitality that might be pleasing
to his host. Whatever misgivings had attended
his departure from London, no misgiving troubled
him in that splendid house. Wretched as the
purlieus were, rotting and decayed the garden,
gloomy and forbidding the windows, its interior,
nevertheless, was unsurpassed by any mansion
in the quarter.

Many thoughts were in his mind on that
twentieth day when he sat in the conservatory
of the house and drank good coffee and remem-
bered the excellent dijeuner of which he had

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just partaken. Sometimes, it is true, he was
troubled at the continued absence of the man
who had brought him to Paris, but who remained,
strangely enough, in that England he had just
left. This fact his host did not seek to deny.

* Mademoiselle F^o was right and we were
wrong,' Lamberg said : * the Prince arrived in
London on the night we left. It was a summons
from her Majesty, the Queen of England. He
has gone to Windsor, and will go afterwards to
your island of Wight. I am sorry that you must
wait, but what can I do ? If we left now, to-day,
for London again, his Highness would be here
while we were crossing the sea. It is annoying,
but it cannot be helped, M. Berthier.*

He spoke as a man who wished to be their
friend, with a rare courtesy and an unfailing
regard for their pleasure. When he impressed
upon them the hope that they would not be
seen in the streets of Paris, it was as the
desire of one who served them in all honesty.
Sometimes he would appear to forget that desire,
and would urge an evening's amusement at one
of the caf6s in the Champs Elys^es, or even an
excursion to Saint-Cloud or Versailles. They
did not know that, on such days, he had read
the French and English papers from the first line
to the last, and had set the occasion down as a

THE BEGINNING OF THE DOUBT 47

safe one. The simplicity of his task amazed him.
In another ten days Prince Jerome would be in
Vienna again ; all the world would know of his
betrothal to his cousin Princess Marie. There
would be an angry scene then — but a bribe of
money to the old man would end that ; and as
for the girl — well, she was young, she was pretty,
she was clever : such women do not lack careers.
Lamberg was attracted by F60 in spite of himself,
but her reticence and her silence mystified him.
She had seemed to be in a dream ever since they
quitted London.

' Your daughter does not like me,' he said to
Berthier on that twentieth day ; * she has not
liked me since she saw the Prince in London.
If you are not very careful with her, you will
send our friend back to Vienna, and it will be a
long time before he comes to Paris again. I
have been foolish, perhaps, to take her out at all.
There are sure to be those who know her at the
Embassy here, and if they have seen us — well,
the rest is easy to guess. At the same time I
cannot tell your daughter these things. She is
an Englishwoman, and would resent the necessity
for so much secrecy. I do not blame her for
that. I only suggest that you should do what
I cannot do.'

Old Berthier, thoroughly alarmed, and seeing

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FEO

in his imagination the good things about him
vanish as at a magic touch, hastened to express
contrition for Feo and apologies for her way-
wardness.

* She shall not go out any more,' he protested ;
'it will be difficult to explain, but I am not
frightened at that. Ah, my friend, you do not
know what it is to have a daughter ! '

' Since I am a ijachelor of twenty years' stand-
ing, I do not ; but I can understand. I know
something of women, and I rarely complain of
them. After all, the fact that they don't do just
what we want them to do does not necessarily
imply that we are right and they are wrong. A
woman's intuition is, in my opinion, worth more
than a man's philosophy. Mademoiselle does
not like me because she does not altogether trust
me. I shall win her trust by and by, and she
will forgive me. Meanwhile, the less she knows
of what is going on here the better. It is always
difficult to teach diplomacy to a lady. If you
ask your daughter to be prudent for my sake,
she will go out five minutes afterwards. On the
contrary, suggest that a little sacrifice would be
of service to the Prince, and the end is gained.'

Berthier sipped his maraschino and smoked for
a little while in silence.

' There shall be no difficulties of our making,'

THE BEGINNING OF THE DOUBT 49

he exclaimed at last with obvious reluctance.
' I wish I could say that there would be none
made by others. My child has lost her engage-
ment at the opera, and they will not offer it to
her a second time. Her future is dear to me. I
should be glad to think that we are not pursuing
a chimera.'

Captain Lamberg lit a cigar and drew his chair
a little closer.

' I thought that you would speak of this matter
sooner or later/ he said frankly. ' I am glad that
it should be now. Of course, I do not disguise
it from myself that something might intervene
even yet between the Prince and his wishes. If
he cannot see mademoiselle in Paris, it will be
open to you either to await a more fortunate
opportunity, or to stipulate that those who are
keeping you apart shall pay for the privilege.
In your shoes those would be my alternatives.

He spoke with apparent carelessness, but was
understood nevertheless. Old Berthier lent a
ready ear to a suggestion which pleased him
so well.

'Come,' he said, a little querulously, 'let us be
quite plain with each other. Yesterday you told
me a fairy-tale ; you now wish to tell me the
truth. You have other interests.'

The Austrian dissented sharply.

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* Not at all. You go too fast. I speak neither
as a friend nor as a foe, but as a man of the
world. When I went to London, three weeks
ago, I believed it quite possible to bring these
young people together again. If they are kept
apart, it will be by an influence I am unable to
combat. I do not wish to see you suffer by my
failure, and so I remind you that there are those
in Vienna who will be very ready to hear your
complaints. I should regret such an eventuality
chiefly for the sake of the man who would give
half the years of his life to meet your daughter
again and to know that his future was her future.
None the less, if the worst should happen, there
is always the other course of which I speak. In
your shoes, I would accept, unhesitatingly, any
satisfaction they may make, as a just debt owing
to you by those who sent you out of Austria.'

*You think that I should write to the Arch-
duke?'

' If the circumstances justify a letter. This
week will be decisive. Should the Prince not be
in Paris on Sunday morning, he will never be, so
far as we are concerned. It will mean that they
have become acquainted with certain matters we
endeavoured to keep from their knowledge. I
say this frankly because you have trusted me, and
I desire that the trust shall be mutual. Whatever

; s

THE BEGINNING OF THE DOUBT 51

happens here, Otto Lamberg will always remain
the friend of Georges de Berthier and of his
daughter.'

He protested with that fine show of manners
by which the Austrians are ever to be known ;
and so subtly did he complicate the problem that
the many issues of it were not yet to be mastered
by his victim. Berthier, on his part, began to
rack his brains anew in a confused attempt to
grapple with the fresh situation which candour
had made possible. He was still silent in such
an employment when Feo, dressed for walking,
passed down the stairs and stood at the con-
servatory door.

* I am going to the Bois, father,' she said,
pausing an instant to speak to them; 'if you
are coming, you will find me at the chalet!

Both men rose to their feet, but Lamberg was
the first to speak.

* Is that very prudent. Mademoiselle F($o ? ' he
asked.

' I am tired of prudence, and I am going out,'
she answered quietly.

'You are very foolish, F^o,' Berthier said.
'You know perfectly well that we do not wish
any one to see us in Paris. A little sacrifice is
necessary, and yet you do not consent to it'

She shrugged her shoulders.

,*.

¥±0

IM !

* The Prince would not wish me to suffocate,*
she exclaimed. * I am going to the Bois. If you
are frightened, you can get a carriage and come
and fetch me.'

She turned quickly and ran down the stairs.
The concierge^ a burly Austrian, hesitated a
moment before he opened the door ; but Lamberg
had followed her, and he indicated assent by the
slightest nod of his head. Despite his words to
her father, he had marked the day a safe one.

* If I had thought of it, we would have driven
you,* he said, standing at the door to let her pass,
* but we shall come for you at the chalet^

' How kind you are ! ' was her answer, ' and how
grateful my father should be ! '

The irony was not lost upon him. He watched
her as she began to walk quickly towards the
Arc de I'ttoile, and he knew that with her the
battle lay.

'Ten thousand florins will buy the father,* he
said to himself as he went upstairs again, ' but
there is no fortune in Europe which will keep a
woman away from the man she loves.*

CHAPTER VII

WESTWARD TO THE BOIS

It was a day of June, sunny and fresh with
gentle breezes. All Paris moved westward to
the Bois when F^o quitted the old house in the
Avenue Marceau, and found herself hurrying
onward to that scene of life and colour and
merriment which the city ever can command.
Still ripe with the greens of spring, the rust-
ling trees in the avenues about the Arc de
I'i^toile seemed to shake down their blossoms
upon an endless procession, wherein every known
form of carriage that man has made could find
its place and contribute to the cavalcade.
Splendid barouches, low-built victorias drawn
by perfect cobs, dog-carts with two horses, dog-
carts with one, coaches, cabs, even the terrible
fiacre plunging into the meUe — all these rolled
and surged towards the great rendezvous whither
Paris betook herself at the appointed hour ; there
to plan the morrow, to see and to be seen,
perchance to find lovers waiting, to be gay

i!|tl

FtO

; II

always, wearing the smiling face and the jesting
tongue because the days of summer are few and
only lajeunesse is eternal.

F^o watched the carriages as she trod the
crowded pavements, and many desires and
ambitions were born to her of the scene. That
dolour of life, which had pursued her since she
left Vienna, was no part of her nature, she knew.
It was her birthright to laugh as these people
laughed, to wear the smiles they wore, to love as
they loved. Her very silence and gloom had
been the outcome of that suppressed excitement
which the tragedy of love had born within her.
She knew that a word from one man could break
the spell and bring back the F^o whose gaiety
and girlish energy had won so great a name
in the theatres of Vienna. In imagination she
beheld herself, dressed as the throng of chattering
women whose hats and whose gowns were to be
discussed, ay in many a village, during the coming
year. She saw herself, with Jerome at her side,
the envy of many who then passed so close to the
pavement that she could have touched them with
her hand, but who did not turn a head to look
at her. Even in the darkest moments of her life
she had believed that fate ultimately would
reward her for the hours of work and of poverty
and of tears. The same belief was magnified in

Hiiiij

WESTWARD TO THE BOIS

this city of hope abundant. Paris was powerful
to inspire her to ambition anew. She said to
herself, as the throngs jostled her and the men
stared at her and the noise of the laughter rang
in her ears, * If — if Jerome should come ! '

It was a great desire, a young girl's desire for
the consummation of that first great romance of
life, surpassing other romances, the love which
neither questions nor reckons. From the moment
that they had told her their secret in the train,
she had lived in another world. Jerome, her
lover, was coming to Paris ; he had not forgotten
her; the old days in Vienna were to be relived
again. She wondered neither at the way of their
meeting nor at her journey. That which she had
suffered in Austria at the hands of the Prince's
friends was to be atoned for in this luxury of the
old house in the Avenue Marceau. Jerome was
very rich. She regarded Lamberg as his servant.
He had wished to redeem his promises made
long ago in the sunny woods of the Danube.
There was no thought of hurt to him in the
co'iteni^ tion of this happiness beyond measure,
^ i she said that he loved her, and she believed
that the r.-hes of her love would be dearer to him
than anything life could give him.

During the first week of her sojourn in Paris,
she had lived in tiiis atmosphere of confidence

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unquestioning. The courteous manner of Captain
Lamberg, added to her own great wish, forbade
suspicion or doubt. Every day the Austrian
assured her anew that the hours of waiting would
be few, that the Prince was in England against
his will, that he could not write because of those
who spied upon him.

* In Paris,* he had said, * there will be no such
espionage, because they believe you to be in
London. Your father and I have been careful
to circulate the report that illness is responsible
for your absence from the opera. The Prince's
friends will breathe again when he is in Paris.
We shall breathe too — the laugh will be with us.
Believe me, I would risk much to bring my
friend Jerome to this house this very hour, if
only to prove my admiration and esteem for
Mademoiselle F^o.*

The kindness of the man convinced her, but
only for a little while. As the days of waiting
became weeks, and she must hear the echo of the
life of Pr.ris coming to her as a mock upon the
splendour of the house, which was her prison, a
woman's sure instinct began to help her ; and she
awoke from her dreams to ask herself if this very
secrecy were not in itself a shame unworthy of
her and of the man who loved her. No
malefactor banished from Austria for an offence

WESTWARD TO THE BOIS

aga.iist its government could have been the
object of greater suspicion. Her first argument,
that Jerome had wished it, lost its force when he
did not come to her. One day she asked herself
suddenly if it were indeed Jerome's wish or the
wish of those who had separated her from him ?
In that hour her 'nstinct of doubt was awakened.
She uttered no complaint nor betrayed herself,
saying that no act of h<jrs should be remembered
afterwards as a cause of her lover's absence. But
to Lamberg the glove was thrown, and he
knew it.

An odd determination, perhaps, to embarrass
this man and to prove him carried her to the
Bois that afternoon. It was a woman's impulse,
and she repented of it when she reached the
chalet and began to remember how very much
alone she was in that world of laughing faces and
perpetual chatter. These dark-eyed, daintily-
dressed women, whose voices were ever as a shrill
note of music in the air, stood so far away from
her own world and her own interests. She asked
herself if obstinacy had not carried her from tue
Avenue Marceau ; indeed, she was about to re-
trace her teps, humbly and in penitence, when
a carriage passed swiftly through the press of
vehicles, and there, sitting on the right-hand seat,
with a young Austrian soldier upon his left hand,

i .

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'ii

F^O

was no other than Prince Jerome himself. For
an instant she beheld him — the Jerome of the old
days, her lover, the man whose promise had been
to her as the bread of life. Then the press closed
about the carriage. The apparition, as of one
long dead seen anew in the glare of the noonday
sun, vanished from her sight. She was alone,
tottering, faint, crushed as with the burden of
her folly.

Unconscious of that which she did, deaf now to
the voices of the women, blind to the glitter of
the scene, F^o hurried home again. Jerome in
Paris ! They had lied to her, then ! Or had he
but just come, and was this the punishment for
her obstinacy ! The very thought tormented her
in an agony of self-reproach. She could picture
him hurrying to the house in the Avenue Marceau
to hear the story — * She would not wait, she would
not be prudent.' A whisper of deep foreboding
pleaded that he might never return. Her anxiety
to know the worst, if the worst must be, quick-
ened her steps and set her heart beating. When
some one spoke to her and a hand was laid gently
upon her shoulder, she did not hear the words
nor feel the touch. She must get home again,
she thought.

' I say, F^o — you don't mean it I Can't you
spare me a minute ? *

WESTWARD TO THF BOIS

She looked up, recognising now the voice and
the hand of Leslie Drummond.

* Yon — here in Paris, Leslie ! *

'Well, I think so, unless it's Hyde Park by
mistake.*

She hesitated, for she knew that he was her
friend.

* Why did you not come to see us ? * she
asked.

' Come to see you — I like that ! Why, I Ve
been to your place twice a day for the last three
weeks.'

He shook his curly black hair defiantly, and
then perceiving her astonishment, he began to
apologise boyishly.

' Of course, it wasn't > lur fault — I know that.
You came here to see the woolly-headed Austrian
chap, who 's just gone by in a landau that must
have been made for Epping Forest. The fellow 's
been here all day. I half expected to see vou in
the carriage with him.'

F^o's eyes blazed angrily.

* You must not speak like that of my friends,
Leslie. You do not k.^ow what his friendship
means to me.'

' I *m very sorry, F^o. I can't help chaffing.
I wish to God there was nothing to chaff you
about. You might have seen me at any rate, just

I I

FEO

for the sake of old times. I told you I 'd come
to Paris if you didn't wri.e to me.'

' But I have written to you twice.'

He stood and looked at her in amazement

' Some one forgot to post your letters, then.*

' You never received them ? '

' Not a letter ! '

They walked on for a little way in silence.
F^o was very pale, and he could see that she was
thinking deeply.

'Tell me, Leslie,' she asked presently, 'what
did they say to you when you called at Captain
Lamberg's house ? '

'They were discreet. They didn't open the
door. I don't want to be impolite about your
friend, F^o, but I think he 's a liar.'

Fdo half suppressed a sob.

' He is my father's friend,' she said quickly.
'We came to his house because he said that
Jerome wished it and could only see us again if
we were in Paris. I dare not think that he has
deceived us.'

*0h, but I dare! If the thing was all square,
why is he afraid to open his door when a man
knocks decently ? You heard him ask me to
come and see him. It isn't a case of a broken
bell, for I 've made enough row to wake the
prophets. There's something wrong, F^o, and

WESTWARD TO THE BOIS

the sooner you 're both out of that place the
better.'

She tried to argue favourably, struggling still
with her hope.

* My father declares that he has known Captain
Lamberg for ten years. We have everything that
we want there, and are very kindly treated. You
judge the house from what you see of it. When
you come inside you will change your mind.'

Leslie walked on, swinging his stick.

* Possibly I shall — when I come inside. That
will be in the day of the Morlocks. It 's plain to
me that if your Austrian friend expected to find
you in the Avenue Marceau, he wouldn't be
driving in the Bois de Boulogne. I wish you'd
just cut it all and come along and stay at the
Chatam. I 've plenty of cash : why should we
bother about it if we are friends ?'

They entered the Avenue Marceau as he spoke.
She turned to him with gratitude to be read in
her pretty eyes.

* I could never do that, Leslie ; it would not be
right to you. I am going back now to learn the
truth. If it is as you think, I will come to the
Hdtel Chatam to-morrow to tell you so. If you
wish to be my friend, do not let them see us
together here. I am very grateful to you,
Leslie.'

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She pressed his hand and was gone in an
instant. He followed her with wistful gaze. Ah,
this Paris, if it could have given him F^o, what a
bounty of life would have been his! ■ For he
began to realise that this handsome, helpless,
winsome girl was more to him than all else that
men appraise or seek of fortune.

r^'i

III

ill

CHAPTER VIII

THE LIE

t<4

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F£o was breathless when she entered the garden
of Lamberg's house and stood again hearing the
protestations of the concierge that his master had
already gone to look for her.

' Monsieur, your father, is upstairs. I think
that they wish to see you very much, made-
moiselle. The Captain went out a quarter of an
hour ago and has not returned. There was a
telegram.'

For an instant it seemed to F^o that all her
fabric of doubt and suspicion was destroyed by
such news. A telegram had come ; it was the
telegram which announced Jerome's arrival.
Captain Lamberg had gone out to look for her !
It was to carry the good tidings to her. She
thought how easy it was to misunderstand the
motives of others ; and so ran up quickly to find
her father.

Old Georges de Berthier was reading the
Figaro in the library. The indispensable cigar-
ette helped to remind him of the new content of

«.

f6o

V nS,

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I'M
1 ■ i

life which had come to him in Paris. He was
almost afifable when F^o entered the room, and
had no complaint of his ailments ready for her.

• Well,' he exclaimed, ' so you did not meet the
Captain ? '

She threw herself upon the great lounge at his
side and told him her news without disguise.

'Jerome is in Paris. I have just seen him in
the Bois. I suppose that was why Captain Lam-
berg went to look for me.'

Berthier crumpled up the paper in his hand
and sat reflective and not a little astonished, as
one called upon to pronounce suddenly upon a
very difficult affair.

* No,* he said very slowly and after an interval
of embarrassing silence, * he did not tell me that.
A telegram came, and he went out to look for
you immediately. If Jerome is in Paris, he will
come here to-day— or — he will never come at all,
my child.'

He turned round in his chair and looked her
full in the face. She was very pale, he thought,
and there was a strange light in her eyes which
he had never seen before. But she did not
express astonishment that he should speak in
such a way, and her answer was a question.

'Father,' she asked, 'why did we come to
Paris?'

THE LIE

* You know why we came, F6o.*

'You believe that Captain Lamberg told you
the truth ? '

'Why should I not believe it? He is a Cuiras-
sier of the Guard and Jerome's friend.'

' But if he should have told you a lie ? '

The old man's fingers began to pVay with the
paper nervously. He knew well that he dared
not answer the question.

* Do not trouble your head with such ideas,' he
said presently ; * men do not invite to their houses
those whom they wish to rob. If Jerome does
not come here, it will be because his father has
seen fit to prevent him.'

* In that case what are we going to do ?'
Berthier knitted his brows and began to puff at

his cigarette. His answer was a running com-
mentary upon his own ideas.

'They sent us away from Vienna when we
could have made our fortunes there. We have
suffered much at their hands, for they sought to
prevent our success in London as they are now
trying to do us an injury in Paris. If they are
honourable men, they will make us some com-
pensation for that which we have suffered. I
shall not go to them as a beggar, F^o, be sure of
that. I do not forget that I am an artist and a
gentleman. But if we are to be left in Paris,

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after all that has happened, it would be bare
justice to ask them either to find you a new
engagement or the equivalent of it. Of course
the Prince may come yet, and that would be the
end of the difficulty. I trust it may be so. I am
a proud man, and this intrigue is hurtful to my
pride. The future is full of anxiety — of grave
anxiety.'

Feo laughed a little hardly. She was be-
ginning to see the terrible indignity which her
continued residence in Paris must put upon
her.

* You were wrong to come to Paris at all,
father,' she said quietly. ' If it means so much to
Jerome's friends that he should see me again, I
will not see him at all. Can't you understand
the shame of our position ? Why were you not
frank with me before you left London ? You
owed it to me. You, at least, should have
saved me from this dreadful mistake.'

* Come, come, you must not talk like that,
child. What I have done, I have done for your
happiness. Is it my fault that these people must
only marry with their equals ? There are twenty
princes morganatically married in Europe to-day.
Their lives are secret as your life will be secret.
They are not ashamed ; why should they be ?
I shall take care that we suffer no indignity. The

THE LIE

sacrifices I have made are not to be considered
lightly. I do not expect you to remember them ;
children never do. But your future is my proper
care ; and if these people continue their persecu-
tion, they shall pay for it — that is all. In the
meantime we will wait and see. Our suspicions
may be wrong. Let us be just before all
things.'

He could protest with a fine air of honesty and
of truth ; but the day had been long distant
when such protestations deceived F^o in any
way. She did not, upon the instant, realise the
whole meaning of the satisfaction he hinted at as
a recompense for the evil days in Vienna; but
the conviction grew upon her that she was the
victim of a lie, and she would have said as much
but for the return of Lamberg himself, who came
hurrying to the library, and did not conceal his
satisfaction at finding her there.

* Ah, mademoiselle, you are really here ! And
I have been walking round and round the chalet
like a horse in the circus. That was not kind
of you.'

F^o stood up to answer him.

* I met a friend, Mr. Drummond of London ;
and I hear that Prince Jerome is in Paris, Captain
Lamberg.'

Lamberg's face blanched visibly, but long

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practice had given him good weapons for such an
encounter.

' I am glad that you met your English friend,
Miss F6o. He must come and see us. Your
other story, unfortunately, is not true. The
Prince is still at Windsor, but he has promised
to be in Paris in three days' time.*

F^o laughed lightly.

' How you console me, Captain ! * she said with
an assumption of girlish indifference.

' Not so ; I must leave that to another friend
of yours.'

'Who is coming on Saturday?'

* VV^ho is coming on Saturday.'
•Unfailingly?'

* He will move heaven and earth to come.'
' What a dreadful undertaking ! '

' Not dreadful in certain cases, Miss F^o.'
' Then we may expect him on Monday ? *
' I said Saturday, mademoiselle,'

* But I wish to give the universe a chance.'
Old Berthier laughed heartily.

' It is no good to contradict a woman,' he said ;
* let us make it Monday, and have our tea.'

F^o assented, still jesting with them.

'Things that happen to-morrow are always
better than those which happen to-day,' she
said ; 'that is why the truth is often such

I
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:,;! (

THE LIE

an uncomfortable guest. Don't you think so,
Captain ? '

He looked at her sharply, and as their eyes
met, he knew that she believfid him no longer.
And this was true, for F^o went to her room to
tell herself that Otto Lamberg had lied to her,
and that she would remain in his house no
longer. But old Georges de Berthier, sipping his
tea in the library, asked himself how much the
Archduke Frederick would pay for a promise
that F^o should see his son no more.

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CHAPTER IX

UNMASKED

FfiO went straight to her room and drew a chair
to the window that she might think upon all the
day had taught her. It was a large room,
furnished with great taste, and looking over a
little court at the back of the house. She could
see nothing of ihe life of Paris from its windows,
only .he quaint old court with the great green
pots and the stunted palms in them, and the low
wing of a neighbouring mansion which here jutted
out and touched the kitchen buildings below her.
Beyond the courtyard, and the high walls to
which it extended, there lay another of those
great avenues which radiate from the Arc de
I'Etoile. She could hear a low murmur of the
city's life, a voice of Paris at the zenith of the
springtime, coming to her over the forgotten
garden and the gloomy barrier of brick and ailing
tree. She knew that she was in the gayest city
in the world, and yet she had never felt so utterly
alone. The sap of her spirit had dried up

Ill

UNMASKED

suddenly ; the dream of the days during which
she had waited for Jerome to come was over.
She understood now that he would never come.

It was a bitter reflection, not so much of her
disappointment as of the shame her presence in
that house implied. Never for a moment did she
doubt now that she had been brought there, not
at her lover's wish, but at the will of those who
would keep her from her lover. In her first keen
self-reproach, she was sure that her father was
privy to the conspiracy. He had sold his honour
for the money of those who had put a slight
upon him in Vienna, and had sent him out, a
beggar, to the capitals of the West. She was of
age now, being in her twenty-fourth year, to be
blinded no longer by that inborn reverence which
makes the child the last to admit the father's sin.
She knew her father in his every mood, his sel-
fishness, his little petty cunningness, his jealousy
of her success, his generosity to those who had
no claim upon him. She could not hide it from
herself that he would do even this. No other
conclusion of her charity was possible. He had
heard the Austrian He to her. He had said
nothing. Whatever evil was being wrought
against her, to that her father was a party.

She came to such an understanding as she sat
at her window and listened to the murmur of the

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life of Paris and the whisper of the June breeze
in the blackened trees. Jerome was in the city,
she said. Perchance he had come there to seek
her. An exquisite hope of the thought was born
in her heart as she dwelt upon the reflection.
She lived again in those moments all those
unforgotten days of her love-dream in the East.
She could rcm.imber the very words her lover
had spoken to her; his gentle,' :ss, his vows, his
care for her, his protestation that whatever might
befall, he would follow her to the end of the
world. What joy of life had been hers when in
city and in forest she could find a bower of her
affections, when the very secrecy of her love had
been the keystone of a child's romance ! To-day
that joy might return to her. If she could see
Jerome ! If she could leave that house of gloom
behind her and go again to the sunshine of
freedom, and care not though all Paris were the
witness ! It was a woman's resolution, yet none
the less sure for that. She determined, on the
instant, to leave that place, and to go, she
cared not whither, if it were not to her lover's
side.

No one had followed her upstairs during the
hour when she sat at her bedroom window and
found herself for the first time face to face with
the story of the intrigue. Once, when she

UNMASKED

listened for a little while at the stair's head, she
thought that she could hear her father's voice;
and afterwards a door was shut loudly and the
sound of voices ceased. She imagined then that
she was alone in the house, and the name of
Leslie Drummond occurred to her as one who
would befriend her in such an hour. Excited, as
she had never been before, in the thought of
flight and the possibilities of flight, she put on
her hat quickly, and ran down the stairs. There
was only the concierge at the great front door,
and he, as ever, 'ad a smile and a ready word
for her.

* I am going to the Hotel Chatam to see Mr.
Drummond, an Englishman,' she said; 'if my
father should ask, you will tell him. I do not
krow when I shall return.'

A strange expression came upon the man's
face. He did not attempt to open the door.

* Mademoiselle,' he protested, * forgive me ; it
is not my wish, but my order. Your father does
not think it prudent for you to go out again
until he has returned, A thousand apologies,
mademoiselle '

F^o stood dumfounded. The door was locked.
The man did not move.

* You do not mean to say that I am to be kept
here against my will ? '

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The concierge shrugged his shoulders as though
this were the worst hour of his life.

• It is not that, mademoiselle. Be reasonable.
I am only the servant. When monsieur comes
home he will explain.'

F^o did not hear him ; but turning quickly she
ran upstairs to her room again.

s« 1

CHAPTER X

A woman's way

It was six o'clock then. She could hear the

musical bells of the churches across the river

chiming the hour when she shut the door of her ^

bedroom again. In the house itself unbroken

silence reigned. The whisper of breeze no longer ,

shivered in the blackened trees. Paris was re- •

turning from the Bois, and would cease to laugh

until the sun had set.

F^o shut the door and took off her hat. She
was not sorry that the man had told her the '

truth ; for now the secret of the house was hers. |H ^

She had never liked Otto Lamberg from the i

moment when first he paid her one of his pretty

compliments in London. She knew that some |;j

mystery lay behind that story which he told so
pleasantly. But that this should be truth — this
intrigue which would keep her from Jerome and
make her a prisoner of the house until her lover
had quitted Paris — had been beyond the province
of her reckoning. Not for a moment could she

FtO

doubt that her old enemies in Austria had
contrived so clumsy a conspiracy. Wise friends
in Vienna once had said, ' Beware, for these
people have long arms and can strike in many
countries.' She had laughed at them then. And,
not a little to her astonishment, she found that
she could laugh again now when one of these
arms had been stretched out to touch her, and
a paid intriguer had justified her friends of
their boasts. The plot seemed to her to be as
poorly conceived as it was impotent. That very
hour should defeat it. She took the resolution
there and then, and once taken she cleaved to
it tenaciously.

A great gift of courage and of spirit had been
hers since her childhood. It was odd that this
sudden realisation of her danger in that house
of mystery should arouse these latent qualities and
vivify them in the moment when nerve and a
good heart were sorely needed. What the extent
of the intrigue might be, how far the agents of the
Archduke would go, she could not imagine. Suffi-
cient that she was a prisoner in the house, that
Jerome had come to Paris to seek her, that her
father had lent himself shamefully to the inten-
tions of those who had waged so pitiless a war
against a helpless girl. The assurance that she
stood alone nerved her to the encounter. She

A WOMAN'vS WAY

had determined already that she would find a
road to freedom. In her calmer moments there
was a great dread of that which the silent, mys-
terious house might contain. Her imagination
peopled it with enemies who had not the silver
tongue and the plausibility of Otto Lamberg.
She listened for any sounds ; the creak of a board
made her heart beat. The odd thought came to
her that she was watched, and panic followed
upon her laughter. But it was only for a moment.
The night should take her — she cared not whither,
if it would but give her freedom.

She had locked the door of her room when she
returned to it, and now she began to count the
money she had in her purse and to put some of
her pretty clothes in the great black dress basket.
It was pathetic to remember that she must leave
these clothes behind her ; but she amused herself
with the intention to write for them and to say
that they might be sent, carriage unpaid, to some
new lodgings. When she had done everything
to her satisfaction, she opened the door again
and listened. A dark corridor, running the whole
length of the house, seemed to lead from her bed-
room to the servants' quarters. The idea came to
her to explore the corridor and to ascertain if
it would afford any way of egress of which she
was then in ignorance. There was no one in

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that wing of the house that she could see ; and
when slie had found the courage, she set out
boldly, treading the corridor with light steps, and
coming at last to a winding iron staircase which,
she thought, must bring her to the servants'
hall. She had her hand already upon the balus-
trade of the landing when a man appeared noise-
lessly from one of the rooms near by, and,
appearing to be astonished at her presence, began
to remonstrate with her.

* Mademoiselle,' he said appealingly, * that is
the way to the kitchen.'

F^o turned and stared at him. He was a
strongly built man, with short hair and a French
type of face. The door of the room behind him
was still ajar, and she could see other men sitting
at a little table and playing cards there.

* But, monsieur, I want to go into the garden.
It is suffocating here.'

The man pointed to the great staircase at the
other end of the corridor.

* That way, if you please, mademoiselle.'

He entered the little room again and shut the
door after him. F^o stood an instant debating
it ; then she returned slowly to her own apart-
ment. That which she had seen frightened her
as she had never been frightened before in all her
life. It was not so much the word of the man as

llfi
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A WOMAN'S WAY

the tone in which he had spoken. She asked
herselt, what all these servants were doing in
Lamberg's house ? Why had she never seen
them before ? What would happen to her when
the hour for civility had passed finally, and no
mask was needed ? They might even dare so
much as to kill her. She laughed at herself for
such a foolish fancy, and once more locked her-
self in her bedroom.

She had been dressed for walking when she
packed her clothes, and she put on her hat again
as the hour for dinner drew near. Minute by
minute the tension of the scene was awaking
faculties long spellbound in the dreams of a
child's romance. She must leave the house that
night ; must go to Jerome, she said. The daring
of the resolve was as strong wine to one who had
all the nervous impulses and exciting passions of
the artist. The hazard of that which she con-
templated never so much as occurred to her. She
was in a trap, and a woman's wit must get her
out. When the maid came up at half-past seven
to dress her for dinner, she pleaded a headache
and desired to be excused. A second message
from her father was answered as the first. She
was going to bed, she said, and would not dine
witi them that night.

The maid went away, and another hour of soli-

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tude passed. Looking from her open window,
down upon the leads of the building below her,
she could understand why she had never seen
any one there, and why they had put her in that
lonely wing. The high wall at the rear of the
garden was a sentinel more formidable than any
servant of Austria, No woman unaided could
pass there. Moreover, her room lay twenty feet
above the leads, and descent thereto must be
beyond word perilous. Everything had been
calculated by this man whom Jerome's friends
had sent to be her gaoler. She repeated the assur-
ance often as twilight deepened and, in the sky
above, the red glow of the city's lamps began to
mark the vigil of the night. Everything had
been thought of. Even if she could reach the
garden, there was no way out of it save by the
gate in the Avenue Marceau ; no way at all, she
said, except by the public gate or that little
window in the wing of the neighbouring house —
a window through which a child could hardly
climb, so small was it. Little need, truly, that
they should spy upon the garden.

She argued with herself in this way many times
as she waited for the dark to come. She was
quite sure of her conclusions. If the window had
but been large enough, she might have descended
into the garden by the cord of one of her boxes

f:\

A WOMAN'S WAY

and have gained admittance into the big house
next door. No enemies would be there ; and
strangers, surely, would help her in this strange
dilemma. The idea of appearing suddenly in
the household of her nei<ijhbours amused her. She
began to ask if, after all, the little window which
overlooked the Count's house, might not be large
enough for her to climb through. Her pretty
figure was slim, if shapely. Nevertheless, the
window was very small. And who would open it
to her ? She had never seen any one in the
neighbouring house. Failure was not to be
thought of. Indeed, she had almost abandoned
her project when a glimmer of light shone sud-
denly behind the very glass which provoked her
argumei.t ; and she knew that some one was in
that room through which alone she could pass to
freedom.

Her heart was beating fast now, and mechani-
cally she began to loosen the rope which bound
her trunk, and to tie it, and tie it again, to the
foot of a great bureau on the left-hand side of
her own window. It was quite dark at the
moment, and she was glad of that, for the dark-
ness hid the terror of the abyss below her, and
she could think only of that which she had to do
to gain the freedom which meant so much to her.
She knew that any noise would betray her, even

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the sound of her own footsteps ; and she drew oiT
her pretty French shoes and thrust them in the
bosom of her dress. Her own daring amazed
her. She had always feared a height ; had feared
even to stand at a puny clifif's edge or to look
down from one of those high windows in the
great hotels of London. If she had not said to
herself again and again, * Jerome is in the city
waiting for me/ her new resolution would have
melted away at the beginning of it. But this
thought of the reward of freedom was as a gift of
courage beyond her dreams. Trembling, with a
laugh upon her lips, half afraid, strong in hope,
she clutched the cord and swung out over the
abyss. She was going to her lover.

It was a still night, very dark and starless, and
full of silence out there in the garden. She had
swung herself well away from the window, fear-
ing that her dress might catch in some outstand-
ing ironwork ; but the rope swayed horribly and
carried her out beyond the limit of the leads, so
that she could look down and see the gravel path
forty feet below her, and realise that it would be
instant death to fall there. It came to her in such
a moment that her life depended upon her nerve.
An overwhelming sense of giddiness and terror
troubled her ; she tried convulsively to grasp
again the ledge of the window and to pull herself

A WOMAN'S WAY

back into the room ; but the rope continued to
swing, and she clutched it with fingers made
strong in the fear of death.

Inch by inch now she began to let herself
down toward the place of safety. Her imapji-
nation played strange tricks with her. There
was a dreadful instant when she could depict
herseL' falling through infinite space, falling until
her brain reeled and her heart stood still. She
had the temptation to throw herself down, and
thus to end that intolerable agony of suspense.
Nevertheless, a truer instinct saved her. She saw
again that courage alone could win her freedom.
When her feet at last touched the leads, she was
almost impotent in terror. But she knew that
she was saved, and the joy of that thought
brought tears to her eyes.

Freedom, she stood so close to it now! A few
steps across the leads, an effort to pass the low
wall intervening, and there was the window which
had cost her so much to reach. It was larger
than it had seemed when she looked down upon
it from above ; and she realised that she could
easily pass there if only some one would open to
her. And so she tapped, once, twice ; and becom-
ing bolder, she tried to shake the glass — and then
for the first time remembered where she stood
and realised her folly. Some one might hear her

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in the house she had left. She paused with quak-
ing heart to listen for any sound which would
speak of pursuit The distant murmur of the life
of Paris quickened her impatience. She was so
near to liberty — so near to the goal for which she
had dared so much.

No one answered her knock upon the glass,
and she repeated it, being greatly afraid to stand
alone when any hazard might tell her story to
Lamberg and her father, and bring her gaolers to
the place. Once she thought to hear a man's
voice in the gardens beneath the great wall ; and
she crouched close to the little window, and feared
to move or breathe a full breath. A little spell
of waiting, and she was sure of her suppositions.
Men were there in the darkness ; she could hear
them whispering. She knew not who they might
be if not the servants of the man who had wished
to keep her a prisoner in his house. The murmur
of their voices affrighted her to the last point.
She did not lift a hand while many long minutes
passed, and when next she dared to tap upon the
window the clocks of Paris were striking one.

It had been an act of despair rather than of
hope which led her thus to brave discovery again ;
but there was no sound of voices in the garden
when she did so, and the night breeze had given
her courage back to her. When the window
was opened to her knock, she could laugh at

"«=F^

A WOMAN'S WAY

her own surprise. The joy of success made her
almost hysterical. A light flashed in her eyes ;
she heard some one speaking to her. She was
as a child released suddenly from a room wherein
it has been punished for a fault.

* Who is there ; who knocks ? *

* I am an Englishwoman ; they have kept me in
this house against my will. Permit me to pass into
the street, and I will be grateful to you, monsieur.*

' But, mademoiselle, the window is so small.'

' I am small, too, monsieur ; if you hesitate,
they will hear us. Please help me ! *

The man held up the light, and peeped through
the window. 'Come,' he said, 'hold my hand
tightly; now raise yourself; ah, you are tearing
your dress, mademoiselle; gently, gently; what
a hurry you are in ! '

F^o dropped lightly to the floor of the coach-
house, for it was to the coach-house of the neigh-
bouring dwelling that the window admitted her.
She had torn her dress at the shoulder, her hands
were as black as those of the man who had helped
her to the ground ; she stood a picture of merri-
ment and gladness. At last she was free. The
adventure seemed to her now to be something to
laugh at until the end of her life. Her new ally
joined in her merriment.

* Ah, mademoiselle,' he said, ' what a thing it is
to be young ! '

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He was an ill-dressed fellow, slovenly, and with
blinking eyes, which moved restlessly in the fitful
light. F6o, while she thought that he was the
neighbour's coachman, began to be a little afraid
of him.

* I have friends at the H6tel Chatam who are
waiting for me,' she exclaimed ; * if you will let
me into the street, I shall be very much obliged
to you.'

The man put down the lantern deliberately.

'Come,* he said, 'this story won't do. When a
young lady runs away from a house at midnight,
it is time some one speaks to her father.'

A new fear, greater than any she had known in
the garden, seized upon F^o as she heard him.

' I am telling you the truth,* she protested ; * you
can come to the hotel with me and prove it. They
kept me in that house against my wish, — that is
why I am here.*

The man laughed coarsely.

* Bravo! you have it all ready, mademoiselle.
And how much will you pay me if I forget that
I am an honest man ? '

She answered him by taking out an old purse
and opening it. The man drew a step nearer, and
a strange light came into his eyes. She did not
know that he was one of the vagrants of Paris
come to sleep in that empty coach-house during

A WOMAN'S WAY §f

the owner's absence from the city. He, in turn,
was using his bleared eyes to see if she wore
jewellery.

' How much will you give me, mademoiselle ? '

* I will give you twenty francs ! '

* Not enougli, not enough. I go ever>' Lent to
hear Pire Didon at Notre Dame. I am an honest
man, and twenty francs do not buy me.'

Some instinct told her at that moment that
this was the greatest peril of her life. She pushed
the purse into the man's hand, and slipped quickly
toward the door.

* That is all the money I have. If you do not
t?ke it, I can go back and tell them what you say,
monsieur.'

The man thrust the purse into his ragged coat,
and stood listening. There was no sound in the
street without, but in the garden of Lamberg's
house he could hear footsteps and low cries. A
moment's argument convinced him that safety lay
in his victim's escape.

'There,' he said, opening the door of the
coach-house a little way, 'you can go now,
mademoiselle.*

She fled from the place as from a nameless
terror. She had gained her liberty, and stood
alone, in the dead of night, homeless and without
refuge in the pitiless city of Paris.

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CHAPTER XI

THE VIOLON

The stable gave upon the broad Avenue de
I'Alma. F^o did not know the name of the
Avenue; but a sure instinct turned her steps
toward the heart of Paris; and thither she
hastened to the lights and the ebbing life of the
city's night. Of her own danger, save it were
the danger in the house she had quitted, she
would not think. She had the vague notion that
she would find Leslie Drummond's h6tel, and
there would tell her story to an English friend.
He would help her to discover Jerome. At the
worst he would save her from these unknown
enemies who had contrived so shameless an
outrage.

She feared pursuit, and she went quickly,
avoiding the open places where the light fell,
and keeping close in the shadow of the trees
which lined the Avenue. Ever and anon she
would listen for the footsteps which should speak
of her peril ; but all was quiet in that lonely place.

THE VIOLON

and what murmur of sound arose came to her
from the distant boulevards. The silence affrighted
her. She had a great desire to be where the
world was ; to see the lamps before the cafes ;
above all, to find her friend. When she came
out to the banks of the Se«ne and began to hurry
along the Quai de la Conference towards the
gardens of the Tuileries, the moon shone out
suddenly ; and she beheld the black river giving
sheen of gold where the white beams touched it.
There were many upon the pavements now :
rough fellows from the barges and the boats, who
stared at her curiously ; wan women huddled
beneath the shelter of the parapets to ask of
night that the day might be forgotten ; hunters
of garbage who worked by the lantern's light ;
hawkers and thieves and footpads going south-
ward to their homes. But she passed so quickly
that none observed her ; or, observing, had no
will to stop her. A woman hastening at such
an hour! To a rendezvous, they said. They
guessed the truth, yet not the whole of it.

The breeze was very sweet, there upon the
quays of the Seine ; and when she came to the
Place de la Concorde, she had no mind to turn
from the river's bank. The excitement of escape
— since escape was then assured — had abated
somewhat, and left her to reason with the hour

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FKO

and her own need. Her Brst impulse held good
no longer. She laughed at the idea of going to
Leslie's hdtel at two o'clock in the morning, or of
ringing up a night-porter to carry her message.
Nor could she imagine where she might find a
lodging. Though the man in the stable had
taken her silver, she had a twenty-franc piece in
a little sovereign purse attached to her key-ring ;
but what would an hotel-keeper say to her if she
came to his house at such an hour ! She deter-
mined rather to walk until dawn, and then to
seek shelter as one who had just come into Paris
by train, and had left her luggage at the Gare.
Her sense of humour delighted her with the pic-
ture of her father's face when he had discovered
that she was no longer in Lamberg's house. The
joy of that victory surpassed all discomforts that
the night might give her. She was a partner no
longer in her father's shame, and never again
would she look to him for home or shelter.

The resolution encouraged her. She walked at
her leisure, for she had come to the gardens
of the Tuileries, and the lights at the heart of
Paris were soon to shine upon her. By here and
there, some gruesome spectacle of the city's
darker life could make her tremble or warm her
heart to pity. In the Rue de Rivoli itself a party
of drunken soldiers stopped her; and one of

'!»

THE VIOLON

them, a young officer of cavalry, seized her by
the wrist, and dragged her to the aureole of light
which a street lamp cast upon the pavement.

' Ho, ho ! here is my friend, Mademoiselle la
Douloureuse. What do you say, mademoiselle
— shall we kill the Jews ? *

' Monsieur,' she said quietly, ' I think that you
had better go home.'

A roar of laughter greeted the reply. One of
the man's comrades pushed him aside and bowed
to her gallantly.

' Mademoiselle,' he exclaimed, ' will you cry,
Vive TArm^e}*

* I would much sooner cry for a cabman.'
'Mademoiselle! I am desolate. I have no

mother, mademoiselle. Permit me to kiss your
hand.'

She shrank back from them, wrestling with the
man. A sergent de ville, who had watched the
affair from the other side of the road, crossed
slowly, and began to interest himself.

* Gentlemen,' he said, 'the army goes to bed
early ; I will look after this young lady.'

They greeted him with incoherent cries, and
passed on toward the Place shouting, *A viort
les Juifsl* But the officer himself turned to

* Where are you going to, mademoiselle ? *

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'To my friends at the Hdtel Chatam. I am an
Englishwoman and have lost my way/

He looked at her, doubting.

' You are very late, mademoiselle ? '

* Much later than I wish to be.'

' And you will permit me to show you the
H6tel ? '

The question confused her. She hesitated to
seek out even such an old friend as Leslie
Drummond at such av hour.

'Thank you, sergeant, I know the way now.
The H6tel is just here.'

She turned and hurried on without waiting for
his answer. The question set her thinking. How
could she pass those hours of waiting until day
came ? Everywhere about her the night-birds of
Paris were going to bed. Carriages, whose bright
electric lamp showed her the women she had
envied that afternoon in the Bois, women now in
splendid gowns, with a burden of sparkling gems
about their throats, rolled westward toward the
avenues she had left. The caf^s were closing
their doors. Those who had neither a home by
day nor a bed by night turned to the bridges
spanning the river and to the dark places where
crime and poverty and dirt should give them
harbourage. Every man whom she passed re-
garded her with a look of insult or of questioning

THE VIOLON

1 1

surprise. She began to realise how very much
alone she was — and yet she would not seek the
H6tel Chatam. She feared to compromise her-
self. It was always in her mind that, if she went
there, the Austrian would follow her.

This fear of the house she had left was, in truth,
the paramount trouble. It was weary work to
pace those silent streets when her limbs ached
and her eyes were heavy with sleep ; but the very
hour gave a certain recompense ; and she fell to
thinking of all the people (ireaming up there
behind the lightless vindows, — of the countless
poor huddled in their dens, — of all that strange
striving world for the most part at rest and
forgetting its strife. From such thoughts the
bright lamps about the gates of the Palais Royal
carried her to a remembrance of her last visit to
Paris, when Jerome's love for her had banished
her from Vienna. Her father had come to this
city seeking for his daughter a fame that should
be his fortune. Old Georges de Berthier had
spoken then of a triumph she must win at the
great opera house. She could see that very opera
house — yonder, in the distance, where the lights
of the avenue merged into a nebula as of stars,
and the glare from the boulevards still gave a
loom of crimson cloud to the sky. It was odd
that this new visit to Paris should find her

mi.

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homeless, without a friend, abroad, she knew not
upon what quest of fortune. To-morrow she
would have to begin to earn her bread for herself.
To-night at least she was not hungry.

She could laugh at the anticipation of the
morrow, for she did not yet realise the full
meaning of that which she had done, or its
moment. It would be a good story to tell
Jerome when at last she found him. She could
pass the long night somehow. Though the silence
of the watching hours was the more profound as
the moments passed, it no longer frightened her.
She told herself that some one at least would be
awake until dawn came, if only it were a sergent
de ville. And there would be life in the railway
stations. She wondered she had not thought
of a railway station before. Grateful to her
inspiration she set out to walk rapidly toward
the Gare de Lyon and the eastern quarter of
the city.

The moon was at its full by this time. It
shone white and glorious upon the swirling
waters of the river. She could see the towers of
Notre Dame standing up as stately landmarks
above that church which had witnessed so many
of the triumphs and the tragedies of these people
of Paris. The fresh breezes from the water
helped her to keep awake. How unreal the

THE VIOLON

night seemed ! She asked herself if she had
done well, thus to leave her father upon an
impulse and to go to such a hazardous venture.
Standing there upon the Pont Neuf and looking
down to the black river below, she thought that
she could read the hearts of those wretched
creatures whom this city had driven out to the
refuge of the waters. Her musings took a strange
and gloomy turn. She had begun to forget her
own courage, when she heard a warning footstep
and turned to see the sergent de ville who had
questioned her in the Rue de Rivoli.

' Ah, mademoiselle 1 you have not found your
hdtel, then.'

F4o knew that her cheeks were aflame, and
was grateful for the darkness.

* No, monsieur, I prefer the fresh air.'

* Is it the custom in England for young ladies
to pass the night in the streets ? *

She shrugged her shoulders, and remembered
to her annoyance that the man in the stable had
robbed her of all her money. There was only
the twenty-franc piece left in the little purse upon
her key-ring. For this she began to search. She
must make a friend of the man.

* There has been a misunderstanding,' she said.
* To-morrow will clear it up, but I really don't
know where to go to-night. If you could show

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FEO

me a lodging, I would give you five francs. I
have only twenty francs left until the morning.'
The sergent de ville came quite close to her.

* When young ladies, who are in trouble, stand
upon the bridges looking down into the river,
mademoiselle, it is certainly time that some one
should find them a lodging. You have friends
at the H6tel Chatam ? Very well, then, come
with me, and I will help you to find those
friends.'

She looked at him with astonishment written
upon her laughing eyes. * You don't mean to
say that you thought '

His answer was a gesture as of one who would
say, * What else am I to think ? *

* But really, sergeant, that is very ridiculous.'

* To you possibly, mademoiselle ; to your
friends not so amusing. Come with me to the
Prefecture, and we will find out what they think
of it.'

He laid a firm hand upon her arm, and led her
across the bridge. In spite of herself, the
ridiculous situation in which her escapade had
placed her won upon her humour. The sergeant
said that he had seen many a girl try to throw
herself from the Tout Neuf, but never one who
was so amused by her madness.

'Come, mademoiselle, you have done wrong,

THE VIOLON

and will be grateful to me to-morrow. I would
not laugh so loudly if I were you.*

*But I cannot help it, monsieur. Where are
you taking me to ? '

* To the Prefecture. The rogues of Paris call
it the violon.'

'You mean that I am to go to the police-
station.*

' If you please, mademoiselle.'

k'M

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CHAPTER XII

WHILE PARIS SLEPT

They crossed the Pont Neuf, and passed along
the Quai de rHorloge. Notwithstanding the
hour, there were niany about the gates of the
Palais de Justice — sergents in their black cloaks
and military caps and high boots ; officers of
police in their dark uniforms ; detectives quit
of their disguises ; even Republican guards with
their shining brass helmets and their clumsy
black horses. From the Prefecture itself a blaze
of light shone out as from a mighty lamp casting
bright beams upon the sleeping city, to be the
messenger of her security. Wretched creatures,
chiffonniers, thieves, ragged women, children old
in crime, were the offerings of the night to the
capacious maw of justice. The dens of crime
were opened, and those who strove with crime
had forgotten how to sleep.

To these sights, to tliis world of justice
watchful, the sergent de ville carried F^o. She
was still very much amused, and the man's

,.,»• r

'I I

WHILE PARIS SLEPT

misplaced sympathy appealed to her ever-ready
humour. But she did not fail to see that her
adventure had come to a strange end ; and her
head was full of the many stories she might tell
when a magistrate or inspector, or whoever it
might be, came to question her. Once, indeed,
when a ruffian in filthy rags wrestled with an
officer and laid his grimy hand roughly upon her
arm, she experienced for an instant that great
dread of the law which is ever the right of those
who have always obeyed the law. There by the
water's edge were the towers of the terrible Con-
ciergerie — that gloomy prison, whose dungeons,
as a poet of France has said, could not contain
the tears shed within them. She asked herself
how if, by some subtlety of law, she should find
herself in such a prison as that The cloudless
sky above, the glorious moonlight upon the
spire of the Sainte Chapelle, the shining water,
the sweet breeze of the summer night, were
Nature's common gifts, which, at any other hour,
she would have looked upon as the elementary
dues of her life. But in that moment they
became to her as emblems of her freedom. How
if anything should deprive her of that freedom?

It was not a very profound philosophy, perhaps,
and she had forgotten it before they crossed the
square of the palace, and stood under the little

. n^

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red lamp which marked the door of the poh'ce-
station. Her curiosity helped her to this forget-
fulness. What were they going to do with her ?
she asked herself. Surely it was no crime in
Paris to be found out of your house, when a
policeman thought that you should be in your
bed. She determined that silence was her best
friend ; and resolute at any hazard to give them
no clue to the affair in the Avenue Marceau, she
entered the police-station.

It was a small room, brightly lighted, but
destitute of any furniture. An inspector, seated
at a desk upon the right-hand side of the entrance,
put on his glasses when the sergent de ville began
his explanation ; and others, officers on duty,
detectives, spies, grouped themselves about her,
and began to stare at her as at one who had lost
the right to resent such attentions. She, in turn,
remembered that she was an Englishwoman, and
drew herself up proudly, repressing that haunting
smile which would hover about the comers of the
mouth. What might happen in that place was of
no concern to her, unless it should take her back
to the Avenue Marceau, to the house of the man
who had sought to keep her from Jerome. She
did not think that any law could so compel a
woman ; and with this hope to give her courage,
she listened to the inspector.

WHILE PARIS SLEPT

xoi

' Mademoiselle, you say that you are English.
Will you please to give us your name? You
speak French, mademoiselle ? *

'All English people speak French,' she answered
with a laugh ; ' if the French do not understand
them, it is their misfortune.'

The inspector stared at her through his gold-
rimmed glasses.

'Come, mademoiselle, we do not wish to be
amused. You speak French charmingly. Please
tc tell me your name.'

' My name is F^o de Berthier. I am an
Englishwoman. I live in Oxford Street, which
is in London, monsieur. I have friends at the
H6tel Chatam. Please do not ask me any more
questions, for I am tired.*

She spoke very rapidly, with the air of one
who would say, ' There it all is ; please let us
have done with it* The inspector, who had
begun to enter her name in his book, but who
could not keep up with her torrent of words, put
down his pen despairingly.

' Ha ! ' he exclaimed, ' you should go to the
Palais Royal. Where do you say that your
friends are ? *

* At the H6tel Chatam. Send there to Mr.
Leslie Drummond, and he will tell you all about
me. I am tired of talking to people about myself,*

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103

r6o

* But we are very much interested, mademoiselle.
When a young lady walks about the streets of
Paris at two o'clock in the morning, she cannot
fail to be interesting.*

* Is it forbidden in Paris to walk about the
streets at two o'clock in the morning ? *

* Under certain circumstances, certainly it is
forbidden. The officer has done well to bring
you here. Your actions were suspicious.' '

' How important you make me feel, monsieur !
To think that I was only an ordinary person yester-
day, and now, why even you are interested in me!'

The officer smiled in spite of himself. A pretty
woman wins her way anyway; and F6o had never
looked so pretty. Her very want of colour, the
warning lines beneath her eyes, gave her piquant
face an added charm. The detectives said that
she had quarrelled with her lover, and ceased to
interest themselves in her professionally. But
there were many in that room who would have
thought themselves happy to have been in the
lover's place.

*Tell us why you have left your friends,
mademoiselle?'

* For a very simple reason : I no longer wished
to stay with them.'

'Yuu mean that you had some trouble which
took you from home ? *

WHILE PARIS SLEPT

103

*My friends would call it that. I call it a
difference of opinion. You see how logical I
am.'

'And if we were to send you back to the
H6tel Chatam now, you would promise not to
look into the river again ? *

F^o burst out laughing.

' Oh, monsieur,' she said, * please don't be stupid.
If you knew how I disliked the water!'

The officer no ided his head, and conferred a
moment with the sergent. F^o was very tired,
and prone to be a little hysterical. She was worn
out with the effort of the night.

'How long must I stand here?' she asked
wearily.

The words were magical. Three of the detec-
tives ran to bring a chair. The inspector himself
came out of his box and looked at her.

' Come,' he said, 'we are not going to be unkind
to you. I have sent a messenger to the H6tel
Chatam. Your friends will return with him.
Meanwhile *

He hesitated. The girl's hope waxed strong.
She was not to be asked about the Avenue
Marceau, then.

* Yes, monsieur, meanwhile?*

* Meanwhile we shall give you a glass of wine.
This way, if you please, mademoiselle.'

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il'lfi'

He opened the door of a smaller room behind
the office, and bade her enter. An officer in
uniform carried a bottle of good Bordeaux, and
set it on the plain wooden table. F^o sank into
the deal chair as though she would never have
the strength to rise again.

* You are very kind to me,' she said. * I shall
be interesting to my English friends for the rest
of my life. To have spent a night in the Pre-
fecture! Some people would lecture about it,
monsieur.'

" Drink a glass of wine, mademoiselle, and that
will help you to be eloquent. To-morrow you
will laugh at it all. And you will say that we
were not such dreadful people. We do not eat
our prisoners.*

He pushed the glass toward her and watched
her drink the wine. Then he returned to his
desk. A sergent de ville had come in with
two women, whose cries and oaths resounded
through the building in a deafening clamour.
Something of the more terrible side of Paris
life was shown to her in that moment. She
beheld the women striking at each other and
at the officers who held them ; she saw them
surrounded by many men, who pinioned them,
and so carried them to that corridor of police
cells which Paris has called 'the mousetrap.' It

;

WHILE PARIS SLEPT

X05

was a vivid, haunting scene ; it compelled her to
say again, * How if I were never to escape from
this place?' The contrasts of her life were odd
indeed. She was singing at Covent Garden but
a few days ago ; was dreaming of the day when
the triumphs of Melba and Calv^ might be hers.
To-night, the singer had become a prisoner in
the greatest of the prisons of Paris ; she had left
her father for ever; was alone, without a friend,
unless Leslie Drummond should come to her, in
the greatest crisis of her life. And of all her
thoughts, this latter nerved her most surely. She
told herself courageously that she would find
Jerome to-morrow, though her father himself
came to the Conciergerie to forbid her freedom.

Others were brought to the Prefecture — a
beggar accused of picking pockets ; a young
soldier charged with stabbing a comrade ; a well-
schooled thief, who bowed to the detectives and
greeted them affably. This fellow helped her
mind away from the exciting train of thought
to which she had been led. He was an amusing
rogue. 'Look at my thumbs, gentlemen,' he
said ; * you will find new marks upon them since
I was here before. They are marks of the jemmy.
Do not forget that I put you up to it. You will
say something for me, gentlemen, and when I
come out I will send you the drawing-room clock.

'hi

. ;.'ilf! !•

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Fto

Ah, you do not want the drawing-room clock
Cri nom — I have no luck.'

They took the fellow away to a cell ; and when
another spell of waiting had passed, the inspector
returned to the little room wherein F«^o was
sitting. He found her with her head buried in
her arms, fast asleep.

'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'this is a hard bed.
Your English friend is here, and we are going
to send you back with him.'

She awoke with a start, and saw, behind the
Frenchman, the burly figure and good-humoured
face of her friend, Leslie Drummond.

'Leslie ! ' she cried, holding out both her hands
to him, * I knew you would come.'

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE RUE AUBER

He had brought a cab to the Prefecture, and he
led her toward it without a word. Dawn glim-
mered in the sky theii, and a weird, grey light
of day began to war with the street lamps and
to shame them. The morning air was sharp and
chill, and she shivered when it blew upon her face.

' I thought you might be cold, so I brought
a second coat,' was Leslie's first remark as he
opened the door of the cab. ' It 's a beautiful
thing in Scotch plaids, and always gets a rise
out of the busmen. I say, F^o, I was surprised.'

He shut the door, and began to wrap her up
in the great Scotch coat. She could see that he
had put on his own clothes anyhow, and that he
wore an old Cambridge scarf about his neck in
lieu of a collar. There had been a certain con-
stj;aint of the situation while the inspector listened
to them ; and, even afterwards, she hesitated to
tell her story,

* You were surprised, of course, Leslie ? '

•Surprised — well, it was a little sudden. I'd

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been dreaming about you, F^o, and we were
going, heaven knows where togetlier. Then we
got into a railway carriage, and a man began to
bang on the roof with a stick. It was the fellow
at the hotel trying to call me.'

She became grave.

* What ridiculous things dreams are ! Of course
I sent to you because I was in trouble. There
is no one else in Paris who would help me. I
knew that you would.'

'That's taken for granted. Why am I in
Paris at all, if it is not to help you? And you 're
going to tell me all about it — from the first line
to the last. I haven't much of a top-knot, F^o ;
but I think that I could weather those Austrian
chaps if it came to it. I '11 try, anyway.'

He spoke very simply ; and followed too sound
a code of honour to permit himself to utter even
a word to his own advantage. Nor did that
aspect of their meeting occur to her. A woman,
who loves, is ever incapable of viewing her
actions in any other light than that of her own
happiness. Leslie would help her because he
was her friend. He knew that she could never
be more. She had told him that often. And so
she related to him the whole story of her days
in the Avenue Marceau, beginning with the visit
of Captain Lamberg to London and ending with

L^^ -

IN THE RUE AUBER

t09

her arrest on the Pont Neuf. Not until that
point did he interrupt her.

' What a complete ass 1 ' he exclaimed. ' That 's
like these Frenchmen ; they suspect a man every
time he sneezes. Why didn't you come straight
to my hotel ? '

*At two o'clock in the morning? My dear
Leslie — and, besides, they might have followed
me there.'

He turned with a look of surprise, and forgot
to laugh at the idea of the sergent de ville arrest-
ing her. Her words frightened him. He said
that the danger was as great now as when she
stood in the Prefecture. And no sooner did he
understand the possibility of pursuit than he let
down the window, and began to bawl a new
direction to the cabman, who pulled up abruptly,
being unable to comprehend a word of the tongue
which Eton had taught her sons and had called
French.

'Tell him, F^o. These cabmen are all fools.
They don't understand plain English. Tell him
not to go back to the Chatam. I was an idiot
to suggest it. They'll inquire there, of course.
Don't you see that your father is capable of
appealing to the police. Tell the man to drive
to a railway station — the Gare St. Lazare ; any-
where, if it isn't to my place.'

:'ll

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FI^.O

She gave the direction, and the cab rolled on.
A hundred yards from the Rue du Louvre they
passed another carriage driving at a gallop
towards the Prefecture they had left ; and as it
passed, F^o recognised her father. Her face was
very white and drawn when next she spoke.

'You came just in time,' she said quietly. * In
any case, I should not have seen him ; at least,
there is no law which would have compelled me
to return to his house.'

' There can't be. If it comes to that, I '11 drive
you straight to the Embassy and tell your story.
It would be a safe course, though I don't suppose
you 'd see it in that light.'

'You mean that it would keep me from
Jerome?'

' Naturally it would. Our people couldn't help
telling the Austrians what was going on, and
your friend would be back in Vienna to-morrow
night. That won't do, eh, Feo ? '

He turned a pair of wistful eyes upon her, but
she would not look into his face.

' You are very generous, Leslie,' she said. ' Of
course I must find Prince Jerome to-day. He
has come from Vienna to see me. I promised
him that I would go to him whenever he sent
for me, and that is a promise I cannot break.'

'You shall not break it if I can do anything

:::;

I:; )

IN THE RUE AUBER

XII

to help you. But we shall have hard work, for
they'll watch him night and day. The question
is, what are we going to do until decent people
are up again ? Do you know that it's just four
o'clock ? '

She smiled for the first time since they left
the Conciergerie.

* I never thought that you and I would be
driving about Paris at four o'clock in the morn-
ing he said frankly. * Do you think that you
can keep awake until breakfast time ? I 'm sure
that I can't.'

*But we must, F^o. It's just a case of hunt
the slipper. Those people will follow us all over
Paris. I shouldn't wonder if the police helped
them. We 've got to depend upon our wits and to
play the game. If we went hack to the Chatam
now, your father would be there before the
chamber-maids were up. He's clever enough,
and he 's sure to remember me. The thing to do
is to dodge them until I can send a line to your
Austrian friend. I shall do that myself*

Again he turned his questioning eyes upon
her, but again she avoided them. She dared not,
would not speak a word which might give him
greater hope of their friendship than the past
had justified.

' It was clever to think of a railway station,

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Leslie. They would go to the Gare dii Nord if
they went anywhere. Prince Jerome is at the
H6tel Venddme, I believe. It would not be
difficult to send a message there.'

' Meanwhile you haven't been to bed, and must
be dying for an hour's sleep. I '11 tell you what
— we'll go to the first ca(6 we see open, and I '11
ask the man to let you lie down. That's one
of those brilliantly commonplace notions which
need a philosopher to discover. There's the
very place over by the lamp there.*

They were in the Rue Auber at the moment,
almost at the doors of a small caf(6 in whose
porch there stood a sleepy waiter, and at whose
tables sat three or four shabby people taking
their morning coffee. All stared sharply at the
immense Englishman and the graceful girl, who
accompanied him to one of the little tables at the
farthest end of the long room. Wan light of
down-turned lamps illumined the place, and hid
its shabbiness from the searching gleam of dawn.
Leslie congratulated himself as he offered F^o a
chair and beckoned the now active waiter.

' Madame and I are just arrived from Geneva.
We leave for London this afternoon.'

The man shrugged his shoulders. He did not
understand a word of it. Leslie looked angrily
at F^o, who refused to be serious.

i^ii

IN THE RUE AUBER

'That's a fine piece of imagination wasted,
anyway/ said he. * You 'd better try your hand
at it, F^o. Tell him we're in from Geneva,
and ask if you can stop here while I go and do
some business somewhere. Don't look as if
you didn't believe a word of it. Incredulity is
catching.'

F^o turned to the waiter and asked if she could
have a room. The man told himself already that
here was a young English couple upon a honey-
moon ; and he was all civility.

* Certainly. Madame could have an apartment
while monsieur went to the city. Meanwhile, the
coffee was hot — better coffee than you could get
at the Gare, and no bad money. They always
gave the English people bad money at the Gare
because the English people were generally in a
hurry. Undoubtedly they were great thieves
there. Madame should be served on the instant.'

He was off with a surprising display of agility,
and back again with steaming coffee and crisp
new bread and creamy butter before F^o had un-
buttoned her gloves. Leslie occupied himself
staring blankly at the deserted street without.
He did not like to tell F^o that he feared her
father had seen them ; nor would he confess
his own fears for her success. Any minute, he
said, might bring the police or the Austrian to

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the door. It was more exciting than a close
finish at Henley, for there you played an honest
game ; while here — well, he could not so much as
estimate the daring and the resources and the
pitilessness of those who waged the war against
the brave girl he had sworn to befriend.

* I don't suppose they '11 look for us in the Rue
Auber, wherever else they go,' he said, with an
honest effort to console her ; * if we can only get
twelve hours to ourselves, the rest would be easy.
I 'd better run round to the Hotel Venddme as
soon as it's decent to turn up there. If you'll
write what you want to say, I '11 see that the man
delivers the letter. After that, it is between you
and your friend.*

The note of sorrowful resignation made his
voice quaver. He was not an emotional man ; but
this love of his had become the mainstay of his
life. To surrender Fee, the Feo who had seemed
to him the one woman in all the world, who was
at once his ideal of beauty, of gentleness, and of
woman's nobility, implied a sacrifice greater than
he dared to contemplate. The fact that she
thanked him so earnestly, so prettily, was the
ultimate iro^^T f ,hat encounter.

* I cou'"^ . ' . " tjrateful enough, Leslie,' she
said, witii ' <^i i ; derness in her voice. 'If I
can only see jiiio;!!*;, I don't care what comes

m'i

IN THE RUE AUBER

after. My father is a coward, and will only dare
what others dare for him. Captain Lamberg is a
man whom a woman might fear. But I should
not fear him if Jerome knew.'

' He shall know in an hour at the latest.
Meanwhile, if Providence would only send that
Austrian scoundrel my way, I 'd give him a token
of your re^^ard he wouldn't forget for a month.
Those mincing dandies in gold buttons and blue
trousers are all the same. They're too polite
when it suits them ; and when it doesn't suit
them, they prate about honour and other non-
sense. The truth is that they haven't got enough
honour amongst them to fill a saltspoon.'

'You misjudge the Austrians,' she protested.
'They are the politest nation in Europe; I think
that they are also one of the best. Jerome is the
soul of honour. The best proof is that he is in
Paris now.'

' And that I am going to see him. Well, F^o,
if you are happy, what can I say ? '

' You can say that I shall never forget.'

He shrugged his shoulders, and rose from the
table. It was six o'clock then, and he had deter-
mined to go to the Hotel Vendome at the earliest
possible moment, lest others should be before
him. F^o, in turn, would not hear of the room
nor of the rest he wished her to take.

;

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' How could I sleep ? ' she asked. * I shall
count the minutes until you bring me news.'

' Then you shan't count many if I can help it.
Good-bye, F(^o.'

He just touched her hand and left the caf6
quickly.

She remembered afterwards that he did not
look round or make any sign as he passed into
the street. When he was gone, the waiter brought
her the morning papers ; but she had neither the
will nor the desire to read them. Every footstep
upon the pavement excited her strangely. She
knew that a hundred chances might betray her
secret, both to her father and to the police. The
idea that these enemies of hers were awake and
busy in their desire to draw this net about her
quickened her faculties and hardened her resolve.
She had a woman's wit, and she would use it to
cut the meshes of the net and to secure her free-
dom. And in this sense she was glad to be
alone, to depend upon her own heart and courage.
She would see Jerome, would see him that day —
if_if_ah, if!

And so she watched the city waking, the
gathering crowds upon the pavements, the waxing
life of the new day, the ripening glory of the
summer morning. Minute by minute the voice
of Paris intensified. Shopmen began to take

IN THE RUE AUBER

down their shutters ; cabs rolled by to the Gare ;
the pompiers^ who cleaned the streets, were busy
with their hoses ; hurrying people passed in and
out of the cafi6s ; the morning papers came, in
untidy bundles, to the kiosks ; the railway station
echoed with the shriek of whistles and the
clamour of arriving trains. Two hours passed
whilst she tried to concern herself with this bust-
ling scene ; but Leslie did not return. She could
not guess what disappointment kept him, nor why
he forgot his promise. No possibility of misfortune
there was which did not suggest itself to her. If
anything had happened to Jerome! If the Austrian
had contrived that he was no longer in Paris !

She stood in her bedroom at that time, tidying
her wind-blown hair and looking at the weary
white face which the glass showed her. The
delay was almost more than she could bear. She
had the impulse to go out into the street and to
walk about until the news came ; but her good
sense restrained her. Leslie would come back,
she was sure. He, at any rate, could have
nothing to fear from those in the Avenue
Marceau. Nevertheless, another hour passed
and Leslie did not return. It was twelve o'clock
and the summer's day was at its zenith when the
ready waiter came to her room and broke that
spell of doubt and of uncertainty.

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* A visitor, madame — he waits below. He does
not give his name/

' It is not the Englishman who was with me
this morning?*

' No, madame, it is another.'

F6o put on her hat slowly. All the blood
flamed in her cheeks again. Who was the
stranger who would not give his name? She
knew that, if it were not Jerome, then it must be
her father or Captain Lamberg. The suspense
of that moment was intolerable. She went down
the stairs with quick steps. Everything told her
that this was the momentous hour.

m\:

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CHAPTER XIV

THE COUNTER-MARCH

He stood at the foot of the stairs, with his back
toward her; but he turned when he heard her
step. Some good instinct told her who it was
even before she saw his face. There was little
sunlight in that long, windowless room ; never-
theless, she could read in his eyes the welcome
he wished to give her, and when her hand touched
his it was as though the waiting message of those
weary months had at last been spoken.

' Jerome ! ' she cried ; and so stood with beating
heart and flushed face.

She had dreamed of that instant a hundred
times since the word of farewell was spoken in
the woods by the Danube. The reality surpassed
the dream, in spite of the dangers attending.

•F^o— -at last!'

Some spell seemed to have been upon him
until that moment. He held her hand as in a
vice; but, until the words were spoken, he did
not betray the changing emotions which muted

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his lips so surely. Now, however, he bent of a
sudden and kissed her. His touch was as fire
in her veins. She knew then that her desire to
find him was no shame.

' Jerome,* she said, ' you wished it — ^tell me that
you wished it ? '

He put his arm about her as in a shielding
gesture.

' As I wish my own life.'

She drew back from him with rosy face and
eyes wet with tears.

* I cannot believe it,' she exclaimed ; ' I cannot
believe that yesterday was true.'

' I am here to convince you, F^o. That is why
I left Vienna. It has been a long journey, and
we have some way yet to go. But it will be
easier now.'

She laughed at her very happiness.

'There is so much to tell you, Jerome — so
much. I shall never begin at the beginnjng.
And here — in this place *

She pointed to the little tables in the front
room of the cafe — tables now tenanted by clerks
and poor gentlemen taking their breakfasts. The
oddity of their encounter amused her. That it
should have been in this stufify restaurant, in a
by-street of Paris I Months ago they had planned
it so diflferently. He was to comr to her in

THE COUN TER-MARCH

lai

London, to find her in the great house which her
talent had built for her.

' Were you not surprised ? ' she asked presently.

' Not at all. I was only puzzled. When I
heard that you were not in London, I knew that
Lannberg had taken you to Paris. He is my
father's agent — a poor one at the best. We
shall find that it is always easy to circumvent a
liar. More than that, it is amusing, if you know
how to handle your weapons properly. But we
must choose our own ground. I quite expect
that they have followed me from the hotel ; and
they will now have the pleasure of following me
to Durand's. You are hungry, Ft^o ? '

He spoke with a great confidence, as of one
accustomed to be obeyed and refusing to hear of
obstacles. Listening to him, she forgot her own
doubts, and remembered only that she stood at
his side again.

' When my father knows that I have met you,
he will tell your friends,' she said ; ' you have
thought of that ? '

' I have thought of many things. I cannot say
that your excellent father is one of them. When
we have had our breakfast, and the man, who
is following me, tires of waiting on the steps of
the Madeleine, we will begin to think again,
F^o. The important fact is that I am hungry.'

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He threw a twenty-franc piece to the waiter,
and passed out of the cafd A fiacre waited for
him, and he held her hand while she entered it,
and then seated himself fearlessly at her side.
Brilliant sunshine flooded the Rue Auber. The
surrounding boulevards were glittering with the
fuller life of the day. She could not realise the
change that a few hours had wrought, but was
conscious of an enduring excitement as of un-
certainty made certain, and a finality which she
had never known before.

'You are sure that they followed you,
Jerome ? '

'Quite sure. There is Ihe fellow in that
yellow- wheeled cab behind us. He has been
following me ever since I came to Paris. He
will have fine news for the Embassy to-night. If
it were any one else, all sorts of things would
happen. Possibly they will even try to get
me out of Paris — after I have left. You see,
I don't want to be unkind to them, and, since
they desire very much that I should leave, I am
going by the eight o'clock train to-night.'

Her face clouded. That shadow of doubt and
danger again loomed before her. Her momentary
sense of happiness was swift to pass. They
were two children playing. She must forget the
game.

THE COUNTER-MARCH

123

y
y

'You are quite right to go,' she said ; * I could
not let you suffer this indignity for my sake. I
meant to tell you so, when I asked Mr. Drummond
to go to your hotel this morning.'

He took her hand in his and pressed it.

' I like your English friend,' he said ; ' we need
men of his stamp in Austria. I have always
thought that I should like to be an Englishman
for your sake, F^o. But you will teach me.
And, after all, there is no nationality in love.'

'Leslie has been very good to me,' she ex-
claimed. * I am glad that he is in Paris, after
what has happened. When you have gone to-
night, I shall be quite alone here.'

He laughed at the completeness of her plan.

* And to-morrow — to-morrow, little pessimist ? '
She rested her chin in her hand.

* To-morrow you will be in the train for
Vienna, and I shall be in London.'

The fiacre drove up to Durand's as she spoke,
and he sprang to the pavement and took both
her hands as she alighted. The other cab, the
one with the yellow wheels, stopped some little
way from the caf^, and a smartly dressed man
followed them to the door of the restaurant.

'You see,' said Jerome, 'the fellow is there,
sure enough. He is anxious to know what we
are going to have for breakfast. He will send a

124

FfiO

telegram to my father just now, and my father
will answer in a passion, exhorting them to more
zeal. He is splendidly energetic, my father.
By and by, he will protest to all the world that
he wished you to be my wife. That will be when
we have played all the cards, and I hold the last
of them. As I said, it 's an amusing game if you
play it properly.'

He turned and entered the caf^. To F^o, the
scene was as one in some drama — an exciting
scene which would be changed presently to give
place to other pictures and new faces — the faces
of her father and of Lamberg, and even of the
men she had seen in the old house in the Avenue
Marceau. She was conscious of nothing but the
present. The morrow, the future, the farewell
which must be spoken by and by, were in no way
to be realised. She sat at the little table, and ate
of the dishes, and heard the buzz of talk as one
who acts and listens in the waking moments of a
dream. But Jerome chattered unceasingly. His
fine figure, his flaxen hair, his suave manners,
coloured with the fine courtesy of the Austrian,
could not escape remark. His very presence
seemed to typify another atmosphere — the atmo-
sphere of court and palace, and the stately homes
of Europe.

' Come ' he said, ' the story which was to begin

,: V

THE COUNTER-MARCH

185

at the beginning? That would be a long time
ago, F6o. Do you remember the day when I
met you in Richter's house ? I went home that
night and told my father that I was going to
marry you. He was very much amused, and
talked of nothing else for three days. On the
morning of the fourth day, he discovered that I
was in earnest. Nobody saw him for a week
after that. We used to play a little tragedy
every night, all to ourselves. He would have
made a splendid actor — my father. Do not
think that I am not very fond of him. If one is
to have one's own way in life, something is to be
granted to the opposition — a little temper, some
fine moral maxims, and the old platitudes about
family and state, and all that nonsense. When
I told him that I had found a wife, he struck an
attitude, and reminded me that I was a Hapsburg.
I reminded him, in turn, that our family had
made a large number of unfortunate marriages,
and that a little respectability would really be
very refreshing. He answered that I was no son
of his. I confessed surprise — it was very
natural. When he contrived to have me sent
to Croatia, I went readily. That allowed some-
thing to him. The same law applies to this
business in Paris. He thinks that he has locked
you up in the Avenue Marceau, and he is

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pluming himself on his cleverness. He will
send an announcement directly to the Austrian
papers, betrothing me to my cousin, Princess
Marie. I have told her already that I have not
the slightest intention of marrying her, so there
is no risk of complications. When my father
has done other things — to satiiify his love of
authority — he will come to me repentant. He
will declare that I have the most charming wife
in the world, and will bless us with tears in his
eyes. He has done that to other people often.*

F^o smiled in spite of herself. This flippant
talk concerned that ' might be ' which had been
the dream of such long months. Minute by
minute she sought to convince herself that his
road lay to Vienna, hers to London ; but the
arguments were not to be marshalled.

'Captain Lamberg came to our house nearly
a month ago. I did not know why he came, or
I could not have accompanied him to Paris.
You understand that, Jerome?'

* Of course I do. Your place was in London
as long as I was there. You owed that to your
promise.'

She laughed at his conception of it.

' Perhaps, if I had remembered it. I was think-
ing of something else. There are certain things
a woman cannot do if she has any self-respect'

THE COUNTER-MARCH

lay

He crossed his arms upon the table and looked
at her masterfully.

* F^o, you are talking nonsense. When a
woman has promised to be a man's wife, there
is no longer any question of self-respect to be
considered. I would have come to you sooner
or later, if I had walked to Calais and arrived in
London with no soles to my boots. Eighteen
months ago, in Vienna, you had the right to say
to me : "I will " or " 1 will not." When you
said " I will," you ended the matter. I told you
that nothing short of my own death would keep
me from your side. You, it seems, are frightened
already because a few ridiculous people try to
concern themselves with our affairs. We are
both of age ; we thrashed out all the arguments
last year ; why should we begin again, especially
at this moment when a gentleman is waiting
outside to know what we are having for break-
fast ? Is it not quite enough to remember that
I must get you out of Paris to-night, and that,
if I do not, several very awkward things may
happen? Be sensible, my dear girl; I can't
think of everything at once. Let that clever
little head of yours help me.'

There was a convincing note in his voice which
she could not resist. It had ever been so. She
had not wished, even in Vienna, to put this

128

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burden of her promise upon him ; but his will
had won the victory. She knew that he loved
her with a strong man's love, and against that
her heart was impotent.

• What can I advise you to do ? ' she protested.
' My father must have told his story already at
your Embassy. I cannot leave Paris with you
alone. You would not ask me to do that? And
how is a woman to escape wb; the police will
not let her?' '

He lit a cigarette and stl/red his c^ff'^e.

* If I had wished you to leave Paris with me,
and to compromise your name by doing anything
so foolish, I should not be in Durand's at this
moment. You need not have mentioned it, for
it was quite out of the question. As for my
Embassy, or the police, I do not care a straw
for either of them. My father knows me by
this le — or he should know me. The fortress
treatment does not suit my constitution. I have
told him so. On the day when he takes any
serious step against me I will answer him in the
only way a man of honour can answer — the
sacrifice of his life. I threatened him with
that in Vienna a year ago. He knows that
I mean what I say, and so his weapons are
turned, not against me, but against you. Otto
Lamberg would do any dirty work for a bank-

THE COUNTER-MARCH

129

note. You have had the best of the first en-
counter ; but he won't let the matter rest there.
Yesterday he was comparatively harmless ; to-
day he will be dangerous. That is why we are
going to leave Paris without any loss of time. I
don't believe they 'd go so far as to arrest you,
or any of that nonsense ; but it 's better to have
the danger at your back, and that's where I
shall leave it.'

She laughed, with just a suggestion of irony.

' How easy it is to talk of things ! ' she said.
'We have only to say "up," and we fly like
the pigs. To-night I shall catch the train to
Londvon ; you will go back to Vienna. In a
week's time I shall be reading of your betrothal
to your cousin.'

Her face clouded at the thought. All the
glitter about her, the shimmering gowns, the
nodding plumes, the bright figures were obscured
as by a veil cast suddenly upon her face. But
Jerome continued to talk unemotionally, as
though of the most trivial afifairs.

* F^o,' he said, ' be sensible. You know per-
fectly well that you will not do anything so silly.
The train which you will catch is the afternoon
train to Pontarlier. I shall drive you to the
Gare de Lyon myself When you are in the
carriage and the train ha^ started I return to

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f6o

my H6tel to read my father's angry telegram.
To-morrow I shall take the morning express and
be with you before dinner. In three days we
shall be married. Don't contradict me, for I
have made up my mind. It *8 a habit of mine
not to change it'

He beckoned a waiter and paid the bill. She
made a pretence of arranging her hat; but her
fingers trembled. The mystery, the pleasure,
the uncertainty of it all thrilled her with an
ecstasy of hope. She had no courage either to
argue with him or to contradict him.

'Promises, promises, my dear Jerome — when
you have said " good-bye " to me *

He arose abruptly.

'There is a gentleman waiting for us on the
steps of the Madeleine,' he exclaimed, without
waiting to hear her. ' I am going to trespass
upon the courtesy of Monsieur le Propriitaire
and to leave his house by the back door. There
is so much to see in the Madeleine, F^o. It
would be a pity to disturb the man.'

She smiled in spite of her excitement. A
waiter conducted them through a maze of
passages, through kitchens and sculleries, until
t^hey emerged at last in the Rue Duphot. A
closed carriage was waiting there. He opened
the door quietly and waited for her to enter.

THE COUNTER-MARCH 131

' We have not too much time/ he said, ' for the
old lady detests waiting.'

* The old lady?'

'Certainly, my friend the Comtesse de Berge.
You are going to her house, F60.'

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CHAPTER XV

A STRANGE FAREWELL

She heard him without astonishment. Nothing

could astonish her now. The cab rolled slowly

through those very streets she had trodden so

wearily last night. A great desire to sleep and

awake when all this doubt and perplexity had

passed away warred upon her curiosity. A new

world was opening to her. She had buried the

old life when she fled from the Avenue Marceau,

and confessed that she was alone in the world.

The man, in his turn, sat holding her hand very

tightly. It was something to know that he had

found her at last.

*We have not too much time/ he repeated,

' for the Countess makes a point of being at the

station an hour before the train starts. She is

the oddest woman in all Paris, or in all France

for that matter. If you told her that a marriage

was to be made or marred, she would cross

Europe to have a hand in the work. Her chdteau

at Pontarlier is the very place for us. I don't
us

A STRANGE FAREWELL

133

suppose there will be any one at the railway
station ; and when you have left Paris and they
find that I stay behind, we shall amuse them. I
planned it all out yesterday. That *s why you
didn't hear of me before. I made up my mind
not to meet Lamberg on his own ground. That
sort of man is accustomed to the dark. He will
begin to look for us when the lamps are lighted.
A little honesty is the last thing he expects. I
should like to see his face if any one told him
that we were driving through Paris in broad
daylight. Rogues never understand why a man
throws down his cards — and the old lady is
our best card. I wonder how you'll like her,
F60?'
She did not answer the question.

* Where does your friend live ? ' she asked.

* At the Chateau de Joux above Pontarlier. It
is one of the finest seats in France. You will
meet all sorts of people there — chiefly good, but
some indififerent. The last are the people the
old lady desires to marry.'

'A compliment to me!'

'Certainly — a compliment. You are the ex-
ception to her rule. If she likes you — and she
cannot help that — she will protect you against
the law of three kingdoms. She is sixty-two
years of age. If any one proposed to her to-

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morrow, and offered to run away with her in a
post-chaise, she would go. A secret marriage is
a bonne bouche to her, and we are her bene-
factors. She will be ten years younger to-
morrow.'

F^o sighed. There were tears in her eyes.

' I don't know what to say,' she exclaimed. ' I
have no right to be here at all. How can I go
to a stranger's house ? '

' You can go by the three o'clock train, F6o.'

* And be the scorn of every one ? *

' The scorn. What an idea ! Here is one of
my friends who sends you an invitation to stay at
her house. Are you ashamed of my friendship } *

' But I have no clothes, no money. I haven't a
single dress ; I can't go, Jerome.'

He saw that her distress was very real, and he
put his arm about her and drew her head down
upon his shoulder.

* Little F^o,' he said, ' there are many people
trying to separate us. You are now among the
number. But they will all fail, and you will fail
with them. Don't you understand why ? '

She understood.

' You love me,' she said.

* The first and last reason. There is nothing
else in my life but your love. Remember that
always, and everything will be easy.*

A S TRANGE FAREWELL

"35

She raised a smiling face to his.

* I will remember it always.'

He kissed her lips, and then forgetting his
sentiment, began to be practical again.

' It 's awkward about the dresses, but the
Countess understands, and she insists upon buy-
ing you a wardrobe herself. I believe she would
be offended if you appeared at the station with a
trunk. She thinks that she is protecting us from all
sorts of dangerous people, and a heroine without
a dress-basket is something new for her. Don't
mind her fussiness. She is always scolding somc-

^dy, but no one ever listens. I shall hope to

..to Pontarlier to-raorrow, and when I come we
can arrange everything.'

* I am sorry that you must remain another
night in Paris.'

' Oh, but it can't be helped ! I want them to
think that you have gone back to London. If
that fellow at the Madeleine didn't anticipate us,
we have twenty-four hours' start of them at any
rate. That will enable me to leave Paris without
suspicion. Mr. Drummond, your English friend,
has promised to do everything he can. The
police will report your return to his hotel. That
is so much dust thrown in their eyes, and all that
we need is time. We could be married in three
days, F^a*

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She sighed.

* In three days my father could reach Pont-
arlier.'

' Undoubtedly, but it would take him more
than three days to find his way into the Chateau
de Joux. Come, there is no need to look on the
darker side. Here 's the Gare. I don't suppose
we shall find a porter to carry my stick, for the
Countess will be on the platform. She is always
the centre of a crowd. A regiment of soldiers
could not get her into the train until she had
protested that the country is lost — together with
her black basket and her jewel-case. Ah, I
thought so.'

He paid the cabman and passed quickly to the
Bureau. A group of heterogeneous idlers — work-
men, boys, officials — was here formed about a
little old lady, whose high-pitched voice rang
through the station in a discordant note of anger
and defiance. Short, with flowing skirts of black
silk, and hair in abundance, dressed high upon
her forehead in the fashion of the last century ;
painted, powdered, rouged — Feo said that this
must be the Countess of Berge. A moment later
the old lady was kissing her upon both cheeks.*

' My poor, persecuted child, you have come,
then. And you. Prince. Ah ! you remember a
lonely old woman when you think that you can

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A STRANGE FAREWELL

137

, I

make use of her. But I am glad to see you.
They are all thieves and robbers here. They
have' stolen my valise — a brown valise with black
straps. You will find it for me, my dear ? Ah,
the pity of being a lonely old woman.'

She turned again to exhort the porters to new
zeal ; and when her bag had been found, and she
had taken out her purse three times to see that
she had the tickets, and a footman had been sent
back to her carriage to make sure that nothing
was left behind, the procession set out towards
the coup/ reserved for her.

' So, my dear, those dreadful men have let you
out of prison, then. Not a word, not a word ; we
should be overheard here. Count upon my dis-
cretion. I am an old woman, and have learned
how to be discreet. Where is Aphrodite ? the
good God help me, where is Aphrodite ? '

She was about to enter the carriage when she
made the discovery that her dog was not under
her arm as usual Instantly the porters were set
running again. An inspector mopped his brow
and protested before heaven that it was not his
fault. Maids wept under the fierce torrent of
anger outpoured. Footmen wrangled with f jot-
men ; the old lady herself stood at the door of
the coup/ dind solemnly called the people to witness
that, though the Republic should fall, she would

♦

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FEO

i I ;

U I

not leave the Gare de Lyon until Aphrodite was
found. The crisis was at its height when a whine
from the interior of the coup^ terminated the
scene. The dog was in the carriage after all,
then.

A great climbing, assistance from the footmen,
the maids tugging and hauling, the small boys
mocking, the inspector anxious — and Madame
was hoisted to her seat. Again she counted the
bundles, again she looked at her tickets. All
was well. She would permit the train to start.

' Until to-morrow, then. Oh, I shall take care
of her, don't be afraid ! Let them come to me if
they have anything to say. You are sure that
my luggage is in the van, Prince?'

Jerome smiled.

* My dear Countess, there are two of your foot-
men counting it at this moment.'

' Ah, but one cannot trust the servants. I am
robbed every day — I have been robbed for twenty
years, and still I suffer it. You will not fail us
to-morrow, Prince ? '

* Of course I shall not fail you. Am I not
giving you a hostage ? *

For the first time Madame smiled.

* I believe that you are in love with her,' she
said. ' Foolish children, as if love ever did any-
thing for any one.'

A STRANGE FAREWELL

X39

Jerome bent and kissed her hand.

' Adorable creature,' he said, * I will not argue
with you.'

Madame nodded her head sagaciously and
looked at F^o.

* She is very pretty, the little one,' she ex-
claimed. ' I shall find a husband for her.'

She was about to assure them that if the brown
valise were in the van, which she doubted, it
would certainly be lost at Dijon, when the guard
blew his tin trumpet, and the heavy train moved
slowly out of the Gare. F^o saw Jerome for an
instant as he stood, erect and smiling, upon the
last plank of the platform. It was a strange fare-
well, she thought. His final word had been a
promise that he would come to her to-morrow.
She asked herself if destiny willed such a meet-
ing, or if she had indeed heard his voice and
touched his hand for the last time ? Neverthe-
less, a sense of rest came to her as she leaned
back against the soft cushions of that luxurious
carriage. She almost dared to hope that her
journey would carry her to some place where the
past might be forgotten and the future be her
recompense. The moral of her act was not to be
debated. Jerome loved her, and in his love her
vindication lay.

) <

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CHAPTER XVI

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX

F£o awoke very early on the morning of the
following day. She did not at first remember
where she was ; and the unfamiliar room, so
large, so splendid, and so strange, by no means
helped her memory. She had never seen a bed
like the bed in which she lay. Its fantastic
carvings, its hangings of tapestry wherefrom
hideous faces leered at her, its splendid lace and
linen, reminded her of the great beds she had
laughed at in the Exhibitions in London. Every-
where about her were emblems of wealth and of
the rarest taste. A Sevres clock with a jewelled
pendulum stood upon a mantelshelf of the whitest
marble, in turn supported by Caryatides. The
candlesticks were alabaster figures bearing quaint
torches. Wardrobes, which would have held the
clothes of a household, stood cheek by jowl with
writing-tables of Buhl work and cabinets beyond
price. F^o remembered i^'vat she had no clothes,
and the wardrobes amused her. She was thor-

140

mw*

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX 141

oughly awake now, and she began to recall the
events of yesterday. The journey from Paris,
the nervous, fidgety, chattering old lady who had
been her chaperon, the descent at Pontarlier, the
drive through the hills to the chdteau in the
Jura mountains, the solemn function of dinner,
the old lady's command that she should go to
bed, the room in which she lay, and, after that,
oblivion. A strange day, she thought. Yet
what of the day to come ?

She did not know what time it was, for her
watch had stopped at four o'clock a year ago,
and she had never wound it since. No sounds
came to her from the great house ; but in the
fields without she heard the harvesters singing.
The sunlight, which shone generously in that
room, seemed to reproach her for her tardiness.
When she drew aside a curtain and looked out
from one of the windows which gave upon the
valley, she thought that she had never seen so fair
a country. Far below was the road to that Paris
she had left. A little river flashed back the sun's
rays as from a jewelled mirror. The town of
Pontarlier was to be discerned as a loom of
smoke upon the horizon. Elsewhere the green
mountains towered up to be sentinels of the
house. It were as though she stood upon the
edge of a precipice and could overlook some

'■ I

14a

Fto

iH:

splendid scene of field and forest, spread out
beyond the capacity of her wondering eyes.
Upon the verandah, which girdled the first floor
of the chateau, flowers blossoming gave perfume
to the sweet air of the morning. She could espy
the gardeners working upon the Italian terraces
below. A glitter of scarlet and gold and white
bore testimony to the work they did. But it was
the distant view, the picture of la belle Fince, so
green, so fair, so full of that suggestion of peace
passing understanding, which appealed most
surely to her imagination. Here truly was there
a haven for her — here, indeed, could she find a
home when Jerome came.

An excitement, born of her pleasure, com-
pelled her to dress swiftly. She remembered,
while she dressed, that Jerome was to leave
Paris that afternoon, and to reach the chateau
in time for dinner. His assurance that, whatever
might be contrived against her, he, at least, would
remain a free agent, helped her to confidence.
She was among strangers, but her solitude
would be brief. The eccentric old lady, who
was the mistress of the chateau, had won her
confidence already. F60 read the truer human
qualities beneath that mask of nervous complaint
and unceasing peevishness. She believed that
she had found a friend. No longer did she hear

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX 143

a voice telling her that she was alone in the
world. Here, at least, was one wise head, which
could lead her to the path she rightly must
follow. That very day the Countess should
know her story from the first line to the last.
This promise of confession was very pleasing to
her. She told herself that she would not delay
even an hour, lest Jerome returned to prevail
above her resolution. And she had just taken
this resolve when the door of her bedroom
swung back violently, and a young girl, prettily
dressed in white and carrying a white sun-bonnet
in her hands, came headlong into the apartment.
She was breathless, and her cheeks were flushed.
But she put her arms about F^o's neck, and kissed
her upon both cheeks.

' Feo, F60,' she cried, * I am Victorine — you
will let me love you, F60 ? '

F^o, unaccustomed to such ardour, yet won by
the girl's sincerity, answered laughingly —

'And who is Victorine that I should let her
love me ? '

The new comer stared in amazement.

' She has not told you, then I Ah, but she is
always selfish. If I were a dog— but I am only
Victorine.'

• You are a relative of hers, dear ? '

* I am her niece ; I live here always and never go

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144

FfiO

to Paris. People ask me, but my aunt says, " No."
That is for by and by when all the men have grey
hair, and I am old, so old that I shall carry a pug
dog under my arm. Some day all this will be
mine, all that you can see — the grounds, the park,
the house, and the statue with the broken nose in
the garden down there. What is the good of it all
when they leave you alone, and all the men you
like are in Paris ? But it will be different now
that you are here. You will tell me about
everything, F^o — you will be my friend.'

She sat upon the bed, swinging her old bonnet,
and looking the very type of radiant health and
happiness. F^o said that she would be not
twenty. Her own life had shown to her so few of
those things which go to make a young girl's
pleasure that she welcomed this impulsive friend-
ship. The sweet, fresh voice was a pleasing note
of the morning.

• You must tell me everything, show me every-
thing, Victorine,' she said ; * we shall have time
to-day, for Jerome is not coming until seven
o'clock. And, of course, I am such a stranger.'

Victorine sprang up and linked her arm about
the other's waist.

• Let us have breakfast in the garden,' she ex-
claimed earnestly. 'Aunt thinks that she is ill
and has sent for the doctor. I will tell him to

r r

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX 145

keep her in bed to-day, and then we shall not
be bothered. It is splendid in the garden ; if
it were not for that, I should run away with
the little boy who serves the altar. You don't
know what it is to be a prisoner, when all the
people you like are in Paris.'

' There are so many of them, then ? '

Victorine sighed.

' There is Paul — ah, if you knew Paul ! He
is in the Hussars — he was here a year ago, and I
have his picture. We went for such walks. Aunt
used to be shocked every day. She threatened to
send me to the convent. Paul said that he knew
a good convent in Paris, but ma tante would not
hear of it. That is the worst of being old. You
never like other people to do the things you used
to do. If I were to run away with some one I
hate, she would say I was her own child. But just
because it is Paul '

She pouted prettily, and led F^o down the
great staircase with the gilded balustrade, out
through houses of glass wherein countless blos-
soms scented the air, to the old Italian garden and
the umbrageous walks and bowers there. It was
all very still and silent, and full of the suggestion of
a world apart — the world of old France, and of a
generation, noble in a tradition of nobility, which
long since had passed away. To F^o, it was as

146

f6o

lit

some revelation of an unknown life. Dimly,
through the years, she had dreamed of such a
home as this, of a high place which should be hers
by right of her gifts and her attainment. The
reality awed her. She dared not remember that,
if she were Jerome's wife, the years that remained
to her must be passed in such an atmosphere as
this. She must school herself to the habits, the
manner, the fine tradition which in itself gave
nobility to the Chateau de Joux.

They breakfasted in an arbour overlooking the
valley. Two footmen waited upon them with
a method lacking ostentation yet all-sufficient.
Masses of wild roses clung about the arbour ; the
parterres around were a blaze of warm colour and
of rich blossoms. Down upon the pastures, the
harvesters drove lazy horses to their leisured
labours. Distant bells spoke of the droning life,
and of the dreamy hamlets. The old chateau
itself appeared to sleep in the fostering sunshine.
F^o could not believe that yesterday she was in
Paris, harassed, alone, desperate. The stream of
her perplexity had turned, and seemed to be
carrying her out to some placid sea of happiness
and content. If Jerome kept his promise !

* They told you that I was coming, Victorine ? *
she asked.

* My aunt sent a telegram to F^lix, the steward.
She said that I wns not to see it. He showed it

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX 147

to me when I wouldn't believe him. When you
came last night, ma tante said that it was a
matter of life and death. She wanted to guard
all the gates, so that no one should come in. I
have never seen her so pleased. She tries to
believe that they will send you to some dreadful
place — she said the Bastille, until I told her that
it was pulled down. And I was so sorry, F^o
If it had been my Paul ! '

'You are engaged to him, then, Victorine?*

Victorine flushed.

' He said that I was to let him know when I
was in Paris. He promised to send me a book
for the New Year ; but I believe aunt kept it.
She is a jealous old thing, and I know she liked
Paul. I don't want her to die, but she never lets
me go to Paris. You are lucky, because she likes
Jerome. She has made up her mind that you
shall marry him ; and when she says that, it 's as
good as done. If I pretended to hate Paul, she
would be different. But I can't do that — one
can't pretend when one is very fond of any one.
Won't ''■ou tell me your story ? It 's different for
you. You have run away from somewhere, and
ma tante says she loves you. How happy you
must be, F^o ! '

F^o smiled. 'You are all so kind to me — I
must be happy.'

' And won't you tell me your story ? *

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Im 'III

•■' • ^.!!

148

FfiO

' There is no story. I like some one very much,
and other people say that I must not like him.
They tried to keep us apart by shutting me up in
an old house in Paris. I got out of the window,
and here I am.'

Victorine stared with her pretty eyes very
wide open.

' Was he waiting for you when you opened the
window? '

' Not exactly, dear.'

' You drove off in a carriage and pair ? '

* Nc, I ran away ; just like any one going out
for a walk.*

Victorine sighed.

'And he is coming here to-night. Aunt says
you are to be married on Monday. If it were
my Paul '

* Who was going to marry me ? *
Victorine jumped up impulsively.

' I should hate you,' she said. ' Let us go and
tell aunt that we have had our breakfast in the
garden. That will make her cross. And — oh, I
forgot I The costumier is coming from Pontar-
lier. You are to have dresses, hats — everything.
I will show you my pink dress, and you shall
have one like it. They will take us for sisters.
Don't you wish that we were sisters, F^o ? *

Her affection for her new friend was pretty

AT THE CHATEAU DE JOUX

149

and sincere. They entered the old house arm in
arm, and began to walk through its great galleries
and Empire rooms. In the boudoir, where Vic-
torine passed so many long hours, a piano was
open. F^o had not sung a note since she left
London ; but now, upon an impulse, she sat
down at the piano and began to sing the music
of Faust Victorine listened entranced. She had
never heard such music or such a singer. The
full notes flooded the room with enchanting har-
monies, which could play upon the passions as
upon some answering instrument. The listening
child was transported, as in her lover's arms, to
new scenes and magic cities. When F60 ceased,
she was kneeling still at the piano, but her eyes
were very wide open, and she did not speak.

' La belle Patti — la belle Patti — ah, my dear,
whom, then, have I taken to my heart?*

F^o turned quickly. Madame la Comtesse,
rouged, powdered, her hands upraised in a
dramatic attitude, her eyes sparkling above their
circles of black, was at her elbow.

' M^ child,' she said, 'you are a genius; I will
certainly find a husband for you.'

. li

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1 '

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i'i!

CHAPTER XVII

THE EMPTY CARRIAGE

The costumier came from Pontarlier at two
o'clock with brocades and silks and muslins,
and solemn protestations that there was no
woman in France with madame's taste ; and the
assurance, oft repeated, that he had never been
called upon to fit so graceful a figure as F^o's.
The old lady heard him impatiently, and then
began to scold him. She had just come from
Paris, and she knew ! Some of these things had
been worn last year! What did he mean by
bringing them to her house ? Was it because he
thought her an old woman who had forgotten
the nr.ode? She would undeceive him. He
shoul i never darken her doors again. This was
to be an event in his life. He must dress made-
moiselle as he had never dressed any one before.
As for those wretched things, he had better take
them away and burn them.

F^ saw the rich stuffs outspiead, and thought
of her little wardrobe at home. Her father's

THE EMPTY CARRIAGE

'SI

selfishness had kept her always to the practice of
rigid economy, and to that indispensable friend
of the poor — the black gown. Often she had
spent no more than twenty pounds in a whole
year ; but here were dresses which could not
have been purchased for twice that sum. The
nature of such generosity frightened her. She
seemed to be piling up obligations which she
might never repay.

'You are so good ; but I could not, I dare not
accept these things/ she said timorously, as she
turned the brocades in her hand, and experienced
a woman's joy ih the treasures outspread before
her. But the old lady would not hear of it.

* He is my boy,' she ans\ve.*-ed deci'^ively ; * I
knew him in Vienna when he was a baby. Don't
forget that you are a Bcrthier, child. There is
no better name in France. Your father should
be ashamed of himself if he has not taught you
that. These Austrtans, who are so stupid in
Paris, will find it out by and by. I shall go and
see them when you are married. The Archduke
thinks he is very clever, but he is not clever at
all. He has matched himself against a poor old
woman, and she has won. I shall tell him that
pink is your colour. It was mine when I was
your age ; but we change, dear. Even the pretty
ones must grow old some day.'

I'
1'

■ H

1 .

-, i

' *'

iSa

f6o

!ii

She sat with a length of golden brocade upon
her lap ; and it was plain that the colour could
cairy her mind back to some forgotten day when
the Court of the Empire had known the name of
Julienne, Comtesse de Berge, and many a sa/on
had sought her favour. The mood passed swiftly,
however. Such impulse as intrigue could give to
her waning life was hers now. She delighted in
this adventure. She would marry this boy and
girl in her house, and go to Vienna to tell the
story.

'Jerome has a will of his own, and he wants
you, dear. If you do not marry him, he will go
and do something foolish — ah, the dear fellows
who go and do something foolish! We must
save him from himself — we must marry him. I
know Jerome. The Archduke knows him, too.
There are sons to whom you can say, "This is
right or this is wrong." Jerome is not one of
them. They are unwise to try and separate you,
little girl. They will never do it — never — never.'

The conviction seemed to please her. She fell
to scolding the costumier again ; and when she
had tried every imaginable shade, holding the
strips against F^o's pretty hair, and covering her
with fragments of silk and muslin, she took the
man apart to give him his orders. F^o could
protest no more. The mystery, nay, the miracle

IIH'

THE EMPTY C^.RRIAGE

153

of it all was beyond her understanding. Yester-
day she had been homeless and alone. To-day
she enjoyed the friendship of one of the richest
women in France ; she was free of that house ;
the subtle atmosphere of nobility and tradition
won upon her ambitions, and satisfied the dreams
of her childhood.

* How can I thank the Countess ! how can I
tell her that I have no right to all this kind-
ness!' she exclaimed when she was alone with
Victorine again ; but Victorine was radiant with
delight.

' She likes you because other people are hate-
ful/ she said. * If you had not been locked up
in that dreadful h ^use in Paris, she wouldn't
care a bit. That's why I call her a selfish
old thing. If some one would lock up Paul,
she would be kind to him. When you are
married you will ask Paul to your house, and
I shall be there. If it were Monc .y for me,
F^o ! '

F^o shook her head. ' I can't think about it,'
she said, 'so much might happen. If Jerome
comes to-night, I shall really begin to hope. Isn't
it a very long day, Victorine ? To me it seems
a year.'

' Because you are waiting for him. Let us
drive through the woods, and I will show you

■til

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154

¥^10

Mi :

f m^

where Paul and I went picnicking. He pro-
mised to write and tell me that he would be
here again in June— but aunt must have burned
the letter. Ah, F6o, when one is waiting for
a letter ! '

She sighed pitifully ; but the depression was of
the instant, and soon she was scampering, with
her dogs, away to the stables for her ponies.
Madame la Comtesse came out to the steps of
the house to see them off, and to exhort F^o to
punctuality.

' He will arrive at seven o'clock, dear, and will
expect to find you at the gate. My word — how
many times I have waited at the gate ! And he
will have such stories for us. Do not let Victorine
make your head ache with her silly chatter. You
must look your best to-night — your very best,
my poor child.'

F^o laughed. * Here, at least, you cannot call
me that,' she said.

The old lady raised her finger warningly.

' We have enemies,' she said ; * we must be
prudent. When they know that you are in my
house, it will not be safe for you to go out at all.
But to-day they will not know, and to-night my
boy will be here.'

The words were ominous. F6o thought of them
often as Victorine drove her through the pine

THE EMPTY CARRIAGE

^S5

woods and found many a glade and many a
bower of her romance. In spite of these new
friends, her enemies remained. She recalled tht
gloomy house in the Avenue Marceau, the days
of shame and humiliation there, her father's
threats, Lamberg's subtle intriguing. Had she
escaped from such danf^ers for ever? She scarce
dared to believe in a fate so propitious. Not
until Jerome came would she recall even the
circumstances of those twenty hours which had
carried her from Paris to this new home upon
the frontier of France.

It was six o'clock when they returned to the
chateau. Madame la Comtesse was dressing
already for dinner. Victorine had a hundred
things to say and do.

* You must go alone, F^o,' she said. ' If it
were Paul, I should hate any one to come with
me. He will be so glad to find you there. Is it
not lovely to wait for any one — when you know
that he must come ? Oh ! I saw the carriage
leaving the stables as we drove up. When it is
here again, you will see Jerome in it. You lucky
girl — yc.u lucky, lucky girl.'

She kissed her friend with a young girl's affec-
tion, and ran off to her own room. But F^o
went slowly through the gardens to the lodge
gate, wherefrom she could see the road to Pont-

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arlier threading the ripe, green valley as a tape
of silver. The sun still shone upon the woods ;
the fragrance of a June day scented the evening
air ; she heard the village bells, even the distant
echo of a train rolling southward from Paris.
But a strange gloom of the hour and the solitude
troubled her in spite of all. Jerome was coming.
She would see him presently — far off — upon that
winding road below. He would tell her the news
of the day. She would answer — she knew not
what.

So she waited, restless, excited as she had
rarely been, troubled with a foreboding she could
not defend. Seven o'clock had long been struck
upon the great clock in the stables when, at last,
she espied the barouche rolling slowly toward
the lodge. For some minutes her uncertainty
was almost a pain. She strained her eyes ; she
ran a little way down the road — she returned
again. It was odd, if Jerome were in the carriage,
that her presence at the gate was unobserved
by him. And if he had not come !

' Monsieur was not at the station, mademoiselle.
There is no message. I fear we have made a
mistake.*

She heard the coachman's excuse, but did not
answer it. The worst had happened, then.
Jerome was still in Paris. She could not imagine

i^^>,i

MP A
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THE EMPTY CARRIAGE

'57

what peril of their love had contrived to keep
him there. Nevertheless, it seemed to her, as
she stood overwhelmed by a disappointment
surpassing words, that night already had come
down upon the hills.

■ '1

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TELEGRAM

■M

if «,

F£o was just dressed on the following morning
when Victorine came running into her bedroom
with an envelope, which she waved triumphantly
as a trophy of victory.

' The telegram ! the telegram I he is coming,
then ; he is well. Are you not glad, F6o ? *

She was breathless with excitement ; the wind
of morning had played merry tricks with her
pretty brown hair ; her eyes shone with the
delight of her news. When F^o took the paper
with trembling fingers, and it was flattened out,
and read and read again, Victorine's arm was
about her waist, and she was still unsilenced.

* I said that it was only a mistake ; you would
not listen to me. I know that he is coming.
Ma tante does not burn your letters ; she burns
mine. If it had been Paul, she would not have
told me; but it is Jerome, and she loves him.
How glad I am, F^o ! how glad 1 '

F6o turned and kissed her. *He is coming,

THE TELEGRAM

159

dear ; to-morrow, if he can. Read it for yourself.
I hope there is nothing else, nothing which he
has been afraid to tell me.*

It was a short message, and somewhat vague.
Victorine read it twice, and her ardour of glad-
ness was a little subdued. She debated it,
pouting.

* To-morrow, if prudent ; caution detains.*

F^o turned away, and went to stand at the
window. There were clouds above the valley,
and a mist fell upon the gardens. She was
imagining a thousand things, but she would not
speak of them.

* He will be here to-morrow if his friends will
let him. He means to say as much. If I thought
that there was anything else '

Victorine laughed girlishly.

' It is always that way — prudence, prudence ;
as if love itself were not prudence enough. Of
course he will come. There are things you
cannot say in a telegram. Last night I thought
that it was something dreadful. I dare not tell
you, F60. But I know it 's all right, now ; and
I shall go and find aunt. It will make her
cross *

It was F^o's turn to laugh. ' Why should it
make her cross ? Does she not wish it ? '

' She does not know what she wishes. If I

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play Faust to her, she says it isn't Lohengrin.
When I play Lohengrin^ she says that I think
her a poor old woman who must be made sad.
She will be cross now because she promised such
horrible things last night. And none of them
have happened. I knew they would not. They
couldn't to you, F^o.'

'We must not laugh until we are out of the
wood, dear. There are twenty-four hours between
us and to-morrow. You don't know how much
may happen in twenty-four hours. Jerome has
many enemies. I don't think he is half as much
afraid of them as I am. If he would think of
them a little more, I might hope for the best.
But he believes that he is so strong, and that is
the danger.'

She spoke as one reflecting ; and, truth to tell,
that haunting shadow of doubt had pursued her
through the weary night, even in her restless
sleep. The magic of the change was losing its
potency. After all, she was a stranger in that
house. Unless Jerome came, she could not con-
tinue to claim the hospitality of these good
friends of hers. That sense of indignity, which
she had experienced in the Avenue Marceau,
came again to destroy her dream of finality. It
seemed to her that she was, unwillingly, the
centre of an intrigue which verged upon vulgarity.

THE TELEGRAM

i6i

Until that time, episode had followed episode so
swiftly that she had been unable to reflect upon
the circumstances of her flight and its conse-
quences. But now, hour by hour, she began to
see the matter in its entirety, to weigh it up, to
assert that self-dependence upon which she had
relied almost since the days of her childhood.
She said that she had erred in leaving Paris. Her
duty to Jerome ended when she had kept her
promise and had gone to him as he had wished.
Thereafter, she should have quitted France and
left her fate to work out its own course.

It was a confused, illogical argument ; but a
woman's, nevertheless, and very logical to her.
The night had been one of doubt unresting, of
fleeting ideas, of suggestions of danger which no
circumstances warranted. She had a thousand
excuses for Jerome's absence ; but none of them
satisfied her. His own courage and confidence
in himself could not win her faith. She feared
for him as she had never feared for herself, even
in the darkest hour at Lamberg's house. Those
who were intriguing against her, would they
not, now that she was beyond their reach, find
in him their subject and their opportunity? At
one moment, in the silent hours of sleeplessness,
she told herself that they had trapped him,
and that he was already on his way to Vienna.

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At the next, she remembered his boasts and
took heart anew. When her hope was at its ebb,
she could even contemplate his death. The
morning gave her this telegram to rebuke such
foolish foreboding. Nothing had happened ; all
those shadows of the night, they were but
shadows still : prudence had kept him in Paris.
He would come to her when it was prudent to
come. The curt, clear phrase was so like Jerome.
He said, ' I will,' and would brook no contradic-
tion. In her heart she knew that, wherever her
own scruples might carry her, thither would he
follow. It was her destiny.

Madame la Comtesse sat in the little morning-
room when the girls discovered her. A cup of
Spanish chocolate steamed before her ; she had a
book in her lap, and many papers and journals
from Paris on the little table at her side. When
she perceived the telegram which F^o carried,
she stretched out a lean and withered hand, and
laughed in that resonant, discordant key which
was the terror of her servants.

* There it is, then ! And the renegade keeps
faith with us. He has cheated his gaolers, child ;
the brave heart ! Oh ! we shall be too much for
them ; we shall find you a husband. The good
God help me! where are my spectacles?'

Victorine tittered. 'They are on your nose,

THE TELECRAM

163

aunt. What folly ! about the gaolers. As if
there were such things nowadays. Jerome is
very well, and is coming to-morrow. I said it
was all nonsense, and Fdo knew it. We are
going to Pontarlier to meet him, and I shall drive
Christobel. People say she *s dangerous, and it 's
interesting.'

The old lady did not hear her. She was
muttering over the telegram with a child's delight
in a mystery.

'Prudence — ah, the dear boy, to think of it!
That would mean that they are following him.
He is afraid to write. I said so. They will
never let him out of their sight. I know those
Austrians. You must not leave the grounds,
child. C^sar shall ride through the woods and
tell us if any one is there. "Caution detains."
He is afraid to say more. We shall be prudent
in our turn, for his friends will stick at nothing,
I remember Marie Loisel in Vienna, twenty,
twenty-two years ago. She was the friend of the
Archduke Ferdinand. He promised to marry
her. In a week she was dead — they said of
heart disease. It was their story for the world.
I heard another story — remember that, dear:
there was another story. We must watch night
and day ; it is our duty.'

F60 heard her indifferently. * You have been

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very kind to me, and I shall remember it. I fear
that Jerome has not told us all. And, of course,
I cannot stay here now.'

The old lady raised her hands in a gesture of
reproof and surprise.

' Cawnot stay ! The good God help us ! What
an idea, child ! Where would you go to with
that pretty face of yours ? And leave my boy !
Come, come, I like pretty faces aboul me. While
I live, you shall want for nothing at the Chateau
de Joux. Is it because I am a lonely old woman,
with an ungrateful child to trouble me all day,
that you speak of it ? Ah ! the world is very
unkind, little singer.'

F60 knew not how to answer. Victorine
rebelled and turned away peevishly.

* I wish I were a lonely old woman sometimes,'
she said ; ' there would be no one then to "burn
my letters.'

But madame did not hear her.

* Sing to me, child,' she said to F^o. ' I have
heard all the great singers ; I am as old as
that. Fifty years ago I was at Dresden, when
the people would not hear Tannhduser. What
wickedness ! what folly ! But the world always
says "bravo" a long time after the curtain is
down. You would make a fortune on the stage,
my dear. You have everything — youth, a pretty

!"1

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THE TELEGRAM

i6S

face, a heart to sing well. Your father ought
to be ashamed of himself. I shall tell him so
seme day.'

F^o sighed. ' I have been singing for three
years, and they gave me five pounds a week. I
can't blame my father for that. If he had his
way, all the other artistes would have been sent
away, and there would have been no one at
Covent Garden except myself That is always
the misfortune of second-rate talent. It allows
nothing to genius, and everything to its enemies.
But I know the truth : I have so much to learn.
I despair sometimes of learning anything.'

Madame chuckled. * Those days are over,' she
said decisively. 'The wife of a Hapsburg does
not need to learn anything. The world will say
you are a genius I'ne day after you are married,
child. It said Wagner was mad because a mad
king discovered him. Perhaps it was right.
Donizetti was sane because he made the world
dance. Sing Tannhduser to me. I am too old
to dance.'

F^o obeyed her ; and in her art forgot a little
while that to-morrow Jerome would come. The
gloomy day dragged to its end laboriously. To
her questions there was ever the same answer;
' No news, no news.'

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CHAPTER XIX

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PERIL

A MORNING of soft breeze^ and generous sunshine
followed that sombre day of gloom and mists.
The valley life, veiled yesterday under the pall
of cloud and looming vapours, burst out anew
as a stream long dammed. Birds sang in the
gardens their note of liberty new found and of
the summer's victory. The air was balmy with
the odours of blossoms which the warm rain
fostered. Even Madame la Comtesse forgot that
she was a lonely old woman, and had eyes to
see the beauty of her house. Everywhere the
harvesters went cheerfully to their work. The
bells rang out sweet music. It was a joy to
bieathe on such a ddy.

F6o had slept but little. She was very pale
and thoughtful when she came out to the arbour
wherein dejeuner had been prepared ; nor could
she participate in Victorine's childish delight and
unfailing optimism. It was true that Jerome had
promised to come to-day ; true that if he kept

166

PERIL

167

his promise, there wojld be no more night for
her. Nevertheless, thv'; doubt of it remained.
There was always a * but ' now to war upon her
anticipation. He would come — if prudence per-
mitted. And he had sent no other message.
There had been no word from him yesterday.
The morning brought neither letter nor telegram.

'That's because he is coming,' said Victorine,
when she had kissed F(^o boisterously and
dragged her to her seat ; ' ma iante is sure of it,
and shr '-^^ old enough to be a prophetess. If
he hau 'en detained, he would have sent
another telegram. We are to drive to Pontarlier
to meet the evening train. Aunt says it 's
dangerous for you to go. You must read the
Lives of the Saints until we come back. It's her
favourite book. She likes the part about the
horrible tortures. Won't you be glad because
it's to-day, Feo?'

'If it is to-day, of course I shall be glad, dear.
I am getting into that state when one believes
in nothing — except the things one doesn't want
to believe in. If Jerome doesn't come soon, I
shall go back to Paris to ask him why. It would
be dreadfully silly, but, then, it is better to be
silly than to do nothing at all. If I stop here
another week, I shall be as old as your aunt,
Victorine.'

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FitO

Victorine clapped her hands.

'What an idea! If we could go to Paris! I
have two hundred francs upstairs, and we might
drive over this morning. Aunt would never miss
us until dinner-time, and then it would be too
late. I should see Paul and come back again.
Don't you think it 's splendid ? '

* It would be splendid in a book. And, of
course, you wouldn't mind walking back when
our picnic was over. We should have to do that,
I fear, unless you could flirt with the railway
company, dear.'

Victorine pouted.

* I feel sometimes that I could flirt with any-
thing — even the postman. Imagine a romance
with a postman ! He would bring his own letters,
and you needn't put yours into the bag. When
you wrote to tell him that all was over and you
were another's, you could watch him crying as he
went down the lane. There 's a plot for a
romance ! '

She babbled on, stimulated by the sunshine
and the sweet, fresh breeze of that perfect day.
Though the post had brought no news from
Paris, there was other news, and she rejoiced
at it.

'Michon, the costumier, brings your walking
dress this morning, and Jerome will see you in it

PERIL

169

when we come back. Aunt says you are not to
leave the grounds, but that's her nonsense. I
shall tell him you will be at the cascade, F60.
White is your colour, and you '11 look jolly. They
like us to be pale ; Paul told me so. It's more
interesting, and they can sympathise. Paul used
to sympathise every night when aunt was asleep.
He said his hands were soft, and he would stroke
my poor little head. They were such hard hands
— but I never grumbled. I told him I would get
well for his sake, and all the time I was as well
as anything. When Jerome sees you to-night,
he will be awfully kind because you're ill. It's
nice when they 're awfully kind, I think. Ma
tante is going to wear her brocade to-day. She's
just like one of the old women in the history
books when she wears that. If Jerome doesn't
come to-day, she'll declare that they've executed
him in a dungeon. As if such things could
happen in our time! Let's go and ride the
ponies, Feo. I '11 lend you my green habit, and
you shall have Christobel. To-night will never
come if we don't do something heroic'

F^o accepted eagerly. Jerome had taught her
to ride in the old days in Vienna. Siie was a
good hori;ewoman, and a gallop over the splendid
grass land of the outer park stimulated her
courage and brought colour to her pretty cheeks.

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F^.O

She did not see the Countess until the day was
growing old, and it was time for them to bring the
great barouche to the door ; but at that hour
the old lady appeared for the first time that day,
radiant in a splendid robe which might have
come straight from the museum of antiquities
at Versailles.

' We are going to bring the renegade back,'
she said triumphantly, as footmen busied about
her, and maids spread rugs, and she was hoisted
to her seat as luggage to a van, * I shall scold
him for making my little girl pale to-day. And
she will not leave the house. She will be prudent
— eh, little singer, you mean to be prudent?'

* I am prudence itself,' said F^o,

' Remember that our enemies are many. They
will not come to my house, for they know me.
I shall write to the Archduke and tell him that
he has made a fool of himself. You are safe at
the Chateau de Joux, child. Ths good God help
me ! what have they done to the cushions?'

'How stupid you are, aunt!' exclaimed
Victorine testily. ' You 're sitting on the
medicine bottles. And I believe you 've killed
Aphrodite.'

* Ah, the poor thing ! But she 's not like the
others. She can put up with a little because she
loves me. To the Gare, C^sar, We shall have

PERIL

171

luggage to bring back. Do not keep His High-
ness waiting.'

She dwelt a little upon the phrase, for even
Madame la Comtesse de Berge could not wholly
conceal the pride with which she welcomed a
Prince to her house. F^o heard the words as the
carriage rolled away ; and then she repeated
them again and again. Had she truly realised
Jerome's birthright before that day? she asked
herself. When first she met him in Vienna, it
was as one who claimed none of those privileges
attending his position, but lived rather the free
life of a Bohemian and an artist. Many of his
tastes were frankly democratic. He professed
contempt for the empty ceremonies of an ex-
clusive court ; contempt for the coxcombs and
vain women and shallow children of prejudice
who composed the elect of Vienna. Yet it was a
good-natured contempt ; and she knew that, at
heart, he clung to the patrician heritage, and
esteemed nobility none the less because he must
chide the follies of his age. A splendid soldier ;
an athlete who had learned his athletics in
England ; a musician by education and by taste
— the man himself stood out above his fellows
rather by his own gifts than by any magic of
heredity. To F^o he had been as one of her own
circle — the witty Jerome always ; her lover rather

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than the Archduke's heir. Some day, she under-
stood vaguely, he would inherit that great white
palace in Vienna and those boundless hills and
woods which bordered the Danube, and were the
Archduke's birthright. But that day was of the
future, not to be contemplated, a day for dreams.
F6o said it was amusing to hear Jerome called
* Highness.' She would tell the story to him when
he arrived.

It was difficult to pass away the time, for she
was too excited to read, and she must not go
beyond the gates, and even the task of exploring
the chateau could weary her at last. Once or
twice she ventured to the lodge and gazed down
at the sleeping valley, so still in the first hush of
eventide. Or she would pace the gardens rest-
lessly and roam the great galleries, and tell her-
self that Jerome was coming, that he would not
disappoint her twice, and that she would hear his
voice and hold his hand in hers before an hour
had passed. Wherever impulse carried her, she
found herself, at the end, looking out over the
road to Pontarlier. He would come that way.
She would espy the carriage when it was but a
speck upon the horizon. The idea of danger
amused her. What danger could there be in a
place so remote from Paris and the Austrian ?
The Countess was really very amusing. Feo

PERIL

173

ventured into the woods at last, for there was a
place there, upon the very border of the road,
where the view was superb, and even Pontarlier
itself could be discerned.

She ventured into the wood and took her stand
in a little arbour above the cascade which fell
from the hillside to the burn far down in the
valley below. It was six o'clock then ; and
everywhere in the distant villages, and from
the steeples of the little churches, perched
high in the mountains above her, the Angelus
was proclaimed by dulcet bells. At such an
hour the silence of the summer evening was
intense, almost oppressive. It seemed to F^o
that she had come to a spot lonely beyond her
imagination.

Laugh as she might at the Countess's alarms,
a memory of them grew upon her and was not to
be put aside. She recollected suddenly that she
was alone there — far from the chateau, beyond
the hearing of any of the chateau's people.
Another hour must pass before she might hope
to see the carriage returning on the lonely white
road below. She would spend it in the house,
she said, at the piano ; and, so resolving, she was
about to quit the arbour, when she heard a foot-
step upon the gravel path without, and turning
quickly, she found herself face to face wiih Otto

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Fi^:o

Lamberg. It was as thoujjh one had struck her
a blow.

The Austrian was dressed faultlessly— she had
never seen him when the same might not have been
said. His hat, which shone as a mirror, seemed
to have been purchased that very morning ; his
grey frock suit was such as men usually display
at garden parties. He carried the cane with
the gold and amber head in his left hand ; his
right played with the eye-glass which dangled
upon his chest. That bland smile of his greeted
her when first she observed him, and he continued
to smile while he spoke to her.

* Miss F^o,' he said suavely, * I fear that this
is an impertinent intrusion.'

F<^o trembled in spite of herself. She heard
now that which she had not heard before, a
rumble of wheels on the road without. This man
had come in a carriage, then — but not from Pont-
arlier. She was sure of it ; no carriage had
crossed the valley while she had been there.
He had driven by the road from the Swiss
frontier. The truth frightened her almost as
much as his presence ; but she answered him
quite coldly.

* 1 express no opinion, Captain Lamberg, until
I have heard what business brings you here.' •

He advanced a little way towards her and

PERIL

t7S

bowed slightly. His manners were not to be
surpassed, she thought.

' My business is your business, mademoiselle ;
the interest of one, who is none the less my
friend because he is yours. In Paris you chose to
misunderstand me and my actions. I will not
seek at this time to convince you of the injustice
that you did me. I would have kept you in my
house, not for my own pleasure, but for yours.
The mistake has cost you much. It has cost our
friend more.'

She breathed quickly. He watched her as an
advocate may watch a quailing witness. When
she laughed nervously, he knew that she sought
to disbelieve him, yet could not convince herself.

'C.'otain Lamberg,' she said quietly, ' when a
man does not tell the truth, do you believe him a
second time?'

He made a gesture of protest.

' Does not tell the truth, mademoiselle ! Is it
possible '

* It is quite possible.'

* You offend me. The reference is to the
Prince's arrival in Paris, is it not ? '

'And if it is?'

' If it is, permit me to say that I knew
nothing of it. The Embassy did not advise me
until you had left my house. It would have

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WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80

(716) 872-4S03

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176

F^O

been a lie if I had told you that Prince Jerome
was in Paris when I believed him to be in London.
Do me the justice to confirm that statement
before you condemn me.'

He spoke almost appealingly, in a low,
pleasing voice that was difficult to resist. Never-
theless, she knew that he was not telling her the
truth. Something of that terror she had experi-
enced in the Avenue Marceau was hers again in
that instant ; but she did not seek to escape him.
There was a subtle fascination of his argument
which held her to the spot. She found herself
scanning the lonely road to Pontarlier almost
pitifully. If Jerome were to come!

* I cannot discuss it with you,* she exclaimed
at last, desperately. ' You say that you have busi-
ness with me. What is it ? I am among friends
here — they shall help me to do you justice.'

He smiled again.

' Miss F^o,' he said, * if I had come as your
enemy, it would not have been to the Chateau
de Joux in broad daylight. If you doubt me,
summon your servants here. I will tell them
that your father is waiting in a carriage twenty
paces from this arbour. If he is not a fit com-
panion for his daughter '

She uttered an exclamation of surprise.

' My father, here '

PERIL

177

•As I say. He is in the carriage which you
can see through the trees there.

Her face was white now ; he could see how
deepl}' the news troubled her. Impossible to
summon the servants to defend herself against
her own father. Hope left her in that instant. He
had reckoned upon her reluctance, she thought.

' Why does my father come here ? ' she asked
slowly ; * why does he wish to see me ? *

Lamberg took another step toward her, and
spoke as one imparting a great secret.

' To tell you that you wait here in vain ; to tell
you that our friend will not be permitted to leave
Paris until it is known that you have quitted the
Chateau de Joux. See how great a misfortune
you have brought upon us. A little patience in
my house and all would have been well. You
distrust me — yet even now I am not unwilling to
be your servant. Come, Miss F^o, do you think
that I would betray the oldest of my friends, a
brother officer, one who has faced death with me
many a time, one whom I love with all my heart?
It is for his sake that I am here to-night. Let
your father speak to you, and he will tell you
how great a wrong you do me ! *

There was rather an appeal to her charity than
any suggestion of command in his entreaty.
While she knew that the man was unworthy

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even of a hearing, the fact that her father waited
for her, not twenty paces from the arbour, com-
pelled her to listen to him. Again she scanned
the lonely road to Pontarlier. There was not one
human thing to be seen upon it. The bushes
around her were silent with that silence which
heralds tempest. A solitary bird sustained a
plaintive note in the copse beyond the arbour.
The gardens themselves were without voice or
life. She could hope for no counsellor, could
count upon no friend.

' I will see my father,' she exclaimed at last,
when it was plain to her that there was no other
course ; ' but I shall not leave this house — at
least, until my friends come.*

* You are your own mistress, mademoiselle. I
can only tell you the circumstances, and leave
you to act upon them as you please.'

Had she been thinking of the man alone, it is
possible that he would have been unable to con-
ceal the delight with which he anticipated her
surrender. The nervous movement of his hands,
a restless change of attitude, might well have told
his story. But F^o was asking herself what she
should say to her father. It was a strange
meeting, she thought. The gloom of the old
life seemed to wrap itself about her again as
she quitted the arbour.

PERIL

179

* My father is in the carriage ? * she asked.

'Certainly, he is in the carriage. There is a
little gate here ; you know it, perhaps ? We did
not care to drive up to the house, as you will
understand. I was for going to the village and
coming back in the morning ; but as we passed,
we saw you in the arbour, and so time is saved.
If we are to be of service to our friend, we must
not delay. Ah, the thorns tear your pretty dress ;
let me help you '

He held the gate open for her, and she passed
through. So close had the brougham, of which
he spoke, been driven to the pathway, that she
could have touched it with her hand when she
came out.

At the first glance it was not a carriage which
called for notice. There were two men upon the
box of it, and they touched their hats to her in
the English fashion. The horses were big bays,
seemingly quite fresh and ready for a journey.
There was nothing to quicken that suspicion which
the scene in the arbour had already awakened.
Believing that her father sat in the carriage,
and that she must face an angry scene with
him, she went straight to the door which Lam-
berg held open for her. At the same instant
the man put his left arm firmly about her waist,
and closing his right hand upon her mouth, he

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lifted her from her feet and pushed her into the
brougham. One of the men upon the box sprang
down and shut the door. The coachman slashed
his whip ; the horses started off at a gallop ; a
cloud of white dust alone marked the path they
followed.

' Do not distress yourself, young lady. We
shall not hurt you. You have made it necessary.
Accept the inevitable.'

Feo, breathless, with hair awry and crimson
cheeks, sank back upon the cushions and laughed
in the Austrian's face.

' I knew that it was a lie,' she exclaimed, almost
as one speaking in the triumph of a prophecy
fulfilled.

CHAPTER XX

THE ROAD TO NEUFCHATEL

Twilight had been coming down upon the hills
when they quitted the arbour. It was already
growing dark upon the lower road as the carriage
rolled on at a gallop toward Neufch^tel and the
Swiss frontier. But to F6o neither daylight nor
darkness mattered. She did not think of the
route or of her environment. While her head
was a whirl of ideas, of reproaches, of regrets, of
anger, nevertheless, that self-control, which rarely
deserted her even in the crises of her life, remained
to her. From the first it had been plain that she
would gain nothing by a scene. There were three
men with the carriage. Had she cried out, her cries
would have been cast back by the walls of the
ravine through which the carriage passed. To
appeal to the pity of such a creature of intrigue
as Otto Lamberg was not to be thought of. She
stood alone, relying upon her courage and her
brains. Fear of what might come after was less

181

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a factor than the thought that Jerome might
even then be on his way from Pontarh'er. She
imagined the surprise, the apprehension, the
distress of her friends at the chateau. And old
Madame de Berge ! F^o laughed again when she
remembered what a tale that would be for the
Countess to relate.

* You are amused, then, mademoiselle ! Bravo !
that is the way to take it. If you continue to be
sensible, we will lower the shutters, and it will not
be so stuffy in here.'

She looked at the windows of the carriage, and
observed that the shutters covered the glass. But
she did not answer Lamberg, and he continued
apologetically —

*I fear that I was very rough. I could not
help it. Am I not a monster to treat you so ? '

She tossed her head back upon the cushions
and replied defiantly.

' Agreed,' she said, remembering the slang of
her schooldays. * Tell me some more stories ;
they are amusing.'

He replied by lowering the shutter upon his
side and letting down the glass.

* You are sensible, I see. That is well. We
shall understand each other presently. Do you ,
know where we are going to ? '

* I don't know and I don't care. Were you

III

THE ROAD TO NEUFCHATEL

183

ever an actor, Captain Lamberg? How you
would have made the people cry ! Think of
your dearest friend whom you love like your
own brother ! '

He fixed his glass in his eye and stared at her.
Tears, entreaties, those he had expected ; but this
indifference was beyond his reckoning.

' Listen to me,' he said ; * the time for all that
is past. I have the greatest sympathy for you.
I wish I could help you. But I am a servant of
the State, and my duty must be done. In the
end you will thank me, and our friend will thank
me. He is returning to Vienna, where he has
his work to do. You are going back to London,
where your father is waiting for you. The rest
was all folly — the folly of two children. You are
a sensible girl, and will come to see that by and
by. The Prince is an impulsive fellow, and will
not see it so quickly. But it is all for the best,
believe me.'

She sat up in the carriage. The gesture
alarmed him. He thought that she was about
to cry out, and his hand went to the window.

* Believe you ! ' she exclaimed.

He released the strap and nodded his head.

' There are times to believe, and times not to
believe,* he said ; ' a wise head judges between
them. When the truth serves me, I tell it. The

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State has no conscience, Miss F^o. I am the
State in this matter.'

* How flattered I should be ! Here is the
State ready to jump out of the window when I
lift a finger.'

He laughed in spite of himself.

'Come,' he said, 'help me to make this a
pleasant journey. You cannot make it anything
else. Circumstances are unkind enough to be
against you. I have authority at my back. I
have only to raise my hand so *

* And the stars go out. Please do not raise it.
I want to see the State while I can.'

He was very angry, but had sense enough to
ignore the interruption.

' I have only to raise my hand, so,' he repeated,
'and the first gendarme we meet will be my
willing "ervant. The French Government is the
friend of the Austrian Government in this aflair.
It forbids you to remain any longer in France,
mademoiselle. I am instructed to see you to
Calais, and, if you wish it, to London, where
your father waits for you. He approves all
that I am doing. He no longer desires that
his daughter shall pursue a chimera.'

'He is concerned for me, my father; how
touching 1 '

' Possibly ; the domestic emotions are not under

THE ROAD TO NEUFCHATEL 185

discussion. I have only to ask you to behave
sensibly. This affair is very distasteful to me.
You will believe that, Miss F^o?'

' Oh, of course ; I have your word, Captain
Lamberg.'

'And you will promise me to do nothing
foolish ? '

She looked at him scornfully.

'Do you expect that I shall make a scene,
then — call upon Heaven to help me and appeal
to the first sergent de ville we meet ? Oh no, I
shall do nothing of the sort. We are not at the
opera. I might imagine you as Mephisto if you
didn't wear an eye-glass ; but really. Captain
Lamberg '

She laughed at her own thoughts and nestled
back in the cushions. He gnawed the end of his
stick, but would not permit himself the luxury of
a temper. After all, he had won the game. He
could forgive her these little stabs at his vanity.

' We shall be friends yet,' he said, peering out
of the window as they approached a little village
and the shriek of a railway whistle came faint
upon the breeze ; ' when you are in London, you
will see things as I see them. Meanwhile, here
is the station. You know Boveresse, made-
moiselle ? *

* I never heard of it*

1 86

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* It is on the line from Neufch^el. They are
stopping the Paris express for me. I have reserved
a carriage for you. At Pontarlier you shall have
a wa^n-lit if you will give me your word to be
sensible.'

' Your kindness is overwhelming ! How grate-
ful the Prince will be to you ! I shall never
forget this delightful journey.'

He looked at her sharply. She was still very
pale, but, apparently, there was no thought now
of contesting the circumstances. He argued that
she was a sensible girl and had accepted the
inevitable. It was just as well, he remembered,
that this should be so. A scene was as distaste-
ful to him as it was to her. Besides, such a
fatality might help to make the affair public.
He would have given a thousand pounds to have
kept any word of that night's work from the
newspapers.

•This is the station, young lady. You will
not give us any trouble, I am sure.'

* Trouble ! Am I a convict, then ? '

' I mean that you will be reasonable ? '

* I am always reasonable.'

•And understand that this is for the best. I
shall not forget to give a good account of you
at Vienna.

* Most flattering ! Please give my love to all

m^T

THE ROAD TO NEUFCHAtEL 187

the people who turned me out of the Opera
House. I shall never forget their kindness.'

'They did not understand you. And musical
people are always jealous. I have never yet dis-
covered a musician who believed that other
musicians were possible. La musique, c'est mot.
That is their motto. You will be a great singer
some day, and Vienna will open its ar^is to ycu.
I shall be there ; I shall applaud you.'

' Thunder-claps — what a noise you rrould
make! Jerome must know of your promise.
Your dearest friend, whom yru love as your
own L I other, you will let him come to hear
me, I suppose?*

Again he looked at her closely. The frivolity
of her talk was a little disquieting. He set it
down to anxiety. But he was not sorry when
the carriage stopped presently in the courtyard
of the station, and a man with a lantern came
out to light them to the platform.

* We are at Boveresse,' he said, opening the
door quickly. ' There will be no other passengers,
for the night mail does not stop here as a rule.
I am sure you will be sensible, and do as I
bid you.'

* You tire me,' was her answer ; ' please %t,i out.'
He gave her his hand, and she jumped lightly

to the pavement. It was almost dark then.

Piii

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She could see the hovering peaks, which towered
up behind the little station as great looming
shadows of the night. A few lamps twinkled
in the vicinity of the railway. There were no
strangers about the door of the Gare; but the
station-master greeted Lamberg as though he
had been expecting him, and the man from the
box of the brougham followed them to the
platform.

' It 's a poor place, but there is a little waiting-
room,' said Lamberg anxiously, as he conducted
her through the bureau. ' I expect the train in
a quarter of an hour. We shall find rugs for
you from somewhere, and I will lend you a
cape. The nights can be cold even in June.
We must not let you suffer any inconvenience.
Miss F^o.'

She did not answer him. Far out in the valley
below, she could see a great patch of light, as
a lake of fire in the heart of a desolate country.
And thither her eyes turned, to the west and
the open country and the last glory of the day.
For there was the Chateau de Joux, and in that
house Jerome was waiting for her.

CHAPTER XXI

FOR FREEDOM

' )i

Jerome was waiting, but would wait in vain,
she said. This new humiliation, which her love
had put upon her, compelled her to the deter-
mination that, whatever befell, she would go back
to him no more. It was as though she became
conscious, upon that instant, of a mistake which,
in its result, was little less than a crime. All
her latent pride asserted itself, and would not be
denied. The events of recent days had warred
subtly upon her logic ; but this awakening per-
mitted her to judge of them and to perceive the
falsity of her reasoning. To scheme, to plot,
to hide herself from the world, to be ashamed
in order that she might become the wife of a
man who loved her, appeared to her now, not in
the light of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice, but
as the sordid actions of an intriguer. So the
world would judge her, she thought. She
wondered that she could have been so misled ;

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she was almost grateful for this possibility of
respite. The shame of her position became
intolerable.

A prisoner, to be called adventuress by those
who willed it, to be the scorn of any tattler,
branded as a dangerous woman who must be
banished from France, the punishment of her
folly seemed more than she could bear. The
journey before her must be the ultimate insult,
she thought. No felon could have been watched
more closely or guarded so surely. The impulse
to escape her gaolers grew upon her minute by
minute. She knew that she would risk her own
life gladly to win that freedom which had never
stood for so much to her as during those moments
of waiting in the little room at Boveresse.

There were two windows in this sa//e d'attente
— one looking out upon the platform, the other
showing her the bare station-yard and the
carriage which had brought her. Though the
man tried to conceal himself from her view, she
perceived a gendarme hiding behind the porch
of the bureau ; and on the other side, quite close
to the door, there stood the fellow who had
passed for a footman and driven with them from
the chateau. The hopelessness of her position
became clearer to her as she watched these men.
If the French Government did, in truth, give

\i ■ ■

FOR FREEDOM

19T

a tacit support to the Austrian's actions, then,
indeed, was her dream of escape a folly. Who
would help her in the great station at Pontarlier,
or listen to her while she was on French soil?
Leslie Drummond must be in London again by
this time. The very name of her own city could
conjure up pictures of darkness and gloom. . In
thirty hours she would be there again, penniless
and friendless. The idea of returning to the
old life, of serving her father in his lethargy of
selfishness and complaint, was not to be sup-
ported. She must win her own way now ; must
stand truly alone, as in reality she had been
during so many long years of her unattaining
life.

This was her reasoning as she stood at the
windows of the dusty room and looked out upon
the vista of twinkling red lights, of hills towering
above the shining rails, of a great cutting through
the cliff and a tunnel beyond. Would the express
never come ? she asked. It was a degradation
surpassing words to pace that apartment and to
tell herself that she was as a caged animal,
imprisoned there for all the world to see. Her
anger against Lamberg became a passion of self-
reproach and lament, when she had the leisure
to debate it. She had given him this oppor-
tunity ; she allowed nothing to such consideration

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as he had shown her. She would not see that
the platform was deserted ; that no one save her
gaolers had been admitted to the station. In her
imagination all France gazed through that open
window. When a porter came and stood there,
she could have struck him in the face. She did
not know that he alone could be of service to her.

* Mademoiselle, mademoiselle — a moment.'

She heard him address her as he pretended
to be pasting a bill to one of the boards hanging
near the window ; but her only answer was to
turn her back upon him. The idea of sympathy
at such a moment, and from such a source, was
a humiliation surpassing all others of the night.
A blow, a threat, an oath — those would have
been more in keeping with that temper which
for the first time had almost robbed her of her
self-control.

' Mademoiselle, mademoiselle — I am Cesar's
brother.'

The words were spoken almost in a whisper;
but now she turned quickly and stared at the
man. He was an uncouth, shaggy-headed paysan ;
nevertheless, as he stood there beneath the lamp
she recognised a certain likeness to C^sar, the
coachman at the chateau. The man himself,
looking round carefully, to be sure that none
heard him, repeated the words —

FOR FREEDOM

193

* I am Cesar's brother, mademoiselle.*

* Well,' she asked quickly, 'and what then ?*

* I cannot help you ; it is not in my power, —
but I know, mademoiselle '

He stopped abruptly. The man guarding the
door of the sal/e, which he had left to exchange
a word with Lamberg, came back quickly. The
porter continued to paste up his bill with an
excellent imitation of stupidity.

'The express is just coming, m'sieu. I have
been telling mademoiselle *

* You should learn to hold your tongue. Come,
get about your business ; my luggage is waiting.'

The porter slouched away, grumbling. F^o,
forgetting her train of thought as she asked her-
self what he had wished to say to her, came out
upon the platform ; for the express was in sight,
they told her. She could hear it approaching
now — a mere echo at first, as of distant thunder,
then a deafening roar, magnifying ever in the
ravine to terrible sounds, as of great rocks crash-
ing down from the heights above. Presently its
head-lights flashed out and the engine seemed to
leap down upon the station; the ravine was
iridescent with the glow from the windows of
the carriages ; white steam hissed and showered
in the warm air ; there was a glimpse of driver
and fireman, their faces outstanding in the deep

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194

f6o

light of the furnace ; people appeared at the doors
of the carriages ; others lay at full length upon
the seats, or were reading, or rousing themselves
to know why the train stopped. Then F^o heard
Lamberg's voice, and she followed him to the
carriage without a word.

' Here is our compartment, mademoiselle.'

It was an ordinary first-class carriage, and it
had been reserved for them at Neufch^tel. She
was surprised to see that Lamberg alone was to
be her companion ; but she did not confess her
surprise to him. It was amusing, she said, that
he should take so much thought for her comfort.
Rugs, pillows, books, a little lamp for her to read
by, a box of sweets — one by one he handed these
things into the carriage.

* We shall dine at Pontarlier,' he explained : ' I
wish it could be before ; but here are some cakes,
if you are hungry.'

She thanked him with a word, and crossed the
compartment to lower the other glass. They
had left the carriage in the sun all day, and the
stuffiness of it was intolerable. It needed an
effort to breathe ; she sank into the corner seat
and fanned herself with a newspaper.

All the paraphernalia of travel had been
arranged now. Lamberg himself was on the
platform giving the station-master final instruc-

FOR FREEDOM

195

tions. Whatever hope F^o had indulged in — a
hope that her friends at the chiteau might yet
follow after — was to be thought of no more.
They were about to start ; she could see the
guard signalling to the engine-driver ; a man
blew a tin trumpet ; the shaggy-headed porter
sprang up on her side of the carriage and turned
a key in the lock. They feared, then, that she
would do something foolish. Yet was it so ?
Certainly the porter's behaviour was very
strange. He nodded and made a signal to her.
As in an inspiration she read his message. He
was not locking the door, but unlocking it.

The vision of an instant, the act of a man who
sprang to the footboard and leaped down again
almost before his name could have been uttered
twice. Lamberg himself, in close talk with the
station-master, saw nothing of the act or the
doer. The train began to move slowly from the
platform. To F^o the moment was as the very
crisis of her life. The door was unlocked, she
repeated ; beyond it lay freedom. And she
must not delay. One by one the station lights
disappeared from her view. She heard that
sudden ebb of sound which spoke of the open
country lying between Boveresse and the gorge of
the mountains. Once more she looked out over
the lone valley where the twinkling stars could

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f6o

send such a message of home and love and joy
of the night. Jerome was waiting for her where
those lights shone out, she said.

And so she took her resolution, and, caring
nothing save for that freedom she desired so
ardently, she opened the door and leaped blindly
from the train.

i '

'f I

CHAPTER XXII

^^m

THE RING OF HOOFS

It was a blind leap, out into the darkness.
Though the train had not, at that time, gathered
any great velocity, F^o had the sensation of
being thrown forward as upon a buoyant breeze,
which lifted her for the moment, and then, dying
away, flung her heavily to the earth. Lights
flashed in her eyes-the lights of the carriages
which towered above her— she was dazed, breath-
less ; yet never once did panic rob her of the
power to think and act. Freedom ! she had won
It, then I A little pain, a sense of numbness in
her limbs, above all the question, 'Could she
stand?' were first to trouble her. But the
imminence of the peril prevailed above them.
They would stop the express ; men would come
out from the station with lanterns. She staggered
to her feet, driven on by the danger ; and for-
getting all, she laughed aloud because she could
walk again.

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She had fallen upon the soft grass which
bordered the line, and to this she owed her life.
Young limbs had befriended her well that night.
Though her pretty white dress was torn from
the shoulder to the waist, and she had lost her
hat, and her right hand was bleeding, and her
ankle very painful, she cared nothing for mis-
fortunes so trivial.

Far away now, in the gorge of the hills, she
could see the red lamp of the vanished train.
Lamberg had not stopped it, then. Or was he
afraid to stop it, lest his story should be heard by
every passenger ? She said that it was a trouble-
some question, to be answered at her leisure.

Down below her, thirty feet or more, was the
white road which led to the chateau. She must
gain that road before the news passed — must
seek the refuge of some lonely house. Whatever
befell, her moments of respite would be few. In
the end the express would be warned, and would
return.

Such conclusions drove her on apprehensively.
She crossed the shining rails, and looked down
at the path whereby safety lay. A carriage
passed the place where she stood, the carriage
in which she had been driven to the station.
There was no longer a second man upon the
\^x of it^ and he, she imagined, was in the

THE RING OF HOOFS

199

vely.
own
iage
iage
tion.
the

the

express which should have taken her to Paris.
The assurance gave her courage. Those at
Boveresse could have no interest in her misfor-
tune ; the Countess's name, when she could utter
it, must befriend her. She determined to appeal
to the sympathy of the first stranger she met ;
and despite her resolution, to send word to the
chateau. That much she owed to her friends
and to her own necessity.

Until this moment she had been able to think
and act at her will. There were no lights in
the station now that the express had set out for
Paris. From the hamlet itself there came no
sound of life or movement. Once she thought
that she heard a distant locomotive whistling
shrilly in the mountains, and this frightened her ;
but the signal was not repeated, and she took
heart again.

On the road below, the black brougham passed
slowly by ; she feared to leave the shelter of the
embankment until the carriage disappeared from
her sight. Nor did she forget, as she crouched
beside a great boulder and rested her aching head
upon her hands, that her friends at the chateau
might even then be seeking her.

If Jerome came to Boveresse ! The weak-
ness of her womanhood asserted itself in the
silence and the pain of those moments. There

900

f6o

were tears in her eyes when at last she could
admit that the road was hers, and that she must
follow it without delay.

The embankment was steep and stony, rough
grass knitting together the great boulders of grey
rock which were its strength. At any other
time, the perilous descent would have frightened
her ; but the darkness of the night, and the
knowledge how short those instants of respite
must be, quickened her nerve and steadied her
foot. Step by step she went down, halting often
to cling to bush or stone ; despairing sometimes
of success; buoyed up again by the assurance
that the express had not been stopped.

Already she had accomplished the half of her
journey, and no one had passed along the de-
serted road. A few more steps, she said, and
the chateau would be in sight. She had taken
one, when a voice, speaking from the darkness,
arrested her abruptly.

' Mademoiselle ! mademoiselle I '

She leant back against the rock, panting. The
impulse to cry out for help was conquered with
difficulty. Then she began to laugh at herself.
The man, who had spoken, was the shaggy- headed
porter from the station.

'Mademoiselle, you are there, then? I am
Cesar's brother, mademoiselle.*

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THE RING OF HOOFS

so I

•Give me your arm,' she said quickly. *I have
hurt my ankle, and cannot walk.'

He appeared suddenly from the rails above.

* Well,' he cried, ' you have pluck, mademoiselle,
to come down here alone ! '

'I must reach the chateau to-night. If you
will help me, you shall be well rewarded.'

' Do not speak of such a thing. I knew that
you would »'.np, mademoiselle. "She has
courage," I saio. And the Austrian rat has gone
on alone? Bravo!'

He put his arm about her maladroitly, as one
unaccustomed to the care of an object so fragile.
Her pallor frightened him. She was going to
die, he thought.

'Be careful, mademoiselle. You are in pain;
I can see it. You suffer, mademoiselle ? '

She laughed.

* My hand is cut and my ankle is sprained. If
you don't help me quickly, the train will come
back.'

He was about to protest that they would not
stop the Paris mail for twenty Austrians, when
a short, sharp whistle echoed in the gorge, and
a moment later the express itself appeared,
backing slowly into the station.

' Hush, mademoiselle ! They have come back,
then. For God's sake do not speak a word,'

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She lay against the rock, trembling as with
an ague. The express passed slowly over the
embankment above. There were faces at the
windows of the carriages ; the guard rode upon
the footboard of his van, and searched the track
with his lantern.

'What news?* asked the porter, standing up
boldly where all could see him.

' A young lady has fallen out of the train. We
are looking for her.'

' You have come to the wrong place, my boy.
I am just from the station, and there is no one
here.'

* Then go and look on the other side, flat-head.
Come, be quick ; we cannot wait here all night.'

The guard continued to wave the engine back
towards the station. It travelled at a snail's
pace, and the excitement of those within the
carriages increased with every beat of the
cylinder.

* It would be about here, monsieur. She
cannot be alive, or she would speak to us. If she
is dead, we shall find her.'

The stupendously clever observations of the
multitude were heard at intervals.

Lamberg himself stood at the open door of his
compartment, his glass in his eye, a supercilious
smile upon his face. The girl could not escape

THE RING OF HOOFS

ao3

him, he thought. She had been very fooh'sh, and
he was sorry for her. He would tell her so when
she was found. If she were dead, so much the
better ; if she were not dead, he would make it
his business to see that both doors were locked
next time.

Fdo could hear his voice as he asked the guard
a question, and was answered none too civilly.
The ofhcials resented the delay ; they would not
have tolerated it but for the authority which he
carried.

* They will come along presently with lanterns,
mademoiselle,' said the porter, when the engine
had gone by and was almost at the station. ' If
you do not wish to be found here, you must
permit me to carry you.*

She stood up with an effort which cost her
pain.

'What is the good of talking like that?' she
exclaimed impatiently. ' Am I to dig a hole in
the ground and hide in it ? '

'But they are coming from the Gare, made-
moiselle ; you can see their lanterns.*

He pointed to the station behind them. Little
flakes of fire seemed dropping from the embank-
ment to the rocks below. They could hear
men's voices and answering cries from the heights
above.

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' You see, mademoiselle-

' Oh/ she cried, ' what do you want me to do ?
Where shall I go— ? '

' There is a hut on the other side of the road ;
the employes keep their tools in it. I have the
key, mademoiselle. Come, I shall carry you
well enough.*

He picked her up in his trained arms as
though she had been a child, and almost leaping
from rock to rock, he gained the foot of the
embankment. She could distinguish the hut
from that place — a little building of wood with a
tarred roof.

They crossed the road together, darting from
side to side as hares disturbed in their sleeping-
places. She did not feel any pain at the
moment, for the excitement of mind prevailed
above it ; but when the man had pushed her
into the hut, and locked the door behind her, she
sank down in agony intolerable.

' Keep up your courage, mademoiselle. They
will not come here ; I shall see to that. If any
one knocks, remember that it will be Cesar's
brother.'

She could hear his receding footsteps, and,
anon, his voice when he hailed the search-party
then scouring the embankment as those who look
for money by a lantern's light.

THE RING OF HOOFS

aos

It was so dark in the hut that she could not
see where the door stood. At her back she felt
a bundle of sticks. The earth upon which she
crouched was rough to the hand, as though with
the remaining ashes of a fire.

But her thoughts were without. They could
not pass by that place, she reasoned. Lamberg
would insist upon it being searched.

Again and again she distinguished his voice as
he urged the officials to diligence or forbade the
express to proceed.

When the clamour at last died away, and the
tension of the scene relaxed, she remembered her
hurt, and wondered how she would limp to safety
even if opportunity came.

Silence, absolute, unbroken, reigned for many
minutes. She began to tell herself that the
search was indeed abandoned, when some one
pushed so roughly at the door of the hut, that
the whole structure threatened to topple down
upon her. The end had come, she thought. So
much had she dared to contrive this pitiful ending.

•The door is locked, you say. Then go and
get the key.'

Lamberg's voice was unmistakable. He stood
at the door now, and his presence could make
her tremble again. When her friend, the porter,
answered him, she dared to breathe once more.

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IIP •' ' '

* The key is at the house of the ganger, mon-
sieur. He would be asleep at this time. There
can be no one in that place ; it has been locked
all day.'

' When I wish for your opinions, I will ask for
them. You heard me tell you to get the key ? '

* At your service, monsieur. If you want the
key, I will go and get it. But do not forget that
there are other places — Bergot's Wood and the
farm buildings there.*

* Ha I there is a farm, then ? Is it far from
here?'

' It is just there, where you can see a light
between the trees, monsieur.*

* Very well, I will go there. You will have the
key and be here with it when I return.*

A sound of quick steps followed upon the
argument.

Fdo had risen in her excitement, and now
stood, breathing quickly, against the door of the
hut. The darkness of the place oppressed her
strangely.

*Take heart, mademoiselle. I shall not find
the key. And I hear wheels.'

*The place suffocates me,' she answered. *I
cannot stop here.'

* Hush, mademoiselle! there is some one coming.'
She listened intently. Mingled voices were to

PBHOT^

THE RING OF HOOFS

107

be heard without, but above the words she could
distinguish a sound which was as music to her
ears. A carriage approached upon the road fron.
Pontarlier. The ring of hoofs, telling of a horse
hard pressed, became clearer every instant. When
the sound ceased suddenly, the reaction of the
moment almost robbed her of her strength. She
stood, dazed and helpless, to watch the door
swing back, and to shield her eyes from the
blinding *ys of the porter's lantern.

' This way, monsieur. Mademoiselle is here.'
There were many faces at the door. She saw
but one. It was the face of Jerome ; and remem-
bering her courage, she in turn raised a laughing
face to his.

' It could have been no one else,' she said ; and
with that she fell fainting into his arms.

I !■ ''

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CHAPTER XXIII

THE INSULT

He had driven from the ch^iteau in a dog-cart,
with two grooms to aid the search. The officials
at the station, recognising the livery of Madame
la Comtesse, made way for him respectfully.
The shaggy-headed porter, who had won so great
a victory, stood blinking with delight as this
masterful fellow gave his orders masterfully.

It was the work of a moment to lift F^o to
the cart, and to wrap the heavy rug about her.
Where ten of those, who looked on, had been
ready to hunt her down a few minutes ago, there
were twenty now willing to declare that her
welfare alone concerned them.

* Ah, the brave! She leaped from the train,
monsieur. He said that he had authority, and
T believed him. I am a fool, monsieur, and I
•r. ., iiise. Mademoiselle is very pale; I fear she
a; ;i«. There is brandy at the station, if you
. r :^ monsieur.*

So they came crowding about the cart; but

tfiaii

THE INSULT

•09

Jerome did not hear them. He knew something
of surgery, and was already making sure that no
bones were broken. The wan, white face appealed
to him as it had never appealed before in the
finest moments of his love ; but he went to work
as one indifferent.

* She has hurt her ankle ; I do not think that
there is anything else. The fresh air is better
than brandy, thank you. Let the seat be moved
back a little ; it will give her room. I am taking
her to the chateau. You will tell that to any one
who asks you.'

Deliberately still, he settled himself in his seat
and took the reins. The villagers, some raising
lanterns, some continuing to offer their apologies,
drew back to let the horse go.

A start was being made, when Lamberg him-
self stepped from the shadow to the road, and
laid a hand upon the bridle rein.

' I must speak to you,* he said.

Jerome looked at him for an instant as at some
peasant who had dared a childish insult. Then
he raised his whip and slashed him heavily across
the face.

' There is a subject to discuss,' he said quietly.
* I am at the Chateau de Joux if you wish to
pursue it.'

The man's hand fell from the rein, but he did

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not flinch at the blow. That supercih'ous smile,
which served him alike for victory or defeat, was
his answer to the act. He smiled still when the
horse, impatient of control, bounded forward at
a gallop upon the road to Pontarlier. At the
gorge's head Jerome could still see him standing
motionless in the midst of the affrighted villagers.
To-morrow he would send his friends to the
chateau. It was well that he should do so. They
had been fighting in the dark too long already ;
a little daylight would be good.

This was the younger man's first thought as he
checked the good horse to a fast trot, and began
to remember Feo's need. She had swooned at
the door of the hut ; but her faintness had been
momentary ; and now the cool night air, blowing
fresh upon her face, proved a better tonic than
any he could have prescribed. They had not
driven the third part of a mile before she
sought to release herself from the arm which
held her, and to speak to him of all that had
happened.

* You cannot drive like that,' she said, with a
brave attempt to make light of it ; * besides, there
is no excuse.'

For answer he reined in the horse and took a
flask of brandy from his pocket.

* Come,' he said, * I am the physician at present,

THE INSULT

«ii

and I prescribe this. One tablespoonful to be

taken immediately.'

She made a little grimace, but did as he wished.

Unaccustomed to stimulant, the spirit brought

the blood to her cheeks and warmth to her limbs.
' There,' she said, ' I am the model of obedience.*
He let the horse go again. He still had his

arm about her, and he drew her close to him.

* Is this part of the treatment, too ? ' she asked.

* Brandy is a very good thing as far as it goes,
but it doesn't go far enough. I expect you will
feel all this to-morrow. I wonder how many
women would have had the courage to do what
you did. If I had known, I don't think I could
have driven over.'

* But as it is '

' As it is, I say, thank God.*

' I am glad that you did not know,' she answered
simply.

He stooped and kissed her on the lips.

'Thank God, thank God it was no worse,
little Feo,' he exclaimed ; and heart and love
for her were to be read in his voice. It was
the first word of affection he had spoken since
he found her.

* I am glad that you did not know,' she repeated ;
'though, if I confessed all, I should tell that I did
not mean to return to the chateau at all.'

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'Not return — then where would you have
gone to ? '

' I don't know. Oh, cannot you see what a
humiliation all this is?'

He looked down at her white face, but did not
wholly grasp her meaning.

•Are we not both humiliated?' he asked
gravely. * If your hurt is not my hurt, what is
love worth? We mustn't talk of this to-night,
F^o. There will be many things to tell you to-
morrow — many things for you to hear and for
me to do. At present I cannot think about
them. I am too anxious, and an anxious man is
never a good doctor, whatever the matter may
be. I am going to send into Pontarlier for the
best surgeon in the place, and when he has seen
you, it will be time enough to look at the other
side of our picture. Can't you understand how
anxious I am, Fdo ? '

She answered him in a whisper, a word that he
wished. Then she closed her eyes and tried to
forget where she was, and all that had brought
about that night of nights. The moon shone
now, clear and white upon the lonely road. You
could see the hamlets in the near valley as
clusters of lights to be pricked off upon a darkened
chart. The peaks above the great domed hills
began to stand out of the roUiiig vapours, and to

itS-tH'-

THE INSULT

«i3

las
ed
Ills

lift black shapes to the world of glittering stars.
That sense of rest, and of peace enduring, which
she had desired so ardently, was hers in that
moment. She realised again, as once she had
realised before, that all her hope of life lay in her
lover's keeping.

'Tell me,' she exclaimed suddenly, * were you
not surprised ? '

' Not altogether. I expected something of the
sort. When we drove in, and they said that you
had been to the gate but had not returned, I
thought of our old friend Lamberg at once. Then
Michel, the gardener, was there with his story of
a strange carriage on the road to Neufchfttel. I
did not wait for any more. Madame, of course,
struck an attitude, and wanted to send for the
soldiers. Little Victorine wept. That was honest
at least.*

* And you *

* Oh, I ordered the dog-cart ! *

He said no more, for the gates of the chateau
came in view, and soon the welcome sound of
hounds baying, and of many voices raised to-
gether, broke upon her ears. All the servants of
the house were there at the lodge; but little
Victorine was the first to run toward the cart ;
and when she saw F^o, and Jerome cried to her
that all was well, tears of honest gladness were

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her only answer. At the great door of the hall
itself, madame stood as some mistress of old
time to welcome the fugitives. She had forgotten
her love for drama in the more human love of
sympathy.

* My child, my little girl/ she cried again and
again ; ' oh, I thank God for this night 1 '

F^o did not know what response to make. The
love and sympathy overwhelmed her. There
were tears in her eyes, too ; but tears of gratitude
and not of pain.

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CHAPTER XXIV

SUNSHINE

'■!'■> I

It was upon the morning of the fifth day after
F^o came back to the chateau that L^on Oster,
the plump little doctor from Andelot, expressed
the opinion that it was very rash ; but gave his
consent, nevertheless, when his patient wished to
sit in the garden tent for one hour precisely at the
full tide of the noon sun.

' Folly, folly ! ' he had exclaimed, with that little
gesture of the hand which implied a profound
contempt for all human weaknesses, ' but have
your own way, my child. The world goes too
fast nowadays. You are all in too much of a
hurry. I tell you that bed is the best medicine
for you, and you won't take it. Have your own
way, and if you die, don't complain that it is
my fault'

' I can't stop in bed,* she pleaded ; ' I think of
everything that is horrible there. It's beautiful
to rest when you can just shut your eyes and say
that nothing matters. I can't do that, and so I
am going to get up, doctor. No one dies unless

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he means it You mustn't be angry, and you
must tell them that I am quite well.'

'Perjury, my child, rank perjury. If Madame
la Comtesse were half as ill as you are, she
would have twenty doctors from Paris. They
would come here and drink her wine, and look
out of the window, and tell us that it is a fine
day. I know it is a fine day, and so I let you
go out into the garden. Pouf — the doctors
from Paris, humbugs all of them, remember that,
mademoiselle ! *

He went bustling away to his buggy, which
was the wonder of the valley ; and when he had
gone, little Victorine came to the room to hear
the good news. She nursed an immense bouquet
of pink roses, and her words fell as a torrent.

'You are to go out ; isn't it splendid ! He is at
Pontarlier, but he will be back to dijeuner. Aunt
wants to arm the gardeners with pistols, but
Michel nearly shot his wife last night, so they are
all to be taken away again. Jerome gathered
these, but I made them up. You won't tell, be-
cause I promised that I wouldn't. There have
been a lot of strange men about the house, and
ma tante says they are detectives. Je» ome laughs,
because they are what the English call the Cook's
tour. Oh, F^o, you must come down — he does
want you so.'

SUNSHINE

ti7

[s at
unt
but
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be-
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and

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F^o took the roses and pressed them to her
cheek. Every hour now brought some new token
of the generous love of those who had taken her
to their home and made her as one of their own
children. Those days of rest had been the re-
compense for long years of loneliness, for the
stress and toil of a friendless life. They had
taught her that affection, asking nothing of its
gifts, may be found still in the by-paths of
the world.

' I am your enfant gdtie* she said to Victorine
smilingly ; * how glad you will all be when I
am gone ! *

* Jerome will ; of course he 's dying with im-
patience. I think he's lived on the stairs ever
since you came back. Don't pretend to know,
because it's a secret. If it were Paul, I should
have liked it, and so I must tell. We're to have
dejeuner in the tent, and to-morrow we drive to
the cascades. Ma tante wants an escort from the
barracks. I said that it would be jolly if the men
were nice — and that made her cross. And, oh, I
forgot — Cesar's brother has a big gold watch.
Jerome gave it to him, and last night he came
back to ask us to take care of it. He was
frightened to have it in his house. As if any
one would know that a railway porter had a
gold watch.'

)

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ii,

She gossiped on, helping F^o to dress, and
promising a hundred delights for the hours of
convalescence. When the work was done, and
they were out in the gardens, they found madame
in a great arm-chair at the tent's door, and her
cry of welcome was spoken from her very heart.

' Ah, to see you, my child, it is to see the sun
again. Every day I have been telling the doctor
that you were dying for a little sunshine. Come
and sit near me, my dear ; come and sit where all
the world can look at you. Let Fran^oise bring
the cushions ; the good God help me, where is
Frangoise ? '

* I am here, madame, at your elbow.'

' Then why don't you answer me when I call
you? Am I to go and fetch my own servants
because I am a lonely old woman ? Make made-
moiselle comfortable. Let Michel know that she
is in the garden. If there are any strange men
about, come and tell me. Ah, my child, those
men, those wicked men, they are here every day ;
they come and stare into the gardens. I hear
them at night when I am asleep. Is it not awful
to think that such things are possible, in our time,
in this France I love ? '

Victorine kicked the grass with her pretty
foot.

' Don't be silly, aunt ; there are no men at all.

SUNSHINS

ti9

They go up to see the old chAteau on the hill
where Mirabeau was imprisoned. That was the
man who cut oflf people's heads and ran away
with somebody to Holland. It doesn't tell you
all about it in the histories, but I know. Her
name was Sophie, and she didn't mind. I expect
she lived in a dark old house and never saw any
one. If Mirabeau were up there now, I would go
and say to him, " My name is Sophie, and I think
I *d like to go to Holland." Wouldn't you be
cross, aunt, when dinner-time came and I wasn't
down ! *

Madame raised her hands in a gesture of woe.

'The ingratitude, the base ingratitude! You
shall go back to the convent, miserable. The
good God help me, I will not have such things
said, even in jest'

' Oh, I mean it, aunt ! And it would be jolly at
the convent. There is P^re Rolot there ; he
always liked me.'

She ran away as a deer across the soft green
grass, and they could hear her girlish voice pres-
ently as she asked a hundred questions of the
postman, who had just come up. But madame
turned to F^o, and began to commiserate with
her again.

' Ah,' she said, ' if she would only learn a lesson
from you, my dear. But it 's in the blood ; we

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can't struggle against that ; we are as God made
us. Her father was a lancer, who fell at Worth.
Her mother was the daughter of a painter, who
shamed the family by starving at Vincennes.
You see the child ; you see what I have to put
up with. When you are well again, it will be
different. You will be kind to a poor old woman,
and she will be grateful ; she will find a husband
for you, my dear. The men — the men — we must
always think of them, even when we are old, F^o.
There is no escape ; it is our destiny.'

' Destiny is very hard sometimes,' said F6o
with a sigh. 'Especially when the men don't
think of us. We rebel because it is inevitable,
atid we refuse to believe the truth. To-day you
make me happy. Yet where shall I be when a
week, a month, has passed ? '

' Where will you be ? Why, at the Chateau de
Joux, of course.'

F6o shook her head doubt ingly.

* If my heart could speak, I would tell you of
my gratitude, and would stay. But everything
tells me that I must go. While I am with you,
I feel that Jerome has the right to claim my
obedience. I cannot give him that right any
longer. Whatever happens now, I will never
marry him until his father consents. If you find
my logic hard to understand, remember that it is

Vi a

"^W'

SUNSHINE

921

a woman's logic, and forgive me. I have done
many things for his sake since I left London ;
but I can do no more. I owe it to myself; the
least debt that I can pay now to my woman-
hood.*

Madame heard her quietly. She nodded her
head as though she understood the argument,
but did not mean to be convinced by it.

' Ah ! * she exclaimed at last, * there are days
when we all talk like that. I have been through
the same thing, my child, and I know. A hun-
dred years ago the fathers chose the wives, and
the sons chose the less desirable acquaintances.
To-day, the sons choose the wives, and the fathers
take the others. If you were not a Berthier I
would not keep you a day in my house. Be
proud of your name, my dear ; remember that
your fathers were once the friends of kings. You
talk of obligation. What obligation can there be
to a man you would make happy? These people
object to a marriage because they have their little
ends to gain. They would find a wife for Jerome
and make him miserable for the rest of his days,
because Prince This wants the forest now owned
by Prince That. Our affections are our property,
to deal with them as we please. If they are not
the gift of God, then there is nothing but evil in
the world. Will you believe that, dear ? '

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' I could not believe it — I know that it is not
true. And yet there is sacrifice too. Even ihe
meanest of us may be called upon to sacrifice
something.

* Do not delude yourself with anything so
foolish, little girl. Those who are never willing
to give anything themselves are the first to speak
of sacrifice. The man that marries F6o de
Berthier is a 1 ick^ ellow. Oh, I shall find a
husband for her! The Archduke will help me
when I ask him. ''.''>u ...^.<.d to be old, my child,
to know how to answer a vain man's "no."
They always begin as this man has begun — a
little debt to their pride of self, and then a larger
debt to their pride of generosity. When the
letter came yesterday '

•The letter?'

' Certainly, the letter from Vienna which com-
manded Jerome to return — when it came, I said
that it was the beginning of the end. This morn-
ing there is a telegram. Our boy has gone to
Pontarlier to answer it now. But he will not
return to Vienna, and in a week he will be your
husband. Do not contradict me, child. I have
said it, and I am mistress in this house.'

Feo heard her with astonishment. She knew
nothing of the letter or the telegram. But she
did not pursue the question, for the maids came

SUNSHINE

«a3

to lay dejeuner ^ and Victorine returned breath-
lessly to the arbour with letters for them all.

' Three for Fran^oise, the lucky girl ! That 's a
bill, and it must be for aunt ; here *s one for
Michel, who can't read it. Poor little me, there's
only a post-card, and I know that comes from
the library before I look at it. That's yours,
F^o.'

F^o took her letter with some anxiety. She
knew that her father had written it almost before
she saw the postmark. The cramped, almost
illegible handwriting brought before her an unwel-
come vision of the past she would have forgotten.
The old life, the life of stress and poverty, and
complaint unceasing, could thus intrude even
upon that haven of rest and of affection. Her
hands trembled as she dragged the paper from
the envelope and began to read that strange
appeal. Her father was in London, then — at the
old lodging in Oxford Street. Under other cir-
cumstances his lofty rhetoric and impassioned
appeals would have amused her. But she recalled
in that instance his solitude of life, the claim he
had upon her in spite of all. Destiny was hard
indeed when it robbed a child oi the right to love
its own father, she thought.

»>i

* My Daughter,— It will, no doubt, be a little

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224

f6o

thing to you that an old man, too proud to ask
anything but obedience of his child, should trouble
you any more with any affairs of his. If he does
so, it is a father's hand which holds the pen, a
father's voice which dictates the words. F^o, I
am alone, I am old ; if my immediate necessities
have been relieved by kind friends, poverty none
the less must be the handmaiden of those years —
few as I can expect them to be — which lie between
me and the grave. Of this I do not complain.
I can face the battle now as I have faced it before.
Ingratitude will ally itself to the forces of the
enemy. I care nothing for that, but only for the
road to which avarice and evil ambition are lead-
ing my beloved child. A man's tears are precious
things. I have shed them for my daughter. F^o,
must I die alone, one whom the world honoured ?
Is there no pity for the broken fortunes of this
friendless old man who has sacrificed so much for
you ? Think well upon it. The responsibility is
yours. Mine is the love and the self-sacrifice
and the sorrow for my offspring.

* Georges de Berthier.*

M' 1^*

i H

The signature was a great scrawl covering the
breadth of the paper. F^o noticed the care with
which the letter had been folded and sealed. She
would have given much to believe that one single

SUNSHINE

825

sentiment, even one word of love in all that strange
appeal had been spoken from the heart of the
writer. There was no fact of her life so powerful
to compel grief as the relentless logic which could
read through this pretence and sham, and forbid
her again to have any faith when her father spoke.
No sacrifice, she thought, would have been too
great to win one hour of his affection, one true
moment of pride in his life, and trust in him.
But she understood now that sacrifice and
charity were alike unavailing. He had written
the letter surrounded by those very luxuries
for which he would have sold her honour.
All else she could have forgiven ; but that was
the crime against her which even her desire
of love might never excuse. She must be
alone to her life's end. While she had money,
she would send it to him ; but she would never
see him again nor remember that she was his
daughter.

Madame la Comtesse had watched her closely
while she read the letter, and afterwards, when
she sat with it crumpled in her hand, and gazed
with tear-dewed eyes over the sunny valley and
the sleeping villages. Georges de Berthier was
no stranger to one of whom music had made so
zealous a pilgrim. Madame knew his story, his
character, his past. And her quick wit could

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almost read the contents of the appeal which
troubled F^o with such dark memories.

* You are to go back to London, eh, my dear ?
Is not that what he wants? They have paid him
a thousand pounds to leave France, and will give
him another when our boy is married. Don't be
frightened to speak to me. I know Georges de
Berthier, — none better. While you can be of use
to him he will remember that you are his daughter.
When you are no longer of use he will forget that
he has a child. Do not think or speak of it, little
F^o. There are things we must not say. We
cry over them, but breaking our hearts won't
change them. Tear the letter up and try to
believe .hat it was never written.*

' That 's what I do with my bills,' said Victorine,
interposing audaciously.

' Ah, ungrateful one, and a poor old woman has
to pay them. But we shall not think of anything
sad this morning, for our little invalid is in the
sunshine. Come, my child, you must find a smile
for that pretty face. You would not have him
see you with tears in your eyes.'

* They 're always kind to you when you cry,
aunt,' exclaimed Victorine.

F^o's eyes brightened suddenly.
' You are a philosopher, Victorine,' she answered,
' and here is Jerome.'

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CHAPTER XXV

i'.'i'.l'

THE SECRET

cry,

He rode a good grey horse at a swinging trot,
and waved his whip cheerily when he saw F6o
at the door of the tent. His dress was a dark-
blue riding-coat with brown kharki breeches and
high brown boots. His spurs and the silver knob
of his hunting-crop caught the sun's rays and
held them an instant in flashing lights. F6o said
that she had never seen a man who sat a horse
so well or with so little effort. Mere physical
supremacy appealed to her in such moments as
these. She had a great pride in Jerome's
magnificent strength, as, at other times, his
mastery of will fascinated her. The battle
between them was so unequal, the contention
so one-sided. Alone and far from him, she won
the victory of self. But when he came to her,
she knew that she must surrender as a child to
one in authority.

* How well he rides I * said Victorine, watching
him delightedly. 'Paul used to look unhappy

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228

f6o

on a horse. I told him so once, and he was
cross ; but we made it up afterwards when I said
that he shot splendidly. Don't you think we
ought to go away, aunt ? *

Madame nodded her head sagaciously.

' They will have all their lives, my dear — they
will not grudge us these little minutes. How
grave the boy looks ! I wonder what new trouble
he brings now.'

F^o, too, had noticed that unaccustomed
gravity, and it banished the smile from her
own face.

' I hope there is no bad news,* she exclaimed.

* Take no notice of it, child — we cannot always
be laughing. He is grave because you do not
run down to meet him. Ah, Prince ! you have
come, then.'

Jerome leaped lightly from his horse and
tethered him to the tent pole. His salute to
madame was a kiss upon both cheeks ; and then,
kneeling swiftly at F^o's side, he put his arm
about her and raised her up until their lips
met.

* Dear F^o,' he said, ' there is sunshine, indeed,
when I find you in the gardens. I have counted
the minutes. I did not know it would be to-day.*

* Always of me, dearest — and yet, I have
counted the minutes, too.'

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ta9

lips

She spoke almost in a whisper, lying in his
arms as though that rest she had sought so
wearily was there to be found. But her next
question was an anxious one.

'You have heard some bad news to-day — we
said so as you rode up. Am I not to know ? '

' You are to know nothing except that the sun
shines and the sky is blue. What bad news
could I have heard when F^o is getting well
again ? '

He made a pretence of laughing at it, and
stood up to exchange a word with mad.ime.

* Everything goes splendidly,* he said. ' My
father is now in the irresponsible stage. Con-
valescence comes afterwards. I have telegraphed
to-day resigning my commission in the Cuirassiers.
That means that they cannot call me back to
Vienna for any military service. The next step
will be to bring my father from Karlsbad to
Pontarlier — where he will apologise to us all and
admit that he has been very foolish. You see
they play this game with naked foils. I must
play it in the same way — since it is a matter of
life or death to me. When the game is over, the
Archduke will have enjoyed it as much as any
one. He is very fond of excitement, and I am
supplying him with plenty of it'

Madame heard the confession with delight.

I ! I

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FfiO

•And the men — have they been here again?
Is Captain Lamberg still at Boveresse?'

' I am afraid I have too little anxiety on the
point. One thing is certain : he will know better
than to come to the Chateau de Joux. I have
ceased to interest myself in his movements —
principally, perhaps, because I am very hungry.*

Madame clapped her hands for the servants.

*My poor boy,* she exclaimed, *it is nearly
one o*clock, and we are all fasting. What a
selfish old woman I am to starve my hungry
children 1 '

They sat at table, Jerome so close to F^o's
low chair that he could hold her hand in his and
whisper a word to bring gratitude to her eyes.
All about them the scene was of summer at her
zenith. The gaunt pines swayed to the gentlest
breezes ; sheep bells tinkled upon the pastures of
the valley ; oxen drew the wagons leisurely, as
though the stress of labour were unknown in that
fair land. Away in the hills the shepherds basked
in the shadow of crag and tree, and forgot the
lagging hours and the labour of the night. There
was the shimmer of heat in the air. Fleecy
vapours found their resting - places about the
green summits of the higher peaks. So silent,
so full of the sense of rest was it all that a man
speaking upon the river's bank below sent echoes

I i..

THE SECRET

131

ly.

flying to the gorges of the pass. The eye wearied
of the beauty of the prospect and turned to the
nearer shadows and the arbours where the sun-
light was not.

In silence for the most part, the dejeuner was
taken. Victorine, discreet always, turned her
back upon F^o and fixed her eyes upon the valley
road. Madame was busy with a full plate and
her glass of white wine. Jerome, a little abstracted
still, waited until the repast was done before
seeking that explanation which he now felt to be
F^o's due. She, in turn, watched him anxiously.
There was a subtle change in his manner which
she could not wholly understand. She set it
down to her own scruples ; and she could not
conceal it from herself that the consequences
of her action were likely to demand a heavy
penalty.

•You have something to tell me, dear,' she
said, when at last they were alone together.
*I have known since ! saw you at the lodge
gate?. Is it too dreadful, or may I hear it
now?'

He turned his chair and sat playing with her
pretty hair and the ribbon which tied it.

' I can't explain to-day, F^o. If there were
anything serious, I should feel it right to speak.
But there never is anything serious in these

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matters, if one can only look at them properly.
What I feel most is your own confession to me
when we were driving back from Boveresse. I
had never thought of it in that light. A man in
love is a very selfish person. He will not hear
the other side. It should have been clear to me
that your self-respect was in question when I
asked you to come back. Frankly, I had never
thought of it until you spoke. But I see it now
as you see it, and I mean to act up to it. My
father will give his consent, and that will end
the difficulty. There can be no other solution ;
I do not intend that there shall be any other.*

F^o was silent a little while. She had won
her point; but the victory might cost her the
happiness of her life.

'What people call the best thing is often
the right thing,' she said after a little pause.
*We owe something to the opinion of others
and to their feelings. The "original" person
is sometimes only a very selfish person. Some
day, Jerome, we may be glad that all this
happened.'

• Of course we shall be. I don't agree altogether
with your views on originality, but I am not going
to argue with my little girl co-day. If there had
never been any original persons in the world, you
and I might be going about now with bows and

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233

arrows in our hands. I am original enough to
believe that if a man loves a woman and is sure
of her love in return, he owes neither reason nor
apology to any living creature. Why should we
ask the permission for surrendering to the best
impulses of our nature? If we apologise for
those impulses, we seem to be ashamed of them.
When I am ashamed of my love for you, I will
make excuses for it. We shall be very old then,
mignonne.'

* And serious ? *

* We shall not be less serious because we know
how to laugh. Your solemn person is generally
a humbug. He is solemn because he is thinking
of his sins. And we have no sins to think of? '

' None that I would not speak of gladly
to you.'

' Nor I, dear.'

They understood, mutually, the implication of
that confession ; and the strength of the bond
between them seemed the greater for it. Her
cheek pressed close to his when next she asked
a question.

' And this is all your news, Jerome?*

* What else could there be ? '

* I do not know — and yet *

*And yet — and yet — we do not believe. Is
not faith a virtue ? '

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' And foresight equally.*

' You imagine troubles. Every one does that.
The trouble is the imagination/

' I will try to believe it'

' And will not worry ? '

' Why should I ? '

•There is no possible reason. Here is the
doctor come to tell you so.'

He heard the doctor's buggy as it rattled upon
the gravel of the avenue ; and a moment later
the cheery voice of the bustling little man, who
lost no time in upbraiding his patient.

'Come, come, come, not indoors yet, made-
moiselle ! God bless me, what are the children
thinking of! Upstairs, young lady, at once.
The physicians of Paris might let you sit here
and die ; but I am only an old country doctor,
and I say, Go in, go in.*

F6o laughed.

' I will tell the physicians of Paris some day,
doctor.'

* Of course you shall. Give them L^on Oster's
compliments, and say that they are all fools.
Physic, mademoiselle, there is nothing new in
physic. The ancients knew more about it than we
do. We can saw and cut — what's that! But
we haven't fo".nd the Elixir of Life, — not at all.
Bed, rest, those are my elixirs. When my patients

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iS5

are reasonable, I cure them. It is the unreason-
able person who dies, mademoiselle/
' Then I will be very reasonable, doctor.*
*And permit this young gentleman to carry
you upstairs. I prescribe it, mademoiselle, — it is
my treatment.'

There was a twinkle in the doctor's eye when
he spoke, and Jerome, quick to appreciate the
humour of it, picked up F^ in his arms and
carried her swiftly to the house.

* You have registered me ? * she asked.

* Through to Vienna, and no customs.*

He left her in her pretty boudoir; and a
little later on she was at the window, waving a
farewell to him as he rode down to Pontarlier
again. She understood vaguely that he thought
to serve her by staying in the town rather than at
the chateau ; and she appreciated the delicacy of
his thought. But Victorine, chattering always,
was there with another reason.

'They say that Captain Lamberg is still at
Boveresse,' she exclaimed, when the horse and
rider were hidden by the first of the pine woods.
*I don't like that, F^o. And aunt says they
will fight. Of course she says so ; she 's always
imagining horrible things.'

F^o turned quickly ; she lost the colour which
the gardens had given her.

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FfiO

' I had never thought of that,' she exclaimed.

*And there's no reason to think of it. I'm
sure it 's nonsense if ma tante says it*

But F^o was silent. The secret which Jerome
had hidden from her was revealed in that moment.
A terrible secret she thought it He would give
his life for her good namci

Ri 'M'ifflti'' 'i
rii:m|y

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SHADOW

A STILL night without cloud to veil its glittering
world of stars, followed upon the heat of the day.
From her windows F^o could see the valley and
the white villages, and the cluster of lights which
stood for Pontarlier; but the scene no longer
suggested to her that content of life she had
wished for when first her eyes beheld it. It was
as though the irony of circumstance, which had
attended these later days, threatened to rob her
of that good common sense which once had been
her richest possession. Too much the mistress
of herself to be the victim of panic or of any
unreasoned impulse, nevertheless the momentous
news, which the day had brought, was beyond
her capacity for patiince or even for any abiding
resolution. Her own folly, she said, had cul-
minated in this greater folly — that Jerome's life
was staked as the price of it. Not for a moment
would she credit the voluble deceptions with
which Victorine had sought to make light of

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the affair. There had been many witnesses oi
Lamberg's punishment. A blow had been struclc ;
a challenge had been given. She understood that
one answer alone could satisfy the honour of
the men who thus had come face to face at
Boveresse.

This truth, and this truth clear above others
was the gift of those silent hours. Whatever
tragedy befell, she was the cause of it Had
Frenchmen been concerned, a humour of the situa-
tion might have combated its inevitableness.
But these were Cuirassiers of the Austrian Guard.
She had not lived a year and more in Vienna
to be ignorant of the graver stories which con-
tributed to the history of the duel in Austria.
Even among her own friends she could recall
the name of one, Rupert Leginski, a captain
of artillery, who had been shot for a word, and
whose body had been lifted into a carriage at
the very moment when she herself was riding her
pony in the Prater. These men were no heroes
for the satirists and the makers of toy swords.
The day upon which they came face to face again
might change the whole course of her life. She
did not, perhaps, realise all that such a day would
mean ; but a shadow of the peril attended her
through the longj night and hovered about her
while she slept. One would emerge from that

THE SHADOW

t39

encounter. She dared not tell herself that it
might not be Jerome.

Suspense and doubt banished sleep from her
eyes. She dressed herself laboriously as soon as
there was any sound of life about the house ; and
begging help of the maids, she went out to the
gardens at the first of the day. Even Victorine
was not up then. In the gardens the men were
at work under the quiet directions of old Michel.
A delicious balmy odour came upon the air of
morning. Great drops of crystal dew dripped
from the luscious buds ; the flowers opened their
petals to the sun and the breeze. All the luxury of
the great chateau, the refinement of the life there,
the splendid tradition of the family, the dignity
attending the household, had become part of her
life now. When the others were with her, when
she listened to Jerome's irrefutable optimism, she
could forget that the day might be near when she
must quit a haven so generous and return to that
penurious existence which had been her lot almost
from her childhood. The weeks of content she had
known would make such a return very difficult.
The stress and struggle were not so much her fear
as that sordid poverty, that shaming environment,
that pitiful aping of respectability which her career
demanded, and to which, for the sake of her art,
she had submitted. The humblest cottage in all

, ;

»40

f6o

that valley, the hut of the shepherd, the little
chalet where the gardeners lived — she would have
named any of these a palace if therein a home
might be found for her, and she might bid farewell
to the garrets of the cities and the ambition which
had sent her to the garrets. Yet fate had willed
it otherwise. The net which destiny drew about
her prisoned her more surely every hour. Once,
as she watched the awaking pastures and the
splendour of the day down there in the sunlit
valley, she told herself that the meeting might
have taken place already, and the news of it be
known. The probability that such was the case
grew upon her from minute to minute. She could
not, despite her resolution, speak of anything
else when madame, hearing of her escapade,
came reproachfully to the gardens and began to
upbraid her.

*Victorine has told me,' was her defence. *I
could not sleep, and Fran^^oise helped me out here.
You must not be cross. Doctors are always so
silly. And of course I am very anxious '

Madame, to whom the idea of a duel was as the
very essence of that drama she loved, affected
great surprise.

•You are foolish, child, to listen to such a
story,' she exclaimed. * Do not believe it. As if
Jerome had not something else to think about* —

THE SHADOW

S41

case

a self-willed little girl, to begin with. Ah, my
dear, the times are changed indeed. I remember
when General Moray went out with the Count of
Traves because I wouldn't have him, and do you
think that I was anxious ? My word, I laughed
when they told me. I was so proud that day I
could not walk. You should be pleased and pruud
too — the foolish fellows will not hurt each otlier ;
they never do.*

F^o heard her impatiently.

* If I had thought about it, I should have
known it from the first,* she said, as one con-
vinced unwillingly. * When Jerome came to
Boveresse he struck Captain Lamberg with his
whip. They said something to each other, but I
was so glad to be in the dog- cart that I did not
listen. I have lived too long in Austria to expect
them to be sensible. If they were Englishmen, it
would be different. You do not know how much
I wish sometimes that Jerome had no honour.
Every day it compels him to do something or
not to do it. It is too subtle for me to under-
stand. If I did not love him, I would say that it
is too ridiculous.*

Madame followed the confession with difficulty.

' Ah,' she said, ' men have so much to live for,
child. Your poet, Shakespeare, has said it better
than you or I will ever say it. A woman's love

■

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F60

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■V? ; ■

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is her little kingdom, but the man's world is very
wide. If I thought that our boy was in any
danger, do you think that I could sit here, at the
door of my own house, and leave him to others?
Do not believe it. He is a Hapsburg, and the
man who has sent him a challenge is not likely
to forget it.'

And then she added —

• You must not complain because we quarrel
sometimes with your English ideas. You are
very cold-blooded in England, my dear. You
think only of the money. At heart human nature
is much the same all the world over ; but a
woman's instincts are surer than a man's, and a
woman's instinct tells me now that Jerome has
done well to meet his enemies and to show them
that he is not afraid.'

F^o caught the admission instantly.

* He is to meet him, then. What else am I to
think ? You keep it from me, and you know.'

' I know nothing, my child — it is always best
to know nothing when men wish to quarrel. You
cannot help them and you cannot prevent them —
or if you do prevent them, they will not love you
for it. Be sure that it is not little F^o's fault.
She has nothing to blame herself for. If it had
not been for her, it would have been for another.
We are in a country where these things are

THE SHADOW

■43

inevitable. Men grow to manhood upon them
and are the better men because of them. You
will be glad to-morrow when he comes to tell
you all about it.'

' I should be ashamed of mj^self if I were. Oh,
you cannot realise what I think and feel ! His life
is at stake — his life. I remember nothing else.
He came to Pontarlier for my sake. He is here
to help me. If anything should happen — if it
happened while we were speaking of it this
morning — how could I forgive myself?'

Her grief was very real, but it did not touch
the heart of one who could turn the pages of
her memory back to twenty such affairs as this,
and recall the part she had delighted to play
in them.

* No, no,' she protested unsympathetically,
' women make the tragedies, little F^o — not the
men. I have seen so many. It is always the
old story — they will do anything for us if we do
not ask them. And Jerome was born with a
silver spoon. There will be no duel to-day, my
child, for the servant does not fight the master ;
and our boy is still the master, whatever else
has happened.'

This, and much more to the same end, was the
conF">lation she vouchsafed. Capable of certain
sentimental affections, the capacity, nevertheless,

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f6o

rightly to read the heart of this Engh'sh girl she
had befriended was wanting to her. She had
helped Jerome because of the position he held at
the Court of Austria, and the European publicity
which she knew must ultimately attend this affair.
To Feo's future she did not give a thought. The
girl would be morganatically married, perhaps, and
afterwards disappear as so many others, whose
names she could recall in her own life's story,
had disappeared and been forgotten. For the
rest, it sufficed that her old age had contrived yet
another intrigue of which she might be the heart
and impulse. Excitement was as necessary to
her years as rouge to an actress. It made her
young again, and in the rejuvenescence robbed
her of the will to befriend or sympathise.

But Feo desired neither sympathy nor consola-
tion. A feverish unrest possessed her. In spite
of all argument, she held to the belief that thi?
day would not draw to its close as it had begun.
And, above all, she blamed herself unceasingly
because she had been content to deceive herself
with the happiness she had found at the chateau :
and to crave of it a hope of the future to which
she had no possible claim.

a-i ! . I

CHAPTER XXVII

'■■ r

THE VISION

She had a foreboding of the day ; but it was not
justified, for a messenger rode up to the chateau
at sunset and carried a letter from Jerome. He
had been detained, he said, at Pontarher by tele-
grams from his father, who was betraying some
glimmerings of reason, and who had already pro-
posed a truce. To-morrow, if that were possible,
he, himself, would be at Joux to breakfast, with
much to speak of, and better news than he
imagined possible yesterday. But she must not
worry if he did not come, and she might be sure
that all was well v/ith him. For the rest, he
spoke of commonplace things ; of the need that
she should take care of her-lf, and obey the
doctor implicitly ; and she could read in these
injunctions the desire to keep from her suspicion
of graver fears. But she did not speak to madame
of the letter; nor would she trouble them again
with her own apprehensions. A woman's weak-
ness in sucli an hour had ever seemed to her a

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346

f6o

^■9 :'

il'i .'

^11

contemptible thing. She must endure in silence,
as in silence she must suffer.

The letter came at sunset, and there was a
second to the same end upon the breakfast-table
next morning. He would come that afternoon if
possible ; but he had heard from Vienna news
which could not fail to be welcome to them.
The Archduke was content with his ambassador
no longer. Another, the Count of Travna, had
left the capital, and was then upon his way to
Pontarlier. That final understanding they both
desired so ardently, could not now be long
delayed. For better for worse, an arrangement
must be found within the week. Jerome did not
doubt that it would mean great happiness for
them both ; and be the reward of these pitiful
weeks of intrigue and of humiliation.

F60 read the letter twice. She dared not believe
now either in his optimism or in any hope of
better fortune for herself. Whatever else this
new trouble had done for her, at least it had per-
mitted her to forget her own hurt, and to say that
she was almost well again. The second day found
her laughing at the astonishment of the little
doctor from Andelot. She began to seek her old
solitudes in the gardens of the chateau ; she even
thought, in a moment of earnest desire to know
the truth, that she might persuade C6sar to drive

THE VISION

247

her down to Pontarlier, where she would find
Jerome and tell him of her own resolutions.

But C^sar was obdurate, and Victorine, her
faithful ambassador always, must serve in her
stead. Every hour Victorine would come in with
some shred of gossip torn from a willing serving-
man, or heard by the maid Fran^oise in her
excursions to the town. Boveresse had made the
affair its own. Rightly, then, did Fran^oise gloat
over her tidings.

'The Captain is still at Boveresse, mademoiselle.
He has been ill ; he would not show himself at the
hotel. He was to have gone out yesterday, but at
the last moment he sent a message. I spoke to
Maitre 3elard, and he knows of things. It may
be to-morrow, and it may be the day after. He
is very angry, the Captain, and he will hear of
nothing else.'

Victorine, half afraid c' the news, yet glad to
carry it to Fdo, was almost serious for the first
time in her life.

* He is not going ; he is a coward. Fran^oise
has told me ; he thinks that he is ill, and we can
laugh at him. Cesar's brother was at Boveresse
yesterday, and heard it all. Maitre Belard de-
clares that he will go off to Paris, and that there
will not be any duel at all. I don't believe that,
but perhaps it 's true. Oh, how glad I am ! And

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f6o

we sh?!l know soon. It must be to-morrow —
must — must. And you won't think about it, F^o?
You promised me.'

F^o smiled in spite of her thoughts.

' That would be so easy, Victorine. Of course
I am not interested at all.'

'Oh, but it's different now! What has Jerome
to fear from a coward ? Ma tante says that the
Captain dare not harm him. Wouldn't I like
Paul to fight with a coward ! And just think, to-
morrow we shall hear all about it ; we shall have
nothing more to bother us, and we '11 have a picnic
to the Cascades. I '11 try to believe that Paul is
here, and go off all by myself just as we used to.'

* That would be a lonely walk, dear. But, of
course, you do not mean it. If I were afraid for
Jerome, it would be different ; but can one be
afraid for a man one really loves ? I don't think
so. And I don't believe that Captain Lam berg
is a coward. It is the uncertainty of it all that
makes it so horrible. I am beginning to wish
that I had wings, and could say, " London," as
they used to in the story-books. Where shall I
be next week ? Ah, Victorine, you have never
had to ask yourself a question like that ! *

' Oh, but haven't I ? Where shall I be next
week ? Why here, watching you and Jerome in
the woods.'

THE VISION

249

She sighed, and putting her arm through her
friend's, began to walk across the sunny lawn to
the door of the chateau.

* Some day we will go to London together, F^o.
When you are married, I will come and stop with
you. Paul will be there ; you will ask him for
my sake. And aunt will have to stop at the
chateau. We will tell her there are no spare bed-
rooms. All the people who don't want her say
that. I shouldn't enjoy myself a bit if she were
there, and I am tired, oh ! so tired, of being a
good little dog that every one leads about with a
string. Won't you promise me, Feo ? *

F^o kissed her.

* We are two children dreaming our dreams,'
she said. * Who knows that I shall ever see you
again when I have left France? And I must
leave it nou-. I have no longer the excuse of
illness. When next \'ou hear of me, Victorine, I
shall be in gloomy old London, a singer about
whom no one cares — a drudge who has no home.
But I shall never forget my friends at the chateau,
never, never. I think that I began to live on the
day when first I saw these gardens. It will be
hard to leave them, harder than you can believe.'

The note of sorrow in her voice touched the
child's good heart. She clung the closer to her
friend and kissed her cheek.

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f6o

' I shall come to you, F^o, wherever you are,*
she said gently ; ' if you will let me, I will never
have another friend. And, of course, it 's all silly.
You are not going to gloomy old London, and
you will not be a drudge. Jerome will be here
to-morrow, and then — and then '

F60 did not answer her. That clear girlish
voice seemed to have lost its mus*': in the
thought of the day, so soon to come, \ hen she
would hear it no more. Yet the prdnise of
friendship was very dear to her. It would be
something to remember, in the lonely pilgrimage
she must make, that one at least in distant
France held her name in loving remembrance.
And she had no doubt of her future now. Had
it not been for this unforeseen folly, which
harassed her unceasingly, she would have quitted
the chateau that very night. The determination
to sacrifice the last of her hopes would not be
contradicted by any subterfuge of her logic.
She knew that she had loved wholly, unselfishly,
as few women love ; she realised the duty of
atoning in self-abnegation for all that had been.
But first she must know that Jerome had nothing
more to fear at the hands of her old enemy. In
graver moments she said that she must know if
he lived.

She slept upon the third night with this

THE VISION

as I

this

resolution of sacrifice as her solace. The crisis
of her life had been so prolonged, that any course
which finally would determine its issues could
not fail to be welcome to her. In her dreams she
took the resolution anew ; and so upheld it that
she found herself alone in London again in the
old house in Oxford Street ; and there she waged
the war of existence, as she had waged it in the
weary years, without hope or ambition, or even
consolation of her art.

It was an odd dream, and when she waked
from sleep and knew that she was still in the
great bedroom of the chateau, and could see
the moonlight shining upon the gardens, the
reality was the harder to face, the sacrifice
seemed greater than any she could contemplate.
When she slept for the second time, her dream
carried her to the woods about the house ; and
she walked there, alone, from lake to lake of the
golden light ; and all the gnarled trunks were as
mighty shadows stretching out their arms to
her ; and in the heart of the thickets the silver
beams showed her bowers as of some fairy land,
and all the figures of the children's books.

Here she would have rested awhile, but, even
as she stood, a hand touched hers, and led her
onward until a white mist, as of silver spray, rose
up above the hollow of the glade, and the forest

ti-v all;'!

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F^O

scene was hidden from her sight. For a moment
of time a gentle breeze of night scattered the
mist, and permitted the vision of the dream to
torment her. She perceived two figures in the
glade, and one was the figure of Jerome. Then
she knew that she had come to the scene of the
duel, and a great impulse to run there and to
throw herself at her lover's feet would have
prevailed but for the ghostly hand, which held
her to the place. In vain she listened for any
sound of voices in the hollow, even for the
sound of one blade of steel upon another ; but
the silence of the fuller night prevailed ; and as
she stood, trembling and afraid, the curtain of
the mist was raised for a second time, and she
beheld a man lying prone upon the grass, and
she knew that he was dead. But the face of the
man was hidden from her, and while she strove
with all her strength to release herself from the
grip of the hand which restrained her, she awoke,
and the rays of the morning sun were shining
full upon her face.

■in.

aM«

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE

With all her artistic impulse and capacity for
deep emotion, F^o believed herself to be above
the childish superstitions which are the amuse-
ment of many of her sisters ; and her first act
upon waking was to laugh at her dream, and to
run to the window to drink in a full breath of
the invigorating breeze of day, and there to tell
herself she would be a child to give any heed to
that which sleep had compelled her to suffer.
All that woodland scene waking now to the
heralds of the sun, the great domed hills created
out of the scattered vapours and the uplifted
clouds, the roses diademed with dew, the wood
bird's tuneful note, were a mock upon her dream.
Nevertheless, the reality of the impression it had
left was not to be avoided. Standing there at
her window, she could recall every incident, even
the most trifling, of the vision she had seen. The
glade, the shadowy figures, the hand which held
her back, the curtain of mist, before all the dead

253

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254

FfiO

man upon the ground — she beheld these things
again, and they chilled the new courage which
the sun had given her. How, she asked, if this
were one of those dreams in which sleep had
carried the first message of truth, and day had
vindicated the night ? And who was the man
who lay dead in the hollow of the lake— the
man whose figure had been hidden by another,
whose face she might not look upon? As in
some weird inspiration, she seemed to read a
truth. Jerome was dead. Because of his death
she dreamed. She would hear the story that
very morning. Of death alone such a dream
could speak.

Very quietly, yet with beating heart and dry,
parched lips, she began to dress herself. She
would not repeat her arguments, for they seemed
to her to be final. Jerome had met Otto Lamberg
in the glade of the woods, and had been killed
there. She dared not ask herself what such a
tragedy really meant to her. Her strength and
clarity of purpose increased with her appre-
hensions. Never once now did she pause to say
that all this was childish fear, to be forgotten
when the hour of it had passed. That, which
was but assumption at first, became conviction
beyond question with every minute of delay.
Jerome was dead. She knew the manner of his

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 255

death. He had died because of his great love
for her. A thousand times was she alone now.
His farewell to her upon that sunny morning,
when they had carried her to the gardens, was
the last word she would hear from his lips. This
dream of night was the inheritance of her love,
the harvest of her years of sorrow.

It was very early in the morning then, and
even the gardeners had not come out of their
cottages. The chateau itself gave echoes of her
footsteps when she descended the great staircase
and drew back the bolts of the folding doors.
Dazzling particles of golden dust hung in the
path of the sunbeams. Forgotten things of
yesterday were littered about the hall and the
rooms opening from it. She could see the open
piano in the darkened boudoir, with the very
music she had sung last night. A hound
stretched himself as she came down, and
approached her fawningly. The sound of the
opening doors echoed through the silent corri-
dors as the doors of a prison rusting upon their
hinges. Outside in the sunshine she breathed a
full breath for the first tim.c. Under other
circumstances the joy of that hour had been to
her as riches from the treasury of being ; but
to-day she did not know that the sun shone, or
that dew sparkled upon the flowers. She must

ri'iii i.'i

356

Fto

go down to the glade, must destroy the impression
the dream had left. If Jerome were dead, none
should keep the truth from her. And yet she
could say in the same breath that the truth was
already known, for sleep had betrayed it.

A stable-boy was busy in the stables when she
knocked timidly at the door, and he rubbed his
sleepy eyes and stared long at her when she
asked him to saddle Christobel, and to bring the
mare out immediately.

'I am going for a little ride,' she said;
'Mademoiselle Victorine will follow me directly
she is dressed. We do not want any one with
us, for we shall not leave the park. Be quick,
please, for I must not catch cold.'

The boy said, * Certainly, mademoiselle,' and
began to busy himself with the bridle. She
thought that the minutes of waiting were an
age. When the horse was ready, and she sprung
to the saddle, she used her whip almost for the
first time in her life. She must know — must —
must. The fresh air intoxicated her with a
feverish impulse to settle the dreadful doubt
upon the instant. In her heart of hearts she
believed that a dead man lay even then in the
glade. The willing horse could not keep pace
with her desire to know. It was a mad gallop,
a wild ride across the spongy, yielding turf, —

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 257

hither, thither; for she had no sure knowledge
where to turn, or how most quickly to find the
glade of her dreams.

The vision had shown her a lake with an
avenue leading up to it ; and, upon the left hand
of the avenue, a wooded hollow. She was sure
that she had ridden with Victorine to the scene
of the tragedy she had witnessed in her dream ;
but now, being abroad in the park, she had no
certain guide, no landmark which would enable
her to identify the place. Twice she skirted the
entire eastern wall of the outer grounds, but
could espy neither a lake nor the avenue by
which it was to be approached. Rt.ning in her
good horse at last, she quitted the woods of the
chateau at their farthest extremity, and struck
the road to Boveresse.

The hollow lay beyond the gates, it must lie
there ; sleep had not deceived her, for she
could remember distinctly the day when she
and Victorine had stood by a silent pool to
watch the dog's-eared lilies floating upon its
unruffled waters, and the great carp asleep in
the sunshine. That pool she would discover
again. She knew that the quest of it was folly ;
but went there, nevertheless, with beating heart,
and hands that trembled upon her reins.

There were few upon the road : an old priest

a58

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U-M

id ^ I

going up to the hills to say mass for the
shepherds ; a lad tending oxen ; some big-
limbed women en their way to market ; a
sleepy waggoner with a great load of hay.
They gave her ' Good-day ' as she passed them,
and turned their heads to watch that graceful
figure which seemed poised upon the horse as
a fragile burden scarce to be reckoned with.
* Mademoiselle from ^J^ngland,' they said, * she
rides early ; but then, we have heard the story.'
The priest alone was troubled to see her there.
' If that rascal Belard has not lied, she knows
what is to happen to-day, and is going to prevent
it,' he said to himself; and then he added, * Well,
it is not my affair,* and went on toward his little
wooden church high up on the grassy slopes
of the mountain pastures. But Fio remained
unconscious of the admiration and of the good
priest's doubt. She could discern the red roofs
of Boveresse now — even the little railway station ;
and in one of those curious reactions of the mind
which the most trivial circumstance may provoke,
she lived again for an instant through that hour
of peril when she had leaped from the train and
had heard the voices upon the embankment and
seen the torches of the villagers. It was the
sensation of a moment, but very real while it
endured. When she had forgotten it, she was at

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 259

the turn of the road which led up through the
gorge of the cliff; and there she found, not the
glade of her sleep, nor any figures of the mist,
but a carriage lacking a wheel, and a white-
haired old gentleman, who stood at the road-
side, surveying the wreck of his equipage, and
remained quite deaf to the profuse apologies of
his coachman and the assurances that all would
be well presently.

F60 reined in her horse — for the carriage
was blocking the whole road — and regarded the
scene with not a little amusement. The old
gentleman, who did not appear to be hurt, was
so very good-humoured at it all, the coachman
so much distressed, that she wished she had been
an artist to sketch the group as it stood. For a
space the whole object of her excursion was
forgotten ; she came down to earth, as it were,
before this moment of jest, and could laugh with
the others at the coachman's protests. When
the white-haired old man lifted his hat and
spoke to her, it seemed the most natural thing
for him to do. She wondered only th^it he
should have recognised her nationality and
addressed her in fluent English, for it was
evident that he was not an Englishman.

'A thousand apologies,' he said, 'but I fear
that our carriage is in your way.'

26o

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She answered frankly.

* Not at all, thank you. One way is as good
as another to me.' And then she added, ' I see
that you have had an accident'

The coachman, who did not understand her,
and thought she was reflecting upon his carriage,
burst into a very torrent f protest.

• It is a good carriage, mademoiselle. The
wheel has c .le off. Is that anything to com-
plain of? Maitre Jonart at Neufch&tel, he made
the carriage ; all the wheels will come off some-
times. You cannot help it' And then he
returned to his exclamations. Mother ot God,
was he to be blamed because this wheel came
off? There would be a new wheel presently.
He was going to run back to the village. He
would find a wheel somewhere. Monsieur would
condescend to rest upon the bank a moment.
These little things happened every day. It was
a good carriage — a better carriage now with
three wheels than any in Pontarlier. They
shake your bones there ; you rattle like a dice-
box. In his carriage you did not rattle even
with three wheels.

There had been two passengers in the landau,
and one of them, a slightly built young man
with a soldier's air, who paid a great deference
to his fellow-traveller, now held the horses and

m )

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 261

tethered them at the roadside while the loqua-
cious coachman set off to Boveresse for the
necessary wheelwright. The old gentleman,
meanwhile, began to question Fdo.

I think that I shall walk up,' he said; 'it
cannot be far from here. Perhaps you know
the house, mademoiselle. I am going to the
Chateau de Joux/

She laughed at the question.

* I live there,' she exclaimed ; * it is a mile from
here on the hill-side.'

* Then you will show me the way ? '

* Oh, of course, if you are not afraid to walk ! *

* I like nothing better at this hour, and in this
company.'

'But they don't expect you, and you won't
find anybody up except the servants.'

'More than sufficient to make me a cup of
coffee, mademoiselle.'

He turned to address a word to his companion,
who answered him deferentially.

' You will find me in the gardens of the house
with mademoiselle,' he said, ' when the carriage
is ready, we will go on to Pontarlier.'

•Certainly, Count; I will hurry as much as
possible.'

Feo caught the word Count, and looked more
curiously at the man who was so called. He

!'* ■ I .

263

f6o

.! ,i i

I ' 14

1!,J

was a fine, upright old fellow, with a soldier's
carriage, and iron-grey hair and bushy whiskers
in the Austrian fashion. His eyes betrayed a
ready love of humour, and were kindly, she
thought. His manner toward her was that of
one accustomed to command even women ; but
with a grace and courtliness which made such
commands welcome. She concluded, almost
from the first moment of meeting him, that he
was the new envoy sent by the Archduke Fred-
erick to Pontarlier ; and the humour of that
encounter drove from her head all remembrance
of the foolish errand which had carried her from
the chateau at such an hour of the day.

* I suppose you travelled by the night express,'
she said, as he began to walk briskly at her side
upon the white road to the house.

* Yes, by the night express. I made a detour
to Neufch&tel that I might see Madame la
Comtesse. I have heard of you, mademoiselle ;
you are the young English lady staying at the
house.'

The declaration was quite frank. She met it
with like candour.

' And you are the Count of Travna,' she ex-
claimed.

He nodded his head, but turned from the
question.

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 263

soldier's
/hiskers
rayed a
lly, she

that of
sn ; but
ie such

almost
that he
e Fred-
of that
tibrance
icr from

xpress,'
her side

detour
ame la
loiselle ;
I at the

met it

she ex-

Dm the

'You English change your habits when you
are abroad,' he said. ' In London I find that
everybody begins to wake up when I wish to go
to bed. I was once in your Rotten Row at five
o'clock, and the newspapers spoke of it. When
a man gets up at five o'clock in Vienna, we do
not mention it in the newspapers. You are fond
of the country, Miss de Berthier?'

* So fond that I would never go into a town
again if I might decide.'

' An odd ambition at your age. Most young
ladies, I find, are not happy unless there are
bonnet-shops. Frankly, I myself see nothing
in all this — mountains, meadows, rivers. There
are not men here. Life for me be^^ins where
men meet'

'You are staunch at least, sir. Men do not
always believe so much in men. And as for
women, they do not believe in them at all.'

* Nevertheless, they are influenced by them.
'When it flatters their vanity. Tell a man

that your opinion is really his, and he will think
that he is clever. Try to persuade him to
change what he calls his mind, and he will
hate you.'

The Count smiled.

*I am sure that our opip.ns will agree,' he
exclaimed good-humou redly.

sh. m-

., !

264

f6o

' In that case we shall begin to qurrrel at
once,' she answered with assumed flippancy.

He was amused at her reply, and stood a
moment to survey the glorious valley below
them. She, on her part, realised in a vague way
that they were opponents, and that her wits must
be pitted against his for a stake she could not
estimate or define. The antagonism pleased her.
This man, at any rate, was one whose honesty
she might not doubt. There was a breadth, a
dignity of manner and speech which won upon
her homage.

* It is very early, as you say, Miss de Berthier,
and I am afraid that I shall be a nuisance to
your friends at the chateau. You will befriend
me, I beg, and regard me as the spoil of your
morning's excursion.'

' Am I to carry you in as a prisoner of war,
then ? '

' As a willing prisoner, if you please.'

* You are staying at Pontarlier long ? '

* As long as circumstances demand my pres-
ence, but at the chateau no more than an hour.'

She nodded her head and began to close her
hands a little nervously upon her reins. A mood
defiant could not be suppressed.

'You have come to see Prince Jerome?' she
exclaimed.

jrrrel at
icy.

stood a
y below
gue way
i^its must
ould not
ascd her.

honesty
readth, a
on upon

Berthier,

sance to

befriend

of your

• of war,

ny pres-
hour.'
lose her
A mood

le? ' she

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE ^65

* Exactly ; you guess my intentions perfectly.
I have come to see Prince Jerome, and to accom-
pany him to Vienna.'

Her face clouded. She looked away across
the valley to the mists looming as a blue cloud
above Pontarlier. In that instant the purport of
her ride, the message of the dream, recurred to
her with a new intensity.

* I pray God that you will find him,' she ex-
claimed almost involuntarily.

She had not meant to utter her thoughts aloud
in this way; but so sudden was the recurrence
of the idea which had driven her from the house,
that the confession prevailed above her will.
When next she looked at her companion, she
observed that he smiled no more, but stood, very
white and grave and hesitating. Her defending
laugh could not efface the impression which the
foolish exclamation had created.

' Miss de Berthier,' he said, * I trust there is no
ill news of the Prince ? '

* None that I am aware of.'

* Forgive me, your words are a little enig-
matical. Why should you hope that I will
find him at Pontarlier? Is there any doubt
ofit?'

She sighed.

* I do not know,' she answered wearily. ' Am

9) ('!

266

FitO

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1'. I

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I his keeper, then? It is ridiculous to ask me
such questions.'

For a little way they went on together in
silence. The road was arched over by trees at
this place, dipping into a hollow of the glade
and bordering upon a little lake which shone
clear and translucent, in the shade of the um-
brageous leaves. Beyond the pool a vista of
thicket and hollow, and an avenue of chestnut-
trees opened up to show, remoter still, the
meadows of the valley and the wooden spire of
a village church. Here, as by some s jtle, com-
pelling agency, F^o checked her horse abruptly.
The scene of her dream rose up before her as by
a magic touch. She lived in the sunshine the
vision of the darkness. Neither speaking nor
moving, she watched the figures, and saw that
truth was the message of the night. For, all
unconsciously she had stumbled upon the scene
of the duel, and those that moved before her
were men whose gestures she could witness and
whose voices she must hear. Will as she might
to laugh at it, she knew that Jerome was here in
the hollow of the glade as she had beheld him
in her sleep. And there were other figures,
distinct and outstanding upon the verdant green.
She recognised Otto Lamberg, and perceived
that he held a pistol in his hand. Another,

ask me

ither in
trees at
e glade

1 shone
the um-
vista of
lestnut-
till, the
spire of
le, com-
bruptly.
:r as by
ine the
ing nor
iw that
For, all
e scene
ore her
5SS and

2 might
here in
:ld him
figures,
t green,
rceived
nother,

IN THE HOLLOW OF THE GLADE 267

whose face she could not see, was talking to
Jerome. The sun made a silhouette of the
figures and cast long shadows on the grass.
She followed them as one robbed of all power
to think or act or turn her eyes away. The
dread of the moment surpassed all that she had
suffered since the first hour of that enduring
intrigue.

Count Travna had lagged behind as they
entered the avenue ; but now, seeing her white
face and frightened eyes, he hastened to her
side, and, in his turn, looked down upon the
fateful scene in the hollow. He could not com-
prehend it immediately, nor recognise those who
played so strange a part in that place ; but when
a minute had passed, and the sun shone out
again to show the faces of the men, he uttered a
startled exclamation and staggered back against
her horse.

' My God ! ' he cried, * they are going to fire ! '
Her answer was a whisper inaudible. In her
heart she believed that this was the hour of
Jerome's death. The longing to run to him, to
shield him, became in itself an agony. As it
had befallen in the dream, so she knew that it
must be now. The unendurable suspense of
that moment was never to be forgotten while
life remained to her. Her very heart seemed to

i\u >'

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f6o

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stand still when the men turned to face each
other, and the sunbeams glinted upon the steel
barrels of their pistols. Jerome would die. She
thought already to see his body prone upon the
sward as she had seen it in her sleep.

She thought that he must die indeed, yet
no word of feair escaped her. The Count bore
witness afterwards she sat with dry eyes and
lips close shut, and hands that closed upt^n her
reins tenaciously. All else — the hour, the man
at her side, the hazard of her own life — were
forgotten in that enthralling doubt. As one
gazing entranced upon some scene of drama, she
watched the moving figures, she heard the voices
of the seconds — the command to fire. The
leaping flame following upon the word, the loud
report of a pistol as it echoed through the woods
and rolled up to the hills above them, found her
still voiceless. She did not heed the Count
when his broken exclamations told her the
story. Jerome had fired deliberately at the sky
above him. The pistol in the hand of Otto
Lamberg was still raised. She waited for the
report of it as for a message of death inevit-
able. But the message lagged. For an instant
the man stood irresolute. Then he threw the
weapon upon the grass and walked quickly from
the place.

^!::r

IN THE IIOLT.OW OF THE GLADE 269

* He has done well,' said the Count in a low
voice ; and so he turned to her for the first time
since they had entered the avenue.

She did not answer him. Her eyes were still
fixed upon the hollow. A strange light shone
in them. The man wondered at her calmness.
for drops of sweat stood upon his forehead, and
his hand was shaking.

'You see,' he said, 'the silly business is done
with. These two angry fellows will now go awa\'
to tell their friends that honour is satisfied. It
appears they have amused you. Miss de Berthier.'

The blood rushed to her cheeks.

* Amused me ! ' she cried, and the ring of her
voice was as some command to silence, almost
to awe. The Couftt flinched at her glance. He
stammered his apology.

* I am sorry,' he said quickly. * Forget that I
have spoken. Here is my carriage ; perhaps you
would be glad to let the lieutenant lead your
horse and to ride back to the chfiteau with me.'

She did not hear him. Her horse, taking
advantage of the loosened rein, began to walk
briskly up the hill, while she sat as one in a
trance. The Count watched her until the bend
of the road hid her from his sight.

' There is a woman who knows how to suffer,'
he said.

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CHAPTER XXIX

THE COUNT OF TRAVNA

F£o rode her horse to the stable door, but did
not return at once to the chateau. She had a
vague dread of hearing any voice or of being
compelled to answer any question that might
be put to her. The spell of the scene she had
witnessed in the glade was still upon her. The
rolling report of the pistol yet echoed in her ears ;
the figures of the drama returned to act their
parts anew and to compel her again to suffer that
agonising suspense which had so tormented her
in sleep and waking. In vain she told herself
that Jerome lived, that the danger was no more,
that all else was folly beyond words. She could
not escape that penalty exacted from shattered
nerves and imagination excited by long hours
of uncertainty.

There were many about the grounds of the
house now — gardeners and grooms and maids
exchanging a word with the stable-boys. She
avoided them, and ran to that little bower where,

S70

THE COUNT OF TRAVNA

971

but a few days ago, Otto Lamberg had come to
her with so plausible a tale. Perchance she
thought that Jerome would pass by on his way
back to Pontarlier ; or would even ride in at the
gates to tell her the story. A strange longing
to meet him began to mingle with those haunting
ideas which forbade her to be grateful to reality.
His life had been given to her, she said. The
jeopardy of death, it may be, had, in a measure,
been hidden from her by that all-absorbing quest
of truth ; but now that he lived, she realised it
more truly ; and could ask herself what his death
would have meant to one who had been willing
to touch the nadir of poverty and of exile for

his sake.

And this realisation preyed upon the very
heart of her womanhood. In the gladness of
truth, she could weep for that which might have
been, but was not.

Jerome lived, indeed — but she knew that,
henceforth, he might not live for her. The crisis
of those troubled weeks had passed at last, and
had left to her a future without hope, a path
winding and tortuous and offering no sure haven
even from the ultimate poverty she had always
foreseen and dreaded. In a few hours the man,
for whose safety she had prayed so ardently,
would be on his way to Vienna. The hospitality

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279

FitO

of the chateau would be remembered among the
sunny days of an irrevocable past. She would
set out to London — God knew to what destiny.

It was a strange medley of nervous excitement,
of apprehension for herself, and of a woman's
gladness for the life given back to her which
occupied that hour of self-communing in the
arbour. From her place there she could hear the
commotion which the Count's arrival had already
caused — the ringing of bells, the scampering of
men, the shouts in the stable-yards, the grooms
cantering off to the villages ; but she was content
to play no part in that affair. If her own inclina-
tion had been consulted, she would have avoided
the courtly old soldier who had been her friend
of the morning. The plain truth, that he had
come to the chateau as an envoy from Jerome's
father, made it impossible, in her better judgment,
that she should meet him. To plead her own
case, or utter any word in defence of her own
actions, would, she thought, be the best title
these people could have to their treatment of her.
She wished almost that she might leave the
house upon the instant ; and, going hence, begin
at once that battle with destiny which now was
inevitable.

The resolution was heroic ; but she knew its
impossibility; and, anon, there came to her a

THE COUNT OF TRAVNA

273

woman's curiosity to learn of that which was
passing in the chateau. Determined still to avoid
the Count, she returned to the gardens and found
Victorine, who ran to her joyously, and began
to tell her all the news, breathlessly, as was
her wont.

* F^o — where have you been ? Ma tante is in
a dreadful state. You are to come in at once
and see him. He is a great big man, and has
gone upstairs to brush his whiskers ; Jerome is
expected to breakfast. He has promised us. His
English friend came to say so. If you could see
his English friend! I shall forget Paul while
he is here ! Oh, I must tell I All the silver is
at the bankers. Ma tante is furious, and we are
to help to cut the flowers, and it is to be mag-
nificent. F60, you must come in ! '

She babbled on, restless and delighted with
this hour of change and chatter. Feo went with
hesitating steps to the house; for it seemed
impossible now to avoid the encounter she had
dreaded. In the salon upon the first floor she
found madame and the Count ; and so cordial
was the old soldier's greeting, that her resolution
was forgotten in her gratitude.

* Ha ! ' he cried, ' here is my little companion
at last. I was beginning to think that she did
not wish to see me again.'

:.\'! ■

• f'

274

f6o

* Tell the Count how ill you have been, child —
he will understand/ exclaimed madame in her
zeal to explain away all shortcomings.

F60 answered them smilingly.

' How easily do we bear the misfortunes of our
neighbours. Is the Count really interested in
the history of my ailments ? *

Count Travna put a chair for her close to his
own. She did not take it.

* I have been telling madame what we saw this
morning/ he said. * I have been saying that my
young companion had more courage than a timid
old man who has been at twenty such affairs.*

*The courage of ignorance, Count — why should
I have been afraid ? '

Madame interposed in a reproachful tone.

'Come, my dear, do not speak in that way.
We know what it must have meant to you. I
am sure that you are very thankful.'

F^o turned over a page of music on the piano
near her. She did not perceive the drift of the
old soldier's question.

' I am glad, of course, that no harm came to
Prince Jerome. But you do not wish me to
shout it from the housetops, Count ? If men are
willing to play with their lives in this way, we
are not their guardians. I do not believe in
scenes, and I shall remain unconverted.'

•MtM

If.

THE COUNT OF TRAVNA

275

'Exactly. I agree with your philosophy, but
am unable to practise it, as you were the witness/

' Oh,' she said, * I was far too much occupied
to think of you at all ! If anything had happened
to Jerome '

She stopped abruptly, conscious of a betrayal
which she had wished to avoid. The Count, in
his turn, desired to help her in the difficulty.

' Let us forget a very foolish affair and thank
God that no harm has come of it. We are not
always so fortunate in Vienna, where the price
of honour is something more than a prick from a
rapier. You will help me to convince the Prince
that he has not done well, Miss de Berthier. I
am afraid that he needs some good advice.'

F^o laughed.

*That will be a new rdle for me,' she answered;
'and where is the man who practises a woman's
philosophy? Are you not destroying our ideals,
Count?'

Madame, who had listened to them with a little
impatience, made a brave effort to be practical.

* The Count has come here to see you, my dear.
It is a long way from Vienna, and we must be
grateful to him.'

'Grateful!'

* And what else should we be, pray ? '
' He is a friend of Jerome's.'

2^6

Fto

The Count answered her.

* I hope so — and a friend of yours when you
will permit me. Madame la Comtesse is good
enough to say that I may stay at the chateau
until — well, until I know that it is not necessary
to stay any longer. I count upon your friend-
ship to make the days short.'

The mood defiant came upon F^o again.

' It is August,' she said quietly. ' I believe that
the sun does not set until eight o'clock, Count'

Madame raised her hands in awe, but the old
soldier laughed at the thrust.

' Come,' he said, ' a declared enemy is always
an easy fellow to deal with. We shall be friends
yet. My son will see to that'

F^o started.

' Your son ! '

'Yes, my son the Prince. He is coming up the
drive now.'

Madame clapped her hands with delight. F6o
was still looking from one to the other in ques-
tioning amazement when Jerome entered the
room, and at his heels there walked her old friend
Leslie Drummond.

hen you
is good
chateau
ecessary
' friend -

eve that
ount'
the old

always
; friends

? up the

it. F^o
in ques-
ed the
i friend

CHAPTER XXX

THE QUESTION

Dejeuner was served at twelve o'clock in the
great Hall of Mirrors, a vast apartment of the
chateau which had not been used three times
since the Empire fell. In spite of madame's
apprehensions, the fame of the house suffered
nothing from that display. Exquisite glass and
a profusion of pure white flowers atoned for the
lamented overplus of silver, then in the possession
of the family bankers. The servants, awakened
to new energies by the distinction of the guest,
went deftly to their work. The Archduke him-
self, who had travelled incognito as the Count of
Travna, and was still thus addressed, sat at the
head of the table by madame's side. Jerome, a
little restless and excited, made a brave effort to
conceal his anxiety from Yio. Leslie Drum-
mond, who had come to the house as by a miracle,
was next to Victorine, and already teaching her
those niceties of the English idiom which prevail
in University towns. But the oddity of it, Fdo

278

Fto

said, was that all met as though such a gathering
had been the most natural thing in the world.
The men were ignorant, she thought, that their
secret was known.

'You did not tell me that your father was
coming to-day,' she said to Jerome, when a babble
of conversation permitted her to ask a question.
He had a story ready for her.

* My father affects surprises. When he told me
that he meant to send the Count of Travna here,
I imagined that he would come himself. That 's
a little weakness for everyday drama which is
characteristic of him. You will like my father,
F^o.'

* Of course I shall. We have told each other
already that we are enemies. That is always a
good beginning.'

And then she asked, 'And Leslie, is he here
also by accident ? *

Jerome flushed. He was not accustomed to
prevaricate, but his courage was worsted by the
truth.

'He came down from Paris because I asked
him. There's no one here that I know, and I
wanted a friend's advice. When you introduced
us in Paris I liked him. I believe he was in love
with you once, F^o.*

' He loved me passionately, with the devotion

THE QUESTION

•79

of a lifetime, for four-and-twenty hours. But he
is a good friend. And, of course, he advised you
wisely.'

Jerome fidgeted with his plate.

' I am glad that my father has come. It 's
difficult to understand people when they are a
long way off. I was getting tired of writing
letters, and meant to put an end to it. I dare say
your friend will help me in one or two little
things.'

* One or two ? *

* Yes ; you must see that there is a great deal to
be done. I hope you will be nice to my father.'

'What a very complimentary hope! I ought
to be tricked out in ribbons as a horse at a fair.
Won't you lead me up and down, dear, and say,
"Here is lot one"?'

And then she continued in a low voice and
petulantly —

' How can I be other than I am ? And what
does it matter whether I am nice or not? You
know that I am going to London— and should
have gone there already if I had been able.'

He recognised the mood and would not strive
to combat it. Conversation flagged, and Leslie
Drummond addressed F^o for the second time
since he had come to the house.

'I wish you'd tell me what's the French for

aSo

TtO

"proctor," F6o. I'm trying to remember thtt
story about the man who was proctorised for
falling into the gutter at Cambridge, and who
said, "Save the others, I can swim." Made-
moiselle doesn't understand a word of it, and it 's
the best French, too, out of Henri Bu^'s eighteen-
penny primer.'

Victorine laughed, in her turn failing to com-
prehend more than a few words of the question.

' He has been telling me how he swam a river.
I love swimming when you can have fun in the
water. I wish you *d interpret for us, F^o. It 's
like being in a deaf and dumb asylum, where all
the mutes can hear and all the deaf can speak.
Oh, do tell him that I swim ! '

F^o interpreted laughingly.

•You will have to teach Mr. Drummond,' she
said. ' I am sure he would like to learn.'

And then to Jerome she said in a low voice —

' Behold the matron — I believe that I am going
to make a match. What is it in women that
delights them when they can make two people
miserable? Is it instinct or inherent antipathy
to the human race ? '

' Neither. It is the desire to dispose of a man
for whom they have no possible use. Men are
more unselfish. Their capacity for admiring a
large number of women at the same time leads

THE QUESTION

i8i

ring a
leads

them to increase their amatory assets whenever
possible. You don't find a man making a match
unless he has daughters who are a charge upon
the estate. He regards marriage as a curtailment
of possibilities. And then his efforts are always
maladroit — he grafts, with clumsy fi;c:ers, a rose
upon thistles, and often pricks his hando,.'

'You grant nothing to a womm's sentiment,
then?'

Oh, it counts, I suppose ! And there is always
the necessity of marrying her pretty daughter
before the age of comparisons. Men view mar-
riage from the purely commercial point of view.
They are all so sensible — when they haven't to
marry the girl themselves.'

She wondered at the flippancy of the talk upon
such a day, and at an hour momentous for them
both. That grim dawn, all the intrigue of the
terrible weeks, the dark shadow of her own future
were brushed aside, as it were, that these people
might meet in the common way of life and seem
to have no other interests than those of the un-
eventful years. When, at last, they rose, and
Jerome found an opportunity to speak a graver
word to her, she was tempted almost to answer
him in the chatter of the table.

* You are going to show my father the grounds,
F^o. You know what that means ? He wishes

it, :1 V
A 1 HiP

trill

28a

fto

to speak to you, and you owe it to me to hear
him. What you say to-day may help us or injure
us for the rest of our lives. I don't ask you to
make any excuse or to argue with him. But I
do expect you to convince him of our sincerity.'

She breathed a little quickly, for the prospect
troubled her.

' A man does not believe in a woman's sincerity
because she protests it'

* In your case, yes. No one could be with
F^o for a single day and say that she was not
sincere.*

' You compliment me, Jerome.*
He bent down and touched her pretty hair with
his lips.

* No,' he said, * I love you.*

' And loving me, you forgot your love to-day.*

He looked into her eyes, and read the truth
there.

•You know that, F^o?'

' I know it'

' A nd being reasonable, you understand that it
was inevitable. He forced it upon me because
he had no other course. They would have told
the story in Vienna, and he would have been
hounded out of the regiment. It was a silly
affair, but all these affairs are silly. I never
meant to fire at him, and I don't believe that he

iii;

THE QUESTION

983

meant to fire at me. When he threw his pistol
on the grass, he was playing for promotion and
orders. He *s a shrewd fellow, is Otto Lamberg ;
but I shall never forgive my father for sending
him to you. You must be more merciful, F60.
You don't know how thankful I was when I saw
that it was all over. Cowardice if you like —
but then, I remembered you. I saw your face
all the time I was on the ground. And I knew
how glad you'd be when you heard that it all
ended in smoke — as it should have begun.'

' God knows how glad I was,' she said, almost
in a whisper.

He kissed her for the word, and then followed
the others to the garden.

' My father is clothed and in his right mind
again, or he , would not be here,' he said as they
came out through the long window to the Italian
terrace upon the eastern side of the chateau ; ' in
three days we shall forget all this and be on our
way to London. Would you like to go to
London, F^o?

* I am going there to-morrow,' she said, — a
word of true intent spoken as a jest.

• You are not well enough,' he answered, * and
besides, to-morrow would be premature.'

She sighed wearily.

' You know that I must go,' she said.

W, I

v::-

'Pi]ii'iK

2S4

f6o

* I don't know anything of the sort — nor docs
my father. Here he is to tell you so.'

The Archduke came up to them as though by
accident, and began to walk at their side. Jerome
turned to speak to madame, who, fortified by dog
and cushions and maid attending, was enthroned
already in her great arm-chair. Victorine had
taken Leslie Drummond to the arbour, and was
amusing him theie with a delicious oration in
broken English and excited French. But F60
had never been more serious. She rebelled
against the rS/e which had been forced upon her.
She determined that she, at least, would utter no
word which should seem to be a defence of her
own actions. And in this spirit she listened to
her companion.

* My son says that you think of going to
London to-morrow. Miss de Berthier. I had not
heard of that intention from madame.'

' Because I have not spoken of it I have been
too long at the chcLteau already. Hospitality and
imposition are never good friends. Count'

He nodded his head.

* I trust that you will remember these days
without regret. Frankly, my own intention in
coming to Pontarlier was to speak to you of my
son. There are other things which claim pre-
cedence, however. Believe me, I shall never

THE QUESTION

.85

days

forgive myself for that grave mistake in sending
to your father's house one who had neither dis-
cernment nor discretion. The wrong that has
been done is the fruit of slander. I will atone
for it, if it is in my power.'

He spoke with a dignity which lost nothing by
confession, and in a manner which encouraged
the interchange of confidences.

' It has all been a mistake from the beginning,
Count,' she said almost passionately. ' The world
in which you live cannot understand my world, as
my world is unable to understand yours. Your
lives, your ideas, your actions are upon a different
plane. I have judged them by a woman's reason,
and must pay the price of my ignorance.*

* As my son might be expected to pay the price
of his birthright in this sacrifice. Princes are not
sent into the world to a bed of roses. Miss de
Berthier. I often think that evil tongues would be
less evil if the whole condition of our social state
were rightly understood. If much is given, much,
also, is owed by such men as I am. To the
country, service ; to our good name, honour ; to
society, a respect for those great principles upon
which society is constituted. If we must deny
ourselves in these, the primitive things of our
being, our solace is that duty demands such sacri-
fices of us. Such was my argument when I sent

286

Mil

'ijt 111

4«,

Captain Lamberg to your house. It is not my
argument to-day.*

She looked up at him wonderingly. He was
very grave, and seemed to express himself
with difficulty.

' My son tells me,' he continued, without wait-
ing for her to speak, ' that your father is the Count
of Mornay. There are few older families than
yours in France, mademoiselle.'

The irony of the truth occurred to her.

' And few poorer, Count.'

* Ah, there is always the money ! '

* Which buys hearts to make images of them
and put them on your pedestals.'

'The common creed. Do not believe in it
altogether. Money is as much a gift from God as
love. We forget that in many of our platitudes. It
is the fashion to speak of money as a cursed thing,
whereas it may be one of the most blessed. Let us
rule it from our argument — for money is no part of
that at least. I think only of my son's happiness ;
I am here to promote it so far as I am able.'

She did not answer him. The thought occurred
to her that she was making a poor defence of it,
yet she knew not how to respond to his sincerity.

' I am here to promote my son's happiness,' he
continued, ' and for that it is necessary to face the
truth. Jerome has ambitions ; the ambition of a

-WW:'

THE QUESTION

a87

not my

He was
himself

at wait-
i Count
es than

)f them

2 in it
God as
des. It
i thing,
Let us
part of
piness;

o. *

:curred
e of it,
icerity.
sss,' he
ice the
>n of a

soldier less, perhaps, than that of one who would
rule his father's house worthily. I cannot conceal
from you that the alliance I had conceived for
him is not the alliance he has proposed to me.
Many of my own wishes must be sacrificed if his
are to be gratified. And yet, God knows, the
sacrifice is difficult. We bear a great name in
Austria. I have hoped that he would help me to
make it as powerful as it is great. If I forget
those hopes, he, in turn, must forgo some part of
that position I had designed for him. I do not
doubt that he will consent willingly. Insincerity
at least is not to be charged against him.'

* I am sure of that,' she said quickly; 'sincerity
and the will to live for others are as natural to
Jerome as sunshine to these gardens. I have
known it from the beginning. If it had not been
so, I should still be in London. Women are vain.
Count. I believed that I was necessary to his
happiness. A woman's mistake it may have been
— but a mistake that can be atoned for. I can-
not promise you that he will forget, for you know
that he is a man who will never forget. But in
so far as my own will may cease to influence him
I will respect your wishes. It has been my inten-
tion for some days now to leave France, and to
return to my work in London. Convince Jerome
that I am right to go, and you will serve us both.

i ^ V r

li,

!f 1

2 11

'liM< ...

k".'

(88

Fto

He turned to her and asked her a plain
question.

' Miss de Berthicr/ he said, * you love my
son?

She faltered, embarrassed and troubled as she
had not been that day.

' Was it necessary to speak of that ? ' she
exclaimed.

* We will not speak of it,' he said ; * for the rest,
I respect your wishes. You shall return t >
London — but not to-morrow. You are not in a
fit state of health for that. Seek a friend always
in me. I have much to be sorry for. My debt
to you is very heavy.*

The words brought them to the place where the
others sat ; and the Count turned to madame's
chair, and so signified that their interview was
at an end. When the opportunity was at hand,
Jerome began to question her, and she read his
anxiety in the manner of it.

'Well,* he asked impatiently,* 'is it as we
wish?

* It is as your father wishes.*
*And thatis?

* That I am to return to London.*

* Then I shall go with you.*
She laughed.

' You know that it is out of the question.'

r a plain

love my

led as she

lat?' she

r the rest,
return t >
i not in a
id always
My debt

vhere the
nadame's
new was
at hand,
read his

t as we

CHAPTER XXXI

RESOLUTION

It was the Count's first visit to the Jura moun-
tains, and when the heat of the day had passed,
he set off with Jerome for a ride in the hills ; while
madame drove down to Pontarlier to see that all
was done well for the reputation of her house.
Eccentric and petulant as the old lady was, she
had yet that inheritance of dignity and of tradition
which enabled her to serve even such an occasion
as this ; avoiding, upon the one hand, the ostenta-
tion of display, and upon the other that familiarity
of manner and speech which would have betrayed
her pride in the entertainment of her guest. F^o
realised then why Carlyle has said that manners
died with the Revolution. The method, and order,
and grace of all that was done within the house
appealed to her forcibly. She recalled the million-
aires' ' soirees ' in London ; the vulgar publicity of
them ; the triumphs which were the victories of
mere guineas ; the striving of classes to become
what they never could be ; and she realised that

290

T±0

'^ i

I m

'! ,!.'!> Ssi]

I . ■• m

;ii

she lived for the day at least in a different world
— a world peopled with figures of the stories she
had loved in her childhood, obeying a code which
neither years nor money may teach ; a world of
old-time courtiers to whom the mantle of the past
had been given. And she was about to leave
that world for ever. It would remain a splendid
memory for the days to come — that vista of a
land in which her fathers had lived and moved,
and the romance of her history had been written.
She had no hesitation now as to the strength
of her own resolution. In her heart, a woman's
instinct told her that Jerome would suffer as she
must suffer. She had wished his happiness ; but
that happiness was not to be. If she could not
follow altogether the Archduke's logic, she blamed
herself for her want of perspicacity. Even now,
when all was understood between them, the
humour in which he had left her was not to be
comprehended. Jerome could laugh still at her
intention to go to London. His father had ridden
away to the hills, promising her that when she
was well enough, she should be his companion
in many an excursion such as that. Madame
treated her still as a foolish child, wayward and
impetuous. Sometimes she doubted if these
people, save Jerome alone, were sincere, either in
their attitude towards her or in the wishes they

RESOLUTION

S9X

snt world

tories she

)de which

world of

f the past

to leave

splendid

ista of a

\ moved,

1 written,
strength
woman's
'er as she
less ; but
ould not

2 blamed

^en now,

lem, the

ot to be

11 at her

d ridden

^hen she

npanion

Vladame

ard and

f these

iither in

es they

expressed. They could not know what such an
hour must cost or mean to her. Their jest was
with a woman's life. To-morrow, when she quitted
the chdteau, it would be a fate she dared not
depict. Death would be compassion in such an
hour. And she must live — must live on through
the weary years when memory alone should speak
of happiness or even of content.

They had left her alone in the gardens when
the Archduke set off for his ride, and it was not
until five o'clock that Victorine and Leslie Drum-
mond returned from their tour of the grounds.
F^o desired ardently to see Leslie, and found her
opportunity when Victorine ran in to order tea,
and her old friend came slouching up to her^
apologetically, and not a little abashed. It was
odd to meet him under such circumstances ; but
their relations had always been so frank and well
understood that neither suffered embarrassment
because of them.

* It 's fate, my dear Leslie,' she said ; ' wher-
ever destiny sends me, it bids you follow. At
Pontarlier, of all places, I did not expect you.'

'All the more reason why I should turn up.
Your friend was in a fix and sent me a telegram.
I came along because I thought that I might
help you. You know how much I want to help
you, F6o.'

I (

M ■'

S'iii

TO'"

h':

iiQfl

¥tO

'Of course I do. When you take Victorine
for an hour's walk in the woods, you help me
very much. I hope you will behave well to that
poor child, Leslie.'

He flushed to the roots of his hair, and began
to fumble awkwardly with his gloves.

' She 's a jolly girl,' he said ; * I '11 have to go
and take a course in French just to talk to her.
We've been doing the deaf and dumb business
all the afternoon. I never knew how mutes made
love until I came to Pontarlier. It seems to
me they must shuffle along pretty comfortably
somehow.*

•Leslie, you're a most fickle creature. Don't
apologise. It 's the nature of the animal. I be-
lieve you are going to fall in love with Victorine.
Let me implore you to be discreet. A man who
stumbles at his second fence is lost for ever. I
was the first. They always clear that'

He acquiesced bluntly.

'Let's agree to a truce,' he said; *I shall
always be your friend, F^o.'

• Of course you will ; that's why I want to talk
to you now. Do you know that I must go to
London to-morrow — alone ? *

He laughed.

*0h, I say, that won't dol You're hum-
bugging me.'

Victorine
I help me
ell to that

ind began

ive to go
Ik to her.
> business
ites made
seems to
nfortably

5. Don't
l1. I be-
/"ictorine.
man who
ever. I

*I shall

t to talk
St go to

e hum-

RESOLUTION ,93

She remained serious.

* I am going to London to-morrow alone, and
I want a ticket. There is only one friend here
that I can come to, and he laughs at me. I must
find another way.*

' I am to believe that you are not joking?'

* Look at me and ask yourself if I am joking.'

* But what does Jerome say about it ? '

* I do not intend to consult him.'
'Oh, but I shall!'

'Not when I tell you that I do not wish it
Get me a ticket from Pontarlier to London, and I
will believe what you say about our friendship.'

He turned and looked her full in the face.

* Do you mean to say that you wish to get
away from here and cannot, F60 ? '

* You express my wishes exactly.'
'And you are determined to go?'
' Quite determined.'

'Then I '11 take you myself.*

'You will do nothing of the sort, my dear
Leslie. I shall come out to the grounds to-
morrow morning at seven o'clock. You will
suggest driving me to the Cascades. You will
take me to the station at Pontarlier, and then
return to tell them what I have done. Nothing
could be more simple if you are sensible.'

He debated it for a little while, walking up

a94

Fto

and down the terrace as one in great perplexity.
Then he asked her a question.

* Why are you leaving Jerome?*

* Because it is better that I should leave him.*
'You have come to that conclusion properly.

It isn't a whim, or a tiff, or anything of that sort ? '
' Am I the person to indulge in whims?'

* Not usually, but you never know what a
woman will do next. Of course, if you 're serious,
I am.'

' Leslie,* she said quietly, * I was never more
serious in my life.'
' Again he reflected a little.

' There 's something behind this I don't under-
stand,* he said ; ' but I '11 take you to London,
since you mean to go.'

* You will take me to Pontarlier,' she exclaimed
decisively ; * it is a promise.'

Victorine ran up as she spoke, and the con-
versation changed abruptly. When the others
returned to the chdteau, they said that F^o had
never seemed so well. And at dinner that night,
and afterwards when she sang to them as she had
never sung before, the spirit of sustained gaiety
and of unnatural excitement was upon her.

'Is she not splendid?' cried madame in her
delight ; ' ah, we shall find a husband for her ! '

CHAPTER XXXII

ver more

THE BREAKING DAWN

Ffio, at the window of her room, watched the
dawn h'ght breaking upon the distant mountains
and the valley of pastures wherein her Eldorado
had been found. She had not slept, nor thought
of sleep, in those hours of tumultuous reaction
and of unspoken farewell. As some child leaving
a home wherein all the richest memories of her
being were stored, so she prepared to quit the
scene of her brief happiness and of her love-
dream. Every flower in those awakening gardens,
every hamlet upon that verdurous plain, had en-
deared itself to one who had first learned of the
repose of life in that stately house. The distant
city awaiting her— that very whirlpool of hope
and ambition, and stress and strife, was about
to draw her again to its vortex. She clung, in
her heart, to this fair country, as a child to the
mother that bare it Visions of the ' might have
been,' of a home in such a land with Jerome at
her side, tormented her unceasingly. She stood

39^

FlfeO

'.I

■\

\\\-

: -I'

at her window and looked upon the east glowing
with the iridescence of day, and beheld the
world of nature triumphant in the hour of dawn,
and asked herself what the night would mean to
her. The shadow of death seemed upon the path
she must follow. She could neither wholly realise
the full meaning of her act, nor contemplate its
consequences. She knew only that she must turn
to the darkness — that the light no more would
shine for her.

It was dawn when she began to prepare for
her journey; but she lingered in the task, re-
membering thai Leslie would not be ready for
her until seven o'clock, and fearing to set tongues
busy again if she were discovered in the gardens
at so early an hour. When, at last, she thought
it safe to go down, and had put together the few
things she deemed indispensable to the long day
before her, she opened the door of her room
timidly, and stood for a moment hesitating, and
almost afraid, at the head of the great staircase.
Jerome's room was there. There surged up in
her heart a great longing to say if it were but one
word of farewell to him. Through the years to
come she would hear his voice no more. The
loneliness of her own future, the thought that she
was as one forsaken by all the world, so warred
upon her courage that she did not move from the
place until minutes had passed. One word of

THE BREAKING DAWN

297

glowing
beld the
of dawn,

mean to
the path
[y realise
iplate its
lust turn
re would

pare for

task, re-

eady for

: tongues

gardens

thought

the few

ong day

|er room

ing, and

taircase.

d up in

but one

^ears to

e. The

hat she

warred

om the

/ord of

pity would have broken down her resolution in
that moment. It was not spoken, and she went
on with dry eyes — out to the gardens, to the
sunshine, and the sweet air of the day.

The clocks of the house were striking half-past
six when she quitted the house, and she remem-
bered that she must wait half an hour for Leslie yet.
Never had day dawned so slowly. Her love for
the chateau, for the wooded hills, for that scene
of her hopes and her dreams, impressed itself
upon her with renewed strength, as the visions of
that summer's day were contemplated anew. She
could not leave her home, she said. The bitter-
ness cf farewell was magnified a thousand times
when she whispered Jerome's name, and remem-
bered that, as her path was, so must his be. Never-
theless, for his sake the sacrifice must be made.
She prayed to God to give her courage of the hour.

One by one the minutes passed — she numbered
them, walking upon the eastern terrace with im-
patient steps, and a brain that seemed to burn in
the confliction of thought and argument. What-
ever her temptations might be now, she knew
that she had chosen the better part. Jerome
would forget as the changing years obliterated
memory and carried him onward to the summit
of his ambitions. She would work and suffer —
and remember. Such had been the woman's
part from the beginning. Already she had, in

.i!S''':

I-

398

FfeO

silence, spoken her last ' good-bye ' to the friends
she had found in that new home of hers. One
by one, to the arbours of the gardens, to the dogs
that fawned at her feet, to the horses that had
learned to know her voice, farewell was given.
The manner of it alone troubled her. They would
call her ingrate in the house ; she must permit
the word, for she could find no other way.

' Oh ! God knows it is hard enough ; they will
never understand me — they have never under-
stood me from the first. And yet I must — I
must for Jerome's sake.'

It was a piteous word, uttered aloud as she
stood at the stable door, listening eagerly for
Leslie's footstep on the path. And when an
answer to it reached her ears, she turned as
though one had struck her on the face. She
thought herself to be alone — but the Archduke
stood at her side, and his was the voice she had
heard.

' Miss de Berthier,' he said, and that was all.

She did not know how to answer him. There,
before her, was an erect old man, with hands
outstretched, and love and pity for her in his
kindly eyes.

* Miss de Berthier — F^o/ he said, ' help me to
make my son happy. I wish it'

She sank at his feet weeping.

e friends
rs. One
the dogs
hat had
s given.
;y would
: permit

hey will

under-

Tiust — I

as she
Jrly for
hen an
ned as
She
chduke
he had

all.

There,
hands
in his

me to

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE END OF THE PLAY

In the winter of the year, five months after F^o
had quitted the Chateau de Joux, there was a
great reception at the palace of the Prince of
Lichtenstein, which lies near the western gate of
the Prater in Vienna. Many from the most
exclusive society in Europe went to the Prince's
house, carried there by the hope of meeting the
wife of Jerome of Maros, and of seeing one
whose romantic history had delighted the ready
tongue of rumour. Ministers and diplomatists,
great dames who ruled the social city, the arch-
bishop and the canons, officers of the Cuirassiers,
the outposts of the privileged, flocked to the
palace upon that winter's day, and discussed as
they went the curiosity which sent them.

• She has come from Geneva. They spent the
honeymoon there— in a cottage. Romantic—
hein ? It was his idea— but he was always a
dreamer. They say that she is related to the
Mornays. A beautiful woman, my dear.'

* Not so quickly, r.iot so quickly Let us see

89»

360

T±0

her first. For my part, I believe nothing. When
a man marries a singer, he always discovers that
she is of noble blood. The Archduke was right
to say " no." But he has a son who will not
listen. Ah, my dear, marriage is a strange thing
nowadays ! They are letting us choose our own
husbands — and what will become of the others ?
I should die of ennui if I had married the man
I wanted.*

Thus two dames — who mounted the marble
staircase of the palace ; but elsewhere, the talk
was all of F^o. A great singer, some said ;
others declared her to be a consummate actress.
Women spoke of the old Count, and remembered
him as adventurer or merely charlatan. Cer-
tainly, the girl had played her cards well. She
had outwitted the old Archduke and brought
him, servient, to her feet. Another woman would
have been content with an out-of-the-way cere-
mony before some obliging priest; but not so this
singer. She was Jerome's wife beyond dispute.
There had been a service in the great cathedral,
the Archbishop had married them, the Archduke
had taken her to the church. A clever woman
— undoubtedly one to provoke this curiosity.

In the music-room of the palace, a lofty apart-
ment with many chandeliers, and chairs canopied
as thrones, and a garish ceiling which French

THE END OF THE PLAY

301

y. When
vers that
vas right

will not
ige thing

our own
; others?
the man

e marble
the talk
ne said ;
e actress,
lembered
n. Cer-
ell. She
brought
■in would
/ay cere-
ot so this
dispute,
athedral,
Lrchduke
r woman
sity.

ty apart-
canopied
i French

artists had painted, the curiosity of Prince
Lichtenstein's guests was gratified. Every Wed-
nesday, as the cynics avowed, the musical
amateurs of the city were permitted in this room
to show how great was the gulf which divided
them from their professional brethren. Poets,
to whom the magazines were closed books, here
recited their odes to Spring and the muses ; here
were heard the dilettanti who patronised the arts,
but were by the arts unpatronised. If few listened
to the clamour of genius, music, at least, stimu-
lated conversation and permitted many a wit to
gather profit of his long-studied impromptu.
All that was best in the society of Vienna was to
be heard or seen in the Prince's sa/ons during
these hours of loquacious strife and musical
stress. Scandalous chronicles, the discreet banter
of merry priests, the persiflage which delights
the shallow, helped the success of the matinees.
The very latest news of the Emperor, the newest
gown from Paris, the prettiest story from the
theatres, — you heard them all while the poets
babbled on and the composers waged war upon
the offended pianoforte. But never was there a
prettier story than that of F^o, the singer— a
story as Vienna knew it the twentieth time when
Jerome brought his wife from Italy.
F60 stood upon the Archduke's right hand, a

^?!:

d ' '

3di

F^O

pretty figure in a gown of green and gold. She
wore no jewels, needed no other ornament than
that of her abundant hair, and of the bright, laugh-
ing eyes, which seemed to tell, now of the shadows
of her life, now of its joys. From time to time
she would exchange a swift glance with Jerome ;
nor could she conceal that triumph of the hour
which gave her the right so to stand side by side
with him. For the rest, it may be that she did
not realise the scene or its meaning. In the
chalet above the lake of Geneva, where she had
first known the whole truths of her love, there
had been few to remind her of the greater world
which marriage must open to her. But here, in
Vienna, she awoke, rudely almost, to hear the
first message of victory, to flinch before the
homage which was her due. They called her
' Princess,' and she would run away to her room
to laugh at her own conceit, or to ask herself
if she were really that F6o who had lived in the
garrets of London but a year ago. The light and
glitter of the new world blinded her. She clung
to Jerome as one cast out to a strange city,
wherein he was her only friend. In other hours,
she would dream of the old life, of its degrada-
tions and its hopelessness ; and awake from her
ileep affrighted ; nor believe the truth until
Jerome took her in his arms and kissed her to

THE END OF THE PLAY

303

remembrance. Each day the joy of morning was
the sure knowledge that never again would the
night return. She had come out of the darkness
to this kingdom of her imagination. But the
village, and not the city, seemed to her the truer
home of love abiding.

Gaudy uniforms moved about her in Prince
Lichtenstein's salons. The old Archduke stood
proudly at her side, and said to all the world,
•My daughter.' Jerome, himself, was the same
matter-of-fact, unemotional fellow he had ever
been ; but he, too, could flush as he looked down
upon the sweet face of his wife, and so answered
for all time the tongue of rumour which long had
slandered him. Everywhere about him in the
great rooms the friends and enemies of his house
discussed the romance which had brought Feo to
Vienna. But her presence was his victory, and,
conscious of it, he stood defiantly at the bar of
social justice. In his way he was grateful to
her for that very triumph which was the due of
her beauty. * They cannot help it, F^o,' he said ;
* see how they fall down and worship you.'

She answered him with a look wherein he read
all her heart ; and afterwards, when the last of the
musicians had put away his fiddle, and the last of
the poets had condescended to admit that he was
a genius, Jerome took her to the gardens of the

304

F^O

i l<

palace, and there she confessed those intimate
things of which he heard delightedly. She feared
for herself, for him, she said. There was always
a voice to tell her that she was the one without
the wedding garment. His friends were kind,

but if they spoke all ! A deeply sensitive

character anticipated an antagonism which no
other contemplated.

* They are kind to me — but do they mean it,
dear ? What they are saying of me now ? What
do they think of me ? If one could only know !
Oh, I was happier at Montreux — I shall never
forget those days ! And people were not three
hundred years old there. My father used to say
that no one was received in Vienna unless his
nobility was three hundred years old. And I am
only twenty-five.'

Jerome, listening sympathetically, drew her
closer to him.

' It was a triumph, little wife, a triumph for us
both. Oh, I know I I have seen so many days
like this. To-morrow, the world will talk of
nothing else but F^o, and I shall listen. It must
talk of her. When our house is ready for us, we
will open the doors, and you will see who comes
in. Do not think they are kind to you for my
sake. Society, which is the sham of life, criticises
the women first. It will criticise F6o now, and I
shall laugh to read. It cannot help it, dearest ;

THE END OF THE PLAY

30s

I have brought you here because I knew what
must be — success, success always. Afterwards
we will go to Montreux to think of it If we
stay here a little while and do many things we
do not want to do, it is for my father's sake. He
wishes you to be in Vienna. After all, the sacri-
fice is not so hard— a great many fine houses,
dinners everywhere, the theatre— new gowns from
Paris. Will you live through that, F^o ? '

She raised her lips to his and kissed him.

*One of the martyrs— and oh, so happy,
Jerome, so happy ! The night was long, but the
day has come. Dear love, it will never be night
any more.'

He answered her with a lover's caress; and
after a whispered word of content, he told her
of other things.

• There was a letter from the chateau to-day,'
he said; 'old Leslie is there and intends to be-
come a fixture, I believe. Madame will weep if it
goes through without an intrigue. But I imagine
that Leslie is settled this time. We shall have
Victorine here for a honeymoon before the spring.
You always promised that, F^o.'

* Because I was a woman,' she answered laugh-
ingly ; ' the child had her picture of a lover ready
long ago; but the face was nebulous. When
Leslie came, she had only to say, " Here is the
long lost one." And she will love him passion-

3o6

TtO

■41 •

,'•«

ately because she has made up her mind to it.
Dear little Victorine, she must be happy ! '

'We will take it for granted. The man does
not count in such a case.'

' Oh, but Leslie counts always! I am not afraid
for him. He takes things as he finds them. He
would have taken me once in an old hat and a
Scotch overcoat very much too large for me —
but, you see, my picture was already drawn, dear.
And he will make a model husband. He always
did what I told him — even when I said "Go
away." There 's a man for you.'

* A censure by comparison. I, at least, never
do what I am told. How often you used to say
" Go away " to me, F60.'

She sighed.

' But I will never say it again.'

He put his arm about her, and together they
returned to the palace. The lamps were lighted
then ; all the splendour of the vast rooms asserted
itself to be the enemy of night. And to F60 it
seemed that a greater world was opening to her
eyes ; a new country of her dreams, a habitation
peopled by strange figures, a dominion of which
she must be the mistress. The immensity of the
change awed her. The garish lights of her triumph
blinded her timid eyes. By love had she come
to this kingdom. The gifts of love should make
her worthy. F^o, the singer, lived no more, she

THE END OF THE PLAY 307

said In the heart of the man she had died, as
in his heart the new F^o must be born.

At the same hour in London, old Georges dc
Berthier had gone to his club to tell any who
would listen to him of his daughter's reception
in Vienna, and of the Empress's kindness to her.
No longer did he forget that France had called
him Count, and had written the story of his fore-
fathers in the annals of the nation. ' We are of
the Mornays,' he would declare proudly ; ' with our
blood we bought liberty. In Vienna they know
us. My daughter's name is on every tongue.
Every door is open to her. I am too old to go
there— but she is very good to me. She is a
great singer, my daughter— a great artist has been
lost to the world ; it is destiny. I do not com-
plain. I shall live and die alone, but she will be
happy. And she will honour my name. She
will never forget'

The few listen and pass on; but elsewhere,
none hear the name of F60, the singer.