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 NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BLACK FOREST 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIA B. EDWARDS 
 
 author of "Barbara's history," "debenham's vow,'' etc. 
 
 
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 NEW YORK 
 
 
 FREDERICK A. 
 
 STOKES 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 
 
 I 890 
 
 
 1 * I
 
 - • • 
 
 » • • •» * •
 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS OF THE BLACK FOREST 7 
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME 45 
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL 79 
 
 THE TRAGEDY IN THE PALAZZO BORHKLI.O. . . 105 
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS 145 
 
 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY 189 
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE 213 
 
 302746
 
 A NIGHT ON THE 
 
 BORDERS OF THE BLACK FOREST.
 
 A NIGHT ON THE 
 BORDERS OF THE BLACK FOREST. 
 
 My story (if story it can be called, being an 
 episode in my own early life) carries me back to a 
 time when the world and I were better friends than 
 we are likely, perhaps, ever to be again. I was 
 young then. I had good health, good spirits, and 
 tolerably good looks. I had lately come into a 
 snug little patrimony, which I have long since dis- 
 sipated; and I was in love, or fancied myself in 
 love, with a charming coquette, who afterwards 
 threw me over for a West-country baronet with 
 seven thousand a year. 
 
 So much for myself. The subject is not one 
 that I particularly care to dwell upon; but as I 
 happen to be the hero of my own narrative, some 
 sort of self-introduction is, I suppose, necessary. 
 
 To begin then — Time: seventeen years ago. 
 
 Hour: — three o'clock p.m., on a broiling, cloud- 
 less September afternoon. 
 
 Scene: — a long, straight, dusty road, bordered 
 with young trees; a far-stretching, undulating plain, 
 yellow for the most part with corn-stubble; singu- 
 larly barren of wood and water; sprinkled here and
 
 IO A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 there with vineyards, farmsteads, and hamlets; and 
 bounded in the extreme distance by a low chain of 
 purple hills. 
 
 Place — a certain dull, unfrequented district in 
 the little kingdom of Wurtemberg, about twelve 
 miles north of Heilbronn, and six south-east of the 
 Neckar. 
 
 Dramatis Persona?: — myself, tall, sunburnt, dusty; 
 in grey suit, straw hat, knapsack and gaiters. In 
 the distance, a broad-backed pedestrian wielding a 
 long stick like an old English quarter-staff. 
 
 Now, not being sure that I took the right turn- 
 ing at the cross-roads a mile or two back, and hav- 
 ing plodded on alone all day, I resolved to over- 
 take this same pedestrian, and increased my pace 
 accordingly. He, meanwhile, unconscious of the 
 vicinity of another traveller, kept on at an easy 
 "sling-trot," his head well up, his staff swinging idly 
 in his hand — a practised pedestrian, evidently, and 
 one not easily out-walked through a long day. 
 
 I gained upon him, however, at every step, and 
 could have passed him easily; but as I drew near 
 he suddenly came to a halt, disencumbered himself 
 of his wallet, and stretched himself at full length 
 under a tree by the way-side. 
 
 I saw now that he was a fine, florid, handsome 
 fellow of about twenty-eight or thirty years of age 
 — a thorough German to look at; frank, smiling, 
 blue-eyed; dressed in a light holland blouse and 
 loose grey trousers, and wearing on his head a 
 little crimson cap with a gold tassel, such as the 
 students wear at Heidelberg university. He lifted
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. I I 
 
 it, with the customary u Gut en Abend" as I came up, 
 and when I stopped to speak, sprang to his feet 
 with ready politeness, and remained standing. 
 
 "Niedersdorf, mein Herr?" said he, in answer 
 to my inquiry. "About four miles farther on. You 
 have but to keep straight forward." 
 
 "Many thanks," I said. "You were resting. I 
 am sorry to have disturbed you." 
 
 He put up his hand with a deprecating gesture. 
 
 "It is nothing," he said. "I have walked far, 
 and the day is warm." 
 
 "I have only walked from Heilbronn, and yet I 
 am tired. Pray don't let me keep you standing." 
 
 "Will you also sit, mein Herd" he asked with 
 a pleasant smile. "There is shade for both." 
 
 So I sat down, and we fell into conversation. I 
 began by offering him a cigar; but he pulled out 
 his pipe — a great dangling German pipe, with a 
 flexible tube and a painted china bowl like a small 
 coffee-cup. 
 
 "A thousand thanks," he said; "but I prefer this 
 old pipe to all the cigars that ever came out of 
 Havannah. It was given to me eight years ago, 
 when I was a student; and my friend who gave it 
 to me is dead." 
 
 "You were at Heidelberg 1 ?" I said interroga- 
 tively. 
 
 "Yes; and Fritz (that was my friend) was at 
 Heidelberg also. He was a wonderful fellow; a 
 linguist, a mathematician, a botanist, a geologist. 
 He was only five-and-twenty when the govern-
 
 12 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 ment appointed him naturalist to an African explor- 
 ing party; and in Africa he died." 
 
 "Such a man," said I, "was a loss to the world." 
 
 "Ah, yes," he replied simply; "but a greater loss 
 to me." 
 
 To this I could answer nothing; and for some 
 minutes we smoked in silence. 
 
 "I was not clever like Fritz," he went on pre- 
 sently. "When I left Heidelberg, I went into busi- 
 ness. I am a brewer, and I live at Stuttgart. My 
 name is Gustav Bergheim — what is yours 1 ?" 
 
 "Hamilton," I replied; "Chandos Hamilton." 
 
 He repeated the name after me. 
 
 "You are an Englishman?" he said. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Good. I like the English. There was an Eng- 
 lishman at Heidelberg — such a good fellow! his 
 name was Smith. Do you know him?" 
 
 I explained that, in these fortunate islands, there 
 were probably some thirty thousand persons named 
 Smith, of whom, however, I did not know one. 
 
 "And are you a milord, and a Member of Par- 
 liament?" 
 
 I laughed, and shook my head. 
 
 "No, indeed," I replied; "neither. I read for 
 the bar; but I do not practise. I am an idle man 
 — of very little use to myself, and of none to my 
 country." 
 
 "You are travelling for your amusement?" 
 
 "I am. I have just been through the Tyrol, and 
 as far as the Italian lakes — on foot, as you see me.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 1 3 
 
 But tell me about yourself. That is far more in- 
 teresting." 
 
 "About myself?" he said smiling. "Ah, mein 
 Herr, there is not much to tell. I have told you 
 that I live at Stuttgart. Well, at this time of the 
 year, I allow myself a few weeks' holiday, and I 
 am now on my way to Frankfort, to see my Madchen, 
 who lives there with her parents." 
 
 "Then I may congratulate you on the certainty 
 of a pleasant time." 
 
 "Indeed, yes. We love each other well, my 
 Madchen and I. Her name is Frederika, and her 
 father is a rich banker and wine merchant. They 
 live in the Neue Mainzer Strasse near the Taunus 
 Gate; but the Herr Hamilton does not, perhaps, 
 know Frankfort 1 ?" 
 
 I replied that I knew Frankfort very well, and 
 that the Neue Mainzer Strasse was, to my thinking, 
 the pleasantest situation in the city. And then I 
 ventured to ask if the Fraulein Frederika was 
 pretty. 
 
 "I think her so," he said with his boyish smile; 
 "but then, you see, my eyes are in love. You shall 
 judge, however, for yourself." 
 
 And with this, he disengaged a locket from his 
 watch-chain, opened it, and showed me the portrait 
 of a golden-haired girl, who, without being actually 
 handsome, had a face as pleasant to look upon as 
 his own. 
 
 "Well?" he said anxiously. "What do you say?" 
 
 "I say that she has a charming expression," I 
 replied.
 
 14 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 "But you do not think her pretty?" 
 
 "Nay, she is better than pretty. She has the 
 beauty of real goodness." 
 
 His face glowed with pleasure. 
 
 "It is true," he said, kissing the portrait, and 
 replacing it upon his chain. "She is an angel! We 
 are to be married in the Spring." 
 
 Just at this moment, a sturdy peasant came 
 trudging up from the direction of Niedersdorf, 
 under the shade of a huge red cotton umbrella. He 
 had taken his coat off, probably for coolness, or it 
 might be for economy, and was carrying it, neatly 
 folded up, in a large, new wooden bucket. He 
 saluted us with the usual "Guten Abend" as he ap- 
 proached. 
 
 To which Bergheim laughingly replied by ask- 
 ing if the bucket was a love-token from his sweet- 
 heart. 
 
 "Nein, nein," he answered stolidly; "I bought it 
 at the Kermess* up yonder." 
 
 "So! there is a Kermess at Niedersdorf 1 ?" 
 
 "Ach, Himmel! — a famous Kermess. All the 
 world is there to-day." 
 
 And with a nod, he passed on his way. 
 
 My new friend indulged in a long and dismal 
 whistle. 
 
 "Der Teufel!" he said, "this is awkward. I'll 
 be bound, now, there won't be a vacant room at 
 any inn in the town. And I had intended to sleep 
 at Niedersdorf to-night. Had you?" 
 
 "Well, I should have been guided by circum- 
 
 * Kermess — A fair.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 1 5 
 
 stances. I should perhaps have put up at Nieders- 
 dorf, if I had found myself tired and the place 
 comfortable; or I might have dined there, and after 
 dinner taken some kind of light vehicle as far as 
 Rotheskirche." 
 
 "Rotheskirche!" he repeated. "Where is that?" 
 
 "It is a village on the Neckar. My guide-book 
 mentions it as a good starting-point for pedestrians, 
 and I am going to walk from there to Heidelberg." 
 
 "But have you not been coming out of your 
 way?" 
 
 "No; I have only taken a short cut inland, and 
 avoided the dull part of the river. You know the 
 Neckar, of course?" 
 
 "Only as far as Neckargemund; but I have heard 
 that higher up it is almost as fine as the Rhine." 
 
 "Hadn't you better join me?" I said, as we ad- 
 justed our knapsacks and prepared to resume our 
 journey. 
 
 He shook his head, smiling. 
 
 "Nay," he replied, "my route leads me by Buchen 
 and Darmstadt. I have no business to go round by 
 Heidelberg." 
 
 "It would be worth the detour" 
 
 "Ah, yes; but it would throw me two days later." 
 
 "Not if you made up for lost time by taking the 
 train from Heidelberg." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "I should like it," he said. 
 
 "Then why not do it?" 
 
 "Well — yes — I will do it. I will go with you. 
 There! let us shake hands on it, and be friends."
 
 1 6 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 So we shook hands, and it was settled. 
 
 The shadows were now beginning to lengthen; 
 but the sun still blazed in the heavens with unabated 
 intensity. Bergheim, however, strode on as lightly, 
 and chatted as gaily, as if his day's work was only 
 just beginning. Never was there so simple, so open- 
 hearted a fellow. He wore his heart literally upon 
 his sleeve, and, as we went along, told me all his 
 little history; how, for instance, his elder sister, hav- 
 ing been betrothed to his friend Fritz, had kept 
 single ever since for his sake; how he was himself 
 an only son, and the idol of his mother, now a 
 widow; how he had resolved never to leave either 
 her or his maiden sister; but intended when he 
 married to take a larger house, and bring his wife 
 into their common home; how Frederika's father had 
 at first opposed their engagement for that reason; 
 how Frederika (being, as he had already said, an 
 angel) had won the father's consent last New Year's 
 Day; and how happy he was now; and how happy 
 they should be in the good time coming; together 
 with much more to the same effect. 
 
 To all this I listened, and smiled, and assented, 
 putting in a word here and there, as occasion offered, 
 and encouraging him to talk on to his heart's content. 
 
 And now with every mile that brought us nearer 
 to Niedersdorf, the signs of fair-time increased and 
 multiplied. First came straggling groups of home- 
 ward-bound peasants — old men and women totter- 
 ing under the burden of newly-purchased household 
 goods; little children laden with gingerbread and 
 toys; young men and women in their holiday-best
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 1-7 
 
 — the latter with garlands of oak-leaves bound about 
 their hats. Then came an open cart full of laugh- 
 ing girls; then more pedestrians; then an old man 
 driving a particularly unwilling pig; then a royster- 
 ing party of foot-soldiers; and so on, till not only 
 the road, but the fields on either side and every 
 path in sight, swarmed with a double stream of way- 
 farers — the one coming from the fair — the other 
 setting towards it. 
 
 Presently, through the clouds of dust and to- 
 bacco-smoke that fouled the air, a steeple and cot- 
 tages became visible; and then, quite suddenly, we 
 found ourselves in the midst of the fair. 
 
 Here a compact, noisy, smoking, staring, laugh- 
 ing, steaming crowd circulated among the booths; 
 some pushing one way, some another — some intent 
 on buying — some on eating and drinking — some on 
 love-making and dancing. In one place we came 
 upon rows of little open stalls for the sale of every 
 commodity under heaven. In another, we peeped 
 into a great restaurant-booth full of country folks 
 demolishing pyramids of German sausage and seas 
 of Bairisch beer. Yonder, on a raised stage in 
 front of a temporary theatre, strutted a party of 
 strolling players in their gaudy tinsels and ballet- 
 dresses. The noise, the smells, the elbowing, the 
 braying of brass bands, the insufferable heat and 
 clamour, made us glad to push our way through as 
 fast as possible, and take refuge in the village inn. 
 But even here we could scarcely get a moment's 
 attention. There were parties dining and drinking 
 in every room in the house — even in the bed-rooms; 
 
 The Black Forest. 2
 
 1 8 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 while the passages, the bar, and the little gardens, 
 front and back, were all full of soldiers, free-shooters, 
 and farmers. 
 
 Having with difficulty succeeded in capturing a 
 couple of platters of bread and meat and a measure 
 of beer, we went round to the stable-yard, which was 
 crowded with charrettes, ein-spanner, and country 
 carts of all kinds. The drivers of some of these 
 were asleep in their vehicles; others were gambling 
 for kreutzers on the ground; none were willing to 
 put their horses to for the purpose of driving us to 
 Rotheskirche-on-the-Neckar. 
 
 "Ach, Herr Gott!" said one, "I brought my folks 
 from Friihlingsfeld — near upon ten stunden— and 
 shall have to take them back by and by. That's as 
 much as my beasts can do in one day, and they 
 shouldn't do more for the king!" 
 
 "I've just refused five florins to go less than half 
 that distance," said another. 
 
 At length one fellow, being somewhat less im- 
 practicable than the rest, consented to drive us as 
 far as a certain point where four roads met, on con- 
 dition that we shared his vehicle with two other 
 travellers, and that the two other travellers consented 
 to let us do so. 
 
 "And even so," he added, "I shall have to take 
 them two miles out of their way — but, perhaps, being 
 fair-time, they won't mind that." 
 
 As it happened, they were not in a condition to 
 mind that or anything very much, being a couple of 
 freeshooters from the Black Forest, wild with fun 
 and frolic, and somewhat the worse for many pota-
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 1 9 
 
 tions of Lager-bier. One of them, it seemed, had 
 won a prize at some shooting-match that same morn- 
 ing, and they had been celebrating this triumph all 
 day. Having kept us waiting, with the horses in, for 
 at least three-quarters of an hour, they came, escorted 
 by a troop of their comrades, all laughing, talking, 
 and wound up to the highest pitch of excitement. 
 Then followed a scene of last health-drinkings, last 
 hand-shakings, last embracements. Finally, we drove 
 off just as it was getting dusk, followed by many 
 huzzahs, and much waving of grey and green caps. 
 
 For the first quarter of an hour they were both 
 very noisy, exchanging boisterous greetings with 
 every passer-by, singing snatches of songs, and 
 laughing incessantly. Then, as the dusk deepened 
 and we left the last stragglers behind, they sank 
 into a tipsy stupor, and ended by falling fast 
 asleep. 
 
 Meanwhile, the driver lit his pipe and let his 
 tired horses choose their own pace; the stars came 
 out one by one overhead; and the road, leaving 
 the dead level of the plain, wound upwards through 
 a district that became more hilly with every mile. 
 
 Then I also fell asleep — I cannot tell for how 
 long — to be waked by-and-by by the stopping of 
 the charrette, and the voice of the driver, saying: — 
 
 "This is the nearest point to which I can take 
 these Herren. Will they be pleased to alight?" 
 
 I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was bright 
 starlight. Bergheim was already leaning out, and 
 opening the door. Our fellow-travellers were still 
 sound asleep. We were in the midst of a wild,
 
 20 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 hilly country, black with bristling pine-woods; and 
 had drawn up at an elevated point where four 
 roads meet. 
 
 "Which of these are we to take?" asked Bergheim, 
 as he pulled out his purse and counted the stipulated 
 number of florins into the palm of the driver. 
 
 The man pointed with his whip in a direction 
 at right angles to the road by which he was himself 
 driving. 
 
 "And how far shall we have to walk?" 
 
 "To Rotheskirche?" 
 
 "Yes — to Rotheskirche." 
 
 He grunted doubtfully. "Ugh!" he said, "I 
 can't be certain to a mile or so. It may be twelve 
 or fourteen." 
 
 "A good road?" 
 
 "Yes — a good road; but hilly. These Herren 
 have only to keep straight forward. They cannot 
 miss the way." 
 
 And so he drives off, and leaves us standing in 
 the road. The moon is now rising behind a slope 
 of dark trees — the air is chill — an owl close by 
 utters its tremulous, melancholy cry. Place and 
 hour considered, the prospect of twelve or fourteen 
 miles of a strange road, in a strange country, is 
 anything but exhilarating. We push on, however, 
 briskly; and Bergheim, whose good spirits are in- 
 vincible, whistles and chatters, and laughs away 
 as gaily as if we were just starting on a brilliant 
 May morning. 
 
 "I wonder if you were ever tired in your life!" 
 I exclaim by and by, half peevishly.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 21 
 
 "Tired!" he echoes. "Why, I am as tired at 
 this moment as a dog; and would gladly lie down 
 by the roadside, curl myself up under a tree, and 
 sleep till morning. I wonder, by the way, what 
 o'clock it is." 
 
 I pulled out my fusee-box, struck a light, and 
 looked at my watch. It was only ten o'clock. 
 
 "We have been walking," said Bergheim, "about 
 half an hour, and I don't believe we have done 
 two miles in the time. Well, it can't go on uphill 
 like this all the way!" 
 
 "Impossible," I replied. "Rotheskirche is on 
 the level of the river. We must sooner or later 
 begin descending towards the valley of the Neckar." 
 
 "I wish it might be sooner, then," laughed my 
 companion, "for I had done a good twenty miles 
 to-day before you overtook me." 
 
 "Well, perhaps we may come upon some place 
 half way. If so, I vote that we put up for the 
 night, and leave Rotheskirche till the morning." 
 
 "Ay, that would be capital!" said he. "If it 
 wasn't that I am as hungry as a wolf, I wouldn't 
 say no to the hut of a charcoal-burner to-night." 
 
 And now, plodding on more and more silently 
 as our fatigue increased, we found the pine-forests 
 gradually drawing nearer, till by and by they en- 
 closed us on every side, and our road lay through 
 the midst of them. Here in the wood, all was dark 
 — all was silent — not a breath stirred. The moon 
 was rising fast; but the shadows of the pines lay 
 long and dense upon the road, with only a sharp 
 silvery patch breaking through here and there. By
 
 22 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 and by we came upon a broad space of clearing, 
 dotted over with stacks of brushwood and great 
 symmetrical piles of barked trunks. Then followed 
 another tract of close forest. Then our road sud- 
 denly emerged into the full moonlight, and some- 
 times descending abruptly, sometimes keeping at a 
 dead level for half a mile together, continued to 
 skirt the forest on the left. 
 
 "I see a group of buildings down yonder," said 
 Bergheim, pointing to a spot deep in the shadow 
 of the hillside. 
 
 I could see nothing resembling buildings, but 
 he stuck to his opinion. 
 
 "That they are buildings," he said, "I am posi- 
 tive. More I cannot tell by this uncertain light. 
 It may be a mere cluster of cottages, or it may be 
 a farmhouse, with stacks and sheds close by. I 
 think it is the latter." 
 
 Animated by this hope, we now pushed on more 
 rapidly. For some minutes our road carried us 
 out of sight of the spot; but when we next saw it, 
 a long, low, white-fronted house and some other 
 smaller buildings were distinctly visible. 
 
 "A mountain farmstead, by all the gods of 
 Olympus!" exclaimed Bergheim, joyously. "This 
 is good fortune! And they are not gone to. bed yet, 
 either." 
 
 "How do you know that 1 ?" I asked. 
 
 "Because I saw a light." 
 
 "But suppose they do not wish to take us in?" 
 I suggested.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 23 
 
 "Suppose an impossibility! Who ever heard of 
 inhospitality among our Black Forest folk?" 
 
 "Black Forest!" I repeated. "Do you call this 
 the Black Forest?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly. All these wooded hills south 
 of Heidelberg and the Odenwald are outlying spurs 
 and patches of the old legendary Schwarzwald— 
 now dwindling year by year. Hark! the dogs have 
 found us out already!" 
 
 As he spoke, a dog barked loudly in the 
 direction of the farm; and then another, and an- 
 other. Bergheim answered them with a shout. Sud- 
 denly a bright light flashed across the darkness — 
 flitted vaguely for a moment to and fro, and then 
 came steadily towards us; resolving itself presently 
 into a lanthorn carried by a man. 
 
 We hurried eagerly to meet him — at all, square- 
 built, heavy-browed peasant, about forty years of 
 age. 
 
 "Who goes there 1 ?" he said, holding the lanthorn 
 high above his head, and shading his eyes with his 
 hand. 
 
 "Travellers," replied my companion. "Tra- 
 vellers wanting food and shelter for the night." 
 
 The man looked at us for a moment in silence. 
 
 "You travel late," he said, at length. 
 
 "Ay— and we must have gone on still later, if 
 we had not come upon your house. We were 
 bound for Rotheskirche. Can you take us in." 
 
 "Yes," he said sullenly. "I suppose so. This 
 way." 
 
 And, swinging the lantho"rn as he went, he
 
 24 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 turned on his heel abruptly, and led the way back 
 to the house. 
 
 "A boorish fellow enough!" said I, as we 
 followed. 
 
 "Nay — a mere peasant!" replied Bergheim. "A 
 mere peasant — rough, but kindly." 
 
 As we drew near the house, two large mastiff 
 pups came rushing out from a yard somewhere at 
 the back, and a huge, tawny dog chained up in an 
 open shed close by, strained at his collar and yelled 
 savagely. 
 
 "Down, Caspar! Down, Schwartz!" growled our 
 conductor, with an oath. 
 
 And immediately the pups slunk back into the 
 yard, and the dog in the shed dropped into a low 
 snarl, eyeing us fiercely as we passed. 
 
 The house-door opened straight upon a large, 
 low, raftered kitchen, with a cavernous fire-place at 
 the further end, flanked on each side by a high- 
 backed settle. The settles, the long table in the 
 middle of the room, the stools and chairs ranged 
 round the walls, the heavy beams overhead, from 
 which hung strings of dried herbs, ropes of onions, 
 hams, and the like, were all of old, dark oak. The 
 ceiling was black with the smoke of at least a 
 century. An oak dresser laden with rough blue 
 and grey ware and rows of metal-lidded drinking 
 mugs; an old blunderbuss and a horn-handled 
 riding- whip over the chimney-piece; a couple of 
 hatchets, a spade, and a fishing-rod behind the 
 door; and a Swiss clock in the corner, completed 
 the furniture of the room. A couple of half-charred
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 25 
 
 logs smouldered on the hearth. An oil-lamp flared 
 upon the middle of the table, at one corner of 
 which sat two men with a stone jug and a couple 
 of beer-mugs between them, playing at cards, and 
 a third man looking on. The third man rose as 
 we entered, and came forward. He was so like the 
 one who had come out to meet us, that I saw at 
 once they must be brothers. 
 
 "Two travellers," said our conductor, setting 
 down his lanthorn, and shutting the door be- 
 hind us. 
 
 The players laid down their greasy cards to 
 stare at us. The second brother, a trifle more civil 
 than the first, asked if we wished for anything be- 
 fore going to bed. 
 
 Bergheim unslung his wallet, flung himself 
 wearily into a corner of the settle, and said: — 
 
 "Heavens and earth! yes. We are almost 
 starving. We have been on the road all day, and 
 have had no regular dinner. Is this a farmhouse 
 or an inn?" 
 
 "Both." 
 
 "What have you in the house?" 
 
 " Ham — eggs — voorst — cheese — wine — beer — 
 coffee." 
 
 "Then bring us the best you have, and plenty 
 of it, and as fast as you can. We'll begin on the 
 voorst and a bottle of your best wine, while the 
 ham and eggs are frying; and we'll have the coffee 
 to finish." 
 
 The man nodded; went to a door at the other 
 end of the room — repeated the order to some one
 
 26 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 out of sight; and came back again, his hands in 
 his pockets. The first brother, meanwhile, was 
 lounging against the table, looking on at the 
 players. 
 
 "It's a long game," he said. 
 
 "Ay — but it's just ended," replied one of the 
 men, putting down his card with an air of triumph. 
 
 His adversary pondered, threw down his hand, 
 and, with a round oath, owned himself beaten. 
 
 Then they divided the remaining contents of 
 the stone jug, drained their mugs, and rose to go. 
 The loser pulled out a handful of small coin, and 
 paid the reckoning for both. 
 
 "We've sat late," said he, with a glance at the 
 clock. "Good night, Karl — good night, Friedrich." 
 
 The first brother, whom I judged to be Karl, 
 nodded sulkily. The second muttered a gruff sort 
 of good night. The countrymen lit their pipes, took 
 another long stare at Bergheim and myself, touched 
 their hats, and went away. 
 
 The first brother, Karl, who was evidently the 
 master, went out with them, shutting the door with 
 a tremendous bang. The younger, Friedrich, cleared 
 the board, opened a cupboard under the dresser, 
 brought out a loaf of black bread, a lump of 
 voorst, and part of a goat's milk cheese, and then 
 went to fetch the wine. Meanwhile we each drew 
 a chair to the table, and fell to vigorously. When 
 Friedrich returned with the wine, a pleasant smell 
 of broiling ham came in with him through the 
 door.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 2% 
 
 "You are hungry," he said, looking down at us 
 from under his black brows. 
 
 "Ay, and thirsty," replied Gustav, reaching out 
 his hand for the bottle. "Is your wine good?" 
 
 The man shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Drink and judge for yourself," he answered. 
 "It's the best we have." 
 
 "Then drink with us," said my companion, 
 good-humouredly, filling a glass and pushing it 
 towards him across the table. 
 
 But he shook his head with an ungracious 
 "Nein, nein," and again left the room. The next 
 moment we heard his heavy footfall going to and 
 fro overhead. 
 
 "He is preparing our beds," I said. "Are there 
 no women, I wonder, about the place 1 ?" 
 
 "Well, yes — this looks like one," laughed Berg- 
 heim, as the door leading to the inner kitchen 
 again opened, and a big stolid-looking peasant girl 
 came in with a smoking dish of ham and eggs, 
 which she set down before us on the table. "Stop! 
 stop!" he exclaimed, as she turned away. "Don't 
 be in such a hurry, my girl. What is your name?" 
 
 She stopped with a bewildered look, but said 
 nothing. Bergheim repeated the question. 
 
 "My — my name 1 ?" she stammered. "Annchen." 
 
 "Good. Then, Annchen" (filling a bumper 
 and draining it at a draught), "I drink to thy 
 health. Wilt thou drink to mine?" And he 
 pointed to the glass poured out for the landlord's 
 brother. 
 
 But she only looked at him in the same scared,
 
 28 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 stupid way, and kept edging away towards the 
 door. 
 
 "Let her go," I said. "She is evidently half an 
 idiot." 
 
 "She's no idiot to refuse that wine," replied 
 Bergheim, as the door closed after her. "It's the 
 most abominable mixture I ever put inside my lips. 
 Have you tasted it?" 
 
 I had not tasted it as yet, and now I would 
 not; so, the elder brother coming back just at that 
 moment, we called for beer. 
 
 "Don't you like the wine 1 ?" he said, scowling. 
 
 "No," replied Bergheim. "Do you? If so, you're 
 welcome to the rest of it." 
 
 The landlord took up the bottle and held it be- 
 tween his eyes and the lamp. 
 
 "Bad as it is," he said, "you've drunk half 
 of it." 
 
 "Not I — only one glass, thanks be to Bacchus! 
 There stands the other. Let us have a Schoppen 
 of your best beer — and I hope it will be better than 
 your best wine." 
 
 The landlord looked from Bergheim to the glass 
 — from the glass to the bottle. He seemed to be 
 measuring with his eye how much had really been 
 drunk. Then he went to the inner door; called to 
 Friedrich to bring a Schoppen of the Bairisch, and 
 went away, shutting the door after him. From the 
 sound of his footsteps, it seemed to us as if he also 
 was gone upstairs, but into some more distant part 
 of the house. Presently the younger brother re-
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. . 2Q 
 
 appeared with the beer, placed it before us in 
 silence, and went away as before. 
 
 "The most forbidding, disagreeable, uncivil pair 
 I ever saw in my life!" said I. 
 
 "They're not fascinating, I admit," said Berg- 
 heim, leaning back in his chair with the air of a 
 man whose appetite is somewhat appeased. "I 
 don't know which is the worst — their wine or their 
 manners." 
 
 And then he yawned tremendously, and pushed 
 out his plate, which I heaped afresh with ham and 
 eggs. When he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he 
 leaned his head upon his hand, and declared he 
 was too tired to eat more. 
 
 "And yet," he added, "I am still hungry." 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said; "eat enough now you are 
 about it. How is the beer 1 ?" 
 
 He took a pull at the Schoppen. 
 
 "Capital," he said. "Now I can go on again." 
 
 The next instant he was nodding over his plate. 
 
 "I am ashamed to be so stupid," he said, rous- 
 ing himself presently; "but I am overpowered with 
 fatigue. Let us have the coffee; it will wake me 
 up a bit." 
 
 But he had no sooner said this than his chin 
 dropped on his breast, and he was sound asleep. 
 
 I did not call for the coffee immediately. I let 
 him sleep, and went on quietly with my supper. 
 Just as I had done, however, the brothers came 
 back together, Friedrich bringing the coffee — two 
 large cups on a tray. The elder, standing by the
 
 30 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 table, looked down at Bergheim with his unfriendly 
 frown. 
 
 "Your friend is tired," he said. 
 
 "Yes, he has walked far to-day — much farther 
 than I have." 
 
 "Humph! you will be glad to go to bed." 
 
 "Indeed we shall. Are our rooms ready?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I took one of the cups, and put the other beside 
 Bergheim's plate. 
 
 "Here, Bergheim," I said, "wake up; the coffee 
 is waiting." 
 
 But he slept on, and never heard me. 
 
 I then lifted my own cup to my lips — paused 
 — set it down untasted. It had an odd, pungent 
 smell that I did not like. 
 
 "What is the matter with it?" I said, "it does 
 not smell like pure coffee." 
 
 The brothers exchanged a rapid glance. 
 
 "It is the Kirschenwasser," said Karl. "We al- 
 ways put it in our black coffee." 
 
 I tasted it, but the flavour of the coffee was 
 quite drowned in that of the coarse, fiery spirit. 
 
 "Do you not like it?" asked the younger brother. 
 
 "It is very strong," I said. 
 
 "But it is very good," replied he; "real Black 
 Forest Kirsch — the best thing in the world, if one 
 is tired after a journey. Drink it off, mein Herr; 
 it is of no use to sip it. It will make you sleep." 
 
 This was the longest speech either of them had 
 yet made. 
 
 "Thanks," I said, pulling out my cigar-case, "but
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 3 I 
 
 this stuff is too powerful to be drunk at a draught. 
 I shall make it last out a cigar or two." 
 
 "And your friend 1 ?" 
 
 "He is better without the Kirsch, and may sleep 
 till I am ready to go to bed." 
 
 Again they looked at each other. 
 
 "You need not sit up," I said impatiently; for 
 it annoyed me, somehow, to have them standing 
 there, one at each side of the table, alternately 
 looking at me and at each other. "I will call the 
 Madchen to show us to our rooms when we are 
 ready." 
 
 "Good," said the elder brother, after a moment's 
 hesitation. "Come, Friedrich." 
 
 Friedrich turned at once to follow him, and they 
 both left the room. 
 
 I listened. I heard them for awhile moving to 
 and fro in the inner kitchen; then the sound of 
 their double footsteps going up the stairs; then the 
 murmur of their voices somewhere above, yet not 
 exactly overhead; then silence. 
 
 I felt more comfortable, now that they were 
 fairly gone, and not likely to return. I breathed 
 more freely. I had disliked the brothers from the 
 first. I had felt uneasy from the moment I crossed 
 their threshold. Nothing, I told myself, should in- 
 duce me at any time, or under any circumstances, 
 to put up under their roof again. 
 
 Pondering thus, I smoked on, and took another 
 sip of the coffee. It was not so hot now, and some 
 of the strength of the spirit had gone off; but 
 under the flavour of the Kirschenwasser I could (or
 
 32 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 fancied I could) detect another flavour, pungent 
 and bitter — a flavour, in short, just corresponding 
 to the smell that I had at first noticed. 
 
 This startled me. I scarcely knew why, but it 
 did startle me, and somewhat unpleasantly. At the 
 same instant I observed that Bergheim, in the heavi- 
 ness and helplessness of sleep, had swayed over on 
 one side, and was hanging very uncomfortably 
 across one arm of his chair. 
 
 "Come, come," I said, "wake up, Herr fellow- 
 traveller. This sort of dozing will do you no good. 
 Wake up, and come to bed." 
 
 And with this I took him by the arm, and tried 
 to rouse him. Then for the first time I observed 
 that his face was deadly white — that his teeth were 
 fast clenched — that his breathing was unnatural and 
 laboured. 
 
 I sprang to my feet. I dragged him into an 
 upright posture; I tore open his neckcloth; I was 
 on the point of rushing to the door to call for help, 
 when a suspicion — one of those terrible suspicions 
 which are suspicion and conviction in one — flashed 
 suddenly upon me. 
 
 The rejected glass of wine was still standing on 
 the table. I smelt it — tasted it. My dread was 
 confirmed. It had the same pungent odour, the 
 same bitter flavour as the coffee. 
 
 In a moment I measured all the horror of my 
 position; alone — unarmed — my unconscious fellow- 
 traveller drugged and helpless on my hands — the 
 murderers overhead, biding their time — the silence 
 and darkness of night — the unfrequented road — the
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 33 
 
 solitary house — the improbability of help from with- 
 out — the imminence of the danger from within. . . . 
 I saw it all! What could I do? Was there any 
 way, any chance, any hope 1 ? 
 
 I turned cold and dizzy. I leaned against the 
 table for support. Was I also drugged, and was 
 my turn coming'? I looked round for water, but 
 there was none upon the table. I did not dare to 
 touch the beer, lest it also should be doctored. 
 
 At that instant I heard a faint sound outside, 
 like the creaking of a stair. My presence of mind 
 had not as yet for a moment deserted me, and 
 now my strength came back at the approach of 
 danger. I cast a rapid glance round the room. 
 There was the blunderbuss over the chimney-piece 
 — there were the two hatchets in the corner. I 
 moved a chair loudly, and hummed some snatches 
 of songs. 
 
 They should know that I was awake — this might 
 at least keep them off a little longer. The scraps 
 of songs covered the sound of my footsteps as I 
 stole across the room and secured the hatchets. 
 One of these I laid before me on the table; the 
 other I hid among the wood in the wood-basket 
 beside the hearth — singing, as it were to myself, all 
 the time. 
 
 Then I listened breathlessly. 
 
 All was silent. 
 
 Then I clinked my tea-spoon in my cup — 
 feigned a long yawn — under cover of the yawn took 
 down the blunderbuss from its hook — and listened 
 again. 
 
 The Black Forest. 3
 
 34 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 Still all was silent — silent as death — save only 
 the loud ticking of the clock in the corner, and the 
 heavy beating of my heart. 
 
 Then, after a few seconds that dragged past 
 like hours, I distinctly heard a muffled tread steal- 
 ing softly across the floor overhead, and another 
 very faint retreating creak or two upon the stairs. 
 
 To examine the blunderbuss, find it loaded with 
 a heavy charge of slugs, test the dryness of the 
 powder, cock it, and place it ready for use beside 
 the hatchet on the table, was but the work of a 
 moment. 
 
 And now my course was taken. My spirits rose 
 with the possession of a certain means of defence, 
 and I prepared to sell my own life, and the life of 
 the poor fellow beside me, as dearly as might be. 
 
 I must turn the kitchen into a fortress, and de- 
 fend my fortress as long as defence was possible. 
 If I could hold it till daylight came to my aid, 
 bringing with it the chances of traffic, of passers-by, 
 of farm-labourers coming to their daily work — then 
 I felt we should be comparatively safe. If, how- 
 ever, I could not keep the enemy out so long, then 
 
 I had another resource But of this there was 
 
 no time to think at present. First of all, I must 
 barricade my fortress. 
 
 The windows were already shuttered-up and 
 barred on the inside. The key of the house-door 
 was in the lock, and only needed turning. The 
 heavy iron bolt, in like manner, had only to be shot 
 into its place. To do this, however, would make 
 too much noise just now. First and most im-
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 35 
 
 portant was the door communicating with the inner 
 kitchen and the stairs. This, above all, I must 
 secure; and this, as I found to my dismay, had no 
 bolts or locks whatever on the inside — nothing but 
 a clumsy wooden latch! 
 
 To pile against it every moveable in the room 
 was my obvious course; but then it was one that, 
 by the mere noise it must make, would at once 
 alarm the enemy. No! I must secure that door — 
 but secure it silently — at all events for the next few 
 minutes. 
 
 Inspired by dread necessity, I became fertile in 
 expedients. With a couple of iron forks snatched 
 from the table, I pinned the latch down, forcing the 
 prongs by sheer strength of hand deep into the 
 woodwork of the door. This done, I tore down 
 one of the old rusty bits from its nail above the 
 mantel-shelf, and, linking it firmly over the thump- 
 piece of the latch on one side, and over the clumsy 
 catch on the other, I improvised a door-chain that 
 would at least act as a momentary check in case 
 the door was forced from without. Lastly, by means 
 of some half-charred splinters from the hearth, I 
 contrived to wedge up the bottom of the door in 
 such a manner that, the more it was pushed in- 
 wards, the more firmly fixed it must become. 
 
 So far my work had been noiseless; but now 
 the time was come when it could be so no longer. 
 The house-door must be secured at all costs; and 
 I knew beforehand that I could not move those 
 heavy fastenings unheard. Nor did I. The key, 
 despite all my efforts, grated loudly in the lock, and 
 
 3*
 
 36 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 the bolt resisted the rusty staples. I got it in, how- 
 everj and the next moment heard rapid footsteps 
 overhead. 
 
 I knew now that the crisis was coming, and from 
 this moment prepared for open resistance. 
 
 Regardless of noise, I dragged out first one 
 heavy oaken settle, and then the other — placed them 
 against the inner door — piled them with chairs, 
 stools, firewood, every heavy thing I could lay hands 
 upon — raked the slumbering embers, and threw 
 more wood upon the hearth, so as to bar that 
 avenue, if any attempt was made by way of the 
 chimney — and hastily ransacked every drawer in the 
 dresser, in the hope of finding something in the 
 shape of ammunition. 
 
 Meanwhile, the brothers had taken alarm, and 
 having tried the inner door, had now gone round 
 to the front, where I heard them try first the house- 
 door and then the windows. 
 
 "Open! open, I say!" shouted the elder — (I 
 knew him by his voice). "What is the matter 
 within?" 
 
 "The matter is that I choose to spend the night 
 in this room," I shouted in reply. 
 
 "It is a public room — you have no right to shut 
 the doors!" he said, with a thundering blow upon 
 the lock. 
 
 "Right or no right," I answered, "I shoot dead 
 the first man who forces his way in!" 
 
 There was a momentary silence, and I heard 
 them muttering together outside.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 37 
 
 I had by this time found, at the back of one 
 of the drawers , a handful of small shot screwed up 
 in a bit of newspaper, and a battered old powder- 
 flask containing about three charges of powder. 
 Little as it was, it helped to give me confidence. 
 
 Then the parleying began afresh. 
 
 "Once more, accursed Englishman will you 
 open the door?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 A torrent of savage oaths — then a pause. 
 
 "Force us to break it open, and it will be the 
 worse for you!" 
 
 "Try." 
 
 All this time I had been wrenching out the 
 hooks from the dresser, and the nails, wherever I 
 could find any, from the walls. Already I had 
 enough to reload the blunderbuss three times, with 
 my three charges of powder. If only Bergheim were 
 himself now! .... 
 
 I still heard the murmuring of the brothers' 
 voices outside — then the sound of their retreating 
 footsteps — then an outburst of barking and yelping 
 at the back, which showed they had let loose the 
 dogs. Then all was silent. 
 
 Where were they gone 1 ? How would they begin 
 the attack? In what way would it all end? I 
 glanced at my watch. It was just twenty minutes 
 past one. In two hours and a half, or three hours, 
 it would be dawn. Three hours! Great Heavens! 
 what an eternity! 
 
 I looked round to see if there was anything I 
 could still do for defence; but it seemed to me that 
 
 746
 
 38 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 I had already done what little it was possible to do 
 with the material at hand. I could only wait. 
 
 All at once I heard their footsteps in the house 
 again. They were going rapidly to and fro over- 
 head; then up and down the stairs; then overhead 
 again; and presently I heard a couple of bolts shot, 
 and apparently a heavy wooden bar put up, on the 
 other side of the inner kitchen-door which I had 
 just been at so much pains to barricade. This 
 done, they seemed to go away. A distant door 
 banged heavily; and again there was silence. 
 
 Five minutes, ten minutes, went by. Bergheim 
 still slept heavily; but his breathing, I fancied, was 
 less stertorous, and his countenance less rigid, than 
 when I first discovered his condition. I had no 
 water with which to bathe his head; but I rubbed 
 his forehead and the palms of his hands with beer, 
 and did what I could to keep his body upright. 
 
 Then I heard the enemy coming back to the 
 front, slowly, and with heavy footfalls. They paused 
 for a moment at the front door, seemed to set 
 something down, and then retreated quickly. After 
 an interval of about three minutes, they returned in 
 the same way; stopped at the same place; and hur- 
 ried off as before. This they did several times in 
 succession. Listening with suspended breath and 
 my ear against the keyhole, I distinctly heard them 
 deposit some kind of burden each time — evidently 
 a weighty burden, from the way in which they car- 
 ried it; and yet, strange to say, one that, despite 
 its weight, made scarcely any noise in the setting 
 down.
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 39 
 
 Just at this moment, when all my senses were 
 concentrated in the one act of listening, Bergheim 
 stirred for the first time, and began muttering. 
 
 "The man!" he said, in a low, suppressed tone. 
 "The man under the hearth!" 
 
 I flew to him at the first sound of his voice. 
 He was recovering. Heaven be thanked, he was 
 recovering! In a few minutes we should be two — 
 two against two — right and might on our side — 
 both ready for the defence of our lives! 
 
 "One man under the hearth," he went on, in 
 the same unnatural tone. "Four men at the bottom 
 of the pond — all murdered — foully murdered!" 
 
 I had scarcely heeded his first words; but now, 
 as their sense broke upon me, that great rush of 
 exultation and thankfulness was suddenly arrested. 
 My heart stood still; I trembled; I turned cold with 
 horror. 
 
 Then the veins swelled on his forehead; his 
 face became purple; and he struck out blindly, as 
 one oppressed with some horrible nightmare. 
 
 "Blood!" he gasped. "Everywhere blood — don't 
 touch it. God's vengeance — help!" . . . 
 
 And so, struggling violently in my arms, he 
 opened his eyes, stared wildly round, and made an 
 effort to get upon his feet. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he said, sinking back 
 again, and trembling from head to foot. "Was I 
 asleep 1 ?" 
 
 I rubbed his hands and forehead again with 
 beer. I tasted it, and finding no ill flavour upon it, 
 put a tiny drop to his lips.
 
 4 » A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 "You are all right now," I said. "You were 
 very tired, and you fell asleep after supper. Don't 
 you remember'?" 
 
 He put his hand to his head. "Ah, yes," he 
 said, "I remember. I have been dreaming" . . . 
 
 He looked round the room in a bewildered way; 
 then, struck all at once by the strange disorder of 
 the furniture, asked what was the matter. 
 
 I told him in the least alarming way, and with 
 the fewest words I could muster, but before I could 
 get to the end of my explanation he was up, ready 
 for resistance, and apparently himself again. 
 
 "Where are they 1 ?" he said. "What are they 
 doing now? Outside, do you say? Why, good 
 heavens! man, they're blocking us in. Listen! — 
 don't you hear? — it is the rustling of straw. Bring 
 the blunderbuss! quick! — to the window . . . God 
 grant we may not be too late!" 
 
 We both rushed to the window; Bergheim to 
 undo the shutter, and I to shoot down the first 
 man in sight. 
 
 "Look there!" he said, and pointed to the 
 door. 
 
 A thin stream of smoke was oozing under the 
 threshold and stealing upward in a filmy cloud that 
 already dimmed the atmosphere of the room. 
 
 "They are going to burn us out!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "No, they are going to burn us alive," replied 
 Bergheim, between his clenched teeth. "We know 
 too much, and they are determined to silence us at 
 all costs, though they burn the house down over 
 our heads. Now hold your breath, for I am going
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 4? 
 
 to open the window, and the smoke will rush in 
 like a torrent." 
 
 He opened it, but very little came in— for this 
 reason, that the outside was densely blocked with 
 straw, which had not yet ignited. 
 
 In a moment we had dragged the table under 
 the window — put our weapons aside ready for use 
 — and set to work to cut our way out. 
 
 Bergheim, standing on the table, wrenched away 
 the straw in great armfuls. I caught it, and hurled 
 it into the middle of the room. We laboured at 
 the work like giants. In a few moments the pile 
 had mounted to the height of the table. Then 
 Bergheim cried out that the straw under his hands 
 was taking fire, and that he dared throw it back 
 into the room no longer! 
 
 I sprang to his aid with the two hatchets. I 
 gave him one — I fell to work with the other. The 
 smoke and flame rushed in our faces, as we hewed 
 down the burning straw. 
 
 Meanwhile, the room behind us was full of 
 smoke, and above the noise of our own frantic 
 labour we heard a mighty crackling and hissing, as 
 of a great conflagration. 
 
 "Take the blunderbuss — quick!" cried Berg- 
 heim, hoarsely. "There is nothing but smoke out- 
 side now, and burning straw below. Follow me! 
 Jump as far out as you can, and shoot the first you 
 see!" 
 
 And with this, he leaped out into the smoke, 
 and was gone! 
 
 I only waited to grope out the blunderbuss;
 
 42 A NIGHT ON THE BORDERS 
 
 then, holding it high above my head, I shut my 
 eyes and sprang after him, clearing the worst of the 
 fire, and falling on my hands and knees among a 
 heap of smouldering straw and ashes beyond. At 
 the same instant that I touched the ground, I heard 
 the sharp crack of a rifle , and saw two figures rush 
 past me. 
 
 To dash out in pursuit without casting one 
 backward glance at the burning house behind me 
 — to see a tall figure vanishing among the trees, 
 and two others in full chase — to cover the foremost 
 of these two and bring him down as one would 
 bring down a wolf in the open, was for me but the 
 work of a second. 
 
 I saw him fall. I saw the other hesitate, look 
 
 back, throw up his hands with a wild gesture, and 
 
 fly towards the hills. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 The rest of my story is soon told. The one I 
 had shot was Friedrich, the younger brother. He 
 died in about half an hour, and never spoke again. 
 The elder escaped into the forest, and there suc- 
 ceeded in hiding himself for several weeks among 
 the charcoal-burners. Being hunted down, how- 
 ever, at last, he was tried at Heilbronn, and there 
 executed. 
 
 The pair, it seemed, were practised murderers. 
 The pond, when dragged, was found to contain four 
 of their victims; and when the crumbling ruins of 
 the homestead were cleared for the purpose, the 
 mortal remains of a fifth were discovered under the 
 hearth, in that kitchen which had so nearly proved
 
 OF THE BLACK FOREST. 43 
 
 our grave. A store of money, clothes, and two or 
 three watches, was also found secreted in a granary- 
 near the house; and these things served to identify 
 three out of the five corpses thus providentially 
 brought to light. 
 
 My friend , Gustav Bergheim (now the friend of 
 seventeen years) is well and prosperous; married 
 to his "Madchen;" and the happy father of a 
 numerous family. He often tells the tale of our 
 terrible night on the borders of the Black Forest, 
 and avers that in that awful dream in which his 
 senses came back to him, he distinctly saw, as in a 
 vision, the mouldering form beneath the hearth, and 
 the others under the sluggish waters of the pond.
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME.
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 A few years ago, no matter how many, I, Har- 
 court Blunt, was travelling with my friend Coventry 
 Tumour, and it was on the steps of our hotel that 
 I received from him the announcement that he was 
 again in love. 
 
 "I tell you, Blunt," said my fellow-traveller, 
 "she's the loveliest creature I ever beheld in my 
 life." 
 
 I laughed outright. 
 
 "My dear fellow," I replied, "you've so often 
 seen the loveliest creature you ever beheld in your 
 life." 
 
 "Ay, but I am in earnest now for the first 
 time." 
 
 "And you have so often been in earnest for the 
 first time! Remember the inn-keeper's daughter at 
 Cologne." 
 
 "A pretty housemaid, whom no training could 
 have made presentable." 
 
 "Then there was the beautiful American at 
 Interlaken." 
 
 "Yes; but—" 
 
 "And the bella Marchesa at Prince Torlonia's 
 ball."
 
 48 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 "Not one of them worthy to be named in the 
 same breath with my imperial Venetian. Come 
 with me to the Merceria and be convinced. By tak- 
 ing a gondola to St. Mark's Place we shall be there 
 in a quarter of an hour." 
 
 I went, and he raved of his new flame all the 
 way. She was a Jewess — he would convert her. 
 Her father kept a shop in the Merceria — what of 
 that? He dealt only in costliest Oriental mer- 
 chandise, and was as rich as a Rothschild. As for 
 any probable injury to his own prospects, why need 
 he hesitate on that account 1 ? What were "pros- 
 pects" when weighed against the happiness of 
 one's whole life? Besides, he was not ambitious. 
 He didn't care to go into Parliament. If his uncle, 
 Sir Geoffrey, cut him off with a shilling, what then? 
 He had a moderate independence of which no one 
 living could deprive him, and what more could any 
 reasonable man desire? 
 
 I listened, smiled, and was silent. I knew 
 Coventry Tumour too well to attach the smallest 
 degree of importance to anything that he might say 
 or do in a matter of this kind. To be distractedly 
 in love was his normal condition. We had been 
 friends from boyhood; and since the time when he 
 used to cherish a hopeless attachment to the young 
 lady behind the counter of the tart-shop at Harrow, 
 I had never known him "fancy-free" for more than 
 a few weeks at a time. He had gone through every 
 phase of no less than three grandes passions during 
 the five months that we had now been travelling 
 together; and having left Rome about eleven weeks
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 49 
 
 before with every hope laid waste, and a heart so 
 broken that it could never by any possibility be put 
 together again, he was now, according to the na- 
 tural course of events, just ready to fall in love 
 again. 
 
 We landed at the traghetto San Marco. It was 
 a cloudless morning towards the middle of April, 
 just ten years ago. The Ducal Palace glowed in 
 the hot sunshine; the boatmen were clustered, gos- 
 siping, about the quay; the orange-vendors were 
 busy under the arches of the piazzetta; the flaneurs 
 were already eating ices and smoking cigarettes 
 outside the cafes. There was an Austrian military 
 band, strapped, buckled, moustachioed, and white- 
 coated, playing just in front of St. Mark's; and the 
 shadow of the great bell-tower slept all across the 
 square. 
 
 Passing under the low round archway leading 
 •to the Merceria, we plunged at once into that cool 
 labyrinth of narrow, intricate, and picturesque 
 streets, where the sun never penetrates — where no 
 wheels are heard, and no beast of burden is seen 
 — where every house is a shop, and every shop- 
 front is open to the ground, as in an Oriental 
 bazaar — where the upper balconies seem almost to 
 meet overhead, and are separated by only a strip 
 of burning sky — and where more than three people 
 cannot march abreast in any part. Pushing our 
 way as best we might through the motley crowd 
 that here chatters, cheapens, buys, sells, and per- 
 petually jostles to and fro, we came presently to a 
 shop for the sale of Eastern goods. A few glass 
 
 The Black Forest. 4
 
 50 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 jars, filled with spices and some pieces of stuff, un- 
 tidily strewed the counter next the street; but 
 within, dark and narrow though it seemed, the place 
 was crammed with costliest merchandise. Cases of 
 gorgeous Oriental jewelry; embroideries and fringes 
 of massive gold and silver bullion; precious drugs 
 and spices; exquisite toys in filigree; miracles of 
 carving in ivory, sandal-wood, and amber; jewelled 
 yataghans; scimitars of state, rich with "barbaric 
 pearl and gold;" bales of Cashmere shawls, China 
 silks, India muslins, gauzes, and the like, filled 
 every inch of available space from floor to ceil- 
 ing, leaving only a narrow lane from the door to 
 the counter, and a still narrower passage to the 
 rooms beyond the shop. 
 
 We went in. A young woman who was sitting 
 reading on a low seat behind the counter, laid aside 
 her book, and rose slowly. She was dressed wholly 
 in black. I cannot describe the fashion of her gar- 
 ments. I only know that they fell about her in 
 long, soft, trailing folds, leaving a narrow band of 
 fine cambric visible at the throat and wrists; and 
 that, however graceful and unusual this dress may 
 have been, I scarcely observed it, so entirely was I 
 taken up with admiration of her beauty. 
 
 For she was indeed very beautiful — beautiful in 
 a way I had not anticipated Coventry Tumour, with 
 all his enthusiasm, had failed to do her justice. He 
 had raved of her eyes — her large, lustrous, melan- 
 choly eyes, — of the transparent paleness of her 
 complexion, of the faultless delicacy of her features; 
 but he had not prepared me for the unconscious
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 5 1 
 
 dignity, the perfect nobleness and refinement, that 
 informed her every look and gesture. My friend 
 requested to see a bracelet at which he had been 
 looking the day before. Proud, stately, silent, she 
 unlocked the case in which it was kept, and laid it 
 before him on the counter. He asked permission 
 to take it over to the light. She bent her head, but 
 answered not a word. It was like being waited 
 upon by a young Empress. 
 
 Tumour took the bracelet to the door and 
 affected to examine it. It consisted of a double 
 row of gold coins linked together at intervals by a 
 bean-shaped ornament studded with pink coral and 
 diamonds. Coming back into the shop he asked 
 me if I thought it would please his sister, to whom 
 he had promised a remembrance of Venice. 
 
 "It is a pretty trifle," I replied; "but surely a 
 remembrance of Venice should be of Venetian manu- 
 facture. This, I suppose, is Turkish." 
 
 The beautiful Jewess looked up. We spoke in 
 English; but she understood, and replied. 
 
 "E Greco, signore" she said coldly. 
 
 At this moment an old man came suddenly for- 
 ward from some dark counting-house at the back 
 — a grizzled, bearded, eager-eyed Shylock, with a 
 pen behind his ear. 
 
 "Go in, Salome — go in, my daughter," he said 
 hurriedly. "I will serve these gentlemen." 
 
 She lifted her eyes to his for one moment — then 
 moved silently away, and vanished in the gloom of 
 the room beyond. 
 
 We saw her no more. We lingered awhile look- 
 
 4*
 
 52 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 ing over the contents of the jewel-cases; but in vain. 
 Then Tumour bought his bracelet, and we went 
 out again into the narrow streets, and back to the 
 open daylight of the Gran' Piazza. 
 
 "Well," he said breathlessly, "what do you think 
 of her?" 
 
 "She is very lovely." 
 
 "Lovelier than you expected?" 
 
 "Much lovelier. But — " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "The sooner you succeed in forgetting her the 
 better." 
 
 He vowed, of course, that he never would and 
 never could forget her. He would hear of no in- 
 compatibilities, listen to no objections, believe in 
 no obstacles. That the beautiful Salome was her- 
 self not only unconscious of his passion and in- 
 different to his person, but ignorant of his very 
 name and station, were facts not even to be ad- 
 mitted on the list of difficulties. Finding him thus 
 deaf to reason, I said no more. 
 
 It was all over, however, before the week was 
 out. 
 
 "Look here, Blunt," he said, coming up to me 
 one morning in the coffee-room of our hotel just 
 as I was sitting down to answer a pile of home- 
 letters; "would you like to go on to Trieste to- 
 morrow? There, don't look at me like that — you 
 can guess how it is with me. I was a fool ever to 
 suppose she would care for me — a stranger, a for- 
 eigner, a Christian. Well, I'm horribly out of sorts,
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 53 
 
 anyhow — and — and I wish I was a thousand miles 
 off at this moment!" 
 
 * * * # 
 
 We travelled on together to Athens, and there 
 parted, Tumour being bound for England, and I 
 for the East. My own tour lasted many months 
 longer. I went first to Egypt and the Holy Land; 
 then joined an exploring party on the Euphrates; 
 and at length, after just twelve months of Oriental 
 life, found myself back again at Trieste about the 
 middle of April in the year following that during 
 which occurred the events I have just narrated. 
 There I found that batch of letters and papers to 
 which I had been looking forward for many weeks 
 past; and amongst the former, one from Coventry 
 Tumour. This time he was not only irrecoverably 
 in love, but on the eve of matrimony. The letter 
 was rapturous and extravagant enough. The writer 
 was the happiest of men; his destined bride the 
 loveliest and most amiable of her sex; the future a 
 paradise; the past a melancholy series of mistakes. 
 As for love, he had never, of course, known what 
 it was till now. 
 
 And what of the beautiful Salome 1 ? 
 
 Not one word of her from beginning to end. 
 He had forgotten her as utterly as if she had never 
 existed. And yet how desperately in love and how 
 desperately in despair he was "one little year ago!" 
 Ah, yes; but then it was "one little year ago;" and 
 who that had ever known Coventry Tumour would 
 expect him to remember la plus grande des grandes 
 passions for even half that time?
 
 54 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 I slept that night at Trieste and went on next 
 day to Venice. Somehow I could not get Tumour 
 and his love-affairs out of my head. I remembered 
 our visit to the Merceria. I was haunted by the 
 image of the beautiful Jewess. Was she still so 
 lovely? Did she still sit reading in her wonted 
 seat by the open counter, with the gloomy shop 
 reaching away behind, and the cases of rich robes 
 and jewels all around 1 ? 
 
 An irresistible impulse prompted me to go to 
 the Merceria and see her once again. I went. It 
 had been a busy morning with me, and I did not 
 get there till between three and four o'clock in the 
 afternoon. The place was crowded. I passed up 
 the well-remembered street, looking out on both 
 sides for the gloomy little shop with its unattractive 
 counter; but in vain. When I had gone so far that 
 I thought I must have passed it, I turned back. 
 House by house I retraced my steps to the very 
 entrance, and still could not find it. Then, con- 
 cluding I had not gone far enough at first, I turned 
 back again till I reached a spot where several streets 
 diverged. Here I came to a stand-still, for beyond 
 this point I knew I had not passed before. 
 
 It was now evident that the Jew no longer 
 occupied his former shop in the Merceria, and 
 that my chance of discovering his whereabouts was 
 exceedingly slender. I could not inquire of his 
 successor, because I could not identify the house. 
 I found it impossible even to remember what trades 
 were carried on by his neighbours on either side. 
 I was ignorant of his very name. Convinced, there-
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 55 
 
 fore, of the inutility of making any further effort, I 
 gave up the search, and comforted myself by re- 
 flecting that my own heart was not made of ada- 
 mant, and that it was, perhaps, better for my peace 
 not to see the beautiful Salome again. I was des- 
 tined to see her again, however, and that ere many 
 days had passed over my head. 
 
 A year of more than ordinarily fatiguing Eastern 
 travel had left me in need of rest, and I had re- 
 solved to allow myself a month's sketching in Venice 
 and its neighbourhood before turning my face home- 
 ward. 
 
 As, therefore, it is manifestly the first object of 
 a sketcher to select his points of view, and as no 
 more luxurious machine than a Venetian gondola 
 was ever invented for the use of man, I proceeded 
 to employ the first days of my stay in endless boat- 
 ings to and fro; now exploring all manner of canals 
 and canaletti; now rowing out in the direction of 
 Murano; now making for the islands beyond San 
 Pietro Castello, and in the course of these pilgrimages 
 noting down an infinite number of picturesque sites, 
 and smoking an infinite number of cigarettes. 
 
 It was, I think, about the fourth or fifth day of 
 this pleasant work, when my gondolier proposed to 
 take me as far as the Lido. It wanted about two 
 hours to sunset, and the great sand-bank lay not 
 more than three or four miles away; so I gave the 
 word, and in another moment we had changed our 
 route and were gliding farther and farther from 
 Venice at each dip of the oar. 
 
 Then the long, dull, distant ridge that had all
 
 56 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 day bounded the shallow horizon rose gradually 
 above the placid level of the Lagune; assumed a 
 more broken outline; resolved itself into hillocks 
 and hollows of tawny sand; showed here and there 
 a patch of parched grass and tangled brake; and 
 looked like the coasts of some inhospitable desert 
 beyond which no traveller might penetrate. My 
 boatman made straight for a spot where some 
 stakes at the water's edge gave token of a landing- 
 place; and here, though with some difficulty, for 
 the tide was low, ran the gondola aground. I 
 landed. My first step was among graves. 
 
 "E'l Cimiterio Giudaico, signore" said my gon- 
 dolier, with a touch of his cap. 
 
 The Jewish cemetery! The ghetto of the dead! 
 I remembered now to have read or heard long 
 since how the Venetian Jews, cut off in death as 
 in life from the neighbourhood of their Christian 
 rulers, had been buried from immemorial time upon 
 this desolate waste. I stooped to examine the head- 
 stone at my feet. It was but a shattered fragment, 
 crusted over with yellow lichens, and eaten away 
 by the salt sea air. I passed on to the next, and 
 the next. 
 
 Some were completely matted over with weeds 
 and brambles; some were half-buried in the drifting 
 -Bsnd; of some only a corner remained above the 
 surface. Here and there a name, a date, a frag- 
 ment of emblematic carving or part of a Hebrew 
 inscription, was yet legible; but all were more or 
 less broken and effaced.
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 57 
 
 Wandering on thus among graves and hillocks, 
 ascending at every step, and passing some three 
 or four glassy pools overgrown with gaunt-looking 
 reeds, I presently found that I had reached the 
 central and most elevated part of the Lido, and 
 that I commanded an uninterrupted view on every 
 side. On the one hand lay the broad, silent 
 Lagune bounded by Venice and the Euganean hills 
 — on the other, stealing up in long, lazy folds, and 
 breaking noiselessly against the endless shore, the 
 blue Adriatic. An old man gathering shells on the 
 seaward side, a distant gondola on the Lagune, 
 were the only signs of life for miles around. 
 
 Standing on the upper ridge of this narrow 
 barrier, looking upon both waters, and watching 
 the gradual approach of what promised to be a 
 gorgeous sunset, I fell into one of those wandering 
 trains of thought in which the real and unreal suc- 
 ceed each other as capriciously as in a dream. 
 
 I remembered how Goethe here conceived his 
 vertebral theory of the skull — how Byron , too lame 
 to walk, kept his horse on the Lido, and here rode 
 daily to and fro — how Shelley loved the wild soli- 
 tude of the place, wrote of it in Julian and Maddalo, 
 and listened perhaps from this very spot, to the 
 mad-house bell on the island of San Giorgio. Then 
 I wondered if Titian used sometimes to come hither 
 from his gloomy house on the other side of Venice, 
 to study the gold and purple of these western skies 
 — if Othello had walked here with Desdemona — if 
 Shylock was buried yonder, and Leah whom he 
 loved "when he was a bachelor,"
 
 58 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 And then in the midst of my reverie, I came 
 suddenly upon another Jewish cemetery. 
 
 Was it indeed another, or but an outlying por- 
 tion of the first? It was evidently another, and a 
 more modern one. The ground was better kept. 
 The monuments were newer. Such dates as I had 
 succeeded in deciphering on the broken sepulchres 
 lower down were all of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries; but the inscriptions upon these bore 
 reference to quite recent interments. 
 
 I went on a few steps farther. I stopped to 
 copy a quaint Italian couplet on one tomb — to 
 gather a wild forget-me-not from the foot of another 
 — to put aside a bramble that trailed across a 
 third — and then I became aware for the first time 
 of a lady sitting beside a grave not a dozen yards 
 from the spot on which I stood. 
 
 I had believed myself so utterly alone, and was 
 so taken by surprise, that for the first moment I 
 could almost have persuaded myself that she also 
 was "of the stuff that dreams are made of." She 
 was dressed from head to foot in deepest mourning; 
 her face turned from me, looking towards the sunset; 
 her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. The 
 grave by which she sat was obviously recent. The 
 scant herbage round about had been lately dis- 
 turbed, and the marble headstone looked as if it 
 had not yet undergone a week's exposure to wind 
 and weather. 
 
 Persuaded that she had not observed me, I 
 lingered for an instant looking at her. Something 
 in the grace and sorrow of her attitude, something
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 59 
 
 in the turn of her head and the flow of her sable 
 draperies, arrested my attention. Was she young 1 ? 
 I fancied so. Did she mourn a husband? — a lover? 
 — a parent? I glanced towards the headstone. It 
 was covered with Hebrew characters; so that, had 
 I even been nearer, it could have told me nothing. 
 
 But I felt that I had no right to stand there, a 
 spectator of her sorrow, an intruder on her privacy. 
 I proceeded to move noiselessly away. At that 
 moment she turned and looked at me. 
 
 It was Salome. 
 
 Salome, pale and worn as from some deep and 
 wasting grief, but more beautiful, if that could be, 
 than ever. Beautiful, with a still more spiritual 
 beauty than of old; with cheeks so wan, and eyes 
 so unutterably bright and solemn, that my very 
 heart seemed to stand still as I looked upon them. 
 For one second I paused, half fancying, half hoping 
 that there was recognition in her glance; then, not 
 daring to look or linger longer, turned away. 
 When I had gone far enough to do so without dis- 
 courtesy, I stopped and looked back. She had 
 resumed her former attitude, and was gazing over 
 towards Venice and the setting sun. The stone by 
 which she watched was not more motionless. 
 
 The sun went down in glory. The last flush 
 faded from the domes and bell-towers of Venice; 
 the northward peaks changed from rose to purple, 
 from gold to grey; a scarcely perceptible film of 
 mist became all at once visible upon the surface of 
 the Lagune; and overhead, the first star trembled 
 into light. I waited and watched till the shadows
 
 60 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 had so deepened that I could no longer distinguish 
 one distant object from another. Was that the spot? 
 Was she still there? Was she moving 1 ? Was she 
 gone? I could not tell. The more I looked, the 
 more uncertain I became. Then, fearing to miss 
 my way in the fast-gathering twilight, I struck 
 down towards the water's edge and made for the 
 point at which I had landed. 
 
 I found my gondolier fast asleep, with his head 
 on a cushion and his bit of gondola-carpet thrown 
 over him for a counterpane. I asked if he had seen 
 any other boat put off from the Lido since I left? 
 He rubbed his eyes, started up, and was awake in 
 a moment. 
 
 "Per Bacco, signore, I have been asleep," he 
 said apologetically; "I have seen nothing." 
 
 "Did you observe any other boat moored here- 
 abouts when we landed?" 
 
 "None, signore." 
 
 "And you have seen nothing of a lady in 
 black?" 
 
 He laughed and shook his head. 
 
 " Consola/evi, signore," he said, archly; "she will 
 come to-morrow." 
 
 Then, seeing me look grave, he touched his cap, 
 and with a gentle "Scusate, signore," took his place 
 at the stern, and there waited. I bade him row 
 to my hotel; and then, leaning dreamily back, 
 folded my arms, closed my eyes, and thought of 
 Salome. 
 
 How lovely she was! How infinitely more 
 lovely than even my first remembrance of her! How
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 6 1 
 
 was it that I had not admired her more that day in 
 the Merceria? Was I blind, or had she become in- 
 deed more beautiful? It was a sad and strange place 
 in which to meet her again. By whose grave was 
 she watching? By her father's 1 ? Yes, surely by her 
 father's. He was an old man when I saw him, and 
 in the course of nature had not long to live. He 
 was dead: hence my unavailing search in the Mer- 
 ceria. He was dead. His shop was let to another 
 occupant. His stock-in-trade was sold and dis- 
 persed. 
 
 And Salome — was she left alone? Had she no 
 mother? — no brother? — no lover? Would her eyes 
 have had that look of speechless woe in them if 
 she had any very near or dear tie left on earth? 
 Then I thought of Coventry Tumour, and his ap- 
 proaching marriage. Had he ever really loved her? 
 I doubted it. "True love," saith an old song, "can 
 ne'er forget;" but he had forgotten, as though the 
 past had been a dream. And yet he was in earnest 
 while it lasted — would have risked all for her sake, 
 if she would have listened to him. Ah, if she had 
 listened to him! 
 
 And then I remembered that he had never told 
 me the particulars of that affair. Did she herself 
 reject him, or did he lay his suit before her father? 
 And was he rejected only because he was a Christian? 
 I had never cared to ask these things while we were 
 together; but now I would have given the best hun- 
 ter in my stables to know every minute detail con- 
 nected with the matter. 
 
 Pondering thus, travelling over the same ground
 
 62 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 again and again, wondering whether she remembered 
 me, whether she was poor, whether she was, indeed, 
 alone in the world, how long the old man had 
 been dead, and a hundred other things of the same 
 kind, — I scarcely noticed how the watery miles 
 glided past, or how the night closed in. One ques- 
 tion, however, recurred oftener than any other: 
 How was I to see her again? 
 
 I arrived at my hotel; I dined at the table d'hote; 
 I strolled out after dinner to my favourite cafe in 
 the piazza; I dropped in for half an hour at the Fe- 
 nice, and heard one act of an extremely poor opera; 
 I came home restless, uneasy, wakeful; and sitting 
 for hours before my bedroom fire, asked myself the 
 same perpetual question — How was I to see her 
 again ? 
 
 Fairly tired out at last, I fell asleep in my 
 chair, and when I awoke the sun was shining upon 
 my window. 
 
 I started to my feet. I had it now. It flashed 
 upon me, as if it came with the sunlight. I had 
 but to go again to the cemetery, copy the inscrip- 
 tion upon the old man's tomb, ask my learned 
 friend, Professor Nicolai of Padua, to translate it 
 for me, and then, once in possession of names and 
 dates, the rest would be easy. 
 
 In less than an hour, I was once more on my 
 way to the Lido. 
 
 I took a rubbing of the stone. It was the 
 quickest way, and the surest; for I knew that in 
 Hebrew everything depended on the pointing of
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 63 
 
 the characters, and I feared to trust my own untu- 
 tored skill. 
 
 This done, I hastened back, wrote my letter to 
 the professor, and despatched both letter and rub- 
 bing by the midday train. 
 
 The professor was not a prompt man. On the 
 contrary, he was a pre-eminently slow man; dreamy, 
 indolent, buried in Oriental lore. From any other 
 correspondent one might have looked for a reply in 
 the course of the morrow; but from Nicolai of 
 Padua it would have been folly to expect one 
 under two or three days. And in the meanwhile? 
 Well, in the meanwhile there were churches and 
 palaces to be seen, sketches to be made, letters of 
 introduction to be delivered. It was, at all events, 
 of no use to be impatient. 
 
 And yet I was impatient — so impatient that I 
 could neither sketch, nor read, nor sit still for ten 
 minutes together. Possessed by an uncontrollable 
 restlessness, I wandered from gallery to gallery, from 
 palace to palace, from church to church. The im- 
 prisonment of even a gondola was irksome to me. 
 I was, as it were, impelled to be moving and doing; 
 and even so, the day seemed endless. 
 
 The next was even worse. There was just the 
 possibility of a reply from Padua, and the know- 
 ledge of that possibility unsettled me for the day. 
 Having watched and waited for every post from 
 eight to four, I went down to the traghetto of St. 
 Mark's, and was there hailed by my accustomed 
 gondolier. 
 
 He touched his cap and waited for orders.
 
 64 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 "Where to, signore 1 ?" he asked, finding that I 
 remained silent. 
 
 "To the Lido." 
 
 It was an irresistible temptation, and I yielded 
 to it; but I yielded in opposition to my judgment. 
 I knew that I ought not to haunt the place. I had 
 resolved that I would not. And yet I went. 
 
 Going along, I told myself that I had only come 
 to reconnoitre. It was not unlikely that she might 
 be going to the same spot about the same hour as 
 before; and in that case I might overtake her 
 gondola by the way, or find it moored somewhere 
 along the shore. At all events, I was determined 
 not to land. But we met no gondola beyond San 
 Pietro Castello; saw no sign of one along the shore. 
 The afternoon was far advanced; the sun was near 
 going down; we had the Lagune and the Lido to 
 ourselves. 
 
 My boatman made for the same landing-place, 
 and moored his gondola to the same stake as be- 
 fore. He took it for granted that I meant to land; 
 and I landed. After all, however, it was evident 
 that Salome could not be there, in which case I 
 was guilty of no intrusion. I might stroll in the 
 direction of the cemetery, taking care to avoid her, 
 if she were anywhere about, and keeping well away 
 from that part where I had last seen her. So I 
 broke another resolve, and went up towards the top 
 of the Lido. Again I came to the salt pools and 
 the reeds; again stood with the sea upon my left 
 hand and the Lagune upon my right, and the end- 
 less sandbank reaching on for miles between the
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 65 
 
 two. Yonder lay the new cemetery. Standing 
 thus I overlooked every foot of the ground. I 
 could even distinguish the headstone of which I 
 had taken a rubbing the morning before. There 
 was no living thing in sight. I was, to all ap- 
 pearance, as utterly alone as Enoch Arden on his 
 desert island. 
 
 Then I strolled on a little nearer and a little 
 nearer still; and then, contrary to all my determina- 
 tions, I found myself standing upon the very spot, 
 beside the very grave, which I had made up my 
 mind on no account to approach. 
 
 The sun was now just going down — had gone 
 down, indeed, behind a bank of golden-edged 
 cumuli — and was flooding earth, sea, and sky with 
 crimson. It was at this hour that I saw her. It 
 was upon this spot that she was sitting. A few 
 scant blades of grass had sprung up here and there 
 upon the grave. Her dress must have touched them 
 as she sat there — her dress — perhaps her hand. I 
 gathered one, and laid it carefully between the leaves 
 of my note-book. 
 
 At last I turned to go, and, turning, met her face 
 to face! 
 
 She was distant about six yards, and advancing 
 slowly towards the spot on which I was standing. 
 Her head drooped slightly forward; her hands were 
 clasped together; her eyes were fixed upon the 
 ground. It was the attitude of a nun. Startled, 
 confused, scarcely knowing what I did, I took off 
 my hat, and drew aside to let her pass. 
 
 She looked up — hesitated — stood still — gazed at 
 
 Tlie Black Forest. 5
 
 66 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 me with a strange, steadfast, mournful expression- 
 then dropped her eyes again, passed me without 
 another glance, and resumed her former place and 
 attitude beside her father's grave. 
 
 I turned away. I would have given worlds to 
 speak to her; but I had not dared, and the oppor- 
 tunity was gone. Yet I might have spoken. She 
 looked at me — looked at me with so strange and 
 piteous an expression in her eyes — continued look- 
 ing at me as long as one might have counted five.... 
 I might have spoken. I surely might have spoken! 
 And now — ah! now it was impossible. She had 
 fallen into the old thoughtful attitude, with her 
 cheek resting on her hand. Her thoughts were far 
 away. She had forgotten my very presence. 
 
 I went back to the shore, more disturbed and 
 uneasy than ever. I spent all the remaining day- 
 light in rowing up and down the margin of the 
 Lido, looking for her gondola — hoping, at all events, 
 to see her put off— to follow her, perhaps, across 
 the waste of waters. But. the dusk came quickly on, 
 and then darkness; and I left at last without having 
 seen any farther sign or token of her presence. 
 
 Lying awake that night, tossing uneasily upon 
 my bed, and thinking over the incidents of the last 
 few days, I found myself perpetually recurring to 
 that long, steady, sorrowful gaze which she fixed 
 upon me in the cemetery. The more I thought of 
 it, the more I seemed to feel that there was in it 
 some deeper meaning than I, in my confusion, had 
 observed at the time. It was such a strange look — 
 a look almost of entreaty, of asking for help or
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 67. 
 
 sympathy; like the dumb appeal in the eyes of a 
 sick animal. Could this really be? What, after all, 
 more possible than that, left alone in the world — 
 with, perhaps, not a single male relation to advise 
 her — she found herself in some position of present 
 difficulty, and knew not where to turn for help? 
 All this might well be. She had even, perhaps, 
 some instinctive feeling that she might trust me. 
 Ah! if she would indeed trust me 
 
 I had hoped to receive my Paduan letter by 
 the morning delivery; but morning and afternoon 
 went by as before, and still no letter came. As the 
 day began to decline, I was again on my way to 
 the Lido; this time for the purpose, and with the 
 intention, of speaking to her. I landed, and went 
 direct to the cemetery. It had been a dull day. 
 Lagune and sky were both one uniform leaden grey, 
 and a mist hung over Venice. 
 
 I saw her from the moment I reached the upper 
 ridge. She was walking to and fro among the graves, 
 like a stately shadow. I had felt confident, some- 
 how, that she would be there; and now, for some 
 reason that I could not have defined for my life, I 
 felt equally confident that she expected me. 
 
 Trembling and eager, yet half dreading the 
 moment when she should discover my presence, I 
 hastened on, printing the loose sand at every noise- 
 less step. A few moments more, and I should over- 
 take her, speak to her, hear the music of her voice 
 — that music which I remembered so well, though 
 a year had gone by since I last heard it. But how 
 should I address her? What had I to say? I knew 
 
 5*
 
 68 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 not. I had no time to think. I could only hurry 
 on till within some ten feet of her trailing gar- 
 ments; stand still when she turned, and uncover 
 before her as if she were a queen. 
 
 She paused and looked at me, just as she had 
 paused and looked at me the evening before. With 
 the same sorrowful meaning in her eyes; with even 
 more than the same entreating expression. But she 
 waited for me to speak. 
 
 I did speak. I cannot recall what I said; I only 
 know that I faltered something of an apology — 
 mentioned that I had had the honour of meeting 
 her before, many months ago; and, trying to say 
 more — trying to express how thankfully and proudly 
 I would devote myself to any service however 
 humble, however laborious, I failed both in voice 
 and words, and broke down utterly. 
 
 Having come to a stop, I looked up and found 
 her eyes still fixed upon me. 
 
 "You are a Christian?" she said. 
 
 A trembling came upon me at the first sound 
 of her voice. It was the same voice; distinct, me- 
 lodious, scarce louder than a whisper — and yet it 
 was not quite the same. There was a melancholy 
 in the music, and if I may use a word which, after 
 all, fails to express my meaning, a remoteness, that 
 fell upon my ear like the plaintive cadence in an 
 autumnal wind. 
 
 I bent my head, and answered that I was. 
 
 She pointed to the headstone of which I had 
 taken a rubbing a day or two before. 
 
 "A Christian soul lies there," she said, "laid in
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 69 
 
 earth without one Christian prayer — with Hebrew 
 rites — in a Hebrew sanctuary. Will you, stranger, 
 perform an act of piety towards the dead?" 
 
 "The Signora has but to speak," I said. "All 
 that she wishes shall be done." 
 
 "Read one prayer over this grave; and trace a 
 cross upon this stone." 
 
 "I will." 
 
 She thanked me with a gesture, slightly bowed 
 her head, drew her outer garment more closely 
 round her, and moved away to a rising ground at 
 some little distance. I was dismissed. I had no 
 excuse for lingering — no right to prolong the inter- 
 view — no business to remain there one moment 
 longer. So I left her there, nor once looked back 
 till I had reached the last point from which 
 I knew I should be able to see her. But when 
 I turned for that last look, she was no longer in 
 sight. 
 
 I had resolved to speak to her, and this was the 
 result. A stranger interview never, surely, fell to 
 the lot of man! I had said nothing that I meant 
 to say — had learnt nothing that I sought to know. 
 With regard to her circumstances, her place of 
 residence, her very name, I was no wiser than be- 
 fore. And yet I had, perhaps, no reason to be 
 dissatisfied. She had honoured me with her con- 
 fidence, and entrusted to me a task of some diffi- 
 culty and importance. It now only remained for 
 me to execute that task as thoroughly and as quickly 
 as possible. That done, I might fairly hope to win
 
 70 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 some place in her remembrance — by and by, per- 
 haps, in her esteem. 
 
 Meanwhile, the old question rose again — whose 
 grave could it be] I had settled this matter so con- 
 clusively in my own mind from the first, that I could 
 scarcely believe even now that it was not her father's. 
 Yet that he should have died a secret convert to 
 Christianity was incredible. Whose grave could it 
 be 1 ? A lover's] A Christian lover's] Alas! it might 
 be. Or a sister's] In either of these cases, it was 
 more than probable that Salome was herself a con- 
 vert. But I had no time to waste in conjecture. I 
 must act, and act promptly. 
 
 I hastened back to Venice as fast as my gon- 
 dolier could row me; and as we went along I pro- 
 mised myself that all her wishes should be carried 
 out before she visited the spot again. To secure at 
 once the services of a clergyman who would go 
 with me to the Lido at early dawn and there read 
 some portion, at least, of the burial service; and at 
 the same time to engage a stonemason to cut the 
 cross; — to have all done before she, or anyone, 
 should have approached the place next day, was 
 my especial object. And that object I was resolved 
 to carry out, though I had to search Venice through 
 before I laid my head upon my pillow. 
 
 I found a clergyman without difficulty. He was 
 a young man occupying rooms in the same hotel, 
 and on the same floor as myself. I had met him 
 each day at the table d'hote, and conversed with him 
 once or twice in the reading-room. He was a 
 North-countryman, had not long since taken orders,
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 71 
 
 and was both gentlemanly and obliging. He pro- 
 mised in the readiest manner to do all that I re- 
 quired, and to breakfast with me at six next morn- 
 ing, in order that we might reach the cemetery by 
 eight. 
 
 To find my stonemason, however, was not so 
 easy; and yet I went to work methodically enough. 
 I began with the Venetian Directory; then copied a 
 list of stonemasons' names and addresses; then took 
 a gondola a due remi and started upon my voyage 
 of discovery. 
 
 But a night's voyage of discovery among the 
 intricate back canaletti of Venice is no very easy 
 and no very safe enterprise. Narrow, tortuous, 
 densely populated, often blocked by huge hay, 
 wood, and provision barges, almost wholly un- 
 lighted, and so perplexingly alike that no mere 
 novice in Venetian topography need ever hope to 
 distinguish one from another, they baffle the very 
 gondoliers, and are a terra incognita to all but the 
 dwellers therein. 
 
 I succeeded, however, in finding three of the 
 places entered on my list. At the first I was told 
 that the workman of whom I was in quest was 
 working by the week somewhere over by Murano, 
 and would not be back again till Saturday night. 
 At the second and third, I found the men at home, 
 supping with their wives and children at the end of 
 the day's work; but neither would consent to un- 
 dertake my commission. One, after a whispered 
 consultation with his son, declined reluctantly. The 
 other told me plainly that he dared not do it, and
 
 72 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 that he did not believe I should find a stone- 
 mason in Venice who would be bolder than him- 
 self. 
 
 The Jews, he said, were rich and powerful; no 
 longer an oppressed people; no longer to be in- 
 sulted even in Venice with impunity. To cut a 
 Christian cross upon a Jewish headstone in the 
 Jewish Cemetery, would be "a sort of sacrilege," 
 and punishable, no doubt, by the law. This sounded 
 like truth; so, finding that my rowers were by no 
 means confident of their way, and that the canaletti 
 were dark as the catacombs, I prevailed upon the 
 stonemason to sell me a small mallet and a couple 
 of chisels, and made up my mind to commit the 
 sacrilege myself. 
 
 With this single exception, all was done next 
 morning as I had planned to do it. My new ac- 
 quaintance breakfasted with me, accompanied me to 
 the Lido, read such portions of the burial service 
 as seemed proper to him, and then, having business 
 in Venice, left me to my task. It was by no means 
 an easy one. To a skilled hand it would have been, 
 perhaps, the work of half-an-hour; but it was my 
 first effort, and rude as the thing was — a mere 
 grooved attempt at a Latin cross, about two inches 
 and a half in length, cut close down at the bottom 
 of the stone, where it could be easily concealed by 
 a little piling of the sand — it took me nearly four 
 hours to complete. While I was at work, the dull 
 grey morning grew duller and greyer; a thick sea- 
 fog drove up from the Adriatic; and a low moaning 
 wind came and went like the echo of a distant re-
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 73 
 
 quiem. More than once I started, believing that 
 she had surprised me there — fancying I saw the 
 passing of a shadow — heard the rustling of a gar- 
 ment — the breathing of a sigh. But no. The 
 mists and the moaning wind deceived me. I was 
 alone. 
 
 When at length I got back to my hotel, it was, 
 just two o'clock. The hall-porter put a letter into 
 my hand as I passed through. One glance at that 
 crabbed superscription was enough. It was from 
 Padua. I hastened to my room, tore open the en- 
 velope, and read these words: — 
 
 "Caro Signore, — The rubbing you send is 
 neither ancient nor curious, as I fear you suppose 
 it to be. It is a thing of yesterday. It merely re- 
 cords that one Salome, the only and beloved child 
 of a certain Isaac Da Costa, died last Autumn on 
 the eighteenth of October, aged twenty-one years, 
 and that by the said Isaac Da Costa this monument 
 is erected to the memory of her virtues and his 
 grief. 
 
 "I pray you, caro signore, to receive the assur- 
 ance of my sincere esteem. 
 
 "Nicolo Nicolai." 
 
 The letter dropped from my hand. I seemed 
 to have read without understanding it. I picked 
 it up; went through it again, word by word; sat 
 down; rose up; took a turn across the room; felt 
 confused, bewildered, incredulous,
 
 74 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 Could there, then, be two Salomes? or was there 
 some radical and extraordinary mistake 1 ? 
 
 I hesitated; I knew not what to do. Should I 
 go down to the Merceria, and see whether the name 
 of Da Costa was known in the quartier? Or find 
 out the registrar of births and deaths for the Jewish 
 district? Or call upon the principal rabbi, and 
 learn from him who this second Salome had been, 
 and in what degree of relationship she stood to- 
 wards the Salome whom I knew? I decided upon 
 the last course. The chief rabbi's address was 
 easily obtained. He lived in an ancient house on 
 the Giudecca, and there I found him — a grave, 
 stately old man, with a grizzled beard reaching nearly 
 to his waist. 
 
 I introduced myself and stated my business. I 
 came to ask if he could give me any information 
 respecting the late Salome da Costa who died 
 on the 1 8th of October last, and was buried on the 
 Lido. 
 
 The rabbi replied that he had no doubt he could 
 give me any information I desired, for he had known 
 the lady personally, and was the intimate friend of 
 her father. 
 
 "Can you tell me," I asked, "whether she had 
 any dear friend or female relative of the same name 
 —Salome?" 
 
 The rabbi shook his head. 
 
 "I think not," he said. "I remember no other 
 maiden of that name." 
 
 "Pardon me, but I know there was another," I 
 replied. "There was a very beautiful Salome living
 
 THE STORY OF SALOME. 75 
 
 in the Merceria when I was last in Venice, just this 
 time last year." 
 
 "Salome da Costa was very fair," said the rabbi; 
 "and she dwelt with her father in the Merceria. 
 Since her death, he hath removed to the neighbour- 
 hood of the Rialto." 
 
 "This Salome's father was a dealer in Oriental 
 goods," I said, hastily. 
 
 "Isaac da Costa is a dealer in Oriental goods," 
 replied the old man very gently. "We are speaking, 
 my son, of the same persons." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 He shook his head again. 
 
 "But she lives!" I exclaimed, becoming greatly 
 agitated. " She lives. I have seen her. I have spoken 
 to her. I saw her only last evening." 
 
 "Nay," he said, compassionately, "this is 
 some dream. She of whom you speak is indeed 
 no more." 
 
 "I saw her only last evening," I repeated. 
 
 "Where did you suppose you beheld her 1 ?" 
 
 "On the Lido." 
 
 "On the Lido 1 ?" 
 
 "And she spoke to me. I heard her voice 
   — heard it as distinctly as I hear my own at this 
 moment." 
 
 The rabbi stroked his beard thoughtfully, and 
 looked at me. "You think you heard her voice!" 
 he ejaculated. "That is strange. What said she?" 
 
 I was about to answer. I checked myself — a 
 sudden thought flashed upon me — I trembled from 
 head to foot.
 
 7 6 THE STORY OF SALOME. 
 
 "Have you — have you any reason for supposing 
 that she died a Christian?" I faltered. 
 
 The old man started and changed colour. 
 
 " I — I — that is a strange question," he stammered. 
 "Why do you ask it?" 
 
 "Yes or no?" I cried wildly. "Yes or no?" 
 
 He frowned, looked down, hesitated. 
 
 "I admit," he said, after a moment or two, — "I 
 admit that I may have heard something tending 
 that way. It may be that the maiden cherished 
 some secret doubt. Yet she was no professed 
 Christian." 
 
 "Laid in earth ivithont one Christian prayer ; with 
 Hebreiv rites; in a Hebrew sanctuary!" I repeated 
 to myself. 
 
 "But I marvel how you come to have heard of 
 this," continued the rabbi. "It was known only to 
 her father and myself." 
 
 "Sir," I said solemnly, "I know now that Salome 
 da Costa is dead; I have seen her spirit thrice, 
 haunting the spot where . . . ." 
 
 My voice broke. I could not utter the words. 
 
 "Last evening at sunset," I resumed, "was the 
 third time. Never doubting that — that I indeed be- 
 held her in the flesh, I spoke to her. She answered 
 me. She — she told me this." 
 
 The rabbi covered his face with his hands, and 
 so remained for some time, lost in meditation. 
 "Young man," he said at length, "your story is 
 strange, and you bring strange evidence to bear 
 upon it. It may be as you say; it may be that
 
 'THE STORY OF SALOME. 77 
 
 you are the dupe of some waking dream — I know 
 not." 
 
 He knew not; but I ... Ah! I knew only too 
 well. I knew now why she had appeared to me 
 clothed with such unearthly beauty. I understood 
 now that look of dumb entreaty in her eyes — that 
 tone of strange remoteness in her voice. The sweet 
 soul could not rest amid the dust of its kinsfolk, 
 "unhousel'd, unanointed, unanealed," lacking even 
 "one Christian prayer" above its grave. And 
 now — was it all over 1 ? Should I never see her 
 more? 
 
 Never — ah! never. How I haunted the Lido 
 at sunset for many a month, till Spring had blos- 
 somed into Autumn, and Autumn had ripened into 
 Summer; how I wandered back to Venice year after 
 year at the same season, while yet any vestige of 
 that wild hope remained alive; how my heart has 
 never throbbed, my pulse never leaped, for love of 
 mortal woman since that time — are details into 
 which I need not enter here. Enough that I watched 
 and waited; but that her gracious spirit appeared 
 to me no more. I wait still, but I watch no longer. 
 I know now that our place of meeting will not 
 be here.

 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL.
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 The things of which I write befell — let me see, 
 some fifteen or eighteen years ago. I was not 
 young then; I am not old now. Perhaps I was 
 about thirty- two; but I do not know my age very 
 exactly, and I cannot be certain to a year or two 
 one way or the other. 
 
 My manner of life at that time was desultory 
 and unsettled. I had a sorrow — no matter of what 
 kind — and I took to rambling about Europe; not 
 certainly in the hope of forgetting it, for I had no 
 wish to forget, but because of the restlessness that 
 made one place after another triste and intolerable 
 to me. 
 
 It was change of place, however, and not ex- 
 citement, that I sought. I kept almost entirely 
 aloof from great cities, Spas, and beaten tracks, 
 and preferred for the most part to explore districts 
 where travellers and foreigners rarely penetrated. 
 
 Such a district at that time was the Upper 
 Rhine. I was traversing it that particular Summer 
 for the first time, and on foot; and I had set myself 
 to trace the course of the river from its source in 
 the great Rhine glacier to its fall at Schaffhausen. 
 Having done this, however, I was unwilling to part 
 
 The Black Forest. 6
 
 82 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 company with the noble river; so I decided to 
 follow it yet a few miles farther — perhaps as far as 
 Mayence, but at all events as far as Basle. 
 
 And now began, if not the finest, certainly not 
 the least charming part of my journey. Here, it is 
 true, were neither Alps, nor glaciers, nor ruined 
 castles perched on inaccessible crags; but my way 
 lay through a smiling country, studded with pic- 
 turesque hamlets, and beside a bright river, hurrying 
 along over swirling rapids, and under the dark 
 arches of antique covered bridges, and between hill- 
 sides garlanded with vines. 
 
 It was towards the middle of a long day's walk 
 among such scenes as these that I came to Rhein- 
 felden, a small place on the left bank of the river, 
 about fourteen miles above Basle. 
 
 As I came down the white road in the blinding 
 sunshine, with the vines on either hand, I saw the 
 town lying low on the opposite bank of the Rhine. 
 It was an old walled town, enclosed on the land 
 side and open to the liver, the houses going sheer 
 down to the water's edge, with flights of slimy steps 
 worn smooth by the wash of the current, and over- 
 hanging eaves, and little built-out rooms with pent- 
 house roofs, supported from below by jutting piles 
 black with age and tapestried with water-weeds. 
 The stunted towers of a couple of churches stood 
 up from amid the brown and tawny roofs within 
 the walls. 
 
 Beyond the town, height above height, stretched 
 a distance of wooded hills. The old covered bridge, 
 divided by a bit of rocky island in the middle of
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 83 
 
 the stream, led from bank to bank — from Germany 
 to Switzerland. The town was in Switzerland; I, look- 
 ing towards it from the road, stood on Baden ter- 
 ritory; the river ran sparkling and foaming between. 
 
 I crossed, and found the place all alive in an- 
 ticipation of a Kermess, or fair, that was to be held 
 there the next day but one. The townsfolk were 
 all out in the streets or standing about their doors; 
 and there were carpenters hard at work knocking 
 up rows of wooden stands and stalls the whole 
 length of the principal thoroughfare. Shop-signs in 
 open-work of wrought iron hung over the doors. 
 A runlet of sparkling water babbled down a stone 
 channel in the middle of the street. At almost 
 every other house (to judge by the rows of tarnished 
 watches hanging in the dingy parlour windows), 
 there lived a watchmaker; and presently I came to 
 a fountain — a regular Swiss fountain, spouting water 
 from four ornamental pipes, and surmounted by the 
 usual armed knight in old grey stone. 
 
 As I rambled on thus (looking for an inn, but 
 seeing none), I suddenly found that I had reached 
 the end of the street, and with it the limit of the 
 town on this side. Before me rose a lofty, pictu- 
 resque old gate-tower, with a tiled roof and a little 
 window over the archway; and there was a peep of 
 green grass and golden sunshine beyond. The 
 town walls (sixty or seventy feet in height, and 
 curiously roofed with a sort of projecting shed on 
 the inner side) curved away to right and left, un- 
 changed since the Middle Ages. A rude wain,
 
 84 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 laden with clover and drawn by mild-eyed, cream- 
 coloured oxen, stood close by in the shade. 
 
 I passed out through the gloom of the archway 
 into the sunny space beyond. The moat outside 
 the walls was bridged over and filled in — a green 
 ravine of grasses and wild-flowers. A stork had 
 built its nest on the roof of the gate-tower. The 
 cicalas shrilled in the grass. The shadows lay 
 sleeping under the trees, and a family of cocks and 
 hens went plodding inquisitively to and fro among 
 the cabbages in the adjacent field. Just beyond 
 the moat, with only this field between, stood a little 
 solitary church — a church with a wooden porch, 
 and a quaint, bright-red steeple, and a churchyard 
 like a rose-garden, full of colour and perfume, and 
 scattered over with iron crosses wreathed with im- 
 mortelles. 
 
 The churchyard gate and the church door stood 
 open. I went in. All was clean, and simple, and 
 very poor. The walls were whitewashed; the floor 
 was laid with red bricks; the roof raftered. A tiny 
 confessional like a sentry-box stood in one corner; 
 the font was covered with a lid like a wooden 
 steeple; and over the altar, upon which stood a 
 pair of battered brass candlesticks and two vases 
 of artificial flowers, hung a daub of the Holy Family, 
 in oils. 
 
 All here was so cool, so quiet, that I sat down 
 for a few moments and rested. Presently an old 
 peasant woman trudged up the church-path with a 
 basket of vegetables on her head. Having set this
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 85 
 
 down in the porch, she came in, knelt before the 
 altar, said her simple prayers, and went her way. 
 
 Was it not time for me also to go my way? I 
 looked at my watch. It was past four o'clock, and 
 I had not yet found a lodging for the night. 
 
 I got up, somewhat unwillingly; but, attracted 
 by a tablet near the altar, crossed over to look at 
 it before leaving the church. It was a very small 
 slab, and bore a very brief German inscription to 
 this effect: — 
 
 To the Sacred Memory 
 
 of 
 
 THE REVEREND PERE CHESSEZ, 
 
 For twenty years the beloved Pastor of this Parish. 
 Died April 16th, 1825. Aged 44. 
 
 HE LIVED A SAINT ; HE DIED A MARTYR. 
 
 I read it over twice, wondering idly what story 
 was wrapped up in the concluding line. Then, 
 prompted by a childish curiosity, I went up to 
 examine the confessional. 
 
 It was, as I have said, about the size of a 
 sentry-box, and was painted to imitate old dark oak. 
 On the one side was a narrow door with a black 
 handle, on the other a little opening like a ticket- 
 taker's window, closed on the inside by a faded 
 green curtain. 
 
 I know not what foolish fancy possessed me, but, 
 almost without considering what I was doing, I turned 
 the handle and opened the door. Opened it —
 
 86 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 peeped in — found the priest sitting in his place— ► 
 started back as if I had been shot — and stammered 
 an unintelligible apology. 
 
 "I — I beg a thousand pardons," I exclaimed. "I 
 had no idea — seeing the church empty " 
 
 He was sitting with averted face, and clasped 
 hands lying idly in his lap— a tall, gaunt man, 
 dressed in a black soutane. When I paused, and 
 not till then, he slowly, very slowly, turned his head, 
 and looked me in the face. 
 
 The light inside the confessional was so dim that 
 I could not see his features very plainly. I only ob- 
 served that his eyes were large, and bright, and wild- 
 looking, like the eyes of some fierce animal, and 
 that his face, with the reflection of the green curtain 
 upon it, looked lividly pale. 
 
 For a moment we remained thus, gazing at each 
 other, as if fascinated. Then, finding that he made 
 no reply, but only stared at me with those strange 
 eyes, I stepped hastily back, shut the door without 
 another word, and hurried out of the church. 
 
 I was very much disturbed by this little incident; 
 more disturbed, in truth, than seemed reasonable, 
 for my nerves for the moment were shaken. Never, 
 I told myself, never while I lived could I forget that 
 fixed attitude and stony face, or the glare of those 
 terrible eyes. What was the man's history? Of 
 what secret despair, of what life-long remorse, of 
 what wild unsatisfied longings was he the victim? 
 I felt I could not rest till I had learned something 
 of his past life. 
 
 Full of these thoughts, I went on quickly into
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 87 
 
 the town, half running across the field, and never 
 looking back. Once past the gateway and inside 
 the walls, I breathed more freely. The wain was 
 still standing in the shade, but the oxen were gone 
 now, and two men were busy forking out the clover 
 into a little yard close by. Having inquired of one 
 of these regarding an inn, and being directed to the 
 Krone, "over against the Frauenkirche," I made my 
 way to the upper part of the town, and there, at 
 one corner of a forlorn, weed-grown market-place, 
 I found my hostelry. 
 
 The landlord, a sedate, bald man in spectacles, 
 who, as I presently discovered, was not only an 
 inn-keeper but a clock-maker, came out from an 
 inner room to receive me. His wife, a plump, plea- 
 sant body, took my orders for dinner. His pretty 
 daughter showed me to my room. It was a large, 
 low, whitewashed room, with two lattice windows 
 overlooking the market-place, two little beds, covered 
 with puffy red eiderdowns at the farther end, and 
 an army of clocks and ornamental timepieces ar- 
 ranged along every shelf, table, and chest of drawers 
 in the room. Being left here to my meditations, 
 I sat down and counted these companions of my 
 solitude. 
 
 Taking little and big together, Dutch clocks, 
 cuckoo clocks, chalet clocks, skeleton clocks, and 
 pendxdes in ormolu, bronze, marble, ebony, and ala- 
 baster cases, there were exactly thirty-two. Twenty- 
 eight were going merrily. As no two among them 
 were of the same opinion as regarded the time, and 
 as several struck the quarters as well as the hours,
 
 88 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 the consequence was that one or other gave tongue 
 about every five minutes. Now, for a light and 
 nervous sleeper such as I was at that time, here 
 was a lively prospect for the night! 
 
 Going down-stairs presently with the hope of 
 getting my landlady to assign me a quieter room, 
 I passed two eight^day clocks on the landing, and a 
 third at the foot of the stairs. The public room 
 was equally well-stocked. It literally bristled with 
 clocks, one of which played a spasmodic version of 
 Gentle Zitella with variations every quarter of an 
 hour. Here I found a little table prepared by the 
 open window, and a dish of trout and a flask of 
 country wine awaiting me. The pretty daughter 
 waited upon me; her mother bustled to and fro with 
 the dishes; the landlord stood by, and beamed upon 
 me through his spectacles. 
 
 "The trout were caught this morning, about two 
 miles from here," he said, complacently. 
 
 "They are excellent," I replied, filling him out a 
 glass of wine, and helping myself to another. "Your 
 health, Herr Wirth." 
 
 "Thanks, mein Herr — yours." 
 
 Just at this moment two clocks struck at oppo- 
 site ends of the room — one twelve, and the other 
 seven. I ventured to suggest that mine host was 
 tolerably well reminded of the flight of time; where- 
 upon he explained that his work lay chiefly in the 
 repairing and regulating line, and that at that pre- 
 sent moment he had no less than one hundred and 
 eighteen clocks of various sorts and sizes on the 
 premises.
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 89 
 
 "Perhaps theHerr Englander is a light sleeper," 
 said his quick-witted wife, detecting my dismay. 
 "If so, we can get him a bed-room elsewhere. Not, 
 perhaps, in the town, for I know no place where he 
 would be as comfortable as with ourselves; but just 
 outside the Friedrich's Thor, not five minutes' walk 
 from our door." 
 
 I accepted the offer gratefully. 
 
 "So long," I said, "as I ensure cleanliness and 
 quiet, I do not care how homely my lodgings 
 may be." 
 
 "Ah, you'll have both, mein Herr, if you go 
 where my wife is thinking of," said the landlord. 
 "It is at the house of our pastor — the Pere Ches- 
 sez." 
 
 "The Pere Chessez!" I exclaimed. "What, the 
 pastor of the little church out yonder?" 
 
 "The same, mein Herr." 
 
 "But — but surely the Pere Chessez is dead! I 
 saw a tablet to his memory in the chancel." 
 
 "Nay, that was our pastor's elder brother," replied 
 the landlord, looking grave. "He has been gone 
 these thirty years and more. His was a tragical 
 ending." 
 
 But I was thinking too much of the younger 
 brother just then to feel any curiosity about the 
 elder; and I told myself that I would put up with 
 the companionship of any number of clocks, rather 
 than sleep under the same roof with that terrible 
 face and those unearthly eyes. 
 
 "I saw your pastor just now in the church," I
 
 Q0 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 said, with apparent indifference. "He is a singular- 
 looking man." 
 
 "He is too good for this world," said the land- 
 lady. 
 
 "He is a saint upon earth!" added the pretty 
 Friiulein. 
 
 "He is one of the best of men," said, more 
 soberly, the husband and father. "I only wish he 
 was less of a saint. He fasts, and prays, and works 
 beyond his strength. A little more beef and a 
 little less devotion would be all the better for 
 
 him." 
 
 "I should like to hear something more about 
 the life of so good a man," said I, having by this 
 time come to the end of my simple dinner. "Come, 
 Herr Wirth, let us have a bottle of your best, and 
 then sit down and tell me your pastor's history!" 
 
 The landlord sent his daughter for a bottle of 
 the "green seal," and, taking a chair, said: — 
 
 "Ach Himmel! mein Herr, there is no history 
 to tell. The good father has lived here all his life. 
 He is one of us. His father, Johann Chessez, was 
 a native of Rheinfelden and kept this' very inn. He 
 was a wealthy farmer and vine-grower. He had 
 only those two sons — Nicholas, who took to the 
 church and became pastor of Feldkirche; and this 
 one, Matthias, who was intended to inherit the busi- 
 ness; but who also entered religion after the death 
 of his elder brother, and is now pastor of the same 
 parish." 
 
 "But why did he 'enter religion?'" I asked. 
 "Was he in any way to blame for the accident (if
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 9 1 
 
 It was an accident) that caused the death of his 
 elder brother?" 
 
 "Ah Heavens! no!" exclaimed the landlady, 
 leaning on the back of her husband's chair. "It 
 was the shock — the shock that told so terribly upon 
 his poor nerves! He was but a lad at that time, 
 and as sensitive as a girl — but the Herr Englander 
 does not know the story. Go on, my husband." 
 
 So the landlord , after a sip of the " green seal," 
 continued: — 
 
 "At the time my wife alludes to, mein Herr, 
 Johann Chessez was still living. Nicholas, the elder 
 son, was in holy orders and established in the parish 
 of Feldkirche, outside the walls; and Matthias, the 
 younger, was a lad of about fourteen years old, and 
 lived with his father. He was an amiable good boy — 
 pious and thoughtful — fonder of his books than of 
 the business. The neighbour-folk used to say even 
 then that Matthias was cut out for a priest, like his 
 elder brother. As for Nicholas, he was neither more 
 nor less than a saint. Well, mein Herr, at this time 
 there lived on the other side of Rheinfelden, about 
 a mile beyond the Basel Thor, a farmer named 
 Caspar Rufenacht and his wife Margaret. Now Cas- 
 par Rufenacht was a jealous, quarrelsome fellow; 
 and the Frau Margaret was pretty; and he led her a 
 devil of a life. It was said that he used to beat 
 her when he had been drinking, and that some- 
 times, when he went to fair or market, he would 
 lock her up for the whole day in a room at the 
 top of the house. Well, this poor, ill-used Frau 
 Margaret — "
 
 0,2 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 "Tut, tut, my man," interrupted the landlady. 
 "The Frau Margaret was a light one!" 
 
 "Peace, wife! Shall we speak hard words of the 
 dead 1 ? The Frau Margaret was young and pretty, 
 and a flirt; and she had a bad husband, who left 
 her too much alone." 
 
 The landlady pursed up her lips and shook her 
 head, as the best of women will do when the cha- 
 racter of another woman is under discussion. The 
 innkeeper went on. 
 
 "Well, mein Herr, to cut a long story short, 
 after having been jealous first of one and then of 
 another, Caspar Rufenacht became furious about a 
 certain German, a Badener named Schmidt, living 
 on the opposite bank of the Rhine. I remember 
 the man quite well — a handsome, merry fellow, and 
 no saint; just the sort to make mischief between 
 man and wife. Well, Caspar Rufenacht swore a 
 great oath that, cost what it might, he would come 
 at the truth about his wife and Schmidt; so he laid 
 all manner of plots to surprise them — waylaid the 
 Frau Margaret in her walks; followed her at a dis- 
 tance when she went to church; came home at un- 
 expected hours; and played the spy as if he had 
 been brought up to the trade. But his spying 
 was all in vain. Either the Frau Margaret was too 
 clever for him, or there was really nothing to dis- 
 cover; but still he was not satisfied. So he cast 
 about for some way to attain his end, and, by the 
 help of the Evil One, he found it." 
 
 Here the innkeeper's wife and daughter, who
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 93 
 
 had doubtless heard the story a hundred times over, 
 drew near and listened breathlessly. 
 
 "What, think you," continued the landlord, "does 
 this black-souled Caspar do? Does he punish the 
 poor woman within an inch of her life, till she con- 
 fesses? No. Does he charge Schmidt with having 
 tempted her from her duty, and fight it out with 
 him like a man? No. What else then? I will tell 
 you. He waits till the vigil of St. Margaret — her 
 saint's day — when he knows the poor sinful soul is 
 going to confession; and he marches straight to the 
 house of the Pere Chessez — the very house where 
 our own Pere Chessez is now living — and he finds 
 the good priest at his devotions in his little study, 
 and he says to him: 
 
 "'Father Chessez, my wife is coming to the 
 church this afternoon to make her confession to 
 you.' 
 
 "'She is,' replies the priest. 
 
 '"I want you to tell me all she tells you,' says 
 Caspar; 'and I will wait here till you come back 
 from the church, that I may hear it. Will you 
 do so?' 
 
 "'Certainly not,' replies the Pere Chessez. 'You 
 must surely know, Caspar, that we priests are for- 
 bidden to reveal the secrets of the confessional.' 
 
 '"That is nothing to me,' says Caspar, with an 
 oath. 'I am resolved to know whether my wife is 
 guilty or innocent; and know it I will, by fair means 
 or foul.' 
 
 '"You shall never know it from me, Caspar,' 
 says the Pere Chessez, very quietly.
 
 94 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 "'Then, by Heavens!' says Caspar, 'I'll learn it 
 Tor myself.' And with that he pulls out a heavy 
 horse-pistol from his pocket, and with the butt-end 
 of it deals the Pere Chessez a tremendous blow 
 upon the head, and then another, and another, till 
 the poor young man lay senseless at his feet. Then 
 Caspar, thinking he had quite killed him, dressed 
 himself in the priest's own soutane and hat; locked 
 the door; put the key in his pocket; and stealing 
 round the back way into the church, shut himself 
 up in the confessional." 
 
 "Then the priest died!" I exclaimed, remember- 
 ing the epitaph upon the tablet. 
 
 "Ay, mein Herr — the Pere Chessez died; but 
 not before he had told the story of his assassina- 
 tion, and identified his murderer." 
 
 "And Caspar Rufenacht, I hope, was hanged 1 ?" 
 
 "Wait a bit, mein Herr, we have not come to, 
 that yet. We left Caspar in the confessional, wait- 
 ing for his wife." 
 
 "And she came 1 ?" 
 
 "Yes, poor soul! she came." 
 
 "And made her confession?" 
 
 "And made her confession, mein Herr." 
 
 "What did she confess?" 
 
 The innkeeper shook his head. 
 
 "That no one ever knew, save the good God 
 and her murderer." 
 
 "Her murderer!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Ay, just that. Whatever it was that she con-' 
 fessed, she paid for it with her life. He heard her 
 out, at all events, without discovering himself, and
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 95 
 
 let her go home believing that she had received 
 absolution for her sins. Those who met her that 
 afternoon said she seemed unusually bright and 
 happy. As she passed through the town, she went 
 into the shop in the Mongarten Strasse, and bought 
 some ribbons. About half an hour later, my own 
 father met her outside the Basel Thor, walking 
 briskly homewards. He was the last who saw her 
 alive. 
 
 "That evening (it was in October, and the days 
 were short), some travellers coming that way into 
 the town heard shrill cries, as of a woman screaming, 
 in the direction of Caspar's farm. But the night 
 was very dark, and the house lay back a little way 
 from the road; so they told themselves it was only 
 some drunken peasant quarrelling with his wife, and 
 passed on. Next morning Caspar Rufenacht came 
 toRheinfelden, walked very quietly into the Polizei, 
 and gave himself up to justice. 
 
 "'I have killed my wife,' said he. T have killed 
 the Pere Chessez. And I have committed sacri- 
 lege.' 
 
 "And so, indeed, it was. As for the Frau Mar- 
 garet, they found her body in an upper chamber, 
 well-nigh hacked to pieces, and the hatchet with 
 which the murder was committed lying beside her 
 on the floor. He had pursued her, apparently, from 
 room to room; for there were pools of blood and 
 handfuls of long light hair, and marks of bloody 
 hands along the walls, all the way from the kitchen 
 to the spot where she lay dead,"
 
 96 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 "And so he was hanged 1 ?" said I, coming back 
 to my original question. 
 
 "Yes, yes," replied the innkeeper and his woman- 
 kind in chorus. "He was hanged — of course he 
 was hanged." 
 
 "And it was the shock of this double tragedy 
 that drove the younger Chessez into the church 1 ?" 
 
 "Just so, mein Herr." 
 
 "Well, he carries it in his face. He looks like 
 a most unhappy man." 
 
 "Nay, he is not that, mein Herr!" exclaimed 
 the landlady. "He is melancholy, but not un- 
 happy." 
 
 "Well, then, austere." 
 
 "Nor is he austere, except towards himself." 
 
 "True, wife," said the innkeeper; "but, as I 
 said, he carries that sort of thing too far. You 
 understand, mein Herr," he added, touching his 
 forehead with his forefinger, "the good pastor has 
 let his mind dwell too much upon the past. He is 
 nervous — too nervous, and too low." 
 
 I saw it all now. That terrible light in his eyes 
 was the light of insanity. That stony look in his 
 face was the fixed, hopeless melancholy of a mind 
 diseased. 
 
 "Does he know that he is mad 1 ?" I asked, as 
 the landlord rose to go. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and looked doubtful. 
 
 "I have not said that the Pere Chessez is mad, 
 mein Herr," he replied. "He has strange fancies 
 sometimes, and takes his fancies for facts — that is
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 97 
 
 all. But I am quite sure that he does not believe 
 himself to be less sane than his neighbours." 
 
 So the innkeeper left me, and I (my head full 
 of the story I had just heard) put on my hat, went 
 out into the market-place, asked my way to the Basel 
 Thor, and set off to explore the scene of the Frau 
 Margaret's murder. 
 
 I found it without difficulty — a long, low-fronted, 
 beetle-browed farm-house, lying back a meadow's 
 length from the road. There were children playing 
 upon the threshold, a flock of turkeys gobbling 
 about the barn-door, and a big dog sleeping out- 
 side his kennel close by. The chimneys, too, were 
 smoking merrily. Seeing these signs of life and 
 cheerfulness, I abandoned all idea of asking to go 
 over the house. I felt that I had no right to carry 
 my morbid curiosity into this peaceful home; so I 
 turned away, and retraced my steps towards Rhein- 
 felden. 
 
 It was not yet seven, and the sun had still an 
 hour's course to run. I re-entered the town, strolled 
 back through the street, and presently came again 
 to the Friedrich's Thor and the path leading to the 
 church. An irresistible impulse seemed to drag 
 me back to the place. 
 
 Shudderingly, and with a sort of dread that was 
 half longing, I pushed open the churchyard gate 
 and went in. The doors were closed; a goat was 
 browsing among the graves; and the rushing of the 
 Rhine, some three hundred yards away, was dis- 
 tinctly audible in the silence. I looked round for 
 the priest's house — the scene of the first murder; 
 
 The Black Forest. 7
 
 0,8 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 but from this side, at all events, no house was 
 visible. Going round, however, to the back of the 
 church, I saw a gate, a box-bordered path, and, 
 peeping through some trees, a chimney and the 
 roof of a little brown-tiled house. 
 
 This, then, was the path along which Caspar 
 Rufenacht, with the priest's blood upon his hands 
 and the priest's gown upon his shoulders, had taken 
 his guilty way to the confessional ! How quiet it 
 all looked in the golden evening light ! How like 
 the church-path of an English parsonage ! 
 
 I wished I could have seen something more of 
 the house than that bit of roof and that one chimney. 
 There must, I told myself, be some other entrance 
 — some way round by the road! Musing and linger- 
 ing thus, I was startled by a quiet voice close against 
 my shoulder, saying: — 
 
 "A pleasant evening, mein Herr!" 
 
 I turned, and found the priest at my elbow. 
 He had come noiselessly across the grass, and was 
 standing between me and the sunset, like a shadow. 
 
 "I — I beg your pardon," I stammered, moving 
 away from the gate. "I was looking — " 
 
 I stopped in some surprise, and indeed with 
 some sense of relief, for it was not the same priest 
 that I had seen in the morning. No two, indeed, 
 could well be more unlike, for this man was small, 
 white-haired, gentle-looking, with a soft, sad smile 
 inexpressibly sweet and winning. 
 
 "You were looking at my arbutus?" he said. 
 
 I had scarcely observed the arbutus till now,
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 99 
 
 but I bowed and said something to the effect that 
 it was an unusually fine tree. 
 
 "Yes," he replied; "but I have a rhododendron 
 round at the front that is still finer. Will you come 
 in and see it?" 
 
 I said I should be pleased to do so. He led 
 the way, and I followed. 
 
 "I hope you like this part of our Rhine-coun- 
 try 1 ?" he said, as we took the path through the 
 shrubbery. 
 
 "I like it so well," I replied, "that if I were to 
 live anywhere on the banks of the Rhine , I should 
 certainly choose some spot on the Upper Rhine be- 
 tween Schaffhausen and Basle." 
 
 "And you would be right," he said. "Nowhere 
 is the river so beautiful. Nearer the glaciers it is 
 milky and turbid — beyond Basle it soon becomes 
 muddy. Here we have it blue as the sky — spark- 
 ling as champagne. Here is my rhododendron. It 
 stands twelve feet high, and measures as many in 
 diameter. I had more than two hundred blooms 
 upon it last Spring." 
 
 When I had duly admired this giant shrub, he 
 took me to a little arbour on a bit of steep green 
 bank overlooking the river, where he invited me to 
 sit down and rest. From hence I could see the 
 porch and part of the front of his little house; but 
 it was all so closely planted round with trees and 
 shrubs that no clear view of it seemed obtainable 
 in any direction. Here we sat for some time chat- 
 ting about the weather, the approaching vintage, 
 
 r
 
 IOO IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 and so forth, and watching the sunset. Then I rose 
 to take my leave. 
 
 "I heard of you this evening at the Krone, mein 
 Herr," he said. "You were out, or I should have 
 called upon you. I am glad that chance has made 
 us acquainted. Do you remain over to-morrow 1 ?" 
 
 "No; I must go on to-morrow to Basle," I an- 
 swered. And then, hesitating a little, I added: — 
 "you heard of me, also, I fear, in the church." 
 
 "In the church 1 ?" he repeated. 
 
 "Seeing the door open, I went in — from curio- 
 sity — as a traveller; just to look round for a mo- 
 ment and rest." 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 "I — I had no idea, however, that I was not 
 alone there. I would not for the world have in- 
 truded—" 
 
 "I do not understand," he said, seeing me 
 hesitate. "The church stands open all day long. It 
 is free to every one." 
 
 "Ah! I see he has not told you!" 
 
 The priest smiled but looked puzzled. 
 
 "He 1 ? Whom do you mean]" 
 
 "The other priest, mon pere — your colleague. I 
 regret to have broken in upon his meditations; but 
 I had been so long in the church, and it was all so 
 still and quiet, that it never occurred to me that 
 there might be some one in the confessional." 
 
 The priest looked at me in a strange, startled 
 way. 
 
 "In the confessional!" he repeated, with a catch-
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. IOI 
 
 ing of his breath. "You saw some one — in the con- 
 fessional?" 
 
 "I am ashamed to say that, having thoughtlessly 
 opened the door — " 
 
 "You saw — what did you see?" 
 
 "A priest, mon pere." 
 
 "A priest! Can you describe him? Should you 
 know him again? Was he pale, and tall, and gaunt, 
 with long black hair?" 
 
 "The same, undoubtedly." 
 
 "And his eyes — did you observe anything par- 
 ticular about his eyes?" 
 
 "Yes; they were large, wild-looking, dark eyes, 
 with a look in them — a look I cannot describe." 
 
 "A look of terror!" cried the pastor, now greatly 
 agitated. "A look of terror — of remorse — of de- 
 spair!" 
 
 "Yes, it was a look that might mean all that," I 
 replied, my astonishment increasing at every word. 
 "You seem troubled. Who is he?" 
 
 But instead of answering my question, the pastor 
 took off his hat, looked up with a radiant, awe- 
 struck face, and said: — 
 
 "All-merciful God, I thank Thee! I thank Thee 
 that I am not mad, and that Thou hast sent this 
 stranger to be my assurance and my comfort!" 
 
 Having said these words, he bowed his head, 
 and his lips moved in silent prayer. When he looked 
 up again, his eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "My son," he said, laying his trembling hand 
 upon my arm, "I owe you an explanation; but I 
 cannot give it to you now. It must wait till I can
 
 102 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 speak more calmly — till to-morrow, when I must see 
 you again. It involves a terrible story — a story pe- 
 culiarly painful to myself — enough now if I tell you 
 that I have seen the Thing you describe — seen It 
 many times; and yet, because It has been visible to 
 my eyes alone , I have doubted the evidence of my 
 senses. The good people here believe that much 
 sorrow and meditation have touched my brain. I 
 have half believed it myself till now. But you — you 
 have proved to me that I am the victim of no illu- 
 sion." 
 
 "But in Heaven's name," I exclaimed, "what do 
 you suppose I saw in the confessional?" 
 
 "You saw the likeness of one who, guilty also 
 of a double murder, committed the deadly sin of 
 sacrilege in that very spot, more than thirty years 
 ago," replied the Pere Chessez, solemnly. 
 
 "Caspar Rufenacht!" 
 
 "Ah! you have heard the story? Then I am spared 
 the pain of telling it to you. That is well." 
 
 I bent my head in silence. We walked together 
 without another word to the wicket, and thence 
 round to the churchyard gate. It was now twilight, 
 and the first stars were out. 
 
 "Good-night, my son," said the pastor, giving 
 me his hand. "Peace be with you." 
 
 As he spoke the words his grasp tightened — 
 his eyes dilated — his whole countenance became 
 rigid. 
 
 "Look!" he whispered. "Look where it goes!" 
 
 I followed the direction of his eyes, and there, 
 with a freezing horror which I have no words to
 
 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. IO3 
 
 describe, I saw — distinctly saw through the deepen- 
 ing gloom — a tall, dark figure in a priest's soutane 
 and broad-brimmed hat, moving slowly across the 
 path leading from the parsonage to the church. For 
 a moment it seemed to pause — then passed on to 
 the deeper shade, and disappeared. 
 
 "You saw it?" said the pastor. 
 
 "Yes— plainly." 
 
 He drew a deep breath; crossed himself devoutly; 
 and leaned upon the gate, as if exhausted. 
 
 "This is the third time I have seen it this year," 
 he said. "Again I thank God for the certainty 
 that I see a visible thing, and that His great gift of 
 reason is mine unimpaired. But I would that He 
 were graciously pleased to release me from the sight 
 — the horror of it is sometimes more than I know 
 how to bear. Good night." 
 
 With this he again touched my hand; and so, 
 seeing that he wished to be alone, I silently left 
 him. At the Friedrich's Thor I turned and looked 
 back. He was still standing by the churchyard 
 gate, just visible through the gloom of the fast 
 deepening twilight. 
 
 I never saw the Pere Chessez again. Save his 
 own old servant, I was the last who spoke with him 
 in this world. He died that night — died in his bed, 
 where he was found next morning with his hands 
 crossed upon his breast, and with a placid smile 
 upon his lips, as if he had fallen asleep in the act 
 of prayer.
 
 104 IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 As the news spread from house to house, the 
 whole town rang with lamentations. The church- 
 bells tolled; the carpenters left their work in the 
 streets; the children, dismissed from school, went 
 home weeping. 
 
 "'Twill be the saddest Kermess in Rheinfelden 
 to-morrow, mein Herr!" said my good host of the 
 Krone, as I shook hands with him at parting. "We 
 have lost the best of pastors and of friends. He 
 was a saint. If you had come but one day later, 
 you would not have seen him!" 
 
 And with this he brushed his sleeve across his 
 eyes, and turned away. 
 
 Every shutter was up, every blind down, every 
 door closed, as I passed along the Friedrich's Strasse 
 about midday on my way to Basle; and the few 
 townsfolk I met looked grave and downcast. Then 
 I crossed the bridge and, having shown my pass- 
 port to the German sentry on the Baden side, I took 
 one long, last farewell look at the little walled town 
 as it lay sleeping in the sunshine by the river — 
 knowing that I should see it no more.
 
 THE TRAGEDY IN 
 
 THE PALAZZO BARDELLO.
 
 [The scene of this story is laid in the Rome of 
 fifteen years ago, when the old Pontifical regime 
 was yet in full force, and Victor Emanuel was 
 still King of Sardinia.]
 
 THE TRAGEDY IN 
 THE PALAZZO BARDELLO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The sun had been up for the best part of an 
 hour; the golden haze in the East was slowly melt- 
 ing away; the sluggish tide of bullock trucks had 
 fairly set in along the Via Sacra; and a faint, 
 universal stir of awakening life was to be felt rather 
 than heard in the pleasant morning air, when a 
 certain Englishman, Hugh Girdlestone by name, 
 rose from his lounging attitude against the parapet 
 of the Tower of the Capitol, and prepared to be 
 gone. He had been standing there in the same 
 spot, in the same attitude, since the first grey of the 
 dawn. He had seen the last star fade from the 
 sky. He had seen the shadowy Sabine peaks up- 
 lift themselves one by one, and the Campagna 
 emerge, like a troubled sea, from the mystery of 
 the twilight. 
 
 Rome with its multitudinous domes and bell- 
 towers, its history, its poetry, its fable, lay at his 
 feet — yonder the Coliseum, brown, vast, indistinct 
 against the light, with the blue day piercing its top- 
 most arches; to the left the shapeless ruins of the
 
 I08 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 Palace of the C?esars; to the right, faintly visible 
 above the mist, the pyramid of Caius Cestius, beside 
 which, amid a wilderness of sweet wild violets, lie 
 the ashes of John Keats; nearer still, the sullen 
 Tiber eddying over the fast vanishing piers of the 
 Pons Emilius; nearest of all, the Forum, with its 
 excavations, its columns, its triumphal arches, its 
 scanty turf, its stunted acacias, its indescribable air 
 of repose and desolation; and beyond and around 
 all, the brown and broken Campagna, bounded on 
 the one hand by long chains of snow-streaked 
 Apennines, and on the other by a shining zone of 
 sea. A marvellous panorama! Perhaps, taking it 
 for all in all, the most marvellous panorama that 
 Europe has to show. Hugh Girdlestone knew every 
 feature of it by heart. He was familiar with every 
 crumbling tower and modern campanile, with every 
 space of open piazza, with every green enclosure, 
 with the site of every famous ruin and the outline 
 of every famous hill. It was his favourite haunt — 
 the one pageant of which his eyes and his imagina- 
 tion were never weary. He had seen the sun rise 
 and set upon that scene many and many a time, 
 both now and in years past. He might, in all 
 probability, stand in the same spot and witness the 
 same gorgeous spectacle to-morrow; and yet he 
 lingered there as fondly as if this visit were his 
 first, and left as reluctantly as if it were destined to 
 be his last. 
 
 Slowly and thoughtfully he went his way, out 
 through the spacious courtyard, past the bronze 
 horse and his imperial rider, down the great steps,
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. IOO, 
 
 and along the Via Ara Coeli. Passing the church 
 of the Jesuits, he paused for a moment to listen to 
 the chanting. As he did so, a Campagna drover in 
 a rough sheepskin jacket stopped his truck to kneel 
 for a moment on the lowest step and then trudge 
 on again; and presently an Albano woman lifted 
 the ponderous leather curtain and came out, bring- 
 ing with her a momentary rush of rolling harmonies. 
 The Englishman listened and lingered, made as if 
 he would go in, and then, with something of a smile 
 upon his lip, turned hastily away. Going straight 
 on, with his head a little thrown forward and his 
 hat pulled somewhat low upon his brow, he then 
 pushed on at a swift, swinging stride, proceeding 
 direct to the post-office, and passing the Pantheon 
 without so much as a glance. 
 
 Manly, well-born, well-educated, gifted with a 
 more than ordinary amount of brains, and, perhaps, 
 with a more than ordinary share of insular stub- 
 bornness, Hugh Girdlestone was just one of those 
 men whom it does one good to meet in the streets 
 of a continental city. He was an Englishman 
 through and through; and he was precisely that 
 type of Englishman who commands the respect, 
 though seldom the liking, of foreigners. He ex- 
 pressed and held to his opinions with a decision 
 that they disliked intensely. His voice had a ring 
 of authority that grated upon their ears. His very 
 walk had in it something characteristic and resolute 
 that offended their prejudices. For his appearance, 
 it was as insular as his gait or his accent. He was 
 tall, strongly made, somewhat gaunt and swift-look-
 
 I I O THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 ing about the limbs, with a slight stoop in the 
 shoulders, and a trick of swinging his gloves in his 
 right hand as he went along. In complexion and 
 feature he was not unlike the earlier portraits of 
 Charles II. The lines of his face were less harsh, 
 and his skin was less swarthy; but there was the 
 same sarcastic play of lip, and now and then a flash 
 of the same restless fire in the eye. 
 
 Nor did the resemblance end here. It came 
 out strongest of all in a mere passing shadow of 
 expression — that expression of saturnine foreboding 
 which Walpole aptly defined as the "fatality of air" 
 common to the line of the Stuarts. The look was 
 one which came to his face but rarely — so rarely 
 that many of his intimate acquaintances had never 
 seen it there; but it started to the surface some- 
 times, like a hidden writing, and sometimes settled 
 like a darkness on his brow. 
 
 The main facts of his story up to the morning 
 of this day — this 13th day of February, 1857 — may 
 be told in a few lines. 
 
 He was the son of a wealthy Derbyshire squire, 
 had taken honours at Cambridge, and had been 
 called to the bar some four or five years back. As 
 yet he could scarcely be said to have entered actively 
 upon his professional life. He had written an able 
 treatise on the law of International Copyright, and 
 edited an important digest of Chancery practice. 
 He had also been for years in the habit of con- 
 tributing to the best periodical literature of the 
 day. Within the last four months, after a prolonged 
 opposition on the part of her nearest relatives, he
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I I I 
 
 had happily married a young lady of ancient Roman 
 Catholic family and moderate fortune, to whom he 
 had been attached from boyhood. They were spend- 
 ing a long honeymoon in Rome, and were perfectly 
 happy as a pair of lovers in a fairy tale. When it 
 is added that she was just twenty-two and he thirty- 
 four years of age, the outline of their little history 
 is made out with sufficient clearness for all the 
 purposes of this narrative. 
 
 Pushing on, then, at his eager pace, Hugh 
 Girdlestone came presently to the post-office and 
 inquired for his letters. There was but one — a 
 square, blue-looking, ill-favoured sort of document, 
 sealed with a big office seal and addressed in a 
 trim business hand. He had to show his passport 
 before the clerk would trust it beyond the bars of 
 the little cage in which he sat, and then it was 
 overweight, and he was called upon to pay forty-six 
 bajocchi for extra postage. This done — and it 
 seemed to him that the clerk was wilfully and 
 maliciously slow about it — Hugh Girdlestone crushed 
 the letter into an inner breast-pocket, and turned 
 away. At the door he hesitated, looked at his watch, 
 crossed over, withdrew into the shade of a neigh- 
 bouring porte-cochere, took his letter out again, and 
 tore it open. 
 
 It contained two enclosures; the one a note 
 from his publishers, the other a letter of credit upon 
 a great Roman banking-house. He drew a deep 
 breath of satisfaction. He had been expecting this 
 remittance for several days past, not altogether with 
 anxiety, for he was in no immediate need of money,
 
 I I 2 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 but with some degree of impatience; for the fate of 
 more than one project was involved in the sum 
 which this letter of credit might chance to represent. 
 The extension of their tour as far as Naples, the 
 purchase of certain bronzes and cameos, and the 
 date of their return to England, were all dependent 
 upon it. It was no wonder, then, that Hugh Girdle- 
 stone's brow cleared at sight of the amount for 
 which he found himself entitled to draw upon the 
 princely establishment in the Piazza Venezia. It 
 exceeded his expectations by nearly one-half, and 
 made him a rich man for the next three months. 
 
 Having read the letter and folded the enclosure 
 carefully away in his pocket-book, he then struck off 
 in a north-easterly direction towards some of those 
 narrow thoroughfares that lie between the Tiber, 
 the Corso, and the Piazza di Spagna. 
 
 The streets were now beginning to be alive with 
 passengers. The shop-keepers were busy arranging 
 their windows; the vetturini were ranging themselves 
 in their accustomed ranks; the beggars were lazily 
 setting about their professional avocations for the 
 day; and the French regiments were turning out, as 
 usual, for morning parade on the Pincio. Here 
 and there a long-haired student might be seen with 
 his colour-box under his arm, trudging away to his 
 work of reproduction in some neighbouring gallery; 
 or a Guarda Nobile, cigarette en douche, riding 
 leisurely towards the Vatican. Here and there, too, 
 on the steps of the churches and at the corners of 
 the streets, were gathered little knots of priests and
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I I 3 
 
 mendicant friars, deep in pious gossip, and redolent 
 less of sanctity than of garlic. 
 
 But to Hugh Girdlestone these sights and sounds 
 were all too familiar to claim even passing atten- 
 tion. He went on his way, preoccupied and un- 
 observant, with a face of happy thoughtfulness and 
 a head full of joyous hopes and projects. Life had, 
 perhaps, never seemed so bright for him as at that 
 moment. The happy present was his own, and the 
 future with all its possible rewards and blessings lay, 
 as it were, unfolded before him. It was not often 
 that he was visited by a holiday mood such as this; 
 and, English as he was, he could scarcely forbear 
 smiling to himself as he went along. Coming pre- 
 sently, however, into a long picturesque street lined 
 with shops on both sides from end to end, he 
 slackened his pace, shook off his reverie, and began 
 loitering before the windows with the air of a pur- 
 chaser. 
 
 Pausing now at a cameo-cutter's, now at a 
 mosaicisms, now at a jeweller's, hesitating between 
 the bronze medals in this window and the antique 
 gems in that, he came presently to one of those 
 shops for the sale of devotional articles, one or 
 more of which are to be found in almost every 
 street of Rome. Here were exquisitely carved ro- 
 saries in cedar and coral and precious stones, votive 
 offerings in silver and wax, consecrated palms, 
 coloured prints of saints and martyrs in emblematic 
 frames, missals, crosses, holy water vessels, and 
 wreaths of immortelles. Here also, occupying the 
 centre of the window and relieved against a stand 
 
 The Black Forest. 8
 
 114 THE 'I'KAGEDY IN THE 
 
 of crimson cloth, stood an ivory crucifixion designed 
 after the famous Vandyck at Antwerp, and mea- 
 suring about ten inches in height. It was a little 
 gem in its way — a tiny masterpiece of rare and de- 
 licate workmanship. 
 
 Hugh Girdlestone had seen and admired it 
 many a time before, but never till now with any 
 thought of purchase. To-day, however, the aspect 
 of affairs was changed. His letter of credit trou- 
 bled his peace of mind and oppressed him with an 
 uneasy sense of wealth. He longed to buy some- 
 thing for his little bride at home, and he knew that 
 he could find nothing in all Rome which she would 
 prefer to this. She would appreciate it as a piece 
 of art, and prize it as a most precious adjunct to 
 her devotions. She would love it, too, for his dear 
 sake, and her eyes would rest upon it when she 
 prayed for him in her orisons. Dear, pious, tender 
 little heart! it should be hers, cost what it might. 
 He would take it home to her this very morning. 
 What pleasure to see the glad wonder in her eyes! 
 What pleasure to give her back smile for smile, and 
 kiss for kiss, when she should fly into his arms to 
 thank him for the gift! 
 
 So Hugh Girdlestone went in and bought it, 
 reckless of the breach it made in his purse, and 
 caring for nothing but the delight of gratifying what 
 he so dearly loved. 
 
 That he, an ultra-liberal thinker in all matters 
 religious and political, should select such a gift for 
 his wife, was just one of those characteristic traits 
 that essentially marked the man. Setting but slight
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 115 
 
 value on all forms of creeds, and ranking that of 
 the Romanist at a lower level than most, he could 
 yet feel a sort of indulgent admiration for the grace- 
 ful side of Roman Catholic worship. The flowers, 
 the music, the sculpture, the paintings, the per- 
 fumes, the gorgeous costumes, gratified his sense 
 of beauty; and, regarding these things from a 
 purely aesthetic point of view, he was willing to 
 admit that it was a pretty, poetical sort of religion 
 enough— for a woman. 
 
 Carrying the ivory carving carefully packed in 
 a little oblong box under his arm, Hugh Girdlestone 
 then hastened homewards with his purchase. It 
 was now ten o'clock, and all Rome was as full of 
 stir and life as at mid-day. His way lay through 
 the Piazza di Spagna, up the great steps, and on 
 through the Via Sistina, to a certain by-street near 
 the Quattro Fontane, where he and his little wife 
 occupied an upper floor in a small palazzo situated 
 upon one of the loftiest and healthiest points of the 
 Quirinal Hill. As he neared the spot, a sense of 
 pleasurable excitement came upon him. He smiled, 
 unconsciously to himself, and, scarcely knowing that 
 he did so, quickened his pace at every step. To 
 the accustomed beggar at the corner he flung a 
 double dole in the joyousness of his heart; to a lean 
 dog prowling round the cortile, a biscuit that chanced 
 to be in his pocket. Happiness disposes some 
 people to benevolence, and Hugh Girdlestone was 
 one of that number. 
 
 Up he went — up the broad stone staircase which 
 served as a general thoroughfare to the dwellers in
 
 Il6 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 the Palazzo Bardello; past the first landing, with its 
 English footman, insolently discontent, lolling against 
 the half-opened door; past the second landing, fra- 
 grant with flowers, the temporary home of a wealthy 
 American family; past the third, where, in an at- 
 mosphere of stormy solfeggi, lived an Italian tenor 
 and his wife; and on, two steps at a time, to the 
 fourth, where all that he loved best in life awaited 
 his coming! There he paused. His own visiting 
 card was nailed upon the door, and under his name, 
 in a delicate female hand, was written that of his 
 wife. Happy Hugh Girdlestone! There was not a 
 lighter heart in Rome at that moment when, having 
 delayed an instant to take breath before going in, 
 he pulled out his latch-key, opened the gates of his 
 paradise, and passed into the shady little vestibule 
 beyond. 
 
 At the door of the salon he was met by Mar- 
 gherita, their Roman servant — a glorious creature 
 who looked as if she might have been the mother 
 of the Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an 
 honest water-carrier down by the Ripetta, and was 
 thankful to go out to service for some months every 
 year. 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her 
 lip. "She sleeps still." 
 
 The breakfast lay on the table, untouched and 
 ready; the morning sunshine flamed in at the win- 
 dows; the flowers on the balcony filled the air of 
 the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day 
 of days — a day when to be still in bed seemed 
 almost like a sacrilege — a day when, above all
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I I 7 
 
 others, one should be up, and doing, and revelling 
 in the spring-time of the glad new year. 
 
 Hugh Girdlestone could scarcely believe that 
 Margherita was in earnest. 
 
 "Sleeps!" he repeated. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that the Signora has not yet rung her 
 bell." 
 
 "But is she still in bed?" 
 
 "Still in bed, Signore, and sleeping soundly. I 
 stole in about half-an-hour ago, and she never heard 
 me. I would not wake her. Sleep is a blessed 
 thing — the good God sends it." 
 
 The Englishman laughed and shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "One may have too much, even of a blessing, 
 my good Margherita," he said. "/ shall wake her, 
 at all events, and she will thank me for doing so. 
 See — I have something here worth the opening of 
 one's eyes to look upon!" 
 
 Margherita clasped her hands in an ecstasy of 
 devotional admiration. 
 
 "Ctelo!" she exclaimed. "How beautiful!" 
 
 He placed the carving on a stand of red cloth, 
 and then, going over to the balcony, gathered a 
 handful of orange blossoms and crimson azalias. 
 
 "We must decorate our altar with flowers, Mar- 
 gherita," he said, smiling. "Fetch me those two 
 white vases from the chimney-piece in the ante- 
 room." 
 
 The vases were brought, and he arranged his 
 bouquets as tenderly and gracefully as a woman 
 might have arranged them. This done, he stole to
 
 I T 8 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 the bedroom door, opened it noiselessly, and 
 peeped in. 
 
 All within was wrapt in a delicious, dreamy 
 dusk. The jalousies were closed and the inner 
 blinds drawn down; but one window stood a few 
 inches open, admitting a soft breath of morning 
 air, and now and then a faint echo from the world 
 beyond. He advanced very cautiously. He held 
 his breath — he stole on a step at a time — he would 
 not have roused her for the world till all was ready. 
 At the dressing-table he paused and looked round. 
 He could just see the dim outline of her form in 
 the bed. He could just see how one little hand 
 rested on the coverlet, and how her hair lay like 
 a lustrous cloud upon the pillow. Very carefully 
 he then removed her dressing-case and desk from a 
 tiny table close by, carried it to the side of the bed, 
 and placed it where her eyes must first meet it on 
 waking. He next crept back to the salon for the 
 ivory carving; then for the flowers; and then arranged 
 them on the table like the decorations of a minia- 
 ture shrine. 
 
 And all this time she neither woke nor stirred. 
 
 At last, his pretty little preparations being all 
 complete, the young husband, careful even now not 
 to startle her too rudely, gently unclosed the ja- 
 lousies, drew aside the blinds, and filled the room 
 with sunshine. 
 
 "Ethel," he said. "Ethel, do you know how 
 late it is?" 
 
 But Ethel still slept on. 
 
 He moved a step nearer. Her face was turned
 
 PALAZZO BARBELLO. I IQ 
 
 to the pillow; but he could see the rounded outline 
 of her cheek, and it struck him that she looked 
 strangely pale. His heart gave a great throb; his 
 breath came short; a nameless terror — a terror of 
 he knew not what — fell suddenly upon him. 
 
 "Ethel!" he repeated. "My darling — my dar- 
 ling!" 
 
 He sprang to the bedside — he hung over her — 
 he touched her hand, her cheek, her neck — then 
 uttered one wild, despairing cry, and staggered back 
 against the wall. 
 
 She was dead. 
 
 Not fainting. No; not even in the first horror 
 of that moment did he deceive himself with so 
 vain a hope. She was dead, and he knew that she 
 was dead. He knew it with as full and fixed a 
 sense of conviction as if he had been prepared for 
 it by months of anxiety. He did not ask himself 
 why it was so. He did not ask himself by what 
 swift and cruel disease — by what mysterious acci- 
 dent, this dread thing had come to pass. He only 
 knew that she was dead; and that all the joy, the 
 hope, the glory of life was gone from him for ever. 
 
 A long time, or what seemed like a long time, 
 went by thus; he leaning up against the wall, voice- 
 less, tearless, paralysed, unable to think, or move, 
 or do anything but stare in a blank, lost way at 
 the bed on which lay the wreck of his happiness. 
 
 By-and-by — it might have been half an hour or 
 an hour later — he became dimly conscious of a 
 sound of lamentation; of the presence of many 
 persons in the room; of being led away like a child,
 
 120 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 and placed in a chair beside an open window; 
 and of Margherita kneeling at his feet and covering 
 his hands with tears. Then, as one who has been 
 stunned by some murderous blow, he recovered by 
 degrees from his stupor. 
 
 "Salimbeni," he said, hoarsely. 
 
 It was the first word he had spoken. 
 
 "We have sent for him, Signore," sobbed Mar- 
 gherita. "But— but— " 
 
 He lifted his hand, and turned his face aside. 
 
 "Hush!" he replied. "I know it." 
 
 Signor Salimbeni was a famous Florentine sur- 
 geon who lived close by in the Piazza Barberini, 
 and with whom Hugh Girdlestone had been on 
 terms of intimacy for the last four or five months. 
 Almost as his name was being uttered, he arrived; 
 — a tall, dark, bright-eyed man of about forty years 
 of age, with something of a military bearing. His 
 first step was to clear the place of intruders — of 
 the English family from the first floor, of the 
 Americans from the second, of the Italian tenor 
 and his wife, and of the servants who had crowded 
 up en masse from every part of the house. He 
 expelled them all, civilly but firmly; locked the 
 door behind the last; and went alone into the 
 chamber of death. Hugh Girdlestone followed him, 
 dull-eyed, tongue-tied, bewildered, like a man half 
 roused from sleep. 
 
 The surgeon bent silently over the corpse; 
 turned the poor white face to the light; held a 
 mirror to the lips; touched the passive hand; lifted 
 first one eyelid, then the other; and felt for the last
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 121 
 
 lingering spark of vital heat on the crown of the 
 head. Then he shook his head. 
 
 "It is quite hopeless, my friend," he said gently. 
 "Life has been extinct for some two hours or more." 
 
 "But the cause?" 
 
 Signor Salimbeni slightly shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Impossible to tell," he replied, "without a 
 proper examination." 
 
 The widower buried his face in his hands and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 "Whether the seat of this mischief be in the 
 brain," continued Signor Salimbeni, "or whether, as 
 I am more inclined to suspect, it should be sought 
 in the heart . . ." 
 
 He broke off abruptly— so abruptly, and with 
 such a change of voice, that Hugh Girdlestone was 
 startled from his apathy. He looked up, and saw 
 the surgeon staring down with a face of ashy horror 
 at the corpse upon the bed. 
 
 "Dio!" he faltered. "What is this?" 
 
 He had laid back the collar of the nightdress 
 .and bared the beautiful white bosom beneath; and 
 there, just above the region of the heart, like a 
 mere speck upon a surface of pure marble, was 
 visible a tiny puncture — a spot so small, so in- 
 significant, that but for a pale violet discoloration 
 spreading round it like a halo, it would perhaps 
 have escaped observation altogether. 
 
 "What is this?" he repeated. "What does it 
 
 mean?" 
 
 • Hugh Girdlestone answered never a word, but 
 
 stood in stony silence with his eyes fixed on the
 
 122 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 fatal spot. Then he stooped, looked into it more 
 narrowly, shuddered, rose once again to his full 
 height, and less with his breath than by the motion 
 of his lips, shaped out the one word: — 
 "Murdered."
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 123 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It was the most mysterious crime that had been 
 committed in Rome since the famous murder in 
 the Coliseum about seven years before. The whole 
 city rang with it. Even the wretched little local 
 newspapers, the Giornale di Roma, the Diario Romano, 
 and the Vero Amico del Popolo, made space, amid 
 the more pressing claims of Church festivals, pro- 
 vincial miracles, and the reporting of homilies, to 
 detail some few scanty particulars of the "fragedia 
 deplorabile" in the Palazzo Bardello. Each, too, 
 hinted its own solution to the enigma. The Diario 
 inclined to the suicidal point of view; the Giornale. 
 more politically wise than its contemporaries, pointed 
 a significant finger towards Sardinia; the Vero Amico, 
 under cover of a cloud of fine phrases, insinuated 
 a suspicion of Hugh Girdlestone himself. At every 
 table-d'hote and every artist's club, at the public 
 reading rooms, in the studios, in the cafes, and at 
 every evening party throughout Rome, it was the 
 universal topic. 
 
 In the meanwhile such feeble efforts as it is in 
 the nature of a Pontifical Government to make were 
 put forward for the discovery of the murderer. A 
 post-mortem examination was appointed; official 
 consultations were held; official depositions were 
 drawn up; pompous gendarmes clanked perpetually
 
 124 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 up and down the staircase and courtyard of the 
 Palazzo Bardello; and every one about the place 
 who could possibly be supposed to have anything 
 to say upon the subject was summoned to give 
 evidence. But in vain. Days went by, weeks went 
 by, and the mystery remained impenetrable as ever. 
 Passing shadows of suspicion fell here and there- 
 on Margherita, on a Corsican courier in the service 
 of the American family, on Hugh Girdlestone; but 
 they rested scarcely at all, and vanished away as a 
 breath from a surface of polished steel. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Ethel Girdlestone was laid to 
 rest in a quiet little Roman Catholic cemetery be- 
 yond the walls — a lonely, picturesque spot, over- 
 looking the valley of the Tiber and the mountains 
 about Fidenae. A plain marble cross and a wreath 
 of immortelles marked the place of her grave. For 
 a week or two the freshly-turned mould looked drear 
 and desolate under the Spring sunshine; but the 
 grass soon sprang up again, and the wild crocuses 
 struck root and blossomed over it; and by that time 
 Rome had found some fresh subject for gossip, and 
 the fate of Ethel Girdlestone was well nigh forgotten. 
 
 There was one, however, who forgot nothing— 
 who, the first torpor of despair once past, lived only 
 to remember and avenge. He offered an enormous 
 reward for the apprehension of the unknown mur- 
 derer. He papered Rome with placards. He gave 
 himself up, body and brain, to the task of discovery, 
 and felt that for this, and this only, he could con- 
 tinue to bear the burden of life. As the chances of 
 success seemed to grow daily more and more un-
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I 25 
 
 certain, his purpose but became the more assured. 
 He would have justice; meaning by justice, blood 
 for blood, a life for a life. And this at all costs, at 
 all risks, at all sacrifices. He took a solemn oath 
 to devote, if need be, all the best years of his life, 
 all the vigour of his mind, all the strength of his 
 manhood, to this one desperate end. For it he was 
 ready to endure any privation, or to incur any per- 
 sonal danger. For it, could his purpose have been 
 thereby assured, he would have gladly died at any 
 hour of the day or night. As it was, he trained 
 himself to the work with a patience that was never 
 wearied. 
 
 He studied to acquire the dialects, and to fami- 
 liarise himself with the habits, of the lowest quarters 
 of Rome. He frequented the small wine-shops of 
 the Trastevere and the Rione St. Angelo. He 
 mastered the intricacies of the Ghetto. He haunted 
 the street fountains, the puppet-shows, and the quays 
 of Ripa Grande. Wherever, in short, the Roman 
 people were to be found in fra di loro, whether 
 gossiping, gaming, quarrelling, or holiday-making, 
 there Hugh Girdlestone made his way, mingled with 
 them, listened, observed, and waited like a trapper 
 for his prey. It was a task of untold peril and dif- 
 ficulty, made all the more perilous and difficult by 
 the fact of his being a foreigner. Fluent Italian as 
 he was, it was still not possible that he should per- 
 fectly master all the slang of the Rione, play at morra 
 and zecchinetta as one to the manner born, or be 
 at all times equal to the part which he had under- 
 taken. He was liable at any moment to betray him-
 
 126 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 self, and to be poniarded for a spy. He knew each 
 time he ventured into certain quarters of the city 
 that his body might be floating down towards Ostia 
 before daybreak, or that he might quite probably 
 disappear from that moment, and never be seen or 
 heard of more. Yet, strong in his purpose and reck- 
 less of his life, he went, and came, and went again, 
 penetrating into haunts where the police dared not 
 set foot, and assuming in these excursions the dress 
 and dialect of a Roman "rough" of the lowest order. 
 
 Thus disguised, and armed with a deadly patience 
 that knew neither weariness nor discouragement, 
 Hugh Girdlestone pursued his quest. How, despite 
 every precaution, he contrived to escape detection 
 was matter for daily wonder, even to himself. He 
 owed his safety, however, in great measure to a 
 sullen manner and a silent tongue — perhaps in some 
 degree to his southern complexion; to his black 
 beard and swarthy skin, and the lowering fire in 
 his eyes. 
 
 Thus the Spring passed away, the Summer heats 
 came on, and the wealthier quarters of Rome were, 
 as usual, emptied of their inhabitants. The foreign 
 visitors went first; then the Italian nobility; and then 
 all those among the professional and commercial 
 classes who could afford the healthful luxury of 
 villeggiatura. Meanwhile, Hugh Girdlestone was the 
 only remaining lodger in the Palazzo Bardello. Day 
 by day he lingered on in the deserted city, wander- 
 ing through the burning streets and piazzas, and 
 down by the river-side, where the very air was heavy 
 with malaria.
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 1-27 
 
 Night after night he perilled life and limb in the 
 wine-shops of the Trastevere; and still in vain. Still 
 the murderer remained undiscovered and the mur- 
 dered unavenged; still no clue, nor vestige of a clue, 
 turned up. The police, having grown more and 
 more languid in the work of investigation, ceased, 
 at last, from further efforts. The placards became 
 defaced, or were pasted over with fresh ones. By- 
 and-by the whole story faded from people's memories; 
 and save by one who, sleeping or waking, knew no 
 other thought, the famous "tragedia deplorabile" was 
 quite forgotten. 
 
 Thus the glowing Summer and sultry Autumn 
 dragged slowly by. The popular festivals on Monte 
 Testaccio were celebrated and over; the harvest was 
 gathered in; the virulence of the malaria abated; 
 the artists nocked back to their studios, the middle- 
 class Romans to their homes, the nobles to their 
 palaces. Then the Pope returned from Castel Gon- 
 dolfo, and the annual tide of English and American 
 visitors set in. By the first Sunday in Advent, Rome 
 was already tolerably well filled; and on the even- 
 ing of that same Sunday an event took place which 
 threw the whole city into confusion, and caused a 
 clamour of dismay even louder than that which 
 followed the murder of Ethel Girdlestone ten months 
 before.
 
 128 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A knot of loungers stood, talking eagerly, round 
 the stove in Piale's reading-room. It was on the 
 Monday morning following the first Sunday in Ad- 
 vent, and still quite early. None were reading, or 
 attempting to read. The newspapers lay unopened 
 on the tables. Even the last Times contained no- 
 thing so exciting as the topic then under discus- 
 sion. 
 
 "It is to be hoped and expected that the Govern- 
 ment will bestir itself in earnest this time," said a 
 bald-headed Englishman, standing with his back to 
 the stove. 
 
 "Hope is one thing, my dear sir, and expecta- 
 tion is another," replied his nearest neighbour. 
 "When you have lived in Rome as long as myself, 
 you will cease to expect anything but indifference 
 from the bureaucracy of the Papal States." 
 
 "But a crime of this enormity . . ." 
 
 "Is more easily hushed up than investigated, 
 especially when the sufferers are in a humble sta- 
 tion of life, and cannot offer a large reward to the 
 police." 
 
 "Mr. Somerville puts the question quite fairly," 
 observed another gentleman. "There is nothing 
 like public spirit to be found throughout the length 
 and breadth of His Holiness's dominions."
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 120, 
 
 "Nor justice either, it would seem, unless one 
 can pay for it handsomely," added another. 
 
 "Nay, your long purse is not always your short 
 cut to justice, even in Rome," said Mr. Somerville. 
 "There was that case of the young bride who was 
 murdered last Winter in the Palazzo Bardello. Her 
 husband offered an immense reward — a thousand 
 guineas English, I believe — and yet the mystery was 
 never cleared up." 
 
 "Ay, that Palazzo Bardello murder was a tragic 
 affair," said the bald-headed Englishman; "more 
 tragic, on the whole, than . . . ." 
 
 A sudden change of expression swept over his 
 face, and he broke off in the midst of his sen- 
 tence. 
 
 "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I feel as if I were 
 on the brink of a discovery." 
 
 "Plunge away, then, my dear fellow," laughed 
 Somerville. "What is it?" 
 
 "Well, then — what if both these murders had 
 been committed by the same hand 1 ?" 
 
 "Most unlikely, I should think," said one. 
 
 "Altogether improbable," added another. 
 
 "Do you opine that Othello smothered the 
 princes in the Tower?" asked a third. 
 
 "Listen to my premises before you laugh at my 
 conclusions," said he of the bald head, obviously 
 nettled by the general incredulity. "Look at the 
 details: they are almost identical. In each case the 
 victim is stabbed to the heart; in each case the 
 wound is almost imperceptibly small. There is no 
 effusion of blood; no robbery is committed; and 
 
 The Black Forest. 9
 
 130 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 no trace of the assassin remains. I'd stake my 
 head upon it that these are not purely accidental 
 coincidences!" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said a gentleman, who 
 till now had been standing by a window at the 
 further end of the room with his back to the 
 speakers; "but will you have the goodness to inform 
 me in what part of Rome this — this murder has 
 been committed 1 ?" 
 
 "Down, I believe, in one of the narrow lanes 
 near the theatre of Marcellus." 
 
 "And the victim is a Roman subject 1 ?" 
 
 "The child of Roman parents." 
 
 "A child!" 
 
 "A child, sir; a little fellow of only eleven 
 years of age , and the son of a baker named Tom- 
 maseo." 
 
 The stranger took out his note-book. 
 
 "Near the theatre of Marcellus," he said, scrib- 
 bling a rapid entry. 
 
 "Just so — a most shocking and mysterious af- 
 fair!" 
 
 "And the name, Tommaseo. Many thanks. 
 Good morning." 
 
 With this he lifted his hat, strode from the 
 room, and vanished without another word. 
 
 "Humph! an abrupt sort of fellow," said the 
 first speaker. "I wonder who he is?" 
 
 "He looks horribly ill," said another. 
 
 "I've met him before," mused Somerville. "I 
 remember the face quite well, but the name has 
 altogether escaped my memory. Good heavens! it
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 13I 
 
 is Mr. Girdlestone — the husband of that very lady 
 who was murdered in the Palazzo Bardello!" 
 
 In the meanwhile Hugh Girdlestone was swing- 
 ing along at his tremendous pace towards that 
 quarter where the murder had been perpetrated. 
 He found the house without difficulty, at the end 
 of a narrow Vicolo about half-way between the 
 Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus. 
 There was a crowd before the door, and a dis- 
 mounted dragoon pacing up and down with his 
 sabre under his arm. Over the shop window was 
 suspended a board, on which were inscribed, in 
 faded red letters, the words "Antico Forno;" and 
 at this window, where still lay unsold some three 
 or four stale rolls of Saturday's baking, an old 
 woman every now and then made her appear- 
 ance, and addressed wild lamentations to the by- 
 standers. 
 
 "Alas! alas!" she cried, tossing her arms aloft 
 like a withered Cassandra. "He was the light of 
 our eyes! He was our darling, our sunshine, our 
 pride! He was as good as an angel. He never 
 told a lie in his life. Everybody loved him! At 
 this hour yesterday his laugh made music in the 
 house, and our hearts leaped for joy to hear it. 
 We shall never hear that voice again — never, never 
 more, till we hear it in heaven! He is dead! He 
 is dead, and the blessed Virgin has him in her care. 
 But his murderer lives. Oh Dw, hear it! Hear it, 
 O blessed mother of God! Hear it, thou blessed 
 Saint Stefano! Overtake him with your vengeance! 
 
 9*
 
 132 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 Let his tongue wither, and his eyes melt away in 
 blood! Let his hands and feet rot upon his body! 
 Let his flesh drop piece-meal from his bones! Let 
 him die unconfessed and unabsolved, and give him 
 over to the everlasting fire!" 
 
 "No stranger is allowed to pass, Signore," said 
 the dragoon, interposing his person between the 
 Englishman and the door. 
 
 But Hugh Girdlestone had only to open his 
 pocket-book and show a certain slip of paper signed 
 by the chief of the police. It was a magical docu- 
 ment, and admitted him to all kinds of forbidden 
 places. 
 
 He went in. In the outer room, or shop, he 
 found some eight or ten persons assembled, ap- 
 parently relatives and friends of the family; in a 
 darkened room beyond, the body of a young child 
 was laid out upon a narrow pallet strewn with im- 
 mortelles and set round with lighted candles. The 
 father, a sickly-looking man, with eyes red and 
 swollen from weeping, was sitting upon a low stool, 
 in a farther corner of the room, his elbows resting 
 on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, smok- 
 ing drearily. The mother lay crouched on the floor 
 beside the bed, in a stupor of misery. 
 
 Hugh Girdlestone apologised for his intrusion 
 with a word or two of explanation and sympathy. 
 The woman never stirred. The man took his pipe 
 from his mouth, rose respectfully, and replied to 
 such questions as his visitor thought fit to put to 
 him. 
 
 The child's name, he said, was Stefan o — Stefa-
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 1 33 
 
 nino, they used to call him. He was their only- 
 child, and would have been eleven years of age in 
 the course of a few more days. He was a par- 
 ticularly good boy, and as clever as he was good. 
 He was a great favourite with the Padre Lorenzo — 
 the famous Padre Lorenzo of whom the Signore 
 had doubtless heard. This Padre Lorenzo had 
 taken an especial affection for the little Stefanino, 
 and had himself prepared the boy for his first com- 
 munion. And he took it only yesterday morning — 
 took it at the church of II Gesu, from the hands of 
 Monsignore di Montalto. It was a long ceremony. 
 There were six hundred children present, and their 
 Stefanino was among the last who went up. When 
 it was over they came home and dined, and after 
 dinner they went for a walk on the Monte Pincio. 
 Coming back they hired a vettura, for the child was 
 very tired; and as soon as they reached home his 
 mother gave him a cup of soup and a piece of 
 bread, and put him to bed. This was about half- 
 past six o'clock. 
 
 A little later in the evening — perhaps about a 
 quarter past seven — he and his wife and his wife's 
 mother went over to see a neighbour in the Via 
 Fiumara close by. They left the child asleep. 
 They had often left him so before, especially on 
 Sunday evenings, and no harm had come of it. 
 The wife of the shoemaker who occupied the first 
 floor had promised to listen if he should wake or 
 call for anything; and she was a good soul, and 
 had children of her own. Ebbene, they stayed out 
 somewhat late — later than usual, for the neighbour
 
 134 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 in the Via Fiumara had her married daughter 
 spending the evening with her, and they stayed 
 gossiping till past ten o'clock. Then they came 
 home. The shoemaker and his family were gone 
 to bed; but the house-door was left, as usual, on 
 the latch, and the matches and candle were in their 
 accustomed corner in the passage. So they lit the 
 candle, and fastened the door, and stole in very 
 softly; for little Stefanino was a light sleeper, and 
 apt to lie awake for hours if accidentally roused. 
 
 However, this time, although the grandmother 
 stumbled over the scaldino on first going into the 
 room, he never turned or stirred. He slept in a 
 little crib beside their own bed, and after a few 
 minutes they went to look at him. He was very 
 pale; but then he had gone through a day of great 
 fatigue and excitement, and was unusually tired. 
 They never dreamed, at first sight, that all was not 
 well with him. It was his mother who discovered 
 it. She first saw that no breath parted his dear 
 lips — she first touched his cheek, and found it 
 cold! 
 
 When he reached this point in his narrative, the 
 poor baker fairly broke down, and covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 "Eccolo, Signore," he sobbed. "He was our 
 only little one!" 
 
 "He is with God," said Hugh Girdlestone. 
 
 He could think of nothing else to say. He was 
 not a religious man. He was, on the contrary, a 
 worldly, a careless, perhaps even a somewhat hard 
 man; and he had no words of ready comfort and
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I 35 
 
 sympathy at command. But he was moved, and 
 his emotion showed itself in his voice. 
 
 "Alas! God did not want him so much as we 
 wanted him," was the naive reply. 
 
 The mother, who till now had lain huddled on 
 the floor, apparently unconscious of all that was 
 going forward, here suddenly lifted up her head. 
 
 "The good God and our Blessed Lady had him 
 always," she said, hoarsely. "He was in their hands 
 from the hour when I brought him into the world, 
 and he is not more theirs in heaven than he was 
 theirs on earth. But they did not call him from 
 us. It is not God but man who has bereaved us, 
 and left us desolate. Behold!" 
 
 And with this she rose to her feet, turned down 
 the sheet, and uncovered the wound — just such a 
 tiny puncture, with just such a ghastly halo spread- 
 ing round it, as Hugh Girdlestone had awful cause 
 to remember. 
 
 He could not bear to look upon it. He shud- 
 dered and turned his face aside. 
 
 "Is there — is there anyone whom you suspect?" 
 he faltered. 
 
 "No one." 
 
 "Have you an enemy 1 ?" 
 
 The baker shook his head. 
 
 "I think not," he replied. "I am at peace with 
 all my neighbours." 
 
 "Was no one seen to enter the house in your 
 absence?" 
 
 "No one, Signore." 
 
 "Did the shoemaker's wife hear no sound?"
 
 I36 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 "None whatever." 
 
 "And you have been robbed of nothing 1 ?" 
 
 "Not to the value of a quattrino." 
 
 The Englishman's heart sank within him. He 
 felt profoundly discouraged. The double mystery 
 seemed doubly impenetrable, and his double task 
 doubly hopeless. He turned again to the little bed, 
 and took one long, last look at the waxen figure 
 with its folded hands and funeral chaplets. 
 
 "What is this?" he asked, pointing to a white 
 silk scarf fringed with gold which lay folded across 
 the feet of the corpse. 
 
 The mother snatched it up, and covered it with 
 passionate kisses. 
 
 " It is the scarf he wore yesterday when he went 
 up to take his first communion," she replied. "The 
 Padre Lorenzo gave it to him. Alas! alas! how 
 beautiful he looked, dressed in all his best, with 
 new buckles in his shoes and this scarf tied over 
 one shoulder! The little angels painted over the 
 altar did not look more beautiful!" 
 
 "The Padre Lorenzo!" repeated Hugh Girdle- 
 stone. "He taught the child, you say, and loved 
 him. Does he know this 1 ?" 
 
 "Yes, he knows it." 
 
 It was the man who replied. The woman had 
 sunk down again upon the floor, and hidden her 
 face. 
 
 "Has he been to see you since?" 
 
 "He sent a priest this morning to pray for the 
 repose of our little one's soul." 
 
 "Humph!"
 
 PALAZZO BARDFXLO. 137 
 
 Tommaseo's quick Italian ear detected the shade 
 of disapproval in his visitor's voice. 
 
 "The Padre Lorenzo is a saint," he said, eagerly. 
 "All Rome flocks to hear him preach." 
 
 "Where is he to be found, amico?" 
 
 "At the convent of the Gesuiti close by." 
 
 "So!— a Jesuit?" 
 
 "A Jesuit, Signore; so eloquent, so learned, so 
 holy, and yet so young— so young! A holier man 
 does not live. Though his body still walks upon 
 earth, his soul already lives in heaven." 
 
 "I should like to see him," mused the English- 
 man. "He might suggest something — these Jesuits 
 are keen and far-sighted; at all events, it is worth 
 the effort. I will go round to the Gesuiti, amico, to 
 hear if your good padre can help us." 
 
 "Our blessed Lady and all the saints reward you, 
 dear Signore!" exclaimed the poor father, humbly 
 attempting to kiss the hand which Hugh Girdle- 
 stone extended to him at parting. 
 
 But the Englishman snatched it hastily away. 
 
 "Nay, nay," he said, roughly. "I have my 
 own motive — my own wrong. No thanks — no 
 thanks!" 
 
 And with a quick gesture, half deprecation, half 
 farewell, he was gone.
 
 138 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Vast, sombre, dimly lighted, splendid with pre- 
 cious marbles and rich in famous altar-pieces, the 
 church of II Gesu wore that day an aspect of even 
 gloomier grandeur than usual. Before the chapel of 
 Saint Ignazio, a considerable crowd was assembled. 
 All were listening devoutly. The dropping of a 
 pin might have been heard among them. There 
 had been no service. There was no music. No 
 perfume of incense lingered on the air. It was 
 simply a week-day discourse that was in process of 
 delivery, and the preacher was Padre Lorenzo. 
 
 As Hugh Girdlestone went up the steps and 
 lifted the heavy leathern portiere, he suddenly re- 
 membered how, on that other fatal morning of the 
 thirteenth of February last, he had paused upon 
 those very steps, listening to the chanting and half- 
 disposed to enter. Why had he not followed that 
 impulse? He could not tell. Why need the coin- 
 cidence startle him now 1 ? He could not tell that, 
 either. It was but a coincidence, commonplace and 
 natural enough — and yet it troubled him. 
 
 He went in. 
 
 The chapel was small and held but few seats, 
 and the crowd spread far out into the body of the 
 church, so that the new comer had to take up his 
 position on the outskirts of the congregation. From
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 139 
 
 this place he could hear, but not see the preacher. 
 Finding it impossible, however, to work his way- 
 nearer without disturbing others, he contented him- 
 self with listening. 
 
 The voice of the preacher was low and clear, 
 and sounded like the voice of a young man; but it 
 rose every now and then to a higher key, and that 
 higher key jarred somewhat harshly upon the ear. 
 The subject of his discourse was death. He held it up 
 to his hearers from every point of view — as a terror; 
 as a reward; as a punishment; as a hope beside which 
 all other hopes were but as the shadows of shadows. 
 He compared the last moments of the just man 
 with those of the sinner. He showed under what 
 circumstances death was robbed of its sting and 
 the grave of its victory. To the soldier falling on 
 the field, to the martyr consuming at the stake, 
 death was glory; to the sick and the heartbroken it 
 was peace; to the philosopher, infinite knowledge; 
 to the poor, infinite wealth; to all faithful Christians, 
 joy everlasting. Happy, he said, were those who 
 died young, for they had not lived to accumulate 
 the full burden of human sin; happier still those 
 who died penitent, since for them was reserved the 
 special mercy of Heaven. 
 
 "But what," he said — and here his voice rose 
 to a strange pitch of tremulous exaltation — "but 
 what shall we say to this event which is to-day on 
 every man's tongue 1 ? What shall we say to the 
 death of this little child — this little child who but 
 yesterday partook of his first communion in this 
 very church, and whose fate is even now moving
 
 14° THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 all hearts to indignation and pity? Was ever pity 
 so mistaken? Was ever death so happily timed? 
 In the first bloom of his innocence, in the very 
 moment of his solemn reception into the bosom of 
 our holy Church, sinless, consecrated, absolved, he 
 passed, pure as an angel, into the presence of his 
 Maker. Had he lived but one day longer, he had 
 been less pure. Had he lived to his full term of 
 years, who shall say with what crimes his soul 
 might not have been blackened? He might have 
 lived to become a heretic, an atheist, a blasphemer. 
 He might have died with all his sins upon his head, 
 an outcast upon earth, and an outcast from heaven! 
 Who then shall dare to pity him? Which among 
 us shall not envy him? Has he not gone from 
 earth to heaven, clothed in a wedding garment, 
 like a guest to the banquet of the saints? Has he 
 not gone with the chaplet on his brow, the ring 
 upon his finger, the perfume of the incense yet 
 clinging to his hair, the wine of Christ yet fresh 
 upon his lips? Silence, then, Oh ye of little 
 faith ! Why grieve that another voice is given to the 
 heavenly choir? Why lament that another martyr 
 is added to the noble army of the Lord? Let us 
 rejoice rather than weep. Let our requiems be 
 changed for songs of praise and thanksgiving. 
 Shall we pity him that he is beyond the reach of 
 sorrow? Shall we shudder at the fate that has 
 given him to Paradise? Shall we even dare to 
 curse the hand that sent him thither? May not 
 that very hand have been consecrated to the task? 
 — have been guided by the finger of God? — have
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. I4I 
 
 been inspired by a strength a wisdom 
 
 no murderer; but a priest a priest of the 
 
 tabernacle it was the voice of God 
 
 a voice from Heaven saying " 
 
 He faltered — became inarticulate — stopped. 
 
 A sudden confusion fell upon the congregation; 
 a sudden murmur rose and filled the church. In 
 an instant all were moving, speaking, gesticulating; 
 in an instant Hugh Girdlestone was pushing his 
 way towards the chapel. 
 
 And the preacher"? Tall, slender, wild-eyed, 
 looking utterly helpless and bewildered, he stood 
 before his hearers, unable, as it seemed, to speak 
 or think. He looked quite young — about twenty- 
 eight, or it might be thirty years, of age — but worn 
 and haggard, as one that had prayed and fasted 
 overmuch. Seeing Hugh Girdlestone push through 
 the crowd and stand suddenly before him, he shrank 
 back like a hunted creature, and began trembling 
 violently. 
 
 "At last! at last!" gasped the Englishman. "Con- 
 fess it, murderer; confess it, before I strike you 
 dead with my own hands!" 
 
 The priest put his hand to his head. His lips 
 moved, but no utterance came. 
 
 "Do you know who I am?" continued Hugh, in 
 a deep, hoarse voice that trembled with hatred. 
 "Do you know who I am"? I am the husband of 
 Ethel Girdlestone — that Ethel Girdlestone who used 
 to come to this very church to confess to you — to 
 you, who slew her in her bed as you yesterday slew
 
 142 THE TRAGEDY IN THE 
 
 a little child that loved you. Devil! I remember 
 you now. Why did 1 not suspect you sooner?" 
 
 "Hush!" said a grave voice in his ear. "Does 
 the Signore forget in Whose house we are 1 ?" 
 
 It was another priest of the order, who had just 
 come upon the scene. 
 
 "I forget nothing," replied the Englishman. 
 "Bear witness, all present, that I charge this man 
 with murder!" 
 
 The new comer turned to tnr congregation. 
 
 "And bear witness, all present," he added 
 solemnly, with uplifted hand, "that the Padre Lo- 
 renzo is responsible for neither his words nor his 
 
 deeds. He is mad." 
 
 ***** 
 
 And so it was. Young, eloquent, learned, an 
 impassioned orator, and one of the most brilliant 
 ornaments of his order, the Padre Lorenzo had for 
 more than two years betrayed symptoms of insanity. 
 He had committed some few extravagancies from 
 time to time, and had broken down once or twice 
 in a discourse; but it had never been supposed 
 that his eccentricity had danger in it. Of the 
 murder of Ethel Girdlestone no one had ever for 
 one moment dreamed that he was guilty. With 
 the instinctive cunning of madness he had kept his 
 first secret well. But he could not keep the second. 
 Having ventured on the perilous subject, he be- 
 trayed himself. 
 
 From that hour he became a raving maniac, 
 and disappeared for ever from the world. By what 
 motive his distempered brain had been moved to
 
 PALAZZO BARDELLO. 1 43 
 
 the commission of these crimes, and where he had 
 obtained the long slender dagger, scarcely thicker 
 than a needle, with which they were perpetrated, 
 were secrets never discovered; but it was thought 
 by some of those who knew him best that he had 
 slain the child to save his soul from possible sin 
 and send him straight to Heaven. As for Ethel 
 Girdlestone, it was probable that he had murdered 
 her from some similar motive — most likely to pre- 
 serve her against the danger of perversion by a 
 heretic husband. 
 
 Hugh Girdlestone lives, famous and prosperous, 
 learned in the law, and not unlikely, it is said, to 
 attain the woolsack by-and-by. But he lives a 
 solitary life, and the gloom that fell upon his youth 
 overshadows all his prosperity. He will never marry 
 again.
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 The Black Forest. I0
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The events which I am about to relate took 
 place between nine and ten years ago. Sebastopol 
 had fallen in the early Spring; the peace of Paris 
 had been concluded since March; our commercial 
 relations with the Russian empire were but recently 
 renewed; and I, returning home after my first north- 
 ward journey since the war, was well pleased with 
 the prospect of spending the month of December 
 under the hospitable and thoroughly English roof 
 of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esquire, of 
 Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. Tra- 
 velling in the interests of the well-known firm in 
 which it is my lot to be a junior partner, I had 
 been called upon to visit not only the capitals of 
 Russia and Poland, but had found it also necessary 
 to pass some weeks among the trading ports of the 
 Baltic; whence it came that the year was already 
 far spent before I again set foot on English soil, 
 and that instead of shooting pheasants with him, 
 as I had hoped, in October, I came to be my 
 friend's guest during the more genial Christmas- 
 tide. 
 
 io»
 
 I48 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 My voyage over, and a few days given up to 
 business in Liverpool and London, I hastened down 
 to Clayborough with all the delight of a schoolboy 
 whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the 
 Great East Anglian line as far as Clayborough 
 station, where I was to be met by one of the 
 Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the re- 
 maining nine miles of country. It was a foggy 
 afternoon, singularly warm for the fourth of De- 
 cember, and I had arranged to leave London by 
 the 4.15 express. The early darkness of Winter 
 had already closed in; the lamps were lighted in 
 the carriages; a clinging damp dimmed the win- 
 dows, adhered to the door-handles, and pervaded 
 all the atmosphere; while the gas jets at the neigh- 
 bouring bookstand diffused a luminous haze that 
 only served to make the gloom of the terminus 
 more visible. Having arrived some seven minutes 
 before the starting of the train, and, by the conni- 
 vance of the guard, taken sole possession of an 
 empty compartment, I lighted my travelling lamp, 
 made myself particularly snug, and settled down to 
 the undisturbed enjoyment of a book and a cigar. 
 Great, therefore, was my disappointment when, at 
 the last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along 
 the platform, glanced into my carriage, opened the 
 locked door with a private key, and stepped in. 
 
 It struck me at the first glance that I had seen 
 him before — a tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light- 
 eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the shoulders, 
 and scant grey hair worn somewhat long upon the 
 collar. He carried a light waterproof coat, an urn-
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 49 
 
 brella, and a large brown japanned deed-box, which 
 last he placed under the seat. This done, he felt 
 carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make certain 
 of the safety of his purse or pocket-book; laid his 
 umbrella in the netting overhead; spread the water- 
 proof across his knees; and exchanged his hat for 
 a travelling cap of some Scotch material. By this 
 time the train was moving out of the station, 
 and into the faint grey of the wintry twilight be- 
 yond. 
 
 I now recognized my companion. I recognized 
 him from the moment when he removed his hat 
 and uncovered the lofty, furrowed and somewhat 
 narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I dis- 
 tinctly remembered, some three years before, at the 
 very house for which, in all probability, he was 
 now bound like myself. His name was Dwerri- 
 house; he was a lawyer by profession; and, if I was 
 not greatly mistaken, was first cousin to the wife of 
 my host. I knew also that he was a man eminently 
 "well to do," both as regarded his professional and 
 private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that 
 sort of observant courtesy which falls to the lot of 
 the rich relation; the children made much of him; 
 and the old butler, albeit somewhat surly "to the 
 general," treated him with deference. I thought, 
 observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight 
 and twilight, that Mrs. Jelfs cousin looked all the 
 worse for the three years' wear and tear which had 
 gone over his head since our last meeting. He was 
 very pale, and had a restless light in his eye that I 
 did not remember to have observed before. The
 
 150 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 anxious lines, too, about his mouth were deepened, 
 and there was a cavernous hollow look about his 
 cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of sick- 
 ness or sorrow. He had glanced at me as he came 
 in, but without any gleam of recognition in his face. 
 Now he glanced again, as I fancied, somewhat 
 doubtfully. When he did so for the third or fourth 
 time, I ventured to address him. 
 
 "Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think 1 ?" 
 
 "That is my name," he replied. 
 
 "I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumble- 
 ton about three years ago." 
 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed. 
 
 "I thought I knew your face," he said. "But 
 your name, I regret to say — " 
 
 "Langford — William Langford. I have known 
 Jonathan Jelf since we were boys together at 
 Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend a few 
 weeks at Dumbleton in the shooting season. I sup- 
 pose we are bound for the same destination?" 
 
 " Not if you are on your way to the Manor," he 
 replied. "I am travelling upon business — rather 
 troublesome business, too — whilst you, doubtless, 
 have only pleasure in view." 
 
 "Just so. I am in the habit of looking forward 
 to this visit as to the brightest three weeks in all 
 the year." 
 
 "It is a pleasant house," said Mr. Dwerrihouse. 
 
 "The pleasantest I know." 
 
 " And Jelf is thoroughly hospitable." 
 
 "The best and kindest fellow in the world!" 
 
 "They have invited me to spend Christmas week
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 151 
 
 with them," pursued Mr. Dwerrihouse, after a mo- 
 ment's pause. 
 
 "And you are coming?" 
 
 "I cannot tell. It must depend on the issue of 
 this business which I have in hand. You have 
 heard, perhaps, that we were about to construct a 
 branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge." 
 
 I explained that I had been for some months 
 away from England and had therefore heard no- 
 thing of the contemplated improvement. 
 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled complacently. 
 
 "It will be an improvement," he said; "a great 
 improvement. Stockbridge is a flourishing town, 
 and only needs a more direct railway communica- 
 tion with the metropolis to become an important 
 centre of commerce. This branch was my own 
 idea. I brought the project before the board, and 
 have myself superintended the execution of it up 
 to the present time." 
 
 "You are an East Anglian director, I presume?" 
 
 "My interest in the company," replied Mr. 
 Dwerrihouse, "is threefold. I am a director; I am 
 a considerable shareholder; and, as head of the 
 firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse, and Craik, I am 
 the company's principal solicitor." 
 
 Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet pro- 
 ject, and apparently unable to talk on any other 
 subject^JMr. Dwerrihouse then went on to tell of 
 the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles 
 he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge 
 branch. I was entertained with a multitude of local 
 details and local grievances. The rapacity of one
 
 152 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 squire; the impracticability of another; the indigna- 
 tion of the rector whose glebe was threatened; the 
 culpable indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, 
 who could not be brought to see that their most 
 vital interests hinged upon a junction with the 
 Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local 
 newspaper; and the unheard-of difficulties attending 
 the Common question, were each and all laid be- 
 fore me with a circumstantiality that possessed the 
 deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller, 
 but none whatever for myself. From these, to my 
 despair, he went on to more intricate matters: to 
 the approximate expenses of construction per mile; 
 to the estimates sent in by different contractors; to 
 the probable traffic returns of the new line: to the 
 provisional clauses of the new Act as enumerated 
 in Schedule D of the company's last half-yearly re- 
 port; and so on, and on, and on till my head ached, and 
 my attention flagged, and my eyes kept closing in 
 spite of every effort that I made to keep them open. 
 At length I was roused by these words: — 
 
 "Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down." 
 
 "Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down," I 
 repeated, in the liveliest tone I could assume. "That 
 is a heavy sum." 
 
 "A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerri- 
 house, pointing significantly to his breast-pocket; 
 "but a mere fraction of what we shall ultimately 
 have to pay." 
 
 "You do not mean to say that you have seventy- 
 five thousand pounds at this moment upon your 
 person?" I exclaimed.
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 53 
 
 "My good Sir, have I not been telling you so 
 for the last half hour?" said Mr. Dwerrihouse, 
 testily. "That money has to be paid over at half- 
 past eight o'clock this evening, at the office of Sir 
 Thomas's solicitors, on completion of the deed of 
 sale." 
 
 "But how will you get across by night from 
 Blackwater to Stockbridge with seventy-five thousand 
 pounds in your pocket?" 
 
 "To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I 
 have made myself very imperfectly understood. I 
 thought I had explained how this sum carries our 
 new line only as far as Mallingford — this first stage, 
 as it were, of our journey— and how our route from 
 Blackwater to Mallingford lies entirely through Sir 
 Thomas Liddell's property." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear 
 my thoughts were wandering. So you only go as 
 far as Mallingford to-night?" 
 
 "Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 
 'Blackwater Arms.' And you?" 
 
 "Oh, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clay- 
 borough. Can I be the bearer of any message from 
 you?" 
 
 " You may say if you please, Mr. Langford, that 
 I wished I could have been your companion all the 
 way, and that I will come over if possible before 
 Christmas." 
 
 "Nothing more?" 
 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. 
 
 "Well," he said, "you may tell my cousin that 
 she need not burn the hall down in my honour
 
 154 TH E FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 this time, and that I shall be obliged if she will 
 order the blue-room chimney to be swept before I 
 arrive." 
 
 "That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagra- 
 tion on the occasion of your last visit to Dumble- 
 ton?" 
 
 "Something like it. There had been no fire 
 lighted in my bedroom since the spring, the flue 
 was foul, and the rooks had built in it; so when I 
 went up to dress for dinner, I found the room full 
 of smoke, and the chimney on fire. Are we already 
 at Blackwateii" 
 
 The train had gradually come to a pause while 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse was speaking, and on putting my 
 head out of the window, I could see the station 
 some few hundred yards ahead. There was another 
 train before us blocking the way, and the ticket- 
 taker was making use of the delay to collect the 
 Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained our 
 position, when the ruddy-faced official appeared at 
 our carriage door. 
 
 "Ticket, Sir!" said he. 
 
 "I am for Clayborough ," I replied, holding out 
 the tiny pink card. 
 
 He took it; glanced at it by the light of his little 
 lantern; gave it back; looked, as I fancied, some- 
 what sharply at my fellow-traveller, and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 "He did not ask for yours," I said with some 
 surprise. 
 
 "They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse. 
 "They all know me; and of course, I travel free."
 
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 55 
 
 "Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, run- 
 ning along the platform beside us, as we glided into 
 the station. 
 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed box, put 
 his travelling-cap in his pocket, resumed his hat, 
 took down his umbrella, and prepared to be gone. 
 
 "Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," 
 he said, with old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a 
 good evening." 
 
 "Good evening," I replied, putting out my 
 hand. 
 
 But he either did not see it, or did not choose 
 to see it, and, slightly lifting his hat, stepped out 
 upon the platform. Having done this, he moved 
 slowly away, and mingled with the departing 
 crowd. 
 
 Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I 
 trod upon something which proved to be a cigar- 
 case. It had fallen, no doubt, from the pocket of 
 his water-proof coat, and was made of dark morocco 
 leather, with a silver monogram upon the side. I 
 sprang out of the carriage just as the guard came 
 up to lock me in. 
 
 "Is there one minute to spare?" I asked eagerly. 
 "The gentleman who travelled down with me from 
 town has dropped his cigar-case — he is not yet out 
 of the station!" 
 
 "Just a minute and a half, Sir," replied the 
 guard. "You must be quick." 
 
 I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet 
 could carry me. It was a large station, and Mr.
 
 156 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 Dwerrihouse had by this time got more than half- 
 way to the farther end. 
 
 I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly 
 with the stream. Then, as I drew nearer, I saw that 
 he had met some friend — that they were talking as 
 they walked — that they presently fell back some- 
 what from the crowd, and stood aside in earnest 
 conversation. I made straight for the spot where 
 they were waiting. There was a vivid gas-jet just 
 above their heads, and the light fell full upon their 
 faces. I saw both distinctly — the face of Mr. 
 Dwerrihouse and the face of his companion. Run- 
 ning, breathless, eager as I was, getting in the way 
 of porters and passengers, and fearful every instant 
 lest I should see the train going on without me, I 
 yet observed that the new-comer was considerably 
 younger and shorter than the director, that he was 
 sandy- haired, mustachioed, small-featured, and 
 dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch tweed. I was 
 now within a few yards of them. I ran against a 
 stout gentleman — I was nearly knocked down by a 
 luggage -truck — I stumbled over a carpet-bag — I 
 gained the spot just as the driver's whistle warned 
 me to return. 
 
 To my utter stupefaction they were no longer 
 there. I had seen them but two seconds before — 
 and they were gone! I stood still. I looked to right 
 and left. I saw no sign of them in any direction. 
 It was as if the platform had gaped and swallowed 
 them. 
 
 "There were two gentlemen standing here a
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 157 
 
 moment ago," I said to a porter at my elbow; 
 "which way can they have gone 1 ?" 
 
 "I saw no gentlemen, Sir," replied the man. 
 
 The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far 
 up the platform, held up his arm, and shouted to 
 me to "Come on!" 
 
 "If you're going on by this train, Sir," said the 
 porter, "you must run for it." 
 
 I did run for it — just gained the carriage as the 
 train began to move — was shoved in by the guard, 
 and left breathless and bewildered, with Mr. Dwerri- 
 house's cigar-case still in my hand. 
 
 It was the strangest disappearance in the world. 
 It was like a transformation trick in a pantomime. 
 They were there one moment — palpably there — 
 talking — with the gaslight full upon their faces; and 
 the next moment they were gone. There was no 
 door near — no window — no staircase. It was a 
 mere slip of barren platform, tapestried with big 
 advertisements. Could anything be more mysteri- 
 ous? 
 
 It was not worth thinking about; and yet, for 
 my life, I could not help pondering upon it— pon- 
 dering, wondering, conjecturing, turning it over and 
 over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solu- 
 tion of the enigma. I thought of it all the way 
 from Blackwater to Clayborough. I thought of it 
 all the way from Clayborough to Dumbleton, as I 
 rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog- 
 cart drawn by a splendid black mare, and driven 
 by the silentest and dapperest of East Anglian 
 grooms.
 
 158 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 We did the nine miles in something less than 
 an hour, and pulled up before the lodge-gates just 
 as the church clock was striking half-past seven. A 
 couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the 
 lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel; a 
 hearty grasp was on my hand; and a clear jovial 
 voice was bidding me "Welcome to Dumbleton." 
 
 "And now, my dear fellow," said my host, when 
 the first greeting was over, "you have no time to spare. 
 We dine at eight, and there are people coming to 
 meet you; so you must just get the dressing busi- 
 ness over as quickly as may be. By the way, you 
 will meet some acquaintances. The Biddulphs are 
 coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast, of the Skir- 
 mishers) is staying in the house. Adieu! Mrs. Jelf 
 will be expecting you in the drawing-room." 
 
 I was ushered to my room — not the blue room, 
 of which Mr. Dwerrihouse had made disagreeable 
 experience, but a pretty little bachelor's chamber, 
 hung with a delicate chintz, and made cheerful by 
 a blazing fire. I unlocked my portmanteau. I tried 
 to be expeditious; but the memory of my railway 
 adventure haunted me. I could not get free of it. 
 I could not shake it off. It impeded me — it worried 
 me — it tripped me up — it caused me to mislay my 
 studs — to mistie my cravat — to wrench the buttons 
 off my gloves. Worst of all, it made me so late 
 that the party had all assembled before I reached 
 the drawing-room. I had scarcely paid my respects 
 to Mrs. Jelf when dinner was announced, and we 
 paired off, some eight or ten couples strong, into 
 the dining-room.
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 59 
 
 I am not going to describe either the guests or 
 the dinner. All provincial parties bear the strictest 
 family resemblance, and I am not aware that an 
 East Anglian banquet offers any exception to the 
 rule. There was the usual country baronet and his 
 wife; there were the usual country parsons and their 
 wives; there was the sempiternal turkey and haunch 
 of venison. Vanitas vanitatum.- There is nothing 
 new under the sun. 
 
 I was placed about midway down the table. I 
 had taken one rector's wife down to dinner, and I 
 had another at my left hand. They talked across 
 me, and their talk was about babies. It was dread- 
 fully dull. At length there came a pause. The 
 entrees had just been removed, and the turkey had 
 come upon the scene. The conversation had all 
 along been of the languidest, but at this moment it 
 happened to have stagnated altogether. Jelf was 
 carving the turkey. Mrs. Jelf looked as if she was 
 trying to think of something to say. Everybody else 
 was silent. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought 
 I would relate my adventure. 
 
 "By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part 
 of the way to-day with a friend of yours." 
 
 "Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing 
 scientifically into the breast of the turkey. "With 
 whom, pray 1 ?" 
 
 "With one who bade me tell you that he 
 should, if possible, pay you a visit before Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 "I cannot think who that could be," said my 
 friend, smiling.
 
 l60 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 "It must be Major Thorp," suggested Mrs. Jelf. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "It was not Major Thorp," I replied. "It was a 
 near relation of your own, Mrs. Jelf." 
 
 "Then I am more puzzled than ever," replied 
 my hostess. "Pray tell me who it was." 
 
 "It was no less a person than your cousin, Mr. 
 John Dwerrihouse." 
 
 Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. 
 Mrs. Jelf looked at me in a strange, startled way, 
 and said never a word. 
 
 "And he desired me to tell you, my dear ma- 
 dam, that you need not take the trouble to burn 
 the Hall down in his honour this time; but only to 
 have the chimney of the blue room swept before 
 his arrival." 
 
 Before I had reached the end of my sentence, I 
 became aware of something ominous in the faces of 
 the guests. I felt I had said something which I had 
 better have left unsaid, and that for some unex- 
 plained reason my words had evoked a general con- 
 sternation. I sat confounded, not daring to utter 
 another syllable, and for at least two whole minutes 
 there was dead silence round the table. 
 
 Then Captain Prendergast came to the rescue. 
 
 "You have been abroad for some months, have 
 you not, Mr. Langford?" he said, with the despera- 
 tion of one who flings himself into the breach. "I 
 heard you had been to Russia. Surely you have 
 something to tell us of the state and temper of the 
 country after the war 1 ?" 
 
 I was heartily grateful to the gallant Skirmisher
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. l6l 
 
 for this diversion in my favour. I answered him, I 
 fear, somewhat lamely; but he kept the conversa- 
 tion up, and presently one or two others joined in, 
 and so the difficulty, whatever it might have been, 
 was bridged over. Bridged over, but not repaired. 
 A something, an awkwardness, a visible constraint 
 remained. The guests hitherto had been simply 
 dull; but now they were evidently uncomfortable 
 and embarrassed. 
 
 The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the 
 table when the ladies left the room. I seized the 
 opportunity to drop into a vacant chair next Captain 
 Prendergast. 
 
 "In Heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the 
 matter just now? What had I said?" 
 
 "You mentioned the name of John Dwerri- 
 house." 
 
 "What of that? I had seen him not two hours 
 before." 
 
 "It is a most astounding circumstance that you 
 should have seen him," said Captain Prendergast. 
 "Are you sure it was he?" 
 
 "As sure as of my own identity. We were talk- 
 ing all the way between London and Blackwater. 
 But why does that surprise you?" 
 
 "Because," replied Captain Prendergast, dropping 
 his voice to the lowest whisper — "because John 
 Dwerrihouse absconded three months ago, with seventy- 
 five thousand pounds of the Company's money, and has 
 never been heard of since." 
 
 The Black Forest. l *
 
 1 02 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months 
 ago — and I had seen him only a few hours back. 
 John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five thou- 
 sand pounds of the Company's money — yet told me 
 that he carried that sum upon his person. Were 
 ever facts so strangely incongruous, so difficult to 
 reconcile? How should he have ventured again 
 into the light of day? How dared he show him- 
 self along the line? Above all, what had he been 
 doing throughout those mysterious three months of 
 disappearance? 
 
 Perplexing questions these. Questions which at 
 once suggested themselves to the minds of all con- 
 cerned, but which admitted of no easy solution. I 
 could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast 
 had not even a suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, 
 who seized the first opportunity of drawing me 
 aside and learning all that I had to tell, was more 
 amazed and bewildered than either of us. He came 
 to my room that night when all the guests were 
 gone, and we talked the thing over from every 
 point of view — without, it must be confessed, arriv- 
 ing at any kind of conclusion. 
 
 "I do not ask you," he said, "whether you can 
 have mistaken your man. That is impossible."
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 63 
 
 "As impossible as that I should mistake some 
 stranger for yourself." 
 
 "It is not a question of looks or voice, but of 
 facts. That he should have alluded to the fire in 
 the blue room is proof enough of John Dwerrihouse's 
 identity. How did he look?" 
 
 "Older, I thought. Considerably older, paler, 
 and more anxious." 
 
 "He has had enough to make him look anxious, 
 anyhow,' said my friend, gloomily; "be he innocent 
 or guilty." 
 
 "I am inclined to believe he is innocent," I re- 
 plied. "He showed no embarrassment when I ad- 
 dressed him, and no uneasiness when the guard 
 came round. His conversation was open to a fault. 
 I might almost say that he talked too freely of the 
 business which he had in hand." 
 
 "That again is strange; for I know no one more 
 reticent on such subjects. He actually told you that 
 he had the seventy-five thousand pounds in his 
 pocket?" 
 
 "He did." 
 
 "Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she 
 may be right — " 
 
 "What idea?" 
 
 "Well, she fancies — women are so clever, you 
 know, at putting themselves inside people's motives 
 — she fancies that he was tempted; that he did 
 actually take the money; and that he has been con- 
 cealing himself these three months in some wild 
 part of the country — struggling possibly with his 
 conscience all the time, and daring neither to ab- 
 
 11*
 
 164 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 scond with his booty, nor to come back and re- 
 store it." 
 
 "But now that he has come back?" 
 
 "That is the point. She conceives that he has 
 probably thrown himself upon the Company's mercy; 
 made restitution of the money; and, being forgiven, 
 is permitted to carry the business through as if no- 
 thing whatever had happened." 
 
 "The last," I replied, "is an impossible case. 
 Mrs. Jelf thinks like a generous and delicate-minded 
 woman; but not in the least like a board of railway 
 directors. They would never carry forgiveness so 
 far." 
 
 "I fear not; and yet it is the only conjecture 
 that bears a semblance of likelihood. However, we 
 can run over to Clayborough to-morrow, and see if 
 anything is to be learned. By the way, Prendergast 
 tells me you picked up his cigar-case." 
 
 "I did — and here it is." 
 
 Jelf took the cigar-case, examined it, and said 
 at once that it was beyond doubt Mr. Dwerrihouse's 
 property, and that he remembered to have seen him 
 use it. 
 
 "Here, too, is his monogram on the side," he 
 added. "A big J transfixing a capital D. He used 
 to carry the same on his note paper." 
 
 "It proves, at all events, that I was not dream- 
 ing." 
 
 "Ay; but it is time you were asleep and dream- 
 ing now. I am ashamed to have kept you so long. 
 Good night." 
 
 "Good night, and remember that I am more
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 65 
 
 than ready to go with you to Clayborough, or Black- 
 water, or London, or anywhere, if I can be of the 
 least service." 
 
 "Thanks! I know you mean it, old friend, and 
 it may be that I shall put you to the test. Once 
 more, good night." 
 
 So we parted for that night, and met again in 
 the breakfast-room at half-past eight next morning. 
 It was a hurried, silent, uncomfortable meal. None 
 of us had slept well, and all were thinking of the 
 same subject. Mrs. Jelf had evidently been crying; 
 Jelf was impatient to be off; and both Captain 
 Prendergast and myself felt ourselves to be in the 
 painful position of outsiders, who are involuntarily 
 brought into a domestic trouble. Within twenty 
 minutes after we had left the breakfast-table, the 
 dog-cart was brought round, and my friend and I 
 were on the road to Clayborough. 
 
 "Tell you what it is, Langford," he said, as we 
 sped along between the wintry hedges, "I do not 
 much fancy bringing up Dwerrihouse's name at 
 Clayborough. All the officials know that he is my 
 wife's relation, and the subject just now is hardly a 
 pleasant one. If you don't much mind, we will 
 take the ii.io train to Blackwater. It's an impor- 
 tant station, and we shall stand a far better chance 
 of picking up information there than at Clay- 
 borough." 
 
 So we took the ii.io, which happened to be an 
 express, and, arriving at Blackwater about a quarter 
 before twelve, proceeded at once to prosecute our 
 inquiry.
 
 l66 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 We began by asking for the station-master — a 
 big, blunt, business-like person, who at once averred 
 that he knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse perfectly well, 
 and that there was no director on the line whom 
 he had seen and spoken to so frequently. 
 
 "He used to be down here two or three times 
 a-week, about three months ago," said he, "when the 
 new line was first set afoot; but since then, you 
 know, gentlemen — - — " 
 
 He paused, significantly. 
 
 Jelf flushed scarlet. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "we know all 
 about that. The point now to be ascertained is 
 whether anything has been seen or heard of him 
 lately." 
 
 "Not to my knowledge," replied the station- 
 master. 
 
 "He is not known to have been down the line 
 any time yesterday, for instance?" 
 
 The station-master shook his head. 
 
 "The East Anglian, sir," said he, "is about the 
 last place where he would dare to show himself. 
 Why, there isn't a station-master, there isn't a guard, 
 there isn't a porter, who doesn't know Mr. Dwerri- 
 house by sight as well as he knows his own face 
 in the looking-glass; or who wouldn't telegraph for 
 the police as soon as he had set eyes on him at 
 any point along the line. Bless you, sir! there's 
 been a standing order out against him ever since 
 the twenty-fifth of September last." 
 
 "And yet," pursued my friend, "a gentleman 
 who travelled down yesterday from London to
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 67 
 
 Clayborough by the afternoon express, testifies that 
 he saw Mr. Dwei.ihouse in the train, and that Mr. 
 Dwerrihouse alighted at Blackwater station." 
 
 "Quite imposs ble, sir," replied the station- 
 master, promptly. 
 
 " Why impossible V 
 
 "Because there ;>, no station along the line 
 where he is so well jkiown, or where he would run 
 so great a risk. It Would be just running his head 
 into the lion's mouth. He would have been mad 
 to come nigh Blackwa f er station; and if he had 
 come, he would have =yeen arrested before he left 
 the platform." 
 
 "Can you tell me . .vho took the Blackwater 
 tickets of that train]" , 
 
 "I can, sir. It was the guard — Benjamin 
 Somers." L j 
 
 "And where can ': find him 1 ?" 
 
 "You can find him, sir, by staying here, if you 
 please, till one o'clock. He will be coming through 
 with the up Express from Crampton, which stays at 
 Blackwater for ten minutes." 
 
 We waited for the up Express, beguiling the 
 time as best we could by strolling along the Black- 
 water road till we came almost to the outskirts of 
 the town, from which the station was distant nearly 
 a couple of miles. By one o'clock we were back 
 again upon the platform, and waiting for the train. 
 It came punctually, and I at once recognized the 
 ruddy-faced guard who had gone down with my 
 train the evening before. 
 
 "The gentlemen want to ask you something
 
 1 68 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 about Mr. Dwerrihouse, Somers/i said the station- 
 master, by way of introduction. 
 
 The guard flashed a keen gl?iice from my face 
 to Jelf's, and back again to min*. 
 
 "Mr. John Dwerrihouse, the' ate director?" said 
 he, interrogatively. 
 
 "The same," replied my friend. "Should you 
 know him if you saw him?" fi 
 
 "Anywhere, sir." 
 
 "Do you know if he was in the 4.15 Express 
 yesterday afternoon?" 
 
 "He was not, sir." \ 
 
 "How can you answer- so positively 1 ?" 
 
 "Because I looked intiv every carriage, and saw 
 every face in that train, and I could take my oath 
 that Mr. Dwerrihouse was not in it. This gentle- 
 man was," he added, turning sharply upon me. "I 
 don't know that I ever saw him before in my life, 
 but I remember his face perfectly. You nearly 
 missed taking your seat in time at this station, sir, 
 and you got out at Clayborough." 
 
 "Quite true," I replied; "but do you not also 
 remember the face of the gentleman who travelled 
 down in the same carriage with me as far as 
 here?" 
 
 "It was my impression, sir, that you travelled 
 down alone," said Somers, with a look of some 
 surprise. 
 
 "By no means. I had a fellow-traveller as far 
 as Blackwater, and it was in trying to restore him 
 the cigar-case which he had dropped in the carriage, 
 that I so nearly let you go on without me."
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 1 69 
 
 "I remember your saying something about a 
 cigar-case, certainly," replied the guard, "but " 
 
 "You asked for my ticket just before we en- 
 tered the station." 
 
 "I did, sir." 
 
 "Then you must have seen him. He sat in the 
 corner next tne very door to which you came." 
 
 "No, indeed. I saw no one." 
 
 I looked at Jelf. I began to think the guard 
 was in the ex-director's confidence, and paid for his 
 
 silence. 
 
 "If I had seen another traveller I should have 
 asked for his ticket," added Somers. "Did you see 
 me ask for his ticket, sir 1 ?" 
 
 "I observed that you did not ask for it, but he 
 explained that by saying— — " 
 
 I hesitated. I feared I might be telling too 
 much, -nd so broke off abruptly. 
 
 The guard and the station-master exchanged 
 glances. The former looked impatiently at his 
 watch. 
 
 "I am obliged to go in four minutes more, sir," 
 
 he said. 
 
 "One last question, then," interposed Jelf, with 
 a sort of desperation. "If this gentleman's fellow- 
 traveller had been Mr. John Dwerrihouse, and he 
 had been sitting in the corner next the door by 
 which you took the tickets, could you have failed 
 to see and recognize him 1 ?" 
 
 "No, sir; it would have been quite impossible." 
 "And you are certain you did not see him?" 
 "As I said before, sir, I could take my oath I
 
 I70 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 did not see him. And if it wasn't that I don't like 
 to contradict a gentleman, I would say I could also 
 take my oath that this gentleman was quite alone 
 in the carriage the whole way from London to Clay- 
 borough. Why, sir," he added, dropping his voice 
 so as to be inaudible to the station-master, who 
 had been called away to speak to some person 
 close by, "you expressly asked me to give you a 
 compartment to yourself, and I did so. I locked 
 you in, and you were so good as to give me some- 
 thing for myself." 
 
 "Yes; but Mr. Dwerrihouse had a key of his 
 own." 
 
 "I never saw him, sir; I saw no one in the 
 compartment but yourself. Beg pardon, sir, my 
 time's up." 
 
 And with this the ruddy guard touched his cap 
 and was gone. In another minute the heavy panting 
 of the engine began afresh, and the train glided 
 slowly out of the station. 
 
 We looked at each other for some moments in 
 silence. I was the first to speak. 
 
 "Mr. Benjamin Somers knows more than he 
 chooses to tell," I said. 
 
 "Humph! do you think sol" 
 
 "It must be. He could not have come to the 
 door without seeing him. It's impossible." 
 
 "There is one thing not impossible, my dear 
 fellow." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "That you may have fallen asleep, and dreamt 
 the whole thing."
 
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 171 
 
 "Could I dream of a branch line that I had 
 never heard of] Could I dream of a hundred and 
 one business details that had no kind of interest 
 for me? Could I dream of the seventy-five thousand 
 pounds V 
 
 "Perhaps you might have seen, or heard, some 
 vague account of the affair while you were abroad. 
 It might have made no impression upon you at the 
 time, and might have come back to you in your 
 dreams— recalled, perhaps, by the mere names of 
 the stations on the line." 
 
 "What about the fire in the chimney of the 
 blue room— should I have heard of that during my 
 
 journey 1 ?" 
 
 "Well, no; I admit there is a difficulty about 
 
 that point." 
 
 "And what about the cigar-case?" 
 
 "Ay, by Jove! there is the cigar-case. That 
 is a stubborn fact. Well, it's a mysterious affair, 
 and it will need a better detective than myself, I 
 fancy, to clear it up. I suppose we may as well 
 go home."
 
 172 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A week had not gone by when I received a 
 letter from the Secretary of the East Anglian Rail- 
 way Company, requesting the favour of my at- 
 tendance at a special board meeting, not then many 
 days distant. No reasons were alleged, and no 
 apologies offered, for this demand upon my time; 
 but they had heard, it was clear, of my inquiries 
 about the missing director, and had a mind to put 
 me through some sort of official examination upon 
 the subject. Being still a guest at Dumbleton Hall, 
 I had to go up to London for the purpose, and 
 Jonathan Jelf accompanied me. I found the direc- 
 tion of the Great East Anglian line represented by 
 a party of some twelve or fourteen gentlemen 
 seated in solemn conclave round a huge green-baize 
 table in a gloomy Board-room adjoining the London 
 terminus. 
 
 Being courteously received by the chairman (who 
 at once began by saying that certain statements of 
 mine respecting Mr. John Dwerrihouse had come to 
 the knowledge of the direction, and that they in 
 consequence desired to confer with me on those 
 points), we were placed at the table, and the inquiry 
 proceeded in due form. 
 
 I was first asked if I knew Mr. John Dwerri-
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 73 
 
 house, how long I had been acquainted with him, 
 and whether I could identify him at sight. I was 
 then asked when I had seen him last. To which I 
 replied, "On the fourth of this present month, 
 December, eighteen hundred and fifty-six." 
 
 Then came the inquiry of where I had seen 
 him on that fourth day of December; to which I 
 replied that I met him in a first-class compartment 
 of the 4.15 down-Express; that he got in just as the 
 train was leaving the London terminus, and that he 
 alighted at Blackwater station. The chairman then 
 inquired whether I had held any communication 
 with my fellow-traveller; whereupon I related, as 
 I could remember it, the whole bulk and substance 
 of Mr. John Dwerrihouse's diffuse information re- 
 specting the new branch line. 
 
 To all this the board listened with profound 
 attention, while the chairman presided and the secre- 
 tary took notes. I then produced the cigar-case. 
 It was passed from hand to hand, and recognised 
 by all. There was not a man present who did not 
 remember that plain cigar-case with its silver mono- 
 gram, or to whom it seemed anything less than en- 
 tirely corroborative of my evidence. 
 
 When, at length, I had told all that I had to 
 tell, the chairman whispered something to the secre- 
 tary; the secretary touched a silver hand-bell; and 
 the guard, Benjamin Somers, was ushered into the 
 room. He was then examined as carefully as my- 
 self. He declared that he knew Mr. John Dwerri- 
 house perfectly well; that he could not be mistaken 
 in him; that he remembered going down with the
 
 174 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 4.15 Express on the afternoon in question; that he 
 remembered me; and that, there being one or two 
 empty first-class compartments on that especial after- 
 noon, he had, in compliance with my request, placed 
 me in a carriage by myself. He was positive that 
 I remained alone all the way in that compartment 
 from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take 
 his oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was neither in that 
 carriage with me, nor in any compartment of that 
 train. He remembered distinctly to have examined 
 my ticket at Blackwater; was certain that there was 
 no one else at that time in the carriage; could not 
 have failed to observe a second person, if there had 
 been one; had that second person been Mr. John 
 Dwerrihouse, should have quietly double-locked the 
 door of carriage, and have given information to the 
 Blackwater station-master. So clear, so decisive, so 
 ready, was Somers with this testimony, that the 
 board looked fairly puzzled. 
 
 "You hear this person's statement, Mr. Lang- 
 ford," said the chairman. "It contradicts yours in 
 every particular. What have you to say in reply?" 
 
 "I can only repeat what I said before. I am 
 quite as positive of the truth of my own assertions 
 as Mr. Somers can be of the truth of his." 
 
 "You say that Mr. Dwerrihouse alighted at Black- 
 water, and that he was in possession of a private 
 key. Are you sure that he had not alighted by 
 means of that key before the guard came round for 
 the tickets?" 
 
 "I am quite positive that he did not leave the 
 carriage till the train had fairly entered the station
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 75 
 
 and the other Blackwater passengers alighted. I 
 even saw that he was met there by a friend." 
 
 "Indeed! Did you see that person distinctly?" 
 
 "Quite distinctly." 
 
 "Can you describe his appearance?" 
 
 "I think so. He was short and very slight, 
 sandy-haired, with a bushy moustache and beard, 
 and he wore a closely-fitting suit of grey tweed. 
 His age I should take to be about thirty-eight or 
 forty." 
 
 "Did Mr. Dwerrihouse leave the station in this 
 person's company?" 
 
 "I cannot tell. I saw them walking together 
 down the platform, and then I saw them standing 
 aside under a gas-jet, talking earnestly. After that 
 I lost sight of them quite suddenly; and just then 
 my train went on, and I with it." 
 
 The chairman and secretary conferred together 
 in an undertone. The directors whispered to each 
 other. One or two looked suspiciously at the guard. 
 I could see that my evidence remained unshaken, 
 and that, like myself, they suspected some com- 
 plicity between the guard and the defaulter. 
 
 "How far did you conduct that 4.15 express 
 on the day in question, Somers?" asked the chair- 
 man. 
 
 "All through, sir," replied the guard; "from 
 London to Crampton." 
 
 "How was it that you were not relieved at Clay- 
 borough? I thought there was always a change of 
 guards at Clayborough." 
 
 "There used to be, sir, till the new regulations
 
 176 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 came in force last Midsummer; since when, the 
 guards in charge of Express trains go the whole 
 way through." 
 
 The chairman turned to the secretary. 
 "I think it would be as well," he said, "if we 
 had the day-book to refer to upon this point." 
 
 Again the secretary touched the silver hand-bell, 
 and desired the porter in attendance to summon 
 Mr. Raikes. From a word or two dropped by an- 
 other of the directors, I gathered that Mr. Raikes 
 was one of the under-secretaries. 
 
 He came — a small, slight, sandy-haired, keen- 
 eyed man, with an eager, nervous manner, and a 
 forest of light beard and moustache. He just showed 
 himself at the door of the board-room, and being 
 requested to bring a certain day-book from a certain 
 shelf in a certain room, bowed and vanished. 
 
 He was there such a moment, and the surprise 
 of seeing him was so great and sudden, that it was 
 not till the door had closed upon him that I found 
 voice to speak. He was no sooner gone, however, 
 than I sprang to my feet. 
 
 "That person," I said, "is the same who met 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse upon the platform at Blackwater!" 
 
 There was a general movement of surprise. The 
 chairman looked grave, and somewhat agitated. 
 
 "Take care, Mr. Langford," he said, "take care 
 what you say!" 
 
 "I am as positive of his identity as of my own." 
 
 "Do you consider the consequences of your 
 words? Do you consider that you are bringing a
 
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 77 
 
 charge of the gravest character against one of the 
 company's servants?" 
 
 "I am willing to be put upon my oath, if neces- 
 sary. The man who came to that door a minute 
 since is the same whom I saw talking with Mr. 
 Dwerrihouse on the Blackwater platform. Were he 
 twenty times the company's servant, I could say 
 neither more nor less." 
 
 The chairman turned again to the guard. 
 
 "Did you see Mr. Raikes in the train, or on the 
 platform 1 ?" he asked. 
 
 Somers shook his head. 
 
 "I am confident Mr. Raikes was not in the 
 train," he said; "and I certainly did not see him on 
 the platform." 
 
 The chairman turned next to the secretary. 
 
 "Mr. Raikes is in your office, Mr. Hunter," he 
 said. "Can you remember if he was absent on the 
 fourth instant 1 ?" 
 
 "I do not think he was," replied the secretary; 
 "but I am not prepared to speak positively. I have 
 been away most afternoons myself lately, and Mr. 
 Raikes might easily have absented himself if he had 
 been disposed." 
 
 At this moment the under- secretary returned 
 with the day-book under his arm. 
 
 "Be pleased to refer, Mr. Raikes," said the chair- 
 man, "to the entries of the fourth instant, and see 
 what Benjamin Somers' duties were on that day." 
 
 Mr. Raikes threw open the cumbrous volume, 
 and ran a practised eye and finger down some three 
 or four successive columns of entries. Stopping 
 
 The Black Forest.   1 2
 
 178 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 suddenly at the foot of a page, he then read aloud 
 that Benjamin Somers had on that day conducted 
 the 4.15 express from London to Crampton. 
 
 The chairman leaned forward in his seat, looked 
 the under-secretary full in the face, and said, quite 
 sharply and suddenly: — 
 
 "Where were you, Mr. Raikes, on the same 
 afternoon 1 ?" 
 
 "I, sir?" 
 
 "You, Mr. Raikes. Where were you on the 
 afternoon and evening of the fourth of the present 
 month?" 
 
 "Here, sir — in Mr. Hunter's oifice. Where else 
 should I be?" 
 
 There was a dash of trepidation in the under- 
 secretary's voice as he said this; but his look of 
 surprise was natural enough. 
 
 "We have some reason for believing, Mr. Raikes, 
 that you were absent that afternoon without leave. 
 Was this the case?" 
 
 "Certainly not, sir. I have not had a day's 
 holiday since September. Mr. Hunter will bear me 
 out in this." 
 
 Mr. Hunter repeated what he had previously said 
 on the subject, but added that the clerks in the ad- 
 joining office would be certain to know. Where- 
 upon the senior clerk, a grave, middle-aged person, 
 in green glasses, was summoned and interrogated. 
 
 His testimony cleared the under-secretary at once. 
 He declared that Mr. Raikes had in no instance, to 
 his knowledge, been absent during office hours
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 79 
 
 since his return from his annual holiday in Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 I was confounded. 
 
 The chairman turned to me with a smile, in 
 which a shade of covert annoyance was scarcely 
 apparent. 
 
 "You hear, Mr. Langford?" he said. 
 
 "I hear, sir; but my conviction remains un- 
 shaken." 
 
 "I fear, Mr. Langford, that your convictions are 
 very insufficiently based," replied the chairman, with 
 a doubtful cough. "I fear that you 'dream dreams,' 
 and mistake them for actual occurrences. It is a 
 dangerous habit of mind, and might lead to dan- 
 gerous results. Mr. Raikes here would have found 
 himself in an unpleasant position, had he not proved 
 so satisfactory an alibi." 
 
 I was about to reply, but he gave me no time. 
 
 "I think, gentlemen," he went on to say, ad- 
 dressing the board, "that we should be wasting time 
 to push this inquiry farther. Mr. Langford's evidence 
 would seem to be of an equal value throughout. 
 The testimony of Benjamin Somers disproves his 
 first statement, and the testimony of the last witness 
 disproves his second. I think we may conclude 
 that Mr. Langford fell asleep in the train on the oc- 
 casion of his journey to Clayborough, and dreamt 
 an unusually vivid and circumstantial dream — of 
 which, however, we have now heard quite enough." 
 
 There are few things more annoying than to 
 find one's positive convictions met with incredulity. 
 I could not help feeling impatience at the turn that 
 
 12*
 
 I SO THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXFRESS. 
 
 affairs had taken. I was not proof against the civil 
 sarcasm of the chairman's manner. Most intolerable 
 of all, however, was the quiet smile lurking about 
 the corners of Benjamin Somers' mouth, and the 
 half-triumphant, half-malicious gleam in the eyes of 
 the under-secretary. The man was evidently puzzled, 
 and somewhat alarmed. His looks seemed furtively 
 to interrogate me. Who was 11 What did I want? 
 Why had I come there to do him an ill turn with 
 his employers'? What was it to me whether or not 
 he was absent without leave? 
 
 Seeing all this, and perhaps more irritated by it 
 than the thing deserved, I begged leave to detain 
 the attention of the board for a moment longer. 
 Jelf plucked me impatiently by the sleeve. 
 
 "Better let the thing drop," he whispered. "The 
 chairman's right enough. You dreamt it; and the 
 less said now, the better." 
 
 I was not to be silenced, however, in this fashion. 
 I had yet something to say, and I would say it. It 
 was to this effect: — That dreams were not usually 
 productive of tangible results, and that I requested 
 to know in what way the chairman conceived I had 
 evolved from my dream so substantial and well- 
 made a delusion as the cigar-case which I had had 
 the honour to place before him at the commence- 
 ment of our interview. 
 
 "The cigar-case, I admit, Mr. Langford," the 
 chairman replied, is a very strong point in your 
 evidence. It is your only strong point, however, 
 and there is just a possibility that we may all be
 
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. l8l 
 
 misled by a mere accidental resemblance. Will you 
 permit me to see the case again?" 
 
 "It is unlikely," I said, as I handed it to him, 
 "that any other should bear precisely this mono- 
 gram, and also be in all other particulars exactly 
 similar." 
 
 The chairman examined it for a moment in 
 silence, and then passed it to Mr. Hunter. Mr. 
 Hunter turned it over and over, and shook his 
 head. 
 
 "This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is 
 John Dwerrihouse's cigar-case to a certainty. I re- 
 member it perfectly. I have seen it a hundred 
 times." 
 
 "I believe I may say the same," added the chair- 
 man. "Yet how shall we account for the way in 
 which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his 
 possession 1 ?" 
 
 "I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it 
 on the floor of the carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse 
 had alighted. It was in leaning out to look after 
 him that I trod upon it; and it was in running after 
 him for the purpose of restoring it that I saw — or 
 believed I saw — Mr. Raikes standing aside with him 
 in earnest conversation." 
 
 Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve. 
 
 "Look at Raikes," he whispered. "Look at 
 Raikes!" 
 
 I turned to where the under-secretary had been 
 standing a moment before, and saw him, white as 
 death, with lips trembling and livid, stealing to- 
 wards the door.
 
 I &2 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 To conceive a sudden, strange, and indefinite 
 suspicion; to fling myself in his way; to take him 
 by the shoulders as if he were a child, and turn his 
 craven face, perforce, towards the board, was with 
 me the work of an instant. 
 
 "Look at him!" I exclaimed. "Look at his 
 face! I ask no better witness to the truth of my 
 words." 
 
 The chairman's brow darkened. 
 
 "Mr. Raikes," he said, sternly, "if you know 
 anything, you had better speak." 
 
 Vainly trying to wrench himself from my grasp, 
 the under-secretary stammered out an incoherent 
 denial. 
 
 "Let me go!" he said. "I know nothing — you 
 have no right to detain me — let me go!" 
 
 "Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerri- 
 house at Blackwater Station 1 ? The charge brought 
 against you is either true or false. If true, you will 
 do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the 
 board, and make full confession of all that you 
 know." 
 
 The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony 
 of helpless terror. 
 
 "I was away," he cried. "I was two hundred 
 miles away at the time! I know nothing about it — 
 I have nothing to confess— I am innocent — I call 
 God to witness I am innocent!" 
 
 "Two hundred miles away!" echoed the chair- 
 man. "What do you mean 1 ?" 
 
 "I was in Devonshire. I had three weeks' leave 
 of absence — I appeal to Mr. Hunter — Mr. Hunter
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 83 
 
 knows I had three weeks' leave of absence! I was 
 in Devonshire all the time — I can prove I was in 
 Devonshire!" 
 
 Seeing him so abject, so incoherent, so wild with 
 apprehension, the directors began to whisper gravely 
 among themselves; while one got quietly up, and 
 called the porter to guard the door. 
 
 "What has your being in Devonshire to do with 
 the matter?" said the chairman. "When were you 
 in Devonshire 1 ?" 
 
 "Mr. Raikes took his leave in September," said 
 the secretary; "about the time when Mr. Dwerri- 
 house disappeared." 
 
 "I never even heard that he had disappeared 
 till I came back!" 
 
 "That must remain to be proved," said the 
 chairman. "I shall at once put this matter in the 
 hands of the police. In the meanwhile, Mr. Raikes, 
 being myself a magistrate, and used to deal with 
 these cases, I advise you to offer no resistance; but 
 to confess while confession may yet do you service. 
 As for your accomplice " 
 
 The frightened wretch fell upon his knees. 
 
 "I had no accomplice!" he cried. "Only have 
 mercy upon me — only spare my life, and I will 
 confess all! I didn't mean to harm him — I didn't 
 mean to hurt a hair of his head ! Only have mercy 
 upon me, and let me go!" 
 
 The chairman rose in his place, pale and 
 agitated. 
 
 "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what horrible 
 mystery is this? What does it mean?"
 
 184 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 "As sure as there is a God in heaven," said 
 Jonathan Jelf, "it means that murder has been 
 done." 
 
 "No — no — no!" shrieked Raikes, still upon his 
 knees, and cowering like a beaten hound. "Not 
 murder! No jury that ever sat could bring it in 
 murder. I thought I had only stunned him — I never 
 meant to do more than stun him! Manslaughter — 
 manslaughter — not murder!" 
 
 Overcome by the horror of this unexpected re- 
 velation, the chairman covered his face with his 
 hand, and for a moment or two remained silent. 
 
 "Miserable man," he said at length, "you have 
 betrayed yourself." 
 
 "You bade me confess! You urged me to throw 
 myself upon the mercy of the board!" 
 
 "You have confessed to a crime which no one 
 suspected you of having committed," replied the 
 chairman, "and which this board has no power 
 either to punish or forgive. All that I can do for 
 you is to advise you to submit to the law, to plead 
 guilty, and to conceal nothing. When did you do 
 this deed?" 
 
 The guilty man rose to his feet, and leaned 
 heavily against the table. His answer came reluc- 
 tantly, like the speech of one dreaming. 
 
 "On the twenty-second of September!" 
 
 On the twenty-second of September! I looked 
 in Jonathan Jelf's face, and he in mine. I felt my 
 own paling with a strange sense of wonder and 
 dread. I saw his blench suddenly, even to the lips.
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 85 
 
 "Merciful heaven!" he whispered, ''what was It, 
 then, that you saw in the train?" 
 
 What was it that I saw in the train? That ques- 
 tion remains unanswered to this day. I have never 
 been able to reply to it. I only know that it bore 
 the living likeness of the murdered man, whose 
 body had been lying some ten weeks under a rough 
 pile of branches, and brambles, and rotting leaves, 
 at the bottom of a deserted chalk-pit about half way 
 between Blackwater and Mallingford. I know that 
 it spoke, and moved, and looked as that man spoke, 
 and moved, and looked in life; that I heard, or 
 seemed to hear, things related which I could never 
 otherwise have learned; that I was guided, as it 
 were, by that vision on the platform to the identifica- 
 tion of the murderer; and that, a passive instrument 
 myself, I was destined, by means of these mysteri- 
 ous teachings, to bring about the ends of justice. 
 For these things I have never been able to account. 
 
 As for that matter of the cigar-case, it proved, 
 on inquiry, that the carriage in which I travelled 
 down that afternoon to Clayborough had not been 
 in use for several weeks, and was, in point of fact, 
 the same in which poor John Dwerrihouse had per- 
 formed his last journey. The case had, doubtless, 
 been dropped by him, and had lain unnoticed till I 
 found it. 
 
 Upon the details of the murder I have no need 
 to dwell. Those who desire more ample particulars 
 may find them, and the written confession of Au- 
 gustus Raikes, in the files of the "Times" for 1856.
 
 I 86 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. 
 
 Enough that the under-secretary, knowing the history 
 of the new line, and following the negotiation step 
 by step through all its stages, determined to waylay 
 Mr. Dwerrihouse, rob him of the seventy^five thou- 
 sand pounds, and escape to America with his booty. 
 In order to effect these ends he obtained leave 
 of absence a few days before the time appointed 
 for the payment of the money; secured his passage 
 across the Atlantic in a steamer advertised to start 
 on the twenty-third; provided himself with a heavily- 
 loaded "life-preserver," and went down to Black- 
 water to await the arrival of his victim. How he 
 met him on the platform with a pretended message 
 from the board; how he offered to conduct him by 
 a short cut across the fields to Mallingford; how, 
 having brought him to a lonely place, he struck 
 him down with the life-preserver, and so killed 
 him; and how, finding what he had done, he dragged 
 the body to the verge of an out-of-the-way chalk- 
 pit, and there flung it in, and piled it over with 
 branches and brambles, are facts still fresh in the 
 memories of those who, like the connoisseurs in De 
 Quincey's famous essay, regard murder as a fine 
 art. Strangely enough, the murderer, having done 
 his work, was afraid to leave the country. He de- 
 clared that he had not intended to take the director's 
 life, but only to stun and rob him; and that finding 
 the blow had killed, he dared not fly for fear of 
 drawing down suspicion upon his own head. As a 
 mere robber he would have been safe in the States, 
 but as a murderer he would inevitably have been 
 pursued, and given up to justice. So he forfeited
 
 THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS. I 87 
 
 his passage, returned to the office as usual at the 
 end of his leave, and locked up his ill-gotten 
 thousands till a more convenient opportunity. In 
 the meanwhile he had the satisfaction of finding 
 that Mr. Dwerrihouse was universally believed to 
 have absconded with the money, no one knew how 
 or whither. 
 
 Whether he meant murder or not, however, Mr. 
 Augustus Raikes paid the full penalty of his crime, 
 and was hanged at the Old Bailey in the second 
 week in January, 1857. Those who desire to make 
 his further acquaintance may see him any day (ad- 
 mirably done in wax) in the Chamber of Horrors at 
 Madame Tussaud's exhibition in Baker Street. He 
 is there to be found in the midst of a select society 
 of ladies and gentlemen of atrocious memory, 
 dressed in the close-cut tweed suit which he wore 
 on the evening of the murder, and holding in his 
 hand the identical life-preserver with which he com- 
 mitted it.
 
 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY.
 
 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY. 
 
 If you have ever heard of the Grodner Thai, 
 then you will also have heard of the village of St. 
 Ulrich, of which I, Johanna Roederer, am a native. 
 And if, as is more likely, you have never heard of 
 either, then still, though without knowing it, many 
 of you have, even from your earliest childhood, 
 been familiar with the work by which, for many 
 generations, we have lived and prospered. Your rock- 
 ing-horse, your Noah's ark, your first doll, came 
 from St. Ulrich— for the Grodner Thai is the children's 
 paradise, and supplies the little ones of all Europe 
 with toys. In every house throughout the village — 
 I might almost say in every house throughout the 
 valley — you will find wood-carving, painting, or 
 gilding perpetually going on; except only in the 
 hay-making and harvest-time, when all the world 
 goes up to the hills to mow and reap, and breathe 
 the mountain air. Nor do our carvers carve only 
 grotesque toys. All the crucifixes that you see by 
 the wayside, all the carved stalls and tabernacles, 
 all the painted and gilded saints decorating screens 
 and side altars in our Tyrolean churches, are the 
 work of their hands.
 
 ig2 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 After what I have said, you will no doubt have 
 guessed that ours was a family of wood-carvers. 
 My father, who died when my sister and I were 
 quite little children, was a wood-carver. My mother 
 was also a wood-carver, as were her mother and 
 grandmother before her; and Katrine and I were of 
 course brought up by her to the same calling. But, 
 as it was necessary that one should look after the 
 home duties, and as Katrine was always more de- 
 licate than myself, I gradually came to work less 
 and less at the business; till at last, what Avith cook- 
 ing, washing, mending, making, spinning, gardening, 
 and so forth, I almost left it off altogether. Nor 
 did Katrine work very hard at it, either; for, being 
 so delicate, and so pretty, and so much younger 
 than myself, she came, of course, to be a great deal 
 spoiled and to have her own way in everything. 
 Besides, she grew tired, naturally, of cutting nothing 
 but cocks, hens, dogs, cats, cows, and goats; which 
 were all our mother had been taught to make, and, 
 consequently, all she could teach to her children. 
 
 "If I could carve saints and angels, like Ulrich, 
 next door," Katrine used sometimes to say; "or if I 
 might invent new beasts out of my own head, or if 
 I might cut caricature nutcrackers of the Herr 
 Purger and Don Wian, I shouldn't care if I worked 
 hard all day; but I hate the cocks and hens, and I 
 hate the dogs and cats, and I hate all the birds and 
 beasts that ever went into the ark — and I only wish 
 they had all been drowned in the Deluge, and not 
 one left for a pattern!" 
 
 And then she would fling her tools away, and
 
 sister Johanna's story. 193 
 
 dance about the room like a wild creature, and 
 mimic the Herr Purger, who was the great wholesale 
 buyer of all our St. Ulrich ware, till even our mother, 
 grave and sober woman as she was, could not help 
 laughing, till the tears ran down her cheeks. 
 
 Now the Ulrich next door, of whom our little 
 Katrine used to speak, was the elder of two brothers 
 named Finazzer, and he lived in the house adjoin- 
 ing our own; for at St. Ulrich, as in some of the 
 neighbouring villages, one frequently sees two 
 houses built together under one roof, with gardens 
 and orchards surrounded by a common fence. Such 
 a house was the Finazzer's and ours; or I should 
 rather say both houses were theirs, for they were 
 our landlords, and we rented our cottage from them 
 by the year. 
 
 Ulrich, named after the patron saint of our 
 village, was a tall, brown, stalwart man, very grave, 
 very reserved, very religious, and the finest wood- 
 sculptor in all the Grodner Thai. No Madonnas, 
 no angels, could compare with his for heavenly 
 grace and tenderness; and as for his Christs, a great 
 foreign critic who came to St. Ulrich some ten or 
 twelve years ago said that no other modern artist 
 with whose works he was acquainted could treat 
 that subject with anything like the same dig- 
 nity and pathos. But then, perhaps, no other 
 modern artist went to his work in the same spirit, 
 or threw into it, not only the whole force of a very 
 noble and upright character, but all the loftiest aspira- 
 tions of a profoundly religious nature. 
 
 His younger brother, Alois, was a painter— fair- 
 
 T/ie Black Forest, 13
 
 194 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 haired, light-hearted, pleasure-loving; as unlike 
 Ulrich, both in appearance and disposition, as it is 
 possible to conceive. At the time of which I am 
 telling you, he was a student in Venice and had 
 already been three years away from home. I used 
 to dream dreams, and weave foolish romances about 
 Alois and my little Katrine, picturing to myself how 
 he would some day come home, in the flush, per- 
 haps, of his first success, and finding her so beauti- 
 ful and a woman grown, fall in love with her at 
 first sight, and she with him; and the thought of 
 this possibility became at last such a happy cer- 
 tainty in my mind, that when things began to work 
 round in quite the other way, I could not bring 
 myself to believe it. Yet so it was, and, much as 
 I loved my darling, and quick-sighted as I had al- 
 ways been in everything that could possibly concern 
 her, there was not a gossip in St. Ulrich who did 
 not see what was coming before I even suspected it. 
 
 When, therefore, my little Katrine came to me 
 one evening in the orchard and told me, half laugh- 
 ing, half crying, that Ulrich Finazzer had that day 
 asked her to be his wife, I was utterly taken by surprise. 
 
 "I never dreamed that he would think of me, 
 dear," she said, with her head upon my bosom. 
 "He is so much too good and too clever for such 
 a foolish birdie as poor little Katrine." 
 
 "But — but my birdie loves him 1 ?" I said, kiss- 
 ing her bright hair. 
 
 She half lifted her head, half laughed through 
 her tears, and said with some hesitation: — 
 
 "Oh, yes, I love him. I — I think I love him —
 
 sister Johanna's story. 195 
 
 and then I am quite sure he loves me, and that is 
 more than enough." 
 
 "But, Katrine " 
 
 She kissed me, to stop the words upon my 
 lips. 
 
 "But you know quite well, dear, that I never 
 could love any lover half as much as I love you; 
 and he knows it, too, for I told him so just now, 
 and now please don't look grave, for I want to be 
 very happy to-night, and I can't bear it." 
 
 And I also wanted her to be very happy, so I 
 said all the loving things I could think of, and 
 when we went in to supper we found Ulrich Finazzer 
 waiting for us. 
 
 "Dear Johanna," he said, taking me by both 
 hands, "you are to be my sister now." 
 
 And then he kissed me on the forehead. The 
 words were few; but he had never spoken to me or 
 looked at me so kindly before, and somehow my 
 heart seemed to come into my throat, and I could 
 not answer a word. 
 
 It was now the early summer time, and they 
 were to be married in the autumn. Ulrich, mean- 
 while, had his hands full of work, as usual, and 
 there was, besides, one important task which he 
 wanted to complete before his wedding. This task 
 was a Christ, larger than life, which he designed as 
 a gift to our parish church, then undergoing com- 
 plete restoration. The committee of management 
 had invited him in the first instance to undertake 
 the work as an order, but Ulrich would not accept 
 a price for it. He preferred to give it as a free- 
 
 13*
 
 ig6 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 will offering, and he meant it to be the best piece 
 of wood-sculpture that had ever yet left his hand. 
 He had made innumerable designs for it both in 
 clay and on paper, and separate studies from life 
 for the limbs, hands, and feet. In short, it was to 
 be no ordinary piece of mere conventional Grodner 
 Thai work, but a work of art in the true sense of 
 the word. In the meanwhile, he allowed no one 
 to see the figure in progress — not even Katrine; 
 but worked upon it with closed doors, and kept it 
 covered with a linen cloth whenever his workshop 
 was open. 
 
 So the Summer time wore on, and the roses 
 bloomed abundantly in our little garden, and the 
 corn yellowed slowly on the hill-sides, and the wild 
 white strawberry-blossoms turned to tiny strawberries, 
 ruby-red, on every mossy bank among the fir-forests 
 of the Seisser Alp. And still Ulrich laboured on at 
 his great work, and sculptured many a gracious 
 saint besides; and still the one object of his earthly 
 worship was our little laughing Katrine. 
 
 Whether it was that, being so grave himself, 
 and she so gay, he loved her the better for the con- 
 trast, I cannot tell; but his affection for her seemed 
 to deepen daily. I watched it as one might watch 
 the growth of some rare flower, and I wondered 
 sometimes if she prized it as she ought. Yet I 
 scarcely know how, child that she was, she should 
 ever have risen to the heights or sounded the depths 
 of such a nature as his. That she could not ap- 
 preciate him, however, would have mattered little, 
 if she had loved him more. There was the pity of
 
 sister Johanna's story. 197 
 
 it. She had accepted him, as many a very young 
 girl accepts her first lover, simply because he was 
 her first. She was proud of his genius — proud of 
 his preference — proud of the house, and the lands, 
 and the worldly goods that were soon to be hers; 
 but for that far greater wealth of love, she held it 
 all too lightly. 
 
 Seeing this day after day, with the knowledge 
 that nothing I could say would make things better, 
 I fell, without being conscious of it, into a sad and 
 silent way that arose solely out of my deep love for 
 them both, and had no root of selfishness in it, as 
 my own heart told me then, and tells me to this 
 day. 
 
 In the midst of this time, so full of happiness 
 for Ulrich, so full of anxiety for me, Alois Finazzer 
 came home suddenly. We had been expecting him 
 in a vague way ever since the Spring, but the sur- 
 prise when he walked in unannounced was as great 
 as if we had not expected him at all. 
 
 He kissed us all on both cheeks, and sat down 
 as if he had not been away for a day. 
 
 "What a rich fellow I am!" he said, joyously. 
 "I left only a grave elder brother behind when I 
 went to Venice, and I come back finding two dear 
 little sisters to welcome me home again." 
 
 And then he told us that he had just taken the 
 gold medal at the Academy, that he had sold his 
 prize-picture for two hundred florins, and that he 
 had a pocketful of presents for us all — a necklace 
 for Katrine, a spectacle-case for our mother, and a 
 housewife for myself. When he put the necklace
 
 198 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 round my darling's neck he kissed her again, and 
 praised her eyes, and said he should some day put 
 his pretty little sister into one of his pictures. 
 
 He was greatly changed. He went away a curly- 
 headed lad of eighteen; he came back a man, 
 bearded and self-confident. 
 
 Three years, at certain turning-points on the 
 road of life, work with us more powerfully, whether 
 for better or worse, than would ten years at any 
 other period. I thought I liked Alois Finazzer better 
 when he was those three years younger. 
 
 Not so Katrine, however — not so our mother — 
 not so the St. Ulrich folk, all of whom were loud 
 in his praise. Handsome, successful, gay, generous, 
 he treated the men, laughed with the girls, and 
 carried all before him. 
 
 As for Ulrich, he put his work aside, and cleared 
 his brow, and made holiday for two whole days, 
 going round with his brother from house to house, 
 and telling everyone how Alois had taken the great 
 gold medal in Venice. Proud and happy as he was, 
 however, he was prouder and happier still when, 
 some three or four days later, at a meeting of the 
 Church Committee of management, the Commune 
 formally invited Alois to paint an altar-piece for the 
 altar of San Marco at the price of three hundred 
 florins. 
 
 That evening Ulrich invited us to supper, and 
 we drank Alois's health in a bottle of good Barbera 
 wine. He was to stay at home now, instead of 
 going back to Venice, and he was to have a large 
 room at the back of Ulrich's workshop for a studio.
 
 sister Johanna's story. 199 
 
 "I'll bring your patron saint into my picture if 
 you will sit for her portrait, Katrine," said Alois, 
 laughingly. 
 
 And Katrine blushed and said, "Yes;" and Ul- 
 rich was delighted ; and Alois pulled out his 
 pocket-book, and began sketching her head on the 
 spot. 
 
 "Only you must try to think of serious things, 
 and not laugh when you are sitting for a saint, my 
 little Madchen," said Ulrich, tenderly; whereupon 
 Katrine blushed still more deeply, and Alois, with- 
 out looking up from his drawing, promised that 
 they would both be as grave as judges whenever the 
 sittings were going on. 
 
 And now there began for me a period of such 
 misery that even at this distance of time I can 
 scarcely bear to speak or think of it. There, day 
 after day, was Alois painting in his new studio, and 
 Katrine sitting to him for Santa Catarina, while 
 Ulrich, unselfish, faithful, trustful, worked on in the 
 next room, absorbed in his art, and not only un- 
 conscious of treachery, but incapable of conceiving 
 it as a possibility. How I tried to watch over her, 
 and would fain have watched over her still more 
 closely if I could, is known to myself alone. My 
 object was to be with her throughout all those fatal 
 sittings; Alois's object was to make the appoint- 
 ments for hours when my household duties com- 
 pelled me to remain at home. He soon found out 
 that my eyes were opened. From that moment it 
 was a silent, unacknowledged fight between us, and 
 we were always fighting it.
 
 200 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 And now, as his work drew nearer to completion, 
 Ulrich seemed every day to live less for the people 
 and things about him, and more for his art. Al- 
 ways somewhat over-silent and reserved, he now 
 seemed scarcely conscious, at times, of even the pre- 
 sence of others. He spoke and moved as in a 
 dream; went to early mass every morning at four; 
 fasted three days out of seven; and, having wrought 
 himself up to a certain pitch of religious and ar- 
 tistic excitement, lived in a world of his own creation, 
 from which even Katrine was for the time excluded. 
 Things being thus, what could I do but hold my 
 peace? To speak to Ulrich would have been im- 
 possible at any time; to speak to my darling (she 
 being, perhaps, wholly unconscious) might be to 
 create the very peril I dreaded; to appeal to Alois, 
 I felt beforehand, would be worse than useless. So 
 I kept my trouble to myself, and prayed that the 
 weeks might pass quickly, and bring their wedding- 
 day. 
 
 Now, just about this time of which I am telling 
 (that is towards the middle of August) came round 
 the great annual fete, or Sagro, as we call it, at 
 Botzen; and to this fete Katrine and I had for 
 some years been in the habit of going — walking to 
 Atzwang the first day by way of Castelruth; sleeping 
 near Atzwang in the house of our aunt, Maria Bern- 
 hard, whose husband kept the Gasthaus called the 
 Schwarze Adler; taking the railway next morning 
 from Atzwang to Botzen, and there spending the 
 day of the Sagro; and returning in the same order 
 as we came. This year, however, having the dread 

 
 SISTER JOHANNA S STORY. 201 
 
 of Alois before my eyes, and knowing that Ulrich 
 would not leave his work, I set my face against the 
 Botzen expedition, and begged my little sister, since 
 she could not have the protection of her betrothed 
 husband, to give it up. And so I think she would 
 have done at first, but that Alois was resolute to 
 have us go; and at last even Ulrich urged it upon 
 us, saying that he would not have his little Madchen 
 balked of her festa simply because he was too busy 
 to take her there himself. Would not Johanna be 
 there to take care of her, Alois to take care of 
 them both? So my protest was silenced, and we 
 went. 
 
 It is a long day's walk from St. Ulrich to 
 Atzwang, and we did not reach our aunt's house 
 till nearly supper-time; so that it was quite late be- 
 fore we went up to our room. And now my dar- 
 ling, after being in wild spirits all day, became sud- 
 denly silent, and instead of going to bed, stayed by 
 the window, looking at the moon. 
 
 "What is my birdie thinking of?" I said, putting 
 my arm about her waist. 
 
 "I am thinking," she said, softly, "how the 
 moon is shining now at St. Ulrich on our mother's 
 bedroom window, and on our father's grave." 
 
 And with this she laid her head down upon my 
 shoulder, and cried as if her heart would break. 
 
 I have reproached myself since for letting that 
 moment pass as I did. I believe I might have had 
 her confidence if I had tried, and then what a world 
 of sorrow might have been averted from us all! 
 
 We reached Botzen next morning in time for
 
 202 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY. 
 
 the six o'clock mass; went to high mass again at 
 nine; and strolled among the booths between the 
 services. Here Alois, as usual, was very free with 
 his money, buying ribbons and trinkets for Katrine, 
 and behaving in every way as if he, and not Ulrich, 
 were her acknowledged lover. At eleven, having 
 met some of our St. Ulrich neighbours, we made a 
 party and dined all together at a Gasthaus in the 
 Silbergasse; and after dinner the young men proposed 
 to take us to see an exhibition of rope-dancers and 
 tumblers. Now I knew that Ulrich would not ap- 
 prove of this, and I entreated my darling for his 
 sake, if not for mine, to stay away. But she would 
 not listen to me. 
 
 "Ulrich, Ulrich!" she repeated, pettishly. "Don't 
 tease me about Ulrich; I am tired of his very 
 name ! " 
 
 The next moment she had taken Alois's arm, 
 and we were in the midst of the crowd. 
 
 Finding she would go, I of course went also, 
 though sorely against my inclination; and one of 
 our St. Ulrich friends gave me his arm, and got me 
 through. The crowd, however, was so great that I 
 lost sight somehow of Alois and Katrine, and found 
 myself landed presently inside the booth and sitting 
 on a front seat next to the orchestra, alone with 
 the St. Ulrich people. We kept seats for them as 
 long as we could, and stood upon the bench to look 
 for them, till at last the curtain rose, and we had 
 to sit down without them. 
 
 I saw nothing of the performance. To this day 
 I have no idea how long it lasted, or what it con-
 
 sister johanna's story. 203 
 
 sisted of. I remember nothing but the anxiety with 
 which I kept looking towards the door, and the 
 deadly sinking at my heart as the minutes dragged 
 by. To go in search of them was impossible, for 
 the entrance was choked, and there was no standing- 
 room in any part of the booth, so that even when 
 the curtain fell we were fully another ten minutes 
 getting out. 
 
 You have guessed it, perhaps, before I tell you. 
 They were not in the market-place; they were not 
 at the Gasthaus; they were not in the Cathedral. 
 
 "The tall young man in a grey and green coat, 
 and the pretty girl with a white rose in her hair 1 ?" 
 said a bystander. "Tush, my dear, don't be uneasy. 
 They are gone home; I saw them running towards 
 the station more than half an hour ago." 
 
 So we flew to the station, and there one of the 
 porters, who was an Atzwang man and knew us 
 both, confirmed the dreadful truth. They were 
 gone indeed, but they were not gone home. Just 
 in time to catch the Express, they had taken their 
 tickets through to Venice, and were at this moment 
 speeding southwards. 
 
 How I got home — not stopping at all at Atzwang, 
 but going straight away on foot in the broiling after- 
 noon sun — never resting till I reached Castelruth, 
 a little after dusk — lying down outside my bed and 
 sobbing all the night — getting up at the first glim- 
 mer of grey dawn and going on again before the 
 sun was up — how I did all this, faint for want of 
 food, yet unable to eat; weary for want of rest, yet 
 unable to sleep — I know not. But I did it, and
 
 204 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY. 
 
 was home again at St. Ulrich, kneeling beside our 
 mother's chair, and comforting her as best I could, 
 by seven. 
 
 "How is Ulrich to be told?" 
 
 It was her first question. It was the question I 
 had been asking myself all the way home. I knew 
 well, however, that I must be the one to break it to 
 him. It was a terrible task, and I put it from me 
 as long as possible. 
 
 When at last I did go, it was past mid-day. 
 The workshop door stood open — the Christ, just 
 showing a vague outline through the folds, was 
 covered with a sheet, and standing up against the 
 wall — and Ulrich was working on the drapery of a 
 St. Francis, the splinters from which were flying off 
 rapidly in every direction. 
 
 Seeing me on the threshold, he looked up and 
 smiled. 
 
 "So soon back, Hebe Johanna?" he said. "We 
 did not expect you till evening." 
 
 Then, finding I made no answer, he paused in 
 his work, and said, quickly: — 
 
 "What is the matter? Is she ill?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "No," I said, "she is not ill." 
 
 "Where is she, then?" 
 
 "She is not ill," I said, again, "but — she is not 
 here." 
 
 And then I told him. 
 
 He heard me out in dead silence, never moving 
 so much as a finger, only growing whiter as I went 
 on. Then, when I had done, he went over to the
 
 sister Johanna's story. 205 
 
 window, and remained standing with his back to- 
 wards me for some minutes. 
 
 "And you?" he said, presently, still without turn- 
 ing his head. "And you — through all these weeks 
 — you never saw or suspected anything?" 
 
 "I feared — I was not sure — " 
 
 He turned upon me with a terrible pale anger 
 in his face. 
 
 "You feared — you were not sure!" he said, 
 slowly. "That is to say, you saw it going on, and 
 let it go on, and would not put out your hand to 
 save us all! False! false! false! — all false together 
 — false love, false brother, false friend!" 
 
 "You are not just to me, Ulrich," I said; for 
 to be called false by him was more than I could 
 bear. 
 
 "Am I not just? Then I pray that God will be 
 more just to you, and to them, than I can ever be; 
 and that His justice may be the justice of vengeance 
 — swift, and terrible, and without mercy." 
 
 And saying this he laid his hand on the veiled 
 Christ, and cursed us all three with a terrible, pas- 
 sionate curse, like the curse of a prophet of old. 
 
 For one moment my heart stood still, and I felt 
 as if there was nothing left for me but to die — but 
 it was only for that one moment; for I knew, even 
 before he had done speaking, that no words of his 
 could harm either my poor little erring Katrine or 
 myself. And then, having said so as gently as I 
 could, I formally forgave him in her name and 
 mine, and went away. 
 
 That night Ulrich Finazzer shut up his house
 
 206 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 and disappeared, no one knew whither. When I 
 questioned the old woman who lived with him as 
 servant, she said that he had paid and dismissed 
 her a little before dusk; that she then thought he 
 was looking very ill, and that she had observed 
 how, instead of being as usual hard at work all day 
 in the workshop, he had fetched his gun out of the 
 kitchen about two o'clock, and carried it up to his 
 bedroom, where, she believed, he had spent nearly 
 all the afternoon cleaning it. This was all she had 
 to tell; but it was more than enough to add to the 
 burden of my terrors. 
 
 Oh, the weary, weary time that followed — the 
 long, sad, solitary days — the days that became weeks 
 — the weeks that became months — the Autumn that 
 chilled and paled as it wore on towards Winter — 
 the changing wood — the withering leaves — the snow 
 that whitened daily on the great peaks round about! 
 Thus September and October passed away, and the 
 last of the harvest was gathered in, and November 
 came with bitter winds and rain; and save a few 
 hurried lines from Katrine, posted in Perugia, I 
 knew nothing of the fate of all whom I had loved 
 and lost. 
 
 "We were married," she wrote, "in Venice, and 
 Alois talks of spending the Winter in Rome. I 
 should be perfectly happy if I knew that you and 
 Ulrich had forgiven us." 
 
 This was all. She gave me no address; but I 
 wrote to her at the Poste Restante Perugia, and 
 again to the Poste Restante, Rome; both of which
 
 sister Johanna's story, 207 
 
 letters, I presume, lay unclaimed till destroyed by 
 the authorities, for she never replied to either. 
 
 And now the Winter came on in earnest, as 
 Winter always comes in our high valleys, and 
 Christmas-time drew round again; and on the eve 
 of St. Thomas, Ulrich Finazzer returned to his 
 house as suddenly and silently as he had left it. 
 
 Next door neighbours as we were, we should 
 not have known of his return but for the trampled 
 snow upon the path, and the smoke going up from 
 the workshop chimney. No other sign of life or 
 occupation was to be seen. The shutters remained 
 unopened. The doors, both front and back, re- 
 mained fast locked. If any neighbour knocked, 
 he was left to knock unanswered. Even the old 
 woman who used to be his servant, was turned 
 away by a stern voice from within, bidding her 
 begone and leave him at peace. 
 
 That he was at work was certain; for we could 
 hear him in the workshop by night as well as by 
 day. But he could work there as in a tomb, for 
 the room was lighted by a window in the roof. 
 
 Thus St. Thomas's Day, and the next day which 
 was the fourth Sunday in Advent, went by; and 
 still he who had ever been so constant at mass 
 showed no sign of coming out amongst us. On 
 Monday our good cure walked down, all through 
 the fresh snow (for there had been a heavy fall in 
 the night), on purpose to ask if we were sure that 
 Ulrich was really in his house; if we had yet seen 
 him; and if we knew what he did for food, being
 
 208 sister Johanna's story. 
 
 shut in there quite alone. But to these questions 
 we could give no satisfactory reply. 
 
 That day when we had dined, I put some bread 
 and meat in a basket and left it at his door; but 
 it lay there untouched all through the day and 
 night, and in the morning I fetched it back again, 
 with the food still in it. 
 
 This was the fourth day since his return. It 
 was very dreadful — I cannot tell you how dreadful 
 — to know that he was so near, yet never even to 
 see his shadow on a blind. As the day wore on 
 my suspense became intolerable. To-night, I told 
 myself, would be Christmas Eve; to-morrow Christ- 
 mas Day. Was it possible that his heart would not 
 soften if he remembered our Happy Christmas of 
 only last year, when he and Katrine were not yet 
 betrothed; how he supped with us, and how we all 
 roasted nuts upon the hearth and sang part-songs 
 after supper? Then, again, it seemed incredible 
 that he should not go to church on Christmas Day. 
 
 Thus the day went by, and the evening dusk 
 came on, and the village choir came round singing 
 carols from house to house, and still he made no 
 sign. 
 
 Now what with the suspense of knowing him 
 to be so near, and the thought of my little Katrine 
 far away in Rome, and the remembrance of how 
 he — he whom I had honoured and admired above 
 all the world my whole life long — had called down 
 curses on us both the very last time that he and I 
 stood face to face — what with all this, I say, and 
 what with the season and its associations, I had
 
 sister Johanna's story. 209 
 
 such a great restlessness and anguish upon me that 
 I sat up trying to read my Bible long after mother 
 had gone to bed. But my thoughts wandered 
 continually from the text, and at last the restlessness 
 so gained upon me that I could sit still no longer, 
 and so got up and walked about the room. 
 
 And now suddenly, while I was pacing to and 
 fro, I heard, or fancied I heard, a voice in the 
 garden calling to me by name. I stopped — I 
 listened— I trembled. My very heart stood still! 
 Then, hearing no more, I opened the window and 
 outer shutters, and instantly there rushed in a torrent 
 of icy cold air and a flood of brilliant moonlight, 
 and there, on the shining snow below, stood Ulrich 
 Finazzer. 
 
 Himself, and yet so changed! Worn, haggard, 
 grey. 
 
 I saw him, I tell you, as plainly as I see my 
 own hand at this moment. He was standing close, 
 quite close, under the window, with the moonlight 
 full upon him. 
 
 "Ulrich!" I said, and my own voice sounded 
 strange to me, somehow, in the dead waste and 
 silence of the night — "Ulrich, are you come to tell 
 me we are friends again?" 
 
 But instead of answering me he pointed to a 
 mark on his forehead — a small dark mark, that 
 looked at this distance and by this light like a 
 bruise — cried aloud with a strange wild cry, less 
 like a human voice than a far-off echo, "The brand 
 of Cain! The brand of Cain!" and so flung up his 
 
 The Black Forest. 1 4
 
 210 SISTER JOHANNA'S STORY. 
 
 arms with a despairing gesture, and fled away into 
 the night. 
 
 The rest of my story may be told in a few 
 words — the fewer the better. Insane with the desire 
 of vengeance, Ulrich Finazzer had tracked the 
 fugitives from place to place, and slain his brother 
 at mid-day in the streets of Rome. He escaped 
 unmolested, and was well nigh over the Austrian 
 border before the authorities began to inquire into 
 the particulars of the murder. He then, as was 
 proved by a comparison of dates, must have come 
 straight home by way of Mantua, Verona, and 
 Botzen, with no other object, apparently, than to 
 finish the statue that he had designed for an offering 
 to the church. He worked upon it, accordingly, as 
 I have said, for four days and nights incessantly, 
 completed it to the last degree of finish, and then, 
 being in who can tell how terrible a condition of 
 remorse, and horror, and despair, sought to expiate 
 his crime with his blood. They found him shot 
 through the head by his own hand, lying quite dead 
 at the feet of the statue upon which he had been 
 working, probably, up to the last moment; his tools 
 lying close by; the pistol still fast in his clenched 
 hand, and the divine pitying face of the Redeemer 
 whose law he had outraged, bending over him as if 
 in sorrow and forgiveness. 
 
 Our mother has now been dead some years; 
 strangers occupy the house in which Ulrich Finazzer 
 came to his dreadful death; and already the double 
 tragedy is almost forgotten. In the sad, faded
 
 
 sister Johanna's story. 211 
 
 woman, prematurely grey, who lives with me, ever 
 working silently, steadily, patiently, from morning 
 till night at our hereditary trade, few who had 
 known her in the freshness of her youth would now 
 recognise my beautiful Katrine. Thus from day to 
 day, from year to year, we journey on together, 
 nearing the end. 
 
 Did I indeed see Ulrich Finazzer that night of 
 his self-murder? If I did so with my bodily eyes 
 and it was no illusion of the senses, then most 
 surely I saw him not in life, for that dark mark 
 which looked to me in the moonlight like a bruise 
 was the bullet-hole in his brow. 
 
 But did I see him? It is a question I ask my- 
 self again and again, and have asked myself for 
 years. Ah! who can answer it? 
 
 14 4
 
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 A STORY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 

 
 [This story, written some seventeen or eighteen 
 years ago, was founded, to the best of my recollec- 
 tion, on the particulars of a French trial that I 
 read in some old volume of Causes CelZbres, or 
 Causes Judiciaires, the title of which I have now 
 forgotten. I no longer remember how much of it 
 is fact, or how much fiction; or even whether the 
 names and dates are retained unaltered.]
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Mountaineers. 
 
 It was a sultry day in the month of August, 
 a.d. 1 710. The place was wild and solitary enough 
 — a narrow ledge of rock jutting out from a pre- 
 cipitous mountain-side in the department of the 
 Haute Auvergne. The mountain was volcanic — 
 bare and blackened towards the west; grassy to the 
 east and south; clothed with thick chestnut-woods 
 about the base. A sea of dusky peaks stretched 
 all around. The deep blue sky burned overhead. 
 All was repose; all was silence — silence in the grass, 
 in the air, on the mountain-side. 
 
 Upon this shelf of rock lay three men, sound 
 asleep; with their heads in the shade, their feet in 
 the sun, and the remains of a brown loaf and a big 
 cheese lying beside them on the grass. 
 
 The air up here was as still to-day, and as 
 languid, as down in the green valleys below. To- 
 wards the south, a faint white mist dulled the dis- 
 tance; but in the direction of Clermont, on the 
 north, every summit rose clear and keen against the 
 sky. Most conspicuous amongst these was the long-
 
 2l6 all-saints' eve. 
 
 toothed ridge of the Mont Dor; and loftiest of all, 
 though apparently farthest, the solitary summit of 
 the Puy de Dome. Here and there a few scattered 
 sheep or cows might be seen as mere moving specks 
 on some green slope of high level pasture. Now 
 and then, the faint bleating of a stray lamb, or the 
 bark of a herdsman's dog, or the piping of some 
 distant shepherd boy "piping as though he should 
 never grow old," just stirred the silence. But for 
 these vague sounds and the low humming of insects 
 in the grass, all was so profoundly still that it 
 seemed as if Nature herself were holding her breath, 
 and as if the very perfumes were asleep in the hearts 
 of the wild flowers. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of this charmed silence, 
 the prolonged blast of a huntsman's horn, and the 
 deep baying of many hounds, came sweeping up 
 the ravine below. The sleepers sprang to their feet, 
 rubbed their eyes, and peered over the brink of the 
 precipice. 
 
 " 'Tis Madame la Comtesse out with the hounds!" 
 said the elder of the three — a big, burly, sun- 
 browned mountaineer of some fifty-five or sixty years 
 of age. 
 
 "Peste! It is my luck never to be in the way 
 when she rides!" exclaimed one of the two younger 
 herdsmen. "Here is the third time our new mis- 
 tress has hunted of late, and I have never yet seen 
 her." 
 
 The horns rang out again, but this time farther 
 away and more faintly. Once more, and it was but
 
 all-saints' eve. 217 
 
 a breath upon the breeze. Then all was silent as 
 before. 
 
 "They have gone round by the Gorge des 
 Loups," said the elder of the trio. 
 
 Then, looking round the horizon, he added: — 
 
 "There is a storm brewing somewhere — and the 
 shadows are lengthening. 'Tis time we went down 
 to the Buron, lads, and saw to the milking." 
 
 Now these three constituted the usual triumvirate 
 of the Haute Auvergne — the vacher, or cowkeeper, 
 (sometimes called the buronnier) who makes the 
 cheeses which form the principal revenue of the 
 landowners in this part of France; the boutilier who 
 makes the butter; and the pdtre, or herdsman, who 
 looks after the cows, and keeps the Buron and dairy 
 in order. The distinctions of rank among these 
 three are strictly observed. 
 
 The vacher is a person of authority, "a wise 
 fellow, and, what is more, an officer;" the boutilier 
 comes next in dignity; and the pdtre is under both. 
 The Buron, or little wooden hut, in which they live 
 during the six Summer months, in Switzerland 
 would be called a chalet. It is generally built of 
 wood, and divided into three chambers, the first of 
 which is for living and cooking in, and is provided 
 with a rude fire-place and chimney; the second is 
 for the cheese-making, and contains milk-pails, 
 churns, and other implements; the third serves for 
 a cheese-room, store-room, and sleeping-room. A 
 small kitchen-garden, a stable, a pigsty, and an 
 enclosure in which the cattle take refuge in rough 
 weather, completes the establishment.
 
 21 8 all-saints' eve. 
 
 The Buron to which the three herdsmen now 
 took their way stood on a green slope surrounded 
 by oaks, about six hundred feet below the spot on 
 which they had been sleeping. As they went along, 
 the cows came to their call and followed them, 
 knowing that milking-time was come. Every cow 
 — and there were fifty in all — was branded on the 
 flank with a coronet and an initial P, thus showing 
 them to be the property of the Countess de Pey- 
 relade, a young and wealthy widow whose estates ex- 
 tended for many miles to the eastward of the Plomb 
 de Cantal. Other herds, other Burons, other de- 
 pendents, she had scattered about the neighbouring 
 hillsides, all portioned off in the same way — namely, 
 fifty cows and three men to each district. 
 
 "Tell us, Pere Jacques," said the boutilier when, 
 the milking being done, the men sat outside the 
 Buron door, smoking and chatting, "tell us what 
 our new lady is like." 
 
 "Like!" repeated the cowkeeper. "Eh, mon 
 gargon, it would take a more skilful tongue than 
 mine to describe her! She is more beautiful than 
 the Madonna in the Cathedral of St. Flour." 
 
 "When did you see her, Pere Jacques, and 
 where?" asked the pdtre. 
 
 "Mon en/ant, I have seen her from near by and 
 from afar off. I have seen her as a child, a demoi- 
 selle, a bride, a widow. I have carried her in my 
 arms, and danced her on my knee, many and many 
 a time. Ah! that surprises you; but the snow has 
 fallen for many a Winter on the summit of Mount 
 Cantal since that time."
 
 all-saints' eve. 219 
 
 "Then it was a great many years ago, Father 
 Jacques. How old is Madame la Comtesse!" 
 
 "Twenty-five years at the most, come September," 
 replied Jacques. "And she's so fresh and beautiful 
 that she does not yet look above eighteen. We 
 always used to call her the little Queen Marguerite; 
 and sure, if a young girl were to be made a queen 
 for her beauty, Marguerite would have been crowned 
 ten years ago. Ah, when she married the old 
 Comte de Peyrelade and went away to the King's 
 court, there was not a soul in the province but 
 missed her. It was a blessing even to look upon 
 her; she was so fair, so smiling, so gracious! From 
 everybody you heard, 'Well, have you been told 
 the news'? The little Queen Marguerite is gone!' 
 And all the men sighed, and the women cried; and 
 it was a sad day for the poor folks. Well, nine 
 years have gone by since then. She has at last 
 come back to us; the old Count is dead; and our 
 little Queen will live with us once more, till the end 
 of her days!" 
 
 "Perhaps," said the boutilier, who had hitherto 
 been silent. 
 
 "Why perhaps?" said Pere Jacques, knitting his 
 grey brows, "why perhaps 1 ?" 
 
 "Is not Madame young and beautiful?" asked 
 the boutilier. "Is she not rich? Why, then, should 
 she bury herself for life in an old chateau? What 
 will you bet that she does not go back to court be- 
 fore twelve months are over, and there marry some 
 rich and handsome lord?" 
 
 "Hush! Pierre," replied Jacques, in a moody
 
 220 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 voice; "I tell you she will neither marry nor leave 
 us. She has made a vow to that effect." 
 
 "Do ladies keep those vows'?" asked the incre- 
 dulous Pierre. 
 
 "She will. Listen, and I will tell you all that 
 passed nine years ago in the Chateau de Pradines, 
 the home of our little Queen Marguerite before her 
 marriage." 
 
 The two lads drew nearer, and the cowkeeper 
 thus began: — 
 
 "The handsomest and noblest among all Mar- 
 guerite's lovers was M. le Chevalier de Fontane. 
 She preferred him; and though he was but a younger 
 son, with a lieutenant's commission, the old Baron 
 de Pradines consented to the marriage for love of 
 his daughter. The wedding-day was fixed. Then 
 news came that Monsieur George, the brother of 
 Mademoiselle Marguerite, was to have leave of ab- 
 sence from his regiment; and M. le Baron deferred 
 the marriage till his arrival — and sorely he repented 
 of it afterwards! Monsieur George was as much 
 disliked as his father and sister were beloved in the 
 province; and the day when he had first left it was 
 a day of rejoicing amongst us. It was late one 
 evening when he arrived at the chateau, bringing 
 with him an old gentleman. This gentleman was 
 the Count de Peyrelade. As soon as supper was 
 over, Monsieur George went to his father's chamber, 
 and there remained with him for a long time in 
 conversation. No one ever knew what passed be- 
 tween them; but the night was far spent when he 
 came out, and the next day M. le Baron, who had
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 221 
 
 been full of life and health before the arrival of his 
 son, was confined to his bed in the extremity of illness. 
 A priest was sent for, and the last sacraments were 
 administered; and then the poor old gentleman 
 summoned all the household to take his farewell. 
 
 "'Marguerite,' said he to his daughter, who was 
 crying bitterly— 'Marguerite, I have but a few mo- 
 ments to live, and before I leave thee I have a 
 prayer to address to thee.' And as Mademoiselle 
 kissed his hands without being able to speak a 
 word, he added, 'My daughter, promise me to 
 marry M. de Peyrelade!' 
 
 "At these words the poor young lady gave a 
 great cry, and fell on her knees at the foot of her 
 father's bed. Then the Baron turned to the late 
 Count: — 
 
 "'Monsieur,' said he, 'I know my daughter; she 
 will obey my commands. Promise me to make her 
 happy.' 
 
 "The Count, greatly moved, promised to devote 
 his life to her; and the poor dear master fell back 
 quite dead! 
 
 "It was exactly twenty-four hours after his son's 
 arrival that M. le Baron breathed his last. What a 
 terrible night it was, boys! The rain and snow had 
 never ceased falling since that fatal return. M. 
 le Chevalier de Fontane, who knew nothing of what 
 had passed, came riding into the courtyard about 
 an ho.ur after the Baron had died. I ran out to 
 him, for I was a stableman in the chateau, and I 
 told him all that had happened. As he listened to 
 me, he became as pale as a corpse, and I saw him
 
 222 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 reel in his saddle. Then he plunged his spurs into 
 his horse's flanks, and fled away like a madman into 
 the storm. From that time he was never seen or 
 heard of again; but, as he took the road to the 
 mountains, it was supposed that he fell, with his 
 horse, into some chasm, and was buried in the 
 snow. Every year, on the anniversary of that day, 
 his family have a mass said for the repose of his 
 soul." 
 
 Here the cowkeeper crossed himself devoutly, 
 and his companions followed his example. 
 
 After a few minutes' silence, "Well, Pierre," he 
 said, "now do you understand why Madame la 
 Comtesse de Peyrelade has retired at the age of 
 twenty-five to live in a ruinous old Chateau of 
 Auvergne, and why she should never marry a second 
 timel" 
 
 The boutilier was so concerned that he had not 
 the heart to say a word; but the herdsman, who was 
 excessively curious, returned to the charge. 
 
 "You have not told us, Pere Jacques," said 
 he, "why the Baron desired his daughter to marry 
 the late Count instead of the Chevalier de Fon- 
 tanel 
 
 "I can only tell you the reports," replied Jacques; 
 "for nobody knows the truth of it. They said that 
 M. George owed more money to the Count de Pey- 
 relade than his father could pay, and that he had 
 sold the hand of his sister to defray the debt. 
 Every one knows that the Count was very much 
 in love with her, and that she had refused him 
 several times already."
 
 all-saints' eve. 223 
 
 "Alas!" exclaimed Pierre, "I don't wonder at 
 the poor lady's determination. It is not her old 
 husband that she grieves for, but her father and her 
 lover; is it not, Pere Jacques]" 
 
 "Ay," replied the cowkeeper, "and it is not only 
 past troubles that the gentle soul has to bear, but 
 present troubles also! 'Tis not much peace, I fear, 
 that she will find in Auvergne." 
 
 "Why so, friend 1 ?" said a deep voice behind the 
 speakers, and a man of about thirty-eight or forty 
 years of age, with a pale face, a stooping figure, 
 and a melancholy expression of countenance came 
 suddenly into the midst of them. The mountaineer 
 and the ecclesiastic were oddly combined in his 
 attire; for with the cassock and band he wore 
 leathern gaiters, a powder-pouch and a cartridge- 
 box; while across his shoulders was slung a double- 
 barrelled musket. A couteau de chasse was thrust in 
 his leathern belt, and a magnificent mountain-dog 
 walked leisurely at his side. 
 
 "Good day, Monsieur le Cure," said the cow- 
 keeper, respectfully. "Welcome to the Buron. Have 
 you had good sport?" 
 
 "Not very, my good friend, not very," replied 
 the priest. 
 
 "You are tired, Monsieur le Cure; come and 
 rest awhile in the Buron. We can give you fresh 
 milk and bread, and new cheese. Ah dame! you 
 will not find such refreshments here as at the 
 chateau, but they are heartily at your service." 
 
 "I will sit here with you, friends, and willingly 
 accept a draught of milk," said the priest, as he
 
 224 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 took his place beside them on the grass; "but upon 
 one condition; namely, that you will continue the 
 subject of your conversation as freely as if I were 
 not amongst you." 
 
 Pere Jacques was abashed and confounded. He 
 looked uneasily to the right, and then to the left; 
 and at last, having no other resource, "Eh bien!" 
 he exclaimed, "I will e'en speak the truth, Monsieur 
 le Cure, because it is wicked to tell a lie, and be- 
 cause you are a holy man and will not be offended 
 with me. We were talking of Madame and M. 
 George, the present Baron de Pradines. He is 
 actually living here in the chateau, and here he is 
 going to remain— M. George, the spendthrift brother 
 of Madame, to whom, through your intercession, 
 Monsieur le Cure, she is lately reconciled." 
 
 "Hush! Jacques," said the priest, gravely. "M. 
 de Pradines was wild in his youth; but he has 
 repented. It was he who made the first advances 
 towards a reconciliation with Madame." 
 
 "I know that, M. le Cure," said the moun- 
 taineer, "I know that; but the Baron is poor, and 
 knows how to look after his own interests. He is 
 here for no good, and no good will come of his 
 return. It is certain that the old well in the court- 
 yard of the chateau, which was dry for years, has 
 refilled these last few days; and you know that to 
 be a sure sign of some misfortune to the family." 
 
 "It is true," said the Cure superstitiously, "it is 
 true; Jacques." 
 
 And he grew thoughtful. 
 
 The mountaineers were silent; suddenly the
 
 all-saints' eve. 225 
 
 priest's dog started and pricked up his ears. At 
 the same moment the report of a gun echoed 
 through the glen, and a white partridge, such as is 
 sometimes to be seen in the mountains after a 
 severe Winter, fell fluttering at the feet of the Cure. 
 Then followed a crashing of underwood and a 
 sound of rapid footsteps, and in another moment a 
 gentleman appeared, parting the bushes and escort- 
 ing a young lady who held the train of her hunting- 
 habit thrown across her arm. The gentleman was 
 laughing loudly, but the lady looked pale and dis- 
 tressed, and running towards the group under the 
 chestnut-trees, took up the wounded bird and kissed 
 it tenderly, exclaiming: — 
 
 "Ah, M. le Cure, you would not have killed 
 the pretty creature if I had begged its life, would 
 you?" 
 
 The priest coloured crimson. 
 
 "Madame," said he, falteringly, "this partridge 
 is wounded in the wing, but is not dead. Who 
 shot it?" 
 
 The young lady looked reproachfully at the 
 gentleman; the gentleman shrugged his shoulders 
 and laughed again, but less heartily than before. 
 
 "Oh, mea culpa!" he said, lightly. "I am the 
 culprit, Monsieur l'Abbe." 
 
 The Black Forest. 1 5
 
 226 all-saints' eve. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Storm. 
 
 The Baron de Pradines, late of the Royal Mus- 
 keteers and now captain in the Auvergne Dragoons, 
 was small and fair, like his sister, and about thirty- 
 five years of age. He looked, however, some years 
 older, pale, ennuye, and languid — as might be ex- 
 pected in a man who had spent a dissipated youth 
 in the gayest court of Europe. 
 
 Madame de Peyrelade, on the contrary, was 
 scarcely changed since Jacques had last seen her. 
 She was then sixteen; she was now five-and-twenty; 
 and, save in a more melancholy expression, a 
 sadder smile, and a bearing more dignified and 
 self-possessed, the good herdsman told himself that 
 nine years had left no trace of their flight over the 
 head of "la belle Marguerite" The Countess, being 
 still in mourning, wore a riding-dress of grey cloth 
 ornamented with black velvet, with a hat and plume 
 of the same colours. Thus attired, she so strongly 
 resembled the portraits of her namesake, the beauti- 
 ful Marguerite de Navarre, that one might almost 
 have fancied she had just stepped out of the canvas 
 upon that wild precipice amidst a group of still 
 wilder mountaineers, such as Salvator loved to 
 paint.
 
 all-saints' eve. 227 
 
 There were some minutes of uneasy silence. 
 The wondering herdsmen had retreated into a little 
 knot; the captain bit his glove, and glanced at his 
 sister under his eyelashes; the Countess tapped her 
 little foot impatiently upon the ground; and the 
 Cure of St. Saturnin, with an awkward assump- 
 tion of indifference, bent his sallow face over the 
 wounded partridge, which was nestled within the 
 folds of his black serge cassock. 
 
 "Mordieu! sister," exclaimed the Baron, with 
 his unpleasant laugh, "are we all struck dumb at 
 this woeful catastrophe — this woodland tragedy? 
 Being the culprit, I am, however, ready to throw 
 myself at your feet. You prayed to me for mercy 
 just now, for a white partridge, and I denied it. I 
 now entreat it for myself, having offended you." 
 
 The Countess, smiling somewhat sadly, held out 
 her hand, which the dragoon kissed with an air of 
 profound respect. 
 
 "George," she said, "I am foolishly supersti- 
 tious about these white partridges. A person who 
 was very dear to me gave me once upon a time a 
 white partridge. One day it escaped. Was it an 
 evil omen? I know not; but I never saw that per- 
 son again." 
 
 The young man frowned impatiently, and, chang- 
 ing the conversation, exclaimed, with a disdainful 
 movement of the head: — 
 
 "We have the honour, Madame, to be the ob- 
 ject of your herdsmen's curiosity all this time. The 
 fellows, I should imagine, would be more fitly oc- 
 cupied among their cows. Or is it the custom on 
 
 15*
 
 228 all-saints' eve. 
 
 your estates, my amiable sister, that these people 
 should pass their time in idleness. A word to the 
 steward would not, methinks, be altogether out of 
 place on this subject." 
 
 The herdsmen shrank back at these words, which, 
 though uttered in the purest French of Versailles, 
 were sufficiently intelligible to their ears; but the 
 Countess, with a kindly smile, and a quick glance 
 towards the priest, undertook their defence. 
 
 It was holiday, she said, doubtless in consequence 
 of his own arrival in Auvergne; and besides, did 
 he not see that M. the good Cure has been deliver- 
 ing to them some pious exhortation, as was his 
 wont 1 ? 
 
 The priest blushed and bowed, and made an 
 inward resolution of penance that same night, for 
 participation in that innocent falsehood. It was his 
 first sin against truth. 
 
 At this moment the lady, looking towards the 
 little group of men, recognized Pere Jacques. 
 
 "If I do not mistake," she exclaimed, making 
 use of the mountain patois, "I see one of my oldest 
 friends yonder — a herdsman who used to be in my 
 father's service! Pere Jacques, is it really you?" 
 
 The herdsman stepped forward eagerly. 
 
 "Ah, Mam'selle Marguerite," he stammered, "is 
 it possible that — that you remember me?" 
 
 And he scarcely dared to touch with his lips 
 the gloved hand that his mistress gave him to kiss. 
 
 "George," said the Countess, "do you not re- 
 member Pere Jacques?" 
 
 "Ah! — yes," replied the Baron, carelessly; ad-
 
 all-saints' eve. 229 
 
 ding, half aloud, "my dear sister, do not let us stay 
 here talking with these boors." 
 
 "Nay, brother, this place is not Versailles, Dieu 
 merci! Let me talk a little with my old friend — 
 he reminds me of the days when I was so happy." 
 
 "And so poor," muttered the dragoon between 
 his teeth, as he turned away and began talking 
 chasse with the Cure of St. Saturnin. 
 
 "And now tell me, Pere Jacques," said the 
 young Countess, seating herself at the foot of a 
 chestnut-tree, "why have you left the chateau de 
 Pradines?" 
 
 "You were there no longer, Madame," said the 
 mountaineer, standing before her in a respectful at- 
 titude. 
 
 "But I was not here either." 
 
 "True; but Madame might, some day, grow 
 weary of the court; and I knew that sooner or later 
 she would come to Auvergne. Besides, here I 
 worked on Madame's property, and ate of her 
 bread." 
 
 "Poor Pere Jacques! you also think sometimes 
 Of the old days at Pradines?" 
 
 "Sometimes! — it seems as if it were but yester- 
 day, Mam'selle, that I carried you in my arms, and 
 ran beside you when you rode Fifine, the black 
 pony, and heard your laugh in the court-yard and 
 your foot in the garden! Ah, Madame, those were 
 the happy times, when the hunt came round, and 
 Monsieur your father, and yourself, and Monsieur 
 
 the Chevalier de Fon . Oh, pardon, Madame! 
 
 pardon! — what have I said!"
 
 230 all-saints' eve. 
 
 And the herdsman stopped, terrified and re- 
 morseful; for at that name the lady had turned 
 deathly white. 
 
 "Hush, my good friend," she said, falteringly. 
 "It is nothing." Then, after a brief pause and a 
 rapid glance towards her brother and the priest, 
 "Come nearer, Jacques," she said, in a subdued 
 tone. "One word — Was the body ever discovered?" 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 She shaded her face with her hand, and so re- 
 mained for some moments without speaking. She 
 then resumed in a low voice: — 
 
 "A terrible death, Jacques! He must have 
 fallen down some precipice." 
 
 "Alas! Madame, it may have been so." 
 
 "Do you remember the last day that we all 
 hunted together at Pradines 1 ? The anniversary of 
 that day comes round again to-morrow. Poor 
 Eugene! . . . Take my purse, Pere Jacques, and 
 share its contents with your companions — but re- 
 serve a louis to purchase some masses for the re- 
 pose of his soul. Say that they are for your friend 
 and benefactor — for he was always good to you. 
 He has often spoken of you to me. Will you 
 promise me this, Pere Jacques?" 
 
 The herdsman was yet assuring her of his 
 obedience, when the priest and her brother came 
 forward and interrupted them. 
 
 "My dear sister," said M. de Pradines, "the sun 
 is fast going down, and we have but another hour 
 of daylight. Our friend here, M. le Cure, ap-
 
 ALL-SAINTS EVE. 23 1 
 
 prehends a storm. It were best we rejoined our 
 huntsmen, and began to return." 
 
 "A storm, mon frlre" said Madame de Peyre- 
 lade with surprise. "Impossible! The sky is per- 
 fectly clear. Besides, it is so delightful under these 
 old trees — I should like to remain a short time 
 longer." 
 
 "It might be imprudent, Madame la Comtesse," 
 said the Cure timidly, as he cast a hurried glance 
 along the horizon. "Do you not see those light 
 vapours about the summit of Mont Cantal, and that 
 low bank of clouds behind the forest 1 ? I greatly 
 mistake if we have not a heavy storm before an 
 hour, and I should counsel you to take the road 
 for the chateau without delay." 
 
 "Come hither, Pere Jacques," said the lady, 
 smiling, "you used to be my oracle at Pradines. 
 Will there be a storm to-night 1 ?" 
 
 The old mountaineer raised his head, and 
 snuffed the breeze like a stag-hound. 
 
 "M. le Cure is right," he said. "The night- 
 wind is rising, and there is a tempest close at 
 hand. See the cows, how they are coming up the 
 valley for shelter in the stalls! They know what 
 this wind says." 
 
 "To horse! to horse!" cried the dragoon, as he 
 raised his silver horn and blew a prolonged blast. 
 "We have no time to lose; the roads are long and 
 difficult." 
 
 A clear blast from the valley instantly echoed 
 to his summons, and the next moment a group of 
 men and dogs were seen hurrying up the slope.
 
 232 all-saints' eve. 
 
 "Farewell, my friends," said the Countess; "fare- 
 well, Pere Jacques! M. le Cure, you will return 
 and dine with us?" 
 
 "Madame, I thank you; but — but this is a fast- 
 day with me." 
 
 "Well, to-morrow. You will come to-morrow? 
 I will sing you some of those old songs you are so 
 fond of! Say yes, M. le Cure." 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse will graciously excuse 
 me. I must catechise the children of the district 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "But my brother returns to-morrow to his regi- 
 ment — you will come to bid him farewell?" 
 
 "Monsieur de Pradines has already accepted my 
 good wishes and compliments." 
 
 "The day after to-morrow, then, M. le Cure?" 
 
 "Madame, I will endeavour." 
 
 "But you promise nothing. Ah, monsieur, for 
 some time past you have been very sparing of your 
 visits. Have I offended you that you will no longer 
 honour me with your company?" 
 
 "Offended me! — oh Madame!" 
 
 These words were uttered with an accent and 
 an expression so peculiar that the young lady looked 
 up in surprise, and saw that the priest's eyes were 
 full of tears. 
 
 For a moment she was silent; then, affecting an 
 air of gaiety, "Adieu, M. le Cure," she cried as she 
 turned away; "be more neighbourly in future." 
 
 Then, seeing that he still held the wounded 
 partridge, "Alas! that poor bird," she exclaimed; "it 
 is trembling still!"
 
 all-saints' eve. 233 
 
 "Ah, Madame la Comtesse," said Pere Jacques. 
 "I'll engage that, if M. le Cure opened his hand, 
 that cunning partridge would be a mile away in 
 half a minute!" 
 
 "Do you think it will live? Well, Pere Jacques, 
 take care of it for my sake. Feed it for two or 
 three days, and then give the poor bird its liberty." 
 
 "Sister!" said the dragoon, in a tone of im- 
 patience, "the storm is coming on." 
 
 "Adieu all!" were the last words of the Countess, 
 as she took her brother's arm, and went down the 
 rough pathway leading to the valley. 
 
 In a few minutes more they had mounted their 
 horses and set off at a quick gallop towards the 
 turreted chateau that peeped above the trees three 
 miles away. The priest and the herdsmen stood 
 watching them in silence till they disappeared round 
 an angle of rock, and listened till the faint echo of 
 the horns died away in the distance. 
 
 "Dear little Queen Marguerite!" exclaimed Pere 
 Jacques, when all was silent. "Dear little Queen 
 Marguerite, how good and kind she is!" 
 
 "And how beautiful!" murmured the priest. 
 
 Then taking a little leathern purse from his 
 breast, he slipped an icu into the mountaineer's 
 hand. 
 
 "Good Jacques," said he, "I will take care of 
 the partridge; but say nothing to the Countess when 
 you see her again. Good evening, friends, and 
 thanks for your hospitality!" 
 
 And the Cur£ threw his gun across his shoulder,
 
 234 all-saints' eve. 
 
 whistled to his dog, and turned towards the path- 
 way. 
 
 At the same moment a gathering peal of thunder 
 rolled over the distant mountains; and the summit 
 of Mont Cantal, visible a few moments since, was 
 covered with thick black clouds. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure!" cried the herdsmen, with 
 one voice, "come back! the storm is beginning. 
 Come back, and take shelter in the Buron!" 
 
 "The storm!" replied the priest, raising his eyes 
 to the heavens. "Thanks, my friends, thanks! God 
 sends the storm. Pray to Him!" 
 
 While he spoke , there came a flash of lightning 
 that seemed to rend open the heavens. The herds- 
 men crossed themselves devoutly. But the Cure of 
 St. Saturnin had disappeared already down the 
 pathway. 
 
 The storm came on more swiftly than they had 
 expected. All that evening the mountains, which 
 here extend for more than three leagues in one un- 
 broken chain, echoed back the thunder. Sturdy 
 oaks and mountain pines that had weathered every 
 storm for fifty years, were torn up from their firm 
 rootage. Huge fragments of rock, white and 
 tempest-scarred from long exposure on bleak 
 mountain-heights, were shivered by the lightning, 
 and fell like fierce avalanches into the depths 
 below. 
 
 All was darkness. The rain came down in piti- 
 less floods; the thunder never seemed to cease, for 
 before the doubling echoes had half died away, 
 fresh peals renewed and mocked them. Every flash
 
 all-saints' eve. 235 
 
 of lightning revealed for an instant the desolate 
 landscape, the rocking trees, the swollen torrents 
 rushing in floods to the valley. It was scarcely like 
 lightning, but seemed as if the whole sky opened 
 and blinded the world with fire. 
 
 Meanwhile the Countess and her brother ar- 
 rived safely at the Chateau de Peyrelade; and, 
 having changed their wet garments, were sitting be- 
 fore a blazing log-fire, in the big salon overlooking 
 the valley. Both were silent. Their reconciliation 
 had not been, as yet, of long duration. Marguerite 
 could not forget her wrongs, and the Baron felt 
 embarrassed in her presence. It is true that he en- 
 deavoured to conceal his embarrassment under an 
 excess of courteous respect; but his smiles looked 
 false, and his attentions always appeared, to his 
 sister at least, to wear an air of mockery. And so 
 they sat in the great salon and listened to the 
 storm. 
 
 It was a gloomy place at all times, but gloomier 
 now than ever, with the winds howling round it and 
 the rain dashing blindly against the windows. Great 
 oaken panellings and frowning ancestral portraits 
 adorned the walls, with here and there a stand of 
 arms, a rusty helmet and sword, or a tattered flag 
 that shivered when the storm swept by. Old 
 cabinets inlaid with tortoiseshell and tarnished or- 
 molu were placed between the heavy crimson dra- 
 peries that hung before the windows; a long oaken 
 table stood in the centre of the room; and above 
 the fire-place the ghastly skull and antlers of a royal
 
 236 all-saints' eve. 
 
 deer seemed to nod spectrally in the flickering light 
 of the wood-fire. 
 
 At length the Baron broke silence: — 
 
 "What are you thinking about so intently, Ma- 
 dame 1 ?" said he. 
 
 "I am wondering," replied the lady, "if any hap- 
 less travellers are out in this heavy storm. If so, 
 heaven have mercy on them!" 
 
 "Ah, truly," replied the brother, carelessly. "By 
 the way, that poor devil of a Cure, who would not 
 come to dinner, I wonder if he got safely back to 
 his den at Saturnin. Do you know, Marguerite, 'tis 
 my belief that the holy man is smitten with your 
 beautiful eyes!" 
 
 '■'■Monsieur mon fre're!" exclaimed the lady in- 
 dignantly, "if you forget your own position and 
 mine, I must beg you at least to remember the pro- 
 fession of the holy man whom you calumniate. He 
 is ill repaid for his goodness towards you by 
 language such as this! But for his intercessions you 
 would not now be my guest at Peyrelade." 
 
 "I beg a thousand pardons, my dear sister," 
 said the Baron lightly. "Pray do not attach such 
 importance to a mere jest. Ce cher Cure! he has 
 not a better friend in the world than myself. By- 
 the-by, has he happened to mention to you the 
 dilapidated state of the chapel at Pradines 1 ? It 
 should be put into proper repair, and would cost a 
 mere trifle — three hundred louis — which sum, how- 
 ever, I really cannot at present command. Now, my 
 dear sister, you are so kind . . . ." 
 
 "George," said the Countess, gravely, "M. le
 
 ALL- SAINTS' EVE. 237 
 
 Cure has not spoken to me of anything of the kind. 
 I will not, however, refuse this sum to you; but do 
 not deceive me. Shall you really put the money to 
 this use 1 ? Have you quite given up play?" 
 
 "Au diable la morale!" muttered the dragoon 
 between his teeth. Then he added, aloud, "If I ask 
 it for any other use, I wish I may be — " 
 
 "No more, M. le Baron," interrupted the lady. 
 "To-morrow morning you shall have the three hun- 
 dred louis." 
 
 As she spoke these last words, a loud knocking 
 was heard at the outer gates of the chateau. 
 
 "Bravo!" cried the Baron, delighted at this in- 
 terruption to the conversation. "Here is a visitor. 
 Yet, no; for what visitor in his senses would come 
 out on such a night? It must be a message from 
 the king." 
 
 It was neither, for in a few moments a servant 
 entered, saying that an accident had occurred to a 
 traveller a short distance from the chateau. His 
 horse, taking fright at the fall of a large fragment 
 of rock, had become unmanageable, and had flung 
 himself and his rider over a steep bank. Happily, 
 some bushes had served to break the force of their 
 fall, or they must inevitably have been much in- 
 jured. As it was, however, the gentleman was a 
 good deal hurt, and his servant entreated shelter 
 within the walls of the chateau. 
 
 The Countess desired that the traveller should 
 be brought into the salon, and a horseman be de- 
 spatched to the nearest town for a surgeon.
 
 238 all-saints' eve. 
 
 "Ah, brother," said she, "I had a presentiment 
 of evil this night! Alas, the unfortunate gentleman! 
 Throw on more logs, I beseech you, and draw 
 this couch nearer to the fire, that we may lay him 
 upon it." 
 
 The door was again opened, and the stranger's 
 groom, assisted by the people of the chateau, brought 
 in the wounded traveller, whom they laid upon the 
 couch beside the fire. He was a young man of 
 twenty-eight or thirty, slightly made, and dressed in 
 a foreign military uniform. 
 
 The Countess, who had advanced to render 
 some assistance, suddenly retreated and became 
 very pale. 
 
 "What is the matter, Marguerite? What ails 
 you?" cried her brother. 
 
 She made no reply, but leaned heavily upon his 
 arm. At this moment the traveller, who began to 
 recover when placed near the warmth, raised his 
 head feebly, and looked around him. All at once 
 his vague and wandering glance rested on Mar- 
 guerite. Instantly a look of recognition flashed into 
 his eyes. Then he raised himself by a convulsive 
 effort, and fell back again, insensible as before. 
 
 The Baron de Pradines, who had attentively ob- 
 served this scene, turned to the stranger's groom, 
 and asked him in a low voice the name of his 
 master. 
 
 He could not repress a start when the man re- 
 plied — "My master, Monsieur, is called the Cheva- 
 lier de Fontane."
 
 all-saints' eve. 239 
 
 "Ah!" said the ex-captain of Royal Musketeers, 
 as he rent one of his lace ruffles into tiny shreds 
 that fell upon the floor, "I will not leave to-mor- 
 row ! "
 
 240 all-saints' eve. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Parsonage. 
 
 Andre Bernard, Cure of the parish of St. Sa- 
 turnin, was sitting in the little parlour which served 
 him for breakfast-room, dining-room, and study. 
 He had just said mass in the tiny chapel adjoining 
 his garden; and now the peasants were dispersing 
 towards their various homes, or clustering in little 
 knots beneath the road-side trees, discussing the 
 weather, the harvest, or the arrival of their lady the 
 Countess in her chateau at Auvergne. 
 
 The pastor had hastened back to his cottage, 
 and was already seated in his great leathern arm- 
 chair, busily cleaning his gun, which was laid across 
 his knees; but at the same time, in order that mind 
 and body should be equally employed, he was 
 devoutly reading an office from the breviary which 
 lay open on a stool beside him. His dog lay at his 
 feet, sleeping. His modest array of books filled a 
 couple of shelves behind his chair; the open window 
 looked upon the mountain-country beyond, and ad- 
 mitted a sweet breath from the clustering Provence 
 roses that hung like a frame-work round the case- 
 ment. The floor was sanded. A few coloured 
 prints of the Virgin and various saints upon the 
 walls; a small black crucifix above the fire-place; a
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 24I 
 
 clock, and an old oak press behind the door, make 
 up the list of furniture in the Cure's salon de com- 
 pagnie. 
 
 Opposite to her master, seated in a second high- 
 backed leathern chair, the very brother to his own, 
 an old woman who played the important part of 
 housekeeper in the parsonage, sat silently spinning 
 flax and superintending the progress of a meagre 
 pot age that was "simmering" on the fire. Not a 
 sound was heard in the chamber save the monotonous 
 rattle of the spindle, and the heavy breathing of the 
 dog; save now and then when the priest turned a 
 leaf of his breviary. The old woman cast frequent 
 glances at her master through her large tortoise- 
 shell spectacles, and seemed several times about to 
 address him, but as often checked herself, in respect 
 to his holy employment. 
 
 At last she could keep silence no longer. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure," she exclaimed, in that shrill 
 tone which age and long familiarity appears to 
 authorise in old servants, "Monsieur le Cure, will 
 you never have finished reading your breviary 1 ?" 
 
 The Abbe, who did not seem to hear her in the 
 least, went on mechanically rubbing his gun, and 
 murmuring words of the Latin office. 
 
 The old lady repeated her question — this time 
 with more effect; for Andre Bernard slowly raised 
 his head, fixed his eyes vacantly upon her, and 
 resting the butt-end of his musket on the floor, 
 made the sign of the cross, and reverently closed 
 the book. 
 
 "Jeannette," said he, gravely, "here is a screw 
 
 The Black Forest. *6
 
 242 all-saints' eve. 
 
 in the gun-barrel that will not hold any longer; 
 fetch me the box of nails and screws, that I may fit 
 it with a fresh one." 
 
 Having said these words, he opened the bre- 
 viary in a fresh place, and resumed his orisons. 
 
 "Here, Monsieur le Cure," said the good house- 
 keeper, somewhat testily, bringing out a little box 
 of gunsmith's tools from a corner cupboard, "here 
 is what you asked for; but I think there must be 
 some spell on your musket if it wants mending with 
 the little use you make of it! There is no danger 
 of your ever wanting a new one, I'm certain. Then 
 your powder — it never diminishes! I have not filled 
 your pouch for the last three weeks. Truly we 
 should starve but for the eggs and vegetables; and 
 the saints know that our larder has been empty for 
 a long time!" 
 
 "What is the matter, my poor Jeannette 1 ?" said 
 the priest, kindly, as he again looked up from his 
 breviary. "I do not know how it is, but the game 
 has fled from me lately." 
 
 "Say rather, Monsieur le Cure, that it is you 
 who fly from the game ! The other day M. Gaspard, 
 the schoolmaster, told me that he met you on the 
 mountains, and that a great hare ran past you at a 
 yard's distance, and you only looked at it as if it 
 had been a Christian!" 
 
 "The schoolmaster must have mistaken, Jean- 
 nette." 
 
 "Oh, no, Monsieur le Cure; Gaspard's eyes are 
 excellent! Then your breviary — it is frightful to see 
 you reading from morning till night, from night till
 
 all-saints' eve. 243 
 
 morning, instead of being out in the fresh air, and 
 bringing back a good store of game for ourselves 
 and our neighbours. How shall we live 1 ? If you 
 will not kill, you must buy — and your money all 
 goes in charity. Ah, Monsieur, you must indeed be 
 more industrious with your gun!" 
 
 "Well, Jeannette, I promise to reform," said the 
 priest, smiling; "I will go out this afternoon, and 
 try to be more successful." 
 
 "Indeed I should advise it, Monsieur le Cure; 
 and above all do not come back, as you did yester- 
 day, wet to the skin, and bringing what, forsooth 1 ? — 
 nothing but a miserable partridge!" 
 
 "Ah! but I do not mean to make a supper 
 of that partridge, my good Jeannette: I mean to 
 keep it." 
 
 "To keep it — holy Virgin! Keep a partridge! 
 A live partridge! Why, Monsieur, it would devour 
 our corn, and cost as much as twenty canaries. If 
 you do these things, Monsieur, instead of giving 
 alms you will have to beg." 
 
 "Be calm, Jeannette, my good Jeannette; we 
 shall never be ruined by a partridge. Besides, it is 
 a rare bird. Bring it here to me." 
 
 "Rare, Monsieur le Cure! I have seen them 
 over and over again after a severe winter." 
 
 "Well, Jeannette, for my sake take care of this 
 poor little bird, for I value it greatly. Bring it here; 
 I wish to feed it myself." 
 
 The good housekeeper looked uneasily at her 
 master through her great spectacles, and began 
 
 16*
 
 244 All-saints' eve. 
 
 glancing from right to left in evident tribulation. 
 She did not offer, however, to rise from her seat. 
 
 "Are you dreaming, Jeannette?" said the priest, 
 with much surprise; "did you hear me?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Monsieur le Cure. The — the par- 
 tridge. . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well — that is, Monsieur le Cur6, you will be a 
 little vexed, I fear — perhaps — but the partridge — " 
 
 "Will you speak, Jeannette?" 
 
 "There — Monsieur le Cure — there was nothing 
 in the house for supper, Monsieur le Cure — and — 
 and so I — " 
 
 "Wretch! have you killed it?" 
 
 And the priest sprang from his seat, pale with 
 anger, and advanced towards the terrified house- 
 keeper, who fell upon her knees, and clasped her 
 hands in a speechless appeal for mercy. 
 
 Even the dog ran trembling under the table, 
 and uttered a low deprecatory howl. 
 
 Recalled to himself by the panic of his house- 
 hold, Andre Bernard threw himself back into his 
 chair, and covered his face with his hands. Could 
 one have removed those fingers, they would have 
 seen large tears upon his sunken cheeks. 
 
 At this moment the door was opened quickly, 
 and a man entered the room. The priest rose pre- 
 cipitately from his chair, for in the intruder he saw 
 no less a person than the Baron de Pradines. 
 
 "Excuse my intrusion, Monsieur le Cure," said 
 the gentleman, whose features wore an expression 
 of peculiar anxiety. "I wish to speak with you in
 
 
 all-saints' eve. 245 
 
 private." And he glanced towards the still-kneeling 
 Jeannette. "You see I have not yet returned to my 
 regiment. I have, for the present, changed my plans. 
 Pray who is this woman?" 
 
 "She is my housekeeper, Monsieur le Baron: 
 she — she was in prayer when you entered," said 
 Andre Bernard, telling another falsehood to account 
 for the strange position of Jeannette. 
 
 Poor Abbe! he blushed and faltered, and men- 
 tally vowed another penance for his sin. 
 
 "Jeannette," he said, "you may go. I will hear 
 the rest of your confession in the evening." 
 
 The Baron smiled furtively as the old lady rose 
 and left the room — he had, unfortunately heard the 
 latter part of the pretended confession. 
 
 "Now, Monsieur le Cure," said he, "I have 
 come to consult you on a very grave and important 
 subject. You are renowned in all this district for 
 your piety and learning; tell me, do you consider 
 vows to be sacred and indissoluble?" 
 
 The priest was surprised to hear these words 
 from the lips of a gentleman whose reputation for 
 light morals and free views was so extensively 
 known; but after a few moments' consideration — 
 
 "There are several kinds of vows, Monsieur le 
 Baron," he replied; "there are vows by which we 
 bind ourselves to the service of God, and those 
 never must be broken. Then there are vows rashly 
 uttered in times of mental excitement, by which 
 people engage themselves to perform acts of sacri- 
 fice or penance." 
 
 "Ah, it is of such that I would speak!" said the
 
 246 all-saints' eve. 
 
 captain. "What of those? Think well, M. le 
 Cure, before you answer me." 
 
 "It is doubtless a great sin," replied the priest, 
 "not to fulfil such vows; but still I do not think 
 that the good God in His mercy would desire to 
 chastise eternally an erring creature who had thus 
 offended him; especially if the vow were made un- 
 der the strong influence of human passion." 
 
 The dragoon bit his lips angrily. 
 
 "I am no churchman, Monsieur le Cure," said 
 he roughly, "but I cannot agree with you there. 
 Do you forget that God commanded Abraham to 
 sacrifice Isaac his son 1 ?" 
 
 "Yes, but I also remember that He sent an 
 angel to arrest the father's hand." 
 
 "Possibly," said the Baron, with a bitter laugh; 
 "but I do not believe anything of the kind myself!" 
 
 Andre Bernard raised his eyes to the ceiling, in 
 pious horror. 
 
 After a moment, George de Pradines drew his 
 chair beside the priest, and continued: — 
 
 "And yet, Monsieur le Cure, I have something 
 to tell you that I think will change your opinion in 
 the matter of vows." 
 
 "Proceed," murmured the priest, who was al- 
 ready troubled with a presentiment of evil. 
 
 "Since we parted last night, strange things have 
 happened at the chateau. A wounded traveller has 
 arrived — a traveller whom we believed long since 
 dead. He lives. Eh bieti, Monsieur le Cure, can 
 you guess who he is?" 
 
 "Monsieur le Baron — I — I know not," murmured
 
 all-saints' eve. 247 
 
 the priest; and for the third time Andre Bernard 
 uttered an untruth. 
 
 "I am really surprised, Monsieur le Cure at 
 your want of penetration. Well, it is the Chevalier 
 de Fontane." 
 
 At this name the priest turned pale and trembled. 
 He looked silently upon the ground. 
 
 "Listen, Monsieur le Cure," cried the young 
 man determinedly; "dissimulation avails nothing. 
 My sister is a rich widow, and I shall be ruined if 
 she breaks her solemn vow never to marry a second 
 time. I have already procured large sums of money 
 upon the reversion of her estate, when she either 
 dies or adopts a conventual life. I am not a man 
 who could pass his days agreeably at the galleys. 
 My future depends solely on her vow, and she 
 must not marry a second time." 
 
 "But, Monsieur le Baron, it seems to me that 
 you leap at too hasty a conclusion. Your fears 
 may be without foundation. Madame may not wish 
 to be absolved from her vow — Monsieur le Chevalier 
 may no longer be desirous " 
 
 "Bah!" interrupted the Baron, savagely, "what 
 eke is he here for 1 ? His servant has told me all. 
 He has been for eight or nine years serving in the 
 Prussian army; during all that time he kept a strict 
 watch upon France. At length he heard of the 
 death of the late Count de Peyrelade: he obtained 
 leave of absence when a decent time had elapsed. 
 Loving and hoping more ardently than ever, he set 
 off for Auvergne; he met with this accident at the
 
 248 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 very gates of the chateau, (would that it had killed 
 him!); and there he is!" 
 
 The priest was silent. 
 
 "You see, Monsieur le Cure, there is but one 
 way to prevent this marriage. My sister is pious, 
 and rests every faith in your sanctity. She will sigh 
 — perhaps she will weep; but is it for a priest, a 
 minister of the church, to be swayed by trifles of 
 this kind 1 ? No! it is for the sake of religion and 
 heaven, Monsieur le Cure, that you will be firm 
 and faithful to your trust. It is nothing to you if 
 my fortunes fail or prosper — if a young woman 
 weeps or smiles — you must fulfil the disinterested 
 duties of your sacred calling— you must maintain 
 the sanctity of vows— you must rescue my sister 
 from the abyss of crime into which she is fall- 
 ing!" 
 
 "It is quite true," said the poor Abbe, tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 "Then you will render your utmost assistance?" 
 said the Baron eagerly. 
 
 "Yes," murmured the priest. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure, you are a holy man, and 
 you have my esteem." 
 
 The Abbe blushed and accepted the proffered 
 hand of the dragoon. At that moment some one 
 knocked at the door. 
 
 "Who is there?" said the Abbe, starting like a 
 guilty man. 
 
 "It is I," replied old Jeannette. "A servant 
 from the chateau presents the compliments of Ma-
 
 all-saints' eve. 249 
 
 dame la Comtesse, and requests M. le Cure to pay 
 her a visit directly on urgent business." 
 
 "You see," said the Baron, "my sister has her 
 scruples already. Go quickly, my dear Abbe, and 
 do not forget that the interests of the church are in 
 your hands. It is a holy mission!" 
 
 "A holy mission!" repeated the priest, as he 
 turned to leave the room. "A holy mission! O 
 mon Dieu, mon Dieu! do not forsake thy servant!"
 
 250 all-saints' eve. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Vow. 
 
 Andre Bernard arrived at the Chateau de 
 Peyrelade like a man walking in his sleep. He found 
 that he had been ushered into the Countess's 
 boudoir, and that he was sitting there awaiting her 
 arrival, without having the faintest remembrance of 
 the forest through which he must have come, the 
 gates through which he must have passed, or the 
 staircase which he must have ascended. Truly 
 the Abbe Bernard had been asleep, and his sleep 
 had lasted for two months. Now he was slowly 
 awaking, and it was the stern reality of his position 
 that so bewildered him. 
 
 The charm which spread itself round the young 
 and beautiful Countess had not been unfelt by this 
 lonely priest, whose calm and passionless existence 
 had hitherto been passed in the society of an aged 
 housekeeper, or of a simple and untaught peasantry. 
 Seeing nothing for long years beyond the narrow 
 limits of his own little world — his parsonage, his 
 chapel, or his parishioners; familiar only with the 
 savage grandeur of the mountains, or the cool still- 
 nesses of the valleys, is it to be wondered at that 
 the presence of an accomplished and graceful 
 woman should blind the reason of a simple Cure?
 
 all-saints' eve. 251 
 
 Even at this moment, the perfumed atmosphere 
 of the boudoir intoxicated him. Exotics of exqui- 
 site shape and colour, with long drooping leaves 
 and heavy white and purple blossoms, were piled 
 against the windows; a Persian carpet, gorgeous 
 with eastern dyes — 
 
 " Orange and azure deep'ning into gold," 
 
 was spread beneath his feet. Yonder was her lute; 
 here were some of her favourite books; all around, 
 draperies of pink silk fell from the ceiling, and cur- 
 tained round the boudoir like a tent. 
 
 The Abbe laid his head upon his hand, and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 When he again looked up, the Countess was 
 standing beside him, with an unwonted trouble in 
 her face — a trouble that might have been pity, or 
 anxiety, or shame, or a mingling of all three. 
 
 She began to speak; she hesitated; her voice 
 trembled, and her words were indistinct. 
 
 Andre Bernard was suddenly aroused from his 
 dream. The lover, not the priest, was awakened. 
 
 He rose abruptly. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," he said, sternly, "spare 
 yourself useless and sinful words. I know why you 
 have sent for me to-day; and I tell you that the All- 
 Powerful who has received your vow, commands you 
 by my lips to observe its sanctity." 
 
 The young woman cast a terrified glance at the 
 gloomy countenance of the priest, and hid her face 
 in her hands.
 
 2 $2 ALL- SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 "Then, Monsieur le Cure, the All-Powerful bids 
 me die!" 
 
 "No, you will not die," replied the Abbe, in the 
 same profound and steady voice — "you will not die. 
 Heaven, which gave you strength to bear the first 
 separation, will enable you to sustain the second." 
 
 "Alas! alas!" cried the Countess, in a piercing 
 tone, "I had thought to be so happy!" 
 
 The priest dug his nails into the palms of his 
 clenched hands. A convulsive tremor shook him 
 from head to foot, and he gasped for breath. Before 
 he had seen her, he had prepared a host of holy 
 consolations for the wounded heart; but now that 
 he had it before him, trembling and bleeding like 
 the stricken bird which had nestled in his breast the 
 night before, he had not a word of comfort or pity 
 to soothe her anguish. Every tear that forced its 
 way between her slender fingers, fell like a burning 
 coal upon the conscience of the good Cure\ In this 
 cruel perplexity he murmured a brief prayer for 
 strength and guidance. 
 
 "Alas, Madame," he faltered, "do you then love 
 him so deeply 1 ?" 
 
 "I have loved him all my life!" she cried de- 
 spairingly. 
 
 The priest was silent. He threw open the win- 
 dow, and suffered the evening breeze to cool his 
 brow and lift his long black hair. 
 
 Then he returned. 
 
 "Marguerite," he said, in a broken voice, "be it 
 as you will. In the name of the living God, I release 
 you from your vow; and if in this a wrong should
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 253 
 
 be committed, henceforth I take that sin upon my 
 soul." 
 
 Powerfully moved, glowing with excitement, 
 elevated for the moment by a rapture of generosity 
 — feeling, perhaps, as the martyrs of old, when they 
 went triumphant to their deaths, and sealed their 
 faith with blood — so Andre Bernard stood in the 
 glory of the setting sun, rapt, illumined, glorified. 
 And Marguerite de Peyrelade, dimly conscious of 
 the dark struggle that had passed through his soul 
 and the divine victory which he had achieved, fell 
 on her knees as to a deity, calling upon him as her 
 saviour, her benefactor! 
 
 "Not unto me, Marguerite, but unto Him," said 
 Andre, releasing his hand gently from her lips, and 
 pointing upwards. "It is not I who give you happi- 
 ness. C'est Dieu qui Venvoie. Priez Dieuf" And 
 he pointed to a crucifix against the wall. 
 
 The young woman bowed before the sacred 
 emblem in speechless gratitude, and when she rose 
 from her knees the priest was gone. 
 
 In an hour from this time, two persons were sit- 
 ting together on the terrace, upon which opened the 
 Countess's boudoir. One was a young man, pale, 
 but with a light of joy in his countenance that re- 
 placed the bloom of health. He was seated in an 
 easy chair, and wrapped in a large military cloak. 
 The other was a woman, young and beautiful, who 
 sat on a low stool at his feet, with her cheek rest- 
 ing on his hand. They spoke at intervals in low 
 caressing tones, and seemed calmly, speechlessly 
 happy.
 
 254 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Far around them extended range beyond range 
 of purple mountains, quiet valleys, and long, dark 
 masses of foliage tinted with all the hues of autumn 
 and golden in the sun. No traces of the late storm 
 were visible, save that here and there a tree lay pros- 
 trate, and one or two brawling streams that but 
 yesterday were tiny rivulets, dashed foaming through 
 the valleys. 
 
 Presently the red disc of the sun disappeared 
 slowly behind the tree-tops; the gathered clouds 
 faded into grey; the mountain summits grew darker, 
 and their outline more minutely distinct; a mist 
 came over the valley; and a star gleamed out above. 
 
 The lady wrapped his cloak more closely round 
 her lover, to protect him from the evening air, and 
 then resumed her lowly seat. And so they sat, look- 
 ing at the stars and into one another's eyes, listen- 
 ing to the distant sheep-bell, or the lowing of the 
 herds as they were driven home to their stalls. 
 
 "Methinks, sweet one," said the gentleman, as 
 he looked down at the dear head laid against his 
 hand — "methinks, that in an hour such as this, with 
 thee beside me, I should love to die!" 
 
 But the lady kissed his hand, and then his brow, 
 and looked at him with eyes that were filled only 
 with life and love. 
 
 That night the Baron de Pradines set off to join 
 his regiment.
 
 all-saints' eve. 255 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Supper of All-Saints' Eve. 
 
 Two months quickly passed away in the Chateau 
 de Peyrelade, during which the Chevalier de Fontane 
 had recovered from his accident, and the Countess 
 from her melancholy. Preparations had been making 
 for the last three weeks for the celebration of their 
 marriage. Workmen from Paris had been decorating 
 the rooms; a dignitary of the church was invited to 
 perform the ceremony; and all the nobility for miles 
 around were invited to the fete. Even the Baron 
 de Pradines, mortally offended as he was by the 
 whole business, had at last consented to be friends, 
 and had accepted an invitation to the wedding. In 
 a word, the contract was to be signed on the even- 
 ing of All-Saints' Day, and the marriage was to take 
 place the following morning. 
 
 At length All-Saints' Day arrived, a grey, cold, 
 snowing morning. Autumn is wintry enough, some- 
 times, in the Haute Auvergne. The earth looks 
 bare and hard, the chestnut-trees are all stripped of 
 their thick foliage, and the snow has encroached 
 half-way down the sides of the mountains. The 
 raw north-east wind rushes howling through the 
 passes and along the valley, carrying with it at 
 sunrise and sunset drifting sleet and fine snow,
 
 256 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Soon it will come down thick and fast, and bury 
 all the bushes in its white mantle. Now the herds- 
 men's huts are empty, and the cows are transferred 
 to the warm stabling of the chateau. 
 
 Marguerite de Peyrelade, sitting in her salon, 
 surrounded by a gay and noble company, is ill at 
 ease, thinking of the dark night, of the falling snow, 
 of the howling wolves, and of the Chevalier de 
 Fontane, who has been out since morning and is 
 momentarily expected at the chateau. He has been 
 to the notary's in the neighbouring town respecting 
 the marriage-settlements, and has promised to return 
 in time for the great supper of All-Saints' Eve. 
 The Baron de Pradines is also to arrive to-night to 
 be present at the signing of the contract; and the 
 young Countess, whose heart is overflowing with 
 love and charity, is even a little concerned for the 
 safety of her ungracious brother. 
 
 Parisian workmen have effected wondrous changes 
 in the great dark salon of the Chateau de Peyrelade. 
 Who would recognize, in the brilliantly lighted re- 
 ception-room blazing with chandeliers and mirrors, 
 furnished with exquisite taste, garlanded with ever- 
 greens, and crowded with all the rank and pride 
 of Auvergne, the gloomy, cavernous hall with the 
 rusty armour and ghostly antlers of two months 
 since? 
 
 Uniforms and glittering orders were abundant. 
 There was the Marquis de Florae, gorgeous with 
 the ribbon and decoration of St. John of Jerusalem; 
 the Count de Saint Flour, in his uniform as Colonel 
 of the St. Flour cavalry; the Commander de Fontane,
 
 all-saints' eve. 257 
 
 cousin of the bridegroom, in a rich court dress re- 
 dolent of Versailles; the Lieutenant of Police; the 
 Seigneur de Rochevert, who owned the adjoining 
 estate; several officers, a cabinet minister, some 
 diplomatic gentlemen, and one or two younger sons 
 from the colleges and the Polytechnique. The 
 gentlemen were gathered in little knots, playing at 
 ombre and piquet: the ladies were assembled round 
 la belle reine Marguerite. 
 
 But the queen of the fete was anxious and ab- 
 stracted, and her thoughts wandered away to the 
 Chevalier de Fontane and his lonely journey. The 
 time-piece in the ante-chamber struck nine. No 
 one heard it but Marguerite . Neither laughter, nor 
 music , nor the sound of many voices could drown 
 that silvery reverberation, however, for her listening 
 ears. Her impatience became intolerable, for the 
 Chevalier should have returned full three hours be- 
 fore. At last she rose and slipped quietly out of 
 the room, through the ante-chamber, along the cor- 
 ridor, and so into her little quiet boudoir, far away 
 from the jarring merriment of her guests. There 
 she wrapped herself in a great cloak lined with 
 sables, opened the window, and stepped out on the 
 terrace. 
 
 It was a gloomy night. The moon shone fit- 
 fully through masses of black cloud. There was 
 snow upon the terrace; snow in the garden beneath; 
 snow in the valley; snow on the distant mountains. 
 The silence was profound; not a sound was audible 
 from the noisy salon; not a sound from the distant 
 forest. All around lay deep shadow and spectral 
 
 The Black Forest. 1 7
 
 258 all-Saints' eve, 
 
 moonlight; and upon all the scene a stillness as of 
 death. Suddenly, in the midst of the silence, 
 Marguerite de Peyrelade heard the sharp, clear 
 report of a distant musket shot. She listened, 
 trembling and terrified. It was instantly followed 
 by another. 
 
 "Oh, mon Dieu!" murmured the young woman, 
 leaning for support against the window-frame; "what 
 Christian hunts at such an hour as this? Heaven 
 protect Eugene!" 
 
 And now another sound almost as deadly — a 
 prolonged howling of wolves startled in their lair — 
 came up from the valley. Then the moon be- 
 came obscured by heavy clouds, and snow began 
 to fall. 
 
 The Countess re-entered her boudoir, closed 
 the windows hastily, and was glad once more to 
 find herself in the noisy salon. 
 
 "Our hostess looks very pale," whispered the 
 Marquis de I-lorac to his partner at ombre. "She 
 is anxious, I suppose, for the arrival of M. de 
 Fontane." 
 
 "Very likely," said his companion — "I play the 
 king." 
 
 "Is Madame unwell?" asked a young Colonel 
 of Hussars, going up to her with a profound saluta- 
 tion. "Madame appears much agitated." 
 
 "I have heard something very strange," stam- 
 mered the Countess, as she sank into a chair: "the 
 report of a gun!"
 
 all-saints' eve. 259 
 
 "Indeed, Madame!" said the Lieutenant of 
 Police. "That is somewhat strange at this hour of 
 the evening!" 
 
 "And it was followed by — by a second," said 
 the Countess. 
 
 "Stranger still!" muttered the Lieutenant. 
 
 "Pooh! nothing but the fall of some fragment 
 of rock up in the mountains yonder," said the 
 Commander de Fontane, with a gay laugh. "The 
 days of banditti are past. Do not be alarmed, 
 chlre petite cousine; Eugene is safe enough, and 
 knows how to take care of himself." 
 
 "He should have been here some hours ago, 
 Monsieur," replied the lady. 
 
 At this moment the door of the salon was 
 thrown open, and the Majordomo announced that 
 supper was served. 
 
 "But the two principal guests are not yet here," 
 cried the Marquis de Florae. "Monsieur le Chevalier 
 de Fontane, and Monsieur le Baron de Pradines!" 
 
 "Three are wanting, M. le Marquis," said the 
 Countess, forcing a smile. "Our good Abbe Bernard, 
 the Cure of St. Saturnin, has not yet arrived; and 
 how could we take our places at table without his 
 presence on All-Saints' Eve? We must wait awhile 
 for the three missing guests. I am surprised at 
 the absence of M. le Cure, for he has the shortest 
 road to travel; not more than a quarter of a 
 league." 
 
 "A quarter of a league, did you say?" ex- 
 
 17*
 
 260 all-saints' EVE. 
 
 claimed the Commander: "is that all? Why, with 
 a good horse it would not take more than five 
 minutes to go and return. If you command it, 
 Madame, I will fly to M. le Cure, and bring him to 
 your feet dead or alive!" 
 
 "Monsieur, I thank you," said the Countess, 
 smiling; "but here is our worthy Abbe!" 
 
 At the same instant the Cure of St. Saturnin 
 was ushered into the salon. He looked strangely 
 white and wan; his teeth chattered; his hands were 
 damp and cold. 
 
 "At last, Monsieur le Cur£!" said the Countess, 
 as she advanced to meet him. 
 
 "At last, Monsieur le Cure!" repeated several 
 voices. 
 
 "Five minutes later, Monsieur le Cure, and I 
 protest that Madame's chef de cuisine would have 
 committed suicide for grief at the ruin of the 
 ragotits, and you would have had murder on your 
 conscience!" exclaimed the Commander. 
 
 "Murder!" echoed Andre Bernard in a hollow 
 voice, staring round him upon the company — "who 
 speaks here of murder 1 ?" 
 
 "For shame, Monsieur le Commandeur! you 
 alarm our good Abbe," said Madame de Peyrelade. 
 "Come to the fire, Monsieur le Cure; you are trem- 
 bling from cold." 
 
 "The supper is served," said the Majordomo 
 for the second time, with an appealing look towards 
 his mistress,
 
 ALL-SAINTS' EVE. 26 I 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait no longer 
 for Monsieur de Fontane or my brother," said the 
 Countess, rising. "The former will doubtless be 
 here before supper is over; and the Baron de Pra- 
 dines is possibly detained at court, and may not 
 arrive till to-morrow. We will defer supper no 
 longer. Your arm, Monsieur de Florae." 
 
 The supper was laid out in the great hall of 
 the chateau. Wine and jests went round. Even 
 the Countess recovered her spirits, and joined in 
 the gaiety of her guests. 
 
 "Remove those two covers," said she. "We 
 will tell these gentlemen, if they arrive, that they 
 shall have no supper by way of penance." 
 
 "No, no," exclaimed the Commander; "I protest 
 against the sentence! They will be here soon, and 
 deserve pity rather than reproof. Who knows 1 ? Per- 
 haps my cousin and the Baron have agreed to sur- 
 prise us at the supper-table, and will both be in the 
 midst of us in a few minutes." 
 
 "Both!" ejaculated the priest, casting a terrified 
 glance at the vacant chairs. 
 
 "And why not, Monsieur le Cure? I remember, 
 when I was some twelve years younger, being in- 
 vited to sup with a party of friends at ten leagues' 
 distance. It was a pouring night, but there was a 
 pretty girl in question, and so I rode through the 
 rain, and arrived just at the right time, but wet to 
 the skin. These gentlemen would either of them 
 undertake a similar expedition, and I will answer for 
 it they will both be here before supper is over.
 
 262 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Come, I bet a hundred crowns! Who will take it? 
 Will you, Monsieur le Cure?" 
 
 "I? Heaven forbid!" cried the priest. 
 
 "Well, you will not refuse to drink their 
 healths?" said the Commander, as he filled the 
 priest's glass and his own. "The health of Mes- 
 sieurs le Baron de Pradines and le Chevalier de 
 Fontanel" 
 
 "Thanks cousin, for the honour!" cried a voice 
 from the farther end of the hall. "When I am a 
 little thawed, I shall be happy to return the compli- 
 ment!" 
 
 And the Chevalier de Fontane, flushed from rid- 
 ing, and radiant with happiness, came hastening up 
 to kiss the hand of his betrothed. 
 
 "Mon dieu, Monsieur de Fontane, what has hap- 
 pened?" cried the lady beside whom he took his 
 seat; "your neckcloth and ruffles are covered with 
 blood!" 
 
 "A mere trifle, Madame de Rochevert," laughed 
 the young officer, holding up his hand, round which 
 a handkerchief was bound; "a tussle with a wolf, 
 who would fain have supped off of your humble 
 servant, instead of suffering him to occupy this chair 
 by your side — voila tout!" 
 
 "How horrible!" exclaimed several ladies. 
 
 Madame de Peyrelade turned pale, and murmured 
 a prayer of thanks to Heaven. 
 
 Healths went round again. Everyone drank to 
 the Chevalier, and congratulated him upon his vie-
 
 all-saints' eve. 263 
 
 tory. Then the conversation turned upon the Baron 
 de Pradines. 
 
 "It is now too late to hope for his arrival," said 
 Marguerite. "I trust he has met with no wolves on 
 the road." 
 
 "Let us drink to him," said the Commander, "and 
 perhaps, like my cousin Eugene, he may come upon 
 us at the very moment. The health of M. le Baron 
 de Pradines!" 
 
 "The health of M. le Baron de Pradines!" cried 
 all the voices. 
 
 "I denounce M. l'Abbe of high treason," ex- 
 claimed a lady. "He never opened his lips, and put 
 down his glass untasted!" 
 
 The Cure was dumb with consternation. 
 
 "For shame, M. le Cure!" cried the merry-makers. 
 "We can have no abstinence to-night. Do penance, 
 and drink the health alone." 
 
 "To the health of M. le Baron de Pradines!" 
 said the priest in a hollow voice, and emptied his 
 glass at a draught. 
 
 "Bravo! bravo, M. le Cure!" cried the gentlemen, 
 rattling their glasses, by way of applause. "Nothing 
 like the amende honorable!" 
 
 At this moment, a succession of thundering 
 blows upon the outer gate startled the revellers into 
 a momentary silence. 
 
 "The Baron de Pradines, for a hundred crowns!" 
 cried the Marquis de Florae. 
 
 Andre Bernard turned paler than before.
 
 264 all-saints' eve. 
 
 "Who comes 1 ?" asked the Countess. "Go, Pierre," 
 she said to a servant behind her chair, "go and see 
 if it be M. de Pradines." 
 
 In a moment the valet returned , pale and 
 speechless. A confused murmur was heard with- 
 out. 
 
 "Who is there 1 ?" asked the Countess. 
 
 "Doubtless," said the Cure, in a hoarse wander- 
 ing voice, "doubtless it is one of the guests who has 
 arrived in time for the dessert." 
 
 At these words everyone rose from table, struck 
 by a fatal presentiment. 
 
 The door opened, and Pere Jacques appeared, 
 followed by his two assistants. They carried the 
 body of a man wrapped in a military cloak. The 
 Countess recognising the body of her brother, ut- 
 tered a piercing cry and hid her face in her hands. 
 Silent and terror-stricken, the company stood look- 
 ing at each other. The Cure clasped his hands as 
 if in prayer; the Lieutenant of Police went over and 
 examined the body. 
 
 "This is not the work of a robber," said he, 
 "for the jewels and purse of the Baron are un- 
 touched. He has been shot in the temple. Does 
 any person here present know anything of this 
 murder 1 ?" 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 "Where was the body found?" 
 
 "We discovered it near the foot of Mont Cantal, 
 with M. le Baron's horse standing beside it, M. le 
 Lieutenant," replied P6re Jacques,
 
 all-saints' eve. 265 
 
 "Does any person know of any enemy whom M. 
 le Baron may have had in this neighbourhood?" 
 pursued the officer of police. 
 
 "Alas, Monsieur," replied the cow-keeper, bluntly, 
 "the Baron de Pradines had very few friends in 
 these parts, but no enemy, I think, who would serve 
 him a turn like this." 
 
 "Does any person know if M. le Baron had any 
 difference or quarrel lately with any person?" 
 
 There was a profound silence; but more than 
 one glance was directed towards the Chevalier de 
 Fontane. 
 
 The Lieutenant of Police repeated the inquiry. 
 
 "I — I know of only one person, Monsieur," stam- 
 mered the bouiillier, "and — and " 
 
 He was silent: a stern look from Pere Jacques 
 arrested the words upon his lips, and he said no 
 more. 
 
 "And that person?" 
 
 "Pardon, M. le Lieutenant, but — but I will not 
 say." 
 
 "Answer, I command you," said the officer, "in 
 the name of the King." 
 
 "It is — M. le Chevalier de Fontane!" gasped the 
 terrified peasant. 
 
 "You hear this, Monsieur," said the Lieutenant. 
 "What answer do you make? Have you had a 
 quarrel with the late Baron?" 
 
 "I acknowledge — that is — I " faltered the 
 
 young man in evident confusion and dismay. 
 
 "Enough, Monsieur. Appearances, I regret to 
 say, are against you. You arrive late; your dress is
 
 266 all-saints' eve. 
 
 disordered; your apparel is blood-stained, and your 
 hand is wounded. I am grieved beyond measure; 
 but I am compelled to arrest you on the charge of 
 murder."
 
 all-saints' eve. 267 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Lieutenant of Police. 
 
 When misfortune falls upon a house in the 
 midst of feasting and revelry, the guests, of late so 
 friendly and familiar, shun the presence of their 
 entertainers as if there were contagion in the very 
 air. It is as if the plague had broken out within 
 the walls, and as if the black flag were alone needed 
 to complete the resemblance. 
 
 So it was in the Chateau de Peyrelade after the 
 arrival of the body of the Baron de Pradines. Some 
 few of the guests who lived in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, mounted their horses and hastened home 
 that very night. Others, not caring for the night- 
 journey through a mountain-country in fast-falling 
 snow, waited courageously for the dawn. All, how- 
 ever, rose so early next morning and contrived so 
 well that, by the time the sun poured his full radi- 
 ance into the disordered apartments, not a soul re- 
 mained in the chateau beyond its usual inhabitants. 
 The kitchens that had been so busy with cooks and 
 servants, the salon that had been thronged with visi- 
 tors, the supper-room that had of late been the 
 scene of festivity and mirth — all were deserted; and 
 on the supper-table lay the body of the murdered 
 man, covered with a sheet.
 
 268 all-saints' eve. 
 
 We have said that all the guests were gone; but 
 this was not strictly true, for two remained at the 
 chateau — the Commandeur de Fontane, cousin to 
 the prisoner, and the Lieutenant of Police. The 
 former had stayed to stand by his kinsman; the 
 latter, in the prosecution of his duties. Determined 
 to investigate the matter to the utmost, he had al- 
 ready despatched two of his servants to the town of 
 St. Flour, to command the instant attendance of a 
 detachment of gendarmerie. Father Jacques, and 
 the unfortunate boutillier, who had (through sheer 
 terror and excitement) betrayed the hostility existing 
 between the Baron and the Chevalier, were placed 
 with loaded muskets before the door of the wretched 
 bridegroom's chamber. The public crier was sent 
 round the parish of St. Saturnin to proclaim rewards 
 for information tending to throw light upon the 
 murder of the high and puissant George, Baron de 
 Pradines, and, during life, Captain of the Auvergne 
 Light Dragoons. 
 
 In short, Monsieur the Lieutenant of Police was 
 an active and intelligent officer, and before noon 
 on the day following the event, had done all that 
 was in the power of man towards discovering the 
 particulars of the dreadful deed, and securing the 
 person of the supposed offender. 
 
 Having discharged these duties, the worthy 
 Lieutenant found himself altogether unemployed. 
 Nothing more could be done till the arrival of the 
 gendarmerie from St. Flour; so he resolved to go 
 into the supper-room and examine the body of the 
 Baron de Pradines,
 
 all-saints' eve. 269 
 
 The Countess de Peyrelade, veiled and in deep 
 mourning, was kneeling at the foot of the table, 
 absorbed in prayer. He signified by a gesture that 
 he had no intention of disturbing her orisons; and 
 as she once more resumed her attitude of devotion, 
 he turned down the sheet, and attentively contem- 
 plated the body. M. le Lieutenant was a man 
 eminently skilful in his profession, and he was not 
 ignorant of the importance of slight indications. He 
 knew how frequently the weightiest discoveries lie 
 concealed beneath a veil of the commonest circum- 
 stances. 
 
 George de Pradines was yet dressed in the clothes 
 which he had worn at the moment of his fall. His 
 features, even in death, preserved their habitually 
 proud and sarcastic expression; nay, it even seemed 
 as if the haughty lip were curved more mockingly 
 than ever. The bullet-hole on his temple proved that 
 he was face to face with the murderer when at- 
 tacked. This circumstance precluded, at least, all 
 suspicion of a cowardly ambush. What if he could 
 be shown to have fallen in a duel! 
 
 The Lieutenant of Police took up the musket 
 lying beside the body. It was loaded. He then ex- 
 amined the pistols which were in the belt around 
 the dead man's waist. They were loaded likewise. 
 Strange! Had he not even defended himself, though 
 facing his murderer's weapon? And then had not 
 Madame de Peyrelade, returning to the salon pale 
 and terrified, told the assembled company in evident 
 terror that she had distinctly heard two reports of a 
 gun in the direction of the mountains'?
 
 270 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Presently Madame de Peyrelade rose from her 
 knees, and burst into tears. 
 
 "He is not guilty, Monsieur le Lieutenant!" she 
 cried, sobbing. "Eugene is not guilty! Why have 
 you accused him of this fearful crime? Why have 
 you brought this misery upon us? Was it not 
 enough," she said, pointing to the body, "was it not 
 enough that my brother should be assassinated, but 
 that you — the guest under my roof — should seek to 
 fix the guilt upon my betrothed husband?" 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," replied the Lieutenant, 
 with severe courtesy, "you forget that I am but ful- 
 filling my duty to the state. It is not I who act, but 
 the law in my person. I do not say that Monsieur 
 de Fontane is guilty. It is for the Judge to decide 
 that point. Appearances are strongly against him: 
 public opinion accused him before I did: the 
 suspicions of your friends and dependents were 
 directed to him at once. Madame, be just." 
 
 Marguerite's gentle heart was touched. 
 
 "Monsieur le Lieutenant," she said, "I was in 
 the wrong. Forgive me." 
 
 "Madame," replied the gentleman, kindly, as he 
 held the door for her to pass, "retire now to your 
 chamber, and take some rest. I fear that it will be 
 our painful duty, ere night, to remove the body of 
 the Baron de Pradines to St. Flour. Should such 
 commands arrive from the judicial authorities, I re- 
 gret to say that it will be imperative upon me to 
 include yourself, some of your people, and the 
 Chevalier de Fontane among our party. Fear no- 
 thing, Madame, and hope for the best. Perseve-
 
 all-saints' eve. 2/1 
 
 ranee alone can aid us now; and the stricter are our 
 investigations, the more completely shall we, I hope, 
 prove the innocence of Monsieur de Fontane." 
 
 The lady retired, and the Lieutenant of Police 
 returned to his contemplation of the corpse. 
 
 He was not wrong. Before night a party of sol- 
 diers arrived, bringing with them a paper of instruc- 
 tions from the authorities both military and civil. 
 Before day-break on the following morning the gloomy 
 procession — including the Countess, two of her wo- 
 men-servants, the Chevalier de Fontane, Father 
 Jacques, and his assistants — set off for St. Flour. 
 The body of the murdered officer, in a plain black 
 coffin borne upon the shoulders of six gendarmes, 
 brought up the rear. 
 
 From the moment of his arrest the Chevalier 
 had scarcely spoken, except to utter broken ejacula- 
 tions of grief and horror. The mountaineers who 
 guarded the door of his chamber had heard him 
 restlessly pacing to and fro all that dreadful night. 
 
 Food had been twice or thrice brought to him, 
 but there it still lay untouched, untasted. Being 
 summoned to the carriage that was to convey him 
 to St. Flour, he went quite silently and submissively, 
 between a couple of guards. 
 
 In the hall they passed the coffin. For a mo- 
 ment the young man paused. He turned very pale, 
 took off his hat, crossed himself devoutly, and 
 passed on. 
 
 Only once he was seen to give way to emotion. 
 It was when the Lieutenant of Police stepped into 
 the carriage and took his seat opposite to him.
 
 2 72 ALL- SAINTS' EVE. 
 
 "Monsieur," he exclaimed, passionately, "one 
 word, for mercy's sake! Does she believe that I am 
 guilty?" 
 
 "Monsieur de Fontane," replied the Lieutenant, 
 briefly but kindly, "Madame la Comtesse entertains 
 no doubt of your innocence." 
 
 The prisoner's whole countenance brightened. 
 He bent his head gratefully, and spoke no more 
 during the rest of the journey.
 
 ALL-SAINTS EVE. 2 J 3 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Trial. 
 
 The court-house was crowded in every part. 
 The judge in gloomy state, the robed lawyers, the 
 busy avocats, the imperious ushers— all were there. 
 It was a dark, wintry day. The great chandeliers 
 were lighted in the hall. The windows were closed; 
 but a little patch of daylight streamed in at the ceil- 
 de-boeuf overhead, and made the murky atmosphere 
 still darker by contrast. 
 
 All Madame de Peyrelade's dear friends, who 
 had fled so precipitately the evening of the murder, 
 might have been seen in various parts of the court- 
 house, chattering to each other with the most lively 
 interest, and now and then affecting a tone of pro- 
 found compassion for "ce pauvre Baron," or "cette 
 charmante Madame la Comtesse." They, however, 
 agreed unanimously in condemning the unfortunate 
 Chevalier. All had discovered that his countenance 
 wore a very cruel and sinister expression. One had 
 never liked him from a boy: another had mistrusted 
 him from the first: a third said it was rumoured 
 that he had been much disliked in Prussia, and 
 even dismissed the service: a fourth would not be 
 in the least surprised to hear that this assassination 
 was not the first of which he had been guilty. 
 
 The Black Forest. l %
 
 274 all-saints' eve. 
 
 The object of these charitable remarks sat, how- 
 ever, pale and composed, in the space railed off for 
 the prisoner. Not the soldiers who stood behind his 
 chair were more completely unmoved. He looked 
 worn and sorrowful, but neither desponding nor 
 abashed. He was dressed in a suit of complete mourn- 
 ing. His lawyer sat at a table near him, with far the 
 more troubled countenance of the two. In a room 
 set apart for the witnesses at the farther end of the 
 Justice Hall might have been observed the three 
 herdsmen who discovered the body, the Chevalier's 
 servant, some gendarmes, and several strangers. 
 
 Near the bench, on a raised platform, sat a 
 veiled lady in deep mourning, surrounded by a party 
 of her friends. This was Madame de Peyrelade. 
 Near her stood the Commandeur de Fontane, the 
 Lieutenant of Police, and some other gentlemen of 
 the province. 
 
 A dense crowd of townspeople, Auvergne 
 peasants, and country gentry filled the court-house 
 to the very passages and ante-rooms. 
 
 The proceedings opened with a short address 
 from the Advocate-General, of which not one syllable 
 was to be heard above the incessant hum of voices. 
 Then he sat down, and Pere Jacques was placed in 
 the witness-box. 
 
 The noise instantly subsided; the interest of the 
 assembled multitude was excited; and the business 
 of the day began in earnest. 
 
 The honest cowkeeper gave his testimony in a 
 straightforward, unhesitating voice. He had been 
 to high mass at the chapel of St. Saturnin with his
 
 all-saints' eve. 275 
 
 two companions — Pierre, the boutillier, and Henri, 
 the herdsman. They were returning from thence 
 to the Chateau de Peyrelade, where Madame had 
 invited all her dependents to supper in the servant's 
 hall, while she gave a grand entertainment in the 
 state-rooms to all the gentry of the province. He 
 (Jacques) and his friends were walking leisurely 
 along, laughing and talking, and thinking of nothing 
 but the wedding which was to take place on the 
 morrow. When they had turned the foot of the 
 Rocher Rouge, which lies between the chapel and 
 the Chateau, and were coming down into the valley, 
 Henri, who was a little in advance, gave a great 
 cry, and shouted "Murder!" And sure enough, 
 when he (Jacques) came up, there was a man lying 
 upon his face under a tree, with his horse standing 
 beside him, trembling all over and covered with 
 foam. They lifted the body, and found that it was 
 the Baron de Pradines. Then they wrapped it in 
 his cloak, and picked up the musket, which had 
 fallen beside him on the grass. There was no one 
 in sight, and there were no signs of any struggle. 
 He (Jacques) felt the body: the Baron was quite 
 dead, but not yet cold. He had no more to say. 
 
 M. le Lieutenant de Police. "At what hour of 
 the evening did this occur?" 
 
 Jacques. "As near as I can guess, M. le Lieu- 
 tenant, about nine, or a quarter past." 
 Lieut. "Was it dark at the time 1 ?" 
 Jacques. "It was neither dark nor light, Mon- 
 sieur. The moon kept going in and out, and the
 
 276 all-saints' eve. 
 
 snow began to come down just after we had found 
 the body." 
 
 Lieut. "Did you hear any shots fired 1 ?" 
 
 Jacques. "No, M. le Lieutenant." 
 
 Lieut. "But if the body was not cold, the shots 
 could not have been fired very long before you dis- 
 covered it 1 ?" 
 
 Jacques. "That might be, too, M. le Lieute- 
 nant; for the wind set the other way, towards the 
 Chateau, and would have carried the noise away 
 from us." 
 
 Lieut. "At what time did the mass begin?" 
 
 Jacques. "At seven o'clock, Monsieur le Lieute- 
 nant." 
 
 Pierre and Henri were next examined. 
 
 These witnesses corroborated the testimony of 
 Father Jacques. The first in a nervous and con- 
 fused manner, the second in a bold and steady 
 voice. Pierre looked several times in a contrite 
 and supplicating manner towards the Chevalier de 
 Fontane and Madame de Peyrelade; but neither 
 observed him. 
 
 He was very penitent and unhappy. He felt 
 that it was through his indiscretion that the be- 
 trothed lover of his mistress was placed in this posi- 
 tion of peril; and he would have given the world 
 to be far enough away in the desolate Buron. 
 
 Henri stated that, after finding the body, he 
 climbed the high tree beneath which it lay, for the 
 purpose of reconnoitring; but no person was in 
 sight.
 
 all-saints' eve. 277 
 
 The Lieutenant of Police next examined the 
 houtillier Pierre. 
 
 Lieut. "Repeat what you said of the quarrel 
 between Monsieur le Chevalier and the Baron de 
 Pradines." 
 
 Pierre, [in great confusion]: "I know nothing, 
 Monsieur, beyond what the poor people say about 
 the village." 
 
 Lieut. "Well, and what do the poor people say 
 about the village ?" 
 
 Pierre. "Indeed, Monsieur, I know nothing." 
 
 Lieut. "You must speak. You must not trifle 
 with the law." 
 
 Pierre. u Mon Dieu! they only said that Mon- 
 sieur le Baron wanted Madame's money and estates 
 himself, and that he hated Monsieur le Chevalier, 
 because Monsieur le Chevalier loved Madame and 
 Madame loved him." 
 
 Lieut. "And from whom did you hear these 
 reports'?" 
 
 Pierre. "From Pere Jacques, Monsieur le Lieute- 
 nant." 
 
 Lieut, [cross-examining Jacques the cow-keeper] 
 "What did you know, witness, of the difference 
 between these gentlemen?" 
 
 Jacques. "Nothing, M. le Lieutenant." 
 
 Lieut. "Did you ever hear of any such quarrel?" 
 
 Jacques. "I don't deny to have heard it talked 
 about, Monsieur." 
 
 Lieut. "Whom did you hear talk about it?" 
 
 Jacques. "I have heard Gustave, Monsieur le 
 Chevalier's valet, say so many times."
 
 278 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Lieut, [examining Gustave] "Relate all you know 
 or have heard respecting the differences that are 
 said to have arisen between your master and the 
 late Baron de Pradines." 
 
 Gustave. "I came with my master, the Chevalier 
 de Fontane, from Prussia, about ten weeks ago. As 
 soon as we got near the Chateau de Peyrelade, my 
 master met with an accident. We got him into the 
 house, where he stayed some weeks, till he had 
 quite recovered. The Countess and my master 
 were old lovers, and very glad to meet each other 
 again. They made up the match between them- 
 selves the very next day, and Madame sent for a 
 priest, who absolved her of a vow that she had 
 made, never to marry again. After the priest was 
 gone, M. le Baron, who had been out since the 
 morning, came home, and Madame informed him 
 that she was betrothed to the Chevalier, and that 
 the marriage would take place in a few weeks. M. 
 le Baron was furious. He swore at Madame, and 
 at M. de Fontane, and even at the priest. He asked 
 Madame if she had no respect for her vow or her 
 soul, and he called M. le Chevalier a villain and a 
 coward to his face. M. le Chevalier was too ill and 
 weak to pay any attention to him; but Madame was 
 very indignant, and told her brother that it was 
 himself who was the coward, so to insult a woman 
 and a sick man. In a word, Madame said that, if 
 he could not conduct himself more like a gentleman, 
 he had better leave the house. And so M. le Baron 
 did leave the house that very night, and set off for 
 his regiment. But it did not end here. M. le Baron
 
 all-saints' eve. 279 
 
 had been gone only a very few days when he sent 
 abusive and violent letters to Madame, and to Mon- 
 sieur le Chevalier; and I heard that he had also the 
 audacity to send one to the holy priest; but this I 
 cannot be sure of. Madame had no sooner read 
 hers than she burnt it; but Monsieur le Chevalier 
 only laughed, and threw his into his writing-case. 
 He said that the writer deserved a good thrashing, 
 but did not seem at all angry. In a few days there 
 came another letter to M. le Chevalier, and this 
 time the Baron threatened to bring the matter be- 
 fore Holy Church on account of Madame's broken 
 vow, as he called it; for he would not hear of the 
 absolution granted by M. le Cure. This letter vexed 
 M. le Chevalier a good deal, for he could not bear 
 the idea of Madame's name being brought into a 
 court of ecclesiastical law; and so he wrote back a 
 very sharp answer to M. le Baron, representing the 
 odium which it would bring both upon himself 
 and the family, and telling him how perfectly use- 
 less such a step would be, since Madame was alto- 
 gether absolved from her rash engagement. Well, 
 the Baron never wrote any reply to this letter; but 
 about a week before All Saints' Day, Madame sent 
 a very kind and loving letter to her brother (at least 
 so I overheard her telling Monsieur le Chevalier), 
 and invited him to the wedding. Whether it was 
 that M. le Baron thought it would be no use hold- 
 ing out; or whether he really was sorry for having 
 been so unkind; or whether he only intended to 
 spoil the festivities by being disagreeable to every- 
 body, I cannot tell; but at all events he wrote back,
 
 280 all-saints' eve. 
 
 accepting Madame's invitation, and saying he hoped 
 she would be happy, and that she and Monsieur 
 would forget the past, and receive him as a brother. 
 You may be sure that Madame was delighted; and 
 Monsieur le Chevalier declared that for his part he 
 was quite ready to shake hands with him. No more 
 letters passed, and I never saw M. de Pradines again 
 till he was brought in dead on the evening of All 
 Saints' Day." 
 
 Here the judge desired that the writing-case of 
 M. de Fontane should be brought into court; and 
 a small black folio was accordingly laid upon the 
 table by one of the attendants. It was found to 
 contain, among various unimportant papers, two 
 letters from the deceased addressed to M. le Che- 
 valier. Both were corroborative of the depositions 
 of the last witness, and were couched in violent and 
 abusive language. 
 
 The Lieutenant of Police, cross-examining the 
 servant of M. de Fontane, then continued: — 
 
 "Where was M. de Fontane on All-Saints' 
 Day?" 
 
 Gustave. "My master left the Chateau early in 
 the morning for Murat, where the notary resided to 
 whom he had confided the drawing up of the con- 
 tract and settlements. Monsieur was to have re- 
 turned by six o'clock, bringing the papers with him; 
 but he did not arrive till between nine and ten 
 o'clock." 
 
 Lieut. "Let the notary be called." 
 
 M. Francois, notary and avocat of Murat, was 
 then called to the witness-box.
 
 all-saints' eve. 281 
 
 Lieut. "At what hour did the Chevalier de 
 Fontane leave your offices at Murat?" 
 
 M. Francois. "At about six o'clock: the papers 
 were not ready, and he waited for them." 
 
 Lieut. "How long would it take a man to ride 
 from Murat to the Chateau?" 
 
 M. Francois. "About two hours." 
 
 Lieut. "He should then have reached Peyrelade 
 about eight?" 
 
 M. Francois. "I suppose so, Monsieur." 
 
 Lieut. "Did the Chevalier appear at all excited 
 or out of humour?" 
 
 M. Francois. "He appeared excited, and in 
 the highest spirits; but not in the least out of hu- 
 mour." 
 
 Marguerite de Peyrelade, nee Pradines, was then 
 summoned by the crier. She rose from her chair 
 with difficulty, leaning on the arm of the Comman- 
 deur, and was about to proceed to the witness-box, 
 but the judge begged her to remain seated. 
 
 A sympathetic murmur ran through the court. 
 She raised her veil and looked steadily at the 
 Lieutenant, never once glancing towards the prisoner, 
 who, pale and trembling, was observing her every 
 movement. 
 
 "Madame de Peyrelade," said the Lieutenant, 
 "do you remember to have heard M. de Fontane 
 utter any hostile expressions on receipt of either of 
 the letters lately examined?" 
 
 Madame had nothing to say beyond what had 
 been stated by Gustave, Monsieur de Fontane's 
 servant.
 
 282 all-saints' eve. 
 
 "Did Madame think that Monsieur de Fontane 
 thoroughly pardoned the imprudent language of M. 
 de Pradines?" 
 
 The lady said that she believed it from her 
 heart. 
 
 "Did not Madame, on the night of her fete, 
 leave the salon and go out a little after nine o'clock 
 on the terrace at the west side of the Chateau?" 
 
 She answered in the affirmative. 
 
 "Did not Madame aver that she then heard two 
 shots fired, at a considerable distance from the 
 Chateau?" 
 
 She did, and was greatly terrified. 
 
 "Could Madame have been mistaken as to the 
 second report? Is Madame certain that she dis- 
 tinguished more than one?" 
 
 The Countess said that she undoubtedly heard 
 a second. 
 
 "Still, might not Madame have been deceived — 
 by an echo, for instance?" 
 
 The lady was convinced of the accuracy of her 
 statement. 
 
 Here there was a pause of some minutes, during 
 which the lawyers whispered together, and the 
 Lieutenant of Police conferred with the Judge. 
 
 He then went on with the examination. 
 
 "How long an interval elapsed, Madame, be- 
 tween the two reports?" 
 
 "Scarcely a minute, I should think," replied the 
 Countess. 
 
 There was another pause. Then the Lieutenant 
 of Police thanked her for her information, and in-
 
 all-saints' eve. 283 
 
 timated that, for the present, she would not be 
 troubled farther. 
 
 Some gendarmes were then summoned, and gave 
 their evidence as follows: — 
 
 Paul Dubourg, gendarme in the Baillage of St. 
 Flour. "I have examined the body and fire-arms 
 of the late Baron, in the presence of M. le Lieute- 
 nant of Police. A musket was found lying beside 
 the body, and a brace of pistols were in his riding- 
 belt. None of these had been discharged. All the 
 pieces were loaded." 
 
 Lieut. "Should you suppose that the Baron had 
 made any defence?" 
 
 P. Dubourg. "Evidently none, Monsieur." 
 
 Michel Perrin, gendarme in the Baillage of St. 
 Flour, corroborated the testimony of Paul Du- 
 bourg. 
 
 Monsieur Berthet, Surgeon, was then called for. 
 He testified that the Baron de Pradines had died of 
 a fracture of the skull caused by a wound in the 
 temple. The wound was given by a musket-ball, 
 which had struck him three-quarters of an inch 
 above the eyebrow, and entered the brain. He (M. 
 Berthet) had extracted the ball, which he now laid 
 before the Court. From the wound being inflicted 
 in the front of the head, witness concluded that he 
 must have been face to face with the assassin. At 
 the same time, the fact of none of his own weapons 
 being used countenanced the probability of a sur- 
 prise. Could not conceive how it was possible that 
 two shots should have been fired without the Baron's 
 offering any resistance. Had the first taken effect,
 
 284 all-saints' eve. 
 
 there was then no need of a second: whereas, if the 
 first failed, the Baron would surely have defended 
 himself against a second. Had no more to say, and 
 left the witness-box. 
 
 Louis Masson, groom to Madame de Peyrelade, 
 was next examined. 
 
 Lieut, of Police. "You were in the stables when 
 Monsieur de Fontane returned on the evening of 
 All Saints' Day?" 
 
 L. Masson. "I was, Monsieur le Lieutenant." 
 
 Lieut. "In what condition was his horse when 
 he arrived 1 ?" 
 
 L. Masson. "The horse was covered with sweat, 
 and appeared to have been ridden fast. It trembled 
 a good deal likewise, as if it had been frightened, 
 and there were some spots of blood on the chest 
 and knees. The saddle was also spotted with 
 blood." 
 
 Lieut. "How did M. de Fontane seem when he 
 rode in?" 
 
 L. Masson. "He seemed very much excited, 
 M. le Lieutenant. His neckcloth and waistcoat 
 were stained with blood, and his hand was tied in 
 a handkerchief." 
 
 Lieut. "Did he make any remarks to you about 
 it?" 
 
 L. Masson. "Yes, Monsieur, he laughed a good 
 deal, in a wild sort of way, and said he had been 
 settling a wolf among the mountains." 
 
 There was a movement of horror throughout the 
 Court. 
 
 Lieut. "A wolf? Did you believe him?"
 
 all-saints' eve. 285 
 
 L. Masson. "Why, yes, Monsieur; none of us 
 doubted him, for he's a brave young gentleman, 
 and has killed many a noted wolf in the woods 
 about Pradines, in the old Baron's time. To be 
 sure, when M. le Baron was brought in, soon after, 
 we could not help recollecting the disagreement 
 which they had lately had, and we did think that 
 M. le Chevalier had indeed settled a wolf; but one 
 of another sort. However, I said nothing till Pierre 
 the boutillier spoke out to your worship in the 
 hall." 
 
 Lieut. "Bring into court the clothes worn by 
 the Chevalier de Fontane and the firearms that he 
 carried about his person on the evening in question." 
 
 A servant here laid some clothes, a musket, and 
 a pair of holsters on the table. The clothes were 
 then carefully examined. The waistcoat, cravat, 
 and shirt-front were spotted in several places with 
 blood. The lawyers shook their heads, and the 
 prisoner's advocate, who had not yet spoken, looked 
 grave and uneasy. 
 
 The Lieutenant took up the musket. 
 
 "This weapon has been discharged," he said, as 
 he passed it to the Judge for inspection. 
 
 He then drew the pistols from the holsters, and 
 examined the priming of both. 
 
 "Neither of these pistols has been used," he 
 said, as he passed them on. "Both are loaded." 
 
 No second shot, therefore, had been fired. 
 
 The Countess clasped her hands, and uttered 
 an exclamation of thankfulness. 
 
 "Nay, Madame," whispered the Lieutenant
 
 286 all-saints' eve. 
 
 kindly, "we must not begin to hope too soon. This 
 one ambiguous circumstance will not alone be suffi- 
 cient to clear our friend. We must have patience 
 and fortitude." 
 
 The Prosecutor for the Crown then rose, and 
 summed up the evidence. The substance of his 
 speech was this: — "That the body of George, 
 Baron de Pradines, had been discovered by three 
 servants of the Countess de Peyrelade, lying dead 
 in the valley known as the Val du Rocher Rouge, 
 on the evening of All Saints' Day. It was known 
 that M. de Fontane had had some misunderstanding 
 with the deceased, and had received from him letters 
 of a threatening nature. M. de Fontane had been 
 out all day at Murat, and in returning thence must 
 pass through that valley. Monsieur de Fontane 
 left Murat at six o'clock, and did not reach the 
 Chateau de Peyrelade till between nine and ten. 
 The journey need not occupy longer than two hours. 
 What had the Chevalier done with the surplus time? 
 He arrives at the Chateau in an excited state, with 
 his clothes blood-stained, and his horse trembling 
 as if from terror and hard riding. His voice is 
 wild, and he says he has killed 'a wolf.' When the 
 body is brought to the Chateau and he is interrogated 
 by M. le Lieutenant, he betrays manifest confusion 
 and alarm. Even the grooms and herdsmen attach 
 suspicion to him; and, as if to cherish the lingering 
 rancour which he entertained against M. de Pradines, 
 both the letters sent to him by that gentleman are 
 found preserved in his writing-case. Madame la 
 Comtesse affirms that she heard two shots fired on
 
 all-saints' eve. 287 
 
 the night of the murder, and only one of M. de 
 Fontane's weapons has been discharged. He felt 
 bound to say that this circumstance tended to the 
 advantage of the prisoner; but, at the same time, 
 everyone knew that, to a lady in the naturally 
 anxious state of mind of Madame de Peyrelade, 
 every sight and sound becomes magnified. What 
 more likely than that the second shot should be a 
 mere trick of the distempered imagination? The 
 examination of the weapons proved that one shot 
 only could have been fired. Out of four pistols 
 and two muskets — six firearms in all — one only had 
 been discharged; and that was the musket of M. 
 de Fontane. He believed that nothing farther 
 could be said on the subject." 
 
 The Judge then asked the prisoner if he had 
 anything to reply. 
 
 M. de Fontane rose, pale and self-possessed. 
 He bowed to the Judge, to the Procureur du Roi, 
 and to the Lieutenant of Police. 
 
 "My Lord," he said calmly, "I have little to 
 urge in my defence, except to assever my innocence. 
 I left Murat at six, and set off briskly for the 
 Chateau de Peyrelade. Before half-an-hour had 
 elapsed, the evening became quite dark. Much 
 snow had already fallen, and by the time I entered 
 upon the road across the mountains, the way was 
 not only dark, but slippery for my horse. I dis- 
 mounted, and led him up the first steep ascent. 
 I thus lost considerable time. When I came down 
 at the opposite side and arrived at the open space 
 whence five different ways branch off in five different
 
 288 all-saints' eve. 
 
 directions, I found myself altogether at fault. I had 
 not travelled this country for many years — the snow- 
 had changed the general features of the place, and 
 it was just then quite dark. I thought it best to 
 leave all to the sagacity of the horse, and, re-mount- 
 ing, dropped the reins upon his neck, and let him 
 choose his way. He was as much perplexed as 
 myself. Twice he turned towards the road on our 
 left; then, after a momentary pause, chose a road 
 straight before us. So we went on. The farther 
 we went, however, the more I became convinced 
 that the horse had taken a wrong direction. At 
 last I found that we were entering a thick wood, 
 and as I knew there should be nothing of the kind 
 on the way to the Chateau, I turned the horse's head, 
 and began to retrace our steps. Scarcely had I 
 proceeded a dozen yards on the way back, when I 
 heard a distant howl. The horse stopped instinc- 
 tively, and we both listened. Again that sound, and 
 nearer! I needed no spur to urge my steed on his 
 flight — that ominous cry was enough. Away he 
 started with me, as if we had not gone a mile that 
 day! It was of little use; for the wolf gained on us, 
 and at last I descried him about a quarter of a 
 mile behind, coming with savage speed along the 
 snow. I now saw that there was nothing for it but 
 a mortal combat with the brute. So I alighted 
 quietly, and waited for him, a clasp-knife open and 
 ready in my belt, and my gun on the cock. I did 
 not tie the horse to a tree, for I thought if the wolf 
 conquered, the poor animal might at least have the 
 chance of escape. The beast was up in less time
 
 ALL- SAINTS' EVE. 289 
 
 too than I take to tell it. When within a couple 
 of yards, he stopped, seeing me prepared to receive 
 him. His eyes were red and bright as coals — his 
 sides gaunt — his tongue lolling from his mouth. 
 His hot breath smoked in the frosty air. So we 
 stood for a second or two, face to face — the wolf 
 and I. Then he gave a low howl, and as he sprang 
 towards me, I fired! I hit him — lamed one of his 
 fore-legs; but that only made him more furious, for 
 he was on me again directly, like a tiger! I tried in 
 vain to beat him off with my gun, but he was too 
 strong for me; so I threw it down, got my knife 
 from my belt, and held it between my teeth. As I 
 did so, he snapped at my hand and nearly tore my 
 fingers off. Then I threw my arms round the brute, 
 and fell upon him. It was my last resource — he 
 was under, and if I could only keep him there, and 
 strangle him, or cut his throat, I was safe. It was 
 a frightful moment. My head swam — my breath 
 failed — then I gathered up all my remaining strength, 
 and plunged the knife in his throat! He moaned, 
 his head fell back — the struggle was over — he was 
 dead! I then mounted my horse, who had never 
 once offered to leave me, though he stood trembling 
 all over with terror. I cheered him on — I shouted 
 — I laughed — I sang! I rode like a madman at full 
 speed, and when I reached the Chateau I had not 
 yet recovered from the excitement of the contest. 
 I came out of a death-fight to a brilliant company 
 — from a wolf to a bride; and I was just about to 
 relate my adventure — when — when, my Lord, the 
 corpse of the Baron de Pradines was brought into 
 
 The Black Forest. 19
 
 290 all-saints' eve. 
 
 the room, and I heard myself accused of being his 
 murderer! I have no more to say. I have stated 
 the whole truth. I lost my way, and almost my 
 life. I am innocent, and God will judge me rightly, 
 however my fellow-men may decide against me." 
 
 The young man sat down, flushed with the 
 relation of his c®mbat, and confident in the justice 
 of his cause. 
 
 A loud murmur of sympathy and satisfaction 
 ran through the Court, and the prisoner was re- 
 warded for all his sufferings by one glad and loving 
 glance from Marguerite de Peyrelade. Her mind 
 was now relieved of every doubt; and, indeed, 
 with the exception of the lawyers, there was not a 
 soul in the hall who doubted his innocence. 
 
 When the murmur had subsided, more witnesses 
 were called. 
 
 Antoine Guinot and Elie Blainval, two gendarmes, 
 next gave evidence. 
 
 Lieut, of Police. "Antoine Guinot — you went 
 by my orders to inspect the roads among the 
 mountains." 
 
 A. Guinot. "Yes, M. le Lieutenant." 
 
 Lieut. "Did you there discover the body of a 
 dead wolf, or any signs of blood on the snow?" 
 
 A. Guinot. "No, M. le Lieutenant." 
 
 Lieut. "Did you thoroughly search the Val du 
 Rocher Rouge?" 
 
 A. Guinot. "Yes, Monsieur. There was no dead 
 wolf to be seen in any part. Snow had been falling 
 for two days and nights before we got there, so 
 there would have been nothing but the carcase of
 
 all-saints' eve. 291 
 
 the beast to guide us; but there was no such car- 
 case anywhere about." 
 
 Elie Blainval was next examined. Went with 
 the last witness. Saw no carcase. Snow was deep 
 on the ground, and of course no stains or other 
 marks could be distinguished. Would swear there 
 was no dead wolf anywhere on the mountain roads. 
 Corroborated the statement of his companion in 
 every particular. 
 
 On this the Prosecutor for the Crown again ad- 
 dressed the Court, but very briefly. The jury, he 
 said, had heard the statements of the last witnesses. 
 M. the Lieutenant of Police had despatched them 
 on the day following the murder, as soon as they 
 arrived from St. Flour, in order that the prisoner's 
 statement might be thoroughly investigated. No 
 carcase of any description had been found. It was 
 not his (the Prosecutor's) desire to prejudice his 
 hearers against the prisoner; but he felt it his duty 
 to remind them that his defence was unsupported 
 by any kind of proof. They had before them a 
 strong case of circumstantial evidence on the one 
 side, and on the other the bare assertion of a man 
 whose only chance for life depended on the plau- 
 sibility of his defence and the credulity of his 
 auditors. He begged now to leave the matter in 
 the hands of the Jury. 
 
 After an address from the judge, in which he 
 summed up the evidence in a very similar manner 
 to the Prosecutor for the Crown, and in which he 
 exhorted them to lay any doubts which they might 
 entertain to the side of mercy, the jury retired. 
 
 19*
 
 292 all-saints' eve. 
 
 Then the chorus of laughter and loud talking, 
 so long hushed, broke forth again. By this time 
 night had come on, and the patch of daylight seen 
 through the ceil-de-bocuf had long since disappeared. 
 The young men made bets with each other on the 
 verdict. All the ladies took the part of the prisoner; 
 and, to do them justice, most of the gentlemen like- 
 wise. The peasants pulled out lumps of brown 
 bread and country cheese, and began to eat. 
 
 Time went on. Two hours passed away without 
 the return of the jury. Then another hour. Ten 
 o'clock struck by the great clock over the entrance, 
 and the audience grew silent and weary. Still the 
 twelve came not. The judge nodded on the bench. 
 Madame de Peyrelade sat, statue-like, in the same 
 spot. The Chevalier de Fontane paced the dock 
 in an agony of suspense. 
 
 Then eleven struck; and ere the last stroke had 
 died away, the jury returned and took their places. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, wak- 
 ing up, "are you all agreed?" 
 
 "Yes, my Lord," said the foreman slowly and 
 distinctly. 
 
 The silence was intense throughout the court. 
 Every breath was held; every eye turned towards 
 him. 
 
 "Do you find the prisoner guilty, or not guilty?" 
 
 "Guilty? 
 
 A loud murmur broke from all parts of the hall. 
 The prisoner — a shade paler than before — folded 
 his arms across his breast, and looked calmly round
 
 all-saints' eve. 293 
 
 him. The Countess de Peyrelade was carried faint- 
 ing from the court. 
 
 The judge then pronounced sentence of death. 
 Not a word was audible; but his lips were seen to 
 move, and he shed tears. 
 
 The Chevalier was then conducted from the 
 dock; the judge and jury retired; and the great 
 mass of spectators, undulating and noisy, gradually 
 dispersed; thankful to exchange the thick, steaming 
 atmosphere of the densely-crowded Justice Hall, 
 for the cold night-air, with the keen stars over- 
 head. 
 
 The trial had lasted fourteen hours. They had 
 begun at nine a.m., and it now wanted less than an 
 hour to midnight. All was over — the hope, the 
 fear, the suspense. The Chevalier de Fontane was 
 condemned to die within twenty-four hours.
 
 294 all-saints' eve. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Scaffold and the Confession. 
 
 It is night. The air is cold and biting; the 
 stars are bright in the clear sky; and the moon is 
 slowly sinking behind the Cathedral of St. Flour. 
 Snow lies on the ground and on the house-tops, 
 and everything looks pale in the blue moonlight. 
 A gloomy platform hung with black cloth and sur- 
 rounded by horse-soldiers, each with a torch in his 
 left hand and a drawn sword in his right, stands in 
 the midst of the public square. A vast multitude 
 is assembled outside the barriers that surround the 
 scaffold. The houses blaze with lights, and all the 
 windows are crowded with curious spectators. Huge 
 and sombre, the prison rises on one side of the 
 square, and the church upon the other. A low 
 unquiet sound comes from the indistinct mass all 
 around, as it heaves and sways from side to side 
 in ever-restless undulation. 
 
 Now the great Cathedral clock strikes the first 
 stroke of ten. Scarcely has it begun when the iron 
 tongues of all the churches in the town reply. They 
 clash — they mingle — they are still. Then the gates 
 of the gaol swing apart, and a procession comes 
 slowly forth. First, soldiers; then the sheriff and 
 the governor of the gaol; then more soldiers; then
 
 all-saints' eve. 295 
 
 the bishop of the diocese; then the prisoner; then 
 more soldiers to bring up the rear. 
 
 They pass slowly through a double file of horse- 
 soldiery till they reach the scaffold. They ascend; 
 and the sheriff, with his black wand in one hand, 
 advances with a parchment roll in the other, and 
 reads aloud the dreadful formula: — 
 
 "He whom we have brought hither is Eugene 
 Fontane, formerly called Chevalier de Fontane, and 
 ex-Captain of Hussars in the military service of His 
 Majesty the King of Prussia. The said Eugene 
 de Fontane is brought hither to suffer death, being 
 condemned thereto by the criminal court of this 
 town. He will now be broken on the wheel, being 
 charged and convicted of the crime of homicide on 
 the person of the very noble, puissant, and excellent 
 Seigneur George, Baron de Pradines, and, during 
 life, Captain of the Auvergne Light Dragoons. Pray 
 to God for the repose of their souls!" 
 
 Eugene is pale, but resigned. He has not long 
 since taken leave of Marguerite, and, despite the 
 agony of that parting, he is comforted, for she be- 
 lieves him innocent. His step is firm, his head 
 erect, his eye bright and fearless. His right hand 
 is hidden in the breast of his coat, closely pressed 
 against his heart. It holds a lock of her hair. 
 
 Now the bishop addresses to him the last words 
 which a prisoner hears on earth. 
 
 "Eugene de Fontane," he says, solemnly, "if 
 you will speak the truth and declare yourself guilty
 
 296 all-saints' eve. 
 
 of the crime for which you are condemned, I am 
 here, in the name of God, to give you absolution; 
 and when you are stretched upon the wheel the 
 executioner will give you the coup de grace, in order 
 to spare you the sufferings which you would other- 
 wise endure. Reflect, for the sake of both body 
 and soul. Do you yet persist in saying that you 
 are innocent?" 
 
 The young man cast a glance of horror at the 
 hideous apparatus. His lip quivered, and for a 
 moment his resolution seemed to fail. Then he 
 fell upon his knees and prayed silently. 
 
 When he rose, he was calm and stedfast as be- 
 fore. 
 
 "Let the executioner do his office," he said, 
 firmly. "I will not die with a lie upon my tongue. 
 I am innocent, and Heaven knows it." 
 
 The Chevalier then draws a ring from his finger 
 and gives it to the executioner, in token of pardon. 
 And now he takes off his coat and waistcoat and 
 holds out his arms to be bound; and now, suddenly, 
 a cry is heard on the outskirts of the crowd — a 
 shrill, piercing, despairing cry. 
 
 "Stop! stop! let me pass! I am the murderer! — 
 he is innocent! I am the murderer of the Baron de 
 Pradines!" 
 
 And a mounted man, pale, breathless, disordered, 
 is seen pressing wildly through the crowd. He gains 
 the foot of the scaffold — he rushes eagerly up the 
 steps — falls fainting at the feet of the condemned! 
 
 It is the priest — it is Andre Bernard. 
 
 # * # #
 
 ALL- SAINTS' EVE. 297 
 
 Once again the Justice Hall is thronged. Once 
 again we see the former crowd; the same faces; the 
 same peasants; the same lawyers; the same mass of 
 spectators, noble and plebeian; the same judge; the 
 same jury. 
 
 Yet there is one great and material difference; 
 there is not the same prisoner. Andre Bernard is 
 in the dock, and the Chevalier de Fontane is no- 
 where present. 
 
 Madame de Peyrelade and servants are also 
 absent. Otherwise the Court House looks as it did 
 a week since, when an innocent man was there con- 
 demned to die. 
 
 "Prisoner," says the Judge, "the Court is pre- 
 pared to listen to your confession." 
 
 The Abbe rose. A profound silence reigned 
 throughout the hall. In a voice broken with emo- 
 tion, he began as follows: — 
 
 "About three months since, I was visited by the 
 Baron de Pradines in my parsonage at St. Saturnin. 
 He had not been on good terms with his sister, 
 Madame de Peyrelade, for some years, and he now 
 desired a reconciliation. He was a man of violent 
 temper and dissolute habits; but he professed re- 
 pentance for his former courses, and ardently en- 
 treated my intercession with Madame. I believed 
 him, and became the bearer of his penitent messages. 
 Owing to my representations, the lady believed him 
 also, and he was received into the Chateau. A 
 fortnight had scarcely elapsed, when M. de Fontane 
 arrived at the Chateau; and on a due consideration 
 of — of all the previous events" (here the prisoner's
 
 298 all-saints' eve. 
 
 voice faltered), "I absolved Madame from a rash 
 vow which she had too hastily contracted. Now M. 
 de Pradines had hoped to inherit the estates and 
 fortune of his sister; he was therefore much enraged 
 on finding that the said vow was made null and 
 void. He departed at once to join his regiment, 
 and in the course of a few days I received from him 
 an abusive letter. Of this I took no notice, and I 
 may say that it caused me no anger. I destroyed 
 and forgot it. In about two months' time from the 
 date of his departure, the marriage of his sister with 
 M. de Fontane was appointed to take place. The 
 Baron, seeing the uselessness of further hostilities, 
 then yielded to the entreaties of Madame and ac- 
 cepted her invitation, appointing the Fete of All- 
 Saints as the day of his arrival, that he might be 
 present at the ceremony of betrothal. On that day 
 I said mass in the morning at my chapel, and high 
 mass at seven o'clock in the afternoon. I was in- 
 vited to the Chateau that evening, and nine was 
 the hour appointed. Mass would not be over till 
 half-past eight — I had therefore half an hour only to 
 reach the Chateau; and, as soon as I had pro- 
 nounced the benediction, I hastened from the chapel 
 by the side-door, and was some distance on the 
 road before my congregation dispersed. The moon 
 shone out at times, and at times was overcast. I 
 had my gun with me; for after night-fall at this 
 season, the wolves are savage, and often come down 
 from the heights. I had not gone far when I heard 
 a horse coming along at full speed behind me. I 
 drew on one side to let the rider pass. The moon
 
 all-saints' eve. 299 
 
 just then shone out, and I recognised the Baron de 
 Pradines. He knew me also; and though he had 
 been galloping before, he now reigned up his horse 
 and stood quite still. 
 
 "'Good evening, most reverend Abbe,' said he 
 in a mocking voice. 'Will you favour me with a 
 piece of godly information; for I am but a poor 
 sinner, and need enlightening. Pray how much 
 have you been paid by M. le Chevalier for patching 
 up this marriage 1 ?' 
 
 "I felt my blood boil and my cheeks burn at 
 this insult, but I affected to treat it as a jest. 
 
 "'You are facetious, Monsieur le Baron,' I re- 
 plied. 
 
 "'Not at all,' he said, with a bitter laugh. 'Gen- 
 tlemen in your profession, M. le Cure, have their 
 prices for everything; from the absolution for a vow 
 to the absolution for a murder.' 
 
 "'Monsieur,' I replied, 'your expressions exceed 
 the limits of pleasantry.' 
 
 '"Not at all, Monsieur le Cure,' he repeated 
 again, ' not at all. And, withal, you are a very noble, 
 and meek, and self-sacrificing gentleman, M. le Cure. 
 You love my sister, most holy sir; and yet you sell 
 the absolution which enables her to marry another. 
 It is really difficult to tell, M. le Cure, which of your 
 admirable qualities predominates — your Avarice, or 
 your Love. Both, at least, are equally respectable 
 in a priest who is vowed to poverty and celibacy.' 
 
 "'And peace, M. le Baron,' I added. 'You are 
 aware, Monsieur, that my profession forbids me to 
 chastise you as you deserve, and therefore you
 
 300 all-saints' eve. 
 
 insult me. Pass on, and interfere with me no 
 more.' 
 
 "'Indeed I shall not pass on, M. le Cure,' he 
 continued, 'I must stay and compliment you as you 
 deserve. It is a pity, is it not, M. le Cure, that 
 your vows prevent you from marrying my sister 
 yourself?' 
 
 "'If you will not pass me, M. le Baron,' I said, 
 for I was trembling with suppressed rage , 'I must 
 pass you, for I will bear this no longer.' 
 
 "The passage was narrow, and he intentionally 
 barred the way. I seized his horse's reins and turned 
 his head, when — my lord — the Baron raised his 
 whip and struck me on the face! My fowling-piece 
 was in my hand — I was mad — I was furious. I 
 know not to this moment how it was done, but I 
 fired — fired both barrels of my gun, and the next 
 moment — Oh, vion Dieu! — he was lying at my feet 
 dead and bleeding — I was a murderer!" 
 
 The priest paused in his narrative, and hid his 
 face in his hands. A murmur ran through the court. 
 After a few moments, however, he raised his head, 
 and continued: — 
 
 "I saw him but for an instant, and then turned 
 and fled. I cannot remember where I went, or what 
 I did in that terrible interval; but at last I found 
 myself before the gates of the Chateau de Peyrelade. 
 A dreadful terror possessed me — I feared the night, 
 and the woods, and the mountains, and the pale 
 moonlight. I thought to find refuge in the crowd 
 of human beings — refuge from that terrible thought 
 —refuge from that hideous sight. But it pursued
 
 all-saints' eve. 301 
 
 me! They brought him in, ghastly and blood-stained, 
 wrapt in the cloak in which he lay upon the grass; 
 and on his pale forehead was the mark of my — of 
 my .... That night I was mad. I remember no- 
 thing — neither how I got home — nor how I left the 
 Chateau — nor when I entered my own door. For 
 days I walked and lived in a dream of horror. Then 
 I heard of the trial and condemnation of an inno- 
 cent man. I mounted my 'horse — I flew — I feared 
 that I should be too late; but I had resolved to kill 
 myself on the scaffold if he was already dead! I 
 was in time, thank God! and now I am ready to 
 take his place. This is my confession, and, before 
 Heaven, I declare it full and true. I entreat all 
 here present to pray for me." 
 
 When the agitation that followed this confession 
 had somewhat subsided, and the jury had conferred 
 for a moment in their places, the foreman pro- 
 nounced the prisoner guilty, but recommended him 
 to mercy. Then the judge, in a speech interrupted 
 more than once by emotion, passed sentence of 
 death; but concluded by an intimation that the case 
 should be reported to the King as one deserving his 
 royal clemency. 
 
 The Royal Pardon, thus solicited, followed as a 
 matter of course, and in less than a week Andre 
 Bernard was free. The Chevalier de Fontane him- 
 self brought the precious parchment from Versailles, 
 and fetched a carriage to convey the priest from 
 prison. 
 
 "Come back to us, dear friend," he said. "Come 
 back to your chapel and your flock. Forget the
 
 302 all-saints' eve. 
 
 past, and resume the useful life in which you used 
 to find your greatest happiness." 
 
 But the priest shook his head. 
 
 "I cannot," he said. "The King has pardoned 
 me, but I have yet to earn the pardon of Heaven. 
 I go hence to la Trappe, there to pass the remainder 
 of my days in prayer and penance. Hush! — to 
 remonstrate is useless. I deserve a far heavier 
 punishment. I have more sins than one upon my 
 soul. God sees my heart, and He knows all my 
 guilt. I must go — far, far away. I shall pray for 
 your happiness — and hers. Heaven bless you, and 
 have mercy on me! Farewell." 
 
 THE END.
 
 PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
 
 
 
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