Arsène Lupin, super-sleuth

Ralph stepped up to them, and without paying any attention to Bregeac said quietly to Marescal: “Life seems very complicated because we only see it in scraps, and those by unexpected lights. It is so with this express case. It’s as entangled as a newspaper serial. The facts spring up at random, stupidly, like fireworks which will not go off in the order in which you arrange them. But when a lucid mind sets those facts in their places, all things become reasonable, simple, in perfect accord with one another, as natural as a page of history. It is that page of history that I’ve just read to you, Marescal. You know now the whole business; you know that Aurelie d’Asteux is innocent. Let her go.”

Marescal shrugged his shoulders and growled: “No.”

“Don’t get obstinate, Marescal. You can see that I am not fooling or joking any longer. I simply ask you to recognize your mistake.”

“My mistake?”

“Certainly, since she did not commit murder, since she was not a confederate, but a victim.” [239]

Marescal said in sneering accents: “If she did not commit the murder, why did she fly? In the case of William, I can admit reasons for flight. But in her case, what did she gain by flying? And why hasn’t she said anything about it since—except a few words at the beginning of the affair when she kept wailing to the policeman: ‘I wish to speak to the magistrate, I wish to tell him the story.’ Apart from that, silence.”

“That’s a good point, Marescal,” Ralph admitted. “It’s a point well worth raising. This silence has often bothered me also, this stubborn silence which she has always kept, even with me, who was helping her, and who would have found a confession of the greatest use in my enquiries. But her lips remained closed. And it is here only, in this house, that I have solved this problem. I hope that she will forgive me for having searched her drawers when she was ill. It was necessary. Read these words, Marescal, which are among the instructions which her dying mother, and who had no illusions about Bregeac, left her: ‘Aurelie, whatever happens and whatever the conduct of your step-father may be, never accuse him. Defend him, even if you have to suffer at his hands, even if he is guilty: I have borne his name.’ ”

“But she did not know about Bregeac’s crime,” protested Marescal. “And even if she had known of it, she could not have guessed that it had anything to do [240]with the crimes on the express. Bregeac therefore could not have come into the matter.”

“She did know of it.”

“Who from?”

“From Jodot.”

“What proof is there of it?”

“The statement which William’s widowed mother made to me. I hunted her up in Paris, where she lives, and I paid her handsomely for a written statement of all that she knows about the past and the present. Her son told her that in the compartment of the express, face to face with Mademoiselle, above the two dead brothers, with his mask torn off and covered by William’s revolver, Jodot shook his fist at her and said with an oath:

“ ‘If you breathe a word of this business, Aurelie, and give the police my name and I am arrested, I will inform them of the crime committed years ago. It was Bregeac who murdered your grandfather d’Asteux!’

“It was this threat, repeated later at Nice which overwhelmed Aurelie d’Asteux and made her keep silence. Have I spoken the exact truth, Mademoiselle?”

“The exact truth,” she murmured.

“Then you see, Marescal, your objection falls to the ground. The silence of the victim, this silence which left you still suspicious, is on the contrary a [241]proof in her favor. For the second time I ask you to let her go.”

“No!” said Marescal stamping his foot.

“Why not?”

Of a sudden Marescal’s rage burst forth and he shouted: “Because I wish to avenge myself! I want the scandal! I want everybody to know that whole business, her flight with William, her arrest, Bregeac’s crime! I want her to be dishonored and shamed. She has rejected me. Let her pay! And let Bregeac pay too! You’ve been stupid enough to give me the damning details I had missed. I hold Bregeac and the young woman more firmly than I thought—and Jodot and the Ancivels and the whole band! Not one of them shall escape me; and Aurelie is one of the gang!”

He was raving with rage, and came to a stop for sheer lack of breath, and leaned back against the door. In the silence that followed they heard Tony and Labonce talking on the landing.

Ralph picked up from the table a scrap of paper taken from the bottle, a scrap on which was written: “Marescal is a blockhead.” He unfolded it with a careless air and handed it to Marescal.

“Take it, old chap, have it framed, and hang it up at the foot of your bed,” he said in the kindest accents, smiling amiably.

“Yes, yes: go on fooling!” snarled Marescal. “Go on fooling as much as you like. It doesn’t alter the [242]fact that I’ve got you too! You showed me the truth at the very beginning! That business of the cigarette! ‘Could you oblige me with a light.’ I’ll oblige you with a light all right! A light that will last you the rest of your life—in prison! Yes, in prison from which you came, and to which you’re going back straight away. In prison, I repeat—in prison! If you think that during my struggle with you I have not pierced your disguise; if you think that I do not know who you are and that I haven’t already all the necessary proofs to strip the mask off you, you’re wrong. Look at him, Aurelie, look at your sweetheart; and if you wish to know who he is, think for a moment of the king of crooks, of the most gentlemanly of burglars, of the master of masters, and say to yourself that Baron de Limézy, pseudo-nobleman and pseudo-explorer is no other man than——”

The front door bell rang loudly and cut him short. It was Philippe and his two big policemen. It could be no one else.

Marescal rubbed his hands and took a long breath.

“I think you’re well in the soup, Lupin. What do you think?”

Ralph looked at Aurelie. The name of Lupin appeared to have made no impression upon her. With an expression of anguish she was listening to the sounds below.

“Poor lady with the green eyes, your faith is not yet [243]perfect,” said Ralph. “How on earth can a gentleman of the name of Philippe torment you?”

He opened the window, and speaking to some one on the pavement below, he said: “It’s the gentleman named Philippe from the Prefecture, isn’t it? Just a word with you, my friend, apart from your three big policemen, for they are three, hang it all! Don’t you recognize me? Baron de Limézy. Hurry up! Marescal is waiting for you.”

He shut the window.

“They’re all here, Marescal,” he said. “Four downstairs and three up here for I don’t count Bregeac, who seems to have lost interest in the business. That makes seven three-headed giants to make only one mouthful of me. I am horror-stricken, and so is the young lady with the green eyes.”

Aurelie forced herself to smile; she even muttered two or three words they could not catch.

Marescal was waiting on the landing. The front door was opened; hurrying steps came up the stairs. At once Marescal had to hand, eager to pull the quarry down, like a pack of hounds ready to be let loose, six men. He gave them their orders in a low voice, then entered, smiling all over his face.

“You don’t want a useless fight, do you, Baron?” he said cheerfully.

“No fight, Marquess. The idea of killing all seven [244]of you, like the seven wives of Bluebeard, is positively hateful to me,” said Ralph.

“Then you’ll follow me?”

“To the end of the world!” said Ralph with enthusiasm.

“Unconditionally, you understand?”

“Oh, no, there’s one condition: you’ve got to buy me a meal,” said Ralph.

“Right. Dry bread, dog-biscuit, and water,” said Marescal.

“No,” said Ralph.

“Well, what is your bill of fare?” said Marescal.

“The same as yours, Rudolph. Meringues Chantilly babas au rhum, and Alicante wine.”

“What do you mean?” asked Marescal on a sudden high note of acute anxiety and surprise.

“My meaning is perfectly simple. You invite me to tea. I accept with pleasure. Haven’t you an appointment at five?”

“An appointment!” cried Marescal almost in a squeak.

“Yes. You haven’t forgotten it? At your place—not your house—your bachelor’s flat—Rue Duplan—a little flat looking on the street. Isn’t it there that you meet every afternoon and stuff with meringues dipped in Alicante, the wife of your——”

“Be quiet!” said Marescal in a strangled whisper.

He was as white as a sheet. All his self-confidence [245]had vanished. He looked as if he would never joke again.

“Why do you want me to keep silent?” asked Ralph innocently. “Is the invitation off? Aren’t you going to introduce me to——”

“Silence, damn you!” hissed Marescal.

He went back on to the landing, shut the door behind him, and took Philippe aside.

“Just a few minutes, Philippe. There are some details to straighten out before we make an end of it. Take your men downstairs so that they mayn’t hear anything.”

He came back into the room, rather shakily, went to Ralph and with his face almost touching Ralph’s face, said in a voice too low for Bregeac and Aurelie to hear it: “What do you mean? What are you getting at?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Then what are you talking about? How do you know?”

“The address of your flat, and the name of your pretty friend? Goodness, all I have to do in your case was what I did in the case of Bregeac and Jodot and his colleagues, make discreet inquiries about your private life, which enquiries brought me to a mysterious ground-floor flat, very prettily furnished where you entertain charming ladies. Dim lights, incense, flowers, sweet wines, divans as deep as tombs—Marescal’s Folly. What?” [246]

“And what ab-b-bout it?” stammered Marescal. “Haven’t I the right to do as I like? What connection is there between that and my arresting you.”

“There wouldn’t be any connection at all, if you hadn’t been guilty of the further folly of choosing this little abode of love as a safe place to hide those ladies’ letters.”

“It’s a lie!” snapped Marescal.

“If I were lying, you wouldn’t be as white as a sheet,” said Ralph.

“The details?” said Marescal savagely.

“In a cupboard there’s a secret drawer. In this drawer is a casket. In this casket some charming letters from women, tied up in packets with colored ribands. Letters that compromise two dozen ladies and actresses whose passion for the handsome Marescal is expressed without the slightest restraint. Shall I name a few? The wife of the Procureur B., Mademoiselle X. of the Comédie Française—and above all, above all, the worthy spouse, a little mature, but still presentable of——”

“Shut up, you dog!”

“The dog,” said Ralph amiably, “is a man who takes advantage of his physique to obtain protection and promotion.”

With a hang-dog air and bowed head, Marescal walked up and down the room. Then he stopped before Ralph and said in the same low voice: [247]

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“What do you want for the letters?”

“Thirty shekels, like Judas.”

“Stop your fooling! How much?”

“Thirty millions.”

Marescal trembled with impatience and rage.

Ralph laughed and said: “You’ll make yourself ill, Rudolph. I’m a good fellow, and I like you—you’re so sympathetic. I’m not asking a cent for your comico-amorous literature. I value it too highly. There’s months and months’ amusement in it. But I demand——”

“What?”

“That you throw down your weapons, Marescal. Absolute peace for Aurelie and Bregeac, and even for Jodot and the Ancivels. I’m going to deal with them myself. Since the whole of this case from the police point of view is in your hands, and there is no actual proof, no real evidence, let it drop. It will be pigeon-holed.”

“And you’ll give me back the letters?”

“No. They’re a pledge; and I keep them. If you do not play fair, I publish some of them in all their simple crudeness. All the worse for you—all the worse for your pretty friends.”

The drops of sweat stood out on Marescal’s forehead. [248]

“I’ve been betrayed,” he snarled.

“Very likely,” Ralph agreed.

“Betrayed by her. For some time I’ve had a feeling that she was spying on me. It’s thanks to her that you’ve been able to manage this business exactly as you liked. She recommended you to her husband and had you placed with me.”

“What do you expect?” said Ralph cheerfully. “All’s fair in war. If you employ such discreditable means in your fighting, could I act otherwise, when it was a matter of defending Aurelie against your abominable hatred? And then you’ve been too simple, Rudolph. How could you suppose that a man like me would go to sleep for a month and wait on events and your good pleasure? You saw me act at Beaucourt, at Monte Carlo, and Sainte-Marie, and you saw me get away with the bottle and the paper? Why didn’t you take precautions?”

He shook him affectionately by the shoulder.

“Come, Marescal, don’t bow before the storm,” he went on. “You lose the game—be it so. But you have Bregeac’s resignation in your pocket, and since you stand well at Court, and his post has been promised you, it’s a great step forward. The good days will come again, Marescal, be sure of it. One condition however: don’t trust women. Don’t use them to rise in your profession, and don’t use your profession to succeed with them. Be a lover, if it’s your fancy, and [249]be a detective, if you like the job; but don’t be either a lover-detective, or a detective-lover. In conclusion, a word of advice: if ever you meet Arsène Lupin on your path, slip away by a by-path. For a detective, it’s the beginning of wisdom. I have spoken. Give your orders and—good-by.”

Marescal chafed at the bit. He turned and twisted in his fingers the points of his beard. Should he yield? Was he going to throw himself on his enemy and summon his giants? A storm in a skull, thought Ralph. Poor Rudolph, what use was it to struggle on?

Rudolph did not struggle long. He was too clearsighted not to see that any resistance would make the situation worse. He obeyed therefore with the air of a man who admits that he has to obey. He summoned Philippe and talked to him. Philippe went away with the policemen and the detectives. The front door opened and shut. Marescal had lost the battle.

Ralph turned to Aurelie.

“Everything is in order, Mademoiselle, and we have only to start. Your suit-case is down in the hall, isn’t it?”

She murmured as if she were awaking from a nightmare: “It is possible? No more prison? How did you get——”

“Oh,” he said quickly. “One gets everything one wants from Monsieur Marescal, by the exercise of a [250]little tact and reason. He’s a good fellow. Shake hands with him, Mademoiselle.”

Aurelie did not shake hands with him: she shrank away. Besides, Marescal had turned his back on her, and stood with his two elbows on the mantelpiece, his face buried in his hands. She showed a slight hesitation as she passed Bregeac. But he seemed wholly indifferent to her and was wearing a strange air which Ralph was to remember almost immediately.

“One word,” said Ralph, stopping in the doorway. “I undertake, in the presence of Marescal and your step-father, to conduct you to a quiet retreat, where you will not see me at all for a month. In a month I shall come to ask you how you intend to arrange your life. Do you agree?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then let us go.”

They went. But he had to put his arm round her on the staircase to support her; she was so shaken.

“My car is near here,” he said. “Do you think you’ll be strong enough to travel all night?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s such a joy for me to be free!” She paused and added in a low voice: “And such anguish!”

Just as they were leaving the house a muffled report came from an upper story. Ralph quivered; but Aurelie, in her feebleness, did not seem to have heard it. [251]

“I’ve forgotten something. There’s my car, down the street. There’s an old lady inside it, the old lady of whom I have already spoken to you, my old nurse. Will you go to her? I must just run upstairs and tell Marescal something. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

She turned down the street; he ran quickly upstairs.

In his study Bregeac was lying on a sofa in his death agony. A revolver, fallen from his nerveless hand, lay on the floor beside him. Marescal was bending over him. The blood poured from his mouth; a last shudder shook him; he did not move again.

“I ought to have foreseen it,” murmured Ralph. “His downfall—the loss of Aurelie. Poor devil! He has paid his debts.”

He said to Marescal: “Telephone for a doctor and get this business hushed up. Hemorrhage, is what it is. Don’t let there be any question of suicide. At any cost Aurelie must not hear about it at present. She is not strong enough. You can say that she’s ill in the country, staying at the house of a friend.”

Marescal grasped his wrist and said: “Answer me. Who are you? You’re Lupin, aren’t you?”

“Splendid!” said Ralph. “Professional curiosity always comes to the top.”

He faced Marescal, then turned his profile to him and then his three-quarter face, and said with a laugh: “You’ve seen it, duffer!” [252]

He ran downstairs quickly and caught Aurelie up; the old lady was helping her into the back of a comfortable limousine.

But, having, in accordance with his custom of always taking precautions, cast a look up and down the street, he said to Victoire: “You haven’t seen any one prowling about the car?”

“No one,” she declared.

“Are you sure? A rather stout man, accompanied by a man with his arm in a sling?” he persisted.

“Yes, of course I have! They were walking up and down on the pavement lower down the street.”

He started off at a run and overtook, in the little passage which runs round the church of Saint Philippe du Roule, two men, one of whom carried his arm in a sling.

He tapped them both on the shoulder and said cheerfully: “Well, well, well, so you know one another, you two? How goes it, Jodot? And you, William Ancivel?”

They turned. Jodot, dressed like a prosperous tradesman, thick-chested and with the hairy face of a vicious dog, showed no astonishment.

“Ah, it’s you, is it? The gentleman of Nice?” he said. “I said that it was you who was with the little girl just now.”

“And it’s also the gentleman of Toulouse,” said Ralph to William. And he went on: “What have you [253]been messing about here for, brave boys? You were watching Bregeac’s house. What?”

“For the last two hours,” said Jodot arrogantly. “The arrival of Marescal and his detectives and the police, the departure of Aurelie, we’ve seen everything.”

“Well?” said Ralph.

“Well, I suppose that you know all about the business, that you’ve been fishing in troubled waters, and that Aurelie slips away with you, while Bregeac fights it out with Marescal. Resignation without a doubt—probably arrest as well.”

“Bregeac has just killed himself,” said Ralph.

Jodot started: “What?” he said sharply. “Bregeac? Bregeac dead!”

Ralph gazed at them curiously for a moment; then he said: “Listen to me, both of you. I’ve forbidden you to meddle with this business. You, Jodot, murdered Etienne d’Asteux, you murdered Miss Bakersfield and were the cause of the death of the brothers Loubeaux, your friends, associates and confederates. Am I to hand you over to Marescal? And you, William, you’d better know that your mother has sold me all her secrets for a big sum, and on condition that you were left alone. That promise covers the past. But, if you start afresh, it does not hold any longer. Am I to break your other arm and hand you over to Marescal?” [254]

William, panic-stricken, was ready to give in. But Jodot held out.

“In a word, you’re to have the treasure,” he growled. “Nothing could be plainer.”

Ralph shrugged his shoulders and said: “You believe then in that treasure, do you?”

“I believe in it as you do,” growled Jodot. “I’ve been working on it for nearly twenty years; and I’m going to get away with it in spite of all your maneuvers.”

“Get away with it! You’ve got to find out first of all where it is and what it is,” said Ralph sharply.

“I know nothing and neither do you, no more than Bregeac. But the girl knows. And that’s why——”

“Would you like to go shares in it,” said Ralph laughing.

“It isn’t worth while. I shall manage to get my share of it, on my own, and a good share too. And all the worse for those who get in my way! I’ve more trumps in my hand than you think. Good evening. You’ve had your warning,” growled Jodot.

Ralph watched them walk away. The incident annoyed him. What the devil was this ill-omened bird of prey up to?

“Rubbish!” he murmured. “If he wishes to run after the car for two hundred and fifty miles, I shall be delighted to act as pace-maker.”

The next day, at noon, Aurelie awoke in an airy [255]room from which she saw, across gardens and meadows, the somber and majestic cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand. An old boarding-house, situated on a hill, and transformed into a sanatorium, afforded her a most discreet retreat and one well fitted to re-establish definitely her health.

There she passed peaceful weeks, speaking to no one but Ralph’s old nurse, walking in the park, dreaming for hours at a time, her eyes fixed on the town or on the mountains of the Puy-de-Dome of which the hills of Royat form the first strongholds.

Not once did Ralph come to see her. She found in her room flowers and fruit which his nurse brought her, books and magazines. Ralph kept out of sight in the little lanes which wound between the vineyards on the ridges hard by. He watched her from a distance and poured forth to her, in his heart, long speeches, teeming with the passion that grew more intense every day.

He gathered from her movements and her supple carriage that life was welling up in her, like an almost dried-up spring into which fresh water flows again. A dusk was falling over the hours of terror, the sinister faces, the corpses and the crimes and over and above forgetfulness there was the expansion of a tranquil happiness, serious and unconscious, sheltered from the past and even from the future.

“You are happy, lady with the green eyes,” he murmured. [256]“Happiness is a state of mind which allows one to live in the present. While suffering nourishes itself on painful memories and hopes by which it is not duped, happiness mingles itself with all the little things of everyday life and transforms them into elements of serenity and joy. Yes, you are happy. When you pluck the flowers or stretch yourself out on your lounge chair, you do it with an air of contentment.”

On the twentieth day came a letter from him inviting her to go for a motor drive one morning the following week. He had important things to discuss with her.

Without hesitating, she wrote to accept the invitation.

On the appointed morning she walked along the little rocky lanes which brought her down to the high road where Ralph was waiting.

When she caught sight of him, she stopped short in a sudden, disquieted confusion—like a woman who asks herself at a solemn moment whither she is directing her steps and whither circumstances are taking her. But he came to her quickly and signed to her to be silent. It was for him to say the words that must be said.

“I did not doubt that you would come,” he said. “You knew that we must see one another again because this tragic business is not yet at an end and certain parts of the problem still await solution. Which they are, is of little importance to you. You have given me [257]a commission to arrange everything, to solve everything and to do everything. You will simply obey me. You will let yourself be guided by my hand, and whatever happens, you will no longer be afraid. That is over, the fear which overwhelms and presents visions of hell. Isn’t that so? You will smile beforehand at the things that happen, and welcome them as friends.”

He held out his hand. She allowed him to press hers. She would have liked to speak and tell him that she was grateful, that she trusted him. But she must have understood the vanity of such words, for she was silent.

They started and passed through the old village of Royat, with its hot baths.

The hands of the church clock pointed to half-past eight. It was a Saturday, the fifteenth of August. The mountains rose under the sunniest of skies.

They did not exchange a word. But Ralph never ceased pouring out the tenderest protestations to her, in his heart.

“Well, so you detest me no longer, lady with the green eyes, you have forgotten my offense at our first meeting. And I, I have so much respect for you that I do not wish to remember it. Come: smile a little since you have now fallen into the habit of regarding me as your good genius. One smiles at one’s good genius.” [258]

She did not smile. But he felt that she was friendly and very close to him.

The car traveled for barely an hour. They came round the Puy-de-Dome and took a fairly narrow road which ran southwards, with zigzag ascents, and descents through the middle of green valleys and dark forests.

Then the road grew narrower and ran through a deserted, arid region and became steep. It was paved with enormous slabs of lava of different sizes, with large cracks between them.

“An old Roman causeway,” said Ralph. “There is not an old corner of France in which one does not find some relic of this kind, some road of Cæsar.”

She did not answer. Of a sudden she appeared to have grown absent-minded and dreamy.

The old Roman causeway was now little more than a goat path. The ascent of it was difficult. At the top of it was a small plateau in the middle of which stood an almost abandoned village. Aurelie read the name of it on a fingerpost: Juvains. Then came a wood, and then, of a sudden, a grassy plain of pleasing aspect. Then once more the Roman causeway, which climbed upwards, quite straight, between grassy embankments. At the top of this ladder they stopped. Aurelie had drawn more and more into herself. Ralph did not cease to watch her closely.

When they had mounted a series of boulders which [259]rose one above the other like a staircase, they came to a circular stretch of country, which delighted the eye with the fresh greenness of its turf. It was shut in by a high wall of rough stone, the mortar in which had not been destroyed by the bad weather of years. It stretched, right and left, to a distance. A large door in it faced them. Ralph had the key of it. He opened it. The ground continued to rise. When they had reached the crest of the slope, they saw before them a lake set in a glassy smoothness, in the hollow of a circle of rocks which rose evenly above it.

For the first time Aurelie asked a question; and it revealed the manner in which her mind had been working.

“May I ask whether, in bringing me here rather than somewhere else, you had a motive? Or was it just chance?” she said.

“The view is indeed rather gloomy,” said Ralph without answering her directly. “But all the same it displays a ruggedness and wild melancholy which are not without character. They tell me that tourists never make excursions to it. However, one can go for a row on the lake, as you see.”

He took her towards an old boat moored to a stake by a chain. She stepped into the stern and sat down without a word.

He took the oars and they moved gently over the surface. [260]

The water, slate-colored, did not reflect the blue of the sky but rather the somber hue of invisible clouds. From the end of the oars fell shining drops which looked to be as heavy as mercury; and it seemed astonishing that the boat could make its way through this, so to speak, metallic flood. Aurelie dipped her hand into it, but had to draw it out at once, so cold and unpleasant was the water.

“Oh!” she said and sighed.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” asked Ralph.

“Nothing—or at least—I don’t know.”

“You’re troubled—moved.”

“Moved, yes—I’m conscious of impressions which surprise and trouble me. It seems to me——”

She paused.

“It seems to you?” he said.

“I can’t quite tell you. It seems to me that I’m another creature—and that it isn’t you who are here. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he said smiling.

She murmured: “Don’t explain it to me. What I feel is rather painful, and yet for nothing in the world would I miss feeling it.”

The circle of cliffs, on the summit of which the great wall here and there appeared, ran at a radius of five or six hundred yards. Suddenly there appeared in the middle of it a hollow in which began a narrow channel, hidden by high walls from the rays of the sun. The [261]boat entered it. The rocks were blacker and gloomier. Aurelie gazed at them with amazement, for they were of strange shapes: crouching lions, massive chimneys, colossal statues, gigantic gargoyles.

Of a sudden, when they reached the middle of this fantastic corridor, they were, as it were, smitten by a blast of murmurs, faint and indistinct, which came, by the road they had themselves taken, from the regions they had left little more than an hour before.

They were the chiming of church bells, of smaller bells, clear notes of bell-metal, delicate and joyous notes, all a trembling of heavenly music, under which droned the big bell of the cathedral.

Aurelie turned faint. She understood now the meaning of her distress. The voices of the past, that mysterious past which she had done everything not to forget, echoed within and around her. They came echoing back from the cliffs in which granite was mingled with the lava of ancient volcanoes. They sprang from rock to rock, from statue to gargoyle, moved over the hard surface of the water, mounted to the blue strip of Heaven, fell again like spray to the bottom of the gulf, and went in rolling echoes towards the other end of the passage where shone the light of day.

Overcome, trembling with memories, she strove to struggle against so many emotions and braced herself not to succumb to them. But she was no longer strong [262]enough. The past weighed her down like a bending branch, and she bent her head, murmuring with a sob:

“Who are you? Who are you?”

She was astounded by this inconceivable miracle. Having never revealed the secret that had been instructed to her; guarding jealously, since her childhood, the treasure of remembrances over which her memory watched so dutifully, which she was not to hand over, according to her mother’s command, to any one but the man she should love, she felt herself wholly feeble before this strange being who read the very depths of her soul.

“Then I haven’t made a mistake? It is really here, is it not?” said Ralph, infinitely touched by the girl’s charming abandon.

“It is really here,” murmured Aurelie. “During the whole drive the things that met my eye seemed to me things I had already seen—the road—the trees—the paved causeway which rose between two embankments—and then this lake, these rocks, the color and the coldness of this water—and above all the sound of these bells! They are the same as long ago—they have come to our ears at the very spot at which they came to my mother, my mother’s father, and the little girl I then was. As to-day we came out of the shadow to enter the other part of the lake under as bright a sun.”

She had raised her eyes and was gazing ahead. In truth, another lake, smaller, but on a more grandiose [263]scale, opened before them, ringed by steeper cliffs and of an aspect of a yet more savage and more striking solitude.

One by one the memories awoke in her. She told Ralph of them quietly, as confidences one makes to a friend. She called up before his mind a little girl, happy, care-free, amused by the spectacle of the shapes and colors which she was again contemplating to-day, with her eyes shining with tears.

“It is as if you took me on a journey through your life,” said Ralph, in tones shaken by emotion. “And I take as much pleasure in seeing the scene on that long distant day as you in recalling it.”

She went on: “My mother was sitting where you are, and her father was facing her. I was holding my mother’s hand. Look, that tree all by itself, in that hollow in the cliff, it was there—and also those great red stains on that rock over there—and see how the cliffs narrow just as they did then. But there is no more of the channel—it’s the end of the lake. This other lake stretches in a curve like a half moon. We’re going to come to a quite small beach at the end of it. Look, there it is—with a waterfall on the left springing out of the cliff. There is another to the right of it. You’ll see the sand in a minute; it sparkles like mica. And there is a big grotto—yes, I’m sure of it—and at the entrance of this grotto——”

“At the entrance of this grotto?” [264]

“There was a man waiting for us, a queer-looking man with a long, gray beard and wearing a maroon blouse. We saw him from here, standing upright, very tall. Aren’t we going to see him now?”

“I thought that we should see him,” said Ralph. “And I’m very much astonished that we don’t. It’s nearly noon; and our appointment was at noon.” [265]