Conscience — Complete

CHAPTER XXXI. THE APPOINTMENT

“You should understand,” she said with a little more calmness—for, since he permitted her to speak, she hoped to convince him—“that I have done all I could to bring Madame Dammauville to the idea of calling, in consultation with Monsieur Balzajette, a doctor—”

“Which would be myself.”

“You or another; I have not mentioned any name. You should not think me awkward enough to put you forward clumsily; it would not be a good way to make you acceptable to an intelligent woman, and I value your dignity too much to lower it. I believed that another doctor than Monsieur Balzajette would find a remedy, some way, a miracle if you will, to enable Madame Dammauville to go to the Palais de justice, and I said it. I said it in every tone, in every way, with as much persuasion as I could put in my words. Was it not the life of my brother that I defended, our honor? At first, I found Madame Dammauville much opposed to this idea. She would be better soon, she felt it. Otherwise, if it were her duty to be carried to the Palais de justice, she would not hesitate.”

“She would do that?”

“Assuredly. No one has a stronger sense of justice. She would feel guilty did she not give her testimony to save an innocent person; not to save him when she could would be to take the responsibility of his loss. It is therefore certain that if she cannot go to court alone, she will do all she can to go, no matter how—on M. Balzajette’s arm, or on a stretcher. I was, then, easy enough on this side, but I was not for the stretcher. What would people think to see her in this condition? What impression would she make on the jury? Would not her appearance weaken the value of her testimony? As Madame Dammauville is fond of me, and very kind to me, I determined to profit by this kindness to urge a consultation, but without mentioning any name. I represented to her that, since M. Balzajette might say with every appearance of truth he had cured her, he should not be angry if she desired to ratify this cure. That besides, there was an imperative motive that would not permit her to wait, for it would be very disagreeable to her to present herself at the court of assizes in a theatrical way, which was not at all according to her character or habits. I easily discovered that the fear of giving pain to this old friend of her husband was the chief reason why she was opposed to this consultation. It was then that your name was pronounced.”

“You acknowledge it, then?”

“You will see how, and you will not be angry about it. I have often spoken to Madame Dammauville of mamma, and, consequently, of how you cured her paralysis, that resembled hers. It was not wrong, was it, to say what you have done for us? And without letting any one suspect my love, I could praise you, which my gratitude prompted. She asked me many questions, and naturally, as usual when I speak of you, when I have the joy of pronouncing your name, I answered in detail. That is not a crime?”

She waited a moment, looking at him. Without softening the hardness of his glance, he made a sign to her to continue.

“When I persisted on the consultation, Madame Dammauville recalled what I had said, and she was the first—you hear?—the first to pronounce your name. As you had cured my mother, I had the right to praise you. With a nature like hers, she would not have understood if I had not done it; she would have believed me ungrateful. I spoke of your book on the diseases of the spinal cord, which was quite natural; and as she manifested a desire to read it, I offered to lend it to her.”

“Was that natural?”

“With any but Madame Dammauville, no; but she is not frivolous. I took the book to her two days ago, and she has just told me that, after reading it, she has decided to send for you.”

“I shall certainly not go; she has her own physician.”

“Do not imagine that I have come to ask you to pay her a visit; all is arranged with Monsieur Balzajette, who will write to you or see you, I do not know which.”

“That will be very extraordinary on the part of Balzajette!”

“Perhaps you judge him harshly. When Madame Dammauville spoke to him of you he did not raise the smallest objection; on the contrary, he praised you. He says that you are one of the rare young men in whom one may have confidence. These are his own words that Madame Dammauville told me.”

“What do I care for the opinion of this old beast!”

“I am explaining how it happens that you are called into consultation; it is not because I spoke of you, but because you have inspired Monsieur Balzajette with confidence. However stupid he may be, he is just to you, and knows your value.”

It was come then, the time for the meeting that he did not wish to believe possible; and it was brought about in such a way that he did not see how he could escape it. He might refuse Phillis; but Balzajette? A colleague called him in consultation, and why should he not go? Had he foreseen this blow he would have left Paris until the trial was over, but he was taken unawares. What could he say to justify a sudden absence? He had no mother or brothers who might send for him, and with whom he would be obliged to remain. Besides, he wished to go to court; and since his testimony would carry considerable weight with the jury, it was his duty to be present on account of Florentin. It would be a contemptible cowardice to fail in this duty, and more, it would be an imprudence. In the eyes of the world he must appear to have nothing to fear, and this assurance, this confidence in himself, was one of the conditions of his safety. Now, if he went to court, and from every point of view it was impossible that he should not go, he would meet Madame Dammauville, as she intended to be carried there if she were unable to go in any other way. Whether it was at her house, or at the Palais de justice, the meeting was then certain, and in spite of what he had done, circumstances stronger than his will had prepared it and brought it about; nothing that he could do would prevent it.

The only question that deserved serious consideration just now was to know where this meeting would be the least dangerous for him—at Madame Dammauville’s or at the Palais?

He reflected silently, paying no more attention to Phillis than if she were not present, his eyes fixed, his brow contracted, his lips tightly closed, when the doorbell rang. As Joseph was at his post, Saniel did not move.

“If it is a patient,” Phillis said, who did not wish to go yet, “I will wait in the dining-room.”

And she rose.

Before she could leave the room, Joseph entered.

“Doctor Balzajette,” he said.

“You see!” Phillis cried.

Without replying, Saniel made a sign to Joseph to admit Doctor Balzajette, and while Phillis silently disappeared, he went toward the parlor.

Balzajette came forward with both hands extended.

“Good-day, my young ‘confrere’. I am enchanted to meet you.”

The reception was benevolent, amicable, and protecting, and Saniel replied at his best.

“Since we met the other day,” Balzajette continued, “I have thought of you. And nothing more natural than that, for you inspired me with a quick sympathy. The first time you came to see me you pleased me immediately, and I told you you would make your way. Do you remember?”

Assuredly he remembered; and of all the visits that he made to the doctors and druggists of his quarter, that to Balzajette was the hardest. It was impossible to show more pride, haughtiness, and disdain than Balzajette had put into his reception of the then unknown young man.

“I told you what I thought of you,” continued Balzajette. “It is with regard to this patient of whom you spoke to me; you remember?”

“Madame Dammauville?”

“Exactly. I put her on her feet, as I told you, but since then this bad weather has compelled her to take to her bed again. Without doubt, it is only an affair of a few days; but in the mean time, the poor woman is irritable and impatient. You know women, young ‘confrere’. To calm this impatience, I spontaneously proposed a consultation, and naturally pronounced your name, which is well known by your fine work on the medullary lesions. I supported it, as was proper, with the esteem that it has acquired, and I have the satisfaction to see it accepted.”

Saniel thanked him as if he believed in the perfect sincerity of this spontaneous proposition.

“I like the young, and whenever an occasion presents itself, I shall be happy to introduce you to my clientage. For Madame Dammauville, when can you go with me to see her?”

As Saniel appeared to hesitate, Balzajette, mistaking the cause of his silence, persisted.

“She is impatient,” he said. “Let us go the first day that is possible.”

He must reply, and in these conditions a refusal would be inexplicable.

“Will to-morrow suit you?” he asked.

“To-morrow, by all means. At what hour?”

Before replying, Saniel went to his desk and consulted an almanac, which appeared perfectly ridiculous to Balzajette.

“Does he imagine, the young ‘confrere’, that I am going to believe his time so fully occupied that he must make a special arrangement to give me an hour?”

But it was not an arrangement of this kind that Saniel sought. His almanac gave the rising and the setting of the sun, and it was the exact hour of sunset that he wished: “26 March, 6h. 20m.” At this moment it would not be dark enough at Madame Dammauville’s for lamps to be lighted, and yet it would be dark enough to prevent her from seeing him clearly in the uncertain light of evening.

“Will a quarter past six suit you? I will call for you at six o’clock.”

“Very well. Only I shall ask you to be very exact; I have a dinner at seven o’clock in the Rue Royale.”

Saniel promised promptness. The dinner was a favorable circumstance, enabling him to escape from Madame Dammauville’s before the lamps would be lighted.

When Balzajette was gone, he rejoined Phillis in the dining-room.

“A consultation is arranged for to-morrow at six o’clock, at Madame Dammauville’s.”

She threw herself on his breast.

“I knew that you would forgive me.”

CHAPTER XXXII. THE FATAL LIGHT

It was not without emotion that the next day Saniel saw the afternoon slip away, and although he worked to employ his time, he interrupted himself at each instant to look at the clock.

Sometimes he found the time passing quickly, and then all at once it seemed to stand still.

This agitation exasperated him, for calmness had never been more necessary than at this moment. A danger was before him, and it was only in being master of himself that he could be saved. He must have the coolness of a surgeon during an operation, the glance of a general in a battle; and the coolness and the glance were not found among the nervous and agitated.

Could he escape from this danger?

This was the question that he asked himself unceasingly, although he knew the uselessness of it. What good was it to study the chances for or against him?

Either he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable or he had not; but it was done, and now he could do nothing more. He did the best he could in choosing an hour when the dim evening light put the chances on his side; for the rest he must trust to Fortune.

All day he studied the sky, because for the success of his plan it must be neither too bright nor too dark: if it were too bright Madame Dammauville could see him clearly; if it were too dark the lamps would be lighted. He remembered that it was by lamplight she had seen him. Until evening the weather was uncertain, with a sky sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy; but at this hour the clouds were driven away by a wind from the north, and the weather became decidedly cold, with the pink and pale clearness of the end of March when it still freezes.

On examining himself he had the satisfaction to feel that he was calmer than in the morning, and that as the moment of attack approached, his agitation decreased; decision, firmness, and coolness came to him; he felt master of his will, and capable of obeying it.

At six o’clock precisely he rang at Balzajette’s door, and they started immediately for the Rue Sainte-Anne. Happy to have a complaisant listener, Balzajette did all the talking, so that Saniel had only to reply “yes” or “no” from time to time, and of course it was not of Madame Dammauville that he spoke, but other matters—of a first representation on the previous evening at the Opera Comique; of politics; of the next salon.

At exactly a quarter past six they reached the house in the Rue Sainte-Anne, where Saniel had not been since Caffies death. On passing the old concierge’s lodge he felt satisfied with himself; his heart did not beat too quickly, his ideas were firm and clear. Should danger arrive, he felt assured of mastery over himself, without excitement, as without brutality.

Balzajette rang the bell, and the door was opened by a maid, who was, evidently, placed in the vestibule to await their arrival. Balzajette entered first, and Saniel followed him, giving a hasty glance at the rooms through which they passed. They reached a door at which Balzajette knocked twice.

“Enter,” replied a feminine voice in a firm tone.

This was the decisive moment; the day was everything that could be wished, neither too light nor too dark. What would Madame Dammauville’s first glance mean?

“My confrere, Doctor Saniel,” Balzajette said on going toward Madame Dammauville, and taking her hand.

She was lying on the little bed of which Phillis had spoken, but not against the windows, rather in the middle of the room, placed there evidently after the experience of a sick person who knows that to be examined she must be easily seen.

Profiting by this arrangement, Saniel immediately passed between the bed and the windows in such a way that the daylight was behind him, and consequently his face was in shadow. This was done naturally, without affectation, and it seemed that he only took this side of the bed because Balzajette took the other.

Directed by Saniel, the examination commenced with a clearness and a precision that pleased Balzajette. He did not lose himself in idle words, the young ‘confrere’, any more than in useless details. He went straight to the end, only asking and seeking the indispensable; and as Madame Dammauville’s replies were as precise as his questions, while listening and putting in a word from time to time he said to himself that his dinner would not be delayed, which was the chief point of his preoccupation. Decidedly, he understood life, the young ‘confrere’; he might be called in consultation with his heavy appearance and careless toilet, there was no danger of rivalry.

However, when Madame Dammauville began to speak of being sensitive to cold, Balzajette found that Saniel let her lose herself in minute details.

“Have you always been sensitive to cold?”

“Yes; and with a deplorable disposition to take cold if the temperature is lowered one or two degrees.”

“Did you exercise in the open air?”

“Very little.”

“Were you ever advised to try shower-baths of cold water?”

“I should not have been able to bear it.”

“I must tell you,” Balzajette interrupted, “that before occupying this house that belongs to her, Madame Dammauville lived in a more modern apartment which was heated by a furnace, and where consequently it was easier to maintain an even temperature to which she was accustomed.”

“On coming to live in this house, where it is not possible to have a furnace,” Madame Dammauville went on, “I employed every means to shelter me from the cold, which I am sure is my great enemy. You can see that I have had weather-strips put at the doors, as well as at the windows.”

In spite of this invitation and the gesture which accompanied it, Saniel was careful not to turn his head toward the window; he kept his face in the shadow, contenting himself with looking at the door which was opposite to him.

“At the same time,” she continued, “I had hangings put on the walls, carpets on the floors, thick curtains at the windows and doors, and in spite of the large fire in my fireplace, often I am unable to get warm.”

“Do you also have a fire in this little stove?” Saniel asked, pointing to a small movable stove at the corner of the fireplace.

“Only at night, so that my servants need not get up every hour to replenish the fire in the chimney. The fire is made in the evening just before I go to sleep; the pipe is placed in the chimney, and it maintains sufficient heat until morning.”

“I think it will be expedient to suppress this mode of heating, which must be very inconvenient,” Saniel said; “and my ‘confrere’ and myself will consider the question whether it will not be possible to give you the heat you need with this chimney, without fatiguing your servants, and without waking you too often to take care of the fire. But let us continue.”

When he reached the end of his questions he rose to examine the patient on her bed, but without turning round, and in such a way as still to keep his back to the light.

As little by little the reflection of the setting sun faded, Balzajette proposed asking for a lamp: without replying too hastily, Saniel refused; it was useless, the daylight was sufficient.

They passed into the parlor, where they very quickly came to an amicable conclusion, for at everything that Saniel said Balzajette replied:

“I am happy to see that you partake of my opinion. That is it. Truly, that is so!”

And, besides, each had his reasons for hurrying—Saniel, for fear of the lamps; Balzajette, uneasiness for his dinner. The diagnosis and the treatment were rapidly settled; Saniel proposed, Balzajette approved. The question of the movable stove was decided in two words: for the night a grate would be placed in the chimney; a fire of coal covered with damp coal-dust would keep the fire until morning.

“Let us return,” Balzajette said, who took the initiative and decided on all material things.

Saniel, who kept his eyes on the windows, was calm; it was yet too light to need lamps, besides, during their tete-a-tete, no servant had crossed the salon to enter Madame Dammauville’s room.

But when Balzajette opened the door to return to the patient, a flood of light filled the parlor and enveloped them. A lamp with a shade was placed on the little table near the bed, and two other lighted lamps with globes were on the mantel, reflecting their light in the mirror. How had he not foreseen that there was another door to Madame Dammauville’s room besides the door from the parlor? But if he had foreseen it, it would not have lessened the danger of the situation.

He would have had time to prepare himself, that was all. But to prepare himself for what? Either to enter the room and brave this danger, or to fly. He entered.

“This is what we have decided,” Balzajette said, who never lost an occasion to put himself forward and to speak.

While he spoke, Madame Dammauville seemed not to listen to him. Her eyes were on Saniel, placed between her and the chimney with his back to the lamps, and she looked at him with a characteristic fixedness.

Balzajette, who listened to himself, observed nothing; but Saniel, who knew what there was behind this glance, could not but be struck with it. Happily for him, he had only to let Balzajette talk, for if he had spoken he would surely have betrayed himself by the quivering of his voice.

However, Balzajette seemed coming to the end of his explanations. Suddenly Saniel saw Madame Dammauville extend her hand toward the lamp on the table, and raise the shade by lowering it toward her in such a way as to form a reflector that threw the light on him. At the same time he received a bright ray full on his face.

Madame Dammauville uttered a small, stifled cry.

Balzajette stopped; then his astonished eyes went from Madame Dammauville to Saniel, and front Saniel to Madame Dammauville.

“Are you suffering?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

What, then, was the matter? But it was seldom that he asked for an explanation of a thing that astonished him, preferring to divine and to explain it himself.

“Ah! I understand it,” he said with a satisfied smile.

“The youth of my young ‘confrere’ astonishes you. It is his fault. Why the devil did he have his long hair and his light curled beard cut?”

If Madame Dammauville had not released the lampshade, she would have seen Saniel turned pale and his lips quiver.

“Mais voila!” continued Balzajette. “He made this sacrifice to his new functions; the student has disappeared before the professor.”

He might have continued along time. Neither Madame Dammauville nor Saniel listened to him; but, thinking of his dinner, he was not going to launch into a discourse that at any other moment he would not have failed to undertake. He rose to go.

As Saniel bowed, Madame Dammauville stopped him with a movement of her hand.

“Did you not know this unfortunate who was assassinated opposite?” she asked, pointing to the windows.

So serious as was an acknowledgment, Saniel could not answer in the negative.

“I was called in to prove his death,” he said.

And he took several steps toward the door, but she stopped him again.

“Had you business with him?” she asked.

“I saw him several times.”

Balzajette cut short this conversation, which was idle talk to him.

“Good evening, dear Madame. I will see you tomorrow, but not in the morning, for I go to the country at six o’clock, and shall not return until noon.”

CHAPTER XXXIII. SUSPENSE

“Did you observe how I cut the conversation short?” Balzajette said, as they went down-stairs. “If you listen to women they will never let you go. I cannot imagine why she spoke to you of this assassinated man, can you?”

“No.”

“I believe that this assassination has affected her brain to a certain point. In any case, it has given her a horror of this house.”

He continued thus without Saniel listening to what he said. On reaching the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Balzajette hailed a passing cab.

“You have had the kindness not to delay me,” he said, pressing the hand of his young ‘confrere’, “but I feel that I must hurry. ‘Au revoir’.”

A good riddance! This babbling gave Saniel the vertigo.

He must recover himself, look the situation in the face, and consider that which might, which must, happen.

The situation was plain; Madame Dammauville’s cry revealed it. When the lamplight struck him full in the face, she found in him the man whom she had seen draw Caffies curtains. If, in her amazement, she at first refused to believe it, her questions regarding Caffie, and Balzajette’s explanations about his hair and beard, destroyed her hesitation and replaced doubt by the horror of certainty. He was the assassin; she knew it, she had seen him. And such as she revealed herself to him, it seemed that she was not the woman to challenge the testimony of her eyes, and to let the strength of her memory be shaken by simple denials, supported by Balzajette’s words.

With a vivid clearness he saw to the bottom of the abyss open before him; but what he did not see was in what way she would push him into this giddy whirlpool, that is, to whom she would reveal the discovery that she had made. To Phillis, to Balzajette, or to the judge?

It was almost a relief to think that for this evening, at least, it would not be to Phillis, for at this moment she would be at his rooms, anxiously awaiting his return. He felt a sadness and a revulsion at the thought that she might be the first to learn the truth. He did not wish that, and he would prevent it.

This preoccupation gave him an object; he reached the Rue Louis-le-Grand thinking more of Phillis than of himself. What distress when she should know all! How could she support this blow, and with what sentiments would it inspire her, with what judgment for the man whom she loved? Poor girl! He grew tender at the thought. As for him, he was lost, and it was his fault; he bore the penalty of his own stupidity. But Phillis—it would be a blow to her love that she must bear. And what a blow to this sensitive heart, to this proud and noble soul!

Perhaps he would now see her for the last time, for this one hour, and never again. Then he would be kind to her, and leave her a memory that, later, would be an alleviation to her sorrow, a warm, bright ray in her time of mourning. During these last few days he had been hard, brutal, irritable, strange, and with her habitual serenity she had overlooked it all. When he pushed her from him with his heavy hand, she had kissed this hand, fastening on him her beautiful, tender eyes, full of passionate caresses. He must make her forget that, and she must carry from their last interview a tender impression that would sustain her.

What could he do for her? He remembered how happy she had been at their impromptu dinners six months before, and he would give her this same pleasure. He would see her happy again, and near her, under her glance, perhaps he would forget tomorrow.

He went to the caterer who furnished him with breakfast, and ordered two dinners to be sent to his rooms immediately.

Before he could put the key in the lock, his door was opened by Phillis, who recognized his step on the landing.

“Well?”

“Your brother is saved.”

“Madame Dammauville will go to court?”

“I promise you that he is saved.”

“By you?”

“Yes, by me—exactly.”

In her access of joy, she did not notice the accent on these last words.

“Then you forgive me?”

He took her in his arms, and kissing her with deep emotion said:

“With all my heart, I swear it!”

“You see it was written that you should see Madame Dammauville, in spite of yourself, in spite of all; it was providential.”

“It is certain that your friend Providence could not interfere more opportunely in my affairs.”

This time she was struck by the tone of his voice; but she imagined that it was only this allusion to superior intervention that had vexed him.

“It was of ourselves that I thought,” she said, “not of you.”

“I understood. But do not let us talk of that; you are happy, and I do not wish to shadow your joy. On the contrary, I thought to associate myself with it by giving you a surprise: we are going to dine together.”

“Oh, dearest!” she exclaimed, trembling, “how-good you are! I will set the table,” she added joyously, “and you light the fire; for we must have a bright fire to enliven us and to keep our dinner warm. What have you ordered?”

“I do not know; two dinners.”

“So much the better! We will have surprises. We will leave the dishes covered before the fire, and we will take them anyhow. Perhaps we shall eat the roast before the entree, but that will be all the more funny.”

Light, quick, busy, graceful, and charming, she came and went around the table.

When the dinner came, the table was ready, and they sat down opposite to each other.

“What happiness to be alone!” she said. “To be able to talk and to look at each other freely!”

He looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes that she had never before seen, with a depth of serious contemplation that overwhelmed her. From time to time little cries of happiness escaped her.

“Oh! Dearest, dearest!” she murmured.

Yet she knew him too well not to see that a cloud of sadness often veiled these eyes full of love, and that also they were often without any expression, as if they looked within. Suddenly she became quiet; but she could not long remain silent when she was uneasy. Why this melancholy at such a moment?

“What a difference between this dinner,” she said, “and those of the end of October! At that time you were harassed by the most trying difficulties, at war with creditors, menaced on all sides, without hope; and now all is smooth. No more creditors, no more struggles. The cares that I brought you are nearly at an end. Life opens easy and glorious. The end that you pursued is reached; you have only to walk straight before you, boldly and proudly. Yet there is a sadness in your face that torments me. What is the matter? Speak, I beg you! To whom should you confess, if not to the woman who adores you?”

He looked at her a long time without replying, asking himself if, for the peace of his own heart, this confession would not be better than silence; but courage failed him, pride closed his lips.

“What should be the matter?” he said. “If my face is sad, it does not indicate faithfully what I feel; for what I feel at this moment is an ineffable sentiment of tenderness for you, an inexpressible gratitude for your love, and for the happiness that you have given me. If I have been happy in my rough and struggling life, it is through you. What I have had of joy, confidence, hope, memories, I owe to you; and if we had not met I should have the right to say that I have been the most miserable among the miserable. Whatever happens to us, remember these words, my darling, and bury them in the depths of your heart, where you will find them some day when you would judge me.”

“To judge you—I!”

“You love me, therefore you do not know me. But the hour will come when you will wish to know exactly the man whom you have loved; when that time comes remember this evening.”

“It is too radiant for me to forget it.”

“Whatever it may be, remember it. Life is so fragile and so ephemeral a thing, that it is beautiful to be able to concentrate it, to sum it up by remembrance, in one hour that marks it and gives it its scope. Such an hour is this one, which passes while I speak to you with deep sincerity.”

Phillis was not accustomed to these ‘elanas’, for, in the rare effusions to which he sometimes abandoned himself, Saniel always observed a certain reserve, as if he feared to commit himself, and to let her read his whole nature. Many times he rallied her when she became sentimental, as he said, and “chantait sa romance;” and now he himself sang it—this romance of love.

Great as was her happiness to listen to him, she could not help feeling an uneasy astonishment, and asked herself under what melancholy impression he found himself at this moment.

He read her too well not to divine this uneasiness. Not wishing to betray himself, he brought a smile to his eyes, and said:

“You do not recognize me, do you? I am sure you are asking yourself if I am not ill.”

“Oh, dearest, do not jest, and do not harden yourself against the sentiment that makes such sweet music on your lips! I am happy, so happy, to hear you speak thus, that I would like to see your happiness equal to mine; to dissipate the dark cloud that veils your glance. Will you never abandon yourself? At this hour, above all, when everything sings and laughs within us as about us! Nothing was more natural than that you should be sad six months ago; but today what more do you want to make you happy?”

“Nothing, it is true.”

“Is not the present the radiant morning of a glorious future?”

“What will you? There are sad physiognomies as there are happy ones; mine is not yours. But let us talk no more of that, nor of the past, nor of the future; let us talk of the present.”

He rose, and, taking her in his arms, made her sit next to him on the sofa.

The sound of the doorbell made Saniel jump as if he had received an electric shock.

“You will not open the door?” Phillis said. “Do not let any one take our evening from us.”

But soon another ring, more decided, brought him to his feet.

“It is better to know,” he said, and he went to open the door, leaving Phillis in his office.

A maid handed him a letter.

“From Madame Dammauville,” she said; “there is an answer.”

He left her in the vestibule, and returned to his office to read the letter. The dream had not lasted long; reality seized him with its pitiless hands. This letter, certainly, would announce the blow that menaced him.

He returned to the vestibule.

“Say to Madame. Dammauville that I shall be there in a quarter of an hour.”

When he reentered the office he found Phillis before the glass, putting on her hat.

“I heard,” she said. “What a disappointment! But I cannot wish you to stay, since it is for Florentin that you leave me.”

As she walked toward the door he stopped her.

“Embrace me once more.”

Never had he pressed her in such a long and passionate embrace.

CHAPTER XXXIV. ON THE RACK

He had not a second of doubt; Madame Dammauville did not wish a professional visit from him. She wished to speak to him of Caffie, and, in the coming crisis, he said to himself that perhaps it was fortunate that it was so; at least he would be first to know what she had decided to do, and he could defend himself. Nothing is hopeless as long as a struggle is possible.

He rang the bell with a firm hand, and the door was opened by the maid who brought the letter. With a small lamp in her hand, she conducted him through the dining-room and the salon to Madame Dammauville’s bedroom.

At the threshold, a glance showed him that some changes had been made in the arrangement of the furniture. The small bed where he had seen Madame Dammauville was placed between the two windows, and she was lying in a large bed with canopy and curtains. Near her was a table on which were a shaded lamp, some books, a blotting-book, a teapot, and a cup; on the white quilt rested an unusually long bellrope, so that she might pull it without moving. The fire in the chimney was out, but the movable stove sent out a heat that denoted it was arranged for the night.

Saniel felt the heat, and mechanically unbuttoned his overcoat.

“If the heat is uncomfortable, will you not remove your overcoat?” Madame Dammauville said.

While he disposed of it and his hat, placing them on a chair by the fireplace, he heard Madame Dammauville say to her maid:

“Remain in the salon, and tell the cook not to go to bed.”

What did this mean? Was she afraid that he would cut her throat?

“Will you come close to my bed?” she said. “It is important that we should talk without raising our voices.”

He took a chair and seated himself at a certain distance from the bed, and in such a way that he was beyond the circle of light thrown by the lamp. Then he waited.

A moment of silence, which he found terribly long, slipped away before she spoke.

“You know,” she said at last, “how I saw, accidentally, from this place”—she pointed to one of the windows—“the face of the assassin of my unfortunate tenant, Monsieur Caffie.”

“Mademoiselle Cormier has told me,” he replied in a tone of ordinary conversation.

“Perhaps you are astonished that at such a distance I saw the face clearly enough to recognize it after five months, as if it were still before me.”

“It is extraordinary.”

“Not to those who have a memory for faces and attitudes; with me this memory has always been strongly developed. I remember the playmates of my childhood, and I see them as they were at six and ten years of age, without the slightest confusion in my mind.”

“The impressions of childhood are generally vivid and permanent.”

“This persistency does not only apply to my childish impressions. Today, I neither forget nor confound a physiognomy. Perhaps if I had had many acquaintances, and if I had seen a number of persons every day, there might be some confusion in my mind; but such is not the case. My delicate health has obliged me to lead a very quiet life, and I remember every one whom I have met. When I think of such a one, it is not of the name at first, but of the physiognomy. Each time that I have been to the Senate or to the Chamber, I did not need to ask the names of the deputies or senators who spoke; I had seen their portraits and I recognized them. If I go into these details it is because they are of great importance, as you will see.”

It was not necessary for her to point out their importance; he understood her only too well.

“In fine, I am thus,” she continued. “It is, therefore, not astonishing that the physiognomy and the attitude of the man who drew the curtains in Monsieur Caffie’s office should not leave my memory. You admit this, do you not?”

“Since you consult me, I must tell you that the operations of the memory are not so simple as people imagine. They comprise three things: the conservation of certain states, their reproduction and localization in the past, which should be reunited to constitute the perfect memory. Now this reunion does not always take place, and often the third is lacking.”

“I do not grasp your meaning very well. But what is the third thing?”

“Recognition.”

“Well, I can assure you that in this case it is not lacking!”

The action beginning in this way, it was of the utmost importance for Saniel that he should throw doubts in Madame Dammauville’s mind, and should make her think that this memory of which she felt so sure was not, perhaps, as strong or as perfect as she imagined.

“It is,” he said, “exactly this third thing that is the most delicate, the most complex of the three, since it supposes, besides the state of consciousness, some secondary states, variable in number and in degree, which, grouped around it, determine it.”

Madame Dammauville remained silent a moment, and Saniel saw that she made an effort to explain these obscure words to herself.

“I do not understand,” she said at last.

This was exactly what he wished; yet, as it would not be wise to let her believe that he desired to deceive or confuse her, he thought he might be a little more precise.

“I wish to ask,” he said, “if you are certain that in the mechanism of the vision and that of the recognition, which is a vision of the past, there is no confusion?”

She drew a long breath, evidently satisfied to get rid of these subtleties that troubled her.

“It is exactly because I admit the possibility of this confusion, at least in part, that I sent for you,” she said, “in order that you might establish it.”

Saniel appeared not to comprehend.

“I, Madame?”

“Yes. When you came herewith Monsieur Balzajette a few hours ago, you must have observed that I examined you in a way that was scarcely natural. Before the lamps were lighted, and when you turned your back to the daylight, I tried in vain to remember where I had seen you. I was certain that I found in you some points of resemblance to a physiognomy I had known, but the name attached to this physiognomy escaped me. When you returned, and I saw you more clearly by lamplight, my recollections became more exact; when I raised the lamp-shade the light struck you full in the face, and then your eyes, so characteristic, and at the same time a violent contraction of your features, made me recall the name. This physiognomy, these eyes, this face, belonged to the man whom from this place” she pointed to the window—“I saw draw Monsieur Caffies curtains.”

Saniel did not flinch.

“This is a resemblance that would be hard for me,” he said, “if your memory were faithful.”

“I tell myself that it may not be. And after the first feeling of surprise which made me cry out, I was confirmed in this thought on recalling the fact that you did not wear the long hair and blond beard that the man wore who drew the curtains; but at that moment Monsieur Balzajette spoke of the hair and beard that you had had cut. I was prostrated. However, I had the strength to ask if you had had any business with Monsieur Caffie. Do you remember your answer?”

“Perfectly.”

“After your departure I experienced a cruel anguish. It was you whom I had seen draw the curtains, and it could not be you. I tried to think what I ought to do—to inform the judge or to ask you for an interview. For a long time I wavered. At length I decided on the interview, and I wrote to you.”

“I have come at your call, but I declare that I do not know what to reply to this strange communication. You believe that you recognize in me the man who drew the curtains.”

“I recognize you.”

“Then what do you wish me to say? It is not a consultation that you ask of me?”

She believed she understood the meaning of this reply and divined its end.

“The question does not concern me,” she said, “neither my moral nor mental state, but yourself. My eyes, my memory, my conscience, bring a frightful accusation against you. I cannot believe my eyes or my memory. I challenge my conscience, and I ask you to reduce this accusation to nothing.”

“And how, Madame?”

“Oh, not by protestations!”

“How can you expect that a man in my position will lower himself to discuss accusations that rest on an hallucination?”

“Do you believe that I have hallucinations? If you do, call one of your ‘confreres’ to-morrow in consultation. If he believes as you do, I will submit; if not, I shall be convinced that I saw clearly, and I shall act accordingly.”

“If you saw clearly, Madame, and I am ready to concede this to you, it proves that there is some one somewhere who is my double.”

“I said this to myself; and it is exactly this idea that made me write to you. I wished to give you the opportunity of proving that you could not be this man.”

“You will agree that it is difficult for me to admit a discussion on such an accusation.”

“One may find one’s self accused by a concourse of fatal circumstances, and be not less innocent. Witness the unfortunate boy imprisoned for five months for a crime of which he is not guilty. And I pass from your innocence as from his, to ask you to prove that the charges against you are false.”

“There are no charges against me.”

“There may be; that depends upon yourself. Your hair and beard may have been cut at the time of the assassination; in that case it is quite certain that the man I saw was not you, and that I am the victim of an hallucination. Were they or were they not?”

“They were not; it is only a few days since I had them cut on account of a contagious disease.”

“It may be,” she continued, without appearing to be impressed by this explanation, “that the day of the assassination, at the hour when I saw you, you were occupied somewhere in such a way that you can prove you could not have been in the Rue Sainte-Anne, and that I was the victim of an hallucination. And again, it may be that at the time your position was not that of a man at the last extremity, forced to crime by misery or ambition, and that consequently you had no interest in committing the crime of a desperate man. What do I know? Twenty other means of defence may be in your hands.”

“You cited the example of this poor boy who is imprisoned, although innocent. Would it not be applicable to me if you did not recognize the error of your eyes or your memory? Would he not be condemned without your testimony? Should I not be if I do not find one that destroys your accusation? And I see no one from whom I can ask this testimony. Have you thought of the infamy with which such an accusation will cover me? If I repel it, and I shall repel it, will it not have dishonored me, ruined me forever?”

“It is just because I thought of this that I sent for you, to the end that by an explanation that you would give, it seemed to me, you would prevent me from informing the judge of this suspicion. This explanation you do not give me; I must now think only of him whose innocence is proved for me, and take his side against him whose guilt is not less proved. To-morrow I shall inform the judge.”

“You will not do that!”

“My duty compels me to; and whatever might come, I have always done my duty. For me, in this horrible affair, there is the cause of the innocent and of the guilty, and I place myself on the side of the innocent.”

“I can prove to you that it was an aberration of vision—”

“You will prove it to the judge; the law will appreciate it.”

He rose brusquely. She put her hand on the bellcord. They looked at each other for a moment, and what their lips did not express their eyes said:

“I do not fear you; my precautions are taken.”

“That bell will not save you.”

At last he spoke in a hoarse and quivering voice:

“To you the responsibility of whatever happens Madame.”

“I accept it before God,” she said, with a calm firmness. “Defend yourself.”

He went to the armchair on which he had placed his coat and hat, and bending down to take them, he noiselessly turned the draught of the stove.

At the same time Madame Dammauville pulled the bellcord; the maid opened the door of the salon.

“Show Doctor Saniel to the door.”