CHAPTER VIII. FACE TO FACE
As the two approached the mansion where George Fournel lived, they saw the door open and a man come hurriedly out into the street. He wore his wrist in a sling.
Madelinette caught Madame Marie’s arm. She did not speak, but her heart sank within her. The man was Tardif.
He saw them and shuffled over.
“Ha, Madame,” he said, “he has the will, and I’ve not done with you yet—you’ll see.” Then, shaking a fist in Madelinette’s face, he clattered off into the darkness.
They crossed the street, and Madame Marie knocked at Fournel’s door. It was at once opened, and Madelinette announced herself. The servant stared stonily at first, then, as she mentioned her name and he saw her face, he suddenly became servile, and asked them into a small waiting-room. Monsieur Fournel was at home, and should be informed at once of Madame’s arrival.
A few moments later the servant, somewhat graver, but as courteous still, came to say that Monsieur would receive her in his library. Madelinette turned towards Madame Marie. The servant understood.
“I shall see that the lady has refreshment,” he said. “Will Madame perhaps care for refreshment—and a mirror, before Monsieur has the honour?—Madame has travelled far.”
In spite of the anxiety of the moment and the great matters at stake, Madelinette could not but smile. “Thank you,” she said, “I hope I’m not so unpresentable.”
“A little dust here and there perhaps, Madame,” he said, with humble courtesy.
Madelinette was not so heroical as to undervalue the suggestion. Lives perhaps were in the balance, but she was a woman, and who could tell what slight influences might turn the scale!
The servant saw her hesitation. “If Madame will but remain here, I will bring what is necessary,” he said, and was gone. In a moment he appeared again with a silver basin, a mirror, and a few necessaries of the toilet.
“I suppose, Madame,” said the servant, with fluttered anxiety, to show that he knew who she was, “I suppose you have had sometimes to make rough shifts, even in palaces.”
She gave him a gold piece. It cheered her in the moment to think that in this forbidding house, on a forbidding mission, to a forbidding man, she had one friend. She made a hasty toilet, and but for the great paleness of her cheeks, no traces remained of the three days’ travel with their hardship and anxiety. Presently, as the servant ushered her into the presence of George Fournel, even the paleness was warmed a little by the excitement of the moment.
Fournel was standing with his back to the door, looking out into the moonlit night. As she entered he quickly drew the curtains of the windows and turned towards his visitor, a curious, hard, disdainful look in his face. In his hands he held a paper which she knew only too well.
“Madame,” he said, and bowed. Then he motioned her to a chair. He took one himself and sat down beside the great oak writing-desk and waited for her to speak—waited with a look which sent the blood from her heart to colour her cheeks and forehead.
She did not speak, however, but looked at him fearlessly. It was impossible for her to humble herself before the latent insolence of his look. It seemed to degrade her out of all consideration. He felt the courage of her defiance, and it moved him. Yet he could but speak in cynical suggestion.
“You had a long, hard, and adventurous journey,” he said. He rose suddenly and drew a tray towards him. “Will you not have some refreshment?” he added, in an even voice. “I fear you have not had time to seek it at an inn. Your messenger has but just gone.”
It was impossible for him to do justice to himself, or to let his hospitality rest upon its basis of natural courtesy. It was clear that he was moved with accumulated malice, and he could not hide it.
“Your servant has been hospitable,” she said, her voice trembling a little. She plunged at once into the business of her visit.
“Monsieur, that paper you hold—” she stopped for an instant, able to go no further.
“Ah, this—this document you have sent me,” he said, opening it with an assumed carelessness. “Your servant had an accident—I suppose we may call it that privately—as he came. He was fired at—was wounded. You will share with me the hope that the highwayman who stopped him may be brought to justice, though, indeed, your man Tardif left him behind in the dust. Perhaps you came upon him, Madame—hein?”
She steeled herself. Too much was at stake; she could not resent his hateful implications now.
“Tardif was not my messenger, Monsieur, as you know. Tardif was the thief of that document in your hands.”
“Yes, this—will!” he said musingly, an evil glitter in his eyes. “Its delivery has been long delayed. Posts and messengers are slow from Pontiac.”
“Monsieur will hear what I have to say? You have the will, your rights are in your hands. Is not that enough?”
“It is not enough,” he answered, in a grating voice. “Let us be plain then, Madame, and as simple as you please. You concealed this will. Not Tardif but yourself is open to the law.”
She shrank under the brutality of his manner, but she ruled herself to outward composure. She was about to reply when he added, with a sneer: “Avarice is a debasing vice—Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house! Thou shalt not steal!”
“Monsieur,” she said calmly, “it would have been easy to destroy the will. Have you not thought of that?”
For a moment he was taken aback, but he said harshly: “If crime were always intelligent, it would have fewer penalties.”
She shrank again under the roughness of his words. But she was fighting for an end that was dear to her soul, and she answered:
“It was not lack of intelligence, but a sense of honour—yes, a sense of honour,” she insisted, as he threw back his head and laughed. “What do you think might be my reason for concealing the will—if I did conceal it?”
“The answer seems obvious. Why does the wild ass forage with a strange herd, or the pig put his feet in the trough? Not for his neighbour’s gain, Madame, not in a thousand years.”
“Monsieur, I have never been spoken to so coarsely. I am a blacksmith’s daughter, and I have heard rough men talk in my day, but I have never heard a man—of my own race at least—so rude to a woman. But I am here not for my own sake; I will not go till I have said and done all I have come to say and do. Will you listen to me, Monsieur?”
“I have made my charges—answer them. Disprove this theft”—he held up the will—“of concealment, and enjoyment of property not your own, and then ask of me that politeness which makes so beautiful stable and forge at Pontiac.”
“Monsieur, you cannot think that the will was concealed for profit, for the value of the Seigneury of Pontiac. I can earn two such seigneuries in one year, Monsieur.”
“Nevertheless you do not.”
“For the same reason that I did not bring or send that will to you when I found it, Monsieur. And for that same reason I have come to ask you not to take advantage of that will.”
He was about to interpose angrily, but she continued: “Whatever the rental may be that you in justice feel should be put upon the Seigneury, I will pay—from the hour my husband entered on the property, its heir as he believed. Put such rental on the property, do not disturb Monsieur Racine in his position as it is, and I will double that rental.”
“Do not think, Madame, that I am as avaricious as you.”
“Is it avaricious to offer double the worth of the rental?”
“There is the title and distinction. You married a mad nobody; you wish to retain an honour that belongs to me.”
“I am asking it for my husband’s sake, not my own, believe me, Monsieur.”
“And what do you expect me to do for his sake, Madame?”
“What humanity would suggest. Ah, I know what you would say: he tried to kill you; he made you fight him. But, Monsieur, he has repented of that. He is ill, he is—crippled, he cherishes the Seigneury beyond its worth a thousand times.”
“He cherishes it at my expense. So, you must not disturb the man who robs you of house and land, and tries to murder you, lest he should be disturbed and not sleep o’ nights. Come, Madame, that is too thin.”
“He might kill you, but he would not rob you, Monsieur. Do you think that if he knew that will existed, he would be now at the Seigneury, or I here? I know you hate Louis Racine.”
“With ample reason.”
“You hate him more because he defeated you than because he once tried to kill you. Oh, I do not know the rights or wrongs of that great case at law; I only know that Louis Racine was not the judge or jury, but the avocat only, whose duty it was to do as he did. That he did it the more gladly because he was a Frenchman and you an Englishman, is not his fault or yours either. Louis Racine’s people came here two hundred years ago, yours not sixty years ago. You, the great business man, have had practical power which gave you riches. You have sacrificed all for power. Louis Racine has only genius, and no practical power.”
“A dangerous fanatic and dreamer,” he interjected. “A dreamer, if you will, with no practical power, for he never thought of himself, and 'practical power’ is usually all self. He dreamed—he gave his heart and soul up for ideas. Englishmen do not understand that. Do you not know—you do know—that, had he chosen, he might have been rich too, for his brains would have been of great use to men of practical power like yourself.”
She paused; Fournel did not answer, but sat as though reading the will intently.
“Was it strange that he should dream of a French sovereign state here, where his people came and first possessed the land? Can you wonder that this dreamer, when the Seigneury of Pontiac came to him, felt as if a new life were opened up to him, and saw a way to some of his ambitions. They were sad, mistaken ambitions, doomed to failure, but they were also his very heart, which he would empty out gladly for an idea. The Seigneury of Pontiac came to him, and I married him.”
“Evidently bent upon wrecking the chances of a great career,” interrupted Fournel over the paper.
“But no; I also cared more for ideas than for the sordid things of life. It is in our blood, you see” she was talking with less restraint now, for she saw he was listening, despite assumed indifference—“and Pontiac was dearer to me than all else in the world. Louis Racine belonged there. You—what sort of place would you, an Englishman, have occupied at the Seigneury of Pontiac! What kind—”
He got suddenly to his feet. He was a man of strange whims and vanities, and his resentment at his exclusion from the Seigneury of Pontiac had become a fixed idea. He had hugged the thought of its possession before M. de la Riviere died, as a man humbly born prides himself on the distinguished lineage of his wife. His great schemes were completed, he was a rich man, and he had pictured himself retiring to this Seigneury, a peaceful and practical figure, living out his days in a refined repose which his earlier life had never known. She had touched the raw nerves of his secret vanity.
“What kind of Seigneur would I make, eh? What sort of figure would I cut in Pontiac!” He laughed loudly. “By heaven, Madame, you shall see! I did not move against his outrage and assault, but I will move to purpose now. For you and he shall leave there in disgrace before another week goes round. I have you both in my ‘practical power,’ and I will squeeze satisfaction out of you. He is a ruffianly interloper, and you, Madame, the law would call by another name.”
She got quickly to her feet and came a step nearer to him. Leaning a hand on the table, she bent towards him slightly. Something seemed to possess her that transfigured her face, and gave it a sense of power and confidence. Her eyes fixed themselves steadily on him.
“Monsieur,” she said, “you may call me what you will, and I will bear it, for you have been sorely injured. You are angry because I seemed to think an Englishman was not fitted to be Seigneur of Pontiac. We French are a people of sentiments and ideas; we make idols of trifles, and we die for fancies. We dream, we have shrines for memories. These things you despise. You would give us justice and make us rich by what you call progress. Monsieur, that is not enough. We are not born to appreciate you. Our hearts are higher than our heads, and, under a flag that conquered us, they cling together. Was it strange that I should think Louis Racine better suited to be Seigneur at Pontiac?”
She paused as though expecting him to answer, but he only looked inquiringly at her, and she continued “My husband used you ill, but he is no interloper. He took what the law gave him, what has been in his family for over two hundred years. Monsieur, it has meant more to him than a hundred times greater honour could to you. When his trouble came, when—” she paused, as though it was difficult to speak—“when the other—legacy—of his family descended on him, that Seigneury became to him the one compensation of his life. By right of it only could he look the world in the face—or me.”
She stopped suddenly, for her voice choked her. “Will you please continue?” said Fournel, opening and shutting the will in his hand, and looking at her with a curious new consideration.
“Fame came to me as his trouble came to him. It was hard for him to go among men, but, ah, can you think how he dreaded the day when I should return to Pontiac!... I will tell you the whole truth, Monsieur.” She drew herself up proudly. “I loved—Louis. He came into my heart with its first great dream, and before life—the business of life—really began. He was one with the best part of me, the girlhood in me which is dead.”
Fournel rose and in a low voice said: “Will you not sit down?” He motioned to a chair.
She shook her head. “Ah no, please! Let me say all quickly and while I have the courage. I loved him, and he loved and loves me. I love that love in which I married him, and I love his love for me. It is indestructible, because it is in the fibre of my life. It has nothing to do with ugliness or beauty, or fortune or misfortune, or shame or happiness, or sin or holiness. When it becomes part of us, it must go on in one form or another, but it cannot die. It lives in breath and song and thought and work and words. That is the wonder of it, the pity of it, and the joy of it. Because it is so, because love would shield the beloved from itself if need be, and from all the terrors of the world at any cost, I have done what I have done. I did it at cost of my honour, but it was for his sake; at the price of my peace, but to spare him. Ah, Monsieur, the days of life are not many for him: his shame and his futile aims are killing him. The clouds will soon close over, and his vexed brain and body will be still. To spare him the last turn of the wheel of torture, to give him the one bare honour left him yet a little while, I have given up my work of life to comfort him. I concealed, I stole, if you will, the document you hold. And, God help me! I would do it again and yet again, if I lost my soul for ever, Monsieur. Monsieur, I know that in his madness he would have killed you, but it was his suffering, not a bad heart, that made him do it. Do a sorrowful woman a great kindness and spare him, Monsieur.”
She had held the man motionless and staring. When she ended, he got to his feet and came near to her. There was a curious look in his face, half struggle, half mysterious purpose. “The way is easy to a hundred times as much,” he said, in a low meaning voice, and his eyes boldly held hers. “You are doing a chivalrous sort of thing that only a woman would do—for duty; do something for another reason: for what a woman would do—for the blood of youth that is in her.” He reached out a hand to lay it on her arm. “Ask of me what you will, if you but put your hand in mine and—”
“Monsieur,” she said, pale and gasping, “do you think so ill of me then? Do I seem to you like—!” She turned away, her eyes dry and burning, her body trembling with shame.
“You are here alone with me at night,” he persisted. “It would not be easy to—”
“Death would be easy, Monsieur,” she said calmly and coldly. “My husband tried to kill you. You would do—ah, but let me pass!” she said, with a sudden fury. “You—if you were a million times richer, if you could ruin me for ever, do you think—”
“Hush, Madame,” he said, with a sudden change of voice and a manner all reverence. “I do not think. I spoke only to hear you speak in reply: only to know to the uttermost what you were. Madame,” he added, in a shaking voice, “I did not know that such a woman lived. Madame, I could have sworn there was none in the world.” Then in a quicker, huskier note he added: “Eighteen years ago a woman nearly spoiled my life. She was as beautiful as you, but her heart was tainted. Since then I have never believed in any woman—never till now. I have said that all were purchasable—at a price. I unsay that now. I have not believed in any one—”
“Oh, Monsieur!” she said, with a quick impulsive gesture towards him, and her face lighting with sympathy.
“I was struck too hard—”
She touched his arm and said gently: “Some are hurt in one way and some in another; all are hurt some time, but—”
“You shall have your way,” he interrupted, and moved apart.
“Ah, Monsieur, Monsieur, it is a noble act!—” she hurriedly rejoined, then with a sudden cry rushed towards him, for he was lighting the will at the flame of a candle near him.
“But no, no, no, you shall not do it,” she cried. “I only asked it for while he lives—ah!”
She collapsed with a cry of despair, for he had held the flaming paper above her reach, and its ashes were now scattering on the floor.
“You will let me give you some wine?” he said quietly, and poured out a glassful.
CHAPTER IX. THE BITER BITTEN
Madelinette was faint, and, sitting down, she drank the wine feebly, then leaned her head against the back of the chair, her face turned from Fournel.
“Forgive me, if you can,” he said. “You have this to comfort you, that if friendship is a boon in this world you have an honest friend in George Fournel.”
She made a gesture of assent with her hand, but she did not speak. Tears were stealing quietly down her cold face. For a moment so, in silence, and then she rose to her feet, and pulled down over her face the veil she wore. She was about to hold out her hand to him to say good-bye, when there was a noise without, a knocking at the door, then it was flung open, and Tardif, intoxicated, entered followed by two constables, with Fournel’s servant vainly protesting.
“Here she is,” Tardif said to the officers of the law, pointing to Madelinette. “It was her set the fellow on to shoot me. I had the will she stole from him,” he added, pointing to Fournel.
Distressed as Madelinette was, she was composed and ready.
“The man was dismissed my employ—” she began, but Fournel interposed.
“What is this I hear about shooting and a will?” he said sternly.
“What will!” cried Tardif. “The will I brought you from Pontiac, and Madame there followed, and her servant shot me. The will I brought you, M’sieu’. The will leaving the Manor of Pontiac to you!”
Fournel turned as though with sudden anger to the officers. “You come here—you enter my house to interfere with a guest of mine, on the charge of a drunken scoundrel like this! What is this talk of wills! The vapourings of his drunken brain. The Seigneury of Pontiac belongs to Monsieur Racine, and but three days since Madame here dismissed this fellow for pilfering and other misdemeanours. As for shooting—the man is a liar, and—”
“Ah, do you deny that I came to you?—” began Tardif.
“Constables,” said Fournel, “I give this fellow in charge. Take him to gaol, and I will appear at court against him when called upon.”
Tardif’s rage choked him. He tried to speak once or twice, then began to shriek an imprecation at Fournel; but the constables clapped hands on his mouth, and dragged him out of the room and out of the house.
Fournel saw him safely out, then returned to Madelinette. “Do not fear for the fellow. A little gaol will do him good. I will see to it that he gives no trouble, Madame,” he said. “You may trust me.”
“I do trust you, Monsieur,” Madelinette answered quietly. “I pray that you may be right, and that—” “It will all come out right,” he firmly insisted. “Will you ask for Madame Marie?” she said. Then with a smile: “We will go happier than we came.”
As she and Madame Marie passed from the house, Fournel shook Madelinette’s hand warmly, and said: “‘All’s well that ends well.’”
“That ends well,” answered Madelinette, with a sorrowful questioning in her voice.
“We will make it so,” he rejoined, and then they parted.
CHAPTER X. THE DOOR THAT WOULD NOT OPEN
The old Manor House of Pontiac was alive with light and merriment. It was the early autumn; not cool enough for the doors and windows to be shut, but cool enough to make dancing a pleasure, and to give spirit to the gaiety that filled the old house. The occasion was a notable one for Pontiac. An address of congratulation and appreciation and a splendid gift of silver had been brought to the Manor from the capital by certain high officials of the Government and the Army, representing the people of the Province. At first Madelinette had shrunk from the honour to be done her, and had so written to certain quarters whence the movement had proceeded; but a letter had come to her which had changed her mind. This letter was signed George Fournel. Fournel had a right to ask a favour of her; and one that was to do her honour seemed the least that she might grant. He had suffered much at Louis’ hands; he had forborne much; and by an act of noble forgiveness and generosity, had left Louis undisturbed in an honour which was not his, and the enjoyment of an estate to which he had no claim. He had given much, suffered much, and had had nothing in return save her measureless and voiceless gratitude. Friendship she could give him; but it was a silent friendship, an incompanionable friendship, founded upon a secret and chivalrous act. He was in Quebec and she in Pontiac; and since that day when he had burned the will before her eyes she had not seen him. She had heard from him but twice; once to tell her that she need have no fear of Tardif, and again, when he urged her to accept the testimonial and the gift to be offered by her grateful fellow-citizens.
The deputation, distinguished and important, had been received by the people of Pontiac with the flaunting of flags, playing of bands, and every demonstration of delight. The honour done to Madelinette was an honour done to Pontiac, and Pontiac had never felt itself so important. It realised that this kind of demonstration was less expensive, and less dangerous, than sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion. The vanity of the habitants could be better exercised in applauding Madelinette and in show of welcome to the great men of the land, than in cultivating a dangerous patriotism under the leadership of Louis Racine. Temptations to conspiracy had been few since the day George Fournel, wounded and morose, left the Manor House secretly one night, and carried back to Quebec his resentment and his injuries. Treasonable gossip filtered no longer from doorway to doorway; carbines were not to be had for a song; no more nightly drills and weekly meetings gave a spice of great expectations to their life. Their Seigneur, silent, and pale, and stooped, lived a life apart. If he walked through the town, it was with bitter, abstracted eyes that took little heed of their presence. If he drove, his horses travelled like the wind. At Mass, he looked at no one, saw no one, and, as it would seem, heard no one.
But Madelinette—she was the Madelinette of old, simple, gracious, kind, with a smile here and a kind word there: a little child to be caressed or an old woman to be comforted; the sick to be fed and doctored; the poor to be helped; the idle to be rebuked with a persuasive smile; the angry to be coaxed by a humorous word; the evil to be reproved by a fearless friendliness; the spiteful to be hushed by a still, commanding presence. She never seemed to remember that she was the daughter of old Joe Lajeunesse the blacksmith, yet she never seemed to forget it. She was the wife of the Seigneur, and she was the daughter of the smithy-man too. She sat in the smithy-man’s doorway with her hand in his; and she sat at the Manor table with its silver glitter, and its antique garnishings, with as real an unconsciousness.
Her influence seemed to pierce far and wide. The Cure and the Avocat adored her; and the proudest, happiest moment of their lives was when they sat at the Manor table, or, in the sombre drawing-room, watched her give it light and grace and charm, and fill their hearts with the piercing delight of her song. So her life had gone on; to the outward world serene and happy, full of simplicity, charity, and good works. What it was in reality no one could know, not even herself. Since the day when Louis had tried to kill George Fournel, life had been a different thing for them both. On her part she had been deeply hurt; wounded beyond repair. He had failed her from every vital stand-point, he had not fulfilled one hope she had ever had of him. But she laid the blame not at his door; she rather shrank with inner bitterness from the cynical cruelty of nature, which, in deforming the body, with a merciless cruelty had deformed a noble mind. These things were between her and her inmost soul.
To Louis she was ever the same, affectionate, gentle, and unselfish; but her stronger soul ruled him without his knowledge, commanded his perturbed spirit into the abstracted quiet and bitter silence wherein he lived, and which she sought to cheer by a thousand happy devices. She did not let him think that she was giving up anything for him; no word or act of hers could have suggested to him the sacrifices she had made. He knew them, still he did not know them in their fulness; he was grateful, but his gratitude did not compass the splendid self-effacing devotion with which she denied herself the glorious career that had lain before her. Morbid and self-centred, he could not understand. Since her return from Quebec she had sought to give a little touch of gaiety to their life, and she had not the heart to interfere with his constant insistence on the little dignities of the position of Seigneur, ironical as they all were in her eyes. She had sacrificed everything; and since another also had sacrificed himself to give her husband the honours and estate he possessed, the game should be delicately played to the unseen end.
So it had gone on until the coming of the deputation with the testimonial and the gift. She had proposed the gaieties of the occasion to Louis with so simple a cheerfulness, that he had no idea of the torture it meant to her; no realisation of how she would be brought face to face with the life that she had given up for his sake. But neither he nor she was aware of one thing, that the beautiful embossed address contained an appeal to her to return to the world of song which she had renounced, to go forth once more and contribute to the happiness of humanity.
When, therefore, in the drawing-room of the Manor, the address was read to her, and this appeal rang upon her ears, she felt herself turn dizzy and faint: her whole life seemed to reel backwards to all she had lost, and the tyranny of the present bore down upon her with a cruel weight. It needed all her courage and all her innate strength to rule herself to composure. For an instant the people in the room were a confused mass, floating away into a blind distance. She heard, however, the quick breathing of the Seigneur beside her, and it called her back to an active and necessary confidence.
With a smile she received the address, and, turning, handed it to Louis, smiling at him too with a winning duplicity, for which she might never have to ask forgiveness in this world or the next. Then she turned and spoke. Eloquently, simply, she gave out her thanks for the gift of silver and the greater gift of kind words; and said that in her quiet life, apart from that active world of the stage, where sorrow and sordid experience went hand in hand with song, where the delights of home were sacrificed to the applause of the world, she would cherish their gift as a reward that she might have earned, had she chosen the public instead of the private way of life. They had told her of the paths of glory, but she was walking the homeward way.
Thus deftly, and without strain, and with an air of happiness even, did she set aside the words and the appeal which had created a storm in her soul. A few moments afterwards, as the old house rang to the laughter of old and young, with dancing well begun, no one would have thought that the Manor of Pontiac was not the home of peace and joy. Even Louis himself, who had had his moments of torture and suspicion when the appeal was read, was now in a kind of happy reaction. He moved about among the guests with less abstraction and more cheerfulness than he had shown for months. He carried in his hand the address which Madelinette had handed him. Again and again he showed it to eager guests.
Suddenly, as he was about to fold it up for the last time and carry it to the library, he saw the name of George Fournel among the signatures. Stunned, dumfounded, he left the room. George Fournel, whom he had tried to kill, had signed this address of congratulation to his wife! Was it Fournel’s intention thus to show that he had forgiven and forgotten? It was not like the man to either forgive or forget. What did it mean? He left the house buried in morbid speculation, and involuntarily made his way to a little hut of two rooms which he had built in the Seigneury grounds. Here it was he read and wrote, here he had spent moody hours alone, day after day, for months past. He was not aware that some one left the crowd about the house and followed him. Arrived at the hut, he entered and shut the door; lighted candles, and spread the embossed parchment out before him upon the table. As he stood looking at it, he heard the door open behind him. Tardif stood before him.
The face of Tardif had an evil hunted look. Before the astonished and suspicious Seigneur had chance to challenge him, he said in a low insolent tone:
“Good evening, M’sieu’! Fine doings at the Manor—eh?
“What are you doing at the Manor, and what are you doing here?” asked the Seigneur, scanning the face of the man closely; for there was a look in it he did not understand.
“I have as much right to be here as you, M’sieu’.”
“You have no right at all to be here. You were dismissed your place by the mistress of this Manor.”
“There is no mistress of this Manor.”
“Madame Racine dismissed you.”
“And I dismissed Madame Racine,” answered the man with a sneer.
“You are training for the horsewhip. You forget that, as Seigneur, I have power to give you summary punishment.”
“You haven’t power to do anything at all, M’sieu’!” The Seigneur started. He thought the remark had reference to his physical disability. His fingers itched to take the creature by the throat, and choke the tongue from his mouth. Before he could speak, the man continued with a half-drunken grimace:
“You, with your tributes, and your courts, and your body-guards! Bah! You’d have a gibbet if you could, wouldn’t you? You with your rebellion and your tinpot honours! A puling baby could conspire as well as you. And all the world laughing at you—v’la!”
“Get out of this room and take your feet from my Manor, Tardif,” said the Seigneur with a deadly quietness, “or it will be the worse for you.”
“Your Manor—pish!” The man laughed a hateful laugh. “Your Manor? You haven’t any Manor. You haven’t anything but what you carry on your back.”
A flush passed swiftly over the Seigneur’s face, then left it cold and white, and the eyes shone fiery in his head. He felt some shameful meaning in the man’s words, beyond this gross reference to his deformity.
“I am Seigneur of this Manor, and you have taken wages from me, and eaten my bread, slept under my roof, and—”
“I’ve no more eaten your bread and slept under your roof than you have. Pish! You were living then on another man’s fortune, now you’re living on what your wife earns.”
The Seigneur did not understand yet. But there was a strange light of suspicion in his eyes, a nervous rage knotting his forehead.
“My land and my earnings are my own, and I have never lived on another man’s fortune. If you mean that the late Seigneur made a will—that canard—”
“It was no canard.” Tardif laughed hatefully. “There was a will right enough.”
“Where is it? I’ve heard that fool’s gossip before.”
“Where is it? Ask your wife; she knows. Ask your loving Tardif, he knows.”
“Where is the will, Tardif?” asked the Seigneur in a voice that, in his own ears, seemed to come from an infinite distance; to Tardif’s ears it was merely tuneless and harsh.
“In M’sieu’ Fournel’s pocket, or Madame’s. What’s the difference? The price is the same, and you keep your eyes shut and play the Seigneur, and eat and drink what they give you just the same.”
Now the Seigneur understood. His eyes went blind for a moment, and his hands twitched convulsively on the embossed address he had been rolling and unrolling. A terror, a shame, a dreadful cruelty entered into him, but he was still and numb, and his tongue was thick. He spoke heavily.
“Tell me all,” he said. “You shall be well paid.”
“I don’t want your money. I want to see you squirm. I want to see her put where she deserves. Bah! Do you think Fournel forgave you for putting his feet in his shoes, and for that case at law, for nothing? Why should he? He hated you, and you hated him. His name’s on that paper in your hand among all the rest. Do you think he eats humble pie and crawls to Madame and lets you stay here for nothing?”
The Seigneur was painfully quiet and intent, yet his brain was like some great lens, refracting and magnifying things to monstrous proportions.
“A will was found?” he asked.
“By Madame in the library. She left it where she found it—behind the picture over the Louis Seize table. The day you dismissed me, I saw her at the cupboard. I found the will and started with it to M’sieu’ Fournel. She followed. You remember when she went—eh? On business—and such business! she and Havel and the old slut Marie. You remember, eh; Louis?” he added with unnamable insolence. The Seigneur inclined his head. “V’la! they followed me, overtook me, and Havel shot me in the wrist. See there!”—he held out his wrist. The Seigneur nodded. “But I got to Fournel’s first. I put the will into his hands.
“I told him Madame Madelinette was following. Then I went to bring the constables to his house to arrest her when he had finished with her.” He laughed a brutal laugh, which deepened the strange glittering look in Louis’ eyes. “When I came an hour later, she was there. But—now you shall see what stuff they are both made of! He laughed at me, said I had lied; that there was no will; that I was a thief; and had me locked up in gaol. For a month I was in gaol without trial. Then one day I was let out without trial. His servant met me and brought me to his house. He gave me money and told me to leave the country. If I didn’t, I would be arrested again for trying to shoot Havel, and for blackmail. They could all swear me off my feet and into prison—what was I to do! I took the money and went. But I came back to have my revenge. I could cut their hearts out and eat them.”
“You are drunk,” said the Seigneur quietly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m not drunk. I’m always trying to get drunk now. I couldn’t have come here if I hadn’t been drinking. I couldn’t have told you the truth, if I hadn’t been drinking. But I’m sober enough to know that I’ve done for him and for her! And I’m even with you too—bah! Did you think she cared a fig for you? She’s only waiting till you die. Then she’ll go to her lover. He’s a man of life and limb. Youpish! a hunchback, that all the world laughs at, a worm—” he turned towards the door laughing hideously, his evil face gloating. “You’ve not got a stick or stone. She”—jerking a finger towards the house—“she earns what you eat, she—”
It was the last word he ever spoke, for, with a low terrible cry, the Seigneur snatched up a knife from the table and sprang upon him, catching him by the throat. Once, twice, thrice, the knife went home, and the ruffian collapsed under it with one loud cry. Not letting go his grasp of the dying man’s collar, the Seigneur dragged him across the floor, and, opening the door of the small inner room, pulled him inside. For a moment he stood beside the body, panting, then he went to the other room and, bringing a candle, looked at the dead thing in silence. Presently he stooped, held the candle to the wide-staring eyes, then felt the heart. “He is gone,” he said in an even voice. Stooping for the knife he had dropped on the floor, he laid it on the body. He looked at his hands. There was one spot of blood on his fingers. He wiped it off with his handkerchief, then blowing out the light, he calmly opened the door of the hut, locked it, went out, and moved on slowly towards the house.
As he left the hut he was conscious that some one was moving under the trees by the window, but his mind was not concerned with things outside himself and the one other thing left for him to do.
He entered the house and went in search of Madelinette. When he reached the drawing-room, surrounded by eager listeners, she was beginning to sing. Her bearing was eager and almost tremulous, for, with this crowd round her and in the flush of this gaiety and excitement, there was something of that exhilarating air that greets the singer upon the stage. Her eyes were shining with a look, half-sorrowful, half-triumphant. Within the past half-hour she had overcome herself; she had fought down the blind, wild rebellion that, for one moment as it were, had surged up in her heart. She was proud and glad, and piteous and triumphant and deeply womanly all at once.
Going to the piano she had looked round for Louis, but he was not visible. She smiled to herself, however, for she knew that her singing would bring him—he worshipped it. Her heart was warm towards him, because of that moment when she rebelled and was hard at soul. She played her own accompaniment, and he was hidden from her by the piano as she sang—sang more touchingly and more humanly, if not more artistically, than she had ever done in her life. The old art was not so perfect, perhaps, but there was in the voice all that she had learned and loved and suffered and hoped. When she rose from the piano to a storm of applause, and saw the shining faces and tearful eyes round her, her own eyes filled with tears. These people—most of them—had known and loved her since she was a child, and loved her still without envy or any taint. Her father was standing near, and with smiling face she caught from his hand the handkerchief with which he was mopping his eyes, and kissed him, saying:
“I learned that from the tunes you played on your anvil, dear smithy-man.”
Then she turned again to look for Louis. Near the door she saw him, and with so strange a face, so wild a look, that, unheeding eager requests to sing again, she responded to the gesture he made, made her way through the crowd to the hall-way, and followed him up the stairs, and to the little boudoir beside her bedroom. As she entered and shut the door, a low sound like a moan broke from him. She went quickly to lay a hand upon his arm, but he waved her back. “What is it, Louis?” she asked, in a bewildered voice. “Where is the will?” he said.
“Where is the will, Louis,” she repeated after him mechanically, staring at his face, ghostly in the moonlight.
“The will you found behind the picture in the library.”
“O Louis!” she cried, and made a gesture of despair. “O Louis!”
“You found it, and Tardif stole it and took it to Quebec.”
“Yes, Louis, but Louis—ah, what is the matter, dear! I cannot bear that look in your face. What is the matter, Louis?”
“Tardif took it to Fournel, and you followed. And I have been living in another man’s house, on another’s bread—”
“O Louis, no—no—no! Our money has paid for all.”
“Your money, Madelinette!” His voice rose.
“Ah, don’t speak like that! See, Louis. It can make no difference. How you have found out I do not know, but it can make no difference. I did not want you to know—you loved the Seigneury so. I concealed the will; Tardif found it, as you say. But, Louis, dear, it is all right. Monsieur Fournel would not take the place, and—and I have bought it.”
She told her falsehood fearlessly. This man’s trouble, this man’s peace, if she might but win it, was the purpose of her life.
“Tardif said that—he said that you—that you and Fournel—”
She read his meaning in his tone, and shrank back in terror, then with a flush, straightened herself, and took a step towards him.
“It was natural that you should not care for a hunchback like me,” he continued, “but—”
“Louis!” she cried, in a voice of anguish and reproach.
“But I did not doubt you. I believed in you when he said it, as I believe in you now when you stand there like that. I know what you have done for me—”
“I pleaded with Monsieur Fournel, knowing how you loved the Seigneury—pleaded and offered to pay three times the price—”
“Yourself would have been a hundred million times the price. Ah, I know you, Madelinette—I know you now! I have been selfish, but I see all now. Now when all is over—” he seemed listening to noises with out—“I see what you have done for me. I know how you have sacrificed all for me—all but honour—all but honour,” he added, a wild fire in his eyes, a trembling seizing him. “Your honour is yours forever. I say so. I say so, and I have proved it. Kiss me, Madelinette—kiss me once,” he added, in a quick whisper.
“My poor, poor Louis!” she said, laid a soothing hand upon his arm, and leaned towards him. He snatched her to his breast, and kissed her twice in a very agony of joy, then let her go. He listened for an instant to the growing noise without, then said in a hoarse voice:
“Now, I will tell you, Madelinette. They are coming for me—don’t you hear them? They are coming to take me; but they shall not have me. They shall not have me—” he glanced to a little door that led into a bath-room at his right.
“Louis-Louis!” she said in a sudden fright, for though his words seemed mad, a strange quiet sanity was in all he did. “What have you done? Who are coming?” she asked in agony, and caught him by the arm.
“I killed Tardif. He is there in the hut in the garden—dead! I was seen, and they are coming to take me.”
With a cry she ran to the door that led into the hall, and locked it. She listened, then turned her face to Louis.
“You killed him!” she gasped. “Louis! Louis!” Her face was like ashes.
“I stabbed him to death. It was all I could do, and I did it. He slandered you. I went mad, and did it. Now—”
There was a knocking at the door, and a voice calling—a peremptory voice.
“There is only one way,” he said. “They shall not take me. I will not be dragged to gaol for crowds to jeer at. I will not be sent to the scaffold, to your shame.”
He ran to the door of the bath-room and flung it open. “If my life is to pay the price, then—!”
She came blindly towards him, stretching out her hands.
“Louis! Louis!” was all that she could say.
He caught her hands and kissed them, then stepped swiftly back into the little bath-room, and locked the door, as the door of the room she was in was burst open, and two constables and a half-dozen men crowded into the room.
She stood with her back to the bath-room door, panting, and white, and anguished, and her ears strained to the terrible thing inside the place behind her.
The men understood, and came towards her. “Stand back,” she said. “You shall not have him. You shall not have him. Ah, don’t you hear? He is dying—O God, O God!” she cried, with tearless eyes and upturned face—“Ah, let it be soon! Ah, let him die soon!”
The men stood abashed before her agony. Behind the little door where she stood there was a muffled groaning. She trembled, but her arms were spread out before the door as though on a cross, and her lips kept murmuring: “O God, let him die! Let him die! Oh spare him agony!”
Suddenly she stood still and listened-listened, with staring eyes that saw nothing. In the room men shrank back, for they knew that death was behind the little door, and that they were in the presence of a sorrow greater than death.
Suddenly she turned upon them with a gesture of piteous triumph and said:
“You cannot have him now.”
Then she swayed and fell forward to the floor as the Cure and George Fournel entered the room. The Cure hastened to her side and lifted up her head.
George Fournel pushed the men back who would have entered the bath-room, and himself, bursting the door open, entered. Louis lay dead upon the floor. He turned to the constables.
“As she said, you cannot have him now. You have no right here. Go. I had a warning from the man he killed. I knew there would be trouble. But I have come too late,” he added bitterly.
An hour later the house was as still as the grave. Madame Marie sat with the doctor beside the bed of her dear mistress, and in another room, George Fournel, with the Avocat, kept watch beside the body of the Seigneur of Pontiac. The face of the dead man was as peaceful as that of a little child.