"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.
…………………….
At ninety years of age, the present Seigneur of Pontiac, one Baron Fournel, lives in the Manor House left him by Madelinette Lajeunesse the great singer, when she died a quarter of a century ago. For thirty years he followed her from capital to capital of Europe and America to hear her sing; and to this day he talks of her in language more French than English in its ardour. Perhaps that is because his heart beats in sympathy with the Frenchmen he once disdained.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Ah, let it be soon! Ah, let him die soon!
All are hurt some time
Did not let him think that she was giving up anything for him
Duplicity, for which she might never have to ask forgiveness
Frenchman, slave of ideas, the victim of sentiment
Frenchman, volatile, moody, chivalrous, unreasonable
Her stronger soul ruled him without his knowledge
I love that love in which I married him
Let others ride to glory, I'll shoe their horses for the gallop
Lighted candles in hollowed pumpkins
Love has nothing to do with ugliness or beauty, or fortune
Nature twists in back, or anywhere, gets a twist in's brain too
Rewarded for its mistakes
Some are hurt in one way and some in another
Struggle of conscience and expediency