CHAPTER I
[ADELAIDE STRIVES TO PROPITIATE PIERRE LAMONT]
The following night was even darker than the preceding one had been. In the afternoon portents of a coming storm were apparent in the sky. Low mutterings of thunder in the distance travelled faintly to the ears of the occupants of the House of White Shadows. The Advocate's wife shuddered as she heard the sounds.
"There are only two things in the world I am afraid of," she said to Pierre Lamont, "and those are thunder and lightning. When I was a little child a dreadful thing occurred to me. I was playing in a garden when a storm came on. I was all alone, and it was some distance to the house. The storm broke so suddenly that I had not time to reach shelter without getting myself drenched. I dare say, though, I should have run through it had I not been frightened by the flashes of lightning that seemed to want to cut me in two. I flew behind a tree, and stood there trembling. Every time a flash came I shut my eyes tight and screamed. But the storm did not allow my cries to be heard. You can imagine the state I was in. It would not have mattered, except for the wetting, had I kept my eyes closed, but like a little fool, I opened them once, and just at that moment a flash seemed to strike the tree behind which I stood. I can almost hear the shriek I gave, as I fell and fainted dead away. There, lying on the wet grass, I was found. A dreadful looking object I must have been! They carried me into the house, and when I was conscious of what was passing around me, I asked why they did not light the gas. The fact is I was quite blind, and remained so for several days. Was it not shocking? I shall never, never forget my fright. Can you imagine anything more dreadful than being struck blind? To be born blind cannot be half as bad, for one does not know what one loses--never having seen the flowers, and the fields, and the beautiful skies. But to enjoy them, and then to lose them! It is altogether too horrible to think of."
She was very gracious to the old lawyer during the afternoon.
"Do you know," she said, "I can't quite make up my mind whether to be fond or frightened of you."
"Be fond of me," said Pierre Lamont, with a queer look.
"I shall see how you behave. I am afraid you are very clever. I don't like clever people, they are so suspicious, pretending to know everything always."
"I am very simple," said Pierre Lamont, laughing inwardly. He knew that she wanted to propitiate him; "and beauty can lead me by a silken thread."
"Is that another of your compliments? I declare, you speak as if you were a young man."
She did, indeed, desire to win Pierre Lamont entirely to her, and she would have endured much to make him her friend instead of her enemy. Christian Almer had told her that the old lawyer had slept in the next room to his, and she had set herself the task of sounding the old fellow to ascertain whether his suspicions were aroused, and whether she had anything to fear from him. She could not help saying to herself what a fool Mother Denise--who looked after the household arrangements--was to put him so close to Christian.
"I do believe," thought Adelaide, "that she did it to spite me."
Her mind, however, was quite at ease after chatting with the old lawyer.
"I am so glad we are friends," she said to him; "it is altogether so much nicer."
Pierre Lamont looked reproachfully at her, and asked how she could ever have supposed he was anything but her most devoted admirer.
"Lawyers are so fond of mischief," she replied, "that if it does not come to them ready-made they manufacture it for themselves."
"I am no longer a lawyer," he said; "if I were twenty years younger I should call myself a lover."
"If you were twenty years younger," she rejoined gaily, "I should not sit and listen to your nonsense."
Being called from his side she turned and gave him an arch look.
"All that only makes the case stronger, my lady," he said inwardly. "You cannot deceive me with your wiles."